#they’re not even making me redo the driving test

[altschmerzes]

popping bottles bc after six months of nightmarish trials involving the governments of two countries, hours on the phone, international mail, and the particular adhd hellcape of “this task is high stakes and has forty five steps but you have to do it over and over because there’s no clear information anywhere so you just gotta trial and error your way through,” the province of ontario has FINALLY SEEN FIT TO ISSUE CHABOY A DRIVERS LICENSE

[amyscascadingtabs]

give you my wild, give you a child

"stupid numbers, think they’re so great. i'd love to see numbers give you a baby."

inspired by that one line in 8x08 renewal, because he really did give her a baby.

read on ao3

It's been three days and Amy can't stop crying.

 Sometimes she thinks it's stopped, that she'll finally have a stable moment to talk to her husband or eat a meal in peace or facetime some of the twenty or so relatives on her list, but it feels like it’s never more than minutes before her emotions swim to surface again and something new brings out the vibrating sobs that have seemed to characterize this day. As it turns out, even newly pregnant Amy has got nothing on three days postpartum Amy.

 That she cries about the big, life-changing things doesn’t surprise her. When she wakes up after a night of minimal sleep and sees Mac in the bedside crib next to her, she cries because she’s so grateful; that everything went well, that their baby is finally here and that he's perfect beyond words. Then she cries because she thinks about what could have happened if it hadn't gone well, because she gave birth in a makeshift birthing suite in a police precinct, and so many things could have gone wrong it’s a miracle nothing did. When she gets out of the shower, she cries seeing herself in the bathroom mirror, because she's proud of her body in a way she's never experienced before. Then she cries because she also barely recognizes the person staring back at her, still looking six months pregnant except with hospital underwear and nursing pads in her bra. When she has breakfast after feeding Mac and tries to read the newspaper, she cries because so many terrible things are happening in the world all the time, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to protect this child from a world that sometimes seems to be getting more and more cruel by the day. Then she cries out of guilt for feeling that way, because she’s supposed to be enjoying this baby bubble, and what kind of mother even is she for daring to think about anything but her baby right now?

  As the day goes on, however, her reasons for crying begin to feel increasingly ridiculous. She cries because she’s so relieved to be drinking regular coffee again, then because it doesn’t taste the same as decaf and she’s gotten so used to it that the caffeine tastes weird now. She cries because the coffee goes cold anyway when Mac begins to whimper and suck on his fingers in the way he seems to do whenever he’s hungry and she has to drop everything to feed him another time. She cries when Jake turns on the television and a commercial for diapers comes on, because she can’t believe they get to buy them now. Then she cries when Mac has finished eating because the red flannel she borrowed slash stole from Jake won’t button properly, and she realizes one of the buttons has gone in the wrong hole and she has to redo the whole thing. When Jake offers to help her with it, that makes her cry too, because the way he’s not laughing at her right now but patiently trying to solve her problems is making her feel so loved she doesn't know how to thank him.

  The thing that makes her cry most of all, though, is watching Jake and Mac together. She always knew that sight would drive her crazy, and it’s part of the reason she wanted to have kids with him so much in the first place, but not even in her most indulgent fantasies about their future could she have pictured this. As grateful as she is over the fact that she gets to be a mom, getting to see Jake be a dad is a close second. He loves their son so much, and Mac so clearly loves him too, and Amy has to remind herself of the nine months she's spent carrying this child by herself in order not to feel jealous when Mac stops fussing the moment Jake picks him up. He looks so tiny when Jake holds him, the back of his head fitting perfectly in Jake's palm, and the care with which he’s handling him keeps making her emotional. He's always talking to him, sometimes whispers she can't hear and sometimes praise for her which she can, and that makes her cry too. He even chats to him when he changes his diapers, which Amy hides behind the door frame just so she can hear, failing to stifle a giggle when he asks in a fake interrogation voice what Mac has to say to his defense for making such a mess. He wakes up with her in the middle of the night when she has to breastfeed to get her endless glasses of water and granola bars when it makes her feel starving, and then he lets Mac burp him in the face and spit up on the back of his shirt before he falls back asleep curled up on his chest. He leans his chin on the top of Mac’s head to smell that perfect baby scent, running his finger over those cute neck rolls, and the smile on his face when he looks back at Amy makes her completely lose it, because this is what she dreamed of all along.

  This is what she imagined when they visited her brother Christian’s new baby shortly before they got married and Jake spent the better part of an hour making funny faces to the child in his arms. This is what she panicked over when he said he wasn't sure if he wanted kids, because she had always thought. This is what she thought of those nights after another timed round of unenthusiastic sex, trying to keep the hope alight until that single line would once more tell them not this time. She had felt it in his teary smile when she showed him that first positive test, in how hard he'd squeezed her hand at their first ultrasound when their baby’s heartbeat had filled the room, in the absolute joy on his face the first time he’d managed to put his hand on her stomach just in time to feel their son kick, and now it's right in front of her and almost too much for her heart to take.

 She's so tired, and she's sore and overwhelmed and worried about a billion different things, but she's never felt so grateful.

 That's what makes her cry floods at three a.m. when Mac seems to have finished eating and she comes back from the bathroom to find Jake still sitting up with him in bed, holding him with a hypnotised look on his face. He doesn’t even seem tired, even though he must be, is just looking at his son like he’s holding the entire world in his arms and doesn’t ever want to let go. She always knew seeing him with a baby would be incredible, those surprisingly toned biceps curling around a fragile little human and those heart eyes focused on one thing only, but maybe she hadn’t expected not being able to watch it without breaking into tears.

 “Jeez, Ames,” he says when he looks up, the expression on his face changing to one of concern. “Are you okay? Honestly?”

“Yeah,” she sniffles and dries her eyes again as she sits down on the bed. The skin on her cheeks is stinging at this point. “I just can’t believe this is my life.”

“Why not?” Mac’s pacifier glides out of his mouth, and Jake puts it back with two fingers before he can notice anything. “We’re right here, babe. We’re very much real.”

“Sometimes I thought it was never going to happen.” She hiccups. “All the times we’ve been apart. The months we fought to have him. How freaking long and exhausting being pregnant was. And now I have him, and you, and I’m just so grateful I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“That’s why you’re crying?”

“I think I don’t even know why I’m crying anymore. I’m so sleep-deprived.”

“Yeah.” Jake smirks. “But I get it. I’m really, really grateful too.”

 Mac makes a short gurgling sound that Amy takes to mean he agrees. She reaches out so his hand can wrap around her ring finger, feeling him squeezing it tight in the cutest grip. The grey striped pajamas has little mittens on it to keep him from scratching herself, but Mac gets upset whenever they pull them down, so Amy figures they'll just have to keep filing his nails instead. Their son is already both opinionated and stubborn, and she loves it about him, because she loves everything about who he is. He's perfect, and he's hers, and she still can't quite believe it even though he's right there in Jake's arms. It's all her dreams coming true, and it's making all the hard things feel so worth it.

 “Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for giving me a baby,” she whispers. She’s too tired, barely even knows what she's saying anymore, but looking at the two of them, all she can think about is how incredibly lucky and thankful she feels.

Jake blinks in disbelief, grinning at her. “Wait, I gotta make sure I heard this right. Did you just thank me for giving you a baby?”

“Uh-huh?”

“And you're serious about this?”

“Well… yeah.”

“So you mean after nine months,” he says, still wide-eyed, “of you telling me, minimum a couple times a week but pretty much daily toward the end, that I could never understand what you're going through, and then you shouting some lovely descriptions at me whilst you were literally pushing him out, and also earlier this evening when you cried because I can't breastfeed him for you – you’re thanking me?”

“Some of it was a team effort,” she insists. “You helped.”

“Oh yeah, my nards sure are loving the credit.”

“Don't be gross.”

“Sorry.” He smiles, a little bashfully, stroking his fingers back and forth over Mac’s forehead instead of looking at her. “But Ames, c’mon. It was a pretty limited effort compared to what you did.”

“Maybe they’re not the same thing.” She leans her head on his shoulder. Mac is still holding on to her finger, but his grip is getting looser now. “But you were part of it too, babe.”

“Really?” He’s blushing. “What did I do that was so special?”

“Let's see. You didn’t laugh at me when I kept crying at everything the first weeks. Rosa made fun of me on a daily basis, but you just hugged me and told me everything was going to be okay. You let me sleep in when I had days off, even though I pretended I wanted you to wake me up. You fixed food for me without telling me what it was, and put it in front of me before I could feel sick thinking about it.” She shakes her head at the memory of those, few but complicated, weeks, and how hard they’d had to work around it. “You kept telling me I looked great even when my body kept changing and it all felt weird, and helped me pick out maternity wear when I didn’t want to do it on my own. I don’t know that I would have taken barely any bump pictures if you hadn't made me. You listened to all my research about the best strollers and pacifiers and cribs, and you did those courses and read all those books with me, and you came to almost every scan and held my hand so tight every time. You came home with onesies and hats because you thought they were too cute not to buy, and you gave me massages whenever I wanted them, and you even slept on the couch a couple nights at the end when I got angry at you for snoring. You barely even complained about it.”

“I complained a little,” Jake mumbles. “When you couldn’t hear me.”

“Fine. And lastly, you rode a horse through the city to get to me while I was in labor, and you didn’t even act like seeing him be born was gross.”

“I mean, it was a little bit gross.” Jake lifts Mac so he can kiss his forehead when he whimpers. “No offense, bud. I mean you looked perfect, I didn’t think you looked like a slimy alien even for a second, didn’t cross my mind, et cetera.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “Point is, babe, you were there. You're here now. I know I did the actual work, but you were the one who made sure I could. I don’t know how I would have made it through without you. So… thank you.”

 He doesn't give her any witty comebacks for that, only a shy smile.

“I love you,” Amy all but whispers through the tears that fight their way through her determination to keep them in. “Both of you. So much.”

“Love you, Ames.”

She kisses him, putting her hands on each side of his thighs so she can reach over Mac. Kissing is a lot more complicated than usual when both his hands are busy and none of them wants to risk crushing their son, but it's still nice, feeling his soft lips on hers and squeezing his lower lip between both of hers for just a moment before pulling apart.

“It's hard to kiss you while you're holding a baby,” she says, and Jake grimaces. “That might be the only bad thing about it.”

“My bad. I’m just going to put him down so we can make out all night.”

“Don't you dare. He currently doesn't have a boob in his mouth and he's still not crying, you're not doing anything to risk that now.” Amy pulls the comforter up to her chin. “Wake me up when he needs to eat again and not a second earlier.”

Jake chuckles at her as she turns out the light and snuggles up close to him, but he makes no move to put Mac down or even protest, and she didn't think it was possible to love him even more. Her heart has definitely grown with becoming a mom, much like everyone told her about, but most seem to have forgotten to prepare her for how much it would also grow when it came to her partner.

 “I still think I’m the one who should say thank you,” Jake whispers just as she closes her eyes, and Amy can't help but smile. “If we're talking about who gave who a baby.”

“Jake, just accept the praise.”

“Oh, yeah.” She doesn't need to see his face to know that he's grinning. “I’ve locked it in a little box in my brain and I’m gonna keep it as gloat material forever, bringing it up when you least expect it.”

“That's great, babe.”

“Mm-hmm. We both know the truth, though.” Jake's left hand strokes over the top of her head, and Amy has to look up to see that Mac is still resting safely on his right arm and doesn't seem to have noticed a thing. Another tear fight its way down her cheek at the thought of how safe he must feel with him. This time, she doesn’t even bother to wipe it away.

 ~

[deja-you]

ten ways to say (i love you)

t. jefferson x reader

summary: Thomas has never liked the conventional way of saying ‘I love you.’

word count: 6.1k

warnings: a little bit of angst, high school, karen

masterlist

1.

There is no better way to start off senior year than arriving late to your first class.

In Y/n’s defense, she had left her house early. For once in her life she was actually going to be early to school. She was so proud of herself, and was so certain that she had extra time, Y/n allowed herself to stop at a drive thru and pick up a drink as a reward. Everything was going according to plan. 

That is, until the Karen in the car in front of her decided she wasn’t pleased with her order and made the barista redo it. To make sure she didn’t mess up Karen’s order a second time, the barista was extra careful. And extra slow. Y/n groaned as she watched the time tick by minute by minute. Just her luck.

Y/n watched the barista hand the drink to the Karen and breathed a sigh of relief. Yet, Karen’s car didn’t move. She had her drink, but Karen continued to talk with the barista. Y/n cursed under her breath and banged her head on the steering wheel. She must have been more aggressive than she was expecting, because she accidentally honked her horn. 

She jumped back in shock at the loud noise. Karen poked her head out of her window and immediately began lecturing Y/n on how rude she was being. At least, that’s what Y/n assumed she was saying, she really couldn’t hear the Karen with her windows rolled up. Y/n bit her lip, gave the Karen a little wave, and mouthed an apology.

Eventually Karen had finished her rant and left the drive thru. Y/n got her drink, no longer a reward, more like a consolation now, and sped to school. There weren’t any other students in the parking lot by the time Y/n arrived, remind her of just how late she was. Y/n shoved all her materials in her backpack, locked her car, and quickly walked into the building. 

Of course, Y/n’s first class just had to be with Mr. Rousseau. Any other teacher would just let her tardiness slide. She opened the door to Mr. Rousseau’s classroom, and any conversation that was being had stopped. More than a dozen pairs of eyes turned their attention to her, and Y/n wanted to melt right there and then.

“Miss L/n, nice of you to join us.” Mr. Rousseau addressed her. He narrowed his eyes at her, leaning against his desk as he sized her up. “If you’re done being a distraction to my class, I’d appreciate it if you would take a seat.”

Y/n swallowed roughly, and nodded. Rousseau went back to lecturing the class on how his class would be run, and Y/n did her best to find a seat as quietly as she could. She instinctively made her way over to where her best friends, Abigail and Thomas were sitting. 

Thomas moved his backpack off the desk next to him, and mouthed, “I saved you a seat.”

She gave him a grateful smile and mouthed back a ‘thanks.’ 

Abigail leaned forward and whispered, “Mr. Rousseau wasn’t very amused with you being late, huh?”

“I swear he hates me,” Y/n insisted. 

Thomas rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t hate you, hon’.”

“Thomas is right,” Abigail said. “Mr. Rousseau doesn’t hate you especially. Everyone knows he just hates women.”

2.

Late night study session was code for hanging out at John Adams’s house and messing around.

Abigail was dating John, so Y/n was friends with him and his friends by association. Abigail, Dolly, and Y/n were actually trying to study. John and James were discussing the football team’s chances of winning their next game. Martha and George had snuck off to get freaky somewhere. 

“Okay, Dolly.” Abigail held up a flash card. “What can you tell me about the defenestration of Prague?”

“Um, people were thrown out of windows for fun?” Dolly replied lazily. 

“No. Well, I guess you’re not completely wrong...”

Y/n threw her body against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. If she had to stay here any longer, Y/n would throw herself out a window. Not that she didn’t want to hangout with her friends. After a long day of school, she wasn’t exactly thrilled to spend more time with the people she spent the whole day with. If it wasn’t for her fragile social status, Y/n would have already been home in her bed right now.

“Sorry m’late, had to drop my sister off at a gymnastics class. Or fencing. Or Italian. Honestly, I can’t remember.” Thomas walked into the living room where everyone was hanging out.

“Ah, yes. I had almost forgot that the Jeffersons are all overachievers,” Y/n said with and eye roll. 

He wore an easy grin as he made his way over to Y/n, leaning against the couch and staring down at her. “What can I say? We’re just built different.”

Y/n scoffed but refused to dignify him with any further response. Instead, she closed her eyes again, pretending she was back at home under warm covers. 

“I brought you food.” 

This caught Y/n’s attention. She slowly opened one eye to see if he was telling the truth. Thomas held up a bag of fast food he must’ve picked up on his way over. Y/n couldn’t help but smile as she sat upright.

“For me?” She asked.

“Of course, hon’.” He handed her the bag. “I know you didn’t have time for lunch today, and I know you likely wouldn’t have gotten around to eating anything yet.”

Y/n happily pulled out an order of large fries out of the bag. “Have I ever told you how amazing you are, Thomas?”

“Not often enough.”

“Well. You are amazing. So amazing.”

Y/n finished her fries and was looking through the rest of the bag to see what else he had gotten her when John called out to her. 

“Hey, Y/n,” John said, “what are your thoughts on my cousin?”

“You mean Sam Adams?” Y/n asked. 

“Yep. The very one.”

She shrugged. “He’s cute. Why?”

“He thinks you’re cute. Wanted me to ask if you’re single,” John said nonchalantly. 

Abigail took time away from quizzing Dolly to get invested in the conversation. “She’s very single. Right, Y/n? You and Sam would be so cute together!”

Y/n could feel her cheeks begin to heat up, and she suddenly found the hardwood floors very interesting. “I don’t know... he really thinks I’m cute?”

“S’what he said,” John replied. “Can I give him your number?”

She weighed her options before giving a shrug. “Yeah, why not?”

“Y/n and Sam? I totally ship it,” Dolly said.

“Right?” Abigail grinned. “They’re going to be such an attractive couple.”

“Okay, can we stop talking about this now? I’m here to study,” Y/n insisted, pulling out a textbook.

“I’d rather not fail tomorrow’s test,” Thomas agreed.

Everyone begrudgingly went back to their previous activities, and Thomas took that moment to sit next to Y/n on the couch. She was flipping through the pages of her textbook before she came to a stop. Y/n passed the textbook to Thomas and pointed to the painting on the page.

“Look, this one’s my favorite,” she said.

“Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,” Thomas read. “You’re a fan of Caspar David Friedrich, then?”

Y/n shrugged. “I’m just a fan of the Romantic movement in general. Everything was just so creative, and beautiful, and emotional. There’s just so much feeling in this painting. It’s overwhelming.”

Thomas frowned looking back at the painting, and then back to Y/n. “It certainly is romantic.”

She gave the painting one last look before she began flipping through the pages of the textbook again. Thomas watched her curiously as she read over the vocabulary words for that week. Finally, he decided to say what was on his mind. 

“So, you and Sam Adams, huh?” He nudged her gently with his shoulder.

Y/n bit her lip and focused on a peculiar tchotchke the Mrs. Adams had decorated the living room with. “I guess. I used to have a crush on him in middle school, remember?”

“That’s right. Abbie and I spent most of science class teasin’ you about that. No wonder you’re so bad at physics now.”

She frowned and playfully bumped her shoulder with his. “I’m not bad at physics.”

“Really?” Thomas considered her with eyebrows raised. “Remember that botched science experiment that nearly killed Mr. Newton?”

“Can we not talk about that? He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

He hid an amused look. “Whatever you say, honey.”

3.

You’re tired. The sheets are too hot. It’s been a long day, your body is exhausted. The air in your bedroom is too cold. Your mind is tired, too. The sheets are too hot. If you just close your eyes and stop thinking you’ll be asleep in minutes. The air in your bedroom is too cold. Not thinking isn’t exactly easy. The sheets are too hot. Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how -- damn you, Sophocles, and your terribly beautiful words. 

Thomas threw his covers off his body and sat up in bed. He wasn’t going to get much sleep no matter how hard he tried. Thomas rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, if there had been any sleep to begin with. 

There was no doubt that he was tired mentally and physically. Emotionally? His heart was eternally restless. He crossed his room to sit at his desk, fully accepting that sleep wasn’t a viable option anymore. 

The blue light from his computer was a harsh contrast to the darkness of his room, but his eyes adjusted quickly. Thomas didn’t even know what he was doing on his computer in the middle of the night.

His fingers knew. They opened up an application and began scrolling. No, no, no, yes. Perfect. No, no, no, no, no, yes. This is her. And this went on for an hour or so, Thomas lost track of time. He’d be tired tomorrow, but he wasn’t going to get any sleep until he was finished. 

When he actually was finished, he smiled contentedly to himself. A wave of calm washed over him, and before he knew it, Thomas was back in his bed falling asleep. 

He looked terrible the next morning. Well, as terrible as a Jefferson could look. He had still had the sense to dress nicely, collared shirt, sweater, ironed pants, polished dressed shoes. Thomas was still sharp as ever in all his classes, but anyone who really knew him could tell he was a mess. 

“You okay, Thomas?” Y/n asked at lunch in Mr. Locke’s classroom (Mr. Locke was kind enough to let a group of moody teenagers eat lunch in his class, the lunchroom just wasn’t cool enough for them).

“Hm? Yeah. I’m great.”

Y/n cocked her head to the side. “You sure? You seem tired.”

“Don’t worry about me. Actually, I have something for you.” Thomas fished his phone out of his pocket.

“You have something for me?”

“Yeah, I’m sending it now. Check your phone.”

She raised an eyebrow, but Y/n opened up her phone to check the text Thomas had sent her. 

“Sophocles and Serotonin.” Y/n read aloud. “What is this?”

“I made you a playlist of songs I thought you might like.”

“Seriously?” A smile played on her lips; Thomas couldn’t help but reflect it. “When did you have the time for this?”

He shrugged. “I have more free time than you’d think.”

“With all your APs, varsity sport, and extracurriculars? I highly doubt that.” Y/n looked up at him, a teasing lilt transparent in her tone. “I appreciate the playlist even more, knowing you took time out of your rigorous schedule to create it. Thanks, Thomas.”

She leaned forward on the desk she was seated on to press a kiss to his cheek. Thomas froze like a deer in headlights, and if Y/n noticed, she didn’t say anything. He put himself back together before she could notice he was momentarily put-off, and leaned back against another desk in an attempt to look cool.

“S’what do you have planned for after school?” He asked in his best nonchalant voice. 

“Well, Sam and I are going to go see a movie.”

“That’s still a thing, then?”

Y/n shot him a look that had him raising his hands up in surrender. “Yes, it’s still a thing. I really like him, okay? He’s a good guy.”

“But is he good enough for you?” Thomas crossed his arms, his eyes not leaving her’s. It wasn’t that Thomas didn’t like Sam. Sam was great. It was just a fact that no guy would ever be good enough for his best friend. 

“He is.” She said with an eye roll. “Why do you care anyway?”

“Hon’, I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Oh trust me, I know.”

4.

Summer had felt like an eternity ago, when in reality, it had been less than two months ago. The yellow leaves and the updated fall Starbucks menu were enough to convince anyone that it had always been October. 

It had taken a lot of convincing and a little bit of bribery to convince Thomas to attend the Homecoming football game, but with the assistance from Abigail, Y/n had eventually gotten Thomas to cave. She wanted him there, but more importantly, she wanted him to give her a ride there. 

Of course she could have taken her own car, but Y/n would rather not waste her own gas when she could use Thomas’s instead. It’s not like it mattered to him, his parents paid for his car, insurance, and gas anyway. Plus, his Mercedes Benz had a seat warming function that Y/n couldn’t get enough of. 

She spent most of the ride over to the stadium raving over his seat warmers, and Thomas spent most of the ride making fun of how excited she was about seat warmers. Eventually, they parked outside of the stadium, and Thomas paid for their entrance fee into the stadium.

“It’s co--” before Y/n could finish her sentence, remarking on the obvious cold weather, Thomas had handed her a sweatshirt. She looked down at the maroon sweatshirt, then back at Thomas, her mouth slightly open. “You brought an extra sweatshirt for me? I didn’t even ask.”

“You didn’t have to ask,” he shrugged. She put on the sweatshirt and stared at him with wide eyes. Thomas glanced at, bit the inside of his lip, and shook his head. “Now, don’t go thinking I care about you or somethin’ like that, hon’. Couldn’t have you taking the sweatshirt I’m wearing, then I’d be cold.”

She looked at him with a smug smile on her face that made him regret bringing her the sweatshirt in the first place. “Yeah? Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all.” He was doing his best to act annoyed by all her questioning, but he couldn’t help but find it endearing. When he came up with another argument, he added on, “besides, ma would be upset with if she knew I let you freeze. It seems like she loves you more than she loves me sometimes.”

“That’s because she does,” Y/n pointed it out like it was obvious. “Can you blame her? I’m funny and adorable. You’re just a grumpy old man I have to drag to football games.”

“That’s it. Give the sweatshirt back. I hope you freeze.” Thomas was giving her the dirtiest look he could muster. Y/n had the audacity to throw her head back and laugh.

She reached into her purse, and after some digging around, she pulled out a five dollar bill from her wallet. Y/n thrusted the money into Thomas’s hand and pushed him in the direction of the concession stand. “Here. Go get us some popcorn, maybe you won’t be so irritable once you get some food in you. I’m going to go find some seats.”

Thomas grumbled something about “not being irritable” but nonetheless ventured off toward the concessions. Y/n climbed the steps up the stadium and immediately found Abigail sitting in the student section, all decked out in school colors and face paint. Abigail greeted Y/n with a warm hung, then holding her at an arms length, she took note of what her best friend was wearing.

“Is that Thomas’s sweatshirt?” Abigail asked.

Y/n looked down at the the University of Virginia sweatshirt she had wrapped around herself. “Hm? Oh yeah, it is.”

Abigail pursed her lips and mulled over this new information. “What’s going on between you and Thomas?”

“What d’ya mean? We’re friends.” Y/n pursed her lips. 

“And Thomas knows that?” Abigail observed Y/n. “Do you know that?”

Y/n narrowed her eyes at her friend. “Yes, of course I know that. I’m dating Sam now, okay? Thomas and I have always just been friends, and that’s all we’ll ever be.”

Abigail held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. If you say so, I’ll believe you. I just don’t want any feelings to get hurt between the two of you.”

“There are no feelings between the two of us,” Y/n said, but she wouldn’t stop thinking about Abigail’s words for the rest of the night.

5.

