#those are just the earliest you can change them

[tenderlyrenjun]

Married

re:preview no. 1 and no. 2

minors + bots do not interact; fic rec blogs without comments do not reblog

A/N: from a joke idea to a poor fic preview to a final fic ... here it is! and it took me a little less than 2 weeks to write this, so please take it with a grain of salt. also, ik that i said i hate childhood friends to lovers (for psych reasons), but jeno is just so friend shaped.

summary: you take jeno to be your lawful wedding date, in busan.

includes ... girl/afab reader, porn with feelings, mutual pining, strong!jeno, they’re both government officials with the city planning department, jaehyun (127) marries mingyu (svt) btw ... smut warnings ... sex dreams, lingerie, oral sex (f + m receiving), masturbation (f + m), fingering, spanking, 69ing/ish, big dick!jeno, choking/breath play, edging (kind of but not really), praise during sex but not like a kink, unprotected sex, and so, so much consent ♡

wc: 25,9k (again, i am so sorry)

again, minors + bots do not interact

“Hey … hey, wake up. The conductor hasn’t come by to punch our tickets yet, and you’re sitting on them.”

You gently pat Jeno’s face where the 5:30 sunrise glows, barely seeping down the half-shielded window; he immediately closed it, about five minutes ago, once the night ended, more irritated by the sun waking him up than moving beds from his apartment to train, but he still kept a small part cracked, as if wanting to relive the road trips home during Seollal, when you two, excided by leaving college at the earliest moment, would book the cheapest rides and get picked up before rush hour. Your long sleeves scratch along his freshly shaven jaw, like scrubbing pillowy softness into his cheeks, and he tries to ignore it – tries to ignore you, except you become extra annoying, squeezing his face harder until he has to slap your hands away to avoid sleeping on the empty hard seat beside him, the last one in this connected row, where his blazer, a less comfy pillow than your narrow shoulder, takes residence. Jeno slides his palm across yours, enveloping your wrists like handcuffs, fixing them on your thighs. You have to take a moment, tongue weighing heavy and dry. He never really lets you forget how strong he is, oblivious to it all.

Even last night, when you helped him last-minute stress pack (a.k.a. the real reason you stayed at the 00-Line apartment), you hopped on his overflowing luggage, complaining that one clap from him would snap it shut (or completely break it, but you felt optimistic!). Granted, your shoes sat on top of all his clothes, preventing it from zipping up without something weighing it down – which is why his blazer sits on the bench, not in his bag, or yours. You told him that he could put it in one of your bags, but you both knew there was no room, what with all your different wedding outfits. He deadpanned at you, hearing that revelation – the multiple wardrobe changes –, throwing his facial cleanser at your loose makeup bag (the one you ended up shoving in his backpack too).

But not everyone can just wear one suit like him! You have the pre-wedding outfit, before you change into your attendance dress at city hall while you help Jaehyun set up; then, there’s the dinner dress, which you plan on also using at the rehearsal dinner, and a dress for the real reception, and of course you need a backup in case something happens to one of those, in addition to the matching shoes, because shoes (and accessories) elevate the appearance, as you reasoned, which made him visibly nervous for some reason, as if you would leave him looking like an outsider with your family, the same family he has known since middle school. You reassured him that he will always match with you, and if not, Busan has a thousand stores to buy a tie … which would have the potential to also not fit in his bag, like the blazer, but you two – he – can make it work! He makes everything work, like a superpower.

Jeno end up wearing the blazer over his hoodie, to the station, giving him a needed second layer against the dark 16-degree weather. He looked more put together with it on, than he probably actually felt, especially considering that he only had 10 minutes to get ready before Mark drove you to the KTX station. Although, the façade breaks now that it’s just the two of you in the booth – no strangers, no coverups, no friends, no expectations; so when he picks his head up and his hoodie falls, navy fluffy hair sticking out at random angles, you stop staring at your hands below his and catch his bangs, tucking them back gently into place. You want to move him into your lap (it might be more comfortable), but not yet; the conductor still has to punch your tickets, and you don’t want to repeat Chuseok 2020 when the conductor scolded you for laying across the bench. Plus, you never really get the chance to do this with him, be this close to him, not that you don’t want to, or that it’s too hard.

You just … never get the chance.

“How are you this awake,” he groans, raising his analog watch into squinted view, nearly crying laughter as his eyes close again, cheek pressing into your shoulder, “at 5:37 AM?”

You roll your head dramatically, provoking more grumbles out of him that make you giggle as he jostles. “Some of us actually go to sleep earlier when we know that we have a schedule at dawn.” You graze your recently manicured nails into his scalp, mumbling through a smile, “You knew we were going to leave for Jaehyun’s wedding a few days in advance; you were there when I booked our tickets; he invited us to lunch because of you.” Jeno makes an objecting noise. “Ah, maybe I should’ve invited Haechan instead.”

“Hey.” Jeno smacks your thigh, his long fingers curling behind your knee to pull you closer. You gulp, praying that he cannot hear the knot in your throat. Apparently, his displays of strength are inversely related to his energy levels; the less energy he has, the more he uses his strength with you. But thankfully, he remains oblivious, poking your stomach with his furthest hand. He slinks up your shoulder, massaging down your tension to get selfishly comfortable, warm breath exhaling into your neck. “You fell asleep maybe 20 minutes before I did,” he objects, arguing the root of the problem, as if knowing that he will always be your first choice, “and that was, like, four hours ago.”

“Ha,” you laugh sarcastically, masking the new sweat on your palms under your sweater paws. You rub your hands together for a second, bouncing the heels together, before pushing him up, with all your strength, holding him there long enough – despite a series of complaints – to take the tickets from under his ass. “I wasn’t the one who said,  ‘No,’ to coffee when Jaemin offered.”

“He went to sleep when I woke up!”

“Eh,” you wave off and lay him on your shoulder again, “Excuses.”

“You’re so mean to me,” he whines, pouting, cuddling you so tightly that your revolve falters, “I’m doing you a favor, and you’re being mean to me.”

You comb his hair again, soothing all the wrinkles in his forehead, not denying it. He is partially correct. You do take advantage of his kindness – merely because he offers it so nicely, on a silver platter; it is a reason why you lo… why you … why you return it so easily, albeit quietly, like now. He will attend your cousin’s wedding this weekend; he lets you overpack his luggage; he opens his apartment to you with wide arms. And in return, you paid for the KTX tickets and hotel; you reserved a slot at a shooting range in Jeonju where your layover stops; you let him fall asleep on your shoulder right now, even though you are tired as hell, too.

Besides, your cousin, Jaehyun, probably would have invited Jeno to the reception anyways. He invited everyone, on a limited occupancy, from Eunwoo to Jihyo. And Jeno , who once wished Jaehyun to be his older brother, is pretty close with your family. There is no way he would not end up in the family photos.

“Ugh.” Jeno sits up, rubbing his eyes single handedly with the arm detached from you. “Why did we agree to lunch? We could be sleeping right now.”

You laugh at him, tugging him back down easily, and ghost your fingers in his hair. “Mingyu has to finish up some work project before they can go on their honeymoon, so Jaehyun suggested lunch to give his fiancée some uninterrupted time.”

“Boo, they’re just going to fuck,” Jeno yawns, starting to fall asleep again. “You stay over at my apartment all the time, it’s like you practically moved into my room, and there’s no way you get any work done.”

“Ha … ha .. a .. yeah …” Totally not distracted by him, or how much freer he is in his bedroom, always wearing basketball shorts without underwear as it seems, always manspreading enough for you to see. It is definitely not the same thing. You lift your head to look over the seats. “Where is that conductor? We need to get moving.”

Jeno slides you back down. “But really, you got this?”

“Ye-yeah.”

“Alright.” He nuzzles into your neck, almost kissing your skin when he tilts his chin up. Your entire body freezes for a second, anticipating, hoping, that he kisses you, any part of you. But he doesn’t. And you press your lips together, eyes closing too, just briefly, as not to fall asleep. “I’m going to take a quick nap. Wake me when we get there?”

“Yeah, okay.”

As he settles into sleep, Jeno’s head slowly nods forward, and you cup outside his cheek, catching him before he falls, lingering your nails behind his jaw for a moment, for this moment, until you spot the conductor. Amazing timing. You sigh. Jeno’s fingers twitch closed, briefly, like a reassuring hug that you misinterpret – willingly misinterpret – as something more, like this is okay, it is okay to have feelings during arbitrary moments. You inch apart from Jeno again, shifting on your hip, into the aisle, and pick up the tickets again, holding them so tightly that little veins fold onto the papers.

The conductor comes by, moving ever so slowly, like he wants to help you preserve this moment, with your best friend unconscious on your shoulder, and as though he could read your heart, he says, “You’re a cute couple."

"Ha ... thanks," you smile politely, biting your lip, grounding yourself with a look a Jeno. He spasms in his sleep, hand squeezing your thigh again. “Oh, right.” You hand the tickets over, reality resuming. You try to cease your shaking hands between your thighs, shoulders raised as awkwardly as the smile on your face, but Jeno’s hand, his strong hand, splits your legs, so you give up.

“We still have some chocolates left from White Day,” the conductor informs softly. The entire world seems to calm down, or stay asleep, for Jeno’s sake, and you don’t blame them, lowering your own tension too. “I can bring some for you and your boyfriend if you like.”

You swallow thickly, licking the corner of your mouth, considering it selfishly because why would anyone reject free candy?, but you shake your head. “No, I’ll – I’ll, ah … wait for my b-boyfriend to wake up first. H-he really likes chocolate.” Oh, my God; be cool, you scold yourself, but the nerves make you feel bad, like you are too close to Jeno or you make him uncomfortable with other people’s assumptions.

“Alright,” the conductor nods, smiling at the two you, practically repeating cute couple, “Let me know. I’ll save some for you.”

After he punches your tickets and hands them back – an archaic practice, and vain, since you checked in electronically around 5 AM – you grab Jeno’s hand.

And, in his sleep, he weaves your fingers together.

Attention, passengers: we are approaching Jeonju Station in five minutes. Please collect your items; we will be stopping shortly.

Jeno yawns awake, lulling his neck tall along the line on the backrest, kneading the kink in his spinal cord that keeps forming after he sleeps on your shoulder (he should really move onto your chest). Speaking of you, Jeno reaches at his sides, left and right, fingers dancing into the empty seats, not even finding his blazer. He peaks an eye open, wincing as the full morning light assaults his vision, then he actively looks for you, and finds you easily, already standing, pulling down your bags from the overhead hanger. A wheel jams on the railing, making you lean on your toes, shakily, to get it down, but you look unstable, so he immediately gets up, the second he sees your ankles wobble, and steadies you by your lower back, using one strong hand to bring down the luggage by its handle, his palm lingering too long.

The timing hasn’t been that great lately, these last few days – months, if he’s being honest. Like, yeah, you practically spend every waking moment together, a side effect of knowing each other since middle school and now working together on a project for urban revitalization in the lower Seoul district, but there are little things that still separate you from him. Not enough to make him feel as if you are drifting apart as best friends, as childhood friends; only enough for him to notice that he relies on you to be his personal comfort, his home away from home. And maybe, he thinks, this trip can recenter your relationship.

So, he starts by closing the distance.

Except, as strong as he might be, Jeno knows he is unaware of how much he uses at any given moment, and you tense in front of his hand, instinctively jolting up and hitting him square under the chin with the back of your head.

“Ow!”

“Sorry!” you scream, equally cringing and grabbing your hair, before finishing lamely, not knowing how to help, “sorry. You scared me.” You step into his personal bubble, practically into his chest, and grab his chin before he can cover up the temporary pain, holding him almost as long as he touched your back, except he didn’t have a valid excuse to you that long. He holds his breath, as if a doctor started the inhale-exhale stethoscope check, but you stop talking.

“You could’ve woken me up,” he tells you, moving your hand with his jaw, staring at your lips, willing you to talk or break the beat. “I know the bags are heavy,” he says, which translates to I would’ve helped you.

“Yeah, but you looked so cu … so peaceful. I didn’t want to wake you until I absolutely had to.”

Jeno nods, fair; he’s done the same in the past when you were in college, especially after exam season, after you pull multiple all-nighters in a row but still make plans with your friends. Like, there was this one time, you stayed over at his apartment, a different one than he lives in now, one closer to Uni, for Haechan’s birthday party later, and you fell asleep on his bed while he played League with Jaemin and Jisung. He ended up waking you up about ten minutes after the party started, to give you a bit more than an hour of sleep. Needless to say, neither of you were the first to wish Haechan happy birthday, for which he only accepted monetary penance, but Jeno thought it was worth it, no amount of money enough, to see your smile refreshed and echoed in your posture.

“Hey, is that my blazer?”

You glance at the lapels, slightly raising your arm as well, as if you forgot that you were wearing it. “Yeah, sorry, I – I got cold.” You slowly take it off, shaking the sleeves off your shoulders. “Do you – Do you want– ?” Do you want it back?

“No,” Jeno interrupts, fixing his jacket by the lapels over your shoulders again. “It’s alright. Wouldn’t want you to get hypothermia”

Once it situates correctly on your body, Jeno trails his hand up your arm, rubbing your bicep, sensing that the cold probably got to you, given that the loud air conditioner in the back contradicts the clear sunny sky. Then, the train stops, violently, and you both reach your arms out to steady one another, ultimately falling against the chairs, his waist pressed tightly against yours. You inhale sharply, first, and he copies you, hands brace above and below each other’s elbows. Neither of you really stand this close to each other, having too much respect for your friendship. He can name less than a handful of moments: 7 Minutes in Heaven at the beginning of 9th grade; an awkward dance at your first high school dance in 10th grade; truth or dare during sophomore year of college; accidentally pressing against you in the copy room at work after the shelves in the supply closet broke and the handyman shoved a thousand boxes next to the printer. Jeno doesn’t know what is different now; this, too, is probably another rare occurrence. He has loved you forever, never making a move, but …

“Th-thanks,” you whisper, quickly pulling away your hands.

There it is.

“No, um, no problem.”

Wordlessly, you go through the unloading motions: you stacking his backpack on the roller luggage, him taking the duffel bag that you claimed was heavy. Jeno closes the distance again, putting his hand behind the small of your back, walking you preemptively down the aisle. You slump against his palm, resting your cheek occasionally on his bicep as more people file out in the front, and he lets you, slinging an arm around your shoulders, because the fatigue is probably hitting you now that you have to force your body to move.

Once you get to the front of the train, an exit almost like a plane since you sat in the middle of the cart (not the most coveted place, since you can’t recline or get out quickly, but the easiest to snake), the conductor greets him:

“Hey, you’re awake!”

Jeno points at himself, lines forming between his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” the conductor confirms, handing over a small bag of chocolate hearts. “I saved these for you.”

“Thanks?” He tilts his head to the side as he unwinds himself from you, accidentally bumping his elbow on your head, and accepts the candies with two hands – a clear bag of shiny pink and yellow Hershey’s mini-chocolate bars. “Why us– ?”

“Okay, thanks, have a good day!” you shout, pushing him into the station, barely stopping to bow before exiting the train.

Jeno manages to catch the conductor’s last words, something about good-bye and being cute. “Do you know what that’s about?”

“Nope,” you lie badly, and he gives you a skeptical look, which you ignore. “But fr-free chocolate.”

So he lets you ignore it, eating one. It tastes good, but he swears he hears you exhale in relief.

The layover in Jeonju lasts two hours, until a little after 10:30 AM, but it feels like two minutes.

You spent the entire time latched onto Jeno, supporting your caffeinated body through all the laughter and smiles – yours and his, as you surprised him with activity after activity, a thank you for coming, for willingly enduring gossipy aunties practically cross-examining him on the reception floor and drunk uncles at the karaoke machine who would otherwise be tone-deaf without the drinks in their hands. After the first activity – a short 30-minute session at a shooting range – Jeno picked you up with his knees, spinning you around outside the building, repeatedly crushing your torso between his beefy arms. And when he thought that was it, you Uber’ed to the Jeonjuchun River and rented a couple bikes next to one of the pretty pavilions (big mistake; you had to go back to the start and wait for him there because you couldn’t keep up without your ass catching on fire!). His dumb, wide smile made you want to keep going, plus you had a last planned surprise to grab coffee and pastries at the Mural Village, having called ahead two days prior to reserve a couple of their signature glazed donuts, his favorite.

So, it makes sense that when you get on the last train to Busan, exhaustion hits your entire body full force.

As Jeno packs the bags on the overhead hanger, you sit sideways on the chair, watching him, noting how his hoodie slightly rises, right under his belly button, confined neatly by the prominent outlines in his abs. To really sell whole ‘not-checking-out-your-best-friend’ bit, lean into the spine of the booth, lazily leaning your head against the leather cushion, half-closing your eyes, lazily leaning on your own shoulder, arms folded comfortably across your stomach. You don’t know where the lie and truth meet, but you still wear his blazer, and the earthy cologne keeps you awake, as a (poor) substitute for his proximity, until he kneels down next to you.

“Tired?”

You can hear the smile in his cheery voice.

“Mmhm.”

If he were Jaemin, you might’ve cancelled every surprise (or just not planned them) and accepted his offer to take a nap in the station while the next train arrives. If he were Renjun, you might’ve left later in the day, or the previous day, or maybe not even planned lunch with your cousin, since the two don’t really know each other that well. If he were Haechan, you might’ve gotten teased after the second you stared wobbling on your toes, needing his support to get you on the train, or he would have driven all the way to Busan in that newly painted car, taking turns at rest stops. But no, this is Lee Jeno, your best friend since middle school. You used to joke that you had a platonic crush on him, that you manifested being his best friend from the moment you saw him; you just didn’t know that it meant this.

“Short on words?” he jokes. Earlier, you were more talkative than him, a side effect of being as awake as he is now, before you ate a peanut butter jaffle, nearly falling asleep as you finished breakfast, like a child after Seollal dinner with the grandparents. “You had so much to say when you were willing to let me, your best friend, starve.”

You roll your eyes, leaving them closed when he takes his seat, offering his arm as a plushie for you to cuddle; you also shift your hips, invading his personal space to lean even deeper on him. “As if you would starve. How many donuts did you eat? Six? A dozen? How many sandwiches?”

“Are you calling me fat?”

You slide your arm across his abdomen, letting your hand dangle on the other side. “I’m saying you’re just giving me more surface area to hug.”

Jeno rolls his eyes, his entire head, mocking your actions from the first train ride, “Excuses.” You slap his chest, accidentally groping his pec (you were aiming for his arm), and leave your hand there, slowly dragging your wrist down his abs (again, not intentional – and hopefully he feels that way too) to hug his waist. He brushes your hair behind your head, equally running his thumbpad along the curve of your ear. “I got this one; take a nap.”

“You got the tickets?”

“Eung.” He pulls them out of his front pocket. “Freshly printed from the KTX terminal –“ He grabs your fingers, gently rubbing them between his like helping you wash your hands. “- ink smudged under your nails.” You groan when he drops your hand.

“Bags put away?”

“Yeah, all four of ‘em.”

“Make sure the pastries–”

“Shhh.” Jeno curls his hand over your mouth. And you are tempted to lick his palm, except your mouth is too dry, so you resign to breathing through your nose above his long fingers. “Sleep; I got this.”

“You know, these seats recline …”

“Shh,” he repeats, laying you back down on his shoulder.

Unfortunately, you wake up the next hour after a train attendant bumps your booth with her snack cart. Ironic, since you had a weird dream involving Haechan as a Domino’s delivery boy (even though he hates American fast food!), dropping off a pizza with all the pepperoni replaced by Jeno’s eye smile, and you paid using a ₩100,000 bill with Renjun’s college CSA (Chinese Student Association) presidential portrait in the middle. Eh, you’ve had weirder. Like that dream – after Jeno started working out more … diligently, in college – where you basically pounced his bones at the end of multivariate calculus in the middle of the lecture hall. That, and the one with a young Bill Nye.

You inhale deeply and push your palms on either side of your legs, inadvertently groping Jeno’s thigh in the process, making him jolt too, when you get yourself upright, leaning a little more on him than the chair.

“Everything good?”

“Hmm?” you yawn, stretching your limbs under his arm, which somehow blanketed you during the ride. You spare it a glance before looking up at him again and answering his question, “No, yeah, all good, just –” Another yawn escapes you. “– tired’s’all.”

Jeno squeezes your torso into his chest. “You can go back to sleep. We have a little more than an hour until Busan.”

You nod into his hoodie, almost accepting it.

Then an egg sandwich with your name scribble on it appears in front of your nose. And you reluctantly wake up, shaking Jeno off your shoulders as the train attendant hands you a small paper food-box, the lunch that you reserved with an extra ₩10,000, in case the jaffle place was closed on Thursday mornings. With the professional photos and multilingual descriptions, you practically could not say no to the gilgeori toast.

Except, you can and you do. One bite into the brioche, after the attendant leaves, you barf the mashed pellet onto a napkin, quickly washing away the taste with some water.

“Don’t like it?” Jeno teases, giggling loudly. Then he takes a bite of his caprese katsu sando and immediately regurgitates it into an empty paper cup on the table. “Oh, ew.”

The two of you exchange raised eyebrows and nod at each other, verbally confirming, “Switch.”

As you finish your second sando, of three, occasionally nibbling Jeno’s food, just to make sure that you really don’t like it, the train unexpectedly shuffles forward, making a fast stop as if it almost missed the station – not the Busan Station, which you aren’t sure whether to be happy about. On one hand, it would mean that the conductor almost missed your stop in Busan (literally impossible, since it is a major station), if you were in Busan; on the other hand, reality, it just jerks the entire cart, your bags and everything loudly jangling above. You hear the rumpled plastic tote bag, full of pastries from a local shop near the Mural Village, squish between the luggage bags, and you immediately get up to save them.

Jeno’s hands stabilize you as equally quick, when you crossover his legs to enter the aisle. His strong fingers dip into your skin that exposes after you grab the pastries, your hoodie lifting right below your belly button. You exhale shakily and look down at him. He concentrates on reading the stats on the game he lost when you got up. You come back on your heels. Then the train jolts again, stopping for real. And Jeno grabs you harder, probably more surprised than you, given the way his wide eyes ask if you’re okay. You nod, then dig through his backpack, pulling out a Tupperware in addition to the pastry bag, and take your seat again – all while aided by Jeno’s massive hand.

He takes the bag from you, holding it in front of him on the table, as you open the Tupperware, to check if everything was all good – no broken cookies.

“Oh, thank Go– Hey!”

Jeno takes one of the cookies with bigger chocolate chips, although the edges are distorted, curved out of shape. “Yum, I love your mom’s recipe.”

You frown, whining, “I made those for Jaehyun and Minghyu.” You pinch his arm, closing the box and taking the bag before he eats everything there, too. “Plus, you ate an entire bakery in Jeonju. How are you so hungry?”

“Nothing compares to a mother’s recipe.” Jeno bites into the cookie again. You cross your arms under your chest, trying to emulate your best mom-caught-him-with-his-hand-in-a-cookie-jar state. He doesn’t crumble, but he coaxes the last bite into your mouth, smiling after you comply.

You roll your eyes, sighing, “God, these are good.”

Jeno rolls his eyes too, munching on his last sando again. “I love that you’re so humble about your baking skills,” he laughs

But all you catch are the I love you and his crinkly eye smile.

Attention, passengers: we have arrived at the Busan station. Please gather your belongings and departure the train at your nearest exit.

The actual stop is even worse, if that’s possible, than the other 500 it took to get here. And Jeno finds that he doesn’t like this train very much – the stop is too abrupt, and there was no warning like the previous ride. He might even file give a comment or two on the feedback card, assuming there is a box somewhere for it. Once, he gave a thumbs-down on a YouTube video for not effectively helping him tie his boxer hand wrappings. Or, maybe, the driver sucks.

He just hates that you wobble so much every time you stand up in the cart, even though the ride is over now. Not that he hates helping you. He doesn’t mind, almost enjoys it, if he were being honest – holding your waist between his long fingers, under the guise of steadying you or warming you up, given that he never really gets to be this close to you. And he takes advantage of the moment, of your exhaustion, inhaling the remnants of your shampoo as you nestle into his chest, face first.

You mumble something incoherent against his shirt, then groan when he laughs.

Jeno pushes you back up, for less than a second because you fight him, trapping his waist in your arms. He laughs a little bit louder, and his shoulders rise to his ears, allowing him to hug you around your neck, practically suffocating you between his beefy biceps. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said –” You lift your chin, pouting at him through your eyelashes. “– the Uber will be here in five.”

“Oh, then should, um, should we …?” He gestures to the exit.

“Yeah,” you doze, shaking yourself off him, shoving your hands in his blazer pockets. Jeno frowns. He hopes you can get more sleep tonight, especially since the hotel is, like, 20 minutes away from the train station. “Let’s go wait over there.”

Jeno throws his arm over your shoulder, guiding the two of you through the automatic double doors, his hand hanging in the air above your chest. Outside, you slant onto him more, wrapping your arms around his waist again, turning your cheek on his pec, eyes half-closed too. He can smell his own cologne on your skin. But, scared that you might hear his heart skip a beat, Jeno rotates you into his neck, resting his face on your hair. He only gets half-a-second though, until your phone beep beeps, altering the Uber’s presence two meters away, which is even closer than he thought. Seems like everyone wants time with you, at his expense. But as the car pulls up, honking, confirming your ride, you yawn one more time and fix his hoodie, with your arms circling behind his head, before packing the luggage in the trunk. It takes Jeno another moment for his body to move. He waits until you have to pat the car seat to grab his attention – because no matter what, he’ll always leave an eye out for you, an ear open for you, an arm free for you. And he follows.

Everything goes fuzzy during the 15-minute drive (the driver took the freeway, rather than the streets), without an object to distract him. He basically ordered you to sleep, as if the car vibrations weren’t a strong enough lullaby, shushing you into the crook of his neck, like he leaves that place specifically for you.

“– cute couple.”

Jeno snaps his neck up. The driver’s – an older man – eyes reflect a smile through the rearview mirror, and he repeats it:

“You two,” he clarifies, “You look like a cute couple.”

The sentiment echoes later, again stealing the air from Jeno’s lungs, once you arrive to the hotel, accurately predicted by the app on your phone, not that he was counting down the meters until you arrived …

Jeno barely lets you thank the driver, shoving you through another automatic double doors set with renewed vigor. You give him a weird look that he cannot quite narrow down, so he ignores it, pointing to the front desk, unaware of how much time has passed, not wanting to block the entrance. You turn slower than him, and he thinks his cover has blown, that you will know that the Uber driver said something weird, something he has pondered since, basically, middle school. But instead of asking question, you answer the concierge’s questions: Name and ID? Credit card? Reservation for … two? Jeno taps his toes into the ceramic tile, tempted to pull out his phone, but he doesn’t, in case you need him.

Then, she makes the point that snaps his neck up again: “You two make a cute couple – oh,” she frowns, typing into the computer. “A room with two beds?”

“Yes,” you confirm, sounding like gritting through your teeth. Jeno cranes his neck forward to confirm, but as he does, the concierge grants you the room tickets and you move on, pulling him by the hand – interlaced fingers – toward the elevator, avoiding the topic.

Silently, again, Jeno follows you through Floor F to Room 23, only stopping when you roll his luggage in front of the TV and dresser. He copies you, unsure what to do or say without knowing exactly when Jaehyun, or Mingyu, will stop by for lunch; although he expects it to be soon. You put your hands on your waist, staring at the floor. He almost asks you what you’re thinking about, but you cross your arms under your chest, sheathing your hands under his blazer.

“S-sorry about that,” you whisper, so quietly that he has to step closer. “Be-because she thought that we, um, th-at we are –” You wince. Jeno reaches out, squeezing your shoulder, thumb rubbing harder to reassure you further. “– were a couple.”

“It’s o– ”

“The same thing happened with that train conductor.”

“What?”

Maybe he sounds too surprised, because you look mildly offended, mouth agape. And he pauses, for what feels like eternity, until you laugh. Then, he laughs. You sway forward a little bit, both hands landing on his chest. He catches you, steadies you, again, laughter fading into a smile.

“Sorry, about that,” Jeno apologizes honestly, by the tone of his voice: soft and comforting. He rubs the back of his neck, feeling like he owes you some sort of explanation. “I guess I was too close to you.”

But you disagree.

“No, it’s fine!” you reassure him right away, as if all his worries are ridiculous – which they might as well be, since you are his best friend (don’t tell Jaemin; although, Jaemin tends to be more affectionate than you in social settings, and they have been mistaken for a couple on quite a few occasions, even with you present). Then, you glance at your hands, darting between your fingers on his shoulders and his eyes. “I w-was probably too close to you to-too.”

And with that, you retract your hands.

But he catches them, puts them back.

“It’s okay,” Jeno promises, his palms stroking small circles into your waist. “The Uber driver also thought we were a couple.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

A beat passes.

And in that beat, Jeno realizes that neither of you are like this with your friends – you don’t hang off his arm; he doesn’t spend an entire night staring at you from the corner of his eye – and neither of you were like this as kids – you weren’t each other’s first kiss; never have you been called out for cuddling, justifying it as “we’ve been doing this since we were young!”. But this could be the residual pent-up energy from forcing his body not to immediately find you in every setting. Like, his judgement can lax while the real world pauses outside the Busan border. You know, he has let you borrow his clothes from middle school through college, to now; he has held your hand across the sidewalk, making sure that you stay on the side furthest from the cars on the street; he has hugged and kissed (your forehead) and cuddled you in the past. And each time, he shoved any inkling of feelings back down.

“I –” Jeno starts, but you are too close to his face and words fail him. He needlessly brushes hair away from your face, as if the action would bring him clarity. It doesn’t; it gives him more questions than answers, especially in the way that you slowly crawl toward his face, eyes trained on his lips. Jeno returns it, mouth parted on the last syllable he said, shoulders falling down, down, down. He slides your hips over his, stuttering his hand onto your cheek, letting you rest in his palm, your head turned, ready if he closes the distance.

You lean forward on your toes, standing tallest on his shoulders. He mimics you, getting smaller, as a way of asking for your consent, and this time, you copy him – copy what he usually does – flickering your gaze to him until enough time has passed. You get closer … closer … closer …

Ping!

“S-s-sorry,” you mumble, pulling out your phone from your back pocket but not pulling away from him. Jeno bites the inside of his mouth, unsure whether to move, since you don’t. One breath escapes his lips, mutually breaking the moment. “It’s – It’s Jaehyun – Oh,” you exclaim, as if realizing the proximity for the first time. You step back, escaping his grasp, pointing toward the bathroom at the front of the room. “I-I sh-should get ready. He – He – Jaehyun, my-my cousin, um,” you stutter, shaking your head at the ground, “I don-I don’t know why I’m telling you that; you know him.” You grab your duffel bag, but it pounds the floor. Jeno thinks you weren’t aware of how heavy it is, and he raises his eyebrows. “Anyways, -” You smile at him, hands pressing into your hips. “- he – Jaehyun – will be here in 30 minutes. I-I’m gonna go change an-and get ready in the bathroom. Yeah, uh, bye.”

You slam the door.

Another five minutes later, after he collapses on a bed, it hits him: Jeno almost kissed you.

Lunch goes off without a hitch. Mingyu picked an Italian place called La Bella Citta, which was originally meant to cater their wedding, until Jaehyun decided that he wanted traditional food at the reception. It is a pretty expensive place, hence why they paid (partially because you and Jeno are the siblings he never got). And the lunch followed a simple formula: Jeno makes a (bad) joke; Jaehyun brings up an unrelated anecdote, chuckling prematurely at just the thought; Mingyu laughs too hard, accidentally spilling champagne; and you get a bunch of memories, smiling fondly as Jaehyun cleans Mingyu’s shirt with a Tide pen.

Well, there was this one thing.

Your risotto didn’t taste very good – the rice was overcooked; butter had been added over oil; the dish lacked its creamy texture, more soupy in consistency. Thankfully, Jeno exchanged half his steak with you (not the tenderloin part, of course). No one would have noticed; had you not been so obviously gawking at him for the gesture, because it sparked Mingyu’s clumsy ass to comment something about doing the same for Jaehyun in the past. And then Jeno turned it into a competition for which of them has exchanged more meals with the Jung family (although you don’t share the same last name; you are part of the family by extension).

While they battled it out, with Jeno winning since he did take your egg sandwich on the train earlier, Jaehyun poked you in the arm. “So you brought him?”

You narrowed your eyes. “Is that a problem?”

“No, no,” he shook his head, “I just thought you might bring Jaemin or Renjun – I never see Renjun, and he buys really good gifts.”

You snorted. Yeah, right. Renjun bought a choco pie for Jaemin’s birthday, like, at midnight, from a convenience store; he bought Jeno PJs, even though Jeno doesn’t wear pyjamas (you can attest); and he bought you a thrifted candle holder which broke after you put an electric candle in it. If Jaehyun wanted a good wedding gift, he should have told you to bring Jaemin. Still, you would’ve brought Jeno; like, no matter what, you would have asked Jeno first, and he would always say yes. Even during that awkward orientation week in college when his physics professor caught him shotgunning two beers at the same time right before class (it happened twice); you begged him to go to office hours with you, needing constant reassurance that you did not, in fact, sound like an idiot.

“And I thought you liked Jeno,” you frowned.

“No, I do; probably not as much as you, but of course I do. If you didn’t tell me before the wedding invites went out, I would’ve sent one to him myself.”

After that, everything everywhere happened all at once; you didn’t have time to contradict him, or self-reflect – Mingyu spilled more champagne; Jeno leaned his arm behind your chair, using his other hand to pull you closer, to help you avoid touching the entering wedding party; Jaehyun tilted his big ass forehead at you knowingly. You were almost relieved to head back to the hotel, instantly collapsing on your bed without changing out of your Sunday finest clothes instead of responding to Jaehyun’s cryptic observation.

“I’m dead; I’m dead,” you complain, throwing your arm over your eyes to block out the golden hour seeping into your room. Dramatically, you fall backwards onto your bed, relaxing your entire body into the comforter. You peak under your arm to find Jeno when he doesn’t respond, and he smiles back at you, hanging up his blazer before taking a running start.

“Oof!” Jeno flops like a fish beside you, covering his eyes too. “All of us are dead,” he jokes, referencing the drama he started last week. You started it first, binging it a couple days after it aired, but when he told you about it, you didn’t have the heart to tell him that you’d already seen it and watched half the season with him. It became part of your daily lunch routine, not that you know how long it will last. Your urban revitalization project is temporary, a bit long term temporary, spanning until maybe October, but still temporary.

You shift onto your side, hands folded in prayer under your head as a pillow, scanning his peaceful face. “Hey,” you whisper tentatively. You wait another few seconds (maybe even a minute) before opening your mouth, hand reaching out to touch him. “Jen, I –”

“Yeah?” his voice rasps.

“I j-just wanted to thank you for coming with me today,” you change your mind, recoiling before he opens his eyes, which he does, peering at you with the same wide curiosity as the day you met him, “And switching meals with me all day. I – I –” You inhale. “– I really appreciate it, really … appreciate you.” You whisper the last bit, hoping that he doesn’t catch it.

But he does.

“Of course,” he tells you, like he could never say no. And suddenly, you cannot recall an instance when he has ever denied you the thing – he shares his food with you; he helped you spontaneously paint your apartment at 3 AM; he gives you his clothes at the crack of dawn. “You’re my best friend.” Now you can remember the moments – he wouldn’t do the laser tag tournament with you (and Jaemin); he turned down your invite to The Griffin Bar; and worst of all, he outright refused to go to Renjun’s Single’s Appreciate Day party with you. “I’d do anything you ask.”

You roll onto your back, facing the ceiling, and close your eyes.

“Jen-Jen-Jen-Jen-Jeno, Oh!” your rapid legato whimpers wake Jeno up.

First, his body reacts, an involuntary twitch from his feet to head. Next, everything above his torso moves, his arm covering his eyes. He turns into his elbow, away from the window that isn’t as bright as he thought it would be. He, then, remembers that he, somehow, fell asleep on your bed, or you two fell asleep on the same bed; neither of you really got the chance to figure out the sleeping arrangements, since yesterday had so many activities. Not that it mattered, or was a bad thing; you did spend the previous night in his apartment, in his bed. Granted, you slept feet to head, him on top of the duvet with another blanket.

Jeno drops his arm down his cheek, cautiously opening an eye to the other half of the bed.

His hand and jaw fall.

You moan his name again, mouth gaping at the ceiling, eyes twisted shut while your back arches off the mattress. At some point in the night, you must’ve changed, or you wore that lingerie set under your dress the entire time at lunch. Jeno cannot help it; his eyes find your tits spilling out of your teeny-tiny mesh cups that don’t look like they would cover up very much skin anyways. He tries to move to your face, but his willpower fails, and he looks for the source of your moans: your hand between your legs. Unfortunately, you still wear the matching, lacy panties, and your palm hides just how wet you are, the other fisted into the sheets by his thigh.

Jeno bites his lip. Why would you wake him up like this? Do that next to him? … Unless …?

Experimentally, Jeno leans onto you, pressing his still-clothed chest over you bare arm, the one attached to the blanket, clawing it roughly. He kisses your shoulder, ghosting his index finger down your naked stomach. Your moans get louder, more encouraging, so he doesn’t stop. God, Jeno wonders how you have this pornographic glow at golden hour, before the day even starts, that he cannot get enough of. You arch further off the bed, into his touch, making his fingers pad deeper into your skin, increasing their pressure until he gets to your pussy. He cups around your hand, guiding the way you grind into your own hand. But desperate for more movement, maybe more of him, you scissor yourself. And he can feel it, feel your knuckles flex, forcing your thighs separate for the deepest stroke.

“Fuck, you’re so wet.”

“To-touch me, please, Jeno, touch me.”

Jeno inserts his fingers with yours, simultaneously rutting his fully erect penis on your leg, which makes him realize that he is too clothed, but he doesn’t want to pull away from you. Instead, he straddles one of your legs, grabbing the opposite side of your neck. Blindly, using his tongue to find your most prominent vein, he sucks at your throat. He kisses you, kisses your neck, sloppily, repeatedly, until you whine even louder. Jeno has to break away, moaning into the air, his chest sweating through the white whore shirt. The two of you might get a noise complaint; is it bad that the potential turns him on? He barely gets to return to your neck, barely gets to make that wet mark even more tender, when you reverse the positions.

You push him back down, temporarily, just long enough to flip your hair over your shoulder and climb his waist. And apparently, he makes a strangled sound, because you release his shirt, smoothening out the wrinkles, mumbling something about buying him a new one later, but the entire action makes more of your hair fall down, so Jeno sits up quickly. You slide down his lap, only stopped by his long, thick cock standing under his pants. His dick outlines your ass curve, pushing your cheeks further apart. With the new position – the better position – he shoves your hair back, fisting it into a ponytail the same way you fisted the sheets, exposing your neck again. He starts a new hickey, too impatient to find the last one (it is on the other side), sucking his way down. Your bra straps fall down your biceps at this point. The plastic little adjuster springing free with your tits as Jeno bounces you in front of his cock, too much acceleration rolling your body on top of his chest that he has to force his body to slow down before he cums prematurely. He wants to cum inside you.

The decision to end the foreplay, the juvenile grinding, occurs when you rip his shirt open, mumbling something about buying him another later. Your nipples rub on his pecs, almost purposefully missing his, circling around the areola. He grunts throatily, catching your ass and pulling your cheeks apart, slapping them twice, fast, as a punishment for your sopping pussy teasing him, ghosting his cock.

“I want you,” he breathes, “I want you so bad.”

“Then, fuck me.”

Jeno hooks a finger around your panties, moving his knuckle slowly over your clit until your legs shake as much as his do. He gives you a quick look, a quick kiss, before lifting you on your knees, positioning his cock between your legs. You brace your hands on his shoulders, lowering yourself with his hand on your hip. He gets halfway in your pussy, the both of you throwing your heads back, moaning to the ceiling. After a brief recovery, he trusts in all the way.

Jeno stutters his hips down, preparing the next thrust, his eyes shut tighter than your pussy walls around his dick.

Then, he wakes up. For real.

He jumps, in a cold sweat, the birds chirping outside. And maybe, Jeno should be concerned now. Initially, he just looked for you, as the first thought crossing his mind while he opened his eyes – eg, when you slept over at his apartment, feet to head, him too scared to sleep next to you in case he accidentally confesses murder, or close to, during his sleep; when he slept on your shoulder in the train; this current moment.

Yeah, technically, he is in your bed – hotel bed, but still. Jeno fumbles around the mattress, untangling himself from the blanket that you probably put on him last night. When he stands up, in the small aisle between the beds, unbuttoned pants slipping off his waist, the hem covering half his feet, he recognizes that these are yesterday’s clothes, from the lunch with Jaehyun and Mingyu. He stumbles toward the night, every part of his body warm, his cock burned by the teasing memory of almost pounding you in the very bed he just woke up in. Of course it was a dream; it was too good to be real. Jeno grumbles, palming the small table for his glasses. As he puts them on, he finds the hotel stationery branded with your messy handwriting:

Left for coffee xx be back in 30 ♡

Jeno nods his head. Half an hour. The other half of the bed was vaguely warm, he remembers. He looks to the other bed – still made, pressed enough to bounce a ₩500 coin off. Evidently, you fell asleep next to him, too, and even though he cannot recall who fell first, he can recall who woke up first and how he woke up. His cock writhes, twitches under the waistband of his Calvin Kleins, no longer swinging between his legs; it wants to know how deep your vaginal canal is, and Jeno steadies it, groaning because he spent half the day steadying your pretty waist. The thought makes him involuntarily squeeze tighter, makes him realize that his underwear constricts the blood flow that rushes to his cock head, stopping at the base like a spiteful cock ring. So, he frees his entire length, shimmying his bottoms below his ass, and hops onto the empty bed, with what he assumes is enough time to finish what his dream started.

