#verbal nouns

[nickriya]

“What Is Gerund? Special Verbs That Are Also Nouns” # Difference between Gerund and   participle Quick Grammar Rules

[transingthoseformers]

Wait quick question because I've thought about this a lot

[aeide-thea]

have been reading fic & thinking abt my relationship to fic, which is of course also among other things a mirror of my relationship to my own psyche, and like—i think all the discourse abt its being ~internalized misogyny~ to mostly/entirely read m/m is not ultimately, whatever the truth of it, all that helpful, either to readers or to Women! but of course that doesn't stop me from feeling weird guilt abt the fact that i don't read more f/f than i do, because if there's anything i love to do, it's feel unhelpfully bad abt myself on the slimmest of pretexts…

however! i did end up reading some f/f earlier, specifically transfem f/f, and it got me thinking—basically what i'm usually mostly reading fic for is the romance/sex, right? like, don't get me wrong, i love when a fic gives me a gorgeous double helix of, like, casefic and romance twisted together, that's ideal, but fundamentally most of the time the feeling up is what i sat down at the table to eat. so in a complex aegosexual way it's a fantasy i'm—not projecting onto, exactly, i don't want to be one of the people in it; but, like, lurking in the wings of with eyes big love-crumbs, to steal a phrase from a relevantly-named poet. :) and so it's no wonder that mostly i don't want to read cisfemme4cisfemme stuff, because that's not a dynamic that feels like it has any room for me, or even like i'm particularly welcome in the room. but like. if it's trans women? i'm there, i love that for them and for me. if there's a butch? i might get tripped up by our differing lenses on gender feelings and stub my toe a little but even so i'm probably here for it. (thinking here abt that one butch/femme geraskier ~cisswap which is, like, a gorgeous bruise i keep periodically pressing. <3)

so really it's just like. shocker: i'm not personally moved by fantasies abt romance which feature conventionally feminine cis women whom i don't personally find relatable or sexually desirable! and when i put it like that, it really instantly dissolves the weird useless discourse-induced guiltgunk. like. give me a woman who's, idk, tall and charismatic and strong and clever and talented at something (though honestly it's like that siken revised tweet, a lot of those characteristics are ultimately negotiable!), like women i've historically crushed on irl, and then give me a pairing for her that's like. another woman who's also enough of those things, or a man who's—honestly the kind of m/f i'm open to would be its own whole post bc holy shit am i fussy, it very much does exist but for now let's just stick a pin in that one—or somebody nonbinary, which… idk that i've ever actually seen nb/f in fic? i'm sure it exists! but i'm not sure it exists in any fandoms i've been into. pondering the question did get me really thirsty for a good 'farmgirl (of the luke skywalker variety) is absolutely stunned-and-ringing-like-a-struck-bell captivated by confident flamboyantly genderqueer love interest (example wanted)' dynamic, though…

[heartandmusic]

whats really funny about this album is that i dont like any of this groups other songs but this one was their so far only collaboration with the guy from the band "coin" who produced this. and im still so obsessed with the first 3 singles they released like these are all time favs for me now im talking once in a generation bangers. and the release date was my birthday so i was like omg special present just for me. i was so excited and then i listened to it and this was the only other song i liked off it . lol out loud

[swannieluv]

"You don't believe in your answers but we believe in them, don't worry." My classmates before an exam become another people fr TT

[ikilledamanforthisurl]

never will i put my shoes into that of the deutsch but i understand now how it feels to read "Liebling" in auslanders' attempts at writing german after seeing someone write an aussie calling another person "Roo"

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Children's Dialogue

Language is extremely complex, yet children already know most of the grammar of their native language(s) before they are 5 years old.

BABBLING

Babbling begins at about 6 months and is considered the earliest stage of language acquisition

By 1 year babbles are composed only of the phonemes used in the language(s) they hear

Deaf babies babble with their hands like hearing babies babble using sounds

FIRST WORDS

After the age of one, children figure out that sounds are related to meanings and start to produce their first words

Usually children go through a holophrastic stage, where their one-word utterances may convey more meaning

Example: "Up" is used to indicate something in the sky or to mean “pick me up”

Most common first words (among the first 10 words uttered in many languages): “mommy,” “daddy,” “woof woof,” “no,” “bye,” “hi,” “yes,” “vroom,” “ball” and “banana”

WORD MEANINGS

When learning words, children often overextend a word’s meaning

Example: Using the word dog to refer to any furry, four-legged animal (overextensions tend to be based on shape, size, or texture, but never color)

They may also underextend a word’s meaning

Example: Using the word dog to refer only to the family pet, as if dog were a proper noun

The Whole Object Principle: When a child learns a new word, (s)he is likely to interpret the word to refer to a whole object rather than one of its parts

SYNTAX

At about two years of age, children start to put words together to form two-word utterances

The intonation contour extends over the two words as a unit, and the two-word utterances can convey a range of meanings:

Example: "mommy sock" = subject + object or possessive

NOTE: Chronological age is NOT a good measure of linguistic development due to individual differences, so instead linguists use the child’s mean length of utterance (MLU) to measure development

The telegraphic stage describes a phase when children tend to omit function morphemes such as articles, subject pronouns, auxiliaries, and verbal inflection

Examples: "He play little tune" or "Andrew want that"

Between 2;6 and 3;6 a language explosion occurs and children undergo rapid development

By the age of 3, most children consistently use function morphemes and can produce complex syntactic structures:

Examples: "He was stuck and I got him out" / "It’s too early for us to eat"

After 3;6 children can produce wh-questions, and relative pronouns

Sometime after 4;0 children have acquired most of the adult syntactic competence

PRAGMATICS

Deixis: Children often have problems with the shifting reference of pronouns

Children may refer to themselves as "you"

Problems with the context-dependent nature of deictic words: Children often assume the hearer knows who s/he is talking about

AUXILIARIES

In the telegraphic stage, children often omit auxiliaries from their speech but can form questions (with rising intonation) and negative sentences

Examples: "I ride train?" / "I not like this book"

As children acquire auxiliaries in questions and negative sentences, they generally use them correctly

SIGNED LANGUAGES

Deaf babies acquire sign language in the same way that hearing babies acquire spoken language: babbling, holophrastic stage, telegraphic stage

When deaf babies are not exposed to sign language, they will create their own signs, complete with systematic rules

IMITATION, REINFORCEMENT, ANALOGY

Children do imitate the speech heard around them to a certain extent, but language acquisition goes beyond imitation

Children produce utterances that they never hear from adults around them, such as "holded" or "tooths"

Children cannot imitate adults fully while acquiring grammar

Example:

Adult: "Where can I put them?" Child: "Where I can put them?"

Children who develop the ability to speak later in their childhood can understand the language spoken around them even if they cannot imitate it

NOTE: Children May Resist Correction

Example: Cazden (1972) (observation attributed to Jean Berko Gleason) – My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. – Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? – Yes. – What did you say she did? – She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. – Did you say she held them tightly? – No, she holded them loosely.

Another theory asserts that children hear a sentence and then use it as a model to form other sentences by analogy

But while analogy may work in some situations, certainly not in all situations:

– I painted a red barn. – I painted a barn red. – I saw a red barn. – I saw a barn red.

Children never make mistakes of this kind based on analogy which shows that they understand structure dependency at a very young age

BIRTH ORDER

Children’s birth order may affect their speech.

Firstborns often speak earlier than later-born children, most likely because they get more one-on-one attention from parents.

They favor different words than their siblings. 

Whereas firstborns gabble on about animals and favorite colors, the rest of the pack cut to the chase with “brother,” “sister,” “hate” and such treats as “candy,” “popsicles” and “donuts.” 

The social dynamics of siblings, it would appear, prime their vocabularies for a reality different than the firstborns’ idyllic world of sheep, owls, the green of the earth and the blue of the sky.

MOTHER'S LEVEL OF EDUCATION

Children may adopt vocabulary quite differently depending on their mother’s level of education.

In American English, among the words disproportionately favored by the children of mothers who have not completed secondary education are: “so,” “walker,” “gum,” “candy,” “each,” “could,” “wish,” “but,” “penny” and “be” (ordered starting with the highest frequency).

The words favored by the children of mothers in the “college and above” category are: “sheep,” “giraffe,” “cockadoodledoo,” “quack quack,” the babysitter’s name, “gentle,” “owl,” “zebra,” “play dough” and “mittens.” 

BOYS / GIRLS

One area of remarkable consistency across language groups is the degree to which the language of children is gendered.

The words more likely to be used by American girls than by boys are: “dress,” “vagina,” “tights,” “doll,” “necklace,” “pretty,” “underpants,” “purse,” “girl” and “sweater.”

Whereas those favored by boys are “penis,” “vroom,” “tractor,” “truck,” “hammer,” “bat,” “dump,” “firetruck,” “police” and “motorcycle.”

Tips for Writing Children's Dialogue (compiled from various sources cited below):

Milestones - The dialogue you write should be consistent with the child's developmental milestones for their age. Of course, other factors should be considered such as if the child has any speech or intellectual difficulties. Also note that developmental milestones are not set in stone and each child is unique in their own way.

Too "Cutesy" - If your child characters are going to be cute, they must be cute naturally through the force of their personality, not because the entire purpose of their existence is to be adorable.

Too Wise - It’s true kids have the benefit of seeing some situations a little more objectively than adults. But when they start calmly and unwittingly spouting all the answers, the results often seem more clichéd and convenient than impressive or ironic.

Unintelligent - Don’t confuse a child’s lack of experience with lack of intelligence. 

Baby Talk - Don’t make a habit of letting them misuse words. Children are more intelligent than most people think.

Unique Individuals - Adults often tend to lump all children into a single category: cute, small, loud, and occasionally annoying. Look beyond the stereotype.

Personal Goals - The single ingredient that transforms someone from a static character to a dynamic character is a goal. It can be easy to forget kids also have goals. Kids are arguably even more defined by their goals than are adults. Kids want something every waking minute. Their entire existence is wrapped up in wanting something and figuring out how to get it.

Don't Forget your Character IS a Child - Most of the pitfalls in how to write child characters have to do with making them too simplistic and childish. But don’t fall into the opposite trap either: don’t create child characters who are essentially adults in little bodies.

Your Personal Observation - To write dialogue that truly sounds like it could come from a child, start by being an attentive listener. Spend time around children and observe how they interact with their peers and adults. You can also study other pieces of media that show/write about children's behaviour (e.g., documentaries, films, TV shows, even other written works like novels and scripts).

Context - The context in which children speak is crucial to creating realistic dialogue. Consider their environment, who they're speaking to, and what's happening around them. Dialogue can change drastically depending on whether a child is talking to a friend, a parent, or a teacher. Additionally, children's language can be influenced by their cultural background, family dynamics, and personal experiences. Make sure the context informs the dialogue, lending credibility to your characters' voices.

Sources and other related articles: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Writing Notes: On Children Writing Notes: Childhood Bilingualism

[paperultra]

service with a smile!

