Tumgik
#we are all kinda losers here and I love the losers that I follow
elisacaleisa · 3 days
Text
jax is back at it again btw i fucking hate editing in this app it keeps failing me istg /lh
Jax's Personality Swap AU:
SHAW/SOLAIRE PIPELINE: Porter > Milo > Vincent > David > Asher > Sam > Porter
(i struggled w the choice to swap asher and sam cuz pattern,,,,)
Porter > Milo:
Hunting Werewolf
- quite mysterious and flirty
- "all alone by yourself, sweetheart?"
- suspicious as fuck
- but it works
- a weapon
- "i've been raised to kill, sweetheart. get too close and your last kiss will be on my lips."
- just really lonely, wanted to make his father proud and protect his pack
- "Gabe knew he would be gone sooner or later... so he had a project. Me."
——————
Milo > Vincent:
Skeptical Vampire
- "why are you here all alone by yourself??"
- uhhh
- "listen, youre lovely and im glad you think im lovely too, i got the lineart right too after all, butwecantbeherefortoolongpleasego"
- nope, not leaving
- "ugh, youre lucky youre cute, lovely"
- snarky
- kinda a loser but so hot
- likes to dress pretty
- best friends with sam
- he supports lovely
- independent, still a prince but really not seen as one
——————
Vincent > David:
Charming Alpha
- "well look who we got here~ do we share the same path or do you follow me, cause i am too pretty to resist?"
- he chuckles a lot, he is totally amazed by angel
- "arent you a little rebellious angel~"
- an alpha, he takes the role seriously, but he is still enjoying being out of his pack
- clearly flirty
- he likes to push buttons but is aware to not go too far
- protective? possesive?
- and he brings food for angel when theyre late from their joh home
- "you need to rest, angel. sleep tight. I'll stay by your side"
- actually very caring and soft
——————
David > Asher:
Serious Beta
- takes the beta role very seriously
- "david. youre late."
- gets stuck with baabe in an elevator and is not happy about it
- "stupid elevators, god fucking dammit."
- he is not comfortable to be with you here
- can be mean at first, but he is frustrated
- "this has to be a joke, someone had to put us up in here together on purpose..." mumble mumble
- protective
- david, angel, sweetheart and milo ship asher and baabe so clearly lmao, but dont tell him that
- feel responsible for everything, may have breakdowns
- he needs a hug
——————
Asher > Sam:
Goofy Vampire
- Vincent's right hand
- and a teaser
- still southern ofc this is a personality swap
- "well well well, late romantic Vincent Solaire! why are ya so red~?"
- number one fan of darlin'
- is not taken very seriously by the clan
- despite that, he tries his best to help vincent and the pack however he can
- has tendenc to avoid serious talks but darlin' helps him settle down and talk
- "...'m sorry, darlin'. i just didn't want ya to think of me otherwise..."
- god you love this goof
——————
Sam > Porter:
Vampire Knight
- he is like a security for Vincent, even when they don't see eye to eye sometimes
- doesnt kill until necessary
- really caring
- his weapon is his words, fangs are secondary
- "calm down, treasure, no need for a fight. now, why are you looking for me, huh?"
- suspicious of treasure, but helps them as they help him
- reveals that theyre like older brother figure for vincent, since he is the prince and need someone to guide him
- "why arent you the prince?"
- he doesn't answer... There is a lot you dont know about him...
70 notes · View notes
that-bookworm-guy · 1 year
Text
Tumblr Newbies listen up:
First of all welcome, things are different here, and we won’t lie, it’s a mess but we also kinda love it.
1. Want to be popular or famous on here??  Move along, not gonna happen. Follower count aren’t shown to others here, nor is the following count. No one cares, and honestly it’s one of my favourite things about this site. Does a person have 10 or 10k followers?? Only they know. Following to unfollow later isn’t really a bit issue, there’s no reason to because no one knows how many followers you have. 
2. Block, block and block. Blocking is seen as like a last resort or something big on other sites. Not here, block who you want when you want for whatever reason you want. It’s not a big thing.
3. Your dash is yours. Follow who you want and whatever you want. Unfollow whenever you want. Follow your likes and change however often you want.
4. Want to make a popular post?? Good luck my friend A popular post could be anything from useful information to someone going ‘I like salt’ to someone really random. Post what you wanna post when you wanna post without hope it’s gonna get noticed. Which leads me to my next point
5. It’s basically yelling into a void here Post whatever you want, it’s probably going to end up getting swallowed into the void with maybe the same 5 people here liking it. It’s basically just like yelling while in a crowd and 1 person might yell back, but that’s it.
6. Likes are cool, but it’s not what we’re really into. Likes are cool, but only you see what you like, unless you make it visible to others. Reblogs are basically sharing stuff to your profile and to someone else's dash so others see what you reblog. If you like something, reblog it. Like it is just basically saving it for you to look back at later. Comments are basically just a convo between you and the original poster. You can reblog with a reply, so the comment is public and others can reply to you. Notes are the overall amount of comments, likes, and reblogs. Aim for liking and then reblogging something
7. Tags are cool, but they are also for thoughts. so you can tag stuff with the basics #Photo #Art etc, but you can also #I really like this and once I saw something similar and it reminds me of that. Hashtags here can have spaces and can be quite long, but you can break it up with other hashtags for basic sentences
8. Find your people There is a fandom and blog for everything and I mean everything. You can always find a blog or someone who likes what you like. You just have to find them and search tags. I’ve only been involved in the book side (Booklr) and the study side (Studyblr) but there is always someone out there you can chat to
9. Just have fun We’re not really here for much else. There’s no pressure on tumblr, there’s no popular side, there’s no fight to be something you’re not. Just be yourself and enjoy what you can
10. This site is a mess Yeah, things stop working or they mess around, it’s part of the charm
Bonus:
A lot of the time there are inside jokes. I came across one this morning I had no idea what it meant. You can find tags or sometimes people explain. We want people in on the joke, if you know the joke and someone asks you, don’t be a snob about it. Let them in on it. It’s so much more fun and its amazing what people can do.
82 notes · View notes
miraclewoozi · 2 months
Text
DO YOU DREAM OF ME? - c.hs
Tumblr media
the first time you kiss your soulmate, you’ll open your eyes to a world of colour. the problem? vernon hates the thought that he might pull away from you and still see in monochrome.  or, five times he wanted to plant one on you, and the one time you beat him to it. 
pairing ; vernon x gn!reader.  content ; all the tropes. 5 times fic. soulmate au. slight college au if you squint. f2l. fluff, some angst. pining. one (1) hint of suggestiveness if u squint. MINORS STILL DO NOT HAVE MY CONSENT TO INTERACT.  content notes ; mentions of reader having a(n unnamed) partner & thereafter, going through a breakup due to said partner cheating. reader is maybe implied to be shorter than him but hopefully not too obviously or frequently. alcohol is mentioned & is a key theme in scene #3. pov switch for the final part (necessary for logistical reasons.) PLEASE let me know if i've forgotten anything. w/c ; 9.6k note ; welcome to thee most self indulgent fic ever lmao. i hope u enjoy this slight break away from what i usually post here (as if my entire brand isn’t writing losers in love. ANYWAY) -- this was very fun and a little bit special for me! <3
Tumblr media
“What was your first kiss like?”
Initially, Vernon swears he just didn’t hear you right. It’s dark up here, where you’re hiding away from a party on the roof of his university accommodation and he’s starting to get tired. There’s some sort of siren wailing away in the distance to his left, and on the street below, a gaggle of freshmen are cackling as they walk past the building. His ear closest to you is currently listening to your favourite song. 
All the signs suggest that he simply got it wrong. 
But he doesn’t know if he believes those signs, especially not seeing as when he looks over at you, you’re staring pointedly up at the stars overhead. He doesn’t doubt that you’re giving yourself an ache in your neck in the process, too.
“Hmm?” He asks, taking out the earphone that connects him to you. The other one is still nestled away in your ear and he reaches to gently pull it away. “What was that?”
You still don’t look at him, but you do repeat yourself. Quietly. “What… was your first kiss like?”
“Oh.” 
He was right. 
“You don’t have to tell me,” you hurry to say, hugging his jacket tighter around yourself to block out the cold air that blows across the rooftop. He shrugged it off and told you to take it the very moment your teeth started chattering — almost an hour ago now. His arms are bare, shoulders and biceps only covered by a t-shirt so thin it’s practically sheer, but he isn’t cold. He’s always run hotter than most. “Sorry.”
He nudges you with his knee, silently telling you that you don’t need to apologise. He doesn’t mind — you just caught him off guard; Vernon hasn’t given this any thought in a long time, and he has to really put his mind to coming up with an answer. It was forever ago — when he was eleven or twelve, maybe, with his first ever girlfriend. They dated for a whole two and a half weeks. He doesn’t know if it really counts: the kiss was a dare, after all. 
“Kinda…” He starts, trying to follow the line of your sight, wondering if he can find the exact stars you’re looking at. “She’d just put this weird lipgloss on. It was real tingly. And like, neither of us knew what we were doing? So it… got everywhere. I think I ended up swallowing some, I don’t know. My mouth felt weird after. Thought I was having an allergic reaction.”
You laugh softly at him. “I think that would put me off for the rest of my life,” you say. 
“It almost did,” he chuckles. You hum at him and lean back on your elbows, leaving Vernon more than a little bit confused. He readjusts his hold on his knees, bringing them closer to his chest as he tilts his head down at you in your new position. 
“…why?” He asks, just as you close your eyes and take a deep inhale of the cool air. 
You just shrug. “I guess I just… wondered.”
He nods, and it’s his turn to fall short of a response, but that’s okay. You’ve known each other for too long for these silences to feel uncomfortable. He grew up with you. In fact, he’s reasonably sure he’s told you this story before. He must have done. 
Then he realises, maybe he hasn’t. Because he doesn’t know the story behind yours, and maybe that’s just a line the two of you never came to crossing. He knows he told his other friends, back then, because he was the last one in his circle to have a first kiss and he felt like it made him more grown-up, or something. Naturally, he left out the more embarrassing details. But maybe you just told your other friends who weren’t him, and went on with your life. Maybe yours was just… normal. 
Either way, he’s interested now. And there’s no time to ask like the present. 
“What was yours like?” He asks, fiddling with the strap on his wristwatch. You don’t answer straight away; he doesn’t think anything of it, because neither did he, but when he’s still waiting for you to speak a small eternity later, he prompts you again. “Hey, it can't have been worse than mine.”
You snort. 
“You’ll laugh at me,” you say, shaking your head. Vernon furrows his brows and drops his legs flat, twisting to one side to look at you. 
He doesn’t know where you’d get that idea from, but he’s… almost a bit offended by it?
“No I won’t,” he tells you softly. Maybe at first, he might’ve laughed with you, if your story happened to be as dumb as his own. But not at you. Never at. Not when he’s been the butt of the joke in too many friendship circles, for about as long as he can remember. 
You take a shallow breath, pursing your lips. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not…” you start to say, before you clear your throat and try again, this time heading in a different direction. “I don’t know. It’s dumb, I guess.”
“Don’t make me come down there,” Vernon threatens playfully, poking you in your side. You squirm, giggling despite yourself, despite the serenity of the sanctuary you two have found, despite the fact that you, too, were on the edge of falling asleep before your question came out of nowhere.  
He pokes you again, and again, and then starts to tickle your ribs instead. You squeal, swatting his hands away to no avail and you move to sit up, grabbing him by the forearms to physically make him stop. The grin on Vernon’s face is wide and heart-shaped. A warm feeling spreads through him: it has everything to do with the sweet sounds of your slowly dissolving laughter. 
You sit cross-legged across from each other like this for a moment or two. Your knees are touching. Your hands move down his arms until you’re holding him firmly by the wrists. Your eyes lock together: his crease with the sheer force of his boyish smile, while yours are narrowed, daring him to try and wiggle free and attack you again. 
He doesn’t, but for the first time ever, he’s struck with the urge to do something maybe more scary. 
The urge to just… lean in to you. 
It makes his heart do a backflip, in a way that it hasn’t done since he had his last crush. His head goes empty, and he forgets what he was even asking you before: the only thoughts he can muster are ones regarding what your lips taste like, whether they’re half as soft as they look, if you’d lightly touch his shoulder or his arm or his chest or his cheek—
Do you smile when you kiss?, he wonders. Do you sigh? Do you—
“I’ve never kissed anyone,” you answer, looking away now and letting go of him. He’s gone so loose in the moments since you grabbed hold of him that when you’re not supporting their weight, his arms fall like two cinder blocks onto his knees. 
True to his word, he doesn’t laugh. He’s surprised by your revelation, sure, but in no way humoured; actually, he feels a little saddened by it, for a reason he can’t put his finger to. He ends up not saying anything, just biting the inside of his cheek; he wants to ask why, but knows maybe that’s a bit of a dick move, and if it’s something you’re sensitive about he doesn’t want to risk hurting you.
But he’s watched people fawn over you for years, and he doesn’t think you’ve ever been short of attention from those who have thought you were attractive. So it can’t be that you’ve been lacking in chances? Surely?
“I thought… maybe I should save it,” you go on to explain. Your hands keep busy by playing with a thread at the cuff of his jacket sleeve, wrapping it around one finger until the skin beneath it pinches before you unravel it again. 
“Save it?” He asks. You nod your head.
“For when I thought I’d found them.” You pause, swallowing hard. “Like I said, it’s s—.”
“No it’s not,” Vernon says abruptly, shaking his head. He holds onto you now, one hand slipping around your back until it rests on the shoulder furthest away from him. You scoff. He squeezes you into his side. “Hey. It’s not stupid.”
He doesn’t like how this admission has, somehow, made his desire to kiss you stronger. He hates that he feels even more drawn to you, a magnet finally finding its opposing pole. It freaks him out a little. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone this badly. 
Red button theory, he tells himself to try and get back on the straight and narrow. If you hadn’t said anything, none of this would be happening.
“It’s romantic,” he says finally, swiping his thumb in small motions over the top of your shoulder. You nod, mumbling a ‘thank you’ (for what, he isn’t sure), and shiver. Vernon doesn’t know if that’s because of his proximity to you or because you’re finally starting to feel the cold. Either way, he takes the initiative to stand up and holds a hand out for you to take so he can tug you to your feet too. You get up with a little hop. 
It’s… devastatingly cute.
“Where are we going?” You ask, brushing off your jeans before shoving your hands into the jacket’s pockets. He’s already on the retreat, walking backwards towards the door that took you up here.
“To get food,” he tells you, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “That party was dead, anyway.”
Tumblr media
It doesn’t cross his mind again until your twenty-first birthday. 
He’s not your soulmate. He couldn’t be. The thought he had on the roof that autumnal night was little more than a passing fantasy; besides, he doesn’t have a thing for you. He doesn’t want to kiss you, or date you, or have you be his soulmate. The reason you work so well together is because you’re just friends; he thinks you’d drive each other crazy if things ever went romantic between you. You bicker with him for sport. He drowns away hours at a time with his headphones clamped over his ears and forgets to answer your texts. It would be a nightmare. 
Not that he’s ever thought about all that. Not actively, or even passively. Not when he should be listening to college lectures instead, for example. Not awake, nor in his dreams. He hasn’t. Not once. 
He swears. 
“You can save it ‘til tomorrow, if you want.”
Vernon bounces his leg nervously, fidgeting with the edge of your comforter as you sit on the floor in front of him, styling your hair for your party. He arrived half an hour ago while you were still waltzing around in your bathrobe, holding a small, neatly wrapped box in both of his hands. It’s several degrees too warm in your bedroom. He feels a bead of sweat roll down his back as you grumble what seems to be a threat at a strand that won’t cooperate. Thankfully, you don’t seem to notice his discomfort. (If you do, he’s grateful that you don’t say anything.)
“But it’s my birthday today,” you pouted, taking the box from him. “Let me finish getting ready, then I’ll open it. Come on.”
His wrist still aches with the pressure you held onto him with as you dragged him up the stairs. Your parents are away for the weekend and the house is all yours, so there’s a speaker blasting your favourite playlist full volume on your nightstand and there’s nobody to tell you to turn it down. He flits his attention between his phone and watching you, but he can’t fully concentrate on either; he’s too nervous that maybe you won’t like his gift, and he’s never been the type to splash out on birthday presents before but this… well, it burned a hole in his wallet, that’s for sure. 
“Okay. Wait here,” you tell him as you push up off the floor, limping on the leg that had started to fall asleep thanks to the way you were sitting. 
“All right,” he says back. As if he’d go anywhere, anyway. 
You grab a hanger from inside your closet and scurry off down the hall to the bathroom. For the first time, Vernon feels like he can actually breathe. He drops his phone onto the comforter between his crossed legs and cradles his head in his hands, telling himself that he needs to get it together. You’ve never not liked anything he’s given you, and you’ve known him now for more birthdays than you haven’t. 
Your friends said you’d love it. So did your mother, with a sparkle in her eye as she held it delicately in her fingers. He has nothing to worry about. It’s only you.
And yet—
“You’ll be honest if it looks bad?” You call from the other side of the door, interrupting how his lips move wordlessly in an endless mantra of self-reassurances. 
Vernon snaps his head up and he clears his throat, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Aren’t I always?” He answers.
You click your tongue, evidently disagreeing, but you pull the handle and take a step into the room anyway. When you see him, he looks exactly as he did when you left, no trace of his anxieties anywhere to be seen on his face or otherwise. 
When he sees you, he feels like the world could end any moment and he’d be okay with that. 
His mouth runs dry and his eyes seem to be stuck open, unblinking, fixated on you in your all black outfit as you stand still as a statue with your hands behind your back. You cough quietly, waiting for some kind of a response other than a dumb stare, but it doesn’t come. 
Eight seconds later… still nothing. 
“Do you hate it?” you fret, because Vernon is a very good hype-man and you’ve never known him struggle to find something positive to say. “All right, uh— okay—”
“No!” He rushes, almost shouting in his urgency to assure you that that’s not the case at all. He scrambles up to his feet, taking a breath, and pushes a hand through his hair. He’s been growing it out lately, and he kind of hates how his fingers catch on a tangle even though he brushed it meticulously before he left his apartment. You keep telling him it looks good, though, so he hasn’t been to get it cut. “God, no. I’m sorry. You look amazing.”
It doesn’t sound like much to the untrained ear, but the warmth of his compliments comes less in the words he says and more in the sincerity he says them with. Your face softens, and Vernon can see the way the thoughts of changing into something else fizzle out behind your eyes. He takes a backwards step to try and tempt you further into your own bedroom, and you move in tandem with him, closing that space and coming better into the light. 
“Wow,” he says, swallowing hard and looking you up and down. “I-… wow.”
It’s your turn to clam up, now. You look down at the floor, kicking at the carpet with your toes. “Shut up,” you say. “I’m not...”
“Yes, you are,” he protests, leaving no room for argument as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t know who you’re trying to impress but… yeah, it’s gonna work.”
You walk past him with a scoff, barging against his shoulder on your way; he dramatically staggers to the side, rubbing at the impact site, laughing. When he faces you again, you’ve picked the gift up from the end of your bed and are moving to sit on the mattress yourself. Your eyes flicker between Vernon and the empty space in front of you. He takes the hint, settling back down with one foot tucked beneath him, the other still planted on your rug. 
His heart shoots back up into his throat and he stares down at the box, licking over his lips and frowning at how dry they feel. He glances away, lifting a hand to his mouth, running his fingertips over his lips. What would they feel like pressed against yours? He thinks, and then he cringes again. 
You misread his reaction and hesitate with your finger pressed underneath a strip of tape, tilting your head at him. “What’s going to jump out at me when I open this?” 
“Nothing,” he says, rolling his eyes at you. “What do you take me for?”
“The kind of guy who puts glitter in birthday cards because he thinks it’s funny,” you retort, earning a click of his tongue. 
“That was one time!”
“One time too many.”
“I swear,” he laughs, tight shoulders easing, both hands falling to his lap. “No sparkles, no loud noises, nothing jumpy. Cross my heart.“
You eye him a little suspiciously but eventually tug your finger beneath the wrapping and make the first rip in the paper, allowing you to tear into the gift after keeping Vernon on edge for almost an hour and a half. You peel it away and it falls to the bedsheets, in your hands now a small, square box not too dissimilar a shade to your comforter. You look from it, to him, and he thinks you notice how his cheeks are a little darker than they were before. 
He nods at you once and you slowly pull it open. On a plush, velvety bedding sits an elegant, dainty bracelet. A small gemstone is set in the metal of the bar in the middle of the chain. You skim a thumb over it, your breath held.
“Vernon,” you murmur, tearing your eyes away from the bracelet to look at him. Now, even the tips of his ears have grown flushed, but you’re kind enough not to comment on it to avoid spoiling the moment you’re in. “This is…”
“The lady in the store said it was your birthstone,” he says, twiddling his thumbs. “I mean… I’m really just taking her word for it, ‘cause they all look the same to me, but—”
He’s interrupted as all of your weight topples against him, arms thrown around his neck in a hug. He hesitates a moment before he wraps his own around your waist, drops his head to your shoulder and he smiles wider than he thinks he ever has. “Happy Birthday,” he says, dragging his thumb up and down over your hip. 
“Silly,” you scold him playfully, still pressing wholly against him and showing no signs of moving. Your voice sounds thick, a little like you’re tearing up, so Vernon squeezes you tighter. 
“I know you are,” he chuckles. “But what am I?”
You swallow hard, finally now pulling away from the hug but sitting entirely too close for comfort, one knee pressing into the outside of his thigh. 
Your surprise attack has left him dishevelled. With a quiet apology, your fingers innocently try to smooth everything back into place, but Vernon doesn’t hear you say you’re sorry. His pulse, thundering in his ears, drowns it out while also skipping a beat with each little touch. You’re not looking into his eyes as you shyly put him back to rights, too busy working to tame his — at the best of times — unruly hair. 
He’s looking into yours though, and he can’t stop. 
Your eyes, which dart all over to find strands out of place, so your hands can move them to where they ought to sit and lay them down flat. Your eyes, that drop down the length of his throat as you realign the neck of his t-shirt over his broad shoulders. 
Your eyes: the ones crinkled at the corners as you pick the bracelet back up from your bed and admire it under your bedroom light. Your eyes, landing on his, finally, in a silent plea for help. 
“The best?” you answer, now, extending your wrist to ask him to put it on you. He takes the chain from your fingers and unclasps it, slipping it beneath your hand and holding it in place. 
“I know you are,” he says again, but it’s quieter now as he concentrates on trying to reconnect the two pieces. “But what am I?”
When he successfully fastens your gift onto your arm, he looks up to see your watery eyes still staring down at it. He decides this is the time to reveal part two of the surprise. Pulling up the sleeve of his t-shirt, he reveals his own wrist to you, and you now see there’s a matching chain hanging off it. A little stone set in the metal. His stone, presumably. You choke out a laugh around your tears, shaking your head. 
“You got us friendship bracelets,” you giggle, holding your hand next to his and admiring them together. Your skin touches and he feels butterflies erupt in his stomach, which he hasn’t felt around you since…
He nods, breathing a chuckle too. “Yeah,” he says. His heart is pounding. “I guess I did. Is… that okay?”
“I love them,” you insist, leaning forward to affectionately press your lips to his cheek. “Thank you. It’s perfect.”
Your doorbell sounds downstairs and Vernon’s words die in his throat. Maybe that’s for the best, though; he’s got so much nervous energy rising up inside him and he’s scared it might accidentally force up something he’ll regret saying. You spring off the bed again, fussing in the mirror, and he watches you rush out the bedroom warbling about how you’re not ready for anyone to be here yet. It’s too early. What’s going on? Who is it?
He shifts his legs so both his feet are planted on the floor, letting out a breath he doesn’t remember sucking in. 
I love them. Thank you, you said. 
It’s perfect. 
He groans when he stands up, too, tugging his sleeve back down as he starts to follow after you.
“I know you are,” he mumbles under his breath, hearing your relieved laughter at it just being the FedEx man on your doorstep. It makes him feel warm. Everywhere. “But what am I?”
Tumblr media
Five hours later, Vernon is seeing double. 
