#this has been plaguing me. and ruining my fall out boy listening experience.

[doubleblackss]

a double black reading of so much (for) stardust

[maintitle]

It's very weird to be even semi-in the Final Fantasy community for me. It was THE series of my childhood and I go back to the games a lot, but there's a disconnect with me where the series clearly stopped being important to me. As a gamer I've always said that gameplay really doesn't matter to me, I'm not smart enough to pretend like I can comment on what makes it good and bad unless it's there to somehow serve the overall themes or plot of the game, so generally I can enjoy something absolutely awful and still like it or play something fantastic and dislike it.

Why, then, is turn based combat such a big thing I almost grieve having been left in the dust? Why does that matter to me?

I liked XV. The boys had such great chemistry that I really enjoyed it despite feeling half-finished. It had a love for the series I appreciated, but that didn't make it better. I didn't like XIII, but you can look at my whole blog and see pretty quickly that fantasy that somehow ends up feeling claustrophobic tends to offput me and that's that games problem. I... just never got into XII, and I can't truly explain why. And the advent of XVI coming out and getting praise while I played the demo and put it down very quickly is very odd to me. Granted, the reason I put it down so quick was because it was yet another series I love grabbing the grimdark deconstruction angle that has plagued and ruined so much that I love in so many other places, but the point still stands.

I listen to folks say that the series isn't going back and that it's time to get over it, and I get that, I do. I also see douchebags being weird about it and they could shut all the way the hell up. But there's still a part of my brain that just can't accept the change. Like, I enjoy that system in other games now, it's not like it's dead, but it missing in Final Fantasy games still makes the experiences feel so... empty.

I think that's what it is, too. It feels like the series as a whole has had an identity crisis since they made the decision to move away from it. The great thing about Final Fantasy is that you can tell any story in any setting with it, it's true, but somehow it feels like the franchise has spent fifteen years trying to figure out who it is and just never got there... and I kind of hate that the answer might 'just be all the other exclusives on the PS5.'

It's just... a feeling. A hard to articulate feeling of something being missing. Maybe it's falling out of love with your first real partner. Maybe that's genuinely what it is. And that sucks.

[inkandpen22]

Somewhere (3/?)

Pairing: Sirius Black x Female!Reader  

Warnings: None

Part Summary: After the dramatics at the disco, Y/N is left gloomy. Then, she receives a miraculous visit with a gift.

Masterlist

Reader 

Not soon after Sirius and his friends got kicked out, we left. I pleaded to stay, considering it’s still my birthday. Brady, Jay, and the rest of the boys were in a bad mood, they still are. We all came back to the house and they gathered around the kitchen table discussing the evening. I excused myself upstairs, tired, and gloomy from the whole experience. I’ve never dealt with the conflict between us and the wizards like my brother. He and Jay deal with it daily in politics, especially lately with the tensions growing. 

As I remove my makeup, I see Brady appear in the doorway of the bathroom out of my peripheral vision. He knocks on the frame, “can I come in?” 

“I suppose,” I mumble while I remove my makeup from the evening. He moves to sit on the edge of my counter. “Is everyone alright?” I ask, genuinely worried. He hums, nodding his head slowly. 

“You know, I didn’t want to ruin your evening and I’m sorry if that’s what I did,” Brady apologizes. “And I’m saying this now so that you understand. I just… I just couldn’t stand seeing that wizard-freak near you! They’re not good people, Y/N. They can’t even keep their own sort in line, despite having all the magic in the world! Now, they wish to live amongst us and spread their problems to us!” 

Despite Brady’s educated opinion, I can’t imagine Sirius doing any of that. He didn’t appear threatening or anything else Brady can describe his kind as being. He looked like any other boy, who just happens to be a wizard. He just so happens to be more remarkable than anyone I’ve ever met. 

Brady hops down from the counter and plants a kiss on my temple. “Good night, you should get some rest.” 

“How long will everyone be here?” I question, knowing how loud they can get. 

“Lauren is staying over,” he informs me casually. Lauren is over here half the time anyway. “Everyone else should be heading out soon.” 

That really means they’ll still be here when I go down for breakfast. They’ll all be crashing in the living room. I suppose that’s a benefit of not having parents and being the legal guardian, no rules.

“Good night,” Brady nods, turning to leave my room. 

“Night,” I mumble absentmindedly. 

I hear my door click behind Brady and I relax, no longer being under his watchful eye. Looking into my eyes in the mirror, I find myself wondering where Sirius is at this moment. What is doing right now? Will I ever see him again? I can’t begin to imagine how riveting it must be to be a wizard. I mean, the limits are nonexistent!  All the world is at his feet, all he has to do is reach out and touch it. Maybe I am a little crazy to be so interested in it. I just don’t understand how a world that is so remarkable could possibly be as dangerous as the others claim. I should be content with what I have and what I am, but I’m certain I’m destined for more. The human way of things is so boring and lacks luster. Wizards and witches, they can do anything, be anything! What I would give for one day, just one day experiencing their world. I would ask them a million questions and learn as much as I could. They look like us, speak like us, other than magic, what makes us different? 

Deep inside my own thoughts, I prepare for bed, changing into shorts and an old concert t-shirt. I hope I dream of Sirius and the wizarding world tonight, it’s all I’ve been thinking about for hours. I hear my floor creak as I shut my closet door and I’m guessing it’s Brady checking on me again. It could also be Lauren peeking in to say ‘good night.’ Suddenly, I feel a warm hand glide over my shoulder and down my arm. Hot breath brushes against my neck. I jump, spinning around swiftly in a panic. My sight lands on jet black eyes, Sirius. 

I gleam, “Siri-” 

He covers my mouth, holding a finger over his lips as he listens for any movement downstairs. When there’s no sign of anyone hearing me, he releases me with a sigh of relief. 

“What are you doing here?” I whisper, practically bursting. “How did you find me?” 

“I used a tracking spell,” he explains simply, leaving me in awe. 

“How did you get in?” I ask next. 

“Apparated,” he shrugs, as though I know exactly what that is. 

Taking my hand, he guides me over to sit on the bed. “So, you’re happy to see me?” 

Look at him as if he has three heads. Why wouldn’t I be excited? He’s here, that’s all I wanted! “Of course!” I gush, giving his hands a comforting squeeze. 

“I wasn’t sure after what happened if… if you hated me now,” he stammers, a gloomy expression plaguing his features. He glancing away from my eyes at the floor, clearly, a thought troubling him. 

Slowly, I reach up and caress his cheek. Subtly, he leans into my touch as his eyes fall shut. He’s so beautiful, the sight of him nearly makes my eyes well with tears. In my chest, a strong urge to protect and comfort him swallows me up. Leaning forward, I rest my forehead against his shoulder. Sirius’s hand rests against my knee, his thumb rubbing across my skin softly. 

“I saw you and everything else became irrelevant somehow,” I describe quietly, remembering the moment as if I were experiencing it now. 

His touch makes me feel so safe and warm. I can’t help but yearn for us to be closer if that’s even possible. I’ve never felt this way for anyone. I can’t imagine a life without him now. 

“I knew the moment my eyes landed on you that we were meant to meet tonight,” Sirius mutters. His hand tucks under my chin, leading me to look him in the eye. His gazes pour into me, reaching every depth of my soul. “You are my world now, Y/N,” he confesses, making my heart stop. 

A breathless laugh escapes me, I can’t believe it. Everything is too good to be true. “And you’re mine. From now on, I’m yours, always.” 

“Forever,” he nods, taking my hands in his longing. “Y/N, I wish to never be parted from you.” 

“But, my brother, your friends-” 

“None of them matter,” he claims, pretending to wave them away. “All that matters is you and me.” 

“If only there were a way we could get out of here, run away, even for a little while!” I wish, wanting nothing more than there to be just us. There would be no outside forces trying to keep us apart. 

“Let’s do it!” Sirius declares as enthused than me, if not more. He leaps up from the bed beside me. Taking my hands, he brings me along with him. “We can go anywhere! We can see the world!” 

I giggle, he sounds like a child. These sorts of things don’t just happen, especially for an ordinary human like me. 

“There’s a whole world out there, Y/N! It’s just waiting for us!” He illustrates the most incredible visions for me with a bright smile. 

“It’s a lovely dream,” I express, not fully convinced we could do it. There are so many factors we have to consider. “But it’s impossible…” 

He narrows his eyes with a mischievous smirk, “you forget a very important point.” 

I snicker, “And what is that?” 

“You’re talking to a wizard,” he reminds ever so confidently. His hand gestures up to my bedroom ceiling with a subtle wave of the wrist. “Look,” he instructs, flicking his attention to my ceiling. 

When I peer up toward my ceiling, I’m met with a clear starry sky. My jaw drops, how is this possible? It’s as though there’s no ceiling at all! 

Sirius leans over my shoulder, “it’s an enchantment. It’ll appear every night, so when you go to sleep you’ll be sleeping under the stars.” Amazed, I can’t pry my eyes away from it. 

“Let me give you anything you desire, everything and anything,” Sirius whispers in my ear, wrapping his arms around me as I feel his chest against my back. I rest my head back against his chest, admiring the stars. “I can take you far from here, far beyond anywhere you could ever imagine, to the heavens! Everything you would ever wish for I could give to you. Every day will be filled with extraordinary things and each day will better than the last!” 

I turn in his arms, resting my arms around his neck. “I want to see the universe with you, Sirius! Spend every minute from now on in your arms.” 

The edge of his lips rises to a smirk as his hand cups my face. His eyes flicker between my eyes and my lips. He leans down and I reach up to kiss him. Then, there’s a sudden knock at my door before we have the chance.  Sirius and I jump apart, staring at the door anxiously

“Y/N?” I hear Lauren in the hallway. “Are you awake?” 

I look to Sirius worriedly, “you have to go!” 

He takes my hands in his, “but when will I see you again?!” 

I press my lips together. I hardly have any alone time. Brady will be suspicious if I disappear for a while. “Brady and the others are spending the day at the park tomorrow. Come by here around one o’clock!” 

“Okay,” he grins, caressing my cheek softly as he towers over me. “I’ll be counting down the hours. 

“And appear or whatever you call it like you did tonight!” I instruct urgently. “In case they don’t leave on time!” 

He snickers at me, “yes, alright. I will apparate.” There’s a pause for a moment and his face falls. “I don’t want to leave you…” 

“I don’t want you to leave,” I confess sorrowfully. 

“Y/N?” Lauren knocks again. 

“But you have to!” I urge Sirius along swiftly. 

“Yes right,” he peers at the door, his eyes wide with anxiety.

Meeting my gaze, he starts backing away from me. Sirius holds onto my hands for as long as possible until I’m too far out of reach. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he assures me. Then, in a blink, he whips away into thin air. Flashes of colors weaving through air, I’ve never seen anything like it. 

The door to my bedroom creaks open slowly and I whip my head in its direction. Lauren appears in the doorway, the lights from the hall pour into my otherwise dark room. My attention briefly flickers up to my ceiling, the stars lingering above us. Oh dear, I pray to God she doesn’t notice. Lauren leans against the doorframe, wrapping herself with her sweater, having changed into her pajamas. 

“I just wanted to say goodnight and a happy birthday one last time,” she explains with a soft smile. 

“Oh uh… thank you!” I stammer nervously. 

“I know your brother can be… well, a hard-ass sometimes,” she laughs at Brady’s expense. “But he means well. He absolutely adores you, I hope you know that.” 

I nod, hoping I don’t appear frantic. “I do! Yes, I know!” 

She hums, nodding her head slowly. Visibly, she doesn’t appear suspicious and I start to think I’ll get away with this without a problem. “Are you joining us tomorrow at the park?” 

I shake my head, “No uh, no I don’t so.” I struggle to come up with an excuse, then one pops into my head. “I have to return the dress from tonight. Yeah, Brady won’t let me keep it so…” 

She sighs in understanding, pushing off the doorframe, “oh well, alright. I’ll see you at breakfast. Goodnight, sleep well,” she waves before reaching for the door handle. 

“Goodnight!” I rush outright as the door clicks. 

Once I’m in the safe zone, I fall back onto my bed with a sigh of relief. My heart pounds in my chest as though I just ran a mile. I doubt I’ll get much sleep tonight. Then again, if I dream I may dream of Sirius and the hours will go by faster. I stare up at the starry sky Sirius conjured for me. My heart gleams at the sight. Then, I notice it, the Sirius star placed ever so perfectly right above my bed. I giggle lightly, he certainly did that on purpose. It’s utterly perfect, just like Sirius himself. The two best birthday presents in my life.

____________________________

Masterlist

[pitter-pattering-ink]

They call us “Angels”

1.

She has no name but is known by all in her village. She is the woman who weaves baskets faster than anyone else. She is the the one who knows exactly when to pick berries to get the perfect ripeness. She is the mother of a boy who refuses to paint with the other children because the texture of paint against his hands doesn’t feel right. She is the creator of the first paintbrush.

She is my first human, my first assignment as a protector. I guard her from all I can and hope I do well. When she grows ill I hold her hand while she begins to nod off. Her son is in the other room- she did not want him to see her like this. I will look after him too.

In her sleep, she smiles, lacing her fingers through my own. To have a body is still foreign to me, but I manage to squeeze back. She should not be able to feel this. I don’t let go.

-

Our task is simple. Protect the humans. Let them grow. Do whatever we can as to not stall their progress.

And goodness, do they make progress.

2.

He is the first to learn how the scraping of flint and steal can cause sparks to fly. I watch as he grows- he’s a curious one, this one. Many times I lead animals away from where he sits, always too distracted to notice. He has many names, for the grunts and murmurs  of vocal chords are still adjusting, and sound is something they are still trying to find the boundaries of. “Ma” seems to be his favorite. When he figures out how to turn sparks to fire I put myself between him and the flames to keep him from being burnt. They don’t leave marks in the same way they would him.

Everything is fast after that. Suddenly things can be cooked. Meat is much more edible than before. Suddenly water is safe to drink without the risk of disease. Suddenly warmth can be found in places other than the curves of another person. He hands it to everyone he knows and they take it with clumsy footing, no doubt leaving singed earth along their path. We will worry about it later; they learn quicker than anything we have seen in a long, long time.

-

They won’t stop growing. There are so many- we are in the millions but it is only a matter of time before they surpass even that. There are many other species that grow at similar paces. But none of them take so much time to mature. None of them have so much to learn- none of them have all that and more.

We were not built to worry. We do, however, wonder.

3.

They tell stories. Nothing has ever done this before.

Then again, I imagine nothing has ever been this lonely either.

I am assigned a boy named Jack. He is born on a ship, the moistness of wood replacing the soft of grass while the world moves beneath him. When night falls and the waves grow rocky everyone gathers in the middle of the deck, taking turns weaving tales under the stars. They discover religion. They discover us.

We have a name, now. Angels. We have never had a name before- nature never referred to us with anything close to that. It feels foreign against my tongue, yet it’s surprisingly fitting. We grow into our new labels.

Jack slips and nearly falls off deck, but I am there to keep him steady. His mother thanks me for my efforts. Calls it a blessing from the gods. I am no god, but I appreciate the sentiment. She tells him, “Be more careful next time. These waves will only grow more rough.”. She tells him, “The sea is no kind beast. She will balance us above the dangers below but she is not to be held responsible for anything- or anyone- who sinks further.”. She tells him, a bit teary up, “I may be the captain of this ship, but not even I could save you from waters like this.”

He learns how to stay standing when the wood beneath his feet refuses to still. We listen to stories together.

The children’s favorites are the ones told by his mother. She leans against a cane and speaks of adventures she has had, run ins with other pirates, loves she has cherished and betrayals she is still bitter from. Most of them, I’m sure, aren’t half true. Jack does not seem to mind.

Eventually she grows too old to run the ship. He takes her place, leaning against her- his- cane and telling tall tails of danger, run ins he has had with other men his age. Men who he had a fondness for and those expected better of. Most of them, I know, aren’t true in the slightest. The children do not seem to mind and the crew are not the type to ruin a good story.

He dies in his thirties after a particularly rough storm. As careful as he was, nature does not hold back or those who are weary. I keep the pressure off his lungs for as long as I can. I try to make every gulp of water taste sweet and calming. It takes everything in me to make his death peaceful.

But some people are simply not ready. He trashes till he can’t. Panic only clears when his vision darkens.

His body is never found. The crew mourn him like they mourned his mother. They keep the cane in their honor.

-

They won’t stop dying. They pass from the tiniest things, always so quick, always before we can do anything to help. Sometimes we can’t, even given the time. Sickness is everywhere now. People are dying in the streets. We can’t do anything to heal them. The best we can do is prolong the inevitable- that, however, is much too painful a death to seem like a blessing.

They call it the plague. They call it a punishment from god. Our names go from ‘angels’ to ‘demons’ very, very quickly.

We are only able to bless things that already exist. You cannot eat a cake when you have no ingredients. The doctors don’t know how to fix this- they are not yet advanced enough to deal with something this big. We can only sit and watch, horrified, as those we have been sworn to protect die by our feet. I am assigned more people than I can count. Their names become a blur. By the time it’s all over, humanity has changed. They have lost so many. We have lost so many.

For a while, each miracle leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

4.

The most stressful assignments, although also very amusing, are the ones who need to be protected from themselves.

His name has been passed down from generation to generation, yet he much prefers to go by Eric. I help him breathe through his corsets and let time pass faster when he’s forced into a face full of make-up. On the few occasions he steals pants from his brother’s room I make sure his footsteps are quiet, because such things are life or death in times like these.

His family is rich and he is tired. They throw parties of plenty, and I hold his tongue when he’s pressured into dancing with the other men there. He steps on their toes and I laugh. Eric is all too ready to rebel in ways that girls his age get disowned for. I let the small things through, smiling at his internal dialog, filled with sass and curses and things that would make his father turn purple. Nothing too big. Never what he really yearns for.

A boy lets go of his hand and gives a terse smile, excusing himself to the food table. We watch him limp away. Eric grins.

He dies young. With a tongue that sharp, it was to be expected. He is caught kissing a woman with undamaged shoes while they both are wearing pants. It was the only time I let him. Witches, they call them. I do my best to save them both, but it’s useless. Heels are not meant for running.

They are buried in unmarked graves. It’s the only blessing I can give.

-

They recover their numbers quickly. It seems no matter what, they always bounce back in a relatively short amount of time.  It’s amazing. It’s terrifying. We get assigned more than one person at a time.

5.

My first household is a family of three. It’s a mother, a daughter, and a child that’s somewhere in-between. Mostly I look over the children- their mother works from home and is much less prone to mistakes than them. And goodness, are they reckless. Their names are Rose and Julian. Rose is a night owl and I have to make sure on more than one occasion that she doesn’t spill mugs of hot coffee on herself. It’s a brutal task, especially when she refuses to sleep when she should. I urge her to drink colder drinks. She refuses.

She is stubbed toes and dropped papers, noise when it should be quiet. She is clumsy. A long, long time ago, this would have been a dangerous trait to have. But things have changed. This world was built by people like her. She will be okay.

Julian is young but they are not stupid. They know more about the ways of the body than any human I have watched over before, bookshelves filled to the brim with pages upon pages filled with the morbid details of what makes humans blood flesh and bone. They flap their hands when they’re frustrated and chew on whatever they can get their hands on. This world was not made for them. I hope it will be rebuilt by the time they’re old enough to live in it.

They are experiments gone wrong and the urge to learn more, even when it becomes less than safe. I bless their hands to stay uncut while experimenting on a dead frog, holding knives that are much too sharp for someone their age. I don’t stop their mom from waking up to scold them. I do make sure they get to keep the frog.

I grow more connected to these children than anyone else I have ever looked after. Jack would have liked them- he would have told them so many stories. I’m with them while they take their driver’s test, pressing their feet down with just enough pressure on the gas petal for smooth sailing. Rose refuses alcohol for the first time and I am there to make sure she doesn’t give into peer pressure. Julian studies for a medical degree, studies how to make this world better for people like them. They don’t need much help on their tests, but I’m still there to lead their pencil on particularly hard questions.

They move out but they stay connected. I watch them bring new people into their lives, watch as their create families of their own. Over the years they change, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. But they are always kind. They are always Rose and Julian.

I’m not as foolish to say I forget how they died. However I don’t like to think about it, so that’s as close to forgetting as I’ll get.

They were good.

I was not built to miss people. Yet they still linger.

-

Our task was simple. Protect the humans. Let them grow. Do whatever we could do as to not stall their progress.

There were many we could not save, and even those that we did were still doomed to the same end. Fate has it’s limits- you can only bend it so much. We were already testing it’s patience by simply existing. And that was fine. Death is normal, death is natural.

But these humans- these humans are different. They create and they are kind to a fault and there is nothing else like that. We did not expect to learn from them. We did not expect for this to hurt.

We did not expect to care.

5.

There’s a woman who lives to be 94. She is one of the lucky few to make it so far. She has grandchildren of plenty and their parents are happy. We all call her Nana. I watched over them for generations, the longest I have for any family before. In her last moments she prays. She tells me I did a good job.

Her grandson dies at age seventeen because I am busy helping his brother clean up glass. I do not pray- such things are better left to those who have faith. But I do hope she forgives me.

13.

I try my best to keep them safe. But this family, this family is not meant to last. There is always something wrong, always something broken, always something that needs to be blessed. It wears me out in ways I have not experienced for centuries. I can’t- I can’t help them all.

In the end there is only one left. She cannot bear to be alone.

No miracle can help someone who does not want to be helped.

21.

The sweetest boy I’ve ever protected is in a family full of rotten people. He is the best thing in that house. I give blessing after blessing, miracle after miracle, and he lives to be happy. He finds a husband and a wife- I bless them too. When he dies it’s a shock even to me. The world seems to dim. I protect his spouses and everyone else he cared about. It’s the first time I come dangerously close to grieving. He would not have liked that.

56.

While the family sleeps, their cat nuzzles into the couch and gives me a slow blink. I always end up sitting with it for the next hour. I cannot touch it, but it seems to appreciate my presence anyway. I miracle it mice to catch.

73.