Focusing on the upper half, Jeno dry rubs his tip, roughly massaging his finger around the head, expediting his orgasm like a college freshman testing out the sock-on-the-door myth with a solo session. His fingers curl tightly around the circumference, slowing down his thrusting. Pre-cum quickly dribbles above his navel, leaking into little pools in the crevices of his defined abs. He slathers it along his entire cock, twisting his palm up and down, moans loudly bouncing off the walls. The wetness creates the foundation for his fantasy, conjuring the image of an equally moist mouth choking down his fully length, your mouth choking down his full length. Jeno knocks his head on the wall, whole body panting into the air. His hips float, too, and he chases his hand, a poor replacement for pussy or a sex toy; ass coming off the blanket as sweat builds up on his body. He unbuttons half his shirt, sliding his fingers to his nipple. That familiar tension in his stomach creeps into his chest, and his moans get more desperate, louder.

Then, as if his dream were a premonition, you come out of the bathroom, wearing a low-cut sports bra and matching tight, black leggings.

“Ah!!” you both scream.

A beat passes, maybe an hour, Jeno cannot discern between his exhibition rising and your gaping mouth.

You react first, running into the bathroom.

“I thought you were out getting coffee?!” he shouts, covering his dick with the blankets. It twitches underneath.

“Why would you think that?!” you scream back, before calming down and cracking the door open a little bit, “I got back five minutes ago. I was putting stuff in the bathroom for my shower.” God, his dick really twitches. He might even cum untouched. You sound like the beginning of a bad porno, and maybe his fantasy was an actual bad porno, but the thought of you, with so much exposed skin, willing to expose more skin under hot water. “Why are you –”

“I thought I had time!” he interrupts. He stands up and pulls his pants on, silently screaming at his boner to go away. It doesn’t. And he resigns, praying that you won’t see it. “I thought I would hear you bring me a coffee too and have time t-to-to cover it up.” You usually buy him a coffee too; you did it all four years through college – barged through his heavy apartment door, or announced it, pressing the iced coffee on any bare skin available.

“It’s in the fridge! I didn’t want to wake you after yesterday.” You slowly come out of the bathroom, and he turns around, wincing when his still-hard penis bounces against his hip. “It’s an iced coffee,” you tell him, biting your lip and avoiding eye contact. You cross the room toward the mini fridge. Jeno sucks in a breath. The coffee is inside. Of course it is.

When Jeno coughs, you immediately turn around then look away as equally fast, having accidentally made eye contact with his penis (and him with your tits, again, just like in his dream). “Do you, um, do you still want to take a shower first, o-or can I, um, get in there?” He scrunches his nose at the poor choice of words.

“N-n-y-you can go first,” you stutter through a mirrored cough.

His shower lasts the half hour he thought he had.

Overcoming awkwardness has, surprisingly, never come up in your relationship with Jeno, not even through the ungainly middle school phase, during when you confidently kept your fleeting crush on him a secret. Well, you hoped it was a fleeting crush. Those feelings bubbled up on and off for years, and currently, they were on. Last time they turned off (aka when you suppressed them), Jeno had a girlfriend, a long-term girlfriend, for two years. You thought you were in the clear, thought you were over it, permanently, especially after they got stupidly expensive promise rings, but habits are hard to break. And you crawled right back to him.

You step out of the bathroom, towel shaking out the water droplets from your hair, casually dressed like you arrived from Hongdae. The oversized shirt doesn’t stick to your skin as much as your sports bra earlier after your quick run in the streets, or the blouse that you nearly sweated through at lunch yesterday as the afternoon temperature increased to accommodate for spring. You jump on your bed. Well, you guess this is your bed, the one closest to the entrance and bathroom, because Jeno … occupied the other one. You glance at it, instinctively hiding your hands under your tousled covers, then shake your head. As you look away, you see your handwriting on the hotel stationery crossed out in perfectly straight lines (a symptom from majoring in architecture, you know) above Jeno’s cursive:

Went down to the lobby for breakfast. It ends at 11.

You flicker at the digital clock beneath a disconnected lamp: 10:05 AM. Still early. You got up some time around 5:30 or 6, your body absorbing too much sleep, having passed out almost right after getting back to the hotel from lunch. Unfortunately, Gwangbok-Dong doesn’t open until mid-morning, about 10:30, so you couldn’t buy a wedding gift yet (you have an envelope of cash for the reception, but Jaehyun added a registry link qr code on the invites). You also hoped to give Jeno more time to sleep, knowing that he must’ve gotten five interrupted hours total in the span of 36 hours. Shopping without him would have knocked out a chore, the only chore really, and then you two could buy him a tie or just wander around the area, which, come to think of it, costs a lot of money. It costs money to breathe, Jeno once joked during an ECON 305 lecture sophomore year, so now, you might as well take advantage of the complimentary bibmbap.

By the time you get downstairs, the chefs have disappeared, and only three plain bibimbap dishes remain amongst the sparse assortment of other breakfast snacks. At least this moment has somewhat perfect timing; you didn’t have very good timing earlier when you caught Jeno with his dick in hand (or did he not have good timing? You have no idea). You snake around the buffet-style tables, picking up a small mango juice and a few side dishes in addition to the main. Once you have a decent portion, you walk toward the half-empty seating area, scanning the chairs for a place to sit. You kinda look like a new high school transfer student searching for a clique – do you sit with the band geeks and their giant brass instruments? Do you sit with the chem nerds and finish the homework that’s due tomorrow? Or do you latch onto the one person you vaguely know so that people don’t stare at you for standing too long?

Yeah, you immediately find Jeno playing some cart rider game on his phone under the table. Nice to know that the sentiment is returned, ha.

“He-hey,” you mumble, clanging your tray on the metal table. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

Jeno looks up at you and puts his phone in his pocket. He gestures to the seat already pulled out, as if it were waiting for you. “Yeah, of course.”

You eat a few bites, hoping that the tension will go down the longer you are in his presence, but he fidgets by your side, rubbing his feet together loudly over the wood flooring. He gives you an apologetic stare, waiting for you to break first. Slowly, you finish chewing part of the egg and wash it down with juice, equally marveling at him, unsure how exactly to say alright, we both know that I caught you masturbating and you probably finished off in that not-so-short shower without (1) scarring the other guests and (2) completely altering your relationship. Like, you didn’t even have sex!

“About this morning,” you start, “I should’ve knocked.”

“No, no.” Jeno shakes his head. “I should’ve … not … done … that. We’re sharing a room for the weekend, an-and it’s your space as much as mine. I’m sor-”

“I mean,” you interrupt, pushing your spoon around the bowl of rice, “it happens. You – Guys get … those,” – morning wood, hard-ons, boners – “an-and it’s not like you were thinking about me. I get it.”

Jeno makes a strangled noise, so you whip your head at him. Suddenly, you notice his proximity, and you push all the way back into your chair, accidentally skidding it across the floor. Your eyes go wide, eyebrows more talkative than your sputtering mouth. You aren’t stupid; he knows that, but Jeno is too honest for his own good, even at the expense of his own thoughts. He bites his lip, evidently saying more than intended, and that is how you have known him for the last decade – overly blunt, blurting out his thoughts easily, every answer written on his face, stuck on the tip of his tongue.

And you cannot help yourself when the memory of his massive cock resurfaces, his pre-cum pooled at the neglected slit as his fingers massage right under the head. Your fight-or-flight response activated before you could make a conscious move to take the leap, to get even closer on him than the train allowed. You wonder, breath hitched, whether you idealize his cock – whether he idealized sex with you. On your end, it has been a while since you last got laid, a couple months, bit of a dry spell hitting you at the start of this new urban revitalization project to fix up the arts district around the SeMA. The initial funding took some convincing, both the government and museum not seeing the necessity, but once your team got the ball rolling and you were able to pull in Jeno, the lead architect, and Renjun, a graphic designer, you figured that time would be more in your favor.

That was not the case.

Your team leader divided the project based on skill-level, meaning that you had to cooperate on the ground level with Jeno and Renjun, planning every move from point A to point B. So, while half your coworkers enjoy hoesik, probably out there hitting on clubgoers and getting laid, you stay at the office past witching hour, hunched over blueprints and maps and expense reports. The only saving grace, really, is working with your best friend. … Your best friend who just inadvertently admitted that he jerked off to the thought of you. … Your best friend whose dick you currently think about, trying to revisualize whether you remember it correctly. Maybe you need a refresher.

“We don’t,” Jeno clears his throat, still avoiding eye contact, hands rubbing on his jeans, “um, we don’t need to talk about it.”

You bite your tongue.

Because you do want to talk about.

Geotechnical engineering, in college, was easy. Jeno received A-level marks all three terms, nearly a 100% in the second term. Designing a new plaza around the SeMA, for your project, was easy. Jeno got his first design approved by the MOLIT and the Cultural Heritage Administration, based on a 4AM napkin sketch. Fuck, even finding your G-spot in his dream was easy (although, credit is due to the movie magic directed by his subconscious). But all of those have something in common: a template. You know, like, engineering follows a basic algorithm, as do project designs. And he’s had years of experience giving people orgasms, even made a few squirt, so he can just manipulate a technique to best suit your pussy.

With this, with you, with the real you, Jeno doesn’t know what to do, or where to start, when you are so close to him, concentrating on straightening out the main knot in the tie you wrap around his neck. I’ll buy you a new one echoes in his mind, the assurance you whispered in his dream, now that you are actually out shopping. He can smell your own body wash this time, compared to the cologne on his blazer in the train station. And you probably don’t even know how hard it was for him, then, to not kiss your neck. Maybe that’s why his subconscious creates a pattern out of it: bring you close (like at on the KTX), taunt him in his dream (give him the kiss he wanted and set up something more), bring you close again.

It took a moment, both times, to actually build up tension. The first time, he scarcely kept his eyes open, couldn’t really appreciate your body, half-tired, half-scared; probably why his subconscious went easy on him last night, as if having mercy for all the dick veins in his heart. And when he caved, you caught him. Jeno spent the better part of this shopping excursion keeping his distance – e.g., even though you browsed home appliance stores together, he walked a few meters behind you, only stopping to make commentary:

“What if we get them an air fryer?” he suggested, to get out of there as soon as possible and relieve the awkwardness.

You refuted, “They already have an air fryer. Mingyu bought one, since Jaehyun can’t cook.” Right. “Makes him feel like Baek Jongwon.”

So, you settled on a nonstick, ceramic, pink Always Pan set (in addition to the cash envelope) that Mingyu might get more use out of and help lessen the dish load. But you let Jeno pick the color.

“There,” you finish, eyebrows unfurrowing. You turn him toward the adjacent mirror, arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t immediately scrutinize your work (not that it was necessary; you have been tying his ties for formal events since MUN championships in high school). Your hands linger, warm, on his shoulders, falling slightly on his pecs. Then, you let go, palms up as if an AED machine alerted you about the next incoming shock. “I’ll either do this same knot –” A cape knot. “– or an Eldridge knot, depending on which dress I choose, but both look good for a solid color tie, like this one.”

“What about a trinity knot?”

Jeno cannot believe that he is making small talk with his best friend about the various types of knots; the same best friend who vomited into a cup 0.2 seconds after entering a bar, resulting in your entire group getting kicked out, and then fell asleep on the sidewalk outside, resulting in a cop arresting all seven of you for the night because you made it seem like you were all blackout drunk. Your relationships survived that whole mess, despite everyone losing the ₩25,000 entrance fee (although, Haechan and Renjun refused to go out with you for, like, a month). Most importantly, your relationship with him survived that; actually your relationship with him didn’t even take a hit. He nursed you back to health the next day, which might have, or not, been a symptom of his excessive drinking – tucking you into bed with a thousand blankets, bringing you 35 water bottles, taking your temperature every 4 minutes.

“Mmm,” you consider, fixing your gaze back at his neck. “Probably not. It’s not really formal enough for a wedding, and I’m already on the fence about an Eldridge knot, in case Jaehyun or Mingyu want to wear one – it’s like if I wore a white dress to their wedding. People would think that we were getting married.” Jeno raises an eyebrow and is met with silence. You drop into your hands, twiddling your thumbs, a forced laugh bubbling through your esophagus. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s, um, it’s fine,” he reassures you. He should be sorry, for making you deal with his emotions. “You could, um, tie it change it at the wedding hall, or, um, at the reception. I don’t think I’ll end up wearing it all night.”

“Or you could learn how to tie something better than a half-Windsor,” you tease, slowly lifting your head.

An identical smile breaks onto his face. “It’s a classic for a reason!”

“Call it what it is: basic.”

“I haven’t had to learn how to do other knots!” Jeno pushes your shoulder, laughing when you do. “Besides, it’s never about my clothes. I’m just the accessory, your arm candy.”

Your giggles fade, then almost as if remembering the distant morning, you separate from him. And he has to close the distance again. He tentatively reaches for your hand, boldly threading your fingers together. You don’t react, instead choosing to focus on the glass display case under the mirror. Your hair moves just a little, the strands loose from your ponytail blowing, slightly, in the wind. His hand could replace it – the hair tie – if you wanted (it’s what his subconscious wants), but you focus on the glass display case under his reflection. You fiddle with the blade of a tie that you both rejected earlier (ha, you seem to be rejecting a lot of things today). The color didn’t suit his skin tone or the garden wedding theme; Jaehyun made sure to include a sample of his bouquet in every invitation. How is he going to be a good wedding date, to you, if you can barely look at each other?

“Did I sa–?”

“Let’s buy this one,” you decide, interrupting him simultaneously. You pull the purple off him, as if un-marking him. Another stark contrast to his dream, which has him wondering whether his fantasies are boring. “Then, we can get dinner at that bistro down the road. I know you’ve been craving steak, and Jaehyun is doing a chicken-or-fish style reception.”

Jeno shakes his analog watch into view: 3:27 PM. You finished breakfast before noon. Should you leave now, you might be able to finish dinner just as quickly (or long), based on your pace eating bibimbap, and grab coffee before the café by the hotel closes.

“Yeah, okay. Sounds good.”

Jeno pays for the tie and an extra two white dress shirts (just in case), as well as a chocolate bar from the tiny stand at the register, stacked near the gift cards. You thank him, but it is the least he can do – (1) he feels really bad for this morning, and (2) you essentially paid for every other part of this trip except the food. He reassures you that you need not apologize; you are his best friend, but then you throw that back in his face when he brings up money. Both of you keep parroting “don’t worry, it’s fine” at each other, only to retreat into awkward silence.

You hold the shop entrance open for him, gesturing him out the door, then walk a pace behind him. The medium-sized, paper shopping bag swings between the two of you; well, it would, if he stood next to you.

Jeno stops.

“What are we doing?”

You pause too, body freezing mid-motion for a second, then you look over your shoulder, eyes looking him up and down. When his head tilts to the side and his eyebrows furrow, you turn around.

“We’re going to the bistro,” you answer, as though it were obvious.

But Jeno already knows that. He made the plans with you half an hour ago. “No, I mean this. Why are we –” He shakes his head again; he knows why, too. His reflection in a department store catches his eye, so he pulls you from the middle of the sidewalk around the corner, somewhat hidden behind another building. “What are we doing?”

“Jeno … are you okay?”

“I’m serious! We practically spend every day together, it feels desolate when you’re gone, and … and –” He steps into your personal bubble. “You’re not here with me right now.”

“Jen,” you drag out his name, looking away from him, “I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”

You are not hearing him.

Jeno cautiously withdraws his hands from his bomber jacket. His nails accidentally scratch the pocket inner lining, giving him a chance to back out, to reconsider his declaration. But he doesn’t need a second chance; he just needs the first chance. So, instead, Jeno grabs your palm, inching his fingers up your elbow, and scans your eyes. Without resistance, you draw him closer at his waist. The shopping bag falls down low on your wrist, drumming against his thigh and yours. He feels your leave his waist and slide up his cheek; he has to close his eyes, not entirely believing the way his body betrays him, leaning into your face.

“I … I …” he pants, head spinning.

“Hey, it’s okay,” you assuage. He can feel your breath on his lip, so he sucks in air, lips parted slightly, scared he might ask for too much. And maybe that is where you get a signal – get the signal – because he feels you rise to the tips of your toes and kiss him. “Let’s just order room service.”

Why did you say that? Let’s just order room service. The suggestion prolonged the time before you could kiss him again, because once you got back to the hotel, heels practically floating off the ground, you had to wait.

Luckily, the hotel was just around the corner. If you ran, you would have been upstairs in 10 minutes, but the two of you took your time, practically strolling through Gwangbok Road. He walked beside you this time, his pinky occasionally grazing behind your hand.

And in the elevator, Jeno became bolder. His entire body, previously trembling, gravitated toward you, latching onto every part that you would allow, and you gave him permission, made it known that you wanted him to touch you. You almost pressed him into the reflective wall, trapping him on the cold metal railing, but you restrained yourself; you already made that initial move: kissing him (well, it was the next move, since you caught him masturbating, earlier, to the thought of you. Then, he was the first person out the elevator, practically dragging you into the bedroom, nearly detaching your arm. Outside your hotel room, Jeno kissed you. Your hips knocked beside the key swipe, making it easy to fumble the key card out of your pocket and through the lock. You didn’t open the door immediately, choosing, instead, to stand on your toes, and wrap your arms behind his neck, essentially climbing him, like a tree, in the empty hallway, the shopping bag floundering on his back. Jeno paused the kiss, trailing his lips away, ghosting his breath on your tongue. His gaze flickered from your parted mouth to your eyes, and you saw his dilated pupils grow bigger. He pointed his eyebrows to the green light, right before it turned red. You scanned his face for another rejection, and seeing none, you opened the door.

But once you got inside, Jeno sat you on the bed, perching you where you fell asleep next to him last night. You dropped the shopping bag and your jacket to the floor, staring up at him the entire time, hopefully inviting. While he towered over you for this second, you admired your work – bruised lips, static hair, flushed skin, even his breath bated. Subconsciously, you touched your bottom lip, dragging it down to see if it were equally swollen (it was). Jeno took a step forward, but changed his mind, ordering room service from the restaurant downstairs through the phone on the nightstand.

Now, you flicker your gaze over his body, checking him out like a man who convinced his foreigner girlfriend not to dress modestly at the clubs. Your eyes flicker slower, up his tiny waist (that makes his flat ass appear a little plump) to his strong biceps, sleeves pushed up to reveal more skin, back to his lips, which mumble a swift thank you before returning to the edge of the bed. You slide to the very tip, spreading your legs wide open enough for him to stand between. Jeno curls his thumb under your jaw, lifting your chin, maybe admiring your features too. You hope that you look equally disheveled.

Jeno gently pins you on the bed, slithering up your torso, brushing his pecs on your tits. He grabs your waist, fingers dipping toward your butt, dragging you to meet his pelvis.

“You have to tell me,” he says, eyes closed, millimeters from kissing you again, “right now, that you want this, want me, before we do anything more.” His thumb comes under your shirt, drumming an indiscernible beat directly on your stomach, just around your belly button, almost unsure which direction to go – toward your pants, toward your bra, outside your shirt. Your breath hitches, and you feel your body sink lower into the mattress. “I need to know that we’re on the same page.”

“Can’t you feel it?” You guide one of his hands down your pants, his long middle phalanges driving cautiously into the seam. He cups your pussy, falling level on your chest. His lungs pant heavily into the back of your neck, tickling the hairs into standing up. “I want you.”

Jeno chases your lips, barely managing, “Not what I meant.” With your consent, he kisses you again, and you, consumed by his undivided heat, ignoring everything that isn’t his touch, like the white sheets rusting under your long hair as his shirt grinds into your abdomen, riding your clothes up. He hooks a hand under your thigh, switching the positions for you to straddle him. His legs stretch forward, feet planting into the ground, which gives him the leeway to sit up and brush your hair back into a makeshift side ponytail. Jeno scans your eyes, darting side-to-side, all the tension melting away after you smooth his shoulders. “I … I …”

You caress his cheek, having mercy on his dick (currently hard under your ass), and lift his chin higher. “I know what you meant.” You press your lips into his, chastely. He responds, puckering his lips each time you peck him, but he also frowns – frowns deeply enough for you to really pull away; his frown looks more intense than you felt. “I …” you whisper, sliding your arms on his shoulder, fiddling with his hair. You teeter on your knees, shifting your weight across his lap. He stops you. “I like you so much. More th-than friends.” Then you kiss him again, to wipe your confession away, because you can live with it. You can live with the repercussions of his mistake; you can be his mistake. This doesn’t have to be a whole thing. You don’t need to finish your confession with his rejection.

Jeno whimpers your name, tugging you away by your hair. “I –”

“It’s okay,” you whisper, “You don’t need to say it. Just me –”

“No, I need to –” He sucks in a breath. “Can I kiss you?”

You shake your head, an actual mistake because he freezes; you only meant it in disbelief. So, you lower down again, sliding your hands under his jaw. You turn your head to the side and mumble, “Don’t stop,” before reconnecting.

Jeno pats his palm on your pussy. His opposite hand, the one above your hip, fingers your waistband, scratching continuous circles, waiting for an affirmation. “I meant kiss you here.” He pouts at you through his eyelashes. “Can I kiss you lower?”

You shimmy off his lap, pushing him into the bed. “Everywhere,” you answer hastily. He helps you glide off your pants, and his veiny hands are all you can concentrate on, everything else blurring until he fondles your clit, above your black panties.

“Do you like this?”

“God, yes,” you pour moans into his mouth, holding his throat straight, like a tall glass for iced tea. When he inserts a single, long digit between your wet pussy lips, he winces, as if being penetrated himself, as if you found his prostate on the first try without any lube other than your spit. He adds a second finger, his longest finger, the middle finger, the ‘fuck you’ finger (literal in this case), prompting you to hump his hand. Your hips roll forward, increasing intensity. You gasp when he scissors his fingers wider and crosses them over one another, like a promise, then you bounce higher, your ass cheeks squeezing together. “Fuck, I didn’t know you could do that.”

Jeno slips in another digit, curling all three forward, his ring finger (the free one) twitching unrestricted. “I guess there’s still a bit you don’t know about me,” he blows into your gaping mouth, your moans following his rhythmically to the beat of some song you cannot think of while riding him.

You sink all the way down his hand, grinding your clit on his palm, and take off your shirt. Before your tits can spring free, Jeno pulls you close, trying to suck marks above your bra. You grate broken ah, ah, ahs, growing louder whenever his fingers sheath completely inside you. As if goading you, he slaps your jiggly ass, twice for every once you shake down. You yank Jeno away by his hair, darting through his swollen lips, his flushed cheeks, his narrowed eyes. Under you, his dick twitches.

“Should I –“ you pant, slowly stopping on his hand. But he seems not to like that response and drives his fingers back up. “Can I,” you correct, “ah, ah – Can I help you with-with that?”

“I want you to cum.” Jeno squeezes your ass cheek, and you fall into his lips again. Your tongue falls out, stiff, virtually asking for something to occupy your mouth. He takes his free hand, shoving it between your lips, pushing your tongue down, saliva pooling under his fingerprint. “Are you close, pretty girl?” His hand moves faster, rougher. Your thighs twitch. “Feels like it.” Your panties threaten to slip back into place, so he rips it. “Sorry,” he mumbles carelessly. You don’t blame him, too focused on your legs tensing up but his thumb on your tongue pushing you back down.

“Don-don’t worry,” you whimper, “I, ah-uh, have a – ah – nother pair. They’re also black, fuck, but lace. Hides better under my-my dress.” You skid lower down his waist, and his cock stands up on your ass.

“Fuck, you’re going to ruin me.”

“Untouched?”

“Maybe.”

However, you don’t like the thought, considering it unfair – unfair to him that he has to settle for a cheap orgasm; unfair to you that you cannot milk him dry between your thighs. So, you descend his legs, prying him open at the knee. You spare it a glance, covered by his jeans, wondering what it would be like to bend over it, ass in the air, spanked harder.

“Hey,” Jeno calls, snapping you back to attention. You relieve your thighs, unclenching, to stare at him. “Is this –” he inhales sharply, possibly trying to come off nonchalant, like it would be okay if you decided to stop, decided that you didn’t want this anymore; you swoon. “Is this still okay?”

“Of course.” You meet his eye. “Always.” You loop the tops of your fingers under his waistband, above his Calvin Kleins, the name brand embroidered as thick as his veins leading under it. “Can I help you with this?”

“God, yes, please,” he finally answers, throwing his head back on the pillows.

You unzip his pants, the sound bouncing off all four walls without any moans to cushion it; you could practically hear a pin drop. Jeno props himself on his elbows, and his abs crunch forward, tightening his impeccably defined six pack. Like, you already knew – since college – that he sculpted his body at the gym like Pygmalion did Galatea, but it adds pressure, not because your hand wraps around his cock (you have yet to touch him), rather because his gaze burns holes through your hands.

“You don’t,” he mumbles, “You don’t have to take it all. If you can’t. You don’t.” Jeno shakes his head, his hair shyly hiding his eyes. “I just want you, so it’s o – Fuck.”

You lick the premature bead of cum, digging your tongue in his slit to clean all of it out. Your thumb and index fingers wrap, tightly, below the glans. You bob your head a little lower, tasting just the tip, flittering your eyes to gauge his reaction. While your inexperienced days are behind you (pun intended), Jeno has this magical first-love quality about him, that makes sucking his dick seem like your first, like when two rom-com leads finally have sex, except it’s in a car on a cliffside for added drama. He appears to agree – how? You don’t know exactly for sure, but people outside your relationships have mentioned that you make a good first girlfriend.

Jeno involuntarily stutters his hips higher, pushing half his cock past your lips, making you gag. Evidently, there are many things about him you still don’t know – namely, how big his dick is. You always suspected him to be above average, especially after his sporadic growth spurts in high school, but you never imagined that this would be your way to measure him! He can barely fit half his shaft through the rim of your lips. And it gets worse (better?) when you hollow your cheeks, scraping your tongue above your teeth, because your mouth squeezes him out. Jeno mumbles a string of curse words, nearly screaming them as you suck harder, his fists twisted in the blankets. You pull off his cock, replacing your mouth with your hands, albeit tighter, and spiral your saliva down to the base, leaning tall on your knees to spit more on his tip, in the slit from where precum bubbles out.

“I told you: I want you.”

“Fuck.” Jeno throws his head back. “Okay, sit on my face.”

You stop moving your hand, subconsciously throbbing your palm to the beat of his (dick) pulse. “What?”

Jeno’s fingers tap on the blanket, his voice increasingly whiny, “Sit. On. My. Face.”

You comply, kneeling around his cheeks, knees brushing his shoulders – which still wear his shirt, nothing but his abs and penis exposed. All the cloth touching your skin makes you feel more vulnerable, most likely more vulnerable than Jeno, and he might regret this in the morning. So, as he anchors his extra-large hands under your thighs, digging into your muscles, you pinch his shoulder, like a safe word, a safety action. And he stops.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, curving his neck to see you better. Maybe you frown too deeply or maybe you are on the verge of tears, because he sits up again, immediately spinning in front of you. “Hey, -” He gingerly reaches for your cheeks, holding your chin above his fingers. “- We don’t have to do this, if you don’t want. It’s okay. I want you to want this.”

“I,” you swallow, cautiously looking into his eyes. You cover your chest, hide your boobs by your bra – the only clothing on your body - and naked arms. “I just,” you mumble before finishing lamely, face warming with his hand, “feel really naked.”

“Oh,” Jeno says simply. He scans your face indiscernibly, so you, not wanting any of this to end, raise your eyebrows suggestively and glance at his shirt. “Oh!” Jeno takes it off, elbows crossing on either side of his ears, showing off his Dorito torso. And you must have been leaning forward, because you fall into his chest, a hand bracing widely on his obliques. You sheepishly raise your face, slightly ducking under his perky nipple; you lower eye-level with it and hesitantly lick it. “Fuck. Is this why you wanted me to strip?”

You flatten your tongue under his areola, then flick upward, tentatively building more pressure until you have his waist in both your hands, holding him steady while you massage his nipples. Your opposite thumb pushes small circles where your mouth neglects, almost kneading him like that time he taught you, in Chem 224, how to use a mortar and pestle properly, holding the ceramic bowl firm against the thick pestle breaking apart various solids into fine powders. Deeming his left pec marked enough (by your nails and lips), you move to the right, leaving a moist path between his boobs, but, rather than fondling the other side, as you did when it was dry, you fist his dick, dragging him forward. You assume Jeno gets the hint, given that he traps you on the sheets, under his flexed biceps. He kicks off the rest of his pants and slithers up your body, pressing his completely naked body into yours, only your bra left as a barrier. Jeno straddles across your hips, his cock spasming, as if asking you to do the last honors while he gropes your entire lower half, massaging your ass with the heels of his palms.

“Do – do you-you still want me to sit on your face?”

“No,” he heaves instantly before doing a partial push up (push down?) to kiss you, aggressive and instant. You can feel his broad deltoids pinch together while you ground yourself on his muscles, using the moment as an excuse to grope him. He swirls his tongue in your mouth, simultaneously smacking his wet lips to you, making you constantly chase him, come up only to be pushed down again. “Fuck, mayb-maybe later.” Later. You’re going to do this again. Jeno holds his torso still, slowly moving his cock between your pussy lips, lubricating himself prepared. “I want, uh, I want to be inside you,” he moans, voice breaking, “Can I fuck you? Please?”

You guide his tip into your cunt. “Please.” And when he stretches your hole, urging his girth past the involuntary tightening, you arch your hips up. “Full, full, fuck.” He shallowly thrusts, pulling out a little bit, only to push in more. Your thighs shake, and you point your feet down, curling your toes, to keep your legs separated enough for him to go faster. But you notice that, while he pistons in and out of your cunt, you cannot feel his balls slapping your ass; you cannot hear the distinct skin-on-skin noises – that’s when you realize: he’s not completely in you, despite the full feeling practically in your cervix. “Jeno,” you whine, “Fuck me.”

“I am,” he answers, breath quivering through gritted teeth.

“Harder,” you beg, fidgeting to give him additional access, little grabby hands wriggling along the outline carved around his muscles. “More.” You claw into his well-defined six pack. “F-fill me up all the way.”

Jeno mattes your hair down with his thumbs, coaxing your eyes open again. You peak through just one, then slowly open the other; you can feel the lines in your forehead melt away. Just for a second though. Because he uses your temporary relief to bottom out. You barely process any of his movements, until he kisses you again, his thrusts stuttering too gently. His breath trembles, controlled, masking the way his hands fight some urge to bruise your hips, so you hook your shin around his strong leg and topple him. When you sink down on his dick, taking every inch, pussy working overtime to accommodate him, the both of you groan. You honk his pecs, matching each squeeze with your breath. The bedsheets rustle, having come undone with all your tossing and turning, and Jeno kicks the blankets off the bed, sitting up. He mouths your perky tits, tilting his head to the side, jaw dropping with his tongue to suck as much skin as possible. You grab the headboard, accidentally slamming it into the wall, once, twice, three, four, five times, when he circles his hips, dick flopping around inside your cervix, ridiculously deep. Jeno grabs your ass, strikes your skin hard to start bouncing you on his lap. He helps you keep his cock inside your pussy, guiding you less than halfway up and banging his skin against yours. The position pushes you forward, allowing his shaft to graze your sopping clit, vulva pinning opened.

“Ahh,” you scream, “Je-Jeno, I’m-I’m –“ You throat tightens, words choking, “Oh, shit, I’m gonna cum.”

Jeno brings his lips to yours, half a millimeter away. He grunts, abs tightening too. “Cum, baby, you can do it. You can do it. Come on, baby.” He grabs you by the throat, holding you in place as he licks into your mouth, eating up every moan, every breath, and fucks you faster. Your pussy gets wetter, more malleable, and you finally cum, toes curling, unwinding in his chokehold, tongue flopping out. He kisses your pink, plump tongue, lips smacking heavily, moaning out his nose and mouth, “Uh, uh, uh, fuck. Can-can I –“

“Cum inside me,” you finish for him, answer for him.

Jeno propels his cock a couple more times, the last one driving both of you into the air. Thick spurts of cum shoot into your pussy, almost adding another inch, the tip of his cock hitting, jerking, on your G-spot. You sit there for a little bit, your bodies slumping down the headrest, possibly addicted to the way your walls continuously milk even more cum out of him.

When he finally finishes, cum forcing its way down your thighs, he kisses you. “So … about sitting on my face?”

Your face lights up, the thought of him eating his own cum out your cunt way too exciting, and you push him on the bed, immediately popping his cock out and straddling his mouth.

An obnoxious ringing interrupts Jeno’s dream, way too early (well, anything that wakes him up is too early), and he whines at it, preferring to sink into his heated mattress pad. But the default iPhone ringtone seems especially heartless, right now, for whatever reason – even though he probably wake up earlier than this during the work week. He buries his head in his pillow, trying to force the alarm into snoozing. His nose brushes into the soft pillowcase, inhaling the aromatherapy. Then, it moves … you move. And Jeno remembers the night before. It wasn’t a dream this time.

You slam your hand on the nightstand, briefly sliding out of his arms. The alarm – your phone – persists though, falling to the floor. You mumble a small fuck under your breath, softer than last night; the memory makes his dick twitch. He feels you crawl over the edge, rustling the bedsheets, your ass brushing his dick away. You dip heavier into the side with a Herculean effort, reaching for your phone, then slide it onto the mattress under your pillow. He tries not to react, tightens his already closed eyes, but his dick twitches. Thankfully, you seem blissfully unaware, nuzzling back into the pillows, a hand crossed over your chest, breathing deeply.

Jeno exhales through his nose, relieved. You must’ve fallen back to sleep – good, honestly, with work and then the whole train ride mess a couple days ago. Maybe he can use the time to finish what he started yesterday morning. Unfortunately, when he grabs his cock, points it up, his pelvis scrunching his abs, your thighs part, just briefly, then close again. The tip catches between your ass cheeks, trailing toward your pussy, sliding with back and forth, aided easily by how wet you are. Jeno internally groans at the thought of you having a sexy dream, hopefully about him. You start swaying, and your arm starts shaking, and your breath labors – you are touching yourself: your neck, your arms, your stomach, your clit. All the shifting spurs Jeno into action. He slowly and shallowly rocks his hips forward, spreading your natural lubricant across the top half of his cock. You lean into him, hands changing to claw his burly naked shoulder, and guide his fingers to your cunt. At the new position, the closer position, he sloppily mouths the part between your neck and shoulder, his breath as hot and heavy as his tongue.

You freeze for a second, stiffening your posture, and he thinks that maybe he misunderstood or that you changed your mind, so he slowly pulls back. His cock springs free from the tight crevice, wet and warm and hard, twitching on your round ass.

“I’m sor – Did you not – I thought – I’m sorr –“

You turn around and kiss him quiet, throwing a leg over his hip. Your heel digs into his lower back, above his flat ass, lodging the tip in your pussy again. Slowly, you lower yourself on his cock, kissing him harder the further you sink down. Once he is completely inside, you pull your face back and wrap your arms around his neck, practically fusing your bodies together. Everything moves too fast for him. Jeno is unable to appreciate your touches. He makes it known with a mewl, chest beating quicker than yours. And as if you sense it – best friend intuition, you might say in any other situation where his dick isn’t in you, like wordlessly handing over a bag of ramyeon that you ‘borrowed’ from Renjun’s room – you brush a few strands of hair away from his eyes, and he opens them this time. You’ve always been good at comforting him: when he had a panic attack over losing his wallet, when he got reprimanded at work for shredding the wrong abstract, etc. He has always known it. Well, not always; he doesn’t know where it began, but he knows the feeling will last forever, like a vow. Jeno hugs you around your waist, tighter, asking you to move for more or to stop for less, because, much like last night, should you give him an inch, he’ll take a meter.

“Don’t be sorry,” you beg, humping his cock again. “I want you.”

Jeno loses balance and falls on his flat ass, his thighs sandwiched densely between yours. He fumbles around the bed, pushing away the thin sheet to see his cock disappear in your pussy. It should be impossible; you should be tight, having nothing to prep you beforehand, but maybe his stroke game last night was enough, you came twice on his cock alone, the stretch evidently lasting through now. The mattress creaks and the headboard hits the wall as you bounce firmly, knees jabbing into the bed. Your breath shakes, abs visibly flexing, and you fall forward, hair splaying over his shoulder. He licks his middle finger, then drags it under your thigh, trapping his cock in a V, using his lubricated finger for added pressure on your clit, his dick abusing its underside. His free arm belts behind your back, index finger teasing outside the rim of your asshole.

“Oh, oh,” you scream, biting your lip, pawing the comforter for some stability while he rams your little cunt. “F-f-ffuck.” He spanks your ass, dragging the meaty flesh up with a glowing hand mark. “Cu-cu-cumming. Mmm, oh my god, I’m so c-close.”

“Already? Shit.”

You tuck your hips forward, and he takes advantage, moving his hands under your torso, massaging your clit with all his fingers and sucking your tits. The repetitive sounds synchronize – your whimpering, his whimpering, your skin slapping into his, the bed springs screeching, your cunt squelching. All of it overwhelms his senses, and had you not been so close to his ear, Jeno would’ve missed your mantra:

“Jeno, Jeno, Jeno,” you squeal, moans getting increasingly louder, “I’m cumming, I’m cumming, cumming.” Your pussy drools cum down his legs, and he gradually decelerates, riding out your orgasm.

A beat passes, full of tense heavy breathing, before he pants in your face, nearly screaming (as if you hadn’t done so a moment ago, in his ear, with his face buried in your neck). “Breakfast,” he says simply, loudly, trying to hear himself through the ringing in his ears that preserves the way your moans sound, as if this could end on Monday morning when you get back to your real lives – which it could. You never said what this is. “Should we, um, should we get breakfast?” He remembers your alarm, trying to suppress the hardness in his cock, as if this were all just a formality, a complimentary wake up call not provided by the hotel, and he looks away, but he doesn’t go far, only dropping to your lips, not wanting to part, even in his view. “You know, that first meal of the day, typically eaten during moan-morning, often in, um, including rice, eggs, milk –”

Jeno flickers his eyes away from your lips, catching you gazing at him. Somehow you make it less creepy than when he does it. There was this one time at the end of high school when he checked on you, in the next cubicle over, in the library, only to find you asleep on your textbook, relying on osmosis rather than flash cards to study for the CSAT; 15 minutes passed and he felt like he regressed into that middle school nerd who just stood there, wheezing. Or that other time in international student building during college when Renjun slapped him on the arm because he was staring at you too long; he lied, saying that he was just making sure you got the right coffee from the vending machine, but Renjun knew. Jeno is convinced that his entire friend group knows how he feels about you – Haechan tried setting him up with you back in high school; Jaemin practically read his diary; Mark … Mark might actually be the only one who doesn’t know, for sure, but he definitely suspects something!

You grab his chin, snapping him out of his thoughts, and search his face before kiss him, your eyes fluttering closed as you grind him through the overstimulation. “Cum in me,” you order, “I’ll milk your cock dry.”

“Fuck,” Jeno breathes, never detaching his lips. He hugs low on your waist again, slapping your ass with both his hands. And when he can’t take it anymore – take the grinding, the clenching, the bouncing – he mumbles your name in your mouth, “Baby, I ne, uh, I need to cum. Let me cum inside you,” he takes you up on your offer, like the more-than-decade-long pining stops at a dam, at your answer.

Wordlessly, you shove you tongue in his mouth, cradling his cheek as he leans deeper between the pillows. You grab whatever length of his cock that is not in your pussy, and he whimpers when you throb your hand around him, teasing the other half inside your cunt. Jeno scoots forward, using the momentum to slap himself all the way in you, making your hips stutter. Fuck, you’re tight. And he knows that it’s a dumb myth for the vagina to be this compact, narrow canal, but your wall muscles barely conform to his girth, and the thought boosts his ego, so he holds you steady against his chest, repeatedly ramming your pussy with long thrusts. Your tits jiggle off your chest, scraping his pecs, almost slapping him in the jaw as he tilts his head up to suck more bruises under your chin, to soothe you from all the choking last night.

“Je-Jen,” you stammer, “I don’t –“ You swallow, shaking your head. “My legs are-are going to giv-give out.”

“It’s okay, baby, just breathe,” he tells you. He punctures your hips at a faster pace, like giving your pussy CPR, ordering your clit to administer a shock, blowing the kiss of life for the both of you. “In, out, in, out, in, out,” he guides, “You can do it.”

