#I want to write one comparing the book to the movie

[randum-famdoms]

Something I have seen people complain about is when the story “stops” for a character to mentally think about their feelings regarding something.

I think that’s bullshit.

Like, okay. Think about it. How fast is your train of thought? Faster than your reading speed, right? Do your thoughts all happen in neat little sentences, or as more of a nebulous and/or choppy half-formed thing that *you* understand, but would sound like nonsense on a page?

Also, the character probably isn’t actually taking as long to think these things as you are reading it. “Character A feels xyz about this” isn’t taking ten seconds to actually happen, feelings coexist with action!

Now, there is a time and place for introspection. It is my personal philosophy to have the amount of introspection reflect the pacing of a scene. Fast battle scenes will be far more action-heavy and introspection-light compared to, say, a calm breakfast.

I think it balances the annoyance over pages of introspection completely breaking the flow of an intense section of the story (at least, from the perspective of the reader), while still maintaining some of that wonderful interiority (which is actually a new word for me, and I adore it).

I’m the first to admit that I am far from an experienced or professional author. I don’t have a professional editor, and my only education is via Highschool and middle school classes (and while I was always in the advanced classes, a few even college level, they were still restricted by being part of the American education system). I definitely can think of times where my grasp on the interiority slipped. Especially when it comes to describing things that wouldn’t necessarily be noticed by the pov character, simply because I as the author do know about it and think it’s funny or important.

I’d imagine a good rule of thumb regarding this would be to treat it like dialogue. People always say to read your dialogue out loud to notice any problems. Well, just act out the scene as though you are the pov character. Not necessarily irl, but in your head. (And maybe even irl if you can manage it, it can’t hurt!) What way are you facing? Would you be able to see that annoying dog? Would you focus on the person you are talking to’s face, or their hands? Is this activity one that you would space out during, or does it require laser focus?

Basically, all the things you would not think about if you imagine the scene like a movie as you are writing.

Picturing the scene as a movie can be helpful, particularly for things like imagery. But it does have its shortcomings, as op said.

It can work thematically for some stories, but when it comes to most writing that is not third person omniscient, it’s definitely something that can cause the reader to feel… distant, I guess. Less immersed.

It’s also something that, sadly, many writers will have to teach themselves and seek out to learn, because, as OP said, it’s becoming harder to find in modern works. This is doubly so do people who mainly read non-published works. I will sing the praises of fanfiction until the day that I die, and maybe even after, but the fact of the matter is that 99% of fanfiction authors are self taught. They may not know how to incorporate interiority. They may not even have ever read a work that had it.

I know a lot of people say that you should read the “classics”, and you may be thinking that could help here, but I for one am a fierce defender of not putting up requirements to be considered a writer, and that includes required reading. Yes it can help you learn skills, but so can more modern works. I learned a lot from reading Percy Jackson, and other lesser known books, and none of them are considered classics on par with The Great Gatsby or Shakespeare.

Instead, I propose this: if you want to get a better grasp on writing with interiority, try actually consciously focusing on your day to day life for a little while every day. Focus on your train of thought, on the things you focus on, on the things you see.

If you want to read something, great! Ask for recommendations, go to your local library and flip through books until you find one you think you will both enjoy and which has a good grasp of the concept.

First and foremost, however, in any writing, is to remember how we as humans actually live and interact with the world, and you’ve got a primary source of research at all times: yourself. Exclusively using other texts as sources will only ever end in a very broken game of telephone.

A lot of fiction these days reads as if—as I saw Peter Raleigh put it the other day, and as I’ve discussed it before—the author is trying to describe a video playing in their mind. Often there is little or no interiority. Scenes play out in “real time” without summary. First-person POV stories describe things the character can’t see, but a distant camera could. There’s an overemphasis on characters’ outfits and facial expressions, including my personal pet peeve: the “reaction shot round-up” in which we get a description of every character’s reaction to something as if a camera was cutting between sitcom actors.

When I talk with other creative writing professors, we all seem to agree that interiority is disappearing. Even in first-person POV stories, younger writers often skip describing their character’s hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, memories, or reactions. This trend is hardly limited to young writers though. I was speaking to an editor yesterday who agreed interiority has largely vanished from commercial fiction, and I think you increasingly notice its absence even in works shelved as “literary fiction.” When interiority does appear on the page, it is often brief and redundant with the dialogue and action. All of this is a great shame. Interiority is perhaps the prime example of an advantage prose as a medium holds over other artforms.

fascinated by this article, "Turning Off the TV in Your Mind," about the influences of visual narratives on writing prose narratives. i def notice the two things i excerpted above in fanfic, which i guess makes even more sense as most of the fic i read is for tv and film. i will also be thinking about its discussion of time in prose - i think that's something i often struggle with and i will try to be more conscious of the differences between screen and page next time i'm writing.

[messyoungie]

hobbies to consider for 2025

・゜゜・．⋆｡°✩ ⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊✩₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆ ✩°｡⋆.𖥔. ᗢ₊��✧ ﾟ.

painting

gouache, watercolor, acrylic… there’s so many things for you to try and it’s super easy to get started!

clay

sculpt rlly cute charms, dishes, and whatever else!!

scrapbooking

great way to look back on memories and lets you get rlly creative with it

journaling

my personal favorite ♡. so many different ways to go about it. you can have a bullet journal, book journal, cooking journal, movie journal. or, simply a diary to write about your thoughts and days. you can decorate your spreads with stickers and washi tape or keep it simple.

crocheting

there are so many things you could make, from tops to plushies. there are a lot of cute tutorials and free designs available online!

baking

this one may or may not be as easy as the other ones I’ve mentioned depending on the recipe but learning how to cook or bake makes for a great New Year’s resolution!

puzzles

there are a ton of different puzzles out there ranging from different skill level, so you can challenge your brain as much as you’d like!

sewing

whether you want to learn how to hand sew or use a sewing machine, to tailor clothes you already have or make your own pieces, sewing can be a fun and impressive skill to have.

playing an instrument

guitar, violin, piano, clarinet, drums— there are a ton of options for you to choose from and plenty of online resources :)

reading

reading can be a great way to learn more or be a better form of entertainment compared to social media and television. whether you want to educate yourself on different topics, discover a new genre of novels, or are interested in comics— reading is one of those hobbies where there’s something in it for everyone, regardless of what they’re looking for.

jewelry making

bracelets or necklaces, whatever it is you want to make the materials are easy to find, as well as tutorials and references.

bicycling

having an outside hobby is very important imo, and bicycling is one of those hobbies that lets you be as relaxed or intense as you’d like.

yoga

I think this is a great one, with yoga the focus doesn’t have to be looking a certain way or going super hard— it’s just about relaxing. there’s no pressure.

[m00n-pr1sm]

Amy Dunne Character Analysis

Disclaimer

This analysis will be of Amy’s character from both the book and the movie, although the 2014 movie adaption takes greater precedence with only some additional details and quotes included from the book as it does delve deeper into Amy’s psyche and add further characterization. Thus some traits may be accentuated further than they are in the movie, not being completely faithful to either story. It’s an analysis of Amy in her totality across mediums, of course being entirely my opinion. There are of course adaptational differences but I will not include the major ones from the books (ex. her relationship with Hillary Hand). This is an analysis focusing primarily on Amy’s neuroses she demonstrates and the childhood links to them, it doesn’t cover in-depth the events nor themes of Gone Girl.

Amy Elliott Dunne, the ever enigmatic dual protagonist- antagonist of Gone Girl is one of the most iconic female villains in modern memory, and one of the paragons of the “good for her” trope in media, is, frankly, one of my favorite characters of all time. As such I have been dying to write a full analysis examining her neuroses and characterization. Beneath the cultural perception of just another “crazy psycho” for girls to claim “she did no wrong” or “she just like me fr!”, lies a fascinating character who is masterfully written and developed by Gillian Flynn, as well as perfectly portrayed by Rosamund Pike. Amy Dunne is a character with a deep, complex psychology that I will do my best to thoroughly explore in this analysis.

From Amy’s childhood we first see the emergence of a literal high ego ideal, Amazing Amy. Of course this is the children’s book series created by her parents with a fictionalized version of Amy being the eponymous protagonist. This was a version of herself that rectified her own personal failures. Amazing Amy became a prodigy at cello, when Amy quit at 10, Amazing Amy made varsity volleyball, Amy got cut freshman year. Even in the (at time) final book in the series, Amazing Amy got married, a task Amy had not yet done. The entire book series revolved around Amy always making the most virtuous, the most selfless, the most perfect decisions.

>”With me, regular, flawed, real Amy, jealous, as always, of the golden child.”

An interesting detail in the book that is omitted from the movie is Marybeth’s numerous miscarriages and stillbirths (which totaled 7). All of these girls were named Hope, until Amy was born. Amy expresses her jealousy towards them, as they were always seen as perfect without ever living; meanwhile Amy herself has to live life everyday knowing that she will never truly live up to the Hopes. That she has to try everyday to be the best she can be. Her very birth was mired in the expectation of a perfect child; given that she was practically a gift from the heavens to her parents.

This sets up Amy’s perfectionism, as the childhood experience of never living up to a projected ideal led her to want to be perfect (and as we’ll later see, the expectation that everyone else is too), to live life always through the gaze of another. Evidently this leads to a loss of one’s inner essence, one’s individuality and sense of self.

>“-I’d never really felt like a person, because I was always a product” (Book Quote)

Amy’s obsession with personas can be seen as emerging from this, as she adapts a personality depending on who she’s interacting with, as to always be the most appealing she can, she is Amazing Amy after all.

>”I’m not sure, exactly, how to be Dead Amy. I’m trying to figure out what that means for me, what I become for the next few months. Anyone, I suppose, except people I’ve already been: Amazing Amy. Preppy ’80s Girl. Ultimate-Frisbee Granola and Blushing Ingenue and Witty Hepburnian Sophisticate. Brainy Ironic Girl and Boho Babe (the latest version of Frisbee Granola). Cool Girl and Loved Wife and Unloved Wife and Vengeful Scorned Wife. Diary Amy.” (Book Quote)

This general attitude leads to people trying to impress her as she places herself as someone special and especially someone to keep around. She entices both the characters and viewers of the film through her manufactured charisma and enchantment. However, we’ll see this dramatically backfire in her relationship with Nick, just you wait!