He has Seungkwan’s hands massaging the tops of his shoulders and there are two Juns sitting across from him at your dining table. He remembers feeling fine around 9pm, distinctly: like nothing he drank was having any kind of effect on him. Like he could walk home on his hands — like he was invincible. Now, after spending exactly five minutes out in the fresh air, he’s blinking four times for every breath he takes and his friends’ voices keep phasing in and out of focus.
“But what if they’re not?” Vernon stresses for the eighth time, fingers clumsily peeling at the label on his bottle.
“And what if they are?” Jun tries. Again. Also, for the eighth time, because apparently when Vernon gets tipsy, his skull gets really really thick and nothing in the world can penetrate it. “You’ll never know if you don’t try.”
Vernon shakes his head, sitting back so heavily that his chair tips and he sends Seungkwan stumbling into the wall behind them. His friend gives up trying to rub the stupid out of him and settles into the chair at Vernon’s side instead. 
“I don’t know-…”
“If you’re about to say you don’t know what you’ll do if it isn’t them, I’m putting you in an Uber and sending you home.” Seungkwan claps his hand down onto Vernon’s knee for good measure. “It’s not even been a day.”
Vernon groans, threading his fingers into his hair and tipping his head back. “It hasn’t, though,” he whines. “What if it’s been like this since… and I just kept ignoring…”
Jun and Seungkwan exchange a look. An exhausted one. They both know Vernon turns into a complete baby when he’s had a drink and can just about manage a trip to the bathroom without somebody holding his hand, but neither of them have seen him like this before. Neither of them want to see him like this ever again.
Hell, neither of them want to be dealing with him like this right now.
“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Jun’s (remarkably) calm voice repeats as he pushes up from his seat and glances towards the doorway. His ears lock onto a voice just beyond it, and in an instant, the older man recognises his chance at an exit. He casts an apologetic glance at Seungkwan, who has resorted to rubbing Vernon’s earlobes to try and get him to stop stressing, and he dips out before either of them can argue. 
On his way, though, he throws in a sly little remark. One that raises Vernon’s– and Seungkwan’s– blood pressure to a level that would get them prescribed a week of strict bed rest.
“Besides – everyone can see the two of you were practically made for each other.”
Vernon whips around to face Seungkwan with shock written into every line of his face. It paints perfect full-signal WiFi creases on his forehead; it makes his jaw hang loose. 
“I– what?” Vernon splutters, shooting a hand to the back of his head. Seungkwan hasn’t taken his eyes off the doorway since Jun slipped through it. Vernon doesn’t notice the fact that his older friend’s full genetic line is currently being cursed out. “What does he mean?”
“You don’t have to do anything tonight,” Seungkwan tries, now acutely aware of the fact that Jun has just given Vernon a nudge he should never have. There’s a fine line between bolstering a friend and straight-up causing chaos. This could get messy. Seungkwan doesn’t like messy.
But… It's too late. 
Before Seungkwan can wrangle him back into his seat, Vernon has broken away from the table and is on the hunt for you. Seungkwan follows behind, doing his best to summon Vernon back, but he can’t. He’s on a mission now. And maybe that mission involves giving in to the thing that eats away at his brain when he should be waist-deep in music theory assignments. Maybe that mission is to finally, after two years, know what it feels like to kiss you. He’s going to find you, so help him God. He has to. 
And yes. He does. He finds you, eventually. As soon as he reaches the top of the staircase, there you are. 
Being pressed into the wood of your bedroom door, wrapped up in the arms of some pretentious looking art student in an oversized button-down and baggy, ripped jeans. Your mouth is covered by theirs, your fingers are threaded through those glossy fucking locks, both of you are laughing breathlessly as you drop one hand and it fumbles blindly to reach for the doorknob. 
Vernon spins away, turning his back as he hears the door click. At this exact moment, Seungkwan comes stumbling up the stairs too and plants his forehead into Vernon’s sternum. 
But his good friend’s skull is not the only thing Vernon is struck with, not the only thing knocking the wind out of him. 
Simultaneously, he’s swept up with the sobering realisations that either this guy is your soulmate, or you’re not the same person you were when you were nineteen. 
Tumblr media
It’s eleven o’clock and two years later when he hears your secret knock on his apartment door. 
Maybe it’s luck. Maybe it’s fate. He only took his noise cancelling headphones off a few minutes ago before he washed up and settled into bed; his head has hardly even had time to make a dent in the pillows. But whichever force is at play, the thing that matters is that he hears you and he knows it’s you, straight away. He doesn’t remember how it started, exactly. He thinks it might have been while he was in his exam-season hermit stage in his first year of university and refused to come to the door unless it was something important. 
You’ve been knocking the same way for years now though, and he slides out of bed with creased brows at how desperate your fist sounds as it pounds against the wood. He pulls on an old t-shirt and perhaps the loosest fitting pair of shorts anyone’s ever owned, at least making himself decent before he answers. He’s still tying the drawstring when he gets to the door.
When he looks through the peep-hole to make sure he’s right, you’re drying your eyes on the back of your sweatshirt sleeve. You’re shivering quite violently, and you’ve got a bag on your shoulder that’s weighing you down on one side. Vernon’s heart sinks. He unbolts the door, pulling it open just as you lift your hand to knock again; your knuckles punch the air between you as your eyes land on him, and your bottom lip wobbles in despair. 
You fall into his chest with a sob. Tears start to soak their way through his shirt until it clings to the skin underneath. 
“Hey,” he soothes you, locking his arms so tight around you that there’s a strong chance they’re the only thing holding you upright. 
“I didn’t— know where else to go—” you choke out, your arm trapped between your chest and his as he rests his head on top of yours and pats your back softly. “I’m s-”
“Don’t you dare,” he murmurs, tilting his chin down to press a soft kiss to the top of your head. “It’s okay. I’m here. You can always come to me.”
He holds you until your shakes start to subside, trying to talk you through whatever this is with soft reassurances and gentle shushing sounds. When you pull back from him, Vernon guides you into his apartment, flicking on the lamp in his living room so he can see to settle you down on his couch. He throws a blanket over your legs before he sits down himself, pulling your hand into his lap and holding it between both of his own, his thumb moving absently over your knuckles. You’re still crying, but when you shuffle against the seat to be a little more comfortable and finally turn to face him, he finds his voice long enough to ask you what happened. 
“He kissed— kissed someone else,” you tell him, sniffling and shaking your head. 
His blood reaches boiling point in what must be record time and he knows he accidentally starts to grip your hand tighter, but he can’t stop. 
“He what?”
Vernon knows this guy wasn’t your soulmate. You told him, a few days after your birthday. You said everything was still black and white when you pulled back from the first of — what you spared no detail in explaining was — many, many, many kisses with him that evening. But you didn’t care. Not then, and not for the whole time you’ve been together. 
He asked you about it once. About four months in (when he figured things were starting to get serious), late at night, if it bothered you. Whether you were going to keep seeing him. If you still thought about finding your soulmate. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget what your replying message said. 
I mean, sure, I’m curious. But maybe I don’t need to see in colour. I think being in love is enough :)
So… you were in love. 
With someone who wasn’t him. 
He didn’t speak to anyone — not even you — for two whole days after that. He felt like he’d gone ten rounds with a peak-form George Foreman. He felt like he’d never be able to get rid of the pit that had developed in the depths of his gut. He couldn’t sleep, he could barely eat, he couldn’t focus: it was the worst he’d ever felt.  And, well… Vernon knew it was immature. He knew he was acting like a child. If he could’ve shaken it off, the way he’s always done with so many of the things in his life that have bothered him, he’d have loved to. But he couldn’t.
Besides. Only about four people noticed his silence, anyway. You weren’t one of them; your boyfriend was keeping you plenty busy.
“He went to a club and got completely wasted and he— he—” you say, squeezing his hand even tighter than he’s holding yours. “But-… he says he-…” Hiccup. “Everything. Straight away — his…”
You don’t need to say it out loud; if anything, he’s a little disgusted with himself that he didn’t figure this out sooner. “His soulmate,” Vernon ruefully finishes for you. He groans the words out, feeling rotten to his core. “I’m so sorry…”
Your shoulders start to shake and he wastes no time in pulling you sideways against him, both his arms locked around you again, just like before. 
“It’s so stupid,” you cry, laughing emptily. His stomach turns; he hates this. Your anguish is an assault on his eardrums, especially when he’s got you so close, but he tries so hard not to flinch, not to move away. You need him, no matter how agonised it makes him feel. “I knew he wasn’t mine, but I thought-…”
Your voice fades away to nothing. You shake your head.
“You thought he was happy the same way you were,” he finishes again. You just nod, sobbing harder. “That's not—… stop saying the way you feel is stupid.”
Vernon doesn’t understand how that loser could ever not have been happy with you. How could he dream about going out in search of something more? Hell, Vernon doesn’t think there’s a soul alive better than you — how could anyone stand to just throw you away?
He wonders briefly if you can hear his heartbeat, thundering in his chest with the rage he feels all the way into his bones. You’ve always told him that you admire how chilled out, how collected he is, but Vernon has never felt less calm in his entire life. It’s only as he acknowledges that he has no right to feel like this, that he takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to bring his fever down. You mimic him, trying to do the same, and by the time his pulse starts to settle, you’re back to just sniffling against his shoulder. 
“Stay the night here,” he tells you. It isn’t a suggestion, or really even a request. It’s an order. There’s no room for negotiation. “We’ll go get your things in the morning. I’ll be right there with you.”
You open your mouth to speak, but Vernon gets there before you do. Before you can protest the offers he’s made. Before you can ask him if he’s sure. He knows you, a little too well: he knows these are the words that are going to come out of your mouth next. “I’m with you, okay? Always.”
You sit back from him with a quiet chuckle, wiping your eyes again on your damp sleeve. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you,” you murmur. “You’re the best— the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He just rolls his eyes at you and shakes his head, standing up from the couch. (I know you are, he thinks. This isn’t the time for jokes, though.) He wishes you knew what you mean to him; how, in his eyes, you deserve the world, presented to you on a shining silver platter. Wishes you knew that he’d give it to you if thought he could carry it. 
“Go wash up,” he says, ignoring the ache in his chest at the way your watery lashes flutter when you look up at him. “I’ll find you something to sleep in.”
He locates a spare toothbrush from a travelling kit he’s never used and sets a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants on the heated towel rail, leaving you alone in the bathroom to go about your business. You emerge some fifteen minutes later to find Vernon perched on the edge of his bed, scrolling through an app on his phone. He can’t help but swallow at the way his clothes fit you. How the steam from your shower clings to your skin, casts a heavenly haze around you. He hopes it isn’t obvious. This is about more than his dumb little crush. 
“Were you asleep?” You ask him, nodding towards his comforter, still pushed back on one side. He turns to glance over his shoulder, following the line of your sight, before he looks back at you and shakes his head. 
“Not even close,” he says. “I’d just got into bed when you got here.”
You worry your bottom lip between your teeth and nod. Vernon doesn't think you look totally convinced, but he can’t force you to believe him, even if it is the truth. 
It’s unspoken but accepted that you'll sleep in the bed with him; he’s never let you stay on his couch when you spend the night, and you never agree to displacing him even though he always tries to insist he doesn’t mind. You’ve been friends for enough time now that it’ll never be weird to crawl beneath the sheets with him, anyway. At first, he didn’t really like sharing (he’s a bit… particular with how he sleeps, after all), but he got used to your weight on the mattress beside him quite quickly and makes a point to say he always sleeps better with you. 
He hasn’t curled up next to you for the night in over two years. It’s awful, that that’s what he thinks about now as he turns off the lights and you settle down, shuffling under the comforter until he slides in next to you in the dark and you can lay your head on his chest. He knows it’s selfish. He thinks it probably makes him a bad person, too. 
“Do you think—” you start to say, cut off by a long, vocal yawn. Your breath feels so warm through his t-shirt. “If you fall out of love with them… do the colours go away?”
With his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling he can’t even see, Vernon feels his heart shatter beneath the soft cushion of your cheek. He’s suddenly grateful he’s still fully clothed, as if the cotton barrier is the only thing stopping you from getting scratched by the splinters beneath his skin. He wonders if you hear it. It would be an easier explanation for why he doesn’t say anything than whatever his mouth could come up with, that’s for sure. 
“I don’t know,” he says after a few seconds too long. The arm wrapped around your shoulders slips down to your waist and he squeezes you. Briefly, he wonders if it can force your broken pieces back together. 
Vernon knows he would never do this to you. He’d never hurt you this way. Out of everyone he’s ever met, he thinks you’re the sweetest, the kindest, the most thoughtful of them all. The last person he’d ever wish a heartbreak upon. He even used to joke that he’d go to war with anyone who dared to try. 
But now he’s seeing it happen? He feels as if he really could. 
“I just hope you never have to find out,” he follows up, blinking back the thoughts that start to bubble away as your breaths slow down. 
He wrapped a band-aid around your finger when you got a papercut once and you asked him, then, if he would kiss it better. 
When you bumped your head in the playground, the same. 
He’d kiss it all better now too, if he could. He’d show you how you deserve to be loved. 
And he doesn’t just think it, anymore; Vernon knows that this makes him a terrible person. 
“I hope you don’t, either,” you mumble back. “... and I hope we find them soon.”
Tumblr media
He’s so proud of you.
Okay, it never took much. He’s been proud of you for every good grade you’ve ever achieved, every doctor's appointment you booked for yourself, every trip to the dentist you stressed over. He’s been proud of you for finishing projects you were struggling with. Proud of you for learning new recipes. For every milestone, personal or professional, it’s the first thing he makes sure to say. 
[ hey, look at u go!!! proud of u :) ]
Now? He’s seen you crawl from rock bottom to the top of the world. It hasn’t been easy. There have been hurdles and barriers and sometimes, sixty foot high walls you’ve had to climb up and over, but you’ve done it. You’re thriving. Every time he looks at you, these days, if you’re not wearing a smile there are at least traces of one in your eyes, on your face, in your voice. Happiness suits you, and he’s so, so proud of you for getting here. 
He knows you’re doing better, because between Christmas and New Year, you asked him if he wanted to come to a party with you. At first, he wasn’t sure; the holidays left his wallet feeling a little light and he’s been on a really good streak of not drinking anything lately, but when you promised that you’d stay sober too, he kind of couldn’t say no. 
[ i just wanna see in the new year with my favourite person ever <3 ]
[ ha. flattery will get u everywhere ]
So here he finds himself, out in the backyard of somebody he’s never met, a can of Coke in one hand and your gloved fingers holding tightly onto the other. You dragged him outside at five minutes to midnight and — though he doesn’t know why — you decided you didn’t want to let go. Vernon certainly wasn’t going to be the one to make you. Your warmth down his left side is settling the slight unease he’s felt all evening while also making him feel tipsier than he’s ever been under the influence of any amount of soju; he thinks maybe this should scare him, but he’s just… so glad he came.
With sixty seconds until the clock strikes twelve, somebody stands up on top of the picnic table in the yard and starts to try and coordinate a countdown. With forty-five, Vernon squeezes your hand, butterflies where his stomach ought to be. With thirty, he takes a long drain of his drink, finishing it as if it’ll give him some courage, maybe, or… he doesn’t know. Zero sugar, zero caffeine — there’s no logic behind his process, just a lot of bubbles and artificially sweetened syrup. All the same, he crushes the can against his thigh and slips it into his pocket to throw away later. That alone relieves a bit of his adrenaline. 
Not enough, but some. 
With ten seconds remaining, the first shout drowns out the white noise in his ears, the chaos of his thoughts. 10. He joins them. So do you. 9. 8. Your voice is the loudest, the most excited sounding. You want this year to be over. You want the rest of your life to begin. 
7. 6. 5.
The crackers are set. Flames dance at the end of the garden on fire lighters, ready to send rockets shooting into the sky. 
Some people here are going to see them as they truly are. Brilliant and vibrant and colourful against the black canvas of the midnight sky. Vernon won’t. Neither will you. But what was it you said to him once?
4. 3.
Maybe I don’t need to see in colour. 
2.
For the first time, he thinks he agrees. The feeling of loving you, even if he never knows green from red, blue from orange? He doesn’t care. He has you. He loves you. That’s enough. 
1.
Happy New Year. 
As if dawn has broken early, the world becomes impossibly bright, pyrotechnics bursting not only over your own heads but everywhere, as far as his eyes can see. After the first few, he permits himself a glance over at your face: there are tears running down it, and his heart stutters, but then he hears you laugh. Brightly, wetly, more resonant than any of the booms and crackles and cheers he can feel all the way down to his toes. 
For whatever reason, Vernon starts laughing with you. 
You pull him closer into a bone-crushing hug and blink your damp lashes against the side of his neck. “Thank you for being here with me,” you say to him, practically shouting to be heard. “I love you so much.”
“I’m always gonna be with you,” he says as you pull back a little. Your arms are still around him. The chain of the bracelet he bought you all those years ago is bitterly cold against the back of his neck. He can’t feel his fingers anymore, all he knows is that they’re resting on the curve of your spine. He thinks he can see something in the way you look at him, so softly and tenderly and yet, in the twitch of your brow… 
Like you’re searching for something that might not be there. 
He knows his gaze moves in a perfect triangle — from your left eye, to your slightly parted, wind-chapped lips, to your right. He knows he stops breathing. He swears you do, too. Something builds — a spark catches, an energy festers, egged on by the curious murmurs of the people around you. 
You could do it, his brain tells him. 
So what if he’s a few minutes late for it to be traditional? Does it really matter? 
But he’s reminded, again, this time with a whizz and a boom and a crackle, that you aren’t his to have this way. His storybook moment fizzles out, the final firework bursting into sparkles overhead. He sees every one of your perfect features brighten in wonder as you tilt your head back to look up at it. Sees it beautifully reflected in your glassy eyes. He has about enough time to commit the image to memory before you clear your throat and finally step away from him, losing all touch for the first time since you came outside. 
One of your friends comes and pulls you into an embrace, before passing you along to someone else, and then someone else again. He loses you in the crowd that rushes to get back in the warm, but he makes no effort to move with them. He just stays out in the dark for a while with his own thoughts for company, shoving his frigid hands into the pockets of his jeans.
He’s happy, though. It’s like you said. 
Being in love is enough.
Tumblr media
“There’s just one more thing,” you say as the waitress returns with your bank card and a receipt. Vernon slides you a look as he stands, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair he’s been sitting in. 
He shakes his head at you. “Whatever it is, it better not be edible,” he laughs. “I think this is the most full I’ve ever been.”
In other words, you’ve done enough already. Stop spending money on me. Please. Thankfully, your final surprise is in-keeping with his unspoken rule. 
His birthday rolled around way too quickly. The start of the year has been so chaotically busy; you swear, you’ve hardly seen him since he dropped you off home after the party. You moved out of your parents’ house for the second time a few weeks ago and settling in, unpacking boxes, sorting through clothes and belongings and trinkets has taken you much longer than you care to admit. You’ve been busy at work, too. So has he. Your social calendars have barely lined up at all. 
But you were determined to make plenty of time for him on his birthday. 
To Vernon, this has always just been another day. He’s never cared too much about big celebrations: as long as he can spend some time with people he cares about, he’s happy, and this year he’s managed exactly that. He saw his family this morning, had some friends drop by his apartment later in the day, and now, he’s with you. 
You’ve never been great at the laid-back approach, though. Not with him. How could you be, when he does so much for you, always without even batting an eye? When he deserves to be doted on, and adored, and thoroughly spoiled? It’s the same every year. You make a fuss, he playfully scolds you for it; you and he are creatures of habit. It’ll probably never change. 
This year, you invited him to your new place to open the gifts you’d bought him: the new speaker he kept saying he couldn’t justify buying, a record he looked at in the store a few months ago but never bought, a sweatshirt to replace the one you stole off him on New Years Eve. Some candies he likes. Then, after he finally stopped pouting and sighing that you really didn’t need to go to all this effort, you took him out for dinner, making a reservation for two at his favourite restaurant. 
The pouting continued. 
Only up until your appetisers came out, though. The moment your food was placed down in front of you, his eyes doubled in size and his lips became a little too busy to stay pursed. Your own dinner almost went cold with how fondly you sat and watched him. This year, you even spared Vernon the embarrassment of having the restaurant staff sing at the side of your table. 
All right, you have an ulterior motive, but… it’s the thought that counts, right? 
He holds the door open for you now as you thank the waitress who served you one last time and without him lowering his arm, you step into place beneath it. Tucked up into Vernon’s side, you’re as happy as you’ve ever been. Nervous, too, but… you have a good feeling. 
“Where to?” He asks as you fall into step together. 
“This way.”
You emerge from the shelter of the canopy outside the restaurant’s front door and immediately feel the cool tickle of a snowflake landing on your cheek. They started to fall while you were eating and Vernon couldn’t stop watching through the window, small specks that grew over the hour into big clumps that tumbled towards the ground. He’s always loved the snow, and there’s no real destination for this gift, anyway. You guide him to the left and watch as peace takes its rightful home on his beautiful features. 
“We’ve walked in a perfect square three times now,” Vernon says after a little while of meandering about in the dark, making comfortable small talk and laughing as the champagne bubbles in your stomachs continue to fizz away. “Where are we supposed to be going?”
You wondered how long it was going to take him to notice, or even if he was going to realise at all. Looking up and down the street you’re on, you stop in your tracks, standing beneath the same flickering street lamp that you’ve passed twice already. Your footprints trail both behind and in front of you, neither quite covered yet by the snowfall. You break into a laugh when you notice that the convenience store on your left has closed since the last time you came down this road. 
“I can get a map open, if…” Vernon starts, reaching into his pocket. You stop him, stepping out from under his arm and wrapping your hand around his wrist instead.
“I might’ve told a little white lie,” you confess, 
He halts with his phone only half pulled out, pushing it into his hip for fear of it falling if either of you let go. “What do you mean?” He asks. 
You know he’s probably thinking back to your earlier conversations, trying to figure out which part exactly is the mistruth you’re now admitting to. But whether he gets there on his own or not, he waits for you to answer. 
“I had it with me this whole time,” you explain, readjusting your hold on his covered forearm. His eyes dart downwards, looking at the site of contact, but he quickly lifts them back up to your face. “I was just… waiting for… ”
“What are you talking about?” Vernon asks. 
“Close your eyes.”
You know.
Unfortunately for your best friend, as hush-hush as he’s managed to be all this time, the same can’t be said for the other person he entrusts all his secrets to. A few weeks ago, when you’d called Seungkwan to coordinate timings for Vernon’s birthday plans, he’d accidentally let something slip. It was your suggestion of taking Vernon to dinner that did the trick. 
“Oh, he’s going to love that,” Seungkwan had gushed. You could hear the breadth of his smile down the phone and felt yourself growing hot at the compliment.
“You really think so?”
“Pfft. You could take him to the Eiffel Tower or to a drive-through KFC, and he’d still have hearts in his eyes – because it’s you.”
Of course, he attempted to do some damage control immediately after. Make out that he meant it in strictly platonic terms. But once the idea planted itself in your head, it sort of… made sense. You mulled it over for a couple of days but when you finally asked Seungkwan, deathly serious, if he really thought you stood a chance with Vernon?
He practically screamed ‘yes’ down the phone. 
“The last time you asked me to do this, you killed me at laser-tag,” Vernon says, narrowing his eyes. He surely doesn’t think you’re hiding a plastic gun underneath the coat he literally just watched you don, but he doesn’t do as you ask and you suck your front teeth at him.
“Luckily for you, I left all my weapons at home,” you counter. “Come on, please. Just… trust me.”
“Said that last time, too,” he snickers. But, to his merit, he finally does it. He takes in a breath and follows your instruction. “I swear to God…”
Selfishly, you take a moment to bask in how handsome he really is. His eyes twitch underneath his lids and snowflakes cling to his lashes, moving with them. It’s in his hair, too. On his shoulders. Melting on his cheeks, leaving small wet spots on his face. One lands perfectly on the tip of his nose. You would immortalise this moment, if you could.
It made sense, when you found out, because thinking back? Nobody has ever loved you how Vernon does. He shows it in so many ways – he sends you the songs that he hears and thinks you’ll like, the pretty photographs that he takes when he’s away for work, some variant of a ‘good morning’ text, almost every day. He massages your shoulders, lets you fall asleep on his lap, follows you around like an obedient puppy when you have errands to run just so you don’t have to do them on your own. 