Jeno flips you on your back, an oof resounding the room, yelps and giggles following. He gives you a second to gather your composure, regulate your breathing, then pistons his cock repeatedly in your pussy. His tip catches on a particularly hard clench, and your walls refuse to let him go, trapping him in a spot that abuses your G-spot. He pushes the entire length inside you, practically fucking your cervix again, driving your back arched. You writher along the mattress, hair splaying among the sheets. His fists outline your obliques, thumbs erroneously pointed outward, trying to support your back. He accidentally slips on a particularly hard thrust, but before he can save himself, he protects your skull from hitting the headrest or your arm from getting crushed by his chest. Phew. Maybe if he were weaker, he would hold you on the bed, thrusting in a way that lets the both of you fall into the pillows, or maybe if he were stronger – mentally and physically – he would be able to stay up, not tempted or dizzy at the sight of your slightly parted mouth. Jeno readjusts his hands – one pushing your waist into the comforter, for his own support, and the other creeping toward your neck. You lift your chin up, giving him consent, and it takes him a second to move forward; he didn’t think he would get this far, that you would completely let him manhandle you. But, he guesses, he doesn’t know everything about you, and he is so excited to discover more. He pads his fingers on either side of your esophagus, squeezing just enough to make breathing a little harder for you, make it harder for you to follow the breathing pattern he ingrained in your cunt.

“Fuck, baby, breathe just like that.” Jeno peeks an eye wider, glancing at the blanket tosses away. Cautiously, he drifts his gaze to your stomach, and his cock twitches. You moan loader, almost confirming him thoughts – is he really that deep? Your pussy clenches. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum.” Jeno kisses you. “Cum with me,” he moans your name.

You used to make fun of him for being such a romantic, always cooing when he’d swoon over Knox and Chris, until he decided that he didn’t like their romance anymore. It’s too possessive. Although, he understands the sentiment, because the way you look at him, now, face contorting over your second building orgasm, incomprehensible whines spilling into the air. He should have done this sooner, should have kissed you sooner, and he would have, if he had known it would lead to this, because he can do it; he can bury the depth of his feelings while you sort yours out. If he can have you this close, like this, he would do anything.

Jeno draws his hips back, your name snagging on his moan. He feels your fingers dig in harsher as your legs tense up, tension building in your stomach. His knees chafe against the sheets, rocking an imprint into the mattress that keeps your legs open. Jeno slows his thrusts, instead hammering his entire cock harder. He tries not to cum prematurely, wanting to see your second orgasm of the morning overstimulate, but as he abrades your clit, holding your thighs wide, he feels himself shoot a thick rope of cum deep in your pussy, and it’s not long until he spills everything else, fucking you through his own orgasm, fucking his cum into you, your hole greedily drinking it all. You follow a few hits later, shaking your ass to help yourself along, then Jeno collapses, sweaty hot body enveloping your matching one. He presses sloppy, wide, open-mouthed kisses on your clavicle, steadily trailing up your neck, your cheek, and pecking you on the lips.

“Better than your dream?” you giggle, returning a kiss.

“Way better.”

Getting out of bed takes forever. The first time you tried to leave, you sat on the edge, stretching your arms upward. You bent over, standing on the ground, reaching for your toes, shaking off the jelly sensation, but Jeno, equally awake, rejuvenated from the twenty-minute rest since his cock was in you, leaned over the edge as well and made out with your pussy, licking all the way to your rim and back. Rather than shoving his head away, you pushed your hips back, for more, and eventually returned to bed, kicking up your legs and giggling your way into another blow job. The second time you tied to leve, you had to cross over Jeno’s body to get to the aisle between your beds, since your bed was pushed against the wall). You slithered a leg over his waist, balancing your palms on his shoulders, his cock twitching on your ass. He grabbed you by the waist, holding you there. You raised your eyebrows, pretending to be innocent (even though you really did want to get out of bed) as his cock hardened.

And now, the third time, your legs shake on your way off the mattress, having experienced way too many orgasms in less than thirty-minutes.

“Come back to bed,” Jeno whines, patting the empty warm spot you previously occupied.

“No,” you laugh, holding your arms out for balance before you fall again. You slap his grabby little hand away from your ass, much to his dismay, and pick up one of the new shirts you bought him yesterday that slipped out of the bag after Jeno kicked over a blanket. “I’m hungry,” you pout, facing him and buttoning up the top few buttons. “I need something to eat.”

“You have something I want to eat.”

“Real food, dork.” You walk over to your luggage, hunching over, ass on display but too far away from him. He groans, and you can hear him flop back onto the bed. You slip on a pair of panties, and his groan gets louder, making a smile instinctively spread on your face. “Come onnnn,” you complain, crawling onto the bed with a blouse and bra in hand, inching into his face, “Let’s grab something at that bistro. We won’t have a lot of time tomorrow at the wedding, and it’s already 5.”

Jeno sits straight, back against the headrest, his arms behind his head, showing off his thick muscles and tiny waist. He looks you up and down, a frown settling into his lip as he releases his arms with another groan. “Are we doing this backwards?”

“Doing what?” you ask, focused on exchanging his top for yours, another long-sleeve but black this time. You creep onto his lap, legs folded over the edge. He instantly goes to stabilize your waist, and you replace your arms around his neck, giving him a chaste (albeit sensual) kiss on the cheek, the corner of his mouth. “I just want to get dinner.” You put a hand on his arm, doing your best to give him a set of puppy dog eyes that you hope he cannot refuse. “Please?”

Jeno throws his head back. “Okay, let me put on some pants.”

The wait time at the bistro exceeded the amount of time it took to get ready and Uber over there, so you decided to look for something else. It seemed as though the universe wanted to punish your feet, everything else either closed by noon or surpassing an hour wait. You know that Jeno hates waiting more than 45-minutes. If he even knows that the restaurant is trendy or high-end, he won’t leave the apartment.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble and stop in the middle of the sidewalk, an empty sidewalk around the corner from yet another restaurant. Jeno slows down ahead of you, a hand coming out of his blazer to rub the frown lines in his jaw. “I didn’t think everything would take this long.”

“Hey,” Jeno calls, stepping into your personal bubble, preventing you from looking away by cradling your cheeks, “Hey. It’s okay. We’ll find something.”

“No, it’s not okay,” you shake your head, tearily looking into his eyes. The night sky almost obscures them, but Jeno led you close to a building with motion sensor, external lights. “It’s ridiculous, honestly, and you keep comforting me, but I’m starting to feel like a bur –”

You are cut off by your own gasp when Jeno kisses you, effectively shutting you up, and you melt into his arms. He simply puckers his lips, kissing you as long as he inhales before breathing out, just enough to regulate your heartbeat. The whole world slows down around you, every sound muted except the gentle smacking of his lips. One of your feet pops, kicks up, and you lean into his touch, fully assuaged.

Jeno pulls away first, leading you over to an open hotteok stand without a line. He orders two for each of you and a large soda to share, paying quickly. The vendor compliments the two of you as a couple, but when you go to correct him, Jeno interrupts you again, a hand on your lower back, thanking the guy, and walks you down the street. Once you get to a bridge, streetlamps connected by strung lantern lights, he relaxes against the railing, using the warm pancake to heat up his hands. You look him over again, then glance at your attires; it seems weird – you both wearing nice date clothes but eating ₩10,000 snacks, sharing a soda instead of wine.

“What?”

“I just …” You turn the wrapper around in your hands, gaze falling to the chewy dough. “How are you so nonchalant about everything?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are w-we going to pretend that the stuff in the hotel room didn’t happen? Like I didn’t confess that I like you, more than platonically?”

Jeno sighs, casting his gaze to the floor. But, like, why? You are the one vulnerable right now. In the last 24-hours, you confessed, to liking him more than friends. You only ever came close three other times; three times in 12 years: at the beginning of high school, motivated by your friends to take control; at the end of high school, before graduation, when you thought that he would go to KAIST instead of Yonsei with you; in the middle of college, during volunteer work at a soup kitchen. And each time, you chickened out. You thought that maybe, after you entered the workforce, like a real adult, you would face the music, face these constantly lingering feelings, and maybe, this is it; this is the music, but something about him, about this, regresses you back to that teenage girl feeling: shy and insecure.

“I –” Jeno inhales, crumpling the hotteok wrapper into his pocket, then waddling over to you. “I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”

You frown. He is not listening to you. Why else would you repeat the friendship-shattering phrase? You thought that this was it, that you could live with being his weekend mistake, but that involved getting a solid response from him, something tangible to let you know how he feels.

“I just … You don’t …” You lick your lips, gradually dropping your gaze to the floor, unable to face him with all this uncertainty. “I,” you emphasize, pointing your middle phalanges above your heart, “don’t know what you’re saying. Jen, I want some cl –”

For the second time tonight, he cuts you off with a simple kiss, long and chaste, holding you by the neck, as if the action exempts him from explaining himself. And maybe you are easy to sway, because you let him kiss you in the middle of a bridge overlooking the Busan city streets, convincing yourself that having him physically close is the same as having him emotionally close.

Jeno hopes that he won’t be like Jaehyun on his wedding day – absolutely insane. Well, he hopes that he won’t be like this on his wedding day, with you, oscillating between awkward silence and carrying out his childhood, assuming that he marries you. Granted, the wedding cake did melt, and another groomsman, the best man, Yuta, is running late (delayed flight from Japan), and Jaehyun did rip his tie, hence why Jeno, now, runs around the Park Hyatt Hotel, searching for any front desk attendant to point him toward a sewing kit at the very least. He should have brought his back up tie, a skinny black tie that he definitely does not know how to turn into a cravat, and he cannot ask you, not after last night when he evaded your question by sleeping with you.

Left. Right. Left again. Jeno looks around the empty, second-floor hallway, above the equally empty front desk, adjacent to the imperial staircase. Promptly, he shuts the door, inhaling and exhaling under the weird single lightbulb at the center of the ceiling, eyes shut, trying to imagine his happy place.

“Jeno?”

He sighs, shoulders dropping, face finally relaxing without the groom-zilla pacing and spiraling without “his soul mate” to calm him down, but Jeno cannot refute very much. Even in his dreams, you exist. And maybe he talks too little, or you talk too much; maybe he doesn’t say enough, or maybe you don’t say the proper words, but he could live in the in-between, in the that moment after you say something and right before he doesn’t. So, he sinks into your enveloping voice, engrossed by just the sound of his voice, no pressure behind it – pressure to answer your ‘I like you’ confession with his thousand-word ‘I love you’ confession; pressure to have the ‘what are we’ conversation; pressure to face your inevitable rejection that, although you feel something more than friendship for him, you don’t feel the same way. Except, Jeno doesn’t just feel the warmth from your words.

Your fingers slowly touch his tall shoulder, pads of your fingers dipping in harder to grab his attention. And he screams.

And you copy him.

It takes a moment for him to turn around, a hand over his heart, patting down his lapels. But when he does, when he finally looks at you, as if he were the groom this wedding, waiting for you, the bride, to surprise him at the end of the aisle, Jeno’s breath stops. He cannot discern whether it’s due to the shock value of being in close proximity to you again, in an intimate setting almost rivaling 7 minutes in heaven (though he can say that he’s had more than 7 minutes in heaven with you, outside a closet); or it’s because you look absolutely stunning, somehow making the lime green garden wedding theme work for you – Jaehyun practically shoved a floor-length dress in your arms the moment you both arrived, absolutely exhausted, half-filled coffees pressed against your foreheads, above your sunglasses blocking the sunlight, as if you two were hungover (you weren’t; neither of you have drank more than water this weekend so far), before he directed you to Mingyu’s “side of the hotel”, even though you are his cousin, and took Jeno to his side. And, when you initially asked him to be your wedding date, Jeno didn’t expect to stand with the wedding party, thought he would just have to sit in the audience, watching you stand at the altar in front of the wrong man (granted, your cousin and his groom), but Jaehyun gave him a matching green tie and the second groomsman spot.

“Ha-ha-hi. What, um, what are you doing in here?”

You, staring at the floor, feet squirming clickty clack in your heels, hold up a tiny sewing kit. “Stealing some supplies for Mingyu. He brough an extra cravat and wants me to sew in tie, as a precaution, in case something happens to the current one.”

Jeno lets out a small laugh, and you slowly look up at him.

“What?” you frown.

“Nothing,” he smiles at you. “Just … they’re really meant for each other. Jaehyun ripped his tie, and he sent me looking for a sewing kit to fix it.”

You furrow your eyebrows and tilt your head to the side. And Jeno coughs weakly into his hand, trying not to think about the way you kissed him, last night, head tilted again, eyes half-lidded, lips parted slightly. “What about Yuta?”

“Delayed.” Jeno jingles his watch into frame. “He should be arriving at Incheon in the next few minutes, but he won’t be here until, like, 20 minutes be-before the wedding,” Jeno trails off slowly at the end. The ceremony, the intimate short portion of the early afternoon, starts in two hours. Except, right now, the closet seems more intimate – perhaps 50 people will be accommodated later, the ballroom, and if he translates that into this space, about a tenth would be in attendance. And they probably would not like to witness him undress you with his eyes.

“Mmhmm,” you hum, stumbling your fingers onto his lapels. You feel the material once, under your thumb, then smooth out imaginary wrinkles. He has to wonder what you see that he doesn’t, but he says nothing about it, not wanting you to leave him. “Luckily, Jaehyun has you then, huh?” You press your palm into his jacket, just the one time, above his rapidly beating heart, then start dropping your hand.

But he catches you.

“I’m lucky,” he says, the words falling from the tip of his tongue, like breaking the dam, letting all the pent-up and unresolved feelings flood, “to have you.” Jeno subconsciously tugs you forward, by your hand, until you stand just a hair away, your dress breathing like a Lee Byung-Ho sculpture for SeMA’s Aging World installation a few years ago (he took you and spent the whole time scribbling your name next to the notes that he had to decipher later for his extra credit essay). He flickers his eyes across your face, waiting before he gets an approval. You stay still for the longest second in history, and he mirrors it, mirrors you. When you appear to move away, he also copies that. “Sorry. Sorry. I know we’re in a kind of uncomfortable spot, and I probably shouldn’t’ve –“

“Jeno?”

“… Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Please.”

You fist his jacket, ruining the lapels more obvious for him to see, making him stagger forward. He braces a hand on the bookcase storage behind you, pulling your lower back toward his pelvis to help you evade ramming your spine into the shelves, but he still falls, face first into yours, one strong arm keeping you close, the other hovering above your cheek, too scared that he might crush you with the impossible weight of his crush, his feelings. You try to comfort him – as you always do, like a rock – fluffing his hair. Then, your foot slips, stiletto heel snagging on a loose roll of toilet paper. And he catches you, of course, always, holding your waist so tightly that you might crack. You echo him, this time, grabbing, groping, gripping every surface that you possibly can. To stop himself from toppling you, he bunches your silk dress at your hip and shoves his strong leg between your thighs. He drags you up his knee once, twice, thrice, and you moan.

“Jeno,” you barely manage to breathe, after one kiss, lips tight. You go lax in his arms, fawning over his arm like a damsel in distress – head thrown back, hair starting to tangle at the roots, leg hooking onto his waist. He moves down to your neck, your collarbone, your chest; he slides down the spaghetti strap for easier access, peppering wet kisses onto your skin. “Oh, my God,” you moan, arms tightening around his neck, drawing him impossibly close and thrusting your half-exposed tits in his face. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

Jeno kisses you harder, his tongue barely poking out, bottom lip dragging up. His inhales feel – and sound – heavy, trying to inhale everything about this moment.

“I want you,” he mumbles, nose brushing your cheek. He stops kissing you, open mouth panting into your ear. “But not like this. Not right here.”

“Jen,” you whine, sliding your hand under his jacket, clutching the back of his dress-shirt slightly untucked. “Please. I want you.”

“I – “ he gasps. “I –“

Then your phone rings.

I want you so bad, but not like this. I want to make love with you.

“He-hello?” you answer. You press your forehead to Jeno’s, and he takes the opportunity to analyze your face, the face he has memorized in his daydreams. Jeno twirls a loose, long strand of your hair, tucking it behind your ear. “Yeah, I f-ff-found it.” He presses a singular kiss under your jaw, tongue hunting for a prominent vein. And when he finds it, he pushes, harder, sucking just light enough not to create an ostentatious mark. “Mmm,” you nearly moan wantonly, legs giving out, “I-I’ll br-bring it by right now. O-okay, yeah, bye.” You quickly hang up the phone, dropping it to the floor, and wrap your arms around Jeno’s neck, returning one kiss, the final kiss, long and chaste, everything spilling out. “I have to go,” you whisper, sliding down his thigh.

“Yeah,” he mumbles back, “Me too.”

During the wedding, you did this a lot.

Thankfully no one noticed, or you hoped that no one noticed – you and Jeno staring at each other, across the altar; you behind Jeonghan, Mingyu’s best man; him behind Yuta, Jaehyun’s best man. You wanted to pay attention to the grooms, and their lovely ceremony, but seeing Jeno, just a few people away, had you quixotically imagining him at the forefront of the room, surrounded by your own friends and family. Who would be his best man: Renjun, Jaemin, Haechan? Would you get married in his hometown, or maybe abroad? What would you wear – Leehwa, Vera Wang, custom Prada?

Everything faded in front of you, when he met your gaze, staring you down over Yuta’s shoulder, closest to the officiant. You thought that the venue’s organization had it out for you, putting you on a pedestal below Jaehyun, but as Jeno returned your acknowledgement, you realized that the venue was, really, protecting your feelings, because the moment you locked eyes, the entire weekend flashed through your memory – almost kisses, actual kisses, accidental touches. You had to suppress all those feelings, make sure none of it was written on your face, like they meant nothing, like you don’t know what his current suit looks like crumpled and on the floor of your hotel room, like he belongs closer to you. The cheers following Jaehyun and Mingyu’s ‘I do’s were the only thing to bring you out of your own head, to draw the details of reality again, as if you willed time itself to move into the reception so that you could have Jeno to yourself again, restoring the intimacy of this affair to the grooms.

Unfortunately, it took a bit longer to even breathe in Jeno’s direction.

Both the Jung and Kim families shuffled everyone down to the reception ballroom, where even more friends and family and colleagues waited. You had to go back upstairs, without Jeno, to change into your party dress – the silk purple one, a shorter material that matches the tie you bought him. And then, the tables separated you as well, sending Jeno to mingle with other singles and you with your distant cousins, through the first course as both grooms, together, made their rounds, greeting every guest and expressing their gratitude in low bows for coming to celebrate their union. You finally found an escape during the main dish, which forced everyone to pull food from a buffet table rather than be served the same appetizer.

“Hey,” you bump elbows in line with Jeno, stealing his attention from the galbi-jjim, a small smile fighting your cheeks. “I – I can’t believe we got separated there. Do you think I can sneak you back to my table?”

Jeno chuckles and places a rib on your plate, using the obnoxiously large tongs to fix a batonnet carrot atop the meat. “I hope so,” he answers honestly, nose crinkling as a sign of it. “You’d think that they would put us together, since I’m supposed to be your plus one.”

“But I guess not,” you finish for him. You look over your shoulder at your table – nearly empty, like the preceding pew taking communion, then whisper, like making a tryst between spies, “Meet me at my table when you’re done. You can take my aunt’s chair; she’s dreadfully boring.”

You finish plating the traditional food that Jaehyun picked out for the occasion (according to Mingyu) and return to your table (Table No. 3) ahead of Jeno, who stopped to wait for a restock of japchae right before the dessert platters. He is easy to please – and they do say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach – because after he plates his noodles, he looks over his shoulders and sneaks a bite, eyes prettily fluttering closed, lips puckered around the tips of his manicured nails, licking his fingers clean. You try not to laugh, biting it behind an inevitable smile. Jeno finds you, easily, as he always does, tilting his head in confusion, but you wave him off, gesturing for him to finally join you, make you feel at little less alone among the extended family branches.

“Here, take some of the japchae,” he says, already unveiling a nearby fork from the dark green napkin cloth and piling it next to your rice. “It tastes –” He kisses his fingers. “- chef’s kiss, amazing.”

“You two make a lovely couple,” your aunt interrupts – not the dreadfully boring one; a different aunt, a younger aunt, who, just two years ago, claimed that she wouldn’t be like the rest of the peanut gallery, gossiping and leaping to conclusions about everyone younger’s love lives. You and Jeno sink into your respective chairs, deliberately avoiding touching each other. She leans in, over your arm, almost daring Jeno with her excited Princess doe eyes. “Can we expect another wedding soon?” He coughs. And you drop your metal chopsticks. And your aunt leans back, shrugging as if she hadn’t dropped a bomb. “It shouldn’t be a surprise. I’m probably not the only one who is expecting it. You graduated college – what – 10? 13? months ago. Right now would be perfect for you to get married, while you’re still young.” She briefly points a spoon at Jaehyun and Mingyu, before chopping up her almon bowl. “They got married young, and now they’re going to honeymoon across Europe. I’m just saying –“ She shoves a bite of food in her mouth. “It’s better to get married young – you grow together; finances are easier to manage; your health is in good shape, etc. etc.”

Your other aunt, her wife, finally joins, too, and smacks her arm. “Are you bothering another couple about getting married?” She turns to you with sympathetic eyes. “Sorry, after we got married, four years ago,” she emphasizes more to her wife than you or Jeno, eyes slightly narrowed (although playfully) on the last syllable, “she has been obsessed with weddings.”

“Happens when you marry a wedding planner.” They kiss.

You turn away, shyly looking at Jeno, mouthing an apology.

Surprisingly, he leans into your ear, whispering. His initial breath, before he even says anything, sends shivers down your spine, and he grabs your arm, rubbing your naked forearm for warmth. Oh. He mistook it. “Just play along,” he instructs. You can feel a hair move from its place. “It’s easier to say that you don’t know when we’ll get married than to explain why we’re, um, you are not dating.”

“W-we don’t actually know when we’ll get married,” you answer, gradually building your voice to conversation decibel.

“See! I told you they were a couple! There is no way that they wouldn’t be. Look at them!”

You cautiously glance at Jeno, stopping at his matching purple tie (he must’ve changed when you changed; and lucky him, a simple tie is easier than an entire dress), because you do not want to be so obvious about your lie. The train conductor, the Uber driver, the hotelier … they all thought the same, but since then, the start of your trip, you discovered that he does want you to touch him, in all the ways that carry meaning (and then some). You just do not know to what extent. He never said anything, never explained anything, not that you are entitled to his feelings. And you tried to reason it all – maybe you say too much, not really letting him, or maybe he says too little, constantly shocked to silence by all the secrets you spill.

You open your mouth at the round table, but another aunt of yours comes by and pinches Jeno’s cheek, saying something about how handsome he is, the statement echoing far off in your ears. And thank God, honestly; you did not quite know what to respond, merely hoping that, if you simply opened your mouth, your Broca’s area would follow. It didn’t.

“Yes, yes, but as you mentioned, my lovely date does not have a drink, so we best fix that,” you hear Jeno express. You peek to your side, then up, seeing him having stood at some point in his conversation. He throws you a look, eyebrows raised, eyes wide, smile nearly rectangular, and nods toward the open bar. Oh! You stand up, too, albeit clumsily, knocking your thigh into the mahogany, the silverware and ceramics jostling; you give your aunts a hasty bow and apology before taking Jeno’s arm. “See,” he says to your other aunt, “We must be going. There is a long Island iced tea out there with my name on it.” They laugh together, then you let Jeno drag you away to the open bar, away from prying aunties.

“Long Island iced tea?” You quirk a single eyebrow. He refused to drink those ever since the 2020 trip to Germany when you, Jaemin, and Renjun got so fucked up on Long Island iced teas, consuming more and more, claiming that it just wasn’t hitting, until it did, that the four of you missed your nonrefundable trip back to Incheon.

Jeno rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, I, uh, couldn’t think of a different drink.”

You flutter your eyes to the drinks menu, reading through the specialties until you find the Long Island iced tea … right above the Sweet Pink Punch, a fruity pink margarita that is definitely right up his alley, had he had a few drinks in his system already. You raise your eyebrow even further up.

“Okay! I wanted the pink drink,” he pouts. “Is that what you want me to say?” The bartender immediately pops one up on the counter for him, pointedly fluffing the pink little petals over the equally pink salted rim. Jeno groans. “So not what I wanted.”

“Here,” you laugh, flagging down the same bartender. “I’ll take a six blueberry kamikaze shots and a whiskey smash.” It is Jeno’s turn raise an eyebrow at you, and you laugh harder, lightly smacking him on the stomach. “Don’t look at me like that. We’re just gonna take a couple shots to take the edge off this whole party, –” A bit of liquid luck, if you were being completely transparent. “– then, we’ll make a few rounds and leave early. The key is – thank you –“ You pass him half the shots and put your drinks close together, making it ambiguous which belongs to whom. “– The key is to make a strong impression, and since we were at the altar today, I think we’ve got a free pass, but, just to be safe, –” You down a shot. “– we’ll take a few more photos, schmooze Mingyu’s cousins, note a talking point for later, then –“ You click your tongue. “– we’ll bounce.” You down another shot. Just one little glass remains, filled on your side of the bar, while your date has yet to even touch the table, so you look up at him. Jeno has an arm folded under his chest, opposite fingers dragging his bottom lip down, intermittently padding inside his mouth. And you swallow, throat suddenly dry with only liquid courage to drink. “Is … Is that okay?”

“Huh?” He drops his hand, and your eye follows, mouth drawing a continuous blank. “Oh, yeah,” he answers. “But, um, we don’t have to leave right away. It’s your cousin’s wedding; it might be fun to hang around with everyone for a bit.”

Jeno doesn’t know why he said that – We don’t have to leave right away, and it might be fun to hang around for a bit. Those few rounds you talked about (not the shots ☹) turned into hours, even more after you offered to stay while everyone else left, to help clean the reception hall. Jeno stood up, also, to start piling dishes into bus tubs, but you, and the others helping, only gave him easy-to-complete tasks or shooing him away. He eventually just sat down, sporadically drinking a bottle of soju, watching you laugh with your aunt and Mingyu, now your cousin-in-law, over something he couldn’t hear from so far away.

And when Jaehyun approaches, Jeno misses him, too caught up in the way your eyes almost physically light up at Mingyu’s umpteenth gawky faux pas of the night.

“How long?”

Jeno jumps, straightens his back. He relaxes after seeing Jaehyun, who looks far calmer than a couple hours ago. Maybe marriage suits him, brings out the vulnerability that no one really sees unless they get a few drinks in him. Jeno wonders if marriage would change him. Would he be more conscientious? Introverted (if that were even possible)? Would he have the same level of self-control? Or would his sex life get worse? And what if he didn’t marry you? He wants everything that marriage entails, even the compromises he might not be able to think about right now, but he isn’t sure that he would want it if it wasn’t with you.

“I …”

“How long have you been in love?” Jaehyun repeats, a knowing look quirked into his smile.

Jeno inhales, once, twice. He opens his mouth. Then, he puts down his bottle. “Forever,” he answers quietly, “maybe.” He winces. That sounds wrong, so he corrects himself, “Probably. Your cousin …” he starts, not saying your name, because if he does, he might accidentally confess something that he wants only you to hear.

Jaehyun chuckles, possibly more intoxicated than Jeno. It feels like that time in high school (Jeno cringes at how often he’s thought about his teenage years, like someone stuck in the past, but he cannot help that he has spent half his life with you) – that time in high school, near the end, when you invited him to his first college party, Jaehyun’s college party. So many things happened, so many firsts happened: his first beer, his first time losing his wallet (it was in the garage refrigerator), his first hickey; he emerged from a random bedroom, tugging up the collar of his shirt, and accidentally bumped into Jaehyun who was coming out of the bathroom from a different – but similar – experience.

“Dramatic,” Jaehyun comments. And Jeno whips his head to look at the groom, but he finds him looking at Mingyu. Jeno turns, too, but his eyes find you instead, instantly forgetting about the wedding party, until Jaehyun starts talking again. “Though, understandable.” Jaehyun spins his chair to Jeno, crouching a little closer, like he is about to reveal a secret. “You know, I almost asked you to give a wedding speech too.”

“Me?” Jeno points to himself. Jaehyun nods, re-affirming. “Why?”

Jaehyun shrugs, leaning back. He takes Jeno’s soju. “Because you give good speeches.” He tilts his bottle to Mingyu and you dancing and singing (Mingyu off-beat; you off-key). “My husband –” He smiles (that annoying and sickening lovey-dovey smile … that Jeno can’t help but want too). “– thought it might make you confess.”

“What?!”

Jaehyun shrugs again. Then, a beat passes, and Jeno opens his mouth, but Jaehyun gets up to join you and Mingyu; you pulling him up by an imaginary lasso. He hands back the soju, shimmying toward his husband. Another jealous pang bubbles in Jeno’s chest, and, yeah, he may not be the best person to let give a speech, or he might be the best. Sure, he wants that – to be called someone’s (your) husband and dance the night away with them (you); and yeah, he thinks about what it means to be in love, or what love itself means, and he comes to the same conclusion, every time. He comes to the same conclusion as you gesture for him to join the mini-after party, starting up an old SHINEE song on your iPhone that everyone knows.

More muzak fills the silence, albeit awkwardly now, through the first floor of the hotel. Jeno holds the sensor open, allowing you to enter first and push the Floor F button. He takes a place next to you, leaning on the cold wall, flushed face finally starting to mellow. You stare at the red numbers increasing on the monitor above the door, adjusting the hem of your purple cocktail dress lower than his tuxedo jacket hanging off your shoulders, rubbing your thighs together at your knees. The reception lasted longer than you anticipated; weddings, especially those so deep in Busan, tend not to exceed two hours, but you stayed passed 7 PM, since 11 AM, helping around where you could. And maybe it started out as a way to avoid Jeno, after the previous night, then all the discomfort and embarrassment faded, once you got a kiss and liquid courage. It seems to have faded by now though.

“Beautiful, um, beautiful ceremony,” Jeno mumbles, scratching the back of his neck and biting back a smile.

"Yeah,” you agree, breaking into a nervous smile. You fumble with the silver cufflinks, the memory of the last time you were confined to a small space with him – the closet at the Park Hyatt Hotel – at the forefront of your brain, and you wonder if his breath would be warm, or warmer, on your neck now. A glimpse of Jeno crawls into the corner of your eye, so you look him up and down. He doesn’t appear tired, rather lost in thought, like you, lips sucked in as if preventing another secret from falling out (or maybe he has to throw up). It becomes harder to ignore the weekend tension, the unsaid confessions, the sex. “Jeno, I lo –”

“So –”

Silence pulses, and the elevator goes up a floor.

You both close your mouths again. Perhaps you should have taken the stairs; the huffing and puffing would help you break the quietude. Beautiful ceremony was the first thing he said to you since getting into the Uber from the reception hall. And before that, he only made small talk, interrupting you if he even sensed a deeper conversation. It was frustrating, but you also understood. You kept bringing it up at inopportune times. Either the next task (eg, the wedding, the not-your wedding) or the atmosphere (eg, too many people) prevented you from really talking it out.

“Oh, you go first.”

“No, you were talking first. You go.”

You inhale. “Jeno, I lo –”

Ding. You have arrived at Floor F.

There it is again.

Jeno shrugs his shoulders sheepishly, gesturing for you to leave ahead of him. “We can talk about this in our room.”

Our room. Funny enough, since you two moved into the new gender-neutral dorms, at the beginning of college, people assumed that you were roommates (oh, my God, they were roommates) and were quite shocked upon finding out that Jeno chose to stay with Jaemin and you with an upperclassman, Yoohyeon, who had the same major as you but was in her last year. And similarly, to this hotel, your room – our room – is in the middle of the Fth Floor. Yay, more awkward silence to tread through. :|

You fall into routine with Jeno, as you step foot in your hotel: he takes your his jacket from your shoulders, hanging it in the closet by the door, and you saunter towards the closest bed, eyes trained on the ground as if an officer asked you to for a walk and turn test. You kick your shoes off by the heels, nearly moaning when the straps release your feet, and rub the bottom before a blister appears. Jeno, equally shoeless, joins you, sits beside you, his thighs parted widely on the space you give him.

“Jeno, I lo –” you start. But he leans over, caressing your cheek, and kisses you, slow yet passionate. His thumb rubs long, comforting lines above your jaw, helping you to relax further and you accept, holding onto his arm for stability. You add another hand, behind your back, supporting yourself as he guides you down on the neatly pleated duvet. He almost tries to say something through the embrace, his tongue clicking a syllable or two above your teeth. “Are – are we doing this again?”

Jeno pecks your lips and rests his warm, exposed forehead against yours. “As much as you want to.” He kisses you again, falling alongside you on the open bed, turning you from the edge. “I,” he pants, eyes closed, chest rising. You brush away his hair, pushing back all the strands you can bunch, stealing the moment to selfishly admire him without the weight of ruining an already intimate affair with your affair. “I – I can’t do a onetime thing with you.”

“Me neither.”

Jeno opens his eyes, instantly analyzing your face. “What does that mean?”

“It –” You peck his lips again, rolling him under your body, straddling his waist. “– means that this feels good.” You grab him by the collar, a button falling undone. He immediately finds your waist, just like the train ride, hands belting through your short dress, dragging the silky material up your thighs. You can feel his shirt scratch into your skin as you both find the most ideal spot. He winds up further on the bed, arms mingling with the sheets, and you slide down his hips, slipping to his dick, teetering on your knees, preemptively riding him. “Do-do you like it?”

His body freezes, and you fear that you did something wrong, touched something wrong, said something wrong, but then, Jeno shimmies his hips, sliding down his trousers. You feel his cotton Calvin Kleins touch your own cotton panties; your pussy practically activated by the twitch of his cock. He taps high under your thigh, drumming hard enough to jiggle your ass, almost contemplatively.

“I … like it,” he decides to say, but his easy-to-read face frowns and he opens his mouth again, “I … I love it.” He bites his lip. “I love … I love you. So much.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” Jeno gazes into your eyes, and you try your best to reciprocate, because you do reciprocate everything: the looks, the feelings, the love. Slowly, he sits up, rolling his spine toward you. When he gets in your face, millimeters away, he tucks your hair behind your ear again. You trap his hand there, clamping it between your cheek and shoulder, leaning into him. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same,” he whispers, but you both know that your relationship would not survive the depth of either one of your feelings, not after all these years.

“I love you, too, Lee Jeno,” you answer, kissing him before he can say anything else.

He slithers his fingers under the sides of your underwear, twisting them up, his face pliantly moving in your hands. You grind through your panties, and after a moment, you find his dick, grazing just the tip through your ass, all the way to your clit.

“Shit,” he moans. His hands readjust on your waist, gripping tighter, making you moan. “Are we doing this again?” You nod your head, holding him still and diving a bit lower. Your thighs adapt to the new curve in your back as you sloppily kiss his neck, tongue exploring his clavicle. “Then, sit on my face.”

Jeno helps your legs around his face, licking the wetness up your knees. His constant eye contact tells you to watch him, and you have to fight the urge to completely melt on his washboard abs. Jeno pulls the crotch of your panties to the side, a finger hooked around the black lacy material you once mentioned, that you looked forward to wearing after he ripped the other pair. You nearly lodge a complaint at the silence and the emptiness, but then, he moves. He flips you over, simultaneously tearing away your underwear, clawing your ass to ride his face; his chin lifting, abrading just under your clit. Your forehead falls to his groin, nails scratching into his bare legs – smooth and muscular. He starts peppering tiny kisses all over your vulva, tongue probing the further you soak his face. As a distraction, you unbutton his shirt, from the bottom up, fisting the hem, dragging up his torso. You walk backward, on your knees, punching holes into the mattress, exposing his abdomen. Experimentally, you lick a stripe through his well-defined abs. His knee kicks up. You do it again.

“Princess,” he whines, forehead resting on your inner thigh. “I won’t be able to control myself if you touch me like that.”

“I’m barely doing anything,” you mumble, crawling to his leaky cock again. Jeno, vindictively, adds a finger, and another, and another. He licks your pussy, swirling his tongue near your rim, then jumping back to your cunt, joining his three fingers. You fall forward, groaning, and take his cock, clothed, in your hand, drawing his tip along the lines of your lips, suckling the head.

“Fuck.” His head hits the mattress. It makes you feel attractive, sexy, to turn him on like this, and you love it.

“God, I love you,” you whisper.

“I love you,” Jeno returns. He almost nips your skin, lips barely covering his teeth in time. “So much,” he breathes, almost awed.

“Jeno, I’m gonna cum.”

“Wait!” He pulls his face off. “I want to see you.”

Romantic. And you guess it’s the season, that heightens, if not adds, to the sentiment. So, you contribute, trying to give him everything and more – that is what you have been doing all weekend with the train ride and the food and the hotel and the clothes, giving him your whole self.

You scramble off his chest, turning around, to face him. He flickers from your eyes to your hair and combs the staticky baby hairs back down. And you like to think that you’ve gotten to know him more, the last couple of days, think that you’ve gotten more accustomed to the little gestures, the tender indicators which show you something lasting. You lean down again, slowly, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. He rolls you under him, trapped by his strong biceps, humping his dick between your legs, not allowing you a single moment of refractor. With his lips sewn into yours, he extracts his cock, lubricating it with your vaginal spit, teasing your hole. You swivel your hips, trying to push him inside. And just you think he might taunt you further, your orgasm hanging by a thread, he presses forward, centimeter by centimeter.

“Fuck,” you both groan, heads thrown back. A beat pulses, letting you, and him adjust to the size, the tightness (even though you spent 24-hours practically attached to his pelvis, skin sticking in this same way).

“Okay,” you exhale, “Okay. Move, please.” But Jeno keeps his head glued on your shoulder, breath shaky, chopped by tiny whimpers. You groan his name, elongating it when your voice chokes on a sob, feeling his thick cock throb inside you, raw and bare. “Jeno, please, I wan – I need to cum.”

Without looking at you, Jeno pulls back his hips, thrusting shallowly, his tip flopping around your cervix, searching for your sweet spot. And he knows when he finds – you know that he knows he found it – because your face contorts, eyes twisting shut, body relying on his touch to see. At some point, he meets you in the middle, greedily rolling his torso on top of you, roughly dragging you through the bed sheets. Jeno kisses you again, the same tender passion rising but more fervent, like he needs to chase the moment, like he missed out on chasing you all these years. So, you slow down, gasping into his mouth, showing him that you are here, with him, for him, forever, if he wants. And you let out a strangled cry, repeating his name like a mantra, hooking your arms under his shoulders:

“Jeno, Jeno, Jeno, Jeno, Jeno.”

He starts fucking you faster, increasing his pace as his name disappears into a series of blurry sobs on your tongue; he smashes his lips on yours, slamming his hips hard – hard even for him, judging by his own low-pitched whines. Your dress chokes your waist, the straps having slid down your arms, off your wrists, and your boobs spring free, somewhat free, since he holds you so close. You pull him in, nails clawing his back, flexing your legs away to give him the freest access to your cunt. He finds some stability in your clit, pushing the pulsing nub into his thrusting cock.

“Tell me you’re going to cum.”

“I’m so close. Please, please, please.”

Jeno pinches your clit. Your back drives off the mattress, trailing his abs, grinding every inch of skin that you possibly can, both of your outfits doing little to obstruct the tension, only adding strenuous friction. His hand punches the mattress, to avoid losing balance, and gives him more leverage to move faster, if that were even possible. In, out, in, out, yank, pull, prod, in, out. You babble more nonsense, brain barely processing quick I love yous and his name, before an earthquake shatters your sympathetic nervous system, breaking down the walls that blocked your orgasm. Your body trembles, rolling upward, accidentally meeting his thrusts, and your pussy spasms, coaxing out weepy hiccups from Jeno. You push two fingers between your bodies, around the base of his cock, helping his orgasm. And you feel the first ribbon of cum shoot deep in your cervix, his shoulders shuddering, but he keeps going, jamming his cum far up your cunt.

You lay there, curling around his arm, taking his cum while he planks above you, watching your spasms lessen. Jeno moves first, removing your clothes and situating the two of you by the pillows. He pulls you into his chest, shimmying your dress off your legs and his shirt off his shoulders. You let yourself close your eyes, melting into his arms, into the weekend, into finally getting the love of your life. And maybe minutes, or an hour, passes, not that you’re counting, because you’ll have him as long as he will have you. And you think he feels the same, know he feels the same when he whispers a phrase that only people who want to be together for a long time say:

“So, when are we getting married?”

