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cmncisspnandmore · 9 months

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One Night Stand; Part 5

Pairings: Simon x Reader

Warnings: Hospitals

A/n: Heres another sub par part, im sorry... I feel like im losing motivation to write this story, but im gonna keep going in hopes that it kinda just hits me like a freight train. Might take a break from this and do a few oneshots.

Word Count: 3309

New to the Series? Catch up here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Your lungs ache.

A dull creeping ache that wouldn't go away. Air was forced into your lungs, and you sputter and cough. One hand reaching up to try and bat away the intrusion, to make the air that forces your lungs to expand painfully go away.

“Easy, Love. You need to leave that on,” A gruff voice next to you soothes. The words float over you like warm water. A blam to soothe the raw nerve endings exposed over your entire body. Slowly the world starts to come into focus, the steady hiss of an oxygen machine. The quiet beeping of a heart rate monitor, and a second faster paced one that echos it. The harsh smell of disinfectant, and the scratchy sheets on your raw skin.

“Simon…” You mumble, your voice so hoarse you barely recognize it. Talking hurts. Breathing hurts. At this point you weren't sure there was a single thing you could do that didn't hurt.

“I’m here Love,” Simon’s voice is soft, muffled. His large warm hand taking one of yours, a small whimper passing your lips as the heat from his hand causes the raw skin of your hand to burn. Simon quickly lets go, opting to instead brush a strand of your hair back from your face. “Sorry… I didn't mean to hurt you..” he whispers.

“S’okay…” you mumble, finally finding the strength to open your eyes. His dark brown eyes meet yours, a torrent of emotion swirling behind them. His browns pulled tight behind the black and white skull mask that covers his mouth and nose. You can’t help the small smirk that plays on your lips as you see it. Finally it made sense for him to be wearing one, you just wished you weren’t the reason he was wearing it in the correct setting.

“What's so funny?�� Simon grunts, his brows furrowed even more.

“The mask…” you cough and rasp, “finally wearing it in the correct setting.”

Simon makes a small sound, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. Your eyes flickering around the bright white room. It was set up like any other hospital room, although this one seemed nicer. There was no curtain separating the room in half so another person could be in the room. It was just you and Simon, the TV on, the soundless news flashing across the screen.

“What happened?” You rasp, sucking in a pained breath as the oxygen machine forces more air into your lungs.

“Your apartment building caught on fire.. I found you on the stairs..” he leans forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his thighs. Your eyes trail down to his arms and you notice the soot and ash that still clings to the fabric of his shirt. The small holes that burnt through the thin fabric, revealing the smallest parts of his tattoo.

“How did you find me..” you mumble, your eyes burning like someone scraped them with sandpaper.

“I was already on my way when I saw the smoke, one of your neighbors said she hadn’t seen you. The fire truck was still a few minutes out… I’ve run into worse things than burning buildings.”

“That’s stupid of you….”

“It’s part of my job, love,” he laughs slightly, “although you should sue your landlord. Bloody bastard didn’t even have a working fire system.”

Silence settles over the room, the machines offering white noise. You allow your eyes to close, the burning becoming too much to ignore. As you lay there, listening to the sounds of the machines and Simon’s breathing, the soft whooshing sound catches your attention.

You force your sore eyes open once more and turn to look at Simon, his head resting on his palm. His elbow propped up on his knee. “Is… is that the baby’s heartbeat?” You ask softly, Simon’s brown eyes meeting yours over the fabric of his mask.

“Yeah.. they wanted to monitor them… make sure the smoke inhalation didn't hurt them at all,” he whispers, behind the mask you can tell he's smiling. The way his eyes crinkle around the edges, and the way the mask moves ever so slightly.

“I still can’t get over the fact that there's an actual baby…” you mumble, dry eyes sliding closed again.

“Me either, Love, me either…” Simon murmurs, allowing the steady whooshing sound to fill the room again. As you laid on the bed, you started to take inventory of your injuries. Nothing felt too burnt, your skin aches like a bad sunburn, and a spot on your shoulder stung. Your lungs burned with each breath but it wasn't unmanageable. Your throat felt raw and dry, and your eyes felt like you had walked into a sandstorm with them wide open.

A soft knock on the door draws your attention back to the room. Blinking slowly the room comes back into focus, a woman stands at the door. A white coat adoring her, as she pokes her head in. Her kind blue eyes reminded you of Soap’s, as she steps into the room. Her heels clicking on the tile.

“Hi, I'm Dr. Rykes. How are you feeling?” She asks softly, coming to stand at the foot of the bed, grabbing the metal clipboard that hangs there. She looks it over for a few minutes, flipping the pages back and forth, her brows pulled together.

“I’m okay…” you mumble, as Simon shifts in his seat. His hand comes to rest on your hand again, this time you're prepared for the slight sting of his body heat on your hand so you don't flinch. You just subtly turn your hand over so his hand rests against the less sensitive skin of your palm.

“You’re probably going to feel like you have a sunburn for a few days, the intense heat from the fire can make your skin sensitive. You’ll also have some discomfort breathing and swallowing. But you made it out relatively okay, you did sustain a second degree burn on your shoulder, which will need to be redressed a few times a day,” she smiles, and looks up at you.

“When can she go home?” Simon’s voice startles her, and she looks over.

“In a few hours. I just want to monitor the baby and her oxygen stats,” she sets the clipboard back on the edge of the rail. “Do you have someplace to go?” She looks at me, her blue eyes filling with sympathy.

“Oh-”

“She’ll be staying with me,” Simon cuts you off.

You look over at him, your brows pulled together, “Simon.. I can’t ju-”

“Shh, you’ll stay with me until we can find you a new apartment,” His tone cuts off any argument that starts to form. After a few more questions and the doctor telling you that you need to take it easy and if you have any change in your breathing you are to come back immediately, she leaves.

“Simon.. I can't just crash at your apartment.. I can get a hotel,” you turn towards him, his hand still on yours.

“You can, and you will,” Simon's fingers tighten around yours. The warmth from his palm sends tingles over your skin. You wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in his arms to make all the anxiety that was bubbling under the surface of your skin disappear.

“Bu-”

“No,” Simon deadpans, “You will be staying with me, I’m not going to let you live in a hotel and then take the first available flat you find. You’ll stay with me until we can find you a nice flat, with plenty of room for you and the baby.”

You pull your bottom lip into your mouth, and chew on it. You didn't want to have to rely on Simon, but you also didn't have much of a choice. You lost everything, not that there was anything of importance in the apartment. But your laptop was gone which was your main source of income. Your eyes flicker over Simon’s face, he leans back in the chair. His arms crossed across his chest as he looked at you. His brown eyes are full of determination.

“Okay.. fine.”

A smile creeps across his lips under his mask, his eyes shining slightly, “good girl.”

