#But they don’t seem to have a whole lot of overlap in what words I can remember

[galahadenough]

私 will que alles hablo es in alles lenguas ich habe. 四 oder màs. Спасибо für leyendo.

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 17.4k ❧ warnings: cursing, like... grossly adorable petnames just abandon ship now if you’re going to be a hater about it ❧ genre: fluff, modern magical creatures au, fantasy au, college au, dragon jisung, human reader, ft. various other magical dreamies and human!renjun, fake not dating/secret dating trope, same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: here’s dragon jisungie too! this one was so much fun to write and idk y’all i think he’s just the loml now. anyway, cue the shenanigans ❧ EDIT DEC 2024: this fic had a brief mention of a former 127 member in it. i’ve edited this fic to take it out, but if there are any mentions of him that i missed, inconsistencies, or plot holes, please let me know!

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

“Isn’t it always the dragon that the princess needs to be rescued from in the fairytales?” You teased, bumping his shoulder with yours.

“Well maybe in this one, the dragon’s the hero—” Jisung wrapped his arms around your waist, picking you up and spinning you around. “—and rescues the princess from the crazed madman.”

“Do you like Jisung?”

Renjun’s deadpan question in the silence of the library nearly made you do a spit take all over your laptop.

After choking through the sip of your pink Gorgonade you’d just taken, you set the bottle down and looked at your human friend with wide eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Park Jisung. Our good dragon buddy. Do you like him?” Renjun repeated with an inquisitive tilt of his head.

“Yeah, sure, he’s cool.” You kept your voice as level as possible, returning your fingers to your keyboard.

“You know what I meant.”

“And clearly, I’m not answering,” you retorted. “Now can we get our project done?”

You and Renjun were both Magical Creatures Studies majors at your college and had met up at the library this particular afternoon to work on a project together. The two of you also had lots of mutual friends, including the aforementioned Park Jisung. And sure, maybe you did have a little bit of a crush on the dragon, but there was no way you were just going to start yammering on about it in the middle of the library after being asked so abruptly.

Your friend narrowed his eyes at you, but ultimately relented. “Fine. But this isn’t over.”

“Of course it’s not,” you sighed.

Finally done with your PowerPoint slides later that evening, you sent a quick text before shutting your laptop. Renjun flopped back in his seat with a groan.

“Thank fuck, my eyeballs are burning.” He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

“Have you tried out those enchanted blue light glasses that fairies use?” You suggested, resting your cheek in your palm to watch your friend sympathetically. Fairies’ eyes were more sensitive to electronic screens than humans or other magical beings, so they had to wear special enchanted versions of the blue light lenses that some humans wore for eyestrain. Renjun was a human, but if the screens were hurting his eyes this bad, it was worth a shot.

“I would except they’re so goddamn expensive, and Chenle won’t let me touch his even to try before I buy.”

“What about that other fairy that Mark and Donghyuck know? You’ve met him before at a study session, right?”

“Who— oh, right, uh… Jungwoo. Maybe… but I really don’t want to be asking a fairy that I don’t know for a favor, even something so small. I barely ask the one that I do know for anything, and when I do, I always regret it.”

You snickered. “That’s fair. Seems like you’re just going to suffer for the rest of your life then, Renjun.”

“Oh, woe is me,” he sighed dramatically, taking his hands off his eyes to start packing up his stuff.

“You know who I bet could help you with your whole eye problem?”

“Who?”

You shouldered your backpack, looking your friend in the eye very seriously. “The aliens, obviously.”

“Hey, you know what! They probably could!” Renjun huffed indignantly, grabbing his bag to follow you out of the library.

You were laughing as he kept ranting at you.

“Listen, you guys shit on me way too much for this. And aliens probably could help me with my eye problems if they ever came to Earth, because then they’d have very advanced technology and could very well have the engineering capabilities to make me a screen or a pair of glasses—”

“Or a new pair of bionic eyeballs.” You offered up.

“Exactly!” He threw his hands up as you spotted a familiar figure waiting at the bottom of the library stairs.

Park Jisung was standing there, tapping his hands against his thighs as he looked around awkwardly. You could see the glint of gold chains and pendants around his neck, and even more gold adorning his ears, wrists, and fingers. Dragons were a lot like magpies, you always thought to yourself, they liked shiny things. If magpies could breathe fire, of course.

You were nearly out of breath laughing as you slowed to a stop next to Jisung. Renjun was red-faced, still huffing and puffing.

Jisung’s slit pupils flicked back and forth between the two of you, bewildered, “What—?”

“I just can’t believe you literally breathe fire and have wings,” Renjun jabbed a finger against Jisung’s chest. “And yet it’s sooo crazy and funny and weird that I think that there could be aliens out there in the grand unknown infinite expanse of the universe that we’re in.”

Your dragon friend rubbed a hand over the spot that Renjun had poked, looking personally wounded. He turned to you for an explanation. “What happened this time?”

“Don’t—” You got cut off by another round of laughs. “Don’t worry about it, Ji.”

The human was starting to calm down, and seemed to have finally processed that Jisung had apparently miraculously been waiting outside the library when you two walked out. After all, the dragon didn’t have a backpack, laptop, or seemingly any school supplies on him. “Wait, what are you doing here, Jisung?”

“Oh, I was just waiting for Y/N.”

“Well, we’ll see you tomorrow, Renjun.” You waved goodbye to your human friend before he could say anything else, grabbing Jisung’s arm and pulling him off in the opposite direction.

Jisung spoke up a few seconds later. “Uh, Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Boba’s the other way.”

“Right. Sorry.” You made a face, awkwardly letting him change course and lead the way. “I was just trying to get out of there.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know, Renjun was going on another one of his alien rants,” you fibbed a little, biting on the inside of your cheek.

Jisung snorted, and you watched a small puff of smoke shoot out of his nose, curling up into the air before entirely dissipating. “Thanks. How’d he get going this time?”

“Blue light glasses.”

His brow furrowed, the corner of his lip pulled up, and his nose wrinkled as he seemed to be trying to figure out how the jump was made from blue light glasses to aliens. Several of his sharp fangs were visible before his mouth relaxed again. “How—”

“You know it’s better not to ask with him.”

He sighed. “You’re right. I’m just glad we got out of there unscathed. Or at least I did. How about you? Are you in one piece still?”

Then Jisung’s two big, warm hands were on you, jokingly inspecting your hands, your arms, your neck, and your face for any harm done. You giggled, letting him turn over your arms and hold your hands and run his thumbs over your cheeks until he seemed satisfied, finishing it off with a pat to the top of your head.

“Yeah, I think I’m all here.” You absolutely knew that you were looking up at him with heart eyes. “Thanks for coming as quick as you did, any longer and I don’t think I would’ve made it this time.”

You were referring to the quick few minutes that had passed between you texting him that you were done with your project and when you actually laid eyes on him outside the library. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes, and it wasn’t like he had come from anywhere on campus: today was Saturday.

“Of course, I’ll always be around to rescue you from Renjun’s rants, you damsel in distress.”

“Isn’t it always the dragon that the princess needs to be rescued from in the fairytales?” You teased, bumping his shoulder with yours.

“Well maybe in this one, the dragon’s the hero—” Jisung wrapped his arms around your waist, picking you up and spinning you around. “—and rescues the princess from the crazed madman.”

You couldn’t help the cackling laughter that poured from your mouth, holding on against his supernaturally strong arms as he spun you once, twice, three times for good measure. Once you were back on two feet again, you had to clutch onto his upper arm to steady yourself as you regained your bearings. When you were sure you could walk in a straight line, you resumed your journey down the sidewalk together.

“And then the princess and the dragon fall in love and live happily ever after instead?” The words were out of your mouth before you could process the implications of them.

The dragon’s midnight blue eyes blinked at you a couple of times, and you opened your mouth to start the fastest backpedaling of your life, but then he just slung a casual arm around your shoulders.

“Yeah, something like that.” He shrugged. “Why not? I think that’s a pretty great ending. Almost as good as the dragon eating the crazed madman, which is what I was thinking.”

“Could do both,” you suggested, eyes glued to your feet.

Jisung laughed, and you looked up at him to make sure you caught his bright smile as he did. “I like that even better. Both.”

At Jasmine & Pearls, you happily accepted your drinks from Shotaro, the siren working behind the counter, before taking them to go. There was a small waterfront park just around the corner, and fall was starting to descend, meaning that it wouldn’t be too hot to just sit out there. You two walked a couple minutes down the trails away from the noisier playground to a secluded area, and found a nice soft patch of clover, wildflowers, and grasses to sit down on. Taking a sip of your boba and tilting your head back, you relished in the feeling of the warmth of the sun’s rays on your face. This was just a perfect Saturday. You had finished up your project, it was beautiful weather, and now you’re hanging out with Jisung.

“Hey, Jisung?” You pulled your head back up to look at him.

“Hm?” He raised his eyebrows, lifting his straw to his lips.

“How did you get to campus so fast?”

The dragon coughed on his drink for a second, and you were momentarily afraid of him actually choking on a tapioca pearl, but he thankfully pulled through. He scratched at the back of his neck, looking down at his drink as he mumbled something so quiet that you couldn’t make out a single word of it.

“What?”

“I was at the bakery,” he admitted, enunciating much clearer this time.

You immediately knew which one he was talking about. Half Moon Bakery, where your werewolf friend Jeno worked. It was just around the block from campus, not even a two-minute walk.

“Oh, were you and Chenle bothering Jeno at work?” That was one of Chenle’s favorite pastimes: causing mischief and having Jisung tag along. Not that Jisung didn’t often participate too, but it was typically the fairy’s idea.

“No, just me. I was… I was waiting for you to finish up at the library.”

A happiness swelled up in your chest, and your fingers itched to do something with all the extra energy suddenly coursing through your veins. So you started plucking some of the clover and flowers in front of you.

“Well I’m glad you did, Ji,” you smiled softly at him. “After all, it made your dashing rescue a lot easier.”

Jisung just kept gazing at you for a few more seconds before he suddenly looked down, picking up his boba and sucking down half of it in one go. You swore his ears were pink as he went to ask you, “So uhm, what was the project that you and Renjun were working on?”

“Well it’s for our Special Topics in Magical Creatures Studies class. This semester Dr. Kwon is teaching it, so of course you know what it’s about.”

He stared blankly at you, and you suddenly remembered that not everybody you know is a Magical Creatures Studies major like you and Renjun.

“Oh, sorry. Well, Dr. Kwon was the first human to have an interspecies marriage legally—”

This time a dribble of milk tea came out of the side of Jisung’s mouth as he coughed on it, and you unzipped the front pocket of your bookbag to grab a couple napkins you had stashed in there at the shop. He took them from you gratefully, wiping at his mouth.

“Sprung a leak, Ji?” You asked with an eyebrow raise. “You alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Go ahead, sorry.”

“Anyway, Dr. Kwon technically had the first marriage certificate for an interspecies marriage between a human and magical being that listed each as such. Obviously, there’s been a long history of romantic relationships between species as long as everyone’s existed, and as long as people have been getting married. It’s just that within in the modern history of our current society and laws, Dr. Kwon was the first that we know of. There were definitely couples that got married before her but had to falsify their species on the certificate at the time, unfortunately. And the fact that Dr. Kwon is still you know, alive, and plenty well enough to be teaching a class on this stuff… it’s really humbling. I’m honored to learn from her but it’s also a little harrowing that it hasn’t even been one lifetime yet, you know?”

“So the class is about…” Jisung prompted you again.

“Right, it’s about specifically the history of interspecies marriage. Both between different kinds of magical creatures and between magical creatures and humans. Every time it’s Dr. Kwon’s turn to teach Special Topics, this is what she teaches.”

“And, what is her spouse?”

“Siren. Mrs. Kwon will come in and guest lecture sometimes, too.”

“So… your project?”

“Just a five-minute presentation on a topic of our choice that relates to the unit we just did. She gave a list of topics, or we could come up with our own and get it approved. Renjun and I chose the role that religion plays in interspecies marriage. Because different creatures have different belief systems, gods and goddesses, and marriage rituals in their faith. Like dragons, for example.”

“Huh?!” He squeaked. Thankfully, he was out of boba tea, and therefore didn’t do a spit take all over you or something.

“Many dragons—I’m not saying you in particular, just historically—have worshipped the Sun and fire. Their marriage rituals often involved making offerings to the Sun by burning said offerings on a pyre. Now imagine a dragon and a siren want to get married. Sirens that usually not only have their weddings underwater for one, but believe that burning wedding offerings instead of throwing them into the water will offend the Sea. It’s not impossible, it’s just fascinating to witness the compromise, especially as it gets more common with integration. And I find it beautiful, every single time.”

Jisung rested his elbow on his knee, then his cheek in his head, mindlessly running his fingertips over the clover. “Yeah? And what’s the divorce rate like for interspecies marriage?”

“Better than intraspecies, actually.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.” You added in another flower to your weaving. “Fifty percent intraspecies, fifteen to twenty percent interspecies depending on the study you’re citing. The numbers on interspecies are obviously newer, and a bit harder to measure due to varying lifespans, but those are the ones that we work with in the field.”

“Interesting.”

“You want to know my theory?”

“Sure.”

“This one’s not peer-reviewed or anything, so don’t tell the other MCS majors, okay?”

“My lips are sealed,” he promised.

“Now, I’ve never been married, but… I think that if you’re too focused on what makes you the same, you’ll completely miss your differences and only realize them too late when those differences are eventually driving you apart. But if you start out already with these glaringly obviously differences and then find what makes you similar in addition to the differences—not in spite of them—then you get a clearer picture of who you’re with.”

You’d been so focused on your little task that you hadn’t looked up at Jisung a single time as you talked, but now you did, wondering why he was so quiet. He had gone still, staring at you, mouth parted, head tilted.

“What?” You looked around anxiously. “Did that not make sense? I thought that made sense?”

He shook his head. “No, no, that made sense. You just… gave me a lot to think about.”

“Careful, don’t hurt yourself with all that thinking,” you giggled, getting up onto your knees.

“Hey!”

“Shh, I’m kidding,” you reassured him, taking a couple kneeling steps closer to him and holding the clover and flower wreath you’d been weaving up towards his head.

“And when did you make that?”

“While you were staring at the ground. Now hold still.”

You gently set it down on his head, scooting it around and readjusting until you were content that it wasn’t going to fall off too easily. Sitting back on your feet, you admired your work. If it weren’t for his vertical slit pupils focused entirely on you as he gazed up at you, Jisung would’ve looked like a beautiful fairy prince. Enchanting, a clover and flower crown nestled atop his hair, faintly rosy cheeks, skin seeming to glow in the dappled light from the late afternoon sun shining in through the trees.

“There you go,” you murmured, realizing how close you were to him as you caught a familiar smoky smell like a campfire.

“Can you show me how to do that?” He asked, his eyes shining.

You couldn’t help but chuckle at his enthusiasm, plopping back down onto your bottom. Well, there goes all that tension dissolved.

“Sure, Jisung. We’re going to start with three clovers and a flower. Whatever flowers you can find around here should be good.”

And so you guided the dragon through the steps of weaving a clover crown of his own. You yourself had learned this from Jaemin the first time you’d ever hung out with the dryad without Renjun around. Renjun had been the one to introduce you to all of his friends, Jisung included. You’d met Renjun in your Intro to Magical Creatures Studies class on your very first day of college two years ago, and your life had never been the same since. Your own hometown was mostly human, in fact there was exactly one family of basilisks there and that was it. That’s why you chose the major you did, to expand your world. And man, it had been expanded since.

Jaemin had invited you out to the park with him that particular day to “exercise Jeno” in the dryad’s words, which meant sitting in the grass and throwing a ball for Jeno to catch— with his hand. Except the ball was enchanted to change direction and run away from Jeno for a certain amount of time, then he’d finally get it, and toss it back to you or Jaemin to throw again. At the time, it felt wrong to be pretty much playing fetch with a werewolf—derogatory, even—so you had asked Jeno about how he felt about it after. He explained that the ball was invented by werewolves, for werewolves. Since werewolves don’t hunt their prey for sustenance anymore, they tend to have a lot of extra energy. Most days he would go to the gym or go on a run or bike ride to get it out, but today was such a nice day that he wanted to go out with his friends instead. While some werewolves didn’t like comparisons to dogs (such as Jaemin’s offer to “exercise Jeno”), Jeno didn’t mind them usually, as long as it was from friends, and truly in good fun.

It was on that park trip, while sitting in the clover with Jaemin, that the dryad had shown you how to weave a clover crown by hand. Even now, every time you saw a patch of clover, you thought about Jaemin and Jeno and that day at the park, and how to weave clover crowns.

“How are you friends with two dryads and you don’t know how to weave clover crowns?” You asked with mock disappointment as Jisung was about a third of the way through his.

“Do you honestly think they’re going to be jumping to teach me their secrets? Probably too afraid I’d set the whole patch of clover on fire,” Jisung grumbled, adding another flower to the crown as he continued his weaving.

You frowned, gently stroking the back of his head as you watched over his technique. “You know Jaemin and Donghyuck don’t think of you like that.”

He scoffed, “Yeah, they think of me like Chenle’s pet.”

“Hey!” You flicked his ear, earning a hiss. He rubbed his ear with one hand, pouting at you.

“They are your friends,” you said sternly. “I think you might realize that if you eased up on your little hermit dragon schtick.”

“Dragons are solitary creatures. Didn’t you learn that in Intro to MCS?”

“I’ll believe that you’re solitary as soon as you and Chenle detach from where you’re currently fused at the hip.”

“He’s not here now!”

“To my knowledge. He could be hiding in a trashcan or something, I don’t know.”

Jisung rolled his eyes. “His Highness would never hide in a trashcan.”

“Point taken,” you snickered.

“Well…” The dragon held up his finished clover crown for you to see. “What do you think?”

It was clearly his first attempt at one, crooked, with holes in several places, and a couple of the blue flowers he’d chosen falling out as he set it in your hands. But you still found it absolutely adorable, endearing.

“It’s great, Ji!” You praised him, turning it around to look at the weave patterns on the inside more closely. “Here, do you want to wear this one, and I can—”

“No, this one’s yours.” He took it right back, getting up on his knees like you had before to place it on your head.

You sat utterly still to let him do so, watching him with bated breath. He was perhaps even more focused on placing the clover crown on your head than he was on making it, his nose scrunched with concentration, mouth pouting just the slightest, and brow furrowed. Then, once he’d set it atop your head, he smiled to himself in satisfaction.

“So? How do I look?” You asked quietly, in the small space between the two of you.

“Like… like a princess,” Jisung answered breathily, in the narrow space between the two of you.

“Ji?” You said his name, in the minute space between the two of you.

“Yeah?” He replied, in the meager space between the two of you.

“Can I kiss y—” You didn’t even get to finish your request, as the infinite space between the two of you became a finite zero.

Kissing Jisung was warm, but not warm like the end-of-summer-turning-fall day you were enjoying before, warm like you were just feet away from a volcano, like you were kissing the very heart of a mountain. His hands cupped your cheeks as his lips meshed with yours. You had been propping yourself up with one hand behind you, but you felt the need to grab onto his arms to ground yourself. This was apparently just enough to throw your joint center of gravity off, as the both of you went toppling backwards—or, more precisely, you fell onto your back, with Jisung on top of you.

The dragon barely caught himself with a hand next to your head to keep from completely cracking his forehead against yours. You two still bonked noses, breaking the kiss, and giggled almost exactly in sync.

“Oops,” you laughed, reaching up to feel for your clover crown, happy that it was still kind of in the vicinity of your hair.

Jisung was using one hand to prop himself above you, and the other was readjusting his own clover crown to now sit on the back of his head. He was still grinning as he dipped down to kiss you again, and you held his face this time, running a thumb over his cheek.

Squished into one side of a booth in the student union with Jisung, you fervently read over your notes for your test in your next class.

“Fry,” Jisung murmured, holding said food up against your lips.

You opened your mouth without taking your eyes off your page, and he fed it to you. As you read about climate change’s effects on sirens’ native habitats, you chewed and swallowed the food without even tasting it. A moment later, a straw was pushed against your mouth too.

“Water.”

You took a sip to wash down the fry, humming contentedly as all the material in your notes was familiar to you. The test should be an uncomplicated A. Not an easy A, per se, but there shouldn’t be anything on it that surprised you, at least.

“What the hell?” Someone asked from beside your table, but you didn’t even look up. After all, you still had four more pages and only half an hour.

“What do you want, guys?” Jisung sighed. Oh, so more than one person. The first voice sounded familiar, probably some of your friends.

“What, uh, what’s going on here?” Different voice.

“Y/N’s studying. So if you don’t mind doing whatever this is later.”

Another fry. You chomped it down. Siren advocacy groups.

“Uh… sure. Yeah. You two… have fun. Come on, guys.” Third voice.

Water. Sip. Local community outreach.

When you came to a good stopping point in your notes—not quite done, but between topics—you finally looked up, setting your notebook down for a second. Jisung raised his eyebrows at you.

“Done already?” He asked, popping a fry into his own mouth.

You shook your head, taking a sip of your water on your own. “No, almost. Who was that?”

“Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck.”

Hearing the names made the voices click into place. Donghyuck first, then Jeno, then Jaemin.

“Huh. Weirdos,” you scoffed. “Anyway, we still on for movie night at my place?”

“Absolutely. Chenle’s letting me borrow his box set of the director’s cut of those movies you wanted to watch.”

“Does Chenle know he’s letting you borrow these?”

