#// and ran a mile in 10 mins just to get help ...

[demonsfate]

i don't think i could ever truly be a pessimist. yes, life is full of a lot of hurt, a lot of bad. but then you read stories about ppl going above & beyond for others, ppl doing what seems like the impossible for their loved ones, and it just... it's hard to be pessimistic. love is indeed real, goodness is indeed real. hatred & negativity are such powerful emotions, they tend to blind you from how much love the world has. yes, life is hard, and life can be messed up. but there is always positivity, too. there is always something worth living for; no matter how small, or big that may be.

[dreampurpledreams]

"That's Crazy", chapter 2

A/N: I had to rush to get this out. So if there are any mistakes, tell me.

warning: Spanish may be wrong, Cursing

2.2k words below the cut.

Italics are in Miles head

< Prev //Next >

Miles was watching you.

Not like Stalking you or anything. But he was just…,watching.

It had been about 3 weeks since the two of you had met. Waking up that next morning, recalling the night before, the sense of dread Miles felt was overpowering. Strong enough to make him ignore the soreness on his head, where he had fallen on it the night before. More important than the physics assignment he was supposed to complete that Morning. No, he had bigger things I worry about.

In a hurry to talk with you, Miles rushed his morning routine. Shoving things in his bag without looking, putting his buttons in the wrong holes, not tying his shoelaces (as if he would have done that anyway🙄). He didn't even pick his hair out.

"Why are you rushing?".

Damn, all of this was too much. Miles was so focused on himself, he forgot Ganke even existed.

"I have to go get this girl-"

"Yeah I know, you were supposed to get her yesterday."

"Well now-"

"Here." Ganke slid over from his desk to Miles and handed him a folder. "It's got all her schedule, her room number and all that other jazz."

Oh. "Thanks bro."

"No problem"

Miles still didn't know what to do, Maybe…?

"Actually,-"

"I'm not going to cover for you again, which I did yesterday by the way. You should have been here yesterday to get her yourself."

"It's not that. And telling everybody I had chronic diarrhea is exactly the best cover up."

"I think you should be thanking me instead of complaining."

"I'm not thanking you for telling everybody I had bubble guts."

"Bro, Don't say it like that," his friend said, laughing, making Miles laugh too. "Anyway, how did you know I said that??"

Right, Miles had forgotten again. What is wrong with him? Why can't he focus?

"Yeah, she told me. Last night. When I came in."

"Oh you mean..??"

"Yeah, and she saw me In my suit."

……. Silence. Again with this.

"That's crazy. Well, hope you figure it out." And with that the beanie wearing boy turned to his desktop.

"😦"

"Bro I'm just kidding, but to be honest, I really don't know how to help you"

"Well that helps." Miles said, sighing in exasperation.

"Dude just chill, you'll figure something out. In the meantime, you should probably brush your teeth, class starts in 10 min and you still have to go get [Name].

"What!? No we're gonna be late". Grabbing his bag Miles ran out the door.

"It's really a wonder he hasn't broken his ankles by now", Ganke said, noting that His friend's shoes still weren't tied.

Right now, he's sitting in the library, trying to study. End of the year exams were coming up, and he really needed to buckle down. He had already missed a couple lessons, and was currently trying to learn the difference between longitudinal, and transverse waves. The theory itself wasn't hard to grasp, at least not if it's taught by a teacher. But he was trying to learn it by himself. And all the vocabulary was so similar, it was hard to differentiate between them. Waves, Amplitude, nodes, harmonics, constructive interference, destructive interference. It was all the same to him.

And adding to his stresses, was a little brownskinned nymph was following him around everywhere. And not that he was complaining. He truly enjoyed your company, and even had to stop himself from inviting you to join him. And he wasn't going to pretend he didn't get excited every time he saw you. Just right now, he had other stuff to worry about. But you were the only thing that he could think about when you were around. Even when you weren't there he was thinking about you, but at least then he could regroup himself and get to work. Which was something he couldn't do when you were around. And that so happened to be one of the current problems . Wherever he was, you were there. No matter where he escaped to, you appeared. It was like you had a tracker on him somewhere.

To be honest,his first problem wasn't really much of a problem. But it made his second one all the more present.

Knocking on your door Miles could barely hold back his anxiety. What am I gonna do? How could I be so dumb? Jeez. What if she tells everyone? What if she's a bad guy? No my Spidey sense would go off then. Right? It didn't alert me about Doc Ock Caray. What am I gonna do? Maybe now I should just… Try and convince her she was dreaming or something. I'll just pretend I don't know her. Yeah I'll do that. No you can't gaslight her Miles. That's wrong. Man but I don't have a choice. Right? Maybe I can trust her….. …right? Miles didn't really have time to make a choice. You had opened the door already. Not that he was still thinking about it when the door opened. How was he supposed to think when you were looking like this? Natural face, excluding your glossed up lips. Looking into his eyes with those pretty ones, that had kept him up all night. Blinking at him, lashes mascara free, but perfectly curled somehow, making those eyes even more mesmerizing. "Mornin' laces. Here's my schedule." Laces? Since when was I laces? When did I get a nickname? No wait, I don't know her. "Umm, good Morning. My name's Miles. I'm going to be your student ambassador. Don't worry the office already gave me your schedule and stuff-" "We don't have time for your games Miles, classes start in 5 minutes. Just take mine and let's go". So you still remembered him. Looks like he has to try something else. I mean, Miles could have tried harder to convince you, but honestly….he didn't want to. He would just have to trust you. Or maybe he could tell you it was a costume or something. "So about last night-" "I'm do believe, I have physics 3 right now, but I'm not sure" "I know that but I wanted to tell you-" "Maybe you should check the paper." you said swiftly. Now looking at you, Miles realized you seemed kind of annoyed. Dios Mío. What was so important about this paper? Looking at it Miles could not understand. It had your classes, the classroom number, and the Teachers name. The only thing out of the ordinary on this paper was the note that was written on the bottom. Oh.

[Miles. Thank you for walking me around this week. I know it's your job but I really appreciate it. I hope we can continue to be friends after this. Even though we met in a weird way, and I learned more things about you than I should've, I won't tell anybody about your secret. Sincerely, Your new friend. ]

"Oh". Miles said, talking to you. Or he thought he was talking to you, but you were already up the hall. Looking back at him, you smiled. "Come on lace's, we have 3 minutes left. You need to hurry. But don't trip, we really don't have time for that." Haha. Honestly, Miles forgot you two even had to go to class. He was kinda starstruck by you. I mean you were so pretty, and so obviously smart. You were here, and in Physics 3. Students were only required to take physics 1 in their freshman year. Yet you decided to take one of the hardest highschool classes 2 more times. You even managed to talk to him about being spiderman in a way that was intelligently inconspicuous. Even if someone else found that paper, they wouldn't be able to decode its hidden meaning. It was so enticing. Miles wanted to learn everything about you. And he would seemingly get the chance, considering how you wanted to actually be his friend. Smiling Back Miles followed you to class. Followed… you?? How do you know where the classroom is? He never showed you around. That was… weird. The alarm bells sounded in his head. Against his will. The boy wanted to believe the best, he really did. But it was ingrained in him. All of this was too weird. You show up in his room. Being seemingly unsurprised at the fact he was spiderman. And just readily agreed to keep his secret. It was abnormally perfect. I mean, you were his dream girl. But this, this was beginning to be too much. "Miles!"The boy heard his name. Simultaneous with his 'LOOK OUT!' Message he was receiving from his Spidey sense. Looking up Miles had almost ran into the door of the Physics 3 classroom. They arrived. And you didn't get lost. There was that feeling, eating him up again. "Wake up city slicker. We're here on time, no thanks to you", you told the boy, smiling and lightly pushing his shoulder. "Hahaha. You knew the way…all by yourself." "Yee-ep. Administration brought me here yesterday on the search for you. I tried my best to remember everything while you were blowin' it up". Smirking slyly at Miles with explosion hands, he started to ease a bit. That was a valid explanation. Right?? "T- minus 30 seconds." Doing this weird, robotic voice and.. dance?? (He thinks). Laughing at Miles' awkward smile, you grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room. "Miles" you said. Looking back at him. Making eye contact. Mi corazón. Lord this girl, it seemed like you knew what you were doing. You were doing everything in your power to draw him in. "Yeah?" "Your Zipper is down."

Soy un idiota. Zipping himself up and then walking into class The bell rang. Miles was.. Scared It was all the same questions he had the previous night, but with all different feelings behind it. Who were you? Why were you here? Why were you at this school? Are you there to hurt him? But the thing that scared him the most, Was the way he forgot about all these things, Whenever he looked into that pretty face of yours.

Miles was back to the present. Remembering where he was and what he was doing. Or supposed to be doing.

Looking around for you, Miles realized you had disappeared.

Where did you go? Did you leave?? No, he felt eyes on him. Turning his head he watched you slink through the shelves.

There was that feeling again. That constant feeling of mistrust he felt whenever you did something questionable.

He tried. He really did. But under all the joking quips, followed by your boisterous laugh. Sweet smiles that made his heart melt. The study sessions turned into video game marathons.

Miles was still suspicious. The premise of friendships, was actually a way to keep an eye on you.

No.

He can't deny the friendship you two have.

He just… What if he's wrong about you?

The way he had gotten attached to you the past couple weeks, it was terrifying. Between all his conflicting thoughts. The way you had seemingly felt the same was even more surprising. Being spiderman was already hard enough. The insecurities Miles felt.

He couldn't measure up. Sure he was way more confident. But your friendship with him. The way you had find out about his secret. He just felt so…

Irresponsible.

But really he couldn't think about that now.

Currently you were behind him. Attempting to sneak up on him?

He hoped that's not what you were doing. You were terrible at it. Miles could feel the humor bubble up inside him. Did you really think you could sneak up on him?

Why were you sneaking up on him anyway?

What did you have planned?

The teen superhero prepared his body for…something.

Secretly keeping his eyes on you. Miles pretended to be into his book. When you finally got close to Miles, you stopped.

Moving your hands towards his… neck??

Quickly reacting, Miles wrapped his hands around yours, and looked up at you.

You started, Laughing?

"Dadgummit, I thought I was gonna get you."

Letting go of your hands, Miles felt, sheepish. What was he thinking?

Miles needed to get himself together.

Playing it off with as a joke, he laughed.

"Did you really think you could get me??"

"Well you had your headphones on so…"

Grabbing his things Miles started to walk towards the door. With you immediately following behind him.

"Nah. I gotta stay ready, you never know when danger's around the corner." The boy said all mysteriously. Looking down at his friend as the two of you exited the library.

"Or maybe, you're just paranoid". The girl told him, looking back, up at him.

You don't say, Miles thought to himself. Pushing away the thoughts of what could have happened.

I mean it was fine. He just…

Overreacted

Yeah. It was just him.

Right??

Taglist @mintkookiess @ladeeznutz

Dividers @/saradika

[mentally-unstable-hottie13]

⭐️senior year sucks⭐️

Henry Bowers x (FEM!)reader

Word count: 2,038

Estimated read time: 10 min

A/N: happy holidays! Merry Christmas! Or even if you don’t celebrate anything here’s a new chapter! Hope you like it!

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Chapter 10

Oh fuuuuccckkkuuughhh

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck.

OH FUCK.

FFFFFFuuucckkuuugh!’ Henry internally groans it himself.

‘Why the FUCK would I say that? Why the fuck would I ask that!?!?’

Henry’s mind races for any logical explanation for why HE would ever fucking ask YOU that. He stares blankly, looking dead serious. In reality that blank face was out of confusion and slight panic, but that didn’t exactly translate to you.

‘What.

The

Actual

Fuck????’ You also ponder.

‘Does he want to stay because he can’t go home? Is he scared and dosnt want to tell me? I barley fucking know this guy and the little I do know isn’t exactly Good Samaritan behavior.’

Both you and Henry ran miles in your mind to figure out where to go from here. It felt like hours had passed. In reality it was about 5 seconds.

You decide to be the one to break the silence. With a light huff you snap Henry out and begin to speak.

“You can stay. But you have to leave by 5 in the morning…” you can’t find the will to look at him while you blush.

“I uh..thanks?” Henry replies, absolutely baffled.

“Do you need some clothes? I have some pajama pants with a drawstring that should fit you. I think I have a few shirts too.” You rise from the bed and walk over to your closet. As you rummage through the clothes inside Henry shifts nervously on your bed. He didn’t like feeling like this. Henry was never fucking vulnerable. What the fuck were you doing to him? The thought that you were somehow manipulating him pissed him off in ways he couldn’t explain. He began to huff in annoyance as you searched. Not that it affected you. It was Henry being Henry.

You finally found some old plaid pajama pandas and an oversized video game shirt that you hadn’t worn in a long time. You bring the neatly folded clothes to the bed and gently set them down.

“You… uhm.. you can shower for the night if you want to, the bathroom is right next door. If not, I can step out so you can change.” You hoped he didn’t take the kind suggestion wrong.

Spoiler.

He did.

He scoffed and stood from the bed and began undressing right there.

“ Oh my god!” You yelped in surprise and quickly turned around, not only to give him privacy but also to cover the red in your face. “Sorry! I thought you would have warned me! I can go!” You start walking to the door when Henry speaks.

“No need. ‘Mm almost done” he gruffs. You slowly turn to see he has the pants on and is getting his arms into the shirt. This may be wrong to be thinking right now… but holy fuck. Henry is ripped! You wonder if he actually works out or if it's the farm work he does. Either way, it’s working. You didn’t have time to notice last time he was over!

He turns to face you once the shirt is on only to find you staring. He smirks and says “like what ‘ya see” tauntingly.

You scoff and hide your blush. “Har har har. Whatever just get in bed” you say quickly.

Henry does as he’s told but he stays above the covers. You assume he’s going to be like that all night and worry. Sure you don’t want to be under the covers with THE Henry Bowers, but it gets cold in your room. You don’t want him to freeze do you? You sigh and walk back to the closet. Henry looks at your form curiously. ‘Why’s she back in there’ he wonders.

Henry sees you struggling to pull something from a top shelf. As the object releases itself from under other objects you fall back on your ass. Not expecting it to have come loose. Henry laughs, you can’t help but blush again. You get back on your feet and limp back over to the bad. You hand Henry the blanket before cozying up in your own covers.

Henry sat, confused. He knew you probably wouldn’t have let him in the covers, but he seriously wasn’t expecting you to give him a blanket to sleep with. He really didn’t fucking understand you.

You handed him the remote to the tv with a yawn.

“I don’t care what you watch, just keep it low. I’m exhausted.” You muttered as you turned to your side and tried to sleep.

Henry took the remote and flipped through a few channels before looking at you. Was something wrong with you? He had fucking beat you, called you names, humiliated you, terrorized your friends and even tried to steal from your store. And here you were. Allowing him to sleep in your bed and use your tv as you slept beside him? You must be fucking stupid. God, even if you’re knocked out cold, you annoy him.

Henry’s head shot to the right as he heard a sound from your door. He would never admit to the genuine fear that shot through his spine from the sound. At home a sound like that meant Butch was home. He stiffened and tensed as he waited for what was to come. But it wasn’t his dad, it wasn’t Kevin, hell, it wasn’t even human. Henry watched as your weird ass dog scratched his way through the doggy door and padded across your room before hopping on the bed between yours and Henry’s feet. The strange dogs did a few spins before laying down and also knocking out cold.

Henry couldn’t help but snort. Both you and your dog had fallen asleep fast as fuck. To think. Just a few days ago you and your weird fucking dog had hated him. Now here he was in your bed and neither of you batted an eye at him. This was just too damn weird.

He found some random tv channel and set the volume to 3 before splaying out his blanket on top of him and laying down. He doesn't know how he fell asleep so fast. He just remembers his head hitting his pillow then looking at your hair as he tried to match the deep slow breaths you took.

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You woke up first. The smell of old rain, fire, and cigarettes invaded your senses as you awoke. The mixture of smells was so strangely nostalgic. You wanted to bottle up the smell and keep it like a little secret hidden the the deepest parts of your heart. You felt…..warm? You felt much cozier then when you fell asleep? Why was that?

You finally opened your eyes to see black. A familiar black of an old video game shirt you’ve owned since you were 10. That’s when you realized. You were currently laying with your head on Henry’s chest as his arm was under your back.

‘HOW CLICHÉ!’ You internally groaned.

You slowly raised from your laying position and took some time to look at his face. He looks so calm when he sleeps. He has no fear, no anger, no hate. With the way he looked right now you could imagine a version of him that was loving and kind, a boy that did his homework and liked romcoms.

Strangely. You don’t think you cared for that false version of Henry very much. You liked him now, flaws and all. Not that anything would come of this little crush.

You slowly and carefully removed the covers from your body and got up, out of the bed. You walked to the middle of your room where your robe had been discarded to the floor. You picked it up and put it on before walking to the balcony and closing the door behind you so Henry wouldn’t get cold.

