#so i attempted to buy it (slightly scared) but then it didn't go through

[d1anna]

fighting for my life trying to get my skyrim oc (and npcs) to look good

[mesywelch]

Don't Cry, Baby | College AU | Chapter 2

Paring: Rafe Cameron X Reader

Summary: Growing up in a sheltered family, safe and secure amongst people you could trust was, according to you, heaven, despite how some tend to doubt its consequences. But you did not expect your safe bubble to pop so suddenly when you entered college - the atmosphere so dazzlingly stark, that it was proving to be a difficult challenge to navigate around. Especially when one of the students gets painfully curious about the new girl.

Warnings: Talks about sex, swearing, drugs, possible smut. slowburn (ig ???) Song rec: Pacify Her - Melanie Martinez Chapter 1, Chapter 2

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

"You'll be okay if I leave you for a bit, yeah? Little princess won't get too scared?" 

"No." 

I had given up on my attempts to get Rafe to quit his tone a long time ago, bitterly realising that there was no point. Rafe knew that too, and so I had to face his smirk one more time before he entered the house, almost immediately disappearing into the packed crowd that I could only get a gist of through the french windows. A second later, a wave of cheers erupted from inside, and I imagined Rafe standing at the centre of it, playing the party like it was his personal guitar. 

His stubbornness was truly a force to be reckoned with, and glad I didn't have to experience it again till the end of the night, I, too, pushed open the door and joined the masses. 

Ruby didn't live in the college dormitories like most of us, but I didn't expect her abode to be, well, practically a mansion. The three-story building sat in a prime location right beside a beautiful view of the beach, and I seriously debated just strolling by the pretty shores after finding out that this was not the kind of party I assumed it to be. Credit for that idea can be given to the stench of alcohol suffocating the atmosphere and the dress-code-breaking outfits people were wearing. Or, more accurately, not wearing. Men were shirtless, women were barely covered by tiny pieces of cloth, and my cheeks were blazing hot upon being forced to witness such a mass display of skin. 

I was somewhat grateful that Rafe had convinced me to drop the blue frock in favour of the one currently hanging on my body because I would have looked like a literal child if I hadn't already. Perhaps he knew how intense the party was going to be, and this was his way of giving a heads-up. 

As I walked tentatively, my hands held a small gift bag, an even smaller box resting inside it, covered with gorgeous wrapping paper and topped with a perfect bow- technique I had mastered through years of gifting experience with friends. I also got to use my calligraphy skills; stapled to the bag was a little note card containing handwritten birthday wishes carefully written in ink. 

Back in his truck, Rafe had stared and scoffed when he noticed me hugging the bag close to my chest as we drove, throwing one of his comments that I didn't bother remembering. But I didn't let it deter me. Who doesn't appreciate a well-wrapped gift? 

My excitement was boundless when the necklace had arrived last night in all its intricate glory. Just in time, too. There weren't any good jewellery stores on the island, so instead, I rang up my mum to buy one back at home from a trusted store I regularly visited. As I walked deeper into the fiesta, I was giddy hoping Ruby would like what I chose for her. 

But she was nowhere to be seen. 

Music boomed from the speakers set up in one corner of the house, but the way it echoed created the impression of it hitting me from all directions. Chatter and conversation accompanied the explicit songs, and I noticed a group of people on the far right dancing to the catchy beats. Finding a cosy position against a wall near the kitchen, I watched them move mindlessly with a hint of a smile despite being slightly dizzy by the sensory overload. The yellow lighting was beautiful, though, and reminded me of home, a place I missed more and more with time. 

As I bobbed my head subtly to the pop music in the background (more like foreground), quickly looking away when a couple on the dance floor got a little too handsy, my gaze settled on a weird sight. Between the shadowy, sweaty crowds, a pair of girls stood, their mouths moving obnoxiously as if whisper-shouting to each other. I didn't pay them much mind. But then their gazes—so intense, they felt piercing—landed on me, and I tensed. 

They got closer. 

Pivoting to my right, I tried to change positions, but a guy with a muscular build bumped into me, and I recoiled, clutching my shoulder in pain- the same one Rafe's fingers had dug into. 

"Ow…" 

"Hey, you! You okay?" It was the tallest of the two girls, now merely a couple feet away from me. I nodded hesitantly, looking between their faces. The other girl smiled and reached out to take my hand, but I resisted. "We're not gonna hurt you, bunny." 

Bunny? My eyebrows furrowed. Was that the impression I gave to people? A pathetic, stupid, little animal that runs away as soon as you approach it? Well… that was exactly what I was about to do….

"I'm Jenny Marlow," said the tall one, tightening her long bleach-blonde ponytail. Jenny had a very sharp-edged look to her—angular jaw, deep-set eyes, pointy eyebrows—and I got the feeling that she didn't really like me. Gesturing to the brunette beside her, she then introduced. "This is Margo. We're Ruby's close friends." 

I returned my name. 

"Ooo pretty," Said Margo, but Jenny didn't comment, still staring straight at me. It was not a comfortable feeling, being subject to her cold gaze, something I couldn't help but compare to Rafe's. At least his had life behind them. 

I still hadn't understood their intentions, so remained quiet; a good enough hint, I hoped, for them to reveal them. 

"You looked lonely." Jenny stated blankly, "So we wanted to invite you back to our table." 

I was about to reject the offer, but then she mentioned that Ruby will be joining them soon. 

"Where is she, by the way?" Margo asked Jenny, taking the words right out of my mouth. 

"Still getting ready upstairs. Go fetch her; I'll take the little bunny over here to the others." Oh, so the nickname's gonna stick. Wonderful. 

"But—" 

Jenny glared at her. 

"Fine."  

"Let's go." Jenny grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards her as she began walking, confidently striding through the masses, the clicking of her heels audible despite the noise. Her grip was tight—fingers sure to bruise my skin—and her pull was demanding, to the level that I found it hard to stop tripping over nothing. At one point, my gift bag dropped onto the floor, and I bent over to pick it up, tugging at Jenny's hand to signal a stop. 

She turned around, her eyebrows knitted with distasteful animosity, and when I stood back straight, I couldn't help but ask nervously, "Why are you being so harsh?" 

"You brought her a gift?" She said instead, sneering at the sparkly bag and ignoring my question. She chuckled. "Did you get her a pack of crayons? How cute. You do know she can afford everything, right?" 

For a second, I really believed everyone in this place was living in a different universe. In the bag was a birthday gift– what was so wrong with a birthday gift?! Should I have just shown up with nothing?! 

"Look at this, guys." Jenny snatched the bag from my hands when we reached a couch, large and semi-circle in shape, jiggling it mockingly away from my grasp. Bottles of alcohol littered the table in front of it—some half-filled, most empty—and food was messily strewn about. At least six people were lounging around it, and, drawn to Jenny's voice, they paused their conversation to scrutinise me, their collective gaze a silent judgement. "This girly over here wrapped this little present all by herself— oh, and what does this say?" She spotted the handwritten card, "'Happy Birthday Ruby! Hope you have a great time turning 20'." The pitch of her voice rose, I assumed, to mimic my own. But that wasn't even how I sounded. 

A smattering of weak chuckles erupted from the table, a few aws, and I loathed both. 

The thumping of my heart sped up as a sudden wave of sadness washed over me, aligning itself with the pounding beats of the music. The thought that maybe I indeed was out of place—a bunny amongst- amongst… wolves—was frightening. Nothing had ever made me feel this way before. Back at home, no one would even dare to try. 

A deep voice cut through the atmosphere. Deep and commanding, somewhat soothing to the ear. 

"Leave her alone, Jen." It said, and silence fell. 

Grateful at the intervention, I gave the mystery man a quiver of a smile, his dark features draped in a shadow, and retrieved my bag, passing Jenny an unfriendly look instead. Without a single glance my way, she seated herself on the couch, and I followed suit, trying to convince myself that I could put up with this for one night. Everything would go back to normal in the morning when my lectures began.

"More importantly," Started another girl, bringing me out of my wandering thoughts. Sunglasses hanging precariously on the tip of her nose, she waved her palm back and forth as if that would entirely dissipate the established tension, continuing, "Do tell us why we saw you standing on the porch with Rafe motherfucking Cameron by your side."  

The silence this time around was merely a poor imitation of suspense. She had delivered the sentence as if it was supposed to hit a nerve, and surveying the curiosity on everyone's faces (even Jenny's), I couldn't understand why they were so fixated on Rafe's presence. Nor did I know why people liked him. Surely, they witnessed the same kind of behaviour that I did. Nevertheless, I fed them an answer. 

"His dorm is next to mine. I asked him for a ride." 

"You asked Rafe for a ride?" Jenny scoffed, looking me up and down. I could recognise a bitter edge to her tone. "And he gave you one?" 

I parted my lips, thinking of a way to reply, but thankfully, something else took up the table's attention before I had to, the silence bursting into a chorus of cheers. I clutched the gift bag close to myself. 

"I'm selling 2 for 50, dickheads."

"Don't sell cocaine on my fucking birthday, Rafe!" 

In tow with the dialogue entered the birthday girl herself, Rafe's arm draped across her shoulder as they staggered towards us. When Ruby's appearance became clearer, I found myself doing a double take.

Ruby was just so…. objectively, gorgeous. Cherry-red tinted lips, flawless makeup, dark hair cascading down her pale complexion. All tied together in her birthday special: a wine-red silk dress—

Wait, my eyes widened, cocaine? 

My gaze snapped to the tall man hanging all over her, only to notice the hint of a subtle mess in Rafe's appearance. His blue eyes were blown out, his forehead glistened with sweat, and his hair was no longer in place, strands of it haphazardly falling over his eyebrows instead. No way…. 

"If it isn't Kildare king and queen!" Said the mystery man sarcastically, who had quickly introduced himself to me as Ryan when I sat down. 

"Or more like boyfriend and girlfriend?" Suggested the sunglasses lady and Rafe laughed, tugging Ruby closer into his chest, who giggled affectionately. 

"Shut the fuck up." 

I shifted my attention to Ruby when she addressed me, quickly moving on from the gnawing revelation that Rafe had done what he told me he would. And his concerning alleged drug intake. I did not have any reason to care, and so I wouldn't. 

"I'm so glad you came!" 

I passed her a shy smile, still not over her kind demeanour that was so contrasting to everyone else's. "Happy birthday, Ruby." 

Upon following Ruby's gaze, Rafe found himself connecting his eyes with me. He grunted with a twitch of his eyelid. "There you are."

Choking on a random—unsanitised, I added in my head—drink from the wooden surface, he squeezed through the multitude of folded legs and the edge of the table, skipping the empty space beside Jenny (whose first ever friendly smile morphed into a frown) and collapsed beside me, manspreading into my personal space. Ruby had no option but to awkwardly follow him from the other end. I sighed. 

"You both know each other?" Ruby questioned as she adjusted her dress, a slight disbelief in her voice, and I returned a dismissive yes, hating being asked variations of the same question over and over again. I was pleased that Rafe didn't bother adding to my response, engaged in… staring at my shoulder? Perplexed, I tilted my head down to see the small, flowy sleeve of my dress sliding off my skin. I hastily pulled it back up, sparing Rafe a wary glance. 

As I passed Ruby the gift bag, I hoped for the excitement I harboured from earlier to return and brighten me up again.

"Oh, you didn't have to!" 

I waved her off silently, observing Rafe fall back into a lazy grin as he watched Ruby read the card to herself, a flash of recognition sparking in his eyes. Unwrapping his arm from Ruby's waist, he toyed with a colourful piece of tissue I had filled up the bag with, and intensely focused on Ruby's reaction to the necklace, I jolted in my seat when he threw it in my face.  

"This is so pretty!"

Ruby's comment of appreciation whizzed right past my head, lost in a one-sided glaring competition with Rafe as he donned an exaggerated smirk, clearly under the influence of something. Let me enjoy the stupid moment, god!

"I'm glad you like it."

When all the girls on the table gave nods of approval too, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the jewellery, I emulated a whimsical grin, bashful at their appraisal. At Least I could win their acceptance in some way. And surprise, surprise! It all went crashing down when Rafe chuckled disparagingly, at the gift itself or at my reaction, I didn't know. 

Ruby smacked him in the chest, "You didn't even give me a gift, moron." 

"Oh, you want a gift?" He raised his eyebrows, eyes glinting, pivoting his neck that was angled towards me to face Ruby, "Follow me upstairs, and I'll give you the biggest fucking gift of your life."  

"Yeah?" Ruby's pale cheeks went red, her eyelashes fluttering. I caught Ryan's eyes from across the table, communicating my confusion, but he merely smiled. What was happening? 

"Yeah– baby." My eyes snapped to him, and at his clenching jaw, I could tell he felt my gaze. For some reason, it was odd to hear him use the nickname with someone else and in a manner that wasn't belittling. It made my annoyance at it seem insignificant, silly, because it didn't matter much anyway. 

"Get a room. Jesus." 

"Let's play spin the bottle. Maybe that'll be a good outlet for this." Added the sunglasses lady smugly.   

"Don't tell me it's gonna be crazy like last time." Ruby said, sounding disapproving from the outside, but I could sense a certain anticipation from her. She was still looking at Rafe intently, but he had already moved on. 

"Oh, you betcha." Said man tensed beside me. "Everyone's in, right?" 

Agreeing nods followed. 

"What about you, bunny?" Jenny said, sliding into the conversation after an extended period of silence. And— was I dreaming, or was that a genuine smile? 

"Uh–Sure, yeah." I smiled toothily. The game was the last thing on my mind as I replied to her, more fixated on the fact that she may be starting to like me. I didn't want to have to put up with her unsolicited hatred. 

Rafe chuckled nervously, a gritty laugh that lacked any humour. He rubbed his nose before bending down, face close to my neck, lips brushing my ear. "… it's not the kind of spin the bottle you probably think it is, princess."

"I don't care." 

He grunted. I moved away. He followed. "It's the cock-sucking kind." 

I drew a sharp breath. What did that even mean? 

"Wha— I- I don't care." 

"Oh really?" He turned his body fully towards me this time, leaning forward and getting closer to my face, prompting me to recall a similar image from a couple hours ago. Even though there were people around, my shoulders stiffened, his proximity forcing me to put my eyes right on him despite trying to avert them. "So that whining baby back in your dorm was your twin?" 

I didn't deny it. But I had to just stay calm. Just stay calm. 

"You know…" His voice fell by an octave. "I can just tell them that you're a virgin, and they'll immediately stop if you're uncomfortable. I know sex is so scary to you." Rafe's tone somehow managed to merge concern with condescension, but the latter trumped in my head. It didn't make sense for him to show concern.   

He opened his mouth, going to do exactly what his words suggested, and I grabbed his wrist in a panic, desperation hopefully obvious in my eyes (the tears, not so much). Ryan seemed to like me, Jenny just smiled at me; things were going good. I was slowly blending in with the group, and his announcement would ruin it- it would ruin it all. Like Rafe said. I wasn't ready for that. 

"Rafe, please. Don't."

"You're begging now?" He whispered, looking down at where my fingers wrapped right below his intimidatingly larger palm. 

"If I have to," I whispered back genuinely, and he smirked, a deep chuckle escaping him. My head gently swayed side to side, so utterly baffled at his reaction. "Do you have something against me?" 

"You're adorable." 

I gritted my teeth, fighting off tears. Don't cry. Don't make it worse. 

"Stop this. Just answer my question straight. You wouldn't be treating me this way if you didn't." 

"I'm just teasing you, princess." 

"Don't. Let me play this stupid game. Let me be normal—" 

"Bunny and Ryan, eh?" 

What? 

Jenny's voice, coupled with a chorus of unenthusiastic 'ooo's, broke us out of our bubble of back and forths, and when I dragged my gaze away from Rafe, sweeping it towards the crowd that I had forgotten about for a good minute, I saw the head of a glass bottle waver tauntingly. It was pointed towards me. 

"I dare you," 'Pleased' couldn't even begin to describe the look on Jenny's face, "To suck off Ryan." 

"...." 

Rafe's gaze pierced into my profile. My mind blanked.  

"Maybe don't scare her off, Jenny." Ryan attempted to interject, sensing the tension. Scare me off—I wanted to cry so badly—like a little bunny. 

"Ry, we don't play easy here. You know that." 

"You really don't have to, y'know— 

"Does everybody do it?" My voice was small. 

"Of course they do, they're not pussies." 

Staring straight ahead, I stood up, and they all looked at me. Me and my ill-fitting clothes. 

"Then I'll do it." 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, you're gonna do it?" Rafe suddenly blurted, sitting up in his seat. There was a newfound surprise on his face as if coming out of a trance. As if not expecting me to ever comply. 

"Do you even know how?" He spat. 

I shook my head no. 

"Then what the fuck do you think you're doing? Don't fucking go." Rafe was being anything but subtle now, and I couldn't bear the awkward looks we were getting. He held onto my wrist, right where Jenny had put her mark, and I hissed. 

"Rafe? Why are you acting so weirdly? You've never had a problem with the game before."

"Babe, what's going on….?" 

Rafe didn't acknowledge Jenny or Ruby, and I didn't acknowledge him. 

I snatched my hand away from Rafe, albeit with resistance from both ends. I stood beside Ryan as he got up too, a little confused, a little eager. He led me through the crowd in the hunt for an empty room, placing a hand on my lower waist. I flinched. He hovered his hand instead. 

Ryan was saying something, but I could barely focus. 

"It's probably just the cocaine." Were the last words that reached me from the group before the loud music, louder when you were in the middle of the party, took over.  *ੈ✩‧₊˚ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

A/N: idk whats going on anymore. but who cares. Once again, feel free to comment your thoughts! Taglist: @sublimepenguinpeach-blog @angelofcigs

[nikirikistan]

Meeting him

~ jake ~

𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈: 𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒍!𝒋𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒙 𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒍!𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: 𝒇𝒍𝒖𝒇𝒇

𝒔𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔: 𝒀𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘 "𝑾𝒆 𝑮𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒅." 𝑰𝒕'𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒌-𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒃𝒔 𝒈𝒐 𝒕𝒐 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒑𝒍𝒆, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆.

a/n: your group name is dreamday, fandom name is dream.

Your manager dropped you off near the Han river. You were really nervous as you waited for your 'husband' to arrive. You keep fidgeting around nervously, unable relax. You were facing the river unbeknownst to you a tall figure behind you.

"I see her" jake thought. As he slowly approaches you. He notices that your back looks familiar to him. He got closer and greets you slightly too loud "hey nice to meet you, i'm jake". He noticed you jump a little. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you" he apologised, attempting to hide his smile.

You heard someone introduce themselves at random and were taken aback by a smooth voice that quickly filled your ears.

"Hey, it's fine, I'm y/n nice to meet you as well," you smiled. "Oh Jake? I've heard that name. Are you in enhypen?" you say fangirling a bit but he doesn't need to know.

"I am, i also recognize you. y/n from dreamday!" he exclaims, fangirling as well.

"Right over there," you said, pointing to a picnic blanket in the distance, "I prepared our first date."

He sneakily slides his arm around your waist as the two of you walk. You feel your face burning up. He catches your face turning into a light pink and smiles too himself. You trying to hide your face with your hair unsuccessfully because of the wind.

You both arrived at the picnic area and sat down. He assists in opening the lunch boxes, which contained chocolate-covered strawberries, tiny sandwiches, and onigiri.

"Did you make all of this? I'm glad we're married," he murmured, looking at the dish with big heart eyes.

"Yea, do you like em'? I wasn't sure what you'd like to eat," you smiled as you saw his eyes widen. You thought it was cute.

"Yes, I love them, thank you y/n," he said, his smile as wide as ever. He hadn't had homemade meals for a while because he was always too busy, which meant getting takeaway or eating ramen.

