#the third until you have some sort of actual sentence completed lol

[eyivibyemi]

✧ I won’t really write descriptions for these, but see original post tags for explanation/commentary on the song snippet ✧

[spectraling]

How do you think things would have changed if Alt!Martha had stayed with Stranger Jonas in 1888? Once I had an idea of them actually having the baby in Jonas's world... Which technically wouldn't have changed many things because he would have maybe still married Agnes. Even when Dark is a super archy tight Stable Time Loop, one wonders...

Ooh, interesting. I had to sit down and think about this one, lol. I mean as long as everything checks out we can change things around! You need to strap in tho bc I am discussing this with myself at length.

One thing I didn't like about s3 is that it felt too rushed (we needed another season for all the things and characters they introduced honestly) and not nearly enough time was spent with a bunch of characters, the Sic Mundus crew being one of them. Jonas' arc to becoming Adam was one of the most engaging things for me to watch and it felt very bare bones in the end. Having Alt Martha staying around for longer would give us more time to spend with all characters in 1888, including Martha herself. If she'd also somehow become stuck, we'd also get to develop Jonas and Alt Martha's relationship more, which is another thing that just happened...way too fast lol, Martha went from not knowing Jonas to fucking him in like a day?? I'd prefer the drama of Stranger Jonas overcoming his distrust of Alt Martha slowly, and Martha warming up to him, mixed in with the already existing drama of that crew.

When Alt Martha went to 1888 she was already pregnant tho, right? She'd already fucked another version of Jonas lol. But I mean...technically Stranger Jonas already is the father of the unknown since the split versions of Jonas are just different instances of the same person (a sentence I never thought I'd write). Actually Martha at this point doesn't even know she's pregnant so uh, if she got together with Stranger Jonas they might not be able to tell it didn't happen bc of that (and again Stranger Jonas is also always the father of the unknown so identical child unless we're gonna bring age into the whole thing but let's not for simplicity's sake), altho she would still have been with younger Jonas and the timing might be more accurate for that encounter, especially if we imagine that she stays for a while before she develops a relationship with Stranger Jonas. Can't imagine tptb would allow Alt Martha to fuck around in 1888 tho, unless Stranger Jonas was the sole reason for the unknown. He would have to be uh, personally responsible for this one lol.

But maybe your idea didn't include Martha and younger Jonas' meeting and her indeed becoming pregnant by developing a relationship with Stranger Jonas instead...which would make the split Jonas redundant and we'd miss out on some great drama: Stranger's distrust being heightened bc of him not remembering her, showing Jonas the world he thought he wanted, which was one without him, and also we don't get the Jonas-being-killed-while-young-how-can-this-be twist. It's ofc possible to retain the idea of Jonas being shown the Alt world simply by having Martha explaining it to him, which she already does.

I'm not sure about Martha's motivations without having previously been intimate with/in love with younger Jonas tho. He's essential for getting Alt Martha's plot going, so having a hard time justifying getting completely rid of him (also that Jonas is the main character sort of so he couldn't be out of the game for most of the season until we get the third split in the finale). It would be possible to get around this by having someone else, maybe Eva herself who's sole motivation is to keep the loop going for her son, instigating Martha's plot. However, Martha would then have no prior emotional connection to Jonas so her developing/retaining feelings for Stranger Jonas seems more unlikely, unless we just want to go the "we are bound together by space and time and can't help ourselves" route, which I guess the show canonically does by having younger Jonas and Alt Martha get it on so incredibly quickly anyway lol. On the other hand I would terribly miss the parallel of OG and Alt Martha both seeing Jonas' older self and having the same kind of gut reaction bc both of them believe the Jonas they love is dead but have a chance to meet him again, only this time much older. They both become very emotional about it and accept Jonas' identity as this man instantly. This is a great segue into feelings deepening on Martha's end. We need the same kind of prerequisite for Stranger Jonas as well, as he's incredibly drawn to Alt Martha bc of her intrinsic connection to OG Martha and all of that emotional history. You can tell he's fighting so hard to keep his guard up even in the brief canon we get.

If we want to make things simple we could just not have Martha fuck younger Jonas, but they still develop feelings for each other and kiss (or just don't do that kind of fucking, but how would any filmmaker depict passion between cis men and women without its normative shorthands lol).

Anyway, Adam would still want to send Martha to Stranger Jonas in this scenario, as I'm assuming we would still get some kind of betrayal where she leaves..possibly with a baby/child? Jonas losing his child in the same way he witnessed Elisabeth and Noah lose theirs??? There is Some Drama to be had with this whole situation. Also just Stranger Jonas and a version of Martha uh consummating their relationship would be quite something to see just for the drama of that (not that regular surrounding people would bat an eye, this is the 1800's after all...). It would reinforce the mess that is the time loop, and would also be interesting bc of the what-ifs and tension that was left hanging when Stranger Jonas met OG Martha in s2 (answer: they get together but everything is still fucked). Also also, and this is important: it would make Stranger Jonas' dream about being with Martha foreshadowing. The nightmarish aspect of it, the God particle lunging out from her stomach, would be foreshadowing to their baby and the horrors that this Jonas would experience bc of it.

Pretty interesting, huh? I never understood why the obvious metaphor for the unknown was in the dreams of the Jonas that specifically never had their son - this would explain that. I guess it's also possible that it was just supposed to be some kind of metaphor for his anxiety wrt time travel and how it messed up his relationship with Martha but look the particle came out of her womb, that's a pretty obvious nod to pregnancy and the unknown being the ultimate result of time travel. The unknown is also the creator of the God particle. This show never misses an opportunity for some juicy foreshadowing!

What would the Sic Mundus crew think tho? They're friends (and relatives lol) of Jonas and even if this Magnus is not Alt Martha's brother I'm sure there would be some shock and horror of them getting together (feeding Bartosz's distancing of himself from Jonas anyone?). This doesn't comply with how Magnus and Franziska...comply with Jonas' plans. It's never even explained why they agreed to just end all of their lives and the lives of their loved ones in the first place, but I'm assuming in this theoretical season we would have more time to explore their motivations as well. Would Jonas and Martha keep their relationship secret? I mean if there's a kid involved I'm assuming others would be in the know. During this time Jonas might even become disinterested in working on the God particle and that would definitely not sit well with Bartosz for example. Jonas would be completely seduced by the fact he could be with Martha now, in some way (and only distantly related now, to themselves, lol).

At some point Martha would have to leave, tho. She could be manipulated into doing so, but also she still has her own entire world that is being destroyed and her motivations for going away can still be explained, even if it would now pain her immensely to do so.

She wouldn't have to be stuck in 1888 I guess, but it certainly helps with the development of their relationship since they would have a sort of enemies to lovers arc. You can also explain things like accidental pregnancy when you're you know..in the 1800's and there's no contraceptives and abortions must've been incredibly dangerous if they even existed. So you can see how, even if they might both be terrified of whatever this child means for the loop, they kind of accept it happening. Also I'm sure Adam wouldn't send her to specifically seduce his younger self, he just knows it happens anyway, so there's no weird baby-making mission lol.

It would definitely compound Jonas' trauma to have all of this happen. It would definitely be another way to just drive home how fucked everything is. He would be deceived in a much more severe way so I don't see this interfering with Jonas' arc to becoming Adam. In fact it would probably speed up the process lol. God, Jonas would be so crushed after growing to trust her, having a child with her and then being fucked over yet again. It would go just in line with his gullible personality and previous arc, tho. That poor man just wants to believe in love so, so bad.

The foundation of Martha's pain over Jonas would also be better I think, if she spent more than like two days with him and had the emotional connection of them having a child together.

Which, which, imagine Stranger Jonas having this child and then finding out he's the origin and having. To. Kill. Him. While I claimed earlier that Stranger Jonas (and by extension, Adam) was always the father of the unknown regardless, it would definitely be the ultimate act of violence upon himself to murder his own child in that sense. He murdered surrounding people, he murdered the love of his life, he murdered his mother, and by the end of it, he would murder his own son. That's some next level messed up shit. There would be a completely different and more severe tone if Adam was personally involved in who the unknown was and came to be, and the audience would've been on this journey too.

The issue here is that the unknown would probably have been born at this point, unless we keep the relationship with Stranger Jonas fairly brief and Martha is still pregnant. Would they be aware of it, tho? They could be. You'd miss out on some of the (amazing) drama I just described, tho. Or Adam tries to actually murder the unknown as a child, which is...phew. There are some things that don't check out at this point, tho. The unknown cannot die, so either Adam would have to fail in killing him or Martha has to be split, but she'd have to be split after she becomes pregnant, which messes with the timeline a bunch. Unless...since Adam only would care about erasing the unknown's existence Martha might be able to escape and goes back to be split during the apocalypse. But that doesn't work bc then she would have to still be pregnant and Adam wouldn't focus on the child. Maybe simply the Martha that has the unknown with Stranger Jonas is indeed killed (or her and the unknown) and the other Martha keeps going to become Eva and has the unknown with younger Jonas? No wait that doesn't work either. As soon as we need to split Martha for her and the unknown to survive we run into timeline complications that I think I would have to sit down and think about pretty hard to come up with a solution to. We can always have Adam failing in killing the unknown, but still have the drama of the whole situation (including Martha having to leave her own son to be murdered at the hands of his dad), but it's not as satisfying as Adam succeeding, but it still not working towards his ultimate goal and now he's just killed his own child for nothing.

If we somehow get past this plothole the unknown can still go back to Eva to be raised to become who he is, get with Agnes and so on.

I hope this made any kind of sense and I hope you're not dead by now, lol. Thoughts? What was your idea?

[nataliaphantomhivesblog]

Corruption & Trust

Stormbringer and bsd spoilers in general ahead so read at your own risk!!

So in this post I will be listing all the times Chuuya used corruption and all the times Dazai was there to stop it. I will also go into depth as to why Chuuya trusts Dazai when it comes to having to use corruption and I will also emphazise on Dazai's care and how he takes corruption seriously.

1. First time using corruption: Stormbringer

Chuuya and Dazai's age: 16 yrs old

"Isn't it an unpleasant sight, Chuuya."

It was a young boy. This young boy casually caught hold of Chuuya's arm and lifted it up. With this movement, the gravitational field which had occured around them disappered immediatly. As well as Chuuya’s agony.

"Y...You..."

"You can't even die gracefully can you?" the young boy said in a raspy voice as he heaved Chuuya on his shoulders. He set off to walk.

Alright so this was the first time Chuuya's corruption was ever activated, after Dazai nullifies it and carries Chuuya on his back, he drops him off outside the bar were Chuuya's friends lay dead. He took him there instead of taking him directly to the port mafia quarters.

Why did he do that exactly? If Dazai doesn't care for Chuuya, then why did he give Chuuya the opportunity to pay farewell to his dying friends?

It's actually sort of funny because I don't really think Dazai really realizes or accepts that he feels a certain connection with Chuuya and therefore looks after him.

2. Second time using Corruption: Stormbringer

Chuuya and Dazai's age: 16 yrs old (obviously, its still the same light novel lol)

After losing his strength, Chuuya drifted in the air for a few seconds, then lost the black wings on his back and slowly fell.

Dazai caught his body.

From the spot where Dazai touched, the nulification skill was activated.

The self-contradictory skill that supports the energy of the singular point receded, and the output of the singular point decreased. Eventually, it converged and the "gate" closed. The red imprints disappeared from Chuya's whole body. Eventually, the gravitational field disappeared and the complete silence was restored.

“Good job, Chuuya." Dazai chuckled, looking at Chuuya he was holding in his arms. "I forgot to bring my ink pen, so I'll spare you from having your face scribbled."

As much as it looks like this is from a fanfiction, I can assure you that it's an actual passage from stormbringer.

I can't really say much except the fact that Dazai is being extremely soft here.

And this was the conversation Dazai and Chuuya shared beforehand:

"There is one problem." Dazai cut off his sentence hesitantly. "It has nothing to do with the sucess rate of the plan. It is a matter we have to overcome in the end but... It may require some time to decide."

"What's with you?" Chuuya raised his eyebrows at Dazai. "Stop dramatizing it. Just hurry up and say it."

"I said earlier about this control spell to open the 'gate' that is used to reset the command inside Chuuya, right?" Dazai spoke with a strangely restrained voice. "If we use that, the logs of the command formula that were written in the past will be erased. That means...even if the memory erasure was used on Chuuya in the past, the traces of that will be erased as well."

"What?"

"I told you before right? the memory erasure command. The only way we can confirm if Chuuya is human or not is to check the history to see if the memory erasure command was ever used. It means..." Dazai looked at Chuuya with eyes that he had never looked at him before. Those eyes were serious. "If we use that control spell, the method to confirm if Chuuya is an artificial personality created by a string of code, or just a normal human being, will be lost. For good."

The time had stopped.

Chuuya opened his eyes and looked towards Dazai but his eyes were not seeing anything. The wind blew between the two of them. Even so, Chuuya did not blink.

"Verlaine became like that because he was tormented by the curse that he was not human. That only is enough of a big problem. The matter of being human or not." Dazai looked at his pocket watch, gave it a glance and continued. "I can delay the time until the plan starts for about two minutes. I will send an order for my men to wait... You can think about it alone for a while. Cuz I guess its hard for you to collect your thoughts with me around."

Having said so, Dazai turned away and walked down the stairs, leaving Chuuya alone.

Dazai fixated in his pocket watch. Two more minutes. Too short for a life decision. But he couldn't afford more than that.

Inside Dazai's head, he was planning a procedure to swith to an alternative plan in case Chuuya refused, at a tremendous speed.

After this exchange, Chuuya does decide on using corruption. I have talked about this section on a previous post of mine, and I just love it so much. For starters, I think this conversation that these two shared is very important to their characters.

For Chuuya, it shows us how undeniably selfless he is. He would rather save the people of Yokahama instead of finding out something that meant a lot to him. He sacrificed his own desires to save the people he cares about.

For Dazai its a completely different story, in this exchange Dazai was able to openly express genuine concern for his partner. He also understands the gravity of the decision Chuuya has to take and therefore leaves the decision up to him.

Third time using corruption: Dragon's Head Conflict

Chuuya and Dazai' s age: 16 yrs old

During this one, Chuuya demands to know where his friends are, and Shibusawa says all six of them killed themselves after being caught. Enraged, Chuuya activates Corruption which ultimatley ended the 88 day conflict.

There isn't much to say about Dazai and Chuuya here since there isn't really an aftermath on this occasion but I bealive this picture is enough.

Before reading the DA manga, I genuienly thought that the only time Chuuya ever rested on Dazai's lap was when they were 22 but this proved me wrong.

I mean this is a minimal thing to point out but if Dazai disregarded Chuuya he would've just left him there, right? But instead he remained with Chuuya and allowed him to rest on his lap, in the picture you can also see he is putting Chuuya's hat back on. It's such a simple gesture but it shows us how caring Dazai can be when it comes to Chuuya using corruption.

Fourth time using corruption: Lovecraft Battle, Double Black reunion

Chuuya and Dazai's age: 22 yrs old

This is personally one of my favorite times in which Chuuya uses corruption. The fact that these two had not been working together for 4 years yet they still managed to not only accomplish their mission, but mantain their trust for one another.

I find what Chuuya says here extremely ironic because if anything, the choice has always been up to him. Dazai always uses corruption as a last-resort trick and its always Chuuya who makes the final decision of using it or not, even in a life or death situation Dazai won't take it upon himself to force Chuuya to make the decision if they will be using it or not, and hes always willing to come up with an alternative plan in case Chuuya refuses. (an example of this is when Chuuya used corruption for the 2nd time in SB).

I think the reason as to why Dazai takes corruption extremely seriously is because during stormbringer he was the first person to even see Chuuya use corruption and also the person who understood how corruption will always be sort of like a burden to Chuuya, since it was thanks to corruption that his "am I human?" question stayed unanswered.

He knows how it feels to struggle with your own humanity and he doesn't want for Chuuya (who he literally sees as human), to hold that inner conflict with himself because of corruption.

Anyways, Chuuya decides to go through corruption trusting that Dazai will be there to nullify it.

And of course, Dazai does nullify it.

And after Dazai nullifies corruption, we get this very touching moment between both of them.

This is the first time Chuuya openly admits to trusting Dazai, although it was always evident that he trusts him, I just love how open he is being here.

Also the light punch he gives to Dazai's chest is such a sweet gesture, I see it as a silent way for Chuuya to say "I trust you because after all this time I still see you as my partner."

Dazai's smile in that small pannel is one of the most genuine expression we have gotten out of him. What he says is also a very sweet, I love that he calls him partner. The fact that these two are literally in rival organizations yet Dazai still calls him partner, it shows us that even after all these years he still can't help but see him the same way as he has always done.

Actually in Japanese he calls him "Aibou" and from my understanding, when you use the term Aibou it's for someone who you consider yourself to be close with. It means "partner" like in english but it holds a deeper meaning. If Dazai used the word "nakama" it would have been a very diffrent story since it means partner as well but it isn't used for someone you share a significant connection with. Asagiri's play with words here says a lot.

Fifth time using corruption: Dead Apple

Chuuya and Dazai's age: 22yrs old.

Of course I have to talk about one of the most iconic moments in the history of Soukoku.

Chuuya uses corruption to save Dazai, even if Ango says that he's dead for sure. Something I find very intresting here though is that Chuuya screams for Dazai while he is on corruption, he is obviously not supposed to be self concious about the whole situation, while on Corruption clearly he is not supposed to be in sane state of mind, as we all here know, Chuuya loses control and does not have the track of reality while under his own ability but this time, while using corruption, the one and only thing that was on his mind was "Dazai."

It wasn't only Chuuya who entrusted his life to Dazai, Dazai too entrusted his life in Chuuya's hands. When Dazai came up with this plan, he was more than certain that Chuuya was going to save him. And I think a tumblr blog pointed this out but when Chuuya uses curroption, he cannot control his strength, but when he had to punch Dazai he did it lightly, which is strange considering he was using curroption and it would've made a lot more sence if Dazai ended up decapitated due to being punched by a literal god. Dazai had to have faith in the fact that Chuuya will somehow be able to control corruption, even if its just a little bit.

Afterwards when Chuuya manages to rescue Dazai, Dazai gently touches his cheek to nullify corruption and greets him with, "You used Corruption believing in me? I am so touched I could cry." Chuuya groans, and replies that yes he did, that he believed in his disgusting vitality and craftiness.

When they both fall to the ground, Dazai forces Chuuya to rest in his lap because he didn't want to have to protect him from this situation since the fog is still up and Chuuya himself is all worn out and wouldn't be able to fight. But heres the thing, both Chuuya and Dazai's abilities can't be seperated by the fog. I mean Dazai's ability is nulification so it basically cancels out, and Chuuya hosts a literal god inside him so it isn't really an ability if you know what I mean.

So in reality, Dazai just wanted Chuuya to rest. Dazai could've literally just left Chuuya in the fog if he was only using him for his goals, but he was genuienly appreciating Chuuya's trust in him. The way Dazai's hand is resting on Chuuya's hair is a nice gesture too, he is greatful for him and he is moved that someone trusts him, it is shown throughout the Fifthteen and SB light novel that no one trusted Dazai and how most were afraid to even approach him. And in the ADA, everyone is somewhat warry around him (excluding Atsushi ofc). But Chuuya literally puts his life on the line trusting that Dazai will always be there to save him. He trusts him greatly and Dazai knows that, and I think its pretty clear to us that he would never want to break that trust.

The fact that Chuuya trusts Dazai even after he left the Port Mafia without an explanation or goodbye shows us how strong their bond is. Chuuya most likely trusts Dazai because deep down he knows that he isn't using Chuuya's ability out of his own selifshness, a part of him is aware that Dazai uses corruption as a last resort but he just doesn't want to admit it, and I feel like he also trusts him subconciously because of how gentle Dazai is after Chuuya uses corruption.

I really hope we get to see more of these "corruption moments" because in all honesty, these moments are the ones that bring out the most vulenrability for both characters. The moment corruption is used, we see the inmeasurable amount of trust and care these two have for each other that they won't show in other situations. During these times it always shines a very open and bittersweet light on their bond and I love it so much.

[mercieshana]

My Dog’s Bitch

Teaser: There’s an unexpected (sexual) turn of events when your dog turns out to not actually be just a dog, but a werewolf!

Characters: Reader x Jungkook 

“Warning”: Werewolf Jungkook!!! Fingering, biting, oral sex (reader receiving), actual unprotected sex, creampie, domination, force,...just a whole lotta dominant shi babyyyyy! So prepare your underwear lol! 

Word count: ~ 3.5k 

Note: I know I’m a sucker for not having posted in so long and I apologize. I’m also sorry I haven’t gotten to some of the requests, but I hope this makes up for it. I also hope y’all enjoy this and as per usual PLEASE do not mind the typos, it’s like past 1am out here.. I will correct them asap. Enjoy~

“Kota,” you called happily, as you held a silver bowl full of meat in your hand. Not even a second later a dark grey wolf appeared in front of you, its tail wagging and its tongue hanging out of its mouth, as it anticipated what was to come. 

“Sit, Kota,” you held up your index finger and the wolf sat down in front of you. 

“Good boy!” you praised him with a few rubs and then sat the bowl down in front of him. He didn’t hesitate and immediately began to dig in. Honestly, you didn’t know where Kota had come from. He just appeared in front of you one day, looking hungry. He didn’t seem aggressive or wild, on the contrary, he seemed to be familiar with humans and maybe he was abandoned by his owner or something of the sort. Well, it didn’t matter much, because you took him in, had him checked by the vet who found nothing wrong with him and had him stay with you. It had been about a month since you had found him and you were sincerely glad to have him. Living on your own had proven to be a bit scary and unusual, so you appreciated his companionship. Although, there were some strange things Kota did, like follow you into the bathroom, sniff your underwear and growl at any male company you had over, you’d just dismissed it as a “dog thing”, until that fateful day. 

It happened in the kitchen. You were casually preparing Kota’s breakfast by chopping up some meat and some fish among other things, until you heard a voice ring from behind you. 

“What’s for breakfast? The usual?” 

“Yep, fish and-,” you froze. Who was talking? You lived alone in the apartment with Kota. Was it a stalker? You gripped the knife you were using to chop meat a little tighter. Where was Kota? Your train of thought was interrupted when two large hands came down on either side of the counter, trapping you against the counter. 

“You smell good as usual,” you felt the stranger take a whiff of your scent and suddenly you became painfully aware of the fact that you were only wearing an oversized t-shirt and some panties. 

“D-don’t,” you shouted as you swiftly turned around with your knife in hand, forcing the stranger to back off. Finally, you were able to get a good look at him...he was...hot?! He had dark grey-ish silver-ish hair with strands of it dangling in front of his dark green eyes. He was quite tall and had a rather athletic body and was dressed in nothing but your robe. You were so confused and as if he could read your mind, he smirked, letting you have a glance at his overly sharp and prominent canines. 

“Wow there. We were getting along so well...Put down the knife, (Y/N), pleasssee?” he batted his eyes at you. 

“Who are you? And how do you know my name?” you asked and the boy gave you an amused look.

“It’s me, (Y/N). “Kota”, but, well, I prefer to be called Jungkook,” the boy stated, as he ran one of his large hands through his hair.

“K-Kota?” you nearly dropped your knife in shock, “How?! You were a-”

“Wolf, yes,” he finished your sentence with his arms folded, “Well, technically I am what you would call a werewolf, but I feel like you’re already too overwhelmed to be able to absorb that information.”

“A werewolf? What? How?” were the last words you said before you fainted. 

