#it is a steady march back to dresses no pants no working no college no money no birth control

[imwritesometimes]

It's becoming just.... blatantly obvious that all this GOP posturing on transgender individuals being about ~protecting women's rights~ is just them trying to save face after they got Roe overturned and that has since backfired massively for them. Like it's so clear they think this is somehow gonna win points with women 'see we really care abt ur rights! We're trying to protect you!' while they still try to pry those rights from our hands not to mention there's no danger cis women face from trans people anyway

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Summer Break(down)

Warnings: noncon sexual acts and rape, weed, breeding/forced pregnancy.

This is dark!Lee Bodecker and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Based on this drabble request: Lee + interrogation + breeding/forced pregnancy + “you think your father would still love you if he knew?”+ Reader is mayor's daughter and get caught by Lee) smoking weed , so she is forced to give her purity to him +  Reader is a sweet innocent girl that refuses Bodecker's advances, which makes him very angry so he forcefully gets her pregnant in a fucked up revenge plot to ruin her life and leave her as the scarlet letter in town.  Requested by anon and @jaceyneedsabetterusername​

You puffed the smoke and coughed it up in a painful cloud. Your throat burned as the acrid taste stained your tongue. You held out the burning joint to Darla and she chuckled as she watched you struggle. She took a log drag and blew rings in the air and handed it off to Mia.

“A whole year at college and you ain’t never tried it,” Darla teased, “what are ya doin’ up there?”

“Studying,” you rubbed your throat and refused another hit as your eyes watered, “you know how my daddy is.”

“Your daddy ain’t livin’ on campus, is he?” Mia trilled, “perfect little mayor’s daughter with her purity ring.”

“Shut up,” you growled, “if I got caught I’d be expelled, okay? I’m here now tryin’ it, aren’t I?”

“Ain’t ya?” Darla mocked, “is that how you talk now? So proper.”

“Christ, what’s gotten into you?” you waved away the smoke as she blew it in your face, “you miss me that much?”

“Nah,” she gave the stubby joint to Mia, “you just actin’ like you’re too good for us now.”

“How so? I’ve been nothing but nice--”

“Nice and sweet and perfect,” Darla muttered, “you running back to your dorm in the fall and I gotta wipe tables down as the eat-in.”

You were quite as her resent bit deep into you. It wasn’t like you made the decision yourself, your daddy would have skinned you if you hadn’t gone up to the all-girls academy. He held a prestigious office, he often reminded you, and you were just another merit on his record. You needed uphold his reputation as if it were your own.

Mia snorted dryly and offered you the joint again. Her face dropped as an arm reached around you, her reddened eyes glossy as the dwindling smoke was taken from her. You turned and backed away as the sheriff waved the joint in front of him and sniffed the air.

“I knew I smelled contraband,” his jaw ticked and his brow lifted as he eyed the three of you, “and you,” he pointed at you, “of all the girls in town, it had to be you?”

You looked at Darla and Mia as they blinked at the cop. Lee Boedecker was known for his cruel-streak and no-nonsense tolerance. You knew him as the pudgy, old man who tried to buy you a drink as you still wore your graduation cap. You remembered that day and the odd episode, how he scowled and stomped away, shaking your father’s hand on the way out of the diner.

“All this shit you’re bringin’ down from the city, huh?” he flicked the joint to the ground and blotted it out with his sole.

“N-no, I--” you looked back and forth between Mia and Darla.

“You two,” he pointed at them, “you go on.”

“What?” Mia quivered, “but--”

“You let me deal with her,” he waved her off as he gripped his gun belt, “just lookin’ out for the mayor’s daughter.”

The other girls peeked at you and slowly backed away. You watched them fearfully and as they disappeared around the front of the building, you turned back to the sheriff. He tutted as he shook his head and came closer.

“Won’t that be a scene? Tellin’ your daddy what I found you doin’,” he snickered.

“I… I wasn’t, I only--”

“I don’t care what you was only doin’,” he snorted, “I don’t… have to tell him but you’re gonna have to convince me not to.”

You blinked at him and frowned. You weren’t sure of his meaning and you surely didn’t want to find out. You backed away and he caught your arm.

“Now where’d you get that stuff?” he looked down at the crushed joint.

“It’s not mine,” you quavered, “I swear--”

“No?” he swung you against the wall and knocked the air out of you, “you sure you don’t know, now?”

You shook your head fearfully. You wouldn’t say it Darla who rolled it and lit it but you weren’t going to sell yourself down the river either. He slammed his hand above your shoulder and rested his other on his pistol as he loomed over you.

“Which one was it then? Pretty little college girl…” he purred, “a good girl, tell me which one of ‘em had it.”

You shook your head and pressed yourself to the wall, “I don’t know. Please, sheriff--”

“Please, sheriff,” he unholstered his gun and raised the muzzle. He steadied it against your chin and pushed your head up, “it was just a drink, sweetheart.”

“Sheriff, I--”

“You think you too good for me ‘cause your daddy,” he dragged the gun down your chest and along your stomach, “‘cause he sendin’ you away to read books?”

“No, no, what are you--”

He shushed you as he pushed the gun lower and hooked it under your skirt. He shoved his hand under your skirt and poked your vee with the metal nosebarrel

“I’d hate to ruin ya like that,” he sneered, “but I s’pose up at that fancy college, you got some good use.”

You shook your head and trembled as tears pricked and your nose tingled. He chuckled and leaned in to kiss your forehead. He wiggled the pistol between your thighs.

“No? You think your little act works on me?”

“I-- sheriff, please, I never--”

“Hmmm,” he hummed and inhaled the scent of your hair, “you ain’t no good girl.”

You sniffed as the tears rolled down your cheeks, your heart beating wildly as you waited for him to pull the trigger. He prodded more firmly and lowered his voice.

“How about I drive you back to your daddy’s and discuss this with him?”

Your eyes rounded as his blue ones caught them with a vicious gleam. You sobbed and shivered.

“If-- If you gotta--”

“Come on,” he pulled his gun away and yanked you off the wall.

He marched you down the alley and pushed you into his cruiser. He slammed the door and dropped into the front seat. He leaned to one side as he holstered his gun and clapped his hand over the wheel. He looked at you in the mirror.

“You sure you don’t wanna tell me the truth?” he asked.

“I did--”

“No,” he interrupted you, “you shut up if you ain’t gonna tell me straight.”

He started the car and rolled down the street. You shrunk into the seat afraid that someone might spot you through the window. He steered through the town and headed up the hill to your daddy’s house. You watched the trees around you as his thick breaths were laced with heated mutters.

He pulled off halfway up and idled between a pair of elms, “you can still keep my mouth shut, sweetheart.” You blinked at the mirror and he turned and stretched his arm over the back of the seat. He grinned at you and licked his lips. “What d’ya think your daddy will do?”

You hung your head. Your daddy would be so mad he’d lock you up for the rest of the summer, or worse, pull out his old switch. Your lip quivered and you sniffed as you wiped your cheeks with your cuffs.

“You want me to tell him?” Lee asked.

You peered up through your lashes at him and shook your head. He nodded and killed the engine. The car jolted as he got out and slammed his door. He opened the back and bent to look in on your with his hand on the roof.

“Right then, on your back,” he ordered.

“What--”

“If you don’t want me to tell him, you gotta keep me quiet, now lay down, sweetheart,” he reached to his belt and unbuckled it with one hand, “it’ll be quick, promise, then you can go back to bein’ a good girl.”

“Sheriff,” you kicked yourself across the seat and lunged for the other door.

He caught your ankle and dragged you back. He flipped you onto your back and crawled over you, his weight suffocating as he posted his knees between your legs.

“That’s the thing, you can keep me quiet or I can make you scream and tell your daddy anyway,” he warned as he fought with your flailing hands, “it all goes the same way, got it?”

You stilled and stared up at him. It was as if he’d slapped you. Your eyes overflowed and he brought his hand up to trace the streaks with his thumb.

“You’re so sweet,” he ran his hand down to your dress and groped your through the fabric, “mmm, so sweet.”

You tensed as he pushed his hand between your bodies and lifted himself as he pressed his fingers to your cunt. He tugged your skirt up impatiently and rubbed along the front of your underwear. You turned your head and swallowed a sob.

“I woulda been nice, taken you out proper,” he pushed his fingers under the cotton and you gasped as he caressed your folds, “you coulda been a sheriff’s wife, you coulda made your daddy proud.”

He poked his fingers inside you so roughly you whimpered. He pulled them in and out even as your body resisted. He sank to his knuckles and squeezed until you cried out.

“Now you can take my bastard home to him,” he snarled and tore his hand out of your knickers.

He unzipped his pants and wriggled as he shimmied them down. Still trapped beneath his weight, you stared at the back of the leather seat as your tears hovered on your lashes. He grunted as he ripped your panties down to your knees. He stretched the cotton between your legs as he bent them and rested on the fabric.

Bent beneath him, you closed your eyes as he felt around your cunt. He pushed his knees against your ass and lined up with your entrance. You clenched as he prodded and struggled to get his tip inside of you. He swore and leaned heavily on the elbow planted beside your head.

“Now, don’t make this harder than--” He bucked into you so hard you hollered. He smothered it with his hand and held himself deep inside of you, “you weren’t lyin’ about the boys, were you?”

You squeezed your eyes tight and he wiggled until you squirmed. He pulled back and rammed back into you roughly, groaning as he did. He waited and did it again, each thrust reverberated up your spine.

“You think your father would still love you if he knew?” he rasped, “huh, what you think everyone will say? That whore went up to the city and got a child on her.”

“P-p-please,” you whispered as you pushed on his chest, “it… hurts.”

“Oh, it gon’ hurt, sweetheart,” he growled, “but it didn’t have to.” He hissed as he kept his hips moving, “you made it this way.”

“I can’t-- don’t-- I can’t have a ba--”

“You gonna have my baby,” he sneered and hooked his arm under you, “you gonna carry me with you the rest of your life,” the car shook with his movement, “it was only a drink, sweetheart… one drink.”

👮👮👮

Please reblog and like! Let me know what you think.

[powermaknae]

In the Dark Part 3

Incubus! Yuta x Witch! Lily

Yuta leaves a life of wild partying and long nights to be with Lily, a witch with growing power.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

~Fantasy!au, sexual themes, some angst, blood play, power complex, fighting, drinking, demons

Word Count- 4K~

A/N: I’m sorry this took so long. I started uni again and just got really busy. But I hope you like it. It took a lot of effort. I really like how it turned out :}.

 The sky was dark against the neon lights of the club Yuta was stationary in. It had remained that way for days, after the pair emerged from Johnny’s nerd store. Yuta felt comfort in the corner at his reserved seat in his favorite club. He felt comfort but he was nowhere near content.

Lily had showed him her power, used it to help him, and it was highly amusing to him. But as he sat alone, accompanied only by several empty shot glasses, he couldn’t help letting his mind wander to the thought of her: Her childlike persona, soft skin, powerful demeaner. She was truly everything he desired.

He didn’t desire her like the woman he’d sucked dry the night before. No. It was so much more.

He gazed around at the crowd packing the popular night club, the clothes of many still sopping from the inclement weather. A few figures caught his attention, a group of college boys surrounding a very intoxicated girl. She was smaller than most of them but didn’t seem to notice the intention around her.

One of the boys flicked his hair out of his face as he peered over his shoulder in Yuta’s direction. He smirked before focusing back on the girl. Something about this boy was unsettling to Yuta.

Yuta was used to unsightly characters, ones of his own kind that were not nearly as skilled or experienced as he, and other creatures of similar nature with a much higher tendency for brutality, but he had never felt this unnerved.

He felt like the boy may have been a creature of familiarity, but Yuta couldn’t determine what, and that’s what was odd. He didn’t know.

After downing his last shot, he stood from his place and adjusted his dress pants before making his way to the door, trying to think no more of the feeling in the pit of his stomach. This party had become boring and he was in no mood to feed again tonight.

As he passed through the crowd, dodging body after body, the boy appeared beside him, checking his shoulder.

“My bad,” he sneered in an unexpected nasally tone. Yuta followed him from over his shoulder as he continued toward the exit, watching the next movements of the boy until he reached the door.

The streets were painted with wet streaks as the rain misted Yuta’s face. For a rainy night, he noted the unusual amount of civilians wandering the city. It was very odd indeed.

Every direction he turned his head, his eyes met a bystander. He couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that they were here for him. He felt for sure they could tell what he was, but what were they?

He picked up his pace, trying to remain inconspicuous without going into a panic. Frantically checking his surroundings, he hadn’t noticed a quickly approaching pedestrian and accidentally bumped into her arm as he passed. Her feet never slowed as she glanced behind her, giving Yuta a familiar smirk. He was close enough to her to see that the color of her irises were tinted purple.

Something unnatural was happening, he could feel it, and he needed to get to Lily as quickly as possible without being noticed.

He made a sharp turn down a confined alleyway with the intention of breaking into a sprint, turning his head over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The air around him grew thicker as he attempted to pull himself forward, but he was blocked.

In the little light coming from the open streets, a large figure stood in his way, chuckling in an inhumanly deep voice.

Yuta was not one to let fear take over his senses, but he had to admit, he was afraid. Not afraid for his life but the fear of Lily’s, putting her in danger. This beast of a creature was after them and Yuta had to get to her somehow, before something else did.

********

In her small quiet home, Lily was anything but calm. The clash of thunder echoed through the walls as she carefully watched the surges of energy through the clouded sky. Her entire body ached, and her hands were shaky as she tried her best to make some chamomile to calm her senses.

The Book had not opened itself to her since she brought it home, but it spoke to her often, appeared in writing on the walls, and flowed with the cold breeze of the storm. The power it had placed upon her shoulders had taken a toll on her physical being.

She knew she had become much stronger. She could feel her ability growing within her, noticed how much she could withstand, but it had been days of nonstop training, and she felt much weaker than when it began.

The energy within her had changed, shifted, almost as much as the weather had. She somehow felt connected to it, like the change in magic had conjured the storm itself. She was much more powerful, but the energy she now possessed was difficult to control and resulted in several dents in the drywall.

She hadn’t spoken to Yuta in days. She missed him, but was terrified of what he might do if he found out the Protector had been broken. His demonic nature can be difficult to maneuver. Chaos cannot be controlled once set in motion and in the state she was in, he could have easily destroy everything she’s worth.

But now as she paced her living room floor, watching her hands shake uncontrollably trying best to contain her magic and sipping at her cup, she wondered where he had been, if he was doing alright, if he would come find her. She let her thoughts run with ideas to draw her attention away from the impending anxiety the storm had caused her.

Her feet had stopped moving momentarily when she heard a loud BANG at the front door. She jumped instinctively, stumbling backwards. Then from behind the door came a frantic, “Lily, please let me in. It’s me.”

She placed the warm cup on a coffee table nearby with surprisingly steady hands and waved her hand, rushing to the door as it swung open and banged against the wall. Standing slumped on her doorstep, leaning his weight against the frame, was a very weak, beaten and bloodied Yuta. Even when covered in bruises and gashes, his face still managed to glow.

She quickly pulled his arm around her shoulder, helping him hobble through the door. She sat him on the floor against the wall opposite the kitchen and rushed out of view. When she returned, she held a small bowl of warm water that had been sprinkled with peppermint oil and a washcloth draped over the side.

He gazed at her with big eyes as she moved the objects with such grace. The door was closed with a soft thud behind them, but the air from outside had made the room cold. Yuta shivered under Lily’s touch as she padded the patches of blood on his temple. His shirt had been massacred with gaping wounds underneath. Lily tended to those next, trying her best to stay calm.

Yuta winced at first, taking in sharp breaths, but as it subsided, he brought a soft hand to her cheek, caressing it gently. His fingers were freezing against her skin, partially due to his cold-blooded nature.

“It worked.” His voice was barely audible.

Lily was still shaking, but more out of fear. Yuta was strong enough to hold his own in a fight. What kind of creature could do this much damage and was it still after him?

Her face was stern as she glanced up in his large, sparkly eyes and said, “What happened? What did this to you?” She was so shaken that it was audible in her voice. Yuta pushed himself with his hand against the floor, sitting up a little straighter against the wall as his body went ridged.

“Lily~ something has changed.” “No shit…” She mumbled under her breath.

“I’m serious. I felt like they were watching me, following me. I tried to get to you but…”

“Yuta… Who’s they?”

“I- I don’t know… But they are not human. Some of them may be like me or other types of demons, but I can’t tell.”

“Did they do this to you?” Her eyes were getting puffy and she felt as if she’d burst into tears, but she fought it off.

“No. It was something else; something much bigger. I couldn’t fight-”

Before he could finish his sentence, he snapped his head towards the door. A distant thudding of very large footsteps was growing closer to their place of refuge.

Lily held completely still, focusing her entire attention on the thudding.

“Please tell me you didn’t lead it here,” she elevated her voice slightly, a tinge of annoyance in it.

“I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry. I just had to get to you before it found you.”

From outside, a booming roar shook the glass window and the two of them were almost completely consumed by fear.

“LILY BENNETT! COME OUT AND FACE YOUR TRUE SELF!” The tone of the roar was demonic, almost inaudible if it wasn’t quite so loud.

Yuta stood in his spot, using the wall for stability. Many of his wounds were already starting to heal at an inhuman rate, but he was still weak. Lily was moving towards the charmed door, ready to pull it open and face whatever it was that was looking for them.

Behind her came his voice, “Lily, please don’t. I can’t lose you.” She didn’t turn to look him in the eye before she swung the door open and marched outside for the showdown of a lifetime.

For the first time in days, she was willing to let herself loose. Her eyes glowed a fiery hue and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She could already feel her fingertips tingle with every step she took.

The sky was almost a pitch black, making the surrounding difficult for any human to see. Her shoes were soaked through, but her hair remained unwavering in the storm, the rain unable to reach her.

In front of her stood a creature like no other, several feet taller than her, covered in muscle. It bared its teeth and claws at her, massive in size and terrifying to look at. It resembled something like an overgrown werewolf, but its eyes seemed familiar.

“Johnny?” Her voice was low against the sound of the pounding rain.

“NOT ANYMORE! I AM MARCHOSIAS, MARQUIS OF HELL! YOU HAVE UNLEASHED MY LEGIONS! NOW YOU SHALL FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!”

He bellowed at her, preparing to charge. She mustered everything she had within, all the magic she’d been given, the power she possessed. Her feet were picked up off the ground as she pulled her energy through her limbs to her fingertips. They glowed against the stormy night sky, where magic manifested into a line of defense.

As the marquis charged her, Lily held out a strong hand. She was putting every ounce of her being into her protection. She forced a small beam away from her stable frame, but it was a weak effort and the beast reached her, pushing backwards by several yards, and knocking her onto the ground.

He ran at her again, snarling in the dark. She was ready for his approach this time and shot onto her feet with both arms outstretched. The beam was stronger and slowed the beast down significantly, but she quickly ran out of steam.

Marchosias had realized her weakness and was charging faster than ever, feeding off of the thought of his victory. With great haste, he swiped at her small figure with sloppy aim, leaving a gash across her jawline.

She winced as she lay aching on the muddy ground. Her sore body was covered in bruises as she felt the warm gash ooze. She could make out a low growl farther away from where she lay, but it wasn’t the beast.

Yuta had regained some of his strength and was fending off the beast, trying his best to buy Lily some time.

He threw a vase across the yard, smashing it against his opponent. He was frantically dealing as many blows to Marchosias’ chest and face as possible, eyes as black as the sky, egging him on for more.

Lily pulled herself back onto her feet, wobbly and shaken. Even though her entire body ached for rest, she pulled every ounce of energy into her small fingers, drawing the attention of both males.

Marchosias lunged into a sprint, reaching his large claws towards her, but in an instant, she had filled her entire body with powerful magic, using all the energy, magic, and pure adrenaline she had left.

She cried out in the surge, as her entire body blinded her opponent. It was almost as if the power had burst from the seams of her small figure, and in a flash, the creature withered in the beam, letting out a ungodly screech.

The flash had grown brighter and brighter, and the screech louder, until, finally, Lily collapsed into the mud, bleeding profusely from her wounds and the demon shriveled into the soil.

Yuta watched in horror from his position in the distance. Farther away, he could make out the cries of other demons. By banishing Marchosias, she had also destroyed his legions.

Hearing the wailing in the far-off distance had changed Yuta’s demeanor. His face contorted in discomfort, his limbs longed for stretching and his thirst for blood was growing with every second.

He could feel himself transforming as the screams of his people grew and Lily’s pulse became faint. His body felt like that of a body builder, growing stronger and stronger with every movement. The desire for blood was growing unbearable. He needed it. He began to stand up straight, changing his appearance, preparing for a night of insatiable desire and untamable lust. His shoulders were broad, his now shoulder length black hair matched the color of his soul, and all he could see was red as he let the demon in him take over.

Lily stayed, continuing to fight as death threatened to take her. Yuta had disappeared, leaving little trace and a badly injured witch to fend for her life.

********

The next morning was colder than normal, the remnants of a demon hoard still lingering in the city. The air was moist from all the rain, the sidewalks still sprinkled with puddles. All was quiet, the early morning birds were still in hiding and the people roaming the streets were silent aside from distant footsteps.

Yuta was startled awake by a group of pigeons that had gathered around him as he lay on a park bench. He sat up slowly, trying to get a grip of what all had happened.

His lips were stained red with blood as he touched his tongue to his upper lip, tasting the familiar taste of iron. He wiped what he could on his torn sleeve, staining the fabric, too.

His head was in a daze, trying his best to remember the events of the night before. He looked down at his hands, taking note of the marks and more red stains. He noticed that his fingernails were filthy, harboring dirt and grime underneath.

In a flood of memory, he remembered Lily: rushing to her house, fighting the Marquis, and watching him vanish. After that was a blur.

He stood from the bench scaring off the pigeons and looked for a sign to tell him where exactly he had ended up. “Culture Tech Park”.

“Damn. How did I end up on the opposite side of town?”

His footsteps wavered slightly as he began the walk back to Lily’s small house. The city felt gloomy as he walked. He held his head low, watching his feet move carefully.

When he arrived, clouded in exhaustion, he looked up to see the front lawn had been completely demolished. It wasn’t picture perfect before, but now all the foliage had been destroyed and the yard was entirely mud and dirt.

Lily lay in the same indentation as before, not having moved a single muscle since the previous night. Yuta rushed to her side, rolling her onto her back. Her hair was matted from the mud and her face was covered in dried blood that had dripped from her wounds.

Yuta dipped his ear to her mouth, listening for breathing or any sign that she was still alive.

Kneeling near her limp body, he held her face in his hand, wondering how to fix this. Tears started forming in his soft brown eyes as he let his hair fall into his face. He had never meant to bring this upon her.

Just as he started to cry over her weak body, a presence manifested above him and soon he was joined by a very stern, rigid individual with short black hair and a heavy coat. He removed it from his slim figure and laid it over top if her as he lowered himself to meet Yuta’s position.

“Let’s get her inside. It’s freezing out here,” was all he said before standing back up. Yuta pulled her into his arms, holding her legs in one and keeping her head close to his chest with the other.

He tried to stay out of the way as best he could. Doyoung had cleared the small kitchen table for Yuta to set Lily on while he worked. He pulled things from cabinets and moved as quickly as possible. It wasn’t hard to tell that Lily had been like this for some time and he wasn’t sure how much he had to work with.

He paid Yuta little attention as he chanted under his breathe, sprinkling oils and herbs all over her and cursing when she didn’t respond.

“Shouldn’t we take her to a hospital?” Yuta interjected from against the wall after witnessing several rounds of ritual.

“They can’t help her. It would only make it worse,” Doyoung muttered, frustrated and becoming frantic.

Finally, after many attempts to bring her back to functionality, Doyoung placed a stick of cinnamon next to her right ear and said an incantation into her left, as a last resort: A spell he had never had to use before. He tried to keep his voice from wavering in nervousness.

When he had finished, there was almost an immediate difference: Her cold hands were slowly getting warmer, and her skin was gaining color.

Doyoung let out a sigh of relief. “The worst is over. She’ll be okay.”

“So now what happens?” Yuta was still very unsure of what he had done.

“We clean her up and let her rest.” It was simple but Doyoung began to wipe the dried blood and mud from her face with a rag. Yuta joined him slowly, coving more ground between the two of them. He had never cared for someone this much: certainly not enough to wipe blood from their cheeks.