All week, Thomas had dreamt about the mint chocolate chip ice cream that was waiting for him in the freezer. 

It was his favorite flavor, and there was just enough left in the carton for one last bowl. He had promised himself he wouldn’t eat the last of it until he had really deserved it. After spending a productive hour studying for the test he had tomorrow, Thomas decided he had finally earned that delectable bowl of artificially colored green ice cream. 

He made his way to the kitchen, humming an upbeat tune and sliding across the hardwood floor in his socks. Thomas had made it all the way to the freezer when there was a knock at the front door. 

Thomas paused. He was so close to getting his ice cream. Maybe it was just a delivery? He debated answering the bowl or ignoring and continuing to dish himself ice cream. Thomas was leaning toward his bowl of ice cream when there was a knock at the door again. With a scowl on his face, he abandoned the fridge and any hope for happiness he had left and made his way to the front door.

“Y/n?” He said in surprise when he opened the door.

“Hi, Thomas. I didn’t know who else to come to. Abigail’s out with John right now. Dolly and Martha aren’t good in situations like this,” she was speaking quickly, sniffling between sentences, and trying not to let any more tears fall down her cheeks. “I just--”

He interrupted Y/n by pulling her into his house and his arms. Y/n melted into his touch, her hands gripping his shirt as she hugged him back. 

“What happened?” Thomas asked softly, rubbing circles into her back with his thumbs.

“Sam and I broke up.”

Thomas sighed softly and rested his chin on her head. He bit his lip, weighed his options, and came to a reluctant conclusion. Thomas pulled away just enough that he could look Y/n in her bloodshot eyes.

“I think this is the part where we break out the ice cream, huh?”

She offered him a miserable smile. “Ice cream couldn’t hurt.”

He led her to his kitchen and began digging through the kitchen while she hopped onto the counter to sit. Thomas hid a frown from Y/n while in the process of pulling out the nearly empty carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. 

“So you want to tell me what happened?” Thomas asked, pulling out a bowl from one of the cabinets.

“It wasn’t a bad breakup.” Despite her words, Y/n still wiped at her tears with the sleeves of her shirt. “We mutually agreed it was best for both of us.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “He’s just not... he’s not the one.”

Thomas felt something twist and turn in his stomach, but he knew it wouldn’t be right to be happy when his friend was so miserable. He did his best to hide the smile that wanted to form in the corners of his mouth. “M’sorry about that, honey.”

“I know it was the right decision,” she said, staring up at the ceiling in an attempt not to let any more tears stream down her face. “Doesn’t mean it hurts any less, though.”

“It’s normal to be upset after a break up,” Thomas shrugged.  

“You’re not going to have any ice cream?” Y/n asked quietly as he handed her a singular bowl.

“Not in the mood for it,” he lied. 

6.

“You get enough sleep last night, hon’?”

Y/n was in mid-yawn when he asked her the question. She held a hand over her mouth and nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

“You look terrible.”

She scowled at him. “Wow. Just what a girl wants to hear. Anyone ever tell you you’re a charmer, Thomas Jefferson?”

“You’d be surprised.” He gave her a teasing smile. “So who’s the cause for your sleepless nights?”

“Napoleon Bonaparte.” She held up her textbook for him to see. “Why’d I ever let you convince me to take an AP class with you?”

“Because you like spending time with me?”

“Nah, that’s not it.”

“Ouch.” Thomas held a hand over his heart. “You really stayed up late studying for the quiz?”

“Some people have to study, okay? Not everyone’s as gifted as Thomas flippin’ Jefferson.”

“Flippin’?” He stifled a laugh.

“We’re at school. Gotta keep it PG, right?” She shrugged. “So yeah, I stay up and study sometimes. High schoolers aren’t supposed to get a good amount of sleep. S’not a big deal.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes I worry about you.”

She tilted her head to the side and gave him a small smile. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Believe me, if I could just shut it off, I would. I’ll make you a Quizlet next time so you can get more sleep.”

Y/n was about to say something in response when her phone began ringing in her pocket. “I should get this.”

She went out into the hallway to answer the call, and Thomas turned back to his lunch, not even bothering to hide his smile. 

“Thomas.”

He jumped at the sound of a voice and turned to see Abigail sitting at the desk across from him. Had she been listening to them the whole time? Thomas had completely forgotten she was there; a fact he would be certain not to share with her.

“Yes, Abbie?”

“Do you have a crush on Y/n?” 

Thomas blinked a few times, certain that he hadn’t heard Abigail right. “Excuse me?”

Abigail rolled her eyes, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You heard me right, Jefferson. Do you have a crush on Y/n?”

“Y/n? Where’d you get that idea?” Thomas made a face like he was disgusted by the very thought of it.

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re always following her around and doing whatever it takes to make her happy. Not to mention you always call her “hon’,” seems pretty affectionate to me.” Abigail had a talent for laying out the facts.

“We’ve been friends since I can remember, of course I care about her. So what if I have a nickname for her? Doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s not like you have a nickname for anyone else.”

“I call you ‘Abbie’. I have a nickname for everyone.”

“We both know that’s a load of B.S. Are you really telling me you don’t like Y/n?”

“I don’t like Y/n.” And it wasn’t exactly a lie, because the feelings he had for Y/n had progressed far beyond liking. 

7.

“There’s nothing people appreciate more than a hand-made gift, right?” Y/n said, pulling out a ball of azure colored yarn.

Thomas crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against a wall. “Sure, ‘cept maybe a nice Rolex or a new car.”

She scowled at him. “I don’t know what it is about me that makes you think I can afford a Rolex or a new car. I’m an unemployed high school student. My only income comes from birthday cards from my grandparents.”

“Ah, I see. Well, I’m sure Abigail will love the scarf you make for her.”

“Yeah, how hard could it be?” Y/n muttered, staring at the mess of strings in her lap.

Thomas’s eyes widened a little. “You telling me you’ve never crocheted before?”

“How hard could it be?” She pulled up a beginners guide on YouTube, and five minutes later, Y/n had a knotted pile of yarn in her hands. She huffed in frustration and began to aggressively pull at the yarn.

“Let me help.”

“You know how to knit?” Y/n raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.

Thomas rolled his eyes, sitting next to her and taking the “scarf” out of her hands. “This is crocheting. You don’t even have knitting needles.”

“Apologies. You know how to crochet?” 

“Lucy went through a stage where she was really into crocheting,” he shrugged. Thomas had quickly untangled Y/n’s “progress” and began to expertly thread together loops of yarn. He held up his work to her once a pattern had begun to form. “See? Perks of growing up with sisters.”

“I hate that you’re good at everything.” 

He snorted and gently began to move the work into Y/n’s hand for her to finish the rest. “’M’not good at everything. Just most things.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Y/n was now laser focused on the project in front of her, determined to get it right this time. Thomas would advise her, but for the most part he let her work on it by herself. She was a fast learner.

“You’re never going to get it like that, hon--” Thomas caught himself, remembering the conversation he had had with Abigail earlier. “Y/n. You’re never going to get it like that, Y/n.”

She looked up at him with furrowed brows. “What?”

He swallowed roughly and shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just... You’re going to want to pull the yarn tighter or it’s all going to unravel later.”

“Oh. Thanks, Thomas.”

8.

It was 2 a.m., and Y/n had already came to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going to get more than five hours of sleep. She wasn’t exactly trying very hard to sleep. She had tried to refresh her Instagram feed maybe a dozen times now, but it wasn’t like anyone was posting in the middle of the night. Instagram was doing a poor job keeping her mind distracted. 

Lightly biting her bottom lip, she threw her body back onto her bed with a loud sigh. She wrinkled her nose and caved, navigating to the facetime app on her phone. Hesitating one last time, Y/n tapped his contact with her thumb. Her phone began to hum while she waited for him to pick up.

“Hey, Thomas. I know it’s late,” she said when he finally answered the phone. Y/n frowned when she saw him rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, no. Couldn’t sleep anyway,” replied his groggy voice.

“You’re lying. Hey, don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep.”

“I was already up.”

“No, you weren’t. Don’t let me bother you.”

Thomas stopped rubbing his eyes and looked at Y/n firmly through the camera. “Maybe I was asleep, but I’m up now, yeah? Don’t worry about waking me up. I’d rather talk to you any way.”

Y/n pursed her lips, giving him a doubtful look. Thomas was too polite to ever tell someone if they were bothering him. She couldn’t tell if he really wanted to talk to her, or if he was just too courteous to tell her otherwise. 

He noticed the look she gave him and rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” 

“Like you don’t believe me. Would’ve stopped bein’ friends with you years ago if I didn’t find all your annoying habits endearing. Promise.” Thomas shot her a smug smile that made her wish she hadn’t called. 

“So kind of you,” she said sarcastically. 

“I try.” His grin widened, if that was even possible. “So what’d you want to talk to me about?”

Y/n chewed on her bottom lip and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t?” Thomas narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer to the camera. After he had examined her carefully, he leaned back and crossed his arms. “Yeah you do. What is it?”

She shifted, uncomfortable by how easy it was for him to see right through her. Once more that night, she caved. “I can’t stop thinking about how you called me ‘Y/n’ earlier today?”

He tensed up but the action was barely noticeable. “What about it? It’s your name.”

“Sure,” she nodded, “but you never call me ‘Y/n.” It’s always ‘hon’’ or ‘honey.’ Always. Did something happen? Are you mad at me?”

Thomas raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “No, ‘course not. Everything’s fine.” He paused. “That really upset you? Me calling you ‘Y/n’?”

“It’s just not normal.”

“It’s not normal for people to call you by your name?”

“It is, but you are supposed to call me ‘honey.’ Okay?”

He laughed through his nose and couldn’t stop an amused smile from spreading on his lips. “Okay, honey.”

9.

“I’m finally going to get to see your mural, then?”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “It’s not my mural, Y/n. It’s the senior mural. It’s not like I’m painting it.”

“Yeah, but it was your idea.” She gave him a playful nudge. “I don’t know why you haven’t told me what it is yet. I’m sure if the great Thomas Jefferson designed it, it’ll be the best Senior mural ever seen at Charlottesville High School.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, hon’. I’d hate to disappoint you.”

“You could never disappoint me,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re Thomas Jefferson.”

They turned the corner to see their fellow senior, Henrietta Johnston, working on the mural. The previously beige wall was now covered in black, gray, and light blue paint. In the middle of the painting was a figure made up of colorful hand prints standing above the blue-gray sea.

Y/n stared at the mural with an open mouth. She looked from Henrietta to Thomas, then back to the wall in front of her.

“It was my idea to make the figure all colorful with handprints,” Thomas said. “Thought it would be nice to let our class to literally leave a mark on this school.”

Henrietta smiled at the mural and set down her paintbrush. “It was a good idea. The splash of color is just what it needed. What do you think, Y/n? Do you like it?”

“Like it? I love it. It’s... it’s perfect.” She turned to Thomas with wide eyes. “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. This is my favorite painting.”

“I noticed -- don’t give me that look. It’s not like I care that much. You just never shut up about that painting. It’s annoying, really,” Thomas muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and looking down at the ground.

She smiled and turned her attention back to the mural. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love this. I can’t believe you remembered.”

“Of course. It’s worth it, seeing how much you like it.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You’re the kind of person I could fall in love with, you know that?” She didn’t take her eyes off the painting, and Thomas was glad. 

Maybe if she had looked at him, she would have seen his breath catch in his throat and his eyes widen just a little bit. If he was the kind of person she could fall in love with, then why didn’t she? Thomas was flustered. If Y/n had noticed his lack of response, she didn’t say anything. 

10.

Charlottesville High School was filled with rich kids. The Charlottesville High School debate team had a minimal amount of members. These factors resulted in Thomas and Y/n having their own hotel rooms when they attended a debate function in Washington D.C.

After a long day of debating, Thomas and Y/n walked side by side down the narrow corridor to their respective rooms. Every now and then, they spared looks at each other when they thought the other wouldn’t notice.

Thomas cleared his throat. “So that guy in the green shirt asked me for your number.”

She glanced up at him. “He did? Did you give it to him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Thought he was out of your league. Told him you snored like an ogre and I gave him Maria’s number instead,” he said with a shrug.

She gasped and shoved his shoulder. “Are you kidding me? I don’t snore like an ogre! He was cute and interested in me.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

Y/n scowled. “For your information, I’m adorable. I’m funny and enjoyable to be around. Even if I ‘snore like an ogre’ I’m also extremely attractive, so it makes up for it.”

“You don’t need to sell me on reasons why you’re dateable, honey,” he chuckled softly.

“Oh yeah?”

At the same time, Y/n and Thomas turned to face each other. Their teasing banter stopped when they realized they were only inches apart, he could hear every inhale and exhale. His eyes flicked to her lips. It was only for a second, but she hadn’t missed it. 

Thomas took a step back and cleared his throat. “It’s late, we should go to bed. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she echoed. They both hurriedly stepped into their own rooms. 

Had he almost kissed her? Did that really just happen? Y/n leaned against her hotel room door. Maybe she had just imagined it. She shook her head and grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts out of her suitcase. Maybe Y/n could stop thinking about it after a good nights rest. She changed and was about to brush her teeth when she felt some kind of nagging feeling inside.

It was naïve to think she was going to get any sleep tonight if she didn’t confront Thomas about it. Y/n set down her toothbrush and made her way out into the fluorescent lit hallway. She had made it all the way to his door when she paused.

Is this really what she wanted to do? If Y/n brought up their almost-kiss, would they be able to go back to friends? Did she even want to go back to friends? Y/n bit her lip and glanced back at her own room door. She should just go to bed, it wasn’t worth putting their friendship in jeopardy. But then again, Y/n would always wonder what could have happened if she didn’t confront him.

She raised her fist to knock on Thomas’s door, but before she could knock, the door swung open. Thomas and Y/n once more stood face to face. She had a wide eyed expression that mirrored Thomas’s.

There was an accelerated heartbeat. A flutter. Thomas’s arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Y/n’s hand found its place on the back of his neck and guided his lips to her’s. His eyes were half open, sneaking glances at her to assure himself he wasn’t dreaming. Her overwhelming scent and the feeling of his hands threaded through her hair was all too real. 

Thomas pulled her into his room, kicking the door closed behind them. Placing both hands on his broad chest, she pushed him back onto the bed and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. 

Thoughts were racing in Y/n’s mind. She tried to put reason to the way he gripped her waist tightly -- there would be bruises there the next day. She tried to put reason to the way his pupils dilated as she went in for another kiss. Y/n came up empty handed.

There was no way Y/n felt the same way, Thomas told himself. There was no way she loved him the way he loved her. For as long as he could remember, he had been in love with Y/n L/n. And for as long as he could remember, she had only seen him as her best friend.

Thomas missed the warmth of her lips when she pulled away, but he couldn’t help but admire the way her lips were swollen and her hair was a mess. Her bright eyes, and the way light highlighted the softness of her skin. Thomas took that moment to memorize every line and curve of her face, branding the memory into his head. 

She leaned in to kiss him again, but he pushed her away this time, sitting up. “Stop. We... we can’t do this. This can’t just be a one time thing.”

“Why not?” Her voice was quiet and delicate.

He felt his heart twist inside his chest and he clenched his jaw. “Because I love you.”

[softxhariana]

34+35 live stream

description: ariana’s live stream before debut of 34+35 remix music video.

word count: 2.22k

A/N: little piece based off this live stream that ariana did in the countdown to her releasing the 34+35 remix music video with doja and megan. obvs not included every question but just a few fun bits and harry mentions for you x

also disclaimer, this is NOT real, if u don't wanna read about these two then don't, i’m not tryna act like they’re together it is fiction.

❤ anywayz hope u enjoy luvs xox

❖   "HELLO EVERYONE! thank u for coming to this premier,” ariana smiled sweetly at the camera, as the video cut to a shot of her for the beginning of the countdown.

“we had so much fun making this 34+35 remix video for you, and uhh, we hope you love it.” she continued, playing with her hair. no matter how long she did this for she swore she would never cease to get slightly nervous in these situations. where it was her alone, in front of a camera. but her fans made her feel at ease, and she felt she owed them something, as she hadn’t done many quarantine interviews like other celebs have.

“i thought i would come celebrate and join the countdown with you guys. which is something that I've never done before, but i’m very happy to be here and i was very excited to get some questions from you all...” she held up the sheets of twitter questions she had received, “um that i’m gonna be answering while i’m here so, i cant wait to celebrate this together and countdown and answer some of your questions!” she finished with a smile.

and it was genuine. a real smile that her fans were thrilled to see.

ariana was genuinely so happy and content with her life right now. with her family, her music, her friends, harry. harry her FIANCE!! might she add.

everything just felt perfect, and after all the shit the last couple years had thrown her way, she appreciated the break.

 she got her love back, she was making music that she fully loved, and put her whole soul into, and she had fans who had stuck with her and supported her through some of the darkest times in her life, that were now able to experience her happiness and personal growth with her. so truly, little things like this, felt like the least she could do for them.

“ohh this is a good one because its 34 35 related” she tucked her hair behind her ears, “@noirgrande said ‘ummm its just i wanna the end of 34+35 is it awww shit or nooo shit, i just wanna sing the song right”

“umm it is indeed no shit” she confirmed, smiling matter of factly at the camera before reciting the closing line of the song.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“@arianalocks1223 said ‘will we get to see the track list before the songs release?’” she paused for a second to process - which turned into a few more seconds, she was a bit slow today. she had told harry with full sincerity that she thought it was because she was getting old but he had just cracked up at her absurd statement, and told her that if that was the case he’d still think she was a milf

“you will!” she nodded with certainty, “indeed. ummm... i can tell you them now” she blurted, oops.

“i suppose thats not like... is that against the rules? can i do that?” she turned, to question scooter who was supervising off camera, not wanting to get her label mad at her for releasing too much information, something she has a tendency to do. 

after getting the nod of reassurance from him she turned back to the camera, “so out of ‘POV’, you go into, um, an interlude called ‘someone like u’. after that is a song called ‘test drive’, after that is the 34/35 remix with doja and meg” she smiles lightly, “and after that is a song called ‘worst behaviour’, and after worst behaviour is... a song called ‘main thing’...” she finishes, a shy smirk forming on her face, dimples appearing, “so that’s the tracks.” 

continuing with the countdown, ariana felt her heart warm at the love her fans were giving her and this album. she loved interacting with them and making them happy and proud of her so knowing she had done just that, was an amazing feeling.

“umm hesbloodsline... @hesbloodsline ... i’m really fond of this question because its really to the point, ‘where's the pig and where the fuck is harry?’” she smiled, holding in a laugh.

“piggy’s here, she's great, she's really doing so well and life is really good for her right now, she's really thriving and doing her thing” she ranted, a hint of sarcasm in her voice, “um, i make her big salads everyday that she likes, she's doing really great. she asked me to stop posting her as much because she's actually really offended by a lot of your jokes that you make on twitter, she asked me to have a word with you guys” she continued to joke, well aware that she probably found herself more funny than anyone else did right now.

“she doesn't like the jokes about being eaten, they really hurt her, umm yeh, and she asked me to convey that... no she’s great...” she finally decided to answer, “and harry, is on set today, so um, yeh thats where he is... but don't worry i will tell him to keep you in the loop, i’ve got you” 

ariana unconsciously let a small smile take over her glossed lips when talking about harry. he had been so excited about this new project and seeing him passionate and happy about anything he’s doing, always made her happiest.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“nicole! @nastyctrl. nicole said ‘who helped come up with the concept for the positions music video, love u sm ari’ love you so much to, i love you so much more” she paused, she loved this story,

“um this is actually a really funny story, dave and i had been going back and forth on several different concepts, and i couldn't, like... marry one... i couldn't really, like, really commit to one, i wasn't 100% sold. and it was missing a certain element of empowerment. and i kept, you know, trying to think of things that would make it more impactful cause i wasn't loving what we had...”

“anddd then me and harry were on this huge hike, and he just turned to me and was like, ‘what if you were the president?’ which was like, not at all fitting cause i was dying and complaining the whole time. but i was like,” she tried to imitate a shocked face through her smile and laughed 

“and when i called dave he was like ‘oh... kay, ill call you guys back’ and had the whole production team redo everything, and i had mimi pull completely different outfits and we completely started over cause that idea was what i was, craving and missing. and i was like, wow, thats so perfect” she smiled, shrugging her shoulders, “so yeh, honorary directing credit to harry styles, if you liked that”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“this is from @borderlinevinyl, who said ‘how much of the album was recorded at your little home studio?’ ummm..” she sang, looking off camera in thought, everything in quarantine had honestly just blurred into one so she was struggling to remember what exactly she recorded where,

“um... a lot of it was... i think i did parts of everything here and parts of things at tommy's i know i did, um, the final chorus ad-libs for positions at home” she began listing in her head, “i know i did all of off the table at home... i know i did the final chorus of my hair at home because we- i-” oops. she had to control the laugh threatening to leave her lips at the lack of subtlety in her correction

“-i got out of the shower and he was like ‘oh your whistles are really here right now’, and i was like y’know what... yeahh they are aren’t they” she laughed as she squinted her eyes and recited that part of the conversation, even trying to imitate his deeper accent.

she had been singing in the shower - as she always did - and harry joining her never seemed to stop her from belting out any whitney or old one direction classic she wanted to. he would even join in sometimes and they'd end up with their own mini concert, dancing around naked, shampoo and conditioner bottles in hand singing their hearts out to everything from high school musical to nicki minaj to fleetwood mac.

while it felt like too bold of statement to make as she truly revelled in and enjoyed everything they did together, showering with him was truly one of her favourite’s. whether it was steamy shower sex that had all glass surfaces in the room fogging up or letting loose and dancing and singing under the pouring water, every moment felt so intimate and sacred. it truly made her feel like they were they only people in the world. 

of course he would claim she was out singing him every time she whistled and would jokingly try to replicate the note but he was truly just in awe off the sounds that came from her mouth (in all senses of the word;)

"-and so i opened ‘my hair’ and just randomly did that” she continued, “um what else did i do here, i did the a lot of the backgrounds and ad-libs for 34+35 here, um, obvious was done at home, a lot of six-thirty was done at home”

caught in her own thoughts she only realised she had probably been droning on for too long when she caught scooters eye across the room and with a blush she shook her head as if to clear it, “this is an annoying answer, everything was kind of all over the place but i did a lot, a lot, a lot of the vocals for the album at the house" she finally finished the long answer, moving on quickly as she realised she didn't have long until the premiere and she wanted to answer as many of the questions as possible.

“ok, second last question from hannah, ever- @everdxystxless, im sorry i don't know how to pronounce that” she laughs looking up at the camera with wide eyes, not sure how exactly how she was supposed to go about pronouncing the username, 

“im sorry, um, but anyway she say’s ‘ari baby, how do you feel about harry getting to do a movie with florence pugh, we know your a big fan of hers, ps. i love you so much!’ well hannah, i love you too” she replies, as she thinks back to when harry first introduced the two, after she had gotten over the initial fangirling, the pair became amazing friends. florence struck ariana as such a genuine, loving person and they shared the same dry sense of humour. plus ariana might of been just a little obsessed with her accent - not that she would ever admit that and scare the girl off.