After eating he pats his belly indicating that he's full. "Like a baby" you thought.

"Can i try something bold" he said nervously. 

"Sure?" you replied, waiting for him to go on. Before you could question why, he gently placed his head on your lap.

"Is this ok for you?" he said nervously.

"mhm hm" you just hummed not trusting your voice right now.

After a few minutes, he opens up his playlist and plays 'Let's Get Married by Vedo'. "What a coincidence," you thought to yourself.

Another minute has passed, and you're running your fingers through his hair.

"Your hair is so fluffy," you remarked.

"Thank you," he said, a cute F*CKING smile on his face.

"Would you like to go to the Sanrio store? I saw one just around the corner," he explained. You agreed. He assisted you in standing up grabbing your hand. You notice your hands are still linked as you walk to the store.

You were both wandering around the store when you were suddenly halted by a saleslady. "Hello, we're having a sale on rings, and if you buy two, you'll get a 10% discount," she explained.

"Should we go ahead and buy one?" You stated while staring at Jake, not realising he was thinking the same thing. He agreed, aggressively nodding his head.

"Let's start with your girlfriend," she remarked as she assisted me in selecting a ring.

"Wife," he corrected her.

"Oh, you're married? Wow, you're so young! Congratulations!" She was taken aback.

She then assisted Jake in selecting his ring. He couldn't decide between Hello Kitty and Kuromi, so he asked me to make the decision.

After ring shopping, it was time to wrap up the shoot and head home. We said our goodbyes and exchanged phone numbers.

The following day, both of you were scheduled to perform in Inkigayo. Jake's band was introducing a new song. When it was his turn to speak, he took the mic. Dreamday were the next group to introduce their song. You didn't say anything, but you did assist your members to pass the mic.

You went on SNS after the show and discovered that Engenes and Dreams were all tweeting about how you and Jake had similar rings. You wore the ring unaware that he would as well.

"JAKE!!!" While in the dressing room, Niki yelled. "Do you have matching rings with y/n?"

"Uhh, yeah, how'd you know?" Jake was perplexed. Niki hands him his phone, which were flooded with tweets about the couple rings.

You're both excited to see how 'We Got Married' is received by the public.

a/n: couple rings on top <3

[emepe]

— Pairing: Eren x Reader, friends to lovers

— General info: series, 18+, modern AU, serial killer AU, smut, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort

— Summary: Fate is a tricky thing. Certain situations can’t be avoided as much as certain people’s lives can’t be kept from intertwining. With a serial killer on the loose, and unexpected relationships blooming, how will the universe intervene?

— Chapter summary: The past is revealed to Eren, who can only do his best to prove that it doesn’t change his feelings.

— Content warnings: past child abuse/neglect, drug use, unstable family life, grooming, SA, slightly nsfw, mention of unprotected sex.

— Notes: Sorry for the cliffhanger last week lol but you should be used to it haha. Chapter 10 is now here! <3 There’s a lot going on in this chapter so please pay attention to the content warnings before reading. Don’t be shy to stop by my ask box <3 If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list, lmk. Happy reading!

Links: Read on AO3 | Chapter guide | Masterlist

then and now

It wasn’t always so bad.

My earliest memory is that of my mom giving me a warm cup of tea and honey when I fell incredibly ill at three years old. I'd eaten something unclean and I was stuck in my parent's bed for a week, feverish, with little appetite and even less strength. If I concentrate enough, I can still hear echoes of my parents sitting at the kitchen table, crunching the numbers from their pooled savings so they could afford a doctor's visit. My mom remained by my side the entire time to make sure the IV drip didn't spontaneously clog, or that I didn't move the hand that was connected to it and started bleeding out into the tube. The doctor said a little bleeding was normal, but she was scared of it happening at all. 

I developed a hatred for cabbage, which is what the doctor recommended to help regain strength without hurting my stomach. My father went out to buy it and my mom fed it to me in soup. She'd make a game out of it, and she promised to take me to the park to play as soon as I got better. I remember my childhood fondly if I focus on that first memory. So, I'm pretty sure anything before that was just as good. 

I didn't know until I was way older that my mother did drugs before she had me. She struggled with addiction at sixteen, which was well into her relationship with my father. The only difference was, he remained clean after my mom told him she was pregnant during their senior year of high school. 

I couldn't understand that I was witnessing her relapse after I started kindergarten. Apparently, being four and a half years old is the cutoff for being worthy of staying sober for. 

That's when everything started spiraling. My mom failed to pick me up from school several times, leaving me to spend hours tucked away in the library, keeping Mrs. Zacharias company while she pretended to rearrange already organized books. My father worked long hours at a factory, some of which had to be punctured like swiss cheese so he could take me home because my mom was nowhere to be found.

By the time she stumbled through the door, she was being brought in by strange men. I never met them, I just knew they were there because the noise would wake me up in the middle of the night and I'd hear my father arguing with my intoxicated mom after thanking them for bringing her home. 

My mom looked sick. As her number one fan, I was worried. She was getting skinnier, she barely ate and she seemed tired all the time yet never got enough sleep to heal the dark circles under her sunken eyes.

The first time I attempted to cook something, I was six. I could easily get by during school days. I had breakfast and lunch there, and sometimes Mrs. Zacharias would give me pretzel sticks if I read a book out loud to her while we waited for my father to come get me. But on weekends, I was on my own. My father was working even on weekends to make ends meet and even when my mom happened to be home, she wasn't truly there.

So, while she was locked inside the bathroom for hours, I went into the kitchen and tried to boil an egg. I couldn't find the small pot we always used, but my pink plastic bowl was on the drying rack from last night after my father fed me dinner. 

I didn't know you weren't supposed to put plates onto a hot stove. The plate cracked and stuck to the burner. I tried to pry it off but I burned my hand. It would take years for the scar to fade. 

When my mom saw what I'd done, she slapped me straight across the face. I was dragged by my hair and locked in the minuscule storage closet as punishment. That was just the first of many times. 

My father would always be the one to let me out when he got back from work late at night, and I'd quietly call him from the inside, scared because I'd urinated myself and he'd probably be just as mad as my mom. But he wasn't. He'd clean me up, scrape the plastic from my now useless pink bowl from the burner, and feed me.

My father grew tired of it. All the money that was meant for food and supplies went directly to dealers, meaning he had to spread himself even thinner. When he found out my mom had ransacked the secret place he kept his savings for the sixth time, he snapped. 

I was twelve by then, so I understood everything that was going on.

They had a huge fight and he stormed into the bedroom to pack his clothes into a bag. But my mom was ballistic. She took a pair of scissors and started cutting anything she could get her hands on into pieces.

I heard a series of slapping and punching before my father passed me by in the living room — no money or clothes on him — and slammed the door shut behind him.

Things got even worse.

My mom would constantly yell that if it hadn't been for me, my father never would've left. She'd tell me I ruined her life and that I was a burden. Had she not gotten pregnant at eighteen, her life would be a whole lot simpler.

But now we didn't have any money, I didn't have a father, and my mom's addiction pushed her into getting a job. Even back then, at twelve years old, I felt guilty because she had to work because of me. 

She started off at a laundromat. Mrs. Zacharias visited our apartment because I hadn't gone to school for a few days and she wanted to check in. Despite my mom's foul language toward the kind librarian, she helped her get the job. 

My mom was very happy to work at the laundromat, though it had less to do with having a purpose than it did with the crumpled bills she'd find in people's clothes that would later serve as pocket change for her dealer. 

After a year, she was fired after being caught stealing from the register. It was surprising she even lasted that long in that place. 

But now she was even more desperate. 

And that's when the men started coming.

I spent my elementary and middle school years hearing my mom having sex with strangers inside the room she used to share with my father while I did homework on the kitchen table. 

Some of them were nice. Some of them weren't. 

Sometimes my mom's dealer would be the one to come around. 

One day, when I was thirteen, I'd just gotten back from the school library from working on a group project and I was making myself a sandwich when he came out of the bedroom, still buckling his pants.

“Hey there, princess,” he said.

“Hi, Steve.”

I didn't think it was strange to be on a first name basis with the guy. He was around a lot and that in itself meant it was okay to be close with him, in my mind.

Besides, he wasn't that much older than me. I think about eighteen or nineteen. It just made sense to be friends.

“How's school?” he asked as he leaned back into one of the chairs at the table.

I knew he didn't really care — that's why he dropped out, he'd say — but I still answered him honestly.

“Math's getting a bit hard but I'm doing okay.”

“That's ‘cause you're smart,” he praised as he lit up a cigarette and took the first drag. “You're gonna make it outta here real quick with that brain of yours.”

He held my gaze as he blew out the smoke away from my face. It didn't matter because it drifted back to me anyway. 

“You're pretty, too,” he murmured before taking another long drag.

I shook my head, an unamused scoff leaving my lips.

“I'm serious,” he laughed.

I turned back to look at him again, suddenly feeling shy. 

He had very nice eyes. Sometimes bloodshot but always very blue. 

I always liked how blue his eyes were.

I also liked that he complimented me. Outside of school I was barely praised for anything. 

“You think I'm pretty?”

His smile slowly faded as he squashed his cigarette butt on the floor and leaned closer to me.

“Yeah, you're fuckin’ pretty, darlin’,” he murmured, his eyes flitting to my lips. “Wish I could taste you.”

I could feel my face grow hot at his words. At the time I thought he meant he wanted to kiss me, and perhaps that was all there was to what he said, but I found myself leaning closer to him, too.

I had my first kiss with a nineteen year old drug dealer. I didn't know what I was doing, of course, so I just tried to mimic his movements. He tasted awful but I felt my stomach fluttering at the thought that someone thought of me as pretty and not a disgusting nuisance.

The kiss was cut short when my mom caught sight of the scene and angrily kicked him out.

She was fuming when she got back to me, and I could feel my stomach trying to climb up my throat in anxiety.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she yelled.

I tried to explain that he asked to kiss me first, that he made the first move. But she overpowered me.

“You think I don't notice the way you look at all my men?” she sneered. “It wouldn't kill you to stop wearing that skimpy little skirt around, you filthy slut.”

I was next to be thrown out of the house. 

Living on the first floor of our apartment building included some perks, one of them being we didn’t have to climb the metal stairs attached to the side of the building to get to our apartment. There were no stairs connecting the apartment floors on the inside, either, which meant there was plenty of privacy. 

But it also meant I had no way of getting back inside that night.

It was December. It was snowing. And I slept outside.  

From then on, I was nothing but a whore, a vicious slut who was interfering with my mom's business. I had to leave the house each time she had someone over, or be locked in the closet until they finished. My mom said that as long as I was in view, men would be more interested in me, the pretty young thing, instead of her. And that wasn't fair.

Over the next couple of years, we coexisted with each other. I stayed out of her way as much as I could, a habit that ultimately translated to other aspects of my life. And she spared me just enough attention when I needed to be punished for taking money for school supplies and food. 

It got to a point when I started hanging around my high school more than I should. I'd get there extremely early and leave as late as I could without getting in anyone's way. 

And I actually really liked school. Steve wasn't lying when he said I was smart. I really did have a knack for picking up on things easily, and good grades came to me like a birthright. 

I was top of the list for everything.

Minus social skills.

I kept to myself. I was smart but I barely raised my hand in class so as to not rob anyone else of the opportunity to participate. I ate lunch alone in front of my locker to not take up any space at a table in the cafeteria. But I was fine with it.

Everything was fine.

Zeke Fritz was the youngest teacher at my school. He was well-mannered and charming, and he was very popular among all his students — but especially the girls.

He just had a dignified presence that drew everyone in. A lot of the female teachers would shamelessly flirt with him but he always remained very composed.

As the only male born to politicians with connections just about everywhere, Zeke Fritz could've lived a cushy life with a breezy job that would keep him comfortable for life.

But he wanted to be a high school teacher. So, fresh out of a masters program in math, he quickly snagged the open position at the high school I enrolled in years later. Not that an open position was a sign of good luck. For Zeke Fritz, spaces were manufactured for him wherever he chose to go.

He was well qualified for the job, though. He'd also taken a liking to me during my first and only semester of my first year. I was the first to pick up on every formula he taught and he found that endearing. 

“I think I want to be a teacher someday,” I confessed one late afternoon when he asked me to help grade my classmates’ recent pop quiz. 

I'd accepted out of a sense of duty, and because if I had rejected him, it surely would've caused him trouble of some sort.

Right?

“You'd make a fantastic teacher,” he smiled.

So, there we were. Looking back, that must've been the day I dug my own grave because Mr. Fritz seemed awfully delighted that I didn't reply to his request for help with an excuse, and that I basically confessed to looking up to him. My compliant attitude must've looked a lot different for him than it did for me.

He drove me home an hour later and watched me open the door to the apartment before leaving, like a perfect gentleman. I waved him goodbye and he smiled at me from inside his car, waving back as he sped off.

That was one of the last few times I saw him. Because just two weeks later, I dropped out of school. 

Little by little, my mom had built up a large debt with Steve, and seeing that she'd taken loans from different people, whatever she earned from selling sex just didn't cut it. Our water, gas, and electricity bills were more than we could pay for, so I had no choice.

I started mowing lawns, raking leaves, cleaning pools and houses, and walking dogs for extra cash. I wasn't rich by any means, but I'd split most of the money to appease debt collectors and whatever was left to save for a rainy day. 

When my mom noticed I was bearing most of the weight, she began slipping away from her own, leaving it for me to pick up. She continued abusing, and even developed more expensive tastes. There wasn't much I could do at that point. I could beg her to stop and flush her pills down the toilet but we'd just go in circles for hours and I'd end up huddled in the corner with tears, hugging myself in an attempt to feel some warmth. 

I landed a waitressing job at a diner. I'd go three days a week and on my off-days I'd keep working odd jobs to stay afloat. 

On one occasion, Mr. Fritz walked in.

He pronounced my name with surprise. I was even more surprised he remembered me. An entire year had gone by since I'd seen him, and I was sure he had plenty of fresh faces to occupy himself with to remember his student of roughly four months.

I politely nodded at him in greeting and showed him to a table. That night, after he insisted on driving me home, I finally caved at his fourth try. 

However, as we neared my neighborhood, I burst into tears. He pulled into a dead-end street and turned off the car. I cried for the longest time, explaining through sobs that I was tired and that I missed school but I felt forced to leave.

He held me in his arms, his hand brushing down my back in comforting strokes until I calmed down.

He began frequenting the diner after that. Every Friday, he'd invite me to sit with him during my break and he'd fill me in on what he was teaching that week.��

One night when he came in, I had a nasty bruise on my face. In one of my countless fights with my mom, she'd thrown a broken glass at my face and cut my jaw. It wasn't deep, but it was enough to leave a mark for a couple of months. 

I didn't go back home that night. I felt awful for intruding on Mr. Fritz’s space, but he was adamant I stay with him until I figured what to do. 

He provided me with food that night and clothes the following morning. I didn't want to burden him, but he'd already bought them, so I accepted the clothes with a polite nod. I remember my face warming up when I noticed his generosity went as far as new underwear and a plain white bra that fit me a bit awkwardly, but he seemed unfazed.

His place was closer to the diner I worked at, and odd jobs could be found just as well in his neighborhood. So, as long as I stayed there, I kept my routine and even helped tidy his apartment as a thank you. 

At sixteen and a half, I started studying for my GED. Mr. Fritz helped me cram for the math portion and did as much as he could for other subjects. I was incredibly grateful. 

The afternoon the results were posted on the testing portal, I was a nervous wreck. Mr. Fritz stood behind me, his hands resting comfortably on my shoulders as he assured me I'd done just fine. I scrolled down the web page in search of a passing score. When I saw it, I jumped out of my chair and screamed excitedly. Mr. Fritz picked me up and spun me around as he rejoiced in my success. 

Even when he put me down, he kept his arms around my waist as he smiled down at me.

“Congratulations,” he murmured.

And then he leaned in.

The kiss took me by surprise. His hold was strong so I merely stumbled as I tried to draw a distance.

“Mr. Fritz—” 

“What's wrong?” he gently asked me. “Don't you like me?” 

My face warmed at the question, and I barely stuttered out a response. 

“I do, but–”

I wanted to explain that my fondness was out of admiration, but he cut me off before I could.

“Then why can't we kiss? I like you, too. I always have. It's only natural. I'm a man and you're a woman. We live together; it was bound to happen.”

Confused, but trusting that his logic was a compelling argument, I nodded.

“I guess that's true.” 

“And besides, I've been helping you this entire time. I did it because I care. I'd be hurt if you didn't think I was worthy after all I've done for you. Think of it as a token of your appreciation.” 

“I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful,” I murmured. 

My voice was barely above a whisper, but my meek demeanor made him smile.

Lifting my chin, he leaned down to kiss me again. I didn't stop him that time, and he just kept going.

Before I knew it, I was routinely bent over his dinner table or pushed down to my knees so I could repay his kindness. 

This went on for months.

I felt a bit guilty. Because even though I could feel it in my gut that his logic had its flaws, I still let him have his way with me. But a few weeks in, I was convinced I was in love with him. 

It was only natural, as he once said.

People who love each other do everything together. People who love each other kiss in the shadows all the time. They sleep next to each other in the same bed and they wake up at three in the morning to have sex, which ends with the guy telling the girl he loves her because the girl asked what she means to him. People who love each other would rather stay home than go out on dates where people can see them because love is best kept private.

That's what Zeke told me.

And I trusted Zeke. I loved him.

After the diner I worked at closed down, I started making deliveries for a nearby restaurant owned by a family of the name Grice. They could only offer me weekend hours, which meant I had to move my other jobs around but I accepted their offer. Since I couldn't drive a car or a motorcycle, I had to bike everywhere. Thankfully, the Grice's eldest son, Colt, gave me his old bike to use.

Colt Grice was nice. He was only a year younger than me but we'd never met until I started working for his parents. He went to private school, so it made sense we'd never crossed paths. 

Colt Grice also had a thing for me. He asked me out a couple of times but I always politely declined. I couldn't tell him a name, but I let him know I was seeing someone. So he remained a distant admirer. 

One Saturday afternoon, as I was cycling to and from the restaurant to make deliveries, I got lost looking for the last address on my list. 

I took a wrong turn and ended up in a neighborhood I couldn't recognize. Frustrated, I hopped off Colt's bike and started walking, hopeful to find someone to ask for directions.

I passed by a dead-end and there I saw it. Zeke's car.

Confused as to what he was doing there, but relieved nonetheless, I started walking toward the car to surprise him. But I never made it.

Because as soon as I stepped forward, I caught a second figure inside the car. A girl around my age, or maybe even one or two years younger was sitting on his lap in the back seat, fervently kissing him — and he wasn't doing anything to stop her.

Stunned, I rushed out of there as fast as my feet allowed me. 

By the time I came through the door of the Grice restaurant, I'd succeeded in my last delivery but I was a mess. Colt's parents rushed to me, asking if I was okay but all I could do was apologize for the delay. 

Seeing as it was already dark out, Colt offered to walk me home. He remained quiet the entire way to Zeke's apartment building, which was perfect because I didn't have it in me to talk. As I stepped one foot in front of the other in a zombie-like daze, I thought about how crummy my life had been so far. I kept seeing flashes of Zeke and that girl in the backseat. I also thought about whether I should actually be with someone like Colt Grice.

If I was honest, had Zeke never entered my life, I would've said yes to Colt Grice ages ago. He was kind and tall, and he was nice to look at. Not to mention he was closer to my age than Zeke was. 

So when we reached the front steps of Zeke's apartment building and Colt bid me goodbye with a smile, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him.

He was taken aback, of course. But he kissed me back as soon as the shock subsided. 

Blushing, he asked if I'd like to get a smoothie with him after work tomorrow. 