Once her wounds were sewn and her hair was its regular shade of sunshine, Doyoung carried her to her bedroom, were the walls reflected the gloomy morning. He tucked her into the soft sheets and closed the door behind him to let her rest.

Yuta, who was flush against the wall again, knew better than to ask questions, but he didn’t have to. It was Doyoung who inquired.

“An incubus, huh? What exactly are you doing here?”

“I- We- it’s complicated…”

“I see. You know, I can tell you have a strange bond with my sister. One formed in magic. It’s quite strong.”

Sister…, Yuta never knew Lily had a brother, she really hadn’t mentioned much of a family. He only knew her to live on the outskirts of the city in a small cottage, alone.

“So, what’re you then? And how did you know she needed help?” He broke away from the wall and meandered closer to where Doyoung was brewing a cup of coffee.

“I’m a witch doctor; a healer. I’ve been staying close in the area. Lily told me she had been courted by the Book of Spells, so I’ve been doing my best to keep an eye on her. I could sense that something was off about her, but it may have just been you.”

Doyoung was not particularly fond of demonic creatures. He had several encounters with them, but never took any interest in them like his sister. She befriended the monsters in her closet and Doyoung banished them.

“Did I do this?...” Yuta’s voice was soft as he opened a place of his heart he didn’t even know he had, to a complete stranger.

“No,” Doyoung reassured. “If anything, I’m glad you found her when you did. Who knows what she could’ve done if you hadn’t been here?”

“Is she… evil? Is that why I like her so much?” His eyes went wide as the words flowed out of him. He never admitted to liking her.

Doyoung was unphased by the comment. “It’s possible. The Book of Spells certainly doesn’t court heroes.”

Yuta thought about the idea for a moment. Why was she willing to touch a demon, to befriend one, even care for someone like him? What was he to her? And what was she to him?

But thoughts were interrupted by Doyoung’s matter-of-fact nature. “I don’t think you are all evil, either. In fact, I think you and Lily balance. She could’ve become something much worse than Marchosias, but you were here to bring her back.”

They were silent now, in thoughts and words, just sitting awkwardly while Doyoung sipped at a cup of coffee, until he finally rose from his seat by the window and placed the mug in the sink before turning back to face Yuta.

“Take care of her. I know you will treat her well.”

And with that he opened the front door and vanished in the blink of an eye.

The small house was quiet, entirely. It was almost uncomfortably quiet for Yuta as he stood looking around at the aftermath of Doyoung’s power. Bloody rags were littered all over the floor along with wasted herbs and spices.

He felt overwhelmed, looking at the events of the day, so he opened the unstable door and sat on the porch step to think. The first thing he notice was that yard had been restored, was green and lush again. The indent in the ground where Lily was found had been filled.

It looked as though nothing had happened. The windchimes clanked together once more as a soft breeze filled the moist air. The flower beds in the windowsills were filled with color again as the gray of the sky began to fade.

How long will she take?

He sat and pondered on the porch step until the sun began to set and the star became visible. His head was less cloudy now and he was able to think clearly once more, only thinking about Lily’s wellbeing.

He stood from his sentinel post and shifted to go back inside, hoping that it would welcome him as she did. Upon reentry, the mess had been cleaned and placed in its rightful home. It was spotless from top to bottom. He glanced up to find his favorite scent had been replaced above the door frames.

He was careful to keep his footsteps light as he made his was to her bedroom, where he saw her under the bright stars of the night sky. She looked as beautiful as anything he’d ever seen, all comfy and cozy in her soft bed.

He slipped in next to her under the covers, careful not to wake her. Her caressed her exposed shoulder with the pads of his fingers, truly feeling her for the first time.

He closed his eyes and took her hand as he projected himself into her dreams. There he saw the two of them together, living a happy life full of wholesome enjoyment and passionate desire. There they would remain as the world was at peace once again.

[etherealperrie]

In A Flash

Jonathan Byers x Reader: In which Jonathan and reader have been dating since the start of Summer. Everything is new and exciting, each moment begging to be captured on film. With a passion for photography, Jonathan holds the upper hand - until reader decides to capture some memories for herself. In a flash, their relationship soars to new heights. 

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: Italics indicate a flashback sequence. Mild language. Fluff. Story takes place sometime during the summer between season 2 & 3 (so no spoilers, just lighthearted romance). This is my first time writing in the ST universe and for Jonathan. Hope you enjoy! 

The morning air is thick and hot, exactly what you’d expect from an Indiana summer. Yawning, you flip over onto your back, shielding your tired eyes from the sun peeking in through the blinds. It’s quiet aside from the incessant chirping of birds outside the window, calling out to wake up the small town.

 “Hey,” a soft voice whispers, drawing your attention from the window back to reality. You look over to find Jonathan standing in the doorway, a blithe smile on his thin pink lips. He looked tired, but no more than usual – he had so much on his plate lately: with Will and Joyce, college applications, and work there was hardly ever a moment he got to stop, breathe and just be.

 “Hey,” you reply, sitting up. Blush crawls across his cheeks as you catch the sheet slipping off of your chest just before it exposes you. He can’t help but laugh and shake his head, crossing the room in a few steps to kiss you. His lips are soft, the feeling of his hand warm against your cheek as he holds you there.

 “Breakfast?” he mumbles against your lips.

 “Mm-hm,” you hum.

 He leaves you to get dressed and you do so quickly, tugging on one his various band t-shirts and the jeans you showed up in last night. You catch a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror above his dresser, hurriedly fixing the stray hairs stuck to your forehead and cheeks. Summer had only begun but you were already tired of the oppressive heat. Mumbling curses to yourself you march over to the window and shove the curtains back, pulling the window open hoping to let in some kind of a breeze. The wind blows in, stale and hot, but a little movement in the stuffy room felt nice, regardless.

The stack of papers on Jonathan’s desk rustle and you slam your hand down to prevent them from fluttering about the room. Annoyed, blowing a piece of hair away from your eyes you give up, shutting the window once again. Your stomach grumbling, you turn to head for the kitchen, but a piece of paper sticks to your hand as you push yourself away from the desk, the stack tumbling to the floor.

 Your own face stares back at you. Dozens of pictures of you littering the floor; one’s you recall Jonathan taking of you and others where you’re completely oblivious to the camera. 

Smiling, you spot one of you, Joyce and Will from last Halloween. You and Jonathan had only been dating for a couple of weeks then. Most teens spent their date nights at the movies or the mall, but he invited you to go Trick-or-Treating with him and Will. You said yes.

 “Hold up the proton blaster!” Jonathan chuckles, snapping another photo of Will. Joyce waits patiently at the front door with the car keys and a flashlight for you and the boys to take out. She’s smiling at the sight of her two children together again – all seeming as normal as it possibly could – but there’s a nervous energy emanating from her.

 “Can we go now? I don’t want to be the last one,” Will whines. Jonathan calls you and Joyce into the living room and orders each of you to stand together, getting one last photo.

 “There. All of my favorite people in one place” he hums, watching the Polaroid develop right before his eyes. He holds it out to you and you shake your head, blushing. You’re slightly taken aback by his words, but at the same time you couldn’t deny the way your heart seemed to swell at the idea. He was slowly becoming your favorite person, too. Will rolls his eyes and pushes past everyone, practically chomping at the bit to get out into the night. Joyce turns to you and Jonathan, a warm but stern look on her tired face.

“Here’s the keys and a flashlight. Oh, and just in case” she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small retractable blade. You and Jonathan exchange a glance as she passes it to you. “If anything happens – I mean anything – just call. Come straight home.” Joyce turns to give Will the same message, ruffling his hair lovingly.

“You don’t seriously think we’ll need this, do you?” you whisper to Jonathan once you’re out of earshot. You knew about what happened to Will – the whole town did – but you couldn’t have imagined any of it to really be true before you met Jonathan. You could leave now, you think, but the light behind Jonathan’s dark brown eyes spoke to you, asking you to stay.

He shakes his head, unlocking the car door. “Here,” he sighs, taking the pocket knife from you and exchanging it for his camera. “I’ll handle the bullies you take over camera duty.”

You smile, holding the camera up to capture something of him but he places his hand over the lens just before you snap the photo.

You look down at the picture: overexposed, Jonathan hardly visible at all. Rolling your eyes, you set it back down and pick up another, one of you asleep on the Byers’ couch. You’re not sure when it’s from, could have been last year or last night – nothing about this house ever really changed. Your hair is a complete mess, strewn about the pillow. A pair of pajama pants that were far too wrinkled hang low on your waist, Jonathan’s t-shirt disheveled, leaving your stomach on display. You weren’t aware you slept with your mouth open until now.

“Jonathan, you have got to stop taking pictures of me when I’m not ready,” you laugh, turning the corner into the kitchen.

“What are you talking about?” he sighs, looking up from the dining table as he scoops the scrambled eggs from pan to plate. Smirking, you hand him the Polaroid. He takes it from you, raising an eyebrow. “Come on, I love this one!”

“And this one?” you tease, pulling out another photo, this one of you laughing in the passenger seat of his car. You remember the day. Your favorite thing to do with him was drive. The two of you never had a destination, but you’d just drive; sometimes right out of Hawkins. Music blaring, trying to forget everything, caught up only in one another and the winding country roads ahead. He said something to make you laugh, something you couldn’t remember now, and you were too caught up in him then to realize he’d been snapping photos.

 “Well I wasn’t planning on you finding them,” he confesses.

“Oh,” you say, stifling a laugh. “I found your secret stash then, huh?”

 “Yeah,” he chuckles. He runs his fingers through his hair roughly, clearing his throat before continuing. “A guy can’t take pictures of his favorite person? To keep him company when his girlfriend isn’t around?”

 “Ew, not when you say it like that!” you joke, leaning back in your seat to take a sip of orange juice.

 “You know that’s not what I mean.” He laughs along with you, the room slowly fading into silence as you both continue to eat until you’re fully satisfied. Though, around him you’d never be fully satisfied – you wanted his eternal attention and affection. You wanted to keep him close, safe, and loved. There wasn’t ever a moment you were with him when you wished for a little space. He was your home.

 “What are you thinking?” he inquires, standing up to clear his plate and yours.

“Just wish I had more pictures of my favorite person. You know, to keep me company when my boyfriend isn’t around?”

He sighs and turns around, leaning back against the kitchen counter. You admire the way his navy blue sweater hangs on his slim frame, lighting up his brown eyes and pale complexion. The light coming in from the kitchen window casts a golden hue across his cheeks.

“Don’t move,” you whisper, getting up from the table and dashing back down the hall to grab the camera from his room. You hear him laugh, but you don’t let it bother you, hurriedly slinging the camera strap around your neck. When you return, he’s exactly where you left him, a rare authentic smile on his lips. You steady yourself in front of him, probably too close for his liking, but you wanted to see every detail of him – every freckle and wrinkle and line.

 “Love, it’s not going to focus that clos-”

You shush him, placing a hand over his mouth. He raises an eyebrow and you remove your hand, taking a couple of steps back. Taking a deep breath, you snap the photo. It prints in mere seconds and you wait for it to develop, making sure to turn away from the sun as you’d seen Jonathan do hundreds of times before.

 “Well?” he asks, suddenly close behind you, his arms wrapped around your middle.

 You both watch as the picture develops, your Jonathan coming into focus right before your eyes. The streak of orange sunlight looks heavenly, highlighting each and every one of his features. Ethereal yet strong and cutting, absolutely handsome. You could stare at him forever.

“It’s a good start,” you exhale, leaning your head back against his chest. He takes the picture from you and smiles, leaning forward to place a kiss to the top of your hair.  

“How about we go for a drive? I happen to know the lighting is perfect at this hour.”

“I’m on camera duty,” you exclaim, spinning out of his arms. He shakes his head and swipes the keys off the counter, letting you lead the way out the door.

“What are my chances of getting that camera back?”

“Slim to none, Byers.”

[theawkwardterrier]

things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 33

AO3 link here

The first day of her bar exam, Drea knows that she is supposed to wake up and get right out of bed, considering the three alarms she has set. Instead she lies there for a few moments and thinks of the times she would come downstairs when she couldn’t sleep and find her parents sitting up together in the kitchen. How one of them would make tea for her, hot and strong and sweet, in those blue flowered mugs they’d had, before settling in to talk about the test the next day that was making her too nervous for sleep or some issue that she was having with a classmate or teacher. “Just do what you can,” her dad used to tell her. “Because what you can do is pretty amazing.”

She remembers nasty kids on the playground saying her parents couldn’t really love her, that she wasn’t their real kid, remembers thinking of those nights of quiet listening and steady voices and Dad’s hand certain on her shoulder, knowing like the blood running through her veins that it was real and screw anyone who said otherwise. There were plenty of other parts of her that were vulnerable to that sort of bullying, but in this she was secure: her parents, her family, would love her through anything.

Lou bangs on her door, shouting through the wood, interrupting the memory. “Get up, Carter, the alarm you set in my room just went off. Test’s today!” There’s the sound of her footsteps shuffling back to bed, and Drea sighs and smiles just a little and gets out of bed.

Her friend Greg told her to try not to run over case law and testing tips in her head, to leave her flashcards at home and bring a book or her portable cassette player instead. She has a book in her bag, but she doesn’t take it out even when she finds a seat on the T. Instead she gazes through the window, finding the Citgo sign tucked into the skyline across the river. She looks around at the other morning commuters, summer students and tourists beside businesspeople. There is one woman who seems not to let hanging onto a strap distract her from reading a half folded newspaper; she wears a loose, gorgeous royal blue pantsuit with a lace-collared blouse and pearls. It makes Drea look down at the outfit she’d laid out the night before - a belted gray skirt and an orange and white striped T-shirt - with disatisfaction.

Last Thanksgiving, she had been in the kitchen while they waited for Emma and Eric to finish eating with his family. She was in charge of some kind of cranberry relish recipe that Dad had clipped out, Mom had been mashing potatoes, and Rose (off the cooking roster permanently outside of necessity) had been sliding cloth napkins into the just-polished napkin rings. Drea and Rosie had started trading off stories across the table: worst law school professors, times they had been hit on by partners or associates or interns at the law firms that they had each worked at. When Rose was repeatedly asked to serve coffee in meetings, she apparently produced progressively worse pots until they stopped. Drea had started putting up a rotation list in the conference rooms and referring people to that, trying to make them realize the inequity themselves; it still hadn’t entirely worked.

And as frustrating and awful as the stories were, in a strange way she had found herself reveling in the conversation. In the understanding there, but also in talking with her sister.

From the time she was fourteen, Drea had known she wanted to be a lawyer. She’d been open about her plans with teachers and friends, her debate teammates and especially her family. And then, just as she was starting to study for the LSAT, Rose had announced that she had taken the exam months earlier and would soon be starting at Columbia Law.

Drea had spent so long feeling as if she were some sort of runner up Rose: smart, but from studying and working for it rather than Rosie’s natural sharpness, bold enough to get by but not quite as brave as her sister. And so she was glad that even though they lived barely hours away from each other, they only saw each other a couple of times a year. She couldn’t pretend any more often than that to be okay with Rose taking her goal, taking it first, probably doing better than she would. Rose had graduated with a motley collection of majors and minors and simply fallen into working for a domestic violence organization after her volunteering in college, and Knowing what she wanted and putting in the work to get there had been the only thing that made Drea feel that she was best at something. She had been so angry that this thing, her thing, her one thing, was being taken from her. But now, she listened to her sister speak, watched her hands trace around the air, and found not competition between them but comfort, companionship. As if maybe having a sister in the same business wouldn’t be so bad. As if maybe they could both find ways to make their mark beside each other.

Rose finished telling a story about being taken aside by the one female partner at a law firm where she was working over the summer. “Wear a skirt suit,” the woman had advised. “The others don’t like it when you try to put on their pants, you know.” Then she had waited for Rose to laugh and agree.

“I haven’t even let myself look at pantsuits,” Drea admitted. “I know everyone expects skirts. It’s supposed to be the professional thing, I guess,” and their mother had set down the potato masher and sighed. Though she wore a smile, it was sadder and more worn than anything they usually saw, the sort of thing only their father would be familiar with.

“I had hoped we would be beyond this sort of thing by now,” she told them. “I had hoped that the problems, the barriers, I had when I was beginning my career would be obsolete by the time my daughters were beginning theirs. But it seems as if so very many things are precisely the same.”

“I’m sure it’s better, Mom,” Drea offered. “At least a little, it’s better. There are sexual harassment laws now, laws against hiring descrimination, you can’t get fired for being pregnant...I know it seems like all of the problems still exist only underground and having laws on the books can’t fix everything, but things are better than they were, and you were a part of that.”

“And for the next part,” Rose said, trading a glance with her sister. “For the rest of it, we’ll be here, to make things even better for the ones who come after. Just like you taught us.”

She looks around the testing room as everyone is filing in to get settled. She sees familiar faces from her classes or around campus, from internships, panels and events. Carl is sitting at the next table over. Tom and Denise from the exam prep course walk in together. Her friend Celia is too far to speak to, but they smile at each other for courage.

And then it is time to begin.

She knows that she’s meant to be focusing only on the questions in front of her, and she does seem to be at least somewhat - her pencil marks the page nearly as soon as she finishes reading. But she also can’t help but think of the importance of this day, how everything, her whole life, has built and led here. She thinks of listening to her parents talking politics and policy around mouthfuls of morning toast, of study groups and late nights of debate practice, of disappointing grades that just made her grit her teeth and try harder the next time. She thinks of two diplomas with “Veritas” at the top and her name beneath.

Andrea Mastro Carter: one name from each set of parents, and one she gave herself. After the adoptions went through, they had all shared the same last name, but Mom and Dad always told them that they could pick middle names if they wanted - she and Nate hadn’t been given them at birth. So when she was twelve they had gone to court and she had added back her original family name, just to keep it alive somehow. Nate, when he had gone a few years later, had taken the initial M rather than a full name. She knows he did it not from some sort of loyalty to the past he doesn’t really remember but because it would mean something to her, and that touches her more than words.

(When she was little, Emma would say that she was just going to have her middle name be Rose too. Later, she would try to choose between dozens of possibilities, making lists that seemed simply copied from Famous Women of History and Literature. Finally, though, she chose Jane. “I think,” she had said, “that there were probably a lot of women named Jane who lived good, quiet lives - they were so quiet that we don’t remember them. I’ll name myself for them.”)

She thinks of the summer they moved from New Jersey, driving to the Maryland house with all of the car windows rolled down for a breeze. With boxes still in their rooms, Dad woke them up one morning and shuffled them all into the car so they could be in Washington by 8. It wasn’t early enough: the city was already packed with people, and even at seven years old, she felt the tension all around. She doesn’t know that she has ever held her mother’s hand as tightly.

And then they were marching with the crowd, walking surrounded by more people than she had ever seen, toward buildings that she had only seen in pictures. The signs people were carrying said things about jobs and freedom and equality and something called civil rights. Some of it she understood, and Mom and Dad had answered questions when they could, but she knows that she didn’t understand the significance, not then.

It was hot: seventy-five by 10 A.M. and hotter throughout the day. The dress that she had picked out, still excited about getting to wear such things without being questioned, was pretty but heavy, sweaty against her skin. They were gathered for a long time, listening to all different speeches and songs. It was harder and harder to concentrate as the day went on; Drea started playing hand-clapping games with Rose, tic-tac-toe on a piece of scrap paper with Emma.

And then a new man had come up to the podium, and Dad had put Nate onto his shoulders so he could see. Drea had never heard someone talk the way this man did. Even then, when she didn’t quite understand, she leaned forward to listen to him talking about his dream, heard the people shout encouragement and agreement back at him and nearly did it herself. Next to her, Rose had turned to their mother and said, “You’re important too, Mom. You should go up and speak to everyone.” But Mom had shaken her head and said, “No, today isn’t the time for me. This is the time for Dr. King and those who are leading with him.”

She remembers, too, a time she went to lunch with Aunt Layla and Libby one summer when she was in New York. Libby was urging them along, worried they would miss the reservation Aunt Layla had called for at a new restaurant; the others were racing to keep up with her, laughing a bit as they did. (Though Drea was secretly glad someone was trying to get them there in time; Layla was smart and very good at her job, but she had “just five minutes”ed them when they had come to find her in her office, and then did it again when they found her in the lab until they were cutting it quite close.)

“Barnes, party of three,” Aunt Layla said, still a bit breathless from running and laughter, when they arrived just in time.

The host looked up at her, scanning not her lovely cream linen skirt or her bright smile but instead her shade-darker skin, her striking eyes. He said, without pause, “I apologize, someone must have misinformed you. We are quite full up this afternoon.”

“Excuse me?” Aunt Layla didn’t raise her voice, but Drea could see the way her hand spasmed into a fist against her thigh. “I called this morning. I was told our booking was confirmed.”

“As I said.” A tiny shrug; the polite smile hadn’t shifted, but now Drea could see it was more like indifference. “I apologize, Mrs. Barnes.”

Aunt Layla grabbed Libby’s hand. Drea thought about how her parents could find hers without looking just as easily. “That’s Doctor Barnes,” she had said, and walked out with her head high. Drea had admired her so much, even as she felt overcome with the small, protected cruelty of it, the expectation that there was nothing that would be done in retaliation.

(Later, Aunt Layla would tell her that she had barely remembered saying anything. “I just wanted to get you girls out of there. I just wanted to get out of there.” She patted Drea's arm. “It's everywhere and has been for my whole life, and my parents’ too, and it still feels like it comes out of nowhere, Drea love.”)

When they break for lunch, someone at the table with her asks what area of law they’re each looking to go into. Drea doesn’t hesitate. She has spent years thinking about the ways the law protects her and the ways it doesn’t, how her voice could be valuable in standing up for others, how the law can’t change people’s minds but sometimes it is what they have. “Public defender first, probably, but eventually civil rights,” she says when it’s her turn, and when a couple of those sitting with her snort she just smiles.

When they are dismissed for the day, her eyes are gritty, the muscles of her hand exhausted. All her muscles are exhausted, in fact - her back and shoulders, her restless legs - and she’ll have to be back again tomorrow. She’s torn between wanting an hour-long bath and just crawling into bed. But when she reaches the corner she finds herself not walking down the stairs to catch the T, but instead entering the phone booth and dialing a number that she hadn’t realized she knew by heart.

“Rose Carter.” Her sister answers firmly on the first ring. (Rosie had decided not to take a middle name, but instead to remove the one she was given at birth. She said she already had all the name she needed.)

“Hi. It’s me.”

“Hey. Hang on.” There’s a clunking in the background, then Rose faintly telling someone that she’s talking to her sister and she’ll have the documents within the hour.

“Sorry,” Rose says, clear again. “Wasn’t today the first day of the bar? How are you feeling about it?” (They had talked briefly about the exam at Emma’s wedding last month before Drea cut it off, feeling overwhelmed. Rose had understood right away.)

Instead of answering, Drea asks, “Where do you get your pantsuits?”

“Is this a joke? About the kids businesswear section or something?”

“No, I was just—I’ve been thinking a lot today, and I was wondering if I could come to New York. Maybe we could go shopping for something new for work.”

“Sounds like you’re pretty confident about how it went,” says Rose, just a bit of teasing sing-song in her voice.

“We’ll see. This was only day one,” Drea replies, starting to grin a little herself. “But either way, I thought I could maybe come see you.”

“Of course you can,” says Rose, the words softer but even more definitive for it. Drea picks at a sticker on the side of the payphone and swallows against the lump in her throat. “Of course you can, always, whenever you want. I might have to work - no rest for the new hires - but you should come, get a feel for another office. And afterward, we’ll go pick out some kickass clothes for you. I have the feeling you’re going to need them.”

The first day of her new job, Drea dresses in a burgundy pantsuit and a silver and white striped blouse.

“You look great!” Grace tells her as Drea comes into the kitchen. Louise’s girlfriend is leaning against the counter in a big sweatshirt and a pair of socks, spooning up the last of her cereal.

“Thanks,” says Drea. “My sister helped pick it.”

“Well, good luck,” Lou tells her as she joins them, wrapping an arm around Grace’s shoulders. “Knock ‘em dead, Carter.”

“Not a great idea when they’re your new bosses, I’m pretty sure.”

“Go!” The other two laugh, and start to shoo her out the door.

She takes her bag from the hook, double checks that the note her parents sent wishing her luck (Mom’s handwriting on one side, Dad’s and a little illustration of Lady Justice on the other) is tucked into her pocket. Deep breath, in and out.