“Yes, they’re hexed. If he weren’t letting me, they’d play the porno knockoff.”

You let out a full-body cackle. “Oh, that’s a good one. You can say a lot about His Highness, but you can’t say that he doesn’t have a sense humor.”

A couple weeks later, and all eight of you were meant to be having a study session together at the library. Seven of you were already there— Jisung was coming late from a class. You had been one of the first in the room, and immediately put a bag down on a chair next to you to save it for him.

You were so innocently humming along to your music in your headphones as you took notes when you saw a hand reaching to tap the table in front of you. Pausing your music, you took one headphone out to look at the owner of the hand—Donghyuck—inquisitively. “Yes?”

“So you and Jisung have been hanging out a lot recently…” He rested his chin in his hand.

You narrowed your eyes, “Well, yeah…”

“Her heartbeat went up when you mentioned Jisung,” Mark added oh-so-helpfully.

“Gee, thanks, Mark,” you scoffed at the basilisk. “You want to go ahead taste the air for my pheromones or whatever too while you’re at it? Really complete this bonkers supernatural interrogation?”

“And then there was the fry thing,” Jaemin added, pointing at you from his seat next to Donghyuck. “I haven’t forgotten that.”

Jeno shivered beside you, “I don’t think I ever can.”

“He’s going over to her apartment a lot for movie nights. He keeps asking to borrow my nice collector’s edition box sets,” Chenle added, not looking up from his laptop. He readjusted his blue light glasses. “I think he’s trying to impress her.”

You looked around at all of them incredulously. “Uh, guys, seriously? I think Jisung and I are allowed to hang out, watch movies together, and eat together considering we’re—”

“Y/L/N Y/N, I swear to god you better not say because you’re ‘besties’ right now,” Renjun cut you off, throwing air quotes up around the word ‘besties.’ “Seriously, how can two people be so oblivious?”

Oh. Holy shit. They all thought you and Jisung were still friends. Somehow, apparently none of them knew that you and Jisung had started officially dating since that day in the park three weeks ago.

You were just staring blankly between all six of them, not sure how to respond. Thankfully, the door to the study room was opened then, Jisung rushing in.

“Hey, I’m here!” His bright demeanor fell as soon as he noticed the tension in the room. “What’s going on? What’d I miss?”

“Nothing, Ji,” you turned to him with a smile. Taking your bag off the last chair in the study room, you told him sweetly, “Here, I saved you a seat next to me!”

“Oh, thanks, Y/N!” He happily took it, plopping his bag down on the table to take out his laptop.

After the study session was concluded, you all filed out together, you and Jisung right beside each other.

“Come on Jisung, I’ll drive,” Chenle called for his roommate, spinning his keys around his finger.

“Sure, hold on!” Jisung said back, waiting up to say goodbye to you.

“Renjun, you still up for ramen and ranting?” You clasped your hands together hopefully as you looked at your friend. It was ritual for you and Renjun to get together and rant over extra-spicy ramen whenever some drama had gone down within your department at the school. There’d been some going on this past week, and you and Renjun decided that late-night after studying was the perfect time to talk shit.

Except, he and Chenle seemed to lock eyes for a brief moment. And then, Renjun was checking his phone, throwing up his other hand, and sighing.

“Ah, Y/N, you know what,” he clicked his tongue. “I am so sorry, but I got a text from my dad while we were in that study session and he says the cat is sick. I’ve really got to go.”

“Your parents live three hours away—”

“Uh, Jisung! You like ramen!” Renjun gestured at the dragon that was still waiting next to you. “Why don’t you take Y/N for some ramen? Just- just you two?”

“That’s it! You’re taking too long, Jisung! I’m leaving you!” Chenle yelled dramatically from the front, giving his keys one last jangle before he quite literally ran off through campus.

You were too distracted watching Chenle incredulously to notice that Renjun had escaped too until you turned back around to talk to him. Then you realized that all of your friends had mysteriously dispersed.

“What just happened?” Jisung asked, looking around confused.

“I think… I think they set us up,” you scratched at your head.

“Like, a date? Don’t they…”

“I think they think they’re plotting to make us date.”

He blinked at you. You grabbed his arm to start walking down the sidewalks. “Come on, we can at least talk about this over some ramen.”

“Didn’t you tell them?” Jisung’s face seemed as though it was permanently stuck in the same bewildered expression. You two were side by side at your favorite 24-hour ramen bar by the university, and you had finally filled him in on what he missed in the study room.

You slurped up a noodle. “I thought you did.”

“I thought you were going to!”

“They were your friends first!” You retorted indignantly.

“Hey, I only claim Chenle,” he held up his chopsticks and spoon defensively. “The others just came along.”

It was true that Jisung had befriended Chenle first, and the others just sort of came with the fairy. After all, dragons did tend to be solitary creatures, and on top of that, you’d be hard-pressed to find one hanging out with a dryad on purpose, much less two.

“Speaking of Chenle, how did you not even mention it to him? You live with him!”

“Well, every time I was going somewhere with you I’d be like ‘Oh, I’m going to wherever with Y/N’ or ‘I’m going to Y/N’s place.’ It’s not like I could call you something else.”

You tilted your head curiously. “Something else?”

“Like… you know… my girlfriend,” Jisung mumbled, very focused on stirring up some of his broth.

“Well… you could.” You were getting warm, and not from the spicy ramen.

He looked up at you, a smile growing on his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay, on one condition.” He set down both his utensils, holding up the number one.

“What’s that?”

“You call me your boyfriend.”

“God you’re dumb sometimes,” you shook your head, but still had fondness in your tone and your actions as you brought your hand up, all five fingers up. “Yes, duh.”

Jisung got the idea, opening the rest of his hand back up to lace all of his fingers with yours. You squeezed his hand, your stomach doing flips at the softness in his eyes as he looked at you.

The two of you brought your hands back down to keep eating, and your boyfriend circled your conversation back around to the entire reason you were here in the first place.

“Anyway, our friends.”

“Our friends,” you repeated unenthusiastically. “So… how are we going do it? They’re going to be annoying no matter how we go about it.”

“Good point. You know… they’re going to keep meddling if we don’t say anything. What if we just… let them?” He suggested.

“You’re proposing we fake not date and let them all run themselves in circles trying to connive us into dating?”

“How long do you think it’ll take them to notice?”

“A month,” you snorted.

“A month?” He scoffed. “Come on, they’re a bit dumb but they’re not that bad. Like, two weeks.”

“I think part of it’s going to depend on how stupid they think we are.”

That looked like it changed Jisung’s mind. “You’re so right, a month at least.”

“They’re going to kill us when they find out.”

“Don’t worry, the big scary dragon will protect you from their wrath, princess,” Jisung teased, throwing an arm around your shoulders to pull you closer and kiss your cheek.

You laughed, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Ji, never call yourself that again. Please. Even as a joke.”

“So how was ramen?” Renjun asked before you could even open your mouth for a ‘good morning’ the next day.

“So how’s the family cat?” You shot back, taking your seat next to him in the lecture hall. “I was expecting to have to send you the notes for today since you had to drive to your parents’ three hours away in the middle of the night to see it.”

“You know, funniest thing happened. I had just gotten back to my apartment to pack, and my dad called me back and said the little guy made a full recovery. The vet called it a miracle. So I got my beauty rest in my own bed.”

You rolled your eyes. “Glad to hear Mr. Mittens is doing better.”

“So how was ramen?” The human repeated.

“Oh, it was really good!” You gushed. “I got a different bowl than I normally order, extra spicy still even though you and I weren’t gossiping, and I really, really liked it! I might make it my go-to order now instead of what I usually get.”

Renjun looked at you stone-faced. “Not the food, Y/N.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You and Jisung…”

“Ate ramen.”

“And…”

“Then we went home?”

“Separately?”

“He walked me home if that’s what you’re asking?” You raised an eyebrow. “He always offers to, especially at night. It’s really nice of him.”

“Yeah,” Renjun said knowingly. “He’s so nice.”

That afternoon, you met up with Jisung between classes in the student union, tucked away in an oversized armchair. You retold the story of Renjun asking about ramen to him, and your boyfriend giggled with delight.

“I’m telling you, Sungie, he looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel when he heard that we apparently didn’t magically fall in love over a bowl of ramen,” you snickered.

“Serves him right,” Jisung declared.

“What do you think they’re going to do next?”

“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“In the meantime… movie night tonight?”

“I don’t know, I’m running out of Chenle’s box sets to impress you with.”

You laughed, gently nudging him in the side. “Guess you’ll just have to—”

“Hey… guys… what’s up?” Someone sputtered out from behind and just off to the side of the armchair.

Both you and Jisung whipped around to see Mark standing there, fountain drink in hand. He pulled his over-ear headphones off then, hanging them around his neck.

“Oh, hey Mark,” you waved at him, trying to play this off as casually as possible.

“Why are you two— you know,” he gestured vaguely to you and Jisung.

Jisung sat forward a bit, making the posing a bit less intimate with your faces further from each other. “Y/N and I both have time in between classes now, so we’re hanging out. I’d invite you on, but I don’t think there’s room. You can definitely pull up a chair or something and sit with us if you’ve got time though.”

“No, no, I’m good man,” the basilisk rejected the offer quickly. “Besides, I’ve got to meet up with Johnny for a thing, so, yeah. You two have fun… hanging out. Looks comfy.”

“Bye Mark!” You waved goodbye to him too, watching as he practically ran out of the building.

“Chenle asked me point blank if this was just a movie night,” Jisung informed you, plopping down onto your couch.

“Observant of him.” You sat down beside him and grabbed your remote to queue up the first movie. “And what did you say?”

“I asked him what else it could possibly be.”

“And that worked?”

“Yes,” your boyfriend huffed, a wisp of smoke shooting out his nose. “I don’t know if I should be relieved or offended that everyone is so willing to believe that I’m this stupid.”

With the DVD previews now playing, you set the remote down to get settled in for the movie. Jisung lifted an arm up for you to snuggle into his side, and you let out a contented sigh at the familiar warmth and smoky scent that enveloped you. It was like cuddling your own personal furnace.

“For now, be thankful, Ji,” you patted his chest. “After all, we’ll never know this kind of peace after they find out.”

He stroked a knuckle up and down your arm lazily. “Yeah... you’re right.”

“Of course I am.”

“Hey, look at me?” He requested, his voice a murmur. “You’ve got something on your mouth.”

You lifted your head up, confused. Just as you’d complied, the dragon swooped in, pressing his lips to yours in a dizzying kiss.

Your head was still spinning as he pulled away, running his thumb over your bottom lip, where his fangs had just been nibbling the moment prior.

“I-I thought there was something on my mouth?” You asked breathily.

“There was.” He smirked, still holding your chin in place. “It was my mouth.”

“Eep!” You let out a squeal as you nearly lost your balance, grabbing onto the shoulder of the closest person to keep from completely wiping out.

Jeno thankfully wasn’t very easy to knock over, and held your elbow to help you stay upright as you struggled to get reoriented. All your friends had gone ice skating today, and you were now realizing that you couldn’t even remember the last time you’d gone. You were a bit out of practice.

“You got it, Y/N?” The werewolf asked warily as you took a couple more cautious steps forward.

You wobbled a little. “Uh. No. Sorry, Jeno, just put me on the wall.”

“Here, you got her?” Jeno was talking to somebody else, but your eyes were glued to your skates to make sure you didn’t slip. So you weren’t even looking as the werewolf’s shoulder disappeared from your grip and was replaced by somebody else’s.

A warm hand was taking and moving yours, encouraging you to hold onto his upper arm for support. You immediately recognized it as Jisung’s, the only other person who would be this warm in the freezing temperature of the ice rink besides the werewolf who just left you. Pulling in closer to Jisung now, you felt a little bit more stable, and finally comfortable enough to look up from your feet to your boyfriend.

“Thanks, Ji,” you said genuinely, squeezing his arm.

“You’re welcome.” He smiled down at you. “Do you think you’re ready to start skating? The other guys have kind of abandoned us.”

Focusing your gaze ahead of you, you saw that your other six friends were way ahead of you on the rink. In fact, you couldn’t even see some of them at all, suspecting that they were about to be coming up behind you to lap you.

You nodded, preparing yourself mentally. “Yeah, I think I’m ready.”

And so you and Jisung started slowly moving along the ice together. Despite Jisung helping you stay upright initially—you still weren’t sure if he volunteered or was volunteered by your little matchmakers—he wasn’t really too adept of an ice skater either. He was truly only marginally better than you, so the two of you were slow going, and had a couple close calls in regards to stumbles. But you didn’t mind, you were spending time with your boyfriend and your friends. It was shaping up to be a really good day.

“Sorry, be right back. Bathroom break,” Chenle excused himself from the conversation you three were having at the moment, skating off at the next exit you passed by.

Craning your neck around, you realized that none of your friends were on the ice anymore. Renjun went to switch his skates out for a different size fifteen minutes ago, Mark and Jeno went to get food ten minutes ago, Jaemin and Donghyuck needed a water break five minutes ago, and now Chenle’s bathroom break.

“Huh…” You caught Jisung’s eye knowingly. “Looks like it’s just us now, Sungie…”

“Miraculously it is,” he agreed sarcastically.

“You think they’re coming back?”

Then both your phones went off, a text tone. Jisung stopped the two of you skating to take his out, showing that it was a text in your group chat with everybody.

[donghyuck: the concessions stand nachos gave mark food poisoning and he threw up everywhere so we’re all taking him home! you guys stay and skate though! have fun!]

“Guess not,” you sighed. “For Mark’s sake, and the poor employees’ sake, I hope that’s a complete lie.”

“Well, now that they’re gone…” Jisung turned to you, taking both of your hands in his and bringing them up to his mouth, blowing hot air over them. Your numb fingers quickly warmed up, and you watched his every move lovingly. He brought your hands back down from his mouth, eyes pleading, as he asked, “Can we go? I hate the cold.”

You laughed, nodding as you squeezed his hands. “Of course, yes.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you.” Jisung practically dragged you to the exit, lifting you with an arm around your waist to help you down the big step down from the rink to the main floor.

[jisung: did donghyuck ask you to meet him at the coffee shop in the student union in ten minutes?]

[you: no, but mark did]

[jisung: well, i'll see you in ten]

With a fond shake of your head, you pocketed your phone and started your journey across campus. Looks like you were going to have an impromptu coffee date with Jisung. You had to admit it, while their meddling could be annoying, it was a little fun sometimes to see when your next spontaneous date with your own boyfriend would be, as arranged by your six little matchmakers.

As you arrived at the small but extremely busy campus coffee shop, you surmised that you were the first one to get there, and hopped in the obscenely long line to at least order for yourself. You took out your phone to text your friend that you were supposed to be meeting.

[you: hey, i’m here! i’m in line, what do you want, in case i order before you get here?]

Mark did immediately text back his coffee order—which was actually an order for one of the “refreshers” that you were pretty sure was just a mix of various juices. Coffee was too bitter for his extremely sensitive snake tongue.

Your basilisk friend found you while you were still waiting for the drinks to come out, and once you had them in hand, the two of you went to find a spot to sit down together. You raised an eyebrow when he suggested a table with four chairs instead of the two-seater that you had spotted, but you shrugged and accepted his reasoning that it was in a quieter area. Sitting across from him, you put your bag in the seat next to you.

“So how’s your day going, Mark?” You asked him brightly, taking a sip of your drink.

“Hm? Oh, good, good.” His eyes flitted around the student union almost anxiously, as if he were anticipating something.

You pushed on in the conversation, however. “That’s good. And how are your powers coming along?”

Most natural-born magical creatures started developing their powers practically at birth, but basilisks didn’t come into theirs until after their first molting—which Mark just had last year. The last you’d heard, he’d partially petrified his human roommate Johnny back in the spring and had been working on getting them under control as they got stronger since.

“It’d be a lot better if Johnny would just let Doyoung make him a protection charm so that I wouldn’t keep accidentally compelling and petrifying him,” Mark covered his face with a groan. “But no, he’s got this whole deal about wanting to make sure we all know he doesn’t think we’re monsters and he’s not afraid of us. Which is all well and good but like come on, maybe he should take at least some precautions when he’s like getting petrified by his basilisk roommate every week! So now I have to wear sunglasses around the apartment like I’m hungover 24/7.”

You winced sympathetically, not realizing the situation was that bad. “Maybe start sprinkling some weasel fur into his morning coffee?”

“Eugh, weasel fur coffee. I think you’ve described my actual worst nightmare.” Mark wrinkled his nose and looked like he was genuinely holding back a gag. “Anyway, I think he might notice if there were suddenly furs in his iced Americano every morning.”

“Maybe Doyoung can put it in something else innocuous that he’d use every day? It’d just be until you got a handle on your powers, remember.”

“If I ever do,” he sighed, stirring his straw around in his drink.

“You will, Mark,” you tried to reassure him. “It’s only been a year. These things take time.”

“Yeah, MCS major? Want to give me some statistics on basilisk powers to make me feel better?” He retorted, and you knew your friend well enough to understand that the words were meant to be light-hearted, despite the bitter and biting tone that they came out with instead.

You gave him a frank look. “I’m not Renjun. I’m not a walking, talking encyclopedia of magical creatures. But if you insist on making me think back to Intro to MCS… On average, basilisks take two to three years to reach full development of their powers after molting. You just molted a little over a year ago, you can’t put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect already, Mark.”

He ran a hand through his hair, forked tongue flicking in the air before he spoke again. “Fine, fine. You’re right. I knew all this, it’s just… it’s a lot more of a relief to hear it from somebody else.”

“I know what you mean, don’t worry,” you smiled at your friend.

He smiled back at you, genuinely, a flash of his two sharp snake fangs that hadn’t finished descending yet, then it turned sort of weird, before the smile fell entirely from his face. Mark sat forward in his chair, looking a bit more businesslike now. “Y/N, I’ve got to tell you something, and I don’t have very long, so please don’t say anything, just let me talk, okay?”

Your eyes widened with alarm at whatever the hell could be coming next, but you just slowly nodded.

“Thanks. I didn’t just ask you here to get coffee and hang out. I’m really sorry. You see, Donghyuck and I—”

“Mark! Y/N! Hey!” The very dryad that had just been named suddenly emerged from the crowd, with your boyfriend in tow.

Mark gave you an apologetic look before he turned to Donghyuck and Jisung. “Oh. Donghyuck. And Jisung. What a… surprise.”

The two newcomers each had their own coffee orders in hand, and you smiled at them.

“Hey, guys! Did you two get coffee too?” You did your best to pretend both like you had no clue something was up because Jisung told you about it, and because Mark had just almost told you about it.

“Yeah, we did!” Donghyuck replied cheerily.

“Well, we have a couple extra seats, if you want to join us,” you offered of your own volition this time, taking your bag off the chair next to you.

Jisung remained standing for a moment, looking to Donghyuck for his cue. The dryad was absolutely beaming.

“Of course!” He slid right in next to Mark, who looked like he wanted to die. “Thanks, Y/N!”

The dragon took the seat beside you with no further prompting.

You turned your focus back to the basilisk, doing your absolute best to feign obliviousness. “So, what were you saying, Mark?”

Donghyuck looked at him pointedly. “Yeah, Mark, what were you saying?”

“Never mind, I forgot,” he waved it off. “Wasn’t important, I guess.”

You shrugged, taking a sip of your drink.

“What’d you get, Y/N?” Jisung asked curiously.

“My usual. You want some?”

“Sure.”

You held yours out to him at the same time that he handed his over to you in return. As naturally as you could with the two pairs of dumbfounded eyes glued to you, you took a sip of Jisung’s drink. Yep, it was his regular order, same as always. You handed it back, holding out an expectant hand to receive yours again.

Jisung didn’t let either of your two slack-jawed friends recover to ask questions or make comments, though, immediately engaging them in conversation. “Donghyuck, how’d that report go, by the way?”

“Oh, don’t get me started on that Panforsaken assignment!”

Jaemin threw the ball as hard as he could, and you watch as it sailed in a perfect arc, then suddenly changed direction midair, leaving Jeno to have to turn on the spot and run to catch up. You three had all gone back to the park again today, you and Jaemin weaving endless clover crowns in between throwing the ball for Jeno. It was another lovely day, a bit crisper than when you and Jisung had gone. A single, puffy white cloud floated by overhead as you hummed a tune to yourself, fingers mindlessly weaving in another blue wildflower.

“Y/N...” Jaemin said, reminding you of your dad who had caught you sneaking in after your curfew.

“Jaemin...” You mimicked his tone.

“So... what’s going on with you?”

“Spit it out, Jaemin. You clearly want to ask me about something specific.”

“Y/N, I’m a dryad. I’m in touch with nature, you know. The plants, the trees, the dirt, the animals, all of it,” he explained, setting his weaving down. “And that includes humans. As much as you humans don’t want to admit it, you’re a part of nature, too. And I know I can’t feel your emotions like a unicorn can, but I can tell that you and Jisung clearly care for each other.”

“Yeah, Jaemin, I love all of you guys. We’ve become really good friends over the years.”

“No, Y/N. Differently than the rest of us care for each other.” The dryad patted your cheek, a wistful look on his face. “I don’t know if you’re just lying to yourself, or if you haven’t realized it yet, but you and Jisung… it is different than the rest of us.”

You had to bite down on your bottom lip, cover your mouth, and hide your face in your chest to keep from laughing right in Jaemin’s face and entirely blowing your cover right then and there. The dryad clearly misinterpreted your actions, as he scooted closer and wrapped his arms around you, shushing and cooing at you.

