#<- adding repeating tags feels SO wrong lmao

[c0dyc0la]

i think fugo's favourite pony would be fluttershy

[fairysluna]

NOT THE BEST IDEA — Modern!AU | Part 3

MASTERLIST | Part 1 ; Part 2 ; Part 3 ; Part 4

Pairing: Cregan Stark x Fem!Reader x Aemond Targaryen.

Summary: the aftermath of the fight is making you feel like your old self again. Cregan noticed something is wrong and decides to do something to cheer you up, however things don't go as planned as an unwanted guest arrives.

Tags/TW: angst, smut (p in v, kinda public sex bc they are in open space) and fluff, mentions of panic attacks, emotional instability and emotional attachment, manipulation, aegon being oblivious but cute.

Author's Note: not gonna lie, I did struggle writing this part bc my mind wasn't working lmao, but I hope you like this either way. big credits to the anons who sent their ideas !! I didn't proof read it so, sorry if there's mistakes

Word Count: 6.4k

Tag List: @immyowndefender @bellameshipper @mysticgothicgirl @aemondswifeisme @issshhh @serrhaewin @loglady00 @melsunshine @izzy-the-ginger @champomiel @iiamthehybrid @ghostheartbeat

Feedback, shares and comments are always welcome!!

Cregan hissed when he felt the little piece of cotton brushing against the cut on his cheekbone. You tried your best to clean the wound, getting rid of the dried blood while your mind was so lost in your thoughts that you barely heard him complaining about the slight pain he felt with each touch.

Your mind was now a mess, and it was quite hard to hide that aspect from Cregan, who was carefully looking at your lost eyes, knowing that you were drowning in your own thoughts and knowing that you were replaying the prior scene over and over again. It was quite impossible for him to wonder whether your feelings towards him have changed now that you saw Aemond after a long time, his own insecurities and your reactions towards the situation made him doubt himself.

He tried not to think about it, but you were so quiet, so lost in the memories that once tormented you. Cregan tried to give you space for you to talk first and whenever you felt comfortable enough to do it, but the anxiety was eating him alive, taking the best of him. After a while, the silence was starting to bother him, it managed to feel too loud inside his head.

Once he finally decided to speak, his voice came out as dubious and insecure, a bit lower than he expected, "How are you feeling?"

His question seemed to have woken you up from the trance you were in, because your lost stare suddenly moved away from his wound to reach his eyes. You looked down at him with a small, tiny smile that flickered and trembled, showing your restlessness quite clearly.

"I should be the one asking that," you joked, trying to make you feel like yourself again, and not as a wandering body with a lost mind.

However, your words did not seem to amuse Cregan, who remained serious as he spoke again,

"I'm talking about Aemond," he added. Your hands stopped their movements and your whole body went still. The tension in your shoulders was visible to the man in front of you, who immediately noticed the nervousness in your body language. "What are you feeling about Aemond now?" He asked again.

"I'm feeling nothing, Cregan," you replied, without hesitation.

"It didn't seem like nothing a few seconds ago," he accused you, using an odd tone that you have never heard in him before, which made you feel uneasy, "were you thinking about him?"

You scoffed, "what? you're telling me you're jealous now?"

"He was staring at you the whole time!" He exclaimed, pointing it out as if it was obvious, "eating you with his eyes like a creep."

"That's nonsense," you scoffed, shaking your head.

"Nonsense?" he repeated, offended.

"Whatever happened between Aemond and me is in the past, I can assure you that," you tried to go back to what you were doing, but Cregan leaned back as a sign that the conversation was not over yet. You pressed your lips, starting to lose your patience, "he has a girlfriend, Cregan."

"Well, if he has a girlfriend I guess he was willing to cheat on her with you," he spoke mockingly, almost in a bitter tone, "he told me that with just a few minutes alone with you he will have you eating from the palm of his hand again."

The shock came over your body as you took a step back. Your eyes widened as your brows furrowed with confusion and bewilderment; you blinked a couple times, slowly shaking your head.

"What are you talking about?" you questioned incredulously.

"I told him to stop looking at you, to stop being so obsessed and creepy... and he beat me up because of it."

"We're talking about the man that a year ago made me have a mental breakdown because he did not love me back," you raised your voice, trying to convince him… and yourself, "why would he fight you over me when he was very clear when he told me he did not love me anymore?"

"He's jealous, y/n."

"It's been almost two years, Cregan," you sighed, "I'm sure Aemond has no feelings for me anymore."

"But do you have feelings for him?"

You scoffed, rolling your eyes, "now you're being stupid."

"Answer the question."

"Are you serious?" you asked surprised.

"Yes, I am serious," he stood up, and immediately you looked up at his face, "do you still have feelings for him?"

"Of course I don't!" You said loudly, as if raising your voice would make the words carve into his brain.

He took a small pause, as if he was thinking whether to say the next question or to just stay silent. The first option seemed to have won.

"Do you love me?"

His words made you tilt your head, as if he was asking something so obviously stupid that it didn't even need an answer. You saw how he regretted asking that in the same instant his words left his mouth; he blushed. You left the cotton and the pomade on the nightstand and cupped his face between your hands. You caressed his cheeks while you directly stared at his beautiful brown eyes, you stood on your tiptoes trying to reach his lips and leave a soft kiss on them. Cregan sighed, closing his eyes and burying his face on your neck.

"I love you." you whispered, stroking his hair as his arms wrapped around your waist. "Aemond is my past now, I promise you that."

"I know, I'm sorry. I was stupid," he muttered against you, holding you close, "I love you too."

You sighed, stroking his thick brown hair as he caressed your waist. You could feel the insecurity in his voice which made you feel guilty, thinking that there might have been some reaction that had given him the impression of you still having feelings for Aemond. And that wasn't the truth at all.

Right?

As you have told your boyfriend, Aemond was now long forgotten. However, it was a bit shocking for you to learn all the things that he had said to Cregan, and the reason why their fight started in the first place. You have thought everything had begun because of their past, thinking that Cregan may have said something that might upset him.

Aemond was a very patient person. He was collected and calm, always trying to avoid big problems. That's why it was a big surprise for everyone, including you, seeing him act so… feral. It was uncommon for him to react in that way. Perhaps he had troubles with his girlfriend and that caused him to be in a bad mood. Perhaps seeing Cregan after many years had affected him somehow. There must've been an explanation for his sudden and violent behavior, but him having feelings for you was not an option you would believe to be true.

Later that night, while Cregan was peacefully sleeping between your arms with his head on your chest and your hand on his hair, you started to do what you tried to avoid; you thought about Aemond. The questions and doubts in your mind resulted in a sleepless night in which you spent the darkest hours staring at the ceiling, hearing your boyfriend's calm breathing and soft snoring.

You did not understand it. When you saw him you were certain that you felt nothing for him, not even a small tinkle on your gut, but why are you still awake thinking about him now?

It was two in the morning when your phone started to vibrate. You frowned, curious to know who is calling you at this hour, and you stretched your arm to reach for it before the noise could wake up Cregan. You saw it was an unknown number, which you would usually ignore, but now you felt the need to pick up. So you did.

"Hello?" you answer in a whisper.

In the other line you could hear an uneven breathing that was a bit creepy, perhaps it was a sign that told you to hang up the phone, but you didn't. Instead, you eyed Cregan who was still soundly sleeping between your arms, you sighed.

"Hello?" you repeated, a bit louder this time.

No one answered again. You were about to hang up when you finally heard something. Although you wish you hadn't heard it at all.

"I miss you, y/n."

And then, the call ended. You froze, almost throwing your phone across the room due to the panic you felt. Your breathing became faster, and your heart was beating so fast you thought it would explode. You saw your phone, now showing a picture of you and Helaena in fourth grade as the hour showed up on the screen.

3.42 am.

You moved again, placing your phone back on the nightstand with a quick movement that managed to wake up Cregan. He blinked a couple times, yawning as he stretched his body, and looked at you with worry in his eyes.

"Are you okay, love?" his raspy voice reached your ears as a soft touch. It brought some peace to your endless turmoil.

You slightly nodded, trying to remain calm even though you were visibly shaking. Luckily for you, Cregan was too sleepy to notice it.

"Yes, I'm- I'm fine…" you whispered, "I just had a bad dream."

Gods, how you wish it was just that; a bad dream.

"Come here," he muttered, slowly shifting his position until he wrapped his arms around your frame, holding you close to his body, "I'm here, okay? Wake me up if you have another nightmare."

You rested your head on his chest, feeling his warmth surrounding your shaky body. He kissed your forehead before whispering a small 'I love yous' and falling asleep once again. It took you some time to close your eyes, still hearing that voice that you knew too well. Those four words that made you want to fade into the air.

Your body curled up against Cregan, hugging him tightly, trying to hold him close to you as if that would be enough to erase Aemond's voice from your mind; but it wasn't. The only thing on your mind were curses directed to that silver haired man that once ruined your life, and who seems eager to keep messing with you.

The next few days were a blur in your mind. Aemond once again managed to keep you away almost every night as your mind was so confused to the extent that you barely have been able to be intimate with Cregan.

Of course he would never pressure you to do anything, but you knew him, and you were able to see the disappointment whenever he would kiss your neck and you would stop him, coming up with some excuse that might not be completely convincing.

He thought you needed a break from everything, you were working too hard, and he knew this whole situation with Aemond had put you in a complicated situation that had brought a lot of stress in your life. That's why he spoke to Helaena and they both started to plan a surprise visit to the lake house of Helaena's parents over the weekend.

At first it would be only you and him, but Aegon was around when they planned this little vacation, and he insisted he wanted to go too. Cregan did not have the heart to deny him, and so he also invited Helaena. That's how a romantic escape turned into an excuse to drink.

When Cregan gave you the news you couldn't help but feel so bad; he has been trying to make you feel better while your mind was still being invaded by Aemond and that call. You accepted it without hesitation, feeling too guilty to even try and think about rejecting the idea.

Friday came and Cregan, Helaena and you were in his car, driving towards the destination. Aegon had left on Thursday night in his own car. The trip was fun enough to make you think about something else, Cregan's hand was caressing your thigh during the whole ride, squeezing it every now and then as you cheerfully spoke and laughed with Helaena. He would glance at you, glad to see you laugh and look better. Your smile gave him the sign that he was doing the right thing, that this was an excellent idea.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the Lake House. Cregan parked his car beside Aegon's and the three of you started to take your backpacks to the inside of the enormous house. Helaena called for Aegon, and you heard footsteps going down the stairs. All of you turned, expecting to see the eldest brother of Helaena, but it wasn’t him.

It was Aemond.

You and Cregan stood still in your places as the smug grin on Aemond’s face appeared, leaving a sour taste in your mouth. Your heart stopped for a second, your breathing became heavier and your mind felt dizzy and blurry. Seeing him, standing there in the middle of the stairs, in this house which once was the biggest witness of the love and desire you used to hold for each other; you felt as if you were about to faint.

Helaena immediately looked at your direction, looking paler than she usually is. Her hands covering her ears as a sign of distress, her eyes were wide and full of surprise. You felt Cregan’s hand grabbing your waist tightly, as if he was trying to keep you by his side as Aemond started to speak

"It's been a while since we haven't reunited in this house," he pointed out, "now, we bought some things to make pizza for lunch, who's hungry?"

A dead silence was present in the room. His boldness was so shamelessly showing that you could not simply believe this was actually happening. His mere presence was enough to make you feel the urge to cry, no out of sadness but out of rage. You hated him for what he was doing to you, you were raging; your face almost turning red.

The silence was interrupted when Aegon walked down the stairs wearing his swimsuit and his face white with sunscreen. He was smiling widely, happy to see you all but oblivious of the tension that was currently in the room.

"You finally are here!" he happily said up, hugging you first. Cregan barely let you go of his grip, keeping you close, "I brought Aemond too, I thought we should do this like the old times, remember?"

"Aegon…" Helaena whispered, shaking her head as a sign that told him that something was not right.

Aegon frowned, "why those serious faces? Did you two fight on the way here?" Those words seemed to have amused Aemond, who shamelessly smiled widely, "come on guys, don't be such a bummer, we need to leave our differences aside to cheer this pretty lady up!" He grabbed your hand and kissed it gently.

For the first time, Cregan acted jealous towards Aegon, pulling you closer to him in a subtle movement that only you noticed.

"Helaena, y/n, why don't you chop the vegetables while we prepare the dough for the-"

"Excuse me, I'll go to the room first," you interrupted him, walking towards the stairs and bravely walking past Aemond.

Your perfume left a trail that he breathed in, closing his eyes and enjoying your scent; so delicious, sweet, showing the innocence you once had when you first started your relationship with him. He took a deep breath and smiled slightly. Cregan soon followed you, and he purposely pushed Aemond's shoulder with his when he walked by his side.

Once you entered the room, you started to breath fast and unsteady, you tried to collect yourself before you had a panic attack that would certainly ruin everything. You were pacing back and forth around the room that was designated to you by Alicent the first time you came to the house when you were ten.

So many memories were flooding you, especially once you saw the bed, which was the same bed where Aemond took your virginity. You wanted to cry, to escape, everywhere you looked in that house was a memory of your disastrous relationship with him, you really wished to run away. Jumping out of the widow was not the best idea, and going back to the entrance either. You started crying once you felt the thick and comforting arms of your sweet boyfriend wrapping you as you looked out of the window.

He started to kiss your temple, holding you close as you silently wept.

"I'm so sorry, my love…" he whispered, "If I had known he was going to be here I wouldn't have brought you here."

You turned around, only to bury your face on his chest. He was quick to stroke your hair, swinging you softly from one side to another, soothing you and making you feel somehow safe.

"I won't let him get close to you, I swear it,” he promised you, “if I see him putting one hand in your body I'm going to break his bones." he cupped your face, wiping your tears with his thumbs as he kissed your forehead, "you're safe with me, you know that, right?"

You hiccuped, nodding.

"And you know I love you so, so much, right?" You sobbed.

Cregan smiled, his soft haze staring down at you with devotion and genuine love, "of course, my love… and I love you too."

He brushed his nose against yours, still caressing your wet cheeks when the door was open suddenly. Helaena walked in with her face filled with regret and angst. Your gaze softened and you slowly pulled away from Cregan.

"I'm so sorry, guys…" Helaena whined, "I didn't know he was coming, when I called Aegon this morning he didn't say anything, I'm truly sorry, Cregan… I'm sorry-"

"No need to apologize, Hel," he told her, "it's not your fault. It's Aegon's," he muttered, obviously pissed.

"No," you quickly said, "he doesn't know what happened between me and Aemond… no one knows, just you and Helaena."

"Well, what do we do now?" The blonde girl asked, "should we stay here?"

Cregan shrugged, "it's y/n’s decision. We can ignore him for the weekend or we can grab our stuff and just leave."

You looked at Helaena,

"What do you think?" you asked her.

"Do what you think it's best for you, no one will be mad at you for it."

Your pride took the best of you. Your logic was simple; if you leave now, it would mean that Aemond had managed to intimidate you, which was obviously his purpose. It would mean that his mission of ruining your romantic escapade with Cregan was successful.You would not give him the pleasure of it. The power of screwing and messing with you again.

Your decision was simple; you just shook your head.

“We’re staying.”

A few hours later, when you had already eaten a delicious pizza made by Aegon, you decided to go and spend some time in the pool. Aegon was sunbathing, with a bottle of beer on his hand; Helaena was sitting at the border of the pool, with her legs on the water, and Aemond was reading some book while he laid on the pool chairs.

You and Cregan came out of the house grabbing hands and laughing. Aemond rolled his eyes trying to focus on his reading, but your chuckles were too loud to ignore.

You sat on the chair that was further from Aemond, Cregan sat in front of you and his huge back was on display for you. You smiled slightly once you saw some scratches on it, and you couldn’t help but blush as you grabbed the sunscreen and started to spread a layer of it on Cregan’s back.

Aemond was looking at your direction with a bitter look that no one seemed to notice, not even you.

Your hands were rubbing on Cregan’s back so delicately that it made him hum on many occasions. You would occasionally lean forward just to leave soft kisses on his soft skin.

“The sunscreen burns,” he said between breathy chuckles.

“You have a lot of scratches on your back,” you replied, with a tone that came out as worried. You were not able to see his face, but you know there was a wide smirk on it.

He leaned back a little, enough to get closer to you, “don’t act so innocent, love, you know very well why they are there.”

Aemond was able to hear those words, and he just stood up from his chair, walking inside the house. You looked at him, following his steps until he disappeared from your sight. You rolled your eyes as you kept covering your boyfriend’s back with soft caresses and small kisses.

Aemond’s torment continued as you both kept giving each other public displays of attention. It never stopped, it seemed to him that you were doing all of this on purpose. His ego made him think that you were doing this to make him jealous.

You spent the day hanging from Cregan's arms, kissing him and hugging him at each opportunity you have. It was not something unusual between you two; Cregan knew how touch deprived you were in your past relationship, especially because Aemond never gave you any kind of affection when you were in public, just small hugs and soft pats on your back.

Cregan wanted to show you how loved you were by him, which is why he always makes sure to give you all the things that Aemond never provided you. And he wasn't going to lie; he loved how annoyed Aemond would look whenever he wraps his arms around you. Cregan knew you were his now, and he loved to show how happy you were to the man that once had made you miserable.

Now the night arrived, you were around a small bonfire in the backyard. Cregan was talking with Aegon while you were braiding Helaena's hair. Aemond was nowhere to be seen, but you preferred it that way.

In some part of the evening you walked back inside the house, towards the kitchen. You were looking for ice in the fridge when you felt a presence behind your back. At first you thought it was Cregan, but when you sensed that familiar scent, you realized it was actually Aemond.

You turned around almost instantly, and the rage you felt this morning came back to your body.

"What are you doing here?" you asked, moving away from him.

"This is my kitchen," he shrugged.

You tilted your head, "No, why are you here?"

"Aegon invited me."

"Stop this, Aemond, I'm serious," you spoke harshly.

"I don't know what you mean, love," he put extra emphasis in that last word.

It made you shrink in your own place, and a weird sensation was installed in your gut. You did not like the way he said that, you immediately knew he had double intentions, and that only made you even more scared.

Aemond used to have a lot of power over you, the idea of him regaining that power made you feel frightened.

"The call at 2 am?" You reminded him, "Your sudden appearance here? You're telling me it was all a coincidence?"

He looked down at you, smirking as he remained silent for a few seconds while he looked around the kitchen.

"Do you remember this kitchen?" He asked, completely ignoring your prior words, "Because I remember it… I remember how soft your skin felt, the way I had to kiss you because you were being so loud, remember?" With each word he stepped closer and closer to you, making you feel small, and weak. "It was right here… in this counter."

Your cheeks flushed with his words, and you forced yourself to look away.

"Whatever you're trying to do, stop it right now, Aemond."

"I made you mine in almost every room of this house," he said softly, lifting his hand to touch your cheek. You just froze and your bottom lip started to shake, "including that bed where your boyfriend will sleep so soundly tonight."

"Stop bothering me, stop bothering us, please," you weakly said, at the verge of tears.

"That call… Why did you answer it in the first place?"

"It- it was an unknown number," you replied with a shaky voice.

Aemond's smirk became wider as he heard your words, "I've known you for years, my sweet y/n… you never pick up calls from unknown numbers," he chuckled softly, his thumb caressing your quivering lip, "you knew it was me, didn't you?"

You grabbed his hand, pushing it away from you. He hummed in disappointment.

"Stop it," you begged, "you're being mean."

"Mean?"

"You told me to move on, you broke up with me, why are you doing this?" you sighed, wiping the tears that started to fall down your rosy cheeks, "do you- dou you think I'm your fucking dog? That I'm going to run to your side every time you whistle? Fuck you, Aemond," you spat.

He cupped your face, forcing you to stare at his face. A sob escaped from your lips, your heart aching and beating so fast that you thought it would explode.

"I miss you, y/n," he muttered, leaning closer to your face. His tight grip makes it impossible to escape from his touch, "I want you back- I will have you back."

You pouted as your vision became blurry with tears, you shook your head, you needed to get out of the situation, but your body wasn't able to move.

"Stop this… please," you begged.

Aemond let go of your face, and kissed your forehead. A touch that felt so cold and odd, which left you with an overwhelming and indescribable feeling in your gut.

"You look so pretty when you beg me, my love."

He left the kitchen, and then you could breathe properly once again. You leaned over the counter, taking deep breaths until you could feel your heartbeats returning to their normal speed. Your body was still shaking, but at least you finally stopped crying.

Staying here with Aemond around was a terrible idea. You regret your decision, and now you wished you could turn back time to leave this goddamn house as soon as you found out he was here too. But it was too late.

"Here you are…" you heard a soft voice. You lifted your face and Cregan's eyes softened with the sight of you, "I thought you were in the bathroom."

He walked towards you, and cupped your face with a gentle touch, so different from Aemond's. You felt relieved when he did that, feeling his comforting embrace giving the peace you were craving for.

Cregan kissed you, so softly, so delicately. His hands caressing your skin with such devotion that made you melt in his arms.

While Aemond always made a mess out of you, Cregan was the one who always brought calmness to you. You loved him so much.

"Are you okay, baby?" he asked you with that sweet tone of his that you so deeply adored.

You couldn't bring yourself to lie to him, "Not really…" you whispered, putting your hands on his chest, "can we go somewhere else? Just the two of us?"

"Of course…" he replied without hesitation, "we can go to the lake, does that sound nice?"

You nodded, "it sounds perfect."

He kissed you one last time before grabbing your hand, leading you towards the door. A part of you felt guilty because you were leaving without letting Helaena know, but she will know you're safe. She knows you're with Cregan.

He lit up the flashlight of his phone and illuminated the dark path in front of you both. You were guiding him throughout the trees and bushes, until the moonlight pointed at your final destination. The lake looked even more gorgeous at night, as the moon was reflected on the calm waters. The sound of crickets and owls was the only thing you were able to hear; it was so peaceful and quiet, you both loved it.

You felt the calmness of your surroundings, the view, the sound of the place and Cregan's presence and embrace was enough to make you relax. Your body was no longer tense, and your jaw was unclenched. You took a big, deep breath, and you smiled at your sweet and loving boyfriend.

He smiled back,

"Better?" he spoke softly.

"Way better."

He held you in his arms, resting his chin on the top of your head. You looked at the calm water and the urge to submerge your body in it was very tempting. Cregan seemed to have read your mind, for he started to get rid of his shirt, and then he unbuckled his pants.

You couldn't help but chuckle, "what are you doing?"

"Let's go for a swim… I know you want to," he said as he got rid of his jeans.

You bit your lip, "I didn't bring my swimsuit."

"You don't need one," he winked at you, before pulling down his underwear along with his pants.