I decided right then and there, on the eve of my eighteenth birthday, that I would cut ties with Mr. Fritz.

“I'd love to.”

Colt nervously laughed, amazed that I finally accepted his offer.

“I'll see you tomorrow, then,” he smiled, my name sweet on his tongue.

I didn't know Zeke had been watching us the entire time from his living room window.

My resolve to leave him was literally beaten out of me as soon as I walked through the door of his apartment.

I never brought up the girl from the dead-end street. 

I never showed up for work the next day, I never showed up for my date with Colt, and I never saw the Grice family again even after I left Zeke for good six months later.

I went back to living with my mom. As expected, she was still a mess but by then all the crap in her system had worn her out so much that I had to do everything for her. 

She couldn't fight with me like she used to just a year and a half ago, but it was still hell. She'd throw plates at me and scream horrible things at the top of her lungs until I'd break down crying each time. And that just wound her up even more. 

I couldn't just leave her. She was all I had and I was all she had.

But even the most patient hearts are worn out, and so even though I held out as much as I could for six years — and I was probably just waiting to keep her company on her deathbed — I left. She was too out of it to realize who she was talking to, but angry enough to throw a picture frame at the door when I walked out.

I moved to a new city and got a job. I used my savings to furnish the small apartment I found for myself, filling it with soft pastel colors that made the place my safe haven. 

I started wearing neutral colors, not wanting to draw attention to myself, and eventually found comfort in treating myself to the nice things I never had. 

I only went back to my hometown to fill out paperwork when I got a call that my mom had died. That same week I spent there, I heard through the grapevine that Zeke got arrested after he failed to manipulate the young daughter of one of his family's friends, bringing shame to the Fritz name. I never saw him, or Mrs. Zacharias, or Colt Grice ever again.

You don’t seem to notice that your hands have been shaking for a while now, but Eren does. He's been holding them the entire time as they prune in the cold water. 

Tears are pricking at his eyes but he refuses to let himself cry no matter how heavy his heart feels. It just doesn't feel appropriate when he's not the one trembling at the retelling of their life's story. 

Words don't come easy to him, either. An apology seems out of place, and any string of comfort just doesn't seem to cut it. He wanted to know everything and now he does. Now he's just lost on what to say that could prove to you that you made the right call to trust him.

“I'm sorry,” you murmur, lacing your fingers with his, pulling his hand out of the water, and kissing his knuckles. 

The gesture makes him ache.

“I know it's a lot.”

Eren could never lie to you. Everything you just told him definitely took a toll on him, but he’s also grateful that you shared it with him. And you shouldn't be the one to comfort him. It's given him an entire new perspective on who he wants to be for you. 

It rips him apart from the inside to think that you grew up believing you weren't worthy of healthy parents or a proper home. To think that the only time you experienced love it wasn't even real, and that distorted your understanding of the word forever. To think you were present to help anybody you could without someone to do the same for you without any ulterior motives. To think you made yourself small when you deserved just as much as anybody to take up space in the world. 

What can he say to a person who refuses to believe she could be genuinely loved but whom he loves like it's breathing?

If he had met you sooner, he would've done everything to protect you. It kills him that he couldn't keep you from being manipulated and used. 

“Do you still like me?”

Your timid voice wavers in the air. 

It dawns on Eren that he has yet to speak a word, and that you have no clue of where his head has been for the past few minutes since you caught him up to your present life. 

You don't turn around to look at him, nor do you make any other move. You just remain with your back to him, looking down at your naked legs through the soapy water.

When Eren peers at you over your shoulder, lifting your chin with a wet pruned finger, you struggle to meet his gaze. 

“Why wouldn't I?” 

You crumble in his arms. 

Eren cradles you as you cry into his chest like an affection-starved baby. He presses your naked body against his chest, rhythmically shushing you as his hand soothes your bare back and he presses his lips to your temple. 

You cry out twenty-four years worth of pain with Eren as your anchor. Your eyes swell and your features contort in anguish as you sob so violently, the movement reflects on your shoulders and your cries are mute. You cry until there are no more tears to shed and all that's left are a few hiccups as your body comes down from its panic. 

Eren turns on the shower and scrubs your body down. His fingers massage your scalp as warm water pours down your fragile frame. He sweeps the suds from your face with a gentle hand, as he looks down at you, teary-eyed but smiling as warmly as ever when you blink up at him. 

A soft, fluffy towel is ruffled over your hair as he draws out the excess moisture before he wraps a second around your body and lifts you in his arms in one swift motion. You cling to him while he carries you to bed, where he carefully sets you down and he hugs you to his chest, coaxing you to sleep while the world outside your window slows down and darkens.

It's around three in the morning when Eren stirs awake. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he finds you looking at him.

“How long have you been awake?” he whispers.

You smile.

“A while,” you admit. “I didn't know watching someone sleep could be so fascinating.” 

“Well, now I'm embarrassed,” he laughs, his voice still groggy.

“Now you know how I feel,” you smirk, reminding him of when he's done the same. 

His hand comes up to cup your face.

“How are you feeling?” he tenderly asks, his bright emerald eyes shining in the dark.

“Better,” you murmur. Then you meekly add, “I didn't think I would cry so much. I'm a little embarrassed about that.”

Eren leans forward to plant a brief kiss on your lips. 

“Thank you,” he says, to which your eyebrows upturn in confusion.

“For trusting me,” he explains. “I know it couldn't have been easy to relive everything.”

He clears his throat as he strokes the apple of your cheek with his thumb.

“I didn't know what to say at the moment. If that freaked you out, I'm sorry. But I promise none of that changes the way I feel about you. Not that, not anything. I swear. I won't fail you.” 

You thought you were dried out, but Eren's words draw another series of tears to well in your eyes and cling to your lashes.

“So you still want me?”

He smiles.

“I told you. I'm in it for the long haul.”

As you melt in each other’s embrace, you realize this is what genuine love is. People who love each other want to know each other. They hold hands and play on swings in childlike glee. They wake up at three in the morning to watch the other person sleep, careful not to disturb them because the image of them dreaming is just too precious. And whether it be in light or shadows, people who love each other kiss slowly as words of praise and worship are poured into each other's mouths and warm hands caress each other’s scars.

The last two days leading to the New Year's Eve party at the Jaeger house are spent making last minute arrangements and check-ins with the catering service, florists, pyrotechnicians, and others. 

You and Carla spend the last day shopping. You brought one of your fancier dresses in your suitcase, but after witnessing all the crates of champagne being delivered and hauled into the house in preparation for the party, as well as a preview of the flower arrangements, you felt the need to seek something livelier than the original sleek black silk dress.

It takes several stores and countless fittings until Carla finds you the perfect dress. It's simple but pretty and you and Carla are over the moon with the way it fits you when you step out of the changing room.

The following night, the music from the main house's terrace can be heard all the way inside the pool house. You haven't met anyone yet, but the sound of car doors and alarms have been faintly echoing in the background for a while.

Eren’s fixing his bow tie in front of the bedroom mirror when you slowly wander into the bedroom, in your pretty pastel dress and strappy heels, fixing your earrings as you go. 

Eren's mouth falls open when he turns around and takes in the sight. 

“What do you think?” you shyly ask.

You're in a flowy midi knife-pleated dress, washed in pastel colors that blend seamlessly between lavender, pastel pink, blue and green, like a watercolor painting. The bustier-style bodice is connected to dainty straps in the same soft colors. 

His lips part and close as he struggles to find the right words. When you giggle, he finally grins and pulls you in by the waist.

“Are you even real?” he murmurs.

You laugh as he pushes you back against the wall, smiling and cradling your face with one hand as the other keeps you pressed against him by the small of your back.

Your hands drape around his neck as he catches a glimpse of the angel necklace resting below your collarbone.

“I think we should bail on the party and just celebrate here,” he grins as his nose brushes against yours. “You know, in some cultures, New Year's is more of a private holiday.”

You throw your head back in laughter as he peppers your neck with short, eager kisses.

“Seriously,” he says, leaning back just enough to admire your smiling face. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you,” you shyly reply. “You look really good, too.”

“Well, I remembered you liked me in a suit,” he smirks, eliciting a pleasant shiver to run down your spine. “So… what do you say?”

Giggling, you shake your head.

“I think your mom will notice if her only son doesn't show up to the party.”

Eren pouts.

“You're right. Then at least I'll get to brag about having the prettiest woman in the world with me.”

He enthusiastically pulls you into a kiss, drawing out an amused giggle from your lips as you melt into his touch. 

When he pulls back, you're both smiling, connecting in one enamored look.

“Eren, I love you.”

Your eyes twinkle as they blink up at him.

“I know I haven't said it in a while but… you know I do… right?”

Eren's heart frantically pounds against his ribs as he caresses your cheek with tender strokes of his thumb.

“Of course,” he murmurs. 

Your shoulders visibly relax, like you've been holding back on repeating those three words and this moment has finally granted you with relief.

Chewing on your bottom lip, you nod. 

“Okay,” you sigh happily. You peck the corner of his mouth. “Come on, Carla's probably wondering what's taking so long.”

Eren doesn't move, keeping you in place against the wall.

“Wait,” he says, his voice quivering slightly at the end.

He brings your hand to his chest, giving you a second to feel the fervent beats.

You look at him curiously as your name rolls off his tongue.

“I love you.”

His features soften before you as the words leave his lips, like pronouncing them has lightened an unknown weight on his shoulders.

“I didn't say it back then,” he adds. “But it wasn't because I didn't feel it. I was just surprised you said it first. But you know I've loved you this entire time… right?”

His shy confession lines your eyes with tears. 

“Of course,” you murmur. 

He sighs heavily in relief as he kisses you once more.

“I love you,” he repeats, the words falling from his lips like it's what he was put on this earth to pronounce. 

“I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.” Kiss. “I love you.”

You cling to him, your fingers carding through his hair as he ruins your lipstick with his fervent kiss.

“I love you, Eren,” you repeat, as you fall back onto the bed, where his hand snakes up your thighs and his fingers tug your underwear to the side. 

“I love you,” you sigh as he buries himself inside you, the contact raw without a single thing to keep you apart. 

“I love you,” you whimper as your legs wrap around his middle and he finishes inside. 

You both rest on the bed, hands laced together as you regain control of your breathing. 

“I love you,” Eren smiles, your full name bouncing off his tongue and making you giggle.

“I love you, Eren Jaeger.”

The music from the string quartet on the terrace begins to play, reminding you of the night's agenda. 

“Let's go,” Eren says, helping you up with one hand.

“I'm gonna need a minute,” you tell him as you fetch a fresh pair of underwear from the dresser. “I'll be quick.”

He nods, a cocky grin taking over his lips when he notices the streak of your lipstick smeared on your chin. 

“I'll wait for you outside,” he smiles. “I gotta make a call.”

You nod and slip into the bathroom.

As you take in your reflection, an excited flutter stirs in your stomach. 

Being with Eren doesn't compare to anything else in your life. He's the warmth you've craved your entire life. He's deep in every cavity of your being, patching you up from the inside with his strength and affection.

You decide at this moment that you've never loved anyone until him.

As you trade your ruined lipstick for a tinted lip gloss and you clean the remnants from your spontaneous lovemaking, three little words shaped by Eren's warm voice echoes in your ears.

I love you. 

With one last look in the mirror, you walk out to meet him. 

As you shut the pool house door behind you, you pick up the last of Eren's call.

“I gotta go… Yeah… Good luck, buddy.”

Eren ends the call with a quick tap to his screen before turning to you.

He holds out his hand for you to take.

“Ready?”

The party is in full swing on the terrace. Champagne bottles have been popped and music and lively voices fill the air.

You feast on shrimp and cream puffs, bacon-wrapped asparagus and antipasto skewers. You clink your champagne flute with Carla and the ladies from her book club as you suggest titles for their next read and you look over at the pyrotechnicians as they finish setting up for the fireworks show with ten minutes to spare.

Eren never leaves your side. 

He laces your fingers with his as he tugs you away from the railing to dance. His hands fix your arms around his neck before settling on your waist.

He's not much of a dancer, but you follow his lead in swaying to the music. Your limbs tingle with the light buzz of brut.

“Are you happy?” he asks as he presses his forehead to yours.

You smile.

“I'm never not happy when I'm with you.”

He laughs.

“I guess I'm stuck with you, then.”

“You are,” you murmur as you draw closer to his lips.

He pulls back teasingly, chuckling when you inevitably pout at his evasion.

“Easy, you'll get your kiss in a couple of minutes.”

Resting your head on his chest, you continue to sway. It's not long before someone calls out that it's a minute to midnight. 

As fresh champagne flutes are handed out to every guest, you turn around in Eren arms so you can face the fireworks show. As everyone around you excitedly counts down the last ten seconds of the year, Eren hovers over your shoulder and lifts your chin between two fingers.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

“I love you,” you murmur back.

The two of you kiss as golden lights burst in the sky.

Later that night, buzzed from champagne and with a new bottle tucked under Eren's jacket, you stumble into the pool house, giggling like teenagers who just stole from their parent's liquor cabinet. As you clumsily undress each other and exhale sweet words in the air while reconnecting your bodies one more time, you think to yourself that Eren has managed the impossible — to heal every wound and make you happy. 

The following morning, you'll find a new series of text messages where Mikasa and Jean let their friends know they're engaged, and you'll be even happier.

Two days into the new year, you part from Paradis Island. 

At the airport, as you, Eren, and Carla have a quick lunch before you leave, Eren pulls out his phone and asks you and his mom to pose for a picture together, before asking a security guard to snap a photo of the three of you.

Carla hugs you tightly as she makes you promise you'll be back soon even for just a few days. You hold onto her just as tightly, thanking her for everything, even for the things she didn't know she gifted you, and you swear this isn't the last she'll see of you.

Roughly thirty minutes later, as you look out the window, waiting for the plane to take off, Eren's hand gently envelops yours. 

You turn to smile at him and he dips forward to kiss your temple. 

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

Previous chapter | Next chapter 

Minors and ageless blogs who interact will be blocked

Chapter guide  |  Masterlist  |  Navigation

taglist: @erenjaegerwifee @youatemylollipop @okaystopwhore @bakuhoethotski @f4irygard3n @saybeyonce @indeedbooks15

[hyperfixationstati0n]

When You Know, You Know (Pt.2)

An: lmk how you feel about this :) Idk where else to go form here as I didn't plan on making multiple parts but if a part 3 is wanted I'll figure it out!!

Pairing: Spencer x bookstore!owner!reader

Content warnings: none really, swears a little, both spencer and reader are still hella awkward

Word count: 875

Part one

I waited and waited for Spencer to come in again. 3 weeks of waiting, actually. I was starting to think I’d scared him off, although I didn’t know how I managed to do that. I was sulking, standing in front of the register with Lennon on a particularly slow day. Rose, the angel that she was, was helping stock books while I attempted to focus my mind and work on packaging online orders.

“I’m just delusional. I scared him off and now he’s never coming back!” I exclaim, earning a sideways look from Rose across the store.

“You can’t scare someone off if you’ve never talked to them,” Lennon says with a laugh. For someone younger than me he was such a bully. (lovingly, of course)

“But I did talk to him. And he knows I hide from him whenever he comes in.” 

“Girl, I swear to god if you don’t let me help you find that man’s Instagram or something I will lose my mind. you need to get out of your comfort zone and make a fucking mo-“

The bell chimed. My eyes widened. Lennon shut his mouth as quick as he opened it. 

Spencer was standing in my store, standing there with an awkward yet charming smile and a wave. I wave back, feeling my cheeks flush. As soon as he walks down an aisle, talking to Rose, I hit Lennon on the shoulder.

“Go take inventory or something.” I say under my breath.

“Ohh, so you like the register now” He teases, his voice a little louder than I would’ve preferred. I playfully shove him away and try to collect myself. I was going to act natural, I wasn’t going to be weird. I was going to be myself. I told myself he was just another customer, however untrue to me that might be. 

Thankfully though, this time around I had more time to prepare what I was going to say, something I needed if I was going to get through a few sentences with him without fumbling my words. He came to the register with a stack of 4 books. Seriously, my curiosity was piqued. How did he read this fast? I noticed this time one of them was a poetry book; ‘Leaves of Grass’ by Walt Whitman. Interesting. I always took note of what people were buying, and obviously, he was at the front of my mind. This selection surprised me. 

“You’re not hiding!” He comments. I nod and smile, slightly embarrassed at the fact he had pointed it out. 

“It’s very out of character, I know” I was trying to come off as witty, but truthfully I could only pray that what he saw. “so, how are you?”

“I’m great actually. I finally have a day off and decided I could come pick up a few new reads.” 

I nodded slowly but the question was still on my mind. I had to know.

“I hope I don’t overstep with this, but do you actually go through books as fast as you’re buying them?”

A smile twitches as his lips, a slight pink tinge covering his cheeks.

“I-yeah, I do. I…read really fast.” His voice seemed a little nervous. I wouldn’t press the matter right now, but it definitely caught my attention.

“I can tell” I chuckle softly, hitting a few buttons on the cash register as I finish ringing up his things. “You definitely bring a lot of business here”

He laughed softly, a sound I could’ve relished in. But my own mind stopped me-I was supposed to be acting normal. 

Then the unexpected happened. After he paid for his things with actual small talk from my end-he lingered. For once I was glad we didn’t have much business today, I got to really talk to him. He was kind, and clearly very smart. I found out we actually had a lot of mutual interests. Talking to him was weirdly easy, even if I had this consistent feeling of butterflies in my stomach. But then I heard his phone go off with a text.

“Shoot…I hate to cut our conversation short but I have to go.” He says as he tucks his phone back in his pocket. I nod, albeit a little sadly. I had Lennon's voice in the back of my mind 

“Make a fucking move, make a fucking move, make a fucking move…”

It was now or never.

“I was wondering if…maybe, only if you want…do you want to go out for coffee sometime? When you’re not working.” 

His eyes widened and I had this temporary moment of fear before his eyes softened and he smiled.

“I would-I would really love that.” 

I gestured slightly to his phone.

“Can I give you my number?”

“Oh yeah, yeah! yes, please do” He fumbles to get his phone back out and unlock it, only having one hand to do so as the other was still holding his bag of books.

I put my number in, and we said goodbye, but just as he was about to leave I asked one last thing.

“Spencer?”

He turns and looks at me again, waiting.

“How fast do you really read?”

“20,000 words per minute.”

What have I gotten myself into?

[lucy90712]

Gavi- Birthday surprise

After weeks of planning and what feels like millions of phone calls it's finally Pablo's birthday and everything should hopefully come together. On my birthday Pablo went all out so I wanted to do the same so that's what I am attempting to do. It has been difficult as Pablo and I are long distance while I'm in university but I think I have been trying my best to get everything sorted and exactly how I want it. As much as I've planned a lot of things the part I'm most excited about is getting to surprise him as he thinks that I won't be able to make it out to Barcelona this weekend. He was so disappointed when I said I wouldn't be there so now I can't wait to see his reaction when he comes home from training to me being at his place. 

So far everything is going to plan as when I got up to get ready for my flight I managed to order Pablo some breakfast which I know arrived just after he woke up as he text me to thank me. Just to make sure he didn't get suspicious I spent while texting him as he was getting ready as most days we do that because sometimes it's the only time we are both free to talk. Just as my flight was boarding Pablo told me he had to leave for training which was perfect timing yet again. Now that Pablo's at training and I'm on my flight things should be pretty straightforward but until I set foot in Pablo's house I can't be fully relaxed as things could still go wrong and ruin the surprises I have planned. 