For now we can focus on the beginning of their relationship as well as what I believe to be Amy’s view on romance.

I believe that Amy has an impossibly high standard of love, one that stems from her perfectionism and general inability to let down her guise of being amazing. Not to mention how her parents were a perfect match, Amy even referring to them as soul-mates.

>”They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish—expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other’s spaces liquidly. Making it look easy, the soul-mate thing.” (Book Quote)

In her childhood it’s implied that she was into romance novels, specifically Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which obviously contributes to the idealization of romance, of a literal scripted love.

>”You were an alienated teen and only Elizabeth Bennet understood you”

I think this little quote is incredibly indicative; it establishes a sense of alienation, of Amy never quite fitting in and blending with others.

>”So many lessons and opportunities and advantages, and they never taught me how to be happy. I remember always being baffled by other children. I would be at a birthday party and watch the other kids giggling and making faces, and I would try to do that too, but I wouldn’t understand why. I would sit there with the tight elastic thread of the birthday hat parting the pudge of my underchin, with the grainy frosting of the cake bluing my teeth, and I would try to figure out why it was fun.” (Book Quote)

Back to the topic of romance, through these stories it allowed her to imagine her perfect romance: if Amy could find that one person that truly understood her, beyond the illusion, that then would constitute a perfect union of love. She does deep down (whether consciously or not) want to be loved for who she is; not the idealized, palatable, literal marketed version of herself. Thus she holds trust as a premium, expecting that if she does the Herculean task of unspooling and revealing herself to another, that the other person would love her no matter what.

>”Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you?” (Book Quote)

However all of this culminates in an impossibly high standard of a lover, of a practically divine mythical love; where one loves totally and absolutely. Of course where this neurosis is most demonstrated is in Nick and Amy’s relationship.

Amy comments that after meeting Nick she finally felt like a person as he brought out a side of herself that hadn’t been seen, in her own words “a lightness and an ease”, something that Amy enjoyed. In her eyes they had the perfect relationship in the beginning, Nick was her compliment with the witty banter, with their inside jokes, and charm.

However this doesn’t just vanquish her childhood neuroses, through her desire to be seen as perfect, she modifies herself to be a “cool girl” for Nick, complying endlessly to standards to maintain this perception.

>” When I met Nick Dunne, I knew he wanted a cool girl and for him, I’ll admit, I was willing to try.”

Amy essentially became Nick’s image of a perfect girl, witty, fun, and most of all easy-going and forgiving.

Yet one cannot live forever in images and ideas; and as such, the real, true Amy emerged. The Amy that cares too much, that’s hard to get along with, that is a controlling perfectionist. She also tests Nick through the treasure hunts, weaving in little details about their relationship as to challenge Nick and hope that he remembers the things they do together as deeply as she does. Combined with the 2008 recession and declining health of Nick’s mother (the consequences of which will be explored later). As well as Nick’s growing dissatisfaction in the relationship (evidenced by his worsening performances in the treasure hunts, the cheating, using her for sex and ignoring her otherwise, etc). The illusion both Nick and Amy were living in crumbled; they couldn’t possibly sustain their relationship as they were both striving to fulfill reciprocating images for the other.

One of the biggest parts of her character is Amy’s elitism and entitlement, in which she thinks of herself as someone superior, someone that deserves to be loved absolutely for who she is, although only to people she considers worthy.

>”She’s easy to like. I’ve never understood why that’s considered a compliment—that just anyone could like you.” (Book Quote)

Once again this stems from her childhood, in a seemingly contradictory way, she also sees herself as special for being the one that survived from her mother’s attempts, as well as the fact that her birth was so tumultuous that she would be an only child. From this also stems her entitlement for love.

Amy actively looks down upon women she considers “average”, whom she sees as coming from mediocrity and continuously perpetuating that in their lives. She scoffs at them with her wealthy parents and NYC background until her marriage with Nick crumbles. Only then does she realize that she’s become the very woman she would previously disdain. A woman with a failing marriage, the loss of her previous wealth following the recession, and moving to a failed development in Missouri (What the hell’s in Missouri?) for Nick’s mother.

I truly believe this, combined with Nick’s infidelity, and most importantly the loss of her idyllic love culminated in the iconic Gone Girl plan.

>”Nick took and took from me until I no longer existed, that’s murder. Let the punishment fit the crime”.

Nick took Amy’s identity, her sense of self that she so generously revealed to him and rejected her. Implying that she would only be loved if played the role of the “cool girl”; stripping her of who she really was, losing herself in yet another persona. Although Amy admits she doesn’t really have a personality and lives through personas, she still has a semblance of self that she holds dear.

>”-made me realize that there was a Real Amy in there, and she was so much better, more interesting and complicated and challenging, than Cool Amy”. (Book Quote)

Worse yet, Nick had cheated on her with a “newer, younger, bouncer Cool Girl”, leaving Amy in the dust, surely damaging her pride.

But Amy truly fell in love with her idealized version of Nick, believing that she was responsible for shaping that version of Nick. That she deserved that man in his entirety, of course what gets Amy to come back to Nick is the Sharon Scheiber interview, in which he promises to make up with Amy in just the way that makes her think that Nick is the one person who gets her. He makes the little references to their inside jokes (2 fingers on the chin when they’re not bullshitting the other) and a reference to the end of the treasure hunt (always a contentious issue in their relationship). She’s reminded of who he was, that he was once perfect for her, who else could know how to appeal to her heart in just the right way? With the same passion and conviction she reverses the judgment on Nick, clawing her way back to him. She does so in an especially brutal manner, slashing Desi’s throat with a boxcutter right after he climaxes. Putting aside my enormous personal bias against Desi, he was technically an innocent man, taking a great risk in sheltering Amy. However it’s clear that Amy sees him as merely an asset and something to be disposed of once he serves his value, as another prop in her ever evolving masterplan; she did string him along for years through their letter correspondences. He was just another casualty in Amy’s search for idyllic love. She comes back dramatically, literally falling into Nick’s arms while still covered in Desi’s blood like a dress; fabricating an elaborate story about a love obsessed former boyfriend kidnapping and violating her. Despite the glaring holes in her whole story (If Amy’s marriage was as bad as she made it out to be, why did she go back to Nick so easily? How did she get access to a knife and kill him so seamlessly? Why didn’t Amy do anything when she discovered the stuff in Margo’s shed? etc), law enforcement, media, and the public all fully believe it, infatuated with the persona and narrative that Amy’s created for herself. In the end she traps Nick into the marriage and eventually, the family. The last shot of the film is a haunting recall to the beginning shot of the film, as Amy has both revealed and secured herself to be the master of the narrative, finally obtaining her perfect love, no matter what the cost may have been.

Conclusion

Through a constant demand in Amy’s childhood emerges a need for perfection, simultaneously bringing about a sense of superiority and entitlement. The use of personas and façades facilitate this, painting Amy as the most amazing cool girl for whomever she’s performing for, to feed her need to be seen as perfect and desirable. Yet there emerges a psychological detachment from others; as the need to perform inevitably leads to an internal hollowness. However underneath all these layers there also lies the true Amy who has the deep unconscious desire of wanting to be loved absolutely, to have a perfect union of love where she can reveal herself fully and be loved for who she is truly.

>disclaimer for tumblr lol, this is not me trying to claim Amy was innocent I am fully aware that she’s a terribly entitled and narcissistic person but she can still be complex and have relatable desires & be a person even if she’s massively fucked up!!

[not-neverland06]

you're not her

The 'Worst' Logan x fem!mutant!reader

a/n: really wanted to write for the worst logan so I found a streaming site so I could finally watch the new Deadpool movie (yay pirating) (this is totally hypothetical and a joke to the feds lurking) I was going to just read the wiki plot but I don’t think that was going to cut it Again, using the same superhero name/powers. It’s not an OC I swear, it just makes sense in comic book movies to have some alternate name and I’m not creative enough to come up with multiple different supe names. Summary: You hate him, you really fucking hate him at first. He’s cruel and constantly reminds you that you’ll never be the hero he knew. You’re not her and he’s made that abundantly clear. But what are you supposed to do when he’s suddenly your new roommate and you have no choice but to wake up to his face every day? I feel sad because I don’t think I did the angst justice with this one. But if I keep staring at it trying to fix it, then I’m never going to post it. (This is a long one guys) Angst with a happy ending (because I’m a little bitch) Makeout scenes and smut towards the very end 18+ MDNI

You don’t know how you got here, but you know you’re mad at whoever dragged you into this shit. You don’t think it would be wild to assume it was Wade’s fault. Usually, when something goes wrong in your life it’s on him. 

What you do know; you look like shit. Wade and Wolverine are both standing over you in their awesome ass uniforms and you’re still in your fucking pajamas. How are you supposed to be badass and save the world in pants that have Spiderman’s face plastered all over them?

“I’m gonna fucking kill you, Wade,” you growl at him. 

He places his hand daintily on his chest and waves you off, “Save that for the bedroom, pookie.”

You grit your teeth and glare up at him, Wolverine gives him a similarly disgusted look. “Fuckin’ ridiculous,” you grumble under your breath. You get to your feet and brush yourself off, finally looking around and taking in wherever the fuck he’s dragged you. “Where are we?”

“The void,” Wade responds, voice ridiculously dramatic. You look around and throw your hands up in defeat. 

“What the fuck, Wade? Why did you drag me with you into this?” You look over at the Wolverine beside him. He hasn’t stopped glaring at you both and his claws are out, clearly ready to just eviscerate you. “Who the fuck is this?”

“Okay, wow, language, Flux. I’m disappointed in you.”

“Eat me-”

You’re cut off by the knock-off Wolverine standing a few feet behind you both. “Flux?” He demands, voice so low you almost can’t hear him. Both you and Wade’s heads whip around to face him. Thus far he’s been relatively silent, you nearly started to wonder if he was mute. 