You inhaled the fresh morning air. You missed the smell of Henry, but you would always swear that morning air smells different than any other time. It smelled cleaner. It smelled wet almost, like every inhale you took was flooding and cleansing your lungs. Every inhale makes your blood colder. But with how it felt you would gladly die and drown in it.

You turn to head back inside. On the way in you notice your clock.

4:42am

You glance back to Henry. He looks like he’s comfortable, why wake him up?

You gently pick killer from next to Henry’s feet where he’s found sanctuary and carry him down the stairs. About halfway down he woke up in your arms. Damn this dog was heavy. You set him down at the bottom of the stairs and poured him some food. Kevin wasn’t awake until about 5:30, maybe 6 if he was especially tired. He ran the record store. So there was no manager to fire him if he was late. Plus no one was in the store for the first hour or so anyway.

You went to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. You usually did this for Kevin but you thought Henry might like some too. Your coffee maker had this cool heating element that the coffee pot sat on to keep the coffee warm. After setting up the coffee maker you put a couple frozen waffles in the toaster oven and set them to take about 10 minutes to cook.

The waffles and coffee were done pretty fast. A perk of eating out so often is that you never needed to buy any sauce or condiments. You grab 4 little to go cups of syrup and butter and put them on 2 plates with some waffles. You left some waffles in the oven for Kevin and turn the oven to “warm”. You put the 2 plates and 2 cups of coffee on a tray with a little milk and sugar cubes in case he wanted some.

You bring the tray up the stairs and use your hip to open the door, letting killer in with you before using your foot to close the door. You were right on time. As you set the food on the nightstand the 5:00 alarm went off. Henry stirred and grunted in annoyance. You clicked the button on the clock and shut the obnoxious thing off. He sat up and stretched before looking at you. He was obviously not a morning person.

“I know I said you had to leave at 5, but I made you some food. Eat up before you get changed.” You handed him the warm cup.

“Tha’ fuck ya’ do that fore?” He grumbled and rubbed his head.

“I woke up early. Didn’t wanna wake you up by bein in here.” You stated befor handing him his plate.

He looked down at the DIY breakfast waffles and snorted. You had restaurant syrup and butter next to some pre made waffles. Not exactly a homemade meal but who was he to complain. Butch never fucking fed him. Henry either ate old leftovers or whatever ingredients were in the cupboards. This was probably the best meal he’d eaten all week.

You noticed he drank his coffee black. You assumed it was because that how he preferred it, the reality was that black coffee was an appetite suppressant. He wouldn’t be hungry for a while if he drank it black, but he did appreciate that you brought sugar and milk just because he might have wanted some. He finished his food way faster than you. To his utter embarrassment he wanted to leave before Kevin was awake. Last thing Henry needed was that freak seeing him with what he considered his sister.

He faced you as he got dressed. You continued to eat, too tired to be embarrassed. He wasn’t shy, you’d already seen his back, he just didn’t want to fuckin’ display if for you. Just because you’d seen it dosnt mean he was any less uncomfortable about someone seeing.

You’d finished eating about when he was done getting dressed. You stacked the plates and cups in the tray and walked beside him and picked up the pajamas from the floor and threw them in the hamper. You escorted him downstairs and bid him a silent goodbye as he ran across the property and hopped the fence.

While the morning with him was silent, you were happy. You had helped him, even if it was just a little.

Henry was happy too. That was not only the best, stressless sleep he’d had in years, but it was also the nicest thing anyone had done since mom…

Neither of you realized. But you were both changing. None of it made sense, but it was all okay for now.

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Taglist!

@meowmeowmeowmeow-meow

I finally got it!!!

@babylambdietcoke

@amber-sekio

[maximuswolf]

Very specific cross-play suggestions needed!

Very specific cross-play suggestions needed! Gaming community, I call upon you for help!My best friend and I stay connected even though we live thousands of miles apart via gaming through Warzone.... specifically plunder. We are both middle aged, in our 40s for what it's worth. He is on Xbox, I am on PC. The problem is that for whatever reason, for years now Call of Duty suits have thought it in their best interest to every few weeks just turn the Plunder game mode off. We aren't interested in BR or any game that is balls to the wall 100% at all times. Actually, I think we are probably fine with it, but the punishment to dying being 10 minutes to matchmake into a new game when we are both limited on time is lame. Plunder let us just respawn and have a guaranteed 20 min session at a time. While I am a very eclectic gamer with a vast PC catalog, my friend is a bit more specific. Our mutual dream game would probably be something like Tarkov with some sort of respawn mechanic (or extremely short time to get back in game). Plunder was the closest thing we could find that was suitable for both of us, had pacing that let us just kinda chill and shoot the shit... then when we ran into a fight get tactical and enjoy ourselves, then go back to shooting the shit. I am probably a bit above average player to most games, he is average, maybe slightly above. We both used to LOVE battlefield and many many years ago we used to play them together a lot, but these recent iterations are NOT what we remember it being, maybe we are just old, but that one is out... we tried. I need to find an XBOX PC cross play game that is chill, but has the bones of a fun tactical game, preferably 1st person, maybe 3rd. He unfortunately isn't into grand strategy games or rts. Like if Planetside 2 was cross play I think that would be a win. something in that vein. Something with an Arma vibe, maybe Dayz or a survival game ..... something like that where the session lasts a while but there are pvp elements but is also xbox-pc crossplay. Less about crafting, more about just surviving, exploring, potentially running into other players etc. We need something to hold us over until the Warzone gods decide we are worthy enough to have Plunder again.Thank you! Submitted July 11, 2024 at 01:56PM by stanger828 https://ift.tt/wVosEeK via /r/gaming

[businessconsiderations]

4 mi

10:30a, 76F, 63% humidity, sunny, 38:28, 9:36 min/mi pace

Slept in, must have needed it, didn't get out of bed until after 9a. Was a little crunched for time because I needed to get my daughter to her soccer end-of-year party. Almost decided to delay my run until the evening, or even Sunday morning, as I wasn't feel too great anyway--slight sore throat--but glad I didn't as we ended up getting Orlando City tickets for the evening.

So I went out there--later than I typically would for a morning run, but it's been unseasonably cool here so I was able to get away with it--with the intention of only doing 3 miles, the arbitrary minimum acceptable number of miles I have in my head that counts as "a run."

Didn't make a running playlist, just listened to my current playlist on shuffle. Had to skip a few songs to get a good mood setter. Settled on "The Thief" by Future Islands as my opening track. Starting running at my usual spot: out my front door, 3-minute walk to the left.

Shortly after my legs started moving, I thought to myself, I blog my weekend runs, it's going to be pretty boring to write, "didn't have much time, ran the bare minimum." So I looked at the time, did some math, reworked in my mind what I need to do when I got home to get ready to leave with my daughter, decided to make it a 4-miler. Not sure that makes a difference in terms of making this blog post any more interesting, but whatever.

Made a left on Lockwood, didn't have to skip any songs because "Psychedelic Switch" by Carly Rae Jepsen came on next, a fine running song, decent tempo for the second song of a 4-mile run. "Moody Mondays" by Eric Prydz featuring The Cut was next without skipping, great running song, though I prefer it on Monday morning runs but wasn't being a stickler today, probably too fast tempo for track 3 though.

Ran a 9:53 mile 1, surprised me as I wasn't feeling great, the day before I'd run a 10:33 mile 1, I felt like I was going the same speed.

Had to skip a few songs to find my next song, settled on "Tokyo" by Timecop1983 featuring Kinne Lane. Love that song, but that's either a warm up or cool down song, definitely not a mid-run song, skipped it after the first chorus, before the second verse.

Took a few more skips to land on "Just Another Rainbow" by Liam Gallagher & John Squire. Honestly, this isn't that great of a mid-run song either, but it's more uptempo than "Tokyo," and I was tired of skipping. It took me to the end of mile 2 and my turnaround point just past Hagerty High School, 9:48 pace, only 5 sec faster than mile 1, thought to myself I'll likely slow down for mile 3.

Up next with no skips was "No Reason" by The Chemical Brothers, I don't often listen to this song, not sure why I have it on my current playlist, but it was perfect for this morning's run. Got my energy level up, likely my pace up a bit too.

"Just Go Away" by Blondie was next without having to skip, this is a good song I don't often listen to. Mile 3 was 9:34, hmmm, maybe I won't slow down. "Modern Girl" by Bleachers came out with having to skip to get me going on my last mile, appropriate tempo for this point in my run.

After that song ended, had to skip a dozen or so songs to find something last mile worthy, settled on "Twice" by Romy, which is great, but I think of it as sort of a slow build up to "Did I," so I turned off shuffle so that'd come on next. Finished my run to those back-to-back Romy tracks, right back on Ekana into my neighborhood, ending at the same spot I started, 9:02 last mile.

Nice little run to start my Saturday, had an enjoyable day afterward, getting my exercise in first likely helped.

[steamishot]

equinox x2/4th of july

this past weekend, we went on our second staycation to equinox for three nights. amex had a $200 off $1000 offer so we couldn’t resist. we checked in on 6/30, which i could not take off from work. unfortunately, i had to work until 8pm that day but it worked out fine. we knew what to expect this time around so the adjustment period was very short. the hotel offers such serenity and tranquility; it’s extremely quiet and the air is super purified and fresh. the quietness is so therapeutic, especially for matt who is often in a high stress and chaotic environment. he had just finished a 10 day working streak, 7 days on and 3 days of moonlighting. our lives are always a little insane:

friday:

neighborhood walk to white noise/coffee

checked out la bicyclette for the most expensive ham and cheese croissant ($9) 

matt had a 30 min virtual interview with LA USC, followed by a therapy session with gabbie

we do last minute packing, throw out the trash/cleaned, and head to equinox hotels around 3pm 

we settle in, i continue to work

ordered sushi on 35 delivery for our dinner 

restorative yoga at 8pm with babette godefrey: she was giving a whole ted talk during this session, stressing the importance of rest (in addition to exercise and nutrition). she said that we see more in a week in NYC than people did in their entire lifetimes 100 years ago. 

saturday: 

started off our day with an intense but fun workout by michael j. clark for kickboxing. this guy was literally on crack, performing acrobatics at 10am in the morning lol. he is by far the most memorable fitness instructor i’ve had. left me feeling sore for at least 3 days after

went for lunch at a nearby australian cafe and ate healthy food (salad & avocado toast)

picked up a matcha latte and vegan donuts from the nearby wholefoods

did a wind down/restorative yoga class at 4pm

checked out market 57 for food, starbucks reserve, and the google store

sunday:

did a vinyasa flow class with robert nguyen that was quite intense. equinox instructors are all a little intense/arrogant lol, they really do not baby you in class

had an early dinner at jeju where we had a crazy dinner: the meal consisted of uni, caviar, wagyu, tartare, truffle, scallops, and lobster

walked back to market 57 and tried a signature latte (with blackberries and thyme), picked up xin fu tang boba and banana pudding from magnolia bakery

went back to the equinox gym where matt ran 30 minutes while i did an inclined walk 

my stomach felt like crap that night, with mixing of all the above foods - on top of drinking tea, and eating blueberries lol 

monday: 

we had scheduled a hot yoga class for that morning but i wasn’t feeling well so i slept in. matt went for a 30 minute run and picked up some starbucks oatmeal for me. i called off half day from work.

checked out, got back to our apartment around 1pm and decided to go to hot yoga at our usual studio at 4pm with our favorite instructor matty

we were both so tired and knocked out by 10pm last night 

the price is hefty, but i told matt that it’s worth it because of how rejuvenating the experience is and it is a very healthy treat for himself. i believe it’s better to spend on wellness than to spend on something material. the gym is his element. it’s also always interesting to people watch at places like this. 

instead of keeping my bike in the bike rack down in the basement, it’s now stored in the apartment so that i can more easily go out for bike rides. i don’t have to rely on matt to help me carry my bike up two flights of stairs from the basement. it’s still quite a drag to get my bike from the room into the elevator and then down/up a few stairs, but i went for 3 solo bike rides last week and really enjoyed it! the first ride was about 5 miles, the second and third were about a 10 miles roundtrip. it’s a great way to start my day and to force myself to leave the apartment and get in some cardio. i decked out my bike - it now has a basket and phone mount. i realized my recent anxiety was breeding from boredom, and the best way to combat that is by doing more. 

there’s always some anxiety when i haven’t done something for a while or if i’m doing something for the first time (i.e. socialize, bike ride, drive, go to a new area etc) but i cannot be avoidant. the anxiety i have comes from having too much down time, where i have time to worry about things i normally wouldn’t think about if i had a busier schedule. i would just go do it. 

i’m spending 4th of july mostly alone, or matt may come home earlier. again, i always have fomo and wish i had family around during the holidays. it’s something i want to bring up in therapy.

interviews/applications have been really busy for matt. it seems he had about 10 (one in person, the other calls/virtual) in the past month or so. arrowhead is flying him out for an in-person interview on 7/11, and i am tagging along. they are paying for his flight, 3 day rental car and 2 nights at a hotel. i’m excited to be on this journey with him. it’s starting to feel like he’s “VIP”. as his partner, i am also defaulted to being in the advisor role. like in spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility”. whew, it ain’t easy. 

another thing i want to bring up in therapy is this transition in class/wealth. for me, it’s the guilt that i get to experience such nice and luxurious things, that i feel undeserving. that i fear i will come off as “showing off” to my family if i share my experiences, or make them feel bad. at the same time, i realize feeling guilty is also negating all our hard efforts and sacrifices. 

[deliwrites]

ℝ𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕡 ℂ𝕒𝕗𝕖 // Dream

Date: 10th of June 2021 Published: 12th of October 2022 (Originally: 22nd of July 2021) Member: Dream Type: Fluffy(?), female reader TW: Feels, Angst(?), I am not good with trigger warnings so I do apologize for that Summary: You find the cutest cafe while on a road trip. You end up taking it over and really making the place your own. Then suddenly a guy starts showing up regularly which doesn't really happen. He recently obtained the property, which means it is up to him what's gonna happen to that property.

// MASTERLIST //

Y/n POV

Recently this one guy would come into my cafe. He wasn't necessarily different from everyone else, besides the fact he always came right before closing. A few times I noticed that he look defeated when he stood outside the door as I had just locked up the place. I didn't understand why he would always come so late. Don't get me wrong, a customer is a customer but, I just found it odd.

My cafe was called Road Trip Cafe. When I was 18, fresh out of high school, I went on a road trip with two of my friends. While on said road trip we came across this cafe, tho it wasn't called Road Trip Cafe at the time. It was basically located in the middle of nowhere, nothing close by for another 20 min drive. It was just located in a spot where you wouldn't look. Would only notice something was here if you drove by on accident because of a road trip. When I came here the first time, the owner was super sweet, she ran it on her own as it was pretty tiny and didn't have a ton of customers. I was fascinated when I first laid my eyes on it. She apparently seemed to notice, especially when I pretty much became a regular there.

When my friends and I returned from the road trip I started working. I was like fuck college I wanna own a cafe just like that! I started working for a grocery store nearby in the mornings and worked at a cafe in the evenings. Even though my dad seemed pretty disappointed that I didn't go to college my mom was supportive of me. I saved up for two entire years, returning to the cafe every once and a while just to keep the sweet woman updated on my plans.

About a month before I would put in my resignation for both the jobs I had I told her that I found a cute location similar to this one and said I would place an offer there. She told me she had a better idea. That day she gave me her cafe. She still owned the property but she allowed me to do whatever I wanted to the cafe.

So I changed the name and moved into the apartment above as she moved in with her daughter as she had become quite old and could use the help. Told me she would visit whenever she could. I was over the moon and back. I never expected this but I was so happy. Sure I now lived miles away from my hometown and my friends but I loved it here! I had been doing this for almost a year now!

Anyway! Back to the guy. I found it odd that he would come by pretty regularly. I didn't really have regulars because of the cafe's location. He didn't come by every evening but just regularly enough to make you notice.

I walked towards the door, flipping the open card to 'closed' when I noticed headlights coming this way, parking into the small but empty parking lot in front of the cafe. Squinting I looked out wondering who would come out, and you guessed it. It's the same guy. He walks closer to the door, I notice him looking at the sign that now says closed. I wasn't sure if he noticed me standing there or not, he probably did because the lights were still on inside, but it looked like he sighed and turned back around.

My next action may make you call me crazy but, I opened the door, the bell jingling above my head. "You can come in if you want," I call out to him in the dark night, it being 10 at night. He stops in his tracks, probably surprised and all I can think is 'Please don't be a serial killer'. Cause that sure would be something wouldn't it. Imagine the newspapers or whatever; 'Idiot cafe owner invites serial killer inside as seen on CCTV, only to be slaughtered 10 minutes later'.He turns around back to me looking a bit hesitant.

"A-are you sure? I don't wanna be a bother. It's my fault I came by too late," his voice gives me a trustworthy feeling so I sent him a gentle smile.

"Yeah, it's okay. Would you like your regular?" I ask as I leave the door open, waiting for him to start walking again before walking back in myself and going behind the bar. Good thing I hadn't cleaned everything yet or else I would have to re-clean it after he left.

