#I do not have a source it’s just all over Twitter he is once again COVERED

[teeentyonepilots]

[comphy-and-cozy]

One Night Standards - Anthony Beauvillier

Pairing: Anthony Beauvillier x fem!OC

Summary: Country music sensation and Nashville sweetheart Harper Mitchell just got out of a very public, very messy breakup. She doesn't want a relationship, and, fortunately for her, Anthony Beauvillier won't be around long enough to start one. All of the makings of a perfect arrangement... right?

Word Count: 9K

Author’s Note: My first ever Beau fic!! Written for @offside-the-lines for @wyattjohnston's Summer Fic Exchange! Rox, I had a blast creating this universe for you and hope that you enjoy! S/O to Demi and @smileysvech for the plot help and being ever-helpful sounding boards.

Warnings: Alcohol use/mention, cheating themes, implied smut, friends-with-benefit relationship.

NHL Masterlist

AMERICA’S SWEETHEARTS NO MORE: ‘MICHARDS’ SPLIT!

Sources close to country music star Harper Mitchell confirm that she has split from her boyfriend, Joey Richards of 3 years amid leaked photos of him with another woman. The Daydreamin’ in Denim singer, 27, has declined for comment. 

Harper blows a puff of air out of her lips, swiping out of Twitter. Absently, her hand moves to toy with her necklace—the one Joey had bought her to celebrate her song going Platinum. There’s a brief moment as she realizes it’s not there anymore, that she gave it to a friend of a friend so she could get it out of her house. 

It’s a simple action, miniscule in the grand scheme of her life or even her day, but it strikes her hard all the same. Within moments, her eyes are lining with tears, the all-too-familiar lump sitting heavy in her throat. She lets a tear fall before exhaling slowly. “God dammit, Joey.”

The sharp ring of her phone jolts her out of her thoughts, her agent’s name flashing across the screen beside a star emoji. When she answers, she’s greeted by a laundry list of upcoming meetings, interviews, and appearances; Harper bites back the urge to ask when she’s going to get a break.

“Don’t forget you have Erin Alvey’s album release party tomorrow night,” Candice is saying. Harper can hear the jingling of her keys as the engine turns over on the other end of the phone. “Dress code is Denim & Diamonds. I sent you a few outfit ideas and a screenshot of the details again.”

“Got it,” Harper hums, mind briefly flitting to the denim corset she has hanging in her closet. She makes a mental note to pull out a few options, even though the thought of going out in public and having to socialize makes her itch. “Will—will he be there?”

Candice pauses, and a soft almost motherly tone takes over. “No, Har. He won’t.”

Harper nods to herself, humming to let Candice know she heard. Candice continues, “There will be some press there, though. Make sure to practice up on your statements, okay? They should be focused on Erin’s album, but you know they’re looking for a reaction out of you.”

“Right,” she replies, the voice inside her head reminding her to give that man nothing. 

After reviewing a few more upcoming to do’s, Candice bids her goodbye, and once again, Harper is left alone in silence. She practices her brave face, taking a deep breath before heading to the closet to plan out her outfit; she’ll be damned if she doesn’t show up to the party hotter than ever, with no outward sign of any distress. 

———

When Filip Forsberg sent the team group chat an invitation to his wife’s album release party, Anthony had accepted quickly. Initially, he was eager to seize the opportunity to bond with some of his new teammates, but now that it’s the day of, it’s the last thing he wants to do. Still, he forces himself to pull a shirt out of one of his suitcases, tossing it in the dryer to iron out some of the wrinkles after being haphazardly chucked inside following his third trade call in two years. 

Another trade, another team, with new teammates, new facilities, new plays. At this point, he’s starting to consider himself an expert in getting traded. On one hand, he’s appreciated the opportunity to explore multiple new cities while he’s young and single. On the other, he’s noticed that he’s growing jaded, hesitant—unwilling, even, to grow attached to anything or anyone on his new team, because if he’s learned anything over the last few years, it’s that all of it is temporary. 

Anthony allows himself to mope a little bit, but it’s a text from Dante confirming that he’s going to pick him up in an hour that gives him the motivation to get his head back in the game and hop in the shower. He takes care to get himself ready; maybe, if he puts the effort in, the sting of the trade will dull. Maybe he’ll find a pretty girl to get lost in for a night. 

By the time he’s getting into Dante’s car, he’s feeling much more confident and social—the getting-ready gin and tonic he had certainly helped. He’s grateful for Barzy, even states away, for introducing him to Dante a few summers ago; the familiar face has made things a little less lonely since arriving in Nashville. 

The party is a few miles outside of the downtown area, giving Dante the chance to provide Anthony with a quick rundown of the dynamics of the team and what to expect. They joke around, make some idle chit chat, laugh about a few stupid memes. When they arrive twenty minutes later, Anthony steps out of the car with a little extra swagger in his step.

Inside, he and Dante quickly find a few of the other Predators in the corner of the room, munching on some hors d’oeuvres. They settle in, chattering about what celebrities they might see at the event. Anthony’s eyes roam, absorbing the elaborate decor, before his eyes land on a familiar face.

“Oh my God, that’s Harper Mitchell,” he whispers. “I’ve had a crush on her for years.”

Ryan raises his eyebrow, then grins at Anthony. “Really? A Frenchman like you?”

“You forget who my friends were in New York. All kinds of country boys over there,” Anthony replies, his mind flashing briefly to the country music Mat would blast in the car on the way to and from the rink. “Barzy’s gonna die when I tell him she was here.”

The group mingles, Filip eventually making his way over to greet his teammates. Anthony does his best to be conversational, staying engaged, but he can’t help but glance across the room in search of long, dark curls and skin-tight jeans. He makes a mental note to text Barzy and tell her how much hotter she looks in person. 

Dante elbows Anthony, who is conveniently mid-sip of his drink. “Dude, she’s coming over. Buck up, Romeo.”

Across the room, Harper steels herself, finding comfort in the familiar brown eyes of her longtime friend’s husband, flanked by a posse of who she presumes are teammates. Outside of attending a few games with Erin, she knows next to nothing about hockey, but she’s always been surprised at how good looking Fil’s teammates are.

“Great to see you Fil,” she says, plastering her practiced smile on her face.

“You doing okay?” he whispers into her ear as he leans in for a hug. 

The tightness in her throat returns, the heavy lump sitting firmly. Harper swallows thickly, blinking quickly to rid her eyes of the tears that threaten to bubble over. “Yep. All good.”

If Filip sees through the weak lie, he doesn’t say anything, only pulls away and gestures to the group of guys behind him, standing awkwardly as they glance around. “You remember Dante and Ryan.”

“Of course,” she nods, offering each of them a smile. Her eyes connect with Ryan. “Great goal the other night.”

“And this is Beau—Anthony Beauvillier—he’s the new guy.”

“Nice to meet you.” Harper’s eyes lock with two cerulean ones. They’re kind, warm—comforting.  “Welcome to Nashville.”

“D’you live in Abberly Foundry?” he blurts it out before he has a chance to stop himself. 

Dante sputters out a laugh. “Dude, come on. You can’t just ask her where she lives.”

Anthony blushes, looking at Harper bashfully. “N-no, I’m sorry it came out that way. I mean, I live there too. I think I’ve seen you in the lobby a few times.”

“Hopefully you haven’t seen me after a show; usually those looks are a little rough,” Harper says with a smile.

He doesn’t have the balls to tell her she looks beautiful every time he’s seen her, so he just laughs it off instead. She turns her attention toward Ryan to ask about his kids, relieving Anthony of the pressure of having to carry on the conversation; instead, he takes a breath, a long swig of his drink, and slips himself into chatter with Dante. 

Even after she walks away to brush elbows with the other Nashville starlets, blue eyes follow Harper for the rest of the night.

———

She bumps into those same blue eyes in the elevator the next day, and Anthony offers to help carry her groceries to her apartment. Fortunately for his nerves, Harper is trained in small talk, asking him about how he’s liking the city and what he’s explored so far. He feels a little lame that the answer is virtually nothing outside of a handful of restaurants and bars. 

Once he’s inside her apartment—a slightly elevated version of his own—Anthony feels like he doesn’t belong there. His eyes dart around, taking in the decor: the little blue bowl by the counter for her keys, the flowers on the coffee table, the framed Sopranos picture next to her fridge.

“Tony’s my dad,” she explains when she notices Anthony amusedly chuckling at it. 

“Good dad to have,” he comments, setting the grocery bags in his arms down onto the counter. He stands awkwardly, not sure if he should leave or offer to help. 

“Are you a Sopranos fan, too?”

“Of course,” he grins, then puts on his best Italian accent. “What, no fuckin’ ziti?”

Harper’s laugh is loud, and Anthony feels a surge of pride in his chest that he made the Harper Mitchell laugh. “Finally, a man with taste.”

“I have a hard time sleeping after games sometimes,” he explains, helping her to empty her bags, “so I’ve made my way through a lot of shows.”

Her eyes narrow as she begins to put the groceries in their respective homes. The conversation flows naturally to her, comfortable with forcing all kinds of chatter at shows and appearances. “What’s your favorite that you watched recently?”

“The Jinx for sure,” he says. “It’s one of the craziest I’ve ever seen.”

Harper’s jaw drops, and at first, Anthony is afraid he said something wrong. But then her face lights up, and her eyes grow excited. “Oh my god – the hot mic footage!?”

Anthony shakes his head in disbelief, nodding in agreement. “I know. That was a wild way to end it. And to make people wait almost 10 years for another season!?”

“I won’t lie, I’ve been in a huge Bob Durst hyperfixation lately,” she laughs, excited that someone understands her niche interest. “I’ve been listening to the podcast, too.”

Anthony leaves an hour and a half later after a full-blown discussion about Robert Durst and The Jinx, along with her number stored securely in his phone and an open invitation to come over the next time he can’t sleep (“I have a lot of late nights, too,” she’d said). The next day, he sends her a Sopranos meme, not knowing it’s the catalyst that will change the rest of his life. 

From there, a flip switches. Just like that, Harper can barely remember what life was like before Anthony arrived—and Anthony can’t fathom a Nashville without Harper. They start spending much of their free time together, which, while limited, is made much more convenient due to the fact that the commute is only a short elevator ride up four floors. The days in between are filled with text messages and voice memos, usually random thoughts sprinkled in with a recap of some movie she’d recommended or silly updates on the road.

Anthony finds himself looking for her name on his phone when he leaves the gym, keeping mental notes of her schedule to know when he should clear his own to make time for her. He brushes off teasing from his teammates, razzing him for being a lovesick fanboy. 

From the start, despite both Forsbergs digging on multiple occasions for more information, Harper never could quite put a label on the relationship she and Anthony had. She’d clocked the way his eyes flicked down to the curve of her breast, yet she also was keenly aware of the many opportunities he’d had to make a move and never had. He was cute, but she wasn’t interested in pursuing anything farther—not after Joey. She needed time to heal, to recover, to grow on her own. She’d focus on her career, write an album telling her story. And then she’d find someone.

If she was lucky, maybe Anthony would be waiting there at the end of it all.

———

It’s a few weeks into their newfound routine when Harper declines a request to hang out, informing Anthony that she’s having a girl’s night out at the bars to “celebrate her freedom”. 

While disappointed, Anthony is equally eager to have a night to himself to relax. It’s been a whirlwind few weeks adjusting to his new team, new routine, new friends. He gets takeout—Harper’s favorite Italian place just down the block—and, after calling his mom, he fires up the Playstation to lose himself in a game for a while.

A few hours later, he sets down his controller, stretching his legs out with a groan. He glances at the clock on the microwave, his mind briefly flitting to Harper, hoping that she’s drinking and dancing Joey out of her system. It feels a bit strange, he thinks, to be home on a night off and not be with her, but he knows that a night out on the town is therapeutic in a way he could never provide. 

Then, his mind starts to wander, thinking back on the times he’s heard people say that catch phrase, The best way to get over someone is to get under somebody else, and he can feel his skin crawl at the thought. His blood simmers low in his stomach, the ugly head of jealousy roaring as he pushes away the images floating into his head. 

Of course he’s attracted to Harper—who wouldn’t be? Long, dark hair, her big, brown eyes, a body that’s more fitting for a supermodel than a musical artist; she has it all, and a bubbly, quick wit that would make anyone fall in love with her. 

Not that he’s in love with her. Or even has feelings for her. They barely know each other—that would be crazy. Never mind the fact that she’s the only girl he’s really spoken to since he got to Nashville. Hell, he hasn’t even thought about opening the apps to find a girl, even though he’s sure he could pick one up with ease. 

He blames it on the season, on the craziness of yet another trade, of prepping for the playoffs. A nagging feeling inside of him knows that’s not entirely it, like part of him is whispering to himself, She’s right there, idiot.

But there's no way a girl like that could ever be interested in him—a measley, dumb jock who hasn’t had a home since New York. Harper Mitchell is far too intelligent, successful, and driven to ever give him a second glance. He doesn’t even have the money factor to give him an edge over who he presumes are his potential competitors. 

So, friendly neighbors it is.

He wrestles down the thought as he climbs into bed, though his mind is clouded with thoughts of Harper as he falls asleep.

Anthony blinks awake, taking a few moments to acclimate himself. A quick check confirms he’s in bed and it’s late—only the low light of the moon shines behind the drawn curtains. As consciousness begins to seep back in, he realizes that it’s a disjointed knocking at the door that woke him.

A glance at the clock—2:48am—has a confused grunt emerging from his throat before he’s begrudgingly dragging himself out of bed. Slipping on the pair of sweatpants he’d left in a pile on the floor, Anthony blinks more sleep out of his eyes, navigating his way to the front door.

“Harper?”

“Anthony!” she squeals, launching herself forward. Strong arms are there to catch her, leather skirt and all. “I missed you.”

He stifles a laugh, stumbling back inside his apartment and hoping she didn’t wake any of his neighbors. “Harper, did you just get home?”

It’s only when he pulls away that he notes the large brown paper bag clutched in her hand: McDonald’s. Judging by the large Diet Coke and heavenly scent of fresh fries, along with the glassiness of Harper’s eyes, Anthony deduces in short order that it’s a drunk meal. 

“Dave took me to Mickey’s,” she explains.

“Dave?”

“M’Uber driver,” Harper slurs, tugging open the brown bag and fishing out a box of chicken nuggets.

Anthony stifles a chuckle watching her dunk an entire nugget into the honey mustard sauce packet. He also realizes how little he’s clothed—he hadn’t thrown a shirt on in his sleepy march to the door. 

Pulled out of his thoughts, Anthony realizes that Harper’s chewing has slowed and that she’s unabashedly staring at his exposed torso. He watches her eyes trail along the lines of his muscle, dipping lower until the view is obscured by the thick hem of his sweatpants.

“You’re hot,” she says, bluntly. Anthony’s laugh quirks up the side of his mouth.

He figures he doesn’t have much to lose, so he says, “So are you.”

Harper flips her hair. “Do you think so?”

“I think you’re beautiful.”

In response, she dunks another nugget into the sauce. “You’re sweet.”

Anthony opens his mouth to reply when Harper’s face contorts. Her eyes widen, and she chucks the nugget out of her hand while darting into the bathroom. The door shuts behind her and he winces when he hears the muffled sound of retching.

After laughing to himself, watching the smallest hope of earning a kiss from Harper Mitchell’s pretty lips drift away, he debates whether he should offer to hold her hair back. Ultimately, he opts to pour a big glass of water, grab the Advil bottle, and find a t-shirt in his dresser drawer.

He knocks softly on the bathroom door, helping her up and leading her back to his bedroom after cleaning her up. Not exactly the way he’d envisioned Harper in his bed, but he supposes beggars can’t be choosers.

It takes a bit of wrangling and no shortage of discomfort on Anthony’s end to get Harper changed into his t-shirt, into bed, and to consume both the Advil and some of the water he poured. By the time he returns from brushing his teeth, she’s out like a light, and Anthony smiles to himself as he slides in next to her.

While it wasn’t what he had in mind initially, Anthony feels her warmth beside him and listens to the steady sound of her breathing. As he drifts off to sleep, he thinks to himself that he doesn’t mind one bit. 

———

Harper’s head pounds as soon as she opens her eyes. It takes a moment to register that she has no idea where she is, the bed and walls and curtains all unfamiliar. The space beside her in the bed is warm, but there’s nobody there. Where the fuck is she?

She racks her brain, only snippets of last night flickering into her memory. One thing she does remember are soft, blue eyes and a familiar laugh.

Anthony.

After checking herself to confirm she is, in fact, clothed, Harper sits up, almost forgetting about the splitting headache that’s threatening to ruin her day before it even begins. Massaging her temples, she groans.

“That good, huh?”

The voice startles her, and Harper glances up to see Anthony walking toward her, a steaming mug in his hand that he offers her as he approaches. He opens his palm to reveal two pills, which she accepts gratefully along with the coffee. “Thanks. How… why am I here?”

Anthony laughs. “Oh, you remember nothing, huh?”

“Oh god, what did I do?”

He fills her in on the details, from the mess of honey mustard to wrestling a t-shirt over her head to get her into bed. He does, however, decide to keep her drunken confession of attraction to him to himself. No need to divulge that yet.

“Did we… ?” Her voice is different, hesitant, and Anthony makes a mental note of it. He shakes his head, and the relief on her face nearly makes his heart crack. 

Harper laughs uncomfortably, the tension between them suddenly thick with the knowledge that both of them are thinking about the exact same thing: she doesn’t care to admit that the thought has crossed her mind prior to right now. She rubs her face with her hands with a groan. “I’m sorry. This is so embarrassing.”

Anthony waves a hand to brush it off as he says, “It’s nothing. You were… charming.” 

Her face contorts into an exaggerated expression of worry. “That sounds horrific. I don’t want to know.”

Harper lugs herself out of bed not long after, once the deep throb inside her skull subsides just slightly—though she’s not confident she’ll make it up the elevator without vomiting. Anthony doesn’t show any sign of discomfort from the social mishap from earlier, offering her an old pair of slides so she doesn’t have to make the trip back to her apartment in her heels. “For your walk of shame.”

She snorts, accepting them gratefully. “Does it count as a walk of shame if we didn’t even sleep together?”

“Well, technically we did sleep together,” Anthony says with a shoulder bump, enjoying the way her cheeks flush when he says it. 

“And now I’m leaving,” she says with another laugh, pulling open the door. “Goodbye, Anthony.”

———

Following their pseudo one night stand, Harper is grateful for a 2-day road trip that forces an extra few days to let her embarrassment settle. Even after multiple profuse apologies, she still feels mortified, but Anthony doesn’t seem to mind; in fact, he texts her after landing home to confirm their plans for “Nashville Day”, as Harper had dubbed it—a day, she had said, to show him some of the classics of Music City.

After practice, she meets him eagerly to take him to purchase his very first Nashville cowboy hat, which she makes him wear as she treats him to his first ever Nashville hot chicken sandwich (Anthony tries to blink away the tears in his eyes while simultaneously being incredibly impressed at the ease with which Harper puts away once of the spiciest things he’s ever eaten in his life). 

Following a quick ice cream detour—Harper doesn’t tell him that she thinks the ice cream will help his burning tongue—the third part of Nashville Day begins: a bar crawl to an assortment of classic Nashville bars, including the bar she’d first started performing at. 

“You ever been line dancing?” she asks, guiding him through the crowd on the sidewalk. The city is bustling, per usual, but Anthony doesn’t notice anyone except Harper and her floral wide-leg jeans.

“I’m from Quebec,” he laughs. “What do you think?”

Harper grins. “Great. Come with me.”

Anthony steels himself as he follows her between two wooden doors. It’s dimly lit, with low lighting shining on the worn, wooden floor–from years worth of dancing. Harper smiles.

“Can you do the Cupid Shuffle?”

“Uh… kind of?”

“It’s like that, just with more country music.”

Putting on a brave face, he nods with far more confidence than he feels. Harper finds two barstools—to let him ‘observe’ first before diving in himself. What Harper doesn’t notice, though, is that Anthony spends more time watching her smile and bounce her knee with the beat.

A small crowd gathers and he’s immediately overwhelmed by the synchronized shuffling, stomping, and tapping, but he tries to study the movements carefully. A few songs pass but he’s nowhere near feeling confident enough to go out on his own—in fact, he’d be quite content sitting on the sidelines for the rest of the night, but of course, Harper has other plans. 

“Come on, this is my favorite one!” she squeals, seizing Anthony’s hand and dragging him out into the crowd before he has a chance to protest. Harper selects a spot on the edge of the line, positioning him beside her and jumping right into the moves. Anthony moves partially into panic mode, eyes darting around at the patrons around him moving perfectly in sync. His feet cross over themselves, awkward and out of place, and Harper laughs, exaggerating her movements to try and help him out. 

“Stomp, stomp, back, back,” she guides him, taking his hand again to turn him when the group shuffles and changes direction. 

Anthony’s got two left feet, but he manages to get a decent enough hold on the moves, following the beat—albeit a bit clumsily. Harper admires his commitment, watching the way his brows knit together in concentration.

Eventually, he gets the hang of it… sort of. Still, he’s relieved when Harper exits the dance floor, nursing his bruised ego while they make their way to get another drink.

“You did good out there for your first time,” she says encouragingly. 

Anthony scoffs, biting back a laugh. “Yeah, right.”

“I’ve seen worse,” she replies with a wink. Her eyes trail over to the mechanical bull on the other side of the room, the crowd around it growing. “You want to scratch another first off your list tonight?”

Blue eyes follow her line of sight, widening when they register what she’s referring to. He’s shaking his head before he can get the words out. “Not a chance.”

“You’re scared,” she says teasingly, sticking her tongue out. “I get it. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

The crowd cheers as she hauls herself up on the saddle. Anthony ignores the pulse below his belt at the image of her legs straddling the bull, but he can’t help the throb watching the way her hips loosen and roll with the movements of the bull. It’s not his fault his brain decided to conjure the image of her doing the exact same thing on top of him.

Fortunately for him, he’s adjusted himself and she doesn’t seem to notice the half-hard erection when she rejoins him after getting knocked off—after an impressive 18 seconds.

“I’m really glad I didn’t try to compete with you,” he says, handing back her drink that she’d left with him for safe keeping. “I’d probably end up on IR and get yelled at by my coaches.”

Harper laughs. “I’ll accept that as an excuse. But after your season is done, you’re getting on that bull.”

“Aye aye,” he says with a salute. 

The pair fall silent for a few moments, distracted by the next patron getting flung off the bull in an aggressive 3-second ride. 

“Why don’t you have a girl, Anthony?” The question comes from out of nowhere.

“What do you mean?”

She takes another sip. “You’re handsome, you’re successful, you’re an athlete, you’re funny. What girl wouldn’t want you?”

Anthony’s heart starts to pound in his chest, his breathing quickening. Keep it cool, man. He shrugs with a nervous chuckle, faffing some string of “yeah, I just–just not really into that right now, while I’m young, you know?”

Harper observes him for a moment, lost in thought as she swirls the lime in her Corona. Anthony lets the moment sit, returning her gaze with a cool and patient smile, his eyes bonded to hers. 

When she speaks, Anthony’s expression falters at first. “The good thing about Joey was that he understood the schedule. So much hopping. Meetings, promos, shows, events. My career isn’t going to be second place to a relationship, so better to date someone who understands that lifestyle.”

Anthony nods, following along. He can practically see the flight path of this conversation, wrestling with the slight increase in his pulse as it plays out in front of him.

“‘Course, maybe that didn’t help, either,” she says with a laugh. 

It’s Anthony’s turn to leave a long silence, contemplating her curiously. He weighs the words on his tongue, toying around with them before speaking them out loud. “Sounds like you need a friends-with-benefits.”

Harper considers. Friends with benefits gives the company of a partner, but without the attachment. At least, in theory. 

“Everyone knows friends with benefits doesn’t work,” she retorts. “Someone always falls for the other.”

“Not if one of them is leaving Nashville this summer.”

Her eyebrows raise. The offer, no longer subtle, is hanging out in the open on the bar lined with scuff marks and water rings from damp bottles. 

“You sure you want to be saying that?” An invisible line in the sand, officially crossed.

A smile graces Anthony’s lips, which he then wets with another swig of his beer. “Most girls only want to date me for the celebrity—to say they’re fucking an NHL player.”

The rest of his sentence doesn’t make it out, but it’s obvious what comes next. But not you.

Because Harper gets it. She’s a celebrity herself, has even more fame and accolades than Anthony, is comfortable with the public eye and everything that comes with having a blue checkmark next to her name. There’s no need to skirt over the clout-chasing and wallet-grabbing insecurities.

Plus, they’re neighbors. Convenient for short notice booty calls—and easy to go to bed alone. The sporadic travel schedules are mutual, as are late nights, early mornings, and quick nights at home. And with Anthony’s future up in the air, it practically guaranteed a clean split at the end of it all.

“Is that all?”

Anthony nudges his empty bottle toward the edge of the bar, leaning in closer toward Harper as he does so. The sweet scent of her perfume invades his senses when he brings his lips closer to her ear before whispering, “I really, really want to fuck you.”

She feels a low pulse in her gut at his words, then downs the rest of her beer. No longer able to deny her burgeoning attraction to him, she shrugs. “Alright. Show me what you got then, Tito.”

Anthony grins at the nickname, sitting back and offering his hand. Harper accepts it, and soon enough, they’re climbing into the backseat of an Uber.

They end up at Harper’s, and Anthony doesn’t demonstrate patience when he kisses her as soon as the door closes. His tongue is practiced, and Harper gets the distinct sense that he’s been waiting for this for a while. His hands card through her hair, holding her close like he can’t bear to part with her. 

“If we’re going to do this—” she begins, wrestling his shirt over his head, pausing for a moment to admire the god-like physique underneath his clothes. She’s never seen it sober, and she wants to enjoy it. Her eyes trailed over the deep cut of his muscles, words stuck in her throat as she gapes at the sight in front of her. 

Anthony’s lips curl up, amused by the way he appears to have rendered her—the bubbly, famously charismatic Harper Mitchell—speechless. His hands are steady pressed against her sides, hot on her skin. He brings her attention away from his body when he asks cheekily, “Do what?”

“I’m serious, Anthony,” she says, more sternly after she wrenches herself away from his tempting lips. “If we’re going to do—this—that’s all it is. I’m not doing the whole ‘Oops I fell in love with you’ shtick, and I need you to be okay with that. Okay?”

The subtle twitch of his jaw is the only sign of any hesitation; a beat passes, and he nods so smoothly that Harper is almost surprised. He doesn’t give her much time to dwell on it, though, when he presses forward to capture her lips again, leaning her against the wall.

“Whatever you say,” he breathes. 

There isn’t much talking from there, save for the sound of lips on skin, soft moans, and the rustle of sheets. Anthony’s body slots against hers, skin hot as he moves slowly, deeply. Harper’s fingers press into the dips of his biceps, pleasure radiating.

When they lie beside each other panting later, Harper turns to face him. The best way to describe the way he’s feeling is shock at how explosive, how other worldly it was to be with her. He’ll come to grips with the fact that he actually slept with the country singer he’s had a crush on for years later.

Anthony feels her eyes on him and he lets his hand rest on her side. Her voice is soft when she asks, “What are you thinking about?” 

“How this has got to be in the top five greatest decisions of my life.”

“Only top five?” She nudges his leg teasingly. 

“I’ll re-evaluate after next time.”

It doesn’t take long for their already practiced routine to become ritual: during periods they’re both home, one rarely spends an evening alone. Sometimes she’ll bring takeout, sometimes he’ll cook and they’ll watch a hockey game or a movie, and sometimes they go straight into the bedroom—particularly after a few extra days apart.

For once, the ‘friends with benefits’ thing works. Things are easy between them, casual, and the base they’d already established for their relationship makes things smooth. Harper’s having fun, and, for the first time since she saw those videos of Joey, she feels happy. 

And Anthony? He doesn’t tell her, but he secretly wonders if their arrangement is actually the best decision he’s ever made. 

———

The room is quiet, save for the slowing heavy breathing. Harper’s legs feel like jelly and the space between her thighs tingles with a warm radiance that only Anthony can bring. 

“What happened with Joey?” 

Harper casts him a sideways glance, sheet rustling with the movement. Moonlight streams in through the half-parted curtains of Anthony’s bedroom. It’s always funny to see the same view that she has from her own apartment, but in an entirely different space. “I don’t want to do pillow talk, Anthony.”

He pauses for a moment, smiling to himself. “Okay,” he says, slipping out from underneath the sheet; Harper’s eyes instinctively move to the generous, shapely curve of his ass. The cool, purple light of the moon illuminates the shape and lines of his back muscles as he leans down to pull on his boxers, then his sweatpants, then his Alo t-shirt. Strolling out of the open bedroom door, Harper hears his feet padding down the hallway rug, followed by the sound of a cabinet, a clink of glass, and finally, the sound of a cup being filled with liquid. 

Moments later, Anthony saunters back into the room, climbing back onto the bed. He hands her a stemless glass of wine, then grabs the remote from the bedside table and clicks on the television mounted across the room.

“Now it’s just two friends hanging out.”

Harper can’t help the short, exhaled laugh that slips out despite the impact of the message. She blinks, letting her eyes flick down to the glass. The red wine sloshes inside, its tart scent drifting into her nose. She takes a sip.

“I thought we were happy,” she says after a while. Her voice is quiet, reflective, shaking just the slightest bit. Anthony sits patiently and listens. “We were talking about moving in together.”

The glow from the television lights up the side of Harper’s face, cast down as she tells her story. Anthony watches her, his heart lurching at the expression on her face. But he needs to know. Needs to know what he’s working with, what his barrier to being with her—really being with her—looks like. 

“He checked in at night when we were apart, FaceTimes a lot of the time too, so it honestly wasn’t anywhere on my radar; I genuinely had no idea he was sneaking around.. I thought the pictures were photoshopped—just something someone was making up on the internet for drama.” She pauses. “But then I saw the videos.”

Anthony’s mouth falls open. “There were videos?”

“Multiple,” she says, a soft, sad smile on her face as she glances over to him. His heart fractures.

“I’m sorry,” he says dumbly. “That’s awful. What did you do?”

“I’m not sure what it was like in Chicago, but it blew up here. There was no way he didn’t know that I knew. So I packed up his shit, left it on the porch of his house, and that was it. I didn’t give him the chance to explain himself or apologize.”

Shit. “Still… that’s a lot to have to deal with. You need closure.”

“I deserve better than that,” Harper says matter-of-factly. “And anyone who isn’t going to give me that doesn’t deserve my time. No closure necessary.”

Anthony nods, struck with the sheer force of her strong persona. He hesitates, the words sitting in his mouth for a few moments as he debates if he should speak them out. But he can’t miss the opportunity—not when this is the closest he’s come to uncovering the truth. “Is that why you won’t do a relationship?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Not every partner you have is going to be like that, you know,” he offers. 

Harper shakes her head, taking a sip of the wine. “I’m not ready to take that risk yet.”

———

It isn’t until the end of April that Harper realizes the enormous space Anthony had carved out for himself in her life. She’s sitting on his mattress, legs crossed with an oversized Islanders sweatshirt on, playing him a portion of a demo she’d recorded earlier that day. His suitcase is out, and he’s in the process of packing for an extended trip to Vancouver—at least, longer than he’d been away since they started spending time together.

“A whole week?” she pouted.