My flight touched down exactly on time and I ran through the airport collecting my suitcase along the way before getting in a taxi. Pablo doesn't like me taking taxis but in this situation I don't have any other option so I made sure to give the driver a slightly differently address and I had sunglasses on so the driver couldn't see my eyes just in case he might recognise me. As I expected I made it to my destination safely and I walked a few houses down until I reached Pablo's place. When I had to move away for university Pablo gave me a key to his place so that if I ever wanted to come back home without planning a trip I didn't have to wait for him to be home. In this situation having a key is really helpful as I was able to let myself in and start decorating the place. 

Half of my suitcase was filled with decorations as I didn't want to have to buy them here in case they didn't have what I wanted as I don't have much time to waste. Because my time is limited I got started straight away by blowing up the millions of balloons I brought which I'm definitely regretting now. Once I started I got a good system going and before I knew it all turned balloons were blown up and now I just have to put everything up. I wanted to put the balloons all around so I started with hanging them around the lights which involved standing on a chair which Pablo will tell me off for later but I can cope with that. It took a while but eventually I got everything up but then I had the brilliant idea to out a few balloons on the door so that Pablo would see them when he got home and would hopefully be confused for long enough that I could really surprise him. 

By the time I was done it wasn't long until he would be home so I found my hiding spot and while I waited I put together a post for Pablo's birthday as I do it every year even though no one other than him really cares. Just as I clicked post I heard a car door close outside and all of a sudden I got super nervous because what if Pablo doesn't want to see me. I had to put that out my mind as the door opened and I saw Pablo drop his bag and put his keys down while looking around clearly confused by what I'd done to the door. Just as he was about to walk away I jumped out from my hiding spot and scared the life out of him to begin with before he realised it was me. Once he realised he came straight over and picked me up in a tight hug while leaving kisses all over my face and neck. 

"What are you doing here?" He asked 

"I'm here to surprise you" I said 

"Well I'm definitely surprised you scared the shit out of me" he laughed 

"I'm sorry but your face was funny I don't think I'll ever be able to get you that good ever again" I said 

"You better not next time I might die of a heart attack" he joked 

"Come on I have more to show you" I said dragging him into the living room 

"Oh wow how long did this take you?" He asked 

"Not too long but the stuff took up most of my suitcase so I'm probably going to need to steal some of your clothes" I said 

"I like the sound of that" he smirked 

I slapped his chest before getting him to sit down with me as I wanted to spend time together as we haven't seen each other in ages and while he was in the USA we didn't get to talk much. Within seconds we were deep in conversation about everything he did in the states and he wouldn't stop telling me how much he wanted us to go out there together so he can take me to all the places he saw. He showed me all of the pictures he took while he was out there too some of which he already sent me but I still liked seeing the selfies he took even if he needs lessons on how to take them. While he was gone all I really did was prep for going back to uni but he insisted that I tell him about every little thing I did so we talked about my work and I showed him the research I had already done. He doesn't completely understand what I'm studying but he always takes and interest and tells me I'm smart which really helps keep me going during the exam seasons. 

We spent hours cuddling and catching up before I remembered the reason I flew out here and ran off to get Pablo's presents which also took up quite a bit of space in my suitcase. I spent quite a while trying to find the perfect presents for him so I'm excited to see what he thinks as I think I did a good job. I have always loved giving gifts so as I put Pablo's presents in his lap and sat down not being able to hide the wide smile on my face. The first present was a pair of sunglasses I knew he had been looking at then I got him a few new hoodies which will eventually end up mine as much as his but he doesn't mind. I got him a few other things and then he got to the last present which I was most nervous about. He opened it and came across the scrapbook I had put together which had pictures of us from all of the important moments in our relationship and then there was loads of blank pages so we can add all our future memories to it. 

"This is so sweet I love it" he said 

"I'm glad you like it I was worried you'd think it was lame" I said 

"No I love it I can't wait to add to it in the future" he said 

"I wrote a little note at the back too" I said 

Instead of buying a card I decided to write in the back of the scrapbook as that way he can keep it forever. Neither of us are good at expressing our feelings with words and are much better at showing our feelings so it was hard for me to write the note but I did my best to try and express my true feelings. As I watched him read it my hands were sweating like crazy but when I saw his cheeks turn pink and his eyes glass over a little I calmed down again. After he read the whole thing he closed the book and just engulfed me in a hug while kissing me. Pablo really isn't one to talk too much so when he whispered in my ear how much he loved me I knew he truly meant it and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

After a while of letting him cuddle me I asked what he wanted to do because although I had a few ideas I wanted him to decide what he wanted to do for his birthday. To my surprise Pablo just wanted to stay in and cuddle which wasn’t what I thought he’d want to do but I could never say no to that request. Once I had agreed Pablo quickly laid down and pulled me on top of him which is his favourite way to cuddle as he can hold me as close as he wants to and play with my hair. Today he decided he wanted to play with my hair so he took it out of the ponytail I had put it in to travel and started running his fingers through it to get all the knots out before putting them all back in by wrapping my hair around his fingers. 

While we were playing down together I put a movie on for us to have on in the background. We both mostly ignored the movie as we were just talking to each other or just enjoying being together as soon we will both be a lot busier so we won’t get to have this time together. As the day went on we barely moved from our spot on the sofa until it started to get late and we were both getting hungry. Even though we shouldn’t because of Pablo’s diet I ordered dinner for us so that we could eat without having to leave the comfort of our spot on the sofa for more than a few minutes and because I think Pablo deserves a treat. 

After an evening of doing nothing just like most of the day Pablo carried me upstairs to bed and gave me one of his T-shirts to wear as I didn’t really have room to pack anything to sleep in. While I did my skincare he kept his arms around my waist the entire time so that the second I was done he could bring me to the bed and go back to cuddling. 

“Have you had a good birthday?” I asked 

“I’ve had the best day thank you for doing all of this for me you’re the best” he said 

“There’s not need to thank me you deserve it all and a lot more” I said

“Well I’m going to thank you anyway because you made today exactly how I wanted it to be” he smiled 

“I’m happy I could do that for you but I’m exhausted so goodnight birthday boy” I said 

“Goodnight mi amor” he whispered 

[lil-elle]

Hiii!!!

Can you write xikers reaction to you having a panic attack? Like how they would comfort you. LY<3

Of courseee this is so sweet, I feel like they'd be so comforting 🥹

XIKERS when you have a Panic Attack

pairs: bf!xikers x gn!reader

genre: fluff, slight angst i guess (??)

word count: 1.1k

content: panic attack description, face kisses

a/n: i wanted this to be as accurate as it could so sorry if it took a little while ♡

Minjae:

Would be shocked at first but his caring nature would quickly take over and he'd immediately try to figure out what to do to calm you down

Bring you water and sit you down somewhere

He'd just gently rub your back and watch you carefully with worried eyes

Once you've calmed down he'd gently wipe your tears (if you were crying) with the sleeve of his shirt, not caring if it leaves weird marks

You'd notice him being extra sweet and careful with you for the rest of the day and constantly checking in with you

-

Junmin:

Would take you away from where people could see you so you didn't feel like they were staring

Would hug you against his chest and gently pat your head while going “sshhhh it's okay, it's okay…” in a soft, quiet voice

He'd be SO worried, tears coming to his own eyes at your heavy breaths and sobs

Would keep hugging you tightly a while after you've calmed down and you'd be able to feel him trembling slightly

Once he finally pulls away he'd place the softest kiss on your forehead, “Ready to go now…?” In a super soft, caring voice

-

Sumin:

Would panic a little himself because he doesn't know what to do

Would try and do breathing exercises with you because it's the first thing that came to his head

If that didn't work he'd try to calm you down by getting your attention and attempting to distract you “Hey. Hey. I'm right here…”

His voice as he speaks would be the softest you've ever heard it

He'd buy you a plushie and some sweets (or just something he knows you like) afterwards to treat you (also he'd lowkey be traumatised because he had no idea what he was doing)

-

Jinsik:

Would immediately tear up seeing you so freaked out and panicky, so so worried about you

Would push down his own panic to help you, using as soft as a voice he could and calling you sweet things in an attempt to make you feel better

Would hold your face and run his thumbs over your cheeks while looking into your eyes and singing oh so softly to you

He'd immediately start crying once he sees you calming down because he's so relieved and overwhelmed

Kiss your cheeks while tears run down his face, telling you he loves you so much

-

Hyunwoo:

Definitely the most panicked out of everyone

Would make silly faces or makes jokes to try and calm you down and get you to cheer up (like comforting a baby 💀)

It'd actually make you giggle a little and distract you enough to help you start calming down

He'd be so relieved seeing you calm down he'd almost fall to the floor

Would hug you and bury his face in your neck, apologising profusely that he didn't know what to do even when you reassure him that it's fine and he did great

-

Junghoon:

His eyes would widen and he'd just stand there for a moment not knowing what's happening

Once he understands what's going on he'd quickly find you somewhere to sit and talk to you, trying to get you to explain to him what panicked you so much

If you couldn't even talk through your breaths and sobs he'd just grasp your hand tightly, his eyebrows knit together in worry

He wouldn't even notice when you've calmed down, he'd be too lost in his own scared thoughts

You'd tap him on the shoulder and as soon as he sees you're okay he'd pull you into a bone crushing hug, not saying a word

-

Seeun:

He seems like the type to have never witnessed a panic attack or anything close to it before so when he sees you start panicking he'd be like “woah what's up, you okay?”

Once he sees you're not calming down, you're actually getting worse, he'd take your hands and hold them to his face, repeating “Hey, you're fine, you're alright, you're safe…”

Usually wouldn't make himself so vulnerable like that especially if he was in public but he'd do it for you

Would lean his forehead to yours once you start calming down, smiling at you warmly and asking if you're okay, asking what made that happen

If you teased him later about being so emotional he'd swear that he'd ignore you if it happened again (he wouldn't, if anything he'd research on how to better comfort you)

-

Yujun:

Would repeat your name over and over, scared and confused

Would sink down to the floor while holding you in his arms, brushing your hair out of your face and wiping your eyes and cheeks profusely

Once he realised he'd just have to let you calm down he'd hug you to his chest, kissing the top of your head occasionally and the rest of the time resting his cheek against your head

Tears would come to his eyes without even noticing

Would joke after you've calmed down, trying to lighten the mood despite the tears threatening to spill over, “oh gosh, please never do that again” he'd chuckle

-

Hunter:

Without missing a beat he’d immediately block you from sight and ask you what's wrong while wiping tears from your eyes

Once he realises your tears won't stop and you can't talk he'll just wrap his arms around you gently to keep you safe, watching you carefully to make sure you're okay

Would place little kisses on your forehead every so often so you know he's there and he cares for you

Would gently run his fingers through your hair as you start to finally calm down

He'd smile down at you so softly and calmly but through his shirt you'd feel his heart beating like crazy with worry and pain at seeing you that way

-

Yechan:

He's usually not very serious but the moment he senses something is wrong his smile would be gone and he'd be looking at you with a serious face and saying your name

He'd look around confused and worried, a million thoughts running through his head before he finally decides on holding your hands to his chest and talk to you in kind of a baby voice

Once you calm down he'd pat your face with his sweater paws to dry it and you'd giggle at how silly it feels

He'd place a kiss on your nose as you giggle and offer to take you for ice cream

He'd definitely go home and research what to do in that situation just in case it happens in the future because he feels like he kinda fumbled with how to handle it

-

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

TAGLIST:

@hyunromi @chocoeon @hyunukitty @minjaezed

[ravenzeppeli]

Claimed

Chapter 11- Bad First Impression? |Ghiaccio x Reader|

Warning: strong language, dark themes. MA.

Ghiaccios POV

Seven years ago, when Ghiaccio was still considered a young man, he was engaged to the love of his life, his high school sweetheart. She was studying to be a nurse and him a doctor, and she was four months pregnant with his child. When walking to her car late one night, a man raped and murdered her, taking not only the love of his life away but also his unborn child. Since that day, he'd grown even colder than he was before, doing whatever he could to forget that day. To forget them.

The reason why he joined the mafia was to seek out revenge for their deaths, and he indeed got his revenge. Risotto helped him get revenge, and since that day, he's lost himself in this job, giving up fully on love because he could not go through that again. He snapped when they died, he doesn't even remember the man he was before then. He only knows what he became after.

With you, he didn't want to get too close because he wouldn't be able to recover if he actually fell for you and lost you. Then again, a small part of him really wanted to get to know you and attempt to see where things would even go if he tried. With seven assassins protecting you, you would be safe. He just.. he really missed what was taken from him.

His conflicted thoughts were interrupted by you entering the dining room, standing across from him, the dining room table keeping a considerable distance between the two of you. "Ghiaccio," you mutteted softly, the way you said his name, causing his heart to actually skip a beat. Oh no.. this was trouble. His heart shouldn't react like that.

"What?" He looked up from his laptop, his eyes on your face. "Do you need something?"

You looked away from him, quickly turning away. "No." You quickly left, the backdoor gently closing.

He sighed, shaking his head before looking back down at his computer. His eyes glanced down at the time, immediately causing him to stand up. He raced out the back door, seeing you leaning next to the door. It was pitch black, the dim alleyway having only one working street light. "What the fuck are you doing?!"

You dropped the grinder in your hands, your weed falling all over the ground, grinder making a loud thud sound as you slightly jumped. He seemed to have scared you, your head immediately dropping to stare at the weed spilled all over the concrete ground. "I'm smoking! Fuck, goddammit! You scared me!" You yelled, that being the loudest he's heard you speak, you usually kept your voice pretty low. "It's okay about the weed, I have more. But you really scared me."

He shook his head, grabbing you by your waist, dragging you back into the hideout, slamming the backdoor shut and locking it. "It's midnight! You wanna smoke!? Smoke in your room, not in the dark alleyway!"

You frowned, "my grinder." You began to unlock the door, causing him to place his hand over yours. "Ghiaccio, my grinder."

"Fuck the goddamn grinder! I'll buy you another one!" He snapped at you, taking your hand off the doorknob. "You have no business being outside at night!"

You let a low laugh escape your lips, your eyebrows raising at him. "And who the fuck are you supposed to be? I don't have to listen to your insane commands."

"Don't test me," he warned, his voice suddenly dropping to a low whisper as he unlocked and opened the door, leaning down to pick up the two grinder pieces. He snatched them off the ground, and the two metal pieces made a loud clink sound as they clicked together in his hand. "I'm your boyfriend. Am I not?"

"Technically, all seven of you are, so yeah," you said, taking the grinder from his hand. "Thanks for picking it up. What are you up to? It's late." Your sudden mood change caught him by surprise. He expected you to stay angry with him.

"I was just finishing up some work on the computer," he replied, placing his hands in his pockets.

"Where are you sleeping tonight?" You questioned, sliding the grinder in your pocket. "You're my boyfriend? Hm."

Ghiaccio raised his eyebrows at you, stepping back a little. "Where should I sleep? Where do you want me to fucking sleep?" If you wanted him too, he could have sex with you. Melone recently gave him a condom and he had it in his wallet, waiting and ready for you. He hadn't performed sexually in seven years.. it made him kind of nervous to think about it. Would he be as good as the other men? Could he make you cum? Fuck! He didn't know!

You frowned at him. "Well, I guess you can sleep at your own house, and I'll sleep here by myself."

"Are you seriously trying to kick me out of the base!?" He exclaimed, staring at you in disbelief. He didn't understand why you seemed to hate him so much.

"No, I'm just being an asshole," you replied. "I clearly want you to stay. Stay out of my way." You went to walk past him, only for him to grab your arm. "I meant in like, a sense of not bossing me around."

He sighed, quickly letting go of your arm. He wanted to be mad at you, but he still had a theory that Risotto forced you to join. What he was told made him feel uneasy, how Risotto took you saving his life and twisted it into keeping you forever. It was sick. You helped him only for him to take you and claim you. It was obvious that you were mentally ill and deeply into the crime world. Risotto took advantage of all of that, but their was a pro that being you were safer here with them than out their. Especially with Melone around, Melone would do anything to keep you safe, Ghiaccio had never seen him act like this towards anyone.

"I guess you and I could share a bed tonight," he told you. "I will be going to bed after I take a shower."

You nodded your head, "I'll keep my door open for you." You walked away again. This time, he let you walk away instead of grabbing you.

He turned around, watching as you walked away, his eyes drifting down to stare at your ass. He nodded to himself before he walked into the bathroom, closing the door. He felt nervous. He actually felt fuckibg nervous to sleep next to you. Did you expect sex? Cuddling? He was definitely going to take a long shower to think.

-----

Ghiaccio quickly got into bed with you, wearing his plaid pajama pants and a black t shirt, what he usually wears to bed. He got under the covers, sitting up as he looked over at you, noticing you on your laptop. "What are you doing?" Was he allowed to ask you that? Fuck, of course he was! Why was he questioning himself?

"Replying to all of Melones emails," you replied, "he said that Pesci tripped and fell down the stairs today while trying to chase someone. He's fine."

"He always fucking does that," he replied, taking his glasses off and sitting them on the nightstand. "He has terrible balance."

You closed the laptop, sitting it on the nightstand next to your side of the bed. "It's okay if you snore. Don't be shy." You turned your lap off, laying down on your back. "You can snore if you want."

"I do not fucking snore Y/N," he snapped at you, laying down, keeping a few inches of distance between the two of you. He wondered.. should he be doing something here? Immediately, he rose up slightly, placing a kiss on your forehead. "Goodnight."

You looked up at him, your hand raising to touch his cheek, "Goodnight Ghiaccio. Sleep well."

As he laid back down, you turned to your side, your back facing him. He stared at your frame for a moment, wondering if he should make a move. No.. he wasn't quite ready yet. It's been seven years since.. no. No. He closed his eyes and went to sleep, pushing the memories of seven years ago back into the back of his mind, but as he slept at night his dreams haunted him, just as they always did.

[hurricanrxna]

hello everyone!! welcome to the prologue of my new fanfic series featuring the miz and my original character dani! this idea has blossomed into my little labor of love recently and marries so many of my favorite things into a super mushy and emotional little package. I've been wanting to write a proper multi-chapter fic for such a long time, but the pressure of putting out really long chapters has always scared me off. recently though I decided to just bite the bullet because I was so inspired by this; screw my own internal pressure! 😂 so! here I am! each chapter will be accompanied by a short synopsis plus links to previous chapters and the master list!. for questions about the story or input or anything at all, please don't hesitate to send 'em in through my asks! I would love to hear all of your feedback ❤️

synopsis : every dream started somewhere. some just so happened to begin in a low-income apartment in California in 2002, where two people looked up at their grungy ceiling and dared to believe that together they could go farther than they had ever imagined. find the full story synopsis & masterlist here!

"Babe? You think I packed enough socks? 'Cuz I know I got fifteen pairs already but you never know." The chaotic sounds of clothes rustling and all manner of objects hitting the nearby dresser could be heard from the teeny half-kitchen just a few steps away, comically punctuating his words.

"Fifteen pairs, Mike?! You're going to orientation for two days not Mount Everest!" Dani shouted back with an unmistakable smile that seemed to melt into her voice. Though she was focused on the food in front of her, she was mostly just soaking in the moment to make sure she kept it slotted away in her mind forever.

Maybe part of it was because Dani knew that this was a turning point; something in her heart told her that.

When Mike had a dream and had a mission, he worked at it day and night until he didn't just earn it, he owned it. It's how he had gotten his shot in reality television, in front of the cameras where she knew he belonged. And while his time in television like that had been fun for both of them, it wasn't where his story was going to end. Dani knew that in her heart too.

Dani was there when Mike had decided to become a WWE wrestler. Like any other lost twenty-something, he was at a crossroads. And yet the path had opened up to him so easily, and it all took off from there. It was all moving so quickly, in fact, that Dani felt as though she was caught in a whirlwind. It was more enjoyable than anything, but she just hoped that she could hold on tight enough to stay on the ground by the end of it.

