#(he’s 15 he can’t watch succession but maybe one day when he’s older)

[rome-roy]

SCREAMING

my brother is playing the spotify blend of him, me, and our mum, and what do I hear but the dulcet tones of KENDALL ROY coming from upstairs. Yeah. Yeah. That’s my emotional support L to the OG what of it.

[antiporn-activist]

The Children of Pornhub

Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?

By Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, Dec. 4, 2020, New York Times

This article contains descriptions of sexual assault. It’s also really long.

Pornhub prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty, the website that buys a billboard in Times Square and provides snow plows to clear Boston streets. It donates to organizations fighting for racial equality and offers steamy content free to get people through Covid-19 shutdowns.

Yet there’s another side of the company: Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for “girls under18” (no space) or “14yo” leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.

After a 15-year-old girl went missing in Florida, her mother found her on Pornhub — in 58 sex videos. Sexual assaults on a 14-year-old California girl were posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos. In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them.

Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it’s impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.

Unlike YouTube, Pornhub allows these videos to be downloaded directly from its website. So even if a rape video is removed at the request of the authorities, it may already be too late: The video lives on as it is shared with others or uploaded again and again.

“Pornhub became my trafficker,” a woman named Cali told me. She says she was adopted in the United States from China and then trafficked by her adoptive family and forced to appear in pornographic videos beginning when she was 9. Some videos of her being abused ended up on Pornhub and regularly reappear there, she said.

“I’m still getting sold, even though I’m five years out of that life,” Cali said. Now 23, she is studying in a university and hoping to become a lawyer — but those old videos hang over her.

“I may never be able to get away from this,” she said. “I may be 40 with eight kids, and people are still masturbating to my photos.”

“You type ‘Young Asian’ and you can probably find me,” she added.

Actually, maybe not. Pornhub recently was offering 26,000 videos in response to that search. That doesn’t count videos that show up under “related searches” that Pornhub suggests, including “young tiny teen,” “extra small petite teen,” “tiny Asian teen” or just “young girl.” Nor does it necessarily count videos on a Pornhub channel called “exploited teen Asia.”

I came across many videos on Pornhub that were recordings of assaults on unconscious women and girls. The rapists would open the eyelids of the victims and touch their eyeballs to show that they were nonresponsive.

Pornhub profited this fall from a video of a naked woman being tortured by a gang of men in China. It is monetizing video compilations with titles like “Screaming Teen,” “Degraded Teen” and “Extreme Choking.” Look at a choking video and it may suggest also searching for “She Can’t Breathe.”

It should be possible to be sex positive and Pornhub negative.

Pornhub declined to make executives available on the record, but it provided a statement. “Pornhub is unequivocally committed to combating child sexual abuse material, and has instituted a comprehensive, industry-leading trust and safety policy to identify and eradicate illegal material from our community,” it said. Pornhub added that any assertion that the company allows child videos on the site “is irresponsible and flagrantly untrue.”

II.

At 14, Serena K. Fleites was an A student in Bakersfield, Calif., who had never made out with a boy. But in the eighth grade she developed a crush on a boy a year older, and he asked her to take a naked video of herself. She sent it to him, and this changed her life.

He asked for another, then another; she was nervous but flattered. “That’s when I started getting strange looks in school,” she remembered. He had shared the videos with other boys, and someone posted them on Pornhub.

Fleites’s world imploded. It’s tough enough to be 14 without having your classmates entertain themselves by looking at you naked, and then mocking you as a slut. “People were texting me, if I didn’t send them a video, they were going to send them to my mom,” she said.

The boy was suspended, but Fleites began skipping class because she couldn’t bear the shame. Her mother persuaded Pornhub to remove the videos, and Fleites switched schools. But rumors reached the new school, and soon the videos were uploaded again to Pornhub and other websites.

Fleites quarreled with her mother and began cutting herself. Then one day she went to the medicine cabinet and took every antidepressant pill she could find.

Three days later, she woke up in the hospital, frustrated to be still alive. Next she hanged herself in the bathroom; her little sister found her, and medics revived her.

As Fleites spiraled downward, a friend introduced her to meth and opioids, and she became addicted to both. She dropped out of school and became homeless.

At 16, she advertised on Craigslist and began selling naked photos and videos of herself. It was a way to make a bit of money, and maybe also a way to punish herself. She thought, “I’m not worth anything any more because everybody has already seen my body,” she told me.

Those videos also ended up on Pornhub. Fleites would ask that they be removed. They usually would be, she says — but then would be uploaded again. One naked video of her at 14 had 400,000 views, she says, leaving her afraid to apply for fast-food jobs for fear that someone would recognize her.

So today Fleites, 19, off drugs for a year but unemployed and traumatized, is living in her car in Bakersfield, along with three dogs that have proved more loyal and loving than the human species. She dreams of becoming a vet technician but isn’t sure how to get there. “It’s kind of hard to go to school when you’re living in a car with dogs,” she said.

“I was dumb,” she acknowledged, noting that she had never imagined that the videos could be shared online. “It was one small thing that a teenager does, and it’s crazy how it turns into something so much bigger.

“A whole life can be changed because of one little mistake.”

III.

The problem goes far beyond one company. Indeed, a rival of Pornhub, XVideos, which arguably has even fewer scruples, may attract more visitors. Depictions of child abuse also appear on mainstream sites like Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. And Google supports the business models of companies that thrive on child molestation.

Google returns 920 million videos on a search for “young porn.” Top hits include a video of a naked “very young teen” engaging in sex acts on XVideo along with a video on Pornhub whose title is unprintable here.

I asked the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to compile the number of images, videos and other content related to child sexual exploitation reported to it each year. In 2015, it received reports of 6.5 million videos or other files; in 2017, 20.6 million; and in 2019, 69.2 million.

Facebook removed 12.4 million images related to child exploitation in a three-month period this year. Twitter closed 264,000 accounts in six months last year for engaging in sexual exploitation of children. By contrast, Pornhub notes that the Internet Watch Foundation, an England-based nonprofit that combats child sexual abuse imagery, reported only 118 instances of child sexual abuse imagery on its site over almost three years, seemingly a negligible figure. “Eliminating illegal content is an ongoing battle for every modern content platform, and we are committed to remaining at the forefront,” Pornhub said in its statement.

The Internet Watch Foundation couldn’t explain why its figure for Pornhub is so low. Perhaps it’s because people on Pornhub are inured to the material and unlikely to report it. But if you know what to look for, it’s possible to find hundreds of apparent child sexual abuse videos on Pornhub in 30 minutes. Pornhub has recently offered playlists with names including “less than 18,” “the best collection of young boys” and “under- - age.”

Congress and successive presidents have done almost nothing as this problem has grown. The tech world that made it possible has been mostly passive, in a defensive crouch. But pioneering reporting in 2019 by my Times colleagues has prodded Congress to begin debating competing strategies to address child exploitation.

Concerns about Pornhub are bubbling up. A petition to shut the site down has received 2.1 million signatures. Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, called on the Justice Department to investigate Pornhub. PayPal cut off services for the company, and credit card companies have been asked to do the same. An organization called Traffickinghub, led by an activist named Laila Mickelwait, documents abuses and calls for the site to be shut down. Twenty members of Canada’s Parliament have called on their government to crack down on Pornhub, which is effectively based in Montreal.

“They made money off my pain and suffering,” an 18-year-old woman named Taylor told me. A boyfriend secretly made a video of her performing a sex act when she was 14, and it ended up on Pornhub, the police confirmed. “I went to school the next day and everybody was looking at their phones and me as I walked down the hall,” she added, weeping as she spoke. “They were laughing.”

Taylor said she has twice attempted suicide because of the humiliation and trauma. Like others quoted here, she agreed to tell her story and help document it because she thought it might help other girls avoid suffering as she did.

IV.

Pornhub is owned by Mindgeek, a private pornography conglomerate with more than 100 websites, production companies and brands. Its sites include Redtube, Youporn, XTube, SpankWire, ExtremeTube, Men.com, My Dirty Hobby, Thumbzilla, PornMD, Brazzers and GayTube. There are other major players in porn outside the Mindgeek umbrella, most notably XHamster and XVideos, but Mindgeek is a porn titan. If it operated in another industry, the Justice Department could be discussing an antitrust case against it.

Pornhub and Mindgeek also stand out because of their influence. One study this year by a digital marketing company concluded that Pornhub was the technology company with the third greatest-impact on society in the 21st century, after Facebook and Google but ahead of Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.

Nominally based in Luxembourg for tax reasons, Mindgeek is a private company run from Montreal. It does not disclose who owns it, but it is led by Feras Antoon and David Tassillo, both Canadians, who declined to be interviewed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada calls himself a feminist and has been proud of his government’s efforts to empower women worldwide. So a question for Trudeau and all Canadians: Why does Canada host a company that inflicts rape videos on the world?

Mindgeek’s moderators are charged with filtering out videos of children, but its business model profits from sex videos starring young people.

“The goal for a content moderator is to let as much content as possible go through,” a former Mindgeek employee told me. He said he believed that the top executives weren’t evil but were focused above all on maximizing revenue.

While Pornhub would not tell me how many moderators it employs, I interviewed one who said that there are about 80 worldwide who work on Mindgeek sites (by comparison, Facebook told me it has 15,000 moderators). With 1.36 million new hours of video uploaded a year to Pornhub, that means that each moderator would have to review hundreds of hours of content each week.

The moderators fast forward through videos, but it’s often difficult to assess whether a person is 14 or 18, or whether torture is real or fake. Most of the underage content involves teenagers, the moderator I spoke with said, but some comes from spy cams in toilets or changing rooms and shows children only 8 to 12.

“The job in itself is soul-destroying,” the moderator said.

Pornhub appears to be increasingly alarmed about civil or criminal liability. Lawyers are circling, and nine women sued the company in federal court after spy cam videos surfaced on Pornhub. The videos were shot in a locker room at Limestone College in South Carolina and showed women showering and changing clothes.

Executives of Pornhub appear in the past to have assumed that they enjoyed immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects internet platforms on which members of the public post content. But in 2018 Congress limited Section 230 so that it may not be enough to shield the company, leading Mindgeek to behave better.

It has doubled the number of moderators in the last couple of years, the moderator told me, and this year Pornhub began voluntarily reporting illegal material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. After previously dragging its feet in removing videos of children and nonconsensual content, Pornhub now is responding more rapidly.

It has also compiled a list of banned content. I obtained a copy of this list, and it purports to bar videos with terms or themes like “rape,” “preteen,” “pedophilia” and “bestiality” (it helpfully clarifies that this “includes eels, fish, octopus, insects”). Diapers are OK “if no scatophilia.” Mutilation depends on context but “cannot depict severing parts of the body.”

So while it is now no longer possible to search on Pornhub in English using terms like “underage” or “rape,” the company hasn’t tried hard to eliminate such videos. A member called “13yoboyteen” is allowed to post videos. A search for “r*pe,” turns up 1,901 videos. “Girl with braces” turns up 1,913 videos and suggests also trying “exxxtra small teens.” A search for “13yo” generates 155,000 videos. To be clear, most aren’t of 13-year-olds, but the fact that they’re promoted with that language seems to reflect an effort to attract pedophiles.

Moreover, some videos seem at odds with the list of banned content. “Runaway Girl Gets Ultimatum, Anal or the Streets” is the title of one Pornhub video. Another user posts videos documenting sex with teenage girls as they weep, protest and cry out in pain.

While Pornhub is becoming more careful about videos of potentially litigious Americans, it remains cavalier about overseas victims. One Indonesian video is titled “Junior High School Girl After Class” and shows what appears to be a young teenager having sex. A Chinese sex video, just taken down, was labeled: “Beautiful High School Girl Is Tricked by Classmates and Taken to the Top of a Building Where She Is Insulted and Raped.”

“They’re making money off the worst moment in my life, off my body,” a Colombian teenager who asked to be called Xela, a nickname, told me. Two American men paid her when she was 16 for a sexual encounter that they filmed and then posted on Pornhub. She was one of several Pornhub survivors who told me they had thought of or attempted suicide.

In the last few days as I was completing this article, two new videos of prepubescent girls being assaulted were posted, along with a sex video of a 15-year-old girl who was suicidal after it went online. I don’t see how good-faith moderators could approve any of these videos.

V.

“It’s always going to be online,” Nicole, a British woman who has had naked videos of herself posted and reposted on Pornhub, told me. “That’s my big fear of having kids, them seeing this.”

That’s a recurring theme among survivors: An assault eventually ends, but Pornhub renders the suffering interminable.

Naked videos of Nicole at 15 were posted on Pornhub. Now 19, she has been trying for two years to get them removed.

“Why do videos of me from when I was 15 years old and blackmailed, which is child porn, continuously [get] uploaded?” Nicole protested plaintively to Pornhub last year, in a message. “You really need a better system. … I tried to kill myself multiple times after finding myself reuploaded on your website.”

Nicole’s lawyer, Dani Pinter, says there are still at least three naked videos of Nicole at age 15 or 16 on Pornhub that they are trying to get removed.

“It’s never going to end,” Nicole said. “They’re getting so much money from our trauma.”

Pornhub has introduced software that supposedly can “fingerprint” rape videos and prevent them from being uploaded again. But Vice showed how this technology is easily circumvented on Pornhub.

One Pornhub scandal involved the Girls Do Porn production company, which recruited young women for clothed modeling gigs and then pushed them to perform in sex videos, claiming that the videos would be sold only as DVDs in other countries and would never go online. Reassured that no one would ever know, some of the women agreed — and then were shattered when the footage was aggressively marketed on Pornhub.

Girls Do Porn was prosecuted for sex trafficking and shut down. But those videos continue to surface and resurface on Pornhub; last time I checked, videos of six victims of Girls Do Porn were on Pornhub, which continues to profit from them.

One of the Girls Do Porn women I saw on Pornhub is now dead. She was murdered at 20, allegedly by an angry ex-boyfriend who is about to go on trial. I’m not disclosing her name because she should be remembered as a vibrant college athlete, and not for a sex video that represented her most mortifying moment.

VI.

So what’s the solution?

I had expected the survivors to want to shut down Pornhub and send its executives to prison. Some did, but others were more nuanced. Lydia, now 20, was trafficked as a child and had many rape videos posted on the site. “My stomach hurts all the time” from the tension, she told me, but she doesn’t want to come across as hostile to porn itself.

“I don’t want people to hear ‘No porn!’” Lydia told me. “It’s more like, ‘Stop hurting kids.’”

Susan Padron told me that she had assumed that pornography was consensual, until a boyfriend filmed her in a sex act when she was 15 and posted it on Pornhub. She has struggled since and believes that only people who have confirmed their identities should be allowed to post videos.

Jessica Shumway, who was trafficked and had a customer post a sex video on Pornhub, agrees: “They need to figure out who’s underage in the videos and that there’s consent from everybody in it.”

I asked Leo, 18, who had videos of himself posted on Pornhub when he was 14, what he suggested.

“That’s tough,” he said. “My solution would be to leave porn to professional production companies,” because they require proof of age and consent.

Right now, those companies can’t compete with mostly free sites like Pornhub and XVideos.

“Pornhub has already destroyed the business model for pay sites,” said Stoya, an adult film actress and writer. She, too, thinks all platforms — from YouTube to Pornhub — should require proof of consent to upload videos of private individuals.

Columnists are supposed to offer answers, but I struggle with solutions. If Pornhub curated videos more rigorously, the most offensive material might just move to the dark web or to websites in less regulated countries. Yet at least they would then not be normalized on a mainstream site.

More pressure and less impunity would help. We’re already seeing that limiting Section 230 immunity leads to better self-policing.

And call me a prude, but I don’t see why search engines, banks or credit card companies should bolster a company that monetizes sexual assaults on children or unconscious women. If PayPal can suspend cooperation with Pornhub, so can American Express, Mastercard and Visa.

I don’t see any neat solution. But aside from limiting immunity so that companies are incentivized to behave better, here are three steps that would help: 1.) Allow only verified users to post videos. 2.) Prohibit downloads. 3.) Increase moderation.

These measures wouldn’t kill porn or much bother consumers of it; YouTube thrives without downloads. Siri Dahl, a prominent porn star who does business with Pornhub, told me that my three proposals are “insanely reasonable.”

The world has often been oblivious to child sexual abuse, from the Catholic Church to the Boy Scouts. Too late, we prosecute individuals like Jeffrey Epstein or R. Kelly. But we should also stand up to corporations that systematically exploit children. With Pornhub, we have Jeffrey Epstein times 1,000.

[yoificfinder]

Hi! I was wondering if you would be able to find some time travel/time loop AUs where Victor and Yuuri (and other members of the YoI cast) are thrown around in time please? Thank you so much!

Hi! These are some time travel fics (mix of both canonverse and AUs) I read and enjoyed:

Previous rec of time travel fics where they meet their other self in the other timeline

a great desire to love by lily_winterwood / @omgkatsudonplease [T, 22K]

For some strange, inexplicable, fantastic reason, Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov are trading places. Kimi no Na wa AU.

All Our Yesterdays by @kitsunebi-uk [E, 102K]

York, England, 2120: Yuuri Katsuki is a dime-a-dozen techie, spending his days doing routine repairs at the university. He hangs out with his friend Phichit, goes for a drink, watches holograms. It’s an existence – but is it a life?

Crowood Castle, Yorkshire, 1392: As the son of a baron, Sir Victor Nikiforov makes judgements where lives hang in the balance. As a knight, he must sometimes end them. It’s what he was born to do – but what of the heavy burden on his soul? Death is all too commonplace, while life and love remain elusive.

When a brilliant scientist goes rogue, journeying to the Middle Ages with the world’s first time machine, Yuuri is stunned to be called on as the last hope of preventing her from changing history. After an abrupt departure, he lands at Crowood Castle disguised as an enemy of the Nikiforovs, Sir Justin le Savage – and will need to act the part if he is to survive. It’s a tall order for someone who can barely tell the back end of a horse from the front. But if Ailis, in her own disguise, discovers who he is, his mission will end in a blaze of laser-gun fire. He must not give his real identity away, even to the beguiling knight he’s falling in love with…

Elevators Out of Order by mtothedestiel [E, 31K] *WIP

A Kate and Leopold AU. In 1876, Victor Nikiforov is a handsome duke with an inventive imagination and a dwindling fortune. The search for a wealthy bride brings him to America, and the capital of progress, New York City. Can an encounter with a mysterious stranger offer Victor a future he never dreamed of?

Meanwhile in 2017, physicist turned paper-pusher Yuuri Katsuki is just trying to get through the day, which is tough enough without surprise phone calls from his roommate announcing he has a 19th-century aristocrat out cold on their sofa.

To top things off, it would seem every elevator in Manhattan is suddenly out of order. What a coincidence.

Here Once and Back Again by Cbear2470 [E, 77K] *WIP *Major Character Death

“What?” was all Yuuri could say as a numbness froze over his body.

Something—something wasn’t right. It was then he realized he couldn’t remember getting to the rink. He couldn’t remember even stepping on the ice to start his program.

He couldn’t remember.

He tried to remember.

*

As Yuuri is skating his free skate, he knows something is off. But, he brushes it aside, too focused on executing the program flawlessly.

It isn't until after it's all over that Yuuri comes to discover that he just skated his gold-medal winning, record-breaking program at the 2014-15 Grand Prix Final in Sochi. The very same final Yuuri had once upon a time placed last in over two years ago.

here's to the glory still to be by @foxfireflamequeen [Not Rated, 12K]

“Hi,” says Viktor, smile bright and camera-ready. His hand, when he extends it, is small and delicate. “I think you know who I am, but we haven’t met.”

His accent is very thick, very Russian in a way Yuri has never heard before. He looks from the offered hand to Viktor’s face, barely an inch higher, and tracks his hair, long and pale and spilling over his shoulders. He can’t be older than, well, Yuri.

“No,” says Yuri. “We haven’t.”

in another dimension series by @alykapediaaa [T, 8K]

Summary of first fic in the series

Entertainment >> Celebrity News

Viktor Nikiforov: Finally Found!

SOMERSET – Russian model Viktor Nikiforov, 27, who has been declared missing last May of this year was finally found earlier today. Nikiforov, known as the face of luxury brand Stammi Vicino, was vacationing at Bath, Somerset after a successful season when he suddenly disappeared, leaving all of his belongings, as well as his poodle, behind. Yakov Feltsman, Nikiforov’s manager, has yet to release a statement. Read More.

Life Unwoven by ayn2390 [M, 23K] *Indefinite Hiatus

Five-Time Consecutive Grand Prix Final Winner Katsuki Yuuri meets Five-Time Consecutive Grand Prix Final Winner Victor Nikiforov.

or,

In which things are tangled, and untangled, and tangled again. And Victor will always be there to save Yuuri.

Maelstrom by @feels-like-fire [E, 44K]

Victor Nikiforov is poised to win gold in his fifth consecutive Grand Prix Final. He has the world at his feet, is unparalleled in the sport--right up until a snowstorm blows into Sochi, and he finds himself repeating the same day over and over and over. He stumbles over Yuuri Katsuki, and everything changes.

(Or, the time loop au. Loosely based on Groundhog Day.)

On My Love by RikoJasmine [T, 73K] *WIP

For the second time, the Sochi Grand Prix Finals arrive, and with it a reborn Yuuri Katsuki. “Viktor,” Yuuri thinks over the pounding of his heart, the crowd going silent as the music begins. “I’ll show the world what you meant to me.”

Yuuri often thinks of his life as Before and After Viktor Nikiforov, the marking point being the day Viktor swept into his life and turned his world upside-down. After many years together, an accident leads to Yuuri suddenly waking up in the Before—back in Detroit, before the GPF, before he ever knew Viktor as anything other than his childhood idol.

As if it had all been just a dream.

paso doble by @cafecliche [G, 4K]

"Long before skating, or even ballet, Yuuri would hear about it at festivals, in the boiling humidity of Hasetsu summers dancing the Bon Odori in the streets. He remembered years where Mari would take him home alone, while their parents comforted lingering, distraught dancers. Sometimes, Mari had explained, they were crying because they’d seen lost loved ones. Some cried because they didn’t see who they’d hoped, but a stranger. And some cried because they hadn’t seen anyone at all.

Because it’s not just the steps. The dancers need, even for a second, to feel the exact same thing."

(Or: days before Hot Springs on Ice, Yuuri receives a visitor from another time.)

The League of the Green Carnation by @abarero [M, 62K]

There was one golden rule to being a Time Scientist: do not bring home anything that was a fixed point in history. This meant most artifacts, extinct animals and the like were permissible. Historical figures? Not so much.

But what about an author? Namely, Yuuri’s favorite author, who was murdered in 1887. Could he be saved?

Well. Yuuri was sure as hell about to find out.

Turn Back the Clock by IronScript [T, 59K] *WIP

When Yuuri and Viktor wake up over thirty years in the past, they don't know what to do. Does the other remember?

Luckily that particular question is quickly answered and they can relax slightly, but what about afterwards? Viktor was brought back to right before his first Olympics, and Yuuri isn’t even old enough to compete in Seniors’!

Then there's the fact that they're still very much in love, but a physical relationship would be illegal (and would gross them both out considering Yuuri's age), and they can't count on anyone to just trust them not to do anything age inappropriate. So maybe being long-distance (with as many in-person meetings as possible) would be better until Yuuri becomes a legal adult physically, never mind his actual age.

But it's hard to behave and act naturally when you're forced to be apart from your husband of twenty years, especially during one of the most stressful parts of anyone's life, so Yuuri and Viktor have to distract themselves somehow, right?

Right.

And if everyone around them ends up completely confused and blindsided at their sudden changes (though admittedly they seem to have changed for the better), then so be it!

[jawritter]

Where The Green Grass Grows

Chapter 1

Summary: Life changes, nothing ever stays the same. With most change comes with some degree of pain, that’s how we grow.

Jensen thought he had his whole life planned out, written for him in the bright lights of Hollywood. One failed marriage later, and a lifetime of lessons learned, lead him home to a place he thought he’d left behind him when he was only a teenager.

He thought his life was over. He felt like he’d lost everything, but who knew one little trip to the local diner that had just opened up outside of town would turn his whole world upside down. All because he met you. Maybe a little slower pace of life isn’t such a bad idea after all…

Warnings:  Language, Angst, mention of past OC character death, mention of grief, dealing with a divorce. Drinking. I think that's about it for this chapter.

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Word Count: 2550

Dividers by: @firefly-graphics​

A/N: This fic is unbeta’d and all mistakes are mine! Please do not copy my work! I hope you all enjoy this one! Feedback is golden! This series is complete on patreon.

My Masterlist   My Patreon   Series Masterlist

“Mr. Ackles! Good morning!” Alex, Jensen's longtime agent, said as he took his seat at the big oak desk in front of Jensen.  

“Alex,” Jensen said, giving the man a tight smile as he watched him shuffle through the pile of paperwork on his desk. Jensen had been in the entertainment industry since he was a young boy in one sense or another. He was no idiot, and he knew the reason he was called into his agents office for the first time in almost 15 years wasn’t a good thing, and he knew just what it was about. 

“I’m glad you could come in to see us on such short notice, Mr. Ackles. I’m sure you’re a busy man, and I’m not going to take up much of your time.”

Alex folded his hands in front of him, and Jensen couldn’t help but feel like the kid that had been sent to the principal's office for doing something stupid in class. The only difference was this time he wasn’t a kid, and this wasn’t a school. He was in his fucking forties, and this was his job. He hadn’t even done anything wrong! 

“I’m sure you already suspect the reason I called you here Jensen,” Alex said, dropping all formality that was there just a moment ago.  “Your recent divorce has affected you, and I don’t mean that in an offensive way!” Alex said as Jensen rolled his eyes. He knew that’s what this was all about. 

His divorce with Danneel had been a very public one. There were children involved, and of course a substantial amount of property. What divorce has ever gone smoothly or quietly in Hollywood? None that he’d ever seen, and they were overall civil for the public eye? So what was the problem?

“Cut the shit, Alex!” Jensen said, barely holding his temper in check. He could feel his blood pressure rising in his seat. Why did people have to be so damn judgemental? “What the fuck is this really all about?” 

Alex took a deep breath, and set back in defeat against his dark leather chair, and looked at Jensen almost as if he pitied him, and damn if that didn’t just suck worse than the wishy-washy shit. 

“Look, Jensen, since your divorce you haven’t been as on your game as you were. You’re showing up late to set. You have been drinking more, I can tell it by the color of your fucking skin man. You’re exhausted. No one expected you to jump back to work before the ink even dried on the divorce papers, and the company thinks it might be time to take a little break, get yourself back together, and figure shit out before you try and take on another roll.”

Alex fell quiet as Jensen set there with his hands buried in his hair, no longer looking at him. Alex did not want to do this to Jensen, he really didn’t. It was the guys that were higher up than he was. 

Sure they weren’t exactly wrong, he could see it in the actor’s eyes how tired he was, and how much strain he was under. He didn’t want another nervous breakdown under his belt like Charlie Sheen that had almost turned into an incurable disaster. Jensen had a stable following, and a break wasn’t going to hurt his career. If nothing else it may help it. 

“Go back to Texas for a while Jensen, get away from all this shit here in California, go have a damn beer out in the country for fucks sake. Focus on you! Gigs will still be here. You need to take care of yourself man.”

Jensen nodded slowly before finally looking up to meet Alex’s now concerned gaze. 

Jensen knew deep down he’d been slipping, but he didn’t think it was bad enough to warrant a forced vacation. If it really was that bad, he knew he needed to take a step back from the public eye until he could get his shit together before it did hurt his career. He’d seen much bigger actors than him fall because of shit they did while going through tough shit like this, and he didn’t work all his life to lose everything. 

“Okay… Fine… I’ll go home for a while,” Jensen said, huffing in defeat, rubbing his hand along the beard that was now covering his jawline as he focused on a random spot on the building just outside the window. Completely done with this conversation. 

Alex breathed a visible sigh of relief and flopped back into his chair. His eyes still on the man in front of him. He couldn’t imagine what was going on in Jensen’s head right now, but whatever it was, he knew he wasn’t in the sharing mood. 

“I’ll let the big guys upstairs know, take as long as you need,” Alex said, getting up from his desk and extending his hand for Jensen to shake. Jensen looked at it like it personally offended his mother, but shook it all the same. He didn’t want to piss people off to the point he’d need to find a new agency to represent him, but man, did he want to tell everyone in this building to go fuck themselves. 

It really didn’t sink in that he was going home until Jensen sat down at his computer at home with a glass of bourbon in his hand, looking at plane tickets back to Dallas. He hadn’t told his dad he was coming, and he knew his family would welcome him back with open arms, but it was his own mental struggle that kept him from hitting the pay now button on the screen.

Sure, Alex said that he could come back whenever he was ready, but the truth was he didn’t know when or if ever he’d be ready again. 