"Yes, that would be lovely," he says after closing the door behind him.

"Alright, it will be right up, sit wherever you would like," I tell him as I start working on his Caffe Mocha, giving him some extra whipped cream as I realized he liked it very much. I watch as he sits down in one of the booths by the window, fumbling with the sleeves of his green hoodie. 'Was he nervous?'. I finish making his drink, quickly making my own White Chocolate Mocha, also with extra whipped cream. God knows how addicted I am to that shit. Putting both on a tray I make my way over to him.

"Mind if I join you?" I ask as I set his cup down.

"No, of course not, take a seat," he says gesturing to the other side of the booth. I set my cup down before I sit down myself, placing the tray at the head of the table. "Extra whip I see," he says softly an adorable smile on his face. Taking the spoon he starts scooping up little bits of the whipped cream. Enjoying every bit of it.

"Yeah, I noticed you ate it separately, just like me," I said as I did the same. My eyes widening at the sudden realization. "I am sorry, that makes me sound like a stalker doesn't it," I immediately ramble. "I already know what you like to drink, Jesus. I am sorry I swear I am not a stalker!"

"Hey, it's okay," he says while chuckling. "If anything you could think I am. I know you don't really get regulars here."

"I guess you're right," I chuckle. "But I don't think you are. If you were I feel like you would have done something to scare me already or something," I smirk at him, he chuckled looking over his cup as he held it with two hands in front of his face.

"Maybe that's my plan, come off like I won't do anything to you, but in reality, I have a knife in my pocket and the moment you turn your back to me, I'll stab you," he grins all the while saying that, raising his eyebrows in a joking manner before taking a sip.

"Hmm, I guess so, but I don't think you will," I tell him, taking a sip of my drink, licking my top lip afterwards. "But I do wonder if you don't mind me asking that is. Why do you come here as often as you do?" I look at him curiously. To my surprise, his smile disappears. He turns to look out the window, avoiding eye contact with me.

"Uhm," he says quietly and I swear I heard his voice crack just slightly. "My grandma owned this place before she gave it to you," his voice still quiet as he looks down at his cup, thumbs rubbing up and down against the cup like he's withholding feelings. "She- uhm.. s-she passed away about two months ago," my eyes widen at the news. 'She what?'. I could tell his sight was blurring with tears, his grip on the cup tightening like he was trying to stop himself from crying in front of me. "I- I knew she once owned a cafe before she moved back in with my mom. She told us that she gave it to a lovely lady who was my age," I hadn't realized that my eyes had started tearing up till I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I might not have been that close to her but she still meant a lot to me. She gave me my dream. Handed it to me on a silver platter to be exact. I had kept her updated on everything that was going on here when she visited and I even sent her polaroids. "A-and uhm, in her... her will, she left the property ... to me," his right hand went into the front pocket of his hoodie. "She-... she gave me this letter," he took out a very crumpled-up piece of paper and with a shaky hand, he handed it to me.

Dear Clay, When you were little I used to bring you to my little cafe even tho your mother wasn't a big fan of it ;). You loved it every time, and the customers loved you just as much. Your mom didn't want me to bring you with me in case you would fall in love with this risky job as much as I did. And so as you were growing up you slowly forgot about it, and I don't blame you for that. I might not understand what it is you're doing now as, you know, I am an old hag. But I am proud of you nonetheless. You make tons of people happy on the internet and it makes you just as happy. When you read this I'll be up in heaven with your grandfather and we'll be watching over you together. I ask of you one thing, however. To you, my dear Clay, I leave the property my cafe is on. I ask of you to keep it. Remember I told you about this lovely lady, Y/n, who I gave it to? None of my family members have wanted to continue my passion, but she does. She is doing so well! I might not get to see her thrive but you could. It is still your choice what you do with the property but at least visit it before you make a decision. And tell her face to face what you plan on doing. I love you so so so much Clay, never forget to follow your dreams! I will always be here for you even when you can't see me. Lots of love, Grandma

"S-so..," I start with a trembling voice, wiping away my tears that now came more frequent. "U-hm, wha-what's your plan?" I ask not daring to look up. Prepared to be told I need to pack my stuff and leave my beautiful cafe. I fold the letter back up and slide it back over to him on the table. His fingertips slightly touching mine as he takes it back.

"My mom," he starts, clearing his throat. I pick up the courage and look up at him. "Wants me to sell the property," fresh tears instantly form in my eyes as I cover my mouth with one hand, looking around my cafe not ready to give this all up. 'This is it. I can crawl back home, let my dad tell me it was a stupid idea, to begin with.'. I don't notice that he's about to continue when I cut him off.

"-G-give me a moment, please," I tell him, not waiting for an answer as I get up from my seat and walk to the back where I lean against a storage closet, slowly sinking down to the floor. Tears freely leaving my eyes as I try to cry as softly as possible so he won't hear me. Shoving my head in my arms which are wrapped around my knees.

'Is that why he always came by so late?'

'Maybe he was scared to tell me in person?'

"God, my dream just became a nightmare!" I spoke out loud, though, it was still muffled by my arms and knees. I didn't hear the door being opened. Nor the soft footsteps of a person looking around in the dark for me. I only flinched when I felt a gentle hand being placed on my arm. My head shot up, staring at the hand.

"Y/n, I am not selling the property," he says quietly, his thumb running gentle circles on my arm. He was crouched in front of me. His - beautiful - green eyes staring back into my (e/c) ones. I could tell from the slight moonlight that semi-lit up the back room from a tiny window that his waterline was still filled with tears.

"You-" I sniffed quite loudly. "You're not?" I asked timidly, wiping my arm across my nose, sniffing again. God, I must look disgusting right now. Ugly crying in a back room.

"No, I'm not," He says gently. "I've seen the polaroids you sent my grandma, I can tell from every picture that you're in that you love this just as much as she did. I can't take that away," he smiles gently, watching me as I wipe at my face some more to try and stop my tears from flowing. The sad tears now having turned into happy tears. I can't help myself when I leap forward and wrap my arms around his neck, hiding my face in his chest as I cry.

"Thank you!" I say into his chest while he stumbles a bit at the sudden weight on him. He falls onto his butt, tho he chuckles at it gently.

"It's okay," he says wrapping his arms around me as well, a bit hesitant. He gently strokes my back as I continue my crying, mumbling out 'thank you' after 'thank you'. After a little while, a slowly pull away from him.

"I'm sorry," I mumble sitting on my knees in front of him. One of his legs on either side of me.

"Again, it's alright," he says with a slight chuckled. "I understand why, you thought you were about to lose it all," I nod, agreeing to his words. I wipe my nose once more with a loud sniff.

"C-can I ask, what made you decide to... to go against your mom?" I ask slowly looking up at him.

"My mom finds this job risky cause you don't get as many customers as other cafes do. Which is why she didn't want me to go down this route. She didn't like this lifestyle as she had very little growing up. And I can understand where she's coming from, but my job is risky too. But I love my job and I understand the risk, it's not stable. But I wouldn't want someone to take it away from me and I can't do the same to someone else. I can tell that you love this so much and you put so much into this place. I can't take that away from you."

"Thank you," I tell him sincerely. "That means the absolute world to me. C-can I offer you another coffee or anything else? Unless you want to go home, of course, it is-" I take my phone from my back pocket. "11 now, so I don't know if you want to stay," I suggest, putting my phone back into my pocket.

"I can do with some water, don't wanna end up with a headache from crying. You should probably take some too," He says standing up and dusting off the back of his pants. Reaching out a hand to me, I accept it and he helps me off the floor.

"Good idea," I tell him. "Sorry, you had to see me ugly crying, along with crying on you," I chuckle embarrassingly, walking back to the front. I take out two glasses filling them with water.

"It's okay," he says taking the glasses from me and bringing them back to the booth where we take a seat again. We both stay silent for a bit, just sipping on our water.

"Can I ask, what your risky job is? According to your grandma, it's on the internet but that doesn't help me," I chuckle slightly, Clay displaying a grin on his face.

"I am a YouTuber," he says. "I am in a great spot at the moment, but income is not always even."

"Oeh, that's quite cool! I wouldn't consider myself a YouTuber but I do share how I make my coffees and such on YouTube. It doesn't get a ton of views or anything, but I don't mind all that much," I shrug my shoulders. I take out my phone and go to YouTube. "What's your channel, I wanna see at least one of your videos," I put my phone on the table sideways so he can see my screen better. To my surprise, he clicks on one of the videos in my recommended feed. Actually a video I had already watched. It was his most recent manhunt video. "No way," I whisper.

"Now I am kinda surprised you didn't recognize me before," he says. To others, it might have sounded cocky but I knew he didn't mean it that way.

"Well, to be fair, this is the first time we had a full-on conversation," I chuckled. "Besides you haven't wheezed yet," I smirk sticking my tongue out at him in a teasing manner. It successfully makes him wheeze which makes me recognize him even better. "I do wanna make one thing clear. I know now what you look like, but I promise you from the bottom of my heart that I will never tell anyone," I tell him sincerely, trying to tell him with my eyes as well that I am not lying and that I mean it.

"Thank you, that means a lot."

5 months later

Five months went by pretty quickly. Clay came by a bit more often now, still during the night but I gave him a key. It felt a lot safer to do that instead of leaving the door open in case he would come by later at the night. Often when he came by I would be cleaning up the place and he would surprisingly join in and help me. Over the past few months, we had gotten a lot closer. And somehow I started seeing a lot more people at the cafe during the day. It actually started getting busy and I was just so surprised. I had to buy tables and chairs for outside because of how busy it was getting.

"Oh my god, this is it!" I heard the voices of a small group of people who had just parked their old-school Volkswagen van.

"Hello, welcome to Road Trip cafe! What can I get you?" I ask the group as they look around the place slowly making their way over.

"Hi!" One of the males says looking at the menu. "Could we get four Caffe Mochas?"

"Of course, that makes your total $11," I tell him. He takes out his wallet, handing me $15 dollars.

"You can keep the change."

"Oh, thank you," I smile sweetly, putting the bills into the cash register. "You guys can take a seat and I'll bring it right over," he nods and guides the two females and the other guy to a free booth. I quickly got to making their coffees, putting them on a tray I bring them over to the group. "Enjoy!"

"Wait, wait!" One of the girls says as I'm about to walk away.

"Yes, can I help you?" I ask surprised.

"Do you know 'Dream' personally?" My right eyebrow shoots up in confusion. How could they possibly come up with this question?

"No, I can't say I do. I don't think I know anyone named 'Dream' to begin with," I tell them. I didn't like lying but I did promise to Clay I would keep it a secret. "May I ask why you thought so?" I ask curiously.

"Oh, well, apparently Dream, a YouTuber, has been here when he went on a road trip with his friends!" The other girl says enthusiastically. "He said this place was great. Perfect for a mid road trip stop, perfect to take pictures because of the area around it and perfect because the owner makes the best Caffe Mocha! He shared it on his Twitter including pictures of the cafe, the area and you actually!"

"Wait what," I said in pure shock. When did he have time to take pictures of me! He was never here during the day! "Can you show me? I don't use Twitter," one of the guys takes out their phone. Quickly going through his phone before handing it to me.

As you guys know, Sapnap, George and I are on a road trip! Just last night we made a stop at this amazing cafe called Road Trip Cafe! It's the perfect spot for a quick stop! You can take great pictures in the area and the owner makes the best Caffe Mocha!

Underneath I saw 4 pictures. One of the front of the cafe, one of the area, a picture of the Caffe Mocha and lastly a picture of me making said coffee! I had to say the pictures were beautiful. Clay was indeed on a road trip at the moment, but these pictures were taken about 2 weeks ago, midway through the road trip.

"Woah, I had no idea he was here," I tell them. "Thank you for showing me this, now I know why I suddenly have so much traffic around here," I giggle handing the guy his phone back. "I'll have to thank him some way," with that I walk back to the bar where a new customer was waiting. "Hello! What can I-"

"Y/n, it's me," I instantly recognize the voice as he whispers. I look over to the four I just spoke to, seeing them fully indulged in their conversation. I quickly take his arm and drag him with me to the back room.

"Are you crazy!? What if they saw you?" I question him in whisper yells.

"It's okay, calm down," he chuckles, placing his hands on my shoulders to calm me down. "They didn't see me come in and they don't know what I look like. Just what I sound like. Now, where is my welcome back hug?" He smirks slightly, his arms open waiting for the hug.

"I know," I said crossing my arms. With a huff I roll my arms, giving him the hug he wants. Tho I surprise him with a sudden hit in the chest with my elbow when I pull away. "hey!-" "Also you could have told me you would fucking advertise my little cafe! Do you have any idea how busy I've been! I had to buy new chairs and tables for outside! And I had no idea where the hell all this traffic suddenly came from!" All Clay did in response was wheeze! Folding over holding his stomach. All the while I continued on rambling. Tho I got interrupted when I heard the little bell at the bar, ring. "I am not done yet and you better stay here," I told him pointedly as he continued laughing. Shaking my head I make my way to the front.

"Excuse me, hello! What can I get for you?" I ask with a bright smile. I quickly help the customer before returning to the back room where Clay had finally calmed down enough and he was trying to catch his breath. I just look at him with crossed arms, a stern look on my face.

"Look okay, all I did was help you out a little. You deserve to be seen, including the cafe!"

"I appreciate it, okay. Don't get me wrong but I was fine the way it was!" This time Clay crosses his arms, his features turning stern, my own softening because of it.

"You sure about that? You don't think I haven't noticed the weight you've lost? When was the last time you ate a proper meal?" He asked seriously gesturing towards my significantly slimmer figure.

"Okay fine! I wasn't doing the best," I grumble, looking away from him. "And for your information, I have been eating proper meals since I guess about a day after you left here for the rest of your road trip."

"Good," he says with a sigh of relief. "Also, I'll be staying for a bit, is the door to upstairs open?" Turning away from me, it's only then that I notice he had quite a big weekend bag filled to the brim with most likely clothes. Probably some unwashed as well. 'Great, more laundry for me'.

"How long do you plan on staying? And yes it's open."

"Don't know yet!" He answers, already making his way to the door that opens to the staircase. I sigh but shrug my shoulders nonetheless. Already used to this behaviour. Clay had gotten used to staying the night here sometimes after we had grown closer over the past few months and I was honestly fine with that. I liked him and he trusted me which made it just that much better.

I finished off my workday, locking everything up after my last customer left, cleaning everything that needed cleaning before going upstairs. Also locking the staircase door behind me. Walking up the stairs my nose was filled with this amazing smell of food. "Clay?" I ask as I walk around into the kitchen. "What are you doing? Where did you get this food?"

"I am cooking us a good healthy meal! And I brought it with me!" He says with excitement. He had just placed two plates and was now busy scooping the food onto said plates.

"You know you didn't have to do that right?" I told him as I took out two glasses and filled them with water.

"I know but I wanted to," he grins, picking up the plates and walking over to the living room area and sitting down on the couch. I sit down beside him, handing him his glass as he hands me my plate.

"Do you wanna watch a movie?" I ask, already turning on the tv. He tells me 'yes' and we scroll through Netflix while eating, trying to find something to watch. When we finally did decide on one we had already finished the food and were now just sat close to each other, leaning shoulder to shoulder. "How was the road trip by the way?" I whisper as we awkwardly watch the characters on tv do the naughty. A blush probably visible on my cheeks.

"It was a lot of fun, but I gotta say, I missed you a lot," he whispers back. I turn to him in somewhat shock.

"You-... you missed me?" I whispered again, staring straight at him.

"I did, yeah," he says turning to look back at me. "Y/n, I gotta be honest," he starts, sitting up straight, nervousness suddenly taking over his being. Just like that day, he started playing with the sleeves of his hoodie. "I- ... I want you to know, that you make me very happy. I look forward to seeing you every single time I step into my car," he says gently. "Y/n... I like you."

My eyes couldn't be wider. This I wasn't expecting. I wasn't mad or anything, I just never expected him to have feelings for me. I mean, I returned those feelings but, I genuinely thought he only saw me as a friend or a sibling even.

"Really?" I whisper, hope lingering in my voice and I could tell he picked it up as a smile gently graced his lips. Wrapping his arms around my waist he gently pulled me closer to him.

"Yes," he spoke gently, pecking my cheek, lingering there for a little while. A blush instantly flushes my face, a smile forming on my lips.

"I like you too," I whisper.

"Thank god, this would have been awkward otherwise," he chuckles. "Also why are you still whispering."

"Because you make me nervous!" I tell him, the blush still on my cheeks as I lean closer to him again and snuggle up into him. He chuckles softly, wrapping me tighter in his arms. Slowly moving backwards so I'm lying on top of his chest. We continue watching the movie, nice and cuddled up, sharing gentle kisses, falling asleep nice and warm in each other's embrace.