They are sisters- there is nobody left but them. How reckless they are, spray cans routinely clanging against the cement while they take off from the police. They laugh while they run, and it would be sweet if it weren’t so dangerous. They get caught, once, because I feel they need to know just how serious this is.

The cop lets them off with a warning but also makes the one with darker skin lay on the floor while the other stands.

I do not let them get caught again.

When they pass I make sure their graffiti stays up, soon surrounded by many similar pieces by people like themselves. My next assigned family passes it on the way to the subway and I have to pause for a moment. I come very close to smiling. It would have made them happy.

?

We love them,

?

We grieve them,

?

We miss them.

-

We are angels. We are guardians of humans, protectors of families. We are the small miracles, the big blessings, and we play a balancing act with death just for them. Because they are growing and they are evolving. Because they love in ways we did not know were possible and they love us in ways that can only be described as ‘human’.

They have taught us so much. They have taught us to feel.

There is nothing we would not do for them. Challenging fate is just one of our many favors.

We are angels, and they are human. They are learning and so are we. Because of them we know love. We would not trade them for the world.

-

Our task is simple. Protect the humans. Let them grow. Do whatever we can as to not tall their progress.

And my goodness, do they grow.

But to our shock, so do we.

-

[chelsfic]

Unseemly Desire - Chapter 3 - Guillermo x Nandor

To read past chapters: WWDITS Masterlist

Summary: Nandor and Guillermo deal with the fallout of their makeout session and the almost-attempted mind wipe. Guillermo discovers the untapped well of anger living inside him!

Warnings: Angst, Blood drinking, gratuitous use of the word Fuck, Angry kissing

A/N: Look how frickin handsome Nandor is in this gif. No wonder Guillermo can’t resist this idiot. Also, I wrote this really fast and barely edited it sooooo ehhhhhh sorrayyy.

---

Shit! Fuck! Damn! Fiasco!

Nandor retires straight to his coffin after storming out of his familiar’s room. He’s still fully dressed and the little hair pins in his bun stab the back of his head as he lies down. 

Fucking guy!

Who gave him permission to have those kinds of feelings, anyway? Nandor’s almost certain he included something about not falling in love in Guillermo’s employment contract. He’ll have to check on that tomorrow evening. He growls in angry frustration as he realizes the contract is locked in one Colin Robinson’s basement filing cabinets. Maybe he doesn’t need to worry about checking. He’s positive that he mentioned it to Guillermo before he became his familiar. No falling in love with me. End of discussion!

How dare that little guy ruin his perfect plan? What does he think, just because he has smooth, tan skin, a disarming smile and perfect wavy hair he can just go around forcing Nandor to be horny for him all the time? It’s unacceptable!

Nandor turns onto his side in a huff. He has half a mind to go back there and mind wipe him after all. But the vision of Guillermo’s tear streaked face as he begged Nandor not to hypnotize him floats before his eyes in the darkness and he feels that stabby, annoying pain in his heart area again.  

And now he’s having more confusing heart palpitations again. Great!

---

The movie is still playing on Guillermo’s discarded laptop. Claudia shrieks after learning that she can never grow or change as a vampire. It’s his favorite movie. He’s watched it hundreds of times. And Guillermo is only just now contemplating the real world evidence of that phenomenon. Nandor may have centuries of life experience but emotionally he is still the same repressed, spoiled, arrogant 13th century warlord he was when he was turned, just with a few new pop culture references under his belt. Can he really never learn or change? And if that’s true then what the fuck is Guillermo doing here?

He’s frozen in place where Nandor discarded him like so much refuse. His eyes are fixed on the curtain in fear or hope--he’s not certain--that Nandor might come blazing back into his little room, filling it up with his massive presence for better or worse. Salty tear tracks stain his cheeks and he’s still half wrapped up in the dumb snuggie. His face crumples and a silent sob escapes his throat. He’d been so stupidly happy there for a moment. Nandor--his dream boy, his vampire, his Nandor--kissed him and held him like Guillermo had always dreamed. But the memory tastes bitter in his mouth now as he remembers the cold, blank mask of his face after Guillermo mistakenly confessed his love. 

He fists his hands into the soft material of Nandor’s snuggie, burying his face in the fabric as his tears start anew. He begged for this, didn’t he? How pathetic is it that he pleaded with Nandor to let him hold onto the memory of yet another rejection? He falls asleep like that, crying silently and clinging to the only physical evidence of his master’s fleeting, mercurial affection. 

---

When he opens his coffin the next evening Nandor finds Guillermo waiting to attend him like always. The vampire hides his surprise and holds out his hand for assistance with all of his typical haughty self-importance. He spent all day plagued by nightmares of his familiar running away into the sunlight. Packing up his computing book, his cute little sweaters and his pizza rolls and fleeing from Nandor like he was some kind of...monster.

Ridiculous, of course.

Guillermo won’t leave him. He’d said so last night. He’d promised in exchange for his pathetic memories. But then Nandor notices the human’s hands are shaking as he adjusts his cravat and Guillermo won’t meet his eyes. There is also a strange new smell coming off of him that he usually only encounters around victims.

Fear.

“Guillermo…” Nandor wrinkles his nose “Have you been cleaning the cell? You should really shower afterwards. It’s not hygienic to be dressing me after being around all those human juices.”

His familiar finally looks up at him, eyes narrowed in confusion as he tries to parse his master’s thought process.

“No…” he finally answers and his voice is like a ghost, thin and ephemeral. “I haven’t been cleaning the cell master.”

He self-consciously leans down to sniff his own armpit and Nandor grimaces in disgust. 

“Well, then why--” he stops himself, his deep brown eyes going round as he finally makes the connection. Guillermo is afraid of...him? It is like his nightmares are coming to life!

“Guillermo! Snap out of it now! This is very upsetting and...unprofessional. Why are you afraid?”

Guillermo flinches as if struck by Nandor’s words. He didn’t realize how transparent he was being. His first instinct is to deny it but a flare of anger takes hold of him and he’s speaking before his ingrained habit of suppressing his true feelings can kick in.

“Why am I afraid!? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you almost erased my memories last night? And you could do it any time you want and I’d be powerless to stop you?”

Nandor’s brows knit together and he scoffs, “But that’s always--”

He stops himself, guiltily averting his eyes, but it’s too late. Something changes in Guillermo’s face. The anger bleeds away and his skin goes pale. He almost looks like a vampire or… or one of his victims. The thought sends a shiver down Nandor’s spine.

“Master…” Guillermo’s voice is calm and cool but Nandor has a feeling that what comes next will determine something very important. 

“Have you--” He swallows against the lump in his throat. “--Have you hypnotized me before?”

Nandor grimaces, baring his sharp fangs in an uncomfortable smile and looking like the vampiric embodiment of a dog shaming video.

---

There’s the time he dropped Guillermo while he was helping him dust around the spider houses…

...the time Guillermo saw Nandor fall down at the roller rink and the human children all laughed at him…

...when he shamed himself while Guillermo helped him adjust his orgy suit…

And countless other small, trivial moments that now seem to add up to quite a lot.

And, of course, there’s the other night when Nandor admitted that Guillermo is special to him.

---

“...Once or twice.”

Nandor watches his familiar’s face fall and his eyes start leaking. Guillermo angrily scrubs the tears away and shakes his head, throwing off the hurt as he’s learned to do all his life. From elementary school bullies to the love of his life, Guillermo has been rolling with the emotional punches for as long as he can remember. This is no different. So what if the last five years are a lie? So what if he can't trust his own memory? Guillermo is resilient. Guillermo is rubber. Guillermo kills ‘em with kindness and lives to fight another day. Or...

“Fuck you, Nandor,” he reaches up to finish tying the cravat, angrily cinching it around the vampire’s neck with a painful tug.

“Ouch! Watch it with that!” Nandor complains, batting Guillermo’s little hands away. Guillermo crosses his arms over his chest and glares back at him with fierce, thunderstorm eyes. Nandor’s never seen his familiar like this. So forceful…he shakes his head violently, banishing the stupid horny thoughts attempting to take over.

“Alright! So I hypnotized you a few times. So what? Kind of comes with the job there, Guillermo. Did you even read your contract?” 

“You mean the one you scribbled on the back of a Panera menu?” Guillermo rolls his eyes. “How did it go? ‘I.O.U. one unholy transition. Signed, Nandor the Relentless’?”

Nandor scrunches his face up and he shifts his eyes as he tries to remember. There must have been more to it…

“I don’t think…” he falters, losing steam for a second before riling himself back up through sheer force of will. He is Nandor the RELENTLESS! “That’s neither here nor anywhere, Guillermo! The point is...eh...the point is you should have expected the occasional hypnotic trance when you took the job! It is common sense!”

“You’re right, master,” Guillermo says in the tone he uses when he doesn’t mean the thing that he is saying. “Silly me, expecting that you’d treat me any differently than one of your victims.”

Nandor feels like he’s rapidly losing the thread of this conversation. Or, more realistically, that the thread ran out from between his fingers long ago and he’s grasping at the empty air. Guillermo thinks he treats him like a victim? After all the troubles he went through to get the smelly red flowers and the music for his dirty biting fantasy? After he saved him from Nadja’s horrendous aim? After all of their chess games and strolls through the moonlit hunting grounds and the countless hours Nandor has spent listening for the soft thump of Guillermo’s human heart? This is what he thinks?

Nandor curls his lip and hurls his next words to Guillermo’s feet with disdain, “Didn’t you say you were jealous of my victims, Guillermo? Well, now you do not have to be. You are one. Perhaps I should finish the job.”

Guillermo barks out a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob, “Oh, please! You’re not going to kill me anymore than you’re going to turn me.”

Guillermo turns away, the job of dressing his master left unfinished and he starts to leave. Nandor looks at his familiar’s back and he sees him running away, abandoning him just like in his dream. 

“No!” he roars, lifting off the ground several inches as he flies at Guillermo, tackling the human into the wall of his crypt and knocking a 700-year-old sword to the floor. He presses his hands into Guillermo’s shoulders, pinning him in place and marveling at the soft give of his flesh layered over strong muscles. “You are my familiar and I have not given you permission to leave!”

Guillermo’s eyes harden and he parts his lips to deliver what Nandor is certain will be a devastating blow. He’s going to leave him. He’s going to quit. All because Nandor wasn’t aloof enough! He can’t let him do this! If Nandor’s heart could beat he’s sure it would be bursting from his chest this very second. He squeezes Guillermo’s shoulders too hard, painfully grinding the bones beneath his palms as he lunges, burying his face into the pristine, smooth expanse of his familiar’s neck and biting down with all the force in his body. Guillermo screams and flails against him, but it’s pointless. Nandor is too strong and he’s hell bent on giving his human a bruise to match the one on the other side of his neck.

Guillermo’s blood was made for Nandor. It floods his mouth, coating his tongue like a thick, sweet nectar. He swallows it with a savage groan and presses harder against Guillermo, digging his growing erection into the softness of his belly. 

Guillermo is lost in a confusing tangle of rage, sadness, fear and arousal. He can’t fucking believe that Nandor is doing this, basically proving that Guillermo is nothing more than another human victim. And it really, really shouldn’t turn him on this much. His words ring in Guillermo’s ears as the life pulses out of him. Perhaps I should finish the job. Guillermo doesn’t believe for a second that his master is planning to kill but just in case…

He fists his hands in the vampire’s shiny, soft hair--hair he’s lovingly brushed and arranged every night for the last five years--and he yanks it back with all of his might. 

“Ouch! Fucking--” Nandor rears back, blood pouring down his chin and his eyes blown with hunger and lust. He captures Guillermo with those eyes and the familiar is drawn in like a moth to the flame. Why is he always chasing the thing that will hurt him?

Before he can second guess himself, and before Nandor can do something stupid like turn into a vapor, Guillermo grabs the vampire’s collar, tugs him down to his level and slams his mouth against his in a brutal, angry kiss. Fuck you for throwing an axe at my head. Fuck you for making me feel inadequate. Fuck you for kissing me and then trying to erase it from my memory. And really, truly, deeply, fuck you for making me love you anyway.

Guillermo’s hands paw at Nandor’s bearded jaw, holding in place as their lips slide together, tongues seeking and massaging. The salty copper taste of Guillermo’s own blood fills his mouth as Nandor plunders inside. The vampire moans, his hands straying down over Guillermo’s chest, his stomach, reaching around to settle over the round curve of his backside. Guillermo whimpers into Nandor’s lips as the vampire squeezes his fingers into his buttocks and simultaneously rolls his pelvis. There’s a sound in the distance trying to attract his attention. As if Guillermo would let go of this moment for anything in the world.

In the next instant, the door to the crypt flings open and Laszlo ducks inside, slamming it shut again just in time to keep out his shrieking, furious wife. Nandor breaks away from Guillermo, jumping back and holding his hands aloft with an obvious, guilty expression. 

Laszlo takes one look at Nandor’s blood stained mouth and Guillermo’s utterly ravished appearance and snorts in amusement.

“I fucking knew it!”

[h3adcarsbending]

pity party • matty healy x reader

Pity Party - M.H.

wc- 2856 or smth like that

The reader, in the midst of a particularly bad day, is dragged along to a party by her boyfriend Matty. But she really doesn’t want to be a burden or ruin his night.

It was a stressful day for poor Y/N, and being dragged along to a party by her boyfriend didn’t help much either. Not like she’d ever let Matty know what was up - she hated burdening him with her problems. She didn’t want to scare him off, now did she? Her curly haired rockstar was the best thing that had ever happened to her. If she lost Matty, who knows what she’d do.

But, anything for him. She would go to the party, pretend to have a good time, and hope for the best, because let’s be honest for a moment…  not much could go wrong. Or could it? Oh, shut up with the cliches, will you!

    “Love, are you almost ready?” called the boyfriend in question from the living room of their shared Manchester flat.

Y/N sighed apologetically, attempting to quickly gain at least some composure before having to face Matty. “Y-yeah. Just one second, babe…”

With that, she took a final glance in the mirror and confirmed she looked alright. She didn’t feel too hot today. But there wasn’t much she could do to tend to her overwhelming insecurities at this very moment. Turning the knob with shaky, but freshly manicured hands, she exited the bathroom - her favourite place to cry - and greeted the beautiful, curly haired man in front of her, a fake smile a stark contrast to his genuine one. She felt somewhat guilty, but she’d feel guiltier if she let him know what was wrong. Letting him have a lovely time at George’s carouse was all she wanted. She knew firsthand how hard Matty and the boys worked, and how little rest they got… frankly, it amazed her. How he could do everything he did seldom any breaks was perplexing to the Y/H/C girl.

Matty looked at her up and down, practically tearing off her beautiful sequined black dress with his gorgeous chocolate (ha) brown eyes alone. He snaked a pale, inked arm around her waist, planting a soft, heartfelt kiss on her cheek. “You look breathtaking, love!” he exclaimed, a look of pure and utter adoration on his lovely face. Oh, how lucky she was. She didn’t think she deserved him - but then again, he didn’t think he deserved her, either. Again with the guilt.

She averted her gaze to the floor at an alarming speed, biting back a flood of tears in an attempt to do two things; save both her dignity and the glittery smokey eye she’d spent an unreasonable amount of time on. “Thank you. You look quite fit yourself, Matty,” she squeaked, trying to hide the burning of oncoming tears at the back of her throat that often resulted in a rather telling voice crack which made her sound like a twelve year old boy. She did not succeed. “Sorry. Eyeshadow in my eye. That stuff hurts,” she chuckled, giving her all to play it off. She felt terrible lying to him but it was all she could do right then and there, hm?

Matty looked concerned. He suspected she was upset - but for both her and the night’s sake decided not to make a big deal of it, raising his thick eyebrows worriedly. “I’d imagine it does, love,” he replied, squeezing her hand affectionately. “You sure you’re alright? We can tell George we can’t come--”

“No! No, no, no, don’t do that!” she pleaded, cutting him off. “I’m okay. It’s fine, babe, it’s nothing. Promise!” 

“Alright,” he sighed, pulling her in for a hug. Y/N melted into the embrace, her head lying on his comfortable (albeit bony) chest. Listening to his heartbeat was quite therapeutic for her, and he knew that. “Let’s go.”

She nodded, and off they went.

To say the car ride was tense was a bit of an understatement. Y/N chewed at her glossy, made up lips, and Matty’s elegant free hand diverged from its usual spot at his girlfriend’s thigh and instead rested on the wheel of the car, bouncing up and down in coordination with his thigh. She didn’t dare gaze anywhere but outside the window, meanwhile he routinely checked up on her. For what reason, he wasn’t sure. It vaguely reminded them of the aftermath of their arguments -- but even then there was less… silence. It was deafening. Matty quickly turned on the radio (conveniently playing some sad, mainstream pop tune by the latest one-hit wonder) to elevate the mood and diminish the awkwardness. He wanted to talk, he just wasn’t sure how to go about doing so.

For the first time, Y/N looked away from the window and instead at her thighs. And her stomach. She cringed inwardly upon the sight, regretting giving in to the hearty lunch Matty had fixed for the two of them - it tasted surprisingly good, but she was quite bloated, even after a good five or so hours, which made her pretty anxious. Her soft, thick thighs, which he liked, weren’t to her liking. Not even close. Subconsciously, she tugged at her hair, threatening to rip it all out and scream, once again holding back a waterfall of tears. Then, back to staring at the cars passing by.

Eventually, they made it to George’s place. They could hear the music blaring from the opposite end of the block -- it was loud. Impossibly tumultuous. That by itself was already stressing Y/N out, to the point where she didn’t even realize Matty had stopped the car until he opened her door and helped her out. She thanked him, clinging onto his hand as if it was her last breath; his other hand rubbed her back in a soothing matter. They got to the door and were greeted by none other than Adam Hann after a brief sequence of knocks, his beautifully angled eyebrows sitting at an even higher angle once his eyes met with the pair’s own. “Y/N! Matty! A bit late, but come in! We’ve been waiting for ages,” he chirped, a slight slur to his words, especially when he emphasized ‘ages’. 

Matty gave his close friend a slight chuckle, you instinctively following suit. “Yeah, sorry about that, mate. My love-” he ruffled your curled hair with his free hand, pulling you in a bit closer to him and kissing your forehead “-here is just so distractingly beautiful!” A very, very, embarrassingly bright blush crept onto your cheeks, and you let out the first genuine giggle you had all day. It was those small, yet memorable moments of pure cuteness that really made you fall in love with him. You cherished those memories -- you remembered every single time he’d done something like that. It was a mix of hilarity and endearment that you felt every time Matty shed his bad boy, rock star demeanour and replaced his it with a soft, loving one. One that secretly preferred being the little spoon sometimes. One that was surprisingly vulnerable. It was a side of Matty most people didn’t get to experience - and boy, was she grateful she got to. 

“Not as pretty as you, Matthew,” you teased, wrapping your arms around his neck (which was covered in a mop of dark brown ringlets). He looked at you with a face that could only be described as an odd mix of amusement, adoration, and disgust.

“Don’t ever call me Matthew again, for the love of God.” Matty laughed, even harder as Adam faked a gag. “Oh, shut the fuck up, Hann! S’not like you and Carly are any different.”

“Not publicly. That’s gross.”

“Shut your trap,” he quipped as he jokingly shoved the blonde guitarist away so he could enter George’s not-so-humble abode (though he was quite humble about it nevertheless) with his girlfriend in tow.

    The lights were bright. They flashed a lot, too (they flashed even more than those God-awful ‘groupies’ at literally every show the boys played), and they were far from pleasant; Y/N felt slightly queasy but, not like she herself would throw up… rather like her mind would. It seemed to be a combination of stress, body image, and  an unexpectedly onset depressive episode. She felt herself stumble, almost as if she was as intoxicated as the vast majority of people attending this event, but she caught herself before Matty noticed. He was talking to some old friend he hadn’t seen since high school, which made her job easier as he assumed she was just being lovey-dovey when she gripped his arm - his obliviousness was a gift at times. This being one of them.

    The friend - Y/N gathered her name was Tiera - was stunning. Jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Model material. Her bone structure was immaculate, and her platinum blonde box braids contrasted beautifully with her glowing dark skin. Her body was just as, if not more perfect than her face. She was fit in every sense of the word, with curves that would be the death of any woman or man who laid eyes on them… and YN’s brain insisted that this mesmerizing lady was going to be the end of her Matty too, and taking in the sight of them innocently catching up was when she lost it.

    You see, she wasn’t normally a very jealous person; but the pure self loathing she had felt towards her own body that day, and then seeing how flawless Tiera’s was and how friendly her and Matty were especially compared to the distance they kept on the way to George’s, was just too much. She let go of Matty’s long, thin arm, pushing it away as hard as she could, and wriggled out of his grasp as if he was some sort of rat who was going to give her the Bubonic plague. Shocked, he looked back at her - his arrestingly ravishing girlfriend, the apple of his eye (dare I say - I do apologize for the cheesiness), her Y/H/C hair and black dress swaying in sync as she bolted towards his best friend’s restroom. What the fuck? He thought, his mouth agape just as it had been the first time he laid eyes on her. Except, rather than admiration, he stared in confusion. 

    Remember when I said that their bathroom was Y/N’s favourite place to cry? Well, I wasn’t lying. She found George’s to have the same pleasant, calming atmosphere that screamed “I AM HERE FOR YOU”, just as Matty wanted to earlier - unbeknownst to her.

    She locked the door behind her as fast as she could, finding the light to be already on. She paced towards the mirror, recoiling in shock - she didn’t remember being that hideous at home. Maybe that’s because she hadn’t yet seen Tiera or any of the beautiful faces and bodies that peppered the gathering.

    After inspecting her face and looking as hard as she could, she managed to scavenge every single little ‘flaw’ in existence. She rushed to smash the lightswitch back off with every ounce of rage in her body, hurting her delicate palms in the process, which made the tears she didn’t even realize were there spill out even harder. Great, now she hurt physically and mentally. 