[ghostlyschizophrenic]

Why being forced to hide psychotic symptoms is detrimental to recovery:

Hi! it’s your friendly neighborhood schizoaffective and i have a story to tell, a story that’s backed by research.

my psychotic symptoms were early onset. my earliest memory of psychotic symptoms was 6 years old, when my parents were changing the locks on the house and i had an intense belief that changing them would mean someone had broken into our house and hadn’t left. i believed my toys had human emotions and felt sad if i played with another toy, so i refused to buy new toys because i was so scared of making my toys sad.

i had a very flattened emotional response (which i would later learn is a symptom of schizophrenia), and in kindergarten and first grade when we learned about emotions, i learned to fake the look of emotional response. i learned how to put a smile on my face when i felt happy and to put a frown on my face when i felt sad. when i was alone, i would practice, but some days i was too tired to do it and i kept my face in the natural way: flat. it wasn’t that i wasn’t feeling emotions, i just couldn’t express them the way people wanted me to

during my elementary school years, i made up words constantly to communicate. i couldn’t form proper sentences, something was blocked in my brain and everything felt scattered and scrambled (disorganized thoughts and speech). my teachers broke that habit in me, not by helping me learn to organize my thoughts, but by teaching me not to speak unless i knew exactly what i was trying to say.

then came middle school and i started hallucinating and my delusions got worse. but everything i had learned from teachers and tv was that hallucinations are scary to people, and i didn’t want to be scary. i would be laughed at if i told anyone about my strong beliefs (delusions) so i didn’t tell anyone. i didn’t tell anyone that i believed that the characters in my tv show were real and the government was hiding their existence and if they knew that i knew they’re real, they’d put me on a watch list. i didn’t tell anyone i was hearing sounds that came straight out of a horror movie. i hid that.

i hid it so well that i avoided treatment. i had an acute psychotic episode, and all i said was that i was having panic attacks. i didn’t tell anyone about the delusion that school was going to literally kill me, or that i heard blood curdling screams in the hallways and when i was trying to sleep at night. i avoided early intervention.

for other reasons that i won’t get into, i was put on seroquel as a mood stabilizer, but as many of you know, it’s also an antipsychotic. this was the first time in my life i felt some kind of relief from my symptoms. i didn’t connect the dots because my psychiatrist called it a mood stabilizer, not an antipsychotic, so i didn’t know why i was feeling better in those areas.

it wasn’t until 10th grade when i was taking a psychology class from a teacher i trusted that i connected the dots. by this time i knew i had psychosis. i had access to the internet and i had googled what was wrong with me, but it wasn’t until a class where he emphasized getting help that i thought ok, now i should bring it up.

by this point, i had had 2 more acute psychotic episodes that kept me out of school, but because i was taught to hide everything, i still didn’t tell anyone the real reason why i couldn’t function. “paralyzing panic attacks” became code for “whatever the real reason is that’s keeping him out of school”. but my teacher made me think i needed help, especially because we were learning about schizophrenia in class and i had a sneaking suspicion that i, someone with a family history of schizophrenia, had it.

i brought it up to my doctors and i was started on antipsychotics, this time with the official name of antipsychotics. but it was a bit too late. my psychiatrist told me that if we had caught it earlier, i may have reacted to treatment better.

i’ve been in treatment for years and the longest i’ve gone without an acute psychotic episode is 5 months. i’ve done my research and in patients with psychosis, the first few months after psychotic symptoms are present are vital to the treatment and recovery of the patient.

it’s not just, oh you won’t suffer as long, it’s literally you will have a better chance at recovery. if you catch psychosis in the prodromal stage, it can greatly reduce the chances of another psychotic episode happening.

by being taught to hide my illness from a young age, i lost the chance at having an easier recovery. yes i learned to confine myself to societal expectations and appear “normal”, but i caused myself more pain in the long run.

early intervention is key to an easier recovery, and i’m going to leave a few links to show you what i mean.

ted talk about early psychotic intervention

psychosis prodromal phase

talking with a psychiatrist about early psychosis intervention

early intervention of psychosis

benefits of early intervention

[bunnys-babies]

Them as Parents pt. 2

AOT x gn!reader

warning(s): nope!

a/n: here’s the highly requested pt. 2! I love you guys and I hope you enjoy :) and as always I really love hearing your guys’ thoughts!

pt. 1

characters: porco, erwin, armin, ymir, historia, & pieck

Porco

Cried so so hard the first time he got to hold your child; the kind of cry where he’s smiling and laughing while he’s sniffling and he’s got those tears running down his cheeks, needless to say he was forever changed.

He’s a very instinctive and protective caregiver with you so it only makes sense it carries over to his relationship with his children, too. He was a little overbearing at first with the amount of “child protective gear” he bought to use around the house - literally not a single sharp corner in sight, everything was childproof. Which made for a very grumpy and groggy Porco in the middle of the night with a full bladder, very confused as to what the hell could be on the door handle. (He’s forever thankful he didn’t piss himself that night.).

He’s definitely tense in the shoulders for the first few years of the kids life but he learns to let loose a little more with your help. He’ll never forget the first time your kid got a scrape on the knee, crying himself when your baby came to him with tears in their eyes pointing to their “raspberry” on their knee. And you’ll never forget walking into the bathroom to see Porco sniffling as he applied some Neosporin and a bandaid, telling your kid, “you’ll be okay, lovebug.” (Please console him he can’t take it 😭).

Erwin

You know the kinda parent who seems like they’re a little careless but in reality they always have the most control of the situation? Yeah, bingo. He lets your kid roughhouse around and sometimes he’ll toss him in the air a little too high for your liking, but he always catches them and plops them on the ground, looking up to shoot you a smile before going back to playing with his kids. A natural truly.

Ok but he’s also so embarrassing LOL. Participates in every one of your child’s school spirit days for no reason? He just thinks it’s fun and he doesn’t give af about his works dress code so he’ll show up in full pj’s and hair as crazy as he can get it and simply say, “it’s pajama day and crazy hair day at my kids school so…”. No one tries to stop him. Also, I think it needs to be clarified that he is most definitely a barbecue dad. Invites all the neighborhood families over for his bbq (especially so he can eaves drop on the gossip and tell you all about it later). This way his kid can also get to know the other neighborhood kids their age and build some friendships!

Erwin however is the last person your kid should ask for help on homework LOL. Sometimes Erwin just keeps talking and talking and really your kid just needs to work (also he can’t do their math homework to save his life).

P.S., uncle Levi has become your kids best friend much to Levi’s “dismay” and he is at every party there is to be had and always has a gift in tow. (Your kids just a teensy bit spoiled.)

Armin

I don’t care how cliche it may be but he’s a granola dad 100%. Your kids earliest memories with Armin include putzing around in your little backyard vegetable garden and taking walks to the local library to pick out some books they’d read together until they were old enough to read on their own. He also gets a lot of enjoyment out of just being outdoors with your kid and letting them explore around and discover things they find interesting, not only is he having fun but he gets so happy seeing your kid sit on the ground and do something as simple as pick up a rock with this face 😯 like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.

He gets a lot of inner happiness just seeing pure innocent kid joy, but it does make him anxious for your kid to grow up in the real world. He finds himself worrying a lot about the future and seeing that kid innocence slowly go away, but he knows there’ll be other joys to come that he can share with them. Really he just has such a big heart for his baby and it shows <3.

Ymir

Expect very loud children. And rowdy. I don’t know how or why that is per say but I just know wrestling and tickle fights will take up most of the kids childhood and in turn they become rowdy and loud themselves. Nothing makes her happier than hearing her kids laughter, like it brings the biggest, dopiest smile across her face every time so of course she’s going to indulge!!

She’s also one of those people that kids just naturally gravitate to and behave for. Her kids friends are slightly scared of her cause she’s pretty quiet around them and just lets them vibe and do their thing, spare for the few “how are you”s and “see ya later kiddo”s. But in reality she’d come running in to help any of her kids friends if they asked, they’re all very important to her because they’re important to her kid, thats good enough for her.

She loves having breakfast for dinner at least once a week and that habit has now become one of your kids own, so expect it to be a tradition from now on.

Historia

Honestly a sweetheart of a mom, but can be insecure sometimes about her parenting abilities. Is she doing this right? Did she change that diaper right? Is her cooking fine? Does her kid like her? So she’ll probably need some reassurance and comfort from you.

But besides that, she’s a very enthusiastic parent! She gets genuinely intrigued and excited when her kids talk about their interests and indulges in them in any way she can. She also love love loves family photos. All of the walls in her office are literally littered with art she likes and family photos in between, some professional, some from your guys’ engagement years ago, some just from fun days with everyone, the whole nine.

When she’s feeling down or missing the kids when they’re all grown up she’ll look through old photo albums to reminisce on the times and pick her mood up. (You can’t tell me she doesn’t love scrap booking LOL.).

Pieck

Ok besides the whole ethereal artsy mom vibes she clearly is serving, she’s no nurturing with her baby it’s impossible not to smile when they’re in a room together. They have an amazing bond like no other that lasts all throughout their childhood and into adulthood.

They’re not always talkative in each other’s presence but they love being in a room together even if it just means sitting in silence for a few hours. Pieck’s favorite thing to do though when your baby was a kid was sing to them, cradle them in her arms and sing them the same songs her mother sang to her until they fall asleep.

She’s also hand baked every cake for your kids birthday for as long as she can remember and she doesn’t plan on stopping ever hehehe <333.

——————

taglist: @d1lfluvr @plutowrites @carmillous @pretty-pop-princess-hs @alonezz @venusackerman @classyunknownlover @mossygreys (if you’d like to be added jus lemme know!)

[maple-the-awesome]

The Hidden Threat ||

Pairing: (Any) Peter Parker x Reader

Words: 2,729

Overview: Your husband's spider-sense has been acting up quite a bit lately, making him paranoid that something will happen to you if he can't locate the threat in time.

Marvel Masterlist ❤️ Fandom Masterlist

Twelve years ago, if someone were to ask Peter Parker what the best thing to ever happen to him was, he would've made up a convincing lie while secretly thinking about the radioactive spider bite that granted him his powers, but if someone were to ask Peter Parker the same question now, he won't hesitate to gush about his wonderful wife instead (although, the spider bite will still be a close second, no doubt).

Peter adores you, something no one in their right minds can deny without the man making it his personal mission to prove them wrong and you're really no different yourself, often spending entire nights cursing out the person who just sent your husband home to you bloody and bruised. During those nights, Peter likes to close his tired eyes and imagine the hell you'd try to give his enemies if you ever happened across them in person which always rises a chuckle from his lungs especially when you notice his thoughts, insisting on the damage you could do despite not having any powers of your own. 'Never underestimate an angry wife' is what you always say, and Peter never makes the mistake of forgetting it.

Being Peter Parker's wife has plenty of benefits, your favorite simply being that get to call yourself Mrs. Parker, a title you wear with pride after having dreamed about it since the beginning of your relationship (and even before it, honestly). If you could look into a mirror at the same time that you introduce Peter as your husband, you'd see the sparkle of happiness that tinkles in your eyes. Telling others that Peter's yours causes your heart to swell, but not nearly as much as it does when he introduces you as his wife. No mirror is required to see the joy that takes over his own expression then. Nearly five years of marriage and you both continue to act like giddy teenagers when it comes to your relationship. Chances are, that's not going to change anytime soon either.

Peter is an extremely loving husband who does all he can to ensure you never forget his admiration towards you whether it’s through small gifts like bouquets of handpicked flowers, poorly cooked yet well intended candlelight dinners, or even simple words of affection throughout the day. For Peter, all the stresses of his life melt away under your presences alone whether it’s when you're wordlessly laying with your legs over his lap while reading on the couch or when you're patching him up after a particularly rough patrol, your attention fixated on your work until he steals it with deep kisses and roaming hands. Where most of your friends complain that their husbands seem distant after a few years or less, you have yet to experience that yourself and so long as Peter's around, you doubt you ever will.

Of course, it's not to say your marriage with Peter doesn't have its challenges, the biggest drawback being the fact that it isn't just Peter who you married. When you recited your vows all those years ago, promising to always love and protect the man in front of you, unknown to all of your guests, you hadn't just meant Peter, but also his alter ego, Spiderman.

Being married to Spiderman is a little more demanding than if you were simply married to the ordinary side of Peter. Most nights, Peter's out saving New York City, sometimes not returning until the earliest hours of the morning, however, that isn't what bothers you the most about his second job. Yes, it gets lonely at times, but say the word and Peter will spend each second he can in-between with you. What troubles you the most is the constant condition he returns in once his superhero work is done.

Peter Parker is a good man at heart. He'd do anything to protect New York and his loved ones, but even with his spider-like powers, he isn't invincible. It never matters how much he assures you otherwise, you have always understood from the day he told you about his secret that you could lose him at any moment which is a day you can never stop fearing.

Peter shares a similar fear, being notorious for worrying over your safety and how his heroic activities might put you in more danger that he can stand. Spiderman had made too many enemies over the years, most of which would be ecstatic to discover the masked vigilante they despised is married to you. Peter could never forgive himself is something happens to you, therefore, he can be rather protective especially under certain circumstances. Crimes are on the rise in New York? Maybe you should work from home today. He recently pissed off some new supervillain? Yeah, he'll stay in a motel for a few nights just to be sure they don't track him down to you. His spider-senses have been going off none stop for the last two days? Forget him leaving your side.

You don't need spider-senses of your own to know something is wrong with your husband's. His strange behavior lately is enough to give you that guess on its own. While it isn't necessarily unheard of him to suddenly get anxious, usually he discovers the cause right away whether it's a crime occurring around the corner or that one time someone tried to steal your purse as the two of you walked home after visiting May, but whatever it ended up being, it has never lasted for as long as his current worries.

It all began at around 1:00am yesterday when Peter suddenly jerked you awake, scaring the daylights out of you with the claim that someone was in the apartment, but after an extensive search of the area, he found nothing alarming. Even so, he continued to fidget all night, his strong arms snaked around your midsection as they held your back to his chest, your hands intertwined together. When you had questioned him about it directly, he mumbled into your hair that he 'just didn't feel right'. Needless to say, neither of you got much sleep that night both due to Peter's restlessness and the shared anticipation for something bad happening.

You had awoken again around noon, not too surprised to find yourself alone in bed with a note on the bedstand telling you to have a good day with a little reminder of your dinner plans at a new sushi restaurant down the street. Not feeling the greatest due to your lack of sleep the night before, you spent most of the day being lazy, snacking on crackers and watching tv from bed until Peter came home. By the time he walked through the front door with a bright smile on his face, you had disregarded the morning's situation with his spider-sense, however, when he embraced you, his body tensed and his head flinched to the side, wordlessly telling you his anxiety had returned.

Deciding he was may be stressed with work and in need of a break, the two of you continued with your previously planned dinner date, one that didn't end out as well as you had hoped due to you getting a bad case of food poisoning. While holding your hair back as you threw up all of your stomach's contents, Peter made a hopeful comment about how the food positioning must've been what his spider-senses were worried about all day, but alas, the second he joined you in bed that night, the tingling feeling came back with an extra bite.

Considering all the factors, Peter reached the conclusion that something's wrong at home and if something's wrong at home, he refuses to leave until he has discovered the threat. Perhaps it's selfish, but New York City comes second to his wife, so throughout the day, the two of you have searched for anything that could be out of place to not avail. No alarms are going off signaling a gas leak, there's no smell of anything burning not to mention you checked all of the outlets, nothing is out of place to raise suspicion of having been robbed...and yet Peter's spider-sense is still bothering him.

By noon, you opted to just ignore it, craving subs from the corner deli shop for lunch, however, Peter argued against the idea, refusing to let you go anywhere so long as he feel so anxious, but after some pouting and moping on your part, he felt guilty enough to cave in, the two of you creating a compromise that he'd take you to get subs if you stayed directly at his side the whole time. So long as you get to drool over the sight of the mouthwatering subs, you didn't mind.

"It's like when I first got bitten; before I knew how to control my powers. There's something driving my spider-sense crazy and I just can't find it," Peter complaints to you out loud, watching from his spot on the kitchen counter as you cut the two subs in half," I felt it when we went out to the deli, but if I go into the bedroom or living room, I don't feel it...You're not poisoning my food, are you?"

You chuckle with a shake of your head at the question that many wives would find insulting," nope, afraid not, love."

Peter huffs in annoyance, although, it isn't aimed towards you. Instead, it's aimed towards his powers. Why are they acting up so suddenly after twelve years? Is he losing them or his control? That can't be it since everything else is fine like his healing and strength. Only his spider-sense is being difficult.

"It's strange. You're sure it just started yesterday?" You glance over your shoulder at him while setting each slice of the subs on two plates accompanied by a handful of chips (or two hands in the case of your plate).

Peter nods when you look at him," when I woke you up. It kept up until I got up again in the morning then was fine all day at work until I got home. Even at the sushi restaurant, I felt it."

You grimace at the memory, pointing the butter knife at him accusingly," there was a reason for that time! That was the worse food poisoning I've ever had in my life. In case you already forgot, I was throwing up for hours. I'll never eat sushi again!"

Peter smiles, his cheek resting against his fist which was propped up on his knee," give it two weeks and you'll be wanting to go back."

"Doubt it," you gag, passing the two plates over to him to take to the living room while you circle around to the fridge to grab two cans of soda.

"They need to update their slogan from 'best subs in Queens' to 'best subs in New York'. It was the right call to get lunch there, babe," he comments, looking down at the messy sandwiches while taking a seat on the couch with a smile which grew when he heard you snicker.

"Five years of marriage and you still doubt your wife, Mr. Parker. When will you learn that I'm always right?" You set one can of soda on the coffee table in front of him before taking your plate from his hand and moving to join him on the couch, that was, until he suddenly grabbed your wrist, stopping you in place,"...what is it, Pete?"

Peter doesn't answer. He isn't even looking directly up at you yet his eyebrows are furrowed, his face scrunched up in concertation as he focused on the tingling of his nerves.

"...Take a step back?" It sounds like a question when he lets go of your wrist, not looking to you. You raise an eyebrow at him, but follow his words, nonetheless, walking backwards until you're nearly in the kitchen again, your plate of food balanced over the palm of your hand,"...come back..."

You can't help but roll your eyes, walking back over to the couch and sitting down at last," you're sure acting weird lately- weirder than usual, that is."

Still, he doesn't answer you, instead standing from the couch wordlessly. You turn your attention away from your food, frowning at your husband who stares down at you with narrowed eyes before slowly kneeling in front of you. You hum your concern, setting your plate on your lap so that you could move your hands to brush against his hair. He continues to stare at your midsection silently before his eyes go wide, his mouth slightly agape.

"Pete? What's wrong, hun?"

"...I found it."

"Found what?"

He looks up at you, his eyes twinkling in both the light of the apartment window and the beads of water in them. His hands moved to your stomach, pressing against it ever so carefully as if it is the most precious thing in the world.

"...Why my spider-sense has been going off...That's why I felt someone else in the apartment the other night and why I only feel it whenever I'm directly around you," his words became increasingly more rush and excited as his sat up a bit taller so that he can move his hands to your cheek while possibly the widest smile you've ever seen tugged at each end of his lips, " you're pregnant!"

"H-Huh?" Now it's your turn for your eyes to go wide, one hand subconsciously moving to your stomach as the other moved to set your plate completely to the side, the food you waited so desperately for completely forgotten," b-but...how would you...?"

It makes sense the more you consider it. The two of you are married and like any loving married couple, well, you take part in quite a bit of ‘intimacy’ which you both have recently started taking less precautions with. It isn't as if you've been actively trying for a baby, but you also haven't been actively trying to prevent one either. One could say that you had both agreed on having a kid or two at some point while the fear of being parents still wavered your minds, leading you both to conclude it would be easier to let fate decide what will happen and when.

Once Peter's words fully process in your mind, you are quick to stand to your feet with your husband following directly in your trail on the way to the bathroom. You practically tear it apart in search for the tests you had bought three months ago, shooing Peter out once you locate them. Even then, you can hear him pacing just outside the door, mumbling out loud to himself over the likelihood. You two have definitely been intimate as of recently, your period isn't due for another week so it hasn't given you the chance to notice it's possible absences, but you've been tired and sick while also eating more than usual, and he only gets his spider-senses around you especially when your stomach is closest to him...he's certain your pregnant, but at the same time, he refuses to get his hopes up too much before it's confirmed (not that they aren't already all the way up with the chance alone).

After what felt like hours to Peter, you open the door, the little white stick in your hands as you stare at him with wide eyes. At first, he worries he had been wrong, but when you suddenly leap at him, your arms flung around his shoulders as you laugh and cry at the same time, he lets all those doubts wash away with happy tears of his own. His spider-senses were never alerting him of a threat, only to his child's existence inside your womb; the tiniest of heartbeats calling out to him from the moment it began.

"You're pregnant! We're going to be parents!" Your laughter increases when Peter effortlessly spins you around before setting you down and eagerly kissing you. When you both pull away from the deep kiss, he runs a hand through his hair giddily," we're gonna be parents! I'm gonna be a dad! I-I gotta call Aunt May! She's going to be so happy, but first-"

He barely gives himself time to finish his own sentence, peppering you in countless butterfly kisses with one hand on your hip and the other over your stomach where he could now knowingly sense his unborn son or daughter growing.

…It looks like the radioactive spider bite is now in third place for the best things to ever happen to Peter Parker.

[vyladromeave]

Garte Ro’meave: What Is This Guy’s Deal?????

(And why he is likely a Shadowknight)

You all know him, you all hate him: Garte Ro’meave is the Lord of O’khasis, as well as Garroth, Zane, and Vylad’s father. He has quite a reputation both in universe and among fans, despite never physically showing up within MCD. So just who is this guy and what the hell is his deal? I’m compiling a bunch of the stuff we know about him here in this post. For fun.

Mid S1, Garroth mentions a time when Garte fell ill and had a near-death experience. It is my firm belief that when Garte fell ill, he actually did die from his illness. However, through dealings with the Shadow Lord, he was revived with a greater lust for power, and sought control over the surrounding land. Thus his miraculous recovery, and corruption of character soon after. 

Lemme break it down for you. 

(WARNING THIS POST IS LONG. IT’S OVER 4K WORDS. PROBABLY 5K IF YOU COUNT THE SCREENSHOTS. SERIOUSLY I WARNED YOU.)

-----

GARTE’S ORIGINS

So it’s no secret that MCD’s lore is... inconsistent... You can find hints of the current story and what most fans consider to be truly “canon” within the early bits of the old story. So who was Garte in the early episodes of MCD? I think this transcript of a conversation between Aphmau and Lord Burt is a pretty good introduction, so let’s check it out:

Sooooo yeah. If you’re like me, you’re probably sitting here thinking, “What the fuck are these guys even saying?” Because literally none of this is correct in the current standing of MCD lore. Don’t worry, you’re not crazy, and don’t try to think too hard about what’s going on here because Yeah: It’s not canon. It’s old, outdated, and the small bits of lore from this conversation that manage to stay relevant are almost completely retconned and overwritten.

MAINLY: This conversation is one of many alluding to the King and the Shadows, concepts which will go on to become Garte and the Shadow Lord. 

In early S1, there are plenty of instances of the King and the Shadow Lord being mentioned in conjunction. I’ll leave a few of them here for you, but don’t spend too much time trying to make sense of them. I could go on about them and what they might mean for these early versions of the overarching story of MCD, but ultimately it doesn’t matter because it isn’t consistent with what we know in the current day. 

Yeah. This is just a small amount. And mostly? All of this is an artifact of poor writing. A lot of MCD’s story and lore was changing as Jess was creating it, and this is a remnant of those inconsistencies. With our current understanding of the Shadow Lord in MCD’s lore, we know that he is actually Shad, previously a Divine warrior. Garte is the Lord, not King, of O’khasis, with a family and life of his own. Seriously, this is the same era of MCD where Zoey was a fairy and not an elf. Meaning none of this factual currently, and can’t really be trusted. 

However, that doesn’t mean we should completely discredit everything here, and I wholly believe this is a sign of something greater going on between these two. Just keep in mind that even in the earliest version of this story, the concepts that went on to be the Shadow Lord and Garte, Lord of O’khasis, were intrinsically linked.

-----

GARTE, GARROTH, AND ZANE

Ok, time to get into the real stuff. Let’s go over how Garte’s first two sons view him. Both of these images are from S1 Ep52. Here is what both Zane and Garroth have to say about their father:

I’d also like to put this line from S1 Ep68 here for consideration:

Analysis aside, here is what we have stated plainly by the text: 

Garte is the Lord of O’khasis. 

Garroth suggests that Garte’s rule is not a kind one, and that he might as well be a dictator (or perhaps a King? ;] ) instead of a Lord. 

Garte is explicitly seeking to become King of the land.

Garroth trained as a knight while he was supposed to be preparing to inherit the position of Lord, which went against Garte’s wishes.

Garte later had Garroth engaged to the firstborn of Scaleswind as part of a treaty to encourage peace between the two villages.

Garte “disowned” Garroth when he ran away, but Garroth still seems to be considered part of the family (at least for business purposes?). For example, Garroth is still needed for the engagement with Scaleswind, and he is still considered next in line as the future Lord of O’khasis.

Garroth has reason to believe that should he reject the engagement again, Garte will use his power/influence to “do something terrible.”

Zane does Garte’s “dirty work.” (To the point where Garroth seems to believe that Zane’s presence in Phoenix Drop is actually Zane carrying out Garte’s will.)

And although it’s not very present in these images, Garroth repeatedly stresses during this time that Zane’s actions in Phoenix Drop are extensions of Garte’s. Therefore, any actions they take against Zane will be seen as actions against Garte, and by extension to, all of O’khasis.

So, Garroth dislikes Garte for repeatedly pushing him into things he does not want to do, and in turn Garte dislikes Garroth since Garroth keeps going against his wishes. But how does Garte feel about Zane? For that I’d like to bring in one more small quote from S1 Ep54. (The “he” referred to in this quote is Zane, if that wasn’t obvious.)

Zane is “loyal” to Garte and “does his dirty work.” He acts as an extension of Garte and his wishes, and he is given power in return. I think the S1 Ep68 line, “Zane knows where I am, therefore our father knows where I am,” is very indicative of Zane’s role here. It’s easy to assume that Garte likes/favors Zane, given Zane’s loyalty to him. But from what we know about Garte here… I’m not so sure. 

To me, it seems like despite all his attempts to get in Garte’s good graces, Garte still favors Garroth over Zane as the future Lord of O’khasis. Exactly how he feels about Zane is unclear, but Garte clearly does not care enough about Zane enough to make him future Lord of O’khasis instead of Garroth, despite how easy this could be for someone as powerful as Garte. Why? The answer is simple: tradition.

Garroth gets to be the future Lord of O’khasis, not because he wants it or is fit for it, but because he was born first. Garroth is set up to be married to the firstborn of Scaleswind because he himself is firstborn, and tradition states that to do otherwise is taboo. Garroth goes against Garte’s wishes time and time again, but Garte never truly “disowns” him, even though the second son in line is more than willing to do what Garte wants. Why? Because he couldn’t disown his son, he could never have something less than a perfect, ideal family, because to him that would be wrong, abnormal. (This is also why Vylad’s existence and Zianna’s affair bother him so deeply! But more on them later.) Despite how loyal Zane is to Garte, he can never be the future Lord because he was not born first. And despite being this all-powerful dictator with ridiculous influence and military power, he refuses to simply instate Zane as the future lord over Garroth, simply because to him, that just isn’t the way things are meant to be. Zane has power BECAUSE he is loyal to Garte, because working under Garte makes him an extension of Garte’s power, and not because Garte actually favors him. 

(This also works really well into what I think Zane’s mentality is through all this and how it shapes his motivations, but that’s a post for another time.)

Let’s also note here how Garte views his children as tools instead of people. Garte has Garroth engaged against his will to form a peace treaty between O’khasis and Scaleswind. Garte has Zane “do his dirty work,” to the point where Garroth even assumes that Zane finding him in Phoenix Drop is under Garte’s guidance instead of on his own, which is interesting. Essentially, he seems to have no love for his sons, and only uses them to further his own rule. He is a heartless dictator as a ruler, and is heartless as a father as well.

Essentially, Garte is a heartless ruler, father, and husband, who puts tradition above all else, even his own family, in his pursuit for further power. Wuh oh!

-----

ZIANNA AND THE AFFAIR

It’s not a real post about Garte without talking about the affair! The best insight we get about this is from Vylad on S2 Ep61. Here’s another funky cool transcript for your convenience.

We get a couple things from this. First of all it lets us double down on the whole “strict traditionalist” thing, given his insistence on literal children learning in depth about politics because Garte Says So. The strict traditionalist thing also additionally feeds into why Vylad’s existence bothers him so badly.

I also want to point out Vylad’s insistence that Garte would have his biological father killed if he knew who he was. It’s implied here that Zianna also believes this, to the point where she has hidden his identity from his own biological son. I don’t have much else to say about this in relation to Garte, I just think this demonstrates really well the dynamic going on with him in relation to his own family here and just how little the people who care/cared about him trust him now (and how little they continue to trust him even in the short amount of time where he is doing better).

Lastly, I want to point out how Garte’s opinion of Vylad changes over time. I think it’s important to note that Garte, this man who we have established is obsessed with tradition and rules, is able for once to put that aside while Vylad is a child, even if it ends up coming back later.

This section’s a bit short, and that’s because mostly I want to use all the information here to build off some points in the next section:

-----

GARTE’S ILLNESS (AND WHO HE USED TO BE)

This is kinda what inspired this whole post, mostly because it’s maybe the most overlooked piece of information we have on Garte. This line is from S1 Ep68, I’ll paste the screenshot here so you can read it for yourself.

As far as I know, this is the only time in the entire series that Garte’s illness is mentioned. There’s a couple things that are interesting to me here. For instance, Garte is a powerful lord who is well respected by his people. You’re telling me that with all the magic in the world, all the doctors and trained professionals, and with all the power and money he had at the time, he only barely avoided death? (And probably actually didn’t if he is a Shadowknight like I think he is but more on that later.) 

It’s very likely that this was not a normal or natural illness. It’s possible that someone else was responsible for it, or at least responsible for its unlikely severity. Either the illness itself was odd and caused in a way that made it hard to treat, or the treatment he was getting was poor. (It’s possible the Shadow Lord himself might be responsible, but there’s literally no basis or proof for that. There is also the possibility that Garte was never really ill at all, that some other significant injury happened to him, and him being “ill” is the coverup. But again I have no basis for this, besides the fact that this would maybe explain away the inability to get proper treatment.)

Despite all this, the most notable thing to me here is that combined from what we learned about him around the time of Zianna’s affair, we can tell that his attitude and general character went back and forth a couple times. Here’s a timeline to help visualize this:

(The “…” around Garroth’s birth is representative of the fact that we technically don’t know how he was acting around this time or before, but assumedly he was still a kind and respectable leader up until his first point of change after his illness)

The main thing I want to point out is that basically everything we know about Garte only applies to what he’s like now during his, for lack of a better phrase, Nasty Bitch Phase. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch at all to say that Garte acts the way he does today BECAUSE of whatever happened to him during his illness. If there was ever any good part of Garte, we as the audience have never seen it or it’s results. After recovering from his illness, Garte’s character shifted so drastically that Garroth goes from highly respecting him and wanting to be like him, to being afraid of him and what he might do. Garte changes so much that his own wife no longer recognizes him. It’s important to note that there was a time before the current Garte we know today, where he was a kind and just ruler who cared about his family. He was powerful as the Lord of O’khasis, but was not completely driven by his lust for strength and control. So nearly everything that we’ve learned up until now gets tossed in the garbage when discussing Garte pre-illness

The only incident that led him to act somewhat kinder after said illness was when Zianna had an affair and Vylad was born. This incident didn’t leave him with lasting kindness, (nor is it clear just how much better he actually was at the time. Depending how long this good period was, it’s possible that the “teaching children about harsh politics before they are ready” incident happened during this time.) and he reverted back to his Nasty Bitch Phase over time, but ultimately this is the only time after his illness where he was closer in personality to the “good” person he used to be. 

This is really exemplified by his treatment of Vylad. We know that in his Nasty Bitch Phase, Garte becomes deeply rooted in tradition and presentation. When Vylad is born, for a short time this doesn’t matter to him. Vylad, despite breaking the idea of the perfect nuclear family by his very existence, is treated like Garte’s own for a short time. And as Garte shifts back into his Nasty Bitch Phase, this value of tradition returns and his resentment for Vylad grows. But until then, that’s one of the few things we really know about Garte’s personality and what he values, gone for presumably a couple years. 

What this illness was, what caused it, why the treatment was poor, and why it changed Garte drastically into who we know him as in Minecraft Diaries is never explicitly stated. It seems like a rather permanently extreme shift of Garte’s mood, character, and ideals, to be nothing more than a worse-than-average illness. Leading me to my theory…

-----

GARTE RO’MEAVE IS A SHADOWKNIGHT

Let me be clear that this is never explicitly stated anywhere within Minecraft Diaries, although I think given what we know about Garte it’s very very very likely. The short version is that the “near-death experience” Garte had while ill was him seriously actually for real dying, and the miraculous recovery is due to him then being revived as a Shadowknight. 

(And let me also be clear that this is not an excuse for his actions and how he treats people, but rather an explanation. Trust me I hate Garte as a person as much as the next guy. I just think it’s interesting to dissect who he is as a character and WHY he acts the way he does. I don’t care if he has 1 billion issues, it does not change the fact that he is a living shit stain <3 thank you.)

With that aside, let’s go over a couple characteristics of Shadowknights and how they relate to Garte.

DEATH

Let’s talk about Garte’s illness from a narrative standpoint. Without reading between the lines at all and just taking Garroth’s information at face value, what does this illness bring to the table story-wise? All it really does is give a (not very good) reason for Garte’s behavior. However, if the illness as a narrative device is useful for Only This, you have to ask… Why not just have Garte be a shitty person to begin with? Why waste time telling us about how he used to bea good person and isn’t anymore because of this illness, if this change and it’s cause has no significance otherwise?

The answer is that there is more going on here than what is initially visible. It’s not a waste of time, it’s trying to clue us in to a larger situation. It’s drawing significance to this moment in time, trying to get you to think about what could have happened here to cause this drastic change. Think on everything we’ve seen in MCD (especially things introduced around this time, I’ll touch on this in just a bit.), what do we know that could alter someone like this? Well, becoming a Shadowknight seems to usually result in a drastic personality change. And to become a Shadowknight, you have to die. And a near-death experience from an illness sounds like the perfect time for Garte to die and be reborn somewhat inconspicuously. 

And if this isn’t the significance of the illness then… what is? Genuinely I cannot think of anything else that we have been introduced to over the course of the entire series that this could be referencing or related to. It even parallels the Lords of Brightport and Pikoro potentially being put through rituals to become Shadowknights. We literally have a precedent for this sort of thing!

POWER

This theory explains why he gains a sudden lust for power. We have seen how becoming a Shadowknight can twist the person’s personality into something more malevolent multiple times within the series (most notably with Laurance in S2, although it is present with basically every Shadowknight that has made an appearance on the show). I can very easily see a Lord’s desire to do well for his people twisted into a desire for power over them. Many other Shadowknights within the series are driven by similar desires as well, seeing as Shadowknights are often created and sustained off the concept of desire itself. Vylad, in S2 Ep66, when attempting to describe what it feels like for him to be a Shadowknight, basically describes it as constantly wanting something that you cannot have. Gene was revived in the Overworld because of his desire to take vengeance on the people of his village. He is a perfect example of how a desire strong enough can result in a Shadowknight being born in the Overwold. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that if Garte was desperate enough, he could become a Shadowknight in a similar fashion.

FAMILY

This theory also explains his lack of care for family, especially why he doesn’t care Now when he used to be well-known for it. Let’s look at some more lines said by Vylad, from S2 Ep66 at 10:19:

Vylad also says in S2 Ep96 at 14:49 that Shadowknights often leave their friends and family behind when they turn since it, “isn’t something a Shadowknight needs.” Taking these quotes and applying them to Garte almost exactly describes his attitude towards his own family. He no longer cares for his children or his wife, and literally uses his sons as tools and pawns. They are no longer family to him, he has given up his attachment to them in order to further his own goals. 

The only time Garte rejects this ideology after his illness is when Vylad is born. I think this can simply be explained by the fact that with effort, Shadowknights can hold onto their attachments to others, and that these attachments often ground them and help them act more like their previous selves. Strangely enough, we have seen examples of things like this with Vylad himself as a Shadowknight. Vylad was perfectly content with having all of his family think of him as dead, but hasn’t actually moved on from them. He reminisces on times with his brothers and mother to Aphmau a couple times, helps his brother Garroth get back to Phoenix Drop when he is incapacitated by an arrow in early S1, and only agrees to work with Aphmau in S2 after he learns that Garroth has gotten into trouble that Aphmau cannot immediately get him out of. Vylad admits to experiencing this urge to leave friends and family behind, but also very clearly makes an effort to care and fight against it, which demonstrates that with effort this urge can be suppressed. It makes perfect sense that Garte makes this same effort when his wife is in turmoil, but isn’t able to keep it up after the conflict has passed, causing him to fade back into the natural habit of disregarding his own family.

GREATER THEMING

As I went over in the very first part of this post, theming between kings and the Shadow Lord has been consistent since the very beginning of the series. A lot of the early lore about this sort of thing revolves around a king who is compelled to revive the Shadow Lord/bring him back to full power, which makes a lot more sense if our “king,” a.k.a Garte, is a Shadowknight, since reviving the Shadow Lord is their main priority. 

(And as a side note, we see multiple times in S1 where people and their magickal talents are sacrificed to give the Shadow Lord more strength. Do you think sacrificing an entire Continent of people would maybe be enough power to revive the Shadow Lord for real? And do you think a Lord with enough power to potentially take over an entire continent would be a good asset to have in that scenario? Again there is no basis for this, just food for thought.)

MISCELLANEOUS RELATION

O’khasis, Zane, and the Shadowknights have been linked multiple times throughout the series. Although most of these do not directly mention Garte’s involvement, I still think these are still important to consider. Zane did literally try to open a portal/tear to the Nether within Phoenix Drop in S1, during a time where Garroth stated that it was likely Zane was acting as Garte’s emissary. Jeffory, who served under Zane, is implied to have become a Shadowknight himself in the later parts of S2. Both Zane and Jeffory (but mostly Zane) are involved in “Shadowknight rituals” concerning Lord Burt and the Lord of Pikoro in S1 after Zane’s first Phoenix Drop incident, and it’s implied Zane does this to pursue Garte’s wishes of uniting all the villages of Ru’aun under O’khasis’ rule. 

This last piece of evidence might be a weird pull, but it’s also possibly the most damning of all. In Minecraft Diaries Rebirth Ep4, Zane is shown having dealings directly with Gene. Not only this, Gene is serving UNDER Zane. Gene is still established as being high-ranking within the Shadowknights, he refers to the Shadowknights as “his men,” implying possession or superiority above the rest of them. And yet, he is serving under Zane for reasons which are never really elaborated on? Even after Zane aggravates and antagonizes him, Zane is confident that the Shadowknights will not be a threat to him. (In fact, he seems more concerned about treachery and traitors within the Shadowknights than he does about Gene betraying him for his mistreatment.) 

We know Zane isn’t really with the Shadowknights, he refers to his own side being separate from the side of the Shadowknights later in the same conversation. And yet Gene takes orders from Zane, and Zane is confident that he will return to him at some point, and also not turn against him. So what compels Gene to serve under Zane despite disliking him, and what could make Zane so confident that Gene will be back? Perhaps if Zane serves Garte, as we already established, and Garte is a Shadowknight ranking higher than Gene. 

Think about it. Gene is so valuable to the Shadow Lord because his memory-manipulating magicks allow the Shadow Lord to have better control over the Shadowknights. This value is reflected in Gene’s high rank and respect among Shadowknights, which has been consistently above average since S1. If you think better control over the Shadowknights is good? Try control over potentially the entire CONTINENT. Because that’s the kind of potential Garte as a Shadowknight brings to the table. Regardless of rank, Gene would almost certainly have to defer to Garte in this situation, and Garte most likely values Zane as a pawn above Gene, therefore Gene deferring to Zane. Zane is obviously on his own side with his own ideals and ambitions, but because he is at least somewhat loyal to Garte, Gene is forced to be loyal to him in turn.

Also, I think Rebirth technically has a bit more canonical weight to it than some parts of MCD given that it is more recent, and given how many inconsistencies are in the early parts of  S1. Regardless of what was going on in S1, Rebirth is technically the most accurate and canonical source when it comes to MCD, which means that Zane and the Shadowknights relations cannot be disregarded. Their presence this early in the story of Rebirth, especially in comparison to the original MCD, should not be overlooked.

DIVINE

Let’s also remember that Garte is a descendant of Esmund (most likely, afaik it’s never actually specified in MCD but like. Judging by his Mystreet appearance, Garte looks like Esmund and Zianna does not, and it seems like most of the favored descendants Generally resemble the originals for thematic reasons. Anyways.) Corrupting the last remnants of one of the Divine Warriors who killed you and trapped you in Literal Hell seems like a valid villain move to me. Especially if the Divine Warriors and their relics are a potential threat to your plan, having a certain amount of control over one of those bloodlines/relics makes things a bit easier. This is more of a side note than anything, but I think it’s still worth including.

THE WRITING HABIT

This isn’t strictly a Shadowknight thing, but as a last note I’d like to point out just a little writing habit Jess has. She likes to tease smaller ideas for foreshadowing, and then elaborate on them typically a couple episodes later. I’m not talking about your typical foreshadowing, it’s more of a case where you can kind of tell that the story is being written only a little bit ahead of what is being recorded, and so you can literally see parts of the script in the future kinda making their way into little bits of the current so that they are better integrated. (And sometimes “future” is actually the end of an episode, and the “current” is the middle of the same episode. So yeah. great planning.) You can kinda see this all over MCD once you start looking for it, and I think knowing this habit means that we can look for things that are introduced around the same time to see if they are potentially related retroactively.

So some of the things introduced/addressed around this same time? Well literally in the same episode, immediately after Garroth tells Aphmau about Garte’s illness and how he changed afterwards… Laurance talks with Aphmau about how being a Shadowknight is slowly changing his personality and how he acts. Yeah. It’s kinda the first time we’re introduced to the idea of this within Shadowknights, in fact. Literally introduced in one conversation after the other. Coincidence? Possibly. But with all this in mind? I’m not so sure.

-----

TLDR?