The next thing you knew you were in your bed, staring up at the ceiling. You must’ve been dreaming, you thought. There is no way Kota would ever just become an amazingly sexy dude out of nowhere. Your mind was definitely playing tricks on you. You chuckled to yourself. What a crazy dream. You sat up and the covers slipped down, exposing your bare chest. You must’ve gone to sleep naked, as per usual.

“Oh, so you’re finally awake,” a familiar unfamiliar voice uttered. Confused your eyes travelled to the foot of the bed, only to see Kota—no Jungkook—staring back at you, only dressed in a robe that barely covered anything of his, since it was way too small. 

Your face turned red and your hands shot up to cover your upper body, as soon as you realized that his eyes went from staring at yours to staring at your chest. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve seen it plenty of times,” he chucked and you blushed, turning away to hide your flushed face in your pillows. 

“Don’t hide from me,” he hissed and shivers ran down your spine, as you felt the bed shift and suddenly, his breath was tickling the nape of your neck. The way his hot breath was hitting your sensitive skin turned you on, but you’d never admit it, because if what he was saying was true then...he was Kota and Kota was your dog. Getting turned on by your dog was just wrong and you weren’t about to have any of it. 

“I know you heard me,” his suddenly authoritarian voice rang through your ears, and you felt him get closer and closer, until his lips were nearly pressed against the shell of your ear. 

“I said,” he growled, as the covers were suddenly ripped off of you, exposing your naked body to him, “Don’t hide from me.” 

“W-what are you doing?!” you lifted your face from the pillows and found Jungkook towering above you, his fixed gaze seemed like it was piercing through you, with his green eyes darkening mysteriously. 

“What I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” you watched him lower his head, until his lips touched the skin between your shoulder and the nape of the neck. First, he simply caressed your skin carefully, watching amusedly as you tried to fight the whimpers that were threatening to slip past your lips. 

“Are you enjoying this?” you could hear the smirk in his voice. 

“No, I’m not!” you nearly shouted, “Now let me go!” You tried to sit up and felt something hard press against the soft skin of your ass. You swallowed hard. If it was what you thought it was...then it was his d—

“Get off of me,” you somehow managed to get the man to fall down on the bed next to you, allowing you enough time to hop off of the bed and pick up one of the t-shirts on the floor that you held against your body like a knight would a shield. 

“Feisty..I like that,” the wolf-boy smirked, licking his lips, as he eyes you like a predator does its prey.

“N-now, now, Kota. I am your owner and I’m in control. You listen to me,” you backed up until your body hit the wall. You glanced at the door that was on the opposite side of you and then down at Kota who slowly sat up on the bed and began to make his way towards you, with the robe now hanging down his shoulders, exposing his perfectly sculpted and chiseled upper body. 

“Sit, Kota! Stay back!” you waved your index finger in the air, shouting the commands that had worked countless times when Kota was in his dog form. 

“I’m in control now, (Y/N),” he flashed you his canines yet again, as he slowly stalked towards you. Your heart was going 1000mph and you felt your core heat up at the sound of his voice. It was so wrong, but the fact that it was turned you on even more. 

“Look at how wet you are for me already,” you froze. How did he know? You gulped down and took a look at your lower body that was partially covered by your t-shirt. 

“Oh, I don’t need to see. I can smell you,” he laughed devilishly and you only became more excited. 

“That’s a lie,” you swiftly retorted, now deciding to try and make a run for the door, as the distance between the two of you was becoming smaller and smaller by the second. 

“It’s the truth. Let me prove it,” were the only words you heard before you found yourself pushed against the wall you had just sprinted away from, your arms on either side of you with your ponytail tangled in Kota’s hand, holding you there against the wall. Your heart skipped a beat when you realized that your t-shirt was on the floor next to you, meaning that your body was completely exposed to him.

“See,” shivers ran down your spine as soon as you heard his playful voice, “you’re wet, (Y/N).” He ran a finger through your slick folds, earning a suppressed whimper from you. Fuck, did that feel good.

“I-I’m not w-wet! I’m n-not enjoying this at all. I just have to pee,” you made up a stupid lie, hoping that he wouldn’t catch on to the fact that your body was craving him. 

“Ohhhh,” you heard him chuckle mischievously, before you felt his finger push past your folds and inside of your core, “let me help.”

“W-wait, Kota, ah~,” you squirmed, as his finger began to push in and out of you making lewd noises. You couldn’t even fight him. You were completely at his mercy. The squelching only increased when he added a second one of his large, long fingers and you moaned when he found your g-spot.

“There we go,” he repeatedly began to aim for that spot, earning increasingly louder whines from you, as his fingers fucked you better than anyone ever had, hell, better than you had ever fucked yourself. 

“Kota, please, I can’t take it anymore,” your legs began to shiver, as you were rushing towards the edge. 

“What? Another finger? Gotcha,” as soon as he stuffed his third finger inside of your tight cavern you were forced to let go. The orgasm hit you harder than a train and you moaned, not even being able to throw you read back, let alone move it, as Jungkook was firmly holding it in place, so he could watch your every facial expression. Your legs gave out, as you became a bit lightheaded and Jungkook caught you, before you could hit the floor. You glanced up at him and realized his gaze had turned hungry. Your chest heaved up and down, as you attempted to regain your breath. 

“Come on. I’m far from done with you,” he growled assertively, before his strong arms tossed you on the bed. You were laying on your back, propped up on your elbows, as you watched Jungkook stalk up the bed and towards the area between your legs. 

“Kota, wait—” 

“Jungkook and no. I’ve been wanting to taste this. It smells delicious,” he interrupted you, as he grabbed ahold of both of your legs and spread them apart. Suddenly, images of him sniffing your panties as a wolf flashed back into your head and you blushed. Was he getting turned on by your scent even back then? 

You tried to close your legs, but his hands wouldn’t budge. In fact, he spread them apart even farther to the point where it was nearly painful. You winced and he glared up at you from between your legs, famished. 

“Don’t deny me what is mine,” he said dominantly, making sure you knew that he was in charge and you were at his mercy. 

“(Y/N), tell me, whose pussy is this right here?” he asked, as he lowered his head between your thighs, making sure they stayed spread with his two hands that were firmly keeping them apart. 

“Jungkook, wait. This is wrong. Y-you’re my dog and—,” your protests were cut short by him saying “It’s alright. I’ll remind you by spelling his name for you.”

And with that he spread your folds apart and had his tongue lick a stripe up your sex. 

“Ahhahh~,” you threw your head back in pleasure, the initial feeling of his tongue against your not-yet-satisfied core rendering you unable to form words. Jungkook smiled cockily, knowing exactly what he was doing to your body that he studied as your pet whenever you went and took a shower, whenever you walked around in only an oversized t-shirt, whenever you went to bed naked and whenever you were masturbating in your room and you forgot that he was there. He knew everything about your body, well in theory at least and he was so excited that he was now able to touch it and pleasure you, as well as himself. 

“Now, it starts with a J,” he stated, before having his tongue spell the letter “J” against your sensitive skin, flicking your clit in the process, winning yet another lewd moan from you. His cock was already hard as a rock and was ready to explore your core from the inside, but Jungkook wanted to taste the sweetness he had smelled on your panties so many times before and it was no surprise to him that you tasted exactly like you smelled — like candy. He simply couldn’t get enough of you and after spelling out his name on your pussy, he began to hungrily lap at it, like a dog, and it drove you absolutely crazy. You could no longer suppress any of your moans and by now your whole body was tembling in pleasure. He was eating you out so good you nearly forgot your own name. Who cared that he was your pet wolf/dog about an hour ago or whatever? You had never felt like this before, but you were so turned on all you could think about was getting to your orgasm. 

“Ahahhhahhh~,” he made your toes curl, as he shoved his tongue into your tight pussy, tasting the inside of you with his wet muscle. Suddenly, the pleasure halted and you were left confused and wanting for more. You swiftly propped yourself back up and found Jungkook staring at you through the strands of his hair with his angry big, fat and long cock in his right hand with pre-cum dripping from it. 

You swallowed hard. It was absolutely humongous. Was he planning on putting that inside of you? It would never fit!! 

“W-wait..you’re not planning on—,” he moved up and towered over you, your back pressed against your mattress with your eyes staring up at his face. He was staring down at you with his lusty green eyes, with his hands placed on either side of your head and one of his knees between your legs, so you couldn’t close them. He must’ve lost the robe at some point, because you just now realized that he was no longer wearing it which would explain why you were able to see his full nakedness. Before you could even utter a word, his lips came crashing into yours. It felt magical and it was a kiss you never knew you needed. It was soft, but rough at the same time. The way his tongue forced its way into your mouth and engaged into a fiery tango for dominance against your tongue, which it easily won, turned you on. You were dripping wet and there was nothing you could do about it. He really was unlike anything you’d ever known. You subconsciously kissed him back and before you knew it he was kissing down your body, leaving marks all over it. It was as if he was leaving evidence of his presence behind, so you wouldn’t forget who you belonged to.

“Now, (Y/N),” he suddenly flipped you over on all fours and positioned himself behind you. Your heart rate increased when you felt the tip of his enormous dick run through your folds. 

“Who’s pussy is this?” you could yet again hear the smirk in his voice and you paused for a moment. You were literally about to get fucked by your dog. This really wasn’t right. You had to stop it before it was too late. 

“Wait,” you started, until you, all of the sudden, felt his big member push past your lips and into your core forcefully, filling you all the way up, as if it were about to rip you in half, eliciting a loud “JUNGKOOK!” from you. 

“That’s right, (Y/N). Your pussy is mine,” wanting to feel more of your heavenly, sweet walls, he leaned all the way against your ass, pushing his cock deeper and deeper inside of you, forcing you to let out a string of curses. His dick was so gigantic it hurt. You couldn’t take it. You tried to move away, but he caught on too fast and before you knew it, he had you by the ponytail and pulled you back onto his member. 

“Don’t you run from me, (Y/N),” he growled, as he began to fuck you harder than you had ever been fucked in your life. At first you screamed in pain, the stretch was uncomfortable, but once you got used to it you started to scream in pleasure. He was making you feel so good your eyes rolled tot he back of your head. He was literally fucking you like a dog. The two of you were in a doggy-style position on the bed and he was nearly laying on you, pushing you down onto the mattress, so you had no choice, but to take his dick that he was ramming so deep inside of you that only his balls were left hanging out. 

“You like it, (Y/N)?” he questioned, his canines sinking into your skin, leaving bite marks on the area around your shoulder. 

“J-jungkook—ah~,” you were hardly able to speak, let alone form a sentence. You don’t know what he was doing to you, but it was intoxicating. 

“Should I really mark you as mine, (Y/N)? Make it so every dog, wolf and werewolf can smell that you are mine? Hm?” the dirty words he was uttering only made you wetter—if that was even possible. You couldn’t even really comprehend his intention behind those words anymore. He could do whatever he wanted to you. His dick was like a drug and it made you completely helpless. At this point you were down for whatever. Jungkook was now the master and you were the pet. The roles had been reversed. 

“Fuck, (Y/N). I’m gonna cum,” he barked, his thrusts slowly becoming erratic. What would his cum feel like inside of you? Warm? Would it fill you up even more? You don’t know how, but for a brief moment those thoughts crossed your mind that had been completely unable to think at all a second ago. 

“(Y/N), say it. Say Jungkook, I’m your bitch,” he snarled violently, his dick still thrusting deep inside of you. 

“J-J—,” you were interrupted by is loud hiss, “Say it, (Y/N)!”

You don’t know what came over you, but before you could even understand what was happening, you moaned, “Jungkook, I’m your bitch!”

And that did it to him. You felt his cock twitch, as his orgasm ran through him, inciting your own orgasm as well. You felt his seed spill into you and paint your walls white, as he groaned. It was so much and he wasn’t pulling out. He buried his dick deep inside of you, as your walls convulsed around him, milking him of his cum. You stayed like that for a few minutes, while he was unloading his seed inside of you, just like a dog would. You were incapacitated by his body that was resting on top of yours, but you don’t think you would’ve moved even if it hadn’t been there. Just the thought and the fact that he was ejaculating inside of you made you reach your peak yet again. He had made you cum at least three times and that was insane. It was like he had put you in a trance. 

“Ughhh,” he growled, as he carefully pulled his sensitive cock out of you. His cum spilled out the moment he did and you were glad he couldn’t see the sinfully lewd expression you were wearing on your face. It felt so good. 

You suddenly felt his presence right next to your right ear as he whispered, “Now the whole neighborhood will know you’re mine.” 

You blushed, as shivers made their way down the length of your spine yet again. What was he saying?! You slipped away from under him and rushed to the bathroom to process what had happened. This had to be a dream! This couldn’t be real! You leaned against the door and quickly locked it, exhaling loudly. You needed to wake up. You turned on the sink and splashed your face with cold water. Wake up, wake up, wake up! However, nothing was changing. You were still standing in front of the sink looking at your reflection in the mirror. Your body was covered with hickeys and bite marks, your hair was all messed up and cum was leaking from your red and abused pussy. 

Your jaw dropped, as you screamed internally. You had really just become your dog’s bitch! 

[rouiyan]

hmm im quite new to tumblr and honestly am dissapointed with the lack of GOOD doyoung fics on here. can I request a scenario or a drabble (whichever u see fit) of doyoung taking me along when 127 were touring and the moments we had (backstage/fights and making up/ comforting when he felt unsatisfied with his perfomance/moments with some other members too) I just miss 127 touring a lot !! and ofc if this is too complicated u can refuse lol

hey lovely, this ended up way longer than it should have been but it’s really just a bunch of drabbles strung together that have somewhat coherence to another. i liked the way it turned out though and i hope that you do too <3 

𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒 — idol!doyoung x (gender neutral) reader ✧ genres : established relationship, fluff, angst ✧ word count : 4.7k ✧ disclaimers : swearing, food

synopsis — snapshots of what it's like to travel with your boyfriend. oh an his nine other teammates.

“how much space do you have left there?”

doyoung peers over you, chin propped atop your shoulder, and even though he sees for himself quite plainly, you supply him with an answer anyways, “not much, just the front pocket now.” his chin digs and you shift your head the slightest in his direction, to appease him with your attention maybe. he doesn’t budge nor speak so you take it upon yourself. “what?”

“quick kiss?”

plucking the garment from the assortment of items he'd passed along, you inspect it with curious eyes, "you gonna wear this?"

"huh? oh, that." he sits back on his knees, then onto his bottom, then crossing his legs, "i thought i'd give sleeveless a try." you don't mean for it to come out offensively, rather teasingly in actuality, "you?"

unbothered, he simply muses on, "yeah, me. why?" with eyes rushed and flitting across his surroundings for a sight of his phone. now you're even less in the intent of offending him, more so just pushing his buttons in the face of humor, a humor that's evident in the way you glance up from the tee, eyes locking with his own and shadowing with mischief, "with what muscles?"

doyoung clicks his tongue, sticks it into the side of his cheek, and now back on his knees, treads over to where you're sat, countenance teeming with amusement. his demeanor himself traces in the slight of a smile that's yet to appear, only held back as he defends his biceps, "hey, i've been working out, you know." you watch him situate himself once again, legs crossing just opposite of your own. placing both your hands on both his knees, you lean in, lips puckered and nose scrunched either in emphasis or hilarity, he isn't quite sure though he thinks it's cute. that is, until you speak again, "you want your kiss? how bout now?" and he mirrors with an, "i'll pass," standing to retreat back into the hunt for his missing phone, head shaking all the while at your devious antics.

minutes later and upon finding it within the folds of his sheets, doyoung reverts his attention back to you who, by the looks of it, has just finished packing for the night with both sides of your suitcase clamped shut but yet to be zipped. his feet are planted firm on the ground when you move to stand in between them. they're off the ground a moment later when you push him back into the bed with an 'umph' and a hug that pulls both your bodies flush against each other's.

you'd go on about it for days but to you, doyoung has always been a silent lover. a kind of lover that people would mistake as just 'a friend of yours' or sometimes even a brother, cousin, relative of the sorts. by no means is he vocal with his love for you, and though times are abundant when you find yourself at dead ends with the thoughts of how he seemingly flits between, in and out of love, the one thing that never fails to reassure you is how he holds you tight. 

forehead on his chest and arms laced around his back, you do your best to hold him as closely as he does you but it's impossible, you think, and not because of his so-called 'muscles.' the intimacy you share with him is bred from comfort, apprehension, normality. it's apparent when he next speaks, voice lower and reserved for when you are close and the tingling feeling in his heart softens his regard a tenfold, "excited?"

you lift your head to peer up at him. the same softness is returned in your one-word response, "elated," as you thud your temple back upon his chest. the chuckles he give reverberate beneath you, "sarcasm or no?" a shake of your head is given but doyoung craves more. hands on your waist, he manhandles you, in the gentlest possible way, so that your head lies in the dip of his neck, arms around his shoulder, and legs on either side of him. he knows that at this point, your energy is already teetering the lines of consciousness. he makes the most of what little you have left.

"kiss me?"

a sloppy peck is left at the foot of his neck and your lips stay there for the rest of the night.

the wind slaps at the skin of your face. you swipe away a hair or two that it'd blown into your mouth, open as you exclaim into the wide air before you. the city air is noticeably laden with light pollution and carbon emissions alike but it's refreshing to you who has spent the greater part of the day limited to a cramped airplane seat. the shuffle of feet, a sound that's barely discernible in the mix of whizzing cars and honks, calls for your attention from behind. heeding to it, you find  doyoung, swaddled in a sizeable down coat, with his eyes squinted in the wind. "coming in soon? you've been out here yelling for almost twenty minutes."

you give him a look that makes it seem as if the situation were of a scolding mom and a naughty child. it's like you're adhering to the script because apprehensiveness does indeed rest in your wary response, "i just wanted to try it, like how they do in the dramas, you know?"

his tone chides, "yeah, yeah i know," while dragging you back inside the warmth of the hotel room, sitting you atop the bed, crouching before you. "doyoung, what are you-" though bizarre, the prospect of a ring emerging from behind his back does cross your mind. instead, he draws forth a bottle of wine.

you comment on it a little later, four hours, with jaehyun sprawled upon the bed to your left, snores loud and resounding in between the sentences of your hushed (and very much drunken) conversation. "you know, earlier when you brought out the wine, i thought you were actually going to propose to me." under the lamplight from the bedside table, your boyfriend's cheeks are tinged a soft pink, flusteredness maybe, inebriation surely. his head slops forwards onto your stomach, off and out of the hold of his palm, and lolls there for awhile before his dwindling bouts of energy jolt him upright. the sudden movement of his elbows digging into your abdomen have you groaning until a light smack is landed on his forehead. doyoung gives you a sleazy smile.

"maybe."

suddenly you're very much sobered up. "what'd you say?" though doyoung is still very much intoxicated as his head tumbles down upon your stomach once more, mumbling against your skin, "i did bring a ring to surprise you. i don't know if now's the time though, what do you think?" you don't think, in fact, you are completely and utterly void of thoughts. his, "hm?" pulsates from beneath you but even then, you're at a loss of words.

"i think—" i think yes. "i think you ought to go to sleep." 

when you will your eyes upon his figure, perhaps a minute later, you find that per your instruction, he's already fast asleep.

the flight from jakarta to london is 15 hours (too) long and you'd planned to spend a good chunk of it doing what you were doing now, seat reclined the furthest possible and knees brought up to your chest to prop up your switch. you'd come to the conclusion that packing your earbuds in your suitcase that went into cargo was perhaps your first big mistake; your second, forgetting to ask doyoung for his before he fell asleep. with the volume turned to mute for the past four hours and counting, you scrunch your nose as your animal crossing character silently stumbles across another wasp-laden tree, third in a row, but before you're able to net it, your boyfriend stirs from beside you, his fingers tapping incessantly on your wrist to call for your attention. you glance over at him, "what?" and when you glance back to the screen, you're displeased, to say the least, to see that your character now has a swollen eye, courtesy of the wasp and its programmed sting.

the look on your face when you drop your feet to the ground, the device dropping to your lap, is enough to get doyoung to cut straight to the point. "i need to brush my teeth, wanna come with me?" puzzlement clouds your expression and he furthers in explanation, "you know, to save time?" still not quite getting his point, you nod along anyways, thinking a little walk and stretch to the bathroom wouldn't hurt. "okay." 

taking his outstretched hand, the journey to the bathroom turns out to to be the most stressful. the whole row of three very tall men (jungwoo, jaehyun, and johnny in that order) with their very long legs making the situation a lot more complicated than need be. you end up tripping once over jungwoo's left foot, twice over jaehyun's right shoe, and thrice over johnny's right knee, a lot higher than where any normal knee should mark when planted straight on the ground.

the lock on the lavatory clicks shut behind you right when you realize just how small the compartment is. doyoung closes the toilet lid and props a knee upon it, leaving you with enough space to place your legs shoulder-length wide at most. you look over at him, or rather, you tilt your head slightly to the right and chuckle into the fabric of his hoodie, his chest pressed into your face. you manage between your chuckles, "go on, brush your teeth." 

his arms bustle their way around and about you to grab at one of the packaged toothbrushes at the left of the sink and a paper cup at the right. there really is no way around it though a moment later, he relents by taking both legs upon the toilet seat to accommodate you. his kneeling stance stunts his height so that you're at about eye level with him. "here," you pass along the toothpaste and he flicks a dot of it on the brush. instead of stretching over to the sink, he simply passes along the toothbrush for you to run under water, passes the cup for you to do the same, and accepts them back with grateful hands. "you know, this would've been a lot more efficient if you'd just gone by yoursel—"

"i know," he says it as if unimpressed, though it sounds more like 'iiroe' (or some other incoherent keyboard spam) as he continues to brush his teeth. you prop your hands upon your hips, both elbows hitting opposing walls and a teasing lilt is added to your voice, "are you mad you brought me along?" you're not sure if he's smiling or if he's simply following through with his teeth-washing regimen. doyoung shakes his head, "no." you smile at that.

you know for a fact that he's smiling when the two of you switch spots, quite the haphazard move for your head clunks onto an overhanging cabinet while his back is then subjected to half your falling weight. a hand of yours is quick to clamp over his mouth right when you gather your bearings because his laughs come out loud in between panting breaths. you're terrified at the thought of being caught by a passing stewardess who'd suspected two people and some funny business upon breaking in, only to find two people, yes, but one brushing teeth on the closed toilet lid and the other laughing hysterically with a hand clutching his sore back. 

doyoung backs out of the bathroom at first alone, head snapping left and right in a spy-in-a-secret-agent-movie-esque way, before tugging you behind him, the folding door clapping shut. he waits as you prod careful steps over the three soundly sleeping men and he grins when his turn comes and he epically fails in his attempt to cross over in one, sweeping step. he apologizes sheepishly at the three, now awake though still very tall, men and he turns back to you, only then letting the suppressed sniggers out. 

if not your lover, doyoung is your best friend. there's something reassuring about having someone that always has your back. whether it just be laughing with you, crying with you, sitting with you in silence as you both scroll through your phones, or even now, as he peers over your shoulder to watch your little character fish the same sea bass over and over again. you like the comfort that you share with him, the comfort you were so lucky to have happened upon.

the armrest in between is pushed up as you slip your switch back into the front pocket of his backpack. doyoung holds an arm out and you slip into the warmth of his side, head bobbing to the turbulence and onto the heights of his shoulder. he glances down at you, briefly, and when your eyes meet his, they curve into the sleepiest of smiles. the two of you sleep with the pace of your breaths in tandem with each other's, the two of you wake under the announcements of a landing, and your fingers hook onto the sides of his backpack as he leads the way off the plane, in a single file line all the way.

doyoung drapes a jacket over your shoulders the second you break the open air of london and he hooks the same jacket above your head where the awning of the airport stops and the thundering skies continue their downpour where it left off. his hand provides cover as you duck into the car, so as to prevent you from hitting the frame of the door, and when he slides in, right next to you as always, you grab his hand in your own, eyeing each other with the indications of a smile. 

it's then, as you point to the little droplets that whizz across the window of the car, that doyoung finds himself face to face with the same conclusion that he comes to time and time again. he loves you, a lot.

the palm of his hands slide down the satin fabric of his slacks, repeatedly. the look you throw his way has him gulping. "you sure you're not nervous?" his hands stop midway, too obvious it seems. "not at all." a quirk of your lips is given in response as you take the seat next to him in the waiting room. you watch as he tucks his bottom lip under teeth and you watch as his hands shift in their continuation down his thighs but retract and interlink as if they'd remembered not to do so. a stage manager knocks once before bursting in, sweat trickling down the sides of her face and a side of her headphones pulled backwards of an ear. she pants though the show has yet to begun. "five minutes and he has to get backstage," is what she directs at you and you pair your nod with a kind smile, signaling her exit.

the interaction only seems to ignite increasing bouts of anxiety from your already antsy boyfriend so you take his hands in yours, situating your body a smidgen to the right, and do your best to absorb his attention in something, anything else that could sidetrack his nerves for just those five minutes. 