He tries, and often fails, to cook you breakfast when you stay over. He brings you coffees, or lunch. He looks at you like you’re the moon and the stars. People have teased for years that you could be psychically connected. That you were cosmically united. That it was fate for Vernon to move into the house down the street from you when you were nine. To be the only other child your age on the block. 
Two people, perfect for one another, lives intertwined eternally by fate. Or, in other words…
“Are you…?” He asks, breaking the quiet that has only been filled with your cloud-forming breaths. 
“Give me a second,” you breathe. There’s no doubt in your mind.
One. 
You lean forward to kiss him softly, free hand settling against the side of his neck. In the February chill, Vernon freezes, no part of his body reacting to you except for his lips. Though they twitch in a gasp, they press back against yours as if he isn’t even thinking about doing it. As if it’s instinctual. As if he was always supposed to kiss you – as if he’s your…
There it all is, when you finally pull away.
Brown eyes, framed by fluttering lashes that untangle from one another to finally see you, too. Brown, you know, because when you asked your mother to tell you about Vernon’s colours when you were younger, that was the only one she told you, saying everything else might change when he got older. Warm, brown eyes. Glistening with every blink, blink, blink of the bulb above you. Pupils slowly dilating, drowning the colours out of view. You see his lids shoot wide as he realises, as he glances left and right, as he takes this new world in for the first time, too. 
“I knew it,” you say on a stuttered breath, so overwhelmed you could cry. “My soulmate.”
A brilliant smile threatens to split Vernon’s features in two as he cups your cheeks and pulls you back to him, kissing you again, and again, and again. 
“I know you are,” he says against your lips, his bare thumbs pink and cold as they press into your skin. And, before you can kiss him quiet – “but what ‘m I?”
Tumblr media
thank u so much for reading, i really hope you enjoyed this. as always, your likes/reblogs/comments and feedback are always deeply appreciated.<3
919 notes · View notes
juyeonszn · 4 months
Text
BLACK OUT OR BACK OUT
Tumblr media
THE TBZ FRAT HOUSE IS HOSTING THE BLACK OUT OR BACK OUT COLLAB BY @juyeonszn AND @itsbeeble!
YOU’RE INVITED!
PAIRING tbz x f!reader
GENRES smut ﹒fluff ﹒minimal angst ﹒crack
WARNINGS 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT! mature language, mentions of alcohol, sexual content, more warnings per individual fic!
SUMMARY have you ever wondered what your favorite frat boyz are up to in their personal lives? if so, then these fics are just for you! join us as we take a glimpse into the tau beta zeta fraternity and see what they get up to in their free time!
MORE LETS GAURRRRR i’m so excited to announce this collab with loml reese both as a cute fun little idea we had and in celebration of her 1 year tumblr anniversary! we also realized it happened to be the same day as tbz day LOL so that’s kinda crazy 😭 my boyz have been here for 6 years wow 💔 anyways i hope all of u love these as much as we do! and always, don’t forget to rb if u enjoyed!! send an ask if u’d like to be tagged in these <3
PERM TAGLIST @winterchimez @maessseongs @itsbeeble @zzoguri @deoboyznet @cloverdaisies
Tumblr media
FALL SEMESTER
TRY HARD — LEE JUYEON (12/6)
Need to get rid of some junk? Well these college hunks will haul YOUR junk! Give us a call at xxx-xxx-JUNK and we’ll haul YOUR junk for FREE! (limited time offer)
EXCITEMENT — JI CHANGMIN (12/6)
You know, when you told your girl friends that you’d never finished before, you were expecting it to blow over like no big deal. What you weren’t expecting was for it to spiral into a whole other mess.
SEEING STARS — KIM SUNWOO (12/10)
It’s slightly embarrassing how Sunwoo is naive enough to take Eric Sohn’s “advice” to heart. Luckily, you like idiots. Especially when they kick a ball into your face and agree to do a semester’s worth of school work for you.
CLUMSY — JU HAKNYEON (12/10)
When Haknyeon ran into you at a TBZ party for the first time, he didn’t think he would fall for you so quickly. Or literally. Or both simultaneously. But there’s a first time for everything, he supposes.
“FRIENDLY” COMPETITION — LEE SANGYEON (12/14)
The TBZ frat had always had a rivalry with the KAT sorority. At least, they did when you and Sangyeon became the presidents three years ago. What happens when you mix a little friendly competition into this rivalry of yours?
JE NE SAIS QUOI — JACOB BAE (12/14)
Jacob thought the concept of fraternities was stupid. So stupid that despite every single one of his friends being in one, he still refused to join. However, after meeting you at one of the TBZ parties, he’s starting to think maybe they’re not that horrible.
SPRING SEMESTER
LET LOOSE — KIM YOUNGHOON (12/19)
Younghoon has hated you. He thought you were stuck up with that better-than-you princess attitude of yours. What better than to just…fuck it right out of you?
(NO) STRINGS ATTACHED — LEE HYUNJAE (12/19)
Becoming friends with Lee Hyunjae after his valiant attempt to save your life (stopping you from drunk driving) was certainly not on your year’s bingo card. Also not on your bingo card? Waking up in his bed every other night following, but it’s not like you’re really complaining.
NO BITCHES? — ERIC SOHN (12/22)
When you met Eric, you’d thought he was just another frat boy, looking to get into any woman’s pants (particularly yours at that moment). You never would’ve thought that he was just a loser who really liked FNAF and just thought you were pretty.
PARTY O’CLOCK — CHOI CHANHEE (12/22)
In spite of being a frat boy himself, Chanhee could never actually see himself enjoying the luxuries of the title. Besides, how could he with all the responsibilities of being treasurer? Enter you and your carefree spirit and Chanhee’s got a real big problem on his hands.
PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER — KEVIN MOON (PT. 1 1/1, PT. 2 1/3)
It wasn’t like you and Kevin hated each other. In fact, you quite admired him despite his somewhat indifferent attitude toward you. Well, now that you’re paired up for the last dance of the year, you guess it’s the perfect time to find out why.
Tumblr media
© juyeonszn & itsbeeble. do not steal, claim, or repost.
734 notes · View notes
hauntedrain · 1 month
Text
Part 2: Unexpected | Max Verstappen x Fem Reader |
Tumblr media
✮▹A/N: I hope you enjoy and sorry for not posting sooner! also this is kinda short so sorry about that, next one should be longer.
✰▹Warnings/Notices: NOT EDITED. also dont mind the dates on the tweets, It has nothing to do with the time line of the story. Terribly sorry if it doesn't make sense.
part 1: Here! Part 3 is posted <3
Tumblr media
Twitch stream transcript!
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Y/N: Uh hey guys! we have SERIOUS things to talk about.
Lorelei: Tu-tu-du-du, Max Verstappen...
Y/N: WHOS MAX VERSTAPPEN.
Theo: Okay calm down... we can explain.
Y/N: wait. he follows me on Instagram?
Lorelei: WHAT?
Y/N: LOOK HE DOES. CHAT WTF.
Tumblr media
Lorelei: Chat is saying he saw a clip of the YouTube video
Y/N: ohhh, that's why everything went crazy...
Theo: wait do they have the clip of it?
Y/N: please no we don't need to watch that.
Lorelei: YES WE DO.
Y/N: No, because that's EMBARRASSING. Imagine If Robert Pattison or someone saw your tiktoks.
Lorelei: that's true.
Tumblr media
Y/N: okay that makes more sense now.
Theo: I told you that you should get into F1. If you did you wouldn't have had this happen.
Lorelei: You know.. I wish Max Verstappen followed me.
Y/N: Apparently you're not cool enough then.
Lorelei: WHAT?
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Liked by Max verstappen, TheoD, & 24,567,899 others
Y/N: The cat kinda looks like someone I know?
Click to view all 14,567,789 comments
User6: THE CAT LMFAO
↪ user7: Tbh it actually kinda looks like Max.
User8: I really hope they're talking cuz I really need to see Y/N in the paddock, worlds would collide.
↪ Y/N: I wanna drive the cars !
↪ MaxVerstappen: We could make that happen.
↪ Lorelei: IM SORRY WHAT?
↪Y/N: HAHAHA LOSER.
User9: kitty cat
User10: PLEASE SAY UR TALKING TO MAX PLEASE.
↪ user11: I mean its been a month or so at this point so yea they're probably talking.
Tumblr media
Y/N has posted to their story!
Tumblr media Tumblr media
⋆ ˚。⋆୨୧˚ taglist: @holy-macncheese-balls @loloekie @cherry-piee @bloodyymaryyy @mangotaitai @the-untamed-soul @trouble-sistar @stinkyjax @minkyungseokie
Comment if you wanna be tagged <3
⭒❃.✮:▹A/N: Okay I hope you liked this and it isnt to confusing, this story is kinda hard to format, but I still hope it makes sense. Thanks for the love. Love you guys <3
Tumblr media
498 notes · View notes
iwritefandomimagines · 10 months
Text
MORE THAN ENOUGH — ETHAN LANDRY
Tumblr media
masterlist
pairing: ethan landry x f!reader
description: you’ve been hanging around the group more often lately, and they haven’t clocked the way you always end up leaving with ethan. when you overhear them doubting you’d ever date him, you decide to make a show of just how much your boyfriend means to you.
warnings: swearing, mindy is kinda being an asshole but i love her it just fits the plot, also they make popcorn like … impossibly fast at the end but i was not wasting time on popcorn making when i had FLUFF to write huh. no gf mentions !!!
author’s note: this has been almost finished for so long and i finally finished it today lmao. hope you enjoy!
“Hey E, when did Y/N say she was getting here?”
“What’re you asking him for?”
“Because obviously it’s him who’s going to know?”
You rolled your eyes at the argument between Mindy and Chad as you quietly paced down the hallway towards the lounge.
“Why is that obvious?” Mindy countered, and you could practically picture Ethan’s pout as he butted in now, “Why are you so sure she wouldn’t tell me?”
Mindy scoffed, “What, you know everything just because you have a massive crush on her? You probably just, like, stalk her or something.”
“I don’t stalk her—,”
“Okay, you just follow her round like a lost little puppy she has to deal with all the damn time,” Mindy snorted, “I’m just saying she’d have text the group chat, not just you.”
“Hey, that’s harsh,” Tara interjected, “Whether she’s out of his league or not, that’s not what the deal is here. They’re just as close as she is with you, if not closer. It makes sense she’d text him.”
You shook your head even though they still couldn’t see you, lingering just past the doorway and listening in as they talked.
“Why is this whole thing being blown out of proportion? He only asked when she’d get here, not for you to all talk about me like I’m a total loser she’d never be seen with,” you could hear that he was taking their words to heart as he tried to stick up for himself for once.
“Nobody said total loser,” Mindy shrugged, “But we’re just speculating. Chad talks about you two like a couple, and I’m simply reminding him that you’re obviously not.”
Anika put her hand on her girlfriend’s arm for a second, “Mindy, c’mon. You’re just being mean now.”
“I know she’s out of my league and I never said any different Mindy,” Ethan groaned, “Could we shut up about this already? She’ll be here any minute and I don’t need her hearing you talking about how pathetic I am.”
Mindy huffed, raising her arms in feigned surrender, “You said it, not me. Look, sorry, I’m not trying to be harsh I swear. Just no point in you getting your hopes up, is there?”
You took that as your cue, striding into the room and heading straight towards your boyfriend.
“Hey guys,” you hummed, throwing down your bag and plopping yourself down onto Ethan’s lap and curling your arms around his neck.
He looked perplexed, unsure why you waltzed in and made such a show of PDA all of a sudden, but his tense body relaxed under your touch regardless.
His hands curled around your waist as he shuffled back in his seat to make you both more comfortable, his voice shy as he responded, “Hey.”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Mindy rose to her feet, “What?”
You rolled your eyes for what felt like the thousandth time, turning your head to shoot her a sickly sweet smile, “What?”
You could see Chad stifling a laugh, because he’d seen you sneak out of their dorm one too many times not to have figured out you were actually dating by now.
“Why are you—,”
“Sitting on my boyfriend’s lap? There’s no other seats, Minds,” you shrugged, fighting back a smirk as she went bug-eyed, “Oh, shit. I forgot we still hadn’t told you guys. My bad!”
Mindy fumbled over her words for a moment, still staring at you as your fingers twirled Ethan’s curls at the base of his neck and his fingers danced over the waistband of your jeans.
You pressed a kiss to his cheek, feeling warmth radiate from his skin as his eyes darted around the room for everyone’s reactions.
“Boyfriend? You’re together?”
Tara was grinning, “Nice!”
“Aw you guys,” Anika grinned, “That’s so cute. We can double date!”
You rolled your eyes, “Maybe if Mindy apologises for talking to Ethan like he’s the shit on the bottom of her shoe, yeah.”
“I’m sorry, I just—,”
“It’s fine, Mindy,” Ethan shrugged, nuzzling his face into your neck to hide away from the attention, “Can we just move on? At least you all know now.”
You frowned, pressing a kiss atop his curls as he remained close to you. You watched Mindy frantically search for the right words to say, before deciding to stay quiet.
Silence hung in the air for a moment, tension evident as Ethan’s grip on you seemed to tighten.
“It’s Ethan who’s been asking to keep things quiet, so thanks for the reminder of why,” you huffed, “Because you make him feel like he doesn’t deserve me. It’s not fair, Minds. At all. And you’re supposed to be my best friend.”
“I am your best friend!” Mindy replied, “I just didn’t expect this, that’s all. I’m sorry, okay? I’m happy for you guys. I really am.”
You scoffed, “Well maybe if you spent a little more time treating Ethan like an actual person and not some pointless side character in a, like, movie or whatever, you’d realise he’s a good person and that it’s me who doesn’t deserve him.”
You felt guilty for your outburst, and you could see that it had really driven your point home to Mindy, who was now staring at her feet shyly and snuggled in close to Anika.
You snuggled in closer to Ethan’s lap, interlacing your fingers as you did so. His hands were as warm as his face had become as a result of all of the attention, and you could tell he felt uncomfortable.
He did, however, enjoy the fact that everyone knew you were together now.
A sudden bout of confidence sparked in him as he pulled your joined hands up to kiss the back of yours, “Whatever. Whether she’s out of my league or not, she’s my girlfriend. Now let’s just put the stupid movie on, yeah?”
Everyone nodded silently, tension still thick in the air as Mindy picked up the remote control, but before she could press play you hopped back up out of your boyfriend’s lap.
“Oh, I brought popcorn,” you exclaimed, grabbing his hand and pulling him up as you picked up your bag again too, “We’ll go make it really quick. Won’t be long.”
Ethan followed you into the kitchen, your hands still interlocked, and smiled confusedly at you as you hopped up onto the counter beside the stovetop and quickly began preparing the popcorn.
“Sorry about that,” you bit your lip, watching him carefully as he sauntered to your side and placed a palm on your hip, taking control of the popcorn making, “I overheard the conversation and got really pissed off. Also just missed you and wanted to be annoyingly PDA’y… Is that alright?”
He scoffed, “Are you kidding? I only wanted to keep it from them because they don’t think I deserve you and I didn’t want you realising they’re right… I’m like, so happy, that I can kiss you around them now. So happy.”
You pouted, “I hate that you think that too, though. You more than deserve me, Eth. And I’m really lucky to have you.”
His thumb rubbed at the skin of your waist just beneath your top as his other hand shook the popcorn as it heated up.
“You’re the best, Y/N,” he hummed, pecking your lips quickly before refocusing on the popcorn, “I kinda wish we could just go to mine or something instead. I’m not in the mood for anyone else’s company anymore.”
You leaned in to kiss him, a hand carding through his curls briefly as he took the popcorn off the heat and set it aside, turning off the hob. His hands then flew back to your waist, settling himself between your parted legs to kiss you properly.
“I wish we could just go to yours too. We’ll dip as soon as the movie ends, yeah?” you grinned, biting your lip as you pulled back from the kiss, “We can deal with them asking questions another day. ‘M more in the mood to just curl up with you.”
He nodded, “Me too. Sounds like a plan. And thank you, for tonight, seriously. I’m not exaggerating when I say how lucky I am to have you.”
You shook your head, “You’re my boyfriend, and I’m proud of that fact. Mindy just needs to get her head out of her ass sometimes. I’m sorry they’re so shitty to you sometimes, it’s pathetic.”
He kissed you quickly again, scooping your waist to pull you down from the counter to stand beside him.
“Honestly at this point I don’t care anymore,” he shrugged, “I’ve got you. Oh, but please don’t agree to any double dates without me. No offence, but a double date with Mindy and Anika would be, like, my personal hell.”
You giggled, shaking your head again, “We’ll work on her weird unnecessary disdain for you, babe. But of course, I understand. C’mon, we better get back in there.”
“Can’t we just stay in here instead?”
“I wish.”
“Ugh,” he huffed, an adorable pout gracing his features that almost made you give in and make up an emergency reason for you both to leave, “At least we get to cuddle this time. I’m sick of you always having to sit away from me.”
You chuckled, “You do tend to watch me from across the room like a lost puppy. It’s adorable. In fact, I’m surprised nobody ever notices me doing the exact same thing back. We’ve been totally obvious this whole time.”
He kissed you again, briefly and feverishly like he couldn’t stop himself, “Our friends are idiots, huh.”
“Absolute morons,” you smiled, kissing him one final time before grabbing the popcorn and his hand.
“Let’s go get through a movie, hey?”
———
thanks for reading !!!
i hope this was okay, it felt a bit messy and shit when i was editing but i’ve been stuck on it so long so thought i’d post and then maybe come back to it? let me know what you thought!
feel free to request more, i’ve been chaotic with which old drafts i’m finishing lately but my requests are still open — and here’s my masterlist!
2K notes · View notes
weebsinstash · 2 months
Note
Hello! I don’t know if you do this but I was wondering what your thoughts were for a Yandere Lucifer Morningstar from Hazbin Hotel? I’m having trouble writing a good representation of him and would like some advice.
Honestly I'm gonna humble myself and say that it took reading someone else's post to make me like, REALLY notice the nuances of Lucifer's character
This post right here literally made me rewatch his scenes and go "oh wow he IS like DANGEROUSLY DEPRESSED"
He doesn't remember Charlie told him where she is, or what she's doing, and he can barely follow a conversation despite clearly trying to pay attention. He also just seems kind of scattered, and um, HE LITERALLY MAKES A JOKE ABOUT DYING FROM FALLING OFF THE HOTEL BALCONY like dude is making jokes about death in front of his fucking daughter, like my dudes, I think this guy is BARELY holding himself together
He clearly loves loves LOVES Charlie but he doesn't really know how to properly articulate himself and I have a feeling there's a lot he's concealing from her, and another big question is, is his depression from being cast out of Heaven, or from something to do with his missing wife, or a combination of both? Either way this man is clearly dealing with like, really bad issues. And Charlie also mentioned he wasn't around a whole lot when she was younger, so... did he have depression back then too?
So, that all said, I feel like a yandere Lucifer would almost be, potentially invigorated by his darling? Given a new lease on life? He may not be 100% his old self again but, you get him to like, 65, maybe 70% on a good day. You give him another reason to get out of bed in the morning, or afternoon, or evening or, whenever he can drag his depressed ass out of bed
Given what we currently know, I feel like a romantic yandere Lucifer would pretend to only be platonic and do his best to poorly conceal his feelings because of his whole... "can't ask his missing wife if it's ok for you to be their third" ordeal, the man still wears his wedding ring, and a platonic yandere Lucifer basically adopts you like another kid, because uh, I mean for one he apparently canonically missed a lot of Charlie's childhood, and he's also an ancient fallen angel, so he's got that age advantage on you no matter how old you are. I mean what are a few decades when he's literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands--you get the idea
Yandere Lucifer would want to stay close to you, helping watch over you, maaaaaybe being overly paranoid about you randomly disappearing and going missing For Very Obvious Reasons, and in the process he winds up being unintentionally overbearing. I mean, he did it in irritation, but he basically showed up at Charlie's hotel immediately saying it was a dump and all of HER FRIENDS were 'a bunch of losers'. He never completely pulls his punches when there's something he's displeased with, even if it has something to do with someone he loves, so his darling would get much of the same treatment. "Ohhhhh, you uh, you wanted to move across the city? That's, um, definitely a fun idea! BuuuuuUuuut, what IF, instead of doing that--", like, he tries to playfully tug you in 'the right direction' until you make him put his foot down
Hmmm... what would him losing his cool look like... well, we've already seen that he doesn't mind throwing hands and WILL KILL, but will stop if he's asked to or there's a good reason. With you, though, you're not typically going to be there to stop him from offing any rivals or bad influences, so I imagine he'd be kinda casual about it, actually! He already thinks pretty lowly of Sinners, so say he finds out you've been ditching him and Charlie to go out drinking with strangers, making new friends, maybe having a few one night stands? Yeah, some of those people definitely aren't calling you back, and Lucifer doesn't really see a problem with it. These people are kind of the worst and really don't deserve you, anyways! If anything he's helping clean up Hell for you and his daughter and keeping you safe :)
Losing his cool with YOU... I think would involve him using his powers to finally confine you, maybe even going demon mode to intimidate you into submission in a very dad-esque "now you listen HERE" kind of way. We don't really know the scope and scale of his powers but I can picture him at least being, obviously much stronger than he looks, and transforming to fly you "back home" where he puts you in your room where no one can reach you without his explicit permission (and you also can't leave~)
One second you're just drunk and jokingly defying him, teasing him, maybe even picking him up and swinging him around because you're bigger than him, to you he's just a silly little guy! Meanwhile this Grown Ass Man Who Is Also The Actual Devil is getting more than just a little frustrated you basically view him as a wacky little cartoon more than a grown man, one who has had sex and has had two wives and sired a child. You're just teasing him and stumbling around drunk when he's trying to get you to your hotel room to get to bed to sleep, like you're clearly not taking him seriously, maybe even playfully putting your hands on him (TOTALLY not riling him up in 'fun' ways) and he finally just huffs and snaps his fingers and, you're suddenly magic'd to bed! You're laying there blinking confused and he's tucking you in and chuckling that "you're such a handful!" before leaving you to sleep and somehow INSTANTLY knowing when you're up.
You ARE in his house, after all...
Not to be gross but uh..... I'm not saying "yandere Lucifer who has the power to still get a Sinner pregnant if he wanted to and you wind up fooling around with him and you're waking up with his little apple symbol on your lower tummy as one of those like hentai womb tattoos to show you're pregnant" but uhhhhhhhhhhyeah that's what I'm saying, and whether it was accidentally or intentionally, he's keeping it, and thus, keeping YOU
I just feel like he'd be very goofy and awkward and bad at hiding his feelings and being very clearly overprotective and jealous in ways everyone else but you manages to pick up on (god Alastor would have some MATERIAL) and, in a romantic/sexual setting he eventually just loses his patience with you not seeing him as a man and just gets... progressively more forward. You pop back into the Hotel after a night out and Lucifer's already hammered at the bar with Husk, stumbling up to you, hanging off of you, slurring and embarrassing himself, "You'reeeee SO pretty... like SO pretty.... do you wanna have *BELCH* you wanna fuck? Cause I LOVE to fuck, like when I FUCKED my wife to make my DAUGHTER, my wife and daughter that I have, 'cuz im a DAD, 'cuz I'm a MAN!" and you're just giggling and ruffling his hair, "You're so weird, dude ^^" and walking away while Lucifer internally screams, wondering just how DIRECT with you he's going to have to be
meanwhile Charlie is totally cool with all of this and sees this as a weird double whammy of Curing Dad's Depression + new family member and friend hurray! and she's totally actively either shipping you with her dad or aiding and abetting him in his weird attempts to absorb you into the Morningstar family
199 notes · View notes
theerurishipper · 5 months
Text
Shadybug and Claw Noir's relationship is so interesting to me. It's just a lot of small things that add up so well to form one great picture. It's like... they don't like each other, but they also need each other. Despite their glaring differences, their relationship is characterized by mutual support. Shadyclaw are partners in a world where mutual aid is a crime.