“It’s only five days,” he laughs, folding a hoodie and placing it into the bag. He glances at her, liking the sight of her on his bed and in his clothes. The sleeves of the blue sweatshirt are baggy, rolled over her wrists, and the hem at the bottom swims over her thighs. Then he adds, “You look good in that.”

“I look good in everything,” she says with a cheeky wink.

“You do,” he agrees. “And nothing, too.”

A pulse awakens between Harper’s thighs at the heat in his eyes when he says it, gone with a blink when he returns to the closet to pull out more clothes.

“I don’t know how to be here alone anymore!” she whines.

Anthony snorts before tossing a few pairs of rolled up socks into his bag. “Are you sure it’s not just because you start to get cranky when you go a few days without dick?”

Scoffing, Harper rolls her eyes. “I can get plenty of dick, if I want it. I don’t need you for that.”

If her sharp words hurt him, he doesn’t show it, instead sending a smirk in her direction. He zips up his suitcase, setting it on the floor before turning back to her. Blue eyes lock with hers as he slides a knee onto the mattress, then the other, slinking his way toward her until his legs are straddling hers, his lips mere inches from her own. Harper feels a flutter in her heart that mimics the one between her legs, heat flooding through her at the proximity of his body. “You don’t need me, but you sure do want me.”

Just like that, she’s putty beneath him, melting as soon as his plush lips press against hers. Heat radiates through her system as the kiss intensifies, allowing his tongue to slip into her mouth. Anthony’s fingers lace with hers and pin her hands against the mattress, bracketing her face with his arms.

Abruptly, he pulls away from her, his cheeks flushed. Another smug smile curls up on his face, observing the hitch in her throat and the glassiness of her eyes. 

“You sure you can get that somewhere else?”

———

Eliminated in the first round, the Predators’ playoff run isn’t nearly as deep as Anthony hoped it’d be. Not just for the obvious—chasing his dream of winning the Stanley Cup, but because the end of the season means his inevitable departure from Nashville, and, ultimately, Harper. 

As disappointing as the loss is, hearing the deafening silence of Predators fans at Bridgestone Arena, he’s grateful for the lack of travel home afterwards. He feels strange packing up his things after the game, seeing the disappointment and frustration running deep in the locker room, not knowing if he’ll be back in this place come October to help them take another run at it.

Harper arrives to his apartment not long after he does, wordlessly joining him in the shower he stepped into. Their bodies blend into one under the warm water, cascading over their joined form as she allows Anthony to work out his conflicting feelings in the comfort of her arms. It’s quiet, sensual; his lips seek out peace by marking up the smooth skin of her neck and collarbones while he presses his hips into hers, following a steady and slow rhythm until they’re both reaching their climax in the steam-filled room.

She stays over that night, a rare but not unheard of occurrence as their relationship has progressed. After another round of silent, sinful therapy, Anthony is plagued by his typical post-game insomnia, heightened by the disappointment of his loss and the uncertainty of his future. He watches Harper sleep, soaking in each breath, the rise and fall of her chest, the glow of her skin underneath the moonlight. Her air-dried hair is wavy, a little bit of frizz, and even in the dark, the sparse freckles on her nose stand out against her tawny skin.

It’s almost 2:30am by the time he realizes he’s been gazing at her for over an hour. He’s a little bit embarrassed, quickly blinking away even though she’s been dead to the world ever since he made her come for the third time that night. It was too easy to trail his eyes over the lines of her face, the fullness of her lips, drowning out the stressors of the outside world with Harper’s beauty.

His eyes grow heavy, lost in thought, amused at himself for literally watching her sleep. He hadn’t even thought about hockey.

Anthony’s eyes widen. He hadn’t thought about hockey on the last night of his season, with no contract in place for his next, after an abysmal performance in what was supposed to be a promising postseason. Instead, he’s being a lovesick puppy staring at a girl who isn’t his. 

And all at once, it hits him. He’s in love with Harper.

And he’s leaving Nashville. Doesn’t know if he’ll be back. And he promised her he wouldn’t catch feelings. Practically guaranteed it. 

His heart thuds in his chest as the realization sets in. Despite his fear and uncertainty about the enormous wrench it just put into his… well, life, he’s suddenly wondering how long he’d lived with this feeling for Harper and didn’t know it. He’s never been so aware of the beating of his heart in his chest, memorizing the feel of it.

Harper stirs beside him, as if her subconscious has finally realized he’s been staring at her for way too long. He turns his head and closes his eyes, feigning sleep, unsure if she’s awake or just shifting. Sleep closes in on him, not claiming him completely before he feels a gentle press of lips against his sleeping cheek.

———

In the morning, his scent is the first thing that Harper registers, head resting heavily on Anthony’s bicep. His leg is pressed against hers, and a subtle adjustment of her hips confirms that neither of them bothered to put clothes on last night. He’s warm, solid against her body, and the steadiness of his deep breathing is calming. 

She wonders how late he stayed awake. He’d thoroughly exhausted her—the space between her legs aches deliciously when she stretches—and the thought flits through her mind that last night was probably one of the last times she’d be with him for awhile. Maybe ever. 

So she savors it. Instead of leaving the way she always has, the way she knows she should, she snuggles into his warmth, soaking it in one last time.

When Anthony wakes, Harper is practically wrapped around him, nuzzled underneath his chin. His heart hammers in his chest as his revelation from the night before sinks in.

He’s in love with Harper Mitchell. And she’s naked in his bed.

Anthony’s mind rolls, wondering if he should tell her. And if he should, what should he say—and when? He’s running out of time, his time in Nashville slipping away faster than he’s ready to accept. 

By the time Harper wakes, he’s made the executive decision to wait. Not yet. 

She stays for a plate of scrambled eggs and one more round against the counter when a comforting hug gets quickly heated. Anthony stares at the door long after she leaves, words echoing in his head in a hopeless jumble.

It isn’t until the next day when he’s packing up his bedroom and finds a small, Harper-sized sock that he makes the split decision. He sends a quick text letting her know he’s on his way, and her expression is concerned when she answers the door. “Is everything okay?”

“Can I come in?”

She steps aside to let him in the door, following him anxiously into the kitchen where he turns to face her. “I’ve been thinking.”

Her arms cross and an amused expression floats over her face. “Oh yeah?”

“Reflecting,” he corrects. “On my time in Nashville, now that it’s…”

The words trail off, but Harper knows what’s next. Over.

“It’s been short, but I realized I dreaded the end of the season not because of getting eliminated, but because it meant I’d be leaving you.”

The words hang heavy between them. He sighs and speaks again. “You asked me why I don’t have a girl, and the truth is that I didn’t know what I wanted until I woke up with you in my bed.” 

Another beat passes and he waits for the message to hit. Then he confesses, “You’re what I want, Harper.”

“Anthony,” she says, like a warning. He can hear the way her voice trembles, and he can feel the lift in his heart. “Don’t do this.”

He ignores her, ignores the way her body stiffens. If he can just get through to her, she’ll see. He’s sure of it. 

“You said it yourself—you deserve better than how Joey treated you. You know that I can and will treat you better. Exactly how you deserve.”

“You can’t say that.”

“Why not?” he challenges. “I know you feel the same.”

Harper exhales harshly, her hands on her hips. For a second, Anthony is scared of her and the fire in her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel,” she finally says. Joey flashes through her mind, glimpses of the video of him kissing another girl, of the way it felt like the world had stopped when she saw it. The lump in her throat is heavy, and she shoves away any flitter of hope that burns quietly in her chest. She can’t—cannot—allow that to happen again.

“Does it matter how I feel?”

Harper’s eyes shoot up to Anthony’s, the usual cerulean swimming with a deeper cornflower shade. She can’t place the emotion behind it. Concern? Hurt? Something else?

“I care how you feel,” she says, “but no matter how you feel, it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want that. I can’t do it right now.”

“That’s a crock of shit, and you know it. We’ve basically been dating this entire time.”

Harper shakes her head. “Your definition of dating must be very different from mine.”

“Sleepovers, movie nights, coffee dates, constant texting,” he lists, counting them off on his fingers. “That doesn’t sound like dating to you?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Not fair? What’s not fair is you not even giving me a chance when you know I’m right!”

“You knew that’s all this was!” Harper exclaims, her heartbeat racing. “You agreed to that before any of this started, Anthony.”

Anthony bristles, his jaw clenching. His breath quickens and anger bubbles in the pit of his stomach—he can hear the resistance in her voice. Why won’t she admit she feels the same? He knows she does.

But if she isn’t going to, or doesn’t want to, then there’s no use in trying. And he can’t keep falling harder for her—not if she isn’t going to reciprocate. 

“Then maybe we should quit while we’re ahead.”

Something flashes in Harper’s eyes, so fast he barely catches it before it’s gone and replaced by cold. Her back stiffens and she draws herself up taller. “Maybe we should.”

The silence in the room is heavy and uncomfortable. Anthony and Harper stare at each other, unspoken words swirling in the air between them. There’s so much left to say, so many things left unsaid, but Anthony’s head is too clouded with defeat and frustration.

So, he shrugs, bids an uncomfortable goodbye, and takes his leave of her apartment. Harper stands in silence, wondering how, after all the care she took to protect herself after Joey,  she feels the same ache in her heart as the day he’d left.

———

The next day, Harper has a songwriting session with Zoey, who, fortunately for her, comes prepared with three half-written songs. They’re easier, take a little less brain power, and she’s grateful for a friend who came prepared. Waking up was easy, but remembering her and Anthony’s fight had been tough.

Those three songs turn into a warmup, and three hours later, Harper emerges from a songwriting haze, almost half an album deep. There’s work to do, but she’s pleased with what they came up with, her mind already swimming with other ideas that she’s sure she’ll be recording half-completed voice memos with for the rest of the night. 

She stays to chat with Zoey for a little while, catching up on the latest in each other’s lives and making plans for coffee soon. Harper packs up her things, murmuring a goodbye with her head swimming.

“Who is he?”

Trannie’s voice comes from behind her, and Harper pauses, her keys jingling in her hand. She turns. “Who is who?”

“The guy in those songs.”

“What are you talking about? Zo, it was Joey,” she says.

“Not all of it. There’s someone else in there.”

Anthony’s eyes float through her mind, and although she can lie to Zoey, she can’t lie to herself. 

Harper flies home, rushing up the elevator and pounding on Anthony’s door. She stands impatiently, heart thumping in her chest, listening for the familiar sound of his feet on the tiled floor of the kitchen. 

The sound doesn’t come, though, and Harper waits by the door until a building manager comes by and informs her that the resident of unit 1293 turned in his keys earlier that day. Vaguely aware of offering a short ‘thank you’, Harper returns to her own apartment in shock. 

Anthony is gone.

And she’s only just realized that she’s in love with him.

Twenty four hours later, she’s on a plane. Her heart beats in her throat as she watches it touchdown. Bienvenue a Montreal flashes on the screen outside the jet bridge. Harper finds the address she bribed Filip for in her phone, pulling up her Lyft app. 

Once she’s in the vehicle, she blows out a breath and loses herself in thought. The Montreal skyline comes into view outside the window, and she’s instantly surrounded by everything Anthony. The trees, the buildings, the streets—she wonders how many of them he’s seen, been to. She thinks about going to those places with him.

When the red Nissan pulls up to the house, Harper thanks her driver and steps out. Her hands shake, but she pushes through, clutching the handle of her small duffle bag until she’s knocking at the door.

Anthony’s face is nothing but shock when he opens the door. “Harper?”

“Anthony,” she says, breathless. She’s frozen in place, staring at him, like she forgot what she came there for. His eyes, she notices, are the same shade of cool, cornflowery blue as that day he’d left. It makes her heart ache.

“What are you doing here?” His words pull her out of her thoughts and she briefly wonders how long she’d been staring at him in silence. 

“I couldn’t—I couldn’t let you leave like that. After everything we—I just couldn’t.”

He sighs, stepping outside and closing the door behind him. “You made it clear how you feel, Harper. You didn’t need to come all this way to say it again.”

“No, Anthony,” she says, watching his expression shift when she says it. “I was wrong. I was scared. I am scared.”

“Of what?”

Harper shifts on her feet, the lump in her throat tightening. Anthony’s gaze is firm and unwavering. “Of getting hurt again. Of Joey happening all over again. Of you leaving.”

It clicks for him, then, the worry in her eyes. “I’m not Joey, Harper. I think you know that. I can’t promise that everything will be perfect always, but I’m willing to give it my best shot because I think you’re worth it.”

“What if you decide I’m not worth it anymore?”

Anthony takes her hand in his, stroking the back of it with his thumb. “Harper, you are kind, funny, smart, talented, and beautiful. Anyone who doesn't see that isn’t worth your time anymore. Myself included.”

She doesn’t reply. It’s almost overwhelming, the things he says to her; she sees kind things about her written in articles and posted online, but it sounds entirely different coming from his mouth. He continues, “That’s what I was trying to tell you the other day. You are worth it. And I’d like to prove it to you, if you let me.”

Their eyes meet, bodies unconsciously floating together. Anthony stays quiet, gauging her face for a reaction. The fear is still there, looming over her in a silent and constant threat, but blue eyes pierce through the veil and she focuses hard on them to push the rest away.

Then, she smiles. “Kiss me, you idiot.”

[rouiyan]

𝘞𝘌’𝘙𝘌 𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘙𝘌𝘈𝘓𝘓𝘠 𝘚𝘛𝘙𝘈𝘕𝘎𝘌𝘙𝘚 [ 𝘭.𝘮𝘬 ]

⧏ back to teaser || redirect to playlist ⧐

marks manages to land himself in a forty-two hour drive across the country with his archaeology major ex-girlfriend in the passenger seat. but for the duration of the whole ride, the only thing he can think about is that one twitter meme that states that “a majority of archeologists are women due to their natural ability to dig up the past.”

✧ photographer!mark lee x (fem.) archaeology major!reader ✧ exes to lovers, road trip au, referenced college au ✧ genres — fluff/angst, hurt/comfort ✧ word count — 25.2k

✧ disclaimers — profanity, mentions of food, legal (u.s.) alcohol consumption, they make out like once, emotional insecurity and vulnerability (i.e. several panic attacks, social anxiety), possible terminal illness (not of mcs), generational conflict, y/n cries a lot, mark sucks at parking

✧ caveat — this fictional plot is set in present-day america and does not accurately reflect the locations referenced. furthermore, this publication is not an endorsement of the brand or the product featured. all credit is given where it is due. (sources linked upon conclusion)

✧ author’s note — happy 24th birthday to my dear mark! note that the first scene is the exact same as the teaser, so if you've read that already, feel free to skip over! also note i half-assed the proofread so please let me know of any typos, plotholes, and other stupid stuff that i forgot to adjust. as for myself, you can catch a little update on the past two years of my life at the end of this fic so for now, enjoy!

「 DAY 00, 01:42 PM 」 — CUPID DABBLES IN BURNT TOAST

"oh, come on. i thought you were nicer than that!"

it's at times like these where mark is led to think that haechan only considers him as his very best friend for three things. his toaster, his car, and then of course, how easy it is to torment him.

he’s experienced enough to know that the guilt he feels is really only a direct result of haechan's guilt-tripping antics. and so he responds sarcastically, "yeah, nice enough to save a girl from a week of being in close proximity to the person she hates most in the world."

the toaster dings and haechan catches the two pieces of toast in their flight. he sticks one in his mouth, breaking off a bite, whilst turning to toss the other onto his friend's plate. chewing roughly, he leans back onto the counter opposite of mark, watching in contempt as the latter spreads jam across the burnt slice of bread.

haechan points a finger and juts it in his direction, offhandedly commenting, "i'm starting to think that it's you who hates her," a fact that both friends know isn't true. and because of that, mark doesn't make a big deal of denying it. "i don't hate her. i'm just..." he trails off and haechan takes the opportunity to craftily stage his intervention.

"not trying to make her uncomfortable?"

"yeah, i guess."

"not wanting her to hate you more?"

"there's that too."

"not over her?"

"hey, not cool."

a passage of silence elapses as mark sets the butter knife aside in exchange for his orange juice. gulping it down, he gets through two thirds of the glass before haechan perks up again. "actually, i think she still has a thing for you."

mark sputters, barely swallowing his drink before it could hurl out his disbelieving mouth. trying to smooth over his show of defiance, mark recovers a nonchalant expression as he deadpans, "there's no way. you know better than i do that she fucking hates me."

haechan takes another bite, aware but indifferent at how the crumbs have been gathering at his feet. his eyes trail absentmindedly to the clock on the wall behind mark, but only briefly for the hands are far past where he'd expected them to be. shoving the last of the toast into his mouth, he rushes to gather his belongings whilst uttering to his bewildered company, "shit, i'm gonna be late. pack it up."

obediently downing the rest of his orange juice, mark grabs his half-eaten, jam-slathered, burnt-to-a-crisp toast in one hand as the other reaches for his car keys on the way out. the unbearably hot sun of an early summer afternoon only hurries mark further along to his car, his wishes that he had worn shorts instead of jeans already too late to come true. but once both car doors have been shut and seat belts have been strapped, haechan carries on with his agenda without missing a beat.

"just give her the ride, mark. she'll keep you company and, i don't know, make sure you're not falling asleep at the wheel. and plus, she said she'll split the toll and gas fees."

mark shoves the last bite of toast into his mouth, the charred-ness of it procuring a nice crunch. even after he swallows, it takes him a second to respond. and though his answer is still far from budging, it sounds more like a justification, as if he needs convincing of his own opinion. "tell her it's cheaper to just catch a flight. and faster too."

exasperated, haechan retorts under his breath, "that's the same thing i told you," to which mark gives a raised brow, not catching what he said. instead of repeating, haechan only says, "just take her. you guys need to make up anyways."

that renders mark quiet for the rest of the ride as he tosses the thought over in his head. it's a thought that he knows he's been pushing away for far too long, hoping one day it'll become redundant enough to simply forget about. unknowingly, mark begins to speed a little, his turns become a little tighter, and when the traffic light signals red, the nose of his car is pulled daringly close to the car in front.

mark parallel parks shoddily in front of the archeology department building four minutes earlier than google maps had estimated. his best friend looks over at him expectantly and that in itself is enough to squeeze the reluctant words right out of him. "fine, i'll think about it."

haechan's face lights with a satisfied glow as he swings his backpack over his shoulder, making his way out of the car as quickly as he can. and just before mark can think to wish him good luck on his last exam of the spring semester, haechan blurts out the one crucial detail he had neglected to bring up until now. 

"thank god, because i already told her you said yes."

「 DAY 01, 07:48 AM 」 — ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

the trunk of his beloved subaru crosstrek slams shut from behind. mark winces. the car door of the passenger seat slams shut shortly after. mark winces once again, but doesn't venture to comment on it. instead, he comments on something else entirely. "so why am i picking you up from the hospital?"

you roll your eyes, traces of hostility already to be found in your expression. "as if that's any of your business." you position the tote bag you brought up front by your feet and the contents inside clank against one another. mark gives you a questioning look, thus questioning, "what’s in there? rocks?"

instead of answering with what he would assume to be the same thing you said prior, you simply huff and lean back into the seat to fasten your seat belt. mark does the same, then hastens to shift the gears from park to drive. "you ready?"

lips set into a firm line, you're staring straight ahead when you say, "ready to get this over with." mark takes that as his cue to start the forty-two hour drive across the country, past barren lands and hilly roads, trading the smog of new york for the smog of los angeles.

the drive begins with a screeching hour of silence, all of which you’ve spent scrolling on your phone. and when you finally look up from your screen, the city view outside has already mellowed into sprawling countryside. mark takes this new development as a window of opportunity to spark up conversation, although you beat him to it nonetheless. “how many stops are we taking?”

he clears his throat for fear of a cracking voice and gathers his scattered thoughts to form a response. “about two or three times a day.”

“and how many days are we gonna be on the road?”

“three to four. i’m thinking we should take a few overnight stops as well. and also,” there’s a break in his sentence where he stops to scrunch his nose, “i might want to stop at random points to shoot some pictures. is that fine with you?”

you take your eyes off the road momentarily to get a good look at mark. he has a hand on the wheel and the other propped up by the window adjacent, eyes held forward all the while. looking back ahead yourself, you give in with a slight hitch of indignation in your otherwise colorless voice. “sure, why not.”

mark refers back to a time where the silent air between the two of you would sit comfortably and thinks of how he might have brought about conversation back then. he tries, as he might, to do the same with this scenario, catching the moment before the prolonged silence warrants it too late. “so what’s your business in LA?”

surprisingly, he spots less bite in your tone the more you speak. “my sister asked me to be maid of honor at her wedding next week.” mark’s automatic response comes out first as a laconic, “oh nice” but he follows up quickly after with an inquiring, “is it...is it still jaehyun? or is that a thing of the past?”

“it’s still him. they’ve been engaged for a while, remember?”

mark nods in agreement. he even remembers that exact phone call you received from your sister on the day your freshman year finals ended. sat across the couch, he can even recall the way you tried to motion the whole conversation with your hands to him while on the phone with her, your excitement on full display when you later hugged him tight since he was the only other person in the room.

he bites down on his bottom lip at the thought of the memory that’s still fresh in his mind. time seemed to pass more quickly for him now that it wasn’t divided into semesters and school years. taking a glance over at you, mark can’t help but think that while college life turned out to be unsuitable for him, it had done wonders for you in just the past year.

with little to no trace of the temper you initially harbored, your voice is about as neutral as it gets when you take your turn in questioning him. “what about you? what are you doing in LA?”

his answer is simple, really. his plan originally focused more on capturing the sights along the way to LA rather than the city itself. but seeing as how you’d expressed wanting to make the trip as curt and necessary as possible, he acquiesced for the lesser truth. “i’m just planning on taking some pictures and meeting some friends there. it’s a change of scenery too, i guess.”

the prospect of conversation eased in difficulty the more it steered in the direction of friendly small talk and catching up with one another. his career and his career-related decisions were always somewhat of a prickly topic, after all. his parents scorned him for it, calling it “easy money” that would just as easily come and go. his friends always said he just got lucky in the industry. and his old professors had shook their heads when he told them about his plans to drop out. 

to mark, you were the only one who had ever cared to really understand his relationship with the passion that was now his life’s work. and because of that, his answer comes most naturally when you ask him, “what’s still keeping you in new york, though? i mean, you’re not there for school anymore and you’re not exactly a street photographer either.”

and without a thought to spare, mark blurts out, “you.”

what a perfect way to kill a perfectly fine conversation, he thinks in the midst of the grand silence that follows. red creeps its way up from his next to his ears until he’s flushed clean with embarrassment and terrible terrible regret, the only consolation being that your eyes seemed to be glued up ahead and not at him.

although it seems you’ve since dropped the conversation — seeing as how you’ve checked your phone five times in the last five minutes — you still make it your job to clear the air for any future attempts at conversing. after all, you’re going to be stuck with him for the entirety of the next three days. and that’s at the very least.

“mark, i don’t even want to know what you meant by that, but can we just keep our distance as…” you pause when you realize there really isn’t an appropriate label to describe your relationship with him. what do you call someone that you know really well, but aren’t on talking terms with, and have a long history of romantic instances with?

at the three-second mark in your hesitation, he lends a hopeful suggestion, “as friends?” and it’s another three unsure seconds spent on your end — unease on his — until you finally give in with a sigh and a small, albeit resolute nod. “as friends.”

he’s going at almost a hundred miles per hour on the empty road when you noticeably look over at him in time to catch the quirk of his lips, before he reassesses with a nod of his own in confirmation. with the first of (what you’re sure will be) many awkward exchanges passed, you reach a hand into the backseat to draw forth a thin blanket. “alright, i’m going to continue sleeping then.”

“mhmm,” he hums, watching in the corner of his eye as you lower the seat back. the position you assume, curling into the blanket, is as familiar as it gets and mark is reminded of countless road trip memories that he has never bothered to unearth. he sighs. “go ahead, we got all the time in the world.”

and after making sure you’ve fallen fast asleep with your slowed breathing and occasional snores, mark slows the car to a cruising 70 miles per hour.

「 DAY 01, 10:33 AM 」 — MORE THAN I THOUGHT

“keep right to stay on the i-81 south.” you slit an eye open, wide enough to see that the road ahead is blanketed in a gleaming white. the sun must’ve parted from the clouds. you close your eye in an attempt to fall back asleep. but just before you do, the automated voice from mark’s phone perks up again. “keep right to stay on the i-81 south.”

annoyed and disgruntled, you shrug the blanket off of you and, this time, crack both eyes open. sitting up in your reclined seat, you rub at your eyes and realize two things. one, the car is no longer moving. and two, you’re in the car alone. suddenly alert, you jab your finger into the ‘cancel’ button on his phone just as it continues its mantra of “keep right to sta—” and grab your own phone as you make your way out of the car.

the car itself is parked haphazardly in front of what is labelled to be a colon and rectal surgery building, with half the whole vehicle outside of the designated lines. but just as you begin to question mark’s motives, you turn to see a vast expanse of water on the opposite side. there’s small islands and clumps of trees jutting out and just across you can see a rise of buildings in the distance. 

approaching the road that separates you and the riverbank, you bring a hand to shield your eyes from the light of the sun which you have yet to adjust to. and sure enough, through the blinding haze you make out a figure on the other side of the road, unruly black hair scuffed by the wind with a giant camera held at his hip. his other hand is held in the same shielding stance as you, and even his posture alone is enough to tell you that it’s mark.

both hands now cupping your mouth, you yell out a resounding, “mark!” just as a truck whizzes by but when the body of it passes, the man is revealed to be looking back at you with a silly smile plastered across his face. he holds the heavy film camera with both hands now, as he rushes up the slight grassy incline and jaywalks casually across the street.

you’re about to scold him for not even looking out for any incoming cars but up close, he only grins harder. mark is less than five feet away when he thinks to enlighten you, his beaming smile quickly growing sheepish, “google maps told me to keep right but i stayed on the right for so long, i ended up exiting the highway altogether.” his free arm gestures outwards in exclamation while he beams, “but look where we ended up!”

the sincerity of his bright eyes and bright smile puts a dampener on the tension, so much so that you even venture to joke, “the upmc pinnacle colon and rectal surgery center?” whilst pointing back to the sign. “you’ve no idea how confused i was when i woke up.”

“sorry about that. we’re in harrisburg now. so i’m guessing this is the susquehanna river.”

you shoot him a surprised look, “nice. almost halfway through pennsylvania.”

he ducks his head, a small smile adorning his nod in agreement, “yeah almost.” mark likes this new development of mood you seem to be in. chipper? not exactly. but much more pleasant than before? absolutely. he knows from personal experience that it’s the sleep. good sleep and good food do that to you. and thus he suggests, “should we get a quick brunch before getting back on the road?”

your eyes ignite a glow — rival to his — at the sound of brunch, though you have enough patience to consider, “did you get all the pictures you wanted already?”

mark nods once again, even though he isn’t even through a fourth of his first roll of film. he figures he’ll have plenty more opportunities to use it up down the line. plus, he likes the little smile on your face way too much to be the one to deny you what you want. and so he rushes to get his equipment back in their travel straps and he clambers back into the driver’s seat, all to careen his way about four blocks down to the mcdonald’s (but only after you’d shaken your head whilst he was pulling up at the wendy’s).

he orders drive through and you’re pleasantly surprised when he turns to ask, “same as usual?” and though you’re sure your usual order has changed at least once or twice in just the last year, you nod anyways. mark pays at the till and you’re handed a sausage burrito with large fries. as you’d supposed, it’s not your most up-to-date order but at this point, almost anything will get your mouth watering.

at your first bite, you sneak a glance over at mark. his head is bowed over the egg mcmuffin in his lap, hands clasped lightly together as he says grace. looking away, you give an unprompted chuckle under your breath in remembrance of his faith, new memories ringing up old habits in the back of your mind.

the next time you place a glance towards him, there’s crumbs littering the lap of his jeans and sauce smothered around the curves of his mouth. and when he looks over at you, an eyebrow raised in question at the sudden onset of attention you’re giving, you pay little mind to the fact that you have to stifle yet another chuckle in exchange for simply tossing a napkin his way. 

sitting here in the passenger seat of his car, you can’t help but think that there must be something inherently wrong about spending time with an ex. especially when the two of you parted on terms that seemed somewhat insignificant, though only at the surface of things.

for the most part, mark was a good boyfriend. and the mark that sat to your left doesn’t seem any different than the mark you knew back then. maybe he got around to shaving his stubble a little closer and cleaning up his car a bit more often, but he wears the same carhartt jeans, eats as clumsily as he always had, and still drives his car as if he had extra lives to spare.

from his nose scrunches to his dutiful faith, the mark you’re sat next to now is undeniably the same mark you fell in love with what seems like ages ago.

and as he backs out of the parking space, almost reversing straight into the car opposite, you catch the uttered “shit” that falls so casually from his lips. the same lips that you could never get enough of against yours. the song that’s blaring from the speakers is a favorite of his, you know that best, and it has him humming lightly with the same voice that once serenaded you to sleep. his fingers drum incessantly on the steering wheel as he waits for a red light to turn green, the same fingers that once struggled, but succeeded against all odds, in learning how to braid your hair.

you swallow thickly and think of how unfair this has come to be. it feels impossible to have to sit with the fact that you revoked his license as your boyfriend, but now have to regard him as just a friend. it’s the same as holding someone you once held close at arm’s distance. and it’s like trying to purposefully forget the name of your favorite show, or your beloved dog, or even your own name. 

all of a sudden, you feel like you’ve been caught in a fervid windstorm so strong that it threatens to uproot whatever reasonings had kept you grounded, amplifying whatever feelings lingered in his wake. except, the only thing you have left to hold onto is the realization that although the mark in the driver’s seat is the same mark you fell in love with way back when, he’s also the same mark that broke your heart without even a single word said.