Warmth spreads through your chest at his praise, your cheeks heating as he watches you. For the next few hours you doze off, waking up every once in a while to hear Simon on the phone with someone. Eventually the doctor comes in with your discharge papers and gives you the okay to go to Simons, with instructions to follow up with your primary care in a few days.

~~~~

Simon pushes open the door to his place, the warm yellow lights a stark contrast from the bright LED lighting in the hospital. Simon's hands rest on your waist, his fingers pressing softly into the flesh of your hips as he guides you towards his couch. You pause as you take in the state of the living room, the entire floor is covered in shopping bags from various stores. Even a few boxes filled with unbuilt furniture, the faint sound of shuffling comes from the bedroom.

“W-what is all this?” You look over your shoulder at Simon who removes his mask, tossing it onto the counter behind him.

“I had Soap and Gaz pick up a few things for you,” Simon grunts, pulling you over to the couch and making you sit.

“You didn't have to do that…” You mumble as he bends, picking up a few of the bags and taking the clothes from them.

“You need clothes..” Simon states, as he holds the items of clothing in his hands. They look small in his large hands, as he folds them neatly placing them in piles on the arm of the couch next to you. “If you don't like something we can return it and get you something you like.”

“Oi! Ouch!” A thick Scottish accent calls from the bedroom, a moment later Soap emerges from the bedroom rubbing the side of his head. His bright blue eyes land on you and a smile breaks out on his face. “Lass!” He calls as he comes over and wraps his arms around you.

“Hi, Soap,” you mumble into the fabric of his shirt.

“I was worried about you, I just put up some shelves in LT’s closet for ya,” he smiles as he pulls back slightly, his hands resting on your upper arms. He looks you over for a few moments, shaking his head as he takes a step back. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Me too,” you smile, “we both are.” You place your hand over your lower stomach, and Soap smiles wide.

“Well, I'll leave you two to get settled,” he turns towards Simon, “I’ll come by tomorrow to help you put together the rest of the stuff, but I think both of you need some rest after the night you had.”

“Thank you, Johnny,” Simon nods as Soap gathers his things and heads for the door.

As the door closes behind Soap, you look over at Simon. “You really didn't have to do all this..” You trail off, looking at all the bags again. Tears prick in your eyes as you take in the sheer quantity of stuff Simon had bought for you. There were at least a dozen bags of clothes and shoes, a few filled with bathroom products that you never even thought of using. Soaps, Shampoos, and bath oils of different scents. The last time someone did something like this for you was when your mother bought you stuff for your house when you bought it.

Your mom.

The memory knocks the air out of your lungs. She would’ve been so excited to be a grandmother. She was always telling you how she couldn't wait to spoil her grandkids. How she wanted to make so many new traditions with them. Shower them in love like she did you and your siblings. But now she would never know what it was like to hold her first grandchild. She would never experience the joy of hearing their heartbeat. She wouldn't be able to be there for their birth, to hold your hand and coach you through it.

She was gone, buried 6 feet under the ground. Alongside your brother and sister, the only family you ever had. Tears spill down your cheeks, leaving streams of tears that burn like fire on your sensitive skin. Your throat feels tight with emotion as you pull your hands up to your face to try and hold back the emotions bubbling over.

You lost your family, your first house, and now your apartment in the span of a year. You had to start over again.

The couch next to you dips, as Simon settles on it. His large arm wraps around you as he pulls you into his chest. His hand is careful of the burn on your shoulder, as he puts his other hand on the back of your hair, pressing your face gently into his chest. Your shoulders shake as the silent tears turn into heartbreaking sobs. Your fists clutching the fabric of his shirt as he holds you gently.

“You’re okay…” He murmurs into your hair, his hands gently ghosting across your back.

Simon holds you in his arms as you shake, his heart beating rapidly in his chest as he takes in your distressed state. He expected you to be upset, you had just lost your apartment, but the way you’re breaking down in his arms makes his gut twist. This was something more than losing an apartment, more than losing a few items in a fire.

The cries that echo around the apartment in the early morning light were filled with something deeper. They were full of pain, the type of pain you feel when your entire life is ripped away. The kind of pain he felt when he found his family murdered after being buried alive and tricked by a brainwashed Sparks. Simons hands ghost along your sensitive skin as he tries to comfort you. His lips pressed against your hair that still smells of smoke, as he murmurs soft words to you.

You look so small in his arms, your entire body shaking with emotion you are desperately trying to contain. If he really wanted to, Simon is sure he could break you in half with one squeeze. Your small frame was no match for his strength, one strong wind seemed like it could blow you over. He knew that the cries that bubbled up from your chest weren’t meant for his ears. In the short time he's known you, he's noticed how you guarded yourself despite the apparent anxiety that seems to plague you. It took a lot of courage to seek him out after finding out you were pregnant, and he admired the strength it took. But beneath the walls you put up to protect yourself there was clearly someone who had witnessed something terrible and was no longer comfortable in the world they lived in.

As your sobs quiet into small hiccups, Simon looks at you, your eyes puffy from crying. Your cheeks flushed, lips parted as you pulled air into your aching lungs. You were still as breathtaking as you were in the alley behind the bar, even with your tear stained cheeks. Your eyes meet Simons as he looks down at you, as you look at each other Simon swears he can see the walls going back up. In a matter of moments the lost, hurt look in your eyes is replaced with the carefully constructed facade you built to fool the people around you that you were okay.

But Simon saw through it. He could see through the fake happiness you put on for everyone else, he could see through the mirage of ‘i’m fine and i’m okay’. He could see that behind those walls you put up to protect yourself you were broken and scared.

But it didn't matter to Simon, because in the moments were breaking down in his arms, when your face was streaked with tears, and you were gasping for air. You were the most beautiful, because in those moments, you were honest. That's when he found you the most beautiful, because despite all the pain, you were still here. You were still going, and that kind of strength that no one could take away from you.

“I’m sorry,” you sniffle, gently wiping your cheeks with your hands despite the burning sensation.

“Don't apologize,” Simon’s arms are wrapped around you, blanketing you in warmth.

“I don't usually.. Just break down like that,” you mumble, “I was just.. Its been a long time since someone has done something like this for me.”

“You don't have to explain it to me.”

You shift slightly so you’re sitting a little further from him, his thigh pressed against yours. His body heat seeping through the fabric of his jeans into yours, as you clear your throat. Simon leans forward his elbows resting on his thighs as he rubs a hand across his face. In the dim lighting of his flat you notice just how tired he looks. The bags under his eyes are darker, and his eyes lack the shine that they normally have.

“Why.. why don't we go through this stuff after a few hours of sleep, yeah?”

Simon looks over at you, and nods. “That sounds like a good idea, we both need some sleep,” he stands, holding his hand out to you.

“Are you okay with sharing the bed for tonight?” he asks, “I just don't have the energy to convert the couch to a bed right now.”

A blush creeps up your cheeks,”oh, yeah of course.”

Simon smiles, and leads you into his bedroom. It looks exactly as it did when the night you fell into bed with him. The bed is neatly made, the walls still bare of personalization, but there's a small stack of books on the nightstand. The laundry basket in the corner has a few new blankets piled on top of it to be washed. Simon walks to his closet and pulls out a shirt and pair of sweatpants, holding them out to you.

“Here, you can wear these tonight,”

You take the items and smile, the scent of simons cologne clings to them as you head towards the bathroom. After you close the door you press them to your nose, inhaling his comforting scent for a moment before changing. As you peel off your shirt you take in the thick white bandage that covers your shoulder blade. The skin around it is slightly pink, the tape holding the bandage in place pulling your skin taught. You carefully slide the oversized shirt over your upper body and tuck the front of it into the waistband of the rolled up sweatpants.

When you emerge from the bathroom Simon is already laying on the bed, the blankets pulled up to his waist, his chest bare. His tattooed forearm slung over his eyes, as he lays against the pillows. His breathing is soft and slow as he sleeps. Your eyes trail down his chest and stomach, before you force yourself to look away. You climb into the bed, it dips under your body weight and you turn onto your side. Your arm under your pillow, your injured shoulder off the mattress as you reach over and turn off the small bedside lamp.

As you pull the blanket up over yourself, Simon rolls over in his sleep, his arm coming to wrap around your waist. He tugs you backwards to fit against his chest, his hand resting over your lower stomach. His breath tickles the back of your neck as your own heavy eyes fall closed and sleep pulls you under.

Next: Part 6

Taglist: @coffeeandtealol

#simon riley x reader #simon x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley #simon #cod mwii #call of duty #cod x reader #X reader #x pregnant reader #simon ghost x reader #call of duty modern warfare 2 #cod #cod modern warfare

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naggingatlas · 3 months

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spamton and jevil neck cord for my glasses me and my friend made today!!! details under cut :]

there is a bunch of little secrets in this one!! on the second picture you can see that the hearts and yellow stars are on the same level for them both (jevs heart is going down to moreso resemble a spade), but jev's name is above spam's bc he's more powerful in his base form. also he can float.

^ the "a" in spamton's name can be turned over to become "sun" to yknow. continue his motif of being a sunchaser, first following the notion of "the tallest tree gets the most sunshine" and then, after supposedly seeing it in the shadow crystal, painting it in his shop to remind him of H E A V E N

the middle back part that u cant see behind my hair usually is supposed to symbolise gaster. the smile motif/something that looks like a wingding, letters you cant read. the bead w the face on it has LOL on the other side. lol

this one is both of them going from smug know it alls to apathetic depressed middle aged men

and these are their shadow crystals! a shiny bismuth ball for jev and a jagged polygonal shape for spam!

oh and also an injoke i have with my bff angel that we got from reading the "torrent seeding at 4.3 mbps... would it go faster if they knew i had a belly ring? Fuck 🫦 everyone wants a bad girl until they meet one" post in a funny voice. when we go silent in vc for even a minute there is a rly high chance we will break that silence with a Feeeeeeck with like a heavy vocal fry. this is our quintessential big shot spam post. i love angel so much.

#deltarune #spamton #jevil #spamvil #?? i guess #yaurt also?? i guess??

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lucyandthepen · 1 year

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a lesson on style - vi . [ ljn | njm ]

pt. i, pt. ii, pt. iii, pt. iv., pt. v, pt. vi

you’ve always been content with being associated with one word and one word only: average. average in looks, academics and social skills, you’re just looking to graduate high school without causing disasters you’ll have to live with until you kick the bucket. when you’re paired with school king lee jeno for the semester-long physics thesis, you can’t help but think the entire situation has pretty much set itself up for failure. that is, until you strike a deal with your partner.

alternatively: an au tale involving lessons in popularity, eleven consecutive B minuses, a secretly sensitive, chess-loving jock, and an amateur sex tape.

pairing: jeno x fem!reader, jaemin x fem!reader verse: high school au { jocks!nomin ft. a super cute whiny ap physics genius renjun } rating: M chapter warnings: none word count: 8.1k

author’s note: this was actually supposed to go on for a lot longer but... it might've reached a solid 13-15k and i just thought it would be better to split it into half-ish, so nothing major happens, although i definitely enjoyed yet another mc/jaemin real talk session that i also hope you enjoy! :^)

tagging: @justalildumpling, @spiderrenjunfics (no longer available, please give me your new url if you're still interested!)

You think now is as good a time as any for you to say something that’ll easily impact the trajectory of your life forever; after all, Jeno’s essentially given you the floor after such a strange and honestly shocking turn of events. You’re aware of the fact that his thumb is still traveling across your cheek, more idle as an action than anything else, but you seem to be experiencing the feeling as something closer to an out-of-body experience than an actual first-hand one; the tingles they send to your heart are weird and blurry, like your body can’t process his touch well enough to understand it fully. You suppose it’s because of your confusion at what he’s saying, which leads to your second option: asking him what he means.

There’s little to interpret at face value, but what his words do is essentially unlock a torrent of other weird questions in your head. For instance: how long had he known that you liked him? Had he known this entire time? Did something you did make it painfully obvious? If he wants you to like him — and, as he says, only him — does that mean he’s essentially accepting your feelings? Does this mean… he likes you back?

You assume this is one of those moments where, because your mind is going a million miles a minute, a lot of time feels like it’s passed even though it’s just been a small handful of seconds. This assumption is quickly broken by Jeno’s expression of concern.

“_______________? Say… something.”

“Um,” you start before you can even figure out what you want to say. The easiest answer comes to mind: It’s always only been you. But that’s weird, and this isn’t a 90’s Western movie, and if it were, you certainly wouldn’t be the eloquent main romance interest, even if Jeno’s gaze could easily fool you into thinking that. You think about making a joke, but you’re befuddled and also fresh from tears that — if Jeno’s abrupt story is actually true — were totally useless and unfounded in nature.

Also, you’re really not that funny to begin with.

“I just…” you try again, and his eyebrows raise slightly in anticipation for your next words. Nothing else comes out after a few seconds, though, and he realizes this is just another false start, his hand falling onto your shoulder (maybe he’s tired of trying to coax it out of you with the thumb-on-cheek method, which admittedly had you clamping up more than anything else).

“You can just tell me how you really f—”

“I think I have to go.”

No. No. Why would you say that? The surprise on his face quickly morphs into something that looks almost crestfallen, an expression you’d never imagine seeing on bright, confident Lee Jeno, let alone ever be the cause of. His hand slips from your shoulder quickly, like he’s now worried touching you will electrocute him.

“Oh. I’m sorry — I didn’t… mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m… I’m not.” You’re not, are you? “Maybe a little, but it isn’t really you —”

“Something I said, then—?”

“No, I…” Your fingernail digs into the pad of your thumb, with you trying to use the sting of the pain to jolt you out of this nervous, inarticulate state. “I just don’t think… I have anything of value to say right now.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because…” Grappling for words is like trying to break through the surface of water; you’re almost there, but somehow you’re still floundering, and that only seems to be making it much worse. “Because I never really thought about what I’d do… if you really found out I liked you.”

When you say it, it suddenly makes sense. For some reason, you’d always lived your life shuttling between point A (liking Jeno quietly in the comfort of your own mind palace) and point Z (fantasizing about your life with him where you live in a quaint townhouse with a cute mailbox and three kids), but you’d never really given much thought to all the points in between, especially not one that contains a scenario in which he’d find out and seemingly be okay with it, which, based on the current conversation, somehow seems like a reasonable thing to assume about him.

You’ve always wanted it — him knowing, him accepting it, maybe even him liking you back — but it kind of felt like, deep down, you hadn’t really believed it would ever happen.

And you were kind of content with that, because you wouldn’t ever really have to deal with the complications of it. Right now, you’re feeling unprepared and a little exposed, weirdly vulnerable to his gaze. It once again, for the hundredth time tonight, it seems, triggers some kind of flight instinct in you that has you looking anywhere but at him all of a sudden.

“You can think about it… now,” he suggests carefully. Being put on the spot doesn’t really ever bring out the best in you — a fact that might be known to people who were actually paying attention to your failed impromptu speech about whale hunting in your sixth grade English class — so you just pretend that the silhouette of Jaemin’s front yard tree is supremely interesting to you all of a sudden, never mind the fact that it’s about a few inches from Jeno’s ear from your vantage point. You don’t really want to see his expression right now, especially if that means it’ll only fluster you back into speechlessness.

“I don’t really know if I can,” you admit. From your peripheral vision, you see what seems like a flash of discomfort pass across Jeno’s face; you’re sure you just imagined it, considering you’ve never imagined cool, aloof, king of your heart Lee Jeno as exuding anything other than utmost confidence. Still, his next words do make you question that notion twice over.

“Did I… misunderstand something? Is it that you don’t have feelings for me?”

“No, I… you know. I… yeah, I do, but I just —”

“You’re seeing someone else?”

“No,” you say more fiercely, and for a brief moment, you’re so appalled at the thought that your eyes flicker to his, which ends up being a terrible mistake because the confusion in his gaze is so profound that the guilt in you swells tenfold.

“Because I thought… maybe the reason Renjun and you —”

“He’s — honest to God — he’s just my friend.”

“And Jaemin is…?”

“My… next door neighbor?” You blink rapidly at the lights still coming from his house, wondering now what Jaemin has to do with all of this in the first place. For someone who seems like he would be extremely uninvolved in this general progress of events, he seems to crop up time and again, weirdly always around when you need someone. Maybe it’s a neighbor thing, or maybe he’s a little nosier than you thought. But thinking about another element in this situation is starting to give you a headache, and you’re way past the time you’re usually already in bed avoiding homework and watching shitty dating reality shows instead. “I don’t really understand what he has to do with this either. I just don’t think I’m prepared to have this conversation at all.”

“But you like me, don’t you?”