"Oh, Gods…"

You felt the blush running to your cheeks as you saw him standing in front of you fully naked, you haven't been able to stop drooling over him. You covered your face for a couple minutes before looking around, just to make sure you were truly alone, and then you imitated his action.

After a few seconds, your clothes were folded in the grass right next to Cregan's, and he was holding your hand as he guided you towards the lake.

A small chuckle left your lips as you felt the cold water touching your feet. It gave you chills, the water was freezing cold, which made you shake and giggle.

When he saw you struggling, he let out a small breathy laugh. In a quick and sudden movement, he grabbed your thighs, lifting you up and forcing you to wrap your arms around his shoulders and your legs around his waist. You sweetly smiled at him as you pressed your chest against his and hid your face on the crook of his neck.

Your warmth being so close to him was enough to arouse him. It's been days since the last time he touched you, and he was already starting to feel the absence of your lustful touch against his body. However, he tried to brush away the desire, because he didn't want you to pressure you. He would just wait.

Once the water reached your upper body, you laughed softly. Cregan was still holding you tight, hugging your waist as he kissed your shoulder. You were trembling due to the cold water.

"It's so cold, I'm freezing," you said as you shivered, still pressing yourself into his wide chest.

"It's okay, I'll keep you warm," he murmured, stroking your lower back.

You leaned back as he wrapped his big hands around your waist, swinging your body from one side to another. Your legs were still attached to his hips as your arms spreaded in the water. Cregan's eyes were fixed on your shape; the way you looked so peaceful with your eyes closed and under the dim moonlight, the way your hair was floating making you look ethereal and surreal.

His curious eyes wandered around your body, now looking at your neck, your collarbones -which still have those little maroon marks that he left behind-, and your pebbled nipples. The low temperature was causing you shivers in your body, and the way your body reacted was a clear proof of it.

Your eyes opened once you heard a sharp breath coming from him, and you found his dark eyes staring back at you with desire. You sit back up, placing your hands on his shoulders as you teased him by brushing your nose against his. After tortuous days, you finally felt the need to have him again. To feel his touch, so delicate and careful.

After feeling Aemond's roughness, you needed Cregan's gentleness.

Next thing you knew, your lips were pressed against his kissing him slowly and softly. He did not waste the time, and soon he was kissing you back, swirling his tongue against you as he sighed. You hummed in response, cupping his face as he tightened the grip on your waist. Everything felt so calm, there were only you two, the sound of your wet and slow kiss joined the sounds of the nocturnal nature around you.

Your hips started to move against his hardening length, and his hands soon reached your rear in order to control your movements as you rubbed yourself against him, stealing a loud moan from his lips. This action only made him more desperate for you, and he deepened the kiss as a proof of his neediness for your touch. He was devouring your lips as a starved man while his groans and your moans would be silenced by each other's mouths. He couldn't get enough of your sweet taste.

His hands left your arse to reach your breasts, fondling the soft skin and nipping your pebbled nipples.

"I've missed your body so fucking much…" he confessed between the kiss, "I need you so bad."

His last words came out as a slight whine that made you hum. Your fingers soon find their way to his thick brown hair, tangling your digits between his soft locks and pulling it softly as he leaned his head back. Your lips attacked his neck with wet kisses, and his hands squeezed your breasts making you whimper.

"They won't come near," you told him, your voice already showing how much you desired him, "No one will see, no one will hear."

"Go on," he growled, searching for your lips to kiss you again, "tell me what you want, and I'll give it to you," his hands went back to your arse, pressing you against his hardened length. You moaned against his lips, "come on, baby, say it."

You quickly succumbed to his words,

"Fuck me, please…" you begged in a sigh.

That was enough for Cregan to lift your body and align himself with your tight entrance. You were both so desperate for each other that you didn't even take the time to adjust to his big size as you would usually do. Your hips started to move against his hard thrusts while the water surrounding your bodies splashed and moved.

"Oh, fuck, baby, you feel so fucking good," he groaned, feeling your tight walls squeezing him so nicely, "so good for me… that's it."

His low and deep voice praising you had you moaning loudly, forcing you to close your eyes as he filled you so well. Cregan's face was buried on your neck, as he gripped your hips controlling your movements while you rode him, going up and down on his shaft. He was so deep inside you, touching every sweet spot that would make you shake and drool. Suddenly the coldness of the water was nothing compared to the heat of your lustful bodies begging for each other.

"Mhm…" you whimpered, "it feels so good, so, so good."

Cregan sighed, hearing your whiny voice made him twitch inside of you.

"Yeah?" he said in a teasing way while a subtle side smile was decorating his beautiful face.

"Yes… so good."

He trapped your lips in an erotic wet kiss that was far from being soft now. His tongue clicked against yours while he was touching every single part of your body. You both were so lost in the pleasure, in the feeling your bodies would experience while rubbing against each other.

You both were so blinded by the lust of the moment that none of you noticed a pair of eyes watching. Eyes that were filled with wrath, jealousy and contempt.

Aemond looked away, unable to keep watching that tortuous scene. He leaned his back against a tree as he looked at the dark night sky, his stare blurred with hatred. He was hearing you, your moans, whines and dirty words were too loud for him to ignore. They made him furious, blinded with rage.

He was the one that used to provoke you to make those sweet sounds, the one that had you shaking and squirming under his harsh touch. The only one who knew your body so perfectly, and the only one who could provide you with what you need without you even asking for it.

Under his resentful eyes, Cregan was just a distraction; a plaything you use to entertain yourself in your path back to him. At the end of the day, you will always belong to him.

At that moment, Aemond decided that he had to get rid of Cregan. He could not bear the idea of another man taking what he claimed first; your body, especially when that man was Cregan fucking Stark, the one who always took everything from him. Now he added you to the list, and Aemond will not allow it.

He had to get him out of his way.

Aemond left almost immediately, not wanting to hear this profanity any longer. He walked away from the lake, clenching his fists and his jaw as his scheming started.

Meanwhile, you were just coming down from your orgasm when you heard some leaves crackling in the distance. You quickly moved your head, looking around searching for the source of the sound.

"What is it?" Cregsn asked with his raspy voice.

"I heard something," you said, looking back at his face.

"It was probably just the wind, love…" he tried to play down the situation, soothing you with his comforting voice, "would you like to go back to the house?"

You looked around one more time before turning your head back at him. You shook your head before pecking his lips.

"No, let's stay here a little longer."

Cregan kissed you again, and before you noticed, he started to move his hips again, making you moan with surprise and blurring your mind.

"Gods…" you chuckled, "you're insatiable, aren't you?"

He grunted, smirking as he pushed deeper, "You're too fucking irresistible, baby."

As he started to thrust against you, you looked around one last time, just to be sure. You tried to focus on the pleasure that your boyfriend was giving you, but you couldn't help being creeped out; you could've sworn you saw a shadow moving between the trees, but that was probably just your mind playing tricks with you…

Right?

[inkykeiji]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-4fGPKi34xddcFk3msZFnc_UWYCMndkquW7UkGQE83I/edit

AAAA OKAY SORRY SORRY TRY NOW!!!

-💤

IT WORKS NOW eeeee yay thank you so much!!!!! this made me so emotional (in a good way!)!! i just cannot tell you how honoured i am that you did this for one of my stories like.....i genuinely don’t even have the words to describe how incredible that is and how lucky i am to have you here with me. thank you so much for sharing this with me, i will cherish it so very much ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡)

my thoughts on each song beneath the cut!!!

family tree - ethel cain

i totally see what you’re saying here!!! ugh god i love ethel cain so much, her music is just so perfect for so much of my work in terms of vibes and atmosphere yk what i mean??? so i was so glad to see that u included her here!!

demolition lovers - mcr

there’s a dozen reasons in this gun has got to be one of my favourite lyrics ever, wow!!! but also, i loved the whole last minute or so of this song!! i know that’s where the lyrics you selected are from, but i just feel like that entire final verse describes the trajectory of dabi and reader’s relationship??? from their first meeting to that last scene with keigo in the hospital.

i would die for you - in this moment

okay, YES. yes, i completely get what you mean LMAO. just that ravenous, all-consuming, downright obsessive love, us against the world type, those who continuously swallow each other whole just to spit them back out again and repeat the entire process. loved it so much <33 VERY dabi x reader!!!

voodoo doll - the funeral portrait

oof okay this song hit so hard it made me sob. as i’ve said before, tag you’re it is a very personal story to me, having grown up with and lived with (and been parented by) addicts for my entire life. because, honestly, addiction doesn’t just hurt the user, it hurts everyone who cares about the user, too. i’m not gonna go too deep into that but i loved everything you had to say about this song and i agree with you one million percent, you hit the nail right on the head!!!

life vest - the material

okay let me just take a moment to bask in the fact that the motel scenes are your favourite because i worked SO insanely hard on those scenes LMAO <3 two bodies with one beating heart oh i love love love this. but yeah!!! at that moment in the story especially, dabi is her life vest; for the majority of their time there (right up until the end) he discards his manipulation and casts off his selfishness and allows himself to just be with her, to be there for her, for completely selfless reasons, because he truly does love her. it is a crucial point in their relationship!

tears don’t fall - bullet for my valentine

ooooh yes okay!!! one of the lyrics that really stuck out to me in this song is there’s always something different going wrong / the path i walk’s in the wrong direction because it feels very keigo, especially since he was the golden boy who fell from grace, essentially. adding onto your selection of lyrics, the her conscience calls the guilty to come home also kind of reminded me of the guilt reader feels for leaving keigo, and how that guilt kind of repeatedly calls for her to come back to him, sometimes in the form of keigo himself.

everybody sells cocaine - motionless in white

holy fuck i LOVED this song!!! and you’re SO right, btw!!! dabi is constantly tempting keigo, taunting keigo, ‘testing’ keigo in the most twisted, unfair ways ever. i don’t even have anything to add, i just agree with you wholeheartedly.

jupiter - flower face

omg yes this is VERY dabi x reader during their budding relationship in part one especially. also, these silly games we play / stupid ways to make you stay / my heart’s split open on display / i can’t wait another day pretty much encompasses them fully <33 also also, rly loved the lyric it must be holy to feel something so pure makes me think of dabi as he initially starts to truly fall in love with her—real, pure, sincere! okay i just got to the end of the song and tbh, i think there’s even an argument to be made here for part two as well, and the way their relationship progresses, the concept of home, etc.

luna - wisp

feeling u hardcore on the chest aching with this song. it’s just the melody, you know??? it feels so infused with raw emotion. this one also kind of reminds me of the sex scene in part one AHAHAHA but that’s more due to how hazy and fragmented reader is <3

bottles - the material

oh yeah, for sure! alcoholism is still substance abuse, and it is still addiction. oof this is another one that made me like, super emotional. just rly struck a chord!! i love everything you’ve pointed out here, and i also love how the chorus (in particular the lyrics those bottles are everywhere / and i can’t be everywhere / to keep them from you) reminds me so much of how reader feels towards keigo’s addiction for the majority of the series; she so desperately wishes to save him from himself, she so desperately wants to help, to be useful, but she truly cannot be everywhere cataloging all of his actions all of the time

aaaah WOW sleepy!!!! incredible playlist, thank you again for sharing it with me and the rest of us here on inkykeiji!!! your selection of songs and the order in which you curated them was just genius, i am so blessed to be able to experience this <333

[sharonisthebettercarter]

Billy and fucklander had opportunities to change and didn't take them. Ryan will have an opportunity to change and will try to change... only for his deadbeat dad and/or billy to take it from him because billy is at a point of no return and deadbeat is a life ruiner. Will any of this excuse some of Ryan's future involvement/behaviors? No... But it makes him more sympathetic than spermdonor and Billy combined.

goddammit anon. you're killin' me here. seen a couple of these answered by other folks in fandom so i'm guessing you have your thoughts written somewhere and then copy/paste them into people's inboxes?

i mean, i get the havin' thoughts lmao (i do~<3!!) but if you have so much to say/rant on and want specific people to respond, why not make your own posts and tag people about it? don't get me wrong, i don't mind answerin' a ramble or two here and there but sometimes it gets a lil excessive. 6 asks in one go is a lot, *especially* when the topics are *stressful* instead of *fun*.

scratch that, getting *ONE* of these asks can be a lot.

*SIX (6)* at one time is too fucking many, i can be overwhelmed too. i'm not just a place for you to dump these and expect a response, i'm a fucking living breathing entity behind this screen (who instead of being friendly, *can* delete and ignore them, need i remind)

do not abuse my kindness or patience, do not mistake either for weakness.

i'ma need a LONG ass break after this. leik. 666 months long cause holy fuck. gotdamn. gimme a breather. also still queuing shit so asking more shit and or bombarding me with asks *isn't* gonna make it come any faster.

it comes when it comes, i put it in the queue and shuffle.

you know the drill, you don't get 6 separate answers, i'm condensing into one and usin' italics and bold for the asks

anywho~ not true.

yes for billy, he is aware of his actions, his plight, and knows better, but he chooses to do worse. (altho i do recognize first hand how difficult addictions are to deal with, and billy is absolutely an addict.)

literally no for homelander. people who are victims of grooming like homie are kept in a state of childlike dependency/belief so that they *can't* leave their abuser, have no choice or 'oPpOrTuNiTy' to leave them, *OR* will only go from one abuser to the next because they've been *conditioned* to expect the abuse.

i feel like you keep saying that but i'ma be point blank this time. it's ableist, victim blaming, and completely undermines the situation homelander went through/is still going through. repeating it won't make it true, it's wrong, always was and will remain wrong. all you're doing is ignoring what his actual situation is and what has actually happened to make yourself feel better about hating him.

and that's not even to say you can't hate him or that his actions should be excused. literally no one is saying that and i don't think i've ever seen anyone actually say that unironically (not saying it can't happen but i'm guessing it's pretty rare to come across (at least outside of the maga chuds) since most people just hate him) but you should at least be fucking honest/aware about his situation/*NOT DISMISSIVE*.

i'm including another post i added resources to that debunk this gross (and very ignorant) claim. please give legitimate psychology the time of day before you go around repeating ableist/victim blaming talking points.

*even billy* to certain degrees, should get his addiction acknowledged, instead of denied or *enabled*, because addiction in *all forms* is a debilitating, life destroying THING that is fucking difficult to fight. it's like it's own form of battle with an abuser, except the only other person is *you*. becca alone should be example enough that empathy and compassion can *help* in ways people downright *refuse* to give the time of day (even if i do lament billy using her like his 'new' addiction... the cunt--)

seriously. i'm not kidding, take the time to educate yourself instead of just being angry (at fiction i might add) all the time. that stress can't be good for you, *anger is proven to make people dumber*, and otherwise the only response you'll get from me is going to be, 'actually you're wrong, here's why--*linked resources*'.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

you repeat ableism and victim blaming? i'm going to call you out on it (if i don't just delete it, bitch i am TIRED--), you will not get a different response from me, i will always try to correct misinformation or disinformation when i can, however that may come.

*you* have a choice, but you keep *choosing* to ignore the resources i provide because they make you confront your own biases, but i ain't playin' on these subjects.

that is a no go in this court.

ryan will need someone to show him he has a choice and that he is worthy of love no matter where he goes or who he's with. again, this goes back to psychology but ryan is still only a child. his brain is literally not developed enough to make these decisions himself/be immune to influence (which just realistically, absolutely no one is regardless of age)

i feel for ryan, i *worry and hope* for him far more, but the trauma faced here is not a contest. please do not do that, that is super fucked. and even if it were--

homelander. homelander would win and take all the fuckin' prizes, there is literally *no one* in this series that has had shit worse than him (he was literally fucking tortured from the second he was created and then fucking groomed leik wut the fuck--)

honestly, it's kind of a fuckin' miracle he didn't turn out *worse*.

*and even then*, what homelander faced would be neither excuse nor reason to dismiss any of the trauma any of the characters have faced, even and especially as a result of him, and vice versa. sympathy overall is subjective. people generally sympathize most with characters they personally relate to.

i tend to sympathize most with the characters who have been through/currently going through the worst of it. (and obviously all the trauma is valid, but my brain tends to prioritize people in immediate crisis dependent on the crisis, which honestly i do feel we should normalize and apply on a global scale just for humanity's sake but i digress, generally this means it depends on the story and where it is in a given moment. but it doesn't mean my sympathy for the other characters has gone away.)

*you* *sypmathize* most with *ryan*, and i get that. that's valid, but it's also personal and subjective, not objective here. it's also subject to change depending on how ryan turns out i'm guessing...

but you're equating people with their actions when--those are two *separate* things.

UGH okay next ask--

That Billy and starlight getting along scene was rushed, like.....there was no build-up to it nor was is a slow burn. Also, starlight and Billy should've started throwing hands at each other or at least curse each other out. Truce my ass, people who hate each other in real life, do not get along all of a sudden, especially if someone they care about is hospitalized. Also, starlight should've chose violence when she and bitchy butcher met a 2nd time. If I saw the person who needlessly, shot my ass again, I would've started to curse their asses out and have them catch these hands.

... what the fuck, first off.

'getting along' is a stretch to describe what happened and this is kinda fucked anon (i will get to that cause you're making me worry)

things *were* tense when they met again, they were literally hurling insults at each other while hughie had to mediate. butcher literally called her 'chum' for shark infested waters, and starlight called him out on his bullshit bigotry with 'i know a guy just like that, he's got a flag for a cape'. hun, where the hell were you when they *were* literally silently seething and fighting *ON SCREEN*???

what *actually* happened was that they took a moment to *set their differences aside* because someone they *both* loved/cared for was in literal danger of *DYING*.

at that point, it didn't matter how *they* felt. hughie was in *crisis* so *HUGHIE*, NOT THEIR FEELINGS, became *priority*.

*after* the crisis was averted, they had a moment of playful banter about the person they just made sure was *safe* and would *survive*. the tension of the crisis was gone, and they could take a breath. that they happened to be around each other was just a fact of the matter. but *hughie* was still their priority and common ground.

so i guess you could say it's rushed, but the situation was rushed over all (of course it was, time crunch with a fuckin' crisis, hellooooo???) but what the hell were you expecting, for them to fight and argue in the *hospital* and potentially kill hughie with their stress and anger instead of letting him rest easy????????

what happened during those scenes is genuinely, a completely normal and very human reaction for people to have. prioritizing *crisis* over animosity. i.e. being normal ass rational people who don't let their hatred/anger take complete control over them.

annie (very obviously) is *not* one of those people and never has been.

for butcher, it *depends* on how he's feeling i guess, but there's clear implication that he leans on people *like hughie* or becca to *pull him back* from that place. in that moment, his worry for hughie outweighed his hate boner for supes. that happens sometimes.

and i gotta gotta gotta be clean with you on this hun, cause jesus fucking christ was this one loaded.

if you *genuinely* feel that *fighting* and *hatred* with someone you dislike should take *priority* over someone you both *love* fucking *DYING* right next to you?

you *NEED* to seek help, *anger management* (if you have the resources and i hope you do, sincerely)

from a *real* therapist, who can *actually* help you. (NOT ME)

or at least, idk, look up a couple videos maybe??

and listen, i'm not saying this to hurt you.

but i am getting strong STRONG bad *BAD* 'billy butcher'/'homelander' levels of toxic masculinity and irrational aggression from you here (not necessarily towards me i mean, just in general, dial it back, hun)

anger does not make you better, right, or stronger. anger *DOES NOT* solve problems.

*anger* makes you *stupid*, and going with the first knee-jerk angry response that pops into your head is a sign of *weakness*. it is an example of the *lack of impulse control* that many can and often do struggle with (society is fuuuuuuuucked...)

there are *healthy* outlets that can help you let off steam and cope productively, and i guarantee you it will lengthen your life and allow you to live happier the quicker it gets addressed!

shit, you can even try out something as simple as playing harvest moon--any of them! my darling friennnnn~<3 suggested it to me and whoopdi-fuckin'-do, it's actually *HELPING* me~!!

you seem to love to hate butcher and homelander (and i'll be fair, i do too! even if i love them just as much lmao) but i'm starting to get the vibe that it's more so because you see some major parts of *yourself* reflected in them.

it is *okay* to have fight in you. it is *okay* to feel angry. that's *natural*.

it is *not* okay to use that anger as a means to *only* be destructive, whether internally or externally. that is the whole point of what makes butcher and homelander wrong, but you are stuck and determined to commit the same error or see it committed by others, like ryan.

it's okay to have spunk and spirit, be a little assertive, live your life, enjoy yourself.

but giving into your anger at the drop of a hat?

i promise you (from fucking experience) it will only *RUIN* YOU and your life.

OR

at the *very least*, learn to recognize the most obvious factor here.

you are not other people.

other people are not you.

just because *you* would have a certain reaction to something (or believe you would because we never really know until it happens to us), *does not* mean *others* would have the *same* reaction to the same thing.

*OTHER PEOPLE* reserve the right to their own thoughts, feelings, experiences and appropriate *reactions* to whatever the situation may be.

**and regardless of what those may be, they are no less or more valid than you or yours for it**

actually, if i'm being completely real here, choosing *violence* over civility is what *should* be frowned upon. but you are *literally* making a complaint about them choosing to be *civil* instead of violent.

what the fuck.

NEXT--

I think had Becca survived season 2 in it's entirety, Ryan would've grew to be a caring and generous person, but comes from a religious family, which might make him unpleasant at times. It's possible he would be raised with the concept of gender roles (I mean, it's possible that Becca didn't get an abortion is because she's religious, why else would that st. Nick necklace would imply that). Though, I could be reaching because we did see her gouge a nazi's eye out

wut?

WUT???

just... honestly wut?? not leik in a bad way. but WUT???

this one is weird. i do think you're reachin' here because *just* because someone is 'religious', doesn't mean they're anal and obnoxious about it.

case in point, *ANNIE*

she's religious (and still religious tho not as strongly/has obviously struggled but accepted the cross from her mom at the end of s2) but she's not a bible-thumper or puritan, and feels uncomfortable about those sects of religion.

you also seem to underestimate the *severe* penchant for violence many *many* religious people have.

do the crusades not ring a bell to you? the nazis cited religion as their justification for their actions more often than not.

but religion itself or being religious is not an inherently bad thing (i'm critical because of how it's used/what i personally went through because of it), overall, it's just a tool that many normal people just use to have hope or make their lives a little easier stomach.

it give the placebo effect, if you will.

it's in the same boat as money. money itself is called the 'root of all evil', but in reality, it's just a tool that holds no moral weight one way or another. (it's the *people* who are moral/immoral or use it in such ways)

morality itself is subjective depending on the time period and the values that society holds at a given time. humankind is still in the process of trying to reconcile and rationalize a globally acceptable form of morality that prioritizes humanity as a whole rather than one specific group, and it's been... not great? very slow going lmao but i digress.

religious *text* is a bit of a different story, most bibles/written stories are fuuuuuuuuuucked one way or the other. but again, then you're looking at who's a bible-thumper and who isn't.

i will say that if becca had survived, things would def probably be a lot better for ryan. but it would be a different tense situation with either them in hiding/trying to find a new safe place (i like to think they'd leave the country) or with her *in* the safe place raising ryan.

and either *begging* billy to come home (cause she always believes in him :((((((((((((((() from his revenge rampage, or billy being there and raising ryan--while seething because 'homelander'...

this is dark, but i get the feeling it would eventually lead to an altercation, either where billy leaves to go after homelander and the above happens, or billy murders the kid in front of becca/finds a way to sell him back to vought (like becca had said he would and both knew he'd try again) to supplement the bottled in rage that had been slowly chipping away at him...

leik. s3 alone gave a perfect example of a seething billy/what his violence withdrawal does to him. and that was with him *still* getting the little bits sprinkled in here and there so--

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...