She slumped in the corner beside the sink, but not before pulling a fluffy green bathmat underneath her for a little bit of cushioning. Last time she cried in George’s bathroom, she split her palm open and thus felt as though she had every right to bawl her eyes out, considering the depth of the cut and her shockingly low pain tolerance - her and Matty were on the cold marble tile, hugging in intervals before her bandage was soaked through and needed to be replaced again--

    Oh dear. Matty. Thinking of him again made her sobs grow in volume and frequency, and she could’ve sworn that by now she looked like some sort of raccoon. And although she trusted him with her heart and soul and deep down knew he would never, she couldn’t help but think that he was probably making out with some thotty little twerp. She put her head in her hands, numerous thoughts flooding her mind as she cried and cried. The room was spinning. Just like out in the main room. It was spinning, it was blurry, she was hyperventilating, and although she knew she would have to leave the bathroom and face Matty eventually, she continued to hide, sulking in solitude. 

    Suddenly, knocks boomed throughout the echoey room, and Y/N hoarsely got out a small confirmation that the room was in use.

    “Y/N, we know it’s in use,” a gentle yet profoundly low voice replied. The voice was familiar - because, well, it belonged to the owner of the bathroom. “Could you come out, please? We’re worried sick.”

    She cried harder. She hated being a burden - that’s why she came here - but she’d made it ten times worse. Like always. “W-who’s w-we?”

    “Matty and me. Adam and Ross would be too, but we don’t know what they’ve gotten into.”

    “I’m not coming out.”

    “Please?”

    Y/N dragged her quivering body to the door and unlocked it, guilt and shame apparent on her features as she faced the two men in front of her. Matty scooped her up, tears in his eyes, holding her as close as he possibly could. He thanked George for having him over and bid his goodbyes before making his way to their shared car and buckling her into the passenger’s seat. He’d had an amaretto or two and knew he probably shouldn’t have been driving, but whatever; he could pay for whatever fine they gave him. Y/N was worth a DUI and a ticket.

    “What happened out there, love?” Matty inquired, sad brown gaze trying to read into her Y/E/C one.

    She shook her head, face and hair still caked with the salty liquid that wouldn’t dare stop seeping out of her eyes.

    He pursed his soft lips, before moving his hand too caress her wet cheek. “You have to tell me so I can help you, babe. I love you. How about we talk about it in bed?” He didn’t mean it sexually, at least not right now.

    She nodded. That was really all he needed, leaning in to place a heartfelt kiss on her lips, grinning as he saw a small smile form. He offered his hand, and she took it, and they stayed like that for the rest of their journey home.

    As soon as they got back, Matty made sure to tend to her every need - he tied her hair back, removed her rodent-like mess of makeup, and helped her get into more comfortable attire (his shirt, which secretly made him swoon). He frowned upon her refusal of chicken noodle soup - her favourite, especially when he made it. He carried her to their bed and decided to take charge and be the big spoon this time. “Alright, love. What’s up?”

    She bit the inside of her cheek anxiously. She’d stopped crying, however she was still on the verge of tears. “I think I had a panic attack in George’s bathroom. But that’s not th-the point. This week has been terrible. I’ve been getting a ton of hate, you’ve had interviews, which is good and all, but… bad timing, I guess? Ah, I don’t know. And you know that… that lunch that you made for us? It was good, really good, but, I was pretty bloated after that which never fails to get me down! And then we had to go to that party, and I felt ugly and disgusting, and it just… wouldn’t stop. At the party, I felt even worse. Sick. And everyone there was gorgeous, especially… what’s her name? Tia? Tyra? Tiera. Yes. And I thought you liked her because I’m a mess. And…” she paused, a tear falling down her cheek. “I think that’s it?”

    It hurt Matty’s heart to hear her pour hers out to him in such a melancholy way. He’d known of her insecurities -- it’s why she was usually quite hesitant about any intimacy whatsoever, even a simple hug -- and every single one of his attempts to comfort her, restore her self esteem, assure her she was the most gorgeous girl he’d ever laid eyes on (hence why they were dating). He sighed, pulling her into a warm embrace. “You’re breathtaking. Don’t ever think otherwise. And by the way,” he began, pausing as she cocked her head to the side. “I’ve got worry about her more than you do. She told me you were quite fit before you ran off.” They shared warm laughs, before Y/N looked into his eyes once again.

    “I love you, rockstar.”

    “I love you too.”

    And with that, both my hands and the star-crossed lovers got some rest. Writing six pages is not easy on the wrist.

[shatterstag]

IT’S BELLAMY BRIAR!!! HE’S MY DND OC. HERE’S SOME ART OF HIM. NOW IM GONNA TALK ABOUT HIM THANK U FOR VIEWING AND MAYBE READING PLEASE LOVE MY BOY THANKS.

Bellamy Briar is an undead revenant ghost, who was brought back from death by an evil god of the unknown, dreams and secrets, The Hidden One, after Bellamy ritualistically sacrificed himself in a failed attempt to save his dying daughter. 

He’s my oc and dnd character, and he is my favourite and most developed and complex oc I have ever made in my 15+ years of writing ocs. I originally created and played him for a (currently on hiatus) Curse of Strahd dnd campaign where he’s a plague doctor grave cleric with a penchant for being undead, rapier fighting, letting party members die before deciding he should heal them, and generally being the freaky resident cryptid everyone hates. He hides his appearance and nature behind a plague mask; in the campaign the party has no idea that he’s dead, and until I revealed it outside of the game during the current hiatus, the other players had no idea either.

💉💀 🌹  DR BELLAMY BRIAR  🌹💀💉

Age: ~100 at time of death, ~160+? at campaign start

Height: 6’4”

Pronouns: he/him

Race: sun elf w/ UA Revenant subrace

Class: grave cleric

Occupation: surgeon, physician, apothecary, plague doctor, failed dad, local sad ghost boy, horny goth priest dtf

Other shit: Gay, aspie, occultist, left handed, in love with fantasy satan oops

Alignment: neutral good (alive) / chaotic neutral (dead)

Proficiencies: Medicine (expertise, +10 babyee), history, insight, perception, intimidation

BACKSTORY!!!

In life, he was a gentle, mild mannered genius surgeon and doctor obsessed with the occult and stalked by a sinister figure in his dreams - the Hidden One  (true name Indrik, @jacobin​ my dm’s oc and npc), watching and waiting for his prophecy to begin, of which Bellamy was supposed to be a core part of. Born in Barovia to displaced elven parents, he had a childhood of emotional neglect and abuse as his parents attempted to shape him into the black sheep prodigal son they believed would absolve him of his crime of being accidentally born, which trapped them forever with a newborn son in the purgatory-esque demiplane of Barovia.

When his sleepy rural village is obliterated by a terrible plague, Bellamy becomes the town’s plague doctor, desperately attempting to halt the inevitable. But then his adopted daughter - Anya, who Bellamy adores more than anything in the world -  falls ill to the plague. Unable to find a way to save her he turns to occultism, black magic, blood magic and cannibalism, necromancy, all the while rapidly losing his grip on sanity and wildly experimenting with darker and darker magic.

With all his options exhausted, his village in ruins and Anya dying, he turns to long gone old gods in desperation. Alone, insane with grief, with nothing left to live for, he cuts out his own heart in ritualistic sacrifice, offering his own life and body in return for Anya’s to an unknown god he preys to........ who turns out to be the Hidden One, watching god from his dreams, furious that his prophecy tool has managed to kill himself before the prophecy could even begin.

The Hidden One, far from done with him, forms a pact with Bellamy to exchange Bellamy’s life for Anya’s.... but instead, brings Bellamy back to undeath as an empty ghost - devoid of body, emotion and humanity after the Hidden One eats his heart, ‘blessed’ with clerical powers over life death and the grave - and steals Anya’s dying soul to keep her ‘alive’ with him in the Abyss as his carrot on a stick to control and pacify Bellamy. Now he’s doomed to wander the countryside as a puppet spy for his god, obsessed with the idea of saving Anya’s soul, terribly lonely and unable to relate with the living he hides among while being forever cursed to haunt the plague doctor suit he died in.

Outside of current canon dnd story, I have likeee 70k+ words of prose written about Bellamy and uhhhhhhh also he and the Hidden One/Indrik end up oops enemies to lovers and my dm @jacobin and I are furiously obsessed with these two and I have literally not cared about or been more obsessed with a ship in my entire life, they are terribly sad boys in intense terrible love and have no idea how to make it work because one is a broken lonely god and the other is a broken lonely ghost and ALL THEY WANNA DO IS KISS AND BE HAPPY!!!!!

anyway thats my boy and his god boyfriend thanks for listening to my ted talk please direct your questions and queries straight into my heart

also hey follow me on twitter! I’m way more active and post art regularly! @ shatterstag

[eyesaremosaics]

Got a very sad phone call yesterday. My first love (who remained one of my best friends for a decade after our connection ceased to be romantc) phoned me to say he is very ill. He was born with a disease, which has now gotten past the point of no return. He is deeply depressed, listless, and tired of fighting. This was the first time we have spoken in a year— after a falling out we had a few years back... he called to tell me that he is dying. Essentially he has only one option left available, and it’s very risky and experimental, if he misses a dose—then there really is nothing they can do. He has decided to stop taking his medicine, which means he has maximum four years left to live.

A series of complex emotions have been plaguing me ever since yesterday. Numb disbelief, shock, anger, confusion, understanding, and deep unconditional love. This is devastating news. I wonder why when faced with our own mortality... only then so we realize just how much people have meant to us in our lives.

He was one of my best friends for over 15 years... that is more than half my life. He was the first boy I ever fell in love with... there is always something special about the first time you feel that emotion, because it is all so new and consuming. I gave my virginity to him, we survived so much together, and he was the only one of my old flames that I was able to reconcile my differences with and salvage a friendship with... a really... important friendship.

I feel heartbroken and devastated that he is choosing death over life, but it is his life, and I won’t invalidate his pain. Who am I to tell him he shouldn’t feel the way he does? After all he has suffered? With all that was denied him. All that he can never have. He needs someone to hear him, and understand him, and I do. I always have. That’s why I fell in love with him all those years ago in the first place.

I know he could get better if he wanted, but he doesn’t want to. “I’m tired of feeling like an accessory in other people’s lives.” He feels like he has lived for other people since he was thirteen years old... when he first discovered he was sick. After being adopted... to inherit a life sentence like that... it’s enough to make anyone bitter to say the least. It’s just sad. There is nothing I can do now, except love him, and let him go.

We always want people to stay with us, because of our selfish feelings of wanting to experience them. Yet we don’t have to live their life, and if someone is really ill, and in a lot of pain, they shouldn’t have to stay just because we aren’t ready to let go of them. It has been hard for me to make peace with his decision, but it is his choice to make. Going through the stages of grief right now, and a lot of memories are coming up strong. Memories I locked away, and forced myself to forget.

Thinking about all my failed relationships in general today, and trying to find the gift I got from each of them. This person took me under their wing when I was a freshmen in high school. After being bullied so mercilessly in middle school, I was petrified of high school. He saw my value immediately, and went out of his way to greet and include me. He was so popular, that being his kid sister offered me some measure of protection. He saw my worth, when I didn’t, and went out of his way to spend quality time with me, he was genuinely interested in who I was as a person, and would sit and listen to me for countless hours on the phone, sharing every thought in our heads. He was brutally honest, wether I wanted to hear it or not, and so I believed him when he let me know that he saw me... and that He was glad I existed.

He understood me, better than any other boyfriend I’ve had. My deep pain and alienation, he secretly always felt that way too. As an Aries, he is my opposite sign, but no other sign understands the deep loneliness Libra’s feel like Aries does. It’s an unspoken, deep rooted commonality between them, different as they are in all other areas. In fact that was what endeared us to one another I think. We shared the same pain, and it created a kinship.

He could see and feel my pain, and often we were able to comfort each other without having to say anything. The romantic connection was a tragic one, because of his illness it was very “Edward Scissorhands”, we could never really be together. He was always pushing me away, and he had so many others girls in his web it made me feel inadequate and insecure. Truthfully, I chose to devalue myself and let his rejection crush my self esteem over time. but the truth is, he inspired me so much as an artist. He encouraged me to go out and create. He is so talented at so many things, with so many gifts, and truly... he has a good heart.

Even when things were bad between us, he never raised his voice to me, never called me a name, always spoke to me with respect and kindness. Never once hung up on me, he is far too noble to ever do that to anyone. I often kept him on the phone for ages because I knew he would never hang up. He has strong morals and principles, and he lives rigidly by them. We both have strong characters, with high morals and expectations of others, so we were always disappointed in people. My love went unrequited it seemed, as he outright refused to commit to me, but I do know that He really cared about and respected me. Whenever he got a girlfriend who was jealous of our connection, he would always put them in their place and say: “she’s my friend. She’s very important to me, and she’s not going anywhere, so you will just have to deal with that if you want to be with me.”

He never abandoned me when I needed him. He dropped everything to come and be with me at two in the morning on more than one occasion. The romance may not have gone well, but he was always a good and loyal friend. When I went through my abortion, the Capricorn I was dating at the time took off to party while I was home crying and clutching my belly in agony, but the other person called, and was there for me. “Megan, where is your boyfriend during all of this?”

“I dunno. Out with his friends,”

“Then you need to leave him. No man will not stick by his woman through this.”

I began to cry softly at these words. Feeling at that time, so alone and unloved. His voice grew soft with sorrow as he said: “i’m sorry Megan, you always deserved better than anyone was able to give you.”

I think the feelings were mutual once. We grew very close when he was away at film school on the east coast, and I was still a junior in high school. He always had excuses for why he didn’t want to be with me, because there was clearly intense physical attractions those days, but his true feelings betrayed him. When I went to visit him at his apartment in Pennsylvania... he had photos of me...all over his house. In every room almost, (more than any other girl friend of his). I remember being in shock. In those days, I loathed relationships, the idea of getting married. I had no desire to want to have children or what have you. Granted I was only 13-14, but as soon as I met him, I saw myself wanting to be his wife. I just got him, and he got me, but his infidelity with other girls was always what crushed me. That was where the seed of taking drugs was planted, in the wake of not feeling good enough for this person I was so in love with. It was my choice, no one else is responsible for my actions, but these events influenced my choices for sure. He was very popular with women, and had a ton of female friends he very obviously had flirtations/relationships with. Some people are just not meant to commit to monogamy I guess, I often wondered if he was one of those.

But as we got older, and the romance dwindled away. The only way I got over him, after six years of pining and crying myself to sleep every night... was falling in love with the narcissist. Soon as they painted the picture of the ideal partner, I let go of the unrequited relationship I had prior. He noticed too, and soon as I was gone, I think he realized what he lost. Though... it was always complicated. When I wanted to give my life up to be with him, he couldn’t go through with it, and before anything could really happen, he ran away into the bathroom, locking himself in to cry where I couldn’t see him. He said to me: “I can’t do it. I can’t ruin your life.”

He used to look at me sadly sometimes. I could see this longing in him for connection. He would brush my hair out of my face, and have this moment of silence where he would look at me very intently.

It was a toxic connection to be sure. We were both suicidally depressed teens, wallowing together, but he really did know me. I think he knows me better than anyone, even Jeanne. He trusted me, and I trusted him. He never hid the other girls from me, and he was always very clear with me about us not being together, at least at first. He thought I was too young. He was a senior when I was a freshmen, and he kept me at bay because it made him feel uncomfortable, but once I was older, I got caught in a love triangle with him and a Pisces girl. I knew she was all talk and wouldn’t last, and she didn’t. I know he loved her though, and she fucked him over, just like I knew she would. He still chose her over me, and that was the first time I tried to kill myself.

Again, I realize now, how incredibly toxic and unhealthy I was myself... I wish I had been strong enough to take it in stride, but I had no skills or coping mechanisms for pain back then. All I had was substance abuse. I do remember, I never took drugs, not until he rejected me, that was the turning point where this whole nightmare began. Well, actually it Began with my father and was reinforced by that.

My point is, he vaguely brought up how much damage he realized he did to people. I know he always felt guilty about me. His care for me was deep, and genuine, though never the same as mine. He saw me as a sister, but later when I was older her saw me differently for a moment, then I realized our connection was familial, like he was an older brother. Maybe we were meant to love each other in that way, not romantically. So I let it go, and after many talks, we cleared the air and were able to be friends. He was very considerate of my feelings though. He never spoke about girls he was involved with, he knew that would crush me, and only after years of friendship, when my feelings subsided, were we able to talk freely about people we were dating with no hurt feelings. It was liberating to reach that place with someone. To go from being madly in love, to being like family.

He was there through it all. My miscarriages, my abortion, the sociopath, the abuse, allmy different houses etc. after a while I became like his mom, nagging him to go to his dr. Appointments and to eat a carrot once in a while. He would always roll his eyes and say: “yeah yeah”. Our dynamic was playfully argumentative, like one of those witty screwball comedies in the 1930s. He was a riot, boy he could make me laugh.

We talked everyday for ten years, and then something changed. I barely survived the connection with the sociopath, and he got out of a bad situation too, but I fell in love again, with another Scorpio, who was 7 years older... someone who actually wanted to commit to me, to get married and start a life... I hardly knew how to take it, I had always been “the other woman” before... no one ever wanted to commit fully to me before. I was so starved for love and attention of this kind, that I would do anything to keep it. This new person... I may have tested their boundaries with my substance abuse, but I knew his infidelity issues were REALLY deep, and he felt threatened by my friend, and do I cut him out to save my relationship.

I felt guilty about it the whole time. This other person had always been there for me no matter what, and may not have been a good lover, but was a true, blue friend, and I abandoned him. He felt very hurt and betrayed obviously. For he had stood up to other girls for me, and I did not do the same for him. I just wanted my relationship to work so bad, I thought it would be worth the sacrifice.

Rhstvrelstionship was very volatile, and it was really good in some ways, and really bad in others. As our relationship wore on. I felt guilty for leaving this person behind me, and I finally worked up the courage to tell my partner, and ask if I could reach out and apologize and try to rebuild my friendship. That was the beginning of the end I think. He was on his way out anyway. I did reach out to my friend, and he was really hurt and unwilling to patch things up. We talked it out, and he said he would try, but he felt really unsure about it. He felt I abandoned him, when he needed a friend most. He had some serious shit going on at the time, but we were in one of our many dumb fights, and he never reaches out, so I just stopped.

It doesn’t matter. We patched things up, he had this new girlfriend who was clearly jealous of me. She went out of her way to be cruel. He must have thought she was his last chance, but he only half liked her on the first place. She was awful to me on this road trip from hell with the three of us... long story short, we got in a huge fight because I refused to be around her ever again, and he felt I was being completely unreasonable. I felt betrayed, like I got my karma back for ditching him before. We fell out the last few years, and I was spiraling out of control after my longest relationship ended.

He called me about a year ago, apologizing for how he acted. Saying he was wrong. I never thought he would apologize, I was stunned. In the past, even if he was wrong, I always came back and made up. This time I held out, and he unfollowed me on FB, said he couldn’t rely on me, that I wasn’t a good friend. Now he was admitting he was wrong, and I knew I forgave him a long time ago. He told me he lost some loved ones, and was in therapy, yet was very cryptic, and stopped responding to my messages after that initial conversation.

Then to get this call yesterday, after all we have been through...there are so many layers, and chapters to the story, I could write a book...someday, I just miss him. I miss being able to call him whenever. I miss the way he would always give me shit, all the play arguments. I miss making him laugh, or seeingvthat smirk on his face when he pulled a prank. He is very like Fred and George Weasley from Harry Potter (personality wise). He’s like Oscar the grouch popping out of his trash can to add his two cents.

I sincerely miss our friendship, and I hope he gives us the opportunity to reconnect, especially if the days are numbered.

[lj-todd]

Sladiver and Drautyx, Bloodborne au? Both of them fighting against the other two, where one of them is already infected while the other is staying by their side? Bonus if that incident makes them become closer and such?

(So...I meant for this to have a...somewhat happy-ish ending...or something less violent at least but...well...the muses took me down a path and I just ran with what they gave me. Hope you like it all the same, sweetie.)They had been Hunters, two of Yharnam’s greatest, if one believed the stories. They had pushed back the plague, for a time, but then the dream broke. One, the legend told, had fallen to the darkness, the plague’s claws sinking deep, ripping away the humanity, the honor, and leaving not but burning armor and beastly rage and strength. Yet the love for the younger Hunter burned stronger. Too strong for the corruption to taint and take away. So, Hunter and monster were bound together in a way never before seen.The pair, seeking some form of peace, withdrew from Yharnam, choosing the shadows of the ruins of Cainhurst Castle, on the far shore of the dark lake.Hunters came, as Hunters always did, seeking to make a name for themselves. None ever returned to Yharnam. Their bodies lost to the shadows of Cainhurst and the monstrous knight that now called it home. They had been warned, for the dark haired Hunter turned Guardian always warned them, not wishing to see them die but unable to stop the inevitable, and still they came.And so it was when a pair of Hunters arrived in the gloom, having found their way across the lake, the Guardian met them in the ruins of what had been the garden, his eyes brittle as ice.“You should not have come here, brothers. Not awaits you here but your deaths.”

One of the challenging Hunters, a youthful blonde not yet broken by his path, shifted his stance, slightly, while the older, more battle hardened, scarred from monsters and blade, was the one to speak.