「 DAY 02, 01:17 AM 」 — MARK LEE SMOKING?? (100% CLICKBAIT)

a bout of carsickness hits you at seven in the evening, right after sitting in at a roadside diner that served mashed potatoes that were suspiciously tinted green. but even after he pulled over so you could throw up on the side of the road, you’d implored mark to keep on driving until the two of you were at least at the outskirts of illinois. and that had happened on three separate occasions.

reluctantly, he’d kept his promise and poorly parked his car in front of relax inn, the closest and cheapest place that google maps could turn up. located in marshall, illinois with a striking two-star rating, it had everything you needed: free parking, shitty wifi, and even complimentary breakfast. or, it had everything you needed except two separate and unoccupied rooms.

you had been surprised, at first, when the man at the front counter had only charged mark $58. but that was after he had conveniently left out that the amazing deal was actually for only one room, not two. sighing, you drop your bag to the ground in resignation at the sight of the single queen-sized bed. despite the stiff sheets and musty smell, it still stands to look inviting after ten hours, give or take, of almost nonstop driving.

with only two stops taken for restroom breaks or gas fill-ups, you figure that either one of you has reason enough to claim the bed. there is a thought of mentioning how the two of you had slept side by side with no sexual implications many times before but it’s fleeting, dismissed, and gone within seconds.

instead, you begin drafting your argument, pulling out the persuasive points of your monologue about why you were more deserving of the bed. sure, he’d driven the car the whole while, his eyes must be strained and his ability to concentrate and energy have probably been rendered null. you, on the other hand, could pull the motion sickness, weak composition, nauseated passenger princess card. yeah, surely that’d do the trick.

your opening lines are right at the tip of your tongue, ready to win over a hefty opponent, when you turn to see that mark has already situated his belongings on the ground by the couch. wary of how you’d been standing there for a good two minutes completely unmoved, he looks your way and very plainly comments, “you take the bed. i’m fine with the couch.”

and suddenly you feel very supremely guilty for having even thought of going into a full-blown verbal altercation for a slightly more comfortable place to rest. you now think about thus commencing a full-blown verbal altercation over the slightly less comfortable place to rest, if not to ease your guilty conscience, then just out of politeness. but you digress because after all, mark is way too nice and you’re way too in need of a good night’s sleep. even if it’s just slightly better.

laying in bed, scrolling on your phone, you recall that this is how it’s always been with mark. that at one point, you became too tired of always trying to be the nicer person out of politeness when mark had the kind of genuineness you’d find in about one of a million persons. sometimes, a simple exchange of things like who should get the bed could blow itself out of proportion without either of you meaning for it to have gone that far. you came to the conclusion long ago that fights about who was the nicer person weren’t necessarily fights on character, but rather just fights like any other. and choosing to let mark carry through with his niceness — accepting the last french fry, taking his jacket when it was chilly, and now letting him have the couch — didn’t mean you were inconsiderate. in a way, it was a compromise of its own to allow him the opportunity to be of service to you.

you think of showering the following morning for it seems unlikely that you’d depart the comfort and looming sleep the bed provides. squirming around, you tuck yourself under the blankets but before you could fully relinquish your body to the confines of sleep, a soft rustling by the edge of the bed coaxes your eyes to open a sliver.

mark’s squatting so that you’re right at eye level with him. his hair is mussed more than the wind had done and wet at the tips, sticking up in several places that seem to defy the laws of gravity. with an elbow set on the bed, he peers at you over the screen of his phone, eyes wide and set in the frame of his black-rimmed glasses. he doesn’t whisper though his voice comes out so low, you wouldn’t be able to tell much of a difference anyways. “sorry, i know you’re tryna sleep. just wanted to ask when you’d want to wake up tomorrow.”

repositioning to face him, you smush the side of your cheek into the pillow and the unease in mark’s face ebbs away. half alseep and a good amount dehydrated, your throat is scratchy when you pass it back to him, “what do you think?”

mark scratches the back of his neck with his free hand, “i, uh well… maybe six...?” and he traces your eyes as they find the clock on the nightstand. it reads 2:02 AM and he seems to share the same thought as you. “...thirty? six-thirty?”

you close your eyes, already losing your grasp on what he just said as you mumble out the last of your thoughts, “okay, we’ll grab breakfast downstairs and leave at seven?”

whatever he responds with goes in one ear and out the other. and it isn’t until he wakes you up, bright and early at 6:20 AM, that you remember the conversation even happened. in reality, you roll around in bed, trying to find another sweet spot that will lull you back into sleep, for about ten whole minutes. by the time you’ve given up, gotten out of bed, and begun collecting your garments for the shower, it’s 6:30 on the dot. it doesn’t even register in your mind that mark had accounted for your scheduled morning bout of grogginess until you’re out of the shower with a clearer head.

you sit across from him at breakfast and he passes the black pepper when you spoon your scrambled eggs. he offers to go refill your orange juice at one point and at another he apologizes adamantly for accidentally nudging your foot under the table. it’s only after he takes your empty plate with his back to the clean-up counter that you really bother to take a good look at him.

he must’ve skipped his morning shave, for his stubble is visible though not much more than a mere shadow. there’s a silver chain at his neck, one with a dangling cross pendant, and it sits prettily atop his plain black pocket tee. mark leads the way towards the front desk to check out. you notice the way he swirls the both the room key and car key around his fingers, his straight posture when he walks depite the heavy backpack mounted on him, and even the worn-in outline of his wallet from the rear pocket of his jeans.

and when he mistakens the pristinely cleaned glass door for a wide opening, resulting in a blooming red splotch on his forehead, you take the time to consider his big endearing head, and his big boyish eyes, and his big sloppy smile. you laugh along with him, but perhaps for more of a different reason. mark may have a big head, but at least it’s filled with good and godly things. 

seconds later in the parking lot and you think to rescind those same regards. mark may be nice but there’s no way you’ll be the one to compromise on this one.

you’re fully in the seat and ready to get the car going, except mark is standing right where the door should be closing with his arms crossed and a foot hiked up on the frame of the car. his stance is a plain show of defiance, as are his firmly-stated comments. “i’m not letting you drive. you were vomiting everywhere just last night.”

“give me the keys, i need my redemption arc to happen right now.”

mark only tilts his head in disapproval, eyes boasting a look that emanates something along the lines of ‘are you kidding me?’ you press your lips thin in consideration, realizing that this has turned out to be harder than you’d bargained for. eyeing the keys hanging loosely from his left hand, you decide that your efforts were going to amount to nothing if not by way of force.

when you lunge for the keys, mark takes that you’re attacking him or something of the sort, throwing his hands out in front to block. in the three seconds the debacle had taken to unfold, the sharp end of the car key had scraped the length of your inner arm, nicking your skin clean apart. much to your chagrin and his relief, you end up in the passenger seat anyways.

mark wipes diligently at the long cut with an alcohol pad, whilst you use your unpunctured arm to search for where he’d claimed the first aid kit with the bandaids would be. you look away from the glove box to find his unimpressed disposition, and you hold the gaze until he meets it. but he only meets it for a split second before ducking his head back down to the red-stained alcohol pad, muttering low but loud enough for you to catch. “god you’re a mess, y/n.”

you return your attention to your search for bandaids, eyes rolling far into the back of your head. “i already admitted defeat. do you have to rub it in?” to which he responds with but a fleeting laugh. and by the time he can come up with a, “there we go, all clean,” you’ve conjured four bandaids for him to top it all off.

as mark busies himself with finding the most appropriate arrangement that would cover the length of the cut, you shove the first aid kit back to where you’d retrieved it in the far corner of the glove box. it’s then that the streak of red that was presumably tucked behind it catches your eye.

by the time mark returns from discarding the wipes and bandage packaging, it’s already too late for him to stop what’s to come. the red box — at first glance, what looks to be a sizable pack of cigarettes — had already found its way into your unsuspecting hands.

「 DAY 02, 07:09 AM 」 — BROCKHAMPTON SATURATION II, TRACK #16

when haechan first introduced his sophomore photography major best friend to you back in freshman year of college, he had described him as the guy with no emotional depth. and you had shaken his outstretched hand anyways, awkwardly laughing along even though you had no idea that it was an inside joke between the two of them.

you laughed again on christmas day, same year, same joke. however, you still had yet to figure out what it meant when haechan had gifted your new boyfriend the card game, cased in a brilliant red box. he had said something along the lines of “maybe this’ll get him to dig deeper” and your group of friends, most of whom had known mark since high school, seemed to find it funny and fitting.

the game itself, you knew; it was a popular drinking game among your college friends. you had played it several times yourself at more intimate gatherings, the reflective conversational prompts amounting to several instances of sob fests, tissue shortages, and long hugs. it was good for heartfelt conversations, and apparently mark wasn’t one for feelings. put two and two together and that made enough sense for you to laugh along and move on without much thought.

but well over two, almost three, years later, you wonder why it’d been shoved into the back of his glove box, the plastic wrap still intact and pristine. it’s as if mark had quite literally buried his feelings into the depths of this car, subsequently forgotten and later dug up by his girlfriend turned ex. life’s a funny thing, because only now as his ex-girlfriend do you understand what the gag gift meant in the first place.

looking out upon the barren gas station, you feel restless standing in the face of ten — bordering eleven — hours of driving beside mark of all people. but when he slips into the seat beside you, freshly washed hands wiping themselves down the length of his jeans, you begin to think of a better, or at least more interesting, way to pass the time. holding the box of cards out for him to see, your bouncing leg finally comes to a still as you suggest, “wanna play?”

mark regards the box with a joking manner, and while his casual, “yeah, why not” might prove his act of nonchalance convincing, you like to think you know him better than to look past the way his eyes had lingered, or the hesitance set in his brows, or even the readjusting of his position. he starts up the engine and moves the gear out of park as you fumble with the plastic wrapping. a small tear later and you’re peeling back the packaging, throwing small glances at mark’s way whilst he throws unsure glances at the box of cards.

two minutes back on the i-70 west, you’ve shuffled the cards until your fingers began to feel sliced through, and only then did you deem it time to begin. fanning the deck out to your left, you gesture for mark to select his first pick. he shakes his head and wordlessly gestures back at you to make the first move, a lick of his lips giving his uncertainty away.

shoving the rest of the deck into one of the cup holders on the middle console, you read along as your other hand sets forth in finding your phone. “wildcard. press shuffle on your music library. explain the first song that comes up!”

phone in hand, you look over at mark inquiringly, “me or you?” and if you had to guess his next words, there’d be no doubt that it’d be a stiff and uttered, “you.” almost taking glee in his squirmishness, you pull up spotify on your phone and click into your mess of a “liked songs” playlist. mark passes you the carplay cord and you plug it in, pressing the shuffle button apprehensively after the beep indicates it’s been connected.

heavy piano chords pan out from the speakers and a smile is slow to spread across your face as you come to a realization of what song it is. for better or for worse, mark seems to know as well, retracting his gaze from the road for less than a second to meet your eyes. there’s a sort of ‘ahh’ in them, an understanding, an underlying fondness.

in the heat of the summer…

“do i really have to explain?”

you know that you should be my boy.

“give it a go at least.”

in the heat of the summer…

“well…”

you’re so different from the rest.

you find yourself at a loss for words. amongst many other things that arise in this moment, your train of thought does its best to rationalize. why was this song still in the playlist? simple, you forgot to take it out. it’s only normal that things get buried with time. why can’t you just say that to him, then? simple, because then it’d be so easy for him to brush it off as a lame excuse, a cover-up, as to how plainly you still held onto your relationship. what the fuck are you feeling? panic. doubt. frustration. longing.

panic at the thought that he would read into it too much. doubt at the thought that there were other reasons for why you’d let this song gather dust in your playlist. frustration at the thought that there was only you to blame for this situation that you’d gotten yourself into. and longing. longing that had sat untouched for the same amount of time you’d decided to shove your feelings away instead of confronting them. longing that had since settled into your flesh and bones, going unnoticed. longing that, at the first chords of this song, had you casting your eyes downwards from the road ahead.

hastily, you grab for your water bottle, taking steady but large gulps. suddenly, your throat had become too dry. swallowing thickly, you wonder why the lump in your throat refuses to fall back. your breathing becomes noticeably haggard while the thing lodged in your throat remains. at the slightest indication of mark’s head turning your way, you snap your own in the direction of the window to avoid his questioning gaze.

biting down on your lip, your eyes fall closed even with the sprawling hills unfurling just outside. the sun is climbing to its height, as is your sudden onslaught of emotions that drowns out all noise except the sound of mark humming along to the song. you are numb, you are deaf, you are void of everything except his voice.

“do you remember?”

reverberating through you, it’s all you are able to feel.

“do you remember last summer at the lake?”

mind emptied, it’s all you know.

“it’s one of my favorite days, i’ll have you know.”

body capsized, it floods you. and it fills you to the brim until you can’t take it anymore.

“isn’t it funny that all my favorite days have been spent with you?”

and when it overflows, it comes in the form of tears.

your vision blurs and the wetness on your cheeks is quickly pulled into a pool at the edge of the seat. closing your eyes is a daunting task, even then, because you know just what you’ll see. you make the mistake of trying to blink away the tears, making them fall far faster than they had before. but for what it’s worth, it had been a favorite day of yours as well, albeit bittersweet.

the water was emerald green and the grass was knee-high. the sun rested overhead for almost fourteen hours a day and you had a tan comparable to that of a professional-grade spray. the wind was light though unrelenting, apparent in the way the clothes strewn across the clothesline were at the cusp of being carried away. everything under the sun was warm to the touch. the rocks, the grass, the water, his skin.

you snap your eyes open and only then do you notice that the car has come to a stop, pulled over to the side of the road. your hand is pressing into your forehead and the tears are still running free when you care to peer over in mark’s direction. both hands resting on the wheel, his eyes emanate in concern, lips pulled tight as if an apology was attempting to push past from within. it’s hard to pinpoint your finger directly to it, but there’s something about his expression that ticks you off so greatly that you regard him for less than a second before slipping out of the car.

the first inhale of fresh air makes the stuffiness inside the car feel like you had been breathing in water. the wind, just as it had been that day, is light though unrelenting, and it dries clean the tears in your eyes. your body sags and you give your weight into the side rails of the road, sitting against it and heaving thorough breaths to bring you some peace of mind. if you stared at your surroundings for long enough, the short grasses growing beside the road would grow long and the valleys in between the hills would carve out an emerald lake. the warmth would find its way back to you, but it’s far from pleasant and rather close to burning, scorching even. you fist and unfist your hands, recoiling from even the thought of it.

instead, you focus on the way the roughened wood of the rail nips at your skin through the thin spandex of your shorts. when you shift your position, the metal that accompanies it is hot to the touch and the uneven pavement beneath you is riddled with its fair share of pebbles and wood chips alike. taking your time, you come to pay more mind to your breathing, allowing the intakes to fill up your belly rather than your chest. the sky is a clear blue, the single cloud is pear-shaped, you can count up to seven peaks in the hills, and there are four dirt patches within your line of vision. it’s these little things that ground you.

seven minutes past. you hear a car door open you but you never hear it close. footsteps stop maybe three feet from your left but they never step any closer. he says, “whenever you’re ready,” but he never says anything more. 

and perhaps that’s what hurts the most.

「 DAY 02, 01:56 PM 」 — LITTLE CRAZY LOVE SONG, MARY OLIVER 2014

“what’d you say?”

“nothing much, really—”

“well, you obviously said something if she’s voluntarily passed out for the last six hours.”

static crinkles on the other end and mark looks around at the endless stretch of trees surrounding the lone gas station. the signal is clearly not having its best moment here in the thick of the forest, but he rejoins anyways. 

“i brought up last summer…” he trails off, hoping that just the season would provide enough context to tell of the situation without him explicitly having to name it as terrible, godawful, and no good whatsover. to be frank, mark wasn’t expecting understanding and empathy when he dialed haechan’s number. hell, he wasn’t even expecting to receive encouragement and good faith. perhaps all he wanted was recognition for the bad deed he’d committed and someone for him to bicker out his frustration with. and surely, haechan delivers just that.

“mark, you whole-hearted idiot. wh—”

“okay but in my defense, i thought we were having a momen—”

“i think only you were having a mo—”

“it just slipped out, i swear it wasn’t on purpo—”

“how the fuck did you think she’d react to your sappy bullshi—”

“—but it’s all cool now.”

the other end goes flat after mark’s statement and he thinks it’s owed to the faulty service, until haechan sputters in disbelief, breaking the quiet at an ear-splitting decible, “cool? you call that cool?!” mark furrows his brow at his friend’s overuse of emphasis whilst he busies himself with retrieving his credit card one-handedly. he knows that somewhere along the line, he fucked up. and he thinks he knows exactly where but at the same time, mark isn’t quite in the headspace to own up to it. so he retaliates.

“it’s like you set me up for failure.”

haechan justifies, “hey, it’s not like i did anything wrong. a friend needed a ride and i found someone who could give her just that.” but mark can hear the sarcasm in his voice and he decides he would rather confront his friend than question his ex. “i highly doubt she’d be down for a forty-two hour drive over a six-hour flight. what the fuck did you even say to convince her?”

the younger doesn’t waver when put in the spotlight. in fact, he gives it away as if it’s all just a fun prank on his end. and that’s not to say that isn’t at least partially the truth.

“i told her you already agreed to take her, same thing i said to you.” 

smart as ever, he hangs up before mark’s initial surprise gets translated into brute annoyance. the silence after the disconnect tone hits him almost immediately and thus, he finds himself standing in the middle of an empty gas station, in the middle of the eerily quiet city of winona, missouri, which is sat at the edge of a brimming forest where nothing but trees run on for miles and miles on end. there’s a town & county supermarket in the same plaza and a rundown dollar general down the street he’d passed to get here. 

it suddenly feels as if he’s the only person alive in this whole wide world, trapped inside his four-walled mind with no one to talk to except his regretful self. more than confronting his friends or even you, mark has known for a long time that he feels the most social anxiety whenever he’s left to confront himself. he tries to shake the thought, pocketing his wallet as he makes a beeline for the supermarket across the desolate parking lot. it’s far on foot and with each step, he descends down into the depths of despair, digging up all the times he must’ve made you uncomfortable with just his presence. for once, he doesn’t think it’s such a wonderful thing to be alone in the world with the person he loves most.

seven hours of almost straight driving is bound to make a person go at least a little insane, as mark wonders if he even remembers the last time he saw anyone other than you. he grabs a bag of popcorn, a charcuterie box, and a gallon of water at the supermarket and only at the cash register, manned by a live and tangible human, is he freed from the confines of his tortured mind. 

gas filled to the max and provisions restocked, he’s once again met with the struggle of having to close the car door as quietly and undistrubingly as humanly possible. you’re still very much asleep and the last thing he wants is to jolt you awake when your latest memory of him is how he’d insensitively instigated a panic attack at barely seven in the morning, albeit unintentionally.

after he closes the door with exemplary caution and barely a thud, mark lowers his guard with a sigh in relief in tow. though in this fleeting moment of mindlessness, the very next moment he’s dropped his keys on the center console. wincing, he watches as the clattering elicits a stir on your end, fluttering eyelids, and then — to his utter horror and dismay — you wake up.

mark plays it cool, or so he thinks, by letting out a low “oh shit” to make sure you know of his accidental mistake. rubbing your eyes, the first glance you place his way isn’t strictly a glare, but it might as well be with how you barely acknowledge his stilled presence. mark waits until you’ve had a couple sips of water in your system and a full routine of arm stretches before speaking up carefully. “how’d you sleep?”

you look his way and tiredly blink a few times before saying, “fine.”

back at square one, he thinks. mark hands you the bag of popcorn and charcuterie box and reaches over to drop the giant water jug into the back seats. you eye the bag and the box confusedly, then the blanket draped across your knees that you’re sure wasn’t there when you fell asleep, and then finally your surroundings.

“what time is it?”

“about 2:20.”

“where are we?”

“missouri. just outside the mark twain national forest.”

you eye the landscape beyond the windows where you’re met with the parking lot, a few commercial structures, and a shitload of trees. you turn back towards mark, “are we on schedule?”

he nods. “we’re actually ahead of schedule. we were supposed to be just out of illinois right now.”

you give him a tight-lipped smile that does little to ease the tension. removing the blanket, you make a move for the door and mark thinks that this must be it. you’ve had enough of him, you’re tired of tolerating his presence, and you’ve set your mind on walking the rest of the way to los angeles. it’s a rather immature thought but he entertains it for a split second regardless. the second half of the second is spent coming up with a hastened, “wait.”

you’re halfway out the door when you look back over your shoulder, a left eyebrow cocked in question. mark doesn’t have anything on hand to say, so he blurts out whatever question he had first in queue, “why… why did you agree to come?”

fully out of the car, you stand facing him with one hand resting on the car door and the other situated on your hip. in your freshly awakened state, you cock your head at the absurdity of his unprompted question. there’s a trace of thought pooling in your eyes before you answer rather nonchalantly, “i wanted to see how you’ve been.” the words hang in the air, waiting for mark to process them, and when he does it’s as if he’s had the wind knocked out of him. breathily, he recites a quiet, “oh i see,” and then you shut the door square in his face, leaving him with only an equally quiet, “i need to use the restroom, be right back.”

mark thinks back to why he himself had agreed in the first place and he’s not sure how much of a role haechan’s little ruse had played anyways. he appreciates the honesty with which you answered because it gives him the space to be honest with himself as well. he’d agreed to go because a part of him wanted to see how you’d been doing as well, but he’d also agreed to go because a part of him simply just wanted to see you. the little stunt that haechan had pulled was just the tip of the iceberg of reasons that led to this whole ordeal, and mark thinks — or at least hopes — that that had been the case for you too.

when you return, freshened up and looking more lively than you had in hours, mark’s more prepared than the last time he’d thrown a haphazard question your way. you’re fastening your seat belt when he asks, “since we’re ahead of schedule, do you wanna go for a drive around the forest?”

he sees where it starts, slow in the upturn. what looks like the beginnings of a frown blooms into an easy smile. it doesn’t reach your eyes, but it doesn’t need to for mark to know that you mean it. “around?”

he smiles too, quick with a flash of teeth and a breathy chuckle. “in, i mean. in the forest.”

you let your head retract to facing frontwards, leaning back into your seat as you nod, “sure, let’s go.” folding the maroon blanket into your lap, you follow mark’s pointed finger until your eyes set on his backpack shoved under your seat. “there should be a map in there. can you be my guide?”

for a second, he thinks he’s being too greedy with your patience but your easy smile flattens to show complacency. “i can do that,” and you salvage the map from the front pocket of the mess of his backpack. seeing about an inch-thick stack of maps in the same compartment, you look towards him with your smile now edging towards a knowing tease. “you planned for this, didn’t you?”

mark shakes his head fervently though he can’t find it in himself to audibly deny. after all, number two on his bucket list is to visit all the national parks and forests the country has to offer. how could you have expected him to resist when passing by a city that sat directly under 1.5 acres of forest land? and with the extra time to spare, it was a given.

you have the map crinkled open on your lap as you load up the top destinations with your phone in hand. mark’s excitement seems to be rubbing off on you; his giddy smile lends into your glittering eyes, his drumming fingers on the steering wheel translating to your bouncy leg. twenty-four minutes north — one right turn and one left turn — later, you’ve successfully navigated the both of you to alley spring and mill, a three-story red statement with a clear turquoise spring tucked behind.

the summer heat licks at the nape of your neck when you first open the door. you grab the blanket, the charcuterie box, the bag of popcorn and — with a thought spared in consideration — the stack of cards shoved into the cupholder after tucking your phone into the waistline of your shorts. the rush of water grows louder as you approach, the uneven pavement ebbing off into scuffed dirt and then brustling grass further down the stretch. pausing a good distance away from the decades-old structure, you hear a sigh in wonderment coming from behind.

mark’s mamiya rz67 weighs down one hand, the other raised to his brow to deflect the glare of the sun. he has a sort of satisfied look to his face, one that only grows as he makes his way to catch up to you. “good find,” he comments, tearing his gaze away from the sights to meet your eyes. pride snuggles into the corners of your smile and you duck away from his stare. 

“lemme go find somewhere for us to settle down for a bit,” you hold up the blanket in gesture and then wave him off with another smile, “you go do your thing, don’t mind me.”

there’s a few people here and there coming in and out of the mill and a few more along the skirts of the spring, but you manage to find a quiet spot along the water with some trees to offer a decent amount of shade. it’s much cooler down here, where the spray disperses itself fresh from the water and into the air, and you drape the blanket over the mildly damp grass. spreading the contents of the charcuterie box across a napkin and pouring a portion of the popcorn into the now empty box, the setting begins to look as if it were all planned and not, in fact, an impromptu day trip that fell in motion less than a half-hour ago.

slipping your shoes off, you ease into the spot, appreciating the clear air while you can. if you shield your eyes, you can see mark in the distance with his phone held up to the red building to check the light settings. he takes a shot there in that position, and you swear you can hear the ka-shink! of his shutter even from this far away. nibbling a corner of brie cheese, you watch him closely as he jogs in a zig zag across the plot to find another interesting shot to frame.

mark gets six or seven more in before he rounds upon where you’re sat, having finally found the alcove of shade you’d claimed. he’s still holding his camera with one hand, the size of his palm making the five pound camera seem small. in the back of your mind, you can still recall the weight of it from a year ago as mark demonstrated how to advance the film for your first try at a shot. you remember how difficult it was to get the hang of medium format photography, much less the bothersome large format that mark used to haul around wherever he went.

“may i join you?”

snapped out of your momentary reminiscence, you glance up at mark as if you hadn’t even seen him coming your way. at the nod of your head, he takes his spot across the blanket with his legs criss crossed. the seconds tick away while your eyes trace the lines of his hands, moving familiarly to load a new film stock into his camera. the delicacy of his movements, the steadfastness of his grip, the roughness of his knuckles, and the baby soft pads of his fingers.

there’s nothing to do with his hands when he’s done with his camera so he resorts to fiddling with the folds of the blanket and occasionally reaching for a grape. mark looks a little lost, if you are to be honest. or at least, it seems as if he’s unsure of his presence; too scared of breaching boundaries thus he shies away from interactions altogether. his patterns of behavior are nothing new to you. and though there was once a time where you’d despise having to always be the one to coax him out of his shell of insecurity, you aren’t nearly so distressed to do so when there’s no strings attached, no long withheld feelings that come with it.

“when should we get back on the road?”

mark looks up at you in surprise and relief floods his face when he realizes no sign of annoyance in your expression. as if he were taking a firm hold of the hand you’d extended, he responds kindly, “it’s best if we go before five, so we can take our time on the road.”

you check your phone and the time reads a quarter past four. scrolling down your notification screen to see if you missed any important messages, you find about four consecutive texts from haechan, sent just before you woke up from the six hour stress nap you inadvertently took. 

【 2:06 PM 】 bro u good? 【 2:06 PM 】 mark told me what happened 【 2:06 PM 】 should i beat him up for u? haha 【 2:08 PM 】 call me when u get a chance ;)

shutting off your phone, you retrace your attention back to mark. he’s the spitting image of a kid whose one and only friend didn’t show up to school today, hence he had to sit at his own table during lunch. you chuckle under your breath at the thought and he happens to hear, giving you a raise of his brow to which you only shake your head in dismissal.

so badly do you want to just clear the air — his newly uptight demeanor being a nightmare to get along with — but you know better than anyone how avidly mark avoids confrontation at all costs. to bring it right to his front steps is just asking for uncalled-for frustration. you zip your lips, and eye your surroundings, hoping for a topic of conversation to jump out at you.

sure enough, the red boldface catches your eye and it lingers. who says confrontation is the only way to subdue the tension? sometimes all you need is a little fun. and what’s better than a game to do just that? you place a hand atop the deck and wait for mark to recognize your intentions before softly suggesting, “your turn?”

the expression he dons is a bit squirmish as he reaches for the cards, but you can tell that he’s glad his careless words hadn’t ruined the game for you forever. his fingers make quick work in shuffling them neatly and, face down, he draws one from the pile at random.

“what do you think is the hardest part of what i do for a living?” 

mark glances up at you from the card expectantly and you’re thrown off guard for a moment. “i answer? i did the last one though.”

he only laughs, “yeah i know. but even if i wanted to answer, i couldn’t. you don’t have a job.”

“oh that’s right,” you smile, masking a tinge of embarrassment at your late realization,” okay, i’ll answer it then.”

you cross your legs like his and pluck a grape for your fingers to play around with. momentarily in thought, you realize that there’s not much to the question, not when pertaining to mark and not when asked to you.

“the thing is, i’ve seen a lot firsthand. and i think you know what i’m going to say.”

it’s his turn to be thrown off guard with wide eyes and a hand to his chest, “i do?”

nodding, you pop the grape into your mouth to give leeway for your thoughts to string into words. shortly after swallowing, the words follow in suit, “i mean, you love your job and from what i remember, it pays your bills. which is great, it’s really great.” careful with your next words, you approach them with caution, “but at the same time, i think — and correct me if i’m wrong — i think...it’s put a strain on some of your relationships.”

mark doesn’t look the least bit surprised. in fact, you’re sure he’d known the answer the second after he read the question. hardly disappointed, he smiles wide when your eyes brim with uncertainty. reassuring you, “you’re right on point,” and then nudging you along, “i still want you to elaborate on it though.”

“okay,” you smile back at him, mostly in relief, “i know this is pretty personal, but since you insist…”

and so you trailed on about what you knew. on how his job drove a wedge between him and his parents. on how they told him it was one thing to chase after your dreams, and a whole other to let your dreams crush you. but to him, dropping out of college didn’t make those two semesters a waste of time and money. rather, he thought that going to college in the first place made it easier for him to realize it wasn’t the path he wanted to walk. there were always going to be times where he wouldn’t be able to make ends meet but that was nothing to him if he could have the support of his friends and family to do what he loved most.

you knew very well that a “strain” was a light way to put it. his parents cut him off at nineteen when they realized he wouldn’t be returning to school. as most parents would be, they were worried but unwilling to financially support their son who they no longer believed in. his mom still brings stacks upon stacks of tupperware kimchi and side dishes each month and his dad still passes money under the table at family dinners. but for some reason, they could never look him straight in the eye.

“do you ever feel like they betrayed you?”

“no, never,” he declares almost immediately. “it’s easy to think that they did. it’s harder to really feel that way when i know how much they love me. it’s just that we value different things.” mark says it so convincingly that you nearly dismiss the suspicions behind your question. when you meet his eyes and they are dark and glossed over, you start to believe them a lot more than what he’d just said.

seeing his pain resurface as if it were there the whole time, you’re reminded of the guilt you carry for breaking up with him at perhaps the most vulnerable point in his life. knowing that mark could never blame you for it, you blame yourself in his place.

looking down from his gaze, you hold your left hand in your right, imagining it as his, and hope that just the thought of wanting to hold his hand offers him some comfort, in some sort of cosmically significant way.

「 DAY 02, 10:34 PM 」 — TOMAYTO TOMAHTO

mark drove past the ‘welcome to oklahoma’ sign at 7:30 PM. between cherokee and muscogee nation, he considered stopping at tulsa for the night instead of oklahoma city, the capital. it was around 9:00 by then and you were still fairly energized; he took from that to continue even though it was you who slept through the day, not him.

in your search, etrip.net claimed holiday inn to be $19 for a two person room, seemingly a ‘too good to be true’ deal for a four-star hotel with an indoor pool. you booked it anyways — though only after confirming that he was fine with sharing a room — and keyed in the address into google maps for mark to follow. 

when you look out the window less than a half hour to your destination, it’s near pitch black, save for the distant outlines of buildings behind large fields of what you assume to be grass. the two of you are just outside the city and when you roll down the window; the air is rather cool and crisp for a summer night. there’s a truck in front of your car with a shipment of fresh tomatoes and the scent of them wafts sweetly in the dawdling air.

basked in a comfortable silence for the first time during this whole trip, you feel that summer break has finally started. the days are long and long gone are your day-to-day worries about when this assignment is due and how much this exam will affect your grade. in hindsight, they were all passing worries, things that never irked you for long enough to be significant. and now that you had finally made peace with it all — moved on, and slowed down — the world seems much more pleasant, less frantic, and more at ease than you remembered. it’s quiet and you’re happy.

glimpsing to your left to check how mark’s holding up, the first thing you’re met with are his wide, frenzied eyes. you trace his line of sight whilst venturing to ask, “you good?” before noticing the oblong shape that’s been planted straight into the dead center of the windshield. upon further scrutiny, there’s a redish secretion that’s oozing down the glass. 

“y/n...what the fuck is that?”

the two of you are stunned in your seats, frozen at the thought of what it could possibly be. (a hockey puck! a donut! a scoop of ice cream! a bloodied body part?!) though soon enough, your conscience returns in time for you to register it as a tomato, straight from the truck ahead.