“It’s her X-Man name,” Wade tells him, gushing like it’s some big deal. “Impressive, huh?” You don’t bother correcting him that it was your X-Men name. Can’t exactly call yourself that if they booted you off the team for being a crappy superhero. 

Logan snorts and shakes his head. He stalks towards you and you nearly fall over in your attempt to scramble back from him. “You,” he demands, claws pointed at you threateningly. “You’re Flux?”

Wade hisses, watching as Logan swipes out at you. “Alright, peanut, let’s put the claws away and take a deep grounding breath.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Logan snaps at Wade. He turns to glare at him and you take the opportunity to scramble behind your friend for protection. At least if he gets stabbed, he’ll heal. “You,” he scoffs and it trails off into a laugh. There’s no humor behind it, he's just a dick. “You are a fucking joke compared to my Flux.”

The ground underneath you rattles, pebbles bouncing off the cracked desert and ricocheting off their boots. Wade quickly moves away from you, shoving you forward so he’s not in the line of fire. “Yeah, well you’re just an alcoholic fuck who could never hold a candle to my Logan.” 

You can feel energy brewing at the tips of your fingers, waves, and waves of hate building up within you. The man across from you feels the shift, the static suddenly permeating the air around you both. You let your power build and build…

The pebbles drop back to the ground and you stumble back from Logan, nose bleeding from overextending yourself. “Shit,” you mutter, wiping at your face with the back of your hand and shaking your head. 

Logan laughs again, it echoes through the stormy sky and you wish you had any control over your powers so you could just send him flying. Or, better yet, turn his bones into liquid and flip him inside out. “Oh,” he lets out a long exhale, glaring at both of you. “This is fuckin’ ridiculous.” The faux smile drops from his face and he raises his voice just loud enough to make you jump, “Just one big fuckin’ joke!”

You have about five seconds to dive to the side before Logan is lunging at Wade. “Wait, wait, wait we can talk about this!” Wade shouts, but it’s too late, he’s already on the ground getting his head caved in. 

You let out a rough sigh, stumbling off to the side. You’re drained from that shitshow of powers. You barely made a few rocks levitate and you feel like you’re going to pass out. You walk away from the two men and throw yourself on the ground, trying to reorient yourself while they fight like wild animals. 

You can hear them in the background, stabbing and shooting like they’re aiming to kill. Too bad neither of them can die. It’d save you a hell of a headache.  They run past you, Logan’s got his claws buried in Wade’s gut while Wade’s desperately firing off his gun into Logan’s chest. 

Your head rolls weakly to the side and you mutter out a pathetic, “No, stop. Don’t kill each other.” As expected, neither of them listens to you. They keep fighting, showing no signs of stopping. 

There’s a moment of silence after about ten minutes of nothing but grunts and insults. You peak your head up in interest. Logan got his claws posed over Wade’s throat. You wonder if decapitation would actually kill him or if he’d somehow manage to survive that. 

Wade doesn’t seem interested in testing out the theory, “They can fix it!” Wade shouts, “They can fix your timeline. I just need your help saving mine.”

Your eyes widen and you meet Wade’s masked gaze over Logan’s shoulders. The white slits widen and he minutely shakes his head, telling you not to say anything. Like, maybe, that neither of you has any fucking clue if the TVA is capable of even fixing timelines like that. 

You know Wade is desperate when he makes that promise. It’s the only reason he would say something so stupid. It’s a blatant lie, one pulled so far out of Wade’s ass you’re genuinely surprised that Logan can’t smell the bullshit. Whatever happened in his universe must have been horrible for him to ever believe anything that comes out of any Deadpool’s mouth. 

It’s a long moment before Logan finally pulls his claws out of Wade. Your friend slumps forward in relief as Logan stalks away from him. You glare at Wade from where you are on the ground, “That was fucking stupid,” you snipe at him. He gets to his feet, walks over to you, and forcefully yanks you to your feet. 

“Not a goddamn word,” he warns, but you aren’t exactly threatened by him when he's got three holes in his head from Logan’s claws. Still, you hold your hands up and acquiesce, following after him as he chases down Logan. 

Your mind is still fuzzy when you are captured by Cassandra. You're recovering from overextending yourself, eyes blurring and limbs going limp like jello when her army of henchmen circle you all. 

You finally feel yourself starting to come back to your body when you wake up tied to Johnny. “And,” Wade draws the word out, waiting until you lift your head to finish, “there she is! Happy you could join us, princess. Mind turning these ropes into dust for me?”

You groan and let your head slump onto Johnny’s shoulder. He smirks and glances down at you. “Oh fuck off, both of you. I can’t do shit right now and you know it, Wade, I’m drained.” 

Logan is glaring at you, but there’s less hate in his glare and more confusion now. “Can you do anything?”

You narrow your eyes at him, lips screwed up while you try to decide if he’s being an asshole or genuine. “Hard of hearing or something old man? I’m drained,” you reiterate, your tone a little too bitchy. 

Logan narrows his eyes, grunting something foul under his breath. Wade interferes before you can piss each other off anymore. “She had an accident, her brain’s a little broken now. But it’s fine! Whose isn’t?”

You huff and throw yourself back against the cage you’re all being transported in. You feel eyes on the side of your head and slowly look over to see Johnny grinning at you. “Hey, you know I’ve met one of your variants-”

“Don’t give a fuck,” you interrupt. You hear Wade snicker under his mask, giving you an encouraging thumbs up even with his hands bound. You were both a little disappointed it wasn’t Captain America lurking under that cloak. But at least this guy isn’t such a prude he won’t cuss. 

For the next five minutes, you’re on the receiving end of a very enthusiastically vulgar rant about just what a cunt Cassandra Nova is. He’s still not even finished by the time you reach the gates to her lair.

Your eyes widen when you see all the people lurking around the walls. Most of them you recognize as people you’ve put away or killed in your world. But there’s something just minutely different about them than the version you faced in your timeline. Their eye color or outfit is always just slightly off. 

The familiar faces are almost a relief. But there is nothing comforting about knowing you're outnumbered two hundred to four. The cage is tipped over and you go rolling out, you grunt as Johnny’s elbow digs into your ribs. 

Before you can even attempt to shove him off, the ropes are whipped off of you and you’re dragged by an invisible force across the ground. Rocks and sand scrape across your tender skin and bury themselves deep in your pores. You hiss in pain when you finally come to a stop and your body is your own again. 

A groan slips through your parted lips unbidden as you struggle onto your knees. Your pajamas are ripped practically everywhere and you feel like you might as well be naked at this point. You really wished that you at least had a chance to change before you were kidnapped to another universe. 

The woman you presume to be Cassandra Nova is currently fucking Wade’s skull with her freakish telepathy fingers. Johnny’s a pile of guts and bones on the floor and you have no fucking clue where she flung Logan to. 

You get to your feet, shaking your head and reorienting yourself. In a second she’s in front of you, head tilted to the side while she regards you curiously. “Woah,” you jump back, glaring at her outstretched hand. 

“Careful,” Wade warns her breathlessly, still clutching his head. “Flux here has a pathological fear of bald people.”

You nod, “It’s true, you can imagine how strained my relationship with your brother was.” Cassandra circles you, a devious tilt to her lips. Your eyes track her, unwilling to take your gaze off her for even a second. You feel like a rabbit, facing down a fox that’s made its way into your burrow. 

“Curious,” she mutters. “I’ve seen quite a few of you down here before. But,” she chuckles and before you can move her hand is shoving its way into your brain. You scream, there’s an agonizing burn as her fingers probe under your eyes and dig through the deepest part of your subconscious. It feels like someone’s taking a shovel and ripping up your worst traumas. “None of them have been so weak.”

Wonderful, even she wants to insult you. You can feel the way she’s plucking through your thoughts, tossing aside the ones she doesn’t like. Images of your childhood are flashing across your vision. You can no longer see the world around you, it’s like every one of your worst memories is being played on a projector. 

“Ah,” she clicks her tongue and jerks your neck around until you’re looking at something you’ve tried to forget for years. “Here it is. How easy it would be for me to simply unblock those powers of yours.” She smiles, her face appearing before you and blocking out the bloodshed. “It would make this far more entertaining for me, what do you say?”

Your teeth are clenched so tightly you’re surprised they haven’t cracked yet. It’s hard to get the words out when her fingers are still dancing through your skull. “Fuck you,” you finally spit out. She releases you suddenly, and you surge forward with a gasp, clutching at your skull desperately. 

You half expect your brains to begin leaking from your nose and eyes. But nothing happens, despite feeling incredibly violated, everything is still in its proper place. Cassandra walks past you like everything is fine and dandy in the world. “Well, as much as I would love to see those powers of yours in action again, Flux, I’m afraid Alioth must eat.”

Before you can ask what she's talking about there’s a loud rumble. Like thunder cracking through the sky and land, the ground underneath you shakes. Cracks form under your feet and the henchmen around you all start desperately racing for cover. 

You turn around, staring wide-eyed at the purple cloud of death and destruction steadily moving across the sky. A face breaks through the clouds, grinning down at you. Purple lightning hits the ground and the villain next to you explodes into nothing but dust. 

“Shit!” You shout, turning around and running to try and avoid getting zapped up next. There’s no coming back from this one. Once this monster gets you, not even god could save you. 

Suddenly, an arm wraps around your waist, lifting you off your feet. “No time for consent, we’ve got to get the fuck outta here!” Wade shouts in your ear. Logan is standing next to some robot leg, ripping out cords until a jet on the back fires up. Wade leaps onto the boot, wrapping an arm around Logan’s legs as you’re all shot into the sky. 

You’d scream if you weren’t trying not to throw up. You hurtle through the sky at speeds that have your skin nearly ripping off your skull. The rocket on the back of the leg starts to sputter out. The flames flickering out and then back to life. It steadily begins to drop until you’re plummeting headfirst towards the ground. 

Wade wraps himself around you, tossing himself off the boot so he can brace your fall. You hear and feel nearly all of his bones break under your weight. For a moment it feels like you’re laying on warm jello as you try and catch your breath. 

