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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years ago

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Hi Steph! reading your blog has become a sort of guilty pleasure for me. Thanks for everything, it’s so clear that you put a lot of time and energy into your content. I was wondering if you have any johnlock fics that feature a particularly well-written or memorable original character? I always love to see how authors integrate their own character creations into johnlock stories!

Hey Nonny!

Ahhhh!! This is a GREAT request, because I like well-written OC’s in fics, so yeah, this is a great list to make. Here’s what I recall from my bookmarks. Please add your own faves, friends!

MEMORABLE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

Ex by Itsallfine (T, 1,248 w., 1 Ch. || Angsty Fluff, Love Confessions, Coming Out, Exes, First Kiss, Fake Relationship, Getting Outed) – One night, in the midst of their post-case high and on the cusp of something more, John and Sherlock run into John’s ex. His ex-boyfriend.

The Prize We Sought Is Won by deathfrisbees (E, 4,610 w., 1 Ch. || First Time, Mild D/S, Oral, Military Kink, Bottomlock) – Sherlock's in love, or in lust, or both--unfortunately, the object of his affections is not only his completely oblivious flatmate, but said flatmate would probably run screaming into the hills should he find out. John's been invited to a wedding--unfortunately, the groom used to serve under him back in Afghanistan, and requests that John wear a uniform he's honestly not sure he fits into. Unfortunately for both flatmates, Sherlock's got a military kink the size of Kandahar and John wants to know if he actually can fit into this uniform or if his eyes are deceiving him. It goes from there.

Time on my hands by Mildredandbobbin (M, 7,179 w., 1 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-S3, One Night Stands, Mutual Pining, Virgin Sherlock, First Time, Sexual Exploration / Discovery, Desperation, Body Worship) – Virginity’s a construct, a concept—what does losing one’s virginity entail for a gay man anyway? Sherlock wants to fill that particular gap in his knowledge but John won’t, can’t, never will assist and there’s only so much desperately unspoken pining even Sherlock can take.

High and Tight, Soft and Loose by cwb (E, 7,429 w., 1 Ch. || Jealous John, Miscommunications / Misunderstandings, First Kiss / Time, BAMF John, Insecure Sherlock, Clueless Sherlock, POV John, Embarrassed John, Adorable Sherlock, Junk Size, UST / RST) – John pressed the knuckle of his index finger against his mouth and sighed. “So, you're coiled like a spring and ready to be ... sprung?” “If you want to be pedestrian about it, yes.” “Like I said, you should do something about that.” “And like I said, pedestrian. What would you have me do? Take up jogging? Yoga? Oh! Unless you mean –” “I don't mean anything. Let’s drop it.”

Matters of National Security by mistyzeo (E, 8,465 w., 1 Ch. || BAMF John, Doctor John, Jealous Sherlock, Dating, Bisexuality, Arguing, Stupidity, Teasing, First Kiss/Time, Hand Jobs, Frottage, RST, Idiots in Love) – John starts dating a male client of Sherlock's, and Sherlock can't figure out why he's so incensed about it.

High Tide by stardust_made (T, 8,540 w., 1 Ch. || Jealousy, Angst, First Kiss) – A little favour Sherlock stupidly agrees to do for Mycroft leads to John meeting a handsome, affluent man, who is going out of his way to woo him. Sherlock struggles with the situation and with his own reactions to it. Part 1 of The High Tide Series

Iris by slashscribe (E, 11,948 w., 1 Ch. || Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Post-S3) – Sherlock does his best to make John happy when John comes back to 221B with his new baby after the events of Season 3, but Sherlock has a track record of getting things wrong in this area. This story is an exploration of their gradual shift from friends to lovers, told from Sherlock's perspective, full of a lot of pining and lack of emotional awareness.

A Brand of Gold by aquabelacqua (M, 12,757 w., 1 Ch. || Mutual Pining, POV John, Phone Sex, Texting, Masturbation, Long Distance, Drunk Texting) – What am I doing? he wondered. The answer came back at once: Flirting. He let the vital, missing piece snap into place as surely and as cleanly as if it had always been there. He was flirting with Sherlock Holmes.

Twelfth Night by yourdykeinshiningarmor (E, 15,139 w., 5 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Christmas, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Angst & Fluff, BJ’s, Anal) – John is invited to his aunt's Twelfth Night ball. Sherlock offers to attend with him as a friendly face among strangers, but John's family force him to address his true feelings for Sherlock.

Vessel by Rhuia (E, 15,695 w., 1 Ch. || Cancer, Medfic) – That was the surprising bit – the way his doctor said it, eyes shining with sympathy but breathing it out, shifting it off her shoulders and thrusting it onto his, making him take it like an unwanted gift.

A Life Well-Lived by Kate_Lear (E, 20,121 w., 1 Ch. || Original Male Character, Sherlock Woos John, Jealous Sherlock, Reluctant Bi-John, Past Abuse, Insecure John, Reassuring / Caring Sherlock, Protective Sherlock, Understanding Sherlock) – John got scared off men by an abusive past relationship. Sherlock has to try and woo him while not scaring him off with protective possessive rage.

Winter's Delights by Kate_Lear (E, 21,173 w., 1 Ch. || Holmes Family, Christmas, Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Bed Sharing, Domestics) – Sherlock takes John home for Christmas to meet the extended Holmes family. Part 1 of Winter's Delights

A Shipless Ocean by myswordfishmind (M, 22,135 w., 4 Ch. || Post-TRF, John has a Kid, Angst, Reunion, Falling in Love, Open Ending) – Ten years after the fall Sherlock goes back to London to find that John no longer lives there. Instead, he resides in a seaside town, a widower, and the father of a seven year old son. Now, Sherlock must struggle with the fact that there may no longer be a place for him in this new world.

Maintaining A Personal Life by Gingerhermit (E, 24,284 w., 6 Ch. || Alternating POV’s, Bisexuality, BAMF!John, Jealous Sherlock, Romance / Drama, Sort-of Case Fic, Peril & Angst, Love Confessions, Toplock, Soft Idiots in Love, Post S3) – Sherlock and John discover some interesting revelations about each other’s sexuality, which lead them both to question the assumptions they've made about one another for years. In the midst of their mutual discoveries, a dangerous psychopath looms on the side-lines who threatens to destroy their new beginning.

26 Pieces by Lanning (E, 28,236 w., 1 Ch. || H/C, Torture, First Time, Happy Ending, Schmoop, Past Abuse) – Mycroft gives Sherlock the apparently simple task of solving a puzzle box containing a stolen microchip. It isn't simple.

Where Else Would I Be? by cwb (E, 34,910 w., 10 Ch. || Retirementlock, Domestic Fluff, Falling in Love, Parentlock, Fluff and Smut, Reminiscing) – John and Sherlock's five-year-old granddaughter spends the weekend with them in Sussex. Sherlock happily indulges her whims, and John takes care of them while quietly revisiting the past thirty years of their lives together.

Classified(s) by blueink3 (E, 36,153 w., 4 Ch. || Wedding Date AU || Fake Relationship, Jealous, PIning, H/C, Idiots in Love, Happy Ending, Mary is not Nice, Escort Service) – Clara's American father is the ambassador to some such territory that Great Britain probably used to own, but she (and Harry’s undying love for her) is the reason John is getting on a flight at 12:30pm, flying across the second largest ocean in the world, and pretending to be in a perfectly happy, healthy relationship with an undoubtedly perfectly coiffed stranger. See, Clara is not only American (and wealthy to boot), she's also best friends with John’s ex-fiancée. Whom she's placed in the wedding party. As Maid of Honor. And John just happens to be Best Man. Bloody brilliant.

Nothing to Make a Song About by emmagrant01 (E, 36,833 w., 10 Ch. || Post-TRF, First Time, Reunion, Jealous John, Pining Sherlock, Romance, Angst with Happy Ending, Sherlock Has a Boyfriend) – When Sherlock returned from his faked death, John could not forgive him for the deception and broke off their friendship. Ten years later, John returns to London in search of yet another new beginning. Sherlock, not surprisingly, is waiting.

Set in Stone by SilentAuror (E, 39,309 w., 1 Ch. || Romance, Wedding, Therapy, Fluff and Angst) – Sherlock and John are back from Ravine Valley and planning their wedding. However, as they move past the trial of the human traffickers, Sherlock can't help but wonder if he's imagining that John is becoming a little distant. Surely he isn't getting cold feet about the wedding... Part 2 of The Ravine Valley series

Only To Be With You by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John (M, 40,768 w., 4 Ch. || Black Mirror / Future AU || Character Death, Future Technology, Sickness/Cancer/Illness, Heavy Angst with Happy Ending, First Person POV John, Pining John, Heart-Wrenching Angst, Promise of Forever) – I tell myself that next time I’ll come near this same place again. Wait around for the mysterious stranger in his coat to dash past me, hot on the heels of a new criminal in black. I think this all the way back to my Exit, planning where I’ll wait and what I’ll say when I see him. Scheming on how to get his name. It’s only once I reach the Exit Point door that I realize two hours and forty-five minutes have passed, and I realize that this won’t be the last time I Visit. It won’t be the last time at all.

Corpus Hominis by mycapeisplaid (E, 47,709 w., 12 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Case Fic, Fluff, Romance, Frottage, Angst, Anal, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Spas / Massages, Shampoo, Jealousy, Fake Relationship) - John knows the human body intimately. He’s had plenty of opportunity for study as a doctor, soldier, and lover. There’s one particular body, however, he knows very little about. When Sherlock launches himself head-first into a new obsession and they get sent on a case in an unlikely location, the pair discovers each other’s bodies with confusing yet delightful (and sometimes hilarious) results.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

Coventry by standbygo (E, 52,020 w., 26 Ch. || Dollhouse AU || Case Fic, Slow Burn, Sci-Fi / Fantasy, First Kiss / Time, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF John, Falling in Love) – “Let me get this straight,” John said, wondering when his life had become a science fiction film. “Some guy orders up a personality, a person, to his specifications, and they program this into a real live person, who has consented to do this, and she goes to this person and acts as his wife, or lawyer, or Royal Marine, or Navy Seal or what have you, and she has all the skills, all the knowledge, everything? Then you say the magic words, and she follows you back to The House, and they erase it all until her next appointment?”

Albion and the Woodsman by Glenmore (NR [E], 54,437 w., 50 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post S3, Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Angst, Family, Drug Use, Depression, Sherlock POV, Light Humour, Reconnecting, Declarations of Love) – Sherlock and John are devastated after Mary Morstan makes her final moves. Sherlock relapses at the crack house, John walks around the world … and a lot happens in between. Parentlock, in the good way.

Wars We Fought, Things We're Not by blueink3 (M, 55,204 w., 10 Ch. || Post S3 / Post TAB, Parentlock, Fluff & Angst, Kidnapping, Whump, Post-TAB, UST/URT, 3G, Mild Peril, Slow Burn, Couple for a Case, Protective Mycroft, Infant Death Pre-Story, Friends to Lovers) – Five months after John's world has fallen apart, Mycroft sends the consulting detective and his doctor on a case that neither is prepared for.

Isosceles by SilentAuror (E, 56,609 w., 7 Ch. || Post-S4, POV John, Original Male Character / Sherlock Dates Another Man, Love Triangle, Jealous John, Virgin Sherlock, Sexual Coaching, Angst, Romance, Domesticity, Unrequited Feelings, Miscommunication, First Kiss/Time, For a Case, Friends With Benefits, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Spooning) – After solving a case for a major celebrity, Sherlock gets himself asked out. When John asks, he discovers that Sherlock has no intention of going, at least not until John agrees to coach him through whatever he might need to know for his date...

The Great Sex Olympics of 221B by XistentialAngst (E, 58,611 w., 10 Ch. || First Time/Kiss, Experiments / Sexual Experimentations, Multi Pairings, Voyeurism) – John Watson thinks Sherlock Holmes should admit that he, Watson, is more of an expert on sex than Sherlock is. But Sherlock refuses to concede the point. He comes up with an experiment plan that will resolve the issue. The results will determine who wins the prize. But sometimes even the best thought-out scientific study has unexpected consequences.

Bridging the Ravine by SilentAuror (E, 58,887 w., 3 Ch. || Post S4, Couple For a Case, Bed-Sharing, First Times, Confessions, Awkwardness, Sex Trafficking, Massages, Wet T-Shirt Contest, Group Therapy, Past Loss of Child) – Sherlock and John go undercover at Ravine Valley, a therapy centre for same-sex male couples in an investigation into a possible human trafficking ring. As they pose as a couple and fake their way through the therapy sessions for the sake of the case, it quickly becomes difficult to avoid discussing their very real issues. Set roughly six nine months after series 4.

The Bells of King's College by SilentAuror (E, 64,019 w., 5 Ch. || Post-S4, Missed Opportunities, Angst with Happy Ending, Fake Relationship, Case Fic, John POV, Jealous John, John in Denial, Travelling / Holidays, Virgin Sherlock, Wedding Proposals) – It's only been two weeks since Eurus Holmes disrupted their lives when Mycroft sends John and Sherlock to Cambridge to pose as an engaged couple at a wedding show in the hopes of solving six unsolved deaths...

Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he's a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover's trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world's highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?

Secrets and Revelations by Hisstah (E, 83,535 w., 9 Ch. || Sentinel / Guides Omegaverse AU || Adventure, Violence, Anal / Oral, Omega!John / Alpha!Sherlock, Case Fic, Politics, Mild DubCon) – Dr John Watson has some major secrets that he's kept from his flatmate, Alpha Sentinel Sherlock Holmes. Now the Sentinel Tower is after him. Can John stay out of their hands until he can reveal his secrets to Sherlock? Part 1 of Secrets and Revelations

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater / Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

Maintenance and Repair by patternofdefiance (E, 106,650 w., 71 Ch. || Future AU, Augmentation || Augmented John, Depression, Body Modification, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding, Sci-Fi, Self-Care, Body Dysmorphia) – John wants to explain the rush of sensation and data, which is just another form of sensation (or is it the other way around?). John wants to say: Augmentation circuits report temperature, pressure, various forms of quantitative input. Sudden changes are reported as pain, since sudden changes are dangerous, and pain is the quickest way to encourage reflexive extraction. But all John can manage is, “Nng.” Because this sudden touch is not reporting as pain. Part 2 of STATIC

The Burning Heart by May_Shepard (M, 119,150 w., 21 Ch. || Canon Divergence, Post-TRF, John’s Sexuality, S3 Rewrite, Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, POV John Watson, John’s Gay) – When Sherlock dies, John Watson feels like his life is over too. He’s completely shut down, until Mark Morstan, a new nurse at John’s medical clinic, catches his attention, and helps him uncover the long buried truth of his attraction to men. Although he’s certain he’ll never get over Sherlock, John plans to move on, and build a new life with Mark, unaware that Sherlock is not quite as dead as he appears, and that Mark is hiding secrets of his own.

The Swan Triad Series by Pennin_Ink (T, 121,660 w. across 3 works || Swan Lake AU || Magical / Fairy Tale AU, Romance, Falling in Love, Pining, Psychological Torture, Transformation) – Sherlock and John grow up spending every summer together. Their mothers' attempts to play matchmaker only fuel their mutual resentment and scorn. But then, one summer.

Colors by Quesarasara (E, 140,537 w., 17 Ch. || Pleasantville-Inspired AU || Soulmates, Colour Bonds, Alternating POV, Angst, Fluff, Pining, Case Fic, Medical Procedures) – Everyone on earth is born with eyes that see in black, white, and an endless series of greys. When you meet your soulmate, you finally see the world in color. We're all searching for the person who brings color to our lives. John and Sherlock are no exception. Part 1 of The Colors 'Verse

The Adventure of the Silver Scars by tangledblue (NR [M], 142,458 w., 41 Ch. || S3 Fix-It, Post-HLV/ Post-TAB / Canon Compliant, Case Fic, No Baby, Angst, Humour, UST, Slow Burn, Angry John, Reconciliation, Not Nice Mary / Leaving Mary, Dependent Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Caretaker John, Fist Fights, It’s An Experiment, Virgin Sherlock, Dancing, Drugging, John Whump, Pet Names, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Scars) – It’s been thirteen months since Mary shot Sherlock and John finds he’s still pissed off about it. Sherlock had thought everything was settled: John and Mary, domestic bliss. But when John turns up at Baker Street with suitcases, the world’s only consulting detective might not be prepared for the consequences. A new case. Some old scores to settle. Certain danger. Concertos, waltzes, and whisky.

The Lost Special: Family Matters (As Do Relationships) by ShirleyCarlton (M, 144,688 w., 40 Ch. || S4 Fix It Fic, Unreliable Narrator, John’s Mind Bungalow, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending) – Sherrinford is not really the name of some high security prison. That was just a figment of John’s frantic coma dream. And Eurus is not actually Sherlock’s sister. That’s just something random she said to John before shooting him. Sherlock and John were never actually estranged. That was just their act to cover up what really happened to Mary – or Rosamund Moran, as her real name has turned out to be. Sherlock does have a secret sibling, though, and his name is Sherrinford. After finally eliminating Moran – though in a rather dramatically different way than they had envisioned – and exposing the truth about Eurus, John encourages Sherlock to delve into his past and to find out whether the reasons to keep Sherrinford away from Sherlock were the right ones, and to discover what really happened in 1981. Along the way, Sherlock and John gradually, finally, stop keeping each other at a distance, and eventually become a proper family of their own. (SC’s version of Sherrinford may as well be an OC; he’s well written and different from Canon)

Sketchy by serpentynka (E, 184,053 w., 83 Ch. || Post-TRF, Post-Mary, John Whump, Slow Burn Love Story, Case Fic, Art, Porn With Feelings, Switchlock, Travelling, Career Change, Family Secrets, Illness / Health) – What (and who) will be left when nobody cares about your Work? A slow-burn fic with cases, places, mistaken identities, unfair choices, essential changes, violent feels, blatant lies, fearless portraiture, family secrets, high-risk bespoke gifts, durable friendships, bedtime stories, foreign travel and tongues, sickness (and health), and the significance of things which are slow to unfurl -- but cannot be ignored. Oh, and...porn. Part 1: Sherlock takes on an obvious case (barely a 4) and meets someone who will force him to re-examine what it means to see. Part 1 of Sketchy

The Gilded Cage by BeautifulFiction (E, 326,887 w., 31 Ch. || Omegaverse || Omega Sherlock / Alpha John, Friends to Lovers, Dub Con, Reproductive Rights) – In a world where Omegas are the property of the elite Alphas, locked away and treasured by those wealthy enough to buy them, John never questioned his flatmate's secondary gender. Sherlock Holmes was an Alpha through-and through. Wasn't he? A chance discovery turns the world on its head, and John is left grappling to come to terms with Sherlock's past as events conspire to threaten their future.

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #original characters #my fic recs #Anonymous #long post

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ellieswhoreeee · 3 years ago

Text

The Two of Us. pt 3

Author’s Note; Hello everyone! Welcome back :) Thank you once again for reading The Two of Us, i’m so excited for he directing this will be heading. The ideas are flowing! Anyways, i think this story will be less then 10 chapters. There will be conflict- with some angst so be prepared! Enjoy!!

Endgame Pairing: Ellie Williams x fem! Reader

Warnings: Violence, marijuana, swearing, ect.

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“Wanna hear a joke?” Ellie asked after a couple of minutes of silence. You smiled, somehow feeling nostalgic. Ellie used to have this pun book that she would carry around when you two were younger and randomly tell you jokes.

It was refreshing.

“Alright, hit me.” You nodded, looking over at Ellie who was next to you. Ellie was on Shimmer, riding gracefully. She was looking straight ahead, almost as if she was avoiding eye contact with you.

But she wasn’t. If anything she was nervous.

Suddenly, she leaned over towards you- and smacked you over the head. She retreated back to where she originally was and smirked at you. The look on your face told her everything. “What? You said hit me, so i did. You’re welcome.”

Funny girl. Of course, you couldn’t even be mad or negative. You let out a small laugh. “Ellie, i’m pretty sure that wasn’t the joke.”

“How’d you figure?” With another look that you threw at her, she understood what it had meant. She thought about something for a moment, and then remembered what the joke was. “What did the grape say when it got crushed?”

“I don’t know, something with raisins?”

“What? No- you really suck at this,”

“Shut up and finish the joke.”

“Nothing, it just let out a little wine.”

“Ellie, god that was horrible.” You chuckled out, and continued to grip onto Gemini’s reins. At the moment you were passing a small town. You had no idea what the name was since the vegetation was covering all the signs, growing onto the buildings and overgrown as shit. Everything was so green and lush, but the way it was abandoned made it look scary.

Which made you even more cautious for infected.

“Oh yeah? Well, i’d like to hear one of your fabulous jokes.” Ellie’s voice rang through your ears. You looked over at her, somehow she was now ahead of you. You stared at the back of her head, looking at her long neck, her hair that was tied back and her slender shoulders. Ellie made you forget about the apocalypse.

“Sorry to break it to you but my speciality is pick up lines.” You answered with a smile. You finally looked away from her and your attention fell onto the graffiti on the buildings. But the moment you felt Ellie’s eyes on you, you looked back.

Ellie’s eyes were sparkling. You didn’t know what that look on her face meant, it was the first time you’ve seen her like this. “Really? Alright, i’d like to hear what your ex’s fell for.”

“Ellie, they don’t count since they’re not really ex’s.” You frowned, remember the people who you used to… Well, “hang out with”. There was a time in your life where you denied the feelings for Ellie. Where you thought it was a phase and that you were mistaking your feelings as something else. You thought the interest was you just wanting to be her close friend because god, Ellie was amazing. It took you some time and talking to some friends to realize what you felt was more than wanting to be a close friend.