He felt like going back to Texas was admitting defeat. When he’d shown up in California all those years ago, he’d struggled his way into Hollywood. No one had given him an exactly warm welcome, and it didn’t come without some damn near misses and shit that almost sent him back before his time. 

Now, after all that. Several decade’s worths of struggling, and clawing his way to where he was today, he was going home. It left more than a little bitter taste in his mouth, and there was nothing he could do about it. 

The agency wasn’t going to get him another job until he took a break, and sure he needed one, but he didn’t want to take one. On the other hand, if he didn’t take one, then he’d surely destroy his career because he was in no shape to be in the public eye. 

There was no going back to Austin. He couldn’t live in the same town as her, that’s why he’d run off to California. If he was going back to Texas it was going to have to be Dallas. No matter how much he didn’t want to. 

It wasn’t that he was afraid someone would make fun of him, or the locals would talk about him. He was loaded, and successful. He wasn’t concerned about their opinions. It was his own pride he was struggling with, not theirs. He had lost his wife and children, now he was losing his career, and he just didn’t feel like this shitshow could get any worse. 

“Who says you can’t go home,” Jensen said with a dark chuckle as he booked his ticket, and stared at the departure time. 5:00 A.M. tomorrow. That only gave him a few hours to pack, but then again, he wasn’t sure he wanted to even take any of this shit with him.

“Order up!” you hear James call from the other side of the counter where the kitchen was separated from the bar by a large whole that took up most of the inner wall, much like a lot of older dinner kitchens did in the ’50s and ’60s. 

You throw the rag you’d been wiping the bar down with in the laundry hamper that was hidden safely under the counter from the view of the customers and grabbed the tray of burgers and fries, bringing them over to the young couple that was sitting at the very back of the restaurant. They were the only customers left in the place, and it was obviously their first date.

You could tell it in the way the girl nervously played with the hem of her dress, while the young man did all he could to hold a conversation with her. It was evident that in the light blush that covered her cheeks she had feelings for the boy, and judging by the way he was gushing over her, his feelings went pretty deep too. 

“Here you go guys, if you need anything else I’ll just be right over there,” you tell them with a smile. They thanked you, and you returned to your place behind the counter. You sighed deeply as you started to count down the register that was used earlier that day. Once this young couple was done, then it was time to get out of here. You were more than ready to get these shoes off your feet and sink neck-deep in a bath as hot as you could stand it in order to relieve some of the day's tension that was still evident in your back and legs from standing on your feet all day.

As you counted down the money in front of you, your eyes kept drifting over to the young couple sitting at the back table. You remember when Eric had taken you on your first date. It was at a restaurant much like this one. Then the night before you got married, he brought you back to the place where it all started. He was deployed to Iraq for another tour just three weeks after your wedding and returned in a flag-draped casket a year later.

It was one of the hardest paths you ever had to walk in your life. You were young, had little to no family, and Eric was your world, your whole life, and it seemed like so suddenly it was ripped violently away from you.

You swallowed hard and tried to remember to continue to count the money, crewing on your lower lip in concentration. 

It had been three years since Eric’s funeral, and you still hadn’t moved on. Sure, there had been prospects. You were still young, only 30, and you were single in a relatively small town outside of the greater city of Dallas. So it was no secret that you were not with anyone. You knew you should find someone and try to settle down again, but you just didn’t feel the same way Eric made you feel about anyone that had approached you so far. He was your first love. There was a whole there now, that you didn’t think would ever mend.

Seeing that young couple that looked so happy and so in love brought up a whole lot of feelings that you wished like hell you could bury because they still hurt. 

“Hey you, stop staring at the customers,” Jessica said, leaning against the counter with a smirk on her face. 

You give her your best bitch face and go back to putting the money bag in the safe under the counter. “I’m just making sure the customers don’t need anything.”

“Liar,” she said simply. “You know it’s been three years, Y/N.”

You looked up at her and sighed deeply as your eyes trained back to the young couple that were laughing together. 

“I know Jessica. I’ve thought about it. No one just… I don’t know, makes me feel the way Eric did.”

Jessica gave you a sympathetic look and threw her arm around your shoulder. She was working here with you when this place opened up right after you and Eric got married. She had been your friend ever since, and she was there with you through the grieving process, and she still kept a close eye on you all these years later.

“You know I’m only telling you this because I love you as a friend right?” she asked you, and you just stared at her. Afraid of what was about to come out of her mouth. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d tried to play matchmaker, and you didn’t know if you could go through that again.

“The reason you can’t find someone is because you're still holding on to him, Y/N. You have to let him go, let him rest!”

Your hand slipped up to the small silver locket that you kept around your neck. Eric had given it to you right before he left for your last deployment, and you never took it off. You knew she was right. You were still acting like you were a married woman. If you were ever going to move on, you were going to have to let him go.

“I know you’re right, but I don’t know how,” you tell her in earnest, as the young couple throws some money down on the table, and gathers up their coats to leave, waving at the two of you as they went. 

“I’ll tell you what, tonight after we finish up, we’re going to head down to the graveyard, and you're gonna tell him goodbye for real, and bury that locket, and let him go. Then I want you to move on!! You're so young, you deserve to be happy, Eric would want you to be happy.”

“I he would,” you tell her. Letting go of the breath you didn’t know you were holding, and wiping the stray tear away that fell down your face before you nod and agree to go.

It wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be, but after you got off work, Jessica got in her car and followed you to the graveyard. You did just like she said to do. You told him goodbye and took the Locket with a spoon you’d grabbed from the diner that they were going to throw away, and dug a small hole, burying the locket, and a part of your heart forever. 

When you got home to your small house and got in the shower to wash away the day, deciding to forgo the bath because it was so late, and you were exhausted, you felt a little more at peace than you had in years. Even though there would always be a part of you that missed Eric. You hoped this time that you could let him go enough to finally move on.

You wanted what that couple had tonight, you wanted a friend and a companion. Maybe now you could start to let yourself be happy again. At least the weight that you had been carrying for three years felt just a little lighter, and you closed your eyes that night in hopes that tomorrow was going to be the start of a better way of life for you.

You never know, maybe Mr. Right will just walk right in the diner tomorrow. Then again, would you ever be that lucky?

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[hinaaspanda]

scrawny | pjs

Pairing: Bad Boy! Jisung x Chilhood Besfriend! Reader 

Warnings: swearing, underage drinking, a lot of beating people up, **TW: minor instance of sexual battery, stops really early on**

Genre: Angst, some hints of fluff? 

Word Count: 10,805 whoops

It was expected that guilt etched itself into your heart. You were the reason Park Jisung was so beaten up, after all. You always were. 

inspired by the song Scrawny by the Wallows!

a/n; I apologize if the contents of this fic personally harm you in anyway; I really never meant to hurt anyone, I just wanted to write a more mature-themed fic. 

08 . 07 . 12

“You can’t beat me! I’m older and stronger than you, Sungie!” The high pitched voice of your prideful older brother irked your ears as you timidly picked on the weeds below your crouched knees. His hollers, coupled with laughs from his twin always ruined the calmness the breeze brought you. Your eyes glance towards the poor boy on the receiving end of the torture, none other than the boy next door, Park Jisung. You huffed out a sympathetic sigh. No matter how annoying your brothers get, that poor kid just a few feet away from you always had it worse.

Donghyuck, your first older brother, started at the neighbourhood weakling first. His fist hurled towards Jisung’s lower waist before the second member of this cursed partnership, Jeno, trapped the poor kid’s skull in a headlock. Jisungs figure plummeted into the grass, his small fists punching the air as he failed to fight back. Donghyuck belts out another one of his ear shattering howls before turning to your once peaceful frame. 

“Y/N! LOOK! WE BEAT JISUNG AGAIN!” 

Your hands find themselves tugging at the grass a little harder than you wanted to, the green residue staining your palms once you finally let go. You were almost at your limit with Donghyuck and Jeno, the two buttheads you had to call family. You had enough of it all. You stomp towards your brothers as rays of irritation emitted from you. 

“You two are so annoying sometimes! Can’t you just stay put and be quiet for ONCE?” you pleaded, your demanding voice throwing everyone at the park off, especially your two brothers. After all, you were always quiet, always patient with them. They watched fearfully as you gestured towards the poor Jisung lying limp on the grass, bloody bruises and scars covering up his once innocent skin. The air froze still as everyone on the playground waited for your next words. “And please stop hurting Jisung already! He’s younger than you, it’s not fair!”

Jisung winced at your words. He knew you'd say that he wasn’t strong enough. He rubs the fresh scab on his knee, his eyes concentrating on the drops of blood dripping down from it, in the hopes of distracting himself from his own confusing feelings. He knew he was weak, more than anyone else on this playground. But hearing it from you hurt just a little bit more.

The air between the four of you grew silent, the only thing making any noise was the wrestling leaves caught in the spring breeze. In any other occasion, you would have taken your time to relish this moment, but now you had your dumb, older brothers to take care of. You scan their seemingly scared figures before Donghyuck once again lets out an aggravating chuckle. 

“You can’t talk to us like that!!” Donghyuck suddenly gave you a stern look, slightly shaking his head in disappointment, as Jeno stepped beside him. “You better watch your mouth, y/n. We’re older than you, remember?”

Fear shot down your spine. What were you thinking? You’d practically be dead meat once your mom finds out you yelled at them! You sealed your eyes as you braced for impact, impact of your brothers lecturing fists breaking your frame. Impact that, also, never seemed to actually occur. Slowly your eyes opened, revealing something jaw dropping. 

Jisung’s back faced you, his stance showing an essence of power his 10 year old figure never showed before. His hands, already bruised and crumpled into fists, lowered themselves to his side as your older brothers both took their turn laying defeated on the beat up grass. Groaning in pain, Donghyuck cuddled his newly injured torso, while Jeno soothed his side with the back of his palm. 

“Don’t talk to y/n like that, Donghyuck.” Jisung boomed, his eyes never leaving the sight of the two conquered 12 year olds still drowning in pain. 

 Later that night, you watched as all three boys sunk into an endless night of lectures about not getting into fights, a night you were luckily allowed to skip. Your mind runs back to that earth shattering scene, your brothers lying below the neighborhood weakling, his stance more powerful than those of superheros. You watched Jisung trot home from your bedroom window

Maybe Park Jisung isn’t so weak after all.

...

05 . 16 . 15

“Zhong Chenle, If you make us late to class ONE MORE TIME I swear I will hurt you.” You threaten your new neighbour on the phone. You rubbed your temples with the nimble pads of your fingers, knowing full well Chenle hasn’t even brushed his teeth yet. 

“Hold on! I’m almost ready, just give me like five more minutes!” 

“You said that ten minutes ago!” 

“I mean it this time! I swear!” 

“Just hurry up, ok?” You pleaded before cutting the call. As you hastily shoved your phone into your jacket pocket, a disheveled Chenle emerged from his front door, the piece of toast hanging from his lips reminiscent of those anime girls Donghyuck always drooled over. 

You could still remember the day Chenle came into your life, taking over the vacant house beside yours. His bubbly, cheerful demeanour taking over your entire summer with all these trips to the basketball court and raids at the neighbourhood convenience store. In your eyes, he was the perfect addition to your neighbourhood friend group, which at that point in your life, only consisted of you and the neighborhood scrawny boy, Park Jisung. Well, that’s what you thought at least. 

As the days diverted from bright and sunny, to cold and frigid, and as the three of you grew more overwhelmed with middle school, Jisung grew more and more distant. As for the reason? Well, you wanted to know more than anyone, but that puzzle was harder to crack than any of your grade 7 homework. These days, it was so rare to see his face, you almost forgot he shared a class with you, or still resided six steps beside your house. 

“When do you think Jisung’s gonna hang out with us again?” Chenle’s abrupt voice awoke you from your sorrowful slumber. Your head sinks down, your eyes watching your feet on the subway floor. “I don’t know, Chenle.”  

 Your ears couldn’t help but drown out your teacher’s voice as they taught today’s lesson. You had other things to worry about, anyways. Like what you were going to eat today, or how your hair looked tied up like how it is now. But more importantly, what was going through his mind from across the classroom. It wasn’t long before the bell finally rang, signaling the student’s freedom. Your exhausted eyes watched as the herd of teenagers crowded the exit, leaving three figures inside and all alone; you, Chenle, and Jisung. 

From the corner of your eye, you watch Chenle slumps his bag over his shoulders as he, with overflowing panic, shuffled towards the brooding teenager, who looked like he was just staring at you a minute ago. Off to the side, you prayed for Chenle’s success. Or more accurately, his safety. 

“H-hey Jisung, do you wanna, uh, walk home with us?” 

Jisung pondered for a little bit, then continued.

“...us?”

“Yeah, me and y/n.” Chenle raised a palm in your direction while Jisung’s eyes followed almost instantly. All while you tried your best to hide the fact you were watching all of this go down. 

You sensed a shift in Jisungs mood just then, going from simply tired and wanting to head home already, to… anger? Why would he be angry?

“No thanks, you guys can go ahead”

Jisung shot up from his desks, various chairs and classroom furniture shivering in fear. Jisung winced at those words. The same sting he felt all those years ago at the playground with Donghyuck and Jeno, ripped through his chest. But it wasn’t like he was being called weak, or that he needed to prove his worth. No, it was simply that you were with someone else. Not with him.  “But we all live on the same street.”

“I’m fine, Chenle”

“Come on, man-”

Suddenly, Jisung whipped around, facing the innocent transfer student. He shot him one last glare before sending his figure to the ground with his fist, faster than the bullet train that provided you a ride to school this morning. Chenle let out a howl of pain as you bounced out of your seat, coming to his aid. Jisung watches as you hold Chenle’s body close, closer than he would’ve liked, before sending you a glare as well. 

“Stay away from y/n” He huffed before trekking away from the scene of his own crime. You follow closely behind, the zipper of your bag opening wider as you drag it along.

“Jisung!” You cry, your eyes scanning the halls for your neighbor, your neighbor that was always full of surprises. You finally find him slowly making his way towards the school doors before he stops, turning around to face you.

You never really noticed how much he grew over these few years. Now, his figure was taller, much taller than yours ever could be, easily towering over your small frame. His shoulders were broader, he looked meaner. This wasn’t your scrawny neighbourhood friend any more. 

“What?” He muttered, his face noticeably softer now that Chenle was out of his sight. His fingers gripped the strap of his bag as he stared you down, watching you fumble with your own words. He would rather die than admit it, but you looked cute, all nervous like that.

“Why’d you hit Chenle?”

“I-” Now he was the stuttering mess. “I don’t know”

He paused, his suddenly guilty eyes meeting yours. “I didn’t like him being with you.” 

You could almost laugh in disbelief. Was he being serious? Your head cocks to the side while your arms cross into themselves. “Jisung, please”

Jisung held his head down, knowing full well of how lame he was right now. Your eyes however, tried finding his again. Reassurance etched in each of your pupils as you lightly nudged his shoulder. 

“Don’t worry Jisung, I’m not gonna leave you.” 

His frame brightened up instantaneously as you watched him practically jump for joy at your words. So after all those years, Jisung was still a big softie, huh? 

“Now, go apologize to Chenle and let’s all go home together, ok?” You spun around, back to the classroom. Jisung swiftly trailed behind you. Of course he didn’t think twice about his apology. Sure, his pride was at stake, but for you? Park Jisung would do anything. 

...

04 . 10 . 17

“Get off me, you freak!” The pinned down middle schooler scowled under the grasp of Jisung’s bloodied knuckles. He gasped for air as Jisung clamped his hands down in a chokehold. Jisung tired his best to shoot him a mean glare through his bruised and blackened eye. 

“Don’t you dare touch y/n like that, got it?” He growled, his eyes never leaving the sight of the suffering student. Jisung watched as he desperately pried himself away from Jisung’s grasp. He deserved this, though. That moron had zero right grazing his against your thigh. Especially not on his watch. 

“It was an accident!” The student dizzily coughed out, his neck still trapped between Jisungs strong palms. “I won’t do it again, alright? Just let me go already!!” 

Like the parting of the red sea, Jisung’s palms subsided from the student’s neck, finally setting him free. The student collapsed to the ground, hissing in pain before sending Jisung a dirty look. The various students that once crowded around the scene rushed away to the sounds of an irritated teacher, leaving an awestruck Chenle, a damaged Jisung, and your guilt ridden self behind in the third year hallway. It was expected that guilt etched itself into your heart. You were the reason Park Jisung was always so beaten up, after all. You always were. 

Your sorrowful frame couldn’t muster up the courage to spit out a cohesive sentence before the P.A. system blasted through your ears. The next words that deadpan, robotic voice would utter were terribly easy to predict. 

“Park Jisung to the principal’s office, please. Park Jisung to the principal’s office. Thank you.” 

“Ow! That stings!” Jisung seethed, his hands, newly patched the moment you retired home for the night, digging into your teddy bear’s flesh as you applied the medicine to his wounded cheekbone. You scoffed beside him, picking up more medicine with the q-tip in your hand. “Well, it wouldn’t have to sting if you didn’t beat up that kid in the first place!” 

“He touched you weirdly!” He groaned in pain as you plopped another layer of that ice cold medicine he hated. 

“It was an accident! And he apologized before you choked him to near-death!” You shot back, your grip on the q-tip growing tighter. A sensation you noticed only happened whenever emotions overflowed in your heart. The pads of your fingertips gently spread a bandaid over his callous skin as the air in your bedroom grew tense. Your chest pushed out a heaving sigh. “I’m sorry, y/n.”

“I can take care of myself, Jisung.” You glanced down, cleaning up the mess from your first-aid kit. “So please, stop hurting yourself for me. I hate seeing you all beat up like this, Sungie.” 

Sungie. Sungie. It sent butterflies to his stomach. That simple childish nickname, pulling him back to that playground. The start of his fighting career. He didn’t care if that was some random nickname from Donghyuck. It sounded better when you said it. Much, much better. 

Jisung awoke from his daze as he felt a pair of lips softly graze his newly mended cheek. His head whipped fast to face you, but barely catching up to the record breaking speed of his ears turning pink. With his cheeks soon following after. His eyes, wider than any body of ocean found on this planet, flusteredly stared you down with only one question in mind. What. Was. That.

You held your clumsy eye contact as you leaned away from your rushed, but sweet, kiss. “Please?” You barely let out in a whisper. Jisung let out a soft grin, his hand hesitantly brushing yours. 

“Alright.” 

You once again watched Jisung trek the four steps to his front door before freefalling onto your bed, a full on, red-cheeked, flustered mess. Lee y/n, what the hell is wrong with you. 

...

07 . 23 . 17

The ice cream melting at such a rapid pace underneath the scolding summer heat was the least of your and Chenle’s concerns. Not with the moving truck parked outside the house of your childhood neighbor and friend?, Park Jisung. After sending flabbergasted looks to each other, the two of you bolted to the front door, disregarding any need of cleaning up after yourselves.

You couldn’t keep still as Chenle banged his fist on the door. Was he moving out? You thought back to this summer. The countless nights the three of you would relish in each other’s company, whether it would be just resting on one of your beds, scrolling through your phones, or at the playground, taking turns on the ancient swings. You smiled to yourself, remembering how Jisung would never swing himself, opting to just push you instead. Would you ever see him again? Your heart cracked open just a little bit at that last thought. The possibility of him leaving you? It hurt more than any punch or chokehold could. 

Suddenly, the tired figure of Jaemin, Jisung’s level-headed older brother, emerged. His irritated expression contrasting his welcoming gestures as he allowed the two of you inside without saying a word. And while you had nothing against Jaemin, you really wanted to see Jisung. That boy had some explaining to do.

“Boarding school!? Overseas!?” You and Chenle collectively yelp in surprise, the lemonade Jaemin generously provided you quivering in response. 

“Yeah, our parents thought it was a good way to calm him down, get rid of that fighting habit he got over the years.” Jaemin informed. “He left yesterday, didn’t he tell you?” 

Your lip bled as you bit into its flesh. No, he didn’t tell you. But you had a strong gut feeling you were the very reason for that hiatus he was taking from your life. You couldn’t help but lock yourself in your bedroom for the rest of the night, against poor Chenle’s wishes. All of it, everything was your fault. Park Jisung wasn’t the weakling, now. You were. 

...

03 . 18 . 19

The azure sky looked almost haunted at night. Chills raged through your spine as you, and an exhausted Chenle, shuffled your way home. Your plastic bag of trophies, commemorating another shop raid, hung loosely from your fingertips. Your figure gravitated towards the worn out playground bench as Chenle let out another ear piercing yawn. You were glad he didn’t retire to his own home just yet, though. You enjoyed his company. 

“God! My brother’s stuff was such a pain to lug around!” Chenle screeched, soothing his lower back with his palm as you opened one of the few soft drinks you earned from the convenience shop. “Why’d he have’ta move out for college now?” 

“It’s not like he had a choice, you know.” you fought. “School does start back up tomorrow.” 

“Don’t start with that now, y/n.” Chenle enveloped his forehead in his hands in a petrified manner, as you tried your best to stifle your laughter away. “uGH! SCHOOL’S SUCH A PAIN!!” 

You took another sip of your ice cold drink, the can so frozen, it felt hot against your skin. You, however, didn’t really hate the idea of highschool starting up again. You weren’t some measly, small first year anymore. You actually had friends now. But of course, it was a good distraction from the 2 year childhood-neighbour-sized hole in your heart. 

“You’re still thinking about him, huh?” Chenle leaned on the opposing side of the wooden park bench, taking a monstrous bite of the chocolate bar he threw aside his 2 dollars for. You sent him a stare, one conveying an emotion even you couldn’t pinpoint. “You already know what I’m gonna say, Chenle.” 

Chenle let out a light scoff before softly tapping the exposed skin of your forehead with his knuckles. You squirm, interrupting the calmness that was sipping your drink. You hated that out of all the habits Chenle could have developed, flicking your forehead was one of them. “Don’t worry! All you need to do is distract yourself, and I bet you’ll find one once school starts!”

You tilted your head up to the stars, your eyes shifting to the left as they gazed upon a familiar set of navy window curtains. While Chenle’s harmless habit did nudge you a bit, your own habit of missing Park Jisung, was more detrimental to you than any weak forehead flick could be. 

...

“We have a new student today…” The monotonous voice of your newly appointed teacher for the year already blew your ears dry with boredom as your eyes dug through every corner and crevice of this bland classroom for a way to keep you awake. But you deserved some slack to be cut in your favour. It was 9 am in the morning, you would rather be anywhere else but here at the moment. Your eyes were about to roll back in pure exhaustion as your teacher gestured towards the classroom door.

As if on cue, a towering figure sauntered in, woahs and gasps bouncing on the beige walls. You could feel Chenle’s stupefied look burning through the nape of your neck, but you were too trapped in your shock to give him a reciprocating stare. Not with him right in the center of your view. 

His uniform wasn’t remotely set on his frame correctly. The paper-like school blouse, which was supposed to be fully buttoned, was opened up, exposing a black graphic t-shirt splattered with text you never considered to be school-appropriate. In place of the faded-plaid, beige trousers that coupled with your uniform, tight black jeans hugged his legs, the gaping rips showcasing old and newer bruises and scars. A small chain hugged his left hip as your teacher once again gestured to the center 

“Everyone, please welcome, Park Jisung!” 

You knew you were just scanning and processing his appearance like two seconds ago. But finally having that name rip through your ears, you could almost explode from the overwhelmness. 

God, can I just pass away now?

...

“Y/n, I won’t ever leave you again.” Jisung’s husky voice brushed through your ears softly, as he cradled your frame, your faces just centimeters apart. His eyes, with all the stars in the sky trapped inside, gave you a look of sincerity you haven’t properly felt in such a long time. He scooped your hair behind your ear before letting out another heart fluttering whisper. 

“Be with me, y/n. Let’s run away together, hm?” 

“Y/n? Y/N!” The dolphin-esque hollers of Zhong Chenle, combined with the faded ruckus of your school’s cafeteria, jolted you awake from your fantasy as cheap bronze tinted soft drink catapulted itself into the innocence of your white school uniform. Snorts and giggles filled the chests of your friends, especially Chenle’s, as he skipped away to get you a paper towel. 

“You seem so out of it.” The voice of a concerned Sungchan your一classmate and resident caretaker一notices, handing you the towel Chenle oh so urgently retrieved. 

“When am I ever in it?” you scowled as you began destroying the fabric with the white cloth. It earned a sweet chuckle as Sungchan discreetly slid the bottle of pop away from your grasp, avoiding another image-wrecking incident. He shined a refreshing grin in your direction as Chenle bounced back onto the lunch table. 

“She was probably just bein’ emo about Jisung again, leave her be, Sungchan.” Chenle leaned in to inspect your once again dazed figure, the clicks of his judging tongue just pissing you off a little more than it usually did. “Weren’t you, y/n?”

Of course you were, you always were.

“Park Jisung? The new kid? He was an asshole to her, she's allowed to be mad, right?” The other new addition to this weird clique (and your saving grace), Shotaro, chimed in.

Chenle let out another snort, his knowing eyes now glaring at yours. “You would think so, Sho, you would think so.” 

“Okay. But he still outright ignored her, right? That’s still a pretty bad move” Shotaro rebutted. Chenle’s eyes went from devious to anxious in a heartbeat as the air around you grew silent. 

Yes, Park Jisung一your friend and neighbour for almost all of your life, did indeed ignore you after two whole years of little to no contact. And yes, you were bitter about it. Hell, it broke your heart, smashed it into pieces better than any one of his anger filled punches could. The way his eyes never fully reached yours, his cold, irritated expression. His back turned away from you, this time in an effort to hurt you. 

Although, he shouldn’t have this effect on you. For two years, you were deprived of his dangerous yet heartwarming company. You were left alone, ignored via text, forgotten. You could handle this. You watched as he shuffled past your table silently, earning gasps from the audience of students as the delinquent character he recently shifted into. You could handle leaving Jisung. Right?

“I know what could get your mind off that asshole!” Sungchan suddenly chirped beside you, earning the eyes of a curious Shotaro and a confused Chenle. You however, tuned in as fast as humanly possible, praying for any decent distraction you could get. 

“Let’s go on a date.” 

Jisung couldn’t pry his eyes off your figure, glistening under the afternoon sun that peeked through the cafeteria windows. Your attention, laid on anything else but him as you chatted away with your new friends. He stabbed the stale food with the flimsy plastic fork as he watched you, from the other side of the room, let out your signature laugh; a window-wiper sounding chuckle that you always shielded with your hand. He hated that hand part, though, your smile was too pretty to hide.

Despite your upbeat demeanour, he knew you. Confused at his lack of connection, the barren text threads on your phone. He knew you were probably furious at him right now, for not even sparing her a glance throughout class. And despite how much he just wishes to just stomp on over to you, pick up your precious frame, and kiss you right then, he couldn’t. 

He scans his morning old text threads, finding any way to distract himself from the fanservice playing in his thoughts. He clicks the most recent thread, a thread that only made him regret his decision to pick up his phone ever. 

Jaem Bro [8:46am]: have fun at school :)

Jaem Bro [8:46am]: remember what mom said, too. don’t talk to y/n 

Jaem Bro [8:47am]: she’ll only bring back your bad habits

Jisung scowls as he shoves his phone away. 

Piss off, Jaemin. 

...

“I had fun today.” Sungchan hummed as he practically skipped beside you that Saturday night. His towering figure shielded you from the glaring light of the street lamp as you softly hummed a response. “Yeah, I had fun too.”

Of course you weren’t lying. All in all, you truly did have a good time on your date. Sungchan kept his promise, all while enjoying kittens at a cat cafe, demolishing your self esteem at the arcade, and even feeding you food you never thought a 17 year old could afford. For the whole day, it felt like that Jisung-shaped hole in your heart was filled, simply retiring into an afterthought. And that would be true, if you hadn’t passed by an all too familiar bedroom as you walked home that night. 

It was an all too familiar feeling, the clenching of your heart as you gazed upon those curtains. His bed, which was also in view, sending you memories of patching that clumsy boy up almost every day. It all washed back to you. Sungchan suddenly nudged your side, waking you up from your cursed thought train. But after seeing what he saw, all you could do was yearn to return back to your dreamland.

To say that Jisung’s eyes simply widened at the sight of you, grinning sweetly at another guy, would be a definite understatement. He came so close to dropping his newly opened soda can as a series of texts shifted into his mind 

Don’t talk to y/n, she’ll only bring back your bad habits.

Jisung clenches his jaw watching you giggle at that asshole’s (presumably bad) joke. Maybe Jaemin was right. Maybe he shouldn’t talk to you anymore. You clearly didn’t need him now. 

“Jisung?” You yelped, stunned. Jisung watched you slowly inch back closer to that beanpole. He felt his limbs being pulled back into his fighting habits, jealousy burning through his lips. His hands, still off to his sides, balling up into fists. Someone was gonna get hurt tonight.

“Were you guys on a date?” 

“We-”

“Yeah, we were'' Sungchan cut in, his arm shielding you from Park Jisung’s wrath. “Got a problem with that, buddy?”