“There’s quite a bounty on you and your demon pet,” his voice lilted with an unusual accent.The Guardian regarded the pair in silence for a moment, hands curled readily around the blades on his belt, while listening for the familiar roar of his own companion.“There has been for near a decade,” the Guardian replied calmly, unafraid even in the face of the pair. Others had come as such, pairs or small groups, none had returned across the lake. These two would be no different. “But we will not fall easily, brothers.”“We’re not your brothers,” the blonde snarled, taking a daring step forward, stopping only when his companion grabbed his arm. Clearly the elder was the wiser of the two but not wise enough to heed the Guardian’s warning. “You gave up your title and honor when you chose a monster over your duty.”The Guardian smiled coldly.“What do you know of what I gave up, little boy?” He shook his head. “The plague took everything from me. Do you know how long I watched my beloved suffer? How long it took before the plague ensnared him completely? Do you know what I felt as I watched the cursed armor take him away from me? To keep me from ever feeling his touch again? From ever truly hearing his voice again?”The Guardian shook his head again.“You know nothing, boy.” He slowly began to turn away. “You’ve had your warning. Leave. Or fall as the others fell.”The Guardian did not need to see the blonde to know he had drawn his bow, he heard the metal shift, the bolt grinding against the gears, and ducked as the arrow flew, missing him by inches.With a snarl he spun, blades in hand even as the elder Hunter drew his own with a curse while, from somewhere in the darkness, an enraged roar bellowed like thunder.“That,” the Guardian said quietly, stepping back as the lanterns dimmed and the shadows seemed to move, growing and reaching out, wrapping around him like an impenetrable fog. “Was your last mistake.”As the pair of Hunters watched a figure, larger than any man, carrying a black and red broadsword, encased in armor of the same colors, stepped forth, growling like a giant hound, smoke and embers spilling from the mouthpiece of the helmet it wore.The darkness grew deeper and, from it, the Guardian’s voice came again as sparks of blue lightning danced.“Remember, dear brothers, you were offered a choice.”The battle lasted longer than most and the Guardian was quite impressed.These Hunters were well suited to one another, just as he and his companion were, but they did not possess the powers his companion did not did they have the experience he and said companion had.In the end it ended as it always did.More bones to add to the pile.The Guardian stared down at the blonde Hunter’s body, broken and bent and bloodied from his beloved’s blade and shook his head. Young fool.A hand curled around his side and looked up, smiling softly, lovingly, reaching up to run his fingers over the helmet that could not be removed, imagining his beloved was smiling down at him from somewhere beneath the steel.“I love you, Titus,” he whispered, refusing to use the name the Hunters had given his beloved. “I will always love you, my darling knight.”A deep rumble was the only answer he received and, stretching up on his toes, Guardian formerly known as Nyx pressed a kiss to the heated steel, a single tear gliding down his cheek in mourning of the man who had been lost to him yet loved him still.This was their life.This was their curse.Until the dream ended.

[agustdomain]

Steal My Heart Away

Synopsis: It seemed it was time heartbreak sought you out, yet it was unexpected that the boy who stole your heart would deal you that painful hand. 

Word Count: 17 k

Genre: Angst 

Warnings: Language, mentions of underage drinking

Member: Hyunjin, ft. Mark lee and Donghyuck as best friends

A/N: This is a different universe from Running Circles Through My Mind, so this is not the same Hyunjin from that work! Nonetheless, hope you enjoy! Also this isn’t entirely edited, so my apologies if some of the errors are atrocious!

PART TWO

10:21 pm and your head was in the clouds.

More specifically, there was something in particular that had been plaguing you for the last few hours. A fatal flaw of yours would definitely be your tendency to overanalyze. Often, your best friends pointed out how much you would get stuck on things, overthink, and proceed to overwhelm yourself. You couldn’t blame yourself though, there was too much surrounding you and there were too many things to experience; how could they not expect you to analyze?

Here you were now, three hours after hanging out with your friends, and your best friend’s words still plagued your thoughts. It had been a simple enough night. Your four best friends and you had decided to hit up a diner after school, sitting around and chattering about whatever sprung to mind. Nancy was quiet as usual, not speaking up too much but whatever she said held some weight. She was the nicest out of you all, but if she did happen to show her shady side, it was mostly directed toward Donghyuck.

Donghyuck, the loud and boisterous one of your little clan. He was definitely sassy and shameless, and you happened to admire how confident he was in himself. He hardly ever showed a vulnerable side to himself, especially to you. You had yet to witness it firsthand, and you were unsure you would ever get to see it. After all, he loved putting on a show for anyone near, and he would hate to be perceived as someone other than his exuberant and dramatic self.

The other male counterpart of the group was none other than your childhood friend, Mark. Well, you weren’t sure if fifth grade counted as ‘childhood’, but you liked to constantly bring up how the both of you knew each other the longest. Without Donghyuck around, he was calm and- daresay- mature. However, if Donghyuck was around, a brighter version of himself was brought out. Sometimes it was a lot to handle, but you adored the two boys and wouldn’t trade out their personalities if ever given the opportunity. Mark was the friend that you went to if something was bothering you, or if something too personal to share with the group was plaguing you. For as long as you could remember, he was one of the only people you confide in about nearly everything.

Your remaining friend was the drop dead gorgeous Tzuyu- who Donghyuck liked to jokingly call Chewy, with an emphasis on how her name sounds exactly like a certain Star Wars character. At first glance, your stunning friend seemed shy and quiet. But around you and your friends, she was just as bold as Donghyuck. She was passionate and stuck up for what she believed in, and she always lifted everyone up. She was definitely someone who you loved having around, and throughout your four years of high school she had became an essential friend.

Some of your other peers had often pointed out that the five of you, upon first seeing the group, seemed like an odd little clan. The troublemaker Donghyuck, the mature yet popular Mark, bookish and charming Nancy, model-like athlete Tzuyu- and you, a supposed ‘theatre queen’- were a clan that seemed… unusual. But when looking past the surface, it all made sense. Donghyuck and Mark were two peas in a pod, doing everything from tying their laces for one another and crazy handshakes together. Tzuyu was a big sister and a life of the party all in one. Nancy was the sense of the group, reminding you all to take it easy, and holding a lot of wisdom behind her gentle eyes and voice. You were a listener, being the group’s backbone and offering up advice if necessary. All of you played an essential role to the dynamic, and it had been that way all of your high school career. Four years later, and things were the same.

On this particular day, the same day that led to you drowning in your thoughts, plenty of different topics had bloomed across the confined diner table. The previous topic had been upcoming finals in a few weeks, and Mark’s bummed out nature caused Donghyuck to try and liven the atmosphere by his senseless rambling. Eventually, Tzuyu had cut him off and started talking about an upcoming cross country meet that she had and how her time had been improving recently.

“That’s good to hear, Chewy. I bet you’re smoking all of them out on the track,” Donghyuck said distractedly, dunking one of his fries into ketchup.

Tzuyu sighed exasperatedly. “That’s like the third time you’ve said that whenever I bring up cross country.”

He looked up, his eyes wide as he was caught red-handed before his voice became shrill in defense, “It’s not my fault! You’re always talking about your running time improving! What else am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know! But all you show me is that you don’t care whenever you say the same things over and over again.” Nancy and you looked at each other in question, noticing it was unlike Tzuyu to get so worked up over whatever Donghyuck says, especially this soon in the conversation.

“My bad. I didn’t know it meant that much to you,” Donghyuck huffed out, scrolling through his phone and signalling he was done. That was also unlike him, because he tended to be the problem starter and loved to pick arguments. You looked back and forth between the two of them, wondering what their problem was, before reaching for your milkshake and taking a drink.

“Guys. I need some advice,” Mark’s nervous voice grabbed your attention, your gaze falling on your anxious friend beside you. He was fiddling with his plate, twisting it back and forth and avoiding eye contact.

“What’s up? Are you okay?” You asked him, reaching out and squeezing his arm in comfort before continuing to eat your food.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. I just-” He cleared his throat, seeming to figure out how to word whatever he was going to tell you guys. He had everyone’s full attention now, considering it wasn’t often you got to see something besides Mark’s calm and collected nature. “I’m thinking of doing something that I haven’t done before… but I’m not sure how to…”

“Well? What is it?” Donghyuck pestered, and you reached out to smack his upper arm lightly before turning back to Mark.

“Do you guys… remember Yerim?”

Ah, it all clicked to everyone now. All of your faces lit up in realization, and you couldn’t help but smile uncontrollably at his words. You were aware of Mark’s crush on Yerim, in fact you were aware of it longer than anyone else. It had developed back in sophomore year, when you and him had a class with her and fate had worked its magic, placing the three of you and someone else at a table together for an entire semester. You witnessed firsthand how the boy who everyone labeled as a guy with no romantic bone in his body, fell apart at the sight of his crush.

Yerim was an ideal girl, at least to you. She was stunning, of course, with short hair that suited her very nicely. Back when Mark and you had met her, her hair had been long and fell down her back like she was some runway model. You remembered the day she came to school with her hair cut short, mostly because Mark couldn’t shut up about it. It was last year that he officially made a statement about his feelings to the group. You had been so proud, exclaiming that you knew about his crush, and he had merely shrugged it off. It had been months of Donghyuck trying to convince him to act on his feelings, but Mark only rejected the idea. His excuse was that they were both too different and that they had different goals in mind after you all graduated. You knew that his real reason was that he wasn’t confident in himself. It’s a shame, because you were aware of how phenomenal he was. Hell, you knew him since you were ten years old, and that was eight years ago. But it seemed the tides had shifted, because there Mark was, asking if you remembered Yerim.

“Of course we remember her,” Nancy softly spoke up.

“Yeah,” Tzuyu said pointedly, “All you did was fawn over her for like eight months.”

“And then you stopped talking about her altogether after she started dating that Renjun guy,” Donghyuck added, and you all noticed Mark’s face become uncomfortable at the thought.

“Well, that’s not why I’m bringing her up!” Mark burst out, seeming on edge. You were slightly worried, but you just waited for him to open up. That’s just how he was; you needed to give him time and he would open up to you about what’s bothering him. “The thing is, her and I have gotten pretty close these last few weeks. And I’ve gotten a vibe from her that she might like me back? But she’s given me nothing to work with and I don’t want to make myself look like an idiot if I’m reading into this wrong.”

Donghyuck threw his head back and groaned. “Are you seriously going to sit there and be a chicken again? You’ve had so many chances to confess to her yet you never take it! How are you supposed to know if Yerim likes you if you don’t let her know how you feel?”

Mark rubbed the side of his neck nervously. “Yeah, well, I don’t want to ruin what we have-”

“Bullshit. You’re just scared. As usual.”

“Shut up, Hyuck. That’s not true,” Mark denied, seeming flustered. You had to admit, you felt the same way as Donghyuck, but you knew you had to word it differently or else you would rub Mark the wrong way.

“Mark, he has a point,” You held your hand up to stop him from interrupting, “But I understand you. Your fear is valid. These sort of situations are one of the most scariest things to deal with, because these are feelings we talk about. It’s a risk that so many people aren’t willing to take. And for as long as I’ve known you, no one has had this effect on you like Yerim has. So the real question is, do you think she is worth taking a risk on?”

He swallowed, his eyes staring into your eyes with nervousness before he uttered, “Of course.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

“It sounds easy when you word it like that. But it’s easier said than done,” Mark pointed out. He leaned his head back on the booth seat, looking genuinely afraid at his thoughts. It made you a little sad, knowing there was no way to ease his worries. This was a battle he would have to fight on his own. It was up to you and your friends to be there for him if it didn’t work out.

“Mark, obviously we can’t tell you what to do, but I think you should give it a chance. You’ve liked this girl forever, and I see the way you talk about her. I haven’t seen anything like it,” Tzuyu’s tone took on a sad quality, and you definitely didn’t fail to notice, “And because of that, you should seriously consider giving it a chance. You never know how she feels unless you ask. And if you don’t take that risk, then you’ll always be plagued with the ‘what if’.”

Nancy nodded, dabbing at her lips with a napkin before clasping her hands over the table. She gave Mark a once over, causing you to do the same. He looked so bothered but checked out, as if Yerim had already went and rejected him. You didn’t think his fear would come true, but you definitely understood his doubt.

“Think about it all before making an impulsive decision. Don’t let what we tell you affect the choice you choose. This is all about you, how you feel, and what feels right. If in the end, you think it’s best that you remain friends, then we’ll support you. If you decide to tell her how you feel, we’ll be there for you. But don’t let this eat at you. You’re too young to have gray hair,” Nancy threw in the little comment to lighten up the atmosphere, and she succeeded. The tense air faded away, Mark expressing his gratitude before the topic changed. You were definitely proud of the friends you had.

It wasn’t until you were leaving that Donghyuck had grabbed your attention. “Hey Y/N. I got a question for you.”

“I’m all ears,” You responded, walking on the edge of the sidewalk as you all headed in the directions of the cars. Donghyuck walked alongside you, falling quiet for a moment, before pulling you to a stop and leaving you mildly confused.

“I don’t know how to word this. Hm,” Everyone stopped, eyes on Hyuck as he tugged at his ear in thought. He proceeded to shrug before he bluntly asked, “What’s up with you and Hyunjin?”

His question led your mind to draw a blank. You felt your lips part, your eyes widen, and oddly your heart start to race. Your friends’ eyes were all trained on you, and you couldn’t find the words. You finally settled with, “He’s just a friend. An acquaintance, to be more accurate. ” Before realizing how unfamiliar your voice sounded.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Donghyuck scoffed. “Have you been hiding something from us?”

“No. I’m confused as to why you’re attacking me.” You finally recovered from his sudden question.

Donghyuck waved his hand dismissively and smacked his lips. “Only people who hide things feel attacked when asked a simple question.”

Mark stepped forward and clasped Donghyuck’s shoulder. “Dude, relax. If Y/N wanted to tell us something, she would.” You flashed him a grateful smile, but Tzuyu chimed in and caused your heart to race even faster.

“Although I’m a little curious now. Who is Hyunjin?”

“It’s a guy in our Anthropology class. Him and Y/N used to sit together. They’re just friends,” Nancy said with finality, pushing her circular rimmed glasses up the bridge of her note before walking to her car.

You exhaled a breath of relief before following after Nancy towards the passenger side. You heard Donghyuck without having to turn to him, because his words rang clear in your ears. “You talk about Mark being scared to take a risk? The pot calling the kettle black…”

You were silent as you sat beside Nancy, waiting for Tzuyu to finish up her conversation before sliding into the back of the car. She was the designated DJ, and put on one of her personal playlists. Your mind couldn’t focus, though, Hyuck’s words having more of an impact on you than he would ever realize.

Because he may not have known it, but he had hit the nail right on the head.

Truth be told, at the beginning of senior year, you wouldn’t have expected to fall for a guy like Hwang Hyunjin. You still remember standing alongside the edge of the classroom, awaiting the teacher to assign you seats. You remember feeling ticked off, because you were seventeen years old and still getting assigned a seat like you were a kid. Your teacher had called your name before his, tapping your desk that happened to be in the dead center of the room. You had begrudgingly walked over, hoping you would miraculously get to sit with Nancy. That day, miracles were not in favor of you- or so you thought at the time- because she had called Hyunjin’s name instead.

You had watched in mild exasperation as his lanky figure maneuvered his way through the classroom, greeting some of the people he passed with a smile. He was sporting a long-sleeved white shirt and shorts, as casual as could be, and you knew that you were screwed the moment he sat down. But no, not because it was a love at first sight sort of thing. Because he was a pretty boy, and at the sight of his smile you noticed all of your female classmates start to whisper. You had thought to yourself that it would be a long semester.

You had known of him, but never officially met him. Donghyuck had done baseball with him back in sophomore year, and both him and Hyunjin were the only sophomores to make the varsity team. You remembered going to some of Hyuck’s games, and how Hyunjin was easily a crowd favorite with his powerful hits and the way he glided across bases like he was skating instead of trying to make it to home base.

Whatever it was, you had not expected him to be the way he actually was. You had expected him to be like a typical pretty boy, annoying and uptight, and act like he ruled the world. But from the beginning, it wasn’t like that. He was super quiet at first, only talking when the teacher assigned partner work. His voice was low when he spoke quietly, but raised in pitch if something even slightly excited him. His hair was a neat brown sweep across his forward, sometimes parted stylishly but mostly resting as if he didn’t bother to do anything with it. He was tall, too tall for the tiny desks you were forced to sit in, yet he always sat straight.

Another perception of him that you were completely wrong about was that he would slack off, and he proved that wrong rather quickly after first meeting him. He would finish assignments the day after they were due, even though the teacher gave you a week to complete it. You remembered feeling astonished, wondering how he did it because sometimes the assignments were lengthy. And you remembered when you became impressed with his insightful nature, always having something meaningful to say- even if it was about something unrelated to class. Sometimes, he would voice his opinion if one of your classmates said something he didn’t agree with or happened to be unnecessarily rude. A big part of you wondered when your crush had developed, because maybe it had been after the first time you made him laugh, or the first time he made you laugh. Maybe it was the combination of his leg brushing yours underneath the desk during class, or your hands accidentally touching because of the cramped space. Maybe it was his ridiculous nicknames he would give you based on what you were learning in class. Or maybe it was because he made it a daily tradition to walk you to your next class even though his own was in the opposite direction. Whatever it was, you were guilty just like Mark. You had feelings you had no intentions of acting upon any time soon.

“Since the guys aren’t around, I think it’s safe to say we can have a more personal talk,” Tzuyu announced, before lowering the volume of the music. You dreaded her words because you knew what was coming. “Tell me about this Hyunjin guy.”

Nancy never looked away from the road, but her voice was powerful enough to make it feel like she was looking at her with shame. “Stop, Tzuyu. If she doesn’t want to talk about him, don’t pressure her.”

“No it’s okay. It was bound to come out some time, right?” You said, inhaling slowly before you felt your stomach drop in realization. “Wait a minute. How does Donghyuck know about Hyunjin?”

Nancy glanced you in confusion. “What do you mean? You’ve never told him about Hyunjin?”

“No! I mean, he knows him because of baseball. But how would he know about my feelings?” Your panic settled in, wondering if you stared at Hyunjin too much in class, laughed too much at his jokes, said something too suspicious. If it got back to Hyunjin, what if he got too uncomfortable to talk to you? To be fair, it was the second semester and you weren’t seat partners anymore. But he still talked to you whenever he could. And though you wouldn’t call yourself his friend, you still talked on a regular basis because of class.

“Don’t panic, okay? Maybe you let it slip around him or something?” Tzuyu offered. You immediately shook your head.

“No, because I don’t talk about Hyunjin. My little crush on him is practically a myth considering how secretive it is. I have to call him.” You tried and tried to call Hyuck but he ignored your calls. You wanted to scream. You felt like the guy with the biggest mouth knew your darkest secret. But you told yourself to calm down, and trust that Donghyuck wouldn’t spill something you hadn’t even confirmed to him. He was one of your best friends, after all.

“Just calm down. Nothing is going to happen, okay?” Nancy comforted you, and you knew you had no choice but to just let it go. Besides, there was no harm done. It’s not like you announced your feelings for the guy. In fact, Donghyuck had assumed it and you hadn’t even confirmed it. And if worse came to worse, if it somehow got back to Hyunjin, you would come up with something to save yourself. You didn’t want the guy to hate you.

Right as the three of you pulled up in front of Tzuyu’s house, she paused in moving to get out the car, simply saying, “You must really like this mystery guy.”

“Why do you say that?”

She shrugged before responding, “You know how I said I’ve never seen anything like how Mark looks when he talks about Yerim? Well, I saw that same look in your eyes when Hyuck mentioned his name.”

You wanted to question what she meant by that, only remembering feeling panic when Donghyuck had called you out, but all you could think about was how Hyuck was right. You had no room to talk about Mark not acting on his feelings, because it had been over a semester of school and you had kept your lips sealed about how you felt about Hyunjin. All that you were confused about, was how Donghyuck knew about your feelings.

And here you were, 10:22 pm and wondering where you had gone wrong. Donghyuck had never called back, and you were drowning in your tendency to overanalyze matters. You blamed yourself, figuring it was your fault that Donghyuck knew about Hyunjin. You didn’t even interact with Hyunjin enough for the crush to be more than a crush, but a startling fear hit you that maybe everyone knew. If Hyunjin knew, would he ignore you? Was he going to ignore you on Monday in Anthro? Would he laugh if he found out about your crush? Your thoughts were stressing you out, so you blindly reached out for your phone on the bedside table in the dark. Seeing a message notification from a few different people, you sighed as you saw that none of them were Donghyuck. Your eyes found an unknown number had messaged you, causing you to draw your eyebrows together in question. Clicking the message, you saw that it was delivered around twenty minutes ago.

Unknown:

Hi… Is this Y/N?

You contemplated not answering, but your curiosity was piqued.

You:

Who is this?

You didn’t expect a reply any time soon, so after staring at the phone for a little too long, you tossed it aside and pulled out your laptop. You logged on and decided to watch a show you had recently gotten into, quickly growing distracted from the odd day that you had. After a few episodes, you realized it was midnight and you hadn’t checked your phone for a while. Your heart jumped upon seeing a message from the unknown number. The feeling drastically changed as your heart  felt like it was trying to crawl out your throat as you read the text.

Unknown:

Probably should’ve started off with that… It’s Hyunjin. Sorry to randomly message you, especially considering you weren’t the one to give me your number. I know how Donghyuck and you are close, so I just asked him earlier today.

You stared at it for a moment, your heart rate spiking as you watched another message come in, even though the last one was sent a while ago. It meant he was still thinking about what to say, even after all this time has passed.

Unknown:

There’s a number of reasons I wanted your number. The main one is that you know how in Anthro, the midterm was announced and how we need to pick a partner? Hah… I just remember how much I enjoyed doing projects with you last semester. I know we don’t talk often, and feel free to reject my proposition, but we work pretty well together and you’re cool so… if you’re down, we should work together.

You hoped he would explain his other reasons for messaging you, but nothing else came in after that. Your heart raced as you typed out a response, erased it, rewrote another one, then repeated the process. You couldn’t believe this was happening, but you gave yourself a reality check. He viewed you as a good partner, an acquaintance at the most, and you weren’t going to let your petty crush ruin the relatively good bond you had with your classmate. He was a great guy, but you wouldn’t let that sway your decision.

You:

Hey Hyunjin! It’s nice to hear from you. Yes, this is Y/N haha. I would love to work with you for the midterm project. Just let me know when we should start brainstorming. What I said last semester stands, you were the best anthro partner I could’ve asked for! So I’m glad I get another chance to have you as a partner (:

Hyunjin:

Haha I second that. Anthro just hasn’t been the same since we switched seats. Who else is going to laugh with me at random things and let me tell them my cool stories? No one! My partner is, no offense, pretty lame. All he does is shush me.

You:

You’re telling me! I sit with Renjun! He’s… something else. I mean, he’s funny. But definitely not as funny as you.

Hyunjin:

I should be nominated as the senior class clown.

You:

That’s a little far-fetched.

