#unless those two separate tags actually mean something different to you

[goldensunset]

absolutely no shade to anyone on tumblr bc there’s no right or wrong way to tag things but it is pretty funny every time someone reblogs a post and tags it as every single existing iteration of that media’s name or whatever. like bestie that doesn’t do anything here on tumblr it doesn’t do anything promotional for op. you would only do that if that was your original post and you were trying to gain traction for it. meanwhile for reblogging the only purpose of tagging things is for organizational purposes so you can find it again easily. in other words reblog-tagging is for you. or the people already on your blog. you really only have to pick one tag per thing and commit to using it bestie. spare yourself the effort of typing all that mess. love yourself

[elfwreck]

Hey! I saw you commented on the AO3 history post, and I’ve always had a question I’m not sure you’ll be able to answer but thought I’d give it a try. Anyways, there are some tags on AO3 that you click on and it says they’re not marked as “common” enough to be a tag yet. Usually ones that are super highly specific so only one or two fics have them. However, when you click on “mind break” it has this message but also has like 180 pages worth of fics with that tag. Like thousands of fics. Have you heard any reason they have chosen not to acknowledge this tag? The only reason I even care is you then can’t use filters when looking at the tag.

This, I can answer! (I used to be a tag wrangler.)

Tags not marked "common" have not been made "canonical." It has nothing to do with how much they're used, just whether or not they've been set to "canonical" in the database. Once they are, other tags can be synned to them.

Short answer: Tags that don't belong to a specific fandom, mostly don't get wrangled. There are complex reasons for this (something database something), and yeah, it's getting out of hand.

(They get wrangled. Slowly. By advanced tag wranglers. With consent from the committee. At specific times of day.) (There is a HUGE backlog for this.)

Tags that belong to a specific fandom have a "rule of three" - if three different authors have used the tag on three different fics, they get made canonical. (Sometimes it's Ro5 for slow/tiny fandoms. And having the rule doesn't mean it gets done immediately; the wrangler(s) for that fandom have to see it, and they might be too busy with other things. But. Eventually they get added.)

Specific-fandom tags include characters (so, "Tony Stark" is the canonical tag, and is considered identical to Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man, Tony Stank, Tony Starks, Toni Stark, and so on. (Because the "Character" field only allows characters, not modifiers, tags like "Girl Tony Stark" and "De-aged Tony Stark" also wind up synned to Tony Stark. If you want those separately searchable, they need to go in the Additional Tags field.)

"Fandom" tags also include relationships, the name of the fandom itself (...Undertale (Video Game) has dozens of syns because people don't realize that putting Underfell or Swapfell or Mobfell or Yandereswap in the fandom field, instead of additional tags, will just get synned to the main tag.)

In the Additional Tags field, some tags are fandom-specific (Dark Harry Potter, Arc Reactor (and Arc Reactor Kink), specific episode tags, etc.) and many are not - that's most of the sex acts & kinks, Coffee Shop AU, canon-compliant, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, and so on.

The ones that were common during AO3's first few years have been wrangled. (Even then, there were rules about no-fandom tags.) A few years ago, no-fandom tag wrangling basically stopped. It still gets done... a little bit... here and there... but it's getting to be an actual problem - people can't search for the tags they want to find, can't avoid the content they don't want to see, unless other fans have all latched onto the exact same phrasing for a tag.

The exact reasons wranglers aren't allowed to touch the no-fandom tags are blurry to me. I just know it can cause database problems if it's not done very carefully. (Technically, any tags can - but the fandom-specific tags are less likely to cause those problems, and the people wrangling them know the fandom & aren't as likely to accidentally connect or disconnect the wrong things.)

[ikkaku-of-heart]

A Few FYIs to All Current/Potential Ship Partners

Mostly posting these because I am a chronic over-thinker and worrywart about certain things, especially when it comes to shipping, so I figure I’d write some stuff out for my own peace of mind and possibly even my partners’ or mutuals’ who wish to ship but have been too shy to approach.

I ship based primarily on chemistry, but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to discussing the possibility of shipping. Hop into my DMs and I’m certainly happy to talk OOC about it and we can see what it would take for the ship to develop. Hell, even if there is chemistry, please come into my DMs and discuss making the ship official because like I said I’m a worrywart and frequently psyche myself out into thinking that I’ve misread the situation and the chemistry is one-sided.

I am multiship AF. Ikkaku is a social, flirtatious, vibrant woman so naturally she gets around. This ranges from one-night stands to friends with benefits to hateships to actual romantic relationships. However, each ship, unless we decide otherwise for plot/characterization reasons, is in its own separate universe. Ex. in a verse where Ikkaku is shipping with Nami, Ikkaku x Zoro isn’t a thing unless we decide it would make for interesting characterization or plot stuff.

I absolutely ship with duplicates! For example, I ship with two different Eustass Kids and am perfectly willing to ship with more, so don’t be afraid to approach if you want to ship. Each person’s interpretation of a character is different, and therefore each ship dynamic will have its own nuances and cool moments. Because of this I’ll be making a different ship tag for each version, because each one is special and deserves it. 

On the subject of duplicate shipping, I only ask two things:

Don’t assume that just because I'm shipping with one person’s version of a character, that your version is automatically shipping with Ikkaku, too. Like I said, each interpretation is unique and I generally ship based on chemistry.

I know I can’t ask people to completely avoid feelings of jealousy, but if you feel I’ve been showing favoritism towards one version of a ship over ours, please just come talk to me so we can instead work things out. 

I don’t do exclusives. If you want me to exclusively ship with you or your muse, I’m sorry, it’s not happening. Nothing against those who do exclusives, but it’s not for me and certainly not something Ikkaku would be happy with.

On the subject of Hawkins, I know I’ve written more than a few things for him and Ikkaku lately as an NPC ship, but I want to make sure that this is not how I would expect any current or future Hawkins RPers to interact with me. Now, if you decide you want to explore this version of the ship with me, I’m absolutely for it! But I also treat it the same way as I do duplicates - it’s its own separate verse and does not reflect on my interactions with Hawkins RPers. For non-Hawkins RPers, if you want to make this ship part of ours’ canon, I’m also all for it! Feel free to DM me to discuss!

I adore all my ships. I will gladly talk about them all day if prompted. The problem is, I frequently worry that I’m annoying people when I talk about my ships, especially unprompted. So, if you’re ever worried I’m cooling towards our ship, just poke me and I can almost guarantee you’ll be treated to dozens of headcanons and thoughts I’ve had about our ship.

For those who interact/are interested in interacting with Ikkaku’s grandfather, Tomasu, shipping is a no-go for him. Arashi is and always will be his only love. He doesn’t even do casual sex decades after her death. So if he’s ever involved in a ship meme, it’s 99% likely as a joke.

[kaibascorpse]

Saw your astrology tags and I'm someone who dislikes it as a concept but wants to engage in good faith; what is astrology to you, and how do you separate it from determinism? From the outside, it looks pretty clearly like people assigning traits to me based on something I can't control, which is frankly really upsetting.

hey, thanks for asking! hope you don’t mind if i respond to this publicly (and sorry in advance for the length):

So, first and foremost, I view astrology as a personal tool for *self* reflection, i.e., I have no interest in applying my beliefs about astrology to other people if they are not open to it. If someone is curious and wants me to read their chart I’m happy to do it, but even then a full chart reading is quite a long and complicated process, so I usually don’t go too deep unless it’s a close friend/partner/family member etc. There are unfortunately lots of people out there who want to use astrology to dissect everyone’s personality regardless of consent/interest, and this is not something I condone so I’m very sorry if you’ve been on the receiving end of this.

Now, as far as how astrology works, I really don’t see it to be as deterministic as many people think it is. For one thing, each sign has a lot of different related traits, both positive and negative, and someone with that sign is not necessarily going to relate to every single one of those traits. This is further impacted by other placements in your chart: each planet has a sign, and while your sun sign is certainly important, it’s really only one piece of the puzzle. The way you express the traits of each sign can also vary depending on the house placement (houses represent various “spheres” of life, like work, values, family, etc.), and aspects (aspects are specific angles between different planets in your chart, when two planets have an aspect with each other, they can change the expression of both planets). There’s more I could get into here talking about transits and other things, but my point is: the simplistic, boiled down version of astrology you see everywhere that tries to reduce people down to a single set of unchangeable personality traits is.. just that. A grossly oversimplified version of a very complex thing.

Finally, I think it’s very relevant to discuss the whole ‘nature vs nurture’ debate here. If you’ve ever taken an intro psych course you’ll know what I’m talking about, but to sum it up: there’s been a lot of debate among psychologists over the years about how whether personality is ingrained at the time of birth or formed through life experiences over time. And the answer is: both! Some personality traits are inherent to a person, but depending on the environment they are raised in and their life experiences, those personality traits can change, be reinforced, or be lost altogether, and entirely new traits can develop. This is how I view astrology. Your chart can show you a ‘blank slate’ version of yourself so to speak, but that doesn’t mean it’s always going to be an accurate reflection of who you are today.

For me personally, when I first got into astrology I didn’t believe any of it, I just thought it would be fun to learn about. As I started reading my chart more thoroughly, some things really hit home for me, and other things didn’t sound like me at all. When I focused in on those parts that didn’t really add up (for ex: my leo rising says I should have a very outgoing personality and enjoy attention), I began to realize that I actually *did* have the capacity for those things within me, but they had been lost over time (I used to be outgoing, but had some bad experiences in my childhood that caused me to withdraw and become more shy). The cool part here is that when I started trying to realign myself with those parts of my chart I couldn’t connect to at first, it improved my life a ton! I felt happier, more confident in my identity, and more aware of who I am as a person.

I want to emphasize here that this is just my personal experience with astrology. I do give astrology some merit and consider it to be part of my belief system, but it’s a very personal thing. Other people may have different experiences and disagree with my beliefs, and that’s totally ok! Like I said before, I have no interest in pushing my beliefs onto others. But just because it doesn’t work for someone else doesn’t invalidate my very real experience of finding healing through astrology, which is why it hurts when people are so dismissive of it or try to shame people for being interested in it. All I ask for is mutual respect and kindness <3

[odnson]

two tag games involving fic stuff under this

one line any fic! rules: pick ten of your fics, scroll to somewhere midpoint, pick a line chunk and share it, and then tag ten people.

tagged by @b1uetrees, thank u so much!! i’m a little late but i finally got the time!! i don’t think i can pick 10 fics tho; i’ll get to posting a 10th fic someday. 😂 also not putting the entire titles because i’m on mobile 💀

1. this one is from rivers aka one that is still very dear to my heart 😂

Instead of saying anything, Joowon chooses to act: he lets his breath ghost Dongsik’s nape, watching the hairs there stand before he leans in and kisses the skin between his shoulder blades, at the first knob that formed his spine.

2. this is perhaps my fave line from hook, only because i have a vivid image of ds tearing down the walls caging yy’s remains with his hands after he saw there 👀

Dongsik knows how to be gentle, but sweetness eludes him.

3. to the sun features jw and hyuk having a moment and looking back, i still like it so:

Joowon is steadily working past all these preformed prejudices in his mind, and he’s long realized that he’s been treating Hyuk like shit because he never saw Hyuk’s concern for him as something sincere.

4. from waterworn wishes, aka perhaps me at my cheesiest

Dongsik wonders if this is how it feels to be loved.

5. from tall ships, which i think still has the intro i’m really proud of:

There’s no guitar, but Dongsik’s heart sings nonetheless.

6. from as the world, one of my stuff that i look at rarely, but doing this fic meme thing reminded me that i had this bit in it

It takes him back to the reed fields, to wind against his hair as he tugged Joowon away from meeting the brunt of it.

7. this one is from company policy, and i really like it only because i think it hones in on the fact that jw is the “get out of my school” meme the moment he developed a crush 😂😂😂

He hates how everyone is entitled to Lee Dongsik’s kindness, but his dislike is reserved only for him.

8. this is part of wasted love’s summary, but eh, i think it says a lot about my hcs about these two lmao

The longer he remained here, the more he realized that this was exactly where they differed: Han Joowon was capable of loving only one person, but Lee Dongsik possessed a heart too big to love just one.

9. from qualm, the only fic i have that had the scenes flowing in a pace that didn’t require any separator, which, i think, is really interesting fsr bec i never trusted myself to have a piece that had one cohesive flow

There is no torrential downpour soaking them, no more darkened, dusty basement concealing decades-old secrets, and still Han Joowon is pleading.

second meme starts here, the fic writer interview. @b1uetrees was very kind to tag me once again, thanks very much!! 💕

name/nicknames: j

fandoms: be nowadays; gotta love how insane those characters made me

two shots: hmmmm to the sun and hook, perhaps? hook is so self-indulgent lmfao i wanted service top jw shaving off ds’ stubble and it was so specific that i knew i had to do it myself if i wanted it to exist 😂😂😂 to the sun was also self-indulgent, (all my stuff are lbr) but not as much as hook, i think. it did have jw in eyeliner tho, which ngl, i wrote for me 😂

most popular multi-chapter fic: exec horny/company policy 😂😂😂😂 funnily enough, it was 50k when i completed it and i thought “yeah i can post this in chunks” because i like finishing stories before posting, but idk. sth happened and it turned into an 80k thing somewhere along the way.

actual worst part of writing: oh, writing itself, i guess. like, wdym i gotta do it myself and that idea won’t spring out of my head fully formed like athena?? what

how do you choose your titles: unless something fits for the whole thing (like company policy), i go through a bunch of instrumental osts

do you outline? the better question would be “do u follow the outline” imo because that’s when i’ll start sweating 😂😂😂 i mean i do outline, but only for significant stuff i’ll likely forget (covid did me so bad and gave me horrible brain fog), but how to get from one plot point to another…………i wing that most of the time 💀💀💀

ideas you probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?: mafia au, i stg, i did this little meme re: zodiacs and battery percentages on the cursed bird app and it revealed a “gang au” which is basically the same thing?? yeah. i do have an idea for it and the whole vibes, but wdym i gotta sit down for it to see it happen? 🙃

callouts @ me: ur phone is not a suitable device for writing

best writing traits: i think it’s the fact that i always write for me 😂 like, i write what compels me, what i want to see, what i enjoy. other ppl liking it is a very nice bonus, but me liking it has to be the most important factor here. i’d hate for the joy of writing to be taken away from me.

spicy tangential opinion: this might come as a shock to some ppl but if u don’t like sth, pressing the backspace key usually makes the thing go away. also if u’re going to be nasty to some fics, do it in ur dms and gcs and not on the cursed bird app bec u don’t know who sees those and don’t, ffs, bookmark the fic and tag it with “meh” or put a rating 💀💀💀 i’ve seen these things happen and with all due respect to ppl who do these: wtf is wrong with u??? (if u dont have gcs or frens to trashtalk stuff with then guess what, u’re probably a nasty fandom police that everyone has blocked)

not tagging folks bec i think everyone has done this by now 😂😂😂 if anyone wants to do it tho, say u’re tagged by me!! 💕

[elsanna-shenanigans]

December-January Fanfiction Contest

We’re finishing the year off on a soft, hopeful note. We don’t wish for anything in particular in 2023 - except maybe a world less frightening.

prompt: Dream. A restful night’s sleep, or tossing and turning for hours trying to chase that elusive state of unrestrained imagination? Working hard to achieve your life’s goal, a smaller step along the way, or already living on cloud nine? Whichever your approach is, focus your story this month on our girls’ dreams. word limit: min. 2,000 and max. 8,500 words lemon: up to M rating obligatory: do not include Kristoff in your story (explained below) bonus: include a particular line of dialogue for Elsa or Anna, include descriptions evoking all 5 senses, include at least one other romantic partner for Elsa and/or Anna (explained below)

Please also tag your story (if it has any of it) for: angst, tragedy, major character death, violence or abuse, suicide and self-harm mentions, horror elements or anything not mentioned here that you think might make your readers uncomfortable. Non-/dub-con is NOT ALLOWED, unless it is an important part of the story and not described in detail/used as cheap thrills/glorified. Be mindful and respectful.

Restrictions and Bonuses Click here for more detailed answers to user submitted questions. It will be updated if any more questions roll in, so keep it bookmarked!

OBLIGATORY restriction: he’s lost in the woods. Leave him there. For this month, your submissions cannot include Kristoff in the character roster. This means you cannot have Kristoff appear in the story in any way, including off-screen, mentioned by other characters, as a piece of furniture, a ‘completely different’ OC who’s actually Kristoff 2.0 with a different name - or, adversely, an OC who’s different, but with Kristoff’s name. For stories set in canon, you need to ignore his existence - imagine he’s on a trip. In the woods. Forever. Obligatory restriction means if your story contains a Kristoff it will be disqualified.

DISQUALIFICATION means your story will still be posted (unless it breaks our general contest rules) but will not be eligible to go into voting and win.

Bonus 1: 'My wish came true.’ Have Elsa or Anna say this precise line in their dialogue OR monologue (internal monologue included, but it needs to be separate from the narrative.) To qualify for this bonus, it needs to be a standalone line, meaning it cannot be a part of a longer sentence. The punctuation at the end is up to you.

Bonus 2: Perfect sense. Include descriptions that evoke all five major human senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.) To qualify for this bonus, your story needs to have at least one instance of a description for every sense mentioned, but they do not need to be clumped together. The descriptions can be in narrative or dialogue.

Bonus 3: Third party romance. Include at least one more romantic partner for Elsa and/or Anna. A ‘romantic partner’ in this situation is any relationship that is not purely platonic or familial in nature and is realized (i.e. something needs to happen between the two characters, a crush does not count - but a one night stand does.) To qualify for this bonus, the other partner needs to be a vital part of the plot or backstory (i.e. the story would change if they did not exist) while the story itself needs to contain overt romantic action or subtext between Elsa and Anna (sorry, Snow Sisters fans, not this time.) Obviously, considering the obligatory restriction this month, Anna’s relationship with Kristoff cannot be used for this bonus.

These are not obligatory restrictions, however following them will be rewarded with an additional point in the favorites column for every bonus. In other words, stories that don’t include any of the restrictions will start off with 0 base favorite votes, those that do - with 1, 2 or 3.

Please write down where and how you used the bonuses at the beginning of the submission to make sure the mods can verify your points (the note will be removed before posting.) If you’re not sure if your story meets the requirements for the bonuses, you are free to contact us to check.

Read the contest rules before participating. We’ll be accepting submissions through the submit button on our blog starting today till Midnight (on Baker Island, GMT-12) of January 14th. Please remember to submit anonymously to make sure the voting is impartial!

If you have any questions, read the month’s FAQ, send us an ask or join us on discord.

Happy writing!

[thequibblah]

This message was why I turned off anon, but then I was like, wait, I can actually give a measured, point-by-point response to this. I blocked this person so presumably they won’t see it, unless they’re dedicated enough to check back in, but for any others still here who might share these sentiments, I’m not worried about being unable to answer them. Here goes!

Sis, what the fuck type of high school passive aggressive—

No. Just kidding. I suppose that joke will already be a strike against me, since a significant problem you seem to have isn’t what I or my friends have been saying, but how we’ve said it. I don’t know how to explain to you that this rhetoric about politeness is constantly used against marginalised people speaking up about their discomfort. If we don’t sound polite, kind, and forgiving, anything we say is automatically dismissed as aggressive bullying. As you say, you experience marginalisation too, so you probably know what I’m talking about.

I think we have a difference of opinion about what constitutes dismissive and passive aggressive and rude — the latter two, I’m not interested in arguing about. I was and am frustrated, snark slips through. Again, if the snark matters more to you than the sentiment, there’s nothing I can say to you. (Also, not to quibble, ha, but I don’t think I was passive. I thought I was and am quite frank!) 

Dismissive — I’m not sure how much of the conversation you have seen, but let me assure you it did not begin with the reblogged ask about Bought. Whole days before that was a teeth-grindingly frustrating conversation in the server in which a Jewish fan and a fan of colour were talked over and around, separately, after very politely expressing concerns. So, again, the issues run deeper, dismissiveness began early, and you can pretty clearly see it if you’d like to scroll up in the same conversation. If you are dead-set on disbelieving me, again, I can’t help you.

As to the calling-out and “shaming” people and the “you know who you are,” nonspecific criticism of this trope got us exactly nowhere, and it’s been happening since at least August 2021. More than one creator who has written this trope has said something to the effect of I wish I’d known how many people were upset by this. So…which is it? Am I supposed to shout my thoughts into the ether, as I have been, and hope they somehow pick it up? Are people supposed to contact them anonymously, only to be dismissed because it’s faceless criticism anyway, what does it matter? I guess you think I’m supposed to direct message them and lay out my complaints, though never through all this have I felt that I would be listened to rather than just politely told well, don’t like don’t read, says so in the tags.

The most specific call-out that I saw was about a spiteful, mean-spirited response to reader concerns. Again, if you’re wondering what an unsafe environment might be, look no further than that post.

People felt uncomfortable chiming in, not because they didn’t agree but because of our tones — again, love to be told how to voice my own frustration. Personally this strikes me as indefensible. If you agree with me, and not with my so-called “methods,” and said methods are apparently enough to turn you off stating your own opinions — not mine, YOURS, phrased the way you want to phrase them — you might as well disagree with me for all the good it does. Or since you are so concerned with politeness, simply express your polite opinion, and feel free to tell me privately that you think things are getting out of hand. I assure you that plenty of people felt comfortable reaching out privately to apologise unprompted, and some even to ask for resources and labour it is not my job or anyone else’s to provide.

And re: people feeling uncomfortable — good. No one was comfortable for that conversation. Not me, not the people expressing frustration alongside me, not those gently supporting us, not those disagreeing with us. Good. This is a conversation meant to address discomfort, and can’t do so fruitfully without causing a little along the way.

You guys made people feel unsafe — about what?? My lack of safety? The ability to express your polite opinion? The ability to disagree? God knows people were doing both of the latter. If I made someone feel unsafe or uncomfortable about the notion of being silent, this is the cost of this conversation and I can’t help it. Like I said earlier on this blog, it seems patently clear that some of you only care about what I have to say when it’s easy to listen to.

Also, the server is not a safe space. I have never made that claim. The entire point of this discussion is that the server is not a safe space and has not been for months. I am the last person who would say that.

Re: apologies, I certainly haven’t asked for any apologies about writing or reading this trope, though plenty were given. (I would like apologies for how people have been treated and spoken to in the server and here on tumblr, not for being a fan or reader.) As I’ve stated repeatedly, apologies about this trope are immaterial to me. So is remorse in search of my (or Kat’s, or Clare’s) forgiveness. Sincere reflection, if you are interested in continued engagement with me, is what I ask for. If you don’t care about engagement with me, go ahead and don’t apologise. It’s that simple and I don’t care, and I don’t want apology anyway.

The patently false part of this is my “gushing,” lol. I can only speak for myself, but I’ve been frankly skeeved out and horrified by the trope since day one. I have countless date-and-time-stamped messages to support that (as far back as August of last year, I’ve literally just checked! The first conversation I had about this almost exactly matches what I’ve been saying this past week, my consistency surprises even me!). But even if I were to share any of that as if it’s your business at all, I would have scores of people up in arms about how I am bashing other writers’ fic. (Which is it, by the way? Am I a horrible person who talks smack about other people’s writing, or a secret fan who for some bizarro reason did an about-face to join a flaming garbage can of a conversation on the weekend of my birthday while on vacation? Like, why on earth would I do that? The only part of this that has been remotely enjoyable for me is finally being able to express my distaste and cement my limits.)

I have had not just the trope tag blacklisted, but also the names of each fic, and in some cases the URL of the writer. So, I don’t even see when other people engage with this content. If my friends have bought anything or gone inside anywhere for the past however many months, I literally would not know. I stopped interacting with and reading stuff by people who interact with this fic aside from a number of writers I can probably count on one hand. That is how thoroughly I have shut myself off from this trope.

Re: the deleting comments, I haven’t so much as liked a post to do with this trope, let alone engaged, reblogged, kudos’d, or commented. (Friends of mine who did read these fics could tell you i very quickly shut down conversation about it even in private messages. Because I didn’t want to talk about them. Because I don’t like them.) But I can’t very well prove I didn’t delete something that never existed, so if you want to disbelieve me on this front too, go right ahead.

As to the other people who did engage with this trope despite their discomfort, some of them have spoken very openly about why. Go read their posts about it. Or hell, go through my ask tag and you’ll find a number of other people who say they “went along” with it despite initial discomfort because the writers who wrote it are well-known, and assumed everyone was cool with it. I have received messages from people who say they did not initially see why this trope could make people feel the way it did and does, but having heard us out, they get it. I have had friends who have apologised for being flippant about it, knowing now how much of my fandom engagement over the past few months has been within lines I’ve had to draw for myself to avoid content I don’t want to see. 

I don’t know how many times I have to say this: this is all fine. I care more about your response to this conversation, now. But of course people want to paint me as unforgiving and hell-bent on shaming those who disagree with me, so.

Re: the conversation about disability, please do not strip it of its context. Kat has spoken clearly and eloquently about how the response in question was not relevant to the discussion, which was about antisemitism and racism. Knee-jerk reactions of defensiveness are not helpful, and derailing a conversation about one type of marginalisation accomplishes nothing.

Re: your marginalisation — I have never claimed to speak for you and would not expect you to speak for me. I don’t know you. Throughout this conversation, and the parts of i have facilitated, I have centred my thoughts entirely around myself, with the backing of those who agree with me. I haven’t said we all feel this way. I have said some of us feel this way. Your disavowal of me is, again, irrelevant. I’m not surprised by it, since we disagree.

I think in my screenshotting hurry I cropped out a bit of that ask by accident, now that I look at it — I imagine that last line was something like we do not condone the discussions you have about how to be an ally. To that I say, okay. Again, I never said I spoke for you.

Since apparently this needs to be said time and time again — I don’t care what other ships you read. By all means read a different HP ship featuring a Death Eater, I don’t care. I have zero stake or investment in those spaces, nor do I care to apply my opinions that are grounded in this space, the Jily space, to them. I don’t demand an apology from anyone. In fact I’m pretty sure the mutual readers I have with DE James fics have unfollowed and unsubscribed by now without a word, which is good. That’s what I asked for. This is my personal line.