"excited for tomorrow?" doyoung's hands squirm in yours and his facial expression morphs into a flicker of confusion before righting itself and following through with a reply, albeit half-hearted, "yeah, i guess."

"it's your first day off in awhile," you give his hand a squeeze, "and we get to explore the city, all by ourselves." he only nods along and though you're sure your attempt is futile, you hope that it falls through, "and new york's up next huh, i bet the snow will be real prett-"

"what are you getting at?"

it takes a second for you to process what he'd just did, what he'd just said, "what?" though looking at him, he's nonchalant as ever; the tone in which he rejoins makes it seem as if he's ticked off somehow, "why are you telling me this?" 

doyoung's brows draw to a point and it throws you off. he is ticked off. and it's plausibly that realization that gets you taking a stand for yourself as well, voice now clipped, "i just thought that i could preoccupy your thoughts for a bit, you seem so ne-"

"y/n." stopped in your tracks, you blink back at him benumbed. "i've already got enough on my plate as it is, why can't you just let me deal with my own shit?" 

there's something brooding beneath the face you put on for him. he sees it surfacing and he has enough sense to pay mind to it. that is, until you retort, "your own shit? then why the fuck am i-" 

"yes, my own shit. last i checked, i'm the one going up on that stage tonight so stop talking as if it's our job." and his defenses are held back up, sky-high, untouchable. doyoung's scowling at you as if you've never been more wrong in your life when in fact, you're almost positive that he's never been more at fault. the clench in his jaw, his hardened eyes, edged stance, everything about him in the moment jars you and you want nothing more than to punch him square in the nose (you do have quite the mad uppercut) but you restrain yourself under the pretense that he's minutes, maybe even seconds, away from being called to the stage, to perform.

sighing, the only thought that comes to your mind as you gather your bearings along with your belongings is the feeling that creeps between the synapses that once had held tight in your belief of his support, of his leniency, of his affections when it came to you. you swallow thickly, bag in hand and other hand reaching out for your coat, because you're sure you've never felt as unwanted as you do now, in front of him, glowering in your presence. at least the glint in his eyes soften when you come to a stop in front of him. 

doyoung peers up at you then, dubiously, and the first urge he receives is to duck his head back down. he feels small, and not because he's sitting and you're standing. he feels small, infinitesimal, with the knowledge that somewhere in those five minutes, things had gone awfully awry with little hope in rectifying in the little time left. the air that hangs heavy between the two of you remains silent, save for the unspoken passing of words that neither of you acknowledge. you're the first, and last, to break it.

"are you mad you brought me along?"

doyoung wishes he'd been quicker in denying. maybe that would've been enough to keep you from excusing yourself the second the stage manager had made her reappearance. maybe that would've been enough to get you to stay, to watch him, to cheer him on, to support him. maybe that would've calmed his nerves, finally, at last. he doesn't know, he's having a hard time deciphering his thoughts, chunking through his regrets, wallowing in his worries. 

doyoung gets into position. the only thing he knows is that he's in the right spot, the glow-in-the-dark tape tells him so. he'll have to sing soon, and maybe his scratchy voice will add to his pile of regrets. he'll have to dance too, to remember formations, stage directions, but the idea seems so far away, foreign, when all he can think of is the look on your face as the seconds dragged on, waiting for him to say 'no,' to say 'of course not,' to say 'i'm sorry, i love you.'

he's having a hard time because even now, long after you've left, the words stay lodged in his throat. and as the screams from just beyond grow louder and louder, as the lights overhead grow brighter and brighter, doyoung finds himself face to face with the same conclusion that he comes to time and time again. he needs you, he needs you more than ever.

it's dark and cold when doyoung first enters. to the right, he flicks the light on mindlessly to be met with an empty room. he supposes that it's warranted. setting his backpack upon the bed, sheets still pulled crisp and unfurled, he almost succumbs to the taunts of sleep that entice him but a single thought of you rectifies him, hand fishing out his phone from a back pocket of his jeans. 

it's then that he notices, with a startle that rivals a starring victim in a horror movie, the door to the balcony propped open a finger's length. he takes a glance back at the entrance to see your discarded shoes that had went unnoticed just seconds before, he figures. the curtains that skirt the adjacent windows billow in the wind that veers past the crack allotted, the gusts that becomes stronger and more fervid with each step doyoung takes in the direction. there's no creak that accompanies the swinging of the door, though he wishes there were so he wouldn't have to break his presence to you so suddenly. the second thing he notices, just behind the fact that you are indeed out here, is that the air is a biting cold, explaining the initial temperature he was met with upon entering. 

you're wearing the same, thin sweatshirt that you had donned for your backstage viewing of the concert, regrettably the coat had been neglected in your state. from the far edge of the balcony, you know there's a whole world splayed out before you, buildings lower, taller, equally as tall as the high-rise of your hotel, winding streets that never seemed to end, traffic that never seemed to move. you know, but it's impossible to see for yourself with the tears in your eyes that come as fast as they go.

time is stagnant, has been for hours upon hours, for you. for you also, crying is foreign territory, really, you'd like to consider yourself headstrong in the face of conflict and composed in the face of inner turmoil. it feels silly to find yourself hundreds of feet in the air and hundreds of miles away from home, sobbing in the light of an ineffectual fight with your boyfriend of three years. and it isn't as if the fight proved detrimental to the relationship, it was trivial in all the ways that pointed to the single course of action being to simply make up with him and move on. but somehow, your hesitance holds in resilience. 

you don't want to admit how unnerving it was to see an argument stem from such a small trifle, such a small amount of time, such a lack of care. why is it that situations that seem so small in their doing hold the most significance in their passing?

doyoung clears his throat and now you're the starring victim in a horror movie. a, "holy fuck!" accompanies the startle and the knuckle-white grip that both of your hands impose upon the rail. he steps fully out of the hotel room, into the frigid air of a london night, a london midnight in the middle of winter. "sorry, i- i'm back." rather lame but there's little headspace for you (or him for the matter) to process that. 

with a hand still on the nob, doyoung stands stiff across from you who is slowly but surely withering in the realization of how pitiful you must look, hair mussed in the wind, tear tracks evident, and the remnant pants that your hiccups had left in the wake of your breakdown. if not pitiful, then straight up pathetic. 

"are you okay?"

you blink at him. there's not much else you can say except, "yeah, i'm okay."

doyoung takes a step closer, a hand off the nob and the door clicks shut behind him. two more steps and he's a two foot distance from where you're stood on the far right of the terrace, gaze intent on his every action. he doesn't say anything at all, and what vexes you the most, he simply opens his arms wide, a forlorn sort of smile settling across his features. his apology.

there's not much else you can do except to give in to his embrace, reminiscent of all the love you've ever come to know, all the love you will ever know. you cry again, once in his arms; something about the smell of him, the warmth he gives off on a cold winter night, that gets you sniffling into his chest, finger fisting his own sweatshirt at the small of his back. a hand of his rounds your figure and holds you upright, the other is lain on the back of your head, soft strokes to tell you that he does care, he's here for you. really, the one thing that never fails to reassure you is how he holds you tight. 

hundreds of miles from home, scratch that, because right there in his arms, there is nothing more convincing than the fact that doyoung is your home, you are home.

mark sips on his smoothie until the straw begins to make those whistle-y, echo-y sounds that tell of how he's finished the drink. a passing waitress takes the emptied glass from him and he gives a nod to her muttered, "refill?" 

glancing back, he's met with a plate of food that's been cleared for a good while now and a table of mostly drunk boys that can't seem to get a hold of themselves. taeil, quite the horrific drunk, is slopped over haechan's side. neither of them seem to notice. and then there's yuta, taeyong, and jungwoo, all seated in a row and all with their heads fallen straight on the table, backs hunched over. sicheng and johnny are nowhere to be seen but mark supposes it wouldn't be all that odd to find one of them lain out flat on the floor, or underneath the table, or even suspended from the ceiling at this point. 

mark glances across the table, locks eyes with jaehyun who had also decided to remain sober for the night. jaehyun gives a nudge of his head over to his right, to where mark looks to his left to see you and doyoung at the end of the table engrossed in conversation, so much so that it seems as if you're leaning into each other, elbows propped on the table and all. he could chalk it up to the speakers, the music was turned pretty loud, so naturally you'd lean in to hear the other better. or maybe, mark thinks, maybe the two of you are just naturally drawn to each other, a thing that happens to couples as he'd heard, subconscious actions like these are plausible as well. or maybe, mark thinks, but his train of thought is interrupted when the waitress returns with his strawberry smoothie, straw exchanged and drink refilled. he takes it from her, a gracious, "thank you," supplied and when she turns to leave he takes a sip, turning back himself.

whatever made it into his mouth is spat right back out when he sees the scene unfolding before him. here is mark's inner narration on what's happening:

doyoung-hyung's not in his seat, huh. oh there, he's standing, no wait—now he's kneeling, oh, he's kneeling. what's he getting from his pocket? a box, it's a teeny box. he's opening teeny box, oh fuck, oh jesus, oh he's proposing. he's asking you to marry him. oh my god, what if you don't say ye-

"yes."

copyright © 2020 rouiyan all rights reserved.

✧ end note — hey anon, i hope that you thought it was a GOOD fic. if not, ahem, i apologize for taking up your time. but really, this fic holds together so many mini ideas that i had but were never substantial enough to turn into writing so thank you for giving me a base to build off of, i enjoyed writing it very much <3

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep15 [FINALE]

For better or worse I think Ryukishi achieved exactly what he set out to do with this series, and I guess everyone’s just gonna be forced to reckon with how they feel about his own perspective on this franchise versus how they feel about it, lol.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus Umineko spoilers.

I’m not entirely sure where to even start with this, but I guess the TL;DR is that I honestly think Gou/Sotsu was ultimately just fine despite it’s issues, and part me of can’t help but be like ‘I told you so, lol’ about how this really did end with this episode, and also committed pretty hard to the Umineko prequel elements.

It’s not like all of my theories were correct in the end, but I at least think I was pretty spot on in my prediction last week that this would end with the miracle of them side-stepping the sword issue entirely and choosing the third option of forgiveness and reconciliation. And also them ending it with an epilogue where we go back to the Matsuribayashi timeline and get a happy ending for Rika and Satoko that provides a ‘non-magical interpretation’ for the story while also giving us an idea of how Bern and Lambda formally split off into their own entities and start the relationship we see in Umineko.

I didn’t quite expect them to go down the route of having them agree to just spend a few years apart and accept that they don’t need to literally always be together, but I think that was a really good way to wrap things up between them. It’s pretty much the healthiest compromise to their conflict that doesn’t come across like it completely invalidates one of their dreams. I get why it feels too anti-climactic and convenient for people, but when you pull at that thread you get into wider topics of what the entire story is about, since this was always going to end with Satoko being redeemed and forgiven. People might not have taken him seriously, but Ryukishi was 100% genuine about his regrets about Matsuribayashi’s ending, and how part of why he came up with this new story was to create a better ending, while also doing more with Satoko as a character.

Basically I think a lot of the fandom negativity towards this boils down to people fundamentally disagreeing with the idea that Matsuribayashi was even ‘flawed’ in this sort of way to begin with, or that Satoko was badly written. It’s valid to disagree on this stuff, but at the very least we all have to grapple with how Ryukishi has his own specific relationship with this series.

People like to focus on how he’s a troll who likes to mess with people, but I feel like this is a bit of a wake-up call for people about how he’s actually extremely sincere, almost to a fault, and he likes to use his stories as a vehicle for expressing his personal philosophies and ideals. 

This whole story is also a good example of how he just sees this as ultimately being a fictional story about fictional characters, and not literally a matter of real people who need to be sentenced for their crimes or whatever. As early as the original VN he was almost being outright preachy about the message that nobody is irredeemable, and that philosophy carries through to this. But to be more specific, nobody *in this story* is irredeemable. He’s pretty open about the fact that in practice you can’t apply this sort of ideal to real life, but fictional stories are their own separate matter.

I think this whole issue of how he views this as a story first and foremost is also the central reason why this ended in a way that comes across as Satoko being let off too easy for her crimes. One way or another, Ryukishi’s made it clear that he sees this as being no different to how other characters had arcs where they committed crimes but still got forgiven, or how Takano is basically a straight up war criminal who also got forgiven for her crimes.

Anyway, this episode at least committed to the Umineko stuff, so that was satisfying. Sure there’s people that still want to deny it, but at this point I think a lot of people are just being stubborn, so it’s not like anything would have really convinced them, lol. I’m also genuinely not sure what people even would have expected them to do beyond what we saw her, aside from having the two of them literally put on their gothic lolita outfits and turn to the camera and go ‘we are literally Bernkastel and Lambdadelta from the video game series Umineko When They Cry’. I almost feel like there’s some kind of misunderstanding from people who aren’t familiar with Umineko when it comes to the idea of what it even means for this to be ‘an Umineko prequel’, or ‘a Bern/Lambda origin story’. I mean, this is quite literally exactly what I expected and hoped for in that regard. It’s not like I was expecting them to incorporate anything related to, like, Beatrice or the Ushiromiya family.

I think this is also one of those things where you just have to decide for yourself whether or not you want to earnestly engage with the story that’s being told, or if you want to assume that there’s some level of malice or trickery going on.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting them to literally have Rika and Satoko recite part of Bern and Lambda’s final conversation with each other word for word, lmao. Combined with the scene at the end where ‘Witch Satoko’ talks to herself about how she’s going to give her body back to Satoko while she goes chasing after Rika, it was literally just the exact origin story of their relationship as it’s depicted in Umineko.

I still feel like this would all only really be ‘worth it’ if we actually get something like a full on anime remake for Umineko, but at this point I can’t help but feel satisfied with this part of it all.

It’s not like I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is perfect or anything, though. I don’t hate it as much as basically everyone else does, but I think Ryukishi’s the sort of VN writer who really struggles with the shift to writing for an anime. I think a big part of the frustration people have is just from how this is formatted as a weekly anime series spread across basically an entire year, instead of being something like a stand-alone VN chapter that you can read at whatever pace you want, even if it ultimately takes the same amount of time to read as it would to watch all of Gou/Sotsu.

There’s also the whole issue of this being a sort-of-remake, which snowballed into a whole list of structural problems. They absolutely tried too hard to have their cake and eat it too, and they should have just committed to it being made for old fans only, instead of trying to sincerely incorporate elements from the VN that old fans don’t care about anymore because they’ve gone over it already.

And as I’ve said several times before, it was a major issue for them to decide to put Nekodamashi in the middle of Gou and then spend like 20 episodes on flashback answer arcs until finally getting back to that cliffhanger. I’ve been waiting until this all ended to decide exactly how I feel about that, and now that it’s all over I still think it was a really bad idea. I don’t think it was an issue for them to reveal that Satoko’s the culprit that early, but having the gun cliffhanger specifically happen that early just gave people misguided expectations and tainted the answer arcs because people were just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. And then the cliffhanger itself ended up being somewhat anti-climactic, which is what I’d been fearing would happen. It would have worked fine if they shuffled it around so that the cliffhanger happened right before Kagurashi and was followed up in the very next episode, or if this was a VN where you could binge your way through the flashback stuff, but spending like half of an entire real-life year to get back to that point only to have the resolution be ‘Satoko just shoots Rika and the death loops keep going’ just didn’t really work properly.

I’m a lot more generous towards the Akashi arcs than most people are, since I think they really over-estimate how much re-used content there is there, but they still suffer from the central issue of the show trying to be accessible for new fans. It could have been heavily condensed otherwise, without losing anything in terms of Satoko’s whole character arc.

On the other hand I think the first half of Kagurashi was awful specifically because it highlighted how bad of an idea it was to put Nekodamashi so early in the story. They still ended up having to go back to that arc and repeat it anyway, in the most 1:1 recap-y way in the whole show, but that wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place if that was instead the first time that arc happened in the show.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would rearrange the story to make it flow better while still following Ryukishi’s intentions, and I think they could have condensed it into a 2-cour season with this sort of structure if they did something like this:

-First arc where Rika gets thrown back into the loop and quickly figures out that somebody intentionally caused this to happen, and it’s not Takano because at least in this idea of mine she’d try and investigate her only to find out that this version of Takano regrets everything and is planning to flee the village with Tomitake.

Basically I think this could tie into the idea of Satoko initially wanting to just concoct an idea world for Rika so that she won’t want to leave this time, but sort of like what I think happens in Saikoroshi, Rika would still reject it, and this time around there’d be the additional layer of her knowing that somebody did this to her for an unknown reason. Maybe they could even initially market it as a new adaptation or a remake of Saikoroshi, and then reveal that it’s a sequel, to keep that whole element to the series. Either way I think this would end with everything going to shit when Rika rejects that fragment and wants to go back to St. Lucia’s, and Satoko basically snaps and kills her, and that way the audience can find out about her being the culprit without Rika finding out about it yet.

Maybe there could even be some dramatic irony where Rika’s attempts to meddle with certain ‘trigger events’, and her displaying her looper side, inadvertently triggers people around her to get paranoid, and the whole fragment would start to spiral into tragedy from there. I think they could at least use the whole conflict in Tatariakashi about Teppei actually being good this time as a starting point for that sorta thing.

-Second arc, rounding out the first cour, which is basically just Satokowashi. I don’t think there’s much that you’d need to change here, but like I said above I like the idea of her initially trying to just invent a perfect world for Rika and her to live in, instead of jumping straight to murder. But maybe instead of her literally just watching Rika’s loops, she could instead just be stuck using her looping powers to try and figure out how to create that ‘perfect world’ in the first place, by personally investigating all of the different tragedies and how to prevent them.

-Staring the second cour, a third arc where we basically just get to see those loops Satoko goes through, and her whole process of solving the tragedies and ‘purifying’ characters like Teppei and Takano, until we eventually see her perspective on the first arc, and how she reacts to Rika ultimately rejecting the world she tried to make for her.

-A fourth and final arc which is basically just Nekodamashi + Kagurashi, where she just totally snaps and tries to just torture Rika into never wanting to leave the village again, and eventually Satoko gets exposed and they have their direct confrontation with each other.

With that sorta story structure, you’d keep all the relevant bits of Gou/Sotsu as it is now, while being more focused on Rika and Satoko instead of doing kinda half-assed reruns of the Rena and Shion arcs. It’d also push the big cliffhanger between them until near the end of the show, while still revealing to the audience relatively early on that Satoko’s the culprit.

I’d also like them to do more with Satoshi and Shion, so maybe like with how Teppei gets redeemed and Satoko almost gets to have a happy life with him in Tatariakashi, the central question arc of this hypothetical story could also involve Satoko making sure that Satoshi wakes up from his coma, and Shion also gets to have a good relationship with all of them. You could probably do something interesting with the idea of Satoshi and Shion being in the camp of not trusting Teppei and his whole redemption arc.

Honestly I could spend a long time talking about how I would have done things differently, lol. For one thing, I think the Akashi arcs would have been much better if they just changed it so that Satoko used psychological tactics to make people paranoid, and we completely cut out the whole syringe plot device. I get how it fits with Satoko’s whole certainty gimmick, but it made those arcs way too predictable. Even if we knew the outcome, it’d at least be entertaining to see exactly how Satoko might go out of her way to set up the different tragedies. We kinda got glimpses of that sorta plot point in Wataakashi when things seemed to go outside of her control, but they didn’t really do much with it.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of words to say that I think that in spite of the serious structural issues going on, I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is fine, and was at least working with a lot of perfectly good ideas that could have been executed much better.

Also, on a side note, that one scene during their fist-fight at the start where the art-style changes a bit was kinda weird, but I really liked how it looked, and part of me almost wishes the whole show looked like that, lol. I like Akio Watanabe’s character designs, but I feel like that sort of stylized, almost TWEWY-ish art style would have been really fitting for this series, especially in the horror/action parts.

Oh, and the new rendition of You was so good it almost felt emotionally manipulative, lol.

[dreadpoetssociety]

I’m Many Things

TW: Mention of sexual harassment

Note: I’ve never really posted these before, so please be lax if it’s bad lol. I don’t see a lot of sibling fics (understandably lol) but I feel weird writing like romantic relationshipy reader insert fics with characters that are significantly older than me. Anywayyy, here goes. This is going to be short for now. 

Note pt 2: Idk if this really is any good. Looking at it now it seems a little off or I can’t really tell if I got Spencer right, but I tried!! It’s kinda rushed, I’ll admit. Also hopefully I used a gif right lol. This is kinda cringey and I promise I’m better than this fic, but I just really wanted to break the ice and start posting them, so enjoy!! (if you have any prompts/ideas please send me some ! I wanna write some more :))

()()()()()()

Summary: Your brother, Spencer Reid, has to have a meeting with your principal.

Spencer Reid x Sister!reader 

(or should I say reider hahahah I’ll shut up.)

By now, Spencer was pretty familiar with the hallways of your high school, given how many times he’d been called in for meetings with various different staff members, or even from the parent-teacher conferences alone. Thankfully, the office was at the front entrance of the building, blocked off from the rest of the hallway with floor to ceiling windows, with one door. 

Reid had been informed in a very interesting phone call with the principal himself of what you had done. He was used to the petty things from you, talking back to teachers, skipping a class, vandalizing something, but the one thing you had never done, at least until now, was get into a physical altercation with another student during school. Let alone punch the principal’s son. Even so, despite the disappointment, Spencer still sensed that something was wrong in the sense that he understood you wouldn’t just do something like that out of nowhere. 

He was greeted by the women at the desk as he walked in.

“Hello, Dr. Reid. Nice to see you again.” she smiled.

“You too, if only it were under different circumstances.” Reid replied with a polite smile.

“She’s in front of the office, as usual.” the woman gestured to Reid’s right. The office had many rooms in it on its own, its own hallway and all that. Spencer walked behind the front desk and turned, seeing you sitting in a plastic chair near the end of the hall.

You turned when you heard footsteps coming down the hall.

“I know how this looks, but I promise it’s not like that.” you began explaining.

“You say that every time Y/N. This is the third time this semester I’ve had to leave work because you’ve gotten into some kind of trouble.” Spencer replied, obviously disappointed.

“This is different! Mr. Beck is being so stupid just because it’s his own son. You don’t understand, that kid is awful.” you said.

“Y/N did he hit you?” Spencer asked.

“Well, I mean, no but-” 

“That’s exactly what I mean. I understand that you’ve had it rough, but really Y/N getting violent?” Typically, Spencer would always hear you out. He was understanding, and genuinely listened, but the team was just about to leave on a case that was already stressful, and now it’s being delayed, “Y/N there’s a serial killer out west killing people every few hours, peoples’ lives are on the line and this is where I am.”

