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neoneun-au · 3 months

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CAN'T HELP MYSELF; CHAPTER III: WHO WAITS FOR LOVE?

―PAIRING: wonwoo x fem!reader, mingyu x fem!reader ―GENRE: love triangle au, fluff, mild angst, romantic comedy, suggestive, smut ―CHAPTER WORD COUNT: 11.2k ―CHAPTER WARNINGS: angst, mild language, alcohol consumption, masturbation (explicit female, implied/mentions of male), 18+ only ―STATUS: ongoing

―AUTHOR’S NOTE: i cant link them here, but please find the series masterlist and other chapters on my blog. i would love to know your thoughts on the story so far, this is really only fun with interaction and it helps keep me motivation to finish !

iii: who waits for love?

“You didn’t mention one of my roommates was basically a fucking model,” you complain, sinking into the absurdly massive grey sectional next to Jeonghan as he sits scrolling on his phone, attention removed from the drama providing background noise on the shared TV.

“Who? Mingyu?” He tosses his head back with a bark of a laugh at the suggestion, “he’s a model idiot.”

“Idiot or not you should have warned me he’d be so…so,” you toss your hands in the air, a dramatic display of frustration completed by the furrow in your brows. The image of Mingyu’s bare chest from your initial meeting (new and improved version 2.0 of hot roommate: now accompanied by a soundtrack of bed squeaks and the joy of someone else’s orgasm!) assaults your senses and you scrub it from your mind’s eye as best as you can before fixing your weary gaze back on Jeonghan, “so hot.”

“Oh please,” Jeonghan rolls his eyes as soon as the word falls from your lips. “Yeah he’s easy on the eyes, but once you get to know him his looks are much less impressive, trust me.” He shakes his head, raising his coffee to take a sip before pursing his lips and fixing you with a concerned stare, “I didn’t take you as the type to pine after tall, dark, and stupid. You’re not thinking of using him as a rebound are you?”

“What? Absolutely not,” the reply comes out perhaps more fervently than it should have because what was intended to deny the suggestion only serves to deepen the crease settling in between Jeonghan’s manicured eyebrows. You clear your throat and take a sip from the mug of tea growing cold in your hands as a cover.

“Rebound,” you scoff at the word, trying to play off the twisting feeling in your gut with derision but only managing to dig the knife in deeper. “Definitely not. I have no plans to start dating anytime soon. Not after this breakup.” You’re aware that you’ve begun to ramble but as per usual, your mouth runs away with your words. Try as you might, you cannot scramble to retrieve them as they spill forward like a damn breaking open. Jeonghan stares at you with a slight frown as you monologue, “I barely even want to look at men full-stop. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, you’re okay, we’re friends and all. And Seungcheol is fine I guess ‘cause he lifted all of my heavy shit up the stairs like some kind of bodybuilding angel sent from protein-heaven,” a stray strand of hair falls in front of your eyes and you blow it away with a short puff of breath.

“But dating? No. No, no, no,” you continue unabated, “absolutely not. I’m taking this time to get to know me. If anything, I’m dating myself. Mingyu might be hot but he won’t break my resolve, that’s for sure. I am determined,” you finish the speech with a single, firm nod–agreement with yourself clear and solid and in no way capable of breaking at the threat of warm brown puppy eyes flashed in your direction.

“Right,” Jeonghan drags out the word, unconvinced by your impassioned declaration of independence. “Well, if you get bored of dating yourself and do end up wanting someone to mess around with for a bit, I can hook you up with some people. Serious or…less serious. Your choice.”

“I will be just fine on my own, thank you.” You nod once. Firm. Decisive. Not at all embarrassed by the display.

“If you say so,” he sings, shaking his head and pushing himself off the couch before flicking the TV off. You sit in silence for a moment, sipping the last of your lukewarm tea, and listen as Jeonghan’ footsteps fade into the kitchen. The slight lingering guilt and shame from the night before stains your thoughts. A ring of liquid left on the surface of a coffee table, encircling the memory of Mingyu’s moaning and the keen sense of desire that burned a pit in your core at the sound.

Jeonghan returns from the kitchen a second later and sits down on the arm of the couch. He clears his throat to speak, more serious than you had seen since graduating university. “Listen, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life,” he begins. You inhale to laugh your disagreement of the statement but he holds up a single hand to silence you so you bite it back just as quickly. “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I will just give you a warning, if I may” he lets his hand fall back down to his lap, “as your friend. And as someone who has your best interest at heart.”

“Fine,” you allow, buying into the sincerity, “I’m listening.”

“I said that I can hook you up with people both serious and not so serious,” he says, pausing to take a deep breath, “Mingyu is not serious.”

The image of the man in question pops up in your mind once more. An observable object–lips locked with the mystery brunette, hands roaming the expanse of her body as they flutter like a pair of dragonflies locked in a mating ritual towards his bedroom. The chorus of “ohs” and “ahs” that chorus in your ears like the audio from the old Italian softcore porn films you used to sneak out of bed to watch in your adolescence. The squeaking of the bed frame, and even the eventual abrupt departure first thing this morning, project themselves across the walls of your brain like a feel of film. All fleeting images and experiences serve as firsthand evidence backing up what Jeonghan is saying to you at this moment in the harsh light of day.

“If you’re in it for a quick, no strings attached hookup then, well,” he sighs, brushing his bangs out from in front of his eyes, “you’re a grown woman, I trust you can make your own decisions. But I’ve never seen Mingyu with the same girl more than once. So just…be careful. Because if you want something substantial, you would be barking up the wrong tree with him.”

You nod and the previous image of Mingyu–all roaming hands and bucking hips–dissolves pixel by pixel into the knitted brows of concern and the serious expression his classically handsome face held barely an hour ago. The warmth of his hand as it pressed ever so lightly against the skin of your forehead–an act so painfully tender and familiar it made you yearn at the intimacy of it. While your logical mind does believe what Jeonghan is saying, another part of you (a deeper and much more foolish part) can’t help but feel like there has to be more to Mingyu than the rest of them give him credit for. That maybe there is something to be taken seriously there.

The thought dissipates into vapour as Vernon strolls down the stairs–bleary eyed and dazed with the lingering sleep still clawing at the corners of his eyes. He nods lazily in silent greeting, clad in tie dye and baggy jeans, and walks past the pair of you and disappears into the kitchen.

“Just,” Jeonghan hesitates a moment, waiting for the sound of the fridge opening in the next room to disrupt the strained silence that had settled between you, “be careful, okay?”

“Don’t worry,” you smile, genuinely grateful for the advice and care from your long-time friend, despite the bells of disagreement ringing out inside of you. “I’ll be fine.”

“Do you think I need a rebound?” The question comes after an hour of banter and conversation over way too expensive cocktails in the dimly lit corner of the bar you used to frequent when you were still going to university with Seulgi. Her insistence that you get out of the apartment and stop stewing in your own thoughts had finally paid off and truthfully the distraction was not entirely unwelcome. But you were still stubbornly refusing to admit that she was right. The status quo of your friendship since the very beginning.

“Didn’t you say you were swearing off men or something?” Seulgi asks, tapping a manicured fingernail against the side of her nearly empty manhattan.

“That was before I saw the reality of the men I was swearing off,” you sigh, mourning the loss of your already weak resolve. Solemn regret for the poorly timed declamations you had given voice to in the past. “And the reality is that they're pretty fucking hot.”

“You mean one of them is pretty fucking hot, right?” she emphasizes, ever observant, and you grimace at her over the lip of your own half-empty glass.

“One of them looks like a Greek fucking God for no reason,” you grumble, turning to wave the waitress over for another round, “like Adonis or something. It’s not my fault I have functioning eyeballs.”

“Adonis wasn’t a god, he was the mortal lover of Aphrodite.”

“Well whatever he was, I’m now stuck living in an apartment with him.” The young waitress walks up with an expectant look and Seulgi orders another round of the same while you drain the last of your drink, savouring the bitterness of the gin as it lingers at the tip of your tongue. You watch the waitress as she walks back towards the bar, brunette ponytail swinging behind her like in rhythm with her steps, and wonder vaguely if maybe she’s the girl you saw Mingyu with.

Seulgi turns back to you with a slight roll of her eyes, “I’m sure it's not that bad. Just ignore him, you’re mostly working or asleep when you’re not just hanging around bugging me anyway.”

“Pretty hard to ignore him when he’s so openly hooking up with some random girl in a condo with 4 other people who can clearly hear him.”

“Well put some earphones in or something, listen to a podcast,” she laughs, shaking her head. You bite your tongue, reluctant to mention the fact that you had willingly listened in as they fucked. That maybe you had enjoyed it a little more than you were letting on. You didn’t need the inevitable teasing that was bound to come if you told her any of that. “Do you remember our one roommate? From second year?”

“Oh god,” you balk at the memory, “Johnny?”

“He was so loud,” she grimaces. So many late nights spent huddled together on her bed watching movies, joined in mutual avoidance of the self-proclaimed playboy and his rotating roster of girls. “And then you went and hooked up with him which was just the worst. He was so insufferable after that.”

“Hey, in my defense I was desperate and not exactly in my right mind,” you bristle at the thought of your pathetic, erstwhile crush. Surely, you had thought in the throes of your youth and naivety, someone who pulled that many girls knows exactly how to make them feel good. Yet by the end of it, as he lay open-mouthed snoring on the bare mattress next to you, you were left with a clear idea of why you never seemed to see the same girl more than once. “Anyway, from the sounds coming out of her, Mingyu seems to actually know what he’s doing in bed.”

“So you did listen,” she smirks.

“The walls are thin,” you let the paltry excuse fall from your lips as she tosses her head back in laughter. Gulping down a mouthful of water in a vain attempt to swallow some of the embarrassment boiling like hot lava in your bloodstream.

“What do you think they were doing?” Seulgi leans forward with a conspiratorial gaze–brown eyes full and bright and filled to the brim with a hint of evil. There have been a few moments throughout your years of friendship where she has fixed you with a look like this, and most of them led to some of the worst decisions either of you have ever made. Breaking into the community swimming pool after dark, stealing the neighbouring houses’ lawn ornaments, making out with dudes that may or may not have been married. Her desire for intrigue terrified and excited you in equal measure.

“Pretty sure they were fucking,” you respond and she sits back, disappointed at the bland reply.

“Yeah, I got that part. I mean details. If we’re gossiping, we should do it right.”

The cacophony of the bar consumes you. Chatter and laughter from nearby tables floods your senses, drowning out the roar of guilt that knocks at the door of your mind as you consider your next words carefully. Whether to completely dive off the deep end and betray your new roommates privacy (in more ways than you already have). If you had been a little more sober and a little less intrigued by the man in your own right, you might have shut the topic of conversation down before it even began. You might have left the apartment for the night and slept on a chair in the lobby and avoided the entire tryst to prevent the memory of his moans from carving themselves into your temporal lobe.

But you did not and now you are just as invested in the situation, and Seulgi’s complete lack of shame about asking for details further strangled any lingering guilt you had left. “Well,” you start and she leans in closer, eyes alight with anticipation, “they started in the hallway. I thought they were going to have sex right against the wall while I was trapped hiding behind the couch.”

She laughs, head tossed back in mirth, “bet you would have loved that. Mingyu, bare ass out in front of you,” she jeers and you bristle at the accusation (even if you know she’s right). The waitress returns with your drinks and you mumble a brief thank you to her as she sets the glasses down. Seulgi continues to laugh, pleased with your reaction, “it would have been your wet dream come true.”

“Okay, that’s it. I’m not saying anything else,” you grumble into your fresh drink, wincing at the bite of the liquor. Cocktails were never your thing but Seulgi had offered to pay so who were you to refuse.

“Aww,” she whines, “fine, fine, I’ll stop teasing you. Please give me the play by play. I am so curious.” She claps her hands together in mock prayer, pleading for your cooperation, and you think she might make an excellent lawyer or serial killer if she weren’t so normal most of the time.

“Fine,” you relent after a beat, already too wrapped up in reliving the night to abandon the story anyway. “Obviously,” you stress, “that didn’t happen. They were making out there for maybe like 5 minutes but it felt like hours. I was so worried she was going to see me but thankfully I managed to stay pretty low.”

Seulgi takes a sip of her darkly coloured drink, you can tell she wants to interject but she manages to hold true to her promise.

“So they stumble off to his room,” you continue with a sigh, “and I go to mine, which, mind you, is right next to his. We share a wall.” She winces and you give her a knowing nod, steeling yourself against the all too vivid memory. “I crawl into bed, trying to block out the noise for a while, which at this point isn’t too loud. It’s just like…some muffled talking and moaning and the occasional slap of like…skin on skin. Maybe he spanked her…” you trail off, shaking your head along with the words, fully invested in the theatrics of the storytelling now. “But, through some cruel twist of fate his bed, just like mine, is also right up against our shared wall. So as soon as they really get going, I can feel it.”

“What, like…” she thrusts in her seat, a quizzical slant to her eyebrows, “like shaking?”

“Yup,” you pop the ‘p’ for emphasis and she lets out a low whistle.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know,” you shake your head, “felt like forever. I was just clutching my sheets like it was an earthquake or something.” You do conveniently leave out the heat of desire and curling of toes, but she didn’t need to know that part.

“Did it start off slow?” she asks, voice conspiratorial. “Fast? Do you think he ate her out first?”

“Seulgi,” you hiss, keeping your voice low. You glance over at the table of college guys next to you but they don't appear to have been listening.

“What, I’m not allowed to ask?” She balks, hand on heart, and appears offended for a moment before the usual mischievousness settles back in and she leans forward with a glint. “Did Wonwoo ever eat you out?”

“We are not discussing the details of my sex life right now.”

“No of course not,” she rolls her eyes, “we’re just discussing the details of someone else’s.” You grumble at the inability to argue with this statement. “How long has it been since you got laid anyway?”

“I don’t know,” you sigh, dropping your head to the table and then regretting it immediately when you realise how sticky it is. “Like five months maybe?”

“Five? Didn’t you break up with Wonwoo like…” she fixes her eyes on the ceiling for a brief moment, calculating the time passed in her head before turning back to you with frown lines creased into her forehead, “six weeks ago?”

You shrug, sinking your embarrassment into another sip of alcohol, “so we hadn’t had sex in a while, so what?”

“Do you think maybe that was a contributing factor in your dissatisfaction with the relationship?” She leans back in her chair, crossing her arms.

“I don’t need a therapy session, Seulgi.”

“On the contrary, I think you would benefit greatly from therapy,” she laughs, “but that’s not what this is. You’ve just been sort of distant lately.” You open your mouth to protest but she stops you with a glance, “don’t start, I know we’ve been hanging out, but over the last few months you haven’t been as open about your emotions and stuff. You used to tell me everything, even things I didn’t want or need to hear, but for a while it feels like you’ve just been…hiding. Internalizing.” She leans forward and taps the center of your forehead with one, manicured finger. “Stop that. It’s not good for you to be in your head so much.”

“I hate to say it but, you’re right,” you sigh, begrudgingly agreeing with her observation. The skin where she had poked you tingling in the aftermath of her touch like a beacon of truth.

“I always am,” she nods, “but seriously. We’re friends. I want to hear how you��re feeling. I know I make fun of you a lot, but that’s just ‘cause you’re so easy to make fun of.”

“Hey!”

She laughs and you’re reminded of why she and Jeonghan always got along so well. “Seriously though,” she says, expression sobering, “maybe you wouldn’t fixate so much of your loneliness and desperation onto random guys if you got out of your head a bit more regularly. Just a thought.”

“It's not desperation, I just…” you trail off, unsure of where to begin. Unsure even of what your own internal landscape was trying to tell you. You wanted to confide in her, to be more open and transparent, but it was hard to do that when none of you couldn’t even sort out your thoughts and feelings from your anxieties and worries. It was hard to be clear when everything just felt like mud. She waits, expectant, as you sift through the much for some clear strand of thought. “You’re right, about the loneliness anyway, I know you are.” She nods, dark hair spilling over her shoulders. “But it’s not desperation.”

“So then what is it?” she asks and you try to place it. Try to tug on the thought to follow where it was leading you. What was it about Mingyu that made you feel like you were chasing something? Clawing at the walls of some well of yearning like a prisoner of your own desires. What was it about him that was making you want more? More information, more contact, more, more, more.

“I think,” you start, hesitant to speak the word lest it be wrong. “I think it’s curiosity.”

“About Mingyu?”