It’s weird, actually, now that you think about it — why does he have to confirm the fact time and time again? It’s almost like he’s worried, although you can’t imagine why he would be. More than anything, you’d kind of assumed that he would find that information pretty repellent, but with the way he’s asking in earnest, it almost seems like he wants to keep the knowledge of that like a talisman.

“I do,” you admit, mostly because it’s out in the open, but also partially because you’ve made the mistake of looking at him again, and you start wondering how he could even wonder when everyone seems to like him (you, perhaps, to a somewhat unhealthy degree).

“More than them?”

“I—” Your brow furrows, another wave of confusion washing over you. But his eyes are much too honest in their questioning, and you speak before anything else can come to mind. “More than anyone, Jeno.”

What looks oddly like relief settles on his face, and you notice only then that his shoulders have been tensed up because he seems to relax them all of a sudden. “Oh. Good. Great. So listen, now that we’re on the same page, I—”

Jeno’s interrupted by one of the guys in a university sweater calling out to him from across the two lawns, voice booming to a degree that sets off a few annoyed dogs in your area. Jeno raises a hand to signal him to wait, his mouth still open on whatever words he wanted to complete his sentence with, but the sounds he was trying to make quickly die into silence anyway, drowned out by a huge crash inside Jaemin’s house.

You’re not entirely certain of what he wants to say — on the bright side, he could have been ramping up to a point that could easily make all your dreams from middle school to now a perfect reality, but he also could have been setting you up for some kind of grand, embarrassing failure — not by his design or by malice but just by the pointing out of the fact that you two lead different lives and things would likely never work out, anyway, but it’d be cool that you liked him in your own time, and he’d allow it as long as you didn’t get drool all over his notebook in class.

Either way, you don’t think now, with a bunch of inebriated college people shouting profanities on Jaemin’s lawn and a gaggle of high school kids panicking about what sounds to be a broken table and a whole bunch of pizza on the floor, is the best time to be processing those things.

“I actually,” Jeno turns his gaze to you again, strangely alert, like you’d just whistled for a dog’s attention. You’ve never seen him like this, and it’s weird to think that, at this awkward moment, you can still find him painfully endearing. You have to shake yourself out of the grip of the already beckoning force that tells you to sigh dreamily about how adorable he is. “Think I should really be heading inside. Looks like they also need you for some kind of damage control, anyway.”

The same college kid calls for Jeno again, dragging out the vowels of his name kind of annoyingly. Jeno sighs, nodding slowly enough for you to know he’s caught on — this probably isn’t the right time to have such a weirdly heavy conversation.

“Yeah. I probably need to help clean up, anyway. No one’s going to want to do it, and Jaemin’s already chewed me out for bailing on mop duty a few times.”

“Why’d you bail?”

“Just… got busy, personally.” He looks sheepish, and it doesn’t take a bunch of lightbulbs going off for you to cotton on as well. Now, you’re just wishing you hadn’t asked, so you didn’t ever have to imagine it. Still, what’s done is done. You have to focus on keeping the discomfort out of your face this time. “Um… that’s not important, though. Anyway —I’ll talk to you soon, okay, ________________? Like… maybe we can catch up at school? You know, talk about our thing — the project, I mean — and like… et cetera?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Your smile’s weak, and so is your joke, but you should at least try to hold up casual pretenses as much as he does, even though he’s obviously much better at it. “I’ll tell on you to Hwang if you don’t, you know.”

His laugh is soft, but it at least sounds genuine; his smile still reaches his eyes, which already makes your heart feel a little lighter. But instead of trekking off immediately, he lingers, strangely, until his grin winnows down into just the ghost of a smile on his lips. Even weirder are his hands, slightly outstretched towards your waist, like he’s trying to cross the gap between you (even if it’s admittedly very minimal) but suddenly decides not to. The result is him looking strangely stiff and uncharacteristically hesitant, but you chalk it up to him simply not knowing how to end such a weirdly situated conversation. You know you’d have an even worse time doing it if it were up to you, so you can’t really blame him.

In the end, he closes the dialogue with ‘see you around, ________________,’ and a quick pat on the shoulder, which, if you think about it, seems a little disappointingly different from when he’d had his hand against your cheek a few minutes ago. Then again, you’re not sure you could handle something like that again, anyway.

You watch him walk off back towards Jaemin’s house, and some pitiful, pathetic part of you is expecting him to look back, say one last goodbye to you, or something, but the university guy that had belted his name out so vigilantly just swings an arm around Jeno’s neck and drags him to a corner where a bunch of other similarly dressed people, to whom Jeno starts talking to almost immediately.

Cutting this conversation short was probably for the best, anyway; you have no idea what he would have said, but you’re very sure you wouldn’t have been prepared for it either way. You trudge into your house and up into your room, already mentally prepared to spend the rest of the night obsessively mulling over what it all meant and what he had really been planning to say at the end. The process starts some time in the shower, while you’re shampooing your hair and you embarrassingly remember the feeling of Jeno’s hand tangled in it. The moony expression that the thought of it leaves on your face is present up until you see how stupid it looks in the fogged up bathroom mirror.

Renjun still hasn’t texted you, which is honestly starting to be a source of mild anxiety because you can’t be sure if he’s dead in a ditch somewhere or just ignoring you for some unknown reason. Whatever it is, you leave like three messages wondering where he’s at and asking him to call you. You’re on your fourth message, which is asking to confirm about tomorrow’s movie (something you’d almost forgotten about save for the fact that you’d remembered this would be a point of argument for you both once again if you spaced on it) when a notification pops up that once again gives you a heart attack.

Lee Jeno: u looked pretty tonight, btw :)

You: oh!! thank you…!

You: you looked great tonight too…! :)

Lee Jeno: haha… cute :)

Lee Jeno: goodnight, ____________ :)

This is the most emojis you’ve ever seen used in a single brief conversation, and you can’t help but feel like it might be a little juvenile, but it doesn’t even matter because Lee freaking Jeno called you pretty and cute in the span of five minutes. Your thumbs are shaking as you type back a typo-laden goodnight that takes you a full other minute just to edit before waiting a little more, but nothing else comes. Maybe he’s driving home, or something. You toss your phone onto your bed, away from easy reach, before you can start overthinking what this silence means again.

Your reflection in your window mirrors the same scene you’d encountered in the bathroom: you, hair bundled up in a wet towel, bare-faced with a stupid grin across it. You’re so caught up in the act of reeling from Jeno’s three texts that you belatedly notice a square of light beyond your bedroom window. You almost duck out of sight when you see a shadow there, thinking about crying bloody murder, until you realize it’s Jaemin, who’s watching the ridiculous expression on your face with a curious gaze from a distance. He’s still in the same clothes he’d worn to the party, but you can see, even from this far away, that there’s this dark patch on it that looks suspiciously close to the way your shirt had on the day his coke had emptied itself out on your back. That must’ve been from the crash earlier, you deduce.

You think he’s just zoning out facing in your direction, and you find there’s no need to meet his gaze, but there’s still something a little unsettling about having someone spacing out in your general direction, so you reach up to pull your blinds down. Your hand almost reaches the string, but Jaemin’s hand suddenly starts going up too, like it’s trying to follow you, and you freeze in your movements. His keeps going, though, up until it’s close to his face, and suddenly, he’s moving it side to side, in some weird regular pattern.

He’s waving, your tired, overworked brain tells you belatedly. The string of your blinds tickles the tip of your fingers.

Unsure and a little self-conscious, you wave back, hoping he doesn’t notice that you were about two strong pulls away from drawing yourself out of sight. This is clearly the right response, because even from this distance, you can see the brilliant white of his teeth as he smiles, fully and unabashedly, at you.

The first thing you do when you wake up the following morning is check your phone. You’re not even really sure what you’re looking for — maybe a text from Jeno, who, if you think about it now, probably has nothing to say in response to your boring ‘goodnight’ anyway (but you can still dream), or maybe a missed call or two from Renjun, who should at least be offering you some explanation as to why he was completely out of sight after parting ways with you and Mark Lee last night.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing on your screen, apart from the stupid 번장 notification that tells you the pocket punch board you’ve been wanting for no good reason has been discounted by the seller to a price you still can’t reasonably afford anyway.

You certainly can’t do anything about Jeno’s lack of contact, and to be completely honest with yourself, you’re not even really that sure if you want to. Something about yesterday’s conversation, while not exactly a train wreck, makes you very nervous to have a full conversation with him, and you’d much rather it stick to very basic, kindergarten-level things, like ‘you look cute’ and ‘haha’ and ‘:)’, but since that isn’t completely in your control, you decide you simply don’t want to do anything about it.

Renjun, however, is a completely different matter. You don’t understand why he’s ignoring you if he is, considering you had spent the better part of the night (at least, the parts during which you weren’t crying on your lawn) looking for him, so this silence, if deliberate, doesn’t seem fair or even reasonable. You decide that it’s much too early to be getting an earful from you in the end, so you just send a very emphatic ‘WRU?????????????????’ through both text message, KakaoTalk, and Facebook Messenger to him, hoping the repetition of both sentiment and punctuation mark through multiple platforms is enough to faux-yell to him what you’d otherwise be real-yelling to him over the line. You can’t tell if it gives you any sense of comfort to see he hasn’t been online and active for the last 15 hours.

All the tossing and turning of last night, courtesy of the endless loop replay of “I want you to like me — just me” Lee Jeno edition, had consequently left you worse for wear; you’d gotten up at the rising of the sun (something you’d sworn never to do during the weekend) and had opted to just stay in bed for another hour, trying so hard to get over the feeling of his fingers against your skin that you end up committing it to long-term memory. The sunlight peeking through your blinds is what gets you to throw off your covers and admit defeat to the fact that sleep would never come back at this rate, and you decide to just head down, rubbing the lethargy out of your eyes before you make a poor man’s breakfast. You’re halfway through the jelly slice of your sandwich when your sister comes through the doorway, yawning loud to announce her presence.

“G’morning, bedhead baby,” she greets, and you use the non-knife-holding hand you have free to rake through your hair. “Big rager last night, huh?”

“Yeah — wait, how’d you know?”

“We live a door down from Jaemin oppa’s house? Na Jaemin? Our next door neighbor and his whole family? We can see out the window into his lawn? Sometimes we get our sidewalk trash cans mixed up with theirs? Hello?” Sooyeon smirks, albeit a little sluggishly, as you wave her grating words away. “I saw you out there with him, you know.”

“With who? Where? Who?” You demand, your jelly-laden knife freezing in mid-air, the grape blobs slipping dangerously off the edge onto the middle of your bread.

“You. And Jaemin oppa,” she says each syllable slowly. “In front of our house.”

“Oh.”

“So usually how these conversations go is: I bring up a juicy piece of information pertaining to you, and because you experienced it first hand, you have to then expound on the piece of information, thereby making it juicier. ‘Oh’ doesn’t cut it. Not by a long shot.”

“There’s not much to tell.” You wonder, briefly, if you’re now obligated to bring up the Jeno aspect of the night — which, for all intents and purposes, honestly felt like more of a big deal than anything else — but you quickly decide against it, chickening out when she approaches you at the counter and starts unscrewing the lid of the peanut butter jar. That might be giving too much away, considering she didn’t even seem to notice that you’d been bawling when you’d crossed the property line. “He just walked me back here.”

“Oh, yeah, because that’s what people who live next to each other in a not-so-close-knit community do: walk each other two steps home, to keep the baddies away.”

“He’s just a naturally nice person, I think. Most people are, aren’t they?”

“I thought you guys were close. Didn’t he give you his varsity jacket? That sounds like a closeness thing.” She knots her index and middle finger together, and you slap it away.

“We’re close only in the same way as you are.” When she gives you a quizzical look, you sigh. “Proximity-wise.”

“Still doesn’t explain why he was out there, caressing your hair lovingly.”

You freeze, as opposed to Sooyeon’s comically relaxed posture as she scrapes the peanut butter across your other slice of bread. “He… was not. Caressing me. My hair. Lovingly.”

“I have eyes for the sake of seeing.”

“There was just something in it. In my hair. A leaf.”

You’re not sure why you lie; the largest part of the reason is that you don’t want to have to go into the horrifyingly awkward details of your emotional state last night, but there’s something oddly nagging at you that you can’t quite place. It takes a minute of staring at your sister spreading the peanut butter evenly across the bread and humming to herself while closing the sandwich up that you realize that you don’t want her getting the wrong impression about anything.

Which is weird, because there’s nothing to misunderstand.

Jaemin, albeit the fact that he’s been chattier to you as of late, more so than any other time in your life, is still just your neighbor. Maybe he’s graduated from being your sort-of acquaintance to something that vaguely resembles an arm-distance-ish friend, but the notion that you’re anything closer than that makes you feel a bit strange — almost like it… scares you, which is extra weird to think about, because there’s actually nothing inherently harmful about being casual buddies with some guy who lives close enough to wave at you from his window.

Maybe it’s because it’s Jaemin, and that’s what might be tripping you up the most. He’s not just Jeno’s friend; he’s practically some kind of counterpart to him, and it feels weirdly like a line you can’t cross. Or maybe it’s because… Jeno had asked you about him last night, which had made you feel even stranger. Like he’d been worried about something — like Jaemin was a no-go zone for him, specifically.

As you dully watch your sister take a bite off of your breakfast, it dawns on you: maybe you just don’t want people to think you like anyone other than Jeno.

“Okay, well, you know better than I do,” she singsongs in a tone that tells you that you actually don’t. Sooyeon doesn’t press, but she also doesn’t make you feel like the conversation is over — even if she trills I’m going back up; thanks for the sandwich in that same voice before leaving you alone in the kitchen with half of it on the plate.

Because the truth is that you don’t really know; you don’t know what’s so unsettling about being associated with Jaemin. Your sister’s not aware of the intricate ins and outs of your (delusional) relationship with Jeno, apart from your (apparently evident to everyone) crush on him, but you also know she’s not really deeply invested in where your heart lies; all she does is make conversation, as is her personality, as a form of bonding you’ve never really quite been able to navigate well.

You just don’t get why the mention of Jaemin, now, makes you feel… something. What that is, you’d rather not dwell on. So you just won’t.

You’re walking out of the kitchen, cheeks filled with peanut butter and jelly, when you see block letters on cloth, spelling out a familiar last name: Na.

You still haven’t given back Jaemin’s stupid jacket.

Today is the day, you decide. This seems to have started the whole conversation to begin with: the jacket that somehow brought Jaemin two steps closer into your life, the article of clothing that had opened the door to what shouldn’t even be a talking point between you and anyone else.

This should be the proverbial swan song for this whole topic; you snatch up his jacket (and immediately regret doing so in such a brutish manner, noticing you’ve got a few specks of breadcrumbs on the lettering) and head out of your house, your bedroom slippers absorbing morning dew as you march yourself over to your neighbor’s. You should’ve done this earlier, really; there was no reason for you to hold on to it.

Honestly, you’d just forgotten, given that you were more preoccupied with things that started with L and ended with ee Jeno, but you’d rather not extend any more misunderstandings.

And even if Jeno isn’t here to see this grand closing gesture, maybe, just maybe, this will help you stop feeling so cagey about everything he’d asked last night.

I want you to like me — just me.

Because why would he even think you liked Jaemin at all? Or make it sound like he thought you did? Ridiculous. Unfounded. Kind of alarming.

There’s noise in the air the closer you get to the Na household porch; it sounds a bit muffled, like it’s fighting the breeze, but you realize thereafter that it’s music coming from a tiny speaker sitting on the hand railing. It’s playing Dongbangshinki’s Here I Am, and something about that song stirs your stomach into swooping ten miles down as you approach.

Your initial plan was to ring the doorbell and pray that Jaemin was still knocked out cold on a Saturday morning so you could pass the jacket off to one of his parents and be done with it, but you’ve no such luck; it seems like he’s an early riser, considering how he’s seated right there, on a wicker chair by his door, hunched over a half-played chess board. There’s no one across him to block his view of you coming up the steps, and he looks up the moment he hears the creaks of the wood under your feet.

“Hey, ______________,” he doesn’t look surprised; in fact, he looks a bit relieved, for some inexplicable reason. “Didn’t think you’d be up so early.”

“Could say the same for you.” You have no idea what causes heat to flush across your cheeks; has Na Jaemin’s gaze always been this intense? “Um. Good morning?”

“Morning.” His laugh is an easy one; it always has been, and it kind of suits him, you note, before you realize how weird it is to think that. “What’ve you got there? Gift for me?”

“Wha — oh, yeah, I mean — no, but it is for you.” You hold up his jacket, hooked on your forefinger, to reveal it to him. “Sorry it took so long to give it back.”

This time, he actually looks a bit taken aback. “Did you stop needing it?”

“Um… I haven’t really used it, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh. Well, there wasn’t any rush. You could’ve kept it for as long as you needed. No pressure, or anything. I’ve got others.”

“You don’t need it at practice, or anything like that?”

“No; most guys don’t even keep theirs. They give them away, for… you know. So it’s no big deal.”

You fall silent; for some reason, his tone makes it seem like he wants you to keep it, which is just preposterous. You instead hang the jacket onto the back of the wicker chair opposite him and step back, like you’ve just set up a land mine you’re afraid of detonating.