Ryan's life has consisted of nothing but hardships. He was isolated and sheltered from the outside world, living in a compound for a good majority of his childhood. He lost his rarely saw her real mother, and Grace served as his primary maternal figure afterwards. Got gaslighted by Billy because billy's connection to underages is too damn weak. Homelander, the only biological parent that he has left, sees him as an extension of himself, and treats Ryan more like a pawn than a son. Shitlander is going excessively control Ryan's life, manipulates, and gaslight him constantly when ryan displeases him. Spermdonor won't even view Ryan as his own person - to him, Ryan is a pawn that's his property to use in any way he wants, so he plays with Ryan's emotions to have the upper hand. Even though Spermdonor will treat him like dirt, Ryan will desperately try to please his deadbeat, and garner any sort of attention from him. If Ryan finally escapes the clutches of spermdonor and Billy to find others who will help him rather than hinder him, he'll be content and genuinely happy. Though, I wouldn't be surprised if his happiness is stripped violently from him when Homelander or billy take that away as punishment for ryan "betrayal". I wouldn't be surprised that down the line, Ryan snaps and becomes a hostile, hateful, bloodthirsty, and vengeful supe at the end of the series because Billy didn't bother to ask Marvin for help in terms of handling children and Homelander is a life ruiner.

some incoherency here, but i mean... that is history repeating itself??

baby, this one coulda been your own post. half time i ain't even really sure what you want me to say with these??? sometimes i feel like you're just throwing shit out to see if you can trigger me?? but that's the general paranoia talkin' (or at least i'd like to think i know myself well enough to say that)

but i gotta be honest, sometimes ya say stupid shit--(which fair enough, we all do at one point or another myself included~), but leik...

i hope this isn't too much to ask but...

maybe *think* before you *act*??

a lot of these read like impulse and like they're not thought out very well, but maybe if you took a moment/step back to make your own post/think about the thoughts you put into them, you could idk, make more sense of them i guess?? better organize it??

what do you mean with the first part??

ryan was in a compound, but he wasn't purely isolated/sheltered or in a lab. yeah, still not great (as no interaction with other children/general city life has given him some anxiety and that much is clear). but that can also happen when kids move from rural areas to cities in general. his real mother (becca) was also his *primary* caretaker, almost *always* with him unless she dropped him off at tutors/had to step away for a moment.

leik what's going on here, are you confusing baby homelander with ryan??? cause the baby they showed us in a lab and the kid getting experimented on was *young homelander*, NOT ryan.

but generally speaking, before homelander showed up, that kid was fuckin' happy, just livin' his life? that's what makes homelander's sudden appearance so fucking traumatic. the kid didn't really want or need saving at the time, but now he legit does.

homelander actually... sees ryan as an obligatory way to gain affection/love. you have to understand, homelander functions almost entirely on the belief that he is unloveable/people will abandon him/call him a monster/hate him/etc.

that's why he defaults on instilling fear to make them 'respect' him or *fear leaving his side* no matter how badly he mistreats them, that's clear enough when his relationship with stormfront starts and he threatens her for lying to him.

homelander has never had real family or love and is very desperate for both. he doesn't have a full understanding of it either. but ryan fits with the 'idea' of both. because blood family is 'supposed' to 'love unconditionally' and ryan is 'blood'.

on the flipside, ryan is very intelligent/quickly learning how to use his powers and what he can/can't get away with--due to who his father is. don't underestimate the kid, because homie is so stunted and ryan is still clearly very *special* to homelander (if for the wrong reasons), i think he can and will use that to his advantage.

ryan already hits all the tickers for *being* what homelander *wants* him to be, mostly by existing.

a boy

has powers

aaaaaaaaaaand that's pretty much the end of homie's list lol. and we can see at the end of s3 that *this* alone is *enough* for homelander to *actually* listen to and be manipulated by his son, not the other way around (ryan gets him to leave rather than killing billy)

you're under the impression that homelander will be a controling parent, and i think in some ways, he *could* be. but most of what we *have* seen is implying something *very* different will happen.

apart from the roof scene, he hasn't really mistreated ryan. he actually did really good with ryan's anxiety/has shown general patience but it's clear he's trying to gain ryan's trust/affection so i guess we could technically interpret this as the love bombing phase?? still, most of what we're shown was him mistreating *becca* or others, but not ryan specifically (he def does set some monumentally shitty examples tho)

either way, homelander *still* wants love and approval, *even* if and *especially* if it comes from *family*/his *son*. he's also a victim of grooming that still hasn't grown from the dependency that made him have on his abusers. believe it or not, that actually leaves him open/vulnerable to *ryan* being the one to control and manipulate him. granted ryan is a child. but 'he knows not what he's done/capable of' and all that jazz.

don't get me wrong, i do picture it's gonna be a fucked dynamic and homie will get 'controlling' to a degree. but don't think the kid is so damn helpless there.

we're more likely to see complete minilander spoiled brat ryan and full blast karen 'my kid can do no wrong/*HE* can do whatever the fuck he wants!' homelander than anything else.

ryan *may* try to desperately please homelander, but homelander *will* try to desperately please ryan. it's likely to create a very toxic and enabling 'we only have each other' dynamic because that is the point both have been driven to.

but again, history repeating itself

anywho~<3

The man who threw a can at Ryan back in season 3, is the same reason why people throw shit like rocks or just plainly spit at offsprings of tyrants.

i think it was a cup/soda?? but that's not really the point.

i'll be blunt here.

**the sins of the father are not the sins of the son**

just because people react like animals and blame innocent kids for what their parents do, doesn't make them right. i'd say it makes them dead wrong and very fucking stupid actually, because the kids *have no choice* of the family/blood they are born into, or even what they're initially taught to believe.

that man was a fucking moron. i won't say he deserved to die for something that didn't actually hurt ryan, they could have pressed charges for assault of a child on him and made a public spectacle of him and ruined his life (*that* would be rightly deserved)

but that was a *WILDLY* stupid thing of him to do, *knowing* homelander's powers, supposedly being a starlight supporter (which means he would believe homelander is evil) and *knowing* that this was his fucking *child*.

only the weak, childish, and stupid take aim at the innocent for the actions of a tyrant.

play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Not only Ryan looks the most like spermdonor and is said spermdonor's son, but a painful reminder of what happened to Becca. Billy is going to despise/resent Ryan more nonetheless. No thanks to Billy's weakass connection to kids either. Besides, Billy already started showing signs of deflection after season 3, episode 3.

billy's been a cunt from before the story began, where have you been lmao?

billy already resents ryan more so for what he is (a supe freak), but i would def say who he's related to probably doesn't help. still, despite it, ryan is also the last remnant of becca that he wants any connection to (since he's absolute dogshit to her other family but still mainly for his promise to her).

the thing is, ryan is still a useful tool/something to hold over homelander's head, and that, albeit fucked up, makes him worth something in billy's fucked up head. if he hadn't made the promise to becca, ryan would probably already be dead.

i do think he will look for excuses to give into his urges/hatred and break his promise to becca (as nearly the whole of s3 was~) if not use ryan as his trojan horse and be the first person infected with that virus and send him back to homelander--

ANYWHO--

next time this ask bug bites you, for the love of satan, take a moment to take a step back and gather your thoughts, and maybe make your own post/rant on your own blog for it instead of sending literal barrages of asks to people (idk if you do this to others or how many/often, but if they don't answer 'em there might be a reason for that.)

or at least compile it neatly enough into *ONE* (SINGULAR) minimally semi-coherent ask.

of course i care about the serious stuff and make psas, i don't even mind answering asks, even the crazy ones~ ;))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

but i do actually wanna have *fun* in fandom (leik C'MON i obsess over shitty men fucking/impregnating billy butcher!!), not be stressed out all the time or stuck on the hard topics trying to explain things to someone i don't even know is actually willing to listen.

leik i literally had to keep randomizing my queue because it was filled with so much negative shit at one point and *i* was overloaded just by looking at it.

i especially don't wanna be dealin' with fuckin' ableism and victim blaming in my ask box. that shit is rank, and i'm tired of it

get smart or just stop, my answers on that shit ain't gonna change.

but you can even post it private if you want. just

LET ME HAVE A FUCKIN' BREATHER--

preferably... 666 months~<3

[honeytae]

Hi!! Idk if you’re taking requests or not, but I was hoping I could request something along the lines of where you’re in love with your best friend, taehyung, but he doesn’t know and he’s getting married soon. you don’t tell him how you feel until the night of his wedding when you’re a bit tipsy from drinking your feelings away. you can decide the ending! thank you in advance if you end up writing this! hope you’re doing well and staying safe. Xx

hi darling! i’m so sorry this took so long for me to write. i couldn’t get it to a point where i was satisfied with it for a really long time, i still don’t feel that good about it honestly but hopefully it’s okay for you!!! i tried to make it angsty (yikes) so hopefully it’s not horrible lmao

tags: @ahgasearmyfan, @hoseokayy, @the1921-monsters

genre: angst

word count: 1.6k

warnings: um so much heartbreak, oc is a little (very) in denial about the situation and comes off a little toxic tbh, requited love but nothing they can do about it now, mentions of tae going into a panic attack

You couldn’t handle it.

You couldn’t handle the ‘congratulations to the happy couple,’ nor the Mr. and Mrs. Kim sign practically floating over their heads. You couldn’t handle the copious bouquets and all the preparations that went into this.

And you felt like a complete asshole about it.

Which is precisely why you decided to prematurely exit the event, doing yourself and everyone else a favor by leaving for the night to go sulk in your hotel by your lonesome.

The elevator ride up to your floor was miserable, your own battles within your mind coupled with the fact that your floor was the top one, making the ride excruciatingly long on top of everything else.

Rustling with the hotel key in your bag seemed to take forever as well, finally barging into your half unpacked space with a sigh. You quickly shut the door behind you, hoping you’d been able to sneak away from the hotel lobby without any guests noticing.

Shuffling further into the room, you sat on the edge of the king bed in the center of the room, placing your head in your hands at the mere prospect of this weekend.

Taehyung was getting married. Kim Taehyung, your best friend, the one person you’d been pining for since middle school, would be legally bound to someone else in less than twenty four hours.

Maybe you just shouldn’t have come. Despite sending red flags to Tae, you couldn’t think of a better solution than fleeing at this exact moment. Why did you think you could handle this?

Two knocks against the locked door had your head raising from its resting place, cursing under your breath at someone coming after you.

You didn’t feel well. That would be your excuse.

“Hey, you okay?” Immediately upon opening the door, Taehyung spoke the question out into the air, dark eyebrows knit in concern and kind eyes imploring yours for an answer.

“Hi. I’m fine, just a little tired, Tae.” You pressed your lips together in a hopefully believable smile, the man frowning before nodding at you.

“Me too. Can I come in?” He asked, the question completely innocent however making your heart rate a bit faster at the what if. What if things had gone differently? What if it was still a possibility for things to escalate between you two?

Cut it out. He’s about to be a married man.

You raised your eyebrows at him for a moment, then stepped back to allow him in, putting all your concentration on shutting the wood for a moment as you took a steadying breath.

“What about your party?” You wondered aloud, the man humming as he took a seat on your fully made bed.

“I’m tired of the parties. They’re exhausting.” He chuckled, covering his face with his hands as he reclined back on your bed.

Your heart skipped another beat at the vision, his tight pants leaving little to the imagination and buttons from his dress shirt stretched to new limits with his strained position. Diverting your eyes, you walked over to the desk chair in the corner of your room, reaching for a water bottle out of your mini fridge. Get a fucking grip.

Tossing one over to the bed beside Taehyung, you sat down in the plush seat, grateful that the man didn’t seem to notice your distance from him as you glanced out the window.

Until….

“Are you really okay? I feel like you’ve been avoiding me lately.”

At his sudden words, you froze, gripping your water a bit tighter as you brought your eyes back to his face. He was closer now than before, having scooted to the edge of your bed to lean toward you, eyes showing concern for you as you shuffled in your seat.

Taehyung was never one to beat around the bush, and at times like this, you really wish he would just brush some things under the rug as easy as you could.

“I’m good, Tae. Just have a lot going on, I guess. I’m sorry I made you feel like that.” You said, hoping to clear the air and dismiss the topic as soon as you possibly could. The man’s stare wasn’t helping your state any.

“No apologies. Just wanted to check in on you.” He sighed, seemingly disappointed with your lack of response before a hideous painting across the room caught his eye.

“What the fuck is that?” He griped, making you chuckle as he sat up to lean toward the art piece, squinting with his lip curled in amusement.

“It’s not so bad.” You shrugged, smirking when he turned back to you in bewilderment. Realizing you were teasing him, his eyes went back to normal size, a smile meeting his own lips at the return of your familiar banter.

“How can you sleep in a room with that shit? I feel like asking for a refund.” He shook his head, making you laugh before taking a swig from your water.

“Somehow I manage.” You replied, twisting the cap back on the bottle with a sigh.

It’s times like these that you feel as though nothing is wrong. Times like these that transport you back to periods of your life when Taehyung was just a call away, and you thought maybe, just maybe, you two had a chance. But that was over now. Those days were no more.

Because Taehyung informing you about a blind date then turned into him in a full blown relationship, a serious one at that, and soon enough they were taking big steps such as meeting the parents, moving in together, and yes, getting engaged.

Your friends had been just as shocked as you were, pitying you with deep sympathetic looks over Taehyungs shoulder as you hugged him in confused congratulations. It had all happened so fast...how did you manage to lose him forever?

Waking up the next day, you felt a particular heaviness on your chest. It was the day before the wedding, the rehearsal dinner turned into an entire day of partying for their guests. A celebratory day, if anything.

But waking up and getting all dolled up for this occasion was the absolute last thing you wanted to do, today or ever. You had always thought that you’d have much more of a starring role in Kim Taehyung’s life. Shaking your head to dismiss those kinds of thoughts, you cursed as you left your hotel room, wondering how the hell you’d be getting through this day.

Four martinis. Four martinis was how you’d be getting through today. The bartender had become one of your closest acquaintances over the past few hours, eyeballing you silently as he poured you yet another cocktail, your demands obvious that you were not drinking out of celebration.

Sitting at the bar, you contemplated everything. From the time you’d met Tae, you had been so sure that you two completed each other. Were you that naive? And fuck, why are you still thinking about this now? It’s over. You and Tae will never be.

Nearly jumping off your stool at a hand suddenly clapping your back, you shifted your gaze over to the arm belonging to Jungkook, one of Taehyung’s youngest yet wisest friends.

“You’re sulking.” He said plainly, dark eyes tracing over your faded features, briefly examining the drink in your hand before shooting the bartender a knowing look.

“You shouldn’t be out here.” You sighed, nearly breaking into a sob when his hand laid over yours, fingers fitting between your own in a comforting gesture. With one glance at the man, you gained all the information you didn’t want.

He knew.

You wondered how long he’d known. Jungkook, being the quiet and relatively introverted person he was, was an observer. He knew everything about everyone it seemed, by not speaking to them at all. He noticed everything.

You just hoped he didn’t notice the way your eyes started blinking rapidly, and that he’d instead just go back into the party without another word.

“Neither should you.” He replied to you, his tone holding nothing but concern as he tried to catch your eyes.

You just couldn’t hold it in.

“Well maybe if I wasn’t in love with him I’d be having a better time.” You mumbled, leaning your head down on your hands, elbows pressed to the tops of your thighs, sad and tired as Jungkook froze beside you.

Unbeknownst to you, a concerned Taehyung had also come to find you, stumbling upon that very scene as Jungkook tried to console you.

Meeting eyes with his older friend, Jungkook’s mouth gaped open for a moment, opening and closing like a fish out of water as you cluelessly rambled under your breath about how stupid you were to ever let yourself come here.

With a shaky exhale, Taehyung silently began to put it all together. The way you’d been working constantly lately, picking up every shift you could to decline his repeated attempts at getting together with you, the way you’d ran off last night and brushed it off as you being too tired. It was all adding up.

You were struggling with this as much as he was. Maybe more.

But what Taehyung could do about this years ago was no longer an option, his hands shaking at his sides as he spun on his heel and walked out of the lobby. He could briefly hear Jungkook call for him but ignored it, breathing heavily as he rounded one of the hallways leading to the restrooms.

Unshed tears misted over his eyes as he hugged a corner of the wall, feeling rather unsteady as he leaned his forehead against the cool surface. The burning pain in his chest had him sinking down to the floor in an instant, sobs wracking his shoulders with heightening emotions rising in his throat.

You’d finally given him the green light. And it was too fucking late.

[holden-caulfield]

Mere Acquaintances

main masterlist

SUMMARY: “Our siblings are in an arranged marriage and so we see each other at awkward social gatherings between our two kingdoms” AU

WARNINGS: there might be a swearword?

WORD COUNT: 1439

A/N: uhmmm this is my entry for @ladyvesuvia 's writing challenge... hope you like it (i suck at writing royal aus because i can't make it 'royal' lmao)

How exciting, you thought to yourself the first time your brother announced his betrothal to the daughter of the adjacent kingdom's king. You knew he was completely enthralled by her and you heard stories from your very own brother about how the two of them got along just perfectly.

You had never been favorable to arranged marriages, but, once you saw that sparkle in your brother's eyes, you couldn't have been happier for him.

How exciting, that was until you had to actually meet the princess. She was lovely, exactly what you wished for your brother, but her brother was a completely different story.

You had met him few times actually, just a few awkward encounters with the young man whenever you were both forced to attend your parents' gatherings.

To get along, they said. You tried your best to appear friendly and open, that much could not be said about Draco Malfoy, the royal pain in the ass.

He never once looked at you unless it was with an air of superiority. You exchanged three words in total since you met him and those three, brief words were "So, how-"

"No."

You decided not to conversate with him anymore, not that you cared; the man was so full of himself he probably did not need you to entertain him since he had his own company.

Royal parties were spent in silence: you made polite conversation whenever required, but didn't despise the quietness that created once you were left alone for it did help you ponder.

In those moments, your favoured object of interest was him. You were not watching him because you liked him, that be clear. You were analyzing him: he was arrogant, yes, but there must have been something more; no one can be that shallow.

He looked just like any prince should have looked like; regal. But with a touch of stiff excellence that made him always stand out. He looked displaced among his peers, almost as if deeply inside he wished not to be a part of it.

He looked just the same that day, blank expression on his elegant features, carried around with such poise you wondered why everyone's eyes weren't directed towards him.

He caught your eye, an action that made heat rise to your cheeks and that made your gaze quickly settle on something else. That something turned out to be the ballroom, full of couples dancing and cheerily talking with one another.

You noticed your brother, waltzing with her betrothed. He looked happy, genuinely happy; that smile was one you had not seen on his face since you were children and-

"Lady y/n." the sudden voice reaching your ears made you jump slightly, you were not expecting such a deep baritone to greet you.

You turned around to find him in front of you. You narrowed your eyes, unsure of the situation you had just witnessed, unsure of the reason why he had approached you.

"Would you join me for a dance?" you couldn't believe your ears, they must have been deceiving you.

His expression was the same as always, you couldn't decipher whether the proposal he had just made was truthful or just pure amusement for him to see the disheveled state his simple question had put you in.

He offered you his hand and your first instinct was obviously to refuse it, what kind of gentleman ignores someone all the time and then asks said them to dance out of the blue?

But there was something inside of you that wanted to dance with him, that wanted to take his sophisticated hand and let it guide you towards the ballroom.

"We shouldn't." you uttered and his hand fell promptly, an emotion unknown to you crossed his face but he quickly shrugged it off. "It's our siblings' ball, we shouldn't steal their spotlight."

"By dancing?" he asked, slightly chuckling.

"Yes, by dancing." you tried to sound convincing, but you could sense he had seen right through you.

You returned your gaze to the ballroom, a feeling of regret harbouring in your mind.

You felt him come closer, his body heat slowly engulfing you, but you refused to turn towards him.

"They won't mind, princess." his voice was low and enchanting as if he was performing some kind of magic spell upon you. And it was working.

"They will."

"They won't." he said offering his hand again, his lips breaths away from the shell of your ear and you felt chills running down your spine at the words spoken so closely in such a public space, under everyone's eyes. "They are too busy contemplating the happy couple to care about anything else."

You gave him a sideways glance; a terrible mistake because his eyes were now piercing yours, making it impossible to refuse the proposal.

You took his hand, entwining your fingers with his, and it felt so natural, so instinctive, as if it were an everyday procedure.

He led you among the other couples, the stares the two of you received were of no importance as he held your hand tightly in his, as if he was scared you could have regretted the action.

"Wait, wait! What are you doing?" you suddenly stopped, common sense finding its way back in your brain but it was not enough for you to leave his hand.

He furrowed his brows, creasing his ethereal face in question.

"Why now? Why are you suddenly so interested in me?" your face earnest, your eyes pleaded for any excuse.

But he remained silent, his icy stare penetrating your orbs with such intensity you felt your legs trembling slightly. His grip threatened to loosen but you held him, refusing to let him leave you alone like he had done countless times before.

"What are you doing?" you asked again.

He opened his mouth to reply, his hard look fell along with his feigned arrogance, letting a new face emerge: it was him but he was so different you could have easily mistaken him for someone else.

"I'm trying to be nice, we are supposed to get along... I didn't think it was this much of a deal, princess." he replied, the insolence rapidly coming back. He tried to let go of your hand but you were adamant; he would have given you a reason whether he wanted to or not.

"That's not it."

"Do you think you know everything, princess?" he kept on adding that last word with such spite, as if it was you who randomly decided to save him from the boredom of the royal ball with the excuse of a dance between mere acquaintances.

"I do think there is something you are not telling me, prince." he visibly stiffened but the corners of his mouth gave you the opposite impression, as if he finally felt at ease for the first time ever with you.

"You are wrong."