// MASTERLIST //

[botwstoriesandsuch]

OK SHUT UP SHUSH SHUT THE FUCK UP IT’S 1AM BUT SHUSH LISTEN! HEY, LISTEN!

I AM GIVING YOU THE TOOLS TO FIND THE EXACT DISTANCE OF ANYTHING ANYWHERE IN HYRULE, CUSTOM MAKE YOUR FIC JOURNEYS TO THE METER, FIND THE AREA OF ANY TOWN OR LANDMARK, OR JUST FIND OUT HOW BIG (or small) HYRULE KINDGOM TRULY IS ONCE AND FOR ALL SO GO AHEAD AND SAVE THIS POST TO YOUR DRAFTS CAUSE YOU MIGHT WANNA SEE IT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

 Ok so this all starts with THIS

FEAST YOUR EYES LADIES, LADS, AND GENTLEFOLK ON THE ONLY PIECE OF INFORMATION IN ALL OF HYRULE CONCERNING DISTANCE AND TIME. 

[Image ID: A screenshot from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, depicting a picture of Ash Swamp hanging in Impa’s house. The dialogue box from Impa reads, “Does it look familiar? From this village, you should be able to get there in a half day’s time.” End ID]

Impa states that it would take you half a day, about 12 hours, to travel from Kakariko Village to the depicted 13th memory, which is at Ash Swamp by Fort Hateno. 

Now here is where I took this information. I took it to

objmap.zeldamods.org

A fantastic online Botw map resource with tons of features like finding specific objects, and highlighting areas, and placing pins, and the basics of showing the locations of everything like shrines and korok seeds and all that. 

BUT the thing that we care about today is this ability, here:

DRAW!

With those widgets on the right, I can specifically mark lines and shapes and the website will give me the distance of it in meters!

“But Kip, if the map already gives you the distance of anything you want then isn’t this entire post pointless?” Ashshshshshhshh no, shut the fuck up, shush shut, no, stop, silence, I am high on caffeine and I haven’t slept for two days. No. 

As great as the map is, the exact ratio isn’t the best. Like, it tells me that the length of Hyrule is only 10km, or 6.2 miles. 

I wager that realistically, Hyrule would be a bit bigger than that. And THAT, is where I come in. Or, more specifically, Impa.

Impa states that it takes 12 hours to travel from Kakariko to Fort Hateno. (I am saying Fort Hateno and not Ash Swamp because I am going of the nearest prominent landmark location near the 13th memory, and I highly doubt that Impa knew the exactly square foot patch of dirt that Link needed to stand on to activate his memory)

According to Google, it takes around 10 to 12 minutes to walk a kilometer. (I am assuming Impa was referring to walking and not riding, because I feel like she would have said, “You should be able to get there in half a day’s ride” or something of the sort. So, walking it is)

So: 

12 hours divided by 12 minutes 

(Which is 720 minutes / 12 minutes)

gives us

60

The distance between Fort Hateno and Kakariko village is 60 kilometers.

Badabing badaboom, great job! We did it. BUT NOW this is where our handy dandy online object map comes in.

[Image ID: A screenshot of the Breath of the Wild map showing the area of Kakariko Village and the plains in front of Fort Hateno. A blue line highlghts the path from the village to a marker on Fort Hateno. The line reads “1.89km.” End ID]

[Image ID: A screenshot of the Breath of the Wild map showing the area of Kakariko Village and the plains in front of Fort Hateno. The blue line from the previous image is still there, however, there is now a more prominent yellow line. The yellow line runs from Kakariko village, but ends at a marker point at the location of the 13th memory at Ash Swamp. The yellow line reads “1.55km.” End ID]

So while this map doesn’t give me distances that are exactly to my liking, it DOES give me a measuring means that will stay consistent. SO! As you can see, the map says Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 1.89km. (And just to be safe, I also did the distance exactly to the point of the 13th memory as shown in Impa’s picture, which came out to 1.55km. But! It’s doesn’t matter anyhow, because) We’re going to round this to 2km for the sake of my sanity because surprise surprise! I actually suck at, and hate, math. 

So the map says Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 2 kilometers, but we know that in real life, the distance is actually 60 kilometers. So, if you want to use this object map effectively, you have to make a means of converting the “false” measurements, (which I will be refering to as “zelda” (kilo)meters, or zm/zkm) from the actual ones. 

So THIS is what I fucking did oh my god help me it took me way too long even though it was really simple in hindsight I was just stupid and spent two hours trying to get the ratio equations right when really all I had to do was divide, it was a whole thing, anyhow, read away. 

[Image ID: A screenshot of MATH oh my god it’s fucking math...BUT it’s kinda color coded so that’s nice. The top left of the page depicts text. In red text reads “zkm (Zelda km) = per the measurement on the objmap.zeldamods.org” and below that, in black text, reads, “Kakariko to Fort Hateno = 1.89 zkm ~ 2zkm,” which is underlines in yellow. Another line of black text reads, “Impa says it takes half a day’s time to travel from Kakariko to the 13th memory location AKA 12 hours.” Another line of black text reads, “It takes about 10-12min to walk a kilometer,” which is underlines in green.

Handwritten in blue ink is the equation, 

“12 hours = 720 min

720/12 = 60″ 

The 12 is highlighted in green, and the 60 is underlined. In green text, below it, reads, “It takes 12 hours to walk 60 kilometers.” In black text under this, it reads “So Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 60 kilometers.” Another line of black text under this reads, “So based on that, we can find the actual values of a zkm (Zelda kilometer).” 

Handwritten in yellow ink is the equation,

“2zkm = 60km

1km = 30km” [typo, I meant 1zkm = 30km]

The 60km is in blue, and the equation 1zkm = 30km is circled. 

To the right of everything, in bigger, yellow text, reads “So: 1zkm = 30km 1zm = 30 meters

The map of Hyrule measures roughly 10zkm (length) by 8zkm (height) [typo, I meant width] giving it an area of 80 square zkm.

Therefore, the “true” size of Hyrule Kingdom os 2400 square kilometers.” End ID]

SO ARMED WITH THIS NEW KNOWLEDGE, you can now use this map to measure whatever you want, and by converting 1zm to 30 meters, you can get accurate result as to what that distance is. 

Chart the roads, measure the rivers, the map even gives area tools for polygons, squares, and circles! This entire post was born out of a desire to see how long the characters in my fic should rest for when travel between different stables. 

Now before anyone asks, yes! 2400 square kilometers is fairly small. That’s around 930 square miles. I believe even Wales is more than three times bigger than that. BUT! Considering Hyrule is a medieval kingdom that’s actually pretty sizable considering the average size of a Kingdom was 100 to 900 square kilometers. 

And juuuust to double check, I ran the size though a Medievil Demographics generator, and 2400 (under the conditions of Fertile Land with 64% of the land being arable since I figured roughly 46% for lakes, the ocean, plus unusable land was more than enough to cover the Hebra, Death Mountain, and the Gerudo Desert. Which honestly is even MORE generous considering there are races that occupy these areas, but I digress) This still gives Hyrule Kingdom a good population of 108,000 people! Before the Calamity when all of its villages were up and occupied, of course. So the area is definitely more than enough, and can still give Link a more realistic amount of time to travel between areas (when you add eating and rest of course. Don’t make my guy walk for 10 hours straight from the Great Plateau to Hebra D: plz)

TL;DR: Hyrule is 2400 square kilometers; use the map, plus the conversion 1 zelda meter to 30 meters to measure anything you want; I am tired

Quick Edit: Please note that this conversion is for the purposes of people out there who need more realistic means of measuring distances for larger scale travel and such, like for writing fic journeys, or dnd campaigns. This conversion isn’t the best for smaller scale measure like buildings and such (EX: I’ve checked with buildings in Castle Town and the Coliseum, and they come out much too big, just a symptom of game design ratios not being perfect since it’s hard to balance consistent measurements and the immersion and plan a creator has for their game world!) So if you are measuring those smaller entities using the linked map, just stick with the given zelda meters! (EX: The Coliseum radius in zelda meters matches up nicely with the real world Roman Colosseum, beating it out by a few dozen meters!)

Also if you are a true believer in the interpretation of Impa’s dialogue as “half the amount of daylight hours,” see the reblogs!

[happy4562]

Revenge on Boss

Will was tired of the constant verbal abuse he got from his boss. He worked construction and all day he would get chewed out by Tom for any perceived wrongdoing. Tom was a burly man who was always in a mood and wasn’t afraid to show it. In Tom’s mind, he was always correct and everyone else was wrong.

The final straw for Will was the day he came into work sick. He had run to the porta potty quite a few times with diarrhea only to have Tom call him out in front of everyone.

“I’m not paying you to spend the whole day in the shitter!”, shouted Tom as the other guys laughed.

Will decided that he had enough and would give Tom a taste of his own medicine. The site they were working on had two porta potties and other than that there were no other bathrooms in the area. This was a new site so no other buildings stood nearby.

Will arrived to the site first and he got to work making sure the porta potties wouldn’t be in use. He drilled the doors shut before anyone else arrived. When Tom finally arrived an hour later, he pulled up with his thermos of coffee. Every single day Tom would drink the entire thermos before lunch.

The very first second Tom stepped away from the thermos, Will sprung into action. He quickly slipped some liquid laxative into the coffee and shook it up. He made sure to put in twice the recommended dose. He made his way back to his work station and waited.

Will laughed to himself as Tom drank cup after cup of his coffee. The timer had now been set. An hour after finishing the last cup, Will noticed Tom was beginning to wince a little bit and rub his stomach. Sure enough, a few minutes later he made his way over to the porta potties. He tried both doors but they wouldn’t open. Tom banged on the door but there was no response.

He quickly realized that the doors were sealed shut. With his stomach aching Tom began yelling.

“Who the fuck messed with these?”, he shouted in anger.

All of the guys said they had no idea. Will knew but he kept a straight face as Tom struggled to hold in the impending shit. Tom knew that he wouldn’t be able to drive the 10 miles to town; he would never make it. He stood there, clenching his cheeks as tightly as he could, unsure of what to do now.

Will snickered to himself and wondered if Tom was about to shit his pants. But, Tom was too proud of a man to let that happen. No way was he going to soil himself in front of the men that worked beneath him. He looked around and spotted a bucket that is usually used for plaster.

Tom ran over to the bucket and worked furiously as getting his belt unbuckled. He dropped trou to his ankles and mounted the bucket. As soon as he sat, an explosion of gas and shit filled the bucket. The other construction guys watched in amazement and began laughing.

Tom sat, red faced, as a showering wet dump dropped into the bucket below. Pure liquid poured out from between his cheeks and splashed loudly. Humiliated, Tom sat with his stomach severely cramping. Wave after wave of shit passed through Tom.

Will stood there and couldn’t help but feel the immense pleasure pass over him as Tom shit just feet away. After 25 mins of Tom constantly shitting, he was finally cleared out. Unfortunately this now meant he needed to wipe himself. One of the guys grabbed the box of tissues from the office.

Tom was now forced to stand up, his cock and balls in full view of everyone, and begin the long arduous cleanup process. He went through almost the entire box of tissues before he was cleaned up enough to pull his pants up.

Immediately after getting his pants buckled, Tom raced to his car and sped out of the work site. For a few days, Tom didn’t show up to work. The day he finally did come back, he arrived to find boxes of tissues completely covering his desk. The guys laughed as he saw them them all sitting there.

From that day on, Tom was not nearly as gruff and rude as he had been. He never did find out who sealed the porta potties and laced his coffee. Will’s plan worked and he was no longer terrorized by his boss.

[sweetkingdomstarlight-blog]

How about #1 with Lee!

Pairings - Modern Lee Bodecker x Female Reader

Words - 1355

Warnings - none

a/n - Thanks for the prompt Star, I did a modern AU for a change and made it super fluffy. Not beta’d so all these mistakes are my own. Gif is not Lee but there isn’t enough gifs for me to use

It was meant to be a nice weekend away, you would see your best friend get married, spend some time with her family and get a little bit drunk. If you hooked up with someone at the party then even better in your opinion. 

You arrived at the resort and were handed a warm brandy to take the chill off, the hotel was high up in the mountains and it was freezing, taking a sip of the amber liquid you already felt ready to take on the rest of your day. It all went downhill fast after that.

The room you had booked months and months ago was oversold and as you were the last one to arrive it meant there was nowhere for you to go. You grabbed your phone and quickly looked for anything else but it was useless, there was nothing for miles around. Your best friend arrived at the desk 10 mins later but there was no other solutions, you would have to bunk with someone. Your options were her creepy Uncle Dennis, not gonna happen, her cousin Ryan who you knew sleepwalked or the best man who you hadn’t met yet.

He was called Lee and she assured you he was lovely, he’d probably take the sofa while you had the bed and he wasn’t creepy. Given that you had no other options you accepted it, getting a room key made from the receptionist you made your way upstairs to unpack and hopefully have a nice hot shower.

You were pleasantly surprised how neat and tidy the place was, he had lined everything up on the bathroom shelf, his clothes had even been hung up in the wardrobe and the lingering smell of his aftershave made you smile. Just as you were hanging up your dress for the ceremony he came back to the room. He looked you up and down and smiled before holding his hand out and kissing the back of yours when you went to shake it. The small gesture made you smile at him and you filled him in on the drama you’d had so far, he agreed he would take the sofa even though you insisted you should, he wouldn’t hear of it and made the sofa up with the spare linens from the wardrobe.

You took a much needed shower after unpacking what you needed and were halfway through shaving your legs when the room went dark and the water went off “Lee? Whats happening?” You shouted out at him, screaming when opened the door to place your phone down on the counter with the torch on so you wouldn’t hurt yourself. Using the tiny bit of light you managed to finish your legs before wrapping a towel around you and stepping out into the now very cold room. “Any idea whats happened?” 

The room was absolutely freezing, you were shivering from the cold and goosebumps had erupted all over your skin. You quickly looked for something to throw on when Lee threw a jumper at you and turned around as you put it on to give you some privacy. It was so warm and fluffy and just what you needed but you climbed under the covers anyway to warm up properly. Lee joined you on the bed, sitting on top of the blankets and turning to face you “we should probably get to know each other better if we’re going to be sharing a room, are you a sleep talker? Do you snore? Or worse, do you sleep cuddle?” You burst out laughing at the silliness of his question and denied having any of those issued before throwing it back at him and raising your eyebrow in challenge.

You lay talking and giggling at each other into the night, the hotel dropped off hot chocolate and extra blankets for you both and apologised for the power and heat going off assuring you it would be working soon. It didn’t matter how much you wore or how many blankets you threw over yourself you just couldn’t warm up. Lee noticed this and offered to climb in bed with you, just for warmth of course, nothing else. You declined his ‘polite’ offer and said you’d go to sleep now, hoping that once you were more relaxed you’d warm up.

It had been two hours, you were still so cold, you couldn’t sleep and you couldn’t put anymore clothes on. Listening to Lee’s breathing you hoped it would help you relax but it didn’t “I can hear you thinking from all the way over here Princess” you sat up and wrapped your arms around yourself “I can’t warm up, I’m so cold” you tell him, your breath clouding in front of you in the cold air. He quickly stands up and before you can say no he climbs in bed with you, giving you no choice but to lay back down and hope some of his heat transfers to you.

He tries to hug you but you slap his hands away, he wraps a leg around yours and leans forward to whisper in your ear “you know princess if you just gave in you’d be warm by now.” You huff out loud and turn your body around to face him, saying calmly “quit touching me, your feet are cold” but he just laughs and pulls you even closer. You have to admit, at least to yourself, that he’s so warm. His bigger frame plus the soft hoodie and sweatpants he’s wearing feel really good, his feet are even starting to warm up now and you feel really cosy for the first time since the power went out, managing to finally drift off and get some sleep.

Waking up the next morning you freeze a little when you realise that you’re in the arms of Lee, a man you only met yesterday. You hurry to climb out of bed without waking him up and take yourself off for a shower, you breathe a sigh of relief that power had been restored through the night and stand under the hot stream hoping it’ll bring you back to life. Hearing him knocking on the door asking if you were going to be long had you rolling your eyes, you decided to be even longer but screamed when he opened the door and ran to the toilet claiming he couldn’t wait any longer. Covering yourself up with the shower curtain you scolded him for not at least asking first but he ignored you and flushed the toilet laughing when you jump away from the sudden cold water. 

All day at the wedding he would sneak glances your way to pull faces, whisper things in your ear so you would giggle at the wrong time and even managed to steal extra dessert for you both. You were both dancing at the evening party and having a great time when he stopped to grab you both some drinks, he was feeling too warm and needed a rest. While he was gone you danced with your best friend before a slow song came on, you felt a pair of arms wrap around your waist. Leaning against his chest you turned and got a fright when you saw the creepy uncle smiling down at you, “hey, thanks for keeping my Princess company” you moved out of his hold and moved to Lee silently thanking him and giggling with him when the man walked away grumbling.