Pairing: OPLA!Vinsmoke Sanji x Reader Word Count: 1,726 words Warnings: Swearing, violence, verbally/physically abusive customer, reader has a brief panic attack

eccedentesiast (noun): someone who fakes a smile

It’s six-thirty in the evening at the Baratie. The customers are ravenous, the kitchen is in the weeds, and you’re wearing a snake-like trail into the floor of the restaurant delivering drinks and dishes when the sound of snapping fingers pricks your ears.

“Waiter!”

Twisting your neck around, you spot the man at table four waving you over.

You quickly make your way to him with a bright smile. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

The man gestures to the plate in front of him, disgust clear on his face. “I said I wanted my steak medium-well.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir,” you reply. Leaning over slightly to check, your eyebrows knit together as you stare at the slice of meat pushed to the edge of the plate. “… It seems to be medium-well, though?”

“No,” he snaps. Light glints sharply off the many rings on his fingers as he pointedly prods at the center of the slice with his knife. “It still has some pink in it, see? I can’t eat this.”

“Well, sir,” you mentally roll your eyes up to the ceiling, though your gaze remains attentive and apologetic, “Here in our restaurant, medium-well steak will still have a little bit of pink. We could bring it back to the kitchen and have it cooked until it’s well done, if you’d like. It’d take no more than five minutes.”

“I don’t like well done steak. It’s too dry.”

Oh, god.

“I see. Well, we could still bring it back to the kitchen and see what the cooks can do.”

The man clicks his tongue. “Fucking hell.” Sneering, he drops his steak knife and pushes the plate towards you. “Fine. Go. I’m not paying if you guys fuck it up again.”

“We’ll do our best.” Fuck you.

Nodding deferentially, you scoop up the plate and head off to the kitchen, smiling all the while.

“Carne!” you announce after you kick open the door, setting the steak on the pass and leaning over to catch the attention of the rotisseur. “Customer at table four says your steak is shit.”

“What?!”

“He wants it medium-well with no pink at all.” Carne swears and stomps over to fetch the steak. A slight movement in the corner catches your eye, and you look over at Sanji, who’s already looking at you as he pulls his suit jacket on. “Hey, chef.” A genuine grin stretches your face. “The old man kick you off the line again?”

“He slated my mixed paella,” Sanji replies, no small amount of irritation in his voice. It melts away quickly as he smirks and sends a wink your way. “But I’ll be seeing more of you out there, so maybe I should count my blessings.”

“There’s certainly one at table four right now.” Balancing three plates for table seven on one arm, you grab the fourth with your free hand.

Sanji hurries to hold the door open for you, frowning through the thank-you that flies from your mouth. “What else did they say?” he asks seriously. “Do they need to be kicked out?”

Despite the rush, your heart finds the time to skip a beat.

“Nah, not yet,” you assure. “Now hurry up!”

“[Y/n] –”

“Bye!”

As you pass him, your head held high, you hear Sanji sigh and chuckle in resignation.

You deliver the plates and check back with guests who have already gotten their food before returning to the kitchen. Table four’s well done medium-well steak with no pink is on the pass already when you go in, freshly garnished and by all appearances even more gorgeous than before.

Raising your eyebrows, you whistle. “Thanks, Carne! Love you!” you shout over the din of cooks before grabbing the plate.

“Kiss my ass!”

You laugh. One of the other waiters wishes you luck and pats your back as you exit.

You waste only a brief moment just outside the kitchen to take a deep breath and scan the restaurant. Sanji is at the far end, refilling waters and likely charming the eyelashes off a table of giggling young women. You’d kill to be on either side right now.

Closing your eyes, you recite the Baratie’s fourth employee guideline and then smile, stepping out into the dining area and walking over to table four.

The customer is God.

“Here you go, sir,” you say, placing the plate before him. “I’m sor –”

“This looks like shit.” The man hardly glances at the steak Carne had so painstakingly reprepared, choosing instead to glare at you. “I waited five whole minutes for this?”

The customer. Is. God.

Your teeth hurt. “Our rotisseur put in his best work to fix the mistake.”

“Well, he should be fired on the spot.”

“If you would just try it –”

The man suddenly slams his fist on the table and stands up, his face red, grabbing the attention of the surrounding guests as he throws the plate onto the ground.

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, WAITER!”

His hairy, meaty hand seizes the collar of your uniform.

Your perfect smile slips off your face.

“Get your hand off of me.”

The man doesn’t listen. He raises his other fist and swings it at your mouth instead.

You pull him down and knee him in the face before he even realizes that you’ve dodged.

Crunch. Warm blood splatters over your carefully ironed slacks.

“Augh!”

The man’s hands fly up to his nose. You shove him face-down to the ground and press your knee into his back, yanking his head up by his hair.

“I asked you to taste your fucking steak,” you breathe, tightening your grip. “I didn’t ask you to FUCKING TOUCH ME. OKAY?”

His groan bubbles quietly through bloodied teeth.

Your ears ring. You’re cold and your head is numb and your heart is racing, and you’re breathing, but it feels like you’re not getting enough air. You don’t move a muscle.

Above you, muffled and buried underwater, someone calls out your name.

A hand rubs your back gently. Your name is murmured again, and you finally blink, slowly twisting around to look up at Sanji.

“I think he got the message, sweetheart. Come on. The old man’ll take care of the rest.”

He places his hand over yours, coaxing you to let go of the man’s hair. It hurts, but you do it, and Sanji helps you stand afterwards.

“Come on,” he whispers. “We’ll wash dishes together until you feel better.”

“You’re supposed to be waiting tables,” you mumble. Your mouth is dry.

“You know I hate doing that anyway.”

He tucks you underneath his arm. You push your face into the front of his suit and smell the traces of his last smoke break as he guides you to the kitchen.

Washing dishes is a ritual you’ve had since you were a kid. While Sanji’s punishments had been anything that prevented him from cooking or flirting, yours were limited to washing dishes. You loathed the chore, and Zeff took note and made sure to stick you at the sinks whenever you got into trouble. You’d curse and splash and generally be a pain in the ass to the rest of the kitchen, but you scrubbed the dishes pretty damn well, and within an hour or two your anger would fizzle out and you’d be back to your usual self.

Over time, the chore became something that grounded you whenever you weren’t feeling too hot. It kept your hands busy, and sometimes Sanji would join you to chat and complain until Zeff decided that the two of you were just a little too happy in his kitchen and kicked one or both of you out.

“Washing or drying?” Sanji asks. He had tossed his jacket somewhere while you were thinking and is now holding out an apron for you to take.

“Washing.” You slip the apron on and roll up your sleeves.

Nobody bothers you or Sanji as you start working. You use a generous amount of soap, let the water heat up until it almost scalds your skin, and scrub each plate and bowl and utensil and glass until they’re better than new. Then you hand it off to Sanji, who carefully dries each item and puts them aside.

Eventually, you find your voice again.

“Sorry you had to come over and get me. I thought I could handle it.”

“No, I should’ve been there before it got too bad. I’m sorry.” Sanji meets your eyes, and his gaze softens into something sad. “What happened?”

Your shrug is so small you almost don’t feel it. “I was fine when he was yelling at me. But when he grabbed me by the collar, I just – I dunno. It surprised me real bad.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. Just wrinkled my shirt.” You bend your knee, feeling the stiffness of dried blood on your slacks, and pout. “And stained my pants.”

“He didn’t even land a hit, at the very least,” Sanji says. A corner of his mouth tilts up. “I’ve got to say, I’m quite impressed.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Really? I impressed Black Leg Sanji by kneeing a customer in the face?”

“It’s the first time I’ve seen you fight a customer. You usually calm them right down.”

“Well, this one was a real shitbag. I’m surprised I haven’t had to do it sooner, to be honest.”

He shakes his head. “It shouldn’t be something you should ever have to do,” he tells you. “Not while I’m here. If I ever see that bastard again, I swear I’ll kill him.”

“My hero,” you say with a smile, kicking up one foot.

Sanji winks at you and, with towel and dish in hand, leans over slightly to kiss the side of your head. It’s an innocent and playful thing he’s started doing as of late, and it certainly has no underlying meaning whatsoever, so you make a show of scrunching up your face like you always do. You swear that your face only feels hot because of the steam.

“Until my dying breath,” he says softly.

Oh. It’s not so funny anymore.

You flick bubbles at him and resume washing the dishes. Sanji grins and resumes drying, and if you scoot closer until you feel his arm brush yours with every movement, well – that’s nobody’s business but yours.

[goldxnfemme]

I've been thinking quite a bit about this conversation I had with a butch I had a thing with, a few years back. To be honest, it crosses my mind a lot. In this conversation we were talking about butch/femme, aesthetics, stereotypes etc. The context to it is that I saw a video that showed, unfortunately stereotyped, femme as these 4 styles of clothing and whatever, you can think it was funny, it's not the end of the world certainly, but we got to talking about this notion that I think the community forgets, regardless of verbally recognising "we're not aesthetics".

He showed me a picture that he really liked of this butch/femme couple in a bar and they were both wearing the same outfit and yet we could recognise them as a butch/femme pairing. Reminds me also of this black and white picture of two butches with a femme in the middle, they were in similar clothes, only the shirts said "butch" or "fem" in the case of the one I now bring up. Both of these were taken before the 1980s, if I recall correctly. Of course these are pictures, so we don't get the full context of their identities, but the intention here is to illustrate the concept of, in a way, the silliness of separating us by clothes and aesthetics. What this expectation of femininity or masculinity means considering both of these can be presented in such a subjective way.

When I talk about this, and how I view femme through my own femme lenses, I want to once again, shed light to some parts I love of The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader by Joan Nestle:

"the femme is the lesbian who poses this problem of misinterpreted choice in the deepest way... Femmes are women who have made choices, but we need to be able to read between the cultural lines to appreciate their strength. Lesbians should be mistresses of discrepancies, knowing that resistance lies in the change of context." - the resistance and the strength of femme, along with its meaning, isn't quite obvious and a lot of people tend to miss it.

"Butches were known by their appearance, femmes by their choices."

And this part of Butch Is A Noun by S. Bear Bergman:

"(For the record, I believe that the same is true of femmes; the femmes who get the most admiration, the most approbation in the queer community in which I live seem to be the ones who cherry-pick exactly what of femininity they want, mix it with a hearty dash of traditionally masculine characteristics like sexual agency, stompy boots, assertiveness, fondness for power tools, and so on, and shake up a gendered cocktail that makes traditional unexamined cultural femininity look a little watery, a little pale. This is what I see, as a longtime admirer of femmes in all their variations, but I freely acknowledge that I only see what any femme cares to show me, and it's really not for me to say."

I think femme identity can become this pale misconstrued concept because we're not as obviously recognizable and people aren't as prepared to recognize us. People get used to, when thinking of lesbians, noticing and expecting butch signs, in such a way that femmes flew under the radar as an identity and definition and we still deal with that heavily today. And lately I've been seeing somewhat of a guessing game of what it all means that doesn't encompass our full range, truly it's hard to encompass that in any case.

But the moral of the story, I guess, is that femme needs more than a glance, more than one size fits all, more than what meets the eye, if we can recognize the multitude and holistic nature in the other side of our coin, we're capable of recognizing it within us.