“It’s okay, Y/N. It’s okay.” He rubbed your back. “I can’t feel dragons as well for… obvious reasons, but he likes you too. I promise. It’s all going to work out.”

You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak without giggling then.

“I got it—! Oh, uh…” Jeno’s excited cheers cut off as his voice got closer and closer. “Are you... okay?”

You felt Jaemin take one of his hands off your back, and could only imagine whatever silent conversation the two of them were having with gestures. After “composing yourself” again, you sat up straight, looking up at Jeno and holding your hand out.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Jeno,” you reassured him. “Come on, dude. It’s my turn to throw.”

You drummed your fingers on the table beside your book, the highlighter nearly falling out of your other hand as you were about to fall asleep. Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck weren’t faring any better than you, seeming about ready to fall asleep over their own textbooks and laptops too. The only member of your little study group who didn’t seem to be on the brink of a boredom-induced coma was Renjun. The human was chugging along through the assigned reading for one of your classes as per usual, dutifully taking his color-coded notes. You watched him through half-lidded, tired eyes, trying to figure out if he was maybe a robot, or was on Adderall, or was on the magic equivalent of Adderall, to be this committed of a student.

Renjun’s gaze slowly lifted from his textbook to you, then he raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Yes, Y/N?”

“Okay. What is it?” You narrowed your eyes at him. “Drugs? Aliens? Because I’ll believe in the little guys now.”

“What?”

“How can you not be—”

“Hey, Y/N.” A soothing voice, warm hand on your head, and familiar cup from the campus coffee shop being placed in front of your face cut off your rambles right as you had begun to pick up steam. “Brought this for you.”

You looked up at Jisung, offering him as much of a smile as you could in your frazzled state. “Oh, hey, Ji. Thank you.”

“Also grabbed you these.” He unzipped the front pocket of his bookbag, taking out a holographic box of candy and setting it next to the drink on the table.

“Oh, Sungie…” You sighed, feeling the tension in your shoulders dissipate at the sweet gesture from your boyfriend. “Thank you. Seriously.”

Jisung gave your shoulder a squeeze. “‘Course. Well, I should let you get back to studying. I’ll see you later, princess.”

“Bye, Ji.” You gave him an unamused look, earning only a cheeky little smile in return. He got to walk away and leave you to deal with the aftermath of that nickname drop.

After he left, you were smiling to yourself happily anyway, basking in the warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest when you turned back around to see the looks on your friends’ faces. It took everything in you not to burst out laughing.

“He’s calling you ‘princess.’” Donghyuck deadpanned.

“Oh that? That’s just an inside joke.” You tried to play it off with a light, nervous laugh. “It’s not—”

“Inside joke?” Jeno repeated, as if there were any way for him to mishear you in the dead quiet of the library.

“Oh we would love to be enlightened to how this joke came about.” Jaemin requested sweetly, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them.

Donghyuck leapt back in to take the lead again. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’s hilarious. Jisung is really known for his sense of humor. You know, like all dragons.”

You went to crack open the box of gummy candy Jisung had brought you, enchanted to change color and flavor based on your mood. This time the gummies were yellow and pink, lemon and strawberry flavored.

“Yeah, it’s a long story but that’s it. He doesn’t…” You trailed off sheepishly, giving them a look as if it were the most impossible thing in the world to imply that Jisung could possibly have romantic intentions behind calling you that.

Donghyuck’s eye twitched.

You weren’t alone with Jisung again until the next night. Laying on your bed in your room, you heard the sound of your front door unlocking, then Jisung calling out to announce his presence. You yelled back loud enough so he knew where in the apartment you were.

As soon as he poked his head into your bedroom, you shot up in bed, pointing at him accusingly.

“You are a menace,” you declared, sitting up fully.

He snorted a puff of smoke out in disbelief. “What?”

“Donghyuck about exploded trying to explain the concept of petnames to me after you called me ‘princess’ yesterday.”

“I’ll do you one better.” Jisung challenged you, slinging his backpack around to his front.

“Oh really?”

He unzipped the main pocket of his bag to start rooting around in it. “I got a Renjun lecture of epic proportions today about human dating rituals.”

“No.” You covered your mouth with your hand in horror.

“He made me a PowerPoint and everything. I had to take notes.” Jisung dropped a spiral notebook onto your bed, and you scrambled forward to grab it.

“Oh my god,” you gasped, eyes skimming over the page. There, in Jisung’s messy scrawl, were little notes about how human dates work: gifts, flowers, the whole works. It was definitely a Renjun lecture, because it was phrased from an academic viewpoint, and absolutely did not read like just a friend giving another friend dating advice.

You looked up from the page to your boyfriend. “How did this even—”

“I really should’ve been more suspicious of his offer to study buddy up since you guys just studied yesterday, because I was then falsely imprisoned in a study room.”

“Oh, Sungie,” you cooed, tossing the notebook aside and reaching out for his face instead. “I am so sorry you had to be subjected to that.”

“I tried to tell him that I grew up around humanoids just fine, but he said that Chenle didn’t count,” Jisung sighed, letting you cradle his cheeks in your hands.

You chuckled. “Well, I do sort of have to agree with Renjun there. I like Chenle, but a fairy prince isn’t exactly representative of humans.”

“What?” He gave you a thoughtful pout.

“I mean, my aunt married a basilisk, so I grew up with basilisk cousins. But you wouldn’t want me to say that I know about dragons because of that, right?”

“Well… I guess, yeah.”

“That’s all I mean, Sungie.” You reassured him, looping your arms around his neck. “That doesn’t mean I wanted you to be locked in a study room all by yourself with Renjun for who knows how long being lectured on supposed human courting.”

“I wasn’t by myself, Jaemin was there too. He was the one keeping the door locked.”

You nodded solemnly, easily able to imagine how the dryad could do that any number of ways with any number of plants. Pulling him closer to you, you pecked his nose, then the apples of his cheeks.

“Seems like the dragon needed rescuing from the crazed madman this time, hm?” You teased as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

“Yes, unfortunately I think the school would have frowned upon me eating him or his leafy accomplice.”

“Presumably.”

He let his head fall forward into the crook of your neck with a groan, his hot breath washing over your skin.

“Well, you’re all safe here in my tower now,” you promised him, threading your fingers through his hair.

Reclined into a corner of Jeno and Jaemin’s couch, you happily munched on your snack, feet propped up in Jaemin’s lap. Everyone was meeting at their apartment for a video game night, and you were still waiting on a couple more to arrive before you could officially start your mess of a tournament. Everyone’s schedules fluctuated so much that you always planned on having at least one required full-group hangout every month. Usually the activity chosen was a bit more exotic, but after Renjun's submission for last month’s “weirdly niche PowerPoint night” that was supposed to be ten minutes at most ended up being over an hour, it was decided that something easy and mundane was in order for this month. So, pizza and Super Smash Bros.

Chenle had arrived a couple minutes ago, unfortunately without his roommate. You knew that Jisung had ended up staying at the library much later than he intended—his assignment took longer than he expected to complete—but he was on his way now. The fairy was sitting sideways in an armchair, legs dangling over one arm and head supported by the other as he scrolled on his phone.

There was a knock at the front door, and Jeno got up to get it, as his roommate was currently preoccupied being your footrest. Not that the dryad seemed to mind, he was perfectly content to scold and correct Renjun from afar on how he was (apparently incorrectly) setting up the gaming system to accommodate all the additional controllers the eight of you would require to play at the same time.

Renjun was sat directly in front of the TV, bickering back with him. “Oh, you want to come get up and do it yourself, Jaemin? It’s your fucking Switch anyway.”

“Don’t need to get up,” Jaemin replied smugly, shooting a vine out to smack Renjun on the back of the head.

His reflexes were quicker than the human’s, as the plant had snapped back out of Renjun’s reach before he could grab it. What he was going to do with it if he got it, you didn’t want to know.

“Hey!” “Hi.”

You looked up from the building tension at the cheerful greetings. It had been Mark and Donghyuck at the door, the basilisk wordlessly squatting down next to Renjun to take a look at the gaming system too. You gave the newcomers a wave from your spot, which was slightly hindered by the sleeves of your oversized sweatshirt.

“I like that hoodie, Y/N.” Donghyuck sat down next to Jaemin on the couch, grabbing a chip out of the large bowl on the coffee table.

“Yeah, looks comfy.” Jaemin grabbed the end of the big sleeves and shook them around for emphasis. “Where’d you get it?”

“Huh?” You looked down at exactly what you were wearing. Well, shit. It was a plain black hoodie with a small simple embroidery of the brand’s logo on the front. It wasn’t yours, and you’d specifically worn it here so that you wouldn’t forget to bring it with you to give it back to the actual owner. “Oh, I don’t know, you’d have to ask Jisung, it’s his.”

“What?!” Donghyuck crushed his chip in his hand. Jaemin put a hand on his arm to encourage him to calm down.

“Yeah, we were hanging out yesterday and I got cold, so he let me borrow it. He accidentally left my place without it, so I’ve actually got to return it to him when he gets here.” And that was the truth. Not even carefully chosen words, or twisting of the narrative.

Donghyuck’s outburst had drawn the attention of everybody else in the living room—save for Chenle, who was still flicking through his phone.

“Wait, wait, let me get this straight, Jisung let you borrow something of his?” Renjun clarified.

“Yeah, Ji lets me use his stuff sometimes.”

Your human friend completely set the pieces of the gaming console down, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Y/N. You’re a Magical Creatures Studies major. Think. A dragon let you borrow his stuff? And even forgot to ask for it back? Allegedly.”

“Oh my G— Renjun, come on! A bit stereotypical, don’t you think?” You crossed your arms defensively.

“Stereotype or not, Jisung doesn’t share,” Chenle cut in dryly. “He’s very protective of his hoard.”

“See?” Renjun gestured at the fairy vigorously.

You looked to the others for help, the panic in you real this time. Donghyuck looked like he finally had the last piece he needed to connect to finish his conspiracy board; Jaemin gave you a pointed, but satisfied look; Mark refused to meet your pleading eyes; and even Jeno, sweet Jeno, could just shrug at you.

“Dragons are kind of like werewolves, right?” He added casually. “We scent our pack. Or, I guess dragons have a nest?”

You could barely hear Jeno’s pondering at the end about the proper terminology for dragons, as nearly everyone else in the room about lost their damn minds at you. Their victorious cheers, jeers, and jokes went in one ear and out the other as your hands felt at the soft material of the inside of the hoodie.

As an MCS major, you always tried very hard to not treat your friends simply as their species, but as individuals, too, and learn about them personally in addition to whatever was covered in class. That was especially true for Jisung, who you knew didn’t really grow up around other dragons, so the habits and customs of dragons that you studied weren’t so easily applied to him. So when he offered you his hoodie last night, it was easy for you to just be giddy and happy because your boyfriend was sharing clothes with you. But it wasn’t just a hoodie, really. You and Renjun hadn’t taken your class on dragons, basilisks, and wyverns yet, therefore the only stuff you knew was from Intro to MCS and personal experience. But this was still—

Then, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it!” Donghyuck shot to his feet and ran for the front door before anybody else could.

“Speak of the dragon and he shall appear!” The dryad announced cheerfully just a second later, dragging Jisung in with an arm around his neck.

“Hey, Jisung!” Jaemin brushed your feet off his lap to stand up as well. “Here, sit. I’ll grab you something to drink.”

“Uh, hey, guys.” Jisung shook Donghyuck off to straighten up and look around at everyone. The dragon sat down beside you. “Hi, Y/N.”

“Hey, Ji. I’ve got your hoodie, sorry about accidentally stealing it last night.” You grabbed the hem, about to take it off to give it back.

“It’s okay, you can hold onto it. It’s a bit drafty in here.” He waved you off nonchalantly, accepting a drink from Jaemin, who had just returned from the kitchen.

“Oh. Thanks.” You pulled your knees in to your chest, too overwhelmed to say much else.

Renjun was right, you were well aware that dragons were possessive over their belongings— gold or otherwise. The gravity of Jisung offering the hoodie to you in the first place and now letting you keep it was not lost on you. And then there was of course Jeno’s insightful comment.

“So why were you talking about me without me around?” Jisung asked the others, not sounding very thrilled at the idea.

“Y/N was just telling us that you two were hanging out last night.” Donghyuck happily informed him.

“Alone.” Jaemin added.

“Again.” Jeno coughed.

The first dryad continued, “We’re hurt that we weren’t invited.”

Jisung scoffed, “Well considering you guys just disappear all the time now, we figured you didn’t like hanging out with us anymore.”

“But since you want to hang so bad, we should all do something this weekend!” You leapt in to suggest.

“Great idea, Y/N.” Jaemin was beaming at you.

Chenle tapped a couple things on his phone as he offered, “Isn’t the student activities board hosting that movie screening on the lawn?”

“Yeah!” Mark perked up, looking up from all the wires and controllers he was still messing with. “Taeyong’s on the board this year and he’s really excited for everything they’ve got planned. I know he’d love it if we all went.”

Taeyong was another friend of Mark’s; a unicorn, if you could recall correctly.

“Sounds like a plan.” Jisung nodded.

You pointed a threatening finger at everyone except your boyfriend, “And I swear, if a single one of you bail in the middle of the movie, I’m going to think you hate me.”

“Y/N! I could never hate you!” Jaemin gasped, throwing a hand over his chest in offense.

“Then stop leaving me!”

“C’mon, Renjun, we’re gonna miss the start of the movie!” You were practically dragging your friend through campus.

“You mean you’re going to miss precious time with Jisung,” Renjun retorted, but nevertheless gave in to your tugging on his arm, starting a light jog to keep up with you.

“And what do you mean by that?” You asked. Honestly, you were kind of hoping that he was onto you. It was funny at first to see your friends run themselves in circles, but now it was just a bit saddening—and annoying—to not interact with your boyfriend how you really wanted to all the time.

Your human friend sighed. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Finally, the two of you arrived at the front lawn, and you craned your neck around to look for your other friends. You and Renjun were the last two to arrive. There, off to the side and up towards the front of the open space, several blankets overlapped, and your other six friends were sprawled out on them. Jeno and Jisung had spotted you two already, waving to get your attention.

A large white screen had been set up to one side of the university’s front lawn, the chosen movie being projected across it. Thankfully, it hadn’t started yet. You could see a stand where the student activities board was handing out popcorn, and students were scattered about the lawn. Your friends had gotten a spot opposite from the snack stand, and you and Renjun traversed your way around other attendees to get to them.

“Hey!” You smiled at everyone, plopping down beside Jisung without a second thought. “Sorry we were almost late—”

“But somebody forgot the candy.” Renjun cut in as he dropped a convenience store bag onto the center of the blankets, pointed glare fixed on Chenle and Jisung.

“We remembered the chips!” Jisung defensively pointed to a pile of bags of chips and other salty snacks that were sitting in the middle of everyone.

Mark patted a cooler beside him. “And Hyuck and I remembered the drinks. And nobody’s late. So everything’s fine, Renjun.”

You chuckled, overturning the bag to dump out all the boxes and bags of candy onto the pile of snacks as well. Everyone grabbed what they wanted and settled in for the start of the movie. It was cool outside, and though you were already wearing Jisung’s big hoodie, you also wrapped one of the extra blankets around your shoulders.

“Are you cold?” Jisung asked you quietly. There was a steady hum of chatter from the crowd, which had become a little softer with the beginning of the movie.

“‘M alright, Ji,” you reassured him. “Just... don’t move too far away. You’re like a portable space heater.”

He shifted around to lay down, his head and most of his upper body in your lap. You weren’t sure how much of the movie he could actually see from this angle, with Mark, Jeno, and Renjun in front of you, but you weren’t going to be the one to point that out. The two of you were towards the back corner of the blankets, Jaemin and Donghyuck to your left, Chenle on the other side of and in front of Donghyuck; Mark and Renjun were properly sitting up at the front of the blanket, with Jeno sprawled out across their laps—reminding you just a little bit of a happy puppy looking for ear rubs.

You fondly brushed some of Jisung’s hair out of his eyes, contemplating the pros and cons of just kissing him on the nose right now. Yeah, there’d probably be no way in hell you could play that off, but he was scrunching it up very adorably as he concentrated on reaching for a small patch of clover that was just off to the side next to the blanket.

You were still weighing your options when he changed his focus to a point just past your head instead. His eyes flicked between the weaving in his hands and the sky as he got the clover crown started, but once he’d gotten the rhythm down, he just kept gazing upwards.

“Pretty stars...” He murmured.

“I know.” You looked up at the sky, at all the stars twinkling and winking back at you. “What do we think? Are there aliens up there with them?”

“Mm... Maybe.”

You looked down at Jisung, mouth quirked up in an amused but affectionate smile. “Yeah?”

“Well, space is pretty big.”

After a pause, you nodded. “Okay, sure. Why not?”

“Seriously?” Renjun was looking at you over his shoulder incredulously. “I’ve done actual research on this, I’ve tried to succinctly make real arguments for you multiple times since we met, I chose it for my PowerPoint night topic with actual scientific studies and facts. And Jisung just bats his eyelashes at you and says ‘space is big’ and you’re convinced?”

He looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel. You froze, looking around at all of your friends that had turned to witness this interaction like you were the movie instead.

Jisung frowned. “I didn’t bat my eyelashes. Did I bat my eyelashes?”

“You kind of did, Jisung.” Chenle reached over to ruffle his hair, and the dragon swatted his hand away, earning a cackle from the fairy.

“Uhh...” You scrambled to think of a way to placate your human friend. “I think I just needed some time to get my head around the idea, Renjun. You know, I think the next time you really would have persuaded me, but Jisung just beat you to it, sorry.”

Renjun didn’t seem convinced, but just rolled his eyes and looked back to the movie. “Yeah, I’m sure I would’ve gotten you next time, Y/N. Tin foil hat and all.”

The others all turned back to the movie now that the spectacle was over, except for Jaemin, whose attention was still on your boyfriend.

“Jisung? When’d you learn to make clover crowns?” He asked curiously, head tilted.

“Hm? Oh, Y/N showed me.” Jisung replied absentmindedly, looking down at his hands as if he hadn’t even realized he was doing it.

Jaemin looked at you with wide eyes, and you looked back at him sheepishly in a silent conversation, as you both were definitely thinking of the exact same thing.

The day that Jaemin had shown you how to make clover crowns, he’d told you an oral tradition that was passed down among dryads about them. Your friends were always happy to indulge your interest in the folklore and religious/spiritual aspect of Magical Creatures Studies, especially in contrast to Renjun’s sometimes militant laser focus on the current socioeconomic-political structure of modern society.

It was a story about two dryads who were in love. One had to leave—depending on who was telling the story, it was a trip, a war, or a kidnapping; Jaemin opted for a dangerous trip—for an indeterminate amount of time. The other dryad waited, and weaved a clover crown every day until their lover came back to them. Nowadays, dryads will weave clover crowns for their loved ones, it’s a treasured tradition for older members of families to show young relatives how to do it, and elaborate clover crowns with specific flowers will sometimes be given as confessions or special gifts to romantic partners. Clover crowns are connected to the idea of love for dryads.

And judging by the look Jaemin was giving you, he was not going to ascribe this one to cultural differences.

Donghyuck had whipped around at this revelation as well, and smacked Jaemin’s arm to get his attention. The two dryads leaned their heads together to have a hushed conversation of fervent whispers, and you desperately hoped that whatever they were saying was both quiet enough for your friends with super hearing to not be able to distinguish, and vague enough that if it could be overheard, it wouldn’t make any sense to them. Well, specifically Jisung.

You were walking a very narrow tightrope of wanting your friends to find you two out so you could get it over with, while also not needing them to find out this way, since Jisung didn’t even know about the meaning behind the clover crowns. Your relationship was still new, fresh, bubbly, and good; you two hadn’t even said ‘I love you’ yet. Based on how the dragon had reacted to just you discussing the societal concept of marriage in an academic context before, you wanted to approach the whole ‘I love you’ situation with a lot more tact than your friends would surely have.

You’d been nervously watching the two dryads when a tap on your shoulder stole your attention back. You looked down at Jisung attentively. “Yeah, Sungie?”

“Here,” he said simply, holding up the finished clover crown for you.

Despite the anxious pretzels that your stomach was knotting itself into, you couldn’t help but smile fondly at both the crown and Jisung. “Ah, you’ve gotten a lot better, Ji.”

You were just moving a few of the buds aside to inspect his improved weave pattern when he spoke up again.

“Are you going to put it on or give me a grade on my clover crown weaving?” He pouted at you.

“Sorry, sorry,” you apologized, placing the crown atop your head. “There. Happy?”

He sighed melodramatically. “I suppose...”

“You want your own?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Hush and watch the movie, I’ll make you one.”

At the end of the movie, you were satisfied with the fact that all of your friends had ended up staying with you this time. After holding out the convenience store bag for everyone to throw their trash into, you momentarily left the group to throw that bag out in a large campus trash can. The others stayed back to pack up all the blankets and such.

You weren’t alone for long, as Donghyuck sidled up next to you and fell into step with you.

“Great Pan, you’re practically betrothed!” He sighed, putting a hand on his chest.

You gave him an unamused look, but didn’t reply, continuing your route through the mass of other students.

“Y/N, seriously,” he sighed, leaning against the wall by the can as you tossed the bag in the trash. “What’s this whole song and dance about? How can we be more obvious? You two like each other. Do you need to hear him say it? Will that finally convince you?”