So yeah. Garte maybe died and became a Shadowknight. Or maybe Jess forgot about the whole illness thing entirely and therefore none of this really matters. Or maybe it’s been retconned since then. Who knows! MCD is a silly little enigma of a show and if you enjoyed reading nearly 5k words on an analysis of one of MCD’s worst fathers, then that’s all I can ask for :D

Thanks for reading!

-aiki

[destielficarchive]

The Wayback Machine and the Quest for Deleted Fics

What is the Wayback Machine?

The Wayback Machine is the time machine used by Peabody and Sherman in "Rocky and Bullwinkle." It's also the nickname of The Internet Archive (https://web.archive.org/) which, since the late '90s, has crawled the internet and just. Archived everything it finds. (You can read their history here). People now can enter pages they want to save (I used it to preserve some censored Chinese gay books, for example, entering all the URLs myself to be sure that Wayback captured them), and I don't even know how else it finds stuff, but it's pretty amazing. How amazing?

This is their capture of my Tripod anime webpage from when I was in college. Some of the graphics are missing, yeah, but like. I made this website in fricken 1999, and stopped maintaining it in 2001 or 2002. Back then my e-mail address was still "unforth@penpen.com" and webrings were a thing and I was well known for creating Winamp skins in Jasc. That it's there at all is pretty fucking incredible.

Who cares about your old anime page?

Other than me? No one. BUT. Wayback's "catch all, save all, store all" approach to archiving means it's an invaluable tool for finding deleted fic. For example, here's their capture of "Rock Salt and Feathers," which was (as far as I know) the first Destiel-specific fic archive made on the internet, and many of the earliest Destiel fics were posted there or x-posted there from LJ.

The owner deleted it in 2010, taking all the fics with it, but many can still be accessed - and saved by my project, and read by anyone who wants to - because they're in Wayback.

Okay, that's way more interesting. How do I use Wayback to find stuff like that?

The key to using the Wayback Machine to find old and/or deleted fics is that you need the original url. Thus, teaching someone how to use Wayback to find deleted fics ends up mostly being about teaching someone tricks for finding ancient urls for fics that have been deleted (and occasionally when you find the url you actually discover the fic isn't deleted at all, which is always nice!). Once you have the URL, the "how to use" part is easy, you just go to web.archive.org and enter the url in the search box.

The bar graph of years shows every time Wayback Machine "captured" (archived) the specific page at that url. Often, each of these captures will be different, especially for websites that update regularly (like an archive or an author's works page). When you click on a year, you'll get a calendar, and then you just pick the date and time you want (I highlighted April 18th, 2009, as an example, and because it was my dad's 68th birthday so why not? It's also about a month before I personally started watching SPN, ah, memories...). Once you've picked the capture you want, it'll load the next page and show you a capture of it - so here's a (different than above) capture of Rock Salt and Feathers, dating to within a week of when the website was first founded! The same bar graph is now up top, and you can click on the bar you want to jump to that date and see how the website changed over time - so this capture on April 18th, 2009, is pretty bare bones; by the time of the May capture I screen capped above, things have moved along!

Further, once you're in an archive of a deleted webpage you can (or at least, you can try) to navigate it as normal, just...all within Wayback's interface. So like, on this page, I can access their list of new works (and find different ones by trying the different captures)...

...and I can even read them!

Uh oh, better watch out for those 4.20 spoilers. Anyway, the point is - if you've got the original URL, you can use it to load a deleted page into Wayback, and then navigate that website as normal...at least up until you try a link that Wayback didn't archive, and then you'll hit a "sorry, we don't have that one" page (I'm not gonna screen cap cause at this rate I'll hit Tumblr's image limit in about 2 more minutes). Not everything will be there, ever. Rock Salt and Feathers is unusually well-preserved; when I did a deep-dive and spent three days trying to find things there, I was able to preserve nearly 90% of all the fic I know of that was posted there, and some of the rest I was able to find by tracking down alts for the people who posted there - many (though not all!) had x-posted their works to LJ, and later some ALSO x-posted to AO3, once AO3 existed (Rock Salt and Feathers predates the existence of AO3 by about 6 months).

So, as you can see - using Wayback is the easy part (at least until it isn't - more on that later...it's easy on a simple page like Rock Salt and Feathers, hence my using it for examples, but it can get hella complicated for more modern, dynamic websites like AO3). The hard part?

(cutting to a read more...I hate using them cause then people don't read but this post is just. so long.)

Where am I supposed to get the original URL for a fic that's been deleted for 5 years or a decade or more?

Google search is your friend (or your preferred search engine I guess, but I always use Google). If you know the username and the exact title, it's easy - especially using quotes, which is also your friend. So, for example, I couldn't remember the URL for Rock Salt and Feathers and I didn't actually have it saved, so I just googled "rocksalt and feathers" (in quotes). It prompt got mad at me and told me rock salt should be two words, and so I changed it, and sure enough the first result was an ancient LJ post that included the links I needed. Which is to say, what you're really looking for isn't the "thing itself," but rather other websites that reference the thing in question. For works that were originally posted on LJ, FF.net, personal websites like Rock Salt and Feathers, or elsewhere, ancient rec lists tend to be winners for finding the links. Learning some search tricks can also help - like, if you don't know the exact title, try variations, or try just the part you're sure of. If you remember a quote, try searching for that. If the title is something super common, try adding the author name or, if you don't know it, search for it using "(name of fic)" destiel. Anything you can think of, remember, etc., will help. Sometimes, you just get as close as you can, and then look through the results, and often there'll be something close that even if it's not right, will lead you to a resource that'll help.

Alternatively, again for older works, searching for a different work that you know was released around the same time. So, like, looking for a fic by...idk...Fossarian? Or cautionzombies? Try search for aesc, or bauble, or obstinatrix, or annundriel - someone else who was active when Fossarian and cautionzombies were. (Obviously knowing some Destiel fandom history helps in this case, but there are enough fandom olds around that even if you don't know this info, learning it is an ask away). Especially, try searching for a contemporary whose works are still up, because you can get titles for those more easily (for example, in this case, aesc, annundriel and obstinatrix all have some works cross posted on AO3, so finding the titles is easier, and then you just...keep going til you find what you want). You can also try looking for works where they were betas or editors or gift-recipients, and/or you can kinda...map out...their old friends groups, by seeing who commented where. For example, looking for links to cautionzombies stuff? cautionzomes and annundriel were friends, which I learned by poking around a fuck-ton, and annundriel's accounts are still up, and some old cautionzombie links can be found in annundriel's journals. The links don't work but that's not the point, you just need something to plug into Wayback!

And, as a side note - just because an old LJ link is dead, don't assume that the work is lost! Many of those authors x-posted onto AO3 once they had AO3 accounts (heck, Gedry was continuing to back up works to AO3 as recently as last year), and even among those who didn't (such as annundriel or CloudyJenn, who each only backed up a few) they often simply ported their accounts to Dreamwidth, so you can find their works just by reformatting their LJ url (username.livejournal.com) to a dreamwidth url (username.dreamwidth.org - works for me too, if you want to see the awful shit I wrote in 2005). Also, sometimes you'll find they x-posted to FF.net but not AO3 (which, granted, presents FF.net own array of challenges for backing up, but that's for a different post - drop me an ask if you want me to write that up sooner rather than later, otherwise I'll just do it whenever I remember). All of which is to say - before you assume a dead link means a deleted work you can save yourself some trouble (and some heartbreak, Wayback isn't great for LJ in general because of how LJ posts and blogs were structured) it's worth your while to take a little extra time and check - okay, was it x-posted? Did the person have alternate usernames they used on different platforms? Did they have a writing community on LJ where they posted (for example, a lot of authors posted their works directly to deancasbigbang.livejournal.com or deancas-xmas.livejournal.com, and also a lot of authors made communities even just for themselves, and those communities remained even when they deleted their personal accounts). Even if you find they deleted across all platforms, it's easier to find full works from AO3 or FF.net on Wayback than it is to find works from LJ, so it's worth a try. And, honestly, with really old stuff? Finding the old work x-posted somewhere, or just asking someone like me, or the folks at @destielfanfic, is more likely to find it for you than putting an LJ url into Wayback, though in a pinch that of course is an option too.

Unforth, stop babbling about LJ, I care about deathbanjo, or apokteino, or TamrynEradni, or...

...or anyone who posted on AO3 exclusively, and deleted more recently, yeah, I get it. Of course, the tricks for finding the urls remain similar - rec lists are your friends! But, for AO3, there's another super handy trick. It doesn't always work, but it's by far the best place to start.

Go to @ao3feed-destiel.

Search for the author's name, and/or the fic title, and/or anything you can remember about the fic.

Since mid-2013, the Destiel AO3 feed Tumblr has logged probably around 75% of all the Destiel that's been posted. There ARE gaps - works that weren't initially tagged Destiel, or times when the feed was down and just caught nothing, or "oops the author changed their name four times and I don't know which one they were using when they posted That Fic," or "there are three people with very similar usernames" or "the fic is called 'carry on' and there are a bajillion fics with the same title." It's not perfect, but as a first step it's essential. Because, whatever you find, it'll have:

The link to the original AO3 post

The link to the author's name page at the time

The exact date and time it was originally posted

The original title, tags, etc.

If the work was in a series, the series link

And all of the links can be put into Wayback to help you find The Thing You Want. So, to use a recent example from someone I know doesn't mind having their stuff distributed (or, in this case, discovered on Wayback)...

When you click on the tinyurl, you get an AO3 error page, but, more importantly, in the enter-the-url bar, you get the original url for the fic! Which, in this case is:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8447584

And then you can go over to Wayback, and...

Well, lookie there, it's the fic that HazelDomain locked! (Note that you'll get a "do you agree to the terms of use" and potentially other pop-ups. Just say yes and click through, there's no way to avoid them because there's no way to access these pages in Wayback as if you are "logged in as you," so the notifications and, in the case of Mature and Explicit works, the "you must be 18+ to proceed..." warnings will pop up every single time (and the 18+ one will cause you depressing issues, which in general just make Mature and Explicit deleted works MUCH harder to find, more on that later, yes this post is really gonna be that long, sorry...)

Now, suppose you weren't looking for this fic by HazelDomain, but instead were looking for one that ao3feed-Destiel didn't have on their list. Well, now is when that link to HazelDomain username comes in handy!

http://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelDomain/pseuds/HazelDomain

You can put this directly into Wayback, and it'll show HazelDomain's home page or, alternatively, if you loaded the fic above (for example) you can just click where it says HazelDomain below the title, and you'll get to go to their main page, which'll list their most recent works (on the date that the capture was taken) and some other links. Tada! You've found HazelDomain fics on Wayback.

(Side note on all of this: AO3 links are stable and permanent, which means that they do not change even if the nature of a fic changes. If the fic's posting date is edited? If the author changes their username? If the title changes? If it's added or removed from a series or a collection? If it's orphaned or added to an anonymous collection? The link will never change. That's how I know that the so-called "orphaned" version of With Understanding is actually a fake - it doesn't have the same URL as the actual version of With Understanding that apokteino posted. So, if you find a link to a work and it turns out that work has only been orphaned, not deleted, that link will still work! For example...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13063581

One of sir_kingsley's link, with the exact same link it had before it was orphaned!)

Okay, but the one I want isn't on the author's page even after I checked!

As I mentioned, a basic old site like Rock Salt and Feathers? Very easy to use on Wayback. A complex website like AO3? Much more messy, which means there are a bunch of tricks you can use to try to "get at" the data. There's always the chance it's not there at all; a random ficlet by a little known author? Unlikely to have made it into Wayback, unfortunately, especially if the ficlet was Mature or Explicit rated. But, there are bunch of things you can try, and there's never any guessing which will work until you try. When I'm looking for something that's been deleted? I try them all.

Trick 1: The "/pseud" trick.

See how in HazelDomain's author link, it's listed as "users/HazelDomain/pseuds/HazelDomain"? There's a few tricks you can use related to this. First, on AO3, both "users/(username)" and "users/(username)/pseud/(username)" function as links (even if the second instance of username isn't actually a pseud and is just a repeat of the same username, as in the HazelDomain example). As such, they are different urls for Wayback machine searching purposes. Sometimes, when you search "user/(username)" you'll get results but get none when you search for "users/(username)/pseuds/(username), and vice verse. To Wayback, these are two completely different urls, so you have to check them individually - AO3 knows internally that these links route to the same place but Wayback is just basically taking screen caps (well, HTML text caps) so it doesn't know they're equal - so check both!

Trick 2: The "they changed usernames" trick.

If you know that an author changed usernames, try plugging every single one into those "user/(username)" and "user/(username)/pseud/(username)" links. Is it a lot of work? Yes. How bad did you want that fic, again?

(side note: having trouble figuring out if they had alternate usernames? Yeah, it's a nightmare. Checking old rec lists is one way to find out. If the work is in a series, there's also a trick - even if the person changes username, the "Series created by: (username)" thing at the top will still show the username they had when they created the series. Or, if they had a fic with a really unusual title, try doing a google search for that title specifically, even if it's not the one you're looking for, because the odds that two people used that crazy-specific title are low, and you'll be able to see results that might give the different name. Or-or, as yet another option...my master spreadsheet lists every alternate name for a given user that I know of...for example, deathbanjo has also been loneprairies, beenghosting, and tumbleweeds. Also note - unlike WORK links, which are stable even if the person changes their username, orphans, etc., "user/(username)" links are NOT stable. If you search for, idk, bellacatbee...

https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellacatbee

...you'll get an error, even though fairychangeling is bellacatbee and still active...

https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairychangeling)

Trick 3: The "/works" trick.

Hope you're not done giving those "users/(username)" and "users/(username)/pseuds/(username)" links a work out, because you're not done yet! Those links will just give you their home page, which will only list their 6 (...I think it's 6???) most recent works. And then you click on "works" at the side and...oh no there's nothing there! Whelp, whichever link Wayback tried to use ("users/(username)/works" or "users/(username)/pseuds/(username)/works") ...try the other! And then try it for all their username changes, if they had any! Getting frustrated yet? If you're lucky you'll have Found The Thing and you can stop, but if you haven't, we're not done yet, cause yes, there's more...

Trick 4: The "?fandom_id=27" trick.

So, I'm writing this guide specifically for Destiel, so this trick is being shared in the SPN-specific format. Every single fandom on AO3 has a fandom ID number. Supernatural's is 27. If you're looking for a different fandom, you'll just have to find it's number - you can do this by going to any author you know wrote for that fandom, going to their home/main page (users/(username) or users/(username)/pseuds/(username)) and clicking on the fandom - the results will show the fandom_id in the link. So, like, I've still got fairychangeling's page open, Thor is fandom_id 245368, MCU is 414093, Good Omens is 114591, etc. Again, these IDs are stable - fandom_id=27 will ALWAYS be Supernatural, no matter who the writer is. AND, since Wayback treats every single one of these urls as unique, even if "users/(username)/works"/"users/(username)/pseuds/(username)/works" don't work, "users/(username)/works?fandom_id=27" or "users/(username)/pseuds/(username)/works?fandom_id=27" might. And you know what comes next - yes, it's try every variation again!

Trick 5: check every capture!

Captures on Wayback are a moment in time, which means there's always a chance that each one will be different. Trying to find a work that a user wrote in 2011, but Wayback /works is only showing works from 2021 on the first page, and going to page 2 produces a dead link? Try going to the oldest capture. Try going through every single capture, until you find the title you want, if you find the title you want. The /works page wasn't captured at all? Go through every old version of their main page, and see if there's any version of it where the story you want was in the 6 most recent works they posted. Etc. Try every capture on every variation of the /users/(username) links. Test and test and test until you either find it or you've exhausted your options.

Finding lost fics is about patience and about exhausting every option before you give up. All these small variations that look like nothing? Are another chance that Wayback may have captured the work. Skipping one isn't gonna do you any favors. There's never a guarantee. Lots is simply not there. But - more is there then you'll think if you just try one link then give up.

But I'm not looking for a list of their works, I'm looking for a specific work!

The above tricks are what I use when, for example, I've just heard a person deleted their account, and I'm trying to build as complete a list as possible of the works that have been deleted. Further, even if Wayback hasn't captured the actual work, the /(username) page and the /works page will have the links. Sometimes, those links will help you discover the work was orphaned or moved to anon instead of actually deleted. Other times, you'll click it, and bam, the fic will be right there in Wayback! Still other times, it won't be...or at least not apparently. But, sure enough, there are tricks around that too. Before you give up and assume a fic isn't in Wayback at all, you can try...

Trick 1: Remove the chapter part of the link

So, you've got the link to your fic - lets use, idk, "Carry On" by TamrynEradani (I haven't actually tested this as an example yet, hopefully it works lmao for everything I need to do here... lmao).

The original link to Carry On (found on ao3feed-destiel):

http://archiveofourown.org/works/775352/chapters/1458361

AO3 assigns every work a unique number AND every chapter a unique number. If you put in a work without the "/chapters/####" part in AO3, it auto-routes you to chapter 1 and fills in the chapter number. But, not to beat this dead horse again - Wayback doesn't know how to do that! It's entirely literally. It captures only the link, exactly as the link was fed to it. Thus, if you put that link into Wayback? It gets no results. BUT, if you remove the "/chapters/1458361" part (it actually DID loop me to the chapter ID, but when I put it in WITH the Chapter ID, it found nothing - welcome to the joys and vagaries of searching for deleted fics in Wayback...)?

There's Carry On...at least sort of! Because yes, there's still a problem - that pesky "Proceed" button. Because you can't log into Wayback as if it were AO3, and Wayback is (again) literal, you can often end up in annoying cycle where (with Mature and Explicit works) you just get looped back to the "Proceed" page over and over again. There are a couple ways you can try to bypass this.

Trick 2: Check past captures!

Are we learning yet? Yep, this is a repeat. Often, going through every capture will find one or more where, for whatever reason, the Proceed page just...isn't in the way. I have no idea why that's the case, but it works - it's how I opened that HazelDomain fic above, for example. And, it works for Carry On, too - when I tried a different capture of the exact same URL?

There it is!

However, even if that doesn't work, you still have recourse.

Trick 3: the "?view_adult_work=true" trick.

When you hit that "Proceed" button, AO3 auto-adds on "?view_adult_work=true" but (hits the horse with a stick again) Wayback doesn't know that necessarily, unless you tell it. So, you can sometimes bypass the endless-loop-of-proceed problem by giving it the direct link instead. In this case...

http://archiveofourown.org/works/775352?view_adult_work=true"

or

http://archiveofourown.org/works/775352/chapters/1458361?view_adult_work=true

(this trick actually DOESN'T work with Carry On, but it DOES work sometimes, especially with one shot mature/explicit works. That said, the "check every capture" trick works more often, so definitely try that first).

Okay, so...getting somewhere, but! Carry On is 34 chapters, and this one I've found in Wayback (it's here by the way - Wayback links? Also stable. https://web.archive.org/web/20131126180609/http://archiveofourown.org/works/775352/chapters/1458361) is showing just the first chapter. And when I try to go to Chapter 2? It gets caught up in that goddamn "Proceed for 18+" thing again, and there are only two captures now, and WHAT DO?"

Trick 4: The "?view_full_work=true" trick

There are two ways to implement this trick. One is easy - when you're on the page in Wayback, you see that "Entire Work" button over the tags box? YA JUST CLICK IT! It's like magic! At least, it's magic when it works. (It does, in this case - if you want to read all of Carry On and don't want to track it down? https://web.archive.org/web/20130911072416/http://archiveofourown.org/works/775352?view_full_work=true tada!)

And see the difference there? it's the same link, just with ?view_full_work=true added to the end! So, if you've found yourself in a position where you can't get by the "Proceed" loop, OR where you try to go to Chapter 1, try every link variation, and get nothing? You can always still try:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/######?view_full_work=true

Because there's always a chance that Wayback captured that even if it didn't capture the other variations.

Unforth...I've read all this...I've tried everything...I still couldn't find the thing! What can I dooooooo....

At this point? You've mostly exhausted what you can try in Wayback. But! Wayback actually isn't the only way to find a lost fic, it's just the most obvious and most easily used by the public. There are a few others!

1. I already tagged @/destielfanfic, so I won't again, but they're a great resource for finding deleted fics that authors have said "yes you may distribute," and they've also got a list of authors who've indicated "no." I used their lists as the base for mine (and their head mod and I trade notes, and fics, semi-regularly and have for years). So, I mentioned Fossarian above? Well, you can find Fossarian fics for download by going to destielfanfic, searching for author Fossarian, and going through the links - for example, "All the Hours Wound" is available in ePub format right here!

2. If you're willing to delve into Livejournal, spnstoryfinders (https://spnstoryfinders.livejournal.com/) is a still-active community that helps find all sorts of missing SPN stories (not just Destiel) and often posts will have links for x-posts, help with finding alts/different names people have used, or have people volunteering to distribute if contacted. Honestly, personally, I'm too shy to actually contact those people, and even if you're braver than I if they haven't posted since 2015 it's anyone's guess if you'll still be able to reach them, but it's always worth a try!

3. Me. Ask me. Even if it's not on my list. Drop me a note. I know tricks, as you can see, and I'm just really experienced at this point. I've been doing this for years. And, even if I did list most of the tricks I know above, I probably forgot something, and I also have the time (...well, sometimes I do, like when I'm not spending 2.5 hrs writing blog posts about how to use Wayback lmao), and I might know pseuds for a person you don't, and I have contacts who have collections, and, and, and...

4. Speaking of collections, the Profound Bond Discord mods graciously gave my archive a chat room (it's #fic-archive-project in the collections section of the server). AND, people who are on that server who have large private fic collections can opt to give themselves the @/archivist role, and when things get deleted or when we look for things, even if I can't find it, I can tag the other archivists and see if anyone else has it. When I exhaust MY options? That's where I go. So. You can too, you don't need me to mediate that, just join the Discord.

5. There's a smaller, Wayback-esque archive webpage called http://archive.is/. It has way less in it, but I've occasionally had luck on there finding LJ stuff that Wayback didn't have.

6. As a last ditch, you can always try Google. For example, if I google: tamryneradani "carry on" destiel download - the only damn result (I made this search up off the top of my head without testing it so I'm glad it worked lmao) is shiphitsthefans's master post of TamrynEradani fic which includes download links, because Tamryn made it clear from the moment they deleted that they didn't mind distribution (I was here then, which is how I know that...). So, like, literally, you want to read Carry On, yes I linked it above on Wayback but you can also just download the e-book from this post. There are all kinds of things in all kinds of pokey places on the internet. There's a small old archive that got permission from LJ authors to PDF their works and posted about it, with links, on Tumblr, and now a lot of those originals are deleted (I don't have the link sorry, I didn't bother to save it after I downloaded everything they had) but the Tumblr posts are still up and the DL links that still work. There's master posts for fics that have been deleted but the master post still has a functional link to a full PDF. Stuff is everywhere and you don't know unless you check.

There's so, so, so much Destiel, and so much as been deleted over the years. When you look, sometimes you'll strike gold right away by just plugging the link into Wayback and YAY THERE'S THE THING, and sometimes you'll spend an hour looking and think you finally finally have it and get so close and that last PDF link on the last place you had to check after everything else didn't pan out will be broken and you'll kind of want to burn down the internet, but...you'll know you tried.

This is how I built this archive - that, and downloading as much as possible before it was deleted, so that once it was gone, I didn't have to find it, cause I already had it. Basically every fic marked as "deleted and looking for copy" on my list? I tried all of this and still couldn't find it. Not always - sometimes I just don't have time - but. When I have the time, I check, and I even occasionally check again, just in case I missed something the first time. This is how it goes. You try, and you hope, and sometimes you'll succeed, and sometimes you won't. It's hard, but if you want the fic bad enough...you do the thing.

So. This is my general tutorial on how to use Wayback. What you do with that information is up to you. Don't ask me for help finding links for things I've said I won't distribute, but if you're willing to do the leg work and try the above strategies...well, authors can't do much about Wayback, they lost that level of control the instant they posted their works, and it's there to be accessed by anyone who knows how (if it's there at all, anyway, which, well, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't).

Now you know.

Go forth and get the fic.

(And if you know of, or learn, some tricks I don't know? PLEASE DO TELL! I am always ready to learn more!)

[watchmegetobsessed]

DESIRE III.

A/N: you guuuys im so sorry it took me so long to finish this, but it's been one hell of a week! i hope it only got you way more excited though haha! thank you for reading this story and if you want to read some more of them, send me a prompt for blurbs! i might write a few extras for the story, because i loved it so much!🥰

PAIRING: older!dad’s-bestfriend!Harry x reader

WORD COUNT: 10.7k

SERIES MASTERPOST

masterlist

It started off as a usual Monday.

For a change, Harry was the one to spend the night at your place, so when your alarm goes off and you try to find the phone on your night stand a heavy, tattooed arm is curling around your waist, pulling you back against his chest. When your fingers finally hit the right button you groan and fall back, only half awake, though you know you can’t sleep back.

Harry nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, his hot breath tickling your exposed skin and it makes you giggle.

“God, I don’t want to get up,” he growls, squeezing you gently before he rolls to his back. His naked chest is screaming to be touched, the cross pendant lying on his right peck. Pushing yourself up you get halfway on top of him, kissing him wherever you can reach. He hums pleased, arms coming to curl around you before he tugs on you so he can kiss your lips.

“Good morning Mr. Styles,” you smirk against his lips teasingly.

“Fuck, Y/N. You know how much it turns me on when you call me that.”

“I know,” you giggle playfully. “Though we don’t have time for that now, I’m sorry. I have a meeting at nine so I should start getting ready.”

“How about just a quick shower together?” he suggests and you can’t say no to that. Especially because you know that at least one of you will leave the bathroom satisfied.

And oh boy, you were right about that. Harry is a pro at making things quick but he can still rock your world. Though you didn’t think it would fit into the time, he insists that a quickie won’t make you late. Ten minutes. He makes you scream his name in just ten minutes and when he walks out of the bathroom to make a quick breakfast for the two of you while you blowdry your hair, you need to take a moment to calm your racing heart. This man is going to be the death of you one day.

You both are out the door by eight thirty, parting ways with a kiss at the garage of your building that ends up being a bit too long, since you won’t be meeting tonight. Harry has a late meeting with some partners overseas so he’ll get home earliest at midnight, so you decided you are spending tonight separated.

“I love you, have a great day,” he smiles, kissing your forehead.

“Love you too. Charm those investors,” you chuckle and turning around you head to your car, but Harry slaps your butt as part of his goodbye, making you jump a little. Peeking over your shoulder you see his boyish smirk and it makes you weak in the knees.

The first half of the day goes by fast, you’re quite busy in the office. You have a late lunch with Isha and get back to work, planning where you’ll go grocery shopping on your way home.

Your dad’s call reaches you between two meetings.

“Hey dad, I don’t have much time, what’s up?” you ask as you rush back to your office to change your notes and head to your next one.

“Come see me after work,” he simply answers, no hi, no how are you and his tone is so harsh, it could cut through the line. You stop in your tracks, an eerie feeling running down your spine.

“Everything alright?”

“We’ll see.” And with that, the call ends.

You move the phone from your ear with a shaking hand, something inside you is screaming that you’re in some big trouble and when it comes to your dad, only one thing can put you in that position.

Dialing Harry’s number you listen to it ring and ring until it goes to voicemail.

“Shit,” you curse under your breath, seeing that you need to leave or you’ll be late. You grab your stack of papers and run out of your office heading to the conference room two floors above you, attempting to call Harry one more time, but the same thing happens, so you shoot him a text.

Call me ASAP!!

Sitting with your colleagues in that conference room is like torture, you keep checking your phone for any sign of Harry, but nothing happens until about one hour later. His caller ID pops up on the screen and you excuse yourself right away, sneaking out of the room, ignoring the disapproving looks.

“Harry!” you breathe out answering the call.

“Your dad called you, right?”

Your stomach drops to the floor, because his question strengthens you in your theory that your dad somehow found out about you and Harry.

“Yeah. He called you too?”

“Just cleared my schedule to meet him with you.” His voice sounds so weak, so desperate, you just know he is already beating himself up for whatever is going to happen.

“Shit,” you curse under your breath, panic taking over you instantly.

“Let’s meet beforehand, alright? We need to be prepared for the worst,” he suggests and it sounds like he is collected and calm, but you can tell he is freaking out just as much as you are.

“Okay,” you breathe out, trying to control your emotions, after all, you’re still at work.

“Y/N?” he murmurs your name softly.

“Yeah?”

“I love you, you know that, right?”

“I love you too, Harry,” you answer weakly before you’re forced to end the call.

Suffering through the rest of the day is painful and every minute feels like an hour. You keep checking your phone, but nothing comes, at least not from the people you are focused on right now. When the clock finally hits five you pack your stuff faster than ever, heading down. You’ve just stepped into the elevator when Harry texts you that he is down in the lobby. When you arrive downstairs there he is, sitting on one of the sofas near the front desk and he stands as soon as he sees you walk out of the elevator.

“Hi,” you breathe out, just the presence of him already doing so much good for your anxiety. He circles his arms around you, embracing you tightly, his lips pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.

“Hey, baby. Come on, let’s talk somewhere,” he suggests, nodding towards the exit.

The two of you end up sitting in his car, a few moments of silence weighing down on you, neither of you really knowing what to say.

“So what are we supposed to do?” you ask. “I don’t even know how he found out about this…”

“It doesn’t matter. We just know that he found out from someone else and not us,” he groans shaking his head. “What do we tell him?”

“The truth,” you answer confidently. You wouldn’t want to keep on lying, that would just make it worse. “Exactly what happened.”

“He’ll take our head,” he sighs painfully. He looks so anxious, so scared, you’ve never seen him this worried.

“You’re not thinking about ending it, right?” you ask quietly, your voice barely more than just a whisper. His eyes find you and his look softens as he reaches out and cups your face in his hand.

“Didn’t even occur to me. I just… I wish it could be a bit different. Less complicated.”

“Promise me whatever dad says, you won’t give up on us.” He stares back at you and you wish you could read his mind, hear the thoughts that run through his head, because you can’t read anything from his expression.

“Promise you,” he then finally tells you, a wave of relief washing over you at his words. You lean in and kiss him, almost like there’s no tomorrow, but he returns it just as eagerly, his hands clasping your jaw to keep you close over the shifting gear.

Never in your life have you thought that one day you’d be scared to go over to your parents’ house, the place where you grew up. The way there is short, but you go through a whole emotional rollercoaster. One moment you want to throw up at the thought of telling your dad the truth, then confidence takes over you and you realize that you’re an adult, a grown-up who can freely decide who she wants to date and your dad doesn’t have a saying in it. Besides, doesn’t he want to see you happy? Doesn’t he want the best for you? Because Harry truly is all of that, why would he want to take that away from you?

You’re a mess by the time you pull up at your parents’ driveway after Harry, since you went with separate cars, you’re a full blown mess. Your palms are sweating, your thoughts are racing and the urge to just start the car again and drive away is way too tempting. But you don’t do that. Instead, you get out and walk up to Harry who is waiting for you at the front porch for you. His hand finds yours just for a moment, he squeezes it before letting go of it, the two of you walking up to the front door shoulder to shoulder.

Since you weren’t planning on visiting this morning, you didn’t bring your own keys, you have to ring the bell. It echoes painfully on the other side of the door and you take one last deep breath before the storm arrives.

Bailey, your sister opens the door and judging from the look on her face, it’s not gonna be much fun. She looks exactly like that one time when you didn’t come home after a party and also didn’t call your parents to let them know where you were. You were only seventeen, Bailey just turned twelve back then, she let you in since you lost your keys and her face told it all, what you could expect from your parents.

Now she looks exactly the same, just eight years apart and for a moment you think about running away again. But then your mature side steps forward and takes the lead.

“He is in his office,” Bailey simply tells you, holding the door open.

“Thanks, B,” you smile at her, walking in with Harry right behind you. You navigate your way down the hallway and through the living room until you arrive to the double doors of the office.

“Alright, here goes nothing,” you mumble under your breath before knocking on the door.

Footsteps are heard from the other side until the doors fly open and there is your dad, standing so tall and… rigid and most importantly with an expression that makes your whole inside shake. He is mad. Big time.

His eyes scan over you first, then move to Harry and for a split second you think he is about to launch at him or at least punch him in the face, but he does nothing like that. Instead, he turns around leaving the doors open, a signal to follow him as he walks back to his desk and sits down. It feels like you’d been called into the principal’s office because you did something that’s gonna earn you detention.

You’re an adult, no one can make you feel bad for doing what makes you happy! You scream at yourself.

Your dad still hasn’t said a word as he sits down and reaches for an envelope. He pulls something out of it and then snaps it to the desk. Stepping closer your stomach drops again as you see the photos of you and Harry from last Saturday when you were having dinner with Sarah and Mitch. There’s no doubt who made them and you’d love to know how they ended up at your dad, but you have to push that aside for now.

“Do you have something to tell me?” your dad asks, his tone is so dry, it almost hurts.

“Listen, it’s—“ Harry starts, but you cut him off. You know he would try to sugarcoat it somehow, but you think it’s better to just rip the bandaid off.

“It is what it is. I’m dating Harry,” you simply say and hear Harry suck his breath in just as your words roll off of your tongue.

Your dad’s face turns into a deep red and you fear he is about to blow up right in front of you. He is staring back so hard and you know he is trying to make you break with just his look, but it’s not gonna happen. Not this time. A sudden rush of adrenaline sweeps through you and it’s giving you just enough strength to stand your ground against him. Since no one is saying a word and the silence is starting to feel painful, you decide to elaborate.

“I’m sorry you didn’t find out about it from us, we wanted to tell, but we’ve been trying to figure out how.”

“It was nothing against you—“ Harry starts, but he gets cut off once again, this time by your dad.

“You just don’t try to explain anything in my house!” he snaps so loud, it makes you jump. “I trusted you with my business, I let you into my family’s life and this is how you thank me all of that?! By seducing my daughter?!”

You wince at his words and expect Harry to argue with him, to defend himself and tell him that it’s not the case, he didn’t seduce you, but he doesn’t say a word. He just stands there, staring back at your father and listens to the nasty things thrown at him.

“Dad, that’s—“

“No! You’re gonna listen to me, because this is my house and I had to find out about my best friend seducing my own daughter behind my back, making a fool out of me!”

“He didn’t seduce me!” you snap back, but when his eyes flash at you, it almost kicks all the air out of your lungs. “Dad, let us tell you how it happened, you’ll—“

“I don’t want to hear the dirty details!” he growls back, his fist meeting with the top of the desk. “How dare you betray me like that!”

“No one betrayed you, dad!” you argue, feeling your own anger bubbling in your chest. “It happened, it’s not like we can decide who we fall in love with!”

“Love?!” he barks back. “What do you know about love?! Clearly nothing if you think you love him!”

“You don’t know about that! You don’t know anything about us!”

“Because you didn’t tell me!”

“Would you have reacted differently? What would have been different if I told you right away? Because I have a feeling that nothing! You would have been just this stubborn and ignorant if I did.”

“I could have talked you out of wasting your time!”

Tears are dwelling in your eyes, hearing your own father talk like this about the man you love, the man who is supposed to be his friend. Looking over to your left you see Harry standing like a complete statue, just silently letting himself get humiliated for something he shouldn’t be held responsible for. You want to scream at him to say something, to stand up against your dad, but you just can’t. Instead, you turn back to face your dad, taking a step closer to him.

“Why does it hurt you to see me happy? Isn’t it what you want for me? To be happy and in love?”

“Of course it is, but this is not that,” he shakes his head vigorously. “You think he’ll make you happy?!”

“He already does!” you snap back, offended by his words, while Harry is still standing there without a word next to you. Is he in shock? Why isn’t he saying a word?! “He makes me happy, so what does it matter how old he is or how we know each other?” You’re desperate to make him understand that Harry is not a villain here, he didn’t do anything wrong, but it seems like your dad is way too stubborn to even consider anything you’re saying. The tears start dwelling in your eyes and you know you’re just moments away from starting to sob.

Your dad’s gaze slowly moves over to Harry and just by the look on his face you know whatever he is about to say… there won’t be any mercy in it.

“You really think you are what my daughter needs? You think you can be what she needs?”

The way your dad’s voice quieted down, it just made his words cut even deeper and they weren’t even addressed to you. Looking at Harry, you’re silently begging for him to finally say something, but his pink lips that kissed you so desperately not so long ago are now pressed tightly together, no word leaving them.

Your dad stands up from the desk, takes the photos from it and stepping closer to Harry he simply throws them at his chest, the papers flying around in the room from the strength he put into the movement.

“Dad, stop it,” you tell him, but there’s no use, he doesn’t even acknowledge you as he steps even closer to Harry, puffing his chest to dominate the situation.

“You’re just stealing her youth away. What could a guy like you give her, huh? Money? She has that on her own. You think you love her? I highly doubt that, you’re just alone, aren’t you? I know you well, Styles,” he hisses, calling him by his family name probably the first time ever in your presence. “I know that you couldn’t keep a woman by your side all this time and now you want to ruin my daughter? You are a pathetic excuse of a man and I’m not gonna let you hurt my daughter!”

While he kept his tone down, he shouted the last part and it broke the dam inside you. Tears are flowing down your cheeks and you’re desperate to get away from him, as far as possible. How can he be so cruel? How can he talk like this to his friend even if he doesn’t agree with what Harry did? This is not your father, not the man you idolized growing up, who grew up loving with everything you are.

Getting between Harry and him, you push him back, forcing him to look at you, snapping out of the pure anger he just directed at Harry.

“The only person here hurting me is you! I’m not a little girl anymore! I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about it earlier, but there’s nothing you can do to tear us apart! I love him, he loves me and he is the one I want to be with! You’ve always tried to set me up with all these different guys you thought would be perfect for me, so then now why aren’t you accepting that I finally found the man I truly love? Why are you trying to ruin my happiness?”

“You’re trying to tell me that this is what you want? Him? You want to live with someone who disrespects his friend the way he did with me?”

“He didn’t disrespect you. You have no idea what happened, I was the one who initiated everything, he was trying to keep himself away from me because of you! But we are adults, you can’t tell us what we can and can’t do!”

Your dad glances over your shoulder, straight at Harry again before he speaks up.

“You should have kept yourself away from her, like you wanted at first,” he sneers and now you’re the one seeing red.

Pushing your dad back you wipe the salty tears off of your cheeks before you speak your truth.

“Don’t you dare talking to him like that! He did nothing wrong, but loved and cherished me! Just because you’re so ignorant and disapprove what we have, it doesn’t mean we’ll obey you and just forget about each other!”

Turning around you look at Harry, who is still staring back at your dad, his eyes are glossy and his jaw is clenched. Glancing down you see his hands are curled into fists, his knuckles turning white from how hard he is squeezing them.

“Right, Harry? Please, say something!” you plead him, desperate to get him to talk so you know he is still on your side.

He holds his eye-contact with your dad even longer and you’re almost about to start screaming when his lips finally part and his teared up eyes slowly move to you. That’s when you realize… you lost him.

“He is right,” he whispers choked up, your throat closing up at his words. “This was a mistake.”

“No. No, no, no! It wasn’t! Don’t let him get into your head!” you beg to him, hands coming to cup his face.

Clearly, your dad doesn’t like the action, because he tries to pull you back, but you violently shake his hand off of yourself.

“Don’t touch me!” you scream at him in a way you never thought you’d ever do. But you don’t dwell on it any longer, just simply turn back to Harry, cupping his face like you originally wanted. “Harry, you’re just shocked from the situation, you can’t be serious. Please, don’t let him get into your head!”

“Y/N, stop,” he pleads through trembling lips, his hands wrapping around your wrists to pull your hands away from his face.

“No, I won’t stop, you’re being nonsense right now!”

“He is right,” he raises his voice at you. “I can’t give you what you want, Y/N. I was… a fool to think that this was right.” He chokes up again, a tear rolling down his cheek that he wipes away quickly. Then his eyes start flickering between you and your dad before he speaks up again. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, before turning around and rushing out of the room so fast, that for a moment you don’t even process what’s happening.

When you finally snap out of the shock, you run after him, but your dad once again tries to stop you.

“Y/N, don’t you dare���“

“I don’t fucking care! Is this what you wanted? You wanted to ruin my life? To break me? Well congrats, you did it!” you scream at him before pushing his hand off of you and running after Harry without a second thought.

You get past your mom and Bailey as well, they both look so concerned and worried as you rush out of the house, but you don’t have time to deal with them. They probably heard most of the screaming and shouting that went down in the office, there’s a lot to talk about with everyone, not just your dad.

When you run outside Harry is already almost at his car, so you sprint to him, getting between him and the car so he can’t sit in and leave just yet.

“Harry, please don’t go! Please don’t leave me!” you beg him, full on crying, your cheeks are soaking wet from your tears.

“Y/N, please don’t make this harder than it already is,” he breathes out shakily. You hold onto his shirt, bunching the fabric in your fists, like he could disappear from your grasp any moment.

“Harry, you promised!” you sob, your mascara probably melting down your face, but you couldn’t care less. “You promised that no matter what happens here, we’ll stay together!”

You feel like a child throwing a tantrum, but you just can’t help yourself. It hurts, your chest feels like it’s about to blow up any moment and if Harry gets into this car, leaving you… you’re not sure you’ll survive.

“You said you love me and you promised you wouldn’t give up on us!” You’re choking the words out, not able to contain your sobs anymore and you see his face contort from the pain, he looks like he is moments away from falling apart completely.