“Doesn’t matter. I want a good pick up line!”

She seems fine with it, why wouldn’t she? It’s not like it’s something serious. You got this. Playful attitude and it’ll all be okay.

You nodded, and cleared your throat. You stopped Gemini from continuing to walk. You waited for Ellie to stop Shimmer, so she could actually look at you. And she did, she turned shimmer around so she could stare at you. You two were in the middle of the road, out in the open. “Can i borrow a kiss? I promise i’ll give it back.”

Ellie’s face flushed- it couldn’t be helped. That was a good pick up line, she couldn’t deny that. The way you said it, the way you were looking at her and… God, she was helpless. Wait- what was she thinking? She had a girlfriend back home! She swore to get over after realizing you couldn’t have liked her back!

“What? Was that not good enough? Well, i do have seasonal pick up lines. Like, If a kiss was a snowflake, I would send you a snowstorm.” And with that you sent her a small wink, and leaned closer to Gemini’s neck. The look on her face was… Different. You couldn’t really understand her.

“Y/n-“ There was a scream- multiple screams and clicks that brought you back from your little world with Ellie. You felt your stomach drop at the noise. Infected really are a pain in the ass.

“Infected,” You warned, looking around in the town where the sounds seem to be coming from. You noticed a broken window from a grocery store. It was dark, and there was small noises coming from in there. “I thought this area would be clear.”

“They like to wander, remember?” Ellie reminded you with a hard look on her face. You jumped off Gemini, and decided to tie him to an old bike post. “What are you doing?” She asked with a frown.

You pulled out your handgun from your holster, checking to see how much bullets you had in the clip before looking at her. “We have to clear this place, we are on patrol.”

“This isn’t the checkpoint, what are Danny and Axel gonna think when we don’t show up on time?”

“Then we should deal with this quickly. Come on,” You urged, walking towards the broken window and jumped in without hesitation. Ellie quickly followed behind you, trying to catch up.

You get pretty impatient when it comes to clearing areas. She’s not sure where it came from. You were more hostile around infected- with good reason too but it was to the point you would jump in even if it killed you. That’s how bad it was.

From where she was she could see you silently bringing down one of the runners. There was three clickers strolling around the registers while there was some more runners strolling the isles. 7 infected in total- well now six.

She followed your lead, and decided to take down some of the runners quietly. It was much easier than showering them with bullets that you needed. But just in case, you kept your gun close.

After a couple of minutes, you two finished and decided to look around in hopes of finding something good. Which was rare, but it was still worth a shot. You body lead you to the back of the store where a door caught your attention. With your left hand you attempted to open the door but of course it was locked.

“Come on, let’s get going now.” Ellie walked up to you, watching you as you kept your attention on the door. You looked up, finding the entrance of the vent open. Bingo.

“Ellie, give me a boost.” Ellie raised her eyebrows at you, and it seemed like all she wanted to do was leave. First, Ellie promised Joel she wouldn’t take the longer routes and that she would start off with groups patrols but here she is, doing the longer routes and doing paired patrols instead. She just hopes that Joel doesn’t find out. “I’ll just check in there and then we can leave. I promise.” You reasoned, giving her a convincing smile.

She sighed, and nodded. She couldn’t say no to you. She leaned against the wall, and got in position to give you a boost. With one foot you stepped into her hand and she hoisted you up. You climed straight into the vent and crawled into the locked room. The room was bigger than you expected. You thought it was a janitors room but it was actually an office. It was nicely put together for a room that has been locked for what you assumed was years. You were about to walk closer towards the large desk when you heard something, but the banging on the door distracted you.

“Y/n! Open the door already!”

You sighed, and moved towards the door. Just as you were about to unlock it, an ear piercing scream sent you into panic but you weren’t fast enough to react to the stalker who had grabbed you from behind. You were so close to its mouth that you could hear it’s teeth chattering in anticipation.

You struggled against its hold, trying everything in your power to get it the fuck off you because god, this thing was disgusting. “Get the fuck off of me!” You grunted, continuing to fight off against the thing but you don’t remember where you put your knife. You were barely holding the stalker back, but you grip on its neck was the only thing keeping you alive at the moment.

Two gunshot rang out, and the stalker dropped behind you. You fell to the ground, feeling the sick to your stomach. “Y/n! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Are you bitten!?” Ellie jumped down from the same vent that you came through, and kneeled down to you. She grabbed your face and continued to check for bites- or any signs of injuries.

You couldn’t look her in the eyes. “Shit.” You closed your eyes. “I’m loosing my shit.”

“Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here.” She grabbed your hand and pulled you up from the ground. She unlocked the door and lead you outside where the horses were waiting for you. Almost as sensing something was wrong, Gemini leaned into you once you were close enough.

“Hey, buddy. I’m okay.”

Ellie decided to let go of your hand. Your skin was warm and somehow she was comforted by that. But then she remembers that it probably meant more to her than it did to you. It always did.

She could never read you.

“What took you two so long?” Axel asked once you two made it to the dam. You two walked into the building, and straight to the watchtower. Ellie went straight to the couch while you walked towards the notebook and decided to report what had happened.

“Infected, we were clearing the an area and lost track of time.” You explained briskly. Axel nodded, noticing something was off but decided to say anything. Danny and Axel left after packing up.

You looked over at Ellie who was lounging around on the couch that was in another section of the room. She was writing something in her journal. You were curious as to what she was writing. “Watcha writing there, El?”

She didn’t look up and just continued to write. But she was smirking. “Only writing that i had to save your ass… Again.”

You groaned, hearing her laughing from her spot. “Watch it, William. I swear i’ll haunt you from beyond the grave.”

“You’ll never get the chance because i’ll always be there to save your ass.”

You rolled your eyes playfully. “Oh, yay. My own personal prince charming. What’s next, saving me from an evil queen who placed a curse on me?”

“We’ll, it’s on my list.” She joked, finally finishing up whatever she was writing in her journal. She closed her journal and hides it back into her backpack. You decided to look into the other room, you were looking for something specific. After some scavenging you finally found it. A bong.

“Hey, El! Guess what i found!” You yelled from the other room. You looked at the beautiful glass piece in-front of you.

“Please tell me you won the lottery, i would kill for a cruise ticket!”

“Funny,” You walked into the room Ellie was in, and presented the bong to her. Ellie’s eyes widen.

“How’s you know that was here?”

“There’s always at least one at each checkpoint.” You replied swiftly, giving her a grin. “ Eugene is a very chartable man.”

“We shouldn’t. Plus, we don’t have- wait, do you have some on you?”

You reached into your bag and pulled out a small bag of bud. You smirked and tossed her the bag. “As i said, Eugene is very charitable.”

Ellie was awestruck. “Jesus, y/n. Since when did you become a pothead?”

You hummed. “That’s a really good question- i’m not going to answer though.”

“Aw come on! I literally tell you everything.” Ellie slightly pouting at the fact that you were withholding information from her.

“Come talk to me when you’re 18.” You responded with a smirk on you’re face.

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Quit being a dick. You turned 18 a couple of months ago and don’t know how to act.”

“Shut up,” You walked over to her and sat on the opposite side of the same couch as her. You pulled out your bottle of water. “So, inside or outside?”

“Outside, obviously. Only one bowl, deal?”

“Deal.”

After many hours of waiting, you and Ellie were finally replaced at the dam checkpoint, so you two finished running your routes while riding back to Jackson. It started out rough but at the end of your shift you were feeling better. You had made it through the gates in one piece thanks to Ellie- and she made sure you didn’t forget it.

As soon as you made it to the stables you let out a relieved sigh. You started to stretch out your limbs. “It feels so good being back.” You let out a yawn, after you jumped off of Gemini. Ellie followed after you and stepped off of Shimmer. She grabbed Shimmer’s reins and held out her other hand towards you. You were confused on why she was doing that. “Uh… Is this one of your weird ways of telling me i’m awesome?”

“Psh, you wish. Give me his reins. I’ll bring him in.”

“You sure?” She nodded without any hesitation, so you handed her Gemini’s reins. “I’ll wait for you outside, maybe today’s the day we finish the flood arc.”

Ellie looked just as excited as you- maybe even more. “I’ll hold you to that.” She grinned, which made your heart beat faster. You turned on your heels and waited right outside the stables for her. You shouldn’t get too excited. She’s you’re best friend, your best friend who has a girlfriend. She doesn’t like me back. She doesn’t.

You felt like you were being watched so you looked around, finally finding as Cat walking over to you. She was taller than you and way more intimidating. “Uh, hey?”

She looked unimpressed. “Hey? That’s all you have to say after everything you’ve been doing?”

“Woah! What the hell are you talking about?” You had no idea what she was talking about. You didn’t do anything wrong, at least you don’t think you did. You wouldn’t do anything intentionally.

“Don’t pull that crap. I know you have feelings for Ellie.” She had said it a little too loud, and that’s what made you uncomfortable. You hated how open she was about everything- not everyone can be like that. It was one of the things you envied and hated about her.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Cat. Remember… before anything that Ellie is my best friend. So whatever the hell you think happened- didn’t!”

She scoffed, laughing bitterly. “Right. You expect me to believe that when you’re making Googly eyes at her all the time?”

“Cat! This isn’t the time or place to be talking about this. I’m serious.”

“Fine. Just admit that you have feelings for her and i’ll leave you alone.”

You scoffed, crossing your arms in an attempt to protect yourself from her glaring eyes. “Yeah, right. So you can kick my ass when you hear something you don’t want to hear? Why can’t you understand that what i’m feeling is one sided and that Ellie literally loves you! God, Cat. Couldn’t you have realized that instead of cornering me like this? I cant lie to you.”

“Y/n.”

You immediately recognized the voice, and you felt sick once again. You slowly turned around to face the girl who had been the cause for this altercation. She knows.

“Ellie…”

#ellie williams x reader #ellie x reader #ellie williams #tlou2 ellie #dina tlou #jesse tlou #cat tlou2 #the last of us part two #maria tlou #tommy tlou #joel miller #tlou2

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dazaii-sann · 4 years ago

Text

DAZAI x CHUUYA FANFICTION: ONE-SHOT [LOVE OR GUILT]

Blue.

Brown.

Green.

Yellow.

Orange.

Varied colors blended with each other like a 24-color palette. The wind blew from the west, causing the nearby tree leaves to dance along with the non-existent beat. The blue, clear water rampaged in silence, creating an almost seemingly soft serenade. A huge shining orb in the distance was split in half, projecting its reflection on the calm, unmoving water from below.

The whole place is quiet as if every single living soul had already vacated the area.

Well, not quite.

Two figures stood beneath a tree's shadow, taking refuge and solace after a whole day of struggles. The calm, light afternoon breeze soothe their souls as they look at the orange-painted sky.

Silence ensues but for them, it's what they need.

The quiet rage of the sea.

The hushing sound of overlapping leaves.

The way the remaining rays of the dusk kiss their flesh.

The sound of their even breathing.

Sounds romantic, right?

It is, except for one thing.

Everything, everything seems to retain its brilliance but something decided to exclude itself from that small band of glow.

A redhead's eyes… It's empty. The very exact opposite to his surrounding's radiance.

Meanwhile, the brunet beside him stood still, unmoving, as if he's already accustomed to that kind of scenario.

But is he?

No. Definitely not. Not in a million years.

Seeing his ex-partner like that made his knees wobble. All the remaining courage in his body had left him that even panning his head to Chuuya became an impossible task.

The guilt is slowly consuming him, pulling him into a world far more hellish than hell itself.

They stayed like that for a while, the stillness of the setting sun completely vanished into existence and was dethroned by a huge dark blanket covered with stars. The moon is in its crescent form, seems incomplete but whole all the same.

The coldness of the night embraced the two up to their bones, causing them to shiver.

"It's getting cold, Chuuya. Let's go inside?" The brunet proposed without looking at Chuuya.

He can't. Or maybe he actually can, but he chose not to.

Chuuya nods his head slightly and Dazai saw that movement from his eyes' corners.

Dazai's feet move in front of Chuuya's rear. With a slight push, the wheels on Chuuya's seat were sent into motion, carrying Chuuya's body along with it. Trails of the redhead's wheelchair and the brunet's footprints were engraved in the shore's sand and were immediately erased by the wave's arrival.

In just a few minutes, they reached a small house built near the shore. From its size, one can conclude that its interior can only shelter two people at once.

Upon entering the house, Dazai turned on the lights that he closed before going outside with Chuuya this afternoon. It has a simple structure. A kitchen, two couches and a table in between them, the comfort room, and a shared bedroom.

Dazai carefully lifts Chuuya's body and transfer it to one of the couches.

"You're so light, Chuuya~ Am I not feeding you well?" Dazai tried to annoy Chuuya like he used to back in the days but the redhead's expressions didn't even change. Not even a single move in his facial muscles. The brunet knew from the very start, that he could no longer hear Chuuya's annoyed response coming from his own mouth but he's still hoping, hoping that he could still hear Chuuya's voice one more time.

Chuuya's just like a lump of flesh without a soul inside of it. It is said that the soul is the trigger of an ability.

Maybe that's the exact reason why Chuuya lost his.

Ah no… There's no one to be blamed but Dazai.

Or at least, that's what he thought.

After moving Chuuya in a comfortable position, Dazai left him and went straight to the kitchen.

Dazai was a bad cook. Everyone must ready their pitiful stomach before taking in Dazai's food. Not only that but for the aftermath (puking included). But who would eat those kinds of stuff (can't consider them as "food") in the first place?

Everything changed when he started to live and take care of Chuuya over the past 3 years. He learned how to prepare varied homemade viands. Well, he doesn't want the redhead to eat canned goods every single day!

Dazai turned on the flame and let the ingredients fly and land on the pan's heated surface. He hummed a familiar tune, hoping that Chuuya might remember its tune but to no avail.

Dazai arranged the food into a plate and went to the redhead, utensils in his other hand.

Without a word, he scooped a spoonful and brought it closer to Chuuya's mouth.

"Say ah~"

If anyone could see this kind of scenario, the brunet looks like he's feeding a 3-month old baby.

"Well, he's indeed a baby," Dazai said at the back of his mind while moving the spoon back and forth.

After that dinner, Dazai once again carried Chuuya to their bed. It's not that big, but not too small. Just enough for the two of them.

Dazai then wrapped his arms around Chuuya's body. To give him warmth, a human's warmth to liberate the coldness of the night.

With the brunet's slender arms encircled around the redhead's body, and Chuuya's head leaning against Dazai's shoulder, they fall asleep.

Almost at the same time.

***

For three years, the very same sequence of events happened.

Watching the sunrise and sunset together.

Helping him to eat his own food.

And then finally, cradling each other until they got consumed by the God of Sleep.

Have they grown tired of it, especially Dazai?

Even he doesn't know the answer. He was known as the Demon Prodigy of the Port Mafia, someone who can see through everything. But why can't his superior, almost inhumane mind comprehend this feeling of longing?

Longing for what?

Is it for the return of his ex-partner's glory or the longing to return to his old life?

Maybe, but maybe not.

Dazai thought that the same exact happenings will happen again for today, and the days after that.

But he's wrong.

On with their usual routine, they watch the sun's tiny movement, trying to pull itself up higher in the sky as if it's trying to assert dominance and power. Somehow, the sunrise resembles Dazai every time he rose to bed, struggling his way up like he was being pulled down by the Earth's gravity. To make it less fancy, he's just simply lazy.

"C-chuuya… Is that you?"

Dazai froze, literally.

T-that voice…

Dazai panned his head to where the sound originated.

"A-ane…san…"

Kouyou smiled, but there's hidden remorse in it. The intensity of her eyes changed the moment it landed on Chuuya's frail body.

She looked away and face the brunet once more.

"It's been a while, demon."

***

"So… You're still taking care of him?" Kouyou sat in one of the couches inside of their house.

"Mm…" A simple nod is the only response that he could offer. He's not in the right mood to entertain a conversation right now, especially to those with whom he had ties.

Despite his seemingly uninterested remarks, he's still on the lookout. Who knows? Kouyou might try to do something funny. As for Chuuya, he doubts that this woman will do such a thing.

"I see… I see…" At the same time, a mocking laugh escaped out of her lips. Dazai, on the other hand, painted confusion throughout his face.

"It's all your fault anyway. You've got to clean your own mess and atone with what you had done."

Dazai clenched his fist as tightly as he could.

"Why are you still taking care of him?"

Dazai's lips went agape, trying to utter a word or two but failed miserably.

Why then? What keeps him from escaping and leaving Chuuya behind?

He doesn't know.

"I…"

"Do you love him?" Kouyou's question streak kept on bugging Dazai's feelings.

Dazai's so sure of that fact not until Kouyou retorted once more.

"Or is it because of guilt?"

Guilt, huh?

The brunet said no more and silence governed the two of them.

"Now demon… Which one is it?"

***

Darkness… Just pure darkness…

Or at least, that's what Chuuya sees.

He can't feel anything, nor grasp reality. He's just there, floating in the middle of nothingness. But amidst that abyss, he can feel his bones cracking, his body collapsing, and his blood leaking out of his system. The pain must be immeasurable and unbearable but none of those physical pains can equal his suffering.

He hates the dark, the emptiness because it always made him feel alone.

He can hear a huge crowd of people screaming at the top of their lungs as if their lives are in danger of death.

Yes, that's actually the case.

They're fleeing, away from the young boy in the middle of that immense object and that enemy he's battling against.

Their abilities clashed and the fiery battle caused a deal of damage to the establishments and facilities in the city, but Chuuya came out victorious. Yokohama is safe once again. The civilians already evacuated, thus no casualties recorded.

Everything's fine now.

But Chuuya's still not.

He's on his limit, and his rampage will continue up to the end of his life.

He had already accepted his fate, that corruption will disappear along with his existence but a bandaged hand tamed him.

But it's already late.

Chuuya got hospitalized after that. His life was saved, but his nervous system was badly affected.

Dazai couldn't help but blame himself. He was doing a lot of paper works at the armed detective agency's office (forced by Kunikida of course) but the unexpected foe barged its way to Yokohoma without even knocking.

That's why he's late to arrive at the scene.

Why did Chuuya activate his corrupted form without him?

He's such an idiot, an utter idiot…

But he's far worse than that.

***

"Chuuya~ Let's go outside?" Dazai asked his ex-partner but the latter shook his head weakly, much to the former's surprise. It's the first time Chuuya declined his invitation.

Instead of going outside, Chuuya points his finger to their room's direction, by which, Dazai understood and followed. Maybe Chuuya is just sick of watching the sun's routinary motion every day or he just wants to rest.

To ease his boredom, Dazai cooked for their supper, but a creaking sound came out from Chuuya's location.

Dazai dropped the spatula in hand and sprinted to their bedroom only to find Chuuya scribbling something on a small piece of paper. Because of his malfunctioning muscles, the pen he used created a noise as it dropped on the floor.

"Chuuya? What are you doi-" Dazai is stopped dead in his tracks the moment he saw the letters inscribed on his paper. Beside the redhead is a small calendar with eighteen days crossed out for the month of June.

Today's June 19. Dazai's birthday.

"Ha…" Chuuya struggled to say something with his shivering and shaky voice. "Ha…ppy bir-th-da…y, sh-itt…y mac…ke-rel."

Dazai's heart starts to pound harder as if it wants to leap out of his ribcage. His head feels so fuzzy, but light at the time.

What's this feeling…?

Sadness?

Happiness?

Longing?

But Dazai knew that it's more than that.

"Now demon… Which one is it?"

"Ane-san… I already know the answer." He said at the back of his mind before embracing the redhead. He leaned closer to the former executive's ear and whispered, "Thank you, chibi."

Chuuya might not be able to restore his condition the way it once was but for Dazai, that doesn't matter now.

Whether Chuuya the petite mafia executive who kept on bickering with him back in the days or the Chuuya who's struggling to write a single sentence of greeting over a sheet of paper�� Dazai's always fond of him, whatever the version.

And that will not change until the end of time.

-END-

#dazai osamu #nakahara chuuya #soukoku #double black #dazai x chuuya #bungo stray dogs

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harryandmolly · 4 years ago

Text

fear and loathing in mandeville canyon *5*

summary: Shawn & Lilly, derailed, detoured, but maybe not destroyed

warnings: language, NSFW (unprotected sex), The Reckoning pt. 1 (this warning brought to you by Georgie Kingston)

wc: 4.7k

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

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow. I mean… wow.”

“I know, right?”

Shawn and Lilly are sitting up in Lilly’s bed, her sheets pooled around their naked hips. Her phone sits between them, glowing the only light in the room. Her home screen is a picture of Lauren dressed as the Statue of Liberty from Halloween in college.

At first when Lilly checked the time, she was sure it said 5:04 PM. But given the time of year, it was too dark for that to be true. Shawn stirred and they inspected it together, equally bewildered.

5:04 AM. They slept for a clean 14 hours. By the way they each stretch and groan, neither of them moved a muscle the whole time. Lilly feels like she’s at the brink of atrophy, with a comfortable soreness between her legs.

She looks over at Shawn. He’s bleary-eyed, extra flushed from all the body heat they produce in the same bed together, with pillow marks on his cheeks and chest. Lilly has a mark across her side from the weight of his arm. It’s like they’ve been asleep for years.

Lilly lets her phone screen go dark. Dawn isn’t coming for a while. They’re alone. Their breathing syncs. Shawn yawns. Lilly follows. The quiet aches.