You opened your mouth, about to just blurt it out, finally end this whole stupid charade, be done with it, with everything. But Donghyuck was still. Talking.

“I mean, I thought I’d had my fill of playing matchmaker for the oblivious and hopeless on spring break—” He laughed to himself, seemingly remembering something funny, which you had no clue what on earth he was talking about. “—but you two are really something else.”

Setting your jaw, you spun on your heel and walked away, leaving him to scramble his way through the crowd to catch up with you.

“Hey! Y/N! Wait! Was it something I said?”

Knocking on the door of Jisung and Chenle’s apartment, you bounced from heel to toe as you waited for your boyfriend to answer the door. Usually, you two didn’t hang out at his place unless he knew Chenle was going to be out all day, or for several days. It was just a lot easier to relax at your apartment with no roommates. But he’d texted asking you to meet him ASAP, so you’d yanked your shoes on and hurried over.

You heard the familiar sounds of the door unlocking, then it was swung open. Except Jisung wasn’t on the other side.

“Y/N.” Chenle greeted you with a curt nod, not seeming very surprised that you were there. Well, they did have a rather robust security system thanks to His Highness here in front of you, so he had probably checked the front door camera before answering it.

“Oh hey, Chenle.” You smiled at the fairy as he stepped back to let you in, and followed him further in towards the living room. Looking around, you couldn’t spot your boyfriend. In fact, in the back of your mind, you realized that a pair of his sneakers were missing by the front door. “Where’s Ji?”

“Grocery run.” 

Weird. His text made it sound like an emergency, or at least extremely important. To text you to meet him ASAP and then just go to the grocery store... Maybe he had gotten a new game in and just wanted to show you immediately, then realized he was out of snacks. That definitely sounded like Jisung. Deciding that it was probably something like that, you looked back to his roommate, a little sheepish, “Uh, do you mind if I wait for him, then? He texted me to meet him here.”

“No, he didn’t. I did from his phone, right before I asked him to go get me some cough drops for my sore throat that I don’t have.” Chenle admitted freely, perching on the arm of a leather armchair and focusing an unreadable expression on you.

“I see.” You nodded, leaning against the couch opposite the room from him. “So, what did you want to talk to me about that you had to use such methods to do so?”

“Y/N. We both know that Jisung is stupid.”

“Woah, tell me how you really feel, Chenle,” you chuckled, trying to keep your voice light.

“And you’re not.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“So, at this point, either you’re being intentionally obtuse, or you’re stringing Jisung along. And I’m not going to sit back and let anyone do that to him.”

Your eyes widened at the hard edge Chenle’s tone had taken, and the faint lime green glow emanating off of him. “Uh—”

“Jaemin and Donghyuck are always talking about being in tune with nature, sensing humans, knowing what’s in a human’s heart. They’re into all that crap. I know humans. You’re more like fae than you like to think.” He was practically spitting his words out now, unable to sit still, pacing the floor in front of the armchair. Slowing to a stop again, he pivoted on his heel to set his sharp eyes back on you—except they weren’t his usual dark brown, they were an electric, glowing, burning neon green. “So you’re going to either actually make the first move on that moron, or reject him. Today.”

Oh the jig was so up. Just as you were about to figuratively spill your guts—in order to keep from having them literally spilled for you—the click of the front door shutting echoed through the apartment. You didn’t dare take your eyes off the fairy in front of you, though.

“Chenle, stop it.” Jisung sighed from behind you, and you did finally snap your head around when you heard his voice, relief flooding your being when you saw your boyfriend.

Chenle’s eyes immediately flickered back to a chocolate brown, all glow gone, and he offered a placid smile to the dragon. “Oh, Jisung. Quick grocery trip. And you didn’t even get my lozenges.”

“I was all the way at the store when I realized I forgot my wallet,” the dragon deadpanned, clearly not believing his roommate’s act, which the fairy was well aware of. He made his way over to you and wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “Leave her alone, Chenle. She’s not deceiving me.”

“We’re kind of deceiving all of you.” You confessed to the fairy, bracing yourself for what was to come.

“Yeah, we’ve uh, we’ve been dating for two months,” Jisung confirmed with a nod.

“You… what?” Chenle’s jaw dropped, genuine disbelief on his face this time.

You added, “We wanted to see how long it would take you guys to notice.”

“And see how far you’d take your meddling. I’m honestly surprised it took this long to escalate to threats from you, Chenle. But I was expecting them to be aimed at me, not Y/N. Something along the lines of ‘actually ask her out or I’ll hex you,’ not this.” Jisung then looked at you, features turning concerned and voice softer. “I’m sorry, by the way, if I thought this was even a remote possibility, I would have called this off sooner. Are you okay?”

“I know, Jisung, I know you would’ve. I’m fine, I promise,” you reassured him quietly, tilting your head closer as he pressed a quick peck to your temple.

Chenle didn’t seem to be paying you two much attention anymore, stumbling towards the other end of the couch that you and Jisung were standing at. “You not only played a trick without me, but you played it on me?”

He dramatically clutched at his chest like he’d been stabbed. “You caused mischief and strife without me? Wreaked havoc and I was none the wiser? Pulled the wool over my eyes?”

He finally sat down on the couch, falling back against the plush cushions as if he were going to perish at any second, throwing a hand over his face for good measure.

“Is he okay?” You leaned over to ask Jisung quietly.

“He’ll probably continue these theatrics for another five to ten minutes, then we can have a real conversation,” Jisung informed you.

“I heard all of that!” Chenle pointed an accusatory finger at you two.

“Chenle, how about we make it up to you?” You offered.

Your boyfriend looked at you with wide eyes, making a slicing motion over his neck with one hand, clearly signaling you to back off of doing that. You were well aware that making any kind of deal with a fairy was a bad idea, especially one that would put you in their debt.

The fairy didn’t move, instead letting out a fake sob.

“Help us play one last trick on the rest of the guys. A grand finale.”

Jisung squinted at you, clearly having no clue what the hell you were talking about. Which was fair, because you had just come up with it on the spot.

Chenle shot up into a sitting position, looking alive and well now. He laced his hands together over his lap. “Do tell.”

“I do have to say Jisung, you chose well. She’s practically a fairy,” Chenle declared, patting his roommate on the shoulder. The three of you were hiding behind a building on your college’s campus, peeking around at the main courtyard to spy on Mark, Donghyuck, and Renjun standing and having a conversation.

“I hate this.” Jisung huffed, crossing his arms.

You rubbed his other shoulder with a concerned frown, “We don’t have to do it if you really don’t like it, Sungie.”

“No, I mean you two getting along. I know the prank is fake.”

“Aw, afraid that I’m going to replace you with her as my partner in crime, Jisung?” Chenle teased. “Don’t worry, I think I’ve just found another accomplice. We’ll be a trio instead of a duo.”

The fairy’s eyes seemed to glitter at the prospect, and not just with the usual amount of magic that was in them.

“You are not roping Y/N in, too,” Jisung insisted.

“I don’t know, Sungie. Kinda sounds fun.” You shrugged, always hearing the two of them recount their misadventures together—or witnessing the odd one here or there—but never having the opportunity to join them properly before.

“See?” Chenle grinned smugly.

Jisung huffed again, this time a puff of smoke coming out of his nose. “Like I said. I hate this.”

“Anyway, there they are. You go in first, Jisung.” Chenle had finally spotted your last two targets, Jeno and Jaemin, joining the others.

“See you in a second, Sungie.” You gave him a final double thumbs up for encouragement before he took off towards them.

After a beat of silence, Chenle suddenly proclaimed, “I like you for Jisung.”

“Uh, thanks, Mr. Park, I have to say, you look great for your age.” You joked, arching a bemused eyebrow at your friend.

“That would be funny if either I or Jisung were human,” he replied humorously. “But I’m being serious. You know how Jisung and I met, right?”

“Yes, I do.” You nodded solemnly.

Chenle had found Jisung on the outskirts of his kingdom back home, a little dragon curled up all alone under a bush in a rainstorm, no other dragons in sight. At the time, Chenle himself was only a boy as well. Jisung didn’t talk much about his life before Chenle, and you didn’t know if he could even remember a lot, if anything, about it. The two of them were pretty much brothers; you knew what it meant for Chenle to say that to you.

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Your words could have been joking, or even an insult, but you hoped he could hear the sincerity in your voice as you bumped your shoulder with his. The fairy nodded, and bumped you back.

“Anyway, you think it’s been enough time?” Chenle craned his neck to peer around the corner again.

“Probably.”

“Alright, showtime,” Chenle held his hand out for you, and you grabbed it.

The two of you emerged from around the corner hand-in-hand, striking up a nonsense conversation about Chenle’s latest assignment in one of his classes. You pretended like you just happened to spot the cluster of all of your friends, delight, surprise, and recognition coming to your features as you lifted your other hand to wave to them. You watched as all their jaws dropped in unison—minus Jisung’s—and they started looking around at each other. You and Chenle walked right up to them, and you offered all of them a bright smile.

“Hey guys!” You greeted them cheerily.

“Chenle this has got to be the lowest you’ve ever gone,” Donghyuck shook his head in disgust, completely ignoring your hello.

“Yeah man, Jisung’s your best friend,” Mark scoffed.

“You raised him!” Jaemin wrapped an arm around Jisung’s shoulders.

“You fed him from your hand!” Jeno stepped in front of Jisung protectively.

“Just because you’re some high and mighty fairy prince or whatever where you’re from doesn’t mean you can treat people like they’re disposable,” Renjun crossed his arms. “Here you’re just some guy like everybody else.”

“Woah!” You let go of Chenle’s hand to step in front of him with your hands up. “Guys, that’s enough!”

“I bet Y/N’s not even in control of what she’s doing,” Renjun entirely ignored you. “He’s probably got her under some fairy spell or something.”

“What the fuck?” Chenle cried out, offended.

“Yeah!” Jaemin nodded firmly. “Because she’s totally into Jisung, I know she is. I know her heart!”

“Guys!” You yelled again for their attention.

“Don’t worry, Jisungie, we’re going to get her out from under that spell,” Jaemin cooed, stroking Jisung’s face as he currently had what was practically a chokehold on the dragon that definitely looked less than comforting.

“Jeno, grab her!” Mark ordered, and the werewolf immediately started advancing on you.

“Oh my god stop it, guys! Stop! I’m not under a spell! Chenle and I aren’t dating! Jisung and I are! We’ve been dating for like two months and we pretended not to because we wanted to see how long it would take you to notice!” You yelled out, squeezing your eyes shut to brace yourself.

But there were no super strong werewolf arms grabbing you. Instead, it was silence that became one chuckle, then a giggle, then two giggles, then you were surrounded by raucous laughter. You cautiously opened your eyes to see all your friends doubled over with laughter around you, clutching their stomachs and holding onto each other for support. You and Jisung were the only ones standing up straight, immediately realizing what was going on when you made eye contact.

“Seems we’ve been made, Sungie,” you deadpanned, wading through the sea of cackling bodies until you got to your boyfriend.

“It appears so…” He sighed, looping an arm over your shoulders, and you wrapped an arm around his waist.

As they all sobered up, a few were quite literally wiping tears from their eyes, others fanning themselves, and some still clutching their sides.

“How?” You looked around, then saw a very familiar, exceptionally devilish grin. “Chenle?”

“What better trick is there to play than being a double agent?” The fairy confirmed.

“Oh, you suck,” Jisung glared at him.

“You guys tricked us first. It was much more satisfying to get one over on you than to keep making the idiots look like idiots.”

“Hey!” Donghyuck cried out indignantly.

Chenle caught your eye to say, “I do mean what I said, Y/N.”

You nodded in understanding. “Thanks, Chenle.”

“Alright, I think we all learned some very important lessons,” Mark announced, getting everyone in a disjointed huddle. “Like…”

“Don’t be so nosy,” Jeno started off genuinely.

“Make sure the people you’re setting up aren’t already dating, or they might make you look like idiots,” Renjun added.

“Double check human emotions with a unicorn if you’re having doubts,” Jaemin sighed wistfully.

“Never go out to eat with Y/N and Jisung. Especially if there’s fries involved,” Donghyuck shivered, and you rolled your eyes. He was seriously never going to let that go.

“I’ve got two partners in crime now, so everybody else needs to sleep with their third eye open.” Chenle grinned.

“That I’m never getting into a prank war with any of you people again. This was too stressful, school’s bad enough,” you groaned with a shake of your head.

“Chenle’s an asshole,” Jisung hissed at his roommate.

“I think Jisung needs to do his over, he already knew that about me,” Chenle drawled with a facetious whine.

“Fine. Chenle’s an asshole who needs to understand that if he threatens my girlfriend again, he’s going to get burned to crisp.”

The fairy shrugged, “I’ll take it.”

“Great, you guys.” Mark beamed at you all proudly.

“What about you, Mark? What’d you learn?” Donghyuck prompted him teasingly.

“That Y/N and Jisung are dating. Duh.”

“Right. Yeah, yeah.” There were murmurs of agreement from the gaggle of creatures around you.

“So, truce?” You offered a hand out in the middle of the huddle to nobody in particular.

All six of them grabbed your hand at once and shook it. “Truce!”

“So…” Donghyuck fluttered his eyelashes at you. “How’d it happen? What’s the story?”

You scoffed, “No.”

“What? You lead us on for two months and now you won’t even tell us how you got together?”

“It’s not some big dramatic thing, sorry,” Jisung admitted. “Just kind of finally happened.”

“What do you mean ‘finally happened?’ Like, how did it ‘finally happen?’”

You exchanged a look with Jisung. With an eye roll, you indulged the dryad a little. “We were hanging out at the park one day and just sort of... I don’t know! Confessed! Got together! Whatever you want to call it!”

“Lame.” Renjun yawned. “Call me when you two get married.”

Jisung started forward in surprise. “Wh—”

“Because there hasn’t been a recorded human-dragon marriage, Sungie.” You patted your boyfriend on the chest reassuringly. “He’s just being an MCS major.”

“Oh. Right.”

The human abruptly gasped. “Wait! Can I write my final paper for Dr. Kwon’s class on you two?”

“Hell no.”

A few weeks later, and you were reclined against Jisung’s headboard, waiting for him to get back from the kitchen with snacks. You two were playing a new two-player game Jisung had gotten, and as soon as you had showed up, Chenle loudly announced his intention to go hangout at Jeno and Jaemin’s and very probably sleep over too, since they also planned on gaming until very late. You figured your friends’ “matchmaking” behavior would stop once they knew that you and Jisung were together, but apparently not.

At the reappearance of your boyfriend in the doorway, juggling several different containers, you set your phone aside. He managed to put them all down on his nightstand without dropping them. You scooted forward and re-fluffed the pillows behind you to make room for him and his wings.

Jisung’s wings weren’t out frequently—you yourself had only seen them a handful of times in the couple years that you’d known him. Dragons either had to be entirely shirtless or wear specially cut shirts in order to have them out comfortably. Most stores didn’t carry shirts in a style that allowed for dragon wings, allegedly since there were so few dragons it “wasn’t profitable” to make them. So dragons were then forced to make their own, have their clothes altered, or order from online specialty shops. Jisung usually just didn’t bother with it, as he claimed it was more of a pain to get the shirts than it was to just keep his wings away. But you and Chenle had started a master plan of slowly sneaking the dragon cut shirts into Jisung’s wardrobe until it was 50/50. You two also had a bet going of how long until Jisung grew suspicious of the rising number of shirts. So far, both of you were still in the running at two weeks.

Tonight, it seemed Jisung had found one of the new dragon cut shirts, just a simple black tank top from the front, but the back was cut into two side panels and a middle section that draped open to allow plenty of space for his midnight blue wings to rest behind him.

Except Jisung didn’t scoot on the bed behind you like you expected. He just kept standing next to it, looking at you, one hand fidgeting with the gold chains around his neck.

“Sungie?” You said his name quietly. “You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he shook his head as if to shake himself from a trance, though that same pensive look didn’t leave his face. “Sorry, just thinking.”

“What about?”

“Y/N, I want you to have this.” He grabbed one of the necklaces by the chain and took it off. With no hesitation, he reached forward and put it around your own neck. Your breath hitched in your throat as you watched his every move, and the intense look on his face as he did so.

The necklace was beautiful, an immaculately kept dazzling gold chain of medium thickness, and hanging from it, a simple, shining gold sun pendant, about the size of your thumbnail. The metal was warm from already touching Jisung, and sat heavy against your skin.

“Y-You’re giving me this?” You held the sun with delicate fingers, as if afraid it would actually burn you, looking up at him in shock.

“Yeah. I don’t know, it just... makes me happy seeing you wear it.” He said, sounding almost confused at his own actions.

Letting you borrow a hoodie was one thing—a big thing, but still, only a hoodie. Giving you a piece of jewelry that he was wearing—part of his hoard—you didn’t know how to compute this. Jisung wasn’t around a lot of dragons for most of his life, so you knew that the exact cultural significance of the action wasn’t there. But that significance came from dragons’ instinctual hoarding nature, which was still ingrained in him. For it to make him happier to see you wearing a piece of his hoard than to keep it for himself… you really thought your heart might explode.

“Y/N?” Jisung lightly touched your arm, worry coloring his tone. “D-Do you not like it?”

“No! No, Sungie. I love it, thank you,” you beamed at him genuinely. You caressed his cheek with the backs of your fingers, eyes going a little misty as you looked up from the glinting gold of the necklace to the midnight blue eyes of your dragon. You were happy, so happy that if you didn’t say something, do something, it felt like you really might burst.

You turned your hand over to cup his cheek, pulling him closer and pressing your lips to his. He made a small noise, and suddenly dropped down to sit on the bed with you. Jisung kissed you back just as ardently, one hand trailing down from the back of your neck to your collarbone then below the hollow of your throat, tracing the path of the jewelry along your skin.

When you had to pull back from the kiss for air, you shifted back fully to look him in the eye, still cradling his face. You inhaled, “I—”

“Wait!”

You stopped mid-sentence at Jisung’s outburst, snapping your mouth shut and looking at him with big, confused eyes.

“Sorry, uhm, I know what you were about to say, and I also know that I’ve been weird whenever you or Renjun brought up your Interspecies Marriage class.” Jisung seemed to notice how your expression became more and more alarmed as he spoke, and he grabbed your hand that had frozen on his face, holding it with both of his. He rubbed soothing circles into the back of your hand as he continued, “I don’t want you to think that I’m not serious about you, because I am. N-not marriage or anything like that right now. But I’m serious about this, about you. I am. So I just, I wanted to say it first.”

“Okay.” You let out a breath of relief and smiled at him encouragingly.

Jisung just kept gazing at you, mouth slightly parted, thumb rubbing circles into your hand. The only indication that time hadn’t literally frozen was the slight shift of his wings adjusting behind him, and when he eventually blinked.

Finally, you couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Jisung?” You said his name, wetting your lips awkwardly. “Like, you wanted to say it now, or not yet?”

“Sorry, yeah, no, now.” He reassured you, taking a deep breath. His eyes still seemed to be drinking you in, though, gaze lingering on the sun hanging from your neck. “You’re just so beautiful… It really does make me so happy to see you wearing that. More than happy, I don’t know how to describe it, but—”

Then suddenly you were on your back, and all you could see was Jisung and midnight blue with flashes of gold. A surprised giggle came out of your mouth as Jisung nuzzled his face in the crook of your neck. You felt a hot puff of air wash over your skin, and you reveled in the comforting, smoky smell surrounding you.

“But now I think I understand all those fairytales where the dragon keeps the princess in their tower and never lets her go.”

You stroked the back of his head, running your hand down his neck and shoulders, stopping just above where his wings start, then back up to weave your fingers in his hair. With a content sigh, you said softly, “I love you, too.”

Your dragon pushed himself up to hover above you so you could see his disgruntled pout. “I wanted to say it first.”

“I think you just did.” You laughed giddily.

“Well... still, I love you.” Jisung brushed his nose with yours for a tender moment before slotting his mouth with yours in a searing kiss. You truly felt like you could never get used to kissing Jisung, a child of the Sun, someone with the very heart of a mountain inside him. In between kisses, he murmured seemingly absentmindedly, “My princess...”

You smiled against his lips, indulging in one, two more sweltering kisses before you mumbled back, “My dragon.”

⤷ blog masterlist | anthology masterlist

[jongbross]

lotto. (mafia!kim junmyeon x f!reader)

pairing: mafia!kim junmyeon x f!reader

word count: i have no idea

genre: smut

warnings: description of sexual activities, thigh riding, swearing, mentions of crime, lust, junmyeon has such a soft spot for reader

a/n: i wrote this some time ago as a birthday gift to my friend with another idol but i think it suits junmyeon so muchhh 🥺 anyway, this is not part of kinktober but it's definitely a good way to kick it off! 🤗

the loud music wasn’t actually enough to overlap the sound of cheering, talking, and laughing coming from the whole place. hundreds of people were smiling, although you didn’t believe any of them were truly happy. you could see money, alcohol, drugs, and lust everywhere you looked, but never truly happiness.

well, fuck it. they were all grown up adults afterall, they knew what they were doing. it’s not like someone forced them into that warehouse, into that world. you knew way too well how inviting and exciting the whole thing was, so you couldn’t blame them - although your addiction wasn’t gambling, drinking or doing drugs; although you had actually found love within those walls.

a man screaming after winning what seemed like a lot of money caught your attention. the blonde man threw herself on any guy next to him, suddenly kissing him. it didn’t go unnoticed to you the ring shining on his left hand’s finger though.

