#soo a disaster happened but who is it to blame…

[sugar-petals]

Your First Date With Baekhyun

:: bbh x sm apprentice!reader

words. 10k

warnings ⚠️ idol au hc, pining, brief angst, eventual car sex 👀, tw light injuries bc baek is clumsy in love, oral fixation, finger sucking, rough sex, making out

↳ NOTE. here we go again with the slow burn ✊🔥

It all starts with a divine act of clumsiness. 

An accident, completely out of the blue.

Who is surprised, what else could it be.

Ever since Baekhyun violently bumped into you from behind in the SM cafeteria to avoid Mark spilling red hot Americano on him… life has never been the same. 

That you walked in on him walking around mighty topless, with you wanting to clear the dance practice room many hours after work three times already does not help.

It’s always the same chain of events. He practices for longer than the others and gets sweaty, pulls off his shirt, pauses the music for a five-minute break. That’s unintentionally making it seem like everyone is already gone and the room is empty — you are deceived by it every time, and he almost gets a heart attack himself. We know how easily embarrassed Baekhyun is with showing skin by accident, outside of any shower stalls that is, let alone being caught stripping by himself. 

The first time he screams and you scream, off you run after quickly shutting the door. He tries his best to cover himself up with his hands, but to no avail. Lucas, Kai, and Johnny are no longer the only Magic Mikes under this rowdy fucking roof anymore. Even if you turned around fast, you saw more than a whole lot. 

You know how scared Baekhyun is by surprises, he gets all fidgety. Even after four whole minutes, he still sits with the music off breathing harder than he did from powering through four jointbreaking ligament-snappers I mean EXO choreographies. 

Lot of thoughts on his mind, lot of blood pumping through him. Baekhyun can hear a pretty hefty heartbeat pound in his ears. Eventually, he shakes his head at himself and does switch the music back on. But even that doesn’t distract him, nor can he concentrate on the moves. He keeps on asking himself — what the hell is wrong, what is this, why does he act like that? 

So, he ends up sneaking out of the room to call it a day. You were waiting in the nearby corridor to do the cleaning after he left. But now, you hide behind a shelf with props and miscellanea to avoid him. 

Of course, Baekhyun comes to grab a water bottle from said cupboard. Well, oh shit. He has his shorts on, and his calves are literally 20 inches away from you. He doesn’t see you crouching down there, but your pulse is going through the roof now, too. 

In fact, not even the days when Taeyong is walking around the company in a sexy as hell crop top could cause you such a panic. And that is the highest possible bar already. The average apprentice almost faints.

There’s pungent sweat that can knock you out of your socks… and then there’s sexy sweat scent mixed with men’s deodorant. Baekhyun leaves the latter after rushing out of the corridor. It’s even more intense in the practice room, if not absolutely unbearable. Oh boy. Pheromones, please no.

It’s almost as if you’re taking a bath in cologne. You’re getting nauseous and tingly from how it gets to you. You can hardly focus on scrubbing the mirror. If only the guy knew what horniness he is causing just by infusing the air, what the fucking fuck.

The second time, he jerks up again, but tries to explain himself. But so do you, ending up with a mutual, stuttering word spill in sync. 

Neither of you understood what the other was saying because you were too busy with a knee-jerk dialogue. Anxious all over, you quickly leave and eventually end up hiding behind the cupboard again. The new comeback track blasts even louder in the practice room. 

The third occasion, you no longer flinch at each other and laugh a little, mighty embarrassed still, but apologize with knowing eyes. This time, you enter the room after a small „Can I?“ and at least manage to clear some noodle boxes and unused towels from the backup dancers away, and pin a new schedule to the door. 

Baekhyun quickly pulls over his plain white tee and keeps on mumbling sorry, sorry like he’s Super Junior, practically scraping the ground with his hair because he bows so deep. 

You’ve never seen him this awkward. Instead of his usual one-liners and most effortless conversation starters, he resorts to switching on the music again after frantically looking everywhere but in your direction. He sings his lines right along, getting back into the routine’s intricate steps. 

Strange. 

Very strange.

All day, he is impulsive with lightening up just about any situation. One sentence, hook line and sinker; the mood alleviates. Not this time. He’s ignoring you now that you’re in the room.

The truth is: Baekhyun can’t help but set his pupper eyes on you in all other occasions already, especially when you’re busy at a distance. And it’s making him crazy. Next day at the cafeteria, he deliberately arrives late so he can queue way, way behind you. 

For the first time in all glorious epochs K-Pop history, he would let Sehun enter the line before him so he would have a shield. „Maknaes first“ is his brief comment, and Sehun thinks that Baekhyun must squarely confuse today with his birthday.

And fate says… sike. Two minutes later, a teary Mark rushes toward you and loudly apologizes for the Americano disaster. „Baekhyun was not being impolite, it was me!“

As he says just that, he turns, points right at Baekhyun’s tomato red head peeking out from behind Sehun’s shoulders, and bows to him. 

The whole cafeteria is witness, including Lee Soo Man.

And SHINee, who will have gossip material for five weeks because of this. Key is already taking notes. 

And BoA — who’s giggling because she’s seen it all in the business and knows exactly what’s going on with Baekhyun and you. Oh. Lord.

Baekhyun wants to sink into the ground right then and there. He’s been found out again. Of course he has to step out from his lair now and bow back to Mark, take the blame and explain the whole incident all over, and comfort him with a string of appeasing words. Which he hates for four reasons at the same time. He embarrassed Mark, himself, disturbed you the way he bumped into your back, and now you saw him hiding from… precisely you. Little does he know you did, too. 

Baekhyun quickly retreats to sit next to Sehun once again after Mark has calmed down and he, being the senior as always, has performed another 180° bow to you in front of the entire staff and idol audience, causing his oversized shirt to slip downward, way to his armpits. 

Goodness gracious.

BoA is this close to shouting „get a room“ upon seeing Baekhyun stand in front of you with his stomach all bare until he has hastily tucked his shirt back into this place. Fast as it happens, you can’t hide your reaction face. 

Chanyeol, sitting at a nearby table, does a telling reaction noise himself, and you can tell he’s read the situation to a T. Even worse, he’s whistling. You can fool a lot of people, but not Park „Radar“ Chanyeol. He’s a himbo incarnate, but this guy’s emotional intelligence is too damn strong, and he knows Baekhyun inside out. Oh shit, man.

The next ten minutes are fraught with a weird, sonorous mumbling in the room. Lee Soo Man doesn’t really get it, thank God. But the meaning of Baekhyun silently cowering behind Sehun while eating his kimchi stew is more than obvious to half of the people around. Baekhyun never fucking acts like this, even when he’s sad.

It’s like something is pushing the two of you into humiliating situations like that ever since you started to work at SM since last May. Literally Baekhyun can’t stop apologizing to you all day because he’s suddenly clumsy or the strangest situations happen.

Nope, he doesn’t do it on purpose. But yes, he finds himself enjoying your attention. So what is he going to do? This keeps being stuck on his mind. Especially because half of EXO, NCT, and SuperM is asking him what the hell is going on in three raging group chats at once.

And you? I don’t have to tell you how it feels like when Baekhyun stumbles over to squarely plant his cutesy baby face into your back. Firmly wrapping his hands around your waist on top of that not to fall over entirely. That feeling is locked into your muscle memory. And now, seeing him stripped down for the fourth time already? Goodbye to your sleep.

Special thanks to a jittery Mark for making this first hug I mean collision out of nowhere happen. Just to be sure: Mark really didn’t spill his coffee on purpose, nor did Baekhyun want to bump into you this hard. And we know Mark’s reflexes are usually fast enough to save the day. But he was about to host his first variety show all by himself, so you can imagine how shaky and distracted he was. And nobody will resent him — this is only all about you and Baekhyun… being the most repressed motherfuckers.

Baekhyun constantly almost-crashing into you somewhere or basically crawling on the ground before you makes for a second very shaky guy. What the hell is pulling him towards you wherever he goes? It’s even worse than Minseok moving one inch and accidentally smacking Baekhyun in the face.

It just goes on and on.

Following the second cafeteria embarrassment, the next Friday after lunch, you run into each other at the ground floor elevator exit so you would drop your fries. Yeah, extra crispy ones, with the best mayonnaise. Baekyhun has been feeling so guilty about his curse at this point that he orders extra fries for you at the cafeteria two times a week with his card. Which makes Chanyeol know dear Eros struck particularly hard. Because if he didn’t care, Baekhyun would pay it five times a week like he does for NCT every now and then. But if he does it only two times, something is at stake. He doesn’t want it to be apparent.

Baekhyun can’t even look you in the eye when he puts them on your tray. Instead, he quickly bows three times in a row and then disappears. This guy is a small puddle of blush. 

Lee Soo Man cites him into his room to say what’s wrong soon, but all Baekhyun can blurt out is that he didn’t sleep well and the comeback song won’t get into his head. Which is not a direct lie, so.

Whatever you do, Baekhyun appears out of the blue and falls to your feet. Only two days later, he returns from shooting an MV and slips right in front of your office. Pretty much because his feet stumble over his own pants. You put the paperwork aside and check what the hell is going on outside. A dizzy Baekhyun straight-up hit his head at your door. He declines you helping him up because he knows that your touch is probably gonna make him fully insane. He walks around with a forehead patch during the comeback stage and people online think it’s the latest trend.

Somebody save this man.

The universe just keeps on arranging the silliest things to make shit happen, huh.

At this point, Baekhyun developing a full-blown apprentice crush is as obvious as Lucas being tall.

Now, the reality is. This man is Hitch, the Date Doctor. He notoriously handles crowds, can get along with anyone he’s put together with on camera, helps the other members to juggle their love life whenever they have a problem. Chen is probably a married man because of Baekhyun in one way or another. He isn’t really shy normally in his own words. But when it comes to his own crushes — classic case of everybody’s cupid who gives good advice they would need the most. 

That Baekhyun is helpless with anything that digs beneath the surface of his usual interactions will show to you very soon. There’s tough Baekhyun, there’s cute Baekhyun, and then there’s an utterly speechless little bean who has an internal meltdown when you do as much as take the stairs together. The difference is staggering. He’s fidgety, tense, makes himself even smaller and first and foremost: Is impressionable to an extreme.

In short: Baekhyun has fully converted into a fake maknae.

It’ll show in staff meeting conversations on trivial things about the schedule that he wing-mans everybody but himself when shit hits the fan. He stutters in your presence. Baek’s a mess. Chanyeol takes Baekhyun to the side and raises his brows at him at least five times a day, as in wanting to say: „Are you ever going to do something about it?“

Baekhyun dodges the answer each time and preoccupies himself with social media. Fans will later say that he hasn’t uploaded as many Twitter replies, Youtube videos, and Instagram snapshots in his whole career. And Baekhyun is already quite active online so you can tell how much he’s spamming.

Secretly… hoping you see his online activity. Which you do. 

You’ve memorized his five latest vlogs down to the cute little sound noises he’s making. Still, you hide behind the cupboard, and he is hiding behind an unsuspecting Johnny. Because Sehun is already grumbling about becoming a human shield, and Chanyeol would tease Baekhyun to the hell and back whenever you’re around.

Why does all of that happen? Why is he trying to escape? 

The answer is, Baekhyun feels an overpowering respect towards you. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from, it’s something you exude. To the point where he isn’t able to clown you the way he does with others. It’s literally that bad.

On top of that, Baekhyun is frustrated that whatever extroversion he can switch on during broadcasts, fan meets, and with the other members is suddenly failing him. He tries hard to fall back to his usual humor, but you being around makes him act much more erratic. And, surprisingly reserved, believe it or not.

Eye contact will make him break whatever character he’s trying to tune into for the sake of keeping it together. The exact opposite will happen. All the blushing and boiling hot sweat gives him away. Your own heated af face he doesn’t even notice.

In his mind, he’s going through any possible way of mannerisms to get your attention all while not embarrassing himself. He gives confident SuperM leader Baekhyun a shot, comedian Baekhyun, too, and he will don a pokerfaced version of himself as a last option whenever you are close. 

All unsuccessfully. He can’t keep the façade for long; he knows he’s acting strange and inconsistent that way. Do you even realize what you merely sitting in the same practice room is doing to this guy?  

As you can tell…

It’s up to you to hit on him. Finding an unmistakable balance between being breathtakingly forward and overly subtle. The right way to ask him out is somewhere in between. The way you gauge it, Baekhyun is turned off by all kinds of brazen approaches, but doesn’t want to be nudged with satin gloves and feathers either.

However, you end up playing too lowkey at first try because you’re just as nervous. You think, maybe it’s good to find out how interested in me he will admit he is. Which, given how much he tries to conceal his feelings, turns out to be a difficult idea.

And — Isn’t is crystal clear he likes you a whole lot by the way he tries to retreat from everyone but you? Recently, fleeing to stand behind Lucas. Who has the most hiding surface and won’t question what Baekhyun is doing there all the time, unlike Johnny.

So, how do you learn that your plan is a bad idea? You try to involve yourself in NCT’s Friday night truth-or-dare where Baekhyun always joins to mess with everyone.

But that weekend, he interestingly excuses himself to „practice English, it’s urgent!“. Off he goes as soon as he sees that you are part of the lineup, looking like he’s seen a ghost. 

So, that mission failed. You get Taeyong, Haechan, and Yuta twerking against you at the same time while wearing sailor moon outfits as a dare instead. 

However: You still learned something from this. The way that even Haechan’s wild gyrating and arguably great ass did not have a single effect on you tells you that you really want someone else really damn bad. Hell, if Yuta Nakamoto winds against you and you feel nothing—

And, something else has become apparent to you.

Professional he is, Baekhyun establishes rapport even with people he dislikes or feels neutral about, but when his more vulnerable feelings are in the game, he runs from them. 

Beside Chanyeol and BoA, you’re smart enough to begin seeing what clockwork ticks inside of him. When Baekhyun doesn’t try to get close to someone that’s around him so frequently, something is mighty wrong and his opinion about that someone must be an intense one. And it’s not because he hates that person, the opposite is the case. 

He’s almost less afraid of you than his worries of ruining it. 

But through what, you’re wondering, seriously. 

On the other hand, you get why Baekhyun keeps a viable distance. He knows it’s difficult to be associated with him in the way he wishes you were. Since people were looking at him and you so strange in the cafeteria, he even stopped practicing in the after hours. 

Two weeks later, he even quits buying you fries for lunch and eats in the recording studio instead. Chanyeol remains correct: Much is at stake.

After the truth-or-dare fail, you sit down in sobriety and go through your options. You get all sorts of grand ideas to reveal your feelings, but dismiss the majority of it. You have to start small, really small. This needs the utmost care. Especially because you don’t want to compromise him by accident any further, nor are you anywhere near as ballsy as you believe someone hitting on Byun Baekhyun needs to be. 

Truth be told: BoA would kick your ass for thinking that. And letting so many opportunities pass, as if you aren’t beating yourself up for it enough. Idol mode Baekhyun, well, he would be hard to approach indeed. But what is currently going on… he’s literally showing you his underbelly. He’s begging you to do something.

That he avoids even the lightest touch: More than telling to BoA’s knowing eye. He would be so easy to sway with just one sentence. She knows that at this point, Baekhyun is desperate. His yes would come so fast. You’re far from having faith in this. But you still try. You want this man.

Eventually, you rack your brain for anything understated you could do. 

Then, you get the idea. 

After a schedule briefing, Baekhyun recently said he dearly wishes he could eat fried noodles in the early evening because he’s craving something savory, meanwhile flashing a split-second glance at you. Maybe… You can discreetly bridge the gap by getting him food.

You’re part responsible for doing things like that in the company already so nobody will question you driving around with your little motorbike. 

If you think about it: That’s a good excuse to approach him frequently and visit his apartment. The move is calculated, but it’s what the situation requires. You can’t tell how Baekhyun will react, but if he looked at you this way, it’s worth a shot.

And so, you dare the impossible. You show up with a deliberately small portion of noodles after the last comeback stage, knock twice. He does open. You’re frozen up.

Uttering a hopefully neutral „You said you wanted this. I’ll also bring it tomorrow if you want,“ and then drive off again without even waiting for a reply from a very surprised-looking Baekhyun in PJs. 

Sweating like crazy, thank God your helmet and the upcoming dark of the night was hiding your red cheeks. Shit man, that was robotic as fuck! is what you’re thinking for the entire ride home. Another fail, you sure won’t return tomorrow. Now you can’t look him in the eye, either.

Meanwhile: 

The meal not only saves the day of Baekhyun’s usually very lackluster diet mood that comes out when he is by himself. It also makes him flustered and grateful, curling up on his couch. He couldn’t even remotely try to say no out of politeness or concerns for his food plan. Baekhyun breaks the chopsticks right away after closing the door. Today, his dog’s with him. Mongryong excitedly jumps up and down next to Baekhyun. Your visit was short and sweet, but it made two beans very happy.

In fact, he rips open the box and shoves a quarter of the content into his mouth in the blink of an eye. It’s not just how hungry he is. He’s also overwhelmed that you came to his house. He feels like it’d be the highest level of disrespect to throw it away to begin with, no matter how spartan his eating habits are supposed to be. 

He almost views this little take-out box as a part of you. He imagines how you listened to him talk, decided to drop by, bought it with your own money, and carried it all the way to him. All that extra effort and attention he spins back and forth in his head for the whole next week.

And, on the spot, Baekhyun is so taken aback that he starts deep cleaning his apartment at midnight as soon as he finishes his noodles. 

To your own initial shock, he also drops an envelope with money under your office door the next day. And you thought someone was sending threats.

You get the underlying message, though. This is something just between the two of you, and the envelope is a yes. For another meal. Actually, more than that. There are 30 sorted bills in it, each to buy one box since he knows where you get the food from and what the standard price is. 

Payment for one month in advance. Meetings for one month in advance. This fucker. 

And you thought your sweaty scene at his apartment left him confused or weirded out. Nope, he decided he wants this times thirty. Something you have to let sink in.

The next day you drive along at the same time, there’s nobody there. 

Because Baekhyun has left the door open. Now you can’t just speed away again. Nor do you really want to, for God’s sake. 

After putting your helmet down in the small entrance room, you find an anxiously waiting Baekhyun on the extremely cleaned up living room couch, sitting there with fidgeting feet like it’s a porn casting. 

The tension could kill. You put the box on the table before him like it’s England’s Crown Jewels. You want to calm him down so desperately, but don’t know how.

Given his sparkly eyes set on the food, that he wants to devour what you brought him right away is not hard to overlook. But he still seems hesitant. Insecure. Baekhyun doesn’t manage to say a full word which is the most surreal thing. You work up your voice and pass him the chopsticks in their paper packaging. „Pig out. You didn’t eat since 7AM.“

Again, he breaks the chopsticks. Trying hard not to do it too fast.

You sit opposite to him and revert back to professional mode. Talking about statistics from the comeback that Baekhyun hummingly acknowledges the way he does when you talk to EXO in meetings. 

He stuffs himself like his life depends on it. No stable eye contact from him. 

Both of you know that it’s not what you want to say. But even ten minutes in: Nothing about the cafeteria, the fries, the envelope, the topless incident, the forehead patch, nothing. Just you going on about details from work and him listening, nodding, chewing, making brief little remarks and using all his standard corporate phrases. „Ah, yes, EXO surely benefits from that.“ But it’s a start. You begin small. 

So far, so good. With every evening, the conversation becomes more and more two-sided and the meals bigger. A second envelope soon enters your office, covering the extra costs for the XXL boxes, your fuel, and another month worth of meals. Note: Only one and a half weeks in. 

Fuck, you got yourself into something big. Is it because his dog likes you?

You are starting to like babying him like that, even if you both keep it serious. Unusually so, but at least you don’t get into any more accidents with that suspense off your either shoulders. 

It’s not like that cute little face would leave you any chance in the first place. Baekhyun smiles shyly around you. His big laugh is sweeping, but the small things… lethal. Absolutely lethal.

His manager doesn’t like it, but his genius idol’s mochi factor is increasing since you bring him spicy, richer foods. Baekhyun declines most snacks he’s offered at work, hardly eats up at the cafeteria and gives it to Foodcas Xuxi instead, and even the stylists wished he would gain more weight without any results in their convincing acts. But when you bring him a large portion of extra al dente spaghetti or — as of recently — self-made black bean noodles, Baekhyun would consider it rude not to follow the call of the carbs. 

Interesting.

He eats even more aggressively when he knows you made the food yourself. 

Quickly enough, he pays either for take-out or ingredients meant for not one, but two people. You usually eat a little earlier than he does, but you would not trade the best luxury meal in the world eaten by yourself with being together in Baekhyun’s flat. To the average Joe, this would be the biggest hassle, but to you… there’s no way you can get enough of being around him so privately. You enjoy taking the time to buy food for him. Taking the time in general.

You’re not the only one.

I don’t have to tell you how Baekhyun has to fight getting a vicious hard-on with sitting opposite to you with your motorcycling jacket peeled down to the hip, right inside a staring-not staring-staring-not staring match while you both slurp on your noodle soup pretending to be apprentice and idol.

It’s… bizarre. And hot. And bizarre. And frustrating.

You both don’t know where to take all of this. You end up making it a rock-solid daily routine, but not going any further than that because you are afraid. The excuse: Never change a running system.

In the meantime, Baekhyun works out even more. Not to compensate for the calories or to get rid of the increasingly chubby cheeks. Nope, it’s to impress you and show his fitness, plain and simple. At times, the music once again blasts in the practice room after everyone left. You come in to clear the room with Baekhyun in one of his very tight tank tops. 

You greet each other softly smiling. The familiarity really does begin to show. While you sort and organize, he writes you a little note on what to get for food tonight. He scribbles a little „:3“ emoji underneath. 

You think about that for at least two hours before you drive to his apartment.

So, yeah. Something is going on with him regardless of both of you trying to keep your routine stable and CIA-level secret. 

He finds himself cringeworthy when he carries seven stacked up chairs to a group meeting at once just because you’re attending. But something in him can’t help it, for the love of God. At least in this regard, he thinks, something is running on autopilot in terms of flirting methods. Meaning, he really does hide less and less. 

Meanwhile, Lucas’ eyes are falling out because Baekhyun is mustering new levels of strength nobody suspected he had. In the most random situations, even. Baekhyun’s fitness trainer is also living one hell of a life because his protégée is so eager these days. Mastering everything from weights to pilates. Hormones are one hell of a drug.

Kai frequently remarks that Baekhyun is different. „He’s nagging much less, what’s going on, why, why!“ he says to Taemin on the regular, and they invent all kinds of theories.

Since Baekhyun doesn’t want to miss out on your daily evening visit nor spend 8 hours in the gym, that means: He increases the intensity of the work-outs. For two and a half weeks, he is completely knocked out afterwards.

And so… it happens.

Baekhyun falls asleep before your visit. The door he has opened beforehand as always, but you enter a dim room with dozing Baekhyun splayed on the bed in his red carpet outfit from earlier that day. He worked out in the morning, did some hosting, talked his soul out in an interview, attended an award show, drove home, and eventually collapsed in the sheets. Lights out.

You put the rice box and cake slice you brought along on his desk. He looks so cute when he dozes, but you also hate disturbing his sleepy angel hours. Especially because you know how worn-out his schedule has left him and you feel sorry for it. 

You feel weird for standing there with your take-out and want to hurry outside as fast as possible, but leave a note. 

For the first time in weeks, you eat dinner in your own flat.

After forcefully waking up at 3AM due to his usual sleep cycle being off balance, Baekhyun falls into a spiral of regrets. Once it dawns on him what time it is and he must have missed your visit, he buries his face in his palms sitting at the edge of the bed. 

He resents himself for neither cleaning up his bedroom properly nor staying awake even more so, no matter how eventful his day was. He imagines how you must have seen him sleep, probably in the most humiliating, unflattering position and with terrible hair, judging him for being rude, forgetful, unattractive, messy, and probably a thousand other things.

Until… he finds the note. That one gives him a second almost-heart attack, but an adrenaline-fueled one this time. He stumbles back onto his bed and reads it twenty times over.

„Rest well and dig in. Don’t worry. Text if you’re okay. 03304 68010113.“

After three typos in your number, almost choking on cold rice because he eats so passionately, and several minutes of going back and forth on sending something, he kicks his own ass and writes a little „I’m ok, I’m very very sorry! I’m an idiot 😭“. After you reply that he has no reason to apologize, he rambles on about how he wishes that he’s not being an inconvenience to you with a whole row of sad and dejected emojis. 

You hate that Baekhyun feels put on the spot and obliged because of you this way and try to think hard about how to solve the dilemma. You won’t try to stop the rain of his apologies by telling him to calm down because you know it’ll make it worse, and instead decide it’s time to get going.

The opportunity is now, and there’s only one.

‚So, I have an idea—“

Going to the groovy little underground pizza restaurant downtown is something that Baekhyun immediately accepts as a suggestion. He wants to compensate for his dozing, but he also knows that this is a whopping chance more than anything.

And… a covert first date. 

He knows that’s what it is. It’s about leveling up now.

Before you can write that you’ll treat him and he can relax, he gets firm with insisting that you will pay not a single dime. You know that it’s not just his overworking conscience speaking. It’s also the only way Baekhyun gets an occasion to express that he takes this very seriously via text. 

That he wants to repay you and aims to get the most out of meeting up is something you realize when he steps out of the wardrobe room the next evening after everyone in the company has gone home. 