“Okay,” she says aloud. “I’m ready.”

More chapters here

[celoica]

for the three harringrove prompts if they're still open!! steve and billy in matching sets of lingerie?? 🙏

characters → billy hargrove/steve harrington

rating → explicit

tags → setting - house party, panty kink, rimming, dirty talk, overstimulation

notes → not quite matching, but close enough. did i write this instead of studying for a midterm? absolutely.

He ended up in Nancy’s closet, crammed up against her spring formal dress and winter coat, a pink-dotted umbrella digging into his ass while Billy sucked on his tongue somehow.

Somehow. Somehow.

He knew there was an order of events that led him there, from fixing his hair in the mirror to grabbing his keys, to being abandoned by Nancy when Jonathan brought out the dope, to Billy finding him in the basement and bullying him into a game of beer pong. He had ended up with his hands on Billy’s ass, thumbs pressing into the line of muscle leading into his thigh, somehow, but it didn’t make sense.

Billy tasted like bad intentions and tequila, mouth wet and slick and sliding across Steve’s until he felt weak in the knees and his dick pressed up against his fly, uncomfortable. Aching for it since Billy had taken his hand, cigarette tucked between his lips, and asked to kiss him. Aching for it before, when he’d been pretending like it didn’t get his heart twisted into knots when Billy touched him in the showers, had smirked at him at graduation and called him Steve for the first time.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Steve mumbled against Billy’s mouth. Billy ignored him. He sucked on Steve’s lip, bit it until it hurt, and snuck both hands under his shirt, hands possessive across his skin.

“Billy,” he whined, admitted it to himself and then did it again. The tequila had been hard on his throat but made everything softer, made Billy feel like heaven when he dropped his head to suck a mark into Steve’s neck until he whined again, high and reedy, and pushed onto his toes to rock against Billy’s thigh, press the line of his dick against harder muscle.

He rode against him, desperate, wanting, and Billy kissed his throat and chin, slanted his lips across Steve’s mouth and kissed him like he meant to steal his breath.

When he reached for Billy’s belt, Billy twitched, jerked away and broke the kiss with a messy noise. He smacked Steve’s hand away

Dazed, Steve blinked. “Uh,” he said.

Billy stared at him, cheeks flushed even in the dark, lips slick and red from Steve’s stubble.  He stared like he was lost and then shook himself, clearing his throat and reaching for the doorknob.

Steve slapped his hand away. “What the fuck?”

“What the fuck what?”

“I’m trying to touch your dick,” Steve said, like it was obvious, like the way he had been reading to blow in his jeans wasn’t enough, “so what the fuck was that?”

Billy scowled, shoved Steve’s hand away and opened the door. Light flooded the closet. Steve squinted against the brightness, stepped into the room and marched across the floor, grabbing onto Billy’s retreating shoulder and yanked him back.

Billy turned sharply and knocked Steve back three steps with three hard shoves to his chest.

“I’ll choke you out if you do that again,” he spat, grabbing onto Steve’s shoulders, squeezing hard enough to hurt.

Steadying himself, Steve swallowed, chest throbbing. His heart wormed its way into his throat, begging him to back away. He licked his lips and tasted Billy.

“What was that?”

Billy’s fingers tightened. Steve winced, nose wrinkling, prying himself away from Billy’s grip. “Billy! Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Hands shaking, Billy let them drop to his sides, fingers curling into his palms. He glared at the floor.

“Nothing,” he bit off, blunt like a wall.

Steve breathed through his nose and closed his eyes, wiped his mouth. He should cut his losses. Tie up this little experiment with a neat little bow and end it here, now. Pretend it didn’t happen. Blame it on the liquor.

When he opened his eyes, Billy was still staring at the floor, shoulders hunched and breathing hard.

“What is it, man? Is it—I mean, it’s not that I’m a dude, right?”

It took so long for him to answer that Steve about leaving twice more. Billy sighed through his nose, rubbed a hand over his face and said, “It’s not that. That’s what I fucking like, alright?”

“Okay. What is it?”

“It’s not…you. It’s me. It’s so fucking me.”

“Are you drunk?”

“What?” Billy jerked his head up, eyes narrowed. “I’m not fucking drunk. It’s just—you won’t get it. It’s nothing. Forget it.”

And he thought about doing it, too. Steve thought about walking out, going home because he felt too old for this already. Nineteen didn’t mean shit until you realized all your friends were still in school. He hadn’t started feeling like the loser who hadn’t gotten into college until after Christmas, when Tommy left for his backpacking adventure with Lane and he’d been left with no one.

And then there’d been Billy, who’d cornered him and poked at him, got him a drink and held his fucking hand until they found somewhere with a locked door to kiss him.

He didn’t feel like a loser when Billy kissed him.

It was like a light switch. He was still Steve fucking Harrington.

He sucked in a breath and crowded in close to Billy, touched his fingers over his bare arm, toying with the hem of his T-shirt. Billy frowned at him, eyes flicking between his face and his fingers.

“What’s so bad, huh?” Steve asked, soft and a little breathless. His dick ached a little, the want there still, heating his blood. “You can tell me. I wanna make you feel good.”

Billy’s eyes narrowed again, burring holes into Steve’s skull like he could see his thoughts.

“It’s not—”

“Not what?”

Billy bit off a curse and, in what Steve would call an impressive display of drama, turned to shove Nancy’s dresser in front of the door. Wood protested on carpet, and he watched with raised eyes as Billy shouldered it across the floor. The lamp vibrated to the edge and Billy pushed it back into place, hands pulling on his belt.

His eyebrows had nowhere to go when Billy shoved down his jeans to his thighs, still sporting a semi beneath satin and lace.

“Well,” Steve said, and blinked, head tilting. “That’s—”

“What?” Billy barked. He looked furious suddenly, a blunt line between his face and what he was wearing. “That’s what?”

“Fine,” Steve breathed, and then grinned, bright. He bit his lip, looked over Billy and took in his fill. “This is fine. I can work with this.”

Billy looked confused, a red flush spread across his throat that probably tasted like embarrassment. Still grinning, Steve pulled off his shirt and let it fall to the floor. “C’mere. I want to touch you.”

He stared, lips parted. Steve quirked a brow, cocked his head, nodded to the bed. “Come on. I’ll make it good. Promise.”

The struggle on Billy’s face was painful to watch. His eyes flicked between Steve and the door, Steve and the bed, the window like he could throw himself through it and no one would notice. Steve waited, patient, head tilted toward the bed.

Fucking someone in his ex’s bed was probably crass, he realized when Billy kicked off his jeans and pressed him into the Nancy’s bedspread, but when Billy licked into his mouth and pinned his hands above his head he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

They kissed and touched, and Steve petted over Billy’s ass, slipped his fingers beneath the elastic of Billy’s panties. Billy kissed like a dream, straddling Steve’s thigh to grind down against him. When he pulled back there was a damp patch against the black, dick straining underneath too-tight fabric. Steve licked his throat, shoved his shirt up to mouth at Billy’s nipple while he petted his dick, stroked over smooth fabric and felt Billy’s dick twitch. When he tugged down them down to lick at the head, it was wet. He stroked the shaft, squeezed until a clear drop welled at the tip and dripped over the fat, and then licked that, too.

“Who the fuck have you been doing this with?” Billy asked, grunting and twisting his hands in Steve’s hair when Steve sucked him down, tongue tracing the flared tip, the soft give of foreskin.

He pulled off with a pop and grinned. “Tommy.”

“Tommy,” Billy breathed. He choked on a laugh. “Fucking Tommy.”

“Fucking you,” Steve said back, fitting his cock back into his mouth, eyes fluttering closed while he swallowed him down. Tasting salt and skin, Steve let the tip touch the back of his tongue, let saliva pool in his mouth and spill from the corners of his stretched lips into the fabric tucked beneath Billy’s balls.

Steve cupped them, he rolled them over his fingers, pressed his thumb between them to rub until they tightened up and heat and bitter salt dripped over his tongue and down his throat.

Billy panted, eyes heavy as he tugged Steve up. He cupped his face and kissed him, chased the taste of his own spunk into Steve’s mouth and licked it out.

“You freak,” Steve laughed, spreading his thighs over Billy’s chest and kissing the corner of his mouth. He sat up. He rocked down, rode against his abs, squirmed to get the right pressure on his dick.

Billy grinned, wicked, and popped the button of Steve’s jeans. “You like it,” he said, sure, and tugged down Steve’s zipper, diving under denim.

His hand frozen, mouth going slack, eyes wide. Steve swallowed, arousal burning in his belly as Billy’s fingers traced the elastic line, dipped down over downy-soft cotton.

“Fucking really?” he murmured, eyes half-lidded as they dropped to stare at Steve’s crotch. There was little to see, jeans too tight to see much, but Billy still plucked at the edge of the panties, fingers flicking over delicate skin.

Unabashed, Steve smiled, caught his tongue between his teeth. He flashed the kind of smile that always got him what he wanted.

“They always white, sweetheart, or is this just for me?” Billy asked, low, rough, tracing the sensitive skin below Steve’s belly. He scratched his nails across it.

Steve shivered. “You,” he lied, eyes closing. It didn’t feel like lying to play the part. “I wanted to look pretty for you.”

They didn’t talk as Billy turned Steve over, dragged his jeans off and situated him on the bed on his knees, thighs together and chest down. They didn’t talk when Billy pulled the panties down, leaving them tight around his thighs, trapping them close. They didn’t talk as Billy licked him open, spit on his hole to press his fingers inside Steve until he begged, biting the edge of Nancy’s pillow when Billy fed his cock, hot and hard and branding him, inside, slow and sweet, the edge of pain throbbing in Steve’s dick.

He sobbed, muffled, arching into the press of Billy’s dick, each inch riding the edge of too much and not enough. He sobbed, damp against the pillow, when he tried to spread his legs, get a better grip of his dick, and sobbed, louder, when Billy pulled his hands behind his back and held them there, used them to anchor Steve into each thrust.

Steve came like that, thighs trapped together by white panties, Billy’s thighs kissing his ass, desperate fingers rubbing over the head of his own dick.

Moaning when Billy rolled them onto their sides, dick shifting inside. He felt deeper, bigger, like he was taking up too much space. Billy wrapped an arm around his waist and thrust, hard, and Steve let out a gasp, head knocking back into Billy’s shoulder.

Billy slapped a hand over his mouth, lips to Steve’s ear. Each thrust felt like a brand, a claim. Each thrust was heavy, jarring, and Steve pressed into them, muffled noises behind Billy’s palm.

“Quiet,” he breathed against Steve’s ear. He punctuated the word with a particularly sharp thrust, hips screwing into Steve in tiny circles that left him choking on his own spit. “You want them to come in and see this? Want Wheeler seeing you like this, huh? Byers? Getting fucked like a whore?”

Steve nodded, frantic, moaning behind Billy’s hand. He clutched at his arm, held on for dear life. Billy’s hand slipped between his thighs, cupping his half-hard cock, and he choked on his breath, scratched at Billy’s skin while Billy played with the head, caught between each jarring thrust and too much across his dick.

His body went tight, clenched, and Billy let off just enough to have him relax, just to roll his thumb over the cockhead to get him to moan and tighten up again.

Biting the back of his neck, Billy came, nails digging into Steve’s belly. Caught, pinned, Steve whined, eyes screwed shut as he twitched back into the cradle of Billy’s hips. He grunted, released his teeth from Steve’s neck and stroked his fingers over the nail marks.

Steve closed his eyes, let his head fall, shivering until Billy’s breath started to even, fingers slowing over Steve’s cock until they just rested there. Billy nuzzled the back of his neck, nosing at his hairline. He kissed the top of Steve’s spine.

“Jesus.”

Billy laughed, breathless, and kissed his skin again.

[seventyfiveapples]

Reunion

Male Orc / Plus-size Female Human Reader

Story commission by the wonderful @ban23 !

NSFW content ahead so BE WARNED: 18 and older ONLY!

***

What the hell am i doing here?

This was what you asked yourself as you pushed open the heavy doors to a crowded gymnasium. It was your 10 year high school reunion. Balloons and streamers in your school colors hung from the ceiling as ten year old pop hits blared to an empty dance floor. All around you, faces you barely recognized stuck up awkward conversations.

You’d almost skipped the event altogether. High school hadn’t been a great time in your life and you weren’t keen to revisit it. Still, there were a few memories - okay, a few people - you wouldn’t mind getting reacquainted with...

One of them greeted you with a warm hug when you checked in.

“Brianna?! Is that you- oh my god!”

You turned to see your old friend Rachel running towards you.

“I didn’t think you’d come! Did you just get here?”

“Yep, just now! It’s so good to see you!” The two of you hugged your hellos and started catching up on the last few years. After a few minutes she leaned in and told you with a twinkle in her eye:

“Austin’s here, by the way.”

Your heart jumped and your face flushed at his name but you tried to sound nonchalant.

“Austin...?”

Rachel rolled her eyes.

“Do not start with that. The one you were joined at the hip to in school? The one you always swore was ‘just a friend’? The only Orc in the marching band? That Austin?”

“Right…” Now you were blushing for a different reason, feeling a bit called out.

“He’s single, by the way.” Before you could protest, she nudged you with her elbow, drawing your attention to the refreshments table- where he stood.

You’d known Austin since you were both in second grade. One day you’d spilled red juice all over a white shirt and cried, worried you’d get in trouble. Austin poured juice on his own shirt and took the blame for both shirts. You chatted while waiting in the principal’s office, and it turned out that you liked all the same cartoons. A friendship was born. As you grew, you stayed close, confiding in each other about high school relationships and college decisions. You had to admit you had a little crush, but you only saw him date other orcs. You always regretted losing touch after you both went to college in different states.

Now, here he was, grinning broadly at you over a bowl of punch. He was wearing jeans with a gray blazer and a white button up shirt that brought out the vivid colors of his skin. You approached him.

“You gonna pour that down your shirt again?” You asked, gesturing to the ladle full of red punch. He flashed a broad grin that made his sharp tusks gleam.

“Don’t need to. I already got your attention this time. How the hell are you, Brianna?” He pulled you into a tight hug.

“I’m good! How are you?”

“Can’t complain! Damn, B- You look gorgeous.”

“Oh please. I know I’ve gained weight.” You adjusted your dress self-consciously. He just shook his head.

“It suits you. You look great.”

“Austin, I forgot what a smooth talker you were.”

You’d also forgotten how handsome he was, tall and lean with a million watt smile.

“Hey,” he said, leaning in close and opening his blazer just enough for you to see the bottle of whisky in his inner pocket, “you wanna go to the choir room?”

“Ha! Yes.” Sneaking off for shots during school assemblies was an old tradition for you two. With a wink he grabbed your hand and led you down a hallway.

For two hours you talked, laughing at old jokes and stories. You’d almost forgotten how much the two of you had shared over the years, how big a part of your life he’d been. The nostalgia and the whiskey made you feel warm and suddenly, brave. You wanted to ask a question you’d wondered for years.

“Austin, why didn’t you ever ask me out back then?” You said.

He just looked at you, shocked, with wide eyes. Shit, this was a mistake. You got up to leave, embarrassed and angry at yourself.

“Ah, I’m sorry Austin, I shouldn’t have asked that. We were having fun and I ruined it.”

“Brianna, if I ever thought for even a second- I mean- I… didn’t know you thought about me that way.”

“You- never knew i had a crush on you?”

Austin walked close to you, backing you against a piano. Without another word he wrapped his arms around you, leaned down, and pulled you into a passionate kiss. You felt your body tingle with electricity and a warm, hungry ache grew in your core. After a few minutes you separated.

“Whoa…”

“Brianna,” he told you, looking straight in your eyes, “Not a day has gone by I don’t wish I’d told you how I felt about you.”

This time it was you who pulled him into a kiss, enjoying the movement of his muscles as you caressed his back.

You hopped up to sit on the piano with Austin standing between your legs. You scooted forward to grind against the front of his trousers. He growled appreciatively in response then ran his hand up the skirt of your dress, all the way to your panties. You’d dreamed about this for so long.

While you fumbled to undo his belt, he carefully stretched your panties to the side, finding your cunt swollen with desire and dripping wet. In slow circles he started stroking your clit.

Meanwhile, he had opened his pants enough for you to pull out his cock and start slowly working his shaft. He gasped in your ear.

“Wait-“ he whispered, stopping you and taking himself in his own hand. You opened your legs as widely as you could as he moved into position. Slowly he pushed inside, all the way to the hilt.

With steady, deep thrusts he rocked his hips into you, just the way you liked. It felt so good you wanted to cry out, but you stifled your moans by biting down on his tough skin. Finally, your pleasure and tension built up enough to spill over and you came, shuddering and gasping against him as he tried to keep you still. Austin wasn’t far behind you, grunting a little as his own climax erupted and he held you tightly, pumping you full of his cum.

The two of you stayed joined for several minutes, until he started to soften. He kissed your forehead tenderly before withdrawing.

When you finally caught your breath you spoke:

“Should we rejoin the reunion?”

“Why?” He asked with a laugh. “You’re the only reason I showed up. You wanna get out of here and go on a real date?”

You laughed and nodded, excited to see where else this trip down memory lane would lead.

[pingo1387]

For Their Sake

One Piece Valentine’s Day Exchange 2019! @opvalentines  Written for @zu-lake-ah!  College AU  Pairing: ZoSan 

Luffy, hanging upside-down at a desk in an empty classroom, tilted his head when the door slammed open and someone yelled, “I just can’t stand it anymore!” 

“Hi,” Luffy said to his friend with a wave as they pranced in and sat on his desk. He sat up. “What is it today?” 

“Mr. 2!” 

“Okay. What can’t you stand?” 

Mr. 2 clapped his hands to his face. “Our dear friends the samurai and the cook!” 

“What about Zoro and Sanji?” 

“Darling, they’re in love, but they won’t do anything about it!” 

“So?” 

“So we must do something to rectify this situation! Oh, my poor heart aches at the thought of their pain! Come along, Mister Straw-hat!” 

“Sure,” Luffy said, hopping to his feet and jogging after Mr. 2. “Why am I coming?” 

“Emotional support, for me and them both! They’re your friends, too!” 

“But why do we gotta do anything about it in the first place?” Luffy asked as Mr. 2 threw open the doors to the empty theater and spun into the dressing room. 

“Because they’re suffering, darling! Our friends are suffering!” 

“Oh, no!” Luffy exclaimed in horror. “I didn’t know! We gotta do something!” 

“Exactly! Now, I have a plan to end their woes! Just give me some time!” As Mr. 2 dug through the drawers for makeup and ran to the cabinets for wigs, he said, “Do you know where the poor dears are at the moment?” 

“Zoro’s got . . . um, some kinda math,” Luffy said. “In . . . the building that looks like a spiral.” 

“And Blondie?” Mr. 2 said, slicking back his hair and placing a blonde wig on his head. He took it off and pulled out the makeup he needed, seizing tools and dusting something onto his face, opening his mouth and staring at his reflection in the dusty mirror. He ran back to the cabinet and pulled out a fake suit, yanking off his normal clothes and jumping into it. 

“Sanji’s . . .” Luffy scrunched up his face and looked at the clock, squinting. Mr. 2 looked at it and told him the time. “Sanji’s . . . got science. Chemistry? In the building that looks 2-D.” 

“Fantastic!” Mr. 2 placed the blonde wig on again, combed the hair a certain way, and turned around. “How do I look?” 

Luffy jumped. “You look just like Sanji! Wow!” 

Mr. 2 had applied makeup in such a way that his face shape had altered completely. He had a colored contact in just one eye, for the other was covered decently by the blonde wig, and a black pencil made his visible eyebrow curl up at the end. 

“Think it’ll be enough to fool dear Zoro for a few minutes?” he asked. He coughed and cleared his throat, lowering his voice. “Is this better?” 

“You even sound like him! Zoro’s dumb, so that’ll get him for sure!” 

“Then off we go!” 

Zoro looked around as Mr. 2 and Luffy sat on either side of him in the lecture hall, grinning. “I’m in the middle of something,” he said, scowling and gesturing to the questions on the projector. “If you’re gonna be dicks, can you do it later?” 

“No, no, I have something important to ask you,” Mr. 2 said. He placed a hand on Zoro’s desk. “I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time . . .” 

“W . . . What is it?” Zoro said, looking down at his hand and back up at Mr. 2. 

“I like you, you silly fool.” Mr. 2 smiled. “Won’t you go steady with me?” 

Zoro’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said. He stared at his desk. “Geez, all of a sudden . . .” 

“Won’t you?” Mr. 2 insisted. “You don’t know how long it took to work up the courage . . .” 

“Y---Yeah,” Zoro said, hiding his face. “Of course. Of course I will.” 

“That makes me so happy! Will you meet me at the café in the quad in about an hour?” 

“Yeah. I’ll see you there.” 

“I look forward to it!” 

“Bye, Zoro!” Luffy exclaimed, causing heads to turn as he and Mr. 2 pranced out of the classroom. “He’s really happy.” 

“I can never tell with him,” Mr. 2 said, popping out the contact as they moved. “The poor man has the worst case of resting bitch face I’ve ever seen.” 

“So what’s the plan now?” Luffy asked as they hopped down the stairs. “Zoro said he’d meet you for lunch, but he was talking to Sanji, and Sanji doesn’t know about this.” 

“You simple dear! We just need to pull the same stunt with Sanji!” 

“Oh, of course!” 

Due to troubles with finding an appropriate green-hair substitute, it was almost time for the lunch date when Mr. 2 and Luffy finally met up with Sanji in his classroom. 

“What do you assholes want?” he snapped, packing up his things amid the end-of-class chatter. “I’m busy.” 

“Busy?” Mr. 2 said. His face was neutral, having drawn on stern eyebrows with the same pencil from earlier, and he wore a sweater to cover up the lack of muscle in his arms. Having used several packets of green Kool-Aid to dye his hair and his fingers to mess it up, it looked just like Zoro’s. “That’s too bad. I was hoping we could hang out.” 

“Yeah, well, you can take your hanging out and shove it---” 

“On a date.” 

Sanji froze, his ears turning red. “What?” He looked at Luffy. “Uh . . . so, Luffy, why are you here?” 

“Emotional support, he said,” Luffy said, pointing to Mr. 2. 

“Don’t change the subject,” Mr. 2 said, clearing his throat. “I’m asking you out.” 

“But---but---you---” 

“It’s a yes or no question, curly. Will you at least meet me for lunch?” 

“Yes,” Sanji burst out. He twirled his hair in his fingers, smiling. “Yes, I’ll come. Do you have someplace in mind?” 

“The café in the quad. We can talk more there.” 

“Okay! Yeah, sure!” Sanji grinned. “I never thought you’d be the one to ask, you idiot. Stupid. Give me a few minutes to get ready, okay?” 

“Whatever you need,” Mr. 2 said. “I’ll be there. See you.” 

“Bye-bye,” Sanji said, waving. He turned around, smiling out the window as Luffy and Mr. 2 ran away. 

“We did it!” Luffy exclaimed, high-fiving Mr. 2. “So what now?” 

“Now we spy! We’ve got to make sure the plan worked!” They made it back to the dressing room, panting, and Mr. 2 threw off the clothes and changed back into his normal ones. 

“Your hair’s still green,” Luffy said, pointing. 

“No time to wash it out!” Mr. 2 ducked into the sink in the corner, scrubbing his face until the makeup vanished. He applied his normal eyeliner and lipstick again and combed his hair back to its usual style. “We’ve got a date to supervise!” 

“Use this,” Luffy said, taking off his hat and handing it over. 

“Thanks ever so much, darling! Now let’s go!” 

Sanji arrived at the café and spotted Zoro at a table already, the sun shining through the window and the lights low inside. He took a deep breath and strode up, sitting across from him. 

“Hey,” Zoro said with a small smile. 

“Hey,” Sanji said with a big one. “So . . .” 

“I’m, uh . . . gonna get some tea,” Zoro said. “You want anything?” 

“Coffee. Black.” Sanji handed him a few dollars. “If that’s too much, let them keep the change.” 

“Sure.” Zoro stood and Sanji tapped his fingers, smiling. Zoro soon came back with two cups on a small tray, one full of coffee and one full of hot water and a teabag. 

“Thanks,” Sanji said, taking his cup and stirring it. “So . . .” 

“So . . .” 

“Here we are.” 

“Yeah.” Zoro sighed. “Why today, of all days? What pushed you over the edge?” 

“What?” Sanji said, halting his stirring. 