He’d never spoken to you that way. It was really unlike him, and he never put the job before you most of the time, and this hit you where it hurts.

It was then that you both were called into the principal’s private office.

“Dr. Reid, I apologize for pulling you from your busy schedule.” the man known as Mr. Beck greeted as he stood up and offered his hand, which Spencer shook.

“It’s no problem, sir, it’s not your fault.” Spencer then saw the other boy sitting in the chair on the far side of the room with a very swollen eye that would definitely be very purple later, a day or two to be more specific he thought. For teens, it takes about that long for the hemoglobin to change the red color to a more blue or purple he explained to himself in his own head, because that’s just how his mind automatically works. Either way, it was worse than he thought it’d be.

“Now, we’ve already talked about the issue over the phone, and as far as consequences go, we’ve been very lenient with Y/N for so long.” Mr. Beck began, “If I’m being completely honest, after what happened today, expulsion is being very highly considered.” 

“You’re going to expel me? You didn’t even listen to my side of the story, I’ve been sitting on that goddamn chair this entire time! You’re just taking your son’s word over mine you biased a-” 

“Y/N!” Spencer interrupted, “Mr. Beck, I understand completely why you’re upset and I’m appreciative of you patience, but expulsion seems a bit extreme. I promise I’ll talk to her and she’ll get the consequences she deserves and this won’t happen again. Suspension I can understand.” 

Great. you thought, Serial killer and now he has to save me from expulsion. Way to go again, disappointment.

“What? You didn’t even hear what happened! Your son was-” 

“Y/N that is quite enough!” Mr. Beck nearly yelled, “We’ve given you so many chances and today, my son tells me that you’ve been making fun of him and violently hurt him without reason! It is unacceptable!”

You genuinely laughed at that point, “I’m sorry what? Your son told you that I made fun of HIM? Have you ever looked at your precious son’s phone?” 

“Y/N shut up. You know what you’ve done.” Mr. Beck’s son snapped. Spencer found the phrasing quite odd. His demeanor was off putting, and he didn’t seem nervous at all. Granted, he could be in shock. Spencer recognized him, though, from pictures you’d shown him when complaining about pretty much every student in school, “You know you came up to me randomly. You know you harass me literally all of the time, and for what?”

Spencer noticed that this kid didn’t look anyone in the eye when he spoke, but slightly behind them.

“Mr. Beck, did Y/N ever say why she hit your son?”

“What does it matter what she says? She cannot be trusted and this behavior is not new. My son would not lie about this.” Mr. Beck sounded offended. 

“As a staff member, though, you shouldn’t let your biases get in the way.”

“She still physically harmed another student. Regardless of why, she must face consequences.” 

“Mr. Beck, it is only respectful to at least hear what she has to say.” Spencer argued. The young boy in the far seat’s face changed. He was nervous now. Mr. Beck sighed, and nodded towards you.

“Mr. Beck, this my come as a surprise to you, but I was NOT harassing your son. He was harassing another girl between classes. She had sent nudes to him, and then I don’t know if they had a falling out or something, but she was trying to like, I don’t know, break up with him I guess and he was following her around and pushed her up against a locker and tried to like, kiss her even though she said no. So I punched him, and then he threatened to send those pictures of her to everyone.” you stated, “Mr. Beck honestly, I’m many things, but a bully isn’t one of them. And no offense, but the last person I’m interested in even looking at is freaking Kyle Beck of all people.” you ranted. Spencer realized then that you were being genuine. You were a good liar to the naked eye, but always gave off the basic tells that Spencer could pick up on when you weren’t being truthful.

It was then that Spencer’s disappointment actually changed to pride. Although he didn’t condone the violence, he understood that you were a loner of sorts, and appreciated that you’d stand up for someone like that.

“Dad, she’s so full of crap! I would never do that, you know me!” he yelled. Reid noticed the small tremor in his voice, and quick change of behavior. 

“Y/N, I know I raised my son differently.” 

“Check his phone.” you said. 

“I know what he does.” Mr. Beck snapped.

“Sir, I believe she’s telling the truth. I say this as unbiased as I can, but I can tell when she’s lying. I am a profiler, you know.” Reid backed you up. He didn’t usually pull out the profiler card, but reading the room, now seemed like a good time. Mr. Beck was taken back for a moment before sighing, and his son’s face completely drained of color when asked to unlock the device.

It wasn’t long after that that the truth came to the surface. Your sentence went from expulsion to a month’s worth of detention.

Walking to the car, Spencer said, “You know Y/N, I don’t condone the violence, and don’t exactly agree with the way you handled that, but I am proud of you for sticking up for that girl.”

“Yeah.” you replied. He noticed that you didn’t seem happy, but more so upset.

“Y/N, what’s bothering you?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m profiler, Y/N. You know I don’t believe that.” he said. You sighed.

“I don’t mean to disappoint you all the time,” you started as Reid’s heart sank, “I know you should be out there saving people rather than staying here and dealing with me. I’m not worth the time. I don’t know why I’m this way, I’m really sorry.”

“Y/N...” Spencer realized his mistake, “I was just stressed when I said that. You’re not a disappointment and shouldn’t apologize for just being who you are. Don’t undermine your importance, either. You mean more to me than the job.”

You smiled, “So does this mean I can come with you and look at crime scenes?”

“Absolutely not.” Reid chuckled.

“Aw, but it would be so cool! I’ll be good I promise!”

“Y/N, crime scenes aren’t cool, and you would cause trouble before we even got there.” he said, jokingly, “I bet you would even try to fly the jet.”

“Oh my god, I never even thought about doing that. That’s such a good idea.”

“And that’s why you’re not allowed to come.” Reid smiled, as they both got in the car and drove towards home. Spencer appreciated the ten minute ride while he could, knowing he would be leaving soon after. 

[silverpaintedstars]

How the Son of Shadows was Cast Out--Chapter 2!! Next chapter’ll get fun. I had fun with scenes here. @bookdragon1811 and i’m not sure who else wanted to be tagged lol. 

Prologue | Chapter One | 

Chapter Two: Cade’s Caravansary

Inside was a cacophony of what could be defined as chaos--but Elliot wasn’t quite sure. He followed Reaper around inside like a lost puppy--but he felt like one. 

The shack was wooden with few windows, and a set of old stairs led upstairs. There were tables scattered with no apparent order at all throughout, and a random company occupied the chairs, snippets of conversation floating towards Elliot’s ears. 

He pulled his dripping hood over his head, wanting to melt away from all this, feeling terribly uncomfortable. Reaper, however, seemed completely comfortable here, which didn’t surprise Elliot. He seemed like the type of person who would just--fit in anywhere he wished.

Unlike Elliot.

His cloak dripped onto the rickety floor as he walked through the door with Reaper. When he carelessly let the door slam shut behind him, everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and looked up at them. After a second of pure silence but the rain beating against the side of the building in the background, of being scrutinized by everyone, they were left alone again, just two more travelers to spend the night away. 

“Welcome to Cade’s Caravansary,” Reaper said to Elliot. “All permitting we can stay here until weather permits us to continue on.” He swept a look across the room. “Hopefully by tomorrow.” 

Elliot took a second to try and figure out whether that was the actual name, or simply another one that Reaper mused up, until he saw the sign posted on the wall. Long-ago scratched words on wood: Cade’s Caravansary. He didn’t know what a caravansary was, but he guessed it was here. 

Reaper walked up to the small corner desk where a man sat, boredly flipping through a large, weathered book that looked like some sort of logbook. Reaper stood in front of the man a second, before clearing his throat and getting the man to look up. 

“Reaper!” the man said, closing the book. He didn’t see Elliot yet, which was understandable, seeing as Elliot still had his sopping hood over his face and was standing behind Reaper. 

“Cade,” Reaper said, not quite matching the man’s level of hype, which Elliot got, seeing as they were tired. That could be their excuse. 

“Here for the night?” Cade asked, digging out an ink pen. 

Reaper took a second. “If there’s space available, I suppose we might as well, seeing as this storm doesn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon.”

Cade paused. “We?”

Reaper stepped aside, letting the pale light of the lantern on Cade’s desk wash over Elliot. 

“Ah,” Cade said, sweeping his oily hair over his forehead and opening the same book, running his finger over the messy writings. “We have two rooms on the third floor--small ones, but rooms nonetheless.” 

“That’s fine,” Reaper said, digging into a pocket and placing (NOT A COIN WE CAN DO BETTER) on the table. Cade scooped it up, placing it in a box with others. He then dug two wooden keys out of a drawer with tags attached and handed them to Reaper. 

“Enjoy your stay,” he said as Reaper turned and handed Elliot one of the keys. It was roughly carved, and the little worn tag read 46. 

“The rooms are upstairs,” Reaper said. Oddly enough he seemed like in some sort of hurry that Elliot didn’t understand. He only nodded, having barely said a word since arriving. As they walked across the room to the stairs in the corner, he kept his head low, avoiding eye contact with the others in the room, but as he moved his head, he locked eyes with one for a second.

A dark figure in the darkest corner, with a hood low over their face, but oddly enough, it seemed they had glowing eyes. That or they had a lantern in there. In that split second, Elliot felt a cold wash over him, like the person was reading deep into his soul. He broke the contact and dashed towards the stairs. 

The room was dark when Elliot swung the creaky door open. Reaper had gone straight into his room across the hall with barely four words and leaving Elliot alone. He couldn’t shake that strange feeling he’d gotten from that stranger downstairs. He didn’t really know what had happened, but whatever it was it had felt really--weird. 

The room was on the third floor, the highest one. Elliot crossed the room and opened the moss-eaten curtains where the dark, desolate landscape spanned across. He could see barely nothing, the shadow from the caravansary’s light going much further than the light did. He turned from the window and to the small table where a lamp and a small pile of matches were. He struck one and lit the lamp, letting the flame flicker and cast a soft glow over the room. 

Cade hadn’t been wrong, the room was small. Barely room for the single bed, an even smaller nightstand, the lamptable and an empty wooden shelf. Exhausted, he locked the door and took his damp cloak off. He ran a hand through his hair, sitting on the edge of the bed. He wasn’t really sure what to think or do. 

He could start with sleeping, but he knew that if he tried to, his brain would still lie awake. But he didn’t exactly have energy to think now. It couldn’t be that late, either, though there was no clock in the room to confirm that. A small part of him wanted to go ask Reaper questions in hope he had the answers, but he had seemed pretty tired, and Elliot didn’t want to disturb him if he was sleeping. 

So he sat there in quiet a few moments, rubbing his hands and looking around the room. Then the flicker of the lantern in a mirror caught his gaze. But he hesitated. Did he really want to see how his father had scarred him? Did he want to see his weathered, beaten self? 

The answer was yes, he wanted to see what others saw. Wanted to see what Reaper had seen that made him want to make sure he was fine. Wanted to see what others saw if they judged him. 

Gingerly he slid off the tall bed, his boots making the floor creak underneath. Crossing the room to the mirror, he didn’t look directly at it just yet--readying himself. 

Then he looked. 

A jagged scar now ran down under his left eye to his jaw, rough and healing. His eyes bore a new sort of pain and readiness that wasn’t there before--and oh, that old nervousness and scaredness was still there. But he seemed a tad more burdened now. His hair hung in damp clumps over his forehead, the reddishness more muted in the light. The peaks of his Elf ears could be seen under them. 

It wasn’t as terrible as he had been expecting--but it was, at the same time. It was different, and changes are always hard to navigate at first glimpses. But he doubted that scar would heal completely--it would always be there, a reminder of what had happened and that fatal day. It could have been yesterday--or a week ago, depending on how long he had been out. He did look more frail, but that could just be from strain. Or from not eating for a week or two. 

He shook these thoughts off and staggered back to the bed, flopping back down with a defeated sigh. It wasn’t a very comfortable bed, but it was better than cold ground. Before he really realized that he was, he had slipped into a deep sleep.

The light of dawn woke him early, lying on top of the bed in his dry-er clothes. Sun streamed through the window--the kind of filtered sunlight that comes after a storm, but sun nonetheless. Elliot groaned and sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He felt rested, which was a good thing, he supposed. Sleep was supposed to do that. He slid off the bed and shook off the few last drops of water, the rest having dried overnight. 

Elliot walked over to the window and peered out, the lamp having burnt out through the night. The same landscape he and Reaper had come though in the wet last night was now sunlit and glistened with dew, a few low-lying clouds dotting the horizon. 

He heard a soft knock at the door and started, softly walking over to the door. “Wh-who is it?” he asked, not being able to see through the wood. 

“Reaper,” he heard through the door. It sounded like him, but Elliot grabbed a stray cane that had been left by the door and slowly opened it. 

Reaper pushed it open the rest of the way, walking through and closing it behind him. “You’ll need far more training before you can properly use something like that,” he said to Elliot, who was still holding the cane.

He set it down in confusion. “T-training?”

Reaper ignored the question, locking the door. “Well, today we go on to Holden,” he said instead. He wore the black eye mask again. 

“Right,” Elliot said, his tone not really excited or ready for that. 

“There are a few things you may need to know beforehand,” Reaper continued. “Do you recall what I mentioned before with people not quite sympathizing with elves?” 

Elliot nodded, perching on the bed close to the window. 

“Well, that is how it will be there. I would doubt we could find anyone to take us in if they knew. It is like that here, but luckily no one saw anything last night. You will need to conceal your Elvish features at all times.”

“Oh.” Elliot knew he needed to add more words to that sentence but he couldn’t quite find them. They couldn’t find some other place?

“And I would avoid anything to bring you--or me--to a place like that,” Reaper continued, “but you need somewhere proper to sleep and medicine in your condition, and we could only find that in Holden. So we’ll go there for now.”

“Will-will I stay with you there?” Elliot asked. 

“I do not have a house there,” Reaper answered, “but I would not leave you alone until you have figured out what you will do and how.”

Elliot doubted he would do that but he stayed silent.

“Now, we do need food, which they will have downstairs,” Reaper said, casting a glance around Elliot’s small room. “Do you have your cloak?” 

Elliot pointed to in front of the bed where it lay in a damp and messy pile. “Er, yeah.”

Reaper frowned, picking it up and shaking it out. “It’s dry enough and you’ll need to wear it,” he said, tossing it to Elliot who scrambled to catch it. He slid it on, and while it was dry, it had that strange smell cloth tends to pick up when it dries in a pile on the floor. 

“I think that was it,” Reaper said, placing a hand on the doorknob. “We will go downstairs to get food provisions and then we will leave.” He unlocked the door and opened it, pausing before stepping out and turning back to Elliot. “Are you ready?”

No, he wasn’t. That was the answer he should have gave, but instead he responded with a very unsteady “Yes”. 

Reaper nodded. “Alright then. Off we can go.”

Elliot followed Reaper out of the room, looking back at the room he spent one night in, his first night out of Orlem, free within limits. Then he closed the door and walked behind Reaper, down the hall. 

What he didn’t see, however, was a dark, hooded figure peering out of their own door. 

Elliot and Reaper walked down the stairs in silence, Elliot slipping his hood over himself before they entered the main downstairs, remembering Reaper’s words. He didn’t really want to experience firsthand the judgment and unfriendliness that he’d mentioned. That was one hand he could deal without. 

They walked out of the cramped staircase hall into the still-dim dining hall. It wasn’t as crowded as last night, but there were still a good bit there, considering it was half hour after sunrise. Reaper payed no one there any attention, briskly walking across the room and weaving around tables to the far side of the room, by Cade’s desk, where no one sat behind it at this early hour. 

“We get food--where?” Elliot asked, confused, clumsily following Reaper around. 

“At the back,” Reaper said, walking around the desk, Elliot following. There behind the desk was a small wooden shelf nailed to the wall with a few baskets of random assorted food. Apples, breads, and other messily packaged things. 

“Now, the reason we are up so early,” Reaper said as he threw things into a bag, “is yes, for the fact that we will arrive in Holden sooner, but also so that Cade does not witness us taking his food supply.”

“W-wait, we’re stealing it?” Elliot asked, looking around nervously.

“He’s lending it to us,” Reaper said, turning back to Elliot, drawing the bag closed. “And he doesn’t yet know it.”

Elliot wasn’t really sure how he felt about this, but he was hungry so he didn’t really argue. None of the few other peoples in the room payed them any attention as they stepped out from behind the desk and towards the main doors. Reaper tossed Elliot the bag of food, who fumbled to catch it as he opened the door and they stepped out.

There was that leftover smell of dampness that comes after a rainstorm, which Elliot didn’t mind at all. The ground was still wet and soggy, and squished under their feet as they walked, past the Caravansary in silence. 

Elliot opened the bag of food and dug out a slice of bread, nibbling at it. He’d half expected it to be stale or along the lines of that, but it was actually in edible condition. There wasn’t really any conversation between the two as they walked. 

About half an hour in, they stopped to rest on the crest of a hill, looking down into the valley, where through the mist that settled down there, could be seen buildings. 

“You see it?” Reaper asked, pointing down. “That is our destination. Holden.” 

[the-tactician-magician]

This @flufftober2021 piece ended up being kinda similar to yesterday's, but at least I wrote a different ship to it lol. And it still turned out cute, I think!

Day 5: Watching the Sunrise

Rated G, Ignatz/Marianne, 1110 words

Ignatz honestly didn’t know what to expect when Marianne asked him to come with her in the wee hours of the morning. He thought that maybe she needed his help with caring for an injured animal, or perhaps she spotted some nearby enemies. The latter wouldn’t surprise him, seeing as they were marching towards their next battlefield.

But no. If Marianne noticed any danger, she would’ve brought more people than just Ignatz. The two of them weren’t carrying any weapons either. It was just him, her, and her sable pegasus that carried them towards the top of a tall hill.

Or… What if Marianne was leading Ignatz to such a secluded spot for more... private reasons? Like a confession of some sort? His cheeks burned at the very thought, even though he wouldn’t be completely opposed to it. Marianne had always been such a kind and gentle soul, and watching her blossom throughout the last five years was one of his greatest joys. She went from being a somber wallflower that could barely look him in the eyes into a lovely and composed woman that invited him to this outing without hesitation. And he would be delighted to keep on watching her, to grow alongside her. The only thing holding him back, he supposed, was the war that waged all around him. He couldn’t ask her to love him when his life may be taken the very next day.

Yet if Marianne really was planning what he was thinking, what was he to do? His face must have been so flush with embarrassment, it radiated enough heat to catch Marianne’s attention.

“Ignatz? Are you well? Your face is so red…” She turned around to ask.

“Ah.” Ignatz instinctively raised a hand to his cheeks. “I’m fine, truly. The wind is a bit chilly up here, that’s all.”

Marianne shot him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. But we’re nearly there. I promise.”

Ignatz felt the urge to ask her where was ‘there’, exactly, but didn’t trust himself to speak without accidentally blurting out his earlier thoughts. Plus, they were actually almost there. A few beats of a pegasus’s wings later, Marianne and Ignatz arrived at their destination on top of a hill.

“Oh! This is…”

He almost tumbled out of the saddle in his excitement to absorb the details of his surroundings. From their vantage point, he saw endless swaths of forest down below, with mists still clinging to their canopies. A fiery speck among those trees indicated the location of their campsite, dirt roads winded around trees before being swallowed by the fog of distance, and an even more distant lake reflected a splotch of sky amidst the greenery. On the horizon, golden rays wreathed the rising sun like a crown, and the encroaching dawn painted the skies with beautiful shades of pinks and purple and oranges and blues that spurred his imagination.

Ignatz was almost too stunned by the magnificent sunrise to finish his sentence. It was only when Marianne took a step closer that his tongue started to work again.

“Marianne, this is wonderful.” He managed to say. “How did you even find this view?”

She fidgeted in place for a moment. Ignatz worried that he said something to offend her, but her answer, uttered as a whisper, put his fears to rest.

“Um... I took Sigune for a ride because I couldn’t fall back asleep, and stumbled upon this hill. I… thought you might like it, so I tried to find you as fast as I could, before the sun had fully risen. I’m glad that we made it in time…”

By now, Marianne was right next to him, her serene face accentuated by the dawn’s light. She really was a beautiful woman, perhaps even more beautiful than the sunrise before them. Again, Ignatz double checked himself before he could blurt out some sort of foolishness that would sully the atmosphere.

“I’m glad too.” He paused to mull over his next words. “Was there… a particular reason you thought of me? I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, I just… wasn’t expecting this.”

Marianne turned to stare at him with wide eyes. “Oh. I guess I wanted to repay you for when you showed me the sunset at Garreg Mach. I know that was a long time ago, but…”

Now it was Ignatz’s turn to gasp. “Oh! I’m honored that you still remembered that, but I didn’t need any repayment. Even so… Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.”

When he punctuated his gratitude with a smile, Marianne smiled back. His chest was thumping so loudly, he thought it might break free and let the whole world know how he was feeling. How much he adored Marianne, and how much he wanted to capture this scene for eternity…

“Oh.” He uttered for the third time. “I should have brought my drawing tools with me. This would make for a beautiful painting.”

“That’s true…” Marianne nodded as she returned her gaze to the sunrise. “But I don’t think there’s enough time to go back and grab them... I’m sorry. I should have thought about it.”

Gripped with concern, Ignatz shook his head like a man possessed. “It’s not your fault, Marianne. Besides, not every sunrise needs to be drawn. Sometimes it’s better to just sit back and enjoy it with you.”

Ignatz didn’t even realize what he said until he noticed how Marianne’s mouth formed a surprised ‘o’ shape. He felt his face burning up again as he stammered and pushed his glasses up a little higher.

“A-ah. I mean to say, it’s better to just enjoy it. N-not that I wouldn’t enjoy it with you, Marianne. It’s just that…”

A soft giggle, akin to the most soothing of lullabies, wiped out all other thoughts in Ignatz’s head. Marianne’s smile widened as she took him by the hand.

“Well… I would like to enjoy it with you too. If you don’t mind…”

The warmth from her touch flowed through Ignatz like liquid fire, but in a good way. It suddenly felt like everything was alright in the world, they were where they needed to be, and the words that formed on his tongue were the right words to say.

In an unwavering voice, Ignatz said, “Of course I wouldn’t mind. Not at all.”

Ignatz and Marianne proceeded to sit down on the earth and look towards the rising sun. They exchanged no more words between them as dawn turned to morning, but they didn’t need to. The occasional peeks at each other and light squeezes of their hands conveyed everything their hearts wanted to say, and then some.

[writing-is-my-guilty-pleasure]

Patient || Kylo Ren/Ben Solo x Reader ~ Part 4

A/N: Part 4! Thanks for everyone’s patience (lol) with this part - Uni has been incredibly time consuming and I’ve just been too tired to write anything - so I’m trying to write a few things in advance on my Christmas holiday! I think there should only be one or two more parts in this series, and feedback is always welcome :)

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 

Main Masterlist

Star Wars Masterlist

“What’s your reason?” Your eyes flickered up to meet Kylo’s after he spoke, trying to make sense of his question as your eyes unintentionally trailed over his face.

“My reason for what, Sir?” You eventually replied as you gave up trying to figure out what he was talking about. Why did he have to speak so cryptically? “You’re going to have to give me more than that – it could mean anything knowing you.” You smiled cheekily at him from your position at the end of his bed; this time he’d called you with a deep gash stretching up the side of his left leg. It looked incredibly painful, and you couldn’t comprehend how he was purposefully putting himself through this much pain just to see you – at least, that’s what you hoped he was doing, otherwise you were completely misreading this whole situation.