“holy shit,” mark mutters, and he begins to slow the car down and away from the alleged source. a second hits, (“fuck!”), right where your head would have been if not for the window. the third and fourth follow shortly, splatters sounding more like fist-sized rocks under the sheer force of impact. mark sees you ducking and dodging, this way and that, and his blood pressure sky rockets as a huge portion of his side becomes slathered in goop.

both of you are screaming at this point, mark has no way of knowing when the road will curve, and he’s still going seventy miles per hour, occasionally speeding faster whenever a jolt of adrenaline hits too hard and he loses fine control of his foot on the gas pedal. “roll up the damn window!” and your fingers fumble around for the button, almost opening up the whole door in the process.

you swerve your head right after the window’s safetly shut to see if anyone’s tailgating. “pull over, mark. there’s no one behind us.” and when the car comes to a stop, the two of you are panting uncontrollably, despite having barely moved for hours. there are no thoughts running through your mind — absolutely none, zero — when you turn your head to meet his eyes. and the second you do, the two of you burst into laughter, in utter disbelief at what just happened.

still breathless at the thought, your hand comes to your mouth in belated shock. the aftermath is disastrous. cautiously opening the door, you can spot remnant tomato juice dripping from the bottom edge. mark rounds the car twice in inspection, only to find that every last corner of his precious subaru crosstrek is coated in a sheen of red except for the back, bottom, and some of the top. the meager stack of napkins you saved from earlier in the day does the best they can, sweeping off most the meat but none of the juice. the scent doesn’t seem so sweet anymore when it’s all you can smell from a mile away.

you notice that mark has been standing in the same position for the last four minutes, unmoved with both hands on his hips, sweat gleaning from his brow, and a distant look in his eyes. you fear speaking up will spook him into tears. luckily, he speaks first. 

“y/n.”

“yeah?”

“can you find the nearest coin-op car wash on my phone?”

“okay.”

“i’ll…” he trails off into a breathy laugh, that kind of echoed laugh that makes you want to give him all your hopes and dreams, support and love. “...i’ll be here for a bit.”

you clamber back into the passenger seat, careful not to transfer any of the liquids indoors. his phone is mounted on a stand and you pry it off, wondering how you would get past his passcode. you key in his birthday, a reasonable first try, but the lockscreen doesn’t budge. pressing your lips thin, you try to recall what his password had been way back then. mark was never one for unnecessary changes; he held onto his possessions and habits stubbornly.

after an aha! moment comes a moment of doubt. to get the code right was one thing, but you weren’t sure how you’d feel if it was indeed unchanged. shrugging off the hesitation, you press in the four numbers anyways, and sure enough it unlocks.

dumbfounded, your hands drop into your lap and your vision stills, zoned out on the curve of the steering wheel. it’s hard to really understand what you’re feeling and it’s even harder to discern mark’s intentions behind keeping his passcode set as your birthday after all this time. the signs have been there—and you had kept to avoiding them—but now is the first time you’re facing the possibility that mark still has feelings for you. and even just the thought of how it doesn’t disturb you greatly warrants extra precaution on your end. 

mistakes are made so that they won’t be repeated.

you repeat the sentence to yourself perhaps five times over, and carry on with locating the nearest coin-operated car wash station as per his instruction. mark got in the car five minutes later with a small smile on his face. “it is what it is,” as he had put it. with only thirty minutes left, the car ride resumes in silence though this time around, there’s nothing comfortable about it. the man next to you is humming along to some john mayer song, oblivious to your disconterting mood that was induced solely by him (and partially by you, if we’re to be crystal clear).

deciding not to get too worked over it, you fixate, instead, on playing word games with haechan. time passes quickly as you win most of the rounds, half the time wondering why he’s even still awake when it’s already fairly late in his timezone. you make a mental note to call him when you get settled at the hotel, sooner the better if anything.

mark manages to hum along to every single song that comes up on the radio, sometimes even singing with a full voice and vibrato. you’re partially relieved that he’s no longer so on edge around you, also aware that now it’s you who’s way too in over your head. figuring that it wouldn’t be much of a problem once you call it a night, you move past your concerns and finally take a glance up from your phone.

marvelling at the ever-changing landscape on the other side of the window, your mouth falls agape at how the bare grasslands have since given away to streets among streets of buildings. you can peer even further down, where the city lights of oklahoma city make out a twinkling night sky, replacing the stars with their light pollution. devon tower stands the tallest and most discernable of the skyscrapers and for a second, your troubles melt away as you fall captive to The Big Friendly.

long past rush hour, the streets downtown are jam packed with both cars and pedestrians, forcing mark to brake every other second. the city night life in oklahoma feels warmer than the busy new york city had ever been. flourescent signs flash bright in invitation for you to enter, people flood the streets, swarmed with laughter and filled with good food. you keep a smile to yourself as this tedious road trip begins to feel a little more like a long-anticipated vacation.

marks pulls up at the coin wash station you’d found for him earlier. with it being a ten minute’s distance from the city’s main streets, the surrounding areas are quiet at this slow hour. when you reach over to unbuckle your seat belt, a hand comes to stop you and with a patient smile on his face, mark simply tells you, “wait here, i’ll clean it up real quick,” as he slips out of the car.

given no time to react much less disagree, he shuts the door behind him and you end up sitting in the car by yourself, watching mark as he busies around with his coins and then gets to hosing down the red streaks striping his car. presumably, they had dried in the wind. what a sight his car must have looked like, rolling through the city streets as if it’d been dunked in ketchup.

you get the idea then, while you’re idling around, to call up haechan quickly while you have the moment to yourself. if you could be curt with him, beat around the bush like the annoying little brat you are, you’ll have no problem with wrapping up the call within the next five to ten minutes it takes for mark to get the car scrubbed and shiny.

the phone rings a whopping total of seven times before he picks up. you put him on speaker and the groggy voice you’re met with is a telltale sign that you’ve freshly awoken him. “the fuck you want? i just fell asleep, you cow.” at least he went to bed, you think, whilst turning his loud ass voice off speaker and bringing your phone to your ear.

“woah, no need to be so vulgar. you’re the one who told me to call you.”

you hear a scoff coming from the other end. at his next quip, his voice is no longer groggy, now boasting a new tone of feisty. “yeah. i meant when i’m actually awake and willing to answer. bye, i’m hanging up now.”

“hey,” you whine, “you’re awake and i’m free right now so let’s just get it over with. what did you want to talk about?”

there’s a clear pause of deliberation on his end, only for less than three seconds though. “how’s it going with mark? i heard he made you cry.”

you sigh into the receiver, fingers having found the rim of your water bottle and decidedly tracing the cap around and around. “so he told you everything, i see. he just brought up some bad memories and i got overwhelmed in the moment. it’s all cool now.”

the line goes silent for while longer and the blasting hose outside just happens to shut off at the same time. you look up from your water bottle and through the shower of water, mark’s peering in with a sponge in hand, gleeful eyes greeting you hello. you give him an absentminded wave in return with your free hand.

usually, haechan had too much to say about everything but to your surprise, he only ponders with a lilt, “...it’s all cool?”

“it’s all cool,” you confirm. mark sweeps his sponge-equipped arm across the length of the windshield, the thick lather of bubbles building a wall between you and him. but just as his fingers dot two eyes and a big smile into the soap for you to see, haechan synchronizes, “so you guys are getting along?”

mark peeks into one of the holes to see you smiling as wide as the playful smiley face he’d drawn, the same one that was now at the mercy of the drooping liquids. contradicting your ear-splitting grin, you remark offhandedly, “we agreed to be friends.” and after a beat, you fill in the missing blanks, “for the sake of this trip, i mean.”

“friends…” haechan seems to have his panties in a twist today, for he’s pausing at all the weird moments, saying all the weirdest things. you can almost imagine the shake of his head as he cryptically states, “that won’t do.”

“what won’t do?”

the hose water is turned back on as mark directs it right at the windshield this time. you almost shriek in surpise, barely catching the click of his tongue that haechan gives. after dousing the windows clean, mark reaches for the snow broom to shimmy off the remaining water droplets. going row by row, he gives you a sore attempt at a wink when you meet his eyes. you supress your giggles as haechan’s dissatisfied voice soars past your ears without much thought.

“how can you be just friends with him when you still like him?”

you’re in no mood to be taking him seriously, so you end up saying the first thing that pops into your mind. “i’m pretty sure he’s the one that still likes me.”

“well you’re not wrong there.”

mark throws in another silly face — a really blown out toothed smile — and you decide then that you should probably end the call soon before haechan drags you into another discussion of who’s still hung up on who and who’s still in love with who. you decide then that, for tonight at least, you want to set aside the messy feelings and just have fun. because that’s what’s easiest when you’re with mark lee.

momentarily forgetting that you’re still on call, you hastily ramble out a quick, “hey i gotta go, something came up,” and the eye roll that haechan’s sure to give is predictable as it is true. “fine,” he deadpans, “talk to you later. or not, i don’t know maybe something will come up and i’ll forget about you for two weeks.” and with that, he hangs up right as mark reenters the car, eyes all shimmery and filled with glee.

“you have fun out there?”

he messes around with a few wet tips of his hair. “a lot of fun, actually. you should help me out next time.”

your heart races messily and mercilessly at the thought of ‘next time,’ so much so that you only have enough mindpower to muse absorbedly, “maybe i should.” he gets his seat belt buckled and you cap your water bottle after taking a long swig. 

“so…” mark starts whilst pressing the start engine button, “who was that on the phone?”

“haechan wanted to know if we were ripping each other’s hair out yet.”

mark chuckles, reversing the car out of the small lot. his eyes tell you he knows that a lot more than just that was discussed, but he resists prying to a certain extent. “so what’d you tell him?”

“well...” you take a moment to admire his side profile, his one hand resting casually on the wheel, and the gentle way his lips curve into a smile when you say, “i told him that i still have a full head of hair.”

「 DAY 03, 12:00 AM 」 — YOU ARE MY SOUVENIR, MY PROOF THAT I WAS HERE

what etrip.net forgot to mention was that the $19 you happily gave away was actually just a reservation fee, and not — as they had deceived you into thinking — the actual price of the room. you direct a sheepish smile towards mark as the bright-faced young man at the front counter charges $124 on your card. evidently, the internet is why you have trust issues.

the hotel sits right in the belly of downtown oklahoma city, with the touristy bricktown district only two blocks away. you’re given a card key to a spacious room with a queen sized bed draped in a crisp and plush duvet. from the updated appliances to the chic furniture and decor, every corner of the room smelled like fresh lemon verbena.

“i guess this is what you get when you pay top dollar.”

mark nods dazedly, but at the mention of money, he snaps out of his haze. “here,” he fishes out his phone from his back pocket, “i’ll transfer you the $62.”

you recline into the white lounge chair in the corner of the room. a ding! sounds from your bag that you’ve set on the floor besides you, signaling the transaction. eyes now closed in respite, you direct your “thanks” towards no one in particular.

there’s no couch this time, despite having paid a ridiculous amount, so mark sets himself atop the left side of the bed. he rummages through the front pocket of his backpack until he draws forth a thin booklet with a giant OKC in bolded yellow on the front. as he remembered, there’s a checklist list on the second page that covers all the must-do, must-see activities and locations that oklahoma city has to offer. 

mark looks up at you, then back down at the book, then back at you and back down at the book. he knows you well enough to see that you’ve yet to fall asleep. but give it another two or three minutes and the snores will catch up to you. but before those two or three minutes round upon him, mark decides that he has nothing to lose. if you want to come, you’ll come. if not, he still has a whole city to plow through in one night.

“hey.” there’s a hand on your shoulder and it’s shaking you lightly. distantly, you think that you’ve entered a state of lucid dreaming. a second after, the voice returns to say, “y/n, wake up,” and you’re conscious enough to recognize it as mark’s. willing your eyes to open, he’s hovering right above you with apprehensive eyes. “let’s go out.”

still not quite awake and still unsure of what you just heard, you blurt rather obtrusively, “what?”

“i mean...i mean like let’s go out out,” and he gestures to the window to make his point clearer. “we can get late dinner, or really early breakfast, or just walk around for a bit.”

not very convinced, you only frown at him. in turn, he’s prompted to ramble on further. “okay, but when’s the next time you’re visiting oklahoma?”

“like… never,” you drawl out slowly. mark nods fervidly as if there were a right answer and you were at the precipice of discovering it. impatient or in sudden fervor, he exasperates, “exactly! so you should make the most of tonight and see what it has to offer.”

he’s like an overly enthusiastic salesman and you decide that even if it’s just to please him, there’s no harm in playing tourist for a few hours; you could sleep as much as you want on the road anyways. you give in, “okay fine,” and watch as he pumps a fist not-so-covertly. “gimme like five minutes to change first though.”

by the time you meet him at the lobby, mark’s switched out his tour guide booklet for his phone, having loaded up all the destinations in preparation. the warm air outside is breezy to a fault and the wind picks up your hair and sloshes it this way and that. mark is quick to laugh but equally quick to tuck the wandering strands behind your ears. unknowingly, you blush and when you don’t break the stare, he breaks it for you. the tips of his ears are red when he looks away.

the first stop — a touristy jazz club — is closed for renovation, and the next one that you guys attempt had rebranded into a strip club. unease begins to nibble away at mark’s intial excitement, as his exhaustion and embarrassment collide to dampen his mood. the sidewalk crowd doesn’t care to part for two, so mark grabs hold of your wrist, leading you towards what he hopes is the final destination for the night.

mark finds his composure being built up and chipped away by your presence in the exact way he’d expected it to even before this whole ordeal of a trip. he can avoid your careful eyes and feign ignorance towards your attempts at civility, but he will never be one to deny to himself how much he still cares, how much he has always and will always care, about your opinion of him. it’s in the littlest ways that he hopes if not to impress you, then to make you smile at the least. mark doesn’t endeavor to lie to himself about that — that he wants you to smile and that he wants, even more so, to be the reason behind it.

he thinks he’s done a rather good job of accomplishing that tonight. from afar, “the flea” is but a green box with brick facing and a short line abutting the entrance. but upon entering, the ambiance of the bar feels rather like an old school arcade, with low ceilings and dimly colored lighting. it’s littered with games from pool to cornhole to connect four, and people are drunk and having fun. mark glances at you to gauge your liking, and supresses the urge to pump a lame and loser-ish fist at they way your eyes glisten in response to your lively surroundings.

he’s not sure if he’ll ever get the courage to apologize for the consequence of his thoughtless ramble from earlier in the day. and he knows that an apology is what you deserve. but in his own selfish and self-serving way, he hopes that this one night of drinking and games will at the very least make up for your soured impression of him.

you order two beers at the bar and amble over to mark, who’s found himself a spot at the darts corner. handing him the drink and taking a swig of your own, you query with a cocked eyebrow in the direction of the board, “wanna bet?”

taking the drink from your hands, mark deadpans, “you suck at darts.”

mouth full, you quickly swallow before laughing aloud, “maybe i got better, you never know.”

mark rolls his eyes in disbelief, but concedes nevertheless, “so what’s on the line?”

you take a quick scan around the room in consideration when a girl standing on the opposite side of the room by the pool table catches your eye. but not because she’s looking at you. feet crossed at the ankles and left hand swirling a half-emptied margarita, she has her sights set square on mark. a small smile dawns upon your face, and you turn back towards him. “you lose, you get her number.”

once glance around the room and he, too, knows who you’re talking about. maybe his heart sinks a little. and so he laughs. maybe he wishes you wouldn’t be so quick to write him off with another person other than you. mark takes a sip of his beer, and looks around the room once again. maybe he doesn’t mean what he’s about to say. “you lose, you get his number.” maybe he wants you to know that he still likes you, at least a lot more than the guy by the bar with the sleazy smile. 

you take a look at him yourself and decide that he wouldn’t be too bad of a punishment. some part of you felt the need to distinguish you and mark as two single friends who were just hanging out. the barrier needed to be defined after how it’d been ebbing between the extremes of exes and more than exes the whole day. it’s hard to say that you don’t like mark at this point. and that while any other guy could make you feel things, it would never amount close enough to what mark made you feel. 

but it’s even harder to say that you would want to get back together with him.

mark decides on a 200 point game and whilst you get off to a good start with two 20-pointers, mark beats you out by almost a hundred point margin to sum up the game. today, he feels up for admitting the truth to himself, for he knows well that he had tried his best to lose. but any further effort on that attempt would have made it obvious, as there was no conceivable way for him to out-lose your constant 1-pointers without suspicion. 

he watches as you down the rest of your beer before gesturing in the direction of the bar. he smiles back when you mouth, “i’ll be back,” over the blaring music. he knows why you’re being like this. he knows that it’s mostly his fault. he also knows that you’re doing this to protect yourself, that it’s not a means of punishing him. but mark accepts his punishment anyways, looking onwards as you approach the guy with a tap on his shoulder. he watches as the guy’s eyes rakes your figure in delight, sets a casual hand on your waist, smiles along to your cheesy pick up line.

but mark tears his eyes away before the guy can smash his greasy lips onto yours, or before you respond in kind. even seeing him lean in made mark sick to the stomach. he goes to retrieve the darts from the board and when he returns, you’ve returned too. “got it,” you show him the contact and number in your phone, “and i got a smooch on the cheek too.”

a small, “ew,” is all he can muster in his confusion of equal relief and disappointment. mark keeps you close for the rest of the night. you suggest many times that he go talk to this girl, or how that girl looks like his exact type. but you don’t seem to understand that mark only wants to talk to you and that you’re the only person in this room, or even in the world, he’d consider to be his exact type. you are nowhere near the understanding that mark has never felt this unlucky to be spending the night with a girl he wants but has lost the privilege to have.

you’re tipsy, with an arm linked with his and your head on his shoulder, as he walks the two of you back to the hotel. mark can’t tell you — at least not in this state — how he’s thought of trying again at least a million times. he’s come up with a million scenarios of how he’d somehow loop himself back into your life and slowly regain your trust for him. a million times over, he’d lost the confidence to follow through, always so sure that he would fall in the same patterns of negligence and immaturity. even so, he’s never wanted to try as much as he does right now.

he places your shoes by the bedside and slips off your dirty socks to add to the laundry. rummaging through your toiletries bag, he comes upon the micellar water and reusable cotton pads. he swipes it across your sleeping face to collect the makeup and extra debris, then washes the two pads and clips them on a hanger to dry. mark is dutiful in drawing the covers up to your chin, in pulling your hair back from your face, in everything a boyfriend would do.

mark is sober when he sets his lockscreen as the only thing he has to remember oklahoma city by: a photo of you, smiling at him.

「 DAY 03, 8:21 AM 」 —  HIS APOLOGY

“what is the hardest truth you had to face this year?”

you place the card to the back of the deck after reading the question aloud. mark takes his eyes off the road for a split second to glance at you. fiddling with a used toothpick with your fingers, mark wonders when you started flossing after years and years of ignoring your dentist’s nagging. yesterday, he noticed you were using a different chapstick brand than what he remembered as your go-to. you wear your hair up more often, and you frequent warm-toned clothing as opposed to your routine neutrals.

the more time he spends around you, the more mark realizes he’s never felt this distant from you. in barely two days time, he’s been surprised by how much you’ve changed in the relatively short duration the two of you spent apart compared to the time you had spent together. mark’s even more surprised by how little he’s changed in comparison.

the thirty seconds you’ve taken to formulate a response — to decide your terms of vulnerability in just how much to divulge — weren’t nearly enough for mark to be prepared for what you were about to share.

you don’t look at him when you speak. with your eyes set on the passing hills just outside, your voice breaches lowly into the air and across the car, right to mark’s utter confusion at the first of your words.

“i’ve learned that no amount of love goes wasted. i’ve learned that bad, unfortunate, terrible things happen to good people everyday, most of the time for no reason.” when you next blink, there’s a thin film of tears that gloss your eyes. “i’ve learned that the same bad, unfortunate, terrible things can happen to the very people that you love, and that sometimes there is nothing you can do about it.”

he thinks he can hear your breaths, or some similar rhythm pulsing in the thickened air, taut with tension and the fragility of your words. two beats pass, then four, before mark confirms it to be your now labored breathing. it stops shortly after, and you continue speaking to your best ability, which even then amounts to very little. “i’ve learned…”

mark turns to look at you for a little longer than he should, and the composure with which you held your head gives out, the weight of his gaze somehow heavier than that of your circumstances. he’s never seen you like this. he doesn’t know what’s your reality, and that this car, this trip, this moment, is your escape. 

“i’ve learned what it means to grieve for someone before they’ve even passed.”

he doesn’t know that you’re running on stolen time. he doesn’t know, wasn’t there, never saw how your mom had given your hand a squeeze, feeble but certain. how she faults her poorly-timed illness. how she struggled to sit up to give your grief-stricken, heartbroken body a hug and a kiss goodbye, regretful she might never be able to rejoice in her daughter’s marriage, and yet grateful that at least her other daughter can rejoice in her stead.

when you find it in yourself to lift your head upright, mark takes in another glance at the puffiness around your eyes and the streaks running down your cheek to your neck. he knows he should free a hand to locate the tissue box or offer that hand in support but he can hardly breathe, much less move, when you start speaking again.

“it’s my mom. her cancer, it’s relapsed.”

for a few seconds, all he can hear is the white noise of his car tires on an endless expanse of road. it’s like your words dissolve into the noise, refusing their impact on his own ears, richocheting between reality and his imagination. mark holds so still that he might as well have stopped breathing, or thinking, or being. 

it’s only when he hears a sob escape from you that his gravity returns to him out of a sense of realized necessity. a sort of certainty courses through his veins when he pulls over the car. there’s barely anyone on the road to witness him exit and circle around to your side. mark moves with conviction when he pulls your door open, unbuckles your seat belt, and embraces you whole. neither of you register the tears leaking from his eyes nor the way his hands shake ever so slightly, because his expression has been set straight, and his body sturdy for you to lean on.

forehead pressed to his chest, you’re gasping for air and making all sorts of incomprehensible sounds of anguish. you weren’t sure of where your strength had come from to confide in him like that, after you’d dutifully dedicated yourself to a trip detached fully of worries beyond your control at home. but you know it now. in the way he pats down your hair, rubs circles into your back, holds all the same grief-stricken, heartbroken pieces of your body together like glue, you know that it’s because it’s mark.

he doesn’t yet know what he’s saying but it’s coming out of him anyways. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.” he panics even more when you’re shaking your head in his arms, your hitched breaths unable to let forth any words of disagreement. but mark shakes his head too. you don’t know.

you don’t know how much it hurts him. from his heart, in his bones, through every fiber of his being he feels it. his apology.

“i’m sorry for not being there when you needed me most.”

you make up for your loss of words by looking up at him, finally. his mask of placidity folds, first at the seams with the furrow of his brow, but then in full as his face scrunches into what can only be described as indescribable heartache. his shirt is fisted in your hands as you sob, “how could you… how could you have known?”

mark shuts his eyes because he doesn’t think he has it in him to bear witness to the misery written across your face. his heart hammers inside his chest, unpromising of any relief any time soon. he holds you together, closely, closer, until there’s hardly a hardly a point of separation between the two of you.

your question rings in his head, because it makes no sense, because it only makes him feel worse about the last year he’s spent alone, because even without you by his side…

“i should have just known.”

only now do you realize that your trust in mark is the one thing that could possibly nullify your entire messy history. in hindsight, it was obvious. you knew that if you told him, he would make it his duty to make you feel better. you told him because maybe that’s precisely what you wanted to feel. and maybe you needed mark, more than anyone, to hug you like this and to convince you that everything was somehow going to work out. because maybe, just maybe, you would begin to believe it for yourself.

「  00:00  」 —  AMARANTH

it was something that you didn’t think was possible. to live with someone, to inhabit the same room, sleep in the same bed, and yet, to be so distanced to the point at which you were strangers.

sometimes he’d leave a mug on the kitchen counter, lukewarm coffee left idle. other times the tv would be left on when you got home from class, or the shower was wet when you stepped in. it was these small things, like traces of a ghost, that reminded you of your relationship with mark, or what was left of it.

on the off chance that the two of you would meet face-to-face, he was always reserved to himself. a few small apologies, maybe a peck to your lips, and always a search for reassurance — that you would’t leave him, that you wouldn’t understand where he was coming from, that you knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose.

the it was complicated. on the surface, the it was his absence in the physical sense. despite dropping out from college and having a suddenly abundant amount of free time, barely any of that time was spent with you. despite moving in to your apartment after being cut off financially from his parents and being forced to move out of the school dorms, the it was him rarely being at home. mark was always out on some unnamed errand, or to shoot at some far away location, hours away from anyone and anything. 

but under all that, the it was his inability to face himself and his future head on. the it was his latent realization that there were consequences to his impulsive and headstrong decisions, more than he had the foresight to think of, more than what he was capable of dealing with at the time. the it meant that he was incapable of putting any of these feelings to words, and even more so unwilling to say these words aloud to you.

mark didn’t know how to tell you he was lost without feeling like he had lost the one thing that was left of him — his dignity. he had held his head high when he’d passed word around that he would quit school, certain that it wasn’t the right path for him. he had held his head high when he had left his parents’ house, his childhood home, after his own father had gotten on his knees to beg him to just finish up his degree, to hold out for one last year. but he couldn’t even admit to himself, much less you, that he didn’t know what to do with himself after all his bravado had worn off.

it was an adulthood thing, he’d much later come to understand, his own version of a dramatic coming of age movie where he needed to lose himself in order to find himself. and it led him to the job of his dreams: somewhere between a full-time photographer and a part-time influencer, traveling the world, capturing it on film, documenting his process and growth journey for others to be inspired by. ever so passionate and devoted to his work, mark poured his whole into perfecting his craft. and only when he emerged atop the hill he had climbed all by his lone self — without a degree and without the support of his peers and parents — did mark realize that he had lost the one person that would have supported him through anything. you.

but the damage had been done. at that point, there was no such word in the english dictionary that could remediate the month and a half of unexplained absence. in response to his silence and refusal to confide in you, you had withdrawn from the relationship yourself, having given up on getting him to clue you in and having to deal with your own problems as well. 

it was too late for mark to say anything about it, far too late for any verbal apology to make up for it all. mark figured that his actions would speak louder than his words ever could.

at the height of summer, the sun couldn’t have shone brighter. it was that day where you had come to understand that mark’s place of refuge had never been the apartment you thought you’d both called home; it was the lake. the emerald lake would have a special feature in the photobook that mark would publish months after the two of you had broken up. in his captions, he’d write that it was there that he would turn to when his thoughts overwhelmed him, when he didn’t have it in himself to face the world.

and it was beautiful, in the most heartbreaking way, to see for yourself that in his most vulnerable state, he had turned to these waters and these winds. it was most beguiling, in the most earth-shattering way, to watch as he submerged himself bare in the water, to realize that he could never bare his heart to you, didn’t know how to, didn’t want to, didn’t care to.

he didn’t understand how badly you wanted to love him for everything that he was. he was too proud to let you see the worst parts of him, too proud to let you love the worst parts of him.

to him, the water was a symbol of renewal. to bring you here, where his heart lay, meant that he was opening back up to you, urging to you enter his waters. to you, it was a symbol of cleansing. to enter the water where you were beckoned meant washing off all the grief and bitterness that had accumulated towards the tail end of your relationship. you hadn’t yet figured out where you stood with him, if you still loved him, or if you even knew him well enough to say that you still loved him. 

it was ill-fated timing, really. your mom was diagnosed with hodgkin’s lymphoma, not even a week after what mark believed to be the turning point of your relationship. you had called him from the hospital, voice thick with affliction, rambling about chemotherapy and medical bills and breaking the news to your sister and everything else that had brought your world to a standstill. and yet in the midst of all your despair, mark could not for the life of him string together a single sentence.

later revealed, her cancer was at an early stage, so one round of chemotherapy was enough to quell it into remission. it wasn’t, however, easy on your family in terms of the financial burnden and emotional turmoil that steadily built over her four months of treatment.

all of this, mark would only hear of through haechan, for your relationship had ended the moment you had hung up that call.

blocking his phone number and social medias was the easy part. the hard part was convincing haechan to let mark move in with him. it was completely and utterly stupid and unreasonable, according to him, to end a fully committed relationship just because the guy couldn’t formulate a response to your trauma dump. “why?”

“because he’s emotionally constipated,” was the easy answer with an easy counter that haechan was sure to give, “but you knew that even before dating him.”

you sighed. however impossible, you could hear his impatience over the phone. it was enough to get you to be fully honest with your best friend. “he can’t talk to me. he can’t be honest with me. he can’t look me in the face and say ‘i’m sorry.’ tell me, hyuck,” your breath picks up and you’re mere seconds away from sobbing, “tell me, how am i supposed to come home from the hospital everyday and tell my sob story to a fucking wall?!”

later that day, haechan came over to your apartment to pick up all the belongings of your ex-boyfriend. you had dumped him because your life was in no state to house someone who didn’t know how to shoulder a burden. you had dumped him because, for the sake of your well being, you could no longer put up with his inability to communicate openly with you, to tell you what he was feeling, to tell you to ease your worries, or even just to tell you that he loved you.

but even now as you’re sat in the passenger seat of his car, if mark told you he didn’t love you anymore, you probably wouldn’t believe it.

you know it in the way he looks at you, with eyes so tender and attentive to your every motion, ears perked at every intonation, and heart worn bare at the foot of his sleeve. these were all made fact from the moment you first stepped in his car, when the simple idea of seeing him still made you apprehensive and guarded.

but with how low your defenses have since dropped, there’s no reason left to deny that mark wouldn’t believe you either if you told him you didn’t love him anymore.

and you can’t say it’s any sort of impulsive feeling, or an effect of loneliness that’s gotten the best of you. it’s evident to you now that the mark beside you is not the same mark you fell in love with. he is a result of your breakup, the one thing that he could not bury away with the rest of his feelings. the one thing that, if he ever turned to the lake for refuge, would only haunt him in the form of the memory of you that day. he could not run from the torment of losing you, because it had consumed him whole.

the mark beside you gave you your space when you needed it, and held you close even when you didn’t know you needed it. he still is awkward in responding to your questions, but he responds nonetheless. he apologized.

he’s not the same mark you foolishly fell in love with, overlooking his weakness until it ruined your relationship. the mark beside you is someone you have the choice of falling in love with, in full admiration for his growth and strengths, so much so that it begs the question:

what do you do when the reason you broke up with your ex no longer exists?

「 DAY 03, 12:47 PM 」 —  WILL YOU GO ON A DATE WITH ME?

“thank you.”

mark jolts in his seat, though he keeps enough of his cool only to answer somewhat lamely, “uhh… for what?”

“for comforting me.”

mark doesn’t look over at you. he can’t. he’s afraid of what you have to say, of what’s to become of your fleeting friendship, of the boundaries he’d overstepped. so he merely brushes it off, hoping you don’t read too much into his actions to feel uncomfortable about it. “oh that? it was nothing, no need to thank me.”

but you look over at him, and continue to, for seconds or even minutes on end. the profile of his face is perfect to you, round eyes, the slope of his nose, an equally boyish and nervous smile playing at his lips. you could almost cry, again; this time at the irony of how your break up was so ill-fated by time, but your reunion so auspicious.

“it was not nothing to me. it was… everything.”

now he looks over at you with curious eyes, but you just shake your head slightly. “it just meant a lot to me. that’s all.”

mark returns his gaze up front. he’s still nervous, afraid, and ever so conscious of you, but at the very least, he’s glad that he seems to have successfully communicated his care for you. in silence, you’ve spent the last three hours switching between playing sudoku on your phone and annotating a red-covered book titled all about love by bell hooks with a pink pen. 

until a few seconds ago, mark hadn’t had any insight whatsoever as to how you were feeling, whether you wanted more space to yourself, or if you wanted to just put it behind you and move on to cheerier conversations. and with bated breath has mark awaited some sort of sign that you were doing okay. now, as if given the green light, he sighs in relief and begins to speak, almost a little too eager to be able to strike conversation with you again.