[max1461]

I've said this before, but unfortunately a not-too-rare thing in philosophy, that really bugs me as a linguist, is people saying "the fact that language works like X tells us Y about the nature of [concept]", and not even bothering to check whether languages other than English and maybe French actually work that way.

Maybe I'm just not understanding the subtleties of these arguments, but I'm thinking of things like the linguistic objection to emotivism about ethics: "if ethical statements express emotional attitudes and not propositions, why can we make seemingly well-formed arguments out of them like we can with propositions?"

This is maybe an unusually strong argument of this general type, because you can claim quite reasonably that what makes a well-formed argument is independent of language. But what makes a seemingly well-formed argument is probably not independent of language, and one possible emotivist response to the objection could be "arguments employing ethical 'propositions' look well-formed but actually aren't".

In the Iroquoian languages kinship terms are verbs. Rather than a noun for "father" there is a verb "to be someone's father". In fact, most things are verbs in Iroquoian languages, really. And you can make all sorts of well-formed verbal expressions using them, although I'm not an Iroquoian speaker so I don't know precisely what they all look like. There's all kinds of nonsense things you could claim if you were an analytic philosopher who had only ever encountered other speakers of Iroquoian (it is fun to imagine alt-histories where such people are common, if you like that kind of thing): maybe "all relationships between things are ontologically a type of action; just look at how we can make all these well-formed action expressions out of them!".

In Japanese, many adjectives are verbs. 青い means "to be blue"; you can put it in the past tense, 青かった "was blue". I'm sure this is very important, and tells us a lot about the metaphysical structure of the world.

[skirting-board-iix]

10 Verbal Nouns in Irish that I very much enjoy

Ag Smúrthacht - prowling, slinking around the place

Ag Airneán - staying up late into the night

Ag Plobarnach - gurgling (of water or porridge)

Ag Santú - ‘greeding’ for something (((also to desire seggsually)))

Ag Slaparnach - trudging around/through shallow water/mud

Ag Spréacharnach - glittering

Ag Rógaireacht - swindling or otherwise engaging in divilment

Ag Pleidhcíocht - fooling around, messin’

Ag Goilliúint - wounding emotionally

Ag Meabhrú - brooding or pondering

warning: 🚨not caighdeán approved🚨 (also these are rough estimations of meanings and there are 100% other verbs which cover these same things please dont break my tibia)

[chahnniesroom]

tenderness | masterlist

[noun] /ˈtendərnəs/

1. the quality of being gentle, kind, or loving

2. the feeling of pain, aching, or soreness

pairing: bang chan x female reader

summary: in a world where soulmates are rare and precious, you don’t know why the universe has decided to give you one. you never could have imagined that they would be an idol, and one that you worked with at that, or the challenges that would arise from your bond.

genre: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, slow burn, soulmate au, afab!reader, reader is a skz manager

warnings: reader doesn't have a good relationship with her family, arguing, verbal/emotional abuse, nausea, jealousy, injury, blood, sasaengs, hospitals [please let me know if there is anything you think i missed!]

total word count: 50k (inclusive of bonus scenes)

a/n: hi! this is my first skz fic so please bear with me. updates will be either weekly or bi-weekly. chapters will be from the perspective of the reader, chan, and sometimes a mix of both. you can also read this fic on ao3. i hope you enjoy!!

chapter one: goodbye hello

chapter two: the aftermath

chapter three: inevitable

chapter four: mask on

chapter five: a little too much

chapter six: on my own

chapter seven: go ahead

chapter eight: all fall down

chapter nine: a time to learn

chapter ten: and a time to heal

epilogue: jet lag

bonus: banmal

bonus: your life over mine

bonus: when we are in need

[chahnniesroom masterlist]

[pinkieclown]

Cats The Musical Autism Headcanons

because these kitties are autistic okay!! honestly i think all the characters can be autistic these are just the ones i have specific ideaz for :3

mungojerrie & rumpleteazer (cause the twins definitely share some traits lol)

- the talking talkers… they’re both hyper-verbal :) while their chattiness can sometimes help with their schemes (they like to engage a friendly policeman in conversation!) but usually they just talk cat’s ears off cause they like talking

- always up in each other’s space, these two have very little sense of personal space and are always grabbing each other’s shoulders/arms or leaning on each other, snuggling, or generally being close to each other

- both love jumping up and down or running around to stim! sometimes they link arms and run in a circle for minutes at a time just to get their energy out

- they’re pretty spontaneous when it comes to their heists, usually jumping into it before fully working out a plan, but both can get very upset when something goes wrong/doesn’t go their way

mungojerrie

- TERRIBLE with eye contact, he’s always looking at everything except the person he’s talking to. definitely adds to his kinda ‘shifty’ reputation

- loves oral stimming, usually chewelry or something of the sort, but will absentmindedly chew on p much anything in his reach (pens, plastic, teazer’s arm, etc)

- has poor volume control, tends to talk just a bit too loud or too quiet depending on the situation

- tends to accidentally interrupt/talk over others cause he doesn’t really understand their cues

rumpleteazer

- very touchy-feely… but only on her terms! she loves initiating snuggles hugs or play-fights, but if someone touches her when she’s not expecting/in the mood, she won’t hesitate to take a swipe at em (jerrie is usually the only exception)

- tippy-toe walks alllll the time. helpful for moving quietly when she needs to but will do it for no reason at all

- loves to give cats nicknames, but doesn’t understand how they work so just decides on random nouns to call her friends

- has a hard time understanding metaphors and sarcasm

etcetera

- THE STIMMER!! she loves to stim! usually flapping her paws, tapping her toes, or bouncing in place, but pretty much any repetitive movement is a stim for her <3

- related to her stimming, she cannot sit still! she’s always moving around, playing with toys, or shifting from side to side even when she’s supposed to stay still

- loves to knit or crochet with jenny, since its repetitive and keeps her hands busy, plus she gets a cute scarf at the end!

- has echolalia, she often repeats words/sounds other cats say, usually just to feel it in her mouth

mistoffelees

- non/semi-verbal, only speaks when he’s very comfortable or around certain cats (like victoria or tugger)

- loves to perform but is naturally quite shy and quiet, so tends to lean on his ‘stage persona’ to express his more dramatic and expressive side! when he isn’t in that mindset though he’s very aloof

- very diligent about keeping himself clean and tidy. he can feel when even one tuft of fur is out of place and it BOTHERS him

- has hypersomnia, he’s always sleepy and gets worn out pretty quick (especially after his bigger magical feats)

- has very specific day to day routines (wakes up at a specific time, visits the junkyard on specific days of the week, etc) gets really frustrated and stressed if they’re interrupted or changed

- he’s a house-cat, but refuses to wear a collar (he hates how it feels)

sillabub

- didn’t speak for a long time growing up, but at like age 4 (in cat years) suddenly started speaking in full sentences. demeter was very surprised

- has a (terrifying) habit of slipping into this wide-eyed hundred yard stare when she zones out. it took a while for everyone to get used to that

- very sensitive to lights and colors, she’s the first to notice when the light shifts ever so slightly, and too-bright lights or colors are very overstimulating for her

- doesn’t like being touched except by her moms and sister (demeter & bomba and electra, respectively) and even then only in certain moments

- special interest is the night sky, she knows all the names of the constellations and can tell you the phase of the moon on any given night

- makes A LOT of eye contact

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Rook, Ortho: Princess Power

BRUH 💀 Go figure, giving the guy obsessed with beauty two of the least flattering screenshots in his background frames… But hey, his groovy is very different from everyone else’s so far! ^^ Very relaxed and peaceful.

Cbjssbjsjskendb new tidbits about pre-Pomefiore Rook?? He used to cut his own hair with a knife and focused on keeping his bangs out of his line of sight… and he wasn’t as confident about his style (mood). It’s also interesting to know that he started doing ballet on Vil’s recommendation, and that has helped a lot with his posture, working out muscles he doesn’t normally use, and appreciating the art of performances. We love Pomefiore out here breaking gender norms 👊

A Tale as Old as Time.

Rook drew out a longing sigh, gently easing into the quiet of the museum. The soft sound lingered, coiling around his fingers like thread from a spool. It, too, did not wish to part ways with the stunning beauty laid out bare before it.

A fair maiden was framed in shining platinum. Hair black as ebony, lips as red as the rose, and skin as white as snow... Truly, she was the fairest in all the land.

Her graceful frame was folded, kneeling on the forest floor to greet the woodland creatures that had gathered. The pale yellow skirt of her gown spilled out, blue bodice and puff sleeves fitted well by her figure. Her face round and gentle, in spite of the high collar encircling it, crowed by a petite red bow.

Here was pure innocence, a young girl reveling in nature.

“Beauté,” he marveled—to no one in particular, but such beauty warranted verbal acknowledgement.

“It seems that this painting has captured your interest, Rook Hunt-san!” a voice chirped. A neon blue light emanated from the darkness, accompanied by the silver flash of metal.

“Bonjour!” Rook greeted Ortho. "I must confess, I have been enchanted by this particular work of art! The brush strokes, masterful! The composition, immaculate!! The subject—oh, how it makes my heart quiver with nostalgia!! I am a man close to being moved to tears!!”

Ortho curiously glanced at the girl and her animal friends. No strong emotions arose within up from him. Perhaps he did not feel as much, or perhaps Rook felt too much. “Is there a sentimental experience or memory you have related to this painting…?”

“Oui! It is a tale as old as time.” Rook gestured to the snow white young lady. “They say that this maiden was a princess forced to flee from her home country, as a hostile presence threatened her life. She retreated into the woods and found comfort in a humble life there. Her tenacity is most admirable!!”

“Tenacity… That’s the value that Pomefiore was founded on!” Ortho, floating overhead, beamed at Rook. “I understand why you would like that story. It has a good moral that sticks with you.”

“That is the beauty of telling tales! They inspire those who hear of it, ensuring that the spirit of the story is never truly extinguished.” The huntsman’s eyes held a keep glint to them. “Tell me, Ortho-kun. What do you believe makes a princess?”

The boy blinked. A split second, and he had already input the term into an internal search engine, the formal definition loaded up to recite.

“Prin-cess, noun. The daughter of a monarch or wife to a prince. A woman having sovereign power.”

“An efficient, succinct answer!” Rook applauded, his cheer never faltering. “However, my desire is to know your interpretation. In Ortho-kun’s own words, what makes a princess?”

“My own…?” The words stretched, unsure, on his tongue. Ortho hesitated—seeking, processing, and analyzing. Rook’s heartbeat sounded where there was the space for the boy to think.

Then, finally, Ortho spoke.

“From what I’ve observed in movies and books, the princess is a pop culture icon. She’s usually presented as a role model for little girls. Someone who is beautiful, dainty, and composed, wearing a pretty dress and a glittering crown."

A pause. Ortho assessed Rook’s hard-to-read, bright expression.

“… Is that closer to the response you were looking for, Rook Hunt-san?” he asked.

To this, the third year’s lips quirked. “There is no correct or incorrect answer! I was curious to see your perspective. Everyone holds one that differs, lenses of all designs and colors with which to see the world through! You have my most heartfelt thanks for sharing your view with me.”