“You’ve . . . liked me for a while, right? I have, too.” 

“You have---? Yeah. Yeah . . . ?” 

“So, what? You just couldn’t stand it any more?” 

Sanji frowned. “Don’t act like you didn’t instigate this.” 

“Huh?” Zoro said, dunking his teabag in and out of the water. 

“You and Luffy barge in as I’m packing up and making other plans, and you ask me out all of a sudden, and now you’re pretending it’s all my fault for saying yes?” 

“What---when did this happen?” 

“Like, twenty minutes ago. When my class ended.” 

Zoro frowned and folded his arms. “You’re mixed up. You and Luffy barged into my class about an hour ago, and you asked me out.” 

“Wait, wait, what? I was in class this whole time!” 

“So was I.” 

“So what---who---” 

As one they looked around the café and spotted Luffy and Mr. 2 hunched over a table together, Luffy with hot chocolate and Mr. 2 with iced tea. They stood together and marched to their table. 

“Hi,” Luffy said, grinning. “Are you guys having fun?” 

“What’s the meaning of this?” Sanji hissed. He looked at Mr. 2. “What is it today?” 

“Mr. 2.” 

Sanji yanked the hat off of his head and stared at the green hair underneath. He glared at Mr. 2 and Luffy, who smiled back. 

“So,” he said through gritted teeth. “You thought it would be funny to disguise yourself as us to get us on a date together?” 

“Not so much funny as necessary, dear,” Mr. 2 said, drumming his fingers on the table and taking a sip of his tea. “You were never going to do it yourself. And you both said yes.” 

“But---” Sanji looked between him and Zoro. “I---” 

He gave up, kicked Mr. 2′s shin, and stormed back to his table. 

“You’re a dick,” Zoro said to Mr. 2 and Luffy, punching Mr. 2′s shoulder for good measure before following Sanji. 

“They say thank you,” Luffy informed Mr. 2. 

“They’ve got a funny way of doing that,” Mr. 2 moaned, rubbing his shoulder and leg. “My poor limbs!” 

Zoro sat across from Sanji again. “So . . .” 

“So?” 

“Wanna go out?” 

Sanji stopped tapping his foot and stared at him. “What?” 

“They’re right. We both said yes.” 

Sanji folded his arms, unfolded them, and stirred his cooling coffee again. 

“Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah. How about you? Wanna go steady?” 

“Of course.” 

“Good.” Sanji glanced again at Mr. 2, who waved at him with Luffy. “For our second date, wanna shank them together?” 

Zoro grinned and placed his hand over Sanji’s on the table. “Sounds perfect.” 

[princess-of-the-worlds]

in your arms (i am home tonight)

written for @klarolinevacay for @ashleigh-jewitt-xx

He was your first love, but I intend to be your last.

He’d said those words to her at her high school graduation, but they’d never really had a set plan. Klaus had gone south to hold down the fort in New Orleans while Caroline headed to Whitmore to forge her own future, following the path she’d marked out for herself as a hopeful and high-achieving human.

About a week after she had moved into the dorm she was to share with Bonnie and Elena, a large package had arrived at their doorstep: a mini-fridge. From Klaus. It wasn’t until the end of her freshman year that Caroline had learned about the Hayley-baby debacle, about how the devious brunette had attempted to trick Klaus and the other Mikaelsons into believing that she was pregnant with the hybrid’s baby. A ruse which, unsurprisingly, ended with her decapitation at Klaus’s hands.

Caroline hadn’t outright hated the werewolf, but she still felt indifferent about her death. (The bitch received the fate she deserved, in her opinion.)

Yet, that was the last she actually heard of Klaus, only receiving the slightest snippets or updates about his life from Matt or Stefan who were in contact with Rebekah.

Caroline buried herself in her studies instead, taking full advantage of her vampiric nature - which included not needing sleep at all - to accumulate as much knowledge as possible. She took and aced the hardest classes her university offered to the point where her most ruthless competitors and her most merciless professors were forced to admit their admiration for her work ethic. She also applied for the most sought after internships.

Throughout the last few weeks before school ended, she’d hoped, while Elena and Bonnie stayed up late chatting about their post-graduation plans, that she’d receive a phone call, a letter, a note ...anything from Klaus.

But she never did.

Caroline Forbes graduates from Whitmore College on an incredibly sunny day where the heat hammers down on her shoulders and seeps in through the thick fabric of her black graduation gown. A sea of black graduation caps toss into the air in celebration, Caroline tracking each one through the air with her supernatural senses. Watching as they’re snatched by smiling graduates before they hit the ground.

She weaves her way out of the crowd to join her mom and Matt. They wait on the fringe with a large bouquet of colorful flowers and a joyous smile each.

“I’m so proud of you,” Liz whispers into Caroline’s ear as the vampire sweeps her mom into a hug. “Your father would have loved to see this day.”

It’s been years since Bill Forbes attempted to torture the vampirism out of his daughter, and while Caroline is not sure she’ll ever be able to love her father in the same way she had before she turned, she still wishes he was alive to see this today. She’s mostly made her peace with him, with what happened. Time has been kind and has allowed her to heal some of her psychological wounds.

Sadly, her dad’s not the only presence she’s missing today.

Liz, Matt, and Caroline have dinner at a Michelin-star restaurant not too far away from Whitmore where they’re joined by Bonnie, Jeremy, Tyler, Elena, and Stefan. Elena and Stefan’s gazes never stray too far from each other, and Caroline’s willing to bet that the night ends with one of them in the other’s bed. They’ve been dancing around each other again, and enough time has passed now after that fucking piece of shit Damon slunk out of town, crushing Elena’s heart, for them to try again.

At the end of the night, after the food and the drinking and the dancing is done, Caroline exits the bathroom only for her mom to catch her by the arm. That’s when she presses a perfectly-creased envelope into her palm and gestures for her to open it.

With unsteady hands, Caroline folds back the envelope flap and slides out a first-class ticket to Rome.

The flight leaves tonight.

“I don’t understand,” she tells Liz in bewilderment. “What about Bonnie and Elena?”

Liz shakes her head. “Bonnie and Elena already know,” she says. “Just go. Matt’s waiting outside in the car, and I packed your purse with your phone and wallet. You don’t need anything else. Just go.”

As a still-befuddled Caroline turns to leave, her mother grabs her wrist and holds her hand briefly, squeezing it. “Remember, Caroline. I love you,” she smiles. “I want you to be happy.”

Caroline smiles back.

When Caroline exits the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport and spots a familiar head of blonde waiting, things start to fall into place.

“Finally!” Rebekah Mikaelson huffs from where she leans against a red convertible, Prada sunglasses masking the glint of playful irritation in her eyes. “Your flight was supposed to land an hour ago. Now get in the car.”

Her manicured nails click together as she taps a button on her phone to unlock the car, then waves at her flippantly to climb inside.

Compared to the perfectly-groomed Original, the high school Caroline would bristle at her own messy hair and wrinkled clothes, but now, she only throws her head back and laughs as she opens the passenger side door.“Oh, how I’ve missed you, Rebekah Mikaelson.”

“Save it for my brother,” Rebekah responds, the corner of her scarlet-colored lips turning up into a smirk that must run in the family.

The casual allusion to Klaus robs the metaphorical breath from Caroline’s undead lungs, and she settles against the butter-smooth leather of her seat in silence while her car companion continues to smirk.

To Caroline’s surprise, they head to the outskirts of Rome where Rebekah parks outside of a simple-looking shop with darkened windows.

“Come,” she orders without even glancing back, just clicking her fingers at the other blonde.

“What, no please or thank you?” Caroline grumbles as she follows behind.

The inside of the store starkly contrasts the outside. It’s a large open boutique with racks upon racks of colorful, expensive dresses and gowns, all brightly-illuminated by chandeliers that Caroline bets are made of actual crystal.

Rebekah bypasses the main area, heading straight for the back of the store where she calls for an Antonina. An employee who, later, proves to be a clever-eyed girl with nimble fingers and aristocratic features.

“Yes, Ms. Mikaelson?” Antonina asks, hovering by the doorway of the large changing room that Rebekah bundles Caroline into with haste.

“Send us the dresses I had you store away, please,” she says.

Hours later, after Caroline has paraded the boutique in over fifty gorgeous gowns, all designer and handmade, she and Rebekah come to a consensus over one before she’s sent off to the hairstylist and makeup artist.

(Both of which Caroline thinks work for celebrity clients. She swears she’s seen them her Instagram feed before.)

After Caroline is glammed and marched back out front, the Original appraises her with a smacking of her lips, “Perfect! Nik won’t know what hit him,” she says gleefully.

Before Rebekah sends her off to the limo waiting outside, Caroline catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair is pinned up with a few loose curls dangling down around her face, and her gown is a precious white silk that’s accented with tiny jeweled flowers. Her face is done in a way that only accentuates her natural features and doesn’t appear too artificial.

“Remind me to make you plan my wedding,” Caroline mutters, taken aback by the end result, only knowing that Rebekah has heard from the sound of her quiet laugh.

The limo drops Caroline off at the edge of a small plaza with tiles made of smoothened cobblestone and elegant iron-wrought streetlamps encircling the space. There is an intricately carved marble fountain in the center, cascading water over a series of sharp steps.

Tall, colorful buildings are pressed into the background, only visible to Caroline through the velvet curtain of night because of her vampire eyes. The warm light from the streetlamps only makes bright dots in the darkness, adding a hazy quality to the space.

And in the midst of it all, is Klaus Mikaelson.

He stands beside the fountain in a crisp white shirt, the top few buttons undone, and black dress pants. His curls are as roguishly mussed as ever, and he’s glancing down as if he isn’t aware of Caroline’s arrival yet.

But - oh, he is - because as her heels clack closer on the cobblestone, he glances up at her with a gentle smile.

“Caroline,” he says tenderly, and she didn’t know the utterance of her name could hold so much emotion.

“Klaus,” she states, smiling hesitantly.

Before she can say anything more, Klaus raises a hand to signal for music, a chorus of violins beginning to sound from somewhere in the darkness. He extends a hand to her, raising an expectant eyebrow. “Dance with me, if you will.”

Together, their palms kiss as she weaves her fingers through his and steps closer, their feet swaying in time to the lovely melody that drifts their way.

“What is all of this? Why did you bring me all the way to Rome?” she asks.

In the storm of his brilliant eyes, the same uncanny dark blue as Rebekah’s, she searches for answers, expecting to find nothing but hazy obscurity. Instead, she finds a quick flurry of warmth, longing, laughter, and above all, acceptance.

“Rome, Paris, Tokyo,” he quotes. “I promised to show them all to you, did I not?”

Frustration grows in her, a steady flame among the cool patience which flows through her veins. It ignites old emotions of rejection, of fear--all the emotions she thought had long grown cold or had faded away.

[auskultu]

The Black Elvis?

Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 25 February 1968

SAN FRANCISCO —“Will he burn it tonight?” asked a neat blonde of her boyfriend, squashed in beside her on the packed floor of the Fillmore auditorium. "He did at Monterey,” the boy friend said, recalling the Pop Festival at which the guitarist, in a moment of elation, actually put a match to his guitar. The blonde and her boy friend went on watching the stage, crammed with huge silver-fronted Fender amps, a double drum set, and whispering stage hands. Mitch Mitchell, the drummer, came on first, sat down, smiled, and adjusted his cymbals. Then came bassist Noel Redding, gold glasses glinting on his fair, delicate face, and plugged into his amp.

“There he is,” said the blonde, and yes, said the applause, there he was, Jimi Hendrix, a cigarette slouched in his mouth, dressed in tight black pants draped with a silver belt, and a pale rainbow shirt half hidden by a black leather vest.

“Dig this, baby,” he mumbled into the mike. His left hand swung high over his frizz-bouffant hair making a shadow on the exploding sun light-show, then down onto his guitar and the Jimi Hendrix Experience roared into “Red House.” It was the first night of the group's second American tour. During the first tour, last summer, they were almost unknown. But this time two LP’s and eight months of legend preceded them.

The crowds in San Francisco—their three nights here were the biggest in the Fillmore’s history—were drooling for Hendrix in the flesh. They got it: this time he didn't burn his guitar ("I was feeling mild”) but, with the careless, slovenly and blatantly erotic arrogance that is his trademark, he gave them what they wanted.

He played all the favorites, “Purple Haze,” “Foxy Lady,” “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire” and "The Wind Cries Mary.” He played flicking his gleaming white Gibson between his legs and propelling it out of his groin with a nimble grind of his hips. Bending his head over the strings, he plucked them with his teeth as if eating them, occasionally pulling away to take deep breaths. Falling back and lying almost prone, he pumped the guitar neck as it stood high on his belly.

He made sound by swinging the guitar before him and just tapping the body. He played with no hands at all, letting his wah-wah pedal bend and break the noise into madly distorted melodic lines. And all at top volume, the bass and drums building a wall of black noise heard as much by pressure on the eyeballs as with the ears.

• • •

The black Elvis? He is that in England. In America James Brown is, but only for Negroes; could Hendrix become that for American whites? The title, rich in potential imagery, is a mantle waiting to be bestowed. Within his wildness, Hendrix plays on the audience’s reaction to his sexual violence with an ironic and even gentle humor. The D.A.R. sensed what he is up to: they managed to block one appearance with the Monkees last summer, because he was “too erotic.” But if Jimi knows about his erotic appeal, he won’t admit it.

"Man, it's the music, that’s what comes first,” he said, taking a quick jerk of Johnny Walker Black in his motel room. “People who put down our performance, they’re people who can’t use their eyes and ears at the same time. They got a button on their shoulder blades that keeps only one working at a time. Look, man, we might play sometimes just standing there; sometimes we do the whole diabolical bit when we���re in the studio and there ain’t nobody to watch. It’s how we feel. How we feel and getting the music out, that’s all. As soon as people understand that, the better.” 

• • •

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, now doing a two-month tour (they will be at Hunter College on Saturday and at Stony Brook, L. I., on March 9), was formed in October, 1966, just weeks after Hendrix came to London from Greenwich Village encouraged by former Animal Chas Chandler. Mitchell, 21, came from Georgie Fame’s band, a top English rhythm and blues group, and 22-year-old Redding switched to bass from guitar, which he had played with several small-time bands. Their first job, after only a few weeks of rehearsal, was at the Paris Olympia on a bill with Johnny Hallyday.

Their first record, “Hey Joe,” got to number 4 on the English charts; a tour of England and steady dates in the in London clubs, plus a follow-up hit with “Purple Haze,” made them the hottest name around. Men’s hairdressers started featuring the “Experience style.” Paul McCartney got them invited to the Monterey Pop Festival and they were a smash hit.

But Jimi Hendrix, born James Marshall Hendrix 22 years ago in Seattle, Wash., goes a lot further back. Now hip rock’s enfant terrible, he quit high school for the paratroopers at 16 (“Anybody could be in the Army, T had to do it special, but man, was I bored”). Musically he came up the black route, learning guitar to Muddy Waters records on his back porch, playing in Negro clubs in Nashville, begging his way onto Harlem bandstands, and touring for two years, lost in the bands of rhythm and blues headliners: the Isley Brothers, Joey Dee, Little Richard, and King Curtis. He even played the Fillmore once, but that was backing Ike and Tina Turner and long before the Haight-Ashbury scene.

• • •

“I always wanted more than that,” he said, “I had these dreams that something was gonna happen, seeing the numbers 1966 in my sleep, so I was just passing time till then. I wanted my own scene, making my music, not playing the same riffs.

“Like once with Little Richard, me and another guy got fancy shirts ’cause we were tired of wearing the uniform. Richard called a meeting. ‘I am Little Richard, I am Little Richard,’ he said.‘the King, the King of Rock and Rhythm. I am the only one allowed to be pretty. Take off those shirts.’ Man, it was all like that. Bad pay, lousy living, and getting burned.”

Early in 1966 he finally got to Greenwich Village, where he played at the Cafe Wha as Jimmy James with his own hastily formed group, the Blue Flame. It was his break and the bridge to today’s Hendrix. He started to write songs—he has written hundreds—and play what he calls “my rock-blues-funky-freak sound.”

• • •

“Dylan really turned me on—not the words or his guitar, but as a way to get myself together. A cat like that can do it to you. Race, that was okay. In the Village people were more friendly than in Harlem where it’s all cold and mean. Your own people hurt you more. Anyway, I had always wanted a more open and integrated sound. Top-40 stuff is all out of gospel, so they try to get everybody up and clapping, shouting, ‘yeah, yeah.’ We don’t want to get everybody up. They should just sit there and dig it. And they must dig it, or we wouldn’t be here.”

A John Wayne movie played silently on the television in the stale and disordered room, and Hendrix started alternating slugs of scotch and Courvoisier. He stopped and turned to the window, looking out over San Francisco. “This lookslike Brussels, all built on hills. Beautiful. But no city I’ve ever seen is as pretty as Seattle, all that water and mountains. I couldn’t live there, but it was beautiful.”

Besides his music, Hendrix doesn’t do much. He wants to retire young and buy a lot of motels and real estate with his money. Sometimes he thinks of producing records or going to the Juilliard School of Music to learn theory and composition. In London he lives with his manager, but plans to buy a house in a mews; in his spare time he reads Isaac Asimov’s science fiction. His musical favorites, as he listed them, are Charlie Mingus, Roland Kirk, Bach, Muddy Waters, Bukka White, Albert Collins, Albert King, and Elmore James.

• • •

“Where do you stop? There are, oh man, so many more, all good. Sound, and being good, that’s important. Like we’re trying to find out what we really dig. We got plans for a play-type scene with people moving on stage, but everything pertaining to the song and every song a story.

“We’ll keep moving. It gets tiring doing the same tiling, coming out and saying, ‘Now we’ll play this song,’ and ‘Now we’ll play that one.’ People take us strange ways, but I don’t care how they take us. Man, we’ll be moving. ’Cause man, in this life you gotta do what you want, you gotta let your mind and fancy flow, flow, flow free.”

[captainsimagines]

RENT - PART 1

In which eight old friends in dire need move in together for one year. 

Warnings: language; heart attack; angst

A/N: AH! I’m back! I am so sorry I was gone for so long but I finished yet another quarter of college. The play went amazing, I believe I passed all my classes, and I here I am with another great idea for an Avenger’s series! I am basing it off the musical RENT, but the storyline is not going to be the same nor will the characters resemble those in the musical. I really hope you guys enjoy this series. These will be slow updates but hey, this feel good story is just in time for Christmas/holidays! I love you all!

PART ONE 

“Seasons of Love” - PART TWO

STEVE

“Guys, I really need to stop,” Steve panted, resting his palms on his bruising knees. Each breath was beginning to burn his chest, expanding and contracting in desperate spurts.

“Really, dude? This is the fifth freaking time in thirty minutes!”

Steve couldn’t assign the voice to a face nor did he care to do so at the moment. The longer he remained bent at the back resulted in new cramps spasming throughout his arm. Steve huffed a couple more times before he straightened himself, hissing at the massive headache he suddenly endured.

“Dude, are you okay?”

Before he could give a verbal response or a simple nod, Steve collapsed. Rapid shocks ran up his arm and to the middle of his chest, blistering his heart as it continued tormenting him. Wide-eyed and right hand over his heart, Steve gasped for just a sliver of air.

”Steve, you have to calm down to breathe!”

The whole gym seemed to be surrounding him, stealing the air he so desperately craved.

”I think he’s having a heart attack! Call an ambulance!”

Before he blacked out entirely, Steve managed to latch onto someone’s hand.

”Get Y/N.”

Y/N ran alongside the stretcher Steve was currently unconscious on. She stumbled over her own brain for a couple seconds trying to visualize the steps on how to save a heart attack victim. When they finally lifted his lifeless body onto a hospital bed, she quickly began with chest compressions. She counted them under your breath, searching Steve’s face for any sign of awakening.

“Step away!” another doctor yelled, stepping forward and shocking Steve once on both sides of his chest. The sight of her high school friend bouncing but remaining comatose had her stuttering. Y/N leaned forward and performed CPR, hoping the little oxygen she supplied was somehow enough.

“Clear!” Another shock and bounce but no result. She resumed CPR, cursing at Steve under her breath.

“C’mon, Steve. I didn’t know you that well but you can’t die on me,” she whispered, pinching his nose again and breathing into his mouth.

”Clear!”

Stepping away before the shocks came, Y/N clenched her jaw and closed her eyes. This could not be happening.

”Call it,” one of the doctors muttered, setting the equipment down. Without thinking twice, she reached over and rubbed the paddles together before shocking Steve herself.

”Doctor Y/L/N!”

Screams of protest vanished when Steve’s heartbeat became regular and steady again. She released a breath she had been holding in for Steve, the weight on her shoulders instantly lifted.

“You got lucky, Y/L/N.” She could only nod since an immense amount of relief was keeping her immobile. She waited until the nurses finished hooking Steve to the machines to lean over and push the hair away from his face.  

”What in the world happened to you?”

3 Years Later

“I’m fine,” Steve groaned while on the phone, rolling his eyes at his mother’s daily check-up. He bit his lip and smiled when she reminded him for the hundredth time during that one phone call alone to take his medication.

“Steve, honey. Don’t work yourself too hard, now.”

“I never do,” Steve said, finishing the sentence with a quick ‘I love you’ and goodbye. He hung up and returned to his recipe book, scanning the numerous healthy options that never seemed to peak his interest. Steve finally chose one and made it from scratch, leaning over the counter every couple seconds to make sure he didn’t forget an ingredient.

Munching on a piece of garlic bread, Steve let out a heavy and boring sigh. He ate silently, sitting outside on his small balcony overlooking Brooklyn. For such a crappy apartment, he sure did have an amazing view. He read the newspaper alone, busted a hundred push-ups and sit-ups alone, and even slept alone.

This was his life. Wake up and go for a morning jog only to come back to make a healthy meal that he didn’t share with anyone. Well, there is one person I could shar- no, no, Steve thought.

It was December 20th, five days until Christmas, and Steve was planning on spending that alone, also. He told his mother he had plans with friends. In all honesty, he didn’t want to see family these days. The overwhelming push to visit family was chasing him but he refused to acknowledge it. All he heard when he visited was a long string of “Well, you certainly don’t look like a guy who would have a heart attack!”, “Are you eating healthy?”, and “You still can’t find a job? How are you affording that place?”

The apartment was huge. It was definitely large enough to pack about fifty people. In the past three years, Steve could only hold a few jobs here and there, the strain of heavy work too dangerous. His employers would witness one mishap, that never had to do with Steve’s heart condition by the way, and fire him on the spot to avoid a potential lawsuit. He was barely paying his rent now, skipping a few months here and there only to ask for more time to gather some extra money. The landlord gave him every chance, but Steve knew his luck was running out.

By the time he returned to his apartment in the late hours of the night, he found that the electricity had been shut off.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, rubbing his cold hands together. He marched up to the thermostat and whined, seeing that the current temperature was low enough to turn his balls blue- and not in the pleasant way.

Shuffling around each room, he snagged every blanket he could find. He wrapped himself up tightly, sitting on the couch and huffing loudly. No television, no electricity, and no heat. He just sat there, cheeks red and face angry.

Throwing the blankets to the floor and standing angrily, Steve dragged the trash bin to the middle of the room and grabbed his lighter. He piled up some of his old photographs- simple images of nature and animals that he took a while ago. He threw them all into the bin and lit them on fire, moaning in content by the sudden rush of heat.

That’s how he spent his whole night- rubbing at his hands and arms over the fiery trash bin, struggling to stay awake the whole time so he didn’t fuck up and burn the whole building down.

The next morning, December 21st, Steve rolled out of bed in pain. He clutched at his chest and rapidly searched for his medication on his bedside table, snapping the lid off and swallowing two pills. The pain continued for a few minutes before the medication kicked in, soothing his violent muscle spasms. Steve sat at the edge of his bed trying to control his breathing, eyes closed in concentration.

Sighing heavily, he carefully stood up and dressed in sweats. He decided to skip his morning jog because of his rude awakening, but he still opened that recipe book and struggled with breakfast.

______

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Banner asked, removing the stethoscope from each ear. Steve smiled at his doctor and gave him the same reply he always did.

”Could be better.”

“Anything new?” With his hands, Dr. Banner motioned for Steve to lay on his back. Steve obliged, groaning silently when the cold, plastic covering made him shiver.

“Shortness of breath, pains in the morning. The same thing,” Steve explained. Dr. Banner squeezed down and around Steve’s stomach, listening to Steve intently.