“You reason for joining the First Order.” Kylo spoke bluntly. “You’ve been fixing me up for months now, and yet I feel like we are still strangers to each other.” If you hadn’t just averted your gaze back to his leg, you might have noticed the corners of his lips twitch up into the slightest shadow of a smile – but it was gone as quickly as it came.

“Oh! Oh, right, of course.” You smiled. “Well, my father was the Chief Medical Officer when he was in the First Order, and on his breaks he’d always try and teach me as much as he could about medicine before my mother caught him teaching me things that were too gory or troubling for my ‘young eyes’.” You huffed out a laugh at the thought of your parents. “So I joined because I wanted to be a Doctor and to hopefully be the Chief Medical Officer myself one day – I love my father and I’d be proud to follow in his footsteps and be as half as successful as he was.”

“And I wouldn’t say we’re strangers – I mean I’m pretty familiar with your body by now.” Your eyes widened at the realisation of what you said, and you continued in slight panic. “Not like that! I didn’t mean it to sound like that at all, Sir, oh dear.” You sighed, deflated. “I look like such an idiot now.” You muttered under your breath, as you returned your efforts to applying some soothing balm to Kylo’s wound, and preparing the equipment you’d need to give him stitches.

“It’s alright.” Kylo peered down at his leg to try and see what you were doing. “I’m used to your tongue-tied manner of speaking by now.” You raised your eyebrows in surprise.

You let out a giggle at his attempt at a mild joke, and the rest of your visit was spent in friendly silence, dispersed with the occasional small talk.

 “Y/N!” You jerked upright in your seat, blinking rapidly as you came to your senses, the memory of one of your favourite interactions with Kylo fading from your mind. Yasmyn was staring at you in slight concern. “Are you alright? I’ve been trying to get your attention for a minute now.”

“Oh yes, sorry!” You sighed, running a hand through your hair distractedly. “I’m fine thanks, just a bit tired I guess.” You adjusted yourself on Yasmyn’s bed; the two of you were having your weekly girl’s night – or as girly as it could get aboard the ship.

“Something on your mind?” Yasmyn asked sympathetically as she finished braiding her long, dark hair. “Or someone?” She grinned at you, wiggling her eyebrows. “Maybe someone tall, dark and mysterious?”

“I wasn’t thinking about Kylo.” You chided firmly, trying not to let your blush be too visible. At least once every girl’s night the topic of Kylo Ren would be brought up, as Yasmyn was always eager to hear about what the you and Kylo had shared with each other, because ‘even though he’s practically the leader of our fleet, nobody knows anything about him, and the gossip on this ship is so dry, your relationship with Kylo is the only thing I have going right now’.

“I never said you were thinking about Kylo.” Yasmyn grinned triumphantly. “I only said you might be thinking about someone tall, dark and mysterious. I never said it was Kylo, Y/N. I never said-” She was cut off as you threw a pillow at her face in retaliation.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Another two months had gone by since Kylo’s incident with the ‘scavenger girl’ – although it was never too easy to tell the time in space, and you had gone from being someone relatively quiet and unknown except to those you worked with, to someone whose name was slowly being passed around the entire ship. This wasn’t your fault – you hated having more attention than was necessary – no, the only person you could blame for this sort of attention was none other than Kylo Ren.

Over these two months, he’d managed to amass a mysterious amounts of injuries – when you compared the sheer amount of times you’d been called in to the times he was off the ship or in training, you were finding it harder and harder to believe that Kylo wasn’t getting all these injuries on purpose. But try as you might, you couldn’t really complain about it, as every time that you were called to assist Kylo, the more you got to know him, and the more you opened up to him.

But the closer the two of you grew, the more the rumours started to spread around the ship; and they were very clearly not in your favour. Because the more you were sent to assist Kylo, the more your co-workers noticed, and the nosier they all got; every time you returned from a trip to Kylo’s room you were crowded with questions from those closer to you, and judgemental and resentful glances from everyone else.

By now, whether because of these rumours or not, you’d got a reputation for yourself, and had even been personally called by other high-ranking officers to personally assist them – if you were good enough for Kylo Ren, then you were good enough for them. And that was actually how you got yourself into the situation that you were currently in. You were currently attending a very important meeting regarding a mission that would put quite a lot of Stormtroopers at risk, so you had also brought various medical records and lists of all the medical equipment on-board the ship. You had also had to evaluate the percentages of how many soldiers would either die or be seriously injured, so the rest of the medical team could prepare the right amount of equipment.

When the meeting was originally arranged, it was supposed to be attended by the Chief Medical Officer, however he was needed elsewhere; he had an emergency surgery that he needed to attend, and he trusted you out of all the other medics to cover for him. Possibly because he knew Kylo…favoured you over everyone else.

“So,” General Hux spoke up, finally starting the meeting. “The attack on the rebel base will begin with at least a quarter of the soldiers on-board, as we currently only have a rough estimate of just how many rebel soldiers are hiding out in that base.” You nodded, typing out quick notes on your personal padd for later.

“We’ll most likely be sending about one third or our forces down to begin with – enough to scare the rebel forces and if needed we can send in reinforcements.” Hux moved tiny digital figures about on a screen, illustrating where each group of the forces would be positioned to attack the base. “The rest of the fleet will be on standby in case a new strategy is required and a temporary retreat is needed. I would hope that our forces aren’t pathetic enough for us to even consider retreating.” He turned abruptly, eyeing you haughtily. “Do we have sufficient medical supplies for the foreseeable casualties?”

You looked up nervously from your padd – you’d been making rough notes about this most recent plan so you could report back to your boss and he could begin to prepare everything.

“Yes, General Hux, I do believe that we have enough supplies.” You pulled yourself together, trying not to ‘um’ and ‘err’ your way through your sentence. “But of course, I will send all the necessary figures to my superior as I do not have full access to all our equipment, and in the case that there are any supplies we may be short on.” You added as an afterthought – if there was anything that needed to be ordered you didn’t want the responsibility to be solely yours. “One third of the forces was it? And the rest on standby…” You re-capped while scribbling down extra notes. “And my superior sends his most sincere apologies that he could not be here instead of me.”

“No matter.” General Hux waved away your apology indifferently. “As long as all information gets relayed I could not care less who is here in his stead.” And with that, he continued with explaining the various stages of the attack.

Then, just as you were retreating slightly back into the mass of officers crowded around the main screen, you heard someone speak under their breath; ‘Well, it won’t be long until she does have authority to all our medical supplies, considering she’s been sleeping her way to the top with Ren. And then who knows how irresponsibly she’d use our supplies.”

You stop where you stand, feeling a flush creep up your face, turning it bright red in embarrassment. You could see those nearest to you glancing in your direction with obvious distain and disapproval, as if they were imagining a future where you were in some ways their superior. You could hear whispers on every side, many of them agreeing with the nameless whisperer, and you finally opened your mouth to defend yourself, when-

“I hope you’re not insinuating that I, the descendant of Darth Vader, would be capable of behaving like a common whore on my ship.” Kylo’s cold, slightly robotic voice echoed loudly across the room, silencing everyone, including General Hux. Nobody dared to speak, and you stood frozen in a mix of fear and embarrassment. “Because that’s certainly what it sounded like, Lieutenant Kendell.” At this, a few people subtly turned their heads in the direction of the offending statement, and you turned to see a relatively weedy looking man visibly shrink away from Kylo.

“I- of course, no sir, I didn’t mean to offend you-” You watched him backtrack, stammering over his response as Kylo simply stood, watching him. “I-I simply wish to see our forces grow and thrive, and was only remarking that this medic would not be our best way of seeing this happen – I mean she may be far too inexperienced for such a role-”

“So you assume she is using me to gain status? Her family name far outranks yours in any case, Lieutenant, so such foolish thoughts are unnecessary.” Kylo interrupted, and the room seemed to grow darker. “You assumed that I would succumb to any such advances?” He took one single step towards the unfortunate Lieutenant. “You forget your place, Lieutenant. It would be wise not to do so again in the future. It would be unfortunate to lose a member of our staff because of such a foolish mistake.” With this threat hanging in the air, he turned, cape flowing dramatically behind him, to face Hux, who continued his speech.

As everyone began to settle down, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander as you replayed the conflict. You weren’t hurt by Kylo’s behaviour, more confused that he would go out of his way to seemingly defend your honour – you assumed he wouldn’t want people to know that the two of you were even relatively acquainted. You mulled over your thoughts, confusion fogging your mind as you absentmindedly followed suite and exited the room amidst the other officers, heading back to the med-wing.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Later that day, after you’d relayed all information back to your boss, and sent him the notes you’d made, you finally made the journey back to your room. Luckily, it was your day off tomorrow, so you could afford to have a nice, relaxing shower that would hopefully clear your mind of the stresses of the day.

Eventually, when you’d got out of the shower and put on less formal clothes, (not quite pyjamas – these were your own clothes so your evening consisted of leggings and an oversized shirt) you just so happened to check your padd for any messages from Yas, when you saw a message in your inbox that was unread. Upon checking it, your blood ran cold – it had been sent 8 minutes ago, and it was from Kylo himself. Not another officer messaging on his behalf, but from Kylo himself.

You sat bolt upright from where you had been reclining in bed, and double checked the message. It was from Kylo alright, and it had been sent-

“Eight minutes ago?!” You shrieked, hurriedly scrambling to your feet, shoving your feet in your usual uniformed shoes, pulling on a long cardigan and rushing out of your room. It took you longer than eight minutes to get to Kylo’s chambers, but it was a decent enough amount of delay from the time the message was sent to when you actually saw it, that Kylo would be sure to notice that you were eight minutes later than you should have been. He didn’t even set a time; he had simply requested your presence in his chamber, but the underlying message was that your presence was to be requested immediately.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

About fifteen minutes later, you skidded to a halt outside Kylo’s chambers, having run most of the way there. You frantically tried to catch your breath as you smoothed your hair, trying to appear as though you hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes worrying that your lungs were going to explode. You introduced yourself to the guards outside Kylo’s room, and no sooner than you spoke the door slid open, one of the guards gesturing for you to go through.

“You’re late.” Kylo stated after the door had closed behind you. He was standing at his window, back to you, helmet off.

“My apologies, Sir.” You began, taking a few cautious steps forwards. “I was…well, occupied at the time that you sent the message. Believe me, I would have come sooner if I had seen your request sooner-”

“Occupied?” Kylo turned to face you, his expression impassive as ever; his interrupting statement, rather than question lingering in the air. “I was under the impression that once your shift was over you no longer need to be occupied.”

“Um...” You flushed slightly, subconsciously running a hand through your damp hair. “Occupied…in my shower?” You avoided his burning stare. There was silence for a moment, as if Kylo was trying to determine whether or not he believed you without delving too deep into your mind.

“You are excused of your tardiness this time.” He eventually spoke, and you relaxed slightly.

“If I may, Sir, why did you want me here?” You ventured, rocking back and forth on your heels as you glanced around the (now) familiar room. “If it’s to do with the comments made in the meeting earlier, I apologise if I’ve done anything to-to damage your reputation-”

“If anyone was going to ruin my reputation, it would not be you.” He cut in coolly. “You are not exactly in a position to do so.” He gestured to a chair set out in front of his desk. “Sit. We have much to discuss.” You did as he said, shifting around on the surprisingly soft seat, trying to get comfortable. He too, sat down in a chair he seemingly pulled out of the shadows of his room.

“If you think it is better for not to…run into each other more often, Sir, I understand that.” You started, leaning forwards in your seat. “I feel like rumours about-” you paused, unsure if you could refer to whatever the two of you were as ‘us’, but decided to go with it anyway. “Us, have been following me for almost a week now and it could ruin any chance I have of becoming Chief Medical Officer because everyone thinks I just sleep around and haven’t earned my place because of my family name.” You continued in frustration. “And it doesn’t help that, no offence, you seem to acquire a range of injuries from who knows where, and nobody else seems to want to take up the job because they’re convinced we’re having an affair or something – I’m lucky my boss is sympathetic towards me otherwise I could have lost my job or been demoted by now.” The words seemed to tumble from your lips, unending.

“You think my situation is any better?” Kylo stood, beginning to pace around the room. “I have the power of the Force, I can easily tell what people are thinking, and they do little to conceal their thoughts in my presence.” He spun on his heel, his bulking form towering over you. “I will not be taken for a fool by those pathetic enough to believe such rumours. I will not let them defile my name and my presence, or yours-” he cut himself off as his voice grew louder in anger. You stood as well, anxiously wringing your hands.

“I appreciate that, Sir.” You said quietly. “I know what’s on the line for you, and I’m sorry that it got this far. Maybe it would be better for a different medic to attend to your many injuries.” You felt more dejected than you probably should – after all this was a professional relationship.

“That won’t be necessary. While I am sure your co-workers are capable at doing their job, I know that you are most familiar with what antidotes work with my body and what do not.” Kylo dismissed your suggestion.

“Well what do you suggest?” You asked, a hint of exasperation in your tone. “While I do enjoy your company, Sir, I don’t want our meetings to affect your image.” There was a pause as Kylo took in your words.

“No. I will not be bullied by my insubordinates.” You heard him say, almost to himself. “We shouldn’t even be having this conversation; I don’t need to please the rest of the fleet – I just need them to win me this fight against the rebellion.” He strode to stand in front of you, and you gazed up at him. “I should not have to change my behaviour for them, and neither should you.” You opened your mouth in protest.

“But Sir, I-”

“You are under my protection. If there is anyone giving you trouble, you will report it straight to me.” He stood tall, not like that was hard for him to do, and you swallowed heavily, in awe of the sheer power he radiated. “That is an order. Do you understand?” His voice grew quieter at the end of his sentence; but he was no less grand.

“Yes, Sir.” You replied, suddenly finding it difficult to speak clearly, a smile visible on your face for the first time that day. “Thank you, Sir.”

“I think we’re past the use of such formalities, considering that today you’ve been accused of sleeping your way to power and I have been accused of doing such with someone of a lower station.” He said smoothly, his face as clear of emotion as ever.

“How else should I address you?” You asked, slightly flustered. (And slightly stung by the ‘lower station’ jab but it was the truth.) This must be one of the most bizarre days of my life, you thought to yourself, mind racing.

“You strike me as an intelligent woman, Officer Y/N; surely you do not need me to spell it out for you. Obviously the usual title when others are present.” He said, now walking you towards his door, hands behind his back, his form looming over yours. “Just because I allowed you to address me as such in private, I must remind you I will not be as lenient when we are in public.” He said placidly.

You nodded in acknowledgement. Kylo it is then – that was the only less formal title that you could think of. “Of course. I wouldn't dream of doing any such thing, Kylo.” You saw the left corner of his mouth twitch ever so slightly at your words as he opened the door, allowing you to step through. “I do hope you don't over-exert yourself in training, or do anything to worsen your injuries.” You called as you started to walk back down the corridor. “It would be a shame to meet again so prematurely.” For one of the most feared men in the galaxy, he isn’t nearly as subtle as he thinks, your smile widening as you walk back in the direction of your room, and you could have sworn you heard a chuckle echo down the corridor behind you.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Taglist: @ah-callie​

(also tagging @joscelyn02​ - just in case you wanted to know when the next part was out :) )

[59writes]

THE DRAW (PART ONE)

(PART TWO)

if you’re reading this as like an actual fic: first of all I’m sorry. how did you end up here. it’s most definitely 2 am go to bed. this fic was literally made because of a fucking uquiz about “ what kpop boy are you enemies to lovers with”

second of all, ignore any chess mistakes. idk I know legit fuckall about chess, my brother just always bitches about it whenever I want to stop playing because I just have my king left or smth like that because I know I’ve lost. mf reads chess books.

like look: I UNDERSTAND the game and how it works, and the idea that you have to think ahead and plan. but I’m adhd as shit and there’s no such thing as time or planning. ergo, I suck. like I SUCK. I feel like if I applied myself I’d be great but fuck that. I’m a bad chess player and y’all gotta deal.

third: I mention League Of Legends at one point. I’m so cringe yes shut up ok but I’ve been special interest-ing League for several months now and I need to let you know that Josh, y/n, and Jeonghan play a mean jungler/adc/support combo (respectively). I have so many more headcanons typed in my draft or whatever but I know nobody wants to see it so

anyways pls enjoy this train wreck of a fic lol

If you had known playing chess would have led to this bullshit, you never would have started playing in the first place.

You wouldn’t have worked your ass off, wouldn’t have pored through strategy books and watched live-streamed games, wouldn’t have competed for months to become an official grandmaster. Absolutely not. None of that hard work and pride deserved to be wasted on Yoon Jeonghan.

Thanks to your exceptional academics and study habits, as well as your headlining pursuits in chess, private schools crawled to your front door and begged for you to give them money just so they could brag about having you as arm candy. You didn’t care. It was free scholarships, a chance to leave your tiny town, a chance to start anew with people just like you. If you were lucky, they wouldn’t know your fame status, or would be used to the junk by now. Some would probably be even more popular than you.

So you grabbed a paper, scribbled a signature on, and packed your bags.

You had picked an academy for the arts, as logic games apparently counted as one. They figured they could do something with your whimsical essay writing as well, submit you in scholastic contests. It didn’t matter. You were free, and there to play some goddamn chess.

They had a hardcore club there, meeting daily on weekdays and occasionally for casual play on the weekends. Everyone there was excellent, all clever players with quick logic and a competitive edge that you hadn’t seen in a while. It was refreshing, but still not enough of a challenge.

You swept the floor with your classmates, and rose to the top of the club’s rankings within a week.

Of course you lost games here and there, as everyone did, but for the most part any game you began was imbalanced from the beginning. Your opponent could at best only defend themselves, only able to pick off pawns or bait bishops that inevitably ended in a brutal checkmate.

You were top of the class, and for once it took some effort. You felt like you’d earned something, and you were actually interacting with serious chess players who wanted to learn, not fawn over your work. They played fair and every game was fun.

That was until the blond bitch came in.

He sauntered into the class about a month after you’d hit the top of the leaderboard, long blond hair tied back in a neat and slick ponytail. You barely noticed, immersed in a game with another boy, Joshua. You studied the board as your opponent looked up, grinning wildly.

“Jeonghan!” He called out, waving at the other boy.

Jeonghan’s ponytail whipped across his shoulder as he turned, matching Josh’s smile with a killer beam of his own and jogging over.

“‘Shua!” He chirped, playfully wrapping an arm around Joshua’s neck, strangling him while his other hand smooshed Josh’s hair around.

You watched them wrestle for a second before clearing your throat. “Josh, your move.”

“Aw shit.” Josh says, wrestling Jeonghan’s arm away from his shoulder. “Back to the ass kicking.”

You grin. “If you hadn’t made that dumb move literally third turn in-“

“Hey! We are NOT talking about that!”

You snort and glance at Jeonghan, who’s gone quiet, studying the board. He crouches down and whispers in Josh’s ear, both of them scanning the board. Josh finally nods, pushing one of his pawns forward.

“What was that about, Hong?” You ask, capturing said pawn with a neat L from your knight.

“Nothing.” He replies sweetly, while Jeonghan smirks.

“Sure it wasn’t.”

Josh doesn’t reply. The rest of the game is tensely quiet, interrupted only by Jeonghan murmuring into Joshua’s ear every few minutes, a devil on his shoulder.

But it was fine, you were ahead by a few pieces, your bishops slowly inching towards a checkmate. The next move was it, the game in the bag.

And then your queen is gone.

Jeonghan takes the liberty of removing it from the board with a proud smile while Joshua cackles.

The game doesn’t last much longer, soon the both of you down to just pawns and your king, and then just the kings. A draw.

And let’s be honest here: Joshua kinda sucks at chess.

Josh counted it as a victory, though, hitting Jeonghan with a high five that echoed around the classroom like a firecracker. The boys talked briefly while you set up the board again for the next duo and packed your bag, ready to head to your dorm for a much-needed nap.

You wave to Joshua and turn to go, only making it a few steps before someone grabs your wrist. You whip around, ready to tell them off, only to be met with Jeonghan interrupting whatever swear you were about to say with a sharp smile.

“I’m playing you on Monday.”

He lets go of your wrist and turns around, resuming his talk with Josh as if nothing happened.

Rubbing your wrists ruefully, you headed home.

•••

Of course, his bullshit didn’t stop there.

You did, in fact, play him on Monday. He had you cornered within five minutes.

The next time, in four.

He gathered a crowd a few games in. Every time you’d meet his gaze he’d smirk, eyes brimming with some sort of superiority that made you furious, always endlessly cool and calm. He’d flick his hair over his shoulder every so often, even stopping to talk to spectators while you puzzled over the board, trying to hide your stress.

You were second place by Wednesday.

•••

“You cheated.”

Jeonghan just raises a brow.

“Put the rook back.” You growl, firm.

“Sorry?” He ignores your request, instead poking at one of your previously captured pawns he has resting on the table next to him. “Can you move? I’ve almost got checkmate.”

“My rook, Yoon.” You hold out your hand. “Give it back, or put it back yourself. H6.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you resign? If we were using a timer you’d have been disqualified sometime last week.”

It’s taking every ounce of self control to not slap the living shit out of the smug bastard. “Jeonghan, if you don’t-“

“How’s the game going here?” The chess club leader had made her way to your table, grinning widely upon seeing her favorite students.

Jeonghan smiles kindly at her while you curl in on yourself, trying not to explode. “It’s fine, Ms. Lee. Almost done with this one.”

“Are you missing a piece? Looks like the black rook-“

“Must have fallen off the table.” Jeonghan chirps, ducking under the table and returning with the piece in hand. He sets it with the rest of his captured black army, sending a thumbs up at Ms. Lee. “Thanks for noticing, we don’t need to lose any more pieces.” It’s an innocent sentence, but it makes you turn a boiling red. Lose a piece, my ass.

“Well played, both of you.” She replies, patting Jeonghan on the head fondly before walking off. The blond rolls his eyes, ducking his head so Ms. Lee can’t see.

“Jeonghan, you asshole.” You hiss as soon as Ms. Lee is out of earshot. “I saw you take it out of your pocket, you lying-“

“If you’re not moving, I’m going to.” Jeonghan replies, moving his bishop forward to capture your queen. “Checkmate. Good game.”

You can only gape as he grabs your hand to shake it and walks off, approaching Joshua.

That was when you really knew you hated him.

•••

You studied his games from then on, partially to learn, partially to gather evidence. If he was cheating this consistently with other players, you could definitely get him kicked out of the club and subsequently your life once competition season started, as well as learn and potentially steal his strategies.

Infuriatingly, though, every single game he played besides the hellish ones with you were completely fair. No pieces being slipped into his thin hands when nobody was looking, no clock taps that discreetly took a few seconds from his opponent’s timer. Even with Josh, who he was best buddies with: not even a joking steal or a prank of any kind.

It was just with you.

Every single game you played together, he managed to do something to piss you off, if not blatantly cheat. If it was one of the days you had spectators, his harassment would come in the form of heavy looks and obnoxious “I’m waiting”-esque moves: tapping his nails on the desk, raising a brow, checking his watch.

And if you were alone, you basically had to glue your pieces down to the board to stop them from slipping their way into his pockets. It was obvious when he did it, too, always sending you a smile, too innocent.

It was infuriatingly adorable how proud he was of his nasty behavior. And he was focused too: none of his other opponents got the thought and effort he put into outwitting you and attempting to steal things without you noticing. As much as you hated him, you had to admire it.

Which is why it was so hard to finally draw a line and refuse to play with him anymore.

Though he shrugged when you put your foot down, his dark eyes watched you the rest of that club session. Every time you caught him, he held your gaze for a moment before looking away and resuming cheerfully animated conversation with his opponent.

God, how was he so easily likeable?