The stylists he has told that he needs to try this particular outfit on for some time to get used to it. „I need to dance in this, so.“

Actually, it is meant for EXO performing at the Oscars next week, but he got away with the excuse and a promise to take care. 

And… he really did the rest of the styling all by himself. He’s turned into a glamorous neat freak. Every shiny hair glued into its desired place, freshly dyed honey blonde with soft brunette roots. 

In fact, who walks at you is a wholly different Baekhyun in a dark, reddish-violet satin suit, pointy black shoes, matte black tie, mature sultry eye shadow, black square sunglasses pushed up into his hair, his signature lipstick, with a distinct statement tote bag, and black lace socks. I repeat: Lace. This is the fanciest anybody has ever headed to eat $6.50 pizza at a tube station. I mean wow, just wow. The tailored shoulders and how tight the tux cinches in at the waist is on par with Kai’s Obsession crop top. 

Even the much more expensive award show outfit from last week looks like a potato sack compared to how much he dolled himself up and reinvented literally every inch about himself. Like you have to prevent yourself from drooling.

Yep. He. Means. Business.

Funnily enough, Baekhyun realizes his zeal and just how much he is trying to impress you at all costs when you turn up with your standard khaki trench coat, bunny print umbrella, and casual white sneakers that have seen World War 1 and 2. You know, just the way you always come to his apartment and the way it’s inconspicuous. 

Going by his face… he starts to overthink his esteem. You can see how his expression becomes mortified. You promptly decide to put an end to his self-conscious back and forth through taking him by the hand. 

„You’re the best-looking man in the world and I’m asking you for a date. Are you comin’ or are you not?“

You then make it particularly clear to him that if anything, this right in front of you is very much authentic Baekhyun and not someone else you’re in for after all. And, that you’re both in your genuine form tonight the way it’s gotta be, the way you know each other and the reason why you decided to do this. Boom.

Four-step Greek style sermon for tonight: Delivered.

Now he’s gaping at you too much to beat himself up. That mission is very much accomplished. Modern problems apparently require ancient rhetoric. You’re in a kick-ass mood tonight. I dunno, anybody would be, Baekhyun’s accentuated sense of style has the historic potential to make girls reckless.

Baekhyun’s hand is heated like an Icelandic geyser and his heartbeat rate would make the average rabbit look like an amateur. Believe it or not — it’s the first time you’re deliberately touching. It’s ridiculous.

You head to the company garage, he churns out five jokes in a row on how he must look like a Korean Elton John on the way to his best-of concert, you laugh… Baekhyun feels better. Three times as nervous compared to when you usually come to his flat, but better nevertheless. And he drives, so. 

He feels like he’s catching up and giving something back, no matter that you feel he doesn’t have to, but to him, it’s important. 

You joke back to him how it’s a little bit funny — Elton John pun intended — that you saw every inch of Baekhyun’s apartment at this point already but this is the first date. The world is upside down, but it’s SM Entertainment, so. Things get started in different ways, but they do.

That realization is getting to him, too. Baekhyun’s peacock alter ego emerges to bolt over the motorway like a lovedrunk Lewis Hamilton with a foot glued to the gas pedal, but also checks fifty times for how you feel in the passenger seat. Asking about how you like it, if the A/C is set to how you want it, whether your seat is tilted the way you enjoy it. Damn, he really is on edge. 

On top of that, said alter ego maneuvers him right into a 3-kilometer outer ring traffic jam before his innocent self even realizes it. More time to chat… more time to sit so close… more time you get to savor the comfort of his luxurious car. So that was a Freudian slip with a steering wheel right there.

You already know that Baekhyun has never tried as hard to make somebody like him. You compliment his taste in cars vice versa to take that pressure off before he turns into a nervous wreck entirely. And then, also adding that you could get used to this which makes Baekhyun feel like a billion Won. His eyes are downcast, his cheeks are beaming. Figures, light superpowers and such, we know the deal.

Meanwhile, that you really like him already and for a long time is something you challenge yourself to make more than apparent to him. If he’s still this desperate about pleasing you and unsure about how he comes across, there’s some work to do. This guy needs a sign. A football field-sized one. If Baekhyun’s demon is his self-worth tonight, yours is being a lot more demonstrative. You’ve been far too indirect with him all day every day.

That you’re outside of both your professional spheres actually helps: Big fucking time.

Easing him into a conversation happens surprisingly smooth when you recount visiting his apartment and seeing him sleep so beautifully. Which you say was the most gratifying thing which is the truth. It’s been on his mind, hearing about your relief makes a lot of things plague him less. 

You also add how you enjoy bringing him food just because. That he’s nice and good company, even when he sleeps. That assures Baekhyun and makes him laugh.

And yes. He ends up serenading you throughout the entire traffic jam. And yes. When Baekhyun is in love, his singing is particularly on point. You can hear the cherry on top in his registers. No need for the stereo, you can ask him to sing any song you like. 

The traffic jam disperses after 20 minutes, Baekhyun has interpreted your entire favorite playlist at this point. Arriving feels like way too soon. 

You put your trench coat over Baekhyun while he exits the car. There’s hardly anyone around in this part of the town but who knows, making sure not to mess up his hair in the process. Both of you hurry to the stairs leading underground. Meanwhile, the car is parked quite stealthily behind a closed-down fish restaurant with dusty windows.

It feels good to walk around with Baekhyun right by your side. 

The surroundings are cluttered with trash and only few people wait at the tube station that opens up before you with every step downwards. It’s actually perfect as a getaway. There are mostly older businessmen on shift at first glance. 

It’s colder out in the open and surrounded by surfaces of concrete, the car was like a spa by comparison. Baekhyun takes the initiative to put the trench coat back onto your shoulders. You feel flattered and you smile at each other, and walk on with synchronized steps. The pizza bar is almost within sight. In the meantime, the digital board announces the tube arriving in five minutes. He takes your hand.

And then… some real bullshit goes down.

A group of seven scraggly-looking teens lounge on a bench, roughly 200 meters before the pizza bistro. You have to pass the bench close-by given how narrow the walking space next to the train tracks is. 

One of them, the tallest of the bunch, coarsely shouts at you. „How much did that prostitute cost and where does he keep his money, huh?“ He sticks his wriggling tongue out right along. The others are ogling Baekhyun’s shoes and chest pockets, preying and laughing and sneering. It dawns on you that you should’ve asked for one more song in the car.

The mood tips. One of the boys sitting on the left side of the bench starts fiddling with a 3-inch switchblade. And then, something flicks the switch inside you, too. Your Kyoong-protect-o-meter goes through the roof faster than Baekhyun can get his car to the speed limit. 

Cue She-Hulk transformation. In an onslaught of your inner wrestling diva claiming her rights, you take matters into your own hands by hurling Baekhyun’s glitzy designer bag at the guy’s surprised face. Sorry Versace, it had to be done. The whole group gasps out loud. While they’re still caught off guard, you go on to lunge forward and furiously whack greasy knife guy and two other approaching attackers with your Roger fucking Rabbit umbrella using a windmill-motion martial arts technique you came up with from scratch. Baekhyun doesn’t even have to duck… being smol has its advantages. 

The switchblade is sent flying into a bin. Point landing. You proceed to rip into the group to helicopter your improvised weapon in circles until it threatens to plow down the better of them and they back away squealing and pleading. Britney would be so damn proud of you, I’m telling ya.

Needless to say, the mortally terrified group runs and disperses into the arriving tube, probably booking their therapist appointments for Monday morning already. You pick up the bag for Baekhyun a little breathless, dust it off, and say a prayer. Holy shit. 

What the hell just happened. Literally, what the fucking fuck.

An entirely wide-eyed Baekhyun still can’t believe that a whole group of sleazy guys twice as tall as him took an unhinged windmill beating by you to prevent a robbery, and meanwhile he is the martial arts champion. Like, hello? He’s been a Hapkido instructor with several gold medals. How many black belts does the guy have again? He could mow down fifty of that kind and pulverize anyone of them with a mere NCT-style kick. This is ridiculous. He’s mighty impressed.

A few businessmen at the station are looking at you from afar with open mouths. You wave and give a thumbs up signalling all is okay. The security personnel reviewing the CCTV the next day is down for a ride. You hope that there are no headlines with pictures of this. Tube brats get their ass busted by cartoon bunny at 2:15 AM. K-Pop star Baekhyun defended by mysterious umbrella wielder gone wild.

You take a deep breath, brush off your coat. „Um. Moving on I guess.“ Then, interlink arms with Baekhyun, strolling on toward the restaurant. Looking around everywhere, still a little shocked. Walking off your relief helps, as is looking forward to eating. Damn, you do outrageous things when you’re hungry.

The restaurant is the size of the practice room at best, lit with white neon and decorated with Italian flags in every corner. The empty seats are designed like in an American diner from the 80s.

The lanky six-foot-something waiter, Luigi Roberto Maranello Salvatore (his nameplate is really in-depth about this), hurries to the door when he sees how Baekhyun is dressed and probably thinks the King of Korea just arrived. Which he, in fact, did, but that’s beside the point. 

You sit at the very back and get comfortable after breaking your last sweat. An enthusiastic Luigi presents to you the latest ‚delicious couple menu options’ and promises to use the best toppings he can offer. You instantly trust him, Luigi has the most accurate mustache you’ve ever seen.

Baekhyun and you share a huge plate of the curiously named ‚Pizza Puppy Love‘  that might be better described as a circle-shaped late night gala buffet. You dig in because damn, fighting thugs makes hungry, and Baekhyun stuffs himself given how it’s his favorite meal. Luigi sees that you are avid eaters and way too busy looking at each other, so he disappears in the kitchen, proud of setting the mood just perfectly.

In the meantime, Baekhyun says that he thinks of hiring you as a sasaeng protection machine. You muse how the umbrella is sturdier than you thought and you wouldn’t hesitate to use it again now that you think about it. Being Baekhyun’s Jarvis is not a bad thought, actually. Beating up rascals for him is your newly discovered love language.

In fact: Whatever took over inside of you and made you lose your chill, Baekhyun is mighty curious about. He thinks that was very sexy. You get the feeling that this guy could like dangerous women. He might have picked that up from Taemin, credits to him.

After Baekhyun has dramatically recounted the umbrella incident at least five times, the conversation goes on about your embarrassing hiding stories, how hilariously over- and underdressed you are as a unit, and you teasing him about „speeding on the highway, are we“. Baekhyun teases you back about how you acted like his manager with your trench coat over his head. He kind of has a point and you call it a tie.

Seeing Baekhyun all full with his beloved pizza and acting so carefree in his Oscar suit is a cute sight. You take the liberty to cut a particularly large slice out of the puppy pizza UFO and feed him. 

If it’s a couple menu, you gotta act like it.

Baekhyun is making some mighty heart eyes at you, and so — you decide to take it a little further. This whole fight thing made you forget you’re on a goddamn date after… a whole year of eyefucking and that it’s about time to close the gap.

Luigi is wholly busy making order in the kitchen and Baekhyun has some tomato sauce stuck at the side of his mouth. Convenient. You take the chance to wipe it off with the tip of your right digit. 

He realizes what you’re doing and promptly grabs your hand to keep it right where it is. Uh-oh. His tongue darts out, he licks right across your finger. To top it off, he starts to suck it, too. With a typical nonchalance. Seeing how you almost combust, he takes another finger into his hot mouth. And sucks a little more. His lipstick smudges onto your hand. His eyes are like hot coals and the pupils are all blown. Oh my, my, my. 

If you’re just playing, don’t you ever give Baekhyun anything to escalate on like that, ever. The way you were ready to knock down the seven guys, he is ready to get physical once the first step is done. Though, the thing is. You’re not playing. It’s exactly the type of fodder that you’ve been craving to give him. Baekhyun’s oral fixation is something else.

The rest of the pizza is gone in five minutes…

…and Luigi gets the tip of his life.

You walk to the car in much faster steps than before. Even if it’s later than late, nobody is around anymore except a sleeping beggar on the other side of the station. No danger in sight whatsoever. There’s a different reason to get going like that this time and there’s no way you can mentally prepare yourself for what’s coming.

Back to the fish restaurant, back to the car spa. Nobody on the streets, anywhere. This night, Baekhyun does not feel even remotely tired, though.

After you put your umbrella in the trunk — you will honor it much more from now on — the driver’s and passenger’s seat stay empty for half an hour and a little more. Now, the actual stereo is on. There’s a lot to catch up with on the backseat.

Baekhyun puts Delight on repeat, and queues City Lights just because. Guy knows what good music and singing sounds like. You interlock hands and call him pretty. Baekhyun is flustered, but all the more eager. 

It takes barely a minute until you get serious with making out on top of him and grind on his lap like the world ends. The satiny fabric is too tempting not to gyrate all over it in your jeans. Lord knows his legs are great. You know what you signed up for. Those thighs are so delicious to straddle, you can’t even imagine. 

Baekhyun gazes at you so intently and ready, whispering his little you-can-do-anythings and tell-me-all-you-wants, it’s like magic.

To top it off, kissing his little pouty lips has got to be the best thing, running your hands through his sexy hair — even more so. Your mouth and fingers have been begging you to do this. Begging. 

From there, your hands go places. His neatly razored nape of the neck, his waist, the chest. His suit, all that expensive fabric, his gentle skin, it’s so nice to the touch. He smells so hot. Bergamot, cinnamon, and sweet, deep, rich and soothing sandalwood. „Girl, I’m your Candy“ gets a whole new meaning. Practice room memories. As if you aren’t wet enough already. 

By the last minute of the second track, Baekhyun is already hooked kissing your neck and does some very daring acrobatics with his tongue. And you thought the pizza would satiate him. Nope, he eats you up like a whole salad bowl of black bean noodles with three pounds kimchi and ten fried eggs stacked on top. In his own words I mean lyrics: Game over.

The desperation and nervosity adds even more sloppiness and hunger. These have got to be the lewdest slurping and sucking noises you’ve ever heard. You can’t help but curse the ugliest things. Something’s pretty damn hard through the front of his tux already. 

Baekhyun feels that you feel it and the kissing becomes even more frantic. His whole body says: Grind more. Please. Please.

By the time the fourth track starts, Baekhyun’s entirely wet mouth wanders upward. Here goes the French kissing madness. You glide your hips back and forth on his bulge, and his tongue is already winding inside of you like it’s advanced singing lessons. It’s so unreal that you have to grab hold of his upper arms to stay in place. Shit, this guy. 

You can tell that this… is his absolute forte. Nobody can fuck with Baekhyun when it comes to outrageous mouth and throat technique. Your tongue gets a sense of how confident he is in his lip service and works his way into it. Now you know how it feels when Byun Baekhyun pays back your attention. Holy Luigi’s Cannoli, he has so much fun. Way, way too much fun. Like Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

And that’s the last damn straw. Really, the last one. You can’t do this shit anymore. You ask for condoms. 

After freezing up for at least ten seconds, he nods his little head about ten times in a row. It’s as if he can’t actually believe it and didn’t just kiss the shit out of you with the hardest dick in history.

„Okay, I’ll—“

Baekhyun keeps them in a yellow puppy-shaped bag under the driver’s seat and takes three torturous minutes to get them from there since it’s underneath and behind other random things. Which means you get to look at his ass for said time because he is bent forward between the two front seats. It’s not like you’ve never seen Baekhyun from behind, but never this close nor in a suit as tight since he usually wears baggy things. So. He’s not just big in the front, then. For his build? That is Korea’s ass.

And the condoms? You expected they were in his tote or his suit within one reach and rip. Nope, Baekhyun did not leave the company building with intentions. He’s been managing this raging boner for a whole year and did not make any moves on you in his apartment where he could have had you on any available surface in two minutes. Baekhyun wasn’t close to even remotely ask for literally anything. He just sat there on the couch with restless legs, ruffled hair, and an open mouth while hearing you talk. You don’t want to imagine how intensely he must have gotten off. Which he, in fact, did. 

He didn’t deliberately plan sex in a specific place for the first date either. Instead, he was prepared for— what exactly? A slight eventuality? Now that you think about it: Going by how he dressed himself, what Baekhyun probably thought he could get out of this was: A compliment. Even if all of your evening visits were nothing but hardcore sexual tension and this was the chance to bring that to an end. Let that sink in.

This guy’s self-control is not only astronomical, but also completely astounding given his usual character. In fact, you thought he would be entirely sovereign with this. How could he not? He’s Baekhyun!

Going by all that… You conclude that Baekhyun must really feel like he does not deserve you. His shame and self-denial must go through the roof. Given how his deeper insecurities have been in plain sight, it actually makes sense. Looks like you’re the one bringing them out, whatever it is that you do. It’s pretty tough knowing that you rouse something as vulnerable in him but it’s as good as it is bad. You find him very brave and incredible for letting it show. Honestly? It’s better than pushing through all of this pretending.

Plus — You really must have given him the impression that he can look but not ever touch. While that’s the entire opposite of what you want. 

To be fair: Having Baekhyun openly touch you in the company would have been a dangerous act. Even more so than say, you touching him, (which would have been somewhat possible, look at stylists and managers casually or work-relatedly doing skinship). Because that means that the availability his profession suggests to the world is no longer a thing and his mind is set on one person. Which, in his field, is social death. 

That’s why Baekhyun could only ever touch you by virtue of circumstances and whatever higher forces arranging accidents where he bumped into you. Talk about indirect ways. The universe gave you what you wanted, but in a way where there was always the excuse of bad luck and no possibility of other people finding out about your feelings. Risky love breeds risky circumstances.

The same with showing his body or knocking at your door to get your attention. He knows he can’t do that, can’t ask for it. So what happens? You accidentally walk in on him, or he crashes against your office entrance after slipping.

The same with treating you, spending time together, getting taken care of by you. Baekhyun found himself wishing for it. So it happened that you spilled your fries and he bought them for you all over, and he was begging for fried noodles so the opportunity to meet surprisingly came about. The accidents themselves both of you didn’t want nor deliberately stage, but you very much wanted the results of them. Directly you could not express your feelings, not even Baekhyun. That’s how it all came to be and now you see just how much he wants to be close to you in so many ways.

That he feels ashamed and undeserving — that shocks the living hell out of you. 

So, all right then, keeper. Time to show you otherwise. 

It’s crazy how he thinks you’re the one off limits and not him. Then again, he’s not the guy with the savage umbrella technique.

Since his hand is too shaky, you slip one on him and start to ride him without any further ado. You’re already leaking so what’s left to fiddle around about. No wasting any time here. 

The deal is as good as sealed. He feels fucking great inside of you and his wide eyes are the most rewarding thing. Whatever dimension Baekhyun just broke through, the level of whipped is not possible to be described with any human words. His hands are roaming over you pretty much without aim, you can tell your body is too much for him.

After he’s begging you to do it roughly, you grab him by the collar and fuck his soul out until he’s all gasping because his dick hurts. The song’s called Are You Ridin’ with good reason.

Baekhyun’s brains are long screwed out at this point, if not reduced to absolute green and purple jello. Is there actually any mind to lose at this point after you had your fingers in his mouth? Like literally, his favorite thing? Probably not. 

He bites down into his sleeve. Baekhyun is all knocked out by you by the time you get to your second orgasm, and reclines on the backseat bench to starfish the rest of the thing with his mouth hanging open at you. Hormone overload. His entire body shut down except the will to keep it up and not come. Yum, he is fit. Where he takes that godly strength from, only higher powers can tell. The Tree of Life, Zeus, Ten Chittaphon, I don’t know. 

He just has the kind of dick you can really bounce on. Really. Fucking. Hard. You are one spark of insanity close to run on autopilot. I don’t think anybody’s growled like this on him before. Nor was Baekhyun’s cock this close to falling right off, ever. 

This is not sex, it’s a crazy as fuck pounding, with Baekhyun on the verge of being blacked out with drool on his chin and his eyes rolling back. His fingers are absentmindedly trailing down your upper back and all he can utter is a small, yearning „please, please“ and gritting „don’t stop, please don’t stop…“ between his teeth. And hell, you have not a single reason to. Cue Captain America, I can do this all day.

When other people say smashing, whatever they’re referring to is not as smash as this. This must be the dirtiest, wettest slapping noise you’ve ever heard, and Baekhyun’s entirely uncontrolled moans will be forever etched into your memory. So melodic, so goddamn excited and desperate and all fucked out. He’s groaning so well, it’s like it’s meant for you.

By the third time you come, he’s crying and whining and has to cover his mouth not to scream out loud. You have no idea what your body is doing, but whatever it is, it’s taking Baekhyun out. Even you tire after some time, but you keep going. You imagine that every thrust is the meal and attention you wanna give to him.

That’s a lot of fucking and edging you get done in half an hour. Baekhyun’s tongue is hanging out afterwards and you went through a whopping three condoms. So much frustration finally released. Baekhyun’s gonna be emptier than Suho’s wallet after Sehun ordered a lifetime supply of bubble tea. 

You squarely avoid oozing your own cum onto his backseat with one hand. Good lord that creampie would ruin everything if he didn’t wear a condom. You’ve come a long way since colliding in the cafeteria, not gonna lie.

And thank God you’re not fucking somewhere in the company and the Audi is close to soundproof because this guy is LOUD. You need some good eardrums to handle these moans. Unhinged is an understatement. If this becomes a contest outwhoring each other, he’d win by a landslide. 

By the time you slip off, Baekhyun is on the verge to the dreamland, you milked every last drop out of him. Which means… 

…you get to drive an expensive as fuck Audi through Seoul. Your beatdown with the tube thugs you try to refrain from boasting about, but this one you are tempted to brag about to yourself for the next week. Well, in your mind. Just a little bit. It’s a great car. And you feel giddy in your body all over. That’s what sex with Baekhyun does to you. 

Seoul traffic is tame around this time. Half in his sleep, Baekhyun hums and sings on the driver’s seat. He’s all sober, but you made the guy act a lil’ drunk, huh. In his element, he talks and talks and talks and talks a little more. Then, does his tiny 'ㅅ' pup face and dozes for half the ride. Sleeping angel hours.

You can’t really scold him for passing out so fast in the slightest. As always, he went who knows how many extra miles just for you. That includes vowing to hand-wash his Oscars suit because it’s fucking ruined. Since the stylists are guaranteed to flame him, you send the fashion department a message how Baekhyun has to wear a different suit because he’s simply too dummy thick for this one, especially as far as the pants are concerned. Which is almost no lie and they will believe you. 

Much like his name suggests, Baekhyun does go hundred. At his apartment, you basically have to carry him into the bedroom. He says he doesn’t want to sleep. But you won’t kiss him goodnight after you pull off your jacket without a strong word on how his health has to be priority. He gets the point when you say you wouldn’t have had a first date without Baekhyun dozing off before your evening visit.

Sweet baby Jesus, you’d still be awkwardly slurping noodles without Baekhyun’s faux pas. If you look back at it: It’s all a story of accidents that turn out beautiful.

Sleep being Baekhyun’s reset button, that’s the best thing to do in order to give the night a good conclusion. Being alone in his apartment together, you don’t have to discreet about sleeping next to him after setting the alarm clock.

Mark Lee’s piping hot Americano is the culprit for all of this, but you thank him.

----

© 2017-2021 submissive-bangtan. all rights reserved. no reposts allowed.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

*Cackling* Now rank your ot3's!

*long sigh*

SECTION 1:

Yes, there are sections, this is a list of 20 things. I like to be organized. These ones I seek out. I like them. I actively enjoy them on purpose.

1. Roloceit: My BOYS. Are these my 3 favorites? perhaps. You can't prove anything (you sure can, just look at my goddamn Ao3). Something about the dynamics here is just...so good for me? The combination of fluff/angst/multi-talented braincells is wonderful. I need these three to watch a documentary and tear it to absolute pieces. Also they would be so good at...actually having methods of supporting each other??? I love them.

2. Analogince: in the same vein, the SNARK. THE SASS. THE GROUPCHAT THAT WE ALL KNOW EXISTS THAT IS SOO OVERLOADED WITH SALT THAT IT'S A DEHYDRATION RISK. Also healthy communication??? supportive signifs??? good shit

3. Anxcietmus: The Dark Sides™. Again, I think these three just get each other. That means great fluff and great angst possibilities ABOUND and especially when it comes to being a menace in the rest of the mindscape. Yes. Good. Have fun.

4. Intruloceit: Someone please make this nerd take a fucking break for once. The chaos of leading what you THINK is a stuck-up buttoned-up nerd only to feel such an odd mixture of pride and mortal terror at discovering a TRUE mad scientist. Yes. Logan deserves to go ape-shit. Let him.

5. Analoceit: Did someone ask for some amused gay judgement? You got the whole scale here, Distinguished, Functional, and Disaster. They don't need the group chat because they can do it with just a look. Perfect. Wonderful.

6. Intruloxiety: slightly less snark, which is why it's ranked lower, but I don't think it would be any less supportive. Between the three of them I think they'd have a conversation about boundaries right up front and constantly be checking in with each other. Which is good!! Please do this!!

7. Loroyality (am i making up some of these names as I go? yes): The Light Sides™! The reason this is ranked lower is because I think they've got some in-canon struggles that would take some time and effort (from errybody) to sort out before I would consider this relationship healthy, but after that? Forget it. We vomiting sushine and rainbows and our teeth hurt from how sweet they are. I have faith in them.