Steam puffed from Jisung’s ears as he stalked towards Sungchan. “You got some nerve talking to me like that, buddy” Jisung hissed. He was at his limit. He gave Sungchan one last nasty look. Target: Acquired. Except, with the last two years of zero practice under his belt, his aim wasn’t exactly good. It was horrible, actually.

It all happened too fast for you, one second you were safely guarded by Sungchan’s shoulder. The next? Lying limp at the mercy of Jisung’s hatred-filled fist. His knuckles jabbing deep into the crevice of your cheekbone. Deep down, you knew it was probably just an accident. But your heart didn’t listen to you. It never did.

“Ji-” You could barely muster through your own tears. You wanted to scream from the pain. But not just the physical pain. 

Jisung stood frozen before your defeated figure. Shit. What the hell was wrong with him. All he wanted was to knock out that asshole for a little bit.

“I-” Jisung stammered

“Forget it, Jisung. Quit being an asshole and leave me alone!” You spat out those last few words a little louder than you intended to as you wobbled up, storming away. Away from him, away from Sungchan and your own home. You didn’t care how far you’d go. You didn't care about the sudden rainfall pouring on you. Your mind just told you one thing and one thing only. Run

I hate you so much, Park Jisung.

Jisung waited for the sky to dress into its daily midnight attire before finally ducking into the comfort of his own home. He was overwhelmed, to say the least. Pissed, definitely, with that Sungchan asshole just existing around you. Tired, for staying out till 1 in the morning again. But mostly guilt, for being the very reason your eyes weren’t completely dry that night. He knew he was gonna regress into his fighting habits soon enough, but never like this. His eyes glazed over his screen clicking on a familiar contact.

“You WHAT?” Chenle shocked what was left of Jisung’s poor eardrum as he gawked in full astonishment. Jisung couldn’t see Chenle’s face, but he knew for a fact it was scrunching up in confusion. Jisung watched the still streetlight from his bedroom window, guilt still welling up in him.  “Man, what am I gonna do?” 

“Oh, I don’t know? Apologize?”

“How am I gonna do it? She’s not gonna wanna talk to me after this! I’m screwed!” Chenle grew silent on the other line, his brain striking an idea harder than the sudden rain pour.  “That’s it! Sung, what’s y/n’s favorite thing to buy at the shop? The one down our street?” 

Jisung’s eyebrows furrowed. “...She likes their ramen a lot, but what’s that got to do with any of this?”

“Meet me at the shop tomorrow morning. I know how to fix this.”

...

“SUNGIEEE!” Donghyuck shrieked, throwing Jisung off of his caution-filled thought process as the front door blew wide open. Although, it wasn’t much of a thought process, but rather just the repeated question of What the hell am I doing here, and you, of course. But no matter, you were always running through his mind anyways. Donghyuck pulled Jisung into a tight, brotherly hug. “Where have ya been?? I missed you!” 

Jisung shined a bogus smile at his childhood bully. This better fucking work, Zhong Chenle. 

Jisungs legs drowned in a pool of hesitance as he shuffled into your home, his ears shielding the irritable rambles of Lee Donghyuck, one half of the annoying Lee Twins duo. He didn’t care if he hadn't seen Donghyuck’s face in over two years, the only thing he searched for was you.

“You’re here for y/n right? She got a cold from the rain last night, but I could probably let you in.” Donghyuck informed, as if he could read Jisung’s mind.

“You should hurry up and be our in-law soon, Sungie!” He nudged Jisung’s arm a few times, a mischievous grin suggesting that he either read into his mind a little too much, or that Jisung was just blatantly obvious about his feelings. He prayed that it wasn’t the latter. Another figure suddenly emerged from the kitchen, giving Donghyuck a nice, crisp slap on the nape of his neck. 

“Oi, quit bein’ such a creep, will you?” Lee Jeno, the other, more down-to-earth half of the Lee twins, defied. “He’s 17, dumbass.”

Donghyuck jokingly wailed in pain, a habit he's kept since childhood, apparently. Jeno turned his attention to Jisung, a sympathetic stare shining in his eyes. At least he turned out half-way decent. 

“Y/n’s upstairs if you need her, but uh-” Jeno scratches his head. “I don’t think she wants to see you, or anyone, really.”

“That’s fine,” Jisung’s eyes ducked to the bag of snacks hanging from his hand. “I’ll just drop these off and head out.” 

“Don’t have too much fun, Sung-OW!” Donghyuck chirped, irking Jisung as he earned a slap on the shoulder from his twin. Thank god for Jeno.

Your aching head actually didn’t hurt that much, at least compared to the pain of your brooding heart. You watched a leaf fall to the ground from your bedroom window. The pain still piercing through your side, the guilt for leaving Sungchan behind at the playground, or the  confusing monstrosity of Park Jisung, it all overtook you. Your measly little brain couldn’t handle it. 

The creaking of the door wasn’t enough to spin you back to reality, but apparently, his cautious footsteps were. Your head snapped forward, your eyes meeting the view of his ripped jeans, and a plastic bag littered with snacks. Of course.

“Jisung?”

“H-hey”

You watched as Jisung stammered under his breath. He looked so nervous facing you, worlds more nervous than moment’s before one of his brawling sessions.

Jisung’s eyes kept rejecting yours as he fumbled with the plastic bag amidst his grasp. To be completely honest, Jisung was sure you wouldn’t even let him in, much less talk to him. Even if it was in such a cold manner. He shuffled towards her laying figure, his eyes still glued to the wall as he hands her the plastic bag. 

“I, uh一no, my mom wanted me to give you this.” Jisung stuttered.

You dig through the bag, the only thing trapped within it bound to give you diabetes. You scoff. “Your mom wants me to eat instant noodles?” 

Shit, right. That doesn’t make any sense. 

“Ahaha, yea” Jisung trailed off, backing away from you before proceeding to brutally stab his elbow onto your door handle. Who’s dumb idea was it to name it the funny bone, anyways? Nothing about it was funny. He lets out a soft hiss after finally turning away from you. Well, maybe Jisung himself was, he was a clown, afterall. 

“Wait.” You suddenly squeaked, making Jisungs' shoulders jerk up. Was she gonna-

“Come help me.” You handed him the cup noodles, wanting nothing but to laugh at his stupid, stupifyied face. You sniffled. “I can’t make noodles by myself like this, you  idiot.”

“Oh, right.” Park Jisung, you absolute clown. 

...

Out of all the situations you could get stuck in, the last one you expected was in your bedroom, trapped in an annoying cold whilst being fed instant noodles by your childhood neighbor, Park Jisung, three whole days after that incident. You watched as his plastic fork, etched in a tremble that had you thinking he was going to die that instant, hastily scooped the processed food before making its way to your mouth. 

However, and you would rather die than admit it, but you missed this warm sensation. You missed the company Jisung provided, the way he would grow soft just for you, moments after beating up some stupid kid. The countless bandages you used in his favour as you patched him up almost every night. You missed it all. And despite having him back in your street, he never really came back to your life. It was all different now. 

You watched him chuck the fork into the now empty noodle bowl, his next few actions sending you on the verge of cardiac arrest. 

With a tissue in hand, Jisung suddenly leaned in, his eyes still veering away from yours as he wiped off some stain on your cheeks. There could have also been no stain at all, and this was just a ruse to get you flustered. Park Jisung has gotten good at playing with your heart lately. His chest was just centimeters apart from yours, any closer and your thumping heart would be completely exposed, not that your vermillion cheeks weren’t a dead give away already. 

“A-am I too close?” Jisung barely whispered. Half of you wanted to say yes, while the other half wanted to pull him even closer. You couldn’t handle this anymore. 

“Why are you here, Jisung?” You suddenly blurted out as you grabbed a hold of his gentle wrist. “And I know it wasn’t for some stupid noodles.”

Jisung’s chest caved in as he let out a sigh. “I, uh wanted to say sorry.”

Your mind flashes back to that night, the image of his fierce, cold eyes still sending shivers down your spine. Jisung continues, his eyes finally holding yours hostage. Here goes nothing.

“I'm sorry for punching you, for making you run away like that.” His guilt ridden eyes scan your bed-ridden frame. “All of this, it’s all my fault.” His eyes collected the stars that hid beneath the afternoon sky. “If you wanna stop talking to me after this, I understand. I’m not good enough for you.” 

There goes your heart again, clenching at anything related to Park Jisung. You hated how he had that effect on you. Yet you also loved it. You let out a soft chuckle sending waves of hope to him. You could never really reject him, could you?

“You really are annoying, sometimes.” You gaze at him, a small grin lining your lips. “But, I don’t think I wanna stop talking to you just yet.” The way Jisung’s frame brightens up the same way it did all those years ago, didn’t fail to warm your heart. “I’ll forgive you, Park Jisung.” 

Without thinking, Jisung pulls you into a gentle hug. Burying his face in the crook of your neck, Jisung softly smiled. No matter how many times Jaemin could nag him, Jisung could never stay away from you. His life was finally back to normal.

“Oh! one more thing!” You murmured. He smiled at you sweetly, giving you the signal to continue. 

“Sungchan’s one of my good friend’s, so please, don’t try and beat him up? And maybe you could even hang out with Chenle and them at school! There’s some new guys there that I think you’d get along with great!” You suggested, your bright demeanour too strong for Jisung’s poor eyes. “Would you at least try? Promise?” 

Jisung shrugged. I mean it wouldn’t hurt. He sends you another soft smile. “Yeah, I promise.”

...

“That’s why you ask for help, dumbass!” Shotaro barked at Chenle, who was currently slumped on the lunch table, brooding about his not so stellar math grade.

“You, good sir, have NO right to talk.” Chenle proudly clapped back. “Mr. ‘35% in english’.” Chenle heaves out an over-exaggerated sigh. “If only y/n was here today, she is the smart one.” 

“Yeah, but it isn’t that hard being the smart one around you, Lele.” Jisung shielded Chenle’s incoming offended slap to the shoulder as he nibbled on the plastic straw drowning in his vending machine soft drink. It alarmed him how fast he mended with your friend group, even if it did just consist of that dolphin brat he’s known for years, and probably the sweetest guy he's ever come across, Shotaro. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t beat up every guy he comes across. 

Jisung glances around the table, where only three chairs were actually occupied. Doesn’t that Sungchan guy hang out here?

“Where’s Sungchan?” Jisung drew in the attention of his new friend. Shotaro’s fingers tapped the plastic table. “It’s weird, he only hangs out with us sometimes, whenever he feels like it, I guess.” Whenever y/n’s around, you mean, Jisung corrected in his head. 

“Or...” Chenle pitched in. “He didn’t wanna hang out with someone who was about to punch him.” Crap. He should probably apologize for that.

“Wait what?”

“Nothing! Don’t worry about it! Ahaha!” Jisung quickly cut off Shotaro, the fear of getting incredibly embarrassed riling through him. He hoisted the empty soda can in between his fingertips before standing up on his two feet. “I’ll, uh, get another one.” 

  Jisung couldn’t have felt more creepy than he did at that very moment, peeking through the heads of various students as he eyes Sungchan. His mind flashes a very cute image of you, smiling just as softly as you do both three days and two years ago. His breaths grew heavy. This was gonna be easy, just apologize to Sungchan and maybe become his friend, then y/n can really be happy. Jisung let out a deep sigh. For y/n. 

He hesitantly sauntered towards the beanpole currently reaching for his newly paid drink at the vending machine. From the looks of it, this Sungchan guy couldn’t hear Jisung’s calls, making him yell louder. He could feel the stares of the confused highschool students burn through him. God, how annoying can this asshole get?

“Here to finish what you started, Park?” Sungchan suddenly sneered, his eyes narrowing nonchalantly at the Park in question. His laid back posture screaming 'you don't wanna mess with me.'  Jisung raised an eyebrow, scanning Sungchan's current figure, which didn't match with his image from that night. Taken aback at the sudden mood shift, Jisung stuttered. “No, uh, I wanted to say sorry about that, actually.” 

“Save it” Sungchan spat. His eyes fully locked in with Jisung’s before ripping them away at the last second. He encased a white box in his hand before pivoting on his heel. “I'm going for a smoke.”

Jisung eyes go wide. Who the hell is this guy? Sungchan didn’t spare the poor boy a glance before slipping through the school's only emergency exit. Various phrases, all containing the word ‘asshole’, ran through Jisung’s mind as he followed Sungchan, trying his best to remind himself that this was all for you.

The outdoor air brushed lightly against Jisung’s skin, coating him in a refreshing hug. With the pearly blue sky above him, and the lush green trees shading his face, he would’ve relished in the afternoon breeze. He would’ve, if it weren’t for the cigarette smoke overtaking him, all coming from that damn beanpole. 

“What the hell do you want from me, Park” Sungchan hissed, a cloud escaping his lips before whipping around. “Are you here to make friends or some shit?” Jisung threw a hesitant nod at his direction. 

“Look, Sungchan. Let’s just try to get along. For y/n’s sake. That's all she wants.” Jisung extended a hand to Sungchan, only to earn another annoying ass chuckle. “Why would I wanna do something like that for y/n?”

“Don’t you like her or whatever?” 

“No, are you stupid?” 

Jisung’s eyebrows stitched together in confusion.  “Then why-”

“Isn’t it obvious, Park?” Sungchan, stenchy cigarette breath and all, leaned in. God, Jisung wanted to puke right in front of him. “She's hot. I want her.” 

Jisung pondered for a few minutes, and honestly? He wished he never put two and two together. He couldn’t help but hiss under his breath as his hands balled up into their iconic fists. The random dates? The nice guy image? It was all for that? This bastard wanted to take your innocence away. And this bastard had the audacity to hurl another snicker at Jisung. 

“You do know what I’m talking about, right?” Sungchan kissed his cigarette one last time before tossing it to the gravel, the poor paper feeling the wrath of his sneakers. “I wanna have sex-”

Jisung didn’t give him the chance to finish before crushing his gut between the school’s brick wall and his iron fist. Jisung leaned in, his eyes burning with a fury he hadn’t felt in nearly two years. “You’ll be dead before you get the chance to even touch her, got that?” 

Sungchan let out a mighty growl of pain, bending away as Jisung reconnected his fist to Sungchan’s right cheek. The beanpole flew to the ground, red blood spewing from his nose. Jisung scoffed, standing tall with not a single scratch on his skin. For a little while, at least. 

Suddenly, Sungchan flung himself back to his feet, his bruised fist upper-cutting Jisung’s jaw off its course before pinning him down to the stiff hard rock of the pavement. His hands pressed themselves onto each side of Jisung’s neck as the boy underneath gasped for air. Jisung’s fingers clamp onto Sunchan’s wrists, pulling for an escape as Sungchan spits out another irking laugh. “You’re not the only one who can put up a good fight, Park”

Jisung sounded off shallow breaths beneath Sungchan’s grasp. “Why would you...y/n…”

“I’m only human, Park. I got needs. And y/n? she was all depressed, just begging for the attention. It only made sense.” 

Jisung sent a knee through Sungchans chest, rolling on top of him before staining Sungchan with punches all over his skin. Jisung’s fingers tense up around Sungchan's shirt collar as brings him closer, hissing at his leftover cigarette breath. “That doesn’t give you any damn right to fuck her.”

“Why do you care so much? Last time I checked, you left her without saying a word! Looks to me like you're the last person who she would care about.” 

Those texts he left unopened abroad, the missed calls, the wanting stares you sent him on his first day back. It all washed back to Jisung like a typhoon. This bastard was right, he couldn’t protect you like this anymore, he didn’t have the right. He broke your heart over and over again. He was the last person you needed. But no. The bastard needed to be taught a lesson; don't ever mess with his girl. 

“Cause I love her, and I won't let you have her.” Jisung suddenly blurted out, praying that the redness on his cheeks was simply blood. Sungchan let out a heaving chuckle. “Oh? Even more of a reason, then!”

Jisung hissed one final time before trapping Sungchan between his legs, throwing heavy punches left and right, staining his shirt, his fists, Sungchan’s face, and the ground with blood. Like a bomb moments before its explosion, there was no stopping him, he was trapped by his own haze of violence. The only thing pulling him back to reality were Shotaro’s arms as he and Chenle guided the two bruised bodies to the nurse’s office. 

I’m sorry, y/n. I really am. 

...

The image of a bloodied Sungchan, alongside an equally bloodied Jisung, was the last thing you wanted to wake up to from your hefty slumber. Your phone practically levitated from all the buzzing. People you faintly knew, and even some you didn’t, all came to you in utter fear. God, and to think you were on a break.

Y/N!! Sungchan and Jisung were fighting in the parking lot!

Y/N!! You need to come over here asap!!!

You need to control your boys y/n, someone could get seriously injured!!

You couldn’t help but laugh at that last hasty message. It’s too late to worry about someone getting injured. Especially if it’s Park Jisung in question. You glance at probably the only contact that hasn’t, well, contacted you. Your finger, laced with anger, clicks the screen. Park Jisung, you’ve got some explaining to do. 

“You don’t understand!” Jisung’s mighty croak pounded through your phone speaker. However, your attention slowly began to drift away. It only made sense, that’s the fifth time he’s pulled that excuse in this call, alone. “That Sungchan guy is a complete asshole!!” 

“You say that about every damn guy I talk to, Jisung!” You nagged, your eyes practically rolling to the back of your head in disappointment. Some things just couldn’t change, could they?

“Y/n, I’m telling you!! He’s not as nice as you think he is!” You clenched your phone, agitation seeping through your teeth. Couldn’t he just listen to you for once? “He’s got bad motives, y/n, you don’t wanna hang around someone like him. There’s so many bad things he's hiding from you. The bastard smokes, fights regularly, too, and…”

You heaved out a deep sigh, your knuckles turning white from your angry grip on the bed sheet. First, he pulls the same damn excuses, and then he lies? You couldn’t take it anymore. 

“And what? Jisung? What other lies are you gonna tell me?” Silence cuts through your speaker, finally giving your irritated heart a chance to breathe before Jisung continues. 

“Wait...you think I’m lying about this?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re saying that a highschooler smokes! Jeez, if you didn’t like Sungchan you could’ve just said so!” 

“You know I wouldn't lie to you, y/n!” Your buzzing figure leans back into your castle of stuffed animals as your bellows gradually get louder with each passing argument. 

“I thought I knew, but you’re really making me second guess things. I’m tired of this, Jisung.” You finally hiss before ending the call, leaving Park Jisung suffocating in yet another guilt-filled haze. Just as you click away from the contact, a notification catches your eye, craving for any sort of distraction from your anger. 

Sungchanniee :) [6:37pm]: hey :)

Sungchanniee :) [6:37pm]: you wanna call?

...

"I’m not so sure about this, Sungchan.” You fumbled with your fingers in the passenger's seat of Sungchan's car.

“C’mon! It's a party! It’ll be fun! Think of it as like a way to pay you back, for making you worry so much before.” You think back to your phone call, where you mostly vented about Park Jisung, while all he said was ‘calm down’ like ten times. Maybe he was right. You glanced out the car window, the greyish skyline growing darker and darker with each hour. God, your parents are going to kill you for staying out so late. 

“Who is this YangYang guy, anyways?” 

“Oh YangYang? That dude’s the best at parties, you’re gonna love him!” Sungchan beamed. You huffed. Anything to get your mind away from your childhood neighbor.

The bass-boosted, trap noise someone had the audacity to call music shook you to your core the moment you entered the party house. You met familiar faces, sure, but none you wanted to talk to. How did anyone have fun like this? Heck, where did Sungchan go? Your now curious eyes glance back to the bar, shiny bronze liquids all dazzled up in their own glass bottles. Nothing like your neighbourhood child self had ever seen. You found yourself drifting closer. What kind of house party was this?

The liquor slid down your throat with an extra sting. Too many flavours, all clashing with each other in the wrong ways. And yet, you found yourself coming for more. You’re already halfway done your first cup of the night when a figure comes up from behind you. 

“Hey! I’m YangYang! Sungchan brought you, right?” He extended a hand out to you as you exchanged greetings. He carried your attention to the top of the stairs as you desperately tried to hear him over the music. “Uh-yeah, I’m y/n.”

“Just to let you know, we have a chill out room if you ever need a quiet place to stay.” YangYang informed, his smile radiating welcoming energy. “It’s up on the third floor, just to your left. Have fun!” 

You bid him farewell before you resumed staring intently at your drink, hoping no one else would spare you a glance. 

45 minutes and probably 2 drinks (though it really felt like 6) later, Your head starts banging with a sharp pain you never felt before, clenching at your brain. You hiss in pain, the bass pounding music only making you feel sick. You wobbly retreat up to that chill room YangYang mentioned. That would calm you down, right?

“Hey” The sudden yet comforting voice of Sungchan alarmed you as you creaked the door open. He was perched onto the bed, the light of the lamp setting his skin on fire. Your eyes couldn’t look at him for long, though, not with your heavy eyelids drooping. Sungchan scoots aside, patting a now vacant space on the guest bedroom, just for you. “You should rest, you look exhausted.” 

...

Chenle slammed the car door shut, shoving his car keys in his pocket as Shotaro followed swiftly. The evening breeze swayed the flaps of Chenle’ jacket as he shivered. “We’re at the party now, Sung.” He muttered to his phone.

“Alright.” Jisung could barely breathe as he perched his head on his damp pillow, not with the guilt still rushing through his body. His eyes, still red and swollen, watched the bright stars contrast from the midnight sky. It was the first time he's stayed in at night. Yet he was in no condition to go out. Sure, the stars shined bright tonight, but his star was forever gone. He’d lost you. 

“You just want us to check on her, right?” Chenle implored as Shotaro greeted the party, putting up his best ‘I actually want to be here!’ face. Jisung huffed softly through the other end. “Yeah.”

“Take care of y/n for me.”

...

Like a magnet, you flew onto the bed, positioning yourself for a good night’s rest. Sungchan swiftly laid beside you, a groan escaping his lips as he positioned himself too. You inhale, the air around you smelling faintly of…cigarettes? You brush it aside, this is a highschool house party, afterall.

Sungchan watched as your eyes struggled to stay open, his face merely inches away from your peaceful one. His heartbeat grew faster and faster, his heart racing as he pushed your hair behind your ear. A sly smirk lined his lips. 

He started off slow, peppering kisses all over your sleeping figure as he made sure you weren't fully awake. Softly, he pinned you down, the blades of your shoulders digging into the mattress as he got on top of you, fully encasing your frame in his. YangYang's a genius, letting him use the guest bedroom like this. Sungchan felt you tremble under him, wriggling around as you send whimper-like sounds in his direction. He grew hot, practically salivating. Park Jisung can finally piss off. 

"mmph, Jisung stop it" you uttered unconsciously, throwing Sungchan off his course. Anger ruling through him as he gripped the bedsheets, trying his best not to lash out on your peaceful figure. After all this time? You still thought about him? That asshole? His hand grabs a hold of the bare of your thigh. He was glad you only wore a skirt today. 

The touch of a cold palm shook you away from your drunken slumber, only to find Sungchan, pinned on top of you with rosy, flustered cheeks. He stared you down with the hunger of a lion, moments before devouring its next meal. Your eyes widen, the sudden realization of Sungchan's current doings striking you like a flash of lightning. 

Jisung was right, he was dangerous.

You pushed Sungchan's chest off of yours as you shot up from the bed, terror dripping from your eyes. His eyes still contained that hunger. A hunger that you were never going to solve. "Get off of me!" 

You raced through the door, not sparing him a chance to answer. While sliding down the stairs and slithering through the crowds of drunken teenagers, you barely noticed the tears welling up in your eyes. All of your trust, all of your faith, brutally destroyed right before your eyes. Who could you turn to now?? 

"Y/n? Where are you going?" Chenle, who arrived late to this horrid party, tugged on your sweater lightly to get your attention. You, however, only responded with a stronger pull away. 

"I'm going home, Chenle. I need to get out of here." You huffed breathlessly before escaping, not sparing him or Shotaro a glance. Chenle gave Shotaro a concerned stare before following your footsteps. 

Sure, you had the willpower to get as far away from that monster as possible, but your legs didn't. They were weak, wobbly, and the mercy of gravity's pull. Your running form grew sloppy as your arms dragged themselves through the air. You were so beat, that it didn't come to your surprise when your sight switched to black and a thump of hard pavement striking your head before you laid limp underneath the streetlight. 

“Y/N!” 

...

You convinced yourself you were peacefully floating away on a cloud, so imagine your disappointment when your eye’s flutter open to see your bedroom curtains, followed by your comforter which you drowned in. The sunshine shot your weak eyes as you shifted around, wondering how you ended up back home in the first place. What happened?

Jeno sat right beside your sleeping figure, lazily perched on your desk chair as his eyes abruptly ripped away from his phone screen and onto you. He sent you a heartwarming smile, his once tense expression relaxed at the sight of you, alive and well. You never seen Jeno smile like that before. It was nice

“How are you feeling?” He soothed, patting the back of your hair softly after scooting closer to you. You murmured a half-assed response, the shockwaves of a major headache starting. God, you were never going to drink again. “I’m alright, I think.”

Jeno huffed out a relieved chuckle, pulling the blanket over so it would cover more of your cold looking frame. He gave you another bonk to the head with his knuckles, something that helped your headache. Helped it hurt, at least. 

“That’s good. Well, you passed out last night, Chenle had to take you home. And don’t worry, I didn’t tell Mom and Dad about the party. You should watch out for Hyuck, though.” Your eyes widen at Jeno’s words, ‘party’ specifically shaking you to your core. The deafening music, the soul-irking booze, the unknown faces. You hated it. Jung Sungchan pinning you down on the guest bed, closing the distance between you without your approval. You hated it. Utterly disgusted by it. All your trust, your respect for him, thrown out the window. Your mind trails back to a certain phone call, your heart now drenched in guilt. 

“That Sungchan guy is a complete asshole!”

“He’s got bad motives, y/n.”

“You don’t wanna hang out with someone like him!”

Park Jisung. Your childhood neighbor. The one who was right all along, and the one you foolishly disregarded. You clenched the fabric of your shirt, your heart pulling on your weakened frame. How could you be so blind, and still have the heart to blame him? Park Jisung. Your protector, your knight. The one who truly held your heart. That last thought sent butterflies straight to your stomach. Of course, He always had that effect on you. You’ve just never believed yourself. Always brushed it aside. If Jisung could tell you the truth, so could you. You love him. You’re in love with Park Jisung. 

You scrambled out of your bed, your speedy figure scaring the living shit out of Jeno. “Woah, slow down! Where are you going?”

Your eyebrows wrinkle, etched in determination. “I need to find Jisung.”

“Can’t that wait? You need to rest!”

“I need to tell him the truth.” you murmured. “My heart can’t take it anymore, Jeno.” he sent you a knowing nod, stepping aside as you rushed out the door. 

Your brother did have a point, though. You shouldn’t be scrambling away like this, not with your knees about to buckle up from exhaustion. Your eyes, however, shot straight ahead, your pulse going through the roof. No more lying to yourself anymore. You race through the kitchen, not paying notice to a distraught looking Donghyuck, protecting his full cereal bowl from a fatal accident. 

The grass still felt damp from the week-old rainfall as it hugged your bare feet. You raced through the sidewalk, your chest heaving as the wind pushed against you. Where was he?

The creeks of the ancient swingset didn’t fail to irk the ears of Jisung and Chenle as they sat in a comfortable silence, with a few (but very opinionated) comments thrown in by Chenle to help lighten the mood. It was the only thing Chenle could think to do, with a guilt-ridden, messed up Park Jisung at his side. 

“I couldn’t protect her, Chenle.” He barely whispered, breath shaking. “I was too late.”

“You did everything you could, man. You can’t protect her all the time.” 

“I wasn’t even there when she needed me most!” Jisung shouted, his voice booming as he shot up from his swing. “If I can’t do something like that, how am I gonna…” He trailed off, his figure slumping back to his swing.  

“How are you gonna...what?” Chenle’s curious eyes scanned the brooding figure. His hands, fully enveloping his head, ruffling his hair in the process. If Chenle hadn’t leaned in right beside Jisung, he would’ve never caught his little一yet electrifying一confession. “...How am I gonna be her boyfriend?” 

“JISUNG!” The two teenagers jolted back into reality, the sounds shallow, exhausted breaths hurling their direction as their whip in unison. Your disheveled figure一complete in its oversized t-shirt, tousled hair, and lack of proper footwear一bolts towards them. Despite the energy surging away from you, you wouldn’t rest until you reached them. As you got closer, your eyes finally locked with Jisung’s, mirroring your guilt ridden expression as he towered over you.

“Jisung, I-” You began, not sure if your shaky breath was caused by the immense amount of cardio you just did, or your rapidly thumping heart about to explode in your chest. “I’m sorry for blaming everything on you, not listening to you about Sungchan, everything. I was being stupid and selfish and一” You cut yourself off, not daring to look up at the dumbfounded Park Jisung, ear’s more red than the red scrunchie on your wrist. 