And without realizing it, you messaged him for a few more hours, until it was so late that you could barely keep your eyes open. You sleepily thought to yourself that it seemed a friendship was starting, and you wondered to yourself if this was what you wanted. Did you want Hyunjin as a friend, or would you forever be sentenced to a crush on him that had yet to disappear? Maybe confessing and getting rejected is what you needed. But before you could ponder it further, you had knocked out.

The following week, the school day had already ended and you were just about ready to crash when you got home. Mark and Donghyuck wanted to go grab an ice cream cone before they had to work on a project together, and they offered to treat you. Ice cream was your weakness, and even though your tiredness told you to decline, your love for the sweet won the battle. So after the final bell, you scurried out of class and made a beeline for where Mark told you to meet him.

As you walked, music trickling in through your headphones and blocking out the chatter surrounding you, your mind crossed to Hyunjin. That wasn’t uncommon these days, because outside of the project you guys were slowly working on, a friendship had began to blossom. Much like that first night, you had mixed feelings about creating a friendship with him, but he was too alluring to resist the urge. Besides, you only had about two and a half weeks to finish up the project, present, and then probably stop messaging. You wrote off his kindness and friendliness as a way to maintain a good bond throughout the project work.

What was nagging at you though was although he said he reached out to be partners for the project, you guys hadn’t spoken much about the project itself. There had been one conversation where you guys messaged back and forth brainstorming ideas about what you could potentially make the project about, but that was it. It confused and slightly worried you. Not only that, there had been no talk of meeting up or even splitting up the criteria needed for the project. You decided you would bring it up next time you guys messaged.

Although you guys were on friendly terms, and texted almost everyday, there wasn’t much leeway to talk during class. Since you guys didn’t sit together anymore, and there was always a lesson plan, there was never time to talk. And the one time Hyunjin attempted to talk to you during class, he got scolded. The teacher also emphasized how there wouldn’t be much class time to work on the project and to utilize the time you were given wisely. You just hoped Hyunjin would prove to be a worthy partner in the days to come.

Your thoughts of Hyunjin halted as your music was cut off by your phone ringing. You pulled your phone out to see Mark’s name and answered without letting it ring too much. “Hello?”

“Y/N! Homie! Where are you?” The sound of Donghyuck’s loud voice blasting through your headphones made you wince. You lowered the volume of the call before you responded.

“I’m on my way to the front of the building. Mark told me to meet him there. Why didn’t you just call me from your phone?”

He was chewing on something, that much was clear. You were constantly being reminded of his bad manners over phone calls every single time he called. You heard him finish up chewing before he said, “Because my phone died. But anyways, don’t meet us there! Meet us at his car.”

You felt your eyes widened. “But he parks off campus! Far away, might I add!”

“Yeah, well, we’re already here.”

You were about to argue but you heard Mark in the background say, “Who are you talking to? Why are you on my phone?” Before a struggle seemed to ensue. The next voice you heard was none other than the owner of your phone. Thankfully he had a softer and quieter voice, at least over the phone he did.

“Y/N! Hey. Why did Hyuck call you?”

“He said to meet you at your car?” You said monotonously, sounding displeased with the idea. You couldn’t help it. The truth was, it was about a ten minute walk, which wasn’t too bad. But you were already tired and considered taking this opportunity to cancel. Mark ultimately silenced your thoughts.

“Don’t listen to him. Yeah, we’re almost at the car actually. We got let out of class early. But I figured we would swing back and pick you up. You cool with waiting a couple minutes?” It was like music to your ears. You wanted to plant a big kiss on Mark’s face for being such a sweetheart.

“Sounds like a plan,” Your voice came out tiredly, but you were grateful. “Thanks, Mark.”

“No problem. See you in a few.”

You walked off campus, leaning up against the fence that surrounded the school. You let the music wrap around your mind and cloud your thoughts, tapping your fingers on your thigh to match the bass of the song playing. Shuffling in your position, you glanced at all the people leaving the school, others waiting around you. Your mind vaguely registered that the baseball team players had slowly but surely started walking out the school and heading to their cars. You watched them in mild amusement, wondering to yourself why the baseball team all parked their cars together. Was that something they thought made them look cooler, or was it based on convenience?

The sound of your name made your vision shoot to the side, where the gate’s entrance was located, and you felt your heart jump at the sight of Hyunjin standing there in his baseball gear. You would never admit it aloud, but he looked absolutely breathtaking in his uniform. That made you feel a little embarrassed, but you constantly heard Tzuyu declare, ‘Uniforms work wonders on guys. Sometimes makes them more better looking than they actually are.’ You used to think that was ludicrous, but seeing Hyunjin now made you think twice.

He waved his hand at you and muttered something, but because you still had your headphones in, you hadn’t heard him properly. Pulling them out, you said, “Sorry, what was that? I didn’t hear you.”

The friendly smile on his face had faded a little by this time, but that was usually what happened. He was a friendly guy, always finding reasons to smile. At the same time, he had an equally serious expression that was his default face. You constantly observed him jump between both of his signature expressions. He stepped closer, adjusting the hat on his head. You had never seen him wear a baseball cap, and you decided right then and there it suited him well. Even though you weren’t sure how great of a player he was these days- you still assumed he was as great as he was sophomore year- his appearance could definitely fool you into believing he was the best player.

“I said, you waiting for a ride?”

“Yeah, actually. Mark is coming to pick me up.”

Hyunjin’s face lit up in realization before his eyebrows furrowed in question. “Isn’t he still in school?”

You just shook your head and slightly laughed. “Yeah, he got out early today. So he decided to run to his car before swinging back and picking me up. Saves me the trip, fortunately.”

Hyunjin nodded in acknowledgement, his eyes trailing to one of his teammates who was shooting him an impatient look. It was obvious he had somewhere to be, most likely a game, but he was hovering as if he had something he wanted to say. You pretended not to notice his hand signal to his friend, signalling him to wait a moment, before he turned his body back to you.

Adjusting his bag slung across his shoulder, he licked his lips in thought before saying, “So, Y/N, I was thinking-”

The sound of Mark’s high-pitched car horn cut through his words, grabbing the both of your attention as Mark and Hyuck pulled up in front of you. Hyuck leaned half his body out the window and shouted, “Get in, bitch! We’re going shopping!” You shot him an angry look, not knowing whether to hit him or praise him for quoting the movie that he always denied that he loved. Mark decided for you as he watched him lean over and punch him. It seemed like it was a hard punch too, because it was enough for Donghyuck to pull himself back into the car and start bickering with him.

Hyunjin chuckled awkwardly, “Wow, uh, I forgot how… colorful he is.”

“That’s Hyuck, alright. He sucks.” You jokingly commented before reaching down to grab your backpack off the ground. “Duty calls. What were you trying to say earlier?”

You watched with curious eyes as he bowed his head and let a tiny smile appear on his lips before turning serious again. Typical Hyunjin. He looked up at you then, waving his hand dismissively before saying, “Just project stuff. We should officially decide on our topic soon. Then start working on it.”

Relief filled your heart at the words, a smile gracing your lips as you walked towards the car, your eyes still on him. “Yes, definitely! We can talk more about it tonight.”

Hyunjin’s teammate finally had enough, telling Hyunjin to ‘hurry his ass up’ but it didn’t deter Hyunjin at all. You simply shook your head, opening the door before calling, “Good luck at your game!”

He nodded, waving once before saying, “See you tomorrow!”

Sliding into the car, you met Mark’s and Donghyuck’s curious gaze before asking, “What?”

Donghyuck smirked. “What was that all about? Was he asking you out on a date? Did you finally confess? Did you-”

“No, no, what’s your problem? We’re friends! And we’re partners. We were just talking about our project.”

Donghyuck threw his head back in exasperation. “I swear, if I have another Mark on my hands, I’m going to punch myself.”

Mark exclaimed, “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“It means you still haven’t confessed to Yerim and I think it’s going to be your only regret on your death bed.”

Mark turned his attention to starting the drive, but his response was, “No, I have more regrets than that. One of them being your friend.”

Donghyuck smacked his lips and seemed to prepare himself for another argument, but before he could respond, you said, “Wait a minute. Hyuck, not so fast. I want to know how you knew about my crush on Hyunjin.”

His expression turned to one of shock, before guilt, then feigned innocence. “Just intuition.”

Mark bluntly said, “I call bullshit.”

“Me too,” You agreed.

Donghyuck pulled out the theatrics, his face displaying shock as his voice raised an octave. “What are you trying to say? That I can’t possibly be attentive and pick up on my friend’s hidden feelings?”

“You’re pretty dense, man. About certain things, at least,” Mark offered up.

“Shut up, Mark! Not about this! I know you guys better than yourself sometimes! You didn’t even have to tell me about Yerim and I knew the moment you mentioned her for the first time!”

Before an argument would spark up, you raised your hands before saying, “Okay, so what gave away my Hyunjin situation then?”

Donghyuck took some time answering, leaving you practically fidgeting in impatience as you watched him pull down the visor and check himself out in the mirror. As he began fiddling with his hair, he disinterestedly said, “I could tell by the way you mentioned him at random times when he seemingly had no relation to the conversation. I mean, sure, we were teammates two years ago. But you had no reaction to him back then. Suddenly, we find out you have a class with him this year and that you’re seat partners. You and I are the only people associated with him. Yet, when you brought him up, you spoke fondly about him more than I ever did. And then I thought maybe my suspicions may be wrong, so I brought it to Nancy.”

Oh, Nancy. The other attentive one of the group. You wouldn’t have expected her out of everyone to rat you out, but you weren’t too angry. These were your best friends after all, and it wasn’t like they were going to announce it to the school. Donghyuck did have a problem with keeping secrets, but if you drilled it into him, he wouldn’t say anything. He continued on with his explanation.

“Nancy didn’t know that I was only guessing. I made it seem like I just knew. And she confirmed my suspicions, saying that the way you acted around Hyunjin during class was similar to the way you used to act around that senior guy when we were freshman. What was his name again? Didn’t he go by some ridiculous nickname?”

“His nickname was Ten,” Mark snickered at the memory, before adding, “Yeah, Y/N, you had it so bad for Ten. When he was around, you saw nothing but him.”

“And Nancy said that it had the same feel as your Ten crush, but a little different,” Donghyuck said with finality.

You were surprised, to say the least. You had to give it to Donghyuck; he was more observant than you had initially perceived. It wasn’t like you were purposefully making it a secret and hiding it from your friends. You just didn’t think of your crush on him more than that. He was a guy you saw once a day, who had only been more of a constant for the past few days. Regardless of that, you weren’t even sure how you felt and if it was deep enough to just write off. For now, you were just going to let things play out and focus on the project you and Hyunjin were inevitably going to work on together.

As you guys pulled up to a local ice cream shop, Donghyuck distractedly commented, “If it makes you feel any better, I have this inkling that he might have a thing for you too.” And when you asked him why, he just waved his hand- albeit a little similarly to the way Hyunjin had- and said, “Just an inkling.”

You ignored the way your heart jumped.

Hyunjin:

Hey it’s your favorite anthro partner, reaching out from beyond the grave.

You:

I figure you’re dead because of your game?

Hyunjin:

Yeah… It was rough today. Coach is on me right now about how I’ve been playing. And other things. But it’s whatever, I’ll be fine.

You:

You’re a tough guy. Things will work out.

You:

Sorry. That sounded so insincere. What I mean is, I know you got this. Whatever you’re going through, you’ll be fine. Just keep your head up and try and stay focused. And I’m here if you need to talk about things.

Hyunjin:

Thanks…

Hyunjin:

Anyways, we should talk about the project…

Time seemed to be flying by faster than you could get a grip. It was already the weekend, and you had planned to meet Hyunjin at the library on Sunday morning. You had finally decided on a topic, and had each done a bit of research. Today was the first time you were going to meet up and knock out a chunk of the project. You had even decided that you would work on the power point and do half of the written portion while he worked on the visual and the other half of the written portion. In terms of the project, things were running smoothly. As for the friendship that had randomly started blooming a little over a week beforehand, it had come to a heavy stop.

The two of you hadn’t really spoken after deciding on the topic and the responsibilities of each respective person, the only other time being to set up a time to meet at the library. In class, your eyes would always find him, noting how he looked tired. You caught him blinking rapidly twice, as if to fight off his drowsiness. He also gave off an irritable vibe, which made you less willing to approach him. You didn’t message him. And he didn’t message you. You felt that maybe your assumptions had been right, that he was only striking up conversation for the sake of the project. But on the other hand, he might’ve just been busy.

He showed up thirty five minutes late, his strides long and purposeful as he found you at the back of the library, holed up in one of the corners. His face was emotionless, his appearance a little frazzled like he rushed over to the library. Regardless of that, his hair seemed perfectly unbothered atop his head. You wondered what his trick was to always having perfect hair.

“Sorry I’m late. I was doing something and lost track of time.”

“No worries,” You muttered, reading the last line of the current page you were reading of your book before closing it and putting it away. Pulling out your laptop and other materials, you looked up at him in question, wondering why he was still hovering. “You going to sit?”

“Right.” He said, his voice sounding clipped as he pulled out the seat across from you. He was wearing a gray sweater, your eyes falling on the infinity necklace that dangled around his neck. You glanced up at his emotionless face, the way he slowly pulled out the materials from his backpack before meeting your gaze. “We should try and finish this as soon as possible.”

His words caught you off guard, and you wondered why he was being a little cold, but you decided to not question him, simply nodding before handing over your paper. He did the same, and the next hour and a half was spent working on the project. Everything was running relatively smoothly, and you guys were able to finish up everything you wanted to finish today.

You stretched yourself out once you finished, sighing in happiness before saying, “I guess that’s it for today. I think I’ll be heading home now.”

Hyunjin didn’t seem to hear you, his gaze firmly on the dark wood of the table. His face was as emotionless as ever, and this was another time how you noticed how tired he seemed. You don’t know what prompted you to reach out, but your hand on his shoulder caused him to jump from the contact. You pulled away quickly, apologizing.

He let an easy-going smile fall on his lips, his tired eyes lighting up as they crinkled up. It was a nice sight. He waved you off, you noting that it seemed to be a habit, before he hissed in thought and said, “Sorry about being so frazzled. I just… have a lot on my mind.”

“Don’t worry about it.” You swayed a little, feeling like he needed someone to talk to from the vibe he was giving off. If the way his eyes found their way back to the wood was any sign, you knew that this might be your only chance to talk to him before school and class and his sudden distant nature gets in the way again. So you deliver yourself back to the seat you were previously in, your eyes searching his face.

He doesn’t react to your presence right away, his fingers tracing the side of his notebook, the designs in the wood, the edge of the table. After some time, his eyes slowly raised up the expanse of your visible body and connected with your own. There was no sign of what he was thinking hidden in his gaze. He looked at you the way one would look at a stranger.

“What’s on your mind?”

He scoffed, his body language immediately turning defensive and closed off as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. It made you feel slightly uneasy. He licked his lips in thought, avoiding your gaze now, and uttering, “Why does it matter? And what makes you think something’s on my mind?”

“Because you seemed distracted the entire time we talked. And you didn’t notice I was leaving. And frankly, this whole week you’ve been acting different.”

He leaned forward quickly then, causing you to lean back as a reaction. His eyes narrowed, his voice sounding unnecessarily accusatory, as he said lowly, “And how would you know that? How would you know if I’m not acting like my usual self? You don’t know me like that, Y/N.”

You don’t know why his words stung, because they were true, but it must’ve been because of how he was acting. You had never seen Hyunjin like this, so wound up and irritated. He was always kind to you, offering up smiles when the situation called for it. And the fact that he pointed out the lack of closeness between the two of you bothered you more than it should. Nonetheless, you didn’t let his defensive nature deter you.

“You’re right. I don’t know you much past the persona you put up as my partner, but that doesn’t make me oblivious to the change in attitude you’ve suddenly had. I’m not pressuring you into telling me what’s wrong, because you’re right. We’re not friends. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to worry. You look tired. You’re irritated over every little thing. Something’s been bothering you. And if you can’t tell me, then at least confide in someone you care about. It’s not good to keep things bottled up,” You said with finality before standing up and pulling your backpack on. You moved to walk past him and towards the exit, but the sensation of his hand around your hand caused you to immediately fall to a stop. His touch was gentle, not at all firm. Like he was too weak to even try and get you to stop walking. But it had been enough.

You looked down at him, expecting to see frustration. But his face was surprisingly open. He let his tiredness show, his expression seeming worn and exhausted. His eyes were what tugged on your heart the most, sad and defeated. But he only let you see this for a moment, fixing his face and saying, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take you up on that offer. Maybe I should…” He let go of your wrist then, the absence feeling a little too heavy, but you watched as he anxiously readjusted his seated position. He leaned forward, aggressively rubbing his hands over his face as his eyes looked somewhere faraway. He puffed out a breath from his lips, looking genuinely overwhelmed. You wanted to hug him, ease his stress, but you simply took your seat for the third time.

He laughed, but it was empty and forced. “I’m not good at this. Expressing my emotions, I mean. I’ve always been like this. There’s been plenty of times that my friends called me a robot for never showing anything besides genuine happiness. But that’s just how I am. There’s no point in showing anyone when you’re sad, upset, stressed, angry, tired, annoyed. They can’t do anything about it. All anyone does is give you a half-assed and over-used phrase about how things will get better, and then they forget that you even felt a certain way. And I’m not just talking about friends, either.” 

You watched him closely, his voice higher in octave and filling with more emotion as he began to talk more rapidly, “It’s family, too. Everyone expects you to be emotionally stable, to either be stoic or happy, nothing else. And if you ever show something else, you only get mild concern from someone. Everyone wants something from you. They want you to be their shoulder to cry on, their excuse to break someone’s heart, to be better and more successful, and if they see you struggle… Nope. You’re not allowed to struggle. You have to be perfect and you have to deal with it. I might as well be a robot, just like my friends say-” You reached out, your hand cupping his and grasping it firmly, your eyes trained on his face. His lips parted, as if he were going to say something about your actions, but he just simply looked away and continued on his ramble, “I’m young. Adults chastise us when we moan and groan about wanting to be an adult, but the next day spout all this nonsense about not being responsible enough. I’m tired. I’m so tired.”

You decided it was time for you to look away when the first tear dropped from his eye, respecting what he said earlier about not being used to opening up to anyone. You moved to bring your hand back, but you felt more than saw him flip his hand over and grip yours tightly. You didn’t hear him crying. He was silent. But you could feel it. And you just bathed in the silence with him. Being there for him. Your heart ached for him, feeling bitter that someone as bright and as hopeful as him was being beaten down by the people and the world around him.

It was a while before he calmed down, you barely noticing that his previously firm grip on your hand had fallen limp. You pulled your hand away and he let it happen. Your eyes found his, the only evidence of his crying being his slightly red eyes. You were about to speak when he just shook his head and said, “Thank you for listening to me. I think I just needed to let it out somehow. You don’t have to give me advice or anything. I’ll be okay. It’s just… stress and things are taking a toll on me. The school year is coming to an end in a couple months and everything feels a little suffocating sometimes. But like you said, I’ll keep my head up.”

Your voice was soft, quiet. “You’re allowed to feel, Hyunjin. You should never accept being a robot. You’re a person. You’re supposed to feel, to hurt and to cry and to laugh and to love. It wouldn’t be life without all of those things.”

“It’s not that easy.” He shook his head, puffing out a breath from his lips. “I appreciate your words, though, I really do. I’ve just been brought up a certain way and it’s harder than usual these days to keep my emotions in check.”

“Well you don’t ever have to hide your emotions from me. What you feel is normal and valid. And even if you’re not seeking comfort or advice, if you let me I’ll be your friend that’s there if you ever need it.”

He stared at you blankly for a moment before letting out a short chuckle. “Just a few minutes ago, we both basically told each other we weren’t friends. I didn’t mean it like that, by the way. Sorry I was being an asshole.”

“You were just overwhelmed. I don’t blame you. It’s good to talk about these things.”

He blinked, letting your words sink in, before nodding. “Yeah, I noticed. It’s just hard to find trustworthy people to confide in about things. I’ve done it before and regretted it. But I trust you and my friends… Thank you for staying. And talking to me. I know I wasn’t being the easiest person to deal with.”

You just shrugged before saying, your heart feeling a little heavy, “I’m your friend. I’m here for you.”

His smile faded from his lips then, his eyes finding the wooden table, “Yeah… Friend…”

“Who’s bright idea was it to swim in the middle of March?” Mark asked, the five of you lined up in front of the pool. None of you had jumped in yet, but you each were in bathing suits and dreading what was to come. Everyone’s attitude had quickly changed feeling the chilly air.

“Guys, don’t be babies. My pool’s heated.” Donghyuck announced before running forward and flipping into the pool.

Tzuyu rolled her eyes, scoffing, “Such a showoff,” before discarding her towel and diving in perfectly into the deep end.

Donghyuck squealed loudly when he emerged from the water, shouting, “I did not emotionally prepare myself for that feeling.”

You just laughed before dipping your toes into the water, testing the temperature. It was warm, indeed, but it was still going to suck getting out of the pool and drying off. You couldn’t decide if you and your friends were idiots or rebels. Probably a mixture of both.

You should’ve known not to turn your back on Mark, because one minute you were standing alongside the edge of the pool, the next you were submerged in the pool with his arms wrapped around you. The sensation had knocked the air out of you, your body not prepared for the temperature. You swam to the surface, gasping out loudly before turning to Mark and splashing water at his face. He only snickered, trying to catch his breath and block your attack.

“Nice, Mark!” Donghyuck floated over and high-fived him, you only giving him a blank look before swimming away from them. Mark called after you in feigned care, but eventually stopped his talking, opting to go after Nancy next. She still wasn’t in the pool, sitting down at the table outside. You heard her denials and pleads to not be thrown in, squealing as you assumed Mark had picked her up. You turned just in time to watch him jump in with her in his arms.

When she emerged, you called monotonously, “I know the feeling!” before proceeding to float on your back. Your ears were just below the surface, every sound reaching your ears murky and muffled. Your eyes gazed at the quickly darkening sky, your mind wandering to other things. It wasn’t long before your mind flashed to Hyunjin, of course. It always did these days. If you weren’t so into him, you would’ve been annoyed with yourself by now.