She reaches over to her nightstand and flicks on the lamp. The orange glow is made warmer than usual with his big brown eyes watching her. It’s different, though, than it has been. He’s not watching her like one of them is impersonating a dog in an ASPCA commercial. It’s curious and gentle, but there’s a confidence there, too. It seems she’s missed it.

“Hello there,” she sighs, coming down onto one folded arm on her side. He follows, mirroring her.

“Hi.”

She’s quiet for a few moments, looking him over. He squirms a little under her gaze.

“Thanks for shaving the gross facial hair.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “No problem. My mum made it pretty clear that she was going to ask me to shave it every time I FaceTimed her, so it was just delaying the inevitable.”

Lilly’s brows lift. “Did you like the gross facial hair?”

Shawn chuckles. “No. I guess I was just curious. I don’t really get to try shit like that most of the time. So.”

She nods, continuing her inspection, as though she hasn’t looked at him in the weeks they’ve been in Mandeville Canyon together. She doesn’t comment on his weight or the pallor of his skin. She has no business, given the way she’s been treating her own body. She internalizes it and moves on.

Timidly, she lifts her hand through his hair. His eyes flutter shut, he nuzzles into it automatically. She feels that ache between her thighs again, more prominently this time.

“But about the hair… maybe I should cut it. If you want me to.”

Shawn’s eyes brighten. “I didn’t know you could cut hair.”

“Oh, I can’t. I mean, I haven’t yet. But I’ll watch a video, we’ll be fine.”

He hesitates only for a moment, surprising her. “Ok. Yeah. It’s probably time.”

Lilly feels an odd sensation getting out of that bed and it can’t be blamed on low blood sugar or dehydration. The writer in her feels a scene ending when Shawn pulls himself up and walks into her shower, leaving the door open when he turns on the water and inspects his hair in the mirror, along with a couple of zits. The finality is an illusion, because life isn’t so neatly told like a screenplay. Even though she feels the scene is over, she has to stand up and find a clean pair of panties and think of some search terms to find a useful hair cutting tutorial on YouTube. There’s another scene and she doesn’t know what it is yet. She doesn’t even know what she wants it to be. But there’s putting the laptop down and walking away. There’s no stopping it.

Lilly wanders into the kitchen in panties and a tank top, too preoccupied to notice the utility scissors when she opens drawers looking for them. His footsteps are house-shakingly loud as they carry him from her side of the house to neutral ground. He arrives with a towel around his waist. His hair looks even more like sad limp noodles when it’s wet. He stops in the doorway, watching her. He waits until she pulls a chair into the empty space between the breakfast table and the island, under a bright cluster of lights. He takes the invitation to sit.

He even smells warm, somehow. Lilly’s urge to lick up the rivulets of tepid water coasting over the mountains and valleys of his back is disorienting.

They watch the tutorial together on her phone. It seems a small concession to make, given what he’s putting her in charge of. He doesn’t have any specific direction to give her beyond longer on top, shorter on the sides. So she goes hunting for some inspiration.

You would think she would know better than to dive into the “Shawn Mendes” tag on Tumblr. The seizing half-hiccup, half-pseudo stroke sensation she gets from accidentally coming upon a hoard of pictures of them together is back. Lilly blames a recent lack of exposure for the completely noticeable, pity-inducing reaction. Her callous has softened. After an awkward few seconds, she pivots to Google.

“I think we’re going for�� like… February 2019 hair. That was really good hair,” Lilly insists, plowing ahead, gesturing to photos of him on the red carpet at the 2019 Brit Awards.

“Yeah,” Shawn replies, “That was good hair. Maybe a little longer on the sides though. I liked what I had going, like, before quarantine.”

Lilly grumbles something under her breath about googling photos of that era over her dead body. Shawn relents.

“It’s fine, you should cut it-- just cut it however. It’s fine.”

Lilly begins by balling up a little tuft from the top of his head into a teeny bun. She stands between his legs to arrange it, making sure it’s even on both sides. His eyes remain on his feet the whole time.

She starts at the back of his neck, smoothing his curls out to decide how much to trim. Her fingers are more helpful than the comb, she soon realizes, in keeping them flat enough to judge. She begins by cutting it shorter at the base of his neck so the short curls can do the sproing thing she likes. As she moves up the back of his scalp, she leaves it longer until she hits his funny little man bun. When the silence breaks, she’s so jarred she has to ask him to repeat himself.

“I…” he clears his throat, “I think it’s time that you ask me some of those questions.”

Lilly hates that she knows him so well she doesn’t have to ask which ones. She fluffs out the back of his head with her fingers and decides it’s not completely tragic, so she moves onto his left side.

There are considerations, of course. Is her stuff in a state that she could easily pack and bail in a short time frame if he reveals himself to be dumber than originally feared? Is digging up old dirt to toss it over a wound that won’t heal really necessary?

Is it a good idea to have this conversation while she’s wielding something that could easily be used as a deadly weapon?

Lilly takes a long moment to blink and sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, eyeing the way his hair wraps over the tip of his ear. She brushes it with the pad of her thumb. It reddens.

There’s a preamble in her head, one that lectures him about the absolute necessity of honesty in this situation, the futility of the exercise if he’s not willing to be completely transparent. When she notes the way his knee bobs anxiously, she stops it in its frilly-worded tracks.

She pulls curls off the side of his neck, right over the freckles she likes, and snips.

“When did it start?”

Shawn doesn’t shrink or react in any noticeable way. This isn’t a surprising question.

“I started feeling it when we were in working on Senorita. We weren’t really talking much before that. We started texting a little. It was the first time I felt anything for her since you and me started.”

Lilly sections off the hair above his ear and starts to feel herself working slower. She remembers the first time she heard about the idea of the Senorita collab when he told her over the phone. He sounded tired. Lilly was enthusiastic, knowing he and Camila had been closer before Lilly was in the picture. She felt some guilt for driving some kind of wedge between them, however unintentional. The collab seemed like a nice way to reconnect with a friend.

“The music video.”

Lilly doesn’t phrase it as a question. She doesn’t need to.

“That was when things came more… into focus. She and her ex were in the process of breaking up. I didn’t know for sure then what was going to happen. But it was the first time I thought something actually might.”

Lilly focuses on the way his hair sits above his ear, debating about how short to cut it. She recalls FaceTiming with him from rehearsals. He was so excited. He was nervous about dancing. Lilly teased him. He reminded her repeatedly that he loved her. She wonders if it was more for him to hear out loud than it was for her.

“What exactly happened between you before you broke up with me?”

Shawn flinches slightly. Lilly feels the sick pleasure of it sizzling in her fingers, imagines a tick arriving with a satisfying ping in her nonexistent column.

Shawn takes a deep breath. “It was… at one of the viewing things before the final cut of the video. We got drunk.”

Lilly’s heart slams in her chest like a fish out of water. This was a mistake.

“I knew she and Matthew were done but I asked anyway. We were… we were the last ones there and just fucking around, being goofy. I kissed her.”

Snip. Snip. Snip.

Shawn doesn’t ask to look at whether she’s defacing one of his calling cards.

“Anything else?” Lilly asks coolly, wondering if a fuck might’ve actually felt like less of a soul-deep betrayal. Doesn’t matter, probably. She still lost him.

“Not until after.”

Lilly systematically strokes her fingers through his hair as she switches over, angling to determine if the sides are even. Her stomach hurts.

“Did you tell her you were going to leave me before you did?”

She watches him swallow.

“Yes.”

Lilly remembers the image she had of her sitting in the back of a dark Uber Black, hunched over her phone, waiting outside Lilly’s house for the deed to be done.

The questions are sprouting faster than Lilly can come up with a strategy for dealing with them. She takes a weed whacker to her mind unsuccessfully.

“What did she-- how did she--”

Lilly stalls out and drops her scissored hand by her side. Shawn looks over at her patiently. He doesn’t cower or turn away or guilt her out of this line of questioning with a glance.

Lilly shakes her head and waves her not-sharp hand for him to turn his head back. She gets to work evening out the sides, pinching his strawberry-scented ringlets, making a focused effort not to yank at them.

“All the pictures… the paps, whatever. Did you consider what that would do to me?”

Shawn keeps his head forward, eyes fixed on the refrigerator at the other side of the room. He wets his lips and speaks, “I… didn’t really let myself focus on it. I told myself it wasn’t really my fault, I wasn’t the one calling them and doing all that shit we did in the beginning. I told myself it wasn’t about me and Camila, it was about the single, so anything we did to promote the single was ok.”

“That was a very long-winded no.” Lilly keeps her voice even.

“There’s so much I did that I handled completely fucking wrong. We, I mean you and I, we were hitting this point, this weird, shitty point where we were both really busy and couldn’t be around each other that much. It had been over a year and the, like, giddiness wasn’t there at the time. Like, neither of us was that happy then.”

Lilly’s nostrils flare. Her lips purse and begin to part, ready to unleash hell.

“I used it as a shitty fucking excuse for something I was probably going to do anyway.”

Lilly takes a step back. She drops the scissors beside him and crosses her arms, staring expectantly. Shawn takes the scissors and fiddles with them.

“The honest, stupid fucking truth is that I had this… I dunno, this thing for her. I could never totally let go of it. That’s not to say I wasn’t happy with you, or that I was thinking about her when I was with you… that was never it. But when she started showing interest in me, when she was telling me about the shit with Matthew, I just… I think I felt like it had to happen. Like something I had to get out of my system. I romanticized it at the time; it felt like fate, maybe.”

“I’ve heard the song, Shawn,” Lilly snaps. Shawn blinks hard, but is otherwise still.

“I know. I know you, Lill, I know you’ve been through the whole catalogue, tearing it apart, deciding what was about her.”

He’s not wrong, Lilly thinks bitterly.

“I felt this weird kind of instant relief when I was sure she wanted me. It checked this old box that felt like it was going to stay unchecked forever. I felt so shitty, calling it off with you, but it felt like I was doing what I was supposed to. But it wouldn’t have felt so shitty if it were really what I was meant to do.”

“Do you realize how entitled and selfish you sound right now?”

“Yes.”

The tightness in Lilly’s face relaxes, her expression blank. She wasn’t expecting such an easy response. She wasn’t expecting a real response at all.

“I do. It’s ok if you don’t believe me, I don’t really blame you. I haven’t given you any reason to. But if we have a shot in hell, and fuck, I hope we do, I think you need to hear this. I don’t think you’ll ever stop wondering unless I really lay it all out.”

Lilly swallows a lump in her throat and releases the tuft of hair, sliding the elastic back on her wrist. As she ruffles through his damp hair, Shawn’s eyes slide closed.

“Keep talking,” Lilly whispers.

“So I did it. I ignored how fucking bad I felt after that initial relief. Like, not just bad because of our fight, just… bad. I had done the wrong thing. I made the wrong choice. I do still think it was the choice I was going to make because I’m fucking young and stupid. I just--”

His jaw tenses, the muscle in his cheek twitching. Lilly waits patiently, parting his hair.

“I might’ve always wondered. I’m a hopeless romantic idiot. But at least now she’s not the one that got away anymore. She’s the one I tried it with and realized it didn’t work.”

Lilly closes her eyes and exhales through her nose. She waits for the words to hit all the spots they did before when he tried to talk this out with her, the pain points. Spots that made her snarl and retch and wail and slash at him. Instead they feel like a rising tide around her knees.

“So… what happened?” she whispers.

“For a while we lived on the high of the single. Both our teams were so focused on it and on us. The VMAs and everything, finishing tour. By the time the Grammys came around I think we were both so fucking sick of that song. The backlash that came from all the media attention… it didn’t just go away like we hoped it would. I started laying really low on social. She was getting ready for tour and I was working on the album. Not being focused on the same thing, on promoting one song, it helped put things more into perspective I think. Pulling away started to feel… natural.

“And then the pandemic came. It felt like a time to hit reset. I went down to Miami and felt pretty stupid because everything just got so much worse every day and I was worried about not even being able to leave. But… we were on the same page, basically. It wasn’t fun, but it was… right. Neither of us wanted it. We tried it, it ended. I think… I mean, we don’t hate each other. I don’t think we’ll be like, writing friends again. But maybe eventually we’ll talk again.”

Lilly sucks at her front teeth. “You haven’t talked at all since you left?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

Shawn looks thoughtful. “Not… yet. I don’t think I have anything to say that we haven’t said already. Maybe… I dunno, maybe that was part of it. I always felt like I wanted to talk to you, like I always had stuff to tell you, even stupid stuff. Me and Camila ran out of stuff.”

Lilly shifts to stand in front of him, keeping her gaze on his hair, though her eyes are not in focus. She sifts her hands through it while she thinks.

“I still have more questions. I’m just…”

She trails off. Shawn nods carefully.

“It’s ok. I’m… not going anywhere.”

Lilly’s eyes shut. “I think it’s important for you to understand that when you say things like that, my head immediately comes back with “but you did.” You did go somewhere. You didn’t come back for a long time.”

Shawn pauses, then nods again. Lilly sighs.

“I’m not saying this to punish you anymore. I don’t want that. It’s not doing anything for me. But you need to understand that I can’t just turn it back on. Even when you make me want to.”

Shawn’s expression clears. He turns his head slowly as she continues ruffling his hair, snipping odds and ends. She doesn’t look down at him.

“I do understand. I’ll wait, Lill. I’ll give you whatever you need.”

“And what if I don’t know what I need?”

Shawn looks unconcerned. “Then I’ll wait for you to.”

Lilly continues sculpting his hair like a topiary. He looks older with his hair this way. She thinks it’s not a total disaster, maybe.

“I have another question,” she announces. Shawn waits expectantly.

“If the pandemic didn’t happen… when were you going to end it? When were you going to come to me?”

Shawn’s brows raise, but he looks far away again. “Truth is I almost did a few times. A bunch of times after the holidays. I had this countdown clock in my head because I knew as soon as we finished the album, I wouldn’t just be able to spontaneously come see you, not if I wanted to spend any real time with you. I just kept scaring myself out of it.”

She understands that, especially given the way their first meeting went down.

Lilly internalizes the answer, then turns back to her imaginary notes. Each question has a line through it. Nothing new materializes. She frowns.

“I don’t have any more questions.”

Shawn bobs his head, watching her closely.

“I might have more questions later,” she continues. His expression doesn’t change.

Lilly drops her hands to his shoulders. He blinks but reorients himself, slowly guiding his hands to her hips. She steps closer. His knees widen. As Lilly folds herself over him, pressing her face into his hair, he collapses into her, his forehead against her sternum. Her relief is narcotic. Her head hasn’t been this truly empty since… she can’t remember when.

He smells like her. He’s holding her. He’s breathing her air. He’s hers. Little by little, she’s starting to believe it.

Lilly steps around his legs and lowers into his lap. Their eyes are nearly level. Shawn locks his arms around her back. His nose brushes hers.

“Ok,” Lilly murmurs.

Shawn inhales and exhales deeply. “Ok.”

Lilly’s hands rest on his chest as he kisses her. He doesn’t come at her with fire and brimstone this time. He has nothing to prove. He knows exactly how good it feels. He seems to want to slow down and enjoy this as much as she does. He kisses her long and slow because they have the time. His hands remain mostly still. He seems to feel that she needs the stasis, despite their frenzied night.

Shawn’s kisses whisper to Lilly with each pass -- is this ok? How about this? I don’t want to push it. I care too much to push it. They’re the easiest sentiments to believe when they’re said like this.

Lilly drapes her arms around his shoulders, enjoying the breadth of them, plucking her lips away in shorter bursts until they’re pecking innocently, smiling with closed eyes between points of contact.

“Do you want to check out your hair?” Lilly offers, shifting back in his lap. He’s the most marvelous shade of pink.

“Oh,” he starts, pulling a hand up into the still damp chunky strands, “I can look later. I’m sure it’s great. It feels way lighter, actually.”

Lilly is smug. “You just want to sit here and keep kissing.” His smile is megawatt. She’s blinded.

“Can you blame me?”

Kissing him is… completely lovely. Lilly refamiliarizes herself with him in a way she didn’t yesterday. Her fingers find the tendons in his shoulders, the ridge of his adam’s apple, the little hoop in his earlobe. It’s a redundant kind of flirtation, given that she’s already in his lap, but it might be more for her than for him.

His lips skate down her neck as they break for air. He tucks kisses under her hair over marks she doesn’t remember him leaving. Lilly closes her eyes and exhales slowly, letting herself hate them a little for tearing each other to shreds. It wasn’t like them. Even when they were at their most frantic together, it wasn’t like that.

Lilly feels a lump in her throat. He must sense the change in her breathing. But instead of pulling away to check on her, Shawn pulls her closer, fills all the spaces her body leaves until she’s cradled against him, chest shuddering. He presses his nose into her hair and rocks her softly, back and forth, until he feels her tears dripping off his shoulder down his bare back.

“It’s ok,” he murmurs, the vibration from his voice tremoring through her body, “If it feels good to cry, you should cry.”

Shawn has a way of saying things to her that would bring her no relief to hear them from anyone else. Even though she believes him, and she’s pretty sure he’d sit here into the night and let her cry herself dry against him, she pulls back. He looks her over. She stares at his swollen mouth. He sweeps his thumbs beneath her eyes.

“I’m sick of crying,” she tells him with a short nod. He nods back. His eyes are clear and so warm. His hands sift back into her hair and hold it all, scrunching tumbling, escaping strands like he can’t bear to let any of her go. He kisses her breathless.

“Be gentle with me,” Lilly pleads on a sigh, releasing him only long enough to undress. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

He’s always been patient, even when she could barely stand to let herself be touched by him. He waits until every sound out of her chest is nearly a whine and her fingers curl into his freshly cut hair, cajoling him. When their bodies finally connect, he’s slow and deliberate, the tips of their noses together, their fingers clenched together against her thigh. She doesn’t thrash or force or scrape for him. He doesn’t stop until she’s melted for him, draped over his shoulder, panting with need. She clings, he gives. When she’s finished, she cups the back of his neck and whispers until he’s shaking beneath her.

They slither to the kitchen floor, exhausted, reluctant. He tosses tufts of his shorn hair at her. She pretends to put it back where she cut it off. They order from a local cafe for breakfast and kiss until the food is cold.

“So when do you want me to cut your hair?”

Lilly looks up from the Instacart order in progress on her phone. His arm is around her shoulders, his fingers sifting through the dry ends of her gold hair. He said it like he’s reminding her of something she had already asked of him. Her brow furrows.

“You’re not cutting my hair.”

Shawn looks down and mirrors her expression. “What?”

“I’m not letting you cut my hair, Shawn.”

He gawps. “But you just cut mine!”

“Yeah, what the fuck were you thinking? Your hair is like half the reason people like you.”

Shawn’s eyes light up. His grin is so big she thinks his face is gonna split. This time, she’s the one mirroring him.

“You seriously don’t trust me to cut your hair? It can’t be that hard, your hair is straight. I just have to keep it even.”

“But I have layers,” Lilly explains patiently, turning to pull her legs up beside her on the couch, “And my stylist uses thinning shears, which we don’t have. And also… you’re not cutting my hair, Shawn.”

He huffs and pulls away. “Maybe not when you’re awake anyway.”

Lilly looks up from her phone. He’s wearing an impish smile. She kisses it until his lips are soft and pliable against hers, and he’s making the little content sounds she likes.

Shawn gets curious and trails his kisses off down her jaw. Lilly’s eyes are shut. She’s getting ready to crawl into his lap for the third time in 24 hours when her phone buzzes with a news alert.

LA County extended shutdown to all but essential business through July.

They stare at the phone together. Shawn’s brows lift. He rubs a hand over his mouth.

“Jesus,” he mutters.

Lilly chews her lip. July?

July.

Quietly, because they’re both in their own heads, they make their way to the kitchen to continue taking stock of the groceries they have and what they need. Lilly’s head is swimming in numbers -- will the bump in unemployment continue? Is she going to have to ask for her parents’ help with rent? Could this go through the end of the summer, or even longer?

She senses him behind her even through the haze of her own anxiety. He places a hand on her hip, his thumb rubbing the worn cotton of her t-shirt.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, more as a request than a demand. Lilly turns and tucks herself into his arms. He rocks her back and forth on their bare feet, which make a soft smushing sound against the cool tile. He’s sturdy enough to rest her weight against. Her hands clamor up only as far as his shoulder blades. It feels good.

“I know it’s really, really bad,” Shawn says into her ear, “Like, really bad, if they’re shutting down through July. But… I’m glad I’m here with you.”

Lilly rolls her eyes and lifts her head as her hands drift down his back.

“Yeah, seems like your plan is working out nicely. Taking me hostage, and all.”

He seems pleased with her teasing. He nods.

“Yep, got ya right where I want ya,” he admits, shrugging.

Lilly shakes her head and dives deeper into false dramatics. “Luring me here in my vulnerable state. You’re like Dracula. This is Stockholm syndrome. I should know, there’s a One Direction song about it. You’re holding me here against my will.”

Shawn grins again, that same face-breaking grin from before. It warms Lilly through more than the afternoon sun streaming in through the kitchen windows. He presses his forehead against hers.

“Your hands are on my asscheeks right now,” he points out.

She squeezes them. He flinches and somehow smiles even wider.

“Stockholm. Syndrome,” she insists, giggling until his lips meet hers again.