"Yeah, but you know how I am! Things just disappear around me sometimes; I swear I put something down here, then it's gone!" Mike's voice whisked Dani back to the present, thankfully just in time for her to rescue the mac and cheese. "Imagine the horror of me walking out there, first day of training, with one sock on."

"As if you wouldn't find a way to make that your gimmick or something," Dani cocked an eyebrow his way as she watched him saunter out of their bedroom, his hair still tightly gelled. "I think 'The Sockless Wonder' would get over great. I'd buy the t-shirt!"

Mike rolled his eyes in an attempt to seem unamused, though the huge grin that tugged at his lips gave it all away. A few steps more and he was standing closely behind Dani at the stove, wrapping his arms around her gently and pulling ever so slightly to ease her away from the tempting boxed meal.

"I'm allowed to steal that idea, right? Without crediting you at all? 'Cuz I'm gonna need the money." He chuckled as he rested his chin on her shoulder, kissing her jaw softly. Dani, never able to resist his charms even on the best of days, relented and leaned back a bit with a content sigh. The food would still be there when they got back, anyway.

"You credit me or I sue you, Mizanin. And where we're going, you'll be dealing with my very expensive and very morally dubious lawyers!" Mike let out a big laugh and in one smooth movement, grabbed Dani by the waist and pulled her onto the plush (discounted from a garage sale) fluffy rug below them. For a second he tickled her as revenge before laying down beside her, their fingers intertwined.

It was silent for a few minutes, so much so that Dani could feel her heart beating in her chest. She couldn't shake the feeling that they were standing on the precipice of something, a new beginning that she hadn't believed was possible. Both of them had grown up in small towns with the promise that they would live their lives just as their parents had. Dani had become content with that idea; Mike hadn't. His drive to be something greater than what anyone had thought he could accomplish was what Dani owed her ambition to.

"You feel that too?"

"Yeah. It's a lot."

"Scary?"

"No, not really. Not with you here." Mike turned to Dani and, for as long as she'd live, gave her a smile she'd never forget that she swore could end wars and bring about world peace. Okay, maybe that was a little dramatic. But it was still a smile she'd replay countless times over in her head for years. It said more than just excitement. More than just anticipation. It was a promise.

He then pointed to the ceiling with confidence and a goofy expression that made her laugh, almost like he was about to perform. "'Cuz when you see me come down that ramp one day, with the fireworks and the pyro and the crowd screaming, I'm not gonna be afraid of anything and you know why?" Mike leaned in closer to her as he waited for her response, making her chuckle.

"Why?"

"Because I'll have you there, right by my side. Because I'll know that I got to where I am because you never gave up on me. When everyone else didn't see me, you did. And I'll spend the rest of my life thanking you for that." Dani's breath hitched and she knew her next words were going to be all wonky and choked up while she tried to fight off tears.

If there was only a way to show him how much he meant to her, to show him that she loved him beyond any words she could speak.

"Then that's where I'll stay," she finally said, sniffling as she took his arm and held him as close as she could to her. "Right here next to you."

[headingalaxys-spicy]

German bros + Russia reacting to a reader begging them to buy an axolotl

⭐️Enjoy ⭐️

🇩🇪Germany🇩🇪

“Ludwig looks there is the sea creature section! Let’s go!” There was an added pep in your step when you saw the blue green multicolored glass that had a mythical glow to it. The beloved animal close to your heart was a mere few feet away from you. You watched ten maybe fifteen axolotls glinde through the water like aqua born angels that had their feathers as their ears. Other axolotls were nestled behind some of the fake seaweed and hollow rocks having an afternoon siesta. They peaked out at you with their beady eyes as some of their faces took on a form of delighted surprise. These faces were that of what you’d imagine that cherubs would have when playing under the water. You were in awe and off into the whimsical aquatic world of your own. You didn't realize that your German best friend had left your side to handle some business.

‘Y/N really likes them so I’ll acquire some and they’ll want to be over at my place more often.’

“Excuse me, clerk. I’d like to buy four axolotls please.”

“Of course sir let me grab some from the case and they’ll be about thirty five Euros each.”

“No problem.” He gets out his wallet as the clerk and her coworker grab some of the small salamanders from one of the tanks. As he saw them gently place the aquatic angels into a portable aquarium. “We can deliver the full home aquarium for them by 9pm tonight. Thank you for your purchase.” A small smile forms on the stony Germans face. He was thinking about all the ways that you and him could bond over simple beings. He went back to where he left you and sure enough you were still there mesmerized by the scene before you.

“Y/N let's go home now so we can make dinner and you can become more acquainted with your new friends.” There was an abnormal hint of glee in his voice so you turned around to see why he was so excited. You eyes met with his blue ones then they wandered down to the rectangular miniature aquarium.

“You bought axolotls WHAT?!?!?!”

“I wanted us to have something we could bond over together.”

“Aw Ludwig.” You wander over and give him a kiss on the cheek. “Well I’m game if you are.”

Prussia

“Vhat are you doing? It's almost 3am and you're still up? Vile also has a presentation tomorrow that is worth 40% of your grade. Are you crazy? What are you giggling about late into the night?” The albino man that had bags under his eyes from being awoken from his REM sleep cycle due to a rapturous laughter that broke out in your room that was next to his whenever you stayed the night in his home. His eyes were slightly bloodshot and irritated. You didn’t answer him because you had on your noise canceling headphones and your eyes were glued to the screen that was on Youtube. It was playing one of the many videos you had fell into when you began to explore the axolotl rabbithole. The current video you were consuming was that of an axolotl jumping at the person holding the camera when they told a bad pun that it didn’t like a-lotl.

“Sup bro.” Was the only think you could think to say when you saw your sleep deprived Prussian friend. He shakes your chair violently because he can be an asshole at times. He cares about you but has a really strange way of showing it.

“Ahhhh Gilbert no!” You couldn’t help but laugh at his dumb attempt to dominate, scare, or show power over you or whatever.

“Y/N have you seen zhe time? You’re going to look like shit tomorrow if you don’t get any sleep. Not to mention you won’t give a compelling argument if you’re just mumbling your words.” Concerned but he needed to be pushy if he wanted you to listen.

“But they're so cute! I just need to watch one more and-”

“NEIN! IN DEIN BETT JETZT! SCHLAFEN JETZT!” You knew he was angry when he began to only use German. He cares about you as a good friend but thinks you don’t make the best decisions sometimes. He sees the frown manifest itself on your face and feels a pang of guilt in his gut. After a few moments of thinking he came up with a solution that would make you less irritated about having to go to bed and having to be an adult.

“If you get a B+ or higher I’ll get you some and help you raise some axolotls but ONLY if you hit the sheets now.”

Nothing in your life has ever gotten you into bed faster.

🇷🇺 Russia 🇷🇺

While he was scouring your house for more information about you he needed more cannon fodder to do so. He needed some dirt he could throw at you in order to stop you from winning the debates that were coming in the next couple of weeks. He wanted that newly vacated seat in the World Government and he didn’t want to let you have it because you were from a micronation that only had a miniscule amount of power that he held in one finger compared to your entire nation. Which was daunting but didn’t faze you in any capacity. You seemed infallible and he hated that.

He needed to find ways to tarnish your reputation quickly. He knew well enough that you possessed all the abilities that were required to become a head diplomat: agility, quick as a whip, compassionate, and you knew all the rules and regulations of the United Government (UG). Your track record of maintaining peace in trying times that could have led to war as one of the seven lead delegates to the prime minister in your nation made you the most qualified candidate with the most accolades to your name. Not to mention you were second in your class at an Ivy League school. Magna Cum Laude.

You were a thorn in his side. And he needed to get rid of you. You were the more popular delegare for the coveted position and you were luring in the tougher to reach demographics that Ivan had a great deal of trouble relating to. And he hates losing so he really wanted to rid the world of you. He continued to delicately rummage through your study until he opened one of your drawers that held your journal in it.

“Jackpot.” Overly excited he opened it right away without too much regard for being caught at that moment. To his surprise it wasn’t the information he was hoping for. The “journal” he stumbled upon was more like a scrapbook filled with numerous pictures of pale pink salamanders that was decorated with glitter, ribbons, and streamers.

“What the hell?” Confused and wondering what he stumbled upon. Regardless, he took the book with him and had his advisors devise a plan to use the book against you. Let’s just say a few weeks later he showed up at you house with 10 Aloxoltols trying to threaten you by sating that he was going to murder each and everyone of them in your face. When you opened the door to greet him he was surprised to be pummeled by you and all of your affectionate kisses on the cheek and forehead that you did to him. He was in essence a pile of snow that could only give you one word answers while you praised him for giving you your new companions.

“Ivan, I didn't know you could be this thoughtful.” You beamed sunshine at his soul. Making him unable to speak intelligible words. “I’ll become one with you or whatever.” Not really caring what that actually meant but you knew he said it a loud a lot at international meetings.

Needless to say you still became the new United Government delegate with a Russian boyfriend that was really docile when he was around you.

[wilsonthemoose]

It's Still The Same Old Story

They have five years, he doesn't know it.

She's unravelling, he can't help.

He still brings her flowers every few days. Bunches of wildflowers sometimes, a handful of the neighbours' heartsease once, roses usually. No occassion, just you look beautiful today. She puts them in a vase, serves dinner. His smile is warm, hers is frozen. She is pregnant, he doesn't know it. They have five years, he doesn't know it.

She hears him later, in the kitchen on the phone, it sounds like trouble at work but next evening when he hangs up his jacket and she asks how his day went, he smiles and says it was good. The shop he's working at goes under and she hears from the neighbours.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks and he presents it like gallantry.

"I didn't want you to worry." And that's the only way he ever meant it too.

He kisses her, helps her clear the tables, leans back in the lawn chair when she's hanging up laundry, looks at her, sun in his hair and at this distance, with the clothesline and the yard between them, they can pretend they are still the same people they were outside the movie-house.

They pretend to fight over who gets to pick the music, her mellow Beatles and Dylan, his Zeppelin. They hang up faded photos of their parents on the walls and he breaks a toe dropping a hammer on it. She drives him to the hospital, he bitches about how she's going to burn the clutch plates going like that.

He sometimes manages to get her coffee the way she likes it, she never gets his breakfast right but he gets used to it.

He doesn't quite buy it when she says she keeps the guns because they were her fathers' and she can't let them go. Sentimentality doesn't explain why there's one under the bed that he found flipping the mattress, one behind the dresser that he found looking for the mouse, two in the hall (checking for termites), and one in the kitchen (making stew). He's generous that way, does these things for her, and lets her get away with all the little lies about her childhood and family. And the big one, "It was a mugger, hit you in the back of the head and killed my Dad."

She's grateful.

He starts letting things go unasked when he's not looking to start a fight.

She wants to name their son Dean and he leans over the bundle in her arms and whispers Dean with a smile. He is generous, he lets her have these things. He plants a kiss on her forehead and lets the baby hold his finger for hours. He takes two weeks off and hovers around her like a shadow, senses he's unwanted, and takes to sitting on the stiff hall chair outside their room, within whispering distance, almost, and she hates herself for how strongly she feels that they don't belong together.

But then he's there, tossing Dean up and laughing when he shrieks, and she loves him, achingly, unthinkingly, more than her mother, her father, and any possible future, she loves him. For him, anything.

Sometimes she thinks she is seeing things. The yellow eyes watching them through the window, glinting in the dark. She can't stop staring, feels his hand on her knee, and hears the attempted lightness in "It's just a cat," but he's too worried about her to be laughing. His hand moves to her shoulder, shakes gently, "Mary?" He does laugh now, faking it bravely, "Come on, you can flatten a soldier. You're not scared of a little cat?" And when she doesn't stop staring he stands, "I'll go look, ok?"

She doesn't let him and slams the windows shut.

Every night, putting him to bed, she tells Dean angels are watching over him. It becomes a mantra she repeats through the day.

She's so so scared.

He doesn't understand, rubs circles on her back, helps her clear the dish she broke in her shaky grip, and promises her he'll help more around the house and with the kids.

She startles at every loud sound and feels like she's drowning.

She puts Sammy in the rocker, two feet from her when she goes to shower and tells Dean to stick close in the next room, door slightly ajar so she can hear him.

He thinks she's losing her mind and he's almost right. He begs her not to have guns on her when she's around the kids. It's another fight in a long litany of fights but this one means something.

He doesn't understand.

It's on the tip of her tongue every moment but he reads fairy tales to Dean and whistles As Time Goes By to Sam when he's teething and just won't fall asleep. She doesn't know how to love him in a way that leaves room for hurting him or scaring him.

With two children under their roof, she can still say it: for him, anything.

She wishes she had killed herself instead.

She hasn't slept well in months, jerks awake in the middle of the night, and haunts her own house, checking each room and lock and latch.

He takes to sleeping on the couch, stops saying he wants a daughter.

She's reading too much into things, she tells herself, half-hearted. The mutilated goat that choose their yard to die in was pure, ugly coincidence. This is Kansas. These things happen.

She's so so scared.

[lumenumbrae]

Remembering Amara - Chapter 1: Endless Firsts

My eyes slid open as the fog of mucus washed away from my retinas and sharpened the blurry texture of my plain white ceiling. I slept through my alarm, but by how much? Awkwardly craning my head, I struggled to make sense of the digital LED numbers and pulled the device forward to get a clearer view only for the thing to scare the shit out of me as it went off in my hands. I muted it, swung my feet over the side of my bed, let out a heavy sigh, and set it back on the nightstand. In only one day, it seems my biological clock had re-tuned itself perfectly.

"You didn't just hit snooze, did you? We're going to be late," a high and feminine voice sang from behind my closed door. My heart sped up. Who had broken into my home? By the sound of her voice, she seemed on the younger side, and if timbre can account for stature, petite. It was best to handle this with a sense of maturity and level-headedness. Had it been a man, or a particularly husky-sounding woman, perhaps a makeshift weapon would be in order, but with the dainty squeal of her coquettish inquisition I was positive I could handle her in a fight should it come down to it. The logic was foolproof.

Getting up and clocking the location of the nearest bat-shaped weapon just in case (my desk lamp), I slowly turned the handle and swung forward the cheap plywood door to reveal an angel. Literally. An angel. Only this angel was most likely human and also not an angel. She was two full heads my junior and had a boyish immature figure with straight hips and a barely budding chest dressed in blue pajamas, but my eyes weren't drawn to her body for long. She had a rounded face pulled tight only against her jawline and forehead. Her fair skin still somehow possessed a sun-kissed glow and was adorned with a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her ski-slope nose. Her dark green eyes had a distressed droop revealing the sanpaku crescent of white beneath her iris. The entire structure of her heart-shaped face was framed and accentuated by down-soft and lightly tousled ginger hair. The beautiful thing had its stare fixed at me with a bemused smirk lifting every feature half a hair upward.

I was frozen in her gaze. Unable to speak or move or think. Our eyes locked for what felt like a minute but was really only a moment before the slight upturn of her cupid's bow lips began to sag and color began to flush her dotted face. She shyly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You can get dressed, you know,” she murmured, looking down. “We’re not that late.”

I fired my gaze down at my body, fearing I was naked but relieved to find it was only my torso left unclothed, my bottom half was secured in some generic ratty sweats I couldn’t quite remember buying.

I looked back up to find her still blushing towards her toes.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" I tried to ask as non-insultingly as possible as I didn't want to scare off this baby bird that had someone flown into my coop.

Mission failed. Her face shot up in horror.

“I-I k-know it was l-late last night and dark but you mean you really don’t r-remember –”

“Wait, we didn’t –”

“Your own d-daughter!”

Sharp pain spiked deep into the front of my brain and I instinctively clasped my face into the palm of my hand in a desperate attempt at reprieve. She let out a quick yelp and caught me as I began to fall, which, being twice her size, toppled both of us to our knees. She wrapped me closer to her, allowing me to bury my burning head into the nook of her neck, but the pain was so brief it was already almost a memory.

“Are you okay?” she questioned, more rhetorical alarm than anything else.

"Yes, yes," I said, gently pushing her away from me, feeling slightly annoyed at my sudden episode. I held the small frame of her shoulders in my hands so I could get a better look at her face. Her worried eyes instantly smoothed out my irritation, and I felt an odd obligation to console her. "Of course I remember you Harper, I was just still half-asleep, I guess."

“No, it’s okay. I know it’s been so long. I’ll make up for all that time though, I promise.”

“It’s alright.” I stood up, and stretched my palm out to help her up as well. She really was light as a feather. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just happy to be back here, with you. Why don’t you give me a minute to get dressed.” I wanted her out of my room, to gather my thoughts by myself.

She took a startled step back as if forgetting that I was half-naked, which was an amusing kind of anachronism coming from a girl on the northern crest of womanhood, if only barely. But it made sense. Mine was probably the first male chest she had seen since she was an infant. Maybe even the first male face if the rumors were true. She muttered something about getting started on breakfast, and I closed the door to her back as she scampered away.

I walked towards my desk and collapsed into the office chair, allowing myself to drop the forced smile that I hadn't noticed had set my face so uncomfortably rigid. Lightly, I poked at my forehead with my forefinger, but the pain had subsided completely. It maybe never even happened. Maybe I just fell from stress or exhaustion, and the story my unconscious came up with to explain it was a piercing migraine. Either way, I was fine now.

I noted the time, 7 am, to try and calculate how much sleep I managed to get last night. Harper did say I got in late, but I was having trouble recalling the exact hour and quickly gave up. Based on the heaviness behind my eyes, probably nothing more than 4 or 5 hours.

The letter she wrote me was on my desk. I must've emptied it out of my pocket last night because it was a little crumpled. I re-read it despite having it practically memorized.

Hi dad,

How are you?

I know this is a little weird, I hope it’s not bad of me to write you after so long. I’m sorry I haven’t been. Really.

I’m also sure your life in Virtopia is great and perfect, but the reason I’m writing is just in case maybe you wanted something different.

There's a job opening at my school, in Amara. I told them all about you, and, well honestly, it's not like there are other candidates. It's yours if you want it. There's an extra room in my house. I mean, I'll give you the master bedroom, I'll stay in the spare room.

Just, if you’re interested, get here before the school year starts. I miss you.

Love,

Harper

And I did manage to get there before the school year started. By less than 12 hours. But I guess the job was mine, although I still wasn't entirely sure what it was I was supposed to be doing. Teaching, I suppose. And Harper said there weren't any other candidates, so I used that as a crutch to justify my terrible punctuality, lack of experience, and ignorance of the job title. It didn't matter one way or another to me. I needed to get out, and this could be it.

I threw the letter back onto my desk and sighed in what was quickly becoming a habit.

I grabbed some clothes and slid out into the hall, without being spotted, to the single shared bathroom. The house didn't seem large, and I was still getting used to it, but I could see how it had the bones to be a real home. A new start.

I shaved quickly, cursing when I nicked myself in a couple spots, and took a quick shower, before finding Harper in the kitchen humming to herself while cooking something on the stove. She was already out of her pajamas and dressed in a pastel pink, almost white button-up blouse tucked neatly into a mid-length, white pleated skirt. I wondered if it was the school uniform or simply her own style. I had just put on a short sleeve, white button-up, no tie, and jeans, which I was hoping would be an appropriate level of casual yet professional for my first day.

“Eggs benedict!” she professed proudly. “Your favorite.”

“It is, but how do you remember –”

“Eat quickly,” she commanded, arranging the breakfast on a plate. “You’ll probably want to speak to the dean before class starts.”

***

I arrived at the entrance of the school a little worse for wear. Harper didn’t have a car, and seemingly neither did anyone else. Aside from a few buses, it would seem everyone in Amara walks everywhere.

The school itself left me speechless. Not as speechless as when I saw my daughter’s face this morning, but as far as architecture goes, not bad.