"Oh, I see! You're collecting data from a variety of sources to compare to a standard." The android (literally) lit up from within. "Let me ask the same back! Rook Hunt-san, what do you think makes a princess?"

"Mon dieu! You've set my own trap upon me," Rook teased.

The Beautiful Queen, the Fair Maiden, Vil, his peers... So many fragments of beauty in his collection. Plucked, collected, hoarded.

He ran a finger along his chin, contemplating. The thoughts assembled like a collage. Ideas taken, cut up, and pasted together into a new, glorious artwork.

"A princess can be many things," Rook declared with certainty. "They are a princess to their very core, even when their power is stripped from them or they are dressed in only ashes and rags. What defines them is not royal heritage or political influence, but the strength of their character, their values and virtues. They are not bound by a singular trait, but are aspirations to all in their own ways."

Ortho's eyes swelled. "Eh...? That's so broad! By your definition, anyone could be a princess—even you or I!”

The huntsman threw his head back and laughed. "Broad it may be, but I am of the opinion that we all have it in us to live up to the title~”

He indicated the woman in the platinum frame. Ortho’s gaze obediently followed. "Even without a kingdom to call her own, she remained kind-hearted rather than turn to cruelty. That is why she was, and always will be, a noble soul. A princess who puts out good into the world.”

“Rook Hunt-san…”

“Ortho-kun!” Rook dramatically extended an arm to him. He was practically sparkling in the dim room. “I, too, endeavor to put out as much beauty as what is gifted to me! That is my one true calling as the Hunter of Love: to not only seek out beauty, but to cultivate and to contribute to it!”

Ortho silently stared. Nii-san did warn me that Rook Hunt-san could be eccentric, but… maybe there’s some meaning to be found in it.

Cutting through the numbers and the formulas that governed him was a fuzzy warmth. Not the familiar jolt of electricity that powered his circuits. It was too wild, too unpredictable.

Something undeniably human.

Ortho let out a giggle. "Hehe. Then you must be a princess too!"

Rook's mouth formed a small "o". Unsubtle surprise—or perhaps purposefully exaggerated. "Me? Whatever makes you think that?"

"Strength of character!" Ortho parroted mischievously. "I've never met someone as uplifting as you are. Rook Hunt-san is the type of person that sees a princess in everyone."

The boy lowered himself to a few centimeters off of the ground, pretending to dip into a curtsey. "Your majesty!"

"Fufufu. You're quite charming yourself, Princess Ortho-kun!" Rook bent into a deep bow. "Most clever in all the land, computing complex problems in the blink of an eye!”

Upon straightening, the third year laid both hands over his heart. He lifted his head toward the painting of the fair maiden in the forest. A serene smile at his lips.

It was as if he was pledging his allegiance, making a vow. A worshipper at the altar to pray.

“May we all live happily ever after,” Rook whispered raptly, “like the princesses of old.”

Forever and ever.

[my-only-way-tocooperatewithlife]

Promises- Charles Leclerc

Welcome back everyone. First of all, I would love to thank you All for all the love and support that my blog has received in the past two month. I have never expected in my wildest dreams that you will like the How your life can change with a call story. Thank you really. ❤ All those comments, likes, reblogs they mean sooo much to me. Hope you will like this one too, I have some up in my sleeves left. Love you Kiki ♥

Charles Leclerc x Fem!Reader

Summary: You have known each other for years, you are best friends. But none of you are lucky with love. So after a midnight you two made a promise, that got kind of forgotten over the years. Or at least that's what you have thought.

Warnings: overall fluff with a little hint of angst, best friend to lovers, alcohol usage, swears, , rom-com vibes, smut, mentione of cheating

Masterlist

Promise (noun): a verbal commitment by on person to another agreeing to do

“Guess who got cheated on?” You stopped at the edge of the dock, kicked off your shoes and picked it up from the tarmac while dropped your bag on the dark wooden flooring before continuing your way to the central area of the boat, where you stepped over the couch and sat between your girlfriends as the other five friends were sitting around in different furnitures holding cups with different beverages. They were waiting on you continuing your rant about that blonde haired bank worker bastard, who you have already thought is cheating on you but tonight this intuition turned into a real thing when you walked into his place finding him having a romantic dinner with someone else. “Oh don’t you dare to start that something was already suspicious about that man, and I did not deserve him or the girl is probably not even close to the level that I’m on and shit like this. Because, here comes the good part. It was not a woman he cheated me with, it was his colleague, a dude.” You were animatedly gesticulating, everyone was listening to you attentively and quietly till you finished and then all of them said the same thing at the same time.

“No fucking way.” 

“Can you imagine how embarrassing is it for me? Like first it’s embarrassing and infuriating to get cheated on. I would add it in a bracket that it’s not my first time to be in a situation like this, but with a guy? And I can still top it off, it was not that they were having a romantic candle lit dinner, but they were all over each other, and clothes were missing. I thought today I will see a man’s private part, hah jokes on me. I got two..” You were mortified by the whole story and you even felt worse when you were telling about your friends, because it was the time when it finally hit you what happened. Your pulse was drumming in your ears, your breath quickened as you were finished with your monologue, waiting for the group to answer something.

“Maybe they just wanted a threesome.” Your friend Eric snorted as he made the joke. You looked at him unamused and pushed him on his shoulders.

“And I would not have had a problem with it, if I knew for sure that I’m the one they are into and not each other.” You shrugged and got up from the couch walking all the way to the small fridge. “Do I look that miserable, that I can’t find a normal guy who is not lying, or turns out to be gay…”You turned around leaning back to the counter looking at the group sitting in front of you, all of them were quietly staring back at you. “ Oh fuck off.” You rolled your eyes before they started to laugh. 

“You are really pushing this whole dating thing. Be more relaxed. It will come when you have the time for it, okay?” One of your girl friends, Sammy walked closer to you and wrapped her arm around your shoulder as she leaned closer and kissed your cheeks. “You are beautiful, intelligent, funny and loyal. Guys are just dumb. But don’t give up, and you know what we say? No boys, no problem.”

“That’s true as no girls, no problem! “Eric shouted from the other side of the boat.

“Dude, have you heard of the phrase who is eavesdropping will get older quicker?” Sammy shouted back at him.

“Look at Leclerc, since he is single again, he seems so much happier.” Eric picked up the small red ball from his feet and threw it at his friend, which perfectly hit the back of his neck. Charles lifted his gaze up from his cup with a grin, as he lifted up his left hand with his middle finger and flipped off our friend. “And he spends more time with us than we can spend on his boat. It's an all win-win situation, my boy!” Charles was chuckling and shaking his head side to side.

“So, Eric, are you gonna open that tequila that you have been singing odes about?” Charles threw the small ball back at his friend. 

You were sitting at the tip of the boat, looking straight ahead of you, watching how the moon’s light flickers on the surface of the sea. It was calm, it made you feel calm as well. Some lights were on in some boats in the port, you could hear people chatting away as they were walking in the sea shore. The bass of the music quietly emerges from downstairs.

“Are you not cold?” The voice made you jump in your seat and you whipped your head around, seeing Charles warmly smiling down at you as he was having a hoodie draped over his left arm, as he had two bottles of beer in his right hand. “I brought you one of my hoodies, and beers if you want to talk about the evening or just in general.”

“Thank you Perceval.” You smiled at him and took the hoodie away from him. He rolled his eyes with a smile and sat down next to you. You knew each other since high school, you just moved here from France with your parents. He was the first kid when you stepped in the classroom who instantly went to you and introduced himself to you, just before dragging you all the way to the other side of the room, so he can introduce all of his friends to you. Who turned to be your friends too afterwards. Your group of friends stuck together even after Charles left for the F1 Academy, you have spent the summers together. When you graduated and most of you started to work, and did your licenses you went to most of Charles races that were close to you, cheering him on all the eight of you. 

“Are you okay?” He nudged you with his shoulder, you turned your head to look at him. He was quietly studying your face. 

“I just realized that I do push this whole dating thing. I did not even like that dude. He was just there to make me feel less alone. How pathetic.. ” You said with a sigh and turned your gaze away from his eyes and looked back in front of you, fixing your gaze at the water again. “Sometimes I guess I can be a little jealous seeing everyone with their partners. Like when we go to your races and I’m the only one sitting alone, or when we go out for dinner, and I’m the only one who does not belong to someone. And don’t get me wrong, I’m so happy when my friends are happy. I love to look at them being in love. I was so happy when I saw you happy in a relationship. It just sucks sometimes you know..” you turned your head his way and saw that he was looking at you, studying your face quietly. He was watching you the whole time, and as you turned his way he looked in your eyes and pulled his lips to a small smile and nodded.

“I get what you say. And it’s understandable, we are at the age when we want something serious, that we can build our life on.” He caressed your shoulder softly.” Do you still remember what we have promised to each other?” He popped the lids off the beer bottles and handed one over to you. 

“I’m not eating chocolate and drinking in front of you when you are having your race weekends?” You looked at him puzzled which he just answered with a small chuckle. “Or I’m not drinking whiskeys anymore, and I’m not putting on that Ferrari red stiletto high heels that makes me feel like the sexiest woman on earth but kills my feet in two minutes so you have to carry me home?”

“We have had this conversation before, you are the sexiest woman on Earth and it does not matter if you have those high heels on or not. “He clinked his beer bottle to yours and both of you took a swig of your drinks. “But I was thinking about something else. We have agreed on something five years ago on new years eve.” You looked at him with your brows furrowed, and tilted your head to the side. 

“No way you still remember that…” your mouth opened once you realised what he was talking about. 

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ New year’s Eve of 2018 ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

“Perceval…” you screamed as you saw your best friend coming out of the crowded house. You stepped closer to him, but the amount of alcohol and the choice of shoes did it’s magic so you ended up falling into his arms, he grabbed on your waist as you wrapped your arms around his neck. “It’s ten minutes before the countdown.”

“Bunny, no need to scream in my ears.” he giggled and helped you back on your feet, and kept his hand on the side of your hips to keep you steady. Probably the last three gin tonics and those other two tequila shots were probably not that necessary. 

“Another year has ended and I’m single, I think it’s a curse.” You sighed dramatically, and leaned back on the railings.”

“Oh come on, don’t be this dramatic.” He rolled his eyes, and picked two champagne flutes from the server’s plate. Handing over one for you.

“You don’t get it, I have had everything planned. Like I’m twenty now, in two months I will turn twenty one. I have planned that I want to have a serious relationship till my mid twenties, so I can start to have a family before I turn thirty. I have it planned, Charles.” You were animatedly gesticulating as he was watching you with an amazed look on his face. “I need to find a guy like you. I need someone to have the same personality as you, and most of your handsomeness.” 

“Bunny, I’m not surprised that you have planned it.” He chuckled. “Okay, I have an idea. We still have five years till we turn twenty five. In February 2022 our deal starts, we have six months from that to find someone that we can imagine to start a family. If we are single in September, we will get together.”

“You are crazy dude.” You laughed with your head tilted back. “I know for sure that you won’t be single.”