“Well, thank you all the same. I really… appreciate your help. That day. You know.” You’re not sure why you can’t form any sentences long enough to signify you do actually belong in the same year level as him, but he at least doesn’t comment on your ineloquence.

Instead, he just stares for a bit, at the jacket and your retreating hand, before piping up over his music.

“You wanna play a round?”

“What? Oh, I’m…” You wave your hands aimlessly. “I’m not good at chess. Actually, I barely know the rules. Plus, you seem kind of busy playing against… your imaginary friend?”

He chuckles again. “Just playing myself.”

“Trying to outfox the old fox?”

“Sometimes it helps to know how you’d get out of a sticky situation you made by your own doing. Helps you see what your opponent sees when it all boils down to it.” He gestures again at the chair across him. “Humor me a little. It’s not as fun just talking to yourself.”

You hesitate for a second; you came here to return the jacket, and that much was done easily, albeit a little more awkwardly than you ever wanted to. Jaemin’s aura is laid back and friendly, but you’re not sure why you’re teetering on the edge of panic again. Jeno’s words seem to be echoing in your head.

And Jaemin is…?

Jaemin is your next-door neighbor, it’s true, but you can’t say that’s really your only point of connection; if it were, he wouldn’t be expectantly waiting for you to take the seat across from him. And when you look at his hand now, idle against the chessboard, you can’t say you aren’t thinking of the way it patted your hair soothingly the night before. All that does is make you wonder the exact same thing Jeno asked you.

What is Jaemin to you? A friend, perhaps, and definitely a nice person — nice enough to help you out, keep you company during a few low points. He’s a person willing to listen to you, funny enough to lift your spirits, and genial enough to not break your fingers for returning his things way too late (a low bar, but a good one nonetheless). Na Jaemin is a good individual, with pretty good music taste (based on the fact that his playlist, trudging on next to him, is now playing H.O.T.’s Happiness), and a good disposition about him that seems to make no small amount of people gravitate towards him.

But you don’t really want to dwell on what Jaemin is to you; more than that, you can only really be reminded of what he isn’t.

He isn’t Jeno.

And Jeno knows you like him; he’s not only noticed it but confirmed it multiple times in a single conversation. Surely, then, nothing else should matter to him — or, for that matter, to you.

You swallow down the refusal and nod, trying not to read into the fact that Jaemin’s face lights up when you pull the chair back and settle down on it.

“So let me get this straight; you don’t know how to play chess?”

“I know a couple of pieces go in weird directions,” you admit. “That’s about it.”

“Perfect.” His long fingers drum against the wood of the table. “I’m going to whip you into competitive chess-playing shape, my young pupil.”

What starts off as a casual, humor-filled lesson on the roles of each chess piece suddenly becomes an actual lecture; you’re not sure if Jaemin is getting a kick out of instructing a rookie like you on the different plays — which are infinite, a fact he’s drilled into you several times — or if he’s really just enthusiastic about the game (no, sorry, sport, since he’s chastised you about three times on this terminology already), but whatever the reason is, you have chess pounded into your brain for the better part of an hour. By the time he asks you to actually start playing against him, the sun’s fully up in the air and you’ve had to tie your hair up to keep it from sticking to your neck.

“I’m glad you got home safe last night,” he hums, pushing his black pawn to meet yours in the middle of the board. The Italian Game, he called it — not to be confused with serenading someone over pasta, a different kind of Italian game. That had gotten a long laugh out of you. Your hands flit over the white pieces, unsure of your memory. You only respond when you’ve moved your bishop to the same row.

“Well, it was a very long and tumultuous journey, but I managed, with some help.”

His knight comes out next, smoothly and quickly; you pause, rubbing the back of your neck. Surely, there was something else he’d taught you?

“What a chivalrous, ah, knight, that person must’ve been.” He raps a knuckle onto the table, starting you out of the act of racking your brain. “Perfect joke. Well-timed. Excellent chess pun. I think I deserve an award.”

“Does whooping my ass two moves into the game count as a prize?”

“I don’t want to rob you of the feeling of hope this early in the match. Take your time,” he chuckles, leaning back against the throw cushion behind him. He fiddles with the speaker, and the songs skip one by one, until he lands on a song you don’t know — some Japanese track that sounds suspiciously like an animation opening. It’s lively and admittedly a bit loud, and Jaemin hums to the guitar riffs with surprising accuracy. “Anything interesting happen when I left?”

You freeze for a moment, your fingers still hovering over your own knight in hesitation. You know what he’s asking, and for some reason, you’re tempted to tell him — then you remember that it actually isn’t really his business, and you don’t want to embarrass yourself.

“Not really.” You feign casual disinterest as you move your knight above your pawn line; from here on out, you have no clue what to do. Jaemin, on the other hand, is so sure-footed about his own skills (which are infinitely more advanced than yours) that he doesn’t even take his eyes off you to look at the board as he moves his next piece. You’re stuck thinking about what to do again — in the game, that is. Not about his gaze, which you try to avoid. “Just, you know. Talked with Jeno for a bit. Nothing major.”

Nothing major to him, you remind yourself. To you, your entire world had just been flipped over onto its belly.

Jaemin hums again, this time in understanding, but you notice (from your very surreptitious glances of him) that this time, it seems like he’s choosing what to do. You think it’s for the game, but when he counteracts your own (poorly planned) move with a swift response from his own pieces, you get the odd feeling he’s trying to choose his words carefully.

“Was it a conversation where you all got along?”

You hadn’t argued, but you’d never really thought about the whole stint long enough to classify it as good or bad. You supposed it wasn’t anything horrible in the end, although the fact that it had robbed you of precious hours of sleep wasn’t exactly the best outcome. But Jaemin’s not watching your expression now; he’s intently looking at the board, even if he’s not the one about to make the next move.

You get the feeling he’s suddenly avoiding eye contact too, which is weird, because he’s never been one to shy away from looking you straight in the eye. For some reason, that makes you feel like he doesn’t want to hear an answer.

“It was fine. Nothing… bad happened.” You know that’s true, but somehow you feel like it’s still not truth. “He explained… stuff. Who she was. Why it happened. Totally understandable stuff, I think.”

You choose not to mention anything apart from that — that he’d asked you to like him, nor that he’d asked you about your relationship with Jaemin. More than deciding it wasn’t going to be anything contributive to the conversation at hand, you also just didn’t want to.

Jaemin stays silent for a while; he moves his piece, then taps his queen — for some reason, he’s letting you know something about his next move. What it is, you haven’t puzzled out; it’s not like you know which direction he’d be taking, and even if you did, you’d surely not know how to respond to it, anyway. You guess he’s just throwing you a bone, but why he would, you also just don’t see the reason for.

You’re pushing your pawn hesitantly diagonal to capture one of his when he speaks up again.

“Did he tell you how it ended? With the two of them, I mean.”

He says it so calmly, capturing your bishop with his queen in the process, that you feel like you’re just talking about the weather and who won yesterday’s league basketball match. You shift uncomfortably in your seat, clearing your throat, but you only actually manage to shake your head.

“She cheated on him. Some college guy that she met during her orientation; you know she’s older than him, right? He’s never dated seriously since then. I think he was really hung up on her for a while — until recently, that is. I think. He hasn’t been that close to many girls.”

“That’s… that’s awful.” You’re not sure why Jaemin’s telling you this; it honestly feels illegal to know. “I didn’t think… anyone would. Cheat on him, I mean.”

“Even good-looking bastards like him can have rotten luck.” Jaemin’s smile borders on wry. “I don’t know why she showed up, honestly. Word probably got around… but she probably just wanted to know what would happen if she stirred something up with him one last time. He likely didn’t see it coming.”

You stare at the board, unsure of what to say. It makes sense, but something doesn’t really sit right with you either — why Jeno would let her come close to him at all, let alone allow her to completely eliminate the distance between his mouth and hers for longer than a second. Even thinking about it makes you want to throw up all over again.

“But deep down, I don’t know if Jeno completely got over her.” Jaemin continues, snapping you out of your short trance. “For a while after, they kept in touch. I think they even tried to work it out, but… obviously, it wasn’t easy. Until now… I’m not really sure.”

“Why,” you swallow hard. “Why… are you… why should I…”

“It’s not easy to be a player when you don’t know much about the game, is it?” He’s still staring at the board, but you get the sense that he isn’t just talking about chess. “Like I said, Jeno’s a pretty complicated guy. It’s not really my place to say anything, but…” Jaemin’s eyes flit upward for a second, and he offers you a small, almost pitying smile. “I think you need to know anyway.”

“But it has nothing to do with me. His life… I mean, his ex, and stuff.”

“I’m not too sure about that. If you like him that much… doesn’t that just mean you want to be part of his life?” He topples a pawn of yours, but you barely register the clattering noise or the fact that he drags it unceremoniously off the board. “I think you should at least know what you’re getting into. Jeno hasn’t liked someone seriously for a while, but you seem… to be the opposite. How much do you actually know about what he’s like?”

You don’t know why that kind of hurts your feelings; maybe it’s just because you have to face some kind of truth about how you don’t know much about Jeno’s private life, as badly as you want to. You even have to hear about it from someone else — someone easily kicking your ass in a dumb chess match.

“I think everyone has baggage,” you say slowly, pushing your rook forward. You realize it’s trapped behind two different pawns, so you’ve essentially backed the piece into its own corner. Jaemin doesn’t seem to care; he’s too busy executing what clearly is a ten-stage strategic win on the other side of the board. You don’t really care.

“That’s true,” he concedes, toppling your knight. “But some more than others, I think.”

“If he wanted me to know, he would’ve told me, right? Yesterday, I mean.”

“That’s may also be true, although I can’t say that with absolute certainty.” He looks thoughtful, and the pause gives you a bit of reprieve — enough to make a bad move that you instantly regret the moment you put your one remaining bishop on a square. Something like amusement flickers across Jaemin’s face, but he doesn’t make a move immediately. “Do you know what makes chess such a great game? In my opinion, anyway.”

“No?” The uncertainty in your voice is from a lack of understanding at the sudden shift in topic.

“Whenever you play someone, you get to see what they’re like — what their priorities are, you know?” His finger lands on a rook, inching it back and forth with idle intent. “You see how their mind works, what they’re like when they’re winning or losing, and what they think of you. Check, by the way.”

You’re silent as his rook captures your bishop, and he picks your fallen piece up and sets it aside with his growing pile of white.

“I’ve actually asked Jeno to play with me a few times, just for the fun of it. Sore loser,” he laughs lightly, one hand reaching out to lower the volume of his music. You notice the opening bars of Winner’s Really Really come through moments before it’s toned down. “Doesn’t really know or care about the rules, but he really likes to win. That’s kind of what makes him the star player on the team, actually. He really hates being backed into a corner, but all that focus on winning kind of tunnels his vision sometimes. Leaves him open to some attacks from another angle. He really hates that — which is probably why we barely play chess together in the first place. Apart from the fact that he thinks it’s boring.”

You’re staring at your pieces, now very pitifully winnowed down in number, and you feel stuck. You’re not sure what to do, but you’re pretty sure any move is going to make you look dumb in front of Jaemin, who’s clearly a pro — so much so that he seems to know what you’re going to do before you even decide yourself.

“You know what I like about your playing style, though?” He interrupts your train of thought again. You look up from the board, bemused; you’ve just been struggling to humor him since your first move, and it obviously isn’t working, since he seems more invested in the conversation than in the game. “You’re just trying your best, even if you’re new at this — even if you think you’re going to lose.”

“I just don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten everything you just said,” you respond, smiling weakly.

“You can’t always predict what��s going to happen in a game, even if you know the pattern anyway. Isn’t that just natural about anything in life?”

“You seem to know, though,” you grumble, tugging on your ponytail. You throw in the only option you have left: pushing your queen in front of your king as a last line of defense. “You’re barely paying attention to the board.”

“It’s just constant practice — a lot of hard work on my part. I don’t mind the grind of it, if it gets me somewhere good in the end.”

“So is that the kind of player you are? Just… a hard worker?”

“Maybe. I like to look at things from every possible angle. I guess that’s why I like chess when most people find it a headache.” He picks up his queen, rolling it in his palm. “Although, I guess Jeno and I have one thing in common — as players, that is.”

“What’s that?”

“I also really hate to lose.”

His queen knocks over your own with a pitiful clatter, taking its place on the board. When he picks up your piece, instead of adding it to his knockout count, he offers it to you. You take it gingerly, opting to focus more on it than on the soft smile that’s now playing on Jaemin’s lips.

“Checkmate,” he announces lightly. “Good game, _____________. You’ve got the makings of a star player.”

“You’re patronizing me, aren’t you?” You sigh as the two of you start resetting the board; you have to watch Jaemin’s pieces get rearranged to position your own.

“Only a little bit. I see a lot of quiet drive in you.”

You place the last of your pawns in a neat row; the board looks like it hadn’t even been touched. “Jaemin, how did you and Jeno become this close? You seem… I don’t know.”

“Yeah, we’ve definitely got our unique quirks,” he chuckles softly. “But Jeno and I… we just go way back, I think. When you’re friends with someone from a young age, you tend to grow with them. He’s a good dude, really, even if our personalities are different, and it’s always a fun event so long as he’s around. Well — mostly. I’d say a good ninety-nine percent of the time.”

You pointedly ignore the sheepish smile he throws your way.

“You said before that you’re not the type to… you know, share your feelings, and all that. Then how do you… like what do you guys even talk about?”

“What do you and Renjun usually talk about?” Jaemin grins. “Anything and everything, really. Movies, games, why the jerk from Yongsan International gets on our nerves when he chews his gum. We just… have a tendency to be interested in the same things, no matter if our perspectives are different.”

While talking to Jaemin is fun, you can’t help but feel like he has a tendency to speak in riddles. You still don’t really see any strong similarities in their approaches to their interests, similar as they may be, but what do you know, anyway? It isn’t like you and Renjun are exactly peas in a pod on paper.

His eyes lose focus for a second, hitting somewhere behind your ear before they quickly turn back to you. You have no idea why this makes you feel a little put on the spot.

“Hey, you want to have brunch here? My mom makes a mean soybean paste stew.”

“Oh,” you press your hand against your stomach, wondering if the swooping feeling in it is from hunger or something unrelated. “No, I actually just ha—”

“_____________?”

You swivel around in the chair, and your heart stops; you're not the least bit prepared to see Lee Jeno standing at the foot of Jaemin’s porch steps, a quizzical look very clearly etched on his sharp features.

115 notes · View notes

jq37 · 8 months

Text

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 4 Shrimp and Strudel

Welcome back to the Report Card where we’re gonna waste no time with just getting into it as the last ep ended on a big cliffhanger.

We pick up where we left off–Kristen talking to Cass who is petting Kalina–currently in her cat form and claiming that she’s not bad anymore (with a verbal “meow” which is so unsettling/funny). Kristen isn’t buying it but it’s not a crazy claim. If Cass is bad, she should be bad and if Cass is good, likewise.

Good or bad, she is still very eyes on the prize and immediately starts grilling Kristen on what her plans are as Cass’s sole cleric–a fair question considering she’s all that stands between Cass (and Kalina by extension) and oblivion. Cass tries to keep the peace between her familiar and her cleric and even gives Kristen an out: she’s gotten invitations to quit being a god and be an archfey of the Autumn Court instead. But Kristen doesn’t seem to want to take it. She says she does believe in Cass but she’s kind of hard to evangelize for because her whole deal is a hard pill to swallow even if it’s more true and deeper than the certainty other religions provide. Kalina’s eyes narrow and she says that Kristen’s a shitty saleswoman.

Kalina instead wants to go with a pitch of, “Hey? Do you wanna wield sick ass night magic and crush your enemies?” Which Kristen thinks is kind of a betrayal of Cass’ whole ethos. Kalina thinks they can quibble over details once Cass has more than TWO followers (shoutout Craig) and Cass on one level gets where Kristen is coming from but on a deeper level REALLY doesn’t wanna die. She says that their plans aren’t actually conflicting and they can work on both of them! She asks Kristen when she has the bandwidth to talk about this and Kristen is like, right now! All she cares about is Cass…and her campaign. Kalina is clearly so over this and reminds Cass that though they can’t actually go to the material plane, there are places they can talk to mortals outside of the material plane like the Synod of Spyre (wizard hub where they incidentally just put in a new mall!). Wizards like magic and mystery and stars, right? Cass is all about all of those things! It’s an untapped market!

A plan is set for them to head to the mall over the weekend and Kristen sincerely apologizes for dropping the ball and hurting Cass’s feelings. Cass tells her that she doesn’t need to be sorry, that she’s there for her when things are uncertain, and that she believes in her. She kisses Kristen on the forehead and sends her back to school.

At lunch, Adaine tries to call Aelwyn but gets her answering machine. Aelwyn texts to ask what’s up (she’s in class “looking after bozos”) and Adaine says she’ll call her later. She texts an “I love you” and then deletes it, causing a torrent of divination spells to come in as Aelwyn tries to figure out what the deleted message was.