There are so many scenes in the special that show this really well. Shadybug and Claw Noir are always snapping at each other, and they're almost constantly fighting each other. But they're also such a well-oiled team, and they actually do work really well together. Like in the first fight with Ladybug. Claw Noir took the first strike to force Ladybug to dodge and Shadybug grabbed her when she was off balance. Or when they attacked Monarch at the same time and came at him from different sides. They function well as a team despite their differences.
They can't win on their own, and despite what they say, the episode proves them wrong immediately. Shadybug says she doesn't need Claw Noir, but the very next scene is her hiding behind him as he cataclysms the Akuma. And Claw Noir also needs Shadybug, because he asks her what they should do next, proving that he does rely on her plans. And I think they do know this, even if they don't want to admit that they depend on each other.
And all this is so interesting! But what's really more interesting to me is the emotional element of their relationship.
Like, Emonette has spent her life without any support or help from anyone, without anyone to depend on. She doesn't have friends; she doesn't have "a boyfriend who doesn't think she's a total loser," and she doesn't have a mom she can depend on (for whatever reason that may be). She's all alone in the world. She can't trust or rely on anyone.
Except Claw Noir.
Because whether she likes him or not, he's there. He works with her, he follows her plans, he's always there. Maybe he mocks her, maybe he tries to take her Miraculous (like she does to him), but he's a constant presence by her side, and she is aware that he's not going away anytime soon. And it's not like the bullying she suffered, because here, she's on equal terms with him. She can give as good as she gets.
And she does rely on him! Like I said before, she needs him. For the powers he brings to the table, at least, she needs him. And I think for someone as lonely as Emonette, the assurance that he'll stick by her no matter what, even if he's annoying and rude, is comforting in its own way. She doesn't like him, she's angry that he keeps trying to take her Miraculous. But she trusts him. Maybe not deeply, but for someone as lonely and hurt as Emonette is, having even that much trust in someone is hard.
Her reaction to him trying to take her Miraculous is also so interesting to me. She's actually angry that he does it. She confronts him angrily about it. And when he accuses her of the same thing, she goes on the defensive. And yeah, this could be her just being angry about what he tried to do. But it doesn't really add up in the context of what we know about their partnership.
You'd think that after all this time, she'd know why. That she'd be used to it. But no, she's angry about it. She takes the time to confront him about it. And the thing is, she knows what he's going to say, because it's going to be the same reason she gives him. I kinda feel like this isn't her just being angry about him trying to take her Miraculous. I think it upsets her when he does it. Because, despite claiming she'd be better on her own, she doesn't like that he wants to get rid of her. So, she goes on the defensive and asserts that she wants to do the same thing to him as a way of hiding her own vulnerability.
And we all know that the both of them are very good at denial (after 5 seasons of the Love Square, how could we not), and that's so true here too. Shadybug is in serious denial when she suggests that she'd be better off alone. We know she depends on him, and on some level, she knows it too. And yet, she says all that. It's not hard to read her reaction to his actions and his accusations as being defensive out of a sense of fear and denial.
Cause Emonette has had a very rough life. No one has supported her, no one has ever stood up for her or stood by her. She's afraid of being hurt and of being vulnerable. She's built up walls as high as a skyscraper and refuses to put them down out of a fear of being hurt again. She doesn't believe that anyone would stand by her and support her.
But Claw Noir has done that, even if their relationship is tenuous. He may not be nice to her, and he may not like her, but in some sense of the word, he has stuck by her, and he has supported her. And it hurts her that he would try to do this after all that.
Their partnership is important to her. When she's reading Marinette's diary and reads the part where Marinette is talking about her partner Chat Noir, she looks over at Claw Noir, indicating that that's how she feels about him. That she does associate the word "partner" with him. And then she rolls her eyes at him, but you know. Denial. Maybe I'm just being crazy, but that's really how it comes off to me after everything we know about them.
And one person rolling their eyes at the other is a common romantic trope sooooo
And we can't not talk about Emodrien! Because it's the same for him. Watching the special, it comes off to me that Gabriel isn't that great of a dad here either. Emodrien has been left to deal with his mom's death all alone because Gabriel is off playing hero and is pretty much neglecting his son. And Emodrien doesn't seem to go to school either, and apparently, he's still a famous person with fans of his own (he's wearing Gabriel fashion, which I don't think he would if he was so mad at his dad), so I think his relationship with Gabriel isn't that much different, except for the lack of manipulation and gaslighting (and arranged marriages and white rooms). So, I think that he also is like our Adrien in that he has pressure on him to be perfect (I think Claw Noir even says something along the lines of Adrien being perfect, implying that he does have to perform that role).
And honestly, Emodrien is just like our Adrien, a master at compartmentalizing. Adrien Agreste doesn't say a word in this special to anyone. He says his transformation phrase, and he exclaims about Shadybug being revealed to be Emonette, but he doesn't speak otherwise. And she did tell him to be quiet, but we've seen that he doesn't really listen to her, like when he didn't help her search Marinette's room and chose to take a catnap instead (sorry). He could have said something in the few minutes he was on screen, but he didn't. But he's so drastically different as Claw Noir. He's expressive and talkative and in your face about everything. Adrien Agreste having pressure on him to be perfect would explain why Claw Noir is so different. This is the part of himself that he's hidden away and can only express as Claw Noir (like our Adrien).
And the only person he can do this with is Shadybug. She's the only one around whom he can share this part of himself. And she doesn't leave. She's still around, and she may not like him, but she accepts it. He needs her too, not only for her plans and her own skills, but because he acknowledges him. She largely fights back whenever he does or says something, and often she is the one who starts an argument. And for someone whose life is characterized by a lack of attention from a parent and a recent loss, having someone who does acknowledge him must feel important. He can only be "himself" around her. And for this boy, whose only happiness in life till this point seems to come from staring at this one girl from the bakery, I think it does mean a lot, in some way, that Shadybug is around and ready to engage with him.
And I think his reactions to her and his rivalry/enmity towards her are also like her: stemming from a fear of vulnerability. We see that he's so unwilling to be perceived as weak that he's ready to tank a cataclysm to the chest that he inflicted on himself on purpose. He doesn't want to let anyone in either. And yet, Shadybug is someone that he relies on, and he may not like her, but he does need her, and she is important to him, in some way.
So, they are important to each other, and subconsciously, they both do value and need each other. What prevents them from accepting and sharing those feelings is their fear of vulnerability and their awful situation. They are pretty much stuck in a rivalry and a state of perpetual competition which entails that the one who gets the Butterfly Miraculous will be the one to survive. That's enough for anyone to try and hide their feelings of sentimentality for someone else. It's literally a matter of survival. Add this to their respective lives of suffering and loneliness, and it's easy to see why they can't show those feelings to each other. Their supposed hatred for each other is just a defense mechanism.
Is their relationship perfect or healthy? Not really. But their feelings are real. And it's so telling that when they do start to overcome their fears and start to take the steps towards forming connections with others, they instantly fall into a friendly, even loving dynamic. They literally leave our world holding hands. These feelings didn't come out of nowhere, they've always been there. Shadybug and Claw Noir were just too afraid of their own vulnerability and were stuck in an awful, forced rivalry to be able to express them. But once they take the first step towards accepting their feelings and start to overcome their issues, they instantly start flirting and their teasing goes from being cruel to being friendly.
They are still the same! Emonette still calls him fleabag, Emodrien still makes fun of her, but it's their approach that has changed. Instead of being veiled in cruelty stemming from their respective fears, they are embracing their true feelings. This whole special has been about them understanding themselves, their true feelings and what they truly need, and it led to them understanding their feelings for each other. They've always cared. Even in the middle of the special, when they hadn't had their resolutions yet, we have that touching scene of Claw Noir trying to comfort Shadybug.
Because their masks had dropped at that point. They were tired of hiding their vulnerability. Shadybug is crying openly and not making the slightest effort to hide it behind any excuse or mean comment. And if he truly hated her, Claw Noir could have just hit her with a cataclysm and taken her earrings. But he chose to try and comfort her instead. And it's interesting that they do not insult or argue with each other after that scene. They aren't fully open with each other yet, which is why she rejects his comfort, but it does speak volumes about their relationship, that the only thing between them is their fear and hurt.
In the scene where Emonette is yelling at Sabine that she's fine and to get off her back, there's a moment where she looks at Emodrien, and sees the look of sorrow and understanding on his face. And that leads her to admit the truth, that she's damaged. Before she saw him looking at her like that, she was being defensive and yelling for Sabine to get off her back, but after that, her tone changes. She opens herself up despite herself and cries before him. That scene was pivotal, I think, for them to completely understand each other, when they saw their own feelings reflected in the other's eyes without any masks covering them. It was a scene of mutual understanding. The feeling that the other person understood them, which led to them dropping their fronts and showing their true feelings.
They are the only ones who can truly understand each other. They are in this together, whether they like it or not. They know what it's like to be alone, and to feel hopeless. Both Shadybug and Claw Noir are dying from their misuse of the Miraculous (obligatory fuck The Supreme), and only they understand the fear, the hopelessness and the despair that comes with that. Only they know the feeling of being up against the world, of being alone and having no one. And they became that person for each other, the person who would stick by them no matter what, even if neither of them could see it yet.
367 notes · View notes
prose-for-hire · 2 months
Text
Evol (or, a backwards love story)
Pairing: Spike x reader
Request: Hey I love your spike x reader fics I was wondering if you could do one were like they both have a crush on eachother and he invites her over to his crypt but it's super fluffy and he makes it all romantic with candles and shit
Reader isn't a big fan of pink but doesn't like hate it or anything (just a heads up in case you love pink (like me) and it takes you out of the story).
Requested by: anon
A/N: Be kind please this is the first fic I've done in ages! Hope this is okay, love 💖
Tumblr media
You had been in deep thought, your mind travelling ahead of you as your limbs tried to follow. But your wandering mind had led you down an unknown path. You had taken a strange turn somewhere and found yourself in unchartered territory.
You were at a crossroads, in almost pitch darkness. The streetlights had disappeared a couple of streets ago and you weren’t entirely sure where you were. You were fumbling through the dark now, trying to find something to hold onto, to anchor you.
You found yourself connecting with something, a figure in the shadows. You groaned, the last thing you needed tonight was to get eaten, your top was brand new. You recoiled slightly but a pair of steady hands righted you. He, of course, could see in the dark.
“What’re you doing round these parts, pet?” His voice came from the darkness, retracting his hands, a flame from his lighter ignited so that you could see.
“Got kinda turned around… I’m lost”
“Can’t have that, can we, love? If you’re not careful somethin’ nasty might eat you up” His eyes glinted with amusement, his lips curled slightly in that irresistible way he did. Even when he was being ‘evil’ he was attractive to you. You were doomed to fall for him.
“What did we talk about Spike?”
“Too much?”
“Only a little” you smiled despite yourself, now unable to look up from your feet. You were afraid that you would reveal too much, he could read you like a book. He always had, ever since you met a year ago.
It was tongues and teeth. Blood and sweat. You were backed against the wall, the vibrations from the music pulsing through you. You grasped the black t-shirt that clung to him so perfectly, the vampire you had only heard about.
You knew he and Buffy had faced each other on numerous occasions, you just happened to miss him each time. You had met them in college and had only known of the stories about William the Bloody at this point. But you always liked to judge people for yourself, anyway. And, well, you hadn’t realised how beautiful he was, you had been taken by him as soon as he stomped up to the bar and sulkily ordered a beer.
You heard voices through the crowd, through the headiness of that moment. Voices you recognised. You pulled away, your face a picture; as if you had seen a ghost. You weren’t supposed to be here,
“Go home” He had hissed, covering you as you slid away. Taking Buffy’s attention.
You should have known then he had a soft spot. Or, well, the potential for one. Usually he would have relished the awkwardness of Buffy walking in to find you kissing a vampire. Drinking with demons and beating them at kitten poker. But if he had the chance to do that again he wasn’t going to ruin it by getting the ultimate mood slayer involved, now was he.
But you hadn’t ever had any real time alone since. Sure, sometimes it felt like you were both the only people in the room but there was barely a chance to even allude to what you had done let alone reignite the moment again. Though he of course tried at every moment he got.
“Got have plans, love? My crypt’s only down the way” he spoke softly, almost tentatively if you didn’t know better.
“I’m late. I’m supposed to meet some… friends” You hesitated and you knew he caught it before you looked back into his eyes. Eyes you were slowly being lost in.
“Not those bloody losers again. You’re better than them”
“Those losers are actually my friends”
“Friends that you hide yourself from” He shrugged, not entirely able to drop it. He couldn’t hide his distaste for Buffy and the others.
Despite it all he gestured with his head, offering to take you to your friends. Even though you knew Sunnydale quite well after moving into your dorm a year ago and running around the town many times after (or often away from) demons, you still got lost a lot. It was a kind of running joke amongst the other scoobies.
He lit a cigarette as you rounded the corner, only pausing to offer you one which you declined with a soft smile. A smile that made him want to drop to his knees and declare his undying love for you. It pained him, how soft he was for you.
He shoved the other hand in the pocket of his duster, jaw tensing as he saw your friends speaking rapidly, apparently concerned about something. Willow noticed you first.
“We thought you’d been all ookified, we were worried!” She flung herself around you with a big smile of relief.
“You got lost, huh?” Buffy said with a smile, which quickly dropped when she noticed the company you were in.
“Yeah, Spike helped me get my bearings. Thanks, again” You grinned, despite Xander and Buffy’s distaste. Anya patted your head a little patronisingly at your habit of getting yourself lost.
“Anytime, pet”
“Yeah, right, evil dead is only good for being evil… and dead”
“Not that I’m not enjoying the boy’s wit, but I’ll be off now” He addressed only you, hoping to keep the barbs at his expense from the group to a minimum. Someone muttered something distasteful about Spike, which was of course in his earshot, but he didn’t turn back around.
“He’s, like, the lowest of the low.” someone agreed, shaking her head at the figure walking away.
You weren’t sure why that moment was the moment. Why you spoke something that had been so safely unspoken.
“Spike! Spike, wait-”
“Y/n, what’re you doing?!” your friends called after you, still in earshot as Spike ditched his cigarette and swung around to face you.
“Love, you go and do the friendship thing with the meddlin’ kids, okay? I’d rather stake myself than spend an evening with them”
“I know, I was wondering if the offer’s still on that is, well, I’m free tomorrow night”
He put both hands in his duster, rocking on the balls of his feet and looking down. It was as if he thought you were being cruel to him. Taking him up on his offer just to hurt him by rejecting him in the next breath with all your friends watching. He had to know you better than that, surely.
You reached for his arm, willing him to feel what you felt. Know what you knew. That you and him were meant for each other, that this chance that you were trying to take meant a lot. For someone you had kissed so passionately before it was strange how nervous you were suddenly at even grazing his skin.
“After sunset, tomorrow at your crypt?” You asked softly, though the vulnerability in your voice bled through. He saw it, he saw that your intentions were pure. There were some gasps and some vague unimpressed whispering from your friends behind you but you couldn’t bring yourself to take notice.
Instead you waited with bated breath for his answer. You knew he had offered earlier but there was always the chance he was doing it to tease you. That he had no interest in you. That he was playing with you, looking for something quick and easy. You could do that, of course you could, if it meant being close with him. But it may just break your heart beyond recognition.
This purgatory, which only lasted a second, felt like it lasted hours. Your grip on him tightened, as if you were afraid he would slip away from you.
He nodded, to anyone else it probably looked as if he wasn’t bothered. What he didn’t know was that you could read him in the way he did for you. You saw the slight upturn of his mouth before it disappeared, you noticed the way his eyes searched you with wonder for a fraction of a moment. You knew then, for sure, he felt for you as deeply as you had started to fall for him. Everything you had learned about him you held close, collecting it as the most valuable treasures.
You arrived the next night a minute after the sun set and promptly knocked on the door of Spike’s crypt. You could hear some scuffling about from behind the door and a lot of a British accent muttering ‘bloody bollocks’ every so often which made you smile softly.
You waited patiently until he swung the door open, allowing you to walk in. You gasped, he had transformed the main level of his crypt for the evening. There were candles everywhere, on every single available surface and surrounding the sofa where there was a couple of blankets piled up and a stack of VHS tapes.
There were wilted roses that had shed their petals all over the floor beside the TV set and you tried to ignore the high probability that these came from a few of the graves surrounding the crypt. Stuck haphazardly to the walls were pink and red hearts made from crepe paper and various strips hanging about.
I mean, it was a huge fire risk but you tried to ignore this fact as you appreciated his scattered decorations. You assumed that Spike was ensuring you were aware that he thought of this as a date.
“How was your night with America’s most haunted?” Spike asked, you could tell he was genuinely interested if you had a nice evening after he left you at the Bronze.
You told him everything in complete detail, you were a keen storyteller and he adored this about you. You spoke in such detail that he could picture himself there beside you as the night played out.
“Drink, pet?”
“Please”
You looked around as he started rummaging around with bottles and glasses. You read the words on some of the hearts, your brow furrowing slightly.
“EVOL? I think it’s spelt-”
“No, love, it was meant to be- they’re from the craft store. They, well, I didn’t want it to scare you off now did I?” He turned the heart around, the word was actually ‘love’. He hadn’t wanted you to think he was coming on too strong so he had hidden the word. Though the rose petals and the various pink and red crafts might well have done that if you hadn’t realised how deeply you felt for him.
You laughed, you couldn’t help it. You hadn’t been sure if he was making sure that all this romantic stuff didn’t take away from him being bad. Telling you he was ‘evil’.
He passed you a glass, different from usual where he would just drink straight from the bottle. You were surprised to note that it was your favourite drink. It was incredibly endearing that he had learned this about you, or perhaps it was his favourite and you just had that in common.
The glow of the candlelight accentuated his features, casting shadows from his cheekbones. You felt yourself leaning into him as he spoke animatedly, it was entirely involuntary. When you thought about it, you had done everything in reverse. You were tentatively courting after sharing a much more passionate moment the night you properly met. You much preferred it this way though, in some ways it cemented now just how much Spike had grown to care for you through the stolen moments you had together through the year.
Quick glances and lingering touches. The way he had thrown himself in front of a demon to ensure you would be safe. The way he always offered to walk you home, even if he was shot down every time by the slayer. He always made jokes in the hope that you would laugh.
The evening was lovely, you shared drinks and watched films together, while Spike made biting commentary on each scene. You were wrapped in a blanket while he stayed room temperature. He sat a little more rigidly than usual, seemingly unable to relax. He wanted the night to be perfect. He was concerned he might say something wrong, something a little too murderous and off-putting.
You hadn’t really been paying attention to the film. He had done everything to try and prove he was a man worthy of your love. You could sense he was holding back but you loved him for who he was, the flaws wrapped into the thread of his personality were just as important to you.
“I really like you, Spike. You don’t need to impress me, you know that right? I’m already yours, if you’d let me be” You spoke barely above a whisper. He turned to you, searching your face before a smile grew slowly on his lips. It was a smile you had only ever seen him give to you.
“You’re tellin’ me I can take all this sodding pink bollocks off my walls now then?”
“I mean, it’s a real improvement from the cobwebs but it’s not really my colour,” You grinned, pressing your lips to his quickly before pulling away.
You leaned against him as the night progressed, leaning your head into the crook of his neck. He shifted as you moved down the sofa so that you could comfortably rest against him. He inhaled, savouring your scent. It felt like home. He closed his eyes, focusing on your heartbeat thrum steadily. You were truly here, by his side.
Your body was made to fit beside his, you knew this as if it was fact. You couldn’t imagine a future where you wouldn’t hold each other. Or share moments such as this. The warmth from the candles and the care and attention that Spike continued to show you told you that his feelings at their core were clearly no act, his execution had been slightly exaggerated only because he hadn’t really dated in the usual way for a good few decades.
He slid his arm along the headrest behind you and you settled into watch the next movie. After a moment you realised his eyes were still trained on you, he couldn’t keep his eyes off you. When you looked at him, giving him a quizzical look, he just gestured back at the screen with his head a soft smile on his face.
If this was the first proper date, you were looking forward to the rest. In fact, as his arm snaked around you and pulled you close, you were not sure you would ever be ready to leave.
119 notes · View notes
Text
Comet Donati [Chapter 8: Fool’s Gold]
Tumblr media
Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.
Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (+18), drugs, alcohol, smoking, Aemond being very horny for one person in particular, mental health struggles, pregnancy, bodily injury, illness, death, a Targaryen family reunion, the tragedy of a hammerhead shark.
Selected Chapter Quote: “Do you love him?”
Word count: 9.9k.
Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.
Taglist: ​​@doingfondue​ @catalina-howard​ @randomdragonfires​ @myspotofcraziness​ @arcielee​ @fan-goddess​ @talesofoldandnew​ @marvelescvpe​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @mariahossain​ @chainsawsangel​ @darkenchantress​ @not-a-glad-gladiator​ @gemini-mama​ @trifoliumviridi​ @herfantasyworldd​ @babyblue711​ @namelesslosers​ @thelittleswanao3​ @daenysx​ @moonlightfoxx​ @libroparaiso​ @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics​ @mizfortuna​ @florent1s​ @heimtathurs​ @bhanclegane​ @poohxlove​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927​ @mariahossain​ @echos-muses​ @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​ @queenofshinigamis​ @juliavilu1​ @amiraisgoingthruit​ @lauraneedstochill​ @wintrr13​ @r0segard3n​ @seabasscevans​ @tsujifreya​ @helaenaluvr​ @hiraethrhapsody​​
Only 2 chapters left! 💜
“I could love you for more than a day,” you tell Aegon, smiling, drowsy, sipping you blush-pink Salty Dog at the rooftop bar in Kansas City. It’s June, tornado season: a clashing of contradictory air currents, quintessentially American destruction.
“Yeah?” he says, daylight spilling out of his gaps under the night sky: the gleam of string lights reflected in his cobalt eyes, the white of his teeth, the eternal-summer warmth of his voice.
“Yeah. Not on this planet, maybe. But on another, very similar planet.”
He clinks his glass against yours; grains of salt pop off the rims and land on the table like snow, like infinitesimal diamonds, carbon shaped by pressure and time and deadly heat into something cherished. The wind tears through his nearly shoulder-length blond hair. “To other planets, and other lifetimes, and other dimensions where we are all the least-damaged versions of ourselves.”
“Aegon,” you say, and you wait until he’s done downing his Salty Dog and is looking at you again. “Someone’s inability to love you has nothing to do with your merit to receive it. It’s about them, it’s not about you. And that’s especially true when it comes to parents. If your father can’t be there for you in the way that he should, that’s his deficit, not yours. He’s the one missing pieces of himself. He’s the one who has failed. You can’t use his inadequacy to measure your worth. You should be proud of yourself for succeeding in spite of him. You should be proud of the person you are.”
He’s spinning his empty glass between his palms, amused, perhaps somewhat anxious; he is afraid of the answer. “And what kind of person am I?” He waits for one of those familiar soulless tropes to resurface, the disaster playboy, the hot loser, the paradoxically remiss eldest brother, the addict, the slut, the comic relief.
You say instead, somehow knowing that it’s true: “A good one.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Takeoffs and landings, highways and streetlights, tarmacs that stretch into the hallways of five-star hotels. You order virgin drinks when no one else is around to hear you do it. You buy prenatal vitamins and stash them in an Advil bottle. You sneak off to see a doctor while Comet is in Boston; yes you’re pregnant, yes everything looks good so far, yes you need to stop eating sushi and lifting heavy luggage. You stay out of hot tubs. You try to dodge secondhand smoke. You follow the band from city to city like children hopping on couch cushions strewn across a floor they say is lava. And now: cold porcelain, too-bright lights, crumpled on the bathroom floor of your suite in the MGM Grand. Sin City, they call Las Vegas. Like it was made for you.
You hear the swipe of a keycard and approaching footsteps, clop clop clop. When he appears in the doorway, you moan and try shield your face with your hands. You finally got your splint off last week in San Diego. “Please go away. Please.”
Aegon doesn’t listen. He gapes at you, chomping noisily on cotton candy flavored Bubble Yum. You can smell it; the sickening sweetness twists through your guts. “Damn, Stargirl. You look terrible.”