“Maybe, who knows. We have five years till that. So what do you say? Can we make this promise to ourselves? You know that I keep promises” People started to gather around you on the balcony, everyone was pretty drunk just as you two. Most of the crowd had some type of alcohol in their hands, mostly champagne. “Countdown will start soon Bunny, so you have to make a choice if you are into this promise or not.” He looked back at you and extended a pinky out to you. You knew he was serious about it. During your whole friendship since you were teenagers you only made a few promises. He promised you the day when he left for the Academy, that he will never forget about you, and that he will make it to F1 and not just that he will make it to F1 but he will make it to Ferrari. 

“Just don’t regret it.” You hooked your pinky in his as the countdown started. “Spending a whole lifetime with me can be a lot.” You winked at him, and he let out a small laugh. “FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO..” as the counting were going down behind you all

“Never, I already spent a part of my life with you, it won’t change a lot. I promise.” He said it just as the crowd screamed One 

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

“You can’t be serious about that, you remember.” You laid down on the boat looking up at the stars above you all as you chuckled.

“Never forgot a promise before, haven’t I?” He laid down next to you watching the twinkling stars above the two of you. “If I’m not wrong we are in July, so it means you have two months left.” 

“I would say the same for you, but let’s be honest. “You turned your head to him, and he turned to you too. “You can hardly stay single.” He rolled his eyes and pushed your shoulder slightly. 

“Hey, I wanted to ask something.” You broke the small silence between the two of you which made him turn his head to look at you again. “The others knew about it already, I just had no idea if you were gonna be in Monaco. But did not want you to feel guilty if you can’t participate..”

“Bunny, you are rambling again.” He grabbed your pinky with his pinky and squeezed it a little.“Take a breath and start again.” 

“I got called in for an audition, and it will be open to the public. Would you like to come to my show at that music bar? It's two weeks from today.” You spoke rapidly trying to get the question out as soon as possible so you may feel less awkward about it.

“Bunny! That’s incredible! Of course I will come.” He wrapped his fingers around your hand and lifted up to his lips. “I’m so happy for you!” He mumbled over your knuckles and laid a feather-like kiss on the back of your hand as he was looking deeply in your eyes, making you blush like crazy, the tip of your ears were burning, but you just could not tear your eyes off him. You swallowed thick and inhaled through your nose.

“I actually have something for you.” He let go of your hand and started to dig into the pocket of his sweats, closing the small sachet in his palm before he sat up pulling you up with him. “I saw this the other day and instantly thought that you might like it.” You extended both of your arms, as your plans were facing to the sky, wiggling your fingers, initiating that he needs to hurry up. “Someone is impatient.” He giggled and dropped the small black velvet sachet in your plans. It felt light, your brows were knitted and hooked your fingers in the mouth of the sachet opening it up. You turned the little bag upside down, letting the gift fall into your left palm. 

“Oh Charles, it's really pretty.” You picked up the bracelet. It was a black yarn bracelet with small beads knotted on it, and one heart shaped charmer on it.

“And that’s not all, wait let me help you put it on.” Quickly wrapping the bracelet around your right wrist. “Okay wait.” He pulled the sleeve of his hoodie showing all the different bracelets that he usually had on his wrists before tapping on one of the charmers making the one that you had on your wrist vibrated.

“Wait, what? Do it again.” He smiled and tapped twice on the charmer making your bracelet pulsate twice. “Wow, that's so cool.” You tapped on your charmer too.

“You can tap it as many times as you want, and it works no matter what. Even if we are on different sides of the world.”

“Oh so like when you are in Australia for example and I’m just waking up I can just tap it and I don’t have to write you Hi good morning text.” You were still tapping on your charmer. 

“Exactly. Or when I’m thinking about you, slash or miss you I can tap it twice.” He tapped his charmer twice, making yours vibrate twice too. 

“So we are gonna have our own little morse code between us.” He nodded, smiling back at you. You got on your knees and wrapped your arms around his neck pulling him in a hug, his arms wrapped around your waist, holding you tight to his body. “Thank you mon beau.” You whispered in his neck, nuzzling your nose further in. He turned his head and laid a small kiss on your jawline and pulled you back, laying down on the boat’s floor as your head was on his chest listening to his heart beat.

“Your welcome Bunny.” He raked his fingers through your hair making you sigh loudly. Physical touch were both of your love language, it was normal for you to cuddle up, or things like he was playing with your hair, or drawing shapes on each other's skin. 

———————————

You were back in the salon, running the day alone as Pascal took a day off, you just finished with your last client and started to clean up in the salon. Washing away the bowls where you have been mixing the colours, swiping up the floor one last time, gathering all the used towels and throwing them in the machine to and scheduled it to start in the morning before you will open the shop. You walked in the small storage picking up the fresh delivery of hair colours, you picked up the box and walked to the other side of the salon and sat on the ground and started to fill up the cabinet. The doorbell rang as the door pushed open, and someone walked in. You rolled your eyes as you checked the watch on your arm for the time. “Sorry we are closed!” You said behind the counter and picked up the now empty box before getting up and walked out. “Excuse me, we are closed.” You said one more time as you saw the brown haired man standing with his back facing you in the doorway holding up his phone to his ears. He turned around for your second call, lowering the phone from his ears and sending it your way. He was one of the most handsome men that you have ever seen. First thing that made your eyes go was his piercing blue eyes that stared into yours, they were deep and expressive, where you could get lost if you stare long enough. He was the typical description of a Greek god. 

“Excuse me, I have had an appointment for six o’clock.” He checked the time on his watch again. “I booked the appointment online yesterday with YN, I think.”

“Are you sure?” You asked back confused and started to walk to the reception table, to check your calendar. He unlocked his phone and slid over the counter top, showing you the confirmation email that you sent out yesterday afternoon. You facepalmed yourself, you remembered sending that mail out, and you also remembered telling yourself to write it up in your own calendar too, but when you were about to do your bracelet started to vibrate four times, making you drop everything and digging up your phone from the papers scattering around. Four vibrations meant, check your phone, I’m gonna call you. “I’m so sorry. Uhm, okay give me two minutes. Can you please take a seat? I’ve already packed everything, but I’ll be ready in a minute.” You rambled and ran around the counter, trying to get your scissors and the other essentials. 

“Take your time, I’m not in a rush.” He chuckled.

“Oh I’m YN by the way.” You extended your hand out for him which he took and squeezed a little, his hand was much bigger than yours, his skin felt a little rough but it was really warm. 

“Matthew.” His voice was deep and raspy. He took a seat at your station and you draped the cloak on him.

“So Matthew, guess from the name you are not born and raised in Monte Carlo.” You started the chat as you were working on his haircut.”Especially from that British accent.”

“Busted. Right, I'm from London. I’m just here for a conference.”

“Oh what do you do? Obviously you can’ ask back because you already know my profession.” You smiled at him through the mirror, and he chuckled.

“I’m in the british airforce, I’m an admiral, we are here to meet with some big army heads from France and Italy.” So an army guy, with uniforms, with muscles. Okay stop. You nodded quietly, continuing your work on his hair. You were chatting through the whole session, sharing some giggles and laughs, he had a pretty good humour. 

“Okay, so we are ready.” You announced once you untied the cloak and pulled it off his lap.

“Wow thanks, I really like it.” He checked himself and nodded as an approval before he got up from his seat.

“Your welcome, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience in the beginning. I forgot to write your appointment up.” You folded the piece of clothing and dropped it on the chair, you walked to the counter. 

“Don’t worry about it really, I’m just happy that I could catch you in time.” He took his wallet out of his pocket. “To be honest, I would love to see you in another time.” You looked up surprised at him as you were typing in the amount in the terminal. He was leaning on the edge of the table, looking into your eyes deeply waiting for your answer, with a cheeky smile on his lips. “If you are free tomorrow, we can have lunch.”

“Oh yea sure, a lunch that sounds good.” You stuttered.

“Check your calendar, just to be sure.” He winked at you tapping on the hard covered pink calendar sliding it over the counter. You let out a silent laugh and opened up the book checking the next day.

“Yep, my whole day is empty. For a hundred percent.” You looked up smiling at him. “I know a good restaurant like two blocks away from here. It’s the Salon Rose. If you take advice from someone who grew up here.” You closed up the book tapping on it nervously.

“Okay, let’s meet up in front of it just before noon?” 

“Sure. Yea, sounds good.” 

“Perfect. See you soon YN.” He tapped his card on the side of the terminal and stepped back before winking at you with a mischievous smile on his handsome face. You felt your cheeks getting warmer and you broke eye contact by looking down at the table and playing with the yarn bracelet when it started to vibrate, waking up from your daydreaming. 

You were not sure about how much you should dress up, because the La Rose it's not the fanciest place in Monaco, perfect for a lunch date with someone just as fine looking as Matthew was. You picked up a white summer dress that made your olive brown skin stand out even more. The dress was not something too fancy, but still felt cute in the Monte Carlo summer. He was already waiting outside the place, tapping away on his phone and just lifted his gaze up when you were a few steps away from him. 

“Bonjour!” He greeted you and stepped closer giving your two kisses each side of your face while giving you a hug. “ You look lovely.” He commented as he checked you out, making you blush a little, his right palm settling on the small of your back. You gave him a quiet thanks and let him lead you in the restaurant. You were surprised, the date wasn’t a flock afterall. He is an intelligent man, with many interest, and hobbies. Who was really serious about his job which is understandable considering the amount of time that he has devoted just for this. He was talkative and funny, and he was tentative. Listening to whatever you were talking about, asking questions, laughing with you about the jokes you have made and all the funny stories that you have told him about your life in Monaco.

“So you tell me that you are doing some part time job, which is not something you get paid for. How does it work?” He asked as he was paying the bill at the end of your lunch. Not even letting you think about getting your card out to split the bill.

“Oh, there is a pub where I usually went with my friends when we were younger, and we obviously still go there. And occasionally I sing there. Actually I’m gonna have an audition there for a record company at the end of the week. When are you going back to London?”

“You are lucky, I’ll leave next Monday.” He smiled and opened the door for you. You started to walk down the street, the time was already late afternoon. The lunch turned into an early dinner actually. But you were having so much fun not even caring about the time anymore. It has been a long time since you have had a date like this. “May I consider your question as an invitation?” He wiggled his eyebrows at you making you giggle and blush.

“Would you like to come to my audition night?” You stopped in front of him, looking up at him. There was a significant height difference between the two of you. You were not considered small, but you were just under the average height so it was not hard for someone to be taller than you. But he was really tall, there was like at least a head between the two of you. 

“YN, I would love to.” He smiled at you warmly as he lifted his free hand up to your neck, tilting your chin upwards more with his index finger. He leaned closer just as your foreheads were touching, your breath got stuck in your throat, you could not break away from the eye contact. He tiled your chin a little bit more to steal a kiss from you. “I actually have to go, we will have a gala later. “ He mumbled against your lips, you nodded slowly trying to wake yourself up from your clouded state. “I’ll text you later okay?” You were still silent and nodding which made him chuckle as he pushed one more kiss to your lips. “Bye YN.” There you were standing totally dumbfounded, touching your lips as you were watching him walking away, leaving you alone on the busy street of Monaco.

————————

“YN!” Eric grabbed on your shoulder making you jump in surprise and turned around seeing your friends around you.