Before Fabian heads to lunch, he has a banking interlude with his banker at KVX (Alston) who tells him his trust is worth 20 million gold and he gets an allowance of 5k gold a month. Rich as he is, Fabian is staggered by the amount of money and asks if there’s a way to cash it all out now. Alston says that due to a clause left by his dad (meant to encourage him to forge his own path), he can cash out 2 million but then the rest would go to his various nemeses (with a small cut to the bank). They apparently have a whole department just for tracking the nemeses of their clients. Chungledown Bim is listed as one of Fabian’s nemeses so he immediately shuts down talk of cashing out. Chungledown Bim with 18 million gold? Terrifying. Alston offers Fabian a free trial of Nemesis Alert which lets you know if anyone on your planet has sworn vengeance on you but Fabian declines, having the foresight to know that he’ll forget to cancel.

Once everyone is at lunch, Riz uses the Message cantrip to tell everyone that Kipperlily Copperkettle (KP) was spying on them and overheard them talking about Kristen’s god dying. They look around to check if she’s spying on them right down and don’t see her but, on a Nat 20, Fabian senses…something. He immediately signs up for that free trial of nemesis alert and is told that no one has sworn vengeance on him in the last 30 days (but what about before that Alston???? What about before 30 days ago?????). Adaine turns on her wizard feature that lets her see invisibility and walks around the cafeteria, but doesn’t clock anyone.

Gorthalax shows up to hype up the boys for Bloodrush tryouts later in the day and Fabian asks about the Rat Grinders. Gorthalax says that their Barbarian (Mary Ann) is trying out later and offers to tell them where the name comes from. It’s just what we speculated last week. These posers are literally level grinding! They’re farming XP by going to the woods just outside of school (Where the week 2 freshman go to practice) and killing rats, spiders, and twig gremlins. They made it to Junior Year by just killing rattatas on route 1! Apparently, they do this for 3 hours at the end of every day and 9 hours every weekend. Riz is HISSING with rage at how against the spirit of the rules this is. But here’s the thing. Grinding low level monsters to get this far is very uncool. But the focus it takes? Kind of impressive. And that thought strikes Riz through the rage.

After lunch, Gorgug goes to talk to Henry Hopclap (gnomish Artificer teacher with the same last name as the Rat Grinder bard btw). He sees an equation on the board and tries to have a Good Will Hunting moment but ends up just trying to solve for Henry’s email address and phone number. Minor mathematical blunder aside, Henry tells Gorgug that he actually approved his MCAT, but Porter had the last word. He tells Gorgug that he doesn’t actually have to be an Artificer in a school sanctioned capacity just because he’s passionate about it. He can just do it on his own time. But Gorgug is determined so Henry tells him that there’s technically another way: he can take three years of Artificing at the same time and withdraw from Barbarian classes.

I took psychic damage from hearing that and I took even more when Gorgug decided to do that AND take Barb classes (which Henry says that he can do but he has to run that by Porter).

Though Henry is way more supportive than Porter, he still tells Gorgug that this is gonna be an uphill battle. Junior Year artificing is already very hard and there’s never been a Barb/Art multiclass at Aguefort before. Like Porter, he says that he doesn’t really see how the passion you need to be a good Barbarian and the dispassionate focus you need to be a good Artificer mesh together, but he’s rooting for him. The other students filter in and, based on how well equipped they are, it seems like our boy has a lot of catching up to do.

Meanwhile, Fabian gets the other half of his MCAT paperwork signed off by his Fighting teacher (Corsisca Jones who looks a LOT like Aabria who played her younger sister Antiope Jones in The Seven) with barely any conversation or pushback about it. Must be nice!

During a break period, the Bad Kids are hanging out on the quad. Riz and Kristen work together on Kristen’s paperwork and his applications for as many clubs as possible while they both down coffee. Fig is trying to see if she can figure out where in time the fossils Ayda sent her are from so she can send a message but she’s beaten to punch when a weary knight from “Order of the Sacred Scroll” shows up with a message his order has protected for 1500 years. One that he killed his brother for peeking at. One that he’s devoted his life to. Fig opens it up and it’s literally just a “Love you, Miss you,” postcard from Ayda.

Porter (who we learn loves Fig despite the fact and honestly largely because of the fact that she hates him and he appreciates a good rage) shows up and Gorgug goes to tell him that he’s going to triple down on his classes. His friends say that he’s really smart and he can handle it. Porter says that he’ll let Gorgug do it if one of his friends audits the class with him to help him and Fig happily agrees.

After school, Aelwyn calls Adaine and we learn exactly what kind of teacher Aelwyn is as she says that she got sent to the principal’s office for making some of her students cry. Thank you for letting her stay in Elmville, Brennan. Anyway, Adaine rattles off the list of insanely expensive things she needs for class and Aelwyn suggests some solutions: (1) They can find and kill their mom in order to inherit, (2) they can sell drugs, (3) they can sell weapons, (4) Adaine can maybe…get a job? Adaine doesn’t know how to get a job and asks Aelwyn how she got hers. Apparently, she blackmailed the principal. With what, asks Adaine. Photographs Aelwyn says with a coy smile and Adaine requests that Aelwyn not enlighten her any further. Adaine laments the fact that she had to give up all her dragon madness gold and then signs off with a verbal “I love you” that she tries to take back. Aelwyn pounces on it like one of her five cats. “I heard you say it!” she says with a villainous laugh. “I win. You've exposed yourself to me.” She hangs up and, once again, Brennan, thank you.

We cut to Bloodrush tryouts where Fabian gives an honestly really good speech to the team and prospective recruits (tres Jammer). Riz is also at tryouts because, remember, he’s trying out for literally everything. We see a drow student (Hexblade Warlock Max Durden) give a really good showing and Riz give a not so great performance. Then, Mary Ann Skuttle shows up–the Barbarian of the Rat Grinders who’s this tiny kobold girl with aesthetic, kawaii plushies on her backpack. None of that energy is on her face though and she seems very unenthused to be there, answering all questions with short, monotone answers. On the field though? She’s a monster. She absolutely bodies Gorgug, sending him flying across in the field in a way that no one has before (Brennan says that he needed to beat a 33). And she didn’t even get a running start! Gorthalax is thrilled to get her on the team so that they can finally beat their rivals (the Hellions). Riz uses one of his gadgets to cast detect magic and sees that she was buffed with magic (but that’s not illegal in Bloodrush). Gorthalax breaks the news to him that he didn’t make the team and he just runs to the next club on his list. Gotta pad that resume!

After school, Kristen meets up with Bucky who has a lot of the same energy she had on her first day. He’s a Helioic Paladin as we suspected and he’s been telling people they’re going to hell. Kristen doesn’t *love* that but she does tell Bucky to campaign for KP while he’s proselytizing to try to poison the waters a bit. Bucky says that he really misses her and that he hasn’t told their parents about all the gold she sent. Kristen tries to convince him that maybe the concept of hell they grew up with isn’t real, but that’s hard to argue when two separate devils (Fig and Gorthalax) are literally in the room with them. Bucky recognizes the Rat Grinders symbol on the pin Kristen gives him and says the new Helioic cleric from Highcourt (who their parents love) has one of those. We don’t get any more info from him though because Kristen drops an F bomb in front of him and he runs away like a scared puppy.

Fabian drops some hints that he’s lonely in his big empty house so the gang heads to Seacaster Manor for a study party. They Doordash some pad thai and Adaine gets a text from Aelwyn which has a link to job listings at the Synod mall. On a pretty low Investigation check (6) she finds an ad for a place called Oodles of Strudel that pays 2 silver a day and doesn’t require a resume, just an interview.

A lot happens during this study party so I’m gonna go through it rapid fire:

Kristen tells everyone that Kalina is back.

Riz learns (as a residual part of his 30 Investigation roll from last ep) that party comp is announced at the end of their first day and if it changes (ie: someone leaves the party or dies) everyone else goes pass/fail which excludes them from extra credit which would exclude them from scholarships and such. So everyone has to stick together and not die!

Adaine goes to the Synod mall and interviews with a dude named Biff at Oodles of Strudel (where they pump strudel in from a strudel dimension because sure). She gets the job! Though idk if that’s worth celebrating because it’s 8 hour shifts and she has to work the night shift because of school.

Fabian texts Mazey and determines that if he’s going to be a maximum legend like he wants, he has to host a party on the first weekend back and he’s committed.

Fig, shockingly, goes to class AGAIN. It must have been cut from last episode but she learned that warlock classes meet at night and decided to check them out. The teacher is a hot vampire lady with a celestial paramour patron so Fig is like, all in right away. Not only that, she rolls a Nat 20 to catch up and it turns out that, as we already know, when she’s dialed in, she’s really good at this stuff! Plus, warlock is a charisma class and she has charisma for days. With warlocks it seems like it’s all about paperwork but really it’s about relationships, bargains, and exchange. As Zara tells Fig after class is over, these are things that everyone deals with every day, the power is just more potent when the bargains are struck consciously. Zara says she’ll approve her MCAT if she wants and Fig, eager to avoid work on her Sophomore album and genuinely taken by the class, agrees.

Ragh shows up at the manor and Adaine asks how Tracker is doing. He says she’s doing great and the four months of night were honestly great for her whole situation as cleric of the moon goddess. Kristen GRILLS his ass about the “bitch on her lap” on her socials and Ragh (who was supposed to let Tracker break this news but cracks under Kristen’s manic energy) says it’s her new girlfriend, elven princess Naradriel–Nara for short (another girl with a dog name Kristen laments as though her first girlfriend isn’t named TRACKER). Ragh says Nara has been trying to have Tracker and her go Facebook official for a while and that photo she saw was her compromise. Kristen gives Rgh the go-ahead to tell Tracker she can reach out. Ragh says she’s cooler than Nara and he’s rooting for her.

And that’s about it! The next week is hella busy for the whole crew. School crashes down on them like a tidal wave. There’s their actual classes, extracurriculars, and the campaign which everyone is super invested in. They recruit Torek Railgrinder (skater dwarf in the LGBT club and Drama club) to build a ramp off Fabain’s roof so Kristen can ride it off his roof into the pool which he will have filled with tartar sauce because it’s going to be the Ultimate Shrimp Party obviously. The party planning is also in full swing and EVERYONE is invited. That includes freshmen, Hudol kids, even cool middle schoolers. Ragh is buying them beer. The idea is that they can two birds this and make Fabian a Maximum Legend and Kristen super cool at the same time so people will vote for her.

(Also, this doesn’t matter to the plot but Kristen gives a campaign speech at a steel mill for some reason–like a steel mill with adult workers–where Kristen is injured by a buzzsaw and Fig is once again questioned by Agent Clark (who she throws off the scent by saying Wanda left for the Red Waste). Not plot relevant but I HAD to mention it for the sake of posterity.)

But we quickly see the seams start to show. Fabian is forced to skip Bloodrush practice so he can set up the party. Adaine gets the new work schedule and sees that she has to work during the party. She texts Fabian that she has to work but she’ll show up later and doesn’t get a response back. Then she texts everyone else to ask if Fabian is mad at her.

We follow Adaine to work where she’s met by none other than Kalina (in tabaxi form) who is there handing out pamphlets with Cassandra. She asks if Kristen is on her way and Adaine doesn’t know what she’s talking about. As far as she knows, Kristen can’t even get to the Synod without her help. Kalina asks if she can go grab her but Adaine says she’s at work and she can’t just leave.

Back at the Manor, Kristen gets a brain ping from Cass who asks Kristen if she’ll be there soon. Kristen is full deer in headlights–she didn’t realize that she was supposed to be helping with that. She thought she was Team Material Plane and they were Team Synod. (And, in fairness to her, in this instance I understand how she could have thought that if the only conversation they had about this was the one that we saw but wild that they wouldn’t check in day before when Cass can talk in her mind) She quickly tries to finesse the situation and claims that with such a big crowd gathered, she’ll be able to spread the word to tons of people. Cass is briefly excited until she sees through Kristen’s eyes that her supposed recruitment drive is actually an Ultimate Shrimp Party.

Back at the mall, Adaine watches red light burst through Cass’s chest as she cries out in pain and collapses to the ground. At Kalina’s behest, Adaine texts Kristen to get her ass to the mall right away. The non-Adaine Bad Kids try to make a plan to save the party–maybe Fig can do the shrimp jump disguised as Kristen–but the situation at the mall gets more dire. Cassandra, still in agony, yells, "This isn't fair!" She bleeds indigo and the light from her chest sails out and hits a nearby wizard. That wizard grows crazed and buff and kills his friend by smashing his skull open with his quarterstaff. Kalina is horrified. Adaine is horrified. The other mall patrons are horrified–the ones who aren’t getting possessed at least. Cass is on all fours, growing larger, and there are three more of those red light things coming out of her.

Adaine, who now has a special Synod key as an employee, opens a portal so her friends can join her. Everyone (including a kind of reluctant Fabian) joins right as the portal Adaine closes and that’s it for the ep! Next week, showdown at the Synod!

Honor Roll

Kalina for Having Cassandra’s Back

I never thought I’d give this to her but who else is looking out for Cass like Kalina right now? Nobody. I felt so bad for her handing out pamphlets at the mall. I’ve had to do that and it’s NOT fun. I’m glad she has someone sticking up for her and diligently looking out for her interests, even though it’s someone who I referred to as “the bitch” last week, lol.

(Honorable mention to Fig for honestly being a great student. Way to go girl, you might just graduate yet.)

Detention

Aelwyn for Blackmailing the Middle School Principal with Photographs To Get A Job

This is entirely affectionate. Also, unlike Adaine, I’m curious about what the level of blackmail is that allows you to strongarm your way into a job but still subjects you to being reprimanded by the person you’re blackmailing.

((Dis)honorable to Fabian for his rich boy shenanigans which I touch on below.)

Random Thoughts

“Meat mama”

Insane that KVX Bank still exists and they literally just changed their logo from red to blue.

Was anyone else getting Berries and Cream vibes from the new lunch lad? (if you know, you know)

Fig got hurt yet again in this episode and stuck her hand in construction putty. Last episode I called out that both mishaps so far had involved construction equipment but now we’re officially out of two nickels territory and into rule of threes. Brennan, what are you playing at?

She also got food on herself twice (creamed corn and pad thai) and mimed eating it both times. Emilyyyyyyy grossssssss.

Fabian got the confirmation that no one has declared him as a nemesis for the past 30 days but I would have asked for a full list. We know they have one because CDB is from like a year ago at least.

I thought it was odd that Henry said that what was needed for artificing was “dispassionate focus” when I feel like a lot of people I know who tinker irl are actually intensely passionate about what they do.

As a side note, Henry said that Porter couldn’t stop Gorgug from tripling down while taking Barb classes–just that he wanted Gorgug to tell him as a professional courtesy. So I’m not sure why Porter was able to attach a condition to Gorgug’s being there.

Porter’s, “God this sucks” when Gorgug started talking about his feelings was extremely unprofesh but objectively funny.

Actually, roundup of all the funniest parts of this episode:

1)The entire Adaine and Aelwyn conversation but especially (1) The bit about Fig being attached to Ayda’s feathers, (2) Photographs :), and (3) Jawbone no-selling her sinister flirting followed by her immediately moving out.

2)Bloodbath and Beyond

3)Adaine not wanting to use a ladle at her job because of the Trauma (™) from Freshman Year (RIP Doreen).

4)Fabian nodding knowingly when Adaine talks about killing her dad like it’s a normal, relatable experience.

5)“What's the drinking age in Solace, if you're a pirate?”/“You guys have murdered so many people.”

6)“You find Siobhan Thompson.”

Don’t know if this matters but both the Artificing teacher and the Warlock teacher are new hires. Henry is said to be fresh out of college and Zara took over because the last guy (Evan Freem) failed his warlock pact and was devoured. I suspect out of game it’s just so Brennan can bring in interesting new NPCs that fit the plot for this season and he had to retcon whatever names he gave them for the faculty in Freshman Year. Not sure if there’s an in-game angle though.

Brennan asks Fig where she thinks she gets her warlock powers from and she says, “I think it's from my dad or my bloodline or my legacy” That answer isn’t weird but I dunno the fact that he asked about a thing that I thought was already established struck me as off so it’s going on the list of notes.

I loved Fig being rewarded for sneaking her name onto the class list by Zara who rightfully says that when it comes to warlocks, it’s all about what’s on the page. Brennan really invented a teacher to force Fig/Emily to get invested in class.

Kristen trying to talk Bucky out of being scared of hell is another instance of the metaphor of Kristen’s arc brushing up against the reality of their world because some of y’all have *literally* been to hell. This isn’t real life where religion is all nebulous and personal. Hell is a place you can just go and, again, several of you HAVE BEEN. It’s not a silly thing for him to be scared of.

Lol at Adaine who drank half a beer one time getting Bucky starry eyed by her Bad Kid exploits (said exploits being drinking that half a beer).

So the new Helioic Cleric. What’s his deal? Have we been to Highcourt before? I don’t think so but it’s been mentioned as the place that the Applebees want to send their kids for school so they don’t turn out heathens so maybe it’s a bit theocratic or traditional? Also, did the Rat Grinders lose their OG cleric or did they just never have one seeing as they’re just fighting weenie monsters? Why did they suddenly decide to pick up a cleric? To round out their party comp or because they know they’ll be needing one soon? How did they convince this guy to join up with them first day? I wish Kristen had gotten more info but I’m excited to see where this is going.

I wanna get your votes in now. Are the Rat Grinders evil or do their vibes just suck? Because it really could go either way. I really can’t wait to see what the rest of them are like and how they contrast their corresponding BK members.

Sidenote: So far, every time we’ve met a Rat Grinder they’ve been alone. As opposed to the Bad Kids who hang out as much as possible. I wonder if we’re just never catching them together or if they literally don’t hang out when they don’t have to.

The Hangman is so adorable when he’s like, “I don’t wanna do a shrimp jump but if you ask I will because I love you :(“ Big sad puppy energy. Be nicer to your bike Fabian!