“I-I need you in my life. You’re the one that keeps my life together, the one who kept me safe, ever since we were kids.”

Your eyes finally had the courage to look at him, your fingers wrinkling the hem of your shirt as you bite your lip in pure anxiety. Your heart was racing, was this what a heart attack felt like? 

“I’m in love with you, Jisung.” 

Jisung froze, his lips parted in utter shock. It all hit him too fast. His brain lagged behind as his hands, etched with a sense of impatience, roughly cups your cheeks, bringing them inches before his face. Eyelids fluttering shut, he molds his lips onto yours, his arms clasping around your waist in an effort to hold you close, so you never leave his life again. You reciprocate, your arms wrapping around his neck, trying your best to hide the butterflies stuck in your stomach. A sensation only Park Jisung could achieve. 

The two of you finally part lips from your breath-stealing kiss, your eyes never letting each other go as vermillion stains your cheeks. Jisung quietly stuttered out his reply. Don’t get Jisung wrong, he wasn’t hesitant to answer at all. In fact, you were pretty sure you already knew his. Jisung shined a heartwarming smile. 

“I love you too, y/n.” 

...

“Did you really need to punch that guy that hard? I think his nose started bleeding!” Shotaro yelped, still slightly out of breath the four of you running away from the shop security. 

“That asshole deserved it! He shouldn’t be flirting with my girlfriend in FRONT of me!” Jisung laid back on the playground bench, an arm hugging your waist from behind as you lazily perched next to him. 

“That asshole was the cashier, and your girlfriend was paying for our drinks, dumbass.” Chenle uttered with a deadpan look. He tossed another ice cold, convenience store drink. “Tell him, y/n!”

“Chenle’s right.” You responded automatically, softly smiling to the feeling of Jisung’s arms wrapping around you in a gentle embrace, his head hiding in the crook of your neck. This boy really softened you like putty. You glance back at him, your eyes holding the stars above. 

“Besides, I already have you, I don’t need anyone else.”

As you and Jisung both blissfully ignored the fake retching sounds emitting from a sarcastic Chenle, and the contrasting, supportive cheers coming from Shotaro, you sent Jisung a swift, sweet peck on the cheek. Turns out you could melt him like putty, too, judging by his embarrassed reaction. You didn’t need the questionable comments. You only needed him. Park Jisung. Your (scrawny) knight and shining armour. 

[shiversdownyerspine]

15. Confession

Ladies and gentlemen we have The Kiss.

The raunchiness is going to Ramp Up.

18+

The passing of time finds you curled up in bed with a little journal, carefully perusing the information you've gathered on this new side of you. The scowl on your face won't go away.

You stare down at the top of the page, at the two little words that are the source of your ire.

Heat Cycle.

Isn't it just fantastic. As if you needed another weird little condition in your life. Well, it probably isn't right to consider this unusual. So far your cycle lasts six days total, with the first three days being the absolute worst. You can definitely believe that this is something you were meant to experience ages ago, but staying away from people severely delayed it. No, this is supposed to be natural for you. 

You can't bring yourself to appreciate the irony of it all. Natural. What a joke.

Well, maybe if you just give it time it'll become like second nature to you. Your eyes fall once more to the pages.

You'd bet that the attraction you feel towards the Swedes is the catalyst for triggering your cycle; when the men returned from their first mission, your fluctuating emotions probably set it off. Who knows, maybe because your attraction isn't singular but multiple, it's affecting the severity of your symptoms. Ohhh the symptoms. You dearly hope they get better with time.

The handful of experiments you've done to see what would offer relief have yielded poor results; hot water helps you relax, so showers and baths are good. Cold water is too much for your skin. For the first couple of days you had tried masturbation to gentle your 'flow', but that didn't really make a difference. You wouldn't even consider fingering, you're too wary of the sudden sensitivity to penetration, and strangely enough, you feel on an almost instinctual level that it wouldn't work.

There is some comfort in the fact that you could tell when your cycle was starting, the tingling and prickling caught your notice pretty quick. With the reliable timing, making yourself scarce won't be too difficult. Theoretically. But you're fairly certain the Swedes will eventually notice your missing presence.

It was a miracle you didn't have to explain your disappearance that first night to Otto. He'd been on the verge of sleep when you got up and luckily you hadn't really disturbed him, he just sank right back into slumber. Maybe the mission had tired them all out. Maybe time travel had its own sort of jet lag. Maybe both? Whatever it is, thank goodness.

A month later the Swedes are out on their second mission when your cycle returns with no sign of gentling. Your desperation leads you to throw caution to the wind and try penetration. In the bath your sex was fairly successful with tolerating light strokes and caresses. Carefully rubbing your clit, you breathe and push a finger in deep. Keeping it still and just letting the stimulation to your clit do the work, you push yourself to the edge of orgasm. Feeling a little more confident you let your hand move, slipping that finger in and out. By the third stroke you had slapped a hand over your mouth to smother your loud noises. By the tenth there were tears in your eyes, hips jumping and jerking almost uncontrollably as you came. Unfortunately, nothing changed for the better.

In fact, you were utterly crestfallen when you discovered your attentions had actually made things worse for you; late into the night you could still feel the phantom sensation of a finger inside, your walls weakly pulsing like a heartbeat as you ooze continuously into the gusset of your panties. You continuously drifted in and out, and in the wee hours of the morning with restless nerves taut enough to snap, you listened to instinct and headed to the dryer where Otto's shirt still lay folded and waiting. Retrieving the article of clothing, you curled up in bed with it clutched to your chest and promise you'd make an effort to remember to put his clothing back where you found it. But at the moment you didn't really give a damn about the possible consequences.

The effects of your cycle lessened as the lingering scent soothed you, and though you had to fight this bizarre urge to collect...like some kind of Magpie...eventually you were able to fall asleep.

After that cycle ended, you seriously considered stashing the shirt away. You're just...borrowing it. They'll never know.

The Swedes returned from their second mission after a handful of days out in the field. This time you were in the living room when they came trudging through your door. 

Oscar was in a huff, cheeks a bit puffed with frustration. "Jävla hala jävel."

Mildly concerned you watched as he headed to their guestroom, presumably to drop off his pack, before you turned your attention to his older brothers. Otto appeared to be untouched, if a little miffed. Axel on the other hand looked roughed up, hair out of place with light bruising and a couple of scrapes about his face.

The two men give a curt nod to you as you rise from the sofa to join them as they make their way into the kitchen. The first aid you had relocated to a cabinet under the kitchen sink, which Otto knowingly retrieves for you. "So...I'm guessing there's been some complications?"

"The target escaped." Axel solves the mystery for you, eyeing the kit in your hands before raising a brow at his quiet brother. Otto ignores him in favor of removing his pack and tossing it to Oscar as he joins the rest of you. The youngest catches it before giving Otto an annoyed look, seriously considering just dumping it on the floor for its rightful owner to take care of, before compromising and leaning the hefty bag against the wall. Oscar jerks his chin up in stubborn defiance, leaning back against the wall as well. Allowing it, Otto folds his arms and watches you make your way to their older brother.

"And took a couple swings at you on the way out?"

Sitting at the kitchen table with a slight scowl, Axel touches a finger to a small abrasion at the corner of his eyebrow to examine a bit of blood. 

Their target was a stocky man who had managed to break free of Otto's hold, had even cracked their older brother's head back into a wall with a wild adrenaline-fueled swing before tearing towards the exit like a bat out of hell. Of course Oscar had left him a parting gift, namely a wickedly sharp serrated knife buried in the meat of the unlucky man's upper leg. They had thought he wouldn't have gotten far with that wound impeding him, but he was nowhere to be seen. However as they began searching, Otto had surprised them by insisting on returning to you.

Taking the initiative you reach forward, brushing the loose strands of Axel's hair back off his forehead for a closer inspection of his face.

"Well...you don't look like you're on death's door, but how do you feel? Headache? Nausea? Blurry vision?"

Otto answers immediately, "Unsteady."

Indeed, as the brothers started tracking, Otto had noticed Axel stumbling a little every now and then, his steadfast gait not quite the way it was supposed to be. After a moment of consideration, the largest Swede had intervened, concerned about a concussion. Oscar had hesitated but once he saw his brother sway after coming to a complete stop, he too was on board with the change of plans.

"Concussions can get worse, you should take it easy for a bit. Let me see..." Before Axel can denounce any concerns, your hand is on his shoulder while the other is cupping his chin and tilting his face up to see how his pupils adjust to the light. Your touch is soft as your fingers slide over his skin, encouraging him with careful pressure to follow your direction. His hands twitch as his gaze follows a curl of hair sweeping down to your collarbone.

He breathes in slow when you once again push your fingers through the pale strands atop his head, your lips quirking fondly. "I think there's a little plaster in your hair."

Oscar's eyes flit between you and his eldest brother before he slips to Otto and elbows him, jerking his head towards the hallway to indicate that they should make themselves scarce. Otto walks to his pack and hefts it up with ease as an excuse of 'putting things where they belong' justifies their absences.

As you tend to the rough marks left behind on Axel's skin, you remember the mark he himself had left on your knife. You had meant to ask about it earlier but you've been rather distracted lately. The man shares his knowledge of the Algiz rune and some of the other Elder Futhark runes; the one on your knife handle represents an elk, a symbol of protection, defense, and guardianship.

"I'd love to hear about what other runes you know, but I don't want to keep you up all night...alright that should do it." You trail your fingers gently over his cheek, fascinated by the texture of his scar.

Axel hums, catching your wrist and holding your hand still. He turns his face into your palm and presses his lips to the skin. Pink dusts your cheeks at the gesture of appreciation, your eyes flicking from your hand to him as his mouth leaves your palm. With his grasp loose on your wrist you gather your nerve and slip your fingers lightly under his jaw, thumb dangerously close to the corner of his lips.

Brow creased with faux concern you lean in a little, eyeing his cheek. "Wait..."

Before he has the chance to react you lean in the rest of the way and press a lingering kiss to his cheek, right on his old scar. After pulling in a heavy breath, he goes very still.

You pull away with a soft smile, trying not to blush at the way his gaze is very focused on you. Chalking his stare up to confusion you murmur, "You've all been giving me so many and..I...I really wanted to give a kiss back. To thank you for the rune carving."

A strange look crosses the eldest Swede's face as his eyes flick down to your lips and then back up to your eyes, your wrist still in his grasp. He makes a decision.

The chair scoots across the floor as he rises from his seat and crowds you against the kitchen table, hand on your side guiding you back. He releases your arm as he dips to lift you up to the surface to sit, your wide-eyed stare and softly parted lips urging him to slip between your thighs. He needs answers. You've been driving him and his brothers crazy, and he has plenty of reason to believe the pining is mututal.

"You like us?"

"...? Of course I like you three, what..!" Your breath catches when he leans in, his fists resting on the tabletop to the left and right of you. Caged in, you're rendered silent as he stares intently at you.

"Do you want us?"

Mind blank and cheeks hot as your brain catches up with the meaning behind his words, your eyes dart over his handsome face. You know you're meant to respond, to say something but there is nothing, not a peep from you. This frustrating silence of yours, unintended as it is, does nothing to deter Axel. If anything it's an incentive to be a little more specific, a little more direct.

His head dips, lips lightly sliding against your cheek for a moment as he moves forward. Your ear tingles as his breath warms the sensitive skin before he questions you, voice lulling and suggestive as it rumbles from his throat.

"Do you like us touching you? Teasing you? Kissing you?"

One of his hands moves to yours, gliding up your arm and shoulder to sweep up the side of your neck. He rubs his thumb lightly over your bottom lip as his mouth presses minutely to the soft skin under your ear. At the sound of your whimper, his lips leave you as he draws back to peer heavy-lidded at your dazed visage.

"Red cheeks, squeezing thighs, pretty sounds..."

He cradles the side of your neck, thumb stroking along the curve of your jaw as he nonchalantly lists some of the reactions to him and his brothers that he's noticed. That they've all noticed. Your lips drag a shallow shaky inhale into your throat at his words, nearly breathless at how sweetly cruel he is to lay your attraction out so neatly before you. Axel's mouth hovers a hair's breadth away, his lips lightly parted as if hoping to catch the slightest taste of you on your exhale. The scent of pine and something heady floods your senses, pulling you under.

Vague recollections flutter in the abyss of your mind, specific memories of the younger brothers floating in the dark just out of reach. One was smothered with the comforting smell of laundry while another one dripped with zesty ginger, both slipping through your fingers. In their place earthy tones engulf you instead, entangling you in the present situation, in him.

This awareness does nothing but remind you with overwhelming intensity that you are helpless to the whims of the man who is tenderly interrogating you, pulling piece after piece away and leaving you bare before him.

When you finally give a verbal response, he's delighted to hear his name uttered so soft and sweet; begging for him to spare you yet also tempting him to give in and sink his mouth against yours and taste.

But...you haven't answered his question yet.

The hand cradling your neck slips back to cup your nape, tilting your head to expose your throat. He dips to the offering, leaving kiss after kiss as your hands shakily grasp his shirt, fingers curling in the fabric as he peppers your skin with lazy affection.

Your breath comes quick in light puffs and quivery gasps, stuttering with a weak moan when warm lips softly suck at your pulse. Emboldened by the results of his attentions, Axel strokes the feathers that tickle his fingers at the base of your skull.

Electrifying sensations entwine, spiraling into a cutting clarity and desperation that demands you reveal the truth. "I..I want..."

The gentle wet sound of his mouth releasing your skin distracts you for a second. He allows you a moment to collect yourself but has no qualms with encouraging you to continue should you hesitate too long.

"I want more."

Your greedy admission is rewarded with contemplative silence as he savors your words. The quiet lingers a moment longer before slow ticklish kisses trail back up your neck, your cheek, and finally to your ear. A shudder ripples through your body as the man softly nips your earlobe with a hum. "And?"

With the lull in teasing you discover the fog in your brain has receded a little, at least enough for coherent speech to return. You accept defeat.

"I want all of you. I do."

It feels good to recognize what you've been hiding inside of you for so long, to acknowledge that you wanted this with them. Axel plants one last lingering kiss under your ear before resting his forehead against yours, "Are you scared?"

You take the opportunity to catch your breath; the revelation that there had been more behind their attention, that they want you just as much, was as invigorating as it was nerve-wracking. But you know how you feel and you trust the three men.

"Maybe a little...overwhelmed? This is new."

The brush of his lips against yours is featherlight, the sensation potent enough to send a shiver through you. You marvel at how badly you want him to do it again as he murmurs, "Not all new. Some new, some different. We will still touch and kiss but more."

The final word in his sentence he chooses to punctuate with another kiss, warm and firm as it demonstrates his point perfectly and steals your breath for the frustratingly short amount of time it lasts. His words sink in. More. And not with just one, but all three of the men you so adore. Delight warring with shyness, you bury your red face in Axel's neck as his hands slip down your sides.

"We will go slow, give and take, share. Would you like that?" The heat in his voice is both reverential hunger and alluring promise. You press a kiss under his jaw, receiving a squeeze to your hips in turn.

Yes, you would most certainly like that.

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

Jävla hala jävel. - Fucking slippery bastard.

[dajaregambler]

HeliosR - The Night Pool Party - Chapter 1

Translation of chapter 1 of the event ‘The Night Pool Party’ from ‘Helios Rising Heroes’.

Note: This is a collaboration with @/beams_smiley on Twitter! I will be handling chapters 1 to 14. From 15 and onwards is in her hands, so I will be redirecting you to her once I did my part!

Faith: And then, and then. They bought a violin and a clarinet for me!

Brad: So that’s what you ended up with. I’ve heard from both father and mother about how you kept thinking about which one to choose….

Faith: Ehehe… When I said I wanted to try both, dad said that I just should get both

Faith: The violin and clarinet make some very pretty sounds! I’ll let you listen when I get good at them!

Brad: Aah, I’ll be looking forward to it

Brad: You do really love music. You keep refusing to do the other lessons, yet continue with piano and flute

Faith: ‘Cuz it’s fun♪

Brad: Haha, how simple to understand. However thinking that way is the most important of all

Brad: How having a talent should be fun

Faith: Do I have, a talent for music?

Brad: Yes, you can say that with confidence. You’re improving rapidly, and the music that you make resonates with people.

Faith: Really?

Brad: Really

Faith: Waaah, that makes me happy♪

Brad: Faith, is there anything you’d want to become in the future?

Faith: Want to become? Uumm, I dunno….

Faith: And you, Onii-chan? What do you wanna become?

Brad: I, want to be a hero. I think you already know this but, the other day I received the message that I’m eligible to enter the Academy.

Brad: From now on I’ll be studying hard to become that hero I‘m aiming to be

Faith: Oh…..

Faith: Then, me too!

Brad: What….?

Faith: If Onii-chan’s gonna become a hero, then I will too!

Brad: Do you mean that?

Faith: Yeah! I wanna become a hero together with my Onii-chan that I love so much!

Brad: Fuh...I see. Even if might be something you’re only saying now, it makes me happy to hear that----

-

Faith: I knew it, Uncle Jim’s chocolate cake is special compared to other places

Keith: Didn’t expect that you’d ask for sumn’ like that

Faith: Occasionally I pass by this place and get in the mood for some since it’s been a while

Faith: When you said you’d be treating me, I couldn’t really like… think how I want this or that and all

Keith: That’d put me in a pinch if you did. Really saves my ass that you’re such an indifferent guy

Faith: Was wondering if maybe I should’ve asked for something more expensive, I mean you are treating me to something after all….

Keith: Oi….

Faith: I’m joking. Wasn’t something I immediately thought of anyway

Faith: But you know, can’t change the fact that you’ve been pushing me around way too much

Faith: Needing to help out Ochibi-chan with his homework, being some kind of watchdog too for him….

Faith: I’m not going to be asking for things but I do want some to properly receive some gratitude in exchange

Keith: ….Haven’t you gotten enough of that from me? What more do ya want

Keith: Besides, you had fun at the concert yourself…. Wouldn’t that make it a win-win situation?

Faith: Counting that as writing off your debt won’t make me happy

Keith: Guh…

Faith: Well, I can say that it was fun in its own way. The concert was a huge success on top of it too

Keith: Really amazing that Gray fella pulled through till the very end

Keith: Jay was watching with us in the back, and he was so impressed by him. Made me and Dino laugh ‘bout how yer tear ducts weaken as you get older

Faith: Aha, right. Gray gave it his all. To stand up on stage and sing like that has to be an high hurdle for him, more than for others

Keith: Same for Junior, feels like he came outta his shell too

Keith: His resubmitted report got some good grades. Could’ve gone better ‘bout wording things, but ya could tell what he wrote were his personal feelings

Faith: ………..

[itsmeevie01]

A Moment in Time-Ch 7

MASTERPOST

Marinette was the first one to arrive at the bakery, much to her relief that evening.

After warning her parents that she had friends coming to join her, the teen hurried up the stairs to prepare for the evening. Mullo and Plagg flew off, and Marinette paused in the kitchen to pull together a snack tray, before following the Kwamii up the stairs to her room.

She made sure that while it was hidden, the box was now closer to her reach. Then, she pulled up a word document that had been idling in her computer for the past few months. The document labeled Ways Gabriel Agreste has Abused His Son.

Pulling up her email, Marinette opened her thread from the emails with Tim. Since she had the time, she may as well respond to his email.

 From: Mari_Beri2001@gmail.com

To: timdrakeeeee99@gmail.com

 Mr. Drake Wayne,

I can’t believe that I included Hawkmoth in that email! I must have been more tired than I thought. Hawkmoth has been terrorizing Paris since I was 12 years old. In the last four years, the man has possessed everyone from a toddler crying over a candy bar to a man grieving his wife’s death. My city has faced real-life myths and legends, as well as children who just wanted a nightlight. Hawkmoth will target anyone who has a negative emotion. Your ice cream dropped? You are an ice cream monster. You fail a test? Suddenly you are giving everyone passing grades. The worst part is, everyone who dies will be brought back, but the person who is possessed won’t remember anything. Many people have moved out of Paris, and most of the remaining citizens have taken up meditation and smaller forms of magic to protect themselves. Although the news won't admit it, our population had dropped quite a bit. Inside the city itself, there are about 1.9 million people now. Many have moved to areas nearby that have proved outside of Hawkmoth’s range. As far as we can tell he only strikes in the city proper. Before you ask, yes, someone is fighting him. Lady Tyche, Apate, and their new member Princess Meli will free the person of the possession and restore the city. They wield magical objects. It's theorized that Hawkmoth also wields a magical object and that’s why they’re the best suited to combat his creations.

It interests me, that you mention bringing this to Batman’s attention, but not the Justice League? Do you, by chance not trust them? I have heard that many people in Paris have called them for help, nothing has come of it, obviously. In my opinion, people don’t actually believe something is happening unless they experience it themselves. For the most part, people who come into Paris will hear rumors of Lady Tyche in passing, but since Princess Meli is new they haven’t heard of our other hero. To even most Parisians, Apate is a legend. To those who know her, she is a vigilante who will not hesitate to end a situation or clean up what the Lady and Princess won’t. Most of the time, however, she is known for following Lady Tyche’s lead. I’ve heard theories that it's because she is more violent and has a darker power than the other two. Once, I heard that she wants to protect the City of Lights, and won't use her powers unless necessary because of it. Some people think that when she uses her powers she spreads bad luck to the people nearby. On the other hand, many think that Lady Tyche leaves lingering good luck.

Sorry for the info dump, there is a lot going on in Paris right now.

Thank you for keeping an eye on Nona and Jason. Jason, as I am sure you know, can be impulsive. Nona isn’t much better. When he was here, Jason mentioned that you tend to be busy most of the time. He was surprised that you had responded so quickly as well, actually. I wanted to add that I am honored!

Thank you for the offer, but I don’t want to pry too much, if Jason is willing to part with the information, I really would like to know about their tike together. Please do not force him though. I am sure there are other ways to know what is actually going on. I do have to ask, what do you mean by ‘good spar’? do you two spar together often? If so, I do hope Jason doesn’t hurt you too often. I know that he usually put his all into everything he does, and I know that he is quite the fighter when he wants to be.

The slander is the work of a jealous girl in my class. She is of no consequence in the long run. I was surprised to find out (through you!) that the Bruce W on my commission list was for your family. Actually, don’t tell the rest of your family, but it’s not just the suits. There are a few gowns in the mix as well. Your family butler, I believe his name is Alfred, is sending me a list of measurements in the next several days.

Jason and I have known each other for as long as I can remember. If you want, ask him how we met. He will have a more concise memory since he is five years older than me. The best I can say right now is that he was the person I relied on for many years before we got separated. Since then, I think we both have grown, but I can still see who he was when he was 12 underneath everything. As I said, Jason would be the one to ask for specifics. Maybe after you ask him about how he knows my Nona?

Have a good day,

Marinette Dupain Cheng

P.S. of course I put energy drinks in my coffee! Is there any other way? If you ever want one of my recipes, let me know! I have a whole collection at this point.

 After she had sent the email, Marinette glanced over her room again to make sure everything was ready for when her friends arrived.

As she was getting up to fidget with the pictures, Chloé burst through the trap door. Behind her, Aurore followed at a more sedated pace.

“Mari! Hi! What is this? And why is she here? I thought you two weren’t talking anymore, remember? This is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!” Aurore raised an eyebrow at the other blonde before smiling at Marinette.

“your parents sent us up with some pastries. I think they were a little thrown off by Chloé and I arriving at the same time.” Here, the girl set the plate she had been holding that couldn’t be seen behind the more aggressive girl. “they mentioned about making sure to remind you that the past is past?” here, the two giggled as Chloé looked between them in confusion.

“Whatever!” she huffed, before flouncing over to Marinette’s chaise and settling herself there with a sniff. After the other two had stopped giggling, Marinette raised an eyebrow at Aurore in question. With a nod, the Ladybug holder turned to smile at Chloé.

“So, Chloé. We know that you and I are not exactly close, but there is something that Marinette and I wanted to bring you in on.” Here, she looked back at Marinette with a smile. Before she could continue, however, the heiress started to interrupt.

“if you two are-” Aurore’s phone started to ring, making the three pause as the girl turned to answer the call

“Mireille? Hey!” she turned and waved to Marinette, motioning her to continue with the conversation while she finished with her friend.

“No, Chloé. It’s more complicated.” Marinette leveled her friend with a look. “plus, if this was the same thing as two years ago, I would have told you earlier. You know that.” as Marinette soothed her friend, a small part of her brain reminded her that there was something that she hadn't told the girl. something that her friend would kill her for.

“Then what on earth is going on, Mari? You know it makes me nervous being out of the loop.” Marinette snorted pointedly at her friend.

“We weren’t trying to keep you out of the loop, C. it’s just…Aurore and I just realized what was going on. We wanted to make sure that we were making the right choice before going further. You have proven that we have.” Marinette paused, watching her friend. When the blonde still looked confused, the younger teen just smiled. “would Pollen like a bowl of honey?” Chloé bilked before laughing.

“Mari, dear. Who on earth is Pollen? Have you made a new friend I didn’t know about?” an indignant voice that Chloé was unfamiliar with responded.

“My Kitten hasn’t, but you have Buzz.” As Aurore finally got off the phone and turned back to the conversation, Chloé let out an ear-piercing shriek.

“OH MY GOD MARINETTE DUPAIN CHENG NO FUCKING WAY!” then, Marinette was falling backward under the force of her best friend tackling her in a hug.

 After Chloé had calmed down, the three girls spent the next four hours talking. The first 15 minutes had been about how the original two had handled living a double life for four years. After that, the girls turned their attention to the document that Marinette had pulled up.

The rest of the time was spent overanalyzing the spending Habits of the top four people on Marinette’s suspect list.

 When asked why she had the list and not Aurore, the duo explained that many times while Lady Tyche was out patrolling and being a beacon of good luck, Apate would be behind the scenes. Many a night, office buildings would register a break-in before the figure would turn into literal shadows. The security guards who would be sent to investigate would be faced with a missing pane of glass that had suspiciously black edges on the frame. Most of the time, when Apate was ready to leave, if anyone was around, they would lose their senses for the time that it took for her to leave. After, they would think that had simply blinked before getting on with their life.

Using this method, the protectors of Paris were able to cross many off their lists. In the few times, they had entered private residences, the break-in would happen when the family was away.

 Of course, Marinette’s hacking skills had come into use, as she had taught Aurore the basics a few years back. Unknowingly, the two had set their alter egos up for success.

The duo had spent more nights than they could remember curled up on a rooftop, laptops booted up. They would spend hours at a time sitting there with paper strewn around them as they raced to hack in and access as many schedules and bank statements as they could. Although it was highly illegal, the two had spent almost as much time working on the internet crossroads to narrow their such as they had fighting Akumas.

 Chloé’s awe at the work the two had put in showed. When they asked her to help them continue to narrow down the list she agreed. When she saw the first document sitting open on Marinette’s computer, the shock on her face lasted all of ten seconds before the heiress was helping her teammates dig into the private life of one Gabriel Agreste.

 When Marinette had said goodbye to her friends, Aurore left to patrol and Chloé went home with the hope that she could access more sensitive information from her father's unlocked computer. When the other two had raised concerns about it, the teen had waved them off. Apparently, the mayor was much laxer on the security of his work computer than he should be.

 After climbing up to her room, Marinette closed down all of the programs that she didn’t need to leave running overnight. As she closed out most of her browser, the teen hesitated, before she clicked into her email. Sitting there, waiting for her was an email that had been received in the middle of her session with her friends.

 From: timdrakeeeee99@gmail.com

To: Mari_Beri2001@gmail.com

Miss Marinette,

I have to say, you know quite a bit about these heroes that have been fighting in Paris. I started looking up the topics that you mentioned but couldn’t find anything. After several attempts, I used a VPN to make it seem like I was in Paris. That made the entire thing open up like a wrapped present. I must say I am surprised that it hasn’t made its way out of Paris yet. Well, I was surprised, until I was reading through some tourist guides. It seems that the new phrase is what happens in Paris stays in Paris. That, and very thorough censorship on public media. How have you made it this long in that city, without losing it completely?

I was able to flag down Signal, who is known as the Daytime Bat, and passed along what you had sent me. I included my own research as well, so don’t be surprised if they go to investigate further in the near future. Well, I guess you wouldn’t hear of it, but if they show up, it is defiantly because they are concerned.

I wouldn’t say that the JL is not trustworthy, but I trust Batman’s Gotham team more. Maybe it is the familiarity that comes from being rescued frequently from hostage situations. I trust them, and they know that I won't give them information just for the hell of it.it doesn’t help that the JL tends to make a massive mess when they come through town. I would rather they stay far away from me, thank you very much.