"Am i, prince?"

With speed similar to that of light, he took your waist in his grasp, still holding your hand with his own, your faces now embarrassingly close as you swayed on the dance floor.

You felt his chest rise up and down against yours but he refused to fully meet your eyes, instead searching for something in your face that he already deemed impossible to find.

"Am i?" you repeated, tentatively.

"No, no you're not." he spoke slowly but somehow hurriedly, as if he didn't want to let the words escape his mouth because once they were out it meant they would have been real, thus meaning his feelings couldn't be denied any longer.

"Then tell me. What are you doing?" your tone was soft and careful, but a touch of impulsiveness was still audible.

"We're dancing, aren't we?" he said smugly, his gaze focusing on the guests that were now watching the two of you very intently. "Maybe we shouldn't have, we are attracting a lot of attention."

You frantically turned your head to look at all the people watching but his firm grip returned you to his eyes. "Don't look at them, princess, look at me."

You couldn't describe it but all the days he had spent ignoring you vanished as he spoke to you so softly. But you needed an answer.

"Why are you doing this?" sincerity lacing your tone, he couldn't help but smile and sigh.

"I fancied you since the first moment, y/n, but i thought it would have been seen as inappropriate to get closer to my sister's fiancé's sister." you giggled lightly, rolling your eyes.

"It might be, but i'm glad you changed your mind, then."

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[gr-ogu]

Hello! As requested, here is a tutorial on how I make my gifs. I would like to preface this by saying there are many ways to make gifs, and there’s no right or wrong answer imo. This is just how I personally go about doing so!

I will be using PS CC 2017, but as long as you have the video timeline option, it shouldn’t matter too much; on any version of PS, you should be able to adapt anything I mention here! You will also need some kind of screen recording software. I’ll talk a little more about that under the cut.

To start, you need the source material you will be making the gifs from! I get mine from snahp(.)it (avoiding links so tumblr hopefully doesn’t banish this from the tags lmao) and I always opt for either 1080p or 2160p. Not all laptops will support 2160p as it’s 4K, but either works great! You just want your gifs to be the best quality possible.

Next is where the screen recording comes in. I don’t use the screencapping method to make my gifs (where you use a program to cap a clip and then load those caps into a stack in PS). This isn’t for any particular reason… it’s just how my friends, (who very kindly taught me to gif), had always done it, so it’s now how I do it too. Personally, I find the quality to be just as good as the screencapping method, and have never noticed a difference between the two.

As I have a PC, I use the software built into it for screen-recording. If you go here: theverge(.)com/2020/4/21/21222533/record-screen-pc-windows-laptop-xbox-game-bar-how-to – you can see how to use the XBOX screenrecorder to record from files you have d*wnloaded. This also works on some streaming sites, but I think it depends on what browser you use. Personally, I recommend Firefox, as that seems to bypass a lot of the blocking and ads that occur when trying to do this sort of thing.

For MAC users, I have been told handbrake works well, as it converts MKV files to MP4, which can then be used to make gifs. You only need to convert part of the file to MP4 depending on how much you want to gif, and this also bypasses the screenrecording stage, as you can edit MP4 clips on Quicktime. I am told you can split them into smaller clips by going to edit > trim and it saves the new clip!

I have also used anyvideoconverter for small clips, but I can’t say what it does to the quality of your video, or how big of a file it lets you put in! With the XBOX screenrecorder, it doesn’t matter what type of video files you get, as the recording will save to MP4 anyway.

LOADING YOUR FRAMES

Now, go ahead and record whatever clips you want to gif. Make sure you have the video timeline open, by going to window > timeline. Then, go to file > import > video frames to layers.

Next, select and open your clip from where it has saved (with the XBOX recorder, it saves in video > captures). You should see a little window pop up, where you can move the sliders back and forth to clip your recording to whichever part(s) you specifically want to gif. I recommend trying not to load a lot of frames into photoshop at once, but I would be a hypocrite to say that, since I do it a lot lmao. Just be patient if you do!

Once you have chosen the length, click okay. Never, EVER, I repeat NEVER click the button that says ��limit to every __ frames”. This really ruins the flow and quality of your gif—it’s better to have shorter, but smoother gifs, I promise. And with tumblr’s new 10 MB limit, it shouldn’t be a problem anyway!

Then, your frames should open up. What we want to do is make them into a smart object, so we can edit all the layers at the same time. To do this, click the small button in the left-hand corner. ALWAYS click this first. If you don’t, it will only convert the first frame to a smart object and the gif won’t work.

Give it a second to sort itself out, then, on the right-hand side, select all your frames at once using the shift key.

Then, go to filter > convert for smart filters. This might take a minute. Don’t click anything else in case PS gets angry lmao, just leave it for a second and it’ll do its thing. The more frames you have, the longer it takes! Now we have our gif, but it needs to be cropped, sharpened and coloured!

CROPPING

You want to start by selecting the rectangular marquee tool on the left-hand side, then drag it across by clicking and highlighting the area you would like to crop your gif to, like so:

What I tend to do is select everything inside the black lines you sometimes get around your gif (this depends on what file you d*wnload), and also the tiniest bit inside the sides. This is because I’ve found if you crop it right up to the edge, you get a tiny bit of transparency on the sides of your gifs, which I’d rather avoid.

Once you have your desired selection, go to image > crop. Now, the dimensions for tumblr are 540px width, so all your gifs have to be that width. However, the length is up to you. I really like big gifs, so sometimes I even make a full square, or even longer. It’s entirely up to you, and what kind of set you want to make.

For the purposes of this gif, I will stick to what I usually go for, 540px by 350 px. This will mean you’ll have to crop some width off, but that’s okay, since Marisa isn’t central anyway. The cropping is always trial and error for me, as sometimes people move out of the frame within in the gif. The best thing to do is just try it, and then move the slider in the timeline window at the bottom to see if the person stays inside the gif, and if not, adjust accordingly.

Next, go to image > image size:

In this box, if I put the width as 540, the gif is a smaller height than I want, as it keeps to the dimensions of the gif when you load it into PS. That’s okay, just put the height you want instead, and we’ll crop off the excess.

Then click OK. Using the rectangular marquee tool again, we need to remove the excess width. Part of the reason I like this version of PS is that it tells you the width of your selection as you do it, but you can always use the ruler as a guide, and check the size of your image by going to image > image size again.

Again, use image > crop, and your gif should now be the correct size!

You can also use the crop tool in the timeline window to crop the length of your gif:

However, I tend to wait until later on to do this (which will be explained further down!)

SHARPENING

Next you want to go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen.

These are my settings. However, 0.4px is very sharp, too much so, but that’s easily fixed.

Go to filter > blur > Gaussian blur and then set it to 1.0.

Now on the right-hand side, we need to reduce the blur, so double click the little adjustment button, and change the opacity of the blur. I usually go for 20-30%!

Then click OK, and that’s your sharpening done!

COLOURING

I picked this scene on purpose as it’s dark, so good for showing how to colour a gif. I have a base psd which consists of some very basic adjustments, but it mostly exists so I don’t forget what adjustment layers I like to use. I adjust them every time I make a gif, essentially colouring each gif from scratch.

In this case, the psd actually makes it darker. So, what I will do is turn each layer off, and adjust as I go. A lot of people say using lots of adjustment layers ruins the quality of your gif… I have never found this to be true, as long as you are gentle with them. If you whack the brightness right up to the top, it’s going to ruin your gif no matter if you use 1 adjustment layer or 100. I would just say use your common sense, and adjust a little at a time!

I start with a simple black to white gradient map set to soft light, because I think it helps you see depth once you add some brightness to it. I usually do this on about 10%, or more if needed. It’s probably unnecessary, I just like how it looks!

Then, I move onto using curves and levels. This is where things can diverge depending on who you’re colouring. If this person is white, it doesn’t matter too much. If they’re not white, you don’t want to white wash them. My best advice is to play around with it. By adding vibrance and other (usually the red) selective colour settings later, you can ensure you don’t change the person’s skin tone from what it originally was. You can also use layer masks at varying opacities (various shades of grey), on your curves and levels, to remove some brightening so that you’re not changing anyone’s skin colour. Just brighten slowly and check in with yourself honestly about how your gif looks.

Some people don’t like using levels, or curves. It’s completely up to you. I tend to use both because levels are good for bringing depth, even if not brightening (though I like to use them for that as well). 

One thing you can do is use the white point of the gif to make PS adjust the curves itself, however I like to drag the sliders myself and see what it looks like. Just make sure it’s not too bright, as we will be using further layers to brighten more, after.

Next is levels. The slider on the left controls the black point, the one in the middle controls the midtones, and the one on the right controls the white points. The black brings depth, the midtones adjust the overall brightness, and the white points produce stronger highlights. Again, you’ll get a feel for how this works as you practice. Just don’t use the white point excessively, especially if your characters are not white.

Then I add vibrance (+20!), because we’ve removed a lot of it when lightening the gif. Next is exposure, which I find brings out the highlight and shadow areas more effectively:

Then colour balance! This helps with scenes that might be a certain colour, i.e. too blue, too green, too red, etc. Moving the sliders in the opposite direction of the colour your gif is will counteract it. The best thing to do when accounting for different colours, is to make a new layer every time you change colour, so that you don’t get confused. I always add a new layer for colour balance and selective colour if I want to change more than one thing. So one for red, one for yellow, one for pink, etc. 

A layer of brightness just to make the gif pop, and because the scene is extra dark, I added a very gentle extra curves layer:

SAVING YOUR GIF

Time to save the gif. You can go ahead and file > export > save for web (legacy) now, but then you’ll have to reopen the gif to reset the frame rate from 0.07, to 0.05. Instead of doing that, I use a modified action. The original was made by the very talented @elenafisher! So I do not take credit for that at all. You can find the original here: elenafisher(.)tumblr(.)com/post/190817437374/gif-sharpening-action-2-preview-download and in my resources tag. Please reblog it if you’re going to use this!

To use an action, first make sure you have actions turned on in window > actions. To load in your action, go to the little lines circled, and then load the action from your downloads:

Obviously if you don’t want to sharpen your gifs yourself, you can use the action as it is, and it will give you a beautiful glowing effect. If you’d just like to use it to flatten your gif into frames like I do, make sure to take out all the items I have highlighted:

Until it looks like this!

Make sure you have the layer under the file name highlighted, and then click the play button at the bottom! (If you get a screen saying select all frames cannot be found, don’t worry, just click continue!) You can delete the layer that does that if you want, I just keep it in case I realise I’ve forgotten to do something, because you can click cancel and edit your gif before you flatten it. Of course you can undo the steps to get back to the smart object version of your gif, it just takes longer!

And now your gif is in frames and set to 0.05 already, so you don’t have to change the speed! All you need to do now before saving is change the gif cycle to “forever” in the bottom left-hand corner:

Then to save the gif go to file > export > save for web (legacy). Sometimes, the gif is bigger than the tumblr 10MB limit. You’ll be able to see this in the bottom left-hand corner of the gif save settings. If this is the case, I like to preview the gif, to see whether it would be best to cut frames off of the beginning or the end, or both. When you’ve decided, you can select the frames at the bottom, and in the right-hand side panel, and delete them both using the little bins/trash icons.

I keep checking and deleting frames until I get the gif under 10 MB! Just don’t delete frames from the middle, as then you’ll have the same issue as if you selected “every other frame” when making the gif: it won’t flow!

Lastly, these are my save settings:

So that’s it! That’s how I make all my gifs. Blending I do when the gifs are in the grouped, smart filter stage, whereas text I add on during the framing section above! Really hope this is helpful, please feel free to ask any questions you may have! 💖

[elidelochans]

For the Elucien week drabbleathon, can I have Lucien finding out about his bio father and talking through his feelings with Elain?

ELUCIEN WEEK

DAY 7: FREE CHOICE

Okay so this is kinda funny to get this. I actually have this in my docs that's a multi chapter fic. The feelings bit with Elain is spoilery for the story itself so I can't share that...yet. But what I can do is show this part. Basically in this story, Elain finds out of Lucien's parentage through a vision and this scene below is what happens after that. It's set to be a few parts. Where Lucien deals with this information and then Lucien and Elain playing matemakers lmao. The chapter after this is where we deal with Lucien and talking to Elain I can tag you in it whenever I post this story to tumblr.

TRIGGER WARNING: very, very slight mention of child abuse

The three of them settled in the sun-lit room. For an office it was worlds different than Rhys' in the river estate back in Velaris. That room was a standard four walls. This one, Helion's office in the Day Court was a rounded room. Tall ivory columns wrap around the circular area. There were no windows, it was simply an open space allowing the sunlight and the warm kiss of its rays inside to dance along the tiled floor. Elain adored the sun peering in at every angle and the soft breeze that followed. She only wished they were here for better circumstances.

Glancing between the High Lord of Day and her mate, the resemblance was uncanny. From their posture, sitting regal yet with an air of recklessness to the silken strands of hair, matching grins, and the shape of their eyes. Mother above even their nose was the same. There was no denying her vision wasn’t false. They scarcely were.

When she told Lucien of seeing Helion and his mother, he refused to believe it. He was Beron's son unfortunately. His mother would never hide this from him. Elain pointed out to him that he did in fact cleave an unbreakable spell to come to her aide that day in Hyberns. No Autumn court member, high fae or otherwise had done that. Lucien attempted to pin it on the bond. Elain dismissed it bringing up his tendency to glow when in the throes of passion. The seer had once asked her sister if this common for faes to glow while being intimate. Feyre told her it was power from the High Lord of Day. Elain never could make sense of it. Why her mate glowed like a fire bug in the summer seasons until her vision. Lucien claimed it could be from a crossed lineage years ago.

“Lucien...you said you never felt like you were a Vanserra. That there was something wrong with you.”

“Maybe this is why. Because you’re not a Vanserra. We go to the Day Court and ask Helion says no then fine.”

There was panic and fear in his russet eyes when he looked at her. “What if he says yes?”

Elain crossed the threshold to her love taking his face in her hands, resting their foreheads together, her fingers lacing with his. “Then I will be there with you and together we will hear him out.”

With reluctance he agreed and now they were here, an awkward tension like a dense fog slowly filling the silent room.

Lucien leaned backed in the golden chair, hand flexing at fae speed on the arm of it, his equally golden eye whirring as it zeroed in on Helion. The High Lord's brows quirked up in amusement, a roguish smirk pulled at the corner of his lips.

"I've always wondered what that eye of yours could do. What it could see." Elain's cheeks flushed a vibrant pink, Helion's gaze fell on her offering a wink, "Petal." He purred, "Is it alright if I call you petal?"

The smile he gave her could turn someone's insides into liquid heat. No wonder he had as many lovers as there were clouds in the sky. She chuckled before answering, shifting in her seat, "Elain is fine."

"Ah, I see. We don't want to upset your mate and have him feel left out."

Helion turned to Lucien who remained silent and watching. A steely gaze on his father, Not father and his boots tapping with the same ferocity as his hand. Elain reached through the bond feeling wave after wave of anxiousness roiling through him. It was enough to make her feel nauseous like they were in a sea of turbulent waters instead of seated, far away from any ocean. His heart, she could tell, was battering so quickly Elain was surprised it didn’t fling directly out of chest. There was something else she noticed in the bond. Realization. He knew. And Lucien was not handling it well in his mind. Elain poured her affections down the bond then overlapping her hand with his. Sweeping a thumb over his knuckles. A silent statement to say, I'm here.

Elain smiled tenderly, noting the appreciation in his russet eye as Lucien glanced at her fingers. Sliding in between his own, squeezing them in reassurance. He repeated the action to her, holding tightly as if she were the only thing keeping him tethered to reality. Then his eyes met hers. The nervousness etched on his beautiful face softened. Her heart fluttered as it always did when he looked at Elain this way. Like she was his home. His comfort. His everything. Just as he was hers.

Helion coughed a bit too loudly to be real, breaking their moment, "I hate to break up this lovely storybook moment petal. If this is about the Pegasus who ate Rhys' shirt. One Rhys should come and two he left it in the stables. If you’ll excuse me, I do have a party to prepare for and guests will be arriving shortly.” Helion made to stand.

"Sit.” Lucien snarled. Helion’s eyes widened at the pitch and the bite of the one word. “We don't know anything about a Pegasus. We're here on our own accord." Lucien curtly stated.

The two high fae stared each down as Helion slid back into his chair. The fog thick tension is now so deep a knife could only strike it. Helion lifted a hand over his heart " Unfortunately, I don't take mated mates as lovers. I'm honored you thought of me to share your bed." He teased with a lovers grin. The fire in Lucien’s eye was a roaring flame. He was several seconds from exploding. Elain has seen him angry, furious, but nothing like this. If he wasn’t her mate, she’d be frightened at the burning rage beneath him.

"I find that odd. Being if Feyre or Nesta were here you'd take the chance." Elain challenged feeding off the energy her mate emitted.

"I-" His eye shuttered briefly before meeting Elain's again, "Sweet petal," he crooned before he could speak again Elain cut him off feeling Lucien's waring feelings churning through the bond.

"There's a reason you'd deny me. Us. I think it deals with a vision I had and Lucien." She gripped her mate tighter feeling his hand grow clammy yet white hot beneath her own.

Helion grew quiet, brows pressed together, his tanned chest rising and falling in rapid succession. Holding a stern gaze with Lucien. "Of?"

"The past."

Helion blanched, the color of his skin fully drained. All hints of the easy going High Lord faded into nothing. A mask of steel replaced it.

"What did you see?" His voice faltered, shaking and strained. He cleared his throat, aiming for a deeper tone in his voice. One that caused anyone to listen and obey. If an ominous storm with roaring thunder that streaked the sky in lighting had a voice it would’ve sounded like this. It came through gritted teeth in a low predatory growl. "What did you see?"

"You will not speak to her like that." Lucien snapped. Slamming his fists on the desks sparks of embers shot from his hands. Elain jumped back into the chair. Helion had the good sense to look startled for a moment, "Unlike you or my mother, she doesn't keep things from me." then Lucien added that and the steeled features returned.

It was Helion’s turn to stand and move for move copy his son’s actions. “Listen boy. I will rip your throat out if you insult your mother like that in my presence again are we clear?”

Lucien scoffed. Not the usual playful scoff Elain had grown accustomed to. This was laced with malice. “You don’t think I’ve heard threats like this before? My entire life? "I've been beaten for saying less.”

Elucien watched as the emotionless expression Helion wore quickly faded. Now his face crumbled. Pained with grief, the glow in his eyes gone as he stepped away from Lucien. Her eyes darted between the two. This wasn’t just protecting a secret she realized. There was love here. For the lady of the autumn court, and for his son. Her mate.

"I'm sorry." Helion let out in a defeated sigh. "Forgive me. forgive us."

For as fast as that heated anger ripped through Lucien, it seemed to to die down. Like the loud sigh for Helion somehow cooled her mate down.

"I-" Lucien turned to Elain unsure of what to do. Elain did not respond the whites of her eyes rolled up, her body falling back into the chair.

Mate.

The word seared in her head, when thrust back into the past, seeing Helion and the Lady of the Autumn Court together. As if her inner eye was speaking to her, revealing a part neither Lucien nor herself were ready for. Now she felt it. The golden spark tethering two souls. Pure, protective, unbreakable love. Seconds later she came back to reality.

Lucien no longer standing at the desk but kneeling in front of her. Calloused palms on hers while he searched her features.

“Elain?”

She didn’t look at him. Her gaze landed on Helion who took a step back.

“You’re mates."

“There are things bigger than telling you the truth. Stakes are high dealing with him and a situation like ours. This conversation cannot happen here.” Helion drew a finger to follow as he stood. “Ears are everywhere in Prythian. You should know this.” He fixed a sorrowful look on Lucien. “We will talk in my inner office.”

elucienweek taglist: @ladyvanserra @helion-ism @bookologist @firestarsandseneschals @thecrownlands @rarephloxes @elucienweek @nestaisgod

[xpeachesncream]

acquainted | five

> series masterlist <

summary: the biggest goal of a grad student is to get through school in one piece - no petty drama involved, no sweating over the little things. however, that plan almost always never follows through. sometimes, you can’t help but fall into the most unthinkable, unexpected traps and learn the hard way. like, exhibit a: being unable to resist your engaged, substitute teacher, kim seokjin.

pairing: (2nd bts member to be revealed) x reader x engaged!teacher!seokjin

genre: grad school au, student life au | fluff, angst, smut (to come)

words: 4.2k

warnings: implied sexual content, cussing / mature language, relationship issues, angst, club scene, alcohol consumption, intoxication, seokjin is ready to risk it all cause reader is a huge flirt, the love triangle mess shall begin

notes: AH IM SORRY, THAT’S ALL I HAVE TO SAY?!? I TRIED to make this as fair as possible, but i..... clearly have an issue and just really wanted this to be messy lmao 

tags: @laurynne5 @yiyi4657 @miinoongi @teamtardis-notdead @bluesharksandfish​ @photographic-girl (pls msg me if you would like to be added to the taglist!)

"Waddup bro." Namjoon steps aside to let Jin in. "Wasn't expecting you to come by since we're seeing each other tonight." Jin chuckled.

"Fuck, that's right." Joon laughs as he hands Jin a bottle of water before sitting.

"What, you forgot? You planned this for your own stepbrother."

"No, I know. Just a lot of things going on." He sips on his water, manspreading in Namjoon's loveseat in the livingroom. He tilts his head back and closes his eyes, the headache he felt earlier this morning no longer as bad, but still lingered. After getting home last night, he had tried to push you out of his mind, but failed miserably. It didn't help that he really and genuinely tried to clear the air with Grace, only for her to push him off and sleep on the far end of their bed.

"You alright? What's going on? I feel like I haven't seen you this stressed in a really long time. Last time was probably when you were planning your proposal." Jin softly chuckles, his head still tilted back.

"Yeah, it's been quite the shit show lately."

"Can't be that bad, can it? Have you and Grace been fighting?"

"A tad."

"A tad? The way you're acting right now says it's much more than a tad."

"We've been distant. Busy. We don't do things together anymore." He shortens the shpeel cause quite frankly, he's tired of repeating the story even though he hasn't told many people.

"Why don't you guys talk about it?"

"We can't communicate properly. I try, she gets even more upset and blows me off."

"It's probably just a rough patch in your relationship. I'm sure if you just give each other enough space, you could figure out how to fix things and have a serious conversation about where you both are at and what you need from each other. Remind each other that you're a team, and not working against each other." Jin's slightly shot his head up, his eyebrow raised.

"That's actually pretty solid advice coming from you."

"Shut up, you need help right?" Joon laughs.

"You're right though, it's just been hard. I feel like we've been constantly pushing each other away."

"You two are stubborn."

"Yup, that too." Jin sipped his water.