“Thanks.” You retch unproductively into the toilet bowl; there’s nothing left in your stomach to rid yourself of.
He’s wearing khaki cargo shorts, a neon green tank top, and—eternally, faithfully—matching Crocs. “Is it food poisoning? I don’t remember you being fucked up last night.”
Not that he’d know; he spent most of it snorting lines with Cregan. You lower the toilet seat, cross your arms over it, and take a deep breath. “Okay. I’m going to tell you something. But you have to not panic.”
“Sure.”
“And you have to not get wasted and accidentally announce it to everyone either.”
“That was not me talking. That was the Icelandic beer. And we’re not in Iceland anymore, so, yeah. Problem solved.”
“I didn’t want to tell you,” you say weakly, haltingly. “Not yet. Not like this. But I need somebody to help me hide it.” Just like Cregan needed someone to tell about Iris. And he chose Aemond. “Baela’s working on her ballet school applications, and I can’t burden Rhaena with something like this, and…wait…one second…” You yank up the toilet seat and heave into the bowl until the wave of nausea passes.
Aegon rubs your back, gentle and sympathetic. “Would weed gummies help?”
“No, Aegon.”
“Percocet? Oxy? Valium? I know where to get heroin in Vegas, but I wouldn’t want you mixed up in something like that.”
You gaze pathetically at him. “I’m eight weeks pregnant.”
“Oh, fuck,” Aegon gasps.
“It’s Aemond’s.”
“Oh, fuck! How…? When…?!”
“Tokyo. Club Camelot. Just once. And then we never talked about it again.”
“Jesus Christ, you love a spontaneous bar bathroom hookup.” He blinks a few times, processing this revelation. “You don’t have to have it, you know. If you don’t want to. You have options. Maybe you wouldn’t back in Kansas, but—”
“Missouri,” you whimper, staring miserably down at your silvery reflection in the water.
“Whatever. But we could fly you anywhere. If you wanted to not be pregnant anymore. If you decided to…uh…serve it an eviction notice.”
“I’ve thought about that,” you say, but it’s not quite true; you thought about it as an option, but not one of your options. “I know, logically, that’s probably the reaction that makes the most sense. But it’s not what I want.”
“Okay.” And if he has an opinion one way or the other, he’s doing a very good job of not showing it. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to resign at the end of this leg of the tour, and then I’m going to go home to Kansas City to raise my fatherless, clandestine bastard child.”
Aegon raises his eyebrows, chaotic blond hair falling in his face.
“That came out weird,” you admit. “But it is essentially accurate.”
“You’re just going to leave? You’re going to do this alone?”
“My parents will help me. They’ll be kind of horrified at first, but…they’ve been through worse. They’ll come to terms with it. They’ve been begging for grandkids since I was eighteen.”
“But you can’t leave,” Aegon says. And his large, murky, deep blue eyes are glistening.
“I have to go home. I have to build a life for myself. I can’t follow Comet around the world indefinitely.”
“But…but…so you’re eight weeks right now, right? So you have, like, I don’t know, over six months until the baby is born? That’s forever, Stargirl! That’s half a year! You could come to the fall shows in South America, and then visit London over the holidays, and…and…I mean I don’t even know what’s next for Comet after that, but you sure as hell don’t have to leave right now—!”
“Aegon, I could have complications because of the blood clotting gene thing. I could have a stroke, I could have a miscarriage. I need to be going to doctor’s appointments and taking leisurely afternoon walks and, like, eating vegetables and grilled chicken, not flying to a new city every couple of days while surrounded by booze and cigarettes.”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” He sighs and sits down cross-legged on the bathroom floor beside you, rubbing his face with his hands. He looks at you from between his fingers. “One of our last U.S. stops is in Kansas City. You want to get off the ride there?”
“I think that would be for the best.”
Aegon says suddenly: “Let’s get married.”
“What?” Your nausea is now secondary to your shock. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I’ll give you healthcare and child support and whatever.”
“You genuinely think that me marrying a cokehead sex addict is the solution to this problem?”
“I’m not a sex addict. I’m a sex enthusiast.”
“Aegon, I’m not going to marry you.”
He is wounded, pouting, childlike. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want some arrangement. No matter how well-intentioned or generous it is.” I want real, constant, conventional love.
Now he smiles, faintly, sadly. “And you want a different Targaryen.”
You grab the can of ginger ale you left on the bathroom sink and sip it tentatively, averting your eyes, not answering him.
Aegon says: “Aemond doesn’t know?”
“No. He has no idea.”
“You have to tell him.”
“There is a zero percent chance of him taking this well.”
“You have to tell him,” Aegon insists, pointing to your belly, not showing yet but soon, soon, so soon. “If you’re keeping it, then that’s my family in there. You can’t just haul it off to the hellscape that is the American Midwest and push the rest of us out of its life. It can’t be a secret forever. Aemond would want to be involved. I want to be involved.”
“I’ll tell Aemond,” you promise. “But not yet. Not while I’m still on tour, not while I can’t get away from him if he…” You hesitate, not knowing what you are trying to say. Aegon waits. “He’s going to think I did it on purpose. That I was trying to use him or fix him or something. He’s going to hate me.”
“You can explain,” Aegon says, but doubtfully.
“Explain what? That I stopped taking the pill, but then forgot I’d stopped taking it, and then remembered right after we had unprotected sex that I initiated, whoops, oh and also Plan B apparently doesn’t fucking work?”
“His super sperm work, that’s for sure,” Aegon mutters. “Hope mine aren’t that energetic.”
“I’m a nobody,” you say. “And I have a lot to gain from this, even if that’s not how I see it. And Aemond…he’s so goddamn mistrustful. He’s so convinced that no one could want him or believe in him in a way that is pure. I’m afraid to tell him. I’m afraid he’s going to say things in the heat of the moment that I won’t be able to forget.” Like when he called me a slut. Like when he said he loves me.
“The getting pregnant thing sounds bad,” Aegon concedes. “And, yeah…he will most likely not react in an even vaguely sane way. Because he’s Aemond, and that clown from the It movies lives in his brain. But he’ll process it for a few weeks and then he’ll come to the right conclusion: that you wouldn’t deliberately do something to hurt him, and that he wants to be there for you and the kid. And I’ll vouch for you.”
You shake your head, your eyes faraway. “I wish I could wait to tell him until he’s in a better place emotionally. Until he has something…anything…to latch on to…a plan for what to do with his life…”
“Hey,” Aegon says. Gingerly, he turns your face towards his with one hand. His cheeks are splotchy with pink sunburn. He’s sweating out White Claws and Coppertone Sport. “I know you think you’re doing this alone, but you aren’t. I’m going to take care of you.”
You look at him with tears brimming in your eyes, hot, ashamed, blurring out your vision. “You’re so different than Aemond. You’re weightless and warm like daylight. You glow. But you do that for everyone, not just me. And I can’t count on you.”
“I love you,” Aegon says. “Not in a Jack and Rose on the Titanic way. In a different way. But I’m never going to forget about you, Stargirl. I get that I might disappear for a while, but I’m never going to not come back someday.”
You fold into him: softness, effortless proximity, cotton-candy-scented kisses smacked onto your temple, arms that circle protectively around your waist. “I love you too, Aegon.”
“Think you’ll be able to walk over with us to the aquarium at the Mandalay Bay? Criston got everyone tickets to feed the zebra shark.”
“When?”
“Um, soon. But I can buy you some time. I’ll text them that I’m busy FaceTiming Selena.”
“You’re a saint.” Patron saint of mayhem. You groan as you crawl out of his grasp and towards the shower. “I might be okay in thirty minutes. Let me try to start feeling human and wash my hair and stuff.”
“You want some help?”
You stare at him from where you are kneeling on the cold tile. “Really?”
“Yeah. You look…wobbly. You sit on the shower floor, I’ll wash your hair.”
“But I’ll be naked.”
He grins, holding up his hands in a blithe shrug. “I’ve seen it all before, Stargirl.”
“You’ll be naked too.”
“Don’t think you can tempt me into any unwholesome activities, you unwed knocked-up vixen.”
You laugh; it feels incredible. “I will gratefully accept your offer. I might not have a choice, actually. I don’t think I can keep my arms above my head for that long.”
Aegon stands, walks into the shower, starts reading bottles. “You want to smell like Japanese cherry blossoms or a coconut?” He pauses. “A fatherless clandestine bastard child conceived in Tokyo. Cherry blossoms it is.”
~~~~~~~~~~
A series of walkways connect the MGM Grand to the Mandalay Bay. Comet moseys through faux cobblestone streets in the New York-New York, complete with steam-wheezing manhole covers and operational storefronts of pizzerias, delis, bakeries, Irish pubs. The band narrowly avoids being trampled by droves of exuberant children—and you are looking at children more closely these days, watching how their parents corral them, noticing what makes them happy or sad or afraid��in the strobing, bleeping arcades of the castle-like Excalibur. In the Luxor, modeled after the pyramids of Ancient Egypt and featuring the largest atrium in the world, Criston begs everyone to pose for photos in front of sand-colored statues of sphinxes and pharaohs. “Smile big for your mom, Daeron!” Criston orders between pictures. Shelby, as always, is wearing her camera-ready, gloss-and-veneers grin. She’s also wearing a stunning floral-print maxi dress with a slit up to her thigh, looking glamorous and graceful and very not-pregnant. By the time Comet arrives in the sleek, golden, tastefully nautical corridors of the Mandalay Bay, you are exhausted and dangerously nauseous. You try your best to conceal it.
“Are you okay?” Baela asks. She is scrutinizing you as you stand in the shark tunnel of the aquarium, bathed in rippling sapphire-blue light. Overhead the captive ocean swims by: sea turtles, sawfish, Galapagos sharks, blacktip reef sharks, sand tiger sharks (hideous, in your humble opinion), stingrays, horseshoe crabs, a metallic rainbow of shimmering fish.
“Stargirl!” Aegon scolds mildly, ambling over to massage your shoulders. “I told you not to eat all those New York-New York corn dogs!” He shakes his head and smiles casually at Baela. “You can’t take these Midwestern girls anywhere. They see battered meat on a stick and lose all control.”
“How many did you eat?” Baela says, studying your sweated, queasy, generally unwell appearance.
“I don’t remember. I don’t want to talk about corn dogs right now.”
“You think it might be food poisoning?” Aemond asks. He has appeared in the shark tunnel with a plushie grey beast clutched in one hand. He’s lurking several yards away, but his forehead is creased with curiosity, with concern. His right eye flicks to where Aegon’s hands rest on your shoulders—disapproval? appraisal? fascination? envy?—and then back to your face.
“No, just gluttony.”
“It’s one of the seven deadly sins, you know.” Aegon counts on his fingers. “Gluttony, and pride, and lust, and…uh…uh…oh, right, greed…and uh…”
“What is this, Bible study?” Baela says.
“You’d know all about gluttony, you whale,” Jace tells Aegon.
Aegon shouts back: “I am like a whale, Jace! I am a rare and celebrated mammal!”
Jace mimes shooting Aegon with a harpoon. And then, when Cregan turns to glare at him, he grabs Baela’s hand. Jace’s face is at last fully healed and he has no interest in jeopardizing that. “Come on, baby. Let’s go see the Komodo dragons.”
“Don’t vomit on any sea creatures!” Baela chimes as they leave. Soon only you, Aemond, and Aegon are left in the shark tunnel. Rhaena and Luke are petting stingrays at the touch pool; Cregan, Daeron, and Criston depart to take their turns feeding the zebra shark. And Shelby is…actually, you’ve lost track of where Shelby is. Hopefully getting mauled by something.
“You should see a doctor,” Aemond tells you, stepping closer, although gradually, meanderingly, as if by happenstance. “You look…not great. You might need IV hydration or something.”
“Seriously, I’m okay. I’ll live.”
Shelby peeks irritably into the tunnel. “Honeybunch! Hurry! We have to take a selfie with this fish in the background so I can caption it I’ll love you inFINitely!”
“Will you give me two seconds, please?” Aemond snaps. She retreats with palpable unwillingness. Then Aemond offers you the plushie: a hammerhead shark, you see now. Aegon takes a few steps away from you both and pretends to be enthralled by a sawfish as it glides over the dome of the tunnel.
“What is this?!” you exclaim, delighted. Your nausea has momentarily abated.
“It’s your souvenir for Las Vegas. You can keep it right beside your sika deer from Japan. Hopefully they get along.”
“It’s so cute, Aemond! And very unexpected. Thank you.”
“No big deal,” he says. “I saw it and thought of you, that’s all.”
You pet the tiny hammerhead shark, downy and soft and grey like a storm cloud. “These were in the other tank, right?”
“Those were scalloped hammerheads,” Aemond corrects you. “This is a great hammerhead.”
“Wow. Pretentious.”
He laughs, a miraculously beautiful sound. And as you gaze at each other, painted in sapphire light and the shadows of fish, you remember everything about Aemond, the way he tasted, the sounds of his whispers and his moans, the indescribable fullness as he eased himself carefully into you. And you think: What would happen right now if there was no Shelby, no Aegon? Would he touch me? Would he kiss me? “There are actually no real-life great hammerheads in this aquarium. Not anymore. They don’t do well in captivity. One was flown here back in 2001 and she was on display for a while, but then she died unexpectedly a few years later.”
“She died?” You cradle the plushie shark in your arms. Suddenly, without warning, there are tears welling up in your eyes. You are distraught. You are consumed by irrational pregnancy hormones. “And she was the only shark of her kind here? So she didn’t have anyone who could understand her? She must have been so lonely.”
“Um, yeah, I guess. But sharks really don’t have emotions like people do, they’re mostly brainstem.”
“It’s still awful.” A tear slips down your cheek and falls onto the plushie shark before you can swipe it away.
Aemond is alarmed. “Are you…crying? About a shark that died like twenty years ago?”
“It’s sad, bruh,” Aegon sniffles, conjuring up some tears in his large, oceanic eyes. “The only one of her kind, bruh.”
“Honeybunch?” Shelby whines, appearing once again at the mouth of the tunnel. “Honey Bunches of Oats?”
Aemond sighs. “Yeah. On my way.” And he goes to meet her. A squall of giggling, bewitched children rush into the shark tunnel, pressing their eager little palms to the glass. Aegon’s manufactured tears have vanished and he is typing out a WhatsApp message to someone.
You think, picturing Shelby’s Vegas-themed fingernails skating across Aemond’s skin, flaunting parts of him while shunning others: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.
~~~~~~~~~~
When Comet returns to their floor at the MGM Grand, there are three strangers waiting for them. Strangers to you, rather; not strangers to anybody else. Certainly not to Criston. The middle-aged woman—auburn hair, vast dark eyes, high cheekbones—rushes to throw her arms around him.
“Thank you for taking care of them,” she is saying, as Criston holds her and blushes a dark hectic pink. Then she turns her attention to Daeron and Aemond, touching their faces and their hair, asking if they are sleeping well, what they have been eating, what their favorite parts of the tour have been thus far. Aegon has not moved from your side. He fidgets awkwardly, shuffling in his Crocs, slurping on the Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino he bought from a Starbucks in the Excalibur. One of the strangers—a weathered older man in a grey suit, tall and vigilant like a wolfhound—examines him with a cool pale gaze. Aegon evades it.
The third stranger, oddly, comes directly to you. She is delicate, nimble, light eyes and hair like watercolors, soft and edgeless. She makes you think of birds: sweet songs, hollow bones. She takes your hands in hers and beams like she’s known you for years, like you are old friends. “You must be the one Aemond has told us so much about.”
Aemond? Me? You smile apologetically. “I think you mean Shelby. She’s over there.”
“Here I am!” Shelby waves from where she is parked determinately beside Aemond.
“No, I know who Shelby is,” the stranger says; and her dreamy, girlish voice is perfectly neutral. She might as well be making some throwaway comment about a squirrel in a tree, a fish in a koi pond. “I mean you. The girl made of stars.”
He talks about me? To people back home? Aemond turns away when you glance at him. Shelby is simmering. You tell the stranger: “That is very poetic. And flattering.”
“Stargirl, this is my sister Helaena,” Aegon says. Then he gestures to the others. “And that’s my mother Alicent, and the frightening bloke who looks like a mob boss is my grandfather Otto.”
“What on earth are you drinking?” Otto chides Aegon, wrinkling his dignified nose.
Aegon is stung, although he tries to hide it. “It’s a Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino. It’s delicious.”
“It’s a milkshake for adults. It’s diabetes in a cup. Put some effort into taking care of yourself for once, it’ll make you feel better.”
Aegon says flatly: “Yeah, I’m so glad you guys stopped by.”
“Are you here for the concerts?” Daeron asks, buoyant as usual.
Alicent looks to Criston; he smiles bashfully in return. “Well, Criston mentioned that you’d be in town, and your father just so happened to have a convention to attend here over some of the same days, so I figured…why not drop in and surprise my wonderful, accomplished, handsome sons?” Her prominent umber eyes drift to you. Helaena is still clasping your hands. “And their…friends.”
“Dad’s not around?” Aegon says cynically.
Alicent stalls. “Well…honey, you know how he is. He’s very, very busy. But he promised he’d try his best to make it to one of the shows.”
“You know, it’s strange. He never seems to be busy when Rhaenyra has her little art gallery openings.”
“So!” Alicent chirps, deflecting. “Criston said there was a pool. Is there a pool?” She pats the massive beach bag slung over her left shoulder. “We brought our swimsuits!”
The MGM Grand has an extensive pool complex featuring drink bars, multiple whirlpools, a waterfall, and a lazy river. Even in September—those last gasps of summer in the Northern Hemisphere—the temperature in Las Vegas hovers in the 90s. As you slather on sunscreen and nibble sparingly at an order of fries, Alicent and Helaena cannot disguise their interest in you. Alicent asks about your hometown, your family, your education, your time with Comet. She seems puzzled by your unmistakable fondness for Aegon, but otherwise smiles pleasantly and chuckles at your (carefully selected, intentionally tame) stories from the tour. Alicent strikes you as someone who is composed and warm on the surface but a jumble of frayed threads below; if you tugged on the right one, she’d unravel until all her seams split open and secrets poured out like dark water. Helaena doesn’t say much, and what she does say is strange, truthful but disjointed, like a line from a poem or a song; but she keeps touching you, a hand on your wrist or on your ankle or absentmindedly tracing the lines of your palm. From several chairs away, Shelby watches this with a toxic glower, for surely she as Aemond’s aspiring baby mama should be the beneficiary of his family’s attention. From behind his sunglasses, Aemond tries to act like he’s not staring as you spread sunscreen over your collarbones and chest and thighs.
“I’ve got drinks!” Aegon announces, appearing with a loaded tray. He weaves between chairs to deliver the beverages. “A pina colada for me…a strawberry daiquiri for Rhaena…a Twisted Pink for Luke…a margarita for Mom…no!” he barks at Daeron as the youngest Targaryen (for now, for the next approximately seven months) tries to grab a red slushie. “Not that one!”
Daeron is confounded. “But it’s a strawberry daiquiri. Isn’t that what I ordered?”
“Yeah, but that specific daiquiri is Stargirl’s.”
“What makes it different?”
“Extra whipped cream,” Aegon says without missing a beat. He passes it to you. Nonalcoholic is what it actually is: sweet and refreshing and without any bite whatsoever.
“Why are you being helpful?” Criston asks Aegon suspiciously, squinting, full of dread. “You’re never helpful.”
Aegon grins. “I’m just a helpful guy.”
“You’re freaking me out,” Criston says. “Cregan? I’m scared. What’s he up to?”
Placidly, sucking on a frozen hard lemonade through a hot pink straw with multiple loops, Cregan shrugs. Sunning themselves beside him are three Victoria’s Secret models. “Cregan?” Romee Strijd croons, reaching over to comb her fingers through his hair. “Could you rub more sunscreen on my back, please?”
Otto is stretched out on a pool chair and reading the Business section of the New York Times. Jace, Baela, Luke, Rhaena, and Daeron are gathering up their inner tubes and heading into the lazy river, a swift crystalline blue current that reminds you of Aemond’s clear right eye. Alicent gets up to go talk to Criston; they speak in low voices, less secretive than sacred, like each believes the other to be a relic necessitating great care. Shelby is now scrolling through her iPhone. Aemond is still watching you. The speakers are playing Somebody’s Heartbreak by Hunter Hayes.
“I was hoping you could fix me,” Helaena says suddenly.
You don’t understand. You think you must have misheard her. “What was that, Helaena?”
“Aemond says you fix people. That you’re a saint.”
“I’m certainly not a saint.” I’m just an unwed mother from Missouri. Who wears Cookie Monster pajama pants. “And even if I was, I don’t think anything about you needs fixing.”
“But I’m not normal.” And her eyes glisten with it: this knowledge that can’t be escaped, a lifetime of whispers and rumors and being hopelessly misunderstood.
“No, you’re not.” You won’t lie to her. What good would that do? What cure can come from dishonestly, even when spun from compassion? “But Freddie Mercury wasn’t normal. Neither was Jane Goodall. Einstein, Montessori, Dali, Tesla, da Vinci, Curie, Shelley, Newton, they were all extremely, undeniably not-normal. And guess what? Aegon’s not normal either. And neither is Aemond. And neither is anyone else in Comet. They might not be the same brand of not-normal as you, but I can guarantee you they are all bona fide freaks of nature. Because that’s what it takes to make something new, to leave a beautiful mark on the world. Being not-normal is painful sometimes. But that’s not a reflection on you. It’s an embodiment of how small-minded and cruel all those normal people can be. You don’t want to be like them. You’re above them, you can see things they can’t. You keep flying. Don’t worry about the dirt down here on Earth.”
And only now do you realize you have an audience, peering over with wide eyes: Alicent, Criston, Shelby, Aemond, Aegon, Cregan and the Victoria’s Secret models, Otto wearing the first smile you’ve ever seen from him. Helaena, calmed and content, goes to sit by him; he begins braiding a green ribbon into a lock of her hair.
“For the record,” Aegon says. “I am definitely dirt.”
You laugh as you gaze up at him, shielding your eyes form the sun. “No you aren’t. Not even close.”
He offers you a hand. “Ready to get in the lazy river?”
“Yeah, I think so…” You finish your daiquiri, climb off your chair, shed your black swimsuit coverup, and walk over to the pile of inner tubes that Criston collected for the band. You can feel Aemond’s eyes on you as your bare feet pad across the cement. He moves a towel over his swim trunks and then stares at the palm trees, trying to appear nonchalant.
“Honeybunch, let’s go in the water too,” Shelby says.
“Um. In a minute.”
The rushing current has brought Jace, Baela, Luke, Rhaena, and Daeron back around again. From his inner tube, Jace splashes you and Aegon as you approach the steps that descend into the lazy river. “Finally daring to enter my watery domain?! I’m the king down here. I’m Poseidon. But if you want to battle me for my throne, you’re welcome to try.”
“Don’t you start bumping people!” Aegon yells, jabbing his index finger at Jace. “You keep your little scrawny chicken limbs to yourself!”
“Aww, someone call Greenpeace, we’ve got a beached whale over here…”
“Careful,” Aegon says, grabbing your arm to stead you on the steps. “They’re slippery.”
And Aemond observes this, lighting one of his Benson & Hedges cigarettes and inhaling a deep breath of smoke, his face lined with scars of the past and furrows of worry for the future.
~~~~~~~~~~
Twenty-four hours later, the band is enjoying dinner down the strip at the Wynn’s buffet: eccentric modern art and elaborate fruit sculptures, prime rib and crepes made to order, gelato and pasta, sushi you can’t eat. Alicent, Helaena, and Otto are here with Comet. So are the Victoria’s Secret models. So is Selena Gomez. She sits next to Aegon, teaching him the Spanish words for various foods and giggling as he butchers them. When Justin Bieber’s Sorry comes on the speakers, she rolls her eyes and stabs aggressively at her shrimp.
You were violently ill until 3 p.m. and then mercifully improved. Upon arriving at the buffet, you caught a whiff of the Alaskan king crab legs and were at once ravenous for them. You demolish plate after plate, sucking hunks of meat out of cracked shells, licking up dribbles of drawn butter from your fingers and wrists. Aemond—relegated mostly to fresh fruit, chunks of bread, and a vegan ratatouille—ogles while trying very hard to act like he’s not. Jace pulls one-dollar bills out of his wallet and throws them at you.