So, it turns out that both you and Jason are very cryptic. I don’t know how much you know of the time between when Jason was 13 and his 16th birthday, but he said that he was with a friend of your mother’s? He said that you would know her as Aunt Talia and that your mother was always the more levelheaded of the two. This was…confusing for many reasons, one of which is that your Aunt is my little brother’s bio mom. Anyway, Jason said he was with your Aunt when he met Gina, in ‘this little place in Canada.’ He mentioned an island and a bay that sounded a lot like the Bay of Fundy. If you have any idea why your grandmother would be out there, then we can puzzle out how they met. As for how they got separated, I am afraid that this time it had something to do with a chef? Something about him chasing the two of them out of town with a cleaver? Apparently, this chef is another relation of yours. Marinette, I must be honest, you have quite a few deadly relatives. you aren’t going to come through the screen and slice my head off, will you?

This afternoon, I got a call from the police station, by the way. Apparently, Jason and Gina had been busting drug gangs in their free time and there was some incriminating evidence. I am not quite sure how they got into it, but they have been issued a warning by the local Bats. You may be seeing this chaotic duo again in Europe sooner than either of us would like if this keeps up.

As to the sparing question. Jason, as I believe you are aware by now, likes to keep fit in a variety of ways. Bruce made sure all the children under his roof could fight and protect themselves. This means that while Jason may be the biggest in the family, and I am considered the smallest, I can still beat him in an even spar if I put some work into it. For the most part, I prefer not to use the same tactics that Jason uses, and since he and I tend to train at the same time, we see each other but don’t usually go head to head. I have to say it was quite a rush to beat him earlier today.

Alfred mentioned something about housing a guest who would be making sure that the family was presentable for the Gala. That wouldn’t happen to be you, would it? If you do come to Gotham, may I show you around? I know that having an experienced guide in any city makes things much easier.

On that note, I am going to make the assumption the Bruce didn’t know who he was commissioned, so I will warn you that he may ask that you get a background check done. Up until this point, he has only communicated with you through lawyers about the press fiasco. he probably won’t make that connection for a while yet.

Have a good evening,

Tim DW

P.S., of course, I would like the recipes! Any that you send would be greatly appreciated! My family thinks that I rely too much on coffee and not on sleep. Do you have that problem much? It has gotten to the point that I have a few shops that I go to that the rest don’t know I like. It’s the only way to get the sweet nectar of coffee! What is the worst thing you have done to procure caffeine? I hope your family helps you more than mine does. They say that if they didn’t monitor my caffeine intake, they would be enablers.

 Marinette giggled at Tim’s frustration with her brother. It looked like the two of them were going to keep it a secret a while longer. Although, when she did go for the Gala, and the fittings the week before, it would only be a matter of time before the Waynes figured out the two were related. After all, the features of Willis Todd are hard to hide.

Still smiling, Marinette made a note to tell the others that Batman had been notified.

Glancing at the time, Marinette reached blindly for the cold cup sitting nearby. The grey cup that was covered in pink sparkles read ‘I can’t talk right now. Leave a message after the squeak!’ The cup was one that Marinette had made after she started to wield Mullo, the mouse Kwamii, more.

Mullo and Plagg had been instrumental to her while she had been investigating the many businesses of Paris. Since then, the teen had kept the mouse around as an alternate form of defending herself. While the public had not been introduced to Little Mouse, the quiet vigilante had done quite a bit of work for the City.

As Marinette sipped on her current super coffee, (cold brew, two shots of espresso, one pump of vanilla syrup, and a mocha monster. affectionately named Minnie Mouse) she made a list of her tasks for the night. If she could send off the sketches of what the Waynes wanted for their gala pieces, then she could do the basic list of things she would need to get at the fabric store the next day. After making her list, she could start on her design for her own dress. Glancing back up to her computer, Marinette froze. She had to email Tim back at some point as well.

As she was standing to retrieve her camera and sketchbook, Marinette’s personal email dinged. Glancing over, she realized it was an email from Tim. Again. With a frown, the teen opened the message. The email was in no way close to the formal communications the two had been trading.

 From: timdrakeeeee99@gmail.com

To: Mari_Beri2001@gmail.com

MARINETTE

I AM SO SORRY. WHEN THE WHOLE PRESS THING HAPPENED, WE ALL TALKED ABOUT IT AS A FAMILY. JASON WASN’T THERE AND I JUST FOUND OUT WHY. HE AND BRUCE WERE YELLING AND I WASN’T EAVESDROPPING BUT I HAD GONE TO TALK TO B AND HE HAD BEEN YELLI GAT JASON ABOUT SEEING A SISTER.

JASON WAS YELLING AND TOLD B TO SHOVE OFF BECAUSE AND I QUOTE-

“MARINETTE WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY FAMILY EMERGENCY AND IF VISITING HER WOULD GET HIM IN TROUBLE THAN HE WANTED NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FAMILY.”

YOU

ARE

JASON’S

SISTER

HOLY SHIT

-tim

 Marinette’s brain came to a screeching halt as she read the email once, twice, three times before letting out a string of curses. Dammit, Jason.

She collected her thoughts and pulled up an open template to respond to the other teen

 From: Mari_Beri2001@gmail.com

To: timdrakeeeee99@gmail.com

Tim. Please tell me you have taken a deep breath and have had time to reflect since you send the last email.

Yes, Jason is my older brother. Well, half-brother. My mother died when I was young, and since she had been having an affair with Willis Todd (a horrible man, by the way.) she had put his name down on my birth certificate. Catherine definitely never liked me, but she put up with my presence. Multiple times, Jason and I would run away or end up on the streets because of the fighting that would happen in that house. One day, I ran when Jason wasn’t around and was caught by CPS. Up and away I was sent to France whit the couple who had found me when I ran away from CPS. Jason thought I was dead until that scandal broke almost two months ago. That’s why he vanished. He came here to visit me. This was the first time I have seen him in 10 years. Neither of us was exactly thinking clearly.

It doesn’t surprise me that your father knows that Jason and I are siblings. However, it also wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t make it very far down that path. Jason thought I was dead for years. I kept tabs on him, but that doesn’t mean he knew about that until he got over here.

I am going to respond to your last email as well.

Yes, the current plan is for me to arrive in Gotham. About a week before the Christmas Gala. That way, I’ll have time to do any last-minute fixes. I would love to have you show me around your city if that offer is still open. I haven’t been to Gotham since I was 6 years old, so I don’t remember much of the place.

-Marinette

Ps, I’ll send those recipes soon. I don’t think you want a super coffee tonight. 😊

 After hitting send, Marinette sighed. With luck, she could have her list done by dawn. What was one more super coffee, after all?

HIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!

ok ok ok ok

i have been really excited to post this one, and actually almost posted last night! Self control? don’t know her! 

this one i think is really important because Tim and Mari aren’t super formal in their talking anymore. also...who can guess what went down with Aurore and Mari???

Tag List

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[sexbirthdeaths]

if i had an orchard

ship: morgan x garcia

summary: penelope is constantly shifting, growing with each passing day as a sapling grows to a tree. with each day he learns more and more what metamorphosis looks like, up close and personal - there are some things a book cannot teach you. and he can’t look away.

warnings: mentions of minor character death (hank morgan, the boy morgan finds in the junkyard), episode 3x09 “penelope”, rotting fruit/maggot imagery, religious imagery, implied murder (boy in junkyard), toxic masculinity

words: 3000

Derek is eight when his dad takes him camping for the first time. It’s the summer of 81, Sarah is entering middle school and Desiree is about to start Kindergarten, so after all of the stress of school applications, Hank proposes they just go out, enjoy the sights of Illinois.

So they go to Buffalo Rock, and he loves it, loves the smell of nature and the feeling of the sun on his skin. He plays soccer with his dad by the campsite whilst Sarah burns through her summer reading list and Desiree cries because she doesn’t like the bugs and she’s too small to play with the boys, and it’s the best summer of his life.

One night, his father pulls a bag of apples from the rucksack, suggests they bake them in some tinfoil over the fire. So while Fran puts Desiree away to bed, Hank sits him down by the campfire and shows him how to pare an apple with a penknife. Slow, using his thumb to stabilise the blade, careful not to cut his finger.

He cuts it straight through the core, hands Derek one of the slices to parcel up carefully in tinfoil. And once those are on the flames, he gives him the knife, another apple from the bag.

“Be careful,” Hank guides him slowly, hand hovering over Dereks’ own, “You don’t want to cut yourself.”

Derek peels it clean and precise, he’s always been a bit of a perfectionist like that. But when he cuts down the core of the apple, and the two pieces fall away in his palm, something is wrong. Very wrong.

His hand retracts in an instant, sends the apple flying, maggots spilling onto the ground into a writhing mass. His stomach is churning, twisting itself in disgust at the sight, and his father stomps it with his boot.

“That one was rotten,” Hank says, pulls the knife from Derek’s hand, “No good. It’s no good.”

Even when the apples are done baking, he can’t stand the sight of them, can’t stomach it after seeing the rotten fruit.

“Tenderness is a sign of rot,” Hank informs him as he eats his slices, “They shouldn’t be soft. That’s how you know they’re bad.”

And he takes that sentiment with him. Even when his father dies, especially when his father dies. He doesn’t cry at the funeral, he starts lashing out at anyone and everyone because to be soft is a sign of rot, of corruption at the core, it makes you undesirable and unwanted and sickening. Keep the toughest rind and you will come out the other side strong.

So he picks fights, even with the kids he knows will beat him. He’s always been a tall kid but Rodney has always been taller, stronger, but to turn the other cheek is a soft man’s path, and Derek Morgan is not soft.

He picks fights and he loses them, comes home battered and bruised and his mother will fuss over him, press a bag of frozen peas to his eye and sing him to sleep. She doesn’t care if he’s too old for it, he’ll always be her son. And even when the pain runs more than skin-deep, crawls through his veins and writhes like a maggot, sickly and decay-drawn, she will cradle his body like he isn’t crumbling from the inside out.

When Derek is 11, it’s the first Thanksgiving since his dad died. There’s an uncomfortable silence in the house as Sarah and Fran work on dinner, and Desiree’s out in the backyard with the neighbour’s kids. His grandparents aren’t coming this year, something about the Chicago winters being cruel on their arthritis.

There’s a faint layer of snow already beginning to settle outside, and he can see the constellations of snowflakes in Desiree’s hair as she finally bids the neighbours farewell and comes tumbling inside, ready to bound up the stairs.

“You promised you’d help me with the apple pie,” Sarah chides as she scoops Desiree up in her arms. The girl laughs loud and gleeful, the first real laugh since the day began, wriggles as she tries to escape her older sister’s grip. Desiree is a big girl now, 6 years old and wide-eyed and too mischievous for her own damn good, and she’s too big now for Sarah to pick her up with ease but she tries anyway.

Derek steps out, takes Desiree from Sarah’s grasp and slings her over his shoulder, grinning at the shrieks he hears.

“Come on, Des,” He laughs, “You promised!”

So, whilst his mom cooks the turkey and the mash and the myriad of thanksgiving side dishes, the three Morgan children converge in the living room, and work on the apples. Sarah peels them and Derek slices them, and Desiree just watches with her big brown eyes and pretends she's helping, because Lord knows no one trusts her with a real knife.

When they’re done there’s a pile of peels in a bowl. Their mom takes it, a sparkle in her eye.

“You know,” she says, grinning and setting down her knife, “There’s an old wives’ tale that if you throw the peel behind your shoulder, it will spell your husband’s name.”

Desiree and Sarah dissolve into giggles. Desiree’s too young to know what true love like that really feels like, too young to be thinking about marriage and life as an adult. And Sarah’s approaching it closer and closer with each passing day, she’s had her heart broken by careless boys to want nothing but a guarantee that the next boy will be the one.

So they take the peels and throw them. Desiree’s looks sort of like an L from the right angle, and Sarah’s is an A, if you use a bit of imagination, and Derek doesn’t get anything because he refuses to try it.

“That’s for girls,” he scoffs, puffs his chest up like a proud robin all red and strong.

“You’re impossible,” Is the response he gets.

When he is 15 he finds a boy’s body in the junkyard. All battered and bruised and broken and he wishes he could press a bag of frozen peas to his head like his mother had done, tell this boy it would all be okay. But it won’t be okay, and the case is never solved because the police don’t seem to care for kids like Derek or the boy, seem for focused on pinning things on them than catching their killers.

When he sees the policeman shake the community centre owner’s hand, Derek knows his killer will not be caught.

He goes door to door and pools up enough money to buy a headstone, and he visits it whenever he can, touches the cool rock and feels himself break. And he doesn’t know this boy, know his face or his name, but they feel connected. Through space and time and tragedy, maybe in another life they were friends. Maybe in another life it was him, and he would be the one rotting in the ground.

Move forward a few years and he feels like something inside of him is broken. Like he’s been torn apart and stitched back together again but something went wrong in the process. He feels moldy, he thinks one day as he’s filling out college applications, disgusting. If he could he’d rip all his skin off and scrub himself spotless. But this runs deeper than skin.

He gets the football scholarship, and his mother cries when he reads the letter because her baby is going to Northwestern and he’s gonna be something great, bigger than himself, he’s gonna change the world. And the success feels like the pinprick in the lid for him, like he can finally breathe as there’s a chance for him to go. Leave those rotten parts of him behind.

After college and the Chicago department, he finds himself starting in the BAU. The team is pretty small - Hotch is a hard-ass and Gideon is, well, Gideon, and the liaison stays in her office too much for Derek to really know who she is, but the BAU feels right for him. Gideon’s got some kid on his radar and so does Hotch, but they’re both so frustratingly secretive that he has no clue who they could be.

He fits right in like a puzzle piece that’s been missing for so long, takes on a role as the ladies’ man and the handsome coworker who flirts with you over coffee, but also the guy who’ll sit with child victims for hours to make sure they’re alright. Hotch hasn’t booted him yet so he figures he’s doing something right.

And then he meets her.

Penelope Garcia, she introduces herself as, and she’s so unlike any girl he’s ever met before with her long, dark hair and she acts like she’s the smartest person in the room (and after a few hours interrogating her, he figures that sentiment isn’t too far off). She’s got these big curious eyes and glittery pink acrylics and he can see the person that sits behind the dark facade.

They don’t hit it off, at first, because he’s proud and she’s defensive and he has a job to complete, but then Hotch informs him of the deal that’s been made, so he better start trying to get along with her. She gets along great with JJ, they eat lunches together in Garcia’s ‘batcave’ and JJ’s finally starting to open up a bit more, actually talks to Derek at the coffee machine in the mornings and asks how he’s been. Before, she’d talk to him, or Hotch, or Gideon even, with strained words and avoiding eye contact.

The first time he calls her babygirl is the first time he sees her properly flustered, cheeks red and stammering as she types away at her keyboard and Hotch gives him the mother of all death glares because they’re trying to run an FBI investigation here, Derek. But it makes him smile, seeing her all blushed pink, and he decides he likes it.

She pretends she doesn’t struggle sometimes, and he sees it. The mass of figurines and posters in her office are just a distraction technique - he’s well versed in those - and he knows just how taxing it must be for her, seeing all those awful things. She loves and she loves like it’s the only thing she knows how to do, full-bodied and all in, and some days he wonders if she’s really capable of hatred at all.

“How can you do it? How do you deal with it all?” She asks one day over coffee, voice small and sad. She’s seen some awful things over the past few days, and he wraps her up tightly in her arms. The worst thing is - he doesn’t know what to say. For as long as he can remember, he’s just been pushing it away and ignoring it. Letting it sit inside him and simmer, rip him from the inside out and just pray he’ll be able to pick up the pieces once he finally falls apart.

Things shift, change, over the years as people come and go. There’s a new kid, one Gideon’s been raving about for months who’s finally gotten all the necessary qualifications, even if some exams had to be waived. And he gets hurt, gets hurt bad, and Derek wonder’s if that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back because it isn’t long before Gideon leaves. There’s a new man in his place and they’re still trying to trust him, but he just isn’t Gideon, he isn’t the mentor and the peacekeeper and the caretaker that they’ve all grown to need.

Penelope is constantly shifting, growing with each passing day as a sapling grows to a tree. With each day he learns more and more what metamorphosis looks like, up close and personal - there are some things a book cannot teach you. And he can’t look away.

She has a date. She has a date and he doesn’t know why there’s this ache in his chest, like something’s been scraped out from him and left him hollow. But it’s her choice, he figures, he doesn’t own her. And then he gets the phone call.

Shot, he hears Hotch say over the phone, voice crackled and rough, and it’s like everything in him shuts down. Like someone’s ripping him apart limb by limb. That motherfucker. He will not know kindness from me. Do you need me? He asks, but Hotch just sighs.

She needs you.

And he’s driving to the hospital but he’s so pissed he can barely even focus, consumed by the rage bubbling within him, he wants to find that son of a bitch and make him feel a thousand times what Penelope felt. His skin is itching like thousands of maggots are crawling across him, it’s so overwhelming.

He feels rotten, like he’s so full of pain he can barely breathe, and his cheeks are wet and he doesn’t know why they are until he reaches up to touch them, realises he’s crying.

Men like Morgan do not cry. It’s a sign of weakness, he thinks, and you cannot afford to be weak. Not here, not now, you have never been safe enough to be weak. You bottle it up and ignore it, because to be soft is to be rotten.

He flashes his badge to the hospital receptionist and she informs him with pitying eyes that Penelope is in emergency surgery, that he can wait until she’s out and hear the verdict. So he collapses into the waiting room chairs, unable to look at the others, waits for Penelope to be okay.

Waiting lasts a century. All he wants is to take her in his arms and let her know she’s going to be okay, but he can’t. He can’t even guarantee that it will all be fine, because from what he’s heard it’s a bad wound from a good shot and it’s not looking good.

See, Penelope is an apple tree. She gives and she gives and she asks for nothing in return but a spot in the sun and a love her body has been starved of for years. And all Derek wants is to drown in blossom petals and cider, to drown himself in her warmth. All she asks for is to be loved, and that bastard didn’t even try. Derek will try, he will try and he will pray to a God he does not even believe in (Goddamnit he’s trying, he’s trying) if it means he can love her, if it means that she will be there to receive his love.

When the surgeon comes back, gives them the news, everything in him relaxes. Like the tightly-wound coil of a music box as the lever is finally released. She’s okay, she will be okay, no one must die today.

Her makeup is gone, hair a knotted mass, she’s traded out the bright clothes and heavy jewellry for a hospital gown. And she’s as breathtaking as ever, and Morgan can’t look away. He wants to reach out and hold her hand, press his forehead against hers, let her know that he’s here and everything is going to be okay, tell her how glad he is that she’s alive.

“You really love her, huh?” JJ asks with a smile, looks up at Morgan with a piercing, knowing gaze once they file out of the room, split up the group. She’s cradling a to-go coffee cup in her hands and disshevelled - she’d been the first one at the hospital, been in charge of letting everyone else know.

It’s JJ that knows Penelope the best, if not Derek. She knows the ins-and-outs of their relationship, she can see what they’re too scared to say to eachother. Love, he thinks, this is what this is.

“I do.” He nods.

“So tell her- show her, god knows she needs you right now.”

He waits until the others have left Penelope’s hospital room. The thing is - he flirts with her all the time, has himself branded as a ladies man, but it’s been so long since he’s had something real. He’s always been too afraid to show that tender side that a relationship requires.

But he’s tired of holding back. Penelope softens him, turns all his harsh edges hazy, makes his heart wrench in his chest. He has forgotten what it means to be rotten.

So he sits himself at the edge of her bed, doesn’t care if any of the others can see him through the window, all that matters is here and now.

“I almost lost you,” he says, voice soft, “I was so scared- I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if you’d gone besides tear the bastard apart.”

He scoots closer, chair handle digging into him as he leans into her. His hand cups her face, feels her warm skin against his cool palm, heartbeat thrumming under his fingertips. She’s alive, good god, and she’s here with him, and maybe everything will be okay.

His forehead presses against Penelope’s own and she seems to welcome the movement, twists a handful of his shirt in her grip like she can’t bear the thought of ever letting him go. Derek has never wanted to be loved more than right now, loved by her.

He’d bite the apple for her, Derek thinks, swallow it down seeds and all. Because he loved her, he didn’t care if the fruit was rotten or wretched, damnation was a gift if he was condemned alongside her. He’d run to the edges of the world where all that could reach them was the moon and the stars, and he’d tell Penelope how he hung them just for her.

Kissing her feels like breaking the water’s surface. Being reborn, baptised under her hands, and for what feels like the first time, he can breathe.

[dailytomlinson]

A bathroom figures significantly in the origin stories of at least two classic One Direction songs. The first will be familiar to any fan: Songwriter and producer Savan Kotecha was sitting on the toilet in a London hotel room, when he heard his wife say, “I feel so ugly today.” The words that popped into his head would shape the chorus of One Direction’s unforgettable 2011 debut, “What Makes You Beautiful.”

The second takes place a few years later. Another hotel room in England — this one in Manchester — where songwriters and producers Julian Bunetta and John Ryan were throwing back Cucumber Collins cocktails and tinkering with a beat. Liam Payne was there, too. At one point, Liam got up to use the bathroom and when he re-emerged, he was singing a melody. They taped it immediately. Most of it was mumbled — a temporary placeholder — but there was one phrase: “Better than words…” A few hours later, on the bus to another city, another show — Bunetta and Ryan can’t remember where — Payne asked, maybe having a laugh, what if the rest of the song was just lyrics from other songs?

“Songs in general, you’re just sort of waiting for an idea to bonk you on the head,” Ryan says from a Los Angeles studio with Bunetta. “And if you’re sort of winking at it, laughing at it — we were probably joking, what if [the next line was] ‘More than a feeling’? Well, that would actually be tight!”

“Better Than Words,” closed One Direction’s third album, Midnight Memories. It was never a single, but became a fan-favorite live show staple. It’s a mid-tempo headbanger that captures the essence of what One Direction is, and always was: One of the great rock and roll bands of the 21st century.

July 23rd marks One Direction’s 10th anniversary, the day Simon Cowell told Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson that they would progress on The X Factor as a group. Between that date and their last live performance (so far, one can hope) on December 31st, 2015, they released five albums, toured the world four times — twice playing stadiums — and left a trove of Top 10 hits for a devoted global fan base that came to life at the moment social media was re-defining the contours of fandom.

It’d been a decade since the heyday of ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys, and the churn of generations demanded a new boy band. One Direction’s songs were great and their charisma and chemistry undeniable, but what made them stick was a sound unlike anything else in pop — rooted in guitar rock at a time when that couldn’t have been more passé.

Kotecha, who met 1D on The X Factor and shepherded them through their first few years, is a devoted student of boy band history. He first witnessed their power back in the Eighties when New Kids on the Block helped his older sister through her teens. The common thread linking all great boy bands, from New Kids to BSB, he says, is, “When they’d break, they’d come out of nowhere, sounding like nothing that’s on the radio.”

In 2010, Kotecha remembers, “everybody was doing this sort of Rihanna dance pop.” But that just wasn’t a sound One Direction could pull off (the Wanted only did it once); and famously, they didn’t even dance. Instead, the reference points for 1D went all the way back to the source of contemporary boy bands.

“Me and Simon would talk about how [One Direction] was Beatles-esque, Monkees-esque,” Kotecha continues. “They had such big personalities. I felt like a kid again when I was around them. And I felt like the only music you could really do that with is fun, pop-y guitar songs. It would come out of left field and become something owned by the fans.”

“The guitar riff had to be so simple that my friend’s 15-year-old daughter could play it and put a cover to YouTube,” says Carl Falk

To craft that sound on 1D’s first two albums, Up All Night and Take Me Home, Kotecha worked mostly with Swedish songwriters-producers Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub. They’d all studied at the Max Martin/Cheiron Studios school of pop craftsmanship, and Falk says they were confident they could crack the boy band code once more with songs that recalled BSB and ‘N Sync, but replaced the dated synths and pianos with guitars.

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The greatest thing popular music can do is make someone else think, “I can do that,” and One Direction’s music was designed with that intent. “The guitar riff had to be so simple that my friend’s 15-year-old daughter could play it and put a cover to YouTube,” Falk says. “If you listen to ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ or ‘One Thing,’ they have two-finger guitar riffs that everyone who can play a bit of guitar can learn. That was all on purpose.”

One Direction famously finished third on The X Factor, but Cowell immediately signed them to his label, Syco Music. They’d gone through one round of artist development boot camp on the show, and another followed on an X Factor live tour in spring 2011. They’d developed an onstage confidence, but the studio presented a new challenge. “We had to create who should do what in One Direction,” Falk says. To solve the puzzle the band’s five voices presented, they chose the kitchen sink method and everyone tried everything.

“They were searching for themselves,” Falk adds. “It was like, Harry, let’s just record him; he’s not afraid of anything. Liam’s the perfect song starter, and then you put Zayn on top with this high falsetto. Louis found his voice when we did ‘Change Your Mind.’ It was a long trial for everyone to find their strengths and weaknesses, but that was also the fun part.” Falk also gave Niall some of his first real guitar lessons; there’s video of them performing “One Thing” together, still blessedly up on YouTube.

“What Makes You Beautiful” was released September 11th, 2011 in the U.K. and debuted at Number One on the singles chart there — though the video had dropped a month prior. While One Direction’s immediate success in the U.K. and other parts of Europe wasn’t guaranteed, the home field odds were favorable. European markets have historically been kinder to boy bands than the U.S.; ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys found huge success abroad before they conquered home. To that end, neither Kotecha nor Falk were sure 1D would break in the U.S. Falk even says of conceiving the band’s sound, “We didn’t want it to sound too American, because this was not meant — for us, at least — to work in America. This was gonna work in the U.K. and maybe outside the U.K.”

Stoking anticipation for “What Makes You Beautiful” by releasing the video on YouTube before the single dropped, preceded the strategy Columbia Records (the band’s U.S. label) adopted for Up All Night. Between its November 2011 arrival in the U.K. and its U.S. release in March 2012, Columbia eschewed traditional radio strategies and built hype on social media. One Direction had been extremely online since their X Factor days, engaging with fans and spending their downtime making silly videos to share. One goofy tune, made with Kotecha, called “Vas Happenin’ Boys?” was an early viral hit.

“They instinctively had this — and it might just be a generational thing — they just knew how to speak to their fans,” Kotecha says. “And they did that by being themselves. That was a unique thing about these boys: When the cameras turned on, they didn’t change who they were.”

Social media was flooded with One Direction contests and petitions to bring the band to fans’ towns. Radio stations were inundated with calls to play “What Makes You Beautiful” long before it was even available. When it did finally arrive, Kotecha (who was in Sweden at the time) remembers staying up all night to watch it climb the iTunes chart with each refresh.

Take Me Home, was recorded primarily in Stockholm and London during and after their first world tour. The success of Up All Night had attracted an array of top songwriting talent — Ed Sheeran even penned two hopeless romantic sad lad tunes, “Little Things” and “Over Again” — but Kotecha, Falk and Yacoub grabbed the reins, collaborating on six of the album’s 13 tracks. In charting their course, Kotecha returned to his boy band history: “My theory was, you give them a similar sound on album two, and album three is when you start moving on.”

Still, there was the inherent pressure of the second album to contend with. The label wanted a “What Makes You Beautiful, Part 2,” and evidence that the 1D phenomenon wasn’t slowing down appeared outside the window of the Stockholm studio: so many fans, the street had to be shut down. Kotecha even remembers seeing police officers with missing person photos, combing through the girls camped outside, looking for teens to return to their parents.

At this pivotal moment, One Direction made it clear that they wanted a greater say in their artistic future. Kotecha admits he was wary at first, but the band was determined. To help manage the workload, Kotecha had brought in two young songwriters, Kristoffer Fogelmark and Albin Nedler, who’d arrived with a handful of ideas, including a chorus for a booming power ballad called “Last First Kiss.”

“We thought, while we’re busy recording vocals, whoever’s not busy can go write songs with these two guys, and then we’ll help shape them as much as we can,” Kotecha says. “And to our pleasant surprise, the songs were pretty damn good.”

At this pivotal moment, too, songwriters Julian Bunetta and John Ryan also met the band. Friends from the Berklee College of Music, Bunetta and Ryan had moved out to L.A. and cut a few tracks, but still had no hits to their name. They entered the Syco orbit after scoring work on the U.S. version of The X Factor, and were asked if they wanted to try writing a song for Take Me Home. “I was like, yeah definitely,” Bunetta says. “They sold five million albums? Hell yeah, I want to make some money.”

Working with Jamie Scott, who’d written two songs on Up All Night (“More Than This” and “Stole My Heart”), Bunetta and Ryan wrote “C’mon, C’mon” — a blinding hit of young love that rips down a dance pop speedway through a comically oversized wall of Marshall stacks. It earned them a trip to London. Bunetta admits to thinking the whole 1D thing was “a quick little fad” ahead of their first meeting with the band, but their charms were overwhelming. Everyone hit it off immediately.