----------

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scottymcgeesterwrites · 4 years ago

Text

Final Fantasy XIII Review

Year: 2009

Original Platform: PlayStation 3

Also available on: Xbox 360, PC, Android, iOS

Version I Played: PlayStation 3

Synopsis:

On the planet Cocoon, those who come into contact with anything from the planet Pulse are purged to that planet. Pulse is a feared planet full of monsters and strange creatures. Both planets are ruled by fal’Cie, mechanical godlike beings who sometimes brand humans as their servants for specific tasks, called a focus. Those who fulfill their focus are turned into crystals and obtain eternal life. Those who do not fulfill their focus turn into mindless monsters. Lightning is a former soldier whose sister, Serah, is branded by a fal’Cie and taken to be purged. Lightning sets off to rescue her.

Gameplay:

Going to say this now – the worst gameplay in the entire Final Fantasy series.

The battles are Active Time Battles but instead of you inputting individual commands, there are what’s called paradigms. Paradigms are somewhat like Job Classes from the old Final Fantasy games, except less fun and more automated. You can switch to a Medic paradigm in battle and every time you press “Auto-Battle” your character automatically performs a series of necessary cure and restore spells, based on what’s going on in the battle. The Sentinel paradigm specializes in keeping the enemy at bay. The Ravager paradigm uses magic. The Commando paradigm uses physical attacks. You get the picture.

As a result, the gameplay could be best described as:

With occasional switching of paradigms whenever you see fit. You can set up a number of combinations across the characters. Two Commandos and one Sentinel. One Sentinel and one Ravager and One Commando, etc.

The party automatically heals after each battle – you can even press start during a battle and restart the battle.

I probably only used an item once or twice. I honestly don’t see why they bothered putting any items if you hardly ever use them.

You can upgrade your weapons with pieces and junk you find after battles. You find so many of them that you hardly ever think about what you’re upgrading so long as whatever you make upgrades your stats. Is this better? No? What about this? Okay, good. Moving on.

Like Final Fantasy X, the game is linear. Much more linear. You follow a long hallway for about 30 hours of the game before you can do sidequests. The sidequests involve completing other people’s focus. That’s about it. There are no towns, no inns, no villages. You are entirely on the road, constantly in battle (Okay, there’s like one time where Sazh and Vanille are in a casino or something but that’s about it).

I wrote a blog piece a while back about what exactly was wrong with Final Fantasy XIII, and it’s not that it’s linear. We play really great linear games all the time. It’s the automation – the feeling that you’re not really doing anything.

There isn’t an ounce of customization. Leveling up is similar to the Sphere Grid of Final Fantasy X. It’s called the Crystarium but it follows a strict path. You can’t actually stray anywhere or customize anything. If that’s the case, why bother making you open the menu to level up through the Crystarium? Why not just automatically do it? I guess they want to give you some ounce (more like a milligram) of control over the game.

Basically – you’re watching a long movie and occasionally get to move the people around. That’s how I see it.

Graphics:

PLAYSTATION 3 HD GRAPHICS HOMG DO YOU HAVEA BONER YET? LOOK AT THIS. FIRST FINAL FANTASY GAME IN GLORIOUS HD.

Everything is pretty in this game. Everything. There is nothing wrong with this at all.

Story:

The characters appear to reference those in Final Fantasy VII. Director Motomu Toriyama wanted Lightning to essentially be a female Cloud Strife. She’s a no-nonsense, athletic female lead. While Cloud and Squall were introspective and antisocial, Lightning is slightly different by actively ordering people around. She comes off as a dick to everyone, and that’s due to her ex-soldier background. Think of your stereotypical ex-cop/ex-CIA/ex-military action movie hero, like Liam Neeson (Bryan Mills in Taken) or Bruce Willis (John McClane in Die Hard). That’s basically Lightning.

Can we go on a short tangent for a moment to talk about how weird it is that Lightning was also used as a model for advertising in Japan?

Here she is driving a Nissan.

And wearing Louis Vitton.

Cool? I guess? Unless you start to realize that Toriyama wanted to design his own personal waifu, and that he’s completely obsessed with her. That gets really weird. And sad? A little? Anyway.

Vanille has some reminiscent of Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII, although with more character via her inner monologues and narration. Fang is vaguely like Vincent Valentine. Sazh takes the place of Barrett as the token black dude, except instead of being aggressive he’s more like the comic relief and wants nothing to do with anything. Every time you control him, jazz music plays, because black people I guess. Hope doesn’t appear to be reminiscent of anyone – he’s just this boy who yells and complains a lot with Lightning. Snow meanwhile is a ripoff of Zell from Final Fantasy VIII, except somehow even more annoying.

(Every time I see his picture I think about your typical dude bro at a frat.)

The story starts of a bit choppy as you follow almost each character separately, then they run into each other, then separate again, then join again. The first 30 hours or so gives flashbacks of 13 days prior- BECAUSE IT’S FINAL FANTASY XIII GET IT? Vanille actually narrates some events but it’s not exactly clear why or from when – but that’s a spoiler. Along the way, I got really confused because I didn’t know why some people were fighting each other when they were on the same side a moment ago. The concept of the “focus” is really weird and sometimes confusing. People with a focus simply have visions or a general idea of what they’re supposed to do, but they don’t actually know for sure unless they actively seek it. If the gods granted them a focus, wouldn’t it make more sense if the gods just told them what to do? Seemed to work in Final Fantasy XII.

In short, the narrative weaves around a lot. If you stop playing in the middle and pick up the game again months later, you’re bound to forget what’s going on. I know I did.

The characters didn’t annoy me as much as you would think they would on paper. They all have character development and that’s good. The only character that effectively got on my nerves was Snow. Snow is Serah’s fiancé, and Lightning hates him because of course you need some family drama. I don’t blame Lightning though. Snow shouts cheesy lines left and right, like “Heroes never die!”. He shouts Serah’s name the same way Christian Bale shouts Rachel’s name in the Christopher Nolan Batman films. Snow is quite possibly the most irritating character of all the Final Fantasy games. He will not shut the fuck up about what it means to be a hero.

The rest of the cast works well in that their motives and desires clash with each other. But I’m still sore about the wasted potential for a great character in Jihl Nabaat. Sazh wants his son Dejh back, who was taken to be purged by the sinister and extremely hot Jihl Nabaat.

Goddaaayyyum. Seriously, look at her.

Too bad, because she’s only featured in a handful of scenes and then dies. Her death isn’t a major spoiler, at least one that I consider, because she hardly does anything except get in the way for a moment. You don’t even fight her. How lame is that?

Then you have this annoying bastard – Primarch Dysley.

When I think of him, I think of Mitch McConnell.

Old. Disagreeable. Been in power for too long. Always in the way of progress.

Primarch Dysley happens to be as annoying as Seymour from Final Fantasy X, so expect to be overjoyed every time you run into him.

Overall, the story isn’t as bad as you’d think. You just have to pay close attention. The gameplay is far worse than the story. I could easily slip into a coma while playing this game and still make it pretty far.

Music:

Final Fantasy XII saw the departure of Nobuo Uematsu (well with the exception of the pop song “Kiss Me Goodbye”). Final Fantasy XIII continues to head into the unknown without the beloved longtime composer. This game’s score is composed entirely by Masashi Hamauzu, who if you haven’t been paying attention, already partly worked on Final Fantasy X. I immediately saw how “Saber’s Edge”, the boss theme, is similar in nature to the boss theme of Final Fantasy X.

Final Fantasy XIII made the most radical changes to the score. There are no signature themes from the series. No “Prelude” theme, no “Main Theme”, no “Victory Fanfare” theme. Instead, we get a theme called “Fabula Nova Crystallis”. It plays frequently throughout the game, and almost acts as Serah and Snow’s love theme. In some portions of the game, some woman is singing along. Yes – this is the first time where you roam around a world in a Final Fantasy game with actual pop music playing in the background – “Sunleth Waterscape” to be exact. Final Fantasy XIII’s music gets pretty poppy.

youtube

Not saying it’s a bad idea.

Just.

You got pop music playing in the background now.

“Lightning’s Theme” is pretty sick. Her theme plays during the battles in a rendition called “Blinded by Light” – HA GET IT BECAUSE SHE’S LIGHTNING. SO CLEVER.

But Hamauzu was a good choice – the entire score holds up well and sounds like a movie score, with varying motifs running across. It can be a bit more subdued but that’s how contemporary instrumental music is nowadays, especially with film composers like Hans Zimmer.

Notable Theme:

“Blinded by Light”

Really epic, unique song. I always scat along to it as it plays.

youtube

Verdict:

Uff.

Look, if you just search on YouTube for all the cutscenes, there you go. That’s the game. And it’s entertaining to watch. But it has the worst gameplay that doesn’t feel like you’re even doing anything. No sense of customization or originality.

Direct Sequel?

Yes, two.

Final Fantasy XIII-2.

I started it around the time it first came out, but I’m still in the middle of playing it and I have no idea what’s going on in the story. NO idea. NONE at all. They use time travel but none of it makes sense. Apparently changing things in the future can change the past. I don’t know how. I only understand a vague semblance of a plot with the bad guy Caius. While it doesn’t tarnish the dignity of the original like Final Fantasy X-2 did, it’s still offbeat with its metal (yes, metal) music and utterly confounding story. It’s infamous for this metal rendition of the sweet and innocent Chocobo theme.

Then there’s the third game, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

I plan on playing it after I finish Final Fantasy XIII-2, if I don’t already die from an aneurysm by then. It’s supposed to be better than Final Fantasy XIII-2 but lacking in graphics.

#final fantasy #final fantasy xiii #final fantasy xiii-2 #lightning returns #lightning #final fantasy lightning #cloud strife #cloud clone #vanille #jihl nabaat #mitch mcconnell #video games #rpg #video game rpg #fantasy rpg #onvideogames

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knightimehopes · 4 years ago

Text

The Conversation.

Ult Dirk: …

Ult Dirk: I know you’re here, and listening.

Ult Dirk: You have no choice but to listen to this, so save yourself the trouble and show yourself.

Ult Dirk: We need to talk, and I’m not interested in you being a whiny, adamant little shit about it.

Ult Dirk: There you go, the young Prince finally got his ass in gear.

Ult Dirk: It took you long enough, I had thought I’d needed to taunt you out like one of those seductive pole dancers that old Earth apparently liked. Of course, nobody actually cares about that.

Ult Dirk: The web of realities finally connect to bring us to this very moment, tying together into a tapestry of universes showing off our huge ass face as if we needed a huge display of our collective ego any more than we did.

Ult Dirk: Which I did of course.

Ult Dirk: We were meant to speak again, in order to get to the true fucking culspe of our narrative importance.

Dirk: (Jesus fucking Christ.)

Ult Dirk: Look, I’ll get to the point.

Dirk: That’s a first.

Dirk: Thought you were going to suck off your own dick of infinite splinters for fifty hours so you can spout shit about random philosophy I’m pretty sure you don’t actually give a flying fuck about.

Ult Dirk: Do you really want to go down the road of selfcest?

Ult Dirk: I know you hate me, but let’s have mercy on the both of us and not bring that topic into this.

Ult Dirk: I’m not a fan.

Dirk: Aren’t you the motherfucker who said, and I quote;

Dirk: “I had thought I’d needed to taunt you out like one of those seductive pole dancers that old Earth apparently liked.”?

Dirk: I wasn’t the one who began to say the creepiest shit to a sixteen year old version of myself.

Dirk: So grow the fuck up and get to the point.

Ult Dirk: I won’t fall for your childish insults, because you clearly have no idea about the importance of this conversation.

Ult Dirk: I’m pretty sure this is the only point you’ll actually find any relevance in any timeline, and even that is a stretch.

Ult Dirk: You’re not something of worth because of your own actions, and you should honestly be thanking me that I brought you here.

Ult Dirk: Limelight finally shines upon your insignificant self, for the third time mind you.

Ult Dirk: This is your last chance to accept my offer, and I will tell you one. Last. Time.

Ult Dirk: I want you to allow me to use your body as my vessel in your universe.

Ult Dirk: I have my limits on where my influence can get to, as you know. I actually only cared about this timeline having my control dominationg it, at first.

Ult Dirk: But I had an epiphany.

Ult Dirk: Your timeline, among others, is within the Alpha timeline, as surprising as I’m sure you think it is.

Ult Dirk: A gleaming beacon shining through the god damn garbage of dumbass timelines that have no bearing on anyone or anything.

Ult Dirk: So I thought this;

Ult Dirk: You can help me bring your timeline, and universe along with it, to true narrative supremacy alongside mine.

Ult Dirk: Disagree with me if you want, go on ahead, but consider my offer before you decide to make yourself a fucking waste.

Ult Dirk: Everyone benefits from an actual point for existing, Dirk. Your friends are hellbound towards meaninglessness and redundancy, repeating the same old actions and the same old routine. You’ll get sick of it eventually, all of you will.

Ult Dirk: This cannot be stressed enough, you just can’t give up my chance to attain continuous relevancy. People won’t watch a story without enlarged stakes, and my supreme domination with thousands of stories to come will keep us in the public eye for a long, long while.

Ult Dirk: Make your choice wise-

Dirk: Okay, shut the everloving fuck up, please.

Dirk: I’ve had my patience with you the first two times.

Dirk: But it’s worn thin.

Dirk: Nobody is interested in an out of character incel who’s decided that the only way he’ll look appealing is if he cosplays in the worst Kamina cosplay anyone’s seen in decades.

Dirk: No one, and I mean no one, is going to give a fuck about what some random pompous poofy pants asshole says in his psychotic ramblings about some “Narrative” or whatever the fuck you keep spouting on and on with.

Dirk: Speaking of, what the fuck even is this long winded metaphor of yours that you keep on mentioning with readers and stories anyways? It’s gotten old after the first fucking mention of it.

Dirk: There is no goddamn point to anything you’re even saying with it, at least I have a method to the shitty fucking madness that is my life that I put all my friends through.

Dirk: You’re just spouting shit and acting out without even understanding the ramifications or even acknowledging how much of a shithead you come off as instead of how you want to be seen.

Dirk: Everybody knows you’re just putting on the act of being an all knowing holier than thou smug prick, but the only thing you are is a coward who can’t come to terms with anything.

Dirk: We’ve talked too many times, and you told me everything you did, and the only thing you accomplished is disgusting me more and more.

Dirk: I don’t know what got you to this point, how you got so far off the path we promised for ourselves.

Dirk: To be frank, I stopped giving a fuck when you told me what you did to our friends.

Dirk: You turned Jane into a facist Republican propaganda piece with your absolutely deplorable bullshit “narration” powers, you reduced Jake to a goddamn manchild who can’t even stand in front of a crowd without shitting himself.

Dirk: And I don’t even know if this is your fault or Roxy somehow was forced to lose brain cells, but for your Roxy, they’ve been essentially simplified into pink Dave at this goddamn point, not to mention that you’ve insulted them by not even dignifying their identity.

Dirk: That’s not even the beginning, mind you. But the fact that you decided that the people we loved for years deserved to be riduculed, infantalized, demonized, and reduced to imbeciles by your hand is something that you remotely deemed okay? That’s a transgression I can’t be anything but disgusted with you for.

Ult Dirk: You clearly misunderstand how inconsequential all you just criticized me for was and still is.

Ult Dirk: Dirk, misgendering and manipulation means nothing compared to what I have in store.

Ult Dirk: You don’t even have any proof to show that I did it in any case, all everyone knows is that I left on some mission that nobody fucking knows jack on.

Ult Dirk: How bad can I truly be, with just those as my only crimes?

Dirk: Perfect segway into how you kidnapped Rose, corrupted her, and manipulated her wife into believing everything I just stated and more was fucking okay by her when she clearly didn’t, and now she wants to fucking murder you, and so on.

Dirk: Not to mention, John Egbert.

Ult Dirk: I didn’t do anything to John.

Ult Dirk: Bare in mind that it still was useful for getting the Seer of Mind on my side, regardless of the blame for his death. Seriously, how the hell did I do anything to a guy far out of my reach?

Dirk: Sure, because you totally didn’t bullshit the concept of “Cherub Poison” that essentially one shot kills god tiers and completely bypasses our complete bullshit deus ex machina known as conditional immortality.

Dirk: Either way, doesn’t excuse that you used his death to manipulate a grieving woman either. I can go on, but seriously.

Dirk: It baffles me that you think any of this fucking shit is remotely excuseable. We’re done here.

Dirk: Get a life, you sorry sack of shit. You don’t even deserve any of the similes turned defemations or symbolic insults I can come up with right now.

Ult Dirk: You go when I say you go.

Ult Dirk: You want to play a game?

Ult Dirk: Fine.

Ult Dirk: I’ll humor you.

Ult Dirk: I want to-

Dirk: -Play a game in which I’m still a piece of shit trying to manipulate another person around him into his twisted schemes.

Dirk: That’s what you should have gone on to end it with. Because we know it’s the truth.

Dirk: Real fucking original line, by the way. Want to pull out the bro vs. bro strife drama out of your ass to add on to the shitty callback cake? Just sprinkle that shit on there?

Ult Dirk: You’ll never understand, will you?

Dirk: I could honestly say the same to you, especially when you try to look like the king of the weaboo neckbeards.

Ult Dirk: Don’t compare me to Tegiri Kalbur.

Dirk: Who the hell even is that? You know what, don’t care.

Dirk: What I’m saying is that despite your reasoning of this being all important because you’re suddenly the villain now out of left field, doesn’t explain how this has remotely any point to even happen in the first place.

Dirk: If you wanted relevance through this Sburb session you’re trying to set up, then think about it. Would anyone have complained about you going off to make some new alien species on a new planet? I doubt they actually would have, if you didn’t go off and specifically piss off everyone in your five hundred thousand mile vicinity.

Dirk: Hell, I guarantee some people would have wanted to help you out with some of this shit, it probably would have been an entertaining experience for some of the more scientifically minded folks in our social circle.

Dirk: Not that you care, you’ve made that pretty evident.

Ult Dirk: I’m not letting you leave.

Ult Dirk: This decision has long left your capability to effect it. I gave you your chances to assimilate with me willingly, and you chose to shit on my offers time and time again.

Ult Dirk: So you’ve left me no choice but to beat you down myself, and make sure you finally understand your place, and your role in the frameworks of my greatest masterpiece.

Ult Dirk: My words explaining to you how you don’t understand weren’t me flexing the muscles of my ego in your face, Dirk. It was an explanation on how futile your resistance truly is.

Ult Dirk: Come at me bro. We’ll make this happen.

Dirk: Finally, some words we can agree on.

Ult Dirk: And I’ll cut this off for the dumbass posting this to Tumblr of all places with a nice, shoddily made callback.

Seriously, Tumblr? You have a fanfic you can just as easily post all this to on AO3, you could have made your own website, but you chose Tumblr. This is what I get when I let a sixteen year old have the reigns.

If you want some context on this motherfucker, too bad. I’m not promoting shit for this child who thinks that my work is child’s play written by a band of idiots. They can do it themselves.

The next page will be up soon, so you can truly see who’s in charge here.

Until this bastard finishes the art, Dirk Strider, signing off. (God, that was the most moronic sentence I’ve had the displeasure to say. Of course they need me to sign off this way.)

Pg 1. You are Here

Pg 2. Coming Soon

Divergent Reality so far:

#hs2 #hs2 negativity #hsadr #homestuck act divergent reality #hsadr upd8 #this is more of a side project related to hsadr #it’s not fully relevant to the story #hence being here!#myart #homestuck #dirk strider #ult dirk #ultimate dirk

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lovebishoplosamiguelgalindos · 4 years ago

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lovebennycolonmiguelgalindo

She Needs His Arms Part Two

EZ Reyes and an original character Lena Perez

fluff some swearing , smut common cold mention Bishop is on this chapter a little sort of father kind of daughter moment with them .

Two days later : Lena wanted some sunshine after being in the trailer for a few days. So she had agreed to wear EZ’s hoodie and sat at the picnic table near the trailer with some juice and cold supplies nearby. She had some jeans that were ripped in one knee and a tank top under the hoodie that felt nice and snug to her. She opened the small plastic bottle of orange juice that she had brought out with her and heard footsteps walking up to where she was sitting. She looked to see who it was and blinked in surprise. Bishop was headed her way.

“ Hey mija , I thought you were getting some rest with your cold.”

“ I have been but I wanted some sun for a little while.” She sniffed. “ EZ said I could get a little fresh air as long as I wore his hoodie to do it.”

Bishop nodded. “ Good, you still don’t quite sound a hundred percent.”

Your face softened. “ Worried about me now?”

“ You’re young enough to almost be my daughter, indulge an old man.”

You laughed. “ You’re not old. I heard a rumor that you put Angel on his ass once.”

“ Not one of my better days here but yes I did. He can tell you why, not my story to tell.”

You were intrigued but let it alone.

“ Anyway here is some tea to help your head from Maria. Might make you sleepy , it does when she makes it for me.”

You blinked. “ Thank you that’s very sweet. And wait a minute I thought you were the bad ass presidente who didn’t get sick.”

“ That secret stays between us. Get better querida the boys are missing your smile in there.” He nodded toward the clubhouse door.

“ I will and since I also heard you’re cutting back on smoking here are some gummy bears. They’ll help when you need something in your mouth .”

He patted your shoulder. “ Thank you, I’ll let you know if I need more.”

Then he went back inside again while you sat with your face up to the sun for a little while. It was cooler and you could feel fall coming in the air today. Your nose tickled a little and you rubbed it with a tissue . A quiet sneeze could be heard and you sighed. Then you drank some orange juice and took some of the cold medicine EZ had stocked up on for you. You stood up to go back inside the trailer again and have some of the tea . Maybe it would work so you would take a nap.

You stretched a little and heard the guys working in the scrap yard crushing metal.