I am okay with being called insensitive and abrasive. I’m okay with this so-called popular opinion you cite. I’ve received support where I could count on it and even where I didn’t expect to, and that’s way more than enough. And I don’t say this for sympathy or to prompt people to tell me no, really, they want me to stay, as nice as the sentiment is. I cannot overstate this — I have been disengaging for months, and I don’t much care about how the spaces I’ve left behind see me.

[yesokaythatsfine69]

Heavy Dosage (Levi Ackerman x reader)

Description: after getting hurt during a scouting mission, y/n is given quite a heavy dosage of medication. Will her secret crush on her squad leader remain secret?

Character(s): Y/n, Hangi, Levi, nurse, eren

Pov: 3rd person

Warning(s): pain, broken bones, kissing, no spoilers

A/n: hello! I took a little break earlier and recently I've been watching two new animes, AOT and Kakegurui (both r completely different lmao) so I decided to add more fuel to the fire that is the Levi Ackerman x reader tag. Don't worry there aren't any spoilers I just wrote a cute thing.

*none of the gifts used are mine. Full credit goes to the maker.

"Shit!" That was the last thing y/n had said before she disappeared from the view of her fellow squad members. Levi watched, fear causing him to freeze. One moment she had been calling him a "old slow poke", her smile dazzling and eyes brighter than diamonds- and in an instant she was gone.

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Pain had seared through y/n's skull when she finally landed from being thrown. The titan had grabbed a line of her odm gear and flung her, snapping the line and causing her to fall straight down and into a tree. Her body had tumbled through the branches, each branch snapping with the weight of her body and the force she had been thrown from.

Y/n was usually proud to say that Titan's couldn't touch her- she was fast, faster than almost any person in her squad- and that usually meant that she was untouchable to them. She was the one who helped the other members of her squad survive. Today, however, had been different and not even her speed had saved her.

The pain in her skull forced her eyes open. The area in which she laid was dead silent, but she didn't feel scared or worried. It was peaceful and almost poetic. She focused on her breathing, and tried to register where she had been hurt. Her head hurt, her back hurt, and her legs seethed, but she could at least feel pain.

She tried to move but only whimpered when the pain in her legs intensified. Her eyes watered. She couldn't get up and what she thought had been luck that she experienced from not dying from her tremendous fall- had suddenly become a curse. Now, she would be easily found by a titan and just as easily eaten.

"you've...got to...be fucking kidding...me." she wheezed between hot tears. Suddenly a zipping noise broke the silence around her and a small thumping sound caused her tense up. "Y/L/N!" Her eyes widened at the sound of her squad leader's voice. Then, Two arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her up. Captain Levi was above her, on his knees before her- not in the ways she had always dreamed about either.

"What did you do, Brat?" His silver orbs narrowed as he searched her face. Any other time being this close to Levi would've been similar to Heaven, but now, it carried a strange and dangerous weight. "Captain Levi, I-" His expression cut her off. His face was blank, eyes were narrowed, mouth drawn up in a thin line. He was angry, she could sense his emotions beyond what he showed with his face. That had been the reason they worked so well together- y/n could read him like a book.

He seemed to notice she had been crying, and wiped away a stray tear. "I-I'm sorry, Captain Levi I-" He said nothing and hoisted her up in his arms, pressing her head against his chest. She could feel his heartbeat- constant and comforting in her ear. For several moments they trampled in the woods in silence.

Finally he spoke. "I'll get you to the wagons and you'll be okay, y/n, try to be still." His voice seemed tired and his movements were oddly weary. Y/n frowned as she looked up at him.

Somehow she felt like he had said these words not for her benefit, but for his own. He hardly ever used her first name, preferring "brat" and "y/l/n" to order her around with. Now, as his grip on her tightened, she buried her face against his chest, deciding it was best to leave her thoughts unsaid.

As she snuggled against him, he relaxed, his shoulders releasing the tension they carried since he saw that bitch titan thrown her out of his sight. Levi had been angry- but not angry at Y/n. Angry at himself for not protecting her, angry at those fucking Titan's for taking away the people he loved from him. He felt y/n adjust slightly and that's when he realized she had fallen alseep. Her breathing evened out, and she seemed limp against him.

When he reached the clearing Petra ran up to him. "Y/n! Is she okay?" Levi said nothing, and Petra watched in worry as he pushed past her.

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Sometimes lines get blurry. The separation between two distinct things gets combined and those two things once so distinctly different are now seemingly the same. Y/n stared straight ahead, boards on the walls combining and shape shifting. They had given her medicine for her pain, that fact was that her leg had been broken, along with a fractured skull and a few other twisted and mangled bones, so anything was deemed worthy to give her.

The medicine, whatever it was could definitely be considered "that good stuff". She giggled, watching as the nurse adjusted her covers. "You're trying to tickle me!" "Y/n?" Y/n's head slowly bobbed to the side, where Hanji was standing. Her arms were crossed, but a smile shown on her face.

"You look better than I was expecting." Y/n smiled widely. "It's the drugs!" Hanji mimicked her smile. Y/n, was for the most part a lively a fun person. She wasn't anywhere near as loud of bouncy as Hanji herself was- mainly because y/n had a better sense of timing. Now however, Hanji noted that her personality seemed to come on quite strongly.

"I just came to check on you, considering what I heard had happened you are very lucky." Y/n only giggled. "lucky-smucky. Luck had nothing to do with it. It's a skill to hit every single goddamn tree branch in the world and still be kicking." To empathize her point she kicked out the leg that wasn't broken.

"woah, maybe you shouldn't move too much." Hanji put her hands up. "It's okay I don't feel anything!" Y/n lifted her hand up and smacked herself right upside the head. "No pain!" Hanji smiled, "Right, I'll be sure to tell Levi how well you are doing."

Y/n shot up at her captains name. "You should tell him to come see me! It's been too long since I've seen that hot piece of ass!" Hanji frowned. "I- um... I don't think that's for the best...you seem pretty uh... preoccupied." Y/n opened her mouth to most likely say something else unexpected when the nurse reappeared, nodding to Hanji.

"I better be leaving y/n, I'm glad you are doing well. I'll see you later, yeah?' y/n nodded excitedly and Hanji let herself out.

She laughed, nodding her head. "Hot piece of ass...Levi Ackerman?" She snorted. Then, quite quickly the pieces for together and she stopped. "Oh no. Oh no. I should...wait a second, this could be quite an interesting experiment..." She smiled and turned in the direction of the lunchroom.

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"She is doing very well. So well infact she told me not to send you, she doesn't want you to worry. She'll be out before long." Hanji spoke gently to Levi who stared at his tea, his face expressionless. "What do you mean she doesn't want me to visit her? I'm her squad leader." Hanji shrugged and smiled.

"She's doing very well. You'd be wasting your time. She'll be back before you know it." Levi's eyes flashed to his friend, narrowing. The rage he had experienced when he had found her broken body...the way her teary y/c/e looked up at him... He could've exploded with rage. but he needed to stay with y/n, and that's what he had done, making sure she was safe...And now he was being told to stay away from her? His fists clenched.

Hanji seemed to see the conflict. "Why don't you try and take of yourself now? You've done enough for her." Levi only stood up, the sound of his chair scraping against the floor caused those in the lunchroom to look up at him. Leaving his tea, Levi, in his own Levi way, stormed out of the room. Hanji sat there, stirring her tea.

She raised it to her lips and smiled.

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Levi's feet practically moved on their own to the infirmary, each step more angry than the last. In angry flashbacks he felt her head pressed against his chest, her warm breathe tickling his neck, her warm orbs searching his own icy pair- he felt all of that and more...and yet she didn't want to see him?

Had those affectionate moments just been something he wished had happened instead that had actually happened. No. It couldn't have been. But the why would she try to shut him out?

He pushed open the door to the infirmary. He stood in the shadowy doorway for several seconds doing what he did best- watching.

Y/n had spent four consecutive hours counting each board- one by one. Every time she got to twenty though, she got distracted and had to start over. "Twenty-one!" "Y/l/n?" Slowly y/n's left hand, which she had used to count the board, lowered to her side. "Damnit! Lost count! At least I got to twenty one this time." Her head slowly turned to the side where her sexy captain stood, peering down at her. He looked absolutely peeved and y/n giggled.

"Well hello beautiful? Long time no see!" Levi's eyes widened the tiniest bit- but he quickly played it off. "You didn't want me here? Your own captain? Unless you forgot-" Y/n purred. "Damn you're sexy when you're mad! I don't have a clue what you're talking about but-" she shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time!" She reached up and tugged him closer.

"I- y/n-" a finger placed itself over his lips. "Shhhhh..." The finger lifted then hit him again. "Shhhhh...shhhh." y/n stared up at him with a dazed, but delighted expression. She gently stroked his face, reaching up and flicking her hair from his eyes. She smiled at his slightly dazed expression.

"how'sithangingbabey?" Levi blinked out of his daze and grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand back from his mouth. "What is wrong with you?" His eyes were fairly wide and his stared at her in both worry and confusion. "I'm in love baby!" She shouted. "In love with youuuuuu!" She sang out flailing her arm and hitting him in the head.

"tch! Ow! Will you-" He paused, his brow furrowed. "You...love me?" She giggled and pressed a finger to her lips. "Shhh. Don't tell Levi." He stared at her. "I am Levi, you brat." Her eyes widened. "Whoops!" She laughed. "My bad!" Levi opened his mouth to speak when the nurse appeared. She gasped upon seeing him. "Captain Levi! I didn't know you were coming!" Y/n lifted her head up to look at the young nurse.

"hey, layoff! This Raven haired beauty's taken!" She yanked him forward. The action caught him off guard and he had to catch himself before he fell. Levi grumbled before detaching himself from her. "I'll speak to you later, y/n."

"You're leaving!?" Gently he ruffled her hair, and in the most soothing voice he could muster, he said, "I'll be back later, don't worry brat." Levi Nodded to the nurse to walk him out. As the nurse turned to follow him she glanced at y/n who mouthed aggressively "he's mine!"

At the door he turned to the nurse, "y/n was in large amounts of pain, so we gave her some medicine to dull it. It seems to have a worked a little..." The two turned back to y/n who had restarted counting the boards again. "Too well."

"tch, right." The end of lips upturned into almost a smile. "Keep me updated." The nurse nodded, "Right, sir."

Casting one last glance he left the infirmary, humming a new tune softly to himself.

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Y/n sighed happily. She had finally been released, given a brace for her leg to help her walk till she was 100% and around fifteen get well cards. Her first move was definitely to go to her room. She missed her room.

She visited with Petra and the other members of her squad, making sure to show off her cool ass brace. She also made sure to say hi to Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Sasha, Connie, and Jean. She hadn't seen Captain Levi yet but she figured she'd find him soon- or he'd find her. The nurse mentioned that he'd visited a few times, none of which she remembered- but the thought that he cared enough to do so warmed her up.

Y/n entered the lunchroom, coming face to face with her captain and his fellow squad leader, Hanji. "Oh hi Hanji! Hello, Captain!" Hanji immediately jumped up and hugged her tightly. "Y/n! Congratulations!" Y/n smiled brightly, and hugged her back. "Thank you! I'm feeling pretty good!" Her eyes turned to Levi, who had been watching her intently. He nodded. "The squad has been waiting for your return, y/l/n." Y/n smiled. "Well, you guys won't have to wait much longer. The nurse said just a little while longer then I'm ready to go."

Levi nodded, his expression remaining stern. "I am pretty excited to finally get some sleep in my own bed though, so I'll see you all later." She turned, but a hand wrapped itself around her wrist. Levi had stood up, and was behind her. "I'll walk you there." Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed, but she nodded. "The more...the, uh, merrier."

With curt goodbyes the two began their walk to y/n's room. Hanji had watched the interaction without surprise, sipping some tea.

She laughed to herself as the two went out of view, pushing up her glasses. "This experiment- a definitive success."

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"How do you feel?" Levi matched his pace with y/n, careful to make sure he wasn't moving too fast so that she wouldn't have to walk faster on her leg. "I feel good, itching to go back out there." The two stopped walking and turned so that they were right in front of each other instead of side by side.

Levi only made a clucking sound at her response. "Be sure not to push it, brat. You may be feeling fine now but-" He stopped talking when she put a hand on his chest. He frowned slightly and looked up at her from where his gaze had been.

"Thank you, for everything. I- I'm sorry I wasn't more careful. Next time I'll-" He placed his hand over her own. "Tch, there better not be a next time you stupid brat. If there is I do not I think I could handle it."

Her cheeks darkened. "Captain-" "Just Levi." She smiled at him. "Okay, just Levi." The slight upturn smile Levi had worn vanished at her bad joke into a frown. Lifting up his index finger he placed it directly over her lips.

"shhh..." She tried to speak. "shhhh." Y/n raised a brow at him. "I have lost enough in this life, y/n." Her eyes widened at the use of her first name, and his finger remained on her lips. "But, I cannot lose you, too...please." Her eyes glistened a, a familiar wetness clouding them. Slowly, Levi lowered his finger, and soon as he do so she pounced, pulling him into the tightest hug she could administer.

"You couldn't get get rid of me even if you wanted to." He hugged her back. "Good, because I do not want to." She pulled back. It was now or never, and this maybe the only chance she has left. Braving up, y/n swallowed thickly. "Hey...erm, uh Levi...I-I love you, okay?"

Levi smirked, his eyes twinkling with something close to mischievousness. "I know...you, kind of...told me already." Y/n pulled back. "No I didn't." "Tch, you did, y/n." She rolled her eyes. "I think I would remember telling someone I love them."

Levi frowned. "Are you calling me a liar?" Y/n laughed sharply. "Well, I'm not calling you a truther." She turned and began to walk away. "Even if I did, you could at least say it back you jerk!"

With reflexes faster than a blink of an eye, Levi had pulled her back and into his arms. She stared at him, wide eyed. They were mere inches apart now. Never had she been this close to him, and she could clearly see every inch of his face. The silver twinkle of his eyes, his long lashes, the pretty pink of his thin lips. He was so beautiful, like a statue of a god. Y/n blinked, realizing she had been staring a bit longer than innocent and met his gaze.

Levi only raised a brow, seemingly unaffected by their closeness. "I love you too, brat." He said finally, and Y/n relaxed into his arms, much like before. "Good, good. It makes doing this a lot easier." She placed her hand to his cheek, closed her eyes and then she closed the gap.

He sighed into her, clutching her tighter to him. It seemed as if he had been waiting almost as long as y/n had because it was if the flood gates had opened. She dipped her head to get to more of him and he grunted softly, easily letting her. She reached up, finding his soft undercut. She ran her finger threw his soft locks (just as soft as she imagined) and gently tugged. Levi opened his mouth a bit more in response, and she quickly took advantage of his action. Her tongue slipped in, and despite himself and who he was- he gasped.

Maybe this was all a bit quick but hell, she'd been around the man for going on a year now with nothing but this to show. It was quite upsetting, especially because it seemed as if Levi had no idea his effect on women, especially y/n. You can bet on your life, however, she was going to take advantage of it now and teach him exactly what he meant.

He grunted again and pulled his arm to her neck, clutching it softly. She hummed into his mouth, biting his lip and pulling. She loved him, everything about him, and almost as much as that- she wanted him. Now, in almost every way she could've imagined, she had him.

She was so wrapped up in him, y/n put her unbraced leg around his waist, trying to get somehow even closer than before but unfortunately she neglected to remember that her braced leg couldn't handle that much pressure yet and it collapsed under their weight. It sent both her and her lover crashing to the ground.

"oof!" "Tch! Hell!" Levi landed on top of her with a thud. The two shared a look. Levi had messy unkept hair, flushed cheeks and red, abused lips- all thanks to y/n. But she doubted she looked much better. "Are you okay, brat?" "Yeah, sorry. Looks like you made my legs weak." She smiled crookedly.

Levi only sighed and lifted her up. "Tch', Keeping you alive will be much harder than I expected." Y/n laughed and wrapped her arms around him, she was beginning to enjoy him carrying her around bridal style. "What can I say? I wasn't built for the weak."

"No," He hoisted her closer to his chest. "No, you are not."

They resumed their journey to her room. "But at least you are mine, brat."

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A/n: whoo! That was a lot more than I expected to do. I hope y'all like it and don't forget that comments and critism are always welcomed. I tried to make this to where it doesn't really involve any timeline and it's just kind of an extra thing. Thanks for reading!

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[egg-emperor]

Mate, I understand why you're upset, and I think you have every right to ask that people don't interact with your blog using fandub stuff. It is your blog, after all! But like...you can't just go around insulting people because they like something that you don't like. As far as I can tell, it's not problematic in any way (if it was, I would encourage you to bully its fan base relentlessly). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though. Like, seriously. Please tell me.

You're allowed to interpret this character however you please. So is everyone else. And you gotta understand that when people make references to the fandub, they are no longer talking about the same Eggman you are. Canon Eggman and Snapcube Eggman are two entirely different characters. I do understand your frustration with people who don't seem to understand that, though. There are fandub fans who think of them as one and the same, which is very incorrect. But in the end, they're not really harming you (unless they ignore your DNI warnings n stuff, that's fucked up).

You DO, however, have the right to be as bitchy as you please to anyone who doesn't respect your wishes when they interact with your posts.

And I get that it's annoying. You've probably blocked every tag you can think of, and you probably still see that shit every day. At that point, you've kinda just gotta scroll past it.

In what way am I insulting people? I didn't say a mean thing about anybody in that post. It's not like I'm calling anyone stupid, or a piece of shit, or the reason why the fandom is bad- which are all things I was called just for politely requesting that the jokes weren't commented on my YouTube video and posts. They have done this on all of my social media for the past four years and people always get angry and rude when I say I'm not comfortable with it.

I share my honest thoughts and feelings relating to Eggman and I'm always going to be honest and never repress it or pretend to feel differently. I personally dislike the fandub, I'm allowed to find it unfunny and be tired of seeing it everywhere. And I'm sick of being insulted when people get pissed at how I don't want it on my posts and videos. I have no idea how I'm possibly insulting anyone when I share my opinions about a fandub. I'm not saying anything bad about the creators or the fans.

I'm aware that they're not the same, I'm not the one that can't separate them. That would be the people that can't look a single picture of Eggman in anything, especially in SA2, without making a fandub joke. Turning a completely unrelated post and piece of media into a fandub joke is talking about the same canon Eggman, because it wasn't initially about the fandub and that's where my frustrations lie. A massive majority of people are doing this and those are the ones I'm referring to.

It's hard to just scroll past it when it's always commented on completely unrelated posts and I actually like the post and want to interact with it but it's flooded out with fandub jokes. And yeah, it's frustrating on top of that when I've tried to block tons of words and phrases and still can't escape it. I still stand by what I've been saying for the past four years and when I'm sharing my thoughts on my own blog and am very clearly not insulting anyone, I don't see the problem with me posting my thoughts.

[miyanom]

A-Z FLUFF ALPHABET (j.kirstein)

A CTIVITIES - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

Jean loves spending time with you, no matter what you two happen to be doing. Though his favourite thing to do with you is just watch a movie and relax, especially because he loves resting his head in your lap while you run your fingers through his hair.

B EAUTY - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

Jean, being the person he is, would say everything.

He loves your laugh, your smile, the way you look at him when he says a stupid joke that no one else enjoyed.

C OMFORT - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

If you’re feeling down, he’ll buy/cook your favourite food and just stay by your side till your ready to talk. And if you just want time alone, he’ll give that to you but will always make sure you know he’s there when you’re ready.

D REAMS - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

He’s been dreaming about a future with you from really early on. Similar to the dream he has in canon, he sees you both moving in together one day and maybe starting a family together.

He wants kids, but it wouldn’t be a deal breaker honestly. He loves you so much, and if you don’t want kids, he’s fine with settling for a dog or cat.

E QUAL - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

Things would be super equal for the two of you. If there’s something concerning the both of you, he would never make a decision without trying to get your opinion on it first.

He values communication in the relationship, so you both come to decisions together unless it’s an on the spot thing.

F IGHT - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

While Jean hates fighting with you, he’s also pretty stubborn, and it makes the fight worse than how it originally started out.

Due to how much he hates fighting with you, Jean separates himself from the argument, either going to a different room or leaving the apartment altogether to give you both the time to cool down.

G RATITUDE - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

He’s very grateful! He loves doing things for you, but when you do things for him? He’ll hug you and tell you how much he loves you, even if the thing you did was something super small.

H ONESTY - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

Jean tends to share everything with you. In general, he’s just a very honest person.

I NSPIRATION - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

Before meeting you, Jean was constantly in a crappy mood, usually taking it on Eren more than anybody. He was also quite a flirt, not a serious player but like annoyingly flirty.

After meeting you, he calmed down a little. He swears it wasn’t because of you or anything, but his friends say otherwise.

J EALOUSY - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

I wouldn’t say it’s often, but when people neither of you know start getting a little too close, he does get jealous.

He’d probably try keeping it to himself, but communication is a big thing in your relationship so he does let you know. At least after he intimidates the person by wrapping his arms around you and kissing you in front of them.

K ISS - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

Jean is a great kisser, at least he is when you both get past the shyness and awkwardness of the first stage in the relationship.

Despite how much of a flirt he was before meeting you, you were probably his first kiss. So you can guarantee he was a stuttering, blushing mess when you pulled away after the first kiss.

L OVE CONFESSION - How would they confess to their s/o?

I talked about this in another post!!

M ARRIAGE - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

Jean definitely wants to marry you, and he would know that from pretty early on in the relationship. Waking up by your side after you stay the night just isn’t the same, he wants to wake up and call you his wife/husband/partner.

He would want to plan the most cliche date, a fancy dinner, maybe a movie, before going someplace important to the both of you where he would pop the question. However, he just can’t wait. He’ll probably wake up beside you on one of those mornings, and just ask you out of nowhere.

N ICKNAMES - What do they call their s/o?

Of course he calls you the common ones like babe/baby, mostly in a joking manner. When he’s seriously being all lovey-dovey, it’s nicknames like sweetheart, princess/prince, angel.

O N CLOUD NINE - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

Jean, when in love, is so obvious about his feelings. He’s always blushing around you, he has a hard time speaking to you clearly, and he stares at you in such a loving manner.

He expresses his feelings through actions, as he’s a believer that actions speak louder than words! However, that doesn’t stop him from also reassuring you with words too, as he understands that some people need to actually hear it.

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

At the start he’s fairly shy, not doing much when others are around. But when you two grow comfortable with each other, and he knows whether or not you also enjoy pda, there is no stopping him from straight up kissing you in front of other people.

He’s also the type to always be holding your hand when you’re out and about. He’s such a touchy boyfriend, always wanting to be touching part of you in some way.

Q UIRK - Some random ability they have that's beneficial in a relationship.

This dude can cook. Having spent a lot of time with his mother growing up, he picked up on a few things from her.

A lot of your dates are just staying home, enjoying meals that Jean makes for the two of you.

R OMANCE - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

Jean is a huge romantic. But he’s constantly torn between cliche dates and creative ones. You go from dates where you draw each other at the park, to fancy dinner dates and a movie.

S UPPORT - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

Jean calls himself your no.1 supporter for a reason! Whether it’s staying up till 2am to help you study, or running errands for you in his free time so you don’t have to worry about anything other than your goal. He’s there for you every step of the way!

T HRILL - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

I personally feel like when you fall into comfortable routine, Jean loves it the most. But if you want to spice things up, it’s not like he’ll stop you.

U NDERSTANDING - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

Jean knows you pretty well, he’s good at reading people. When you’re getting to know each other, he takes notes in his head about things you like and dislike, and probably never forgot them.

If you’re in a bad mood, he can tell just from a simple text, and you can bet he’s already on his way to pick up your favourite sweet food.

V ALUE - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?

Like I said earlier, Jean is absolutely in love with you. So the relationship means a lot to him, especially since you both were friends before anything began to take a romantic turn.

If Jean listed the people in his life, it would be his family at the very top of the list, followed by his friends: lucky for you, he counts you as his family.

W ILD CARD - A random fluff headcanon.

Jean rides a motorcycle. He has a car too, sure, but whenever he picks you up he takes the motorcycle. He knows it’s dangerous in comparison to a car, but he likes the security that comes with having your arms around him when riding.

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

Jean is very very affectionate. If you’re together at either of your apartments, there’s no way you’re not cuddling. He’ll be complaining about having to let you go even if you only need him to so you can go to the bathroom.

Y EARNING - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

Jean hates it when you’re not around, whether you’re super busy or you’ve just gone away for a little, he hates it.

He likes being around you even if it’s in utter silence, so you two often FaceTime while just going about your daily night time routines. He probably watches you for a minute or two if you fall asleep on call, and he doesn’t hang up until the next morning.

Z EAL - Are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

I think Jean would go to great lengths for the relationship in terms that he would branch out of his comfort zone just to understand you a little better.

If a bad fight broke out between the two of you, and he realises that he’s being just a little too stubborn, he would let go his pride and be the first to apologise in fear of losing you. It says a lot, because he’s not usually like that. Typically he lets things cool down a little before trying to apologise.

TAG LIST (JOIN HERE)

@haiqnation @dai-tsukki-desu @may-machin @answer-the-sirens @ley-writes @sashaisangel @french-girl-online @megumiisee @wonhyuksstuff @milk-n-cuwukies @jeanbabygirl

[leejihoonownsmyheart]

Another Year

Final part of the New Year, New Me Series

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Summary:

A question you never imagined you would be answering suddenly pops up in your life, and suddenly it’s all you can think about. Considering how unstable your relationship with Jeonghan has been, will you two last to see another year?

Tag: Dubious Consent due to drunk mutual masturbation, creampie, choking, phone sex... sorta... Name-calling as usual, no protection- wear protection please

Special thanks to the anon who wanted a drunk y/n part! heh

-

You sat with your laptop in your lap as you typed the last few words of your essay on the word document you had open. You looked at it once, and then again, and then one more time just to make sure that the last sentence made sense.