“Yeah, him. And about myself,” you shake your head. Ruminating on your spiraling thoughts was one thing, but vocalising them for someone who knew you oftentimes better than you knew yourself was another thing entirely. Your thoughts held more weight now that someone else was bearing witness to them. They had more consequences now than just 15 minutes of anxiety or a few hours of doom-scrolling.

“What about yourself?” she asks, unraveling the mess as you present it to her.

“I feel like…I’ve been in this strange place between needing people for everything and also trying my best to not need anyone at all. I can’t do my taxes without help, I can’t change a tire without help, I can’t even move apartments without it! But when it comes to emotions or vulnerability…I would rather just deal with it on my own, you know?” She nods, attention focused completely on you. Despite how long you’ve been friends, the direct attention still flickers a switch of shyness inside of you.

“That’s what it was like with Wonwoo, too. He was never the most emotionally available person and I think I just got used to dealing with things on my own because of it. I didn’t want to burden him with my thoughts or feelings cause I know I have a lot of them. Don’t get me wrong, though, it wasn’t like he refused to listen or anything I just…he just wasn’t really open with his own feelings or thoughts so I sort of started to feel guilty about dominating those conversations all the time with mine. Like I was using him as some sort of emotional punching bag. And then I just got used to it, and it took so long for me to realise that I needed something more than that…”

Any hesitation you had felt before dissipates as you talk, little by little. You feel like you’re back in your dorm room together, laying on your floor and just letting yourself pour out every thought, every feeling, every worry you had. Stream of consciousness–your lips to Seulgi’s ears. That open vulnerability you shared before life and work and everything else got in the way and left the door open for inhibition, shame, and guilt to move into the space between.

You feel lighter as you speak, like you had been needing this–craving it. Waiting for her invitation to come to let loose the torrential downpour of your mind to a willing listener. To a friend.

She was right. She always was.

“So what is it about this Mingyu guy, then? You don’t think he would just be the same?” She asks, shifting the focus, and you purse your lips in concentration.

“I’m not sure…” you trail off. And you really weren’t sure. Was he just an idle fascination after all? Did you just find him hot and that smoke screen of good looks was blinding you to the fact that he was just some guy like everyone before him? Or was there actually something there, in spite of it all? You mull it over while Seulgi takes a leisurely sip of her drink. “I was talking to Jeonghan the other day, and he said something that sort of made me think–”

“That’s a surprise,” she laughs, unable to resist the opportunity for a jab at your mutual friend.

“He said ‘Mingyu is not serious’ and I don’t know,” you continue, unabated by her comment, “I get this feeling that that’s not the full truth.”

“What, like psychic intuition?” she laughs and you shake your head.

“No, no…well, maybe. I don’t know. Obviously I don’t know the guy very well yet, and I have seen him do exactly what Jeonghan was warning me he does but…” you sigh, trying to collect your scattered thoughts of the man that is currently plaguing your mind. “He has also been very thoughtful, and he seems to notice such small details that the others don’t. I don’t know…I just think there might be something more to him than that, you know?”

“And you think you’re going to be the one to discover that side of him?” she asks, eyebrow quirked. Astute as ever.

“No,” you start, but catch yourself in the lie immediately. “Well, yeah, I guess. I just want to see if my hunch is correct.”

She fixes you with a withering gaze, dark brown eyes boring into your own for a moment before she laughs again, “Oh I get it now, you want to fix him.”

“I can’t help it, I love a project,” you sigh, resting your cheek in your palm and tracing idle circles against the wood grain of the table top.

“So take up crocheting or something! Stop throwing yourself at every man who looks like a kicked puppy.” You groan at the accusation but can’t deny the truth in it. You did have a track record. “Look, if you want to do this. Really want to crack that big beefy chest open and see what’s inside, I’m not going to stop you, but I’m warning you now that I do not think this is going to end well.”

“You sound like Jeonghan,” you mumble, eyes closed as you listen to the lecture.

“Good, at least someone you live with has some brains.” She shakes her head, pausing to hand her card to the waitress as she walks over with the bill for the evening. Silence stretches out for a moment, the din of the bar enclosing in to envelop you in its swell as you wait for the transaction to finish. The waitress returns and Seulgi slips her card back into her wallet before turning back to you, “I’m not saying this to be mean, but I really think you should take some time to be with yourself before you end up repeating the same mistakes you made with Wonwoo.”

“Harsh,” you mutter, feeling the sting of it spear through your heart and settle there. Slow poison.

She softens, eyes warming as she slides off her chair. You follow suit and walk with her out into the chill of the night. The bitterness of winter was starting to seep slowly into the air, you can feel it biting at your skin as you step outside with her to wait for the Uber she ordered to pull up.

“I love you and I want what’s best for you, and if you think that there might be something there with this Mingyu guy then I hope you’re right, I really do,” she says, a smile softening her expression. “I just want you to be careful, ok?”

“Okay,” you sigh, hugging your arms tight against your chest to fight off the wind as it blisters through your thin jacket. “I love you, too. And I will be careful, I promise. I’m not really too keen to repeat my last relationship either…”

“Good,” she nods, eyes roaming to the curb as a slick black sedan pulls up. “I’ll see you soon. Try not to throw yourself too big of a pity party before then.” She waves goodbye as she strides towards the car. You roll your eyes, returning the wave, before starting your brisk walk the few blocks back to the condo.

Time passes slowly in the new stasis of your life. You take the new opportunity in the wake of your hangout to bury yourself in work and get through some projects that had been building up untouched while you were feeling sorry for yourself. You kept up with regular jogs with Seungcheol, largely at his behest, and they were starting to become an enjoyable break in your days. A way to clear your mind and focus your attention on your body. It also did not escape your notice that the route he was taking you on now steered clear of the street where you had seen Wonwoo a few weeks ago. You use your commitment to the new routine as a silent thank you to him for somehow knowing what you needed when you needed it.

Vernon was becoming a favourite of yours as well. A quiet denizen of the condo; he showed up at random hours, taking a seat near you but not too close, reading through scripts or scrolling on his phone in companionable silence as you worked. It was like living with a cat that took care of itself and had an impressive collection of beanies.

Mingyu you tried to avoid, for the most part. He still plagued your thoughts on a daily basis, but out of respect for your friends’ concerns you wanted to give this budding infatuation time to settle into shape. To give yourself time to try and figure out what your real feelings on the matter were. You tried to find a delicate balance between roommate and acquaintance, figuring out his general schedule and adjusting your own accordingly so that you weren’t caught in any more awkward situations in the middle of the night or without anyone else around.

All of these measures were helping to make you feel more at home in the condo. Less like an interloper disrupting their days and more like a part of the makeshift family–even if that part for now was cousin, twice-removed.

As a result you were spending less time doing your work from the cafe and much more of it huddled over your laptop on the coffee table in the living room. Projects were getting done quicker, though it did mean that you were seeing Seulgi less often.

“Why aren’t you answering my texts?” Seulgi’s face blinks to life on the screen of your phone as you finally accept her FaceTime call. “Are you still moping?”

“I’m not moping!” you defend, raising the phone to hide the view of the pajamas you’ve been wearing for the past 24 hours as you were locked in a death-match with an upcoming deadline.

“Well how many more projects do you have left to do before we can go out? It’s been two weeks since I saw you now that you’re actually working from home,” she sighs in exasperation. Judging by the smoked out black liner defining her eyes, she was heading out tonight with or without you anyway. “Yerim is in town and she’s been asking about you.”

“Yerim? Wait, since when? I thought she was still in England?” you straighten up at the mention of your distant friend’s name.

“She’s back for now to get some visa renewal stuff done,” Seulgi answers, “and we’re going out tonight so you should come if you’re not still buried under a mountain of work.”

You glance at the screen of your laptop, folders stacked on your desktop in a messy landscape of the digital mountain you created for yourself. The thought was tempting but you knew Yerim and you knew what a night out with her always entailed. Read: getting black out drunk in a club and stumbling home at 6:00am the next morning. You had made a lot of progress scaling your workload, but you weren't sure that even without work you would have the energy needed for a night out like that.

The front door clicks open behind you and you spin your head to spout a quick greeting. Mingyu nods a quick hello, arms loaded with bags of groceries, before disappearing into the kitchen.

“Who was that?” Seulgi asks, noting the interruption in your conversation.

“Mingyu,” you answer, mindlessly pushing yourself off the ground and bringing her with you as you walk into the kitchen behind him in search of a glass of water. He smiles at you as you enter but says nothing as Seulgi’s voice rings out through your phone.

“Ah,” she smirks, “the one with the nipples?” You roll your eyes at the clear attempt to embarrass you but nod—pointedly ignoring the man in question as he sputters next to you at the comment. You fill a glass with water from the filtered jug in the fridge. “So are you coming tonight or should I tell Yerim you’re too depressed?”

You give it a moment of thought. You haven’t seen Yerim since she moved to the UK in the middle of her third year of university, after the rest of you had already graduated. She sent some odd gifts here and there—chocolate, snacks, a figurine of Shakespeare wearing heart print boxers—but communication had dwindled as you all found your footing in your adult lives, far removed from the heady days of hedonistic college life.

“Well first of all, don’t tell her I’m depressed, ‘cause I’m not,” you emphasise and Seulgi laughs at the bitter defense, “but I don’t think I can make it tonight. We should make plans for dinner or something before she leaves, though. Something a little more lowkey than the club.”

“Fine, be boring,” she sighs. “By the way, Yerim brought a friend back with her. He’s apparently cute and not completely useless. She thought you might like to meet him, just as a distraction. Or a rebound that’s not going to jeopardize your living situation. He’s also coming tonight”

You groan, settling down in a kitchen chair—opposite to the one Mingyu had sat down in with his reheated leftovers. He watches you with mild interest out of the corner of his eye while you try to think of a way to convince Seulgi that you don’t need Yerim’s charity date. “I would, but I already have plans tonight,” you lie, hoping she buys it without question.

“Oh?” she asks, eyes narrowed in cautious suspicion. “Do you have other friends?”

“Very funny,” you roll your eyes, “but no, actually. It’s just with my roommate.”

“Which one?” she probes, digging you deeper into the grave of your own lie.

“Oh uh–” you stutter but your eyes flicker above the screen of your phone, locking in on Mingyu’s own wide brown gaze. “Mingyu. We’re going to dinner tonight.”

He opens his mouth to speak, clearly confused by being dragged into your mess, but you shake your head lightly—willing him to just roll with it. He clamps his mouth shut and returns to his bowl of stew.

“Mingyu?” Her surprise is genuine and you can tell she’s starting to believe you. A flicker of concern shines in her eyes. “Is it like…a date?”

“No, Seulgi,” you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose between your thumb and forefinger. She was edging dangerously close to that ‘jeopardizing your living situation’ territory on her own. “It’s just dinner. With a roommate.”

“Okay,” she drawls, “but if you end up against a wall with his face between your thighs—”

“Goodbye, Seulgi,” you end the call with a panicked stab of your finger and lean back in your chair, eyes shut tight against the rising tide of anxiety. You feel lightheaded. Hopefully Mingyu didn’t catch that last part.

“Did we—” He clears his throat. His voice, hesitant and low, floating in and dispeling your faint hope that he hadn’t been paying attention. “Did we have plans I forgot about?”

You want to laugh, he sounds so genuinely worried. It forces a bitter bubble of bile to rise up into your throat. “No,” you shake your head, clearing it with a sip of water. “Don’t worry you don’t have to go out to dinner with me, I just really didn’t want to go out tonight. Yerim is sort of wild sometimes and the thought of meeting some stuffy English guy in a club was making me feel ill.”

“Oh,” he smiles—also hesitant, but you can see a hint of his canines poking out behind his lips. “Well, glad I could be of service, then.” His smile widens and you can’t help but return it with one of your own.

“You have been most helpful,” you laugh. “Sorry for using you as a scapegoat. Also sorry about the nipples thing, Seulgi has a selective memory.”

“I don’t mind,” he shakes his head, the flush of warmth in his skin betrays the hint of embarrassment he’s trying to mask. You smile at the grace he’s giving you in what could have been an exceptionally awkward moment (especially after weeks of avoiding being alone with him) and push your chair back–wooden legs sliding against the tile. You stand up, preparing to turn around and hunker back down in front of your laptop screen, but Mingyu calls out your name before you get the chance.

“Yeah?” you reply, half-turned towards the living room.

“If you do,” he pauses, clearing his throat. “If you do want to go out to dinner tonight though…I could do that. I would uh…I’d like that.”

Your eyes trail from his still slightly pink face to his nearly empty bowl of leftovers. “But you already ate?”

“Yeah,” he laughs, hand rubbing the back of his neck. A gesture so familiar to you from spending so much time with Wonwoo, but it looks different on him. Less like an anxious tick and more like a bashful habit. “I can eat again though,” he drops his hand from his neck and pats his stomach twice, “I’m a bottomless pit.”

You should say no. You know you should say no. You shouldn’t dig yourself any deeper into this hole than you already have. But looking at him now, eyes so wide and genuine—freely offering you this tether of kindness—you can’t seem to bring yourself to summon up the word.

“Okay,” you reply, deadpan. Numbed with the confusion and surprise of this sudden change of plans so easily agreed to. So easily ruining weeks of careful avoidance and the cooling off of the one-sided tension you felt when you were near him.

“Great,” he grins, white teeth glistening in the bright lights of the kitchen. “I need to grab a shower first and make a quick call, but how about we head out in an hour? What kind of food are you in the mood for? Do you have any favourite spots?”

“I uh—” you stammer, unsure of the answer to the posed question. “I’m fine with anything. I don’t go out for dinner a lot so I don’t really know that many restaurants…”

“No problem,” he smiles again, standing up and grabbing his bowl. “I know plenty, I’ll bring you to a good one. Promise.” He winks before turning around to rinse out his dish and your heart skips a beat at the expression. One you would so often find lecherous and off-putting seems somehow so endearing coming from him. You scold your brain for the thought before stalking back to your room to change out of your pajamas and attempt to appear somewhat presentable.

The lights of the city cast their soft glow over the water of the slow moving river. A hypnotizing dance of yellow and gold against the backdrop of the night sky. It lulls your thoughts–quietens them to a dull roar–as you sit next to Mingyu on a park bench.

You had finished dinner a half hour ago; a mouthwatering feast of flavour grilled by the deft hands of your roommate himself. You watched as he took to the task with an almost reverent disposition—ushering the food through the cycle of cooking as you sat across from him, absorbed in the aroma and savouring each morsel he placed in front of you.

You had worried that he was going to take you to some uptight, fine dining restaurant where each dish was somehow the size of your pinky finger while costing more than you made in a day (Mingyu did have a vibe of luxury about him); but when he opened the door to the small, hole-in-the-wall barbeque joint in a random side-street you felt the tension in your shoulders ease and you were finally able to let yourself relax.

He ordered–a generous selection of high-quality but reasonably priced beef–and you sat and ate and talked. It was normal and nice and the old wood-planked walls of the restaurant leant the entire dinner an air of casualness that your anxiety-addled brain desperately needed. Just a nice normal dinner with a roommate who you did not have any romantic attraction to at all.

Conversation continued after dinner ended. He was easy to talk to, easy to listen to, and you lost yourself in it, completely forgetting about your previous plan to avoid him, as he paid the bill. You continued to talk as you left the restaurant, stepped back out onto the street, and as you continued to walk together until you saw the Han River stretching out in front of you.

You hadn’t been paying attention as you walked–just let your feet move under the vague assumption that you were just heading back home–so reaching the river had come as a surprise. Mingyu’s face remained impassive as he led you past the numerous couples dotting the riverbank, each splayed out on grass and blankets, bathed in the soft amber glow of the city. You followed him for a few hundred feet until he stopped at a small hill and sat down on a bench, draping his arm casually over the back as he leaned against the sun-faded wood.

You hesitate a minute before sitting down. The mirage of purely platonic companionship had dissipated step by step as you followed him downstream, watching the way his jacket moved against his torso–loosely fitted but structured enough to hint at the firmness of his shoulders underneath, swelling as his arms swung idly at his sides. Your mind blaring a fire red warning in Jeonghan’s voice: be careful. Mingyu notices you hesitate and offers a warm smile, just touching at the corners of his eyes. He moves over an inch on the bench to give you more space and your heart takes that moment to consider itself some sort of acrobat in your chest. You silence the warning, washing it out with your own self-soothing lies, before taking a seat next to him and focusing on the night skyline.