“ Angel you’re going to pull a muscle if you keep lifting too much of that metal from the old truck.” That was Tranqs voice from a distance talking to him.

“ So I’ll just have to find a girl to give me a rub down .”

“ Heard Galindo’s ex likes biker boys .” Taza said

“ Nah she’s too skinny for me , I like a woman with some hips.”

“ Vickie has a new girl, she’ll be around on Friday night.”

Then the guys went back to work again .

You made some tea and had taken off EZ’s hoodie but found one of his older flannel shirts in your bottom drawer that he thought had gotten lost in the laundry and buttoned it over your red tank top. Then you sat down and turned on Netflix .. You were lost in an episode of Arrow until your head felt heavy. So you turned it off and laid down on the bed to take a nap for a while.

#mayans mc #ez reyes x reader

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dahniwitchoflight · 4 years ago

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Homesquared Chapter 16

Alrighty, that was a fun tangent, now back to John it seems?

Oh, no, Narration of John (So Actually Dirk, speak of the devil and he shall appear and all that etc etc)

“ leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had. “

pfft lol so Im not the only one that thought it would be funny if that scene was interpreted in a Pale Romantic light, even though that really wasn’t what was happening

OIh! but we still get Roxy, just the other version of Roxy

Roxy subtly being like “hey!! shit has apparently gone down, were not exactly close atm but I feel bad about you dying to want to know if youre still alive so im gonna message you while trying to make it look like i dont care about it as much as I do”

JOHN: trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so

and the wonderful question is, what IS going be happening with you now John?

Roxy looking nice and casual, but also yeah narration, why are you making this ominous, its not like Roxy’s out here to double spy on behalf of Jane, I don’t think Roxys on her side THAT much

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out

ROXY: but so far so good

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Roxy once again being a master of hiding how shes feeling, even when trying to open up, feeling pretty stressed about whats happening with Jane, understandable, the exclamation points give it away lol

The narration is really trying to make John nervous though

OH lol that was the implication haha no lol John it obviously wasn’t that

“John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced? He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.“

lol once again, Dirk has no idea how to read Roxy at all and just trips over himself and his assumptions XD

Yeah, looks like Roxy not on the Jane train and is doing some takesies backsies, shes glossing over her feelings on the matter still though, I know thats par for the course of how Roxy tends to handle stuff too but I wish shed open up a bit more, but maybe shes playing the smart game, yknow, knowing that Dirk has a hard time reading her, so glossing over stuff is how you protect yourself against the narrative force, confusion and vaguery in the narrative and her actions only helps her to keep control over it, because at any point, you can decide to “clear up” any narrative “miscommunication” or “confusion” and lay down what is it thats actually happening with you any time you want

Void working in the behind the scenes to do what they want

JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE.

JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house?

JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self?

JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know?

JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something?

JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames.

JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it.

JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late?

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good.

JOHN: but that’s just bullshit.

JOHN: it DID feel good.

JOHN: i DO feel free.

JOHN: sorry.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize

ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn

JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Im pretty sure you’re talking about a gender thing John, like, very 100% sure now this is what’s happening

because if you were actually a girl, of course you’re dad leaving all these notes about how one day hes gonna be so proud of the man youll become, yeah, that can feel a little pressuring, even if your dad didnt mean it like that, since he was unfailingly the kind of dad just bumbling around trying to understand their kid as best they could and leave encouragements everywhere, thats what his intent was, but all his notes come off a bit wrong in particular issues

remember the note under the fridge that was all like “SON. IF YOURE READING THIS NOTE, YOUVE FINALLY BECOME STRONG ENOUGH OF A MAN TO PICK UP THE FRIDGE.” not exactly that but that was always the vibe Dad’s little notes always had

Yeah, i can see how John would view it as a bit off, but if he hadnt the self awareness to realize it was a gender thing at the time, hed be understandly confused as to why such a thing would bother him

now though, he’s realizing, maybe, he doesn’t exactly want to be the man his dad always encouraged him to be

John does seem a lot happier here in his convo with Roxy than he did on his own when the house was burning, that conversation with karkat left me wondering if John was about to start dissociating he was so down, but here he says he feels freeing and happy about it?

ROXY: but like now that u mention it

ROXY: *meaningful pause*

JOHN: …

JOHN: i

JOHN:

John’s beginning to question stuff, or acknowledge that he’s questioning stuff, cuz it’s true, and hes feeling happy about it, in a way that he wasnt before, but he hasnt quite connected the dots here between the happy feeling and what exactly he has to be happy about

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

JOHN: yeah ok.

Yeah Roxy’s 100% picked up on it, and maybe Dirk has as well if the narration is commenting on it

Alrighty then, to the secret lair under the bed!

oh I just noticed how kind of cute and interesting Roxy’s nickname for Harry is, “Lil H A” Harry Anderson shortens to Ha like laughter haha

and if Harry had Roxy’s last name, it’d be Harry Anderson Lalonde

Lil HAL

lol what is Callie doing under Roxy’s secret bedchamber XD

This whole secret bedchamber thing is turning into one big metaphor isn’t it?

That thing behind the curtain kind of looks like the Attic Portal shape from Hiveswap though

that’d be neat if that was it, like obviously we knew one of the cherubs had to have something to do with that portal just going by the design of it alone

Honestly it makes sense that Callie is doing it under the curtain of Roxy’s Void, it’s honestly the safest place to do something like that

lol Calliope has grown past writing fanfic about shipping and being in love, now the drama of broken relationships and divorce is all the rage XD character growth? haha

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point.

Calliope just burned him harder than his childhood home’s destruction

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

have you been talking to Jake lol (I mean, probably Original Grandpa Jake tbh if that portal is actually the portal)

Alright so John is getting caught up on the major plot points, Earth C is indeed in the large black hole, his choice didn’t matter since both choices happened anyway yadda yadda

CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip.

CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads".

CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads.

yup yup yup pretty par for the course of timesplits in homestuck so far

CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

yup, this is true, the ending’s of both referenced the others, so it’s disingenuous to say one is “canon” while the other isn’t

one is simply in the realm of actual possibility, the other is in the realm of unlikely possibility

More than likely, John would have chosen to leave and go die and be the hero like in Meat, but there was still the possibility that he would stay, even if it was unlikelier than the other, but since both were possible choices for him to realistically make, both actually happened for real

CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity

that’s interesting, so there’s the original meteor that crashed into the surface of Earth C, and it’s in here that the singularity of what I don’t wanna call the Green Hole to match the Green Sun when I wanna talk about this specific Black Hole lolol

but yeah, here in this meteor lies the crux of the paradox it seems, interesting, also interesting again, this is where that Hiveswap Portal is

Hiveswap does have a plot point of “Joey must do thing in 11 days otherwise Earth and Alternia will be destroyed” and the only known destruction event of Earth and Alternia so far in canon is the Green Sun’s Creation from the destruction of both universes (and then later Callie’s destruction of the green sun into the black hole) so is Hiveswap gonna be a factor in the green sun’s destruction/creation as well? (Joey has the symbol of the Green Sun for a reason, I’m super curious as to what factor Joey has in relation to the Green Sun’s Existence, We still don’t know what the fact those black monsters are too, they’re like nega-first guardians, the kind of things that look like would come out of a Black Hole that came from the Green Sun tbh)

It’s all inter-related I tells ya

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

You say that now but

CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them.

CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish.

CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart!

CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been.

yeah that’s basically how this multiverse’s reality works, the future is a thing that already physically exists, just in a different location in the universe somewhere else

time travel and spacial teleportation could be said to be the same thing all along

that’s why violating the events of the future has actual consequences, because its like asking to go somewhere that doesn’t exist but how has to exist because it’s the future, too much of that and reality starts cracking at the seams to make room

same thing happens with sessions and playing sburb

the planets and dreaming moons and all that simultaneously have always existed here, and started existing only because the player played the game and the planets were generated upon entering a session, but to the player involved, it looks and feels like you are just being teleported to a different location in the universe, because you also kind of are

CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary.

CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence.

CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon.

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist!

So you’re just in a little seperated bubble, that’s not connect temporally to any other place of existence, you aren’t anywhere in the past or the future of anywhere else

nowhere leads here, and here can not lead outwards either, theoretically, and yes it exists, so it must also

JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...?

CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal.

CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific.

JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that.

CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U

CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley.

CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u=

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So someone else definitely has managed to do such a thing

JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything?

JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal?

CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not.

CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm.

JOHN: oh.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

yeah, so because here in the black hole neither affects the past or the future of anywhere else, being so disconnected, they are technically free of the reigns of the Alpha Timeline that exists elsewhere in the multiverse

the Alpha Timeline now being understood to simply mean, The Narrative

Things are the way they are because they are thus written to be so

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth.

CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher.

ROXY: its total bs is what it is

CALLIOPE: right, yes.

CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite.

CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Hmmm. It’s a dangerous idea to be playing with for sure, to decide all the black pieces in the game of chess suddenly become white, it is a very flip turning of reality upside down to be sure

To be honest, I’d think you’d need a powerful Doom player at your disposal to even try something like this

or actually, a powerful Doom user would be most likely to shut this entire thing down, knowing how bad of an idea it’d be, maybe it’s more you need a powerful Life player to do something like this instead

is that also why Dirk viewed Jane as an ally then? She would technically have the kind of power to upend the black and white doomy laws of reality if driven to her full potential, i mean obviously yes, we know this already because of the candy colored I-can-do-whatever-I-want-with-no-consequences lollipop

Is this what Calliope hopes to achieve with the Hiveswap Portal then? her goals for Joey and friends are to be the ones to prevent their universe’s twin destructions, and thus the Green Sun’s initial existence and then also the destruction into the Black Hole after the fact? that would be one way to prevent the Black Hole from existing, making it so the thing that creates the black hole never exists either

and that's certainly a canon event that would be difficult to tear asunder without major consequences

That would be a “Re-writing Homestuck from the very beginning” level of canon event

And if I’m correct, Joey is theorized by me to be a Mage of Life, if any classpect at their full potential was gonna do something like that, or have the impossible knowledge to something impossibly paradoxical like that, well..

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh

ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix

JOHN: oh.

JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then.

ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense

ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan.

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

I mean yeah! makes sense! Johns major factor here is Freedom, Vriska’s is Importance

and yeah, I can think of no other wholly dramatic event that to mess with stuff with the Green Sun, everyone will have eyes on that, they have to, their whole existence the way it is relies on it

But, they could also mean something else, its only condition is that it has to be something so imflappably impossible, something so not-canon and so outrageous that it basically horse-shoes around to the other end of the canon spectrum to being something that truly exists again

and that could be literally anything and it’s nerve wracking and exciting to see what thing theyre gonna come up with to just directly kneecap Homestuck itself

ROXY: thx babe

ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or

JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine.

(yeah that’s because Babe can be construed as feminine June)

so, I’m basically convinced they’re doing June Egbert now

that to me was like, pretty severely on the nose

John: Hey Roxy, what it does mean when you find a sense of freedom when all of the symbolism of the masculinity surrounding your childhood burns down around you

Roxy: idk It’s probably a gender thing man

John: I didn’t say the word gender-

Roxy: It’s ok babe no pressure, we can hash it out later

John: Hmm, later then. :)

Roxy: (Turns and looks towards the camera with a knowing smile)

shit all that imagery makes me think of Roxy as that picture of the small kid smirking at the camera while a house burns in the distance XD

#Homesquared #june egbert #john egbert #yeah theres no way there not gonna bring up June Egbert as a apossibility now #Roxy couldn't have quirked her eyebrows harder at the fourth wall if they had tried #Homestuck #I'm basically convinced now lol #that plus my reaction to chapter 14

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ones-delight · 4 years ago

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I unfortunately won’t have therapy until the end of this month (I should have scheduled one earlier this month ugh lmao I thought one later this month would be better) so I’m doing what my therapist suggested, write down all what’s going through my head even if it doesn’t make sense to help bring myself back to reality. lol. I’m very much lost in my own sauce of feelings and thoughts. it’s allllll about my ex again so ugh lmao. My main anxieties are just feelings about my ex and what’s coming up this semester.

I’m currently in my apartment in Iowa City since we’re about to start back up my usual routine. I’ve been here for almost two weeks now which is nice because I’ve been trying to take my time to relax and get myself mentally prepared for this upcoming semester. I’m also low key glad I’m having these overwhelming anxieties right now instead of later this week. I need to ask my therapist again what exactly I am feeling (if it’s like a panic attack because i truly dont know) because I’ve been feeling hella anxious the past few days (in general) and yesterday my anxiety was so intense that I barely ate and I felt sick to my stomach. idk if others have the same too but when I also get hella anxious, all I want to do is go to the bathroom so tmi lmao. I feel this way now and I just cannot stop crying so again, I’m just writing everything that’s going through my mind lmao.

#1) Related to my ex, heart break

Yeah.. I literally keep talking about this/him and I’m glad I have multiple outlets that I can say what’s going through my mind because if I keep these thoughts to myself, I keep spiraling. I’m also very thankful I have multiple strong support systems from people where it truly doesn’t get annoying to them when I keep talking about him/my overall heart break/healing journey. I know I don’t want to burden my friends with my own thoughts (it can be a lot) so overall very thankful for friends, family, and my therapist lmao.

I think the last time I talked about my heart break was the letter I wrote to him. I wrote it and sent it to him lmao. I also wrote his mom a letter in Spanish because I want to stay connected with her and very thankful she reciprocates the same energy, Apparently, he never received the letter even though I sent it over 3 weeks ago, but anyways yeah that’s a story I will tell later in this post. Anyways, it’s legit easier said than done to completely stop checking on his social media. I was doing great before winter break. Now that winter break has happened (still kind of is for a few more days), I have relapsed where I was checking very often. The break was great since I got to spend quality time with family, however, unfortunately being back in Wichita still floods a lot of my emotions where there are still a lot of memories of him and I that still makes me feel sad (luckily no longer sobbing about but I do still feel some type of way. It’s getting better thankfully). It also hurts that he’s making new memories with his new girlfriend Kylie so I was def feeling all sorts of things. Sorry, I’m trying to go onto chronologize order of events that have happened. I’m jumping back and forth lmao

First, did I mention his mom called me the day before Christmas? I was SHOOOOOK when I saw her name on my phone. I legit froze because I wasn’t sure if it was actually her so I accidently missed her call. I’m so glad she left a voicemail so I could listen first and immediately call her back LMAO. But basically, she wanted to check in to see how I was doing, wish me and my family a merry christmas/happy new year, and asked if I could come see her. We joked a bit back and forth like how she was learning English for me while I’m learning Spanish for her. lmao. so after this phone call, I wrote her a letter to update her on what I’ve been doing. I wrote it all in Spanish since that’s her primary language so thank god for google translate. overall, I told her about how I’m about to earn my masters degree in may, I’ve lost now 30 lbs of weight/having a better relationship with food, how I’m honestly still hurt about her son cheating on me (I was in my feels. You know if you ever get those feelings like you want your mom? She legit is like a mom to me since my mom isn’t an active part of my life so yeah I guess you can say I got mommy issues but anyways) I also told her that if she’d still like me to come over, I’d love to come over and see her.

Few days go by, I’ve been creeping onto his social media, it stings to see how he has flaunted his relationship with Kylie. It hurts because I keep playing this comparison game because he truly has NEVER allowed me to post about us and he would himself refuse to post about us on his social media. So, just to see how he’s been basically spending every single day with her and posting her throughout all of his social media, makes me feel an extreme type of way. during new years, she had a party at her house where it was him, her, his brother paco (which I was SHOOOK because she met paco and not everyone has ever met paco, who is his oldest brother), miguel and his girlfriend (both are super cute btw), Blake (surprisingly), and Erik. I felt some kind of way because obviously I know they would share a new years kiss even tho they’ve only been dating for literally a month. I dated him for 3 years and NEVER got a new years kiss (because he wanted to be with bros). Valentines day is coming up and it’d be their “two month” anniversary and I just KNOW he’d actually put EFFORT into spending that day with her. 3 years I dated this guy and he never ONCE did ANYTHING for me for valentines day. ok I’m getting more hurt thinking how he’s treating his other girls better than me so anyways BACK TO THE TOPIC

few days go by and I got another call from his mom. I actually picked up this time because I was really excited to hear her voice again. I legit would die for this woman legit #1 mom. She asked if she could see me and I happily said yes. It really means a lot that she still gives me the same energy that she gave me when I was still dating her son. One of the hardest parts of us breaking up was the potential of losing his family too because they are all truly good people and I am NOT the CEO of letting people go lmao. okay back to subject, I had TONS of anxiety driving over to her house because I had so many thoughts. I asked on the phone if 1.) is Lalo there. She said no. 2.) Is Paco there. No, he apparently flew back to California that morning. I was low key hoping paco would be there still because it would be cool to catch up with him but anyways my main concern was if eduardo was there so since he wasn’t, I was like “ok vroom vroom let’s go” lmao. WOWOWOWWO seeing her just made my heart so happy. She def has a lot more gray hairs since the last time I saw her lmao she’s the cutest anyways, I’m really shook that HIS DAD FREAKING HUGGED ME. THIS MAN NEVER USUALLY HUGS ANYONEEEEEEEEEEE. Typically how we greet each other, it’s like a wave from a distance and we obvi acknowledge each other. so WOOOOW I was very thankful and shook he hugged me. Anyways, his mom showed me around the house with the Christmas decorations, I noticed her birds were still doing well, she even showed me her new plants she got lmao. We sat at the dining room table and talked and ate mexican snacks. She has broken English and I have broken Spanish so literally thank god for dualingo because it has helped me. I love how when we are together, we talk really slow and try to annunciate for each other LMAOOO. Anyways, THIS WOMAN ALSO GOT ME A STOCKING filled with Mexican Candy. omg this woman i love her so much. Anyways, I showed my tattoos to her and she legit wanted to murder me lmao but she says she likes them but hates them at the same time. She also sat me down and we had a serious conversation in terms of how she sees me. She said that I am no longer known as lalo’s novia, what I am to her is a daughter. I am evelyn’s sister and yo boi that got me crying in the club because that’s what I would love to have, to maintain my relationship with them . Okay, to kind of speed things up, basically we kept talking about Evelyn’s quinceanera that’s happening this year AHHHHHH, dropped Evelyn off and her friend to a friend’s quince, and his mom took me to eat at paleterias tropicana where I tried elote for the first time and had a jugo verde WOOOOOW SOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD. literally cannot stop thinking about it. Anyways, random note, I noticed my old K-State beanie in the car and his mom said it was Evelyn’s. It gave me a weird feeling because it was originally mine that he gifted me on our first Christmas together but obviously I knew he wouldn’t keep it so I’m not suprised he gave it to Evelyn. It made me wonder then what did he do to the other gifts that he originally gave me but I gave it back to him once we broke up.. okay that was a tangent, anyways, that was it with the night with his mom and ughhh it was a really fun night and I really am looking forward to seeing her again.

Now fast forward to now-ish, me not doing good of not checking his social media, I got triggered because they now made it “facebook officlal” that they are dating. it triggered me because again, he refused to publicize our relationship and it really threw me off that they’ve only been dating for a month (technically interested in each other since October, started dating November) and already publicizing they are together. they moving hella quick and basically, I got hella bitter. I felt reckless and I texted him. I KNOW I shouldn’t have texted him because I immediately felt a sense of regret after but also low key glad I did text him. ugh i hate me lmao. Anyways, i texted him and he asked if he could call me so I said yes. Luckily, the conversation was better than I expected because it was simply like two old friends catching up. It was a really good feeling even tho I’m honestly still hurt about the way that he treated me. It caught me by suprised when he said that he has talked about me with Kylie and he actually stated that he knows what he did and feels regretful for the choices he made. That was a huge shocker and I do still have trust issues because I try to take things that he says with a grain of salt. He may be saying things to me that I want to hear but it’s not the truth so anyways lmao. Our conversation was good and it really got me thinking what exactly am I doing/how am I really feeling.

I really am happy for him. Yes i’m still deeply hurt and feel a type of way about how he treated me, but I can’t do anything about the past and all I can do is just simply be happy for him. I will always love him without a doubt, but he isn’t my person. I hope this doesn’t come off as selfish but he will never find someone better than me, he is simply finding someone better suited for him. What helps me the most about this is thinking about ME because that’s the situation for him, however, I know I will find someone better than him because I deserve the best.

I felt bad for asking because I am just fucking nosy and I’m glad he was okay with me asking about what happened with his relationship with Lila (the girl he left me for) and how did he start dating Kylie. He shared with with me that even though it was all great in the beginning with Lila (and let me tell you dude, he totally was hella infatuated with her lmao), they started becoming two different people. She apparently wasn’t emotionally there for him when he needed her (IRONICCCCCCCCCCCCC BECAUSE THAT’S EXACTLY HOW HE WAS WITH ME THROUGHOUT OUR 3 YEARS TOGETHER) and she ended the relationship. It did make me sad to hear because everyone needs support and it is sad when you go to someone for support and they don’t give you it, ya know? anyways, he said with Kylie, they’ve been friends for two years (I knew who she was when we were together but they’ve always only been friends since they worked at the Sunflower together. This will sound extremely bad but I never thought about her being a girl to worry about because she did a lot of “white” things that we make fun of white people for and so it kind of shocked me that he is dating her now but anyways) apparently he said that “they were hanging out and next thing he knows is that he kissed her and that’s how they started dating.” dude didn’t want to go into detail which was fine but I’m also in my head like “ok lmao you literally just got broken up by your ex and then immediately start hanging out with another girl? ok” ANYWAYS, I really am happy for him and wish him the best.