“we’re almost halfway through texas now. well, the tip of it.”

the view just outside is completely flat for as far as the eye can perceive. blocked with only two colors, the vivid blue sky is completely void of any cloud, just as the dirt ground is void of any plant. seeing the landscapes change restlessly before your eyes over the past few days has felt like putting your life on double the speed, and the constant and unchanging blue and brown just outside feels like a welcome contrast. in all the flurry of this trip, you yearn for a moment to reorient yourself. and so you ask, “where are we staying tonight?”

“not sure yet, but if you want to you can look up some hotels in new mexico.”

you ponder the suggestion to yourself before suggesting an idea of your own, “how about we go camping? i saw your gear in the trunk.”

it’s gradual and awfully subtle, but you watch intently as the corners of mark’s lips upturn into a small smile. you even take note of how the sunlight from outside catches in his eyes, a small glint that gives his whole countenance a boyish radiance. he chuckles under his breath, simultaneously spotting a sign on the right side of the road. there’s almost a singing undertone in the way he says, “wanna take a break somewhere, grab some food, and plan something?”

you notice that the smile is still on his face as he sits across from you at a wendy’s in the middle of amarillo, thirty minutes later. in the same plaza there happened to be a taco bell and a denny’s, with an ihop and mcdonald’s across the street, inciting a fifteen minute heated debate as to which would make you less likely to vomit all over his car. in reality, there was no right answer. they were all wrong, but mark lee isn’t usually one to win arguments.

he has a few travel brochures splayed on top of the table, though he spends more of his attention typing into his phone and scribbling down notes on a yellow post-it. while he put himself in charge of finding a suitable camping spot somewhere in eastern new mexico, mark put you in charge of something you couldn’t mess up, and something you thought was too easy for the high paygrade of your company.

you did it begrudgingly and anyways, opening up the notes app on your phone, not all that happy to be left with the comparatively more boring job of coming up with a list of things to buy. with some on-the-go food options and a blanket on the list, you contemplated what kind of alcohol would most appropriately suit the occasion, looking up from your phone in time to catch mark as he did the same. briefly, your eyes met across the table.

he knows you both thought of the same thing. you must have. 

he’s the only one who knows he didn’t actually need to study for any of his finals that semester, with most of them being projects and the only outlier being a general education psychology course. but mark was at the library every day and night with you, knowing you were scared shitless for your first week of finals as a college student. you were in two completely different majors, with no overlapping classes or even departments, and yet he was there, quizzing you on your human anatomy or art history notes. you’d get all in your head about the answers, rethinking and doubting yourself. and then you’d look up at him, eyes meeting across the table just the same as now, and you’d say the correct answer.

and there was that one time, in the complete silence of the top floor of the main library, where mark had slipped you a post-it note, eyes attentive and lips pulled into a line as he watched you read over his penned question. and as always, you had said the correct answer. i would love to go on a date with you.

just like back then, you smile at him brightly and fondly from across the table. mark looks taken aback for a second, either reeling or pleasantly surprised by thought of the memory. he takes a bite of his burger, chews a bit, then swallows roughly. you look back down at your screen and quickly type ‘soju’ before setting your phone down, figuring something stronger than beer would be able to get more truths out of you that wouldn’t escape so easily when sober. seeing as how this trip had you revealing more than you expected, even going as far as confiding your most vulnerable self to mark, you wish he would let go of some of his own thoughts as well.

mark sets his phone down too, as you rummage through your bag to find the red box you’d taken from the car. he watches as you set it on the table and after recognizing it, quips almost incredulously, “you still wanna play? after all that?”

“well i was thinking i could use a break from answering.”

“you want me to answer?” he quirks an eyebrow up, and you pass the set of cards over to him. barely shuffling, he draws a card at random and his eyebrows move again, this time to furrow as he skims the question. mark reads aloud, “how old do you feel, emotionally?”

it’s a question that you yourself can’t answer for him, even if you wished to. there’s no way for you to tell what kind of changes had occurred between then and now, but at the very least you know that he’s years wiser than the mark that once sat across from you at the library. and that thought alone pulls at your heart incessantly.

after giving the question some thought, mark answers in all the ways you least expect him to.

“i feel like i know nothing.”

and he doesn’t bother to elaborate further.

“what?”

mark laughs a bit. it’s evident that his thought was underdeveloped, and so he develops it some more, “i feel like a newborn baby, but like… really smart.” he continues to make no sense, so you laugh at him. and then you’re both laughing. it’s sweet, really.

he had spent so long in that library with you, dutifully studying for what would be the easiest final exam of his life. mark reread his psychology notes so many times that week that they would be forever ingrained in his mind. but to you, the next thoughts he shares are completely out of the blue.

“you know like crystallized and fluid intelligence?” he pauses to laugh some more at the quizzical look you’ve thrown him. “like crystallized is like accumulated knowledge and stuff like facts, while fluid intelligence is like problem-solving and reasoning or something.”

now he really needs you to stop laughing because it’s infectious. “and what does that have to do with anything?” your laughter is especially infectious to him, because he really can’t bring himself to stop laughing despite the point he so desperately wants to make.

“just let me finish my thought, okay? and then you can laugh all you want.”

at that, you stifle your laughter by pressing your lips together, and all mark can think of is how cute you are. he pushes past that thought and does his best to sound like he’s not stupid.

“i mean like, i feel like i have a bunch of crystallized intelligence from being in the world for so long, but at the same time i have zero fluid intelligence. like i’m a newborn baby with all the knowledge in the world, and no idea what to do with it.”

and you catch on immediately, “so basically like… adulting? like facing the real world after being coddled your entire life?”

mark isn’t laughing anymore nor was anything he said that stupid, but he has this stupid dopey smile on his face. because if there’s one person that can comprehend his thoughts so completely and so easily, even as he uses the most unorthodox methods to explain them, it’s you. always you. only you.

and just like that you understood it all. the months he spent in solitude after dropping out of college weren’t spent alone, they were spent facing the real world. you had always been so bitter that he would rather endure those rough moments by himself than shoulder his worries with you, but you understand it now. and he didn’t even need to say much at all. mark had needed space to figure out himself, for himself. he needed to unlearn everything that people and society had told him about who he was, what he was good at, bad at, should or shouldn’t do, and for once, spend time to get to know himself. after all, how was he supposed to be in a relationship with you if he didn’t even have an idea of who he was?

sitting across from him now, you can see in full how mark’s grown into himself, his passions, and his work. he’s facing the world still, and will always be, but he is confident instead of prideful. he isn’t ashamed of what he doesn’t know, for he will learn in due time. he isn’t afraid of failure, because he knows he’ll only grow from it.

it’s astonishing how these past few days have brought everything into a full circle. in hindsight, the messy break up was really just what the situation called for. and this impromptu reunion turned out to be a miracle of timing, to the degree at which the both of you can’t help but think…

right person, right time.

「 DAY 03, 10:12 PM 」 —  MY DREAMS COME TRUE (WHEN I’M WITH YOU)

you found it strange, but didn’t think too much of it.

it was like there was some foggy haze over everything, like a honeyed film that made your world a little sweeter, softer, and more precious. you had spent almost a full two years juggling your classes, extracurriculars, and family and relationship issues, flitting between school and home and the hospital and then repeating it all over and over until you couldn’t even trace when you’d gone a bit insane. to you, it was something between a secret orchestration of the universe and an answered prayer to find yourself out here, surrounded by cicadas and under the scorching sun.

to him, it was everything he could have asked for, and more.

sumner lake state park had his favorite hues of greens, blues, and browns. and you were grateful, for mark frequently paused your impromptu hiking trip to shoot on his camera, leaving you moments to catch a breath and take in the views along the lakeshore.

the sun had set at half past eight. that was almost two hours ago, and two hours after the two of you had luckily scored a spot at the eastside campground. whoever made the original reservation would forever have no clue as to what they helped achieve by simply not showing up.

it was like a dream, except you were awake. it was like a movie, except you were the star. it was like a book, except it wasn’t all about love. it was all about mark lee.

he has one hand holding his mug and the other on your thigh. again, there’s the glint in his eyes, this time sourced from the small campfire he’s made. the summer night is hot enough, but mark had insisted. “for the ambiance,” he’d said, “for the memories.”

this is how the memory will go. for whenever you think back to this moment, you will always remember the glow of the fire reflected in his eyes, the buzz of cicadas, the sound of the lapping lake, and his hand on your thigh.

you take a swig of your soju, face scrunching at the initially bitter taste. setting your mug down, you lean back on the palms of your hands and look up towards the sky. it reminds you of the color pencil set you used to use as a kid, the black you’d always confuse for a dark navy and the dark navy you’d always confuse for the black. and dotted with a white color pencil were the stars, shining one by one, all too similar to the light in his eyes.

the water of the lake reminds you of him. the leaves of trees he’d dedicated countless rolls of film to reminds you of him. the singing of birds, as soft as his mindless humming, reminds you of him. the sweetness left by the soju in your mouth reminds you of him.

maybe the world felt a little lighter on your shoulders when you were with him, and everything seemed a little brighter because of his bright eyes and carefree smile. he makes you feel like you’re a kid whose imaginative color pencil drawings of her dreams spin off the paper and turn into reality. like a kid who, in her heart, only has space for hope for the future.

and you think, that must be what it means to love someone. to see everything in a different light, to see only the best of situations, of people, of the world around you. and ultimately, to love the world, everybody in it, every thing ever created, because you love him. 

and so when he draws the next card, it’s the most ridiculous question ever.

“how did you get over your first love?”

you laugh a little, then gulp down the rest of the soju in your mug. wincing at the taste, you decide that it would do no harm whatsoever to be a little more honest with mark. compared to the first day you stepped in his car, back into his life, you now have a very good idea of how mark had changed, how he knew how to handle your feelings with care this time around. it’s a newfound trust, and you plan on exercising it.

looking him straight in the eye, you cock your head a bit to the left as if considering the thing you already knew you were to say. “i don’t think i’ve ever gotten over you.”

mark has no reaction. he just stares at you for longer and longer, until you tilt your head to the other side and he seems to remember that time hasn’t stopped for him. suddenly he’s also downing the rest of his soju, throwing his head back and gulping it down thickly.

truth be told, he used to be intimidated by the honesty with which you always spoke, but he thinks he gets it now. whether it be with other people or with himself, mark feared that the truth about his feelings, his pridefulness, or the nature of his insecurities weakened him. but at the end of the day, what good has avoiding the truth done for him? it was through losing the most sincere person in his life that he realized being forthright and overcoming the fear, the uncomfortableness, and sometimes the displeasure of being honest, made him all the stronger.

and it’s with these thoughts that mark is able to muster up the courage to regain your gaze with all the softness in the world. maybe it had a little to do with the alcohol in his system, but the words seem to slip right out of him. “i don’t think i’ve ever gotten over you either.”

you hold your gaze for only a few moments longer, for shortly after processing his words you break out into a grin so wide, mark can’t help but think the alcohol’s gotten to you too. and then you’re laughing a bit — whether out of relief or bewilderment, he can’t tell — but he’s glad. mark is glad to hear your honest answer, glad to give an honest answer back. he watches as you fully recline on the air mattress in the trunk of his car, looking onwards adoringly. there’s really no way to tell if he’s feeling this giddy because he’s drunk or because for the first time, there is no need to suppress his feelings for you. mark suspects it’s both, at the same time, in full effect. 

he grabs another card, reads it for all of two seconds. mark leans over to where you’re peering up at him and, smiling fondly, he tells you to, “close your eyes for a sec.” you think of the campfire, the cicadas, and the lake, but when you recall this night in memory, this exact moment is what you remember most vividly.

it was bound to happen. you just didn’t know it’d happen like this.

the air mattress isn’t uncomfortable, per se; it’s just that it feels hot against your skin. chills run down the length of your spine, but it isn’t the doing of the wind from the half-open windows. it’s mark lee and his lips on yours. his hand comes up to your arm feverishly, barely grazing it, and more chills ripple from wherever the rings on his fingers ghost your skin. 

mark stops for a moment. takes a breath. looks back up and peers into your eyes. he kisses you again.

you don’t know what to do except kiss him back. he has both hands on you now, the one on your arm and the other one on your neck. and he keeps kissing you, lips molding to yours with slips of his tongue here and there, gentle and prodding. he’s scared. for what exactly? he doesn’t know. maybe for his life.

his life, that you seem to be holding in your hands, the same hands that are now making their way around his waist. mark can’t breathe. the skin at the back of your neck is warm and soft to the touch, but he already knew that. he’s known it for so long. everything about you is familiar to him like a well-worn book or the lines of his favorite song. the sound of your voice is so low when the briefest of groans escapes you, but to mark it’s almost predictable. this is the you that he knows, the you that he couldn’t forget, the you that he lost.

mark can’t breathe, and so he stops kissing you. he mumbles an embarrassed, “i’m sorry.” he buries his head into your shoulder. he thinks he loves you. he knows he does.

but he can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

out of fear, he can’t tell you he loves you. it’s not the same fear that held him back from sharing any vulnerable side of himself with you, but instead the fear of losing you. even as you admit your lingering feelings and kiss him back like you’d never stopped, mark is filled with the fear of how overbearing he’d be if he fully leaned into his desire for you. he can imagine himself, in this same moment but in a million different universes, and in each one he messes up.

in one, he moves too fast by saying the words but he’s got the timing all wrong, and all of a sudden his feelings are a burden to you whose own feelings lack the depth of his. in another, he never says them at all, and this night marks the last of any intimacy he’ll receive for the rest of his life. in all of these universes, he knows why he kissed you, but he doesn’t know what you meant when you kissed him back. in all these universes, he wants, more than anything, to do right by you.

“sorry for what?”

mark lifts his head up to look you in the eye, and when he still fails to say a word, you tease him a bit to lighten the suddenly dour look on his face. “for kissing me? really?”

to your delight, he chuckles at that and shakes his head lightly. 

you can tell he has a lot on his mind, but his neck and ears are flushed red and you don’t mean to use his inebriation to pry the words out of him. you pat the empty side of the bed, “lay down, we should get some sleep.”

slowly and cautiously, he moves to the spot next to you. laying down flat on his back and staring at the darkened ceiling of his car, mark wonders if this is the universe where nothing happens at all and he misses his chance completely. he sinks into this feeling and almost lets it consume him whole when he realizes he’s the only person who has the ability to change that.

the blanket the you bought earlier in the day has been discarded by your feet, the summer heat imanent even in the dead of night. you don’t know how to process what just happened, and you don’t get a chance to. a warmth is felt along your side before you realize mark’s arms have found their way around your waist, bringing you closer to him. he nuzzles his face into the sleeve of your shirt, eyes closed and humming in satisfaction.

his voice is barely discernible when he mumbles, “i’m sorry if that caught you by surprise.”

the sound of cicadas chirping just outside fills the space between his apology and your forgiveness. “it’s okay. i didn’t mind it.”

mark shifts his position a little. he places a small kiss at the base of your neck. “do you mind this, then?”

though his eyelids remain heavy and all his words are slurred together, he’s more alert than he has been all day. he doesn’t hear your small laugh so much as he feels it pulse against him, and it fills him with much joy. perhaps this has been his superpower all along, changing his universe in small and big ways, however he desires. perhaps, as long as he is true to himself and honest with his feelings, he will always find a way to have you close by his side, feeling every rise and fall of your breath. 

that night, in the brief moments before sleep overcomes him mark decides that he will create a universe where you are his, happily, rightfully, and fatefully.

「 DAY 05, 1:44 AM 」 — JUST TELL ME YOU LOVE ME

number three on mark’s bucket list — the one he made in his sophomore year of college — is to one day visit the svalbard islands. located in the arctic circle, the northernmost town in the world, called longyearbyen, goes about half a year without sunlight during its dark season. it is there that mark wishes to undergo the challenge of photographing in almost complete darkness, something he’s never quite been able to catch the hang of.

number four on his bucket list is to start a company that produces camera gear for his own needs, and for the needs of the many people he’s inspired with his work. number five on his bucket list is to buy an old ass subaru manual transmission wrx and fix it up until it’s perfectly to his liking.

out of all these ambitions listed on his bucket list that mark had told you about way back then – the previously mentioned visiting of all the national parks and forests, shooting in svalbard, starting a camera gear company, and owning a wrx — he’d neglected to tell you what tops his list at number one.

after two years, his bucket list remains unchanged, even the mystery number one: to complete everything on his list with you.

when you had asked a few days prior why mark hadn’t bothered moving out of nyc as it no longer served his needs, he had said you were the one reason he couldn’t part with the city. it had made you frustrated as to why he kept you in the equation even after your relationship came to a close, but more so confused as to why he still held you to such importance. 

you had spent the many months after the break up working hard at keeping your life together, removing all emotions, situations, and people that stood in the way of your priorities at the time, which were school and family. while that still holds true for you, mark’s priorities hadn’t changed either; you have continued to be a priority of his to this very day. and only now, when he’s right in front of you, do you realize this.

maybe it had been your insistence on moving on from him that you believed all his actions were nothing more than displays of his latent guilt. he’d send boxes of protein drinks to your front door, salves and balms for cracked skin, and woven hats for your mom who was undergoing chemotherapy at the time. and for you, there’d be the occasional uber eats ramen or chicken noodle soup that would arrive at your doorfront unprompted, and especially right at the times when you were up studying all night.

under suspicion, you had stopped complaining to haechan whenever you were feeling particularly tired or hungry, and the late night meals that were sent to your house lowered in frequency, and weren’t as punctual to your needs. mark wasn’t outright with anything, never showed up himself, or contacted you personally, but he wasn’t exactly discreet either.

only you, haechan, and mark knew your door code, for you hadn’t bothered to changed it after he moved out as there was no apparent need to. after the lightbulb in your kitchen went out and you had asked haechan a favor to buy you one at the nearest hardware store, you came home later that day to find it already fixed. knowing haechan was also busy with school and wouldn’t go to such lengths without further bribing, you had surmised it was mark and decided to put it to the test. the next time when your shower faucet started leaking, you mentioned it in passing to haechan and before the end of the week, it was good as new.

could it have counted as breaking and entering? that’s debateable. but you were aware of it and yet did nothing about it, rendering it legal at the very least. back then, you had given the vitamin supplements he had sent to your house to your mom, eaten every meal he bought you, and accepted all his covert services without a second thought, because you were firm in your belief that any form apology sent your way was useless in repairing the relationship you had put to a stop. you might as well accept it, move on, and wait until the day mark was no longer ridden with guilt, and no longer felt the need to perform such acts out as a result. 

that day never came, and it’s evident to you in retrospect that he did nothing out of guilt, but everything out of care, for your health, your well-being, and safety. his care, simply, for you.

it’s evident to you in the way mark exceled in his role as the passenger princess the entire day. after he lost another argument to you, you finally found yourself behind the wheel which, somehow, felt like the safest seat in his car. he fed you snacks, kept you entertained, put on all your favorite songs, and navigated the both of you safely to the white sands national park in new mexico.

mark kept an extra pair of sunglasses in the central console of his car. mark also had facial oil blotting papers in the glove box. in the trunk, there was an extra pair of sandals in your size, and a set of two fold-out camping chairs. the way he never stopped caring, it was as if you never broke up with him.

there is no city in the world that mark would rather live in, if you are not there. there is no national park he would ever visit, if you are not with him. he would freeze to death in the northernmost city in the world, without your warmth beside him. he would run his company to the ground without your input, and his favorite wrx becomes just another car without you in the passenger seat. all his life goals lose their meaning in your absence. this is how it’s always been for mark. this is why you are a priority to him.

even with his sunglasses on, the white sands were exceptionally bright. for the duration of 45 minutes, mark had guided you along the dunes drive, a scenic eight mile drive through the famed gypsum dunefield. the road conditions were harsher the farther you went along, and so he instructed you into the nearest parking lot, and swapped seats with you before going on. mark held your hand while driving, and he also squeezed it whenever he inevitably hit a bump here and there, as if in apology, as if it was his fault.

mark had kissed you again, with nothing but the white sands and blue skies in the backdrop. he’d taken pictures of you, using up his most expensive film stock on your priceless smile. he’d paid for the motel too, knowing you hadn’t initially wished for the trip to be more than three days, but wanting you to stay for yet another.

all of this has you wondering if you have it in you to care for him the way he cares for you.

you wonder how much importance he holds to you, how much of your heart you’d be willing to give to him, where your love for him would take you if you set it free.

as it turns out, your unanswered questions would be answered in the wee hours of the following morning. this is after mark had driven another six hours to ensure you would be able to make it to los angeles by the day after that to help with last minute preparations for your sister’s wedding.

you are in miami, a city in which — up until the last hour of your life — you had no idea existed outside of florida. you are in arizona, a state in which you would never have had a reason for visiting, if not for mark lee.

you are in a room, at the two-star rated el rey motel. and now you are in the bathroom, dimly lit by the dispersed light of a plastic water bottle placed atop your phone flashlight. you are in the bathtub, and though the water’s no longer hot, the temperature maintains its warmth from the heat emanating off your body. alongside mark lee’s.

it’s a forced darkness; the single lightbulb was out, and the early hour meant the motel staff had already retired for the night. with only one weak light source, the darkness of the room sets a tension so high that both of you are afraid to speak, much less move. but you put it upon yourself to break the tension, as it was your idea in the first place. bathing together.

the silence and the darkness combined makes it so every movement and every breath is unmistakeable and pronounced. the same applies to the sound of your voice when you start to speak, “thank you.”

all of a sudden, mark repositions himself. you can barely see it, but you hear the water sloshing and you feel it move about you. he’s sat across the tub, and you find it fascinating that even without light, his eyes still manage to shine. looking into them, you resume, “thank for everything you did, after we broke up.”

you can hear him swallow. the more you talk, the more you feel the tears pricking at your eyes, your emotions rising as you continue to speak, “and thank you driving me across the country, and for always being considerate, and for apologizing, and for…” your voice lowers to a bare whisper, “...everything. for everything you have ever done for me.”

“you don’t… you don’t have to thank me for anything.”

whereas your tears are at the precipice of falling, you notice that mark has begun crying. they’re silent, the way his tears roll down his left cheek. the water around you shifts, ebbs and flows, as you move closer to him and reach a useless wet hand to wipe his tears. you keep your hand on his cheek. and again, mark finds that he can hardly breathe, “i did it all… i did all of it, because i…”

mark breathes a sharp inhale, the air struggling to squeeze past the three words that remain lodged in his throat. he’s twenty-four now, and he’s still scared of the dark. but by no means is he scared of the monsters under his bed. without light, a camera has to resort to longer exposure times to piece together a full picture. without light, the human eye has to dilate to capture more of what is right in front of it. if his exposure is set too low and if his eyes fail to dilate, all that will remain will be a blurry image, uncertainty as to what was, nothing when there was actually everything. 

here in this bathroom, where there is nothing but you and him and a million unsaid truths, mark finds that he is terrified of losing what’s right in front of him to the darkness. again, he is most fearful of losing you.

both of your hands now cup his cheeks, bringing his face in line with your own. he has his arms around you, and you can feel his fingers pruning on the skin of your waist. you think you have an idea of what he’s about to say, was about to say, but you’re scared he won’t say it. with nothing but a thin veil of air between your noses, you decided to help him overcome his fears.

“i think we feel the same way about each other.” please say it to me.

mark blinks, breaks the stare, looks away, upwards, to the side, “we can’t possibly feel the same…”

he sounds almost exasperated, in the most diminished sense, but you push again, “even then, i don’t mind,” just tell me you love me.

“we can’t possibly feel the same…” mark returns your gaze again, and you watch as his pupils dilate, “because there’s no way you love me as much as i love you.”

the veil of air between your two noses lifts as you lean in for a kiss. a small one. one that says, i will always love you.

of all the things water could symbolize, the water in this bathtub surrounding the two of you represents life, the life that was breathed back into your relationship. this is owed to truth, which is a funny thing for it often hides in plain sight. a year ago at the lake, where the sun had touched every surface on the face of the earth, it had not bothered to dig deeper than that. it is only in the darkness that the truth has nowhere to hide. and if mark had been fearful of the dark moments ago, it is for this reason that he isn’t anymore.

「 DAY 06, 1:18 PM 」 —  LIKE WE JUST MET

the trunk of his beloved subaru crosstrek slams shut from behind. mark winces. the car door of the passenger seat slams shut shortly after. mark winces once again, and complains rather brashly, “can you not do that every time you get in my car?”

“you’re late. we’re late. can we just get going already?”

mark huffs, turning his attention to the front because the both of you are at fault. you, for not treating his baby with love and care. and him, for picking you up almost twenty minutes after he was supposed to. the wedding venue was an hour away including traffic, and now mark had only forty minutes to not jeopardize the state of his new old relationship.

he’s all but broken your neck by the time you arrive — only five minutes late — after accelerating and braking as aggressively as was necessary to get you to your destination.

while you collect your belongings, mark exits the car, straightens out his tux, and makes his way over to your side of the car, pulling the door open for you. you meet him with a glare while clambering out the car, “you’re lucky nothing’s started yet.”

with you as the maid of honor and with him as just your plus one, he spends most of the time idling around and mingling with acquaintances he hasn’t seen in ages, whilst you headed to the suites of the beachside resort to help your sister get ready. mark is shocked, more than he has been in the past week, to find out that you hadn’t told a single relative that you’d broken up with him in the first place. still, he plays his role as “boyfriend for almost three years” quite well.

throughout the rest of the day, mark notices a few things. 

1) you like the venue, a lot. a summer wedding on the beach, with pastels and flowers and the wind in everyone’s hair. and since you’d commented on these things more than once, mark made sure to commit it to memory for future reference.

2) your sister made a face at you before turning around and throwing the bouquet, which you caught. did everyone think he was supposed to propose right then and there? he doesn’t know, but something about the way your sister had regarded him the whole night makes him nervous. as in the “meeting the in-laws” kind of nervous.

3) lastly, you were more beautiful that you were yesterday. but also, yesterday you were more beautiful than you were the day before. mark had recognized this ongoing phenomena ever since you’d stepped in his car, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a cap to his admiration for you. at this point, it’s like he’s just waiting for any day now where it gets out of hand and he does propose.

it’s on the dance floor where this last point becomes very apparent to him. you’re laughing at everything he’s saying, eyes beaming up at him as he sways you this way and that. when he leans down to plant a kiss to your forehead, mark swears the smile you give in return could save lives with just how radiant it is. he feels a bit silly, like he’s gone a little crazy, but mark knows that the next wedding he’s going to will be his.

and it’s as if your minds communicated on a frequency that only the other could hear, as just the next moment you whisper in his ear.

“us next?”

✧ [ FIN. ]  copyright © 2023 rouiyan all rights reserved.  

✧ author's life update — honestly who knew i would get back into writing ff... basically i graduated from high school, got into a few t20 colleges, lost a parent to cancer, gained a parent, lost two best friends, broke up with my long term boyfriend, got my license, turned legal, AND saw the dreamies in concert. so if anyone's wondering why i left.... i'm just glad to say i'm so bored that i'm back. and yes this fic is mostly a self-indulgent account of what i wish my relationship and family life turned out to be but the moral of this story really is: if you're emotionally unstable, seek professional help before relying too much on your s/o. unless they are, of course, mark lee.

sources wnrs card game wnrs free deck (shhh) upmc pinnacle colon and rectal surgery center brockhampton saturation ii track 16 one star relax inn review little crazy love song alley spring mill the flea holiday inn at ok my fav tea that got me thru this wendy’s in amarillo sumner lake state park svalbard wikipedia things to do at white sands national park new mexico el rey motel

[beautifulfuckup99]

First , Your writing and storylines are PERFECT

Keep them coming cause i wait for your updates girl🌶️😍😍😍

Can we have JK in a secret relationship with a foreign reader who travelled to Korea to spend a limited tome with him. But we all know JK, he was on live and somehow forgets to close it and they statt making out in the back ,leading to them going public of course🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭. Smut Smut Smut and spice😍✌️🌶️

The tears I just shed are so REAL lol. You warmed my heart, Girl. Thank you so much.

Title: With You.

Warning(s): SMUT, H8 Comments, and Hurt/Comfort

Author's Note: This is just full of JK being a walking green flag cause honestly, he gives me Golden Retriever!bf energy lol.

**********************************

"Honey, I'm home!" Jungkook calls playfully as he walks into the apartment with a bright smile plastered om his face. "I love saying that..." He laughs as you smile softly at his childish ways. You stretch out more before going back to relaxing on the couch. After being approved by the big suits, you found yourself on the first flight to Korea to finally spend some much-desired time with your boyfriend of one year.

You never saw yourself dating someone like Jungkook, and that wasn't a bad thing, it's just that you never expected someone like him to want someone like you. And it wasn't just because he was an idol either. He was just so... Amazing. And he was yours? It was mindboggling.

"How was the shoot today?" You ask as you set your phone down. Jungkook had been upset having to leave you behind this morning to do a photoshoot for Vogue magazine, but you'd both agreed to keeping your relationship under wraps and you being there for his photoshoot would've raised some eyebrows...

"Fun. I guess." He shrugs before basically crashing on top of you, making you laugh out. "Mm... I'm glad to be home though. With you..." He smiles as he snuggles into your chest, making you blush and wrap your arms around his bigger frame.

"You act like such a baby..." You tease and he smirks up at you.

"You like it." He declares playfully before pecking your lips repeatedly, making you laugh again and push him away a bit.

"Oh! I ordered us some food from that new restaurant downtown. I kind of went... overboard?" He clarifies to make sure he was using the word right, making you smile and nod. "Good. Overboard." He says sheepishly as he goes back to resting on you. You hum as you play with his hair lazily while he shuts his eyes, always fond of your affection.

"Maybe you should show it off to ARMY." You suggest. Unbeknownst to Jungkook, you'd been all over Twitter this morning and had stumbled upon a post from a fan account that basically talked about how much fans missed Jungkook's lives. You took responsibility for that, honestly. Jungkook had told you up front once that he used his lives with ARMY to feel relaxed but talking to you had become the new source of peace for him. You felt bad. It was a two-way deal, really. Jungkook and ARMY both needed each other, and you didn't feel right standing in the way of that. Even though your boyfriend would tell you that you're not.

"A live? But you're here, I don't want you feeling left out." He says and your heart melts.

"Of course I won't. I'll be watching from the other room, baby. Come on." You encourage and he hums slowly.

"Fine. But only for a bit." He nods certainly and you smile excitedly.

********************************************

"Fuck..." Jungkook breathes out between heavy pants and your eyes are glued to the screen as you watch your boyfriend show off his new trick of one arm push-ups. You blink a bit, impressed that you hadn't ran to his gym area yet to jump his bones. You've got some great self-control, that's for sure.

"More? I did so much!" He complains as he reads the comments while pushing back his messy hair and you wanna laugh. These girls knew exactly what they were doing. "I'm tired, ARMY. I ate, I worked out. And now... I must go." He says in a playfully dramatic way that makes you smile. You get up and tip toe to the gym door from where you sat on the couch.

Jungkook is in the middle of exiting out of his livestream when you tap on the door, getting his full attention instantly. He gets up and walks over as ARMY starts commenting what's going on and why he hasn't stopped streaming.

"Hey. All done?" You ask excitedly and he nods fast while smiling.

"That was fun. ARMY was funny tonight." He chuckles as you hum and move closer to him.