8. Royaliceit: *sniff sniff* did someone say ANGST??? This is the only one I put up here that I mainly look for to get angst because BOY HOWDY. Especially post-POF? Roman you poor thing why do I project so strongly onto you, my god. This is a MESS and they need to do WORK to FIX IT but it's all about the misunderstanding and the healing and oh my god please someone tell Roman his worth is not based on how well his work is received please. Also if you're like me and you subscribe to the headcanon that the last time Patton and Janus agreed on something it was to stay in the closet as long as possible...*choo choo bitches angst town here we come*

SECTION 2:

These ones I don't actively seek out but you know?? For a headcanon post? They seem pretty chill. Haven't devoted a lot of brainpower to 'em, just think they're neat.

9. Moloceit (my keyboard is so confused you guys): Now THIS. THIS is the obnoxious trio of philosophy majors that ALWAYS hog the good library table. Someone will say ONE GODDAMN thing and they'll be talking about ontology and subjectivity for hours. It's impossible to tell whether or not they're being serious when they do it. As a most-definitely-not-a-philosophy-student, no. I mean, yes but no.

10. Anaroceit: you know those fucking divas that strut into the mall like they own the goddamn place? These bastards. They are the Heathers (except actually decent people) and you will not get between them and their purchases. If you come after one of them the other will overprotective the fuck out of them and rip you to shreds. You might be worried sometimes that they're hurting each other but they do actually talk about their boundaries. solid 7/10.

11. Analogicality: (whoa, we're halfway there...): These three just seem like they'd be super domestic. Not that it wouldn't also be adorable, but just kinda...routine? Virgil doesn't like new shit, Logan likes a schedule, and Patton enjoys doing things together in 'traditions.' Some spice but they're all fairly level-headed so...the most they get is screaming out songs with the windows down (WHOA LIVIN' ON A PRAYER)

12: Intrulogicality: You know those scenarios where you got Person A who runs headlong into crazy bullshit, Person B who likes to pretend they're not as into the crazy bullshit as Person A but is, and Person C who gets dragged into shit? There you go.

13: Anxmoceit: I think once they all sat down and had a conversation they might actually be decent??? But I can't stop seeing Patton and Janus coparenting Virgil so it stays platonic in my head. (listen i don't kinkshame but i am aroace, that does limit me a bit when it comes to this bag of nonsense)

14. Intrumoceit: Again, LONG conversation, but it's better to have one crazy dumbass whom you both love but please stop giving up heart attacks every two seconds bb we can't deal with these palpitations. I think this would require SO much work on Patton's end to make this healthy that I can't see it very clearly.

15. Intrumoxiety: This one I put down here because while Janus isn't the best at being straightforward (or straight) he DOES understand himself enough to actually have a productive conversation when he has to. I think Virgil would be too caught up between the dynamic of Patton and Remus for it to be healthy for him, especially at the beginning. It would end up dumping too much of the conflict resolution into his court and uh...no. No thanks. Do I think they COULD make it work? Yes, of course, but I wouldn't seek it out.

16. Anaroyality: Uhhh yeah they exist. Y'all gotta do some work to establish good boundaries but yeah, I think you could do it. Have a makeup day where everybody just fucks shit UP at a Sephora or an Ulta and try crazy looks on each other. You could do it. I believe in you.

SECTION 3:

These are the ones I will actively avoid, more often than not. If they're not handled carefully--which is not the responsibility of other creators, I take full blame, this is just how I personally interpret them--they can squick me out. The ones with Roman and Remus are down here, and as a disclaimer, this isn't because I view poly relationships where not all parties are dating each other as inherently inferior, not at all. I just think that within a relationship where both Roman and Remus are dating the same person, that has the potential to go REAL bad REAL quick.

17. Intrulogince: Do I want to see Roman and Remus playfully competing to win the favor of our favorite nerd? yes. Do I think it would end up aggravating the rivalry they already had to really bad places? Also yes. Either with Roman backing off and internalizing the idea that he's not good enough or by exploding on both of them. It's a bad time. No. That being said, I have seen things where Logan is just spoiled by incredible things made in the Imagination and those are very sweet. a good time.

18. Intruprinxiety (that looks so weird when it's spelled out, oh my god it sounded so much better in my head): Again, exacerbating a pre-existing rivalry, oh dear me, and this time poor Virgil's caught in the middle? a mess. There is also the potential for them to be childhood friends to lovers which would be very sweet but the overlap with all of their combined histories are...a lot of baggage. Like so much.

19. Intruroceit: The only way I can see this happening is Roman's inadequacy issues and abandonment issues going THROUGH THE FUCKING ROOF and it would force Remus into being a pseudo-therapist for them and Janus your habit of messing with Roman needs to gtfo right the fuck now.

20. Intruroyality: is anyone surprised that this one is my least favorite? Between the squicks I get from Patton as a character, the relationship between Patton and both of the twins in canon, and how much baggage Roman and Remus have...no. Absolutely not. I have horrible memories of some very toxic relationships that I can absolutely see here and no.

*phew* that was a long one. you're welcome.

EDIT: thank you @shinekittenace for names seriously this post is a mess

[sylvermidnight]

An in depth look at HWS New Zealand

Name: Mikaere (Meaning godlike or one who is like god)

English Given Name: Howard (Howie) Kirkland

Human Age: 18

National Age: 180+

Gender: Non-binary (He/They)

Sexuality: Bisexual

General Appearance: Howie is around 5′5, they’re slight in stature but they can be big in presence. He is Māori, so his skin is a more warm brown than most of his “siblings” He somehow managed to inherit Arthur’s green eyes, something he regrets more than anything about his appearance. His hair falls in thick soft curls around his face, normally tucked back behind his ears. His face and body are splattered with freckles that get just a little bit more prominent when he’s been out in the sun for long periods of time. He has a large tattoo on his back, taking up most of it, and even dipping out across his hips and waist. The second tattoo is a band around his left arm. He also has a large scar running the length of his torso, and a smaller one cutting under his right rib. Aside from those he has many tiny ones across his hands and legs that heal up quickly from stupid stunts. He has a tongue piercing but he doesn’t always leave it in. He tends to fidget with it when he does. 

As for clothes he can be found on one of two extremes. Cottagecore or punk. He is fond of his soft sweaters and work boots. But he also can be seen sporting leather jackets and spikes. It all depends on the mood of the day. But he does typically give off an approachable vibe either way.

General Personality: They’re not exactly a quiet type for sure. They’re outspoken about their needs, wants, and opinions. He’s both a lover and a fighter. Taking care of his siblings when he can, but not hesitating to go to bat for them in a fight. Howie loves children and is always willing to babysit if another nation needs it. He’s a goofball at times, and pulls stupid stunts that can land him hurt or in trouble. He’s one of a few of the anglosphere children to yell in Arthur’s face, in some ways taking after Alfred.

Considered Family List:

Arthur Kirkland (England)

Jett Kirkland (Australia)

Alfred Jones (America)

Matthew Williams (Canada)

Jia Long (Hong Kong)

Ireland

Scotland

Tā moko:

The Manaia rests in the center of his back, surrounded by intricate patterns that somewhat tell his life story.

The Manaia represents the connection to the spirit world and the mortal, and is said to ward off evil. Howie got it right before leaving to fight in WW1 thinking it would protect him, and wanting to bring pride to his culture and home.

On his upper left arm rests the Pakati pattern in a thick band.

This marks them as a warrior and he got it before leaving for WW2. Older now, and independent he believed it was time to take that title as he had been involved with many conflicts leading up to this.

History and timeline:

The New Zealand Wars

Mikaere was born sometime before the coming conflict. Whom he was raised by up until that point is unknown. They do not remember them, and Arthur never met them. When Te riri Pākehā (Another name for the conflict) began Mikaere was still a small child. They don’t remember it all too vividly but they still resent it as it was the beginning of English control and the destruction of their native culture. It was during this time Mikaere was found by Arthur and for lack of a better term, adopted. He was renamed Howard, and took on the last name Kirkland. It was also then that he was moved off the island to best avoid the fighting and when he met his brothers. He bonded well with both Jett and Jia Long (Then anglicized Leon). But there is still a lingering resentment to this day for the happenings of this time period.

Early Childhood:

Howie was raised in the same house as his two closest brothers, and that created a strong between the three of them. Arthur was not the most attentive parent in the world and that lead to many issues growing up. They weren’t unhappy or lonely but they were often homesick and confused. When Howie was around eight or nine he met Alfred for the first time and it is still something they are confused about. Their older brother was much preferable to Matthew or even their father. But it still felt strange. Alfred often came bearing gifts and large boats and many loud and unpleasant people. And at dinner there would always be some sort of argument. He was too young at the time to understand that Arthur was still at odds with his eldest. Other notable events are; the continuation of Māori resistance, a visit from Germany, a visit from Japan, a surprise visit from Russia, and the first New Zealand built locomotive.

Gaining dominion status and the Great War:

After gaining dominion status in 1907 Howie was faced with a choice. They could either move out of Arthur’s home and return home permanently, or they could stay. Jett had gained independence in 1901, six years earlier, and he was home less and less. Out of guilt however Howie decides to stay and look after Jia Long, and at times, Arthur. He worried his father may not be able to handle losing another child. As WW1 crept closer on the horizon Howie prepared to go to war by receiving his first tattoo, the Manaia across his back. The disaster of Gallipoli left him scared as almost three thousand of his men died, he still holds resentment against Arthur for that, and slowly over time it festers. He goes on to fight, transferring to the western front and participating in the Battle of Passchendaele where 3,700 of his soldiers fell. This only added to the length of the painful and deep scar cutting across his heart and torso. Finally the war comes to an end, however when they return home new truths come to light. Arthur confesses to the details behind his name change and how he came to be in his care. This paired with the folly of Gallipoli was enough to make him break ties with his father figure and finally strike out on his own.

WW2:

Howie enters WW2 at Arthur’s behest and participates in joint operations with him for a time. They get their second tattoo, denoting them as a warrior. After the attack on pearl harbor war is also declared on Japan and Howie worries after his older brother significantly. As threats of a Japanese invasion rise Howie finds themselves at home more and more, taking on the role of medic for the first time and finding they rather prefer the position. In June of 1942 Alfred arrives and the two spend a lot of time together before his departure. He participates in the invasion of Italy not as a soldier but as a medic, having decided that is the role he prefers to play. Before the war ends he gains another scar, under his right rib. This represents the battle of Monte Cassino.

Then to present:

After that Howie attempted to avoid conflict. They’d rather not follow in their father or older brother’s footsteps. Though he continues to care for his family, as well as seek Alfred’s approval, he’s more set to look inward. For now he’s moved on to better days, finding a solid relationship with Yong-Soo, and applying for medical school which would be the first time he attended college.

Brief relationship bios:

Arthur:

The relationship is a parental one. Though not exactly solid. Howie loves him terribly but they often find themselves at odds with him. They blame him for a lot of his troubles and rightly so. Their childhood was not pleasant. But for all of the pain they still check up on him regularly. Making sure he knows he’s somewhat appreciated and not forgotten. They do their best to explain how they’ve been hurt and why things can’t be the way they were but it’s difficult.

See following fic for more elaboration:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30438327

Jett:

Jett is Howie’s closest companion and has been throughout their life. Despite being the younger sibling they take a defensive role over him and will fuck up anyone who tries to start shit. They were brought closer via abandonment but they made the best out of it. They’re too halves of the same idiot. Often Howie will get into trouble and Jett will take the blame for them, allowing Howie to keep up his innocent façade.

Alfred and Matthew:

Alfred is somewhat protective over them, while Matthew could not care less. Howie’s relationship with Alfred while distant, is solid.

Jia Long:

Jia Long is the third in Jett and Howie’s group of terror. While not as often involved he never passes up an opportunity to get into trouble with them and Howie often employs him on pranks targeted against Yao and Arthur. They sort of understand where the other is coming from. Not completely, but some of the experiences are the same, causing them to bond. Once again Howie is highly protective over him and will go to fists.

Ireland and Scotland:

I don’t have solid characters for either nation but I do know historically speaking they would have good relationships with Howie. Historically New Zealand has stood behind both of them when it comes to conflict with Britain and the immigration rate back and forth between both countries is very high.

That’s it for now but I constantly have brainrot about this kid so probably more at a later date.

[galespider]

I love love looovee you character Illidian! Could we know about his personality, or what his hobbies are, etc? (I am planning to play a half-tiefling rogue! So i love seeing other tieflings :D)

Oh, my god thank you for saying such things! I am really glad you love him! And I think you might made him flustered. Also, hey fellow Tiefling! :D

Illidian is your typical silent, serious type with a dark past but if you spark up a conversation with him that interests him, he wouldn't mind talking but he wouldn't say too much.

He's a Cleric of the Twilight Domain that follows under the Raven Queen due to circumstances that won his favor. Though, it costs him any attention from others besides those he travels with because of having a "Death Omen" around him. He's quick to anger when in combat though he doesn't bluntly show it like a Barbarian would. He would use his Clerical status to "purge" those and send them to the pits of Hell or meet the Raven Queen Herself.

His hobbies? Well, he likes to read about what people create from stories of places or the likes, creatures, etc. I honestly haven't really thought of much hobbies for him but just be there for his friends that stayed with him, especially his childhood friend, a Red timid Tiefling named Reoanaigh Sorrello.

Illidian follows under his master named Tirashim Ulurin who is a drow that is in charge of a Domain of Twilight Clerics. He took Illidian under his wing and treats him as his son when Illidian was found alone in a woods. Tirashim watches with a close eye because he knows of Illidian's inner plight but not what truly happened behind the scenes.

His mother, Aralaya Grace, was a jeweled craftswoman but she disowned him due to a certain event I really wish I can fully explain but it will be soo long to explain here QQ. His father, Drazmire Grace, was a con-man/Rogue decendant of Dispater who was arrested from (again) a certain event that transpired from Illidian's childhood. He was arrested because he decided to take the blame and cover his son. Illidian and his family lived semi poorly and he used to be very ill to where his father had to do everything in his power to keep his son alive.

And this is where the Raven Queen suddenly saved Illidian from his dying illness. But She's now bound to him much to his disliking from the cost of everything from his family, home, and who he was.

So sorry if this sounds really out of context! I don't really want to make this longer than it should have. But I really do appreciate you loving him so much! He is my first DnD character I have fully created and I will forever cherish my disaster child!

[toooldforfandom-liveblogs]

Gravity Falls S02E18 - Weirdmageddon Part I

I really like that name for the end of the world. I'm not sure what to expect from this one since this is literally new territory for everyone. My one hope is that Mabel gets forgiven easily but there has to be some drama, either for the twins or the Stans (since that relationship really needs some mending, and the end of the world seems to be a good place for that kind of thing.) I think that's all so let's do this!

If this is the first shot of the episode, things are going to get _weird_.

Wait. Wait. What.

Okay, had to go back and check Bill's summoning circle.

I completely forgot about this but I guess he needs all the symbols for something beyond summoning everything weird into this dimension? But why? Uhm.

Anyway, back in Dreamscaperers I wrote:

Glasses = The ones Stan found in the room with the magic carpet? Question Mark = Soos Ice - Fish with food? > Pine = Dipper Star with an eye  Hand = Whoever wrote the journals considering the symbol on their covers? Llama/Alpaca? Shooting star = Mabel Heart with stitches

Fish with food ended up being Stan's fez. I _think_ Heart with Stitches could be Robbie. Hand is obviously Ford. I'm still not sure about Glasses (they really look like Stan's glasses but... how would that work?) and Star (maaaaybe Gideon? The star appears in the ending cypher in S02E14.) The alpaca/llama and the ice are a complete mystery. Considering everyone of importance is in there already, maybe Wendy is one of those two?

Symbols aside, does this mean that Mabel is going to be missing until who knows when? That's a bit disappointing.

Imagine being able to choose any physical form at all and choosing to keep being a dorito.

Before I paused I was convinced this guy was some weird Nigel Thornberry cameo.

So, Bill has 10 friends, which is exactly the number of symbols in the summoning circle. Huh. Interesting.

Maybe it means nothing but their appearance feels so sudden that I feel they have to be important somehow.

Immersion ruined, the Northwests would never lower themselves and go "downtown"

What a trianglist, she had no problems with Mabel.

I imagine Wendy can't wait to go to college a thousand miles away from her family.

Death, Famine, War, Conquest and Capitalism.

That's horrifying. But he's a dick. What a moral dilemma. Nah, he really deserves it.

Why steal Durland? Huh. Maybe he's also one of the symbols? Or Bill is just being Bill.

Oh, oh, I know what they do!

What an intro, I'm 100% sold.

What can our protagonists do? I guess Ford has a plan, maybe the symbols are for unsummoning Bill and that's why he's collecting them so they can't do whatever ritual they need to do. Maybe Ford and Stan will be in a similar situation that made them fight 30 years ago, but this time they actually communicate and win? Mabel is out so I hope they rescue her (or she rescues herself) before too much plot happens.

I _love_ how much of an effect the changed OP had on me.

After watching 37 episodes with the same opening song any changes are immediately noticeable and it feels _wrong_. What a great way to show how everything is changing for the worse thanks to Bill.

It does make me wonder how Gravity Falls is going to recover though. It looks _bad_, bad enough that in any other show I wouldn't be surprised by a time-machine or a literal genie undoing everything bad that happened. I doubt that'll happen here, since the town itself is so used to the "weird" but if someone dies all bets are off.

YESSSS, Dipper doesn't blame her! I'm sure there'll be some self-blame later on but I'm so glad his first reaction was to be worried.

Why is Soos unaffected? Is it related to his presence in the summoning circle? Looking for unaltered people may be a good way to find who are the missing symbols.

Soos deserved more episodes, what a hero

Has there been any positive romantic relationship in Gravity Falls?

Wendy and Dipper was an unrequited mess, Mabel and all her crushes were all disasters of some kind or another, the less said about Wendy and Robbie the better, and Tambry and Robbie is the result of the twins messing with their minds without their consent. Oh, and Gideon and his murderous crush on Mabel.

I love that tiny shiny dodrio.

I didn't need to know that Bill's hat was meat and bones.

What? No! Warnings later, explanations how to defeat a demon now!

This is the first time he calls Dipper by his symbol, right? He also called Ford "six fingers." The writers really wanted everyone on the same page here about making the relation between the symbols and the characters.

...I refuse to believe that the eye piece meant nothing with how much it has been shown!

Weirdmageddon sounds much better.

Wow. He has been wandering around for three days, probably having to scavenge for food and water. These kids are really going to need a therapist after summer break is over.

For some reason I find that guy more disturbing that most of the weirdness in this episode so far. He just sounds very predator-y.

...oh Dipper, those nachos are three days old at best. So young, so ignorant of the consequences of gastroenteritis.

...of course. I'm glad she's okay. She's been shown as a very badass so it would have been a shame if she was down without a fight.

But, but, rabies.

Can't wait for the weirdmaggeddon to be over and then immediately after everyone dying of infectious diseases.

So, how many post-weirdmageddon dipper/wendy fics did this scene inspire?

Robbie is conspicuously missing from that list

nevermind. Would have been an amazing selfie though, can't fault him for that

Aw. This got me a bit teary-eyed. They really can do anything if they are together.

Shame about Mabel being inside Bill's floating lair completely out of their reach.

What a raw deal, last game I played with twins on it they l– actually, never mind, spoilers. But it was really cool, believe me.

It looks like the mission briefing for a stealth game so, in my case, I'd try to avoid the lights, fail miserably a thousand times and then rage quit. Hopefully Dipper is better at stealth.

Making the world weird?

Wouldn't they know what's going to happen? Since there seems to be only one timeline? Actually, nevermind, I'm too sober to analyze the time travel mechanics of gravity falls.

Time Baby was the most powerful entity in the show so far! Stakes have been raised.

RIP Bodacious T, we never go to know you.

Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015

Two months being a villain and he still hasn't learned to avoid monologuing.

Don't worry, Gideon. It took Steven Universe 6 years to grow a neck, you'll get one someday.

Huh. So Bill manipulated him by using his obsession for Mabel. That's a nice way to explain why it came back after so many episodes without mentioning it too much.

Ugh.

She's a genuine action movie heroine trapped in a cartoon

I have no idea how Wendy manages to get more and more badass this season.

Right!? Right!? Wow.

Holy shit, this really is Fury Road.

that's deep, man

Ah, that explains it. Nothing more dangerous than a philosophy major.

Hatoful Boyfriend, 2014

My mind is exploding right now. I wasn't ready for anime Dipper and Wendy. What are the monkey and kid in the backseat referencing?

Lady Gag– nah, I refuse to use the same joke three times in the same liveblog.

* screams in terror too *

What a shame that we couldn't see the birth of the legend of Soos.

I can't believe Dipper is using the "Power of Understanding" to talk Gideon down.

This is really good. I almost want to joke and say "but it wasn't worth the Wendy/Dipper episodes" but it actually does make them work in retrospect. It's probably the largest source of character growth for Dipper during the show and here's the payoff.

I mean, yes.

WHAT

HOW DARE YOU

GAME IS OVER, AND I WON

NOW IT'S TIME TO START THE FUN

I ALWAYS LOVE CORRUPTING LIVES

NOW LET'S SEE WHICH PINES SURVIVES

well, that's nice.

---

I wasn't sure what to expect from this "Part 1", I thought it was going to be mostly setup. And it had a bit of that, just to show how screwed Gravity Falls (the town) is, but after that it was all action and it was all good.

I think getting Ford out of the way early was a good idea, it removes the possibility of a quick solution. Now Dipper has to figure things on his own. He still needed Wendy to remind him of what he and Mabel are capable of but that's a friend offering help, not "the mentor" giving him the answer to the problem. On the other hand, while Stan hasn't appeared after the goat, he hasn't been captured yet (he's important enough to deserve an on-screen capture, unless it's going to be revealed as a demoralizing surprise?) so I think he'll appear soon since he's just a guy, without any special knowledge about Bill.

Soos really deserves his own show. "The Legend of Soos" Or give Wendy her own show with Soos as the mysterious stranger that appears from time to time to help. Because wow, Wendy is lost in this show, she should be the protagonist of something.

But the star of the show was Dipper talking Gideon down. I _really_ didn't expect that. This is not a show where the protagonists defeat their villains by talking to them (with some exceptions) so I thought they'd defeat him in some other, more violent, way. And the way he uses the "Power of Understanding" to do it (go read Scott Pilgrim)! While Dipper never got to that extreme, he "gets" it and that's just * chef kiss *

I can't wait for the next episode, especially because this one ended in a cliffhanger, so until next time!

[horde-princess]

omg 17 would be perfect

Sorry this took so long! I’ve been soo busy and kinda distracted with the new season ✨ There are still a few prompts in my inbox, plus Home Is A Lonely Place, not to mention all the meta i still wanna write sldjfskj there’s a lot going on

but anyway i yelled when i read what 17 was tysm for sending it!!! 💖 this is filled with angst and does get a little spicy so. take care of yourselves out there

17. Needing to kiss to hide from bad guys

Adora twisted against her handcuffs uselessly, wrists chafed and bloody, before finally giving up and dropping her hands into her lap. Her head was buzzing with fatigue and hunger, her muscles ached from spending the night in a Horde prison cell that was about as comfortable as a bed of nails. Still, it offered a semblance of safety, and for that she was grateful–since every second spent trapped here was time that she might have spent being, well, dead.

The Rebellion defense had been a total disaster. No, that was a lie–Adora was the only one to blame. She let Catra manipulate her again, choosing to save her friend’s life even knowing it would result in defeat. Why Hordak took her captive instead of killing her on the spot was a terrifying mystery that Adora preferred not to unravel right now. She couldn’t let fear paralyze her. She had to think of a way to get out of here. She had to get back to Glimmer and Bow, she had to help her friends–

A sudden movement in the darkness outside her cell startled her. She sat up straight against the wall, blowing loose hair out of her face. Whatever they did to her, she wouldn’t let them see her spirit broken.

But the shadowy figure was… familiar. Adora’s heart rate picked up and she watched as the door slid open to reveal the only person who actually did have the power to break her. 

They stared at each other for a moment, Catra’s expression unreadable. Adora was expecting insults from her, or mockery, but… none came. Truthfully, she looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Catra frowned, marched over, and yanked Adora up to her feet by the handcuffs, causing her to hiss in pain.  

“Let’s go.”

When Adora resisted, Catra gripped her arm painfully and dragged her out of the cell anyway. Her animosity never ceased to feel like some kind of fucked up hallucination.

“Catra, don’t do this!”

“Would you shut up?” she snapped. “If you get us caught, we’re both dead.”

She released her and pulled out a tablet, glancing nervously around the empty atrium.

“Wait… what do you mean ‘if we get caught?’”

Catra grit her teeth. She touched the screen and there was a quiet click as a door near them unlocked.

“I’m trying to get you out of here, dumbass.”

Adora felt like the world just slipped off its axis. She must have been more exhausted than she’d realized because there was no way she’d heard that right. But hope clawed at her insides anyway, demanding and vengeful, struggling to escape the little coffin she had shoved it into long ago and buried six feet underground.

“You’re… helping me escape?”

Catra shot her a glare then started walking again, pulling Adora along with her. Hostility emanated off her in waves. They passed through the doorway and started down a deserted corridor, broken lights flickering eerily. 

“But why?”

She rounded on Adora, stoic anger turning fierce. “Do you know what Hordak wants to do to you?!” she whispered. “He’s not just going to kill you, Adora! He wants to torture you, corrupt your powers–prod you like a lab rat until there’s nothing left.”

Adora had guessed as much, but that wasn’t really what she meant.

“I don’t get it, isn’t that what you wanted all along? I mean… you’ve been trying to get rid me ever since I…”

Left. Abandoned you. Ruined everything. She didn’t know how to say it aloud. 