“and... um, yeah, it literally, made me beyond happy, i was fully like, fangirling when i met her the first time” she laughs as she plays with her hair, “she honestly, probably was like, ‘who the fuck is this girl? what is she doing?’”ariana imitated, a faux scared/weirded out look on her face, playing the part of a mildly pissed off florence - which she luckily had never been on the receiving end of, “im sure i was being the opposite of subtle about it but, no, she really truly is the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful, talented human being” she emphasises, the thought of any news outlets of fan’s trying to spin a ‘jealousy’ story about this making her internally role her eyes,

“midsommar is, like, one of my all time favourite movies, and she's amazing in it, and harry’s like so fucking lucky its crazy. so yeah, thats insane”

~~~~~~~~~

"...so yeah... thank you so much! this was so much fun!” ariana exclaimed as she wrapped up the Q&A, smiling wide at the camera, she knew her fans were going to love the music video and she couldn't wait for them to watch it, plus interacting with them in this way always made her happy.

“i love you guys, i miss you” she reminded, “i am so appreciative of everything you've done for this album, for these singles, for this music. i hope that, um, that this makes you super happy, i hope it makes you smile...we had so much fun shooting it and um, the girls are so fantastic, so i hope you love this and i hope you love the deluxe!” 

ariana didn't know how many more ways she could say thank you and express her gratitude but she still had over a minute and a half so she’d have to come up with something, even if it meant she’d sound like a broken record

“i am so thankful for everything and for the love that you've shown this music i cant even begin to articulate it properly so, thank you! i appreciate it so much” she breathed out all in one, “but anyway, the video should be starting soon, so... i hope you like it, don't refresh! it’ll be here soon... i promise... just don't refresh” she urged dramatically, she was really dragging this out, “but yeh” she got out through laughs “the video should be starting anytime now, i love you guys” she blew a kiss to the camera before moving as close to the lens as possible “byee”.

🖤 there u go!! i hope you liked it, and any feedback would always always be welcomed and so so appreciated pls and thanku x 

[writingsfromhome]

Bad Timing I(.5)

A/N: This is the sort of backstory to Harry and you, I think it can be read on its own if you want, or before you read the first part too. It’s angsty af, but it has some death and sensitive topics jsyk. I tried to keep it concise but it got a little wordy as angst does. xx

Part 1

-------------------------------------------------

About 12 Years Ago:

“So are you coming to that party or not?” My roommate asks. She was one of the first people I’d met last year when we started uni and even though we came from different backgrounds we remained friends over the last year, even choosing to room together again. She got me to open up and find the extroverted part of me that was able to enjoy uni outside of academics.

“Ugh, I’m volunteering for the voting booths for the rest of the week. Maybe if I can make it?”

“You’re actually doing that?” She scrunches her nose. “I don’t get it. You’re just way too nerdy to be my friend.”

“And yet you loove me,” I squeeze her against me and she laughs. “It’s my mom, she said I had to do at least one extracurricular so I could meet friends this year.”

“You already have friends,” she points to herself, and with her came her group of friends that’d quickly taken me in last year.

And my mom doesn’t like that I hang out with you, I think. She thought we partied too much even though my grades stayed decent. “She wants me to have nerdy friends too, I dunno. They’re helping me pay my tuition until I get a job so I kinda have to play nice.”

“Parents suck,” my roommate flicks through her closet. I agreed, this was just something I would get through to get through. Then they would leave me alone for the rest of the year.

Little did I know the person they’d partner me with at my polling station was someone who would be in my life for the next decade.

“I’m Harry by the way,” he’d said after we received our orientation and assigned the building we were going to babysit the votes in. “Second year.”

“Me too! I’m Y/N. What’s your major? I’ve never seen you around.”

“Law--well I haven’t decided if it’s law but that’s what I’m in right now.”

“Really? Law?” I was openly judging, he just didn’t seem the law type.

“Well what are you in?” He demands.

“Business,” I cringe.

“Really? Business?” He has a cheeky smile on, one that would become familiar to me.

“Well, you just don’t seem like the law type. They’re usually more uptight, dress way too smart for me.”

“I know, it’s like, we’re not even in the courtroom yet,” he joins in and it makes me laugh--how he could poke fun at his own people. That’s when I knew we would get along fine, and I actually looked forward to the next few days getting to know him better.

“I’m definitely telling my mum about you, she’s been begging me to make friends outside of my circle. I’ll tell her I’m friends with a law student.”

“So we’re friends already?” We’d reached our booth and began setting up the partitions. He takes over when I set it up wrong.

“Obviously,” I say. “I actually like you which means you’ll have a hard time getting rid of me.”

“I’m alright with that,” he grins and I notice the laugh lines that are brought to life as he does. It somehow made him seem more genuinely.

We spend the rest of the time swapping stories, classes, rants. We check student IDs and hand out voting cards in between but it doesn’t feel like a drag anymore. At the end of the day, I invite him to the party my roommate was going to with our friends. If he was going, maybe I would too. He seemed like he might be fun at a party.

“Er,” he suddenly seems nervous. “I’ll have to ask my girlfriend, she wanted to hang out tonight.”

“Well bring her too!” I say excitedly. “Is she law as well?”

“No, she’s in the arts.”

“I like her already,” I push. “Bring her, my friends are fun you’ll learn how to have a good time.”

“I know how to have a good time,” there was the flash of his dimples again. “Text me the address.”

And thus began a friendship for the next four years, partying together, studying together (trying to), and hanging out in each other’s rooms. We would set each other up with other friends, double dated, went out for sunrise-hikes, and took long drives at night when we had to blow some steam off from being over-stressed, over-studied uni students. Our friend circles overlapped, the fabric of our lives eventually bleeding together. We were made of the same fibers, sticking together even after uni, when our friends got more serious about their careers. When they moved out of the country or to another city, we made sure to rent places close enough that we could still see each other often. And somehow, in the new chapter of our lives, without the partying and our other friends to buffer, we became closer than before.

We cared for each other--we didn’t deny that ever. And somehow that platonic love turned romantic as we depended on each other while we navigated adulthood. I can’t exactly pinpoint where things changed, but one evening our relationship was changed forever.

7 years ago:

“She literally wants me to stay until 7, and she was offended when I said no! I’m not even getting paid for that!” I was bitching to Harry about my shitty job.

“That’s bollocks” Harry shrugs. “Just say you’ve got family obligations or something.”

“I said that the one time she wanted us to come in on a weekend and she gave me shite work the following week! I just...I can’t afford to lose this job Harry.”

“That’s shitty, I’m sorry.” He takes the last swig of his beer. “Want another one?”

“I haven’t even finished this one,” I moan at my now warm beer that I’d been nursing for the last hour, too busy ranting to drink it. “It’s getting late though I should head home before it’s dark. Don’t want that nutter that hangs around my building to harass me again.”

“I’ll walk you home,” Harry suggests. He lived a 15 minute walk from me.

“No no,” I get up and take our dirty dishes to the sink. “I didn’t even ask about you, how was your day?”

“Same old,” he sighs against the counter. “I feel like I don’t fit in, everyone my age is finishing their law degree but I don’t think I want to.”

“I knew from the day I met you, you weren’t destined for the courtroom.” I pull him into a comforting hug. “Do what makes you happy, or what doesn’t make you want to say fuck it and quit your job to hibernate.”

“You really know the perfect thing to say,” Harry chuckles but he pulls me tighter against him. I stroke his back, reassuring him he’d be alright in the end.

“Y/N-” he pulls away to say something but freezes mid sentence. I raise an eyebrow but he’s still, staring at my face.

“Harry?” I ask, but he continues staring. “Hello? You alright?”

“Yeah,” he breaks into a sudden smile. That was weird--I make sure he’s okay before letting go.

Before I leave, I kiss Harry’s cheek goodbye--I was never shy in the affection I gave my friends and Harry’s bummed mood needed extra affection tonight. But what I don’t expect is for him to catch me before I pull away, staring intently into my eyes. The lighthearted energy between us disappears instantly as it dawns on me, how close we were, the unspoken feelings in his eyes, the hesitation before he presses his lips to mine.

I kissed him back then, barely understanding what was happening, before pulling away. I give him a smile but that’s just what he sees at the tip of the iceberg, underneath my mixed feelings churn away. My best friend just kissed me, and I wasn’t totally mad about it.

“It’s getting dark I-” I say as Harry says, “Sorry was that okay?”

We laugh awkwardly, neither of us sure what to do at this point. We decide to ignore it instead.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Harry lets me go and opens the door for me. “Watch out for the neighbourhood nutter yea?”

I stand in place, feeling the fibers of our friendship unraveling but feeling hopeless in mending the tear. “Take care Harry.”

I high tail it out, my thoughts going at an impossible rate as I sort out what happened. And we try to ignore it the next couple weeks,

We hadn’t made it official then, too nervous to face what this meant about our friendships. It was only at my sister’s wedding, that I realised what was wrong between us. I’d been mourning our old friendship, and avoiding him in the weeks since the kiss. But what I didn’t realise was that our friendship had been changing over the last year anyway, and getting drunk on champagne and dancing with Harry, while my sister celebrated the happiest day of her life, made me realise there was a cause for celebration here: a new chapter in our lives.

A couple days later, after a stressful day at work, I’d taken the tube to his flat and waited for him outside. He was surprised to see me there, not saying much except to open the door and let me in. As soon as he’d closed it, my lips were attached to his and we’d let our bags drop, coats, and any piece of clothing between us. After that night, we didn’t even try to deny how we felt about each other.

“I didn’t think I could ever be this happy,” he’s whispered to me after. I thought he’d fallen asleep but his whisper in the dark made me grin to myself. “Are you awake.”

“I am. Awake and happy.” I turn to face him, giggling. “Who knew this could feel so right.”

“Our first kiss was quite wrong though wasn’t it?” Harry says and it makes me laugh.

“That’s why I needed to do a redo,” I tease. “Can’t leave you to plan anything.”

“It wasn’t planned I swear, I was trying to be spontaneous.”

“Let’s not try ‘spontaneous’ again then,” I kiss him in the dark. He pulls me snug against him, I never knew how safe it felt. The safest I would ever feel, wrapped in the warmth with my best friend and now something else.

It was a good few months, testing the waters as our relationship underwent a transformation. All of our friends were supportive, but we never missed the glances between them. Apparently, they were waiting for this to happen. But as sweet as those first few months had been, finding out my mum was sick with a timeline was devastating. I came apart at the seams but Harry stayed through it all, holding me together. He’d proposed then, wanting my mum to be part of the ceremony. We had a small wedding, intimate but still magical. It was bittersweet, the amount of love and happiness I felt towards Harry and our loved ones around us as he said I do and as he took my arm and swept me across the dancefloor. But the amount of sadness crushing my chest kept me from being the weightless bride I always thought I would be.

Through it all, Harry stayed by my side. While we were hopeful, the day our hopes were dashed, the days and weeks I mourned. When my sister and her husband came to stay with their crazy toddlers and Harry kept them entertained giving my sister and I time together. I thought he was perfect, that I’d lucked out.

That lasted a few years, 3 and a half to be exact. There were months leading up to our split and we could point to a bunch of things that could’ve led to it. a) him wanting kids, and me wanting to wait or b) long hours we worked as we changed careers and tried to make our way up or c) how hard getting pregnant actually was. Maybe I pushed him away, or he didn’t love me enough to try and make it work.

I think I lied to myself, avoiding the tension creeping into the relationship. The tired excuses and time spent apart, the lack of usual affection, or casual conversations. I was an idiot, I realise every time I think about the end in retrospect. Maybe if I caught on earlier I could have fixed us before we fell apart. Maybe I could have saved us.

“There’s someone coming in Tuesday morning to fix the broken washer, will you be home?” I ask, still in bed and scrolling through my phone. I hadn’t meant to be up this early but Harry woke me as he got up and I couldn’t fall back asleep.

“No,” Harry responds, his back to me as he ruffles through the dresser. “I’ve got a thing that morning.”

“Well I’ve got to go in early Tuesday-I thought you might be home.” I say. I hear an edge to Harry’s voice but I try not to focus on it. He’d been a little cold all weekend and I was scared to think what it meant.

“You couldn’t be bothered to check in when you confirmed the date?” Harry asks harshly.

“I...guess not.” I put my phone down and wait for Harry to turn, maybe I could read his expression. Maybe he was stressed. “Harry?”

“What?” He turns, but he looks at me with no emotion. No stress, no frustration, not even anger. It’s the lack of emotion in his face that cause my eyes to prick with tears. Harry raises his eyebrows and I shake my head, untangling myself from the sheets so he doesn’t see any tears. I rush to the bathroom but forget to close the door out of habit.

“Y/N,” a kinder Harry appears by the doorway. His face has smoothed out the harsh lines, his eyes hesitant and cautious.

“What’s happened with us?” I blurt out. “Why are you so cold all the time? Am I doing something wrong?”

Harry’s face falls and he walks towards me but doesn’t touch me. “It’s nothing like that. It’s...I don’t know. We should talk.”

He reaches his hand out but I flinch away. “Did you meet somebody new or something? What are we talking about?”

“Let’s not do this here. Right now.”

“Why not!” I finally had enough. “I’ve been walking on eggshells for months Harry! I don’t know what’s wrong and I keep waiting for you to bloody tell me!”

“This isn’t working!” Harry raises his voice to compensate for mine. I’m immediately silenced by the volume, and then the words sink in.

“Is there someone else?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer, his gaze on the hanging vines by the window. My heart drops into my stomach like a boulder, and I find it hard to breathe. I clutch the porcelain sink and ask in a surprisingly even tone, “Harry. Answer me.”

“What we have, Y/N...it’s dysfunctional.” He says quietly, meeting my eyes. “It doesn’t matter if there’s someone else, we’ve been fighting for months. Things aren’t the same between us-”

“Who is she?” I ask. I needed to know.

“That’s not relevant,” he shuts my question down quickly. “I’m sorry Y/N, I...I don’t want to hurt you. I care about you, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t,” I’d pleaded. “We can go to counseling, talk it through-”

“I can’t Y/N.”

“Because of her.”

“No, because this isn’t good for either of us.” He’d walked up to me, cradled my face. “We’re not good for each other, not like this.”

“Who is she?” I yank his hands away.

“She’s...it doesn’t matter, I swear nothing happened between us Y/N. Knowing who she is isn’t going to help this situation--”

“It is! If it weren’t for her, you’d be willing to work on us--to see a future. You...Harry how could you do this to me? To us?” The tears come with no control. “You’re moving on before we’re even over. How are you giving up on us like that?”

“I’m not!” his voice booms in the tiled bathroom. “I’m not bloody giving up on us! I tried Y/N, so many times. I tried! You just keep pushing at me to be someone I’m not and-”

“I can say the same thing about you!” I throw the brush in my hands into the sink. “We were good! And you got it in your head you wanted a baby even though we’re young, oh my god Harry you kept pestering me to change my mind even though I told you I needed time!”

“It’s not like we could have a fucking baby anyway,” Harry says bitterly before realising what he’d said. “Shit-”

“There you go,” I mock. “I knew it. I knew you were holding that against me. And that,” I jab my finger into his chest. “Is what’s made you so moody, so mean and why we’re always fighting. You held it against me.”.

There was absolute truth to what I said. Last year, Harry had brought the baby topic up. I’d told him we were only in our mid-20s, we had a lot of time, and we still had a career to establish. But he would bring up the topic often enough that I’d given in.To make him happy. And months went by, trying for a baby. Went we finally went to our doctor, she’d told us why it was so hard, it could take us years she’d said.

Harry came home that day dejected, and left me feeling like a failure. I think it tore us up.

“You wanted a baby so fucking bad and when I couldn’t, it made me feel like a complete failure. And I told you that! And you did absolutely nothing to make me feel better. You held it against me, Harry! You didn’t even try to tell me it was okay.”

“It’s not so fucking simple,” he says, his cheeks flushed pink. Maybe it was anger, or maybe it was embarrassment from being confronted with an ugly truth.

“It is. And now you’ve upgraded to a newer model, maybe her version comes with a fertile womb.” I take the cheap shot.

He doesn’t say anything though. And I don’t know why that hurts more than knowing he’d fallen for another woman while he was still married to me. My best friend in the whole world had just broken my heart into a million irrevocable pieces.

“It’s a bunch of things Y/N,” he finally says. “That’s just part of it. We’re not...we’re just not working!”

“Did you even try to make it work?” I ask, swiping my sleeve across my face. “Did you ever think how I felt? How you made me feel Harry? You’ve been slipping away from me without talking to me-” I break off. I couldn’t speak through the heartbreak, the thunderstorm of grief threatens to consume me and my sobs are the only thing that manages to come out.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Harry tries to place a hand on my shoulder but I jerk away, moving to sit on the edge of the bathtub. “Y/N...”

“Just go,” I say through the tears.

“We can talk more about this later-”

"Just go,” I say louder.

Harry’s phone rings again from the bedroom and he sighs. But he leaves me, crying on the bathroom floor. The sadness that was always in my peripheral consumes me. I’d carried this sadness for a long time--ever since I found out my mum was sick, the sadness plagued me. I’d neatly packed it up once I decided to move forward with my life like my mum would want me to, but now it comes back tenfold, marrying the grief of losing Harry like this. And I stay on the floor crying my grief away for hours, eventually crawling into bed and sleeping the daylight away.

When I wake, it’s 6 and Harry isn’t home. I take that as a sign and get up to pack up a few things. I call my sister who still lived in London then, and crash on her couch, staying there for a few weeks and ignoring any call or text from Harry. When I need to go back, for my things, I find him sleeping on the couch with the TV on, something I always found endearing. But I can’t afford to dwell on how much it hurt seeing him like that.

He must have woken from the noise because when he finds me, he tries to stop me and tell me that we still needed to talk.

“About what?” I ask, just tired now. Too many tears shed and too many hours laying awake thinking about the exact moment we went wrong.

“Us,” Harry looked tired too. He was probably throwing himself into his work with nothing like me to hold him back, I think bitterly. His girlfriend had probably already been to our house--his house.

“What about us?” I barely look at him as I begin folding away all my clothes.

“I don’t know,” Harry sits on the bed. “Don’t you want to talk?”

“I’ve got nothing to say, do you?”

Harry sighs, “I don’t know.”

“Nice talk then,” I say, shoving the rest of my things in just so I could get out.

“I just want you to know I care about you Y/N, I don’t want to hurt you.” He says as I pack.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. If you cared about me, and you didn’t want to hurt me you wouldn’t have done this to us.”

“I wasn’t trying to--I didn’t mean to go and fall for someone else-”

“Just stop,” I cut him off. I couldn’t hear it, how the man I loved fell for someone else. I couldn’t break down here. Again.

He said he cared but it didn’t feel that way. It hurt more than I wished to admit. He knew what I’d been through and he still betrayed me, tossed my heart like it was replaceable. The cut he left in me ran deep.

As I leave he tries to talk to me, but I barrel past him. He still reaches for me and pulls me into a hug, I struggle against him but he’s too strong. He wraps me in his arms until I go still but it’s too much. A sob escapes me, and this time he lets me push him off and leave, my bag banging into my hips every time I take a step. As soon as I got into my Uber, I can’t stop crying. There was an infinite pool of tears where Harry was involved.

3 years ago:

My trust and my heart had been been lost in the war between Harry and I. It only took him a month to mail my divorce papers which sat collecting dust on my dining table until he showed up at work one day and demanded I sign them by the end of that week. I’d taken the day off the day I mailed those in, mourning the end of something that was once so safe and beautiful.

When a close friend calls me on a warm July afternoon, I don’t consider her warning that I shouldn’t check Instagram. That I still had Harry’s friends on my list. I open Instagram before she can tell me why, and see it. Harry was getting married, again. To the woman he gave up on us for. I try to zoom in on a picture without liking it, she was pretty...and blonde. She looked familiar--probably from his office. It didn’t take him long.

It was like someone had taken a retractor to the wound I thought had finally scabbed over. The physical proof that Harry had moved on is just the salt on the wound.

I cry myself to sleep that night.

2 Years ago;

The guy in front of me drones on about his job, mansplaining to me how a mortgage worked as if I wasn’t in finance myself. I excuse myself to use the restroom, checking my phone to see a text from my sister. She’d moved to Scotland this year, to where her husband was from, and I’d missed her terribly in the last year.

A little birdie told me your demon-ex just got divorced 🥂

I stare at the screen, chest feeling tight. I felt vindicated somehow, but I also felt a small bit of sadness. What a fuck-up.

Good for him I had texted back. A part of me wanted him to hurt the way he hurt me.

I went back to my date with a renewed enthusiasm. I’d ordered more wine and got so drunk he was actually interesting enough to take home.

About 1 year ago

“Y/N,” a voice from my past says, one that haunted me some nights. I turn as I exit the shop I was just in. I blink at the sight before me, Harry in a vest and hat. He realises what I’m staring at and laughs awkwardly. “I’m in uniform.”

“You’re...police?” I look up to his face finally. He hadn’t aged a day, although the hat he wears makes him look a little silly.

“Yeah I joined the force uhm...almost 4 years ago now...law didn’t really suit me.”

I know what he was doing, trying to find a baseline to have a conversation. But he was dead to me, and I didn’t want to invite him back in when I was finally forgetting about him.

"Seems like you dropped a lot of dead-weight four years ago.”

I watch his face fall as he realises I wasn’t going to pretend to be friendly.

“Seems that way to you,” he says cautiously. “But that’s not how it happened.”

I shrug. “So. I heard about the divorce. Must’ve been hard being put through that.”

I knew I was being petty, obviously I never got the closure I want (according to my therapist) and I wasn’t over him hurting me the way he did (also according to my therapist). This was how I got my peace, and it wasn’t the best version of me but it was the only one I knew how to be right now.

“Yep,” he crosses his arms over his chest. “So, are you seeing anyone?”

He knew I wasn’t, I don’t know how but the way he stoops to my level I know he knows I hadn’t had a long term relationship since him.

“Not at the moment,” I say awkwardly. “Just focusing on my job...trying to get this promotion.”

“Sorry,” he seems to shake off whatever had come over him. “That was...nosy, I shouldn’t have asked.”

Having him be the bigger person sets something off in me, like there was an anger-bomb inside my mind where he lived and knowing that he was doing okay enough to be able to be the bigger person disrupts this calm I was trying to keep.

“Maybe you shoudn’t have stopped me to ask anything at all. We don’t have anything to talk about anyway.”

I turn around and start to walk away but he catches up, “I wasn’t trying to upset you-”

“Well you have a way of doing that. Please just leave me alone Harry.”

He huffs beside me, “After all this time, can’t we just bloody talk like two adults?”

I freeze and turn to him slowly. He seems to sense this was the wrong thing to say because he takes a step back. “After all this time? Are you serious? I was the one you left behind Harry when you went off to lives your best lift Harry. We’re not living the same life, and we’re not coming from the same bloody place. Don’t fucking patronize me and ask me to talk to you like an adult when you bring out the worst part of me. I meant what I said: I want you to leave me alone. And you know what, if we ever run into each other again, just don’t even talk to me. Pretend you don’t know me. I want nothing to do with you.”

He opens his mouth but his partner calls him from the shop’s entrance. He stays silent, letting me go. As soon as I turn the street corner I rush the rest of the way to the tube, collapsing into a seat and trying to sort out my breathing. It was a shitty feeling, knowing someone was going to be in your life forever because you shared so much history that even when that part of your life ended they were still there. There was so much apart of me, around me, that reminded me of him. And it felt so lonely carrying that around. I wanted to be done with him, I wanted my heart to purge him out. But it couldn’t stop carrying him around everywhere I go.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

So due to popular demand I watched episode 2 of Walker for you guys. Part 1 of 2

So here’s my review of episode 2 of Walker. Is this going to be the episode where Walker lassoes a person? We’ll see.

The episode is titled “Back in the saddle” and I am already wishing I was eating my cookies. But the batter needs to rest in the fridge first, blah blah.

Night sky. Horses in their stables in the darkness. Security cameras switching off…? Fire! Someone set fire to the stable. Someone hurries to get the horses out. It’s clever, I’m actually invested in making sure the horses are okay. Maybe they’re luckier than Mary Winchester. Wait, wrong show.

The last one is trapped! A brave guy tries to free him but a wooden beam falls down and kills him. Oh no. Did someone at least save the horse?

The ridiculous title card plays, and then our favorite former Supernatural lead currently starring in a new show appears. He loads what looks like a toolbox in the back of his truck. There’s a horse saddle already on the truck. Soft music and the yellow sunlight shining behind him announce this is an emotional scene. The saddle has a leather bag on the side, with the initials of Walker and his wife engraved on it.

Ta-da! Flashback of Walker and his wife. Thankfully she is not elvish vision glowing this time, although the blurry effect of the flashbacks still make me think of a Lord of the Rings ripoff.

The saddle was a gift from her! Walker makes this face so we know he loves it.

Look at how ridiculous this is.

They’re trying sooo hard to appeal to bibro Supernatural fans. They’re BEGGING for the attention of bibro Supernatural fans. I’m not sure if redoing SamandDean iconic moments but with Walker and his dead wife (played by who I assume some hardcore bibros believe is Jared’s beard) is the best way of doing it? I mean, I wouldn’t take that direction. But okay. We take our Meaningful Moments from Supernatural because our viewers are not invested in these characters but are invested in those ones, so at least we’re provoking emotions by making them think of those ones. It is a strategy, I guess.

Fuck, I spoke too soon! The glowiness is not too strong - it is daytime in this flashback and not nighttime like in the pilot - but it’s there.

Back to the present, Walker is on the phone with his mother, explaining he’s back at his place to fix a leak or something. If the kids have been living with their grandparents and Walker has been away for almost a year, how is the patio so clean and pristine? But wait, someone’s been there. There are empty beer bottles. And then the funniest frame of the show so far.

Stella is a teenager. In 2021. Which teenager in 2021 texts like someone who had to spend 20 cents for text and press the button four times to get an s? Her father should be the one texting like it’s 1999. Stella would be the one texting like phones have automatic capitalization and predictive text and shit...

There is absolutely no fucking way the place can be so clean and pristine if no one’s lived there bar some teenagers who drank beer in the patio. But okay.

Oh no. Another glowy flashback. Holy shit. Why. We get it. He misses his wife. They had the perfect little life together. The music they use in the flashback is starting to give me a pavlovian response.

Even Jared is unhappy. Look at his unhappy face.

In the meanwhile, Ramirez and her boyfriend are having fun when her boss calls her. She dresses up to go to the fire stable place, in the meanwhile they have a conversation about their relationship. She has never really had a longterm serious relationship, and she’s confused because, I quote, “I am one of the first women ever, one of the first women of color, ever” [that’s it sentence finished]. I can’t believe Ramirez has been around for thousands of thousands of years.