"And you were adorable and sexy at the same time." You smirk, causing him to chuckle bashfully. You hum and grab the edge of his shirt to pull him closer, giving him that look.

"Yeah? You liked?" He asks quietly as he grabs you by your waist, making you blush now.

"Babe... You're all sweaty..." You playfully complain, not really put off by that factor though cause you're still holding him by his shirt.

"Oh? Let me fix that." He whispers playfully before taking off his shirt eagerly, making you laugh and grab his face to kiss him sweetly.

"You're insatiable." You mutter against his lips before grabbing his hand and pulling him off towards the living room couch as he makes quick work of your shirt, making you squeal happily at how quick he threw your shirt away.

"This why you ended your live early?" You joke as you grip his toned sides and move to press your body against his, needing that contact.

"And if it is?" He whispers as he lays you on the couch, hovering over you, making you smirk excitedly.

"I'll be flattered." You taunt before wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling his head down to kiss him deeply. He kisses back, not missing a beat. Even as his hands roam your bare sides and grips your ass in both hands, making you moan softly against his lips.

"I've missed you all day..." He whispers against your mouth that was now hanging open thanks to his hands gripping your ass and rolling your hips against his bulge that was becoming more apparent through his sweatpants.

"Fuck..." You breathe out in one long and shallow breath as his mouth moves to your neck. One of his hands move from your ass to the front of your shorts, sliding in and going straight into your underwear to check you.

"Jung... Kookie..." You moan softly and grind down on to his fingers as they slide effortlessly between your folds.

"No prep needed." He teases quietly in your ear, making you moan softly in a bashful way. He was always so damn cocky. Of course, you didn't need much prep! Not when you had a tattooed, pierced, and five-foot-ten Korean biker man on top of you grabbing at your body like he knew it like the back of his hand. He pulls back to look you in the eyes.

"You missed me?" He taunts softly as he strokes his tender fingers up and down your wet slot, making you moan more, head rolling back as you roll your hips against his hand, following his movements like his fingers are a paintbrush.

"Y/N? You missed me?" He whispers again as he watches you with dark eyes. You whine a soft 'yes', making him groan. "I love your noises..." He whispers as he pulls out his hand from your shorts and sits up on his knees.

"No. No, please. More." You moan as you sit up fast and go straight for his waistband, making him lick his lips, watching you pull his sweats and boxers down in one motion. You gasp as his cock springs out.

"No prep needed..." You taunt breathlessly before kissing along his chest as your hand squeezed the length, making Jungkook groan and buck his hips slightly, wanting more.

You look up at him and bat your eyelashes, putting on your best innocent act, making him moan more. "Oh my god, you're so fucking pretty..." He breathes out in awe before pushing you back down on to the couch. He yanks your bottoms off fully, and you smile up at him as you lift your legs and hold them up and apart by your knees, putting your pussy on full display.

"Fuck, you look... Fucking amazing like that." Jungkook pants as he strokes the tip of his cock along your wet slot, watching as it gets wetter from your juices. Thank god for birth control...

"It's been so long." He whispers, eyes rolling shut at the feeling of your clit twitching against his tip. You pause at that comment.

"Baby, we hooked up last night." You giggle softly and are cut off by a long moan as your always giving boyfriend slides into you slowly.

"You didn't miss this cock?" He whispers as he watches your face while he slides in inch by inch to really make you feel it. Your eyes practically roll back.

"Yes! I missed it!" You whine quietly as you keep your legs in place, wanting him deep inside of you. Jungkook smirks as he moves to hover over you again and his arms go above your head to hold you in place as he slowly slides out of your dripping cunt, ready to thrust right back in. It makes you melt, honestly. He always knew where to hit.

"Baby..." You whine, eyes shut, lost in his strokes. They made your mind go numb. It makes him smirk as he quickens his pace a bit more.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." He pants repeatedly in your ear as he shoves his cock deeper inside of you. He hits your spot and you scream out, almost going limp. You didn't wanna move, not when his cock was hitting that spot.

"Oh my fucking god..." You whine out in pure pleasure, making Jungkook smirk.

"There you go baby. Don't I always hit that spot that makes you go dumb?" He taunts in your ear as the pit of your stomach starts to tighten. Your head rolls back as you cry out, unable to move from under him. His toned body had you against the couch and his arms were keeping you from jolting from his thrusts.

"You gonna cum for me? Hm?" He asks, always excited at the thought, no matter how many times you've done this. You nod fast.

"Yes! Yes! So... Close..." You whine out as your head rolls back, your hands letting go of your legs and gripping his waist, nails digging into his skin as he uses that pain as motivation to keep going.

"Who owns this pussy, baby?" He whispers in your ear as you shiver.

"Y-You! You! I-I... Have... Cum!" You cry out as you do just that as Jungkook slows down his thrusts a bit as you cream on his length.

"F-Fuck I have to... Cum." He gasps as you pull him down to kiss him passionately. He pulls out to cum on your stomach and pants heavily as he basically lays on top of you after, making you giggle sleepily.

"That... Is so good." You sigh peacefully as Jungkook holds up his fist, making you laugh at his after-sex routine. You fist bump him before laying back with your eyes closed.

"This... Is the good life..." He whispers bashfully and you smile happily. You couldn't agree more.

****************************************

"What?!" You shout in panic as Jungkook rubs his face in an upset and nervous manner. His manager was on the phone, shouting about Jungkook's live staying on and having to be turned off by them.

You're quick to get on Twitter as Jungkook apologizes to his manager for being careless. "Oh... No, no, no, no..." You panic as you see Jungkook is trending and your '@' is going around everywhere. Some fans are following you out of excitement while others are leaving messages about how they can't believe Jungkook would choose you.

Your heart drops as you see the fanbase split down the middle. Some fans defending you and some telling you to flat out kill yourself. There was a small percentage of fans shaming you as well, blaming you for 'exposing' Jungkook. Like you purposefully revealed yourself for the hell of it.

Jungkook looks over at you as you just get lost in scrolling through each and every comment. He gets up fast. "Don't." He says as he grabs your phone away, but you already feel a lump growing in your throat as you try and blink away the tears.

"You'll have to disappear for a bit on social media. Both of you, And wait for something more interesting to happen." Jungkook's manager says as he just pulls you into his arms, focusing more on comforting you. "Hello? Do you hear me? Maybe Ms. Y/L/N should just go back home. This little honeymoon is over. Now." His manager says angrily, and you pull away from your boyfriend's strong grasp.

"Talk." You whisper before walking off out of the kitchen and going into the bedroom, needing to lay down. You get in bed and slowly hide under the covers, drowning yourself in Jungkook's scent. You knew you were no one special. You knew Jungkook ran with a higher class of people who were more his 'aesthetic'. Who the hell were you compared to someone... younger, prettier, smarter, thin-

You're cut from your spiraling thoughts by a log of a body, laying gently on top of you. "Y/N..." Jungkook whispers, making you sniffle.

"Jungkook, your manager." You try quietly as the sheets are pulled off of your head.

"We... Came to an understanding." He says and you nod slowly.

"When am I leaving?" You ask, breath hitching in slight panic. All of this was too good to be true. You should've known someone like you never gets a happy ending. Not with your luck.

Jungkook frowns and strokes your cheek tenderly, wiping away a stray tear you didn't even know was there...

"You're not going anywhere, baby." He says softly and you look up at him, studying his face for any sign of that being a cruel joke. Instead, you're met with soft and bright shiny eyes looking back at you in excitement.

"But... Your manager...-" Jungkook cuts you off.

"Understands that without you here, I'll have no distraction and therefore, will just have to make their lives a living hell for entertainment. Go right back to shirtless lives and getting drunk on camera." He smirks proudly as you slowly sit up, Jungkook moving to sit between your legs.

"But... That still doesn't change that we have to go MIA for awhile..." You sigh.

"Mm... No. We don't have to do that either." He nods before showing you his phone. You see it's open to Namjoon's Instagram.

"Babe, I don't need to see you've been learking on his page..." You try with a scrunched nose.

"No, no, look." He encourages and you open up Namjoon's Instagram story and see he posted a screenshot from Jungkook's live yesterday. It's of you two with his hands on your waist and your hands on his shoulders, smiling sweetly up at him as he looks at you with this lovesick puppy dog face. The little phrase in the corner of the picture says 'Happy Day!' followed by a purple heart emoji. You smile a bit and sniffle more as you see how many people have liked it already.

"That's so sweet. But baby... Your fans hate me. They'll stop supporting you if we try and go public..." You warn quietly.

"Then they aren't really my fans, are they?" Jungkook asks, giving you a pointed look. You sigh softly at the question.

"You're right." You finally agree, voice soft as you slowly let yourself lean into him more.

"I've got you, Y/N. It's you and me. And I wouldn't want it any other way..." He says quietly as he moves to kiss your temple, making you blush.

"Let's do a live tonight. I can introduce you to ARMY. Properly this time..." He teases and you giggle and smile up at him.

"Sounds perfect." You whisper before kissing him.

[ofmdrecaps]

11/03-04/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; David Jenkins; Rhys Darby; Gizmo Darby; Taika Waititi; Samson Kayo; Samba Schutte; Kristian Nairn; Cast & Crew Getting out to Vote; Fan Spotlight; Calendar Fundraisers; OFMD Fluffvember; PA: In Person Event Reminder: Calypso's Birthday! Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika;

Hey lovelies, this is once again gonna be kinda weird because major events have happened since I started these drafts.. trying to keep things vague enough for archival purposes, but also respect that things have changed since the 3rd and 4th. Sending all the hugs and love your way.

= David Jenkins =

David and Kinga <3

Source: David's Instagram

= Rhys Darby =

Rhys shared a new trailer for 'That Christmas!'

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rhys Darby (@rhysiedarby)

Source: Rhys Instagram

Darby Daily Doodles on Substack!

Source: Rhys Darby's Substack

Part 7 of the Brooklyn show is up on Rhys' paid substack!

Source: Rhys Darby's Paid Substack

= Gizmo Darby =

Oh just Gizmo being THE MOST ADORABLE. He missed his Rhys.

Source: Rhys Instagram

= Taika Waititi =

Sounds like Taika is in talks to join David Williams family movie, Fing!

Source: Kidscreen.com

= Samson Kayo =

Samson being adorable.

Source: Samson's Instagram Stories

= Samba Schutte =

More of Samba's Stand up!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Samba Schutte (@sambaschutte)

= Kristian Nairn =

Kristian has designed some awesome jewelry! Check it out below!

Source: Kristian's Instagram

OH and in case you missed it- Kristian's got limited edition guitar picks and cool stuff up in his shop!

Source: Kristian's Instagram

= The Crew Got Out to Vote! =

A bunch of our cast & crew were out doing their civic duty! In order of appearance: Adam Stein- Writer, Lindsey Cantrell -Set Director, Christopher Corbin -"We Could Have Made Magic" Actor, and Vico! CW: Partial Vico Nudity!

Source: / Adam Steins Instagram / Lindsey Cantrell's Instagram / / Christopher Corbin's Instagram / Vico's Instagram

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Fundraiser Calendars =

= 2025 Gentlebeard Calendar =

A new 2025 Gentlebeard Calendar is available! Preorders are open from Nov 4-15! Check out this gorgeous work by some of your favorite artists, and make a positive impact as well! Check out @poorlyformed's Shop for more info!

Source: FidisArt Twitter

= All Fired Up =

Another awesome Charity Calendar Preorder is up as well! All Fired up Firefighter calendars are available for preorder over on Ko-Fi!

Source: Ko-fi / Orphaned Nebula's Twitter

== OFMD Fluffvember! ==

Perfect timing -- it's Fluffvember! I'm a little late with sharing this-- but there's some awesome fluff prompts going on over at ofmdfluffvember on twitter!

You can follow along on twitter or AO3!

Source: OFMD Fluffvember on Twitter

== PA: Calypso's Birthday ==

Reminder for all you PA folks! There's a Calypso's Birthday Event going on at Hardo's Haunt in Pittsburgh on Nov 9 at 6pm ET! More info on their instagram!

Source: Harold's Haunt Instagram

== Love Notes ==

It's weird sometimes writing love notes for past days. Today (the 6th) is so much different than the 3rd/4th and so I feel strange writing things when we all can change in a day. So tonight I'm going to mention something I'm seeing all week.... all the time even. I have watched you all from so many platforms this past week, and I continue to be in awe of you. I see people sending each other love notes from across the planet. I see artists who are drawing things JUST to help reduce people's anxiety and give them some distractions. I see people stepping out of their comfort zones and sharing WIPS because they want to make people smile in these hard times. No matter what happens in this world, you are the good in it.

Please remember to tell yourself that. So much kindness, to strangers, to moots, to acquaintances -- people you've met in person, to people you've never met but talk to online. You are the change this world needs. You are the kindness this world needs. They can't take that from you, only you have that power. You are strong, and you are brilliant, and kindness is your strength. Keep shining lovelies. You're doing all you can, and it makes such a huge difference in so many lives.

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

Just these two being the goofy dudes they are. Gifs courtesy of our dear @celluloidbroomcloset and @meluli <3

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

11/05-06/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Rhys Darby; Zayre Ferrer; Con O'Neill; Samba Schutte; Kristian Nairn; David Fane; Anapela Polataivao; Dominic Burgess; Rory Kinnear; Hugo Pierre Martin; Fan Spotlight: 35K on AO3; Our Flag Means Fanfiction; Love Notes: David Jenkins; Rosie Carnahan Darby; Con O'Neill; Samba Schutte; Ruibo Qian; Vico Ortiz; Dominic Burgess; Resources;

Hey crew... doing things a bit different. There was so much love sent by the cast and crew I'm going to put them all in the love notes section and highlight some other stuff going on in the main areas.

= Rhys Darby =

Sneaky Rhys pic from the set of Little Lorraine!

Source: Instagram

= Zayre Ferrer =

We don't see our beloved writer, Zayre Ferrer come out too often, but they popped out to share this wisdom with us. they recommend reading "Let's Move The Needle: An activism handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers" by Shanon Downey. I've already got my audible copy, there's physical, digital, and audio available.

Source: Zayre Ferrer's Instagram

= Con O'Neill =

The first of some love notes/pics from Con to help us all cope!

Source: Con's Instagram

= Samba Schutte =

Samba, our BTS Angel was kind enough to try and keep our spirits up on the night of the election and he brought us this BTS! Need a transcript? You can visit here.

Source: Samba's Twitter

= Kristian Nairn =

Kristian is joining The Republic Of Pirates on November 22-24 in Heathrow UK! For more info, visit www.starfury.co.uk!

Source: Kristian's Instagram

= David Fane =

David Derrick Jr (Co Director of Moana 2) - sharing love for David <3!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Coconet TV (@thecoconettv)

Souce: David Fane's Instagram

= Anapela Polataivao =

Auntie's film Tinā is now an official selection for the PERTH Festival!

Source: Tinā the Film

= Dominic Burgess =

Dominic is once again blessing us with cat content <3

Source: Dominic's Twitter

= Rory Kinnear =

Our dear Nigel and Chauncey Badminton was recently out performing at White Rabbit/Black Rabbit!

Source: Lambert Jackson Production's Instagram

Also, some of our crewmates at the show got to meet Rory! NicNacN00 and Trixn_Treats on twitter were kind enough to allow me share this-- thanks you two!!

Source: NikNakN00's Twitter

= Hugo Pierre Martin =

Our fabulous Valet and fellow crewmate, Hugo left twitter! Wanna stay in touch? Visit his Instagram or His Spotify Work

Source: Hugo's Insta

== Fan Spotlight ==

= A03 hitting 35K =

So I could have sworn I shared this before but I couldn't find it, so just in case, here it is again! Great job everyone 35K fics under the OFMD TV Tag!

Source: @ramsaybaggins Twitter!

= Our Flag Means Fanfiction =

Our friends over at Our Flag Means Fanfiction wanted to remind us of this particular episode. Check it out on Spotify.

Source: Our Flag Means Fanfiction Instagram

== Love Notes ==

Love Notes are going to be a bit different tonight. So much of the cast sent love so I wanted to share them here. I am not going to be able to say anything more than what they've said, but I want you to know this. I know you're all hurting so much. You have every right to be angry and frustrated, and scared. Take some time to yourself. Get some rest, create something, drink water, take your meds. Fall back on others for help. You mean so very much to so many of us, and we will feel the loss of any single spark of you so profoundly. You are wonderful and worthy of this life, so please live out of spite if you have to-- but please don't leave us. We'll figure this out, and we'll fight what's coming, and we'll fucking win. I'm including some resources under the love notes for mental health, activism, and support lines. Please feel free to share more if you have them. We love you crew. We love you, and we care what happens to you, and we will link our arms and fight for you. Feel your fear and despair today, maybe even for a week or so, but come back refreshed, and rested, and know we're here waiting, and fighting with/for you. We will make it through this together.

= David Jenkins =

Source: David Jenkins Instagram

= Rosie Carnahan Darby =

Source: Rosie's Twitter

= Con O'Neill =

Source: Con's Insta

= Samba Schutte =

Source: Samba's Insta

= Ruibo Qian =

Source: Ruibo's Insta

= Vico Ortiz =

Source: Vico's Twitter / Black Liturgies Instagram

= Dominic Burgess =

Source: Dominic's Twitter

= Fandom Love =

Harold's Haunt and @ringasunn, sent you all some love. If you're in the Pittsburgh area, please join them at Harold's Haunt at 6pm ET.

Source: Harold's Haunt Instagram

Our crewmate @smudgeandfrank sent some love notes as well <3

Source: Smudge & Frank's Instagram

== Resources ==

Support:

Source: Human Rights Campaign

Source: OnTheDriftInTheTardis

How to Help:

How to Avoid Burnout w/Activism

Activism Handbook Recommended by Zayre Ferrer

HRT Resources

Trans Resources: Applying for a Passport

[marleyybluu]

Truth or Drink 2

Pedro x fem!reader

WC: 1.4k

omg not her posting another Pedro one after she said she wouldn't for a while... not sorry

Same spots. Same interview but under different circumstances. The makeup artist added the finishing touches to your face. Pedro was in awe of you as usual like a smitten kitten, love was written all over his face. You could feel it, you didn't even have to ask if he was looking at you. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" He innocently shrugged. You rolled your eyes.

The two of you were invited back for another segment of Truth or Drink but this time it was no movie promotion, though you two had separate projects going on, this was about your blossoming relationship. Since the last interview, you and Pedro had finally confessed your feelings to each other and it'd been a blissful ride ever since.

A whole year of surprise dates, endless compliments and kisses, whenever he touched you it made bumps form on your skin as if every time was the first. You too had never loved anyone the way you loved Pedro, you would do anything for him and you made sure he knew that. The makeup was done and soon it was time to record, you were a bit more nervous for this one because the crew had told you guys these questions would be different.

"You guys ready?"

"As always," Pedro answered. The cameraman counted down and pointed for you two to begin, but neither of you said anything. "Am I doing it first this time?" You asked. "By all means."

You blushed and looked at the camera. "Hello, I am YN YLN and this is my... boyfriend Pedro Pascal-" He uttered a giggle and covered his mouth soon after. You laughed hiding behind your hands, this interview might be more chaotic than the last one.

"What do you guys notice about this interview?"

"We didn't have to write our own questions." You answered. "We have pulled questions from various sources. Instagram, Twitter and even people you two are close to."

Pedro playfully frowned. "Shit."

"Same rules apply. You ask, you either say the truth or drink, and you can go ahead with a starter shot."

Pedro picked the drink this time, pouring his and about to pour yours until you stopped him. "Can I have this one, please? I asked them to get me this one." You politely informed pointing to the bottle in the middle. He shrugged pouring your shot and closing back the bottle before placing it back with the others, just like the last time you raised your glasses with a little nod and, "Salud." Once your drinks were down you asked the first question. "Where did you take me on our first date?"

Easy.

He became giggly all over again. "So, you've always said that you hate restaurants as a first date, too bland, too formal, so I booked out an entire arcade for the both of us and we were in there for hours."

You proudly nodded. "Best date ever."

"Good, I'm glad." He blushed. It was his turn to ask. He cleared his throat. "Do we have any pet names for each other?"

You winked. "You love my pet names. I call you Pedrito, Pookie, baby, love... papi Pascal." And judging by his reaction, that might be his favourite one. "My names for her are in Spanish though. So I'll call her mi amor, mi corazon, bébé... I think I'm missing one."

"Cariño." You added. "Oh yeah, she's my cariño."

You leaned back in your chair reading the next question. "What do you like about me, physically? Oh lord." Pedro rubbed his hands together and laughed menacingly, you hid behind your cards knowing he'll say the obvious answer. "Your boobs."

"Alright, interview over."

"No, no, no... relaaax." He played along. "I mean I do like your boobs, but, your eyes do it for me. They're so big and pretty and wondrous, they allow me to look into such a kind loving soul that puts up with me and my antics."

You pouted. "Aww,"

"Boobs are a close second though." He added. "I love your smile the most. When you smile or laugh your eyes close and it's the cutest fucking thing, your entire face lights up too and I could just squish you." You cooed.

You two continued your string of questions, so far nothing was asked that made you want to drink but you still took shots in between for entertainment and the fact that it's free liquor who was passing that up? The first round of questions, you were informed, were mostly from fans and that this round was from close friends and family so it was definitely about to get risqué. You sighed. "Do you think we have enough sex?"

Pedro beamed. "I think we may have too much for people with such busy schedules."

"Are you guys saying you do it whenever and wherever you can?"

You two nodded. "Have you ever done it at a movie premiere or something?"

He reached for the bottle and poured, both of your attempts at keeping a straight face were slowly failing, until you let out a snort that triggered Pedro's. You clinked glasses before taking the shot. "Do you think we'd last if we got married?" Pedro asked. You scrunched up your face, what a ridiculous question. "Of course. You are the most caring and kind person I've ever met, the way you treat me is insane, I've never had anyone love me the way you do," Your voice broke and your eyes burned, you fanned your face and giggled nervously. "Got me crying on camera and shit."

Pedro reached over grabbing your free hand, soothing you by caressing the back of your hand with his thumb. "You know I love you, mama."

"I know." You pouted. "I love you so much."

"I love you so much more." You rolled your eyes gently hitting his arm with the cards, he always had to get the last 'I love you.' He flashed that cute smile that made you melt 100 times over. "Come here," You didn't take even a second thought before getting up to sit on his lap, you rested your head on top of his while he held you close. "How long did it take you guys to say I love you?" One of the crew asked. "Three months," Pedro chuckled. "Truthfully I wanted to say it sooner."

You nodded. "Me too."

Last question. You had a surprise that came with this one. "Are you excited to be a new dad?"

The question didn't really register just yet. "Of course I am. I can't wait for us to start a family one day, and to have another cute face to wake up to. I mean I think maybe I'd wait until I could take a break and then that way I could spend all my time taking care of... wait."

It hit. "Am I excited to be a new dad? But we don't... you're not..."

Pedro bit his lip. "Are you pregnant?"

You reached into your back pocket and pulled out a folded picture of your first ultrasound. He broke. "YN... you're joking."

"I am not," You leaned in and pointed to the little dot. "That little peanut is ours."

Pedro sat speechless which was a rare occasion for him, he took the picture in his hand really trying to comprehend that he assisted in creating another life, that in just nine short months he'd get the one thing he deeply craved, that he yearned for. His own family.

He smiled as a tear slipped from his eye. You wiped it away kissing his temple. "Wait, so what have you been drinking?"

"Diluted apple juice," You answered, you turned the camera and pointed. "Which fucking sucks by the way so my faces were real."

The crew laughed. Pedro still stared at the photo, you rested your head on top of his. "You didn't answer my question. Truth or drink, are you excited to be a dad?"

"Of course, I'm fucking excited," He looked up at you, you pecked his lips. "Thank you," He whispered. "I love you." You whispered back.

"I love you more," He turned to the crew. "I guess the next time you see us we'll have another drinker in the mix." He joked. "Last time we ended this video as a potential couple and this one we are soon to be parents."

"When we come back we'll be married. I promise you that." He hinted. The cameras cut, the crew applauded and congratulated you two. Pedro grabbed your stuff and held them for you as you walked off-set. It's weird to think one little interview that involved a few shots would lead you to where you are now completely and utterly in love.

yes i made him a dad again. yes i warned yall i do this

if you liked this fic, feel free to like this fic. Comments and reblogs are appreciated. peace and love

tags @skyesthebomb

[georgiapeach30513]

I'll be honest, while Deuxmoi always and still does post a ton of BS, thanks to the development of this never-ending saga...I'm starting to really feel like she's been used intentionally to push this narrative along all the way from the very beginning. Aka 2021.

A very out there theory but hear me out: Early on, the fandom had the general consensus DM was BS. Especially in regards to CE. Because DM was the one that first started spreading his super secret GF nonsense back in 2021, right before the introduction of Soba Saga. Her almost nonsensical rants about her having legit sources on this secret GF - while doing weekly podcasts where she insisted she never got any intel on him because his circle was so tight knit (interesting how that suddenly changed out of nowhere when someone showed up) - just made her seem like crazy cat lady gossip conspiracy Marjorie Taylor Greene on steroids.

She was the first to post that "dating Soba for over a year and everyone in PT/her circle knows about it" in early 2022.

They go public in late 2022. 2023 There's some Sunday Spotted (I could be wrong) vDAY post about CE and "fiancé" being seen in town at dinner (sounds very similar to the most recent vDay sighting). That was about 10 months before the super secret wedding and there had been no announcement of being engaged, minus the Tumblr blogs and random third rate tabloids and troll twitter accounts passing on the rumors. DM starts spreading around the same time some Tumblr blogs get the intel about secret engagement, wedding, rift in the family, people on his side not liking Soba, etc. Eventually it is revealed DM was right all along???? In a complete turn of events her credibility goes from zero to 1 (grudgingly of course, while she continues to spill BS daily)

Meanwhile, DM gets the first RPatz sighting with Scarlett and crew at dinner. Nobody believed it - as Nancy mentioned, it just seemed too farfetched with the way that restaurant was set up.

Then in early 2024 we get an actual RPatz sighting with with Soba/CE, and separately, sightings with Scarlett and Colin. Now there's more "credibility" to that random other sighting even if it still can't be proven.

Now...possible project with RPatz and CE's name circulating. Maybe just gossip fodder, maybe some truth to it. Time will tell. Coincidences once again.

DM gets the sighting of CE in LA with Russos. He actually confirms that one himself a month later.

Simultaneously, DM gets random sightings of CE doing other stuff where soba is not mentioned. Nobody knows really what to believe anymore.

But for every 15 BS things she posts, she actually gets 1-2 right. It starts to completely make her a hit or miss source but enough to get people riled up and worried if/when she gets something related to CE/Soba.

In a way, this strategy, if it were to have any salt to it, is kinda interesting. It also sort of enforces the idea of possible foul play. Because if CE is truly in such a happy, private, loveful relationship, why use somebody as uncouth as DM to throw out breadcrumbs? Especially since, in the past, his fanbase and most Tumblr blogs believed it was only legit if it came from someone like People Mag (his team's go-to). Ironically, Page 6 has been getting most of the exclusive scoops this time around, in addition to weird low rate tabloids that eventually make its way to the top.

I know I sound like crazy qanon conspiracy theorist, but I guess people see what they wanna see. But for the people who believe this relationship isn't as genuine as some want to believe, it kind of tracks that somebody's PR team pushing this out in ways to sort of make you wonder, question, and push back on the validity. Just enough to make you think, maybe, maybe there's something going on BTS that they're not saying but they're kinda telling. But you'll never know what the truth is. At least not for now.

I do find DM’s role since 2023 to be very interesting indeed. You missed nothing. Not one thing. She’s made herself be credible enough during this, but also, she’s questionable. So of course, take everything she says with a grain of salt.

I made this comment a bit ago to someone else, he still uses People. Who got the Jinx articles first. Think about that for a moment. He. Just him.

As far as the last paragraph, what I will say is celebrities need to be talked about. Good or bad, they need the press. They need to be in the front of people’s minds. What better way to have them in people’s minds, and to have fans talk about something long past their expiration date than by playing a game. PR has become such a hot topic word, and I think very few people even understand it. But to me, if you’re having to play so many games, what really is real? Live your life. Isn’t that what we continue to be told they’re doing?

[julieunbroken]

Resisting You - Tartaglia x Reader (Fem)

art credit : @umnume on twitter !!

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You decided to visit Northland Bank in Liyue to deposit some Mora you've had for a while. You open the door and it still looks the same as you remember, such as the interior and the feeling you got from the place.  "Good afternoon y/n, how have you been?" the receptionist smiles and gives you some extra Mora as a gift

"It's good to see you again" you respond. "I just wanna deposit some Mora I've saved for a while if that method is still allowed" 

"Of course," "just give me a moment. While I'm busy, would you mind showing me the amount you have?" the receptionist turns away and you dig through your things to get it out. You had a lot in there and as you were counting all the Mora you had, it spilled all over the floor. "I'm so sorry I was just checking over how much Mora I had an-" you were interrupted by the 11th harbinger, who stared down at you confusingly. 

"Need any help?" he asks you. You look startled, and as he reaches his hand out you zone out from looking at his hand, admiring how attractive he is with his veiny, strong hand. He keeps on asking if you're okay and you return to your regular state of mind. "S-sorry, I was just... zoning out..." you say while completely flustered, not knowing how to react. 

"Haha, it's fine don't worry, most people are like that with me" "Anyway, I'm one of the 11 Fatui Harbingers, my actual name is Childe but I go by Tartaglia. So you can choose which name you wanna refer to me as." He winks at you. 

You stand there in shock after he introduces himself and he walks off, you knew you couldn't resist his charm. Tartaglia had something in himself that stood out to you, you weren't sure what it was but you knew he had it. You deposit the mora and leave the bank, still flustered from that moment. 

Time goes by and you're walking around Liyue, and you run into Tartaglia again. 

"Oh hey, weren't you the person that I ran into at the bank?" Tartaglia asks.

"No yeah, it's me. Haha, once again I'm sorry about that, s-something happened..." You look away shyly, and he looks blankly at you.  "No problem, it usually happens with every customer, not sure why." He says while looking around, he notices you staring at him while blushing. "Do you have a staring problem?" he asks in a bold tone. 

"N-no? It's just... never mind." You stutter on your words. "It's fine, I like it," he mutters. "A-anyway, you wanna just take a stroll? I have nothing to do." Tartaglia asks, you're quite hesitant to say yes but you end up accepting anyway. 

As you guys are walking around town talking about whatever comes to your mind Tartaglia seems to take a liking to you. He kept on asking more about you and wanted to know what you're actually like. "Hey y/n, would you like to come to my place for the rest of the day? Sorry if that's so sudden to ask... heh." He nervously asks. You were still hesitant to say yes but you thought it was nice of him to offer that so you accepted again.

You walk into his place and look around and never realize how much money he has. Tartaglia gives you a tour of what his rooms look like and you ask him where he got all this money from.

 "Well, I can't say my source of income because it's... private business, the best way to word it. But I lied to my siblings and said that I owned a toy factory across Tevyat." He laughs. 

"Oh okay, just asking." You laugh with him. 

"Do you wanna come up to my room? It's quite interesting up there" Tartaglia asks you. "Alright, that's fine. I've been wanting to know what it looks like anyway." 

Taraglia takes your hand and walks you up the stairs. "You're such a gentleman" you point out, "I know, y/n." He says and grabs you closer to him. "I know you can't resist me, don't deny it." He grabs your face and pins you to the wall. "I know we just met but that's not the point. You're all mine." He starts kissing you and drags you onto the bed. 