Also, I said this in an ask earlier but despite the fact that Adaien’s financial situation isn’t Fabian’s problem–even if he’s 18 he’s still a child–he can’t be mad at her for not going to his party from his pirate ship mansion with his 5000 gold a month allowance. Come on now. The girl is filtering gold flakes from discounted liquor.

I didn’t mention it in the recap proper because school is also kicking my ass right now but we learn in this episode that the Kristen/Tracker breakup was amicable, followed by 3 months of radio silence, followed by WHO IS THAT BITCH ON HER LAP RAGH??? Curious to know what Nara’s vibe is. I want her to be chill but the little disagreement over whether to be public gives me pause. Not that that’s a relationship ender of course, but I’m wondering if it’s meant to hint at further discord or if Tracker just didn't want Kristen to find out like that or something else innocuous.

Nothing was outright stated but for like a second I felt like I caught a vibe that Ragh maybe felt bad about just being used to buy beer? But I could have imagined it.

I really love Kalina being in this episode to just really cut to the heart of the matter re: things involving Cass. Like it’s hard to use humor to deflect when there’s a steely eyed cat there who will just very evenly say exactly what the situation is. I also really love that Kalina can just be casually encountered at the mall. I cannot imagine being Adaine and getting jump scared by that.

(Sidenote: I wonder what Adaine’s other job options were if she didn’t go for the first one she found or if she’d rolled better.)

I know these are high schoolers, full children, but the idea that you would even be thinking about the shrimp party when your friend’s goddess is going supernova and your other friend is already on sight and in danger is WILD to me. People are dying Kim.

I also already said this in another post but my best guess about what’s happening to Cass is that she’s being affected by Kristen’s whole deal–Kristen has been obsessed with getting jacked, hence the buff wizards. It could be something totally different of course but that’s the best connection I can make with the info we currently have.

I understand why this can’t happen mechanically but it seems pretty low commitment to be a follower of Cass and I don’t think she’d be opposed to giving the Bad Kids a level of cleric for their trouble. Like, literally Adaine calling for a medic for Cass is as much if not more than we’ve seen Kristen for her so far this season. Why not help Cass not die and pick up some free healing spells in the process? Like they don’t even need to become clerics, just give them one low level healing spell like magic initiate for the cleric class. It’s not like any of the Bad Kids seem overly religious/like there’s another god they’re loyal to that would prevent them from doing this. Idk man, if I was in this position Cass would just have one more follower is what I’m saying.

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card #hit the character limit AGAIN lol #this is the last thing I wanted to say: Cass is so nice guys. I hope she’s OK :(

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thelittlepinkwitchblog · 6 months

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THE SEAGULLS OF WATERDEEP - A ONESHOT

First off, hello I am not dead just inactive.

I don't usually post much of my writing but here I am, and I'll be 100% honest, this idea has been bouncing around my brain since i made that initial post I dont know when (idk how to link posts but its there somewhere), about the Seagulls of Aberdeen by Scottish comedy group Weegie Hink Ae That? With respect to the source of my setting (the person whose story has me in a vice grip), this one-shot takes place in sort of the “in-between-scenes” of a story like @galebrainrot2024 ‘s on-going series, a former school rivals to friends to more (?) Kind of story. Come into my mind scape, where Tav went to Blackstaff with Gale as kids, they were rivals, and for whatever reason Tav went on to multiclass as a Sorcerer-Bard in order to make a better living or fulfill a passion or whatever, I didn't really think about that until I'm literally writing this intro thing. I like my Tav being F personally but I wrote this as an genderless Tav so I hope everyone can enjoy ^_^

Setting - the party camps in a relatively safe area for the night, allowing everyone to relax a bit from the Ilithid problem, along with the array of personal quests to be fulfilled. Gale made a hearty stew and everyone decided that they should have a little bit of wine as a treat for their weeks of steady hard work. Karlach was the first companion found by Tav after the crash, and so she requested a song the bard had played before meeting the rest of the party. Takes place after the meeting with Elminster.

***

“Oh, oh, sing that funny one about the seagulls!” Karlach almost vibrated from excitement, the heat of her skin radiating more than the well tended campfire. Tav looked around, at the reactions of their companions. Halsin and Wyll both nodded at them encouragingly, Astarion shrugged nonchalantly. Gale had been quiet for days, as quiet as one could expect from him; ever since Elminster quelled the orb with Mystra's blessing, so that he could, well, never mind. Tav observed him as he ran his fingers over the hem of his purple linen chemise, a silent glimpse into the torrent of his mind. “You'll love this one wizard, it's about your home turf.” Having caught on to her friend's gaze, the teifling deliberately brought the wizard from his thoughts and into the circle of conversation.

“Honestly, I would love to hear it.” He did his best to smile, to seem like his usual self, but Tav could see a forlornness deal within his eyes, having taken root in his heart since the orb was silenced.

“Yes, Tav. Do indulge us.” Shadowheart added, taking another sip of wine.

Tav waved their hand, silently summoning a lute with their Bardic Arcana, an act of casual magic that made Gale's heart skip, though for a moment he thought it was the now slumbering orb. Checking the tune with a single strum across the cords, Tav's lips curled into a cat's grin, obviously pleased to have been asked to provide entertainment during their rest. “Alrighty then, if you know the words, sing along.” Playing a simple intro, Tav began to sing, their accent, what dear readers would recognize as Scottish, clearly audible. “Oh the seagulls o'er in Waterdeep, have you seen the fucking size of the seagulls in Waterdeep?” Expecting a ballad that was aforementioned funny, Gale surprised himself when he burst out laughing with everyone else after the first crass line.

“Oh the seagulls o'er in Waterdeep, I watched one fight a granny at the Harbour in Waterdeep.”

Karlach joined into a rough harmony, Tav altering their pitch to accommodate the joyful teifling. “I thought I must be Water-dreamin’ up I wasnae, the big ol' bastard's devil eyes staring right through me. I thought I must be Water-dreamin’ but I wasnae, the big ol’ bastard chased me down and tried to kill me.” Shadowheart, Wyll, and Halsin all joined in with the chorus, Astarion enjoyed the spectacle too much to join, Lae'zel had left to train, and Gale was too busy marveling at how easily Tav smoothed over any friction that may have arisen during the day; any disagreement or tension between comrades was quickly forgiven or forgotten the moment they sat by the fire with their lute and vocal chords. As the bridge came and Tav's voice easily shifted higher, their eyes met for a single moment before the bard turned to Karlach, saying something quickly between verses. “Oh the seagulls o'er in Waterdeep they scream. Karlach, make the seagulls noise! Oh the seagulls o'er in Waterdeep they scream,”

“Wawa wawawa wawawa wawawawa!” With her whole chest, Karlach did her best seagull impression, flapping her hands to imitate wings.

“Oh the seagulls o'er in Waterdeep they scream,”

“Wawa wawawa wawawa wawawawa!” Shadowheart had joined Karlach's impression, her cheeks red from the wine most of them had consumed with the dinner Gale had prepared.

“Oh the seagulls o'er in Waterdeep,” Slowing the tempo, none knew the final line the Bard would deliver, the final blow to a song that almost had tears of laughter flow. “I watched one bust a nut at the Harbour in Waterdeep.” Shaking his head as Tav flourished on the lute in finality, he struggled for breath as his fingers clasped the bridge of his nose.

A moment of applause rang through the clearing as Tav said their thanks and seemed to humbly accept whatever praise or criticism came their way. Though no complement could surpass Gale’s; Tav's heart swelled almost painfully at his breathy laughs as he muttered to himself with a half smile, almost hiding his face in his hand to suppress himself. “Oh sweet Gods above, I needed that.”

***

please be kind to me with criticisms, be constructive but I'm sensitive k thanks

Okay, I love you, Gods bless ♡ bye ♡

#gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #bg3 gale #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldurs gate gale #gale dekarios au #wizard of waterdeep #baldurs gate 3 #weegie tink ae that?#seagulls of aberdeen #gale x bard tav #gale x sorcerer tav #gale x you #gale x tav #i am not dead #hello i am not dead

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calciumdeficientt · 1 month

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I BEG… FOR TOM… GURNEY… HEADCANONS…

THOMASSSSSS MY SONNNNN MY BOYYYYYYYYY yah absolutely :3

TOM GURNEY HEADCANONS

That’s an autistic boy if i ever did see one. Tom is me i am tom. The no shoes thing is definitely a sensory issue, i like to think its the socks more than its the shoes, likely the seams around the toes. I feel like if tom is forced to wear socks and shoes he’s got very specific sensory needs. Absolutely no ankle socks, those were sent by the government to make your ankles feel like they’re being strangled by their oppressive regime, only gym socks pulled up as far as they can physically stretch with sneakers that are tied so tight he takes them off and there’s an indent of the laces on his foot and absolutely zero circulation from the ankle down

Tom runs a very successful horror blog, he talks about behind the scenes info for his favourite movies and also provides ratings of movies both new and old. It’s really funny to watch him in the cinema because he sits with a little norepad and makes notes the whole time so he can come up with a decicive score on the blog. He spends a lot of time in the movies, its where most of the money he threatens out of other students ends up. He goes to watch movies a minimum of 5 times to make sure he didn’t miss any details or lose any plot points that might bump up his initial scores. He has a secret spreadsheet and everything, its insane commitment, but special interest is gonna special interest, am i right gamers?

A very very good student when he applies himself, especially as a creative writer, if you look past all the blood, gore, and general slasher rapiness in his works you can definitely see all the signs of a promising novelist or screenwriter. In the poetry department, he’s not so stellar. Tom is still of the mindset that all poems must rhyme and are generally quite superficial and pointless pieces of writing. And they’re completely separate to all the private free form stuff he writes in his journal from time to time. Those aren’t poems at all they’re just… succinct vents

Tom is also a greatly talented drummer, the kid has rhythm all the way up to his eyeballs, and if he wasn’t so scared i think he’d be a great asset to bullworth’s marching band. But he knows he’d get torn to shreds by his friends so he stays well enough way no matter how hard miss peters begs for him to try out. He borrows a drum kit Russel keeps in his garage and practices using karaoke tracks of songs he illegally torrented onto his iPod, no sheet music, just vibes.

Tom’s face bruise is actually part bruise and port wine stain birthmark, hence why it stays that lovely purple hue forever. The redness in his eye is from repeated blows to the head from both friends and foes but the purple skin around his eye is (mostly) just birthmark

The rest of his bruises are actually just from minor injuries. I think tom has elhers danos syndrome (EDS) so the kid bruises like a peach. Minor bumps from passersby in the busy halls of bullworth leave him looking like he was in a full on beat down. That’s not to say that he’s not often in huge scuffles because he absolutely is, he’s just a little more physically delicate than the other bullies

Tom has the hots for angie (at least in my save he does) so he tries to act like a sweetheart whenever he’s around her. He knows that she knows he’s a bully but i think tom really wants to show her that he’s more than that, he’s better than that. Tom doesnt even like being a bully all that much, it’s just the hard facts of life at bullworth that you’re either in or out, and god knows he wouldn’t last a day if he was out.

#bully cce #bully #bully canis canem edit #bully se #bully rockstar #bully scholarship edition #bully bullies #tom gurney

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ninadove · 4 months

Text

Nina reads Dracula 🦇

May 24th

And we’re back, thank goodness!!! I’ve been so worried about my good friend Jonathan! I can’t wait to hear how he outsmarted the Count and made it out safely and —

Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray.

GODDAMMIT

But hey, it’s the girls! I love the girls! Let’s see if they’ve been building any castles in the air recently.

My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three. Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day! Isn't it awful!

This is my idea of a nightmare actually. But!!! More points for the poly theory!!!

I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows.

Nevermind, they didn’t pass the vibe check. (Or did they?)

You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity.

Cottagecore sapphics anyone? 💖

I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream.

Wasn’t he supposed to be the cool unaffected one? Maybe Lucy just has this effect on people.

He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. […] And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best.

GOOD!!!!! I LIKE HIM!!!!!

Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas —

[Miraculous flashabacks] DON’T —

I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me.

Normal Things To Tell Your Bestie, 99th edition

Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could; I am not ashamed to say it now.

😏

I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speak slang—that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite manners—but he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. […]

'Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?'

OK BUT THIS IS LITERALLY SO SWEET he personalised it and even made fun of himself to diffuse the tension 🥺

And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times.

AND THEN MADE HIMSELF VULNERABLE!!!!! What a man!!!

I burst into tears—I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one—

LUCY

Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?

Wait. THE POLYCULE IS CANON??? THE POLYCULE IS CANON?????

'If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a lover; it's more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won't you give me one kiss? It'll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow—he must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love him—hasn't spoken yet.' That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble, too, to a rival—wasn't it?—and he so sad; so I leant over and kissed him.

Honestly? Mood. I am utterly charmed by this cowboy.

Now number 3 has to be something.

P.S.—Oh, about number Three—I needn't tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused; it seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don't know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend.

THAT’S IT????? A POST-SCRIPTUM????? GIRL THIS IS YOUR FIANCÉ

OK OK I am willing to accept that the strength of your feelings can’t be transcribed into words. But still.

In conclusion: these are Lucy’s three boyfriends, and yes, they eat garlic bread. 🧄🥖

(Also the contrast with Dracula’s roommates did not go unnoticed)

< Prev 🦇 Next >

#dracula #dracula daily #nina reads dracula #lucy westenra #mina murray #john seward #quincey p. morris

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melodicaria · 9 months

Text

Transformers: Goosebumps | Dark Autobots Snippet

So my silly bitch ass was thinking about dark Autobots. Not quite Shattered Glass, but similar, but like they're as evil as I want them to be! Here's just a snippet that I pumped out in a few minutes, not finalized or edited, but I had finished watching this Netflix movie, 'Leave the World Behind' and it just sparked me with an idea on how to start this. I jotted this idea down a while ago and just never got back to it- until now. Could you tell I had listened to Goosebumps by Travis Scott!? :p

Title: Goosebumps Summary: As Sam watches aliens descend upon their planet, he realizes with horror that they're not as peaceful and freedom loving as they claim to be.

It's the cellphones that go first. Sam's not too disturbed, after all, he still has his computer.

But soon that goes too.

12 plane crashes. One day.

There are thousands of people dead. Their corpses littered the pavement. Three said flights landed in a major city, hitting five buildings, with a blast radius double their length.

Every once in a while there's an odd ringing. Worldwide.

Nationwide blackouts.

The crops stop growing.

The water is drying up faster than they can calculate.

Metal sprouts from the ground, sharp jagged edges in a brilliant silver impaling people at random.

It's no longer safe to go outside.

People start getting sick, some are dying within days, others are cured from their disease.

Situations are too dire to upkeep most public spaces. School is canceled, prisons are full of riots, people storm their capitals and raise hell until their questions are answered.

And the government is silent.

The kings and queens are silent.

Because they too, haven't the faintest idea of what will happen next- what has happened.

Sam as an inkling.

The world is ending.

And then…

Metal beasts descend from the sky. Cybertronians, they call themselves.

The Universe is under attack and Earth holds the one object to save it.

But of course, humanity figures it's not a good idea to give it to them.

If only they had known.

The steel giants show no mercy, especially after one of their own is injured in a scuffle.

Hell is unleashed in a torrent of waves. Fire. Water. Ice. Wind. Bullets.

Bombs.

Sam thinks it's funny that now everyone on Earth decides to band together to a united front. He's picked up and torn from his family to protect the very thing the aliens are here for. He doesn't quite understand why they just don't give them the damned thing.

But he guards it like his life is on the line. Because it is.

Bombs are strapped to their bodies, in case they get any lucky ideas.

But he gets good at his job. His parents are held at gunpoint, along with another dozen or so, and a cap will be put in their skull if they don't comply.

So Sam has no other choice but to be good at his job. His fuck up, fucks them up.

Maybe, he gets too good at his job. He sees too much. He watches people bargain using other people as currency. He stays guarding the AllSpark at all hours. The only exception being getting sleep and eating.

He contacts his parents once a month. He has no clue where Miles is, and sometimes it gets so much to the point where he can barely remember his name. His parents name.

He gets bored. The others don't speak to him so…

He speaks to the AllSpark.

In an interesting turn of events, it speaks back, in a way.

The giant metal cube will shift whenever he's near, panels and plates clicking and elevating, swirling in a flurry of energy around his body. For a long time in a while, he laughs, and enjoys the time he spends here.

And for all of the horrible things that the world is faced with, for all of humanity's struggles and strife, for the brink of destruction they are forced on, the very object that started it all is the one thing that brings him hope.

He hopes the war ends soon.

But the insanity is only beginning.

#transformers bayverse #transformers idw #autobots #decepticons #sam witwicky #allspark #allspark & sam antics #snippet #story idea #ao3 writer #fanfic #tfp

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elliebyrrdwrites · 1 month