He respected your decision, though, and didn’t even attempt to talk to you. It was genuinely polar and strange, and it made you lost in thought as the months passed.

You almost missed the absence of anger, as stupid as it was. School had always been boring and simple, and chess with Jeonghan was the only thing to have made you frustrated in a long time, to have truly challenged you in a long time.

Even when you buckled down on trying to get him out of your head, he seemed to follow- being friends with Joshua (and honestly most of the other club members) almost always devolved into chats about the club and “why aren’t you playing Jeonghan anymore?”. Josh often suggested playing video games with the two of them, and you had to refuse (although playing League with Josh was so fun).

It was lonely.

Stupid Jeonghan.

•••

Finally, tournament season started.

Following (what was apparently) club tradition, the entire team dyed their hair between practices. You settled with a simple streak of blue that was stolen from Josh (he went completely teal, the madman).

The next day, Jeonghan came to practice with his blond ponytail gone, replaced by a dark brown undercut, hair bluntly chopped to end around his jaw.

Unfortunately, it suited him.

He saved a blond spot for a bit of Josh’s blue, however, and Josh dyed it for him in the middle of the clubroom, laughing the whole time. They’d planned it, clearly, as you were pretty sure Josh didn’t just carry around dye in his backpack.

Which means he knew you two would match when he did your hair.

It was confirmed by an apologetic shrug when you cornered him while he threw away the dye-stained gloves.

“Give him a chance, please y/n?”

“Hong Jisoo. You know how I feel about that dumbass-“

“y/n-“

“Why are you so insistent on having us talk again? He’s a two-faced-“

“y/n, you’d like him. He’s funny, and genuinely nice. I don’t know why he was acting like that with you, but that was almost three months ago. Give him a chance.”

“You should be glad I like you, you stupid fucking rat.”

Josh laughs as you walk away, fuming.

Unfortunately, you did like that stupid fucking rat, and so when he offered dinner after an out-of-state tournament (he pinky swore he’d pay) you finally gave in.

Jeonghan coming?

lol yea

that ok?

not rlly

I’ll give him a chance tho

:D thank u

you owe me

I’m buying ur food :(

josh we r literally getting fast food

you owe me

lol k >:)

[mork-lee-bee]

Broken lovers 1

Summary: Y/n is a hopeless romantic in love with someone who will never love her back and Jaehyun is helplessly in love with someone who only continues to hurt him over and over again, sounds like a match made in heaven right?

Pairings: CollegeStudent!Jaehyun X CollegeStudent!Y/N X CollegeStudent!Jaemin

Warnings: Cursing, suggestive (possible future smut idk),Cheating, Toxic relationship(s) this chapter gets veryyyy suggestive at the end lol but it doesn’t actually contain smut

Genre: Fluff and Angst mainly

Word count: 3.2k

The room was dark, it was almost 7 pm and the gloomy feeling was hard to ignore the stench even harder. No one was sleeping but scrolling through his phone Jaehyun was going through a wave of different emotions in the darkness of his unshared room.

“Jaehyun,” the voice on the other end of the door speaks, the others had tried to ignore his self-isolation attempts but they had to draw the line somewhere and that happened to be tonight. With no answer to his name, the person attempted to open the door only to find it locked and a groan to follow.

“Jae, open the door you’ve been in there for a week,” The voice is slightly annoying and so Jaehyun lets out a low inaudible mumble but doesn’t budge from his bed he just fips over like a pancake. 

“Is he still not out?” a second voice can be heard much quieter than the first. 

“No, he’s still sulking,” after that there’s just silence. Jaehyun just assumes that they’ve left him be, but then the voices speak again.

“Jaehyun locking yourself in your room and scrolling through old pictures on your phone isn’t healthy,” in a sense Jaehyun knew they were right but he couldn’t stop himself from doing it as he finally throws the covers off and walks over to the door opening it.

“Shut up,” He grumbled in the doorway, the faces of Johnny and Yuta looking back at him.

“Look this is the third time that she’s done this to you, you need to stop going back to her and treating her like some sort of goddess,” Yuta bluntly states to the heartbroken boy in front of him.

“I think what Yuta is trying to say, is that there’s better fish in the sea and Heejin-” Johnny knew he messed up saying her name and stopped himself.

“And what Johnny is saying is that you need to get out of your room, which is why we’re throwing a party tonight,” Yuta says as if it's a statement not really giving Jaehyun a choice.

“I’m not going,” Jaehyun retreats back into his room leaving the door open as the two make their way in, the room is an utter mess that can be seen as soon as they switch the light on but what hit them first was that horrible smell of old food.

“Jae… at least clean your room, there’s a pile of dirty dishes on your desk and it smells rancid,” Johnny points out but Jaehyun keeps his back turned away from them not acknowledging their presence in his room just going back on his phone.

“Jaehyun. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Yuta snatches the phone out of Jaehyun’s hands to see the last picture Jaehyun had taken with Heejin on the screen. Jaehyun immediately grabs it from him, anger runs through his veins, a glare on his face.

“Delete them,” Yuta crosses his arms, eyebrows knit together, the both of them can be so stubborn.

“I can’t… she’ll come back like she always does…” Jaehyun tries to say confidently but he has doubts which ring clear in his voice.

“And what will you do if she just doesn’t? What if she never comes back? What will you do?” Yuta pressures Jaehyun who throws his hands in the air.

“SHE WILL,” Jaehyun snaps out of anger as Johnny steps between the two who are clearly on the verge of fighting each other.

“And if she does you should turn her away, she’s done nothing but hurt you, Jae,” Yuta lets out a defeated sigh before leaving the room. Jaehyun goes back to sitting on his bed unsure of when he even stood up in the heat of the moment. He holds his head in his hands looking at the ground.

“Please come out of your room tonight, at least take your mind off things, it’s not good to do this to yourself, and for god’s sake take a shower,” Johnny comments what he feels he must in the most neutral way he knows before leaving Jaehyun alone once again.

-----

“____~” Your roommate Miyoung walks into your shared dorm smiling like an idiot with a happy bounce in her step that makes you feel suspicious towards her intentions right away, she usually comes back from class looking miserable as you raise an eyebrow at her looking from your computer up at her.

“Why are you so happy?” You don’t waste time trying to bounce around the source of her good mood instead you were very blunt with her knowing she’d try to tiptoe around what she wants if you didn’t ask. 

“Well, I decided we’re gonna go out tonight!” She wraps her arms around you from where you’re sat at your desk in a hug as if to beg you to join her.

“No.” You shrug her off not hesitating, leaving the girl to pout as you finish the sentence you’re on before you can lose your train of thought.

“But _____,” She whines plopping down on her bed sadly giving you the biggest puppy dog eyes.

“The last time you dragged me out to a frat party if you remember, I was sat on the side the entire time while you got to happily party.” You type away on your computer trying to focus on the paper you’re writing the sound of the keys being pressed is somehow louder than usual.

“It’s not my fault! I tried to get you to join me, You’re completely single I don’t understand why you don’t put yourself out there and puh-lease don’t use your crush as an excuse,” Your friend could call your bullshit better than anyone you know past and present, even your parents. She was too good, especially at reasoning. 

“I know…” You mumble to yourself as you stop typing your mind unable to focus on too many things so you turn to look at her. 

“And what else are you gonna do tonight anyway? Scroll through Instagram living vicariously through people when you can actually be out there having those experiences? Watching YouTube videos while snacking? Pretending to write an essay that you’ll only end up procrastinating like everyone else?” The thing is that she was right. You always talked the talk about wanting to experience life but when an opportunity came up you never took it. So you shut your laptop and looked at her with defeat she was so persuasive which was good for her, not so much for you. 

“Fine! I’ll go out!” You cave-in throwing your hands in the air out of defeat and she’s back to her upbeat mood bouncing out of the bed quickly to get to her closet to find anything to wear. You, on the other hand, didn’t budge staying in your seat. You didn’t want to change out of your normal study outfit which consisted of a pair of shorts and a hoodie.

“______!” Your friend shouts, throwing a dress in your direction which lands on your head blocking your vision.

“HEY!” You shout pulling the dress off your face and sending glares her way.

“You need to get ready!” She argues as you take a glance at the time.

“It’s only 7, and I don’t take as long as you do to get ready, so let me work on this paper for an hour and then I’ll get ready,” You reason and she lets out a long sigh followed by a drawn-out fine not wanting to push her luck.

--------

“Seeeeeee isn’t that better?” Johnny asks when he enters Jaehyun’s room, the plates have been cleared out, there are new clean sheets on the bed and Jaehyun cleaned himself up even, freshly shaved and everything. Well on the outside he looked fine, his mind in actuality is a mess. Jaehyun just shrugs, not very interested as he shakes his damp hair. Getting Jaehyun to leave the dorm would be a task in itself but if there's one thing Johnny is, it's determined.

“Look, Jae, if you come out tonight I’ll stop bothering you about everything but please you really need to leave your room and have some fun, you can sit around sulking for all I care just leave the room,” Johnny pleads hoping to convince his friend to leave.

“If I hate it I’m retreating.” Is all Jaehyun says not even looking up from his phone but Johnny is clearly silently rejoicing. 

“Okay, yeah,” Johnny calmly nods before going to exit Jaehyun’s room, closing the door behind him.

“HE SAID HE’LL GO!” Johnny yells out to Yuta and whoever else is listening after leaving Jae’s room causing a smile to appear on Jae's face and his dimples to become visible until he looks down at his phone and his lock screen changes his mood completely, the small smile completely gone.

“I’m fucked,” He sighs before throwing the phone onto the bed thinking for a moment, silence until Yuta appears in the doorway almost like magic.

“Get up you simp, we’re starting,” Yuta walks over spotting his phone before turning the screen on.

“You won’t get laid if your lock screen is still that picture,” Yuta tries to reason but it’s too hard to change it so Jaehyun just grabs the phone slipping it into his pocket.

“I just won’t show it to anyone,” Jaehyun brushes Yuta off walking past him and out of the room, he wasn’t the same wild Jaehyun they had met back in freshman year when he would be having fun and not having any cares, they missed that Jaehyun, but he seemed impossibly gone.

As soon as people start coming Jae grabs a few bottles of Soju and finds a spot where he won’t be bothered.

------

Frat parties weren’t your favorite it’s true but they weren’t the worst it depends on who you’re with, so when you got into the cramped room past the entryway, clearly, they wanted the maximum amount of people they could fit in as you try to stay to the wall of the place, you’re holding Miyoung’s hand tightly so the two of you aren’t separated but Miyoung could clearly care less as she only lightly holds yours and complains.

“____, are you trying to break my hand?” She shouts above the bass booming off the wall. You realize you’re holding her hand in a death grip and let off a bit of the pressure as soon as you both reach the drinks, beer, beer, and more beer.

“Can we just relax?” You ask your friend who lets out a laugh before signaling over one of the frat boys she had been with a few times you can’t quite remember his name but he’s a sweetheart, she knew where to get the real stuff, clearly wasting no time at all to get started, she looks at you before shouting again.

“MAKE IT TWO! Look we came to have some fun, you can stay here for a bit but once you’re sufficiently sad I’m dragging you out to dance,” you nod reluctantly agreeing to her as you usually did.

“Love you,” She blows you an air kiss before she downs her drink, Soju, in record speed as soon as the drinks are down in front of her while you take a bit longer, mid drink though she’s already run off leaving you alone as she drags the drink guy away to dance with the other sweaty bodies. You weren’t in any rush to join her as you look around

“Can I sit here?” You ask timidly as you finish off your own drink and point to the seat next to the stranger after finding a less crowded spot in the room.

“Sure,” He doesn’t really acknowledge you or your presence. You hesitate to talk but you remember Miyoung in her higher than necessary but cute voice telling you to ‘live a little’.

“What’s your name?” You lean over downing the rest of your second drink for a bit of liquid courage to maybe to kick in.

“Jung Yoonoh, but everyone just calls me Jaehyun,” The boy who couldn’t be older than 23 sitting next to you mumbles barely audible over the loud music blasting. He seemed uninterested as he grips his drink almost angrily. 

“Jaehyun, I like that,” you smile thinking out loud without a filter, although you’ve maybe had two drinks you still didn’t have much of a filter anyway.

“Why are you so agitated?” You tilt your head to the side slightly as if a curious puppy saw something that interested them.

“I’m not.” He finally meets your eyes but you just roll yours before leaning back in your seat slightly, definitely more relaxed.

“Then tell me Yoonoh, why are you gripping your drink like you hate it? And why are you speaking like I’m the most annoyin-” he cuts you off by attaching his lips to yours. It’s not a light kiss, it’s full of anger and annoyance unsure of if it’s because you or someone else that’s caused his anger but you return the heated kiss before he pulls away leaving you slightly breathless, your lips feel every moment.

“I didn’t leave my place to be psychoanalyzed but some stranger,” Jaehyun picks up his drink before emptying it into his mouth trying to take the edge off as you touch your lips the sting lingering.

“And I didn’t leave my dorm to talk to some asshole,” You roll your eyes finally out of your short daze dropping your fingers from your lips and taking another drink which had, clearly he had friends in the frat since he had some Soju and not a warm beer like most of the other part goers.

“You’re the one who approached me.” He says under his breath clearly wanting you to leave but you simply pout leaning against the arm of the chair trying to get a better look at him in the dimly lit room, your vision slightly distorted but you could still see him, a handsome man, definitely not your usual type, he was much tougher which you admit is attractive but you always were interested in people with a softer appearance.

“This place is packed I saw an open seat-” you try to explain but he mimics your movement resting his arm against the chair leaning forward so that your faces are once again only inches apart but you don’t really register this completely.

“You didn’t have to force yourself to make small talk,” he smirks his eyes looking over your face, you’re actually very attractive and clearly confident in the next words you say.

“I wanted to talk to you, you’re cute,” You laugh before booping his nose with your finger, he’s surprised at first but eventually does laugh with you as your eyes widen in surprise not only at his laugh but his incredibly cute dimples that you had a slight urge to just kiss but held back.

“You smiled! That’s a win for me!” You tease sticking your tongue out at him as you down another sip of your drink unsure of if it’s number three or four, Jaehyun joins you in drinking as well.

“Why are you here?” His demeanor is definitely more relaxed now that he’s had a few drinks and clearly you were very distracting for what was on his mind.

“My friend dragged me out for a good time,” You laugh watching Miyoung having a great time up against a different guy this time but you didn’t really worry a ton she could definitely hold her own and she was only on her first drink, she wasn’t exactly a lightweight.

“What about you hmm, angry boy?” You’re leaning towards him again, the drinks were starting to hit you more at this point but you didn’t care.

“To forget,” He says without thinking as you raise an eyebrow in confusion.

“Forget what?” You question bringing your hands up to your face to feel the heat radiating off your cheeks from the alcohol.

“The paper I have due tomorrow,” Jaehyun lies as he makes sure his phone is facing downwards realizing he really should have taken Yuta’s advice.

“Oop, me too!” You don’t take note of Jaehyun’s movements trying to focus on his face, your eyes are dilated.

“What’s your major?” He raises an eyebrow trying to guess, maybe you’re a bio major or some type of business major but he doesn’t expect what you say.

“Korean Sign Language,” You smile before taking another sip.

“I bet you’re great with your hands then,” Jaehyun smirks as you almost choke before giving him a sly smile.

“I should show you sometime,” You wink placing your drink on the ground next to you.

“Why wait?” Jaehyun asks shaking his hair that falls in front of his face.

“You’re eager aren’t cha?” you ask before a small squeal that only he can really hear leaves your lips when he pulls you to sit on his lap so that you’re straddling him, not that you’re complaining. He wasn’t gentle at all, he definitely didn’t mind manhandling anyone, which makes your heart hammer out of your chest.

“Just a little bit,” Jaehyun smirks before he attacks your neck with his lips, you almost start laughing immediately, your neck is extremely ticklish unknown to him. You bite your lip to suppress the laughter, but as soon as he lips brush over a particularly sensitive part you let out a giggle. Jaehyun pulls away slightly to look at you confusion on his face.

“Not the reaction I was expecting,” He tilts his head slightly and your face heats up further out of embarrassment.

“My neck is ticklish,” You speak softly looking away from his face but he moves your face to meet his as he looks directly into your eyes. Something about his eyes is different the emotion behind them is almost sad.

“Good,” Jaehyun’s lips are on yours again for the second time that night and you get a better feel of his lips that taste almost like bubble gum, your hands go straight to his hair as he deepens the kiss between the two of you, your both frightening for dominance until you hear something.

“AYEEEEE ____, Get it!” Miyoung’s voice makes you falter smiling into the kiss giving Jaehyun the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth, your whole body is on fire at this point. His hands that were previously resting on your waist move lower and you pull away from him scanning around the room, there were still a ton of people around.

“We’re in public,” You point out and he smirks leaning close to your ear his breath on your neck makes you laugh lightly.

“Should we go upstairs then?” and then you put two and two together, he was clearly a frat boy you should have known from the Soju bottles which just made things more convenient.

“And do what?” You tease before Jaehyun stands up, your legs wrapped around his torso as he heads towards the stairs, you could hear Miyoung yelling ‘WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT!’ after the two of you.

The next thing you know he’s flinging you onto his bed and him pinning you down going back to continue his advances without protest.

Chapter two being released on: 6/13 <3

Masterlist

[borisbubbles]

25. PORTUGAL

Elisa - “Medo de sentir”

We’ve finally crossed over into the “I like this” territory :-) Let’s celebrate by booting another ballad ^_^

Song Analysis

This will be short and sweet though, since there isn’t much to say. “Medo de sentir” basically the Marie Myriam of its national final: It is a cromulent ballad that did nothing wrong and is solidly good, but not great in all the relevant areas (vocals, composition, staging). 

I mean,

Even so, Elisa gave me a few small nuggets that warmed me to her, serving DRAMAFACE in the FdC Semi

and LOOKS in the Finale: 

Peach puffy sleeves that rival Leonor Andrade’s legendary shoulder pads as a fashion statement <3 (honestly, this is pretty subdued for FdC fashion even? Hold on until I get talk about Felipe in the NF Corner) 

Honestly, you may wonder why I like this more than “Répondez-moi”, but I don’t really have a reason  - unless you’re willing to accept “Medo de sentir is underrated, is performed by a Weird Indie Girl and is from a criminally overlooked Eurovision country” as valid argumentations. Oh and while I only *very* mildly like Elisa, it is a decision I made myself, completely free of the social pressure I feel whenever Gjon, or heaven forbid, Roxen or Diodato, pop up. 

Furthermore, the fact that I still like Elisa even after she won her NF also speaks greatly in her favour. I’m not sure if you were aware of how good FdC was this year? Well, sit down because you are about to witness it!

NF Corner

Remember how old Eesti Laul’s neck was snapped and its corpse was urinated on by the shit Estonians? Remember how the quirky indie weirdo entries had to find a safe haven elsewhere in Europe? The Portugese hallmark traits of “Not Giving A Fuck”, “Doing Our Own Thing No Matter What” and “What Do You Mean This Isn’t A Vimeo Showreel?” allowed for Festival da Canção to absorb Eesti Laul’s broken spirit and channel it from every (Ley-La-)Ley-Line.

and since this is the first *GREAT* 2020 NF I am covering, I will do HONORABLE MENTIONS before I actually review my four choices :o

Dubio - “Ceguiera”: Hamburglar-looking goddess <3333

MEERA - “Copo de gin”: Pure EL-style EDM *and* it’s about drinking gin, needless to say this song is basically *my anthem*.  Jimmy P - “Abensonhado”: Rap rarely is my thing, let alone three minutes of it non-stop. Having said that, this is genuine and dramatic and Jimmy is flanked by a GOSPEL CHOIR (dressed in chasubles!!!) who support him in ENGLISH... I am not made of stone.  JJaZZ - “Agora”: Totally slept on this weird indie anthem, but then they showed up looking like this:

and yes, it was even funnier in motion (sadly gif’ing rights are reserved to the Elite 4 soz) Elisa Rodrigues - “Não voltes mais”: a jolly tropical ballad in a genre I recognize but cannot name (some sort of pimba fado jazz? Does this work?) and was incomprehensibly hated by the Portuguese? Will I ever understand how this country operates? Probably never. Kady - “Diz so”: another pimba fado jazz sort of thing? My friend André (who is from Brazil) tells me it’s actively parodying Brazillian counterculture and leftist stereotypes which is such a random quirk to put in a Portuguese music comp <3

And before we move on, I’ll chuck in a very speclal DISHONORABLE mention for our good friends Blasted Mechanism.😈 I actually forgot to do my jury duties for ESCUnited here, so I’ll just let James (the person with the best taste on our team, including yours truly) do it for me: 

Fucking *TRUTH*. “Rebellion’”s problem  has always been a lack of motherfucking balls. Sure, these middle-aged steampunkers attempt to implement a genre shift between indie rock and fucking ORCHESTRAL METAL/HIP HOP and make it so underwhelming and pathetic? People blame the live, and yes it was *bad* (forever cackling at “REBELGIUM” tho), but it was the studio that failed to deliver on the promises it made.  It always surprises me when people (Sean and Roy I AM coming for you) slam "Verona” for being a “fanwank” and then fall for a Rebellion which is basically a fanwank for heterosexual snobs. #ShotsFired. 

Now, as for the actual Boris faves, LET US START WITH A LIBERAL DOSE OF ASKEW CUBISM

Judas - “Cubismo Enviesado” 

VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?   

VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  

VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?   

VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  VÊS OU NÃO?  

 WHAT A FUCKING SPANDEX CATASTROPHE. “Cubismo enviesado” is a horrible song, the choreography looks like it had been conjured up during a particularly drunk night of bedroom karaoke and Judas can’t hold a tune for the life of him. The lyrics don’t even make sense in Portuguese <33333 It is an art school project gone disastrously wrong. NEEDLESS TO SAY, I AM OBSESSED.😍

Filipe Sambado - “Gerbera Amarelo do Sul”

That look

The regal panache

Those... leather shorts?

IT IS SO QUEER I LOVES IT. As with Cubismo, I am fucking OBSESSED. However, unlike Cubismo, “Gerbera amarela do sul” is *legitimately* great, lol. In addition to having a KICK-ASS fado rhythm and the off-the-charts visual components (the jewellery! the hats! the throne! the hand choreography!), the lyrics are highly intelligent poetry geared at dismantling upper class snobism.😍 Rare to find an entry that kicks ass on SO MANY levels. Even harder to see it lose to Elisa Myriam - but I’m not sad it lost because, you know, it would have befallen the same fate as a “Telemóveis”. At least his existence makes the memory-holing of Achille Lauro’s ICONIC Virgin Queen Cosplay so much easier to stomach. 

Throes & The Shine - “Movimiento”

I mean, entries that open like THIS: 

are instantly iconic, ngl. The best FdC entries offer a great triple of great looks, unplugged stubborn artistry and fun quirky rhythmes. Throes + The Shine pass this with flying colours and I mean, THOSE sunglasses alone yank up the laugh-out-laugh factor to astronomical levels. add in a hilarious choreography, sound effects that seemingly imitate duck mating noises and three very attractive men (in 2020! the concept!) and it’s an instant fave right there. 

AND THEN MADE THEIR ENTRY EVEN BETTER BY ADDING MIDNIGHT GOLD/JOWST EFFECTS TO THEIR STAGING. 😍😍😍😍

MANCHAS DE LAMA NA SUA PELE  

HEROES. 😍😍😍

and of course, this wouldn’t be a 2020 NF without an obvious runaway fave losing at the last minute: 

Bárbara Tinoco - “Passe-partout”

SHE IS TINY <3333:

She’s like a human bonsai... or a personal attack chincilla.

Okay, so Portugal were *THIS close* to out-France’ing the French with this sassy Zazballad, served with a generous dollop of parisian accordion and stank reaction shots.