"I know that's not the only thing on your mind." If it was anyone in Jin's circle, you could count on Namjoon to figure things out before you can even say anything to him. "It's a little hard to believe you came over here to tell me this." In which, he's right. Jin never really talked about his relationship problems, let alone did he go out of his way to tell his friends what was going on. It was more of a thing that naturally came up in conversation when they were all together.

"Don't know what you're talking about." Joon shakes his head.

"Who is she?" Jin watches Namjoon's curious eyes as he leans into the palm of his hand. He was trying to come up with excuses or find ways to see himself out of his conversation, but he couldn't. Namjoon was too smart for this. If it were Yoongi or Hoseok, maybe he could get away with it. The only thing that Jin can come up with is a stupid smirk before he shakes his head and breaks eye contact. "See."

"See what?"

"That smirk. You can't tell me I don't know that smirk. I've been there before, dude. Who is she?" He repeats, causing Jin to succumb to defeat.

"She's a grad student in my creative writing class." Namjoon pauses before he bursts out in laughter.

"I need to sit back and get comfy on my couch for this." He says leaning back and crossing his arms. "She's a grad student? What's her name?" Jin nods.

"Y/N. 25 and so fucking attractive. It's frustrating." Jin groans into his hands.

"And you're telling me you see her more than just a distraction? I mean, I have to ask cause you are going through a rough patch with Grace." Although this is definitely not what Namjoon agrees with, he was only going to advise Jin on how to approach things. But execution-wise, it was up to Jin because this was his life. Namjoon was only part of it.

"She's smart, and she's fun. And.. she's refreshing."

"What did she do to make you feel this way?"

"She kissed me. In my classroom. And," Jin swallows the lump in his throat. "It happened again last night. It almost escalated into other things. But she stopped it." He quickly says because he can see Namjoon's facial expression changing. "She stopped it and she put me in my place because it just made things even more complicated. She said that we should keep our distance from each other."

"Which, she's right Jin. You really can't be doing this." Namjoon says sternly. "Please don't be stupid. This can hurt alot of people, especially since you're still engaged to Grace."

"I know, but likeeeeee--"

"No but's." Joon shook his head. Honestly, he didn't expect this behavior from Jin and it concerned him. "I can't force you on how to act, that's solely up to you. But you need to understand that it has to be one or the other, it can't be both. You either try and work things out with Grace and leave Y/N alone, or you call it quits with Grace."

"Y/N has been occupying my mind lately and it's been hard to push her out."

"Maybe that should be a sign as to what you need to do?" Joon sighs. "I don't know. I don't know her, so I can't say much, but are you really ready to throw away all these years with Grace for her? Like, is it really that serious?" Jin shrugged.

"I don't know, she doesn't want this."

"Correction - she doesn't want this because you're engaged. It's obvious that things would be different if the circumstances changed."

"I love Grace. A lot. We've been through so many things together, lots of ups and downs that taught us things."

"Yeah, and I love you both. I love Grace like a sister. But you can't stick around just because of history and because you both are comfortable, if that's what it really comes down to. It's not fair for both parties. If you find out that this is the end of your relationship with Grace, then it's the end."

"I'm just torn."

"Look, whatever you do, know that I support you no matter what and I'm always going to be here for you. But please do this right, no matter what that is. You can't have both of them."

"Yeah I know, I hear you." Joon nods.

"You're selfish, you know that?" Joon laughs. "You couldn't even introduce her to your single friends?" Jin smiled.

"Nope. Finders keepers." Joon rose his middle finger. "Just do me a favor and keep your mouth shut until I tell Yoongi and Hoseok myself."

"Sure, whatever. Not my battle anyways." He stood up and stretched. "So, where are we taking your little Jungkookie tonight?"

"The club so he can get some for his birthday."

"What a good older brother." Jin laughed.

"Is Grace in New York already?"

"Yep. I'm probably just going to head home and sleep until then. I don't remember the last time I stayed up this late, let alone the last time I went to a club."

"Yeah go home, and not to Y/N's house."

"Should I?" Jin joked, but Namjoon rolled his eyes. "I'm kidding, don't worry. Everything didn't just go in one ear and out the other."

"Yeah, please reassure me and tell me that I didn't waste time giving you advice."

"Oh my god, hurry up!" Jimin groaned loudly as he laid sloppily on your couch, getting restless while waiting for you, Ryujin and Taehyung to finish getting ready. To be fair, you all had been getting ready and fooling around for 2 hours, while Jimin sat patiently and watched whatever was on TV.

"Shut up, Jimin! I'm going to make sure I look good tonight." Ryujin yelled back.

"For who?"

"The dick I'll be getting."

"Why did I even ask?" Jimin sighed and dug his head into a pillow while you and Ryujin continued to yell and sing along loudly to every song that came through on your bluetooth speakers. "You all look good already, please, what else do you need to do?" He mumbled into the pillow. Don't get him wrong, he loves you all to death. He truly does. But it's just been such a long time since you all have gone out like this. He forgot what it was like.

"You know, she really means me." Taehyung tugged on his collar and swiped his thumb across his bottom lip.

"Okay, honestly. You two should probably fuck already. Get it out of your systems, you know?" You say as you dab lip gloss on your lips before shrugging and rolling your eyes. "Jesus Christ."

"Okay, no. You're supposed to be on my side, and that doesn't help." Ryujin's cheeks flush to a rosy tint as she pulls you aside. You knew damn well she was feeling embarrassed because it was true. She wanted to. Once Ryujin finally dusted herself off and was satisfied with her outfit, you both walked out into the living room to meet Jimin and Taehyung. Their eyes widened as they caught sight of you two, Ryujin in a pink, ruched dress with matching pink heels and you in a matching 2-piece skirt and low cut crop top.

"Oh shit, you both look good as hell." Taehyung says as he gets up and continues to eye both of you up and down. Mostly Ryujin, though. "Shall we head out?"

"Yup!" You say as you come to Jimin's side and lead the way out of your apartment. Jimin decided he'd drive tonight since he didn't feel like drinking too much, but he still wanted to go out and have fun. The crew headed to grab dinner at the Farmhouse Kitchen, which served the best Thai food in town. You all enjoyed some good grub, along with some really strong cocktails. You felt super happy that you all had time to finally do this since it's been a minute. You felt like you could finally let lose and get your mind off of things. The things that your dearest bestfriends don't even know about.

But, stories for other days. Tonight, you felt good and you looked good. You were all that and then some. Maybe tonight was the night you could meet a single, fine ass man to dance up on and act up with.

The cocktails were hitting you and Ryujin the most, already feeling tipsy before heading into the club.

"Wooooo!" Ryujin yelled before laughing out loud. "I'm ready!"

"Okay, yes, same, but please keep it together so we can at least make it inside the club." Jimin pleaded. He led your crew up to security, flashing your IDs one by one and paying for the cover fee before stepping in to the already packed nightclub. You and your friends ended up walking in a straight line, holding each other's hands to navigate through the crowd to the bottom floor. The top floor was the most crowded, being it was the house / EDM floor, while the bottom Hip Hop floor wasn't too jammed packed.

"Shots, my friends?" Taehyung asks as he swings over to the front of the bar. You follow behind him and line up against the bartender, asking for some good ol' Don Julio tequila. It wasn't your fave, but it was definitely Taehyung's go-to, and you can't lie, it got the job done quick for you. You all stick around the bar to take your shots, kicking them back to back [besides Jimin] to really get this night started.

As you waited for the final around, Taehyung is scanning the room and notices a group loudly making their way from down the steps and over to the bar. They were cheering on whoever the birthday boy was. A face in the group had looked familiar, so Taehyung squints his eyes to get a better look, and realizes its no other than Jin with his friends.

"Oh, shit! Look! Mr. Kim's here!" Taehyung laughs and says loudly, pointing towards the other end of the bar.

"Is he really?! Let's go take a shot with him and his friends!" Ryujin squeals as she sees him come into full view. You too, get a glimpse of him as they approach the bar and suddenly, you felt hot and nervous - the alcohol being of no help during this time. He looked good, and he didn't look like the already-handsome-professor you had. His hair was more natural, slightly curly, and almost like he had showered and let it messily air dry. The look was perfect on him. Not gonna lie, you were somewhat happy he was here to see how good you looked and part of you really wanted him to crave you until he couldn't take it anymore. You wanted to drive him crazy, and little did you know that you already were. It was a game you didn't mind playing, especially since you knew you couldn't have him.

You shouldn't.

"Ayeeeee! Mr. Kim!" Taehyung's ass yells with Ryujin cheering in the back. He does nothing but flash that smile of his while chuckling. His friends are all really handsome as well, one especially caught your eye with the way his wavy black hair fell down his eyes as he stood against the bar in black ripped jeans and a button up shirt. He seemed to be the youngest out of the group, but you were just assuming.

"Let's take a shot! On me!" Ryujin yells as she runs over with her loud ass. You follow behind her with Taehyung and Jimin, slightly hiding behind Jimin since you were feeling a little shy and awkward at this encounter. The events of the past days just flashed before your eyes, and you can feel Jin's eyes burning holes through you from your peripherals.

"These are your students?" You overhear as one of them looks behind at Jin and laughs.

"Yup." Is all he says, hands deep into his pockets.

"That's her isn't it?" Namjoon says in his ear, loud enough to make sure its clear over the music blasting. Jin simply looks at him without saying a word before returning his attention back on Jungkook, who he noticed was eyeing you. The look said everything to Namjoon.

"Do you know her?" Jungkook points at you and Jin nods.

"Why?"

"Why? She's gorgeous." His eyes light up, causing Namjoon to slightly choke and laugh behind Jin.

"Go for it." Is all Jin says. He's honestly livid right now, because the thought of someone else being able to get a taste of you while he hasn't fucks him up.

"Ohhh, boy." Namjoon sighs. "I hope you're truly over her or else it's going to get really fucked up, you know that right?"

"Don't worry about it." He says, dismissing him as he takes the shot from Yoongi's hand and immediately downs it.

"Hey." The black-haired cutie that caught your eye pushed his way through the group to come into full view. "I'm Jungkook."

"Y/N." You lightly shake his hand before tucking a strand behind your ear.

"I just wanted to say that you're absolutely gorgeous." He says cutely, his hands tucked into his pockets.

"Aw, thank you. That's so sweet."

"I, uh—"

"It's his 23rd birthday today!" One of the guys against the bar yells, grabbing Jungkook's shoulders and playfully massaging it.

"Yeah, it's his birthday Y/N! Give the boy some love!" Ryujin winked from where she was at.

"Happy Birthday." You chuckled as he nods.

"Thanks. Maybeeeee you can bless me with a dance after this shot?" He asked shyly. Boy, was he fucking attractive. You could see his thighs poking through the rips of his jeans, his sharp collarbone poking out from the unbuttoned portion of his shirt and his arm muscles defined even in the dark.

"Yeah, I'd love to." You leaned back against the bar as he stood next to you, waiting for the round of shots to come. "Are these your friends?" He chuckled.

"More like big brothers? That's Yoongi, that's Hoseok and that's Namjoon. They're Jin's friends. Jin is my stepbrother." You swallowed the lump in your throat as you quickly glance at Jin, who's side-eyeing you as he leans against the bar. You have got to be fucking kidding me. God was truly testing you.

"Ohhhh." You respond. "That's sweet of them to take you out."

"I honestly didn't wanna do much, let alone come to the club. It's not really my thing, but I'm glad I did or else I wouldn't have met you." He smiled, his smile being just as perfect as his stepbrother's.

"I'm glad I could make your birthday a good one after all." Ryujin suddenly comes to your side and gives your arm a good squeeze.

"He's a cutie! You better hop on that since Mr.Kim is taken." She says in your ear, pulling you into a hug.

"That's his stepbrother."

"Even better!" She exclaims, making you shake your head. You all gather and take the last round of shots in honor of Jungkook's birthday and shit gets wild, quick. Your group led them to the dance floor, partying together like you had known them since forever. It didn't feel awkward at all knowing it was Jin and group of friends, but it did get awkward when you felt the tension with Jin every time you were near him. He didn't like seeing you dance all up on his stepbrother, getting all handsy and touchy-feely when just the other night, you were straddling his lap, ready to risk it all.

Hell, what was he gonna do though? He couldn't do shit. Not with his people around, especially Namjoon.

You knew this. He didn't have to say anything for you to know he wasn't a fan of it. You'd catch him looking at you throughout the night, his eyes hungry and almost dark. Let's get this straight - there's no bad blood here. You're not mad or bitter [slightly]. You're just having your fun because you're single and can do whatever the fuck you want. You know he wants you, what's wrong with a little tease?

A couple of songs have passed and Ryujin has made her way through Taehyung, Yoongi and Namjoon, and now she was back to doing her own thing on the dance floor. Jimin has had a couple of ladies welcome themselves onto his lap, and he gladly accepted. You loved seeing Jimin have fun and you especially loved when girls swooned at the sight of him because he was deserving of it and he was mighty good looking. He always worked hard and never gave himself a break.

You, on the other hand, had been stuck to the hip with Jungkook and you had brought him deeper into the dance floor, away from the group just to get a little alone time. You had danced up on him majority of the night, his muscular arms always gently bringing you back against his body. You both were feeling some type of way with the alcohol running through your veins, but you weren't complaining one bit. Alcohol or not, Jungkook was fine.

"So, are you going to let me take you out on a date?" Jungkook asks in your ear, causing you to bite onto your bottom lip.

"I'd love to go out on a date with you." You face him, his smile going from ear to ear as he nods and starts taking down your number. To be honest, you could be here all night with him, but you decided you needed a break from all this dancing and from the crowded dance floor. You quickly excuse yourself to the bathroom, suddenly needing to break the seal really badly and freshen up. As you were exiting the bathroom, Jin was also exiting the men's bathroom at the same time. You both locked eyes, with you breaking the contact with a small, toothless smile before walking off.

"Y/N." He says, gently grabbing your wrist and pulling you back towards him. His body is against the back wall, both of your groups distant and not as visible from where you're standing. He looks down at you, his hand still wrapped around your wrist.

"Jin."

"You haven't said one word to me all night."

"I'm trying to keep my distance from you, remember?"

"You know that's not necessary." His hand was now on the small of your back, fingers gently caressing your back in small circles.

"It is. You know what you do to me." You say as you look down at his lips. Truthfully.

"And so do you." You can feel his breath against your skin and it sends goosebumps down your entire body. You're trying your hardest right now to not get turned on by this man, let alone throw yourself onto him. "This isn't fair, you know?"

"I gotta get back to everyone." You say, slightly pulling back.

"Just for the record," He gently pulls you back, his other hand lifting your chin. "Jungkook might have you right now, but I know in the end you'll be coming home to me and that's all that matters." He lets go of your wrist and walks away, leaving you slightly dumbfounded at the way he stood his ground like that. Your panties felt soaked, and you wanted nothing more but to ride this man into the next dimension. He was truly testing you, and quite frankly, you could burst any minute now.

"You okay?" Jimin says, lightly squeezing your arm. "You were gone for awhile."

"Yeah, long line." You lied.

"We're thinking about heading out, you good with that?" You nod silently. You look around to see Ryujin flirting with Yoongi and Namjoon, making you shoot him a look. "Not me, all you. Go get her." He shakes his head, chuckling.

"Alright, I need to say bye to Jungkook anyways."

"Oooh, Jungkook." He wiggles his eyebrows. You make your way over to the area that Jin and his friends are occupying, prying Ryujin's drunk ass away. You give Jungkook a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek, letting him know you'd be waiting for his text.

Finally, you all headed out of the club and into Jimin's car, Ryujin being the first drop off of the night. Thank God he had decided to drive, because all three of you were still pretty tipsy and in no condition to get behind the wheel.

"Y/N, listen to me. You need to hop on Jungkook because he's fine as fuck!" Ryujin's drunk ass yells in the backseat as Jimin is making his way to her house.

"Ouch, Ry, stop kicking my chair." Jimin whines.

"Y/N, did you hear me?"

"I hear you loud and clear, Ry. Thank you." You laugh.

"And you, Jimin! I hope you grabbed a ton of numbers because there were tons of pretty ladies feeling you tonight and you need a girl!"

"Perfect, thank you for pointing out how single I am." He says, making Taehyung snorts.

"What about me?"

"Shut up, Tae. You don't need shit. Mind your own business." You and Jimin laugh in your seats.

"Also, Mr. Kim was really eyeing the hell out of you tonight, Y/N." She adds, making you sigh silently to yourself.

"Actually, I concur." Jimin chimes in. "He couldn't keep his eyes off of you."

"Mistress Y/N." Taehyung calls out, causing you to turn and pinch him on the leg. If you haven't gotten it by now, Tae loves to tease the fuck out of you by calling you a mistress. It's been his thing since you got all googly-eyed for him. And you hated it. You truly wanted to fight him every single time.

"It was nothing. He was probably just drunk."

"Sure." Jimin responds. "Call it what you want, he was definitely feeling you tonight." The ride goes silent, which, you're happy that none of them are pressing on it. You were not trying to get caught up at this moment.

Ryujin gets dropped off before Jimin makes his way to your apartment, parking in the yellow passenger/loading zone. Taehyung is knocked out in the back seat, while Jimin throws his hazards on and walks you to the front door of the lobby.

"Thanks for driving, Chim." He smiles and pulls you into a hug.

"No prob. Call me if you need me?" You nod. You walk in and get into the elevator, Jimin and his car disappearing in sight. You take a deep breath and sigh because you had been having an internal battle since the moment you stepped out of the club.

You were losing.

You stepped out of the elevator, only to step into your apartment to quickly freshen up and throw on comfier clothes. You find yourself heading back downstairs to meet your Uber. You knew exactly where you were going and you knew exactly what you were doing.

But you didn't give a fuck. You had been dying to get your needs fulfilled and the only person you wanted was a quick 25 minute Uber trip away.

[vennilave]

🌸Rules: shuffle your (current) playlist and list the first 10 songs.

Thanks for tagging me @gilgilalah! I'll be using a similar set up as gil plus will be pulling from my On Repeat playlist on spotify hehe.

So Baby (Doctor) - Yes the chorus sounds like a 2015 chainsmokers song but -as nelson anne would say the gasagasa- slaps ksjfhdj idk I vibe to it more than I should Adedo Maayalley (Yuddham Sharanam) - Such a nice chill rnb feel song! Vivek Sagar is my fav telugu composer, I’d love to see him do tamil films too. Thimsukatta (Thirumalai) - I had Vijay tracks on loop all of June for his day of the births and ofc thimsukatta [ai ai thimsukatta] was one of them Inna Mylu (Lift) - HAHA this is one of my unfortunate bops that fall in the same category as my hht guilty pleasures Engeyum Eppothum (Polladhavan) - SPOTIFY FINALLY ADDED POLLADHAVAN SO YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS IS ON REPEATT! YogiB and spb are kings we dont deserve Coimbathore Mapillaikku (Coimbathur Mapillai) - KDJFKD udit narayanan-vijay songs all slap for some reason and this is one of them (vidyasagar went off on this album in ‘96) Dhaari Choodu (Krishnarjuna Yudham) -  yes, this is one of the hiphopthamizha guilty pleasures I mentioned earlier. Nani vibing in a lungi and the semi circus sounding beat somehow equals to a hype song lmao this shit always gets me headbopping/dancing in my seat Azhagiye (Kaatru Veliyidai) - !!! ahh one of my all time fav comfort songs! The whole album just makes me 🥰🥰 if someone sang this to me i’d be flat angeye lmaofdfd- why is my brain just suriya singing en iniya pon nilave in va - wrong sivakumar HAHA Nethu (Jagame Thandhiram) - YES ENDING ON A BANGER. the entire jt album is just chefs kiss, and omfg there was a week when i literally only listened to nethu and nothing else

Anyways theres my blend of non surprising tamil and telugu tracks, i hope you guys find some new favs through this!

[aceofshitposts]

I saw that you like CATS the musical. What are your thoughts on the movie?

AAAAH AHHAHA oh man oh boy y'all should BUCKLE IN cuz it's a ride

my simple thoughts? it's entertaining if only because it butchered the stage show so badly in an attempt to idk modernize it? Well, modernization is one part of it I think. The other part I'll go into below lol. I don't necessarily hate some of the more modern renditions of the songs (mostly the ensemble sets like Jellicle Song for Jellicle Cats) but then others are just... so poorly done it's insulting.

I've said this at the end of this whole rant too but I'm gonna put it up here in case people don't (justifiably) wanna see me go on and on about it:

The movie wasn't made for fans of the musical. It was made to make money and I believe they choose, at least partially, to do that through making it the weirdest and worst possible adaptation they could so that people would want to go see the train wreck. Which, really, worked! It was all people could talk about for a good while so like... Goal achieved, I guess.

A MUCH MORE COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS UNDER THE CUT cuz i don't wanna. flood your dash with... this

ALRIGHT SO. Most of my friends know I'm actually a huge fan of new adaptations of things. I love remakes (provided the people making it are coming at it with some form of heart and not just... cash grabbing which is more often the case) I love seeing other peoples interpretations of characters, or changing settings. It's one of the reasons I like American comics so much, getting to see different writers takes is fascinating.

I think musical movies can be wonderful ways to introduce people to a stage show that might have been unavailable to them otherwise! Chicago, for example, is one of the BEST musical to movie adaptations in my opinion. It kept the heart of the show, it's funny and the song numbers are done really well.

There are of course other famous examples, such as Grease or Bye Bye Birdie. Hairspray was also a wonderful take. These are simply off the top of my head, there are of course more.

CATS in particular has a history. If you go through my CATS tag you may see a few posts from @catsnonreplica which posts photos from non broadway productions of CATS! It's a fascinating read and I love, love, love looking at the other interpretations of the characters! CATS is a musical full of fun and wonderful characters if you take the time to see past the ridiculousness haha and the Korean and Japanese runs of CATS especially have some of my favourites.

How does this relate to the movie, I hear you say well. As you might has noticed the movie's interpretations of the characters is........ lackluster at best and downright uncanny valley at best.

CATS is, at its core, a ridiculous thing. I will fully admit that! But it's fun, it's entertaining and if you pay a little attention you can actually get the plot. (Honestly I don't understand when people complain it has no plot but that's a whole other rant for another day)

The movie was... obsessed with this idea of like... semi realism? Like obviously, as a fan, I think they should have leaned into the over the top character designs but instead we got...w ell:

Bombalurina:

Demeter left and Bomba right. Demeter was actually cut! From the movie which is. upsetting lmao.

Macavity is one of the worst offenders for me:

Macavity was... I wish I could know what the hell they were thinking there cuz it's even in his song? Ginger cat??? THAT IS NOT... A GINGER CAT...... but I digress. I would show more examples but I think you get the point.