You sighed and shut your laptop turning your attention to look out Joshua’s bedroom window. He stirred behind you, and you heard the pages of his book flutter slightly.

“Done?” He asked you. You nodded, and turned so that you could actually face Joshua, a smile spreading over your lips.

“Just one more killer essay for the books,” you agreed. He held out his hand and you raised yours right back to his in a high-five- one that only made the palm of your hand sting like it was on fire.

“Can you believe the school semester is practically over already?” Joshua mumbled. “Feels like we just finished moving you into your apartment for the year.”

Honestly, you couldn’t believe that the school semester was already over. So much had already happened this year, that it felt surreal. You had been so distracted this semester especially just figuring out your relationships with Jeonghan and Joshua that you could hardly believe that school had just been a background plot to all of that.

Now that everything was settled, going home for the summer was the last thing that you wanted to do.

“What are you and Jeonghan going to do this summer?” Joshua asked. The question caught you by surprise. You looked up from putting your laptop away in your backpack and let your head fall to the side.

“Sorry?”

“I mean, Jeonghan usually spends the summer with his family in the country, doesn’t he?”

You had spent so much time hating Jeonghan in the past that you had nearly forgotten that he didn’t spend the summer in town. A frown riddled across your face and you let your hands fall into your lap.

You used to just get so happy that you wouldn’t have to see Jeonghan that it didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing. You were just glad he wasn’t around. And it wasn’t even until recently that you discovered that Jeonghan had actually skipped almost as many friend events as you had due to you two’s feelings towards one another, so going away for the summer was just something you two had taken for granted.

But now you supposed it was different.

Ever since New Year’s you two had spent an inordinate amount of time together. The only times you weren’t together was probably when you were with Joshua, and Jeonghan was off working.

You looked back over at Joshua, and your eyebrows furrowed.

“We haven’t really talked about it,” you said honestly. Joshua groaned at the statement.

“Do you talk about anything?” He asked you. You shot him a glare.

“Look, not all of us are you and Mina and tell each other everything,” you murmured back. Joshua rolled his eyes at the half-veiled insult and stood up, leaving his book on his seat. He wandered over to his bed and retrieved his phone that was charging on the covers.

“You guys have to talk to one another,” he replied softly. “I don’t understand you two. You have been together for how long now and you seem to like one another and enjoy your dates and obviously other things but are you two serious or what? Are you long-term or just having some fun with one another while in college? Wh-”

“Woah, woah, slow down there Jiminy Cricket,” you interrupted, throwing your hands in the air and screwing your eyes shut as Joshua spoke. “I do not need you putting those thoughts in my head. Jeonghan and I are doing fine the way that we are and that is all that matters.”

Joshua scoffed at the sentiment.

“So what? You guys are just not going to have the talk with one another or something?” He asked you. You shrugged.

“Maybe we will, maybe we won’t. Whatever we do is our business.”

Joshua rolled his eyes but as he had learned to do when it came to topics about Jeonghan he let the topic drop. Instead he unplugged his phone and gestured for you to follow him.

“Come on, let’s go eat something.”

And despite the topic moving on, you couldn’t get what stupid Joshua had said out of your head.

What were you and Jeonghan going to do? You had barely established each other in a relationship and now you two were probably going to have to separate for the summer.

You hated to admit it but you were really really going to miss Jeonghan for this summer. You never used to think so, but despite it all he made good company, and he was a pretty good listener when he wasn’t being sarcastic and teasing you for this or that.

You couldn’t help but fret over Joshua’s words for the next few days, and while you were determined to set aside the thoughts, you couldn’t really put them to rest.

“Jeonghannie-”

You weren’t really the type of person to get drunk at a party with your friends, as you didn’t really like to drink away your problems. You knew that it wasn't any sort of solution, just a way to make it seem like everything was okay for a while. It was like willing walking into the eye of a hurricane and pretending like the storm wasn’t ever going to come back.

But you couldn’t just sit there and let everything drive you crazy anymore. You couldn’t continue to let your thoughts plague your mind. So, no matter the weird glance it earned you from Joshua when you accepted your first shot, you decided that today you were going to drink your fears away.

Three shots in and you wondered why you didn’t drink alcohol more often.

Six shots in and you had completely forgotten why you were drinking in the first place.

The reason that your friends were all drinking was to ease their nerves after such a hectic exam week. Everyone had spent hours at the library studying each and every document given them from their teachers practically religiously. Jeonghan had one late Friday exam so he had to come join everyone late, and by the time he had finally walked into the door, a pencil tucked behind his ear like some sort of nerd, you were already wasted.

And very happy to see him.

You rushed over to Jeonghan and wrapped your arms around him before he could even react to you. You could feel his muscles tense slightly at first, but after just a second, he relaxed under you, his fingers spreading over the small of your back.

“Well someone missed me,” he murmured softly. His fingers dragged around your body, his fingertips trailing lightly over your hip bones as he moved his hand to the front of your body, and up your sides to your shoulders. He pushed you back ever so slightly and shot you a smile.

The smile however faltered when you smiled back at him.

“Have you been drinking?”

You pouted, and pulled out of Jeonghan’s reach, crossing your arms dramatically over your chest.

“And so, what if I am?” You asked him. “You’re not the boss of me.”

You knew somewhere deep down inside of you that you were acting like a child, but on the surface, you couldn’t really bring yourself to care. You instead turned away from Jeonghan and grabbed a stray bottle of alcohol that Joshua had offered you earlier.

You twisted open the bottle and tipped it into your mouth, dipping your head back so that you could drink back the bronze liquid.

It made a warmth spread across the inside of your chest that made the tips of your fingers feel tingly, but before you could even finish consuming the liquid, the bottle was abruptly pulled away from you. A pout spread over your lips and you reached for the bottle blindly making grabby hands but, that action just got you a hand placed to your head.

“Eh, unless you can tell me how many drinks you’ve had tonight, I think I’m cutting you off,” Jeonghan said pleasantly. You opened your mouth to tell him a number- you figured any number would work after all. He couldn’t know if you were telling the truth or not when Jeonghan tipped the glass of alcohol that was yours into his own mouth.

“H-Hey!”

“Relax,” Jeonghan replied after finishing off the bottle. He set it down and placed his hands on your shoulders, smiling at you. “No need to be stressed. Exams are over, don’t go crazy tonight, just have a good time.”

That was probably one of the things that you liked best about Jeonghan (that admittedly used to drive you crazy). He was always so calm and collected. He didn’t let things get to him no matter how the situation ended up unfolding. He knew when you were over thinking things and seeing his calm demeanor made you want to match it.

You wanted to be relaxed like Jeonghan. You didn’t want to need to let the contents of a glass bottle drive your thoughts away for the time being. You wanted to just set the glasses down and have a good time with your friends.

But you also knew that if you let yourself sober up anytime soon then you wouldn’t be able to think straight. You shot Jeonghan an accusatory glare and turned away from him, rushing across the crowded room to Mina.

You hooked onto her arm and looked up at her with a pout spread over your lips. You didn’t have to say anything for her to look up across the room and know what was happening.

She reached over into a cooler and handed you a new bottle of alcohol and smiled brightly at you.

“Don’t let mean Jeonghan tell you when to start and stop drinking,” she stated pointedly. As she spoke, her eyes turned from you to something behind you. You opened her mouth to ask what exactly, but before you could two hands landed on your shoulders.

“Mina-”

Mina reached forward and smacked Jeonghan’s wrist, making him let go of you with one of his hands.

“Being possessive and controlling isn’t cute. Let y/n have a good time,” she insisted. You hid a giggle behind the back of your hand, a gesture that Jeonghan didn’t find too amusing, but either way he rose his hands in an innocent gesture.

“Okay, okay,” he stated. “But you’re in charge of making sure that nothing bad happens.”

Mina didn’t really respond to that so Jeonghan crossed his arms over his chest.

“Mina.”

Mina rolled her eyes.

“Nothing bad is going to happen it’s just a party.”

Whenever Jeonghan went to a party he tended to drink quite a bit. You had always watched with much disdain as the boy drank drink after drink and barely seemed affected other than an outburst here or there.

You were so reactive to alcohol that it was hard to imagine having such a good tolerance to it.

You should have stopped drinking quite a while ago- probably back when Jeonghan told you to- probably before that, but by the time that you were standing on top of Joshua’s dining room table calling for him from all the way across the room, there wasn’t really much that you could do to stop yourself.

You watched as Jeonghan stared at you for the millionth time that night, his eyes watching you careful as you took a step forward, slipped on a lime that was left on the table, and fell to the ground.

You hit the floor with a thud, and you knew that it should hurt, but honestly you could barely feel a thing.

A laugh erupted from your lips and you reached up into the air blindly as you laughed.

“I fell.”

A hand took your outstretched one, helping you up onto your feet. You stumbled as you did, right into Jeonghan’s chest. He gave you a pressed look.

“You fell off a table,” he mumbled softly. You pouted a little bit, but you knew what Jeonghan was trying to say. You whined a little shaking your whole body out in protest. Jeonghan rolled his eyes in amusement at the expression on your face and he wandered up to you, his fingers landing on your shoulder.

“Come with me,” he said softly. “Let’s go home.”

This time you didn’t argue as Jeonghan’s hand slid down your arm, his fingers intertwining with yours. His fingers were tight against yours, but it wasn’t in any way that made you feel upset. No instead you let Jeonghan pull you through the people in the party, brushing past Joshua on your way out.

Your fingers wrapped around Joshua’s wrist without warning, pulling Jeonghan to a stop.

“Joshua,” you whined softly. “Jeonghan’s going to take me home now and he’s going to have sex with me.”

Jeonghan jumped at the accusation, and one glance at him proved that he was embarrassed by the color rising to his cheeks at your words.

“I am not going to do that,” he insisted. You giggled and slapped his chest.

“It’s okay, he knows now we aren’t hiding it anymore,” you replied back. Joshua made a disgusted face at you and pointed at you.

“You drank too much,” he stated. You laughed at him.

“No, I love having sex with Jeonghan, drunk or not,” you replied back. Jeonghan grunted and took you by your wrist again, pulling you with more determination.

“Let’s get you home.” Was all he said.

You didn’t remember much from walk home. You remembered stumbling over your feet as Jeonghan walked you, and you remembered whining and stopping near a fire hydrant, and getting scared by a barking dog, and then eventually Jeonghan picking you up and carrying you the rest of the way back to your place on his back while you played with his hair.

Once you got back to your place, he unlocked the door, taking you quietly to your room and setting you down gently in bed. You practically threw yourself into your blankets, happily cooing for Jeonghan to lay down with you as you wrestled around.

Jeonghan didn’t come to you, and he didn’t respond so you sat up to look at him.

“Jeonghan,” you whined. He looked back at you over his shoulder and sighed.

“Aren’t you tired?” He asked you, closing the distance between you two once again.

“Come on don’t you want to take advantage of me while you’re here?” You asked him teasingly. Jeonghan rolled his eyes as he pushed you down onto your bed, but you didn’t mind it much. You just sat back up and shrugged your shirt off of your shoulder, winking suggestively at Jeonghan.

You couldn’t imagine you were very seductive in your drunken mess of a state, but as soon as you did it, a hazy look glazed over Jeonghan’s expression, his mouth falling open ever so slightly.  You watched as he swallowed hard, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

“D-Don’t,” he mumbled. You reached up to the top of your button-up and began to slide the top few button’s out of the buttonholes. Suddenly, your clumsy actions from before were fading away, and your hand was becoming just steady enough to coherently unbutton the shirt.

“Don’t what?” You asked coyly. He glanced away from you, but only stood there for a few moments before turning back around, his eyes trailing down to your breasts that were slowly coming into view from beneath your shirt. You smiled self-confidently. “That’s what I thought.”

That seemed to be enough to remind Jeonghan of the situation, he reached forward suddenly and took your wrists in his hands, giving you a look that only made you want to misbehave more.

“You need to sleep,” he insisted. You gave him an innocent look and shrugged your shoulders, assuring him with your eyes that you weren’t going to do anything more. He gave you a wary look but eventually he sighed and let go of your hand. “You promise if I leave, you’re going to be good?”

“No.”

The smile on your face only made Jeonghan groan.

“How is it that you are a horny drunk?” He asked in complete and utter defeat. You giggled.

“I’m not a horny drunk.”

You took your shirt by the hem and pulled it off, throwing it aside without a second thought.

“I’m just always horny for you.”

You knew that Jeonghan would protest more so you undid your bra as quickly as you could, distracting Jeonghan with your breasts so that he wouldn’t protest as you shimmied out of your pants. Jeonghan’s mouth hung open, murmuring weak protests to your actions as you did, but it wasn’t anything firm enough that in moments you weren’t sitting before him, your legs spread for him to see everything.

“Come on Jeonghan, am I ever so good for you?” You asked him, a whine at the end of your voice. “You know I’m not. Don’t you want to take advantage of this?”

Jeonghan’s hands slid into his pants slowly, and you smiled as you watched him slide down his pants, bringing his cock to your attention.

“I’m warning you,” he mumbled. You practically jumped at his words, your whole-body buzzing.

“Please Jeonghan, I need you so much.”

“Then touch yourself,” he replied sharply. Your eyebrows shot up at the intensity of his words.

“Wh-What?” You asked. He snickered.

“You want to be obedient? Then spread your legs and touch yourself for me right now.”

You stared at him unwilling at first to comment on his words, wondering how serious he was. When he settled himself in your desk chair, his legs spread apart, and his fingers wrapped around the base of his cock, you decided that he truly did expect a show.

You swallowed your sudden rising nerves, noting to yourself that no matter how often you did it- you were always so shy to touch yourself for Jeonghan. You hesitantly pulled down your pants and spread your legs, so that he could see your bare pussy.

All he did was quirk an eyebrow.

“Wider.”

Your face burned red as you spread your legs further for him, still not quite as wide as you could make it.

“Wider,” he said without hesitation. “Don’t make me ask again or I will have to just leave.”

This time you were quicker to oblige, spreading your legs out as far as they could go- not that the threat made you feel any less embarrassed.

“Jeonghan,” you hissed. “I want you to touch me.”

He didn’t acknowledge your words, instead he stood up and walked over to you- “Spit.” And then after you had spit in his hand, returned to where he had been before. He wrapped his fingers around his cock and began to give it long, slow strokes.

You watched in disappointment as your saliva covered the length of his cock, wondering why he was using his hand to get himself off when you were right there.

“Start playing with your clit,” he said softly, a small grunt falling from his lips as he spoke to you. You had a ball of frustration growing in your chest already at having Jeonghan so close but not utilizing that closeness to make you feel good- but you also had a ball of heat growing in your gut.

You could feel yourself burning under Jeonghan’s eyes and you could even feel the wetness gathering at your entrance and dripping between your pussy lips. You let out a soft whimper as your fingers brushed against your clit, your legs instinctively closing a little.

The look you received from Jeonghan back was nothing short of murderous. You quickly fixed your legs before he could say anything and began to rub your clit lightly beneath your fingers. For a while he was silent, just watching you as you played with yourself for him, his own hand pumps matching the pace of your circles.

Just as you were about to complain, Jeonghan rolled his head back and his fingers paused near the tip of his cock, his thumb swiping over the tip.

“Dip your fingers into your pussy,” he mumbled. “Want you to fuck yourself.”

“But-” you started to protest, a pout crossing your lips again. Jeonghan lazily looked back down at you, giving himself another stroke.

“Do you want to cum?” He asked. Your surprise was practically undeniable.

“Wh-what?” You asked him.

“If you want to cum,” he repeated. “You have to be good. Now fuck yourself for me.”

You lowered your fingers don’t to your cunt, hissing as they slid past your clit. You whined, biting down on your lip as you did so. The tips of your fingers were so cool against the heat of your core, and once again you hesitated in actually pushing a finger into yourself.

“How often do I have to watch you fuck yourself before you stop being so embarrassed by it?” Jeonghan slurred with a grin. You lowered your eyes in embarrassment at his words, but the reaction just made him laugh. “Better keep your eyes on me- Or you don’t know what will happen.”

Your eyes raised back to Jeonghan.

“Can I... Can I fuck myself with more than one finger?” you asked him, your legs shaking at the question. Jeonghan hummed, his eyes falling to the side as he pondered the question.

“Do you think that you really deserve it?” He asked you, eyebrows rising. Your lips quirked up and you wiggled your chest a little.

“Yes?”

Despite the fact that it sounded like a question, Jeonghan let out a loud moan and his fingers tightened around his cock, making you practically salivate at the mouth. You wanted his cock so badly. You wanted to wrap your fingers around it and give it a tug yourself. You wanted to suck his tip into your mouth and taste the saltiness of his precum. You wanted to feel him get tired of waiting for you and tighten his grip on you and push you hard down on his cock so that you could feel it twitch against the back of your throat.

Before you got the permission, you pushed a second finger into your pussy and began to fuck yourself quickly on them. Your eyes focused in on Jeonghan who wasn’t even bothered by you fucking yourself without permission. Instead, he just let out a string of curses.

“God, you little whore, you want me to fuck you that badly?” He growled at you. “You want me so bad that you would fuck yourself that hard for me to watch?”

You nodded excitedly, quickening your pace as you fucked yourself on your fingers, feeling your wetness coating your fingers. You had almost never felt yourself so wet before- You couldn’t help but whine out loud, and such a noise was something you knew just drove Jeonghan crazy.

“F-fuck, I’m going to c-”

Before Jeonghan even finished you were cumming all over your hand. You threw your head back in pure ecstasy as you came, Jeonghan’s own groans as he too came, dragging out the pleasure that you were feeling.

You felt your walls tighten and loosen around your fingers until finally your orgasm had passed.

You fell back against the bed, fingers still buried deep in your pussy.

You laid there for a while, just feeling your chest rise and fall, but it only lasted for a few seconds. You felt warm fingers wrap around your wrist, pulling your fingers from your pussy. You whined at the loss of them and squirmed a little as you felt a warm cloth wipe off your fingers.

“Fuck me,” you grunted in annoyance. Jeonghan laughed softly at the pout in your voice.

“Not tonight, maybe after you get some sleep,” he replied. You sat up and furrowed your eyebrows at him but all he did in response was raise a large shirt in the air.

“Arms up.”

You complied with his orders, and he pulled the shirt down over your head. You opened your mouth to ask him to fuck you again, but before you could he just laid you down against your pillows and pulled your blanket up to your chin.

“Now go to sleep. I’ll be here in the morning.”

And then he wandered out of the room, flicking the light switch off as he left the room.

-

“Good morning angel!”

You felt a dull ach shoot through your head at Jeonghan’s words, and you sat straight up in bed, your fingers clutching at the strands of your hair in pain. Jeonghan’s response was simply to lightly laugh at you. You heard him wander over to you, setting something on your nightstand, his fingers threading themselves in your hair.

“Oh, are you a little hungover?”

The glare that you shot over at him could kill.

“There’s a reason I don’t drink that much,” you mumbled. “It’s not worth the pain.”

Jeonghan hummed at the pointed response and let his head fall to the side.

“Which begs the question- why did you drink so much yesterday?”

You should have expected the impending question, but something inside of you had sort of just expected... Or hoped really that Jeonghan wouldn’t bring such a thing up. After all, you didn’t really want to have to talk about why you had so much to drink. Or why you were acting so crazy and-

A shock of embarrassment shot through you, and you buried your face into your hands.

Had you really touched yourself like that in front of him just the night before? Begging him to fuck you?

It felt like something of nightmares to think of it now.

“And why didn’t you fuck me yesterday?” You asked him, instead of answering the question. He gave you a suspicious look but shrugged.

“You were drunk,” he replied as if it were obvious. You rolled your eyes.

“I still wanted to fuck you,” you murmured. He shrugged, a small smirk crossing his lips.

“But wasn’t the show a lot more fun?” He asked you. As he spoke, he grew closer to you, his lips brushing against the cartilage on your ear. You swallowed hard and let yourself shy away from him. Jeonghan didn’t mind that however, and rose his hand to your cheek, turning you to face his direction once again.

Once he had caught your eyes, he gave you a sweet smile and pressed his lips to your warm cheeks.

“Now... Why was it that you drank so much yesterday?” You sighed, realizing now that there was no point in you continuing to try and hide why you had been so anxious recently. Your eyes turned down and you shrugged.

“I’ve been... Thinking recently.” Jeonghan snorted.

“That’s never good.”

You ignored the interruption.

“Well... Joshua reminded me that I have no idea what we are going to be doing for the break-”

“That’s what you are worried about?” Jeonghan asked. You smiled nervously, nodding your head once. The reaction that you received next was completely unexpected.

Jeonghan grabbed you by your wrist and flipped you over in your bed, pushing you down hard into the covers. You let out a yelp at the sudden action, but before you could ask him what he was doing, he pushed his fingers into your mouth.

“Suck.”

You whined around his fingers but sucked them obediently into your mouth. Taking your time to tease both digits with your tongue. Jeonghan grinned down at you at that.

“Do you remember how completely desperate you were last night? How badly you wanted to be touched by me, and fucked by me?”

He pulled his wet fingers from your mouth, and without warning slipped them into your pussy. You gasped out in surprise, your head falling onto Jeonghan’s shoulder.

“The thing is Jeonghan. I’m always that desperate for you. I-I just keep it to myself better when I’m not drunk.”

That response made Jeonghan shove his fingers hard and deep inside of you, picking up the pace as he fucked you relentlessly with his fingers. He wasn’t normally this quick to fuck you, but you assumed that because he didn’t get to really touch you at all last night, he was eager to get to it today.

“And that is why you don’t need to worry so much about me leaving you this break. We’ll see each other plenty- I'll make sure of it.”

He pushed his fingers sharply into you and you cried out.

“And you want to know why?”

You weakly raised your head to look at Jeonghan, your eyes meeting his as a desperate, fucked out expression covered your facial features.

“Wh-Why?”

“Because I am crazy about you,” he replied pointedly. “And I don’t want to waste a second that we have together.”

Jeonghan pulled his fingers from you and raised them to your lips, spreading your salty liquid across your lips. You whined and your tongue darted out of your mouth to taste yourself for Jeonghan. He smiled gently at the action and sucked the rest of his fingers into his mouth.

“Oh darling-”

He reached down, pushing your legs apart as he got down onto the floor between them. He whistled when he saw your pussy, experimentally pushing a finger into you. You moaned at that and wiggled under his touch, but that just made him tighten his grip on you.

He leaned closer to you, his eyes watching carefully as he used to of his fingers to spread your pussy lips for him.

“A sight that I will never get bored of seeing,” he stated contently.

He leaned forward, his tongue darting out of your mouth and licking a strip between your folds, slowly making his ways from your leaking hole up to your clit. Once the tip of his tongue touched your clit, it sent a large shiver through your body- but that didn’t deter him. He raised his hand to your pelvis, pressing your firmly against the bed.

Then, his tongue flattened itself over your clit. You whined at the feeling of his warm tongue as he began to flick his tongue against your clit over and over again- each flick sending a wave of pleasure through your body.

Maybe you were just sensitive from your hangover- which conveniently wasn’t bothering you so much anymore- or you were just really turned on by Jeonghan’s touch, but it only took a little bit before you felt yourself growing close to an orgasm.

“J-Jeonghan,” you bit out, as he dipped the tip of his finger back into your pussy. He paused, what he had been doing, his finger knuckle deep inside of you to look up at you, a lazy smile on his lips.

“Yes darling?”

“I don’t want to cum from your-”

He shoved his finger deep inside of you, cutting yourself off with a loud yelp. You shot him a glare, but he just stared back at you innocently, as if he had done nothing at all.

“Fingers,” you finished after you had caught your breath. “Please, please sir. Just fuck me.”

Jeonghan didn’t seem to need any more convincing. Instead, he got to his feet, dropping his pants. He grabbed you by the wrist and practically threw you over the bed. You didn’t have to be told as you scrambled to your hands and knees, pushing your ass up in the air as you patiently waited for Jeonghan to come over and fuck you.

You didn’t have to wait long.

Jeonghan’s fingers dug into your thighs and he lined himself up with your wet pussy: “You ready for this you slut?” And then, he slid his cock into you.

There was something about having Jeonghan’s cock in you that just never grew old. You felt yourself moan as Jeonghan’s hand snaked its way down to your neck, giving you a small choke as he began to set a slow, but sharp pace of fucking you.

Even after all this time, it gave his other hand the purchase to wander your body- as if he was trying to get to know your each and every curve. He leaned forward briefly, his lips kissing you across your shoulder blades.

It was a little bit sweeter than you were used to from him. Not that you were complaining when no matter how fast he fucked you his cock always buried itself so deeply into your body that it made your toes curl against the bed's sheets.

You whined- which only made Jeonghan tighten his grip around your neck, making you choke a little. You felt your head get a little dizzy- just for a moment- before Jeonghan once again loosened his grip and kissed your back.

You heard a phone start to ring, and you glanced over, surprised to find it just lying there on the bed. Under any normal circumstance you would have just left it- but Jeonghan reached forward, pulling your hair back.

“Who is calling you?”

You almost came from the tone of his voice alone- but somehow you were able to keep it together enough to swallow hard and glance at the caller ID.

“It’s-” you grunted. “Joshua.”

“Answer it.”

Your head fell forward as he released your hair, so he wasn’t able to see the expression on your face at the command, but that didn’t stop yourself from letting your face drop in surprise.

“Wha-”

“Either safe word, or answer it,” Jeonghan replied, giving you a short slap on the ass. “Don’t play around.”

You bit down on your bottom lip, and before you could really think through your decision, you grabbed your phone and slid it unlocked. You cleared your throat a little as you picked up and tried not to make too much noise as Jeonghan pulled you up from behind so that you were closer to his chest.