“You’ll be better off without me, Y/N. I still love you, that’s why I’m doing this. You deserve someone better, someone who…”

“Don’t say who treats me right, because that’s you! You are everything to me!”

He winces at your words, like they cut through his skin and when his eyes find yours again, you sib at the ocean of pain you see in them. His chest is heaving just like yours, like he needs all his energy to stay stood right now and you take this moment to pull him down and press your lips against his hard, kissing him like your life depended on it. At first, he stays still, resists your try, but you don’t pull back, your hands move up to cup his face and you’re silently begging for him to finally move.

And then he kisses you back. His lips open and he kisses you back so eagerly, he devours you right then and there. But as fast as it came, the moment vanishes and he pulls back, pushing you away from him not too harshly and while you’re still recovering from the kiss, he quickly gets into the car and shuts the door open, the noise of it snapping you back into reality.

“No! Harry! Don’t leave!” you start smacking your hand against the window, but he doesn’t look your way, just ignites the car and as you’re screaming your lungs out, he drives away.

You stand on the driveway, completely numb, sobbing uncontrollably for God knows how long, staring after Harry’s car that’s long gone. In just a couple of minutes, you go through probably every stage of grief, but then you get stuck at anger. You could break something, anything that comes into your way for what just happened, but who should you blame for it?

Vivian, for taking the photos? Was she the one to send them to your father or did she forward them to Emmett and he was the heartless asshole to ruin your life like this? Or maybe you should be mad at Harry for breaking his promise to you? For not standing up against your father when you needed him the most?

No. You’re the angriest at your father, because he actually turned out to be the petty, ignorant shadow of himself you feared to meet upon coming clean to him.

Wiping your cheeks with the back of your hand, you turn around, the sobbing mess you were just minutes ago is gone, disappointment and hurt took its place and you’ll let your father know just how badly he messed this one up.

Marching back into the house you face your sister first, but when she sees the state you’re in, she doesn’t even dare to talk to you, just watches you head back into your dad’s office and there he is, sitting at his desk, staring ahead of him as your mother is scolding him. She stops right away when she sees you walk in, they both look up at you with wide eyes, as if they just saw a ghost.

“Mom, would you give us a sec?” you quietly ask her.

She hesitates, but nods her head at last before walking out and closing the door behind her, all while you just stare at your dad blankly.

“Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted?” you ask, no screaming, no shouting, just standing there with no expression on your face and you watch him go pale at the sight of you. “You raised me to look for the things that make me happy and go after them no matter what the cost if them is. Now that I did that, you took it away from me and for what? What was the reason behind it?”

“Y/N, he is… he is way too old for you.”

“No, he is not. Fourteen years. The world has seen way worse things than that. What was the real reason behind what you did?” you push, knowing well the age couldn’t be what made him do it.

He opens his mouth several times but closes it back over and over again, no words leaving it. A bitter laugh falls from your lips as you take a deep breath.

“Congrats. You just… completely shattered my heart,” you tell him and with that, you turn around and walk out. He doesn’t try to stop you.

“Y/N, honey…” your mother stops you and looking at her, you break again, the tears spilling out of your eyes. She pulls you into her arms, kissing the top of your head. “I’ll talk to him. It’s gonna be alright, hun.”

“It doesn’t matter. I lost him,” you sob, hugging her tight, desperately needing the comfort.

“He’ll come around. He is your father, he loves you no matter what.”

“I’m not talking about dad,” you shake your head, letting go of her. “Harry. I really think I lost him,” you breathe out before heading out. You can’t stay any longer in this house.

It’s all a blur, how you get home, but the next thing you know is that you’re sitting on the floor of your shower, the hot water running down your back as you stare ahead of you blankly. You simply refuse to acknowledge how your life fell apart in just a few hours. You never know how fragile your happiness is until it’s completely shattered.

It’s been a couple of hours since you left your parents’ house and you’ve tried to call Harry a hundred times, but he never answered. You even thought about showing up at his place, but your conscience talked you down so you headed home and now you’re swimming in your own pity and pain. When you were feeling the absolute worst you called your boss that you won’t be coming to work in the morning, you caught a stomach bug. Your worn-out, deadly voice just added to your little lie and he didn’t even question it, just told you to get better and take more days if needed.

It’s hard to keep track of everything that goes through your mind, from what you could have done better to how to get back the man you love. Unfortunately, you get to the conclusion that if Harry doesn’t want to be with you, you can’t force him to come back and it feels like a knife to think about a life you have to live without him.

Sometime in the middle of the night you eventually fall asleep, tired and drained emotionally and physically too. You don’t dream, it’s just complete darkness all through the night, until you gain your consciousness back and see that it’s bright outside. You’ve slept through most of noon and your body can feel the lack of fuel, so you’re quick to eat whatever you grab first from your fridge. Checking your phone you see that Isha has called you a couple times in the morning, she probably wanted to know why you didn’t go to work, but you don’t think you have the energy to tell her what really happened yesterday.

As you spread out on your couch, not even planning to move for the rest of the day, your thoughts return to the photos that were sent to your dad. Vivian couldn’t mail them, she doesn’t even know your dad’s full name, let alone his address. That leaves you with one option.

It had to be Emmett. That fucker had the nerve to send you one last fuck you, even months after your break up because he couldn’t accept that you were the one who threw him out.

The more you think about it, the angrier and hungrier for revenge you are getting. You let him get away with so many things during your relationship and even before that. This cannot go unnoticed, he can’t just go away with ruining other people’s life. No, not this time.

Your rage almost blinds you as you jump up from the couch and rush into your bedroom to put on some normal clothes. It’s three in the afternoon and you know exactly where to find him.

Emmett studied law because his father wanted him to be a lawyer. He barely finished school, his grades were almost failing, but somehow he managed to get that degree and he is now working at his father’s law firm. His dad has always loved you, because he felt like you were pulling Emmett with you, encouraging him to finally become an adult. Often when the two of you had a fight, his dad would take your side and make him apologize to you.

So if Emmett decided to pull your dad into this nasty business, you’re gonna do the same with his, but there won’t be any mercy in it.

An eerie feeling of nostalgia washes over you when you push the heavy glass door open of the law firm’s building. Last time you were here you brought lunch for Emmett, like a good girlfriend, now you wish you put laxative in his sandwich. Luckily, the girl at the front desk has no idea that you shouldn’t be here and when you smile at her warmly, she lets you go up without a second guess. So Emmett hasn’t been too vocal about your break up at his work place, huh.

Emmett’s desk is right in front of his dad’s office, so he can’t miss you as you walk up to the door. He makes a double turn upon seeing you, his whole face going pale at your arrival.

“Y/N, what are you—“

“Shut the fuck up,” you tell him, knocking on the door of his dad’s office. He is quick to stumble out from behind his desk to stop you, but before he could reach you the door flies open and his dad, Robert is standing tall in front of you, a surprised, but warm smile on his face upon seeing you.

“Y/N! What a pleasant surprise!” His eyes switch over to his son, who is anxiously standing right behind you, you can sense his presence.

“Hello Robert, do you have some time for a little chat perhaps?” you ask, voice as sweet as honey.

“Y/N, what are you—“ Emmett attempts to interfere, but you ignore him completely.

“I promise I won’t take up much of your time,” you add, looking at Robert, who seems quite confused about what this is truly about.

“Sure, come on in,” he invites you inside at last and as you walk in, you notice that Emmett is coming with you as well. “Son, what is this… What’s happening?”

Robert returns to his desk, inspecting you and Emmett as well with a puzzled look on his face.

“Y/N you shouldn’t be here,” Emmett growls in your way, but you just brush your hair over your shoulder and taking a deep breath you get down to business.

“I think I should. Because I assume you have no idea what your son has been up to, Robert. And I just wanted to clear the air.” Slowly you turn your head to face Emmett and the fear you see in his eyes almost makes you laugh. “And make us even,” you then add with a sweet, innocent smile.

“I can’t wait to find out what this is about,” Robert sighs, leaning back in his chair, already having a feeling that his son has screwed up. Royally.

“I hope you know that we are no longer together, haven’t been for about two months,” you start.

“Yeah, heard about that,” Robert nods, his jaw clenching as his eyes jump over to his son before back at you.

“Well, I assume you heard the story differently about how we parted ways. Because according to your son, I have cheated on him with a family friend and that’s what ended our relationship. Does this version ring a bell?”

“Yes, this is exactly what Emmett has told me, but if I’m being honest, I was having a hard time believing it,” he admits and relief bubbles in your throat. He was leaning towards your side even before you came here.

Emmett growls beside you and you don’t even have to look his way to know what he is going through. He could never please his father, no matter how hard he tried, he was never enough for his dad which is sad in a way, you often ended up being the shoulder he cried on because of this issue, but right now you can’t give a flying fuck about how hurtful this is for him. Not after what he did.

“We broke up because Emmett had been treating me like shit, like I was just there for his entertainment and not because I was his partner,” you start, the rage clawing up its way on your spine.

And then you tell him all about how that one weekend happened, you even tell about finding comfort at Harry, because you’re not ashamed of it, you were as free as a bird, no one can make you feel bad for doing what was good for you. And of course, you also share Emmett’s stunt. How he got the pictures of Vivian and decided to send them to your father with the pure intention of hurting you.

All along, Robert listens intently, no word leaving his mouth until you’re finished, until you’ve gotten everything off of your chest and when you’re done, he is staring back at you with an expression you can’t quite read and for a moment you panic and think that maybe you shouldn’t have come here. And then he finally speaks up.

Robert’s eyes move over to his son and pushing himself away from the desk he stands up in an agonizingly slow pace, leaning onto his desk as his eyes pierce into Emmett’s fear filled face.

“Apologize. Now,” he orders in a tone that sends shivers down your spine. It radiates power and authority and you swear you see Emmett’s hands shaking as he remains seated beside you, frozen in fear. So when he doesn’t move or speak, something snaps in his father. His fist slams against the desk, making you both jump. “I said apologize!” he barks and you gasp for air, you’ve never seen him like this, like a ticking bomb, ready to explode any time and destroy everything around him. As a lawyer, you always knew Robert could turn into an intimidating, scary version of himself, but you never thought you’d actually witness it happen.

“A man doesn’t act like this and I didn’t raise an absolute loser! I will not let my son treat any woman like garbage! How dare you spread lies and hurt her like that?!” Robert continues, lashing completely out on Emmett, who is just sitting there, like a little child, his eyes tearing up and for a moment you almost feel bad for putting him into this situation, but then you remember all the pain he caused you. For once, you won’t let it slide, he needs to be punished for his actions.

Emmett slowly turns to face you, the smugness you’re so used to is long gone from his face as he speaks up.

“I-I’m sorry, Y/N,” he mumbles, barely audible.

“Louder! Speak up for God’s sake!” Robert orders, making Emmett jump again.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry for what I did!” he says, this time a lot louder, but his voice is still shaky.

Robert takes a deep breath, settling back into his chair, smoothing over his shirt as he tries hard to contain his anger.

“Y/N, I’m sorry you had to go through that because of my son. He had no right to do any of that and I’m giving you my word that he’ll atone for his mistakes and taught a lesson he won’t forget as long as he lives,” Robert sneers between his teeth.

“I just want him to leave me alone and let me find the happiness I deserve,” you say, turning to face Emmett who is not looking at you, instead, his eyes are glued to the floor at his feet. “I didn’t do anything wrong and I wasn’t gonna let someone mistreat me the way he did.”

“You don’t have to worry about my son, Y/N. And I’m sorry you had to go through that because of him. You have my word that by the time I’m done with him, he’ll regret even just thinking about hurting you ever in this life.”

You have no words, just nod as you stand from the chair and pay one last glance at Emmett, the man you once thought you loved, but only because you had not experienced true love just then. Now you know what it is, because Harry showed you.

And you’ve lost him.

It takes some time to pull yourself together enough to realize that time waits for no one and you can’t just lie in your pit of sorrow forever, even though that’s all you want to do for a long time if not forever.

Two days pass by and you busy yourself with as much work as possible. On the night after you paid your visit to Emmett’s dad Isha came over and let you cry on her shoulder, letting out all your pain and hurt and you’ve been feeling a bit better since then, but you still miss Harry terribly.

Now it’s past seven pm on Thursday, the office has cleared out an hour ago, but you wanted to stay as long as possible. You’re way ahead of your weekly tasks, but it’s still better than sitting at home on your own, pretending like your heart is not broken anymore.

It’s the same routine over again. You get home, sit for a solid twenty minutes before forcing yourself to eat something for dinner and then head to bed as early as possible. But tonight your routine gets interrupted.

Your doorbell rings right when you are about to take a shower and you stop in your tracks, because you weren’t expecting anyone. Walking up to the door you open it slightly and you can’t mask your surprise when you find your dad there.

“H-hey,” he breathes out, like he is afraid that you’re gonna lash out on him. “Sorry for coming here unannounced, but… I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”

“Oh. Um, come in,” you tell him, a little unsure of what he is doing here, but you’re not gonna send him away, even after everything that happened.

The two of you sit on your couch, it’s clear he has a lot to say, but he is trying to figure out how to start, so you just wait and wait, until he finally speaks up.

“Y/N, I am so sorry for… everything I said and… how I acted. I promise I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Well you did. A lot.”

It slips out harsher than you expected, but you’re telling him the truth. For your surprise, he doesn’t try to defend himself, he just nods in agreement.

“I know. And I’m terribly sorry for that. I can… I can explain.”

“Then do it. Because I don’t see why you’d want to ruin my happiness the way you did. You were always so eager to set me up with guys, you did it not so long ago too. And then when I finally find the man I want to be with, you completely ruin it!”

“I know! I know and I’m sorry!” he growls. “I panicked! I panicked, because… I saw the way you were looking at him. I saw that glimmer, that sparkle I knew so well and I got panicked that… that I’m gonna lose my daughter. That you won’t need me anymore, because there will be a man in your life more important than me. I know, I’m selfish, but I just couldn’t help myself.”

The man you are seeing now is a thousand miles away from the one you saw on Monday, the one that chased away the man you love. He is broken and desperate and even though he hurt you immensely, he is still your dad.

“But wasn’t it what you wanted me to find? The man I look at that way you told me about? Weren’t you expecting me to find him?” you ask, already feeling your throat closing up.

“I was!” he breathes out shakily. “Or I thought so. I was just… struck that my little girl grew up and it scared me for a minute. I was desperately holding onto the thought of having you around forever and that was a mistake.”

“But you also said a lot of things about Harry too. That was just… horrible.”

“I know. And I’m not proud of that either,” he shakes his head, before rubbing his face with his palms. “I was trying to hurt him enough to leave you because I wasn’t ready to see you with someone and it even hurt me more that… I just couldn’t…” He is fighting himself, tripping over his words, but at this point you just want to hear the truth.

“Dad, just tell me. I just want to hear it all,” you plead. He takes a deep breath nodding before he continues.

“Deep down I knew he is the kind of man I imagined for you. The kind that would treat you right, but because I was panicked, I had to find something to hurt him with and… him being older was the only thing I could hold against him. But… I know it doesn’t matter.”

Tears stream down your cheeks as you sniffle at his words. You understand where he was coming from, but it’s still hard to process he went into such depths just to break you apart from Harry. You want to hate him, stay mad at him forever, but it’s clear that you can’t do any of them. You still love him, it’ll however take some time for you to trust him again and forgive him for what he did.

“Right after you left, your mother basically beat sense into me,” he admits continuing.

“Wait, did she actually hit you?” you ask with widened eyes.

“No,” he shakes his head with a short, dry chuckle. “Though I would have deserved. But she put me back to my place and helped me realize how big of a screw up it all was and I just knew that I needed to make it right.”

“It still took you days to come here,” you breathe out, a bit puzzled what took him so long. He nods taking a deep breath.

“Because I went to Harry first.”

Your heart skips a beat. Your dad met Harry? He talked to him?

“I knew that if I wanted you to even consider forgiving me, I had to make things right with him first.”

“So you talked to him?” you ask, your voice dying down at the end, already choking up even at just the thought of Harry.

“I met him at his office. Went there with the pure intention of apologizing and talking sense into him to not throw it away, to not… throw you away.”

“But he doesn’t want me back, does he?” you ask, despair dripping from your words. It’s your worst nightmare, finding out that he doesn’t want anything to do with you and his radio silence has been proving this theory of yours right so far. But your dad shakes his head.

“Actually, I couldn’t even start before he told me he wants to resign, give all his rights back to me or a new owner of my choice.”

“What?”

“He said that wouldn’t feel right leading the company after what happened.”

“Did you try to convince him not to? He can’t just… throw everything away!” you gasp in shock. This is going even worse than you expected.

“I tried, believe me, I tried. I apologized, told him that I was in the wrong, that I didn’t mean anything I said and basically told him everything I told you now. But it was as if like he wasn’t even listening, he was so set on resigning, he kept saying that it’s for your sake, and that I was right about him. That he was just sucking your youth away a-and—“

“I’m sick of everyone deciding over what I should be doing with my youth!” you snap, the bubbling anger now stronger than ever. First your dad, now Harry, you’re over having others decide what you should be doing, when you are one hundred percent capable of deciding on your own. “Why is it so hard to believe that I know what I want? That I know what’s best for me?!”

“You’re right,” your dad breathes out, clearly regretting that he was once one of those doubting you. “I know that know, learned it in the hard way, but it seems like Harry is too stubborn to believe it. At least not when it’s coming from me.”

“You… you think he’ll listen to me?”

“You’re surely the only one to stand a chance. And if he is really the one you want to be… you should give it another try.”

“He is not answering my calls, dad.” The tears start flowing again, not able to control your emotions. “It’s a clear sign that he doesn’t want to see me a-and I don’t know what to do, but he really is the one I want to be with!”

“Honey,” he sniffles and you notice that his eyes glossed up too. “I know what you’re capable of.” Reaching out his hand takes yours, squeezing it tight. “My daughter goes after what she wants, no matter what. This time should not be an exception either.”

The luxurious apartment has never been this lived down, like a bomb exploded and left chaos behind with a man in the middle of it, who fell apart himself in the detonation. Or maybe he was the bomb himself.

It’s late, but Harry couldn’t tell himself what time it exactly is. Only some dim lighting is coming from somewhere in the place, maybe the bathroom? He doesn’t really know, but it’s the only reason he is not in the pitch dark. Still wearing his clothes from earlier today, the shirt is wrinkled and the first few buttons are ripped open, because he didn’t have the patience to actually undo them when he got back from the office. A half empty bottle of scotch is in front of him on the kitchen island, some of it waiting for him poured out into a glass and it surely won’t last long. Not when all he can still think about is… you.

“Fuck,” he breathes out shakily, downing the rest of the drink, almost throwing the glass back to the counter, it’s a miracle it doesn’t shatter into pieces.

Harry has been through hell since Monday. Several times. And quite frankly, he doesn’t think he’ll ever see the light, not without you. But the voices in his head are telling him that he should keep himself away from you in order to give you a chance for happiness. God, your screams and the look in your eyes is still burned into his mind, the way you begged him to stay, not to listen to your dad and just stay with you. It was the hardest thing he has ever had to do, walking away from you and keeping himself away from you after that.

It truly broke him.

Grunting he leans onto the counter and tries to get his head straight enough to at least drag himself into the shower and then to bed. It’s gonna take all of his energy, something he is not rich in lately.

Then he hears the front door open and he freezes.

Walking in you’re taken aback by the darkness and at first you think he is not even here. You notice the mess, that the once spotless, clean home is now completely all over the place. Then you see the light coming from his bathroom and as you look around, walking further inside slowly you finally see him. Hunched forward, his back facing you, barely just a shadow of the confident man you know and love so much.

“Harry?” you call out and notice how his hand grips the edge of the counter even tighter. “Harry, it’s just me,” you speak up again when he doesn’t move.

“You think I don’t know your voice? The sound of your steps?”

His voice is so low, it sends a shiver down your spine right away, but he is still not turning around.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“But I did. Because I’m not letting you ruin everything that easily.” You try to sound confident, like you are not shaking like a leaf inside.

He shakes his head that’s hanging low and you hear him exhale sharply.

“You need to leave, Y/N.”

“I’m not leaving. You are not getting rid of me, Harry,” you let out a shaky chuckle. “Why do you want to leave your position at the company?” He mumbles something, but you can’t make out what it is. “Speak up,” you tell him, finally finding the confidence you’ve been looking for since you’ve arrived. And it works because he finally pushes himself away from the counter, straightening his posture, though he is still not turning around.

“I said… Because I don’t deserve it, just like I don’t deserve you.”

Anger is clawing up your spine again, you’re starting to be fed up with the same old shit you’re getting over and over again. So you suck it up and not gonna bulge until you make him understand that he is in the wrong.

“That’s fucking bullshit. We both know it is and I’m not gonna let you decide what I should be doing or what I deserve. It’s not your job to decide.”

“Well… that’s too bad,” he breathes out.

“You know what’s too bad? That I have to keep proving that I know what’s good for myself, that I know what makes me happy, and that is… that is you, Harry! You are the one I want, the one that makes me happy and nothing can change it, not even your stubborn ass! And fucking turn around when I’m talking to you!”

Now you’re shouting. You didn’t mean to, but it just happened and you couldn’t hold yourself any longer. But it finally get shim to move, he slowly turns around, his face coming to your sight and it breaks your heart again. See him so… not himself, the pain is evident, he is not even trying to hide it at this point. Taking a step forward you reach out, but he flinches away from your hand so you stop mid-action and pull your hand back.

“I know dad came to see you. He talked to me too. I know it’s hard to forget about everything he said, but I know he didn’t mean it. None of that was true. You are not taking my youth away, you’re not ruining anything for me and if you don’t believe me, you’re a fucking idiot. Because even after everything, I’m still choosing you, I’m still here, baring myself for you, even when you’ve been pushing away every chance you got. So now you’re gonna listen to me and if you dare to say you don’t want me even after that… I’m gonna leave you to be.”

Staring at him you wait for a reaction, any reaction and then… he finally nods. So taking a deep breath you start talking, even though you have no idea where to start or where to head. You just want to make things right.

“I thought that I knew what love was. I really did. I’ve loved a lot of things in my life and some people, even. But… none of that was like the way I feel about you, Harry. I fell in love with you harder and faster than ever and I’ve known it from the moment we finally let our guards down that this was what I’ve been looking for my whole fucking life! You make me happy, really, truly happy and it actually offends me that you don’t see it! You are… everything I need and want, Harry. I love waking up next to you, I love that you always take the time to make sure I eat in the morning. I love that you’re never busy to text me even on your roughest days. It makes me happy when you let me know you’re thinking about me, because I always think about you. Always. I love when you peek at me when we are out with others, always making sure I’m alright. I love how… how you look at me, how you talk to me and let me talk all my nonsense,” you breathe out with a soft chuckle. “I just love everything about you. And if you think that anything or anyone else is ever gonna make me happy the way you do… you are wrong.”

You take a deep breath, need to collect your thoughts a little especially when you see his eyes tearing up as he just stands there, staring back at you, completely frozen.

“Harry, do you think I’m smart?”

Your question catches him by surprise, you can tell, so it takes a few heartbeats for him to answer.

“Of course. You are… brilliant, Y/N.”

“Then why do you think I don’t know what’s good for me? Why do you keep making decisions for me?”

Tears run down his cheeks as he shakes his head, his lips trembling and you take this as you queue to finally close the distance between the two of you. Taking his face in your hands you could almost die from happiness when he doesn’t move away from you, instead, he melts into your touch.

“Harry, you make me happy. I love you and I know you love me too. Why are you trying to fight me on this? Why don’t you let us be happy, hm?”

“I just… I’m so afraid I’m gonna ruin this, Y/N. I don’t want to hurt you and I’m afraid that I’ll screw it up a-and that your dad’s gonna be right.”

“It’s not gonna happen, Harry,” you promise him, fighting your own tears with not much luck.

“But what if I do screw something up?”

“Then we’ll figure it out, okay? You and me, together. Probably I’ll screw things up, would you leave me because of that too if it was the other way around? Would you hate me?”

“Of course not. There’s nothing you could do that would make me hate you, Y/N.”

“Well, that’s exactly how I feel about you, Harry,” you point out, pushing yourself up against him, needing to be as close to him as possible. “Don’t push me away. If you want me to be happy… that’s only gonna happen with you.”

He is fighting himself, hard. You can tell from the way he shuts his eyes and clenches his jaw. This is the moment, he is gonna decide whether he wants you or he is gonna push you away for good. The seconds turn into minutes and the longer the wait is, the more you’re starting to think that he’s gonna tell you to leave.

But then you feel his hands come up to hold your waist and in just a second, he wraps himself around you and you hold him just as tight, his face burying in your neck as he sobs against your skin, his fingers digging into your flesh deep, but you don’t mind it.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I love you. I love you so much…” he mumbles as you just hold him tight.

“I know. I love you too, Harry. I love you.” You mold into one big mess, but it doesn’t matter, because you got him back, he is in your arms, done with trying to run from you.

“I’m sorry for everything. You are… You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m never letting you go.”

You can’t help, but let out a happy laugh, even through your tears. Cupping his face you push him away just enough so you can look into his eyes.

“Alright, good. Because I have no idea what I would have done if you didn’t take me back,” you chuckle, wiping his cheeks with your palms.

“I’m glad you didn’t have to find it out,” he smiles and it warms your heart. “So you really want to be with me?”

“Harry, have you listened to what I just said?” you laugh in disbelief.

“I did, I just… It’s still a bit hard for me to believe that this is what you want. I mean… that you want me.”

“I would be stupid not to want you, Harry. You are… perfect.”

“Oh, I’m far from that,” he breathes out, his hand squeezing your waist.

“No, you’re perfect for me.”

He doesn’t answer for a few moments, just nods slowly, as if he is letting your words finally sink in.

“Well, I’ll try my best to give you everything you desire.”

“Already succeeded in that,” you smile at him, pulling him closer until your lips brush against his. “You are all I desire,” you whisper, before finally kissing him.

You didn’t think coming to the cabin nearing the end of October was gonna be a good idea, it can get way too cold for your liking, but now as you’re slowly waking up, a familiar warmth behind you, well, basically everywhere around you, it’s not that bad.

Blinking your eyes open you stare out the enormous windows facing the breathtaking view, but there’s another view you want to see more. Turning around in Harry’s arms you finally lay your eyes on him, his sleepy face mushed into the pillow, lips slightly parted, his curls all messy but cute. Your heart skips a beat, even after being with him for months. It’s still like the first time you woke up in his arms.

“You really should stop staring at me while I sleep,” he mumbles without even opening his eyes. His arms tighten around you as you giggle and kiss his soft lips leaning closer.

“Why? I like doing it.”

“S’ a little creepy,” he hums, his eyes finally opening and you see his green irises. “But it’s okay, I still love you.”

“Yeah? You do?” you grin at him, running a finger over the line of his nose and then his lips, as if you haven’t memorized every tiny detail about him already.

“I really do,” he smirks lazily, before leaning closer to kiss you softly. Then his head falls back into the pillow, letting out a long sigh.

“Do you remember the last time we were here?” you ask after a while. He doesn���t answer long enough to make you think he has fallen back asleep.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget about it,” he then finally answers. His eyes open again, this time staying like that as he studies your face. “Why are you asking?”

“I just feel nostalgic. Kind of feels like it was yesterday, but also like a lifetime ago.”

“A lot has happened since then,” he hums softly, his fingers delicately dancing on your naked back under the covers.

“Yeah,” you nod, teeth sinking into your bottom lip. “But I would do it all over again just to get here.”

His lips part, but then close again, a soft smile tugging on the corners before he kisses you, this time dragging it out a little longer, taking his time with you. Simply, because he can. Because he has all the time in the world, because now he knows that you’re here to stay and nothing can ruin what you have.

“Thank you for not giving up on me,” he breathes against your lips, his words making you shiver right away.

“Well, I couldn’t just let go of a man who can finally handle me,” you chuckle, referring back to the conversation you had in this same cabin back then, when it all started.

Harry chuckles, pushing you to your back and getting on top of you.

“Oh, I’ll handle you, baby. I’ll handle you just right,” he grins, his lips devouring you already, showing you just how well he can handle you.

Thank you for reading! Please like/reblog if you enjoyed!

[cinnamonest]

Yandere Profile - Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece)

Every day. Every day I have to wake up. Look at myself in the mirror. Accept that I am sexually attracted to Monkey D Luffy. And I have to live with myself knowing that.

In all seriousness I love him so much he was one of my earliest anime crushes, he's my stretchy son, my paperclip IQ boy, my little meow meow, my sweet wanted-worldwide criminal, love of my life light of my sky. Imagine he yells out during sex just like he does the "yelling out the name of my attack" shounen thing while you fuck like imagine getting a fuckin Gum-Gum Cervix Bruising

Also note I'm not 100% caught up with One Piece (I mean, who is lol) and it's been a while since I watched it (actually picked it up again bc writing this made me want to go back to it!) so this will reflect what I've gotten to

That being said, because OP is so long and it's one of those pieces of media that takes such a long time to consume, which means people can't just "oh I'll finish it first then go back and read this", I tried avoiding spoilers except one very mild one. The mild spoiler just alludes to a person and their lineage without naming them (and while I had more on that character in here originally, it was kinda impossible to discuss them without more or less revealing the big spoiler of what happens to them, so yeah, I ended up going more general).

Tws: fem reader, n/s/f//w, general yandere content, noncon (in an... innocent/unintentional sort of way?), abduction, mentions of violence, rubber dick physics in case that weirds anyone out lol

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

Severity Scale

Intelligence/Perceptiveness: 3

Brutality: 6.5

Physical capability: 9.5

Mental/emotional instability: 6

Restrictiveness: 3

Sexual sadism: 3

Stubbornness: 8

What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

Look at it this way... your life will certainly never be boring!

It would actually be quite the transition for someone who is not used to a very... active, exciting lifestyle, to use more positive terms. To be someone going from a more quiet, mundane, average life, to suddenly being strung along to a life where you'll find yourself being in the forefront of witnessing superhumans and monsters of unbelievable power, clashes and high-intensity battles between many factions of said beings, and inevitably at some point ending up shot at... talk about a shift in lifestyle.

One important note is that due to his low perceptiveness, he's very bad at recognizing your bad mood, hesitancy, unwillingness, resentment, etc unless you're very blatant. He's not the best at just reading your expressions or tone of voice or anything of the sort, you really have to spell it out for him a lot of the time. If you're the type of person who drops hints rather than being blunt, you're gonna have to change that, for your own sake.

That being said, he has those occasional moments of surprising depth, saying something to you, particularly an analysis of you, that actually strikes you as uncharacteristically thought-provoking and perceptive, something about yourself you hadn't even realized. Of course, he himself says such things without even realizing how meaningful it is... and it's usually quickly followed by a statement more on par with his normal simple-mindedness.

And that characteristic simple-mindedness must be understood to really get him in the first place, to understand how you end up in your situation. It is certainly a bit different from a lot of obsessive lovers -- the primary emotions are generally the same, but the expression of it, and how those emotions are understood and acted upon, can often be different.

This is primarily a lack of a desire to understand complexities -- to him, there are a lot of things he doesn't really understand and doesn't care to. He's not a person who's going to spend hours exploring their feelings and origins, thinking through possibilities, panicking over what-ifs about how you feel about him, do a lot of emotional self-reflection, etc. Things are or aren't, his world is often very black-and-white, and one doesn't need to fully understand all the complexities within something to know what they want to do and act upon their desires, much like how one can operate certain machines, change the dial on a clock, unlock a lock with a key, etc, without fully understanding the entirety of how those mechanisms work.

People aren't really different. He could not tell you why he likes you or when it began, does not fully understand what the emotion itself is beyond a positive affection. And he's not going to restrain himself in any capacity for some sort of fear of rejection or desire to preserve any self-image. No, he's very immediately straightforward. That doesn't mean he's saying he loves you and wants to marry you or something from day one, no, but that's because he just doesn't recognize the feeling as such yet.

Rather, what this leads to is a lack of shame. Some obsessed lovers will try to prevent you from knowing about their stalking tendencies or awful behavior, they give you a little bit of space, because they don't want you to think poorly of them or mock them, they don't want you to be angry.

Luffy doesn't really care. Nothing is going to prevent him from being very openly clingy and touchy and fixated on you. He doesn't realize how obvious it is, but even if he did, he wouldn't care. So what? Of course he's fixated... why would he be embarrassed by that? Hiding one's feelings or trying so hard for them to not be understood is just pointless.

On another matter, he's actually very determined to make you part of the group, rather than just solely with him. Most yanderes by nature are incredibly selfish in their interactions with a darling -- darling is for themselves only, and not to be interacted with by others. They will lock you away, keep your interactions with others either extremely limited to highly trusted figures, or keep you away from others at all, limiting your interactions to themselves and themselves alone.

Luffy is a bit more lenient than most to begin with, but especially in the fact that he's going to do quite the opposite of that. He wants you to get along well with his friends! In his mind, you're every bit as much of a part of them as any other member. It would make no sense to lock you away, and at first he's too naive to even think about one of his most trusted of individuals stealing you away. He trusts them wholeheartedly... even though that may not a good idea on his part.

With others, though, strangers and enemies, those people he doesn't want you interacting with, and feels quite the opposite from his crew - that is, he assumes they ARE trying to harm you in some way, or at least are intimidating you, and can get overprotective, that sort of glare he gets when people really upset him.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

It's called recruitment, thank you very much.

We see in canon that when our boy has decided you're becoming a crew member... there's a pretty good chance you're becoming a crew member, one way or another, whether you like it or not. It's similar to the situation with Sanji -- he decides that you have a role to fill on board, and will accept no one else in the entire world but specifically you, and any rejection goes in one ear, out the other. Like talking to a brick wall. Perhaps you have some sort of talent, perhaps his brain has just decided it's necessary.

It's not like you're actually all too special, though, you're just a person he ran into at random, maybe someone who gave him directions or worked at a bar or something he came into. You're rather confused when he asks, comes up to you and tells you he needs you. It's not like he gives you the full detailed rundown, but it's still bewildering and confusing telling you all of a sudden that he's going to obtain the One Piece and become the Pirate King, you have to come with him because he needs you to join, he'll explain on the way anyway just put your stuff down and come on they're leaving tomorrow morning so you have to be ready by tonight and--

Yeah, if anything, you might think he's crazy at first, if not recognize him as 'that guy on the wanted posters in town.' So you react accordingly and try to back away or shut him down, but, that doesn't work out well. He's used to people being hesitant, that makes sense, but he's also very much used to the people who hesitated or fought him eventually joining anyway and coming to love the life they lead, so you will too!

Either way, he'll be pretty direct when it comes to you... as in, physical force. As in wrapping a rubbery appendage around you and dragging you with him. You really should not have been expecting anything elaborate or planned out of him in terms of abduction methods.

The unfortunate side of all this once he drags you onboard is that he has people to back him up, or to at least gloss over how unusual the behavior is. That's because at this point, the rest of them are more or less used to his antics, and since he was also so insistent with them, they have no reason to suspect it being for any other reason than him just being the way that he is... especially seeing as he actually does manage to get you on when they're not there (not that he planned that, it just turned out that way), so when they get on later and set sail, he just told them that you're there, but you went to sleep... which is true. Sorry about that, he didn't realize how strong his grip was until you went all limp, but as soon as you did he loosened up and you started breathing again, just not waking up.

Once awake, though, at first your natural assumption is to assume they're in on it. You feel too nervous at first to say anything, really. Realistically, most darlings will be too intimidated, or not even realize that they would help you if they knew how nonconsensual your presence is. You assume they're pirates, so they must be bad people right? They won't care if they find out you were forced here, they might even hurt you if you tried to get their help, so you just stay cold and quiet... until you spend a few days and slowly realize these are generally kind people, even if a few are a bit gruff or... strange people.

But at first, when you're thinking they're in on it and thus not speaking to them, meanwhile they think you're just abnormally shy, they effectively, albeit unintentionally, gaslight you to some degree into thinking it's normal, because for them, it is. In their minds, they just sort of perceive you as a bit grouchy, it hasn't hit them yet that you are truly, genuinely resistant. They don't realize just yet that his fixation on you goes beyond what they each experienced, nor think that he might have physically dragged you there (and if you came on your own like they assume, you must have wanted to right?) so they see it as merely the same as every other recruitment in their past.

As soon as you realize they're not that bad, you can try to confide in them if you want... but this puts them in a little bit of a dilemma. Like, they want to help you, and a few are willing to confront the captain on what's happened. To which he's... very transparent. Oh, yeah, she didn't wanna come, so I had to pick her up. There's a lot of heavy sighs, having to tell him you can't just do that! ...It's kinda unnerving to see how little the revelation seems to shock them, though... as if they're used to such outlandish things.

But he's very uncompromising about it, gets frustrated if they try reasoning with him, stubbornly says no. You have to be here. He refuses to listen.

That's where the dilemma comes in. They've never taken such a strong moral issue on his decisions before. They... don't really know what to do. Most of them can't really risk leaving, would never want to, and that wouldn't accomplish anything anyway, so, as awful as it sounds, they more or less end up accepting it to some degree. Several will try their absolute best to make life better for you and make you enjoy your time with them, though, so that's a plus at the very least. But in the end they're not really in a position to help you out all that much, they all have much bigger problems to worry about, and at this point, they can't afford to turn back and take you home, and it's not as if Luffy would ever let that happen anyway. So, uh, sorry, but... just endure it for now.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? 

Most of the time, it isn't restrictiveness that's keeping you trapped with him... it's the whole "surrounded by ocean as far as the eye can see" thing.

Consequently, most of the time he doesn't really need to be restrictive. It's not like you're dumb enough to think you can swim or even row that far. You more or less have freedom to roam the ship as you please, which is much better than many other poor darlings being tied up all the time.

But expect to be trailed. As previously noted, he's oblivious and shameless about his crush, doesn't feel the slightest amount of embarrassment or sheepishness blatantly following you from room to room, going wherever you go, like a lost puppy or something.

This is also the restraint used whenever you're off-ship and among civilization. He's clingy. Insufferably so. He cannot be away from you for more than a matter of minutes, and should he turn his head and find you gone, he'll immediately go looking for you. It's different from how he is with the others, where he's fine with splitting up to each accomplish different tasks each crew member needs to get done while they're docked. The same does not apply to you. He'll follow you wherever you go, or, more realistically, you will be following him everywhere he goes, attached by a grip on your wrist and being dragged along.

Should you run at an opportune moment while he's distracted, it really isn't difficult for him to get you back. He'll definitely notice your absence within a minute or two. Even if he can't immediately see you, it's incredibly easy for him to maneuver himself to high vantage points, from which it'll only take a very short time to spot you, considering you really couldn't have gone far in such a short time. It's also easy to utilize his body and slingshot himself to your general location (unfortunately at least once accidentally tackling you to the ground in the process... ouch).

He's not really mad at first, more worried and a bit frustrated. Hey... don't go running off like that. You'll get hurt or something. Good thing he found you. How come you didn't tell him where you were going...?

So yeah, he doesn't quite automatically assume you're trying to get away from him, and of course, you realize it's best if it stays that way, so you go along with his assumption and make up some excuse about how you got distracted or heard something. He'll believe you, at least this time. If it becomes a repetitive issue, or really just after the second time or so, he'll make sure to keep a really strong grip on your wrist the whole time, just to help you make sure you don't accidentally run off again!

If you snap and yell about how you're trying to get away from him, that you want to be free and go home and call him mean names, he gets more frustrated. He's like, already explained why you can't do that, and he already told you he wants you to be with him, so what gives? Did you forget or something? You really seem to have trouble understanding this... don't expect to get through to him.

But annoying as that may be, it's infinitely better than the average yandere's rage or hysteria and brutal punishments or the like for the same offense. So really, you might want to consider yourself lucky -- all you get is more and more carefully watched over.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

Poor thing. You know how easy it is.

It's not as if he doesn't have some surprisingly perceptive moments, but as a general rule, he is rather gullible, particularly in regards to you. Even if you're making up some extremely unlikely and unbelievable excuse, he'll probably buy it with a smile on his face.

That isn't to say, though, that it will work, particularly due to him being somewhat socially obtuse. It can backfire. Prior to abduction, you can make all your excuses about having somewhere you need to be or something you need to do, upon which, if they believed you, most people would understand as a social cue that you need to be left alone, but he just sees it as an opportunity to tag along! You're going to pick something up, go to this store? Okay, he'll head that way too, you can go together! This, of course, also makes it a bit awkward when you then have to go do the thing you weren't actually intending to do, just to maintain the lie.

Also, he can certainly learn. While he's never good at telling when you're lying in general, if he knows you've done so over and over, have been proven to lie to him time and time again, he will start becoming more guarded and assuming you're lying, become more suspicious of you. He hates lying, it makes him frustrated, he'll start confronting you on it with his irritation quite evident.

Thankfully, though, his emotions can be very easily manipulated, as well as being easily manipulated in general. When he is mad, he's very easy to distract with something he likes, and can turn from frustrated to excited in a mere moment if you should present him with something he wants or likes. It's something you'll ultimately end up rather grateful for. Likewise, he can be manipulated into doing whatever you want on the promise of getting something he wants in return (food, sex, etc).

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

If you have a high tolerance for a suffocating presence, Luffy is actually one of the better yanderes you could be stuck with. This is namely because you won't be undergoing the typical "chained to the bed, kept in a cage, all your loved ones killed" sort of thing, no. He wants you to be a part of his life, which means sharing each and every adventure. He trusts himself and his crewmates to be able to ensure your safety (except for rare cases, in which case he will ensure you are kept away from conflict).