“enjoying the show?”, a very well-known voice spoke behind you, making you instantly smile.

“just seeing by myself what hell must look like.”

“wow, hell…”, he said, holding your waist and placing himself beside you now. “that’s a new nickname.”

you laughed, eyes trying to find again the couple of dudes you just saw kissing, but couldn’t find them anywhere. well, that only meant one thing…

“why do you keep coming if you don’t like it here?”

you looked at him, seeing his perfect side profile as he admired what he had built mostly by himself. the loudness, the lust, the illegal actions taking place inside that warehouse didn’t bother him - if anything, he liked it.

“because i like you and i wanna be a supportive girlfriend”, you said like it was obvious.

“okay, two things: first, you were already supportive from the moment you didn’t leave me when you found out about this. secondly, you keep calling yourself my girlfriend, but, baby, i thought we were past that a long time ago.”

if god truly existed, you prayed she didn't let junmyeon see how you blushed at that.

“yeah, well…”, you tried to come up with a reply, but after a few seconds when your brain still didn’t process anything good to say, you just trailed off and let the conversation die.

junmyeon laughed beside you, pulling you close and caressing your body. from the moment he got involved in “bad things”, he accepted that he would never find someone who he could love. he accepted the fact that, to make his name big in those kind of business, he needed to let go of any normal shit people do - like going out on dates, maybe getting married, maybe having children. he was okay with that. he knew what he got himself into when he was around 15 years old.

but that was until he met you.

that was until he saw you fighting back one of his guards at the door of one of his clubs - well, it wasn’t actually a club but you didn’t know that, he found out later. the girl in a burgundy top, pointing a finger at a huge guard caught his attention that night, and he just couldn’t ever let you go after that.

junmyeon didn’t know exactly how you turned into friends, and then into a couple, and then into whatever you two were right now. he just knew how he fell in love with you and, to be honest, how couldn’t he? what was there not to love about you?

“i like when you get shy”, he said only for you to hear, chin resting on top of your shoulder.

“i don’t”, you replied, still looking straight ahead. junmyeon didn’t miss the tiny grin on your lips though.

he kissed your shoulder, lost in a moment with you but in a lifetime of thoughts inside his head - all the thoughts about you. he closed his eyes for a bit, turning down all of his senses and just focusing on your smell and the way his lips felt against your skin. he couldn’t feel any other thing, couldn’t see any other thing, he couldn’t listen to any other thing…

or that was what he thought.

“sir?”, someone called behind you, making you both turn around. you looked curious at one of junmyeon's many guys, dressed in a suit, while junmyeon himself couldn’t look more annoyed. actually, scratch that, he couldn’t look more pissed. “there is a-”

“is someone dying?”, junmyeon asked, cutting the guy off.

“n-no, sir.”

“then why are you interrupting me and my girl?”

the dude went silent. he looked from junmyeon to you and then back to junmyeon, completely lost.

“i’m… i’m sorry, sir. i-i just thought you would like to know that-”

“well, i wouldn’t. so turn around and go fix it yourselves whatever happened. i don’t wanna know, and don’t fucking interrupt me again.”

“yes, sir”, the guy immediately said, bowing to junmyeon before going back to wherever he came.

you looked at junmyeon, staring down at him and noticing so closely how his expression changed the moment he looked at you and you two locked eyes. he went soft, all of a sudden.

“that was hot”, you joked, smirking when you felt his arm wrapping around your hips and pulling you close.

“yeah?”, he raised an eyebrow at you, what you knew was one of his ways to try to be sexy. little did he know… “i can show you hotter if you let me.”

“such a gentleman-”

the way he grabbed your wrist and pulled you away with him made you shut up though.

(...)

you watched as junmyeon closed the door of his big ass office behind him, locking it and checking it twice just to be sure. he knew no one would be crazy enough to walk in without knocking, but he liked his privacy secured.

when he turned around to watch you - his girl - he smirked. you looked breath taken, as always. his feet worked on their own and started to walk towards you without a warning. they only stopped when you were at junmyeon's reach, watching every move he made, every expression. you watched as he rested his hands on your hips again, one of his favorite parts of your body. you watched as he pulled you close, close enough to feel your breathing against his face. you watched as he closed the gap between you two, kissing you with everything he got, like he always did.

and then, you stopped taking track of his every move and started to focus on what you were feeling. you felt his tongue slipping into your mouth, you felt his hands traveling up your body to hold your neck as he kissed you, and you felt, overall, that familiar sensation between your legs.

“come here”, he whispered, leading you to the chair behind his desk.

he sat down first, unbuttoning your jeans and taking them down. you groaned when he kissed your stomach, hands resting on your thighs as you finished the job of taking off those goddamn jeans. junmyeon's looked up at you, watching your face as his kisses became openmouthed, his tongue feeling warm against your skin.

“will you take it off for me, baby?”, he asked, one of his hands tugging on your panties.

you obeyed, taking it off and letting him pull you onto his lap. junmyeon placed you on his left thigh, flexing his muscles the moment your bare skin hit his trousers.

“you’re going to ride my thigh here in my office like the good girl you are, okay?”

“you can’t tell me what to do”, you smirked at him, but the smirk was quickly wiped off your face the moment he flexed his thigh again.

“i’m sorry, you were saying…?”

you cursed a “fucker” under your breathe as you started doing what he said. your movements were lighty at first, enjoying the feeling little by little. you could both feel each other to the extent you loved the most, grabbing at each other whenever something felt too good. his hands on your waist, your hands on his shoulders now.

you moaned out loud for the first time, and that’s how junmyeon knew you were on the right track. he held your waist a little bit harder, helping the way you moved your hips down onto his thigh. he could feel his trousers getting wetter with your every move, and no words in this world could explain how he loved that.

fuck, no words in this world could explain how he loved you.

when you moaned again, junmyeon couldn’t help but moan too. he took a moment to look at you, at your expression, at the way your body was moving on top of his before going in for a kiss. he took your lips on his own, savoring you and swallowing your noises, his trousers feeling so tight now all of a sudden - but he couldn’t care less, he just wanted to make you feel good, as good as you always made him feel.

“fuck, myeon”, you groaned when he broke the kiss. your fingers were tightly tangled on his shirt, holding for dear life as if he could disappear if you let him go.

your hips started to move faster, harder, that familiar sensation building up inside you. you lost your goddamn mind when junmyeon decided to lick at your jaw, whispering sweet nothings to you in between the kisses, the sucks he’d leave on you; he poured his heart into those words though, promising himself at that very moment that he would do anything he could to always remember you how much you meant for him.

another loud moan echoed through the office, and he knew what that meant.

“come on, baby”, he whispered to you.

he didn’t have to say it twice. you finished with a call of his name, coming all over his thigh, his hands guiding your hips to help you ride through your high. junmyeon happily sighed when, at the peak of your intimacy - the moment right after the sex -, you let yourself collapse on top of him. you rested your forehead on his shoulder, trying to catch your breath as his hands traveled down to your thighs, caressing them.

seconds went by, minutes went by. nothing could touch the two of you, nothing could make him leave you, and nothing could make you walk away from him.

junmyeon smiled at the thought of always having you like that, of always being with you. but, at the same time that thought warmed his heart, it also made it ache. what if you ever got tired of him? what if you decided you no longer loved him? what if you realized he’s no good for you because of what he does for a living?

what if he had to go away someday and you didn’t wait for him?

“marry me”, he said, realizing that the words had truly left his mouth only after they did.

“what?”, you groaned.

“marry me. be with me forever. i want you forever.”

you smiled, looking up at him and holding his face in both your hands. you had the great junmyeon, the guy who built his own gang and his own way into the crime, wrapped around your finger.

“i’m with you. i always will be, a ring won’t change that”, you said, kissing his lips. “i promise i’m yours. isn’t that enough?”

junmyeon immediately nodded. anything you decided to give him was enough.

“it is for now. i love you."

“i love you too.”

[janesociety]

daddy issues, pt ii

tony stark x teen!reader

type: angst, hurt/comfort (?)

summary: you aren’t getting better- tony knows it, you know it, and so does everyone else.

word count: 2.5k

warnings: mentions of death and dying. reader is very sick. medical procedures like surgery and an iv.

pt i

masterlist

✩ ✩ ✩

You were getting better. That’s what Tony had kept telling you, at least.

You weren’t all that convinced.

You woke up almost a whole day later with Tony’s hand in yours. He was always softer with you than other people, but not like this. He rarely left your side the entire time you were out, and once you woke up, he still seemed to check in on you regularly- sometimes for hours at a time.

Bruce eventually took you off the oxygen, but the IV remained in your arm- much to your dismay. He kept running tests, everything he tried coming up blank, but he wasn’t going to stop until you were better.

“You don’t have to sit in here all day and watch me sleep,” you spoke up one day as you groggily rolled onto your side. Tony set the book he was reading off to the side. “I won’t wither away just because you’re not here.”

“Oh, please, we all know you’d burn the place down if we left you alone long enough,” Tony said, adjusting his position in the plastic chair he was sitting in. “That’s why we had to put your room next to Steve’s- popsicles don’t burn, they melt.” You couldn’t help the laugh that flowed from your lips at the lame joke. Even if it was followed by a small coughing fit. “Take it easy, kiddo,” Tony said, scooting closer to your bed. “Don’t wear yourself out.”

You gave a small head nod in response, suddenly feeling weaker than before. Tony leaned back in his seat, picking his book back up.

“Tony?” you asked. He hummed in response. “Am I dying?”

“No, of course not,” he said, a little too quickly in your opinion.

“I’d want you to be honest with me if I was,” you said, playing with your fingers. The small act was making your hands ache, so you stopped, resting them over your stomach.

Tony reached over, careful to avoid the wires sticking out of you, taking your hand in his.

“You’re not dying, Y/N,” he said firmly.

You still knew he was lying.

Within the next two days, things only seemed to get worse. All the Avengers were now taking shifts by your side- usually with a lot of overlap as each lasted hours at a time. You’d been put back on oxygen when you began complaining of being so tired that it hurt to breathe.

You tried to put on a brave face for the rest of them, even if you could read all their faces and knew that they knew something you didn’t. You never cried or complained. You didn’t question anyone about you dying again, simply accepting it as a fact. Of course it was going to happen one day, but you couldn’t help that you were sad it was so soon.

“Please tell me you have something,” Tony said as he entered the lab adjacent to the med bay.

“I might,” he said, putting some scam results he took up on a board. “I think it’s connected to her powers. You see, she got them from HYDRA, right? Now that’s not easy- it takes advanced biotechnology to be able to give someone powers without killing them. You already know that, I suppose.” Tony resisted the urge to snap at Bruce for taking so long with his explanation. “Well, I think they installed some kind of self destruct along with. Like a biological timer to keep their ‘goods’ from being kept in the wrong hands.” Tony kept harsh eye contact with Bruce. “It’s causing her body to shut down.”

“But you can fix it, right?” Tony said, staring at the black and white images that meant nothing to him.

“We’re running out of time,” Bruce said, clearing his throat. “Once it gets past a certain point, it may… it may just be better to let her go.”

“No, we’re not doing that,” Tony said, barely letting Bruce finish and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Tony-“

“I promised her she wasn’t dying and I will not be made into a liar,” he said, harshly. Bruce looked away from him, the monitor on his desk displaying your vitals in the next room. Tony sighed. “Just tell me what you need. Doctors, staff, medical equipment- I can get you anything you need in the next two hours.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

You were pretty out of it for the next few days. When you were conscious, you were in pain, and when you slept, you were restless and often had nightmares. In the times you were awake, you were aware enough to know there was now a team of medical professionals checking in on you at all times. You felt like a guinea pig with how many people were constantly examining, touching, and prodding at you at all times.

Tony still stayed close, albeit a bit farther back after being snapped at by a doctor one too many times for being in the way.

Even if your eyes hardly opened for more than ten minutes at a time, you were always acutely aware of the number of people around you. Most of the Avengers sat with Tony around your bed and you kept hearing things along the lines of “go to bed, Nat,” and “we’ll come get you if anything changes, Steve,” and “if I fall asleep, wake me up when she does.”

You could hear the hushed whispers of doctors talking to Tony or Bruce over your head. You could hardly focus long enough to catch any of what they were saying, but when you heard a doctor say “Let’s step into the hall,” you knew it wasn’t good.

“Unless we can figure out what’s killing her,” Dr. Klein, an older woman and one of the best immunologists in the Northern Hemisphere, said, “we’re going to just be barely keeping her alive. Her quality of life is rapidly deteriorating and I believe she may be taking a turn for the worse.” Tony watched you through the window, surrounded by machines, doctors, and superheroes. “I thought I should let you know that it may be time to discuss hospice options in the event there’s nothing else we can do.”

Tony didn’t answer her. He just stood, watching you. He shut down any time anyone brought up you dying. He couldn’t help it. Imagining a world without you just seemed so impossible he couldn’t even fathom the reality he was being faced with.

Dr. Klein’s pager beeped and she excused herself, leaving Tony alone.

“Steve?” you said, your mouth dry from how long it’d been since you spoke. The others around the bed, including Steve, collectively stood and walked closer to you. You could tell Wanda, Bucky, and Sam were there and were somewhat surprised that Tony wasn’t.

“I’m here,” Steve said, taking one of your hands and leaning closer to you to hear your weak sounding voice.

“What’s going on?” you asked, not actually wanting to know what was going on, but rather wanting to have a conversation with someone. You hadn’t had much of a chance to speak to any of them and it was starting to get quite boring only being stuck with your thoughts and nightmares.

“You’re in the hospital still,” he said, stroking your hair back.

“Oh,” was all you could muster, mentally kicking yourself for sounding more confused than you were. You had to take a moment, the small sentences winding you. “Can you talk to me?” you croaked, your voice sounding scratchy. “All of you?”

“‘Course, doll,” Bucky answered, grabbing his chair and moving it forward. You mustered up a small smile, but it disappeared the moment it was there. The thought crossed his mind that he preferred it when you were screaming and thrashing, because then at least you could move. He mentally kicked himself for even comparing the two.

“Anything you want to hear about?” Steve asked. You wanted to say yes and list off all the things you wanted to talk about since you got sick, but your throat was already so sore from talking. You shook your head no.

Sam leaned forward in his seat. “Why don’t I tell you about mine and Bucky’s training session the other day?” You couldn’t help but crack a smile, seeing Bucky immediately turn red.

“Hey now-“

“C’mon, Buck,” Sam said, feigning offense, “you’re going to deny the girl this funny story just because she wasn’t there to experience it?” Bucky just shook his head. “Anyway, as I was saying…”

You tried to stay awake. You really did. But you kept nodding off anyway, jumping awake every few minutes to tell him to keep going.

“I can finish the story later, Y/N,” he said after the eighth time you’d fallen asleep.

“No, no,” you said, coughing slightly. “Just keep going. I want to hear your voice.” You took notice of Wanda’s silence, reaching out suddenly for her hand. She took it, squeezing it a few times as she tried to keep tears from her eyes. She’d already lost one sibling. She couldn’t lose another, even if you weren’t blood.

“So Bucky decided it was a good idea to get up again-“

“Excuse me,” a doctor said, rushing up to your bed with what seemed to be a whole medical team and a few other doctors you recognized behind him. “I’m sorry, I need you all to step back.” He was being quite rude with his tone, you thought. Everyone did as they were told, but you kept your feeble grip on Wanda’s hand.

“Ma’am-“

“Please,” you spoke up, staring weakly at him. He glared down at you.

“Alright,” he muttered under his breath. Nurses moved all around you, messing with the machines, your IV, one even shining a light in your eyes. You’d gotten somewhat used to people randomly walking up to you and poking at you or shoving things in your face, but with so many people it quickly became overwhelming. You squeezed Wanda’s hand tighter, beginning to shake a little.

Finally a familiar face appeared over you.

“Y/N,” Bruce said, leaning over your bed. “We’re gonna take you back to surgery, okay? Everything’s gonna be alright.” You began to shake more and Wanda put a hand over yours in a weak attempt to comfort you.

Tears were forming in your eyes, suddenly feeling the most scared you had been since you got sick.

“No,” you cried out weakly. “Please.” Tears streamed sideways down your face, either hitting the oxygen tube around your ears or your hair. Even if you were barely conscious most of the time, you wanted to be aware before you died. You didn’t want to go out on a metal table. The idea of not being able to feel yourself slipping terrified you.

“It’s going to be alright, you’re in good hands,” Bruce said as your bed began moving. Wanda’s hand slipped out of yours and you waved it around frantically trying to find hers again.

“No, please, no,” you whispered, barely processing where you were going. All you could see were the lights overhead as they rolled you down the hall. Everything else took too much effort to focus on. You came to a sudden stop in a dark room. Your cries became louder.

“Y/N, listen to me, sweetheart,” Bruce said, appearing in front of you again, “everything’s going to be alright. You’re going to be okay.” As he was speaking, someone removed your oxygen tube and put an oxygen mask over your face. “You’re alright.”

“You’re okay.”

“Everything’s alright.”

That was the last thing you remember.

Fortunately for you, the Avengers, and, by extension, Earth (because who knows what would’ve happened if they’d really lost you), you woke up a little over a day later.

You still felt sore- all the muscles in your body burning even as you laid flat on a bed. You were still exhausted. Beyond exhausted, even. Your eyelids and limbs are so heavy you could barely move. You could feel the now familiar feeling of an oxygen tube under your nose. It calmed you in some way.

The only real difference you could identify is you didn’t feel like you were being drained. Like the life was no longer being sucked out of you.

When you finally got your eyes opened, it took a minute for everything to come into focus. The overhead lights that had been on almost the entire time you were sick before were now dimmed, which you were thankful for considering being blinded was not the first thing you wanted to experience once you woke up. You turned your head slightly, still unsure of moving your body. The only person next to your bed now was Tony, just like the first time you woke up there.

He was holding your hand again, which you had to look down to realize because you were still trying to regain meaningful feeling in most of your body. He was asleep, slumped forward with his head resting on his arm against your bed. Slowly, you moved each of your fingers, eventually resulting in you squeezing his hand. It took him a minute to wake up- using his free hand to rub his eyes and check the time before he finally looked up and saw you staring back at him.

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward so he was closer to your head. He held your hand now in both of his so that it was next to his face. “How are you feeling?” You cleared your throat, not feeling the ache in your lungs you’d grown accustomed to over the long week.

“Amazing,” you said, cracking a smile. Your voice was weak and hoarse, but all Tony could focus on was the fact that your eyes were actually focusing on him- not in the distance, not nodding off, at him. He laughed at the absurdity of your response, and so did you, but you stopped once you realized his had turned to sobs. You didn’t know what to do at first. For one, Tony Stark was crying in front of you. Not only that, he was crying about you. And secondly, you were still feeling a bit drowsy from anesthesia and processing everything was taking just a bit longer.

“Tony,” you said, haphazardly moving your other hand to sit on top of his that were still around your other hand. “Please don’t cry.” He smiled, tears still running down his face as he rested his forehead on the stack of hands you’d both created.

“We thought we’d lost you,” he said, his shoulders still shaking as he squeezed your hand tighter. He looked up at you, his face red. You grinned at him.

“You didn’t really think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?”

[nathsolkyoako]

Noc you motherfucker

No editing we die llike men

Experiment

This was a stupid idea

Maybe he had a few too many drinks, or the smoke from his frequent cigar breaks finally clogged up his walnut of a brain

Alright what, led up to this, was he was at one of the taverns and he saw one of the “companions” that worked there and he was just wondering! the thought slightly grazed his mind, and for some fucking reason he got back to the ship and found out everyone was gonna be a while getting back and it seemed like a good idea to ask alphonze if he’d ever done type of work like that cause he’s a service bot! He was just curious!

Turned out the answer was no, but there was a program in case it was asked of him. and alphonze offered to “show him” and he’s trying to let him make his own choices and if they’re both fine with trying it it was fine.

And he said if asked he could just delete the whole thing from his memory banks so it’ll be like it never happened. it doesn’t have to mean anything! Win/win

And now they were locked in the crews quarters, so no one, if they came back unexpectedly, could walk in on accident, both their clothing folded neatly beside them (alphonzes fault, he insisted) and he was laying on the ground, in his underwear, with the warforged sitting above where his stomach should be putting a strange pressure there and-

“So if I do something uncomfortable then your going to have to tell me”

And they were “discussing” it

“Okay”

It wasn’t a bad thing. It was good really, he doesn’t mind! He was just already nervous and “talking” about it wasn’t making that feeling in his gut go away

“And I don’t gain or feel anything from this so I don’t know what feels good or bad”

Friends can fuck eachother it happens! It doesn’t have to matter!

“Mhm”

Were they friends? Do friends heartbeats race when the other is nearby, close enough to hear him whir?

“Pain and pleasure have very similar symptoms, for lack of a better word, so it’s difficult to tell which is which in this context”

That made sense

Alphonze had a habit of over explaining. Maybe he just talks a lot ‘cause he usually doesn’t get the chance. When Gryffon was at Edison kingdom the warforged usually didn’t speak unless they were asked something. It was fun listening to him ramble about the smallest of things, how (or why?) alphonze knows so much was beyond him but he doesn’t mind the chatter.

“And I don’t Want to hurt you in this situation because, usually, Sex isn’t supposed to hurt so getting a verbal confirmation every so often would help…”

While he spoke Gryffon traced the dull outline of midsection. To be more fluid in his movements a lot of Alphonzes torso was made with smaller thin metal panels that overlap each other (imagine those Fuckass slugs but on a bigger scale) …he never quite payed attention to them until now

“Look if there’s something bothering me I’ll let you know” gryffon said after a pause. Thatd be easier than going through every fucking scenario. They’ll figure it out

“Are you sure?”