Catra was quiet for a moment, then she sneered.

“No one gets to take you down but me. Got it? Especially not fucking… Hordak. And if I can ruin one of his plans while I’m at it, all the better.”

There it was again, fluttering madly in the deepest recesses of Adora’s chest. Hope.

“But why not just take me out now?” she pressed, wishing Catra would just tell her the truth, for once. “I don’t have my sword, I’m powerless.”

“Yeah, well, exactly!” Catra sputtered. “You’re all chained up and pathetic right now. It wouldn’t be a good fight.”

“…Catra–”

“We just have to get to the–Shit. Someone’s coming.”

Searching frantically for an escape, Catra pulled her into a niche in the hallway. 

The space was tight and dark, and Adora could feel Catra’s shallow breaths, and every accidental touch of their bodies sent a wave of anxiety screeching down her spine like nails on a chalkboard. All at once she realized exactly what Catra was risking by trying to save her. If she got caught… it would be the end of her.

The guards’ voices drifted over to them, getting closer. There must have been three of them, maybe more.

“…weird signal coming from the prison block.”

“No, it’s three in the damn morning. It must be a glitch.”

Catra took a steadying breath. “There’s no way they won’t see us here. How many can you take?”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just take down some armed gunmen with my hands cuffed.”

Catra groaned quietly, clenching her fists, and Adora could see the wheels in her head turning. Then her body went slack and her eyes filled with what could only be described as… horror.

Unmitigated horror. 

Adora blinked at her.

“Catra?–”

“We have to kiss,” she breathed.

Adora’s brain slowly faltered to a stop like an overworked motor.

“…Um. What.”

“Think about it! Why else would two teenagers be hiding in a dark corner in the middle of the night? If we can play it right, maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

The voices were getting louder with each passing second and Adora was experiencing a strong wave of nausea. 

“You can’t be serious,” she rasped.

“Well I don’t hear you coming up with any bright ideas!”

The shuffle of boots echoing down the hall suddenly stopped.

“Hey, did you hear something?” A woman’s voice said, her flashlight beam sweeping near them.

Catra held her breath and Adora did the same, feeling like the blood in her veins had been replaced with electric current.

“Check the door over there.”

Catra was so close, and so warm, and so Catra; and if she closed her eyes she could imagine they were just kids again, sneaking around the Fright Zone, getting into trouble together. She could forget everything that had happened the past few months, all the pain they had caused each other. She could forget this was a life or death situation. She could forget that Catra hated her fucking guts.

…Though, apparently, not quite as much as she once did.

“Nothing here, boss,” one of the guards said.

“Keep moving, I know I heard something.”

It was dark, but not dark enough to hide them once the flashlight illuminated the space. As soon as the guards walked past them they’d be spotted. They’d be asked to identify themselves, if they didn’t already know their faces… fuck.

“…It has to look convincing,” Adora choked out.

Catra met her eyes, expression carefully neutral. 

“Take off your badge.”

Catra did as instructed. Adora moved behind her so her back was to the wall, hiding her tied hands from view. The guards were closing in fast. Catra’s face suddenly turned pale.

“You know what? This was a stupid idea.”

“Huh?”

“There’s no way they’ll just let us go… what if–I could take them myself, right? I  fight giant killing machines all the time–”

“Catra, they have guns–”

“Or I could tell them who I am, say I was just taking you to the–”

“Catra!”

The guards were feet away and the light was sweeping towards them and before she could think too much about it Adora surged forward and crushed her lips to Catra’s.

The earth seemed to drop out from under her.

God, it was so… wrong. It was fake and bitter and poisoned and fuck, it shouldn’t have happened like this, it shouldn’t have happened like this.

It took a second for Catra to respond, but then Adora felt her moving deliberately to make it look natural. She wrapped an arm around her waist, roughly pressing Adora between the wall and her body. The whole thing lasted for all of two seconds before she sensed a light shining on them.

“Oh–”

“What–”

“Shit–”

Adora’s head spun as Catra pulled her lips away and turned to address the guards, keeping her hands on Adora and her body pressed close. She was functioning at about a half a percent mental capacity and couldn’t begin to imagine how Catra was handling this so easily.

(Maybe it hurt her ego. So what?)

“The fuck?” Catra griped loudly. “Can we get some privacy?”

“Sorry, ladies, there’s been a security breach and–we didn’t mean to, uh–we’re supposed to check your badges–”

“We’re a little busy, here,” she interrupted, flipping them off as she turned back to Adora with a dangerous smirk. 

Her previous distress was all but gone now, masked over with an exaggerated confidence. She gave Adora a meaningful look, then leaned in and caught her lips in a sensual, open-mouthed kiss. And now that her brain had caught up with her body… Adora was on fire.

The guards, the prison, the Horde, the Rebellion–it all disappeared in a puff of smoke as Catra’s tongue twisted with hers, two opposite forces coalescing, and nothing in the world mattered but this, nothing existed apart from this. If Catra were to stop kissing her, she thought the fabric of her universe might rip apart. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered the guards walking away, but Catra wasn’t stopping the kiss, and every touch, every swirl of her tongue was bringing Adora closer to some kind of breaking point. Catra slipped a thigh between hers and a soft moan escaped her, she couldn’t control her body’s response anymore, and it definitely wasn’t part of any act.

Catra must have realized that, too, because she immediately pulled back to look at her, wearing the most smug expression Adora had ever seen on someone. Heat rose in her cheeks as reality slowly pulsed back into focus. 

The guards were gone. The universe was, somehow, still intact.

“If you wanted to get me alone, all you had to do was ask, princess.”

Asshole. Adora wanted to smack the mocking grin off her face. Too bad her hands were tied.

“What–I don’t–Screw you! That was way past ‘convincing!’”

Catra cocked an expectant eyebrow and Adora relented with a sigh.

“Sorry. I… I know you’re just trying to help me.”

For some reason that made Catra’s smile fall. She leaned in again, lips close, her scent washing over Adora, smokey and intoxicating.

“Is that what I’m doing?”

They locked eyes for a long, tense moment. The taste of her lingered on Adora’s tongue and her heart was pounding so hard she was afraid Catra might hear it. There were no guards, no threats… it was just her and Catra this time. Catra, the person who had vowed to destroy Adora and everything she cared about. Catra, who was supposed to be her enemy. Catra… who was currently saving her life. 

“We should…” Adora licked her lips. “We should go.”

“Yeah,” Catra agreed.

But the second Catra’s eyes fell to her lips Adora was pushing forward and kissing her for the third time that night, giving into something furious and insane and probably inevitable. Catra sighed into her mouth as her hands raked down Adora’s body and she struggled against the handcuffs, not even feeling the pain of it, just desperate to touch her, and–fuck–this wasn’t fair–

Reading her mind, Catra raised Adora’s arms above her head and pinned them there with one hand, the other moving down to lift her leg around her hip. Adora swallowed back a whine as Catra pressed flush against her body–her kiss urgent now, consuming–and Adora arched into her, giving up any pretense of dignity or self-control. She was unraveling more with every new touch and she decided she didn’t care how fucked up this was anymore… she didn’t care if Catra was manipulating her, whether she hated her or not–what did it even matter? There was such a mess of emotion between them, it was impossible to make sense of, and if this was how it manifested in Catra, she really didn’t mind. 

Then, with a harsh movement–seemingly out of nowhere–Catra broke the kiss.

It was like having the wind knocked out of her. Adora slowly came to her senses and felt how Catra was struggling to control her breathing, fingers trembling against Adora’s jaw. The silence stretched between them. When she finally spoke, her voice was dark and… devastated.

“…What are you doing to me?”

Adora didn’t have an answer.

Catra’s grip on her loosened, she stepped away, and it left Adora feeling ice cold in the absence of her touch.

“Catra, I…”

What could she say? That she was sorry? She wasn’t. She was selfish, and stupid, and cowardly, but absolutely nothing in her was sorry. 

Not for this, anyway.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Catra stated rigidly.

Adora wasn’t sure which one of them she was trying to convince. Still, the weight of the words crushed her. She had nothing left, her cards were all on the table. If Catra were to ever use this against her… she almost laughed at the thought.

Catra turned away from her and walked out into the hallway, but Adora was afraid to move, afraid to shatter the illusion.

This doesn’t change anything. The words echoed in her mind over and over again.

“So that’s it?”

A beat of silence.

“Yeah.”

Catra looked back at her and jerked her head towards the exit, then walked away without waiting for Adora to follow. 

[lovixcore]

comfort (amedot fic)

One-Shot

Summary: Peridot and Amethyst talk about Rose and Pink Diamond being the same person.

Notes: This does take place between 'The Question' and 'Made of Honor' as Amethyst does tell Peridot that Ruby and Sapphire are getting married.

Word Count: 2849 words

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15673845

Amethyst barged into the bathroom, something that Peridot was quite used to since she did it somewhat frequently. It didn’t really annoy her because for some reason, a reason Peridot did not know, it made Peridot smile every single time she did it. “Hey Pier!” Amethyst smiled at the smaller gem, slowly but gently shutting the bathroom door. She then walked over, and climbed into the bathtub, sitting down next to Peridot, who was holding Pumpkin in her arms.

In response to Amethyst’s new nickname for her, Peridot raised an eyebrow, narrowing her eyes. “Pier?” She questioned the quartz, the tone of her voice laced with confusion.

“Yup! It’s m’a new nickname for ya,” Amethyst chatted, as she looked at Peridot with a radiant smile across her face. She then wrapped one of her arms around the green gem, and brought her closer, “Like it?”

“Of course I do.”

Amethyst giggled and ruffled the green gem's hair, "Good." A silence befell the two of them, as an attempt to save the conversation, Amethyst awkwardly started again, "...So, I haven't seen ya in like a day or two.. or something like that," Amethyst pointed out, the tone of her voice starting to change from a bright and happy tone of voice to concern, as she released Peridot from her hold. She tilted her head, "...You okay?"

“Oh. Um, yes, I am doing okay. Though I did hear the ruckus out there, and I figured, that, it would be best for me to stay out of it,” She explained to the quartz, who was rather concerned about her. Amethyst always made sure she was okay, and comforted her when she wasn’t, and for that, she was forever grateful to have Amethyst as a friend.

“Oh, yeah..,” Amethyst said, looking away from Peridot. She now sounded unusually quiet and distant. “That.”

“If you, um, do not mind me asking.. May I ask what was it?” Peridot asked, as she was now curious about what had happened earlier, but hoping she hadn’t upset Amethyst by bringing it up.

“Yeah, you’re fine dude, don’t worry about it. So, basically, we all found out that Rose and Pink Diamond were the same person. Like, she faked her identity and lied to everyone about it. Right? So, that got Garnet to split up, then Sapphire freaked out, and hurt Ruby’s feelings by basically saying their whole relationship was, y’know, based on a lie, and then Sapphire ran off. Then Ruby ran off, Sapphire came back, and after Ruby thought about it, she still wanted to be with Sapphire, so they reunited, and Ruby proposed to Sapphire, so now they’re getting married, I guess. I hope that doesn’t confuse you or anything, I’m.. not really the best at explaining stuff. Y’know?”

“What..?” Peridot asked, now completely shocked and a little mind blown at the information Amethyst had just given her. She now stared at the quartz, wide-eyed, as she was trying to comprehend what Amethyst had just told her. Rose Quartz, THE Rose Quartz, is Pink Diamond? Garnet almost split up for good? Ruby and Sapphire are getting married? Whatever that meant. What?

“Yeah..,” Amethyst sighed, with an unreadable look on her face and the tone of her voice sounding rather upset. She then crossed her arms and tilted her head upwards, managing to avoid making eye contact with Peridot, again.

“...Married?” Peridot questioned her, tilting her head as she gave Amethyst a confused look. She did not really what the concept of marriage was. No one ever bothered to explain it to her and it never really mattered whether she knew or not because why would it?

“Oh, right, I forgot. You don’t really know what marriage is,” Amethyst remembered as it had just dawned on her. She then looked back at Peridot, “Soo, to put it into nerd terms, it basically like ‘the state of being united as spouses in a consensual relationship that is recognized by the law’ or whatever.”

“Oh uh okay. So, will there be an event held for this occasion?”

“It’s a called a wedding, ya dork,” Amethyst responded in a now playful tone of voice, half-smiling at the technician that sat next to her. “Gee Peri, I thought your soap opera show or your tablet woulda taught ya this stuff by now.”

“Well, clearly neither of them did. Why would they?” Peridot quipped, slightly irritated with Amethyst’s sarcastic comments. She then crossed her arms, and shot Amethyst a small glare in response. Frankly, it wasn’t Amethyst that was irritating her, it was just her bringing up Camp Pining Hearts to tease her that irritated her, as she was rather sensitive to the topic at the moment. It then went quiet for about a minute or two. Peridot finally broke the silence between them by saying, “I have heard about Pink Diamond before. Though no one really mentioned her other then the fact that she was shattered by the Rose Quartz.”

Amethyst then again went back to avoiding making eye contact with Peridot, and crossing her arms, “Yeah… turns out that wasn’t true..”

“So… Steven now has Pink Diamond’s gem?” Peridot asked her.

“Yep…,” Amethyst answered, the tone of her voice growing remote. Detached. “Heh. I mean, it sucks, but, she did it for a reason.”

“Yeah, and look how that turned out, Amethyst. Her faking her shattering, and then to continue to lie to everyone about it resulted in thousands of gems being shattered, forced gem fusions, corruption, the earth becoming a huge target for Homeworld, era 2 being a total disaster so far, possibly the current resource crisis on Homeworld, and so much more I can’t list off the top of my gem right now,” Peridot explained to her, making hand gestures as she listed how Pink Diamond faking her shattering negatively impacted both Homeworld and the Earth.

“Oh yeah.. That too..”

“So, how are you feeling, Amethyst?” She asked the purple quartz, who had been acting rather off over the past few minutes, as she had now suddenly realized that Amethyst was deeply hurt by the revelation, and she probably needed someone to be there for her and comfort her right now.

“Fine… I guess.. Just.. At first, I was shocked because, y’know, Rose is actually Pink Diamond… but now it just really hit me..,” Amethyst mumbled under her breath, the tone of her voice changing from distant to pained. “That everything was.. Fake.”

“Well, technically, not everything was fake. Although she faked her personal identity, her intentions, relationships, and everything else was not,” Peridot tried to explain to her, hoping that what she was saying was at least somewhat comforting Amethyst.

“I guess…,” Amethyst sighed, the tone of her voice not changing whatsoever. She was now resting her head on the palm of her hand. “It’s just, I dunno, weird.. Y’know? Like, for the past 5000 years, I’ve known her as Rose Quartz, former leader and one of the founders of the Crystal Gems, someone I looked up to, but I guess this whole time.. We were fighting what she was apart of. What am I supposed to think of her now, Peridot?”

Peridot flinched at Amethyst calling her by her whole name. She was surprised because she wasn’t really used to it, and it was the way that Amethyst had said it. “Well, it is perfectly understandable to be conflicted about your thoughts and feelings on Rose Quartz now. So, why did she take on the identity of the Rose Quartz?” Peridot asked her, as she seemed genuinely curious about the whole thing. All of it was so interesting to her, and she just wondered why Pink Diamond would even think of such a thing.

“I dunno, I guess she just wanted to have fun at first, and then I guess she fell in love with the Earth, and then in order to preserve the planet, she became Rose Quartz permanently and faked her shattering,” Amethyst shrugged, trying her best to explain to the rather curious technician. “Sort of reminds me of you.”

“How so?”

“Y’know. Fell in love with the Earth. Tried to preserve it.”

“Well, I didn’t fake my personal identity in order to preserve it, thank you very much,” Peridot gave her a lighthearted smile, as she spoke in a playful tone of voice. “And while, yes, I am in fact entranced by Earth’s beauty, that really isn’t the only reason why I am a crystal gem now.”

“Okay smart stuff, tell me, what are your other reasons?” Amethyst questioned her, in an almost flirtatious tone of voice. She gave her a smirk that came off as playful, challenging, her eyes now half-lidded, wrapping one of her arms around Peridot's shoulder, again.

“Well, for one, the human activities being one reason, another being how prejudiced, bigoted, rigid, unfair, and rigorous the diamonds are. And, the final being so I could be here with you, Pumpkin, and the others,”She responded. Her voice went soft at the end of her list for reasons as to why she was a crystal gem.

Singling out Amethyst got her to blush, in response, saying, “I like hanging out with ya too, Peri.” And now Peridot was blushing, as she felt her cheeks burning. “Ugh.., I know all of the drama and all is over now.. But.. I guess… it just really hurts.” Peridot’s eyes widened at the surprise of Amethyst’s walls finally breaking down. “Even though I didn’t know her for as long as Garnet and Pearl did, and even though none of this is my problem or yours or Steven’s, and even though this really shouldn’t affect me, I guess, it just hurts, because, y’know, I was lied to. I thought she was so great and amazing, and that she knew everything, and that she was supposed to make everything better! Cause hey, I practically thought she was perfect! But, she didn’t. She didn't make everything better..because she ended up being the reason for so many shitty things happening… And I don’t really even blame Garnet for being upset, or even questioning why she’s together in the first place if Rose wasn’t even real.”

And at that moment, Peridot had noticed a few tears strolling down the emotionally distressed gem’s face. Her eyes widened, now unsure what to do. She had never seen Amethyst this upset, except for when she kept comparing herself to Jasper. And it hurt Peridot seeing Amethyst like that, it hurt her seeing Amethyst so upset, it hurt her seeing the gem who she cared about deeply and the gem she would do anything for crying. “...Amethyst?” She asked, the tone of her voice being filled with concerned.

Amethyst quickly buried her face into her hands, to make sure Peridot couldn’t see her crying, as it was rather embarrassing for her. “I’m fine.. Peridot,” Amethyst lied in a muffled tone of voice that wasn’t so convincing.”

Amethyst then quickly buried her face into the palm of her hands, to make sure that Peridot couldn’t see her crying, as it was rather embarrassing for her. She didn’t want Peridot to see her like this, she didn’t want to make Peridot feel bad over how she felt. “I’m fine.. Peridot,” Amethyst lied through her teeth, in a muffled tone of voice that wasn’t so convincing to Peridot.

“You’re clearly not..”

“I am.. Okay? Don’t worry about it.”

“Then why are you crying?”

Amethyst then slowly lifted her face from her hands, turning around so she could directly face Peridot. There were tears running down the side of her face, as she gave Peridot a pained and saddened look. Peridot scooted closer to her, wiping the tears off of her face, and then absentmindedly cupping her cheeking. Amethyst jumped, her cheeks turning into a darker shade of purple, rather surprised Peridot being bold enough to cup her cheek, but then sighed into the touch. “I just.. I don’t want to make this about myself. Okay? I didn’t know her for as long as Garnet and Pearl did. I didn’t know her like they did. And I don’t have her gem like Steven does. I don’t have to deal with the mess she created like he does.”

Peridot then brushed Amethyst’s bangs aside, continuing to comfort the quartz by saying, “But, you’re not making this about yourself, Amethyst. It’s okay for you to feel hurt by this, it’s okay to feel sad about it. It’s perfectly understandable, you were very close to her too.”

Amethyst then gave her the most tender look, gently putting her hand on Peridot’s hand, the hand that was cupping her cheek. This Peridot to slightly smile and give her a lopsided smile in response. Amethyst’s smile then faded, and she was now avoiding making eye-contact again, “Sorry for dumping all of this on you P-dot.”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it too much, because you’re not. And, even if you are, I-I like being there for you, and getting to make you feel better,” Peridot stammered, suddenly kind of nervous, as she didn’t want to make Amethyst feel like she was being a burden or like she was bothering her, because she wasn’t.

“Pft, okay. Thanks for letting me vent to ya, Per,” Amethyst snorted, a warm and radiant smile now returning to her face. “So, lemme ask you this, when’da ya get so good at this comforting stuff?”

“To be perfectly honest with you, I guess I got it from being around you and the others,” She shrugged in response, not really actually knowing. She wasn’t the best at comforting Amethyst the time when she was upset about Jasper. She tried her best, but it didn’t really help. Maybe she got better from dealing with Lapis for awhile and having to comfort her when she was upset. Maybe she got better from staying with the gems again, and seeing how they comfort others when they’re upset. She really didn’t know.

“Eh probably,” She said as she smiled lovingly at the technician, then wrapping one of her arms around her shoulder again. “So, was the ruckus and the drama the only reason you hid in here?”

“No, not really, actually. I’ve just been thinking as I have had a lot on my mind recently,” Peridot truthfully answered, the smile on her face turning into a frown, looking at Amethyst with a sad but almost shy look in her eyes. There was no point in lying to Amethyst. Why would she?

“Like what exactly?” Amethyst asked out of curiosity. The smile on her face then faded, as it was now her turn to let Peridot vent and make her feel better.

“I.. miss her. And a part of me wishes that she could be here so I could show her how far my metal powers have progressed, how much I’ve grown, and I wish that she could be here for the wedding,” Peridot as she vented to Amethyst. This got the look on Amethyst’s face to change from concern to dismay. She really didn’t mean to give Peridot this look. But she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t even upset or annoyed with Peridot for bringing Lapis up again or still missing her. She couldn’t be. Amethyst understood why she did, she understood that Peridot cared a lot about Lapis and wanted the best for her and wanted to help her. She was rather upset and annoyed with Lapis for hurting Peridot the way she did. “But, I can’t keep on missing her like that, she held me back, and missing her like this is holding me back now. I am now doing things that I would have never been able to do if she was still here, on Earth. And I had to bend over backwards for her just to make her happy, and frankly, that was not healthy for me, at all. Besides, I have you guys now, and truthfully, I love hanging out with you and getting to do things together like gardening and improv.”

Amethyst gave Peridot one of the softest smiles she had ever given her, “Well, I’m really proud of you for realizing that, Per. And I’m glad you’re talking to me about this stuff.” She then got up and took a step out of the tub. “Well, I’m gonna go see what’s going on out there. You wanna come with?” She held a hand out to Peridot as an offer to help her up.

In response, Peridot smiled back at her, lovingly and softly, taking her offer by grabbing her hand, “Yes. Thank you.” Amethyst then carefully and gently helped her up and out of the tub.

“Per?”

“Yeah?”

Peridot felt two bigger arms wrapped around her back. Amethyst then pulled her in and rested her head on Peridot’s shoulder, softly but quietly saying “Thank you..” into her ear.

The color of Peridot’s cheeks then turned into a light blue, as she said back “You’re welcome” in a soft and adoring tone of voice, embracing the hold by wrapping her arms around Amethyst.

[amysantiagoisfone]

When I’m with you

Based on “I Like Me Better” by LAUV

special thanks for @sergeantames​ for proofreading and @detectivejacob​ for suggesting the song! 

Read on Ao3

(Psst, if you wanna suggest a song and a ship, my ask box is always open!)

--

Jake knew that this night could become a grand disaster from the moment Amy came into the restaurant. Knowing that the stakes were high on this date got his tongue tied and he wondered why he couldn’t keep his mouth shut about his feelings and just go on being miserable while Amy lived happily ever after with Teddy and their co-owned Pilsner brewery.

Yet here they were, no longer just colleagues, with eight kamikaze shots between them to crush down the barrier their computer screens back at the precinct built up.

“I’m just saying that you’d look bad with long hair!” Amy reasoned, her voice deafeningly loud after her second drink.

Jake stared at an old lady who shook her head behind his date’s back until she turned back to her own plate.

“And I’m saying that you’re wrong and that you would have had the biggest crush on me in highschool.” Jake continued, cocking an eyebrow while Amy took another bite of her plate, washing it down with water.

“Well, after a makeover, the whole awkward puberty phase, a haircut and another haircut- yeah, that can work” Amy grinned before she lifted her third shot, waiting for Jake to do the same.

“What are we drinking for now?” Jake asked. “We’ve already drank for haircuts on the last one.”

Amy let out a soft hum, looking up as if she was deep in thought. “To change,” Amy declared, their shots clinking as Jake’s smile softened. “To change,” He repeated, before he gulped down his shot.

--

“We are definitely too drunk to drive,” Jake observed, their hands intertwined together as Amy’s smirk grew mischievous.  

“I’m drunk enough to drive, baby,” Amy said in a sultry manner, wrapping Jake’s arm around her shoulders.

Jake looked at his date for a moment, taken back by the sharp imagery Amy’s voice guided him to. Her free arm wrapped tightly around his hip and the sharp scent of alcohol did more than graze his nose.  

Jake’s own head was spinning slightly, and even if his apartment was a short walking distance, he didn’t trust neither himself nor four-drink Amy to bind them to their rules at the moment.

Instead of flirting back with the endless remarks he could’ve thrown in after that, all Jake said was- “Taxi!” whistling and making a yellow car stop in front of them.

Once they got in, Jake told the driver Amy’s address, who was now resting her head against Jake’s chest, her hand tugging at his jeans mindlessly- or so Jake hoped.

He leaned his head back and swallowed the sour feeling of barf at the edge of his throat, but instead of the usual groaning and whining he’d be up to by now about how alcohol is evil and how his tummy feels like a washing machine that got electrocuted, he reached back and put Amy’s seat belt around her, lifting her head slightly so he could look at her.

“Ames? D’you feel like throwing up because I’d really want to have that window open if that’s the case,” To his relief, Amy shook her head no.

“Just sleepy. I can hold the vomit ‘till I get to my bathroom.” She assured, making Jake snort, his lips parting with a toothy grin. Who knew that caring for someone this much would be a great cure for being drunk?