“Still taking your medication?” he asked, watching as Steve’s face scrunched when he ran his hand over his kidneys.

“Two pills, four times a day.”

“Good. You can sit up now.“

Steve pulled his shirt down and sat up, a thin smile printed on his face. For the past three years, Steve had been visiting Dr. Banner after his mother suggested it. He didn’t pay for his weekly to monthly check-ups. Without insurance or a plan at all, his mother was his guardian angel. Without a job even, it would be hard to pay anyway.

“Well, Steve. Your heart continues to struggle.” Steve sighed and bowed his head. “But, your lungs are getting better. Don’t start smoking, though.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Steve mumbled, smiling up at the man he had grown fond of.

“Oh, and I got that information you wanted from your last visit,” Dr. Banner said, jogging to his desk and pulling out a small index card.

“Oh, really? I thought she dropped off the face of the earth,” Steve chuckled, taking the index card from him.

“She kind of did.”

With furrowed eyebrows, Steve looked from his doctor to the address written in black ink.

“No, no. I know this address,” Steve shook his head. “Did you get her name right?”

“I did. Your friend works there now,” Dr. Banner chuckled, picking up a few files and organizing his desk.

“Um, Y/N Y/L/N,” Steve drawled out, still not believing the man in front of him. Dr. Banner let out another laugh and simply nodded.

“Your friend, Y/N Y/L/N, the person who saved your life,” Dr. Banner leaned over and tapped the card in Steve’s hand. “She works there now.”

Steve opened and closed his mouth, unable to form another sentence. With that, he thanked Dr. Banner one last time and went back home. 

____

After finishing dinner, Steve took his camera out from under his bed and decided to go for his daily walk. With the index card tucked into his jacket, Steve left his apartment in a rush.

Dressed in an oversized coat, a heavy scarf, pants that were a little too short on him, his winter boots, and his camera strapped around his neck, Steve walked at a steady pace. He counted each step to make sure he wasn’t going to fast, afraid his heart wouldn’t catch up. He snapped a couple pictures here and there of anything that caught his eye- trees, the sky, a fashionable teenager, anything.

Once he arrived at the address, he couldn’t bring himself to open the front door. Each time he would reach out to pull it open, someone would exit rapidly. Jittery about the whole situation, Steve simply ran his hand through his air and cleared his throat, as if he wasn’t just about to enter the run-down establishment. He sucked in a breath of cold air, however, and reached for the door handle once again. As if saving him from yet another embarrassing encounter, his phone rang.

“Hello?”

”Hey, man.”

Steve turned away from the front doors and quickly fixed his phone to his ear. The smile on his face was sure enough permanent.

“Bucky?”

”So, you remember my voice? Sweet,” Bucky chuckled causing Steve to smile wider if that was even possible.

“I haven’t heard from you since you returned from the war!” Steve stated, turning around and heading back to his apartment, his original plans thrown out of his clouded mind.

”There was a reason.” Steve was about to ask what he meant by that but Bucky continued speaking. “Listen, I need a favor.”

Steve jogged up the stairs but stopped right in front of his apartment door. With a quiet sigh, he tore the eviction warning down and crumbled it up. “Yeah, anything!”

”I need a place to stay for a while.”

Steve unlocked his door and nodded to himself, forgetting that Bucky couldn't hear his approval. “No problem. One question, though: You got rent money?”

“You got another question?” Steve laughed as well, giving Bucky his address and telling him goodbye.

A knock at his front door snapped him out of his boyish excitement. Throwing open the door, Steve gave his next door neighbor a bright smile.

“Hey, Peggy!”

Peggy cleared her throat and scanned Steve up and down quickly, matching Steve’s wide smile. “Hi, Steve!”

The quiet pause had Steve scrunching his eyebrows. Before he could ask what she wanted, Peggy held out a flyer. “Sorry, I just wanted to drop this off.”

Steve took the flyer from her hand and read the bold writing. “It’s a flyer for my dance recital on New Year’s Eve. I was hoping you could make it.”

Peggy rocked back and forth on her feet, her heart stammering with every motion of Steve’s occupied eyes.

“This sounds amazing! I’ll definitely be there,” Steve smiled, holding the flyer close to his chest. Peggy held in a squeal, nodding slightly as her response.

“Really? Thank you so much.”

“Anything for my best girl,” Steve joked, leaning against the doorframe. Peggy breathed into her chilly hands and chuckled.

“I’ll talk to you later. Thank you, again Steve.”

“Hey,” Steve said before Peggy left. “Can I bring a friend?“

Peggy swallowed thickly, afraid Steve’s friend was of the female species. “That would be great!“

Steve did a little cheer and told her goodnight, waiting until Peggy entered her apartment to shut his door. 

Steve snuggled up in a dozen blankets that night, not that it was any different from any other night. Still, Steve didn’t quite realize that his apartment was about to become a lot warmer in the next few days than he thought possible. A warm Christmas.

”525,600 minutes, how do you measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights

In cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laugher and strife.”

TAG LIST: (tell me if you want to be tagged!)

@4theluvofall @ihavemymomentsstill 

[morethanjustmediocremusings]

In the Details: A Deeper Look into Euphoria’s Prom Looks

Taylor Abouzeid

California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo

Created in a social climate marked with the upheaval of traditional standards and a call to action sung by today’s ready-to-riot young adults, Euphoria came into a world ridden with daunting social issues. Amidst the reigning chaos of the real world, Euphoria followed the debatably hyper-realistic lives of modern high schoolers. This HBO series was highly regarded for its diverse cast and variety of explored topics. Furthermore, throughout the length of the premiere season, Euphoria retained attention from the press with its highly colorful and expressive use of fashion. To fully understand the weight of these garments, one must first look to the concept creation, then to the habitat through which the ideas were fostered, and finally step into the light of the underlying messages behind layers of mesh shirts and mountains of gender ambiguous dressing. Euphoria used visual clothing cues in their final episode “And Salt the Earth Behind you” to shed light on each character’s fully developed significance and purpose within the show given its highly pertinent cultural context.

           Euphoria has come to represent an entire generation. The struggles that the characters face are directly out of pages in our own diaries and journals. Hunter Schafer, who plays Jules in the show, praised the reality of it all saying, “It’s the most current representation of high school” (Nissen, 2019). The current climate of teen life is reflected without the Hollywood glamour that was once acceptable with shows such as 90210 and Gossip Girl. Gone are the days of unrealistic teenage clubbing and drawn-out heartbreak between a jock and a cheerleader. Instead, audiences want to see the poignancy of reality on their screens. In a society that values honesty and vulnerability, Euphoria holds a mirror to our generation’s unique experiences without sugar coating topics of necessary discussion; however, due to the deeply embedded nature of these signals, they could easily be overlooked. By taking a magnifying glass to the distinct looks of the finale, subtle messages can be brought to light and further the identification with its’ viewers. Kenneth Burke believed that rhetoric was aimed at creating identification with an audience rather than aimed at persuading an audience (Kolodziejski, 2019, Pentadic). Furthermore, due to the show’s success, it is easy to assume that many people have come to identify with its messages. It is important to analyze and understand the messages behind these looks because they are representative of an entirety of people, marching to a silent beat of radical self-worth.

Within Euphoria the very real stories of the characters hit home for many viewers. Levinson worked rigorously to diminish any potential glamorization of drug use in the show saying “somewhere around the age of 16, I resigned myself to the idea that drugs could kill me, and there was no reason to fight it,” (Chuba, 2019). He credits this deeply personal connection to the story for the shows unfiltered persona, creating high levels of identification with the viewership. Many viewers have also found his story relatable as one in five teenagers have abused prescription drugs (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). According to Burke (1950) identification is defined as a rhetorical process that leads to persuasion. Within the space of the show, it is used to create a sense of common identity between Euphoria’s audience and the accurate portrayal of characters.

The show follows the lives of a group of teenagers navigating the ups and downs of the modern century. To give some background on the show’s main squad, Rue, the main character, is a recovering drug addict, with no intention to stay sober. Jules, a transgender-icon, has just moved from an ambiguous “big city” and is feeling bored with what this small town has to offer her. Kat, a closeted One Direction fangirl-turned sensational fanfiction author, recently had sex for the first time, it was also recorded and leaked to the whole student body. Maddy has been in an on-again off-again relationship with her abusive boyfriend Nate. Cassie is trying to keep her relationship with her college-age boyfriend alive and well. Nate, the typical quarterback character with internalized homophobia stemming from finding out his Dad is gay, is now secretly experimenting with his own sexuality. This wide range of individual character plots allows for a multitude of viewers to find identification within each of their stories.

            It is, of course, important to note that the creation of this show was in some part influenced by HBO’s need to stay relevant in the competitive streaming market; I would also like to believe that despite this need for high demand programming, the actions of young adults everywhere sparked a flame in the creative community that further added to the show’s exigence. The current climate directly created a collective of educated and empowered young adults who are tired of being talked over, being told to sit down, or being shamed because “back in my day…” other people had it worse. Students these days are not participating in the same high school experiences as their parents, so in order to find a place to relate, many have turned to the Internet, and the many streaming platforms within it. The HBO-exclusive show, Euphoria, has held this identification role for many young students who have never before seen their identity correctly represented on such mainstream media as the giant outlet of HBO.

           With the introduction of new streaming services occurring at radical rates, the need for relevancy remains at the top of many media corporation’s to-do lists. HBO is no different. HBO has been both celebrated and condemned for their raw portrayals of characters. Chen (2019) said, “The show is frighteningly hard to watch—it didn't temper my anxiety one bit all season—but its choice to skid easy definitions around difficult topics is what makes it an important cultural engine of our time.” Although ratings wavered in its early years during the mid to late 1970s, they have maintained steady progression for the last twenty years. In 2011 they were named the most successful network, winning nineteen Emmy Awards in one year alone (Aspden, 2011). The creation of Euphoria specifically came from a need of representation, a public desire to see real reflections of life. The hype for weekly premiers was continuous. The cast posted daily updates and many behind-the-scenes videos to keep the audience engaged. This constant contact between creatives and their fans also helped to maintain the very necessary quality of authenticity that surrounded the show. The season finale, otherwise dubbed “the prom episode,” was no different. Prom in its essence is a highly-gendered, often homophobic, and very public display of tradition, but despite this, for many it marks an anticipated rite of passage. In the prom episode of Euphoria, the queer, gender-ambiguous, and non-traditional characters reconcile this tension; prom became their runway. Dressed to the nines in creative, self-expressing garments, Euphoria’s characters hit the dancefloor with confidence. The episode showed how this generational event has become more accepting and fluid now, more than ever.

The choice to focus on the squad’s prom looks in the last episode allows for a greater opportunity to show character development and emphasize the pungently individual messages hidden in the coattails. Rue, the standout tomboy of the cast, has recently come to accept her budding relationship with her female-presenting best friend, Jules. For Rue’s prom look she wore the makings of a suit, slacks and a black coat, a manifestation of her struggle with feminine expression. But underneath the presumptuous outer shell she adorned her staple converse, one of, if not the only stable things in her life, and a maroon form-fitting, lingerie-inspired slip dress from the closet of the magnificent Jules. Jules stood out in the show as possibly the most comfortable with outwardly expressing her feelings, and her iconic prom look was no let down. A lilac and lavender two-piece crop top and wide-leg pants combo made waves in the sea of traditional prom garments. She also wrapped herself in the pièce de résistance of the night: a dark green, mesh, trench, with the symbol for transgender rights stitched onto the back with ornate black beading. Kat’s bondage and almost masochistic look reflected her growth into a strong woman, while Maddy stayed true to her values of loving yourself in a sexy black sheer halter and fitted skirt combo. Unexpectedly, Cassie was understated, but her more feminine look remained through the champagne gown’s flattering neckline. Nate stayed true to his toxic masculinity and rejected any inkling of creativity; he wore a suit.

In the past there has been a severe push back against “progressive” programming, especially those with highly explicit content. But it is also important to note that these subjects are often not foreign to the audiences participating with the artifact. Sam Levinson, the director, when asked if he was nervous about parental backlash regarding the shows content responded with, “… I feel like this is a debate that goes on constantly throughout time, where people go, ‘Parents are gonna be scared,’ and you go ‘Yeah.’ And young people will be like, ‘Yeah, that’s my life.’ I’m sure certain people will be freaked out by it and other people will relate to it” (Stack, 2019). There has been a very real struggle for liberation of the LGBTQIA+ community, to which Euphoria highlighted a homosexual relationship between its two main characters. Toxic masculinity has come to the forefront of scholarly conversation, to which Euphoria highlighted the mental and physical dangers that the suppression of emotion in boys can have on not only themselves but also the world around them. Toxic relationships have become hot topics in wellness ads, to which Euphoria showed just how serious and sometimes hidden, domestic abuse can be. An acceptance of sex workers is growing amongst younger generations, to which Euphoria explored the world of camming and subjects of porn in general. Trans bodies have come into public discourse, especially regarding the legality of their existence, to which Euphoria cast a trans actress as a lead role and used the platform to spread knowledge of the injustices many people face on a daily basis. The long running war on drugs continues, to which Euphoria used the story of a high school drug addict to bring communities together and create a safe space for all identities to be heard.

           I have chosen the visual rhetoric approach to better examine how all elements of the character’s prom looks may have influenced each corresponding character’s final message. Visual rhetoric criticism is aimed at understanding the intersection between rhetoric and visual elements within an artifact (Kolodziejski, 2019, Visual). Albakry & Daimin (2014) state, “analysis of visual rhetoric considers how images work alone and collaborate with other elements to create an argument designed for [a specific] audience” (pp.29).  Furthermore, I will be applying the deductive approach to this criticism, meaning I will be using the existing theories and concepts and applying them to elements of the visual artifact. I partly chose this approach because I stand firmly behind its assumptions: the visual is rhetorical, what is not shown can be just as important as what is shown. Lastly, how something is shown is as important as what is shown (Kolodziejski, 2019, Visual).

           Within visual rhetoric lies the concept of the semiotic triangle, a figure that shows how an artifact’s referent, sign and reference are all related. Within that, there are three types of signs. Iconic signs are representative of what they point viewers to, such as a photo of an otter being an iconic sign for an actual otter. Indexical signs point to what they represent, like smoke indicating a fire. Lastly, symbolic signs reference an arbitrary relationship, such as the branded Swoosh being a symbol for Nike as a brand (Kolodziejski, 2019, Visual). Euphoria’s prom looks are all indexical signs, meaning they point to what they represent, without directly showcasing the underlying meaning. So, the general semiotic triangle for my artifact would have the referent as the actual look itself, the sign as the nod to what it is representing, and the reference would be the meaning behind it all. As the viewers of Euphoria engage with the show, they rely on their own life experiences to decode the symbols on screen. As articulated by Foss in 1994 “The study of visual imagery from a rhetorical perspective may make contributions beyond providing a richer and more comprehensive understanding of rhetorical processes. In some cases, such study may contribute to the formulation or reconciliation of aesthetic notions…” (pp 213). Through their comprehension of these symbols, the show’s underlying messages are able to speak more powerfully and allow for further resonation between the shows viewers and the characters they are able to identify with.  

           I have chosen visual rhetoric because it argues that everything shown and not shown has a significant purpose within the artifact. Due to the microscopic lens I have taken to the outfits chosen for the characters, this is most fitting. I have also chosen this method to better excavate the hidden messages of the main characters. Upon first glance I, like many, missed some major hints to character expression and development in the finale. But with the fine-toothed comb I took to these garments, I left no lapel untouched and no bead under-analyzed.

(Rue’s prom look).

For Rue, the exploration of expressing gender fluidity through her clothing choices was present throughout the entire season, but subtle. There was no direct mention of the matter until the season finale. While selecting a very feminine outfit for Rue to wear to prom, Jules expresses concern for possibly altering Rue’s gender presentation. I believe that by staying in the dress for prom, and not changing into something more fitting of her stylistic history, Rue was trying to validate her trust and relationship with Jules. In this scene, Rue had let Jules pick out her prom look and rather than opting for something similar to her previous fashion choices, Jules put her in a tight and sultry, lingerie-inspired, corseted, maroon dress. The color choice of maroon was not only fitting to the color pallet of the show, but was also distinctly similar to the color of Rue’s father’s sweatshirt, which she wears daily after he passes away. This choice I believe was unintentional from Jules, but subconsciously reminds the audience of Rue’s inability to move past that time in her life. Rue also adorned a traditional men’s suit pants and coat. This is the key part in her maintenance of gender fluidity and ambiguity within the outfit. The color choice was subtle and reflective of how natural this “tomboy” style has come to her self-expression. The choice of Converse was also only visibly present for a few moments on screen, but the shoes came to represent so much within Rue’s life. So much so in fact that the actress who played her character, Zendaya, made an Instagram post paying respect to the life they lived in the show with “I’m gonna have to get some new chucks for my personal life… I guess I’ll just have them on standby for season2. Til then Rue Rue” (Zendaya, 2019). Rue initially allowed Jules to change her gender presentation via the use of a frilly dress, but later came to regret the decision, as the dress became representational of their constricting relationship. This outfit represented the fluidity of expression and the intimacy that can be shared through clothing choice.

(Jules’s prom look).

Rue’s romantic counterpart, Jules, quickly became a stand-out character on the show due to her extravagant, stylistic choices within the first few episodes, and her makeup has inspired countless other artists’ renditions of the now iconic looks. For her prom look she wore a silky lilac crop top and similarly silky lavender high-waisted wide-leg pants. To top off the look she also adorned herself with a beautiful, almost floor-length, sheer mesh, forest green, trench piece. On the back of the sheer coat was a beaded symbol for the transgender community. The entire outfit was quite the statement, but I got the feeling that she was going for that “I’m not trying, but I tried really hard to look like I’m not trying” look. Due to the casual nature of a crop top and pant combo, the pieces seem haphazardly thrown together. However, the perfect complementary colors, and the identical silky fabrics make that lackadaisical approach almost impossible. I think it is also important to mention that the outfit as a whole read a little mermaid-y. To the untrained eye this might have gone completely unnoticed, but to someone with a recent history in Women and Gender studies, namely me, this reference was another direct tie to the trans community. Popularized by the television show Life With Jazz, mermaids have become an almost superhero-like figure for many people within the trans community, and now serve as a symbol of recognition. In an interview the star spoke on their significance, “Mermaids are just the most whimsical, mystical creatures of all time. A lot of transgender individuals are attracted to mermaids and I think it’s because they don’t have any genitals, just a beautiful tail” (Jennings, 2015). Jules continued to wave her pride flag high and exuded confidence. She held the message of being proud of whoever you are.

(Kat’s prom look).

Kat, a plus-size girl surrounded by a sample-size school, went through many changes this season. After her first-time having sex not only gets recorded, but also then is virally leaked throughout campus, Kat decided to reclaim control of her body. Kat had the edgier version of the “Pretty Woman” makeover. With an entire new wardrobe of bondage-inspired pieces, sexy black and red lingerie, latex, leather, and laces, she conquered not only her sexuality but also gained a whole new world of confidence as well. Throughout this journey, she also struggled with the duality of being a grade-A bad ass and still navigating soft and cute teen romance. For her prom look she wore all red, the color most symbolic for both power and romance. With a red leather corset on top and red silk midi skirt on the bottom, she exuded confidence as a woman in control of her own body. The black lace-up detailing that became a motif in many of her previous outfits also made a cameo in the prom episode running through both the top and the skirt. These specific choices show her character’s development of self-confidence. In the beginning, she was self-conscious and afraid of intimacy, but as the season progressed, the audience was able to see her blossoming into a woman in charge. She was able to reclaim her body after the sex-tape scandal and make a name for herself by camming on PornHub, and also by gaining enough appreciation for herself to see her love for Ethan. Kat struggled with coming into herself as a sexual woman and in her final look is able to show that you can be strong and confident and still express emotion and love.

(Maddy’s prom look).

Maddy, Maddy, Maddy. Where do I even start? Without a doubt Maddy was the most confident female character on the show, but when her boyfriend abused her at the annual carnival she began to break down. Although she was aware his actions were brutally wrong, she forgave him, like a story of Stockholm syndrome. Following his release back into school, they reappeared as a couple only to break up again in the following episode. Their relationship was undeniably toxic. At prom Maddy went with her group of girlfriends, surrounding herself with positivity and love. She wore a see-through black, crystal embedded, two-piece halter top and form-fitting skirt. She also wore a veil. Maddy shone bright on the dance floor and conveyed the message that relationships aren’t everything, and in the end all she needed was support from her friends, self-love, and some serious distance from her abusive ex-boyfriend, Nate. Maddy loves herself, but by ignoring her case of domestic violence she lost a part of herself. Luckily, in the finale, Maddy surrounds herself with good friends and shows that self-worth and self-love are important and still sexy.

(Cassie’s prom look).

Cassie’s prom look showed less of a character arc than the others, but her message remained just as pungent. On the day of prom, Cassie had gotten an abortion. The pregnancy was the unintended consequence of her boyfriend McKay. They came to the decision together, but Cassie made sure that the decision was ultimately her own. Needless to say, she was not dressed as her usual provocative self. She wore a soft pink satin gown, the most traditional of all the looks, and barely-there makeup, which according to the makeup artist was a distinctive choice given the earlier abortion. The makeup artist for the shoot took to Instagram to explain her look, “As much as I wanted to give Cassie a glittering euphoric winter formal makeup look, I didn’t feel like it would help tell her story in this moment. I wanted Cassie’s total absence of makeup here to signal to the audience that she’s reached the start of a new phase of her life…”(Davy, 2019). The neckline was still flattering but she remained quiet and pensive for the rest of the evening. In the same girl group as the others, Cassie took that day to surround herself with those who could support her without their knowledge of the previous event. Cassie’s prom look said that it is okay to not always be okay, and that expressing that is perfectly fine. This message can be gathered through her soft color pallet the contrasted the otherwise bright evening, the simplicity of the silhouette, and the unexpected lack of dark eyeshadow, a typical element of Cassie’s normal look.

(Nate’s prom look).

I intentionally saved the worst for last: Nate. Nate’s look was boring, and quite frankly fell flat. It would have made more sense for him not to go at all, or maybe to show up in hand cuffs as he did for Halloween. But whatever, he did go to prom, and he did wear a suit. Given the extravagance of the rest of the characters’ prom looks, there was an unofficial standard for all the characters to express themselves creatively in some way for the event. However, I believe that Nate’s blatant lack of creativity is his statement. For his whole life he has been molded to become a superstar athlete, and at no point was he given the opportunity to outwardly express himself. We can thank both toxic and hegemonic masculinity for this lack of expression, for in their essence both of these ideas encourage the repression of emotion in boys and men. His outfit shows that when not given the opportunity to find oneself beyond the expectations of others, or not being able to to explore one’s own creative capabilities a person could become a drone, in this case one with severe anger issues. The suit further shows his acceptance and assimilation into the norms and expectations for his character. Rather than expressing himself through stylistic choices, like many of the other characters, Nate’s feelings come out in destruction and violence. He serves as a precautionary tale, of what the dangers of toxic and hegemonic masculinity can have on young men: crushing self- hatred. For many, fashion can serve as a critical outlet for self-expression. Especially for Euphoria’s teenage viewership, style can feel like the only controllable element of their life while the lack of adolescent autonomy is at its height.

           As both a thoroughly engaged audience member and fan of Euphoria, there is not much the creators could have changed about the prom looks to further appease me. Throughout the entirety of the season I found that I was able to relate to every individual character within the show, admittedly even Nate. I was able to see my own life tied into bits and pieces of every character’s individual story. Maddy and Rue stuck out as the characters with which I had the most identification with, and although their characters are almost direct opposites in the show, I felt comfort in being able to compare their stories to my own. However, I feel that it is also important to acknowledge the lack of identification some of my peers felt with Euphoria’s main squad. Some have never had experiences with “hard-core” drugs, struggled with gender representation, bee involved with sex tape scandals, or instances of domestic violence, dealt with the after effects of an abortion, or emotional repression. For many of these people who struggled to find identification with the main characters, the supporting roles served as their substitute. With characters as Lexi, McKay, Gia and Fez, many other identities were explored throughout the season, although in lesser detail. I believe that if these supporting characters had also been given equal screen time, an even wider range of audiences would have been able to engage and identify with Euphoria. By digging deeper into their stories, new plot lines could have been uncovered. Many teenagers struggle with eating disorders, which were left out of the show despite alarming statistics claiming that at least 30 million people suffer from eating disorders in the United States (ANAD, 2019). Nicotine has become a significant outbreak in American teenagers with the Center for Disease Control reporting that “5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 will die early from a smoking-related illness” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). And topics of bullying were also left unexplored by the show despite its constant prevalence in teenage society. Studies have even gone to show that “Bullying was a factor in 2/3 of the 37 school shootings reviewed by the US Secret Service” (Stop Bulling Now Foundation, 2019). However, including all of these topics could have been destructive to the season as a whole, and overwhelming to audiences. Given the relevancy of these topics, they are explored elsewhere in outer outlets. Euphoria was a show intended for people who had rarely seen their identities presented on mainstream media of this scale before. So, despite the few missing teenage issues that are more commonly explored today, Euphoria was able to uniquely cover some groundbreaking material for a show of its size.