Living in the city always felt isolating. Like the loneliness of existence was only amplified by the millions of other lives that played out parallel to your own. Millions of other people with different thoughts, feelings, and experiences existing right next to yours–there, but never touching. Lines crossing and converging but rarely intertwining for longer than a heartbeat.

Wonwoo had been an anchor in that sea of loneliness. Something solid to hold onto as you were buffeted by the waves of life. Stabile, grounding. You never realised how much you needed that stability until it was no longer there. Until you were cast adrift once more, alone in the deep blue.

Seulgi was there of course–as well as your other friends and family–but it wasn’t the same. They were islands of reprieve to visit when needed, and to offer the same when they did, but it wasn’t the same as having that one person to tether yourself to. To merge your life with and create a new island on solid foundations. Unshakeable, until it’s not.

Maybe you were pathetic, relying on a partner for so much support. Needing someone to rescue you from your own life. Maybe you needed to save yourself for once.

“Do you ever get the feeling like you’re going to end up dying alone?” you ask the question, half expecting it to dissolve into the air in front of you and go completely unanswered. Unsure if you even want an answer or if you just needed to remove the thought from your mind.

Mingyu scoffs, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he glances at you sideways–evaluating. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for you.”

“Oh?” you raise an eyebrow, a twinge of offense scurrying up at the comment. “And what makes you so sure of that?”

“Well, what makes you think you would?” he counters and you let a small laugh slip out at the seriousness of his expression.

“I don’t know,” you shake your head, dismissing the thought and turning your attention back towards the view. Bitterly regretting altering the mood so seriously. You should have remained flippant, joyous. Unserious. But when did your mouth ever listen to you? “I was just thinking out loud.”

“Oh no you don’t,” he laughs, “you brought it up and now you’re avoiding the question?” You feel the heat of his body warm the air around you as he adjusts on the bench, angling away from the river to better face you and pry the answers free under the weight of his attention.

“You avoided mine!” you bite back in defense, turning in kind to face him, but realising the trap too late as he flashes you a wolfish grin.

“Ah-ha, so it was a serious question!” he cries, pleased with himself. “Listen if you want my honest answer, I will give it to you but I want an answer in return as well.”

You hesitate, not for the first time tonight—wavering at the edge of the offer and cursing your propensity for sticking your foot straight into your mouth at the drop of a hat.

Do you really want to open up to him like this?

It had been such a nice evening. Good food, good conversation, and a nice walk along the river. It had been a while since you had felt so at ease in someone's company. And yet, despite all of that, you had to go and get lost in your self-sabotaging, meandering thoughts and open your big dumb mouth. Did Mingyu even really want to know? He seemed friendly and open enough but you can’t help but hear Jeonghan’s voice as it bounces off the walls of your mind: ‘Mingyu is not serious’. Did he know what Pandora’s Box he was willingly opening by asking you? Did he care?

You fix your gaze on him, evaluating, searching his eyes for any sign of ambivalence or even trickery. He stares back, waiting patiently for you to mull it over, and you come up with no discernable ulterior motive. Nothing lurking in the clear brown of his eyes other than open curiosity and a slight glimmer of amusement.

“Ugh, fine,” you relent, falling back against the bench with a huff. You forgot Mingyu’s arm is resting against the back and you feel the pressure of it against you as you settle deeper into the bench. “Why do I think I’m going to die alone…” you repose the question, willfully ignoring the shiver that ripples out from the spot where his arm is pressed against you. You can feel the warmth of it even through your jacket. “Maybe because I’m a bit of an anxious wreck and that can’t be easy to deal with. Or maybe because I’ve managed to fuck up every relationship I’ve ever been in.”

“I don’t think so,” Mingyu replies, assured in his denial of your reasoning.

You let out a mirthless laugh and glare into the middle distance. “Don’t think so? Don’t think what? That I’m not an anxious wreck? You clearly don’t know me that well.”

“No, I believe that part, though anxiety can be treated to a certain extent. I have this psychologist friend, Minghao, he talks a lot about it. I could get you his number if you want.” he offers and you furrow your brow at the suggestion.

“You want to set me up with a psychologist?”

He laughs, “not like a date. Like if you wanted to book an appointment to see him about it. You know, like a therapist?”

“Oh,” you mumble, immediately feeling stupid. “So what did you mean then?”

“Just that it takes two to fuck up a relationship most of the time. You can’t fuck up something that wasn’t ready to be fucked up, you know? No one is perfect, we all have issues so no relationship is ever perfect and that’s not the fault of just one person.”

“Wow,” you exhale. His words sink in, a stark contrast against the internal monologue of shame and blame you had callously constructed. A differing perspective roaring in to shake your foundations. You try to reckon with it, the thought that it might not be all your fault, and it clamours and clangs against your brain in the worst way. In a way that you know it might be true but you’re not ready to accept it yet.

“Did I say something wrong?” Mingyu asks, momentarily rendered insecure by your plunge into melancholic silence.

“No, no,” you assure him, distantly amused by his immediate assumption that it might have been him that did something wrong. “It’s just…” you hesitate, unsure of how to word it. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so insightful.”

He snorts out a laugh, “thanks, I guess. I have my moments.”

“No, no, I don’t mean that I think you’re like…incapable of insight, just…” you pause, trying to reformulate the thought in a way that doesn’t sound like an insult. “I’m just not used to getting reality checks like that from people I don’t really know that well.”

“Oh, okay,” he laughs again, in relief this time, and you feel the edge of tension you had been holding in your body ebb away. “Well, I mean it though,” he affirms, “I don’t think it means you’re going to die alone.”

“Okay, well,” you sigh, unsure where to follow this new proffered perspective, “thanks, I guess.”

“No problem,” he grins. “Your turn.”

“My turn?” You knit your brows in confusion, eliciting another laugh from your seatmate. “For what?”

“You answered my question, so it’s your turn to ask one,” he explains.

“I didn’t realise we were playing 20 questions,” you tease. The words leave your lips with a little more edge than you had intended and you wince. Why did you always sound so defensive? You glance at Mingyu and feel a slight sense of relief at the fact that he seemed not to have noticed the tone.

“Well, if you don’t have any questions, I’m fine with being the hot, mysterious one in the house,” he winks and again you find yourself not hating how he looks when he does it.

Still, you snort derisively in response. If only he knew how deeply not-mysterious he already was to you. “Hardly,” you reply. “Okay, fine. I have a question for you: why does The Notebook make you cry so much?”

Wide-eyed surprise ripples across his face, a tinge of red embarrassment colouring the tips of his ears, “who told you that?” he asks in a nervous half-whisper.

“Jeonghan might have mentioned it when I was moving in…”

“Traitor,” he seethes, running a hand through his hair as he considers this revelation before answering you. “It’s sad,” he states plainly after a moment’s hesitation and you ‘tsk’, refusing the easy answer.

“Lots of movies are sad, Mingyu. Why does this one in particular make you cry so much that I was warned never to watch it in the living room?”

He sighs again, heaves his chest in and out like an exasperated dog settling down for bed. You watch as he stares out over the river, wide brown eyes shimmering with the lights of the city, and wait for him to respond. You had never seen Wonwoo cry during a movie. You had barely seen Wonwoo cry at all. He kept his emotions held tight, whether for self-protection or because he really was just that steady you didn’t know, but Mingyu’s upfront expressiveness was a breath of fresh air. Seeing someone so open at every moment with how they were feeling made you feel a little bit less alone with your own rapid shifts in mood. Maybe you weren’t the broken one.

“Fine,” he relents, “honestly, I know it’s corny. I know it’s a corny movie and it’s lame and dumb that an adult man with a job still bawls like a baby while watching it but I can’t help it. Seeing those two old people dying in bed together after reliving the tale of their love just gets me every single time. It’s a confusing mixture of sadness and hope and I have never been able to get through it without weeping.”

“Wow,” you remark and he shakes his head.

“Happy?” he huffs, again with an air of a disgruntled dog and you laugh.

“Very happy, thank you for sharing.”

“Okay my turn,” he grins, leaning back against the bench once more, the wood groaning slightly under his weight as it shifts.

“Good luck, movies don’t make me cry often.”

“Well you’ve gotta have some embarrassing secret. Otherwise we’re on uneven ground, and I don’t like that.”

“I’ve already told you something embarrassing,” you start to defend yourself but he shakes his head. Resolute.

“What? About thinking you fuck everything up?” You nod and he laughs, “that’s not embarrassing, that’s normal. Everyone thinks they’re more fucked up than they are.” He shrugs and you again marvel at how casually he accepts the very thing that feels so earth-shaking to you. “Tell me your most embarrassing secret.”

“That’s not a question, it’s a demand.” you point out and he nods, considering the rebuttal.

“Too broad? Okay, then what’s your favourite song?”

“How is that supposed to be embarrassing?” you ask, aghast.

“It’s not, I’m just curious. Not every question needs to be so heavy, you can get to know people through simpler things. Happy things,” he smiles again, coy, and your heart betrays you again with a flutter of wings against your chest.

“I’m not sure,” you muse. He starts to protest but you cut him off before he can begin, “there are too many songs that I love to feel like I can narrow it down to just one all–time favourite. Too many things to consider.”

“Like what?”

“Like, what am I doing when I am listening to it? Is it a song I could listen to anytime, anywhere? Does that make it a favourite or just an easy listen? Is it a song that fills me with a swell of emotions? A favourite from high school that still makes me nostalgic? Or a recent song that I’ve played on repeat too many times to count? You see…too many things to consider.”

“Wow, you’re right,” he laughs again, “you really are an overthinker.”

“Gee, thanks,” you scoff, rolling your eyes.

“How about you just make me a playlist with all of the above and we’ll consider it answered?” he winks and you blink back at him, stunned to silence. Wonwoo never really got through the songs you would recommend to him, was Mingyu really going to go to the trouble of listening to an entire playlist? For his roommate?

“Oh–okay,” you answer, unsure of what else to say.

Silence descends for a moment, settling comfortably between you, and you glance around in surprise to find that most of the people that had been here when you arrived have since departed. How long had you been sitting on this bench talking?

As if reading your thoughts, Mingyu clears his throat. “It’s getting late,” he feigns a yawn, forearm flexing as he brings his hand up to cover his mouth, “but you have one more question to even it up before we start walking back home.”

You sit still, contemplating. While teasing him had been fun, an overwhelming part of you wants to really get to know him. To know what makes him tick. What thoughts and desires lurk in the depths of those puppy brown eyes. To find out exactly what it was about him that was drawing you in so much despite your (and Seulgi’s and Jeonghan’s) better judgement.

“What did you want to be when you were a kid?” you ask finally. It feels like a silly question as soon as you ask it but you can’t take it back once it’s been spoken. And you do actually want to know the answer.

“Is that your final question?” he asks and you hesitate but nod. You’re curious about what kind of kid he was. What his dreams had been before the demands of adulthood had set in. “Alright, but it’s silly,” he warns and you wait silently for his response despite it, “I wanted to own my own bakery.”

“You wanted to own a bakery?” you parrot the response, surprised by his answer. “Really?”

“I told you it was silly,” he smiles, voice a slight quiver. You hadn’t expected the answer, true, but it’s the nervousness around it that is really taking you by surprise. Like it’s kid Mingyu answering the question and not the 20-something year old adult you had bought you dinner.

“No, no, it’s not silly, I just didn’t expect it,” you reassure him and the expression of embarrassment on his face melts back into neutrality. The wave of nerves slipping away into the ether. “Why didn’t you do it?”

He shrugs, “my parents didn’t think it was a suitable career path for someone like me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You bristle, feeling defensive on behalf of the kid he once was.

“I never asked for clarification,” he laughs. “Just went to school for business like they suggested. Jokes on them, though, I can still make a mean sourdough.”

“What can’t you do?” you mumble, intending the comment to be unheard but clearly failing as Mingyu throws his head back with a laugh before getting to his feet.

“Well, what about you?” he asks as you join him and you both head back down the path towards the main road. “What was your childhood dream?”

“I always wanted to be an artist,” you say, “and I sort of am doing that now just in a more corporate-friendly way. Career was the one aspect of life that I always felt I had a handle on. There was no guesswork. It was just me involved.”

“Your parents didn’t have any different thoughts as to what they wanted you to do?” he asks, a slight note of surprise colouring his voice.

“Not really, no,” you shrug, “they were pretty supportive, honestly. I think the only things they really cared about was that I got an education and was able to pay for rent and food.”

“That’s lucky, it’s nice to have such supportive parents.”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” you nod. It had never been something you had actively thought about, just taken for granted and assumed it was sort of the same for everyone. You make a mental note to call your parents soon and catch up as you and Mingyu leave the park and the river disappears behind you.

“Would you ever bake something for me?” you ask, matching Mingyu’s stride as you take a turn down the block towards home.

“That depends,” he replies, amusement clear in his voice.

“On what?”

“On whether or not you want to hang out again in the future,” he shrugs, feigning nonchalance. You see a hint of blush reddening the tips of his ears again and it makes you wonder. Was it just the slight chill in the air causing it?

“Well, we do live together so I think that’s almost inevitable,” you laugh, trying to brush the niggling feeling off with an assurance that you did not feel.

“True,” he concedes, “then I guess I will. Are you more of a sweet or savory person?”

“That depends,” you reply, a small grin turning up the corners of your lips.

“Overthinking pastries now too?”

“No,” you laugh, all lingering feelings of defensiveness gone from you. “It depends on what you’re better at making.”

“Oh, I’m good at it all,” he replies, voice smooth–silk slipping over mahogany–as he holds open the door to the condo complex for you. You glance at him, eyes meeting his in the dim light of the lobby, and study him for a moment. He’s smiling, cool and casual, but there’s a seriousness hiding in the depths of his expression that you can’t quite unravel. It draws you in, curiouser and curiouser, until you find yourself face to face with a crossroads. Two paths diverge in the yellow woods of your mind and the only thing that remains is to choose.

“Then I’ll take it all,” you reply after a breath, thoughts slipping into place. Threshold crossed, decision made. You step into the lobby and head towards the elevator leaving Mingyu to trail behind.

The condo is blessedly quiet when you arrive upstairs; everyone else scattered throughout the city with Friday night plans. The absence of Jeonghan in particular is a relief, you knew that no matter what the context was, if he saw you return with Mingyu at this time of night you would be primed for some form of lecture or another. Whether verbal or simply that knowing stare he likes to give you when he thinks you’re being stupid.

That silent cloud of judgement would have been especially intrusive tonight as you step in through the front door barely clinging onto the tenuous air of bravado you had conjured up in the lobby downstairs. It would have shaken your resolve to follow this thought of intrigue towards Mingyu and thrust you right back into your torrential thoughts once more, spinning haphazardly between mourning over what was lost and what might not ever be.

Instead you stand with shaky confidence and a pounding in your chest as you bid Mingyu goodnight, savouring that look of intrigue you’re sure is mirrored in his own expression as you close your bedroom door for the night and bar any doubt from creeping in behind you.

You listen through the walls as his own door clicks shut before rummaging through the unpacked duffel bag in the corner of your room. You dig through unsorted paperwork, unopened mail, random knick knacks you had found no home for yet until your fingers grasp the object you were seeking.

Sleek, black silicone emerges from the bag and you glance behind you as if Mingyu might be standing there, ready to chastise you for your impure thoughts.

You stand up, hesitating, evaluating the vibrator as it sits like a brick in your palm. You had only used it once, years ago, after buying it at a convention with Seulgi before it ended up buried deep in the recesses of your drawer. At the time your sex life had been consistent and satisfying–it was early days for you and Wonwoo and the excitement and novelty of having each other at your fingertips for the whims of the moment had kept you too busy to even remember that you had the toy stored away in the first place. It wasn’t until you were packing to move out that you rediscovered it.

You hesitate for a second before thinking ‘fuck it, I paid like $200 for this, I’m gonna get some use out of it’ and slipping out of your clothes and into your bed.

You try to set the mood in your mind, fingers swirling idly over your bare skin as you flip through mental images of celebrities, movie scenes, fantasies that you used to use to get in the mood. Anything to deepen that pressure that burned quietly inside of you. None of your old tricks produce results and you sigh, ready to give up on the activity completely, before you feel the distinct thud of Mingyu’s headboard against the wall.

You imagine Mingyu: what is he doing? Maybe sitting on the edge of his bed, scrolling through Instagram, or maybe he’s under his covers too. Maybe he’s having the same thoughts as you?