"You're so cute." He starts kissing down towards your body and you put your legs around him. "Y/n, you're comfortable with me doing this right? I don't wanna do anything to hurt you." He looks up, "Yeah, I'm fine with it, trust me." You close your eyes and let him do his things. Tartaglia starts eating you out and you can't help but enjoy the pleasure. 

"Y/n, don't hold in those moans, I wanna hear them. I want you to feel good while I lick your " He looks up at you again and you look away immediately. You start moaning loudly and he couldn't help but mention how cute they sound. As he finishes eating you out, he tells you to turn around and puts his massive cock inside of you.

"You like that don't you, huh?" Tartaglia thrusts into you harder. 

"Do you want me to continue thrusting into your tight pussy y/n?" He let out a little moan and continued what he was doing. "Ah~ T-T-Tartaglia please... fuck me up~ it feels so good..." you moan louder and he begins to thrust even harder than before. "Ah, you're taking it so well y/n, aren't you? Ngh~" He smirks at you, watching you become vulnerable to his pleasure. "Ah~ ngh~" Tartaglia lets out a few whimpers. He cums inside you and you're left on the bed with your whole body shaking from how good it felt. 

You enjoyed that moment so much and Tartaglia lies down next to you and held your hand, making sure that you were okay, after many hugs and kisses, you both fell asleep on his bed together. 

[69misato69]

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures (Alhaitham x Kaveh) ✦ smut, 3.5k

archive of our own ✦ twitter

masterlist pinned on my profile !

Summary: Kaveh overhears Haytham having a one night stand and he is unable to think of anything but fucking him. The initial premise was meant to be crack, then it turned into an actual fic but I do still find it kind of funny if I'm being honest. I hope you enjoy :)

Top Alhaitham x Bottom Kaveh

cw: blowjobs, handjobs, ejaculation, slight overstim, unprotected anal sex

writer's note: explicit +18 content, please view at your own risk. thank you, have fun !

“Haytham!” Kaveh angrily walked into the living room to find his roommate reading on the couch as always, “We have a problem.”

The scribe didn’t lift his gaze from the page and turned it over with his index finger, “I have a feeling that it's your problem and I have absolutely nothing to do with it.” Kaveh crossed his arms at his chest, refusing to follow-up in an attempt to get his attention. Per usual, it was a futile effort, so he gave up with a long, annoyed exhale, “I can’t get laid. It’s getting out of hand.”

Alhaitham was unfazed by the abrupt indecency, it was Kaveh after all, he had spent years trying to teach the concept of boundaries to him but the man was sticking to his values of oversharing and making every detail of his life public to their small household. “Impossible, it's your only source of income.” Alhaitham jested, skilfully hiding the half-smirk that formed on the corner of his mouth. Kaveh gasped and squeezed his fists, “Rude and untrue.” he protested. Alhaitham turned another page and settled more comfortably in his seat, “Mmhm, do go on.”

“My proposal is to fuck.”

“Seems like an appropriate solution, any candidates?”

Alhaitham could see where this conversation was going from miles away, but for now his plan was playing dumb and savoring the moment as his roommate further embarrassed himself. “The proposal is for you and me.” Kaveh certainly didn’t sound ashamed, laying down an unchaste and indecent offer as if it was nothing. 

“You want us to fuck?”

“Yes. What is your answer?”

“Who fucks who?

“You top.”

“Why, you don't like it?

Alhaitham heard footsteps approaching him, Kaveh snatched the book away from his hand and put it down on the table. Alhaitham hated it when he did that, but he was drawing too much joy from the situation that he wasn’t bothered at all.

Kaveh stood between his parted legs and looked down on him with his arms crossed once again. “Haytham. Listen to me very carefully. Fucking you won’t solve my problem. This is serious. I need to be thrown around, okay? I need to forget my own name. I can’t take it anymore. You’re as emotional as a Scarab, so I’m sure you won't catch feelings. Also, I assume you’re packing down there. So please , stop drawing this out and just answer me.” he explained calmly, as if the words he uttered weren’t absolutely insane. 

Alhaitham nodded, “Fine, I accept.” Kaveh’s eyes lit up momentarily, then the spark vanished with the growing awkwardness between them. Alhaitham parted the silence, “What are you waiting for?” Kaveh was frozen in place, he hadn’t planned things this far. He didn’t even think the scribe would accept. Though it seemed impulsive, it had been on his mind for some time, since the day he was supposed to check up on a project and stay overnight in the desert last week. 

He had told Alhaitham beforehand, it was an unspoken rule between the two. Kaveh enjoyed having people over but they kept it confined within the walls of his bedroom, Alhaitham would only see those people for a moment in the mornings when they would be leaving, but he would never bring home someone he was involved with. Kaveh didn’t exactly know why, but he knew that the scribe definitely cared for his privacy. Regardless of the reason, he tried to tell Alhaitham when he was going to be away, in case he wanted to have the house to himself and have people over. Everytime he came back he would notice signs but would never pester his roommate about it. 

So last weekend, he got ready for his departure as always, failing to account for the fact that he was extremely tired. He came home and went to bed immediately, confident that he would easily get up near noon and leave with the convoy. But when he finally opened his eyes, rested and light as a feather, the time was nearing five in the afternoon. 

He got off the bed, cursing as he made his way through the kitchen to quench his thirst. He sat on the balcony for a while and then ran inside upon spotting Alhaitham in the distance. The scribe approached the door, Kaveh could hear him from the large window opening to the balcony. But he wasn’t alone, there was a tall brunette tangled around his arm. Kaveh rubbed his temples, trying to devise a plan by the time they made their way up. 

If he left he would undoubtedly run into them, plus he wasn’t even dressed. Even if he found a way to evade them, everyone that would welcome him in the city was out in the desert with the rest of the team. Though he liked to poke fun at Alhaitham, he handled most of the housework, cooking and cleaning, taking care of their plants and, taking care of Kaveh. It was his house after all, and if he saw Kaveh there he would surely never bring anyone home ever again. Kaveh truly didn’t want to shatter his trust in him. 

So, the only option was to hide in his room. It wasn’t so bad, he was still tired after all. Hurriedly, he sneaked a bottle of water and some snacks and ran to his bed. Alhaitham walked in with the man that Kaveh didn’t know, they cooked dinner together, laughing and talking about things that were terribly boring to the blonde. Yet, it was interesting to hear Alhaitham crack up at the jokes, he surely never laughed like that at Kaveh or at anyone at work. 

It was actually kind of nice to see a more human side of him. Kaveh couldn’t help but smile all evening, sketching his new plans quietly and occasionally taking breaks to eavesdrop on the two. From what he had gathered, it didn’t seem like a serious relationship, maybe it was just a casual thing, and maybe it wasn’t even a ‘relationship’ at all, Kaveh thought, until later that night, when Alhaitham took the man to his room. 

After that, all that Kaveh heard was the rustling of clothes and kisses through the thin walls, and the man moaning Alhaitham’s name over and over again. Kaveh should’ve just plugged his ears, but he felt paralyzed, unable to move a single muscle until he realized he was gripping tightly onto the sheets. He whispered curses when he felt a twitch in his groin, it was extremely annoying to get hard at Alhaitham’s grunts. 

Aside from the frustration he also felt, perverted. It was wrong , slipping his hand inside his boxers was wrong, imagining his own self under Alhaitham was wrong, lusting over something that he wasn’t even meant to hear was so wrong. But, that didn’t stop him. He laid down, playing with himself to the melody of his roommate’s soft moans and words of praise. 

It was so unattainable, what that man was achieving. It was so out of touch for someone like Kaveh. What he felt wasn’t jealousy, but it was certainly something. After the two settled down, Kaveh also felt his eyelids get heavy once again. He rid himself of the overwhelming thoughts and drifted off to sleep. Luckily, the house was empty in the morning. All that remained was a note with beautiful handwriting that Alhaitham slipped through the door, probably before leaving for work. 

“Hope you had a safe trip back. I’ll be away until tomorrow. Please do not leave the window open again. H.”

Kaveh sighed. He went to drop off the plans and apologize for missing the trip. Since he was going to have the house all to himself, he decided to hit the tavern and hopefully find someone to spend the night with. He desperately needed to shake off Alhaitham’s voice from his ears, but it seemed impossible. Instead of taking an interest in newcomers, he spent the entire night drinking and thinking of his roommate. 

Kaveh barely made it through the rest of the week, bickering with Alhaitham as usual but having his mind drift off to lewd fantasies of him whenever he was unoccupied was exhausting and confusing. So he really wasn’t lying when he told Alhaitham that he couldn’t get laid, Kaveh had just conveniently left out the part that Alhaitham was the reason for that, and the only cure for his debilitating condition. 

“I—don’t know. Do something, Haytham.”

“I take care of your drunk ass every night, you do something for once.” 

“Fine, but don’t enjoy it too much.”

Kaveh lowered himself to his knees and reached to undo the scribe’s pants. “I don’t think I will.” Alhaitham chuckled. 

“Stop being mean or I’ll bite.”

“It’d be the last time you ever bite anything, Kaveh.” 

Kaveh couldn’t help but laugh as he slipped away his roommate’s underwear. “Damn, pretty.” he remarked out loud accidentally. It really was decent, Kaveh couldn’t help but imagine it inside himself, the thought lit a spark in his groin. “It’s a dick?” Alhaitham said, bewildered by Kaveh’s comment. 

“So, I’m not allowed to find it pretty?”

“Why don't you suck it so I can have some peace and quiet?”

Kaveh huffed and looked up at him daringly. Not fighting back was taking everything he had, but for once, Kaveh had the chance to actually impress Alhaitham. When it came to housework, the scribe would always complain that he didn’t do things properly, and when he acclaimed Kaveh's work as an architect, well, that wasn’t really a personal thing. So, he decided to revel in the opportunity. He tied up his hair neatly and leaned forward, holding onto Alhaitham’s waist with both of his hands. 

Kaveh first left a trail of kisses all over his thighs, grazing his teeth over the sensitive skin. Alhaitham twitched at the sensation as the blonde’s mouth moved up to his groin. He dragged his tongue around the scribe’s cock hungrily, being rewarded with light moans. Kaveh sucked on the tip, looking up shamelessly before sliding his mouth all the way down. 

He was bobbing his head up and down and altering the way he sucked and released with such precision that Alhaitham felt like he could orgasm at any moment if he wanted to. “Not bad.” he mumbled, it was an understatement but was necessary to humble Kaveh. 

But he was persistent, he supported his movements by placing one hand around Alhaitham’s base, timing them in a way that he knew would drive his roommate insane. Curses spilled out of Alhaitham as he yanked on Kaveh’s ponytail and pulled him up by the waist. 

“Hey! I wasn’t done.” the blonde objected, but he still wrapped his arms around his roommate’s neck regardless. Alhaitham freed his hair from the pin and pressed a kiss onto his neck, “Well, I want you here, on my lap.”

Kaveh felt his heart skip a beat, Alhaitham stripped him slowly while peppering kisses all over his upper body. He shivered once he was fully naked on the scribe’s lap, the erection rubbing against his entrance already.

Alhaitham took such good care of him, massaging his thighs, playing with his hardened nipples and leaving bite marks all over his sensitive skin. Kaveh held onto his roommate’s shoulders for support, he felt like a ball of yarn at the mercy of a cat’s paws, he had no choice but to unravel. 

Alhaitham slipped two fingers in Kaveh’s mouth, watching the blonde carefully as he sloppily lubricated them, eager to move on. Kaveh was already grinding back and forth, he couldn’t help it, just as he couldn’t help tilting his head back and moaning Alhaitham’s name as he quivered for his touch. 

Alhaitham took out his fingers and circled them around Kaveh’s hole. Though they had been in this position for some time, Kaveh leaned in for the first time to kiss his roommate on the lips. Alhaitham passionately responded, intruding Kaveh’s mouth with his tongue and his hole with his fingers. 

The blonde sank even deeper on his lap, grinding onto the digits with excitement. His moans escaped into Alhaitham’s mouth, hot breath hovering over the scribe’s face. Alhaitham pulled away and lifted his lips to line up with his entrance, Kaveh took a deep breath before pushing all the way down, all in one go with a low groan. 

Alhaitham hissed, the warmth came so suddenly, and Kaveh’s walls sucked him up with no hesitation or delay, it was impressive, how he took it with such ease and the way fit him perfectly. “So good, Kaveh.” Alhaitham purred in his ear while playing with his nipples. The blonde stuttered and then decided not to speak at all. Instead, he slid back and forth, up and down in circular motions, fucking himself on Alhaitham’s cock as he kept pampering him. 

“L—let’s go inside.” Kaveh offered. Alhaitham carried him to his bedroom without pulling out, with every step he took the blonde gently hopped up on his lap. The scribe entered and immediately slammed Kaveh on the wall, he cried out from the overwhelming sensations, the cold surface against his back, the sharp momentary pain that stabbed his hips, and the way Alhaitham reached so far up his hole with the force of the impact. He was thrusting somewhere so deep that Kaveh didn’t even know such a place existed. 

“Thrown around, you said, right? Does this suffice?

Alhaitham pushed him even further, instead of letting Kaveh slip back, he held his hips and drew them in, maintaining the depth that made Kaveh’s eyes widen with every thrust. “I don’t know about making you forget your own name but I’ll make sure you at least won’t be able to speak it.” Alhaitham cooed in his ear. Kaveh was already far gone, drool spilled from his lips over to his roommate’s chest, he was gasping for air, breathing out incoherent words. 

Alhaitham kept holding him close, Kaveh didn’t deserve anything short of being filled up to the brim. Though, after a few more thrusts, he felt warm liquid seep out of Kaveh’s tip and pulled away, leaving only an understimulating portion inside. Instinctively, the blonde tried to wrap his fingers around his cock but Alhaitham swiftly pinned both of his wrists above his head with a single move. Kaveh winced at the distress, he struggled to free his hands and whined, “Stop it, Haytham, you’re—ruining it.” 

Alhaitham smirked, “Oh, am I?” The rest of Kaveh’s load leaked out pathetically as he begged the scribe to help him out. Alhaitham didn’t seem to care, he watched the blonde ride it out with a cruel and merciless smile. “Put me down.” Kaveh spat out angrily. 

Alhaitham stepped away and released his grip on his wrists and hip. Kaveh hadn’t accounted for the fact that his legs were on the edge of giving out, with Alhaitham gone he collapsed on the floor, his knees knocking up against the harsh, wooden surface. Alhaitham grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled it back roughly so Kaveh would look up at him. 

“I’ll give you a proper one, Kaveh. I promise.” His words were comforting but the playful look on his face surely wasn’t. Regardless, Kaveh was hitting a point where all the pain started to feel right. His aching back, knees and hips, his abused hole that was already yearning for more, and now the stinging feeling at the base of his scalp. It had become so pleasurable, so delicious as it pumped adrenaline through Kaveh’s veins. 

Alhaitham was just as he expected, selfish and impudent, disregarding the amount of agony he was putting Kaveh through and discourteously ruining his high while feeling zero remorse. The more Kaveh realized it, the more he was drawn to the scribe. He stuck out his tongue, leaving a wet trail from Alhaitham’s base all the way up to his tip. He encased his cock inside his lips, this time much more gently, grazing the tip against the insides of his cheeks. 

Alhaitham had expected him to make a bigger fuss before settling into submission again. “I didn’t know you could behave so well.” he gave a backhanded compliment that made Kaveh’s brows furrow and pushed his head away. The blonde’s whines stayed muffle on his throat when the scribe picked him up and laid him on the bed. 

Kaveh relaxed onto the mattress, finally resting on a soft surface. Alhaitham sat between his legs, but the sight suddenly stunned him. He had seen Kaveh almost everyday for the past two years, and in almost every conceivable scenario. Exhausted and alert, sober and drunk out of his mind, snorting from laughter and sobbing uncontrollably. But this was a new entry, unregistered. Laying down on the bed with bruised knees and a sheer coat of sweat, eager to have Alhaitham take care of him. His golden locks scattered over the pillow and his cheeks tinted pink.

He looked absolutely breathtaking, and Alhaitham realized that he never stared at him for this long. The most he would do was take stolen, quick glances from his book when Kaveh would fall asleep on the couch. Not that he was going to wake up, but secretly Alhaitham was scared of seeing something, he didn’t even know what that “something” was, but now it was clear to him. Kaveh was beautiful, ethereal. Slithering over him lustfully, it wasn’t like anything Alhaitham had ever seen before. 

You’re as emotional as a Scarab, Haytham. 

“I know, I’m pretty.” Kaveh snapped him out of his thoughts, Alhaitham had lost track of time, he scoffed with a dramatic eye-roll, “And a shallow idiot.”

“Well you almost came inside that idiot two times so that makes you even more shallow.”

“What?”

“You edged twice, didn’t you?”

“How do you know that?”

“Well I felt it.”

Alhaitham chuckled, he was awfully good at hiding every physical cue, it was interesting, Kaveh was oblivious to his mastery during daily life, but apparently he was immune to the deception when it came to being intimate. 

“How is it that a field expert like you can't find someone?” Alhaitham quipped as he leaned forward and slid inside. 

“I—fuck—don’t know. It’s been like that for the past week.”

“No luck yesterday either?”

“Uhh…not really. I sat at the tavern but no one even bought me a drink.”

“I would. If you were there.”

“Sorry?” Kaveh was flushed, his legs wrapped around the scribe’s waist went numb for a moment, his mind was at a blank as well. 

“I was at the tavern yesterday, doing corrections. Almost all night.” Alhaitham seemed very calm, he was sliding in and out with a relaxed pace, watching Kaveh slowly lose composure and fall apart. It truly was a terrible time for his roommate to come up with an excuse or a lie, and that was why Alhaitham had brought it up right then and there. 

Kaveh felt like an ice cube slowly melting away into a puddle, for a brief moment it actually seemed pretty ideal to disappear so he didn’t have to deal with the situation. Luckily, Alhaitham didn’t expect an explanation, he picked up the pace, eliciting deep moans off of the blonde’s lips. Kaveh was already feeling close again, still longing for a satisfactory relief unlike his last.  

“Your cute little ploy is very amusing but the next time you want me, just say so.” Alhaitham mewled as he nibbled on the blonde’s neck. “Shut up, it wasn’t a—Ah!--ploy.” Kaveh opposed. The scribe chuckled, he brushed against his roommate’s prostate to work him out even more, Kaveh gasped, it was becoming harder and harder to defend himself. 

“You were here last week, weren’t you?” Alhaitham asked. He lifted Kaveh’s hips with a slight angle and pressed down on his groin. The blonde whimpered, the unexpected pressure was making him even more sensitive as more blood rushed to his lower body. 

“I thought a bright man such as yourself would at least think to hide away his shoes.” Alhaitham continued. He was shamelessly badgering Kaveh, enjoying the sight as he squirmed and tried to cover his blushing face with his hands.

“Ah, I see. You’re not embarrassed because you heard it, you’re embarrassed because you liked it.” 

“Please—” Kaveh pleaded.

“You laid here and fucked yourself like a freak, didn’t you?” 

Kaveh was living through an insane thrill, he was desperate against Alhaitham’s claims, they were terribly accurate, as if the scribe could read his mind. Hearing Alhaitham belittle him usually annoyed Kaveh, but in the heat of the moment he felt euphoric, an overload of emotions as his body fluctuated between shame and pleasure. 

Alhaitham’s eyes had darkened, an evil grin was sculpted on his face. He wrapped his fingers around Kaveh’s dick and slid his hand up and down. “Didn’t you?” he repeated the question, not that it needed an answer, but hearing Kaveh admit to his degeneracy would simply be delicious. 

Tears pooled around Kaveh’s eyes as he struggled to talk, “I hate—” but before the blonde could say “you”, he released so intensely that his vision went dark for a second. Ropes of cum shot out in between them as his body spasmed and released. 

Alhaitham hummed, “Ironic.” 

[matan4il]

Update post:

During the night, a suspicious aerial object fell inside Israel, a little north of our most southern city, Eilat. At the same time, a senior in the Iran-funded Yemenite terrorist organization referred to as the Houthis, who have targeted Eilat before, posted on his Twitter account on Mar 15, in both Arabic and Hebrew, "month of Jihad." They're not officially taking responsibility for having fired a rocket at our civilians (on top of their on going attacks against global shipping), but they're doing the closest thing to this that they can.

On Saturday, the Jewish day of rest, a Palestinian terrorist had entered a Muslim cemetery in Hebron, and started shooting from it at the Jewish neighborhood of the city. The terrorist was eliminated. He turned out to be an Imam at a local mosque, and a member of Hamas. According to a TV reporter, the terrorist missed by just mere inches a boy who was passing on the street. During and after this terrorist attack, the Jewish residents (much like in other terrorist attacks on Jewish communities, including this recent attempted stabbing attack) were asked to lock themselves in until the IDF is done searching the area, to make sure there aren't additional terrorists still lurking about. The next time that you see anti-Israel propaganda posts about cemeteries, please remember that if Islamists don't respect their own burial sites and the Muslims buried there enough to avoid using these places as grounds for terrorist activity, Israelis certainly are not going to place those cemeteries above defending living Jews.

Following intel that Hamas terrorists have once again taken shelter in the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, and using it as a base for their opereations, IDF troops have entered it, killed several terrorists and arrested 80 others. Again, people who don't want hospitals raided by armed forces, shouldn't use those as a base for terrorist activity. And I have to point out (because I've seen this misconstrued) that hospitals do lose their protection under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) when they are used by militants: "The protection to which fixed medical establishments and mobile medical units are entitled shall not cease unless they are being used to commit acts, outside their humanitarian duties, that are harmful to the enemy." It IS a war crime for terrorists to use a hospital this way. It is NOT a war crime, for a defending army to raid a hospital being used by terrorists, in order to protect its own civilian population from those terrorists.

During the raid on the hospital, an Israeli soldier was killed, 20 years old Matan Vinogradov from Jerusalem. Matan is the 250th IDF soldier to be killed during the fighting in Gaza. May his and their memory be a blessing.

I found Hebrew journalistic sources with pics, reporting on a man who came on March 15 to a pro-Israel protest in Washington with a burner (an actual burner, not a disposable phone), used it to threaten the protesters, and was arrested. I can't find an online English source, because every search I tried to do, gets drowned in how many anti-Israel protesters have been arrested. I don't think I ever feel the gap between what Israelis hear and know, and what the rest of the world does, more than in moments like these, when I can't find a single English source for info that was all over the national news on TV here.

Another one that I can find only in Hebrew news tweets and articles: UNRWA's offices in Jerusalem are seeing a protest from dozens of Israeli demonstrators, who are accusing the UN agency for its complicity in the Hamas massacre. Zaka (whose body bags were used in this demonstration) is the NGO responsible for handling bodies and collecting body parts after Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis, including on Oct 7. The protesters said that even though UNRWA has been denounced, it still continues to "operate normally, with its employees continuing their work as they always do, in the building they got for free from the Israeli government."

Did the following vid, about an Iranian American (non-Jewish) artist making a joint mural for Jews, Israelis and Iranians as an inspiration and dedication to all Middle Eastern women, make me cry? Yes, it did. So I'm sharing it.

This is 20 years old Daniel Peretz.

He was born in South Africa (where most of the Jewish community is descended from Eastern European Jews, who were fleeing pogroms), and his family made aliyah when he was 13 years old. He loved sports and hiking, and people talked he would always happily lend others a helping hand. Yesterday, we got the news that the IDF has collected enough findings to determine that he had been murdered by Hamas on Oct 7, and his body is held hostage in Gaza. An IDF rabbi has determined that among the findings, there is enough to hold a funeral, so IDK for sure, but I can guess this means body parts. The funeral is scheduled for today. For those keeping track, what we currently know is that there are 134 Israelis kept captive in Gaza, and at most, 99 of them are still alive. May Daniel's memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[ghouloflove]

when worlds collide.

in other words, the only female member of the biggest korean band in the world goes to formula 1 race in monaco with a friend; only to meet a certain ferrari driver.

pairing: charles leclerc x oc/fc (reader is an idol)

authors note: hello hello, this is me simply trying my attempt at sm aus! lately been fixated on f1, even trying to learn more about:) ofc a tiktok popped up abt charles then opps down the rabbit hole 🕳️ n recently found out that Wi (squid game actor) was at monaco this year so obviously I was like…..somethings cooking. then the 10th anniversary came for bts then again….something is being made. anyways hope you all like! (trying my best on remembering on certain ascents of the kpop social media goes cuz i'm not thatttt deep into it anymore!)

ps. soyeon is the actual name of the fc, i simply changed it to kim soyeon. check her and group out, G-IDLE! annndd her signature emoji is 🐻‍❄️! ALSO Monaco Grand Prix takes place three races into the 2023 season, for the sake of appropriate posts 🥴 this little sm au has its own race schedule for special purposes because lord knows I don't do well with dates so !!! but Im pretty sure all the race dates are the same, just the races switch spots :) and of course, google translated korean, french and italian will appear.

-enjoy.

part two. part three.

[ instagram ]

s0ye0nnnn

liked by rkive, wi_wi_wi, soye0nssloot and 4,589,890 others

s0ye0nnn monaco 🇲🇨 f1 race weekend with wi ! met some cool people and had some great laughs. first time but definitely not my last kekee

view all 1,673,890 comments

wi_wi_wi why not redbull though!?

rkive we must go to one together!

view 53,389 replies

s0ye0nnn 🙌

luvusoye0n wowoww wishing u hadn’t gone on charles curse home race 🥲 he’s great tho!

tomholland2013 wonderful seeing you again! glad you had fun!

scuderiaferrari it was an absolute pleasure having you visit and chat with us at the padlock! 😎 team Ferrari, yes?

view 12,456 replies

s0yeonsluvr shes got incredible taste, as always 😌

charleslec01 idk who she is, except shes in a band but i like her already lol

mysticalyeon holdupholdup….chat? with who👀

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letsgossip_kpop

liked by ncccct101 and 321,789 others

letsgossip_kpop [ ASIDE FROM GOSSIP, LET’S UPDATE ⬆️: Kim Soyeon, the only female member of BTS (an international sensation group), has recently attended the Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix over the weekend. With Wi Ha-Jun, star of Squid Games, she was spotted chatting with her previous co-star from the animated film Onward, Tom Holland and others such as Actor James Marsden (who she has been rumored to be featuring in a film with as his on-screen lover). It seems her most talked about conversation even by her close friend, Wi Ha-Jun—was with the Ferrari team and drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. There are no sources on what the conversation contained but her friend Wi Ha-Jun comment on her recent instagram post suggests her team is now Ferrari, “Why not redbull though?!” Perhaps there will be more to be said once she and fellow member, Kim Namjoon, attend a Grand Prix together as shown in her comments. Will this remain just an update or turn into gossip? Stay tuned! - from your admin 🌱]

view all 102,678 comments

charlecssss sooo….shes the only female in BTS? i remember seeing her around them all time pictures or videos of them came up but like…???

f0rmulatypee1 nice to see someone like her status get familiar with the sport, but hopefully she’ll turn team Redbull 🙏 the winners 🏆

s0yeonmyluv WHEN MY WOLDSS CLOOIDE 💀

k.f1.pop i was literally just saying what if F1 drivers had photocards 👹

letsgossip_kpop UPDATE ⬆️: Charles Leclerc, and Carlos Sainz have followed Kim Soyeon’s social media (Instagram and Twitter). Other drivers such as Lewis Hamiliton, Lando Norris and Zhou Guanyu have followed her before her recent introduction to Formula 1. (Admin 👾: my worlds have collided!)

maxverssstp fuck outtaa here, cirnge 🤢

lalaaland noooo this was the only place away from the freaks in kpop🥴

s0yeonnnbby idk y ppl r hating like…shes like everyone else, trying have a good time n yet ppl r mad that drivers r starting (AND BEEN) following her????🤠

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[ twitter ]

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[ instagram ]

s0ye0nnn

liked by rkive, thv, wi_wi_wi, 101ofkims, charles_leclerc and 4,890,487 others

s0ye0nnn 10 years of pain. of comfort. of love. of heartbreak. of the highest of highs, to the scum of the earth lows. of questions, “can you do this?”, “is this the end?”, “can you handle this?”.

this group went from strangers to friends to family. i was the odd one out, most definitely. i was a girl in a group with seven boys. i was originally meant to leave the company but the man who believed we could become something pushed me into the group. it was strange—then it wasn’t.

year after year, we slowly formed a family. with one thing in common: we loved music. music has always been in my blood, even in my blood family. my found family has created melodies , poetry hidden in symbolic instrumentals and videos descriptive of what is and what is not.

within that, we found others like us. others that may not be in musical industry but found their place and home in our music—that is you, ARMY.

당신의 삶을 우리와 공유해 주셔서 감사합니다. 여전히 우리와 함께 걸어주셔서 감사합니다. 모두가 돌아올 때까지 기다려 주셔서 감사합니다. 💜 ( translation: Thank you for sharing your life with us. Thank you for still walking with us. Thanks for waiting for everyone to come back. )

view all 1,089,678 comments

rkive beautiful words, 작은 곰 🐻‍❄️🤍

view 12,467 replies

s0ye0nnn 최고에게 배웠다 ! 🐨🤍 ( translation: learned from the best! )

b0anggtans enough to amke a grown woman 😢

thv 🐻‍❄️❤️

biassssjk the last photonnnn!!!!! idk y but thats so cute 🥹

purpuryouuu 10 yearsssss 😅 been here for 5💜💜💜

charles_leclerc Just began listening to your discography! Can’t wait for your future projects, solo and group! ❤️ Happy 10 years 😆

view 1,098 replies

s0ye0nnn come visit korea! some behind the scenes? 👀

cl16lucyyy aaARIAN WHAT U DOH G HERRE!?! 💀😭

f14liferrrr no charles!!! stay Way from kpoppiess! 🚫

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s0ye0nnn

tagged rkive

liked by rkive, wi_wi_wi, charles_leclerc, scuderiaferrari, and 5,098,450 others

s0ye0nnn Australian Grand Prix 🇦🇺 with joonie! 🐨 was very fun, nice views and such great company (on and off track?) !

view all 1,098,762 comments

rkive mercedes....🐻‍❄️

view 15,098 replies

s0ye0nnn hushhhhh k.f1.pop RM knows whatsup

scuderiaferrari It was an absolute pleasure having you with us! You must come again, lucky charm!

danielricciardo Despite opposite teams, it was so cool to meet and chat for awhile! Good laughs 😁

s0yoyoens slayed everyone, ate, left no crumbs, walk me like a dog!!!!!!

charles_leclerc I think your words helped a bit, haha 😉 Coming to next one?

view 5,647 replies

s0ye0nnn noooo, your talent! and of course, this is my new obsession! 😍 s0yeonmyluv SHUT UO NOW omfgggg WHAT WORDS?// KET ME INNNNN formula1n1mv charlesssss....you're approaching new and scary territory !!!

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[ twitter ]

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authors final note:

i really hope you all enjoy this! this is sorta one of the social media au where it's a somewhat slow build because lets be honest, just meeting once and dating right after aint happening, plus who doesn't love the subtle growth of a friendship ;) oh and this universe of kpop are actually treated like humans by their company and can date but of course, haters are going hate plus Kim Soyeon is THAT bitch. ofc you are be her, that is essentially the purpose but i kinda dislike "y/n" idk just kinda makes it hard for me to make everything look good but dw just close ur eyes and imagineeeee, soyeon is just a fc for the posts keke. if you want to be tagged in the next part, comment and i'll do it! PART TWO IS ALREADY IN THE MAKING, LITERALLY ALMOST DONE WITH IT.

guide: i am always open to constructive criticism. i'm always down to learn how to better and try to implement them.