He was an enigma. A book that held many languages, many codes to decipher and pictures that you had to study to even mildly understand. He was careful with how he executed himself, and what you used to believe was genuine friendliness seemed more calculated now. He was more profound than anyone could even see, and it was a shame. Because now that he allowed you more peeks into his true self, he had easily and quickly stole your heart away. You hadn’t felt like this about anyone before, even Ten who was your first legitimate crush. And you could say with confidence that you were glad it was Hyunjin of all people that had awoken this feeling in you.

Someone poked your forehead, and you stopped floating on your back, turning to face Mark. His hair was sticking up in random places, and you would never admit it to his face but he surprisingly looked good in the midst of his messy appearance. His eyes were expecting, before he must’ve realized that you didn’t hear whatever he said, and he asked, “Jeno is throwing a little get-together at his house tomorrow. You down to come with us?”

“Jeno?”

Donghyuck was lounging around at the shallow side of the pool, his arms extended and resting on the edge of the pool. He called to you, “Smiley guy from the basketball team. I also used to play baseball with him sophomore year.”

You nodded your head, your heart jumping at your train of your thought. That might mean Hyunjin would show up to this get-together as well. You didn’t count on it, but the thought still sent your heart racing. It was like Donghyuck read your thoughts because he teased, “Maybe tomorrow will be the day you finally own up to your feelings for Hyunjinnie.”

Mark’s wide eyes looked at you before a smile lit up his features. “That would be interesting-”

“Yeah ‘cause Mark’s not going to do it any time soon.” Mark’s face quickly morphed into an expression of annoyance at Donghyuck and you simply submerged under water to block them out. Even those his words were teasing, they stuck with you. Donghyuck tended to have that effect on you, to keep you thinking about things long after he said them. You hadn’t really entertained the thought of confessing to Hyunjin, but the thought terrified you and you weren’t sure if you could ever find it in you to look him in the eyes and admit it. Maybe you and Mark were a little too similar.

Coming up for air, you heard Mark exclaim, “Why are you bringing up her ex? This isn’t

about him! And I’ve never wanted to confess to her because maybe I didn’t want a relationship at the time! These days, I’ve thought about it more. I just haven’t decided when I'll talk to her about it. So stop pestering me about it. You’re so annoying.”

You gave Mark a sympathetic look, well aware of how easily Donghyuck got under his skin. Hyuck didn’t respond, deciding to dive under the water and swim away from Mark. It was kind of ridiculous how easily these two argued sometimes, but whenever they got lost in their little conversations, it was always obvious that they were meant to be best friends. Like the old saying goes, they can’t live with or without each other.

Donghyuck swam up for air near you, and you were surprised to see his face look so troubled, his lips pursed and his eyebrows drawn together. He ran his fingers through his hair before connecting his gaze with your own. His tense expression fell away, a grin replacing his previous pursed lips. You gave him a knowing look, but he simply swam past you. He was just like Hyunjin, you found yourself thinking to yourself. Locking away his true emotions behind his teasing and pestering. And you found yourself wondering what exactly was plaguing your friend’s mind at the moment when he looked so tense. You thought about asking him, but before you could, Tzuyu suggested a chicken fight.

“Hell yeah! You’re about to get dominated!” Mark cockily announced, flexing his bicep and dramatically kissing it. Tzuyu cackled mockingly, before giving you a stern look and calling you over.

“Why can’t Nancy be your partner?” You were quick to ask.

“Because you know she’s not into pool games,” Tzuyu said before slyly adding, “She doesn’t like the pool at all.”

“I can’t even argue with that,” Nancy said, proceeding to get out and scurry to get her towel. She was over there complaining about it being super cold, but you didn’t give it anymore thought as you slowly made your way over to Tzuyu.

“Hyuck. You want to be my partner?” Mark asked, already squashing their previous conflict. You all turned to Hyuck, who wasn’t his usual loud and excited self. He just quietly swam over to Mark.

“Okay,” Mark brushed it off, “Let’s get this started,” before him and Tzuyu dived under and allowed Donghyuck and you to sit on their shoulders. The match started once Mark and Tzuyu were stable and standing above the water. Nancy was the designated referee, and the match started soon after. A lot of it was your laughter and squealing if Donghyuck was a little too close to knocking you guys over. Tzuyu was shouting at you to be strong and knock him down, while simultaneously on defense as Mark tried to sabotage by pushing at Tzuyu with one hand. Things took a turn for the worst when Donghyuck latched onto your hands, bending your wrists at an awkward angle.

“Hey! That hurts!” You shouted, trying to break out of his hold, but it was like he

didn’t hear you. Instead, his grip got tighter, and it hurt to the point where you were screaming for him to let go, squirming so you could just fall off Tzuyu’s shoulders. Tzuyu moved back quickly, causing you to lose your balance and taking Hyuck with you. Fortunately, he let go.

When everyone was above the water, a heated conversation immediately started, the main source of anger being you. “What the hell’s your problem, Hyuck? I told you to let go!”

Donghyuck shrugged it off, causing your anger to spike even higher. “That’s not how Chicken works. You keep going until someone falls.”

“Dude, don’t be a dick. Why did you keep holding onto her wrists?” Mark asked.

You all watched as Donghyuck whirled on Mark, his barely hidden anger now making an appearance. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I got too in the game. Isn’t it amazing how you always get to play the good guy, the hero who swoops in and saves all the girls? Give me a break, Mark. You’re not as perfect as the facade you put on in front of us.”

Mark’s face scrunched up in incredulity. “What are you talking about? I’m not trying to be anyone’s hero. When I see you do something wrong, of course I’m going to call you on it! Just how you would call me out on something I did. You hurt Y/N!”

“Oh, she’s a big girl. She can handle herself just fine,” He turned to you then, your face feeling flushed and your emotions a little high for you to think logically, “Are you okay, Y/N? Did I hurt you too bad? Are you going to cry and run to your little boyfriend?”

His biting words stung, and you just scoffed before swimming to the edge of the pool and

pulling yourself out, the chilly air instantly biting into your skin. You heard Tzuyu jump into the conversation, immediately coming to your defense.

“Hyuck, just admit you were wrong. We get it if you were too into the game and didn’t realize it. Just apologize-”

“I don’t want to hear it. Especially from you.”

You turned, immediately wanting to avoid the fire that Donghyuck just sparked with his words. Tzuyu got along with everyone, was extremely sociable and likeable once you got close to her. But she was easily provoked if you said something the wrong way, or used a phrase she didn’t like. Her head swiveled back in shock before she met Donghyuck’s aggressive tone with her own.

“What does that mean? ‘Especially from me’?”

“Trust me, you don’t want me to answer that.” By this time, everyone was out the pool now. You were unsure why an argument had to have suddenly come up and ruin the night, and you knew that once Tzuyu and Donghyuck were going at it, it wasn’t going to end well. It was like the previously villainous and chilly air had become a thought in the back of your minds, the slowly dropping temperature of the night not affecting all of your damp bodies.

“No, go ahead. I’m curious. Why not from me, huh?”

As she spoke, his back was turned to her, but right as she finished, he spun on her and stalked over to her. This caused Mark to react defensively, an instinct rising up in him, but you roughly grabbed onto his arm to prevent him. Donghyuck wasn’t going to do something bad. As angry as he was, you knew he wouldn’t. But you were still on edge.

He held a finger up, his voice shaky as he sputtered out a jumble of words before chuckling darkly and straightening his shoulders. Tzuyu looked cocky, her eyes narrowed and confident she would somehow win the argument. At his next words, you all watched as her confident expression fell away into a shocked mess.

“You think you’re above everyone, princess. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before, but you’re so selfish. You only care about yourself, and no one else. I thought I…” His voice quivered again, and you all couldn’t see his face from this angle, but it became painfully clear that he was talking about something between the two of them, not about the actual matter at hand. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter anymore. You made it so clear to me when you decided to just brush me off like I was nothing. And then you sit here and pretend like everything’s okay, which makes me feel like the biggest idiot in the world. I have to sit here and put up a front in front of my own best friends. I’m so sick of this shit. I’m done with you.”

He turned and walked past you guys, chest heaving as he strode into his house and left you all standing in his backyard. The air was silent, so silent that it was painful as the three of you turned your attention to Tzuyu. Her face was pale, her eyes trained on the back door that Donghyuck had walked into moments before, and her frame looking smaller than you had ever seen. This wasn’t the Tzuyu you knew, the confident and bold girl. This was someone who had been knocked down by Donghyuck himself.

“Tzuyu, what was that?” Mark asked, his tone cautious.

“N-nothing. He doesn’t know what he was talking about. Just nonsense as usual.” She said, walking over to the porch table and wrapping her towel around herself before taking a seat.

“I think I’ll go talk to him-”

“No. I’ll do it,” You deadpanned, his face immediately showing that he was going to argue. But you silenced him with a hand, this time on his shoulder. Mark was quite sensible when the time called for it, his eyes turning soft as you two shared a look. He trusted you. So without another word, you journey into the house to find your friend.

It doesn’t take long at all to find him, his bedroom door cracked open and the yellow light of his room filtering out into the hallway. You wondered where his parents were, him telling us that they weren’t home when he invited you guys over. You gently pushed the door open, turning away quickly as he was in the middle of pulling a shirt on over the rest of his torso. He looked over at you before scoffing and turning away, roughly rummaging through his drawers.

“Hyuck-”

“What do you want, Y/N?” His tone wasn’t angry anymore, just defeated. You looked at him then, really looked at him, and saw a sad boy. A boy who looked like he was hurt by someone. And suddenly you were afraid that what you were about to find out, may forever change your friend group.

“I wanted to check on you.”

He stopped rummaging and straightening out, throwing his arms out exasperatedly and exclaiming, “Well, here you go. I’m fine. Go away.”

“No.”

You expected him to fight you on it, but he just proceed to ignore you as he rummaged through his drawers again and found the pair of jeans he was looking for, giving you a look that signalled for you to turn away so he could throw them on without your stare on him. When you figured he was done, you turned to spot him tying his Vans on his feet, and when he was done he strode over to his mirror and began trying to half-heartedly style his hair with his fingers.

“Hyuck, let’s talk. Don’t avoid us.”

“I’m not avoiding anyone.” He didn’t notice you come up behind him, your hand reaching out for his shoulder. He whipped away from you, flashing his annoyed eyes at you. “What do you want? Leave me alone.”

“No. I want you to be okay and-”

“News flash. I’m not okay.” His words rang loudly in the room, long after he spoke them. His chest was heaving, like he had just ran a race. And you had never wanted to hug him as much as you did right now. You remained silent, letting him choose whether or not to open up to you. He made his choice moments later. “None of you would get it. You would just brush it off or make a joke out of me and I just,” He swallowed heavily, and you didn’t know if you imagined his eyes glossing over. He moved to his bed, plopping down on the edge and covering his face with his hands. You had figured these words were coming, but it still hit you like a freight train.

“It had to be her. Out of the three of you, it had to be her. Nancy is amazing. She’s pretty and smart and selfless. You’re pretty too, and you care about us and make me laugh. And her…” His eyes were definitely watery, but you ignored it, listening to his painful words, soaking them in, “She just drew me in. She’s strong and fierce and-and passionate. And at first it was playful, innocent. But I couldn’t help it. I thought she felt the same way. I was happy, so happy. Thinking that maybe, just maybe… someone could feel the same way I do. But she doesn’t. She just ripped my heart out and stomped on it like it was all just a game to her. Maybe it was. I wouldn’t be surprised.

“I saw signs of her not feeling the same way. I just ignored them, though. Feelings are a bitch, especially when they’re not returned. And then…” He let out a painful laugh, sounding a little more than hurt, but you just took a seat next to him, letting him feel your presence. It’s like he didn’t see you there, though. “She just told me she was done. She was going on a date with someone else, someone that wasn’t me. She just cut me off like it was an everyday task she was checking off on her to do list. And the worst part is, I have to hide how freaking bad it hurt me. I have to sit there with her, pretend we’re nothing more, ignore how my heart literally feels numb, and I can’t talk to you about any of it because you guys didn’t know. I was just her kissing buddy or some shit. She’s heartless.”

Tears silently fell down his cheeks, and you couldn’t hold yourself back anymore. Wrapping your arms around him, you rested your head on his shoulder and held him firmly, comforting him as much as you could. He rested his head on top of yours, his body slightly shaking from his silent crying. Your heart ached for him. You and your other friends had been oblivious to what was conspiring between two of your closest friends. You wouldn’t ask questions, you would just be there for Hyuck, who was so obviously hurting.

Eventually he calmed down, and he gently pulled away from your grasp. You watched him closely, and hopefully with a comforting gaze. He sniffled, his hands reaching out and grabbing hold of one of your hands. He caressed your wrist very softly, his touch almost being nonexistent, and he whispered into the air, “I’m sorry for hurting you earlier. My head was in the clouds, and I know that’s not an excuse, but I was just really really distracted and I would never intentionally hurt you-”

“I accept your apology, Hyuck. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it okay?” You patted his cheek twice, waiting for him to nod before moving to stand. He stood with you, his eyes refusing to meet yours. It seemed like he still needed time to pull himself together. “I’ll meet you outside, okay?”

“I think it’s probably best if you all go home. I wouldn’t want anymore arguments to happen,” He suggested, and you figured that definitely was the best option. You turned to walk out, but he grabbed your hand. Turning back to him, you shot him a confused look. He shakily inhaled before lunging forward and giving you a strong embrace. It shocked you at first, but you adjusted quickly and hugged him back. “Thank you. For listening to me. And being there for me.”

“Always, Hyuck. I would never judge you. You’re one of my best friends. I will always be here for you. And I got your back. You’re going to get through this- this pain. And I’ll be there every step of the way.” He sighed out, sounding like a breath of relief, before pulling away and offering you a sincere smile. It was a nice look on him. “See you tomorrow?”

“We’ll see.”

Almost twenty four hours later, you found yourself standing outside this Jeno guy’s front door, alongside Mark, Donghyuck, and Nancy. Tzuyu had gone radio silent since last night, and she had ignored your attempts to reach out. You would let her sort out what she was feeling before you tracked her down. And she had let Nancy know she wasn’t going to Jeno’s for the night, which eased Hyuck’s tense heart a little bit.

“Ready to get drunk?” Hyuck asked, leading to you and Nancy giving him a disapproving look. He held his hands up defensively, adding, “I was just kidding… Sorta.”

Before either of you could say anything, the door swung open to reveal the smiley guy named Jeno, waving his arm enthusiastically to come inside. Him and the guys greeted each other familiarly, before he gave you and Nancy a sweet smile and shook your hands. “I’m Jeno. You guys are Y/N and Nancy right?”

“Yes. This is Nancy, and I’m-”

“Y/N! Yes, I’ve heard a lot about you.” You and Nancy gave each other a look at that, before you proceeded to follow him into the depths of the house. He led you through the house and out to his backyard, your eyes widening in awe at how beautiful his backyard appeared.

Lights were hung up along the edges of the wooden fence that surrounded the yard, and were hung through the trees that lined the garden. There was even a small fountain in the corner, spouting water out and filling the air with a quiet sound of water trickling. Besides that, there was low music playing, a rap song from what your ears picked up. It definitely was a small get-together, several people sprawled out across the grass and seated in the outdoor seating area, cascaded in the dark. Jeno must’ve moved a ping pong table outside because two guys were in the midst of a very intense match.

Your eyes scanned the backyard, feeling a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as your eyes continued to not find Hyunjin until they suddenly did. He was leaned up against the fence, a cup in one of his hands as he chatted up someone. You watched as he bobbed his head, laughing at whatever the person said before continuing on talking. You were thankful you opted to wear your favorite outfit, and style your hair in your preferred style. You felt more comfortable than you had in a while. And you hoped it would work in your advantage.

“Mark!” You all looked to see a bright-faced blond boy bound over to you guys, immediately embrace the culprit mentioned in a hug, before letting him go and turning to the rest of you. “I’m glad you guys made it. Mark is embarrassed of his friends and never wants you guys to meet us. He thinks we’ll taint you or something. Whatever. We’ve all just been curious to meet you. I know some of us-” Another blond boy, significantly more calmer than the first, appeared and wrapped his arm around his chatty friend, somehow stopping his rambling, “Enough rambling. I’m Chenle. This here is Jisung.”

Jisung simply waved, and you finally recognized him as the sole sophomore to make the baseball team this year. History was definitely repeating itself, fond memories of Donghyuck excitedly telling you guys how he made varsity as a sophomore. You also recognized Chenle, a loud and boisterous junior who laughed loudly, that you could hear him down the hallways at school without even seeing him. He was known as a bit of a life of the party type, which is probably why he was so likeable. You also decided that his smile was contagious as you found yourself smiling back at them.

Donghyuck grabbed your attention then, whispering near your ear, “I’m going to find somewhere to hide. See you later.” He was still torn up about what had happened last night, and you considered going after him, but thought better of it as you figured he needed time to himself. You shuffled in your spot, being friendly as you struck up conversation with Jisung. You found out he was quite thoughtful and had plenty of things to say about pretty much anything. He was nice to talk to, and he kept your attention for quite a while. Soon, you all broke apart and went your separate ways.

You ran into a friend named Jaemin, his bright smile accentuating his features and his ever affectionate nature welcoming you in for a while. But even your time with him ended eventually, and you found yourself getting thirsty. You found a cooler and rummaged through it, looking for a Dr. Pepper before you felt a presence beside you.

“Finally. I thought I would never get a chance to talk to you.” Your heart raced in your chest at the voice, looking up and over your shoulder to spot Hyunjin. He looked as breathtaking as always, opting for a semi-casual look. He was adorned in dark jeans and a dark blue sleeved shirt, with a pair of Vans to finish the look. His hair was as neat as usual, and his gaze was gentle as he looked down at you with a friendly smile.

“Hyunjin. Hey! It’s nice to see you.” You noted you sounded way too excited for being just his friend, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care as he just chuckled and waited for you to finish finding your drink. Once you did, he did the same, choosing a Coca Cola before straightening out. You faced each other, taking a moment to take each other in, appreciation from your end and most likely friendliness from his end. He was the most stunning guy you had ever seen in your life. Perhaps your thoughts were dramatic, but your feelings didn’t lie. You wondered when he had stolen your heart, and how had it been that easy?

“I’ve been trying to find an opportunity to swoop in and talk to you, but every time I saw my chance, someone beat me to it. You were talking to Jaemin for a while there, and I was afraid you guys would talk until the night was over,” He sounded like he was joking, but his face was as stoic as ever. Since the library, he was more open about how he felt and what was on his mind. But old habits die hard, and he still had a strong hold on hiding his emotions from his face.

You just laughed at his words, tapping at the top of your soda can before saying, “That wouldn’t have happened. And I’m glad you approached me. I was waiting for a chance to talk to you too.”

His face showed mild surprise. “Oh. So you knew I was here?”

“Yeah, I spotted you when I walked in,” You spoke shyly, but you told yourself to get a handle on yourself. This was Hyunjin, someone who never judged you. He just nodded his head and tilted his head towards the house.

“Let’s sit down on the steps? Talk for a while?”

His words left you breathless and you didn’t know why. A phenomenal boy had your attention and it was unfaltering. It was like the moment he approached you, no one else was there in Jeno’s backyard. It was exhilarating. Without hesitation, you said, “Sounds like a plan.”

You didn’t realize how close in proximity you two would be up until you were sitting on the porch steps. He had taken the lead, so you were sat near the bottom of the steps, your backs against the steps above. The length of his body never actually went noticed, because he was so lanky and would constantly stretch out his legs if necessary. You amusingly thought to yourself how the amount of space he took up with his body is the equivalent of the amount of space he took up in your mind.

“Jeno picked a perfect night to host a get-together. It’s not too cold out,” Hyunjin said with a soft voice, his eyes scanning what you assumed was the tree-line. You definitely forgot how he appeared up close, and it was a cold reality check, colder than the slightly windy air. You watched as he did his usual habit of licking his lips, which is something he did when he had something on his mind. The wind tickled his hair a little bit, and you watched keenly as it lifted in the air and revealed a bit of his forehead. You wondered how he would look if he ever decided to style his hair differently.

“I agree. It’s a nice night.”

He hummed, glancing at you and offering a friendly smile before looking away and letting it fade. A big part of you wanted to ask if he was holding up okay, if he was still feeling overwhelmed like before. But you noticed he didn’t look so tired anymore, and he didn’t seem as stressed. You didn’t want to ruin this little moment the two of you were creating together. So you kept your lips sealed.

“How have you been, Y/N?” He looked over at you then, his eyes attentive and his voice a bit of a slur, like he was lazily carrying on the conversation. But his easy-going expression told you that he enjoyed talking with you. “I know we text here and there, but we don’t get to talk in person much. I miss this.”

Your heart thumped hard in your chest. “I’ve been alright. School. Friends. Drama. The same as usual. I miss talking to you too. You were definitely one of the highlights of my day.”

He laughed that off, sounding a little flustered with his next words. “Right… I, uh, understand that feeling. You mentioned drama… is everything alright?”

“Yeah, just stuff with my friends. Things will blow over… eventually. And if they don’t, we’ll all just have to learn to live with it. We’ve never had a problem that we couldn’t fix.” Hyunjin nodded, and the two of you fell into a bit of silence for a while. You fought against the chilly and windy air, rubbing your arms and pulling your sleeves over your fingertips, then placing your clothed hands up against your mouth. You watched as your friends conversed, Mark talking animatedly to Chenle and Jisung from earlier. Nancy seemed to be comfortable with that Jeno guy, because they were holed up in the corner talking. And you hadn’t seen Donghyuck since he said he was going to disappear earlier. It seemed he was better at disappearing than you expected.

“Are you cold?” Hyunjin’s voice filtered in your ears, breaking your train of thought. You tried to shrug him off, but he just shook his head and rose to his feet.

“What are you doing?” You hissed, but he didn’t say anything, simply outstretched his hand to you. You were confused, and only stared back at his equally stoic face.

“Are you going to just ignore my hand?” His voice was teasing, and he just shook his head before lowering his hand. “We can go inside. Jeno doesn’t mind. People have already started spreading out across the house.”