Yet another entry that shamelessly uses an attractive man as a boytoy prop <333 For a brief moment, Bàrbara and Tiago establish themselves as a pair of lovestruck La La Land idiots, gearing themselves towards the EPIC moment where she will dump him... and then this happens before the first chorus:

Barbara opens up a can of dancer carbs and it completely fucks up her no-bullshit keto diet. 

Those dancers man. They aren’t a *bad* addition in itself, but if your thing is “romance ballad but *plot twist* it’s actually an end of romance ballad get lost loser” do not burn the clou within the first minute of the performance to a group of dancers who don’t even dance *along with the beat of your song*. UGH.

(and also, more devastatingly, the reduce tiaGOD’s airtime how dare they grrr)

Fortunately though, I have learned to appreciate the wrecktitude of it all because it caused one of the funniest downfall narratives in recent ESC history. The Portuguese were, of course, foaming at the mouth with all the decisions Bárbara had made (not even for the points I raised, necessarily?) and Bárbara was having none of it. It went kinda like this

Juries: EWWW DANCERS AND CHOREOGRAPHY YOU ARE RAPING YOUR OWN SONG YOU PHILISTINE WHORE. Bárbara: 

Juries: WOW WHAT *ARROGANCE*!! YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN BUT BOY DO WE HAVE NEWS FOR YOU :-) 

and lo hand behold, the finale rolls on and Tinoco’s dancers are still there, and are even *MORE* present than they were in the semi (but also in sync with the beat) and Bárbara gets promptly jurydunked into third place. 😍 Even though she has the *ONLY* song in FdC that could have qualified in its semifinal. 😍  A woman who stands three apples tall trolling an entire nation and juries because she knew she had gold in her hands and then getting rigged out of the easiest nf victory out of pure SPITE 😍  WHAT AN ARC. 😍

Portugal 2020 vs Portugal 2021

Elisa probably would not have qualified. I’m not sure how popular of an opinion this is, but I prefer the semifinal performance of “Medo de sentir” and that wasn’t the staging they were going for. Not many people seemed to care either way, and that’s usually the death sentence for Portugal. 

Elisa won’t be back for 2021 or whenever Eurovision is rebooted. :sigh: Fuck you, Coronavirus. 

Freaky! Friday! Factor!

See: NF Corner:

Score: 4 Senhits out of 5. 

[taste-thewaste]

Potential-Madderton fic

Title: Potential Ship: Madderton Word count: ~4800 CW: Fluff, angst, mutual pining, misunderstanding sort of steering the plot lol Summary: Richard and Taron decide to take the next step and go out on their first date...but it’s a disaster. After, they don’t know where they stand with each other. A/N: This fic is a labor of love lol. Someone prompted me from a list of winter prompts that I reblogged forever ago, “our first date goes horribly so i don’t know why i say yes to a second date, and now, we’re stuck at the diner until the snow slows down and i'm having fun” and I’ve been working on this for a long time. This is the longest fic that I think I’ve written! It’s full of fluff and angst and gratuitous writing, so beware lol. Thank you for reading :)

--------

They’re sharing a pint in a tiny pub, and Taron’s just been stopped by the third person timidly asking for his photo. His eyes light up as he enthusiastically smiles for a selfie, his arm wrapped tight around the girl who owns the phone he’s staring into, and then he gives her a quick hug as she jets off back to her group of friends. Richard’s no stranger to being recognized-it’s happened twice to him tonight, as well-and it’s just a hazard of going out. Taron returns to the table and smiles sheepishly at Richard. 

“Sorry, Rich. It’s not always my favorite thing, but I’m still...grateful, you know? These people enjoy seeing me, my work, and just...I can’t believe this is my life sometimes.” Taron casts his eyes down, his cheeks pink from the beer and the heat of the tiny space and from his own brazen vulnerability. Richard just tilts his head, a slow smile spreading on his face. 

“Can I take you out to dinner Friday night?” Richard blurts, and then his own cheeks are pink and matching Taron’s. 

They’ve spent weeks in this place of non-definition, this gray area of relationship, not acknowledging the ways in which things have changed. They spend their evenings together, in pubs, in the cinema, in each other’s living rooms, and things are, functionally, very similar to the way they’ve always been. Except that now Rich’s knee brushes against Taron’s when they sit on the sofa, and neither of them move; Taron’s eyes linger on Richard’s just the slightest beat longer than they used to; once, in a fit of daring fueled by a few beers, Richard had pulled Taron close to him in a tight hug, buried his face in the sweet spot on T’s neck, kissed it just gently. 

No, they haven’t acknowledged these small moments of intimacy, not until now, and Richard has made a firm, calculated leap into reality. 

“Dinner?” Taron asks, softly, and Richard nods. 

“I...like you,” Richard says, his words trailing off into almost a whisper. It is raw, and vulnerable, and he is filled with fear as soon as the words leave his mouth. Taron is silent for a moment, and in those moments are everything Richard’s worried about since he came to the conclusion that he wanted to ask T out. He feels like a bloody teenager, like he’s covered in pimples and misread the signs; in those few silent moments, he rethinks everything he’s been thinking about this man. He pictures Taron recoiling in revulsion, accusing Richard of being mad, storming out of the pub. He thinks of all of the many ways he could have misread these last few weeks. He admits, to himself, that things were not clear in the slightest. 

“I-I mean, if you’d like to get dinner, that is, no pressure. It could be like tonight, just picking up some food, a beer, whatever, it doesn’t have to be anything serious…it doesn’t have to mean anything.” Now he’s stuttering like a teenager, good Christ. 

And then Taron’s hand is on his, gently, but it’s intentional and Richard looks up, allowing his eyes to meet Taron’s, and he’s calm again, because Taron is calm. 

“Yes, I want to get dinner, and I do want it to mean something,” Taron says evenly, and how could he have been nervous? His face breaks out into a relieved smile, and he nods.

“Okay. Sounds good,” Richard says, and the two of them finish their beers, make plans for Friday evening, laugh at everything stupid.

-------

Friday comes around, and for all the confidence that he’d felt when accepting, Taron will never admit to anyone how nervous he is about this dinner with Richard.

He gets dressed hours early, pulling on a pair of slacks that are both comfortable and flattering, clinging to his bum in just the right way. He pairs it with a dress shirt-dark blue, it brings out his eyes-and a jacket. It’s 4:05, and Rich isn’t due to arrive until 7. Taron’s cheeks flush as he realizes just how early he is, just how nervous he is, but it’s true. He doesn’t know why, but his stomach is churning with anxiety, his hands are shaking, and the only thing he’s certain of is that if he opens his mouth to speak, he’ll vomit all over his expensive shoes. He sits on the couch for a moment, willing his heart to stop pounding. 

“This is bloody ridiculous,” he says to himself, his voice echoing throughout the flat. “It’s Richard.” He has nothing to be nervous about; this is his best mate, his pal, the man with the ocean-blue eyes that he can’t stop thinking about. He’s been dreaming about something like this for ages, since the first time they kissed on Rocketman, and now it’s here and he can’t stop freaking out. 

He stands up from the couch and physically shakes out the nerves, flaps his arms, rolls his neck, attempts to release the tension. “I just have to chill out,” he mutters to himself. 

He kills the next three hours in a variety of ways. He attempts to read three different books, setting each of them down after just a few sentences or paragraphs. He turns on the telly and flips through the channels at lightning speed, not registering anything in front of him, ignoring the blur of the sounds and colors. He shuffles through the music on his phone, changing the songs one after the other. The activity that sticks longest is the game he makes of catching popcorn in his mouth; he tosses them in the air, tilts his head back, careens wildly to let the pieces fall into his mouth. 

By the time Richard arrives to pick him up, Taron is full of popcorn and feels like his eyes are spinning in his head. He’s more nervous than before, somehow, so when the knock comes at the door, he almost pukes. He frantically smoothes down his hair, takes a deep breath and opens the door.

--------

Richard decides to take Taron to the nicest restaurant he can find; he deserves that much, he deserves the world, Richard thinks. He makes a reservation and spends three days choosing what to wear. He bites his nails to the quick and when the day finally comes, he almost talks himself out of going. 

I could tell him I have food poisoning. I could tell him something’s come up and I have to fly home. I could tell him...anything, I could tell him anything because what if this is a terrible idea? 

The only thing that gets him into the car and across to Taron’s flat is reminding himself, calmly, insistently, that this is Taron, after all, his little Duckie, and this will all be fine. It’ll be better than fine, it’ll be brilliant. 

These words simply get him into the car and over to T’s, though. They do little to quell the nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach as he drives there, the trembling in his hands as he approaches Taron’s door. Before he knocks, he takes one last big, deep breath, and reminds himself of the fact that he is absolutely certain he’s the only one who’s nervous. He’s sure that Taron is completely calm and ready for this evening. He reminds himself that everything will be just fine, better than fine. It will be wonderful.

He knocks.

-------- 

I don’t know that I’ve ever been nervous about something and had it turn out worse than I was imagining it, Taron thinks as he lays in bed that evening. It is 10:04 P.M. and he is laying in bed alone, the calling card of a date that didn’t go the way either party had hoped. Taron curls up into a ball and pulls the covers over his head, wishing he could stop reliving their evening, but unable to stop. 

It was as though every moment of their relationship up until that point had vanished out the window. Not just the small tender moments over the last few weeks, but their entire friendship. The car ride was silent and awkward, the only sound coming from Richard fiddling with the radio stations. 

Once they got to the restaurant, the awkwardness only swelled. They both behaved as if they were complete strangers who’d met on an app or through a mutual friend, strangely formal and courteous. Richard didn’t tease him about his hair or the bits of popcorn stuck in his teeth; he didn’t joke with Richard about the way he was walking as if there was a pole shoved into an uncomfortable position. They didn’t even talk about Rocketman or any of their shared experiences. They spoke politely and civilly, talked about the weather (cold); perfunctory details about their families (they were both close with their mums); their taste in music (similar). 

Taron was actually grateful when the food arrived, as it gave him something to do other than stare at Richard awkwardly and smile. They both ate quickly, barely glancing at each other throughout the meal.

“Quite good,” Richard remarked once. 

“Indeed,” Taron answered, swallowing thickly and taking a long drink of water. 

After they’d finished eating, the waiter came back and began to describe the dessert specials, until both Taron and Richard interrupted him with a sharp, short, “No!” 

Richard’s face flushed and he offered the waiter a shaky smile. “No, thank you, sir. Just the check, if you don’t mind.” 

Richard had insisted on paying, despite Taron’s repeated attempts to either pay for the whole thing or toss in his own portion, and they left quickly, for a repeat of the painfully silent car ride back to Taron’s flat. 

Once they’d arrived, Richard unbuckled his seat belt and started to open the door, but Taron had stopped him. 

“‘S okay, Rich. Why don’t we say goodnight now?” he’d muttered. Richard had cast his eyes down and nodded. “Thank you for dinner.” 

“Thanks for coming,” Richard had said quietly. “Have a good evening.” Taron had nodded and practically fled from the car, his heart thumping in his chest. 

Now, here he is, in bed alone at an absurdly early hour, and his heart is still thumping, but from something else. They’d tried it, going out, and it hadn’t worked. That isn’t what’s upsetting him, though. Sure he’s sad that their attempts to turn their relationship into something more haven’t worked; he’s been looking forward to more. The excitement of more between he and Rich has kept him going for longer than he cares to admit, and now that he knows it won’t work between them, the letdown is hard. 

But what’s really hard is the crushing feeling that something has changed between them. He’s closer to Richard than he is with almost anyone else. Rich is kind and funny and smart and the idea of losing him in any way, any capacity, as his friend, is devastating. He can’t shake the feeling that that’s what’s happened, though, and it’s too much for him to handle.

Taron burrows deeper underneath the covers and shuts his eyes. 

-------

The next morning, Richard rolls over in bed and squints against the bright sunlight. The first thing he’d done after getting home was fix himself a drink, then another, and another. It’s making the early morning sun a bit harsher than usual, and it’s, blissfully, all he can focus on for a minute. Then the previous evening floods back, and he buries his face in his hands. 

He’d been so stiff, so uptight, so worried that everything was going to go wrong that he’d ruined it all. He’d wanted Taron to like him so badly that he’d been unable to think of any reason why Taron would like him in the first place. He’d been unable to think of a single thing to say that hadn’t already been said, and then their night had ended obscenely early. 

After a shower, choking down a late breakfast and trying not to puke, he decides to fire off a text to Taron. Bugger it, he thinks as he types it out and sends it before he can lose his nerve. 

Hey. Thanks for going with me last night.

It takes twenty minutes for Taron to answer when it normally takes just a minute or two-the man is glued to his phone, always searching for cat videos and recipes-and the fact of that doesn’t escape Richard’s radar. 

No problem.

Richard’s heart sinks at the reply. It is blunt, matter-of-fact, to the point. There’s no banter, no back-and-forth. He takes a deep breath and plunges forward. 

Wanna grab a beer later? 

This time his reply takes two hours to arrive, during which Richard has taken to pacing the floors, worrying, flipping through channels. When it finally comes in, he leaps on his phone and hates himself for being so manic. 

Not today. Maybe next week.

There is no question mark at the of his sentence, he is not asking Rich if he’s free next week. He is making an excuse, deflecting from the question Rich had asked him. Rich quietly clicks his phone off and slides it onto the coffee table. His heart sinks, and tears well up in his eyes, unbidden. He sits on the couch, the low evening light just starting to filter in through the windows. 

Well, he thinks, at least I know where we stand now. He has taken the best friendship he’s ever had and ruined it in one evening, or so it seems. He knows he should leave Taron alone now. Their date had gone disastrously bad, the kind of bad that you write a shitty movie about, and he knows he should just let it be and see what happens naturally. 

This, of course, is something Richard simply can’t do. 

He spends the evening wallowing, watching bad TV and going to bed early. When he wakes the next day, he turns his phone back on, hopefully, and waits to see if Taron has sent him any messages. Maybe he’d misinterpreted the text last night, maybe Taron had just been in a bad mood or tired. Maybe, he thought hopefully, maybe he’d even misinterpreted how bad the entire date had gone! 

He waits a moment for his phone to catch up, but there are no notifications from Taron. One from his mom, another from his sister, and one from Jamie, but none from the person he really wants to talk to. His heart sinks, and he slides the phone back onto his nightstand, forgets about it for the rest of the day. 

-----------

When Richard texts him the day after their disastrous date, Taron sits with it for a while, lets it roll around in his head like a marble. His first instinct is to fire something back to Rich immediately, a gushing text about how he’s sorry it was so awkward and he wants to try again and no matter what he will always want Rich as a friend. 

But he stops himself. He tells himself he will wait, at least a little bit. 

During those twenty minutes, Taron’s mind whirls at a million miles a minute, and by the time he finally decides to text back, he’s convinced himself that Rich had only reached out to be polite. It would be just like Rich to do that, he thinks. The man is over-the-top polite in every scenario; he thanks everyone over and over, he holds doors open for strangers, he pushes his chair in when he leaves a table. It’s something that Taron has always admired in Richard, a quality that has always made him love him even more. 

But now he thinks that maybe Rich has only texted him to be polite. Maybe he’s just texting him to be nice so that their friendship doesn’t end on the sour note that had been their date last night. So when he answers, he is cordial, but there is no emotion behind it. He nearly scoffs when the text comes through and Rich pretends like he wants to hang out again; another attempt at being polite. He deflects, and their conversation ends. 

After he sets his phone down, he is filled with an immense sadness, like a weight pressing down on him. He wants nothing more than to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers again; disappear from the world until he feels ready to face it without Richard. 

But face it without Rich he must, because the show must go on. If life has taught him anything, it’s that.

---------

For the next two weeks, they are both at a stalemate, both men wanting desperately to reach out and both being too stubborn and pig-headed to do so. Taron sits in his flat, goes over the scripts that he’s sent, stares occasionally at his phone and pretends like he’s not hoping to see Rich’s name light up. He watches telly mindlessly, flipping through the channels and trying to distract himself from Richard’s face, which pushes its way into his mind more often than not.

Richard does the same, but he also cleans like a madman; when he’s stressed, he cleans. He scrubs the bathtub, polishes the countertops, and reorganizes his entire closet. He alphabetizes his bookshelves and rearranges his pots and pans. When he’s done, his flat is practically sparkling, and he’s still thinking about Taron.

Despite the fact that they are both constantly thinking about the other, neither of them wants to be the first to text. Neither of them think there is anything to text about. 

One night, though, Richard is sitting at home and he’s bored. He’s more than bored, he feels as though he will crawl out of his skin if he doesn’t get out of his flat right that very second. He’s done everything he can think of to keep himself entertained; he’s read books, he’s flipped through the channels, he’s listened to music. Nothing has kept his attention, and as such he is practically vibrating with anxiety and irritation. 

So he grabs his keys and his coat and he takes off for a drive. The night is cold and clear and it smells like winter. He marvels at the blue-black sky, inky and full, the weight of the world seeming to hang just above him. His car starts up smoothly, and he rolls down the windows just a bit despite the cold, letting the sweet night air blow into the car, making him chilly. 

He pretends like he doesn’t know exactly where he’s going, pretends he’s just driving for the sake of getting out of the house. Maybe he’ll stop and get ice cream or a coffee or even a beer, maybe, at least that’s what he tells himself.

He’s not surprised, however, when he finds himself pulling up outside Taron’s, walking boldly to the door, and knocking. His knuckles are sharp on the door, and he feels like he’s never heard anything louder than this sound as it rings out into the night. 

There’s a long moment and T doesn’t come to the door. Richard considers just leaving, hanging his head and tripping back down the sidewalk. He wrestles with his brain for another moment, and is just about to turn around and leave when he sees the doorknob turn. 

And then Taron is standing there, and it’s like a punch to Richard’s gut, just seeing him. He’s wearing a pair of plaid pajama pants and a tight white t-shirt, and he looks good, fuck, he looks good. His hair is fluffy and disheveled, and his face is slightly soft and puffy, his eyes blinking rapidly and confusedly in the bright porch light. He has been sleeping, Richard realizes, and he feels bad. 

“Rich? What the hell are you doing here?” Taron asks, his voice still thick and husky from sleep. It’s a valid question...what the hell is he doing here? 

He is unable to say anything for just a moment as he just gazes at Taron. They’re only a few feet away from each other, but it feels like miles, and the air feels electrically charged with everything that’s not being said. Richard wants to reach out and grab Taron, pull him close to his body, bury his face into the sweet spot on his neck where his skin is always the softest, tell him how much he has missed him and how he doesn’t care if they ever go on another bloody date again, he just wants him, all of him, exactly this way. 

Instead, he stands just so many feet away, his arms crossed over his chest in an effort to look casual but really just making him look uncomfortable, which he is, and then he shrugs his shoulders. 

“Well?” Taron asks, and his voice sounds slightly hysterical. “It’s 11:30 at night, what are you doing on my porch?” 

Rich is slightly shocked at hearing how late it is; he’s been so in his own head lately that time has had almost no meaning. I missed you, he wants to say. I am here because I cannot imagine my life without you in it in some way. Because I missed the sound our voices make when they’re together. Because I missed your laugh. Because I missed being near you. He can’t say these things, though; he doesn’t know why, he just knows that he can’t. So he shrugs, struggling to maintain his nonchalance, and before he knows it he blurts out “Are you hungry?” 

Taron’s eyes narrow. “You came to my house at 11:30 p.m. to ask me if I’m hungry.” The words fall out of his mouth flat, and Richard suddenly feels like the biggest fool. It is over between he and Taron, and he has been unable to accept that. He has to. 

“Yeah,” he mumbles, shifting his gaze to his feet. He hears a tiny sigh escape from Taron’s mouth. 

“Give me a minute,” Taron says, and Richard looks up just in time to see T disappear back inside. When he comes out five minutes later, he’s wearing worn-in jeans and a thick sweater; he tugs his front door closed, locks it, and looks at Rich. “Where to?” 

----------

They end up at a shitty all-night diner, the kind you see in indie movies and read about in novels with beveled edge pages. There’s only two other people inside, a pair of weary-looking old men eating limp sandwiches. There’s one waitress, bustling around behind the counter, refilling the coffee pots and wiping everything clean, and a bell rings out as Taron and Rich push the door open. They ease into a booth, their bums sliding across the cracked, faded leather. Rich runs a finger along the edge of the table, cracked formica. 

“Not exactly five-star accommodations,” Rich says with a small smile as he hands Taron a menu from the stack at the other end of the table. 

“It’s fine,” Taron says, meeting Rich’s smile with one of his own and cracking his menu open. 

The drive over had been silent, but the silence was not unwelcome or hostile. They were not trying to impress each other or mend any fences; they were simply together, as they’d been a thousand times before. 

Now the waitress bustles over and asks them if they need a moment before ordering; she is tired, and her voice suggests she’s been here for hours. They both order coffee, nothing more, and she sets down two mugs, fills them, returns with cream and sugar. 

Rich smirks as he watches Taron dump in his customary truckload of sugar, and outright laughs at the look on his face after he takes a big gulp of it. 

“Stuff’s horrid,” Taron whispers, but he is smiling still. Richard takes a drink of his own and nods hastily. It tastes burnt and bitter but he’ll always be grateful to that cup of coffee, because it breaks the ice between them, gives him enough courage to speak. 

“So what’ve you been up to the last couple of weeks?” 

Taron stirs his coffee absent-mindedly. “Not much. You?” 

“Yeah, not much.” 

“I--I’m glad you came by. I’ve missed you,” Taron says. “A lot,” he adds, under his breath. A warm feeling spreads in Richard’s stomach, his heart flutters a bit.

“Why didn’t you text, or call me?” Rich asks. 

“Why didn’t you text or call me?” Taron fires back, a steely glint in his eyes. It doesn’t upset Richard, it makes him smile even more. Taron has always been stubborn, and it’s one of the things Rich loves best about him. It can be infuriating at times when you’re begging him to just do something simple, but it also means that he’s stubborn about what he loves, too. If he’s being pig-headed, it means there’s still something there. 

“I thought I’d buggered our date up so badly that I’d ruined everything. I didn’t want to bother you. Especially after how you answered my text the morning after,” Rich says. 

“I thought you only texted me to be nice. You’re always so polite, I thought you were just doing it because you thought it was what you were supposed to do,” Taron says in the tiniest of voices, and it breaks Richard’s heart a little. He imagines Taron, sitting in his flat, thinking that his best friend, his...whatever-the-hell-they-were, was only talking to him to be polite. He impulsively reaches out and catches Taorn’s hand across the table. 

“I’d never lie to you, T. I’d never do anything disingenuous to you. You mean too much to me,” Richard says earnestly, squeezing Taron’s hand. “The truth is that I’ve missed you so much these last few weeks that it actually, physically, fucking hurts. It sounds dramatic but it’s true. I wanted nothing more than to ring you a million times. I just kept replaying our disastrous fucking date over and over in my head…” 

Taron laughs. “It really was brilliantly awful. What happened?” 

Richard passes the mug back and forth between his hands. “I don’t know, I wanted to impress you so bad. I picked the nicest restaurant and I dressed nicely. I was just so nervous, and I wanted you to like me so badly…” 

“God, Richie, I would’ve thought you knew me well enough to know that I’m impressed by you exactly the way you are,” Taron says lightly. “I mean, you’re the most talented actor I’ve ever seen. But besides that, you’re funny, and smart, and incredibly kind. You’re the kindest person I know. And the fact that I even get to know you is amazing. So, you see, you’d already done the impressing by the time we even got to the date.” 