“So I’m your Princess huh?” Looking up at him and running your fingers over his flushed cheeks, he couldn’t even make eye contact with you so you just hugged him, feeling him relaxing. “What do you say? Let me take you out for dinner, we do live in the same city and you have already slept with me.” You burst out laughing, playfully slapping his chest and nodding your head, over his shoulder you could see your friend enthusiastically giving you the thumbs up, you roll your eyes and laugh to yourself before looking up at Lee’s puzzled face “do you ever get the feeling like you’ve been setup?”

[yamithediaperdork]

A very little guy Christmas (DC)

It was the most wonderful time of the year, at least if you asked a certain orangeish red haired freckled faced 10 year old in a 19 year old's body.

wally west always loved Christmas but this year was better then any other as Christmas morning also happened to land on the 4 month anniversary of him and his wonderful boyfriend Dick having moved in together.

Their modest little one story house was well stocked thanks to stocks Dick had from his adopted father Bruce Wayne that were managed by Lucas fox meaning neither boy HAD to work out side of the occasional superhero stint.

Dick had actually been thinking about getting a bigger house till wally had pointed out they didn't have a butler and he wasn't gonna just clean the palace pointing out 'just because I move at super speed doesn't mean I'm not still putting in the same effort'

That being said, Wally had taken it upon himself to put up the Christmas decorations, Dick had just come home with the box with the speedster had removed it from his hands and it look like a Christmas explosion had happened in the house, both inside and out.

"..You know, Barry warned me but I didn't believe him." Dick had teased.

"Hey! I left the tree alone for us to do together." Wally had said, a mock pout on his face, and earning a kiss on his freckled cheek from dick that almost made him melt.

"That you did Wall man, that you did."

As the pair had set up the tree, Dick couldn't help but gush mentally about how much his lover and best friend seemed to have regressed just from such a simple act. he loved the freckled dork with all of his heart and it was that love that helped him get over the semi hurt he'd experience a month before after discovering the dork's secret, something he apparently thought was so shameful that not even Barry or Iris knew about. Considering the bond between the three that said lots.

Still while he had been temped to confront wally at the time, Dick had a better plan and was waiting for Christmas morning, when his adorable little speedster would get a very special Christmas present from Santa.

"Dick! you're not gonna believe this, but somebody, and I don't know who, ran in here and stole the last of those awesome sugar cookies you made while we were getting the tree decorated! I bet it was Zoom, he's always had a sweet tooth!" Wally said, shaking Dick out of his distracted thoughts.

Dick smirked. A speedster wasn't totally unnoticeable if you knew what you were looking for and while you wouldn't be able to do much to stop them in most cases, there was a tell tale vibration in the chest that you could feel if you trained yourself to notice it. even then Wally's claims that it could of been Zoom (who dick knew for a fact was locked up in Iron heights at the moment) Wally's claims fell flat due to the scatter of crumbs on his chin and a smudge of icing on his lip.

"Really? that DASTARDLY fiend!" Dick chuckled. "He even went the extra mile to plant evidence on you!"

Wally froze and blushed, then wiped his face getting icing and crumbs on his Christmas sweater and gave a sheepish laugh.

"oh uh..well, see.." wally started, rubbing the back of his head with the other arm.

"Relax, I'll make more after this, but your helping this time. note that means helping me make the dough and cook it, not stealing half of the cookie dough one tea spoon at a time." Dick chuckled.

"I can handle that, BUT!" and wally held up a finger. "Only if I get to lick the beaters."

"Deal dork."

With the presents under the tree, Wally had to keep fighting the urge Christmas eve not to just unwrap them and re wrap them at super speed to see what he got. For one, he knew it would spoil any surprises Dick had planned for him and well for anther.. he was Nightwing and had been trained by the freaking batman. there was no way Dick wouldn't of found out somehow.

Believe it or not, living with the world second (or was that third?) greatest detective could be a pain, no matter how great his butt looked.

'Though it IS a very, very sexy butt.' Wally thought, watching as Dick bent down to add a last second extra three presents.

"heh, really going all out and spoiling me this year even after I made you wear that ugly sweater huh?" Wally giggled, sitting on the couch and sipping at some eggnog.

It's a wonderful life was playing on TV though never of them were really paying attention to it, it was just a Christmas tradition that Dick had with Bruce and wally had been fine with carrying it on over to their house.

"Oh, these aren't from me. Superman was doing a favor for Santa and dropped these off early, he knows what a good boy you've been." Dick said and smirked.

Wally giggled, he of course knew there was no such thing as Santa (though given what kind of world he lived in, he'd maybe had spent A LOT of time in the north pole when he first got his powers looking for Santa's workshop) He loved how small dick was treating him and wised that he could of confessed his hidden side to Dick.

But with all the weirdo's that dick had dealt with in Gotham, the last thing he wanted was for Dick to find out that sometimes wally liked to act even younger then he had been since December 1st.

"heh, you think superman helps out at Santa's workshop?" Wally asked, winking, and keeping the little game going.

"well maybe once or twice, Likely doesn't do it too much or he'd put the elf's out of work you know." Dick fired back.

Wally snorted, he'd gone for anther drink of eggnog and now some flew out of his nose and onto the front of his own ugly sweater.

"Ha! Picture a picket line around the fortress! 'Workshop jobs for workshop elf's!' and all that!"

"heh, Or maybe he just doesn't care for the work uniform, having to wear the fake ears and all." dick said, coming over as wally was caught up in a fit of giggles mentally picturing it.

Dick smirked as the movie wasn't even halfway over and wally was already falling asleep, he'd caught him going out on a dozen pointless patrols though out the day but Barry had warned him wally tried to tire himself out on Christmas eve under the whole 'the sooner I go to bed, the sooner it's CHRISTMAS!' mindset.

Despite having no powers of his own Dick was pound for pound the stronger of the two (at least when wally wasn't using his speed to add force to his attacks) and Dick scooped the cutie up in his arms, wall's chest to his own and the sleeping redhead's face resting on his shoulder and getting it damp with drool.

arm under his silly little lover's butt and thigh's Dick carried him to their bedroom, gently setting wally on the king sized bed and then slowly getting him undressed, trying not to wake the little guy up.

Getting wally out of his sweater and pants and socks was the easy part, and Dick had originally planned and tucking wally into bed in just his Flash brief's.

The he got a look at the stained on them and rolled his eyes, the boy just didn't like to wipe right!

'Oh well, let's me get to see that cute freckled ass.' Dick mentally chuckled and slowly, carefully, a bit at a time got the undies off of the fastest dork alive.

picking out a pair of loose boxers (with a lighting bolt them going on) Dick tugged them up most of the way, getting Wally's cute little pee pee (though Dick knew it was a grower not a shower) covered up the rolled him gently over onto his side, and drooled little as he looked at dat ass.

the white almost pale skin (Since Wally didn't have the patience for tanning) made the brown freckles all over the boys bubble butt stick out and if it wasn't for the fact he'd of woken wally up, he'd of leaned down and blew a raspberry on one of those cheeks.

'Sigh, the things I do for the greater good.' Dick thought and tugged up the boxers instead and got the wall man tugged under the blankets.

Looking at the clock it was only 8 pm, and Dick wasn't used to going to sleep this early due to his years of patrolling the streets at night.

'..oh what the heck.' He thought, and after going and turning off all the lights in the house and making sure the doors were locked, made his way back to their bedroom and stripping down to his own undies, crawled under the blankets.

it wasn't even five seconds later before wally was snuggling into his chest and cooing 'daddy'

'...I could get used to this." Dick thought with a grin.

Wally yawned as he woke up, a grin coming over his face. He was alone in the bedroom though that wasn't anything new considering, same with Dick carrying him to bed when he conked out.

the only mild surprise was that he hadn't been woken up by a raspberry on his cheeks, he knew how much Dick loved his tushie.

Getting out of bed he slipped on a cream white sleeping robe, not bothering with a top or pants and his only detour as he made his way to the living room/kitchen because of it's open concept was to tap a kidney so to speak.

Dick had made coffee and was reading a new's parent, the tree lights on and a fire going in the fire place and he looked up to see Wally and smirked.

"About time sleepy head! I thought you were gonna sleep the whole day away." Dick teased lightly.

"he, It's only 6:30 in the morning Dick."

"Like I said.."

Blowing a raspberry at Dick wally eyed the presents under the tree and was about to make his move when Dick cleared his throat.

"I was thinking, I know normally Barry and iris let you open all your presents first..But I wanna open MINE all up first. trust me, it'll be worth the wait." Dick said, setting the paper down and coming over leaving his mug behind as well.

wally whined like a little boy and then bit his lip, He WAS semi used to ruling Christmas morning and it couldn't hurt to let Dick this, if he had to. he guessed.

"ooook. just don't take forever. I've seen you with wrapping paper, you try and save it!" wally said, unable to keep the BRAT out of his tone.

"I swear, I'll go fast..not as fast as you but.." Dick chuckled and took a seat.

In what took what seemed like hours to wally (though it was only 15 minutes at most) dick had unwrapped his presents, Having gotten marital arts gear, tech and books from members of the bat family (and some cook books from Alfred) It was his present from wally though that had Dick squealing with delight, as it was a old stuff toy robin Dick had tossed out when they first moved in together since it hadn't handled the move and had basically come apart.

Wally had found it, rescued it and after a few (ok a lot) hit and misses had managed to get it cleaned, stuffed and restitched back together.

"I know it's not as fancy as the other presents bu-" Wally was said, rubbing the back of his head but was cut off as Dick Hugging him hard and kissed both his cheeks over and over.

"Thank you! I love it!" Dick gushed. "This makes me SO glad I went all out for your gifts!"

"heh, ooooh? and speaking of~" wally said, grinning like a fool and blushing at just how much Dick treasured his cheap fixed up stuffed toy over the insane amount of cash that had been spent on his other gifts.

"Yes! Though hand on, I wanna give you your gifts in the right order!" Dick said and semi rushed and pushed wally onto a seated position on the floor.

"heh, jeez, remind me that plushies are the way to your heart." Wally giggled, but took a seat cross legged and holding out his arms, his hands all in 'gimme!' mode.

The first present was from Wally's parents, a set pot's and pans even though they already had some, they tended to try and be practical.

The second was from his ex Artemis, who he was still friends with since the break up had been on both of them and she was dating Red arrow these days. It was a book on the zen of archarcy, though wally wasn't much into shooting.

The third and forth were from Tim and Barbra, Robin and batgirl and were some lower tech versions of the gifts Dick had gotten and the firth was large book with lots of fairy tales in it with vivid drawing to go along with the text.

"heh, Guess Alfred doesn't know I'm not much of a reader." Wally said, blushing at that gift and how childish it was.

"oh you'd be surprised what Al knows." Dick said in a amused voice.

Wally went to ask what that meant but was shushed as the first present from Santa was handed to him, and Dick stood by, with a HUGE grin on his face as wally took the bulky thing and torn at the tape, only to freeze and blush red all over and look back up at Dick.

"Merry Christmas little guy." Dick said as wally looked back down at the pack of little waddlers, the diapers for big babies in his lap.

"I.. but ..you.. " wally whined, trying to find the words to ask just HOW Dick had known Wally was a closeted adult baby!

"Before you ask, Just remember, I'm a world class dective, I found out last month and you have NO idea how hard it's been to keep it to myself till now. well mostly to myself." Dick chuckled.

"...Mostly?" Wally asked, gulping and looking back under the tree.

there was still two more presents from Santa, a present or two from dick, -groan- a present from batman and..

"Tell me you didn't tell Barry and Iris!?" wally whined and pouted.

"I would but that would set a bad example for my baby boy. you shouldn't fib." Dick laughed.

Dick felt a little bit bad as wally whined and whimpered, clearly he hadn't of wanted Barry and Iris to know but they were coming over for dinner later (with Dick and wally going to Wayne manor for dinner on boxing day) and he wanted him free to be a little guy all day.

"can i at least get one of my diapies on before we open the rest?" Wally whined, hugging the pack close to his chest and making Dick smirk.

"Open up your present from Santa then we'll get my widdle man in his diapies." Dick said, Kissing the redhead's cheek and breaking the pout from his face, though damn if wally didn't try and keep pouting, it just kept turning into a grin.

'Santa's' other two presents it turned out were a six pack of wipes and baby powder for the babies bottom, making it clear to Wally that Dick was more then willing to change him.(and BOY did Dick watching that realization click and the the MASSIVE blush that brought!) and then a second pack of diapers.

"Don't worry, we'll get more as you need them, we can even clear out your underwear drawer if we have to." Dick said cheerfully and got a reply that was music to his ears.

"DADDY!"

"awww, it's ok. I know you'll wanna make me all sorts of presents. Now, ready to get your diapies on?" Dick asked, coming closer and gently pushing Wally onto his back.

"Y-yeah but right here?" wally asked, eyes darting to the window, even though the curtains were drawn shut.

"hey, you wanna be a big baby, you have to go with it..when does a BABY get to chose where he gets his huggies changed?" Dick asked teasingly.

"I hate you so much right now!" Wally huffed and laid back, crossing his arms.

"No you don't." Dick said.

"..No I don't." wally agreed.

it was surreal, having his loving boyfriend being so ok with this and slipping into a daddy role with such ease.. It also had wally mentally cursing himself for not having spoken up sooner since he could of been rocking out in diapers ALL this time!

he closed his eyes not in shame but in bliss and his arms uncrossed as a thumb found it's way into his mouth as Dick pulled his undies off then opened the package.

"How many diapers do you want on little man? you can keep sucking your thumb and show me with your finger unless it's gonna take more then five." Dick teased gently.

wally squirmed LOTS at that, he had toyed and experimented with layering of course, what big baby hadn't? but those were cheap store brand diapers and he wanted to make these last.

Thinking about it for a second, wally held up three fingers.

"ok, can do.. Hmm.. Should of gotten your robe off first." Dick said.

Wanting to speed this along and get his butt back in diapers wally took matters into his own hands, thumb out of mouth and eyes open as he quickly shed the robe and tossed it down the hall like it was on fire and then was back on the floor, shivering a little from the cold, and a whole lot from excitement.

"heh, well that takes care of THAT I suppose." Dick laughed and tickled Wally's tummy as the speedster went back to slobbering on his thumb, but kept his eyes open this time.

Dick made a show of it, Unfolding each of the bulky baby print diapers and teasing wally almost with them and making the little reach out with his free hand, all I want.

he was almost making Wally's little guy stick up to a full 6 inches.

"Well, if I had ANY doubt you didn't want this before." Dick chuckled then added "Butt up wall man."

Wally listened to daddy and lifted his hips, all three diaper had been layered on top of each other and it felt like he was resting his butt on a pillow as his tushie came back down, his stiffly twitching wildly and Wally blushed, he was gonna cream hands free any second now.

"Guess I better stop teasing and hurry up before you shoot and coat yourself and have to go for a bath." Dick chuckled, quickly sprinkling LOTS of baby powder on Wally's privates and BARLEY getting the inner most diaper taped up before wally started to jerk his hips up and down, crying out around his thumb as load after load of 'baby milk' shot out into the diaper, Dick watching the show and though his orgasmic haze Wally could see Dick was getting excited as well.

Dick had to admit, while he'd of never thought of being a daddy dom before, he was finding it super fun and hot as fuck. watching wally cream that hard just from his huggies had Dick wanting to replace that thumb with a certain put of himself in Wally's mouth, but this was all about the baby and there would be time for that later.

Waiting for the hip's to stop jerking Dick moved a hand down and even though the thickness of the diaper could feel how hard his boyfriend turned baby boy was spurting and leaned down, smooching the big babies cheek and setting off anther wave of orgasmic bliss for the little guy.

Once wally was done, Dick smiled and rubbed Wally's tummy.

"have fun?" Dick asked and wally nodded. "Do you still wanna go on with the rest of the diapers or do you need a bit of big boy time after you cream?"

He wasn't being mean, he'd be happy to keep babying little wally but also didn't wanna force this on him anymore then he already had with the telling Barry and iris and Bruce.

wally pulled his thumb out, and there was a line of drool with it that Dick somehow found just even cuter and he gushed in a babyish voice.

"me wanna wear diapies ALL day dada." Wally coo'ed.

Dick's cock almost shot then and there and he was positive it was only his training in self control under Bruce and other martial art master that kept him from shooting though his undies and coating wally.

'maybe I'm gonna need a diaper too at this rate.' dick mused to himself then out loud. "Ok little guy!"

triple diapered and feeling all so small in the most wonderful way, Wally had turned into a little cuddle bug and kept nuzzling into Dick whenever he wasn't opening a present or waiting for Dick to get him one.

His present from Barry and iris was a large teddy bear, with a kid flash outfit on and by larger it was almost as big as his upper body and he gave it LOTS of hugs and named it Teddy flash right then and there.

His present from Bruce was confusing, as it was a book about how to stop bed wetting and he held it up for Dick to see with a eyebrow raised.

"Yeahhh..Bruce didn't really get what I was trying to tell him and just settled on thinking you were a bed wetter so I ran with it." Dick explained sheepishly.