So. We've butchered the characters appearances. Okay that's fine but what about their personalities?

ALSO BUTCHERED.

There's... there's a lot to unpack here. Just for context: the Jellicle Ball happens once a year and the Jellicle leader chooses a single cat to be reborn into a new life. In the stage play all the cats who are nominated for this honour are on the older side (Jenny-Any-Dots, Bustopher Jones, Skimbleshanks, Gus The Theatre Cat, and eventually Grizzabella) AND are always nominated by another cat. Not themself, unlike the movie where they all seem to nominate themselves.

Jenny-Any-Dots went from a doting grandmother figure who's celebrated for her selfless volunteering and tireless work into a conceited, vain younger cat who is obsessed with fame.

It's an incredibly strange dichotomy. I don't doubt some of it isn't the result of the uh people playing the characters honestly. I do think some of them did the best they could! I don't really blame Jason Derulo, for example, for Tugger. And honestly, Tugger was probably closest to his stage version (while being a trouble maker, he's shown to show Deuteronomy an immense amount of respect)

Speaking of Tugger! This will bring us to one of the biggest grievances with the movie and that is how they handled Mr Mistoffelees.

So... Ugh. So. We have Victoria as the pov character, which imo is like whatever in the grand scheme of things, and then we have Misto who they have decided will be get live interest cuz... Of course. Misto is shown throughout the musical to be awkward, unsure of himself and well. Really, kinda incompetent. Which is Wild cuz in the stage show he might be aloof but he's fairly confident in his powers.

So, Old Deuts gets kidnapped. In the stage show Tugger is the one to bring Misto forward! It's really quite sweet, imo, and I'm showing myself as a Tuggoffelees shipper here, but again Tugger is previously shown to be pretty conceited but then here he is boosting and hyping up Misto to bring Deuteronomy back. My friends and I have lovingly dubbed this the boyfriend hype song.

SOMEHOW. The movie manages to make this, easily, the MOST BORING number in the whole thing. Which, again, WILD. Misto awkwardly stumbles through his whole song, which again is... Boasting of his supreme magical powers which movie Misto clearly. Does not have or believe to have. The song, to me, feels super awkward and unnecessarily drawn out in the movie which sucks cuz it's one of my favourites in the show.

The declawing (heh) of Mr Mistoffelees actually reminds me strongly of how they changed Gaston in the live action Beauty and the Beast movie. He's gone from a beloved figure in the animated movie to someone so disliked in the town that Le Fou has to pay people off to say nice things about him. It's just. Wild character choices were made!!

Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat is probably my favourite in movie non ensemble number. It feels the most... Genuine? Compared to the other nomination songs.

Other problems include but are not limited to:

The inconsistent size scale of the CATS which throws me off constantly.

The weirdly overt sexual overtones added to MANY of the songs (Jenny and Bustopher being the worst)

This is just a personal gripe and opinion but I don't like that they used the UK version of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. The American version is both better known and tbh way more fun. Teazer's giggle? Adds ten years to my life every time.

Victoria's added solo song, Beautiful Ghosts, while I like the song as a song it doesn't fit the style of message of the musical. In the movie she's singing directly to Grizzabella who's being an outcast for years that she should be grateful she even has memories of being part of the tribe?? What?? But I know they had to add an original song to be able to be nominated for awards in like the Grammys n shit (which is why all musical movies will have an original song, fun fact!!) kinda funny they went to the effort though considering........... I don't think anyone could have genuinely believed CATS 2019 was gonna win anything but golden rhaspberries.

Movie Mr Mistoffelees has made repeated appearances as my sleep paralysis demon

The various cut characters, shout outs to Jemima, Demeter and Jellylorum especially

Bombalurina being a henchman to Macavity rubs me the wrong way

God I've written... So much. You probably get it by now haha. Like I said at the beginning, I try to go into any adaptation with an open mind but... Let's be honest, this movie wasn't marketed to people who are fans of the musical.

It was marketed, and made, to make money. And they choose to do that through, I think, intentionally making the worst possible version ever. Bad press is still press and the more outrageous people said the movie was the more people wanted to go see exactly what kind of train wreck it was.

Which is a disservice to the stage show, honestly, and all the people who've worked on it over the years.

But what can we do, right?

And besides all that, I do... Still own the movie version and I do still rewatch it on occasion. It is entertaining even if it's in a train wreck kind of way. I usually end up watching the 1998 version, then 2019 and then various tour runs that are on YouTube. (I highly recommend the 2016 tour, it's very good)

So in conclusion. It's fun (?) to watch. I enjoy picking things apart and doing analysis (if you couldn't tell!) so like... I don't hate it?

It did what it set out to do, I guess, and I can't fault it for that but. It's not a fair metre with which to judge the stage show imo. But I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, haha.

Jazz hands. I'm more than happy to elaborate or just chat about CATS if anyone wants! I grew up listening to the Broadway CD since I was a toddler so it's been! A very long standing obsession haha. Probably the only other thing on par with CATS is my obsession with Jurassic Park which I've also been a fan of since I was 3 (but that's a whole story in and of itself)

[transmascdeanwinchester]

You got any trans man dean headcanons? 👀

I don’t know when u sent this so sorry if I’m answering late!!!

Also I just have the basic bitch set of trans dean headcanons tbh but they make me go feral so I will repeat them!!

- lazurus rising when cas brought dean back he put him in the body he’s always deserved (the mirror scene lives in my head rent free baby!)

- teenage dean stealing testosterone from hospitals and pharmacies when he had the chance bc they moved around too much for him to have a stable prescription pickup plan

- John being pissed for awhile that dean’s not his “perfect little girl” like he thought but getting over it bc dean is so determined to emulate him to prove his masculinity that it just makes him a better more fierce hunter and protector so John gets over it in like a year (Dean’s always been Like That anyway,,, in the grand scheme of things it’s less Distracting to have this small ongoing conflict that John just calls him Dean and does the passive aggressive “you wanna be a man? Act like it.” bullshit you know how it goes)

- Dean knowing he’s not a girl from a young age (like probably about 6) and teaches Sam to call him Dean and that he’s his brother from the time sammy can talk (Sam doesn’t learn Dean’s name is legally Deanna until he’s starting middle school)

- Dean binding in his teens by wearing those tank tops that are like skin tight but also stretchy material? With the built in bra part? he wears two of those under all the Normal Winchester layers and it gives him the flat chest (what isn’t flattened completely gets lost under his dad’s leather jacket he wears to school every day)

- it goes without saying but Dean, age 7, cut his hair for the first time in a shitty hotel bathroom mirror by trying to copy a dude in a shaving ad in a magazine (John didn’t even notice for three days)

- Dean gets top surgery after sam goes to Stanford when he’s supposed to be on a solo hunt (he tells John he’s hunting something but really he’s recovering at Bobby’s)

- Bobby, we are not surprised, is a good father figure and shut that shit down when dean explains that he’s just gonna hole up in a motel once he gets his surgery (“Boy, do you know how fucking dirty motel linens are? I am NOT letting you die from an infection and most certainly not leaving you Alone for months defenseless”)

- Dean using makeup to make his jawline a little sharper and more square even tho the iffy food situation growing up made sure he barely has any roundness to his face to begin with

- on the flip side dean playing up his fem features to use as a distraction when he hustles pool

- dean training his voice by trying to copy the sound of his favorite singers voices (and John since he hears his voice most consistently)

- dean knocking the shit out of transphobes (the comments don’t even have to be directed at him, he hears them and it’s ON SIGHT no question)

- dean acting like a womanizer bc that’s what Men Do and it’s all just literally part of his carefully constructed hyper masculine image bc it’s so so difficult to pick up anyone when what’s under theclothes don’t match what can be seen on the surface (Cassie is the first person he sleeps with and he’s so terrified but she doesn’t care holy shit she doesn’t care?)

- Dean chooses to keep his name close to his birth name bc that’s the name his mother gave him and he doesn’t want to disrespect her by completely changing it

- On the topic of dean’s hyper masculine image he constructs it from a mix of John and from the action movies he studies religiously when he has the chance (this is what boys like this is what every man dreams of being I have to like this too-) even tho he has enough action and violence in his actual life thanks,

- Dean not being big on faith because he can’t imagine some higher power choosing to make him be born in the wrong body and make him work so hard to fix it himself like life wasn’t hard Enough

- Dean being so immensely pleased when word gets around the monster worlds about the Winchester Brothers,,, the validity of your reputation being cemented in the way you’ve carefully crafted it to be

- Dean rationalizing that it’s okay for him to spend time and energy on making sure he’s presenting masc and getting the body language and mannerisms down because it helps him be better at his jobs as protector of his family and as a hunter (men are thought of as stronger/scarier, men are taken more seriously when interviewing locals/victim’s families, more authority is afforded to men)

- dean almost shooting a man in a bar bathroom when he’s fourteen and just needed to deal with shark week stuff real quickly but this drunk decided a “teenage girlie only has one use in a men’s bathroom” but dean just knocks him out and sprints back to the motel (dean doesn’t use public bathrooms after that if he can help it)

- dean not knowing the word transgender until he finds it in a library book while he’s supposed to be researching but really he’d heard the slur and needed to be clear on why it made him feel so icky so he was looking it up in the dictionary and he’s like Oh that’s Me

- Bobby doesn’t actually meet Sam and Dean until after Dean’s cut his hair for the first time and Sammy can only say half words (most Dee, which is good enough for Dean) so one of Dean’s first impressions of Bobby is him asking John “didn’t you have a daughter?” and John just giving a tired sigh because he’s too busy with the hunt he’s here for to try and get into it but Dean butts in with “No, he’s always had two boys, I’m Dean and this is Sammy” and Bobby doesn’t comment on this little high pitched voice or question it much because he’s babysitting this kid for the next two weeks and he doesn’t want it to be a hostile two weeks (and it never becomes a problem because by the end of week one Bobby never even entertains the idea that Dean isn’t a little boy)

- After Dean gets back from Hell literally the only thing that trips Sam and Bobby up (aside from that he just resurrected lmao) is that his shoulders are more squared and he’s just built more like he should be (see previous point about cas rebuilding him as he should’ve been!)

- Dean never having much money but he still donates to queer charities when he can (makes a point of it in June especially)

- Dean hangs a trans flag in his room at the bunker (and one in the dean cave too)

- The insane validation Dean feels at being called The Rifhteous Man (also the fact that Heaven Knew he was a man all along but didn’t lift a finger to make that any easier to show the rest of the world adds to dean’s general hatred towards them tho)

That’s all I can think of right now but just!! Trans Dean!!!!

Thank u for asking friend!!!

(@bowie-boy I am tagging u bc idk if u will see this post so hope that’s okay!!!)

[cali-holland]

Golden Hearts, Ch. 2: Martinis, Girls, and Guns

Harrison Osterfield X Reader, James Bond AU ~ Sequel to Golden Bullets

Following a messy split, Harrison, Agent 007, resumes his role as an elite womanizer, after his recovery from his previous mission; meanwhile, you’ve stepped back from your 00 status, taking on cases as MI6’s assistant director from your office. When a new threat emerges to MI6 and a dear friend gets kidnapped, can you and Harrison set aside your differences to save special agent Q, better known as Tom? Or will the stakes- and your love, push you two further apart?

Word Count: 3800

Gif is not mine 

Golden Hearts Masterlist

Masterlist   Harrison Osterfield Masterlist

Let me know if you want to be added to the series tag list

Warnings: sexual themes, maybe some swearing, harry and harrison and reader all being jealous idiots 

Featured Song: “Tomorrow Never Dies” by Sheryl Crow from Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

~ “You're not the only spy out there, It's so deadly my dear, The power of wanting you near”

A/N: Special shoutout to @duskholland​ for helping me come up with ways to write “sensual” scenes and to @allegra-writes​ for helping me learn more about the tango (which idk if this even counts lmao, don’t hate me yall it’s just a steamy dance). Also, the tango sequence was inspired by an episode of Chuck... but idk if anyone’s seen that.

~~~

“She’s not coming.” Harrison said, irritation clear in his voice as he stepped out of his BMW. Leaning against his own car, Harry grabbed his duffel bag from his feet with a frown.

“But you said you could convince her.” Harry answered, and the blond shrugged, running a hand through his hair. He went around to the back of his car and opened up the trunk for him to get out his two bags.

“I thought wrong.” He muttered. With their bags slung over their shoulders, they made their way across the tarmac to the jet that they were absolutely legally borrowing from MI6.

“We’ll just have to go on without her.” Harry paused, “I still think maybe I could’ve-“

“Harry, don’t take this wrong, but if I couldn’t convince her, then no one could.” Harrison stated definitively.

“Why’s that?” The younger agent asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to understand the sudden irritation in his friend.

“No reason.” He replied, biting his tongue. With Harry following him, he entered the jet’s cabin. Harrison shuffled to put away his two bags, one full of weapons and one of his actual things.

“I’ll get the jet ready.” Harry stated, setting his bag in a seat. As he made his way to the cockpit, Harrison noticed a fourth black duffel bag in the cabin. He eyed it suspiciously, but, before he could question it, he heard his friend speak again. “You’re here!”

“You think I’d leave saving Tom to you two divs?” You questioned with a laugh from the pilot’s seat as the surprised Harry took a seat in the copilot’s seat.

Harrison stepped into the doorway of the cockpit, looking at you with an unreadable expression on his face; like he too was surprised you were here, but also like he was proud that you had come. You smiled softly at him, “I thought I should save the person who’s the reason that we’re alive today.”

Registering your words as a repeat of his own, he couldn’t help the fond smile that crossed his face. “Get this thing in the air, yeah?”

“Prepare for takeoff.” You told him, before turning to the controls before you. With your back turned to him, you missed the bittersweet look on his face as he eyed you over one last time before he left for the cabin.

The air was silent between you and Harry while you two got the jet ready for takeoff. You weren’t quite sure what to say about the delicate situation that was this new, top secret mission, so you did your best, “We’ll find him, Harry.”

“I hope so.” Harry mumbled, trying to keep his focus on the jet and his emotions under control.

“He’ll be alright. He can handle himself out there.”

With the jet cruising on autopilot, you followed Harry out of the cockpit to find Harrison hunched over his laptop, checking Tom’s encrypted message again. You weren’t sure how many times he’d examined the message, but yet again you weren’t sure how many times you repeatedly looked at the images until you stumbled upon a discovery last night.

Seeing him look at the one image in particular of the one man who the database could not identify yesterday, you sat down across from him, simply stating, “His name’s Mr. White.”

“Mr. White? Didn’t 009 detain him three years ago for involvement in S.P.E.C.T.R.E.?” Harrison asked, glancing up from his computer to look at you. Whether subconsciously or not, he sat up straighter, his shoulders back with meaning.

“Yes, and, since we had little to no evidence of major involvement, MI6 released him on parole. Last known file was that he was dying from thallium poisoning, and guess where he went to live out the rest of his days.”

“Spain.” Harry answered.

“Barcelona to be exact.” You stated. “And, according to MI6’s database, Mr. White’s back profile matches that of the mystery man in Tom’s photos.”

“So you think White took Tom?”

“Yes.” You nodded, definitively. “White’s our best lead right now. Besides, M has suspicions that Oberhauser has returned, and, if he has, then he’ll be looking to regroup S.P.E.C.T.R.E. with White.”

“Oberhauser’s dead.” Harrison argued, his eyes narrowing at you.

“It wouldn’t be the first time MI6 has mistaken a case.”

“This Mr. White,” Harry trailed off, “How do you suppose we find him if he is in Barcelona?”

“He has a mansion just outside of the city.” You replied, a proud smile on your lips. “I hope you two brought your dancing shoes because we’ve got a party to crash tonight.”

~~~

Light streamed in through the open window, perfectly angled to strike in your sleepy eyes. You shuffled awake, rolling over away from the window. Your eyes peaked open, and you smiled at the site before you.

With his hair a mess and his lips parted enough that a bit of drool was slipping out, the fast asleep Harrison was your favorite thing to wake up to. Feeling your shift in the bed, he subconsciously tugged you into him with his arm wrapped around your waist. You smiled to yourself, feeling his feet nudge your legs; even asleep, he wanted to be as close to you as possible. Ever so gently, you reached a hand up to run through his hair as you tried to memorize every detail of his face. Your hand slowly shifted downwards, running over his puffed out lips.

“Why are you staring at me?” He mumbled against your fingers, eyes still closed tight.

“You’re drooling.” You teased, your finger running over the small wet spot in the corner of his mouth. Blindly, he puckered his lips out to kiss your hand, making you laugh.

Harrison chuckled as he opened his eyes and shifted closer to you to give you a proper good morning kiss. Caving into him, you rolled onto your back and his lips chased yours, never breaking the kiss while he climbed on top of you. You let out a moan, one of your legs wrapping around his hips.

The moment his fingers began to lazily tug on the hem of your t-shirt, which was really his, his phone began to buzz with the sound of his alarm. At first, neither of you made an effort to turn it off, enjoying the simplicity of each other’s embrace, but, as it continued, Harrison regretfully pulled his lips from yours.

“I need to get going.” He mumbled, moving off of you to reach his phone.

“Do you really have to go?” You asked, and he let out a small laugh.

“Duty calls.” He leaned over and gave you one last kiss before he climbed out of the bed. You sat up against the pillows, white bed sheets falling around you. You watched with a small frown on your face as he moved about your room, collecting his clothes for the new day. Your eyes drifted over to the luggage at the front door. He was off on another mission in Luxembourg this time… or maybe it was Switzerland. Ever since you stepped back from your 00 position, you had a hard time keeping up with it.

“What if you didn’t go?” Your voice was so quiet that Harrison almost thought he had imagined the whisper. Tugging on his white button up, he looked at you with a lopsided smile.

“Love, you know I have to. Besides, it’s only a week. I’ll be back from Austria before you know it.” He answered. He could sense that there was something unsure in your voice, and he gingerly sat on the bed beside you, his blue eyes searching for an answer in yours.

“Runaway with me.” You said faintly, but definitively, as your hand clasped his, “Let’s go somewhere, somewhere where it’s just us. No more sneaking around, no more MI6, no more missions, none of it.”

Harrison looked at you for a moment, and you could see him going through his options in his head. Instead of saying anything, he just pressed his lips to yours tenderly. He pulled back and rested his forehead against yours, “I’d follow you anywhere. Just let me do this mission first.”

“I love you.” A small smile slipped past your lips as you tried to contain the eager feeling inside you.

“I know.” He answered, flashing you that signature smirk.

“Y/N, come on, you gotta wake up.” Harry’s voice pulled you from your dream, or rather another memory, as he shook your shoulder lightly.

“Yes?” You mumbled, blinking your eyes open.

“Harrison’s starting the descent now. We’re here.” He explained. As you took a moment to clear your head, he studied you curiously. “Were you having a bad dream?”

“Not at all.” You gave him your best smile, but he could still register the uneasiness in your figure.

You wouldn’t call it a bad dream, per se. It was just a rather sad thing to think about now. That morning two months ago was the last morning you were truly happy and it was the last morning you spent with the one person that you wanted to wake up to every morning.

Figuring it’d be best to change the topic, Harry did just that. “While you were sleeping, I got the three of us rooms at the hotel closest to White’s mansion. MI6 has no blueprints of his house, but it’s secluded enough that-”

“That Tom might be there?” You finished his thought for him, and he nodded, biting his lip nervously.

“That’s the hope.” He replied.

“Did you two come up with a plan too?” You asked, and he nodded again.

“White will most likely have cameras everywhere and guards in areas where we can’t go. If I can get to his computer, I can hack the security system to search for Tom.” Harry explained.

“And what would Harrison and I do?”

“Keep an eye on White and watch for any trouble in the ballroom.” He stated. At his words, a smile of admiration came across your face. He didn’t sound like the cocky wannabe 00 agent anymore; no, he sounded like a true MI6 special agent. “What’s that look for?”

“You’re really coming into your title, 003.” You teased, making a small blush hit his cheeks.

“I learned from the best.” Harry winked cheekily.

Just a few hours later, the three of you were settled into your individual hotel rooms that Harry had acquired. You busied yourself with getting cleaned up for tonight, trying your best to not think about the fact that Harry’s plan ignored the very fact that it’d entail for you and Harrison to spend actual time together. You couldn’t really blame him though; he was oblivious to the history between the two of you. All he knew was that he was on a mission to save his brother with MI6’s best. And, for the sake of Tom and Harry, you needed to remain focused tonight.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you out tonight?” Harrison asked as soon as Harry stepped out of his hotel room.

“I don’t need help. Tom taught me how to hack; it’ll be a breeze.” Harry reassured his friend. He adjusted his cufflinks while they made their way down the hall to your room. Laughing a little, he inquired, “Why do you keep asking? Do you not want to be on White watch with Y/N?”

“I wouldn’t say-” He started, but the curly haired boy walking beside him cut him off.

“You’ve got a thing for her, don’t you?” Voicing the speculation that had been brewing in his mind for the past few hours, Harry had an accusatory sense about his words as they came to a stop in front of your door. He looked at Harrison with questioning eyes.

“No, definitely not.” Harrison just about scoffed in response. Defensively, he turned to Harry, “Do you have a thing for her?”

“No.” Harry answered too quickly for his own liking. They stood like that for a moment, staring at each other with suspicious eyes, as if they were silently daring the other to move.

It was Harry who caved first, turning to open your door with the keycard. With the door wide open, Harry and Harrison stood frozen staring at you as you had a leg up on the footrest, strapping your heel in place. You looked over at them, questioningly, “Is there a problem?”

Both boys shook their heads and stepped inside, the door shutting behind them. You switched your feet to put on your other shoe, trying to pay no mind to the two sets of prying eyes across the room. You completely knew you were showing a little in a dress perfectly tailored to your body, cutouts along your torso to emphasize all the right places, complete with a deep v neck and a high leg slit. With your heels on- specially equipped with your favorite secret knife stilettos, you stood to your full height to look at Harrison and Harry properly. You’d be lying if you said your eyes didn’t immediately catch onto Harrison and his tight, yet perfect fitting tux. The dark navy blue ever so slightly highlighted his eyes even more. Noticing your gaze on him, his lips twitched into a small smirk, and you immediately turned around to the set of ear pieces on your hotel desk.

“Here.” You handed them their ear pieces, and all of three of you put them in.

“Are you ready?” Harry asked you.

“Just about.” You said, slipping a couple lipsticks into your bag.

“I’ve missed those.” Harrison stated. He’d recognize those gold and silver lipsticks anywhere. Harry looked at him, raising his eyebrows curiously. “Gold are grenades, silver are tranq darts.”

“Genius.” He replied in awe.

You quickly applied one final touch up of your own lipstick, nothing special, before looking at them with a nod. “Ready.”