“Joshua!” Your voice wavered just slightly as you spoke, but nothing that you believed to be too suspicious. “Why are you calling me so early?” “You say it’s early, but you sound like you’re plenty awake,” Joshua laughed. “I just thought I would check up on you. Since you drank so much at the party. Jeonghan get you home okay?” Jeonghan reached over as Joshua spoke, his fingers flicking across your nipple. You just barely bit back a moan, making it sound a bit like a grunt as it left your mouth. Your heart skipped a beat.

“Yeah, my head just hurts a bit,” you said back. “Anyways thanks for-”

Before you could end the call, Joshua continued.

“You sure you don’t want me to come over? You know how bad your headaches can be,” he said gently. “I’ll bring your favorite.”

The more that Joshua spoke, and the harder you tried to keep the fact that you were being fucked a secret, the more you clenched around Jeonghan’s cock. The more that you did that, the tighter his fingers pinched your tits, and the harder he snapped his hips against you.

And the harder that he fucked you, the more and more desperate you became to hang up this phone call.

“No!” You yelped. Your face grew red. “I-I mean that’s okay. I’ll be fine. I sh-should just rest some more.”

The more you spoke the harder it became to hide. Jeonghan pushed you back forward and he began to really snap his hips into you. You were amazed that Joshua didn’t hear that alone.

“Are you sure that you’re okay? You sound a little strained...?”

“I-I’m fine, really ju-just-” And then Jeonghan buried his cock deep inside of your pussy. The first spurt of cum, unexpectedly squirted into you was all it took for you to fall forward, completely losing your composure. You gripped at the blankets on the bed, moaning loudly as you came around Jeonghan’s cock.

As you did so, Jeonghan just reached forward, fucking you almost impossibly hard as he whispered: “Now you’re really in trouble- letting Joshua listening to you cum like the whore you truly are.”

You gasped but couldn’t really find the ability to get yourself to form any coherent thoughts until your orgasm had entirely passed. And when it did do that, and you were finally able to breathe again, you scrambled for your phone.

“Joshua- I’m-”

“Were you fucking Jeonghan and you answered the phone? Did he put you up to this? You two are disgusting.”

And before you could get in another word, the line went dead.

You sighed and let your head fall into the blankets again, breathing out in relief when Jeonghan finally slipped his cock out of you, leaving your pussy to drip his cum.

“He’s never going to talk to me again,” you mumbled in disbelief. Jeonghan laughed, his hand patting your pussy contently.

“Yes, he will. Now get cleaned up and I’ll have some breakfast ready for you- okay?”

You rolled over and pouted, catching Jeonghan’s gaze as you spread your legs out wide for him to see. As you expected, the movement caused him to lower down to your pussy once again.

“Or... You could always have breakfast in bed?” You offered, a sly smirk covering your lips. He snickered at that, shaking his head in disbelief.

“How could I have ever hated you?”

And sunk back down to his knees.

[imaginesupply]

Homecoming - Chapter Three

(Gif's not my own.)

Summary: The day has arrived, Captain Syverson is going home. For good, this time. He is going home to a civilian life he can hardly remember and a wife he barely knows, with memories of the war still fresh on his mind. Love might not be able to heal everything on its own, but it’s a good start.

Genres: Romance, drama.

Story warnings: Smut (always fully consensual), mentions of PTSD and nightmares and mental health, angst, hurt and comfort, fluff, mentions of war (minor), mentions of cheating (minor), mentions of pregnancy (very minor), police appearance (very minor), violence (very minor).

Notes:

It’s my first time writing for one of Henry’s characters and I’m unsure I did Sy’s character any justice.

This is a Capt. Syverson x OFC (Ada) story, written in 3rd person POV but OFC’s physical description is very limited so it could also be read as Capt. Syverson x Reader, I think.

English is not my first language, so there might be some mistakes. Proofread, but not beta’ed. We die like men and all that.

Timeline is a little wacky: The movie takes place in 2003 and the U.S. forces were withdrawn from Iraq in 2011, but I never set a precise date because I don’t think it’s essential for this story. However, some elements might not be realistic because if we set this story in 2003: Phone cameras quality was not as good as it’s now, but for the purpose of the chapters, I will need you to imagine you could film great videos with your flip phone haha. Plus, it says Sy is coming back after being deployed for more than three years which makes no sense unless we set this in 2006 or later. I am asking you disregard any time inconsistencies.

Also: I am not American. I only lived in the US for six months and it was in the Midwest, not Texas so please bear with me if I write something stupid.

Finally: This will be a Christmas fic and I intend to post the last chapter (there will be seven in total) on or before Christmas. However, religion is never mentioned in this story and the Christmas-sy elements of this story are limited to family gathering, gift giving and tree decorating.

Chapter Three starts after the cut. (Chapter Two can be found here.) Let me know if you wish to be tagged in future chapters or if you wish to be removed from the tag list.

Chapter Three

Chapter warnings: Smut, alcohol consumption (moderate), mentions of contraception and of pregnancy.

I think that’s it, but this chapter killed my brain – it was very difficult to write and I feel like I botched it. There are various important moments in this chapter that I found very hard to translate from my brain into words. And the smut, oh my God, it’s so bad!

"You know, when you came to me all bossy and told me to lose my clothes, I had something a lot different in mind." Sy grumbled from the bed, where he was sat wearing nothing but boxer briefs.

Ada laughed and turned around, sticking out her tongue at him before going back to what she was doing, namely sorting through Sy's clothes in the walk-in closet. She slid a pair of jeans off its hangers and threw it at him without looking back. "I admit that I probably don't need as many clothes as I own, but you're definitely a minimalist."

Sy grunted noncommittally, he was not amused, but tried on the jeans all the same. They didn't fit, he couldn't pull them up past the thighs. "Hey darlin'," he called her, a hint of amusement audible in his voice.

She turned around at the pet name and then forced herself not to laugh at the sight in front of her. Sy had already been a burly man when they had met, but it seemed he had managed to gain even more muscle mass in the past few months, now looking like an absolute bear of a man. Ada grinned and tilted her head at the cardboard box at the end of the bed. "Put those in the donation pile."

"Yes, ma'am," Sy said, getting up and doing as asked.

Ada grabbed her small pencil and added another item to the list. "So, you need jeans, new boots, sweatshirts, t-shirts..." She went on, listing the items. What he needed was a whole new wardrobe and she was the woman for the mission.

Turning around, she found Sy rolling his eyes at her. "I ain't need no new t-shirts, woman. I got the black one, the red one and the khaki one."

Ada chuckled and approached him on the bed, coming to stand between his legs. It was unusual for her to be taller than him, and with him sitting on the bed and her standing up, she still didn't have that much of an advantage. With a grin, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead before pulling back to look into his eyes. Instinctively, almost an automatism, his hands found purchase on her hips.

"Last time you wore your red 'DILLIGAF' t-shirt, three separate kids stopped and asked you what the acronym stood for and you looked at me for help."

Sy held her gaze, not keen on losing the staring contest. Ada didn't want to relent but she didn't want to force him either, not after what had happened while grocery shopping. "It's okay if you really don't want to go, I won't for-"

Sy shook his head, silencing her before she could even finish. "Let's get this shopping over with. But I'm warning you: I'll be complaining the whole time."

For a moment, Ada pursed her lips, seemingly unconvinced but eventually her frown was replaced with a grin. "I would expect nothing else from you, grumpy bear," she teased before turning around, excited about the task at hand.

Sy left to get dressed but not before landing a playful smack on her ass.

°°°

It went just as Ada had imagined. Sy sat down on the sofa at the far end of the store, keeping everything in sight, and she would occasionally come up to him with suggestions. To an onlooker, they resembled a devout worshipper trying to make offerings to a very picky and very handsome god.

His replies to the items she presented to him went anywhere from 'no' to 'not a chance in hell', without forgetting the classic 'you lost your mind, darlin’'.

After visiting three stores and Ada trying to visually guess his size because Sy absolutely refused to try out any of the clothes, they had managed to get most of what he needed. It just turned out to be near recreations of the clothes he already owned, just bigger and newer. And with more child friendly texts.

They stopped for coffee by the center of the open-air mall. True to himself, Sy ordered just that - a coffee with 'none of the fancy shit'.

"You're sure you don't want to go to any of your stores?" Sy asked, watching her sip on her colorful drink.

Well, the idea was tempting but she already had more candles and blankets than necessary. And she knew he was uneasy even if he was hiding it well. "No, it's okay. I know you don't like shopping and I can just ask some friends if I really want to go." Sy hummed.

By the time Ada finished her season exclusive drink, she noticed Sy was staring at a shop window. She was almost excited that he was finally interested in buying clothes before noticing that it was some video game advertisement.

"You can buy the game, if you want. No need to stare," she teased.

He reverted his attention back to her. "It's only compatible with the new console that came out last month and that one's sold out." Ada started beaming as he spoke. "What?"

"Well... a few months ago, I came across the launch announcement on the Internet. And I had seen the old model in the study, so I knew you liked it and since you were coming home soon..."

Sy's eyes became even bluer for a moment, a huge grin threatening to illuminate his face. "Are you saying that...?"

Ada laughed, shaking her head. He looked like a kid on Christmas Day. "Yes. It's wrapped in gift paper in the basement under the utility sink."

"I love you, wife."

Again, she scoffed. "Yeah, yeah... Now let's go get you that damn game."

°°°

Later that day, or rather night, Sy wasn't even paying attention to the movie they, or rather, she was watching. He had gotten the gist of it - superheroes teaming up together to save the world - that sufficed him. His focus was entirely on his wife nested between his legs, her back resting against his chest.

When they got home from the mall and went to sort through his clothes and belongings, finally unpacking the rest of his duffel bag, Ada came across his dog tags. She asked if she could keep them. Sy frowned at the odd request but agreed nonetheless, shrugging dismissively.

Ada then proceeded to put the chain around her neck and slide the tags under her blouse. He had stared at her a little confused; she was smiling, looking all smug as if she had managed to trick him out of something valuable and not just two cheap metal tags hanging off an equally cheap chain.

"The fact that I get to have both your tags means I am very lucky to have gotten you back alive and in one piece. I don't want to ever forget that."

With his height advantage, even sitting behind her, Sy could see the chain disappearing under her pajamas and the tags resting in the valley of her breasts. Somehow, the sight made him feel even more possessive than the wedding band on her ring finger.

Things always had felt slightly uncertain with Ada, there had always been the shadow of a doubt in his mind when it came to her. They had gotten married on a whim and she knew he was a green beret, deployed most of the time. It's an entirely different thing to marry someone you get to see for a couple of weeks every once in a blue moon and to actually live, share a home with someone. When Sy had told her, he was coming home for good over the phone, he had half expected her to ask him for a divorce or to find himself alone at the airport. His face hadn't shown it, but when Ada put on the damn chain he had hated wearing in the goddamn desert where it would chafe his nape or get tangled in his chest hairs, Sy felt as happy as a sand boy.

She seemed honest when she said there was nothing going on with that Tom guy. Not that he could truly blame her if there was, even if it would have broken him. His parents had been married for over thirty-five years and his mom found a new boyfriend not even two years after his father's passing.

And yet, Ada was there, cuddling with him on the couch. She hadn't served him with divorce papers upon his arrival. Instead, they had spent the past few days pretty much glued together as they usually did when he was on leave.

Maybe it was time he started to believe that he had come home to his wife and she really wasn't going anywhere. Especially since she hadn't asked him to wear a condom ever since he got home and he hadn't seen her contraceptive pills on her nightstand either. Sy even checked the bathroom cabinet where he knew she kept some medication, but he didn't find anything there either. This morning, he had even considered asking her about it, but he figured that if she hadn't mentioned anything so far, it was because she wanted it to be a surprise and he didn't want to ruin it. Though he'd be lying if he said he wasn't going to be checking the same cabinet for pregnancy tests in the future.

"You good?" Ada asked as the film came to an end, tilting her head back but only getting a view of his beard. It made her smile, though. Sy really was her bear: big, strong and hairy.

"Yeah, I just," he stammered slightly as if waking up from his thoughts. "I was thinking we should probably change the stairs' railing into something safer before we have kids running up and down."

"Yep, that's not gonna happen," Ada chipped in, jumping off the couch before starting to fold the blanket.

"What?" Sy blurted out, turning all his attention to her. "The railing or the kids?"

"The kids," she replied nonchalantly, now laying the blanket in the basket by the sofa. "If you want to redo the stairs, that's fine. I think we could even paint them white."

In a second, Sy was up on his feet, his imposing stature crowding her. "What do you mean, that ain't happening? You don't want kids?"

Ada frowned, suddenly uncomfortable at his intense stare. "No.”

"Why did you never tell me?"

"Why did you assume kids were a given?" Ada retorted, taking a few steps back to put some distance between them. "I figured that if it was important to you, you'd have mentioned it sooner, at some point at least."

Sy had to fight the urge to yell at her, the feeling of betrayal and even anger overwhelming him. If he never spoke of it before, it was because he didn't want to have kids while he was deployed and miss their first years. Instead, he forced himself to calm down, taking a deep breath. "Is that a not now or a not ever?"

Ada looked away for a second, gathering her thoughts before moving her eyes back to him. "I got a new Mirena coil a couple of months ago, so I'm set for the next three years at least."

He had no idea what the fuck a 'Mirena coil' was supposed to be but it wasn't hard to figure out. Instinctively, his hand went to the back of head, raking through his short hair. "Just to be clear, Ada," Sy paused, his nostrils flaring, "you don't want children?"

It didn't even take her a second to start regretting her counter after it came out. "Do you?" She snapped back, the enunciation of the 'you' harsher than she had intended.

The effect was instant, her question giving him pause. Did he? Now reflecting on it, Sy realized he had never asked himself that question. It was just something that you did. First you got a house, then you found a wife and started a family. He had never thought about it as an option, just as the next step if he was lucky enough not to die in Iraq.

"I'm so sorry," Ada apologized, her tone alone expressing her regret. She took his hand, forcing him to look at her only to find her eyes glistening as she attempted not to cry. "I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't questioning your parenting skills. I know you'd make a fantastic father, Sy." Her eyes closed as she took a deep breath before opening them again, their corners wet with tears this time. "I just never saw myself having kids, but if it's something you really -"

"I ain't gonna force you to start a family with me," Sy rebuffed, offended at the very thought. The abruption of it even making Ada smile, if only briefly.

She shook her head quickly. "What I meant was that if you want to be a father, then I wish for you to become one. But... I won't be a part of that scenario."

"No." He said, dismissing the idea as soon as she voiced it, catching her hands in his and stilling them midair when she started gesticulating instead.

"No, this is important!" Ada protested. "I want you to be happy, Sy. And I won't stand in the way of your happiness. You deserve to live the life you want and if that includes a family -"

"No." Sy ordered, his tone final and resolute, silencing her instantly. He had never used this voice with her in the past, usually reserving it for the soldiers in his unit. "Stop with that ridiculous suggestion, woman." Ada blinked. It was obvious in her eyes that she wanted to argue but she didn't dare defy his hard stare.

Sy closed his eyes and swallowed, searching for the right words. "The choice between having kids with some other woman or getting to be with you, is a damn easy one. I'd rather we be a family of two than have children with some woman I could never love."

She was crying again, tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. Had he said something wrong? Ada didn't let him wonder for too long, her hand fisting in his t-shirt to pull him down to her lips for a ravenous kiss, their teeth clicking together.

"You know," Ada breathed out against his lips once they parted for air. "It doesn't have to be just the two of us. I am partial to pets."

Later in bed, with his sleeping wife snoring softly and her head resting on his chest, Sy tried to process their conversation only to realize there wasn't much to process at all. It didn't feel that much like giving up on a dream, as it felt like defining the contours his future with Ada. All that mattered to him was that it was a future with the woman whose contagious laugh he had manifested in his mind time and time again to drown out the sound of gunfire and make it through. Children might have been a bonus, he wouldn’t deny that, but their absence was something he could live with. He couldn’t same the thing about Ada.

°°°

"Got your," Sy paused, frowning as he read off the label, entering the kitchen, "Willamette Valley Pinot noir. How many do you need?"

Ada looked away from the oven to find him carrying four bottles of her favorite wine. Did he think they were drunkheads? "Do you want for Tom to have to spend the night here because we're all over the legal alcohol limit and unable to drive?" She laughed.

Sy grimaced. "One bottle it is," he announced, making her laugh all the harder as he set down a single bottle on the table that was already set before casting away the other bottles in the pantry - where they did not, in fact, belong.

Just as was his habit, Sy sneaked up on his wife as she leaned over the kitchen counter, putting away the remaining ingredients and hugged her back to him with one arm. He then dipped a finger in the jar she had filled with leftover caramel and brought it to mouth.

She gasped at his manners. "You can't just stick your fingers in everything that's sweet and lick it off, Sy," Ada chided. She heard it as soon as the words left her mouth, but it was too late.

A deep laugh rumbled in his chest behind her. "Can't I?" Sy goaded her mockingly.

Ada took a deep breath. She knew where this was headed and they didn't have time. It was primordial her pie didn't overcook, and Tom would be there soon. "You know what I meant," she groaned, attempting to sound annoyed but he could hear the smile in her voice.

"Do I?" He whispered against her ear, his beard tickling her skin and his warm breath making her shiver as he slid his hand under her skirt until he was cupping her damp sex over her panties. "Are you certain about that, darlin'?"

Her hands held on to the counter and her eyes closed as he started rubbing his hand along her folds over the fabric. He was also beginning to harden behind at an impressive rate. The temptation made her whimper. "We don't have time," Ada protested, even as her head fell back against him and she leaned into his touch, silently begging for more as she not-so innocently ground her ass on his crotch.

A swift glance at the clock on the wall told him all he needed to know. They had seven minutes. It would have to be enough, Sy decided. Time being of the essence, he was determined not to waste any.

“Open up your legs for your captain, darlin’,” he rasped, his nose nuzzling in the shallow of her neck, his hands already busy bunching up the soft fabric of her skirt around her waist.

“Sy,” Ada lightheartedly protested his eagerness. The idea was certainly enticing but they truly didn’t have time and she really needed to keep an eye on the pie. “We can’t-“

“I said, open your legs,” he repeated, gritting out the words as his foot snuck between her ankles, forcing her legs open himself. Sy barely had to apply any pressure, Ada complied instantly at his tone. There were very few situations in which she let him boss her around and this was one of them.

His hands brushed over her naked thighs, enjoying the way she shivered as he did so. Sliding his fingers higher up her inner legs, Sy expertly slid the scanty lace of her thong aside in order to access her clit. Ada keened under his touch, the rough skin of his finger pads slowly circling her already swollen nub. She couldn’t decide between pressing into his touch or attempting to pull away from it; it was both too little and too much all at once. “Already so wet and I’ve barely done anything to you,” he teased, hoping to sound less worked up than he was. Sy was set on keeping the upper hand. “Tell me, what is it that you want, darlin’?”

Ada whined as he removed his fingers from her core, his hands going to her hips instead and pulling her to him, letting her feel how hard he was for her. His wife reacted by rubbing her ass against him, determined to get what she wanted without having to voice it. “Sy,” she complained when he didn’t bite the bait, still grinding on him, surely getting his jeans wet with her slick.

“That’s not how it works, darlin’,” he chastised, going back to teasing her. His touch was ghostlike, too light to provide any real satisfaction and she groaned in frustration. “You have to ask for it like a good girl.”

He felt her body tense up against his as she tried chasing the friction of his fingers where she wanted them most, but Sy drew away before she could. “I swear to God I am going to make you regret-“

Smack. Ada gasped at the sharp spank on her ass, her body bending over the counter at the impact. Her ass was just too tempting in this position and Sy was running out of patience. “Ask like a good girl,” he ordered between gritted teeth, his hand descending to palm his crotch, hoping for some relief. Her little stunt was turning him on more than it should have.

“God, Sy, just fuck me already!” She sobbed, her legs rubbing together out of their own volition but her husband stayed put, rubbing his palm of his covered cock as he watched her. He wasn’t going to give up any time soon, she realized with a strangled sigh. “Please fuck me, captain,” she whispered, relenting.

Within a second, Sy was unbuckling his belt and pulling down his zipper. His cock was red, hard and throbbing impatiently. With time running out, Sy pushed himself into her without a warning. Ada whined at the stretch, gripping at the flour covered kitchen counter as one of his hands grabbed hold of her hips, the other moving to her breast. Then he started ploughing into her like there was no tomorrow.

Ada kept whimpering his name, but even she didn’t know what it was she was asking for. Her hips were digging into the cold stone and she knew there would be bruises come morning. He had barely started fucking her and she was already beginning to tense up with how worked up she was. “Are you gonna cum for me, darlin’?” Sy grunted, his jaw tense as her inner muscles clenched all around his cock. Ada nodded meekly, unable to speak. Just when he was starting to doubt he’d be able to hold off long enough for her to climax, Ada cried out, her tight walls milking him as she came. Sy exploded inside her with a strangled groan, slowly coming to a still inside her.

The doorbell rang. At seven o’clock on the dot.

"Fucking Brits and their punctuality!" Sy cursed, still panting before pulling away from her and tepidly leaving her warmth. Ada chuckled at his reaction, holding onto the counter for support for a few more seconds until she felt somewhat steady on her feet.

Sy tucked himself back into his pants and she adjusted her skirt over her thighs again before letting out a panicked squeak and turning around. Her front was covered in the flour she has spread on counter for the pie and the white handprint on her breast where he had held on to her was very visible on her black blouse. Sy couldn't keep himself from laughing. She looked great if you asked him, especially since Tom would be going to see just how well he took care of her. "I'll go get changed and you get the door!"

°°°

Sy’s eyes widened, positively surprised as he brought the first forkful of boeuf bourguignon to his mouth. The dish hadn’t appeared particularly appetizing on the plate, but it tasted so much better than it looked. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ada glancing at him with an ‘I told you so’ smirk.

“I received a new shipment of books at the store today,” Tom told Ada in between bites. He owned a bookstore downtown, Sy had learnt. “There’s a new murder mystery I’m sure you’ll love.”

Ada stilled, a look of excitement washing over her face. “Is there… poison?”

Tom laughed. He had expected that question from her. “Ah, yes. And it’s set in the 1920s!”

Sy glanced from the one to the other, forcing himself not to sigh. Ada’s excitement was adorable, but Tom was grating on his nerves. All the conversation so far had been about novels they’d read recently.

“Please tell me that you saved me a copy.” Ada shrieked enthusiastically, prompting Tom to laugh before he suddenly producer a hardcover out of seemingly thin air. As if she was scared that he was only taunting her with it, Ada leaned over the table and snatched the book out of his hand, a smug look on her face before she started reading the back cover. Sy looked at her and chuckled, shaking his head fondly at her almost childish elation.

"So, where did you two meet?" Tom asked, shifting his attention to Sy. "Ada always told me that it was a story for another time."

Sy's grip tightened on his cutlery. Admittedly, the strong animosity toward the man had faded, but he was still not keen on making conversation with the man. "Here in Austin," Sy replied before going back to his food. Ada had to stifle a laugh at the face Tom made at the curt answer.

"I'll tell you," she offered, capturing Tom's attention. "I had just graduated with my Masters and managed to land a PhD position here in Austin. I was freshly debarked out of France and I was only to start to start mid January but I flew over in December already - wanting to fly with my own wings and all that." Tom chuckled as she gestured derisively with the story.

"Anyway, I hadn't found a flat yet, all my stuff was in a storage unit and I had the brilliant idea of going to Vegas. On my own. In a 1979 black Camaro rental."

Sy finally looked up from his plate. "It was from 1980 and it was dark gray, not black, darling’."

Ada found herself staring curiously at her husband as he interrupted her story before laughing. That's what it took to get him to talk?

"So, it was a 1979, dark gray Camaro,” Ada correctly herself. “Anyway, obviously it did not have a navigation system and I stopped at one of the few open bars open at 5pm on Christmas Eve, ordered a beer and tried making sense of the maps I found in the glovebox, making a list of the different exits and turns I would have to make.

"Sy was there drinking with some friends – loud friends, might I add. Well, I am struggling with the maps and he must notice because he approaches me at the counter, takes of his cap and asks me if I need help, in his southern drawl. Actually, no wait, his exact words were” Ada paused, clearing her voice. “’Need some help reading that map, darling?'" Tom laughed at her ridiculous attempt to imitate Sy’s baritone voice. To Ada's surprise, Sy blushed. It was barely visible beneath his beard, but it was there and it was the cutest thing she had ever seen.

"I looked down at the map she was studying and asked her if she was headed somewhere on the east coast. She then slowly looked at me and confidently told me she was going to Nevada, until I pointed out that she was highlighting the road that went East and her face burned up, all self-conscious." Sy recounted, now laughing as well and even Tom scoffed. " I said: ‘At this point, even a navigation system can’t help you, darlin’. You’d need an escort.”

Ada bit her lip, remembering that moment clearly in her mind. She had flushed, staring at the muscular man that towered next to her. He was burly and rugged and yet still exhaled a little softness behind it all. 'Well then, will you be my escort to Vegas? I am leaving tonight,' she had blurted out before she could stop herself.

"I cannot believe you drove from Austin to Las Vegas with a stranger, Ada!" Tom said teasingly, clearly surprised by his friend’s spontaneity and recklessness.

"Yes, I made him miss Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his family, and the best part is that we got married the day we reached Vegas on New Year’s Eve.” They had stopped a few times along the way, visited some towns and she had only known Sy for seven days when we got hitched at the kitschiest chapel imaginable. “We had to hurry to get a marriage license before the courthouse closed and a half-naked dude officiated because everyone else was already booked.”

Sy chuckled, sitting back against his chair and wrapping his arm around Ada's shoulders possessively. "She made me wear my old uniform that lasted all of fifteen minutes and was presided by an officer dressed as a cherub." He gestured at the framed picture standing on the cupboard next to them.

They looked absolutely ridiculous. Sy's uniform made him look too serious next to a tipsy Ada who wore the only white dress she had been able to find on such short notice and that definitely hadn’t been meant for a wedding because it turned out to be partly see-through under the camera flashes.