You follow this thought where it takes you, back to that night the other week. Back to the low sound of his moaning carried through the drywall and plaster, the thudding of his headboard against your wall, back to that yawning pit in your stomach that felt like it might swallow you whole at any second. Your hand traces the path of the scene playing out in your mind, blazing a trail down your chest, stomach, and finally to the aching space between your thighs.

You recall the weight of Mingyu’s arm pressed against your back on the park bench–steady and solid. The sound of his voice and laughter muffling your gasp of surprise as you flick the vibrator on and jump at the sudden noise filling your room.

You flick it back off immediately, worrying that the distinctive buzzing sound would carry itself through the cover of your blankets and body and make it through the proven-thin walls towards Mingyu’s ears. He would know for sure you were in here thinking about him, fantasizing about his lips on your neck. The thought of discovery adds a confusing stab of guilt to the knotting in your guts but you do your best to squash it as it pops up. What exactly were you doing wrong? You were tired of denying yourself pleasure out of fear of other people’s judgements or shame. You flick the vibrator back on, this time prepared for the noise, and dig the object deeper between your thighs.

Maybe part of you wants him to hear you–wants him to know what you were doing alone in the dark in the bedroom next to him. Maybe, in this alternative timeline, he knocks softly on your door. His brown eyes rake over your naked body, bared to him like a gift prepared just for him. His sweatpants strain with the pressure of his bulge as his blood travels lower, and lower. Filling him with the desire as it fills you now. He steps forward, wavering at the threshold of your bed and asks, voice so low it plucks at the strings of your core, to join you. To help you release this coil of tension that had made its home inside of you, growing bigger and hungrier every single day since running into him half-naked in the kitchen that first night. Maybe he’s been running through this same scenario every night before bed, hand gripping his cock as it pulses in his hand, sweat beading his brow.

Alternative timeline or not, the thought itself is all that you need to push you over the edge as you move the vibrator against your clit, finding the right rhythm of pressure, the right balance of relief, to feed the beast of desire crying open-mouthed inside of you. To have your legs shaking and your core pulsing with waves of pleasure no longer denied. You cry out, muffling the sound with the back of your free hand, and for the first time in years it isn't Wonwoo's face clear in your mind as you reach your climax.

―AUTHOR’S NOTE: i cant link them here, but please find the series masterlist and other chapters on my blog. i would love to know your thoughts on the story so far !

#caratlibrary #svthub #mingyu x reader #wonwoo x reader #mingyu smut #seventeen smut #seventeen angst #mingyu angst #wonwoo angst #seventeen fluff #svt x reader #chm updates

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h0ttestgrlinm0urgu3 · 5 months

Text

PORN ☆

Dominic Fike x Reader

porn star reader!

[warnings: smut, p in v, drug usage(both), reader might be a lil brat, like one use of (y/n), 'recording' sex, dom Dominic, degrading but with love, daddy kink]

[modern day Dominic I just want yall to know that.... bc he is so fine 😋]

[not proof read sorry in advance for any mistakes]

-----

To say you were proud of yourself would be an understatement.

you've always known you wanted to be in the entertainment industry, so as soon as you turned eighteen, you started stripping. you worked all the time, never spending the money you made because you lived at home with your mom. you focused on learning, if anything.

learning what men liked to hear so they'll spend money, but mostly learning about yourself. and what did you learn? that you were in love with entertaining, you loved shaking your ass and having people throw money on you, being the center of attention. having eyes on you.

When you turned nineteen, you took all the money you saved up and moved out. still dancing you started exploring more, finally losing your virginity and finding out you loved sex. cumming was literally the best thing you ever experienced.

you decided to start a twitter for fun, just posting videos of you shacking your ass at first.

you built a following over the year when you decided to move to California. you weren't really in the middle of the city, but you were close enough to still get action. you made some friends and on your 20th birthday they took you out to a club, were you had the best idea to start an only fans.

that night when you got home you ran to your bed and opened your laptop made an account and uploaded a video by the next morning. cumming at least three times before you tapped out.

this lead you to where you are now.

you've made a name for yourself in the porn industry while mostly making solo content. sometimes you'll connect with other porn stars and make videos, but you tend to stick to making videos by yourself.

you've completely stopped dancing and live as a full time porn star, even moving to other platforms. you love it.

it wasn't even about the money, honesty you were just a slut. you fucking loved cummming all the time. you loved it even more when you knew people were paying just to get off to you cumming. you especially loved the way people fucked you when the cameras where on.

you just haven't found the person to fuck you the way you needed when they were off, which is why you tend to stick to solo content.

but enough about that lets talk about where you are now.

☆

which is running late as you scramble to get your heels on before searching for the bag you took out for this outfit.

finally done running to grab your keys off of the hook as you walk out the door. as you lock it your phone rings making you groan. 'hello' you breath out walking to your car. 'don't hello me where are you' your friend Dominic asks.

you and Dominic's relationship was special to say the least. you guys meet through Instagram about a year ago. he was heavily active in your comment section before moving to your dm's. he was cute so you entertained it. you guys hit it off quite well and became friends quickly moving to irl .

you've been cool ever since and your currently heading to one of his shows as we speak.

'im heading out the door right now' you answer locking your front door. 'you gonna be here in time?' he questions making you chuckle as you sit, getting comfortable and buckling, letting your phone connect to your car. 'yes I am, I'll be speeding so you'll see me earlier.' you reply as you back out of your driveway.

☆

speed walking to his dressing room not knocking as usual you see Dominic at his mirror smoking a blunt, he looks over to you. 'so I wasn't here earlier' you laugh as you put your bag down giving him a hug while he sat. 'at least you haven't gone on yet' you say giving him a kiss on the cheek taking the blunt from his hand before going to sit on his couch 'you good baby' he said.

re lighting his blunt, takin a pull 'stop calling me baby Dominic' you tell him. tilting his head as he smiled 'you really gon keep playing wit me-' he questioned just before someone knocked on the door, letting him know he needed to go on.

letting out a laugh before telling you ''you better pay attention to his performance'' before he left.

☆

after his concert yall went back to your place to roll up and chill. your in your pajamas sitting on the love seat that's on your porch. taking the blunt from his fingers as he handed it to you. 'when you think you making another video wit someone?' he asked sitting across from you. taking a hit of the blunt and inhaling before answering 'I don't know I gotta find someone to film with' talking another hit of the blunt before handing it back.

watching his lips as he inhales the smoke, licking his lips after exhales. letting your eye drop to his adams apple as he speaks 'why you keep doing this?' he aks with a smile, bringing your eyes back to his face 'doing what?' you question licking your lips. rising from his chair taking another hit as he walks to stand infront of you.

blowing the smoke into your face before asking 'why won't you fuck me' taking his free hand and tucking your hair behind your ear before gripping your chin and titling your head up. bringing the blunt to your lips as you inhale. you bring your legs down and squeeze your thighs together as you feel your pussy getting wet. 'keep going' he speaks encouraging you to take a big hit before stepping back and putting the blunt out in the ashtray.

your eyes low and slightly teary from the hit you just took you watch him as him moves. following him like a lost puppy as he walks into your house on a mission. 'what are you doing?'you question your a little dazed trying not to focus on your need to cum. like the strongest need youve ever felt, all from a touch and some words.

he walks into your room as you sit on the couch. you can hear him moving around, but you stay put until there's silence. he finally exits your room before speaking 'can I fuck you?' he bluntly asks making your jaw drop. standing in front of you '(y/n) I'm so serious I've wanted to fuck you since I se-' he starts before you cut him off 'yes'.

a beat of silence passes before your in his arms lips on his. one of his hands hosting you up while the other grips your hair. one of yours rests on the back of his neck while the other cupped his face.

grinding your pussy into him to get and friction he makes his way to your bed room.

tossing you onto the bed making you whine at the loss of contact he turns his back to you grabbing something.

'Dominic what ar-' you get cut of by him shushing you as he turned around revealing your camera. 'smile baby' he says. to which you happily comply. you absolutely adored being on camera whether it was posted or not. 'aw look at that the cameras on and the slut is comming out' he says laughing.

'get undressed for the camera' he tells you getting closer as you pull your tank top over your head letting your tits out. squeezing them as you made eye contact with Dominic 'aw that's so pretty baby'. you can feel your pussy dripping as you let go of your tits and sit on your knees pulling your shorts down and off leaving you in your underwear.

Dominic's finally infront lf you getting a good shot of your boobs as he gropes them with his free hand. 'fuck baby you make me so hard' he says moving the camera up to your face. you haven't even been fucked yet and you look like your sex drunk already 'fuck me daddy' you say as you take his hand off your boob and pulling it down to underwear letting him feel just got wet you are.

Dominic lets out a groan and a 'fuck' before taking his hand out and walking into your closet.

he comes back with the tripod and sets up the camera facing your bed.

coming over to you he takes his shirt off throwing it somewhere before stepping out of his jeans you lay on your back raising your legs to take off your underwear Dominic following suit.

he was hard as fuck and he has such a pretty cock. gripping the base as he lazyly strocked his cock looking into your eyes 'how you want me to fuck your first baby?' he asked grinning widely as you let out a whimper.

flipping yourself over to lay on your stomach and pushing your ass up and towards him before looking back 'is this okay?' you questioned...

gripping your ass with one hand looking down at you. he thought you looked so beautiful ass up, one arm stretched gripping the sheet your other lazyly played with your clit as he rand the tip or his dick between your folds.

tapping your hand on your clit with the tip of his dick. 'ask me to fuck you' he demanded.

'fuck me Dominic' you moan out.

stepping back, grabbing the camera. recording you laid out for him before re taking his position.

getting shots of him dragging his fingers through your pussy collecting your juices before turning the camera to face him and sucking you off of his fingers.

facing the camera back to you before he spoke 'put me in you baby' he said making you whimper grasping his cock from under you and guiding him to your entrance desperatly trying you put him in 'so big daddy' you whine.

Dominic puts the camera on his shoulder and pushs your hand out the way. your about to say something he grips the base of his cock and rams into you.

'FUCKKK' you moan out. feeling him so deep in you as you grind your hips back. 'God baby' tossing the camera onto the bed Dominic grabs your arms bring your back to his cheast.

slowly grinding into you 'dom the.. camera' you breath out as he slowly fucks into you. 'what about it?' he questions bringing one hand to your neck. 'it..fuck.' you moan out as he brings his other hand to your clit. 'i-it cant-t see us' you barley get out as he speeds up his thrusting.

'it was never recording' he says before heavily picking up his pace fucking deep into you. reaching places you've never been touched before.

you can hear Dominic's moans and even him whimpering behind you.

'fuckkkkkk' you moan out.

feeling the pressure building in you about to snap 'dom- fuck.. im gonna cum' you manage to whisper as he pounds into you from behind.

ypu doubt he heard you. with how loud the sounds from how hard he's thrusting combined woth the sloshing sound from how wet ypur pussy is. not even to mention Dominic's moaning.

'can I cum in you baby?'he questions picking up his pace. 'yes daddy please' you scream feeling the cord in you snap.

vision going white you come to, hearing Dominic talk.

opening up your eyes you see the camera in his hands.

'we gotta film the next one baby'

#dominic fike #bimbo reader #dominic fike x reader #dominic fike x you #elliot euphoria #euphoria #x reader #x bimbo reader #bimboreader!

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kairoot · 6 months

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⟢ — 6:11 pm. | 니키.

⟢ pairing : niki x black!fem!reader ➖ genre : fluff, established relationship ➖ requested : no ➖ warnings : none really, kissing, nicknames, joking around ➖ wc: 952.

SECTION SONG: poetic justice by kendrick lamar & drake / mary jane by mary j. blige

with all the yelling coming from the living room, it made you wonder what could possibly cause your boyfriend to be so loud. making your way into the cozy setting, your eyes are instantly set on niki.

all of his fancy equipment for his streams had been set up, the camera facing him. you stood in a near corner, watching the live chat.

“should i do a stream with heeseung hyung, everyone?” your boyfriend questioned his viewers, not noticing you in the back. he mumbled out, reading the responses from everyone.

‘is that y/n??’ one comment read.

niki furrowed his brows in confusion, “y/n? where- oh.”

he looked at you through the camera before turning around in his seat. he beckoned for you to come sit with him, a smile forming on his face.

“hey, baby.”

you sent a small wave before walking toward him with small steps. his smile grew wider as you came closer to him, his arm coming to wrap around your waist.

‘IT IS Y/N RAHHH’

‘MOTHERRRR’

‘she’s here!!!’

every comment lit up with your name when you came into frame. niki turned back to the camera, still wearing the same grin.

“my baby’s here~ isn’t she pretty, chat?” he asked, placing a hand over his heart, pretending to be hurt by your beauty. you bit back your smile, suddenly feeling bashful.

niki patted his leg, signaling for you to take a seat in his lap. he planted a kiss on the corner of your lips and your jaw, now wrapping both arms around your middle. his hand came to rest against your leg, stroking it with his thumb.

you sent a wave to everyone again, a small smile appearing.

‘SHE’S SO CUTE KI’

‘PLEASE I NEED HER’

niki chuckled at his fan’s reactions, scooting his chair closer to the screen.

“what’re you playing, bubba?” you asked softly, your arm coming to wrap around his shoulder. his heart jumped at the use of the nickname while he bit his lip to hide another smile.

“fnaf, since everyone wanted to see it. you wanna play?” his gaze flickered to you.

you gave him an unsure look, watching him play a horror game sounded like a bad idea but the thought of playing it yourself was even worse.

“i don’t know, ki..”

“c’mon, babe. it’ll be fun!” he whined, resting his chin on your shoulder, giving you a pleading look. you sighed, giving into him. he did a mini celebratory dance, going on his monitor to load the game.

“i’m only doing this for the stream by the way.” you blew a kiss to the camera, giggling.

niki scoffed dramatically, glaring at you.

“not because you love me?”

“uh-uh.” you smirked, taunting him. he raised an eyebrow before reaching down to tickle your sides. you attempted to scramble away from his wriggling fingers, squeals and giggles escaping you.

“you don’t love me, ma?” he spoke into your ear, continuing his antics. this only caused you to laugh more, the feelings of his lips adding onto the tickly sensation.

“..no.” you said between laughs causing him to tickle your sides faster.

“you do love me, say it.” he leaned over to pepper kisses against your cheek. his fingers stopped digging into your sides as one hand rested against your tummy and the other back on your thigh.

“okay, okay,” your giggles died down as you attempted to catch your breath.

“i love you.”

niki hummed in approval, his face coming closer to yours. your hand rested against his jaw, closing the gap between the two of you. his plush lips rested on yours in a long kiss, smiling into it.

your eyes opened before the kiss turned into a makeout of some sort, pulling away from your boyfriend’s lips to face the camera again.

“i completely forgot this was here.” you pursed your lips in embarrassment, skimming through the comments. niki turned back to the livestream, a giddy grin painted over his features.

‘WOAHHH???’

‘what kind of romcom did i just watch’

“so sorry, everyone. niki can’t control himself.” you shrugged, purposely putting the blame on him. he gave you an offended look before going to look at the comments again, one in particular standing out to him.

‘you two need to get a room’

niki rolled his eyes before clicking the ‘play’ button on the game, picking a level for you.

“heeseung, you’re just mad cause you’re a loner.”

niki’s comment made you land a stinging smack on his back, causing him to groan loudly.

“what? it’s true!”

“that’s not nice.” you moved his hand away from the computer’s mouse, taking over the controls. he pouted slightly, mumbling something else about his hyung.

“wait, isn’t this ‘the joy of creation’? this is the scariest one!” your face contorted with fear. niki sat behind you, snickering.

“babe, this is definitely not the scariest one.”

“you’re lying.”

he chuckled, wrapping both arms tightly around your waist. he drew shapes on your thighs, watching you start the game. you flinched at almost every sound throughout the level.

the stream flooded with comments about how cute you were and why niki would make you play such a scary game. he responded to some of them, cracking jokes most of the time.

your eyes remained on the screen ahead of you, not wanting to be distracted. that was until one of the animatronics popped up onto the screen, causing you to jump back against your boyfriend’s chest, letting out a yelp.

he let out a cackle as you hid your face in his chest, heart rate increasing.

you frowned, shoving his shoulder gently.

“that wasn’t funny, i could’ve had a heart attack.”