Riding in the classically styled Aston Martin DB5 from MI6, the three of you arrived to White’s party and easily blended into the crowd of people. The ballroom was busy, packed with people dressed to the nines. Splitting up, you all mingled your way around the room, taking in as much surveillance as you could.

“Two guards at the south exit.” Harry murmured into his ear piece.

“And two at the east exit.” Harrison added quietly.

“The west exit has three.” You mumbled. “Something’s got to be hiding back there.”

While you stationed yourself by the live band, pretending to be interested in their music, Harrison made his way to the bar, his personal favorite vantage point. He slid into his seat, eyes scanning the bar as a bartender approached him.

“Martini. Shaken, not stirred.” He ordered and you bit back an eye roll at his words.

“Keeping it classy, I see.” You said through the ear piece.

“Love, you know I can’t say no to a martini.” He replied, a cocky smirk resting on his face.

“Champagne?” Harry asked, holding out a flute of the golden liquid to you as he came to stand beside you, effectively drawing your attention away from Harrison.

“Thank you.” You took the flute from his hand and swirled it lightly.

“I didn’t poison it.” He joked before taking a sip of his own.

“She’s not a fan of champagne.” Harrison’s voice came through your ear piece. You glanced over at the bar to see him watching you and Harry, his fingers wrapped around his martini glass. Never breaking eye contact with him, you drank the bubbly champagne down in one quick motion.

“There’s White.” Harry pointed out, spotting the host across the room. “He’s out here, so I’m going in.”

“Be careful.” You said quietly. You watched him as he disappeared through the crowd. While you had faith in your former trainee, that didn’t mean you couldn’t still be concerned about him. 

“Don’t worry about him.” You heard Harrison say through the ear piece and also behind you. You turned to see him standing there, half- full martini glass in his hands.

“I thought you were staking out by the bar.” You motioned to the drink in his hand, and he smiled before finishing it off.

“The view’s much better over here.” He took your empty flute from your hands and placed it on a waiter’s tray, right beside his own now empty glass. The waiter moved along swiftly. “You know what the best way to survey a room is?”

You crossed your arms in front of your chest, shaking your head at him, already knowing his suggestion. “Not here.”

“Dancing.” Harrison sent you his signature smirk, his hands reaching to unravel your arms. “Come on, remember Argentina?”

“I do remember, but we can’t exactly tango in Spain.” But it was too late as he pulled you out onto the dancefloor, just as the musicians picked up their tempo with a new song.

“Sure we can.” He winked. Despite your protests, you still let him take one of your hands in his and rest his other hand on your waist, holding you close enough that you could smell the martini in his breath. To prove his point, he spun you in time with the music. He tried to take the lead, but you wouldn’t let him off that easily as the two of you danced and spun around the dancefloor; hips, feet, arms, all of you moving together in a fluid motion. With his warm hands trailing over the open slits in your dress, he quietly breathed out, “I see you’re still a great dancer.”

“You’re a little rusty.” You answered, your chest pushed against his. Your eyes briefly scanned the room, looking at the security guards at the exits and White. “Aren’t we supposed to be observing the room?”

“I am observing.” He argued, and you narrowed your eyes at him, stepping with him in time to the musician’s beats, your legs brushing against his sensually.

“Observing White, not me.”

“He’s not nearly my type.” He joked, his smile beaming as he looked at you. You went out for a spin again, but when you came in this time, you brought your leg up, hitching it to his waist with ease, thanks to the slit. Instinctively, Harrison’s hand grabbed under your thigh, his calloused fingers running over your smooth skin. His other hand splayed across your bare back, holding you up as he dipped you down quickly.

“White’s on the move.” You whispered to him when you were brought back up, your leg still clinging to him tightly.

“I’m watching him.” Harrison mumbled back to you, before dipping you again. This time, he dipped with you, drinking you in with his nose tickling your collarbone and trailing up your neck until his eyes were level with his. It wasn’t until then, under his electrifying stare, that you realized just how fast your own heart was racing. Still holding you tightly in the dipped position, Harrison darted his eyes down to your lips, and, for a split moment, you weren’t even sure if you’d mind if he kissed you right then.

“Harrison?” A voice asked from in front of him. His head darted up to see the stranger that somehow knew him.

“Madeleine?” He brought you back up to a standing position. His hands immediately dropped from your side, and you stepped away from him to see the stranger. You felt yourself stand a bit taller seeing the other woman before you. This Madeleine was by all means a standard model looking woman- tall, thin, fragile features, and a beautifully simple periwinkle silk dress.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here. How are you?” She asked with a genuine smile, and you quickly picked up on a slight French accent when she spoke with a hint of an Austrian accent. 

“I’m good, yeah. And you?” Harrison replied, almost nervously. You glanced between him and Madeleine, confused by the exchange occurring, and that’s when you saw it. The small spark in Harrison’s eyes as he looked at her, a spark that was once reserved for you. You felt an unfamiliar feeling begin to twist in your gut.

“Never been better.” She smiled, and even her smile was perfect. She looked over at you, laughing a little. “I’m so sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Madeleine Swann. I met Harrison back in Austria.”

“Y/N.” You answered, shaking her hand gracefully, despite that feeling growing inside you. Austria. Of course it had to be that mission.

“What are you doing here? In Spain?” Harrison asked her with a smile.

“This is my father’s party.” Madeleine explained and you bit back your surprise. “We haven’t talked in years, though, so I’m not quite sure why he invited me tonight.”

Before the conversation could carry on further, Harry’s voice came through the ear piece that you almost forgot was in, “I’m coming back out. I checked every bit of his system and Tom’s not here.”

“I’ll let you two catch up. I really should be going.” You told Madeleine and Harrison, who sent you a quick nod.

“It was lovely to meet you.” Madeleine called after you before you could fully walk away. You gave her one last fake smile and turned to go find Harry in the crowd. Just as you saw the familiar head of curls through the sea of people, you heard a sharp scream from the other side of the room, sending the civilians into a frenzy as they tried to run away. Through the commotion, Harry managed to reach you.

“What happened?” You asked him, and Harrison ran up to the two of you with a distressed Madeleine behind him.

“White’s dead.” Harrison stated. “We need to leave.” You glanced over at Madeleine, and he reached to grab her hand, “We can trust her. She comes with us.”

“We don’t have time to debate it.” Harry said, pointing towards the armed security as they drew their weapons. Quickly, the four of you ran with the crowd of terrified guests back to your cars.

“I’ll go with Madeleine to get her car. Rendezvous at the hotel.” Harrison announced, not giving you or Harry time to react before the two of them disappeared into the crowd.

You and Harry ran back to the DB5 as fast you could. He slipped into the driver’s seat, and you took one last glance back at the chaos leaving the party. You felt your breath catch in your throat as you saw the one person you thought you’d never see alive again.

“Y/N, come on!” Harry urged, pulling you from your thoughts. Shaking your head, you got into the car.