“Nailed it,” he mutters weakly. You’re pretty sure he can’t breathe, a rib having pierced his lung in the fall. A shadow looms over you and you glance up to find Logan glaring down at you. You stare at him apprehensively, half expecting him to unsheathe his claws and just end you right here. 

Instead, to your surprise, he holds a hand out. You look at it with suspicion, glaring back up at him. “Fucks sake,” he mutters. He reaches down, roughly grabbing your hand and jerking you to your feet. You feel the warmth of Wade’s blood on your back and grimace. 

“Thanks,” you mutter, still not entirely trusting of him. 

He purses his lips into a thin line, backing awkwardly away from you. He just nods and starts surveying the land around you. It feels less like trying to figure out where you all landed and more like awkwardly avoiding eye contact. 

The whole interaction leaves you feeling odd. “Well, that was as awkward as two virgins on prom night,” Wade loudly announces as he jumps to his feet. You whip around and send him a dirty look but his attention has already been snagged by something else. Lately, you’ve been considering grounding up Adderall and slipping it into his breakfast, you think it might do him some good. 

What’s got to be the fugliest dog you’ve ever seen in your life bounds towards Wade. He drops to his knees, ripping off his mask and opening his arms wide to the mutt. You grimace, taking a step back when she starts licking his face. “Oh, that’s just wrong.”

Thankfully dogless, you steal Nicepool’s Honda Odyssey - much to Wade’s chagrin. Logan’s in the front seat, Wade beside him. You’re sitting in the back, rubbing your temples and trying to get rid of the raging migraine you’ve had since Cassandra finger blasted your brain. 

You’ve been zoning in and out of the conversation happening in the front seat of the car. But Logan suddenly slams on the brakes and you go hurtling forward. Without even looking at you, both their arms shoot out, blocking you from flying through the windshield. 

Your face scrunches up as you look at both their arms, it feels like being saved by an overbearing soccer mom. “Buckle up, princess,” Wade tells you. He shoves you back into your seat and you look between the two men suspiciously. 

“Did you just say if?” Logan growls, glaring at Wade. Your face drops, finally realizing what you’d missed. 

Wade lets out a weak chuckle, “Slip of the tongue?” Logan growls and the claws come out. Wade raises his hands, “Okay, let’s put a brake on the crazy train. I wasn’t lying it was just an educated,” for the first time in your friendship Wade is actually speechless. You’re shocked by the silence. Until, of course, he runs his mouth again and comes up with the lamest cop-out you’ve ever heard. “It was an educated wish that they could fix your timeline, alright?”

Logan doesn’t give much of a warning except a low growl before he shoves his claws deep into Wade’s thigh. “You motherfucker!”

“Hey!” You shout, jumping forward and ripping Logan’s claws out of Wade’s leg. “Look, we’re trying to save our whole fucking universe. Can you blame him for lying?” You regret opening your mouth pretty much immediately. 

You should have just stayed out of this, it wasn’t any of your business. And if they wanted to be two dumbasses and fucking tear each other apart then so be it. But you never should have drawn attention to yourself. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Logan shouts at you. It’s so startling, coming from him. You’re still associating him with the man you’d looked up to growing up. Your Wolverine was a hero. He was the reason you wanted to be an X-Man. And they look exactly the same, it’s nearly impossible for you to separate this one from the one you knew. 

But it's easier now. Because the man you’d known would never be so cruel and jaded to the world. Not like this. “Why the fuck are you even here? You’re just some watered-down knockoff of a real hero. You are nothing, you’re worth nothing. It’s a fucking joke that you’re alive and the woman I knew is buried six feet deep. If there was anything right in the world you would be in a grave somewhere crawling with maggots.”

Your eyes water without your permission. You don’t know this man. Yet, he has the face of your greatest hero and the man who you’d grown up hearing stories about. It’s like facing everything you’ve ever wanted to be and having it shout your deepest fears and insecurities back at you. He’s just confirming something you’ve known for years. You never deserved the title of being an X-Man. You never deserved the uniform or anything that came with it. 

Your breaths are coming short and fast, it feels like your lungs are constricting. You worry you won’t be able to get air in but he doesn’t care. No, he keeps going. “You follow this fucking clown around and you contribute nothing to the world. You’re never gonna save your fucking timeline. You can’t even make a few rocks float.” It’s not the words that hurt you next. It’s the way he says it. “You’re pathetic.”

He spits them at you. There’s venom lacing his tone like he’s seen into you and knows there’s nothing in you to offer. For the first time in a long time, you feel seen and you hate it. Because he’s looking past the sarcasm and the faux confidence you carry yourself with. 

He sees the empty husk of a woman you truly are and he’s forcing you to face it with him. It causes you physical pain, to know that everything you’ve ever feared about yourself is true. You don’t have anything to say to him, you can’t. 

Your lips tremble and you feel so fucking small. You can hear your parent's voices in your head, screaming at you and wishing you were never born. They’d rather have a stillborn than a fucked up mutant for a daughter. You see the way even other kids at the school would hide from you. You were made wrong, even as a mutant you were never truly accepted. 

Logan’s face drops ever so slightly at the prolonged silence in the car. Even Wade isn’t speaking, he’s just staring at you both. “I,” he starts, but Wade cuts him off. 

“I’m gonna hurt you now.” Wade’s never been one to let people run over you, even when you might just let yourself fall into the background. You shouldn’t be surprised when he draws a knife and stabs it into Logan’s throat. 

But the arterial spray that follows catches you off guard and suddenly your tears are dried. Instead, you’re throwing open the car door and diving out before one of them crushes you. You make it out of the car just in time, Logan having thrown Wade right where you had been sitting. 

Music starts up in the car as a result of their fighting. Divorced dad rock and the sounds of their, borderline, sexual grunting are your soundtrack for the rest of the night. You curl up at the base of a tree, waiting for them to be done with each other. 

Logan’s words continue to echo through your head. And the longer you linger on what he said the angrier you get. Not necessarily at him, but at yourself. You’ve let yourself linger in self-pity and wallow in regret for so long. 

You look in the mirror and you no longer recognize yourself. He’s right, as much as you hate to admit it, you’re a fucking joke. You toss your head back, slamming it against the trunk of the tree hard enough for it to hurt. 

There’s this manic, cloying feeling tugging at your chest. It’s like someone’s sitting on your ribs, crushing you until you can’t breathe anymore. You keep throwing your head back, letting the pain distract you until you feel warm blood leaking down the back of your scalp. 

“Shit,” you hiss, hand coming up to cradle the back of your skull. You wince when you feel the split in your skin. The blood leaks over the tips of your fingers, running through the cracks of your palm. 

You force yourself to relax, to move your head away from the tree. As you go to stand up, possibly to get Wade and Logan to quit their fighting, you notice something odd. The air around you is still, you can no longer hear them grunting or groaning as they rock the Honda. 

Leaves are suspended in the air. They’re not trembling from the breeze, they’re completely frozen. You take a step forward and gasp when you hit something solid. The air in front of you has solidified somehow. 

The realization dawns on you slowly but surely. This is you, you’ve done this. Manipulated everything around you on an atomic level. You’ve turned something you shouldn’t be able to feel into something you can touch. Frozen the world around you. Whatever Cassandra had done inside your head, it had knocked something loose. 

You haven’t had this wide a range of control for years. Any attempt to do something like this has been met with nosebleeds and long periods of blacking out. Elation fills you, the hurt from earlier is nearly gone. 

You glance through the wall of air and try to see if you can still see the Odyssey. To your horror, it’s gone. You wave your hands and the air returns to normal. The leaves drift back to the forest floor and you run back to where you’d left the two men. 

There are tire tracks dug deep into the mud. You know Wade wouldn’t willingly leave you behind, not here. You don’t know if Logan’s just kidnapped him or if someone else has. Whoever was driving was clearly in a rush to get out of here. 

You must have missed it all while you were having your meltdown. “Fuck,” you shout, your voice echoing into the branches above. You take in a deep breath and start walking. Hopefully, you can catch up to them before whoever has them does serious damage. 

You make it to a weird cave/hideout area. The Odyssey is parked outside and when you peek through the broken windows you find the interior completely destroyed. There’s blood soaking through every surface, anything and everything has been smashed and bent the wrong way. 

You don’t even know if this is from Wade and Logan or whoever had snatched them. Shaking your head you back up and slink towards the entrance of the den. You can hear shouting inside, it sounds like Wade, but you can’t make out what he’s saying. 

You haven’t seen action for a long time. At least not any that you could actually contribute to. It feels a bit like riding a bike. You’d practiced on your way here, making things around you float or eradicating a few trees into nothing but dust in the wind. But this is different. 

Your friend (and Logan) are inside, possibly being tortured. Maybe even dead. Though, you seriously doubt the universe is going to be that nice to you. You let the energy build in your arms, it’s like a warm tingling feeling. It shoots down to the palms of your hands until you feel static in the air. 

You take a step inside and spot three people. Each of them is decked out in weapons. One of them turns and spots you. “Who is-” 

You don’t let him finish, throwing your hands out and slamming them all into the wall so hard the whole interior shakes. Dirt rains down from the ceilings while their faces contort in pain. You run inside, spotting Logan and Wade. 

You shoot Wade a big grin but he throws his hands up and shouts, “Read the fucking room!” Your brows furrow and he points emphatically at the people you’re holding, “Good guys!”

“Oh shit,” you release them immediately, a guilty look on your face. “I am so sorry.” Logan cackles in the back, doubled over laughing while the three people in front of you brush themselves off. 

You don’t want to be out here with him, but it’s better than being in that cave with the others. Laura walks past you, sending you an uneasy smile. You’d noticed her sitting beside Logan and decided they probably needed a few moments to themselves. 

They were finished now, though, and he had the only bottle of liquor left in the cave with him. You trudge over to him, leaves crunching under your boots. Elektra, after that horrific introduction, had given you a uniform a different Flux had left behind. 

She was long gone, killed by Cassandra years ago, but she’d conveniently been your exact size. The uniform is nearly identical to the one you have buried under your bed. Black leather with a dark purple X going across your chest and matching purple seams. You’d never wanted something ridiculously flashy. Just something that people would see and associate with the X-Men. 