“Yeah, I’ll just go and-” Jake mumbled, reaching over and opening the window anyways, just in case.

“Hey, Santiago,” Jake said, receiving a groggy “Yeah?” in return, her sleepy features mending into a smile as she looked up at him.

The way Amy’s eyes, usually wide and in-control looked at Jake, with a trusting, calm manner already gave him the answer to the question he didn’t have to ask. This date was as fun for her as it was for him.

“Don’t fall asleep on me now, okay? I won’t get you up the stairs and we’ll both have to sleep outside.” Jake said, a bit of warning in his voice.

“You’ll stay with me if I sleep outside?” Amy asked, her voice softer than it was before. Dreamier, in a way.

“I could just take your keys and sl-” Jake started, only for Amy to interrupt him.

“No,” She cupped his cheeks, kissing him quickly. “Stay.”

--

“Ugh,” Amy exclaimed, placing the giant glass of water Jake gave her on the coffee table, now empty.

“How are you feeling?” Jake asked, leaning on the wall with his own glass, trying to melt his headache away.

Amy didn’t have to answer as her eyes widened and her hands rushed to her mouth. She got on her feet and practically sprinted to the bathroom, Jake following suit.

It was now Jake’s turn to “Ugh,” Before he placed his glass on the sink counter, kneeling next to Amy and pulling her hair back.

“Any better?” Jake asked once Amy pulled herself off the toilet seat, running his hand through her hair, his eyebrows furrowed with worry.

“Yup. I am never drinking again.” She promised, reaching up to the counter so she could stand up.

Jake’s hand slid to Amy’s arm, balancing her while clinging onto the edge of the sink himself, groaning as he helped her stand in front of the mirror, only now noticing how bright Amy’s bathroom lighting was, pressing his forearm against his eyes. “Ames, brush your teeth, you’ll thank me later.” Jake said, blinking quickly as he got used to the horrible light, closing the toilet seat and flushing it.

“Fine, mom.” She rolled her eyes while Jake leaned back against the counter, staying close just in case Amy feels worse again.

Her eyes seemed more focused than before now that she had less booze in her system, and Jake snorted, his shoulders shaking with his suppressed laughter.

“What?” Amy asked around her toothbrush, cocking an eyebrow at Jake as she brushed over her front teeth.

“You are such a lightweight, god,” Jake muttered, and the now-flushed Amy responded with a smack on his shoulder.

“Ow, mean!” Jake said, pouting dramatically as he rubbed over his shoulder.

Amy took Jake’s glass, gurgling the water in it before she spit it out. She cleaned her toothbrush and put it in its’ place, turning to lean against the counter, next to Jake.

“Thanks. For the date, and for this.” Amy said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You too. I had fun tonight, and this goes on the good dates list…?” Jake asked, leaning his head to the side and waiting for Amy’s answer, which came as a nod.

“I think this is the only good date I’ve ever been through that ended well even if someone yarfed,” Jake said, Amy’s eyes widening as she shook her head, leaning it back with a strained moan.

“Oh my god, I’m never going to hear the end of it.” She got off the counter, starting to walk towards the door.

She didn’t get far before her head started spinning, so she sat on the toilet, letting out a heavy breath.

“Lightweight,” Jake repeated after he made sure Amy wasn’t hurt, leaning in front of her with a relieved sigh.

Once she looked up at him, Amy couldn’t help but let her hands wrap around his shoulders. Jake’s face was so close, all she needed to do was straighten her back to reach him.

The moment she did, Jake’s hands held her. One hand was on her side as the other stayed on her knee, fingernails pushing in against her dress slightly, probably out of surprise.

In her mission of getting closer to Jake, Amy pushed herself off the toilet seat, resulting in a loud bang as Jake’s back hit the open bathroom door. He ignored it, though, focusing on the fact that Amy’s fingers ran through his hair, her warm, fast breathing tingling his cheek.

“Wait- wait,” Jake said, squeezing Amy’s side so she’d listen to him. “We shouldn’t be doing this. We’ve both been drinking, and, and the rules-”

“Since when do you care about rules?” Amy said, cutting him off. She sounded surprised, and Jake didn’t blame her- He didn’t have an answer for that query himself.

He placed his hand on Amy’s arm, looking away from her. “I don’t want to ruin this. I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow and regret it.”

Jake shrugged, knowing that he couldn’t take his words back. There was one thing he didn’t know, though- whether he wanted to take them back. He waited for something between him and Amy to happen for so long that jeopardizing it for one night seemed impossible.

With the guide of Amy’s fingers on his chin, Jake looked up to see a smile on her face. A kind smile. A sure smile.

“And that’s how I know,” Amy muttered, her thumb grazing Jake’s cheek. “That I won’t regret it.”

Jake’s lips parted as he let out a sigh that got caught between Amy’s lips, both smiling into each other’s mouths.

--

“Hey,” Was the first word Jake heard that morning. Just a quiet whisper as he began to register the hand that held his shoulder, and the face that leaned over his own.

He smiled before his eyes even opened, busting his cover as sleeping.

“What time is it?” Jake asked, craning his neck to reach Amy’s lips, slowly turning to face her.

“Six thirty.”

“What?!”

“I know, I know! I shouldn’t have let you sleep in!”

Jake’s head pushed back, his lips in a grimace. “Okay, six thirty is definitely not sleeping in. You wake up like this every day?”

Amy smacked his chest, leaning her head on her hand. “Maybe you’d actually get to work on time if you didn’t wake up at a quarter to nine,” She reasoned.

“With the traffic in Brooklyn? I wake up at half past eight, babe.” Jake didn’t even think before he called Amy “babe”, as if it was something he did a million times already. Still, it put a smile on both of their faces.

When Jake leaned in to kiss Amy, she quickly got up. The blanket still wrapped around her, leaving him with his boxers and nothing more.

Amy picked up his plaid shirt from the floor before she shrugged it on, buttoning it up and making sure they were all lined up before she threw the blanket over Jake’s body.

His eyes, though, couldn’t get enough of Amy in his shirt, with a smile that caught him momentariously.

“So now I get the good side of waking up at six thirty,” Jake said, reaching his hand out for Amy’s, trying to coax her back to bed.

She let go of it soon enough, her tongue poking from between her lips as she went towards the door. “Get up or now or you won’t get breakfast!”

“Santiago, you can’t cook.”

“I can put cereal in a bowl with milk, Jake. There’s an NYPD shirt in that drawer over there that you can borrow.”

“I doubt that,” Jake muttered, mostly to himself, before he opened the drawer Amy gestured towards before she left the room.

--

“I still can’t believe you don’t even know how to make cereal,” Jake said once more, even after they were half finished with their bowls. They were both sitting crossed legged as they watched Arthur reruns, the only thing that wasn’t news this early in the morning.

“I put my cereal before the milk like a normal person, Jake.” Amy answered before she ate another spoonful of Cheerios, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“I just like the crunch, okay?” Jake reasoned, and he couldn’t help but smile as Amy did as well, shaking her head and looking down at her bowl.

This was something he could get used to fairly quickly. Amy in his clothes, arguing about cereal, the relaxation that dawned on him the moment he saw that she was okay.

“I feel like this isn’t the last time we’ll do this,” Jake said, smiling as he looked at Amy, finishing up on his own bowl of Cheerios.

“I’d say you’re right.” Amy turned towards him, kissing his cheek. She then leaned on his shoulder while Jake wrapped his arm around her, closing his eyes.

[alittleshocking]

Nightmare on Main Street (*) [Shanius feat. Mariel]

In which Shock and Lock cause some mischief on Halloween...

@littlcdvl, @princess-mei, @ariel-the-rebel

[tw -- violence (though mild, mostly scaring ppl), premeditated attack, graphic thoughts of violence]

LOCK: Halloween was the Adamsons’ night. Every year without fail, they got an itch. An itch that had to be scratched. And it was never their way for them to ignore it.

This year was different though. This year they were in Swynlake. A town full of magic that had its fair share of disasters sweep through its streets. You might have thought that one of these disasters would ruin their plans for mayhem tonight. But as luck would have it, tonight’s disaster seemed to be working in their favor.

They had decided to wear werewolf masks and go around scaring kids that ran into their path or get into character and cause some werewolf destruction. Busted windows, excessive ‘claw’ marks on doors, pro wolf graffiti - the works! It really was going as planned when the magical blast rolled through.

Lock had been working on recreating some claw like marks on a local business’s door when the magic swept over him. The transformation hadn’t been painful. Just - weird. One second, he was looking at his gloved hands, the next, said hands were giant paws. His new, large head whipped around, ears sticking up towards…Shock?

SHOCK: Shock had been pumped for Halloween, since, well, since they’d moved in the first place. This was the first Halloween where the Adamsons wouldn’t already be pinned for trouble and mischief. In Swynlake, they had more anonymity than just the wolf masks. No one would know to trace back anything they did to the Adamsons. As of yet, none of them had done anything of note. Mommy and Daddy were so proud of them. Maybe this move really was good, they said.

Meanwhile, Lock and Shock and Barrel plotted. 

It hadn’t been hard to choose werewolves as their victims. They were easy prey, ironically. Also, that one was a prissy rich boy who deserved to get knocked down a peg or ten. Shock hated everything about his smug face. He deserved to become a werewolf, in her opinion. He deserved to know how it felt to be mocked and ridiculed. Everyone did. It built character.

Though, it wasn’t anything personal, really. Werewolves were low-hanging fruit. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. 

Her fingers were black from spray paint and her boots muddy as they trudged from neighborhood to neighborhood, running all about town. 

When the magic swept over them, she was standing look out, down aways from Town Hall while Lock fucked with the door to the antique shop. The music could be heard all the way down the street, even though the building itself was out of sight. She saw the magic, though, a few seconds before it washed over them.

“What the fu--”

And then, she was suddenly down on all fours.

“What the fuck?” she said, but her voice came out as a growl. She blinked over towards her brother, except her brother wasn’t her brother, but a wolf--black and hulking.

“Holy shit! Lock?!” She laughed once, but it came out like a bark. 

LOCK: Lock matched her bark/laugh with his own at her. You had to be shitting him! No way! This was...this was too perfect. He walked around Shock - lighter and smaller than himself, he noted - tail flicking back and forth as his nose sniffed. Taking in all the enhanced scents around him. The paint smell still in the air. The sweet scent of candy close by. Even people, not far from them either .

A brilliant idea went off in his head as he looped back around his sister to stand beside her. 

“You smell that?” He asked, raising his head back up in the air, his large nose inhaling again. 

No wonder people were so scared of these things. They were natural born predators. Full with power Lock had never felt before. And he planned to make the most of it while this mishap lasted.

“Fresh meat,” He answered for her, turning his gaze down the street and he bared his teeth.

SHOCK: Shock wasn’t thinking about smells. She was still in the “holy shit I’m a wolf” phase of things. She had questions, you know? Was this permanent? What the fuck had just happened? She wasn’t necessarily worried about the answers, but she did want to know them. 

Lock trotted around her. Somehow she could still read the smug-impressed-with-himself look on her brother’s face. 

She tentatively copied him, lifting her snout to the sky, nostrils quivering. 

And she did smell something that made her start to drool. Her tail wagged once, despite herself. It dropped down the next second but she turned towards the scent, all those people partying in Town Hall. Though it wasn’t just humans, she didn’t think so. There were too many smells for that to be the case. Had they been turned too?

“Man, Swynlake must be on our side tonight because this is how you pull a prank. Man, I love magic. Hey, how much damage you think we could do like this.” She pulled her lips back in a wolf-smile, sharp teeth glinting.

LOCK: Lock was someone who had learned to roll with the punches in life early on. Sure, he had questions, but at the moment, none of them mattered. All that mattered was all the scents and other changes to his senses hitting him all at once. And the power. The strength he felt in this body.

Fuck, he loved magic too if this is what it felt like.

“More than they’d like,” He growled, turning back to the door and jumping up onto his back paws to drag his claws across the wood with ease. He barked another life, starting to look around for more things to destroy. “We can keep up the little stuff ooooor -” He eyed the windows. “Do you want to go all out and break the windows like we’re looting the place too?”

SHOCK: Shock’s ears twitched (weird) at the sound of Lock’s claws against the door. It looked wicked cool, but the sound had sent shivers down her spine. Gross. Besides, breaking windows and scratching doors was kiddie stuff compared to what they could do as full on fucking wolves--with claws, like Lock had just demonstrated. And teeth, that they hadn’t demonstrated at all yet. 

“Why would a werewolf want to loot somewhere?” Shock said, realizing the stupidity of what they’d been doing up to this point. 

“Werewolves--they hunt.” Her eyes glinted yellow in the moon light and she felt the urge to lift her head back and howl. She was not going to do that. However, her tail did start wagging again, ever so slightly.

LOCK: Lock snorted, looking away from her. “Well, they fucked up that bar. I was just saying,”

He then looked back to her, noting her tail wag at the hunting comment. Now that - that was a good idea. But he wasn’t going to tell Shock that. He just sniffed the air once again, taking a step towards Town Hall. Looting and graffiti could wait for another day. Now was time to test out these teeth and see what these claws could really do.

“If we’re hunting, lets go before this wears off - if it ever does.”

SHOCK: It wasn’t werewolves who fucked up the Hunted Deer. Shock was almost certain of it. Though, whoever did it, she really wanted to give them a high-five, because it’d been brilliant from what she had heard. 

There prank was going to be much better.

Nothing was more anonymous than nondescript wolves.

Shock didn’t acknowledge Lock’s good point. It had been her idea to get moving anyway. Instead, she just lept forward slightly so that Lock couldn’t gain any more ground on her. They were side by side as they slipped into the shadows, away from the lamp light. Gosh, wolves really could be silent as fuck, huh?

“Alright, who should we go after? Someone easy to spook. Like--teenage girls.” She grinned her wolfish grin again. 

LOCK: The pair fell into step as they lurked through the shadows, the music from Town Hall making for an ominous backdrop. But who to go after? Anyone was easy pickings, to be honest. What could beat a werewolf after all?

Teenage girls? Honestly, the perfect targets. Not only were they easy to scare, they would also be sure to tell everyone what happened. 

All this trouble to ruin the werewolves’ reputation even more would make one wonder if the Adamsons had anything personal against them. Not Lock, at least. He could give a shit, but right now, they were the easiest to fuck with. And maybe the most dangerous if these teeth set in his new jaw were anything to go by. Too bad for them they’d have no one to blame.

“Sounds good to me. Chase them around a bit, maybe corner them in a dead end and watch them cry until they pass out.”

SHOCK: Shock had asked her the other day when she was going to get friends her own age and Shock had just scoffed. See, the thing was: she didn’t really want friends. Friends were boring. No one knew how to roll with the punches like an Adamson. No one else would think about chasing teenage girls and sound excited about the prospect of terrifying them. 

At least, no one she had met so far.

Which meant when it came down to it there were no better sidekicks than Thing 1 and Thing 2. 

Not that she would ever say anythng like that. 

Instead, she just laughed. “Oh, that’ll be soo good. Maybe we can make them piss themselves.” 

As they drew closer, Shock slowed down slightly, hiding partially behind a building across the street from them. The door opened but it was a fucking tiger with a little kid. And while Shock had no problems fucking with a little kid, fucking with a tiger was a different story. She wasn’t an idiot. 

She huffed and her tail flicked, already impatient. 

LOCK: Lock stood with his sister, hidden in the darkness of the night. Yeah, the tiger and kid were definitely off limits. They would have to wait for someone else. Easier targets - teenage girls like they’d agreed upon. Hopefully they all hadn’t turned into Wonder Woman or something like that. Hopefully they’d gone with boring, typical costumes so they wouldn’t be a threat.

After a few minutes, impatience set in and he sat down, huffing through his new nose. “Come on, come on. We don’t have all night.”

Or did they? It was still a question lingering in the back of his mind. What if they were stuck like this? Was that actually a bad thing?

He didn’t like dwelling on these thoughts, and thankfully he didn’t have to for long. His ears perked up as the doors to Town Hall opened again and out walked....a scarecrow and the Mother of Dragons. Or, wait...Mei?

SHOCK: Shock wasn’t really thinking about whether or not they were stuck like this. From the stories she’d heard, this kind of shit just happened. The people who survived were the ones who rolled with the punches. Honestly, the Adamsons should’ve moved to this town years ago. It was built for them. Well, it was built for their demon-spawn children. Shock didn’t really know how Mommie Dearest and Wade would think about all this. Nor did she really care.

She was totally okay with this turn of events, even though, yeah, she was a little impatient too.

“Shut up,” she huffed at her brother’s own impatience, pretending as if she was above it all. Even if the anxious flick of her tail would give her away. 

Still, they sat and waited as one or two more groups of people came and went. 

And then--two slight looking young...girls. Sorta. One smelled like a barn, but Shock digressed. They were going to have to do.

“Perfect,” Shock said, standing up and prowling forward slightly. “We should go around the side of the building so we can cut them off when they turn down the street.” She started moving in that direction, silent on her new paws.

LOCK: “You shut up,” Lock growled back, deep and low in his voice. His impatience making Shock even more tiring than usual. But he kept his cool. Especially to not blow their cover with the two girls getting further from Town Hall.

He nodded, and followed along with her. Again, he wasn’t going to tell her it was a good idea. Had to see how it played out anyway. Or whatever. He just didn’t like to admit she had a good idea, ever. Even if she had her fair share of them.

“We could also split up,” He suggested, his tail wagging a little at the idea. “You chase them towards me, I chase them back your way. Lead them down a deadend - it’d be perfect.”

SHOCK: Splitting up was a good idea. Her wolf-instincts appreciated it. Circling the prey so that they could chase it into the perfect spot. However, her Shock-instincts were telling her not to let Lock know that he’d had a good idea. 

“As long as I get first dibs,” Shock reasoned with a wolfish grin and then nipped at his shoulder playfully. “Get going. I’ll give you a few seconds head start so you’ve got time to get up the street. And stay out of  sight until you hear them coming.”

Instructions given, Shock peeled off from her brother, trusting for him to be competent. She slunk into the shadows, waiting for the girls to get close enough. She could hear the scuffle of their shoes easily. Their voices too. When they passed her hiding spot, she started walking behind them.

When the blonde turned around, she ducked out of the light of a street lamp.

“Did you--see that?” the girl asked her companion.

Shock let out a low, menacing  growl.

LOCK: Lock gave another huff at her and her nip, pulling away from her. But he nodded, and made his way down the street, staying behind the buildings and out of sight. He parked himself just at the end of the street, already eyeing a couple of good deadend alleys on his way there. 

Now, he waits.

The redheaded scarecrow turned to look at the other, confused at first. Then she heard the growl. “Did you hear that?” She asked, whipping around, straw falling from under her hat around her as she trembled. “Maybe we should go back…”

SHOCK: This was too easy.

“Turn back? No. Let whoever it is come out and face me! I am the Mother of Drago--”

Shock stepped into the light and the girl shut her annoying face. That was better. There was a cloying smell in the air that hadn’t been there a moment ago. What was it? It made Shock want to lick her lips with hunger. 

“Go away, wolf!” the girl commanded, but Shock just prowled closer, growling, growling. 

“Stop!”

Shock sped up almost trotting along the sidewalk now. 

When she was a few feet away, she lept forward on her powerful haunches. The taller girl let out a shriek and stumbled backwards, grabbing on to the other girl as Shock landed right in front of her. She lunged and grabbed the girl’s dress in her teeth, tearing the hem with a snarl.

LOCK: Lock could already hear the shouts from down the street. He gave another bark of a laugh, drowned out by the terror of the two girls in the air. He stood up on all fours, peeking out and getting very excited for the upcoming chase. His tail even wagged.

“That’s a werewolf!” The scarecrow shrieked. An animal didn’t move like that. Or seem to grin at the fear coming off the two girls. Straw fell from her body as her friend used her to stay up. But she fell back herself, her hat dropping off and more straw surrounding her as the wolf pounced. “Mei!”

Now was the worst time to become a scarecrow. Well, no time was the best it seemed - but now was definitely the worst!

SHOCK: The stupid cloth of the dress didn’t taste very good, but it was worth it for the shrieks of the two girls (well, girl and scarecrow, if we’re being particular.) Those shrieks were better than tooth-rotting candy. Her black lips pulled back in a smile, even as she shook her head, jerking the fabric back and forth.

“Unhand me you fiend!” shrieked the blonde bitch. 

What the fuck was this? A Song of Ice and Fire book? (Yes, Shock had read those books, obviously. When you’re stuck in a hospital bed, books are your best friends.) Not that it mattered. Even if whoever this girl was had somehow morphed into Daenerys Stormborn herself,  she could still be bitten. Shock wasn’t made of fire.

“Run! RUN!” The girl squealed, grabbing on to her useless straw friend.

Shock’s head jerked, but the piece of dress in her teeth ripped. The girls took off down the street. Right towards Lock. Shock spit out the fabric and gave the girls a meter headstart before springing forward again, her paws near silent as she chased them over the cobbles.

“Faster!” shrieked the Daenerys-wanna-be.

LOCK: The scarecrow struggled to follow as their companion pulled them down the street, leaving a trail of straw behind her but it was long forgotten now. She was letting out her own shouts for help, but no one was coming.

No one other than Lock, and he certainly wasn’t there to help.

He stepped out from his hiding spot just as silent as Shock had, blocking off the rest of the street. He threw his head back and let out a howl before lunging at them, and growling as he landed a mere couple of feet from them. 

His appearance and howl had made the scarecrow come to a halt, and clinging to the white haired girl. “If you got dragons, now would be a great time to call for them!” She said, then looked around for any other escape.

An alley! Without a second thought, she tugged on the other’s arm to pull them away from the wolf and hopefully to safety.

“This way!”

Lock was quick to follow though, keeping pace behind them.

SHOCK: God, that howl. Lock could be so dramatic sometimes. He’d deny it, but really, when it came down to, there was no denying it. She would roll her eyes if she could. Could wolves roll their eyes? She didn’t exactly know and wasn’t going to care enough to figure it out just to be annoying to her brother. No, they had a mission. 

So, she loped forwards, the humans too slow for her to really run full speed to catch up with them. Kind of sucked, because she wanted to stretch her legs and all these powerful muscles. Honestly, why were people worried about becoming werewolves? This was excellent. 

By the time Lock was turning down the alley, she was at his side, trotting in sync with him. Their coats shimmered silver-black in the moonlight, glinting like knives. A fitting comparison, considering that they were weapons in these skins.

“If I knew where my dragons were, they would be here!” Daenerys screeched. 

The girls hit the chained linked fence. 

“We’re trapped!” the blonde lamented.

Shock snarled and growled. 

The girl lifted her chin. “Halt!” she commanded. “You will pay for this if you take one step closer!” 

Shock didn’t just take one step closer, she took several, close enough to snap at the finger that the girl had pointed her. The girl shrieked and tripped backwards.

LOCK:  Cornered in a back alley? It was the perfect position for them. And not unfamiliar territory for Lock. SoCal had a tendency to get rather ugly the further south you went from the City of Angels. Even though it was Mei he had cornered, his eyes still glinted with excitement at the damage they were causing.

To their mental states. To the werewolves’ reputation. This was shaping up to be the best Halloween ever.

Until Shock got too close with her teeth. Lock growled, though it wasn’t directed at the girls. “Shock, too cl -”

“Get lost!” The scarecrow called, actually taking off her boot (revealing tied off bottoms of her overalls to prevent more straw falling out) and tossing it right at the closest wolf’s head as she limped in front of the other girl. “You’re barking up the wrong tree!”

SHOCK: Shock wasn’t paying attention. 

Not to the scarecrow. Not, even, to her brother’s hesitance. She was having too much fun. You could say the bloodlust was upon her. If she was human, she’d be wearing a manic grin, her eyes glinting. She’d look partially insane. And, hey, maybe she was! All those chemicals couldn’t have been good for a kid. 

All she wanted was more screams. If she was a sorcerer, she’d bottle them up in jars and keep them on her windowsill like little trophies. If she was a demon, she’d be one of those ones that sucked the fear from people and was able to sustain herself on just that and that alone. 

As a wolf, she wanted to taste blood. 

Just one little bite. 

The boot colliding with her head was barely felt. She was very much focused on the actual human. The one with sweat she could smell, sweet as candy. 

She sure was pretty when she cried. 

Shock snarled again and jumped forward. Not close enough to actually reach, but close enough to make the girl squeal like a pig and the chain-link fence behind them jingle like Christmas bells. 

LOCK: Lock hadn’t even registered he’d moved when he slammed Shock into the wall with his own body, a deep growl vibrating from within. He was faster than his own thoughts it seemed.

Causing fear and making them cry was one thing, but the way his sister’s teeth clamped down on the air in front of Mei told him the fun was over. Sure, a bite or any physical attack would work wonders for destroying the werewolves’ already terrible reputation. It’d be like a nuke - none of them would be able to stay in town after that.

But it was too risky. Leaving mental scars, they couldn’t be linked back to those in disguise. But physical - then you’re talking DNA and all sorts of technicalities he didn’t know too much about. He hadn’t been careful this whole time to have Shannon ruin things.

“Save the teeth for a second date,” He snarled. “Don’t ruin this.”

SHOCK: Shock’s wolf yelped as she was body slammed into the brick of the alley. Immediately, she whirled on her brother, the growl ripping out of her throat one of warning. Her prey was forgotten in light of her confusion. The instinct in her screaming to hunt now compromised by her brother’s cockblocking.