No. There was no way you just saw him.

~~~

General Tag List: @viagracex​​​ @theamazingtomholland​ @Hellomoveonby @heyitsshrez @harrisonosterfieldhazmyheart​ @joyleenl​ @t-o-m-holland​ @lonikje​ @sleepybesson​ @sunkisseddreamer​ @hollandsamor @in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh​ @gorillaglue23 @petersoftboyparker @musicalkeys

Harrison Tag List: @Calhtlland @tomkindholland​ @where-art-thau-romeo​

Original Series Tag List: @quinjetboi @baby-haz @kickingn-ames @rougese7en @hollandsosterfield @nj01​ @it-is-rebel-owl-ma-dudes @spencerreidxoxo @duskholland

[perseusannabeth]

Bottled Up Storms - Chapter 1

So this is something I started writing thanks to a prompt I received (shout out to the anon who sent me that). I’m sorry that this has taken me so long to write, but my job has been kicking my arse so I haven’t had much time to write. I originally was going to write this as a one shot but lmao oops it turned out a little too long and I have too many ideas so now it’ll be a multi-chapter fic. 

This is a pregnancy fic for Nessian. I don’t really know much about being pregnant so everything is from google so I’m sorry if I get stuff wrong. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know if you want to be added to my tags list!

Description: Nesta and Cassian have been living in the Illyrian mountains for some months now, and they had it all figured out. They mostly ignored each other, and seemed to be getting by. However, after one drunken night together, they must deal with the consequences of what they have created together, both the new life they created, and the lives they have created for themselves.

This is also posted on AO3

Word count: 4511

They didn’t talk about the fact that they’d had sex. It was a one-time thing, and something not to be repeated as far as they were both concerned. They had both been drunk and they needed to feel something. There had been tension lingering around them ever since Nesta had been ordered to go with Cassian to Illyria. The tension was normal around the two of them, it had been there ever since they had first met, which felt like a lifetime ago. The tension had built until it was going to burst. That’s what had happened that drunken night.  

Nesta found she was fine not talking about what had happened between them. She didn’t want to talk about the mind-blowing sex, the way Cassian had looked at her like she was his world, the way he had held her after, how it had made her feel calm and safe, the way she’d had the best nights sleep since Gods know when, the way she had woken up to him staring at her with such love and wonder that she couldn’t breathe. Cassian hadn’t spoken about it either. He had just watched her as she left his room. The weight of his gaze nowadays was suffocating but different reasons. Now it was heavy with the memories of that night, of what they could be if she wasn’t so broken, and if she hadn’t been such a coward and left. 

Nesta was content to go about her life at the blasted camp her sister had dumped her at, barely seeing Cassian. She carried on with her routine of going to see Emerie in the shop. She would help if she needed it, but Emerie so rarely had customers that she did things herself just so she could keep busy. After spending a few hours with Emerie, sometimes talking and sometimes sitting in comfortable silence, she would wander around the camp, sometimes watching the training of the women, sometimes tiring and going to the cabin she shared with Cassian and reading one of her books. 

Very occasionally, Nesta would wander down to the healer’s tent and help them. She worked in silence, just doing as she was told, but the work was good for tiring her out and keeping her hands and mind busy. It made her feel useful, something she had not felt in a long time, maybe not ever. 

She hadn’t felt the need to drink herself into oblivion like she had done most nights in Velaris. Maybe the distance had helped, but Nesta still couldn’t bring herself to thank her sister for sending her away. Even when she and Cassian had… made their mistake that night, she wasn’t anywhere near as drunk as she could’ve been. She just pretended she was after it had happened so that Cassian wouldn’t talk to her about it. She was eating too, although that was a bit more hit and miss. She was shocked to find that the alcohol she could easily leave, but the punishing her body, the not eating, that was harder to do. Still, she was making progress and eating something is better than nothing. Her lack of drinking meant she was throwing up less, meaning she was slowly starting to look healthier. Her nightmares did cause her to throw up though, so the food didn’t always stay down. She still couldn’t make much of a dent in the food that Cassian plated up for her, but she still felt a small amount of pride for eating what she did. 

Which is why she was confused. She was being sick in the morning, despite the fact she hadn’t drank any alcohol since that night with Cassian. She wouldn’t even have it with her meal, just in case her control slipped. The alcohol made her too free, which was dangerous around Cassian.

This was the third morning in a row now, where Nesta had been sick. At first, she had thought it was food poisoning, but Cassian was fine and he always cooked for both of them. Plus, she had felt better later on in the day. She had gone to the healers who told her she wasn’t ill. They had offered to check her over more extensively, but Nesta refused, hoping whatever it was would go away. 

It hadn’t. Because of course, of course, things could never be that easy for Nesta. This morning was particularly bad. She was sat on the floor in the bathroom and had been for the past half an hour. She didn’t want to risk getting up because every time she did, she felt sick again. Cassian was (thank the cauldron) at his morning training session, and wouldn’t be back until dinner. She had the cabin to herself for the day to deal with whatever this was. 

She decided to move to the sink to rinse her mouth out with water. She didn’t want to risk going into the kitchen to get a glass, just in case she was sick again. As she stood up, her body protested, and her stomach churned. Nesta took a deep breath in the hopes it would calm her stomach, but she had no such luck as she once again leaned over the toilet bowl, slowly sinking to her knees again as she retched again. 

Nesta always prided herself on being well aware of her surroundings. However, while she was being sick, she didn’t notice Cassian coming back into the cabin. Nor did she hear his footsteps getting closer and closer as he followed the noises she was making. 

Cassian stood in the doorway of the bathroom and stared at Nesta who had now stopped being sick and was leaning against the bathtub, panting. Nesta glared at him, but without as much heat as she would’ve liked, exhausted from throwing up for half an hour. 

“Are you alright?” Cassian asked, seeming to break himself out of whatever was going on in his head. 

“Do I look alright to you?” Nesta bit back, taking deep breaths as her stomach churned again. She closed her eyes, willing her stomach to settle, hoping that the cool feeling of the bathtub against her would help. 

“A little too much fun last night?”

“Yes, it was a joy, sitting in my room all night, reading my book until I fall asleep, not having to be around you,” Nesta replied, angry that he would imply she had been drinking. 

He seemed thrown by that. They both knew that she wouldn’t lie about the drinking, she had never felt the need to before. She wasn’t ashamed of her chosen coping habit, it wasn’t hurting anyone else, just herself. It shouldn’t bother everyone as much as it does, but if they choose to worry about her drinking habit then that’s on them, she didn’t care. Or so she would keep telling herself.  

“I… are you saying you haven’t been drinking?” Cassian asked, unable to keep the shock out of his voice.

“I haven’t drank any alcohol since-” she cut herself off, unable to say that she hadn’t touched alcohol since that night they had shared. 

Thankfully, Cassian seemed to realise what she was about to say and just cleared his throat awkwardly and gave her a small nod. “Okay then, shall I get a healer?” 

“No, I’ll go down myself, I’m fine now anyway.” Nesta tried to slowly move, but it was no use. Her stomach churned again as she turned quickly to the toilet before being sick again. 

Nesta’s whole body shook as she was sick, she could feel her energy draining with each time she heaved, her nose and mouth, filling with the acidic smell and taste of her vomit. She couldn’t believe she was vomiting this much, not when she didn’t think she had this much lining her stomach to even get rid of in the first place. She felt a warm hand slowly rub her back as she threw up, so softly it hurt her heart. 

Eventually, her body stopped, perhaps running out of things to force out of her, although Nesta was not very hopeful. Her body was clearly punishing her for all the havoc she had caused when she was drinking her meals. She leaned back against the bathtub once again, Cassian’s hand still so soft and warm on her back. She could feel the liquid around her nose, mouth and the tears that had escaped as she had been sick leaving marks down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, wishing Cassian was anywhere but here, wishing he wasn’t seeing her like this. 

Perhaps Nesta’s wishes come true quickly, but perhaps that’s only true when her wish is something that will hurt her. Cassian slowly stood up and left her in the bathroom. He returned briefly with a glass of water and some tissues to try and clean her face up as best he could. She would have stopped him, and his soft movements as he wiped her face, but she didn’t have the energy to stop him, to yell, to be a bitch and push him away. Not right now. But maybe she could do it without even trying because she closed her eyes and felt him leave, and heard the front door open and shut, and the cabin was once again was empty. 

Nesta sat on the floor for what felt like an age. Time seemed to pass differently when you’ve been sick all morning. She waited until she started feeling a bit better, her legs not feeling as weak or shaky, her stomach settling down slightly, her nose stopped stinging, her eyes stopped watering. She slowly moved herself to stand up, trying to keep her movements as smooth and slow as possible, in the hopes it wouldn’t make her sick again. 

Her limbs felt too heavy for her, her body exhausted from being sick. She didn’t have the energy to deal with people, she didn’t want to speak to anyone or see anyone. She wanted to sleep. Even though she was sleeping better than she had been, her sleep was interrupted, bitty, and more like she was taking several naps at night rather than getting proper rest. She didn’t bother undressing or undoing her braided hair. She simply walked over to her bed and collapsed, feeling grateful that her room wasn’t far from the bathroom.  

She closed her eyes but knew that despite the exhaustion her body was feeling, her mind would not let her sleep. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about Cassian’s hand on her back. It was the first time he had touched her since that night. It hurt, that he didn’t want to touch her again unless he had to, but she understood. Things were so messy between the two of them, they needed space between them. Nesta couldn’t think when she was near Cassian, and when he touched her it felt like he had lit a fuse. She was sure that if she hadn’t been otherwise occupied when he had touched her, she would’ve reacted differently. She was glad that she hadn’t since she had been embarrassed enough for one day. 

Cassian clearly felt she hadn’t been embarrassed enough, however, because he returned, and she could clearly hear the voice of another person with him. She recognised the voice of the healers from the tent that she helped out in. Their footsteps grew closer, and Nesta, in her panic, decided that she would pretend to be asleep. 

“Oh,” was all that Cassian said as he opened the door and saw her fully dressed and asleep on top of her covers. She had been so exhausted that she couldn’t even muster the energy to get under them before they had arrived. “Shall I wake her?”

“It’s okay general, you can go and wait elsewhere. I will wake her up and speak to her,” there was silence, Cassian not moving away like he had been told to. Eventually, he let out a small sigh and walked away into their shared living space as the healer shut the door behind him. 

“You can stop pretending to be asleep now. You may have fooled the general but that won’t work on me.”

Nesta slowly opened her eyes and looked at the healer. She was short, with dark brown hair, tied in a neat bun. Her wings were clipped, but she seemed to carry herself in a way that suggested she was fairly old even for fae standards, and she wore the typical healers uniform, which was immaculate. In fact, everything about this woman was immaculate, which put Nesta on edge even on a normal day. After three days of being sick every morning, Nesta wanted nothing more to hide under her blanket. She did not give in to her urge to hide, however, and slowly sat up on her bed, hoping not to make the queasy feeling turn into something more again.   

“I know we’ve seen each other around the tent, but I’ve never had a chance to speak to you before. I’m Theodora. I heard you were throwing up this morning? Is this the first time you’ve done that?” As she asked the questions, Theodora set her bag down on the foot of the bed and started rifling through it and putting things onto the bed. 

“I’m Nesta. And no, this is now the third day this has been happening. It seemed to calm down yesterday afternoon so I hoped that it was just a stomach bug that had passed.” 

Theodora looked up at her in surprise. “Three days?”

“Yes although I have been feeling a bit queasy for much longer than that, I just learnt to ignore it.”

“Hmm okay, and how long have you been noticing my queasiness?” Nesta paused, unsure if she should divulge all her secrets with the healer, in case she told Cassian or anyone what she had been suffering recently. As if able to sense her worries, Theodora added, “Nothing you say will be shared with anyone else without your permission.”

Slightly comforted that if someone was to find out at least she would have warning, Nesta decided to share her troubles. “I’ve been feeling sick ever since my last period.” 

“How long ago was that?”

“It was supposed to be 2 weeks ago, but it never came. That isn’t unusual though. I’ve put my body through a lot, my periods are never predictable.”

Theodora pursed her lips and nodded to indicate she was listening as she looked through her healer’s bag once more, a small frown on her face. When she found what she was looking for, she inspected it, before looking up at Nesta. 

“This is a routine question I ask every female, so please don’t get offended, but is there any chance you could be pregnant? Just so I can choose my treatment method correctly.”

Nesta froze. Pregnant? Surely not. Fae pregnancies were difficult and rare, she knew that. With what Nesta had been putting her body through before coming to Illyria, she wasn’t even sure she could do that right now. There was no way she could be pregnant, could she? But then a flash of blurry memory hit her, stumbling into Cassian’s room, the desperation, ripping each other’s clothes off and “oh fuck could I be pregnant?”

“I, erm, I don’t know,” was all she could stutter in a small voice, her throat constricting, making it difficult for her not to cry. She didn’t know for sure, but she suddenly had a very bad feeling about all of this. 

“Right then, we will do a pregnancy test first in that case. I’ll just go get you some water because I’ll need a urine sample to find out for sure,” Theodora smiled at her before walking off towards the kitchen. 

Nesta remained frozen on the bed, staring at the open door. She could hear Cassian speaking to the healer, but she couldn’t focus on what was being said, she couldn’t focus on anything. She was pregnant, she knew it as soon as Theodora has asked. This was just another way to punish her. It was probably that damned cauldron’s idea of a joke. Of course, she would get pregnant after the one time she slept with her ma- with Cassian. It was like the cauldron could tell that she would run, avoid him, push him away. But if she was pregnant with his child, then she couldn’t do that. Nesta would need him, would want him to be involved if she had his child.

Before she could go even further into her thought spiral, Theodora came back with a large glass of water, which she handed to Nesta as she shut the door again. 

“The general tried to ask me questions, but don’t worry, I put him in his place and told him it was up to you to share any details with him,” Theodora said in a matter of fact tone. 

Nesta couldn’t reply, so she simply gave a small nod of acknowledgement and started drinking her water. Once she had finished the entire glass, she put it on her bedside table and finally drew the courage to look at the healer who was now seated on the other end of her bed. 

“What happens if I am?” Nesta couldn’t bring herself to say that word out loud yet. 

“Then you have options. You don’t have to keep it. But if you decide you do then we can help you learn more.” There was no judgement in Theodora’s voice. Just soft, kind words, letting Nesta take control of a situation which already felt too out of control. 

“What happens if I don’t want it.” Nesta could only whisper the question, looking down at her hands to avoid looking at the kind woman sat in front of her. She didn’t feel like she deserved the kindness, but right now she didn’t have the energy to stop her from being so kind. 

“Then that is your decision. We would tell you about the process, what we do, how it works. In the end, it would just be like heavy bleeding, nothing more.”

“I thought that fae pregnancies were…” Nesta trailed off, not knowing what she was going to say. Her mind was spinning with so many thoughts, she could barely think straight. 

“They are very rare, and when people want to be pregnant, then it is considered very blessed. But not everyone wants to keep that child. Not everyone’s circumstances are happy or healthy. Not everyone can afford to have that child. There are so many factors in pregnancies, not just someone putting their penis in a vagina.”

At the impassioned speech from Theodora, Nesta looked up to see something she couldn’t quite name painted across the healer’s face. All Nesta knew was that she felt understood. She felt unjudged and knew Theodora was not pitying her or the situation she was in. That helped calm the thoughts spinning around in her head. 

"I don't know what I want." Nesta looked down at her hands which were folded in her lap as she finally admit out loud what she had felt since she had emerged from that cursed cauldron. Before that, when she was human, things were simple enough. Her ambitions were simply to marry someone so she could live comfortably. As a woman, Nesta was well aware that she needed someone to look after her and provide her. That was not the case for her in this new Fae world, the possibilities seemed endless for Nesta. However, Nesta felt overwhelmed with the amount of freedom she had suddenly gained in this new world, she had no idea what to do with it.  

"You have some time. Think about it. It's early days yet. Finding out you're pregnant is always a shock, it can take some time to come to terms with that. There are other options too. Many Fae can't have children, so there's always the idea of adoption. Many loving parents would happily raise your child if you are not able to. You can choose to be involved if you want to, or not at all. The possibilities are endless." Theodora started packing her things away, not looking at Nesta as she spoke, which Nesta was grateful for.  

"I... thank you." 

"You're welcome. If you need someone to talk to, just know that I will all always be kept confidential. Even the high lord and lady could not make me break my oath to the people I serve. You know where to find me if you need me Nesta." Nesta gave a small nod, still not able to look up at the healer.  

“Do you need the bathroom yet?” Nesta thought for a second and then nodded. Theodora handed her a vial and instructed her to try and gather as much urine into the vial as possible, which seemed disgusting but Nesta went to the bathroom to do as she had been told. 

She came back and handed the vial to Theodora, cringing as she did. Nesta sat back down on the bed as she watched Theodora put a leaf, which she had kept out of her bags into her urine sample. The leaf floated and started to shrivel up as soon as it was emerged in the urine, turning a funny orange colour with little brown splotches on it. 

“What does that mean?” Nesta whispered, not being able to look away from the leaf. 

“It means that you’re pregnant my dear.” There was a short silence, as though Theodora was waiting for Nesta to say something, but when she didn't Theodora spoke again, breaking the awkward silence. "I will prepare the herbs you will need to drink in your morning tea and send them along to you. If you drink the tea from the herbs every morning, it should help with your morning sickness. If it persists despite the tea then let me know." 

"Thank you," Nesta murmured again, as though unable to think of what else to say in the face of such kindness from a virtual stranger, still trying to process what she had just been told, that her suspicions were correct. Theodora simply nodded and left the cottage, not even glancing at Cassian as she left.  

Cassian walked up to Nesta's room after Theodora left, leaning on the door frame and looked at Nesta's pale face as she stared at her hands, but not really seeing anything. It seemed Nesta was miles away, so he cleared his throat in order to get her attention. 

"Is everything alright?" His eyes looking over her body for signs of an injury, as though there would be something he could see on her body causing her to be unwell. 

"I'm fine," Nesta said, looking up at Cassian finally. He was trying to look casual, as though there was nothing going on, but Nesta could see the tension he was holding in his shoulders. He was worried about her. The realisation came with a large amount of shock. She couldn't quite believe that he was worried about her. Perhaps her shock got the better of her because before she could stop herself, she blurted out "I'm pregnant." 

Nesta's eyes widened as she cursed herself internally for not being able to keep her mouth shut. She looked up to see Cassian, to see he had frozen in shock, his eyes wide, staring at Nesta. Nesta could feel her heart beating in her chest, the tears starting to fill her eyes as Cassian said nothing, and just stared at her with different emotions flitting across his face, too quickly for her to guess what they might mean.  

"I... who? Is it... am I?" Cassian eventually managed to choke out, his eyes drifting to her stomach almost unconsciously.  

"It," Nesta paused, wondering if she should lie, not tell Cassian he was the father, wondering if she could somehow take all of it back. But she knew she couldn't when she saw Cassian looking at her flat stomach. His expression had finally settled on something, and that was hope. Nesta knew after spending time in the Illyrian camps, that Cassian's childhood had been terrible. She knew that Cassian would never, not in a million lifetimes, abandon this baby. "It's yours." She whispered, a tear managing to escape her eye. She quickly wiped it, but knew that it hadn't gone unnoticed. Nothing Nesta did ever went unnoticed where Cassian was concerned. 

"Do you want it?" Cassian asked softly. She knew that he would never begrudge her if she wanted to get rid of the baby. She could see, and she knew, that Cassian would love this baby with everything he had, but if Nesta decided she didn't want this baby, he would never hold it against her, and never stop her from getting rid of it. If she allowed him to, she knew he would be with her every step of the way for that too, even if it broke his heart.  

"I don't know." She closed her eyes, hoping that it would stop any more tears from escaping. 

"I'll stand by you, whatever you choose. You know that, right?" Cassian asked, almost desperately, like he needed to know that she knew this was her choice, and he would never leave her. The desperation in his voice reminded her of the metallic smell of the blood that the ground soaked up, his warm body beneath hers as he gasped for air and told her to leave him to die alone. 

Nesta couldn't get the words out, they got stuck in her throat. She choked out a small sob, unable to stop herself, and gave him a small nod, overcome with emotions. Before she could try to compose herself, to put up the icy exterior she relied on so much, she felt something warm and solid wrap around her. Cassian was silent as he held Nesta in his arms, something he hadn't done since the night they had spent together. Nesta finally let herself cry, unable to keep her emotions at bay any longer.  

 When she felt like she couldn't cry anymore, like she had run out of tears to cry, she slowly pulled away from Cassian's chest, where he had been holding her and stroking her back, telling her everything would be alright. She looked up at the male who had been by her side every step of the way, whether she wanted him there or not.  

She could feel her exhaustion taking over her, hitting her like a hammer. She tried to search for something to say, but didn't know how to put into words what she was feeling, not when she didn't even understand her emotions herself.  

"You should rest," Cassian said softly, as he moved her so she was lying down on her pillow. He pulled her blankets over her, smoothed her hair down and kissed her forehead. Nesta was asleep before he had even left the room, feeling calmer than she had any right to be.

Tags list: @hizqueen4life @kelly-fasel @sannelovesreading @acourtofmarauders @maastrash

[waitimcomingtoo]

I Keep On Missing You - CHOOSE YOUR OWN ENDING

Pairing: Tom Holland X Reader X Brad Simpson

Warnings: jealousy, angst

Authors Note: I’ve always wanted to do a choose your own ending, so here it is! You can choose to end up with Tom or Brad from The Vamps. If you don’t listen to The Vamps, the story will still make sense but I highly recommend them because they’re awesome. A reader got me into them when she requested a Brad x Reader story many months ago and I’m finally delivering. Enjoy!

Masterlist

It was your first time appearing on the Graham Norton show, and you were on with Tom Hanks and Brad Simpson from The Vamps. Tom waited for you in your dressing room, and you felt a little less nervous knowing he was there. You made easy conversation with the other guests until you noticed something funny about Brad.

“You look like my boyfriend.” You noted, noticing how he bore a striking resemblance to Tom. Brad looked at you with a sly smile and raised his eyebrows.

“Is that a come on? Like I look like your next boyfriend?” Brad asked in his husky British accent. The audience cheered and you felt your cheeks heating up.

“No, you genuinely look like him.” You defended with an embarrassed laugh. Brad pretended to hang his head in disappointment.

“That’s a shame. I was kinda hoping it was a come on.” He said as he scooted a little closer. You rolled your eyes playfully and fixed your dress, knowing he was staring at you. 

“Sparks are flying.” Graham instigated. “Have you two met before?”

“We met a few years ago but we didn’t keep in touch.” You nodded.

“We should’ve kept in touch.” Brad said, to your surprise. You’d become a fan of The Vamps since meeting him but figured he’d forgotten you. “Maybe then I’d be your boyfriend.” He added with a causal shrug. The audience erupted again. You touched a hand to your burning cheek and looked at Brad, who had his tongue between his teeth.

“Brad.” Graham gasped. “Such a flirt.”

“Yeah, should we leave and give you two some room?” Tom Hanks joked, making your blush even worse.

“I did think you were cute.” You said as you crossed your legs and leaned back, figuring there was no harm in telling him that.

“Really?” Brad asked and you nodded. “I fancied you so hard. Do you know my song Lovestruck?”

“Yes, obviously.” You said, still recovering from him saying he liked you.

“Guess who I wrote it about.” He said cheekily. Your jaw dropped at his implication, feeling simultaneously honored that he’d written a song about you and embarrassed that he heard you singing Wonderwall incorrectly and immortalized it in song lyrics.

“No way.” You stated.

“I wanted to scream your name over the airway.” Brad shrugged again as he referenced the song and you beamed.

“I think Y/n wanted to scream your name as well.” Graham said with a smirk.

“Woah there, Graham. I have a boyfriend.” You laughed in embarrassment again as Brad raised his eyebrows and looked at you.

“That’s right. Mr. Tom Holland.” Graham made a face and the audience applauded. “Is he here tonight?”

“He’s probably plotting Brad’s demise in my dressing room right now, actually.” You quipped, feeling somewhat guilty that Tom was backstage watching you get flirty with another boy. You decided to tone it down a little. “I’m so flattered you wrote me a song though. That was really nice.”

There. Nice. Nice wasn’t flirty. Nice was nice.

“Darling, I’d write you a million love songs.” Brad said suavely, and you had to look away. Your heart was racing. Yes you loved Tom, but one of your favorite singers just said he’d write you a million love songs. The rest of the interview went by in a blur and you couldn’t remember any of it. You made sure no more flirty interactions happened between you and Brad as you said goodbye and got his number before rushing to your dressing room.

“Tom?” You asked sweetly as you entered the room. He was sitting on the couch, looking through his phone. From his posture alone, you could tell he was angry.

“Hey, Tommy.” You sat down next to him and rubbed his back. He tensed you under your touch and didn’t look up from his phone.

“What was that?” He asked bleakly.

“That was, uh, that was Brad.” You offered.

“I know who he is.” Tom said impatiently. “I mean why were you all over him?”

“What?” You took your hand off his back, a little insulted. “I wasn’t all over him. It was innocent flirting that he started. And you know how Graham is. He’s a trouble maker.”

“It didn’t seem innocent.” Tom finally looked at you and he definitely wasn’t happy. “He’s into you, and he didn’t seem to care that you had a boyfriend.”

“Tom, it’s fine.” You switched back to being comforting. “He’s not into me. Don’t worry.”

“He called you darling.” Tom said gravely. You blinked in annoyance. You were trying to take the higher road, but Tom was making it impossible.

“He was probably just playing it up for the audience.” You said, the sweetness in your voice fading. “It’s nothing. Like I said, don’t worry about it. He’s actually really nice and we made plans to hang out.”

“You are not hanging out with him.” Tom stood up swiftly upon hearing your words. He put his hands on his hips and you suddenly felt like you were being scolded by your father.

“That’s not your decision.” You stood you as well, folding your arms.

“It makes me uncomfortable and I don’t want you around him.” Tom shrugged as if to say “too bad” and you scoffed. “I-I forbid it.”

“You forbid it?” You repeated with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, since when are you in charge of me?”

“Since Brad Simpson wrote a song about you.” Tom shot back.

“So? That’s not my fault.” You snapped.

“He wants to write more, darling.” Tom exaggerated the last word and you found yourself getting angrier and angrier.

“I can’t control what he does and you can’t control what I do.” You stated before taking out your phone and drafting a message.

“What are you doing?” Tom moved closer to you but you pulled your phone away.

“Texting him.” You said without looking up. “I’m just saying I had fun seeing him.”

“Don’t text him that. He’s gonna think you’re into him.” Tom protested and grabbed your phone from your hands.

“Thomas!” You said in annoyance. Toms eyes softened. He knew that wasn’t the move. He handed you your phone back sheepishly and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, I’m just-“ he tried to apologize.

“Just insanely jealous? Just trying to control me? Just overreacting to me making a friend?” You spat. Toms eyes hardened back up and he lowered his voice, soft by still firm.

“He doesn’t want you as a friend.” He shook his head, his eyes pleading with you to understand.

“Well I want him as a friend and you can’t stop me.” You said, not harshly, but factually.

“You’re not allowed to text that boy.” He warned. “I won’t let you.”

“You won’t let me?” You scoffed.

“That’s not what I meant.” Tom squeezed his eye shut as he looked for words to say. “I just don’t want you texting him.”

“I’m not.” You held up your hands in defense. “But I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“He called you darling.” Tom repeated to make his case.

“Okay, and?” You shrugged. “I like being called darling.”

“By me.” Tom practically growled. You raised one eyebrow and felt like challenging him.

“You don’t own the word.” You taunted.

“It’s my nickname for you and he used it.” Tom said possessively.

“How was he supposed to know that’s your nickname for me? He’s British. It’s a common word. Let it go.” You dismissed him again and the conversation ended there. All conversation ended there, because he didn’t say a word to you in the car, at home, or before you went to sleep.

You sat up in bed in the middle of the night when a light started pouring through your eyelids. You stirred and saw Tom sitting up next to you, holding your phone in his hands. You sat up and didn’t say a word.

“You texted him.” Tom said without any emotion.

“You went through my phone?” You asked, half asleep and confused.

“Hey! I had a nice time seeing you again tonight. I definitely want to take you up on that offer to catch up over coffee. Let’s just try to stay in touch this time.” Tom read your message out loud in a cheery voice. “I really liked seeing you too! I forgot how funny you are (and how gorgeous lmao). I’d love to meet up. Name the day and I’ll be there. It’s a date.” Tom read Brads response in a deeper voice. He looked completely unamused.

“You went through my phone.” You said again, not as a question this time. As a statement.

“He said it was a date.” Tom added, never taking his eyes off the messages.

“You went through my phone.” You said as if you were realizing something. You got out of bed and threw a robe around yourself.

“You said you wouldn’t text him.” Tom looked at you, furrowing his eyebrows as you began to put some things in a backpack. He watched for a minute as you kept your back to him.

“What are you doing?” He finally asked. You stopped packing and looked at him, tears in your eyes. You held the robe close to you and shrugged sadly.

“I don’t think this is working out.” You said, and the tears fell.

“What?” Toms face went white and he scrambled out of bed. You stepped away from him when he came near you.

“You and me.” You sniffled and shook your head. “This...this feels wrong.”

“Darling-“ Tom said tearfully as he reached out for you. You backed away.

“It’s Y/n.” You corrected, zipping up your back and heading for the door.

“You can’t be serious.” Tom whimpered as you zipped your jacket up and opened the front door. You stopped at looked at him for a while, taking him all in. You shivered, then nodded.

“I am.” You said, and shut the door behind you as you left.

Six months after you’d walked out, Tom saw a picture of you and Brad kissing on the cover of a magazine. His heart broke into pieces as he realized you really were serious.

CHOOSE YOUR ENDING

YOU END UP WITH TOM

YOU END UP WITH BRAD

Tag List 🏷

@maybemona​ @sunrise-shawn​ @foreverxholland​ @writing-for-hours-on-end​ @lavender-writer​ @captainmandeestudent17​ @whatareyouhidingpeter​ @takenbyheartstrings​ @ultrunning​ @imyourliquor-youremypoison​ @theolwebshooter​ @autumnlyholland @andreasworlsboring101​ @guksmyfav​ @waiting-to-be-myself​ @letsloveimagines​ @ho-ho-holland​ @peterparkoure​ @a-villain-vying-for-attention​ @m19friend @justcallmehitgirl​ @iamanerdot @averyfosterthoughts​ @jackiehollanderr​ @tiny-friggin-human​ @celestial-skylines​

[masonscig]

first line tag game

thank you for the tag @crackerdumortain !!!!! yours were so much fun to read omg !!!!

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag some of your favourite authors!

[disclaimer: i write for the choices fandom and some for litg so you’ll see a mix of those fandoms on this list LMAO]

1. stay [twc – mason x sofía]

The first time was casual. She had a knack for musing her thoughts aloud, tossing her harmless opinions out for anyone who’d catch them.

She was good at starting conversations in that way – while he’d never been one for talking.

She never did it with heavy topics, though.

2. thieves in the shadows [choices – blades au – mal x zilyana]

bullets pelted the crates they were crouched behind, wood splintering in every direction. bodies were strewn across the warehouse, the unmistakable pools of blood streaking across the stone.

“raine! to your left!” immy yelled her way, barely sparing her a glance before unloading her clip, shell casings clinking against the ground.

the gun trembled in yana’s hands. she’d shot one before – practice at the gun range, glass bottles in a back alley – but never a live target.

3. if we meet again [choices – open heart au – bryce x spencer] 18+

year one

The ride from the airport to her parents’ home was long and grueling, the slushy ice pelting the windshield barely passing for snow.

It was practically sub-zero outside, a stark difference between the mid seventies weather she’d just left.

4. clandestine [twc – mason x sofía] 18+

“hey. hey wake up –”

she stirred at the greeting, but jumped when he kicked the desk. her face contorted into a grimace, the imprint of her tweed jacket on her cheek outlined in pink. “hmm?”

“you fell asleep again,” he said, plopping a bag in front of her.

5. undying [choices – blades – mal x zilyana]

Zilyana stirred, resituating herself against Mal’s bare chest, feeling his arm instinctively tighten around her shoulders. When she realized she was missing the sound of his deep breathing, accompanied with an occasional soft snore, she cracked an eye open to see his chin tipped upwards, his gaze trained on the ceiling.

6. talent show [choices – platinum – shane x dom]

There wasn’t a day that went by where she didn’t cross his mind. Even since they were kids.

He admired so much about her – her fiery spirit, her drive, her unwavering tenacity.

And he’d been in love with Dom for as long as he could remember.

7. redeemed [choices – platinum – raleigh x dom]

As soon as he stepped off stage, he was shuffled to his tour bus, Fiona on his heels. She looked like the human embodiment of rage in a grey blazer, a look in her eye that made him thankful he wasn’t the one it was directed at – or at least he hoped he wasn’t the reason she was two seconds away from a murderous rampage.

8. hidden [choices – foreign affairs – blaine x carina] 18+

Her cheek slipped out of the palm of her hand, forehead smacking the desk, nearly jumping out of her skin at the abrupt awakening.

“Ow.”

She prodded the tender spot on her face, thankful her foundation was thick.

A soft snore caught her attention – next to her, Blaine was passed out. Leaning back in his chair, his head was thrown back, arms crossed against his chest, the textbook on its face in his lap.

9. is this fate? [litg au – bobby x mc] 18+

The peroxide was cold when it hit her skin, the liquid bubbling on her knee, relentlessly stinging. She sucked in a breath through gritted teeth.

“Sorry… should be over soon,” he murmured, wiping up the stray liquid that streamed down her leg with a small rag.

The heaviness of the atmosphere between them was almost too much to bear – they’d barely spoken since he helped her onto the counter in his small office, leg propped up between his own, where he sat in his desk chair.

10. asvista cove [litg college au – bobby x elena]

Bobby’s thumb flicked the lighter repeatedly until he got a consistent flame, moving slowly from left to right over the edge of the blunt. His cheeks hollowed out as he sucked in, the tip of it an auburn ember. He pulled it out of his mouth and sucked in an even deeper breath, holding it.

When he blew out the thick cloud of smoke, he passed it to her, coughing under his breath. “Whew. Your turn.”

She followed suit, the thick smoke coating the inside of her lungs, bitter and heavy. She exhaled, the shroud smoke enveloping her view of the sealine.

11. reticent [twc – mason x sofía] 18+

She was bare.

Bare in the way that one is when they’ve been stripped down and torn apart with a trained gaze just calculating enough for them to feel seen – parts of her she didn’t know she’d hidden splayed out like withered pages of a book, dog-eared and marked up like a frequently reread novel.

One he’d reread because it was familiar, because it had fallen into his lap (he hadn’t searched for it), not so much because it was his favorite.

12. more [twc – mason x sofía] 18+

He laced his fingers through her thick hair, reveling in the way his skin looked contrasted against the midnight of her hair.

[the way i can’t post more than this bc it’s....... very nsfw right out the bat LMFAO]

13. calm before the storm [choices – open heart – bryce x spencer]

Since the moment his hands trembled amidst one of the most important surgeries of his life, Bryce was holding on by a thread.

With each half-assed joke he cracked, each wavering smile, each time he tried convincing others – including himself – that he was coping, he fell apart more and more.

The first night he went home after Spencer was quarantined, he trudged through the halls of Edenbrook, like he was dragging his legs through wet concrete. He was nearly magnetized to her bedside, not wanting to leave, but he needed to rest – he’d been awake for nearly a day and a half by the time he clocked out.

14. envy | part two of the attached series [twc – mason x sofía x felix]

He strode down the hallway, hands in his pockets to give the illusion that he didn’t give a shit, when he was most definitely on edge. His fingers flicked his lighter open and closed against the twill lining of his pockets, trying to focus on the soft clicking noise it made instead of the swarm of thoughts clouding his conscience.

He still couldn’t figure out why he cared so much.

15. comfort | part one of the attached series [twc – mason x sofía x felix]

He noticed it before she did.

Her pulse didn’t jump the same way it did the first dozen times he walked into the room. The blood didn’t rush to her cheeks, or creep up her neck, the crimson flush absent even when he tried his hardest to fluster her. And it normally took next to nothing to get her to turn into a bumbling mess.

16. out of time [choices – open heart – sienna x danny]

She sprinted down the hallway, pager still beeping erratically on her hip, the weight of the numbers enough to make her feel like she was slugging through wet concrete.

No, no, not him, please, not him, she chanted to herself, vision blurring with tears before she had the chance to let the negative possibilities set in.

17. unrequited part three [choices – open heart – bryce x spencer]

She slumped into the seat in the deserted waiting room, her joints popping as she stretched, her deep sigh echoing off of the tile. She was exhausted.

She could usually push through the worst of her shifts, but fatigue settled into her bones, a lethargy she’d never experienced entrapping her like a net, and she couldn’t fight her way out of it this time.

18. signs [choices – ride or die – logan x raquel]

“A final in sign language? Couldn’t you just have a conversation with the teacher or some shit?” Logan sat across from her on the couch, watching as her fingers bent and flexed, transfixed.

She stopped abruptly, screwing her mouth to the side in concentration. She repeated the same few moves, getting more and more frustrated with each sequence.

19. mementos [choices – ride or die – logan x raquel]

The sound of his boots slapping against the damp pavement reverberated off of the brick of the alleyways, his gasping breaths adding to the symphony that was his escape.

20. warmth [twc – mason x sofía]

“You’re going the wrong way,” Mason grunted, looking particularly stiff in her passenger seat.

“I thought we could take the scenic route,” she shrugged, flicking her high beams on as she turned off of the main road leading downtown, easing on the brakes when the tires hit the gravel.

okay so....... i didn’t really realize just HOW MUCH i’ve written since the summer? i’ve fallen into a pattern where i think i’m a failure bc of how slow i am to write because i have so many series i’ve started and dropped off and wips i’ve abandoned but.... i’ve managed to write for most appreciation weeks i’ve both hosted/participated in and i’ve written for THREE fandoms.... i don’t normally gas myself up but? i’m really? proud of myself? KSJDJKSD if you read this far thank you and you’re prob watching me have a breakdown over how much i’ve managed to write oh my GOD ok i need to lie down KLSDFKASFJD i didn’t even think i could hit 20 but i did???? alright i’m officially gonna treat myself at some point bc i did all this in less than a year.... these are from the end of july 2020 to now..... wow ok im done i promise SKDFJKSDF

tagging: @raleighcarrera and @pixeljazzy !!! <3