“You could have an OnlyFans,” Baela says. “Forget a real job. Make millions splattering yourself in crabmeat and butter for sad horny men. You could do a whole series…shucking oysters…dismantling lobsters…”
You imagine your child in kindergarten: So where does your mommy work? She stays home and films herself eating seafood in her underwear. “I don’t think I have the disposition for a celebrity lifestyle. You know I’m always hiding from the paparazzi.”
Alicent chuckles as she takes a bite of her roasted quail. “Yes, I remember the photos! Always tucked behind Cregan or Aegon. Except those times when you were walking with Aemond. That was so sweet of you, encouraging him like that. I’m sure it meant the world to him. Ever since…well, you know…it’s a more stressful experience for him now.”
Aemond, self-conscious, busies himself with stirring his ratatouille. “It was really my pleasure,” you tell Alicent.
“Pleasure, huh?” Jace teases, wiggling his eyebrows.
Baela asks you once again if you’ll ride the New York-New York rollercoaster with her tonight. You pretend to be terrified of rollercoasters. She counters that you definitely rode rollercoasters at Grona Lund when the band was in Stockholm. You try to gaslight her into thinking she has misremembered this. Aegon jumps in with (doubtlessly fabricated) statistics about how many people are killed in rollercoaster accidents.
“Really?” Baela says. “Five million people die on rollercoasters every year?”
Aegon knows he’s made a fatal error, but he is committed. “Yup.”
“You’re telling me that more people are killed by rollercoasters than live in the entire state of Oregon? And no one has addressed this problem? This epidemic of amusement park calamities?”
Aegon shakes his head spiritedly. “Nope.”
Now Shelby is saying something to Alicent at the other end of the long table. You don’t listen too closely, because you’re in the habit of mentally muting her. Still, you can’t help but catch snippets. It’s about the importance of public figures being good role models. “…So it’s probably for the best that she’s not interested. Young girls are very impressionable, you know.”
“Oh?” Alicent is replying, polite but noncommittal, perplexed. Criston brings her a miniature creme brulee from the buffet’s sprawling dessert section.
“Don’t you agree?” Shelby asks you, and the table goes quiet. She smiles sweetly, innocently, all beachy waves and highlighter sheen.
You lower your crab leg. “What exactly am I agreeing with?”
“That people who accept the responsibility to be in the spotlight should be the sort of role models that the youth can look up to.”
“Um, not really, no. I think a popstar’s job is to be a popstar, not to impersonate Mother Teresa or stop global warming or anything. They’re not running for president. But I mean, yeah, I guess they shouldn’t be murderers, so I agree like 1%.”
Aemond glances over at where Shelby sits beside him, not knowing what she’s up to, not especially invested. She sniffs, a dismissive, haughty little sound, like can you believe how uncivilized this bitch is? “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter since you aren’t planning to pursue fame anyway.”
“Lovely Shelby,” Jace says, taunting her. “Are you implying that our supernaturally poised and responsible Stargirl would set some sort of nefarious example for the little girls of planet Earth?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Now Shelby is staring fixedly at you, cold like deep water.
You glare back defiantly. She couldn’t possibly have found out about the baby. Aegon would never have told her, and no one else knows. “Because…?”
“Because of what happened when you were in high school.”
Nothing changes for almost anyone else at the table, but it does for you: your mind goes blank, your skin goes cold, your stomach lurches, you are fifteen all over again. It’s not the fear that anyone in Comet would think less of you for it; you don’t think they would. Alicent might, Otto almost certainly, Cregan’s flock of models could carry the gossip anywhere—and surely this is Shelby’s design—but Comet would not condemn you. No, what paralyzes and disgusts you, what empties your veins and fills them with ice, is the truth that you are not the one choosing if and how to tell them, you are once again powerless and exposed, you are the curves and hollows of bare flesh they’re reading like a newspaper headline.
How…? Aemond…? But no: he looks just as horrified as you do, this is the last thing he expected, he didn’t think she knew, his eyes fly to yours and stay there, frenetic blue emotions but no words.
The others peer around the table. Aegon is frowning at Shelby, but he doesn’t know what she means, he doesn’t know how to help…because you’ve never told him. “What about high school…?” Luke says uncertainly.
“It’s not difficult to find,” Shelby tells you. “All someone has to do is Google your name and Kansas City, then comb back through a few pages. There are old Tweets and Facebook posts about it. Pictures, even, if you search long enough. Can you imagine how parents would feel about their daughters’ favorite boy band associating with someone like that? Popularizing that sort of behavior? It’s unacceptable. It destroys innocence.”
Your hands are shivering violently. You take one deep, shaky breath. “Actually, what happened was—”
Aemond lunges to his feet. “Don’t,” he commands you, holding up a hand. Then he turns to Shelby. His voice is deeper than you’ve ever heard it, stormy, cutting, wrathful. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Aemond!” Alicent gasps.
Shelby blinks up at him. She is bewildered; she has miscalculated. She had no idea he knew. Her eyes dart from Aemond to you.
“No, don’t you dare look at her,” Aemond seethes. “You don’t look at her. You look at me.”
It takes effort, but Shelby manages to comply. She gawks at him, dismayed, flinching away from his rage, his scar, his sightless left eye like the lethal atmosphere of Neptune. She cannot hide how she truly sees him, how she will always see him. As something broken, pitiful, less.
“What the hell does she have to be ashamed of?” Aemond asks Shelby. “She doesn’t use people. She doesn’t sell false versions of herself. She is kind, and wise, and forgiving, and beloved. And what are you? A professional liar. A manipulator, a snake. Someone who knows how to pity but not how to cure.”
“Aemond—”
“Stand up.”
Shelby is petrified, shellshocked. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to put you in an Uber, and it will take you to the airport, and I honestly don’t care where you go from there. But you can’t stay in Vegas. And I never want to see you again.”
“Aemond, please!” Shelby cries. She still hasn’t moved from her chair. There are tears flooding down her cheeks: despair, defeat. You could almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
“And if you fight me,” Aemond says. “Or if I hear a whisper of you trying to disparage anybody at this table, I will end you, Shelby. Every app you use to edit your photos, every so-called friend you’ve worked to sabotage, every sponsorship you haven’t disclosed, I’ll expose all of it. I’d call up the fucking Rolling Stone if they cared enough about you to publish it. I will end you. Now stand up.”
Trembling, sobbing, this time Shelby obeys. Aemond and a flock of security guards—two of Shelby’s, two of Comet’s—escort her out of the buffet. He is only gone for a minute or two; the table is silent except for slurps of drinks and the occasional squealing of silverware against plates. When Aemond returns, he immediately goes to you. He rests a hand on your shoulder—gently, protectively, the same way Criston does—and murmurs so no one else can hear. He is so close the air you breathe is filled with him: smoke, cologne, dissipating fury.
“I am so sorry. I had no idea she would do that. I don’t think she’ll speak of it again. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” you reply in a stunned little squeak.
“Good.” Then he looks fiercely around the table, pausing to lock eyes with every single person. His meaning is clear. You will not ask questions. You will forget this happened. He sits back down beside Shelby’s vacated seat and pops a red grape into his mouth.
“Damn, Stargirl,” Jace says after a moment. “So you’re a serial killer.”
Everyone laughs, and the nightmare is over. It breaks open like dropped glass. “Don’t worry. I only murder obnoxious, curly-haired brunettes.”
He winks as he licks chocolate mousse from his spoon. “I wouldn’t mind being added to your body count.”
“Shut up,” Baela groans. “Shut up, shut up…!”
You excuse yourself. You walk out of the buffet. The Wynn has a gorgeous hallway that passes through a garden of whimsical ornaments, flowers, trees, and string lights. Too suddenly for you to change course, you realize what’s going to happen; you stumble into the greenery and vomit five plates’ worth of Alaskan king crab onto a Ficus tree.
“Need a napkin?” Aegon asks; he has followed you. “I don’t actually have one. But I could take my shirt off and give you that.”
Still hunched over and spitting, you shake your head. “No, I’m okay. I’ll use a leaf.” You don’t make eye contact with him. You don’t want to invite unwelcome questions.
“Relax,” Aegon says, rubbing your back. “I’m not going to ask.”
You are relived but skeptical. “You’re not curious?”
“I figure if it was something you wanted me to know about, you would have already told me.” He smirks. “I do think it’s interesting that Aemond knows something about you I don’t.”
“He gets one secret, you get another. You’re even.” You thought you were done. False alarm. You resume vomiting on the Ficus tree.
“Goddamn, that is disgusting. You want a Percocet or something?”
“I think that would be less than ideal for the baby.”
“Oh. Right.” He considers you with great sympathy. “A lot of discomfort over something that’s the size of what, a chicken nugget?”
“Yeah, probably.” You rip a leaf off the tree, wipe your lips, trudge back to the buffet bathroom to sanitize yourself as best you can.
When Comet’s fleet of Escalades arrives back at the MGM Grand, you loiter in the lobby hoping for Criston to appear. You shoo away the band when they try to wait for you, and once Aegon catches on he ensures that they file into the elevators and zoom up to their floor. You need a minute alone with Criston. You need to arrange your imminent departure from the tour. Criston, oddly, does not come inside. You give him five minutes and then head back out into the arid Vegas heat, dry, ancient, barren. One of the Escalades is still idling in front of the hotel. You open the door. Criston and Alicent are in the back seat: he’s on top of her, her legs and arms curled around him like ivy, the hem of her chic mom-appropriate sundress pulled up to her waist, her lips famished and moaning against his.
You scream, they scream, you slam the Escalade door shut. Seconds later, Criston bursts out of it. He is wearing only his hastily pulled on boxers and a half-unbuttoned white shirt.
“I’m sorry!” you blubber. “I, uh, I didn’t see anything! Um, I mean, I didn’t see that much—”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Criston pleads.
“I definitely will not.”
“Her husband…he’s…he’s not a great guy, you know? And Alicent, she’s…she’s so…she’s so incredible but so sad, she’s been through hell this past year, and after Aemond was hurt we…uh…well we spent a lot of time in hospital rooms together…and I just love her hair and her eyes, and her devotion to her family, and the way she smells…”
“I really, really, really do not feel entitled to nor desire the details that you’re sharing with me right now.”
“Okay.” Criston tugs at the collar of his shirt, catching his breath. “What were you doing out here anyway?”
“I have to talk to you about something, but it can wait.”
“You’ve already interrupted us at this point. Just go ahead.”
“Alright. Well. I’m leaving Comet.”
“No!” he cries, distressed. “Really? Why?! Is it something Jace did? What did Jace do? Because I can let Cregan know and he’ll—”
“No no no, nothing like that. It’s just time for me to go figure out my own life now.” Time for me to find a permanent job, have my baby, re-traumatize my parents, the whole American Dream thing.
Criston sighs. “I was hoping you’d stay on through the South America dates.”
“I can’t, Criston. I appreciate all that you’ve done for me and how welcoming everyone has been, this has been a fantastic experience…um, overall…but I really do have to go home now. Can we fill out the paperwork and make the Kansas City shows my last stop with Comet?”
He nods reluctantly. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get it taken care of. We can do signatures in a few days.”
“Aegon is the only other person who knows I’m leaving. I don’t want anyone else told yet.”
“Got it. You keep my secret, I’ll keep yours.”
These secrets are multiplying, you think as you enter the MGM Grand and Criston climbs back into the Escalade. Like cells, like storm clouds. Upstairs in Comet’s hallway, Selena Gomez is in a war with the vending machine; it has snagged her Starbursts and refuses to release them. You don’t offer to help her shake the machine—heavy lifting, not good for the littlest Targaryen—but you do use your flip flop to reach up inside the machine and knock the Starbursts loose.
“You’re the best!” Selena high-fives you. “Aegon tells me you’re a really talented therapist.”
“Oh no, no way, not yet. I mean I’m really new at it and I don’t have a lot of confidence in my abilities but I am learning a lot and maybe one day—”
“The work you do is very important,” Selena says; and she seems to mean it. She is so beautiful in a vulnerable, benign way. It is difficult to not be starstruck.
“Thank you,” you manage.
“Watch out for him,” she says quietly, discretely. “Anytime his parents visit, he’s a little extra fucked up for a while.”
“I’ll do my best.”
She smiles, lays a palm briefly against your cheek, floats down the hallway and is gone.
~~~~~~~~~~
On their last night in Las Vegas, Comet adds a cover to their usual lineup of songs: Animal by Neon Trees. It was Luke’s idea, which means it was probably Aemond’s. Aemond wanders the lofty catwalks and shadowy hallways making his notes, his comments, his white amendments on night-black paper, stars freckled across the void. Alicent, Helaena, and Otto join you, Selena, Baela, Rhaena, and the Victoria’s Secret models in the front row. Otto dances with Helaena, spinning and laughing; Alicent cheers for Daeron and watches for glimpses of Criston as he studies the performance from just off-stage. Aegon fumbles no less than five lyrics. Cregan has come up with this new trick where he can remove his boxers on-stage while keeping his pants on. He gifts the aforementioned boxers to a group of soccer moms who in the commotion rip them to tiny, sweaty, treasured shreds.
After the show, Alicent, Helaena, and Otto catch a flight back to London; Selena takes a limo to Los Angeles. Jace’s suite at the MGM Grand, per tradition, is soon engulfed in voices and music and smoke and amply flowing alcohol. Criston is chatting with Aemond, who has a Bramble in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other. Cregan and the Victoria’s Secret models are playing Jenga with Luke and Rhaena. In Baela’s absence—she’s working out in the hotel gym—Jace is consoling himself with plentiful Vespers and some barely-legal fangirls; he is introducing his tattoos to them one by one. Daeron is toasting Yuenglings with friends at the bar. And Aegon is like he always is: here, then gone, then here again, and finally gone, like a comet, like a tornado that touches down without warning and vanishes just as quickly. You lose track of him. It’s not your fault. He comes and goes like an act of God.
In the hallway, several suite doors are open, including Aemond’s. You slip inside; no need to watch out for Shelby anymore. You find his notebook on his nightstand—the same place you keep your souvenirs in your own bedroom—and you engage in your least-honorable hobby. You’ve been sneaking looks at his lyrics since Paris. You open the notebook and rifle through onyx pages to the most recent, starlight-hued entry:
I was closest to the sun, like Icarus, swimming in your light
You are the only person I’d let melt my wings
Worry a line into your face, I think about it for days
Don’t talk to me about what the end of summer brings
“He’d kill you if he saw that,” Luke says from the doorway, grinning. “Well, he probably wouldn’t kill you. But he would not be thrilled.”
You snap the notebook shut and place it back on the nightstand. “Please don’t tell him. I am but a humble fangirl.”
“I won’t tell him. But you should ask permission.”
“I don’t think he would give it to me anymore.”
Luke is gazing at the notebook now, his face distant. “It’s screwed up, right? I only got into Comet because of Aemond. He fought for me and he won. But when he was the one who needed help, I couldn’t do the same.”
“Luke…” You open your hands: sorrow, futility. “You must be the least blameworthy person in this whole goddamn mess. You tried to fight for Aemond when no one else would. You make him feel valued. Every single day I watch you remind him of his place here in Comet. You’re the only person who does that.”
“I can’t do this without him,” Luke says softly, fearfully. “I don’t know how to write a song without his advice. I don’t know how to end a show without being able to ask him what I did right or wrong.”
“I think you’re more capable than you believe you are.”
Luke is troubled. “Am I hurting him by wanting him to stay?”
You contemplate this for a while before you choose your words. “In my opinion, Aemond needs to know that his contributions to Comet were real and they he will always be welcome here. But he also needs to find a new purpose. He’s a guest in the band. He’s not a part of it anymore. He can’t go back to who he was before the accident, he’s learned too much about how people treated him when he was hurt. Even if he got up on stage again for a farewell performance—which I think would be beneficial for him—he’s never going to be a full-time popstar again. He needs something else. I don’t know what that thing is, but he needs to be free to find it.”
“I understand,” Luke says. He’s quiet, mulling it over. And then, brightly: “Want to play Jenga with us? Cregan is so bad at it. Or he’s letting us win, I’m not sure which.”
“That’s super sweet, but I think I’m going to go lay down. Maybe take a half-hour nap and then see who’s still conscious for me to hang out with.”
“Are you okay?” Luke asks abruptly.
“What? Yeah, of course, I’m just exhausted. I think the tour is wearing on me.”
“You haven’t looked good for a few weeks now,” Luke says. “I don’t mean that in a rude way. You just seem sad or sick or something. Or both.”
You give him your best reassuring smile. “I’m okay, Luke. I promise.”
He smiles back. “Good. Enjoy your nap!”
“Enjoy your Jenga!”
You drag yourself back to your suite, a human-shaped pile of concrete and lead. What had Aegon said? A lot of discomfort over something that’s the size of what, a chicken nugget?
“We’ll be back in Kansas City in a few weeks,” you whisper as you collapse onto the bed, one hand resting on your not-showing-but-soon belly. And as your eyes drift shut, you realize how good home sounds, better than it ever has before. Is that nesting? Is that just getting older? You don’t want to leave Comet. But you do want your real life to begin.
You are nearly asleep when you hear him come in: the swipe of a keycard, the clopping of Crocs, a clumsy dive onto the bed that rocks the whole mattress.
“Hey,” you say, eyes still closed.
Aegon doesn’t answer. You sit up and look at him: sprawled face-down, hair in disarray, sunshine yellow Crocs still on his feet.
“Aegon?”
He doesn’t reply, doesn’t move. You reach out to shove him. His eyes are closed; he is limp. He’s not breathing.
“Aegon?!” you shriek, shaking him, hitting him. There’s no part of him that is glowing now. The sun has set, but the moon is full: his skin is silvery-white and bloodless. You’re screaming for anyone who will hear you.
Cregan is the first to arrive; he was out in the hallway leading all three of the Victoria’s Secret models back to his suite. And then it all happens very quickly. Cregan is dialing 911, Aemond is dragging Aegon off the bed and onto the floor, Criston sprints to get something from his room and returns with two small white devices that he’s ripping out of their packaging. Aegon’s skin is turning blue. Criston feels for a pulse, doesn’t find it. He’s telling Cregan what to relay to the 911 dispatcher: no breathing, no heartbeat, Narcan being administered. Criston cradles Aegon’s head and tilts it backwards so he can dose him with the nasal spray. Then Criston looks at his wristwatch and begins chest compressions. You are pinned by shock and horror to the wall. You can hear people out in the hallway, voices and footsteps, clamoring and rumors.
There is Jace’s frantic voice: “Is he okay?!” Cregan pushes him back outside.
“Come on, Aegon,” Aemond is saying, patiently but firmly, slapping at his brother’s face, pinching his cheeks. No blood rushes in to darken the battered flesh. “We’re all here. We’re all waiting for you. Come on back.”
“One minute,” Criston notes as he glances at his watch. Forever, it feels like.
“I’d give him another,” Aemond says.
“Second dose of Narcan,” Criston tells Cregan as he stops compressions and administers another round. And that does it: Aegon gasps, jolts, comes alive again. His skin transforms from blue to white to pink. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Criston hisses, and buries his face in his hands, trembling with relief and adrenalin. Cregan is informing the 911 dispatcher that the patient is back from the dead.
Aemond lifts his brother so he’s sitting upright and holds him, smoothing back his hair, murmuring to him words too hushed to understand. Aegon says, dazed: “Did I do it again?”
“Yeah. Yeah you did. But you’re back now.”
“I’m sorry, Aemond.”
“Stop—”
“I’m so sorry. I should have been at soundcheck.”
“Stop, Aegon. It’s over, it’s done. None of us knew what would happen.”
There are glittering, glass-like tears on Aegon’s face. His voice is choked and heavy, so heavy. “I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”
“You’re hurting me now.”
“One of these times you should just let me die.”
“But then who would torment Father? I don’t have nearly as much talent for it.”
Now they are both laughing, and you see that Aemond has a few tears of his own: only from his right eye, only from the one that fate spared.
Criston says, almost apologetically: “Aegon, we have to take you to the hospital to get checked out.”
Aegon sighs. “Yeah, I know. I remember how it goes.” Aemond and Criston help him to his feet. He can’t walk on his own; they half-carry him out into the hallway where EMS is just arriving. And once Aegon is on the stretcher and being ferried away—with great fanfare, everyone gathered in the corridor to wave him off—Aemond comes back for you.
Together you ride in one of the Escalades to the hospital and stand outside the transparent windows of the room while a lethargic, irritable Aegon is hooked up to machines and Criston talks to the doctors and nurses, vigorously reprimands him, makes a phone call to Alicent so she hears it before TMZ can report the story.
“I haven’t helped him at all,” you say to Aemond. “Not last June. Not now. Never.”
“That’s not true. You don’t know where he started.” He watches you, this man who sees so much and yet so little, who maybe loves you but sometimes hates you and is the father of a soon-to-be child that you already feel you know. “Do you love him?”
“Yes. But not in the way you mean. I would kill for Aegon, but I’d never marry him.”
Aemond chuckles, like this is a ludicrous combination of words. “Has he asked?” And then when he sees your face, too exhausted and woeful to censor itself, his jaw drops open.
“He wasn’t serious.”
“A strange thing to joke about.”
“Not for us.” It would be strange if Aemond joked about it. Because I could actually see myself marrying him. Not in another world, in this one, if only the stars aligned just right.
“Look, I think I have to apologize,” Aemond says. “Because I might have…misinterpreted things. The way you make me feel is…I can’t describe it, you know? It’s like, light, and warmth, and music, and I made the mistake of thinking that was only for me. But you do that for everyone, right? It’s not just for me. It’s never been just for me. And you’ve been so goddamn gracious. You’ve never asked me for anything. You’ve never put yourself in a position to use or take from me. You knew what I needed and you tried to give it to me. So thank you. I know I said that I understood you better in Reykjavik, and I was wrong then. But I understand you now. You help people. You heal people.”
You turn to him, startled. “You aren’t like everyone else. That’s not how I think of you.”
He is intrigued, perhaps hopeful, perhaps too afraid to hope. Pity is familiar. Love would be something else. “No?”
“No.” Truths, like birds with clipped wings, struggle in vain to take flight. “I have to confess something.”
“Go on then.”
I want you. I love you. I want to have this child with you. But I’m so fucking scared that you won’t be able to handle it. And at last, cowardice: “I’ve been reading your lyrics.”
He smiles. “That’s fair, I guess. Everything I’ve written since June has been about you anyway.”
Criston emerges from Aegon’s room. His dark hair sticks to the sweat on his forehead; his eyes are damn near vacant. He looks like he’s aged ten years in the past hour. “He wants to talk to you,” Criston tells you. “I don’t think he’ll be awake in five more minutes, and he might not remember any of it anyway. But he is insistent.”
“He usually is,” you say, and go in.
Aegon is dressed in a pale blue hospital gown, no neon. His feet are bare; you can tell because one of them is sticking out from under the blankets. His hair is slicked back from his face. He is afflicted with a slew of twisted wires and beeping monitors. But he is still Aegon: beautiful, bright, generally harmless to anyone except himself. He blinks blearily up at you. “No one has ever loved me, and it’s because I don’t deserve it.”
“Millions of people love you, Aegon. I love you.”
“For more than a day?”
“For all of them.”
He grins, then presses his right palm to his chest. “Starboy,” he says. Then he points at you. “Stargirl.” His gaze drops to your belly. “Starbaby,” he declares at last. “Not my Starbaby. But a Starbaby nonetheless.”
“You can’t leave me,” you say softly, tears falling down onto his blankets. “I can’t do this without you. Not just the tour. Everything. I can’t live in a world without you in it. You can’t leave Comet. You can’t leave me.”
And Aegon murmurs, petulant like a child as he drowns in sleep: “You’re leaving me first.”
298 notes · View notes
zmediaoutlet · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
Survey results time.