⟢ milan’s note: first post of 2024! 🥳💗 how we feeling? happy new year to everyone! i hope you have another great year! got sleepy while posting and writing this so it’s obviously not proofread. inspo by tae @telail cause i loved her jongho fic with the live stream & gaming. i was also watching kai cenat yesterday so ig i got the livestream idea from that too 🤔

TAGLIST: @haechansbbg @contyynishimura @sasfransisco @kgneptun @aeinthegoblin-deactivated202312 (message or comment to be added)

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20doozers · 3 months

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★Sleepover★

TW: fluff, teasing, SFW, Tom being a sweetheart, nicknames, 2005/2006 Tom, gn!reader, cuddling, kissing

You and Tom had planned a sleepover, movies, candy, but most importantly you just wanted to see Tom again. You two were bestfriends, basically attached at the hip, so Tom and his band going on their first tour was awful for you since you missed him so much.

You heard the doorbell ring and you rushed downstairs, seeing Tom at the door who quickly hugged you. It felt like it had been years, when really it had only been a couple months.

“Wow, you must love me a lot to have my face on your wall.” Tom teased, poking fun at the fact that you had their band posters all over your room.

“Oh shut up.” You giggled in response, playfully hitting his arm as you sat down on your bed, rolling your eyes at him. He sat down next to you, wrapping his arms around your torso and pulling you down onto the bed with him.

It was nice to have Tom back, even if he was still a bit of an ass.

You two laid there watching a movie, your limbs tangled under the blankets as you cuddled. It was normal, platonic or romantic you couldn’t tell. But you knew he cared a lot about you.

Tom grabbed another bag of skittles from the bedside table where all of the snacks were, opening them and putting a few in his mouth.

“Tom! That’s like your third bag! Save some for me!” You snatched the bag from his hands, an amused yet playful scoff coming from Tom.

“Nuh-uh. Give them back!” He protested, reaching over to grab them back but before he could you held them out of his reach, holding them hostage from the poor boy.

“Okay! Okay! You win!” You giggled exasperatedly, your eyes squeezing shut as you tried to free yourself from Tom’s hold as he had you pinned down, tickling you. When you opened your eyes again after catching your breath, Tom’s own face was just inches away, a light pink flush making its way onto both of your cheeks.

You sat there for what felt like hours, neither of you daring to move or say anything. Eventually Tom leaned in and closed the gap, his lips were soft yet chapped. It was a bit awkward, this being both of your first kisses, but you eventually got the hang of it.

You quickly broke after hearing your mom’s voice calling you and Tom down for dinner, the blush on your cheeks becoming even brighter.

“Coming!” You both shouted in unison, quickly scrambling out of bed and downstairs, trying to act like nothing happened, even though the blush on your guy’s cheeks said it all.

“Were you two at least being safe?” Your dad questioned, making both you and Tom almost choke on your guy’s food.

“Dad!” You exclaimed in embarrassment, only getting a chuckle from your parents.

AHHH!! I’m so happy with how this one turned out!! It’s a bit longer than normal since most of my fics are three or four sections but this one is six sections but I hope you guys like it! This is probably my fav fic I’ve written so far. Also forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes, I’ve been cramming in homework all night. Love you guys💕💕

Tags: @itsmealaiah @madzandmore @jkloserdazai @goreishgorinthgoreofshits

#tokio hotel x male reader #m!reader #kaulitz #tokio hotel x you #mlm #tom kaulitz #tom kaulitz fluff #tom kaulitz x male reader #tom kaulitz x reader #tom kaulitz imagines #tom kaulitz x you #fem reader #f!reader #gn!reader

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gae-bolg-alternative-dot-exe · 9 months

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Unpopular fgo opinion but when people talk about just following the story online and not playing the game. They tend to always say skip all the event stories and that feels like really terrible advice to me. Summer events have some of the most fun found family dialogue and general intercharacter bonding. Events like Seraph and Imaginary Scramble are bountiful in lore content that could have been their very own dedicated story sections. Events like the tomoe/shuten tower, christmas in the underworld, christmas lucha rumble, gudaguda (pick a number), etc extend upon characters that otherwise have gotten the shortend of the stick in main storyline presence while also being more engaging than entire early game singularities and some lostbelts.

Some of the most humanizing and connecting stories for these servants are found in events. Sure you get some really bad story events like prillya, ooku, saber wars 1, etc but to skip every event story online because of bad apples seems bad faith to me. I feel most of us still interacting with the game are here for the writing and the story at this point. Why recommend other potential readers to miss out and deny well, more story lol.

You tell them to skip Agartha though. It's not an event but skipping Agartha is good and encouraged.

#gae-bolg writes shit #fate

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edosianorchids901 · 5 months

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Hope Rekindled

Ace Omens Hugfest 2024 prompt - "a reunion hug"

Utah, 1869

Really, Crowley wanted to be asleep. Preferably back in London, asleep, but asleep back in New York would do. Even asleep in any random hotel in the middle of nowhere would do.

But no. He’d gotten himself into this, by talking up how great railroads were for sin and crime and everything, not to mention how much they could expedite demonic work without as many travel expenses. And now, for some reason, Hell wanted a report on two railroads joining up. Big deal.

A twinge of grief tugged at his stomach, and he tried to ignore it as he steered his horse around a bend. Normally, he would think this was a big deal. He’d even tried to get excited about it with the aid of copious amounts of alcohol. But without Aziraphale in his life, everything just seemed pointless.

At least soon, he’d be able to stop riding around following the progress of the Union Pacific and go back to somewhere with a more reliable source of alcohol. Maybe he’d go investigate the rampant corruption of the railroad’s operations. That should make Hell—

“Awfully sorry, but I’ve gotten a bit turned around, do you know the way to—”

Slowly, Crowley raised his head. There, coming around the bend from the opposite direction, was Aziraphale. On a light palomino, dressed in fancy beige clothes that really didn’t belong in this rough and tumble territory. Staring at Crowley with the same shocked horror that Crowley could feel on his own face.

They hadn’t spoken since Crowley asked for holy water. It might be smarter to turn around, to head back in the opposite direction. Aziraphale had to be pissed off at him, for that whole thing.

Crowley gulped and scrambled for words. “Er. Hi. What’re you doing here?”

“Um.” Aziraphale’s lip trembled, and he fumbled with his reins. His horse pinned its ears at the restless fidgeting. “Heaven, um, sent me to witness this great act of unity.”

“‘Course that’s how they see it. Never mind the corruption or theft of land or…” Crowley cut off. Normally, he and Aziraphale would have a rousing debate, a fun debate. But it seemed too risky now. “Hell wants me to witness the expansion of greed n’ stuff.”

“Of course that’s how they see it.” A small, nervous smile tugged at Aziraphale’s expression, and he gestured. “Um, would you ride with me? I’m afraid you’ll have to lead, though. I’m lost. I’ve been following the railroad—”

“No, I’ve been following the railroad,” Crowley interrupted. “I’d definitely have seen you.”

Aziraphale pointed to the west, towards the Central Pacific’s line. “The other railroad, dear boy.”

“Oh. Right. Opposite Sides, of course.” Frowning, Crowley tried to figure out why Heaven would be backing them. “Are they somehow less shady than the Union Pacific? At least, in Heaven’s eyes.”

“I believe they’re both rather reprehensible. But I happened to be in San Francisco, fomenting peace.”

“Right. I happened to be in New York, fomenting chaos.”

They stared at each other, their horses now both looking impatient. Finally, Aziraphale gave a little sigh. “Well, do you know where we’re supposed to be going?”

“Er. No, actually. I’m slightly lost too.” Crowley looked around, but he couldn’t catch a glimpse of any of the trails or sections of rail from here. “Guess we could just ride until we find the railroad, follow that.”

A very familiar look crossed Aziraphale’s face now, shy but mischievous. “Or. We could, um. Share a drink and a snack. I still have a very nice bottle of wine that I brought with me from San Francisco. And some absolutely lovely little cakes that I got at the last town. I’m sure the newspapers will paint a vivid enough picture for us to write our own reports.”

“Really?” Startled, Crowley pushed his hat back to see the angel more clearly. Aziraphale was blushing a little. “Wow, am I just that bad of an influence, or have you been dodging your duties this whole time?”

“Well, you are a dreadful influence.” Aziraphale gestured to a shrubby patch of trees. “But in truth, I’d much rather enjoy the serenity of nature than to watch humans get into a measuring contest over whose railroad tie is longer.”

Crowley sputtered, and Aziraphale gave him an entirely innocent smile. As always, it was impossible to be completely sure whether Aziraphale was completely oblivious or fully aware of the innuendo.

“Right. Okay.” Yielding, Crowley tipped his hat and struggled off his horse. His hips and legs throbbed, and he gritted his teeth against the pain. Riding horses was always a torture of its own.

“I’ll tie the horses, shall I?” Aziraphale asked, already taking the reins.

His fingers brushed against Crowley’s, and both of them froze. Crowley battled the urges that barraged him. To babble apologies, to demand apologies, to wrap Aziraphale in a hug and never let go again.

Before Crowley could make up his mind, Aziraphale did. The angel dropped both sets of reins, stepped forward, breaths shaky, and wrapped his arms around Crowley’s waist. It was a tentative hug, shy and unsure, his fingers worrying at the fabric of Crowley’s jacket.

“I missed you,” Aziraphale whispered, and tried to pull away.

But Crowley had finally regained his senses. He hugged Aziraphale back, holding him close, and pressed his face into the soft curls. Their hats knocked together, his own nearly sliding off. “Missed you too.”

Apparently, Aziraphale found this just as embarrassing as Crowley did. When they let go of each other and stepped back, they studiously avoided each other’s gaze. Aziraphale took the horses over and tied them to a sturdier tree, and Crowley snapped a blanket into existence for himself and Aziraphale to sit on.

“Here we are.” Still avoiding eye contact, Aziraphale joined him with the wine and cakes. “I don’t suppose you have any goodies to contribute?”

“Unfortunately not. Haven’t been hungry lately.” Crowley’s hand shook, but he held it out anyway. “Today, cake sounds terrific.”

As Aziraphale passed him a little iced cake, their eyes met. Aziraphale smiled, just a little, and Crowley smiled back.

At first it was awkward, talking again after all that had happened. They skirted around any complicated topics, mostly just updating each other on things. But after only a few minutes, it became easier. And in no time, as they drank wine, ate cakes, and laughed together, it was as if they’d never been upset with each other at all.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #art #ace omens hugfest 2024

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waechan · 4 months

Note

hi~ I loved your nct dream small moments (the maknae line is def my fave but alsksksk all of them are cute!) so my request (it could be a blurb or a drabble) is this: meeting nct dream for the first time (as strangers, coworkers, idols, classmate?) 🥹 it's okay if you can't get to it asap^^

hi! first off tysm for reading my work, i'm so glad you enjoy it! and second, ty for your request bc this idea is adorable so im making little drabbles for each member separately. first is mark:)

⁀➷

pairing: mark lee x reader

genre: fluff

wc: 1.1k

meeting mark for the first time (classmates)

he seemed cool.

everyone loved him. he was popular for being a genuine, kind soul. you had never understood what the hype was about him. you guess, sure, he was cute, sure, he was kind. but whatever, right? you two were classmates, and shared a couple of classes together. you were both unsure of what your major was, so it was quite funny how the two of you somehow ended up taking the same random classes.

at the moment, your class was at the aquarium on a trip for marine biology. it was a fun class, and on the plus side, you got to learn about animals and stuff so that was pretty cool.

"circle up guys!" your professor, mr. johnson, calls out. you walk with your friend yeri towards him, staying close together, just in case he would try to split the two of you. "alright, we're taking a break from some serious learning today, and we're just gonna soak in the beauty of the ocean and its wildlife." little drabbles of conversations and mumbles start to form, but then mr. johnson puts his hands out.

"now, before you guys get too excited, i do have a scavenger hunt for you all, so don't get too excited!"

you give yeri a look and shrug a bit. "could be worse." she says. "i will number you off into groups!" mr. johnson says as he starts to scramble around, and immediately starts counting people off. "you were saying?" you deadpan as you look at yeri and the two of you roll your eyes at the exact same time, smirking a bit in amusement. of course, the two of you end up getting separated and you go to find your group, but you can't find the one with your number. "uh, mr. johnson?" you call out as you raise your hand up tentatively, and he walks right on over to you. "yes, what is it y/n?" he says distracted, not really listening as he looks around, checking to make sure everything is in order. "um, i don't have a group? can't find my number." you exclaim as you shrug. it didn't really bother you, you could just go with yeri.

he scans the area as he purses his lips, as if searching for a group to put you in. come on y/n, take your chance.

"uh- it's okay! i can just go with yeri-" you don't get to say much as he cuts you off before you can continue, and smiles wide as he starts speaking to another student who starts to walk your way.

"how about you go in his group?" he suggests, not really giving you a choice as he shoves you towards the unknown figure of a person who is now next to you.

"who's-" you turn around.

"oh, hey." he says, waving a bit awkwardly.

...

great.

just wonderful.

"y/n, meet mark. mark, meet y/n. now the two of you have fun." he gives you both a pat on the shoulder and immediately walks off, shoving a clipboard with a list in your hands. you wince as you force yourself to look up and acknowledge the boy in front of you.

okay, cool.

scavenger hunt with THE mark lee? no big deal, stay calm. calm.

"so i guess we're partnered together?" he asks as he runs his hand through his hair, doing that squint thing with his eyes he always does when he's thinking. damn. you kinda get it now. "yeah, um. i'm y/n, but you already know that, cause. well."

just stop talking.

"OKAY! let's go look for the first item. or fish, or whatever." you say as you start walking off without him, and you hear him follow you. "okay, yeah, alright. i guess." he mumbles, as he trails behind. on the way to the section of the aquarium you have been directed towards, you sneak a look back, just to make sure he was still following you. and he was, but... you had never seen anyone look at something with such admiration in ones eyes before. he was standing there, frozen, as he stopped by one of the glass windows that displayed the fish behind them. your heart stops for a second as he turns around and your eyes meet. he smiles. at you.

"i think i found it."

you walk over to him, forcing yourself to snap out of your gaze as you stop, standing next to him, and you look at the fish. it was something you had never seen before, a gorgeous coral and white color.

"woah." you whisper, and he chuckles.

"i know."

"it's beautiful." you say softly as you grab your phone to take a picture of the fish. "who knew this class could be cool?"

"i know." he repeats, gently, as he turns his line of vision towards you and he stares at you for a couple of seconds, the corner of his mouth tilting up in amusement at your reaction. "maybe this will get you to stay awake in class?" he whispers this into your ear, then pats your shoulder as he starts to walk away, eyes sparkling.

your jaw drops open almost immediately, and you blush a bit in embarrassment as you go to catch up to him. "hey!" you call out as you walk quickly to go and catch up with him. "you know those rants that mr. johnson goes on, he's always rambling on and on about his new home renovation that he's getting, and his new date that he has each week. oh, and his new diet that doesn't ever work out for him! i don't get how you could find that interesting-" mark chuckles a bit as he shrugs with his hands in his pockets. "i don't know about you, but i love to hear about mr. johnson's love life. and the diets." he stops walking, and you do as well, crossing your arms as you look up at him. all of a sudden, he leans forward and bends down so his eye level is at yours.

the air inside your lungs and the words you are about to say back to him disappear instantly.

the quietness of the room is deafening, and you swear you hear the sound of your heart beating in your chest.

"it's alright, y/n." he looks back and forth between your eyes. "i'm sure he forgives you." he says quietly, before he ruffles your hair and walks off once again without you. you stand there, still. your heart, still racing.

you stand there for a couple seconds until he turns around, tilting his head at you as he smirks in success. "you coming?"

⁀➷

lmk what u think! my first drabble<3

#nct dream #nct dream imagines #nct dream x reader #nct dream fluff #nct fluff #mark lee #kpop #nct dream angst #nct x reader #nct imagines #nct dream scenarios #mark lee x reader

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boliv-jenta · 1 year

Text

Joel Miller x f!reader smut. Inspired by this comment by @miss-mandalorian

Dressing Up

"You have got to be shitting me!" Ellie's voice rang out through the partially dilapidated store.

Joel cracked a smile in your direction. Things between them hadn't been great. They wouldn't talk about why. It's wasn't your business to ask but you couldn't just let it go on.

A week ago you came out this way on patrol and stumbled across this place. As well as it reawakening your own long forgotten obsessions, you knew Ellie would love it. Maybe her happiness would soften her towards Joel. She had practically fallen over herself to get inside when she saw the comic book store. Once inside she only grew more excited. Forgetting herself she even grabbed Joel's arm to drag him over to her favourite comics. "Look at all these! They're all perfect. They were kept in these little bags. Weird but so fucking cool."