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Distantly, there’s a muffled voice. It’s like I’m stuff under water, stuck at the bottom of the seat and up above, there’s somebody shouting down at me. I can’t make out what they’re saying. I just know they’re trying to talk to me but I can’t make myself swim and break the surface.

My limbs are too heavy, like they’re full of lead. Vaguely, I’m aware of my cheek being slapped. There is no pain, I feel nothing. I’m not even fully inside of my body. The slaps increase, they grow firmer. Finally, I feel the sting of a palm cracking across my face. It’s hard enough to jolt my mind back into my body.

But I can’t open my eyes, they’re glued together and all of that gravel from last night is stuck inside of my throat, filling up my cheeks.

“Do you think you’re funny?” My father voice is loud, my head pulses with pain with each word he speaks.

My eyelids squeeze tighter together.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” His heel is digging into my thigh as he pushes and kicks at me, nudging me out of bed.

When I finally open my eyes, it feels like there’s sand and glue mixed together, fighting to keep them closed. Fuck me. I’ve always assumed, at some point, I’ve died.

But this is actual death. It feels like all of the blood has been drained from my body and filled with lead. It feels like my head is cracking open, exposing my skull, leaving it vulnerable for abuse.

Which is exactly what’s happening as my father’s hand smacks me over the top of the head. “How long have you been hiding this?”

I dodge his hand and pull myself out of bed, securely on the other side, away from him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I can barely get the words out, my head hurts so bad. I have to whisper just to not worsen the headache.

“You have made a fool out of yourself. You made a fool out of everyone!”

It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Your fiance has locked herself in her room, refusing to come out. She’s humiliated. Her father,” Guy, her father’s name is Guy Greengrass. What kind of a name is Guy? It’s like his parents ran out of ideas. If you say it enough times, it feels like you’re trying to clear a glob of peanut butter off the roof of your mouth.

Despite the pain of my head cracking open and my stomach rolling like I’m stuck on a boat in torrent seas, I can’t help but laugh. I can’t help the giggles that bubble their way up my throat because I just can’t figure out why he’s so upset. But, it’s quite lovely.

“You sneaky little cunt!”

My eyebrows push up into my forehead, and I have to flinch to ignore the pain. “Ooh!” I run a hand over my mouth. It’s starting to water. I think I’m going to throw up. “Such pretty language for such an old man.”

“You’ve been hiding her all this time, haven’t you?”

My laughter dies. Is he talking about Granger? All this time, I thought he was the one hiding her from me. The point is, he’s realized I’ve been lying to him. And now I know he hasn’t been able to find her, either. What a clever little witch.

“It doesn’t matter,” he hisses. “You’ve made it impossible to cover up.”

My stomach heaves, and my cheeks puff up. I close my eyes and wait for the wave of nausea to pass. When it does, I kept them closed. I’m afraid the world will spin if I open them. “Would you please just tell me what the fuck you are talking about?”

“You’re drunk.” He sniffs the air. “No wonder it stinks in here. It’s disgusting. You’re disgusting. Getting drunk and declaring your love for a filthy mudblood on the eve of your wedding. Were you trying to commit suicide?”

“Actually,” I crack an eye open. “I was drunk yesterday.” He’s holding the Prophet in his hand. It’s rolled up tight, like he’s about to beat me like a dog. “So, that would mean that I am hungover.”

The point is, my father’s jaw is so rigid, he’s probably cracking his molars. His grey eyes are murderous. “Malfoy’s don’t drink.”

“Well, I do. Seeing as I’m about to commit suicide of the soul by walking down that aisle, I figure last night was as good a time as any to start. Now,” I lift my chin, gesturing to the paper on his hand. “If you’re through with all this foreplay, would you mind handing that over, so I can figure out what the hell it is you’re talking about.”

Father sniffs. He lifts his chin and narrows his eyes on me before tossing the Prophet onto the bed, unrolling to expose the front page. The photo replays over and over, on the loop all magical photos do. And in this photo, there’s the store front of Flourish and Blotts. There’s flowers lining the front of the store. Hundreds of pink roses.

There’s me and a bucket of paint. Im holding this bucket of paint and my wand and on the shop windows, there’s words painted there. Like red blood, the paint drips from each letter.

The words blink like a flashing, and changing each time.

The photo plays on a loop and from start to finish, a smirk grows on my face as I stare at the windows. As I stare at the words, my eyes seem to glow like the moon.

Well, I have gone and done it now. I’ve vandalized the beloved book shop of Diagon Alley, and I can’t remember a lick of it, but I have to believe it. Because I look down at my body and there’s red paint smudged down the front of my shirt.

I laugh because now I know Guy Greengrass is going to kill me. My father is going to kill me.

That is, if Granger doesn’t kill me first.

Because the words flash from one phrase to the next;

From, granger, i love you

i fucked up

Little fucking Jonas Dart.

#dramione #fanfic #dramione fanfic #draco malfoy #draco x hermione #dramione fanfiction #hermione x draco #hermione granger #draco fanfiction #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco lucius malfoy #draco malfoy first person pov #draco/hermione

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jamespotterthefirst · 1 year

Text

My Best Friend's Wedding

I. RUMOR HAS IT

Book: Open Heart (AU)

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey and MC (Dr. Lilac Allende)

Words: 850

Rating: T

Summary: A childhood friend realizes he's the love of her life. The problem is he's about to marry someone else.

Note: This is my re-write of one of my favorite rom coms ever: My Best Friend's Wedding. Part 1 of two is the Karaoke scene where Julia Roberts tries to sabotage Cameron Diaz and it backfires. This is for @choicesprompts and their Rewrite Challenge! Thank you @jerzwriter for encouraging me to participate!

The crowded bar felt stifling as legions of medical staff packed tightly into its confines. No one seemed to mind, however, since everywhere Morgan looked she was greeted by drunk, laughing faces. All except for one, of course.

Ethan Ramsey would not be his curmudgeon self if he didn't look like a man about to be waterboarded. His eyes met hers for a fleeting moment, the vivid blue imploring someone—anyone—to put him out of his misery. She stifled laughter, the familiarity of that characteristic disdain of his bringing her the smallest bit of comfort.

“How much longer do we have to endure this?” he asked as a drunk intern belted a sloppy but admittedly hilarious rendition of I Say a Little Prayer.

She rolled her eyes, ready to admonish him for being such a spoilsport— just like old times. Someone else beat her to it.

From beside him, the beautiful brunette laughed—the sound just as perfect as everything else about her. She leaned in close to him, the light catching on a stunning, vintage engagement ring as her hand fell atop his.

“You're so dramatic, babe,” his fiancée taunted with a smile that exuded pure sunshine. Green eyes fell on Morgan, slightly apologetic. “You'll have to forgive him. He hates upbeat music, fun, and references to organized religion.”

And she was funny, too. Morgan internally had to give her that too.

Ethan agreed because he indulged Lilac (of course her name had to be beautiful as well) with a lopsided smile that made him appear even more handsome. That shocked Morgan into silence for a moment. In all her time knowing Ethan Ramsey, she could count his genuine smiles on one hand. Then again, the crushing realization fell over her like a torrent. Perhaps she didn't know Ethan anymore. The Ethan she had known never believed in love or marriage, after all.

Their playful banter escalated and tapered into a modest but sweet kiss. When they pulled apart, Lilac burst at the seams with giddy joy—the type Morgan was a stranger to. It made her stomach churn.

“Alright,” someone said from the stage. “Who's drunk enough to go next?”

Drunken cheers and shouts erupted from the bar, each group nominating someone.

“You should go,” Lilac teased Ethan.

“God, no.”

She laughed, expecting that exact reaction. Her ring-clad hold tightened on Ethan's arm and something in Morgan came to a boiling point.

“I have someone better in mind,” she told the couple. Without another word, she marched to the stage and took the microphone from the MC. The crowd whistled and cheered. “Alright everyone, tonight we have a special treat for you. Give it up for the dazzling vocal styling of Doctor Lilac Allende!”

The cheers in the tiny bar were almost deafening. The pretty brunette was stunned for a moment, glancing at Ethan for reassurance. Expression tight, he shook his head, no doubt advising her not to go if she didn't want to. The crowd, however, was having none of it. A fellow doctor at their hospital all but carried Lilac onto the stage.

“Rumour Has It by Adele,” Morgan informed the DJ. Then, she pushed the microphone into Lilac's hands as the beat started. Color flushed her freckled face and she looked as though she still hadn't fully recovered from the surprise.

“Ooh-ooh,” Lilac started into the microphone. “She, she ain't real…”

Morgan returned to her seat, ignoring the glare Ethan threw her way.

“She ain't gon' be able to love you like I will,” Lilac continued. The more words she sang, the more evident it became that the poor girl could not sing to save her life. Morgan felt a tiny pang of satisfaction at the discovery that the brunette wasn't so perfect after all.

“Wow,” Morgan laughed.

Ethan didn't react.

“Maybe putting her up there wasn't such a good idea. But then again, it's Adele. No one is going to sing that well.”

Blue eyes assessed her like x-rays.

“Isn't that the point of this circus? To sing badly?” his voice was deathly calm but she could tell there was something more brewing underneath the surface.

At that very moment, the bar erupted into loud cheers and applause as Lilac added a little dance mid-song. She laughed into the microphone, barely able to get the words out. When her eyes fell on Ethan, she winked at him, her spine straightening with confidence.

“Just 'cause I said it, don't mean that I meant it,” she sang, adding with confidence— “I DID!”

“But rumor has it, he's the one I'm leaving you for.”

The encouragement from the bar patrons could probably be heard from the hospital across the street. Lilac hopped off stage, still singing, even making her voice playfully seductive. She sauntered to where Ethan sat, trailing one finger along his shoulder as she sang. The man was perfectly still but he tracked her every movement, blue eyes glittering with something heavy and meaningful. The way he looked at her made Morgan feel like an intruder.

The pang in her chest was unbearable.

And with that, Lilac plopped onto his lap, pressing a kiss to his lips as the applause echoed around them. There was no one in the world but them. The way he held her, there was no one in his world but Lilac.

Morgan looked away.

Notes: I was so in love with Dermot Mulroney in this

Hope you liked it!

The next part is "Speak Now" and should be up soon ❤️

And yes, I am still writing the masquerade mini series lol. I just got swept up in this idea. The heart wants what it wa-a-a-a-ants lol

#ethan ramsey #open heart #ethan x mc #playchoices #choicesprompts #Rewrite challenge #rewritechallenge

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nerves-nebula · 1 year

Text

ok i finished Lolita, here's my rambling notes which are really more about me & my reactions than the book. I stopped taking as many notes the further in I went.

the forward for this is so funny. we got someone in universe telling us that the things this guy says are absurd and you should NOT fall for his bullshit, because he is NOT a gentleman.

Approx 24 minutes in he proposes the idea of the nymphette. 9-14

its fascinating the way he constructs this other sect of being, this third sex, this nymphet. the way he calls them demons, as if it's their fault, as if it could never be a problem with him.

gets mad that some guys entire fuckin house burns down so he cant ogle his daughters. what an asshole.

Negro/Negress Count (i updated this every time the word negro is used. i just think its funny, its like a drinking game for me. at least black people exist in this world lmao): 7

(about quote #6) the way he talks about Mrs Haze (and in fact most women and girls) as though he is so handsome that he literally cannot stop them from entangling him in an affair is fascinating. Man cannot hold himself responsible for anything.

ok so he's just met dolores and this isnt really a product of the book, but the narrator does a REALLY god job with HH. genuinely just a really good performance. he reads the cadence of HH's flowery writing so well, he emotes so well. its great.

of course this overwritten little creep would write down all his thoughts in a little book. just like he's doing now. at least he's consistent?

so much damn interpretation huh. he's always like "I know she wanted me to kiss her i could tell she was waiting for it" MY GUY.

wait when does this take place was it really normal to marry your first cousin in the midwest in the 1950s?

the way he describes her being not entirely innocent as a warning sign, as some great evil that would trap him, is fascinating. because she is not what he thought an innocent little girl should be, he pushes a bit of the responsibility off of himself and onto her. she's not a child, she's a dangerous nymphet who pulls him in and traps him in her impropriety. despite him literally (thinking he was) drugging her (in an attempt to keep her from knowing what hes doing) he STILL blames her for enticing him. still considers her a fae creature. i hate him. i love this book.

it is truly kind of fascinating how he makes it sound like their trip wasn't all that bad and just offhandedly mentions horrific stuff like the rate at which she sexually abused her, or how Dolores cried herself to sleep every night when she thought he was asleep, and how she almost never seemed to actually be happy. and yet he'll go on and on about all the things they got to see, and how much money this whole kidnapping roadtrip cost him.

the fact that he now has to just straight up pay her, and she's clearly not enjoying anything is so !!! and then he has the NERVE to steal her money back while she's away !! the money she's probably trying to save up to get away from him !! do you guys know what thats like?? when the money youve carefully saved just.. disappears?? good god.

oh ok so he KNOWS she might try to run away if she has too much money. cool cool normal.

i do like this school parent teacher meeting thing thats basically laying out that it's very clear dolores has issues around sex. like this is somehow so clearly an issue that they called him in about it. Ough.

love his indigence at Lo saying that he tried to molest her back before he married her mother (more or less true, and i would even say he succeeded that one time) and that he murdered her mother (a reasonable assumption on her part)

Mans just said he can shed torrents of tears thru his dick. He’s unnecessarily crude for someone so poetic and I love that part of his character tbh.

So he just slapped her and it’s fascinating how clearly abusive he is even from his own softened retelling. Like he doesn’t phrase it like this, but every action he takes is to isolate and control her.

i know he sucks shit but him leaving Rita is especially cruel to me. there was no need to leave her behind with only a note. no amount of calling a woman "sweet" or his "poor little thing" makes up for how absolutely disposable they all are to him. he admits that he needed her, that her company kept him from having breakdowns that would send him to a hospital, and he still just leaves her behind forever. when he knows thats what she was scared of most.

i aint even know about Clare Quilty. huh!

i am enjoying his sad walk through his "smothered memories" like yeah man. you suck and you fucked up everything and you do deserve to feel bad about your active ignorance (i like that he brought up the memory of rescinding that one promise because that was one instance i was really stuck on. like she has nothing man, and it's silly to you but it's everything to her)

y'know im still not entirely sure what Pentapod Monster means

Quotes:

he is not a gentleman

But how his heart beat when, among the innocent throng,he espied a demon child, "enfant charmante et fourbe," dim eyes, bright lips, ten years in jail if you only show her you are looking at her.

I was naive as only a pervert can be (lol)

nymphets do not occur in polar regions (oh my god shut upp)

the reader will regret to learn that soon after my return to civilization I had another bout with insanity (I absolutely do not regret it my wonderful narrator <3)

I was perfectly aware that if by any wild chance I became her lodger, she would methodically proceed to do in regard to me what taking a lodger probably meant to her all along, and I would again be enmeshed in one of those tedious affairs I knew so well.

To keep her happy, I had to present her with an illustrated catalogue of them, all nicely differentiated, according to the rules of those American ads where schoolchildren are pictured in a subtle ratio of races, with one--only one, but as cute as they make them--chocolate-colored round-eyed little lad, almost in the very middle of the front row.(I just find this quote interesting because it makes a point that there would only ever be at most one black kid. not sure what to make of it but i did enjoy that)

It was she who seduced me. (SHUT UP)

the body of some immortal demon disguised as a female child. (SHUT UPPPPP!!)

Used French only when she was a very good little girl. (I’m attacking you with my teeth and claws. I love this book.)

#nnstuff #rambling #lolita

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mumms-the-word · 7 months

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First Confessions

Day 21 of the BG3 Fic February Challenge

How could I not write first confessions for ALL my Tavs/Durges?

Each little flash fic below is the first time my Tav/Durge has said "I love you" to their LI. Some confessions happen really early! And some, surprisingly late. I had a fun time trying to think how each Tav/Durge would confess and what the LI's might say or do in that scenario. Hopefully you guys will be enjoy one or two of these as well.

Check out my masterlist of BG3 fics!

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21: Love confession (by any character)

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Dani

“Gods, I love you.”

It fell out of her mouth in the middle of a laugh, her nose slightly scrunched, her sharp teeth flashing, her eyes misty with mirth. They’d been swapping stories around the fire, telling jokes, sharing funny memories, until at last Gale had sent half of them into fits over a tale about a student at Blackstaff who’d convinced him to play a prank on a much-despised instructor, resulting in a marble bust of the instructor spouting a colorful variety of insults thanks to a well-cast magic mouth spell.

She said it casually and instinctually, the way she did when she was with her Rovers. Without thought, but also meant with her whole chest. Affectionate and warm and light. It didn’t strike her until a moment later, wiping her eyes, that it was the first time he’d heard her say those words to him. The first time she’d said those words to anyone other than the Rovers. His face had seemed warmer after she said it, but that could have been from his laughter too. If he thought anything of it, it didn’t show on his face.

She couldn’t have known then that it would be the first many I love you’s between the two of them. But even so, in the moment, she wouldn’t have taken it back for the world. He often made her smile, often made her laugh, and she loved him to bits for it.

So the words came easily. They always came easily, meant with as much affection on that first utterance around the fire, with all her friends as a witness, as they did one thousand reiterations later, when she spoke the words softly into the crook of his neck as they lay together alone in their bed.