She needs to focus on her job and he’s a distraction because he has a six pack. No, that’s literally the scene. He takes off his shirt and we see his six pack. Now, he’s a pretty impressive physique, that’s not a problem. Why isn’t he the main character of a show about doctors?

Meanwhile, Walker joins the family for breakfast. The brother, Liam, is great at making smoothies. What an interesting all-rounded gay character.

Walker’s mom says they should stay living with them because it means stability for the kids. Walker says they should move back to their house because normal whatever. Stella says, does it even matter to you where we want to live?, and leaves. August reveals she goes back to the house sometimes, meaning the beer was hers and she lied. Draa~ama. Stella is the only interesting character in this family.

Jared makes another discontented Jared thing at the end of the scene, I can’t gif them all, and we get to the crime scene. “Fire’s no way to go” Walker comments, because they watched the Supernatural pilot before writing the show.

Oh no, the horse didn’t make it either :(

So, the stableman who died had just come out of prison. Oh no. Is this another plot about convicted criminals doing shady things after they get out of prison? It must be, otherwise this detail wouldn’t be relevant since the guy just died. Oh no.

Ooooh James, the new boss, is making some changes which include following the rules to a t. Meaning Walker has been demoted until he passes all the tests again. I need to show you the face, sorry

This is it, this is Jared’s acting in this show.

Walker tries to argue with Captain James, but he says he wants to be “on the right side of history for a change”, so he cannot have him run around doing whatever he wants. James isn’t happy that he went to look at the footage of Emily’s murder again. He tells him again that the case is closed because a guy confessed, and he needs to focus on his family and job now. We’ve heard this so many times I’m so bored. But guys Jared’s acting gives us gems

Ramirez starts talking about the test, but he’s off, she asks him if he’s good and he says I’m fine. I’m Fine Lie #3! I think, I’m not really counting.

Something about the case. Whatever.

Stella is training for the big upcoming soccer match. Why can’t this be a sports show about teenage girls playing soccer? I can even give them a pass about calling it soccer.

Stella and her friend Isabel chat and Isabel says “ICE is sniffing around”, which I’m sure is not what ICE does.

I take it back. I don’t want a show about teenage girl soccer. Now there’s drama because Stella and Bel shouldn’t be playing in the big game because of their arrest, but apparently Stella is good and the couch will let her play, but not Bel, so she refuses to play. Unsure if this is about racism or Bel simply isn’t a great player. They should have made it clearer…

Meanwhile Augustus chats with a schoolmate called Ruby. Yeah. It had been too many minutes without an easter egg.

Walker and Ramirez take the tests. First shooting range. Then driving. He’s very good at these things. I’m bored. I don’t care about cops showing off their cop skills. I’d rather watch Ruby and Sam, er I mean, Augustus talk about high school projects, and I don’t care about high school projects.

I made the cookies in the meanwhile :)

[ayellowcurtain]

Like trouble water running cold

chapter 5

“Are you sure you're going?” Ismail asks because he could see earlier how hard it was for Constantin to make some movements while putting on his clothes, his face still very purple in some areas,, the outline of the bruises getting a hint of green or yellow, looking worse before it gets better.

“Yes.” He fixes the collar of his white shirt, leaving the first few buttons open so anyone can see his bony chest, “You want to get rid of me?” He lifts his eyebrows, and Ismail rolls his eyes, pushing the end of his cigar against the street light pole so he can follow Constantin inside the Uber they asked to go to the party.

“No…”

“Yeah…” Constantin answers as an afterthought, opening the window on his side of the backseat, leaving as much room between them as possible, seeming a little agitated but Ismail doesn’t ask what’s going on. Deep inside he can tell things are changing between them, at least for him and the thought that it might not be what Constantin wants makes him a little disappointed, his ego hurt because Constantin probably just wants to keep things between them very casual. Ismail always thought he was the one to break someone’s heart, not the one to have his heart broken.

They just had a couple of intense weeks,  amazing sex for the past few days, and all of a sudden, Constantin is cold like a brick of ice and Ismail hates it, hates Constantin.

The ride to the party is in complete silence, both of them looking out their windows until the car stops and Constantin jumps out of the car, barely waiting for Ismail for them to get inside.

It’s probably just Ismail’s horrible mood getting the best of him but the house feels way too crowded, you can barely move inside, everyone is kind of sweaty already, too drunk and too loud, never moving out of his way. Ismail tries to breath as little air as possible while searching for their group in the crowd.

Ismail really didn’t want to go, and he should have stayed home, not chainging his mind because Constantin was so ready to party all night long. They’re in opposite sides with their moods tonight so it’s for the best if they keep their distance. They’re always together but sometimes like tonight they would just bicker for any and everything.

Constantin is so pumped he keeps looking around, seeing what he can do next, his head quietly moving to the beat of the music, drinking his beer slowly. Zoe and Kieu My are dancing around them and it’s not enough space so they move on to the dance floor and Kieu My drags Constantin with her, holding his hand, both of them laughing as they walk through the crowd to the dance floor.

Ismail doesn’t feel like talking so he finds any excuse to go find a beer for himself, standing in a corner, lighting a cigarette while drinking his beer and watching the party, trying not to constantly watch the same person. He puts his beer on the windowsill and fixes his hair, checking his reflection on the glass, pulling his pants up to adjusting his shiny blouse.

He finishes his beer and finds a new one to start, asking a cute boy to open it for him just for the fun of it, moving back to the windowsill he was using as stool. Finn is with them on the dance floor now and it looks like two couples dancing.

It’s ridiculous how you can see from afar how they dance differently, finding a way to tell the other they would rather be doing something else. Ismail can only watch as Constantin stops dancing, walking upstairs, looking back to see Kieu My following him, clearly having one of those conversations with her where they’re having small talk but knowing very well where they’re going, and Constantin is not even thinking about looking around them, look for Ismail and check if he’s feeling like it.

He’s not but it would make things a lot better if it crossed Constantin’s tiny brain to check with him, to change his mind and not go to whatever bedroom he’s going with Kieu My if Ismail told him he isn’t feeling like having sex with them tonight. They just got tested, and Ismail is sure Kieu My is not a problem but it bothers him so much that Constantin doesn’t think about giving them just one night between the two of them where they don’t really have to worry. Kieu My and Ismail are very close so she’ll never be the problem, is the idea of how little Constantin cares about Ismail that gets to him more than it should. Ismail doesn’t stop watching until the two disappear in the hallway upstairs, no lights on until he sees a hint of a yellow light being turned on and disappearing all of a sudden as someone closes the door.

Zoe and Finn come back from the dance floor and go straight to the kitchen, coming back with as many shots as their four hands can carry and Ismail doesn’t care, drinking as many of them as he can take, one after the other, careful not to spill any on his friends that are carry so many small glasses.

“Well, that was useless,” Finn complains and Ismail walks past them, saying more to himself that he’ll get some more for them. It’s the best part of going to these rich people’s parties: it’s an endless amount of alcohol. Ismail grabs some with his hands and holds the extra ones pressed between his forearms and chest. Before he can occupy both his hands, he drinks another one, leaving the empty glass on the long island in the middle of the kitchen.

His stomach is empty, and hungry even, so he rushes back to the main area, hoping to quickly find Zoe and Finn again and get rid of all these glasses before he can break some when the alcohol quickly finds its way to his brain. He usually drinks slowly, like he doesn’t care about it so it’s not often that he gets badly drunk, and that’s all he wants right now.

To puke, be carried, talk loudly without meaning to like everyone else always does. He tries to honestly smile at Finn when he finds them, and he helps Ismail put all their drinks down on top of the expensive glass sideboard behind the little corner of the living room they managed to conquer for right now. They raise their glasses and make a toast every time they’re about to take another shot, turning it upside down in one go, feeling the bitterness and the burning feeling slipping from their necks to the very middle of their chests. It’s the last thing Ismail clearly remembers.

He doesn’t remember how but he’s sitting on a couch suddenly, a slippy one, that in contact with his tailoring black pants makes him constantly slip to the edge. A hard hand tap his shoulder and he looks up, feeling slightly better with that tiny motion, seeing a blurry Finn offer him a big cup of something. Ismail doesn’t ask, unable to open his mouth or move his tongue, but he drinks it anyway, even quicker when his brain understands that it’s water. Delicious, freezing cold water.

It doesn’t even hurt but definitely burns his chest, making it hurt a little bit less and different than the tequila and the heartbreak did earlier. Ismail sits up, putting his chest forward, regretting almost instantly when he feels the bitter taste of the alcohol quickly wanting to come back out.

“I’m gonna go.” He’s almost sure he says it out loud, pushing himself up, feeling his legs a little wobbly. He doesn’t walk alone, though, he feels hands holding his arms tightly, squeezing his skin until he’s out the house, the loud music still pulsing inside his ears.

Zoe is by his side when Finn rushes to the sidewalk and Ismail can hear in the very back of his mind Zoe complaining about something, and Finn waving at a specific black car that was slowly passing by them. He rushes back to them, and before he notices it, Ismail is inside a stranger’s car, and the car is moving, the driver doesn’t even acknowledge him and Ismail wonders if he’s worried Ismail might puke on his very clean and smelling nice car.

He opens the door when the car finally stops, and thinks it’s best for him to crawl out of it, carefully closing the door with his feet. The driver looks out the pasenger window, asking something that Ismail is almost sure is if he’s okay so he shows the guy his thumb up and he drives off a moment later.

It’s not a long walk to the door so Ismail tries to stand up very carefully, using his hands first to stand on his feet, taking his time with each step until he finds the door to lean against. Thankfully, it’s not locked so he pushes himself inside.

It’s so very late, but Constantin’s parents are the heaviest sleepers Ismail has ever seen and they sleep upstairs so he doesn’t care about making noise, taking his boots off, leaving most of his clothes on the way to the bedroom he’s so used to finding in the dark. But dark and drunk is a lot harder. Somehow, he finds it, or something that’s comfortable and big enough for him to lie on.

He just needs a moment, possibly a quick nap for the world to stop spinning around him so he can put himself up again to take a ice cold shower and eat something, bring a water bottle back to the bedroom so he can actually pass out for the night.

The shower helps, but it was not as cold as Ismail was expecting, just cold enough for his brain to go back to thinking about Constantin fucking someone else as he’s drying himself with this soft towel when he’s done, all alone, in the dark still, with the whole house asleep.

He looks over his shoulder to double check, thankful that he managed to clean all his puke on the shower floor so he doesn’t have to redo it in the morning.

He doesn’t have the energy or the strength or the mood to look for pieces of clothes for him to sleep so he just grabs the top underwear he finds on top of Constantin’s dresser, right next to the door. His mom probably did their laundry and left their clothes there for them to put away properly.

The door almost hits him when someone opens it. Constantin looks as surprised as he is to find someone else. He gets inside, already carrying a big bottle of water, and closes the door behind him.

His hair is all messy which doesn’t happen often because of how thin and straight it is, it just happens on very specific occasions, Ismail thinks. His shirt is out of his stupid cargo pants, and his lips puffier than usual, a little bit chapped from probably kissing too much.

“Are you okay?” He asks like he’s actually worried and Ismail wishes he could puke on command just to stain these stupid white pants that Constantin loves so much.

He doesn’t answer, just adjusts the underwear on his waist, it’s clearly not his underwear or it wouldn’t be dancing on his hipbones like they are but he doesn’t feel like changing again, especially not now that Constantin is home, watching his every move, and so he walks slowly back to the bed, crawling to his side closer to the wall, rolling himself with the blanket so they won’t have to share one tonight.

“Ismail.” Constantin says like he’s talking to his son and Ismail turns to face the wall, feeling his head starting to hurt, not sure if his struggle not to cry is making it worse. He’s tired but not at all sleepy. He can’t believe this is how his night went, how sad it is that he turned into this stupid person that cares so much about who someone else is fucking that he needs to get himself shitfaced to get over his own feelings.

The person that just generally cares so much about someone else. Constantin clearly doesn’t feel the same.

He is moving around the room, taking his clothes off slowly like he’s giving Ismail the extra time to start talking, leaving his clothes all on the floor with a heavy sound, taking a shower after, leaving the bathroom door open, the soft sound of water hitting tile almost lulling Ismail to a light sleep.

He wakes up when Constantin walks past the bed to go put some clothes on, a cold breeze blowing Ismail’s hair as he walks with his gigantically long legs.

“I thought we were coming back together…” Constantin says all of a sudden like Ismail was supposed to stay awake until he joins him in bed. Like that was something they discussed before going ot that stupid party, like Constantin wasn’t giving Ismail the cold shoulder for no reason the whole day.

“I thought you only fucked Kieu My when I was with you two.” Ismail manages to say and not puke, making himself proud for half a second.

He can hear how Constantin stops digging for some clothes inside his drawers and Ismail tries to stay still under his cover, acting like he doesn’t care. Constantin sighs, closing the drawer.

“You’re fucking overthinking things like you always do and making a huge scene so everyone can feel bad about you.”

Ismail pushes all his weight down so he can change his position without making too much effort, almost lying on his belly if it wasn’t for the wall being so close to him.

“Why do you care so fucking much all of a sudden, Ismail? For fuck’s sake, you didn’t use to be this sensitive.” Constantin complains and it blows Ismail’s drunk brain that he really doesn’t see where the problem is. He sits up on the bed and stops breathing for a second, swallowing back down the disgusting aftertaste of beer and tequila and cigarettes. His brain is pounding against his skull and Ismail keeps his eyes closed to see if it helps.

“I talked to Zoe, they have a spare bedroom in their flat, I’ll move out as soon as possible.”

“What?” Constantin finally sits down like his legs suddenly gave up on him with Ismail’s notification, “What?”

He watches as Ismail grabs the bottle of water, drinking as much as he can at once to push down the horrible taste, suddenly aware of how thirsty he was, “Ismail!”

He puts the plastic bottle back down, closing it.

“I don’t want to stay here, it’s not your problem.”

“Is, come on…” Constantin pushes himself to the middle of the bed, closer to Ismail, hoping he’ll meet his eyes but he doesn’t because his head hurts so much, “Please.”

“I can’t stay. I overstayed already, I know that, and I’m sorry. I’ll talk to your parents tomorrow and apologize for all the trouble.”

“Ismail, stop it! You’re not leaving. You’re not going to move in with Zoe! You two would kill each other in no time.”

They stay in silence and Ismail is glad Constantin can’t tell he’s lying. Not about the moving out because he really needs to. Living together is not working, not for Ismail, at least. He thought it would be paradise but it isn’t.

“I’m the only one that can put up with your drama and mess.” Constantin tries to make a joke but it lands flat and he sighs, putting his hand closer to Ismail’s on the mattress, their index fingers almost touching. “I can’t let you go, there’s no way.”

He says like he means it and maybe he does, but not the way Ismail wishes he did. Maybe Constantin is just scared of losing how easy and comfortable they are but Ismail is sure he can find that in someone else, where there aren’t that many feelings and past history envolved.

“I like you, Constantin. Like stupid people like each other and we always make fun of them. I like you, and you don’t like me and so this won’t work for me, sorry. I’m leaving.”

Ismail looks at him when he says it, and he sees the words fitting like puzzle pieces inside Constantin’s head. At least he knows now.

[mistymark]

the one where you’re someone else. [jaemin] [part I]

na jaemin x reader // 2.9k words // high school!au // body switch!au

summary; in which you wake up in someone else’s body. more than once.

warnings: swearing, confusion, mention of male genitalia

requested; nope

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. Groaning, you roll onto your side, searching blindly for the snooze button on your alarm, your head remaining on the pillow. Five more minutes. Please.

...

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. This time you squint your eyes open, sitting up in bed and rubbing your head groggily. You wonder why you feel so tired, and the remnants of your dream drift slowly into your mind.

Scenes flash through your mind in the same frightening way you imagine one would see highlights of their life before they die. The hallway of a high school that is not your own, a bright-eyed boy grinning at you before he sprints away from you, a test that you had definitely not prepared for, a cute café and delicious treats, the strange feeling of not recognising yourself in the mirror...

“Y/n!” A voice calls for you from the kitchen, and you hastily slip on a pair of slippers and make your way through the house in search of breakfast. A small frown sits on your mother’s face as she finishes making her own breakfast, “Two days in a row you haven’t been awake on time. Are you sure you’re getting enough sleep? Maybe you should go to sleep early tonight.”

“I’m fine, Mum,” you roll your eyes as she presses the back of her hand against your forehead.

“This is so unusual for you,” she mumbles, almost to herself. When you push her hand away to reach for the juice, she goes back to her breakfast, momentarily forgetting about the newspaper she had just been reading sitting beside her. “Yesterday I was starting to wonder if you’d had some kind of mental breakdown.” She looks up at you then, and you furrow your eyebrows in confusion; you’d been exactly the same yesterday, only less tired.

“It’s… been an exhausting week,” you try to find an explanation. She seems satisfied with the answer. Looking at the time, you quickly stand up to rush to your room, “Shit. I need to get ready for school.”

You busy yourself with getting ready for school, only a little annoyed at yourself for not having packed your bag last night, the simple disruption to your morning routine adding a few minutes to your normal departure time. You were sure you’d packed it last night, but your belongings scattered around your room clearly disagreed. Quickly sliding your binders, books and laptop into your backpack, you rushed around your room. Luckily, you didn’t miss the bus.

“Y/n!” Your best friend, Nina, sees you shortly after you enter the front doors of your school. Her excitement to see you is shown in the way she smiles at you, though it shortly changes to a small frown as she looks you up and down. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” you answer honestly, shying away from her assessing gaze. Her eyes scan your face.

“Nina, would you quit it?” Seungmin laughs, giving her a slight push. You hadn’t even noticed him walking up to the two of you. She stumbles, her eyes moving from you to him, narrowing. “She’s fine,” he states, turning to you now.

“You were acting so weird yesterday,” she stresses to you, still looking at you tentatively as if she expected you to spontaneously combust any second.

“What?” You frown in confusion at them, wondering why they were being so dramatic. Maybe a bad test result made you cry yesterday, but that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary for you. Opening your locker, you tear your gaze from your friends in favour of focusing on piling your books onto the shelf. From the corner of your eye, you can tell they’re still watching you wearily. “Alright, spill it. What’s up?”

“You…” Nina struggles to find the words.

“It was like you were a different person,” Seungmin finally says. “You kept forgetting who you were, where you were, what you were supposed to be doing. We thought you had amnesia or something.”

Furrowing your eyebrows, you look between them again, “You’re kidding, right?” You think back to yesterday – Tuesday – and can’t remember anything out of the ordinary.

“No, Y/n, we’re dead serious,” Nina responds, eyeing you again.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you guys but I have a class to get to. Mrs Kim has a paper for me,” you grab your history books and close your locker.

Nina looks at Seungmin confusedly, “Don’t you have history third period?” He nods. She turns to you again, “Y/n, history is third period. We have chemistry first.”

“We always have history first on a Wednesday,” you smile, rolling your eyes. “Come on, guys, you know I memorised my schedule on the first day.”

There’s silence, before Seungmin grabs his phone from his pocket, pressing the button so the screen lights up and dangles it in front of your face, “Yeah, well, it’s Thursday, so history is third.”

The bell rings before you can dispute this. Even though, of course, what could you say? It was Thursday – your own phone said so, so they couldn’t be messing with you. How could it be that a whole day had slipped from your memory?

You drift between classes in a confused daze, only loosely focusing on the words of your teachers and peers, slowly writing half-finished notes and barely registering when the teacher was giving you homework.

Your focus was primarily on Wednesday – yesterday – and why you couldn’t remember anything. There were plenty of memorable things that happened on Wednesdays – you had gym class, your usual ice cream date with Nina and Seungmin, work. Yet, you couldn’t remember any of them.

“Did I hit my head yesterday? I can’t remember anything at all,” you frown, whispering to Seungmin while Mrs Kim drones on about the cold war.

“Maybe,” he tries to suppress a giggle. “You sure were acting like you did.”

Yawning, you turn over the page of notes you were adding to, revealing a page of messily handwritten notes that definitely wasn’t done by you. The handwriting, for starters, was a messy scrawl that frequently sloped in a downwards direction and overstepped the neatly printed lines on the page. Completely done in black ink, without any highlighting or colour coding the rest of your notes had, you dismissed it as Seungmin writing in your book.

But Seungmin used blue ink almost religiously, and the handwriting didn’t match his. Why would Seungmin write ‘who am i?’ over and over in my book?

Your name was scrawled in the corners of the pages, as if you had forgotten it and needed the reminder.

“Y/n,” you were snapped out of your thoughts by Mrs Kim, who was handing out a worksheet. She smiles at you, “Ah, so you remember your name today?” Seungmin snickers beside you and you elbow him swiftly, effectively shutting him up. “Did you read my notes on your essay?”

You blush, embarrassed and guilty, “No, I’m sorry. I haven’t had the ti-“

Mrs Kim gives you a warm smile, “That’s okay. Let me know when you have.” She walks away, moving on to another student.

Seungmin leans closer to you, his eyes remaining on the teacher, “I’m surprised she didn’t mention the fact that you dodged her yesterday after class.”

“Huh?”

“She wanted to talk to you about the notes on your essay, and you completely ran out! Not as if you had any place to be; Mr Park was late to calculus again.”

“Oh. Oh, right,” you mutter, lowering your chin to the desk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Where the fuck is my essay?” You groan in frustration. Hyunjin, the poor soul whose locker is right beside yours, startles at your sudden outburst.

“Are you okay?” He shuts the door of his locker gently, leaning against it as he looks you up and down, concern on his face.

“Mrs Kim gave me an essay yesterday and I must’ve misplaced it.” Your locker isn’t exactly messy, so there are very few loose papers in there. A quick flick through the few documents stashed haphazardly in your locker proved it wasn’t in there.

“Don’t you have some intense filing system?” His eyes flicker down to the binder in your hand, dividers neatly sectioning off different parts. “Is it not in there?”

“If it were in here, I wouldn’t be searching my locker,” you mumble sadly. His eyes widen.

“Right... Seungmin has history with you, right?” Hyunjin’s attention shifts to something behind you, and he waves a hand, gesturing for someone to come over. “Hey, Seungmin!”

“Hey, dude,” Seungmin greets. “What’s up?”

“Y/n is missing a history essay,” Hyunjin helpfully explains. When Seungmin’s eyebrows furrow in thought, Hyunjin takes it as an opportunity to leave, and quickly departs down the hallway in search of his own friends.

“Didn’t you throw it away?”

“I don’t throw away my essays.”

“I’m pretty sure you did. After you walked out yesterday. I saw you put something in the bin,” his eyes flicker to yours. “I just assumed it was rubbish.”

You groan, pressing your forehead against Hyunjin’s locker, whining, “No.”

“I’m sure Mrs Kim would redo her notes if you asked her. You typed it, didn’t you? Just reprint it.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” you pout. He smiles warmly at you.

“You’ll be fine, Y/n,” Seungmin rests a hand on your shoulder, attempting to steer you away from the row of lockers and towards the cafeteria, closing your locker door with his foot. “But now, lunch.”

******************************************************************************************

The rest of the day flies by and, before you know it, you’re in Seungmin’s car as he drives you home. The town rushes past you in a flurry of houses and small grocery stores, drive thru restaurants and gas stations, and you struggle to stay awake.

“Hey, sleepy head, you’re home,” Seungmin tries to suppress his laughter, giving you a light nudge. “Get out of my car.”

Groaning, you slump away from the door, clumsily finding the door handle and almost falling out of the car, “Fine! I’ll see you tomorrow, assface.”

“Yeah,” he smiles warmly. “See you then.”

The hours of the evening are mostly taken up with homework, as you try and get as much done as possible before the weekend. As it steadily approaches midnight, you find youself getting more and more tired, eventually getting to the point where you can’t keep your eyes open anymore. And from there, darkness consumes you.

******************************************************************************************

RING! RING! RING! The alarm is loud and so annoying. You wonder why you chose to wake up to this, rather than your usual alarm, and turn to your side, fumbling around for the snooze button, your eyes still shut tight from exhaustion. Your eyes open when instead of hitting your bedside table or your alarm, your hand slams into a wall, eliciting a loud grunt from your mouth. For a second, you’re shocked at how deep your voice sounds, but your shock turns to fear when you realise you’re not in your bedroom.

You’re in a bedroom, but it’s certainly not your own. The walls are white, covered in posters and photos and a huge wall hanging that has plants growing out of small pots, leaves cascading down the wall. It’s homely, cute, but not where you expected to wake up – and due to that last fact, horrifying.

You clamber out of bed in search for your clothes, your shoes, your bag, anything that belongs to you. Unable to recall when or how you got here, you wonder if you’re hungover. But you didn’t go out last night - on a Thursday - you didn’t drink last night, and your head isn’t at all sore. Despite the lack of a headache, you still reach a hand up to your head, rubbing it. Your eyes widen at your hair – well, the lack of hair. It’s short, and you can feel the way it’s sticking up in all directions from sleep.

You rush to the mirror in the corner of the room, screaming when you realise you don’t look at all like how you normally look, and screaming louder when you realise your voice is so deep.

You’re a boy.

Ew, you think.

Wait, you look in the mirror. This is some crazy ass dream.

You take a look around the room, seeing the face in the mirror in the photographs, recognising the familiar brown hair and sparkling eyes. Reaching a hand up to touch your face, you push and pull the skin, watching it move in the mirror. You almost expected it to stay rigid, as if you were wearing a mask. This is so weird.

“Jaemin! Are you getting ready for school? Jeno’s going to be here in any minute!” A female voice calls from – presumably – downstairs, and you quickly look around the room. A uniform is hanging on the back of the door – one you don’t recognise – and you move to get changed, though something stops you.

You wait a second before responding, in case the voice was calling to someone in the house. When no one responds, you take a leap of faith, “Yeah! I’m getting dressed now!”

You look down briefly at the cold grey pyjama pants you’re – Jaemin’s – currently wearing, and take a deep breath, clenching your eyes shut as you pull the material down. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

You decide you have to open your eyes when you pull the school shorts on backwards (and you can feel that it’s backwards in ways you could never begin to explain as a girl) and try your hardest to think about anything else. You find the bathroom, which was thankfully located opposite the bedroom, and go about your normal routine as best you can.

The school bag slumped against the wall is empty, and you look around the desk for anything you might have to take with you, packing a few notebooks, a laptop, a pencil case (if you could call it that – it appeared to be a plastic bag with a few pens in it) and a water bottle.