--and that world is yours, until next time.

[mal3vol3nt]

Hey first of all, I love your blog. In a world full of Anti-Aang nonsense. Aang, Kataang and (real) Katara positivity is refreshing to see.

Secondly, Kataang is one of my favorite ships, I love the friends to lovers trope and I think they’re peak friends to lovers. However someone argued that that they don’t work as friends to lovers for a bunch a reasons, namely because we supposedly don’t see much of the friendship part of it and because of Aang acting entitled in EIP.

I personally think that (aside from maybe two episodes) Aang and Katara’s more than friendship feelings for each other were able to exist quite comfortably within their close friendship, namely because they had a strong sense of mutual respect, admiration and appreciation for each other and neither demanded that they like the other back.

What do you think?

This is the post BTW:

https://www.tumblr.com/ecoterrorist-katara/753864289132134400/kataang-friends-to-lovers?source=share

awe thank you anon <3

it’s serious business being out here defending aang and katara from ridiculously shitty fandom takes but somebody’s gotta do it 😮‍💨

——

the claim that kataang doesn’t work as friends to lovers because their friendship wasn’t made obvious enough is INSANEEE. the only way you could possibly come to that conclusion is if you didn’t even watch the show and formed all your atla opinions by reading fandom discourse on tumblr or twitter or tiktok, because the literal first 3 episodes of atla are the set up and build of their series-long friendship

BOOK 1, EPISODE 1: “The Boy in The Iceberg”

Aang: “Will you go penguin sledding with me?”

Katara: [Awkwardly] “Uh, sure… I guess.” -> they end up penguin sledding. it becomes the first thing they do together and it’s literally just them having fun and making each other laugh and smile

—

Katara: “Why are you smiling at me like that?”

Aang: “Oh I was smiling?” [Flattered, Katara smiles back]

—

Aang: “Appa and I can personally fly you to the North Pole. Katara, we’re going to find you a master!” -> knew her for a few hours at this point and was already offering to take her across the world so she could accomplish her dream of being a waterbender

—

Katara: [Happily] “I haven’t done this since I was a kid!”

Aang: “You still are a kid!”

—

Aang: “A hundred years!” [Saddened by his new discovery.] “I can’t believe it.”

Katara: [Squats beside him.] “I’m sorry, Aang. Maybe somehow there’s a bright side to all this…”

Aang: [Cheerfully.] “I did get to meet you!”

Katara: [Smiling warmly at him while offering her hand.] “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

BOOK 1, EPISODE 2: “The Avatar Returns”

Katara: [Protesting.] “Aang didn’t do anything! It was an accident!” / Aang: [Sorrowfully.] “Don’t blame Katara. I brought her there. It’s my fault.” -> selflessly defending each other

—

Katara: [Pleading.] “Grandmother, please. Don’t let Sokka do this!”

Kanna: [Gravely] “Katara, you knew going on that ship was forbidden. Sokka is right. I think it best if the airbender leaves.”

Katara: [Outraged.] “Fine! Then I’m banished too!” [Drags Aang away.] “Come on Aang, let’s go.” -> she’s only known him for a few hours at this point

—

[Zuko fires another blast at Aang, who twirls his staff once again to ward the attack off. Cut to a shot of the villagers, who cower as the flames stream through the air over their heads. Aang widens his eyes in horror at the sight of the frightened villagers and immediately ceases to defend himself.]

Aang: “If I go with you, will you promise to leave everyone alone?”

[After a brief moment of hesitation, Zuko erects himself and nods in agreement. Aang is apprehended by Zuko's men, who take his staff. Katara runs forward as they lead Aang away.]

Katara: [Sadly.] “No! Aang, don’t do this!”

Aang: [Surprisingly calm.] “Don't worry, Katara. It'll be okay.” [He gasps when he is shoved on the walkway. Katara's face contorts with sadness and fright.] “Take care of Appa for me until I get back.”

[Cut to a shot of the villagers looking up at the ship, Aang standing at the top of walkway. Switch to a more up-close shot of him smiling weakly, surrounded by Fire Nation soldiers.]

[Cut to shot of Katara who looks up, tears in her eyes, before changing back to a shot of Aang who now frowns as the bow rises and closes. The screen blacks out as the bow is locked into place with a thud.]

now why do yall think these shots focused specifically on katara’s reactions to aang being taken away rather than sokka’s or literally anyone else? could it be because her and aang had an already formed connection at that point, making her reactions much more pivotal? i think soooo

and i’ve seen people argue that katara was more so worried about her waterbending progress being interfered with rather than worrying for aang himself. and i have a question for the people who think that cause what??

is katara a compassionate and selfless person, or is she someone who is purely motivated by her own gain? is she someone who yearns to see the good in everyone and offers them her kindness, or is she someone who only judges others based on how they can serve her goals? cause she can’t be both

from what canon shows us, she is an insanely compassionate and selfless person. she holds so much anger yet is still able to see the human and hurt in people, even those who have wronged her and done horrific things [re: offering to heal zuko’s scar]. so when she is watching aang—the boy who has simultaneously brought her a taste of fun and hope—be taken away by the same nation that killed her mother, why would she only be worried about her waterbending progress?

BOOK 1, EPISODE 3: “The Southern Air Temple”

[In the background, Sokka is hunched over his rock, clenching his teeth together. Katara shouts calmly with a sad expression on her face. The camera slowly moves in on her.]

Katara: “Aang! I know you're upset and I know how hard it is to lose the people you love. I went through the same thing when I lost my mom.” [Diverts her eyes. Shot switches to a frontal view of Aang, his tattoos glowing and wind swirling around him; his clothes flutter in the storm. Sokka runs over to his sister in the background.] “Monk Gyatso and the other airbenders may be gone,” [Close-up of her as she looks up at him.] “but you still have a family. Sokka and I!” [Sokka opens his eyes and glances at his sister.] “We're your family now!”

this. this is the moment where aang and katara (and sokka—mind you) are permanently intertwined. they were initially able to relate on them both being benders, then it was the realization that they didn’t want to leave the other (katara protesting aang’s banishment and aang remorsefully leaving / katara going after zuko’s ship to rescue him), and now it’s their ability to relate to devastating loss. katara can relate to his grief at finding gyatso gone, and she can understand his turmoil at realizing the other airbenders were not given a more merciful fate. she does what she can to lessen his pain, at least for the moment, and tells him that despite his loss he is still not alone. he still has a place in the world with her and sokka

it is this moment that acts as the foundation for the deep connection her, aang, and sokka have throughout the entire series. they are friends and they are a found family. they care for each other on such a deep level. kanna says it herself in episode 2, “You both found him for a reason. Now your destinies are intertwined with his.”

and this connection does not lessen throughout the rest of the series, if anything, it gets stronger as they go through harrowing misadventures together and are forced into life-threatening situations where one or two of them have to work quick to save another’s life. if yall seriously think that them arguing/disagreeing or not being on the same page regarding emotional moments in their journey is a sign of their friendship not being strong then you’re actually just intentionally being obtuse

——

ive touched on my thoughts on the ember island players episode before and the whole interaction that went down between aang and katara during the intermission, but i don’t mind reiterating and maybe expanding on it a little

before i can dive in, we all gotta be in agreement that the eip play was yes, a satire meant to poke fun at the fandom, but was also an in-show racist and propaganda-filled depiction of the characters

outside of the show’s canon, aang was played by a woman to make a joke about how women always voice little boys in media. but in the show’s canon, aang being played by a woman was… say it with me, RACIST!! think about it, a play made and created for a fire nation audience chose to cast the sole survivor of a genocide their nation executed as a woman—fire nation sexism coming through hot—and portrayed him as ditzy. (and yes, i know that some male characters are often played by women because women are lighter and therefore easier to lift to portray flight—take peter pan for example—but this is clearly much more than that and i beg yall to not act obtuse in my replies/reblogs.) let’s not pretend like this casting choice wasn’t also an intentional slight at aang as not just the avatar but as an airbender. this is further emphasized when people laugh at aang being revealed as a woman. when colonizers decide to portray their victim as ditzy and incompetent in a play, don’t you think that’s a tell of the racist propaganda they’ve been fed by their nation? hmmm… i certainly think so. so when yall get mad at aang for his clear displeasure at being played by a woman, i beg yall to apply some critical thinking before just deciding to label him a sexist

katara’s character was also a racist portrayal. colonizers depicting their victim as a busty, sexualized crybaby who enters a relationship with their banished prince, and then having her vocalize that she could never be with the avatar, another victim of their colonialism, because he is like a brother to her. why do you think they would portray katara like this and have her say that specific line? could it be propaganda and some sort of racist fantasy to see a water tribe woman dress so provocatively and behave so helplessly? and then, in an effort to take another shot at aang’s legitimacy as a male (because again, aang and the airbenders did not follow normal gender conventions that were clearly present in the fire nation), they have the helpless water tribe character deny she could possibly have feelings for the likes of him and fall into the arms of fire nation royalty. hmmm, now why would colonizers perform a play where a colonized, marginalized woman enters a relationship with her colonizer? probably because it would be more entertaining—and dehumanizing—for their audience to witness a fetishized version of her entering a relationship with their prince. because regardless of his banishment, zuko is still of fire nation royalty and is, compared to aang and katara, of superior blood. give me a fucking break

i implore yall to use critical thinking when discussing why aang would have such a large reaction to a play that is consistently taking a shit on him as the avatar and, more importantly, as an airbender. cause yall do such a disservice to yourselves when you downplay aang’s reaction to him just throwing a jealous tantrum cause his character didn’t get to kiss katara’s character in the play

now onto their interaction:

BOOK 3, EPISODE 17: “The Ember Island Players”

Aang: “Katara, did you really mean what you said in there?”

Katara: “In where? What are you talking about?”

Aang: “On stage, when you said I was just like a ... brother to you, and you didn't have feelings for me.”

Katara: “I didn't say that. An actor said that.”

Aang: “But it's true, isn't it? We kissed at the Invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we're not.”

Katara: “Aang, I don't know.”

Aang: “Why don't you know?”

here, aang is wanting some kind of clarification as to where katara stands on their relationship. he isn’t demanding that she feel the same as he does. he just wants to know for sure if there’s anything there considering they’ve kissed and nothing has risen from it. yes, he is obviously sad and dejected, but he is not demanding that katara return his affections. he just wants to have the conversation

(also, note how when aang brings up the actress saying that aang is like a brother to her and she has no feelings for him, katara chooses to deny that she ever said that rather than to simply take that as an opportunity to let him down had it been the actual truth. likely because it isn’t true—she does have feelings for him—but doesn’t want to take that jump yet)

Katara: “Because, we're in the middle of a war, and, we have other things to worry about. This isn't the right time.”

Aang: “Well, when is the right time?”

Katara: “Aang, I'm sorry, but right now I'm just a little confused.”

[Aang tries to kiss Katara.]

Katara: “I just said I was confused! I'm going inside.” [Exits the balcony.]

Aang: [Frustrated.] “Ugh, I'm such an idiot!” [Puts down his head on the balcony railing.]

here is where them being on two different pages becomes very obvious. aang wants clarity on their relationship whereas katara is unable to and hesitant to give him that because of everything going on around them. she is worried about the outcome of the war and doesn’t want anything to distract either of them from the bigger picture. a valid concern to have, mind you

allow me to bring up the crossroads of destiny for a moment. we all know what happened there: aang unlocked all his chakras and katara watched in awe as he, in the avatar state, rose above them all. she then watched in absolute horror and heartbreak as he was struck with lightening and fell—dead. she, in a hurry, created and rode on a large wave above the dai li to get to aang quickly, catching him in her arms and sitting brokenly on the floor, tears falling down her face. azula and zuko approached them and katara made no move to fight against them, her arms being preoccupied with aang’s body and her mind all over the place after watching her best friend die. had it not been for iroh’s interference, i’m sure it would have been the end for both aang and katara

outside while on appa, katara holds aang delicately to her as she gives him the spirit water and then proceeds to let out a sob as she hugs him to her. when aang groans, she gasps and pulls from him slightly, laying him down against appa’s fur so she can see his face. he opens his eye briefly, smiling at the sight of her and katara beams. her face is the definition of pure joy and relief

now what was the reason aang had to master the avatar state midst battle? why were his chakras not fully unlocked at that time? he left to go save her. he had been in the process of letting her go before he got distracted by the vision of her in danger and had promptly turned away. it wasnt until the battle with zuko and azula was coming to a defeat that he knew he had to master the avatar state now. which led to azula shooting him while rising in the avatar state

obviously, katara wouldn’t be aware that this happened, but the message was still clear. aang’s feelings for katara had gotten in the way of him mastering the avatar state at the safety of the eastern air temple, interfering with his destiny and leading to him mastering it whilst in the midst of battle—resulting in the death of the avatar. katara refusing to enter a relationship with aang or even to have that important conversation with him before the end of the war due to her fear that it’d be a distraction was real and valid

not only that, but katara had already watched him die before and was lucky to have the spirit water at hand. if aang were to get fatally injured anytime between then and during the battle with ozai, there’d be nothing to bring him back. he’d be gone permanently. it’s no wonder why katara was choosing to put all her energy and focus into ending the war because any distraction or moment of weakness could’ve meant the end for aang, who was the one destined to either stop the war or die trying. it was truly life or death for him, so of course katara chose to put anything not pertinent to the war ending on the back burner

aang, on the otherhand, had died during the crossroads of destiny without telling her how he felt. he was so close to leaving the world without letting her know how much he cared for her that he didn’t want to make the same mistake again. therefore, he thought it better to reveal all his cards to her which she obviously wasn’t ready for. he wanted to be in love and bask in whatever time he had with her left if the worst case scenario became reality

unfortunately, this disconnect in their approaches to what happened back in ba sing se resulted in them stepping on each other’s toes and behaving awkwardly around each other, with aang dejected at the lack of clarity on her feelings and katara avoiding the conversation due to her own confusion at the mix of her feelings—having feelings for him but also being fearful of being with him for the reasons stated above. this culminated in aang misreading the situation, as they’ve kissed spontaneously before, and kissing her during this interaction. katara gets rightfully upset, leaves, and aang groans in frustration at himself for being such an idiot

aang made a stupid, stupid mistake and no longer pursues her after this interaction. their difference in approaches to their feelings has met its culmination and now they’re at a standstill. aang does not demand—nor has he ever demanded—that katara be with him. the conversation about where they stand with each other is dropped, as now both of them must focus on sozin’s comet.

at the end of “Sozin’s Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang”, katara and aang share a final kiss. before that, aang goes outside the jasmine dragon by himself to gaze upon the setting sun. katara follows after him and aang gives her a smile. the two embrace each other, opening their eyes to gaze longingly at the other before separating to look at the setting sun together. katara then turns to aang, aang turns to her in return. she leans in and kisses him, cupping his face, and aang kisses back. he leans into the kiss and katara wraps her arms around his neck

katara was the one to take the initiative in their final kiss. she was the one to start their post-series relationship, which we all know resulted in marriage and 3 children

——

kataang does fit the friends to lovers plot line since they started off as friends with intertwined destines and became more. it just so happened that they developed feelings for each other during the course of their adventures, and these feelings clashed with the realities of the war they were at the frontlines of, resulting in miscommunications and mistakes

now, you don’t have to like kataang. that’s completely fine, but to suggest that they don’t fit a trope that they’re literally the definition of is crazzyyyy. cmon, please just watch the show before forming your opinions

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Misaki Unasaka - Old Habits Dying Hard - BD - E10 - SPOILERS

I like Misaki as a character. I like the complexity of her character, and I’m glad to see that the reason they had her come back for Miri was because of a truly life altering situation like cancer. 

I don’t wish ill on her (I saw a tweet over on Twitter that was basically saying they hoped the cancer killed her). She hit rock bottom, or hit the end of the sea, as the name Unasaka can mean. The kanji for sea also has the kanji of “regret” making up a part of it:

And I do think that we are seeing Misaki expressing regret here. Addicts, people stuck in abusive relationships, and other such situations, often don’t realize how bad things have gotten until they are at their absolute worst. That’s what’s happened to Misaki here. She’s trying for a fresh start:

A hair cut, new set of clothes, and wanting Miri back in her life.

I do think that she’s coming from a good intentioned place, and for wanting what’s best for Miri. But, some things are still feeling off, but not in a “she’s evil and wants to ruin them” kinda way, more in a “I don’t know if Misaki will be able to break out of bad habits that will end up harming her, her relationship with Miri, and Miri.”

When Kazuki met Misaki, she was at the end of her rope and most definitely burned out. Now, Misaki has had a year without Miri, so seeing Miri again and interacting with her can be viewed as easier, especially since she seems to want to try and due right by Miri this time. But she still seems to be floating, she mentions living with her parents, but then Rei brings up the Christmas show coming up at the daycare, so she states she’ll rent an apartment.

She lost her job and “her man,” but hasn’t stated what her new source of income is yet. And while she seemed comfortable enough in the kitchen, and Miri is nothing but smiles at seeing her Mama again, the way she interacts with Miri feels more like a visitor than a mother:

There is a distance there, which could be explained by the one year absence, but not quite. I lived in Japan for six years. I was an adult at the time, but my family experienced a lot of changes at that time. But when I came home for good, it felt like no time had passed at all. 

With Misaki, it feels more like a friend of the parents dropping by with the way Miri introduced everything to her. I do like how Misaki’s mother asked Miri her thoughts on who she wanted to live with:

It’s important. She may be young, but her thoughts and feelings on the matter aren’t pointless or useless. That being said, the way Misaki asked it seemed a bit competitive in a way. Or, a better way to say this, is that she might feel a bit inferior here. They were likely able to provide for Miri in a way that she couldn’t. Both her and Kazuki are butting heads here, since they are both trying to fulfill a similar “mother” based role, and both feel a bit threatened in a way. Rei just doesn’t fit into that role, which is why he is able to mediate between the two of them.

As the end of the episode stands, it seems like Miri is going to go off and live with Misaki. That’s what Kazuki and Rei think, that that Ferris wheel ride was the last time they would be with her. And while that could end up being the case, the series is an anime original, so none of us know what will happen yet...A part of me just don’t think that will end up being the case.

Both Kazuki and Rei have shown that they can grow and change, especially if its for Miri’s sake. They talk a lot about that in the Ferris wheel, and we (the audience) have seen this. But with Misaki, we don’t know yet. We hear her talking about change, we see her physically changing her appearance, but the moment that stands out to me is this one:

She was reaching for a cig even though she has throat cancer! She likely got that cancer because of smoking, and yet, here she is - smoking still. Rei used to smoke too, but once Miri came into the picture, and after he really started to bond with her and care about her, we haven’t seen him smoking, even at Kyu’s cafe. I think the last time he smoked was back in Episode 4 or something. It’s been ages.

He broke a habit and changed for Miri.

Will Misaki be able to do the same? Or do old habits die hard for her? 

I don’t know how, exactly, they are going to chose to wrap this situation up fully. Will they have Misaki pass away due to the cancer, and then have Miri going back to Kazuki and Rei in the end (or would she end up with her grandparents then, since they still seem to be in the picture)? Will Misaki realize that maybe motherhood really is just something that isn’t for her in the end and allow Miri to return to Kazuki and Rei? Or will they go for a “blended family” type of situation?

I don’t know. They could go in a totally different direction as well. We’ll just have to wait and see, which is a scary prospect, I know, but I’m extremely intrigued by the direction they might take things.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

01/18/2024 Crew Recap

TLDR; Summary: #HoistTheAds and Astroglide OFMD both happening tomorrow 1/19/24; UK Fans We Need Your Help!; New Hashtags/Petition Link; David Jenkins/RhysDarby/TaikaWaititi Troll us with Hidden Stuff; More Articles; Petition Status, News That Gives Us Hope for S3, and Rhys Darby in Shorts.

Note: Please feel free to let me know if I missed something important, if I'm incorrect, if the formatting pisses you off, or whatever, I take constructive feedback <3 thx lovelies.

Need to catch up on recaps? ofmd daily recaps

==Things You Don't Want To Miss Tomorrow 1/19/2024 and 1/20/2024==

EDIT: HOIST THE ADS: This might be starting at 12 EST - https://www.tumblr.com/renewasacrew/739916790295052288/join-us-in-just-over-10-minutes-at-midnight-est?source=share

#HoistTheAds is finally coming to NYC and LA tomorrow. There will be Flyovers, Billboards, etc. As of right now it looks like its just happening every few minutes on the billboard for the next day.

Tumblr Info

Twitter Info

==Astroglide Watch-A-Long at 1/19/2024 1 PM PST ==

To clarify exactly how it works, basically what they're doing is asking you to stream on the service of your choice starting at Season 1 Episode 1, and Astroglide (and Squishables might be joining) will be tweeting reactions as they go.

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=UK Fans! We need your help! @lamentus1 was kind enough to give us updates on the efforts going on over the UK!=

UK specific OFMD fans in groups on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook are trying to come together to push for the BBC to air OFMD Season 2 in the UK since they haven’t done so yet!

So many UK fans can’t actually watch the second season *legally* based off a tumblr poll that @lamentus1 did recently, and a third of fans who voted can’t even watch OFMD because it’s not on in their country!

The current plans are:

Email two key people at the BBC:

Sue Deeks (Brought OFMD to the UK) --- sue.deeks@bbc.co.uk Charlotte Moore (Chief Content Officer ) --- charlotte.moore@bbc.co.uk Email Prompt: if you need an example:

Send Tweets regarding wanting Season 2 to Air on BBC on twitter (same hashtags from @renewasacrew I believe but it that's incorrect please let me know!):

BBC2 IPlayer

The ongoing twitter thread for this is here

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====New Articles ====

BBC fans fight to save cancelled show, with petition reaching 58,000 signatures

'Our Flag Means Death': Fans Rally to Save Cancelled Show'

Our Flag Means Death: Fans campaign to save queer pirate comedy

---Articles in Dutch---

Fans pikken cancellen van Our Flag Means Death niet en tekenen massaal petitie --------------------------------------------------------------------------

=Cast and Crew Seen in the Wild=

**START OF DISCLAIMER: This whole thread on Djenkins and Taika's mother in law is fan theory at this point, read into it as you will, but think of it like tabloid news**

The most exciting and I think ... brain candy worthy today was Rhys and David posting a BTS picture of Rhys in the colonial hat/outfit. It sparked some interesting ideas on the status of season 3.

I have to say, hats off to the folks over on twitter @fowlfiend for making this connection

Earlier today, Chaos Dad, David Jenkins posted the following picture of Rhys that Rhys shared on his Instagram with a song attached to it called "I'm a Man" by Jobriath.

Now, all well and good right? Rallying cry to all the crew! BUT Twitter folks think there's a deeper meaning and I'm inclined to agree.

How fucking cool is that? Thank you to @lamentus1 for pointing out also that Chaos Dad's post had the "three finger" I love you which is yet another 3 today.

Add to that, Taika's Instagram's been pretty quiet lately, and he happened to post a picture today of his mother-in-law @veraora on IG for her birthday, which just happens to have... 3 pigeons in it. Once again, thanks @lamentus1 for bringing this to our attention. ---also please wish VeraOra Happy birthday!

Now, could all of this be just coincidence? Sure, but where's the fun in that? Seems like we're going on a treasure hunt.

**END OF DISCLAIMER: This whole thread on Djenkins and Taika's mother in law is fan theory at this point, read into it as you will, but think of it like tabloid news**

===Other Chaos Dad Posts on Twitter===

=Hashtag Updates / How you can help=

@renewasacrew Has done some cool stuff and made saveofmd.com direct to the petition site. This should help with being able to share more easily. Full thread here on tumblr

Today's Goals and Hashtags Per @renewasacrew

#ArentYouGLAAD #SaveOFMD #TheNumbersWereThere

=Petition Status Updates=

Petition hit 60K all!!!! GREAT JOB! Just in time for Time Square tomorrow!!

I didn't see a drastic change on a lot of the fundraisers so I'm not adding those today--- I think we've had a big day as it was with the stuff around David posting without posting about season 3.

So I thought I'd end with some more info from our lovely @TheCozyPirate on twitter, the lovely person who exposed the information about how s3 was already in preproduction. They seem to have more insight in a lot of this.

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=So if your question is, is it making a difference? Why doesn't dad just come out and say it? Here's some insight:=

And this next one helps me to feel like we're still heading in the right direction. "If there were nothing viable, he would be able to say that. He would never, never let this go on if hopeless". I think is pretty uplifting.

Lastly, I think you all should be damn proud of yourselves with these calls, as a former Customer Support Person, I appreciate you all so damn much for keeping it kind and polite! Stede would be proud!

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Finally-- one last thing, since today's theme on tumblr is trolls getting all up in our faces, just remember you do not have to engage with them if you don't want to. If you want to have kind discussions, and you feel up for it, go for it, but don't feel obligated to defend the community.

We all know we care, we all know we're doing a great fucking job at taking care of each other, helping awesome causes, and still having fun while doing it. You don't have to prove to anyone that you are allowed to enjoy your pirate show that means something to you and spend a few bucks to support it.

Don't let people who are struggling with their own trouble take your light. Enjoy things, have fun. You deserve it.

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On a lighter note to end on: I have a serious question for all of you.

Who gave this man the right to wear these fucking shorts? Good god.

[midwestmade29]

Bonded 🪢

I have been wanting to write this for a long time and I'm excited that I finally brought it to life 😍 This fic was heavily inspired by the picture below the line. All hail our World Champion Swerve Strickland 🖤

Word count: 1.2k Divider by: @saradika-graphics Photo source: Twitter

Disclaimers: Cursing, Shibari/Kinbaku (rope bondage), unprotected sex. Read at your own discretion.

You'll do anything to help Swerve escape his demons...

It wasn’t unlike Swerve to come home tense and on edge. After going to war with a cowboy and fighting his way to the top, there was a lot on his plate. Some people under that kind of pressure would turn to anything to help dull the pain and make the thoughts stop. Alcohol, exercise, meditation, just something to slow the speed of the world around them.

For Swerve, you were his drug of choice. His kryptonite that brought down all barriers and walls he continuously builds around himself. So tonight, when he walked through the door with a solemn look on his face, you knew exactly what you needed to do. While you were in the bathroom, you could hear Swerve on the other side of the door in your bedroom shuffling around. You had removed all articles of clothing and slid your silk robe on before securing it with the sash. Once you were ready, you emerged from the bathroom to an empty room. The glow from the flickering candles was all the light surrounding you as your eyes panned around for any sight of Swerve. As you walked closer to the bed, what was lying on top of it proved your instincts were correct. Red jute rope.

“You know me too well, Y/N,” Swerve murmured as he walked up behind you.

He wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you flush against his chest, taking a moment to enjoy the way the silk felt on his bare skin. He pushed your hair away from your neck with his fingertips, causing goosebumps to form in their wake. Your knees nearly gave away when he nipped and kissed the delicate skin of your neck. He made sure to place his lips near the shell of your ear as he whispered, “I’ve been playing with my demons again, baby. You’re the only light in all this darkness. Let me tie you up and give me a taste of Heaven before they drag me back to hell again,”

Swerve helped you slide out of your robe, admiring the way the flames of the candles seemed to dance on your skin. He had you lay in the middle of the bed while he began tying and knotting the red rope around your calves and thighs. His touch was firm yet delicate as he secured each intricate knot, making sure to take his time while he perfected his craft.

“Do you remember why I chose red rope?” Swerve asked as he secured your wrist to the rope around your thigh. “Because you like the way it looks against my skin, especially when my skin is flushed,” you smirked. Swerve’s throaty laugh filled the room as he nodded in approval at your answer. “Very good, baby. Maybe I’ll reward you for your excellent memory,” he said with a wink.

Once your other wrist was secure, he instructed you to give the bonds a tug to make sure that everything felt right and comfortable. You gave him the green light when you were certain the ropes were how they needed to be, which allowed Swerve to stand and admire his handiwork.

You were completely exposed and open to him, vulnerable and putting all your trust in him. The way he looked at you like a man who hadn’t eaten in weeks made your arousal grow, longing to be touched by your tormented lover.

The bulge in Swerve’s pants was evident as he walked over to the dresser and pulled something from the top drawer. Your eyes followed his every move as he walked back to you with a black feather in hand. He hovered above you, placing the feather on your collarbone and tracing along it. As it tickled your skin, you couldn’t help but squirm!

Swerve kissed you passionately as he brought the feather down to one of your nipples, each soft swipe against it made it pucker and stiffen. He covered your nipple with his mouth, taking the stiff peak in between his teeth and pulling before massaging it with his tongue, leaving you panting as he moved over to the other side. The feather created a trail from your breasts down to your navel and across your hip bones. Swerve traced the path it created with his tongue, the coolness of the air in contrast to his warm breath made you shiver.

“You’re so sexy like this, Y/N. Tied up and ready for me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more perfect,” he praised, his words making you tug against the rope.

The look in Swerve’s eyes was pure lust and desire as he peered up at you from in between your legs. He sat the feather aside as he planted kisses on your inner thighs between each knot and twist of the rope. Your chest was rising and falling rapidly in anticipation of his next move.

"I believe I said I was going to reward you for your excellent memory, didn't I?" he asked rhetorically before devouring your sweetness.

Your back arched off the bed as his tongue and mouth mercilessly worked themselves against your clit. Every lick, every suck, every hum of approval from Swerve brought you closer and closer to the edge. Your moans and whimpers echoed off the walls moments before you were about to unravel, but he stilled his movements.

“N-no, please,” you begged breathlessly.

The smile on Swerve’s face was anything but sweet as he stood and began unbuckling his belt. “As much as I love the thought of you cumming on my tongue, I think I like the thought of you falling apart on my dick more,”

With your legs spread wide, Swerve thrusted himself inside of you. The only thing you could do to soften the intrusion was to grab hold of the ropes around your thighs. Your walls stretched around him as he moved in and out at a steady pace, your lower half feeling incredibly full. He pressed your knees to your chest as he began to find his rhythm, your body jolting with each thrust. Swerve made sure he was positioned just right so he was hitting all your sweet spots inside and out.

“Come on baby, give me what I want. I can feel how close you are. I know you need this, let yourself go,” he spoke brashly.

It was as if he had total control over your body as it began to tremble beneath him, you knew you were done for. “F-fuck! Yes, y-yes!” you moaned.

Within seconds your orgasm completely consumed you, each wave of pleasure better than the last. Showing no mercy, Swerve fucked you through your release as he continued to chase his own. “S-so perfect for me baby. So, f-fucking perfect,” he grunted against your lips before crashing his own against them.

As he came, his hard length twitched and pulsed against your walls, filling you to the brim with his hot seed. The two of you were a panting mess as he collapsed onto your chest and savored every sensation his release provided him. When he was able to stand again, he kissed your knee and began to untie the rope. You stretched your legs and twirled your wrists once they were free.

After cleaning up and getting situated in bed, you rested your head Swerve’s chest as he pulled you in close. Your fingers traced over the plethora of scars there before you kissed each one of them. While the ones on the outside of his body were permanent, you had hope that you were helping heal the ones internally. Whatever Swerve needed; whatever he wanted you were there to give it to him. Even if that meant chasing off his demons whenever they decided to haunt him.