This is... actually kind of the opposite of most yanderes, in the way it can work out for a darling who wants absolutely none of it. No, you can't stay in bed all day, you can't stay locked away in the room! Why would you do that? It's depressing... it's sunny outside and there's a lot of things to be accomplished and done, you have to come with him and stay by his side, whenever you're docked somewhere, or at least out on deck with him if you are all at sea.

So yes, no staying inside, if he's going into town so are you. He can get pouty and frustrated, if you try to stay inside and have a mopey, bad mood about it. Why are you laying around all sad? Just come outside. It's easy. If you say you don't feel up to it... oh, that's alright. He'll carry you on his back. No that's not an offer, that's a statement. You're getting slung out of bed and (thankfully while attached to him) slingshot into the open sky and all the way to shore before you can even blink. He just sort of believes you'll be fine and change your mind once you get out.

Many darlings might kill to be in a position where they can go outside, you know... but honestly, even they would quickly end up with the same sentiment as yourself on the matter. Honestly, sometimes it feels more like babysitting a particularly hyperactive child, being dragged from place to place by him and trying (and failing) to stop him from rushing headfirst into interactions with people you come across, regardless of how shady or dangerous you think they look.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

The thought of constructing some list of guidelines for you is simply something that never crosses his mind. He's generally a pretty lax and easygoing person in terms of the personalities of others and doesn't want to make any attempt to control your behaviors... and if there's something he really wants to accomplish, he'll just sort of... force his way into it. He wants you to go with him somewhere? He can just grab you by the wrist and take off in the direction you're headed, if not pick you up (or even rocket you together in the right direction). He wants to talk to you? He can just barge his way into whatever conversation you may be having, or pick you up and pull you close and talk to you.

Should you be difficult, doing something like silent treatment or just being rude, at first he doesn't really... get it. Honestly he can pester you into doing what he wants without even intentionally trying. Silent treatment is met with so many hey, hey's, and what's wrong? and can you hear me? that eventually you snap and talk back anyway. If you're mean, he sort of recoils, wide-eyed, but not discouraged. Huh. Okay. You seem really mad or something. He'll take care of whatever the problem is. Just say the word. Or maybe you don't wanna tell? Wonder why that might be...

If you get the courage to tell him you don't like being here, you want to go home, you're mad he took you away, etc, he does get it, but he doesn't quite grasp the severity of it, how intense your emotion is. Oh, sorry. That's about the most remorse you'll get. His attitude is basically 'yeah, sorry about kidnapping you, but too late to do anything now so anyway--' in the sense that the gravity of the situation goes over his head. He'll just kinda go right back to talking, asking you if there's anything else you want. Why are you so sad all the time? Come outside and get some fresh and air and stuff and you'll be fine. But you'll never know if you stay in here. Here, he'll help you by lifting you into the air and carrying you out...

If you say you want him to let you go, again, it's a half-hearted, oh, sorry, can't do that... you've definitely already been associated with him by this point (because of his complete lack of hesitation to have you seen by enemies), and so you probably have a bounty already. Can't let you go and let you get captured. Don't worry, it's fun here anyway.

There is no given command not to run away, because he doesn't think you would. If you ever do try to run, bolt when his back is turned for a moment or the like, he does make that the sole rule -- don't do that again. It's one of his more frustrated moments, so he has no problem issuing a direct order. But he'll be keeping a closer eye on you, so you won't really get the opportunity anyway.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

One of the first issues he has is recognizing the feeling he's experiencing. He doesn't recognize what he feels as "jealousy," it's not something particularly familiar to him in this context. All he knows is that when you talk to certain others, or even other crewmates if you're talking to them too much (or if you respond positively to them but negatively to him), he feels... a sort of knot in his stomach. So he thinks he's sensing danger perhaps, or maybe just sick. Thus, he can actually avoid addressing the feeling for a short time, feels like either something will happen or the feeling will go away on its own.

It persists, though. It doesn't go away. And it really flares up at certain moments, too, so he notices, takes note of in his mind. It flares up at certain moments where you laugh and smile. It's odd, because he normally likes it when you do those things.

Except this time it's not on your own, or over something that just happened. You're laughing and smiling because of someone else. Someone who said something to you. He finds himself desperately wanting to know what it was that was said, that gives you such a reaction. He wants to know why you would react in such a way, and why it makes him feel the way it does.

Honestly it's probably someone else that ends up recognizing it in the end and has to tell him, because it becomes very, very obvious. Again, he's really, truly shameless about most things, so he simply acts on his impulses rather than considering how his actions may be perceived or how obvious it will make his thoughts and feelings. The pit in his stomach tells him to pick you up, drag you away, go off to where you can be alone. That's what soothes the burning feeling, what makes him feel at ease.

And, of course, considering how direct that solution is, and the fact that he emotes very strongly and every feeling he has is immediately readable on his face and posture, it becomes very obvious to all the others within no time. That includes you, of course, if it wasn't already very clear to you. He's the only person who doesn't know how he's feeling.

But they don't quite realize the severity. They think it's just kinda him being the way that he is, but that it's ultimately harmless. That is, until it escalates, which it inevitably will -- he becomes uncharacteristically short-tempered/easily upset, and noticeably so, whenever he sees you with the subject of his frustration, and will make attempts to keep you away from them altogether. Generally, if it is another crew member, they do have respect for him and will ultimately steer clear of you in an attempt to deescalate. Which is not exactly great for you, but it prevents things from getting worse.

After the matter, though, he does get generally more restrictive than he was before. The naivete of his sense of trust is somewhat shattered, he becomes a bit paranoid. This means you might actually finally get the "locked in a room" treatment, except generally that will only be when he's there with  you. Mostly, it just means he manages to become even clingier than he already was; before, you were actually at least able to get a few spare minutes when he went to go check on something or the like, but that's not the case anymore.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

His quickness to anger depends on what's upsetting him; he has a high tolerance for some things, a low tolerance for others, and sometimes these make no sense, or at least don't line up with how most people would feel.

He can be a bit immature at times, so when it comes to you he can get frustrated easily. He gets... pouty. He makes a face, furrows his eyebrows, his voice gets grumpy. He makes no attempts to hide when he's upset, how some other yanderes would try to appear calm because they might not want to make their feelings for you too obvious, but he's very quick to ask you why you're spending so much time with someone else, why you ran off again, why you're being such a jerk today. Just staying put and being nice is easy... or it should be... you're kinda being annoying, you know.

Because of his naivete to you, always thinking the best of your intentions, believing your excuses, never thinking you're doing something bad intentionally etc, he's unlikely to ever get truly furious at you, only frustrated, which can easily be fixed by annoying and forcing his way into what he wants.

True anger, all the chaos and immense destruction he can cause with his fury, will come out towards enemies. Should he ever be tricked or mess up, something that allows you to get hurt by someone else... if he's already protective of the others, it's even more so for you.

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

Eh? Who cares? That sort of thing is... pointless. He's not going to waste time thinking about something like relative value of a person. Bleh.

That's more or less all you'll get out of him. Such a notion seems pointless, it's just something that never crosses his mind, and if asked he's not going to bother actually considering it, he just merely states his thoughts on the matter, that such a topic is dumb (and yes, that's the exact word he uses). He has better things to worry about.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

Well, let's see. The man has dedicated literal years of his life and his entire foreseeable future and existence, allowing himself to become one of the most wanted people in the world, all for the sake of finding something that many people initially weren't even entirely confident still existed out there. So, it's safe to say he's a rather determined person.

But really, part of it is not really grasping your rejection in the first place. When you respond negatively to him, he doesn't think about the possibility that it might be him that's the issue, that you would otherwise respond positively if it were someone else or if he just approached differently.

And that just... does not change. It's less not understanding, and more a very unique sort of delusional tendency -- he just always believes it's something else making you upset, and that you're just being mean, getting all angry because that's how you are. He can get frustrated, can get pouty, but he'll never really listen. It's infuriating for you, it literally feels like talking to a brick wall, like your words go in one ear and out the other and he acts like he didn't even hear you. He just. Doesn't. Listen. Sometimes it makes you even feel like you're going crazy, the feeling of trying to communicate with someone who refuses to be communicated with.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Well, there's certainly the obvious... you have never encountered a rubber person before.

For a poor darling who once lived a very normal life, you may have heard of devil fruits, maybe encountered a few people with a power from one if you were lucky, but the rubber thing really takes some getting used to. At first, it's... kinda horrifying, to be honest. It certainly looks weird to see in action (especially if you're witnessing gear fourth, which is, uh, something) and suddenly, what once seemed like just a rather airheaded annoyance now seems a lot more intimidating when you see him once crush an entire ship with an elongated kick. You feel nervous around him more than you did at first.

It feels creepy when his arms sort of wrap around you, it honestly triggers a survival instinct, feeling like you're being constricted by a predator or something, which makes you panic, and trash around. And the first time he uses his rocket technique to launch the two of you from the ship all the way over a good distance, only given a quick "hang on" warning before being slung through the air, you're pretty sure you blacked out. He thought it was impressive, though, surely you'll think it's cool. And then there was the time you finally thought you were getting away for once, made the mistake of standing at a spot where he had a clear line of sight from his perch on a rooftop to you, and you felt a hand grab your shoulder... you didn't even process it before you were snapped back off your feet and through the air at lightning speed.

You have to just get used to it with time, honestly, it does take some getting used to. It's easier for others who just witness it, but since you are so often on the receiving end of its capabilities, it's more difficult for you.

And there's. Another thing. Some yanderes are known for certain... tendencies, or traits. Some are exceptionally smart. Exceptionally strong, maybe. Exceptionally violent. Cunning, well-prepared, restrictive, calm, distant, paranoid, delusional, all things that a certain yandere may be in excess that distinguishes them from most.

Well, Luffy is exceptionally annoying.

Sometimes he can almost feel kinda like babysitting a kid. He asks so many questions. Butts his way into whatever you're doing, be it working on making food (you do feel like you have to do something on this ship to help out, so you help Sanji sometimes), reading a book, working on something with your hands... he tries talking to you first. When you give a simple, one-word answer in an annoyed voice, he's still curious, sits down beside you, and a moment later, you find a nearly-disembodied head poking out from under your arm to get a better look, only connected by the now-stringy neck. Dear God. You're used to him by now, but that's a new one, makes you scream and drop your task.

He has difficulty getting some things, particularly if it's social. You now have to be the one to tell him no, you can't do that, that's a dumb idea to all his very straightforward solutions to complex problems that often would end disastrously if carried out, for one thing. And, of course, all the clinginess and his overwhelming presence get annoying fast too.

And if you seem upset... what's wrong? You tell him nothing, he says no, clearly something is. What's wrong? Hey, hey, answer him, why are you upset? Are you mad? Are you mad at him? Are you mad at something else? Did someone say something mean? Are you hurt? Hey, why aren't you answering? Why can't you talk about it? Huh? Oh, you look even more mad now. Why are you more mad now?

...Yeah, it's... something else. Poor darling.

Finally, one of the things that may bother you from the get-go is that, at least at first, by your perception, you think he has absolutely no concern for your safety. See, typically, yanderes who either have a lot of enemies, are wanted criminals, or are famous figures who realize you could be used as leverage against them, make sure their darling is kept well-hidden away from anyone who might bring about harm to them.

But not him. No, the world government, among plenty of others, is gonna get a really good look at you at some point, and much to your horror, by mere association, you'll find posters of your face alongside all the others pretty soon.

Not that he takes it negatively, quite the opposite. Ahaha, you got one too! Cool! Not a very high bounty, but it's a start. It'll only go up with time, so you have that to look forward to! Look, he's even in the background of the picture! Neat!

It certainly takes its toll on you and your health, you're almost certain to develop high blood pressure or worse out of sheer nervousness. But the constant sense of dread and mortal fear does actually level out with time, the longer you go on unharmed, you start to feel a bit more confident that you'll be fine and everything will work out in the end.

That is, except for all the near-death moments you do run into. That's where your perception versus his comes into play a bit. To you, you see the threats and the danger and run or hide, thinking it's all by sheer luck and timing you manage to be okay, maybe with intervention from him every now and then. But in your mind, you think he must just not care or something, after all you've come very close to taking a bullet to the head or a sword through the stomach more than once, even though you don't really do any fighting (it's all from running into the wrong people at the wrong time and what was supposed to be a peaceful gathering of supplies in a civilian area turns into conflict once he or someone else is recognized, and you're caught in the middle of it... something unfortunately common in this lifestyle as well).

What you don't see is that, for someone who normally thinks and acts in an entirely straightforward way, he now factors you into everything, and is keeping a constant eye on you to calculate your position relative to him and whatever enemies there are, and everything in the near surroundings, into each movement. It's surprisingly highly strategic for him, and yet he manages to ingrain into his thought process to a point it becomes subconscious.

Not that he doesn't try to get you out of harm's way altogether -- while he doesn't lock you away, he does try to get you to safely hide somewhere or in a safe location rather than having you out there in the heat of it all. It's just that since he's constantly by your side, he rarely can actually do so, and when he gets ambushed or attacked, you're usually right there too. But he will ensure your safety, even if it means making sacrifices in other areas, such as not obtaining something he set out to get, or losing some valuable item because it was either it or you.

But while you think you're just narrowly avoiding bullets, running with your eyes nearly squeezed shut, you don't see him stick his arm out to save several from going right through you. You don't see the guy that was about to attack you from behind that got taken out by a single kick. You don't see when he blocks this and that, saves you from this or that, everything is usually too chaotic at the moment. Once you do catch it a few times, though, you start to maybe feel a little less resentment.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

There are two questions you wonder about from very early on, that you will soon find both answers are yes.

Yes, he does know what sex is.

And yes... it stretches. Just like every other part of him.

Now as for the first part -- he doesn't know a lot. His knowledge is around the bare minimum. This will inevitably become an issue, but thankfully he's very willing to be taught -- he's not one of those people that gets offended when you try to tell them how to do what feels good to you.

Unfortunately, he has difficulty being very gentle as well. Not out of harshness or in a cruel way, but in an overly-eager, high-energy sort of way. He generally doesn't have to handle most things gently, and is used to using a pretty good deal of physical force with various tasks in his everyday life. This will, of course, apply to you as well, he tends to pick you up harshly, kinda throws you all around when needed.

But in general, he's a very touchy, cuddly person by nature. You have some highly touch-starved yanderes that have to get used to just being near you and gradually have to start off with soft touches and get more comfortable with time, some that are ready to hug or cuddle you but still tremble over it, some that are touchy but only in brief moments of contact... but Luffy is none of those. From the day (minute, really) he meets you he is entirely comfortable with touch, picks you up at random to carry you back in the first place even. He discovers very fast that he just... gets something out of touch. It feels nice, warm, comforting... so he clings to you. Physically.

Like. A lot. All the time. Honestly you reach a point where it doesn't even strike you nor the others as weird anymore to see you sitting down or standing or even walking with his arms looped around you. If you're sitting on the bowsprit as he tends to enjoy doing, he likes to more or less have you in a hold where your back is against his chest (kinda terrifying if you have any fear of the vast open water you could so easily fall into), and even when standing, he likes to keep a grip on you. You can even stand up and go get something off the counter or the like when you're sitting down in a room -- he won't stand up with you, but he keeps the arm wrapped around your waist and just lets it stretch across the room while you move around. You've gotten to where you barely even register it anymore. Like every other thing mentioned so far, he has no concept of shame or embarrassment about it, so he sees no reason not to do what feels nice.

Also, while it's not really an intentional form of touchiness, when he sleeps, he gets particularly cuddly, but like, in a way where he's coiling his limbs around you like some kind of constrictor snake. You have to kinda beat on his arms (or, if you're completely constricted, thrash around a bit) to get him to wake up and let you breathe.

In terms of sexuality, it matches the rest of his personhood -- high-energy, very active, overeager, rushes into things without really knowing what he's getting himself into... you get the idea. But, as said above, he does in fact actually know how it all works, which may come as a surprise to some who know him... but it is, once again, very minimal knowledge, and needs to be guided. He'll listen to you, to the best of his ability, but  may occasionally get too lost in the feeling to really hear you.

It is, also, one of the many things he has no shame in. He has some, but very little, nakedness shame; if you walk in on him changing clothes or anything he's not going to really react to what you're seeing, more just tilts his head and asks if you need something. The issue with this is he has a similar presumption of your comfort level, and doesn't really see anything wrong with watching you perform activities such as changing clothes and showering and other things you would much prefer to do while not being stared at.

Likewise, he may more or less straight-up come up to you while you're with the others and more or less either verbally ask you to go back to the room with him and/or drag you along to do so. Everyone knows. And he probably knows they know, but doesn't see why he should care they do.

This also applies to groping and staring. Do not be surprised if the boy just kinda spaces out, reaches out and grabs a tiddy... and don't be surprised if he does so right in front of people once or twice, although he will at least usually make some effort to wait until you're alone. He does not make any effort to hide the fact that he's not staring at your eyes, though. Hell, his entire head tilts downward.

Also... if you clench down on him, in the pulling-out motion of the thrusting, it basically clamps down on his dick and, well, when he pulls back it stretches his dick out a bit... which, in turn, means like an extra inch or so slamming into you on the push-in movement. Then it snaps back to normal size right as the inward thrust impales you, and repeat. Ow.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

He doesn't really recognize it as such.

Luffy is a very... iron-willed person, but also a spontaneous and eager person. Someone who can be inconsiderate, but not in a malicious way. It's not like his intentions are to cause harm, he just... doesn't think before he acts, a lot of the time, rushes into things making his decisions based on what he feels and more or less assuming it's alright or at least will turn out fine.

So it's not like he's knowingly forceful -- but rather, you make him feel good, he has all these weird urges to do stuff to you, so he's not really thinking about your reaction or feelings when he grabs your shoulders and pushes you flat against your bed... but he's not operating under the knowledge that it's a violation either. He's just excited! He's not really even consciously aware of what he's doing, he's sort of spaced out.

If you fight back, he actually does snap out of it, and actually will respect you and stop, although he's confused as to why. It's not like it'll hurt you, right?

Well, he's not sure. So, with perhaps actually the slightest hint of embarrassment for once, he goes directly to someone he thinks can tell him a lot about that sort of thing... Sanji. He knows a lot about girls, right? So he should be able to tell him... if not available, maybe he can go to Nami and Robin, or even someone else available depending on the time you join, like Vivi. They... sort of snicker and make fun of him a little bit, which just makes him sort of pouty... but are willing to give him some, ah, helpful advice. He's actually just perceptive enough to not phrase it in a way that makes it obvious he's referring to you, although it's more out of him finally feeling some normal sense of embarrassment, and not because he realizes they might put two and two together and realize what he's intended. So he phrases it as a general question of curiosity.

Which is great! Now he knows what to do! So he tells you, either coming into the room where you are and bolting over to bed at the speed of light, or picking you up by the waist and carrying you. Okay, so, now he gets it. Don't worry. He knows what to do. Hey, you're still squirming really hard, you're making it kinda hard to move around. Well, they did tell him something about you quivering or spasming or something... they said that's normal. He'll just have to hold you really still.

Huh? You're still saying stop so much... no, really, he's got it now. Trust him. Hang on, here, Nami murmured something about how it's best on her stomach... he'll flip you over, makes it better for you. You're just making noises now that your face is pressed into the pillow... well, it almost sounds like muffled words, but it's definitely not words, he can't make any of it out, so it's just moans. That's good. He thought those didn't start until after you put it in... guess that was wrong.

You may still be worried or something, but one of the people he consulted said it's normal for you to be a bit nervous and hesitant, and that he should just say nice things and comfort you, so he tries his best. But, since it feels so nice for him, and it's something you do together, he assumes that the physical feeling for him is the same for you, and it feels amazing to him.

Is part of it, deep down, wanting to believe you want it? Perhaps. Is it a subconscious way of justifying acting on the raging hormonal impulses and instincts clouding his judgement that he's not even consciously aware of? Definitely. But either way... it'll work out in the end, yeah? It's really fun, so you can do it against tomorrow and the next day, and some more after that too...

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

Distension/Size kink

Honestly he treats it like a magic trick or something. You know how guys can kinda flex and make their dick twitch?? Well, he's figured out how to do that and make it sort of... expand. Look! Cool, right?

You're still taking sharp breaths and jolting as he says it, considering he just basically rammed the tip of his dick directly against the cervix... ugh. You have to try and explain to the best of your ability that he may be able to stretch, but you have a limited capacity, so he needs to keep that a bit under control... and he tries.

But look, you can stretch! At least a little, skin has elasticity after all. Which is why, when he's got you on your knees but sitting almost upright, leaning forward, arm wrapped around your waist and pounding into you from behind, he can see it on each thrust, distending your stomach a bit when he shoves it in. It's... really nice to look at, for some reason.

Also... you know how with gear third, he can kinda inflate things... maybe that can apply to spongy tissue if he tries and maybe... well, it would be very... filling? Anyway, just don't give him the idea.

Exhibitionism/Candaulism

It's another thing that he just thinks is cute, when you're all embarrassed, your face gets hot and you squirm around. Not to mention there's certainly a pride factor there, too, makes him feel a nice swelling feeling in his chest. And, in his mind, it fits the image of what a king of pirates would act like -- he would show off so everyone else can know how great he is and be jealous of him!

He takes direct methods as always. Convinces Nami or Robin to lend you some clothes and adjust them if needed and then throws whatever you were wearing when he abducted you away right off the side of the ship after promising to "take care of it," which you presumed meant wash them, unfortunately. So, you're probably, ah, familiar with how those two tend to dress a lot of the time... now you get to too! Note that he has no concept of body insecurity or anything like that. In his mind, since he likes it and likes looking at it, there's no issue, and you won't have any problem showing off since it looks nice.

But he is really proud of you, and can get into a little bit of that typical show-off attitude some guys have where he wants to have you by his side and be able to sort of let people see, unfortunately particularly enemies. Not that he won't make sure you're safe, but it would be really nice for some of those guys to at least get to see him with an arm around your waist all smiling to rub it in, you know?

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

A successor of sorts would be kinda cool. In a way, yes, because when he thinks about it, that makes sense doesn't it? The legendary figure that he wants to be, would logically have a successor to carry on that legacy! It just seems like the natural thing to do. Besides, Gol D. Roger had a kid, so it only makes sense to follow in that example to some degree.

But to say he likes the thought is a tricky statement, because he doesn't fully comprehend all the effort and work such a thing entails. In particular, he may struggle to realize how fragile the average child is, which is going to be a big concern. He's that father that gives everyone around him a heart attack with the way he handles a kid, but manages to always have everything work out perfectly in the end.

But in terms of his opinions, he doesn't actually seem to feel too strongly one way or another, perhaps surprisingly. When you pose the question, you get the sense that he isn't really thinking much about it, just sort of smiles at the thought of a cool protege and accepts it as a positive without taking many details into account.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Generally, he's not the type to think through such a thing, or even intend anything as a "punishment" per se. It's more like, if he gets particularly heated in his emotions, such as being upset or angry over something, he can lose a little bit of his restraint on his own strength. His grip is tighter and tighter, his movements are harsher and faster and more brutal. But overall, he's not going to do something really torturous of painful to you. If anything, he's more likely to just break his usual characteristic of lacking restrictiveness and may actually lock you inside the room for a while... all while getting to rail you more every day, of course.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

Probably the waist and hips. Luffy is... grabby. He likes to have a firm grip on you a lot of the time, likes to keep his hands somewhere on your person. He's always dragging you from place to place and grabbing onto you (really, your struggling helps, you end up accidentally looping his arm around you a couple times over...). And the waist is the perfect place to grab you by! Helps him keep a nice firm grip.

[decepti-thots]

SIGNAL BOOST - trans charity auction ft. Eugenesis!

HEY. so. my pal Stuart is auctioning off his rare (and signed!) copy of the original physical "publication" run of Euegensis. you know, the Infamous JRo Fic TM of which there only exist a few hundred copies.

he's specifically doing so with the intent of raising money for three UK trans charities, with proceeds 100% going to said charities and being evenly split between them: Transgender NI, Trans Leeds and Gendered Intelligence. stuart has done a bunch of TF fandom charity fundraising of this type, bless him; most recently he kindly donated a reader's fee on my behalf to GI after I did a look over of one of his IDW retrospectives.

it's a "mystery bid" style auction, so how it works is this: you DM him (on Twitter) the maximum amount you are willing to bid. whoever bids the most wins the auction. his account is here. bidding ends on 24th november. he's willing to cover shipping internationally himself, so this is open to anyone, not just UK residents! (if you really, really want to bid but don't have a twitter account and don't want to set one up, let me know and I can talk to him on your behalf if you want, btw.)

ETA: quick update. you can also send him an email! the email in question can be found in the description of this youtube video.

here is the tweet thread where he explains how it works and how to contact him to bid, as well as a link to an introductory video he did on youtube.

[ID: several tweets, reading as follows, from the account @InflatableDalek.

Tweet one: Here we go, my Eugenesis auction in aid of @TransgenderNI, @TransLeeds and @Genderintell (all reccomended by mutuals) is described in the video! (Pictures, as the vid is mirrored, and a description for those who can't watch in the next few tweets)

Tweet two: Simply: if you'd like to own a copy of the incredibly rare Transformers fan fiction novel by the now famous James Roberts, DM what you will be willing to pay by the 24th November. On the 25th, the highest bidder gets it (in a draw, the earliest of the winners gets it).

Tweet three: I will cover postage and post internationally. You have a week to pay from the point of being notified, unless you specify when bidding a payday (or other circumstances) wait is needed. Book is exactly as it appears. Will provide more pics and answer questions as needed.

Tweet four: There are very few copies of this left out there and those that are, aren't changing hands often. That's a low starting price so you could well get a bargain. But let's bump this up, with retweets and shares far and wide.]

i am extremely annoyed that i am way too broke to drop money on this thing. i need someone to go bid on it so i stop being tempted to crack out my credit card like an idiot. hah. but in all seriousness, as a trans person in the UK, things really suck here and often the only resources avaliable to vulnerable trans people are through local networks or charities like these because of how institutionally hostile and underfunded "official" resources are to us. these are all great orgs, and GI in particular came on my recommendation. this would be a great way to both get a really cool bit of niche TF fandom history and also make a donation to places providing those services.

please consider signal boosting, too! <3

[dduane]

How To Make Books Glow (in case anyone was wondering) and Otherwise Subvert Their Appearance

tl:dr; It’s not as easy as it looks.

But, for those interested in the workflow: a brief tutorial. Please note, before we start, that this entire discussion refers almost exclusively to image creation on the Daz Studio 3D graphics platform. (Specifically, Daz Studio 4.15.)

First of all: even after five-pushing-six years of working intensively with this platform, I do not yet have the expertise (except in the most rough and ready sense) to create 3D objects from scratch. So what I do is look around, buy nice and/or useful ones, and subvert them.

In this case, I needed to subvert a book into a rough equivalent of a wizard’s Manual, for the cover art being discussed here and here.

So I went looking through my already too damn large collection of Daz assets to find a book that would be suitable. Nothing too fancy: it doesn’t need to be rigged to open or close (which is a good thing, as a lot of the books available out there that can do this are pretty badly rigged and a bit of a nuisance to work with).

Some while back I picked up a set of objects from a maker who goes by the moniker Fuseling. As you can see if you look at their profile, they do all kinds of nifty textures and objects. The package I grabbed when I came across it one day is called (charmingly) Fantasy Clutter. It contains all kinds of things that you might need if you were furnishing a traditional wizard’s study: potions, crystals, scrolls, etc etc. And a good collection of books, in various guises and textures. I’ve been using these in renders for a while. Here, for example...

...or here.

So you get the drift.

...Anyway, here’s one of Fuseling’s more basic books. This (because it’s fairly simple) is the one I chose to alter so that I could use it in the mockup of the test cover art being discussed here. (And here.)

...Now what you can’t tell from this image is how it gets to look that way. As it turns out, there is an underlying object...

...and the image file that represents the texture that you want to apply to it.

There are also two more files that control what kind of physical depth the texture of the book displays when you render it (usually referred to as a “bump map”), and how metallic the stamping/lettering looks (a “metallicity” file).

If you’re intending to change how this book looks, you’ve got to hand-edit all these files using a fairly sophisticated image editor like Adobe Photoshop or Corel Photo Paint. In this case, I wound up using both, as you’ll see.

Let’s start with the easy part. The original title Fuseling applied to the book has to be removed. (Since this is the earliest stage of the cover mockup, for the moment I wasn’t concerned about doing any but the most basic alterations. Later ones will be more involved: changing the book’s texture, for example, to the buckram typical of a library binding.

For the time being I’m going to keep the original texture, or fairly close to it, and just get rid of the lettering. This one does with Photo Paint’s clone brush, which takes a sample of the adjacent background and paints it onto another spot.

(It’s a little hard to see in this image, but the program has taken the background bounded by the circle with the cross in it and applied it to the circle without the cross.)

You do this until all the features you want to get rid of are gone. (For the moment I’ve left those little spine details in there as a guide for where the Wizard’s Knots are going to go.)

Then you replace the deleted details with the ones you want to appear. (First picking a font, matching the color and the size of the text, etc etc.) And, after half an hour or so, this is what I got:

And in a kinder world, you could just instruct Daz Studio to apply that image file to the book instead of the original one, and you’d be all done. ...But no: you also have to retool the image’s bump map... (It’s normal for this to look blurry. Corel doesn’t do this stunt: I had to go into Adobe to handle it. The bump map tells the rendering program to render lighter-colored parts of the main image as “higher” than darker-colored parts.)

... and its metallicity file.

So at the end of the process, when you render, this is what you get:

(This is a little rough, but has been done strictly for demo purposes. Also: I blued it in off-screen process as well. I didn’t think I needed to bore you with that.)

...Making it glow, now, is a slightly different business.

Most well-made book objects allow you to play around with different texture and coloring sections of an object. Fuseling is one of the more thoughtful object creators, and so the pages of this book are their own distinct texture area. Here’s what the texture file for the paper edges in this book look like.

That’s the basic underlying look of the individual pages. But you can also cause this texture area to radiate light. This you do by enabling a property called “emission”. If turned up high enough it will drown out the texture of the pages... but this is one of the chances you take, and you wind up juggling the virtues of showing physical texture with those of displaying the light. You may not be able to do both: you need to decide which is more important.

So it’s fairly easy to deal with the actual light production. You select the area you want to emit light, and hook an emissive quality to it. You can specify the intensity of the light, and its color, and the color temperature in which you want to make it emit.

...And now things get fiddly.

Routinely, simply to make something emissive--without any additional attention to detail--makes it look fake. So you need to add a bloom or glow to it.

The bloom quality in Daz is horrifically complex. There are three different sets of controls, each of which interferes with one of the others to a greater or lesser degree. You wind up juggling each of these against its compatriots, trying to develop a look that is both natural enough for your viewer to “buy it”, and still striking enough to pop out of the image (because if you didn’t want to do that, you wouldn’t be doing it at all).

This can take many, many hours of labor. On the final draft of the SYWTBAW cover, I expect to expend at least an entire work day on the glow alone.

(eyeroll) Art, right? What an effing pain in the butt. But when you must do it, you do. Because, well. WTF... Art.

...And now on to other business. But I thought it’d amuse some of you to see what doing so small a thing can take, when you can’t paint or draw, and have to hornswoggle a program into doing it for you. :)

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #66 - The Legend of King Lycaon of Arcadia

Continuing the series of close looks into specific werewolf legends, let’s examine what’s generally considered one of the most important werewolf legends in history: the story of King Lykaon (Λυκᾱ́ων - or Lycaon, a more Anglicized spelling) of ancient Greece.

Although I did a smaller post on Lycaon quite a while ago, this one will be more in-depth. Despite there being a lot of other legends and werewolf legends surrounding Lycaon and different regions of Greece - some of which are discussed in this post of mine - I’m not going to go into those again this time. This post is exclusively about the legend of Lycaon himself (I will be referring to him as Lykaon from here on out).

A quick summary before we go into more detail: Lykaon was a king of Arcadia in ancient Greece. As the legend goes, Lykaon decided to test the divine omniscience of Zeus by killing one of his own sons, Nyctimus, and cooking him into food to serve to Zeus. Naturally, Zeus realized what Lykaon had done, so he turned Lykaon into a wolf as punishment, killing his other children and bringing Nyctimus back to life.

However, Lykaon wasn’t remembered too negatively despite his actions or his fate. He did plenty of other good deeds, like founding cities and creating a cult dedicated to Zeus, as well as hosting a series of games called the Lykaean Games, among other things. He also had a lot of kids. And, please note, there were a lot of “Lykaon”s in Greek myth. This is merely one of them.

But what I’m going to focus on is the legend of how Zeus turned Lykaon into a wolf and the details thereof - and what impact it’s had on werewolf studies and werewolves in culture forever afterward.

Perhaps the earliest version of Lykaon’s myth was told by Hesiod. However, there are many different versions by an assortment of authors. Several of them recount the tale differently, with various aspects changed, and some even claim Lykaon was never turned into a wolf at all and was instead killed instantly by Zeus’s lightning, among other alterations.

Perhaps the most well-known version of the tale is the one I’ll be quoting from, however: not a Greek author but a Roman one, Ovid, in his Metamorphoses. Ovid, too, alters the story from Hesiod’s “original,” though he retains the most important aspect from the perspective of werewolf studies: Lykaon’s transformation into a wolf and “transformation scene” of sorts.

The edition of Metamorphoses from which I will be quoting is as follows:

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. A. D. Melville. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

(Please note for the sake of this post I’m not using perfect MLA citation for each quote. You can find those in my published academic works, but not these posts. But the citations here will be readable, just not totally up to nitpicky academic standards.)

It all began for Lykaon when Zeus - or, in the case of Ovid’s version, in Metamorphoses, Jupiter, generally the Roman equivalent of Zeus - arrives in Acradia. Unlike everyone else, Lykaon had his doubts about the god...

he [Lykaon] / Scoffed at their worship. “A clear test”, he said, / “Shall prove if this be god or mortal man / And certify the truth”, and he planned for me, / At dead of night, when I was sunk in sleep, / Death unforseen--so would he test the truth. (page 7)

Unlike Hesiod’s version, in Metamorphoses, Lykaon kills a “hostage sent / Far from Epirus, slitting his throat, and boiled / Part of the flesh, scarce dead, and roasted part” (7) instead of doing that to one of his own sons. Either way, with that done, he had Jupiter join him for a meal, telling him to eat the flesh of this person he’d just cooked.

Unfortunately for Lykaon, Jupiter was in fact Jupiter the omniscient, and the moment he was offered the flesh...

At once my avenging flame / Whelmed in just ruin that guilty house and him. (7-8)

And now the most important part - Lykaon’s transformation scene! Yes, werewolves have been having transformation scenes since time immemorial. And Lykaon’s is one of the best. It’s very... vivid, moreso than one may expect:

He [Lykaon] fled in fear and reached the silent fields / And howled his heart out, trying in vain to speak. / With rabid* mouth he turned his lust for slaughter / Against the flocks, delighting still in blood. / His clothes changed to coarse hair, his arms to legs-- / He was a wolf, yet kept some human trace, / The same grey hair, the same fierce face, the same / Wild eyes, the same image of savagery. (8)

[*: Given that “rabid” literally means “infected with rabies,” which doesn’t really make any sense here, I feel the need to point out that the word “rabies” means “rage” or “madness” in Latin. That’s where we get the name of the disease. This doesn’t mean that Lykaon suddenly was infected with the disease known as rabies - he was filled with rage and madness.]

How fantastic! What a scene, what an image! I love the specificity of the description. That’s classic werewolf material right there. A wolf, a beast, but maintaining some semblance of his humanity. Truly this is one of the foundational legends of how we think of werewolves today.

So the purpose of the legend, obviously, is to punish Lykaon for his actions by turning him into a beast. Whether the Roman Ovid retelling or one of the original Greek versions, the end result is the same, if the wolf form is involved: it’s a form of punishment. Thing is, it actually wasn’t always seen as that bad a thing. As mentioned, there are many werewolf legends in ancient Greece and also Rome, some of which split directly from the legend of Lykaon. One such version included Arcadians who willingly undergo a transformation into a wolf that lasts years, in order to test their humanity (they must not eat human flesh while in their wolf form, or it become permanent), and it was almost a rite of passage of sorts, among many other legends.

Nor were they, by the way, always associated with cannibalism/eating people. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes what separated werewolves from “evil beasts” were that they had the willpower to resist eating people. Even Lykaon himself wasn’t actually a cannibal, he just committed horrible atrocities by testing Zeus using the flesh of one of his own kids! That’s not too bad!... Yeah, it’s beyond terrible.

Anyway, it shouldn’t be assumed from the legend of Lykaon alone that wolves and werewolves were always portrayed negatively in ancient Greece or in Rome. They certainly weren’t. Those are, of course, legends I will detail in other posts, but for the sake of clarity, I want to have the reminder that not all wolves or werewolves were “evil” just because of this legend... like many scholars wrongfully assume.

Today, the myth of King Lykaon is often branded the “first werewolf legend.” That’s a big assumption and kind of a misnomer. If we want to get technical, then maybe it’s the earliest complete legend we have of a werewolf - as in, the full, surviving tale in writing. As I discuss on pages 8-9 in my own book, The Werewolf: Past and Future - Lycanthropy’s Lost History and Modern Devolution...

Werewolf legends were told by many societies throughout time, even before recorded history; indeed, scholars argue over what represents the “first werewolf,” in part because there is no real way of knowing the age of the werewolf legend – particularly since, like many legends, a great deal of werewolf stories were only retold orally. Ranging from the earliest humans and even pre-humans to the Greeks and Romans, the werewolf in ancient times takes many shapes across multiple cultures, spanning, essentially, the entire world, and certainly the entire historical range of wolves. Among perhaps the most important of all werewolf legends, and some of the earliest to be recorded, were the ones told by the ancient Greeks. The belief in werewolves was, naturally, then carried over into ancient Rome, but the werewolf also independently arose in other cultures around the world, including but not limited to Europe, North America, and Asia. However, the belief in werewolves may have existed as early as the Paleolithic Age, around 45,000 BP.

[1] Beresford 19; the year is given by Beresford as BP (Before Present), due to the carbon dating process of prehistoric artifacts.

Likewise, in the same book, I address the fact that some scholars like to claim the “first” werewolf legend was told in the Epic of Gilgamesh, written around 2750 BC, when Ishtar turns a shepherd into a wolf so that he is attacked by his own dogs. I refute this as the “first werewolf legend” as opposed to just a legend where a person is turned into a wolf on page 13 in footnote 16 of The Werewolf: Past and Future...

However, counting this instance from the Epic of Gilgamesh as “the first werewolf” is an odd statement. Yes, the shepherd is turned into a wolf, which is the same as many other werewolf legends (even Lycaon’s), but the choice of turning him into a wolf seems insignificant in terms of meaning. The fact that Lycaon’s transformation was intended as meaningful lends more power to the idea that King Lycaon may be the earliest recorded instance of a werewolf legend, since his actions led him to be specifically turned into a wolf, rather than into some other creature. The shepherd in Gilgamesh is only turned into a wolf so that his dogs will attack him, and other animals are substituted in later tales of this exact same type (such as Artemis turning a mortal into a deer so his dogs will rip him apart in a later Greek myth), making the choice of a wolf in the Epic of Gilgamesh feel arbitrary enough that it seems almost unfair to give it such importance in the history of werewolf mythology.

Naturally, given Lykaon is such an important figure in werewolf studies, there’s plenty of discourse about him and his legend across the various werewolf scholars. But, since this post is already insanely long, you can read more about the scholarly discourse and bigger picture of Lykaon’s tale in my first werewolf scholarly publication that I published in 2021, which discusses Lykaon and his scholarly discourse considerably already! And of course you’ll be hearing more about him and his place in werewolf mythology in my future publications, as well.

Back to Lykaon himself: I hope to someday translate my own editions of some of these primary sources, such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses - or at least the passages relevant to werewolf studies, in particular - but we’ll see if I ever get around to doing that. Do keep an eye out for future werewolf studies works from me, however, as you will definitely be seeing a lot of those over the coming years.

In the meantime, I hope this post will serve you well enough to give a good idea and a little bit more depth than my previous post about the legend of King Lykaon and how important it is to werewolf mythology - and why you always hear so much about him.

Until next time!

(If you like my werewolf blog, be sure to follow me here and check out my other stuff! Please consider supporting me on Patreon or donating on Ko-fi if you’d like to see me continue my works. Every little bit helps so much.

Patreon — Ko-fi — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — Twitter --- Vampire Fact Masterlist )

[inthememetime]

H(a)unted Chapter 6

Read 1-5 here on Tumblr, or the whole thing here on AO3

Taglist: @goata33 @ghost-malone @shroudthecursedone @cleanlenins @murderandjam @xxwintrynightzxx @feralsrock @demon-ninja @elegantmantaray @otaku-chan1 let me know if you want on or off the taglist!

Chapter under the cut

May 10, 1981

V's eyes are filling with blood. Possibly seeing an external healthcare provider, need to stop him from doing so. V's gait has changed, possible changes to bone structure?

---

"Daniel- do you prefer Daniel or Danny?" The lawyer from Illinois asked.