Ada shared some more stories about Vegas before excusing herself to the bathroom, the conversation instantly dying out as she disappeared, leaving both men in an uncomfortable silence until Sy’s curiosity got to him.

"So, you and her...?" Sy left his question unfinished. He wasn't sure what exactly it was that he was asking, he just wanted to know all there was to know.

In front of him, Tom gracefully dabbed him mouth with the ivory napkin and shook his head, with a tight smile. "No, nothing of the sort," the Englishman replied dismissively before Sy's inquiring stare forced him to expound. "It's not that I didn't think of pursuing something more with her, but Ada made it very clear from the beginning that she was a married woman and a faithful wife."

Sy hummed noncommittally, though internally he was reassured and maybe even elated. Mike had really filled his head with shit. Deep down, he always knew his Ada wasn't like that, it just felt good to hear it.

"My wife, for whom I left England, passed away only two months before Ada and I met. I was going through a rough patch then - and that's a euphemism. Carla had been talking to me about watching a particular film ever since it had been announced, it was an adaptation of her favorite novel." Tom explained, a smile warming up his features. "When she died before it premiered, I wasn't even sure if I even wanted to watch it without her... But the tickets had already been purchased and part of me hoped that for two hours, it would feel like Carla was sitting right next to me."

Sy listened, feeling sympathetic, if not a little uncomfortable by the man’s openness. He still wanted to dislike Tom but at the same time he couldn't imagine the wreck he'd be if Ada were to die on him.

"The cinema was packed and to accommodate a large group, Ada asked whether I minded if she sat down next to me,” Tom paused briefly, smiling at the memory. “I think it was listening to her laugh, cry and eat popcorn next to me during the movie that gave me the strength to drive home instead of off a cliff that night."

Sy gulped down the rest of his wine, still not a fan of the taste as he faced the Englishman before him. Not that he would ever say it out loud, but if he had failed to make it alive out of that godforsaken desert, he had to concede Tom would not have been the worst for Ada.

Silence fell again and Sy became uncomfortable, deciding to pour Tom some more wine. “I am glad Ada and you were there for each other.” When I should’ve been there for her myself but wasn’t, Sy thought but left it unsaid.

Tom chuckled as he observed the burly man in front of him. For all his muscles and gruff exterior, he carried the slightest of insecurities when it came to his wife. "There's a thick silver notebook Ada has kept for a couple of years. Maybe you should have a look at it.”

Sy wanted to ask what he was talking about but was interrupted by the sound of Ada's high heels clicking on the wooden floor as she made her way back to them. "I hope you weren't talking ill of me behind my back," she teased, squeezing Sy's shoulder absentmindedly. "Now, who's ready for my slightly overcooked tarte tatin.” Ada eyed her husband pointedly.

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

Fic Writer Questions! (you can find me here on AO3 if you're interested!)

tagged by dear @theburialofstrawberries mwah!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

112 yowza!

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

750,421 kinda tempted to go delete one word so it can be 750420 which is a far more Pleasing number

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

12ish but some of them overlap: BBCS/Sherlock Holmes/ACD (these are all different bc my bbcs fics are not the same as my own modern fem Sherlock Holmes adaptation are not the same as my ACD Holmes fic; Good Omens; Harry Potter/The Werewolf Draco Malfoy Cinematic Universe; Captive Prince; The Hobbit; Fleabag (it was a crossover with BBCS but Fleabag is the perspective character so it still counts as a separate fandom imo); Doctor Who; The Office; Parks and Rec; Broad City (one a piece for those last 5 but I AM going to write a Parks and Rec polycule fic for @gaykagome)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

They're all Good Omens fics from the 2019 Summer of Good Omens! Susceptible to Summer, Fragments Shored Against My Ruin, Something So Magic, Enter Serpent, and Anything We Like

All of those have over 2k except the last one, but average engagement for me is like 400 kudos or so

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try! It depends on what's going on with me. Sometimes I just don't have the energy, and I figure people would rather I spend my brain power on writing new fics than on writing replies to comments. Wish I had a fave button tho so I could let people know I read and reread comments, because I do!

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh I wrote this ficlet series called A Chemical Defect about John and Sherlock's relationship in s3 of BBCS, and it's WILDLY unpopular. People don't read my fic to cry sad tears I guess! John and Sherlock are having an affair in the story, and it ends with the implication that their relationship is unsustainable and that Mary knows about it anyway. I intended to come back to it after s4 and write a more optimistic ending but LOL! Didn't have the heart.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I know this answer is kinda up my own ass, but like. I think stories that feel true to life sort of feel like they end on a beginning if you know what I mean? You don't really consider a chapter of your life closed until you look back on it from the next? SO that said, I think I'd have to say that it's my big BBCS serial The Only One in the World. I spent 2 years writing it, and it ends with John retiring from medicine to solve crimes and write books full time.

Could also be my WDMCU (werewolf Draco Malfoy cinematic universe) series Moonrise, which starts with Draco isolated in his abusive mother's house, trying to cope with lycanthropy essentially alone and ends with him in love and surrounded by found family in a cozy cottage in Hogsmeade, having gotten some lycanthrope rights legislation passed after working at it for years and talking to Harry about whether they want to have kids. Oh man I feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about it

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have written one crossover. It's BBCS/Fleabag, because me and @loudest-subtext-in-tv were laughing about how John seems like one of the horrible guys Fleabag sleeps with basically out of self loathing, so I wrote this fic to make Nattie laugh, and you should read it bc it's so good and so underrated.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really, but people don't seem to know that authors can read bookmark tags unless you private the bookmark, and someone once put in the bookmark tag on one of my fics 'writing was meh but it was okay.' Okay so why bookmark it then??

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Fuck yes! I'm not sure what 'what kind?' means? People fucking? Sloppy, silly, and awkward, with lots of laughing. I also really like writing afterglow scenes which are even sillier and gigglier and often involve one character cooking for another. Food as love language is a very distinct pattern of mine tbh

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of, but occasionally I'll write a post on here where I make some elaborate head canon, and I'll see people in the tags talking about how they want to write fic of it, and it makes me breathe fire out of my nose like a dragon like PLEASE DON'T. The WDMCU came out of a ficlet post I made on here like a year before I actually wrote the 60k series so like!!! Please don't do that!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! To Russian and I believe Chinese. Not my entire oeuvre but a handful of BBCS and Good Omens fics

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I wrote a fic inspired by an RP I did with my gf right around when we met (actually now that I think about it, it's two fics), and I waaaaaaanna do a WDMCU collab with my beloved Sally @clytemenestras at some point if he has time bc he inspired me to even write werewolf draco with his original lesbian werewolf story

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

favorites are hard for me? I always think I'm currently doing my best writing lol so I'll say drarry

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I don't post fics unless theyre finished, so I don't have any WIP up on AO3, but I did intend to continue with my fem Sherlock Holmes series, Your Many Tendencies. I just haven't been in a Holmes mood for a long time. Maybe I'll come back to it idk. This particular series is honestly very unpopular? People will just straight up say they don't read femslash, and it hurts a lot. This series feels really personal too, bc it's about a Black autistic nonbinary lesbian, so it does hurt my feelings that no one seems to care, yknow? I mean the people who read it are extremely kind and thoughtful in their engagement with it, but it has vastly less engagement than my m/m fic, and that's painful. It gets literally 1/10 the attention my fics usually get.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Almost all of my writing is romance, but I tend to write concurrently about recovery and found family, and I think I'm very good at doing that in a way that connects with my audience. I once had someone ask if they could use my words in their wedding vows, and I've had people tell me they started doing things with their spouse that my characters do with their partners in order to express love. I think about that all the time. My Impact. It makes me feel like I have a real duty to my audience yknow?

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

This question is hard for me like I've been writing so long and so much that I'm literally always happy with my final draft! It's always exactly to my taste, yknow? I suppose I could say that my fics tend not to be terribly plotty but so WHAT? That's beside the fuckn point for me. Plot who? I don't know Her. Also honestly like. Stories feel more True to me when they aren't ruthlessly devoted to plot bc like life isn't like that yknow?

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If you're not fluent in that language, get a beta who is!!!!! That said, I have written scraps of very simple dialogue in French using mostly Google Translate (sometimes I check w Sally bc he speaks French but I am usually too impatient), and I am perfectly well aware that I take my life in my hands each time!!! Also don't do that bullshit thing where it's in italics? That shit is weird and exoticizing. Just write it in quotation marks like normal dialogue.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

BBCS babey back in 2012. Ended a 5 year dry spell for me after I got my writing degree.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Hmmmm I think it's probably gonna be the fic I'm working on now that I haven't posted yet, but I know it's called Names for a House, and here's a tiny bit of it

Thanks again Shreya for asking me to do this bc I really love talking about myself. I tag @the-moon-loves-the-sea, @clytemenestras, @tomiano, @gaykagome and @totallysilvergirl

No pressure <3

[warrioroflondonbelow]

dontcxckitup-m asked: Top 5 rp experiences

put “top 5” anything in my ask and i will answer ok go: ACCEPTING

II @dontcxckitup-m // @dontcxckitup

1. Meeting amazing people and making friends:

//Although getting to write for muses is one of the main things that RPing is about, I can’t deny that possibly one of the main, and one of the biggest reasons I have stayed on Tumblr with this blog for so long is just all of the lovely people I meet. Seriously, from meeting the kindest and most creative RP partners, to having some of them end up as some of my bestest friends (who I honestly cannot imagine not ever being friends with bc/ it feels like we’ve known each other since forever???), it’s because of all the people I have met that made coming back to RPing worth while. And even those few times I do think of leaving I just don’t have the heart to do it. Also, not to be mushy or anything, even if I haven’t met any of my friends on here irl *sobs* it just makes me happy that there is still that promise that at some point we will get to meet and actually hug like there’s no tomorrow.//

2. Getting to read so many writing styles:

//As somebody who has always been an avid reader, I have always been so blown away as to how many diverse and incredible writing styles there are on here! Sometimes I read my partners’ writing and I just kinda sit in my chair in awe, or have to pace around a bit, because I’m just SO blown away by the writing. Seriously, how are none of you published authors??? (Unless you secretly are and are not telling me... Hmm...)//

3. Getting to improve on my writing skills:

//Writing is something I have always liked to do. I even have a few (crap) books/novels that I have written in the past. Although, unlike those, one thing that RPing has definitely pushed me to do is to find ways to improve my writing; whether it be improving upon my dialogue, descriptions, and so on. I mean, I know I still have A LOT to improve on, but RPing definitely makes the work more fun, y’know?//

4. Those nights where I stay up to the wee hours of the morning because both my partner and I are just SO invested in the thread we have going:

//This is gonna sound cheesy, but those moments are just magical? I honestly can’t think of a better word. It’s just knowing that you and your partner, even if you’re separated by different time zones, are both on at the same time and both invested in a thread that is heating up and you’re both screaming at one another in the IMs or tags. Honestly, it almost feels like hanging out in the same room and just having a blast, y’know?//

5. Having our muses interact and just creating so many stories together:

//Whether it’s writing up fluff, mysteries, action, adventure, or angst, it’s just always such a joy to have Richard interact with so many muses and just craft millions of stories! I dont know, I just find it so cool how two muses interacting can create such interesting threads, all of which are just so different in their own way <3//

[saebyeog-i]

bitter brews (i) | syh

“Johnny laughed again, eyes crinkling at the sides. Your mind wandered briefly to a half formed thought about how endearing that was. “Maybe so, but despite your efforts to make me an enemy, I think you’re actually a really good person. You even guessed my favorite coffee drink, so that has to count for something.””

genre | not quite a coffeeshop!au, (mild)slow burn, this thought about being an adversaries to lovers fic for six minutes

rating/warnings | a stupid amount of exposition about coffee plants, catch me throwing in the random recipes that have been my go-to for cooking during quarantine, is this angsty?, discussions of mental health issues {see tags for details}, overall mature content/themes {foul language, alcohol consumption, references & discussion of masturbation, awkward boners, future smut}, some soft moments, and some good ol’ tooth rotting waxing poetic nonsense fluff. Don’t expect too much out of this I just got tired of editing this part so I’m finally posting it.

word count | 19.6k (I meant for this to be a super long one-shot but it’s turning into a story in parts for the sake of ratings w h o o p s)

pairing | Johnny Seo x fem reader

writing playlist | Egotistic - Mamamoo, Black Swan - BTS, Sober - HYO, I Blame On You - Taeyeon, Heartbeat - BTS, Close to Me (Red Velvet Remix) - Ellie Goulding feat. Red Velvet

—

“So, what you mean to say is… you’re not coming? Like, at all?”

The bright yellow plastic of the rotary phone was slightly cool against your overheating skin, which was constantly veiled in a thin layer of sweat whenever you stayed on the farm property instead of the main house on the opposite side of the island. It was the first week of May, which meant it was already humid again. If it wasn’t the time for the daily afternoon rain showers, it might as well have felt like it was raining with how saturated the air was.

“I’m sorry, Bean, I just can’t get on a plane right now. I thought it would be fine it we stretched out the time between flights, but all my doctors are saying I need to just stay here between now and the birth, so…”

Your sister’s voice trailed off and you had to wait for a moment to be sure it wasn’t the poor reception for the phone call running across the four thousand miles that separated you— the four thousand miles that would continue to separate you for the rest of the summer.

You exhaled and twirled the aged spiral phone cord that could barely hold its shape around your index finger, staring at the concrete floor and scrunching your toes. “Well, I’m already here, obviously… do you… you want me to stay here then? Take care of stuff?” You asked hesitantly, already having a feeling of what the answer would be.

A crackly sigh of relief came through the other line. “Little Bean, you are the best, Yunho was worried about asking you to stay and man the farm for the summer harvest but I knew you would just offer! You’re the best like that, you know?” You gritted your teeth and forced a smile through, even though no one was there to witness it. “Okay, so we’ll ship out the supplies in the next few days. Yunho is gonna email you a list of delivery dates of materials for the projects he had planned for the summer and a few contractor contacts…”

Her voice warbled on, and you could only nod your head and vocalize an ‘mhmm’ every so often, listening to her rattle off instructions and information that you knew would be sent in an email too. You’d been looking forward to spending the summer with her— you hadn’t gotten a proper chance to visit for more than a weekend since she and Yunho had gotten married about two years ago— but it turned out this wouldn’t be it. You couldn’t blame her though; she was approaching the third trimester of her pregnancy. You’d do anything for her, even this, even isolating yourself on a farm for four months. Alone.

Not exactly the leave of absence you’d been hoping for from work, but it would have to do.

✧ ✧ ✧

This was supposed to be a vacation. A break. Some much needed time off, away from your job, your career, and your “normal” life. You told yourself over and over again you were looking forward to it. And besides, it would all be worth it, because of all the time you’d get to spend with your sister after so long.

And then she had to betray you by going and getting fucking knocked up, with twins no less.

Fucking happily married couples with their god damn healthy ass sex lives and family planning and wanting to raise children. What the fuck was that all about?

It had been so long since your last vacation. Years, in fact. So long, you had over two months of paid time off accrued at work, and back at New Years you’d made the preliminary plans to spend a month on the farm in Hawaii with her, bonding and just relaxing. Sure, it would require some manual labor for the business here and there, but mostly just to rest.

What a joke that turned out to be.

The farm in Hawaii. You know, the coffee farm your brother in law bought four years ago on a dare from your sister, because he said he could totally pull it off as a side hustle, and she said he wouldn’t be able to? Yeah, that one. Fast forward to today and the side hustle became a full fledged passion that roped in a good amount of the family into the business. Siblings, cousins, parents, all involved in different aspects of package design, social media marketing, distribution and wholesale— everyone except you, who stuck with your soul sucking job in advertising, the same industry your brother in law had since left behind.

The farm and roasting wasn’t an overnight success by any means, but in the last year the brand had really taken off in the craft coffee scene. After all, Kona coffee was well sought after, and one could only claim the name ‘Kona’ if it was grown on the same two thousand or so acres of land on Hawaii’s big island. You know, the same area of land you were living on for the remainder of the summer?

Right. The whole summer.

It was just supposed to be the month of May. And then it turned into May and some of June, when you’d asked your sister to make more concrete plans, and she kept brushing it off. And then the week before you actually got off the plane, you hadn’t booked the return ticket, because you were still waiting for her answer. And then the phone call, and now, this was… indefinite? No, that was being too dramatic; if anything, it would be up through the birth. Based on the number of projects Yunho had planned for the farm, through the remainder of the summer was how long everything would take. Just you and a little over five acres of land and the summer heat. The thought of an extended isolation had your breath catching in your throat, but the last thing you wanted to do was complain or call for help. Stubborn and proud, you wouldn’t have made the offer to stay if you didn’t mean it, if you didn’t think you could handle it. There was no way you were backing out now.

When Yunho had first bought the farm, it had been a rough first few years of refining the coffee plants that had been on the land and uncared for for a number of years, but the last two summers had provided a steady increase in the harvest yield. There was a small farmhouse on the property, with two small bedrooms, a shower, and a small kitchen and living area. A few miles down the coast was the nicer, newer condo that the business had bought, a multi-bedroom unit with some better amenities for when more of your family wanted to visit. It felt weird spending time there— it was too nice, too clean, and quite frankly you had enough to keep yourself busy with on the farm property, you’d rather not have to spend time driving back and forth every day. So you opted to spend most of your nights sleeping here, even though it meant only ceiling fans and no air conditioning.

The farmhouse had very shitty, very limited wifi and a grand total of three electrical outlets outside of what was used to power the oven and refrigerator. One of those outlets was, of course, dedicated to an espresso machine on the kitchen counter, which you had gotten acquainted with over the last two weeks. It was an older model and a little temperamental (the one at the condo was much nicer), but it was still from a decent manufacturer, and you could still use it to pulled a decent shot.

Most of the time you worked in silence, and most of the time you were never too aware of how much time had passed, other than when the sun went down and it was suddenly dark out. You weren’t always this absent minded, you swore— maybe it was a byproduct of being alone for so long—

A loud, high pitched whine filled your ears, followed by some scratching at the door that lead to the lanai outside. You sighed, standing up from the kitchen table and walking over to face the monster that had made it.

“What? What do you want now?”

Staring back at you from the the other side of the screen door was what you’d affectionally referred to as The Thirty-Three Pound Menace— the medium sized stray dog that your brother-in-law so conveniently forgot to mention had been living on the farm for the last few months. It had been waiting outside the farmhouse when you first arrived, and you’d learned from the neighbors that Yunho had taken a liking to the stray and had arranged for them to feed it in his absence. But now that you were here, taking care of the dog was added to your list of daily chores. It seemed to not want to leave the farm property unless actively accompanied by you, with the assurance that you’d be bringing it back with you.

With a roll of your eyes you hip checked the door open just enough to let the dog inside the house. It circled you several times, sniffing at your knees before sitting and panting, staring up at you expectantly. In the two weeks you’d been here, the majority of your conversations were between you and this, a being that couldn’t talk back. Maybe you liked it that way. “What, dinner? Fine, fine,” you grumbled, shuffling to the cabinet and pulling out a can of wet food.

Your meals had consisted of relatively simple dishes, but today you were cranky at the confirmation that your summer was not going to go as planned. Tonight’s dinner featured a bowl of cereal and a coffee mug full of cold white wine.

You ate in silence. You drank in silence. The only noise came from the hum of the ceiling fan overhead, and the occasional sound of the dog, cleaning its paws and laying by your feet protectively. Why it seemed so determined to win over your affection, you had no idea.

After sitting in silence with only your thoughts and the now sleeping dog to keep you company for what felt like hours and downing a second mug full of wine, you found yourself letting out a loud yell, startling the dog and waking it. In a fury, you pulled out the laptop you had for the sole purpose of checking once a day for emails from Yunho and connected it to the shitty, sub-par wifi with just enough patience to navigate to an airline’s website and search flights back to the states. You were looking for the cheapest, most reasonable one you could find. After all of five minutes of research and a quick round on mental math, you clicked on a date and hit the ‘book now’ button before you could second guess yourself, slamming the computer shut once the payment went through and shoving it away from you across the table.

“September 10th,” you grumbled out loud for only you and the dog to hear. Standing from the chair, the legs scraping loudly against the floor, you crossed the room and stopped in front of the wall calendar your sister had put up the last time she’d visited the farm just after New Years. You lifted a few pages and flipped forward to the month of September. Red marker in hand, you found the date and circled it rather aggressively, several times over. You looked down at the dog, watching you patiently with its head tilted. “You got that? I’m getting off this fucking island on September 10th.”

✧ ✧ ✧

The day your life fell apart came twelve days later just before nine in the morning.

Mondays were the delivery day, that’s what Yunho had laid out in his instructional emails to you. Your only source of personal transportation was an older jeep, one you didn’t enjoy driving, given that it had no top and needed some mechanical work done. So you’d made arrangements and had your groceries delivered on Monday mornings, buying mostly direct from another farm on the other side of the island, and they were always kind enough to act as the courier for whatever additional miscellaneous supplies you’d request, regardless of where they’d have to go to procure them.

There was a winding driveway that lead up to the house from the main road, and a larger, wider drive up a less steep hillside for larger vehicles for delivery. You were fully expecting the truck that lumbered up the delivery road and came to a stop just outside the barn which housed the massive coffee roaster and stored most of the processed green beans from harvest. Even though it had only been three weeks, there was a routine that had slowly been settling into place: the sound of the truck coming to a stop riled up the dog, the dog came running from wherever and started barking, you’d get your groceries and any other assorted items, the dog would get a treat because your delivery boy had a soft spot for the creature, and you’d pay for your goods. “Hey Jin,” you called out over the barking from the front of the barn, hands currently full with a sack of processed coffee beans you’d hoisted over your shoulder. “You can just leave the groceries on the porch, I’ll put them inside in a few. Did you manage to get me the bags of fertilizer and some wood stakes?” A loud thud sounded as you dropped the bag to its resting place on the concrete floor.

“I mean, I can go put these inside if that’s easier. And yeah, there’s ten bags to get us started, we can have more delivered next week if you still need ‘em.”

You whipped around to face whoever had just spoken, because that voice was most certainly not Jin.

He was tall like Jin, had wide shoulders like Jin, and his hair was kept just a bit long and looked ridiculously shiny and soft and like you could run your fingers through it like Jin’s. It was a lighter brown with some honeyed highlights running through it, compared to the dark brown almost black of Jin’s. You tensed, seeing him carrying a brown paper bag with a loaf of bread and the leafy green tops of carrots sticking out the top. He wasn’t looking at you, rather, he was far too occupied with bending down slightly and scratching behind the ear of the dog who was currently whining and wagging its tail at his feet. Some guard dog it was.

Without a second thought, you reached for the first sharp object you could find, which happened to be the box cutter you used to cut open the burlap bags the beans came back from the processing plant in. “You’re not Jin,” you said tersely, holding the utility knife by your hip defensively.

“Chill out killer, he’s harmless,” a more familiar voice called. Seokjin, your regular delivery driver whose family owned the farm you bought directly from, came into view carrying another two bags of produce and a small pile of envelopes. “Picked up your mail on my way up, the box was practically overflowing. Do you ever check that thing?” You’d first met Jin two years ago when you’d come to visit your sister and Yunho for a long weekend. He’d become a good friend of Yunho’s and was one of the people who would take turns feeding the dog when no one else was here.

Ignoring the unknown man, you relaxed your shoulders slightly and placed the knife down on the table behind you. “Thanks,” you grumbled, taking the small pile of letters from him. Admittedly, you hadn’t checked the mailbox since the day after you’d arrived on the farm, mostly out of sloth and spite. You sifted through the letters— mostly junk mail, with a few bills and notices relating to the business. You put those in front so you could look through them later, when you’d finished the physical work for the day. You tore one envelope open in particular when you noticed it was addressed directly to you and had your sister and Yunho’s Illinois address in the upper corner. It was a letter postmarked from two weeks ago, which struck you as odd, because what the hell would he bother writing in a letter that he couldn’t just send you in an email or a text or a phone call? You started reading aloud softly to yourself.

“‘My Dearest Bean… First of all I want to apologize for the change in plans, but with your sister’s condition her doctors just don’t recommend her traveling,’ God, he’s so dramatic she’s not terminally ill she’s just pregnant. Blah blah blah, I don’t care, you’re full of absolute shite, Yunho,” you began skimming through his lengthy pre amble, looking for the purpose behind the note. Without reading the middle you flipped the stationary paper over to see his handwriting covered the entire back of the page, too. “God, he’s so long winded. Oh, here we go, the very end— ‘I promise we’ll make it up to you, thank you for running the farm and taking care of Puppy, please be nice to Johnny and treat him well, he seems like a good kid.” You stared at the words written on the paper and looked up at Jin. “Who the fuck is Johnny?”

The man next to him cleared his throat and held his hand up. “Johnny! I’m uh, that’s me. You must be _____— I’ve heard a lot about you from Yunho! I’m Johnny Seo, it’s nice to meet you,” he said with a smile, reaching a hand out.

You eyed it but made no move to reciprocate the action. “Cool. You know Yunho. Lots of people know Yunho, he’s a huge fucking flirt, social butterfly of the century, the man never shuts up. Why should I be nice to you?”

He shifted on his feet and his outstretched hand retreated. “Oh. Uh. I’m uh, here for the summer,” he explained, sounding almost confused. “Didn’t— didn’t Yunho tell you?”

Your eyes bugged out and you looked over to Jin. “Jin who the fuck is this and why is he on my farm?” You whispered.

Your friend laughed. “You read the end of Yunho’s letter. I’m sure if you read the whole thing it would explain more. This is Johnny, and he’s here for the summer. He’s gonna help you out! I know the list of all the projects you need to finish this summer is lengthy, and plus look at the guy, he’s jacked! You could use the muscle for manual labor. More work for him, less for you, right? And look, the poor dog you refuse to give a name to even likes him!” Jin gestured comically at Johnny. You looked over, sizing him up some— Jin wasn’t wrong. The stranger was muscular on top of being tall, and under the capped sleeves of his tee shirt you saw his arms that looked the size of your head. The dog was still circling him, sniffing and begging for attention.