You had noticed the lack of people around the backyard that were previously there. You looked at your friends once again, but you figured they would be okay without you. So you stood up, agreeing underneath your breath, and followed Hyunjin inside. He seemed to know where he was going, leading you the way that you guys had come from when you first entered the house, and into what you decided to call the front living room. Jeno’s house was big and extravagant, and the fact that he had such nice decor inside and outside blew your mind. His family definitely knew how to properly decorate.

You stood in the entranceway of the front living room. Hyunjin walked into the darkness of the room, and you heard him fiddling around with something until you heard an audible click and light flooded in  from a small lamp in the corner. The light was dim and lit up the room similar to what a fireplace would. You adored the small space, and the sofa you sank into was so incredibly soft, you could envision yourself falling asleep on it.

Like the rest of the house, the little room was decorated nicely. There was a mantle that had a bunch of family photos, and from where you sat you could recognize a small and smiley Jeno in a lot of the picture frames. There were two tall bookshelves that reached the low ceiling, filled to the brim with different sizes of books. Other than that, it was a typical sitting room with two loveseats, a couch, and a glass table in the center.

You watched silently as Hyunjin walked over to the photos, humming in amusement as he pushed gently at one of the picture frames with his finger, before slowly walking over to join you on the sofa. He wasn’t too close, but it still brought your pulse into overdrive. From the corner of your eye, you watched him slouch on the sofa, his head resting on the back of the sofa, his eyes fluttering close. It was unusual to see him so casual.

“Jeno was a cute kid.” Hyunjin said distractedly, referring to the photos.

“He must’ve been with that smile,” You offered, feeling a lot more vulnerable now that you were merely surrounded by the silence and by Hyunjin. He hummed again, and you suddenly become overwhelmed with the desire to hear his voice. He was right; you were never around each other enough. You heard his voice maybe once or twice a day if you were lucky. The project had opened the door up for the friendship to grow. But you would never be able to get enough. He was the one book you never wanted to put down.

“How have you been holding up, Hyunjin? Have things been… better?”

His eyes fluttered open, and he slowly angled his head to look at you. He looked sleepy, but content as he stared back at you. His face was open, a puzzle of contentment but restlessness. And it was then that you wondered if you were ever going to be open to the inner workings of this boy’s mind, if you were ever going to be someone he opened up to, because after all he wasn’t a fan of confiding in anyone. Would he always be a mere masterpiece to admire, but to never fully understand?

“In all honesty… things have been better ever since I talked to you. And not because people started treating me better or anything like that, it’s still the same old shit. I’ve just… started looking at everything a little differently. Talking to you helped a lot… it honestly really surprises me,” Hyunjin chuckled softly, moving his head back to its original position and looking up at the ceiling. “And I know most of it was me being an emotional mess and you just listening to me spout nonsense… it just helped me clear my head and get a handle on things. That was the first night I slept peacefully in days. I actually haven’t had a problem sleeping since that day. So thank you for that.”

“It’s all you, Hyunjin. I’m simply a… pit stop of sorts. A friend can help you up, maybe nudge you in the right direction. But it is up to you to solely find that inner peace, that strength in yourself. Thank you for the credit, but I see that you help yourself out just fine. You’re really strong. I admire that,” You saw his shy smile but didn’t comment on it, opting to add, “And your feelings aren’t nonsense, by the way. Don’t discredit yourself like that. Everything that comes out your mouth is meaningful.”

His smile faded then, as he slowly straightened himself out. His eyes found their way to the floor, his lips parted and his eyes refusing to look up. It was if the air shifted, thickening as the silence wrapped around the two of you, your eyes on him and his eyes on the floor. You considered reaching out to grab his hand and ask if he’s alright, but his voice cutting through the air prevented that from happening. “Do you mean that?”

“Mean what?” You asked him, your eyes never leaving his face. He was bent forward now, his elbows resting on the top of his knees. He looked over his shoulder then, his eyes meeting yours and it was like you felt your heart completely stop at the look he was giving you.

“Everything you just said about me. Do you really see me that way?”

It was like time had stopped then, the moment being frozen in your mind. Oddly enough, Donghyuck’s face flashed into your mind, his words appearing in your thoughts. About how maybe you were exactly like Mark, bound to secrecy about your feelings towards Hyunjin. And if ever given the opportunity to open up to Hyunjin, would you take it?

You opened your mouth then, your eyes still locked with Hyunjin’s, his face void of any emotion. His previous tone being the only indicator that whatever you said next, would matter to him. “I meant every single word. I’ve noticed that… you aren’t really aware of how amazing you actually are. You’ve got this… charm about you. You’re careful but caring, and you look at things differently than anyone I’ve ever come across. And you are stronger than you even realize. You’ve fought all these battles, battles I don’t even know about, without ever confiding in someone about how you feel. You’re… amazing.”

He sat up from his leaning position then, twisting his body to face you. His lips were parted as if he were shocked, his eyes studying your face as if he were trying to figure out why you said what you did and if you were lying in any sort of way. You were not. You meant every single word. You sat up as well, scooting to the edge of the sofa and clasping your hands together. Fixing your eyes ahead and towards the mantle, you waited to see what he would say. You could still feel his eyes on your face, but you ignored the sensation.

“No one’s ever really told me that before. Actually, no one has ever told me how they see me… at least in a positive light.” You turned to look at him then, trying to shake how his voice had been in awe, tried to avoid how he was looking at you, how you wondered what it would be like if he felt the same way you did.

You couldn’t remember thinking about the words you said next, feeling like you weren’t even there in that moment. You just remember your voice coming out softly but confidently. “Can I kiss you, Hyunjin?”

You had watched closely how he blinked rapidly, licking his lips and swallowing in nervousness, how his hands found solace with each other. He nodded, before clearing his throat and whispering, “That would be nice.”

And one moment, there was that divide between the two of you. A space, a boundary, one that respected the friendship that had been gradually forming between the two of you. A mutual understanding of sorts, a vision for what your friendship could’ve become. And in the next moment, that divide had been splashed with the colors of something more. The space had been filled with the both of your bodies coming together, the boundary erased as his soft lips encased yours in a kiss, the friendship that existed fleeting from your minds as you became lost in the sensation. The understanding was forgotten, the vision of that potential friendship becoming blurry as his hand reached up and cupped the side of your neck.

You were breathing but it felt like your heart had stopped. The kiss wasn’t rushed, it was calculated, exactly like the boy you were kissing. Your hands found their place at the nape of his neck, and you could’ve imagined it, but it felt like he had shivered beneath the feeling of your fingertips. The kiss wasn’t urgent, it was curious. If you had to think of a description for it, it was distinctly like Hyunjin. It was warm and cold, calculated and caring. It was soft but restricted. It thrilled you and scared you. And just like that, he was gone.

“What-what was that?” Hyunjin gasped, standing up and backing away from you. His eyes were wide for a moment, him gulping in air as if he just woke up from a nightmare. You felt your heart rate pick up, this time in a more painful manner. He turned away from you then, shielding you from his face, from him. You stood up, very slowly, as if you knew what was coming. You didn’t approach him, you didn’t even look at him. You just stared ahead at the mantle, where a smiley Jeno resided.

“What do you mean by that?”

His voice was faraway, distant, but he was near you. Just like the Hyunjin you knew, he was shutting off his emotions. “That’s not who we are. That’s not us. You’re… Y/N. I’m… We’re friends, Y/N. Why did we do that?” From the change in volume, you could tell he was facing you now, looking at you. But you didn’t care. You were just focused on that photo, how happy Jeno looked. And how on the inside, you were feeling the exact opposite. Your other focus was to try and push back the stinging sensation in your eyes. “Y/N. Answer me. Why did we do that?” His voice was desperate, pleading. It angered you.

You turned to him, and you noticed how shocked he looked at your facial expression, but you didn’t care. “Why are you asking me that? How am I supposed to answer that? Because I thought it was what we both wanted. Clearly, that’s not the case.”

His face looked troubled, innocent. It hurt your heart.

“I-I don’t know what…” His eyebrows were drawn together, his gaze towards the floor. Typical, emotionless Hyunjin. Why were you so angry?

“Why would you tell me yes if it wasn’t what you wanted?”

He didn’t answer you. He just kept staring at the floor. Just like the day at the library. Just like every time he shut down his emotions. He wasn’t going to let you in, and he probably never would. You watched in frustration as he licked his lips in thought, keeping his mouth shut. You tried to swallow the thick knot in your throat, wiping furiously at the tears that had ran down your cheeks and hoping he wouldn’t see them. He didn’t.

“Answer me, Hyunjin.”

He didn’t.

You didn’t want to sit here and feel more humiliated, so you turned and started walking out the room and towards the front door. You stopped in your tracks at the sound of his voice, small and vulnerable. If you had read into it, perhaps you would’ve recognized it as his way of trying to reach out and open up, but at that moment you were too hurt to understand. “Y/N… I’m not good for you. I-”

“Yeah, you’ve made that message loud and clear. Your friends were right. How could I expect a robot to feel the same way I do?” You felt sick to your stomach saying those words, lashing out at someone who had been nothing but good to you. Before you walked out the front door, you looked back over your shoulder and caught a glimpse of Hyunjin’s face. How pained he looked, his eyes still trained on the floor. It looked like someone had just punched him in the stomach. He wasn’t stoic, he was far from it. You just had to know when to look. Unfortunately, you always knew when to look.

He didn’t follow you outside, and the cold air hit you as hard as reality did moments before. You froze in your movements upon seeing a figure sitting on the front porch steps, completely cascaded in the dark. It took you a moment, because even though it wasn’t pitch black out, it was still hard to see, but you recognized the figure as none other than Donghyuck.

You took a seat next to him, your lips sealed shut but your eyes refusing to control themselves. Your head hurt from the attempt at stopping the tears, but you just gave up and simply let it happen. Donghyuck didn’t say anything, just shifted closer and pressed the side of his body up against yours. You would thank him later for the comfort and the warmth.

“It sucks. When you…” You didn’t know how to word it. How could you say it without sounding like a complete idiot? ‘Oh, I kissed Hyunjin and he told me he didn’t like me, so I insulted him and walked out?’ What had you expected? You were a jerk, mean to him and throwing something personal in his face. You wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to talk to you again.

You looked up then, towards the dark blue sky. It was eerily quiet in Jeno’s neighborhood, hardly any light but a few porch lights here and there. You were grateful to be surrounded by darkness through your feelings of rejection and self-embarrassment. You sniffled loudly, your breath getting caught when Donghyuck reached out and clasped your hand tightly. He gave you strength. “Why does it hurt so bad when you give someone your heart and they just give it back?”

He hummed, in bitter amusement you would say. His voice was gentle, accepting of his own situation and of the little information you had just given him. It didn’t take him long to form an answer at all. “Because it’s a hard reality to accept when the person you’re willing to give the world to, doesn’t give a damn about you.”

You two left it at that, the cold air suffocating you on the outside, but your closeness being a barrier of warmth on the inside. Regardless of the heat between your bodies, the feeling in your chest was empty, numb, and you assumed it was the same for Donghyuck. Your heart had been stolen by Hyunjin, his by Tzuyu. You knew, at least for tonight, the only person who quite understood you was Donghyuck, something you could never possibly have saw coming. But you didn’t care. Because misery likes company, and as you grasped his hand just as tightly, you figured one night of heartbreak wouldn’t mind having a person by your side.

Two hearts bonded by their pain.

Stolen by people who didn’t seem to care.

And all the two of you could do was sit in silence, and hope that holding on for one another would be enough to make it through the pain that was in store.

>>> Next part <<<

[kyloren]

Mileven post-S2 fanfiction recommendation list: PART IV

This is a continuation of my ever-growing Mileven Fanfiction Rec List (see instalments I, II, and III). If your fanfic isn’t featured, apologies. Message me and we’ll amend that grievance in the next rec list instalment. 

* marks the ongoing stories. 

canon: 

interludes by veausy: “They stood like that, dimly lit by the hallway lamp, until Hopper cleared his throat. “Mike,” she breathed.” 

+ its sequel: idylls by veausy: ““You should get a Mike,” El offered. Didn’t everyone have one?” 

snowbound by hannahberrie: “When El invites Mike to spend the day at the cabin, Hopper finds himself supervising a sleepover he didn’t sign up for.” 

.. ._.. ___ …_ . _.__ ___ .._ (i love you) by AriaCessair: “El wants to learn about kisses, but the end result is much more than she expected.” 

anything short of a miracle by youheldyourbreath: “Mike has spent the last year in abject agony over losing Eleven. And then, he gets her back.” 

the 436 kiss by youheldyourbreath: “Mike and El have 435 kisses that are short, sweet and perfunctory. Kiss 436 is not that kind of embrace.” 

we were just kids when by DarkBeauty_890: “Hopper arches a brow, giving Mike a once over. He sucks in another puff of his cigarette, before stubbing it out and scratching his nose, “Elle’s not here. She and Red went out to go see a movie about an hour ago.” Mike clears his throat and doesn’t break their locked gaze, “I’m actually here because I wanted to talk to you.”” 

the invasion* by ValBirch: “Hawkins, 1985. On the day of her first birthday in Hawkins, El starts having nosebleeds, even when she’s not using her powers. That night, Will’s nightmares return, but they’re different this time. Everything is different this time.” 

winter, spring, summer, fall* by returntosaturn: “A collection of first experiences for El during her first year in Hawkins, outside of the lab.” 

radio static* by Archer of Ecclesia : ““Mike,” El had scarcely noticed her seizure of the radio. Garble filled her ears. Her grip around the radio tightened as she quickly switched it off, breathing shallowly. She almost threw the device across the room when the garble continued, and worsened, more severe than ever. Or, a new creature lurks in Hawkins, Indiana, this time, closer to home than ever.” 

to find you again* by MuffinLove03: “Finding her was only the beginning. In a town still vulnerable to inter-dimensional threats and sketchy government agents, it's going to take a lot to keep her safe and bring her home. But he was prepared to do whatever it took. He promised.” 

the artemis institute* by Arnarkusaga: “Starting from the night the gate was closed and detailing the events that follow, including unexpected doings at the Hawkin’s Lab, and a mysterious underground resistance movement.” 

kissing cousins by pathvain_aelien: “Mr. Clarke at the Snow Ball.” 

+ its sequel: eleven’s story* by pathvain_aelien. 

snowed in by luxuriousvoyage11: “A bad snow storm makes for an unexpected sleepover at the Byers.” 

only this by Val_Creative: “Eleven and Mike and their relationship through Hopper’s eyes.” 

a ghostly encounter* by PlaidDino: “The boys (and Max) go Trick-Or-Treating on Halloween, but these Ghostbusters find themselves being followed by someone in a ghost costume.” 

the best night of your life by wheezy: “Her lips are parted in an almost smile and Mike sends a prayer he won’t have to wait 353 days to kiss them ever again.” 

funny business by rainingcatsandkisses: ““On one condition” Hopper had said when El had asked if Mike could walk her home instead. “You come straight home. I’ll be waiting at the turn by Pinewood. And,” he’d added darkly, staring at Mike, “No funny business from you, Mr. Wheeler. I will know.”” 

i think we’re alone now by cali-chan (girls_are_weird): ““Listen, I’m no t supposed to leave you two alone here. Hopper will have my head if he finds out, so just… behave, okay?”” 

day two hundred and five by Someone_else_before: “In which Mike has a birthday, El has a daydream, and Hopper says, “Soon.”” 

eleven, mike, and the flu by loti_miko: “She quickly put the blindfold over her eyes, her surroundings going dark, and in an instant she was at Mike’s. He had his eyes closed; his cheeks flushed bright pink, a colour quite distinguishable even in the darkness of The Void.” 

el byers and the secret crush by Someone_else_before: “Eleven moves in with the Byers’, learns to adapt to ordinary Hawkins life, and tries to figure out why Mike has been acting so oddly since their kiss in the cafeteria.” [post S1] 

+ its sequel: dustin henderson and the secret crush by Someone_else_before: “Dustin is head over heels for a girl in his class, and he asks Eleven to use her powers to help him in his quest to win her over.” 

stay in the dark by ceruleanstorm: “Mike’s waited 23 days to see Eleven again after she saved the damn world. But there’s a big reason El isn’t as excited to see him.” 

pretty scary, pretty good by nonoma: “His girl’s going to be the scariest girl at Hawkins High.” 

behind enemy lines by therealfarklenation: “He was stepping behind enemy lines, praying he wouldn’t get caught. She welcomed the risk with opened arms, praying that he wouldn’t stop.” 

the first summer* by Kiddo7: “It’s the gang’s first summer all together, and Mike can’t wait to show El all that it has to offer.” 

prepping for high school* by DarknessFallsLikeFeathers: “Mike is excited to be able to go see El at the cabin and help her with her studies. However, summer break is around the corner and a new challenge shows up on their doorstep.” [I, personally, am on the fence about how I feel about this fic: it’s interesting, but it also is featuring an OC quite prominently, so…*shrugs* take that as you will.] 

green-eyed eleven by Brown Eyes Parker: “Eleven experiences her first bout of jealousy when a new girl moves to town.” [from a post-S2 hindsight, this is really funny. it’s funny cause it’s true.]  

not knowing what it was by 27vampyresinhermind: “We were just kids when we fell in love, not knowing what it was.” 

you feel it too* by Maiasaura: “Mike and Eleven were more alike than they knew. Mike had been broken for years, and Eleven broken her whole life. The events of November, 1983 only fully destroyed them both, and a year apart only further drove the wedge.” [beware: this one is super depressing. like, all the content warnings apply.] 

alternative universe: 

roller coaster day by SmoothFluffle: “She was beginning to doubt herself as she listened to the anxious boy in a cap list the most atrocious accidents that happened to people while being on the metal ride. Suddenly, she wondered if this roller coaster thing was such a good idea.” No Supernatural AU. 

cigarettes, eggos, and the secrets between us* by salavibes: “Popular, high-school bad-boy, Mike Wheeler finds himself falling for the shy and nerdy new girl who’s hiding a deep secret. Will they ever set aside their strikingly different personalities and pursue a relationship? Also what happens when they begin to both change each other in ways they never expected?” bad-boy!Mike AU. 

crossover: 

may the force be with you* by serendipitous_rambles: “El has always dreamt of seeing the galaxy but simply can’t leave Tatooine. But she has powers she doesn’t even know she has. Yet plans have been discovered of a Death Star that could result in the deaths of millions. Along the way she meets a smuggler called Mike, and some trusty resistance pilots Will and Lucas, along with their engineering best friend Dustin (who just can’t get his droid Steve to shut up). An adventure in a galaxy far far away with rebellion, hope (and a disgruntled old Jedi Hopper).” Stranger Things x Star Wars AU. 

the second coming* by TheDevotchka: “In 1983, the so-called ‘Loser’s Club’ defeated It, a monster who had plagued the town of Derry for millennia. In 1984, the new Librarian of the Hawkins Public Library makes a series of phone-calls after the suspicious and unpleasantly familiar disappearances of three children. Seasoned monster hunters, the Loser’s Club teams up with another group of unlikely heroes — Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will.” Stranger Things x It Crossover. [okay, so I lied. This one isn’t really Mileven…so far.] 

+ bonus: Wherein Mileven are not quite Pure™: 

sex ed by Phantasmoplast: “El hears a new word for the first time, and decides to ask Mike what it means.” 

+ its smutty outtakes: sex ed chapter 5: shower and sex ed chapter 8: homework. 

dessert by wynniethecat: “When El teases Mike under the dinner table, he decides he needs to teach her a lesson about proper table etiquette.” 

+ you know, if you want aged-up!Mileven smut, just go check out wynniethecat’s profile. She has tons of it. 

+ bonus 2: Wherein The Party is prominently featured: 

you fight like a baby(sitter) by nicefacepotter: “With his reputation ruined, Steve’s main source of social interaction is a group of middle schoolers. Now that group of nerds wanted him in their D&D campaign. What did he get himself into?” 

in the aftermath it is quiet (as we wait for everything to begin again) by Dontfloatthe100: ““So,” Steve says as he scrapes the last of the eggs off his plate, “you must be Eleven.” El nods as she finishes up her own. “Hmm. I thought you would be taller.””  

fun with jim and jane* by clarabelle: ““Mouth breather, huh? Another new word you picked up?” “No,” El says, and she sounds almost wistful. Probably thinking about that Wheeler kid again.” 

time and time again by sporadicallyceaseless: “Five times Chief Hopper gets called into the school because his kid is a goddamn menace.” 

20 questions by liadan14: “A few questions Eleven asked before she turned eighteen, and one she didn’t.” 

+ its sequel: just can’t face myself alone again by liadan14: “Dustin and his friends grow up in fits and starts. These are a few of them.” 

don’t lock her in by SmoothFluffle: “El gets locked in inside a school closet.” 

.

.

imma gonna be making these till i’m old and grey, aren’t i?

UPDATE: part V is out.

[gopunksphilly-blog]

Welcome to the sad, sorrowful truth of Gem's life and Philadelphia's Underworld, 1985...in 'PUNKS' the novel...

“NEXT STOP….ALLEGHENY….ALLEGHENY…NEXT STOP!!” ……the garbled, scratchy early morning voice of the engineer bellows through the gnarled, subway car speaker.  Gem springs up from her comfortable quiescence, nudging me along. “C’mon cutie, our journey continues.” Wrapping my arms comfortably around her svelte waist, I sandwich her between the pitted, rusty subway car stanchion and my body’s full weight.  “Mmmmmm, now this is why I still like to nuzzle,” Gem purrs.

           The incessant brake squealing makes it hard to even think and after a few quick lurches and jerks occur before our car comes to rest at the stations platform, the doors barely release, allowing for our escape before hurriedly making our way through the turnstiles.  It becomes an obstacle course navigating the steps again with an overabundance of exhausted souls using them as beds and a gauntlet of spent hypodermics to circumvent.  “Watch out for those needles Robbs, they seem to be everywhere,” Gem cautiously whispers.

A very young punk with golden, warrior spikes lies in a comatose state at the top of the graffiti strewn vestibule.  Newspapers, empty coffee cups, and food wrappers have piled up around him but he’s too gone to notice.  The smell of spray paint lingers and there are traces of silver around his nostrils and mouth.  He’s been huffing and from the looks of the two shiners under his eyes, someone decked him pretty hard before the inhalants took him out even further.  