Half an hour later, Ellie had finally found the keys to the backroom. You and Joel had raided the food section while you waited. Joel had even found some coffee. It was Japanese, with a animie character on the front, but it was coffee.

"Check this out!" Ellie appeared from behind the counter. Well, it sounded like Ellie. It looked like a character from one of her Savage Starlight comics.

"Endure and Survive!" It shouted as it leaped from one side of the counter to the other. When it slipped making another leap, it removed it's mask and return it it's Ellie form.

"You guys, there's toys and costumes. We need to take some back for the kids. They'll go apeshit. There's grown up costumes too! Did you ever dress up?" She sat on the counter eagerly awaiting your response.

"Once or twice." You smiled at the memory of comic cons past.

"Joel?" She asked. He seemed surprised and relieved to be included in the conversation.

"Nope. This wasn't my thing." He told her.

"You never dressed up at Halloween for…fun." Ellie caught herself before she mentioned Sarah.

"No. I have never dressed up. For anything." Joel firmly shook his head.

Ellie shot you a look before scrambling to get to the backroom.

"Looks like you are dressing up." You teased him.

"No, I'm not." He came to stand by your side. His arm pressed against yours. Showing affection when Ellie was around was still relatively new. He'd wanted to keep things between you private. His fingers just began to lace with yours when she appeared with a few costumes in her arms.

"Here." Ellie grinned triumphantly. She was so pleased with herself, she completely missed the little squeeze Joel gave your hand before he moved forward.

Humouring her, he sifted through the bags. There was a blue alien, some sort of space pirate complete with metal eyepatch, the last one was some sort of space armour.

"Hunter." He heard you breathe as he got to the space armour. He didn't miss the slight flush on your cheeks but he pretended to.

"What even are these?" He asked Ellie.

"This guy is a trader." She pointed to the blue alien. "This guy." She pointed to the space pirate. "Is a morally ambiguous space bandit and this guy…" She pointed to the metal looking suit. "...is a mysterious bounty hunter."

"What makes him so mysterious? The mask?" Joel prodded, watching you out of the corner of his eye.

"Kind of. He never takes it off, not even the girl that loves him has seen his face. No one knows his name. They just call him Hunter because, you know, bounty hunter. In the newer comics he has to help this kid and everyone sees that he's not just a skilled killer, he's really a good guy…it was a fun arc." Ellie grinned at recalling the comic Joel had climbed down a hole in the floor, into a basement to get for her.

Even though he was distracted by the smile Ellie was finally giving in his direction he saw the blush on your face spread further.

"So who did you dress up as?" She turned her attention to you.

"Erm…a character from a vampire show and…er…Captain Annabelle Croft." You avoided Joel's quizzical gaze.

"Hunter's girlfriend?" Ellie chucked before jumping off of the counter and shoving the Hunter costume into Joel's arms. She walked off laughing to grab some decades old comic book themed candy.

It was Joel's turn to blush. He opened his mouth to say something before the sound of Clickers cut him off.

The warm water of Joel's shower was just what you needed after having to climb through two buildings to pick of the last of the infected this morning. Luckily, the comic book store was only a short ride from Jackson. It was on the patrol route of a couple of older guys who just didn't get the significance of it. It was only when Tommy asked you to cover that you found out about it. Climbing out of the tub, you made your way to Joel's room in your bath robe. Ellie had made it suspiciously clear that she wouldn't be near the house tonight so you left your things on his bed.

The door to Joel's room was open, you know you left it closed so he must have been in there. When it was clear he wasn't still there you began to undo your robe.

"Don't move." Joel's voice gritted out behind you.

"What?" His direction confused you. Your body instantly reacted, it froze in place, your breathing slowed, your ears searched for sounds of infected. Your mind knew you were safe here.

"I have orders to bring you in dead or alive." Joel continued.

That was the point when you turned around to come face to face with Hunter. The laughter that peeled out of you was uncontrollable. Joel's own laughter, muffled as it was, joined it. Removing the mask he smiled at you. "That sound was definitely worth strapping all this on. It even got me an hour of no shit from Ellie. I might keep the suit."

Finally calming down, you took Joel in. The amour plates accentuated his muscle thighs, his solid chest and broad shoulders.

"Maybe you could keep it on for a little while longer." Your fingers traced lightly over his chest plate.

"You like it, huh?" He smirked.

Taking his hand, you removed his glove before pressing his hand between your legs.

"Oh, you really like it." He groaned against your neck as he pressed kisses to it while he slipped his fingers inside of you.

"Joel? Erm…helmet?" You blushed at your own request.

Thankfully, the helmet covered the shit eater grin he gave you. You were definitely going to hear about that later. With his fingers stretching you and his thumb on your clit, you didn't even care.

"Look at you. I bet you'd let me cuff you and take you back for the reward the King has for me, as long as I kept doing this. Dirty little thing." Joel teased.

Your inner fangirl squealed as your inner walls gripped him. Joel had actually learned about the character. In the comics he had met his love when she was a bounty he was assigned by the king of a small planet. He definitely didn't make her come on his fingers embarrassingly quickly in the comics.

Joel slipped his fingers out and under the rim of the helmet to lick them clean. "Maybe this is a better reward. You got anything else for me?"

The words were barely out when you were on your knees for him. The zip of his jumpsuit was down and his cock was in your mouth in seconds.

"Jesus!" Joel exclaimed. The helmet almost came off of his head at the speed of which he threw his head back.

"I take it back. The way you suck dick is worth more than any reward." He chuckled as he threaded his fingers into your hair. They rested there as your head bobbed up and down on his length. Your split rolling down over his balls made them easier to manipulate in your hands as you massaged them. Joel's gripped tightened as he urged you off of him.

"I want to feel that little pussy around my cock before I come." He helped you up as he spoke.

Not being able to kiss him was a little strange so you pressed a kiss to his ungloved hand.

"If I let you fuck this pussy with you let me go?" You asked, dropping your robe.

"I'll be honest. I don't know. I might just have to keep you for myself." He surged forward and grabbed you against his chest. You giggled as you turn him toward the bed. "Sit up, at the headboard."

He did as he was told before you straddled his lap. His groan echoed around his helmet as you sunk all the way down on to him.

"Maybe I should run. Then you'd have to catch me and cuff me." You panted as you began to ride him.

Joel picked up what your were putting down real quick. He grabbed you hands in his, holding them behind your back. He used his grip on you to help you bounce on him. The next few minutes were an intense mix of skin slapping on skin, the wet sound of Joel's girth sliding in and out and your collective moans as you rode him with all your worth. Joel did enough for you but Joel dresses as your favourite fantasy had you feral.

"I don't think I need to hold you. You ain't running anywhere. Not away from a fucking like this." He let go of your hands allowing you to grip his headboard and bouncing even harder on him.

"You want me to give up my bounty? Then you better come for me. Soak my cock." His dirty words were enough to push you over the edge you'd been balanced on pretty much since he entered you.

"Oh fuck, yes! You feel so good, Baby." He groaned as your pussy tried to milk him. "Oh shit." He pulled out, your hand joining his jerked him a few times before he shot his load. Some of it spurting as high as your breasts.

Tags @kirsteng42 @babydarkstar @prolix-yuy @thegreenkid @hquinzelle @fangirl-316 @gracie7209 @jedifarmerr @doommommy @scorpio-marionette @sturkillerbase @harriedandharassed @aynsleywalker @mswarriorbabe80 @quica-quica-quica @rise-my-angel @adancedivasmom @graciexmarvel @kinda-nobody @movievillainess721 @munsonownsmyass

Suddenly, he wrenched the helmet off his head. His face was flushed. His curls were drenched with sweat. It dripped down the sides of his face. "You had to have a thing for the guy with the helmet?!"

#pedro pascal character fanfiction #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #soft joel miller

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fairyhaos · 1 year

Text

. ˚ lost in this green (and in your eyes)

pairing: wood nymph!joshua x gn!reader

genre: fluff, magic realism, meet cute, besties!97z

word count: 2371

warnings: brief mentions of fainting

notes: i just. i just love wood nymph!shua a lot okay pls he'd fit the concept so devastatingly well

summary: you're lost in the forest, and it's terrible and terrifying and you're all alone but then... well, you meet someone, and suddenly you find yourself wondering if fairytales and myths really are just tales.

"Lee Seokmin, you are so dead."

You turn around in a circle, looking around for any recognisable objects around you, desperately trying to find a way out. When you see none that could possibly mark out this section of the forest as different to where you’ve been traipsing through earlier, you sigh, frustrated.

This was all Seokmin's fault. Okay, maybe not entirely his fault, but it was all his stupid dare to get you to fetch him a squirrel from the woods (what sort of dare was that, anyway?) and now… Well, now you're lost.

It had all started when Mingyu had abruptly announced that you should go on an outing for fun, and then Minghao, being Minghao, had insisted that all four of you take a trip into the countryside for the outing, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere for a 'healing day out' in a field surrounded by trees. It had been fun, for all of one hour before you'd devolved into a game of truth or dare that had ultimately led you to venture into the surrounding trees to go catch a squirrel for Lee Seokmin.

Oh, that guy really is so dead if you manage to make it out.

"Seokmin? Mingyu? Can anyone hear me?"

The wind rustles the leaves in reply, almost mocking, and distantly there's the sound of some insect creaking. Everything around you is green and brown, and even when you look up, the blue sky and bright sun is covered by the dense foliage. This is a little bit terrible.

Sighing, you continue on your trek through the woods. Not being the best with directions, you'd kind of lost where you were going about 5 minutes into the forest, and so you have no idea if you're heading back to the field or if you're going in an entirely different direction. You just hope you're not walking around in circles, because that would—

You pause in your tracks. For a moment, there’s only the sound of a pigeon cooing somewhere, but you listen harder, certain that it was a distinctive voice that you heard. And then, there it is again, louder, and you’re sure of it. There's a voice, calling for you, and it sounds a lot like Minghao.

“Minghao!” Immediately, you’re scrambling towards the noise, running along the soft forest floor, accidentally kicking bushes and almost tripping over tree roots. “Minghao, oh my god, what took you guys so long?”

But abruptly, Minghao stops yelling for you, and the forest is silent again. The trees are tall, looming, now, and you kind of wish it was Mingyu’s stupid height looming over you rather than these dark, unresponsive trees.

You wait, for several moments, straining to hear Minghao’s voice again. But when he calls, it’s in a completely different direction, so you curse to yourself and start running off again.

You’re deeper into the woods now, you’re sure of it, because the trees are denser and there’s less light and the sound of animals and insects have disappeared. The air is still as you run through the forest, still following the faint sound of Minghao’s voice, and when you stop, it’s as if the entire world is silent, with not even the trees making a breath of noise.

Minghao’s voice disappears, yet again, and now you’re worried that your brain is playing tricks on you. The bushes you brush against are getting thornier, bigger, difficult to get past, and the trees look like they’ve enlarged and now seem to try and slap you across the face with their rough branches.

You’re well and truly lost now. Minghao’s voice doesn’t sound again, and you turn around aimlessly in circles, hoping that somehow, you’ll magically find an exit.

But then. In the eerie stillness of the forest, any sound and movement echoes through the trees, and you hear a branch snap to your left.

“Hello?” you call out, hoping it’s just Minghao or one of the others behind the bushes, waiting to jump out at you. “Who is it?”

There’s silence.

And then a bush rustles to your right.

You whip your head around. “Come on, stop playing. Just show yourself, I know you’re there.”

There’s a good chance, you know, that it’s just a woodland creature or something, but everything in this part of the woods seems so dead and dark that part of you is sure that it has to be a person rather than an animal.

Slowly, gingerly, you creep towards the bush. It rustles again, and you flinch, but then the distinct sound of Minghao’s giggles comes from the bush and you move forwards, and just as you’re peering over…

“Boo!”

A person jumps out at you, yelling in Minghao’s voice. His hair is long, his eyes are large, and he looks like he has little stars around his doe eyes and he’s smiling widely, wickedly, delighted.

You scream, and he laughs with Minghao’s laugh, and the last thing you see are his eyes suddenly widening in horror as the world fades to black and you fall to the floor.

All you can think is, ‘That wasn’t Minghao’.

————————————— 🌿

When you regain consciousness again, there’s a man leaning over you. His eyes are large and he has little stars around his doe eyes, too, and for a moment you’re sure that it was the person who had scared you who was now going to try and kidnap you.

You yelp, attempting to scramble away, but the man just shushes you, gently and firmly placing hands on your shoulders to keep you against the tree you’re propped up on.

“I’m sorry,” he says, chuckling a little. “Jeonghan is a bit of a menace, but he means well. He just loves imitating voices, and he didn’t intend to take the joke that far. He meant you no harm, truly.”

The man’s hands are now on your face, brushing your cheeks softly, making soft sounds to calm down your racing heart. Now that you’re properly looking at him, the man focused on dislodging a leaf that fell on your shoulder, you can see he’s not the same man as earlier. Not Jeonghan, or whatever this man had called him. But you stiffen up, still, unsure if you can trust him.

He looks up at you then, warm eyes meeting yours. His eyes are constantly turned up at the corners, you notice faintly. He looks like a baby deer.

“I won’t hurt you,” the man says. “I promise. No one here wants to hurt you.” He pauses. “At least, not intentionally.”

Well. That doesn’t exactly make you feel reassured.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He smiles again, and you realise that even his mouth is constantly turned up at the corners.

He’s so pretty.

“Let me try again. I’m Joshua,” pretty man says, and he sits back a little to hold out his hand. “And I noticed that you’re a little lost here. I was wondering if I could maybe help lead you out?”

You look down at the hand, surprised to find yourself endeared by the action as you reach out to shake it. His hand is warm, too, as warm as his eyes, rough and soft in yours at the same time. Your heart is still racing when you release his hand, but now it’s for an entirely different reason.

“Y/N,” you reply, deciding that, at this point, you’re not sure you have anything to lose by following this pretty man. At least, if you die, you’ll die by the hands of a gorgeous stranger. “And I think any help would be much appreciated.”

Joshua smiles again, and takes your hand to pull you upright, swiftly walking off, hand still clasped with yours.

The woods are still silent, but it no longer feels as if every sound has been suffocated—rather, it’s a peaceful silence, and maybe it’s brought on by the peace you feel with a warm hand firmly holding yours, and a presence beside you that’s quiet and gentle and relaxing.

He’s silent the entire way, walking with you through trees as if he’s following an invisible path, pushing away branches for you and gently guiding you to one side to avoid tripping on roots. You can’t help but glance at him, often, because he’s so pretty and so calm and, in turn, it makes you feel calm too.

There are flowers weaved into his hair and they wave gently in the wind that has managed to come to life again. The forest feels lighter now, less terrifying, and birds now seem to chirp cheerfully in the trees above you.

One bird comes and lands on Joshua’s shoulder as you walk and you startle in surprise, but the man doesn’t even bat an eye, smiling down at it in greeting.

“Well, hello there,” he says. “What do you want now, you little rascal?”

Joshua’s tone is fond, affectionate, and when the bird chirrups, he laughs.

“Yes, this person is very pretty, isn’t it?” he chuckles, and it makes you blush slightly. Nevermind the fact that he’s talking to a bird. “But unfortunately, they’re not here to stay. We need to lead them out.”

The bird trills, but Joshua just laughs again, and then it flies off.

You watch it go, curiously, and then look at Joshua, who seems completely unfazed by what would have been, to any other normal person, an incredibly weird exchange.

The stars around his eyes glitter as he turns to look at you. They don’t look like stick-on gemstones or even glitter patches, but look as if they’re embedded in his skin. As if the stars are part of him.

“What brought you here to my humble forest?” he asks, and you blink a little at the strange phrasing of his sentence.

“Oh. I was… trying to catch a squirrel. For my friend.” It sounds ridiculous, when you say it aloud, but it manages to make Joshua laugh, sweet and beautiful and melodic, and you can’t help but smile.

He tilts his head, amused, and now his eyes are sparkling too. “A squirrel? Well, I think you may have failed at that. Unfortunately.”

You shake your head. “This is all Seokmin’s fault. He knows I’m bad with directions, and yet he sent me off into the forest. Alone.”

Joshua’s hand tightens around yours, secure. “Don’t worry. You’re not alone anymore.” He nudges his shoulder against yours, and the sun is now peeking through the leaves, casting a dappled golden shine over his face. “I’m here now.”

That makes you duck your head, shyly, awed by his beauty.

It takes a few more minutes, but eventually, the trees thin and you can see a road ahead of you, a road that looks awfully like the one that Minghao had driven down hours ago to get you to the field.