Johnny tried smiling again. “Yunho mentioned there was a lot of construction type work to do. I uh, had nothing else planned so he said I could stay on the farm for the summer and work in exchange for food and a place to sleep. I take it he uh, didn’t run that by you first, did he?”

Your grip on the papers in hand tightened and you felt your jaw tense involuntarily. “No, he managed to not mention that once to me. How did you even get here?” You hissed back.

“I picked him up at the airport this morning,” Jin answered calmly, “Yunho gave me a buzz a few days ago to ask if I could bring him here with this week’s groceries.”

“So he managed to arrange for him to get on a plane and secure transportation to the farm but couldn’t be bothered to call me and let me know?”

Jin only laughed, his eyes crinkling. “I’m pretty sure he knows you well enough by now to know that this would have been your reaction whatever way he told you.” Despite the kinship you’d felt growing between the two of you, Jin was Yunho’s friend first, and it only made sense that his allegiance would be to him first. Of course he’d side with Yunho on this matter. “And yes, like Johnny said I did bring a bundle of plant stakes and ten bags of fertilizer— they’re in the back of the truck bed.”

“Oh, I could get those—” Johnny started, moving to step towards the truck.

You could barely think straight. First they bailed on you unexpectedly to spend the summer on the farm alone. That was fine— you’d gotten that through your head, and had come to terms with that. But suddenly springing a plus one on you, without your consent? Absolutely the fuck not.

“Yeah. Don’t need help. Thanks,” you spat, grabbing the bags of groceries from him and brushing past, stomping your way back to the farmhouse.

Johnny stood frozen for a moment before stammering, looking from Jin to your retreating figure and back again. “I should— I should talk to her, right? Or do I—”

“Whoa, don’t think too hard there handsome, I can smell wood burning. Don’t stress about it. She’s just a little… touchy. Let me talk to her,” Jin patted Johnny on the back before heading up the path to the farmhouse after you.

You’d stormed into the house and slammed the groceries down on the counter and let out a screech of rage before picking up the receiver of the yellow rotary phone and dialing. Tapping you foot incessantly, you waited as it rang.

“He-llo~?” The singsong voice that came through the other end was far too amused with itself, more so than usual, and that’s how you knew he knew why you were calling.

“Jung Yunho you better be thankful you knocked up my sister because if it weren’t for the babies in her womb I would fly myself across the Pacific and flay you alive,” you seethed through gritted teeth.

In true unbothered fashion, your brother in law only laughed at your threat. “Ah, so I take it your employee has arrived safely! I’ll have to thank Seokjin for getting him from the airport. Can you give the Kims a pound of the special medium roast as a token of my gratitude?”

“No!” You yelled back, “No! I will not! I’m already beyond frustrated that I’m on this island alone for the entire summer, I’m doing this as a favor because we’re family! I’m not your slave, Yunho! Where was my warning, huh? When were you going to ask if I was okay with you sending some stranger to live in the same house as me, huh?!”

The familiar ache in your chest started to swell, and breathing became difficult. ‘Not now,’ you thought bitterly, ‘Please not right now-’

You curled your free hand into a fist and pressed your nails into your palm, hard, grounding yourself. Yunho’s voice on the phone blurred out and by the time his words started making sense again, you’d already missed what he’d been saying. “I’m not saying you have to like the kid, just show him some hospitality, yeah? You just said it yourself, you didn’t want to be alone this summer, and now you won’t be. I know you’re a good cook so that’s why I told him food would be included. Don’t worry, I’ve already sent some pre-payments to the Kims, so your grocery orders are doubled for the rest of the summer.” His voice went quiet for a second. You rubbed at your temple in frustration, squinting your eyes shut and forcing the mere thought of tears deep back into the recesses of your brain. “Bean? You still there?”

“Don’t get all pretend concerned, Yunho. And stop using my childhood nickname any time you want something from me.” Your voice was quieter now, the intensity of your emotions subsiding, but the betrayal you felt still running strong. “Fine. I’ll tolerate him. But there better be a case of wine in next week’s groceries to make this bearable.”

“Done and done! You’re gonna love him Bean, he’s really great. He’ll be good company.” The continued use of your childhood nickname from anyone other than your sister always gave you pause.

“I said tolerate not befriend. There’s a difference,” you clarified quickly. A knock at the door startled you, and you jumped and looked to see Jin standing by the front door, a roll of wooden stakes under his arm. You rolled your eyes and waved your arm to shoo him away, pointing at the phone pressed to your ear. “Look, Yunho, I don’t know what you’re hoping to see me get out of this, but if he drives me insane I can’t promise that he’ll walk away from this unscathed.”

His laugh echoed through the receiver and reverberated against your skin. “I just think it would do you some good to have some human interaction, that’s all. Your sister too. She says hi, by the way,” he added softly, “And so do the little ones.”

You scoffed. Yunho always brought up your sister as a way of diffusing your temper. He knew it would always work. “They’re still in embryonic fluid, they can’t talk and they certainly don’t have cognitive function.” Sometimes you wondered if even Yunho had that with the wild ideas that went through his mind.

“Ever the romantic, you are. You know, soon they’ll be able to think! And they’ll be thinking of their favorite auntie, and how much they can’t wait to meet her! So she can’t be arrested for murder between now and when they’re born, because babies can’t go to prison!”

“I’m telling your sister you said that,” you challenged. With an exhale, you did your best to let go of the frustration and tension inside and politely ended the phone call. You were trying to clear your head and collect yourself before heading back outside when you heard a yell that sounded all too much like Jin’s voice.

“What fresh hell—” you started, shuffling back outside in the direction of the commotion where you saw Jin, somewhat struggling under the weight of two bags of fertilizer, and Johnny, now with a baseball cap turned backwards on his head, easily hoisting a stack of four bags without slouching.  

Your eyebrow ticked up upon the realization that it was almost seventy pounds that he was slinging around like it was nothing. “Anywhere specific you want these?” He asked innocently, looking up at where you stood on the lanai just outside the door. You almost cursed him out when he blinked at you twice.

You pointed your left arm down the hill, the opposite direction of the way to the barn. “Shed. Next to the vegetable garden.” You wrinkled your nose at him. “And lose the hat. Or at least don’t wear it backwards. Makes you look like an ass.”

Johnny’s mouth hung open for a moment before he hummed and winked. “You got it, Boss! Come on handsome, if you can carry those good looks you can carry some dirt,” he called back to Jin, who was currently grumbling about how manual labor wasn’t a part of his delivery arrangement.

The hairs on your arm stood up on edge as you watched Johnny laugh deeply as he ambled his way in the direction you’d pointed. The thirty three pound menace next to you whined and wagged its tail, panting as it went from watching you to watching Johnny’s retreating figure. You looked down and made eye contact. “If I survive this, I’m going to kill Yunho.”

✧ ✧ ✧

There was no case of wine in the grocery deliveries the following week. The reasoning Yunho gave was that per Jin’s investigation, the liquor stores were all out of your favorite wine, so there was no point in sending you a sub par alternative. It was absolute crap, but you had better things to do than chew out your brother in law over the phone. Took way more energy than it was worth.

So far, Johnny was making good on his word and earning his keep. At first, you’d tried avoiding him as much as possible, intentionally waking up hours ahead of him and starting your day when the sun rose. You never made much noise in the mornings, the loudest thing you did was make coffee, and lately you’d opted for a pour over versus pulling shots of espresso. You weren’t personally one for breakfast, choosing just coffee and maybe a piece of fruit instead. This morning you felt a little hungrier than usual, so you thought you’d get yourself a bowl of cereal. Peering into your pantry, you saw that on the shelf where there had been a stash of cereal boxes, there was now nothing.

“Where the fuck are my cocoa pebbles?” You swore in shock, not realizing you weren’t alone in the kitchen.

“Shit sorry, I ate the last of those yesterday.”

You whirled around to see Johnny, still seemingly half asleep and with some gnarly bedhead, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. His lips were so perfectly pouty, one small part of your brain almost thought he looked cute like this.

But no, he wasn’t cute, he was a thief— he’d stolen all of your cereal stash. “Did you seriously eat through four boxes in a week?” You asked incredulously.

“It was three and a quarter! And yeah I don’t know, I’m always hungry and just one bowl of cereal isn’t filling enough, so I usually have two, or three...” He mumbled, voice trailing off as he rubbed a hand behind his head sheepishly.

You snorted. And then a thought came across you. “Johnny,” you said calmly, the feeling of his name on your tongue foreign and strange. Was this the first time you’d addressed him by name since his arrival? You couldn’t remember. “Do you not know how to cook?”

He hummed thoughtfully for a second. “No-pe!” He popped the p sound in the word. How was he this cheerful, even first thing in the morning? “I mean, I can like, boil water and cook pasta and stuff like that. I think I successfully grilled pork belly once, though it was probably doused in too much oil and too many spices. My college experience was funded almost exclusively on instant dinners and takeout for two years, and then for the second half one of my roommates was an actual chef, so, no one was allowed in the kitchen ‘cept for him.”

“Honestly, I am shocked that you haven’t perished in some tragically strange idiotic accident yet,” you sighed and shuffled to the fridge, pulling out a carton of eggs and a pack of bacon. You grabbed a frying pan from the cabinet under the stove and clicked the burner on, reaching for the oil bottle that lived on the counter top and drizzling some in the pan.

Johnny shuffled closer to inspect what you were doing and let out a gasp of appreciation. “You’re making me eggs and bacon?”

“I’m making me eggs and bacon,” you corrected, “But I guess I’ll make enough for you too,” you said as you peeled the strips off the packaging and placed them into the pan with a sizzle. You reached for a few eggs and cracked four into the pan directly, cocked your head at the amount of food, and then grabbed two more eggs and added them in before taking a fork and scrambling them all together, adding salt and white pepper to the bubbling liquid. You glanced up at Johnny, still watching you, slightly curious. “I don’t trust you. You say you’re an adult but you eat like a teenage boy still. There’s never any leftovers.” After a few minutes you flipped the strips of bacon over and then quickly chopped up a green onion and scraped it onto the scramble just before the eggs finished cooking.

Johnny watched you the whole time, and you felt only slightly uneasy under his gaze. When you turned off the stove after plated your food and stepping away to pour yourself some coffee and he didn’t move, you gestured at the pan in a fashion as if to silently ask him ‘What?’

“Oh!” He gasped out lightly, springing into action and plating the food for himself. You hadn’t bothered to sit down at the table, instead holding the plate in front of you as you leaned against the counter and ate. Johnny followed your lead, taking a bite and groaning audibly in enjoyment at he chewed. He smiled and his eyes shone, almost sparkling. You watched him curiously for a moment before he mumbled out “Your cooking is really good! It uh, reminds me of my mom’s. She’s a great cook.”

You kept your lips tightly shut at the apparent compliment. “It’s just eggs, you weirdo. Finish up and do the dishes. When you’re done meet me by the shed. Today you’re stripping off the old paint and removing any of the rotting boards and disposing of them,” you instructed while placing your empty plate in the sink. His tasks for the day were the next phase in slowly rebuilding the dilapidated shed on the west side of the property to make it useful for storage of all the tools you used to tend to the fruit trees and vegetable garden nearby.

He flashed a smile at you and gave a mock salute. “Aye-aye, captain, I am at your service.”

“Oh shut up,” you grumbled, downing more of your coffee before trudging off.

It was going to be a long summer.

✧ ✧ ✧

“I’m telling you Wendy, I’m going to need an alibi, I really am going to murder my brother in law.”

“What, for giving you live-in eye candy for the summer and hinting that he thinks you need to get laid?”

“Ugh, no, that’s not— hold up, you don’t agree with him, do you?”

The sound of your best friend’s laughter through the phone had you dragging your hands over your face and pulling down at your eyelids dramatically, as if she could see your reaction.

On Thursdays, you finished up your work for the day around 4pm so you could pull up a chair next to the rotary phone and make time for the weekly scheduled phone call with Wendy. She’d insisted on the arrangement after you went six days without texting her, which you’d insisted was because service was spotty, but she’d accurately called you out on being cranky and stewing by yourself.

You and Wendy had met during your freshman year of college. By graduation, you’d lived together for three years, and made a vow to move to the same city together post grad, hence why she was still your roommate now— or was, seeing as you were on the island instead of back in the two bedroom apartment you shared. There was a five hour timezone difference between Hawaii and Chicago, so you’d figured out a schedule that worked for both of you. The calls had a tendency to last for several hours, and depending on how much wine you’d drink while on the phone with her would include bathroom breaks and you inevitably swearing at whatever you were cooking for dinner than night.

“Honey, please. I love you. Dearly, and against all other advice, you’re my best friend— but you need to get laid. You haven’t been this tense since our last finals week of senior year. And clearly you’re not opposed to the idea of Eye Candy banging your brains out, otherwise you wouldn’t have described him as, and I quote, ‘dumb hot and stupidly ripped’. When are you gonna send me a photo so I have something better to work with?”  

“Okay but are you sure you’re not the sexually frustrated one here and you’re just trying to live vicariously through me?”

Wendy’s hum sounded through the line. “I mean, can’t we both be desperately horny and in need of getting some? It’s not ideal but it is possible. Plus, I’m not the one that didn’t pack her vibrator—”

You let out a whine interrupting her as you leaned back in your chair, swirling the wine in your glass a few times as you held the phone to your ear with your shoulder. “Shut up stop reminding me! I regret it but no I’m not letting you send me a new one, especially not with a guy living with me. Come on, my stories are boring, it’s the same thing every day. I wake up, I feed the dog, I tell him what to do and then I hide away doing my own chores. When are you gonna tell me more about that girl you were seeing— what was her name, Joo-something?”

“Nice try, we’re not changing the subject with my dating life. Seriously, babe, you should just think about it.”

“And what, make it awkward for the rest of the summer? No thanks,” you shot her idea down quickly.

“I’m willing to bet money you’ll cave before the end of the summer. Plus, who doesn’t love a good ol’ summer fling? And who says you ever have to see him again once it’s all over?”

As much as you’d loathe to admit it, Wendy had a bit of a point there. “Cute, but you and I both know I’m too high strung for a temporary fling. Plus, I’m not in the mood to catch feelings right now.”

“If I find a way to replenish your wine supply, would that help?”

You groaned dramatically once more. “Not with the sexual frustration, but with my overall wellbeing, yes, yes it would.”

Wendy squealed on the other end of the phone. “Ha! So you admit it, you are sexually frustrated!”

“Woman, when in the years that you’ve known me have I not been at least some kind of frustrated?” You acknowledged.

Your best friend laughed in agreement, understanding she wasn’t going to get much more out of you about Johnny, and began a lengthy and detailed story about her last three dates with a girl she’d met through a friend of a friend. As you listened to how her voice held a dreamlike quality to it when she talked about her, you couldn’t help the pang of jealousy you felt and a sinking feeling in your gut that you’d been lying through your teeth earlier, and that maybe, subconsciously, you did want to catch feelings.

Maybe.

✧ ✧ ✧

“So… is there a story or a reason why you’re here instead of Yunho?”

You lifted your head from your focused task of sorting out the peaberry beans from the regular beans. It was tedious, time consuming, annoying as all hell, and made you want a drink stiffer than the coffee that you were certain made up more of your body fluids than blood or water did at this point. “Yes,” you said curtly after studying his face for a minute, not providing any further explanation. Johnny had his hands in his pockets and pursed his lips, nodding for a moment where he stood in the entrance to the barn.

You had set up your mad scientist level organization for the process all across the concrete floor of the refinished barn. Over the last week, Johnny had finished replacing the boards on the siding of the shed, stained the wood, and sealed it with a protective coat. He even managed to remove all the broken glass from the windows without sustaining any injuries, which you hadn’t thought possible for him. This morning you had him weed the vegetable garden, prune back the hedges along the back side of the house, and clean the deck of the lanai. How did he possibly still have any energy left? He was definitely a harder worker than you’d first given him credit for— you shook your head, not wanting to continue a spiral on Johnny and any detailed thoughts about him.

Back to your task at hand.

The harvest had been divided into several metal basins of five pounds of beans each, and in front of each basin you’d placed two dishes on either side. The point was to be able to weigh how many beans ended up being peaberry from each five pounds of harvest, and to see if you could leverage a steady average from the yield and better plan for how many pounds of the limited roast you could advertise for and set the price per pound accordingly. You wore a face mask and nylon disposable gloves while sorting, and despite being an annoying task, after a while it became a way for you to zone out and let the hours pass by. When the dishes were empty and you first started sorting them, there was a distinct echo of the small beans hitting the metal dish over and over again, until enough beans were lining the bottom that it started to dull the noise.

“Sigh.”

A slight puff of air washed over you. Did he just say the word ‘sigh’ out loud? And was he hovering over your shoulder?

“Can I help you?” You asked, pausing your sorting for only a moment.

“Isn’t it my job to ask you that question? I’m not some layabout, I am trying to earn my keep, you know,” Johnny said in response, rubbing his hands together and eyeing the basin of beans in front of him. You were almost inclined to hand it to him. Over the last four weeks, you’d gotten a lot of decent work out of him, even if you did feel somewhat micro-manage-y half the time with the tasks you did give him. “Okay, how does this work?”

You groaned exaggeratedly and excessively, rolling your eyes. When you didn’t answer, he reached forward and plucked a single coffee bean from the basin and examined it closely. “Hey, this one’s funny looking!”

“Don’t touch them with your bare hands, that’s just going to waste them.” You swatted the bean out of his hand and then looked at your own gloves and sighed. “If you’re insisting on helping, fine. But you need sanitary gear to handle them. Go wash your hands, there’s masks and gloves by the sink,” you grumbled, standing up and taking off your own gloves to dispose of them and replace them with a fresh pair.

Johnny followed obediently, trailing behind you a little too innocently for someone of his size. “Yes, the beans still need to be roasted and that’ll kill any bacteria, but I just like to be extra cautious, okay? Because it’s a mutation there’s no rule to how much of a yield I’ll get with each harvest so I don’t like wasting even a single bean,” you reasoned, settling back down and folding your legs back at the now half-sorted metal bowl.

“So, we’re just sorting the weird ones from the normal ones?” He asked while picking up another peaberry bean, this time with gloved hands and a mask over his mouth and nose.

You took a quick glance and nodded to confirm that yes, the bean in his hand was one of the weird ones he should be looking for. “They’re called peaberry. Normally, a coffee cherry has two seeds in it, or beans. Those two seeds mature in the center of the cherry and you get one flat side and one side touching it. Sometimes people call them ‘flat beans’ but those are the ‘normal’ beans, as you said,” you explained, sifting through your bowl rather quickly. “But the peaberry ones only have one bean inside. The bean is round, so that’s where the name ‘peaberry’ comes from, because—“

“Because it’s round so it looks like a pea, oh I get it! That’s funny,” he laughed, examining the rounded bean in front of him. “Okay, got it, so we’re sorting the peaberry from the flat beans?”

“You proud of your new vocab words?” You snorted, listening for the well known tink of a bean hitting the empty metal bowls. He giggled in acknowledgement.

You worked in relative silence, a small rhythm growing between the two of you. Johnny worked at about half the speed you did, but you couldn’t knock him for it, as it had taken you a while to pick up the pace when you first started hand sorting like this.

“How do you even know Yunho?” You finally asked. Four weeks since he’d arrived, and you’d never bothered to get to know him well enough to listen to the full story of how he’d ended up here.

Johnny shifted in his seated position, clearly a little taken aback that you’d bothered to ask him anything, given your track record. “Oh. Met him in Chicago when I was home visiting. At a local coffee shop, where my buddy Jaehyun is the manager. I went to go bother Jaehyun at work and he was just, shootin’ the shit with one of his coffee suppliers who was doing a visit. That supplier was Yunho. Started talking about how he owned the farm where the beans were grown, and that he wasn’t going to be able to spend the summer out there like he’d planned, so he was looking for some reliable help to uh, take care of things. Mentioned someone else would be on site and in charge, but offered the whole ‘room and board in exchange for copious amounts of physical labor’.”

“And you said yes? Just like that, no questions asked?” It seemed a little too easy, but then again, Johnny had proved to be a little too easygoing.

He shrugged. “Well, yeah. That’s kinda the point of my whole year. Just, go with the flow.” You glanced over, but Johnny was looking down, focused on the task at hand.

You nodded and hummed and turned back to your own basin to continue sorting. A few beats passed by before you couldn’t help yourself— “You’ve said that before. ‘Go with the flow’, or that you ‘had nothing else going on’. What do you mean by that?”

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Johnny’s ears perk up, followed by movement of his cheeks implying the curve of a slight smile. “I’m on a gap year, I guess is what the kids would say. Or maybe sabbatical? Though it’s not like I have any tenure enough to qualify for the real meaning of the term. But yeah, anyways— year off from work. Not getting paid or anything, but, when it’s over if I want it, my old job is waiting for me.”

“How come? That seems so—”

“Impulsive?”

You frowned. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he repeated, but not in a mocking manner— it was in agreement. “I guess the best way to explain it is this: I was a huge workaholic. I’ve only had my one job post grad after studying business, and I woke up one morning a month before my twenty-fifth birthday and realized it was sucking the soul out of me. It was all I ate, slept, breathed, and it wasn’t even what I wanted to be doing with my life, I realized.”

His pain started sounding all too familiar. “What is it you wanted to do instead, then?”

Even under the mask covering the lower half of his face, his smile reached his eyes. “Photography. I got into an art school when I was applying to colleges, but it just seemed so… risky. I would’ve had to take out loans and instead I got almost a full ride for a bigger university, so I went for that instead. Studied business, managed to grind through undergrad and grad school in four years and walked out with a combined BS and MBA. Took classes every summer to make it happen. I think after graduation, I went back to my parents house and passed out and slept for twenty-three hours straight,” he laughed, clearly recalling a specific memory. “I felt really accomplished when it was over, and even had the job offer already lined up. But I wish I had had more courage to study what I was truly passionate about.

“So after an almost three year long stint at the company and a vested 401k, I decided to take a year off to just, travel the world a bit. I grinded so hard through college I never got the chance to do study abroad, so I guess I wanted to make up for that? I never used to act on impulse or follow my heart, so, that was the goal for this year. To do only that.”

His words struck you differently. This was a whole new side to Johnny that you really weren’t expecting— not that you had a particularly three dimensional view of him to begin with. “And your heart lead you here… to my brother-in-law’s coffee farm?”

He laughed again, trying to hide just how thrilled he was that you were actually engaging in a full on conversation with him. “Well, sort of. My year off started back in February, day before my birthday. Got on a plane and did a few months backpack trip around Asia. I had no clue what would be next, thought maybe Australia, maybe Europe, but when I got off the plane in Chicago to see my mom and regroup on my packing, I decided to go straight from the airport to surprise and bother Jaehyun at his coffee shop. That day I met Yunho. That was a little over six weeks ago. And now I’m here, with you.”

There was something about the way he said that that didn’t sit well in your stomach— with you, like it was a good thing, like he liked it. You didn’t deign him with a response to the end of his story. Like an extension of the current state of your mind, your hands were reaching, feeling around for something, but you were only met with the flat surface of the bottom of the basin.

You looked down to see the last of the metal bowls was empty. Somehow, you’d managed to sort through all twenty pounds of coffee beans. You pulled the face mask down under your chin as you stared at the metal surface for a moment before standing abruptly and turning on your heels.

Confused, Johnny called your name out after you questioningly. “It’s getting late and I’m hungry. You uh, bag up the peaberry and set it aside and then wash out all the metal trays,” you gave him his next set of tasks quickly to make your escape back to the farmhouse to put some distance between the two of you.

A little over an hour later, you’d put together a curry on the stove with some stew meat and a base that included apples, carrots, potatoes, and melted dark chocolate for a more mellow sweet taste to balance it out. You thought about the first time Johnny complimented your cooking when it was just eggs, and how he’d continued to compliment it with every new meal you’d make. You wouldn’t call yourself a chef by any means, thinking that enjoying your go-to recipes would be a more acquired taste, and were in the midst of serving yourself when Johnny came inside with the dog trailing behind him. You didn’t bother saying much, you never did when you’d finished cooking a meal; just a grunt acknowledging his presence and a head nod at the food before you took your bowl and went through the door to go sit on the lanai by yourself. Absent-mindedly, you whistled for the dog to follow you.

Johnny kept to himself that night, eating at the kitchen table, content with looking up out the bay window to see you hand feeding small chunks of meat from your bowl to the dog, even going so far as to pet its head. He shook his head to himself thinking about how you pretended to be so opposed to the dog, and how you still hadn’t given it a name, and smiled as he took another bite.

✧ ✧ ✧

At five weeks, you stopped watching Johnny like a hawk, and started giving him more lengthy tasks that you, quite frankly, just didn’t want to do yourself. Though, if you were being honest, every task you gave him was one you didn’t want to do yourself.

Such as his current one, which was to prep the ground for a new row of sapling fruit trees. You’d walked down from the farmhouse over the hill to the open area next to a row of lemon and guava trees where you’d set him to the task of digging a row of four foot wide, four foot deep holes. The week after next, Jin’s delivery would be a much larger one, and include a number of sapling fruit trees from his family’s farm— rambutans, limes, and mangos, to name a few. You wanted to make sure the holes got dug and the irrigation system set in place properly well in advance.

When you came to a stop at the end of the row of freshly dug holes in the ground you blinked once. Twice. A third time. The sight before you was impossible to comprehend. Because not only was Johnny finishing digging the last of ten massive holes having taken less than three hours to do so, but he had been digging them shirtless.

“What. What?” You asked, staring, eyes wide and brow furrowed.

“Huh?” He asked, looking up from the bottom of the last hole and swishing his head to get his bangs, matted with sweat against his forehead, out of his face. The sun had crested over to this side of the hill now and it was blisteringly hot out. Standing in direct sunlight, doing physical labor, obviously he’d worked up a sweat.

You had to tear your eyes away from the shine on his torso and return them to just his face. “Where the fuck is your shirt?”