"It used to be a cathedral," Harper explained. The building was large and concrete, with sharp spires emerging like stalagmites from the roof. It was trimmed in lattice molding, and gargoyles defended the large oak arch door. The five steps it took to reach the threshold gave way to a small gold plaque beside the door. 'Bridge Academy'.

“I thought Amara’s school was called Academia Amara?” I asked.

Harper let out a meek giggle. "The Academia is for the gifted students," she explained sheepishly. "That's why they got the real college campus after everything was rebuilt. This is like a spillover school for the less… intellectually adept."

Well, at least that meant I wouldn't be in charge of teaching any super-geniuses; although, if the rumors are true, even their invalids might give me a run for my money.

Inside, students bustled back and forth, teasing and shouting and scurrying to wherever they needed to be, but my presence around them salted the raucous atmosphere. They slowed, stared, and grew quiet. I stopped in my tracks, aware that I had more than a dozen pairs of eyes all belonging to beautiful young women transfixed on a single point: me. I didn't mind the attention but Harper seemed visibly embarrassed by my side, and once the whispering began, she firmly planted her palms against my back and began pushing me through the crowd.

“I hope you’re taking me to see the dean.”

“Class starts in two minutes. You can talk to the dean after.”

I planted my feet firmly into the ground, eliciting a loud squeak against the archaic wood floors and causing Harper to face plant between my shoulder blades.

“Harper, I don’t even know what my job is.”

“You’re my new teacher, silly.”

“I don’t know what subject, or what time block I teach it.”

“It’s all of the subjects. Every time block. Each class only has one teacher for the whole day.”

I spun around to look at her. “Harper, I hope you told them I am barely qualified to teach English.”

She squinted at me. “Didn’t you teach in Virtopia?”

“That was technically my job title, yes.”

Harper shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I hope you know I love you and think the world of you, but like I said, there weren’t any other options. The school needed a warm body, and that’s your role, at least for today.”

“Then I’m your guy.”

She smiled and continued to steer me with her hands despite my ability to walk on my own, and I continued to let her because her thin fingers and minuscule palms pressed against me felt oddly electric. We continued to receive stares from the few girls who remained in the halls, especially with our new choreography, but I kept my eyes facing forward and nearly tumbled onto my face when Harper suddenly came to a stop.

“Here,” she said, standing outside a windowless door.

“I sure hope this isn’t the altar.”

“No, all of the real church stuff is upstairs. This level was actually originally designed to be classrooms. I think just mostly for Sunday school and stuff.”

I paused for a moment, wondering if I should have prepared literally anything at all. If my memory serves, the first day of classes typically is just spent going over the syllabus and expectations. I had not prepared a syllabus and my expectations were ground-level. I made to sigh but caught myself. This was a new life for me. I could be anyone I wanted. I would not allow myself to become a sigher.

“Well, no time like the present,” I said and burst confidently through the door.

What was waiting inside caught me by surprise. The desks outnumbered the students 3 to 1. I didn't even need to use my fingers to count that there were only nine girls inside. They were all clad in some similar version to Harper's button-up and pleated skirt combo, but with different cuts, colors, and styles, so I assumed it was less of an official uniform and more of a cultural expectation.

The girls were already seated, most of them in the middle or front row, and one girl in the back. Still, even with them scattered, the class had an eerie, empty feel to it. I felt Harper's presence behind me and all my new student's glares bore a hole right through me, so I made my way to the board before they could do any significant organ damage.

“Alright,” I exclaimed, as authoritative as possible, wanting to establish myself as a strong and in-charge professor before any miscreants could begin heckling me and risk plummeting the entire class into a disrespectful den of barely-over-the-adolescent-hill hyenas treating me like a substitute for the rest of the year. First impressions were important after all.

“Why are you a boy?”

I had not acted fast enough. I hadn’t even written my name on the board when the girl cut in with a question that, had I prepared one, would have most definitely not been on the syllabus.

As a charming and charismatic adult male used to navigating complex interpersonal social dynamics, my retort came cleverly and naturally, "Why are you a girl?"

The student who asked the question, an olive-toned short woman with dark black hair pulled into a messy bun that almost disguised the curlicue ringlets it hung in, wore a repulsed expression made all the more cutting by her dark, almond-shaped eyes, tiny button nose, and full lips.

“You’re not an idiot, are you? They didn’t give up on us so much they hired an idiot to teach us?” the racially ambiguous instigator accused.

“Listen, given the similarity of our questions, I think your response is a little ironic. But honestly, that may very well be the case. I got in last night, slept very little, and was shoved into this classroom by my very attractive daughter whom I have not spoken to in years.”

A hand shot up from the only girl occupying the last row of seats. She had long, straight black hair sprayed into a sleek ponytail. Poisonous navy blue eyes encircled in dark ringlets, high cheekbones, and a sharp jawline. She was tall, standing at around 5'9", and had a slim, athletic build. It was clear from the get-go that these two would be the problem students.

“Yes?” I said to her.

“Why the fuck did you just describe your daughter as very attractive?”

I made a slight gesture to Harper who was still shyly standing beside me, "Look at her."

Another hand shot up in the front row, this time from an adorable honey-brown-haired, rosy-cheeked girl sitting atop a pear-shaped figure. She had on a pair of round, gold-trimmed glasses that slid down the small bridge of her nose. This one did not wait for me to call on her, "You don't have GSA, do you?"

“I do not know what that is,” I replied.

The messy-bun girl who started all this interjected, "Genetic sexual attraction is a disordered physical and emotional attraction to family members who have restored contact after living apart for long periods."

“Listen,” I started, “if it makes you feel better, I’ll talk to the guidance counselor after class and square away the GSA rumors.”

“You are the guidance counselor,” another girl in the front row whispered meekly. This one might’ve been even smaller than Harper. Her thin face was fixed to her desk, and she had dirty blonde hair done in loose twin-tail braids.

“Wait, I’m the guidance counselor? I thought I was the teacher.”

Messy-bun chortled. “The teacher for each class is also the guidance counselor for that class.”

“Ah, then great news everyone, I have met with the guidance counselor and he has cleared me of any of this GSA nonsense. Now please never bring that up again. Harper, you can sit now.”

"Oh, right, sorry," she squealed and quickly made her way to sit between a curvy body with long straightened platinum blonde hair spilling down across big blue eyes and cherry colored lips whom I had taken note of when I first entered and a square-faced, dark-haired girl who I hadn't noticed until now. She was one of the more striking students in the class, and given the overall attractiveness of the room, that was saying something. She was also possibly the smallest. She had a messy wolf cut, which served to partially hide her pale face and sunken cheeks, and she was scowling right at me through her thin, rectangular eyebrow. I wonder how long that had been going on. I stared at her a moment before she dramatically rolled her eyes and fixed her gaze elsewhere.

"Alright," I said, trying again. I grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote out 'Professor Reed' on the board. "I am Professor Reed. I will be your new babysitter. Once I learn a little bit more about this place, maybe I'll even try my hand at teaching something, but honestly, don't hold your breath. Any questions?"

No less than five hands shot up, including from my own daughter. The betrayal.

"Wonderful. With no questions, let's begin with introductions. You know my name, I'm from Virtopia, and my hobbies include…" The piercing pain returned and I ducked my head into my hand again, groaning a bit against the sting.

"Weird fucking hobby," the girl with the ponytail exclaimed.

By the time she finished the sentence, the distress had faded and I was once again left wondering if that was even real. I caught the wolf-cut girl's eyes again, and if I wasn't mistaken she looked scared, but was quick to hide it.

"Anyway," I continued. "Let's start with you." I gestured to the girl with blonde twin tails.

“Oh, um, yeah,” she whispered, before moving on to what I assume was her name, but was spoken too softly to hear.

“Great, now one more time, but for everybody.”

“I-Iris,” she squeaked out, even this still relatively quiet affect seemingly requiring too much effort and causing her voice to break on the second syllable.

“Pleasure to meet you, Iris. Next.”

Beside Iris, with an empty desk between them, was the girl who started the GSA tangent. She pushed her glasses on instinct back up her nose and they were quick to slide back down. "I'm Emily."

“Great, and anything you’d like to tell us about yourself, Emily?”

"You didn't make Iris tell you about herself." Iris shifted uncomfortably in her chair at the mention of her name, her eyes still transfixed on the same spot on her desk.

“Yes, Emily, that’s called choosing your battles. Now, go ahead.”

“Fine, I’m Emily, I like writing erotic fan fiction and masturbating on the back of the bus.”

“Stellar introduction Emily, everyone else take note. Next.”

A girl of average height with an average face made exceptional by long, flat silver-blonde hair that fell in loose waves around her shoulders and sparkling gray eyes smiled up at me. “I’m Lily. Um, I guess I like gardening and, um, sometimes I also watch movies.”

"Next," I said, turning my gaze to the far end of the front row where a girl with a fake orange tan and large breasts atop a slim, gymnast body wore bold lashes and mascara to highlight the robin's egg blue eyes she had engrossed in her phone. I didn't make to grab her attention again. Just stood silently for around thirty seconds before Emily came to the rescue.

“Jesus, Natalie, he’s talking to you!”

Natalie’s eyes darted up in fear, “Oh my God, I’m sorry, what was the question?”

I glanced at Emily, signaling for her to repeat the prompt.

“He wants to know your cup size.”

“What?”

I rolled my eyes. “We’re doing introductions. Just your name and something about yourself.”

“Oh,” she relaxed, “I’m Natalie. And I do swimming and gymnastics.” Called it.

"Next," I said relishing this moment as the leftmost person in the second row was the wolf-cut girl. I didn't know what it was about her that drew me in so much, but even this tiny inroad I was about to make had my heart pounding. I kept a calm, demure expression and made gentle eye contact in hopes of befriending her through body language.

“Maya,” she said, curtly.

“Anything else?”

“No.”

"Well, alright. See, Emily, picking your battles," I joked to hide my disappointment. "I already know you, Harper, so we'll skip." She somehow looked hurt by that comment, but it felt silly to ask her to introduce herself when everyone here knew each other already besides me. "Next."

The platinum blonde to Harper’s right seemed to be waiting for this very moment, “I’m Ava, James! Don’t you remember me?”

“First off, Professor Reed. Second, no.”

She flashed a fake pout, "Well that's okay, I'm over basically every day, so I'm sure we'll get re-acquanited real well, James.”

Harper was looking at her horrified.

“Next.”

“I’m Kira,” said a pale, smooth-skinned girl with short, choppy hair dyed black with streaks of vibrant pink and blue. Her hazel eyes were slightly down-turned, giving her a sultry look, and her thin-lipped mouth held the perpetual expression of disapproval. "I play guitar."

“Next,” I said, this time tinged with a touch of acidity because we had now reached the messy-bun girl.

“Sofia,” she replied just as gruffly. “And before you start acting like a bitch to me, just know if you really plan on doing nothing as our teacher, you’ll need my help to pull it off.”

I quickly switched to a much more cheery tone, "Noted. Next."

Finally, we reached Miss Ponytail. She looked displeased being forced to communicate with me.

“Amber.” she finally said.

“What types of things do you like to do, Amber?”

“Pass.”

"Now, Emily, remember what I said about picking your battles." I turned back to Amber. "Really, I insist. Why don't you come up to the front of the class and tell everyone a little bit about yourself."

“Everyone here fucking knows me.”

Emily’s hand shot up.

“Yes, Emily?”

“I can tell you all about, Amber.”

“Okay, please do.”

Amber stood up from her seat, looking a little bit frightened.

"Fine," she said before Emily could get a word out. She put on a fake, cutsie falsetto, "I'm Amber, I love taking in stray kittens and watching anime." She just as quickly dropped the voice, "We good?"

“That was perfect, everybody clap for Amber please.”

Emily and Ava were the only two to clap. The betrayal.

I sat at my desk and stared at my new class. Certainly, some of them would need some work. Some would require having their edges smoothed out and others, like Iris, might need some help finding their voice. But overall, I was happy with my students. For what they lacked in personality they more than made up for in hotness.

I glanced back toward Maya. She had returned to staring at me. This time continuing unbroken even when our eyes met. Neither of us blinked as we continued to fix our gazes on each other’s faces.

"Um, Maya, why are you glaring at my dad?" Harper half-whispered, leaning towards her.

“I’m waiting for him to tell us what we’re supposed to be doing.”

There was a small murmur of agreement among her peers, and I met it with a shrug. “Whatever you want, I don’t have anything planned.”

“There are five hours left in class,” Sofia scolded.

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” I replied.

“Okay, then can you at least help us pass some of that time by explaining why you’re here?”

“I’m the new teacher, and guidance counselor, I guess. What do you mean?”

“No one immigrates here from Virtopia, least of all men.”

"Well, first of all, if no one immigrates here, there can't be a least of all. Second, I did, and I'm a man, so I think men actually account for 100% of your immigration."

“Um,” Harper raised her hand tentatively.

“Yes, Harper.”

“I can try and explain it.” Everyone in unison turned to her and she lowered her hand coyly. “So, the dean actually came and found me a few months ago and asked about my dad. She said she knew he was a teacher in Virtopia, and we desperately needed new teachers here, and so I wrote and asked him to come.”

“Why a man, though?” Sofia pressed.

“There’s no law forbidding men from moving to Amara,” Maya said, surprising me.

“Okay, so the rumors are true then.” I took the moment to quell my own curiosity.

Maya turned to me. “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve heard about Amara and I can tell you what’s true.”

"That it's basically a society of super-intelligent women with no men allowed."

She let out a disappointed sigh. "As you know, after NovaCorp petitioned the government to abandon fiat currency in lieu of their own cryptocurrency, they used their new monopolization of the dollar to start a high-tech metaverse city, Virtopia." She was right, I did already know that. I was there when it happened 10 years ago.

"Those wary of the city just becoming a company-town for a megacorporation wherein residents would be dependent on a fake currency only usable inside city limits decided to stay behind." I'm not entirely sure I knew that. I knew some people stayed behind, but all the news inside Virtopia just said that they were heathens or anarchists. It wasn't until well after Amara's incorporation that news began to leak of there being a super society of women. It was always just rumors, though.

"The fact that most people who did not migrate to Virtopia just so happened to be women and of higher IQ is up to anyone's interpretation. But, because there were so many resources freed up from 90% of the population exiting, because the overall average intelligence level had increased significantly, and because there were far fewer men which lead to much less crime and fighting, those outside of Virtopia's walls did create their own parallel society under a new economic structure which does not include traditional commerce, and named it Amara. So, yes Professor, it does consist primarily, though not exclusively, of women who have a higher average intelligence level than those in Virtopia; and yes, it is currently experiencing what might be called a technological and research revolution. You get a C minus." Maya wrapped up.

“Well that is the most I’ve gotten you to talk all day, so I give myself an A plus.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes again.

“So, how do y’all have kids?” I asked.

“By having sex,” Emily answered.

"Just so we're all on the same page, I know how kids are made. I meant here, in Amara."

“Our birthrate is extremely low,” Lily answered softly. “Like, 0.3 or something.”

"To be clear," Sofia said, "since you don't seem like you know much, a society's target birthrate to at the very least replace its citizens each year is 2.1."

“I did not know that,” I admitted. “See, you’re helping already, Sofia.”

“And I’m guessing that’s why the dean asked Harper to bring you here,” Emily said. “To breed all of us.”

“Wait, what?” Natalie, who had until this point been staring at her phone again, exclaimed.

“And you’ll be the first to bat, Natalie. Your body is in pristine condition—definitely the best to bear children. I think we could probably get at least 20 or so out of you before you’re too old and weak. Maybe we’ll even get lucky and a few will be twins or even triplets.”

“Wait, what?” Natalie said again, fear clouding her eyes.

"It makes sense. We're the Bridge Academy. The rejects. Good for jack all except mindless reproduction. Maybe if you weren't on your phone so much you would've done better on your exams."

The chatter continued, and I let the conversation progress untethered as I leaned back into my chair and closed my eyes. Their voices became gargled and distorted as I slowly drifted into sleep.

When he wakes up he finds himself tied to a wooden chair. His sweet, darling daughter is knelt before him, taking care to wash his bare feet.

“This will make you love me, right?” she asks, her voice a shiver reverberating against the cold metal box they exist in, its echo decaying into a descending harmony.

“No, right?” she continues. “Because I know what you really want. All you ever wanted.”

She stands before him, cloaked in an ill-fitting sundress as if to hide her proportions. Coquettishly, she peers off to one side and begins to lift the dress, slowly. She reveals the pale, smooth curve of her stick-thin thighs, higher and higher. It becomes obvious she isn’t wearing any underwear. But where her sweet, innocent, unused pussy should be is a different kind of gash. One made presumably with a hunting knife or hacksaw. Wide, bloody, lined in the yellow and white enamel of fat particles and gaping to reveal her innards had been scooped out. No uterus or intestines or anything, just the red lining of her cavity walls.

“I had to make it myself,” she whispers. “I hope it’ll still work. I tried real hard.”

She reaches forward, and undoes his zipper, pulling out his cock. He is rock-hard, and she smirks at him. She lowers the wound on top of him and due to its sheer size, he slides in easily. Although, there isn't much friction in a cavernous space such as a carved-out stomach. He curses his luck.

“Oh, don't worry, I think I can help with that," she says, reading his mind. She really is the best daughter a guy could ask for. Soon, a warm slithering sensation encases his penis, and then another, and another, one of which even begins trying to protrude down his urethra, although without much success. He curses his luck.

Looking down at what was mimicking the multiplicity of tongues so well, he is pleasantly surprised to see the pseudo-blowjob is the result of half a dozen or so slugs that had crawled from her torso and around his dick. She must have been breeding them in there for some time, because these were fully mature, adult slugs. He surrenders euphorically to the sucking and crawling and biting of these majestic creatures, and so is understandably upset when someone decides to interrupt him.

“Don't you think it's a little early for this?" she asks. He tilts his head to wolf-cut girl. The bitch. So rude to him. And ruining this lovely father-daughter moment, to boot. He would need to teach her a lesson.

Oh wait, that's right, he doesn't teach. That's like his whole thing. He begins to laugh, and wolf-cut girl sighs. Goddamn, that girl is such a sigher. Not like him. He would never let himself become a sigher.

I shot up at the feeling of a small hand squeezing my shoulder.

“Wakey-wakey! I think you should probably go talk to the dean before she leaves for the day.”

I took a moment to gather my bearings. I had fallen asleep at my desk. The girl waking me was Harper. Every other student seemed to have left already.

“Is school over?”

“Yup!”

“Oh, alright. Then yeah, I’ll go talk to the dean. Can you wait up for me? I don’t quite have the route home memorized yet.”

“Of course we’re walking home together!” she proclaimed, insulted.

“Alright, and would you also mind pointing me in the direction of the dean?”

The two of us exited the classroom, and Harper lead me down the hallway, where students continued to deposit their books into lockers, talk to friends, and prepare to go home. Again, my presence had an outsized effect on the space and whispers began to emanate from all around us. In response, Harper just grabbed my hand to lead me faster, but the physical touch caused a collective gasp from those watching. She shifted her head to flash me a smile as if that was her intent.

We hardly made it down the first hallway before we were stopped. Sofia stood before us, intentionally blocking our path. No longer shielded by her desk, I could see she was a few inches shorter than Harper, although likely still breaking 5 feet by an inch or two. I was also disappointed to find I could not quite make out any sort of body type thanks to her shirt and skirt being two sizes too large. Well, at least it left more to the imagination. I also noted she was holding a booklet of some sort. She lifted the bound paper array and pressed it into my chest before making to walk off.

“Any sort of context, or…?”