“Hey guys, I have the usual table booked for us.” You pointed at the big table just next to the small stage. “Uhm, and this is Matthew. “You turned halfway to the man who was towering over you and pointed at him and back at the group. “Matthew, that’s everyone. Oh wait, where is Charles?” You got on your tiptoes looking for the familiar hazel eyes, but you can’t find it.

“He is coming, he just landed an hour ago in Nice, he dropped his bags and now he is on his way. Don’t worry he will be on time.” Sammy squeezed your shoulder and smiled at you. “ Okay, come Matt, let's sit down, let the girl get ready.” You smiled softly at him, and he leaned down and kissed your forehead before following the others.

“Welcome everyone! Good to see that tonight we are nearly packed again. Always good to see new faces, and of course our regulars. Hello guys.” The owner of the bar was holding the mic squinting his eyes as the lights were blinding him. “Okay so tonight is special, because our gem, our favourite little birdie, has her audition. So please welcome her, and all of us wish her luck, YN!” He turned to you, extending his palm out so you can grab on it helping you up on the small stage. You were frantically checking the crowd, seeing all your friends, you were about to start to panic when you could not see him when the bracelet vibrated and a hand lifted up in the air. He made it, he is here, and he was looking at you with the biggest, proudest smile on his lips. A wide grin appeared on your lips and you let out a sigh before lifting the mic to your lips.

“Hello everyone. Thank you for all of you coming in here tonight. It really means a lot. I’m really nervous so excuse me if I’m talking really fast.” You giggled and took a seat at the small stool in the middle of the stage. “Okay so for tonight we have prepared a few acoustic songs that we would like to share with you. Hope you all will enjoy it.” You looked back at your boss over your shoulder who was giving you a thumbs up as he settled with the guitar in his lap. The familiar accords of the Taylor Swift song started and you swallowed before taking a deep breath and lifted your gaze up from your shoes and fixated at one point in front of you. 

We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January And this is our place, we make the rules And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years? Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever? And ah, take me out, and take me home You're my, my, my, my Lover

You were looking at him, the whole time. He had a warm smile on his beautiful lips, his eyes were sparkling, never leaving yours at all. He was bobbing his head and leaning side to side at the rhythm of the music with the group sitting around him. He was silently singing the lyric-s with you, not breaking eye contact for any second. 

Can we always be this close forever and ever? And ah, take me out, and take me home (forever and ever) You're my, my, my, my Oh, you're my, my, my, my Darling, you're my, my, my, my Lover

Your smile was wide, reaching your ears nearly when the crowd erupted with cheers and whistles mixed with the clapping. They loved it, they loved you and your performance. You were over the moon when you got off the stage as you had ended the night, and walked back to the small staff room, where you were instantly greeted by the manager of the record company.

“Let me tell you little one, you are spectacular. You have potential. I’ll have recorded everything. And I’ll call you soon.” He shook your hand and squeezed your shoulder one more time before walking out of the room.

“You were amazing.” He appeared in the corner pulling you closer to him and wrapped you in a tight hug. “Everyone loved you.” He whispered in your hair and kissed the crown of your head before letting you go.” And you look beautiful.” He looked up and down on you, it was nothing special. A white short sleeved shirt, and you topped a spaghetti strap black dress on it. But for him you could wear your pjs and he would still say you are the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.“Oh that’s a pretty big bouquet.” He pointed at your right hand as you were awkwardly hanging the followers upside down. 

“Uh.. yea I got it from Matthew” you tucked a piece of hair behind your ears as you turned around and placed it on the small table. The smile froze on his face when he heard the name. He met the guy just before your performance, he had a frown on his face the whole time. He was quiet and kept distance with everyone during the night. 

“Oh Matthew, yea I met him. Seems like a cool guy.” He scratched the back of his neck and shifted his weight from one foot to another. You have mentioned Matthew to Charles but somehow you did not want to tell a lot, because you just do not want to admit to yourself that the sparkle that you have had at the beginning is not there anymore for you, especially now that one of the most important person is next to you, you can forget about everyone.

“Yea he is really nice.” You felt the awkwardness of the whole situation. “We should probably go back to the others.” You stepped closer to him, wrapping your arm around his waist and he pulled you close to his body and smiled down at you. You were chatting with your friends sitting between Matthew and Charles, who were laughing with the guys while the other guy was sulking on your left, quietly sipping on his drink. 

You went to the bar asking for another round of cocktails for you and your other girlfriends when he appeared behind you.

“Okay Y/N, I can’t do this!” The volume of his voice made you jump, you snapped your head looking at Matthew who slammed the two glasses on the table making the cocktail spill everywhere. 

“What do you mean?”

“You need to choose, me or him!” He pointed at Charles in the distance who was staring at us intensely, trying to figure out what the conversation could be about. He did not trust him, and he definitely did not like how he was treating you, especially now. 

“You make me choose between you and my best friend? “ you furrowed your brows.” What are you? Eight?” You tilted your head to the side with an amused grin on your lips. There he is, the real Matthew, it was too good to be true. “Do you hear yourself? You make me choose between someone who I know for like ten years over a dude who I know less than a week.” 

“I’m serious,I don’t like this dude, how he is wrapping you up in his arms. You even left your bouquet that I have got you. So what do you say? Me or that French dude?” He crossed his arms in front of him and blocked your vision. Charles got confused and got up from his seat actually was about to walk closer to you to check if everything is okay. 

“He is Monégasque not French, you conceited prick.” You picked up the tray full with cocktails  and started to walk back to your table and slid it over to your friends.

“You good?” He grabbed your wrist as you tried to walk past him. “Come on.” He pulled you after him outside to the balcony, closing the door behind him turning around watching you pacing up and down. “Okay, would you please tell me what was going on between the two of you?” He hesitated because had no idea if you are gonna lose it and erupt with anger or start crying or maybe both. You stopped and looked at him.

“Am I that incredibly unlucky? Or are all the guys just dipshits?” You threw your hands up in the air dramatically. “You would think when a guy is like twenty eight or twenty nine so at the end of his twenties they probably develop some intelligence. But no.” You shake your head as you start pacing again. “He knew it well, he was aware about the situation and he said he is fine with it. And all of the sudden he is not fine with it and even tries to make me choose.” You were rambling fast and walking in circles. 

“Bunny I really tried to follow you but you lost me honey. What are you talking about?” He grabbed both your hands, linking your fingers together, keeping you steady and standing. 

“I’m talking about the fact that Matthew made me choose between himself and my best friend. He stared at you for a second before he started to laugh. “Who does something like this? I know this guy, what? Five days max. And he is already starting to control my life, just because he took me on a date?”

“Do I have to ask who you have chosen?” He chuckled, shaking his head side to side. 

“Of course I choose you. I have and I will always choose you Charles.” You tilted to the side of your head, watching a smile spread on his face. “You know usually best friends are not that happy or at least they are not showing that they are happy when their friend had a break up.” You rolled your eyes and shook your head giggling. He stepped closer caging you between the balcony railing and his body, he squeezed your hand making you look up at him as he was towering over you. 

“If you were heartbroken and crying because of a break up I wouldn’t do this. But I know that you were waiting for the point when you can finally end it with him. And you are not mad because you broke up. You just mad about what he was trying to do with you. “ he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and caressed your cheek. His eyes never left yours. “So would you like to have that drink we talked about before?” His index finger hooked under your chin and lifted it up. You inhaled a sharp breath before swallowing thickly and nodded, which made him smile wider and pulled you back in the bar.

You woke up in the next morning with a slight headache, squeezing your eyes tight as the light hit your face directly. You grabbed on the edge of the blanket and yanked it upwards while you turned on your other side nuzzling your head further in the pillow. 

“Stop moving around that much.” His arms wrapped around your waist keeping you in place. His voice was low and raspy.

“My head.” You moaned and pushed your head more into the crook of his neck, which made him stiffen up, and suck in a short breath. 

“The amount of tequila you have had with Sammy, I’m amazed that you could walk home and I only needed to carry you to bed.” He chuckled and kissed the top of your head. “I’m gonna make coffee.” He got out of the bed, while you used the extra space and you spread more on the huge bed as you watched how he picked up a black sweats from the wardrobe putting it on, leaving him shirtless. You planted your head in your palm as you were watching his toned, sun kissed back before he turned facing you, as a cheeky grin spread on his lips. 

“It’s an ego booster when you just spread on top of my bed in my shirt and boxer while you look at me like that. “ he walked closer and closer each word just to stop in front of the bed, he bent over to have your faces at the same level. Your ears were burning from his words, it’s not the first time he caught you staring, as it was not the first time you crashed at his place in his bed wearing only his clothes. “Got busted Bunny.” He kissed the top of your nose and got up and walked out of the room. “Oh!” He stopped and picked up the lacy clothing hanging from the door handle, and dropped it to the pile of clothes next to the wardrobe.” You should get another colour set of those lacy bras, like black. Or red. Yes, definitely red, like those stilettos you have.” He turned back to wink at you and continued his road to his kitchen, disappearing at the corner. Your head fell between your arms with a long grunt. You were blushing like crazy, he had made you blush before for sure but he had never flirted with you that openly about something, especially not about your underwear. You gathered yourself together before heading to the kitchen following the scent of freshly brewed coffee. He had already poured the coffee in two mugs, you sat down silently at the dining table and picked up the mug and started to sip from it slowly, hoping to the gods that it will help ease the pounding headache. He was still in the kitchen gathering some food, it was freshly baked goods. This man went down to the bakery in the corner, got you fresh chocolate au pain and came back to the bed just to cuddle with you. Without a word you snatched the sweet baked goods from the tray, it was still warm. You sighed and moaned loud when you took a bite from your favourite breakfast item. He watched you with a smile on his lips, loved to see you happy, all he wanted to do to make you happy all the time. You picked up your mug again and took a sip of it when he broke the silence with a question that had been on his tongue the whole night yesterday and since the morning he woke up. “So when can I take you out?”

“What are you talking about?” You looked at him confused and lowered the mug from your vision studying his face with a puzzled look on your face. 

“We have a deal still running.” He tore apart the pastry and took a bite of it. “God this is still so good.” He moaned as the buttery crispy pastry laid on his tongue just before the dark, slight bitter chocolate overtook his taste buds.

“Charles, I don’t understand you, what are you talking about?”

“What’s the date today?” He slides his phone over to you on the table. You have had your eyebrows connected and had a puzzled look on your face still not understanding what’s going on. You picked up his phone and the screen lit up, showing the time and the date, your attention was caught by the choice of the background, it was not that black and white photo of him doing donuts on the track anymore, it was a picture of you two, it was taken in Monaco, his back was facing the camera while you were turning slightly back and smiling widely. You really loved that picture, it was set as your background too.“It’s the 1st of September.” You slide the phone back to him. “And?” You took the last bite of the pastry, finished it and washed it down with the last bit of the coffee. 

“Can you please repeat?” He tapped his right ear with his index finger, just as he could not hear it before. 

“Charles, you are starting to get on my nerves. It’s the freakin 1st of September. “As soon as you said it again it hit you. His smile only got bigger as he saw it on your face as your mouth opened slightly indicating that you have got what he was talking about. “Oh.” 