Alphonze hummed under his hand. Did he always do that? He’d never gotten this close to him to notice.

It felt nice.

“Yes”

“Alright “

[entities-of-posts]

yknow i wish i could exaggerate this and say this isnt real but i keep ending up in liminal spaces. i feel like this is the best blog to discuss such things. i dont know why, just feel the need to share my strange experiences! i just found this blog, but it calls to me or something dramatic like that. i dont know, im pretty sure these liminal spaces keep finding me instead of me finding them.

heres a few pictures of the places i go! i kinda wonder how i get here. those first two was when i went to see a movie, and it was kinda full when we got there, but when we left there was no one! no cashiers, and the theater we were in was empty too. the whole town seemed kinda dead at that time, which was strange, cause it was only 8pm.

second one… not sure how i got that, to be honest. i just found a slide. i dont know how far it goes up, or where it leads. you cant see it, but it turns and spirals to some far off second floor.

the warehouse one was when i was trying to find something for someone! was sent to grab something from a warehouse. the warehouse was on the 6th story, strangely. never found what i was looking for.

ooh, that street. that was a strange seat. was trying to find the car after a long night. there was a lot of alleys. that was one of the alleys! no idea where the alleys went to. they simply existed. they are simply alleys.

the last one. i just.. found it like that. it was in an empty room in a church. i didnt really dwell on why it was like that.

theres a lot i didn’t get pictures of, either! that church i mentioned is really strange. me and my sister broke into a room below the chapel once, and the floor was covered in dead bugs. we didn’t get far past it. there were so, so many bugs. that church underground lead to a few other tunnels within it. I’ve gone through those tunnels many times, and I’ve gotten lost in them so many times too. Possibly more than I’ve entered have I gotten lost!

Oh, what else. Ah! I was in the backstage of a theater once. I don’t know what play they were performing. They werent playing it yet, It was a few months before the show. In fact, the show should happen soon! Regardless, I found strange things in the backstages. A lot of black, cardboard cutouts of human shapes. There was a large room, so large. There was some kind of mountain of props, with a stairwell leading up it.

i only have a blurry images of that theater. i don’t actually know why they’re blurry! they just turned out like that. better not to question, huh.

i hope you enjoyed reading this! all of this is real, to be as honest as possible. you can throw away this ask, i don’t mind! or publicize it. i don’t mind either! I just felt that, seeing as you are an archive, it was fitting to settle down my own ‘statement’ or whatever. have fun, and remember! there are liminal spaces around every corner. for some weird reason.

Oh I love those uncanny little corners of the world! I would have climbed up the inside of the slide 👁👁

Liminal spaces are generally in the Stranger/Spiral overlap. It may be an overused word, but nevertheless the feeling remains as strong.

[breathingxspace]

This may be the series end, but it’s also the /season/ end...

This may be the series end, but it’s also the /season/ end, and while I don’t have words big or expressive enough to talk about the whole show, I /do/ have words for the writers/editors who made this season happen.

So. A thread about the people behind S4

S4 was weird both b/c we came in with so much existing world/lore/etc & also b/c we knew it was the last, so wanted to get EVERYTHING on screen, b/c it was the last chance.

That put a /lot/ on the writers, in a bunch of ways. But damn did they deliver.

Ep1 was mine, but I'm going to yell about Erik at the end, so for the time being, I just want to say thanks to Thomas for letting me play with some of his toys. Putting the two couples together for a heist was a joy.

Jordan took on one of the most ambitious challenges of S4. His pitch was excellent, but too big to fit in 1 ep. I came to him late in the game & asked how he felt about writing A Miniseries, & for some unknown reason he was willing to do it for us, & I'm so glad.

The Spaces In Between isn't a story for me, which is why I'm so glad it's part of this season. B/c it IS a story for a lot of other people, & more than a few have told me how much it meant to them. Jordan did /so much/ work, & made something beautiful. Thank you.

Mel-- adf;l/;adfsladfs;l My adoration of Cee & Molly knows no bounds, & this storyyyyyyy. This was one that had to carry a lot- get all the necessary info from backstory across while still being stand alone, & it NAILED that. & is funny, & sweet, &....

if I remember correctly, I came to Mel & @interiority w/ a suggestion they do a little collaborative creation b/c one of Interiority's pitches had strong overlap with Mels, & seemed like they'd work well together. They humored me, & made a work of art.

SJ & Kasha Mika need to get yelled about in concert. THESE two eps were /logistically/ complicated on top of narratively. They independently pitched a jail break out & break in & once again humored me in attempting to connect them. & obviously succeeded.

I love that the stories on their own are so distinct. It's NOT just telling 2 povs of the same narrative. Gospel & This Thing are their own stories, they just run parallel & overlap. But each story is richer & fuller for the other existing.

Last season, SJ made my month by wanting to play in the Terminal Station sandbox. This time, Jack did by wanting to write about Diatoma, which is one of my pet setting elements.

Something I love about these eps is how firmly in-genre they both are.

This Thing is a mob story, done to perfection. Gospel is a Western, & knows it.

Watching the two of them puzzle out where & how the stories met, & split, what you would hear in one vs the other, what could be left out or implied... it was excellent /technical/ work.

Scott 's Fable of the Family was similarly ambitions structurally, on top of narratively. It would have been easy for the series to get confusing, w/ the shifting time periods, but between writing & editing it's instead this gorgeous, sweeping saga.

The Peregrination stories are also ones that are not generally for me, but I got very invested in more than a few of the FoF ones. & again, the /mechanics/ of telling 3 stories in 3 times concurrently are fascinating, & excellently done.

Kale wrote what might be the most powerful ep in S4 to me. The characters & their struggles are intensely, almost brutally real & the sheer /weight/ of what it means to exist... The episode tackles really rough shit that's often overlooked (deliberately or not)

and it does that while still having a sense of humor. Almost all of our eps give me Emotions, but this one especially hit hard. I think it covers a slice of human experience we hadn't yet, & I'm very glad they wrote it, & it's part of the show.

Hang on for Chasing a Ghost yelling, going to do that at the end too.

Interiority has what might be my favorite brand of humor of all the BSFF writers, & There's a Design is no exception. He pitched a few eps (& I think I might have encouraged them all to get written in one way or another? Can't remember) but this one was, to me, the funniest

Except, see, he's not content making something that's /just/ funny. At its heart, this ep is... sad? sweet? deeply resonant with human nature? I don't know. I do know that Interiority can blend dry humor, over-the-top humor, empathy, & hope all into the same scene. It rules.

Again skipping my ep, but I do want to thank Daisy for her portrayal of Clarity. You Can Hear the Whistle Blow is. A very personal story. For me. So much so I had serious second thoughts about making it & I struggle to re-listen. Thank you for being gentle with her.

I could yell about Amy pretty much all day. She is one of the kindest, most enthusiastic, most /observantly/ encouraging people I've had the joy of working with. But this is about eps, so, we'll do that instead.

Blue Noon is the PERFECT final ep for BSFF.

Reading it, I knew it would need to be either the 1st or the last ep, & will not lie, I felt really bad making it the last. It was /so good/ I didn't want to make the audience (or the cast!) wait to release it. But I'm glad I did, b/c it's the ideal end note.

Going out with a Western, pistols-at-dawn narrative that's ALSO a heist and ALSO a gay panic love story? Yes. Yes, please. I am /really/ looking forward to more Amy content in this setting, and others. : )

CHASING A GHOST. James just. Keymash forever. This and Delta Vee Dining remain my favorite content of the show. CaG is /exactly/ what it should be. It's the best of public radio, delightful characters, excellent writing, and THE MUSIC.

I am in awe of composers, lyricists, & arrangers, & there's so much beautiful work in the miniseries. I just...

Honestly, this is one I've yelled about so much I am kind of out of new and excited things to say. So I'll leave it at thank you /so much/

To the editors (Aaron, Kale, Scott, Amy, Erik, Jordan, Maddie, & Sam) are our not-nearly-shouted-about-enough heroes, but I especially want to thank Sam for handling MANY eps AND finale stuff on top of his busy life. You're wonderful.

And again, we come back to Erik I love you so much, & everything I get to make with you is a delight and a joy. Your raw /skill/ as a sound designer & editor is just astounding, but lately I've gotten to see your experimental creativity, & it /rules./

Quite frequently lately you've messaged me with basically "I'm trying a thing, what do you think?" & it's inevitably something interesting, technologically complex, & cool as hell. I love watching you grow into the /art/ element of sound design as an artist. Thank you. Always.

Alright. I have now spent over an hour drafting this (on Oct 17, so I don't have to try to do it day of release when I am In My Emotions) and while there's absolutely more to be said, this thread is very long.

Thank you, S4 people-- actors, editors, writers, fans.

🚀💖🧈

-ash

[ladymdc]

*writer interview*

Thanks for the tag @bardic-inspo. I appreciate it ♥️

I’ll tag @dismalzelenka, @ellstersmash, @championofdogs, @yuusaris, & @rose-de-noire — no pressure & feel free to ignore me!

When did you start writing?

Early 20s. I didn’t really have access to fandom spaces until I was out of my childhood home & in college. But I quickly realized I could write/share all these things floating around in my head that various games/shows inspired in me.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I don’t really think so? I will read about anything, & I will try to write about anything as long as it sparks. A lot of the time those things overlap, but I do lean into grief, love & forgiveness a lot as a writer/reader.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

No emulation or comparisons here. The most I get told is that I’m good being concise & saying a lot with very little (gut punch sentences/scenes etc)— which is flattering & what I strive for since it is my style/*how* I like to write.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I literally do not have one lol. I am so busy I do 90% of my writing in gdocs on my phone wherever I happen to be & when I have some time. The other 10% is when I’m at work & can discreetly pop it up in a tab & write on & off throughout the day in between tasks.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Fallow when I need to fallow.

Every time I ignore it, I block & burnout. I didn’t want to fallow earlier this year since I just got into my current passion project, but after 3 months of other hobbies & rest, coming back to it has been great. I love my story & think I’m alright at this writing thing again.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

I have noticed I tend to lean into themes of self-loathing (sometimes anxiety), the related trauma, & how that effects the way they move through life & build relationships— & if that isn’t showing my whole ass, idk what is.

I also really enjoy the whole sociopath/something monstrous & their one (1) person, who loves & understands them, that they love & cherish trope— but hey, I wrote Rhack for 3 years, that one was bound to stick around.

What is your reason for writing?

It’s a part of me. I’m not sure how that happened, but that’s the easiest way to explain. Like years ago, I had a reasonably popular writer (“friend”) steal my ideas & gaslight/mess with my stats/comments (fake accounts) & I honestly didn’t think I could recover from that when it all came to a head. It took a while to get to a place where that part of me felt whole again, & I could write… but I don’t think it would have hurt so much if it was just the “something to do” it had started off as.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

I’ve never been one to inspire interaction, or I don’t feel like I am, so anything feels nice. I try to not let it get to me. The above nonsense did a number on me with stats = quality for a while, so I try to update & forget about it for a few days. Then it feels less bad going into an empty inbox because I did the thing! I updated & made progress on my story!

Plus, I’m a quiet reader too/busy & I forget a lot, so I get it. I just hope what I share resonates/sparks joy with those following along, & I call it good.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

I’m just someone out there doing my best & sometimes that doesn’t even feel like enough, so I’m probably just like everyone else lol. I hope I seem approachable. That’s my intention, at least.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Worldbuilding, story/plot, & conciseness. I love trying to say a lot with very little & why I gravitate toward drabble exercises (100 word stories) every so often.

How do you feel about your own writing?

It varies. Sometimes I think I’m alright at this & happy with my little digital library. Some of my older works make me cringe regularly, but I leave them up because they show me how much I’ve grown & how many stories/words it took to get where I am.

Right now I’m in a pretty good place, but that took some time. Like I loved my last fandom, but I definitely needed a break from antis & the pressure I was exerting on myself. Where I’m at now, no one knows me. I’m a drop in a very big ocean so I feel like I’m just doing my thing, which has been an adjustment, but not every fandom needs to be a place I get involved & make friends. Loving on my current passion project has been a good reminder on why I started writing in the first place, & even if I have bad days where I think I’m too slow or not good enough, focusing on me & what this part of me needs has been good/healing.

When you write, are you influenced by what others enjoy might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

What I write is either a gift or self-indulgent, sometimes both. I can’t write for stats or attention. I don’t know how people do that, but no judgement either. Sometimes I think I hold it too close, & wish I could, but alas. Seems like I’m built to just pour my heart into everything I create (or all my pent of hornt depending on the work ;asldkfj) & that’s it ♥️

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

Hi!

9 from that pick a number prompt ☺️

finally, I have it finished here on ao3 or under the cut

Louis wanting to meet in Maceió isn’t much of a surprise.  It’s been a few months since the book has been released, and it’s doing better than anticipated.  His agent is talking about a movie deal; he wants Regé-Jean Page to play Louis and Marsai Martin for Claudia.  Daniel told him to lower his ambitions.  

They are walking along the coast of the moonlit beach, Louis’ private beach.  It leads back to the large cottage up the hill, where Louis currently lived.  Brazil suits Louis, he seems happy here.  

He’s just telling him so, albeit with a lot more snark, when his phone rings.  He picks it up with a sigh.  “I’m telling you, Alfred Enoch isn’t gonna bite.  You gotta cast an unknown.  Find someone who can bring the character to life.”  

Louis looks amused by the whole thing.  

“Look, I gotta go, I'm with a friend.  No, not a lady friend, you nosy prick.”

Louis arches an eyebrow.  “Is there a lady friend?”

Daniel hates that, it overlaps in his head and he can’t make sense of it.  “Not now,” he says to Louis, “...yeah, I’ll call you back.”

Daniel considers throwing his phone into the ocean.  

“You didn’t answer the question, Daniel.”

Daniel huffs and crosses his arms over his chest.  “It’s not what it sounds like.”

His pace slows and he eventually comes to a stop.  He sits down and lets the water lap over his feet.  Louis sits down next to him, toes buried in the sand.  “It’s Armand.  He’s been…following me.  At first I thought he was gonna kill me, but honestly I think he’s just lonely since you dumped him.”  

Louis looks at him carefully.  “Armand is following you?”

“I mean, mostly,” Daniel says.  

He might have gotten Armand’s cell number from Louis once upon a time, as a safety precaution.  But he called him before this visit and said “We both know you’re gonna follow behind me in your fancy private jet; so why not cut the cost and ride together?”  

Armand had been stunned into silence for a brief moment, then, miraculously he laughed.  He’d told Daniel the time and place to meet.  Naturally, he had already booked them both hotel rooms.  Adjacent to each other, but no connection between them.  Of course, Armand booked him a luxury room with a view and a balcony overlooking the sea.  It is heavenly.

What was Daniel supposed to do, walk away from paradise?  There’s probably a metaphor somewhere in there about forbidden fruit and temptation, but Daniel doesn’t want to think about it.  

Louis catches all that, from the look on his face.  “ Ah , that’s how it is.”

“What?” Daniel says, confused.  

“You and Armand.”

Daniel is literally stunned speechless.  “Me and Armand?”

Louis smiles and shakes his head.  “You don’t even see it.  Thought you were supposed to be some big shot reporter, and you can’t see what’s staring you in the face.”

“What, that he has some weird fixation on me?  That’s all because of you, buddy.”

Louis laughs, and it crinkles his nose.  “What does Armand do when he finds you?”

“Bitch and moan, mostly,” Daniel says easily.  

“He says, without a trace of fear,” Louis says.  Daniel lets the gravity of the words sink in.  

He’s not afraid of Armand.  Not anymore.  He isn’t sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way his fear had become anger, anger had become irritation. Irritation had become annoyance, had become something close to endearment.  

“Ok, so what?”

“Oh my god,” Louis cups his face, “Daniel, you’re in love with him.”

Daniel pushes Louis’ hands off.  “It’s not like that; I’m just used to him, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh.”

Daniel leans back on his hands and sets a sharp gaze on Louis.  “You seem surprisingly chill for a guy who thinks his only friend wants to rawdog his ex.”

“Is that how you think it would go?” Louis says.  “He’d eat you alive.  Maybe literally.”

“Psh,” Daniel fishes his cigarettes out of his pocket and lights up.  “That guy is wound so tight; he needs somebody to shatter him.  Might help him loosen up a bit.”

“Good luck at the job,” Louis says, and gives a little salute.  It occurs to Daniel that Louis has been sipping nothing but tourists on cocktails and is probably a little drunk.  

“I never applied for the job,” Daniel says.  “Armand isn’t my problem.”

“Oh, he is one hundred percent your problem,” Louis says.  “Or did you not pick up that when he falls, he falls hard?  To an extreme.”

Louis’ jaw clenches a little at the end, but he shakes it off.  “Don’t worry, Daniel; Armand is terrified of rejection.  You’ll have to make the first move.”

“Easy enough; I won’t do anything,” Daniel says.  He rises to his feet.  Armand is probably in his hotel room by now.  If he gets bored he starts snooping.  

Louis rises beside him.  They walk in silence back to the cottage.  Daniel sees Louis to his door, and for a moment, there’s a beat between them.  It fades as quickly as it was born.  In another time, another place they coulda’ woulda’ been.  Still, Louis catches his hand before Daniel can walk away.  “Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“You have my blessing.  For Armand.  He’s…you’ll be good for him.”

“Yeah? He’ll be terrible for me,” Daniel says, but he’s already becoming a little resigned to the idea.  Not of a romance per-see, but of having Armand around for the indefinite future.  

The funny thing is; he doesn’t entirely hate the idea.  Louis' face turns smug next to him.  "Shut up, Louis.  It'll never happen."

"Famous last words."

[bigmack2go]

So you finished your outline kr even your entire story? And now yove gotta come up with a title but you don’t wanna be as boring as using the main characters full name? LET ME HELP YOU!

Idk how to make a good intro to this but i’ll just try by starting with: theres a difference between fanfics and books

For fanfics it’s okay to have a shitty title, a song related title or just a whole ass quote(all tho that last ones debatable) theres still a lot of fanfics with great titles though.

This one seems obvious but please at least make your book SEEM interesting

But if you do want or need a good title let me help. I have no idea where to start so jm just gonna give u a couple of things to keep in mind withoutany particular order.

Okay so idk how to start this but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep your title at two words or less. If you have three… fine i guess but thats the absolute limit. Also absolutely avoid going over four syllables! That also in most cases means: no quotes, not songs etc unless theyre short enough. This is not optional! There’s nothing that i hate more than a name that takes ages to say when i try to recommend a book or show or movie which is why i simply dont do it. And you don’t want that. You want your storry to be recommended. Like the summer i turned pretty. Great book. Great plot. The title almost made me not read it.

Talking about at one. The summer i turned pretty also made no sense what so ever! Especially with the sequels??? Please make your titles make sense for the story! And if you wanna do sequels i’m BEGGING you to keep that in mind for the title.

Dont spoiler anything but for fucks sake make it make sense

Also pls dont start it with “the” cuz thats bad enough as it is but thats not even my point: if you dont want something boring as the MC’s full name, you also dont want something like the important object or just some random noun i promise. It CAN work if its like a name for a group of people like the outsiders or a gang name or smt but its like that it won’t so just… dont

I’d also avoid using original words that u amde up for the story. This isn’t necessarily smt that makes the title bad but it automatically means that it’s harder to remember so if you wanna be recomended thats probably a No. Unless its super easy to remember foe whatever reason.

So now that ive told you what NOT to do, let me give you some ‘DOs’

So theres several kinds of titles.

My personal favourite are like word plays. Not necessarily puns bc they often create new words which are as we’ve established hard to remember. But just something with a double meaning or something like that… i love that

Something else that always works are inconsistencys. Nothing like titles that contradicts itself! It sparks confusion and most importantly: INTEREST. People wanna know what the fuck is up with that. And it can alsk be rly soothing (for some reason)

References and innuendos are smt else i’ll never say no to if they’re used right. This can also overlap with wordplays. Famous (short) quotes or sayings, places or names are never not it

Smt else that slaps is good ol’ simplicity. Be bold. This👏does👏not👏have👏to👏be👏a👏spoiler! I promise you that just because you make it obvious what’s the book about that won’t spoiler shit.

Talking about: i love a good On-The-Nose title especially because most people expect nothing less than the exact opposite of it. Dont get me started on how banger of a title “They Both Die At The End” would be if it were just a little shorter!

And lastly even tho fullnames are an absolute turn-off last names can be sooo good. Especially when they’re about the whole family and especially when they’re in singular

Ofc these rules don’t always apply. Here are some examples of when they didnt

Fifty shades of gray (not defending the book itself, im just saying: the title is awesome)

Ansalom

The guy who didnt like musicals

Pride and prejudice

The kangaroo chronicles

Dracula

Alice in wonderland

That nineties show

Lollita

Bonny and clyde

Out of africa

Come from away

The never ending story

But trust me they usually do apply and just because a book is doing well it doesn’t mean the title had any part in it! Here are some books that should not have done so well and wouldn’t if it were for the title

Harry Potter

Percy Jackson

Mathilda

Birth Control is Sinful in the Christian Marriages and also Robbing God of Priesthood Children!! (Like holy shit dude wtf u literally have not one but TWO exclamation marks in there and take up TWO lines)

The little shop of horrors

Here are some really good titles

Red clocks

Hamlet

Star Wars

Maze Runner

Qualityland

Hamilton

Let’s win

Newsies

Half bad

Blackbird

Avatar

Chrimson rivers

Fight or flight

Young royals

Bridgerton

Titanic

Here are some titles that could have been soooo good if they just… (and what i would change them too

How to get away with murder its so long (sort of wordplay?, interesting)

The fifth season- season five its too long sry (interesting)

Maze Runner-*not having sequels* it just doesn’t make sense for the sequels (simple and interesting)

Just lovers (like we’re suposed to be)- just lovers (contradiction, interesting)

History is all you left me-simply history (?) (contratdiction) too long

More happy than not (interesting) too lonh

They both die at the end (on the nose) too long

Half bad: the bastard son of the devil himself- half bad (interesting) too fucking long dudeee

Also some that DID folow the rules but are still… not so good for some reason? (This is only about the titles not the works!!!!!)