At time of downloading the data we got just over 300 responses, which is not bad for a survey that was long and complicated to take! I'm sure my shamelessness helped. Being a survey for a specific crowd, we also didn't get anyone (as far as I could tell) taking the survey in bad faith, which is a legit surprise. Special shout-out to the several people who, when asked to write literally anything to say they understood what was going on, wrote "literally anything"; additional shout-out to the person who wrote "penus and hole" (sic). You get it, anonymous person.
I'm going to share the top results for the questions here, but I'll also include the raw data as a sheet at the end in case anyone wants to actually go through it with a fine-tooth comb. This is not a survey where cute pie charts or graphs would be useful or readable, so get ready for some sweet-ass numbers:
Story Genre
Unsurprisingly, our leaderboard for most favorite story genre in the 'Anytime!' category is as follows:
Hurt/comfort (153 votes)
Angst (142 votes)
PWP (139 votes)
We just like the guys to get the shit beaten out of them, angstily, and then they can feel better by jerking off about it. The ideal evening.
The big loser in genre, with 34 buds flat out saying "not for me", was Dark!fic. That said, Dark!fic also got 112 votes (third highest) for "has to be JUST right," so we can probably take from there that while as a group we don't hate dark content, we have pretty strict definitions for a) what counts as dark, and b) what kind of dark we're willing to take.
Gencest/gen was arguably the most 'eh, idk?' of the genres, with respectable showings in every category from Anytime to No; most people don't hate it, but people aren't really seeking it out either. It's definitely There.
Story Setting
The winner of most 'Anytime!' votes for story setting is close to my heart; the podium is:
Bunker era (142 votes)
Canon-close, codas, etc (129 votes)
Pre-series/weechesters (126 votes)
It feels good to know that canon is on our side. This may help explain why various alternate universe settings didn't do so hot with the respondents -- the least fave according to this survey is an age!swap AU, followed by a raised apart!AU. Writers who are making Sam the big brother who lives in Cleveland while baby Dean lives in Seattle, you keep living your truth, but readers are rearing back.
That being said, while Canon Divergence isn't an overall winner, it has a full 149 votes in the 'Dig it' category; so, while we may generally prefer canon, we're willing to be led on a garden path away from it. We just want canon to be within shouting distance, at least.
Canonical Character Variants
Here's where the survey gets more complex. I've always been interested in how and why people are fandoming about things, and simple 'yes/no' surveys rarely dig into that meat. The point of the superego/ego/id separation is to really interrogate -- hey, do you like to read about (for example) soulless!Sam because you find it interesting on a high-minded level, or because your heart-strings are getting tugged even if you think it's kinda dumb, or just because it makes you so hornt-up you can't think straight? All are valid, and all are possible simultaneously, but it's interesting to prod at to see how the interest is working. You might also just be like, eh, it's fine, or GOD, STOP, and that's fine too. So, with all that said:
Superego winners:
demon powers!Sam (202 votes)
soulless!Sam (177 votes)
blood addict!Sam (160 votes)
Y'all like to really brain about how Sam is fucked up. I get it.
Ego winners:
Trials of Hell!Sam (186 votes)
blood addict!Sam (180 votes)
demon powers!Sam (161 votes)
Still all Sam, and no surprise that his saintly pale sleeplessness is winning the heartstrings battle.
Id winners:
demon!Dean (205 votes)
demon powers!Sam (175 votes)
blood addict!Sam (165 votes)
Again, no surprise: fandom girlies (gn) love their bad boys, lol. Soulless snuck in at #4 here with 163, presumably because working out still wearing a belt was juuuust dorky enough to kick him off the podium; #5 was Smith & Wesson at 162, probably because if they'd been left in that AU for ten more minutes they would have been fucking over the top of Dean Smith's desk. Glad we're all on the same page, there.
The nopes here were an interesting mix. In the full-on No Thank You category we had Michael!Dean and Gadreel!Sam (with 52 and 53 votes respectively) -- it would be interesting to know if that was due to dread of the storyline specifically, or just how No Bad Wrong it felt to have it happening. These two also led the 'meh' category, although they were joined on the podium of bad by Endverse!Dean (128 Meh votes), which frankly shocked me. Y'all aren't into his thigh holster? C'mon now. Sure, he murders his friends without compunction, but -- thigh holster!
Story Tropes
These ones were fascinatingly all over the place, which is exactly why I wanted to do this. Going to just run down the S/E/I podiums real quick, then 'Hard sell', then No --
Superego winners:
Outsider!POV (211)
Someone Finds Out (191)
Mental health issues (190)
Ego winners:
Mutual pining (252)
First time (242) AND Sick/injured (242)
First time in a long time (235)
Id winners:
Jealousy/possessiveness (224)
First time (218)
First time in a long time (180)
Now, part of what's interesting about these is how they fall off in other categories. Outsider POV wins handily at Superego with 211, but then drops all the way down to 92 votes at Id -- which isn't nothing, but clearly it's preferred to have a heckin' think about how other people view the incest relationship, rather than thinking it's just So Hot that people might. Similarly, while people do think it's so so hot for one brother or the other (or both!) to be possessive at 224 votes, when it comes to the superego that drops right down to 134 votes, presumably as the brain wakes up and goes RED FLAG!
Entering the land of no thank you, we shall have two anti-podiums:
Real hard sell:
Infidelity (127)
magic/powers!Dean (125)
Unrequited/no relationship upgrade (110) AND "Carver Edlund" fandom
This is a much more mixed bag. Infidelity and Unrequited are no surprise here, because it Feels Bad, Man; magic!Dean also not really a surprise, given that most of our respondents prefer being closer to canon, and Dean is very much our mundane buddy in the show as presented. (A delightful buddy, but a distinctly nonmagical one.) Carver Edlund fandom makes me laugh mostly because it's such a bananas thing to exist in the show. Sam and Dean reading big bang fics about each other? Collectively we just... don't know what to do with that. Weird.
Squick/No/Maybe one exception:
Permanent character death (140)
Infidelity (108)
Eating disorders (102)
Again, no surprise in the anti-winners of 1 or 2 here, but number 3 surprised me, personally. ED fic used to be a pretty big wedge of common tropes that people would seek out. Perhaps it's gotten less popular over the years? Or perhaps just that the people who like it REALLY like it and so chat about it out loud, while those who don't quietly bury it in sand, lo as a cat does with their leavings.
Most extreme delta in 'general interest' (whether that be S,E, or I) to 'ehh' (whether that be Hard Sell or Squick) is first time. Y'all loooove your first time.
Sexy Tropes, Vol. 1
This is where I really wanted to know if people could pull apart their interests between brain and heart and guts. Hopefully people were honest, as requested. Some of them we know are slight liar answers, because the hits on AO3 tell a story that can't be refuted -- nevertheless, here's what people were willing to admit to.
Bulletproof kink/will read any version:
Bedsharing (158)
Incest kink (139)
Size kink (133)
your friendly neighborhood survey creator is jumping up and down going 'wooo' that size kink made the podium. also I hope everyone understood that incest kink meant, like, indulging in the incest of it all via 'oh you're so totes my brother and i want to suck your dingle for that reason specifically', but I realize that could've been clearer.
Easy sell/you don't have to work hard for me to enjoy:
shameless bottom!Dean stuff (151)
switching (147)
voyeurism (138)
the first one here genuinely surprises me considering what I see getting written most often; is this a case of just not being in the right venn diagrams, or the 'easy sell' just not matching up with what people are being sold? Curiouser and curiouser.
Medium sell/not my fave, but I can see how it appeals:
bad/awkward sex (120)
phone sex (114)
in [drug/alcohol] veritas (110)
edging into awkward town in a few ways here: we don't love these, but we can see how it'd be fun. or not fun, in the case of bad sex.
Hard sell/this is unbelievable or uninteresting so you have to work hard to get me to enjoy it:
always-another-gender!AU (84)
multiple Sams or Deans (73)
genderswap (magic) (72)
so, in general, we prefer to keep the penises around and intact, but just one Sam penis and one Dean penis, please. Here, I'm interested that the volume is much lower than in the top category: maxing out at 84 hard sells compared to 158 bulletproof options means that we're willing to give more of these tropes a chance, even if they're not our faves. How accepting we are!
Squick/no/maybe one exception:
always-another-gender!AU (83)
A/B/O elements (65)
multiple Sams or Deans (51)
strong overlap with the hard sell; and, keeping in mind that people were able to choose multiple options, it's possible that some of those were identical votes. Again, please keep the penises straightforward and only two at a time. A/B/O is interesting here, especially given what we know of how well it does on AO3; while it's a big squick for a lot of people, it also has decently high votes in bulletproof/easy, averaging 82 votes. Mixed bag!
Sexy Tropes Vol. 2, Electric Boogaloo
Bulletproof kink/will read any version:
Possessive/claiming sex (129)
Marking (hickeys/bruising) (116)
Hair pulling (103)
Let's glance back up at the Id winners in the story tropes above, hmm quietly to ourselves, and move on.
Easy sell/you don't have to work hard for me to enjoy:
Marking (hickeys/bruising) (135)
Hair pulling (130)
Possessive/claiming sex (121)
Well, that's boring. So let's expand so as not to be repetitive:
4. Dub-con (116) 5. Dom/sub (113) AND Underage (113) 6. Knifeplay (107)
There we go. Pretty easy to put all of those into one fic, too.
Medium sell/not my fave, but I can see how it appeals:
Blindfolds (128)
Painplay (116)
Shibari/rope play (112)
We're starting to lose interest as accessories come into play. Interesting to compare D/s and its relative success against painplay -- so, tell him what to do, but don't hit him while you're doing it. Fair enough.
Hard sell/this is unbelievable or uninteresting so you have to work hard to get me to enjoy it:
Fucking machines (94)
Vore (80)
Mommy!kink (77)
Entertaining mix here, haha. General feasibility may be rearing its head here. (Also, for my own entertainment: daddy!kink got 67 Hard Sell votes. People generally prefer to keep it as horizontal incest, not vertical incest.)
Squick/no/maybe one exception:
Feederism (164)
Vore (161)
Extreme underage (157)
No surprises here, although some fans of the nibbly variety of wincest may be disappointed by vore's poor placement. Note also that 'extreme' is in the eye of the beholder; we'll leave aside value judgments, as we have for the whole survey, and note that people are not indulging in a version of underage they find to be personally past the line, or at least are not admitting to that.
At a glance, the closest matchup between bulletproof for some and a squick to others is bloodplay, with just 1 vote separating the two categories: 44 bulletproof, 43 squick. Next time someone tries to tell you that 'everyone' likes or doesn't like something, please take it with an entire shaker full of salt.
Dynamic & Position Preferences
I tried to encourage people not to think too hard about this one and just answer on instinct. Who knows if that worked. But here are some overview takes:
Toppy/dominant: Sam takes the lead here, with 69% of respondents being in the 'Love it!' category. Nice. (217 votes)
Dom Dean earned a respectable 52% of 'Love it!' votes (163).
However, I was also interested to check out the inverse --
subby!Sam: 44 'Very no thank' votes (13%) subby!Dean: 27 'Very no thank' votes (8%)
It's interesting to leap way back up and compare that against 'shameless bottom!Dean stuff' doing so well in the rated E categories. Makes you ponder.
Actual sex position: Frequently switching takes the win here, with 61% of the vote (194 votes). Sam always topping edges out if people must choose, with 144 votes; Dean always topping is our lowest choice, with 112.
Service!topping: this is a fairly niche fic type, but it does still exist -- I guess in a world of bottoms someone's got to actually get up and do something, and it is hilariously an almost perfectly even split:
service!top Sam: 50.17% (151 votes) service!top Dean: 51.50% (155 votes)
A healthy percentage of people said they didn't care about these questions either way, and more power to them. However, they were wildly outvoted by those who did.
Multishipping Time
Our final categories are when other people get their grubby hands on Sam or Dean, either canonically(ish) or in our fandom activities.
Canonical relationships for Sam
Jess wins, quelle surprise. :) 161 people Dug It and who can blame them.
Amelia LOSES, shocking no one: 112 people said Fuck That.
Eileen was definitely a mixed bag; her results, in order, were: Meh: 92; Fuck that: 76; Worse than meh: 66; Dug it: 44.
Canonical(ish) relationships for Dean
Note here: it was too unbalanced if we only went with people Dean officially dated. However, the show leaned hard into a few unrequited male relationships for him, which we included here, and no one sent me hate about it so I guess that was fine.
Benny wins the Love It! category with 129 votes, barely edging out Cassie at 122. Benny is best boy, so that fits.
Cas loses with a full 99 Fuck That votes, which is probably what we'd expect from a wincest survey. That said, he also got 93 Dug It votes, so it's a pretty balanced showing.
Poor Lisa sits firmly at Meh with 148 votes. It's not that we hate you, Lisa; we just don't really know what to do with you. Which is pretty much how the relationship went in the show.
Shipping Sam like FedEx
We returned to the S/E/I model for shipping as we did for tropes, because it means something very different to go 'oh sure, I can see how that would be interesting' vs saying 'I want them to fuck rawnasty and I don't care why they're doing it.' Apologies if I left out your favorite side-ship but, shit, there's only so much time in the day.
So, we return to the podiums:
Superego:
Ruby (132)
Rowena (121)
Cas (102)
Ego:
Rowena (121)
Cas (106)
Ruby (90)
Id:
Ruby (125)
John (121)
Rowena (118)
So that was going on sedately until Dad came in like a hammer. Fascinating. On the other hand:
No:
Lisa (234)
Donna (222)
Claire (219)
Interesting to me that these three are ladies that Sam theoretically could have got up in but people are not into it, regardless. This is slightly different to Dean's 'no' category -- spoilers for three inches of screen space!
Dean, Shipped by UPS
Superego:
John (129)
Benny (115)
Lisa (99)
Ego:
Benny (134)
John (116)
Lisa (102)
Id:
John (147)
Benny (128)
Crowley (114)
Well. That tells a slightly different story, ahem. Enjoy the various tropes that will be applied, Dean! And then we get:
No:
Amelia (245)
Kevin (223)
Gabriel (217)
Comparing to the Sam 'no' above -- these three are slightly more 'traditional' Sam ships, though the wincest shippers are nevertheless not into them for Sam, either. Dean literally never spoke to or saw Amelia on screen, so it'd be a determined shipper who'd make that happen. Not undoable, though!
Conclusion
Syke: there isn't one to be made. This really shows how diverse the taste is in the wincest community, or at least in the wincest community that a) happened to see this survey over the last five days and b) bothered to take it. This particular group leans slightly toward e.g. toppy Sam, or slightly toward switching, but when you look at raw numbers what you see is that at least one person LOVES every single one of these things, and at least one person fucking HATES every single one of these things, and so -- so what? Write what you want. If you see a niche of something that you love where you feel like not enough people are writing or reading, try to fill it. If you're worried "no one" will like it, well -- you're wrong. Someone will. It just needs to get seen by the right people.
That's where fandom comes in, to spread the love even if something isn't bulletproof for us -- reblogging a post to say, 'hey, my mutual made this thing, look at it!' What a joy it'd be if someone saw it and loved it to absolute shattering bits, and then found their little bulletproof community, and happiness was made. What's the point, if we're not making each other happy.
Thanks for participating if you did, and reading all this if you did. Here's a link to a google sheet (read only) with all the tables of raw data if you're interested. I'll post some of the more entertaining fill-in answers later.
s&d shipping survey results: November 1, 2023 - Google Sheets
212 notes · View notes
teddie-bear420 · 1 month
Text
Tumblr media
CHARLIE AND VIVA
The princess of hell and her trusty knight are on a mission to save sinners souls!
Doodles and rambles under the cut, and I mean like walls of text
be aware I make shit up a lot, I was very high on drugs and gay sex
Welcome to the show I’ve made in my head, ok where to begin? I guess with how boring I find Charlie nd vaggie in the show proper, I like them, they just don’t have any real spice to them. Charlie is a just a girl, she has no real friends and just surrounds herself with others problems. Check out the beginning of episode four, husk just says that out loud, we saw it once with angel dust and then they totally drop it for the rest of the show. I wanted to see Charlie fail and get back up again, but we don’t see that! Idk maybe I want more out of the text but I hated to see Charlie act like a baby, not a young woman, I makes me so mad that she isn’t really friends with anyone, no fun dynamics, Charlie kinda just looks at her guests and ‘employees’ but she never sees them. I mean like give me some bff moments with Charlie, she has no friends, she a loser baby!
Vaggie is the best better at making friends, and enemies honestly she is the second protagonist. I hated her until I saw her fuck ass bob. I fell in love
Ok so I made a prequel hazbin design that I just fell in love with, here she is. Ok so girls is bugs, vaggie is a moth and lute is a mantis, they grew up together in heaven. Being raised to be an exorcist was pretty sweet except for the military indoctrination!
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Wonderful lute convo here
So vaggie is now in hell and is saved by Charlie, who believes that vag is a sinner. Eventually they get together romantically and start working on the happy hotel project, then they get angle dust as a guest. You know the deal, but how did vag get with Charlie? Who asked who out? I love how loyal vaggie is to Charlie but WHY is she so loyal? I think because Charlie wanted to ask about vaggies life and she took the opportunity to become a new person !
Tumblr media
I think having char be the ray of sunshine in such a violent place attracts the lost and broken to her is cool. Vaggie tells ridiculous lies about her human life like being ran over by a horse. And being a pirate captain. Vaggies colors go from green to purple, aesthetic goes from Joan of arc lesbian to a captain Ching Shih lesbian yknow what I mean?
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Charlie is taken in with this eccentric woman and befriends her. And also when Charlie and vaggie start to get closer char gifts her the red ribbon that vaggie wears all the time. The pink red is Charlies color and it sticks to all of her friends! Like when angel and Charlie get really close she gifts him the hot pink gloves and he wears them for the duration of the show. (I’ll write about that in another post lol)
MY CHARLIE loves to feed people food she’s made, so she just keeps feeding vaggie and the she starts to beef up, buff 5’4 vaggie lets gooooo. They cook food together and help sinners together. I forgot to mention that Charlie in my perfect world does actual charity work, she works down at the soup kitchen and cleans up the parks and gives people work, Charlie is just constantly busy and never gives herself a day off. Vaggie does her best to help while constantly working on her prodigious.
These girls also work at the local theater! They do a lot of dress up! And i really liked the idea that Charlie is astanged from her dad and is no contact with him. So she isn’t some princess that’s throwing money at the poor. She builds her own motel for the happy hotel project so that when it is destroyed they can build the hotel proper and have an actual emotional impact.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
A little comic I sketched of out, Charlie was calling her dad for help with the hotel but he completely shuts her down and calls her idea dumb, I liked when Lucifer was a shitty dad that called Charlie a failure, instead of some sad loser who forgets to call his daughter, like I have a shitty dad and he tore down lots of my ideas and then is confused when I don’t talk to him.
Like idk how there are so many characters with daddy issues but they all are poorly written…
What else is there? Ermmm, I suppose I like Charlie as a demon that looks the most human out of the cast, like sure she has clown makeup as skin but giving her round ears and a demon tail looks super cute. And in the first few episodes Charlie hides her tail and uses it as a belt, and as a show of faith she reveals her tail to the hazbin gang!
107 notes · View notes
starbylers · 9 months
Text
Mike’s lack of personal journey in a Mlvn reading of the show: why so many people complain about Mike’s character
Something just occurred to me…I actually would challenge any Mlvn to tell me about a character motivation/internal conflict of Mike’s that does not revolve around El. What struggles does Mike as a person deal with throughout the series? When trying to build an effective, realistic, well-rounded character you can’t have their biggest fear be ‘loosing this particular person’ as Mlvns love to claim is Mike’s. As a writer you have to understand your character’s deepest desires and what drives them at their core, they cannot be purely motivated by an external force. A character such as that will feel hollow, boring and difficult to connect with. This is basic character development stuff.
Examples (simplified to get the point across):
For the whole show, El struggles with finding her place in a world where she feels fundamentally different
For most of the show, Will struggles with his sexuality and feeling like a ‘mistake’
Dustin in s2 deals with his self-esteem and understanding that he is good enough even if he doesn’t have a girl’s approval
Lucas in s4 wrestles with a desire to be popular and to ‘fit in’ which we see him overcome
Max in s4 deals with depression and the process of wishing to no longer be here to realising she actually wants to live
But…what about Mike? A brief Mlvn interpretation of everything he does through the show and why he does it:
S1: he saves and looks after El because he fell in love with her. He also looks for his friend Will.
S2: he is heartbroken because El is not with him anymore, and then madly in love again once she’s back.
S3: he has ups and downs with El because teen relationships are just like that, and then they get back together because they’re truly in love. He’s also too in love with his girlfriend to care about his old interests.
S4: he fights with El because all couples fight, and then rescues her from Nina while taking friendly advice from Will. Finally he confesses his love, which he didn’t do before because he’s terrified to lose her oh and he’s not good at feelings (but they won’t digger any deeper into that last one 🤐).
Like…yeah they acknowledge Mike also helps with the supernatural stuff, he’s smart and observant. He generally takes charge of the group and looks out for his friends, and (at least in earlier seasons) he’s the leader. But those are character traits. Everyone has them. (Max is sarcastic and kinda scary when she needs to be, Dustin can be cocky but is highly intelligent, Lucas is very headstrong and follows his own judgement, Will is sensitive and empathetic). I’m talking about character conflicts/journeys. Can they tell us what journey Mike has gone on as his own person???
And this, this is why lots and lots of people complain that Mike’s character revolves around El (especially since they started dating). This is why people say Mike is the Duffer’s self-insert and is just meant to be a blank slate relatable character. This is why Mlvns characterise him as El’s obsessed loser boyfriend. Because if you view the show through a Mlvn lens then yeah, Mike looks utterly two-dimensional with no drive other than screeching El El El when she’s in danger (sorry it had to be said).
The problem is when you try to dig into what Mike’s deeper motivations could possibly be, it gets very bad for Mlvn very fast:
‘Mike is scared to lose El because he’s worried she won’t need him’
Let’s detach El from that and figure out the root of this problem, what is really going on with Mike here (we already know but just for the sake of my point), because he is a character in his own right and this was a large focus of his story last season.
What do we know? Mike expressed feelings of worthlessness (‘I’m just some random nerd...’) and feelings of inferiority (…‘who got lucky superman landed on his doorstep’) in his relationship. He acknowledges that his and El’s relationship was fundamentally built on her just needing someone. Also, throughout the series we see Mike has a strong desire to help and serve and save those close to him, it’s who he is.
Mike is so clearly driven by a need to feel needed and fears being an unimportant nobody. He doesn’t think he’s special or useful next to El and it hurts him, his self-esteem is very, very low. But Mlvns never acknowledge that, because that would require admitting that a) Will’s words in the van showed he recognises & loves the Mike as the brave and inspiring leader he wants to be, and in doing so soothed Mike’s personal insecurities (because those do exist, and the talk wasn’t just ‘relationship advice’) and b) Mlvn’s relationship makes Mike feel shitty.
Another example:
Common Mlvn interpretation: ‘Mike was spending all his time with El in s3 because he’s in love with her and he is growing out of childish games’
What do we know? (1) Mike didn’t truly loose interest in DnD, he just neglected his interests when he got into a relationship, super healthy (2) He tries to act cool around El (‘Sorry that made me sound like a 7 year old’ / feigning disinterest in Dustin’s inventions) (3) When arguing with Will, Mike frames him getting a girlfriend as being the inevitable progression of life, the opposing choice from ‘sitting in his basement playing games’…but then he joins Hellfire in s4…as soon as El leaves. He didn’t truly believe anything he was saying to Will, he just can’t juggle being himself and having a gf simultaneously 😬.
Mike’s internal conflict here is clearly feeling like he has to grow up, and has to suppress his true identity in the name of achieving that. (And this continues somewhat into s4 with the fake, not-at-all-his-style Cali outfit in El’s fav colours). But again, understanding that requires understanding that Mlvn as a couple is not a safe space for Mike to be himself, and what Mlvns characterise as a normal teenage ups and downs is actually indicative of an unhealthy relationship.