“So what do you say, how about I pick you up at six and take you to our favourite restaurant?” He got up from his chair and walked around the table picking up his and your empty plate also. “We can celebrate that our deal has come to an end. I’ll show you what a proper date should look like.” 

You were adjusting the silky skirt on you, hoping the wrinkles would disappear, those wrinkles which weren’t even there, you were just nervous so you tried to keep your mind busy. You are going to go on a dinner with Charles, no you are going on a date with Charles, he has said it by himself. But it still felt unreal. All of different thoughts were running on your mind with 200 kph. Does he really want this? Do you really want this? What if it’s gonna end bad? It supposed to be a stupid promise that you made fuck face drunk five years ago. But it was a promise and Charles Leclrc is a man of his word. What if it’s gonna end well? What would it mean if it’s end well? Are you gonna go on other dates? Will you be a couple? Will he try to kiss you tonight? Oh how many times during your teenage years you wanted this man to kiss you, you were full with all those confusing hormones, but you can’t say that the feeling that now you have had is because of those teenage hormones. What if you will have much more than a kiss? YN! Jesus! Get yourself together! A knock on a door made you wake up from your thoughts, causing you to jump a little. You ran to the door and placed your hand on the door handle, closing your  eye for a second and took a deep breath before you pushed down on the handle and opened it wide. He was leaning on the wall next to your entrance, with the most flirtatious, cheeky smile you have seen on his lips, his eyes were shining.

“Hello there princess.” He pushed himself away from the door and checked you out from toe to head, and looked deep in your eyes. You felt the heat rushing into your cheeks, he was so handsome looking in your favourite baby blue linen shirt that he had slight unbuttoned at top showing his sun kissed chest underneath it. “You look wonderful. Are you ready?” You blinked a few times to get yourself together and nodded small, picking up the keys from the small table next to the door.

“You look really handsome, I have to be honest with you.” You swirled the white wine in your glass around as you were sitting on the balcony at your favourite restaurant, it was a place where you usually went to for special occasions, like birthdays or your graduation, or for your first date.

“I can see, you are already flirting with me.” He laughed a little and picked up your hand by your pinky. “We should slow down your wine portion, otherwise you soon will sit on my lap try to steal a kiss.” You choked on your wine and started to cough.

“I would have thought that you would try your shot on that one.” You gathered yourself together and leaned back in your chair. A small chuckle escaped his lips, he leaned forward lifted your hand up to his lips and kissed you ring finger while he was looking deeply in your eyes. You felt heat rushing to your ears spreading slowly out on your cheeks. The way he was looking at you was so intense, like you were the only person in the whole room that he was seeing. Which was true but your were always the only person for him that he saw no matter where you were.

“Bunny, you have no idea how long I have want to shoot my shot with you.” He mumbled into your skin which made you heart stop for a second before jumping forward in a crazy speed. “I love how I can make you blush. You are so beautiful when you blush Princess.” You lifted up your other hand and started to fan your face, you felt like here and there you can just bust into flames. 

You were used to the nicknames, Bunny was your favourite one, next to Princess but tonight both of them felt like something else. It has so much love, and lust behind them, which made you squeeze your thighs together. “I’m gonna pay, and we can walk down to the yacht if you are in it.” He let go of your hand before giving one more kiss on the back of your hand, you silently were nodding trying to compost yourself.

“Thank you for the dinner. I was so nervous about this whole night. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not nervous because of you. I mean that’s not true. I’m rambling again.” You giggled at yourself and ran your hand through your hair anxiously as you dropped your shoes on the deck and walked after him all the way to the steering wheel. He started the engine and slowly backed away from the shore heading to the open sea. “I was nervous because I could not imagine a date with you. I still can’t imagine that you really want this to happen and not just because it was a promise that we have made many years ago. I was a nervous wreck before you knocked on my door and when I opened it I thought I would faint. The way you look, the way you looked at me. God I have told you before you are handsome, but tonight you are something else.” You were still talking as he was driving the yacht quietly, with a smile on his face which got bigger and bigger each of the sentences that left your beautiful lips. He turned off the engine and pushed the button for the anchor before starting to walk your way as you were still rambling about all that nonsense.

He grabbed your waist with one hand and made you turn around and face him.

“Princess, can you please listen to me for a second?” With his free hand he grabbed the side of your face after he tucked that piece of hair which was dangling in front of your face. As soon as you felt his warm palm on your cheek, words dried in your throat. You closed your mouth slowly and nodded, letting him speak as he wished. “You overthink it. Way too much.” He was caressing your cheek with his thumb as his eyes were studying your face. “It’s not that complicated actually. And I think now I have nothing to lose, I can only win from this, because I feel how I make you feel. I feel that under all those thoughts, and confusion and emotions, you have the same feeling for me, that we have been pushing deep down for so many years, we even went to find the same feeling with other people, because we were confused and we were so afraid. After all those years, on that new year’s eve when we made that “stupid little promise”” He drew quotation marks in the air and chuckled his own words.” I was already fallen. I have already fallen for you, I just could see it in your eyes, it was not the right time for us. And afterall I think I made the right choice. But now, it’s our time. And if you let me, I will show you that you do deserve all the love, the attention, the commitment. Because I want that, and I want that with you. YN, you are one of the best thing in my life. I wake up everyday thinking about you and go to bed thinking about you. That bracelet was the most genius idea to buy in my life. Only problem was that if I could I would tap it the whole day, because when you are not with me I miss you like crazy. With tonight, I’m not asking a lot, we don’t need to jump right away into this whole thing. We can take everything step by step. I promise to you that I’m gonna love you with my whole heart forever. All I’m asking is to let me show you how much I love you. Because I do. God I love you so much.” 

There you were standing in front of him, in the middle of the night under the sparkling stars in the middle of the open sea. Glamorous Monte Carlo was shining behind you, those lights were sparkling in his beautiful green eyes. You were standing there, looking up at him, entirely frozen, trying to understand and process what he said. He was studying your face quietly, his finger was still stroking your cheek. Tears welled up in your eyes as the time passed and you started to wrap your head around all that information that he has said to you.

“Bunny, please say something.” He whispered and let his forehead touch yours, never breaking eye contact with you. You cleared your throat and planted both of your hand on his cheek, his stubble was prickling on your soft palm. You pushed his face a little away from you which only made him more confused.

“Say it again.” You whispered, your voice was so quiet it was nearly not even noticeable. “Say again that three words.” 

“I” he leaned closer a little grabbing on your jaw and tilting your head a little upwards. He could feel your pulse in his palm. Your heart was beating in your throat with such a speed. “Love” he leaned more closer your nose were touching you could feel his hot breath on your cupid's bow, his lips were hovering over yours “You” He said the last word and you launched forward and closed the distance between the two of you. You sighed in relief as you felt his warm lips on yours, his stubble above his lips were tickling your skin. His hand that was on your face just pulled you much closer to him, as it slid all the way to the back of your head and raking his fingers through your hair, while with his other arm that was still on the small of you back pulled you close to is body if it’s was even possible because you were already so close. You moaned on his lips as you got on your tiptoes, trying to get closer to him as much as possible, your right hand slid to the back of his neck and grabbed on his hair which made him moan on your lips too.

“I love you” You whispered on his lips as you broke the kiss off with heaving chests. You let out a small yelp when he grabbed the back of your thighs and picked you up, before putting you down on the small table next to the controlling panel. You were silently watching each other, his hand was still on your cheek as yours were on his shoulders. Both of you were smiling ear to ear, you were so happy. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Is it really a question?” He answered right away, kissing the tip of your nose, before pecking your lips. “Please be honest with me, just as we’ve always been.”

“Do you really want to take things step by step?” Your finger was drawing shapes on his chest that was showing from his unbuttoned shirt. “ Because all I can think about is how much I want to rip this shirt off you and finally kiss all those parts of you that I have been dreaming about.” 

“Aw, cute. You have had some wet dreams about me huh?” He chuckled, his left hand went behind your head and grabbed your hair at the nape of your head and pulled it a little just so you will tilt your head upwards, a small sigh left your lips before you inhaled sharply.

“I may or may not bought that set that you have suggested.” You are not gonna give this game in that easily. If he can tease you can do it as well. Your fingers were busy opening the buttons one by one, all the way to the end and you opened the shirt when you finished and slid your palm over his abdomen. Now it was his time to inhale a sharp breath as he felt your slight cold fingers on his hot skin. You could feel under the pad of your fingers the soft skin that you have had some luck to touch a few times when he was shirtless but this time it was different. With each breath he took, lust and desire just spread through both of your bodies, clouding your minds.“And it’s perfectly matching your car.” You could see he swallowed thick, he did not break eye contact with you, it was so much more intense than the one you have had before..

“Calculated move.”

“I thought that maybe if none of my charms are working on you then maybe my panties can change your mind.” You giggled over his lips. 

“Do you really want this?” His voice got softer and he tilted his head to the side, trying to read any discomfort or something that would indicate you are changing your mind.

“Charles, I think it's bullshit if we are all gonna act like we have never met before and started to date. We have known each other for years, we can’t have the same pace as with someone I have never known.I trust you with my whole heart, and I know if you promise something you are gonna keep that. “You hooked your finger in his belt loop on his trouser and pulled him closer to your body, between your legs. “So please, get over that chevalier shit and kiss me and let me take your clothes off because if you keep me waiting for another second I’m gonna go crazy.”  He laughed at your last sentence before pulling your closer to his body and closed his lips over yours again, but this time to a much heated kiss, he was still so loving with you but you could feel that he wanted you too. Without waiting for him you already grabbed the side of your shirt and pulled it upward, throwing it over the dashboard and pushed on his body to take a step backwards from you letting you jump down from the table, pushing down your skirt letting the light fabric fall down to your ankles, leaving you just in your underwear. He has seen you in your underwear many times, there was a time when accidentally he saw you for a second without a bra too, but those times were different, because then he identified the whole picture as his beautiful friend. But now all he could see was the sexiest woman on earth who was waiting for him to take it to the next step but all he could do was just look at her completely mesmerised. The fabric and the style of the garments were so beneficial on you. “I’m not gonna bite, you can come closer.” He shook his head and leaped forward picking you up by your waist, lifting you up which made you instantly wrapping your legs around him. One of his hand grabbed on your butt and squeezed it a little making you let a yelp out on his lips that made his smile wide. 

“You look so fucking sexy.” He said between kisses as he was walking down on the deck all the way to the big sunbeds with those big fluffy cushions, he lowered the two of you as he got on his knees and get on the centre of the bed before sat down with you still on his lap. “I was right about the red. Belle, you are hot as fuck.” He looked up and down on you once again, still can’t get enough of the scene in front of him. Pulling off the shirt off him that you threw somewhere next to you on the floor, before grabbing on his shoulders and pushed on him, making him to fall back on the pillows. Without waiting another second you jumped forward and started to kiss the soft skin on his neck from the base of his ear and continued your way down to his chest. A low grunt escaped from his throat as he tilted his head back on the bed in to the pillows when you climbed off his lap, lowering yourself down on him, continue the track of kisses from is chest down his lower abdomen. His breath quickened and even had a sharpe inhale when you kissed your way down on his happy trail and hooked your finger once again into his jeans. You looked up at him through your lashes seeing that he was looking back at you, his eyes were so dark, full with lust as he was holding on his breath waiting for your next step. You licked your lips before turned your gaze back to the trousers and started to work on unbuttoning it.