Best friends brother

Choices

Girl in pieces

Boy meets world

No one saw

That nineties show

Lalaland

Im also maybe gonna do some of these on covers and genrally viduals

[kasienda]

Opening Line Patterns

thanks for the tag @ladyofthenoodle!

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 posted fics and see if there's a pattern. I'm not going to link each individual fic, but here's my Ao3 if something catches your fancy! :)

From most to least recent:

Rena Rouge: Secret Keeper - Ch 4 Chat Noir was earlier than Ladybug. That was hardly unusual. What was unusual was that he was dreading her arrival.

The Untold Story of DJWiFi - Ch 9 Alya’s biggest complaint about being tied up in a giant spider’s web was that she couldn’t film the whole akuma encounter.

Bend the World Around It - Ch 3 They don’t talk about their names and identities. He doesn’t ask and she doesn’t want to talk about it anyway. It’ll just make them both sad.

Not Part of the Plan - Ch 12 She wakes up next to Adrien. He looks as gorgeous as ever and more than anything she wants to throw herself at him and have her way with him.

Celebrity Status - Ch 7 I can’t believe Ladybug dropped someone! 

Miraculous Reveal #15 - Rings True I figured out who Monarch is. He’s Gabriel Agreste. Meet me at the Agreste Mansion.

Right Behind You - Ch 13 Nino adjusted the headphones over his ears, and hit play again, listening to the track he had so far.

Yin and Yang - Ch 5 Adrien’s room was something out of a child’s fantasy.

Spin the Bottle Nathaniel’s family home is not as large or ostentatious as the Agreste family manor, but that only means Adrien feels more at ease.

Aftermath - Ch 5 After their unplanned disaster sleepover, Marinette and Adrien fell strictly back into their routine.

Well, in 6/10 the first line seems to serve to establish where the character is more than anything else. Nothing too fancy about those.

And in 5/10 (with some definite overlap with the previous six) there's something in there to quickly establish the character's mood/mental space.

In 2/10 it's a line of text! I think this is interesting in that it's similar to starting with a line of dialogue, which is very easy for me, but I've mostly trained myself out of that. Mostly! Haha! But apparently I can still find ways to cheat. I'm actually shocked that none of these are an ACTUAL line of dialogue. I'm sure that it will happen again.

I don't usually put a lot of energy into the opening line. I more try to get into a character's head and that often takes more than one line and I usually find the rhythm later. The first line is helpful for getting in that mood though and getting words to flow!

No pressure tags to: @asukiess @bbutterflies @bittersweetresilience @jennagrinsoverml @blur0se

[silveve]

Ok so about the white washing Steve posts that are going around

I’m gonna be honest, Minecraft Steve is probably white* (crowd boos)

He was made by a white guy and is well within the range of white skin tones, like I’m pretty sure the guy just has a tan.

Anyway this could be coming from a place of ignorance** but I don’t think it’s super important that Movie Steve be the exact same skin tone as Minecraft Steve, like I think they’ve just gone “welp, Steve is white, Jack black is white, that’ll do.”

The reason I bring this up at all (because normally I would not care) is because a little bit ago the same thing was happening with Bdubs’ model in the Minecraft launcher when they released the hermitcraft S9 world download and people then were getting actually worked up about that to the point where Bdubs saw it and said on Impulse’s stream that it surprised him because he viewed himself as white and that he just had a tan (unfortunately I don’t remember the exact phrasing and have no idea which VOD it was, maybe when they were working on the city together).

And something is just really niggling at me about this stuff now after that happened, but I’m not an expert so I’m not great at articulating or even really identifying why it’s niggling, but I’m thinking it might be one or both of the following:

1- People may be using the term ‘whitewashing’ a little too loosely, I saw someone say the sheep had been whitewashed, and I think we maybe should be careful not to erode the term.

2- I’m kind of getting the impression that there’s a couple of people out there that are looking at skin that is anything other than the pastiest of pales and going ‘that’s not white’. And like, there are definitely some white people with darker tans than the skin tone of some POC, because humans are diverse and there is of course going to be a bit of overlap. And this is the part that I’m having trouble with because it definitely feels off but I can’t seem to really put it into words why it’s off***

And just for the record and without going into a whole discussion about how whiteness is actually a lot more complex than just skin tone (someone could write a whole other post about how culture and ethnicity and religion and facial features and body proportions and all sorts of things effect how ‘white’ someone is perceived as. not me though I don’t know enough) I do acknowledge that it is possible to whitewash a white person, I’m just not 100% sure that that’s what’s happening in this particular instance.

Having said all that I will continue to reblog these posts because in this instance I’m pretty sure they’re harmless and they would definitely piss off Notch if he saw them.

*ultimately he is blocks so interpret him however you want actually, I’m not the arbitrator of skin and neither is anyone else.

**I’m white so I could very well be making an idiot of myself, do tell me if so, or throw bricks at me, whatever works.

***IDK maybe someone who knows more than me can explain why it’s not great, or they can tell me why I’m wrong, or this post will get 2 notes total and I will learn nothing.

[moon-lv3r]

to be cared for ~🦊

🦋 category: fluff, one-shot, gn!reader, sickfic

🦋 characters: aki, power and denji (minor appearance)

🦋 summary: in which you fell sick right after a mission

🦋 warnings: nil (does slight ooc count?)

🦋 notes: i proofread this a little (shocker !!)

here’s a short one-shot after disappearing for months… a lot has happened… life has been wild and shit. its crazy what happened tbh LMAO but i’m back !!! hopefully my writer’s block also left bc i actually struggled with finishing this because my brain was just DEAD. this was a draft from september 2023… IMAGINE THAT

“Hayakawa, I said I’m fine!” You began after Aki placed a hand on your forehead, sensing a fever emitting through your skin. He had noticed that you seemed to be having a hard time walking properly, prompting him to check to see if there was anything wrong with you.

He sighed and shook his head before answering, “Y/n you’re having a fever for goodness sake!” And he was right, there was something wrong with you.

Your body temperature.

“No I am not!” You protested, despite feeling the feverish temperature all over your body. You just wanted to let Aki know that you could handle yourself on your own.

It was just a fever, what was the worst that could happen? At most, you’d just suck it up and return home, seeing a doctor the next day if it still lingered. The sole problem was that your home was quite the distance away… A whole town away.

It was impossible to die from a fever, it's not like you were terminally ill or whatever… You could manage the distance…

It was just your body temperature rising, you could take care of yourself. What was the big deal?

Your legs suddenly felt weak and you could barely stand, almost falling into the arms of the man standing in front of you. He had a look of shock and worry spilling over every corner of his face. He just grabbed you awkwardly, hands fumbling about, not expecting the sudden situation. What was a man supposed to do in such a situation… All he could do was to help you stand, you could feel the embarrassment heating up your cheeks… Suddenly the pavements looked blurry… like there were lights shining from every direction, distorting every corner, making it look like there were angles overlapping.

“Just…” Aki began. “Just stay over at my place for tonight. I don’t think you can go home on your own like this.”

It was after a mission, one where you and Aki barely managed to complete as you suddenly felt unwell. The mission went on for hours, with the devil being evasive and you feeling sick throughout the entire ordeal. Which was why Hayakawa Aki decided to bring you back to his home as it just so happened to be nearby. Denji and Power were both already asleep by the time Aki returned with you. Your body had been drained, ever so drained. Drained of every energy and essence you had left. It was supposed to be a simple mission, one deemed as safe and only needed two people… Well look at how that went…

“I didn’t want to be an inconvenience,” You began as Aki placed your arm over him and began to carry you home slowly.

It was a good thing that his home was nearby. There was not much ground left to cover, so he wouldn’t have to carry you for long, especially after such a hectic day. Sounds of his free hand fumbling about his pockets for his keys… the jingles as he searched for the right one to open the door to his home… Slowly placing you over on the couch as it seemed to be the only available space that he could immediately find.

Aki paused as several thoughts ran through his mind, piquing your interest. “Perhaps I could sleep on the couch tonight…” He muttered. “This isn’t inconvenient or anything. It’s just for a day.”

You weakly got up to face him, frowning at the sudden words that your ears had just picked up, your eyes analysing the foreign environment to the best of their abilities. You were just co-workers, surely there was no need to do all of this… right? It was just a fever…

“I’ll be alright, Hayakawa,” You responded. He might not feel that way but you sure did. You just didn’t want to owe anyone anything. It felt like you owe someone a huge debt and you do not like that feeling. The sudden urge to return the favour was not a feeling that you enjoyed.

Aki didn’t seem to care about your response, instead, he continued with his actions. He was already beginning to make his bed more hospitable for someone like you. He was already moving some of his items out so that his room would accommodate your needs more. He did not have to do all of that, yet here he was.

“Seriously Hayakawa!” You began. “You don’t need to do all of these!”

“Denji and Power are sleeping,” Aki responded in a soft and gentle tone, while signalling for your volume to resemble that of a feather dropping. The sounds that both Denji and Power were producing during their sleep were the only things that could be heard.

You stopped responding after that and just let Aki do whatever he wanted. You did not have the energy to stop him anyway. The energy in you felt as though it was slowly being syphoned out of you, like there was some leech sucking away on the very essence you needed to even do basic functions. Your body began to slowly feel weaker as your vision destabilised. Perhaps Aki was right…

It had been hours since the both of you last ate as well. The mission had stolen dinner time away from the both of you. It was unfortunate. The growl of your stomach could be easily heard amidst Denji’s snoring. Aki could definitely differentiate between those two sounds as well, having his head turned to look into your eyes the moment his ears picked up on the message your stomach tried to scream.

“Sorry…” You uttered awkwardly as you laid down. Aki was already done arranging some of the items in his home to accommodate a guest.

“I think there should be some items that I can cook with,” Aki pondered, his words growing softer as his mind was riddled with memories of his own fridge, wondering away about how filled it was. Perhaps he could make the both of you a meal before resting for the day.

“Just…” You mumbled as the energy slowly left your body. You had never felt weaker. “Something… small and… make it quick.”

Aki nodded as his figure disappeared into his kitchen, leaving you laying on the couch, soaking in your weakness. Perhaps he was right, you wouldn’t be able to go home after all. Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to stop and protest when he insisted on taking care of you. Well its not like you could just go now, you were stuck in his home.

He didn’t strike you as the kind that would… care this much. He always seemed so nonchalant. It just didn’t seem like something he would do. Had he always been this nice? Perhaps you just never noticed… Watching as he focused his energy into making the midnight snack that your sick body long has yearned for ever since the mission. Something in you just felt… different. Foreign even.

All you could do was to stare in silence as the man before you began to busy himself. Sounds of slicing, dicing and boiling filled the air as you looked at his focused face. He always had that serious look, didn't he? You wondered if he had ever at least given himself time to relax and give the stoic face a rest. Did he even have other expressions? Suddenly you were interested in knowing more about your fellow colleague.

The once familiar high ponytail was now replaced by his hair down, reaching for his shoulders, slightly swaying as Aki focused on the task at hand. It was slightly odd, to see your fellow colleague out of the office. It was a sight that you could get used to though.

Denji and Power seemed to be sleeping soundly despite all of the noises filling the house. Even Meowy was obediently staying silently asleep. Suddenly everything was going so well, aside from your unwell body of course.

“Y/n,” Aki called out, carrying bowls and plates of his latest dishes one by one and placing it on the table in front of you. “Just eat slowly, it’s alright.”

“T… Thanks,” you uttered, suddenly feeling as unwell as ever. It felt like a needle was suddenly trying to pierce its way into your mind. The pain felt so sharp, and it felt like it was at one spot, but it also felt like it was all over your head. You just couldn’t focus at all, the pain seemed to be unbearable for you to even hold your head up properly.

“Are… you alright?” The man before you asked, the gaze of concern filling up his eyes.

You could only respond with a small nod, having little energy to respond. Though you managed to squeeze out the fact that your head currently felt like it could burst into bits of flesh any moment.

“Just have a bit of these first, slowly,” said Aki with a spoon in hand, ready to feed you if he had to.

You gently took the spoon from his hand and picked up the bowl of rice. You weren’t so weak that basic human tasks seemed treacherous to complete. You could still eat, maybe just not everything. Your appetite seemed far too sickly to consume the normal amount. You simply could not bring yourself to fill up your growling stomach. It didn’t go unnoticed by Aki of course, being the ever so attentive co-worker that he was.

“You don’t have to finish everything,” He said. “Just have a little bit.”

You did your best, slowly taking bites and swallowing whatever amount your stomach allowed you to. You couldn’t even force yourself to eat if you wanted to, you didn’t have the right amount of energy to do all everything that you have ever wanted.

Perhaps this was a result from all of those times you had overworked yourself beyond your limit. Maybe this was just your body’s way of begging for a break. You should really start taking proper care of yourself. When was the last time you had gotten a proper sleep? You could not remember. Maybe that was why your body chose to collapse, because you just needed the break.

Maybe your body torturing you was its own way of telling you that you needed a break. You have no choice but to abide. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to be unwell… It was nice being cared for… was it not?

Your eyes glanced over at Aki, the way he was slowly feeding you… You’ve never seen him this… caring… Were you hallucinating?

“Have the rest of the bowl,” said Aki as he placed the bowl and spoon before you, then he got up. “I am going to do something…” His voice trailed off, fading into the air as sounds of hinges vibrated in the air around you. He had just entered a room.

You slowly helped yourself to the meal that Aki had made for you. He was usually the silent and nonchalant type. No wonder he was suddenly gone just as you were eating… Maybe he wasn’t used to spoon feeding someone, like you were some child.

“When you’re ready, just sleep in this room,” Aki’s voice gently pierced your ears, letting you know of his offer.

“Thank… you,” you managed to utter. He didn’t respond.

The bowl remained at half full, you could not bring yourself to finish the remaining half. You tried, you really tried. Not wanting to waste a single bit of Aki’s efforts, you tried to finish it all, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to take another bite. It seemed as though your body was suddenly sick of something else. This wasn’t good, you felt bad. He was trying to care for you here, yet your body was barely cooperating with anything. How’d you let yourself get so weak after a tough mission? How could your body give up on you just like that?

You slowly got up, to dump the wasted effort of Aki’s cooking and to wash the utensils. You were still a guest, there was no way you would just leave dirty dishes hanging, no matter how sick you were. It was basic manners.

“Y/n?” The closeness of Aki’s voice almost shocked you. He was right behind you, looking as you washed the dishes, before pushing you away and finishing the work. “Could’ve asked me to do it for you,” he said.

“I know how to do dishes,” you responded. “Just because I am sick doesn’t mean I am suddenly handicapped.”

Aki nodded, finally letting you be, and headed back into his own room.

It felt as though you had suddenly been reduced to that of a porcelain doll. Ever so fragile, so breakable that one mustn’t treat it with any malicious intent. Suddenly you became something that had to be treated with the most care anyone can give. All you had was just a fever…

Was it a good feeling? You could not tell. Did you enjoy being treated like a fragile doll that could break any moment? Was it nice, suddenly receiving such care? Perhaps you should enjoy it while it lasts…

Once you were done with everything, you headed into the room in which Aki prepared for you. It was neatly arranged. It had taken you a while to realise that it was his room, considering the fact that you just walked in on him still arranging it.

“Just uh, rest here for now,” Aki muttered as he heard your footsteps, turning to face you. “Take the medications by the bed, its for your headache.”

You nodded, slowly allowing yourself to adjust to the foreign surroundings that felt… so familiar and calming. You wonder why…

Nevertheless, you closed your eyes, trying to get as much sleep as you could milk out of this stupid sickness. Your body was tired… ever so tired… Your head hurts…

Why was it hard to fall asleep? Why was it hard for your mind to finally rest? Why does your body hate you so much? It was stupid…

As your eyes slowly closed, your muscles relaxed, you could make out a faint figure standing in front of you. Strands of shoulder length hair tickle your face as you finally found the energy to rest. The feeling of a blanket slowly moving to cover your body…

Throughout the silent night, you remained blissfully unaware of the hardworking man by your bed, working to get your temperature back down to normal. Who knew taking care of someone with a fever could be so tiring?

Aki changed the towel resting on your forehead every once in a while, the moment it lost the ability to cool your body due to gaining too much heat. It seems as though he was sacrificing his rest to ensure that your body got all of the rest you deserved.

The silent night was deafening for him, why was he doing so much? He had begun to question himself. What was he up to now?

The stars sparked at each and every one of his thoughts, leaving him wondering about his actions and the sick person before him. What would Denji and Power say of this? What was going to happen?

What would the others say of this? Makima… Himeno… What would they think?

As the night went on, Aki soon found that time was slowly draining his energy as well. He was too, a human, and he too, needed rest. No human can go on without any rest at all. He could not collapse onto his bed for a rest when you had already stolen it from him.

The sun rays found its way into his home, spilling its way onto the floor as noises filled the corners. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the causes.

Denji and Power.

They had found you, and Aki resting his head on his own bed, sitting down beside it.

“What’s Topknot doing not sleeping on his own bed?” Power wondered, confused at the foreign sight. She frowned even more as she recognised the person sleeping on Aki’s bed. Someone she had worked with, unwillingly, on multiple occasions.

You.

“Ah! He has got himself a partner! Maybe he is planning on kicking us out soon!” Denji replied. Perhaps it was the morning, or maybe that he was just plain dumb, for not being able to recognise you.

And with a little bit of back and forth between two mindless individuals. Somehow the agreement of removing both you and Aki from the room was agreed upon. Never allow those two to plan something. At least, at some point, Denji finally came to the realisation of your identity as a fellow co-worker, and not some random stranger Aki decided to bring back to his home.

Perhaps it was the morning, so maybe that was why their brains were not fully functioning. But they did try out their idea of kicking the both of you out, though the only outcome was that Aki had woken up and saw the scene that was slowly unfolding. He wasn’t even surprised, just sighed and brushed the incident off while explaining the truth.

The smell of Aki’s morning smoke filled the air as he began to prepare himself for the day, he can never begin a day without his cigarettes. It was rare for him to get peace now that he has tenants in his home. Denji and Power were being quieter, discussing what you and Aki could be doing together like they were a bunch of gossipers. At least they decided to be quieter now.

It had taken you a few more minutes before being able to open your eyes and adjust your body to the new day shining upon you and your sick body. There Denji and Power stood, acting like your maids and waiting for your command. You could not have known of their earlier antics, nor would you have even realised that this was their punishment. What on earth happened while you were knocked out and recovering?

“Since when are the both of you so… obedient?” You asked, trying to adjust your eyes to the light as your body felt better compared to the previous night. You could finally function as a human again. The throbbing pain that lived in your head finally got evicted by the medications Aki gave you, though you still felt slightly light-headed.

“Topknot made us,” Power replied, appearing annoyed by what she was made to do. You laughed while getting up and exiting the room, only to be greeted by the sight of the man with his hair down and making breakfast for everyone.

“I take it that I will be able to leave by the afternoon?” You said, leaning against the door frame, watching as the raw food became edible. “I feel much better compared to last night.”

“Don’t blame me if you feel sick again while on the way home,” Aki responded. “Buyt you do look better.”

Denji and Power exchanged glances as the scene unfolded before them, a sudden possible realisation dawned in their synced minds. “Don’t tell me that you’re planning on asking us to walk Y/n home!” Denji shouted.

“That’s a great idea actually,” You replied, before heading to the toilet to wash up for the day. Soon, you walked over to the couch and took a seat, where you had been the night before, as sick as a dying old man.

“Hayakawa, you done yet?” You asked, trying to sneak a glance at him, only to see him walking over with plates on hand.

Aki was a great cook, and the breakfast proved it. A pity you were too sick the night before to try out everything that he made. But hey at least you got someone to cook and take care of you…

Well well… wasn’t it fun, being sick by Aki’s side.