"heh, Ok. Guess that means no wearing to grandpa's house huh?" Wally giggled.

"Ha! yeah, don't think that'll work out..though Alfred semi knows hence the fairy tales and well, Tim's got a lot of quirks like you so think he'd just get jealous." Dick chuckled.

Wally giggled LOTS at that and then it was time for his gifts from Dick, which included two type of paci's (one with a naughty nipple and one with a normal) A set of Lego blocks but the big ones meant for babies, a rattle, a few more stuffies (A anther bear, a owl, a rabbit) and a diaper shirt that was main yellow with the flash logo on the front and on the back went 'Faster pooper alive!' in red lightning text.

He also got a teddy bear themed shirt and shorts outfit, a couple of toddler show DVDS and of course his FAVORITE onesie, the one he insisted on right away, was a red one with green trim and a picture of mistletoe on the small of the back, just above the butt and text about it saying "Kiss under the mistletoe"

Getting the onesie on the little guy wasn't easy, Dick would have to see if Iris could let it out some or something or just cut back on the diapers when Wally wanted to read it.

But as the protege of the god damn batman wasn't one to give up quick and with a lot of effort and grunting he got the crotch snaps done up, though he had to make use of some spirit gun like he used to keep his mask on to do it.

unsurprisingly Wally wasted little time as soon as it was on, rolling over and getting on his hands and knees and offering his massive padded rear up and looking over his shoulder.

"Welllll Daddy? Aren't you gonna kiss me 'under the mistletoe'?" he asked, breaking into a fit of giggled.

"I suppose I better do it now before you go uh-oh." Dick countered and too lots of hoots and giggles, Leaned in and planted a big old smooch on Wally's diapered butt.

"Hehehehehe I might be a BIG baby..But your a BUTT kisser!" Wally giggled like mad.

Seeing how excited wally was Dick made a mental note NOT to let him have sugar while he was in little mode.

"Soooo what do we do noooooow?" Wally asked, plopping back on his butt, leg's spread.

"well I'm gonna go make use breakfast while YOU have a very, very important mission." Dick said, grabbing the first DVD he came across and noting the title then opening it.

"Ohhh?" Wally asked, tilting his head and getting the normal paci clipped to his onesie.

"Yup! You need to start watched Paw patrol so you can explain it all to daddy when he goes to watch it with you later. think you can handle that?" Dick asked.

Wally smirked and then put on a fake look of concern.

"it'll be tough.. but I MIGHT be able to handle it if I have my super science blocks to put together while I study the Intel sir!" Wally giggled.

"heh.. well of course!" Dick said, going and getting the dvd in the machine and turning on the tv, and hearing a weird scuffing noise turned around and grinned ear you ear.

Wall had the container of blocks in one arm, and was rocking his hips and using the other arm to guide him as he scooted across the floor on his butt!

'Just how did it take me finding diapers not to see what a little guy he is, and just how the hell does he manage to adult at all?' Dick wondered.

With the blocks dumped out (after Dick got them opened since there was plastic to cut and Wally was too little to have a knife of course) Wally set to work while sucking on his paci to make a semi mock computer, while Dick cued up the menu and had episode 1 ready to go, he was just waiting on 'agent baby' to give the thumbs up he was ready.

give the thumbs up wally could feel a familiar pressure building up rapidly in his bowels and thought about letting Dick know he had to go poopie, and ask to use the potty, he'd never actually crapped himself before.

'nggggh.. nah. he said I hafa think like a baby and babies dun get to pick when and what they use their diapers for.' Wally thought and leaned forward as Dick passed him by, deciding to give his boyfriend a slight warning of what was coming by giving out a poot.

Instead, the 3 days of backed up poopie in his tummy (his eating habit's sometimes could back him up for days as food struggled to get though) took the opening and a soft 'eek!' escaped from his lips and a massive amount of poopie forced it's way out into his diapers, bulking them out even more but because of the spirit gum the onesie couldn't just pop open which meant once the back of the diaper was full, it only had one place to go.. the front.

Hands on the floor and on his knee's wally suckled hard on his paci as his poopies coated the front of his diapies, making him make tinkles and milk again and as the massive load came to a stop three or four minutes later, he opened his eyes and saw Dick smiling, having watched the whole thing.

"So glad you made room for din din. I'll change you after we eat." he said and then gently and firmly pushed wally onto his squishy and smelly seat and made the big baby make anther load of baby milk.

Unsurprisingly, he wasn't able to tell daddy much about paw patrol.

The end

[businessconsiderations]

5 mi

8:19a, 60F, 83% humidity, rainy, 46:56, 9:21 min/mi pace

Ran outdoors, nearhome, normal starting point. Ran out Ekana, left on Lockwood, past Hagerty HS. The next neighborhood called Stratton Woods has 2 entrances and is basically a big horseshoe. Entered the 2nd, ran the horseshoe, exited the 1st, back home on Lockwood. But since the rain was annoying me, reentered my neighborhood at Riviera. Right on Turnberry, quick left on Ekana, 5 mi mark just past our house, walked until the current song ended, about a min or so, turned around and walked home.

The plan was to run on Sunday this weekend, but my youngest son's soccer games were rained out, we were notified when we were already on route, turned around and came home. So we were up early with nothing to do.

Forecast called for rain all day Saturday and Sunday, decided to get my run in while it wasn't raining too bad. Light drizzle to start, picked up to an annoying level pretty shortly after I started, not summer monsoon but still annoying. Thought about sticking to the 1.5 mi loop around my house, but figured that would make it too easy for me to quit early so that's why I ran the route I did.

Not training for any race at the moment, and I only ran 3 times midweek, 1 fewer than normal (as I try to figure out what my go forward health plan is going to be, sort of the point of this blog), none of the runs particularly challenging, so this weekend 5-miler would only take me to just over 15 mi for the week, pretty low for my standards . All that is to say, I didn't feel compelled to keep this run to an easy pace. I just went out there and ran how I felt like running.

And my playlist reflected that, no easy pace songs, 5 Dillon Francis songs, "Runner" by RL Grime, then my 7 favorite songs from Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs, a playlist more tailored to a PR than a weekend easy pace. But that's what I felt like listening to that morning.

9:58 first mi, 9:39 second, if I was feeling bleh, this is the point I would have organically finished with three 10s. The way I've been eating the past week, I expected to feel bleh. But I felt great, the music was helping, the rain was somewhat refreshing, annoying but refreshing, focusing on avoid puddles made me run more intentionally I think.

9:27 third mi, 9:05 fourth. "Losers" starting playing shortly after mile 5 started, my pace picked up. "Brave Faces Everyone" played next, the final song, my pace picked up again, 8:31 fifth mile. I was soaked, called my wife on my AirPods, asked her to open the garage and bring me a towel.

[kmpac]

Caught in the Rain

➸ 13+

➸ Summary: Being a college kid is a lot of stress, especially when you get deserted by your best friend and have to ask your crush to give you a ride in the rain...

➸ Word count: 2K

➸ Pairing: college student Min Yoongi x college student y/n

➸ Genre: So much fluff

➸ Warnings: like...one curse word, maybe?

➸ A/N: Two nights in a row I had this dream of Yoongi. He had something to say for his birthday, so for his birthday, I decided to put it on paper for you all. I have not edited it at all, so please be gentle with me until I’m able to go back through it. I didn’t want to miss his birthday...

You knew you shouldn’t have opened your big trap. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here in the cold, drenched with rain. But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

It was a regular Wednesday evening for you, a college student, desperately trying to juggle your 19 credit hours, as well as study time. As such, you were entirely focused in that moment on getting a few studying hours in before you inevitably had to get home and go to bed, only to start all over again, especially since you had a test tomorrow in Anatomy. Your best friend, Sarah, however, had different plans for how to spend her free evening and talked to you non-stop, while you stressed over your grades versus being a good friend.

Her boyfriend was acting suspect, and being a pretty big jerk when Sarah confronted him about a text message on his phone from a girl that looked like a request for a booty call. She hadn’t snooped, just seen his phone light up on the coffee table, while she was over “Netflix and chilling” with him one night. You were trying so hard to equally be a good friend, and a good student, but after mixing up the Parietal and Occipital bones in the skull for the 5th time in a row, you turned to Sarah and said “Honey, he is cheating on you. You need to break up with him. Cut ties. You don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

While the sentiment was certainly meant to help, it was said in a raised voice that instead communicated frustration, rather than understanding, and it sent a bulldozer straight at Sarah. Your brain took a little longer to catch up to what you had done, but Sarah didn’t have the same problem as she grabbed her bag and, with tears in her eyes, flew toward the stairs. When you woke up from your temporary daze, you started down the stairs after her, trying to apologize, but Sarah wasn’t hearing it. Down the stairs through the humanities building she went and out the front door into the rain and cold of night. You were a bit behind, so when you finally made it out into the pouring rain, she had already entered her car and drove away when you remembered she was your ride.

You stood under a portico, trying to shield your phone as you called Sarah repeatedly, to no avail. She refused to answer. The realization that the campus was mostly empty and it was 10pm on a Wednesday night suddenly struck you, and the tears started to fall as you kicked yourself at your stupidity.

Sarah always had been sensitive about her boyfriend. She should have broken up with him 10 times over, but you always dried her tears and ate ice cream with her listening to her problems, but never interfering. It would have continued to be that way, if not for that stupid test. Remembering the test had you running back up to the second floor to grab your bag and pack it the best you could with tears clouding your vision. The building was dead silent and most of the lights were off at this point. You hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. Somehow, being alone always intensified the awareness of silence, and this was no different. 

You were shivering as you had gotten soaked to the bone in the rain, and were only wearing a hoodie over your tee shirt and jeans. You pulled your phone out again to call Sarah. She again didn’t answer. You tried Deanna, your neighbor, no answer. You tried Amy, your lab partner, no answer. You weren’t exactly the most social sophomore on campus, and unfortunately your family were all miles and miles away, unable to help, so why scare them with this?

You were frantically searching your brain for anyone you could call, while also contemplating trying Sarah’s boyfriend, the jerk, when you noticed a light on in the building next door. It was the library, and should have been your study spot, but there were generally too many people there, and you preferred the quiet of the Humanities building, where you could stretch out on a couch and comfortably absorb information. But right now, that building might be your saving grace. You scanned the lit window for a familiar face when you stumbled upon Min Yoongi. 

THE Min Yoongi.

Coolest guy on campus, as far as you were concerned. Quiet. Speculative. Barely spoke or acknowledged anyone except when absolutely necessary. Always had a pair of headphones in his ears, even during class, like he didn’t even care if the teachers noticed. And while such a person might normally seem like a snob, he was the opposite. He had a kind of quiet patience with everyone around him. You had first met him Freshman year in a Music Theory class and you were astonished by his knowledge and creative thinking. You started sitting next to him, to hopefully absorb some of his genius, as you were not the most naturally gifted at Music of any kind, though you loved to listen to music (hence why you chose the class for your elective). 2 years later, you liked to think of him as a friend, but the kind of friend you want to make out with.

Did you mention he was also incredibly hot? With cat like eyes, a soft nose, skin like porceline, and the poutiest mouth you’d ever seen, you were constantly one bad choice away from attacking him. You had always held back, worried that a guy like that would never see a total nerd like you as anything but a friend. Hell, here you were with your hair pulled into yesterday’s ponytail and your baggiest hoodie and jeans, and that was before you got drowned in the rain.

Either way, you needed a ride home, and Yoongi was your only shot at a knight in shinning armor.

Thinking that thought had you imagining him scooping you up and rescuing you, even as you ran down the stairs and back out into the rain.

It was embarrassing to say the least to walk through the library, probably looking a hot mess as you passed other late night studiers who lined the library tables and chairs. You got more than one odd look as you tried to tuck your frizzed wet hair behind your ears and make your way to Yoongi, but you felt the tears coming again as your situation only grew worse with each step. Not only had you lost your ride, and precious last minute studying hours, but now you were being stared at like a lunatic, while you went to beg your crush to rescue you, while looking the exact opposite of how you wished to look in his presence. 

When you made it to where he was sitting you noticed he had headphones on and was working on something on his laptop and didn’t notice your approach until you were directly in front of him. When he did notice you, his eyes only marginally widened at the look of you, but otherwise his face remained unchanged as he slowly removed one headphone from his ear in a universal signal to speak. 

You coughed and tried not to cry more as you explained your situation. As you gestured, you noticed water cascading from your sleeve and something about it set you off again and you burst into silent tears as you turned around to hide it from Yoongi. This was a bad idea. But then you heard his laptop close with a snap and when you turned around he was standing and slinging his backpack over his back. 

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, y/n?” He said in his deep monotone voice. “I’m taking you home.”

You started to apologize and tell him, he didn’t have to leave that you would find another way home, but he told you to shut up, so you did. You followed him out into the rain and into his car that was parked in the adjoining parking lot, berating yourself the whole way. What were you actually thinking? This was a terrible idea. The voice in your head was so loud, you almost didn’t hear him ask for your address until he handed you his phone with GPS open. You typed in your address and put on your seatbelt, apologizing silently for all the water you got in his car.

At first, you traveled in silence, with only the radio to fill the awkwardness of the situation. You had never been in such an intimate setting with Yoongi before and you were feeling it, but for his part, he looked as cool as a cucumber.

“So what is Sarah’s deal anyway?” He asked suddenly, snapping your attention back forward to the road.

“What do you mean?”

“Why does she put up with that guy? He’s a jerk.”

“My words exactly.”

“So she got mad because you told her the truth?” He asked with a laugh in his voice, though his eyes never left the road.

“It’s kind of girl code. Only offer your opinion if it agrees with the person you are giving the advice to.”

“That’s stupid.”

You laughed in a nervous manner as you agreed with him.

For a time after, you both drifted into companionable silence as the music coming out of the speakers mixed with the rain sounds outside. It was like a lullaby to calm your wounded soul, and you finally felt at peace and content; healed by this quiet soothing man beside you.

“This song is pretty,” you said as your head rested against the window, letting the vibrations of the song float through your body.

“Thanks. I wrote it,” he said causing your gazes to clash, one in astonishment and one in shyness.

“Yoongi, it’s...amazing.”

You were lost for words and his face looked sheepish, but the darkness of the night didn’t reveal if his cheeks were colored pink in that moment.

“Almost there,” he said and coughed to draw your attention away from him and onto the road. Sure enough, you had just turned onto your street, lined with apartment buildings, and at the end stood yours that you shared with Sarah. You sat up and mentally prepared yourself for the fight you would have when you went in, so you didn’t notice Yoongi assessing you from the driver’s seat.

As he pulled to a stop, you noticed Sarah’s car wasn’t in it’s normal spot. She must have gone to her boyfriend’s place. You felt a wave of emotions again, but you stamped it down, not wanting to fall apart in front of Yoongi again.

You turned to him with an affectionate smile, and he returned it with his signature grin of a flat line with just a slight upturn on either end. It had more of an impact on you than he probably intended. He not only rescued you, but he was acting as though it was the easiest thing in the world, to pick up everything and drive you across town because you didn’t have a ride. And maybe for him, this wasn’t a big deal, but it was to you. It made your cold, wet body glow in affection for this man who quietly stood up from a table like the obvious answer was to drive you home.

In light of this fluttering feeling, your body seemed to have a mind of its own as it lunged forward to kiss his cheek. If you had time to realize what you were doing, you would have certainly stopped yourself. What a silly notion, to kiss your crush on the cheek! AND so spontaneously. That was so not you!

And yet here you were, whole body in motion toward your savior, your crush, your friend. But in your bid to sweetly wish him a goodnight, you miscalculated and ended up just a few inches to the right and your lips, however briefly, made contact with the corner of Yoongi’s mouth. Your eyes went wide, as did Yoongi’s once he realized what was actually happening, and as though time went from going much too slow to going much too fast, you flinched as your face became a flame.

“I am so sorry, I don’t know why I just did that,” you started to say as you turned away toward the door, but before you were able to pull the handle, a hand at the back of your head was pulling you back again. 

You had no time to appreciate the coolness of his fingers against your feverish neck or the look on his face, for before you could even form a thought your mouth was firmly pressed, not to the corner, but fully on his pouty mouth. You were sure you were imagining it, but it definitely seemed, and felt, like Yoongi had pulled you into a searing and rough kiss. It was just lips to lips, and probably only lasted a moment, but the electrical current that ran through your entire body, set you alight. And then before you knew what was what, he was letting go again and turning back to the steering wheel.

“Goodnight, y/n,” he said, and now that you were only inches from his face, you could clearly see the blush, and notice the way his fingers tapped in a jittery pattern against the steering wheel. Your shyness somehow caught up with you and you pulled away abruptly and turned again to the door with a mumbled, “night,” or so you hoped. You couldn’t be for sure, as your head was reeling.

You were right at the door when you heard a voice in your head tell you to shoot your shot. Oddly it sounded a lot like Yoongi’s voice, which made you giggle and bite your lip as you turned. The view was one of a nervous Yoongi looking like he was internally berating himself, and you were pretty certain you had never seen anything cuter in your life. So before you had time to second guess yourself, you turned your whole body toward this perfect, wonderful man…

And kissed him.