“Niall showed me his ass,” Bunetta remembers of the day they recorded, “They Don’t Know About Us,” one of five songs they produced for Take Me Home (two are on the deluxe edition). “The first vocal take, he went in to sing, did a take, I was looking down at the computer screen and was like, ‘On this line, can you sing it this way?’ And I looked over and he was mooning me. I was like, ‘I love this guy!’”

Take Me Home dropped November 9th, just nine days short of Up All Night’s first anniversary. With only seven weeks left in 2012, it became the fourth best-selling album of the year globally, moving 4.4 million copies, per the IFPI; it fell short of Adele’s 21, Taylor Swift’s Red and 1D’s own Up All Night, which had several extra months to sell 4.5 million copies.

Kotecha, Falk and Yacoub’s tracks anchored the album. Songs like “Kiss You,” “Heart Attack” and “Live While We’re Young” were pristine pop rock that One Direction delivered with full delirium, vulnerability and possibility — the essence of the teen — in voices increasingly capable of navigating all the little nuances of that spectrum. And the songs 1D helped write (“Last First Kiss,” “Back for You” and “Summer Love”) remain among the LP’s best.

“You saw that they caught the bug and were really good at it,” Kotecha says of their songwriting. “And moving forward, you got the impression that that was the way for them.”

Like clockwork, the wheels began to churn for album three right after Take Me Home dropped. But unlike those first two records, carving out dedicated studio time for LP3 was going to be difficult — on February 23rd, 2013, One Direction would launch a world tour in London, the first of 123 concerts they’d play that year. They’d have to write and record on the road, and for Kotecha and Falk — both of whom had just had kids — that just wasn’t possible.

But it was also time for a creative shift. Even Kotecha knew that from his boy band history: album three is, after all, when you start moving on. One Direction was ready, too. Kotecha credits Louis, the oldest member of the group, for “shepherding them into adulthood, away from the very pop-y stuff of the first two albums. He was leading the charge to make sure that they had a more mature sound. And at the time, being in it, it was a little difficult for me, Rami and Carl to grasp — but hindsight, that was the right thing to do.”

“For three years, this was our schedule,” Bunetta says. “We did X Factor October, November, December. Took off January. February, flew to London. We’d gather ideas with the band, come up with sounds, hang out. Then back to L.A. for March, produce some stuff, then go out on the road with them in April. Get vocals, write a song or two, come back for May, work on the vocals, and produce the songs we wrote on the road. Back to London in June-ish. Back here for July, produce it up. Go back on tour in August, get last bits of vocals, mix in September, back to X Factor in October, album out in November, January off, start it all over again.”

That cycle began in early 2013 when Bunetta and Ryan flew to London for a session that lasted just over a week, but yielded the bulk of Midnight Memories. With songwriters Jamie Scott, Wayne Hector and Ed Drewett they wrote “Best Song Ever” and “You and I,” and, with One Direction, “Diana” and “Midnight Memories.” Bunetta and Ryan’s initial rapport with the band strengthened — they were a few years older, but as Bunetta jokes, “We act like we’re 19 all the time anyway.” Years ago, Bunetta posted an audio clip documenting the creation of “Midnight Memories” — the place-holder chorus was a full-throated, perfectly harmonized, “I love KFC!”

For the most part, Bunetta, Ryan and 1D doubled down on the rock sound their predecessors had forged, but there was one outlier from that week. A stunning bit of post-Mumford festival folk buoyed by a new kind of lyrical and vocal maturity called “Story of My Life.”

“This was a make or break moment for them,” Bunetta says. “They needed to grow up, or they were gonna go away — and they wanted to grow up. To get to the level they got to, you need more than just your fan base. That song extended far beyond their fan base and made people really pay attention.”

Production on Midnight Memories continued on the road, where, like so many bands before them, One Direction unlocked a new dimension to their music. Tour engineer Alex Oriet made it possible, Ryan says, building makeshift vocal booths in hotel rooms by flipping beds up against the walls. Writing and recording was crammed in whenever — 20 minutes before a show, or right after another two-hour performance.

“It preserved the excitement of the moment,” Bunetta says. “We were just there, doing it, marinating in it at all times. You’re capturing moments instead of trying to recreate them. A lot of times we’d write a song, sing it in the hotel, produce it, then fly back out to have them re-sing it — and so many times the demo vocals were better. They hadn’t memorized it yet. They were still in the mood. There was a performance there that you couldn’t recreate.”

Midnight Memories arrived, per usual, in November 2013. And, per usual, it was a smash. The following year, 1D brought their songs to the environment they always deserved — stadiums around the world — and amid the biggest shows of their career, they worked on their aptly-titled fourth album Four. The 123 concerts 1D had played the year before had strengthened their combined vocal prowess in a way that opened up an array of new possibilities.

“We could use their voices on Four to make something sound more exciting and bigger, rather than having to add too many guitars, synths or drums,” Ryan says.

“They were so much more dynamic and subtle, too,” Bunetta adds. “I don’t think they could’ve pulled off a song like ‘Night Changes’ two albums prior; or the nuance to sing soft and emotionally on ‘Fireproof.’ It takes a lot of experience to deliver a restrained vocal that way.”

“A lot of the songs were double,” Bunetta says, “like somebody might be singing about their girlfriend, but there was another meaning that applied to the group as well.”

Musically, Four was 1D’s most expansive album yet — from the sky-high piano rock of “Steal My Girl” to the tender, tasteful groove of “Fireproof” — and it had the emotional range to match. Now in their early twenties, songs like “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” “No Control,” “Fool’s Gold” and “Clouds” redrew the dramas and euphorias of adolescence with the new weight, wit and wanton winks of impending adulthood. One Direction wasn’t growing up normally in any sense of the word, but they were becoming songwriters capable of drawing out the most relatable elements from their extraordinary circumstances — like on “Change Your Ticket,” where the turbulent love affairs of young jet-setters are distilled to the universal pang of a long goodbye. There were real relationships inspiring these stories, but now that One Direction was four years into being the biggest band on the planet, it was natural that the relationships within the band would make it into the music as well.

“I think that on Four,” Bunetta says with a slight pause, “there were some tensions going on. A lot of the songs were double — like somebody might be singing about their girlfriend, but there was another meaning that applied to the group as well.”

He continues: “It’s tough going through that age, having to spread your wings with so many eyeballs on you, so much money and no break. It was tough for them to carve out their individual manhood, space and point of view, while learning how to communicate with each other. Even more than relationship things that were going on, that was the bigger blanket that was in there every day, seeping into the songs.”

Bunetta remembers Zayn playing him “Pillowtalk” and a few other songs for the first time through a three a.m. fog of cigarette smoke in a hotel room in Japan.

“Fucking amazing,” he says. “They were fucking awesome. I know creatively he wasn’t getting what he needed from the way that the albums were being made on the road. He wanted to lock himself in the studio and take his time, be methodical. And that just wasn’t possible.”

A month or so later, and 16 shows into One Direction’s “On the Road Again” tour, Zayn left the band. Bunetta and Ryan agree it wasn’t out of the blue: “He was frustrated and wanted to do things outside of the band,” Bunetta says. “It’s a lot for a young kid, all those shows. We’d been with them for a bunch of years at this point — it was a matter of when. You just hoped that it would wait until the last album.”

Still, Bunetta compares the loss to having a finger lopped off, and he acknowledges that Harry, Niall, Liam and Louis struggled to find their bearings as One Direction continued with their stadium tour and next album, Made in the A.M. Just as band tensions bubbled beneath the songs on Four, Zayn’s departure left an imprint on Made in the A.M. Not with any overt malice, but a song like “Drag Me Down,” Bunetta says, reflects the effort to bounce back. Even Niall pushing his voice to the limits of his range on that song wouldn’t have been necessary if Zayn and his trusty falsetto were available.

But Made in the A.M. wasn’t beholden to this shake-up. Bunetta and Ryan cite “Olivia” as a defining track, one that captures just how far One Direction had come as songwriters: They’d written it in 45 minutes, after wasting a whole day trying to write something far worse.

“When you start as a songwriter, you write a bunch of shitty songs, you get better and you keep getting better,” Ryan says. “But then you can get finicky and you’re like, ‘Maybe I have to get smart with this lyric.’ By Made in the A.M. … they were coming into their own in the sense of picking up a guitar, messing around and feeling something, rather than being like, ‘How do I put this puzzle together?’”

After Zayn’s departure, Bunetta and Ryan said it became clear that Made in the A.M. would be One Direction’s last album before some break of indeterminate length. The album boasts the palpable tug of the end, but to One Direction’s credit, that finality is balanced by a strong sense of forever. It’s literally the last sentiment they leave their fans on album-closer “History,” singing, “Baby don’t you know, baby don’t you know/We can live forever.”

In a way, Made in the A.M. is about One Direction as an entity. Not one that belonged to the group, but to everyone they spent five years making music for. Four years since their hiatus and 10 years since their formation, the fans remain One Direction’s defining legacy. Even as all five members have settled into solo careers, Ryan notes that baseless rumors of any kind of reunion — even a meager Zoom call — can still set the internet on fire. The old songs remain potent, too: Carl Falk says his nine-year-old son has taken to making TikToks to 1D tracks.

“Most of them weren’t necessarily musicians before this happened, but they loved music, and they found a love of creating, writing and playing,” Kotecha says

There are plenty of metrics to quantify One Direction’s reach, success and influence. The hard numbers — album sales and concert stubs — are staggering on their own, but the ineffable is always more fun. One Direction was such a good band that a fan, half-jokingly, but then kinda seriously, started a GoFundMe to buy out their contract and grant them full artistic freedom. One Direction was such a good band that songwriters like Kotecha and Falk — who would go on to make hits with Ariana Grande, the Weeknd and Nicki Minaj — still think about the songs they could’ve made with them. One Direction was such a good band that Mitski covered “Fireproof.”

But maybe it all comes down to the most ineffable thing of all: Chance. Kotecha compares success on talent shows like The X Factor to waking up one morning and being super cut — but now, to keep that figure, you have to work out at a 10, without having done the gradual work to reach that level. That’s the downfall for so many acts, but One Direction was not only able, but willing, to put in the work.

“They’re one of the only acts from those types of shows that managed to do it for such a long time,” Kotecha says. “Five years is a long time for a massive pop star to go nonstop. I know it was tiring, but they were fantastic sports about it. They appreciated and understood the opportunity they had — and, as you can see, they haven’t really stopped since. Most of them weren’t necessarily musicians before this happened, but they loved music, and they found a love of creating, writing and playing. To have these boys — that had been sort of randomly picked — to also have that? It will never be repeated.”

[stylesnews]

A bathroom figures significantly in the origin stories of at least two classic One Direction songs. The first will be familiar to any fan: Songwriter and producer Savan Kotecha was sitting on the toilet in a London hotel room, when he heard his wife say, “I feel so ugly today.” The words that popped into his head would shape the chorus of One Direction’s unforgettable 2011 debut, “What Makes You Beautiful.”

The second takes place a few years later. Another hotel room in England — this one in Manchester — where songwriters and producers Julian Bunetta and John Ryan were throwing back Cucumber Collins cocktails and tinkering with a beat. Liam Payne was there, too. At one point, Liam got up to use the bathroom and when he re-emerged, he was singing a melody. They taped it immediately. Most of it was mumbled — a temporary placeholder — but there was one phrase: “Better than words…” A few hours later, on the bus to another city, another show — Bunetta and Ryan can’t remember where — Payne asked, maybe having a laugh, what if the rest of the song was just lyrics from other songs?

“Songs in general, you’re just sort of waiting for an idea to bonk you on the head,” Ryan says from a Los Angeles studio with Bunetta. “And if you’re sort of winking at it, laughing at it — we were probably joking, what if [the next line was] ‘More than a feeling’? Well, that would actually be tight!”

“Better Than Words,” closed One Direction’s third album, Midnight Memories. It was never a single, but became a fan-favorite live show staple. It’s a mid-tempo headbanger that captures the essence of what One Direction is, and always was: One of the great rock and roll bands of the 21st century.

July 23rd marks One Direction’s 10th anniversary, the day Simon Cowell told Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson that they would progress on The X Factor as a group. Between that date and their last live performance (so far, one can hope) on December 31st, 2015, they released five albums, toured the world four times — twice playing stadiums — and left a trove of Top 10 hits for a devoted global fan base that came to life at the moment social media was re-defining the contours of fandom.

It’d been a decade since the heyday of ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys, and the churn of generations demanded a new boy band. One Direction’s songs were great and their charisma and chemistry undeniable, but what made them stick was a sound unlike anything else in pop — rooted in guitar rock at a time when that couldn’t have been more passé.

Kotecha, who met 1D on The X Factor and shepherded them through their first few years, is a devoted student of boy band history. He first witnessed their power back in the Eighties when New Kids on the Block helped his older sister through her teens. The common thread linking all great boy bands, from New Kids to BSB, he says, is, “When they’d break, they’d come out of nowhere, sounding like nothing that’s on the radio.”

In 2010, Kotecha remembers, “everybody was doing this sort of Rihanna dance pop.” But that just wasn’t a sound One Direction could pull off (the Wanted only did it once); and famously, they didn’t even dance. Instead, the reference points for 1D went all the way back to the source of contemporary boy bands.

“Me and Simon would talk about how [One Direction] was Beatles-esque, Monkees-esque,” Kotecha continues. “They had such big personalities. I felt like a kid again when I was around them. And I felt like the only music you could really do that with is fun, pop-y guitar songs. It would come out of left field and become something owned by the fans.”

“The guitar riff had to be so simple that my friend’s 15-year-old daughter could play it and put a cover to YouTube,” says Carl Falk

To craft that sound on 1D’s first two albums, Up All Night and Take Me Home, Kotecha worked mostly with Swedish songwriters-producers Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub. They’d all studied at the Max Martin/Cheiron Studios school of pop craftsmanship, and Falk says they were confident they could crack the boy band code once more with songs that recalled BSB and ‘N Sync, but replaced the dated synths and pianos with guitars.

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The greatest thing popular music can do is make someone else think, “I can do that,” and One Direction’s music was designed with that intent. “The guitar riff had to be so simple that my friend’s 15-year-old daughter could play it and put a cover to YouTube,” Falk says. “If you listen to ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ or ‘One Thing,’ they have two-finger guitar riffs that everyone who can play a bit of guitar can learn. That was all on purpose.”

One Direction famously finished third on The X Factor, but Cowell immediately signed them to his label, Syco Music. They’d gone through one round of artist development boot camp on the show, and another followed on an X Factor live tour in spring 2011. They’d developed an onstage confidence, but the studio presented a new challenge. “We had to create who should do what in One Direction,” Falk says. To solve the puzzle the band’s five voices presented, they chose the kitchen sink method and everyone tried everything.

“They were searching for themselves,” Falk adds. “It was like, Harry, let’s just record him; he’s not afraid of anything. Liam’s the perfect song starter, and then you put Zayn on top with this high falsetto. Louis found his voice when we did ‘Change Your Mind.’ It was a long trial for everyone to find their strengths and weaknesses, but that was also the fun part.” Falk also gave Niall some of his first real guitar lessons; there’s video of them performing “One Thing” together, still blessedly up on YouTube.

“What Makes You Beautiful” was released September 11th, 2011 in the U.K. and debuted at Number One on the singles chart there — though the video had dropped a month prior. While One Direction’s immediate success in the U.K. and other parts of Europe wasn’t guaranteed, the home field odds were favorable. European markets have historically been kinder to boy bands than the U.S.; ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys found huge success abroad before they conquered home. To that end, neither Kotecha nor Falk were sure 1D would break in the U.S. Falk even says of conceiving the band’s sound, “We didn’t want it to sound too American, because this was not meant — for us, at least — to work in America. This was gonna work in the U.K. and maybe outside the U.K.”

Stoking anticipation for “What Makes You Beautiful” by releasing the video on YouTube before the single dropped, preceded the strategy Columbia Records (the band’s U.S. label) adopted for Up All Night. Between its November 2011 arrival in the U.K. and its U.S. release in March 2012, Columbia eschewed traditional radio strategies and built hype on social media. One Direction had been extremely online since their X Factor days, engaging with fans and spending their downtime making silly videos to share. One goofy tune, made with Kotecha, called “Vas Happenin’ Boys?” was an early viral hit.

“They instinctively had this — and it might just be a generational thing — they just knew how to speak to their fans,” Kotecha says. “And they did that by being themselves. That was a unique thing about these boys: When the cameras turned on, they didn’t change who they were.”

Social media was flooded with One Direction contests and petitions to bring the band to fans’ towns. Radio stations were inundated with calls to play “What Makes You Beautiful” long before it was even available. When it did finally arrive, Kotecha (who was in Sweden at the time) remembers staying up all night to watch it climb the iTunes chart with each refresh.

Take Me Home, was recorded primarily in Stockholm and London during and after their first world tour. The success of Up All Night had attracted an array of top songwriting talent — Ed Sheeran even penned two hopeless romantic sad lad tunes, “Little Things” and “Over Again” — but Kotecha, Falk and Yacoub grabbed the reins, collaborating on six of the album’s 13 tracks. In charting their course, Kotecha returned to his boy band history: “My theory was, you give them a similar sound on album two, and album three is when you start moving on.”

Still, there was the inherent pressure of the second album to contend with. The label wanted a “What Makes You Beautiful, Part 2,” and evidence that the 1D phenomenon wasn’t slowing down appeared outside the window of the Stockholm studio: so many fans, the street had to be shut down. Kotecha even remembers seeing police officers with missing person photos, combing through the girls camped outside, looking for teens to return to their parents.

At this pivotal moment, One Direction made it clear that they wanted a greater say in their artistic future. Kotecha admits he was wary at first, but the band was determined. To help manage the workload, Kotecha had brought in two young songwriters, Kristoffer Fogelmark and Albin Nedler, who’d arrived with a handful of ideas, including a chorus for a booming power ballad called “Last First Kiss.”

“We thought, while we’re busy recording vocals, whoever’s not busy can go write songs with these two guys, and then we’ll help shape them as much as we can,” Kotecha says. “And to our pleasant surprise, the songs were pretty damn good.”

At this pivotal moment, too, songwriters Julian Bunetta and John Ryan also met the band. Friends from the Berklee College of Music, Bunetta and Ryan had moved out to L.A. and cut a few tracks, but still had no hits to their name. They entered the Syco orbit after scoring work on the U.S. version of The X Factor, and were asked if they wanted to try writing a song for Take Me Home. “I was like, yeah definitely,” Bunetta says. “They sold five million albums? Hell yeah, I want to make some money.”

Working with Jamie Scott, who’d written two songs on Up All Night (“More Than This” and “Stole My Heart”), Bunetta and Ryan wrote “C’mon, C’mon” — a blinding hit of young love that rips down a dance pop speedway through a comically oversized wall of Marshall stacks. It earned them a trip to London. Bunetta admits to thinking the whole 1D thing was “a quick little fad” ahead of their first meeting with the band, but their charms were overwhelming. Everyone hit it off immediately.

“Niall showed me his ass,” Bunetta remembers of the day they recorded, “They Don’t Know About Us,” one of five songs they produced for Take Me Home (two are on the deluxe edition). “The first vocal take, he went in to sing, did a take, I was looking down at the computer screen and was like, ‘On this line, can you sing it this way?’ And I looked over and he was mooning me. I was like, ‘I love this guy!’”

Take Me Home dropped November 9th, just nine days short of Up All Night’s first anniversary. With only seven weeks left in 2012, it became the fourth best-selling album of the year globally, moving 4.4 million copies, per the IFPI; it fell short of Adele’s 21, Taylor Swift’s Red and 1D’s own Up All Night, which had several extra months to sell 4.5 million copies.

Kotecha, Falk and Yacoub’s tracks anchored the album. Songs like “Kiss You,” “Heart Attack” and “Live While We’re Young” were pristine pop rock that One Direction delivered with full delirium, vulnerability and possibility — the essence of the teen — in voices increasingly capable of navigating all the little nuances of that spectrum. And the songs 1D helped write (“Last First Kiss,” “Back for You” and “Summer Love”) remain among the LP’s best.

“You saw that they caught the bug and were really good at it,” Kotecha says of their songwriting. “And moving forward, you got the impression that that was the way for them.”

Like clockwork, the wheels began to churn for album three right after Take Me Home dropped. But unlike those first two records, carving out dedicated studio time for LP3 was going to be difficult — on February 23rd, 2013, One Direction would launch a world tour in London, the first of 123 concerts they’d play that year. They’d have to write and record on the road, and for Kotecha and Falk — both of whom had just had kids — that just wasn’t possible.

But it was also time for a creative shift. Even Kotecha knew that from his boy band history: album three is, after all, when you start moving on. One Direction was ready, too. Kotecha credits Louis, the oldest member of the group, for “shepherding them into adulthood, away from the very pop-y stuff of the first two albums. He was leading the charge to make sure that they had a more mature sound. And at the time, being in it, it was a little difficult for me, Rami and Carl to grasp — but hindsight, that was the right thing to do.”

“For three years, this was our schedule,” Bunetta says. “We did X Factor October, November, December. Took off January. February, flew to London. We’d gather ideas with the band, come up with sounds, hang out. Then back to L.A. for March, produce some stuff, then go out on the road with them in April. Get vocals, write a song or two, come back for May, work on the vocals, and produce the songs we wrote on the road. Back to London in June-ish. Back here for July, produce it up. Go back on tour in August, get last bits of vocals, mix in September, back to X Factor in October, album out in November, January off, start it all over again.”

That cycle began in early 2013 when Bunetta and Ryan flew to London for a session that lasted just over a week, but yielded the bulk of Midnight Memories. With songwriters Jamie Scott, Wayne Hector and Ed Drewett they wrote “Best Song Ever” and “You and I,” and, with One Direction, “Diana” and “Midnight Memories.” Bunetta and Ryan’s initial rapport with the band strengthened — they were a few years older, but as Bunetta jokes, “We act like we’re 19 all the time anyway.” Years ago, Bunetta posted an audio clip documenting the creation of “Midnight Memories” — the place-holder chorus was a full-throated, perfectly harmonized, “I love KFC!”

For the most part, Bunetta, Ryan and 1D doubled down on the rock sound their predecessors had forged, but there was one outlier from that week. A stunning bit of post-Mumford festival folk buoyed by a new kind of lyrical and vocal maturity called “Story of My Life.”

“This was a make or break moment for them,” Bunetta says. “They needed to grow up, or they were gonna go away — and they wanted to grow up. To get to the level they got to, you need more than just your fan base. That song extended far beyond their fan base and made people really pay attention.”

Production on Midnight Memories continued on the road, where, like so many bands before them, One Direction unlocked a new dimension to their music. Tour engineer Alex Oriet made it possible, Ryan says, building makeshift vocal booths in hotel rooms by flipping beds up against the walls. Writing and recording was crammed in whenever — 20 minutes before a show, or right after another two-hour performance.

“It preserved the excitement of the moment,” Bunetta says. “We were just there, doing it, marinating in it at all times. You’re capturing moments instead of trying to recreate them. A lot of times we’d write a song, sing it in the hotel, produce it, then fly back out to have them re-sing it — and so many times the demo vocals were better. They hadn’t memorized it yet. They were still in the mood. There was a performance there that you couldn’t recreate.”

Midnight Memories arrived, per usual, in November 2013. And, per usual, it was a smash. The following year, 1D brought their songs to the environment they always deserved — stadiums around the world — and amid the biggest shows of their career, they worked on their aptly-titled fourth album Four. The 123 concerts 1D had played the year before had strengthened their combined vocal prowess in a way that opened up an array of new possibilities.

“We could use their voices on Four to make something sound more exciting and bigger, rather than having to add too many guitars, synths or drums,” Ryan says.

“They were so much more dynamic and subtle, too,” Bunetta adds. “I don’t think they could’ve pulled off a song like ‘Night Changes’ two albums prior; or the nuance to sing soft and emotionally on ‘Fireproof.’ It takes a lot of experience to deliver a restrained vocal that way.”

“A lot of the songs were double,” Bunetta says, “like somebody might be singing about their girlfriend, but there was another meaning that applied to the group as well.”

Musically, Four was 1D’s most expansive album yet — from the sky-high piano rock of “Steal My Girl” to the tender, tasteful groove of “Fireproof” — and it had the emotional range to match. Now in their early twenties, songs like “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” “No Control,” “Fool’s Gold” and “Clouds” redrew the dramas and euphorias of adolescence with the new weight, wit and wanton winks of impending adulthood. One Direction wasn’t growing up normally in any sense of the word, but they were becoming songwriters capable of drawing out the most relatable elements from their extraordinary circumstances — like on “Change Your Ticket,” where the turbulent love affairs of young jet-setters are distilled to the universal pang of a long goodbye. There were real relationships inspiring these stories, but now that One Direction was four years into being the biggest band on the planet, it was natural that the relationships within the band would make it into the music as well.

“I think that on Four,” Bunetta says with a slight pause, “there were some tensions going on. A lot of the songs were double — like somebody might be singing about their girlfriend, but there was another meaning that applied to the group as well.”

He continues: “It’s tough going through that age, having to spread your wings with so many eyeballs on you, so much money and no break. It was tough for them to carve out their individual manhood, space and point of view, while learning how to communicate with each other. Even more than relationship things that were going on, that was the bigger blanket that was in there every day, seeping into the songs.”

Bunetta remembers Zayn playing him “Pillowtalk” and a few other songs for the first time through a three a.m. fog of cigarette smoke in a hotel room in Japan.

“Fucking amazing,” he says. “They were fucking awesome. I know creatively he wasn’t getting what he needed from the way that the albums were being made on the road. He wanted to lock himself in the studio and take his time, be methodical. And that just wasn’t possible.”

A month or so later, and 16 shows into One Direction’s “On the Road Again” tour, Zayn left the band. Bunetta and Ryan agree it wasn’t out of the blue: “He was frustrated and wanted to do things outside of the band,” Bunetta says. “It’s a lot for a young kid, all those shows. We’d been with them for a bunch of years at this point — it was a matter of when. You just hoped that it would wait until the last album.”

Still, Bunetta compares the loss to having a finger lopped off, and he acknowledges that Harry, Niall, Liam and Louis struggled to find their bearings as One Direction continued with their stadium tour and next album, Made in the A.M. Just as band tensions bubbled beneath the songs on Four, Zayn’s departure left an imprint on Made in the A.M. Not with any overt malice, but a song like “Drag Me Down,” Bunetta says, reflects the effort to bounce back. Even Niall pushing his voice to the limits of his range on that song wouldn’t have been necessary if Zayn and his trusty falsetto were available.

But Made in the A.M. wasn’t beholden to this shake-up. Bunetta and Ryan cite “Olivia” as a defining track, one that captures just how far One Direction had come as songwriters: They’d written it in 45 minutes, after wasting a whole day trying to write something far worse.

“When you start as a songwriter, you write a bunch of shitty songs, you get better and you keep getting better,” Ryan says. “But then you can get finicky and you’re like, ‘Maybe I have to get smart with this lyric.’ By Made in the A.M. … they were coming into their own in the sense of picking up a guitar, messing around and feeling something, rather than being like, ‘How do I put this puzzle together?’”

After Zayn’s departure, Bunetta and Ryan said it became clear that Made in the A.M. would be One Direction’s last album before some break of indeterminate length. The album boasts the palpable tug of the end, but to One Direction’s credit, that finality is balanced by a strong sense of forever. It’s literally the last sentiment they leave their fans on album-closer “History,” singing, “Baby don’t you know, baby don’t you know/We can live forever.”

In a way, Made in the A.M. is about One Direction as an entity. Not one that belonged to the group, but to everyone they spent five years making music for. Four years since their hiatus and 10 years since their formation, the fans remain One Direction’s defining legacy. Even as all five members have settled into solo careers, Ryan notes that baseless rumors of any kind of reunion — even a meager Zoom call — can still set the internet on fire. The old songs remain potent, too: Carl Falk says his nine-year-old son has taken to making TikToks to 1D tracks.

“Most of them weren’t necessarily musicians before this happened, but they loved music, and they found a love of creating, writing and playing,” Kotecha says

There are plenty of metrics to quantify One Direction’s reach, success and influence. The hard numbers — album sales and concert stubs — are staggering on their own, but the ineffable is always more fun. One Direction was such a good band that a fan, half-jokingly, but then kinda seriously, started a GoFundMe to buy out their contract and grant them full artistic freedom. One Direction was such a good band that songwriters like Kotecha and Falk — who would go on to make hits with Ariana Grande, the Weeknd and Nicki Minaj — still think about the songs they could’ve made with them. One Direction was such a good band that Mitski covered “Fireproof.”

But maybe it all comes down to the most ineffable thing of all: Chance. Kotecha compares success on talent shows like The X Factor to waking up one morning and being super cut — but now, to keep that figure, you have to work out at a 10, without having done the gradual work to reach that level. That’s the downfall for so many acts, but One Direction was not only able, but willing, to put in the work.