“Ah, it seems that we’re here,” Joshua says, and he lets go of your hand. When you look back at him, confused, he smiles a little sadly. “This is as far as I can take you. It’s too polluted there for me, and I can’t leave my home.”

“Your home?” you repeat, but he’s stepping forward again, and then leans in to press the lightest kiss on your cheek. It makes heat rush into your face, blushing at the sudden action, but he’s already stepping away before you can react.

“Goodbye, Y/N, and I hope you manage to get home safely.” He grins, lips turning up at the corners a little mischievously. “Hopefully you manage to catch a squirrel someday.”

You blink, startled, because suddenly he’s leaving even though he’d been by your side for so long. “Wait,” you call out, “what are you?”

Joshua laughs, and he’s already begun to fade back into the trees, the stars sparkling around his eyes. “Wasn’t it obvious?” he says.

“I’m a nymph.”

And then he’s gone, melted back into the forest, and you’re standing there alone, straining to see where he went, wanting to know what he meant, wanting to know whether he really was a mystical nymph that you only read about in legends.

You stand there at the edge of the forest for a lot longer, and are about to walk back into the trees again when there’s the sound of a car driving down the road, and someone honks the car horn loudly, making you jump and turn around.

Mingyu has rolled down the window of the passenger seat, practically half falling out of the car.

“You!” he yells. “We’ve been looking for you for ages! Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

And instantly, the memories of before you’d found Joshua come flooding back, and you run towards the car, yelling at Mingyu.

“There’s no service in a forest, idiot!” You open the car door and get in, only to be tackled by Seokmin, who’s sitting in the back seat beside you.

He sobs dramatically, wrapping his arms tight around you. “Why did you disappear like that! We thought you were dead!”

“No, I wasn’t dead, why—hey.” You frown down at him from where he’s buried his head into your shoulder. “It was you. You sent me into the forest to get you a stupid squirrel!”

Mingyu laughs at that, looking back at you as Minghao drives off again. “Yeah, Seokmin, you sent Y/N in there.”

Seokmin’s eyes go wide as you wrestle out of his arms to shake his shoulders. “I’m going to kill you! This is all your fault!”

“What—! Hey, we found you in the end, didn’t we? Minghao! Help!”

“Hey hey, no killing in my car,” Minghao interrupts sternly, and he sounds genuinely serious, so you settle down. Not before balling your fist and shaking it at Seokmin, though. This guy really is dead once you get out of the car.

Minghao looks at you in the rearview mirror, eyes glittering amusedly. “How did you even manage to get out? You have literally no sense of direction.”

You don't even register the teasing, eyes going distant as you recall stars around eyes and flowers weaved in hair. You smile, feeling your face warm up, leaning back against the headrest.

“I found a nymph.”

fics tags: @jeonginssa ,, @weird-bookworm ,, @minhui896 ,, @bunnyiix ,, @slytherinshua ,, @haowrld ,, @belladaises ,, @moonlitskiiies ,, @cinnamoroxie ,, @butiluvu ,, @wonranghaeee ,, @zozojella ,, @kawennote09 ,, @thedensworld ,, @a-wandering-stay ,, @abibliolife ,, @doublasting

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callsignspark · 5 months

Note

Hello, yes. It’s me.

Tell me more about the frat boy Bob college AU!

this is one of my favorite AUs I have bubbling in my brain because frat boy Bob? he’s a sexy sweetheart 🤤 also this is like 80% @withahappyrefrain’s fault because she’s the one I originally word vomited this onto

it all started sometime last January when Rainey posted that photo of him on his birthday and his keys were in the photo, a gym membership tag on the chain. (and it’s a crime I can’t find it rn omg) but it really cemented my favorite thing about Lewis. which is how he’s so “just a guy” all the time. famous dad? just some guy with a gym membership tag on his keys. second tier character in 2022’s biggest movie? just some guy who does theater in his spare time. he has two hats, and three shirts, and one pair of boots. I like him so much because he’s Just Some Guy™ - just a simple man. I adore that about him. having said all that: I present my frat boy college!Bob AU

Bob feels like someone you would have gone to college with, had a huge crush on for all four years, then forget about after graduation. But not without a lot of work to stop those feelings and pining, but eventually, a few years later he floats away. Except for those few times he appears on a mutual friend’s social media. And every time you see him on social media, the crush reignites. Just a little tiny bit.

One day you run into him randomly and find out he’s moved to your city. He doesn’t know anyone else and you exchange numbers, you learn he actually did you know in school. He actually had a crush but didn’t do anything about it and would you like to go out now?

Because Bob was the cool nerd in school. Like he’s quiet and shy, so studious and freaking brilliant. But he’s also in a frat somehow and on the baseball team at a school that doesn’t care about baseball. So he’s absolutely in shape and at the gym in his free time but no one ever notices how big his biceps and how handsome and funny is his because they’re staring at the football players.

But our leading lady notices him.

She likes the quiet guy from her creative writing class (an elective for both of them) who has the same backwards baseball cap on every time she sees him at the gym. Bob also notices her at the gym when he goes in the evenings for him team workout. His morning workout is rowing in the river in town, and if the dock where he likes to start his mornings happens to go by the apartment building where his pretty classmate likes to do homework on her balcony while the sunrises? Well that’s just a bonus.

She’s part of the school’s dance ensemble club (a relaxed, just for fun, non-performance version of the dance team) and he loves the glimpses he gets of her through the studio door. Her smile is always so wide and bright as she moves to the music in the little studio. The studio which is conveniently next to the weight section he always ends his workouts in. They frequently end up leaving the gym at the same time and always give each other polite smiles. He eventually gets brave enough to open the door for her and it becomes a little tradition that he quick walks ahead to grab it for her. Eventually they get up to exchanging “thank you” and “have a good night” and smiles but they never talk more than that.

Cue graduation and real world starting. And bam then they’re running into each other at a gym. As he’s finishing his last cool down stuff he notices a familiar head and watches as she walks out of a barre class. He scrambles to open the door for her - his established way of flirting!!! - and our story begins. There’s nothing sexier than a courteous man. Especially one that has sweaty little curls poking out the sides of his hat!! And once they tumble into bed she finds out how much sexier those sweaty curls are when she’s the cause of them.

#he’s sweet and sexy and he likes when those curls are yanked on 👀#robert bob floyd #wip game #<- kinda it’s my wip tag

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happyk44 · 1 year

Text

Jasico prompt for @butt-puncher based off this tweet

---

Leo peered over Jason's head. "Who's XghostkingX?" His chin came to rest on Jason's shoulder. "Sounds likely a freaky dude."

Jason swiped away the notification and kept watching the dog training video Piper sent with the caption "You" and a pink heart emoji. "Just this guy who sends me recipes." Jason frowned as the video ended and typed a quick rebuttal back at Piper that just because the dog was a golden retriever did not mean it was him. "I don't know him."

Leo's breath went hot against his cheek. "Then why," Leo said, drawing out the "I" sound for as long as his breath lasted. He rolled over, locking his head backwards over Jason's shoulder, face to the curling and finally inhaled. Coughing briefly, he continued, "is he DMing you?" Leo flicked his cheek. "What, he is a potential booty call?"

Jason scowled. "I don't do that, Leo."

"You should," Leo huffed. "I got pegged on Tuesday by a hottie boom-booty and her boyfriend. All with the sweet send of a "You down to clown?" meme."

Rolling his eyes, Jason shifted ever so slightly and grinned when Leo slid off his shoulder and crashed to the ground. "You give all aroace people a bad name."

From the ground, Leo swatted at Jason's ankles. "Just because I don't get the attraction part doesn't mean I don't know what good feels like. And there are some angles only the thick fingers of a college football player can hit, alright?'"

Jason snorted and opened up Instagram. He switched to the messages section and clicked the top one. A link to a recipe popped up. Above it were a thousand other recipe links. No messages, no words, no comments.

Just other people's posts.

Jason didn't know who this Nico guy was. It was spring break in his sophomore year of high school. His step-mom dragged them all out to some meditative retreat that banned all use of electronics. It was supposed to be some kind of spiritual cleanse. All Jason remembered was doing yoga, eating really bland meals, and Thalia sneaking out of their room through the window in the middle of the night and coming back six hours later smelling like weed and wearing someone else's bra.

She had a lot more fun than he did.

But when he finally got his phone back, he had twenty-three messages from XghostkingX, all recipe posts from different accounts. He checked out the account, trying to figure out who "Nico" was. But the account was private. He checked out the recipes too. They weren't weird. Seemed like completely normal recipes. Bread, pasta, Mexican dishes, Indian dishes, pastries, keto, high protein, vegeterian. Pretty much everything except Italian.

Which Jason found interesting. He wanted to ask about it but...

He turned and flashed a sprawled out Leo the messages. "They're just recipes. He started sending them to me when I was on that no-phones thing with my family."

Leo snatched the phone from him and begin scrolling at top speed. "Wasn't that, like, five years ago?" Jason shrugged. Leo stared at him unamused. "Seriously, man? And you haven't said anything?" He shook the phone. "You don't even know this guy!"

Jason reached for his phone but Leo rolled away, spring up to his feet. "Leo, give me my phone."

"Just one second," Leo said, very clearly typing something.

"Do not talk to him, Leo!" Jason shouted, shooting out of his chair and towards his best friend.

"I'm just gonna hit him up!" Leo yelled as he scrambled away on his gangly twig legs. "See what's up!"

Jason grabbed a pillow off his bed and hurled it at Leo through the doorway. Leo squawked loud, without dignity, as it beamed him in the back of the head and knocked him down. Darting through the doorway, Jason threw himself over Leo. All the air fwooshed out of his lungs.

Grunts and grounds filled the air as they wrestled for the phone. Leo curled inwards of himself. Jason rolled him over onto his back. Leo kicked at him. Grabbing at his legs, Jason pinned him down and started tugging at his arms. He ripped the phone of Leo's hands and sat on his chest in retaliation.

Leo spread his hands behind his head and fluttered his eyelashes, before wheezing, "Why, why Mr. Grace, you're so forward."

Jason shoved his foot in Leo's face. Leo shouted and slapped it away with spluttering indignation. "Fuck off and suffocate, Valdez." He turned to his phone. His heart exploded in his chest. Panic induced upwards his throat. "Oh my fucking gods, Leo." He shoved both his feet into Leo's face again, kicking at his jaw.

Ignoring Leo's protesting yells, Jason scanned the string of messages in the chat. The first one started off okay. Yo, who is this? Then they slowly began to deteriorate into complete nonsense. Probably as Jason and Leo were fighting over the phone.

Crap, crap, crap, he thought, as he began typing out apologies.

Sorry for that, it was my friend, he was wondering why you keep DMing me even though we don't know each other. He sent the text and closed out of the app before planting both feet beside Leos face and flaring down at him.

Jason bonked him again then twitched as his phone buzzed. The notification read XghostkingX sent you a message. Leo squirmed under Jason's weight. "Did he respond? Is he telling you why he keeps sending you messages? Is he hot?"

Leo batted his eyelashes Sweetly. Jason bonked him on the head with his phone. "I am going to eat you one day, Leo."

"I don't care what you do to me, so long as I get to come first," Leo said.

Jason swatted at him as he opened up the text.

Haha, no problem. I was wondering when you were going to say something. I'm Nico. Sorry for all the recipes. I was sick with the flu and couldn't remember how to save them to my notes app. I meant to send them to my sister, but I messed up on her username. I'm dyslexic. Powered through it but it does get worse when I can't think straight. Actually using speech to text right now. Filling in the punctuations after the fact. Anyway, you never said anything so I just kept saving there here to refer back to. Kind of easier than opening my notes app all the time to be honest.

Another text popped up. A picture this time. Followed by a series of more pictures. All of food. Jason recognized some of them from the recipes he'd clicked through out of curiosity. The plating was different. A little less professional, but they looked just as good as they had in the videos.

Some of the photos had a cute boy in the background. He presented the plates with a shy look on his face. His dark shaggy hair was pulled back in a few photos.

Some of my successes, the next message read.

Quickly Jason texted back, Is that you?

Yeah, Nico's reply read. My sister took them to send to my grandma in Venice. I usually just photograph the food. I have other pictures on my page. You can follow if you want.

Jason didn't hesitate before replying, Okay.

He clicked Nico's username and hit the follow button before waiting patiently. A second later the page opened up for him. Nico had a lot of pictures of food, dogs, paintings. There were few pictures of him as Jason scrolled mindlessly through his accounts. The ones that did feature him were always flocked by two other girls - one white and tall, with a braid tucked over her shoulder and fierce eyes, the other short and black with a wide smile, typically tucked under one of their arms.

Jason clicked on a picture of what looked to lasagna roll-up but much fancier and sent it to the chat. That looks good. I don't remember seeing a post for it.

That's my grandma's recipe, Nico typed back. It's a chicken cannelloni. Trade secret though. Can't give it to you. There was a brief lull before another message popped up. But I could make it for you, if you're interested. Make up for spamming you these last five years. Laughing face emoji.

Jason paused. Then, Does it travel well? Who knows if the USPS will keep it fresh.

My dad lives in the Bay Area, Nico replied with a laughing face emoji. And I'm here for the next couple months. Another brief pause while Jason's mind caught up with the air in his lungs. If you didn't want people to know where you lived, you shouldn't post pictures of yourself at university. Congrats on your win by the way.

A deep heat crossed Jason's face. So Nico had checked out his page? What did he think of the personality Jason exhibited through carefully selected photographs and captions? Did he think he was cool?

Beneath him Leo was still struggling and wheezing. Jason ignored him as he typed. I'd be creeped out, but that cannoli thing looks too good, so yeah, why not?

Nico's reply was a cute smiley emoji. Here's my number, he wrote. Call me when you wanna come over. Takes a while to make the pasta from scratch but I'm sure I can keep you entertained. Another smiling emoji.

Jason swallowed around his rising emotions. Sounds good. I'll let you know when I'm free.

A thumbs up and another smiley face.

Finally, he slid off of Leo's chest and landed on the hardwood floors. Leo inhaled dramatically then coughed rapidly before flipping over to his stomach. He groaned as he pushed himself up to his knees. Jason exited the chat.

"So, you getting that dick or what?" Leo drawled. Jason shoved him back as he laughed deliriously.

"Shut up." He pushed up to a stand and dragged Leo off the floor. "He's gonna make me one of his recipes."

"Ahh, dinner date."

Jason cuffed Leo's shoulder before wrapping him in a headlock. Leo laughed boisterously and didn't fight back. Instead he licked a long line down Jason's arm. Jason rolled his eyes and pinched his ear before letting him go.

"It's not a date." He smoothed down his shirt and began looking through his calendar. "He's just trying to make up for spamming me these last five years."

"Uh huh," Leo said, with a twinkle in his eyes that Jason sometimes loved and sometimes hated.

"Yeah, uh huh," Jason muttered back.

Another notification popped up. Without a second thought, Jason clicked it. A picture of a small cake with elaborate icing work and chocolate drips. Nico was in the background, crouched low so all you could see was his face, flour in his hair, a little bit of icing smeared on his cheek. He was smiling wide, eyes glancing up at the person taking the picture. Underneath the photo were the words, For dessert?

Jason hearted the photo immediately and wrote, Sounds good. It looks delicious.

Leo leaned over his shoulder. "He does look pretty delicious."

Jason swatted him away, cheeks burning. "Fuck off, Valdez." Leo cackled behind him before jogging back into Jason's bedroom. Jason turned back to the photo. Nico did look really nice. Messy in a cute way.

Maybe if Jason played his cards right, he could score more than a free dinner and a cute dessert.

#jasico #jason grace #nico di angelo #leo valdez #jasonnico #my writing #my fanfic #happy talks pjo #my head is still kinda fuzzy but i hope you enjoy this one angel!!

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sassyfrassboss · 4 months

Note

I wasn’t a huge fan of Meghan — didn’t even know who she was when the KP statement came out, even though I had been into Suits the first season — but I fell more in the camp of “Harry seems happy so she must be cool! Let’s support her!”

They announced the engagement and I was still on board. Even told my boss that I’d be taking some time off in the spring (thinking they’d do the royal thing and marry on a Friday). Watched the engagement interview, thought they were cute together, they were having fun with it. Cool, cool, cool. Realized I would be in London two months after the wedding, got super excited, planned to buy some of the memorabilia.