Not like he had kissed you. No. That was rushed as though you would never get another chance. Full of uncertainty and nervousness.

No, you kissed him so tenderly and gently that he could not misinterpret your intentions.

Your mouth caressed his and he returned in kind as his arms left the steering wheel to latch onto either side of your head, fingers buried in your hair. You opened your mouth as invitation and he didn’t hesitate as his tongue found yours in a dance of equal energy. You found yourself gasping, and your wet fingers found either side of his hoodie to pull him closer. You wanted to be sure he knew exactly how you felt about him.

Suddenly a low deep moan escaped his mouth and you realized where you were. In his car, 10:30pm the night before a test, drenched and probably getting sick from the rain, with your dream man’s tongue down your throat. This could easily become something else, but you still had a friendship to redeem and a test to ace. Giving Yoongi the biggest smile you were capable of, you pulled away. His face was lit up, like it so rarely was, with so many emotions and you knew this would not be the last time you’d find yourself lip locked in his car.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” you said softly as you rubbed your nose against his cute one.

“Anytime,” he said with a half grin, showing his teeth.

You turned again to reach for the handle and this time he let you. By now the rain had stopped and you marveled at how you hadn’t even noticed. You pulled the door wide and felt a shiver run over your wet clothes and you grabbed your bag and exited. 

Before the door closed though, Yoongi called your name.

“Can I call you tomorrow?” he was asking as he leaned against the center consul to get a good look at you from under his hair.

You smiled and laughed as you walked backward with your bag swinging in your hand.

“You better.”

You laughed at your absurdly flirtation response as you jogged up to your apartment and went in the main doors. From the other side you peeked out the window to get your last good look at Yoongi and he was leaning back in his seat looking like the cat who got the cream, and you figured you probably looked the same.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. You were glad yours was a cute cat eyed, gummy smiled, gorgeous boy.

[blackcoffeeandblankpagess]

Little moments from this week

-Have been waking up very very early (def need more sleep) but I love those quiet early hours. Also have been very into yoga. I did the yoga with adrienne 30 days in january and now I have made the jump for a runner’s love yoga sub and have no regrets. Been really into yin lately it feels so good

-the sun is such a rarety in OR at this time of year and every time it peaks out it brings me so much joy!! Forecast for this week is looking promising

-turkeys! There were SO many turkeys in our berkeley neighborhood and it made my day to run (literally) into these dudes yesterday

-dinner this week was a 10 min fix that looked/tasted much more impressive, I used a quick ramen packet and air fried some trader joe’s gyoza to add on top. also threw some miso and kale in the ramen and topped with spring onions 😍

-flowers are blooming!!! I’m almost always running before sunrise so today when I ran in the daylight I was like wait what when did spring get here

-did my long(ish) run today instead of sunday because I am moving this weekend! (Tg) my mom is flying out to help me, not ideal obvi by pandemic standards but I literally could not handle it alone mid semester and I’m moving for legit reasons not just for the hell of it so ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Regardless I am v v excited to see my mom

-ran (literally) into a friend on my run and stopped to talk to him for 15 mins which was sooo nice (masked at a distance ofc)

-realizing that I need to prioritize taking care of myself. I worked like a maniac all week so that I could afford to spend the time moving this weekend but it was stressful. last night I called one of my profs (we are close) and asked if I could push a deadline back a day and she was so accomodating

-also other example^ did my 10 mile run midday today and had plans to finish up some crim reading after before heading to the airport...welp my stomach was NOT happy with my run and I spent the first hour after it just trying not to vom. Finally managed to get toast in me and my late afternoon instead looks like me curled up in bed with the bachelor instead of slamming out more work on top of the 4 hours I did this am from 5-9. life happens!

So so so so excited to move. So so so so so SO excited to see my mom. And to eat good pizza for dinner. 🥰🍕✨

[elatedmarvel]

All Tied Up

Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Steve Rogers comes to your rescue.

Work Count: 2k

A/N: Hello! Long time no chat! This was written for @wkemeup​‘s 4k follower celebration! Thank you for hosting this Kas! It was so much fun to write! If you have yet to check her out, go do it! Her stories are always soooooooooo emotional and good. Literally one of the best writers ever! My prompt was “ “Can you stop fidgeting? I’m trying to untie you.”. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: hints of sex, talks of having children (in the future)

“Agent, what’s your status?” Steve whispers into his comm, somehow, it still sounds loud and echoes down the hallway.  

He stands in the shadows, trying to hide his giant frame, his eyes flicker to a new location every few seconds. He can’t risk getting caught, especially since he lost communication with you. 

You had told him you were going to acquire the target, and slinked off into the shadows before he could tell you it was a bad idea. Now, here he stands, worried they had captured you. 

Not that you couldn’t handle yourself. It had been a beautiful sight the day you brought Bucky Barnes to his knees when sparring. He swears he saw a few tears in Bucky’s eyes, which of course he vehemently denied. 

Hell, you’ve even taken him down. But usually, you would just bat your eyelashes at him and kiss him till he saw stars before claiming your victory. He doesn’t mind though, getting to kiss you was his consolation prize. 

The comm floods with static noise when he checks it again, never a good sign. Sighing in frustration, he checks his watch. It reads 2:30 PM, 10 minutes past when you said you would check in. 

His gut tells him something is wrong, and it is rarely wrong. Except maybe the one time he had convinced you to eat 4 day old pizza that had been sitting on the island in the common kitchen. He’ll never forget the hours you spent throwing up, crying in a ball, and cursing his name. You still cringe a bit whenever the team orders pizza. 

Sighing and resigned to his fate, he moves as quietly as possible down the hall. He can hear the targets chattering in the next room, noisy for people that were supposed to be discreet, but he hardly blames them, they were able to secure an Avenger. Slowly, he peaks around the corner, trying to hold his breath.

All four hostiles were in the room, too occupied by their tablets to notice him. 2 of them sat with their backs to the open door, the other 2 were huddled in the corner laughing about something or other. Scanning the room, he feels hope blooming in his chest when he doesn’t find you among them.

The common space is the only other place you could be. Tiptoeing across the open doorway, he pauses on the opposite side of the door. The noise is the same, no indication that they heard or saw him pass by. Hoping his luck holds out, he maneuvers almost silently down the rest of the corridor.   

Stepping into the room, he finds you exactly how he thought he would. Hands tied behind your back, legs and torso tied to the chair. Duct tape covers your mouth, and your eyes glower in a deadly manner. It would be almost cute if you weren’t in the middle of a mission. 

“Mmmmm, hmmmm” you hum as you see Steve in the doorway. Your body starts to wriggle about, and Steve is pretty sure you’re gonna knock yourself over if you continue moving with as much vigor as you do.

“Shh, be quiet, you’re gonna give us away with all that noise.” he scolds as he walks closer. He won’t admit it, but he takes great pleasure seeing you struggle against the restraints. And not just because he tries to get you to go to escape training seminars. He bet’s you’ll go with him now. It’s actually an impressive set up, better than he would have expected from the enemy. 

“I’m gonna take off the duct tape, but you have to promise me not to yell.” The cold look you give him makes him chuckle under his breath. You were always so fiesty, one of his favorite pastimes was riling you up. 

The chair starts to scrape against the floor with your thrashing. Finally, he takes pity on you and gently peels the duct tape from your mouth.

“Motherfucker! That hurt!” you whisper yell. He rolls his eyes at that, he knows for a fact that the duct tape was mostly coming off anyways. You had a slobbered all over it, he’s pretty sure, in an attempt to break yourself free. You could never wait for someone else to rescue you, it takes a few seconds to remember the last time you needed help on a mission was. 

“You’ve been shot before.” he reminds you as he kneels down in front of you, quickly he releases your right foot. It almost kicks him in the face before he jerks out of the way in the last second. 

“Finally!” you shout, and wiggle the foot around. “My feet have been asleep for 10 mins now.” You stomp the foot on the ground now, trying to release the static feeling. 

“Maybe if you listened to me, you wouldn’t be in this position.” Steve says, smirking up at you as he unties your left foot. This time, your foot hits him square in the chest. 

“Shut up Rogers, you know you loved me tied up.” you wink. His cheeks feel warm and he thinks about things other than you naked and tied to the headboard of your shared bed. The thought of Bucky and Sam’s last attempt in the kitchen takes care of his problem. 

Clearing his throat, he slides on his knees behind the chair. Both your hands were tied together and your torso was tied to the chair. Knowing you would jump free the moment your torso was free, he grabs your hands to work on the knot first. It would be a disaster if you went running around with your hands tied together, trying to take down the hostiles. 

The chair keeps moving with your excessive wiggling, making his hands slip from the surprisingly sturdy knot. If this wasn’t time sensitive, he would have let you struggle a while longer, just to see how long it would take you to get yourself out of the mess. 

“Can you stop fidgeting? I’m trying to untie you.” Steve reprimands and gives a slight tug on your restraints. 

You stick your tongue out, but realize he can’t see it from behind you. Instead, a middle finger on both hands proudly stands out from behind your back. A smirk finds its way onto his face as he sees them and swats the fingers away. 

“Be nice.” he breathes close to your ear, tugging one last time to get your hands free. The shiver that ran down your spine as you remember when those exact words were last said. With him on top of you as he kisses every part of your body. Sweaty body on sweaty body, moving together towards the grand release. You reprimand yourself in your head, you promised yourself you wouldn't turn into someone that daydreamed about her boyfriend over everything else. Mission now, sex later.  

“I’m always nice.” you reply, struggling out of the torso restraints harder now that Steve has untied your hands. The sound of disbelief escapes him before he can trap it, many examples come to mind, almost making him laugh if he wasn’t trying to be discreet and quiet.

Your breath gets knocked out of you for a second as you accidentally choke yourself trying to get free. With a small “hum”, you finally fall complacent and let Steve work on the final knot in peace. 

A minute, maybe two passes by before you feel the ropes slack. The moment you do, you jump up, giving a victorious cry and shove the chair back with your knees. Steve gets up in the exact moment, and misses catching the chair by a millisecond. 

Blue eyes meet your wild, shocked ones as the sound echoes throughout the hallways. He can hear the moment the rascals register what the sound was, as they frantically run out of the room. 

With nowhere left to run, Steve shifts slightly in front of you, preparing himself for the battle he knows is to come. 

“No!” they scream as they stampede into the common room. 

“We tied you up so good!” Morgan Stark yells, running at full speed straight into Steve’s arms. 

“We even used the heavy duty rope we found in Uncle Tony’s lab.” Lila Barton states as she jumps and climbs up Steve’s legs. With both girls in Steve’s arms, they start talking a minute a mile about how they need to change the tactic next time. 

Nathaniel rubs his eyes sleepily as he walks into the room, almost an exact replica of Clint after a long mission, and holds out his arms, silently begging to be picked up. You take pity on the young boy and swipe him into your arms, holding him almost like you would a newborn baby. 

You both giggle a moment, before you right him in your arms and he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck. You’ll ignore the drool on your shirt for now.

Only Cooper Barton seems to care about the scene of the crime, and gathers up the rope that limply lays on the ground. 

He takes a handful of rope in both hands and tugs for a moment. Steve swears he murmurs something about using vibranium handcuffs next time. He’ll make an excellent agent one day. 

“So, what do we get for winning? Ice cream?” Morgan asks with a sly smile on her face, gaining Steve’s and your attention. The exact look was copied straight from one Tony Stark, and it shocks Steve just how much she looks like the billionaire. 

Lila nods furiously next to her, and both the boys hum in agreement. 

“Technically, I freed myself. So you didn’t win.” you counter. Steve snorts at your comment, and you stick you tongue out at him. 

“Right, the knots magically slipped away. Not like I had anything to do with it” he counters. The girls giggle, and you shoot them your best mean face. 

“You’re on my team, and my boyfriend so that’s allowed.” you explain, slightly swaying side to side with a sleepy Nathaniel. You hope if you sway enough, he’ll fall asleep and that’ll be one less kid hyped up on sugar running around. 

“I think we earned the ice cream by simply being able to capture you and tie you up.” Cooper bargains, a huge grin on his face. The girls nod furiously at the statement, and even Nathaniel gives a weak noise of approval.

You lock eyes with Steve once more, you were both pretty sure this was how it was going to end anyways, but you always wanted to be on the same page as him. He nods slightly, and his lips curl up so minutely, you wouldn’t have caught it if you hadn't spent hours staring at his beautiful face.   

“Fine, but only one scoop.” you finally give in. 

The resounding scream of happiness they give out nearly deafens you. The girls scramble down from Steve’s arms, desperate to get to the kitchen. Even Nathaniel perks up from your arms, and wiggles his way down. Taking his brother’s hand, they follow the girls to reap their prize. 

“I can’t believe they actually managed to tie you down, we were supposed to be babysitting them.” Steve chuckles as he swings an arm around your shoulder and leads you to the kitchen.

“In my defense, you can’t kick and punch wards in your charge, so I let them.” you say and give his butt a pinch. 

He jolts away from you momentarily before laughing and spinning you in front of him. Lips drawn to yours, he kisses you slow and happy before moving away and pecking other parts of your face. 

“Stop,” you laugh, “you’re getting your spit on me.”

“You’ve never complained before.” he smirks at you, and laughs when your cheeks grow warmer. Giving you one last kiss, he takes your hand and drags you to the kitchen. 

It’s hard for his mind not to wonder what it would be like if this wasn’t babysitting. If this was really his everyday life, kids and a wonderful kick ass wife to share his days with. 

Would the kid have his eyes and your face? Maybe the serum would counteract the sickly boy he once was. He knows for certain that if he had one kid, he would want another. Being an only child, Bucky was his only savior for boredom and love after his mom passed away. 

As if you could read his mind, you rub your thumb across the back of his hand, catching his attention. 

“I’m glad Clint and Tony asked us to babysit, good practice for when we have some.” you smile at him. His heart races when he sees the excitement in his eyes. That’s just how you were, you complimented him perfectly. 

“Yeah?” he asks, elation growing in his body the more he thinks about his future with you.

“Yeah” you nod. Smile growing as wide as your face.

Steve leans in slowly, eyes still alight with joy and takes your face in his massive hands. The breath in your body leaves you for a moment, seeing the happiness in Steve Rogers is all you ever wanted. Having a front row seat was sometimes too much. 

Before your lips can touch, a shatter rings from the kitchen, shortly followed by a scream. A laugh leaves his mouth as he pulls you in for a hug and a kiss on the forehead. 

“I didn’t do it!” little voices yell, and it makes the both of you chuckle even more. 

You bury your head into his chest as he yells out that you are both coming and to stay where they are.

“We probably need more practice though before we have our own.” you say as you look up at him. 

“Ours will be more well behaved than that right?” he asks back, unfolding you from his arms and walking towards the kitchen.

“Sure, keep telling yourself that.” you laugh.

The second crash and screams makes you both lightly job towards the commotion. 

As he watches you calm down a crying Nathaniel and Lila while mopping up the spilled ice cream, his heart feels so full it could burst.