[raayllum]

Was thinking about this parallel and “Claudia and Rayla refusing to let Callum and Viren die in S4″ and general S4 parallel shenanigans, turning them over in my brain like a rotisserie chicken, and realized it goes much deeper (and the four of them unfortunately don’t have a group foils tag, as why it ends why it always ends currently excludes Callum) and this isn’t going to be super coherent because I’m sleepy and am going to do my best to keep this short but

What the Fuck I Think Is Up with Callum-Rayla Viren-Claudia in S4, or the Interlocking of the Cycle’s Wheel

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way

Viren-Callum parallels, yeah, we’ve known that since 1x01 or at the very least 1x02, we’re gouda

Raydia parallels with their dads who ask them to do shady stuff and then can’t stop them from continuing to do shady stuff, we knew that

Viren and Claudia / Callum and Rayla being reunited after two years apart by Claudia and Rayla’s efforts

Callum and Claudia being contrasted by doing major feats of magic in order to save Viren and Rayla in 3x09

Rayla and Claudia being contrasted in 3x09 by being Viren’s killer and saviour respectively 

Rayla and Claudia paralleling the way they continue to push at their current missions in Through the Moon and 4x02 even when Callum / Viren are doubtful or wanting to take a different path, both going on a quest into Xadia to ensure Viren’s death / survival in doing so

Viren and Rayla ultimately being unable to diverge in 4x09 with Rayla running after him with only one sword and Viren picking up his staff after a season of likewise rejecting / being hesitant about it

Viren-Rayla parallels with their paranoia and practicality and ruining their own lives, more subtle but still absolutely there

Claudia and Rayla rejecting Viren / Callum’s plans for their deaths in 4x02 and 4x07

The Viren-Claudia-Rayla parallels just to cover all our bases

With all of that out of the way let’s get into it

So like I said, both Viren and Callum talk to Claudia and Rayla about wanting to die this season for ‘the greater good’ of their lives, and both times, each respective girl wholeheartedly rejects it quite harshly after a moment of softening

Okay, seems simple enough. But here’s where things get a little more complicated. Claudia, after all, doesn’t know how dangerous Aaravos is, but Rayla does, and yet they make similar calls here. Claudia refuses to let her dad die, even if she has to drag him along the whole time, and Rayla refuses to let Callum die, let alone by her own hand. They’re weighing their loved one against something possibly dangerous or unknown, something that has certainly been detrimental to both of them and leading to serious trauma of things they deem overall better left unsaid

and still choosing the loved one.

Okay, still pretty simple. Shit isn’t interlocking or overlapping too much. But then 4x04 comes along with the way it parallels Claudia and Callum explicitly as Aaravos’ most overt pawns in a lot of ways

and scenes of Viren and Callum waking up to find Terry and Rayla sobbing in the middle of the night (4x04 and 3x04) and offering words in response: “Rayla, it’s okay [to cry]” and “Get a grip,” reinforcing the way Viren and Callum have been shutting down this mix of love and pain, trying not to feel things at all. We know from later on in the season that part of this advice stems from worry over Claudia for Viren

and what Callum was doing until he arguably broke down fully in 4x09 and let himself fully feel a lot of what he’s been repressing all season long by embracing Rayla

But it goes deeper than that, with 4x07 and Viren’s nightmares also confirming that Viren still feels guilt over what Claudia has gone through thanks to his death and involvement with Aaravos, even after 4x02

Likewise, 4x07 also foreshadows / shows that one of the people Callum is most worried about hurting is Rayla because this shot is about as overt as it can be

Like Viren, Callum is worried about being a pawn in Aaravos’ game and how he may hurt the people around him, while Viren worries he already has; Callum is aware he may be becoming like Claudia, pushed further down a dark path he’s previously rejected, and caught up just as unknowingly as her in Aaravos’ web in so many ways

Callum and Claudia have already done whatever it takes to save their loved ones (dark magic for Rayla and Soren; their juxtaposed saving of their loved one who fell off the Storm Spire as cited earlier in 3x09); Viren, Claudia, and Rayla have all done deplorable things in hopes of protecting / saving their loved ones, as Viren also cites in 4x04:

But there is an aching pain mixed with love that you feel in these moments. I have always been ready to do anything to protect my family, however dangerous, however vile. In the name of love, you may commit acts so unforgivable... you will never forgive yourself. 

Mirroring what Rayla says in her letter and what Claudia said earlier (“I had to do things...”) and indeed a line from Bloodmoon Huntress about Rayla’s best friend at the time, a tiny adoraburr

but it’s something more important than that. I’M GOING TO KEEP YOU SAFE. I have to. I love you too much not to. [...] sometimes, we make sacrifices so that the ones we love don’t have to. It’s part of protecting them—part of protecting you. Taking on hard choices and going to dark places is an act of love. It’s a gift. So, please let me give you this gift, Callum. Stay safe, and stay in the light. Don’t follow me, and don’t look for me. I don’t think you’ll find me, anyway.

The river’s fast, but you’re basically my best friend. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. No matter what it took.

Viren has typically been confident he’s making the right choice; Rayla worries over making the wrong one; Callum is anxious about having no choice; and Claudia is triggered by having to choose at all. 

All of this to say: they all have the same core, explicit, and opposing desires to save the people they love. Rayla still wants to kill Viren and protect Callum, and keep him from becoming a pawn in Aaravos’ game; Viren fears that Claudia will be turned into a pawn and wants to keep her safe from the danger he’s put her in; Callum is worried that he may put Rayla in danger due to Aaravos’ hold on him; and it seems like little to nothing will ever deter Claudia from saving her father, permanently. They are all more terrified of losing/hurting the other more than anything. 

Viren has an incentive to not want Aaravos loose to try to protect his daughter; Claudia has an incentive to free Aaravos in order to save her father. Rayla will already likely save Callum from Aaravos’ brainwashing, either too late (leading to Callum playing his part) or just in time, since as she stated, she’ll do whatever it takes to save him. However, that doesn’t answer entirely how Aaravos gets out or how Callum could play into his hands even without the brainwashing, unless it’s for someone he loves, like Rayla. After all: 

All of this to say S4 absolutely Fucks and I love it so much and I cannot wait for the next season to see how this collision course of love and messiness is going to turn out, and for the one who turns the Wheel of the Cycle to finally get to spin it himself. 

[puckness]

my singing monsters high school au fanfic

uhm. in a my singing monsters server where we have a highschool au, wanted to write a story or fanfic about it so here it is

“AAAHHHH!! What the HELL did you do to my hair?” Cried Galvana. “Chill out! All I did was put my own twist on it, you don’t have to make a big deal out of it.” “A big deal? Seriously Attmoz, I look like a divorced man!” Galvana wasn’t necessarily wrong, her hair ruffled and messy just like Attmoz. “You know I can’t go to school looking like this! Unlike you I have a representation, and a good one at that.” “Oh, a good one? Little Miss goes to the office almost everyday has a favorable representation?” Argued Attmoz, his school didn’t exactly portray him accurately after multiple instances of forgetting he was even a student. “Psshh, I mean popularity dork. My name is known and remembered by literally everyone in Big Bl-""You know they only remember you for being an absolute nightmare to deal with right? I could counter what you’re saying by stating that no one remembers me, which is still technically positive since they don’t view me in a negative light.” Galvana fell silent, she was angry that Attmoz was right. He doesn’t put effort into anything at all except trying to prove her wrong! “Whatever, you better fix my hair though! I’m not stepping foot in the building until you make me look refreshed and not like a slob.” Attmoz didn’t want to succumb, but knowing that Galvana could strike him at any moment eventually made him give in.

Once Attmoz cooperated they got into his car, which was messy and crusty. Galvana had helped him clean it just two days ago, how did it get this bad in that short time span? “Attmoz you have got to be kidding me. When I clean my room it’s clean for at least 2 weeks! Have you got a raccoon living here or something because what do you even do to get it this disgusting?” She gagged, holding up a wrapper that she had seemed to forget when she was cleaning. “You call this bad? You should see my drawers, but it seems like you’re too short to even reach them.” Attmoz chuckled, emphasizing on the word short. Galvana grunted angrily, she was always like this towards her older brother. This time it was more prominent how annoyed she was with him, Attmoz wanted to make it worse to tease her but decided to drop it after he noticed the time. They got to their school quicker than expected, maybe it’s because Attmoz had broken multiple speed limits without being caught. He pulled to the front of Galvana’s school and dropped her off, sending her into school with a teasing snicker before pulling into his highschool’s parking lot.

The moment Galvana saw her brother exit the school’s premises she ran inside almost instantly, ignoring the safety patrol’s team calls and rushing to her locker. She typed in her code and opened it violently, almost taking the whole locker off of its hinges. Galvana looked into the mirror nailed into the door of the locker, grabbing a spray out of her bag and spraying it onto her hair while brushing it swiftly. “Aww.. did mom not have enough time to do your hair today? Or does she just not care for you?” Spoke a voice behind her, Galvana turned around and saw no one. Then she looked down, it was Plixie. “You have no room to talk imp. At least my mother still lives in the same house as me.” Plixie gasped sharply, he was about to make a comeback when the bell rang, he gave her the death stare and flew away like a mosquito drawn to blood. Galvana quickly slammed her locker and sped walk to her class, still spraying and caressing her hair.

She opened her class’s door with a powerful kick, sitting down at the first empty spot and finally finishing fixing her hair. There were a lot of overlapping voices throughout the whole classroom, Scaratar and Loodvigg were talking in the back as usual while Blassoom was infodumping about ecosystems to Hornacle. Galvana usually had someone to talk to, but ever since Vhamp had skipped a grade she found herself bored; even if she did have other friends she enjoyed talking to Vhamp the most and missed them.

She looked up from her desk and noticed the teacher wasn’t in the classroom, her gaze fell on the doorframe and Galvana hurriedly got up and walked to the door. She stared at the doorknob for a few seconds before twisting it with force, exiting the classroom and sprinting to her school's front doors.

BBB Middle School’s safety patrol team was working on securing the doors until a sudden flash had gone through their way. They didn’t care enough to worry about it, soon locking the doors and going to their class. Galvana scurried her way to the highschool which was next to the middle school’s building, she knew her way in. She unhinged a window and crawled into the first floor, looking for a gold and blue pipe organ. Galvana wandered around the various hallways and doors before finally finding Vhamp, she almost immediately threw herself onto them. “Vhamp!! Hi! How are you doing? Is Attmoz messing with you? How are classes?” Galvana asked frantically, she had been acting like she hadn't seen Vhamp in several years! “Oh. Hello, I’m doing nice. Uh. I don’t know who Attmoz is and classes are fine.” Vhamp generally sounded uninterested in what she had asked, but that’s how they always sounded. “Great!! I don’t usually uh, ask for favors but could you hide me somewhere? It’s boring in middle school..” “You asked me that on Friday.” “Did not, but please? It’s really dull without you vhampsie..” Galvana’s tone confused Vhamp, it almost sounded like she was joking when she wasn’t. Vhamp eventually ceased and brought her to their class, trying their best to hide her in their open back.

“Ugghhh… I hate math, they should’ve stopped at fractions!” wailed out a familiar voice, their tone snobbish and complaining. Galvana didn’t want to think who it was, but when Vhamp had rolled into the room it was who she had suspected. Her older brother, Attmoz. “Its okay Moz’, it’ll pass eventually!” “...Yeah, I guess you’re right, Glaish. Though math is still a horri… GALVANA?” Attmoz quickly rose from his slouched resting position, springing to his feet instantaneously and started squinting his one eye. “Attmoz? Eww, god how does your look change so quickly? You look absolutely rancid!” Galvana spoke strongly, she genuinely sounded disgusted. “Oh, is he not supposed to look like that? He has always looked like this arriving at school, every single day for every 180 days of school.” Vhamp said, unfazed until they saw Galvana’s infuriated face. “So… Every. Single. Day. He comes to school looking like this huh…? Even when I spend more time on his ‘delicate’ and ‘elegant’ hair than I do on my whole look..”

Galvana was obviously trying to hide her impatience for Attmoz, it not working with Attmoz visibly sweating. Attmoz was 2 years older than her, but she could very well strike him into a pile of ash at any given time. “Nono, look you’ve got it all wrong sis! It’s actually becau…because of a phenomenon of my species! You see, we’re known to always look like this, no matter how hard we try! You’ve just gotta believe me dudette.." Attmoz’s resonance was convincing to Glaishur and Vhamp, but Galvana didn’t buy it. "It’s not your species' fault. I swear Attmoz when we get home I am going t-” The school’s speakers blared their loud seemingly hissing noise, a few mic taps later and the grown voice on the other end had finally spoken. “Galvana Celestialia to the principal’s office. Now.” Galvana froze for a few seconds before letting out a loud, exasperated groan. She freed herself from Vhamp’s back and groggily walked out of the door, trying to distract herself from Attmoz’s obnoxious giggling behind her.

When she got into the hallway she looked to her left, then her right and repeated this process several times before finally making a run for it; crawling out of the same window and back into the middle school through another window. Galvana darted towards her class in a blur, bursting the door open with an electrical force so hard she almost fell to the floor. Her teacher was undaunted, so Galvana sat in the seat she was originally in and slumped over her desk, rapidly panting.

“Hey.. are you okay? You seemed to run into our classroom more hastily than usual, did they finally catch you?” Galvana fixated her glare towards the voice, which was Blassoom. They had seemed to try to keep it low, their voice a mere whisper from the teacher’s. “Yuupp.. That principal’s got a way with their voice because damn their voice was harsh.” Galvana tried to make her voice sound unserious, although it didn’t work since Blassoom still looked fairly concerned. “Oh.. Do you know what monster they could be? Ooh, maybe Candelavra! They’re portrayed to be feisty right?” “Hm.. maybe. I’ll ask my brother to look in it, thanks for asking by the way.” “No problem, just tell me if you feel down okay? Our greenhouse has a wide range of comforting and welcoming monsters! They both nodded in agreement and turned back to the teacher, who had seemed to be lost in their words and only paid attention to the board. Galvana let out an overexaggerated sigh, Mondays were the worst, what else could possibly be in store for her?

[mossfeathers]

Thanks again for responding and sharing. I'm glad these asks make you happy ^^

(You don't have to look further into Harvest Moon but If you do look for a lets play of sorts or something Harvest Moon DS/DS Cute & Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town (Gameboy) are the ones that from my knowledge look the most visually similar to Stardew Valley. But Harvest Moon Animal Parade takes place in a coastal/island-like town.)

The dynamics seem like they'll be really fun! It was also nice to hear the reasoning behind it all. You've put a lot of thought into how they interact. I'm excited for future scenarios ^^ I really enjoyed reading all of it. Also thanks for talking about them as siblings. You don't have to apologize for not answering tho, you can always not answer, I'll understand.

Addionally, I think it's really cool how the lionfish worked out ^^

Okay so for BigB's tail, I wanted to give proper ideas, I only came up with three sorta suggestions so I’ll also share my thought process a bit so that maybe that instead will help you further decide what you do or don’t want. So my first thought was a shark. I’m not entirely sure that’s, like, equivalent to Scar being a lionfish but I think that the reason I considered the idea is that sharks can be dangerous but, like, also they’re not as dangerous to humans as they're portrayed? Ya know what I mean, like I think it’s gotten better but like they were more feared than need be. Like I’m struggling with the words but do you get what I’m saying and the correlation? Idk. If not that's okay. I wasn’t really sure about sharks anyway. Next,

I searched for fish that burrowed. And I did this because I was thinking about why canary!BigB and rabbit!BigB exist and if I recall correctly him being in the mines/underground alot were overlapping points. (I woulda considered satyr!BigB but I know nothing about that. And thinking about it now dogs like to dig too and sometimes he’s got dog ears because double life so I think this is an okay hole I went down). I’m too indecisive and picky  and wasn't sure what kind of fish you'd like though so I only have three fish to present to you as options so hopefully if none of these strike a chord with you. This whole thing helps somehow:

1, The Bonnethead Shark. Yea I found a shark that burrows. So even though I wasn’t entirely sure about sharks and I gave up on finding small sharks, I thought I’d share this one. Besides sharks are cool even if many fear them & Jimmy & Grian come to think BigB's cool right? So maybe that lines up?

(Also did you know that sharks used to be called "sea dogs" and that there is a Dogfish Shark, I didn't do much research so I can't give it as a suggestion but I just looked it up while typing this so I thought I'd mention it.)

2, The Yellow Headed Jawfish, this fish was honestly just too pretty for me not to recommend. It’s got a bit of blue in its fins (and that’s really all I can give you on blue fish). Plus on a site that sells fish they were described as “playful and like to people watch” so I thought it might be fitting. Note though, if you look up this fish, you might come across images of it carrying lots of eggs in its mouth. That’s something they do, carry their eggs in their mouth. I did see a term for it but I forgot what it was. But if that’s gonna be too disturbing you might wanna be cautious(wasn't the first few images when I looked it up) or maybe not look it up just in case. But it is really pretty in my opinion if you do.

And lastly there's the Southern Stargazer. I guess it is considered an ugly fish so heads up on that? Personally, I do think looking at a close up of it's face while it's buried can be a bit spooky but also I think otherwise it's a bit fun to look at & its tail is neat. And it turns out they're also venomous, not enough to kill, but it's still painful, can cause swelling and induce shock. ("also" because Scar's a lionfish)

Speaking of, this fish is the closest one I found in terms of size to Lionfish not sure that matters to you but yea

I did attempt looking for, like, actually blue fish but like the Cichlid is a freshwater fish and Idk if it's a funny or cruel irony to suggest a damselfish when they are actually seen as food to lionfish if in a tank together. Especially when I don't know if it's true for all damselfish or just the yellow tailed ones. (Plus they don't do great in solitude which kept being a thing for blue fish but I think I mainly found, like, river fish.) But I guess this difficulty is probably part of the reason you said it didn't have to be a blue fish lol

Thanks for sharing what you do have so far for the side characters :3 Question: For the pub, does it include the arcade area and/or would the stage be in that general area?

Also it seems like a cool idea to include more creatures. Besides the spirits are there any you're thinking of but haven't decided who it could be? Or alternatively, any others you think you'd want to be something supernatural but haven't decided what yet?

And if it's not too much to ask, do you think that on an events timeline the potential Pearl arc would be closer to the beginning or further down the line.

And yea it's totally fine for you to leave it in the ask box, I'm glad you find it's something you'd want to look back at at all ^^ Thank you for your time and thanks again for sharing your thoughts/ideas.

anon i love you so much. genuinely you are the BEST. im so sorry for letting this rot in the inbox for so long, i both forgot about it and just didn't even know how to respond since this is so good (and also wanted to get some more polished drawings of all 3 possible fish, but my motivation just wasn't having it so just a couple doodles im sorry). genuinely so sorry about how long this took, time just got away from me.

I absolutely LOVE your idea for bigb as a shark, when I first read that I think I genuinely yelled out in excitement. You're a GENIUS. That's such a good idea, I really enjoy it and you got your point across well! I love canary/rabbit!bigb (my design for him is a bunny so this is RIGHT up my alley) and I love the idea of a burrowing fish and bonnethead shark is absolutely GENIUS. He was really fun to draw too!! Thank you SO much for the suggestion! I think I want a scaled fish design, though, but I still appreciate this one so much since it was SUCH an interesting idea. Sharks are sea puppies, dogs dig, rabbits also dig, so burrowing. Very logical line of thought from me.

Oh this guy is GORGEOUS!!!!! So pretty and so lovely. I think fish and the ocean is so cool so I thought the egg carrying is actually so fascinating so don't worry, both of the little warnings you gave about weird fish weren't necessary fish are awesome and cool forever. I don't know what to say, just a very pretty fish and fun to draw!!

The stargazer is SO HANDSOME!!! I can't believe its considered ugly :( I love that little connection to Scar's lionfish-ness, this is such a cool fish (the fins are gorgeous)

Thank you SO much for the fish suggestions! I really liked the yellow headed jawfish, the colors were just so gorgeous, so I think i'm gonna go with that one! Genuinely can't thank you enough for this, I was losing my mind over that.

Answering questions time! Here's a little doodle of what the saloon looks like! (names still pending but probably something moon or dogwarts related) Theres a kitchen and backstage area somewhere but that doesnt matter right now :)

Man, I had one draft of this response where I had everything written out for other creatures but my computer restarted and didn't save it but I will try my best to write it out again!

I like the idea of fae or some kind of land-based creature, but I feel like fae are a really complex species and just in general such a large world to also incorporate if I do go for any land-based creatures, so I don't think I will sadly. Trying to think about this in terms of how I would tell the story in an actual piece of writing instead of these posts of loads of exposition, yknow? So, final verdict, no cool land creatures (except maybe werewolf because i am a sucker for some rendog werewolf fun) . I love avian stuff though so a very high likelihood of birds coming into play in at least some form? Birds are just so cool to me. Also, there are probably gonna be a decent variety in sea creature species! Like there are sirens, standard merfolk, and selkies so far but if I can think of another type of sea creature then i'll probably add them in. On the topic of sea creatures, an updated list on all the merfolk! (also if you want to see some other hermit mermaids, or mermits, check out jalo-parker's art from the past few weeks! we thought up some fish designs just for his own use and they're really cute, and if some of the humans were mermaids they would 100% be those) Scar lionfish, Bigb yellowheaded jawfish, Bub whale shark, Cleo sea nettle jellyfish, Etho AND Bdubs selkies, Joe Hills leaf sheep nudibranch, and even though Martyn is a human if he was a mermaid he would be a mimic octopus! These aren't all of the merfolk, they're just the ones i've decided on and assigned a fish (or selkie) to :)

Also don't worry! I actually already have a barebones timeline for what I think is going to happen with the plot points I know so far! Jimmy and Grian move, hang out for like 4 days, then the whole siren plotline starts and ends, since everyone is now happy they have a good few months of just bonding with the merfolk and the townsfolk which I can't wait to think about more, then Pearl's whole arc starts! I think that's the natural progression of the plot as the stakes in Pearl's arc is the actual apocalypse bringing the end of the universe which is just a little bit more intense. I don't know a whole lot of the details about that quite yet though.

Thank you so much for the ask again! I genuinely can't apologize enough for how long this took to answer, and I hope it doesn't discourage you from sending another one in. I absolutely love seeing your opinions and ideas :) Thanks for listening to my rambling about my ideas again :D