           Euphoria’s characters all held distinct messages within the show. Through the use of visual clothing cues Euphoria was able to further the identification factor of these stories by visually signaling their significance. Created out of a need for representative media and birthed into a world of social unrest, Euphoria became a breakout show on HBO’s streaming platform and now has the power to unify an entire generation. In “And Salt the Earth Behind You” Rue, Jules, Kat, Maddy, Cassie, and Nate give their final send off to the show by highlighting their completed respective messages between satin finishes and starchy, pressed suits. As a result of the creative expression of the prom outfits in the finale, viewers are left with a lasting impression of self-identification closing off the season.  

References

Albakry, N. S., & Daimin, G. (2014). The visual rhetoric in public awareness print advertising toward Malaysia perceptive sociolculture design. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 155, pp. 28-33.

ANAD. (2019). Eating disorder statistics. Retrieved from www.anad.org/education-and-awareness/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/.

Aspden, P. (2011, September 24). How HBO revolutionized television. Retrieved from www.slate.com/human-interest/2011/09/hbo-how-it-revolutionized-television.html

Burke, K. (1950). A rhetoric of motives. Berkley: University of California Press.

Cassie’s prom look [Digital image]. Retrieved from www.usa-grlk5lagedl.stackpathdns.com/production/usa/images/1565025651204007-66121653_654233518429076_5605336542765432610_n.jpg?w=1900&fit=crop&crop=faces&fm=pjpg&auto=compress.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2010, June 3). CDC survey finds that 1 in 5 U.S. high school students have abused prescription drugs. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2010/r100603.htm.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). Youth and tobacco use. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/tobacco_use/index.htm.

Chen, E. (2019,  June 6). In praise of euphoria, the perfect anti-binge TV show. Retrieved from www.wired.com/story/euphoria-anti-binge/.

Chuba, K. (2019, June 5). 'Euphoria' creator on authentic trans portrayals, mining "deeply personal" history to tackle teen drug abuse. Retrieved October 21, 2019, from www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/euphoria-creator-mining-deeply-personal-history-tackle-teen-drug-abuse-1215844.

Davy, D. [@donni.davy]. (2019, August 17). Cassie’s clean slate, episode 8, euphoria [Instagram photo]. Retrevied from www.instagram.com/p/B1SOb1EJcve/?igshid=ork83uq4xhn.

Foss, S, K. (1994). A rhetorical schema for the evaluation of visual imagery. Communication Studies, 45, pp. 213-224.

Jennings, J. (2015, June 8). Jazz Jennings: the transgender teen and wannabe mermaid the internet needs (M. Ruiz, Interviewer). Cosmopolitan. Retrieved from www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/tv/a40068/jazz-jennings-internets-most-fascinating/.

Jules’s prom look [Digital image]. Retrieved from www.usa-grlk5lagedl.stackpathdns.com/production/usa/images/1565024720966459-66659243_159635475163665_1587604092859566839_n.jpg?w=1900&fit=crop&crop=faces&fm=pjpg&auto=compress.

Kat’s prom look [Digital image]. Retrieved from www.usa-grlk5lagedl.stackpathdns.com/production/usa/images/1565025241108497-67911105_2343940372514856_2058399465206680217_n.jpg?w=1900&fit=crop&crop=faces&fm=pjpg&auto=compress.

Kolodziejski, L. (2019, October 16). Pentadic criticism overview [PowerPoint Presentation]. Retrieved from handout sheet.

Kolodziejski, L. (2019, October 23). Visual rhetoric criticism overview [In-class handout]. Retrieved from handout sheet.

Maddy’s prom look [digital image]. Retrieved from www.usa-grlk5lagedl.stackpathdns.com/production/usa/images/1565024910235630-66213364_669264316881864_5463572260054969293_n.jpg?w=1900&fit=crop&crop=faces&fm=pjpg&auto=compress.

Nate’s prom look [Digital image]. Retrieved from www.data.whicdn.com/images/334716009/original.jpg

Nissen, D. (2019, June 6). 'Euphoria' creator sam levinson opens up about drug addiction at premiere. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from www.variety.com/2019/scene/news/euphoria-creator-sam-levinson-opens-up-drug-addiction-1203233881/.

Rue’s prom look [Digital image]. Retrieved from www.i.pinimg.com/originals/01/2f/1d/012f1d3dc6e81ba8e9d1ef7f4970d064.jpg

Stack, T. (2019, June 16). 'Euphoria' creator on why it's okay that some people are 'freaked out' by his controversial new show. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from www.ew.com/tv/2019/06/16/euphoria-creator-sam-levinson/.

Stop Bullying Now Foundation. (2019). School bullying affects us all. Retrieved from www.stopbullyingnowfoundation.org/main/.

Zendaya [@zendaya]. (2019, August 24). Thanks to season 1 [Instagram story post]. Retrieved from www.google.com/amo/s/amp.redit.com/r/euphoria/comments/cuyynl/from_zendayas_ig_story_who_knew_a_pair_of_chucks/.

[punkpoemprose]

Siege of Arendelle- Chapter Seven

Remember when I said this was going to be like 20 chapters long? I’m thinking it might be even more than that. Like this is just ending Act I pretty much, so I have much more planned. Also I’d like to appologize in advance as I don’t think I’ll be able to post on the regular schedule for the next few weeks due to family stuff and getting ready to go back to college.

Enough rambling. Here’s chapter 7.

Universe: Canon- Post Film Rating: T (Teen and Up)- Soon to change <3 Words: 3578

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six

           “Your majesty,” the young guard said falling to her knees in front of Elsa, “I have word from the scouts!”

           “And?” Elsa asked, proud of herself for finally regaining her composure enough for her hands to stop shaking at her sides or reaching for the bandage around her neck.

           “Southern Isles ships will enter the fjord within the hour.”

           “What else do we know?” Elsa asked, gesturing for the woman to stand before her.

           “They seem to have allied with others, but their colors are unfamiliar and we’re not sure on their numbers. They seem to outnumber our people five to one, and that is on the conservative side.”

           “Weapons?”

           “We have no idea, however we’re certain that at least three of the five ships have cannons.”

           “I’ll have to freeze the harbor,” Elsa said, her voice only wavering slightly despite the way in which anxiety chewed at her guts, “There’s no other choice.”

           She wasn’t even certain she could do it. She had been able to before, but it had been an accident and she had been so out of control that she had nearly frozen her people to death as well. She took in a steadying breath. If she could build an entire castle of ice out of thin air, she could freeze a little pre-existing water. Or at least she hoped she could.

           The woman nodded dutifully, and Elsa took strength in the power that the young woman held within her.

           “I’ll send a door guard to make the Captain aware. I’ll insist he and the troops start evacuating immediately. I need you to go to her. Tell her what’s happening. Remind the Ice master of his promise. I know I needn’t remind you what failure or being compromised in your mission will result in.”

           The young woman knelt again, “Yes my Queen.”

           Elsa reached down and placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder her voice losing it’s regal tone and softening. “Kari. You know you’re the only one I can trust with this.”

           Kari stood then, and faced her queen. Elsa looked into her determined eyes, green like spring and full of promise. She couldn’t help herself but to reach up to her face and tuck away a strand of dark hair that had managed to find its way out of a tight bun.

           And then there were lips on hers. It was not for the first time, and Elsa silently prayed that it would not be for the last. Her eyes shut and tears pooled along her lashes as strong hands held her close, reminding her that she was not alone.

           “We’ll make it through,” Kari whispered into Elsa’s ear, lips practically pressing against skin, “I’ll be back soon. Please stay safe.”

           “They don’t know I’m still alive,” Elsa replied, embracing her lover tightly in return, “Thanks to you, I suppose they’ll be in for one hell of a surprise when their ships are frozen out of shore’s reach.”

           Kari smiled at that and managed a half hearted chuckle as she pressed another kiss to Elsa’s lips.

           “Now please go. You’re starting to make me wish I could freeze time too.”

           Kari nodded and bowed slightly before departing from the room in a rush, leaving Elsa to address her other guards and inform them of the only plan she had to protect their nation from invaders.

                                                               ***

           They were both hardly dressed, but Anna wasn’t about to complain. The solstice was only a few days away and it was an unseasonably hot morning for late spring in the mountains. She wasn’t sure that she could have put on any more layers even if she had to. Her chemise and petticoat were weighty and warm enough.

           “Where are we going?” she asked, unable to help herself. She had asked him several times already, but he had refused to answer. This time, she suspected, would be no different.

           “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it?” Kristoff replied, smiling back at her, “It’s not too much further.”

           Anna sighed and continued to follow him. Patience was never one of her strong suits, but she pacified her thoughts by watching him walk in front of her, surefooted through the trees and underbrush that he had called a trail.

          He was wearing the same white undershirt and black pants that he had slept in. His shoulders were almost too broad for the fabric of the shirt, and while the rest of it fit loosely, it stretched across his shoulder blades and made her want to reach out and touch them. She much preferred it when he didn’t wear a shirt at all so that her fingers could wander across his skin. Looking at him, a smile on his face and his hair mussed, she could almost forget that his attire was the same clothing he had worn under layers of black and grey at her funeral the day before.

           It all still felt like a blur to her. She wasn’t certain whether she was grateful to have missed the service or wished that she could have seen it all. There was a morbid curiosity within her that wanted to know what words had been said for her, what they had inscribed on her stone, but Kristoff had refused to talk about it, and she hadn’t pushed him. If he wouldn’t tell her, he had his reasons. Just like she had her own reasons for not telling him that she had been found out by Mr. Olsen. He didn’t want to worry him needlessly.

           “When we get back I think I’m going to read those letters Elsa gave you for me. I wish I would have been able to see her.”

           “I gave her the ones you wrote too,” he said, turning when their path through the trees was obstructed by a large stone formation.

           “It’s not the same as being able to talk to her,” she said with a sigh, “But you know that.”

           He didn’t say anything in response, and she didn’t expect him to. He was doing the best that he could and Anna knew it. They were both doing what they had to do, and Anna wished that she could somehow fix everything that was causing them both stress. She wished that she could march back into town with him at her side and fight against those that would have her married off to a red headed Prince from a Nation they loathed.

           The thought passed when she saw that there was clearing just ahead. As the “path” widened to let out into it, Anna took advantage of the space to make her way to Kristoff’s side. She put her hand out to his and her concerns melted away when she felt his fingers lace between hers. They kept their eyes forward, but proximity was enough to allow them to communicate the relaxed ease of the moment. Worries filing their way to the back of their minds like winter clothes to the back of a summer closet.

           When they broke out of the trees, Anna smiled at her surroundings. They were surrounded by more rocky outcroppings like the one they had run up against on their way. The stone was already alive with more green than their garden or the wilderness around them. It was still early in the season, but the plants around the water seemed like they had been growing since the moment the frost thawed. She noticed most of it was moss, but there were also some flowers poking out of the rock. Directly before them was a small body of water that appeared to be fed by a small stream that flowed over the rocks.

           “A pond?”

           “A spring,” he corrected, “The water comes from the stream above and the ground below.”

           Anna didn’t need any more explanation, she was already tugging off her boots, fighting against her petticoat to get her leg up high enough to remove them. In her opinion, it was too hot to bother with removing anything else. If it weren’t for the fact that ruining her shoes wasn’t something she especially cared to have to worry about she would already be in the water.

           “Do you want so help with those?” he asked, watching her struggle with the fabric, lacking a place to sit to remove the boots on her own properly.

           “If you would,” she said with a sigh, happy to have the help. Maybe a few months before she would have struggled through on her own to do it, but her stubbornness had faded somewhat in their time living together. Or, rather, she simply had begun to pick her battles and save her stubbornness for moments that required it most.

           He shrugged in response and knelt beside her to untie and slip her shoes from her feet. The earth was cool under her feet, the mixture of stone, dirt and grass felt familiar and inviting under her freed soles. She wasn’t wearing any stockings, they had met their fate the evening before, and were currently flung somewhere across the room in the upstairs of his home. A thought passed through her mind that made her blush and made her wish that she had replaced them before departing for the morning.

          If she had worn them, he would have helped her remove them as well. She could imagine what it would feel like to have his hands slide up the side of her leg, tugging at her garters and running across her skin all the way down. His hands were rough with callouses and far stronger than her own, but he was always so ginger with her, so gentle when he cupped her face or held her close.

           When he was finished he went to work on his own boots, tugging them off quickly and setting them neatly beside her own. They looked right sitting beside each other. Hers were polished and black, much smaller than his rougher grey ones. It was the little things that brought a smile to her face. For all the hell they had both been through, at least there was some solace in the way they fit together. She found it in the way his shirts looked pinned beside her dresses on the line, in the way her trunk sat next to his, in the way her body fit perfectly next to his in bed each night.

           He caught her hand, and for the first time since she could remember it was him pulling her towards fun. She felt her heart leap when he looked at her, a soft smile on his lips that said everything she needed to hear without a word being spoken.

           You deserve a break. Come on. It’s okay. You’re safe with me.

           “I can’t swim,” she said suddenly, the thought coming to her mind and nearly paralyzing her with fear.

           No one had ever taught her to swim. That was why her drowning would have been believable to even those that knew her. She never went into water any deeper than her waist because if she went too far in, she wasn’t sure how to get back out.

           “It’s okay,” he said, “it’s not that deep.”

           His hand dropped hers and reached instead for her waist. She felt him hold onto her, strong and secure.

           He laughed lightly, “You were about to jump in all by yourself a minute ago, you didn’t know that it was shallow, so did you forget you didn’t know how to swim?”

           She sighed, “Yes. I wasn’t thinking about it. I just wanted to cool down. I still do. Please don’t tease me about it. I never learned.”

           His hands tightened on her waist, and she could feel herself being pulled even closer to him. He wasn’t laughing anymore. He looked in her eye, but there was no judgement there, rather he seemed thoughtful. He loved to tease her, but he loathed to hurt her feelings. His kindness seemed to know no bounds.

           “Would you like it if I held you?”

           She blinked. “What?”

           “Would you like it if I held you?” he repeated, his cheeks going red, “It’s not that deep. I don’t think it’s over your head even at the deepest part, but I’ll onto you until you’re ready if you want.”

           Her cheeks were on fire. She didn’t want to seem like she was afraid. She hated to look childish to him when she wanted to appear as just the opposite in his eyes, but the temptation to be in his arms was great, and she couldn’t deny the part of her that begged to be so close to him again.

           “I think I would, but I should probably get rid of all of this extra fabric,” she said gesturing down to her petticoat, “Are you going to promise not to look again?”

           He smiled down at her, “If you want me to I can try, but right now it’s hard to look away.”

           She smiled at him in return. “Then I just won’t ask you to.”

           She reached back to unbutton the back of her petticoat, but his hands were already there, resting carefully over the button.

           “May I?”

           She nodded, not trusting her voice not to crack or come out overly enthusiastically in response. Of course, she wanted him to remove her petticoat. The very un-princess-like thoughts in her head wanted him to remove much more than that.

          His hands worked at the buttons on the back of the fabric. She was thankful that she had only worn one of the several she had the day before, because it meant that she could feel his hands on her the whole time he worked at the buttons and tugged on the fabric.

          She relaxed even more into his touch, their bodies pressed close together as he finally managed to free her from the fabric entirely. It fell to the ground and Anna felt both blessedly free and embarrassingly bare before him. She was still covered from the tops of her knees to the top of her chest, but even her nightgown was less revealing. Somehow wearing only her shift was both more and less intimate than it had been when she had climbed into bed wearing little more. In the darkness she could hide, but here, in only a thin layer of fabric in the light of the morning she felt embarrassed of herself.

          “Kris,” she said softly, the shortened version of his name slipping out as he pulled her up and into his arms. She rested her head against his shoulder and relaxed into her place in his arms.

          “Is this alright or should I put you back down?” He asked before even taking a step towards the water. “It’s okay if you change your mind.”

          “No, this… this is good. You don’t have to ask me all the time. I’ll tell you to stop if I want you to. I trust you.”

           She could see a hint of a smile play on his lips as he adjusted his hold on her and pulled her closer. His hands gripped tighter on the side of her knee and back when he walked towards the water. The comforting pressure acting as a reminder that he would not let her go, that her confidence in him was not misplaced.

           When the water touched Anna’s foot, she jumped slightly. The difference in temperature between the air and the water was stark, and her body’s reaction to the shock started in her toes and ran straight through her body until she was left cringing at the sensation in her toes.

           “Are you alright?”

           There was something like a laugh behind his words. He knew why she had jumped, and she was silently damning him for not doing the same. Sometimes it was as if he were invulnerable to just about everything the world could throw at him. She had not been lucky enough to receive the same gift.

           “It’s cold!”

           The half laugh turned into a full-blown chuckle. It made her skin feel even hotter as the familiarity of his reaction put her into a state somewhere between embarrassment and comfort. It felt almost as strange as the hot and cold on her skin as he continued to walk deeper and deeper into the water. She had to admit the embarrassment felt far more pleasant.

           She gasped again as the icy water went past her toes, up her foot, and around her ankle. She felt a momentary jolt of panic jump from her brain to her heart and back again, but the fear was quieted by the warm steady hands that supported her body and guided her into the water.

           “You’ll get used to it. Just wait a minute, you’ll feel better then.”

           It reminded her of the first bath she had taken in his home. He had hidden himself away in the stables while she had fixed it for herself. Ultimately, she had mixed too much cold water and not enough hot creating a similar experience to the one she currently felt. She had gotten used to it, but it didn’t mean she had enjoyed it. It had been cold weather then, she reminded herself, and the heat of the air in the late spring day gave the promise of not feeling cold for hours after her dip. And so, she trusted his words. They were logically sound, and even better, he’d never given her cause not to.

           Soon the water covered the arms holding her aloft, and with them the vast majority of her body. She could feel the goosebumps rising across her skin, and she rapidly became aware of what was becoming of her white shift as it contacted the water.

           By the time the transparency became fully evident to her, she was soaked from the waist down, and he had also taken note of the change. Despite the chill of the water around them, a chill that was quickly becoming comfortable, their cheeks were hot.

           “I…is this still alright?”

           The water around them shimmered in the sunlight, and the flowers growing on the rocks perfumed the air. Anna knew the right thing to do would be to take advantage of his gentlemanly nature and ask him to bring her to shore before he caught a good look at her, but doing the right thing was something she had the luxury to ignore for the moment.

           She hummed and leaned up, kissing him gently, and quickly breaking the kiss to laugh when she felt his arms nearly drop her from the shock.

           “I told you to stop asking...This is very alright.”

           He gave her a sheepish smile in return before returning the kiss. His lips were gentle against hers, tentative and taking only as much as she would give. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and she was quick to deepen the kiss.

           Soon she was moving, shifting out of his arms and allowing herself to stand on her own two feet in the water. She sucked in a breath as the water went from covering her bottom to being above her breasts, but he was still holding onto her, and a warm chuckle brought her back to the much more important concern of kissing until they were both breathless.

           His hands were on her waist, and hers were on his shoulders. She felt free, buoyant in the water despite his steadying hands. It was a sensation of ease the likes of which she had never felt to be wrapped in cold water and the embrace of the man she loved.

           Kristoff broke the kiss, leaving her breathless and looking up at him in a mixture of confusion and anticipation.

           “Do you remember when we fought?” he asked, his tone serious, but his eyes full of love as he faced her.

           Anna blinked. She wasn’t sure what she had expected him to say, but it hadn’t been that. Unsure of where he could be going, she nodded in affirmation. Kristoff wouldn’t bring it up unless it was something that they needed to talk about. He wasn’t one to dwell in the past when it was unnecessary.

           “I was angry because I spent a whole month terrified that I had lost you. I was angry because I love you and all I wanted was this.”

           She didn’t know what to say, but the words seemed to find their way past her lips on their own accord.

           “You always have been and always will be my first choice,” her voice was barely a whisper, “I love you. I always have. I always will.”

           He kissed her again, his hands finding their way into the wet tangle of brown hair that she was still getting used to. Her body was pressed tight to his, and his kisses traveled to her neck and shoulders with a need he so rarely showed.

           She moaned out softly when he stopped kissing her. She opened her eyes and gave him a look of mock annoyance that was mostly tainted by the smile she was unable to hide away. The loss of his lips was almost too much to bear when her body was yearning for more of him than he had ever shared.

          His hand left her hair to cup her cheek. His smile was warm as he tucked a lock of wavy damp hair behind her ear.

          “You are my forever.”

[notarelationship]

Clinging to This Hating Game 2/?

For the @prompt-a-klainefic blog’s 2017 Reverse Bang

Link to the art by @datshitrandom

the prompt:

Kurt and Blaine couldn’t stand each other in high school, maybe one was a jock/cheerleader and the other a nerd/glee clubber. Or they were bitter rivals for competition solos if they were both in glee club. Now they both live in NY and their friends set them up on a blind date, not knowing they went to the same high school.

High School AU, Cheerio!Kurt, Jock!Blaine Rating: Explicit Warnings:  some bullying and homophobic language, teenage sex Word Count: ~4500 (this chapter)

Happy Birthday!! and thanks to my superbeta @mshoneysucklepink. I think I rewrote this chapter 3 times so she had her work cut out for her.

Everything wonky is my fault.

AO3 link chapter 2

tumblr chapter 1

-

Chapter 2

Kurt almost didn’t think about it at all.

Senior year started in less than a week, and Cheerios practice had started the week before and he had plenty of things to think about instead. He did. He didn’t have time to waste on thoughts of fumbling hands and pretty eyes and orgasms shared with anyone. He didn’t.

--

“Ready for your final year of academic domination?” Quinn asked slipping her arm through his as they walked through the parking lot, Santana and Brittany stepped right in line with them. Kurt grinned.

“As long as Harriet Gomez doesn’t pull off enough extra credit to make up for tanking her Chemistry final last year, I think I’ve got it nailed down.”

“Just so you don’t forget -”

“That I wouldn’t be in this position if you hadn’t blown your sophomore year. Of course Quinn, you’d never let me.”

That first morning went more or less as usual, with syllabi and class behavior requirements handed out and gone over with little attention paid by the students. By the time Kurt’s lunch period arrived his book bag was weighed down by an advanced Calculus textbook, a copy of The Invisible Man, an exam schedule for AP World History and a request to bring a box of tissues from each teacher.

Kurt loaded his tray with the few healthy items he could find and then sat at his regular table in the cafeteria, where Quinn, Santana and Brittany were already seated.

“Anyone see the new kid yet?”

“There’s a new kid?” Kurt wasn’t really that interested in new students at this point. No one was going to challenge his status in the Cheerios, not this year, and it was highly doubtful that someone could transfer in now and upset his run at valedictorian. In a year he’d be out of McKinley and out of Ohio and wouldn’t have to think about any of these people ever again.

“Yeah, apparently some brainy rich-kid.”

“New guy?” Quinn looked interested.

“Focus Quinn.” Kurt pointed his spoon at her. “You are better than all of these losers.” Kurt held up a curled pinky finger and Quinn hooked her own around it in solidarity. He pulled the top off his yogurt and turned back to Santana. “How brainy?”

Santana clicked her tongue. “Valedictorian-level brainy, Elf-Lord.”

“I thought transfer students couldn’t qualify for valedictorian at this point?”

“Britt says that she heard Coach Sylvester fighting about it with Figgins and Coach Beiste in the office. Apparently he used to be at some snooty private school and his parents are insisting he be given consideration for the top spot or they are going to send him somewhere else, so they’re considering it.”

“And he’s a football star,” Brittany said. “They think college scouts will come to see him play and maybe some of the other boys will get offered spots too.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. “That explains it.”