"Danny," he said into the microphone and winced at the feedback.

"Hi, Danny. I'm counselor Williams from the State of Illinois. I've got a few healthcare questions for you, okay?"

He nodded.

"I'm sorry Danny, can you verbally indicate?"

"Yes. Um. Yes, you can ask questions."

"Thank you. When was your last physical?"

"About 6 months ago, I think? Right before Christmas."

Ms. Williams nodded. "What doctor did you go to?"

"Dad handles it." He said.

"When was the last time you went to a dentist?"

He shrugged. "I've never went to one."

"How regularly do you have vaccinations?"

"Every year, like everybody else?"

"And what doctor handles that?"

"Mom."

"How recently did you go to an eye doctor?"

"Right after the accident."

"And who did the exam?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Where was the exam?"

"In the lab downstairs."

"I see. Have you been to a doctor's office, outside of your parent's lab?"

"Not that I can remember. I mean, except for the exam a few days ago."

"Objection, leading the witness!" The GIW lawyer snapped.

"Overruled. The questions are neutral," the judge replied.

"Thank you, your honor. Danny, have you ever had a sprain or broken bone?"

"I broke my leg when I was 6. And my arm last year."

"How did those injuries happen?"

"Um. I got dared to jump out of a tree and broke my leg. And then broke my arm falling at school."

"And did you go to the ER or see a doctor after either of those injuries?"

"Mom and dad handled it in the lab," he answered.

"Danny, your X-rays and physical exam show evidence of multiple biopsies and several spinal taps." He winced at the memory. "Yes, I'm told those are painful. Do you know why those painful procedures were done to you?"

He shrugged. "That's part of the physical exam every year. It was weird you guys didn't do it."

"I see. Did you ever ask why?"

"Yeah, but they just said it was important."

"Thank you. Did your parents ever do biopsies or spinal taps without painkillers?"

"It interferes with results. That's what they say- about painkillers." Judging by the muttering and glares, there was something wrong with his answers. "Am I doing this right?"

"Are you answering honestly?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Then you're doing it right, don't worry. What is your earliest memory?"

He frowned. What kind of- "the stars, I think? Mom used to take me stargazing."

"How old would you say you were."

"I don't know, 4 or 5?"

"Ok. Do you remember living anywhere but the Amity Park house?"

He frowned. "No, not really."

"But you moved there with your family 8 years ago, when you were 6. Correct?"

He shrugged. "I guess. I don't remember the old house."

"How many languages do you speak fluently? And what are they?"

"Objection, what's the point?" Counselor Carlson asked.

"Sustained. Do you have a point with this, counselor Williams?"

"Yes your honor, I do," she replied. "Please, just a few more questions."

"You get 6. Choose carefully."

"Thank you, your honor. Danny, the languages?"

"English, Esperanto, Spanish, and Portuguese," he answered.

"When did you learn them?"

"I learned Esperanto for a ghost friend of mine, and Spanish in school. I've..." He frowned. "I don't really remember learning Portuguese, but I've always known it."

"Your blood type is A-, correct?"

"Yes ma'am" he said, still frowning about the Portuguese. It wasn't like it was common in Illinois. Why didn't he remember learning it?

"3 more, counselor. I'm not seeing a point yet."

"Don't worry, your honor, we're getting there. Were you adopted, Daniel?"

"No ma'am. Not that I know of."

"What was your earliest memory in terms of people? Think back, take a few minutes if you need to."

He did need to. His first was to say his mom, but- "a lady? She had black hair like me. And dark skin, like I get in the summer. I think she was crying. I don't know, it's weird."

"Last question. Davi, when were you brought into the US?"

He shrugged. "I was born here, I guess?"

"Thank you, Davi."

"You're welcome?"

"Your honor, exactly 11 years ago," Ms. Williams began and judging by the slowly mounting horror on the judge's face she made her point well. "11 years ago, Davi Cortez was reported missing by his mother in Paraguay. His father admitted to selling the boy to settle gambling debts. We ran his pictures and prints, and they were a match. We also have photo evidence of Maddie Fenton taking young Davi from his mother. 3 months later, Danny suddenly appears in the US."

"His blood type is A-, while Jack Fenton's is B+, and Maddie Fenton's is AB+, a biological impossibility."

"He's listed as a home birth. There's no pictures, no ultrasounds, and no indication at all Maddie Fenton was pregnant during the 5 years preceding his appearance. In addition, we approached Mrs. Cortez, who has not stopped looking for her son, and she permitted a DNA test." Counselor Williams flipped through the files. "Your honor, in Section D, part 1, you'll see the DNA tests proving with 97% certainty Maria Cortez is Danny's mother, part 2 will show a 99% certainty that Maddie is not his mother, and part 3 will show 100% proof Jack is not his father."

Yelling erupted throughout the courtroom. "Danny Fenton is Davi Cortez. He was trafficked at 3 years old, sold to the Fenton family. I move to remove him from their custody immediately."

"Can I- can I see?" Danny asked quietly. Counselor Williams gave him a sympathetic look and passed over the folder marked Section D.

He swallowed. "Your honor, I have no further questions for Danny Fenton- or, as I should say, Davi Cortez."

---

5 weeks, 6 days prior to trial-

The phone rang from a U.S. number. Odd, she had no friends there. She picked up.

In rough Portuguese, a woman asked, "Hello, is this Maria Cortez?"

She confirmed it was her. "We may have found your son, Davi."

She looked over at the photos- her baby boy on her mama's lap, in her arms at the hospital, and a few days before the bastard she married stole him between long, tall candles below a cross.

"You are sure?"

"We would need a DNA test to be certain, but-"

"Whatever you need. I want my baby."

[eregyrn-falls]

This may sound silly, but I really appreciate your openness about being genX. I feel like even within fandom, there's this underlying ageism around fandom, like you're not allowed to like things past your 29th birthday?? I suspect this is related to the post you shared about genX and milennial folks growing up when fandom was still "weird", and I'm hoping that this will change as genZ ages. I hope that when I'm 80, my retirement home will have cosplay days, you know?

Aww, thank you! I was definitely more vague about it when I first got onto Tumblr and into GF fandom, but eventually I did realize that like, if nobody actually talked about being older, then it would just perpetuate this sense that older people aren't still around and doing stuff. I hope sometimes that talking about it just serves as an example that shows a way that you can live as you grow older, without having to give up your passion or your interests.

I know that when I first got into fandom, in the early 80s, I was joining fan-groups that were, necessarily, run by adults (in their 30s-50s). I mean, because to run a fan-group, or organize a convention, you had to be an adult who could handle money and enter into contracts and stuff. I went to conventions and met a lot of older people, too.

There just weren't any distinctions based on age at that time. There wasn't any sense that fandom wasn't for adults, because fandom as it was understood at that time had *originated* with adults. I mean, I'm going back to the 30s, when Worldcon started; or like, the "save Star Trek" campaign of the 60s, which was spearheaded by adults (mainly women, many of whom were extremely into Kirk/Spock).

That was definitely still the feeling in fandom when I was getting involved in the 80s. And I benefited from adults who were really welcoming to a 14 year old, and really encouraging of my earliest efforts in fanfic and fan-art. I met plenty of people in their 50s and 60s who were clearly successful, independent adults, and this was just their thing. Genre fandom is no more "childish" than, say, sports fandom, which is extremely mainstream.

This weird undercurrent of ageism in fandom is very new. And usually it seems like it's pretty misogynist in its expression.

The thing about your life and your interests is that there's really no age at which you need to stop being You. Maybe you'll enter into a phase of life in which whatever you're doing, be it family or career or lifestyle, takes up too much of your time for you to spare much energy for the kinds of fandom activities you once enjoyed, and that's okay. It's quite a different thing from thinking you'll hit age 25 or 30 and say "welp! I'm not allowed to be a fan of Star Wars any more!"

It doesn't usually work like that. I think people who think it does work that way are overly concerned about what *they think* "society" will think of them for still having... interests. And like, man, I get that. There's a lot of social milieus out there that can be really unforgiving of deviation from their norm, and if you're trapped in that, it sucks, and it takes a lot of emotional energy to withstand it, let alone stand up to it.

I got lucky, I think. I was always open about my interests and activities. There are people in my life who haven't really *understood* it, but they don't give me grief over it. But I also have to point to those fandom adults I met as a young teen, for giving me the feeling that it was okay to be "weird", even once you were an adult.

I expect I'll still be reading fanfic and drawing fan-art when I'm old, even if I have no idea right now what new loves and passions will come along. (That's the endless fun of a life in fandom, really. You never know what wonderful thing you'll discover next.) We are *definitely* going to have cosplay in the retirement home. ;-)

[attollogame]

Happy Birthday, Dreamwalker

The day seems to drag like any other—but what happens when work is over?

There’s a grey strip of light breaking through the white veil curtains that cover his window. He’s been watching it creep further and further into the room for hours now; it’s almost three quarters of the way to where he sits. His body has become cold with immobility as the soft ticking of a clock fills the room. It’s 5:40 am; his mind feels like he’s just downed several energy drinks and he lost any hope of sleeping long before night fell. This isn’t unusual to any other day, but it’s always a cold irony in his mind. His powers are most effective on those who are asleep, and yet he can never sleep himself.

Finally, he stirs and pushes himself to his feet, stretching upwards until he hears the sound of his back pop. A satisfied sensation rushes through his body with the gesture as he quickly moves on to getting dressed. He didn’t change out of his clothing from yesterday—what’s the point?—but he can’t just show up to work like this. It takes only a few minutes to change his attire. His fingers deftly fix his tie and he adjusts his blazer before he grabs a tattered grey hoodie and throws it on over top. 

It’s close to five in the morning now. The earliest subway that a civilian can take in Attollo is at 5:40 am. His upper lip curls in frustration as he exits his room and stalks down to his bathroom instead. His skin care and makeup both take about ten minutes each which will lead him to 5:20 am, a good enough time to depart to ensure he makes the subway. He flicks on the bathroom light and stares at his face in the mirror. He looks exhausted. His eyes are dark and his brow pulls into a furrow as a headache begins to creep its way behind his skull. He looks like he’s one step closer to death.

Ah. 

He supposes, considering what today is, that’s a valid assessment.

—————————————

He was incorrect in his estimations—5:20 was not enough time to get to the subway, and he barely got onto the car before the steel doors slid shut. His cheeks are flushed with exertion as he tugs the ballcap down further over his face, cradling his bag with the rest of his attire close to his body as he goes to stand by the doors. Despite the early morning, the car is packed with equally exhausted looking individuals in attire befitting wherever they’re headed. He sees a fair amount of business suits on his car—likely government employees—and a few uniforms that match up with various retail and fast food areas. 

He leans back against the wall and lets out a low sigh, pushing his sunglasses up on his nose and resting his head against the wall. The hum of the subway car as it moves along the track pulls him into a strange state of relaxation until it draws to a stop at the next platform. The doors open with a soft hiss and a new wave of people jostle themselves onto the car. He watches them with disinterest—

Until one in particular catches his eye. He can’t help but feel his lips quirk into a grin at the disgruntled and exhausted look on their face as they glare at everyone around them. Fortunately, their energy is hostile enough that people move aside, allowing them to get a clear sight of—and make a beeline to—him. 

That’s right. Sysba can’t drive either.

“What.” Their voice is sharp as they come to rest against the wall beside him. He’s almost taken aback at how angry they sound as they glare at him from over the rim of their own sunglasses. “Is the birthday boy doing on the early morning train?”

A groan escapes from him as he turns away. “Don’t. Don’t you dare do this to me, Sysba. Not again.” 

“Happy birthday~!” Sysba raises their voice to a yell as they nudge Dreamwalker in his ribs. They then turn to face the man who stands on their other side and who looks like he really wants to be in any car but theirs. 

“It’s my little star's birthday today,” they begin, their lips curling into what they must think is a polite grin, “wish him a happy birthday. Immediately.” 

The poor man grips his suitcase so tight his knuckles turn white as he looks shakily at Sysba before leaning forward, ever so slowly, to look at Dreamwalker instead. Dreamwalker mouths the words i’m so sorry to him, which earns him a whimper in reply. 

“Happy… birthday?” 

“Yay!” Sysba claps their hands together as they look back to Dreamwalker, much to the relief of the other occupant. The eldritch has always had an abnormal amount of energy in the morning—much to Dreamwalker’s chagrin—and even now he can feel his headache growing stronger with each excitable word that leaves Sysba’s lips. 

He thinks they were never taught how to keep their mouth shut. Considering their parental background, this is probably a fact.

Bless their heart. 

“So what’s the plan, mi cabrón? What are we doing tonight?” They shift to rest their chin on his shoulder as they stare up at him with a cheerful look. “Tequila shooters? I could go for a tequila shooter. I mean I’ll be dead in the bathtub by the morning but for you I’d take that loss. Oh~, we could go to that restaurant you like, and then we could go get some tequila shooters.” 

“Mi cabrón? You pendejo.” He snorts and bumps Sysba with his own elbow. “But no... I’ll just stay in tonight. I didn’t sleep. Again.” 

Sysba withdraws with a frown as the subway begins to slow and Dreamwalker nudges them towards the door. He gives one last nod to the poor man Sysba terrified before stepping off onto the platform, leaving the eldritch to trail along in his wake. 

—————————————

It’s only when he glances at his phone and sees ‘19:00’ on the screen does he realize that Sysba has not bothered him the entire day. This is incredibly atypical behavior—more often than not he’s busy trying to drive Sysba out of his office. The eldritch has a habit of lounging on the window seat and taking their ‘afternoon nap’, until Dreamwalker finally has to wake them up and force them back to work. He reaches up to rub his temples—still throbbing with the unaddressed and ever-present migraine—before he finally closes his laptop with a soft click. 

The day passes as typically as one would expect for the leader of a criminal organization. He’s spared any further forced birthday wishes. Instead, a majority of his time is spent on the phone with Malachi trying to get him to clean his Toy Box (which he only agrees to do upon Voltaic offering to do it instead), re-explaining the pay system Sylvester’s employee's for the fifth time, and working through the ever-growing stack of inventory requests piling on his desk. His phone and laptop chime with notifications—emails, text messages from the organization's group chat, and update requests—which he tries to drown out with the classical music that plays nonstop.

The headquarters are silent. The other members left long ago to engage in whatever evening plans they have for the day, and as he walks down the cold marble hall, his footsteps create an eerie echo with every step he takes. An odd sense of melancholy washes over him as he listens to them cut through the air.

It isn’t like he wanted people to wish a happy birthday, but… a little acknowledgement would have been nice. A change of pace, if one may. Instead, this day felt as long and as draining as any other day does. He cares deeply for the people he works with and for the ideas that the organization carries, and he’s painfully aware of how vital his role is, but sometimes he feels more like a cog in a machine than a person. 

It’s the sensation of not being alone. 

A huff escapes from his lips as he steps out of the headquarters and looks out at the desolate field around him. This part of the city is thankfully quite unremarkable; many people avoid it simply because they know it’s an Ovo-occupied territory, which means leaving work like this can be done without risk. Still, he pulls out a set of keys to locks up the area before throwing on his familiar tattered hoodie and ballcap.

As soon as he goes to slide the key into the lock, however, a cold sensation washes over him that he knows isn’t the byproduct of the snow now beginning to lazily fall against the night. 

He lets out a slow, level breath as he carefully twists the key, locking the door with a firm click. He then shifts so that the key is grasped between his ring finger and his middle finger, sharp point out, and tenses up. Just as he’s prepared to turn and ram the metal point right into the jugular of however has the audacity to sneak up behind him—

“Oh thank god.” 

The sound of footsteps crunching on snow fills the air until he looks over and sees his oddly-absent cosmic horror grinning at him, their cheeks flushed pink in the cold. "Can I just say that these heels are not designed for cold weather? I’m pretty sure I need to regrow a toe.” 

He’s very suddenly stopped in his tracks. Instead of anger, his emotions now turn into exasperation as he relaxes his body and tips his head back to glare at the sky.

“Sysba.”

They look down at lift one foot—adorned in a seasonally unfitting ankle high leather stiletto shoe—before looking back at Dreamwalker with a wry grin. “I’m so glad you’re finally done, though. I’ve been pacing around that field across the way for at least an hour now and I’m quite certain that my presence put off a few night walkers. I think I saw our lovely Operator at one point, but he bolted away before I could get a good look.”

“Smart man.” The reply comes out in a grumble as Dreamwalker repockets the key and shrugs the hoodie on. Despite its wear—it was his fathers, after all—it provides him with a great deal of warmth against the night air. He then picks up his bag and turns to look back out at the field around them. It’s a painting of black and grey, with the white of the snow on the ground cutting through it like a jagged scar. He can envision Sysba’s form lurking just beyond the immediate view—no wonder Operator ran. 

“What are you still doing here anyway?” He moves down the steps away from the door and glances back at Sysba, who’s watching him with an owlish sort of look. “Don’t you have some big event at La Rumeur tonight?”

“Ah! That.” Sysba hastily hurries down after Dreamwalker, and it’s then that he notices the white plastic bag his companion holds. “I had Elijah take over that for tonight. I told them that I have a date that I absolutely cannot miss.”

“A date?” A dry chuckle escapes from Dreamwalker’s lips as he turns and begins walking with Sysba following right along beside him. "And which poor person fell to your charms this evening?” 

“Mm,” Sysba taps a finger against their chin in thought before their lips curl into a devious smile. “He’s tall, has gorgeous eyes, has a habit of working himself to the bone, and he never checks his fucking phone when I message him. Although,” 

Sysba hooks their arm with his and bumps against his side. “That might be because he’s been a miserable mandy the entire day so far.” 

“Sysba—” before he can even get the protest out, the eldritch jerks them both to a stop and forces him to look their way. Their hands fly up to slap against his cheeks as they hold his face in a vice-like grip. For the first time in a while, Dreamwalker notices a spark of determination in their eyes. 

“Repeat after me.”

An exasperated sigh leaves his lips, but he nods nonetheless, knowing that arguing with Sysba would be pointless right now. 

“I am going to get takeout.”

“I am going to get takeout.”

“Sysba is going to get a takeout man.”

Dreamwalker’s expression immediately turns stern as he stares down his companion. “Sysba, you are not going to get a takeout man.” 

Sysba sticks his tongue out in response before continuing. “Eating is my hobby, sweetheart. I can’t help it. Anyway—and then, once that’s done, I am going to watch all six seasons of I Love Lucy with the beautiful, wonderful, benevolent eldritch who graced me with their presence until I inevitably fall asleep—which I will tonight.” 

Dreamwalker’s gaze darts down to the plastic bag that Sysba holds on one arm. He can see the edges of a newly bought DVD set sitting inside, and can’t help but feel his lips tug into a slight smile at the sight of it. “Big stretch on the sleep part, but I suppose I did say I wanted a night in.” 

“Exactly, and you will have that, especially if I have any say on it.” Sysba affectionately pats his cheeks before letting go and re-hooking their arms. “Also, I politely informed everyone this morning of the mood that you were in, so we decided to shift your surprise party to tomorrow during the Christmas gathering.”

They send another trademark ‘polite’ smile at this. “Be surprised." 

A low chuckle escapes from Dreamwalkers lips as he shakes his head and pats Sysba’s arm with his other hand. “Yes, dear. Anything you say.” 

—————————————

Laugh tracks and grey lighting fill the otherwise darkened sitting room, where an enormous television sits mounted on the wall. Boxes of takeout—and one takeout worker's hat—sit discarded on a coffee table, which an otherwise preoccupied god glances at with disdain. They know that they should clean it up—everything will begin to smell soon—but they find themself in a rock and a hard place when it comes to that matter.

After all, it isn’t easy to clean this sort of thing up quietly.

Their gaze moves from the boxes to their companion, who rests sprawled across the couch with a blanket haphazardly thrown on him. He still wears the grey hoodie he arrived in—which smells of the winter air—but the hood is yanked up, rendering Sysba unable to see his face. They know he’s asleep, however. The steady rate of his breathing and the stillness of his form tell them so. 

A soft smile, wholly unusual for them, appears on their face as they reach over to adjust the blanket just slightly. 

“My little star… you didn’t even make it through the first season.”

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

Merlin x Leon Headcannons?

(Headcanon Masterlist) (Full Masterlist)

We all know I love a little bit of Merleon, let's get this going!

Despite the fact that Leon has known Merlin just as long as Arthur, maybe minus a few days, it takes them a long time to get acquainted, let alone become friends, and then eventually more. Merlin was a little shit; young and naïve and over confident in areas. Leon's initial reaction to this... guy, insulting the Prince and trampling all over propriety and consistently showing disdain to the societal hierarchy, is to get angry and affronted. Which is understandable, considering who he is (a Noble, a knight a few years into his career with his eye on much higher positions, raised with aspirations, expectations, of a Lordship) and how unendingly loyal he is to Camelot, and therefor Uther and Arthur. And then... Arthur changes. Leon had always been semi aware that the Prince was an entitled arsehole, but he scarcely allowed himself to actually think those thoughts, until Merlin started raising eyebrows at him over Arthur’s shoulder and calling The Prince a prat and laughing at his tantrums and just generally... not letting him get away with it. Leon has never been unreasonable, so once he saw the genuinely good impact Merlin was having on the Prince, he let go of his annoyance.

Of course Arthur slowly growing up and becoming more and more involved in his knighthood—meaning being involved in the planning and running of Camelot's military, as opposed to being Uther's golden boy without actually having to put much effort into it—means he and Leon naturally become closer. And with Arthur, comes Merlin, always. And Leon resists for so long because he really shouldn't like his Prince's manservant this much, but there's only so many times Merlin can grin at the knight behind Arthur's back, or send him a hot meal after a rainy patrol, or discreetly patch him up after a training accident, before he is undeniably fond of this man. Merlin likes Leon because he's a decent bloke, and he appreciates this pure-blooded Noble giving him a chance and treating him like a friend, which is not something many others of his social class would do.

They don't get together until almost a decade after they first met. They probably don't even develop romantic feelings for each other until after the Round Table is formed at the earliest. They're both too... busy, for any of that stuff earlier on. Maybe if Leon hadn't been a knight and Merlin hadn't had a destiny they would've got together years previously, but maybe not, so who knows. Like I said, Merlin was young and overrun, and Leon had aspirations, romance wasn't in the picture for either of them.

I don't think they would start courting until after the magic was completely out in the open and the ban had been repealed. Don't get me wrong, Leon had probably known the truth for at least a few years (even years later he'll blush when Merlin points out that he only noticed the magic because his little crush meant he was watching Merlin more often and more intently), but he knows how terrifying it would've been for a knight of Camelot, the First Knight of Camelot, who had been blindly loyal to Uther for years, to corner a Sorcerer and say "I know you have magic". No matter the caveats, or promises, or shows of faith, Merlin would never be not on edge if he found out Leon knew. So he kept it to himself and helped from the side-lines; an alibi here, a distraction there, extra food and already done laundry and a shoulder to lean on interspersed sporadically. Of course if there had been an emergency, a reveal-or-die type situation, or a Merlin-needs-protecting-from-Arthur-because-he-won't-protect-himself type situation, he would've stepped up, but luckily it never came to that.

Anyway. It's very... traditional, slow, gentle, when it starts. Classic courting; picnics and flowers and small gifts, a kiss on the hand/cheek after a date, escorting each other to their rooms, things like that. They both do things for the other, but Leon does tend to take the lead more often, because A) Merlin thinks it's sweet that Leon acts as if they don't already know each other inside out, and B) He has no idea how it's done traditionally, and he knows how much it means to Leon, so best to let him sort it.

Despite all of this, no one knows until whenever the next tournament happens. Arthur is confused because Merlin doesn't complain once, not once, about being forced to attend as Camelot's new Court Warlock, and that is very out of character considering he has never gone even a week, in ten years, without talking shite about tournaments. (It's been a while since they've had one; after so many changes they needed time to let the city settle before they invited visitors for a huge event.) And then Sir Leon, First Knight of Camelot and noted as the favourite to win, steps into the ring for the first time. His eyes flash to Merlin for approval, not his King, and tied around his upper arm is a very similar piece of red cloth. Merlin smiles softly and nods, Arthur goes pale, Elyan discreetly hands Lancelot a pouch of coins, Gwen rolls her eyes and pushes Gwaine's mouth closed, Mordred mentally goes "dads??", and Percival blanks and goes "huh. Sure, ok, why not.", and Morgana smirks because of course she saw this coming a mile away. After he wins—Leon would insist that it was only because Arthur wasn't competing, Arthur tells him to piss off, because everyone saw the way he fought today, and knows that Arthur wouldn't have had a hope in hell—he walks straight to a blushing Merlin and plants a kiss to the back of his hand, looking mightily pleased when the Warlock insists he keeps the token.

The rest is history. Leon is so respectful and desperate not to push Merlin into something he isn't ready for that it takes Merlin going "oh for pities sake" and pulling him in for a snog after about a month and a half of barely leaving each other's sides. Things move a little faster after that; the two of them know each other so well already that they can skip all those conversations that normally happen in the first year of a new relationship. They never yell at each other. Ever. There are a few terse conversations, for sure, but Leon never lets it get to the point of shouting or thoughtless insults. Tears happen sometimes, but only because if yelling doesn't happen, emotions have to escape somehow; Leon is good at taking a step back, making Merlin do the same, and saying "This conversation is us verses the problem, not us verses each other. Are we calm enough to have this conversation now, or do you want to sit and read/walk around the gardens/eat a meal before we continue?". 

They never have arguments over stupid things (I mean... they playfully bicker, sure, but nothing more than that), it’s always really big important things, things that matter. Leon throws Merlin’s previous lies and secrecy in his face exactly once, and it’s the same for when Merlin responds with graphic descriptions of his nightmares containing Leon and his sword and his blood red cape. In fact, that’s probably why Leon introduced his self-enforced no yelling rule. They’re the type to not stop talking something over until it’s fully solved; they don’t like going to bed/parting ways angry, and they never present a divided front in public.

Leon is fascinated with Merlin’s magic, though it still catches him off guard when he uses it casually for simple things: drying clothes after a rainstorm, making the bed, passing a water jug, etc. The first time that Leon grabs his belt out of mid-air without even looking up, without a blink or a jolt or even an extra breath, Merlin cries. Leon doesn’t understand why at first, but comforts him nonetheless, tightening the hug and deciding he doesn’t care if he’s late to training when Merlin stutters out a hitching “you’re not scared of me anymore”. He’s known about the magic for a while, and had always known that logically magic can’t be that bad, but equally he can not deny that sorcery made him uncomfortable and frightened for a very long time despite this.

They don’t tie the knot for ages, mainly because the whole convention is just kinda... meh, to them. They don’t really care either way. Now that Merlin is technically a Lord, there wouldn’t even be any advantage to getting married because Merlin’s station doesn’t need elevating. They move in together fairly quickly though, they just move so efficiently around each other and they have so few possessions between them that it happens without either of them really realising until Gaius points out that Merlin hasn’t slept in his bedroom in over a week and can he turn it back into a storage room please? When Leon eventually inherits his parents’ estate, they do stay there occasionally, but the main estate is outside the city limits and neither of them are prepared to give up their political/military titles in favour of becoming full time Lords/Aristocrats because... that would be stupid and boring.

Overall they’re just very... cute, despite an almost severe lack of PDA (they don't tend to be affectionate in public, but they do always stand next to each other, arms pressed together). Traditional, but there is also will-cut-a-bitch-in-defence-of-their-partner vibes, and they are UNSTOPPABLE in court, Arthur’s a little intimidated some days because everyone knows they could stage a coup and have the thrones to themselves within a few hours without any previous planning. They do a lot of stargazing; Merlin has always had trouble sleeping and Leon likes staying up with him. But there’s also a lot of reading. Like a LOT. They become besties with Geoffrey because they’re in and out of the library at least once a week.

~

I hope that’s the sort of thing you’re after anon!! I love you!!

[juicypassionfruit]

Need To Change

Summary: Bam is stuck in his toxic ways. 

Gn reader

Warnings: Swearing, Toxic Bam, Implied smut

Bam woke up sweating, his long hair sticking to his forehead. The blanket that covered him was quickly kicked off. It was normally freezing cold in his room, the change in temperature woke him up from a deep sleep. He got up and walked over to the window. As soon as he opened it the morning air cooled his body instantly.

Memories from last night flashed in his mind. Her eyes gave him that look he couldn't resist, the curve in her lips when he whispered sweet nothings into her ear. The sounds she made when he brought her back home. The argument that took place after he told her she should go. Last time he let her stay and he couldn't possibly let her stay over another night. Bam didn't know why he treated Jenn this way. It wasn't always intentional, sometimes it was just easier. The image of tears coming down her face didn't leave his mind. Couldn't leave his mind.

It was normal for them to go through a bad phase. Where one moment he is completely obsessed and the next he wants nothing to do with her. He can admit that it wasn't healthy but he does love her or at least has some love for her.

In a few days they'll be talking again and go back to the way it was, Bam knew that for certain. He knew she'd never be able to stay away for long and maybe, for some twisted reason, that's why he acted the way he did. Why he'd take her to places she liked, just to remind her they weren't dating and probably never would.

Bam was wide awake with no chance of going back to sleep. The sun was beginning to rise and the birds were chirping louder and louder, making him even more annoyed than he already was. It seemed like today was gonna be one of those days. 'Fuck' he mumbled to himself and went into the bathroom to get ready.

He'd be lying if he said it wasn't peaceful, the quiet house in the early morning, but it was too quiet for his liking. If Bam had to be up so did everyone else. Downstairs he grabbed a pot and a pan and ran back upstairs to April and Phil's room. He was fighting the urge to laugh while opening the door. As they quietly slept, the only sound in the room was the pots and pans banging together. "You guys are wasting the day away, c'mon it's already six-thirty!" April sat up quick with a gasp, "Bam!" Phil woke up confused as ever but went back to sleep when he realized it was just Bam being Bam. It made him feel slightly better. He hunched over and laughed, leaving not too long after that.

Skating seemed to be the solution to all his problems. Mad? Skate. Sad? Skate. Constantly arguing with the person you kinda love but treat horribly? Skate. It was the easiest way for him to get rid of his frustrations, and anyway, he always needed more clips. For the rest of the morning, he skated. He filmed himself since no one was awake at this time and his friends probably wouldn't be till the late afternoon.

Bam sat on the edge of the drop reviewing his videos. As it got later in the morning, more and more kids showed up to skate. The once empty park was now filled with mostly kids and some adult skaters. He decided that filming a few more clips should be good then he'd leave. When he stood up he saw three of his friends walking toward him. The watch on his wrist said it was ten-thirty. "A little early for you, fucks isn't it?"

Ryan, Raab, and Dico stood at the bottom of the drop and looked up at him, "Bam this is the earliest you've been up since elementary school." Ryan pointed out making the other two laugh. It was an exaggeration but true for the most part, he hasn't been up early for no reason in years. His not-so-subtle change in behavior was more noticeable than he'd like. In all honesty, none of them wanted to be there, but a very concerned April called all of them to check on Bam.

"Can you move out of the fuckin' way so I can skate?" He ignored the mocking waiting for them to step aside. This was his usual attitude when skating especially when he was determined to get some footage. They moved out of his way and watched him dropdown. Bam was doing good until he tried to grind the rail, losing his balance and falling face first to the ground. His board rolled backward towards his friends while he lay on the ground groaning in annoyance and pain. Dico kicked the board back to him, hitting his foot. Bam jumped back onto his board to redo the trick. After falling again he stayed on the ground. The guys walked over to him and stared at him as he lay on the ground with his eyes closed.

"Dude, what the fuck is your deal?" Ryan asked lighting the cigarette that sat in his mouth. Bam opened his eyes and sat up hugging his knees. "Nothing" Clearly it wasn't just 'nothing' but Ryan didn't push any further. "Okay. Let's go fuck with Don Vito's car" Smoke blew from Ry's mouth and into Raab's face who waved it away. Dico stood there plotting what to do with the car and how they'd destroy it this time. Ryan extended his arm to help Bam up. He took it and they walked out of the park.

Back home Bam felt a little better. Being around his friends distracted him from his thoughts. The plan to ruin Don Vito's car was a success, to say the least. His car was in millions of pieces, completely obliterated. It felt wrong but Bam was actually happier after destroying the car. Not only was it fun, but the reaction of his uncle was priceless. He was red in the face yelling at him about yet another car he had broken, which made it even better. Phil and April scolded him of course and made sure he'd get him a new car.

The next few days consisted of Bam losing sleep from thinking too much. Leading to a crabby exhausted Bam, which no one liked. Jenn still hasn't called or texted and the thought of her being done with his bullshit made him sick to his stomach. His friends were over how he was acting, never feeling sorry for him once. Ryan made sure to put his two cents in and let him know that it's the least he deserves for treating her so badly. It definitely made Bam stop feeling sorry for himself, but it still hurt she never called to end it.

The guys came over constantly, checking in on how he was doing and getting annoyed when his behavior wasn't improved. They did all they could do by getting him out of the house and giving him pep talks. In the middle of the guys setting Bam right, she called. They've only seen him move that quick when someone had a snake near them. He sat there and let it ring for a few seconds before answering, "Hey, what's up" The casual tone in his voice was the complete opposite of how he was feeling. 'Was she calling to end it officially?' "Hey, I've missed you" She spoke. Relief filled his body and a smile appeared on his face, "Yeah? I've missed you too"

Ryan rolled his eyes and groaned, Raab and Dico chuckled at his reaction. "How could they still be a thing?" Ry whispered loudly to them while Bam laughed and made plans with Jenn. "Maybe they're perfect for each other" Dico shrugged and Raab shook his head, "Definitely not. he deserves someone slightly better, she did cheat on him."

"Yeah, do you remember what he did to make her cheat?" Ryan shook his head in dismay. Raab instantly remembered and laughed, "Ohh yeah. Jesus get those two away from each other."

Immediately Bam's attitude was different. Knowing he didn't lose her for good felt great. As he hung up he laughed to himself and thought about him going crazy not talking to her for a few days. "I like her. Really like her. I mean I was going insane!"

"Noo Bam!" His friends booed him, strongly disagreeing. He waved them off and started getting ready for his not date.

Jenn made plans to go to the bar and then some underground concert later. Bam of course was for it, most of his nights out were like that.

She got there early and told him to meet her at the bar. Still not wanting to seem desperate he arrived a little late. About five minutes late. Ryan laughed when he told him he intentionally wanted to be five minutes late and not a minute later.

When he walked into the bar he looked around for Jenn. Bam spotted her playing pool and started to walk over to them. As he got closer, some random walked up to her and kissed her. Jenn made direct eye contact while kissing the greaseball she was with. The anger and hurt he felt was too much. He began to stomp over there, but a strong hand grabbed his shoulder stopping him. "It's not worth it, man" Ryan wasn't wrong but he wanted to feel the self-satisfaction of ending it and making her seem like the bad guy.

"C'mon Bam. It's better this way." With a slight nod and sigh they walked out. Ryan laughed to himself and patted his back, "Dude, there's plenty of people in this city."

"Yeah, whatever"

~

It's been weeks since he left Jenn. Constantly fighting the urge to not call or text her. Bam's been bummed out but fine for the most part. He actually tried to move on and hung out with a few people, but they didn't make him feel the way she did. It seemed like no one had what he was looking for, although he didn't really know what he was looking for. Bam's mentality was if he found the right person he'd know immediately.

After a while, he realized that he had better things to do than be sad over Jenn. Bam had his own show in the works and he was already in Jackass the show and the first movie. It almost felt wrong to feel sad when he had so much to appreciate.

The relief everyone felt when Bam finally acted like his usual chaotic self and not the forced chaos he created. April knew it was all because Bam snapped out of whatever was going on but when Ryan took credit for 'getting' Bam back, she couldn't help but laugh with everyone.

To celebrate Ryan decided it'd be a good idea to take Bam out. Their favorite bar had missed him especially when it's been a full month since he's been their last. They guys couldn't be paid to stay away for that long.

The four guys walked into the bar laughing. Raab and Dico ran to their favorite table like little kids. Ryan shook his head and walked over to the table with Bam. A round of their favorite beers was set on the table after a few minutes.

On his way back from the bathroom, Ryan was stopped by a girl and her friend. The smile on his face grew while they talked. From their seats, Bam had the perfect view of them. Dico and Raab would have to turn around all the way to see Ryan flirt, which Bam made sure they didn't do so it wasn't obvious he was staring at them.

Ryan walked back to the table acting as if nothing happened. "What'd they want?" Raab asked and he just shrugged, "Well one of them thought I was good looking and the other was interested in Bam, but I said he wasn't looking for anything."

Bam threw his hands up, "Dude!" It was a surprise that his best friend didn't act like his wingman. Normally when they went out and two best friends approached them or even just one of them, they knew what it meant. "I didn't know if you could handle any kind of relationship with someone, even if it's just one night." Knowing he was probably right, he didn't argue it.

The night continued on like normal as they drank more and more. Before any of them knew it they were completely drunk, all except Ryan who was the designated driver.

The next morning Bam felt sick. His head and body aching from too much alcohol the night before. He walked downstairs and grabbed a glass of water taking two tablets of ibuprofen. As he recovered he started to get ready to go skating.

It was a slow day at the park, not too many people were there despite it being early in the afternoon. Bam skated around, doing little tricks as a warm up before getting into the harder ones. He enjoyed recording his progress and the cool tricks he could do but today wasn’t one of those days.

He dropped down from the drop and did a small trick as he went up the fun box. As he was coming down he bumped into someone. They both fell off their boards and onto the ground. “Fuck” Bam groaned.

He sat up and looked at the other person laying beside him, “Sorry. I didn’t see you” Bam got up and extended his arm. They took it and said it was okay.

Bam was attracted to them instantly. “Im Bam Margera.” He smiled

“Im Y/n” They returned the smile. The two made small talk and watched each other skate around. Both enjoying each others company, since they were the only two good skaters in the park.

It was early evening now. The sun was getting ready to set and it was getting colder by the minute. Y/n decided it was time to go home. “Well, Margera. Its been fun but I better get home. See you around.”

“Yeah. See ya.” Y/n started walking away and out of the park. Bam didnt wanna miss his opportunity to not see them again so he skated after them. “Wait”

“Can I get your number? It’d be cool to hang out again.” They smiled and gave him their number. Bam smiled and they went their separate ways.

It was now night and Bam found himself with no plans. There was nothing to do it seemed like. Ryan and the others decided to stay in and relax. Bam felt restless and in need of something to do.

The idea to text Y/n crossed his mind. ‘Were they even awake?’ With nothing to lose he sent them a text. While he waited he started editing some clips. His phone buzzed and he checked it immediately. Y/n was awake and bored just like him. He had no specific plan in mind, but he told them to get ready and meet at the park.

He put on a hoodie and his shoes and left the house.

The park was closed at these hours but it was an easy meeting place and they didn’t necessarily have to skate there, or skate at all for that matter. Just being out and doing something was enough for Bam. Y/n arrived a few minutes after he did. They sat on their boards and talked for a while.

“Hey, I know a spot we can hang out at. We can go if you want?” Y/n suggested and Bam smiled loving the idea. They both got up and he followed them on his board, excited to see where this spot was.

The streets were empty and quiet, minus the sound of their boards rolling in the middle of the street. It was dimly lit, the streetlights only lighting up so much. Cold wind hitting their faces as they skated.

After skating all over the city and walking miles through too many bushes, they made it to the place Y/n was talking about it. It was hidden away pretty well. They sat on top of a grassy hill with the perfect view of the small town. Bam could see the lights turning red and green, and the orange streetlights. It was so pretty. “Wow” He said to himself, but it was loud enough for them to hear.

“Its my favorite spot to go. You better not tell anyone about this or ill have to kick your ass” They said laughing. Bam laughed and promised he wouldn’t, making sure to add they probably wouldn’t be able to kick his ass. They continued talking and enjoying the view.

Bam glanced at Y/n and smiled. When they noticed they blushed, “What?” He shook his head but didn’t look away. They were already pretty close to each other but it still felt so far. When he finally looked away, Y/n looked at him. He looked so pretty. He was pretty, all the time. “Bam?” Their voice was soft, almost embarrassed to say anything else.

He looked back at them and smirked. Knowing exactly what they were about to say or ask. Without hesitating, he placed his hand on their cheek and leaned in close. His lips ghosted over theirs. “Is this okay?” He whispered and Y/n nodded. Wanting nothing more than to feel his lips.

Bam gently placed his lips onto theirs. Y/n’s hands wrapped around his neck pulling him closer. He pressed his lips onto theirs a little harder, making sure they’d feel how bad he’s been wanting to kiss them. The kiss got more intense by the minute. Desperately needing more of each other.

He pulled away to catch his breath. Y/n looked up at him through their eyelashes, “Do you wanna finish what we started?” Bam let out a breathless laugh and nodded leaning in to kiss them again.

~

They both laid beside each other staring at the stars. “Now what?” Y/n looked over at him. Bam looked back at them and smiled, “Can I take you out on a date?”

“That’d be nice” They smiled

The two decided it was time to go home and Bam said he’d let Y/n know when their date was.

The next morning Bam made sure to tell Ryan all about Y/n and their day plus night together. As long as Bam wouldn’t treat them badly, he was all for this new person that he had yet to meet. Bam swore on everything that he wouldn’t go back to being as toxic as he was when he was with Jenn, and that was enough for Ryan.