“Hey, sweetie,” a beautiful woman greets you as you bound into the kitchen with a lot of energy. Why am I so hyper?

“Hey… Mum?” You cringe as the greeting comes out more like a question, hiding your face in the fridge.

Luckily, she just laughs. “I know, I know, I’m not normally in the kitchen.” She notices the way you scan the fridge, “Hey! Aren’t you and Jeno going to get food before school?”

You freeze, “Oh, um, yeah. We are. I’m just… browsing.”

“Okay, well, I’ll see you tonight, Jaem. Have a good day at school,” she kisses you on the top of the head, swiping her hand through your hair before leaving. You try your best to fix it, letting it flop down messily over your forehead.

Spotting an apple and a brown banana in a cracked dish on the counter, you slide the apple into your backpack and begin zipping it up when you hear a honk outside that almost makes you drop everything. You stop to listen, and two more honks follow. Confused, you wait. There’s the familiar sound of a car door slamming shut, and then you hear footprints on the front porch of the house. The doorbell rings.

The doorbell is monotonous, and you don’t wait for it to finish ringing before you pull the door open, instantly meeting the soft face of a boy your age, a confused look on his face. You’ve seen him somewhere, but you can’t place him. “Dude, I honked, like, three times. What’s going on?”

“Oh,” you say, dumbly. You surpise yourself by sounding even dumber with the question that follows, “Jeno?”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows draw nearer as he frowns at you. “Are you playing that ‘I don’t know who I am’ joke again?”

You force out a laugh, “No, I’m just messing with you.” You give him a light punch on the arm, trying to act like every douchebag guy you’ve seen in a high school movie. It’s tragic that you suddenly can’t recall how real boys act. “Let’s go,” you push past him, sighing in a way that makes it seem like he’s the one acting weird and not yourself.

His eyebrows raise in surprise, but then he shrugs and heads back to his car, waiting for you to finish locking the house (after much confusion over which key it is).

Once you’re in the car, you pull out the phone that had been sitting beside the bed you’d woken up in and thought thankfully that there was a finger-print unlock feature. Quickly scanning through a few messages, you learnt that Jeno was probably Jaemin’s best friend - and you were in a few group chats; ‘the Bros’, ‘chemistry lab group’, ‘mark’s birthday plans’, ‘Mum & Dad’, and a few others.

“So, I was thinking, Hyuck’s having a party at his place tonight, right?” Jeno begins talking, and once you realise you’re going to have to go to this party, too. “Hyunjin is coming, and he’s bringing a few girls from his school – you know, that guy we versed in lacrosse a few weeks ago? His parents know my parents and – whatever, it’s not important. He’s bringing a few girls and I’m hoping that girl from the game is- Hey! Are you even listening?” Jeno’s eyes flit between you and the road, and you turn to him.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Did you ask him?” You’re dying to know if he’s talking about the Hyunjin you know – the real you knows – but you’re too self-conscious to ask too many questions, wanting to just get through the day with as little confusion as possible.

“Nah, I don’t really know the guy. He’s friends with Hyuck, though, I think, so maybe he’ll know.”

“Can you ask Yuck today?”

Jeno laughs, “Are you bringing back his middle school nickname? He’s gonna hate you so much for that. But I will, yeah. We have PE together today.”

He pulls into the parking lot of the school, and you vaguely recognise the school, maybe from posters or newspaper adverts, but you’re glad Jeno drove you because at least now you have someone to follow. And, you were unsure whether you’d been able to get to school without him.

You trail after Jeno through the main doors, but he clearly sees someone he knows, because he takes one look back at you before he runs off to catch them, “Catch you later, yeah?”

And it’s right then that it clicks; you know exactly where you’d seen him before: in your dream. You’d been here before. You’d seen him before. You’d been Jaemin before.

Fuck.

[myherowritings]

The Pizza Delivery Guy

— overview: your roommate orders a pizza with the special instructions, “send your cutest delivery boy ;)” and you’re left in complete awe when it actually works. — pairing: kirishima eijirou x reader — word count: 1,597 — genre: pizza delivery au, college au, fluff — author’s note: this is my first kiri fic so hopefully i did him justice! he was super fun to write for and i loved this au omg hope you enjoy it as well xx sofia

“They’re talking about me.”

“Yeah, right. They obviously mean me!”

“Dude, do you need glasses or something? The instructions clearly say the cutest delivery guy. Not the delivery guy most likely to eat a slice of your pizza during the drive.”

Kaminari folded his arms across his chest with a snort. He took a freshly warmed pizza out of the oven and placed it in a box, adding yellow peppers and garlic sauce on the side.

“It was one time!” he defended under his breath. “Damn, with the way you and Toyomitsu-san reacted, you would’ve thought I caused the end of the world…”

Rolling his eyes, Kirishima took the box from his friend and placed in a black carrier bag. “It was three times--and you’re lucky that green-haired kid was so forgiving each time.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Now if you’re done being stubborn,” Eijirou said with a cheeky grin, “the cutest delivery guy is about to bring the lovely customer their pizza.”

- - - - -

“That is definitely not what the ‘special instructions’ box is meant for!” you said, mouth gaping open as you reviewed what Mina had ordered under your name while you were in the bathroom.

“What do you mean?” She pouted. “What other special instructions could one possibly give?”

“Enter through the back entrance? The side gate is the one that leads to the proper parking for the apartment complex?” you suggested. “Plenty of things other than ‘send your cutest delivery guy, winky face’!”

Ashido laughed at your frantic tone, bumping your shoulder with hers. She shook her head when she saw your anxious frown.

“Stop worrying, Y/N,” she said. “It’ll give you premature wrinkles. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen anyway?”

You narrowed your gaze at her. “What if they send us the short, creepy guy with the weird purple hair that we had to file a complaint against? Simply to spite our obnoxious request?!”

“Pfft. I’m sure they’ve fired him by now.” But she didn’t look very convinced herself.

“If you say so.”

With a huff, you glanced down at the delivery tracker map on your phone and got a message saying your pizza would be arriving shortly. And if you knew anything about delivery services, “shortly” could mean anything from 30 minutes up to 2 hours--nothing less.

But, apparently, you did not know as much about delivery services as you thought you did because in less than 10 minutes, the doorbell rang.

You and Ashido stared at each other.

“There’s no way that’s the pizza,” you said.

“Nope,” she deadpanned. “My stomach usually growls about three times, then feels like it’s going to cave in all before the food typically arrives.”

You tilted your head, slightly questioning her system of measurement.

There was an unsure knock at the door but neither of you made a notion to move.

“Aren’t you going to get the pizza you ordered?” you asked with a nudge.

She gave you a look, standing up to walk down the hallway. “I would, but I really have to pee! Can you get it?”

Without waiting for you to respond, Mina dashed to the bathroom. You stared at the place her back once was, speechless.

“You just don’t want to pay for it, huh?!” you called after her, grumbling as you fished your wallet out of your bag. “And they said living with a roommate would be cheaper...”

You swung the door open to face the pizza deliverer in front of you, expecting to find a short, slightly creepy looking dude akin to the purple-haired worker you saw about a month ago. But you could not be more wrong.

Instead of a creep, you found yourself staring into the startling red eyes of a handsome guy with a smile on his face.

His grin was so bright it could light up a room, you thought, utterly speechless for the second time this night.

“Hi,” you said breathlessly, internally cursing yourself for how idiotic you probably sounded.

He held back a noise of laughter. “Hi. I-- Ah… I have a large pizza for Y/L/N Y/N?”

“Yeah, that’s me!” you chirped, grimacing at the overly excited voice that came out of your mouth.

He smoothly unzipped the delivery bag and held the pizza with one hand, drawing attention to his tanned, muscular forearms.

“Damn, they really succeeded in following the special instructions,” you couldn’t help but mumbler under your breath, gaze trailing the subtle trace of veins on his arms, then glancing at the name tag on his chest. Kirishima.

The only signal that he heard you with the faint blush on his cheeks, but he made no comment.

“That’ll be ¥2,600,” Kirishima said as he handed you the pizza. “But be careful! The bottom is a bit hot still. I kind of got here faster than anticipated.”

You smiled at the sheepish look on his face as you pulled out some cash from your wallet. “You did get here rather quickly. Especially for a pizza delivery guy.”

“Hey! At Fatgum’s Pizzeria we take customer satisfaction very seriously,” he protested, a twinkle in his eye to let you know he wasn’t actually offended.

You thought of the note Mina added in the special instructions box and then glanced at the man in front of you. “You guys sure do a good job in that department.”

As you handed him the cash for the pizza, along with a couple extra yen for his tip, you heard your roommate running down the hallway.

“Did I miss him?!” she cried. “Was the pizza delivery guy cute?”

Both you and the worker stared at her with wide eyes.

“Um, Mina…” you hissed.

Her gazed snapped towards the direction of the door and her jaw dropped.

“You’re the cutest delivery guy they have?” Ashido deadpanned.

“Mina!”

“What?!”

“Nice to see you too, Ashido,” said Kirishima with a laugh.

She hummed. “I didn’t expect to see you here, but hi Kirishima.”

Looking back and forth between the two of them, you blinked slowly. “The two of you know each other?”

“We had the same physics class our second year of university,” he supplied, adjusting the cap on his head.

Mina hadn’t told you much about her physics class--other than how boring it was--but one thing you did remember her mentioning was the cute red-head she thought you would love. But there was no way this was the same guy…

“I’ve told you about him before, Y/N,” she said happily, skipping over to the door and taking the pizza from your hands, opening the box with a whiff before turning back to you. “He’s the one I tried setting you up with that one time, but you flaked!”

Well, apparently it was the same guy.

You only vaguely remembered that moment, but the thought was enough to cause the heat to rise to your cheeks. Even Kirishima stifled an awkward cough, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Did I?” you managed to choke out, money still resting on the palm of your hand.

“Yup!”

“Ah, so you’re the infamous roommate Ashido wouldn’t stop talking about,” he piped up, grinning despite his pinkened face. “Aw-- Now that I’ve seen you in person, I’m even more bummed you didn’t show.”

Though his tone was teasing, there was sincerity in his voice. You bit your lower lip sheepishly.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I definitely regretted flaking to study for some dumb test,” you said with a laugh. “I pretty much failed that exam anyway.”

“Karma for not showing up,” claimed Mina.

You stuck your tongue out at her.

“Well, if you regret not going out with me that first time, we could always have a redo,” Kirishima suggested with a cheeky grin on his face.

Unsure if you heard him correctly, you stared at him blankly and said the most coherence sentence you could muster. “W-What?”

“A redo date,” he repeated. “Say…tomorrow around six?”

“Are you asking me out?”

“I am. Are you rejecting me?”

“Of course not!” you blurted, eyes growing wide as you realized what you had said. More quietly this time, you continued, “I’d be an idiot not to go on a date with you.”

A look of surprise crossed Kirishima’s features--almost as if he didn’t expect you to actually agree. Oddly enough, as much as you liked his outgoing personality, you found the uncertain expression on his face to be rather cute. Your stomach flipped at the thought.

“Really?” he asked. You nodded in response and his cheek dimpled as he smiled. “Maybe this time, you won’t flake on me.”

You playfully rolled your eyes at his teasing. “I plan not to. Who in their right mind would miss their chance with the cutest delivery guy the pizzeria has to offer?”

“And no one would dare to miss their shot with the cutest person in the whole apartment building.”

From behind you, you heard Mina make an indignant noise of protest, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she continued munching on the crust of her pizza slice as she stared at the two of you intently.

Just then, Kirishima’s phone buzzed, signally another order was ready for delivery.

“I would love to stay and chat, but duty calls,” he said apologetically, placing the pizza carrier back on his shoulders. “Don’t forgot about our date, though, Y/L/N!”

“I won’t. I’ll see you tomorrow, Kirishima!” you called, peering out of the door and down the hall as you waved goodbye.

He gave you one last glance with a foolish grin on his face. “Looking forward to it, cutie!”

[kingsuckjin]

Teach Me (pt.1 of 3)

Pairing: Teacher!Jin x reader

Warnings: fingering (f receiving) dirty talk, mention of an eating disorder.

Synopsis: Your reputation was no secret in school even before you hit eighteen and nineteen. You were trouble and everyone knew it, you weren’t about to ease up with the final few months left either, you were going to go full force. You wanted one good last big stunt to pull before the end of the year, your last year. Only one thing could top the things you’ve done, you were going to have sex with the hottest teacher in your school.

Words: 6,139

Notes: for @snakeuuuuuuu who asked for this because she loves Jin too. Ily💜 Sorry, it was long and I have to split it into three parts.

// next

↪my masterlist

you watched your world history teacher pace the room and passionately go on and on about the not so great dictators of the world as you admired his body for the millionth time. He was hot and everyone knew it. He was passionate and broad shouldered, tall with a gorgeous face and plump lips.

You couldn’t help but stare as he chuckled at his own joke with gorgeously straight teeth, no one else laughed but he didn’t seem to care. He was confident and knew he was good looking.

Your eyes trailed down to the crotch of his black dress pants, you bet he had a big dick to match his height.

You shifted in your seat now feeling the uncomfortable stickiness of your underwear.

You had it bad for him, maybe it was because he never treated you like you were less than other students for all the things you’ve done, for failing his class or even for that time you set one of the school bathrooms on fire. He had never once treated you like more than anyone else either, but would he? You wondered if you could convince him to, and what it would feel like to have this man’s attention all on you. You wondered if you could get him to touch you.

You were now imagining his large hands roaming your body and his full lips pressed against yours with his tongue roaming your mouth.

It would never happen. Honestly he seemed rather dorky, he laughed at his own jokes and had once worn his shoes on the wrong feet without somehow noticing for a full day, but in a way that only made him more appealing to you. He wasn’t your type, sure. Your type was guys who snuck off to get a cigarette between classes or skipped them all together. Your type were the guys with tattoos who would sneak you out of your house at midnight to fuck you in the back of their car. But Mr. Kim… maybe you could show him a thing or two despite him being older, you didn’t doubt you knew more about sex than him, you’ve had some wild times with boys much older than you, but never a teacher.

“Miss. Y/n”

You snapped out of it to see your teacher looking right at you “which dictator would you rather live through and why?”

You knew he was only asking you a question to get you out of that gazing look you most likely had been wearing… possibly at his crotch.

Your brain scrambled for a good answer.

“Uh, none? Because they’re all terrible.” Was what you came up with. You watched as his lips pulled into a wider smile.

“Good answer.” He gave you a nod as the class laughed around you at the seemingly trick question. He ran his fingers through his smooth brown hair to push it back and gave you another smile before he went back to teaching. That was the moment you decided you were going to fuck his brains out.

Next, you needed a plan. You knew He was a nice guy and always wanted to help, so that’s what you were going to ask for. You weren’t going to make it obvious right away that the help you were asking for was actually getting fucked by him, no, you had to ease into it. Would it work though? He had to know you were trouble, everyone did.

You tried to make it through the rest of the class without daydreaming lewd things about him, but it seemed more impossible than normal. As everyone piled out of the room, you headed right for him hunched over his desk writing something and waited patiently. It wasn’t until the door closed behind the last student that he looked up, jumping a little in his seat at the surprise of you standing there. He chuckled it off and you couldn’t help but grin at taking him by surprise.

“What can I do for you?” He wore a smile as he looked up at you.

“Well,” you sighed and now feigned disappointment and apprehension as you played with your fingers clasped in front of you to look more innocent. “It’s my-”

“Grades, right?” To your surprise he looked sympathetic as you nodded. You knew he was nice but you didn’t expect him to really feel bad for someone like you. “I had a feeling. It’s the end of the year, and you’re failing. Although to be honest I didn’t expect you to care enough to approach me about it, the fact that you care enough to come to me about it makes me want to help you… but…” His sympathetic look only grew stronger as his brown eyes looked up at you “I’m afraid it’s just too late.”

“Oh.” You said feeling actually feeling hurt even though you didn’t care in the slightest about your grades. It seemed to be strictly his emotions and the empathetic look on his face that affected you. “Well… thanks- thank you anyway Mr.K.” You went to walk away forgetting almost entirely about your mission for a moment.

“Wait.” He said stopping you, you turned to face him again. “To be completely truthful with you, you haven’t been the best kid in the school.”

“I know.” Your reply was surprisingly quiet and guilt filled. All of the trouble you had gotten into suddenly embarrassed you and you didn’t understand why. All of the suspensions and detentions had felt like accomplishments until now.

“But I believe in redemption, I believe it’s never too late to try and like I said, the fact that you approached me means something. Listen,” he let out a sigh and paused a moment as if still making a decision that he let out in almost a whisper “I’m not supposed to do this when it’s this late in the year, but I can get a few tests to let you redo. you can’t take them home, so you’ll have to come in on your lunch for a few days. I’ll help you with them.”

You honestly couldn’t believe what he was offering. It was a good deal And even if you didn’t care about your grade, it would be easy.

“Really? Thank you so much. I-”

“Please don’t tell anyone.” He asked with furrowed brows.

“I swear, I would never.” You assured quickly “I promise, you can trust me. I might’ve gotten into a lot of trouble but I would never rat anyone out, especially not you.”

Your words seemed to satisfy him.

“I appreciate that. Come by at lunch tomorrow and I’ll have them for you okay?”

“Thanks Mr. Kim.” You gave him one last smile before turning to leave again.

“Have a good day y/n” he called after you. You were already having a good day though because you were one step closer to possibly getting closer to your hot teacher.

For the rest of your day all you could think about was planning your attack, even in your best friend Jimin’s car as he drove you home.

“Okay, so I don’t know if he’s the type of guy who would frown upon dressing slutty.”

“I would doubt he is, I’d be more concerned with wondering if he’s the type of guy who would frown upon having sex with a student. I can’t believe you’re doing this, why?” Jimin seemed puzzled, but not surprised with his hands on the steering wheel.

“Don’t say you wouldn’t fuck him.” You looked at him and spoke with a dry tone.

His lips stretched into an embarrassed smirk.

“You know I would.”

“See?”

“But that doesn’t mean he would. Bet you can’t.” Jimin got a daring look in his eye as he pulled up at your house.

“Bet I could.” You replied before getting out of the car.

“Wear something cute but not childish, I think he’d like that.” Jimin had rolled down his window to yell to you. You simply just gave him a thumbs up to let him know you had heard him.

Lunch with your teacher wasn’t sexy, it was just you doing packet after packet as he ate a sandwich and pointed out where you went wrong on most questions. It was awkward, it was quiet, but worst of all it was actual work. You had to do something, you had to get the ball rolling because you didn’t come here to put in actual work, unless it involved his dick in your mouth.

You let out a sigh as you glanced at the clock on the wall seeing that there was only fifteen minutes left.

“Everything alright? Are you stuck?” He looked down at the question on the paper you hadn’t touched in a while.

“No, my brain just hurts.” You admitted with a groan.

“That’ll happen if you haven’t used it in a while. Joking. I can see you’re trying, you can be finished for today if you want.”

You let out a long sigh of relief at the permission he just gave you.

“Thanks, I was really hoping you’d say that.” You went to pick up your backpack but he stopped you.

“Got somewhere to be?” He asked and as you realized you had absolutely nowhere to go or be for another fifteen minutes, you put your backpack down on the floor. You wondered why you would even want to leave right now.

“You didn’t have any lunch today, you should just bring it here tomorrow, you can eat and work at the same time.”

“I never really eat lunch.” You admitted and he raised a brow at you.

“Why is that?”

You merely just shrugged, you were usually off driving around with Jimin at lunch and having a cigarette, but you couldn’t tell him that.

“If I made you lunch tomorrow would you eat it?”

You just looked up at him dumbfounded by him offering to make you food. And then it occurred to you that maybe he thought you had an eating disorder or something.

“There’s nothing wrong, I just-”

“Of course there’s nothing wrong with you, I never said there was.” He said gently. You couldn’t understand why those words had hit you so hard. Everyone thought there was something wrong with you including your parents.

“I’ll- I’ll eat it.” You couldn’t look away as he gave you a smile.

“I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

You hoped he had meant that about something else too.

“I doubt I will be.” You muttered after looking away. You thought he hadn’t heard it until he let out a quiet laugh of amusement. You flipped through the packet you had been working on to not seem so awkward as your mind raced at a thousand thoughts a second. You wondered if he had caught the double meaning of your reply.

“What kind of food do you like?”

You gave him another shrug as you looked at anything in the bland room but him.

“Anything but onions”

He dropped the paperwork he had been sorting through on his desk to look at you making your face feel a bit heated.

“Well then I’ll make you something without onions.”

You saw this as a step beyond just doing tests, you asked yourself over and over if this was him making a move of some kind or if he just felt bad that you weren’t eating.

You took a breath and readied yourself for what you were about to say next.

“Is there something I can do for you?”

His body visibly lock up and freeze at the question. You did it, you had affected him but whether that be in a good or bad way, you didn’t know. You expected him to scold you for being inappropriate, but he didn’t.

“There is.”

A tingle ran through your body at his response, you were ready to drop to your knees in front of him right now if that’s what he wanted. “I want to know why.”

You sat there confused and waiting for clarification, luckily he elaborated.

“I want to know why act like you do, why you want to get in trouble so much. Is there something going on at home? Are you afraid of failing so you just don’t try? Is it perhaps an attention problem? I know they’re all personal questions, but I want you to know you can tell me anything, anything at all.” He now gave you his full attention with a soft look in his pretty eyes that felt like they were drilling into your brain for answers to his questions.

You truthfully didn’t know the answers to his questions, you didn’t know why you were like you were. You did know that no one had ever made you feel more fragile, more vulnerable than he was in this moment.

“I- I- uh…” you sputtered for an answer not understanding why he would want to know or care. “I don’t know. I’m- I’ve decided not to be like that anymore ” It was a lie.

“Why? To be blunt, one doesn’t just set fire to a school bathroom, start dozens of fights in the cafeteria and get caught having sex in a car in the school parking lot and just decide to suddenly change.”

“I-” you leaned back in your seat and decided to tell him at least part of the truth “I’m getting older, I’m an adult, nineteen now and… I think I’d really like to go to college, somewhere far away. I just want to leave, I’ve been here my whole life and nothing excites me anymore. I’m afraid it’s too late to make that decision now though.” Only the last part was true, you weren’t about to stop your evil ways though.

“Ah, so it’s simply just for excitement then, you’re a thrill seeker.” He seemed to read you and nod in understanding “I am too, I know it’s hard to believe. It was much worse when I was your age, I didn’t know how to channel it, but now I do.”

Somehow you doubted his words, how was the you slightly dorky world history teacher a thrill seeker? Then again, you wondered if maybe he would have some useful advice for you.

“Well how do you channel it into something else? What do you do?”

“Well…” You watched as he sat back in his chair, staring at the papers on his desk. “We can’t talk about that.”

Oh fuck.

Was he talking about sex? That’s where your dirty mind went, it was the only place it could go.

“Oh. Why not?” You pressed the issue innocently.

His eyes flicked back to you as he leaned in with his hands clasped together on the desk while he cleared his throat.

For a moment you wondered if he was going to say anything at all.

“Are you looking for advice or just… just curious?” You watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed seeming only slightly nervous, your nerves however were off the charts.

“Both.” You decided after a moment.

It had to be adventurous sex he was into, why else would he be so unwilling to talk about it?

“Cooking, I like trying new things, it excites me.”

Your head tilted in confusion, you hadn’t even meant for it too but he saw your reaction. It was cooking? Why would he say he couldn’t talk about that?

“What did you expect me to say?” The smile that grew on his face seemed teasing.

“But… that sounds boring, no offense.”

“Ohhh it’s not. It’s so satisfying to put effort into preparing a meal and when it comes time to indulge and eat it, you feel so… It’s exciting.”

You were still so confused by his answer, how could making food replace getting into trouble and feeling so high off of that?

“So you’re a good cook? That’s what does it for you? I’m sorry, eating is great but…”

“Not into it?” He smiled a wide toothy smile “well apparently you’ve never had anyone cook well for you before.”

You were now almost entirely convinced that your teacher was wildly boring until he whispered the next phrase “I heard you were a good cook, at least that’s what the boy you were caught with told everyone. I have to say though, only real men cook, boys just fiddle around with the microwave.” He looked you dead in the eye as he said this, your stomach jumped into your throat.

He was definitely not talking about actually cooking.

“So,” he announced and went back to sorting through his paperwork on his desk casually as if you weren’t still sitting there in shock. “Am I making you lunch tomorrow? You know, I’ve never made lunch for a student so I’m a little nervous but it should be fun.”

“Please.” Left your lips and you watched as his tried to hide a smile as he concentrated on his menial task before glancing up at the clock.

“Two minutes left, you may go ahead and pack up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You silently did as you were asked, still in a shocked state.

“Oh, y/n?”

You looked up from zipping up your backpack to his brown eyes once again focused on you.

“Can you actually go to your next class, and the one after that, and so forth? Be a good girl.”

Be a good girl

Your brain spun at the phrase, you were already going to have a hard enough time walking around in your soaked panties for the rest of the day.

“Yes sir.” It came out quick and natural. You bit your lip at the smile that appeared on his face that told you he liked your reply. “I-I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m hoping so.”

You turned and left his room with your legs feeling weak.

“One moment it was cooking and the next it was sex, I swear to god.” You tried to explain as you sat on Jimin’s bed with a textbook in hand as he laid at the foot on his stomach with a controller in hand.

“You’re such a liar and sometimes I hate it.” He scoffed as he played his game.

“I just swore to god, Jimin.”

“You don’t believe in god, y/n”

“Would I be doing fucking homework if I was lying? Would I honestly be doing it if I wasn’t about to be fucked by the hot world history teacher?” He paused the game and looked back at you.

“Ehh I guess you have a point. You really think that dick is going to be worth it though?” He put the controller down and now sat up with his legs crossed to face you.

“Yes. Yes he’s hot. He told me to be a good girl, Jimin you don’t even understand. A good girl. I nearly came right then and there.” You whined.

“Well if this is really happening tomorrow then wear like a dress or something for easy access because I bet he’s going to fuck you on his desk.”

You let out a half groan half moan at your best friend torturing you.

“That is if he wasn’t actually talking about food.” Jimin gave a small laugh as he added.

“He wasn’t! I would know flirting, do you know how many guys I’ve slept with?”

“No, and neither do you.” Jimin grinned and you slapped at his arm, but he was right.

“Exactly, I know he was propositioning me.”

“But why? Why’s he wanting to sleep with you?. You mentioned him insinuating that he doesn’t do this with other students.” Jimin seemed curious, but you weren’t, you were going to get fucked by your teacher and that’s all that mattered to you.