“What the fuck?” she snarled at him, her ears laying flat on her ead.

“Don’t tell me what to do, asshole. I think they’ll survive a stupid little bite. Don’t tell me you’re going soft.” 

With a shake of her head, she turned back to the girl and the scarecrow, who were watching with round eyes (well, naturally, for the stupid fucking scarecrow.) She didn’t hesitate this time (hadn’t hesitated before, just for the record) when she lunged at the blonde. Now, this time, she was actually intent on drawing blood, if only to give Lock a fucking lesson. 

LOCK: Shock was really testing him.

And Lock’s patience was at its breaking point.

As she lunged, he did as well, but at her once more. He bit down on her back leg, not really caring if he hurt her, and attempted to hold her back. Even drag her away. His eyes momentarily darted up to the two girls, and he let out a low growl as he held onto his sister. The noise made the scarecrow jump, but she grabbed her boot and looked at her friend.

“Now’s our chance!” She said, looking around before spotting a small hole in the corner of the fence. “There!”

They were taking too long. And Shock was strong as well, he wasn’t sure he could keep her back much longer.

SHOCK: Shock felt teeth clamp down on her leg and she was yanked backwards, her claws scrambling against the concrete as she tried to bite and snap at the girls. 

“Lock! Fucking let go of me! They’re getting away!” 

She lifted up her back feet to try to kick him in the face or the chest, but he wasn’t letting go. Her hits were clumsy at best, not used to this body. Seeing the girls squeezing themselves through the fence, Shock gave it up for a lost cause. Instead, she whirled on her brother, yanking her too from his mouth as she turned.

With a snarl, she jumped at him, colliding with his chest, her teeth going to his ear and biting hard, while her forepaws pressed against his neck and chest. If she was paying attention, she’d see the little blonde stop and look at them once she was safely on the other side of the fence, before her friend tugged her along. 

LOCK: Lock let out another growl, this one directed at Shock as she jumped on him, his mouth tinged a slight red from his bite. When his sister bit down on him as payback, he gave a little yelp before it transformed into a snarl. His front paws shot up at her face, his teeth bared and ready to take another bite.

“Stop being a fuckin’ idiot for once!” He snapped, shoving at her now as well with his back paws with as much force as he could manage. “Get off me while you’re at it!”

He snapped his powerful jaw at her as he continued to push. He also wasn’t paying attention to the girls anymore. They accomplished their plan, and now it was over. Let them run for all he cared.

[fuck-yeah-firebringer]

soo I have a theory that apart from those phone calls and that one scene we see alice in, we don’t know her (or deb) at all. everything said in “not your seed” is completely made up by the alien infecting alice, who doesn’t know the person she’s infecting at all. take for example that infected!alice doesn’t even seem to know her own age (“stuck at seventeen” vs bill saying she’s 18) and like...everything she says in the song is for the exact purpose of hurting bill:

-“you left me out of your sight for one second and look what happened” she immediately puts all the blame on him which I don’t think the real alice would ever do - she made the choice to ignore bill and stay in hatchetfield, and we know that the last thing alice told bill was “I love you”. she wouldn’t say that if she felt that bill was responsible for putting her in danger

-“and you were right, deb is a hardcore stoner” confirming bill’s fears that alice’s girlfriend is a bad influence - maybe it’s true, but she still only says it to upset bill

-the unsettling implications of “no more being worried and waiting by the door” followed right away by “did you know that I wanted to live with you” - imagine how that must sound to bill, first off alice living with her mother has for some reason caused her a whole lot of anxiety and then finding out that this whole time, she could’ve been living with him. he could’ve had his daughter back

- i think the harmony deb and the other girl sing, “nightmare time” sums it up - they’re just confirming all of bill’s worst nightmares as a parent

-in fact the whole way through the song infected!alice is reminding bill that she’s literally not his daughter but bill refuses to believe it, even after all the awful things she says

so this isn’t the rebellious teen moment that infected!alice plays it off as. I think what actually happens is that alice gets infected, and then suddenly there’s paul and bill searching the school armed with a rifle, and the alien infecting her figures that trying to overpower them would be a disaster - 3 aliens in teenager’s bodies vs 2 men with a gun. but then she hears bill spelling out the argument he had with his daughter, how much she means to him, his own guilt, even his concerns that alice is dating the wrong person for her. infected!alice sees how fragile he is already and realises that she has everything she needs to take them down. so she starts singing

[indigomez]

Double Date. Room Mate AU! Shawn Mendes x Reader

A/N: HIII I’m backkk I know ya’ll annoyed with my coming and going I get it. I’m going to be more communicative on here instead of just being gone and reposting at random times :) And I know this isn’t Marvel Related but Shawn Mendes can get it. So, :)))))))))))))))))))))))

Paring: Shawn Mendes x Best Friend Reader!

Genre: Fluffy lmfao.

Warnings: Noneeee well maybe some cursing,

Summary: You and Shawn have been close for around two years now. And with your horrifying ordeal with the dating scene, he just has to see the fiasco about to unfold. Complete and utter Chaos.

Masterlist, Submit a post, Request. 

"Jesus fucking christ!!” He yelled, his guitar pick flying out of his hands as you slammed the door. Huffing while you ripped your jacket and shoes off. “How’d your date go-”

“Shut the hell damn up Mendes.” You seethed, stomping over to the kitchen. Sure you’ve had your fair shares of lashing out and cussing each other out. Because when you live with your best friend who doesn’t cuss them out?

But with the look on your face, your clothes on your body slightly disarray and your hair a mess. Something went. Wrong. Again. He sighed, placing his beloved guitar down gently on the couch and padding his way towards you in the kitchen. 

“It was that bad?” He asked quietly, looking at the bags of take-out food. “I thought you went out to eat- Woah shit!” He shouted, looking at your face. Red, agitated and completely not the way you left out the house, your makeup was messed up, he was quick to spring into action but you stopped him. “I’m fine Shawn, I already took my EpiPen...” Your voice was scratched and hoarse, to him your voice sounded hot. “It’ll go down in a few hours.”  He hummed, sipping on the blueberry shake while you sat down on the stool. But he was just soo curious to ask- “What happened?” 

He knew you were allergic to peanuts, but it’s been a while since your last spaz out. “I told Jacob that I was allergic to peanuts, but he mixed our fries and they cooked his with peanut oil.” Shawn cringed, shaking his head as he groaned. 

“And, so help me god when he ate? He ate like a fucking pig it’s so damn disgusting! He’s the eighth person to eat like that- I’m so over it.” You hissed, ripping open the paper bag open. “I’m sure Mark won’t be so bad.” He chuckled, you whined. Dropping your shoulders. “I should just cancel it, because so help me god-”

“No! Don’t cancel it, how about I go with you?” He smiled, looking up at him as if he was joking. But by the look on his face, he was dead serious. “Are you for real?” You scoffed, yet a hint of hope lace in your voice as he nodded. “I’ll grab someone and we’ll meet you at the restaurant next to the mall.” You pursed your lips together in thought, before giving in. 

“Alright, it’s a date.” You smiled.

~

Shawn showed up with his date, some chick named Tiffiany he met at a party and just so happened to be lucky and scored her number. Seemed like Shawn’s type, petite but quite tall, well put together and very kind. Mike seemed to dig her too, being the shortest of the tall people group. You were already over this date. Walking into the unfamiliar restaurant. You blamed it on Mike, it was a sports pub and bar but it seemed to be popular with the college around the way so it was riddled with boys and girls chatting and eating. 

“Hello, welcome to Michle’s I’ll be your server for this evening. Can I get you started with anything? Any drinks?” She asked. “I’ll pay for that appetizer sample platter with a side of fries and a beer.” Mike smiled at her, she quickly wrote it down. “I’ll have a beer too.” 

“Iced tea, sweet. “ 

“I’ll have a frozen lemonade. Also, can I ask you a quick question?” The waitress nodded, “I’m allergic to peanuts, is everything on here cooked with peanut oil?” 

“Yes, unfortunately, but our salads provide grilled items such as chicken, shrimp, or grilled steak, but most of our sides are cooked with peanut oil.” 

“Okay, then I’ll just have the parmesan shrimp salad.” She nodded and walked away with the menu. Until Tiffiany spoke up

“So, why are you allergic to peanuts?” She asked, the whole table got quiet as she looked at you dead in the eye. “I’m sorry, what?” You laughed,

“I asked why are you allergic to peanuts, like, you can’t drink almond milk? Or anything?” Shawn held in his laughter but by the redness of his face, he was losing the fight. “I, I dunno. My grandmother has the same allergy.” She pouted, tilting her head in legitimate concern. 

“I’m so sorry.” She uttered, you nodded as I looked out the window.

“So, Y/N. What do you do since you finished college early?” Mike asked, so far it hasn’t been bad. But with the ‘common’ sense of Tiffiany, it was starting to rub off on Mike. “Oh, I’m an author.”

“Oh sweet, how do you write a book? Is it hard?” Shaking your head, you took a sip from your drink before replying. “Nothing too bad, it’s just sometimes it’s hard to come up with a manuscript and synopsis you know?” He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Scoffing as he said. “Why not adopt one?” He said, smirking as if he just solved all your problems, you said “Huh?”

“Yeah, it’s a dog isn’t it?” He laughed, you didn’t even blink before you just stated. “You mean a fucking schnauzer?” You spat, “Woah babe, chill. You cussing like that ain’t cute.”

“Oh fuck this-” You scoffed, standing up from the table as Shawn just fell out. “Shawn I’m leaving.”

“Al-Alright here I come.” 

“Yeah, uh... I’ll stay with Mike.” Tiffany smirked. You threw my napkin on the table, “Good, absolutely fucking perfect- ya’ll are perfect for each other. And you, Mike. You smell like ass and eat like a fucking pig.” You walked out, Shawn laughing but right behind you as you both got into his jeep. 

Huffing and throwing your arms across your chest as he climbed in, a big smile on his face as he faces you. “How about we go get some Mexican food and stay in? Let’s go on a date, you and me babe.” You sighed, nodding as you tried to simmer down. “You huffin’ and puffin’ like that is so adorable on you. Come on, we can get some gelato on the way home.” He sang, leaning his head on your shoulder, you smiled as his brown silky curls tickled your neck. “Alright Mendes, I’ll give you a shot.” 

He smiled, his head off your shoulder, you cupped his cheeks with your hands, placing a soft peck on his lips. He was head over heels, cheeks red and he was buzzed by the softness of your lips. “So did this date go well?” He asked, ready to hear your smart recall on the disaster of a date he witnessed first hand, but you shook your head. “This one turned out pretty decent.” 

“Glad to hear it, babe.”

[radishearts]

ladynoir july: Confession week

Read on Ao3:

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Confession week day 3, part 4: Babysitting. 

Analyse the following sentences:

“No Manon, you can’t play mecha strike three.”

“No Manon, don’t touch that!”

“No Manon, i’m not a fairy.”

Do they have anything in common?

The correct answer is yes,

‘No Manon’, seemed to be the one thing marinette had been repeating all night, other than the dread of events that had occurred earlier that evening, she told herself she was going to give him a chance, one chance, to win her over. She seemed to be a little flustered around him now, god knows why, but it was for the sake of herself, yeah, that sounded righ-

Her thoughts were cut short by a buzz in her pocket.

@Ladyofspots_official - evening m’lady, nice night to stargaze

@Chatnoir_official - we literally just saw each other kitty! - if that's what you're suggesting

@Ladyofspots_official- can’t blame a cat for trying?

She paused for a second,

@Chatnoir_official - it actually is really pretty out there, shame i’m on babysitting duties

@Ladyofspots_official - the saviour of Paris, babysitting? I never would have picked that as one of the things you spend your time with on a sunday night

@Chatnoir_official - a lot of things about me would surprise you,

Again she hesitated, looking at Manon who was now bundling herself in fabric. She deleted what she was about to send.

@Chatnoir_official- how good are you at lullabies kitty?

His response was almost instantaneous

@Ladyofspots_official- shall we say the eiffel tower in 15 minutes

@Chatnoir_official- great, thanks for the help, I may be a national disaster when it comes to babysitting

@Ladyofspots_official - you gotta handle children like akumas, dual style, you and me against the chirren m’lady

@Chatnoir_official - don’t start quoting vines.

@Ladyofspots - that's how I roll, see you soon!

Marinette didn’t reply, turning her attention to the monstrosity of Manon. She sighed.

“Hey Manon, would you like Ladybug and Chat noir to come and sing you some lullabies?”

“Really!” her eyes lit up “goody, goody!” she stopped making a mess and ran over to marinette.

“Just stay here, i’m gonna call ladybug!”

“You two are friends right?”

“Yeah, were friends!” marinette chuckled, “just remember to do what she says!”

“Yes marinette!”

“I’ll go get her then. Stay here Manon!”

She walked out of her room, quickly finding a place to transform. “Are you sure you don’t like him?” Tiki teased, pointing to the dreamy expression on her face

“Oh, shush up!” she said playfully “tiki spots on!”

A pink flash of light flooded the corridor and she knocked on the door to see Manon peeking through from the other side.

“Marinette said you would come.”

“Would you like to go stargazing with me and chat noir?”

“Really i can come.”

Ladybug nodded her head as she picked up a call from chat.

“You ready m’lady?”

“I’ll be there in a sec!”

“I’ll be waiting!”

Ladybug hoisted Manon up onto her back,

“Just remember, don’t tell chatnoir who you are, infact-” she stole a mask from the table, “you can wear this!”

“I get to pretend I'm a superhero?”

“Yeah, something like that, just hold on tight.”

She walked up the stairs onto the balcony and yo-yoed away.

“Evening again m’lady!” chatnoir greeted, running his hands through his blonde hair.

“Your right the stars are amazing!” she exclaimed, placing Manon down carefully on a beam

“And who is pigtails here?”

“Ladybug said i can’t tell you, that's why I'm wearing this mask, like a superhero!”

“ I suppose you need a code name in, i mean we can’t keep calling you pigtails, that's ladybugs nickname!”

“Ladybug has a nickname?”

“Several, now, how about kitten noir?”

“Your gonna adopt her aren’t you?”

“Why jealous much bugaboo?”

“No, absolutely not, it’s cute actually.”

“And what are you referring too?”

She rolled her eyes sarcastically.

“You didn’t.”

“I did.” he turned back to ‘kitten noir’ “can you see all the stars?”

“Yeah there pretty!”

“Would you say there as pretty as her?”

“Sure.” she replied gazing at the stars and not really paying attention to him.

Chat gave a side smile to ladybug.

“Chat…”

“A childs wisdom, beyond all of our understanding.”

“Really?”

“Yes-” chat glanced over at her, she was standing up in a hero pose, slightly shivering, “-are you cold?”

“ Even july get’s a little chilly.”

“Sit.”

“What?”

“Sit, and wait here with her, you must be freezing,i’ll be back soon.”

“No, it’s ok.” she sat down next to him.

“Would you prefer cuddles?” he joked

“Your just a flirt.”

“Only with you, just wait here ,” he said.

“What could he be up to?” she whispered

“Probably planning to kiss you.” Manon giggled

Ladybug gulped, her cheeks heating up. Minutes later he returned with bundles of blankets.

“rug up!” he exclaimed, thrusting a throw over at her.

“A little over the top kitty!”

“I’m not going to let you freeze am i?”

She sighed resting her head upon his shoulder, ‘kitty noir’ curled up in his lap.

“Stargazing was a good idea.”

“You can thank my inner genius.”

“More like inner flirt, we both know this was all just a plan for you too spend time with me.”

“If you figured it out, why did you come.”

“Like you said, you gotta handle children like akumas, dual style, you and me against the chirren my kitty!”

“I love when you call me that.”

“Call you what?”

“My kitty, it sounds like i’m your’s which you are but like-”

“True."

“I should shut up.” he sighed

“No keep talking, otherwise i'll fall asleep.”

“How about a story then?”

“Sounds good, shoot kitty.”

“Ok so like, once upon a time there was a lady and her knight,”

“And….”

“And the knight was head over heels for her,”

“but…”

“But the lady would not return her feelings.”

“Soo….”

“So, one day the royal scribe and her assistant asked some questions.”

“What type of questions?”

“The awkward type, they kept on asking whether he was courting her, after all she was a fair lady and many of the men were enchanted by her beauty.”

“Interesting,”

“Indeed, the lady denied it, however the scribes assistant challenged the knight to win the lady over in one week, the knight accepted, and in turn challenged the rest of the kingdom to confess their feelings to the ones they loved.”

“This story sounds familiar.”

“...By a blue bird this message was carried and delivered to all the land, each accepting the challenge.”

“What happened next?”

“Well in turn the knight won over her heart and her hand, and they all lived happily ever after.”

“I wonder where your inspiration came from?”

“Call it a retell?”

“Of an event that hasn’t occurred yet?”

“are you suggesting it might happen?”

“Who knows? It’s confession week chat, anything can happen!”

she stood up scooping Manon up into her arms.

“Even the things that seem...miraculous.” she winked at him, extracting the yo yo from her waist.

Now it was chat’s turn to run after her.

“Wait…” he pleaded, grabbing her wrist. “See you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow sounds amazing.”

He turned around, to collapse in sheer excitement. He wasn’t being rejected for once, and that was worth a celebration.

“And chat..” she said spinning her yoyo, “thanks for the story!”

And with that she zipped away leaving chat noir weak at the knees.

She was giving him a chance.

A chance to win her over.

he was going to take it.

And he was going to win it.

@ladynoirjuly2019

[gravitysanchez-blog]

TOURIST RICK-ED - a sanchez falls au fic

It’s finally done! I admit, I took way too long on this (since, like...last year. lol) but I’m really happy the way it turned out and how I established the base dynamics in this. 

If you’ve never heard of the Sanchez Falls AU, I can’t blame you: check it out here. If you don’t want to deal with the overdescriptive, kind of cringy description, it’s basically a Rick and Morty and Gravity Falls mashup, based off the “Dipper and Mabel” Morty and Morticia easter egg. Enjoy.

Ah, summer break. A time for leisure, relaxation, and new memories. And while I can’t say much for the former two, I can say that speeding down Oregon wilderness driving a golf cart with a puking sister and a mountain of gnomes chasing me definitely applies to new memories. Now, I know at this point you have a lot of questions. I would too, so let me go back a little bit - rest assured, there’s a perfectly logical explanation for this. 

This entire mess began up in Washington, when my mom and dad finally decided to get divorced after seventeen years of arguing. Mom, trying to readjust to a life without my dad, decided we could use some fresh air and time apart from the city. So she sent me, Morty Smith, and my twin sister Morticia down to Oregon to stay with our Great-Uncle Ricardo Sanchez, in a sleepy little town called Gravity Falls. While her and our big sister Summer try to get adjusted in Seattle, me and my sister are going to try to turn our lives around here and have a good time. Oh, and one more thing. There’s a goat on my bed.

“This attic is amazing!” Morticia, in the span of three seconds that we’ve been in the room, is already busy putting up kitten posters on one wall, taking the rickety bed on the right and spilling her yellow and pink clothes all over it. She turns to me while she’s sorting out her dresses and grins. “Although I’m not sure how I feel sharing a room with a dork like you.” She stick her tongue out at me. “Funny, ‘Tish.” Fun fact: one of our many running jokes between us is how much of losers we are. Our only friends are pretty much each other. Morbid, I know.

“So, uh, there’s a goat on my bed,” I said, changing the subject. “Are we not going to address this?”

We both looked over at the goat. It stared back at us with its yellow, beady eyes, sprawled on the comforters as it nibbled on what I supposed was my pillow. We were silent.

“I mean, it’s a little cute,” Tish murmured, sliding off her bed. “Hi, goat friend,” she sung as she wrapped her arms around her neck. It started chomping on her pink sweater. She looked at it. “Uh, okay. You do you, goat friend.” She turned to me. “He’s soft.”

“H-hey kids, what the fuck are you doing up there?”

And that’s my Great-Uncle Ricardo Sanchez. We call him Rick for short. What a guy. He was to transform his house into some tourist trap that he called “The Mystery Shack”. The real mystery was why anybody wanted to come to a tourist attraction in a town with a population of 300 people. But they did, and guess who had to work there.

Tish looked over at the doorway, still hugging the goat. She was a little scared of Rick, I could tell. We both were. He was loud, rude, vulgar, and most of the time drunk. Why my mother had the bright idea that he would be a good guardian for the summer was beyond both of us.

His feet clanked up the stairs, and as he appeared in the doorway with his tie loose, he stared at both of us. “Kids, aren’t you supposed to be taking care of the gift shop?”

“T-t-there’s a goat on my bed.”

He stared down at me, and I swallowed.

“What, Gompers? He’s fine. Fuckin goat does what it wants. Doesn’t hurt anybody.” He pulled a flask from his suit and took a swig. “I’ll take him down if you stop giving me that pathetic look, though. God.”  

I shifted my eyes to the ground. This summer was supposed to be all about good vibes, but what good vibes were we going to get working in a gift shop for an alcoholic uncle?

Tish got up, patting her knees. “I think Gompers likes me.”

“Gompers likes anyone that has something he can eat. W-w-why don’t you take him down, if you like him so much. Your brother can go down and work the gift shop until you’re done. Cuz you know what I like? Money.”

Tish sighed, getting up. “You’re no fun,” she said, but Rick had already stumbled downstairs. I groaned as I got up and followed him. Both of us had been hoping that maybe we could get away from the wreck that was our lives in a completely new place, and actually make something of an awesome summer. So far we’ve got a random goat on my bed and an alcoholic, rude uncle who uses his relatives for free labor. Not adding up very well.

Then, something happened.

It didn’t start off very exciting. Kind of boring.

I was cleaning the gift shop while my sister Tish hid behind the merch shelf, having a mental breakdown peeping at some guy. “He’s so cute! Gosh, I should talk to him, shouldn’t I? Wait, but what if I do something, Morty? What if I mess up an-and trip and he thinks I’m a klutz? What if he thinks my socks are stupid? Oh, jeez, why did I only bring my blue socks this is a disaster, why couldn’t I just have brought white socks like a normal person-”

“Tish, I know you’re going th-through your boy-crazy, teenage-hormones phase, but you’re going a little too far on the crazy part. Calm down. Jeez.” “What?” She rolled her eyes and turned to me. “Come on, Morty, this is our first summer away from home! If I’m going to make this summer worth something, I have to at least have one sweet summer romance.”

Girls. “Yeah, but do you need to obsess over every guy you meet?” Just a couple days ago, she hid behind a huddle of balloons and crushed on the mattress-sale guy. If that wasn’t borderline crazy, I didn’t know what was.

She shrugged. “Mock all you want, Morty, but I got a good feeling about this summer. Great things are going to happen!” She turned to me with a smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy of my dreams walked through that door right-”

“Morty, Girl Morty!” Rick stomped in, wiping the drool from his chin and adjusting his hat. Trying to look professional, I guess. That’s how he got people. He was incredible at playing the mystic Mr. Mystery and the humble Uncle Rick to our mom. Live with him, and you see his true colors.

Tish slid back over to the counter, watching him as he crossed his arms in the doorway. “Alright, kids, look alive! I need-” he belched “-I need someone to hammer these signs, hammer ‘em in the woods up there. It’ll be great, get in business or whatever.”

“Not it!”

“Not it!” my sister almost shrieked.

“Not it!” Rick’s handyman, Soos, stood up on a ladder behind us hammering in a shelf.

“Soos, nobody-nobody fuckin’ asked you.” He turned away. “Jessica! I need you to put  up these signs.”

Our red-headed cashier of the shack groaned, shifting her feet on the counter. “I mean, I would, Mr. Sanchez, but you know, I’m a small, fragile woman. I can’t handle the woods, I might eaten by a scary bear.”

“J-j-jessica, your family are literally all loggers.”

“Yeah, but I’m a woman-”

“Okay, okay, shut up. Jesus Christ, I would literally, fucking, fire all of you if I could,” he muttered, rubbing his temples. He turned to me suddenly. “Alright, Morty, go put up these signs. You’re, uh, you’re a man. I think.”

“Aw, I’m a man too!” Soos grumbled from his ladder. I wholeheartedly agreed with him. Rick decided to ignore Soos, and shoved the signs into my arms. “Chop-chop, Morty.”

“Oh-oh jeez, Rick, seriously? Those woods are creepy! Every time-every time I go in them, I feel like I’m being, I don’t know, watched, or something.” I almost cringed at Rick’s gaze glaring down at me. I probably did.

Rick rolled his eyes. “Ugh, this again. Look, Morty, I know you’re an anxious, whiny little teenager, but seriously. There’s no monsters or anything “paranormal” in this town. For god’s sake, it’s a bunch of rednecks and-and...country people out here.”

“H-hey, just today, my mosquito bites spelled out ‘Beware’! You...you can’t deny that, Rick!” I put my arm up so he could see, and he squinted down at the words.

“You know, to be fair, I am incredibly drunk right now, but I’m pretty sure that says Bewarb.” I looked down, and to be honest he was right. “You need to calm your tits, Morty.” He straightened up, almost falling backwards. “Li-listen, this whole ‘monsters in the forest’ thing is just local legend, made up so that your Great-Uncle Rick can make a shit ton of money and pay off the mortgage of this dump, alright? So quit being a pussy and put up those goddamn signs.” On that note, he walked out of the shop.

Joy.