He pointed to where a lump of fabric was off to the side next to a water bottle. “It’s fucking hot out, I was dying,” he reasoned.

“You’re hot,” you mumbled under your breath, turning on your heel to give yourself reprieve from the onslaught that was Johnny’s unexpected number of defined abdominal muscles that were usually covered by cotton t shirts.

“What was that?” He called, squinting up into the sun from the bottom of the hole.

“I said, put a god damn shirt on before you come back in my house,” you called back, already wrapping your arms around yourself and heading back to the farmhouse. “And dinner’ll be ready in twenty, so finish up,” you added, trudging off before he could respond.

What you would have seen if you’d turned back around was an open mouthed smile curl across his face, as Johnny hummed to himself at the joy he felt for this, the first time you’d bothered to warn him when dinner would be ready.

✧ ✧ ✧

Ever since you’d seen Johnny shirtless, you’d be restless.

Well, restless was the polite word. The word to better describe what you’d been feeling was… frustrated?

Distracted? Peeved? Worked up?

Horny.

The word you were avoiding was horny.

Wendy had been the one to get you to admit it during your last weekly phone call. You told her about the shirtless incident and the first thing she asked was if you had plans to throw out the washing machine and instead start doing your laundry on Johnny’s abs, which did not help your predicament any further. It was also Wendy who had pointed out that you’d been alone on this farm for almost two months with a dog and a man too pretty for his own good, and despite how he represented everything you were annoyed at in life at the moment, after seeing his half naked figure, it would only be natural for you to have been a little turned on. And a little turned on was exactly where you were— for the last week, you had been going on runs every night to release the excess pent up energy you suddenly had.

The last time you exercised this much you were still in college. Back then you went on hour long runs through the city with your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ because it was the only way you weren’t constantly bombarded with an on onslaught of messages from classmates, friends, family, or your on campus job that took up way too much of your time. And now, you found yourself returning to old habits, this time because what, you were too proud to just rub one out like the rest of humanity? (That phrasing, too, was courtesy of your best friend, when she again reminded you of your failure to pack your vibrator.)

After another eight miles up and down the road outside the farm that ran along the island’s coast your legs felt like absolute jello when you finished, but your head was empty enough that you were able to return to the property and exist near Johnny in peace. You walked by the barn on your way up to the farmhouse, sticking your head inside briefly to look for him. You didn’t hear any noise, and didn’t find him at first glance, but didn’t think much of it as you went back inside.

The dog was already in the kitchen, so that should have been your first clue. You opened the fridge and peered inside, pulling out a number of assorted ingredients to make a lemon cream sauce for pasta with chicken.

You set a pot of water to boil, turned the oven on to preheat, and began melting butter, garlic, oil, and a variety of herbs in a sauce pan. That plus the low hum of the overhead fan meant just enough noise that you couldn’t hear the water running from the small shower on the other side of the house, and you didn’t think twice as the heat cast off by the appliances made you feel even stuffier post-run, and you peeled your shirt off your body and rolled the waistband of your shorts down an inch, pressing your bare feet flat against the hardwood flooring to try and get some semblance of cooling relief.

It was only a few moments later, with the water boiling and pasta cooking inside and the chicken already seasoned and in the oven, when you peered over the bubbling sauce pan and dipped the edge of your pinky into the mixture to bring just a taste up to your mouth. Just like you’d hoped, it was light and had a kick of citrus to it from the lemon, but not so much that it was overpowering. You closed your eyes and hummed in appreciation as you licked the sauce off, which, in retrospect, probably sounded far too much like a moan for your own good.

“Jesus fuck—”

And suddenly, you realized you weren’t alone inside the house.

You screamed at first from the shock of being startled by the noise, and then again when it registered in your brain that Johnny was standing in the kitchen, hair dripping wet, chest bare and abdominal muscles just as defined as the last time you’d seen them, face flushed in some sort of embarrassment with a bath towel wrapped around his hips.

Johnny was fresh out of the shower, nearly naked in your kitchen, clutching his clothes balled up in his left hand.

You scream again.

“What are you doing?!” You shrieked out, raising your voice over the dog’s excited barking at the commotion the two of you had begun making.

He stammered for a moment, clearly frozen in place. “I was just! You were gone, and I was done for the day, so I took a shower but I— I forgot my change of clothes in my room and these towels are small and just— Jesus why are you wearing so little clothing?!”

Your fury returned full force at the comment. “Why am I wearing so little clothing? You’re in a towel for fuck’s sake! This is my house, I live here! I should be the one asking you where your clothes are!”

“They’re here, in my hand!” He yelled back, waving the bundle around frantically. “I just said I forgot them when I went to shower!”

Your eyes bugged out of you head as your gaze traveled down, taking in the entirety of the figure before you and— oh.

“Are you… are you hard right now?” You asked in bewilderment.

The way the color drained out of Johnny’s face and the speed with which he moved the bundle of clothing to hold it over the space between his legs answered your question.

“Oh, my god.” Exasperated, you slammed your eyes shut and held your hands up by your sides. “What the fuck, John.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean— fuck, shit I made it weird— please don’t get mad, I can totally fix this,” he started spewing apologies, and you heard him take two steps closer to you. “Wait, were you looking at my dick?”

“Ah!” You spat out, turning away from him. His question was valid but you had no intention of acknowledging it. “Out! Get out of my house, go… somewhere else until that goes away or you can, I don’t know, take care of it!” You instantly thought of the implication of your words and then yelled again. “No— don’t— fuck, don’t do that! Jesus for the love of god don’t take care of it while I’m standing here—” you were stammering and beyond flustered. How the fuck were you supposed to talk to someone who had just gotten a fucking boner by looking at you, sweaty in a sports bra, while sucking a cream colored substance off the tip of your pinky?

You exhaled deeply, eyes still closed. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to go to your room. I am going to finish cooking my dinner. You will be absolutely silent until you hear me leave. I will be staying at the condo for the next week. You will either ration the leftovers or fend for yourself, I do not care. Got it?” You signed out again, eyes flicking open. Johnny held his bundle of clothes in front of his legs and nodded his head once, not bothering with any comeback before he shuffled to the guest room and shut the door quietly.

It took another twenty minutes for the meat to finish cooking and the dish to be full prepared. How you managed to keep your head empty and shut off your internal monologue during that time, you’ll never know, but you were thankful for it nonetheless. You packed two servings into a Tupperware container for yourself before shoving some clothes in a duffle bag and grabbing the keys to the jeep you hated driving. It was only about ten minutes down the road to the condo, but it was almost fifteen miles, so you figured this was the lesser of two evils. You whistled for the dog to follow you, and it was all too excited to jump in the passenger seat of the car. The farmhouse was now dry of liquor, what with Yunho not making good on his promise a month ago and your weekly wine dates with Wendy, but you knew the condo definitely had some spirits stashed somewhere in a cabinet. You were going to need that and a nice hot bath to destress after that encounter.

Meanwhile, Johnny sunk down on to the floor inside the guest room, his back pressed against the door. When he heard the sound of the jeep’s engine turning over, he sighed in relief and ran a hand through his hair. There were no better words to describe it: he was truly and utterly fucked.

✧ ✧ ✧

You stayed at the condo only for three days, and did little other than sleep, binge watch some TV since there was better electricity and internet here, and eat your way through slightly stale bags of chips and frost bitten freezer dinners that were months old. Because you couldn’t just open the door and let the dog out to run through the property for whatever exercise or bathroom needs it had, you had to actually walk it with a leash and everything. You paid less attention to how domestic the action of clipping the leash on to the collar you’d found in an unopened delivery package on the kitchen table was, and thought more about how slothful you’d felt over the last 60-odd hours of self isolation, especially after two months of working outdoors every day.

It was childish to keep hiding from Johnny. It’s not like you could prove that he’d gotten hard looking at you, and really, shouldn’t you take it as sort of a compliment? (Well, maybe you wouldn’t go that far.)

It was Monday when you returned to the farm, parking the jeep back by the barn and hip checking the door shut after the dog went running off in search of Johnny. It found him carrying pruned branches of trees down to the area where you burned excess brush, and you could hear the excited sound of his voice at the return of the creature as you walked slowly down the hill towards him.

“I missed you! It’s been so lonely without you, but I guess I’m glad your mommy had you with her, huh?” He cooed at the dog, rubbing its face in his hands after dropping the bundle of branches and flopping its ears from side to side. Hearing Johnny refer to you as a mother, even of the animal, had you grimacing.

“Ew,” you said, making your presence known. He stood up suddenly, possibly just a little embarrassed.

“Oh! You’re uh, you’re back.” You nodded, lips pressed together in a flat line. Your hands were full, carrying two takeout coffees from a shop down near the condo you’d stopped at on the way back. You’d forgotten how much the farm felt like a different planet, a different space in time almost, because of how isolated it felt. The act of ordering a coffee to go rather than making it yourself in the morning was equal parts bewildering and soothing.

You had no idea what compelled you to order an iced americano along with the cortado you’d gotten for yourself. You didn’t really know much about Johnny beyond the one conversation you’d had about how he ended up meeting your brother in law and crashing on the farm with you in the first place. But somehow, ordering the drink had felt right, and you thought of it as a potential peace offering to cut the tension.

“This is yours,” you said plainly after some thought, trying to remove any and all emotion from your tone.

He blinked a few times before taking three steps towards you and reaching his hand out to take the drink. He mumbled a soft thank you and sipped without bothering to ask what was inside.

“You’re just going to take the drink a stranger offers you, no questions asked?”

“Ooh!” His eyes perked up when he tasted the coffee. “I mean, I’ve never questioned any of the food you’ve made me so far, why start now? Besides,” he shrugged, taking another sip, “I trust you.”

You snorted. “That’s a stupid thing to do.”

Johnny laughed again, eyes crinkling at the sides. Your mind wandered briefly to a half formed thought about how endearing that was. “Maybe so, but despite your efforts to make me an enemy, I think you’re actually a really good person. You even guessed my favorite coffee drink, so that has to count for something.” He nodded to the paper cup in your hand. “What’s your poison?”

“Cortado,” responded curtly, ignoring his comments that were cutting a bit too deep for ten in the morning.

“Ah, a strong espresso pull with a balance of steam milk and a touch of foam. Nice choice. I can definitely appreciate one, but I’m a little too impatient and drink them too quickly— I think that’s why I love americanos so much, because it lasts a little longer.”

You tilted you head to the side, puzzled. “Wait. You… actually know things about coffee?”

“I mean, yeah,” he laughed, “What do you think I spent three hours talking with Yunho about the day we met? I did my time as a barista in college. Free coffee every shift was hard to pass up when you’re doing almost a double course load every other semester. I’ve always been curious about the growing and roasting process, and I know a lot of people do home roasting as a hobby but I just never made the time to explore it.”

Well, duh, you thought, that actually made sense. “Oh god, and here I’ve been making my lame ass bitter pour over all summer— you know how to pull a shot of espresso then I take it? You’ve seen the La Marzocco on the counter, how come you’ve never used it?”

He pouted his lips out in a flat line and shrugged comically. “Dunno. I mean, I’m a guest and a worker first, and it’s not mine, so, I didn’t wanna make any assumptions. But if this is an open invitation to use it, I’m more than happy to accept.”

You chewed on the inside of your mouth for a moment. You could feel it in the air as the hairs on your arms stood up slightly, goosebumps running down your skin. You hoped in wasn’t too noticeable. Maybe this was it— maybe it really was time to extend an olive branch and have more than half a conversation with him every four days. “It’s a little older and sort of temperamental, but it’s still a good machine. I’ll… show you the quirks tomorrow morning, or whenever you want something to drink,” you offered.

It was then that you discovered this: Johnny was not a great actor. He wore his heart on his sleeve. You figured this to be true because he could barely contain the smile that spread across his face, and the energetic nod he gave, and the mild soft exhale (squeal?) of excitement. You rolled your eyes gently and turned away, drink in hand. “When it cools down later after dinner, I’m roasting tonight. You’re welcome to join.”

You gave him the benefit of not bearing witness to the fist pump he made as you walked away.

Dinner that night was stir fried ground pork with carrots and zucchini from the garden served over rice. It was one of your comfort dishes, easy to make and easy to clean up after, since it used only two pans. As soon as you’d finished eating, this time sitting at the table together with Johnny, he’d cleared the dishes and got to cleaning up right away. You stretched your arms overhead and leaned back in your chair far enough to crack your back slightly with a loud pop.

“Oof, that sounded like it felt good,” he laughed from the sink. You hummed in agreement. “So what’d you do before this? Desk job hunched over a computer like the rest of us?”

“Mmm something like that. You may have been bored out of your mind in business, but I sold my soul years ago to work in advertising.”

“Why does that like, fit?” He asked, turning the water off and drying the pan you’d used for cooking by hand.

“You saying I have no soul?” You challenged.

He shrugged. “Hey, you said it, not me. We’re both just cogs in the machine that is late stage capitalism, I guess.”

You didn’t know how deeply you wanted to get into it with Johnny just yet. Maybe eventually, but, not right now. “Yeah, well, I was just a Project Manager, not like a Copywriter or anything. Did you know Yunho was a staff Art Director before he switched to the coffee business full time? We used to work at the same agency a few years back.”

Johnny snapped his fingers and pointed at you. “Ah, that’s right! I remember him saying something about that, made the same jokes about having no soul. You two are a lot alike for not being related by blood.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong; sometimes you wondered if you’d become closer with Yunho that you were with your sister at this point. “Enough about that. If you’re done follow me, it’s probably cool enough to fire up the roaster. I just want to do a test batch of like, five pounds with the regular beans to see how this year’s harvest takes to our standard roast,” you explained, heading to the door and slipping on your sneakers. “Don’t let the dog out, it gets scared from the loud noises and I don’t need it freaking out.”

Johnny dried his hands and followed after you to the barn. You flicked on the lights and went straight for the sink to pull your hair out of your face, wash your hands, and put on a pair of gloves and a mask. Johnny followed your lead, even going so far as to tie up the top layer of his hair on top of his head. “Hey look! It’s like an apple,” he bobbed his head from side to side to make the tiny ponytail move back and forth, and you couldn’t help but snort as you tried to suppress your laughter.

“Dork,” was all you said. You went to the storage racks to pick up one of the sorted burlap bags of beans and hoisted it over your shoulder to carry it to a metal prep table where you carefully opened it and began scooping out the green beans and pouring them into a bowl on a metal scale that had been zeroed out. “So  obviously you know that coffee is counted by weight in pounds. That monstrosity,” you jerked your head in the direction of the massive eight foot tall machine in the corner of the room, “Can handle up to twenty-five pounds of beans in the barrel at a time. Because it’s so big, it’s best to not do super small batches, otherwise you risk burning the beans. Since I’m going for five pounds, it’ll be okay, but if I was doing any less I’d use one of the table top roasters, since they have a smaller barrel.” You finished weighing out five pounds and handed the container to him to carry.

You continued explaining the full process of roasting and science behind it as you flipped switches, checked that the exhaust was hooked up properly, and set the dials for the heat and time on the industrial roaster before pulling the door to the funnel open and having Johnny slowly pour the beans inside. “God you’re a fucking giant, I always need a step stool to reach that high,” you commented as he made the reach with ease.

You weren’t kidding when you said the roaster was loud when it was running. Thankfully with the size of the machine and this batch, it was only eleven minutes of the two of you standing just a few feet away in case anything went wrong and you had to hit the emergency stop, holding your hands over your ears to block the sound. Johnny began jokingly exaggerating mouthing something out, and you felt almost like friends as you laughed at his antics. You were never the best at reading lips. Especially not Johnny’s, they were too full and distracting on their own for you to make sense of the mouth shapes. When the machine came to a grinding halt and the noise suddenly stopped, he was still shouting words and his voice echoed around the space in the absence of the noise, “I said, I think you’re— oh, wow, that was fast,” he quickly diverted, catching himself from finishing whatever it was he was about to say.

Your heart skipped a beat at the thought of trying to pry out of him what he was in the process of saying under the protection of the loud noises. You shook it off mentally and showed him how to remove the beans from the roasting chamber. “So you take them out like this, and then they’re still going to be warm for a while, so it’s best to let them rest for a bit. If you were to brew them right away, the flavor might not be what you’re expecting, so if you wait for them to sit for a few days, you’ll notice a considerable difference in the flavor profile—”

You stopped suddenly, a sound in the distance suddenly registering to you. You left Johnny standing there with the roasted coffee in hand and trailed to the edge of the barn and then you heard it more clearly— the sound of the old rotary phone ringing. “Oh, shit,” you swore and took off running back up to the house. The only person who had the number for the landline other than Wendy were Yunho and your sister. Wendy didn’t call you outside of your Thursday night appointments. You did the math in your head— it was the end of June, your sister’s due date wasn’t til the end of August, but early labor was always something you’d heard about, especially with more than one baby.

Hands shaking, you got to the phone on what could have been the last ring and panted out a greeting of Yunho’s name, already knowing it was him.

“Oh thank god you answered, I’ve been calling for the last twenty minutes, where were you?” He chastised immediately. You felt uneasy at the tone in his voice.

You stammered in response. “I— we were in the barn, I was roasting so I couldn’t hear the phone— what’s wrong? Is she okay?”

Yunho sighed out heavily and was quiet. “She’s going to be okay, but there was a… scare,” you could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “I don’t want to freak you out, but I don’t want to not tell you either. She slipped getting out of the shower, landed on her hip. Started having lower abdominal pain right after. We thought maybe it was going to be now, but, she’s fine. The doctors think they were phantom contractions? Whatever they were they’re gone now. The babies are fine, but she’ll most likely be in the hospital until the due date. If she starts experiencing any kind of contractions between now and then, though, they’ll want to induce labor.” You could tell he was still stressed and worried, but you nodded and listened as he explained some of the medical details a bit further. “Anyways, all this to say, the next time I call, it could be to tell you that you’re an auntie.”

From the moment you heard the phone ringing this late at night and calculated that it was almost two in the morning in Chicago, the tightness in your chest had been building. Listening to Yunho speak delicately about your sister’s condition was one thing— you thought it was a sigh of relief when he said that everything was fine, but then it was most certainly not fine when the gravity of his last words really hit you.

“Little Bean are you listening? Is the signal bad? I know the connection isn’t always great—”

You inhaled sharply as the pressure inside came to a head. “Yunho I gotta go,” you gasped out, barely able to make sense of thoughts to get the words out.

Before you could hear his rebuttal you slammed the phone on to the receiver to end the call and covered your face with your hands still in their nylon gloves. Despite standing in an open space, you suddenly felt like the room was spinning and the walls were closing in on you. Out, out, you had to get out—

“Hey, everything okay in here?”

Fuck.

Johnny was standing in the door, a look of concern on his face. You heaved into your hands and choked out a sob, feeling the wetness in your eyes building. No no no, everything was most certainly not okay in here. You shouldn’t have made eye contact, you should have known better, because looking at his face, his stupid perfect face and his genuine care for your wellbeing, it set you free falling over the precipice.

You were spiraling, and hard, and needed to land. It was instinctual, the way you cried out and ran pushing past him before breaking into an all out sprint down the hill to the fruit trees. Your legs barely kept up with the velocity of running at a decline, stopping short of tumbling and falling forward. The only thing that you knew to help this, the thing that had worked for you in the past, and you raced through the grove of trees for the larger one at the very end. It was one of the older trees, well mature and established with its root system, so you could always expect it to produce fruit.

But you’d harvested a large amount of the fruit in the last few weeks from the lower branches, and the only remaining fruit that would be ripe enough for your purposes was on the higher branches just out of reach. Over the sound of your pained sobs, you couldn’t hear Johnny’s approach or him asking what was wrong, your one track mind just trying desperately to jump and reach, fingertips barely brushing on the fruit you were reaching for.

“Hey hey, calm down, what are you—” he started.

“Shut up! Just shut— don’t tell— don’t tell me calm— calm—” you couldn’t make the words make sense, in your head you were screaming don’t tell me to calm down, but the act of translating that into words on your tongue was downright Herculean right now, it just wasn’t happening. Your knees began wobbling and standing too started feeling impossible. The tightness in your chest had expanded to reach your back, and though you were clearly still getting air by the fact that you hadn’t passed out yet, you felt like you weren’t breathing at all. You were crying outright now, tears wet and hot and painful as the sobs escaped your throat.

It didn’t take a genius to figure that you were trying to reach a fruit on a branch just above your wingspan. Johnny placed one large hand against your back gently and reached all the way up, fingers wrapping around what he assumed was the object of your fixation, before twisting and pulling to release it from the tree. “Hey,” he said softly, “This what you need?”

As soon as you made sense of the object in front of you you seized it from his hands, biting directly through the rind of the lemon. A muffled sob came out as your knees buckled and you sank to the ground. The bitter rush of citrus did part of its job, and brought your consciousness back down to earth. But your breathing didn’t steady, and your heart was still pounding, and the tears were still falling.

It wasn’t working, your grounding technique; not like it had the previous times, like the night you’d first gotten the phone call from Yunho saying they weren’t coming, and not like the time you bit into a lemon in the kitchen at work after first getting the phone call that your sister was pregnant, and even the time before that when she told you she and Yunho were moving, or when Yunho had asked you if he could marry your sister. If you were more with it, you would have thought for a moment longer about how all of your largest panic attacks of the last several years seemed to be linked to things about Yunho and your sister. Biting into a whole lemon had been your go-to for years, and suddenly, it wasn’t working.

“Fuck!” You cried out, spitting the lemon into your palms, “Fuck fuck fuck! Why isn’t it— why isn’t it working?!” Your words were absolutely frantic, and you were yelling at yourself more than your companion who, quite frankly, you’d forgotten was even there.

Until you felt a shadow pass over you in the moonlight and a pair of arms enveloping you in an embrace.

The top of your head was pressed against his chest and his hands found their way to the planes of your back and began rubbing soft circles. Softly he tutted out a shushing noise, voice barely above a whisper, steady. “Come on, let it out, I’m right here. I’ve got you, you’re not alone,” he said calmly, “You’re gonna get through it. Try to take a deep breath, that’s good now hold it as long as you can— okay, that’s okay, try again, try to hold on to it and let it out slowly this time.”

You’d never had anyone physically with you and help you through a panic attack before. You’d had them around people in the past, but no one had ever made a move to help you through it— not like this, not like him, not like he was doing right now by attempting to guide your breathing. The one time you had one in front on Wendy, you’d locked yourself in the bathroom and refused to answer her while you came down, and she never pressed you about it afterwards.

You had no idea how much time passed as Johnny held you in his arms, keeping a steady rhythm of his palms on your back and letting you cry it out into the fabric of his shirt, your hands wringing the material so strongly you thought you’d tear holes where your nails were.

One hand traveled to the back of your head and he stroked that too. “I’ve got you, I’m right here,” he said again.

After a longer period of silence, your ears stopped ringing and you could finally make out the chirping of the crickets in the night. You sniffled and rubbed the last of the trails the tears had left on your cheeks into his shirt, mumbling an apology into it.

“Don’t do that,” he said softly, keeping his voice low, almost as if he was afraid he’d scare you off if he raised it any higher. “I mean— haha, don’t apologize. It’s okay, whatever it is, it’ll wash out. If it doesn’t, it’s just a tee shirt, I can always buy another.” His tone was even paced and calm, and in pressing your ear against his chest you could hear the reverberations as he spoke.

The humid summer air was heavy as usual, even this late at night. You don’t know how long you sat there in silence, wrapped in Johnny’s arms listening to his heartbeat, but eventually you acknowledged that your heart was beating in time with his. Whether you liked it or not, he had been the thing to ground you, and not a stupid fucking lemon.

You shifted slightly, making a move to stand, but Johnny stopped you. “Whoa whoa, hang on lemme get ready— okay, hold on to my shoulders, that’s it.” Your fingers dug into his arms as he adjusted his legs and hooked one arm under your knees and the other around your back and stood up, taking you with him.

“Shit,” you mumbled out, head rushing at the quick movement and the realization that your legs were still bent over his arm, and Johnny was now carrying you. “Hey, heavy,” your words were still soft.

“Mmm, nah, nothing I can’t handle,” his response was easy, dismissive of your complaint, but not in a bad way. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to but— anxiety? Panic attack?” You sucked in a breath at the word. You hated that word. That word made you feel weak, even if it was exactly what this was. You dug your nails into his skin slightly on a reflex of bracing yourself, not with this intention of inflicting damage. “Got it. I get it,” he had approached the house and walked to the door, reaching for the handle with the hand under your knees. “I’ve had a few myself. Not recently, but back in college, maybe two or three? Don’t think they were ever as strong as that, though. I tried the lemon trick once, it actually worked pretty well for me. Didn’t make the next time I did a tequila shot all that fun though, couldn’t enjoy citrus for at least a month after that.” His soft laughter shook his chest and you leaned in further. Listening to his voice was comforting. It was keeping you steady. It made you feel safe, and in this moment, you were too tired to think about how you probably should have hated that. “Think you could swallow some water? Rehydrating is important.”

Your head nodded. “Okay, I’m gonna put you down now.” He used his foot to push one of the chairs away from the table and set you down on to the seat gently. The dog was immediately at your knees, whining lowly and attempting to give as many kisses as you’d accept. “Here,” he said gently, crouching down in front of you and holding a glass out. “Drink what can, but not too fast. There you go, that’s it,” his large hand clasped over your knee, thumb rubbing circles on the side. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” you rasped out, voice raw from all the crying earlier.

Johnny smiled softly. “Good, that’s good. Okay, I think you need to get to bed, yeah? Or do you wanna take a shower or something first?” You shook your head. “Okay, just washed your face then?” You nodded. Your conscious monologue was returning, but bringing words from your mind to your mouth was still proving difficult. Johnny didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he offered you his hand. “Need help getting up?”

You answered by gripping on to his hand and using his shoulders to help you stand up. Johnny walked you to your room, holding his arm out for you as a guide. You were able to bear weight on your feet now, and though your steps were slow, you made it to the bathroom to wash your face and and change into sleepwear. Johnny waited by the door, averting his eyes for privacy for you, and returned to your side to help you into bed.