"It's from the dean," she said, ceasing her walk, but keeping her back to me. "It's logistics about your job and expectations and stuff. I figure it's best if you leave most of the interfacing between the administration and our class to me. I think you could potentially speed-run getting fired if first impressions are anything to go off of."

“And? Why do you care?”

She turned to face me, “I don’t know what happens to our class if they can’t staff a teacher. Even for Bridgers, your class specifically is the lowest performing, and frankly, they’d probably end up just kicking all of them out or something. A teacher with zero expectations who just plans on handing out A’s might actually be the best thing for them.”

“You’re talking like you’re not also part of the class.”

“I ended up with these idiots for different reasons. Reasons that aren’t any of your business.” She spun back around and walked off.

“Well then, that’s that. Ready to go home?” Harper beamed up at me, still gripping my hand.

“Is what she said true? Am I in charge of the dummies?”

That dampened Harper’s expression. “A lot of the girls are actually really smart. They just don’t always do their best academically for various reasons. But with you here, I’m sure you can turn them around!”

“What about you? Are you dumb or just troubled?”

If my previous statement dampened her expression, this extinguished it. Her eyes drifted off into space and she spoke with stoicism, "I did fine in high school, but I mean, you know what happened my senior year. And I guess after that, I just gave up on finals."

I did not know what happened her senior year, but given her demeanor, I figured it was best not to push it. "Ok, well then. Home?"

I watched as she intentionally compartmentalized whatever had just ailed her and in record time return to her bubbly disposition. With a smile, she pulled me towards the exit, through a gaggle of girls who coagulated at the bottom of the stoop, past the brass gates, and down half a block before she finally found it prudent to drop my hand. I suppose without an audience, it was less significant.

"Oh, by the way, Ava and Maya are sleeping over tonight," she informed.

“Maya? You two are friends?”

She stopped under the shade of a cherry blossom. The sun was only a few hours past its peak and its heat pulsed oppressively from the concrete sidewalk all around us. The slight cover provided by the tree made me realize how hot it really was. The early morning was cooler, but still warm enough for the button T-shirt I was wearing, which should’ve been some indication of how aggressive the afternoons would be. Harper’s cheeks were flushed with heat, and I could see beads of sweat forming at her hairline. She wiped them with the back of her hand before they had a chance to travel down the tight flesh of her forehead.

“Yeah, Ava, Maya, and I are best friends.”

“And what’s Ava’s deal, why was she being weird to me today?”

Harper's cheeks surprised me by turning even redder but she managed to maintain eye contact through her embarrassment, "She somehow got it in her head that she's in love with you. I'm sure she'll get over it."

“And how did she get that into her head?”

"Well, we were both practically joined at your hip when we were little," she murmured. “I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder and all..” she trailed off. "But don't worry, I'd never let her steal you," she flashed eyes at me as if that were supposed to mean something. Before I could reply, she spun graciously, her skirt billowing into a cone, and began a light skip back into the atrocious sunlight, leaving me to reluctantly follow.

***

I stared at the packet Sofia had given to me. It taunted me from its post atop my desk, next to the half-crumpled letter of Harper's. This was a watershed moment for me. I could do my due diligence and read the thing, and even if I chose to ignore its contents, I would at least be aware of them. Or I could make a firm commitment here and now to completely abscond any remote possibility of taking my job seriously and burn it. When I thought about it like that, the choice became clear.

I grabbed the thick, three-hole-punched pariah and took it to the kitchen. Harper was taking a shower before the girls arrived, so it was just me and my matches for the time being. I caught the corner of the pages under the lick of the torch but it took some creative maneuvering for the fire to light in earnest. Soon, however, it was a behemoth of a flame. I dropped it into the metal basin of the sink and watched the pyre rise at least a meter tall, just short enough to not catch the cabinets.

“What are you burning?”

I turned to find Maya in the foyer, presumably having just entered from outside. She was still removing her shoes. She had changed out of her school clothes and was in a gray t-shirt that hugged a torso thin enough my hands could nearly encircle its circumference. And jeans.

“The teacher’s manual.”

"Really?" Her brows creased in concern as she walked into the kitchen. She was short. More than a foot under me, and she had to tilt her head upward to make eye contact.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Funny.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? Walking into your teacher’s house without even bothering to knock.”

She gave me a piercing scowl. “Your house? Last I checked this was Harper’s house.”

“I sleep in the master bedroom, I figure it’s my house.”

“You made Harper move bedrooms?”

“She offered.”

"James!" Ava was now in the same one-legged flamingo stance at the entryway, stumbling to remove both her shoes. She had also changed into more casual clothes, which for her was a blue tracksuit, the zipper fighting to stay up against her pressing breasts.

“You girls are very quiet, I need to add a bell to this door.”

She ran past Maya and into my chest, wrapping her arms around me. "Are you excited to spend the night with us?" she asked without letting go. "We can watch movies and gossip about all the shitty girls in our class and you can tell me everything about Virtopia." Her voice was a little muffled because her nose was buried in my sternum.

"That is not what is going to happen," Maya said, matter of factly. "In fact, Professor Reed was just on his way to his room so he could leave us alone for the rest of the night, and with any luck, forever."

Ava twirled away from my chest but kept her back pressed against my torso so that I could feel the softness of her butt dig into my leg. "You think the first night in over a decade I get to spend in the same home as the love of my life we'll be separated?"

“Fine, you go join him. I, however, will mathematically discern which area of the property is farthest away from both of you and spend my night there.”

Ava twirled again to face me, this time seductively placing a palm on my pec and tip-toeing to get her face marginally closer to mine, managing to get her eyes about lip level to me.

“How does that sound, James?” she purred. “You and me, alone, all night?”

"Well, I certainly wouldn't say no," I replied.

“W-what is going on?”

All of us turned to find Harper, hair still wet and slick against her scalp and dressed in only a towel, staring at us in horror.

“James and I are planning on running away together,” Ava smirked.

“I was just trying not to choke on my own vomit,” Maya deadpanned.

“What’s burning?” Harper asked, the flames behind us still fighting for life, albeit much smaller.

“The booklet Sofia gave me.”

“There’s so much happening!” Harper stomped. “Ava! Maya! Come with me!" She stormed forward and tugged at the two girls, dragging them into her bedroom and leaving me alone in the slightly smokey living area. Before leaving, I went to make sure the embers were entirely out, and at the bottom of the ash pile something reflected in the light. I reached for it and found myself holding a gray metallic card with my name engraved across it. It seemed important, so I pocketed it.

I fiddled around, not doing much for a few hours, debating how inappropriate it would be for me to crash the girls’ party. Ava and Harper would surely be delighted to have me, but I figured it was best not to overstep my bounds around Maya too much in one day. She was sort of like a feral cat. You had to slowly insert yourself into their life, more and more each day, until they ease into the thought of domestication as if it was their idea all along.

So, instead, I just listened to their laughs and loud conversation muffled through the thin walls while I stared up at my ceiling. Well, I listened to Ava and Harper’s laughs and conversation. If Maya talked at all, it was not audible. And something told me the girl was not one to laugh, at least not so freely.

It was obvious the girls would be up late into the night, and part of me wanted to remind them we all had school tomorrow. But I decided against it. Contemplating if I was even drowsy enough to fall asleep, it struck me that Harper had the right idea. I was still slicked in sticky salt from the hot walk home, and a shower would probably put me to sleep.

I stripped out of my button-up and jeans, and instead of grabbing anything new, just walked to the bathroom in my underwear.

The warm water was just the ticket as it melted my tensed muscles and washed away the summer swelter. I took my time, cleaning my hair and face and body, and then just standing under the stream before finally feeling at ease enough to crawl into bed and drift off.

Cutting water to the shower, I swung back the curtain and found that there were no towels. The one Harper took to her room must've been the last clean one. I should reprimand her for this later as her father. I very nearly almost sighed but was quick to catch myself. It wasn't a big deal. It'd take no more than 5 minutes to just let myself air dry in the tub, at least to the degree that I wasn't dripping, and then I could just go under my covers a little bit damp.

After letting myself air dry for a little while, I stepped from the shower just as the door to the bathroom opened and shut and one of the girls walked in absentmindedly. I noticed her before she noticed me, but when she finally did look up, Ava froze like a deer in headlights. First, she made eye contact, but as the reality of the situation sunk in, she slowly turned her gaze down until she set her wide-eyed stare directly on my flaccid penis.

The expression of shock and slightly agape mouth was almost comical, and I waited a few beats for her to do or say something, but it quickly became apparent she truly was frozen.

“Can I help you with something, Ava?” I asked.

“Sorry,” she muttered, not moving her eyes and barely moving her mouth, “I heard the shower turn off a few minutes ago and thought you went back to your room.”

“Nope. Still here. Harper took the last towel so I was letting myself air dry.”

"Oh," she murmured, and then, as if some struggling synapse finally managed to fire off, she snapped back. "Oh! Oh my God, I'm so sorry." She slapped her right hand over her eyes. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I – I’ll just…”

“Why don’t you just hand me my underwear. They’re right next to you, by the sink.”

“Your underwear? You want me to t-touch your underwear?”

“Weren’t you just talking about spending the night alone with me a few hours ago? This seems like small potatoes.”

"Small potatoes, yup, this is just small potatoes," she chanted to herself, one hand still covering her eyes and the other blindly grasping at the countertop in search of my boxers. It took her a couple tries, but she managed to find them, and holding them outstretched before her, pinched between her thumb and the knuckle of her index, she began to slowly take a few steps towards me.

I was going to just swipe them out of her hand and save her from this clearly tortuous task, despite how amusing I found it, but her blind grace betrayed her and she slipped on the still slick tile floor and I had to switch tacks to saving her from chipping a tooth. I tried to catch her under her armpits, but she stumbled forward more than I was expecting and toppled me onto my back, sending a jolt of pain up my tailbone.

I whistled through my teeth and clenched my eyes until the pain faded to a dull throb and then glanced forward to find I had indeed mostly broken Ava’s fall, her torso laid flat across my thighs and her face… Right next to my dick.

She no longer had her eyes pressed shut. In fact, it would seem she had reverted to her earlier plegic state of wide-eyed astonishment. Her mouth close enough to lick it if she wanted to, her silky smooth hair splayed out, mingling with my own pubic hair, and her giant blue eyes affixed on my cock, I was entirely helpless as the tantalizing combination forced me into a full erection.

At the very least, this helped break Ava from her comatose. She brought herself up to her elbows, her arms straddling my thigh which rubbed against her clothed breasts. The zipper of her jacket was pulled half down, and braless cleavage began to spill out. Instead of pulling away, she used the position to get a closer look.

“Why did it get so big?” she asked, her voice a low whisper. I could now feel the warm breath from her nostrils beating against my shaft.

“They didn’t teach you this stuff in high school?”

"I know what a boner is. Why is it the size of my forearm?" she asked, casting me a cautious glance.

“That’s a little bit of an exaggeration,” I said.

Without hesitation, she shifted her weight to her left side and pressed her right forearm against my penis. They were roughly the same width and length. She struck an accusatory look.

“Don’t give me that, it wasn’t my decision,” I said.

“How does this fit inside people?” she asked. The soft crushed velvet fabric of her sleeve was still pressed tightly down against me. Every small movement I made grinded against it. She didn't seem aware though as she stared at me in curiosity.

"Maybe you can find out someday," I told her, taking careful breaths in to avoid becoming overstimulated.

She blushed and the combination of her platinum hair, blue eyes, and pastel-pink face gave off an Easter palate of sorts.

“W-well, m-maybe…” she seemed to be working up the courage to retort with something.

“Ava! Where are you?” I heard Harper yell from around the living room area.

“Shit!” Ava whispered, jumping to her feet.

"I swear if you're in Dad's room!"

“N-no, I’m using the toilet!” she called out, her voice trembling.

“Is everything okay?” Harper asked, now directly outside the door.

“Yes! It’s fine! Everything’s fine! Just give me a minute. I’ll meet you in your room!”

I lay smirking to myself watching the frazzled girl try and negotiate with Harper. Hours ago she was parading herself as some hyper-seductive spinster, but I was willing to bet this was a lot closer to the real her. Harper relented, and when we heard the door to her room close, Ava beelined it out of the bathroom, not even glancing back at me. Which was a shame, because if she had stopped even for a moment, I could have informed her she was still gripping my underwear in her left hand.

When I heard Harper's door open and close again, I decided just to walk to my room in my birthday suit. But not before pausing briefly in the hall to hear Maya say: "Ava, what is that?"

Which was promptly followed by Harper saying: “AVA, WHAT IS THAT!?”

Satisfied, I ducked into my bedroom, found my enigmatic pair of ratty old sweats, and threw them on commando, ready for bed.

[princess-pill-enjoyer]

Hi again. I'm back to semi keep myself sane

CONTENT WARNING: SELF HARM

Well not to say addiction isn't a form of sh lmfao. Still just incase

I'm just gon say it. Uh I'm writing this because I ended my nearly year long streak of not cutting. I don't really do it often so I don't bother keeping track of when I do it specifically. But yeh. I did it out of frustration towards myself, R, my family, this fucking job, my money, my loans.. I'm just so angry and I don't know what to do. I thought I'd just sob a lil and make myself feel better with that. Didn't work ofc. Even now that I did that to myself I couldn't bring myself to cry 💀

I miss being able to get high in these situations. I feel like I did in college again. Those days walking around feeling completely lost on what to do next. Everything is irritating me and I'm just over it. I never wanted this shit you know?

I'm slightly disappointed in myself. I always told myself I was just tryna be like everyone else when I started cutting myself. Tho I know it's just me being hard on myself. I used to bite/scratch myself and pull my hair out before so it's not entirely fair to say that. But still like. Why couldn't I just punch a wall or something damn 😭😭

Anyway. I alsoo found about 500mg around my room. I had so many pills under my drawer. Plus all the pills I spilled around when I tried to kms while half conscious from the attempt not even a full 2 hours before. I thought i did a good job of throwing away the loose pills after the fact buut ig at some point I made a lil stashe. I've just been staring at them. I want some so bad but I know once I take them I'm buying some more. I have that bad. I can't just have one good experience. I have to have it again and again until it's completely stale. I really stopped taking pills daily in November and took my last pill in early December. I'm scared of what I'll do if I give in. But should I care?

Mmm... my leg is on fire. Sorry if this is too much info. It's hard to focus on what to say next. All I can think about is the pills, how mad I am, annnd my thigh. I don't think it's enough tbh. The fact that I'm still babbling is proof enough.

Well. Speaking of which. A huge apology for some of my older posts. I upset myself rereading my old trip reports. They were awful. I never realized how much I was dealing with at the time. 2022 was the worst year of my life. No doubt. But I WISH I didn't go into so much detail into my personal issues. On one hand, it was good for me as I could let out everything with no filter. Thoooo on the other, that is not what this page was ever supposed to be and I hate that you have to sift the relevant info from my personal drama. I'm tryna be better about that shit. Not everything needs to be said. Plus, I needa be better about thinking about what I'm thinking lol. I feel like im way more irrational than I've ever truly paid attention to. Blasting this place with that isn't thr smartest thing either way. I'll be from here on trying to focus on the bigger shit making me feel rhe way I do.

Oh uh. Well my dumbass inhaled my edibles the other day tryna make myself feel better. My dad made me some to try to replace my dph/pen habit with "real weed" but I've never liked it much. I don't really like weed period for whatever reason. When I'm mixing it with pills I like it but on its own... no. I get really paranoid but so out of it I can't think my way through it. Least with dph I would get paranoid or hear/see something and I'd just forget to be scared. My dislike has led me to eat them fairly infrequently keeping my tolerance kinda low. Thoo I ate about 4x my normal dose annnd as fun as I thought it'd be, I found it more annoying than anything.

I'm in therapy now. I uh don't know how much I like my therapist thus far. He seems so interested in building better habits and not as much fixing whatever's wrong with me. He honestly sounds like he's already given up on me. On my first appointment, he asked about previous visits to therapists. I had only been to one and I was a kid so I didn't understand or take it as seriously as I should have. But apparently I show signs of something deeper going on and talk therapy is "usually not very productive" for people like me. He's focused on getting me medicated and teaching me better coping skills are his main focus from the sounds of it. Tho then again, I've been filling out paperwork and doing minimal speaking so ig he's off the hook 💀💀

Man recommended me to come in 2x a week for the time being. Part of me questions if this is for me or just for him to fill his time slots as quick as possible. Especially with me not having any appointments this week due to his schedule being full LMFAOO. I'm not mad really. I'm just hoping from here out I can actually do the damn 2x a week. I wanna get this treatment shit over with.

Okay well. This one's served its purpose. I'm exhausted and my leg hurts so bad. I wanna sleep it off. Gn

[ayuki-ikuya]

Dorms and Archons

Twisted Wonderland x Genshin Impact

Part 2 of 2

Part 1

Dendro Archon

The Recluse Scholar

𝓚𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓶 𝓐𝓵-𝓐𝓼𝓲𝓶

Kalim was excited to have a new friend! Oh the parties they'd have! The fun! The food!

When he met you, you were... distant. Did he do something wrong? Did he upset you?

He really did try to find out what he did wrong, and often sent you invitations (Malleus eyeing the invitations) you some of the parties he makes, but you don't show up nor reply, making him sadden.

Jamil low key face palming

During a normal sunny day at school, he and Jamil headed to the library to grab some books, and during the process, he found you, tucked in a corner with mountains, upon mountains of books around you, and you? You were reading.

"Ah? S/o??"

"HEEEEK!!!!"

he startled you so badly that plants from outside grew. which of course caused a commotion.

Kalim apologised for startling you, but he asked a question about your attendance, your reply was to fiddle with your sleeves before answering with a small voice that you were afraid of people despite being a deity.

Kalim immedietly thought of Idia, but he crossed the line of no return, but Kalim smiled warmly, held your hand, making you choke, and said a more softer voice that he'd throw a smaller party, just the three of them. (Don't tell me you forgot Jamil, HE MAKES THE DANG FOOD)

You accepted.

Several parties later, you two were unsurprisingly in love with each other that the students of NRC were rolling their eyes at the moments the two shared. COULD YOU TWO DATE ALREADY!?!?

When you two started dating, Kalim made a celebration, but kept you in a more secluded section, that way you could be apart of it, but not near a large crowd of people. And you were thankful for it.

As a couple, Kalim practically adores you. And he's super affectionate too! Jalim is glad to have someone more tameable and it also makes it easier to locate Kalim if he ever goes off by himself.

𝓙𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓵 𝓥𝓲𝓹𝓮𝓻

He thought nothing of you at first.

Until you had full scores on everything.

He had requested you to help with Scarabia's studying, in offer of full meals, which you complied with due to living in a run down dorm and doesn't have a lot of money to support themselves with.

However, the study group went wrong due to the amount of people.

Jamil then figured that you didn't work too well with large numbers of people, and he found that you were slightly dependent on him when it comes to speaking.

He ended up planning smaller groups, working on those who had the worst grades then up.

And thanks to you, their dorm gradually got better.

Jamil spent time with you whenever he was free from following Kalim, and he was fairly fond of you.

You were soft, very soft, but highly reliable in terms of knowledge. So he'd often vent to you which is surprising.

But your presence and advice helped him grow better.

Jamil fell for you when he found you smiling at a Scarabia student showing you their improved grade, you looked like a warm hearted maternal parent, and his heart skipped at the sight.

When you two began dating, it was a bit rocky due to Jamil's family duty to serve the Al-Asim family. But Kalim was very kind to allow Jamil more free time, in exchange that he brings you over for more study parties!

You figured since Kalim wasn't fond of studying and more for partying, that you'd make a study party which improved Kalim's grade by ten folds. Jalim practically wept tears that the seven sent him this angel.