But then they announced they were marrying on a Saturday, for the Americans back home, and it’s starting at 12pm too, for the Americans back home…that’s kinda weird, prioritizing a television broadcast for 300 million strangers over family traditions but you do you, I guess.

Then the perfume ads with the $60K see-through gown that she’s never worn again showed up and I noped out of there faster than a bank robber in a getaway car.

Which is about the same time I discovered the Daily Mail comments section, kept reading about these “three blind mice” on tumblr and fired up the old blog to find out what was going on and found my people. Then they started getting weird too and I found the calmer, more critical-thinky, more rational side of *waves hand at everything* with Plant and Soap, who eventually led me to you, Empress, Honey, Helena, and a few others.

(Also I didn’t buy the H&M memorabilia when I was in London, and I even did the Windsor Castle, KP, and BP staterooms tours. I remember walking into the one of the gift shops and the shelves were so overcrowded with H&M wedding stuff. It was so obvious nothing was moving and no one was buying. One of the shop girls told me that the Royal Collection had overestimated the interest in H&M - the projections were based on Will and Kate’s collections with adjustments for US sales because of Meghan - and the RCT was really scrambling to sell it off so everything was like 80% discounted. Eugenie and Jack got a much smaller order of their collection and was actually selling better than H&M’s, even full priced.)

Then the perfume ads with the $60K see-through gown that she’s never worn again showed up and I noped out of there faster than a bank robber in a getaway car.

You KILLED me with this! DYING laughing. My dog got worried i was laughing so hard hahahaha!

Since I didn't like her straight away but it was hard to find people that felt the way I did at the time I actually googled "people who hate Meghan Markle" and Tumblr popped up. I created a blog (shut that one down and created this one) and the rest is history as you say.

I will say 2017-2018 on here was WILD!

The reason she wanted the US audience was so she could have more "viewers" than William and Catherine did. Had nothing to do with her wanting her fellow Americans to tune in and everything to do with her having to have it bigger and better than Catherine. Hence the massive amounts of memorabilia left over. I bet they demanded more items or the same amount be created as for William and Catherine. Also, remember this was when Harry and Meghan were CONVINCED that they were the STARS of the BRF and everyone else was boiling with jealousy over how amazing Meghan was at her new role and she was the best pre-duchess to ever duchess and all the others were just plain ole jelly. So it stands to reason that Meghan 100% believed her face would outsell Catherine's.

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calypsid · 1 month

Text

surviving prompt months

Prompt months are a common challenge in fandom. There are all kinds of prompt months, including fluff, domestic prompts, whump, and NSFW. The thing they have in common is that all of them require some planning and organization to complete. This will hopefully help you get set up for success!

Preparation & Planning

There's a saying that goes "proper preparation prevents poor performance", and it's true. There are a number of details that can be decided on before the month even starts. That will mean that you don't have to scramble on the first day to make all of those decisions at once, when you really need all of your time and energy to write.

Writing time

Sometime before the month begins, set aside time for writing every day for a week or two, and then make a note of how much time that you could comfortably devote to writing, and roughly how much you got done, whether that's word count or fic completion. Did you have to fight to carve out an hour some days? Did you have a lot of time on the weekends? How much did you write? Do you feel like you could have done more? You don't have to write a whole novel every day. Whatever you get done is enough. It's more important, at this phase, to know how much time you can give the effort and how much writing is feasible for you to do every single day.

Prompts

Some challenges release the prompts ahead of time. Others don't. If you have access to this year's prompts, or to the previous year's, go ahead and look them over. Take notes, if that helps. Are there any from this month that don't work for you, because of squick reasons or they just aren't appealing? Does your challenge have wildcards? Do all of those work for you? If you only have last year's prompts, look them over and think about what you'd do with them. Being familiar with the prompts will save you some time in both the ideas phase and when you're scrambling later in the month looking for something you can write.

Social media

If you use social media at all, you've come across those posts about people's wild situations, or silly office potluck stories, or summoning a demon with badly done Latin homework, or weird and cool animal facts. If something sounds like it might be fun to write, save it to your computer or your timeline. These are invaluable when it comes time for prompts and you realize that you have the perfect idea in a post from six months ago, and you saved it so you don't have to find an image post that's so far down your timeline that you can't find a big enough shovel. Programs out there like Evernote, Trello, Notion, Obsidian, or even Google Docs/Sheets or Discord can be useful for this.

Real life care

It's essential to keep yourself healthy, both because you should be taking care of yourself as a matter of course, but also because a brain that isn't being fed or given enough time to rest isn't going to want to write. Begin this before the month starts; the effects are cumulative. Sleep! Eat! Hydrate! Take a walk! Self-care is important.

Pre-writing

If the challenge you're doing allows you to start before the month begins, then you have extra time to create. That does not mean that you have unlimited time. Do the math to figure out how many days you can realistically devote to each challenge day, and do your best to stick to that limit. That limit is part time, part how much you got done in the Writing Time section. In some ways this kind of challenge is easier, because you have that extra time to write something longer or larger in scope; in other ways, it's more difficult, because you have to be disciplined in getting the writing done when the deadline is self-imposed rather than the more obvious daily deadline.

Your challenge may not allow starting before the month begins, or they may not release the prompts until the month starts. In that case, having options that you've already given thought to is going to help greatly when you're scrambling for ideas.

In both cases, write down any ideas that you have that you aren't going to immediately work on. Scenes, snippets, lines of dialogue or fight sequences, all of these things are helpful later. This works even if you don't already know the prompts; prompts are usually one or two words, and you can stretch and bend them in any way that you want. There's no committee that grades your work. Everyone knows that inspiration takes you to many places, and some of them aren't going to be obviously inspired by the prompt. That doesn't matter. The important thing is that you made something, not how closely it fits the prompt.

The prompts

Once the prompts are released, you might find that one of the prompts is absolutely perfect and an idea hits you right away. You're full of new project energy and you're dying to write it, but oh no, that day is so far away! You might think, I should work on the first day's prompt and hold onto this idea for later, right?

Absolutely not. Write it anyway. The fics that spring into your mind immediately are incredibly valuable because you can sit down and look up three hours later with a completed fic in your hands. That sense of completion and confidence are extremely helpful, and they can help carry you through the rest of the month. Maybe you can finish something for the first day afterward, and maybe not; I would still do it. You can always catch up. And a lot of challenge months allow you to complete the month late, and to post fics whenever even if they're out of turn. This is a hobby; treat it like one. Have fun. Even finishing one fic is more than a lot of writers do in a month, and you've already done it!

Sometimes you get ideas that don't need to be written immediately, and those I would advise writing down and coming back to them later, on the right day. It's part of preparation, in that you're setting yourself up for future success, because you've got the basic idea ready, and you just need to write it out.

Take some time with the prompts on the first day and see what ideas come to you. You're not locking yourself in to these ideas; they're possibilities. Maybe you'll still like them when it's time to write, and maybe you won't. It's not really important at this point. Future you is going to have different ideas than present you. You don't want to forget a really good idea you had for a future day's prompt because you got tired (and you will be tired.)

Finding more ideas

If one of the days isn't immediately sparking ideas, or your brain has gone entirely empty because blank-page syndrome is real and can hurt you, here are a few methods to use when the prompts aren't quite working.

Social Media ideas

Go through those saved prompts from social media and see if you have anything. Curse when you don't.

The List

Make a list of everything you can think of for the prompt. Get out the ideas that are immediately bubbling up, even if you hate them, even if you feel like they're overdone, or you've already written that idea and you don't want to do it again. Write it down. Once you've written it down, then you've dealt with it and it'll be easier for your brain to move on to something you are interested in writing. Most events encourage you to go wild with your interpretation of a prompt: ‘coaches’ could mean sports team coaches, or a type of bus, or a person whispering in someone else’s ear guiding them through infiltrating a military base, or a Regency-era traveling coach, or… Try to be open to as many possibilities as possible. Flexibility is key.

Talk to your friends

It doesn't matter if they're in the fandom or not, but if you have people that you talk to about writing, then scream into their DMs, even if they're not there, or able to help you. This is a form of rubber-ducking, in that you're verbalizing the problem, which can help you sort out what the problem actually is. Then you can work on finding a solution.

Go sideways

Look at the prompts from different angles: maybe it’s looking for the intersection between two prompts, finding inspiration in art or a song, a list of cocktail names or pen inks, or even a list of literary techniques. Music and art affect the brain differently than simply reading text, and allowing your brain to drift and pick up entirely unrelated ideas may offer you a new angle on a prompt. Looking at prompt lists for entirely unrelated events for new ideas, or consider hopping to AO3 and tag-surfing to explore other ways people have tackled similar AUs. If you did a list of ideas earlier, revisit the list to see if any are speaking to you, or could be combined.

(if you're still struggling, check out Ideas: Gotta Catch 'Em All! by dei2dei!)

A note on curating your ideas

Prompts can take you all sorts of places. There's no telling what kind of ideas you'll get. Some of them are probably going to be longfics, or take more time than you can afford to give them in one day. It's important to be able to judge which of your ideas need to be set aside for later. One of the methods I use to do this is to write drabbles, or other forms of short fic in which there is an absolute limit on wordcount*. This is useful because it allows you to figure out the scope of the ideas you can fit in the allotted number of words.

*What that number is depends mainly on what you can produce in one day. If you can only afford to write drabbles, then do that. If you are one of those blessed people who can write 10k in a day, then my hat off to you, and do as you please. But don't commit to writing 10k every day - or 2k every day, or any amount that's more than you're comfortable with. Monthly challenges are a test of endurance. It's important to know how to pace yourself.

Making Words

There are lots of different ways to approach writing to a deadline. Most of them involve simply sitting down and writing, no matter what the current state of your inspiration looks like.

Do you either have a wordcount limit imposed by the event or have given yourself one for your peace of mind? If so, start writing down everything you know about the story: characters, events, locations. You might find you’ve got a bigger (or shorter) story than planned and can adjust scope accordingly.

Start writing, whether it’s just throwing words onto the page or as a synopsis. Having that one line or four lines or bullet points can help break up blank page syndrome, and you can always edit/tweak/adjust as you go, if you realize your first line really isn’t where you want to start.

No words are bad words. You’re figuring out what you want to say and how you want to say it, and even words you don’t end up using can be inspiration for another AU or story, so don’t throw them away entirely. Move them to the Isle of Misfit Words (a doc/file/folder somewhere) and then they’re there when you want them.

Decide if you’re writing a story with a beginning, middle, and end or if you’re writing a vignette. A story with a narrative arc (what most people think of as a 3 Act Structure) has a different feel than a vignette (which is usually illuminating a moment; it’s more Vibes than Plot). Vignettes are excellent ways to fill a prompt, capturing characters in this new setting for just a moment without having to come up with a plot throughline: they’re like verbal portraits of a moment in time.

If you’re writing a short story/shorter one-shot, focus on a one or two characters or a single event, with few (or no) subplots. If you write stories that like to grow and become complicated tangles, this may be a challenge, but it will help you finish the stories you start. Similarly, if you're the sort who likes to worldbuild, I'd recommend trying to let that go; there simply isn't enough time to fully think through every background detail.

Finish things. Even if it’s messy, even if it’s not quite what you want, finish it to a point you can be comfortable with posting. If you find you have some extra time you can go back and finesse it, run edit passes, add a subplot or flesh out descriptions, or do other work to make it even better, but get it done first.

Experiment. Maybe you absolutely love an idea but it just isn’t working in third person limited. What happens if you try it in first person POV, or third omni? What if you tried to write the story in script format, or epistolary format? What if you change the POV character?

Don’t be precious: if you have an idea, write it. If you think it’s ridiculous and over the top, definitely write it. Get out the wacky ideas, the amazing ideas, the crackship comedy dead dove ideas; prompt events are great opportunities to do so, and might spawn more ideas or an interest in an AU type you’ve never considered before.

Don't judge yourself: everyone knows what prompt months are, and that you're producing a lot of work in a very short time. The standards are lower. Maybe it isn't your best work, but that's okay. You're writing, you're finishing fics, and you're challenging yourself. Those are all important.

A note on starting the fic

Beginnings can be tough. Try to start as close to the inciting event or the beginning of the emotions as you can, especially if you don't have a lot of time. Strong statements that you then clarify and expand upon are a good option. So is an interesting bit of dialogue.

Some Short Story Structure Notes

A basic structure for a narrative arc short story:

Hook

Scene setting/atmosphere

Challenge

Confrontation

Resolution

You can do whatever you want with this - your hook, scene setting, and challenge could all be the same event or even line as a character comes across a body in a detectives (or criminals!) AU: here’s this body, why is it in my apartment, how do I get it out?

Pick one type of tension. The MICE Quotient can be helpful here; pick one type of “thread” as your tension/conflict. Adding more means adding complexity and words, but you can also throw each one of these at a prompt and see if one is more intriguing than the other.

Milieu: location.

Inquiry: question.

Character: character growth/change

Event: something external is happening to the characters

Some Vignette Notes

Where does the character begin? Where does the character end? Are those the same place? If not, how does the character get there? That's your plot/emotional arc. Write it while it's still fresh in your mind.

If they are in the same place, what is your character thinking about or feeling? Is this moment a specific moment in time in the canon? If not, what just happened? What's about to happen? Maybe there's a looming tension for the reader who knows that the character is about to die or find out that their father is Darth Vader, but the character is still living their life. That tension makes a great fic.

Do you like domestic fluff? That's a vignette right there. Enduring the worst moment of their life, finding out a secret that canon has kept from them, or meeting the sister they didn't know they had, these are all moments or single scenes that can be done in a relatively short amount of time.

Editing

Editing is hard. We all know it. You can post without editing; lots of people do. If you do want to edit, you're going to have to go through the fic just after you finish it, which can be hard. There are some strategies that might help:

Change the font in your document. This can trick your brain into thinking that these are totally new words that you've never read before.

Read it out loud, which engages other areas of your brain and makes repeated words and awkward sentence structure more apparent.

Do multiple read-throughs, concentrating on separate issues that you struggle with each time: for example, during one readthrough, you might concentrate on sentence structure, then on the next character voice, and only then look at your tenses.

If you want to run an editing program, look for one that isn’t trying to fix your errors for you, but only identify them. Many programs out there try to offer fixes and are designed for business use and formal language, but programs like Slick Write are identify-only and leave it up to the author to decide if they actually care what the jumped-up bits of code say, or if they’re leaving it to authorial judgment.

If you have a beta, find out beforehand if they’re available and ready to help you (especially during a whole month)! If you don’t have a beta, you might be able to find one (or more than one) willing to work with you for the month. It’s a lot of words, but it might be a chance for you to try out or get help from multiple betas and see who you work with best. You can also look into exchanging beta services with other people participating in the same event.

If you have a wordcount limit: this is the time to edit aggressively. Do not use five words when one will do. See where you can remove “walked slowly” and replace it with “strolled”, or where you can swap long descriptions for something more succinct. Drop “just”, “really”, “mostly”, and "that"s which aren't load-bearing; sometimes you can even cut “and then” and replace it with a full stop and a new sentence. Much depends on the tone and any other limitations you’re giving yourself.

Posting

Titles

Titles are the devil and there's no getting around it. You can pick a title scheme before the month starts, which can help; maybe you only want to use one word titles, or song lyrics, or colors on the Pantone scale. Don't stress too much about finding the perfect title. There simply isn't the time for it.

Summaries

Weirdly enough, summaries are also the devil. Here are two links that may help:

Book Descriptions by the SFWA - this is meant for traditionally published works, but can be easily adapted for fanfic

How to Write Fanfic Summaries, by @wolfstarlibrarian - a comprehensive analysis of what makes summaries tick

Remember that the purpose of a summary is to engage the reader's attention and to tell them what the fic is going to be about, so that they know whether they want to read it or not.

Tagging

The good news is that tagging is a lot easier when the fic is very fresh in your mind. What is your fic about? Who is in it? What common fandom tropes are you hitting? With all of these things decided, either go ahead and start tagging, or go through this infographic and figure out what fits. If you think of something that you forgot, you can just add it the next day. This is probably the section that is the most forgiving in terms of forgetting to do something.

DON'T FORGET TO POST. Do not save the draft and then wander off and make dinner. Post when you're done.

And then, the next day, do it all over again.

Try to enjoy yourself! Good luck!

(so much credit is due to my friend Dei, bless you my dear)

#writing #prompts #writing advice #tips and tricks #yes I do all of this #this is how I keep from going crazy #i do this every year on two accounts so maybe I'm already crazy #but i swear this really will help #au gust #kinktober #mermay #whumptober

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