“I don’t know, I think he’s trying to fuck the evil out of me or something.” You joked with a shrug causing Jimin to throw his head back in laughter.

“I’ve got news for him, it’s not going to work. Yeah he’s cute, yeah he’s a teacher but your evil ascends all that is good. Oh my god, what if he like actually wants you? Like wants wants you.?” Jimin let out a gasp at the last part as you thought about it.

“I doubt it. I wouldn’t keep him away, you know me. but I think he just likes to try stuff, he’s not going to want a relationship with a student.” You went back to doing your homework.

“Need I remind you that you’re only his student for another few months? You guys could have all summer to do your kinky shit.”

“Nope. You declined "I think it’s a one and done thing. I just need to get it out of my system, plus this really tops everything off for me. What’s the only way to top setting fire to a bathroom? Fucking the hottest teacher in the school.”

“Yeah but it’s not cool unless people know you did it, you’re not even going to be here long enough to really soak in the glory.” He let out a scoff.

You pointed at Jimin with your pencil.

“But you will be, you still have a year left. You can tell everyone of my adventures and keep my memory alive after I’m gone.” You fake sobbed but snapped right out of it making Jimin smile.“I still have two months anyway to spread it around that I fucked the hottest teacher anyway.”

“My god you’re evil.” Jimin shook his head and chuckled.

You took Jimin’s advice and wore a casual dress to school. You were nervous, more nervous than you had ever been about sleeping with someone. So many thoughts ran through your mind the whole first half of the day, one of them was Jimin’s why? You reminded yourself you didn’t care why he wanted to do this, but it had been effortless. He came to you when you anticipated the opposite. you had expected to work for this, to slowly flirt with him only to get nowhere at all. He had given you an explanation though, right? He just liked being adventurous, you were just as much of an adventure and conquest to him as he was you and that was it.

You had to pause and rest against a locker as you headed to his room. You pulled out your phone but just stared at the screen to look busy and casual, to hide the fact that your heart was racing and you needed a moment to contain yourself.

You felt like you needed to get a grip. You had fucked in public and had been caught before, and at no point had you felt like this.

For the first time in your life you began to feel doubt. It crossed your mind that this might be some sort of trick, he seemed too good for this. Maybe he planned on seeing if you’d actually turn up and take you to the office for sexual harassment? Something was bound to go wrong… but since when did you care?

You didn’t care, and that’s what you told yourself as you made your way to his room. You took a quiet breath upon seeing the classroom door cracked open. You stalled for just a second longer before you pushed your body to move and go inside.

When you walked in you saw him leaned back in his chair with his elbow propped on the arm of the chair holding up his head in his hand looking bored. His dark brown hair was pushed back away from his forehead and he seemed to be staring off at nothing.

The sound of you closing the door behind you made him look your direction and drop his hand as if you entering the room was now the most interesting thing in the world.

“Are you okay, Mr. K?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and gave you a sweet smile. You looked at his desk to see there was no test packet that you had been working on, there was no lunch, there wasn’t even any papers for him to pore over as a distraction. It was only the two of you.

“I thought you got cold feet.” He said upon glancing at the clock.

“I thought you might too, from the look on your face when I walked in.” You too admitted.

“Do… you want to come over here?” He avoided your comment.

You realized you were still standing by the closed door stupidly, so you took his invite and walked over on rubbery feeling legs. You went to pull a chair from one of the desks like you normally did to sit beside him- but his voice stopped you.

“You can just sit over here.” He offered and you paused again to make sure you weren’t crazy and there wasn’t a chair next to him, you knew there wasn’t. “If you want.” He added making you now understand he was talking about his lap.

You weren’t about to say no as you walked over to him and stood in front of him.

He looked up at you from his chair as if asking if you would sit.

“If you don’t want to do this then-”

He was cut off by you leaning forward and kissing his plump, soft lips that you had only been dreaming of doing until now. You found that it was so much better in real life.

He kissed you right back, slowly and softly, you don’t recall anyone ever kissing you like this before as his hand went up to your cheek.

You pulled back slightly, just a little. You felt so surprised by the feeling of that kiss. It had felt like slow ocean waves swallowing you whole, or being smothered in feathers. It felt like a death in the gentlest, calmest way possible. Now his hand still rested on your cheek and his warm brown eyes dared to look into yours and stop your heart.

Your thoughts of him pounding into you while bent over his desk were gone and now, you found yourself just letting yourself be drawn in closer as he placed his hands on your hips and pulled you into his lap to face him.

Your knees fit perfectly in the room that was left in the seat of the chair on both sides of where he sat.

His lips came closer to yours this time, but they didn’t touch, not yet.

“Why did you get so quiet on me?” He whispered “I thought you were a big, brave, bad girl? Are you always this shy when you get this close to someone?”

“No” you answered it all in a single quiet breath. Your knees began to shake from still holding you up above his lap so you finally gave in and lowered yourself. You might as well get comfortable with him, but it was hard when he was making you feel like such a timid, quivering mess without doing a single thing to you.

“Let’s take it nice and slow then.”

His lips finally pressed themselves to yours, suffocating you with their warmth, overwhelming you with their crawling, lingering pace. It was so little yet it was so much.

You didn’t know if you wanted it slow, but you didn’t know if your body could handle anything more than this from him right now, you were already shaking like a leaf and you felt like your breath had been stolen right from your lungs.

You had to pull away just to catch your breath which made him smile.

“Do I take your breath away?” He laughed.

“Maybe a little.” You said before going back in to kiss him again.

Your hands went to his hair now as his tongue dipped into your mouth, you didn’t even mean for a small moan to escape into his mouth.

Your little noise prompted him to slowly run his hands down your hips to your thighs. He slid his hands under your dress where he rested his hands back on your hips but now with one less barrier separating his contact with you.

You now noticed how hard he was in his black dress pants against your clothed core.

After a moment you began to lose track of time and wonder how long had you two been making out. You were afraid it would seem rude to glance at the clock, but you were afraid, was there time to do anything else? You felt like you absolutely needed him to do something more right now even though you thought it might end you.

“Please touch me.” You separated from him once more to whisper, you were shocked at the neediness of your own voice, but didn’t care anymore.“I’ll touch you back I-I-”

“Shhh.” He calmed your begging as he stared at your lips. One of his hands left your body only to return to it while running over the lace of your panties.

“I’ll touch you, just don’t feel rushed.” His quiet words calmed your nerves.

You closed your eyes and let out a small breath as he ran his fingers your clothed clit. Even with your eyes closed, you knew he was watching your every reaction, you felt him watching you.

“More. Please.” You moaned quietly.

He slid his hand down the front of your underwear and glided his fingers over your obviously slick folds. This time it was him who let out a quiet breath.

You pulled yourself up off his lap just enough for him to glide his fingers inside of you.

Your hands automatically tangled into as much hair as they could as he began using his thumb on your clit.

His hand that was still on your hip guided you back down onto his lap so that his hand imitated how his cock might feel inside of you.

“Ride my fingers like you would my cock.” He guided your hips in a slow rhythmic rocking motion. You listened to every word just as you did every breath he took. You were already too fucked out of your mind to feel like you could even think for yourself, and he hadn’t even made you come yet. What a fool you were for thinking you were coming into this thinking you might teach him anything at all.

As you rocked with his fingers hooked inside of you and his thumb still slowly rubbing over your clit, you realized you wanted it faster, you needed more. You tried to move faster but his hand on your hip guided you controlled the pace.

“Nice and slow.” He reminded you still whispering “you can come like this, just imagine It’s my cock. Pretend I’m this deep inside of you.”

You let out a whimper at his words and his fingers hit your sweet spot inside of you everytime you rocked your hips.

“Just like that. You’re so close I know it.”

“I want you inside of me.” You panted looking him in the eyes.

He leaned into your ear.

“You couldn’t take me.” It was barely a whisper, but it ran through you and pushed you to your orgasm.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck.” You gasped as he forced you to move your hips fast and curled his fingers harder inside of you.

“You like that, hm? You like the thought of my huge cock?” He asked as you continued to squeeze around his fingers and moan until you were left with nothing but the aftershock of the pure bliss you experienced.

“One more time for me. Look at me when you come this time.” He gently whispered his demand.

Your hips slowed back down again but this time you pried your eyes open and stared into his blown out pupils. He looked so incredibly hot with his hair falling into his face as he watched your reaction while his cock continued to twitch against your thigh.

“Come on sweetheart, one more time.” He coaxed before leaning close to your ear and giving you a desperate moan that sounded so real that your body believed it and responded right away.

“I’m comi-” your second orgasm rushed through you, cutting you off as he moved back to look you in the eyes and intentionally work you harder with his fingers.

“God that’s hot.” He muttered as you came and let you ride out your high on his fingers.

You let your head fall to his shoulder as you panted and he pulled his fingers out of you.

“You alright sweetie?” He whispered as you tried to pull yourself together. He let you lay your head on him as you watched him grab napkins out of his desk beside him and wipe his sticky fingers.

“Five minutes.” He warned you of the time as his arms went around you. You jumped at the unexpected sensation. You weren’t used to this. You pulled your head off his shoulder and looked at him as you tried to figure him out. Why was he trying to hold you? What was the point of that? Maybe you had been asking for it by laying your head on his shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind you recoiling at his touch though. A new question now crossed your mind with hearing how little time you had left.

“If there’s only five minutes how am I going to repay-”

“Don’t say it like that. I don’t expect anything in return.” He shook his head.

“But you just…” you didn’t understand.

“Real men know it’s just as much fun to give as to receive. However, we both did skip actual lunch. So maybe you can meet me by the back doors after school once everyone leaves, and I can make that up to you?” He asked but from the way his eyes flickered from yours to your lips before returning, told you he had to want more than that. Of course he wanted to do more than just eat, and so did you.

“I’ll be there.” You agreed.

He helped you to your feet which were ironically less shaky now than when you walked in.

“Two minutes” he warned as he leaned in and gave you an unexpected kiss on the cheek. You felt a smile grow on your lips as you walked out the classroom door.

The moment you walked out, it was like your bubble of soft perception had popped, leaving you wondering what the hell just happened.

That wasn’t at all the pounding while bent over the desk you expected, actually you hadn’t done anything like that before. You had been fingered, yeah, but not so well that you came twice while gazing into the other person’s eyes. You didn’t understand why he didn’t just do it quick and get it over with so you could get him off too. everyone liked immediate gratification.

Why did he try to hold you after and why did you want him to?

It felt so strange to you, because it all felt so good you wanted more.

Another problem that came to mind was the guilt you felt about telling anyone, and the embarrassment of others discovering the closeness you just shared with the man. Jimin would want to know. But what could you tell him? He wouldn’t want to hear about the boring way Mr. Kim held your body close as he looked into your eyes. And you hadn’t even seen his dick!Normally you wouldn’t think twice talking about being fucked behind a bush, but this… it felt like almost betrayal to share it. You would feel bad for your teacher and completely ruin your reputation as a badass.

You wondered how the hell he had gotten you so torn up mentally and physically, You were stunned by a man for the first time in your life. And you hated it.

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

Somebody Sweet to Talk To ❁︎ 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄

Pairing: Harry Osborn x Plus Size Reader

Word Count: 3.2k

Gif credit: @lovingpostit

Summary & Warnings || Series Masterlist

A/N: shortest chapter yet and also the shortest in the whole series!

𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞

𝐈 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞

❁︎ ・・・・・❁︎ ・・・・・ ❁︎ ・・・・・❁︎

Tuesday and Wednesday weren’t too different from Monday. You arrived at school with Peter, parted ways with him by the spot he always waited for Gwen, entered the classes you had that day, took lunch with a couple of classmates you considered almost friends, did homework in the library, were joined by Harry two hours before the time to go home, got home with the three, accompanied them to do homework, spent time alone with Harry while teaching him how to play chess and getting to know him, and then hung out with the three until Harry and Gwen had to go, attended family dinner, went to sleep.

Thursday brought slight changes, Gwen didn’t leave school with you because of a family member’s visit. As you entered the compound, a pair of strong arms engulfed you in a hug, startling you.

The metal against your back should have been a sign but now that Tony had a metal arm too, what let you know it was Bucky was his scent so you relaxed and hugged back. “Hi, Buckaroo.”

He laughed in that gruff way he always did, parting from you to gaze down at you. “How did you know it was me?”

“I happen to know your scent very well.” You made a face. “That sounds creepy, what I truly meant was—“

“We get it,” the Sargent laughed again and stretched his arm to close the door. “How was school?” at that he looked at Harry and Peter too.

“Great!” Peter exclaimed, telling Bucky all about his school day.

Harry just hummed, extending a hand in your direction. You frowned down at it, your palm inching closer before you remembered you were carrying his cellphone and slid your hand into your pocket to retrieve it.

“You gave me yours,” he snorted, looking at the (Favorite Artist)’s photo you had as locked screen.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, repeating the motion of withdrawing the cellphone but now from your left pocket. You exchanged devices under Peter’s and Bucky’s eyes.

James started speaking, but Tony interrupted. “Can any of you help me? Bruce says aspirin hurts the stomach but I don’t believe him because it stops my stomachache.”

“Don’t all NSAIDs hurt the stomach?” Harry asked, not in general but to you, his body even rotating to face you properly.

You nodded, “but acetylsalicylic acid is one of the worst— stomachaches are treated in different ways than other pains because of that.”

“As mere symptoms?”

“Yep, or not as the main focus of the treatment because they’re usually caused by something else.”

Tony pouted childishly, probably because he loved being right, and grumbled something about having to throw up the pill.

“Don’t!” You yelled, walking after him to put a hand on his shoulder. Your mentor turned around, watching you. He looked so tired and sick that you frowned. “Go try to get some sleep, Tony,” you said softly, moving your hand to his forehead to check for a fever. “Once you get up I’ll give you a check-up, okay?”

Tony hummed, “Pep said it’s the flu, though.”

“Stomach flu, probably.”

Humming again, he announced he’d be in bed and asked you all to keep an eye on Morgan. Bucky sighed, watching his now close friend disappear through the hallway before sprinting toward the stairs to go get Morgan.

You sighed too, Tony was whiny when sick and you could only imagine how much Bruce had been struggling with him.

Peter plopped down on the couch, tiredly opening his backpack to do homework. Harry sat in front of him, watching him. The shorter man looked annoyed by something and a lot of things could be the cause but he had a theory. Testing said theory could be dangerous at that moment, but he was too curious not to try.

His eyes found yours. Making a gesture for you to sit down with him, he turned his attention back to Peter. Your best friend watched your movements, even following them. You sat close to Harry, turning to look at him as if to say something.

Harry threw his arm around your neck. “Can you go out tomorrow even if Tony’s sick?”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate,” Peter chimed in.

You lifted an eyebrow at your crush. Tony had a case of the stomach flu, it was painfully obvious and normal by how careless he was sometimes while eating street food. “I can, don’t worry,” you smiled at Harry without showing your teeth, “there’s always someone around here to check on him, and the flu is viral so there isn’t much to do other than keeping him hydrated and rested.” He hummed, relaxing his body so you two would appear to be physically closer.

Bucky offered to help the two young men with their homework and you placed Morgan on your lap, humming when the little girl asked if you would braid her hair. Tony’s daughter ran toward the stairs like Bucky had done earlier to retrieve some hairbands and a brush.

Moving a little farther from Harry, just enough to be comfortable while moving your hands, you started slowly brushing Morgan’s hair with care. The girl asked for as many braids you could do which was a slight pain in the ass but you complied without a negative word, separating the strands meticulously.

Harry’s attention would shift from his homework to the movement of your hands, a few times catching how relaxed the little girl looked on your lap. When Bucky coughed, he went back to paying attention to the Sargent.

You were done rather quickly, now used to braid hair frequently due to how much Morgan asked for the hairdo. Pepper paid a lot of attention to her daughter, but she couldn’t do it all even if she tried so you helped her like you wished someone would have helped your mother.

That early night, after Harry left and before he would go out to do his friendly neighboring thing, Peter told you he needed to talk to you about something important. You hadn’t thought he would tell you something so soon, but he still made himself clear by saying he didn’t think it was a good idea for you to date Harry.

“We’ll see, Pete. It’s too soon to know.” That was your only comment on the topic before leaving the living room in direction to the stairs.

Pepper stayed home to keep an eye on Tony, knowing her husband wouldn’t take care of himself if he didn’t even do it while healthy. Bucky liked spending time with Morgan so he was elated by the fact, and planned an afternoon full of fun activities.

But the Sargent didn’t do any of it without pulling you to the side before you could leave with Harry. You knew what was coming, and you weren’t up for it but sucked it up.

“I just want to make sure you’re comfortable with him, sweetheart.”

You nodded. It wouldn’t be a lie to say you were comfortable, and it wouldn’t be a lie to say Harry treated you just fine, but it definitely wouldn’t count as the truth either. Middle grounds didn’t exist in that situation, and you didn’t want them to. What you truly wanted at that moment was for Bucky to stop looking at you like you’d break at any second, you wouldn’t do it— you couldn’t do it because it would mean showing what happened with Quentin left a mark deeper than anyone knew, it would mean showing a weakness no one around you had ever shown.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah,” you nodded again. If the Sargent didn’t believe you, he didn’t show it. He kissed your forehead and wished you good luck like Tony did almost a week ago.

With the weight of having somewhat lied to James, you left Tony’s home-office and strut toward the door. Gwen squealed a ”good luck” too, Peter didn’t even take a glance at you. That weight was on you too, how displeased your best friend and crush was.

❁︎ ・・・・・❁︎ ・・・・・ ❁︎ ・・・・・❁︎

Harry observed you were more silent than usual, and it unnerved him a little bit. You had made progress regarding conversation, on Wednesday you even talked naturally without having to ask questions about the other. It worried him that you had gone back to avoid his eyes and stay quiet when you wouldn’t have time to redo it all.

Walking up to the movie theater’s door, he opened it for you to walk in as you gratefully bowed your head. The movie had been chosen the day before, an independent film you heard was interesting enough to leave The Compound. Harry was fine with it upon hearing the synopsis and the hardest thing to do was finding a place screening it.

The long drive was worth it. He couldn’t remember a time where he felt so comfortable at the movies, or with someone— you weren’t a loud eater and kept your comments to yourself for when the movie had finished. It wasn’t common for you to see that type of movie with someone, your... friends... weren’t into that kind of entertainment and with the lives they had you couldn’t particularly blame them; still, it was nice to have an acquaintance who wasn’t against watching a movie only fifteen minutes longer than the drive to the cinema complex.

A few tears were shed on your behalf at the end of the film. You heard Harry sniff beside her too and he thrust a couple of napkins in your hand. The last time you had gone to the movies with someone, Peter had found a little funny you cried with Bumblebee so Harry’s reaction was shocking to say the least— from what you knew, Harry wasn’t very emotional and that had made you think he didn’t like people who showed to be.

“Do you watch movies like those often?” his question was uttered as you walked back to his car.

“Yeah, usually online because I don’t drive and no one else has the time nor likes them.”

He hummed, pulling on the passenger’s door handle for you to get in. He saw you enter the vehicle from his peripheral view as he crossed the hood, there was a change in your facial expression that made him think you had finally relaxed a little bit.

“I watch any kind of movie as long as it sounds appealing,” you added once he was in the car. “I only avoid the horror genre because I get anxious easily, but if a film is worth the pain I do watch it.”

“Everyone at school thinks you’re stuck up, but you’re the most open and knowledgeable person I’ve met.”

You weren’t sure if it was a compliment or an observation, but you took it as both. “Judgmental biases are more common than we like to admit.”

“Yeah,” he turned the engine on with a sigh. “I used to be like that, to be honest.”

“What changed?”

“It was emotionally damaging.” He didn’t explain anything further on, at least not for a few minutes.

Pulling back to the main avenue that would take you back, he wondered if speaking more openly was a good idea. Harry liked the way his walls were still up, that was one of his reasons to not get too close to people— he would be lying if he said he didn’t want to have someone to talk to freely; Peter couldn’t be that person as much as he loved him, and Harry truly did.

“I was angry all the time,” he continued the explanation. “Because I assumed the worst of people.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you learned from your mistakes. It takes courage to do it.”

“Experience?”

“Plenty,” you lamented with the right side of your head resting on the window as you looked at him drive. He cast you a sideways glance. Getting the hint, you explained yourself too. “My family isn’t averagely normal, and I went through things as a child that turned me into a very cold person. It’s been hard to break out of it, I cave into it from time to time; it’s too damn comfortable not to.”

“Only child, right?”

You hummed, “did the bitter tone give it away?”

“Painfully so.”

Easing the break at a stoplight, he took his cellphone out to make sure his father hadn’t called. The only notification appearing on the locked screen was a text from Gwen, asking if you two were close to getting back. A quick reply of ‘in thirty minutes or so’ was what he typed before dropping the device into the cup holder at his right.

“How are we going to function next week?”

You hummed in thought. You had no clue, the options were limited in every aspect. “We’ll have to improvise.”

The rest of the drive was spent talking about the movie you saw. His phone had dinged in the middle of it but he ignored it, knowing it was either Gwen or Peter because his father didn’t like texting.

Both of you saw two silhouettes near the entrance of The Compound as the car crossed the gates. An idea came to his mind, but he wasn’t sure you’d be up for it. He wasn’t even sure if he himself was, but he leaned more toward the positive answer than he thought you would.

Turning the car off, he immediately gripped your hand so you wouldn’t leave the vehicle. You turned to look at him, a question building up in your throat as you unbuckled your seatbelt. “Kiss me,” he ordered gently.

“W-What?”

He sighed, undoing his seatbelt to lean closer to you. “They’re watching, we both know.”

Pushing yourself slightly upward, you let out a shaky breath before closing the gap between you both, eyes fluttering shut as contact was made. His lips moved softly on top of yours, the taste of the popcorn mixed with chocolate he ate earlier distracted you for a moment as his hand moved up to your cheek. You grasped the front of his shirt, tilting your head a few millimeters to meet his lips fully. Harry’s thumb dug into your neck while he deepened the kiss just enough for it to look realistic.

Kissing Harry Osborn as the light from the gigantic A in front of the compound illuminated the moment wasn’t how you imagined your Friday night would go. You didn’t imagine a knock on the passenger window would interrupt the kiss either.

You pulled back, him unlocking the car so both could leave it and see what was that Peter wanted. Your best friend didn’t look happy, and the fact that Gwen whistled teasingly made him frown.

“Gwen needs a ride to her grandma’s house. Can you take her, Harry?”

“Sure.” Harry craned his neck to his side, where you were standing. “I’ll text you later, okay?”

You nodded, looking up at him. “Drive safe.” He hummed, leaving a light kiss on the side of your head before turning on his heel.

Gwen followed him, waving at you and Peter. Harry didn’t open the door for her, nor waited for her to put the seatbelt on. Harry was actually in a hurry to get out of there, face slightly flushed in front of the lights from the dashboard.

The teasing was coming, he knew the blonde wouldn’t be able to keep it inside for long. He also knew he needed to sound convincing because she would tell Peter everything. But what terrified him to know was that he had enjoyed kissing Peter’s sister figure— he would have continued it even. Maybe Peter knew that too, maybe that was why he interrupted, and maybe by the end of the month, he would be all by himself most of the time again.

“Are things going well between you and (Y/N)?” He hummed as an answer to his best friend’s question, eyes on the road. Gwen watched him. “Pete’s worried.”

“He told me in the morning.”

“I’m worried too,” she mumbled. “You haven’t dated in a while and she’s Peter’s best friend. Also...”

“Also what?” He caught a shrug with his peripheral vision. “Tell me.”

“I’m happy for you two, Harry. And I’m sorry for having a but— but she isn’t right for you and you’re not right for her.”

“Because she’s smarter than me?” he couldn’t keep himself from sounding hurt. Everyone always treated him as if he was less, his dad had done it since he was a kid, Gwen since she met Peter, Peter since he found out his coping mechanisms.

“I don’t know if she is smarter than you,” the blonde quickly said, too quickly to be telling the truth. “But she has deep issues from what everyone’s told me. You’re not the type of person that can deal with that.”

“What can I deal with, then?”

“Someone more open, that’s all.” Gwen felt bad by telling him that, she was aware of how hard it was for Harry to get close to people, and of for how long Peter had told him not to pursue you. Her boyfriend was right by being worried when none of you were ready for a relationship and your pasts showed it.

He didn’t say anything through the rest of the drive. Harry dropped Gwen off and didn’t even wish her a good night. Had his friends been talking about him behind his back? What was Peter telling you about him at that moment?

Swerving into the first parking spot he saw, he took his cellphone out. His fingers hovered over the send button for a few seconds before he decided to simply send it and hope for the best.

Has Peter told you something about me? Like ever.

When your cellphone buzzed in your jean pocket at dinner you withdrew it and carefully looked down at it to not alert anyone. Harry’s question took you aback, and the answer even more.

Nothing other than the usual: you’re his best friend and son of Norman Osborn.

Nothing else? Maybe something in nonchalance like how fucking annoying I am?

You’re not annoying, and no.

Okay.

Gnawing on the inside of his bottom lip, he stared down at the screen. He tested his luck then.

I’ve been thinking about telling my dad I’m dating you, probably tomorrow at breakfast. Can I?

Is that what I should say? What does “dating” even mean? Now that I think about it, it sounds like people are going on dates and seeing what’s up— but from what I know there isn’t a difference...

Colloquially, dating is being in a relationship as partners. But I get what you mean.

So you would tell your father I’m your girlfriend?

Basically.

That was... too much. But you would look like a coward by suddenly taking it all back, you had kissed him earlier for crying out loud!

It’s fine. Thanks for asking beforehand, though.

No problem. I’ll text you tomorrow, have a good night.

Good night.

Locking the device, you went back to your meal. As you lifted your head, you saw Bucky staring at you and quickly took a mouthful of food to distract yourself. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes didn’t move from you until you left the table at the end of the meal.