He says all this effortlessly, as though these are things he just inherently knows and has thought about for ages. He says them as those his words are just true, as if they don’t mean everything in the world to Richard. But they do. 

“T, I...can we start over? With everything?” Rich’s cheeks flush with a hint of pink, and his hands are now laid, flat, on the chipped formica table. They are shaking, just a bit, from the nerves and a rush of love and the wholeness of it all. Taron reaches across and grips both of Richard’s hand in his. 

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Taron asks, a grin slipping onto his face, and Richard matches it eagerly. 

------

They leave the diner an hour later, full of bitter coffee and a slice of apple pie that they’d shared, and Taron looks up at the sky. Snow is swirling around them in great tufts, coming down in a dizzying array of white. Richard’s car is already covered in it, and their shoes, hastily selected sneakers instead of the boots that would’ve been more helpful, slip and slide through the fine white powder. The world is still, at almost 1 a.m., as the snow cascades down around them. 

“It’s beautiful,” Taron says, his voice as soft as the flakes that land in his hair. His eyes are shining with the reflection of the snow and the bright streetlamp.

Richard reaches out and pulls Taron close to him, finally nuzzles that sweet spot on T’s neck. Taron scrunches his face up and laughs a little, and the sound is like music to Rich’s ears. “Not as beautiful as you,” he whispers in Taron’s ear. Taron leans over and impulsively, madly, kisses Richard. It is insistent and present and better than anything they’ve shared together so far, somehow. It is a joining together, a reminder of why they started this in the first place, an erasure of their terrible first date. Richard smiles into it. 

“Come back to my place?” Taron asks, and Richard nods. He laces their fingers together and leads Taron to the car, towards Taron’s house, towards a future together.

[jlf23tumble]

Fic rec anon here, and I'm blanking in the moment! I know you have a lot of recs and I love them all. Maybe your favourite AUs? Broadly speaking? Seeing some of them might help jog me into more specific categories ! xx

Gotcha, sort of like my prison rec list, only I like to think of it more in terms of what would I have on my phone to read when I’m bored and traveling, lol. Obvs, this sort of list is super hard, but having it focused on AUs kinda helps? At any rate, this isn’t a deep dive, it’s just my top level, so hopefully it’ll spark you. These are in no particular order, so come back if you want more!

Tuxedo Dress-Up, by Blake (honestly, ANYTHING in this fandom by Blake, I file this one under hot and hilarious, but every line is just swooooon). Louis is an aspiring song writer by day, a makeup artist for drag queens by night, and masquerading as a full-time real estate agent for his third most famous (and first most handsome) client Harry Styles.Or, five times they fail to fuck in a closet, and one time they get it right.

Once Upon a Dream, by objectlesson (again, ANYTHING by Phoenix, and most of it is canon, but where to even start with her AUs, jesus god, I struggled to rec just one, so I went with the AU she gifted me, ilu!!!!). “M’not gonna half-ass our fake relationship,” Louis almost snaps, voice sharp with a defensive edge, like Harry wandered too close to a bruise with needy fingers. “Now kiss me again. We’re gonna make every shitty tourist here wish they had stayed in the Midwest. We’re gonna burn Disneyland down with our gay.” Or, a fake dating AU where everyone is lying and they happen to be at the Happiest Place on Earth.

knock knock, i love you, by @thelovejandles aka beautlouis (another one of my fave authors in this fandom, proof that wips DO finish, and they’re absolutely worth it). Harry and Louis get kicked out of a statistics exam for passing a knock knock joke note, and subsequently fall in love. Harry's a virgin, there's a cat, a hot cocoa date, a lot of sex, even more knock knock jokes, and everything is lovely and happy.

Tied Down, by @ham-palpert (the twists and turns here, my goddd, just masterful) The most interesting case in Liam and Niall's careers falls directly into their laps, courtesy of an epic fuck-up of one Harry Styles, partner to the almost-infamous drug dealer Louis Tomlinson. The investigation yields an unexpected yet satisfactory outcome for Liam and Niall. For Harry and Louis, however, things are far more complicated.

Alien Roadtrip! by @helloamhere (needs ao3 account; I love desert roadtrips, and this captures that vibe perfectly, plus it’s hilarious). For the first time in his life, Louis doesn’t know where he’s going. Harry doesn’t mind. Or, a roadtrip with desert feelings, too much snack food, and empty motels. Harry is definitely absolutely not an alien. That would be ridiculous.

Harry Styles Cooks..., by @magicalrocketships aka sunsetsmog (aka the very best wip on earth, I weep with joy whenever I get the notif). In which Louis Tomlinson can’t cook, there’s a very special shower curtain, and Harry Styles used to be a baker. Or Louis owns all of Harry Styles’ cookbooks, and he never intends to cook a single thing out of any of them.

just call me inspiration, by @hereforlou (in which I *am* Liam Payne, porn editor!) The truth is Louis knows he’s going to hell, if there is such a thing, but it isn’t because he writes erotic fiction for a living. If anything, it’s because his muse, the reason he’s inspired to write about people shagging in increasingly creative ways everyday, is the sweetest, loveliest, most genuine (and completely oblivious) future children-book illustrator in the world.

Buried Like Treasure, by @becomeawendybird aka quickedween (marcel marcel marcel!!!). Prince Harry Styles is very private. He chooses to keep himself out of the public eye but feels lonely and isolated while surrounded by people in his hectic royal life. When he finishes his dissertation, he decides to take a solo holiday to one of the royal family's properties in the Swiss Alps. Semi-retired thief Louis Tomlinson has been pulled in for one last job: steal a painting from an uninhabited mansion. Neither one of them expects a natural disaster.

into another serotonin overflow, by @mercutionotromeo (this story packs a LOT into a little, it helped inspire my sideblog with smaller fic recs, actually). Harry's the yearbook photographer who's been assigned to take pictures of Louis, the new captain of the football team. Harry's got a massive, obvious crush on Louis and somehow, Louis feels the same way.

Turning Page, by @daisyharry aka purpledaisy (pretty much every on-set picture I see of Harry these days just makes me tag it for this fic). “You wanna buy Harry a drink?” Louis lets his eyes drip back to Harry, to his wide eyes and the way his shoulders curve down. He really is pretty – Louis will be the first one to admit it and the last one to ever say it out loud. Louis almost smirks and his lips twitch as he tilts his head, “Not particularly, no.” An AU where Harry Styles tries to get lost in a place he’s never been. Louis Tomlinson has been perfecting the art of being lost for years. What they don’t expect to find is each other.

hush. by wankerville (this story is achingly evocative of just about every shitty small American town, but my god is it beautiful, the sweetness of how it ends). “I don't like you like that, Harry.” “See,” Harry starts, Louis can hear the smile in his voice, “that's where I think you're lying.” Or an AU where small towns suck, louis is losing it, and harry’s just too perfect.

Three French Hems, by @gloriaandrews and @100percentsassy (I wish I could pick just ONE of my top three from these two, but alas...do persimmons smell like come? discuss).  In which Louis is a designer at Burberry and Harry spends December wearing Lanvin… and Lanvin… and Lanvin.

Thought the Song Was Sung, by @gloriaandrews and @100percentsassy (see above, pretty much, and how happy I am that the tweets still show up! with Dame Julie Andrews even!!). Louis never auditioned for the X-Factor. Years later, Harry's just another gay ex-boybander who lives alone with his cat... until Niall decides to take matters into his own hands and set up a profile for Harry on a dating website.

Wild and Unruly, by @gloriaandrews and @100percentsassy (Iconic, even the abstract is iconic, everything still holds up. oh for cute, etc. etc.). Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming, and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling his land.

Are You Gonna Be My Girl? by loadedgunn (another one that inspired my sideblog dedicated to short fics! So much greatness packed in, Jesus, it’s in my top five for sure). Louis reenacts his first time, and Harry wants to be his good girl.

“burn this flame” by @rainbowninja aka rainbowninja167 (anytime I reread this, I smile...filed under hot and hilarious). When Harry gets invited to play in a celebrity charity match with Louis Tomlinson, Manchester United's star player, he's determined to impress him with brilliant football skills. The only flaw in Harry's otherwise foolproof plan? He has absolutely no football skills, brilliant or otherwise.

Challenging Nature: A Look into Male Lactation, by @jaerie (hands down, one of my fave kinks, handled fantastically well...and this isn’t the author’s only one!).  Even taking into account all the bizarre things Harry has subjected himself to in the past for the sake of an article, Harry has received his strangest assignment yet. It comes up as a random misunderstanding in a meeting and builds into a conversation — can men breastfeed? Internet searches reveal documented cases of male lactation popping up at different times throughout history, but are any of them true? Can a man will himself into lactating? Harry has two months to make it happen.

like how your hands feel me up and down, by ballsdeepinjesus (this author wrote a lot of my faves back in the day, I have so many ~thoughts about the amazing writers in this particular era). “It’s -- you’re tight,” Louis chokes. “It’s tight, I mean. It’s. Yes.” His hand is curved around his hip now, squeezing lightly. “Tight’s good, right?” Harry murmurs, batting his eyelashes. He almost can’t believe himself. “Very good,” Louis grunts. Or louis works in a halloween shop and harry needs a costume.

baby look what you've done to me, by ballsdeepinjesus (see above; even the username kills me). The next day kind of turns everything upside down, though. Louis gets another lingerie catalogue addressed to Harry. He’s about to toss it when he sees a personalized note stuck to the front; it thanks Harry for his previous purchases and offers him a complimentary six-month subscription to their magazine free of charge. Or louis moves into harry's old flat. harry gets a lot of mail.

Take Our Bodies Higher, by @littlelouishiccups (I’m something of a connoisseur of the phone sex trope, so the way this author flips it and makes *Harry* the operator plus what ensues? chef’s kiss!). Harry wasn’t often caught off guard at his job anymore. He called different men Sir, Master, or Daddy for work almost every week, but he’d never been told he was a good boy in a voice quite like that. In which Harry is a phone sex operator and Louis dials a wrong number.

Make a Dime Go One Hundred, by @screwstyles (I’d rec this for their jobs alone, but everything in it, just wow). “Do you think you could trust anyone enough to have full control over you?” he asks into the night, hoping his sentence won’t break their bubble. It doesn’t, if the way Harry’s eyes meet his is any indication.“What do you mean?” Harry’s voice is barely above a whisper, rough from the singing they had done earlier. Louis wants to keep this memory forever.“You know, if someone wanted to, uhm,” he coughs, “to tie you up, or blindfold you.” Or a friends to lovers AU where Harry volunteers to help Louis experiment with bondage. Things don’t go exactly to plan.

it ain't trickin' if ya got it, by sarcasticfluentry (needs ao3 account; I often stare at the wall and wonder what another installment in this universe would be, fuckkkkk, it’s so good, I only wish the social media was still in it). 28-year-old blockbuster actor Louis Tomlinson rushes home to give his 20-year-old model boyfriend Harry a good seeing-to after a particularly provocative Instagram post and, in his excitement, alerts the entire world. Featuring daddy kink, anal beads, and feelings.

If You Asked Me if I Love Him (I'd Lie), by allyasavedtheday (needs an ao3 account; it’s a sequel, but I reread it over and over vs. the first piece).  Or the one where Harry and Louis eloped but neglected to mention it to anyone. Meanwhile Lottie is getting married and the only way for them to not steal her thunder is by pretending they're just friends for the weekend. Featuring Harry and Louis as terrible liars who don't know the meaning of the word platonic and some Tomlinsons and Styleses who definitely don't believe them.

Damn, I could go on, but I’ll stop! My sideblog dedicated to short fics is @marathonficbreak, and it has some smaller ones, if this is too intimidating, lmao...hope some of them are new for you, enjoy!

[oleanderblume]

Unrelated but OMYGOD. My clown series reached 1k reads on wattpad.

Which isn't super awesome because its only due to the sheer quantity of chapters I have but I need to rave and spoil it cause I'm super excited about what I'm planning and no one i care to tell gives a shit so I'm dumping it into the void that is tumblr.

So. Im writing a book series called Caring For Your Clown. Its about this trans kid named Oliver and he is sort of an asshole.

Well not sort of, he is an asshole. But a RELATABLE asshole.

The story sort of drops you in 6 months after the mysterious and tragic (and traumatic) death of his mother Marie, who was a scientist alongside her husband and Oliver's step father Jon at a lab that specializes in physics mainly.

They were working on a machine with an unstable particle that caused a..tear so to speak, in the fabric of dimensional space and she got torn into tiny little bits. :3

But apparently before this occurred, Marie was in contact with an alien race called clowns 🤡 (really they are interdimensional traveling amoebas that take the shape of humanoid clowns lol)

One of which pops up in Oliver's life completely unexpectedly for no foreseeable reason and her name is Dindet and she is absolutely precious.

Basically its a saga and each book ranges in about 30k to 50k words. The first book centers around Oliver learning about this weird alien houseguest and also the immediate fallout of the death of his mom because surprise surprise! His biological dad who is a terrible abusive fucktard rolls back into his life with the intent to take custody of Oliver and that is no good!

The entire arch Oliver's goes through is literally the title of the series. Basically learning to be caring and compassionate while ALSO dealing with grief and interdimensional shenanigans.

One of the things I found really fun (it was unintentionally done but now I like it so its intentional now.) Is that each book roughly represents the 5 stages of grief.

As the first one is anger. Oliver is mostly passed the fuck off that this dumb alien clown sauntered into his life and thought it would be neat to CARE about him like he was a PERSON with FEELINGS. Irrationally angry, because he blames her for the loss of his mom (i mean so does his dad who goes through the stages of grief slightly slower than Oliver does) and uses her as a personal emotional punching bag until he realizes that SHE got his bio dad to concede his appeal for custody via literally stalking him and making him so paranoid that he was deemed an unfit parent >:3

All the while too, as the main focus is on the two characters of Oliver and Dindet, there is a background plot leading up to the second, third, and fourth (possibly up to 6 books) of the clown authorities looking for Dindet. And also the checkovs gun that is his neighbor.

The second book is mostly erring in the bargaining side of the coin for Oliver while Jon goes through his stage of anger. Oliver learns more about Dindet but doesn't quite trust her as she is clearly hiding information and KNOWS his mom. But she won't talk. Meanwhile, his neighbor working on a completely different project gets his hands on some clown matter and goes apeshit with it to build his energy machine.

We also learned more about the type of person Dindet is, which is naive and caring but also incredibly self destructive and reckless. By far a major people pleaser with huge self love issues. While Oliver is more of a "i don't give a shit what you think" though its more a facade he puts on to protect himself from rejection :/ he is far more comfortable in his own skin but external factors can make him freak out a little and he is terrible at talking to people.

It culminates when the project Jon solicited Dindet's assistance in is wreck by her own hands and Oliver's growth completely backtracks to the point that he finally manages to get our clown to leave (only for her to be clownknapped by his whole ass fucking neighbor to be used as the conduit to his energy machine)

And yeh, Ols almost immediately regrets his actions (though at first its more denial that she actually left) especially when he catches his neighbor using her as fuel for his machine to the point that all her fucking matter is completely burned away via electrical current! >:3

THEN Oliver gets to the depression arch >:3 (i haven't written this part yet so its up in the air atm)

Basically, with his mom dead and now the only person who could reasonably be considered his friend ALSO Basically dead, Ols falls into this really bad streak of just walking backward in his grief. Anger, denial, bargaining, the whole shebang. But THIS time the lab and the government AND the secret clown police are all in cahoots to cover up what happened at the lab and to do that they need to get rid of Ols and his dad to allow their plot to work. (Will be revealed later)

So throughout the first two books I've been alluding to the leader of the clowns via Dindet's ostensible paranoia and their name is Smile. They have underlings though and one is named Poppy. So the clowns get into the lab and convince Jon to send his son to a treatment facility for therapy under the thin veil that it will protect them from the repercussions of the machine. Oliver is not to upset about this though because he has been to therapy before from his past with his bio dad.

Except obviously the clowns don't want to actually help anyone. Their goal is to wear my boy down until he ready to die because- did I mention this was middle grade??

Anyways. This particular book I want to develop my potential romance between Douglass (Oliver's kid neighbor) and Ols and also deconstruct Oliver's personality via flashbacks that parallel the events in the story so we understand why he reacts the way he does to things and also i think it would be neat that the clowns technically succeed in their plan to draw out Dindet the wanted criminal by using the person she cares most about against her. By making him want to die!!

Then! For the next book, I'm planning on having more clown infiltration, more bonding between my children and romance between my boys because oooohhh boy am I gonna have fun tearing everyone apart when the real fucking deal Smile shows up and fucks shit up. Smile is my main villian and a veru fun and manipulative one at that. She uses Oliver to get to Dindet and eventually catches the both of them, revealing clowns to the entire world right before snatching them back to the home base the Cornucopia.

This is where we learn all the information we have been wanting and building up to about Dindet >:3

She is a criminal because she has Essentially tied a doomed universe to the Cornucopia in a never ending time loop because she is so heckin big that every time that universe is torn apart, she jumps back in time and DIES in order to recreate it. (She's the big bang yo)

That isn't the only reason though. Oliver comes to learn that his mom was FRIENDS with Smile. And Smile was the one who tore her apart in the machine scattering her subconscious in the literally timeless Cornucopia (time doesn't exist there so aging, death, anything like that is completely halted) and MARIE who has been half alive and omnipotent this whole fucking time has been trapped in the Cornucopia unable to see her family or child but fully able to see a know the infinitesimal inevitability of the destruction of his universe. So what does she do? She PULLS DINDET PUT OF THE ABYSS AND TELLS HER TO GO BE FRIENDS WITH HER KID TO KEEP THE TIME LOOP GOING.

And this has happened before. Like this book series is literally ONE (1) version of events that have been stacking up on top of eachother for millenia. The reason Dindet shows up in the first place is because she can partially see these past loops and the remnants of her love for Oliver keeps her coming back YO.

But while all this lovely information is being shared, Dindet is in clown jail and Oliver is treated as a pet to Smile. He tries to stage a break out and fails and what does Smile do? She turns him into a got damn monkey!

And uses him as literal fucking bait to a starving Dindet in order to justify her sentence (which is obviously death)

It almost works too, if it weren't for the fact that these two kids are BEST FRIENDS NOW and would legit die AND kill for eachother, Dindet pushes Oliver out of the Cornucopia (he is still a monkey boy btw) into his universe which inadvertently scatters him.

(A human person can enter the Cornucopia but if they leave, their molecular structure will destabilize in a slow and painful way until they literally are nothing left so that sucks)

This is where I want the next book to start tbh. Now back at home without his friend, as. A. Monkey. Oliver find that his entire home town is under lock down and strict control by the clowns who have now infiltrated the government and are putting plans forth to rebuild the SAME MACHINE his dad and Dindet built to bring about the destruction of the universe. (They want to do this because if they prevent Dindet from jumping back in time, they can end the time loop and get on with their lives)

So ols has to essemble a rag tag crew of Douglass and some other classmates and figure out that all the goop floating around belongs to Dindet (bruh. She is the size of the universe like. There is a lot of her to go around) and they can technically use it as gateways into other dimensions to gather an arsenal of GIANT BABY ANIMALS AND SQUIRREL BIRD CATS AND DRAWN TO LIFE ANYTHINGS so they can try to 1. Bring back our clown gal who is the key to fixing this and 2. Take on the now heavily fortified lab in order to get Olivers and Douglass's dads back.

All the while my boy is slowly dying >:3

Eventually, Oliver finds a way to get Dindet back but its at a cost :/ he tricks Smile into turning our clown organic to prevent her from being able to control any of her matter whatsoever and the cost of it is that Smile is VERY bad at making humans, so she basically traps Dindet in a catatonic meat sack that doesn't have half the organs it needs to function properly :/

To make her not be organic anymore they gotta uh..kill the tumor that is an organic half body (which yes, does have nerve endings) which eventually allows Dindet to be 100% clown again.

They break into the lab, but its basically too late. Reality is fractured and the multiverse is imploding in on itself and in the midst of all of this, Ols and Dindet are careening through the vacuum of an entirely empty space, dying of starvation and scattering and the only option left is to jump back in time to start the loop over again.

It is heartfelt and it is good and pure and the last moments they share together perfectly bring this loop together because in the VERY FIRST BOOK Oliver asks why Dindet came and she says "you asked me to."

And their last moments together he asks her to come back for him. Like I CANNOT yall!!

But that isn't the end. Yet.

The real end is after they die and the universe begins and a single hand pushes through the stars and pulls out a little orange bean. And it's Marie, pulling Dindet put of the Abyss this universe that is so intrinsically tied to the Cornucopia that it literally creates all the fucking clowns.

Its not supposed to be destroyed. And the reason eveeything falls into place so perfectly and things always go the same way is because ita already been seen and already been narrated. By Marie.

The WHOLE ASS SERIES IS IN THIRD PERSON OMNISCIENT BUT ITS ACTUALLY NOT. Its first person. Narrated by Marie.

Dindet knows Marie because she pulled her out of the Cornucopia. Clowns exist because Dindet was told by Oliver that she was and looked like a clown. The entire ass UNIVERSE exists because Oliver and Dindet are the fucking building blocks of life.

All of Olivers character actions and growth and eventual love (platonic) for Dindet shape their futures and all of it started because a mom was so concerned and guilty about leaving her kid in such a time of need that she would rather start the world over than see him suffer.

So..themes.

Throughout the series there are heavy HEAVY parallels between Dindet and Marie (partly because Dindet is a parrot and almost all her actions and reactions mimmick things that she has seen and the first person she met who wasn't out to kill her was Marie) but also because Dindet is the conduit through which Marie vicariously lives out the rest of Oliver's fleeting life with him.

There is even a point where Oliver genuinely questions whether or not Dindet actually IS his mom (she isn't obviously)

One of the themes I really love about this series is that compassion, unconditional love and care is deserving to even the most obstinant. Oliver isn't easy to love. He actively makes it very hard for anyone who could be a peer (even his own dad sometimes) to care about him. He constantly pushes people away to safeguard himself from potential harm and it takes three fucking books ROUGHLY 200,000 words to get this boy to understand what unconditional love can do.

How it can help with the grieving process, and help you become a more compassionate person toward others.

And also how your actions affect others!!

Like i said, Dindet is a parrot, she can read your mind (if she wanted to) but what she sees she incorporates into her own thoughts and as a reflection, Olivers harsh words and actions, even the most simple kind are recorded and even amplified. He is MEAN to Dindet. He makes fun of her often and gets angry with her and calls her stupid and she internalizes that immediately and it has an immediate affect on how she views herself. Oliver doesn't even think of this as something that happens until much later in the story! And gradually he grows past it and becomes more considerate and affirming toward Dindet and Douglass as a result.

And the way things matter. Oh. Every little detail matters in this story up to seemingly inconsequential continuity errors! Foreshadowing is everywhere from the first fucking sentence to the last because the things the characters do and say to eachother are simultaneously current and in the past all at once and no one knows which is which.

Someone got hurt? There are consequences, even unforseen ones. Dindet loses her hat. It is the most precious thing she owns and is a huge comfort item for her. Oliver asked where she got it? A friend gave it to her.

OLIVER MAKES HER A NEW HAT AFTER SHE LOSES IT. He is the FRIEND that gave it to her.

Almost everything in this story has parallels and consequences and twists and turns and outcomes that are wildly unpredictable (up until now because I've just spoiled the entire fucking plot but who cares!!)

Like...this is my baby. I care SO MUCH about this story and the characters in it that when I think about certain scenes I legitimately start crying.

I can't wait to publish the first book yall. I'm planning on publishing it either through a publisher or self publish, and maybe make a comic even? Idk. I just i really think people would like my dumb absurd story about clowns and I wish i could just spout about it 24/7...it breaks my heart that no one will listen.