Geo Archon

The Consultant

𝓐𝔃𝓾𝓵 𝓐𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓷𝓰𝓻𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓸

Azul was greedy for the power you possibly possess. and your money.

Azul underestimated you since he witnessed your lack of brains in terms of money. You forget about having your wallet on you, and whenever someone offers to pay for you, you attempt to buy everything without a single thought.

This was going to be an easy contract, Azul thought. They're an idiot, Azul thought. They can't complete this contract, Azul thought.

"I've completed my end of the contract. Now you must do yours."

"Huh? Nani?"

Azul was stupefied by this, he whipped his head towards the Leech twins, both begrudgingly nodding their heads in confirmation at the archon completing their conditions of the contract.

Azul had tried to change the details of the contract, you of course allowed it the first time.

But when you returned with the conditions once again completed, Azul tried to add more.

However, you weren't having it.

You stood up and leaned down to Azul, towering over him. A sudden pressure weighed the three mercreatures, it was heavy and foreboding. Your eyes glowed a gold with the amber ombre in your hair glowing gold as well.

"I was lenient to allow you the first time. Either fulfill your end of the deal or break the contract. But if you break the contract, you will suffer the wrath of the rock."

Azul was terrified.

When Azul fell for you, he questioned himself. How in the seven did he fall for a person like YOU!? He will never remember how, but all he knows is that he's in waaay to deep.

When you two became a couple, you were far more charasmatic and charming than before, it was like it was turned up a notch. Or two. or more...

The contract loving couple have been making more money than ever thanks to the Geo Archon, the avatar of contracts. It's either fill the conditions or suffer the wrath of the rock. Or just, don't make a contract. Simple.

But then we got the one brain cell trio doing their dumb sh**.

𝓙𝓪𝓭𝓮 𝓛𝓮𝓮𝓬𝓱

Oya?

What an intriguing being.

Jade was the first to be interested in you. But he couldn't exactly find you that well since you practically mixed with the crowd a little too well than he'd like. [Bro, Zhongli and Venti has statues of themselves around Liyue and Mondstaft, AND NO ONE MANAGES TO THINK "hmmm.. You know, he looks like one that statue there.. Wait a minute-" LIKE, SRSLY!!! Venti is more obvious, I can understand Zhongli since he wears more funeral consultant clothing, but he still somehow blends in with the crowd. Unlike a Lil wind spirit.]

But when the moment came where you made a contract, Jade was more than happy to hinder you, only for you to complete the conditions before he could figure out your plan.

"... What?"

["OSMANTHUS WI-"]

After that fiasco with you giving a very large heavy warning, Jade was by your side whenever he wasn't with Floyd, questioning your knowledge, in which you were more than happy enough to comply.

Jade fell for you when you showed how competent you were unlike the other miserable guppies in school. Sure you had a few problems, but nothing with a little Jade there and everything is perfect. He also favored your knowledge, specially about fungi.

When you two became a couple, it was.. Strange to say, a air headed but scary consultant with a sadistically calm eelman? That's ringing bells for everyone.

𝓕𝓵𝓸𝔂𝓭𝓮 𝓛𝓮𝓮𝓬𝓱

Floyd had zero, zip, non, 100% no interest in you. Why? You looks, sound and seem boring. And he stand corrected.

it was later when you completed the conditions, which, not gonna lie, spooked Floyd.

"Hah?"

Later, he began to go after you like he did with Goldfish (Riddle), and when he tried to squeeze you, he found himself squeezing a shield instead.

He found himself utterly thrilled and had did several attempts at you, which failed.

His interest in you and your abilities heightened.

Then your relationship bloomed.

It was hard to say if it was romantic or platonic, but either way, Floyd was perfectly happy. Happy to have a partner who continues to show things or tell him things about their world.

As long as Floyd kept out of trouble and/or content, Jade and Azul didn't say question their relationship.

Pyro Archon

The Warlord

𝓛𝓮𝓸𝓷𝓪 𝓚𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓵𝓪𝓻

Who are you? What are you? Why are you here? What are you doing? Get out.

Leona didn't care for you, not one single bit. Until you messed with his sleep schedule due to your chaoticness.

Whenever your around, you just bring trouble with you. And he doesn't like it one bit.

And when you bring trouble, you bring noise.

Which officially ruins his nap times.

However, Leona praises and respects your prowess in battle. You always gave it your all, which he liked. You weren't holding back, which allowed him to gauge how powerful you were as a deity with or without your element.

As it turns out, you're stronger than what you make yourself out to be, but what catches Leona's attention the most, was how calculating you were. It was as if you were analyzing him

To be honest, he felt violated.

At most times, you're energetic, but when your quiet or serious, it's either pack your sh** and leave or get out of their way.

Because when your either if those, you will either send someone to the nurse with severe casualties or some of the schools property will be destroyed. And of course, there is a justified reason for this.

Other than to make Crowley very upset of course.

Leona fell for you with your strength. He loves a woman who can lead and he could just relax. Unless it comes to some other type of leadership, like in the bedroom, then that will change. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

These two are dangerous as a couple when Leona's awake and active. And when Leona's on the move, expect a gremlin to be tailing after him, and be sure to clear out of their way. Mercy didn't in their vocabulary.

𝓡𝓾𝓰𝓰𝓲𝓮 𝓑𝓾𝓬𝓬𝓱𝓲

Huh? Do I know you? No? Goodbye.

Ruggie, quite literally, didn't give a rats ass about you.

To him, you were like any other beast man, rowdy and rough, other than your form that is.

But thankfully, you knew how to take care of yourself. Less work for Ruggie. I guess.

Not only that you knew how to cook. That was a god sent gift to Ruggie. Sadly though, you only know how to make mostly meat dishes. If it contains vegetables, expect the veggies to be over seasoned.

Leona was scared when he saw you in the kitchen, only to calm down seeing you being calm and not rowdy.

Ruggie fell for your cooking. He is literally the term "To get to a mans heart, you go through their stomach". although you should work on cooking vegetables better for a more healthier lifestyle.

𝓙𝓪𝓬𝓴 𝓗𝓸𝔀𝓵

Strong? Strong.

You two are 100% besties.

You two are glued to the hip whenever you guys are free or share classes.

You both like to exercise and spar, so you two mostly go for each other.

To say the least, Jack mostly saw you as a sibling. Sorry, no romance.

Jack often scolds you for not eating more vegetables.

Which makes you pout and huff.

Cute lil tyke - Leona

Hydro Archon

The Judge

𝓡𝓲𝓭𝓭𝓵𝓮 𝓡𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓱𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓽𝓼

Nice, another rule setter like me. We're gonna be great friends.

"Explain why two cubes of sugar should be in a lemon tea? It's blasphemy."

I see you have chosen violence 😌

Riddle at first liked you, until you learned about the rules of the Queen of Hearts, did he start to hate you.

"BE QUIET OR IT'S OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!"

He loathed you.

He thought that since your a judge, you'd understand the rules, much like him. But no, you judged the rules as well, evaluating if they are fair or not.

Whenever you call out on the rules that appeared ridiculously stupid to have (like the two sugar cubes in lemon tea. That's bs to you.)

After the overblot, you were more nicer when he changed.

He stand corrected.

But he didn't mind it, he low key enjoyed arguing with you, without him screaming at you of course.

You two as a couple sends fear in everyone. A judge and a tyrant? That's a deadly combo.

𝓣𝓻𝓮𝔂 𝓒𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓻

Trey had taken a liking to you, seeing how similar you are to Riddle.

He enjoyed answering your questions about rules, but if there were rules he can't remember, he'd look at them with you to not only answer your question, but to commit them to memory in case.

What he's scared of is when you give trials regarding about incidents. Riddle would present his case then the 'innocent' or innocent would present theirs.

If the person is guilty, you ensure punishment, because like Riddle, you detest rule breakers unless in reason. You didn't mind them bending the rules as long as it doesn't break.

Trey is envious of your abilities, but you reassure him the his Doodle Suit is superior if you can use it against others magic.

You often praised him as well.

You admitted to thinking about a scenario of if Trey was born in Tevyat, he'd receive a hydro vision.

He flushed in response, secretly happy to have caught your attention.

You two as a couple puts everyone, minus Riddle because it's you, at ease.

𝓒𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓓𝓲𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓭

#ohmyseveniminlove #calltheambulance #loveatfirstsight #goddescendingfromheaven #pinchme #PLSNOTICEMEANDLOVEME #foryoupage

He practically fell for you.

To him, you were perfect.

"You have flaws? I only see perfection!"

He's a smooth talker, albeit feminine due to having a lot of sisters, but smooth nonetheless.

He's a simp for you, willing to use his unique magic to do anything and everything for you.

Literally fell at first sight of you.

As a couple, Cater often takes couple photos with you, at first you were content with the pictures, but at this point they kinda peeved her when he takes pictures on every occasion.

"Smiiiile~"

"Cater, I love you, but please, stop."

"If you give me a kiss I might~"

𝓓𝓮𝓾𝓬𝓮 𝓢𝓹𝓪𝓭𝓮

You're his role model.

Literally the Geno to your Saitama.

He carries a notebook with him to take notes on you since he strives to be like you. A model being.

Even if he looks smart, he still has a split braincell between Ace and Grim.

Don't hold it against him if he's trying to know almost EVERYTHING about you.

More platonic than romantic.

𝓐𝓬𝓮 𝓣𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓹𝓸𝓵𝓪

Complete opposites.

And completely disliked each other.

You rubbed him the wrong way, maybe it was because you were more justified than him, better at things than he was.

He didn't know what, it was just you being better than him. He understands he's not smart, because he foes dumb sh** with the other two.

But whenever you have to deal with their messes on their own, he feels irritated.

He often tries to get after you as well.

"Oh wow, such a god you are. Pathetic."

*cue angry archon noises with an 8 feet tall wave behind them, ready to flood Ace's ass.*

Yeah, your relationship is very... Rocky and slightly concerning.

Here's part 2! I'm happy that you read this! I will have a link to the first part after connecting the links to certain parts. Feel free to request or refer to the main master list pinned on my blog if you wish to see other choices to make! Happy reading!

[hyunsuks-beanie]

I Love You Too, Love

Bang Chan x reader; just some good ol' tooth-rotting fluff

A/N: My first attempt at writing a real scenario lmao. Do lmk how it was❤Also, it's funny how I'm an anti-romantic to the core, but it all goes out the window when it's Chan

Coming back home at night after a long day at uni/work, you wanted nothing more than to cuddle and watch a nice movie with Chan. Your best friend had been on tour with his group, Stray Kids, for the past three months, and the daily messages and FaceTime calls were not nearly enough to stop you from missing him like crazy. The teeny tiny (or so you insisted) crush that you had on him, didn't help either. You missed his voice, his tight hugs, the way he would always listen to rant about your day, the way he would always know what to say, the way his smile would light up your day, everything. While he did try to fill the gap by still listening to your rants on a daily basis on FaceTime, it just wasn't the same without him being there in person.

Sighing, you unlock your door, expecting to be met with pitch darkness. Instead, what you saw made you drop your bag to the floor, as tears welled up in your eyes. There, standing in the middle of your living room, was Chan, your best friend, who was supposed to be away for yet another month. Not able to believe your eyes, you pinch yourself, only to realize that he is indeed there, in the flesh, smiling at you as if you mean the world to him (unbeknownst to you, you most certainly do).

"Missed me?," he asks, and you suddenly find yourself running towards him at full speed, crashing into his chest and wrapping your arms around him in the tightest hug ever. This causes Chan to slightly lose his balance, and makes him laugh heartily before placing a gentle kiss atop your head. "I missed you too, love. So so so much."

After staying like that for a solid two minutes, you finally break free, glaring up at him playfully. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming home?," You ask, trying your best to suppress your smile and appear angry. This causes him to chuckle before cheekily saying, "If I had told you, I wouldn't have been able to seen your true happiness at seeing me. If you already knew, you would probably have acted as if you're disgusted that I'm back, and we didn't want that now, did we?"

You shove his chest slightly, before finally turning your head towards the dining table, only to be met with the sight and aroma of all your favourite dishes, that Chan had apparently spent all evening trying to make. "You must be hungry. Freshen up and let's dig in, I'm starving," He says, pushing you lightly towards the bathroom. While getting changed, you finally register the fact that your heart is hammering in your chest, reminding you that the man standing in your living room means so much more to you than just your best friend.

Being away from Chan for months has made you realize that what you feel for him is much more than just a crush. You may very well be in love with him, but you're too scared to admit it because neither do you want to face rejection, nor can you bring yourself to put his career at risk. With these thoughts in mind, you finally exit the bathroom, sighing deeply to yourself.

You don't, however, notice that Chan too, is in a dilemma of his own. Before going on tour, he too, knew that he liked you. But being away from you made him realize that you are his home, and that he would much rather be with you than with anyone else. He has been planning to confess today, and has been trying to gauge your feelings ever since you came back home. Your sigh doesn't escape him, and, full of concern, he asks, "What's wrong, love? Got something on your mind? You know you can always tell me." Truth be told, he's worried and scared that you already know about his feelings, and don't reciprocate them. He fails to see your knees going week and a blush creeping up your cheeks at the nickname, and instead, all he notices is you giving him a small smile and saying, "Not at all Channie, I'm completely fine. Now let's eat up before the food goes cold."

Once you guys get a couple bites in, the awkward atmosphere starts easing once again. Chan tells you all about the tour and all the places he saw. "London was the best, but I wish you were there. You would have enjoyed the London Eye." "Well then, you'll have to take me there one day." You tell him about how life has been back in Seoul, ranting about your annoying professor/boss, and he tells you about all the small trinkets that he saw at souvenir shops that reminded him of you. "That charm bracelet was so you, I just had to buy it." "You didn't have to Chan. I don't need any gifts, having you back home is enough."

After dessert, you ask him if he'd stay the night, and he says that since he has the week off, the boys don't expect him to back at dorms until the following morning. "So.....you're staying?," You ask with a small smile tugging at your lips. He smiles back at you lovingly, and ruffles your hair before saying, "Yes love, I'm staying. Now let's watch a movie."

After picking the movie, you come back to sit on the couch next to Chan, throwing your legs across his lap. Now it's his turn to blush, but unlike him, you're not oblivious to his reddening cheeks. "Awww, is Channie blushing? Why? This isn't the first time I've thrown my legs over your lap," You chuckle, causing him to hide his face in his hands. "Yeah but, I've really missed this being away from you all this while," He smiles warmly.

The first half of the movie goes by with the both of you making random comments about it. At one particular scene where the characters are having nachos, Chan suddenly exclaims, "Salsa reminds me, the boys and I learnt a little Salsa during our time in Italy, and I really wanted to teach you some of the moves." "Me?," You ask, bewildered, causing Chan to become shy and start stuttering. "I-I m-mean if you w-want to. It's o-okay if y-you don't."

You're having a hard time trying not to melt into a puddle at his cuteness, as you force your mouth to open, and say, "No Chan, I'd love to." "Really?," He returns to his giggly self, as he gets up off the couch and extends his hand out for your to take. You smile and take his hand, and he brings you to the center of the room. "Just one sec," He says, pausing to pick the music on his phone. Once he's done, he places his phone on the table, and starts guiding you through the dance, one step at a time, with the movie being nothing more than a long-forgotten background noise. "Left foot forward, right foot backward. That's right, now dip, and come back. Now place your leg on my waist....," You both freeze at this, realizing what he just said. It's only then that you notice just how close you are to him, and the familiar feeling of your heart racing comes back. You both stare at each other, hypnotized, before your eyes flick to his lips and back up to his eyes. When he does the same, you timidly ask, "Can I kiss you?"

That's all it takes to break Chan out of his trance, as he crashes his lips onto yours, kissing you as if his life depends on it. You don't even notice that he is backing you up, until you feel your back hit the wall. His lips taste sweet and a little spicy, which you attribute to the food you had earlier. The kiss is soft but full of emotions, and even though it does seem a bit cliche, you can feel fireworks fly. The butterflies in your stomach every time you see Chan seem to have been replaced by a whole zoo, and you can't help but smile into the kiss. This causes Chan to break into a smile as well, before he gently lets go.

"I really want to keep kissing you because God have I been waiting to do that for years, but I feel like I need to get this off my chest first," He says, shy once again. "I like you, a hell lot. Actually no, screw that, I think I'm already in love with you. I've known this for a long time, but I was just scared to admit it. Being away from you during the tour made me realize that I want to be more than just 'best friends' with you. I want to call you 'mine,' and I want to be yours." "Oh Channie, you don't know how much I have wanted to hear you say that you love me too, this distance has been a wake-up call for me too, but I was just so scared of jeopardizing either our friendship, or your career. And I can't have either of those two." "Don't worry about my career, we'll find a way out love. Just say the word, say that you love me." To this, you gawk at him, before saying, "I gave you a speech on that just now, didn't I? Of course I love you." "Yeah but you didn't explicitly say that you love me, idiot. But now that you've said the right words, I legit feel like the happiest man on earth." You shove him slightly before wrapping your arms around his torso. "So, now that we've got our feelings sorted, what does that mean for us?" "Well, for starters, I think it means that my nickname for you just took on a literal meaning," Chan smirks. You pout at this, but then say, "I love you Channie." He places his chin in your head, and says, "I love you too, love."

[lostmykeysie]

Thanks for the tag @theonlywolfpants, I am extremely excited about ALL of your WIPs, but Bites Through the Bone??????? I nEED it.

WIP Challenge 😁❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍❤😁🤩🤩 Rules: tell us the titles of all the WIPs you are currently working on right now and a little about them. Then tag five other writers.

The Horcrux Hunt is my current live WIP that I am having SO much fun writing. It's a First Wizarding War canon-divergence/fix-it fic (I'm not certain on the differences of the terms, sorry) where Regulus doesn't commit suicide via the cave and instead reluctantly goes to Dumbledore for help, who partners him up with Remus to go (yup, you guessed it) on a Horcrux hunt. As is my typical style, it's mostly humour and fluff with a bit of angst and a bit of smut.

As Of Yet Unnamed Horcrux Hunt Sequel is getting drafted as THH is written and I am really excited for this!!! It's a sequel (obviously) that focuses on Remus and Regulus as they attempt to pick up the pieces immediately after the war's end, and it's JEGULUS!!!!! MY FIRST TIME!!!! Think slowburn enemies-to-lovers, except more I lowkey resent you for stealing my brother away-to-lovers, and Wolfstar trying to sort their shit out.

Trust is Earned is my other live WIP that's currently on the back burner whilst I pour all my energy and lifeforce into THH. It's a follow up to Meeting with a Stranger (my first fic that I'm too scared to read back lol) that is nothing more than fluff and smut, following Sirius on his courageous journey to get his sexy hunk of a boyfriend Remus to say ILY back. (I'm also scared to read this back, mostly because I left it hanging on a sex scene that's going to make me cringe so hard I just *know* it)

For The Map was supposed to be a Christmas fic that I wrote but didn't finish - I actually posted a snippet way back when - that at some point I will have to decide whether to keep it for next Christmas or slightly rewrite. It's a Hogwarts era fic with oblivious Remus wondering why Sirius is acting so strange, and why the hell they keep getting stuck in small spaces with each other.

Buy A Bachelor AU is also as of yet unnamed (and I am terrible with naming fics so don't expect anything good) that's based on this prompt that I've fully outlined and half written. It's a oneshot from Sirius's POV - he's taking part in a fundraiser for Hogwarts Museum of Art alongside some familiar faces, but after Alice goes into labour and Frank has to pull out, a certain sexy young PhD student/new museum employee has to take his place. Sirius finds him very distracting.

And if y'all wanna have a crack (apols if you've already been tagged, I'm technically in a work meeting right now lol) @impishtubist, @limetimo, @sheofthebookandsong, @de-sire-blog, and @signifiquint my darling