“They’re one of the only acts from those types of shows that managed to do it for such a long time,” Kotecha says. “Five years is a long time for a massive pop star to go nonstop. I know it was tiring, but they were fantastic sports about it. They appreciated and understood the opportunity they had — and, as you can see, they haven’t really stopped since. Most of them weren’t necessarily musicians before this happened, but they loved music, and they found a love of creating, writing and playing. To have these boys — that had been sort of randomly picked — to also have that? It will never be repeated.”

[wlntrsldler]

unrequited (draco malfoy/ cedric diggory series)

PROMPT: You and Cedric grew up together. After the tragedy of the Triwizard Tournament, you’re left feeling empty without your best friend. Draco Malfoy steps into the picture. Will the feelings be reciprocated? Or will it be unrequited?

WARNINGS: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, angst, fluff, sadness???

PAIRING: draco malfoy x reader and cedric diggory x reader; hufflepuff reader

WC: 2.2K+

UNREQUITED MASTERLIST

UNREQUITED PLAYLISTS (SEND ME SONGS!)

-

PART 15

To say Fred and George were furious when you stumbled into Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes that summer, falling apart completely in their arms as you told them about Draco, would be downplaying it. You physically had to hold Fred back from marching down to Malfoy Manor himself to kill Draco. Once he saw your pleading face, broken and a bit relieved that you finally had someone to talk to about what happened, he knew you needed to be with him and George above anything else. 

“I knew I should’ve put a dungbomb in his room before we left,” George muttered, still holding you sandwiched between him and Fred. “That little piece of shit.”

“I’m just glad I have you guys around to talk to about this,” you sniffled, wiping your tears away with the sleeve of your jumper. “I miss you guys.” 

“We miss you too, you know,” Fred replied, kissing your head. “But now you get to spend the summer with us. Are you still alright with helping us out with the shop’s grand opening this summer?”

“‘Course,” you smiled, pulling away from them. “It’s the only thing that kept me going the last few months of school.” 

“Well, if that’s so, let’s get started!” George held your hand and pulled you all around the shop, Fred trailing behind the two of you as he showed you around their masterpiece. You were taken back by how amazing everything looked. You knew they were going to be successful but this exceeded all of your expectations and theirs. They really outdid themselves. It was their dream and more. 

After two hours of walking around the shop and them proudly showing off their new products, as well as showing you the prototypes for unreleased items in their stockroom, they led you up to their flat above the store. The space was still a bit empty, a few boxes here and there, since they haven’t finished unpacking everything. Mrs. Weasley was still in the process of sending off the items they left back in the Burrow. 

They sat down on the larger couch, motioning for you to sit across from them. You sat, taking in the environment. On the walls were pictures of the Weasley family hung proudly, lining the hallways that lead to their respective rooms. A picture of the three of you was placed by the bookshelf, one that was taken the day before they left Hogwarts. 

“What else have we missed since we left, Y/N?” Fred asked, leaning forward in interest. “Surely, things have been quite boring since we left the premises.” 

You chuckled, nodding, “You know life is never as great without the two of you around.”

“Good answer,” George hummed, taking a sip from his glass of water. “But other than you know… the other he who shall not be named, how are you?” 

You pondered the question a bit; You didn’t want to worry them. You’ve been miserable, to be honest. After the twins left, you felt a bit like an outsider. You still had friends, like the Trio and a few others like Neville, Dean and Seamus, but they already had their established friendships. It didn’t feel right to always intrude in their lives. The twins were the only ones who truly made you feel comfortable after Cedric’s death. And of course things were a bit better when Draco was in the picture, but now, that’s not really the case anymore. 

You knew Fred and George enough to know that if you were to tell them this, they’d feel like rubbish and would blame themselves for all of these misfortunes in your life. That’s the last thing you wanted. You knew this shop, Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, was their dream and they were here, fulfilling it. You didn’t want them to have apprehensions on their decision. 

You smiled, “I’ve been better but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” 

“That’s our girl.” Fred chirped, a genuine smile on his face. He studied your features for a minute, taking in the way you bit back your tongue. He let it slide, sitting up straighter to change the subject. “Mr. Diggory stopped by a few days ago.” 

You cocked your head to the side, “What did he need?”

“Just wanted to say thank you to us for keeping Cedric’s grave relatively neat,” George explained. “Since we left school, we’ve had more time to visit him so we just dust off here and there.” 

Tears pricked your eyes, thinking of the two boys coming over to talk to Cedric. You imagined them tossing old bouquets of flowers that have wilted or died in the extreme weather and replacing them with new ones. You looked up at them, lip quivering, “Thank you.” 

“He was a good friend,” Fred said.

George continued, “To all of us. Never did he ever act like he was better than anyone.”

“Even when it was obvious that he was.”

You chuckled, wiping the tears slipping from your eyes. You nodded in agreement, remembering how humble Cedric always was. Even as a young boy who excelled in just about everything, he never once boasted about it. He just laughed all the praise off and helped out any students who seemed to be struggling. When he became Prefect, you celebrated with him but he just brushed off this achievement by saying he couldn’t wait until you became one too. 

“You know, he never got us in trouble, that Cedric,” George said, fondly. “One time, I was so sure he was about to tell on us for being out after hours. Caught us red-handed too, didn’t he, Freddie?”

“Indeed, Georgie,” the older twin nodded, “All the evidence was planted on us, ready to incriminate us, and guess what Cedric did?”

“What?” you asked, eyes twinkling at their story. This was a story about Cedric that you haven’t heard before. It was refreshing to hear things about him, instead of reliving the same memories that only left you lonely. 

“He said, “Hurry up boys! I can’t be your look out for any longer!” And Fred and I just grinned at him from ear to ear!” George said, laughing at the memory. “Good bloke, that one.”

“One of the best mates we’ve ever had.” 

“Do you guys mind if we visit him later today?” you wondered, chewing on your bottom lip when you realized how long it’s been since you last went to see him. You still read his journal everyday, but there was something different about being there. 

“Of course, not.” They replied in unison, both leaning over to place a comforting hand on your knee, “Let us know when.” 

-

You walked closer to the familiar stone, smiling when you saw a familiar bouquet of purple, gold, and white flowers still sitting by it. You leaned over to it, picking it up and admired how it still looked the same as you last left it. 

“Yeah, this one never wilted,” Fred said from behind you, his hands in his pockets. 

George stood beside him, motioning to the bouquet in your hands, “We don’t know why.” 

“I enchanted it so it would stay alive until I come back,” you stated, watching the petals slowly wilt and fall off the stem. You watched as it fell apart in your palms, soon becoming nothing else but a pile of dead leaves. “I left it here last time I came to visit him.” 

“What was it?” 

“Hyacinth, marigold, and petunia,” you replied, blowing away the particles left in your palm. You looked back at the two boys, further explaining it, “They’re muggle plants. During the Triwizard competition, Neville and I spent some good hours together. The boy is in love with herbology. I took a liking to it too because of him, and it followed me through my time with my aunt in the muggle world. I fell in love with their plants too.” 

“Do they mean anything?” 

“Yes,” you waved your wand, pointing it by the stone that had the carving of Cedric’s name. Soon, a full bloom of flowers emerged and took the place of the ones that wilted. “Purple hyacinths mean sorrow, an apology. Marigold is the flower of grief and petunias represent anger, resentment, and that their presence soothes you. It’s an odd combination, I know, but it captured everything that I was feeling last time I was here.” 

“I think it’s beautiful.” George spoke up, smiling at you. “Does the new bouquet have a meaning too?”

“Ambrosia, Orange Blossom and Camellia,” you started, now sitting down on the grass in front of his tombstone. “Ambrosia means your love is reciprocated. Orange Blossoms stand for eternal love and Camellia means longing.” 

Fred walked over to you, placing a hand on your shoulder. He leaned down to kiss your cheek, whispering in your ear, “We’ll give you some privacy.” 

You nodded, still unable to remove your gaze from Cedric’s name. You heard their footsteps lightly crunching the grass they stepped on. You leaned over, touching the buds of the flowers, already in full bloom. You spoke, “You hear that, Ced? Your love is reciprocated.” 

You were met with silence, as you expected. You lifted one leg up, leaning against your knee as you continued to talk. “You should’ve told me you loved me sooner. I wish you did so I could’ve told you I loved you back. Maybe you would’ve survived, somehow? Maybe if you knew that I was here waiting for you to come back, you wouldn’t have tried so hard to win. I don’t know, Ced. I’m just stuck on wishful thinking right now.” 

“I met someone, I hope you’re not mad,” you whispered, looking down at your lap. “I’m trying really hard to move on. I know this is what you would’ve wanted for me and I tried, Ced. I really did, but it just… It didn’t work out.” 

“Is it possible to be in love with two people at once?” you asked, voice wavering after every word. “I’m in love with you, Ced. I think I always will be, you know? Because for the rest of my life, I’ll just think about what my life would’ve been like if you were still around. We would’ve been perfect. Eternal love. Even after death, I love you.” 

“But all this time, I’ve rejected all of Draco’s affections,” you paused, “Yes, it’s Malfoy. Bit of a shocker, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s not that hard to believe for you. You were more observant than I was anyway.” 

You sighed, “But it’s Draco. I think I’ve known for a while that I was in love with him but this is the first time I’ve let myself say it out loud. And I’m sorry I’m saying this to you but you are my best friend, Cedric. I miss you. Sometimes I miss you because I’m in love with you but sometimes I miss you because you’re my best friend and I feel so lost without you.” 

“I’m in love with Malfoy, too. Not in the same way that I love you, never in the same way that I love you but I don’t love you in the same way that I love him, either. I don’t know if it makes sense. I hope you understand what I’m saying.” 

“But he left me, Cedric. He discarded me after he got what he wanted from me. I feel so stupid.” 

You watched the sun set behind the stone. You closed your eyes, letting the rays of sun hit your skin. You let out a shaky breath, listening to the sounds of nature in the distance. You leaned over and kissed the stone, your tears staining the polished relic. You stood up, finally, dusting off your pants. “The war is coming, Cedric. I hope things work out for the better but I can’t say with full honesty that I wish to survive. I don’t think there’s much else left for me to do here.” 

“Y/N,” You turned around to see Fred standing a few feet behind you, eyebrows furrowed in concern. He walked over to you, wrapping an arm around you. He stared directly at Cedric’s name, a sad smile playing on his lips, “Sorry mate, but we’re gonna have to keep her here for a while longer. She’s not going anywhere, if I can help it.” 

You let out a wet chuckle, nudging your head into his chest, “Where’s Georgie?” 

“Waiting for us,” he said, rubbing his thumb up and down your arm. “We’re having dinner with the family tonight. You ready to go?” 

You nodded, giving one last look, before following Fred towards George. You walked in silence, until Fred spoke up again. “I meant it, you know.” 

“Hmm?”

“You’re gonna get through this war, Y/N,” he said, sternly. “I know you don’t think you have anyone left but for Merlin’s sake, you do. I say this all the time but we’re here for you. Me, Georgie, Moine, the family, Harry- everyone. You’re my family now too. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my family.” 

“It’s hard, Freddie.”

“I know,” he sighed, seeing George’s silhouette in the distance. “But you don’t have to face things alone anymore, you hear? This war is going to tear all of us apart. We need to stand united.” 

You mustered up the courage to smile, trying to ignore the way your heart beat rapidly in your chest, afraid of what’s to come.

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[lovelivingmydreams]

My nieces are fanders

Summary: When you meet a super cute guy and land a date with him, you definitively want to gush about him with someone. In Nico’s case that someone is his oldest sister. The visit holds a surprise for him though.

This is part of a bigger story which starts here

Nico was humming to himself as he walked up the driveway to his older sister’s house.

“I can’t wait to tell Marcia all about Thomas!” Félix gushed. It’d been a week since they met him and while they had yet to look him up, deciding it was cheating a little to watch his content and maybe accidentally see more than Thomas wanted to share before they even went on their first date. Ràmon, his morally flexible, deceptive facet, still thought they should at least just check his accounts to make sure he didn’t oversell himself. “I’m sort of known on youtube” might just have been an exaggeration to impress him. Léon, his fury, was already working himself up over being misled when the others came to Thomas’ defense. He seemed rather humble about all his accomplishments. He deserved the benefit of the doubt. “She’ll be so excited for us!” Fabio, his heart, gushed. “Hope mom and dad won’t be too upset that they aren’t the first we told…” Alejo worried as he bit his lip. “We will tell them about Thomas if we come to a stage where we are ‘officially’ dating him,” Diego, his logic, reminds him. It was how they did things. His parents were a bit too supportive sometimes. If he mentioned Thomas, mom would start insisting he come over for dinner no matter how Nico insisted they weren’t that serious yet. His father would ask questions he didn’t have answers for and he would feel entirely too pressured… Best to tell them after he and Thomas got a bit farther. And he really hoped he would get to tell them about him soon. He rang the bell and soon the door opened to reveal a beaming Marcia. “You smelled my cooking didn’t you?” she asked. Nico chuckled. “You caught me,” he confessed as he threw his hands up in surrender while letting her embrace him. “It’s good to see you again hermanito,” she sighed before letting him go and leading him inside. “Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Yi will be home soon and he’ll entertain the kids afterwards so you can tell me what’s got you sparkling like the fourth of July.” Marcia looked back at him and quirked a brow curiously. Nico blushed a little. He was that obvious huh? His sisters eyes lit up and she was grinning like th cat that got the cream. Well he just confirmed her suspicion. “Okay, sounds good,” he muttered casually. Luckily Marcia let it go for now. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “Just a glass of water is fine,” Nico assured her while he leaned against the kitchen counter to watch her work. “Tio Nico!” Nico looked up and saw Marcia’s oldest, his 15 year old niece Carla run up towards him to give him a hug. He embraced his niece with a smile and ruffled her hair. “How are you kids doing?” he asked as the teen girl let go. “Fine. Felicia hasn’t finished her homework yet, but she will be down in a minute.” Nico nodded taking note of cousin’s pronouns for today. It had been an adjustment for everyone when Fabien came out of his room wearing a skirt for the first time and asked to be called Felicia on days she felt more feminine, but they hardly slipped up anymore. “We have something awesome to show you!” Carla continued her eyes sparking with excitement. “Oh?” he asked curiously. “What is it?” “Don’t start without me!” Felicia exclaimed as she rushed through the door and hugged Nico as well. “Now I’m getting nervous,” Nico chuckled as he let his nieces push him into a chair and sit down next to him. Carla was looking something up on her phone while Felicia seemed to be using hers to film him. “Tio Nico. Have you ever been serenaded by a stranger?” Felicia asked. The general confusion in Nico’s head left him with no other response other than cocking his head. “Um… no…?” he replied. His nieces giggled. And then Carla pushed her phone in front of him and they shoved earbuds into his ears. She pressed play and before he knew it he was faced with…. “Thomas!!!!” Félix  screeched in his head. It was unfair of him to look so handsome. And then he started singing! “Nico, radiant and pure. Always so, accepting and secure. Never knew anyone so kind. So funny and sharp of mind. All this to say… Have a nice day.” And then he winked! Nico’s nieces were giggling at his flustered face. Alejo inspected the screen and found a description in the corner. “This week’s #shout out Sunday goes to all the nice Nico’s of the world” he read out as he slowly relaxed. Nothing that insinuated Thomas was thinking of a particular Nico. His nieces had probably just thought it was fun to show him the video. Perhaps they thought he’d be enchanted by the handsome stranger with the voice of an angel seemingly singing for him. They weren’t entirely wrong. “That’s Thomas Sanders. He’s our favorite youtuber,” Felicia explained. Nico nodded a little dumbfounded. “He’s a singer?” he guessed, though he knew he was more than that. But he was not ready to tell his nieces he’d met this man and was going on a date with him next week. “And an actor, and the nicest person alive!” Clara explained. “He lives in Florida and he is gay…” Félicia added not too subtle, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Stop teasing your uncle girls. Set the table. We’ll be eating soon.” Nico was relieved. The rest of the evening he struggled to pay attention to the conversations at the dinner table. His mind was absolute chaos “He serenaded us! Actually serenaded us!” Felix gushed dancing around unable to contain his elation. “And it does sound like he is somewhat successful in entertaining his audience. He was telling the truth it seems,” Ràmon allowed. Leon nodded, calming down significantly. Leon had been part of the deeper recesses of Nico’s mind for a long time. Until one day he was called by a panicked Carla who was hiding from bigots with her sister. Nico had hurried over and gotten them out. But he’d been so close to hitting one of those kids. It had been Alejo who, in his worry for the girls’ well-being, had managed to hold Leon back enough to allow Fabio to reason with him. His writings had taken a much angrier tone for a few days after. Ever since that day,  Nico was aware that he could get violent when angry and he’d been working on managing Leon without pushing him away. Like Alejo he was mostly overprotective of the others and Nico’s loved ones. He just jumped more on Alejo’s fight aspect than the flight part. “He was so nice!” Fabio gushed. “Does he really think all that about us?” Alejo wondered flustered. “It seems quite likely that he does,” Diego concluded. “Just as we have made some observations about him that may or may not be accurate,” he added, soothing Alejo’s worry a bit. Shifting him more to the excited side of his spectrum. “Well? Spill!” Marcia insisted when they found themselves alone on the patio after dinner. Nico sipped from his glass and didn’t look at his sister while he just spilled the truth. “I met a really cute guy at the mall this week, and we’re going out for lunch in two days.” Marcia barely contained her squealing. “Finally! Tell me everything!” she demanded. And just like that, his excitement at being able to gush about the whole meeting returned. Marcia was a good listener. She knew the story ended well but she acted like she actually thought he might miss his shot with his determination to get some work done and not to bother the mysterious stranger. When he got to Thomas’ confession she was vibrating with excitement. “He sounds so adorable!” Nico flushed. “Yeah… He’s an actor and singer…” “Ooooh, someone to sing your songs!” she exclaimed. “And his name is Thomas Sanders…” Maricia’s eyes widened as understanding dawned on her. “Now that explains the look on your face when you saw that video…Wait that was for you? If mama ever sees it then she’ll insist you marry him you know that right?” she laughed. So not only did she know of Thomas, she had seen the video in question. “Yeah… She probably will. Have you seen anything else of his?” “I try to be aware of what my kids are watching online. He has two channels and about 3,4 million ‘Fanders’ last I checked.” “Oh my god!!!!” Felix gushed. Overwhelmed by both the cute fandom name and the dazzling number of fans. “Definitely not a liar,” Ràmon breathed in relief. He had been reluctant to get his hopes up until now. He was cautious, wary of things that were too good to be true. Just like Alejo. But their anxious look out was, in his eyes at least, compromised on the subject due to his close tie to the butterflies clouding all their feelings and thoughts. Now however, it seemed that his biggest doubts were adressed, he felt free to look forwrad to the date like everyone else. “He is a good guy, going by his content. And he is really cute.” Nico chuckled. “Yeah he is,” he agreed.

When he got home he was actually planning to freak out a bit more and debate over whether or not to watch some video’s. If for no other reason than to just see him do something he loved. Was that stalkerish? Luckily his phone alerted him to a text. Thomas. It was a cute dog picture. Nico smiled. He did that sometimes. Sent him things just to make him smile. N: You are such a dork. TS: I refuse to apologize for that! TS: I can’t wait until our lunch date! Nico hesitated for a moment. But then he went all in. N: Missing my radiant presence that much? God that was cheesy. Was it too cheesy? He is not like this! Not usually. Or maybe he was and Thomas just brought it out of him. TS: OMG you saw!!!!? N: My nieces thought it would be funny to see how I’d react when a ‘stranger’ serenades me. TS: Fanders!? Oh my goodness that is amazing! TS: You weren’t bothered? I get that it might seem a bit weird. “He is so precious!!!!” Fabio squealed. “I know right? This is not healthy for us! It can’t be,” Félix exclaimed clutching his heart and leaning on Alejo for support. Who promptly stepped away and let him fall to the floor with a grin. “Not a couch,” he reminded his friend who was pouting for a bout two seconds before his excitement overpowered his annoyance. N: It was awesome, don’t worry. I was very flattered. Your singing voice is amazing. TS: Thanks. Should he ask? If Thomas says it’s okay then it’s fine right? N: Okay if I watch some more of your singing? There he asked. No backing out. TS: Of course! Fair warning, if you find vines, some are cringy and sometimes I play a straight man. Vines huh? Wow, that felt like ages ago. Thomas had mentioned his misleading complements when they talked. N: Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. Goodnight. TS: Goodnight. “Are we really doing this?” Alejo wondered as Nico typed in ‘Thomas Sanders Vines’ in the search bar of Youtube. One look at the results had Nico in stitches. “He’s such a goofball!” Fabio squealed clapping his hands as he saw Thomas’ smiling face on every thumbnail in various goofy situations. How was he supposed to choose? “Oooh! That one is him reacting!” Félix exclaimed pointing at a three year old video.  Nico nodded in agreement and clicked on the video. First this and then see if he could find some more videos of Thomas singing. He didn’t know it. But he was in for a wild ride.

I might write one more chapter, but then it’s over until Thomas posts his next video in three years. I want to stick to the canon as much as possible. You’ll hear from me if that changes though! Enjoy!

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[twstarchives]

Sebek Zigvolt・Voice Lines

School Uniform - R

Unlock Card “Get to class now! You’re wasting time.”

Groovy “Someday I ought to teach you how you’re supposed to behave towards your superiors.”

Home Setting “I take close care of my appearance.”

Home Transitions “I was miraculously able to enroll at the same school as the Young Master. I’d like to watch his growing success from as close-up as possible.”

“I’m hungry... The bread from the school store isn’t filling at all. I want more meat.”

“I joined the horse-riding club because I thought it’d be wise to pick up practical activities. All knights should be able to ride a horse.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “To make sure that you’re not a threat to the Young Master, I’ve decided to observe you all day today. Don’t run out of sight.”

Home Taps “Styling my hair every morning is a chore, but I never want the Young Master to see me looking sloppy.”

“Silver is the only person I know in the Valley of Thorns from the same generation as me. ‘My friend’...? As if I’d call him a friend!” 

“The Young Master is also taking classes here. It’s 1000 years too early for us to be skipping them!!”

“I have a loud voice? What are you saying? Your voice is just too quiet!!”

“Are you trying to play tag? I’ve long since outgrown childish games like that.”

PE Uniform - R

Unlock Card “As if I’d lose any contest! The training all of you have done is nothing compared to mine!”

Groovy “Want me to tell you my training routine? Only if you can keep up.”

Home Setting “Let me take you on.”

Home Transitions “To improve yourself, you need to eat well, work well, sleep well, and play hard! ...That’s what Master Lilia taught me.”

“I train so that I can be the Young Master’s sword and shield whenever he needs me.”

“I heard we’re having a long-distance race for our next PE class. I’m better at short-distance, though... No. You aren’t a guard without good stamina.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Why is your back hunched over like that? You look sloppy! Stick out your chest and fix that posture!”

Home Taps “Whenever I go to practice for the horse-riding club, the horses always get scared of me. I’m not going to eat them or anything. They’re so skittish.”

“Being left-handed often comes in handy when I’m sparring. But no matter which hand I use, my victories will always be in the name of the Young Master.”

“There’s no point in training without a reason. It’s important to me that I gain power to protect the Young Master.”

“Don’t waste your breath. All that matters while you’re training is willpower, persistence, and a fighting spirit!! That’s it!”

“You want to play soccer together? ...Alright. I certainly have no plans of losing to a human.”

Lab Coat - SR

Unlock Card “Your appearance reflects who you are inside. I won’t let a single wrinkle to pass.”

Groovy “You want to study with me? Very well. Show me what you’ve got.”

Home Setting “I don’t have any blind spots in today’s class either.”

Home Transitions “I’ll get the highest score on our next test. And then the Young Master will praise me...!”

“The environment in the greenhouse is just amazing. It’s warm, humid, and so easy to relax in there.”

“I learned everything that was covered in our lesson last period when I was in middle school. Education in the Valley of Thorns was very intensive.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “The most I’ll do is give you a few hints for your assignment. I’d rather not be dragged down during our joint class.”

Home Transition (Groovy) “You look exhausted. I’ll share some tips with you on how to remain focused.”

Home Taps “I’m very good at solving both numerical and chemical equations. But there’s never a need to use cheap tricks like that when the Young Master is around. Heheh.”

“Do you have any Awakening Potions? I want to try making Silver drink an entire bucket full.”

“Master Lilia gave me this drink. He said it’s an excellent beverage that lets you take in your meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables all at once!”

“I’m not good at art, since it’s so subjective. Subjects where the solutions are very clear is more my speed.”

“Stop tugging at my clothes. I can’t appear in front of the Young Master looking indecent!”

Home Tap (Groovy) “Could you recommend a book for me? I’ll try reading it tonight.”

Ceremony Robes - SR

Unlock Card “The Young Master would never get upset over something as minor as a school assembly.”

Groovy “Hmph. Even you look befitting today.”

Home Setting “I don’t want to see the Young Master look so dejected...”

Home Transitions “As if I’d ever feel nervous at a school event of all things! Festivals in the Valley of Thorns are so much grander than this.”

“Have you seen the Young Master anywhere? I haven’t been able to reach him in a while. ...Don’t tell me he— ...Again?”

“It’s not worth having a ceremony if the Young Master isn’t participating. They should just stop it midway through.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “YOUNG MAAAASTER!! Where did you go...? Oh, perfect timing. Come look for the Young Master with me.”

Home Transition (Groovy) “Grim was causing a ruckus again. I swear, I can’t believe how much of a pig he is. ...What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Home Taps “Before coming to this academy, I spent an entire year dedicating myself to my studies. I did it because I had faith I’d be able to get into this school too.”

“No matter how alert you think you are, Master Lilia will always find a way to sneak behind you. Oh, see? Turn around.”

“I feel like I’ve gotten taller again lately. These robes might even end up being too small for me.”

“Do I look okay? Nothing’s out of place? It’s fine if I appear in front of the Young Master like this, right..? ...Oi, are you even listening to me?”

“Stop with that mumbling. If you want to say something then say it loud and clear!!”

Home Tap (Groovy) “The Young Master’s ideas are so grand. Sometimes, I can’t even begin to understand them. That’s why I admire him so much.”

Birthday Celebration Outfit - SSR

This card was only obtainable during Sebek’s birthday event (Mar 15 - Mar 21, 2021).

Login on Birthday “Human, have you come to give me a birthday present? I see... Thank you! I was just giving the Young Master my gratitude earlier as well. I am the luckiest man at this school!”

Unlock Card “No matter if it’s my birthday, I’m not going to abandon my duties as a guard or stop being vigilant!”

“I-I never thought I’d be able to receive a birthday blessing from the Young Master... How lucky am I!!”

Groovy “Despite being a human, you’re celebrating to make me happy... I’ve improved my opinion of you, just a little. J-Just a little!”

Home Setting “Alright! I think I can still perfectly carry out my guard duties in this outfit.”

Home Transitions “This cutlery and tableware is placed in the wrong order. Did you not know I’m left-handed? You didn’t do enough research beforehand!”

“Lilia told me that ‘a sound soul lives in a trained body.’ I must not forgo my training, even on my birthday.”

“My magic manifested at a late age. When I was little, I always wanted to be like my older brother and sister, who could magically light the candles on a cake.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “I’ve gone hungry all day to get ready for this party. I only had three servings for lunch!”

Home Transition (Groovy) “I-I lost again... This may be a party game, but I can’t stand to keep losing to the likes of a human! One more round!”

Home Taps “Azul told me ‘I heard you liked Magical Analysis’ and gave me a rare book on it... but I feel like he wants something big in return.”

“Riddle gave me a special horseback riding lesson. You don’t often get a chance like that. I’ll remember it as a fond birthday memory.”

“Silver, that bastard! He gave me dumbbells as a gift! That can’t mean anything but him thinking my training isn’t enough!”

“Epel gave me a fruit carving of the Young Master. It’s an incredible piece of work... but there’s no way I could bring myself to eat it!”

“I-I hear an explosion!? What’s happening!? ...Oh, you’re popping party poppers? It’s so loud! You know you’re bothering the people around you!!”

Home Tap (Groovy) “Here, I went and got you ten plates of food. ...You’re good with just one? Heh! I know you’re a human, but you eat so little.”

Duo Magic Sebek: “Let me thank you for your blessings, Cater!!!” Cater: “HBD, Sebek-kins~!”

Tutorial “Follow me, human! Make sure you commit the grand sight of the Young Master to memory.”

Lv Up “Did you see that!? Look at the progress I made!”

“I’ll be able to take even more action now with this!”

“Mm. Not bad.”

Max Lv Up “Maybe now I’ve turned into a man who can gain just a little of the Young Master’s approval. ...No, I shouldn’t act conceited. I need to get rid of these thoughts and focus on keeping myself devoted. Let’s go!”

Episode Lv Up “I always viewed you as nothing but a meager human, and yet you’ve become someone I rely on so much... You’re just always surprising me.”

Magic Lv Up “This power...! Young Master! Did you see that just now!? Wait... He’s not here. Kgh. That must mean this still isn’t enough...!”