Because that’s all you’d ever wanted to be; a hero. It feels like a pipe dream now. If your pajamas weren’t so destroyed you would have just stayed in them. You don’t feel like you deserve this uniform, not when the woman who’d worn it before you had actually been a hero in her timeline. 

“Don’t want company,” Logan snarks, without even looking back to see who’s coming up to him.

You take a seat on the lawn chair closest to him and snatch the bottle of whiskey from his hands. “Good,” you tilt your head back, downing as much as possible. It burns the whole way and you revel in the slight tickle in the back of your throat. 

“Alright,” Logan mutters. He gently takes the bottle back from you, giving you an aggrieved look when he sees just how much you’ve stolen. He looks back into the fire and sighs, “Look, I’m not interested in hearing about your sob story or why you’re suddenly drinking all my liquor-”

“Gambit’s liquor,” you interrupt, not bothering to look at him. “And I’m not looking to dump my sob story on your lap. I just want to sit in silence and that’s impossible because Wade hasn’t stopped running his mouth since we got here.”

He looks a little surprised by the brusque way you dismiss him, “Alright,” he mutters. He takes another swig from the bottle and you both stare silently into the fire. It’s like that for a while, you don’t bother keeping track of time. 

All you hear is the crackling of the flames. All you can feel is the way your eyes burn from staring into the fire and watching sparks pop off the logs for too long. The breeze rustles the trees, makes the leaves shake free and dance around the logs of the fire. 

He breaks the silence first, to your chagrin. “About what I said,” he clears his throat uncomfortably, still refusing to look at you, “back in the car.”

“Don’t,” you snap, voice low. “Just,” you let out a long breath and shake your head. You finally look over and meet his eyes. He does actually look sorry, but you don’t want to hear it. “Just don’t, I deserved it all right.”

“No, no you didn’t.” You open your mouth to argue but he gives you a firm look that has your jaw snapping shut. “I was wrong, I don’t know you. And if my Flux had ever heard me talking to you like that she would have melted my fucking spine.” He laughs a little and you feel your lips twitch up slightly. It’s the first time you’ve seen him look anything but angry. 

Curiosity loosens your tongue and knocks you out of the dazed stupor you’ve been in. “What was she like?” You ask, tone earnest. “Your Flux, I mean, you make her sound so amazing. I just can’t,” you trail off, but the look on his face tells you he understands your unspoken words. I just can’t see myself as a real hero. 

He groans and leans back on the log he’s resting on. He stretches his legs out in front of him, the liquor bottle placed on the forest floor. You’re surprised, you figured the thing was glued to his hand. 

“Well,” he reaches up and scratches at the scruff of his chin, a wry grin on his face. “She was always giving me shit, never let me get away with anything.” You unconsciously lean forward, drawn into the endearing way he begins to describe this other version of you. 

It’s not ridiculous to assume this variant meant something to him. He’s got a shine to his eye that you haven’t seen in the whole time you’ve been together. His gaze has been empty, closed off to anything and everything. But now, his eyes are crinkling at the corners, there’s an easy smile on his face that you can’t miss. 

“Ah, she was fucking feisty. And strong, she was so strong. She was always a better hero than I was. She lived for that shit,” he trails off and shakes his head. You can see you’re losing him and you don’t want this to end. You’re in your own little bubble right now, getting to pretend there’s a version of you out there somewhere that actually lived up to her potential. 

“Her powers,” you blurt out, desperate for something to stop him from retreating back into his mind. “Did she have, um, good control over them?”

Logan nods, eyes darting down to the bottle of whiskey before flickering back up to meet your gaze again. “Yeah, Charles trained her, she was right up there with Jean. She could have,” he stops and suddenly you feel guilty for making him talk about this. You can see the tears in the corner of his eyes, the way the whites of them go red. “She could have been great.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, “I didn’t mean to pry.” But you did. You were being selfish and forcing him to talk about it even though you knew it would hurt him. 

“Look, kid, she would have liked you. I’ll tell you that much,” he says reluctantly. Like the words hurt to force out. You suppose he isn’t used to being genuine with anyone. 

You shake your head and look down at your hands. “I appreciate the thought, but I doubt it.”

Logan grabs the bottle again, gulping it down like it's water. His words have a slight slur to them as he speaks again. “I think I would know, bub. ‘Sides, you made it into the X-Men, tells me what I need to know.”

You scoff and fix him with a sardonic look, he raises his brows in question and you roll your eyes. “They’ll take fucking anybody. And I still wasn’t good enough for them.”

Logan shakes his head and frowns. “If what I saw in there,” he points back to the den and you feel your cheeks warm as you remember what you’d done, “is any indication, then I’m sure you were plenty good.”

You lean towards him, elbows braced on your knees. He follows suit, leaning so close you almost want to back up. The proximity flusters you slightly but you shake the feeling off. “You don’t even know me and the first real thing you said to me was that I’d be more useful as fertilizer.”

He sighs, face screwing up at your harsh words. He runs a hand over his cheeks and groans, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

You lean back in your chair and idly twirl your hand through the air. The leaves around you lift up and flutter through the air above your head. Logan watches and you turn back to him, waiting until his eyes meet yours to speak again. “Yes, you did. And you were right. I’m fucking useless, powers or not.” The leaves drop, a few fluttering into the fire. “We’re irrelevant, Wolverine, two washed-up X-Men who never looked good in the uniform.”

There’s a twinge of hurt on his face but you can’t make yourself feel bad about it. Since he’s such a fan of brutal truth, you’re sure he can handle it. 

You watch as the leaves curl up at the corners, the fire burning them straight through the middle. You get to your feet and move past him. You’re nearly back to the den when he calls, “The suit looks right on you,” over his shoulder.

You pause at the threshold of the door. He’s already drinking again, staring into the fire and watching it burn. You take a few steps towards him, staring at his broad back. “What happened to her, your me?”

Logan looks down at his hands, his ring finger specifically. You wonder at the significance of the movement, what exactly you’d meant to him. “She married me,” he mutters, voice cold and closed off again. 

“Goodnight, Logan,” you whisper, finally walking inside the den. 

You miss the small goodnight he sends back to you, finally turning around only to watch you leave. 

There had been a very clear plan set in place. Get Juggernaut’s helmet, put it on Cassandra, and then kill that psychotic bitch. Which is why you’re so confused when you’re standing knee-deep in guts and watching Logan and Wade leap through a portal above you. 

You don’t have time to feel angry or even hurt that they left without you. Laura is grabbing your arm and you’re both running for your life, trying to escape Alioth again. You run into Cassandra’s lair ducking into one of the rooms and dragging Laura with you. 

You’re both holding your breaths and praying that he’s sated by the others still outside. After a few minutes, the cracks of thunder stop and you risk peeking your head outside. The clouds have retreated back to their usual spot in the middle of the void. 

You take in the carnage of Cassandra’s evil lair. Most everybody is dead. You only have to skirt around a few people to get back to the Odyssey. 

You throw yourself in the driver’s seat and sink back against the bloodstained cushions. You let out a relieved breath and look at Laura, “What do you do to entertain yourself around here?”

You acclimated to the idea of being stuck in the void pretty quickly. There wasn’t exactly a lot waiting for you back home. Besides, Laura was nice enough. You had food, beer, and company. You didn’t really need much else. 

You’re pretty sure if you linger too long on the thought that Wade left you behind you’ll fall into a depression that you’re never going to be able to claw your way out of. So, you forced a smile on your face and played cards. Nothing else to do but wait to die of old age or for Alioth to kill you. 

Of course, your plans had to be ruined. There was an odd rush of air against your back and then a slight whoosh. Laura glanced over your shoulders and her brows furrowed, you turned around to find three armored men waiting behind you. 

“Flux,” the man glanced from you to Laura, “X-23?”

“Laura,” you both correct at the same time. 

The man gives an aggrieved sigh and holds his arm out, “Come with me, please.”

You stand up, energy tingling in the palms of your hands while you regard them suspiciously. Laura comes up behind you, claws out and glaring at them. “Why should we?” You demand. 

Barely a second later you hear the most insufferable voice in the world. “Hiya, peanut!” 

“Wade,” you hiss. You follow the armored men through an oddly shaped portal and find Wade standing beside a shirtless Logan, smiling proudly at you. “You fucking left me,” you hold up your hands and his eyes widen. 

His hands quickly come up, trying to assuage you, “Hold on now-”

You throw him back, his body hurtling into a nearby building and caving in the wall. Logan watches it happen with a small smile, “Been wanting to do that for a while.” 

Once Wade had recovered he filled you in on everything that happened. TVA did a general clean up and then you were standing in front of your apartment door, keys in hand like nothing had happened. 

It was so bizarre, going from a mission to save your timeline and then you’re expected to just go about your life. You stay standing in that hallway for you don’t know how long before you hear someone behind you. 

You jump and drop your keys when Logan clears his throat. “Shit,” you hiss, whirling around and glaring at him while your heart races. He chuckles and bends over to grab your keys for you. 

“Sorry,” he mutters. This is the most relaxed you’ve ever seen him, covered in blood and in a borrowed shirt. “Uh, Wade doesn’t have enough room at his place. Told me I should come over here.”

You look over his shoulder and see Wade peeking his head out of his doorway. He catches your eye, sending you a thumbs up. You almost smile but then he makes a phallic gesture with his hands, pointing at Logan and humping the air. You glare at him and he quickly backs into his apartment, but not before sending you one last encouraging shit-eating grin. 

You look back at Logan and he’s waiting expectantly for your answer. “Yeah,” you take your keys from him and unlock the door. “I’ve got a spare room but there’s no bed in it right now.” Your eyes widen when you see the mess that is your apartment. 

You quickly rush through, picking up empty take-out boxes and dirty laundry and shoving them into your room. He’s smiling at you when you come back and it's slightly off-putting. “Um,” you gesture towards the couch awkwardly. “You can take the sofa tonight and we’ll look at setting you up with something more permanent tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” he hovers by the armrest and you engage in the longest stare-off of your life. Neither of you says anything for a few suffocating moments before he gestures at himself. “Shower?”