[knjnvrland]

Prank Wars - ch. 6

> pairing | jungkook x reader

> word count | 4.5k

> genre | college!au, fluff, smut, angst

> warnings | swearing, some really vanilla sexual acts, fingering, unprotected sex.

> synopsis | College can be a stressful time in anyone’s life as it is, why don’t we throw a little prank war in the mix to make it harder?

> fic masterlist

> A/N | English is not my first language, I’m sorry for the eventual spelling mistake, please let me know if you find any!

CHAPTER 6 - No-Bra Girl

Your room was way too bright, did you forgot to close the windows the night before? You woke up annoyed, feeling like you could sleep for 5 more hours at least, but something inside you said you shouldn’t. You extended your arm to your bedside table to try and reach for your phone, but came up empty. Still dazed, you opened your eyes and took a look around: yup, the curtains were left wide open, and by how bright it was, even for a winter day, you could tell the sun has been up for a while. Alice was still asleep on her bed on the other side of the room, you noticed she had the patience of getting into her pijamas, while you only bothered to take off your jeans and bra and fell asleep wearing the same shirt you had on the night before. Oh! The night before! You knew you should’ve said no to the going out after Hoseok’s performance, but how could you say no to Jimin when he was so happy that he didn’t mess up the backup dancing? Hobi too, was so happy to finally deliver what he had been practicing the entire semester, you just had to go. But you surely didn’t need to drink as much as you did.

You got up with a groan and stretched your back, walking over to Alice’s bed to look for her purse. It was on the floor besides her, as always, and you checked it to see if she had your phone. When you realized it wasn’t there you decided to nudge her just to ask, you knew you needed it for something, you just couldn’t remember what now. Alice turned around, not yet awake, and you nudged her again.

“Hey, Al, do you have my phone?” You whispered, when she seemed more awake.

“Huh?” She opened one of her eyes and looked for your face.

“My phone. I can’t find it, do you have it?” Noticing the confused look in your friend’s face you continued “from last night, you must have took it when we got out”

“Have you checked my purse?” She opened her other eye and letted out a yawn.

You signaled ‘yes’ with your head “it's not there either”. Alice frowned and turned to pick up her stuff, looking once again.

“Then I don’t have it, love, you must have forgotten it at the bar, maybe check if one of the boys have it?” She took her own phone from under her pillow and gave it to you, and you dialed the first number you found: Yoongi’s, obviously.

It rang until it reached his voice mail, and the same happened with every single boy you called next. You began trying to call you own number, hoping whoever had it was a nice enough person to give it back, but with no luck still. You kept calling their numbers and after almost half an hour of it, Alice stopped you.

“They're probably passed out, your phone will appear eventually.” She took her own device back from you. “Maybe focus on studying?”

And that’s when it hit you: all your notes were on your phone. You kept them there so it was easier to study on the go, instead of taking notes in your computer like everyone else. And you had a final in two days and already lost half of all the braincells you could spare that morning in search of one of your stupid friends and brothers. And so the panic ensued. You started to hyperventilate immediately and could tell Alice noticed when her eyes grew twice as big as they usually were.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” She took your hands in hers, a method she learned would help someone to focus. It worked on you for a split second, but then you were back to panicking. There was no way you could have all the work done and all the notes taken again in time for the test, you’d fail and have to repeat the entirety of the class and then you’d mess up all your curriculum and have to postpone other classes to still maybe graduate on time and you knew you had to graduate on time otherwise there would be no way you could maintain yourself without your parent’s help and being the youngest you knew they were getting fed up with their children needing stuff all the time and- “Hey, y/n. Breathe.”

You took a deep breath on auto-pilot and finally focused on Alice on her knees in front of you. “All my notes are on my phone, I really need it today.”

“Ok, I’ll drive to Yoongi’s and see if he has it, I have a key to his place, I’m sure we can find it.” She stood up, and you realized she was already showered and dressed, probably doing it all while you called the guys non stop. “I'll come back as soon as possible, I’m taking my phone but keep your computer on so I can message you on facebook if I find out anything” she gave you a peck on the head and left without looking back.

You started to pace around the room, but finally you realized it was to no use and took your books to the living room, sitting on the floor by the coffee table to try and redo all your work, just in case your phone was lost forever.

Jungkook woke up earlier then he wished he did, but he was getting late on school work because of all the practices and end-of-year games he was playing, so he had to make the best out of his weekends. He had a test on Monday and although it wasn’t a final, yet, it still accounted for a good amount of his grade. He also needed to tidy up the place and get his laundry done. There were few things in life that Jungkook took as seriously as his laundry, he just couldn’t stand dirty clothes piling up and his worst nightmare came through when the washing machine in his building broke. Lucky for him, the dorms were closer than the boy’s place and Alice was nice enough to give him clearance to use the machines that were on the basement, and so he had been doing for a while.

He parked his car as close as he could to the entrance and noticed Alice’s wasn’t in it’s usual place. He went straight to the basement, taking his clothes with him in a white laundry sack. Getting there it wasn’t hard to spot the machine assigned to your floor. The building had three rooms per floor and a machine for each of them, with a couple baskets provided and a schedule on the wall. The time assigned for Alice and you was mornings, but you usually washed your clothes late night, after the other room had taken theirs out, so you wouldn’t have to wait there, just having to return the next morning to retrieve your clean itens. Jungkook didn’t knew this when he first started taking his clothes there, just assuming one of you was faster then him in the mornings. 

It was Alice that explained this habit of yours to him, and told him she usually just took your belongings out and left on the basket on top of the machine, so you’d just come and collect it later. He started to do the same and for the first couple of times it was all innocent, but he grew annoyed fairly quick and, just as a small social experiment, started to take an item of your clothing every time he found the washing machine filled with your stuff. It wasn’t supposed to go on for as long as it did, but you never noticed and so he kept going. It has been almost a month now, and he had already filled a drawer at his place with your stuff; mismatched socks, a few shirts, a pair of jeans he knew you liked and even a bra once, granted, but he only took it because the thought of you, at 21, still wearing bras with cute animal printed on them amused him to his core.

He did the same that day, picking up a grey sweater he had seen you wearing a lot lately and putting it inside his bag. He took out his phone to listen to some music while he waited, and realized he had a few missed calls from Alice, and a message on the group chat asking if anyone had seen your phone. He almost forgot about it this morning, but at the last second he remembered to take it with him to drop it off to you. He had done nothing bad to it, just took a couple of selfies so you’d remember who saved your ass when you retrieved it, and just before he could do anything else, another message popped up on the group chat.

Alice (yg gf): srsly guys, where are you?  Alice (yg gf): I’m @ Yoongi’s and he’s not here?? Alice (yg gf): Has anyone seen anyone? Alice (yg gf): Jungkook doesn’t seem to be home either??? Alice (yg gf): unless,,,, is he dead? Did any of you finally ended him? Alice (yg gf): (jk JK, ily) Alice (yg gf): aha jk jk, got it? I’m so funny lol

Jungkook chuckled to himself and began to type, but someone else was faster.

RM hyung: what got into you this morning? Alice (yg gf): Finally! Do you know where’s everybody? RM hyung: Nope RM hyung: Just got home, there’s no one here Alice (yg gf): wtf where’s everyone? Your sister’s freaking out RM hyung: ?? Alice (yg gf): she lost her phone Alice (yg gf): all of her notes were on it RM hyung: let me shower and I’ll send her what I have from last year Alice (yg gf): yeah do that Alice (yg gf): and pls let me know if you find anyone else Alice (yg gf): I’m going to Jin’s to see if there’s anyone there RM hyung: for sure RM hyung: ttyl

Jungkook locked his phone and took yours from his other pocket, climbing the stairs to your floor so he could return it to you. He only ringed the doorbell twice before you opened the door. Your hair was a mess and he could tell you still haven’t showered. You were wearing the same shirt as the night before and a pair of sweater pants, and the look you gave him when you opened the door warned him you were not in a good mood.

“Hey..?” He greeted you, uncertain.

“What do you want?” He widened his eyes at your rude response and you felt a bit bad and took a deep breath “I'm just having a terrible morning"

“Something related to this?” Jungkook lifted your phone so you could see it and you grabbed it immediately. It had run out of battery but it sure was yours. “You’re welcome."

“Oh my god I’ve been looking for this all morning” you stepped back inside, going to your room to retrieve your charger and turn your phone back on as soon as possible. “You have no idea the hell I’ve been in without it”

Jungkook followed you, closing the front door behind him. He took in the mess you made out of the living room. There was a cup of probably cold coffee staining the glass table and your books were open everywhere. Your laptop was also open but on the sofa, and he could see the messenger tab opened in Alice’s contact and way more blue messages then gray ones, so you must’ve been spamming her without a break ever since she left. There was a blanket on the floor, even though the heater was on a very high temperature, and he picked up a pink marker on his way to your room that he believed was in your hand just seconds before.

“Really why can’t you pick up your phone?” You plugged in your phone but it wouldn’t turn on just yet, so you were pacing around, picking up stuff and dropping it again, clearly anxious and trying to occupy your hands with something “I've been freaking out since I woke up, you could’ve at least texted Alice last night to tell her you had it. I have to tell her you’re here, she’s driving around town looking for any of you, really, what happened after we left for you all to disappear? Yoongi hates to sleep over anywhere that’s not his house, oh great, now I’m worried something bad happened to anyone else. But if it was serious we would know, right? I just really have to focus on the test I have monday, I can’t stress with anyone else’s business. That’s why I never had friends, they’re so much work! Now I have to worry about weather Jimin and Hobi and oh God even my brothers, I have no idea where they are either and I can’t even begin to-"

Jungkook couldn’t stand your pacing around anymore, and as much as he tried to grab your attention to explain, you never. stopped. talking. So he did the only thing he could think of that would surely shut you up: he kissed you. And you know what? You kissed him back. But only for a second before you pushed him away.

“What the fuck?” You were trying to catch your breath. If because of all the talking or the kiss not even you were sure, but Jungkook had this smug smile on his face and you just hated it.

“I couldn’t shut you up” He stated, like it was nothing.

“Never do that again! What if anyone find’s out oh no they already think there’s something weird between us now is not the time to-“… and he kissed you again. But now he had his hands on your waist, pulling you closer, and you took a little longer to react.

“Will you stop?” You pushed him away, confused about the whole situation.

“You were going to start spiraling again, I’m just doing preventive control”

“I'm not going to deal with this now” you turned around, searching your phone again, but it was still dead. You pretended to check the cord, that you knew for sure was just fine, but could still feel Jungkook’s eyes on you. “Stop looking at me.”

“I'm not.” Jungkook deviated way too fast, just giving you the confirmation that he really was watching.

“What are you still doing here, anyway?” You turned back at him and he had his hand on his back, scratching mindless, the motion lifted his shirt just enough for you to peek at his v line. He wasn’t looking at you, so he didn’t notice it, but when your eyes finally locked, you could see there was something there that was new.

“I don’t know, really. Waiting to see if I have to shut you up again…?” He gave you a boyish smile, and although you tried to remain annoyed, the corner’s of your mouth gave you away. “You liked it.” His smile grew.

“No I didn’t" you were quick to answer this time, trying to get out of your room and back to your studies, but Jungkook held your waist again, softer this time, and made you look at him.

“I can do it again” it was barely a whisper, but you were close enough that you understood it perfectly. You couldn’t deny that the kiss did indeed shut your mind up for a bit, as well as your mouth, and it would be nice to have the distraction. You stood on the tip of your toes and started getting closer to him. But you also had to study quite a lot that day, and Alice would be back any second now.

Jungkook noticed your uncertainty and, before he himself could think too much about this, he closed the distance between the two of you.

This kiss lasted longer, at first he was shy, but when you reciprocated, the both of you established a rhythm and he opened his mouth to deepen the kiss, to which you responded doing the same. He had one of his hands still on your waist and the other at the back of your neck, pulling you closer. You had both of yours on his chest, filling him up a little, you admitted. The first move came from you, lowering your fingers through his torso, stopping just at the hem of his shirt. He broke off the kiss and took a good look at your face. Your pupils had doubled in size and a silent question was asked. The answer was your lips back on his. There was anger in the touch, but also passion. He knew the best sex came from either of those scenarios, and the thought of having a bit of both excited him to no end. You motioned for him to take of his shirt and you separated a little for him to do so, finding each other again immediately after. You closed the door and took a few steps back, until you felt the edge of your bed behind your knees. The both of you found the mattress while breaking the kiss for just enough time so you could appreciate his nice physique. 

He started to lift off your shirt and you raised your arms to allow him. 

“Didn't pick you out as a no-bra girl” he breathed out, trying to mask how turned on he was at the sight of your exposed breasts. You rolled your eyes and pulled him back to you, scratching him on the back of the neck as a warning sign, but it had the opposite effect, as all it took from the boy over you was a moan. “I can play dirty too”.

Jungkook then bit on your lip while moving his hand all the way under you to grab your ass, giving it a harsh squeeze. You jumped a little in surprise, but had no other reaction seeing as not a second later he grinded a bit on you. You opened your legs more as a reflex, letting him get comfortable between them. You started to move your hips a bit, trying to get in sync with him while still keeping the rhythm of the kiss. You could feel how hard he was getting and the sounds he made gave you all the clearance you needed to extend one hand between the two of you and start to draw the outline of his member on his pants. He groaned into the kiss and you could feel yourself getting wet because of the sound and the friction.

You started to kiss his neck and he freed one of his hands only to untie the knot on your sweater pants and make his way in between your legs, starting to move his fingers in circles over your panties. You could feel how hard he was and shoved him from over you so you could both get naked already, before any of you had the chance to second guess what you were doing. You never saw someone take off their pants as fast as Jungkook took his, but you were quick to follow.

Before he could get himself comfortable on top of you again, you signaled for him to lie down on your bed “I like to be on top”, his eyes widened not because he was surprised, honestly, he knew you were a control freak, but the time it took him to get comfortable was enough so he could get a good look at your body and damn, he was turned on. You started to kiss him again and he moved one of his hands to massage your clit in between the two of you.

“Don't you want a little bit more of foreplay?” He broke the kiss again to ask but your only answer was to motion on top of his hard member, silencing him immediately. He helped you get in position and soon enough you could feel him getting inside of you. It took you a moment to adjust to his size. It’s been a while since you last got laid and you admit you started to forget the feeling. “Is this okay?” Jungkook had his hand on your waist, waiting for you to move first, you could tell it was taking a tool on him, but his eyes showed nothing but concern. That is, until you started moving. He closed his eyes and threw his had back as you began to go up and down on him, slowly at first but in a nice rhythm.

He started to help you out a bit, guiding your waist with his hands, and you lowered yourself to kiss his exposed neck a bit more. The position gave you the extra friction you needed and you started to move faster. You bit his collar bones as he moaned, and you could feel his chest getting sweaty, but it didn’t bother you at all. He started to trust harder into you and you could feel yourself getting close to your climax, he grabbed the back of your neck pulling you closer so he could kiss you some more, and you could tell he was not far either, as his movements were starting to get sloppy. 

You were really almost there when a sound deviated your attention. On your bedside table your phone had just turned on, and an avalanche of notifications came through all at once. It served as a wake up call and before you could do anything else, you felt Jungkook coming undone under you. You lifted yourself from him and he tried to hug you to keep you close, but you were already getting up from the bed and looking for your clothes. You couldn’t see the expression on the boy’s face as you got dressed again, but confusion was a given. There were few moments in his life where Jungkook was left speechless, specially after having sex with a good looking girl, but you really threw him off. He didn’t know how to react at the sudden change of mood, and could just lay there, watching you get as far from him as possible. Was he that bad at sex? He was sure he wasn’t. Granted, this time wasn’t his best, but he could tell you were enjoying just a moment ago.

You walked to your phone to check what was on it once you were fully dressed again, and with you peripheral vision you could see Jungkook getting up to put on his clothes too. Aside from a few social media notifications, and a few messages from your classmates either asking you for your notes or sending you theirs, it wasn’t much. That is, until you saw a few texts from Alice.

Alice <3: ok asshole I know you have y/n’s phone Alice <3: i’m going home now to tell her Alice <3: and as much as it annoys me Alice <3: i don’t want you dead Alice <3: and you will be as soon as I tell her you have it Alice <3: so you should probably show up Alice <3: like really fast

“You have to go” you didn’t even look at Jungkook and you had no time to worry about hurting his feelings right now “Alice is coming”

“Oh shit, okay.” He only had his shirt left to put back and as he was doing it you got a final glance of his abs. Damn it y/n now was really not the time. “We should talk about this though” Did he catch you staring? From the smirk on his face, probably. But again: now was not the time.

“I was stressed, you were there, no big deal, we talked, now please go” you said while walking to your front door, with Jungkook trailing behind.

“No, I mean it” he was annoyed “I don’t want to make things weird” you took a deep breath with your back turned to him. You didn’t want things to get weird either, and you knew it was best if the two of you took a minute to talk about it, but the thought of Alice getting home and sensing something had happened was mortifying and you didn’t want to risk it.

“It's not weird” you turned to him then, but you didn’t sound convincing at all “really, we’re good, nothing changed, I still find you an asshole, but we’re friends, let’s stay friends, alright?” His lips were pressed together in a thin line and you could not guess what he was thinking at all, but he nodded his head and grabbed his bag he had left by your entrance door. You felt bad all over again so, just as he was leaving you grabbed the hem of his shirt and made him look back at you “we're okay, right?”

He took a second to answer “yeah, we’re okay.” He didn’t change his expression, but you could tell he was genuine, so you let go of him and he left. You closed the door, but only felt relieved once you heard the heavy door of the stairs closing behind him.

You probably stayed a second too long leaning on your door, collecting your thoughts, but your phone started ringing and you noticed it was Namjoon, probably receiving all your facebook messages at once and wondering if you were alive. You would worry about Jungkook some other time, you had a final to ace.

…But you should probably take a shower first and relieve the rest of your stress.

Jungkook got back to the laundry room to get his things, but he didn’t even remember getting there. He was the type of person that liked cuddling after sex, even if it was just a one night stand. He really wasn't used to being thrown out as fast as you did him, and he couldn’t tell if you were really okay or if you hated him. For fuck’s sake, you were his friend's sister, what kind of mess was he getting himself into? By the time he reached the machine, he had already convinced himself that your reaction, although annoying, rude and a little bit hurtful to his ego, was probably for the best. He was removing his clothes from the washing machine when he noticed yours, still on the basket he had put them in. It would probably be there for a while and you would probably forget about it until Alice finds it and brings it up to you. 

Without a second thought, he grabbed the basket and dumped all that was on it onto his bag with his stuff. He closed it with a bit of difficulty and got the hell out of there. Jungkook was no thief, he always intended to give you your clothes back, and that hasn’t changed. He was just thinking of a more creative way to do so, now.

>A/N | I have a really hard time writing fast/small smut scenes, sorry, it will get better in the future, promise. Let me know what you think, though! Also, if your name didn't show up in the taglist please message me, I'm afraid I might get lost in the notifications and forget to add someone. Have a nice day, wherever and whoever you are :)

TAGLIST |  @w1tchcraftt​ @girlwiththeglittereyeliner​ @teresaisla​ @nctssidehoe​  @kawaiimusiccollection​ @nininek12​ @livewittykid​ @namjoonsslutakakoreanmanswhore​ @planhtarxhs​ 

TAGLIST IS OPEN!

[thesynthesist]

Alter Ego, Es, Another Silent Conversation

Or: Yelling about videogames about books

This got away from me really fast so uhhh have a cut

Recently I picked up a little mobile game called ‘Alter Ego’ just to see what it was all about. You’re dropped into a long dark hall, given a quote referencing Freud, meet the character stand in for the Super Ego and start tapping speech bubbles. 

These speech bubbles change what they say over the course of the game based on two things. The first is the results of little personality tests given to you by Es (pictured above the cut), ostensibly the game’s Id stand in. 

The personality tests are to help you know yourself better, but like most personality tests they’re of limited use since there’s a lack of nuance. Never the less you can read the results of these tests in your little study, and each result produces 4 statements based around the result that go into your speech bubble. Not even once was I in agreement with all 4 statements, but that’s alright because the personality tests don’t affect the games outcome in anyway and you can redo them if you want. 

The other thing that changes the content of your speech bubble are the books you read. These are all books that exist out in the world for you to read, all philosophical texts aimed at self discovery. You spend your clicker points to ‘read’ a page, and once you get to a book marked page a new speech bubble with a quote appears. 

This I think, is the strongest part of the game. The quotes are from a larger section of text you can read from your digital copy of the book in your study, about a paragraph, and they’re well chosen for the games theme. It works best if you actually go and read the books, and the game gives you some incentive for it. So that’s what I did. 

Of the 15 books on the reading list given by the gave I’ve read 7 so far and here’s where we get into the first problem with the game, at least from where I”m sitting. Some of these books are impossible to find! 

The third title the game gives you is a book who’s only English translation was published over a decade ago and is out of print. There’s not even an ebook copy. It’s a Japanese book, so I assume anyone who can read it in the original language probably doesn’t have this same problem but Moon Over the Mountain isn’t the only title impossible to track down. The other title I couldn’t find isn’t a book on the main list but is a ‘post-game’ book.

The books and the personality tests draw you along a narrative that’s almost more about Es’s journey of self discovery than your own. Through your journey you galvanize and drive her to one of three endings. There are two ‘bad’ ending and one ‘good’ ending. 

Here’s where the game really starts to tear at the seams. First of all, you have to play the game 3 times to get to the ‘good’ ending. The endings are about the balance between the super ego and the id and it’s pretty obvious what ending you’re going for as you’re only ever given 3 choices. 

The choices I naturally pick are the choices that lead to the good ending of the game, or would have if you were not forced at the end into an ‘interpretation’ of the story that begets one of the two bad endings. 

The second and third time through you’re allowed to skip the personality tests and carry over your results, which takes a lot of the meat out of the story. After the good ending, however, what counts as post game content opens up. 

You can chat with Es and she will recommend further books for you to read and then talk to you about them. I was excited for this part until I was hit with two problems. The first is that unless you wanted to look up the three book titles she gives you before hand, there’s no way to know if you’ll be able to get your hands on the book. The first one I picked is beyond my grasp, but there was no changing it and I had to wait 2 hours to talk the book over with Es. 

After the time I was up, I talked to Es. She asked me if I read the book and like a dirty liar, I lied about it, and we had a chat. I was given a synopsis of the book and asked a simple question to which there were three answers. Like in the story none of the answers convey the nuance I wanted. 

If it seems like the post game content is mostly talking to Es about stuff you’re right! So lets talk about Es. 

Es is sort of the game’s Id stand in, but she also goes on a small journey of self discovery with your help. At the end however, I get the feeling that Es isn’t so much internally self-sufficient and with a deeper understanding of herself than she is in a co-dependent relationship with you. 

You can greet her each day for a login bonus and she’ll chat with you, but she will regularly mention how she’s scared that one day you will leave. She also offers to greet you one of 3 ways, the third is ‘I love you’. You can make her extravagant promises of being together forever. 

This makes no sense to me. Es, presumably has read all the books on the main game’s reading list, quite a few of them deal specifically with the transient nature of love. She also seems to be at least partially aware that she’s a computer program as she knows you live in ‘different worlds’ and occasionally questions her free will. 

Again it’s the lack of nuance that hamstrings this game. If Es could be more a more nuanced person she’d be more worth discussing philosophy with, there would be something to bring you back besides the fact that it’s pretty easy for people to get attached to some pixels and she asked me nicely not to leave. 

The thinness produced by the game’s lack of nuance as it tries to foster this relationship between you and Es along with these philosophical conversations is why I can’t bring myself to explore the post game scenarios that cost me money. If I’m going to talk to someone, I’d rather talk to the author of the books I’m reading. And to quote another game, (quoting another author, Walter Savage Landor) ‘What is reading but a silent conversation?’

[henry5311094]

Week 6 - Non-teaching week

Part 1: Andrew’s video really clarified for me the importance of model making. How, even if its basic, the models enable designers to critic and visualize their designs in ways drawings never could. 

“you would struggle to find a single project that doesn’t have a physical, low resolution model as part of the process to inform the design”

This quote really stood out to me, because it highlights for me why model making is so important. And why the skills and techniques necessary to acutely articulate designs physically are so potent for designers to have as part of their skill set. The fluidity of when and where models come into the design process surprised me, but upon consideration made much more sense. With the models not simply being a step along the road to creating a design, but a way for designers to inform themselves of their design and evaluate it. His description of model making and the processes really helped me relax with the state of some of my own models. That despite their scrappy edges, and visible glues streaks, if they convey the design effectively. They’re achieved their outcome. Even if the first model is bad, or rushed, if it enables me to visualize the design, I can then evaluate it. Make changes, and then create a cleaner, more refined model that is presentable.

As well as the importance of 3D modelling, the video introduced the new methods designers are using, such as 3D printing to create their models and mechanical components, enabling them to test drive their designs without wasting materials and time constructing a complete model that might end up failing.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=381&v=f3wlp2G5DtM&feature=emb_logo