But she had no way of knowing what lay in her future that night around the campfire. That night she said the words with a laugh, bright and affectionate, falling a little bit in love with him but thinking nothing of it.

She didn’t know, of course, that at the very same moment he was falling a little more in love with her too. It would only be a handful of days before those words returned, murmured softly under a starlit sky, carrying the weight of a different, deeper kind of love.

But for now, as a far as first confessions go, the words were out there, but her love remained a fledgling little secret, tucked away in the back of her heart to grow over time.

———

Invi

“I love you.”

She whispered it into Astarion’s blood-flecked hair, sinful red on bone white, holding him tightly as he shook under the weight of his world crashing down around him. Cazador was dead just a foot away, the ritual ruined, seven thousand and six spawn alive but with nowhere to go. And one broken, shuddering spawn who was shattering in her arms.

She probably shouldn’t have said it. It was probably the worst thing she could have said. She didn’t even know if he could hear her over the roar of grief and pain in his skull. She could sense it in his body as he pressed his hands into the blood-soaked stone of the ritual platform, his chest heaving with choked sobs. She could sense it in his mind where they were connected by the tadpoles, all barriers gone. His thoughts were a whirlwind of emotions, relief mixed with sorrow, anger mixed with frenzied joy, and grief, so much grief. It was too much for his mind alone so his body has responded for him, releasing the energy in a torrent of tears and wailing cries.

Still she held on, embracing him as best she could, grounding him the only way she knew how. She understood what it was to lose control like this. She remembered all too well the night she’d struggled against her bindings, every cell in her body urging her to break free and kill Astarion, while the person inside, the girl known as Invi, screamed in the prison of her mind that she loved him and fought with all her strength to resist. He’d stayed with her the whole night. She could do no less for him now.

Still. Maybe she should have saved the words for later. Maybe they would have been better said in a quiet room where it was just the two of them. Maybe this confession would be another mistake in a long road of mistakes she’d already made. But the words were out there now. And she said them again, pressing a kiss to his hair as he struggled to regain composure.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

She wanted to say so much more, but she didn’t know how to communicate it. Those were the only words she had, and in the end, those were the words that calmed him.

He didn’t say them back. She didn’t expect him to. She didn’t even know if he had really heard them. But now that the words were out there in the world, she could deny them no longer.

She had wanted to say them the morning she woke up, still bound, and found Astarion safe and well by the smoldering campfire. She had wanted to say them before they entered this room to fight Cazador, just in case she never got the chance to again. Both times she had choked on them, unsure of the timing, or how he would respond, unsure if she even really knew what love felt like.

No more. She said the words now, because they were the only words she could say. Whether he was ready to accept them or not, she had said them, and she refused to take them back.

———

Freyr

“I love you.”

He murmured it softly into Minthara’s ear as they lay together in a shared bed at the Elfsong, the darkness of the room interrupted only by a few sputtering candles. He traced his fingertips lightly across her nightshade skin, slowly up the curve of her spine, following the paths laid out by scars, pausing at old wounds as his fingers brushed against them. She lay against him, cheek on his chest, fingers at the pulse of his neck, dozing lightly. But at his words, she stirred.

He didn’t know why he said it. He didn’t know what had possessed him. Or perhaps, that itself was the problem. Nothing possessed him. He was free of his dark urges at last.

It was the first night his mind had been quiet, the first he could easily remember. In the dark of the room, with Minthara drifting away into a meditative doze, there was nothing whispering in his mind anymore. The only voice in his head was his own.

And so, unable to sleep because of the quiet, he had contemplated the woman in his arms. Turned every drifting thought back to her. Admired her beauty, her strength. Replayed the words she had spoken earlier that day, the words she had whispered as she had guided him to lay back on the bed, trying to commit them all the memory now that he had a mind to remember things. And in his contemplations of her, the words had simply fallen from his lips.

She turned her head, resting her chin on his chest, blinking sleepily at him. He waited for her to scoff, tell him love was a weakness, or even ignore his words entirely. But instead she smirked faintly and traced the curve of his lips with pad of her thumb.

“I know,” she murmured, her voice a gentle rasp.

Of course she knew. How could she not? He’d been drawn to her from the moment he met her in that ruined temple months ago. He’d devoted himself to her the moment he’d watched her fight. Sworn to protect her when he saved her from Moonrise. Vowed to kill Orin as vengeance for her as much as for himself after hearing how Orin had tormented her. Now with Orin dead and his madness at an end, he saw his actions for what they were, what they had perhaps always been. The actions of a man madly in love.

Yet he didn’t feel any weaker for having said the words. If the dark urge were still a part of him, it would have churned his gut with revulsion. But there was no more dark urge. There was only him and the woman in his arms.

Perhaps he would say it again, another time. Perhaps it would be a phrase that came easily to his lips, and perhaps one day she may even say it back. But for now it was a simple truth that they shared between them. No more need be said.

———

Ardynn

“Halsin? I love you.”

She said the words as casually as she was able, trying desperately to ignore the pounding of her heart in her chest or the way her hands trembled with fine tremors. They were walking hand-in-hand through the newly cured lands around Reithwin, the air quiet but for the sound of a few intrepid birds that had been among the first to return. She spoke the words into the still air and held her breath, trying not to look as scared as she felt when Halsin turned to look at her.

She must have said it a hundred times in her head before this moment. A fleeting, silly thought when she’d had too much to drink at the tiefling party. A yearning plea when she was in the depths of the shadow cursed lands, clutching a token infused with his nature magic to her chest. A whispered prayer as she lay across from him with the campfire between them.

When they’d lain together for the first time, under the stars with the river drifting lazily by, when his lips were on her skin and his hands on her body, the words had laced together in a pattern in her mind, locked behind her teeth as she clenched them together and arched her back with pleasure. When she fell asleep in his arms each night since then, it was the last thought she cradled close to her heart before drifting away. When she woke with her body against his and opened her eyes to find him smiling gently down at her, it was the first thought that sprang to her mind.

She screamed it in her head in the midst of battle, urged the words to form on her tongue in desperate moments where he was hurt or in danger. But she hadn’t said them. She had nearly choked on the words several times, at the Iron Throne, at the Netherbrain, when she had run and jumped into his arms a tenday after the defeat of the brain, having reunited with him in Thaniel’s lands, each time nearly letting them escape only to bite them back in a hurry. These days she felt the words fill her mouth when they were doing nothing of consequence at all, sitting in silence over a meal or contemplating the landscape together. But she had never once said them out loud.

Because he had never said them, either.

She didn’t doubt his love, of course. He proved it daily with his tender looks, his desire, the very fact that he had stayed by her side in a city that he could barely tolerate and still found time for her as he worked to build a new community for refugees of the smoldering city. She heard it when he called her “my heart” and cradled her face in his warm hand. She tasted it on his lips when he kissed her, felt his love press into her skin when he kissed her forehead.

He loved her in his own way. In the way that wood elf bear druids who were over three centuries old loved. She was content with that. And she would be content if he never said the words that rang daily in her skull, beating with her heart. She just didn’t know how he would respond if she said the words.

A part of her worried he would react negatively, withdraw, create space between them to remind her of his nature to roam. But even if he did, it wouldn’t change what she felt. She loved him. Roaming and all.

So she said them now, trying to sound casual, as though this were part of their every day speech when it very much was not. He turned to looked at her, only the barest hint of surprise on his features, and for a brief moment she regretted ever putting a voice to her thoughts at all. But then he smiled warmly and bent to kiss her, her hand still in his.

“And I love you, my heart,” he said quietly.

Just as naturally as if he’d said it a hundred times before.

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zaceouiswriting · 3 months

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Fairy Prince - Hearts of Leviathans - Ch.25

Character: Sky x male reader, Riven x male reader, Brandon x male reader

Universe: Somewhere in Winx Club/Saga

Warnings: None

As it gets later, out of curiosity, I follow some of the specialists and find myself in a canteen that looks like one in an old barracks. When I see the sad state of this place, I can only roll my eyes. This building is far from up-to-date. In search of a quiet place, I walk past it, turn a corner, and step into a notch. I put my hand on the building wall, connecting myself with the building to bring the look of the canteen and its decoration closer to modern standards.

Instead of a large square room, I rounded it off with large windows that look out onto the inner garden, which most people have probably never seen before. I also gave it a first, second, and third floor, with a large chandelier hanging from the much higher ceiling, ending at the third row of windows. The first floor covers three-quarters of the ground floor, while the second covers two-thirds, and the third floor covers half. The tables are more luxurious, made of sturdier wood, and the chairs are almost as comfortable as those in a palace. However, columns sometimes make the large rooms narrower.

A squeak escapes my throat as I come back to myself. "Shit, dude. What the fuck?" I asked the person who snapped me out of my head.

"Where were you?" His heated voice, different from the calm and relaxed one I'm used to from him, is already making me nervous.

I look for a way out, ready to dodge all his questions, but he smacks me in the back of the head before I can do so. With my eyes wide open in shock, I'm ready to unleash a torrent of words at him, but he hits the back of my head again, leaving me speechless.

"You're such an idiot!" he shouted at me. "I was worried when I didn't find you in the hospital room," he mumbles further. "Do you even know how many rooms there are here?"

"Well, I do, but I'm sure that's not the point."

"Of course not, you fucking idiot!" His fists are clenched at his sides. When I finally realize that I messed up, I hang my head.

"I'm sorry, okay? My mind is a bit foggy, but I can't tell you why, after all, you're as much of a traitor as my parents; you have to accept that I'm not going to tell you as much as you'd like." Seeing that he's about to argue, I raise my hand. "Don't you dare say otherwise!" I warn him. "My grandfather is no longer my ally, nor my family; after all, he is forcing me to marry someone I met once. Cory. Once! This hasn't happened since the Vulcor tragedy; that only happened because a member of my family was forced to marry someone he didn't love." I repeat our world history. "What's going to happen this time? Is the rest of our world supposed to drown in our seemingly endless oceans?"

I can't explain my anger, but I'm ready to put Cory in his place for the rest of our lives. While I'm sure it wouldn't help us move on to greener pastures together, it would calm the raging anger in my heart.

"Only when you swear your eternity to me will I let you back in, but until then I will never accept you as a friend or an ally because I simply cannot trust you."

I push past him without giving him a chance to say anything else, and I shove his shoulder so hard that he almost flies against the wall. I walk past the new canteen with long strides but still take a quick look inside. A gentle smile graces my lips as I see how much more comfortable it looks now. But unfortunately, I also meet the brown eyes of a certain specialist who I don't want to talk to right now.

Sky raises his hand and waves at me, but I avert my gaze and run away quickly, my steps faster than I intended. I jog around a group of girls, bowing my head slightly so they don't get any funny ideas. They can't be trusted either. I have no idea where I'm running, but I'm not stopping either.

It's only when I reach the room where I'm supposed to sleep that I finally stop jogging. When I get inside, I see all my things lying on a bed, which I'm sure Sky put there. Once I reach the bed, I dig through my stuff until I find my sword, the rusty beauty that will surely one day be as legendary as it is meant to be.

With the weapon, which feels like an extension of myself, in my hand, I step back into the hallway, walking straight ahead, past the main entrance, all the way down, then taking the hallway to the right, at the end of which I can barely make out the door I had been sleeping in while recovering. I head down the hallway to the right, away from this room, and walk until I reach another circular room. Although there are other corridors, my gaze remains fixed on the large wooden doors in front of me; it looks like no one has ever been here beforehand.

Honestly? It's not even a miracle; considering the inside of the building is about a hundred times bigger than it looks from the outside, it's a pretty cool magic trick.

I put both hands against the doors and opened them easily. Behind them is a small staircase, with two statues on either side looking down on a large open space. From where he stands, he can easily reach the statues as they are level with my feet, but just a few steps in front of the statues, the level drops immediately.

I go down the stairs, but only when I get to the bottom can I see the entire room. It's clearly a training hall, perfectly tailored for specialists and fairies. While the left side is just for the fairies and the right is just for specialists, the middle is a battlefield with activatable walls, simulated buildings, and everything a warmonger's heart could desire. It's only rudimentary, as I've never trained in a place like this—part simulation and part real world—but I'm sure it will work.

I ignore everything, as it's just a shortcut right now. I head straight to the other side, where there's a perfect mirror image of the entrance. After opening the doors, I enter another round room that leads to changing rooms. As before, the right side is designated for the specialists, while the left is appointed for the fairies.

When I look at the two doors, I don't go through the pink one on the left—even though I'm a fairy myself—but through the blue one on the right, just so the fairies don't mistakenly conclude that I'm a pervert again. I can only roll my eyes at the thought. It still gets on my nerves to no end.

As I walk in, I see that the room is also circular. Everyone has their own small cubicle with a safe, a locker, a bench, and even towels hanging there. The only problem is that, despite the presence of several hundred students, only about 24 people fit into one of these circles. The only solution was to make more circles. As I continue straight ahead, there are several rooms to the left and right; it almost looks like a room with endless mirrors.

It takes me a minute to reach the other side of the long changing room, but when I get there, I leave immediately and find myself in a hallway, facing several more doors. But this time I turn left and almost immediately reach a door that leads outside. It's one of two back doors. The second door is on the other side of the building.

Finally getting outside, I breathe in the fresh and slightly humid evening air, the perfect time for some exercise.

The sounds of the nearby forest, the singing of birds, the buzzing of insects, and the cracking of old wood are more relaxing than I first thought.

From the exit, I walk a bit until I am almost directly in the forest. Between the trees, I come to a halt. I turn to the side, straighten my back, hold the sword in both hands, raise it above my hand, and swing it downward. I repeat the movement over and over again, with the same intensity and strength. It doesn't take long before I feel myself slipping into the rhythm as my mind goes blank—exactly what I needed.

Completely relaxed, like I haven't felt in a long time, I swing my sword as if there were no tomorrow. Nothing can stop me—not the looks I can sense from somewhere, not the bird that nests on my head, not even the few smaller animals that sniff my legs.

Except for the icy, biting breeze. I am jolted back to reality as my body suddenly trembles from the cold. As I look around, I can barely see my hand in front of my eyes; the faint moonlight just isn't enough to make out anything about my surroundings. Because of my long training, my entire body is covered in so much sweat that I almost freeze my butt off.

My teeth chatter without my consent, and my hands clench around the hilt of my sword. Even though I'm still fully clothed—I haven't even bothered to put on my gym clothes—I feel like an idiot. Everything is almost glued to me. Sometimes I truly wonder where my head is. It's obviously not where it should be—in my skull.

Trembling, I walk back to the building, only to realize my mistake from earlier. Looking along the side of the building, in the pale moonlight, I can barely make out the corner of the front of the structure, only a few hundred meters away. Rather than walk all the way back into the building, I should probably just go around the outside.

With a satisfied groan, I keep standing there for a second to enjoy the warmth, but at the same time, to my surprise, the lights in the hallway turn on by themselves. I am taken aback, but after a short moment, instead of confusion, a smile crosses my lips. However, I can only thank the building inside my head because I am too exhausted to do it any other way.

With slow steps, I walk back to the main entrance of the school, where the boys' dormitories are located. But the closer I get, the more I notice how quiet it is. Not just quiet, but dead silent. Only then do I realize how late it actually is. When I'm almost back at the door to my room, I'm still thinking about what to do. But when I remember my roommates, my decision is already made because I don't want to be near two of them. Who knows what they do if they got their hands on my unconscious body?

I like my life, so instead of going in there, I walk a few meters back to one of the arches at the start of the hallway leading off the round foyer. Behind the arch is a living room with many couches, books, games, a fireplace, and a TV. It is rather old-fashioned.

I go deeper into the room, close to the fireplace. I turn it on, and the house lets the fire burn endlessly. It quickly warms up my ice-cold body. I pull one of the sofas closer and lie down on it, and not a second later, I already feel cozy and sleepy. The first day is over. Now there are only five years left. It can only get fucking worse.

[Masterlist]

#x male reader #male reader #male reader imagine #winx club #winx saga #winx saga imagine #winx club x male reader #winx saga x male reader #winx club imagine #sky x male reader #sky imagine #sky #brandon imagine #brandon x male reader #brandon #riven imagine #riven x male reader #riven

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