“Oh,” you snap out of your stupor and nod your head. “Yeah, right, of course.” You show him down the hall, “Here. I’ll go get you a towel.”

You rush towards your linen closet, leaving him behind in your bathroom. You grab a few clean towels and then figure he might want some clothes as well. You grab some pajamas that Wade’s left over when he’s crashed before. They’ll probably be a bit tighter on Logan, but you wouldn’t mind seeing that. 

You walk back to the bathroom and the thought of knocking doesn’t even run through your head. It should, honestly, but you’re already so thrown off by him even being here. You walk in and immediately gasp and drop the towels. 

“Oh, I'm sorry. I’m so sorry.” He’s standing naked before you. Clothes discarded on the floor behind him. Everything on perfect display. Your eyes land on his abs, noticing a few prominent veins leading down-

You cover your face and turn around. “Sorry,” you mutter again. God, you’re such an idiot. You still haven’t even left. You’d just been shamelessly ogling the man naked and you don’t even have the decency to walk out. 

You really can’t help it though. It’s been such a clusterfuck, the last 72 hours. Your brain is fried and Wade’s little show hasn’t helped you at all.  

You hear Logan laugh behind you. “It’s alright,” he mutters. Something warm ghosts across your arm and you jump slightly. His hand firmly grasps your bicep, gently tugging your palms away from your face. 

You risk a glance over your shoulder and nearly gasp at how close he’s gotten. He's towering over you, something in his face you can’t place. “It’s alright,” he whispers again and you find yourself nodding without really thinking. 

He’s got both hands on your arms now, trailing up and down. The touch is so featherlight you can barely feel it at all. You don’t even realize how he’s gently coaxing you closer until you trip on the towels at your feet. 

You startle, looking down at them and moving to kick them aside. But he stops you, his finger nudging your chip up so you’ll look at him again. There is such blatant want painted across his face that it makes your heart skip a beat. Your breath catches in your throat when he wraps an arm around your waist and drags you closer. 

You can feel all of him. You can feel just how much he wants you. It catches you off guard, this sudden display of attraction. You don’t know where it’s coming from, what’s brought it on. But you can’t find it in yourself to care. You’ve been so lonely for so long. You just want to bask in the fact that he looks absolutely starved for you. 

No man has ever looked at you with such heartbreakingly yearning eyes - like he’s been looking for you his whole life. He dips down, lips ghosting gently over yours. Your breaths mingle together, you can nearly taste him. 

It’s unclear which one of you moves first, who pushes closer to the other. But it doesn’t matter because the second you put real pressure behind the kiss he’s all over you. One of his hands drifts down to your ass, squeezing the flesh there and dragging you closer, grinding his hips into yours. 

You moan at the feeling, your arms wrap around his neck and you press yourself even closer. He groans against your lips at the first swipe of your tongue. You part with a gasp when he picks you up, practically tossing you onto your sink. Your legs spread instinctually, making room for him as he slots himself between them. 

It’s odd, feeling so vulnerable even when he’s the one who's completely naked. It still feels like he’s holding all the power. 

His lips are moving frantically over yours like he’s terrified you’re going to disappear the second he lets go. You can taste something desperate on his tongue. Something deeply rooted inside him that you can’t identify. 

One of your hands drifts from his neck, trailing over the muscles of his chest. Your fingers carve a path down his abs, relishing in how muscular he feels under your palm. Your hand reaches his pelvis, nearly wrapped around him when he jumps back. 

He grabs your wrist in a grip so tight you know there’s going to be a bruise. A pained gasp slips out and he releases you immediately. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. “Sorry, I can’t.” He won’t look at you now, backing up towards the shower and shaking his head. “This was a bad idea, I can’t do this.”

You shake your head, slipping off the sink and hiding your bruised wrist behind your back. “No, sorry, I shouldn’t have moved so fast.”

You feel too ashamed to meet his eye. He kissed you but you feel like you’ve forced yourself on him somehow. It’s a nauseating feeling and you want nothing more than to run back to your room and hide. 

He takes a step towards you, something pained on his face. “Kid-”

You just shake your head, step out of the bathroom, and grab the handle of the door. “Sorry,” you whisper again, closing the door behind you. You lean against the cool wood, trying to catch your breath. 

Your hand drifts up to your lips, still tingling from how desperately he’d kissed you. It doesn’t make any sense. He came on to you, he threw you up on the sink, and made out with you more passionately than any man ever has before. So why are you the one who feels dirty?

You rush down the hall and into your room, slamming the door behind you. You dive under your covers, closing your eyes even though you know you won’t sleep. No, your shoulders are tensed up to your ears and your bones are vibrating with an energy you need to release. 

You’re completely tuned into the other person lurking in your apartment. You can hear as he starts the shower, how he talks quietly to himself sometimes. Then when he gets out you can perfectly picture what he looks like while he’s getting dressed and it only makes you feel worse. 

You listen as he leaves the bathroom and pauses in the hall. You can see it in your mind’s eye, how he stares at your door. He walks towards it and lingers for a minute before cussing quietly and heading back into the living room. 

You suddenly remember that you didn’t lay sheets out on the couch for him. You feel guilty, but there’s not one part of you that will be dragged from this bed and face him. Not now, at least. 

He’s up for a little while longer, getting water. Turning the TV on and off. Rooting through your cabinets looking for booze you know you don’t have. Finally, he settles on the couch. You’re awake for another hour, unable to relax until you’re completely sure he’s asleep. Even as you drift off and your body finally relaxes your mind doesn’t. You keep seeing that stricken look on his face and it makes you sick to your stomach. 

It’s the smell of pancakes that wakes you up. You’re not sure when you finally managed to pass out last night but you know it was late. Which is why you’re so pissed off that you’re being forced to get up at seven in the morning. 

You’re used to being able to sleep in a lot later than that. You’re already in a pissy mood from last night and it only gets worse as you trudge around your room getting ready. You’ve never been more thankful to have snagged one of the rare two-bathroom apartments in the building.

You don’t want to have to share a bathroom with Logan. You don’t even want to use the other one after what happened last night. It’s too embarrassing and painful to think about. The emotional whiplash of feeling so desired and then absolutely hideous is making your head spin. 

You’re sure it was all just a problem on his end, but it really doesn’t make you feel any better. When you can’t stall any longer, and you know that Logan has heard you get up, you slip quietly out of your room. 

The curtains in your living room are open and he’s in the kitchen fucking around with your stove. The news is playing quietly on the TV and you’re astounded about how little he’s done and how much more homely your apartment feels. 

It’s never really been home to you. Not after you were booted from the X-Men. But he’s somehow made it ten times cozier than it ever has been. You almost resent him a little for it. 

“Morning,” he grumbles from the kitchen. “Coffee,” he motions behind him and you see a steaming cup already waiting for you. You silently slip behind him, grabbing the creamer from the fridge and pouring it until you’re sure it’s sweet enough to not actually taste the coffee. 

“Thanks,” you mutter, moving to sit at the table. You keep your eyes trained on the TV, pretending to pay attention to the news so you don’t have to look at him. He bores his eyes into the side of your head until you feel like you’re going to have holes in your temple. 

When you can’t take it anymore you finally look over at him. He doesn’t smile, his face barely even twitches, he just looks back to his pan and continues scrambling some eggs. “Didn’t know you cooked,” you offer up weakly, already growing anxious from the silence. 

It feels wrong, to be walking on eggshells in your own apartment. He grunts and shrugs, “Not really cooking. You had the mix in your pantry,” he tells you brusquely. His tone borders on rude and you scoff. 

The audacity of this man to have an attitude with you in your apartment. He was the one who threw a hissy fit last night. You roll your eyes and go back to the news, all it tells you is that the world is just as depressing as the inside of your apartment is right now. 

You notice out of the corner of your eye the way his shoulders slump forward. He leans against the oven, seeming not to care if he burns himself. You suppose it doesn’t matter, he’d just heal. “Sorry,” he mutters. It sounds like it pains him to say the words. 

“Whatever,” you mumble under your breath. You take a long sip of your coffee, slurping a little so you have something to fill the atmosphere. 

He puts some food on a plate and brings it over to the table for you. You usually don’t eat breakfast, preferring to just skip the meal and eat a bigger lunch. But it feels too bitchy to say that to him, so you just accept the food with a strained smile. “Thanks.”

He sits across from you, glaring down at your table like it insulted him. You drag your fork against the plate, letting the scrape of metal against porcelain drown out your worries. Finally, he looks at you. “Look, about last night.”

You tense up. You want to interrupt him, to stop him from explaining. You know it’s just going to hurt your feelings, whatever he says. Whether he tells you it was a mistake or he just realized he’s not attracted to you, either way, you’re fucked. But, it’s also kept you up all night so you just shut your mouth and let him speak. 

You keep your gaze trained on your plate, unable to fully face him. He lets out a long sigh and clenches his fork so tight you hear the metal bend. He drops it to the table and clenches and unclenches his fists a few times. 

“I just couldn’t kiss you, not when I wasn’t doing it for the right reasons.”

Your brows furrow in confusion and you finally look up at him. “What?” You demand, disbelief coloring your voice. 

His eyes are boring into yours, an intensity behind the stare that leaves you feeling a little shaken. “You look like her,” he whispers, and the grief is so thick in his voice it makes your throat tighten. He pauses briefly before continuing. “There are,” he clears his throat like he’s trying not to cry. It makes you lean back in your chair, arms crossed over your stomach uncomfortably. 

“There are a few differences, obviously. You’re not a carbon copy. But your mannerisms, your attitudes, you’re so similar. And I,” he shakes his head and gives you one of the most genuinely apologetic looks you’ve ever received. You can tell he really does feel guilty for projecting on you but it doesn’t make you feel any less uncomfortable. “And I just wasn’t doing that for the right reasons. I was pretending you were her and that’s just not fair to you.”

You lean your elbows on the table, head falling into your hands. You let out a rough sigh and groan in irritation. You knew the reason would hurt but you didn’t think it would be this bad. You feel gross, icky under your skin knowing that he was pretending you were another version of yourself. The version of yourself you’ve always wanted to be; the hero. 