“I don’t see anyone new.” Kurt looked around the cafeteria, landing on the football table. “Do we know what his name is?”

“Blaine something.” Brittany said. They all looked at her. “What? I was filing student arrest reports in the office when they were talking about him.”

Kurt looked at his yogurt. It wasn’t possible, was it? He steadied himself and turned to look at Brittany. “Blaine?”

“Someone you know?” Quinn asked.

“No.” Kurt schooled his face back into his everyday indifference and shrugged. It was a coincidence. It had to be. Party-Blaine had said he was an OSU sophomore. And he was way too small to be a football player, if the goons at McKinley were an accurate example of the type. He popped a spoonful of yogurt into his mouth. “I thought Blaine was a girls name.”

--

Apparently the new kid’s parents got what they wanted from the school administration, because when Kurt walked into glee club for his final period of the day there was a new kid standing at the front of the class listening to Rachel Berry suggest that there was no possible way he could keep up with her on Broadway standards and proposition him for duets in nearly the same breath.

Kurt did a double take, then looked deliberately at his regular seat at the back of the risers and marched there. His hair was curlier, and he was wearing loose jeans, a McKinley high football t-shirt that still had the fold lines running down the sides, and worn sneakers - but Kurt was sure. It was the same Blaine from the summer. Blaine who was apparently not an OSU sophomore. Blaine who had seen him with his pants down. Blaine who had jerked him off until he came. The first, and only, boy to ever touch him like that.

They couldn’t know each other, and Kurt definitely did not want to have to explain to anyone how they did. Maybe Blaine wouldn’t recognize him and he wouldn’t even have to acknowledge it. Kurt calmly took his seat near the back with Quinn and the girls as everyone got ready to watch the new recruits, but his stomach was twisting into knots.

There were a half dozen new kids there to audition, including Blaine, and Mr. Schuester had them all sitting in the front row. They went down the line, and the first three weren’t bad. Kurt wouldn’t throw too much of a fit if they were added to the group. Clearly none of them were going to challenge him for competition solos. He knew he wouldn’t be the main soloist, Mr. Schuester would probably pick Finn for that, but now that he was a senior he was definitely going to get more opportunities to sing in competition.

Then Blaine got up in front of the class. Kurt had to admit that in the light of day he was still cute. He had a sweet, enthusiastic smile, and while Kurt thought the more gelled look he’d sported over the summer gave off a more sophisticated image, his short hair was neat enough.

Then Blaine opened his mouth.

His audition song was “Put on a Happy Face,” and he killed it. The minute he started singing he was fully into the song, performing, flirting, charming everyone in the room, even Brad - their piano player, and he hated everyone. He even pulled a very willing Rachel out of her seat and danced around her as he finished the song.

Kurt deflated. There was no way he could compete with that, even with his unique vocal talents. Blaine was exactly the lead male vocal they never quite had. Finn and Puck could hold their own, and his own vocals always turned heads and ears in competition, but even in the tiny McKinley High choir room Kurt could tell. Blaine was an expert showman.

“Blaine that was fantastic!” Mr. Schuester gushed as everyone applauded. “I think your addition will really open up a lot of possibilities for the group this year.”

Blaine smiled at Mr. Schuester, clearly soaking up the praise from the teacher as well as the other members of the glee club, who were all gathered around him slapping him on the back and touching him. Kurt sat back in his chair and scowled, Quinn and Santana flanking him on either side.

“No love for the new kid, Hummel?” Santana asked.

“He’s a showboat. And he’s going to steal all my parts.”

--

The next day Kurt arrived late to calculus to find Blaine already filling one of the extra seats - thankfully across the room from where Kurt sat. Blaine was also in his English class and his gym class, and in his afternoon biology class as well as glee club. He never so much as glanced at Kurt, so maybe Blaine really didn’t recognize him. Kurt supposed he did look different; he wore his Cheerios uniform and his hair was styled differently.

That was probably a good thing. Kurt really didn’t want anyone to know what had happened. He hadn’t even told Quinn.

Later, in the locker room after Cheerios practice, any hope that Blaine hadn’t recognized him disappeared.

“So I guess you meant you’re going to be at NYU next year?”

Kurt grimaced and turned to look at Blaine.

“This isn’t exactly your sophomore year at OSU,” Kurt snapped. “We both lied. So? It’s not like it matters to anyone.” Blaine nodded once, but looked at the lockers instead of Kurt’s face. Kurt could only imagine one thing Blaine would be worried about. He went back to dressing himself. “Don’t worry, I won’t out you.”

Blaine shrugged and looked surprised. “My teammates know I’m gay. It’s not a secret.”

Kurt turned to look at Blaine, who was looking at him too, now. “The football team knows you’re gay?”

“Sure.”

“And they didn’t beat the crap out of you and throw you in a dumpster?”

Blaine’s face darkened, but he shook his head. “No, should they have?”

“Well lucky you.” Kurt said sourly, and turned back to his locker. He really didn’t feel like having to explain to Blaine how things were at McKinley. He’d figure out what neanderthals he was playing with soon enough. Blaine stood there, not really watching as Kurt pulled on his shirt - post practice he could wear his own clothes - but he didn’t say anything. “Did you need something else?” Kurt asked. He wanted out of this conversation.

Blaine looked like he was about to say something, but the rest of the football team started to stagger in from practice, and he snapped his mouth shut. Kurt grabbed his assortment of hair product out of his locker.

“Excuse me, I have places to be.” Blaine stepped aside so Kurt could get to the communal mirrors. As he did his hair he watched Blaine’s interactions with the rest of the team. They didn’t flinch, didn’t call him names, didn’t insist he leave the locker room before they would get into the shower.

Instead they joked around, talked about football and what they were doing on the weekend. Kurt wasn’t trying to listen.

“So I bet gay dudes get a lot of dick in an all boys school, huh?” It was Puck. Kurt rushed out of the locker room without waiting to hear the answer to that question.

--

“I don’t know, I think he’s kinda cute,” Quinn said a few days later at lunch.

“Keep it in your pants Quincy, word on the street is that he’d prefer Little Miss Hummel here,” Santana answered.

“Really? Kurt you should get to know him,” Quinn suggested. “Maybe he can help you with your goal of actually having sex before you leave high school.”

Kurt’s insides chilled. If only she knew. Somehow he managed to convince his outsides to make a disgusted face. “Absolutely not. Not my type.”

“Don't be ridiculous Hummel, given your options in this high school hell pit your type should be gay and breathing,” Santana said. “Beggars can’t be picky assholes.”

“I don’t think that’s how it goes, Santana,” Brittany whispered.

“No, I think it is, sweetie,” Santana squeezed Brittany’s arm and smiled.

Kurt glared at Santana. “You're disgusting.”

“I'm just saying Kurt. Even I can tell that's a fine piece of man ass.” Santana turned her body around as if trying to catch a glimpse of said ass. “Well, boy ass.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “I'll stick with no thanks.”

“This is why unicorns are extinct,” Brittany observed.

--

For the next week Kurt managed to avoid most interactions with Blaine. He went about his day without having to speak to him, despite their numerous shared classes, and Mr. Schuester hadn’t managed to pair them up for any insane weekly lesson yet (of course the fact that Rachel would barely let Blaine out of her sight probably helped Kurt in this area). They were occasionally in the locker room at the same time, but since most of the guys tolerated rather than accepted Kurt in that space he easily avoided any interaction there.

They even managed to avoid each other after the first football game, since it was at Lima Central and the Cheerios traveled separate from the football team - Coach Sue preferred as little fraternization between the two groups as possible. Luckily the novelty of dating football players seemed to wear off for most Cheerios after only a couple of months of knowing them. Kurt didn’t exactly have first hand experience in that area.

But their second game was at McKinley, and Kurt couldn't avoid being in the locker room with the football team entirely.

Sue had kept them on the sideline after the game to chew them out about a mistake no one could have noticed, so Kurt was late getting into the shower and was just getting out, a towel wrapped around his waist, when the football team came in.

“What are you doing here princess? You're supposed to be dressed by the time we get in here.” It was Dave Karofsky.

“Hoping you’ll get a peek?” Kurt drawled and walked away in the direction of his locker.

“You wish.”

“Is that really the best you can do?” Kurt taunted. He went about his usual routine, but dressing quickly and keeping one ear open for trouble anyway. “Maybe you hit your head harder than you thought tonight.”

“Shut up, fruitcake.” It was Karofsky’s lackey, Azimio.

“What did you say?” Blaine had come from around the other side of the bank of lockers opposite where Kurt was standing. He was obviously talking to Azimio.

Kurt frowned. He didn’t need Blaine to get involved.

“Whatever,” Kurt said, turning back to his locker. He just wanted Blaine to go away. “Between the two of them they're about as clever as a post-it note and about as dangerous.” Kurt shouldered his bag and shut his locker.

“Apologize.” Blaine was still talking to Azimio, but a few guys had come over to see what the noise was about.

Now Kurt was annoyed. “I don't need your help,” he said to Blaine. Blaine just stared at him, his mouth a tight line. “I've been dealing with this for years. You just have to ignore them. They’re like gnats.”

“No one should have to deal with it.” Blaine looked pained. Kurt felt a flash of sympathy for the boy, but he let it pass.

“I'm sure your fancy prep school had all sorts of progressive policies,” Kurt said with disdain. “None of that applies here.” They were starting to draw a crowd and Kurt wanted to get out of there before he said something he’d regret.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Blaine turned and was facing Kurt now, the other boys’ insults apparently forgotten.

Kurt tried not to let his eyes wander. Blaine still had on his pads and pants, but was offensively shirtless. There was more hair on his chest than Kurt remembered.

“It means that out here no one is going to be nice to you just because some school administrator told them they have to - and, newsflash, no administrator in this school is even going to go that far. And that Azimio is an animal.” Kurt started to walk away, but turned back to Blaine. “And I've been dealing with this forever,” he added. “I don't need your help.” Kurt stormed out of the locker room, leaving Blaine standing with his mouth open, gawking with the rest of the football team.

--

After their near-altercation in the locker room Blaine seemed to be taking just as much care to avoid Kurt as Kurt did avoiding Blaine. They didn’t have to interact at all outside of glee club and they didn’t. Even football games provided enough other distractions that they could simply avoid talking to each other.

Kurt did notice that Blaine had become friends with Tina Cohen-Chang from glee club and her boyfriend Mike Chang. They were nice enough people, Kurt supposed, but he didn’t really know them outside of glee. They were kind of nerdy.

They all spent time with another kid named Beckham Lee, another senior Kurt had in a few classes over the years. Kurt didn’t know Beckham that well though, since he wasn’t in glee club or a Cheerio, or on the football team, but Kurt had always had a sneaking suspicion he might be gay too. The fact that Beckham was hanging out with Blaine so much just confirmed it in Kurt’s mind. And that was fine, if he wanted to put up with Blaine he was welcome to him. Kurt did have to give Beckham’s parent’s props though for being bold enough to name their son after a Spice Girl.

One afternoon in glee Mr. Schuester tried to pair everyone up by pulling names out of a bag, Project Runway style. Kurt was not at all shocked that his name was pulled to pair with Blaine, that was just how his year was going. He could be a team player, though. He needed as many things on his transcript as possible if he wanted to get into NYADA and move to New York, and the more they all worked together the better they would be and the better chance they’d have to move past Regionals.. . But he didn’t need to make it easy on Blaine, so he didn’t hide his irritation at the announcement.

“Mr. Schue can I sing with someone else?” It was Blaine.

Mr. Schue looked around at the class. “Everyone’s already paired up Blaine. Is there some reason you don’t want to sing with Kurt?” Blaine hadn’t turned around from his seat in the front to look at Kurt, but Kurt had frozen in his spot on the riser.

“I really don’t think our voices work that well together,” Blaine answered. Kurt knew that was a lie, the few times they’d had to sing together in group numbers they had sounded great. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared daggers at the back of Blaine’s head.

“I can sing with anyone, Mr. Schue,” Kurt said. Blaine ignored him.

“I would be happy to work with Blaine, Mr. Schue,” Rachel piped up, raising her hand as she spoke. “After all, it’s very likely we’ll be paired together at Sectionals which is just a month away, so we should take some extra time and learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses.” She threw on a perky grin almost as an afterthought and Kurt shook his head.

“Mr. Schue, I can sing with Kurt.” Mercedes had been paired with Rachel, and Kurt knew she could barely tolerate Rachel’s drama on a good day. “We sound great together.” She turned and winked at Kurt.

Kurt always liked Mercedes, even though they didn’t spend much time together outside of glee club. He was too busy with the Cheerios and keeping his grade point above a 4.1 for much extra socializing. But Mercedes could bring the vocal skills.

Mr. Schuester looked at the class with his usual vaguely confused expression, and clapped his hands together. “Okay great! Now that’s settled everyone get with your partner and we’ll start in ten minutes.”

--

Along with preparing for Sectionals, October brought on homecoming activities for the school, and the pending announcement for the school musical.

Somehow, the addition of Blaine to the football team had actually made the team better, which lead to them winning more games than they lost for the first time in years. Everyone in the school and most of the residents of Lima were all of a sudden excited about the homecoming festivities. That meant more football practice, more cheerleading practice, every club and team making floats for the parade, and generally excited mayhem throughout the school. Kurt had to admit that every once in awhile he even felt a little something that might have been fondness for his school. And maybe his classmates. Maybe.

In the middle of this fresh wave of school spirit, Kurt was eagerly awaiting Mr. Schuester’s announcement of which musical they were going to put on this year. Auditions were open to the entire school, but Kurt was sure that this year - being a senior, he would finally have a decent chance at a lead part.

It was the Monday of homecoming week and they were all gathered in the choir room waiting for Mr. Schuester to come in and break the news.

“Maybe it will be Funny Girl,” Rachel sighed.

“You always think it’s going to be Funny Girl, Rachel,” Tina reminded her.

“You never know Tina. It always pays to have a positive outlook.” Rachel wiggled primly in her seat.

“Little Shop of Horrors could be fun,” Mike suggested. “Or Anything Goes?”

Finn looked uncomfortable. “Isn’t there a lot of dancing in that?”

“Everybody ready?” Mr. Schuester came into the class, rubbing his hands together. Everyone was ready. “I had a bunch of great suggestions for the musical this year, and as you know we have to get the selection approved by the school board now.”

“Really? Why?” Blaine asked from his spot in the front row. The whole class moaned.

“Four words,” said Puck. He raised his hands in front of him, punctuating every word. “Rocky. Horror. Picture. Show.”

“Again I ask, really? You guys did Rocky Horror in a high school? In this high school?” Blaine’s mouth hung open just a bit in astonishment.

“All right, all right, enough of that everyone.” Mr. Schuester interrupted. “I would actually like to thank Blaine for suggesting this year’s musical.”

Kurt held his breath. He may have no time for the boy, but he had to grudgingly admit that he had decent taste in music, at least from what Kurt had seen in school.

“You all remember that Blaine auditioned with a song from Bye Bye Birdie, and I thought that would be a great one for us to try, so I put it on the short list that was submitted to the board, and they approved it! Isn’t that great?”

Everyone murmured, more or less happy with the selection. Kurt could feel his stomach tense up as he counted the members of the glee club against the list in his head of the major parts in the musical. There weren’t enough parts.

“Mr. Schue, if I may?” Kurt raised his hand, getting his teacher’s attention. “There aren’t enough parts in that for all of us.” He swallowed hard. There were probably enough girls parts, but not nearly enough guy parts. And only one Kurt thought he could shine in.

“I think we can make it work. Maybe we’ll double up if it makes sense.” No one liked that idea, if the rumble of random complaints that bubbled through the room meant anything.

Kurt didn’t want to double up, he wanted to play Albert. He glared at the back of Blaine’s head, hoping he might break a leg at the homecoming game.

--

The rest of the week was a blur. Between Cheerios practice (which had been doubled for Homecoming) and picking and rehearsing a song for his Bye Bye Birdie audition Kurt was exhausted almost to hallucination. To top it off two of his teachers insisted on assigning homework projects, and Kurt was not giving up his shot at Valedictorian for anything.

So he gave up sleep instead. He took all his meals in his room, which his dad wasn’t happy about, although between Kurt’s and Finn’s various obligations Burt had adjusted to the erratic nature of meal times so he left Kurt alone. Kurt contemplated giving up eating altogether, but between all the various things he had going on he didn’t want to collapse on the field on Friday. So he grudgingly stuck to his meal plan.

--

Blaine ran for seven touchdowns and caught another three in the end zone in the kind of blowout that only ever happened in high school football games in the Midwest.

“Fuck yeah Anderson!”

“WOOO MCKINLEY!”

“TI-TANS! TI-TANS! TI-TANS”

The locker room after the game was an orgy of sweaty football players and bubbly contraband. Tragically, as far as Kurt was concerned, that did not mean champagne - not even the cheap bubbles from the Rite-Aid that were really only good for pouring over your teammate’s head. Coach Beiste had let them have a case of beer so long as they promised to spray it all over each other and not drink it. Kurt often wondered if he were the only sane person in Ohio.

“Hey man, I couldn't have done it without the great blocks,” Blaine protested through the congratulations of his teammates. “And Finn!” Blaine slapped Finn on the arm as everyone tried to crowd into Blaine's space to congratulate him and themselves. “Great play-calling man.”

Kurt rolled his eyes at his locker, rows away from the celebration. The jerk scored 60 points and he wouldn't even take credit for it. Kurt didn't understand that at all. He'd kill for that kind of recognition from anyone, even his peers.

Mike’s parents were conveniently out of town visiting relatives for a week, so the afterparty was going to be at his house. Kurt showered quickly and dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a tank top. He’d brought a change of clothes with him for the party, and was meeting Quinn, Santana and Brittany in the girls bathroom outside of the choir room so they could all get ready together.

He had nearly escaped the boy’s locker room when Finn stopped him with a large paw on his shoulder.

“You coming to the party little brother?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “I am not your little brother Finn. And of course I’ll be at the party. Just going to get ready.”

“You can’t get ready in the locker room like the rest of us?” Blaine snarked as he walked past them both.

“Is this any of your business?” Kurt clapped back.

Blaine held his hands up in front of him and backed away without answering. He was really starting to get on Kurt’s nerves.

“Are you going to need a ride home later?” Kurt turned and asked Finn. “I’m the designated driver tonight so I don’t want to leave without you if you need a lift.”

“Yeah thanks bro, don’t leave without me.” Kurt nodded and left the locker room.

Standing in the half darkened hallway, leaning against the wall of lockers was Beckham Lee, the kid who’d been hanging out with Blaine. He was staring at his phone and startled when the locker room door slammed behind Kurt.

“Hi Beck,” Kurt said. He tried not to smirk.

“Hey Kurt. Are you going to the party?”

Kurt nodded. He had a pretty good idea what Beckham was doing there. “Are you waiting for someone?”

Beckham blushed. “Yeah, um, Blaine said I could get a lift with him.”

“Closet getting a little stifling?” It was out of Kurt’s mouth before he could stop it.

Beckham turned even redder, but he didn’t say anything.

Kurt looked at the other boy for a long moment, and a wave of sympathy rushed through him forcing him to bite back the next snarky thing that wanted to escape.

“Well I hope he’s worth it,” he said instead, then turned to walk away.

Kurt went off to find his girls, regretting volunteering to stay sober tonight. All of a sudden he could really use a drink.

[prolapsingintothemaelstrom]

Renegade (pt. 1)

Another wolf-finds-his-mate story, but I kicked it up a notch and created a whole new world around it.

Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader

Genre: Supernatural (EXO as wolves, but more species involved in the storyline)

Word count: 4540 words

Warning: curse-words and sex references

ATTENTION! Read the prologue here: Prologue This is crucial to be able to follow the storyline as it develops, even in future chapters. Things might not make sense otherwise.

Part 1

Chanyeol took another sip from his coffee whilst he studied the markings in the syllabus in front of him and cliqued his tongue as he set down the cup on the desk. Something was wrong with the coffee since five minutes ago. It tasted different, which was odd, considering it was still the same cup he drank from ten minutes ago. He lifted his nose in the air, staring at the door that led to the lecture hall where he would be giving the first lecture of Introduction to neuroscience.

Whilst last year he only gave lectures of Neuroscience and behaviour, he was now allowed to teach the Introduction to neuroscience lecture as well. Not that that could be described as a gift. Temporary lecturers like himself were expected to accept teaching assignments just weeks before term started because all material was pre-prepared, which made the job even harder as he had to effortlessly assimilate the work of another mind. He was not allowed to make any changes to the material, not even to the messy PowerPoints he had issues with understanding himself. Why was he doing this again, he wandered off in his mind, then nodding as he remembered how he liked to shower himself with gifts from time to time that were way too expensive. His parents were still paying for the PhD program, but the pocket money he had to earn for himself.

It’s that smell, he thought looking back and forth between the door to the lecture hall and his coffee. It was that weird scent that appeared out of nowhere five minutes ago, which made his coffee taste bad. Not that it was a bad scent, but it was a very mysterious scent. So mysterious he could not even identify its origin. Was it from a human? An animal? Was it from an object? Was it a gas? He scratched his head, messing up his hair slightly, and stood up. He paced around the back-office from the lecture hall a few times, regularly staring at the door. He really wanted to know where the scent came from, but he was scared that once he’d start looking, he would not be able to stop looking until he had an answer; that would be a catastrophe considering his smell range was much larger than just the lecture hall he would be teaching in within a few minutes. He did not want to end up with his nose in one of the other Professor’s lectures while he was supposed to lecture another.  

“Two minutes”, he read his golden Rolex and his stress levels rose a little, hoping the scent would be less apparent in the lecture hall. He lifted his smartphone out of his pocket, using the front camera to check himself. Using his fingers, he combed his hair back into place and then let out a sigh remembering the awful PowerPoint he would be using today. Summer holidays really did a number on him, allowing him to forget the horrors of being a temporary lecturer. Now he was left with the feeling he had to get used to it again all over.

As he opened the door to the lecture hall and looked at the students anticipating their very first college lecture -he made no mistake, he was certain he had not instructed his brain to do so-, his eyes diverted into one girl’s direction. She was mesmerizingly beautiful. Very short after, maybe only a nanosecond later, the same girl looked into his direction and when her eyes landed on his, the mystery of the scent was solved. It hit him hard. The moment their eyes locked, her scent transformed into an exquisite perfume that could only be described as out-of-this-world divine and he swore it to be the reason his heart started racing and he felt red roses growing onto the lobes of his brain, leaving him completely numb. There was no denying it, Chanyeol had found his mate, and she was one of his students.

“Hah?”, the girl was the first one to break eye contact, turning towards her female friend that had almost scolded her for being so absent-minded as she discussed her eternal boyfriend problems, which were, quickly summarized, that she had none.

“Ya, (y/n), what are you spacing out on?!”, She scolded and with that, Chanyeol realised that not only his eyes, but also his ears, had automatically placed their focus onto her as he was listening into their conversation.

“Nothing. Just that the lecturer’s arrived”. Gosh what a beautiful voice, Chanyeol thought as he heard her slightly low-pitched, husky and breathy voice. With her head, (y/n) pointed towards Chanyeol that stood at the side of the teaching stage, most students not even aware of his presence as they were all pre-occupied with their smartphones.

“Oh. Wow. I’m enjoying this course already. That guy is HOT”. A part of Chanyeol anticipated (y/n)’s reaction to that comment, but he was taken aback when all she did was pick up her pencil and wrote something down instead, shoving the written text towards her female friend thereafter.

“Why?” Her friend looked confused after she read the piece of text. (y/n) pulled the notepad back to her, writing down another sentence or two, before pushing it on her friend’s desk again. The situation left Chanyeol confused.

“OMO!” Her friend said shocked as she read whatever she had written down this time.

“Quiet!” She shushed her and both of them stopped talking. Chanyeol noticed how (y/n) tried to divert her gaze elsewhere but him, although failed at several times, whilst her friend stared at him continuously. From the information he could gather just from her scent, he identified (y/n) a simple human, or should fate have a surprise in store for him, a witch. Other species all had their own particular scent he could not spot on her.

“Shit”, he cursed under his breath, as he felt his blood flow towards places he really did not wish for it to go now. His arousal levels were skyrocketing, one of the, at least in this case, disadvantages the peak of mating season brought with and he knew he had to move before it became obvious for all students to see through the dress pants of his blue suit. He quickly marched forward towards his teaching desk, hiding himself behind it and earning some of the other student’s attention in the process.