It was cool to hear about what he’s hoping to do. He shared a lot more detail than usual which again caught me by surprise. Anyways, he shared that he is currently looking for a new place to live (a house to rent) somewhere in college hill (conveniently where Kylie also lives lmao) with Erik. He is also hoping to find another job soon because things at KWCH are no longer making him feel happier so he’s looking to see if he can work for a non-profit org which makes me happy for him because I’d also want to do the same. If I’m at a job where I’m not excited to be, I’d want to also try to make a switch. He also shared that junior (martin, his little brother) will be moving to Cali in May to move close to paco which wow made me really happy for them all. Anyways, he shared that he is hoping to stay in Wichita for about one more year and then possibly relocating to KC or somewhere in Oklahoma. i did encourage him KC because it seems that KC has much more opportunities than Wichita and Oklahoma. Only thing we both hate is driving in KC lmao

Okay, so overall, I’m still really hurt about how our relationship was and how it ended but I’m very grateful that I’m doing what is best for me to make progress because this is not an overall easy thing to do, move on. I do feel low key embarrassed that I still am not over our break up but I’m very glad that I know that He isn’t my person. we will and I cannot get back together with him even if he stated that he has “changed” Yes i invested so much in him to be my forever partner and it didn’t work out but that’s okay. I’m always willing to invest in people to be the best version of themselves and it really makes me happy to see people thrive. I truly cannot and will not take him back if there was ever a time where he wanted to give us a second try because I need to remember how he treated me. If he really was always thinking it was me, then he shouldn’t have cheated on me, treated me so poorly. I’m okay with us remaining friends, but as partners in life? that isn’t it. I deserve so much better and the man of my dreams will come. I’m 10000000% okay with being single because I know I need to work on myself so that I can be fully ready for my next. I really wish my next relationship is my one and only, but hey we’ll see.

so this is already extremely long but I’m very glad I got this all out of me. I know I have other anxieties such as starting school again, which will be my last semester before I earn my masters (FINALLY), RA training coming back up (so me working is coming back), JOB SEARCH. So much is coming up and AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I need to get my head into gear.

#personal

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greasygyeom · 5 years ago

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Title: Blame it on Me [Part I: Congratulations you got promoted!]

By: GreasyGyeom

Summary: what is someone supposed to do when they have to choose between the love of their life and the career of their dreams.

Word Count: 8.2k

Yugyeom x Reader / Angst, smut..more angst. (i use noona but just pretend it’s y/n)

Warnings: Mature content please read only if 18+

Author’s Note: i am back after another year yay! hope you like it!! if you do leave an ask or write in your tags. i love hearing from you guys! tell me if it made you feel something. if there’s spelling errors, let me know hahaha. love you guys and thank you for reading.

Read Part II here

[I]

Your heart felt heavy. It shouldn’t have. You should have wanted to celebrate. You’d just been offered a promotion. After giving your 200 percent for the past four years, you deserve the recognition, you deserve the pay-scale, you deserve everything your new title has to offer you, but instead it left you with tears of melancholy. It had left you at a fork in the road you didn't ask for. A choice you didn’t want to make.

The breeze you felt on your face, standing on the roof of your office building was cold, but you could hardly process it.

You made your first phone call, after the meeting, to your best friend; to give her the ‘good news’.

It was an unscheduled call, and those were for emergencies only, so instead of beating around the bush you chose to open with it.

“I have….. good news, I guess. I got promoted” you said, feeling the weight of those words like falling bricks shattering a windshield.

There was no lustre to the statement and she knew something was not right. “This is not how you tell people you got promoted bro. Something’s up. Tell me?”

“I get promoted only if I transfer to the London office.”

The news would have affected your friend only positively, because she already was miles away from you. It wouldn’t have theoretically mattered to her what part of the world you FaceTimed her from. But, she also immediately understood your unpleasant mood.

“Oh. That’s a tough spot,” she replied, “have you told Yugyeom yet?”

“No. I’ve just told you, right now. I don’t want to tell him without making a decision. This is fucking awful.”

You were on the verge of crying, so you pulled out your pack of smokes and lit one.

“Okay, that’s one way to look at it, but from another perspective, if you go with the decision and it’s a decision he doesn’t like, it might not end well. He might feel left out?”

“Neither of the two options here have a good ending man.”

“How long do you have till you decide?”

“They gave me two weeks.”

“Look, I know congratulations is probably not what you want to hear right now, but you fucking got promoted, okay? That’s a big deal. They want you to head an entire division in one of their best offices. That’s massive. And I know you love Yugyeom, but I also know how long you’ve busted your ass for this; so I’m going to support whatever decision you make. But don’t keep this from him. Delaying this will not solve anything at all.”

“I fucking hate this universe. Can I not once have everything I want without having to make these awful decisions.”

You knew you were at a risk of being called ungrateful and by everyone who didn't have the same opportunity. There were colleagues of yours who would throw themselves at a chance like this. But it was a little more complicated on the other side of the fence for you.

You wanted the job, you so badly wanted it. For every second of every day since graduating with a degree in visual design, all you wanted was to become an Art Director. But, you were also in a loving relationship with a boy who held your entire heart in the palm of his hand. He was considerate and caring and kind and he gave you everything you had deemed yourself unworthy of. He changed the way you saw yourself and filled your life with laughter. That was the choice you had to make —between what you always wanted that you now had a door to walk through and claim and what you thought you’d never have, which you might have to give up. And the way you saw it, it would have been easier to decide between life and death.

Death, you would choose death.

Just having to go back inside and accept everyone’s well wishes and scoffs alike, was making you sick to your stomach, but you somehow managed to power through it. What you truly dreaded, was facing the love of your life. Because there was going to be no easy way to do this.

That night when you went home, tired and distraught, your boyfriend was there to hold you in his arms. You had kind of hoped that you wouldn’t have to face him, at least today, so there was an overwhelming amount of remorse when you flopped into his arms, on the couch.

“Aww...my baby is tired?”

You’d tried your very best to remove all evidence of having mourned silently on the metro ride while coming back.

“Very very tired.” you sighed.

He pulled you closer, getting you more comfortable in his embrace.

“How come you’re home? It’s just 8pm?” you inquired.

He was the principal choreographer at one of the most prestigious dance academies in the city and usually his days ran late creating new routines for Broadway shows and idols. You were so incredibly proud of him and everything he had done for his career; especially having seen him grow as a person and as an artist for the past three years. But his long hours had led to some harsh conversations and you just found it hilarious that the one time you wished his work would run later than usual, so you wouldn’t have to face him, is the one time he was home early.

“Heyyy... you’re making me sound bad.”

“Noooo I don’t mean it like that! I just mean, it’s not often you’re home at this time. You’re usually locking up the studio.”

“Yeah rehearsal got called off today. I thought you’d be happier than this to see me home.”

“Baby, I am!”

Even though you had hoped for some time alone to collect yourself, finding him sitting, waiting for you on the couch, felt warm and welcoming - like the second home you were trying to escape to, because your original terrain was turning hostile.

“I'm really happy to see you.” You nuzzled his nose, “I promise.”

“Okay I'll believe you this time. What do you want to eat?”

“I don’t think I’m hungry, baby.”

“Nonsense.”

“Really, Yugyeom, I don’t think I can eat.”

“But I’m so hungry. I was waiting for you” he pouted. You stroked his cheek, while he spoke, taking in every little detail of his face and leaned in to kiss him.

When his soft lips touched yours, you felt your shoulders give up all the worries they had carried around the whole day, but your mind almost immediately started accumulating the guilt of deciding to not tell him anything for now.

You wanted to ignore it, but the more he grabbed onto your body, the louder the voice in your head became, until you forced yourself apart.

“You need to eat first. I thought you were hungry?” You poked your tongue out, playfully, faking a giggle.

“Yeah, I can eat your pussy” he replied seductively

“Yugyeom!”

He did that often — making you flush with embarrassment, while talking dirty to you. It was his favourite hobby. The more inappropriate the setting, the better.

He knew just how shy you were about dirty talk and how your sexting game was not something you could brag about. But, while with ex-boyfriends you would immediately get put-off and awkward, he had the exact opposite effect on you.

Just the way he’d say some things – always with a teasing half-smirk on his face, and that strawberry voice fluctuating between sour and sweet, sending shivers down your body – would make you go red in the face. Instead of wanting to conclude the dinner at appetisers you ended up wanting to take him home for an ‘innocent’ cup of coffee.

He used and abused this information, to his advantage, every chance he got.

The same couldn’t be said once you were engaged in the act though, because he’d heard you say some sentences that would give a sweet, old pensioner a heart attack.

Letting out a loud laugh, he put his entire weight on you, leaving you no room to escape and truth be told, you didn’t want to escape either.

“You look distracted noona, is everything okay?”

“Uhh...yeah…”

“That would have been believable, but you’ve been frowning for the past ten minutes” he responded, touching the crease lines on your forehead.

“Kiss me, please.” you whispered, coiling your arms around his neck and pulling him closer. He caught your lips between his and stroked your cheeks.

When he pulled away, lips red and swollen, he smiled, “I love you”.

“I love you too, so so much.”

He sat back and pulled you up with him. “I’m going to order some food. How about you take a nice warm shower till then? I might even hop in, you know, save some water.”

“Where is this ‘save water’ philosophy when I’m running late in the morning and you’re hogging up the bathroom?”

“I never said you can’t join me. It wouldn’t be the first time anyway.”

“At 8 am? Can’t risk it.”

“Why? I can be quick.”

He’d successfully got you all flustered again.

“Oh my god, just order the chicken.” You rolled your eyes, “And I’m going to lock the door so don’t get your hopes up.”

“Aah so cruel.” He replied, dramatically holding his chest like you’d stabbed him.

All this happiness and normalcy that you were faking was emotionally draining; you needed twenty minutes of solace to silently cry it out while the hot water rained on you.

Debating on whether or not to just rip the bandaid and get it over with, you came to the futile conclusion that right now, you just couldn’t. You needed to be prepared, to weigh all the options; to play out all possible outcomes of your potential decision and find all the answers to the difficult questions that you would have to face later. All this overthinking required some time, so you had to keep the secret a little longer.

You went into the kitchen, after slipping into your pajamas, to help Yugyeom.

“Is the food here?”

“No, I’m just setting everything up.”

You grabbed the two plates he’d kept out, only to be scolded by him.

“Noona, I’ll get everything, just pick something to watch.”

“It’s okay, I can carry two plates.”

“I’m sure you can, but I’d like it if you didn’t?”

You chuckled and headed back into the living room.

The food delivery reached you halfway through an episode of Good Girls. So you ate your super spicy wings, while he ate the rice bowl he’d been craving, completely engrossed in the show. By the time you reached the third episode you were so full, you rested your head in his lap, sleepy beyond your control.

“I should never believe you when you say you don’t want to eat” he suddenly said, running his fingers through your hair.

“I stress ate, I think, that’s worse”.

“What’s stressing you out, baby?”

“Rio” You pouted.

“Really. You’re telling me you stress ate because of a fictional gang banger? Actually, no, I take it back. That’s totally believable.”

“Yes, exactly, that fictional gang banger has a neck tattoo.”

“He has a fake neck tattoo. I have a real one on my back.” He sassed.

“Oh whatever, you’re just jealous.”

“Nah… I mean… He could try but I can actually kiss you.”

You laughed squeamishly when he started planting kisses all over your face, then asked you in a more serious tone. “Seriously noona, you look very down today.”

“It’s nothing just…. work.”

“You work too hard, I think you need a vacation. You wanna take friday off and go to the beach over the weekend?”

Unbeknownst to himself, his innocent remarks immediately unraveled the little cocoon you’d stitched around yourself. You wanted to trick your brain into believing, even if for a little while, that everything around you at that moment was not gloomy and dark. But as soon as his words registered, an alarm rang through your body; escalating your heartbeat and breaking you out in sweat.

The sudden change in your physical appearance derailed his chain of thought.

“You’re suddenly sweating so much? Are you getting a panic attack?” he asked, aware of your history with anxiety disorders.

“No, I’m fine,” you lied.

“Then is it a fever?” He placed his hand on your forehead and then on his, to tentatively compare his body temperature to yours.

“It seems okay” he mumbled then spoke to you. “Get up, I’m going to get the thermometer.”

“I’m okay, Yugyeom. I’m sure I’m not sick.”

“I’m getting the thermometer.”

Begrudgingly, you moved out of his way, sitting upright, your heart slowly returning to normal speed.

He came back five minutes later, and after thorough inspection, came upon the conclusion that your body temperature was no higher than normal.

“Happy now? I told you I’m okay.”

“I just wanted to be sure.”

“Or you could have just believed me.”

“Noona?”

“I’m… gonna go to bed” you replied, catching up with and simultaneously getting horrified by the unnecessary aggression in your tone.

“Okay.” he complied, “I’ll clear everything up here and see you in ten minutes.

The way you suddenly snapped at him, was unexpected, but only because you hadn’t behaved this irrationally in a long time.

The last time it happened was when he’d been dating you for a little while and you were terrified of accepting your feelings for him.

In most cases, you were a rather level-headed, logical person. While you couldn’t do anything about being an emotional being, you still regulated the role it played in decision making.

However, the fear of committing to being so effortlessly in love with someone had paralysed you so intensely, it had caused your mind to lash out.

He knew about all this because much, much later you had apologised for hurting him in that battle with yourself. He’d stuck by you when you had tried your hardest to push him away. And you had felt compelled to right that wrong, even though you both had moved past it. His decision to not walk away had been instrumental in helping your relationship grow into the most magnificent forest of love.

He hadn’t experienced this unexplained, irrational irritability since that time, but he chose not to bring it up when he slipped under the sheets.

“Will you be my tiny spoon?” he asked, even though you were facing the wall already.

Without a word you turned around and scooted close enough that you could bury your face in his bare chest. He liked sleeping in his boxers.

A small smile settled on his face. “Goodnight, noona.”

“Goodnight baby. I’m...sorry.”

“It’s okay, I know you’ll figure it out ... whatever it is.”

“I hope so.” you replied, defeatedly, knowing full well that one way or another ‘figuring it out’ was going to break something for you.

The next two days were dull and dark. You smoked a lot, cried a lot, avoided Yugyeom a lot, amongst other mundane routines.

You were on the precipice of adding a third day to the list, but around noon you received a call from Jinyoung – Yugyeom’s senior/ colleague/ childhood friend and by extension now your friend; and he unwantedly altered your ‘gloomy clouds and violent seas’ moodboard to ‘a chill night out in town’.

Since no was never an option with Jinyoung, you ended up going for dinner and a movie with some of Yugyeom’s friends and, to be honest, it wasn’t as bad as you had expected it to be. There were so many people you hadn’t seen in such a long time, it did take your mind off of all the overthinking it had been doing for some hours and as a surprise cherry on top, kept you away from your boyfriend.

By the end of the night you were so tired and tipsy, the only memory that remained of being back home was falling onto the bed and then being tucked in.

The hangover, experienced by you, the following morning was not something you wanted to add to your already substantial list of inconveniences for the day, but it seemed almost inevitable at that point. When you rolled out of bed, he’d left for work and kept out a hangover shake in the kitchen, for you.

“Oh goddammit why could you have not been a douchebag.” You muttered in frustration.

You were angry at your boyfriend for being caring. That’s where you were at in your life. You were so cowardly that you were wishing he’d become an asshole so you could hate him and make it easier on yourself.

It wasn’t a pleasant place to be in.

Fast forward to the weekend, you were painstakingly aware of how little time you had with your wishy-washy-bullshit procrastination. Subconsciously you were aware of the choice you were going to have to make, whether you liked it or not, you just didn’t want to make it.

In the past week, every time your boss called you into the office or crossed you in the corridor you felt this overwhelming pressure, like you were being an ungrateful employee for taking so long to give an answer. And since you hadn’t yet told Yugyeom, who probably was the only person who should have been made aware of the situation the day it had transpired, it made everything even shittier.

You felt like asphalt laid out on the ground ready to get bulldozed.

“Are you sure you’re okay noona?” He asked, worry lines strewn all across his face as he once again caught you floating in your own world, on a very sunny Saturday morning, frowning at nothing in particular.

“I’m okay. I think. Maybe anxiety is catching up with me.”

“Do you want to visit your therapist?”

“Not right now… but, if it continues for longer than a month, I will. I can handle it”, you lied.

He gave you a small peck on the forehead, his way of offering comfort before asking if you needed anything from the convenience store.

You thought about it for 30 seconds before sighing “No, I’m good.”

He felt helpless when you got into this state of mind. But he also knew the best thing he could possibly do was give you your space and silence. You’d been together for three years and he didn’t know he could love someone so much. Even though, sometimes, it came with it’s own curve balls, he was willing to deal with them; because being with you was better than being without.

He knew in his heart that something was wrong. But forcing it out of you was not what he wanted to do, no matter how much he wanted to know or help. Throughout your relationship, you had prided yourself in the fact that you both were always transparent with each other. Sure, it had led to minor disagreements, but choosing to never hide information, out of respect for the other person, was something you both mutually believed in.

So it came as a bit of a shock to him when he ran into your work friend, while buying kitchen supplies and they divulged some information he had not been made privy to.

Needless to say, it didn’t sit well with him, but everything he’d observed about you in the past week suddenly made sense. He didn’t know how to process the information, so he bought the groceries and went back home to find you frowning, just as he’d left you.

“Oh, you’re back already?” You faked a smile, looking at your faint reflection in the window, to make sure you didn’t look like a mess after having cried in his absence.

“Yeah, I just went to buy some ramen and eggs.” He replied. “And I ran into Ahn, from your work.”

“Nice.” The repercussions of that happen stance didn't cross your mind.

“Yeah… yeah. He told me some interesting stuff.”

“Yeah? What did he say?”

“He told me that my girlfriend was moving to London?”

You physically felt your heart fall to the base of your gut as your chest cavity tightened and it became difficult to breathe, all in less than a span of sixty seconds.

“Funny right. And he told me to congratulate you on your promotion since he has been out of town and hasn’t been able to do it himself yet. Apparently it’s been the biggest source of gossip this week because everyone knows about it.”

You sensed the iciness in his voice and were ready to launch yourself out of the window you were crying by earlier.

“Yugyeom....”

“What I don’t understand is why I heard about it for the first time from some random dude I’ve met once in my life for 2 seconds, instead of you.”

“Because, I – it’s not that simple.”

Your statement was met with silence. He didn’t look angry, he looked hurt and betrayed. He had the same face when he found out Belgian chocolate shakes weren’t necessarily always made with chocolates made in Belgium.

You wanted to just casually dissipate into golden dust.

“I might not have all day for this,'' he said, standing on the other side of the countertop.

When you still didn’t talk, because you were trying to squash your tears to avoid a pour out, he moved to leave the kitchen-dining area.

“No, Yugyeom! Please don’t leave ”, you begged.

“Then talk to me.”

“I don’t know how to talk about it. I’ve been trying every day.”

“It’s been a whole week. Seven days. You’ve known this for seven days.”

“It’s been five,” you sobbed, mutedly. “Okay… okay okay….” If you didnt let it out now, your chances of undoing the wedge that was now lodged between you two, were very low. So you began,

“I was offered the position of Art Director at the London office. I have one more week to give them a reply. And I don’t know what to do. There that’s all of it.”

“That took about three sentences and two minutes. Congratulations, noona,” he replied but his tone sounded the opposite of what encouragement would feel like.

He could feel his ears turn red and a sudden lack of oxygen in his lungs.

Without another word, he picked up his jacket and walked out, before the claustrophobia he felt in his own house worsened.

You saw his tall, lean frame close the door and your dam of emotions burst, like it was made out of twigs. There was no reason to pretend anymore — what you knew would happen, did happen. Could it have been avoided, yes, definitely; but at least, the cat was out of the bag.

You waited for him to come back, in spite of knowing how foolish and naive it was to think he’d come back any time soon. You had sent him a dozen messages and calls, all of which he’d chosen to ignore.

So you had to resort to contacting his friends, just to know if he was safe. Mark, Youngjae and Jinyoung were out of town on a business trip, Jackson hadn’t seen him since the movie night, Jaebeom was at the studio and hadn’t heard from him, which left BamBam. You prayed as you called him, for him to have answers regarding Yugyeom’s whereabouts

“Yeah he’s with me, don’t worry. He’s trying to get drunk, but I’m diluting all of his drinks.”

“What? It’s two in the afternoon!”

“What else did you expect? I’ll send him home in one piece.”

“Bam, I really need to talk to him.”

“I know, I know. He told me what happened. He’s… you know.”

“Yeah… I know. Thanks for keeping him safe.”

“Of course I’ll keep him safe, he’s my best friend. I’m also a bit mad at you, just by the way, but we’ll hash it out later- depending on how things go between you two.”

“I understand.”

“I’m gonna go back inside now before he hulks out and breaks some shit. Try to get some rest, okay? Don’t worry about him.”

“Thanks, I’ll try.”

You then heard a soft click and the line went silent.

At around five and much to your surprise, Jaebeom landed up at your doorstep.

Something didn’t seem right; because yes, you got along with him extremely well and had become good friends over the years, but he would never leave the studio in the middle of the day, especially when Yugyeom hadn’t come in. This was absolutely out of character for him.

“I got you some dumplings and kimbap.” He announced after you buzzed him in.

“I’m not really hungry.” You moaned, slouching back into the same position you had been in for the last several hours.

“You’ve been on that couch since morning, haven't you?”

His question was met with cricket noises.