Part 2: My personal workspace (Figure 1) is mainly just a desk in my bedroom, surrounding the desk I have some shelves and containers, holding paints, paper and other materials and tools that I might use during projects and tasks. With my laptop hidden away beneath the desk beside some of the aforementioned containers, plugged into a monitor to give me a bigger screen when completing Photoshop tasks and the like. Originally, I had just the standard cutting mat that came with the ides tool kit, but later on I managed to nick a larger cutting mat off my mum, using it to cover the entire desk. Enabling me to both protect the desk and stop covering in marks and stains, and have a considerably larger workspace. Anything that I cant complete at the desk, such as spray painting or gluing posters, etc. I take outside, ensuring that the fumes and smell don’t infest the house.

Part 3: During the non-teaching week, I watched the Eric Strebel video on constructing a foam core cube. The video itself is very fast-paced, and I had to rewind and re-watch several times before I could even establish the certain steps I would have to take to correctly make the object. Following the steps he described I made some hazardous attempts (Figure 3), with my first few tries butchering the 45 degree cuts on the cube sides (Figure 2). Early on, I came to agree with Eric Strebel’s critic of hot glue, with each time I had to stop and remove the strings of glue, or each time the glue oozed out of the edges too much becoming more and more frustrating.

Following these first couple tries, I re-watched the video. Ensuring that I took my time to slowly and neatly cut the 45 degree angles (Figure 4). Ultimately, with other tasks constraining the amount of time I had at my disposal, the final attempt felt a bit rushed, but my patience payed off, with my final cube consisting of much nicer and rounded edges, hiding the foam away more or less as intended (Figure 5).

This first own maker space task has really made it crystal clear to me as to what is to come regarding tasks in the following weeks. With my time management and construction of the cube demonstrating how I need to approach tasks, that if necessary, redoing and redoing the same components does work. This task has helped me understand the limitations of my maker space and how I can improve it. Starting first and foremost, with increasing the amount of work space I have, and time management. 

[real-jaune-isms]

RWBY Volume 7 Chapter 5 Rundown

I really did not expect to get a daily huntress life montage episode, but here it was. Luckily that’s not all it was, and the ending is definitely gonna set events in motion to upset the status quo. But we can’t reach the ending unless we go to where it starts.

And it starts with Penny giving a sunrise wake up call to Team RWBY in their Atlas dorm. They’re in wall indented bunks, wearing matching Atlas Academy pajamas... and with the loose shirts it looks like they grew in more than just height over the last few Volumes, especially Weiss. Guess those dresses bind the chest pretty tightly. Or maybe they made one character model for the Atlas pajamas outfit and then changed up the face, hair, and other important details like Yang’s arm but left the torso basically the same? Regardless, they’re all very tired... except Ruby, who’s excited to start doing official Huntress work. 

Next thing we know everyone’s gathered in a briefing room to get the rundown on the day’s missions, and Jaune is coerced to give his cup of coffee to Marrow. Stupid puppy dog eyes... Clover starts briefing everyone, and his monologue plays over a montage of everyone doing the very thing he’s talking about. How convenient for show with minimal tell. Most of the missions are going to be escorting supply runs out to the Amity launch site and fighting off whatever Grimm might gather around the mine or strike on the road. But since so much construction stuff is going to making Amity a communication satellite, they can’t mend the damage to Mantle’s border wall so they have to do some Attack on Titan style Garrison work and defend the wall from approaching Grimm. We see Nora adorably playing with Ren’s braid, or maybe redoing it for him that morning, before they set to work on perimeter defense. Then the Bees are seen in the mine with Marrow killing Grimm, since it is a volatile part of the launch site and worth defending. He calls their combat styles into question, specifically how they don’t seem suited to work well together and they might want to mix up who teams up with who. But they execute a flawless tag team take down on a Beowolf and that quiets him down for a bit. Let’s get into that a little, because people have been getting a lot of impressions on it. Here’s how I see it. He comes from a team where all the members were chosen specifically to compliment each other. These are girls who met and were partnered by random selection, and had to learn how to make their styles meld together, so from the outside looking in it seems disjointed but when they apply themselves they have synergy. So it’s a matter of perspective, really.

But then we get to my third favorite part of the episode, and the moment we had been teased about since RTX. Jaune is indeed helping a group of preschoolers cross the street on the way to school, with a stop sign that has six sides instead of the eight real world signs do... odd. And this earns him the attention of five flirty, posing, winking, Real. Thirsty. Moms. A sixth even comes up and gives him a casserole she made... apparently something she’s done before. And she’s not taking no for an answer, shoving it into his hands even while acting all flustered and shy. Nora is watching from nearby and attributes his mom-magnet status to the new haircut. Makes you wonder if these ladies would still be into Jaune if they knew he was only about 19?... But even this has a point. It’s still important to help out with day to day troubles and jobs around Mantle to help the public know that the huntsmen and huntresses are there to keep them safe. 

Clover assures them they can use their free time however they choose, and everyone seems to take full advantage of that. The Rose-Xiao Long sisters spend their time hunting down Grimm that get into the city, while the Schnee sisters bond over strengthening Weiss’ summoning abilities... even if Winter doesn’t want to directly show praise or approval of her sister’s growing finesse. But another very practical activity emerges, training with the Ace Ops. Jaune and Ren get their butts kicked in some Atlas equivalent of the X-Men’s Danger Room by Vine and Elm respectively, but seem to learn a thing or two from the experience. Ruby tests her speed against Harriet as the two run in circles, with a little help from Weiss’ glyphs as she also gets to practice keeping up with Ruby’s movements to place the glyphs where and when she needs them. But Oscar gets the executive treatment, sparring with Ironwood himself to try and pry some of Oz’s muscle memory and fighting skills loose and hopefully bring Ozpin out too.

Next thing we know it seems to be the next morning and Ruby is excitedly telling Penny about her and Weiss’ mission the previous day complete with sound effects and wild hand gestures, while Blake drags a sluggish Yang away by the wrist to get ready for work. Jaune has learned his lesson and brought Marrow a coffee of his own, but Nora is still asleep in her chair. Can’t trust her with caffeine... Team RWBY are at varying levels of enthusiasm as they stare at the mission board, and as the days seem to fly by that energy starts to drain from all of them until its a team family napping pile. If you’re a shipper like me you can enjoy Blake sleeping with her head in Yang’s lap and Weiss leaning against Ruby’s shoulder to snooze, and if you’re not you can still enjoy the whole group comfort dynamic and Yang catching some z’s on her sister’s other shoulder. It’s a moment for all types.

But then IT happens. The best thing we could have ever hoped for all Volume. Team FNKI is Back, BABY!!!! Flynt got some fresh clothes including a jacket, while Neon wrapped her pigtails up into buns that look like cat ears and changed her whole wardrobe. She kept her cat collar-like choker and roller blades but added a white jacket connected to paw padded fingerless gloves, a crop top connected to a pair of short shorts with stars on them and a white belt by what look like suspenders, and blue leggings with a rainbow stripe down the outside and a few holes worn into it. It’s a whole ass look and she makes it work. But for all her clothing changes, her in-fight attitude is still just as bratty and insulting, calling Nora slow even as she smashes pillars to run directly at her. Ren is hiding behind a pillar and trying to shoot at... gasp, a third member of Team FNKI!!! His weapon is a whip and his outfit is mostly white and gold with a very deep cut to his shirt. Curious to see if we learn anything more about this person. But we don’t have time for that, because we bear witness to a MURDER. Neon took notice of Ren putting in so much effort against her teammate as she did a flip over him and froze Stormflower with her glowsticks, and goes for Nora’s jugular. “Where’s all that energy when he’s around you?~” ABSOLUTELY. ROASTED.

Nora takes the white and gold guy with a grenade before hopping on Magnhild and somehow riding it like a witch’s broomstick using repeated grenade shots as she chases after Neon... past Oscar fighting a guy wearing blue and black? No... it can’t be. 

They based the other two members of Team FNKI on that goddamn dress meme from 2015???? You brilliant bastards... what else could we expect from the people who made a raver chick out of Nyan Cat and a jazz musician from one of their own Minecraft jokes? So JNR and Oscar are doing their best against Team FNKI, much to Ironwood’s subtle amusement. Flynt and the blue guy, whose name we later learn is Kobalt, are beaten and Neon is cornered in the center of the training room by Jaune Ren and Oscar, then ambushed from above by Nora. Even with a black eye that disappears within 4 seconds, Neon is very impressed with how much they’ve grown since the Vytal Festival. And she seems kinda flirty with Oscar, much to his flustered confusion. Jaune returns the compliment to a certain degree saying they kept them on their toes a good many times. Flynt invites them to lunch, and Nora says she could eat a sandwich the size of a human being. Kobalt, the human she was comparing its size to, is not amused that he gets hypothetical lettuce on his head. Weird how much her fantasies can affect reality like that... But before they can all head off to bond, Ironwood needs JNR+ Oscar for a mission so they promise to try and meet up again.

We shift to Ruby, Penny, Qrow and Clover in a transport bringing supplies out to the launch site and driving past a few adorable penguins, though Ruby is bored by the long drive when an airship would be faster. But Penny informs her the supplies would be too heavy and use up too much Dust fuel when they should be conserving it for coming fights. The girls have a conversation about making friends and finding time to balance between work and social lives while the men are in the back playing cards and shooting the shit. Clover keeps winning. But they still have a heart to heart about how good of an influence Qrow has been for these truly gifted kids even if he doesn’t want to give himself that credit. He tries to shift the praise back to the Ace Ops for keeping the teens safe in Atlas, but Clover says its a no brainer, since the new generation is the ones who will inherit the planet they’re still trying to save, and that hopefully they can keep the world in better shape than the current adults are leaving it for them. Some real world parallels about environmental protection and all that if you ask me, and it’s subtle enough that I don’t mind at all. Qrow confirms that he really is off the booze by saying that once upon a time he would have drank a toast to that sentiment, and Clover calls him out on his behavior. But not the alcoholism, the deflecting praise. He deserves to feel good about what he’s done, because he really has been doing a better job than he thinks.

The truck comes to a stop, and the cause is unlike anything they would have expected. Robyn Hill and her Happy Huntresses have set up a roadblock. Penny stays in the truck as a last resort, while the other three get out to try and talk to Robyn. She wants to know why they’re bringing stuff that could be fixing the wall and protecting Mantle to a mine in the middle of the tundra. Turns out the sheep faunus from last episode really was one of her agents and reported what she saw. You might think there would be no harm in telling Robyn that they’re trying to make Amity into a new communication tower so global communication can be restored. It’s a noble thing to do and I doubt she would object to such an ambition, even though she would have liked to know sooner. But the more people you tell about it the more chance there is the wrong people will hear it. So if Watts got word about it and told Salem she might actively choose to send a lot more Grimm to ruin the launch instead of there being a few that naturally wander onto the site. Or if Jacques found out he might make a smear campaign out of it by spinning the truth. Also, it may not be for Clover to tell. 

He goes by the book in all things, so he would have to run it by Ironwood to know if this is info they can afford to share with Robyn. So he tries to play it off as getting lost out in the snow where everything looks the same, but she calls him out on it. He says Amity is at the mine for routine maintenance, but she’s not buying that either since usually only drones and select technicians do the repairs, the next tournament isn’t for a while, and the supplies they’re taking are more than what would be necessary not to mention better suited for Mantle wall repair. She demands answers for the shady military business she’s taken careful notice of, and for the materials to be handed over for the good of the people. But Clover gives that a hard pass and encourages her to focus on her political campaign so she can request materials be taken where they’re needed through the proper legal channels, especially when she shifts her questions over to Ruby and Qrow and the young huntress tries to assure her this is also for the good of Mantle. She seems very ready to fight for the sake of raiding the truck here and now, and everyone’s hands go to their weapons... until Penny pops out of the truck with her swords drawn and demands Robyn stand down and call off the camouflaged huntresses approaching the back of the truck. Guess her sensors are better than the human eye. Her pleading for Robyn to let them through peacefully works and the barrier gets taken down. But Robyn swears vengeance, she’ll get to the bottom of this secret no matter the cost. Potential antagonist? I hope not.

But enough of that tension, time for Schnee vs Schnee sparring: Weiss’ Knight vs a large Beowolf Winter spawned, but Winter has years more practice and skill so she wins a pyrrhic victory. The Knight gets slashed to death but it impaled the Beowolf with its sword. She criticizes Weiss’ technique, but it turns into a backhanded compliment that she’s made her sloppy moves a part of how she fights and makes them work for her. Weiss recognizes that’s her sister’s way of showing approval, and calls her out on being nice like that. The elder sister is mortified that her stern attitude has been called into question, but she calms down and acknowledges that Weiss has grown a lot during their time apart, she’s confident enough to make jabs like that and stand up to Dad. Winter is proud her sister has found her own independence and has made her own kinder worldview, since her own leaving the Schnee name behind was the best thing that ever happened to her. They can carve their own path together, though she still thinks Ironwood’s side is the best place to be with that path. Weiss is skeptical since she knows a bit more than the General about Salem and all that, and she doesn’t like the way the kingdom has become under his leadership, what he has let it become. Winter assures her this downward spiral is temporary and the satellite will fix everything, Ironwood is doing some tough things but it’s what he feels is right. Weiss had to deal with Ozpin keeping world shattering secrets and leading them on a deadman’s quest because he thought that would keep his self interests and plans on track, so even if she doesn’t admit that much she’s openly more skeptical. Winter stands firm that Ironwood wouldn’t keep secrets from her, but Weiss calls her on that. Can she be sure?

This is enough to spurn Winter into making a decision, to lead Weiss to the depths of Atlas Academy, through the facilities and labs and past a secure access door... to a viewing room. Overlooking a room where an old woman is resting in a hospital bed. There’s a sink and some cupboards, some paintings on the wall and an easel next to the bed, and a few medical pods on the left side of the room while the bed is on the right surrounded by health readout screens. The bedridden Winter Maiden was a painter. Oddly enough, the pictures on the wall seem to be concept art from the credits of the last few Volumes: the aquatic market in Menagerie, the Mistral train station, and the cave overlooking the forest where Nora and Ren found the Nuckelavee’s spoils of war are the ones I can recognize at the moment, but I’m sure the other 2 have relevance. But enough with the small details, let’s address the Goliath in the room. Winter has been personally attending to the Winter Maiden, named Fria, in her final days, how appropriate. In fact, that’s the plan. Winter will literally be the next Winter Maiden, so she’s the only person Fria is allowed to interact with so she can be the last person she thinks about when she dies. Which could be any day now. But I can smell a monkey wrench a mile away and there are a few that could be thrown into this plan. Fria is a very Norse sounding name so it’s possible she’s related to Nora and she could think of her in her last moments, the granddaughter she laments she may never see again after they parted so many years ago. Or if some grand attack comes to Atlas and Winter is otherwise engaged, Weiss will be the only one who knows to come bring Fria to safety and the worst might strike leaving one of our main 4 as a Maiden. All I’m saying is, there could be a lot that goes wrong. But for the moment, Winter is ready to take on this responsibility even if it seems like a dick move of Jimmy to have her volun-told to be next in line. But she calls back to Weiss’ growth and accepting what she can’t control. Her entire military career may have been a paved road to this outcome, but she’ll still make her own choices along the way and be the Maiden her way to make a real difference in the world with these powers. It’s not for Ironwood or their Father’s sake, but for herself.

Unfortunately, speaking of Father and doing things your own way, Jacques holds a press conference to proclaim how Ironwood’s embargo have caused everyone to suffer equally, himself included. That’s a load of garbage, he’s just moody that he’s 5% less rich and dropping. But he also announces that he will be closing down every SDC owned business that isn’t Dust mining and refining. It’s a “necessary measure” with how the embargo is effecting businesses and making it supposedly nonviable for those businesses to stay open and still be effective. Another lie, he just doesn’t want to have more money leaving his pocket as employee wages. This is clearly part of the strategy Watts suggested to him, keep as many doors closed as possible so he can horde the wealth he still has while spinning it to be Ironwood’s fault. He comes off as another victim doing what is necessary so people don’t hate him directly for it and he can win voter support. And it’s not like Robyn Hill can do anything to make the SDC give people their jobs back, so why vote for her? It’s a seemingly perfect plan, as infuriating as that is to admit. And it sure sets off the people of Mantle, as they start a riot in the streets. Guess our good boys and girls will have to deal with that some time soon.

A whole lot to think about while we wait for next weekend’s episode. But it was still a very good chapter in my opinion. What did you think?

[atlfics]

Eighteen- All Time Low Fanfiction

A/N: This is set in their senior of high school.

“I don’t know how we haven’t talked about this yet, but your birthday is two weeks from today, dude! The big eighteen!” Alex exclaimed to Jack, his bet friend, as he started to drive them out of the school parking lot.

“Oh yeah, it is,” Jack replied in a very unenthused voice. He turned his head and started to stare out the window.

“You don’t sound very excited, man, are you not looking forward to it?” Alex asked, genuinely confused.

“No, I am, really. Let’s talk about this later, like at your house or something,” Jack requested, still looking out the window.

“Oh, um, okay, we can do that. Let’s listen to some Blink for the rest of the drive,” Alex suggested. He hit the skip button on his stereo until he finally found Jack’s favorite song on the CD that was playing. The rest of the drive was filled with silence aside from the music, Alex focused on driving, and Jack still staring out the window. Once they finally got to Alex’s house, Alex led Jack inside, and up to his room.

“Man, I’m so glad it’s Friday, I had two tests this week, and in my least favorite classes! I’m glad we planned for you to sleep over,” Alex said as he put down his backpack. After not hearing a response from Jack, Alex turned around and saw Jack sitting on his bed with a blank expression on his face. This concerned Alex, he really had no idea what could be bothering Jack so much. Alex walked over to his bed and sat down next to his best friend.

“Jack, you’re not acting like yourself, what’s up?” Alex asked, sounding as concerned as he felt.

“What? No, I’m fine,” Jack tried, a very unconvincing smile forming on his face.

“Dude, we’ve been friends for, like, five years now, I know you well enough to know that’s bullshit. Seriously man, what’s up? You’ve not been yourself ever since I brought up your birthday in the car, did that trigger something in you?” Alex continued. Jack took a deep breath before talking.

“Yes, it did, Alex,” Jack admitted.

“Really? You normally love your birthday, you always insist on having big, extravagant celebrations. Well, as big and extravagant as we can afford with our shitty, minimum wage jobs,” Alex joked.

“I know, and I still want to do that, but I’m a little nervous,” Jack admitted.

“For what? You’re officially going to be an adult!” Alex exclaimed.

“I know, I’ll be an adult in two weeks, we graduate high school in two months. Man, where the fuck did the time go?” Jack asked.

“I’m surprised to hear this from you, you’ve been ready to be out of high school since the first day of our freshman year. What’s going on in your mind, Jack?” Alex asked, hoping that Jack would just say what was bothering him so much.

“I don’t feel like I’ve lived my life to the fullest since we’ve been in high school,” Jack confessed.

“Really? We did a lot of the same things, and I certainly don’t feel that way,” Alex said back.

“Alex, our experiences weren’t as similar as you think they were. Sure, they were alike when we were together, but not so much outside of that,” Jack explained.

“That’s where I’m drawing a blank. We’re best friends, we basically do everything together,” Alex stated.

“Kind of. You’ve always had more friends than me, so you’ve always done more because of that,” Jack said back.

“What? You have plenty of friends! Everyone I’m friends with likes you!” Alex stated.

“No, they all put up with me. All of your friends are nice guys, but there’s absolutely no way they’d want to hang out with me if you weren’t there. Alex, I never really had a lot of friends, especially my own friends, like outside of you and your group. I feel like I missed out on a lot because of that,” Jack stated, looking down in embarrassment.

“I don’t think that at all! You and I have hung out so much, and have done so many fun things together, and I wouldn’t have wanted it to be any different. Is this the only thing bothering you?” Alex asked.

“Well, no. I also haven’t ever had a real girlfriend. I know you’re single now, but you dated that one girl for two whole years, and I’ve never had anything like that,” Jack explained.

“Dude, that girl ended up being batshit crazy in the last months of our relationship, I know you remember that. Whenever she’d do or say something hurtful, I always went to you. Then, you ended up helping me through our breakup. Being in a high school relationship really doesn’t live up to all of the hype that surrounds it. If I could go back and just be single all throughout high school like you were, I would. Everything would’ve been so much easier,” Alex explained.

“I understand all of that, but you still had the experience of having a girlfriend, meanwhile, I’ve never even come close to having anything like that. Even if I had a shitshow relationship, it still would’ve been an experience that I could laugh about now, like you do about your ex. Also, when we went to prom last month, you were like the center of attention on the dancefloor, and I sat at a table alone by the punch bowl,” Jack pointed out.

“Well, I certainly didn’t expect that to happen, my date apparently really liked to dance. I expected to just take pictures with her, then to spend the evening with you, doing our own thing,” Alex stated.

“I know, but that’s not what happened. Everyone seemed to have so much fun that night, and I was all alone in the corner. I’ve never told you this, but I cried when I was by myself. Being alone reminded me of how alone I’ve felt all throughout high school, aside from being with you, and really solidified that in my mind,” Jack said, his voice getting smaller.

“Jack, I had no idea, I wish I’d known that. I never knew that you felt like this, or that you cried on prom night. How come you’ve never told me about any of this?” Alex asked, growing more concerned for his friend.

“I don’t know, I guess these feelings come in waves, like only if I think about it, or if something reminds me of it. I just feel like I wasted my teenage years doing nothing. I didn’t live them to the fullest; I didn’t party very much, I didn’t even try to form other close friendships aside from you, I never fell in love. I went to prom, but I didn’t go to the after party with you and your other friends, I spent the evening alone at home. I just feel like I missed out on the key parts of being a teenager in high school. Turning eighteen scares the shit out of me, like, I’m still technically going to be a teenager, but it’s different. Just knowing that I can’t go back and have fun makes me sad, and I just regret how I spent high school. I feel like I fucked up and lived my teen years incorrectly,” Jack explained. Some tears started to form in his eyes out of frustration, and Jack did his best to quickly blink them away, feeling even more embarrassed now.

“Jack, there’s not a ‘right’ way to be a teenager, more specifically, a high schooler. I know all of the movies and TV shows seem to have it down to a formula, but that’s not real. It can be hard to see all of that and tell yourself that it’s just a show or movie, but that’s what it is. Those things expect you to feel inferior to them, they set a standard that might not be realistic for everyone, which is kind of fucked up. I’ve not done everything that’s in those movies. I think I went to one football and one basketball game over the entire time we’ve gone to school here. That’s a big deal in all of those movies and shows, but I don’t feel like I missed out by not going to them. Being at those things never felt fun to me, and I realized that they’re just not for me. I felt like I should do things like that for the same reason you’re feeling so down, and it made me upset with myself, like I was throwing away a fun opportunity. Last year, I realized that not going is what I preferred, and that’s perfectly okay. Jack, you don’t have to have a picture-perfect high school career for it to be considered right or correct,” Alex explained, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“I appreciate you saying all of that, I really do, I just wish that I tried to build more real connections with people. I know you remember I had some toxic friends our first year, and that sort of stopped me from wanting to find other friends. Like, it made trusting that other people wouldn’t do all of the same things really hard, so I never really tried to find new friends in the fear that I’d get hurt again,” Jack explained.

“I understand your frustrations about that, but it’s okay to not have a lot of close friends. I can definitely understand the loneliness that comes with it, but it’s really okay. The people here weren’t who clicked with you, that’s perfectly okay, man. We go to college in, like, five months. We’re going to the same school, and we’re going to be roommates, and we’re going to meet all new people, and we’ll make new, real, genuine friendships. It’s okay that you didn’t have a lot of close friends, we’re going to go to this new place, and you can do everything you mentioned earlier, but there!” Alex exclaimed.

“Well, I can’t really redo prom,” Jack mumbled.

“Oh, but you can. College has formal, which is basically college prom! I know turning eighteen makes all of this feel more real and scary, but it’s all totally okay. I’ve got your back, I’ll do everything I can to help college be more fun for you than high school was,” Alex promised.

“While that sounds great, I don’t want you to feel like you have to babysit me or watch out for me constantly. I don’t want to be a burden to you in college, like I already feel I was in high school,” Jack said, a guilty look on his face.

“Jack, you’ve never been a burden. You’re my best friend, you know I’ll do whatever I can to help you feel happy, and that’s not going to change when we get to college. I’m always going to be here for you, helping and supporting you in every way I can. You’ve always been a great friend to me, and I want to be the same for you,” Alex said, making Jack smile.

“Thank you, Alex, that all means a lot to me. I still feel like I could’ve lived a little more in high school, and I wish I hadn’t isolated myself as much, but thank you for this. I’ve always compared my experiences to movies and shows, and it’s made me feel less than. I’m glad we’ve been friends for all of these years, and that we’ll be in college together,” Jack said, making Alex smile now, too.

“You’re so welcome. Fuck those movies and shows, dude, you did things your way, and that’s what matters. I’ll do my best to help you feel less isolated when we get to college. We’re going to make the next four years our definition of perfect. Fuck what the movies about college say is right, we’re going to do it our way,” Alex stated.

“You’re the best,” Jack said as they quickly hugged each other. While Jack was still a bit nervous to officially become an adult, he was glad to have Alex by his side, and that he was willing do what he could to help Jack through anything and everything.

A/N: Hey guys, I impulsively decided to write this last night! I've felt similarly to Jack in this, but I actually wrote it for a friend who's feeling this way right now. Obviously, I altered reality some to make it work, but I like how it turned out, and hope you guys do, too. To the person I wrote this for, I hope you liked it, and that it was helpful! Thank you all for reading, please send in requests if you have them! Lots of love, Liv.