Relieved he was covered, another set of waves from her scent hit him. She was sitting somewhere in front of him, in the middle of the lecture hall. He wished he could just chop off his own nose right now, because not only he, but also she, was becoming aroused and he could not ignore the fragrance of her arousal. The first image that crossed his mind was how he dragged her over to the desk and fucked her right there. With that thought coming from a virgin who hadn’t even had his first kiss -he had been saving it for his mate-, one could imagine the internal battle he was fighting to stay behind his desk like a good boy.

Typical. He just had to find her during the peak of mating season. Mating season, a time period when procreation is at its highest for wolves during the year. For non-supernatural wolves, it occurs during winter so their pups would all be born at the end of spring or the beginning of summer. It was different for supernatural wolves like Chanyeol; half human, half wolf. For them, it occurs during summertime, which could not be more than natural as their pregnancies took three seasons compared to one for the non-supernatural wolves. For wolves, be them supernatural or not, mating season is a complete season in which gradually their arousal levels climbed every day. The peak was in its last few weeks.

It has always been a bit of a mystery as to why non-wolf mates were also affected with feelings of arousal during mating season. Many blame it on the invisible link between the destined mates, but no real evidence ever supported that theory; it wasn’t an easy subject to research on. Magic, unlike chemistry or biology, isn’t an exact science.

Chanyeol cleared his throat, steadying himself with one hand on the desk as he picked up the microphone. This was going to be one hell of an hour and a half.

“Hi”. Really, Chanyeol? Hi? He thought to himself; hold your shit together. He gave it another shot. “Good morning. My name is Park Chanyeol and I will be your lecturer this term for this course”. Somehow, more than half of his usual introduction got lost by the time he uttered the words. At the very least, he should have applauded himself for making it sound that self-confident despite the situation.

Whilst the students were putting away their smartphones in easy-to-reach locations, Chanyeol’s attention was completely on (y/n). He had scented her arousal levels magnify while he spoke. He chuckled thinking how she must’ve really liked his deep voice.

During the first lecture of the year, he’d usually enjoy how ninety percent of college students in his lecture would pay attention to him. Not that his teaching was bad –it was the same for all other colleagues-, but after a few weeks of college, students exponentially stop paying attention to the lecturer. In the end, most lecturers would be left with a group of only six to eight people that would always pay attention them.

“This is a course designed to introduce you to the mammalian nervous system, with emphasis on the structure and function of the human brain”. Assistant Professor Park, he heard those three words being moaned loudly by (y/n) in the back of his head, very aroused, very rejoiced as if she just reached her high. Chanyeol shook his head, trying to wave away the thoughts of her reaching her climax caused by his thrusts, trying to wave away whatever was going on in Chanyeoyeoland. “We will be discussing a variety of topics in this course such as the function of nerve cells, sensory systems, control of movement, learning and memory and diseases of the brain”.

Phieuw, Chanyeol thought, another step closer to the end of the lecture. Introducing himself: done. Introducing the course: done. Next up: Discussing more elaborately the content. This was the Introduction lecture, after all. In his mind, Chanyeol had already split up the entire course in bits and pieces so he could count down till the end of it. Never before had he wanted to leave that fast, not even back when he was a college student himself. Standing there, aroused, finding his mate he couldn’t approach right in front of him, … Life didn’t seem very generous to him in that moment.

But on the other side, he refused to leave. He refused to separate from his newly found mate. Having sought for her his entire life, he was too scared to lose her out of his sight. He was scared that if she disappeared from his irises, she would disappear for a long time again. He felt jealous about his friends, who could just walk up to their mate and have a chat. His friends that, after having had a short conversation with their mate, could ask her out, because there was a connection and chances that she’d refuse them were low. But this was different. (y/n) was his student. Whether it felt right or wrong, the entire idea still sounded awfully wrong and any girl who was in her right mind would refuse his request.

“We will begin with the study of nerve cells”. A part of him liked how her arousal levels magnified the way they did when he spoke, despite the entire arousal thing making it insufferable for him too. “Their structure, the propagation of nerve impulses and transfer –”, Chanyeol couldn’t believe his eyes and stopped mid-sentence to witness his mate stand up, out of nowhere, loudly and rushed. She went down the row, abusing many people’s knees in the process, stumbling her way out of the class, not even caring to apologize to anyone she hurt. She had acquired so much attention from other students by her unusual and abrupt action, not a single soul found his Smartphone interesting anymore.  “-of information between nerve cells, the effect of drugs on this process and the development of nerve cells into the brain and spinal cord”, Chanyeol finished his sentence slowly, as he saw her storm down the stairs and go straight through the door, leaving the lecture hall.

“Is she all right?”, he tried his best to stay in his place and not leave his desk to follow her. Considering the rush with which she had left the lecture hall, something he had never seen happen before, he allowed himself to ask her friend the question.

“Don’t worry. Small family emergency”, (y/n)’s friend spoke loudly. Chanyeol thought the excuse was odd. If it was small, then why was it an emergency? Or if it was an emergency, why did she label it small? A small family emergency, he repeated in his head, what the hell was that supposed to mean? The chances of him believing her friend were one percent. He had been keeping an eye on (y/n) the entire time, and never did she have any contact over a call or text message… So how could it be true?

He already missed her. With every second, her scent became more and more obscure, until after ten minutes, when he became unable to trace it. He wanted her back in his class. She was worth having an internal breakdown over.

   He had been pondering, ever since the idea to cry for help popped up in his head, on who to call. Although the most obvious and most experienced in mating issues, of the people he knew, were his parents, he thought he’d find it weird if they encouraged him into a relationship with one of his students. He had decided to call some of his friends first, listing the ones who had found their mate already in a specific order, decided by how helpful they’d be.

“FUCK”, Chanyeol screamed through the phone, his free hand fisting his hair in frustration.

“That’s one way to greet the friend who generously helped you this morning with your stuff that was stuck in a tree. What’s up?” The male on the other side of the call asked. His voice was the complete opposite of Chanyeol right now. Very, very relaxed.

“She’s in my class. IN MY CLASS!” he stressed.

“Who is?”  The male on the other end asked confused.

“MY MATE!”

“You found her?” Chanyeol heard the male on the other side sit up from the couch he had been laying on.

“She’s one of my students!”

“Now that’s interesting”

“What do I do?” Chanyeol panicked. “I can’t approach her, I’m her lecturer for Christ’s sake. It’s fucking mating season right now!”, Chanyeol tried to catch some breath but he just couldn’t stop freaking out about the situation. “I was THIS CLOSE to bending her over on my desk and fucking her while the other students are watching. If it weren’t for her storming out of class because of a small family emergency-“, he wondered why he was using that excuse himself, “This is a disaster! I am going insane!”

“I like her already”, the male smiled. “She sure knows when and where to make her appearance. But it’s over now, isn’t it?”

“Sehun, I have another lecture with the same group later on! I need help, NOW!”. You could hear Chanyeol’s voice echo, suggesting he had been put on speaker for some of his other friends to hear.

“Chanyeol”, Another voice spoke up.

“Joonmyeon! Why didn’t you pick up when I called you!”

“Yah, I was just a little late. I tried to call you back immediately but I got the busy tone. You were already calling Sehun”. Patience he had lost already as well. “You need to drink some wolfsbane-oil.  It’ll help you… tame… the beast”

“But I don’t have any with me!” Of course, who carries an oil around that made you weak? Chanyeol had arrived on the verge of depression. “And I can’t leave to pick it up either, by the time I’m back, I’ll be half an hour late to discuss my thesis progress with Professor Gung”

“Sehun, you bring it to him”, he heard Joonmyeon propose.

“Yah, why me? Can’t you go!”

“Most people have jobs, Sehun. I have to leave in ten minutes!” Sehun and Joonmyeon started to bicker at the other side of the phone call about who should bring it. Sehun even advised it should be Kyungsoo who should bring it to Chanyeol, but he had to keep the Soo’s Coffee House open for all the other customers that were present besides the three of them. Surpisingly, Sehun came with a suggestion.

“I’ll do it! But Chanyeol takes my shift of cleaning the witch tomb!”

“YA! I just did it for an entire month! September’s your month!”, Chanyeol protested.

“If you want wolfsbane-oil, September’s also yours”, Sehun threatened.

“You’re a dick”, Chanyeol spat. He had not much other choice. “Fine”.

“Love you too”, Sehun smiled happily.

   “Yah, be careful with that!” Sehun tried to stop Chanyeol from swallowing down that much wolfsbane-oil; it was only one swallow, but that was more than enough for a wolf to weaken drastically. Wolfsbane-oil was like poison to wolves, even the light version that Sehun brought with. Nevertheless, he was still too late with his advice and had to witness Chanyeol coughing, almost puking and dropping onto the floor in the back-office of the lecture hall. His own fault, he thought and he turned around so he wouldn’t have to witness it until he heard the suffering stopped. “You okay?” he asked as he turned around and saw Chanyeol getting up.

“Yeah, fine. Thanks”. It really was magical, how fast it worked. He felt a lot calmer, a lot more himself. Lazily, he walked over to the desk and sat himself behind his laptop.

“What’s that?” Sehun asked interested as he studied Chanyeol’s screen from over his shoulder.

“That’s her”, Chanyeol dreamed, looking at (y/n)’s photo. He had gotten into the student database. He wanted to know as much as possible about her. A huge amount of the information he had available, was confidential. He had swindled the password of one of the interims in the administration office during his short lunch break. He had good looks, using them just once to get his way couldn’t hurt, right? Karma couldn’t get to him. The pixies had pestered him enough to break the rules for once.

“She’s twenty-three? I thought since she was a bachelor student-” Sehun was immediately interrupted by Chanyeol.

“I thought so too. Age difference would’ve been huge for mates, right? She has a bizarre gap in between high school and college and there’s no justification to be found. According to the records, it’s not that she studied elsewhere, or worked, or was hospitalized, there’s really nothing”, he sat puzzled in front of her record, stealing a glance at Sehun to see if he could see clear what was going on. With his face, he portrayed well enough he didn’t get it either.

“Address… Ah, one of my old classmates moved there!” Sehun said happily. “Note it down. You can try hanging around some bars there to come across her. I know a few ones”.

“What kind of mate are you? Note it down?” Chanyeol raised an eyebrow at Sehun. “When you found Mira, didn’t you do your research either? I have it all memorized by now! Name, address, date of birth, which schools she went to, everything in this file!”, he announced proudly.

“Then why do you keep staring at it?” Sehun turned around and started walking around the office, picking up random stuff to study it up close and put it down in another place.

“Because I feel I’m missing something”, Chanyeol rested his chin on the palm of his hand, still staring at the screen. Once the screen light dimmer, he gave the mouse a little push and returned to staring.

“Stop worrying about it that much. Before you know it, you’ll know everything about her. For now, just enjoy the ride of discovery, ok?” Sehun threw a plastic mini-brain in the air and whilst he waited for it to come back down with gravity, it was already in Chanyeol’s hands.

“Soon enough… If she only does her bachelor I’ll have to wait, what, three years?” He put the mini-brain back on a shelve in the showcase cabinet. He then leaned against it, crossing his arms and worrying.

“Didn’t you say she stormed out of the lecture? Try talking to her about that. Lightly”, Sehun stressed the last word. “Don’t make her feel like you didn’t appreciate her actions. Just act worried”.

“I am worried”, Chanyeol closed his eyes remembering the urgency with which she had left the lecture hall. Although it might not have been a small family emergency, it must’ve been something very important.

“Well then”

   Neuroscience and behaviour. Unlike last lecture, this should be easy. Last year, he was also the lecturer for that course. He remembered the messy PowerPoint, he could skip his personal introduction and even better, he had tamed his wolf-side should his mate decide to show up. He had been wondering the entire day if she would return, or if he had to wait until Thursday to see her again. Nobody drops out after one day, right? She should come back?

Just three minutes until he could begin the lecture. He paced around in the office again. Would she be there in the lecture hall already? He had no idea. The wolfsbane-oil had supressed more than just his arousal. It had also supressed some of his wolf-abilities, such as his sensitive scent and hearing. He could still scent things from far away, but it was much harder to focus on a particular scent. He could still hear, but it was really hard to focus on just one conversation. Only three more weeks of mating season, then he wouldn’t have to compromise his wolf-abilities to stay sane.

And there she was. Chanyeol smiled when his eyes automatically found her in the crowd still. If he had left a bad impression on her by his nervousness last lecture, he could make up for it now. Chanyeol, are you really trying to impress her by your teaching skills? He thought to himself. It was still better than whatever had been going through his mind a few hours ago.

It was bothering him. It was bothering him hard how his hearing was so impaired by the wolfsbane-oil. (y/n) had been sitting with her best friend from earlier at her right like in the last lecture. Except in this one, she also had a boy on her left that she was chatting happily with. Where did he come from? Where did he get the right to talk to her? What did he want from her? Right at the moment he could not tune in on their conversation. Throughout the lecture, he did his best not to mind him too much. She was his mate. She couldn’t possibly fall for the other guy. They’re just friends, he waved away the temptation to slid his throat.

   “Professor Park”, she approached him, getting on the stage and holding her books close to her, slightly scared. The lecture had just ended and Chanyeol was grabbing his stuff together whilst the lecture hall was slowly emptying. It was a nice surprise to see she had grabbed her courage together and came to talk to him, he had not expected it to happen that soon. There’s a connection, after all, he nodded understandingly and his jealousy over the guy sitting next to her the entire lesson had drifted away. Chanyeol wanted to correct her on the fact that he wasn’t a Professor yet and should be called an Assistant Professor, but he let it slip for once. What good would it do if the first thing he said to his mate was meant to correct her?

“Yes, Miss?” He nodded instead, granting her his full attention. He tried to stay professional, whilst in reality, his heart was going insane. He had never been this close to her. Her scent, her aura, it was absolutely sublime. She was even more beautiful up close, her cheeks slightly flushed; for that, he had given himself the credits. She was also rather petite compared to him. He could already imagine her tiptoe to reach his lips. Gosh, she was cute.

“I wanted to apologize. For the lecture of 10am. I was the girl that left the lecture… I- I-… I’m sorry, this is going to sound like I’m an unstable emotional kid but they were going to put my dog to sleep at the vet. And I thought I was going to be fine but then I changed my mind and I had to go see him one more time”

“It’s ok”, Chanyeol laughed. So small family emergency really wasn’t a lie? “I understand. I used to have a ferret. Broke my heart when he died. Besides, your mom never mixes up your name with your dog’s?”

“No”, She rolled her eyes confused. “Why?”

“Ah”. Chanyeol took a deep breath. He thought to himself that meant her mother didn’t care as much about the dog as mothers did. Considering the situation, he decided to hold his tongue on that. “It’s just that in our brain’s, the pet is often placed in the same group as our siblings or children, and that’s why it happens that your mom says your name when she calls for your sister… or brother, and even mixes up with the dog”.

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t have any siblings”, she looked down at the floor, fiddling with her fingers.

“Anyways… I’m just saying it’s completely normal to mourn him… or her. Pets are as much as a family member”, he smiled comfortingly at her. (y/n) looked down, her hair falling in front of her face shyly.

“Thank you”, she said and she tilted her left foot nervously to make it stand on its tip.

There was a moment of silence. Just standing that close to her was more destressing than any masseuse could make him. With the wolfsbane-oil supressing his sexual frustrations, saner desires came to mind: holding her hand, hugging her, kissing her, laying with his head in her lap, making their noses touch. He wanted to be the pet that could help her cope with the loss of the other. He wanted to be the wolf whose soft fur she’d stroke lovingly.

“(y/n)-ah”, the guy that sat next to her earlier called her name. “Are you coming?” He waited by the door.

“Yeah”. She replied. Chanyeol let out a silent sigh, knowing she would leave any second. Still, she took her time to lift her head and look Chanyeol in the eye, flashing him her sweetest smile before she turned around. For now, he was content with that.

-> Part 2

[marianneainotar-blog]

Red Ball Jets

Run faster, Jump higher!

I would be sweating, running in navy blue gym shorts, my name embroidered on the lower right hem. The white Red Ball Jets on my feet proclaimed to the world that I could “run faster and jump higher, ” but I skidded to a sudden stop at the centerline, super sneakers squealing on the wood gym floor, and thrust the basketball through multiple leaning, reaching hands to my counterpart on the other side. She’d go dashing away, hoping to make a basket; I would try to stop my momentum, so I wouldn’t tip over at the line. Then we waited, at the ready, for the ball to come our way again. Voices echoing, jumping, running, reaching, our clumps of girls made their way back and forth on our half of the court until the shrill whistle of Miss Hill, the gym teacher, would put a stop to the mayhem.

 It was 1959. I was starting 7th grade, and I loved gym. I had been a genuine tomboy in elementary school, playing softball with the boys at recess, marbles in the dirt, and riding my bike no-hands down our blacktop road. I tended to come home, dirty and disheveled, folders frayed, knees bruised. My mom would just shake her head. When someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would retort, “just a plain woman.” I didn’t have a clue then—or later.

In junior high, ideas of what girls could be or do started getting defined. We couldn’t participate in official school team sports. We couldn’t wear long pants in the classroom. Living through a six-month winter meant we stuffed pants under our skirts for the chilly walk to school and stowed them in our lockers. In addition to half-court basketball and the dreaded dodge ball, we did calisthenics in gym class to trim our waists or slenderize our fannies. With her tight ponytail, no make-up, muscles, and no-nonsense attitude, Miss Hill was considered “butch.” We didn’t want to be like her. Getting muscles wasn’t feminine. By 8th grade, most of us pubescent, our upper body exercises were done to the chant of “we must, we must, we must increase our bust.”  We tried to get out of gym. Who wants to sweat and then go back to class? Deodorant didn’t do the trick for me. I frequently exhibited large, wet circles under my arms. “Um, I’m having cramps, do I have to dress for gym?” “It’s that time you know, and I have a headache.” Ok. Sit on the side.

Going to dances became my thing. The starched petticoats of elementary school gave way to sneakers paired with slouch socks and leggings, topped by a white “boys’ shirt.” I moistened my pin curls in flat beer for long-lasting curls and used shoe polish to whiten my Red Ball Jets. With stiffened shoes and hair, we girls would descend to the gym, which was now transformed by crepe-paper streamers and toilet paper flowers. When the music started rocking, pairs of us shot to the floor, sneakered feet flying and arms twirling each other—until a “slow dance” came on, then we all demurely scattered to a side (the girls’ side) and waited for the boys, who clustered on the other side. Who would be the first brave one to cross the centerline and come over to us? Our happiness was in their hands. We pretended not to care while we anxiously waited and made giggling small talk. Then the lights dimmed, Elvis would croon “Wise men say, only fools rush in . . .,” and we wallflowers enviously watched the handful of couples who slowly walked the floor together, sometimes even to the beat of the music. Girls didn’t dance together for a slow dance. That could be butch. Shy boys were out of luck too. We couldn’t ask them (too forward), except during the infrequent “ladies choice,” called by the chaperones.

By 9th grade, school sports soon became something my friends and I watched. “Girls aren’t allowed to do sports” morphed into “girls can’t do sports”—no stamina, no strength, no aggression, not competitive. Never mind that we could downhill ski all day or skate and swim for hours. My best friend and I hiked around Teal Lake one afternoon, fording streams and climbing bluffs. We went to all the basketball and football games, cheering the boys and learning all the chants: “two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar, kids from Negaunee stand up and holler, hip, hip hurray, hip, hip hurray.” We even showed up at track meets. Being a cheerleader or a majorette, coached by Miss HIlll, was the closest thing to a girls’ sport. While these activities required some talent and dexterity, girls were clearly there to be pretty and to support the boys.

 Our magazines and elders taught us more boundaries and behavior. “Don’t talk too loud, keep your legs together, and don’t lead a boy on.” Why? He could get blue balls, friends whispered. Really? They change color? Poor things. “Don’t let a boy get to first base too soon because he wouldn’t respect you.” This sports metaphor was confusing to me. A base just sits there, right? The player runs past, around, steals, or lands on a base. Were parts of our bodies the bases? First base, lips; second base, boobs; third base, “down there;” rounding home, “all the way”? We never talked specifically about first base or what “too soon” meant. We wondered about “petting” Was that second or third base? We heard what happened to girls who were “easy.” Then there was parking. You drive to a scenic spot, sit in the car, and “make out.” We were warned about making out leading to petting, which led to all the way. During our senior year, several girls disappeared for a time, visiting an aunt or some relative out of town. We’d speculate about whether she “lost” or gave away a baby. Sometimes a couple would get married and drop out of school. Gossip indicated it was the girl’s fault. She was leading him on and trying to get her hooks into him. Clearly she was easy, and he was helpless. Did they “have” to get married, we’d ask, with knowing looks.

In truth, we knew nothing. My mom didn’t want to talk about those things, so I would ask my five-years-older sister. If she was in the mood, she would let tidbits fall. She said petting could mean above the waist or below the waist, and both were bad but below was worse—yet another centerline that shouldn’t be crossed.

I remember accepting on some level the prevailing attitudes about women. It was common knowledge that “all the great chefs (writers, artists, composers, scientists, actors) are men,” or that “no woman can host the news.” We couldn’t compete with the gravitas of Walter Cronkite. The leaders we saw on our black-and-white TV sets in government, business, the arts, sports, and the military were all men. “Boring old men,” I used to say about all the talking heads on TV. Women didn’t have the guts, nervous system, brains, strength, agility, or whatever to do “x” well. We did have sexual power over men and were the keepers of the gate. They couldn’t control their urges, so we did. In addition, we were not to show them that we were too smart or too strong. They were the ones to run faster and jump higher in all areas of life. We could be teachers, secretaries, nurses, mothers, and wives. Nothing, of course, is universally true, and later I learned there were plenty of females at that time, striving to vault the centerline or erase the boundaries. Mostly women operated in the background, not making the news. I didn’t know about them. All I knew was that things didn’t seem fair.

In my senior year, I did “go steady,” wearing a boy’s class ring wrapped in angora yarn to make it fit. Lots of kissing happened. After graduation one night, I felt him briefly touch my breast through my clothes before he drove off in his car. Oh man! I had wild sensations when I walked in the house, nerves tingling. I sensed a line was crossed, but I didn’t realize until some years later what that pulsating in my privates signaled. 

What next? My parents and I agreed I needed further education. I had good grades. Plus I need a degree just in case. Just in case, what? Just in case there was a war, and I lost everything but my education. Just in case I needed to dig up an educated man who would have a good job. Just in case, something happened to that future husband, and I had to work. Higher education was like having an extra dime in my pocket. I went to college, not thinking about what I might become but on the hunt for that educated man. Fall of 1965 began my freshman year at the University of Michigan.

On the surface at least in Ann Arbor, familiar uncrossable lines were in place. Girls had curfews in the dorms but boys didn’t. I guess they couldn’t get into trouble without us. Girls couldn’t be in the famous marching band or walk on the field in the Big House. I think there were intramural sports for us, but I hadn’t learned any team skills. In other aspects, Ann Arbor, like the rest of the country was in upheaval, resulting in protests and meetings with people who were against the Viet Nam war, for civil rights, for women’s lib, against rules, for drugs. I learned folk songs, smoked cigarettes, cheated on curfew, and sat in. We felt freer than we were.

Fast forward a few years—I had a BS in education, married an educated guy with a career, had two adorable children—got the dime in my pocket as instructed, but something was still out of kilter. I busied myself at home and with part-time teaching. By chance one day, I saw an ad for an aerobic dance class. Fitness for women was popular, thanks to Jane Fonda and Jazzercise, no beefy men teaching squats or Air Force exercises. Hundreds of women turned out for the classes, building muscle, losing fat, breathing hard, and we did it to music, learning complicated routines and making friends. After I became an instructor and then a manager, I learned that fitness led to real confidence. It became a portal as many of the women started changing their lives, one after another. I had not foreseen that strengthening my body would strengthen my will. I, too, went back to school with more clarity of purpose and became an editor—a job I loved.

I know now that barring us from sports in puberty affected our minds as well as our bodies. It took a new wave of feminism plus the legal clout of Title IX to make real changes. I don’t long for the good old days. I am content now because all parts of my life work well. Recently my husband and I attended a women’s playoff basketball game. He was commenting on the game—zone defense, breakaway shots, free throws; I was watching tall muscular women freely race down the whole court, arms pumping, shoes squealing. I always tear up. Every. Damn. Time. They don’t even need Red Ball Jets.