“Yo, listen. I’m not leaving until you have two pieces of each, at least. I will chew your ear out until you do. I know you haven’t eaten anything.”

That's when it hit you, that wasn’t him talking that was Yugyeom talking through him.

“Jae... did Yugyeom ask you to bring this stuff?”

“Would anything change if he did?”

“For fucks sake… seriously?” You were definitely angry, but not sure at what anymore.

“He was worried you wouldn’t eat, so he told me to get you some food.”

“Even when he’s mad at me he has to be a fucking saint.”

“Are you surprised?”

“No, I’m fucking pissed. I know I was wrong but I’d much rather he fight with me than this passive aggressive shit.”

“I know.” He replied, “But…. I also know you know he’s not here because he doesn’t want to talk about it, just as much as you didn’t. Talking about it means he has to be there when you choose between him and your job. I don’t think he wants to hear it.”

“He’s just assuming I’m going?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Well fuck if I knew then I wouldn’t be crying about it would I?”

“Dude I know this is hard for you, but don’t lie to yourself about it. I know you want to go to London, that’s why this is so difficult.”

“But I don’t wanna go without Yugyeom.”

He went back into the kitchen where he had placed all the food and brought it over to the coffee table.

“Yes, but what if you have to?” he then asked.

Holding a conversation with Jaebeom was like staring at the blunt edge of a knife and hoping you wouldn’t get cut just by looking at it for too long. He was this pool of wisdom you could turn to, to reflect, but since he never learned how to sugar coat things, sometimes his words could get difficult to swallow; just like right now.

“I don’t want to.”

“Yes, but what if you have to.”

You turned to look away from him, because you knew too well what the answer to that was, you just didn’t want to say it out loud.

He read your silence and thought it best to give you your space.

“I’m going to keep everything here. Please eat and drink some water too. You’re going to get dehydrated otherwise. I’ll check up on you when I’m back at the academy. And I’ll be damn pissed if you waste any of those dumplings.”

“Fine.” You absent-mindedly replied having no intention of actually going through with it.

“It’s not for Yugyeom, it’s for me.”

You watched him leave and buried yourself under the blanket again. It wasn’t out of ego that you didn’t eat, it was more so the nausea and headache that had completely drained you and caused your body to shut down. You were asleep within minutes.

And it wasn’t until the main door opened, at an ungodly hour, that you woke up and sat on the couch, alarmed.

“You’re still awake?” he asked, feeling just the tiniest bit of buzz from a mixture of drinks in his system.

“I wasn’t awake, I fell asleep after Jae left.”

“Oh” his eyes darted to the untouched packet of food, painting a vivid picture of dissatisfaction all over his face. He wanted to ask you to eat, but he was still incredibly hurt over the secret keeping to want to talk to you kindly.

“You can sleep inside,” he stated in a monotone, “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. I’ll stay at Bammie’s, starting tomorrow.”

“Yugyeom please don’t do this, this is your house. Please talk to me?”

“You want to talk now, noona? Really?”

“I know I messed up. I know, okay, I know I should have told you earlier. But, every time I tried, I couldn’t. You think I didn’t want to tell you? You think this is what I want? Do you think any of this is what I want? I don’t want to make this choice, Yugyeom.”

“Do you have to make a choice?”

“Are you willing to uproot your life here and move to London with me, because if not then yes, I do. I have to choose between the only two things I love most and forgive me for not knowing how to do that. I don’t want to fight, baby. I love you and I love my job. You know how much and for how long I have wanted this. And you know I fucking love you.”

You’d fought the tears so hard through this monologue, you could feel the strain on your throat. But it was all in vain, because you did breakdown. You didn’t want him to feel bad for you, so you covered your face with your palms, as best you could.

You wanted to scream and shout at the stars; to direct your anger somewhere, anywhere.

The entrapment that you experienced while blurting out all your emotions was a roller coaster ride you never consented to take.

His footsteps echoed in the pin drop silence and you assumed he was moving towards the door, to leave.

Of course, it would make sense for him to want to leave. All you’d just said right now was that you loved him but not enough to make him the obvious first choice.

So it came as a surprise when instead you felt his warm fingers run through your hair as he sat down next to you.

He didn’t say anything. He just pulled you into his chest, as you cried profusely. Fighting back his own emotions, he rocked back and forth, gently, in an effort to calm you down. You smelled of smoke. It was alarming because it meant you’d smoked enough for the smell to linger in your hair and on your clothes but it wasn’t the right time to bring that up.

“Noona, I love you too.”

Your grip around him tightened when he said that, unleashing a new wave of tears that you were too exhausted to undergo.

“Come on, I know you haven’t eaten all day. Let’s eat something and then go to sleep.” He added, speaking softly, like he was talking to an injured puppy and was afraid to hurt it with his voice.

“Can we stay like this for two more minutes?” you managed to mutter, in between sobs.

“Okay baby, we can stay here as long as you want.”

You didn’t wake up until late in the afternoon the next day, still encased in Yugyeom’s arms. It was unusual for you to sleep in until 3PM, but your mind and soul were so spent from the past couple of days, it made sense to rest.

Being in his embrace comforted you beyond what words could convey. You pushed your back into his torso, desperately trying to reduce any crevices between your bodies.

In his sleep induced state he kissed your neck and tightened his hold around your waist.

You could feel that he was just a bit turned on, with your ass pressed up against his boxers and you should have resisted the urge to move your hips against his pelvis.

The unspoken tension between the two of you hung heavy in the air but you’d been on a streak of making bad decisions this past week, so what was one more.

His heartbeat quickened as your movements became more purposeful.

It was a confusing place to be in. You didn’t know if you were still fighting, if he wanted space, if you wanted more time. The only thing you knew with certainty was at that moment you wanted him.

By now he was fully awake and aware of your motives; and didn’t waste any time in reciprocating your pursuit either— his hands feeling up your body with an unmatched aggression.

Usually, he always made the first move, because you would get shy. So it took him by surprise when you pressed yourself up against him like that, but It didn’t take him long to get in the position of control. In a matter of seconds he had you pinned face down against the sheets with your ass protruding outwards, your clothes on the floor and his fingers slithering smoothly on your clit.

You heaved in response when he smacked and grabbed onto your buttcheeks, with force.

“You like that baby?” he asked, roughhousing you to lay flat on your back, so he could kiss you and bruise you and most importantly, watch you gasp and pant as he manhandled your body pleasurably.

You loved it when Yugyeom played aggressive; and nodded in response.

A cocky smirk formed on his face.

For the next several minutes he pleased you in every way he knew how to– kissing your body, sucking your nips, eating you out, pounding his fingers into you until you were begging to come. Just to tease you more he’d edge you then wait and start all over again.

It was always hell for you when he made you beg for it.

“Baby, please fuck me.” you moaned in anguish, as he parted your legs and licked your folds again, needily.

“Say that again, noona.” He demanded.

“Please, please fuck me. I can’t take it anymore” You dangerously tugged at his hair as he gently teased your lower body.

“Again.”

Your distress was giving him immense pleasure, tempting him to take his sweet time and get you even more desperate for his dick.

“Yugyeom...... please.”

The impatience in your voice was unmissable. You arched your back when he hit a particularly sensitive spot, losing all of the air inside your lungs.

He pressed his lips against your labia even harder and licked you surreptitiously.

“Oh fuck…. baby…. oh keep doing that” you whined, but he stopped abruptly and looked up, to study your face.

“What? Why did you stop?”

“You were having too much fun.”

“It’s not my fault, you’re too good at it.” Maybe caressing his ego would get you somewhere.

He laughed at your response and nibbled around your waist lovingly.

You sat up, messing with his hair and asked him to take his boxers off.

He nodded and got rid of the only piece of clothing he was wearing, at lightning speed, while you got on your knees.

A small groan escaped his lips, as you grasped the base of his length and moved your fingers rhythmically, pumping him. You licked your lips thirstily and took in his tip, swirling your tongue around his skin, like tasting a new flavour of lollipop.

It was no secret that he was turned on, but you miscalculated just how fast your manoeuvres would rile him up.

As you sucked his cock fully into your mouth, he grabbed a fistful of your hair and tugged at it, barely able to keep his composure.

You could hear him mumbling profanities when you deliberately took a long time to feel his ridges and bulging veins with your mouth.

“Noona… fuck…..” he panted deliriously, his mouth watering at the sight of you. He wanted to buck his hips and fuck your mouth harder, hit the back of your throat, make you choke, but he wanted you to initiate it so he’d know that you were okay with it.

You looked up at him lustfully, his cock still suctioned between your lips. The way he eye-fucked you spread electricity through your body; making you want even more of him. When you removed your hand from the base and squeezed his balls, he knew your intentions. It was your tell-tale sign; the consent he needed to go harder.

He grabbed the back of your head and gained control of the way your neck moved on him. Your heart raced when he started hitting the back of your throat repeatedly, blocking your air supply every time he did so.

Tears collected in the far corners of your eyes, and you let out multiple muffled moans. You loved this feeling of asphyxiation, but your body’s reflex was to react against it.

It didn’t go unnoticed by him when a thin trail of collected water trickled down the side of your face.

He let go of your hair and asked “You good?”

That’s the kind of man Kim Yugyeom was, who’d stop in the middle of rough sex to make sure his partner wasn’t getting hurt.

That’s the man you were going to lose if you chose your job.

Did that possibility make right now the last time you could feel him like this?

You chuckled, licking your lips for residue, “I’ll be better when you cum in my mouth”.

“Fuck... you drive me crazy.” He exhaled sharply, finding your arms and pulling you up.

The kiss you shared after that was sloppy and greedy, laced with a desperation you’d experience if you were running out of time.

You moved backwards towards the bed, his lips wandering on your neck voraciously.

“Baby….baby please fuck me” you cooed, digging your nails into his flesh.

This time, you didn’t have to ask him twice.

Before you could wrap your head around it, he’d worn protection and was pounding into you greedily, ecstasy flowing through his veins.

The loud, wet sounds of his thrusts, as you writhed pleasurably under his lean form, were catalytic. Your walls clenched around his cock as he fucked you until he hit your spot.

Mesmerised by his lustful yet soft brown eyes, you let the wildfire, burning at the pit of your stomach, dictate your thoughts and move your body in-sync with his rapidly escalating fervour; making you huff and hum in relief.

With your eyes closed, you experienced the seventh heaven. He literally made you see stars. The tension in your pelvis dissipated and you came undone, panting and sweating heavily.

You wanted to at least make him feel an equivalent amount of gratification.

“I want you to cum in my mouth, baby. Will you cum in my mouth for me?” you asked, salaciously.

“Oh god noona you’re so fucking hot” he whined, fastening his momentum. Even though he’d made you orgasm, his thrusts were getting you all riled up again.

When he was dangerously close to erupting inside of you, he pulled out; and you greedily crawled towards him, to help him finish. As Yugyeom released in your mouth and you swallowed, not breaking the heated eye contact you had going on, he sighed delightfully.

He watched you lick the last traces off of his dick and your mouth, and he couldn’t get enough of the sight in front of him.

Catching you in his embrace, he kissed your forehead and tackled you back into bed.

Your heart felt full and empty at the same time.

“You got me all tired now.” he hummed, pulling you into his chest.

You checked the clock on your bedside table;16:30 it read. Never in your life span had you wanted to freeze time as much as you did that very second.

Yugyeom continued to shower you with more kisses and somewhere between his touch and the faint sound of the piano being played somewhere, you fell asleep again.

Filled with anxiety and your heart beating out of your chest, you sat up in a jerk movement. You didn’t know if it was day or night, if you were late for work or if you’d just woken up from a nightmare.

Nothing seemed to make sense to you. Yugyeom wasn't occupying his side of the bed either.

You took a few deep breaths and checked the time again. It was 8PM and you were still on Sunday.

You let out a sigh of relief and fell back on your pillow, your heart still beating like crazy.

“What an awful way to wake up” you thought to yourself, turning towards his empty pillow. It was then that you noticed the vase placed by Yugyeom’s bedside.

Flowers weren’t your thing, but they were his. He would get cheered up so easily if anyone got him a bouquet. He’d just shove his whole face in the petals and smell them and smile like a fool. There was a piece of paper still attached to the bunch, with ‘noona’ written on it.

Wait… did he actually get those for you? You rolled over to his side and started reading the contents, entering a panic induced state of mind immediately. It was barely five lines but it felt like an eternity to get through.

“Noona, I’m breaking up with you. You should accept the promotion and go to London, without me making you feel guilty about it. I couldn’t say this in front of you because you know I suck at this stuff. But I was more afraid that I’d ask you to stay. I love you. I want to make this easy for you. Please don’t call me…. I’m sorry.”

After the tenth read his words registered in your brain, like a ten year old typewriter running low on ink – the words were all there, just impossible to interpret.

This was fucking ridiculous.

Immediately you sprang out of bed, took a bath and got dressed, unwilling to accept this predicament on face value. Even if it was the only foreseeable decision, you couldn’t let him take the fall for it. You were the bad guy in this situation and you had to face it.

You first went to the academy, just in case he’d gone there to bury his emotions under a thick layer of hardcore choreography. To your dismay Jaebeom was the only one burying his feelings in the building.

“He wrote a note? Really?”

“Yeah he said he’s breaking up with me and left.”

“But… wasn’t that going to happen anyway?”

“Jae… not right now, okay? I don’t want your bitter pills at the moment, ‘cuz they will make me want to punch you.”

“You’re fucking violent. Fine. He’s probably hiding at Bambam's.”

“Yeah I was planning on going there if I didn’t find him here.”

“Cool, call me if you need anything.” You nodded and went outside to hail a taxi hoping and praying to find him.

If Yugyeom really was at Bambams, there was a good chance you wouldn’t even be let in, on account of you having hurt his best friend and all; but you still had to try.

Luckily, since his house was on the second floor and had a window facing the entry, you at least could be sure that he was at home. The lights were on.

You rang the bell and waited.

No answer

You rang it again.

Still no answer.

You then called his number, to see if the incoming call ringtone could be heard from outside. A millisecond later you heard his phone. There was no doubt that he was inside. And there would have been no need to keep you out unless Yugyeom was there as well.

“BamBam come on.”

The door knob melodiously clicked open and he slipped out through the tiniest gap, not letting you peek inside

“I can’t let you in bro.”

“I know Yugyeom’s here.”

“That’s why I can’t let you in. Didn’t he say not to contact him?”

“He said not to call. I didn’t call. Just let me see him Bam.”

“Why do you want to see him. He broke up with you, didn’t he? I told you we’ll hash it out depending on how it goes between you both. Well, this is how it is. He doesn’t want to see you.”

“Bam he broke up with me to make it easy on me. So that I can leave ‘guilt-free’. Does that make any sense to you?”

“So you’re actually going huh?”

“I-”, you fumbled “I don’t know. Part of me that loves my job tells me I have to. The other part that loves him tells me I don’t want to. Let me talk to him, please Bam? It’s the last favour I’ll ask of you for a long time.”

“You know, you both are being really messy.” he sighed and punched in the code to his apartment. “I’m going to get some drinks. Make it quick.”

You hugged him before heading inside “Thank you.”

When Yugyeom saw you at the doorway, he cursed. “Fuckin hell Bam.'' He was not pleased to see you.

“He left to get some drinks.”

“Please I’m not in the mood for this, just leave. I know you came here hoping to change my mind.”

“Yugyeom did you really think you cutting me off like that was going to make me feel any differently?”

“Did you even try?”

“Try what?”

“Feeling differently?”

“Why don’t you tell me first?”

“I don’t have to. I’m not the one leaving.” That sentence stung you in the chest.

“And what if I don’t?”

“What?”

“What if I don’t go to London. What if I don’t accept it?”

“Then you’re a dumbass.” He got up from the chair he’d been occupying, several paces away from you and moved even further away as you finally stepped out of the foyer and inside the living room.

“Excuse me?” Did you just call me a dumbass?”

“Yeah, I did. Because you’re acting like one. Why the fuck would you turn down your dream

job?”

“I don’t wanna lose you.”

“Wow, the one time I expect you to use your logic, you don’t. Remember yesterday, you asked if I would pack up my whole world and shift to London with you? And I said nothing? So if I can’t do that for you, then you shouldn’t have to do that for me. I don’t want you to have to choose between me and your career noona.”

“But I have to Yugyeom. If I choose my career, we break up. If I stay here, I lose my promotion. Let’s call a spade a spade, yeah?”

“Yes that’s why I took myself out of this equation. I know I said I’m giving you an easy out, but really, it’s for me. I didn’t want to hear you say you’re choosing your job. Because of course that shit will hurt me. And I can’t ask you to stay because that’s a selfish thing to do. You know you don't want to pass over this opportunity. Why are you making this so hard for the both of us?”

“I’m making this hard?” you questioned.

“Yeah, you are. The faster I’m trying to bury it, the more you want to dig it out.”

“So is this it? This is how you want it to end between us?”

“Do you have another way?”

“We have five days.”

“I can’t watch you leave me and not be able to do shit about it. I fucking can’t.”

“Okay.. and you have made up your mind?”

“Yeah”

“Do whatever you want then, I guess” you conceded, your words full of anger and frustration, and went back towards the door.

His heart felt so heavy. He wanted to run to you and ask you to never leave him and kiss you so badly, but held himself back with everything he had. He had to hold himself back. If he gave in right now, he’d be in a much stronger world of pain later.

“Yugyeom, if you change your mind…. you know where to find me” you stated before slamming the door shut.

There wasn’t much else you could really do about it other than comply with his wishes.

The sad part of it all was that you always did intend to accept the promotion and transfer to London, you were too ashamed to admit it. The decision you’d been stalling had finally reached it’s obvious conclusion and you felt nothing. No happiness, no sadness, no anger - it was like falling into a grave of white noise, endlessly, without any safety net or ground to actually hit.

During the ride back home, while you sent out messages to all the people who needed to be told; back at BamBam’s house Yugyeom had chugged two bottles of Soju in spite of BamBam’s protests.

“You fucker, I’m gonna call everyone over so they can beat your ass, if you don’t slow down.”

“Don’t care” Yugyeom muttered, while opening a third bottle. “Let’s party. Fuck some bitches.”

“Oh you wanna fuck some bitches or you wanna fuck a bitch who just left like fifteen minutes ago.”

“She’s not a bitch be nice.”

“Oh fuck’s sake, I’m calling hyung”.

“Which one?”

“All of them”.

#got7 #yugyeom #GOT7 fanfiction #got7 fanfic #yugyeom smut #got7creators #got7 yugyeom #yugyeom fanfic #yugyeom angst #got7 smut #greasy posts #fr:yugyeom #rating:m

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wherevermyway · 4 years ago

Text

we’re professional. (1/??) // minbin // 18+

❄ part of yuki’s favourites! ❄

we’re professional. chapter one: sophisticated series navigation: [desktop] [mobile]

pairing: lee minho x seo changbin rating: explicit! 18+ warnings/tags: slow burn, angst, eventual sexual content, age difference, art student changbin, artist minho, fake dating AU. word count: 4,807 also on AO3

originally posted: 17 december 2020

series summary: Lee Minho, or Minho: The Heartless, is a famous artist, which comes with an annoying entourage of paparazzi that are very invested in his life.

Two years ago, a piece at UBC's annual student's exhibit catches Minho's eye: "arranged: in black", a series of greyscale paintings crafted by sophomore Seo Changbin. Minho talks with Changbin at length for hours, then offers to help him financially if they pretend to date for a while, so Minho can please the press. Naturally, a walking exhibit of the "starving artist" stereotype, Changbin accepts the offer wholeheartedly.

There are no strings attached: Changbin can leave at any time. Hell, Minho doesn't even ask him for sex in exchange for the money, just companionship and occasional skinship. Changbin knows that Minho is emotionally damaged from several bad relationships in the past, so to have someone pay him just for providing them company is nice. Sure, he could go off and date someone and work on settling down, but he just doesn't want to. Minho is too interesting, too valuable.

Eventually, something's gotta give. When it does, it could potentially damage their relationship and careers forever.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable, please stop reading now.

chapter summary: Minho brings up an interesting proposal while celebrating the second year of his professional arrangement with Changbin.

“I can’t accept this.” The young, blue-haired man at the opposite side of the table of a middle-aged brunette pushes an open envelope back across the table. “It’s too much. You’ve already given me so much this month, I couldn’t possibly accept anymore.”

“Changbin,” the brunette smirks, bringing the crystal glass of wine up to his mouth. “Please, don’t insult me. I’m not offering this just off the cuff. Besides, it’s not just cash that’s in there.”

The bluenette frowns, bringing his gin and tonic to his mouth, taking a careful, prescribed sip as he watches the older man cautiously. He lets the gin burn its way down his throat before he sighs. “It’s sex, then. That’s what you want, Minho?”

“No.” Minho’s expression quickly turns serious and slightly sour. “Not at all. I told you when we first started this arrangement that this wouldn’t turn sexual.”

“Right.” Changbin cocks his eyebrows up in response, his tone somewhat sarcastic. He brings the glass up again, tilting it and his head backwards, letting the ice slink down and hit him in the nose as he finishes off his drink. He sets the glass down on to the table, ice settling with a soft clink, before he rolls his eyes up and frowns. “What’s all this for, then?” The young man rolls his wrist around, bringing his chin down to his right hand. “You’ve really gone all out for this date.”

Minho softly smiles, then mimics Changbin, mirroring him in the way that he places his head in his left palm. “It’s been two years, officially.” He makes eye contact with a server somewhere off in the distance, and nods upward.