But you also feel such a deep sadness and sympathy for him. He’d briefly mentioned that he was married to this other you. You can’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like, to see your dead wife’s face staring at you and she doesn’t even know you. 

“I,” you don’t even know where to begin. You struggle to say anything for a minute and you both just stew in the tense silence. You take in a deep breath and look up at him. You do what you always do, forcing a smile and shrugging it off. “I appreciate the honesty, really.” You stand up, bringing your still-full plate into the kitchen and busying yourself with cleaning up. 

“Clearly,” you snap, your voice crueler than it should be, “It was a mistake. We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t happen again, right?”

Logan sits silently at the table. He looks like there’s more he wants to say but you don’t give him the chance. You can’t take it. You finally thought someone had wanted you for you, flaws and all. You’re a fucking idiot, he barely even knows you. Whatever connection you thought was there was just brought about by your own loneliness. 

“I gotta get ready for work,” you tell his back because he isn’t looking at you now. 

He nods, scraping his fork across the plate as he aggressively cuts into his food. “Right.” You wait for him to say anything else but he doesn’t. 

You walk past him and head back to your room. You don’t even have a job, you don’t have to work. But you still grab your purse and head out of the apartment. Pretending you do just so you don’t have to look at him anymore. 

You really should have let him finish, though. You should have let him keep talking to you. Let him explain how as much as he sees her in you, that’s not why he wants you. He wants you for you. Because as similar as you can be, you’re still a completely different person from who his late wife was. You’re someone strong and incredible and he genuinely wants you. But he can never really let himself be happy. 

It takes a few days for you both to ease up around the other. The incident in the bathroom is never brought up again. You take him shopping for clothes after a few days. It feels wrong to keep giving him Wade’s hand-me-downs. You would have had your friend take him, but you don’t trust Wade’s sense of fashion at all. 

After that and getting lunch together while you were out shopping things got a little easier. You bought him a bed for the spare room because you felt guilty seeing him all cramped up on your tiny couch. 

You don’t initiate any physical contact with each other. The closest you’d gotten was your hands brushing when you both reached for some popcorn at the same time on movie night. But you hadn’t really minded that bad. 

Eventually, he starts to feel like a real roommate and a friend. He lets little pieces of himself slip out. Slowly opens up about his past. You haven’t made any existential discoveries of course. But he tells you stories of what his X-Men were like. 

You try not to dance around the topic of his wife, you don’t want him to think you’re avoiding asking about her. But you also don’t want him to think you’re obsessed with discussing her. 

He’s right, you two weren’t carbon copies of each other at all. You might share a few things in common but the more both you and Logan learn about each other, the more clear it is how different you both are from your variants. 

Sometimes you think he looks at you like he’s really seeing you, not her. But you can never be sure and you don’t want to put much strength behind the thought in case you’re wrong. You hate the idea that when you’re thinking of nothing but him, he’s just seeing her reflection on your face. 

There’s nothing you can do about it but it doesn’t stop the hurt. 

Tonight, at Wade’s suggestion, you’re both up on the roof waiting for a meteor shower that you’re ninety percent sure is never going to happen. You’re also one hundred percent sure that Wade just tricked you out of your apartment so he could have sex in it. He and Vanessa don’t really get a lot of time alone with Blind Al around. You’re already mentally preparing for the absolute fuck storm you’re going to have to clean up after.  

There’s a light nudge on your shoulder and you glance over at Logan. He’s got the whiskey bottle outstretched towards you and you take it from him with a smile. One thing about being his roommate, your alcohol tolerance has skyrocketed. His liver might regenerate, but you’re pretty sure if you keep going down this route yours will give out in a few months. 

“Think this is actually going to happen?” You ask, pointing up toward the clear night sky. 

Logan chuckles and shakes his head. He stretches out in your flimsy lawn chair and you try not to let your gaze be drawn to the sliver of skin peeking out from his shirt. “Probably not, but I don’t mind being out here.”

There’s an unspoken, with you, that makes you smile. You meet his gaze, his eyes soft as he watches you. “Me either.” You lean back in your chair, pulling your legs up onto the seat and huddling under your blanket. “It’s peaceful.”

You drink together in silence for a little while longer. Then you have to tap out, you don’t want your brain getting too foggy. Tonight is nice, you want to remember it tomorrow. To your surprise, he caps the bottle and places it to the side. You don’t mention it but you do feel like you’ve noticed he’s been drinking a little less. The dark circles under his eyes seem to be easing away ever so slightly. 

He looks over at you with an odd light in his eyes. You shift uncomfortably under his stare when it lasts a little longer than it usually does. You chuckle awkwardly, “Do I have something on my face?”

There’s a soft uptick to his lips as he shakes his head. “No,” he mutters, looking back out at the night. “You mind if I ask you something?”

Ominous, but whatever. “Sure.”

He still doesn’t look at you and you worry slightly about whatever it is he’s going to ask. He doesn’t ease you into it all, “Wade said your brain was broken?” A laugh springs out of your throat from how brusque that was. He rolls his eyes. “Fuckin’ idiot mentioned it in the void, been wonderin’ about it.”

“It’s fine,” you tell him. You’re relaxed enough that you don’t mind answering. You don’t want to pop the soft bubble you’ve managed to create around each other. “Here,” you hold your hand out for the whiskey bottle. He gives you an apprehensive look before handing it over. 

You unscrew the cap, “This,” you say and point your hand at the glass. The liquid inside lifts into the air and you freeze it before dropping it back into the bottle with a splash, a simple little party trick. “This used to be enough to put me in a coma for two days. That’s what he meant. Something happened to me and I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

Logan’s eyes widen and he shakes his head in disbelief. You laugh a little, “I assume your wife never had problems like that?”

There’s always a fond smile when you mention his wife. Whether the memory is bittersweet or not. “She wasn’t perfect, much as I thought so. When she used her powers too much she,” he trails off and looks down at the floor. You frown, ducking your head down so you can catch his gaze. 

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” you promise quietly.

But he shakes his head and gives you a weak, tight-lipped smile. “No, I want to. And I don’t want you to think you’re the only Flux who struggled. When she used her powers too much she would deteriorate. Parts of her would just disappear, I don’t even know how to describe it. They were destroying her from the inside out.”

You let out a low whistle, eyes widening slightly. “Well, maybe I didn't get the short end of the stick after all.” It’s quiet and for a moment you worry your humor was ill-timed. 

But he lets out a rough laugh, “No, I guess not.” He takes in a deep breath before looking back up at you. There’s no distant sadness in his eyes like there usually is when you bring her up. It seems to only be a familiar ache now, rather than something fresh and bleeding. “But what happened to you? Why couldn’t you use your powers?”

“Oh,” you look down at your lap, picking at the strings of your pants. It would be unfair to have him talk about his wife and then wimp out when it was your turn. 

“Um, There was this mission. A bunch of kids, mutants, were being held in this warehouse. It was actually pretty normal, just go in, retrieve them, and bring them back to safety. I must have done a dozen of these before, but, I don’t know. Something was this different this time around.”

You can still hear them screaming. In your mind, you hear the way they cried for help. And you see the look on your faces when they realize you can’t save them every time you go to sleep. 

You suck in a sharp breath and almost jump when his hand lands on yours. It’s gentle, he’s barely even touching you and he’s not even acknowledging what he’s doing. But you take his hand in yours and squeeze, it’s nice, grounding. 

“Long story short, they were heavily guarded and I was pretty drained from fighting off the guards. My powers were practically gone by the time we could even get to the kids. And, I don’t know, something must have gotten knocked over or hit the wrong way because smoke was filling the place and everything was on fire. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t breathe, and the kids were blocked off. There was nothing we could do to get to them. Everyone kept screaming at me, telling me to just use my abilities and get them out of there. I couldn’t,” your voice gets thick and you look anywhere but at him. “I,” your mouth hangs open and you don’t know what you could possibly say. 

There’s no excuse for what happened. “I just couldn’t,” you whisper. You sniffle and your eyes flutter rapidly, trying to stop any tears from coming. “Hadn’t been able to use my powers since then. Trauma block or something, I guess,” you dismiss yourself flippantly and shrug. 

Logan just squeezes your hand again. He doesn’t seem to know what to say to comfort you and you’re honestly grateful for the silence. You get so sick of people telling you there was nothing you could have done. Or that the others should have helped you. Because that’s not a fucking excuse. There’s no fixing what happened, no giving those parents their children back. You fucked up and you don’t appreciate people giving you cop-outs. 

You keep your gaze trained steadily on the ground, eyes going blurry while you try to slip into the back of your mind. You don’t get the chance, though. Logan is kneeling in front of you, hands slipping up your arms to cup your face. 

He forces you to look at him, to stay present in the moment with him. “You fucked up,” he tells you. It's so shocking that you can’t help but let out a loud wet laugh. You sniffle and he grins, wiping the tears out from under your eyes. His grip on your cheeks tightens and he makes sure you’re listening as he speaks, “You fucked up, kid. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t try your fucking hardest. And it doesn’t erase all the people you did help.”

Your eyes search him, trying to find any kernel of untruth. Trying to prove to yourself that this isn’t real. That he isn’t real. You don’t deserve this moment of such unwavering trust and faith. This is meant for someone else, for someone who deserves good things in life. 

You’ve never truly believed you deserved happiness or peace like this. But right now you don’t care because he is saying everything you’ve ever wanted to hear. And he actually means it. 

Your hand drifts up, covering his and tilting your head to press a gentle kiss to his palm. It’s tentative, a test, a way to give him an out if doesn’t want this. His grip on you tightens for half a second before he shoots forward and claims your lips with his own. 

It escalates quickly. You practically melt off your chair, straddling his lap while he leans back on the ground. Your hands tug at his hair while he moves desperately over your body. He can’t seem to decide what he wants to do, where he wants to touch you. 

You love how fully his hands engulf you, the tight way they cradle you to his chest. You’ve never felt more secure in someone’s arms than you do right now. He’s got you, and he wants you. For you this time, you can tell. You can tell from the way he holds you that this isn’t a desperation born from grief. It’s something else, something you’re not ready to identify yet. 