           “Is he even making any sounds, Robbs?”  Gem inquires sheepishly before I get close enough to hear his short, labored breaths.  “He’s alive babe, but he’s hurtin’ pretty badly.”  With Gem’s help, I manage to lug him up the steps and out into the crisp, autumn air.  He’s still pretty shot in the ass to help very much but at least he’s not lying in a puddle of piss anymore.  Our young junkie is a microcosm of the bigger picture plaguing the Kensington and Allegheny section of Philadelphia.  Once a large, blue collar manufacturing region, the only industries growing amongst the dilapidated factories and tattered, brick rowhomes were drugs and prostitution.  Surveying the landscape in front of us was a harrowing experience, to say the least.  On every corner, in every alley, down every sidewalk were despondency, destruction and hopelessness.  The fall foliage, blue skies and regal sunlight from above can do nothing to liven up the misery on display here.

            Even at this early hour of Saturday morning, the drug and skin trade was in full effect further away from Broad and West Allegheny.  Dealers and pimps peddle their wares to the suburban “Masters of the Universe,” who travel far away from their lush lawns, pedigreed wives or girlfriends residing in gated communities, to sample the pleasures of pure decadence behind the doors of filth ridden tenements overrun by rats and littered with soiled cots stained by numerous body fluids.

            In the hazy lust for the pleasures of the flesh and the warping of your mind, cleanliness and decorum seem to fall easily by the wayside in the lives of the so-called powerful and entitled, although the preppie bastards in their ‘Bimmers’, Audi’s and Benz’s are arrogant enough to think they hold some semblance of clout here until the bullets start to fly, or when the Brody’s finally decide to raid the Avenue, thus reducing the trust fund, jetsetters to literally wail like infants for forgiveness in their presence.  In the rare instances that either happen, it’s an entertaining, joyous sight to behold watching the upper crust grovel to whom they on any other day deem as the bottom feeders of society.

           Extracting the thermos of coffee from my backpack, I get a couple of muffins out of the pouch, handing one of them to Gem as we both lean on a freshly stripped, new, red Cadillac Eldorado convertible that was torched and left in a overgrown, debris filled lot to die its lonely death amongst the ruins of capitalism gone awry.  Gem shakes her head, tossing her hair from side to side, hoists the thermos cup and offers a toast.  “Welcome to the American underworld, baby boy, in its entire rancid, horrific splendor. You’re witnessing the fall of a modern day Roman Empire and punks like us have the soundtrack for its destruction.”

           Taking residence on the Cadillac’s torn up, burnt frame; I try to absorb the amassing, broad daylight chaos which reminds me so much of the stories written about the South Bronx when I was still in New York. “Gem, is this where your family lived before you moved up by the Yamaguchi’s?”

           “This is it, Robbs, the junkie proletariats’ Rodeo Drive. Take a walk with me.  It’s a number of blocks to East Allegheny, the alphabet blocks and the El and yes, it’s quite depressing but it’ll give you a glimpse of how your girl grew up and where my evil father earned his street reputation.”  A beater car full of little shit punks rolls by blaring The Clash’s, ‘Working for the Clampdown,” as they wail on the horn and wave to Gem.  It’s another place where I quickly find out in our travels that the presence of Gemma Stinson still holds a mighty amount of sway.  

            Sharing another muffin, I ask Gem about how they finally got Lena away from the total street life existence.  “Icy got really shook up when Trix murdered Stace.  Hell, how many young girls do you know who’ve watched three of their girlfriends die within a year or so of one another?”

           “Not too many, love.”

           “Mister Yamaguchi found her a good paying job at the Budd Company and in return, she promised him that she’d at least finish high school to earn her diploma.  Listen Robbs, ‘Icy’ still has a lot of her street ways, as do I.  

           I’ve tried to take mine down a notch but it’s not always that easy because the lure of the street is very tempting……it can be very hard to turn away from.

           You witnessed how fast Lena can become a handful of trouble for someone by the way she acted in Fairmount just recently. She would’ve torn those skinheads to shreds if they’d laid a hand on you and even Yuka got a taste of what street life was like by hanging around with us in high school.  Her fists are quick, Robbs.  I’ve seen her deck a few people really hard.

           Even you have a street brawler mentality, mixed in with some pretty lightning quick fist work.  It’s just wicked to watch you have a go at people, but admittedly I’m much happier when we don’t have to fight anyone.”

           “No argument there, Gem.  Peaceful is much better but it’s nice to know we won’t take any wankers shit either.”

           We travel further through the chaos and as dangerous as this part of town can be, there is a weird sense of security being around Gem here.  There’s an odd acquiescence taking place in the bowels of Allegheny.  Wherever Gem seems to travel here this morning, there is almost deference to royalty approaching and she becomes more annoyed by the attention.  “They know who I am, Robbs.  No harm will probably ever come to me up here because of who my asshole father was. Even in fuckin’ death, he holds a level of fear over people.

           Only after he was killed did people in the K & A begin to hear the animal that he was at home.  They already knew the brutal enforcer he was on the street….the stone cold killer who could charm you with his handsome smile, right before he beat you within an inch of your life with his iron fists, just because you owed money to the Italian or Irish mobsters who retained his services.  

Even my mother was feared by most when she was younger and not all strung out. If my father ever did get himself caught up in shit from time to time, she’d think nothing of putting a gun to your neck or in your mouth.  It really was a demented way to live and makes you wonder why in the hell they’d ever bring a child into this kind of world.”  

Another group of middle age roughs step aside when Gem and I approach, bowing their heads either out of a shallow respect or the trepidation that still apparently exists when a Stinson travels through these broken streets filled with one residence more neglected than the other.  She smiles ever so slightly but grunts mildly in disgust.  “God, it’s so fucking humiliating that the bastard still holds that kind of sway down here.”

Remaining silent, I can’t imagine the burden it must be for Gemma to return to these badlands of pure hell.  Whereas she is revered, loved, respected and feared ONLY by those who are up to no good in our punk enclave of South Street and its environs, you can bear witness to the pain it causes her to see the denizens of her old place of birth still reacting this way.  “Let’s backtrack and pick up the pace, Robbs,” she says as the SEPTA Elevated roars above us while some street urchins add their tags to the volumes already existing on the steel girders below.              Retracing our steps through the human and bricks and mortar rubble that have become North Philadelphia we eventually pass the entrance for the Broad Street Line.  “We’ll be back soon enough to take the subway, Robbs but there’s one more place I need to see before I depart this sorrowful landscape.  Hang tight, we’re almost where I want to take you,” she sighs heavily, lamentably.

           Turning onto North 15th Street, Gem slows the pace down to a crawl, eventually pointing across the street to a derelict row house, covered by overgrown shrubs, thick, weed trees and lathered with crude graffiti. The faded words “DEMON” and “RAPIST” are splattered across the splintered, wooden front door.  Gem asks me for a Red; I comply quickly, blazing it up before she takes a long drag and sighs heavily.  “There it is, Robbs…3250, North 15th…..where my life of hell with Allan and Gabriella Stinson began.”

           “Gem, you really don’t have to do…..” but Gem admonishes me with a mild rebuke.  “Yes, I do have to face my demons, Robbs. That’s why I needed you here by my side….the only person who can help me do this.”

Calmly, I take hold of her hand, lifting it towards my lips.  “I’m here for you, no matter what, Gem.”  

           “This is where Allan Stinson, a machinist by trade, coming from the hard working stock of German, Dutch, Scotch, Irish and the Cherokee tribe brought his bride, Gabriella, a tall, slender, lovely woman of Italian, French, Icelandic and Russian lineage to live and die; and on the in between years, they decided to copulate and bring an unwanted little girl into their boozer, junkie world.

            I can’t find it in my heart to forgive them for what they did to me since they seldom tried to love me, even when times weren’t so bad for them.  They were too worried about being stone cold junkies or drunks.  My father was too worried about being the enforcer who’d crush skulls in for non-payments on ‘debts’.  They were too worried about partying their asses off and leaving their daughter to fend for herself.  They laughed when I was beaten, they laughed when I was a young girl and they spiked my orange juice with vodka to get me drunk…. The list of their evil goes on and on, Robbs.”

           A stiff breeze suddenly whisks through the street, sending debris swirling into the air like dry, fallen, autumn leaves.  Gem swings her hair to and fro while tenaciously approaching the house through increasingly ferocious, heavy winds, before suddenly stopping, balling up her fists so violently that she doesn’t even notice one of her talon-like nails has dug into her palm, sending slow drips of blood to the pavement.  The winds die for a moment but pick up stronger than before, a minute or so later and the superlative beauty of the sun has increasingly disappeared, only to be replaced by menacing, gray clouds, making the fetid landscape of this part of town even more ominous.

           Gem’s eyes darken in a way that I’ve never seen before, as if summoning up forces from above to do her bidding against this place of evil.  “Hold my hand, Robbs…no matter what I say, don’t stop holding my hand.”

           My grip on her is viselike.  “I’m not going anywhere, so say what you have to, Gem,’ who glares at the house again while the wind whips her auburn hair in all directions, making it look flame-like.  A wicked smile crosses her face and she emits a low growl.  “You know that I’m back again, after all this time, don’t you, Al and Gaby?  Did you think you could keep me away forever?  Did you think people wouldn’t know what you two assholes did to me?

           I see your shithole of depravity got tagged for the whole neighborhood to see.  Icy and Stace said they were gonna’ do it, and I’m glad they did.  They should have included MURDERERS, because you broke Uncle Ronnie’s spirit, hastening his painful death and God knows how many people you sent to their untimely deaths by your other monstrous actions.”

The winds begin driving against us even harder but Gem remains undeterred, letting loose a surge of venom against the howling gusts. “You two pieces of shit can send all these torrents of wind at me, trying to drown out my voice but I WILL say what I have to!  I HATE YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME….FOR WHAT YOU LET BE DONE TO ME BY OTHERS…ALL I WANTED WAS LOVE….ALL THAT ANY LITTLE GIRL WANTS FROM HER MOM AND DAD!!!

           She starts to whimper as tears hit the ground but the ferocity of Gem returns in spades.  “YOU both hurt me beyond belief but now I will be strong in your presence, because this house of hell represents the two of you!!  DEAD and BURIED ….it’s where you belong so you can’t hurt anyone else! I just want you to know that I’ve found LOVE and HE’S WITH ME RIGHT NOW…he’s brought a smile to my face ….and a song to my heart….AND BECAUSE OF HIM…YOU WILL NEVER HURT ME AGAIN!!!!

           NEVER!!!!   NEVER!!! Never….never….” Her grip lightens up, as light sobs have joined Gem’s fury.  Picking up a loose brick from the ground, it’s heaved through the only glass pane left on the derelict structure.   “FUCK YOU…GABY AND AL!!!!  NOW, YOU’RE TRULY DEAD TO ME!!” she bellows as the glass explodes, sending shards flying violently in all directions.   The wind still whips feverishly around us while Gem pulls me closer; with tears falling like rain, she locks stares with me.  “I…. love you so much, Robbs.  Kiss me….just kiss me…I am madly in love with you….kiss me and tell me it will all be all right…”

An excerpt from Rich Cucarese’s (that’s me!) upcoming, fictional novel, ‘PUNKS’, Chapter 18, ‘The Underworld’.....

“What are we gonna’ do now?”.....The Clash, ‘Working for the Clampdown’

huffing....

Broad Street and Allegheny Avenue, coming up from the Broad Street Line...

Trainspotting...could’ve been shot in Kensington and Allegheny at any time in the past thirty years....

The needle and the damage done....

Gemma ‘Swan’ Stinson’s old stomping grounds....

North 15th and Allegheny....where the rough and tumble, sorrowful childhood existence of Gemma began....

Allegheny Avenue, Philadelphia....Gemma’s old neighborhood of tough times and sorrows...Sadly,not much has changed in thirty years....

[lexacourtney]

Title: Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1)

Author: Cassandra Clare

Pub. Date: March 3, 2020

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Welcome to Edwardian London, a time of electric lights and long shadows, the celebration of artistic beauty and the wild pursuit of pleasure, with demons waiting in the dark. For years there has been peace in the Shadowhunter world. James and Lucie Herondale, children of the famous Will and Tessa, have grown up in an idyll with their loving friends and family, listening to stories of good defeating evil and love conquering all. But everything changes when the Blackthorn and Carstairs families come to London…andso does a remorseless and inescapable plague.

James Herondale longs for a great love, and thinks he has found it in the beautiful, mysterious Grace Blackthorn. Cordelia Carstairs is desperate to become a hero, save her family from ruin, and keep her secret love for James hidden. When disaster strikes the Shadowhunters, James, Cordelia and their friends are plunged into a wild adventure which will reveal dark and incredible powers, and the true cruel price of being a hero…and falling in love.

This will be a spoiler free review!

I’m going to start with, I can’t believe that I got to read this book early. I don’t know how I won a giveaway for this book, but I did.

It’s been a hot minute since I last read a Shadowhunter book, or anything set in this expansive world. I mean, it’s been since Lady Midnight…yeah, I haven’t finished that trilogy yet. It’s been even longer since The Infernal Devices (my favorite books in the whole Shadowhunter series) …since Will and Tessa.

I keep meaning/wanting to re-read them, but it still feels like it’s too soon. It’s only been like 7 years…but I start thinking about that scene at the end where Tessa rolls over in bed to tell Will something and he’s not there.

And, now I’m crying.

See, I’m not over it.

Will I ever be over it?

I don’t know.

It’s why I haven’t gone back and re-read that trilogy, even though I really should and really want to.

But Chain of Gold is fun because I get more Will and Tessa…married Will and Tessa and their children + friends! It’s like the best of both worlds! I get to visit some old friends, make new ones, without the sad ending. If you’re a fan of The Infernal Devices – like if they’re your favorite books in this world, then you’re going to love this book. Same feeling, same characters and the stakes are higher than ever. I really enjoyed this book and its characters. Matthew Fairchild might just be my favorite character. Though, with that being said, I really loved the whole band of Merry Thieves – Thomas, James, Christopher and Matthew. Thinking about it, they kind of gave me Marauder vibes, and honestly, I’m here for it. But before I jump into the characters, let me talk a bit about the book.

I was excited to go into Chain of Gold, but for the first quarter of the book or so, I was a bit unsure and a bit confused. Maybe it was because I’d been gone from this world for so long, or maybe it was just the massive info dumping and time jumping, but I found myself procrastinating when it came to picking up the book. Once I managed to start reading again, I was nearly instantly hooked and hated to put the book down for anything, but then I’d put the book down and the cycle would start all over again. It wasn’t until about the 50% mark that I became really invested and therefore really annoyed that I had to stop reading to do things like make dinner and eat dinner.

I blew through the second half of the book and I kind of regret doing that because now I’m stuck waiting for book 2 – Chain of Iron – and this one isn’t even properly out yet.

I guess I forgot how lengthy Shadowhunter book tend to be – even thought I look at the like 10 feet of shelf space they take up on a daily basis, but this book was long. A lot gets repeated in this book and I don’t quite get why. I understand that all of these various Shadowhunter series are meant to stand alone, but also build upon each other, but don’t require you to have read the previous series, but I don’t need to be told over and over and over and over by every other character the same sort of information. I lost count of how many times I was told about the Silent Brother’s and Iron Sisters and what they did. I don’t know how many times I was told about the stele’s and seraph blades.

I get that some of this is to inform new readers who might not have any of this background knowledge from multiple past series, but it still doesn’t explain why every other character explains it in their own way.

I’m just saying that it was repetitive and had me groaning with annoyance.

But honestly, I think that’s probably my biggest complaint – the length and repetitiveness. And due to its length, I do think that the second half of the book is strong and more interesting. Major things were starting to happen, and it wasn’t just a bunch of info dumping and setting up the world. Overall, like I said, I really enjoyed this book and found it to be a pretty good read. I definitely think that I’m more of a Victorian/Edwardian Shadowhunter world over the more modern/current day one. I always thought that the Infernal Devices were the better books, so it stands that I’d choose this new trilogy over the other books.

Granted, I haven’t actually finished The Dark Artifices yet, so maybe I should do that before I make any claims.

But let’s move onto the characters, because there are so many to get through.

Like, so many.

Maybe almost too many.

Between familiar faces, to new characters, it’s a full cast.

And apart from the main core set, it was hard to keep track of everyone, and who they were related to, and how they were related, and finally, who was dating/liked who. I needed a freaking map to just keep everyone straight.

Since there were so many characters, we’re just going to focus on the main ones – Will, Tessa, James, Lucie, Matthew, Christopher, Thomas, Cordelia, Alistair, Jesse, Grace, Anna and Charles – otherwise I’ll be here all night…hell, I might be here all night with just the core group.

Okay, let’s keep this brief.

Will and Tessa

It was so fun being back with Will and Tessa and seeing them older, as parents. I don’t remember everything about them from The Infernal Devices, but I do remember absolutely loving them. I loved how in love with each other they still were, and how they made Lucie and James uncomfortable, in only the way parents can. I just loved being back in this world with them.

*Art by Cassandra Jean

James and Lucie

Ugh, I loved them, but I wish there had been more one on one time between the two of them. I just wish there had been more about their sibling bond, thought I suppose there are two more books to get that from. James is fiercely loyal, and Lucie is a dreamer and wants to experience the world. For being Will and Tessa’s kids, that seems to fit pretty damn well. They’re also fiercely protective of each other and I love them. I also love how Lucie is writing a book and everyone she knows in real life is in it in some capacity.

*Art by Charlie Bowater

Matthew, Christopher and Thomas

The other three who make up the Merry Thieves. Like I said before, very Marauder-esque. Matthew is probably my favorite of the four boys, he’s suffering, and I think, in need of a hug. Christopher is brainy and likes to tinker around with things, to mash mundane science with angelic tools. Thomas is like the gentle giant, loyal to his friends without fail, but also open to seeing other sides of things. Together they all complement each other very well, and I just want all of them to be happy.

*Art by Charlie Bowater and Cassandra Jean

Cordelia and Alistair

Cordelia is a bad ass, and Alistair needs a hug as well. I really like the two of them, I liked Cordelia from the beginning, whereas Alistair took a long time to feel for. They’re both dealing with so much, individually, personally and as a family. I really liked their bond though, even when it seemed utterly stretched taught at times. You could tell that Cordelia loves her brother, despite his faults. I didn’t actually anticipate feeling anything for Alistair, but by the end of the book he was one of my favorite characters. We all make mistakes, and I think he’s one who will actually grow into a better person because of them.

*Art by Charlie Bowater

Jesse and Grace

I love Jesse, not a fan of Grace. Like, I could do without Grace to be honest. I know we can’t just get rid of her because plot things, but I can wish. When I figured out what she was doing, when that little plot thing clicked…Ooo, let me tell you, I got so mad. Then at the end of the book…I groaned and raged, because what happened was what I didn’t want to happen. Jesse seems so soft and sweet, while his sister is like the opposite. So, I’m hoping we get more of both of them, because I’m pretty sure they’re a pair, and I can’t pick and choose.

*Art by Charlie Bowater

Anna and Charles

Loved Anna, she’s awesome. I loved how observant she is, and how knowing. It’s like she knows what you want before you do, and that comes with a cocky knowing arrogance that I love in characters. Oh, Charles. I’m still kind of on the fence about him. Like I don’t know whether to write him off or wait to see. He’s made some mistakes, he’s a bit power hungry, but I think his heart is in kind of the right place. I don’t think he’s a bad guy, he just does things for the wrong reasons, or in a wrong way.

*Art by Charlie Bowater

It’ll be interesting to see where all these characters end up in the next two books. I’m really hoping that Alistair gets a few friends, that Matthew stops being so sad and drunk all the time, that Lucie gets the experiences she craves, that Cordelia’s heart doesn’t break, that James can come to terms with his ancestry, that Thomas and Christopher continue to tinker, fight and be there, that Jesse gets the ending he deserves as does Grace, and that Anna gets to have her heart’s desire, and that maybe Charles learns that power isn’t everything. I also hope that we don’t have to live through a certain character death again, at the end of this series. You hear me Will Herondale, I can only live though it once!

Also, if you haven’t seen, Charlie Bowater did character art for most of the characters I’ve mentioned, and as always, they’re gorgeous. I actually saved them all down to my phone, so as I was reading, I could go look at them, and remind myself of what the characters look like. With a huge cast of characters and so much happening in this book, the portraits of the characters she did, were so useful.

Seriously, so much happens in this book, and while the plot was full of so many scenes, my favorite parts were the character relationships. The bonds they share and form and all the interactions. Ugh, I want to say more, but I also do not want to spoil this book for anyone. So, if you want to talk about this book – whether you’ve read it early, or after its release, feel free to DM me over on Twitter and I’ll be more than happy to talk. As it stands, I have no one to talk to and there’s this certain scene I want to talk about, and I can’t.

It’s torture.

I’m so excited for Chain of Iron and this wait is going to suck.

So much.

I have no idea what to expect, or how this trilogy is going to turn out, but I have a feeling it’s not going to disappoint. I have my predictions, my hopes for who is going to be endgame, but really, I have no idea what could happen plot wise. I know the books are going to be chocked full of action moments, sweet moments, gushy moments and probably heart breaking moments, but everything else, I have no idea, and I’m ready and quite terrified to find out. I love these characters now, and don’t want any more harm to come to them.

I’m excited and you should be too!

Chain of Gold is out March 3, 2020 and

“The entire first print run in the US and UK will be a special first edition. It will contain a beautiful portrait of the main characters by Cassandra Jean, and will also include the long-awaited short story Fairy Tale of London, about Will and Tessa’s wedding! Preorder your copy from any of the links below to make sure you get the special first edition.”

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Indiebound / Books A Million / Simon & Schuster

So make sure you order your copy soon!

        Book Review: Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) by #Cassandra Clare I love these characters so much. #newpost #blogpost #bookpost #bookblog #books #blog #blogger #bloggerswanted #bloggerstribe #bloggingcommunity #bookish Title: Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) Author: Cassandra Clare Pub. Date: March 3, 2020…