Basically what I’m saying is it makes so, so much sense why Mike is one of the most disliked characters among the GA (aside from like the actual villains) and why he always ends up on those stupid lists. People are sick of him existing just to be El’s love interest. And that is not true in the slightest, but when you aren’t looking deeper than Mlvn…yeah it does look pretty bad, and I understand where they’re coming from. And as much as we say El is the one who Mlvns are obsessed with making everything about her boyfriend, the real victim of this treatment from them is Mike. Even his heart-to-hearts with Will are actually Mike thinking about El, apparently.
This is another reason why I’m so sure about Byler because Mike is essentially the original main character (aside from El I guess). I’m sorry but there’s no way he is the only one the writers managed to mess up this badly when they are capable of adding deeper personal development to characters who are much less central to the story. Even Finn himself said we’ve not been as personal with Mike recently but s5 will remedy that and people will be happy with his journey. The day Mlvns and GA are forced to look deeper at Mike’s personal internal conflict outside of how it relates to El is the day I will know peace 🙏🏽
241 notes · View notes
Text
Look out its a Linkblr Dashboard Simulator!
3 notes
Tumblr media
🪶 redwingskies Follow
So who was gonna tell me the Surface is Real, huh? Who.
🎶 ocarina-macarina Follow
Where are you from?? What....what are you??? ....God?
🪶 redwingskies Follow
Nah turns out she's my best friend though.
🪶 redwingskies Follow
Hey btw, If I kill a god does that make me one? Is there like. Rules for this? Asking for a friend. (Like seriously. I don't care. He does.)
1,680 notes
Tumblr media
🚋 train-life Follow
Today's Fact: Did you know Trains are the reason New Hyrule has Standardized Time Zones? As citizens needed to know when to get to a train station, the council lobbied for standardized time that could be applied precisely for travel by train! The entire modern perception of time is because of the Train!
⌛️ forestchild Follow
Thanks, I hate it. Lets go back to living by the sun rise and set.
🌸 dont-look-at-me Follow
??? We've always had standard time zones??? What are you talking about. Trains didn't invent that.
🚋 train-life Follow
...they literally did. I re-researched this to double check. What are YOU talking about?
🌸 dont-look-at-me Follow
Time zones? Like. The era of Legend, the Golden era, bullfish like that?
🚋 train-life Follow
... you can swear you know? I'm 12 not a baby.
🌊 kingoftheseagull Follow
you're HOW OLD? I thought you were a Royal Engineer???
🚋 train-life Follow
12? It's in my bio?
🌊 kingoftheseagull Follow
I love you but get the hell off of this website why are you here
🌟 excuuuse-me Follow
Can we go back to the weirdo who thinks Time Zones are HISTORICAL PERIODS?
🌸 dont-look-at-me Follow
Haha yea total weirdo, what, are they like 400 years old or something? Lol
🐴 goatman4life Follow
Actually I wanna get back to why a 12 year old has a job
1,203 notes
Tumblr media
🐟 indigo-gos-official Follow
Hey anybody willing to lend me bail money? I'm short like 10 rupees and it's really annoying.
⌛️ forestchild Follow
Wait shit wrong account! Wrong account!!
🐴 goatman4life Follow
Why do you have access to a hyper-famous Zora Band's account??
⌛️ forestchild Follow
Their lead guitarist died in front of me and I am very nice. Now get me out of jail goatman.
23,045 notes
Tumblr media
🌳 wildflowerwastaken Follow
.
#hi #i saw a cool bird today #the camera was left on selfie mode so it only got a picture of me squinting at it #the bird noticed the flash and it pecked me until I fell out of the tree #straight into a malice puddle #the bird was pretty tho #so I say my day went great!
2 notes
Tumblr media
🌟 excuuuse-me Follow
Hey apparently I need to update people on my boundaries. So. Here is a list of what's okay:
Hugging
Kissing me
Kissing me directly on the lips
👀
Parasocial relationships where you praise me constantly <3
And this is NOT okay
Hunting me for my blood to revive the prince of darkness
Ignoring me
Thank you, that's really all, I'm kinda sad that this has to be said but clarity is wisdom and all.
👑 princess-of-hyrule Follow
Link. This is not what I told you to post.
🌟 excuuuse-me Follow
Well EXUSe ME if my boundaries look different than yours!!
25,690 notes
Tumblr media
⚒️ smol-smithy Follow
Hey pulled the Four Sword again so we need help figuring out who gets to run the blog lol.
Thanks everybody
⏳️ forestchild Follow
Lol this loser doesn't know how to make sideblogs
🎶 ocarina-macarina Follow
The poll says "Who gets to be Link on MAIN" though, so maybe they do? They just wanna have one person in charge of the first blog?
⏳️ forestchild Follow
The path to truth is unity. Many voices can be heard within one "main".
-The Diety
⏳️ forestchild Follow
...ignore him, I've made him a sideblog and he refuses to use it.
⚒️ smol-smithy Follow
Hey wait no let him come back, he's the only smart person I've ever heard
-Green (?)
⚒️ smol-smithy Follow
I am going to kill you.
#we have all agreed to not utilize this blog until the poll is complete #so shut up green
10 notes
112 notes · View notes
kasaslovr · 1 year
Text
ੈ✩‧₊˚ 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄
Tumblr media
*ੈ✩‧₊˚  in which no girl has even looked his way so what makes him think you will. he's just not getting the hint that you want him to have little taste of your love
❈ warning: f!reader, college au, mutual & m!masterbation, fingering, praise, pet names, hair pulling?, teasing, he's like kinda subby at first then dom teehee, porn with plot. wc: 3.5k
❈ notes: i changed the concept oops, idk maybe ill write a fratboy!gojo fic later,  idk my friend was talking about how they dislike a playboy gojo so shoulder shrug. likes and reblogs r much appreciated mwahh anyway please enjoy my official first piece !
Tumblr media
its not like he was hated, not at all. its just he never stood out and was never labeled anything more than basic. he just wanted to get through his college life peacefully. he didn't need those parties that lasted till 2am or those saturday night hookups which would leave him heart broken. sure he's had friends talk to him here and there, but he would never get super personal with anyone, ever.
it was a study hall in a library where there should’ve been just silent but instead, there would be students gossiping or making out in such a public place. how vulgar. he wasn't a nerd either, just an average guy honestly. he was finishing up notes that he could use for his next unit test, until the aroma of warm vanilla and marshmallows filled his nose, he usually wouldn't look, but he couldn't help it since it was right next to him. you were right next to him.
he slowly turned towards you and was met with such a winning smile with your head tilted and hand under your chin. your eyes were staring right at him like you were trying to see through his own eyes. you had the cutest cheeks he's ever planted his eyes on, they were just a little rosy and rose just a bit when you smiled at him. and your lips, they were beautifully plump with a little shine from your gloss and it was moving–shit you were talking and soon he was convinced. he's never had a taste of love like this before or ever.
“hello? i asked if we had biology together?” there was a concern look on your face, he snapped out of his thoughts and looked anywhere else besides your face. “uh i’m not to sure..” he responds with his hand reaching to the back of his neck, god you must think he's such a big loser cause of course he wouldn't know, all he does is keep his eyes down at his paper or at the floor.
a sign of nervousness. how cute you thought. you knew satoru was in your class, of course you did, ever since you transferred all you wanted was a new start and to live out your life so you did that, went to any party possible and made as many friends as you could while sticking with old ones. but there's one thing you wouldn't do and that was to let just any guy to have a taste of your love, you were gonna be in the one to control who you want to love and such and you chose him. gojo satoru.
“gojo right? i’ve definitely seen you around, you feed those cute cats behind the building!” you exclaimed, way louder than he would've liked and loud enough to  make his ears red. “uhm yeah..look are you following me around for fun or something because there are more entertaining things to do.” he suddenly felt discouraged like he wants to cry or never find someone attractive again.
“no no no, of course not! that was just by coincidence and since then i kinda told myself ‘i have to get to know such a cute and sweet guy.’” you said smiling ever so sweetly. what did you just say? cute? sweet? he's never seen himself in such way nor has anybody else, maybe when he helps the old ladies open the door or when his friends sees adorable baby photos of him, but he's never felt these kinds of butterflies about it before.
“you-you think im cute?” he turned towards you again to see if there was any sign of jokingly behavior, but no, you were being genuine. “yeah i do. i’m y/n, i think i need to be caught up on stuff in biology and you seem pretty smart so maybe if you wanna stop by my dorm sometime and help out i would totally appreciate it, im in room 318 in wing c.” you informed, you were starting to feel a little nervous now cause what if he thought you were just messing with him or gave him stalker vibes, you didn't want that at all. 
yes. a million times yes. he thought, he got so excited that he all of sudden stood up, giving you quite a shock, but made you giggle a little and he found his favorite sound ever. “yes i will..i mean i will take you up on that offer. is there a certain time or day you'd like me to go over?” he asked, he didn't think you guys were gonna be at that point where he could just go into your room anytime soon. “hmm doesn't matter to me, i’m never really busy.” you shrugged and now he's thinking of showing up tomorrow morning, but soon he’s interrupted by an alarm on your phone.
“shit! i’ve got lessons, here,” you grabbed a pen off of his notebook and wrote your number in the corner with a little heart. “now you should contact me whenever. i’ll see you around.” you smiled and wave then left the library while adjusting your tote bag on your shoulder. gojo put your number in his phone as soon as he could, in case he forgot of course, but how could he? you've made his day maybe his whole week–hell his entire month. he gathered up his stuff and walked to his dorm quickly.
he searched for his keys in this bag which were usually hung on his tiny key chain that geto gave him, he likes to deny him and gets undying friendship, in reality he was his best friend and almost brother, but gojo denies it all. he opens   the door and expects to see geto laying on the couch with a bag of chips on the couch and a Red Bull on the little coffee table, but no there was a small post, which geto stole from satorus room of course, it on the fridge saying ‘heyy im out to go bang a super hot chick from wing b, she's so hot and let me tell you when her boobs were bigger than my hands, i had to get in on that lmaoooo see ya tmrw - super hot playboy sugaru’ gojo had to blink of couple times until he reacted to it, he gagged with disgust and rolled his eyes, ripped off the note and threw it in the trash.
geto was almost the opposite of gojo, get had plenty of people follow him, guys he played sports with and some who just thought he was cool and wanted to tag along, there were girls too and they had the smallest articles of clothing and would throw themselves onto geto, it was almost like geto was some kind of cult leader. gojo chuckled at the thought, no way. what makes geto different is that he was kind and acknowledged everyone around him. 
gojo opened the door, turned on the lights and set his glasses on the table, grabbed some clothes that looked comfy and made his way to the bathroom to take a shower early since he ended sweating lots more than he usually would. after a half hot half cold shower since college bathing is shit he decided he would order some KFC knowing geto wouldn't be here to steal everything in the bag. gojo knew it was gonna take a while so he went into his room, closed door and lights off. some him time after a long day of classes.
soon satoru got curious, he was thinking back on gets note, did you know him?hes quite popular so maybe, but you were new so he was conflicted. gojo opened his instagram that he barely uses and only got it cause geto forced him to, but he logged onto his account with only 14 followers and got to searching, he went to gets that he has around 10 times more followers than gojo, but he doesn't mind since he doesn't even post anything. he went to search for your name in getos follower list and there you were, gojo felt his heart leap out of his chest of what? he doesn't know just yet. he's excited he found your account even if its a bit stalkerish, but you followed geto so were you using him to get with his roommate. he hopes not, he prays not.
with trembling fingers he pressed your account, he examined your account. your profile picture was a cute mirror picture with a white sweater on and studying something and you used a table mirror to take the picture, it was so cute, he moved onto to your recent post and he felt his heart drop even farther down and his eyes slightly widen. its you, of course, in a tiny blue swimsuit a two piece to be specific. 
there's three different photos, one of them is you closing your eyes with your knees bent onto the sand and hands cupping your own face and squishing your breast together, it must be unintentional, it has to be because gojo wouldn't know what to do with himself if it was on purpose almost like you knew he was gonna see this and get the hardest boner he's ever received in his life, he swiped to the left, not to exit but to look at the next picture. you're by the shore now and it looks like you're walking with a hand out and another holding your hat to cover your face and finally the last one. youre in the water just above thigh length and you're facing the sunset and your ass is on full display.
gojo couldn't do it anymore, either he was to go throw his phone away and take another cold shower or die because you were just so breathtaking, he scrolled to the first one and he didn't mean to look at your breast, but he didn't and then getos note came into mind again, damn geto, could his hands fit over your boobs? he had to do something about his problem. with his phone in one hand and his other snaking down to pull down his sweatpants, his dick was already leaked with precut ever since he found your account.
he used his thumb to spread the precut around tip to down to the base then back up. his mind was racing and imagining how would you play with his cock. would you make him beg for it? edge him over and over again until there's tears pooling in his eyes? or maybe you would make his sit on his knees like how are in that first pic and make him eat you out without any hands as you play with his cock and just use him as you please. all these fantasies has made his hand speed up and his groans louder now becoming words as he gets lost into wanting you so badly. “f-fuck..wanna cum inside you, baby.” he threw his head back and soon dropped his phone not even caring if it broke. his other hand ran through his hair then moved it down to his chest where he played with his nipples over his shirt, he's never masterbaited like this before, never with this much emotion. 
he was so close, pants and boxers by his ankles and the ends of his shirt caught in between his teeth. he wasn't taking it slow anymore, he just wanted to cum and the shlick slapping noises have just gotten wetter and almost heavier. he was pinching and pulling on his nipples now, they're both red and swollen, but it only adds to his pleasure. his face was red with blush and sweat built up on his forehead while moaning and whimpering your name over and over again like a prayer. would you moan his name like this? imagine you getting lost into so much pleasure where your toes are curled and eyes are crossed and screaming his name with moans followed right after, oh to make you feel that good. it got him painting his hand white and your name on his tongue. he felt his breath staggering back to normal as he cleaned up and when he completely snapped back into reality he wondered how was he supposed to face you.
its been 2 weeks, 5 days, 6 hours, and 27 minutes since gojo spoke to you. of course you've tried to say something to him, but he gets all flustered and leave or ignore you if he must. its really throwing you off so you text him. “hey gojo! could u come over and help me over this unit, but if ur busy that's ok, i don't wanna bother u. just lmk! <3” and sent, you hope your words can convince him to stop whatever phase he is in to talk to you.
gojo is sitting on his bed with his glasses off and hands on his face. what was he supposed to do? you sounded so distressed and he wants to help you, he truly does, but how can he face you when he's done something so lewd. ok fuck it, he has a plan he’ll result to pointing and yes and nos that's easy enough. he grabbed his textbooks and shoved them in his bag and rushed out the door and storming over to your room.
around 20 minutes later he's appeared in front of your door with three quick and panicked knocks. when you open the door you can see his face flushed with red from speed walking his way here and his breath is heavy. you say something first “i didn't know you were coming, i would've changed.” you joked, maybe lighting the mood would make him feel better, but all he did was scan you from your brown slippers to your biker shorts and at your black bra and he gulped “would you like to come in?” you asked him and he nodded. 
this was getting quite annoying. you didn't really need to study since you were pretty smart anyway, but your love for gojo hasn't left at all, you still find him the sweetest guy ever and really adorable and you thought inviting him over would settle things, but the tension only grew. until you stood up and asserted your dominance. 
“okay satoru, i don't know what's been going on with you or why you won't talk to me at all, but if i did something im sorry and if i didn't then what the fuck! i feel like im putting all this effort to be with you and you all of sudden don't give a shit about me!” you shouted almost on the verge of tears. it wasn't your first round of rejection, but to be ignored and humiliated like this was a first and you hated it and felt strong urges to just punch his face if he continued to portray this silent treatment. 
“i..i uh” he stutters, god you can feel tears dripping down your face. “do you hate me or something?!” you asked, not even caring if the neighbors next door are listening in. “no! i don't, its just..i really like you and i don't want be a loser in front of you and i was stalked your instagram and ended up jerking off to one of your photos and im sorry!” he confessed with a panicked expression. why did he admit that? his confession was also lame as fuck? was he in middle school? gojo felt so light headed suddenly and closed his eyes shut and braced himself for a punch anywhere on his body and he held his face. 
he's never felt such way for someone before and this time it was his fault that they were gonna walk away. he hates himself so much right now and wishes he wasn't some weird loser kid and wishes he was someone more popular, more social, more like geto. 
when he peered through his fingers he saw your face and you were..laughing? why? he just told you the most shameful things he's done in his life and you laugh. “sorry sorry, you know because its you i don't mind.” you blush a little while wiping your tears. “and i like you too if you couldn't tell..” you mumbled, finally gaining eye contact with him. he's looking down and playing with his fingers, he's confessed to girls before, but for someone else to want him first. it makes his self confidence sky rocket honestly.
“im still sorry for what i did, but can i ask you for something?” he asked, you nodded slowly, truly having no idea on what it is, “can i kiss you?” he asked shyly and you didn't even responded, you couldn't tell what was moving faster, your mind racing a million times per hour or feet rushing to put your lips on his. it was nowhere close to shy or calm. it was kiss full of madness, want, lust, and love. with noses colliding teeth clashing with one another, and tongues only making the kiss less collective and messy. 
you grabbed his hand and led him into your bedroom without breaking off the kiss, you locked the doors and turned off the lights only leaving your little yellow lamp on your table as a light source. “off. i wanna see you.” he said his voice hoarse from being breathless while trying to rush you, you worked as quick as you could only for satoru to help you as you shoved your pants off he got your top and latched his mouth onto one of perky nips and playing with the other, he closed his eyes and moaned loudly without any shame which caused vibrations through your body adding to the pleasure. “satoru, baby lemme make you feel good too, please.” you moaned softly while trying to get his pants off, anything to return this favor of lust, he pulled off for a split second just to take his shirt off and as soon as that was off he continued ti mark your body with big red splotches that will soon turn people in due time and all over your neck and finally his pants came out and before you could make a move on him, he grabbed your hands
“show me. right now how you play with yourself. put a show on come on.” he encouraged, letting your hands go then peeling off his boxers, slowly moving his wrists up and down his leaking dick. while watching him it felt like your mind was on autopilot, you slipped off your panties and gathered some wetness that has been developed from the kissing and such. you didn't care that you making a mess everywhere, spreading your juices all over your already drenched until you stick a finger in, moaning so light almost with a relief cause the sensation was just so good. then another one, but it wasn't enough your fingers couldn't reach into the deep spots your toys usually could, but why do you need it when you have one right in front of you. with his mouth agape and his abdomen flexing and a flush covering his entire body, to the tip of his cock to the blades of his shoulder. “t-toru s’not enough. want your dick now.” you whined, wording slurring as your brain turned into mush. 
his eyes traveled down to your messy cunt and there was a faint smirk on his face. “oh needy little thing, you want me to help you out, sweetheart. you gotta open those cute legs of yours further then.” he said letting go of his crimsoned tip cock and taking the fingers that were in your pussy to spread them farther and when he saw the sight, he felt the wind knocked out of his chest. all he could do was stare. “stop looking, ‘s embarrassing” you mumbled looking away, honestly the fire in the bottom of your stomach only grew as he continued to play with your pretty little pussy.
he moved your fingers away as he plunged his own right in without an ounce of hesitation. he wasn't being gentle at in nor nice. he wasn't your toy, you were his and he loved it like that. “ill look if i wanna, ‘s mine now isn't it? tell me, pretty girl, who's your cute lil pussy gushing all over for?” he was merciless and he didn't hold back, not at all. “you! satoru! its yours, ‘m all yours, please wanna cum!” you were so close, moans only got louder and higher in octaves at that point, “’s lucky you're so cute, cum for me, baby.” he says leaning in to kiss you and your swollen lips from deep heavy kisses and from biting on it to keep quiet, though it didn't work in the slightest. he moved his head down back to your neck, he loves this taste of you and he’ll never ever get enough.
with your hands in his hair and a slight tug, you came and it completely drenched the sheets and almost the entirely of his hand, as your brain became cleared of fog and passion you rested your weight on satoru only for him to push you down and get on top of you and the feel of his tip kissing your clit, teasing your already worn out cunt. 
“you thought we we’re done? nah baby ive gotta taste more of your love.” 
751 notes · View notes
aethelwyneleigh27 · 9 months
Text
Ellie Williams with a short plus size fem s/o
+ other dating hcs, can or can't be related to being plus size (up to you)
+ Loser!Ellie makes an appearance if you squint hard enough
Tumblr media
A headcanon was inspired by this picture on Pinterest
Hi lovelies! Lia here, I was inspired by this picture and I thought you guys would really love the much needed fluff. I know I do from all the angst fics I've been reading ( No hate to Dina but wanted to crop her out of the photo but it lowered the quality and I just can't stand blurry pictures, so I guess I could live with it 😒). I'll add more to these in the future because at the moment it's a bit short but I wanted to get something out there. Hope you enjoy! :3
If you wish to be tagged, please comment that you want to be or follow so that you'll be updated also: Rules for requests
If you don't want to send requests through Tumblr, my Instagram is always an option.
Ellie Williams dating inspired playlist made by me
Disclaimers/warnings: English is not my first language, I'm still not sure if the character is OOC, teeth rotting fluff???
Tumblr media
First time you ever encountered Ellie was through a cafe nearby. She was whipped to say the least, she was ordering on the counter and your name got called. You walked up to get your drink and she happened to look at you.
Ellie admired the way your clothes just hugged the curves of your body, if you weren't in a public setting, she would've probably drooled.
Ellie comes off a player at times, her and Abby Anderson are sought out by fangirls even.
Definitely plays basketball, you wearing her jersey? She's gonna show it off and be all cocky. "See that girl there? Yeah that's my girl"
We all know at this point that Ellie loves to draw. At some point her sketchbook is just filled with either every angle of you or your name in calligraphy.
Ellie also likes it when you trace shapes or words on any part of her body whether that'd be her hand or her back. You've traced "I love you" once on her hand and she pretended like she didn't notice.
I like thinking that she'd definitely let you draw on her hand if that's a habit of yours
Ink and whiteout stains on both your hands and hers, sometimes from using a pen and sometimes from drawing on each other's bodies.
You like reading books? Doesn't matter to her which genre, she still looks so smitten while you rant about them, let's be real here you do the same when it's her talking about dinosaurs and space.
Sometimes let's you do her makeup, thinks it's adorable when you look so focused and with so much concentration. She's all flustered when your face is so near to hers that she can practically kiss you if you leaned in any closer.
Ellie sometimes gets into fights with people so naturally you're there to patch her up. She likes to use her hands as a makeshift ponytail when you try to blow your hair out of your face. It's the least she can do.
Ellie has a lot of scars, she's a bit insecure about them since she absolutely hates how the look. To say you disagree is an understatement, those scars are hot and it's what sets her apart. You like kissing them? Watch her melt at the gentle and loving feeling. (Poor baby just wants to be loved 🥺)
Ellie keeps a hair tie on her wrist at all times, not for her but for you since she always has her hair in a half up, half down kinda style. (Kinda what she has on the pic above)
Ellie loves spoiling you, it can range from buying you gifts, servicing you or simply burying you in her kisses.
She used to feel jealous about your best friend till you explained that the both of you are like siblings in terms of dynamic.
Joel honestly wanted to meet you, his daughter told his stories of your times together and Joel couldn't be happier. He sees and feels that Ellie is so happy with you, that's all he wants, his daughter to get the love she deserves.
Ellie definitely wears his clothes, they practically share the same wardrobe. Which leads to her dressing more masculine like white tank tops, flannels, white button ups and tie on a formal occasion, cargo pants and the occasional hoodie. Ellie in a suit, Ellie in a suit, Ellie in a suit. (I would sell my soul to see that)
Ellie is a boxer wearing lesbian and I stand by that.
Speaking of hoodies, she buys herself those that are significantly a bigger size so you can steal it from her. Loves seeing you in her jacket even though you sometimes claim that it cramps your style.
You like fashion? Ellie loves zipping you up and helping you choose a dress. People staring? She'll put her arm around you to make sure everyone knows that you are hers. Has occasionally put creepy people in their place.
She's the "wear anything you want, I can fight" type of girl.
Loves doing tasks for you, opening doors, carrying heavy things and other manual labor tasks because her princess shouldn't have to lift a finger.
Hand on your though when she drives, a bit of a reckless driver though. Let's you control the music to anything you want.
185 notes · View notes