“Great-Uncle Rick never takes anything I say seriously,” I grumbled, hammering sings on various trees. Nobody was going to see this stupid things, anyway, and even if someone did, they’d probably be too creeped out to be interested. I swear, sometimes Rick just makes us do these things to be an asshole for fun-

CLANG

Struck out of my thoughts, I stared at the tree in front of me, the nail between my fingers. Cautiously, I took the hammer and struck the nail again, pressing my ear to the bark this time.

CLANG. CLANG.

“...what the hell?”

On the side of my arm, I suddenly noticed a groove in the bark. I dropped my hammer and nail, shoving my fingers into the groove and started wrenching it back. The metal dug into my fingers as I pried it away, falling to the ground with a thud.

There was a mechanical box sitting inside the tree, dials and tubes and switches, all covered in dust and cobwebs in the opening. I sat there for a moment in shock. This was real. Not like the Bewarb thing, not like Rick’s stupid mystery shack. This was something mysterious, something weird.

I flipped a dial. Nothing happened. I flipped it again. Still, nothing happened, I flipped another one. Nothing happened-

“MAAA!”

I jumped, whipping around. Behind me, Gompers the Goat, sweater-and-bed-muncher, jumped away from me and into the woods. I stared at him for a second, before looking where he once was to find a large, gaping hole had appeared.

“What the hell?” I walked up to it, kneeling down and peering inside. I was met with dirt and cobwebs, slinging around the walls leading into an underground box. Inside, there was a large book, covered with more dirt and spiderwebs.

Well, wasn’t that just mysterious.

I dug my hands under the book, cobwebs sticking to my arms, and pulled it out, getting more cobwebs and grime off the book and onto my shirt. It was made of some sort of dyed blue leather, a six fingered hand on the cover with a 3 written in the middle. The whole thing reeked of some fantastical mystery - and mold.

I flipped open the book on the ground, peeling away the rough pages. The title page was torn, “Property of” on the top middle, but cut off. Mysterious. I picked the book up closer to my face and turned the page.

June 18 - it’s hard to believe it’s been six years since I started investigating the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls - I looked back up. This had to be a joke, right? I mean, yeah, the bewarb thing was a little weird, and certainly a mechanical tree isn’t normal at all, but seriously? This was too unreal. Great-Uncle Rick just said it was all a scam. Rick also might have been too drunk to really notice anything substantial, though.

I couldn’t stop flipping through the book, my mind nearly blown with drawings and descriptions of cool and creepy monsters - Floating Eyeballs, Giant Vampire Bats (fun!), gnomes, cursed doors. Each page was a whole new crazy thing.

I kept mindlessly flipping, taking it all in. It had to be true, I thought. Why would someone go out of their way to hide all of this? Not to mention write it. I kept flipping, until my eyes caught something large and bolded, scratched in the middle of a page. TRUST NO ONE “Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed. I’m being watched by that son of a bitch! I have to hide this book before he finds it. Remember, in Gravity Falls, there is no one you can trust.” What? “No one you can trust?” Absently, I closed the book. What did he mean, he was being watched? Who was “he”? At first, this seemed cool, but everything was starting to get a little more scarier…

“Morty! There you are!”

“Ah!” I dropped the book, whipping around to see Tish right behind me, leaning on a stump. “Thank god, I just escaped Rick and was looking for you. So what about this “no one you can trust” thing you said to yourself in the middle of the woods?”

“Uh…” I shoved the book with my foot under a log. “Ah, i-i-i-it’s nothing! D-d-do-don’t worry about it. Just, you know. Uh. Me.” I grinned.

She folded her arms, looking over my shoulder. “Wow, didn’t expect you to take that so seriously. Did you just push a book under that log? What are you hiding?”

“Tish!” I looked around. The goat was back, and had pulled the book under the log. He was chewing happily on the cover. “I’ll...I’ll show you. Can we go somewhere private?”

Back in the shack, I paced the living room. “Tish, it’s insane! Rick said I was being paranoid, but according to this book I found in the woods, Gravity Falls has this totally cool, awesome, kind of scary dark side!” I flipped to the Floating Eyes page, showing it to her. “Look at this, Tish!”

“What? You’re kidding me, right? This is a joke.”

I paced around again. “No, I’m not joking. But get this, Tish. At some point, the pages just, like, stop. Like the guy who was writing it mysteriously disappeared. There’s even this page where the author says something about someone watching him and having to hide the books, and it’s just all...crazy!” This was not what I was expecting this summer, but even though it was pretty scary this was much better than any boring summer working for an alcoholic great uncle.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, loud and clear. “Who is that?” Who would be visiting Rick? The bartender? Who could even stand to be around him and know him personally for even five minutes? “Well,” Tish looked down, wringing her hands and grinning. “I might...I might have got a date.”

What.

“Let me get this straight. You, the other socially awkward half of me,who has no friends and can barely talk to a guy without tripping over her own shoes, and is worried about the color of her socks got a boyfriend in the half-hour that I was gone? You’ve never had a boyfriend in your life!”

Tish fell back on Rick’s easy chair. “What can I say, brother? I guess it’s just...summer lovin’ up in the air!”

“Tish, please never say that again.”

The doorbell rang again, and Tish sprang up, running a hand over her hair. Flashes of anxiety and excitement were clear on her face. “Uh, c-c-coming!”

Joy. I sat up on the couch, crouching over the book. Honestly, who cared about Tish’s new boyfriend? And her expanding social life that apparently was going a lot better than mine? Because of this book, I was having one of the most exciting days of my life. Eye-bats!

“W-w-what’cha reading there, buddy?”

Quickly, I shoved the book out of site. “Uhh, just, uh, just, ca-catching up on-” I grabbed a magazine from the side table and read the cover - “uh, Playboy for Silver Foxes?” Immediately, I regretted being born as my eyes hit a forty year old woman strip teasing on the cover. I wanted to drench my face in bleach.

His unibrow raised up at me in suspicion, but he shrugged it off as he pulled his flask out of his back pocket and took a swig. “Although I’d like to know how those got out of my room.”

Oh, jeez. “H-hey, I-”

“Hi, Grunkle - uh, Great-Uncle Rick, Morty. This is-this is my new boyfriend!” Mabel popped in the doorway, discreetly trying to hide the sweat coming down her forehead, grinning widely as she pulled someone’s arm from the hallway. The guy that immediately popped in looked like some of the emo kids from school - dark hoodie, crazy eyeliner, creepy glare.

“Sup,” said the emo dude.

“Uh, hi.”

“We met at a graveyard, and omigosh he was so poetic and deep it was so beautiful-” Tish started gushing as she clung onto his arm, looking up at him. “Is...is that muscle?” She looked back at me with a grin.

Rick stared back at the guy, his unibrow raised. “So, uh...how you doing?”

The guy’s eyes seized up as they started darting around the room. “Uh...uh...norm-normal!” he nearly shrieked. “Normal...man!” Rick stayed silent as he stared at the guy, taking another swig from his flask.

“Good for you, buddy.”

“H-h-he means Norman,” Tish said dreamily, leaning into him. “That’s his name.”

Rick looked at me. For once, I had to agree with the crazy son of a bitch - this was weird.

“So...uh,” Norman took a step back, and Tish nearly stumbled. “Do you, uh, wanna, go and uh, hold hands or something?”

“Oh, that would be amazing,” Tish murmured, leaning into him more than I thought possible and dreamily taking his hand.

Rick rolled his eyes, flopping next to me on the couch. “Oh my god, shut up already. Jesus Christ, you’re going to make me sick.” He picked up the remote and started flipping channels. “Don’t you two have a date or something?”

“Oh, silly me!” Tish started dragging Norman out of the hallway. “I’ll see you guys tonight!”

As they left, Rick leaned over to me. “Morty, if you take anything from me, do yourself a favor and don’t get wrapped up in that shit. Focus on money. It’ll get you a lot farther than that pointless, annoying crap.”

Says the man with Playboy for Silver Foxes, I though. I decided to ignore that, though. Norman was the main thing on my mind right now, and he was just way too creepy and weird for me to get my mind off of him. No wonder Tish got a boyfriend, if that was the selection. “So, uh, Rick, w-what did you think of Norman.”

“Morty, do you honestly think I actually give a shit?” He straightened up, flipping channels again. “All that shit is to me is annoying garbage that never did anyone any good. Now, what isn’t garbage,” he turned and grinned to me, putting down the remote, “is reality television, Morty. At least it gives you pleasure in your day with no bullshit.”

The TV, in front of me, was portraying an episode of National Geographic, far from reality TV. A mother tiger was taking care of her young.

I got up, discreetly hiding the journal under my shirt and shuffling to the other room. “Uh, okay, Rick. You do that”

“Damn right I will, Morty!” he shouted out before I left.

In the other attic, I curled up on the corner of the wall, flipping through pages. “More eye-bats, gnomes, gnomes…” Suddenly, my eye caught on a page. “Zombies? Those actually exist?” I curled up tighter, hunching over and bringing my eyes to the page.

Known for their pale skin and bad attitudes these creatures are often mistaken for…”Teenagers?” I looked down at the illustration, and the eyes of the creature bored into me as Norman’s did, and I swore I could hear Norman’s voice come out of the drawing.

Norman was a zombie! It all made sense!

It was then that I realized Norman’s voice wasn’t coming from the illustration - it was coming from outside.

I scrambled to the window, hanging on the sill and watching in horror as Tish sat on the bench outside, giggling. Before her, Norman was stumbling towards her, arms outstretched, ready to take my sister in his jaws and rip apart her brains, and my sister was unaware that she was about to die by a zombie, and I had to do something, I had to warn her before it was too late-

“Mabel, watch out!” I shrieked, slamming my palm again the window. He put his hands on her neck. “Mabel, NO-”

He took his hands away, revealing a new daisy chain around her neck. I could see her face light up as she giggled away, batting her eyelashes at him. Okay, so he didn’t eat her brains. Zombies weren’t even real! I looked down at the book. This stupid thing was probably written as a joke or a prank.

But was it?

“Is my sister dating a zombie, or am I just going crazy?” I asked myself.

Behind me, a voice rang out. “It sure is a dilemma.”

I turned around, greeted by a familiar face. “Soos? What are you doing here?”

Soos was on a ladder again, screwing in a lightbulb. “Avoiding Rick. He’s in a bad mood right now, dude. Probably because of your sister’s date. He has a bad history with women. Anyway, I couldn’t help but overhear you talkin’ to yourself in this empty room while I was here.”

I turned my back against the window. “Honestly, Soos, how do you even stand Rick?”

Soos shrugged, getting off the ladder. “Rick’s not a totally bad guy. He’s a jerk, but not a bad guy. We have a little bit of history together, I guess. It’s a long story, dude.”

“It’s going to take a while before I believe that.” I looked back down at the book. “But, Soos, do you think Tish’s new boyfriend might be a zombie?”

Soos shrugged. “I don’t know, dude, but there’s a lot of weird things in this town. I wouldn’t doubt it. I mean, dude, the mailman has got to be a werewolf with how hairy he is. I’d say you should follow the guy and see if he eats any brains.”

For someone who says “dude” a lot more than ever should be used, he had a point. I got up. “Good point, Soos. Time to go investigating, I guess.”

So that’s how I spent my afternoon - creeping in the shadows and watching my sister go on her date with Norman. I know, I know it sounds weird and creepy, but I needed to see if this guy was really a zombie. This book might be just a prank, but it also might not. I mean, what if he did eventually try to eat my sister’s brains? That would so ruin my summer.

However, at the end of the day, I just felt stupid. I had found absolutely nothing to prove that Norman was a zombie, though I had taken ten thousand photos and videos of them. Sitting in the other attic, watching the video of them watching the sun, I groaned. I was a stupid, nervous wreck. Why did I even believe anything from some stupid book, I wondered, as I watched Norman reattach his fallen-off arm and readjust it around my sister’s shoulders.

Wait, what?

Quickly, I rewound the video. Sure enough, I witnessed my sister’s boyfriend’s arm fall off his shoulder, him look around warily before he reattached it before my sister noticed.

I was right. Norman was a zombie. Cold dread sunk into my chest. I had to do something, save her before it was too late.

“So, uh...now that we’ve been together for so long, and uh...got to know each other, there’s something I should tell you.”

Morticia and Norman were enjoying the view of the valley when Norman spoke. The girl, shook out of her love-stricken daydreams, turned towards him. A guy with secrets? That was hot. And a guy who trusted her with these secrets? This was turning out way better than she expected. She better not mess this up.

Morticia leaned towards him. “Y-y-you can tell me any-anything, Norman.” As soon as the words left her, she cringed. She hated it when her stuttering took over, and hated the fact that it usually came up the worst around someone that wasn’t her family. She was perfectly fine around Morty and her sister Summer - hell, even Rick sometimes, but one stranger could leave her a mess. She probably looked like an idiot, Norman would see she was just some loser-

“You see, I’m uh, not who you think I am,: he said, turning his head away as he stood up, fiddling with his jacket zipper. “Do you think you would still like me if, I, uh, was...different?”

Oh, jeez. THis was the part where he revealed his dark yet romantic secrets to her. Morticia was almost frozen by everything writhing through her head. Out of all the misery she faced with guys at school, this was her breakthrough, she had done it, now all she had to do was not fuck this up, she could shove his beautiful face into those cheerleading girls who called her an ugly loser-

“Morticia?”

She was struck out of her thoughts as she noticed Norman staring intently at her, his hair blowing slightly in the breeze. Shit, she had zoned out. “Y-y-yeah, sorry, sorry!” she sputtered, scrambling up. “Of course, you-you can tell me anything, Norman!”

He stared at her for what seemed like an hour. She had begun to sweat again. Oh, she had really done it this time, fucking hell-

He shrugged, and with a quick motion he unzipped his jacket to reveal...what?

She stared as his body came apart as his jacket fell off his shoulder, disassembling to reveal five or six stacked little men, with flannel and lumberjack beards and pointy hats, all grinning up at her, and she was face-to-face with them. “Surprise, we’re gnomes!” The top one cheered up at her.

Well, this certainly wasn’t the twist she was expecting, and this certainly wasn’t romantic or hot. What the hell kind of prank was this?

She sat there, frozen yet again, as the top gnome jumped down onto a log and looked up at her. “Look, here’s the thing. Our gnome queen just died, and we need a new one. You’re the perfect woman, Morticia, and we all love you. So what do you say, babe? Do you wanna marry this hot hunk and become the new gnome queen, loved by all?” As he said this, he nudged her with his elbow, tapping her hip.

All of a sudden, she wanted to run and hide in her room under her pile of sweaters and blankets. She started to back away, rubbing her arms. “LIsten, t-that’s really sweet, sweet of you guys, but, uh, I should...get back home. I don’t think this is going to work.” She turned away.

A sigh came from behind her. “I thought you might say that,” the gnome said from behind her. “Which is why we’re going to kidnap you.”

Wait, what, no-

“TISH!”

The forest around me was a blur as I bounced over logs and sticks and shrubs in the Mystery Shack golf cart, I had to find Tish, god knows what could have happened by now, she could have already been eaten, her guts spread out over a rock and Norman hunched over eating her brains, I could already be too late- “TISH! TISH!”

“MORTY!”

I stopped. “TISH, WHERE ARE YOU?” I screamed out. God, I wasn’t too late, hopefully, she hadn’t had her brains eaten yet, maybe Norman was about to crack her skull before she heard me-

“MORTY, HELP! OVER HERE!”

The yell came from my right, behind a clump of bushes and trees. I slammed on the gas pedal and shot forward, breaking sticks and branches. “Tish!” All around me, fir branches were splitting cuts into my face and arms, the cart bouncing over the debri-

As I came into a clearing, bursting out of a bush, I suddenly had to stop. When I was driving in, I had expected to see a brain-hungry Norman chasing after Tish. Instead...she was tied up and pinned to the ground with a wedding tiara on, surrounding by a crowd of tiny lumberjack men filling up the clearing. One was next to my sister Tish with a wedding ring on. “We’re trying to have a ceremony here, excuse you!” he shouted angrily at me.

I got out of the cart. “Uh, Tish, what’s going on?”

She shifted her eyes away. “Apparently Norman just ended up being a bunch of gnome jerks. They kidnapped me to enslave me as their queen or something.”

The gnome with the wedding ring in his hand laughed. “Darling, sweetie pie, don’t be so dramatic. You’re not in danger or anything, you’re just going to marry all one thousand of us for all eternity! Is that really that terrible?” Gnomes? All this time I thought Norman was a zombie, but all this time he was actually a bunch of gnomes? I grabbed the journal from my vest and flipped through it. I still didn’t understand how Norman was a bunch of gnomes, but on the plus side gnomes shouldn’t be that dangerous, right? I landed on the gnome page I saw earlier, my eyes skimming the text. “Weaknesses…”

Weaknesses: NONE

They were two feet tall, and they had no weaknesses? I looked up and stared at them. No way. There was no freaking way they were indestructible. “L-listen, you-you jerks! Let my sister go!”

The gnome laughed again, his hands on his hips. “Listen, listen, kid. We’re not going to do that. We need a queen, boy, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us! We’re a powerful race, what do you think you could do-”

CLUNK

He flopped over as I slammed the back of a shovel against his head. Thank god it had been in the back of the golf cart. I raised my weapon up, kneeling towards Tish and pulling up the ties. “Anyone wanna piece of this?”

As she scrambled up and we raced towards the cart, the gnomes started chasing towards us, waving sticks and fists. “That’s our queen! You can’t get away with her!” Tish looked back at me with a terrified look. She threw herself in the passenger seat, pulling me up to the drivers as they clambered towards us. “Go, go, Morty!”

I slammed on the gas, and we speeded off to leave the crowd of two-feet tall men in the dust. Weakness: speed. “Later, suckers!” I yelled, a rush of adrenaline going through me.

I refocused back towards the road. “I knew something was up with those guys! There was just no way you could have gotten a boyfriend that fast. I went and looked it up in the journal, and I thought he was a zombie at first, but dang, gnomes-”

“Yeah, I get it!” Tish shrieked. “Just drive!” She was turned around facing the back of the cart, and I noticed the terrified look on her face. “Shit, Morty, ju-just drive! I think they did a Voltron and made one huge, giant gnome!”

I slammed on the gas, taking a quick look behind me and she was right - I watched in horror as the gnomes climbed upon themselves in the thousands until they blocked the sun, am menacing, horrifying mass of gnomes. The thing started running towards us, the vibrations rattling the cart, getting closer and closer shit shit shit holy fuck oh jeez we’re going to die - Tish grabbed my arm. “Morty, they’re-they’re getting closer!”

I turned back towards the road. “I know!”

She was silent for a second, then “Morty-”

“I know-!”

“-MORTY, behind you!”

I got thrown against the steering wheel as a huge weight fell on my back, almost slamming my head against the dashboard. “They’re catapulting the gnomes, you idiot!” she screeched.

I reached behind me and grabbed the gnome off my back, throwing him and whacked him against the horn as he latched onto my arm, his grimy teeth chewing on my skin - jeez get off my goddamn body what the hell - until with a final smack he screeched and tumbled out of the cart, rolling in the dust like a rock. Suddenly, I couldn’t see as a gnome head took over my vision, his little gnome claws scratching my cheeks - “TISH!” - my head was thrown back into the seat with a forceful thwack. The gnome fell off, bouncing off my lap, Tish’s fists balled.

“Tish, did you just punch my face?”

“How else am I going to get the thing off?” she yelled, fingers gripping the seat as she looked behind her. Suddenly, her face went white. “Morty, look!”

I looked behind me again - at this point, if the forces that be seemed to want to obstruct my view of driving with all their power, then so be it. The monster had its hands - or gnome clusters, whatever - gripped onto a pine tree, and throwing itself back I heard the roots snap as the tree was yanked out of the ground. “He’s going to throw it at us!” Tish shrieked, ducking.

I watched, frozen in fear, as the gnome monster threw his arm back, slamming his foot against the ground and flung his arm forward. The tree was coming towards us like a rocket, my heart jumped as I saw the thing fly over us - it was going to hit the ground and block the road in front of us, we would be trapped -

I gripped the steering wheel. “Hold on!” I twisted the wheel to the right and slammed my body against Tish’s to the edge. She screamed in my ear when, with one hand holding her and the other holding the steering wheel, we flipped sideways under the falling tree. I could hear the branches slapping the side of the cart, one poking my leg as we sailed under the hulking mass plummeting on us. The bark caught on the end of the cart as we slid through, an awful SCREECH filling the air. My heart hurt as it pounded against my chest, jumping off my ribcage as the tree THWOMPED to the ground three feet behind us.

The side of the car slammed on the ground, and me and Tish collapsed on the dirt. “Oh my god,” breathed Tish.

We stilled as the vibrations of the monster got closer, rumbling. I looked up, and there it was - the completely terrifying, towering, giant pile of gnomes, the sun blaring behind its head. Tish shoved me off of her. “I’ll deal with this. Just stay here,” she muttered, hoisting herself over the side of the cart.

I climbed out after her. “Tish, you’re not going to handle it by yourself!”

She kept walking towards the monster, her fists clenched. “Go away, Morty!” “What the hell, Tish?” I got up and brushed the front of my jeans. “I get it, I imagine the whole gnome thing was pretty traumatizing, but I just saved your life. Why are you acting all pissy at me?”

“I’m fine, Morty!”

“Don’t give me that, Tish! What the hell is going on?”

Tish turned around and looked at me, her eyes glittering as she bit her lip. “You want to know what’s going on, Morty? You just saved me from the big bad monster, you’re right! All because your sister Tish-” her shoulders started shaking “is too god-goddamn of a loser to ever find anyone decent! I get it, whenever I even try I’ll just get punished for, for stepping out my boundaries.” She looked down. “I get it. My first boyfriend, and he’s a clan of gnomes. That’s what people like me deserve. I get it. Y-you don’t need to rub it in.”

“Tish-”

She started walking away again. “Morty, just leave me alone!”

I ran up to her and grabbed her shoulder. “Tish, if you think you deserve that you’re an idiot. Just because the cheer team and the jocks think we’re losers-”

“-and the whole school.”

“So? Who cares what a bunch of stupid teenagers think about us, Tish? You’re not a loser. You’re like, the most pure-hearted and good person I know. God, Tish, the only way I’m dealing with this divorce is because I have you. You deserve so much better than anyone at our stupid mess of a school, and certainly a lot better than that…” I looked back up at the lumbering giant gnome-pile lumbering towards us, “...thing.” That was going to have be dealt with soon.

Tish looked at me, her eyes narrowed. She wiped her cheek. ‘“Y-you’re not just saying that, because I’m your sister?”

I hugged her. “W-well, of course I am. but anyone who doesn’t realize the same thing is an idiot, Tish. You’re great.”

Tish looked back up at the monster, coming closer. “Thanks, Morty. But, uh, what are we going to do about that?”

“What, didn’t you have a plan?”

Tish looked at me. “No, of course not. I’m a teenage girl being angsty, I’m not thinking about how to stop a monster. I have like, self esteem issues.”

I looked behind us, separating the hug. The monster was still pounding towards us, the gnome components screaming in battle fury. “I’ve got you kids now!” one of them shrieked. The shrieker held the ring in his tiny fist, waving it in the air. “My beautiful bride, you will finally be back with us in your rightful place…” his voice dropped suddenly.

“Oh, shit-sHIT GUYS RUN BACK RUN BACK-”

A white light exploded from underneath the gnome monster, throwing the gnomes into the air. Me and Tish winced as we heard their shrieks and various thumps on the ground. Suddenly, another BOOM ricocheted through the air, and we ran back as fire and brimstone ripped in a neat circle around the property.

I grabbed Tish’s hand and started backing off. She turned to me. “What the hell?”

“Hey, dumbasses! Be careful of the mines, goddammit!” A slurred yell came from the shack.

Tish turned to me. “Did….”

I stared out at the scattered, fleeing crowd of gnomes. “I can’t believe Rick put a line of mines around the Shack.”

Tish snorted. “This is Rick we’re talking about here. Are you really that surprised?”

“Honestly, however Mom decided that this man was good enough to take of two teenagers is beyond me.”

Later, Tish and I were strolling the gift shop, Rick counting the money in the cash register. “Sorry for-for setting off your, uh, mines, Grunkle Rick.”

He looked at her. “What did you call me?”

Tish glanced over at me, and I was surprised to see a glint in her eye. “Grunkle Rick. It’s like Great Uncle mashed together. Grunkle. He stared at her for a second with a expression mixed with either confusion or disdain - I couldn’t tell. After a few seconds, he shrugged and looked back down to counting money. “Whatever. Mines were set there to blow up anyway.” He looked back up at us. “You know, if you want something from the gift shop, you can have it, right?”

Tish, who looked to be holding something in her hands, looked over. “Wait, really?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

She looked over at me, a confused expression at me. I put my hands up. Why Rick was deciding to be nice was beyond me. Maybe somewhere in that skinny, old bastard, there really is someone decent.

She grinned, spinning around. “Uh, Gru-Grunkle Rick, I found this, I found this grappling hook!”

He sighed, leaning into his hand. “Fine. Don’t break anything.”

I looked down at my right. Beside me were a set of baseball caps with pine trees on them - Oregon sure puts a lot of pride in their trees. On my other side, Tish was sliding herself against one of the shelfs, grinning as she held her grappling hook. It seemed maybe the gnome experience made her feel a little more confident about this place. That it wasn’t going to turn into a giant shithole, that maybe we could have one good summer.

I looked back down at the caps.

Well, Oregon, with your gnomes and your pine trees, show me what you got.