When he leaned over you to pull the sheets up, you reached for his wrist and asked, “Why are you being so nice to me?”

His face went blank before it softened into a smile. “Because. I told you earlier, didn’t I? You’re a good person. Should be simple as that, yeah?”

You didn’t have a response for him, only shifting deeper into the pillows. He turned off the light and retreated to the door frame. “Try and get some rest. Call me if you need me, okay?”

Your head managed a nod, and Johnny finally left, leaving the door to your room slightly ajar. You listened for the sounds of him milling about the house, his footsteps softly shuffling against the floorboards, a few mumbled words to the dog that followed at his heels, until you finally fell asleep.

When you dreamed that night, you dreamt of him, the sound of his voice, and the way your blood felt on fire whenever he looked at you and smiled.

✧ ✧ ✧

Johnny never asked you about the panic attack.

He didn’t bring it up, he didn’t ask what caused it, he didn’t even allude to it in any conversation over the next week. The next day he was just a little bit more gentle with you with the tone and volume of his speaking voice, but when you showed no signs of still be affected from the previous night, he let it go and didn’t bother you about it.

You couldn’t tell if you loved him or hated him for it.

Confusion on your feelings aside, as June came to a close and the morning of July 3rd came, you woke up to the sound of the espresso machine running. Johnny had very quickly proven that he was worth his salt as a barista, even though it had been several years, and had a very nice shot pull. He even figured out the steamer, which was the most finicky part of the machine, and had been making you cortados every morning. That’s what you were sipping now from a metal camper mug, as you walked with him to the shed.

“I think that all that’s left is nailing down that last sheet of roofing and then we’re done,” he hummed cheerfully, inspecting the building. It looked brand new, a marked improvement from the broken windows and bleached paint job it had sported two months ago.

Two months. Was that really how long he’d been here? You didn’t want to think too much about it, about how those two months gone meant you had reached the half way point, and that there were about two months left.

Two months…

“We should celebrate,” he said suddenly, and you looked up puzzled.

“We?”

“Sure!” He exclaimed, “I had no idea what I was doing. I just did what you told me to. This was one of the biggest projects for the summer, right? And plus, not that I care too much for the holiday, but won’t there be fireworks and stuff for the Fourth? Come on, this house has been dry for weeks, let’s go get some booze and live a little, huh?” He prodded your side with his elbow and began needling at you, saying huh, huh, huh over and over until you groaned and relented.

“Fiiiiiine, let’s go before the stores get crowded when everyone realizes everything’s gonna be closed tomorrow.”

The dog was less than pleased that you’d sent it back into the house when you picked up the keys to the jeep. Usually you took it with you, but this time you decided against it, since you weren’t sure how the liquor store would feel with you bringing the stray dog off leash into the store with you.

“All you, big guy,” you said to Johnny as you tossed the car keys at him.

“Aren’t you gonna ask if I know how to drive first?” He quipped back quickly while walking to the driver’s side.

“Nah,” you shrugged comically, hoisting yourself up by the frame of the car. You buckled yourself in and watched as he did the same and adjusted the mirrors for his height. “Besides,” you looked down to inspect your fingernails as if they were the most fascinating thing on the planet, “I trust you, or whatever.”

“Bit of a stupid thing to do, but alright,” he smiled, echoing your words back at you. “Kidding, I’m an excellent driver. Alright, co-pilot! You have the most sacred duty bestowed upon you—”

“Navigation?”

“No, music selection, duh,” he scoffed and handed you the aux cord and pulled out a cell phone you’d never seen him hold before. You stared at the device as he unlocked it and pulled up his music library. Johnny noticed your surprised expression out of the corner of his eye. “What, it’s not like I have a use for it out here. Your wifi sucks and I’m not about to rack up a huge cell phone bill, so it stays off in my duffle bag most of the time. Anyways, this is a test! Pick whatever your heart desires.” The smirk on his face was beyond mischievous as he handed it to you.

You sighed and settled into the seat and began scrolling. What to pick, what to pick…

Surprisingly, there was a decent number of songs you recognized, and one album in particular you were a fan of. You scrolled down the track listing to about the half way point and pressed play.

The sounds of The Killers and the familiar guitar chords that were practically sewn into your DNA began to filter through the speakers. Johnny smiled and started clapping as the car reached the bottom of the driveway and he flipped on the turn signal. “Oh my god, Mr. Brightside, excellent choice! Okay, you passed the first test. But do you know the words?” He teased.

You gasped in feigned offense as the lyrics came to the chorus, and as he accelerated up to speed you began to belt the words out as loud as you could manage. For once you weren’t thinking about how you hated that the jeep had no top while the wind whipped past you on all sides as Johnny sped down the highway. As the song played, the magic high of belting the words to something fifteen years old that were still imprinted in your brain didn’t seem to wear off like you’d expected it to.

“Alright, chop chop what’s next maestro!” He called over the sound of the wind as the song came to a close. You already had something queued up, something a little more recent, and you smiled as the words to the next song began filtering through the speakers, letting the music carry the drive and not belting along with it this time. You tried to not think too deeply about the lyrics of the chorus as it played.  

'Cause you're the last of a dying breed Write our names in the wet concrete I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me? I'm here in search of your glory There's been a million before me That ultra-kind of love You never walk away from You're just the last of the real ones

As the bridge played and you neared your destination, Johnny tilted his head towards you while keeping his eyes on the road. “Growing up, it was like, a badge of honor as a Chicago kid to have gone to a Fall Out Boy show when they still played the smaller clubs. I snuck into one when I was 16— it was an 18 and over show— felt like I was hot shit when I got away with it.”

“Don’t know why, but you don’t strike me as a Fall Out Boy fan,” you admitted. From your scroll through his music library, you saw most of their discography saved to his phone.

“Hey, I had my embarrassing wannabe emo phase too.”

“Had?” You couldn’t stop yourself from teasing. Johnny didn’t give a response to that one, and as another Fall Out Boy song played through the speakers you let yourself rest in a comfortable lack of conversation, instead sharing the music with him as he drove. It only took to the end of that third song to reach your destination and based on how he handled the drive and parking, true to his word Johnny was an excellent driver.

Johnny followed you closely once inside, his eyes scanning up and down the shelves of the tiny liquor store before he reaches and picks up a six pack of pilsner. “You ever try this one?”

Your nose wrinkles in disgust. “I don’t do beer.”

Johnny blinks twice in response and plops the six pack back down on the shelf. “Noted. What do you drink?”

“If I’m picking?” He nods. “I’m a slut for rosé or champagne. Any sparkling wine, really, it makes me feel fancy and you get to turn basic days into little celebrations.” You follow him as he walks down the aisle to where the selection of wine was shelved and starts looking through the options. “Hang on, you’re not gonna grill me about the beer thing?”

“You say that like your friends usually give you shit for it.”

You crossed your arms and shuffle your feet underneath you. “Well, yeah. Usually.”

“Then I would say,” he trails off for a moment, bending and squatting to see a label on a lower shelf before picking up two bottles of the same brand, “You need new friends. Or that your current ones need to learn boundaries, take your pick. How’s this look for one option? Since this is a celebration and all,” he says with a wink.

Leaning forward, you study the label on the bottle for a moment before nodding in approval. You agree to his point that since they were 15% off if you bought six or more bottles, it only made sense to buy more, and besides, “It’s not like you won’t drink them eventually when you’re on the phone with Wendy.”

Your eyebrows shot up at that. “How do you know her name?”

“I’m quiet not deaf, and you’re louder than you think you are,” he says matter-of-factly before heading to the cashier to pay for your selection. You bite your tongue then, hoping to whatever deity was watching you (and probably laughing) that he’d overheard one of the conversations that wasn’t about Wendy insisting you should bone him.

Johnny picks the music on the way back, opting for some Bleachers and Paramore now that he knew at least part of your music taste and how it aligned with his.

Your new selection of wine goes into the fridge as soon as you get home, and Johnny heads to the shed with a ladder in hand to climb on top and finish nailing down the roofing. You opt to help with this task, spotting from the ground and continuously yelling for him to ‘be careful’ and ‘you better not fall and break your neck while I’m watching’. It takes a little over an hour, and it’s late afternoon when he finishes, but when you climb the ladder yourself as he holds it steady from the ground to inspect his handiwork you have to say you’re impressed.

“You sure you never did construction work before? You’ve got shockingly good craftsmanship for a newbie.”

“My dad’s pretty self sufficient so he was always doing the handiwork around the house. Picked stuff up here and there from him growing up, but anything I didn’t know I could just look up on the internet.” You shoot him a pointed look. “What! I said your wifi was shitty not that I didn’t use it every now and again. There’s a YouTube tutorial for everything these days.”

Johnny insisted on cleaning up the last of the debris on his own while you worked on dinner— another pasta dish, orecchiette broccoli rabe, and while that was cooking you boil a pint of blackberries with water and sugar to make a flavored simple syrup. Since you were celebrating tonight, it only felt right to put in a little extra effort even to the drinks of choice. Kir Royales were typically made with a blackcurrant liquor, but it was a niche product you hadn’t found in the store, so the syrup and a slice of lemon for garnish would have to do.

While you waited for Johnny to finish up and take his shower (after the last time, you gave him plenty of space out of an abundance of caution whenever he showered), you started rummaging through the pantry cabinets and making sense of the dry ingredients you had on hand. You had time to kill, why not make a dessert with it?

You hadn’t talked about it much with Johnny, but you actually did enjoy cooking and baking. Something about spending time and energy making something and having someone consume it and tell you they liked made you feel good. You still remember the first time you made breakfast for a hungover Wendy in college and she raved about it for days, though you were pretty sure back then it was because the carbs soaked up the remaining alcohol in her system and stopped her from puking.

Dinner was finished when Johnny finally came out of the shower, this time fully clothed and his hair more dry. You explained that you’d gotten bored and made cookie dough but the oven hadn’t finished pre-heating yet so nothing was baked.

“Fuck it, cookie dough is always better than the cookies themselves,” he shrugged.

“But salmonella—”

Johnny held up a hand jokingly as he stopped your interjection and turned off the oven. “Still convinced that’s a myth parents made up to stop kids from actually enjoying childhood. Plus it’s hot as balls, chill the dough while we eat and then it’ll be even better after. Plus, you haven’t poisoned either of us yet, I think your track record is pretty good so far.” (There he went again, referring to you and him as an ‘us’.)

So you did just that, putting the cookie dough into the fridge and taking your dinner outside with the cocktails you’d made. You didn’t have any wine glasses here at the farm house— after breaking one stemmed glass during your first phone call with Wendy you’d moved the rest to the condo and replaced the drink ware with mason jars because the clean up was too annoying. Plus, you didn’t want to risk the dog stepping on stray shards of thin glass and getting them stuck in the pads of its paws. (You were still decidedly apathetic towards it, but that didn’t mean you were cruel).

So it was in the wide mouth Kerr jars that you poured your blackberry syrup and a half a bottle of champagne, after a comical exchange of Johnny insisting he wasn’t scared of the pop! that corks made coming out of pressurized bottles and the yelp he let out anyways when it happened as expected. The lemon slice garnish was more of an aesthetic touch than anything but you liked it nonetheless.When Johnny pulls out his phone for the second time that day and insists on playing music and making a dramatic toast before you could drink, you could only laugh and agree.

“To the best Boss I’ve ever had,” he said with a raised glass, “Even though you used me for cheap labor and to do all the hard shit.”

“Rude! I cook every day, look at all the chances I’ve had to poison you and how many times have I done it? Absolutely none because I am a saint and you know it.”

You weren’t sure if it was the alcohol, the music, the low hum of crickets, the starry night sky, or the summer heat that did it, but time flowed so easily, and so did the conversation and teasing banter. Over the course of one meal you’d exchanged more words with Johnny than you had in the whole two months you’d known each other. Two hours later and you’d finished all the dinner (of course there were no leftovers, Johnny was still Johnny, but the amount of manual labor he did in a day made sense of how much he usually ate, you’d come to realize). The bowl of cookie dough was now sitting on the step of the lanai and you and Johnny were side by side on the deck, looking out over the farm and taking the occasional spoonful of dough into your mouths. He was right— the dough did taste better than the baked cookies probably would have, especially after it had chilled for a bit. With the way the stars and moon were hung in the cloudless sky, you could see the soft glow of their reflection in the water beyond the highway and the cliff leading to the beach.

“You ever go down to the shore?” He asks suddenly, and it feels out of nowhere and like he’s inside your head because how else would he have known you were just thinking about the ocean? But then you register that Andrew McMahon’s voice has just crooned something about Venice Beach and the California summer in the music that had still been playing through the speakers of Johnny’s phone.

You hummed for a moment before answering. “Not really. I should make more time for it, but I rarely ever leave the farm, as you probably noticed. I know this place is paradise for so many people, the vacation destination on a lot of bucket lists, but I think my… circumstances made me bitter towards the island, conceptually speaking anyways.” You watched the water with a bit more focus as a few waves crested, but you couldn’t see enough of the shore to see them actually crash. “I know I don’t talk about it much but, I needed a break from my work too. That’s… part of the reason I’m here, why I was waiting for my sister and Yunho to come out. It’s a much less interesting story than yours, so I won’t bore you with the details,” you wanted to reroute the subject before any questions started getting asked, but deep down you knew Johnny wasn’t going to press you for anything you weren’t ready to share. He’d figured that much out about you anyways.

“Anyways, maybe you’re on to something, Seo. Maybe I should take some time to actually relax a bit, seeing as now that I’ve tricked you into finishing the most difficult and time consuming of the summer projects Yunho had planned,” you stuck your tongue out between your teeth jokingly in an effort to mask the vulnerability you’d briefly shown.

Johnny took the hint and changed the subject. “The Killers, Bleachers, Paramore, Fall Out Boy… not saying I don’t like your taste in music, but I’m surprised it’s your picks were so astoundingly pop-punk-rock. Woulda taken you for a—”

“If you finish that sentence by saying ‘country kinda girl’ I’m locking you out tonight and taking the cookie dough with me,” you warned.

He laughed and shook his head. “No, you strike me as too high strung to enjoy country. Like it’s typically too slow for your tastes, or something like that.”

“Oh I’m obnoxious about my taste in media, if you couldn’t already tell. I’ve listened to mostly the same artists for the last ten years. In high school I was that kid that thought making it known that I ‘didn’t listen to the radio pop main stream’ was a personality trait, whatever that meant.”

“Oooh, so edgy and mysterious, did she used to cut her own bangs too?” He giggled into his mason jar, taking another sip.

“Nooo, that was only one time and I swear it was on a dare and not because of a break up!” You jokingly wailed out, throwing your head back in exaggeration. “Although I do regularly trim Wendy’s bangs for her because she can’t be trusted with sharp objects. Knives, needles, scissors, none of it, girl’s a total klutz,” you took another sip and uncorked the bottle again to refill your jar. You held the remainder up for Johnny to see, silently asking if he wanted a top off to finish the last of the second bottle you’d opened.

Johnny was a big guy— tall and muscular, you were sure it would take him a bit more than a bottle or two of shared champagne to get him tipsy. That’s why you didn’t think too much of it as he stared into the reinvigorated fizzing bubbles as he quietly said, “I’d like to meet her someday. Wendy, I mean— you talk about her so fondly, she seems like a great person. Like she’s good for you in your life.”

Why did you feel a little uneasy at the way he spoke about Wendy? He had no idea what she looked like, it was only from the stories you’d been telling that he knew anything about her. And it wasn’t even the real her, it was just her as she existed to you, so what was there to be uneasy about? You were overthinking again, so you had to come up with an answer to fill the silence you’d created— “Yeah well, Wendy’s sick of dick, she’s very bisexual and I’m pretty sure she’s head over heels in love with this Joohyun she started seeing recently, she’s just too much of a chicken shit to tell her how she feels,” you hid behind you glass and drank deeply, not minding as the floating slice of alcohol soaked lemon rested against your nose.

“Sounds familiar,” Johnny said quietly. “I… can relate, I think,” he mumbled out, and you glanced over in time to see him place his now-empty cup on the wood beside him. “Sometimes you just feel the way you do and you don’t really have a reason for why, but you can’t even put it to words to the person it matters to.”

This time when your breath caught in your throat, it wasn’t because of a mounting attack, but in anticipation of what Johnny would do next. The space between you had slowly waned as you’d been drinking, your bodies inching closer to each other without you even realizing it, almost like the way the moon pulled the tide to the shore over and over again. When your eyes traveled from where his hand was pressed into the deck flooring up to meet his hooded gaze, you don’t really know what you were expecting, but Johnny’s parted lips shining slightly (probably from that last drink of wine) was not it.

You knew this feeling. This was when you were supposed to lean in, right? That’s how this usually went. Your hand shifted closer towards his for a moment and then pulled back, and the end joint of Johnny’s fingers flexed as he pressed his fingertips into the deck.

You didn’t lean in. Your heart was hammering in your chest far too loud for you to be able to do so; instead, you look away, his eye and his lips and his face and his everything suddenly too much, and your turned your cheek to him instead.

Instead, he leaned in, and for just a brief moment the crickets stopped chirping, the distant ocean stopped moving, the music stopped playing, and your heart stopped beating as Johnny’s perfectly pouty lips pressed against your cheek, and then your temple, and then your throat. And then his head tilted down and his nose brushed against your skin delicately, leaving a trial of burning in its wake, and time didn’t start turning again until the snort of his laughter broke the silence and he fell into your shoulder in a giggle fit.

It took all of your patience and self control to make your lungs continue to function as you listened to Johnny giggle so much he stopped making sounds until he was spewing out between fits of laughter ‘The bubbles make everything funny, why is everything funny with bubbles?’

‘Why indeed’, you wondered silently, letting the clearly tipsy Johnny rest his head on your shoulder as he continued his giggle fits, stroking the palm of your hand against his back as he’d first done for you under far different circumstances, trying to not think about how much faster your heart was beating while doing so, and how if your accelerated heart rate was from his proximity to you, you didn’t mind.

How long did you stay like that, in such a familiar embrace with Johnny? Long enough, it seemed, for the playlist on his phone to come to an end and for him to start dozing off while resting against you, his light snores the thing that finally made you disturb him so you could go back inside. It was late anyways, nearing midnight you said softly and you tried to wake him gently—

A surprisingly loud boom shook the sky followed by a burst of light and color. Immediately the dog inside woke up and started barking, and Johnny bolted upright, eyes darting around in search of the source of the noise that had disturbed his snoozing.

“Fireworks,” you breathed out, more to yourself than to him. “Guess it’s midnight already.” Johnny didn’t say much, but his eyes twinkled as he watched in earnest as a few more went off before you tugged on his sleeve and insisted that he needed to make his way to bed and sleep. There were sure to be more tomorrow, and he could watch them then.

You didn’t sleep for hours that night. After helping the mildly intoxicated Johnny to his bed, you sat on the floor of your room, knees pulled into your chest and a hand laying flat against your cheek where he’d planted his trail of kisses. “He was just drunk, he’s just a flirty drunk, that didn’t mean anything,” you repeated to yourself over and over again.

But something about the way Johnny’s lips felt against the apples of your cheek and the hollow of your throat when he’d been nuzzling against you stayed with you all night long, sending a shiver down your spine and igniting a flame where your heart lived. You pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes and inhaled deeply, breath shuddering on the exhale.

Against all your hopes and intensions, Johnny Seo had slowly chipped his way through your armor and into your heart.

You had to get him out. Fast.

tbc.

—

author’s note | Me: this first part is gonna be like, I dunno, 5k? 6k? Also me: writes 19,000 words. We call this ✨processing your own trauma through writing as an outlet✨ Originally this was going to be one really long one shot and then I decided to split it up for ratings purposes because I am a thirsty whore for Youngho. The ending is rushed but honestly I was so sick of editing and overthinking this lmaooo. No I have not spent a summer living in Kona working on a coffee farm. Most of my coffee knowledge is second hand from the time my brother in law bought a coffee farm and started a roasting business because my sister dared him to by saying “do it you won’t” (an exact quote I shit you not). There’s more to this story and uh I dunno I’ll maybe post it eventually if people don’t hate this one *shrugs*

[razberrybi]

hello! this isn’t the most timely of postings, but I want to make a series with stuff I wish I knew before applying for/getting into college. the series will be most helpful to lower-income american students, because that’s my experience!  eventually I’ll have more stuff regarding STEM courses & tips for when you do start college.  everything will be tagged #college help by raz.  I’ll get a link for it up and running on my blog.

first off, probably the ugliest part of the process for me: filing the FAFSA, aka the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.  I wouldn’t be able to go to college without it but the process literally brought me to tears.

if I save just one student some unnecessary frustration, then my job here is done! kal @promethes was my inspiration to do this, she’s running something with a similar purpose in a couple months so if you’re interested keep an eye out for that.

finally, if you’re trying to get into college/are just getting in and have any questions, don’t hesitate to send me an ask! 

if you don’t want to open up the link above to a google doc, the text is available under the cut.

Things to know about the FAFSA:

It opens on October 1st every year.  Be prepared to file it right when it opens, the aid is first come, first served.

If you’re going right into college after high school, that means you should apply on October 1st of your senior year.  

If you missed the deadline, it’s open till June 30th the next year, but do not procrastinate this. Please trust me. Mark October 1st on your calendar, know it like your birthday.  This is free money from the gov, don’t miss out.

You need to file for the FAFSA every year you’re in college, it’s not a one-and-done thing. 

To file, you will need an FSA ID for you AND one of your parents (unless you’re not a dependent.  If you’re living with a parent/legal guardian and they provide more than 50% of your financial support, you’re probably their dependent.  That means they claim you on their taxes & get money back on their return). Make those FSA IDs here. Remember the passwords.

These are separate accounts that you’ll need to actually file the FAFSA.  Also, if you have loans taken out they’ll show up here.

When you’re ready to do the FAFSA, use this official website.  Other websites can charge you.  They might not be secure and definitely won’t be any easier. 

Sometimes, income is complicated or parents aren’t always on top of their taxes.  Thankfully FAFSA wants documents from two years prior, i.e., for the 2020-21 school year they’re asking for 2018 taxes.

Try to check that those are filed away somewhere you can access before the Oct. 1 deadline.  Make sure your parents know the government will pay for your schooling if you do this, and you usually won’t have to give that money back.

If your situation changed and you make a lot less than you did 2 years ago, contact your school’s financial aid office. Sometimes they can help with extra aid.

What documents will you need?

Your social security number

Your driver’s license, if you have one

W-2 forms from 2 years prior, and other records of money earned 

Your (and/or your parents’) Federal income tax return from 2 years prior (form 1040, will be different if you’re in an American territory and not one of the states)

Any untaxed income records form 2 years prior, like payments to deferred pension & savings plans, tax exempt interest & child support

Records of taxable earnings from federal work-study from 2 years ago

Record of grants, scholarships, or fellowship aid that was included in you or your parent’s 2018 adjusted gross income

Any current bank statements

Any current business and investment mortgage info, business/farm records, stocks/bonds info

Documentation that you’re a permanent US resident or other eligible noncitizen

If you’re lucky, all these records will be filed in one spot or easily accessible.  Try to access them early just in case.

If you have an idea what colleges you’re applying to, add them to the FAFSA when prompted.  This will help you know exactly how much money they’re giving you sooner.

Because of the whole “parents not being on top of taxes” thing, I’ve always had to manually put things in instead of clicking the button that lets you manually import the info.

It’s frustrating and takes a while, but you will be able to do it.  Thankfully the FAFSA has been getting better with the help available on the page (you can click an info button and it explains most things). 

Still unsure what something means? Open a new tab on your browser and google it.  You need to answer everything honestly, don’t take chances and take your time.

If you do get to auto-import, I suggest you go through the information manually to double check things if it lets you!  I’ve used a similar tool with a tax-filing service and they can get some things wrong.

There are a couple “optional” sections.  I fill them all out except for the section about assets, which I’ve consistently skipped.  I always get max aid doing this, your mileage may vary.

When you finish, you’ll get a number for your EFC, or expected family contribution--how much they predict your family will have to pay for college.  For example, if that number is 000, you’ll hopefully get maximum aid and your tuition will be paid for.

Sometimes, they can’t give it all in grants (money you don’t have to pay back), so some of the money will be made out to you as subsidized or unsubsidized loans.  If you need them, take out the subsidized loans first, these will not gain interest until your grace period ends, typically 6 months after graduation.

I’ve literally never had success applying for random online scholarships and I applied to a lot of them.  The FAFSA is so important if your family is low-income, those grants cover my entire tuition.  The rest of my college, including room/board and a shitton of fees, is covered by merit scholarships directly from my school.  I go to a large, in-state school, and suggest you stay in state if you can’t get into an out of state college that will 100% pay everything for you.  Those colleges, not coincidentally, are also extremely hard to get into especially if you don’t have connections--think the Ivies, MIT, etc.

I recommend in-state because it’s almost always much cheaper than out of state tuition.  Sometimes colleges have programs that will let you go to another state and pay in-state tuition at their partner school, if you’re desperate to move far look for those programs OR find a farther college in your state keeping in mind how good their program is for the major you’re looking at.

Also, fancy private schools might get you some connections or more famous speakers at events but the quality of your education won’t be much better, if at all. 

Look for scholarships that come directly from the school you like.

Merit scholarships are money your school will give you for having good grades/test scores.  How much money 100% depends on the school. Mine had a program where they had different levels of aid, and they calculated which level you fell into based on your high school GPA, ACT, and SAT scores. It’s worth trying to improve your scores on one of those tests if you know it’ll get you more money.  These scholarships tend to renew every year/semester if you keep your GPA up in college. 

For school-specific questions, contact the school’s financial aid office.  For general questions, contact me! Send an ask to @razberrybi on tumblr.

Finally--if you manage to complete the FAFSA wholly or partially on your own, congratulations!! It’s not an easy feat.  In my experience the FAFSA is literally harder and more frustrating than filing your taxes.  Treat yourself for getting it done!