“May I?” He cleared his throat and nodded as you hooked your finger in his trousers and boxer at the same time feeling the soft flesh under your finger, which made warmth spread all over on you ending its way between your legs that you had to squeeze together. He lifted his hips up, to help you pull down on his clothes, leaving him in the end completely naked for the first time. You sat back and looked over at him, from his handsome face that was smiling at you the most cockiest was possible, to his sculptured torso that you have loved so much all the way to the lowest part of his that you have never seen before. You swallowed down the moan that nearly escaped from your throat when you saw his member. He caught your wrist and pulled you down on him catching your lips with his into a searing kiss. You were about to sit on his lap when he pulled your leg underneath for you and pushed you under him, he pushed your legs apart with his knee and planted both his palm next to your head.

“Babygirl, I cannot be the only one who is naked, it’s not fair don’t you think?” He mumbled in your ear and started to plan wet kisses from the behind of your ear all the way down to your neck and went down to your chest. You pushed you upper body forward, arching your back to get closer to him which he answered with a small laugh. “We are not running anywhere Bunny, we have all the night. And I’m not planning to rush it with you.” You raked your fingertips all the way down on his chest which he grabbed before you could reach his lower stomach and lifted it up above your head caging both of your wrist with his big hand. “Now it’s my turn to play.” He said and give you a peck on your lips. With his free hand he took your breast out of the lacy bra and softly massaged it. You moaned to the feeling of his calloused fingers getting closer and closer to your nipple. “You are so perfect. Such a good girl.” He kissed you neck one more time before latched his mouth on your breast, sucking on the soft skin leaving slight marks over it, he played with your pebbled nipple first with his tongue that made you moan out loud and arching your back more before he bit down on it that caused to yelp a little. “All those beautiful sexy noises and we haven’t done a lot yet.” He looked up at you as he was laying down between your legs on his stomach.

“If you want to hear all those other noises, and me screaming your name, you better hurry up my love.” You planted yourself on your elbows and watched him as he laughed and started to kiss his way down on your stomach all the way to your panties. Your breath quickened when he kissed the waistline of your lacy underwear, pushing your legs up a little, planting your feet on the bed, he kissed his way the inside of your thighs while he was having an intense eye contact with you. He hooked his fingers on the side of your underwear and started to pull it down so that you helped him with just lifting your hips a little. Once it disappeared he sat back on his knees and looked at you. The way he looked at you made you feel the most beautiful woman on the whole Earth, not feeling any insecurities that this is the first time when he sees you that way, spreaded all hot and wet, full with lust.

“Bunny, you are magnificent.” He whispered as he leaned forward and grabbed the side of your face and kissed you deeply, you exhaled through your nose when you felt his member pushing down on your fold making the both of you moaning out in each other's mouth. You pushed him back a little and grabbed on his shoulders to make him lay down, you slid yourself up and down on his hard cock that was laying on his stomach. Lustful moans were leaving your mouth at the sensation, you felt like you can’t take it anymore you just need him inside you. Now.

You lifted yourself up, leaning on your hand that was on his chest and grabbed the base of his cock and positioning at your entrance. You slowly lowered yourself down on him, gasping as the tip started to stretch out your inside. You both gasp at the new feeling as you slowly lower yourself down on him, all the way till he completely disappeared in you. You were sitting quietly, staring at each other, you were taking small breaths as you were still adjusting on the feeling of his huge size. Once you felt like you can move you leaned forward down on him and kissed him, instantly his arms wrapped around you and pulled you down on him as he planted his feet on the bed and started to roll his hips slowly but tender. Your head fall into his neck as you were panting and moaning. You planted both your palms on his chest and pushed yourself up so you could sit up normally, the whole feeling, him inside you in this position was different. One of his hand grabbed your waist as the other grabbed on your breasts and started to play with you nipple once again. The feeling was overwhelming, you dropped your head back as you were riding him slowly.

“Look at me beautiful’ Charles panted underneath you “You look like a goddess. Such a good girl. You feel so good wrapped around me.” His hand left your breast and slid up to your neck, grabbing on it which made you gasp in surprise. His other hand went from your waist all the way down between the two of you and laid his finger on your clit, making you moan loud. “Can you please be my princess and come for me?” You nodded frantically as he picked up the pace with his thrust and his finger started to draw circles on you clit.

“Holly shit.” You gasped at the new feeling and let your nail dig into the soft skin on his chest.

“You are doing amazing, baby. Let me feel you come on my cock.” He pulled you closer kissing your lips as he picked up his pace, making you moan in his mouth. You felt the familiar feeling of your orgasm slowly appearing in you but when Charles changed the pace of his fingers again on your sensitive clit you knew you don’t have a long time before you are gonna come.

“Charles. I…I’m gonna cum.”Whimper left your lips when he turned the both of you around making him be on top once again.

“Come on baby girl. Come for me.” He whispered on your lips as his thrusts got more quicker and deeper at the same time. You were on the road of orgasm and you were racing on that road. With a few more thrust you were at the gate of your orgasm, and one more movement of his finger and you came all over his dick while you were screaming his name. With a few more thrust he was following you and with a low grunt he released himself inside of you before fall on the top of you caging you in his arms. Both of you were panting, heads clouded by full bliss between each others arm. After a few minutes he pushed himself away from you, and grabbed on your chin turning your head to his way. You looked at him with those shining eyes, and a small smile on your lips.”Are you okay?”

“More than okay. That was one of the best orgasm of my life.” You giggled and wrapped your arms around his neck. “ I love you.”

“I love you” He whispered back and closed the distance between the two of you with a kiss.

“Where are they?” Eric checked the time on his phone once again as they were waiting on their two best friends to arrive at the small BBQ party. “I can’t believe that they are living like five minutes away and they still manage to miss the time we have agreed on.” He was shaking his head side to side with a grin on his lips.

“Look who has arrived!” Sammy pointed at the balcony window where the two of you walked out hand in hand saying hello to the others. “Wait a fucking minute!” She raised her voice making everyone stop at what they were doing. “As I can see the date went well.” She crossed her arms in front of herself as your other girlfriends stopped next to her looking at you with the biggest smile on their lips.

“They went on a date?” Eric asked

“Remember that they had that promise thing, many years ago?” She pushed on the shoulder of our friend who looked at her dumbfounded before nodding.” So by the first of September their deal came to an end, both of them were single, so our Lord Perceval took the chosen one of his heart on a date.” Sammy winked at you making you blush and look down on your feet, trying to hide that you got busted. 

“What can I say, I keep myself to my world. If I promise something I better keep that.” Charles said with a wide grin on his lips and pulled you closer to his body and kissed the crown of your head.

“Pay up Big Ric.” Sammy extended her palm out to Eric with a victorious smile on her lips.

“What did you do?” You asked surprised seeing your male friend digging in to his shorts for his wallet with a frown on his lips and took a hundred euro out and handed it over to the girl. “You bet on us?” Your eyes went wide as you understood the scene in front of you.

“Oh honey, we did it many years ago. But hey Ric, I think you are still short by another fifty, because as I can see that the summer dress can’t hide, they even had some extra fun.” She nodded to your way again, as you took your ponytail on the left side of your neck trying to hide the small hickeys that were showing. Damn it Charles. With a huffle he threw another fifty euros on top of the other banknotes. “Thank you very much! It was a pleasure to do business with you Sir. I hope you learned to never do a bet with me.” She winked at him and walked away counting on the notes as she was whistling away as all of you were laughing at them. You looked up at Charles on your side watching him chuckling with his friends, his smile was reaching his eyes making small wrinkles appear, which made him more attractive. You were studying his handsome features quietly with a smile on your lips, and you were just amazed that how you got so lucky. You have had a spectacular life, a great job with a side job that was basically your hobby. You have the biggest most supportive and cohesive friend group since you were kids that made your life so much better. And finally you have someone next to you, who you love with your whole heart and can imagine your life with, someone who you were waiting for the whole time till now. Someone that you were head over hills in love with.

“Bunny what’s going on in the pretty head of yours?” Charles made you wake up from your staring.

“I was just thinking how lucky we are that we have each other. I have people in my life that I can count on no matter what and when. People that I will have in my life for ever. And now I have a partner, the most handsome man on Earth who can be the biggest goofball ever with who I can plan my future, our future. Someone who I love so much.” 

“You are my everything. You are my future Bunny. I love you so much.” He grabbed both sides of your face as he was looking deeply in your eyes, and pulled you closer to a kiss.

Maybe your love life is not that miserable after all.

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[an-spideog]

I'll discuss this in my next video if I ever get around to making it, but a lot of learners tend to pronounce words like an and ag with an undue amount of stress.

Examples of Native Speakers

"A John Joe, tá mé ag déanamh an rud... críostúil" (John Joe, I'm doing the... christian thing)

Here we hear the ag skipped entirely, and the vowel in an reduced.

"Ehhh... bíodh na naipicíní i gcónaí ar an mbord a Sadie" (Ehhh... always have the napkins on the table Sadie)

Here we hear the 'n' dropped and the vowel again reduced, "ar a mbord".

"Mar tá mé ag obair" (Because I'm working)

Here we hear the vowel in "ag" reduced, but the "g" pronounced before the vowel. like "tá mé gobair"

Explanation

Similar to how in English we often reduce common words like "the" (we don't always say it with the "thee" sound, often it's just an "uh"), or we reduce "and" to "n" (To the point where people will think things like "Case in point" are "Case and point").

When I say "reduce" in this, that's basically what it means, the vowel just becoming a more relaxed "uh" sound. (See the notes for more information on this sound).

In Irish, at regular speeds of speech, an is not usually pronounced with the /a/ vowel you might expect, it usually gets reduced down to /ə/ which is the symbol we use for that neutral unstressed vowel, like what you might have in "the" a lot of the time. And also, in many situations, the n can be dropped entirely. It's similar for ag, which most learners correctly know to pronounce like eig (it's spelt with an 'a' for historical reasons, but the preposition is usually pronounced with an /e/ sound), and it is like that when used as a preposition generally. But when it's used with verbal nouns for the "to be x-ing" construction, it's usually reduced down to the /ə/ sound again. And the 'g' only gets pronounced before vowels.

Notes

More about the /ə/ sound:

This kind of reduction to /ə/ happens with most short 'grammar' words you can think of: an, na, i, mo, a, ar (when used as a verb particle), sa and others

I don't have a specific source for this post, but you can find this information in basically any dialectal study, so things like Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne, The Irish of West Muskerry, The Irish of Iorras Aithneach, etc.

I would've included the other clips as videos but apparently I can only upload one video to a post :(

Let me know if you found this kind of thing interesting, commentary on examples of native speakers

All speakers in these examples are from Galway, just because I have the most clips of those from Ros na Rún

If you have a keen ear you may have noticed that bord was pronounced with the Conamara pronunciation, /baurd/

If you have any questions about this stuff please ask, I love talking about it