He can’t wait to share in the chaos of life with you.

~~~~

Thank you so much for reading! Always open to comments and feedback!

[coreastories]

Pieces of Paper

By the time “not today” became “today,” the two of them already had it settled between them. They just needed to do the paperwork.

And then it was just a matter of asking the question again, and giving the unassailable answer again.

Part 10 of Days and Nights of Forever (AO3 for kudos/download) 

Follows The Clock

Connects to That Situation

Harks back to The Thirteenth Rule

Made Me Forget Dinner

“Thank you so much for your help.” Tae-Eul placed the box of files on Kang Shin-jae’s coffee table and stood up. That was this case done. She was glad it was over for so many reasons. 

“No, I’m the one who should thank you.” Kang Shin-jae stood up and shook hands with all four of them, leaving her hand last. “I appreciate all your effort on this. You were excellent.” 

“Thank you.” Tae-Eul smiled slightly. This Kang Shin-jae certainly improved on better acquaintance. 

“Maybe we can have dinner?” 

“She’s taken.”

“Jangmi!”

“Well, you are, sunbae. You go to him every weekend.”

Tae-Eul rolled her eyes. Before she could say anything else, Kang Shin-jae said, “Ahh, I was asking all of you, not Lieutenant Jeong. My treat.” 

Tae-Eul thumped Jangmi on the back when she saw him raise his eyebrows and smirk and open his mouth as if to challenge Kang Shin-jae. She said, “That’s awesome. Weren’t you saying you’re hungry, Jangmi?” 

She turned to Kang Shin-jae and gave a courteous dip of her chin. “Thanks again. I’ll have to pass on the dinner. I have to eat with my dad.” 

She sighed in relief once she stepped out of the building and onto the street again. She was done with the case. The murderer was behind bars and she and her team had every loose end tied up so tight he wouldn’t slither out of this even with a very good slimy lawyer at the trial. She was free to do what she’d been meaning to do.  

On the way to the station, she weighed everything again in her head. She waited for some noise, some static, some confusion, but nothing came. Everything remained clear. And… quiet. Like when she knew that a case was resolved. There were no more details clamoring for attention, waving at her from the sides and corners like annoying little gnats. 

When she knew a case was finally done, everything just fell into their proper places. This felt like that. She felt it in her gut and she heard it in the peace in her head. 

Her heart was a different story. 

Her heart was beating like mad but that was normal, wasn’t it, when you were contemplating marrying the one you loved? 

Her heart drumming was almost like a constant these days. If she didn’t know better she would have gone to the doctor. 

Even during her catnaps, she always woke up with her heart drumming. She dreamed of a crescent moon. A moon like a sickle in the sky. Nothing that should have sent her heart racing, but it did. 

When she wasn’t dreaming of that crescent moon, she dreamed of rain. Heavy, but peaceful rain. It came straight down, with no wind to scatter the raindrops. It was the kind of rain you loved to listen to when you were snug under a blanket in your bedroom. 

And always, just when that rain was lulling her to deeper peace, her dream would shift to show a spider building a web over a precipice between two rocks. Right under that rain. 

But the rain seemed to do nothing to the web the spider was painstakingly building, except for decorating it with raindrops, sparkling like diamonds in the weak light.

Then she’d wake up with her heart going a mile a minute. 

She’d asked Na-ri about it and Na-ri had said she’d look it up. Apparently, dreams were messages from your subconscious, from your present circumstances, and they were even more accurate than palm reading and its nebulous predictions. 

Tae-Eul had no idea how a crescent moon, rain, and a spider building a web connected to her current decisions, but she hoped they meant good things, especially with Chief Park making that long-suffering face at her. 

“But why? You know I just automatically mark you eligible for rehire no matter how much headache you give me! And what about your pension? You’ll lose that. Ah-- I’ll have to fight to get you your unpaid OT and sick leave and vacation leave. Your benefits-- you lose that, too. Are you serious? Why are you doing this? What happened? I thought your case was done-- I thought you were happy?”

Tae-Eul winced sympathetically. “I’m sorry for how sudden this is. I’m aware that I’ll lose my pension. Don’t worry about that, Chief Park. You don’t have to push for my unpaid stuff either.” She nodded with conviction. “And yes, I’m done with the case, Chief. No dereliction of duty. No failure to intervene. It’s all good timing, see? I'm not leaving you with any headache at all."

Chief Park’s mouth was gaping now. He closed it. Then opened it again. Then closed it again. He ran a hand over his face. “You’re really serious about this?”

“I am.”

“Wha-- where are you going? Are you transferring? You don’t have to resign to transfer. I can arrange things for you-- It will be a pain in the neck but--”

“No, Chief Park, I’m not transferring. I just need to resign.” 

“What about your dad? He’s your beneficiary, isn’t he-- Are you sick? Is that why you’re resigning? Because you know we can--”

“He’s fine. I’ll take care of him. And I’m not sick. Thank you for worrying about me. Come on, Chief. This is my last request to you. Please accept my resignation.”

Chief Park groaned. He sat back on his chair and grimaced at her for a minute before he finally nodded and flapped his hand at Tae-Eul and his desk. He stamped her resignation letter and placed it on his out-tray. Then he looked at Tae-Eul expectantly. 

Tae-Eul placed her ID card on the desk. Her side-arm followed. That was it. 

That was all it took. She was no longer a detective. No longer a lieutenant. 

Chief Park was peering up at her. “How do you feel? Getting any second thoughts? We can just forget this piece of paper, you know.” 

Tae-Eul smiled. She shook her head. “No. I feel fine.” 

She cried in her car. 

The sobs were soft, too soft to even shake her shoulders, but they were still a complete contrast to the peace she’d felt before she’d turned in her ID. She’d wanted to be a cop all throughout her childhood. And she had been a cop for most of her adult life. She was either training for it, or doing it. It was a job but it was also simply her. Part of her. 

And now what? 

Just like that, she was calm again. 

She knew exactly what next. She smiled through her last tears and drove away. 

----------------------------------------------------------

“He’s in Jeongno now. He transferred there.”

“Well, that makes things convenient. Let’s just use Jeongno then.” 

“Use Jeongno for what, Pyeha?” Yeong asked. 

Gon smiled. “I’m fixing that situation we talked about.”

Gon saw Yeong take a deep breath, then his friend made that slight nod that meant he approved. Gon grinned. To Yeong, anything was probably better than Gon disappearing and reappearing with a woman he and the Royal Guard had to hide. 

“Can you come with me? I’m going to Jeongno. Keep it quiet, but not too quiet.”

“What else do you need done, Pyeha?”

Gon clapped him on the back. “Nothing. I need to do this myself.”

Two hours later, Gon wondered if he should have taken up Yeong on his offer. He had to fight his discomfiture and remind himself Kang Hyeon-min didn’t know him. Didn’t know Tae-Eul. Didn’t know that Gon owed him eternal thanks for his part in Gon’s past and present. 

It was just-- Kang Hyeon-min was too much like the ‘Kang Shin-jae’ Gon had known. It was uncanny. He still looked sullen. He still looked like he didn’t think Gon deserved anything. Even as king. 

Kang Hyeon-min stood there and glowered a little and looked for all the world as if this small office in Jongno Police Station was his palace and Gon was an annoying subject. 

“Let me get this straight, Your Majesty,” Kang Hyeon-min said. “This woman is an undercover agent and you want us-- at Jongno-- to recognize her as one of us?”

Chief Park groaned. “Why did you have to repeat His Majesty? Of course we’ll do as you order, Pyeha. You didn’t even need to see us. I’m sorry you took the trouble.” 

Gon didn’t smile. He felt like Kang Hyeon-min would lose what little respect he had if Gon gave ground with something as innocuous as a smile. So with all the gravity he possessed, Gon said, “This is not an order, but a request. I know that it may sound like I didn't need to ambush your time today at all, but I did. The lady is very special to me personally, and she has done this country an immense service. You won’t have to lie to anyone. The Royal Public Affairs Office will take care of information and it will be understood that you can’t talk about it much. 

“However, I do request that you speak of her kindly, as if you really knew her. It will be assumed she belongs to a top-secret organization, but being with Jongno adds dimension to her cover. My presence here today also adds another element of truth to her connection with me, and to you.” 

Chief Park opened his mouth, probably for more obsequious assurance, but Kang Hyeon-min beat him to it. “What’s her name, Your Majesty?” 

“Jeong Tae-Eul.” And with his eyes locked on Kang Hyeon-min’s, he overturned and slid Tae-Eul’s official ID photo across the desk to show both men, along with the certificate that attested Jeong Tae-Eul had been employed by the Corean National Police Agency under the Ministry of Interior and Safety, from 2011 to 2020. 

As Gon expected, Kang Hyeon-min flinched. 

Gon said quietly, “You recognize her face, don’t you?” 

Chief Park said, “What? You know her?”

Kang Hyeon-min said without inflection, “She was with me in Haeundae. She’s in New Zealand Interpol now. Her name’s Koo Seo-gyeong.”

Gon nodded. He tapped a finger on Tae-Eul’s photo. “This is Jeong Tae-Eul. It’s either a doppelganger case of two people looking so alike-- a 1 in trillion chance-- or Koo Seo-gyeong and Jeong Tae-Eul are related. We’ll settle this as soon as possible. But for now, I want to impress on you that Jeong Tae-eul’s safety depends on your agreement to my request. I may still have enemies. They will target her. I will protect her. And one of those protections is your agreement that she worked in Jongno-gu.” 

To Gon’s surprise, Kang Hyeon-min nodded immediately. 

Or perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised. Kang Hyeon-min looked a little more sullen now, but the earlier belligerence was gone. He was looking at the photo, and Gon had this inescapable recognition that Kang Hyeon-min wanted Tae-Eul safe, if only because she bore the same face as Koo Seo-gyeong. 

“Don’t worry,” Kang Hyeon-min said, now looking Gon in the eye. “We’ll take care of things. But I have a condition.”

“Name it.”

“Come to New Zealand when I ask for you.”

Gon blinked. That was unexpected. He’d thought Kang Hyeon-min was going to demand to be privy to more information, or perhaps to be sent to New Zealand. “Of course.” 

Gon stood up, and he felt much lighter than when he came here. He looked at Kang Hyeon-min and realized he felt the same as when ‘Kang Shin-Jae’ had decided to help him and Yeong. 

He felt like he would win. 

It was all too simple, really. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tae-Eul sat with Na-ri in the yard, both of them soaking as much of the summer sun as they could before today’s rain rolled in. Afternoons had been consistently rainy so far. Tae-Eul wondered if that had anything to do with her dream. 

“Did you look up my dreams yet?” she asked Na-ri. 

“Oh I keep forgetting, sorry. I’ll do it right now.” 

She laid a hand on Na-ri’s to stop her from digging into her apron pocket for her phone. “Don’t bother. I don’t really want to know. It could be weird.” 

Na-ri took that opportunity to grab Tae-Eul’s hand and hold it tight. “Let me look at your palm then. It could be good!”

Tae-Eul gave up on pulling back her hand. To her surprise and confusion, Na-ri was looking at the side of her palm, not all the lines in the center. 

“What is it?”

“I’m looking at your marriage lines.”

“Marriage lines?”

“These lines here.” Na-ri pointed to the spot of skin under Tae-Eul’s little finger. “And it’s… it’s awesome. Look at this fork. This means true love. And it’s running parallel to the heart line. That means happiness and success. These lines are also really deep. You have an intense relationship.” Na-ri grinned. “Is that TMI about you and Gon?” 

Tae-Eul scrunched her nose and pulled her hand away. She tried not to smile, so she wrapped her lips around the large straw of her chocolate cereal milk tea. 

Na-ri and Eun-sup had met Gon, of course. They lived right there in the same building as her dad. As far as all three of them knew, Gon worked for the government in a confidential capacity, and the less who knew him, the better. It explained Gon’s mysteriousness, and why he and Tae-Eul could only meet on weekends. 

WIth Eun-sup on a fast-track to the NIS, it wasn’t difficult for them to accept Gon and his story. Na-ri liked Gon, and was as impressed with him this time around as she had been before. 

“So what did you tell them?” Na-ri asked. 

“I just said I wanted to resign. I didn’t tell them anything else. Can you imagine? They would have ruined our goodbye lunch and told me I’m being stupid and I can marry without resigning. Then they would have bugged me about meeting Gon again.”

“You’re not being stupid. As long as you’re sure.” 

Tae-Eul smiled. Na-ri had a knack of picking up on the heart of the matter. “That’s what my dad said. He just asked if I was sure. It was almost anticlimactic the way he didn’t react. I wonder if Gon talked to him before. And I really am sure. You’ve just seen my marriage lines, haven’t you?” 

Na-ri just looked steadily at her despite her joke. “You’re giving up a lot for him.”

Tae-Eul had always loved the way she and Na-ri meshed in their straightforwardness, but she loved Na-ri most at that moment. Heart of the matter. She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t really feel like that. It’s more like I’m meeting him halfway.” 

“This is halfway? What is he giving up?”

Tae-Eul looked at Na-ri and hoped Na-ri saw the certainty in her eyes. “He can’t just give it up. That’s why he can’t ask me to give up anything either. And I’ve told him not to ask me. So he won’t. So I’m meeting him halfway now. That’s what I meant.”

Na-ri seemed to soften at that. “You’ve chosen well anyway. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Don’t be so sure he can’t give up things for you. I think that man would cross the universe for you. And I have this certainty you two have gone through much more than you’ve told me. That’s why I’m so calm about all this.” 

Tae-Eul blinked her eyes to stop the tears that rose there and just smiled fondly at her friend. “When are you ever not calm?” 

Na-ri sat back on her chair and fished out her phone. They sat companionably in silence. They weren’t gabby friends. They said what mattered and then they quieted until someone had something to say again. 

And what Na-ri said next would stay with Tae-Eul for a long time. 

“I don’t think I’m getting reliable results on the crescent moon. The moon makes everyone in the occult batty. But rain means sadness. Purification. Cleansing. I suppose that’s understandable.” 

They looked at each other and Tae-Eul nodded. Of course. That made sense. 

“A spider building a web means constructing your destiny. You’re making a new reality through your decisions. Again, perfectly understandable.” 

Tae-Eul swiped the tear that escaped her left eye and said, “Wow.” 

Na-ri nodded this time. “I told you dreams are accurate. Don’t cry. You’re going to be happy. I trust your choices. You trust it, too.”

Tae-Eul pressed her fingertips against her lips and fought back a hysterical half-sob, half-laugh. Na-ri thought the only reality changing was that Tae-Eul was no longer a cop. 

God. Her subconscious knew better and was already looking ahead. 

She did trust her choices.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gon looked between Lady Noh and Secretary Mo, the two women he trusted most, next to Tae-Eul. “This is truly all I need?”

They were in his office at Gwangyeongjon, and the two women stood on either side of his desk, each having set down a document on the surface: one was a traditional silk scroll, the other a modern A4 cardstock. 

“Yes, Pyeha,” Secretary Mo said. “No one has any say at all. It’s only between you and… the future queen.”

“Your parents married in church,” Lady Noh said. “You know that. But even then, it was very private. You can get married there, or here, or another church. Anywhere you want.” 

Gon smiled at them both. He loved Lady Noh when she spoke with that nodding emphasis. 

“It’s not up to me. It’s up to--It’s up to the future queen.” His chest clenched when he said that. He sighed and bit his lip to control the grin. It probably looked undignified, especially with the documents in front of him. 

He laid a hand on the silk scroll, carefully inked the calligraphy brush, and wrote his name and Tae-Eul’s onto the scroll in Hangul and in Hanja. 

When he was done, he smiled at Lady Noh. “Please arrange for my Entreaty ceremony. I will bow down to my ancestors and request their blessing.” 

Lady Noh nodded and picked up the scroll. Gon knew she would burn it with sage and cedarwood. He wondered if he should take a photo of the scroll to show Tae-Eul, but dismissed the thought immediately. Tae-Eul might just get… intimidated by this ritual. Creeped out. Creeped out was the right term. He smiled at the thought. 

He turned to Secretary Mo and handed back the simple A4 cardstock, ignoring the mix of Hanja and Hangul across it for now, because the words were too beautiful, and a little too far away just now when he didn’t even know when he and Tae-Eul would sign it. “Please keep this for now. I know you probably already have it in triplicate.”

“Of course, Pyeha. And may I congratulate you?” 

He echoed the words that he could still hear like a song stuck in his head. “Not today. But soon.” 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So it was that when they arrived back in Corea that weekend-- the manpasikjeok had really stopped sending them elsewhere and elsewhen-- everything was in readiness. 

They both knew it somehow, even though they didn’t speak of it. It was there in their smiles as they kissed and made love. And then they just lay in bed basking happily in being together, skin to skin, their hearts beating in sync, nothing between them, and yet everything within their arms as they held each other. 

He smiled at her with half-lidded eyes and asked the question he always asked. 

“Will you be my queen?”

Tae-Eul smiled back. Smiled with all the affection and conviction she had for this man, and gave the answer she hadn’t realized she’d always wanted to give. 

“Yes.”

Gon drew breath and held it. Then he exhaled and grinned as if nothing monumental had happened, but his hand shook a little as he lifted it to cup her cheek. 

“Will it make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“What about your job?”

She placed her hand over his, her fingers sinking into the spaces between his. “My job is still my job. If I ever decide to get back to it. I want you. I want a family. The fourteenth rule is not asking me about my job. My last one or the one I’m about to have. I can handle it.”

He kissed her. It was what they did when there was too much to say, or nothing to say, really. She already knew he loved her. And with this new sacred gift she’d given him, he was trembling with how much she loved him. So he kissed her until his hand stopped shaking. 

“What about your dad?”

“Still my dad. We’ll visit.” 

They kissed again. There were tears that escaped her eyelids and he brushed them away tenderly. 

She tucked her face against his neck and whispered, “What about Koo Seo-gyeong?”

“Still Koo Seo-gyeong. She’s in New Zealand. And apparently, we’ll visit.” 

“We will?”

“We will.” 

“So everything’s done?” 

“Well, no. Unless you want to get married by proxy?”

“No!”

They laughed.

“Can you say yes again for me, to erase that ‘No’ you just shouted? That could be bad luck.”

“I didn’t shout. What will I say yes to?”

“Staying with me. Living with me. Tirelessly. Because it might get exhausting. I’m asking you again not to get exhausted.”

She smiled as if nothing monumental was happening, but her hand shook a little as she moved their joined hands from her cheek to her neck, where the necklace he gave her lay nestled. His eyes moved from hers to the necklace and back, and she smiled at the understanding in his gaze. 

Then she placed her other hand against his neck, to stroke his skin with her fingers, to brush her thumb against that dimple on his smiling cheek. Her smile turned into an outright grin. She was going to see that dimple every day of her life. 

“Yes.”