[its-me-im-coraline]

Archie Andrews | One step at a time (possible series)

Count of words: 1070

Warnings: sad, mention of suicide and a suicide attempt, may contain spoilers if you haven’t seen till episode 11-12

A/N: I am thinking of making a little series with this but if I do it’s gonna be like so depressing and reader slowly revealing her past to her friends and boyfriend and I don’t know if anyone wants to read it... If any of you want to please let me know in my inbox soo yeah, hope you like this ♥♥

(One step at a time part two)  (One step at a time part three)

MASTERLIST

PROMPTS

AND REQUESTS HERE

anonymous asked: Can you do a Archie imagine where him and the reader are dating and instead of Cheryl falling through the ice it's the reader and Archie, Veronica, jughead and Betty go after her?

In the small town of Riverdale no one ever thought how bad things can escalate to the level it has now. After the surprising death of Jason Blossom so many more catastrophes occured, slowly driving the little town into chaos. While everything else seemed to be a disaster and the case of the mysterious murder seemed to be held back due to lack of evidence got solved, placing FP Jones in the crime scene, with the crime weapon, killing the poor teenager. But, a group of teenagers were opposed to the decision of the sheriff and even if the evidence threw the blame towards FP, the group of teenagers managed to find out who the killer was. Clifford Blossom.

After the following death of the routhless father; it was a suicide, things seemed to simply change. People were relieved a psyco like that was finally gone, even if that ment that he died. Everyone let loose, exept her. She was one of the foolish teenagers that risked their lives to solved the case of the unfortunate football leader. It was not easy for her to see all these things happen around her so fast, so soon. It hurt her more than anyone could ever think, but she didn’t understand why. There were some pretty nasty comments thrown at her and she started making some pretty dark thoughts herself. All untill she knew what to do. 

After taking some time to think about what she should do all night, the sixteen year old, took the whole day after that to tell and show her friends how much she appreciated them. She gave Jughead a little crown medallion, just like the one he gave her when they were kids to show her how importand she was to him. She gave Betty a beautiful ring matching the one the (hair color) haired girl was always wearing, and she also gave Veronica a matching one as well; to show them how much they ment to her. Last of all was Archie. He was not like everyone else, he was not just her best friend, but her boyfriend as well. She gave him guitar that he wanted to buy for a long time, and that’s when he new something was going very wrong.

By the time the sky started to become darker the girl was already by the Sweetwater river, mentaly prepearing herself for what was to come. On the other side of the little forest to the river, the four other teenagers were worried to death as to were their friend, best friend and girlfriend was. They looked everything and they took turns trying to call her phone. Veronica actually managed to do it and put it on speaker so everyone would listen. “Y/N, where are you, we are worried sick,” the voice of a very wary Veronica traveled through the phone line. “I’m ok, don’t worry about it,” she said calmly to her. “Darling, tell as where you are. I know something is wrong just tell us,” her loving boyfriend pleaded but the girl didn’t crack even the slightest bit. “Oh, Archie. Oh, how I love you. You mean so much to me,” she said silently crying. “I love all four of you so much. Thank you for caring but it’s not going to do anything now. I love you but I have to go. I’ll sent Jason your greetings,” and she hung up. Everyone was shocked hearing the last words of the girl. “The Sweetwater,” one of them thought out loud and dashed towards the newly found destination as the rest followed close behind.

The first one to make it to the river has the gracious red head, but the love of his life was already far, far away. “Y/N, no, no, no. Don’t do it. Whatever it is that is bothering you we can fix that together.” He shouted while the rest of the group finally caught up. “There’s nothing you can fix. Not anymore.” She yelled back. The read head went to run up to her and stop her, but Veronica held him back. “The ice will not handle the weight,” the raven haired girl noticed and the others agreed. “But I need to stop her,” “We will,” Jughead reasoned his friend. “Y/N, please come here. Get away from the ice. We need you. I need you. Remember why I gave you that crown necklace?” Jughead tried to talk some sence into the girl. She simply nodded her head and the boy continued. “I gave it to you cause you are so important to me. I gave it to you to remind you that you are the only person I trust with my life. Please,” he pleaded but it was no too late. The girl moved a little and the ice that was previously cracked now created a hole and took the girl inside of it.

Archie couldn’t hold back anymore. He dushed towards the girl in hopes to get her out of the water before the current takes her body away. But it was to late. The group of teenages followed the girl’s body until it stopped. The aspiring musician fell on his knees and started puching the ice with the goal to break it and get his girl out of it. Blood started to run from his fists as the raven haired girl looked at his actions with aw, and the blonde clutched onto her boyfriend’s arm, crying while hidding behind his shoulder.

After finally managing to save the girl, the group ended up in Veronica’s house. Archie was holding the (hair color) haired girl in his arms, attempting to warm her up as the fire didn’t seem to help as much. The blanket around the two allowed his to trasfer warmth from his body to hers. He had removed his shirt previously and placing her in it after removing her soaking wet clothes, so the warmth of his body radiated to the girl easier. Jughead was sitting behind them in the couch with Betty in his arms trying to get her out of the shocked state of watching her friend attempt to kill herself, and Veronica was standing next to her mum discussing about the incident. “It’s gonna be ok.  I’m here. I love you.” Was all Archie could manage to make himself say to set the love of his life at ease. “We’ll do this. Together. One step at a time.”

[hashtagunicornlover-blog]

okay, I literally just HAVE to get this off my chest, because it’s been pissing me off for such a long time now.

Pll used to be a fricking good ass show for the first three to five seasons, and then it went downhill. Like, the whole Mona thing was actually really exciting and I loved it. ALL the characters were interesting, and the storyline actually made sense.

Like, let’s start with the basics

Ezria/Ezra. Like, I don’t think I have to explain myself, but I still have to so you guys get my point. Ezria was a disaster. Like, he stalked the girls for months and he KNEW who aria was even before he met her. He used them for a effing book, but they still forgave him. And when I mean they, I mostly mean aria. It pisses me off that they made Aria’s whole storyline about Ezra. The only thing she did was just moping about him and pinning after other guys. She was so obsessed with him that it made me bored with the whole thing because god damn?? I think Lucy hale deserves so much better than that bullshit because it was honestly so annoying

Then there’s all these characters randomly disappearing and showing up. Like, what the hell is up with that? Let’s take Jason for example. He kept going to “rehab” or something like that (I really don’t remember, this whole show is so confusing so don’t blame me) and then he showed up. Then he disappeared again, and showed up. It was so confusing that I actually forgot about him for a while.

And Jenna. Like what the hell was the deal with her? At first she was this mean, creepy bitch that had something on the girls. Then they got closer to her, and they all became friends. THEN, she turned into a bitch or something, like idk what happened there. They all started to hate her again, but then they found out she could see and they got acquaintances or whatever. Then she comes back with the whole Noel Kahn thing which reaaaaally messed up with my head OUFFF

Then there’s this whole “A” or “A.D” thing. I honestly think they should’ve cancelled the show after season 6, because it made soo much sense with the whole Charlotte thing. It felt like everything got explained you know. But then they just kept the show going and made a new A or whatever?? Honestly it felt so forced and unrealistic. What happened to PLL actually being realistic?

Then it’s the Yvonne thing. Like god daaamn!! Don’t get me wrong, I love spoby more than anything in the whole world, BUT I think they deserved way better than that. Yvonne was so sweet and caring and omigod I loved her, but then ofc, they had to kill her off. I think they should’ve done that way different. Toby didn’t deserve that, and SPOBY certainly didn't because their love story shouldn’t be about they rushing into things right after Toby’s fiancée died. And don’t say otherwise, we all know they will end up together.

Then there’s the whole spaleb/haleb drama. I actually didn’t have a problem with the these ships, like yeah it was weird at the beginning, but then I got used to it and eventually started to like spaleb. But then they had to make Caleb freaking cheat on her?? Like what the heck dude?? Like my poor baby spencer hasn’t gone through enough shit in her life. And it was actually bit exciting to watch because spencer was really mad at him, but then they just made haleb happen out of nowhere, and spencer suddenly forgetting the whole thing. No hate to any of the characters I've mentioned, I love all of them (expect Ezra's ugly ass pedophile ass)

Okay so the rant is over. I was supposed to be asleep by now oops, so i’m just going to end it here

[thekoreanlass]

Suspicious Partner (수상한 파트너; Susanghan Pateuneo) is a 2017 South Korean television series starring Ji Chang-wook and Nam Ji-hyun, with Choi Tae-joon and Kwon Nara. It aired on SBS from May 10 to July 13, 2017 at 22:00 (KST) on Wednesdays and Thursdays for 40 episodes.

Back to Korean dramaland, after being lost at the awesomeness of Misaeng, I decided going back to legal dramas with a punch of rom-com and with the amount of K-dramas in my folders I had picked Suspicious Partner, especially considering my love, Ji Chang Wook is starring in it. You know him? That jaw-dropping handsomeness sent back down from heaven to satisfy your action-packed drama cravings. Yeah, that guy.

Anyway, I was excited when this drama came out because of him but didn’t just have the time to really watch, so now that I have the resources to binge watch dramas, I chose him as my next actor subject.

This is the first time I’m seeing Wook act in a less-action packed role in a series so it really made me curious how he was going to act in a less serious manner or whether it would fit him. Nonetheless, I’m pretty positive that he shone on this drama, too.

To have an in-depth read of the drama below are some details and my personal review.

The Cast:

Ji Chang-wook as Noh Ji-wook Nam Ji-hyun as Eun Bong-hee Choi Tae-joon as Ji Eun-hyuk Kwon Nara as Cha Yoo-jung

The Plot:

About Noh Ji-wook, a prosecutor and Eun Bong-hee, a prosecutor trainee and how they work together on a mysterious case involving a sly psychopath murderer.

Review:

The drama kicks off with the unexpected meeting of Eun Bong Hee and No Ji Wook in a train which led to a series of drama and bad blood when innocent Ji Wook was wrongly accused by Bong Hee of feeling up her bottom. Considering Bong Hee’s character, who is quirky, straight up blunt and playfully vengeful, it wouldn’t really be a wonder how much embarrassment this caused Prosecutor No afterwards (when in fact the culprit was another person who Bong Hee later meets at the prosecutor’s office with the same offense).

They separate ways after the incident at the train but things go downhill from there for Bong Hee, who later finds out her boyfriend Hee Jun is actually cheating on her and even sees him at a hotel together with another girl. They fight over it and Hee Jun being a jackass shamelessly confesses his faults but won’t really feel regretful about it, saying that Bong Hee is still the one he likes the most. Of course, hurt by the deed, Bong Hee tells him they will soon be even and that the first guy she bumps with is the person she’ll sleep with. That sounds pretty lame and at first I really prayed it wasn’t going to be Ji Wook, but Ji Wook who witnessed everything just had to act and save her day.

To his credit, because of his past experience with a cheating ex-girlfriend, Bong Hee gains his sympathy and they eventually ended up drinking together as if there is no tomorrow. And you know what sometimes happen after that, right? Yes, the deed. Bong Hee couldn’t exactly remember what happened to her and Ji Wook the night before, but she was so spooked by the fact she was at Ji Wook’s place and the possibility of her doing something unspeakable with Ji Wook made her really flustered she fled the scene like a mad woman.

Fast forward, a few months after their fateful meeting, Bong Hee finds herself suddenly the scapegoat to her and Hee Jun’s breakup. Hee Jun has been spreading the news while walking around with his arm around another girl, Ji Hye, the other party. This angers Bong Hee that as a little revenge, whenever she sees the two of them and feels like her blood is boiling at the prospect of seeing the two cheating people, she sang them an amusing curse song with every chance she got.

Then as their legal training approaches, Bong Hee begins working under the wing of a mentor in the Prosecution. It just so happen Prosecutor No Ji Wook is a notorious one and they really don’t get along after that first meeting–which didn’t really go well–that Bong Hee suffers under his supervision and gets what Ji Wook thought she deserves after all. They still don’t get along, but with the mood swings of their hate-hate relationship going on, Ji Wook finds himself helping her once more when she faces Hee Jun and Ji Hye one day, acting as her boyfriend despite her dirty self (Bong Hee doesn’t really take a lot of baths, hehe).

This is actually my most favorite line from No Ji Wook. Haha.

But in an expected twist of events, Bong Hee suddenly becomes the murder suspect to her ex=boyfriend Hee Jun. She is terrified and traumatized of seeing Hee Jun lying on the floor of her apartment in his own blood, but had done the right thing and called for help. Yet, she is locked up because Ji Hye insisted she has long wanted to kill Hee Jun (the karma of singing a curse song at your cheating ex-boyfriend).

Shaken by the traumatizing events, Bong Hee’s world turns upside down, yet in this situation she believes in one person only, Prosecutor No. He believes in justice so much that he has his own doubts about criminals always being the bad guy and that they should all be punished. This belief, however, is shaken by the disaster that struck Bong Hee.

  Ji Wook is convinced Bong Hee may be the murderer, but a part of him that has grown affection–somewhat–for Bong Hee told him otherwise that he seeks the help of his estranged best friend, Ji Eun Hyuk, who is a lawyer. Ji Wook has been constantly ignoring Eun Hyuk for what he has done in the past, but because deep down he knew he wanted to make sure that Bong Hee will have a fair fight in court that he still decided to call Eun Hyuk who was more than a decent lawyer.

In court, Ji Wook as a prosecutor acts unforgiving, but his resolve wavers and he unintentionally finds himself doing his best to look at every aspects of the crime to see whether Bong Hee is being truthful that she didn’t kill Hee Jun. In his search, he finds the fabricated evidence in Bong Hee’s tiny apartment and also finds the real evidence thrown somewhere by the real culprit. This shakes up Ji Wook even more and finds himself in doubt.

Yet, despite knowing the consequences of his actions, as he steps in court with Bong Hee on the defendant’s seat, he delivers his final speech, absolving Bong Hee from being the prime suspect to the murder of Hee Jun, who happens to be the District Attorney’s son.

Later, Ji Wook is remove from his position as prosecutor. He meets Bong Hee on his way out, who shyly confesses to him that she likes him. Ji Wook, however, considers meeting her bad luck and halfheartedly says for them not to meet again. Bong Hee is hurt but doesn’t give up easily. Since then, she watches him from afar; Ji Wook becoming her source of strength especially when life is tough.

Ji Wook joins CEO Byun’s lawfirm and becomes a lawyer who defends even bad people. He hates his job so much that he starts losing his passion and couldn’t really care less about his clients who often only gets away from their crimes because of money and power. It is so awful for him he can’t even stand the way how his co-workers look at him nor bothered to try and get to know them. His friends were reduced to the walls, his only companion minus Eun Hyuk, who he would rather ignore, and Mr. Byun, who he never listens to.

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Coincidentally, Ji Wook sometimes meets Bong Hee out of nowhere or at court and though they do have a lot of trivial things to fight over with (and things for Bong Hee to get over with like her feelings for him), Ji Wook ends up offering his home to Bong Hee since she has been haunted by the real culprit to Hee Jun’s case. You see, for years, Bong Hee has tried searching for eye witnesses to free herself completely of the blame, and that is one of the first encounters she has with the killer; when the person actually left her a gift in her tiny office and a threat along with it not to find him.

Bong Hee is determined to find the culprit more than before after that and Ji Wook willingly offers his help this time, finally convinced Bong Hee isn’t really a bad person. He has grown quite an affection for her (even though he will not admit it) and somehow feels responsible for her even if Bong Hee wants nothing more from him since she has been blaming herself for stringing him along her own problem. Yet, Ji Wook firmly deflects all her attempts to shoo him away and eventually opens his own firm where they build a team soon solving cases and winning them.

They, of course, face trivial and complicated legal cases that lead them to know the mysterious Jung Hyun Soo, who will be the very most important key in resolving Bong Hee’s old murder case.

  Satisfactory

As a personal thought, I must say that the drama is satisfactory. I mean, my point is that I really thought it will pay more attention to the legal aspects while being a rom-com, but sometimes I feel like it lacks some fire to the legal aspect of things. I am obviously looking for more spice, but I guess the story is more leaned towards the fluffy side of things. Considering that there are so many issues at hand–Ji Wook and Bong Hee’s love story topping the list, Bong Hee’s hatred towards Ji Hye, their mothers’ rivalry, Ji Wook’s dead parents, Bong Hee’s dad who became the scapegoat to a crime, Ji Wook’s mistrust towards Yoo Jung and Eun Hyuk, the killings, the search for Hee Jun’s killer, their groundless suspicion towards Hyun Soo, etc.–I think, though, that this is what is best for the drama. Not focusing on one thing would have made it kind of directionless or straying away from the main point. Plus, I am saying this after watching a couple of legal dramas in the past which made it a bit more on edge and yet was still able to pull off the romance equally.

Anyway, now that I feel like I am starting to name some of the cons regarding Suspicious Partner, I want to say I am a bit skeptical about the part when Ji Wook is still able to prosecute Jung Hyun Soo at court even though they already have bad history before that. I mean, a thought-through legal drama would have excluded Ji Wook from the case to avoid biased judgement and all. Get the point? Another thing is that I didn’t get to see either Ji Wook or Mr. Bang or Bong Hee testify even though they had past encounters which can help prove Hyun Soo guilty. It would have been nice to actually see them try and testify in court. I would have also loved if Ji Hye ends up finding someone, considering that lovebirds flock around her constantly. That poor thing. I really hated her at first, but the drama made me discover she isn’t that bad of a bitch. Plus, I would have really loved, too, if there was more bromance between Ji Wook and Eun Hyuk (this time without Ji Wook forever rejecting Hyuk’s love for him) and also more screen time for the mothers who constantly bickered and bragged about their sons and daughters, also it would have been great if the girls were able to hangout more as friends, because having them drunk is probably one of the most hilarious things in the drama.

  Nonetheless, I must say that these shortcomings and hopes are foreshadowed by the compelling plot, of the unexpected twists (referencing especially to when Ji Wook revealed Hyun Soo was one of the seven violators in the Park So Young case though he went on a killing spree because he wants to avenge her), of the absolutely wonderful acting of the actors, protagonists and villain alike, and just like the impression I had about Misaeng, I am pleased how the characters are portrayed by the writer–how they aren’t just bad or just good, but rather both. They are characters with mind, heart and soul.

The exploration on traumas and what it can do to the human mind also leaves a lasting impression on me. Like how it made Ji Wook forget what really happened to his parents and who really the culprit was. Or like how Hyun Soo had a self-inflicted dissociative amnesia because apparently although he did nothing to hurt So Young (who he had a crush on at that time), he was there among his friends, watching helplessly while they violated her. He has separated himself from the crime out of guilt and decided the only way to free himself of the guilt is begin a killing spree, which hurt a lot more people than he intended to. This idea has made more depth to the story and contributed a lot to the growth of the characters while struggling.

Plus, considering it’s a legal drama (I love this genre the most nowadays) altogether with an equal amount of romance, sarcastic humor and cuteness overload, I am somehow okay with how it came to be. How it’s serious and then not. How justice is served despite of some misses in judgement. How it’s so chaotic at first and then how normal and promising the end and future was.

Characters

I had my own doubts about Nam Jihyun to be honest. I was only able to watch her as a mini Goo Hye Sun in the drama Angel Eyes so I didn’t know what to expect of her as Eun Bong Hee. I even thought her acting at the beginning of the drama was exaggerating, but may be it was just the character acting.

  And I didn’t really find her attractive during that point I had my doubts at her. I felt like she wouldn’t really shine on her own alongside Ji Chang Wook, but Nam Ji Hyun has proven otherwise. Throughout the drama she has shown her cute, crazy and sassy charms. She channeled Eun Bong Hee so well that you won’t think she’s still the actress Nam Ji Hyun but instead her character in the story. Eun Bong Hee who is compassionate, who seeks for the truth, who is patient, forgiving and sometimes a little vengeful in her crazy way. She grew so much from the mundane mentee to a beautiful woman, if you look a little longer, inside and out.

On the other hand, although this is quite a step away from his K2 character in the past, Ji Chang Wook clearly shone as the grumpy No Ji Wook as well. This prosecutor-slash-lawyer is like a pouting little boy who has rare to no tendency of getting really furious, except on occasions when everyone is much like a child at meetings or when it involves Jung Hyun Soo. He came off as someone grumpy and serious in the beginning, but breaking his walls let us see his million dollar smiles and that handsome staring look. That even if he did nothing, you would still die in gooey puddles of joy just seeing him.

Of course, No Ji Wook’s character didn’t do much on physical fights, which I think Ji Chang Wook’s image really fits quite well with, but a smart mouth Wook is nonetheless charming, After seeing this, I can’t help but look forward for his next project after his enlistment has finished.

Choi Tae Joon as Ji Eun Hyuk is quite a revelation to me. It’s the first time I’m seeing him act, but I must say he did a good job being the patient best friend, who waited for Ji Wook to accept him back even though he committed a mistake that caused a huge rift to their friendship.

He appears as a bubbly Eun Hyuk who always jokes around even if Ji Wook resorts to manhandling him.  Yet, his mask breaks as Bong Hee realizes his bubbly character is just a front to conceal his true feelings.

It is when he joins Ji Wook’s law firm that I got to know him better; how loyal, sincere and regretful he was of even thinking something could happen with him and Yoo Jung in the past. I know it’s quite a torture whenever he tries to ignore Yoo Jung later on in the story–which I think are honestly all failed attempts–but I like that he respects Ji Wook and their friendship so much that he can sacrifice his love for his sake. Truly, Eun Hyuk is a lovable side character that you don’t need to worry about having a potential love triangle with.

Kwon Nara as Cha Yoo Jung. At first I am shocked to know that this woman is actually part of the idol group Hello Venus. You may know her if you are a fan and according to wikipedia she at least already have her own share of exposures in front of the camera, but this is the first time I am seeing her act, so generally as a fan of K-pop I am proud to see that she does well on one of her major roles in the small screen.

Anyway, Yoo Jung, in the beginning, actually intimidated me. Considering she beat up punks and almost handled it all by herself if Bong Hee didn’t just roundhouse-kicked one of them, she just appears as the jack of all trades ex-girlfriend who will probably turn out a bitch and keep our lovers on their toes.

But as I got to know her, especially in front of her junior–Ji Hye, her tough exterior started to crumble and what was only left was a broken girl who regretted ever cheating on her boyfriend and is pathetically wanting to get back with him. Unfortunately, all her attempts of getting back with him were dodged and she learned to compromise as professionally as she could; and that’s why I didn’t hate her.

Of course, the story won’t be complete without the amazing side characters we came to love and know.

Like Mr. Bang who believed in Ji Wook no matter what and is amazing in doing field investigations.

Then there’s old man Mr. Byun who always opens random topics at the most important meetings, hates Ms. Lack of Evidence so much he just calls her that, but then is just as a funny softy who cared for Ji Wook like a real father and can’t get away with a ‘sorry’ when it comes to his wife.

There’s also the love-hate relationship of Bong Hee and Ji Wook’s moms that constantly bickered you can mistaken it for them obsessing over each other. Haha.

Let’s not forget the DA who made life a living hell for most of the characters. For making Bong Hee’s father his scapegoat. For allowing So Young’s violators to be free. And for trying to make Bong Hee the culprit to his son’s death. Although he’s probably the most hateful character in this drama, you’ll see the father side of him, who only wanted nothing but justice for his son and stability to his position, though that seems very selfish.

Here is a special mention in my list, Dong Ha as Jung Hyun Soo. I must say that this cunning character has had me on my toes all the time. The funny thing is how convincing Hyun Soo was in the beginning that he was innocent though–like the protagonists–I have a gut feeling that he’s bad news. He just acts so well that he can probably con you into believing him if we weren’t just allowed to see the possibility of him killing those guys.

I must say that what made me not hate him, though I should for stabbing Mr. Bang and No Ji Wook, was how his emotions were played. We are let into his conscience and see how he likes So Young so much that you would even doubt Ji Wook when he revealed Hyun Soo was one of the seven violators. We were shown of his dedication towards her that it felt confusing and seeing him enraged because he thought what he was being accused of was such blasphemy that it throws us off guard and somehow begins to sympathize with his character at a certain point.

Nonetheless, he is the first-ever villain I didn’t think of strangling, so that’s saying something for sure.

Chemistry

The chemistry is there, clearly visible and on point; and I think that I didn’t have any feeling of jealousy towards Bong Hee whenever they are together, though Ji Chang Wook is someone I admire. I mean, this says something, which translates to me not hating Nam Ji Hyun for being Bong Hee because she wasn’t being so annoying. In fact, I came to love their chem that I enjoyed the push and pull romance so much. You will think that every kisses and sweet moments they shared were so genuine you’d wonder about how they are like together in reality.

You know what I mean?

Over all

I got hooked by the story and the characters that I couldn’t get it off my mind, then I am satisfied. And though It isn’t the kind of drama that will probably leave a deep impression to the point you will probably think of it even before you sleep and can’t get over the characters to the point you’ll demand a second season, still I think the drama sufficed. It left a few questions but at least didn’t drag on and left a very normal conclusion that you’ll love it. I mean, they showed the reality and truth about things, how love can sometimes tire you after things start getting better from its disastrous past, problems will arise, but at the end of the day is quite how endings should be. This is refreshing compared to the typical open endings or exaggerated ones.

Rating it, I’ll give a 3.8 out of 5.

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Review: Suspicious Partner – Romance, Comedy and Thriller in One Suspicious Partner (수상한 파트너; Susanghan Pateuneo) is a 2017 South Korean television series starring Ji Chang-wook and Nam Ji-hyun, with Choi Tae-joon and Kwon Nara.