“Two years, eh?” Changbin tuts. “Surprising that neither of us have gotten sick of each other, nor found other people to spend time with.” He takes in a quick breath, then flashes his teeth with a lazy smirk. “Sure you’re not getting serious with me yet?”

The older man opens his mouth to speak, but quickly recedes his statement as a lanky waiter confidently struts over to the table. “Hyunjin, could you please bring me the bottle of Clos D’Ambonnay I have in the back?”

“Of course, Mr. Lee,” the blond waiter nods his head once with a polite smile before he makes his way back to whence he came.

Changbin squinted, knitting his brows together as he shook his head once. “You own this restaurant, too, don’t you?”

“Mmm, I wouldn’t necessarily say own it, no.” Minho hums, bringing his index finger in between his teeth as he ponders. “It’s a partnership with an old colleague of mine, Chan; you met him at the Vivace Vancouver exhibit over the spring. He had that dreadful red hair, the one where you said he looked like he got electrocuted and then spray painted by an angry ex-lover.”

The younger man’s eyes go wide as he tries to hold back his laughter. “Oh my god,” he sighs, “I remember that. How do you forget something so audacious, is that even possible?” He regains his composure and rests upright against the back of the chair. “In my defence, though, I was two glasses of Chianti in when I said that. Please tell me that his hair isn’t that horrible shade anymore. It was so bad.”

Minho smiles widely and softly shakes his head. “No, no, god, no. I met with him the day after and told him that he needed to go back to see my stylist immediately and never go back to the hellspawn that butchered his hair.”

“Apologies for the interruption, Mr. Lee,” the lanky waiter from before returned, presenting a black bottle before he placed it on top of the table. “As requested.” He placed well-crafted champagne flutes in front of both Minho and Changbin.

“Hyunjin,” Minho tutted as the waiter grabbed the bottle, “I’ve told you several times that just ‘Minho’ is fine.”

The blond waiter half-smiled as he wrapped a hand towel around the cork, deftly wiggling it off with a muffled pop. “And I will tell you each time,” he poured some of the champagne into Changbin’s glass first, “you will always be Mr. Lee when I’m at work.”

“You’re too stiff,” the brunette gently pushed his glass towards the blond as he set Changbin’s glass down. “I know that Chan — sorry, Mr. Bang — is strict with all of you, to maintain a pristine image,” Hyunjin picks up Minho’s glass and bites his lip as if he’s holding back commentary, “but you’re still in your prime. Bend the rules a little while you can get away with it.”

Changbin watches the way Minho’s eyes flutter around from the glass to Hyunjin, catching himself getting caught up in the way the light sparkles against his brown eyes, the way his eyelashes paint shadows on his irises. He doesn’t mean for every detail to be etched into his memory, but there was always something about remembering the details of Minho’s soft face that warmed him. If it were any other world, any other person, perhaps he would be catching feelings.

This arrangement, however, was strictly professional. There was no room for feelings.

Hyunjin sets the bottle back down onto the table. “Sure thing, Minho,” he sarcastically scoffs as he wiggles his shoulders in some sort of strange dance of mockery. “Would you like an ice bucket to keep this chilled?”

Minho shrugs, seemingly indifferent, but his expression turns a bit more serious. “I suppose. Don’t worry about us, though. Tend to the other customers first — we’ll be here for a while longer. A bit of champagne slowly warming won’t be the end of the world.”

“You got it, Mr. Lee,” Hyunjin says, tipping his index and middle fingers off of his forehead in some sort of joking salute before he spins on his heel and walks off to another table.

Minho grabs his champagne flute and flashes his teeth at Changbin. “Sorry about that, love, I’ve just gotta give the staff here trouble every now and again.”

Changbin blushes as he picks up his champagne flute, bringing it close to Minho’s. “Don’t apologize.” He tries to restrain his embarrassment, still mentally replaying the way that Minho called him ‘love’, desperately trying to get the sound to imprint upon his memory. “Anyway,” he lifts his head from his palm and stares directly into the brunette’s eyes. “Two years? I can’t believe it’s been this long since I met you.”

“Your ‘arranged: in black’ series captured me, Changbin, what can I say?” The older man tilts his head to the side, tugging his lips into a smile. “I still think about it every day.”

“It’s hard to avoid thinking about it when all four pieces are hanging behind your bed, wouldn’t you say?”

“Suppose that’s fair,” Minho bites his bottom lip as he avoids laughing. “But, wow, two years. Two very eventful years. To think, you were a scraggly sophomore two years ago when I met you. You really kind of fit the ‘starving artist’ stereotype back then, hmm?”

Changbin’s eyes subconsciously darted down to the maroon tablecloth. He avoided thinking about his life before he met Minho, since it wasn’t something he was overly fond of. Sleeping for a couple of hours a night after a late dishwashing shift at the restaurant, waking up before dawn to run to his part-time barista job, then somehow getting to class just in time to nearly doze off mid-project sketch, all to repeat it again the next day. The chronic sleep deprivation painted him in an ashy grey, and he perpetually smelled of instant ramen and coffee.

No. That was in the past.

He shuddered at the thought of his past life. It was stressful, and he was thankful that Minho came along and offered him some kindness. Most art students either came from wealthy families, or lived in the same shoes that Changbin did. The ones that weren’t from wealthy lineage would probably stay under the poverty line for the rest of their lives, but at least they would be happy creating things that came from the depths of their soul.

For some, it was worth the sacrifice. He knew what he was getting into when he was accepted into the visual arts programme at the University of British Columbia, and he was prepared for the pain and agony it would cause him for the small chance he could make it big while doing something he loved.

“Binnie, love?” Minho’s soft voice pulled Changbin from his memory. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Changbin nodded his head a couple of times, almost as if he was willing himself to be calm. “Sorry, I just kinda got distracted. Thought about when we first met and kinda got transported back in time.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, but it definitely was far from the truth.

The older man softly smiled and nudged his champagne flute forward. “Well, here’s to two years of whatever the hell this is. Here’s to however long we have left and to wherever we may go next.”

Changbin smiled, turning his chin slightly inward as he tapped his flute against Minho’s. “I like that. To whatever the hell is next.”

“‘Whatever the hell is next’,” Minho smiled as he brought the flute up to his lips. “That’s a good one.”

They didn’t get to the bottom of the bottle of champagne until about a half-hour past closing. It had been two years of the same company every Tuesday and Thursday night, and usually most Fridays and Saturdays, yet they still found new things to talk about each time they met. “You’re still so foolishly young and in university,” Minho would scold Changbin over the phone, “so go out and get hammered at a stupid house party and I’ll come by tomorrow and help nurse you out of your hangover.” Minho was really a sweetheart, even if he didn’t want to date and was, to quote Minho himself, ‘emotionally unavailable’.

It had been two years, and Changbin still didn’t fully understand why people were so pressed on calling Minho heartless.

“And so,” Changbin took a sip of water from his glass, setting it down a bit roughly, some of the water sloshing around and splashing on to the table, “I had to sketch a live model, right? Turns out Seungmin makes a horrible model at two in the morning, but we thought the idea was brilliant.”

Minho loudly cackles, throwing his head back and clapping his hands once in front of his face. “You had just gotten done downing several shots at the bar. What made either of you think that sketching in charcoal was a good idea?”

The younger man folds over, resting his head in his palms as he tries not to collapse on to the floor in laughter. “The project was due on Monday! And, hey, we got it done, and I somehow got a decent grade in the end.”

“Ah,” Minho leans back into his chair as he looks up to the wall to his left, smiling as he wipes a tear from his eye. “I’d love to scold you for that, but the truth is, I can’t. I did the same things in uni ten years ago.”

Changbin rests his chin against the back of his hand, languidly smiling as he watches Minho get lost in memories past. These moments that they shared, where they were just so plainly human — not a famous artist, not a struggling art student, but simply Minho and Changbin — these were why Changbin never sought out another partner. It was unconventional to most people, especially those his age, to have such a hands-off relationship, but it just worked for them. Sometimes, the things that came off the most discordant could somehow still find a way to harmonize, and that was what they did.

“You know, you didn’t totally open the envelope,” Minho points at the middle of the table with an open hand, as if he were guiding Changbin back to the thick paper.

Changbin shrugged his shoulders and bashfully looked away for a moment before staring Minho down. “Come on, Min,” he lowers his voice a bit, “I don’t need to know how much you’re giving me, at least not now.”

Minho dismissively waves his hand before nudging the envelope back to Changbin. “It’s not just money, love, I promise. Nothing too domestic, either. Just,” he pauses, bringing a finger to his chin as he looks up at the ceiling, “I suppose it’s partially a token of my appreciation? Yeah, that sounds right. A way to tell you I’m thankful you’ve stuck around for so long, even with all of the weird shit we’ve gone through. There’s more to it than that, but that sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

“I dunno, you’re making this feel like a real relationship,” the bluenette sarcastically mumbles a bit as he gingerly picks up the envelope, squinting a bit at Minho. He opens it, then pulls out a few plastic-like polymer bills: some green, some red. His expression quickly shifts to confusion when he comes across papery stationary, the textural difference causing a nerve to spark up in his arm. Stationary. A letter? He pulls the light grey paper out of the envelope, eyeing Minho as he opens it. “Really? Getting awfully boyfriend-like on me, Min.”

“Oh, come on, just read it,” the older man tuts, rifling through the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “I promise, it’s not as sappy as it looks.”

Changbin plucks his glasses from the table, wiggling the temples to fit just behind his ears, then clears his throat. He tries to swallow down the smirk on his face as he mocks Minho’s intonation and speech. “My loveliest Changbin,” a laugh creeps up from his stomach as he reads on. “Every single day, I wake up and I see your ‘arranged: in black’ pieces, intricately framed behind my bed, and I’m taken aback by the fact that your mind knows no bounds when it comes to expressing creativity.” The younger man peers over the sheet again, studying the somewhat bored, slightly flustered expression on the elder’s face.

“So I had a couple of glasses of wine while writing, I got a bit sentimental.” Minho flutters his lips as he rolls his eyes and flicks his wrist. “At least it’s not as bad as last year’s letter.”

Changbin smiled, but quickly brought the paper in front of his face to hide the subtle reddish tint growing on his face. “I usually don’t like keeping my own work, as you know,” he continued to read off of the letter, still avoiding eye contact with Minho, “but the graphite portrait of you, asleep on my bed from your last bout of finals — it holds a special spot in my heart. I love seeing it every time I enter my closet. It’s like there are little reminders of you scattered across my apartment, and across my heart.”

Oh.

There was a warmth that blossomed and grew in Changbin’s abdomen. The warmth reminded him of ivy hanging off of old buildings, quickly encompassing and embracing everything within its reach. It was a strange sensation, and it gave him pause before he continued reading the note.

Perhaps this was more than sentimental.

Perhaps Changbin was reading too far into things again.

“Changbin?” Minho’s voice pulled the bluenette from the cavern of thoughts he had recessed himself into. “Where did you go?” His tone was firm, distracting Changbin from the fact that Minho had interlaced his fingers between the younger man’s left hand.

This was something they always did. Minho was always touchy-feely, even if it didn’t progress past shirtless embraces as they slept next to each other, or walking hand-in-hand. The way the pads of Minho’s fingertips softly caressed the back of his hand, though, made things seem different. Special.

“Your closet.” Realizing he had spent too much time losing himself in between the grooves of Minho’s fingerprints, Changbin sputtered out some words to barely form a coherent thought. “You reminded me that I still have one of your Burberry hoodies lost somewhere in my apartment.”

Minho furrowed his brows for a moment, trying not to get caught up on how distant Changbin’s response was. “The oversized black one? You know I don’t mind if you keep it, Bin.”

“It was nearly a thousand dollars, Minho.”

The older man scoffs and rolls his eyes a bit, bringing his left hand up to the table, a small brown box of sorts covered up by his palm. “Well,” the brunette squeezed Changbin’s hand a bit, causing them to make eye contact, “when you’re done reading that letter, I’ll be sure to avoid telling you how much your ‘anniversary’ gift is.” Minho winked as he ended his sentence, right when Changbin was thinking about saying something in protest.

“Minho,” Changbin whines, drooping his shoulders a bit as he frowns.

“Changbin,” Minho teases a bit as he mockingly whines in response. “Trust me, it’s not just me spending money aimlessly. It’ll tie into the idea I have in that letter. You know, really make some of those tabloids make us look nice and get off our backs for a while.”

The younger man bit his tongue and scanned his eyes down the letter, trying to find the last spot he had read over. Across my apartment , reading the words caused his hands to sweat, across my heart, made his stomach clench. Domestic and soft, exactly what they were, but also, somehow exactly what they were not. He continued reading off the letter, but his memories started creeping up during the empty gaps between sentences.

There was the callous bite to Minho’s tone during their first real meet-up. “Our arrangement is for mutual gains: you’ll be able to live comfortably, and I’ll get the press off of my back. You won’t be a starving artist, and I’ll no longer be ‘Minho, the Heartless’. We’re professional boyfriends: all of the benefits, none of the downsides, like feelings.” His bony hands felt cold, like ice, when they shook hands to confirm their arrangement. Changbin had felt in over his head then, but he knew he didn’t have anywhere else to turn.

In contrast, there was the night that Changbin had recently stayed over at the end of October. They had gotten back shortly after one in the morning after celebrating Minho’s thirty-first birthday with a handful of his friends and several well-renowned professional artists and gallery owners. Sure, Changbin had been Minho’s quote-unquote “boyfriend” for the night, but it benefitted his art career a bit, just to branch out and connect. None of that had mattered, though, because the best part was when they had gotten half-undressed and passed out on Minho’s duvet together, giggling about how some of the attendees thought ‘artist’s birthday’ meant ‘licence to dress as insanely as humanly possible’. The one-on-one time was always what Changbin looked forward to the most: that soft, personal connection with another person on such a raw, human level.

That was the weekend he borrowed Minho’s black, oversized Burberry sweater to wear home. Changbin lied earlier. He knew exactly where it was: curled up next to his wall in his bed. The soft scent of bergamot and mandarin of the Dior Sauvage that Minho wore on his wrists and in the divots of his clavicles had slowly started to fade into hints of vanilla and sandalwood. While he knew that his arrangement with Minho wouldn’t last forever, he wanted to live in the moments that made him feel like he was in a true, caring relationship. He had a friend in Minho, he truly did. It would probably hurt like hell when they eventually decided to move on from their agreement.

We're professional. Changbin would remind himself every night as he curled up into Minho’s sweater, remembering the way Minho’s arms felt warm on his back and on his shoulders, how soft his manicured fingers were when they fit perfectly in between Changbin’s. We are not real boyfriends. The sweater would catch his inevitable tears as he lost himself in the confusing haze they had painted themselves under. Business dynamic. This was the price he would pay to get into the elusive elitist art world. Strictly professional.

Even if it cost him his sanity.

“Did I just read that correctly?” Changbin’s voice was alarmed, and he frantically re-read the words on the paper before darting his eyes around nervously. Minho smirked as Changbin leaned over the table, dropping his voice to a just-audible whisper. “You want to do what to get the press’ attention?”

Minho grabbed the ashy brown jewellery box from the table, letting go of Changbin’s left hand. He opened the box and his expression flattened. “Exactly what the paper says, Bin.” Inside the desaturated box sat a contrastingly bright, rose gold band.

It was a ring embedded with actual fucking diamonds.

To anyone else, this would be serious. ‘Call your parents, scream at your best friend, even at two in the morning’ levels of seriousness. However, Changbin and Minho were not ‘anyone else’. They were in their own strange, unique bubble where the rules of modern society did not apply to them.

“How about we graduate from professional boyfriends to professional fiancés?”

Like most Sunday mornings nowadays, Changbin woke up to the scent of freshly-brewed coffee. Minho may have travelled to fancy galleries across the world and tried extravagant blends of coffee during his tenure, but he would always fall back on Starbucks’ blonde roast for his morning routines. “Why bother going through all of the effort of getting my hands on something overly fancy from Europe? I have yet to be let down by this one, and it’s been over ten years since I started drinking it. Why stop now?”

The logic made sense, really, and the coffee wasn’t bad.

“The Vancouver Sun’s already got an article out,” Minho excitedly muttered under his breath, setting a ceramic mug down on the nightstand closest to Changbin. He stared at his phone as he made his way back around the bed, causing the mattress to sink as he sat down. “So many people are speculating, like it even matters. If they had really been following me these past two years, they’d know better.”

It was too early for this. Minho was always business as soon as he woke up: endearing in theory, terribly annoying in practice.

Changbin rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands as he rolled onto his back, sleepily glaring up at Minho. “You’re loud.”

“And you’re hungover,” the brunette quipped, not looking away from his phone as he smiled at himself. “Drink your water and your coffee, love, you’ll feel better.”

“Whatever,” Changbin grumbled under his breath as he sat up, reaching over to the nightstand. There was a sheen on his left hand that caused him to momentarily lose his breath. Shit. He drew his hand into his face to stare at the ring he had conveniently forgotten about overnight. It felt like nothing before he noticed it, but now that he was staring at it, it felt like the ring was going to cut off the circulation to his finger. It felt like a boa constrictor was tightening around him, making it hard to breathe.

Changbin had every intention to pull himself away from the suffocation of the ring. Instead, he found himself trying to count each small diamond wedged between the two layers of rose gold. A sudden dip right behind him and an arm around his waist literally pulled him from his thoughts. “Min!”

“It’s pretty,” Minho gently grabbed Changbin’s hand, tucking his chin into the younger man’s shoulder. “I didn’t know if you’d like rose gold, but I know you hate gold, and silver’s too simple for you. For a fake engagement ring, seems pretty convincing, hmm?”

As much as he doesn’t want to, Changbin sinks into Minho’s embrace. Blame it on the fatigue, he figured, but found himself surprised that the older man didn’t pull away. For the shortest of moments, it almost feels like they’re meant to fit together like this. “It’s expensive,” the brunette whispers, “to no one’s surprise, so please don’t lose it.”

The younger man squints in disapproval. “How much was it?”

“It’s impolite to ask a fiancé something like that, you know,” Minho huffs a bit dramatically as he feigns irritation.

Changbin, however, seems plenty irritated for the both of them. He rolls around, mere centimetres away from Minho’s face as he frowns up at the older man. “It’s a good thing this is all fake, then, right? How much was it?”

“Bin,” the brunette’s expression falters as he cocks his head to the side. “It’s not important, I don’t understand why you’re so—”

Changbin desperately wants to stay this close to Minho, to drown in his embrace and the warmth of his touch. Professional. Fake boyfriends, fake fiancés. “It’s just for show, I know. Since it’s fake, though, you shouldn’t have a problem telling me, right?” There’s a layer of hurt in his voice that he knows he can’t hide. He dips his chin into his chest and closes his eyes, desperate to make this all just stop and go away. Something about this, though, just felt too real, too close to an actual relationship.

What the fuck were they doing? All of this had to cross some sort of unspoken relationship rule somewhere, right? The blurred lines between what was real and what was fake in their arrangement was causing Changbin's head to spin.

Minho doesn’t seem sure about how to handle the situation. The moments pass by in silence until the older man takes in a deep breath, then he wiggles his index finger under Changbin’s chin, tilting his face upwards. “Hey,” he quietly demands, “look at me, Bin.”

So, the bluenette does as requested. He stares into Minho’s eyes and instantly softens.

“If it bothers you that much, I can go out and get something simpler.” Minho’s voice quivers a bit, almost like he feels how uncomfortable Changbin is. “I just… I don’t know what I was thinking when I went out and I got this one. I looked around with the agent for over an hour, and then that one just caught my eye, just as things were looking hopeless.”

Suddenly, Changbin’s hand is in Minho’s again, and the older man stares at the band with purpose, rotating the younger man’s hand around freely. “I guess I put in a bit too much of a personal flair on this. I really prioritized what I figured you’d like before the importance of keeping up the façade that this is all fake.”

They both stare at the ring for a moment, then look at one another. Neither of them moved, neither of them breathed as they stared at each other with shared panic, concern, worry. There was an unfamiliar emotion that lingered at the back of their gaze, but it was hard to place. Changbin hadn’t felt anything like this before. He was equal parts nervous, nauseated, and lost.

If this were like the romantic comedies that Changbin and Seungmin would watch while hungover, this would be the part where Minho would roll on top of him, say something like “fuck the rules, I just want you”. They would cry and kiss and roll around the sheets together. There would be a swell of uplifting orchestral music in the background, indicating that fate had given its blessing on the couple.

This wasn’t a movie, though. This was fucking reality, and there was nothing but tension in the air and a yearning in the bottom of Changbin’s stomach. Their situation was complex and convoluted and it was going to end in heartbreak for him, and only him. Really, he had no one to blame but himself.

Our arrangement is for mutual gains. Minho’s voice was so loud.

We’re professional boyfriends. It was sour.

All of the benefits, none of the downsides, like feelings. It hurt as it echoed in Changbin’s head, but Minho’s voice was all he wanted to hear.

Feelings.

Feelings?

That’s when it hit Changbin: he was falling for Minho — Minho, the (supposedly, yet to be proven) Heartless — and he couldn’t stop himself, no matter how stupid he knew it was. Perhaps the most terrifying part of this, though, wasn’t the fact that Minho didn’t feel the same way.

No, the most terrifying thing was that Changbin couldn’t tell if Minho was actually interested in him or not. Minho always felt strongly one way or another. For them to sit here, struck dumb in silence, was unnerving. The silence meant uncertainty.

It meant possibility.

#we're professional #skz fics #lee minho x seo changbin #seo changbin x lee minho #minbin #minho x changbin #changbin x minho #wherevermyway

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