Limit Break “I need to get even bigger, smarter, and stronger to be a proper servant for the Young Master!”

Groovy “I’m feeling happy and energized! This really does feel nice. Make sure you never forget all this success I’ve made!”

Lesson Select “Human! I decided to take a class with you today. Which one do you want? Hurry up and pick.”

“What? You look so nervous. Isn’t the point of classes you’re weak in to be a challenge for you?”

“Master Lilia taught me that your classes are just another part of your training. I’m not going to slack off in any of my subjects.”

Lesson Start “Let’s give today our all!”

Lesson End “Knowledge enriches the body and soul! Let’s work hard next time too!”

Battle Start “I’ll swallow you whole!”

Battle End “This win is for our king!”

Other

Profile Quote “Don’t even think that you can come close to the great Lord Malleus Draconia, lowly human!”

January 2020 Trailer “Are you a new student too? Take utmost care not to be rude to the Young Master.”

Countdown Poster “Meager humans ought to bow down before the Young Master.”

Login Bonus “Hmph! You’re pretty capable for a human. But I don’t go a single day without training myself.”

Player Birthday Wish “What are you doing here? On your birthday, you’re supposed to eat your favorite food, sing, and celebrate. You didn’t even know that…? Very well, then. I’ll teach you how to spend your birthday the right way!”

Magic History

Good ★

“Come at me anytime!”

“I’m... not tired!”

“Humans are so shallow.”

“I learned a lot from this.”

“The Young Master is even more incredible.”

“Cat! Shut up!”

“Serve the king.”

“The Young Master will make history.”

“Silver’s asleep?”

Great ★★

“I want to get closer to the Young Master.”

“Fascinating...”

“Piece of cake!”

Perfect ★★★

“Easy.”

“I have no business with weaklings.”

“Don’t make light of me, human.”

Special Lesson Perfect ★★★

“My answer is this!”

“How old is the Headmaster...?”

“I won’t let you disturb me!”

Flying

Good ★

“It’s a beautiful morning.”

“I’m not letting Silver win.”

“I’m not scared of getting hurt.”

“I can’t turn smoothly.”

“Trust me on my speed!”

“My stomach growled.”

“I respect our coach’s stamina.”

“Take control of your problems...”

“I’m going to master this.”

Great ★★

“Oh...! Young Master!”

“I feel like jumping for joy!”

“I’m never off my guard.”

Perfect ★★★

“No one can catch up to me!”

“All right!”

“You want to challenge me?”

Special Lesson Perfect ★★★

“Headmaster, what do you need?”

“Don’t stand where I’m about to go!”

“Everyone’s so slow!”

Alchemy

Good ★

“You’ve looked miserable all morning.”

“I’m keeping an eye on Master Lilia.”

“I’m very adept.”

“Let’s do this!”

“Immortality, huh...?”

“Did I get ahead of Silver?”

“That’s a gross color...”

“I’m hungry...”

“I’m not a dog!”

“Did you read the footnotes?”

“I see.”

“Humans are so greedy.”

“Gold isn’t going to satisfy me.”

“This jewel would suit the Young Master.”

“Be quiet and take your lesson!”

Great ★★

“There’s nothing I can’t eat.”

“Please praise me!”

“You think I could fail at this level?”

“Hmph. Piece of cake.”

“Gape at the power of the Valley of Thorns!”

Perfect ★★★

“Young Master, please accept this.”

“No trouble at all.”

“This is probably how the Young Master would do it.”

“What do you think? Perfect, huh?”

“You still can’t do it?”

Special Lesson Perfect ★★★

“Stay cool... and composed.”

“No one could outshine the Young Master.”

“Hm? He’s watching me.”

“I’ll get grades that won’t tarnish our dorm’s name!”

“A perfect brew.”

[saintheartwing]

Promised Neverland, Season 2, Episode 8 Review...

They are SUPER. RUSHING. THIS. It’s just incredibly lame. It’s frankly just insulting. The “new story” that the author decided to adapt? You know what they did? They went the Batman vs Superman “Save...Marthaaaaa” route. 

Let me explain. It begins with Norman meeting Peter Ratri.Isabella introduces him. He’s his “new father”.

“But you can call me Peter. Peter Ratri. I’d like your assistance with my research!”

How exciting! Norman can study all he wants now. But Norman knows what’s up. He knows he’s just a product even now. Maybe not FOOD but...still a product. 

Norman is soon shown taking tests. He hunches over a screen quickly scanning things left and right, it’s super atmospheric alright, and his test scores are amazing. Perfect scores every time despite them increasing in difficulty. It’s fantastic. Lambda 7214 is lucky to have him.

Norman is soon eating alone in his room as the other scientists marvel over his skills. He’s got mad skills, alright. MAAAAD SKIIIILZ.

Peter Ratri is pleased by this. The kid’s perfect for Lambda’s upcoming plans. The era of James Ratri the gatekeeper is over. Now HE’LL control the farms and he shan’t give them an inch  of hope. 

The scientist behind him frowns visibly. And meanwhile, Norman’s found something. A litle puzzle box like a rubix cube. A note put into it. And who put it in there? An African American young man named Vincent. 

We get to briefly see peeks of the folks that Norman would make into his friends. Tiny brief glimpses of horrors...and cute little rooms full of toys and dolls...while on the opposite side, Demons are tearing kids apart...

He will live. He will live and keep living to see everyone again-

Then he begins to cough up blood. Ohhh dear. He’s sick. Super sick. He doesn’t have much time left. He begins to put it together. He has six cameras in the room. 15 personnel at night. But he can gain explosives. He just needs parts for a detonator, he says to himself, playing a chess game. 

CHECKMATE.

And then it happens. SHAAA-BOOOOM! The facility gets blown up. People are dead all over. Blood has pooled around. His plan worked. Mr. Smee, the friendly scientist, helped him pull it off, and gives him a pen as Vincent and he go to save the only remaining older kids left...who would become his gang.  “Are you God?” Barbara asks.

Framed by the red alarm light...Norman looks more like the Devil.

But unluckily for the demons left over and captured, the only ones left alive, well...Norman kinda needs some more data on demons...and, well...turnabout is fair play...

We cut back to the present. Norman knows he’s soon to die. But he wants to create a safe world for Emma...

Meanwhile, Emma and Ray and Don and Gilda are out searching for Mujika and Sonju. They need to find someplace with multiple escape routes that would also be easy to hide in. Luckily, they know such a place, and they found footprints...

Alas, it’s not them. It’s something that walks on six feet. Nope. Small, wild demon. Maybe...this place? Nope. Nope! Nope, nope, nope! They keep looking around, disguised as demons to avoid detection but no luck at all, and time is passing quickly.

Then they get a break. The birds! The birds the two like to hunt. If they’d be hunting the birds, it’d be in a nice, big, wide-open place. But they need to be careful...this is home to a wild demon. A big, huge large one...with really lousy CGI, for the record. 

Their first day has not gone well. They have to set up camp for the night. Four days left...

Norman and his gang are gathering up the potion as our heroes keep searching. Norman seems...preoccupied...

Our heroes are determined to find Mujika and Sonju. Without the evil blood, they can’t fix anything...but they’re quickly running out of time. Only two days left now! 

Our gang is at the very last spot. There’s a lot of wild demons here, so they need to be careful, but...this is the last spot they have left to check. Their last hope. And...

They’ve found horse hoof prints! Could it be them?

Norman, meanwhile, is thinking about how kind Emma and Ray are. He’s determined not to waver. He WILL save all the kids in the farms. If he has to be God OR the Devil...he’ll become it...

And now...it’s gotten dark. Our gang is in deep trouble. A wild demon has found them! They have to attack, using their bows and arrows. Emma decides she’ll draw them off...

As Sonju and Mujika find the necklace Emma drops in her haste! They have to go rescue her. Ray pops out of nowhere, letting an arrow fly, and...THA-SHUDDA! Right in the eye! Center of the head! He deeeeead! That was, admittedly, a real nice moment. But...

Oh shit, it’s NOT dead. In its final throes its maw reaches out to engulf her and then...

SHA-SCHLIIISCH! OFF WITH YOUR HEEEAAAAD! Sonju slices its head off. Mujika and Sonju have found them! They ask what happened, and Emma begins to explain what’s going on...or rather, they’re ABOUT to when--

KA-BOOOOOOOOM! A distinct, loud explosion. 

Uh oh. Norman decided to start a bit early. The town is being attacked. Explosions rocket through the town and the demons begin breathing in the gas...and those that do become monstrous, attacking even their family. 

The experiment appears to be a rousing success. It’s a horrifying scene, admittedly. It looks disgusting. People are burning left and right as Norman and his gang nonchalantly make their way into town to just...watch it burn. It’s one of the only moments where things actually look really, really good...it’s creepy, atmospheric and horrifying to behold. 

The good news is that Mujika and Sonju just agree to start running. 

Meanwhile at the town, the nice grandpa demon that Emma had met in the temple has arrived back at town and found it on fire! And who knows where his granddaughter and family are? And then...

We find out his granddaughter’s name...right when Norman has a big-ass knife and is about to run the girl through the back.

Emma. Her name’s Emma.

...yeeeaaaah. They did the Superman and Batman “OMG OUR MOMMAS GOT THE SAME NAMES” thing. A blatant attempt to try and get Norman to empathize with the demons by showing familial love of demons right in front of him and with the girl having the very same name as the one he so dearly cares for. And then unfortunately it gets bad. They see Norman. They realize he’s a human. And unfortunately...then the gas hits them.

The granddaughter begins mutating...the grandfather isn’t. 

Norman realizes...holy fucking shit. The guy has “the evil blood”. So he tries to stab the guy and...what comes out is red blood. “Emma...drink this blood and run.” Grandpa Demon insists. He has her drink from his hand, Norman looking at his blood-stained hands. Red blood. 

Emma the demon is now crying uncontrollably as her grandpa tries to comfort her. “Even if I die. I want you to at least live.” “No! Grandpa! I want you to live with me!”

Norman is now feeling tears springing to his eyes. He looks around and is seeing the horror being unleashed. Children are screaming for their parents to stop eating people...themselves included. Some brave demon souls are desperately trying to keep the mutated from attacking families. “Why am I wavering?” Norman wonders aloud. “I knew this from the very beginning...there’s no other way...”

Especially not with the time he has left...

Norman can’t bring himself to bring the knife down and then he hears...

“NORMAN!”

He turns around...

And there Emma and Ray are...

And they see him. As he ACTUALLY is. A scared, horrified child with a knife in his hands. 

“This time...I’m not letting you go alone!” Emma says.

And...the episode ends. 

Well...gee. You know...this was probably one fo the best episodes because of the stuff with the town, but thinking about ALL this season sacrificed to get there...

It’s just like...it’s like being served, instead of the meal you ordered, a different meal completely that tastes fine...but you didn’t order it or ask for it. You wanted a steak. Not chicken. Sure the chicken is delicious but...you did specifically want a steak and EXPECT a steak. Not a chicken, no matter how tasty it is. 

[calpalirwin]

Hush, Hush

Request: Could you please write a Michael x Reader based on the song Hush Hush by The Band CAMINO? Where they have a secret relationship. Maybe include a scene where the guys find out because read accidentally LEFT THEIR FRIGGIN UNDERWEAR

Content: Heavily implied smut

Word Count: 3.6k

And away, and away we go!

__

Y/N spotted Calum easily as he tried to look as inconspicuous as possible in a plain black t-shirt, blue jeans, a hat covering his head of curls, and sunglasses pushed up on his face. “Hey, you! How was your flight?” he greeted as he wrapped his cousin in a hug.

“Long, but worth it to be here,” she grinned, returning the embrace with the same amount of warmth as the bright LA sun outside. “You fuckin’ take a page from the Avengers? You know this disguise is shit, right?”

“If I learned one thing from all the covid nonsense, it’s actually that this shit disguise works surprisingly well.”

“In covid we covered the lower half of our faces, ya dingus.”

“Works the same either way. Half the face covered is half the face covered. You check any bags?”

“Nah, I crammed as much shit as I could in my carry on and backpack.”

“Sweet, let’s roll.”

“So, you like living here in LA?” she asked as they made their way to his car.

“Yeah. Kinda hard not to. Nice weather. Good people. So, I know you’re here to look at houses and stuff, but Mum didn’t explain to me why you’re moving here. She was just like ‘pick up your cousin from the airport and be good’ like I was just gonna leave you to fend for yourself or some shit.”

Y/N laughed. “While I definitely appreciate you picking me up, and letting me stay with you this week, I’ll kick your ass if you start babying me. You may be taller, but I’m still older than you.”

Calum laughed along. “That’s what I told Mum but, she wouldn’t listen. I was like Y/N’s a big girl, she doesn’t need a chaperone.”

“That’s Aunt Joy for ya though. She misses you. We all do. Well except me, of course.”

Calum snorted as he clicked the unlock button on his car. “Yeah, I miss everyone but you too, so I guess we’re even. But what was it that sent you here?”

“Job relocation. Well… sort of.”

“What do you mean sort of?” he asked as he placed her suitcase in the backseat, the backpack following. 

“So I’ve been doing a lot more freelance work since my job’s been fucking me around since day one. And I finally said fuck it, I’m gonna make my own business. So while I’m here to look at apartments and shit, I’m also here to scout out business locations looking to rent out space.”

“Well shit, why didn’t you tell me before now?” he asked as they got in the front seat. “Moving’s expensive. Starting your own business is expensive. Living here is expensive. Doing all that shit at once? Geez, you a secret millionaire?”

“You’re not the only successful one, Cal. I make good money.”

“You know I don’t mean it like that. I just meant that you could’ve told me what was really going on. So that way I could’ve put you in contact with Andy and Sarah already, cuz they probably know some people who can help you out. Hell you can help them out by freelancing for them. They work too damn hard, they could definitely use the extra help. Plus you’re fuckin good at what you do. And I could’ve also told you that you don’t need to bother looking for a place cuz you could just stay with me.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you, Cal. I wanna do this on my own.”

“I’m not saying you gotta live with me forever, Y/N. I’m just saying you can while you focus all your energy and resources on what really matters which is getting your business up and running. Plus, I know you’re gonna pick like the most cheapass, run-down studio apartment anyway because you’re gonna justify it by saying you’re just there to sleep anyway. So why spend any money on some shitty apartment when you can just stay at my nice, nonshitty house for free instead? I mean, you’re only there to sleep basically right?”

Y/N’s eyes narrowed. She hated that he knew her so well. “There’s no way you’re letting this go until I agree to move in with you, is there?”

“Not a one.”

“Fine. But only until I get my business off the ground. Once that’s up and running, I’m getting my own place.”

“A decent place,” Calum pushed.

“A decent place,” she agreed with an eye roll. “I’ll even splurge for an actual bedroom.”

“You got yourself a deal.”

“You got yourself a roommate.”

~~~

Michael couldn’t keep his eyes off Y/N. He knew he wasn’t supposed to stare. A.) Staring was rude, and he wasn’t a rude person. And B.) Calum was his best and longest friend, and Y/N was his cousin which made her inexplicably off-limits. But there was something so tempting about wanting someone you knew you couldn’t have. And it didn’t help matters that every time he caught himself looking her way, she was already watching him.

“I’m Michael,” he introduced stupidly when they both ended up in Calum’s kitchen by themselves. 

“I know,” she grinned. “We already did introductions, remember?”

His cheeks flushed pink, and one of his hands rubbed at the back of his neck. “Right. Yeah. H-how long did you say you’re staying with Cal for?”

“Well originally I was only gonna be here for a week while I sorted things out. But Cal’s… strong-willed about things. So I’m staying with him indefinitely while I get sorted instead.”

“Mmm, right. With your new business and everything. So you’ll be around quite a bit, huh?”

“Loads,” she nodded with a flirtatious smile. “And I’ll probably be lonely. I don’t really know anyone here besides Cal. His friends seem nice though. And one of them’s really cute.”

Michael breathed deeply, and even from the small distance between them she could feel his hot exhale on her skin. “We can’t,” he sighed in defeat.

“Says who?”

“Says like every bro code.”

“Are you saying you don’t want this as badly as I do?”

“Want it so bad,” Michael admitted, his voice a low whimper. His green eyes looked around. While nobody from outside was peering in, they were still in everyone’s line of sight if someone happened to glance their way. Which meant that they only had two options, neither of which led to what they really wanted which was to slink away from the party without raising suspicion. “But we can’t. Not now, anyway. Not here.”

“Right. I don’t want to make anything weird between you and Cal. Or between me and him. And we don’t even know what we are. Maybe this is just an infatuation that’ll run its course if we don’t play into it.”

“Maybe it’s not,” Michael countered. “God, I hope it’s not, cuz I really want to play into this.”

“Me too. God, I hope you’re right.”

“Hope he’s right about what?” Calum asked, as he came in through the sliding glass door. 

“Uh, my business!” she blurted. “Mike was just telling me that he thinks it’s gonna do really well here cuz I’ll be able to get more connections with your help and stuff.”

Calum hummed in response. “Mike’s right ya know. Like you already did the scary part of moving out here. The rest is just doing your job. Which you already know how to do, and you do it very well I might add.”

Michael let out the breath he’d been holding as Calum disappeared off to the bathroom. “Fuck, that was close. You think pretty good on your feet.”

Y/N chuckled nervously. “Thanks. God, he scared the shit out of me, and we weren’t even doing anything.”

“Backing out?” Michael asked with a twinge of a challenge to mask the underlying brace for rejection.

“We’re fucked if we get caught.”

“So fucked.”

“Guess we better not get caught then.”

Michael grinned.

~~~

She smirked at the message. A painful month of sneaking behind her cousin’s back, and she only wanted the man with wild trouble in those piercing green eyes more with each hidden touch. Needed him the same way Michael needed her. From the doorway, Calum wolf-whistled at the outfit lying on the bed: a slinky black dress with a slit in the thigh, and a matching black lace bra and panty set. “Going somewhere?” he questioned in amusement.

“Yes!” Y/N said with indignation. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Calum chuckled, raising his hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean it as a bad thing. It’s good that you’re going out. You going out with friends, or a guy?”

“Friends,” she lied.

“That’s a hell of a dress for a girls’ night out,” he chuckled again. “You could tell me if it was a guy, ya know. We’re not little kids. I’m not gonna be shocked if you’re getting laid. Be a little worried if you weren’t in all honesty.”

She bit into her lower lip, wondering briefly if it was better to come clean now. Y/N decided on half-admittance. “Alright, it’s a guy. But we’re still in that figuring it out stage. Enjoying each other’s company.”

“Yeah, I bet you are,” Calum smirked.

“Shut up,” she laughed. “And get out so I can finish getting ready.”

“He picking you up?”

She shook her head. “No, we’re meeting up at the bar.”

“So, you’re driving?”

“Relax, spazz. I’m taking an Uber. No drinking and driving here.”

“Good. And hey, do me one small favor?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Go back to his place. Don’t bring him here. Rather spare myself the mental image.”

“I wouldn’t dream of bringing him here, you’re good.”

“Good, good. And hey, if he ends up not enjoying your time anymore A.) he’s an idiot, especially if you’re meeting him dressed in that. And B.) Call me, and I’ll come get ya. No matter the time.”

“Thanks, Cal. Now seriously leave.”

20 minutes after Michael asked to meet in 15 minutes, she was climbing into his car. “Geez, what took you so long?” he questioned, leaning across the seat to press a heated and bruising kiss to Y/N’s lips.

“Cal walked by when I was getting ready. You know for the quiet one, he really doesn’t ever shut up.”

“Shit, think he’s getting suspicious?”

“Nah. I mean I told him I was sort of seeing somebody. But I don’t think he thinks it’s you.”

“Sort of seeing somebody, huh?” Under a passing streetlight, she could see the corner of his lips pull up in a smirk. “You can call me your boyfriend if you want.”

“Oh, is that what you are?” she teased.

Michael chuckled. “I mean not to be heavy, but we’ve been seeing each other a while now. I think this is becoming something more than passing infatuation. I’m not seeing anyone else besides you. I don’t want to see anyone besides you. But if you don’t want to label this because of Cal or whatever, I can respect that.”

“No, no,” she said, softly, fingers tracing across the thick tattooed band on his arm. “I’d like that. Plus, might make telling Cal easier? So we can stop sneaking around? Not that I haven’t loved this. But, I’d really like to not act like we don’t know each other around company.”

His hand brought hers to his lips to stamp kisses over it as he pulled into his driveway. “We’ll tell him soon. Until then, I’m gonna enjoy keeping you to myself.” His gaze turned to take her in, his next breath catching in his throat. “Fuck… Did I tell you how stunning you look, yet? Or was I too busy griping about Cal holding you up like an ass?”

Her cheeks blushed. “Too busy griping. But that’s okay.”

“I think I can think of a way or two to make it up to you.”

“Oh, is that so? Do tell.”

“I think showing you might be more appropriate.”

She shuddered at his words. “Humor me anyway?”

“Let’s just say if my neighbors don’t know me already, they certainly will by tomorrow, because I am going to thoroughly enjoy familiarizing myself with every inch of your skin. And listening to how good my name sounds rolling off your tongue, and how good yours tastes on mine.”

How they managed to make their way inside the house was a mystery to them both as hands tangled in hair, and tongues explored mouths and the column of the other’s throat. Teeth nipped skin, as Y/N’s fell back onto the couch, and Michael marked a path down her body. “Pretty,” his voice taunted from underneath the skirt of her dress as he snapped the waistband of her panties, before pulling them down and off her legs, spitting the lace fabric out of his mouth.

“M-Mike,” she panted, her back arching, searching for him.

“Aw,” he taunted more, his face inches from hers. “You can do better than that. C’mon, I’m sure I got a few neighbors who don’t know who I am yet. Don’t you want to tell them my name, pretty girl?”

“Mike!” The repetition of his name was louder, the desperation in her voice stronger as her fingers wrapped around his wrist and guided him towards where she needed him.

As they surrendered themselves to each other, their names mingled together in the air like the most profanity-riddled melody, each of them certain that by the time daylight broke through the curtains, the neighborhood not only knew his name, but hers as well. 

~~~

Michael tiptoed around the clothes scattered on the floor as he made his way to the dresser, a wide smile plastered on his face. Their first bout that had shook the foundation of the house had led to them curled up on the couch, whispering the sweet promises of budding love against each other’s skin, before retiring to the bedroom. Which then led to a much slower love making of hot moans panted against heated skin, fingers intertwined, and locked gazes swirling with desire, love, lust, and passion. Afterwards exhaustion set in, and they fell asleep in a tangled web of limbs and bedsheets. 

He’d woken up, sure that this had all been a dream, but much to his delight, she was still sleeping soundly in his arms. And after waking her up, he was grabbing her some clothes to put on before joining her in the shower. Or he would have if someone wasn’t banging on his front door.

Confused, he made his way to the front of the house, pulling the front door open to find Ashton, Calum, and Luke on the other side. “See? I told you guys we should’ve waited until he responded,” Luke said with a shake of his head.

“Aw, who gives a shit?” Calum asked rhetorically, shouldering his way past a still confused Michael to get inside the house.

“Uh? What are you guys doing here?” Michael asked, stepping out of the way as Ashton and Luke followed Calum inside.

“Saturdays are for the boys, remember?” Ashton grinned.

“Yeah, but like… did we have actual plans? I- sorry… still waking up.”

“Long night?” Calum teased with a smirk.

“I’ll say,” Luke answered, blue eyes zeroed in on a pair of panties half-wedged between a couch cushion. “You got a girlfriend, Mikey?”

“Holy shit!” Ashton choked, giggling at the sight of Michael with his face frozen in terror. “Is she still here? Is that why you’re so jumpy, mate? Ya got your girlfriend hidden somewhere in your mini mansion?”

“I- What? Pffft, no!” Michael sputtered, grabbing the panties and balling them up in his fist, his green eyes looking wildly at Calum for any indication that his friend might be on to him.

Calum misinterpreted the look as a plea to step in on Michael’s defense. “Aw, leave him be guys. We should be celebrating that he’s finally getting back out there, not giving him shit for it. So when are we gonna meet the girl? When she comes back to claim her lost panties? Or should we leave to not embarrass the poor girl, and meet her some other time?”

“That,” Michael chimed in, “is a great idea, Cal. You guys should leave, because this is part of a matching set, so I’m sure she’ll be by the moment she realizes, and she’ll probably be embarrassed enough as is. So it might be best if you guys aren’t around when that happens. No offense.”

“Matching set?” Calum asked with a raised eyebrow and Michael gulped. “Damn, that girl knew what she was doing.”

The green-eyed blonde chuckled nervously. “Heh, yeah. She’s really cool. I like spending time with her. We’re still kinda figuring some stuff out, but I’ll be sure to bring her around s-”

“Hey, Mike? Have you seen my pa- oh fuck!”

“Y/N!” Calum thundered, jumping to his feet, while Ashton and Luke sucked in their breath and Michael and Y/N looked like a couple of deer trapped in headlights. “The guy you’re seeing is Mike?! You’re fucking my cousin?! And I’m finding this out now?! How long has this been happening?!”

“Maybe now’s not the time to ask questions,” Y/N hissed, trying to make herself as small as possible as she clutched the large towel around her like a lifeline.

“GET DRESSED!” Calum barked, his mind racing.

Michael and Y/N bolted to his bedroom, Ashton’s and Luke’s unrestrained laughter finally breaking free in the background while Calum screeched at them that “IT’S NOT FUNNY!”

“It’s a little funny,” was the barely audible response between wheezes and gasps for air.

Behind the closed door in the safety of the bedroom, Michael and Y/N shared a frantic look. “Well… that wasn’t the way I pictured that going in my head,” Y/N mumbled as she pulled the shirt Michael offered her on over her bra.

“Luke found your underwear,” he mumbled back, handing her the wadded up lace. “Sorry, I wrinkled it.”

“It’s fine,” she told him, stepping into them and then taking the offered gym shorts and stepping into those as well while he pulled on a pair of grey sweats over his boxers. “Hey,” she said softly, reaching up to cup his face and focus his frazzled mind on her. “We’re fine. Right?”

He gave her a small smile, relaxing at her touch. “We’re more than fine,” he nodded, kissing her forehead, each of her cheeks, her nose, and then finally her lips. “I still want you. And if Cal can’t deal with that… well… I…”

“Shh, don’t think about it. Cal’s not gonna care. Just gotta let the shock wear off, first.”

He nodded, his forehead resting against hers, green eyes searching for any kind of hope that they weren’t about to self-destruct; that if it really came down to it, they’d at least hesitate to choose Calum over the other. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, a tear sliding down his cheek despite his best efforts at self control. “This is all my fault. I- I just need you to know that this wasn’t a fleeting moment of infatuation for me. That I-“

“Ssssshhhhh,” she soothed, her thumb rubbing across his cheekbone. “Don’t do this. Don’t say goodbye before we have to.”

They slowly crept their way back to the living room, finding Calum in full interrogation mode. “Did you two know?” he was asking Ashton and Luke, whose bodies were still shaking from barely controlled laughter.

“Hand to God, we didn’t know,” Ashton swore.

“Honest,” Luke agreed before both men sputtered into a new fit of giggles.

Calum’s eyes narrowed, not sure what to believe as he turned on his heel, coming face-to-face with Michael. “Did they know?” he demanded.

“No. Nobody knew,” Michael told him.

“So what? Are you embarrassed to be with her, or something? Are you embarrassed to be with him?” The brown eyes shifted back and forth between the couple.

“No,” it was Y/N’s turn to answer. “We just didn’t want to come to you guys with the news before we figured out what we were to each other first.”

“And what are you to each other?”

“We’re dating.”

“And how long has this been going on?”

“About a month.”

“So, the whole time? Great… You’re a real pal, Mike.”

“Oh, leave him alone,” Y/N defended. “Like you go blabbing to the world whenever you start to get to know someone? No. You wait until you’re sure it’s not just a fleeting moment. Gimme a break, Cal.”

“So… this is like… for real then? You actually like like each other, and shit?”

“We really do,” Michael nodded.

“I see… Hey, Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember what I told you last night about not bringing the guy you were seeing home because I’d rather not have that mental image?”

“Yeah. What about it? Change your mind?” she teased.

Calum gagged. “Fuckin’ God, no! If you’re gonna insist on fucking Mike, do it as far away from me as possible. Also if you want to move out sooner, totally fine with that.”

Michael blinked in confusion. “Wait? You’re cool with this? With us?”

Calum shrugged. “If you make each other happy, you make each other happy. Not my place to tell you who you can and can’t date. But,” Calum’s tone changed to be as menacing as possible as he glowered at Michael, “break her heart, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

“What if she breaks mine?” Michael countered.

Calum laughed. “Then I’ll help you pick up the pieces, while secretly wondering what she ever saw in you because let’s face it, she’s too good for you.”

“I’d be more offended if you weren’t totally right.”

__

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