His tongue laves across the seam of your lips, silently asking permission. You smile against the kiss, parting your lips and deepening it. He licks into you, tasting you with a low grunt in the back of his throat. You feel your hips start to move of their own volition. Gently grinding down against his lap. You moan when you feel just how bad he wants you. 

You lean back, parting from the kiss and pressing a finger to his chest to keep from following. You chuckle at his eagerness, grinding your hips down again and watching the way he thrusts up to meet your movement. “Didn’t know I was such a good kisser,” you tease. 

But he doesn’t return the joke or play along. His face falls slightly and he pulls further away from you, the look on his face distant. “What?” You whisper. “Do I have bad breath?” You joke, trying to keep the mood light. 

He shakes his head and runs a tired hand over his face. “No,” he mutters. He repeats the word more firmly and finally meets your gaze. “I think I need to take this slow, just because of…”

He trails off but you know what he means. His wife. You don’t know if he’s still projecting her onto you, you felt so sure he wasn’t earlier. But if every time you kiss he’s gonna pull back you’re not sure that you can do this. “Of course,” you mutter with a bite to your voice. It’s hard not to feel a little rejected every time he acts like this. 

You move to get off his lap but his hands clamp down on your hips and he shakes his head again. “You don’t have to get up.”

You hesitate, thighs still hovering over his. You should get up and put as much space between you as possible. But he’s so warm and you want to be held for a little while more. You nod and he looks relieved. You lean back down, pressing your chest against his and letting your head rest in the crook of his neck. 

He wraps a heavy arm around your back, keeping you close while the other reaches up to stroke your hair. It makes you feel small, in a good way. Like you can just relax and he’ll take care of you. 

“Goddamn,” he laughs a little and you sit up. He nods to the sky above and you turn around, gasping. 

“Fuck,” you whisper, “he wasn’t lying.” For once, Wade was telling the truth. Above you, it looks like the sky is falling. Glittering stars dart across the sky, streaks of blue following behind them. You grin, “It’s so beautiful.”

Logan keeps his eyes on you and nods, “Yeah, it is.”

“Ah, look, my favorite fuck buddies.”

”Wade,” you greet tightly. You shove the bottle of wine you brought into his chest and he stumbles back. “Just let us in, you freak.”

He frowns, placing a hand over his heart. “You know, it really hurts when you talk like that. I think we all need to hold hands and have a good old-fashioned jerk circle.”

You roll your eyes and flick his thick forehead. “It’s share circle, dumbass.”

”Not the way I do it,” he moves to the side and lets you both in. “Well, mi casa es su casa, especially since Vanessa and I had rockin’ sex in your bed last week.”

He walks off before you can hit him or even begin to respond to that. “I fucking knew it,” you hiss, glaring at his stupid Hawaiian shirt while he mingles with the rest of the people at the party. 

Logan chuckles behind you, “How did you two ever become friends?”

You roll your eyes and turn to face him. “I moved in next door,” you respond dryly. “This was a nonconsensual friendship because god hates me, clearly.” You shrug your jacket off and he takes it from you, hanging it up on the hook by the door. He comes back, slinging an arm around your shoulder, and leading you towards the kitchen. 

You hear Wade laughing loudly in the background and he grunts, “I’m gonna need a drink for this,” he mutters. You nod your head in agreement. You don’t get very far, though, because without any warning Wade is in front of you. He’s got his ridiculous dog in his arms and shoves her in your face. You grimace and jump back. Logan abandons you and you narrow your eyes at his retreating back. Traitor

Wade says your name with disappointment. “You know, Mary Puppins is a part of my life now. As my best friend, you need to bond with her. I can’t have you two fighting like this.” He shoves the dog into your arms without any warning and you flinch away from her wandering tongue. 

“If this thing licks me, I’m putting her down,” you warn him gravely. 

He gasps and snatches her back. “You are no longer welcome in my home,” he tells you with a snotty huff. You roll your eyes and watch him go. When he’s out of sight your lips curl up in a grin and you glance at Logan. 

He’s by the sink, making himself a drink and taking a deep swig straight out of the bottle. You creep up behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist. He smiles, hand coming down to gently hold your arm. “What’re you doing?”

”Come with me,” you whisper. You take his hand and lead him through the apartment. You both skirt around the partygoers, giving them vague greetings and waving them off when they give you odd looks. 

Logan leans down, lips brushing across your ear as he whispers, “Where are we going?” Your knees nearly give out when you hear that low tone of voice of his. You just shake your head and lead him down the hall. You can sniff out Wade’s room from the permeating stench of his axe body spray. 

You throw the door open and drag Logan inside behind you. His nose wrinkles up at the stiff socks littering the floor and the smell. Other than that, it’s relatively clean. You actually thought this would look so much worse. 

“Now,” Logan demands, “are you gonna tell me what we’re doing?”

“Well,” you lock the door and turn around with a devious grin. “Seeing as Wade has ruined my favorite sheets, I feel like we need to get him back somehow.” You glance around the room, trying to figure out something of his you want to destroy. 

You don’t hear Logan moving towards you. You’re too busy rooting through Wade’s desk and trying to find something good to shred up.  All you’re seeing is increasingly more disturbing porno mags. He has got a serious problem with pegging. You briefly wonder if you should set up an intervention or something for him. 

You nearly yelp when Logan’s hands grip your shoulders, whipping you around to face him. “I’ve got an idea of what we can do.” That’s your only warning before his lips cover your own. You melt into him immediately, hands fisting his shirt and dragging him closer. He grins against your lips, lifting you and placing you on the edge of Wade’s desk. 

“Mm,” you moan but shove his chest back and shake your head. “Wait,” you hop off the desk and take a seat on Wade’s bed instead. “There’s no point in this if we’re not on the bed.”

Logan shakes his head with an amused huff. He walks towards you but instead of taking a seat on the bed next to you like you'd expected, he kneels before you. Your brows furrow together and you frown. “Wait, what’re you doing?”

He gives you a gentle smile, hands coming up to rub gently over your thighs. The warmth of his palms soothes you almost immediately. “You trust me?” He asks, voice a low rumble against your chest. 

“Yeah,” you whisper. He nods encouragingly and leans forward, kissing you gently. There’s nothing expectant in this kiss. He’s doing it just to be close to you. Then you feel his hands drifting higher, fingers running over the buttons of your jeans. Your lips part, ready to ask him a question. But he just takes the chance to dip his tongue into your mouth, eagerly tasting you. You moan into it, not protesting when he presses you back into the bed. 

His fingers dip under the waistband of your jeans. You lift your hips to help him tug them the rest of the way down until they’re dropping to the floor quietly. You have a million questions dancing on the tip of your tongue but you can’t find it in yourself to actually voice any of them. You don’t want to break the moment. This is the first time he’s seemed comfortable going further than kissing and some heavy petting. 

“Fuck,” he whispers. Your hips jolt as he runs a thumb over the wet spot on your panties. “All this just from kissing?” He asks, a teasing lilt to his tone. You feel your face flush, cheeks warming when you realize he’s never actually seen just how much he affects you. “Relax,” he tells you, squeezing your thighs once before slipping a few lithe fingers under the band of your panties. 

He tugs them down, but the second he sets eyes on you he gets too impatient to take them off the rest of the way. They dangle off one ankle while he lifts your thighs, setting them on his shoulder and dipping down to press a gentle kiss against you. You gasp at the contact, head tilting back while you instinctually grind your hips up against him. 

It’s been a long time since you’ve actually been with anyone and you already know you’re going to cum embarrassingly quick because he fucking devours you. You’ve had boyfriends who liked to eat you out before, but this is something completely different. 

He drags his tongue over you, sucking on your clit like it’s his only true joy in life. You can’t even make noises, your jaw hanging slack while you cant your hips higher. He groans when you grind against his face, shaking his head and flicking his nose across your bud. You nearly come from the sight of him smiling against your cunt alone. You feel it building slowly, and it’s like your powers are swelling up along with your release. 

Wade’s knicknacks are floating off the shelves, some of them rotating in the air, others fluctuating between liquid and solid forms. You can’t control yourself, you’re barely aware of the chaos happening in the room around you. You just feel a warmth at the tips of your toes, swelling over your body, making your skin feel too tight. There’s little to no warning when you cum. He dips his tongue inside you and you let out a long moan, drenching his face. 

The sheets are soaking wet underneath you and you know you’ve ruined his shirt. You’ve never come that hard before and you would reflect on that more if he wasn’t still fucking eating you out. You think your brain is going to melt out of your ears, you're so overwhelmed by all the different sensations.

He dips his tongue into you, dragging out your orgasm and drinking as much of you down as he can. Your hips keep twitching, you’d be thrashing out of his hands if it wasn’t for the near brushing grip he has on your hips. “Fuck fuck fuck,” you reach down, grabbing his hair at the roots and tugging. He groans at the feeling, barely leaning an inch back. “No more,” you whisper, chest heaving. 

He smiles, palms smoothing across the skin of your thighs, “You okay?” 

“Mhm,” you hum weakly. Your head falls back against the bed with a dull thunk and you struggle to catch your breath. “Holy shit, where did you learn to do that?” He doesn’t answer, just laughs. You jump slightly when he presses a tender kiss on your thigh, every part of you oversensitive. 

He moves slowly up your body, hands dragging your shirt up until he’s pulling it over your head. He cups your cheeks, letting you recover while he kisses your cheeks and face. You laugh slightly at the feeling of his beard tickling you. 

You pull back, meeting his gaze for a long drawn-out moment before you lean forward to finally kiss him back. You can feel yourself slowly coming back into your body. Your limbs tingle back to life while you lazily make out with him. 

His hands drift down your chest, squeezing your breasts. You laugh against his lips, arching into his touch. You reach back, unclipping your bra and throwing it off somewhere in the room. In the far reaches of your mind, you make a mental note to take that when you go. You don’t want to think about what Wade would do with it if he found it. 

Logan pulls back from you and your lips tip down at the serious look he wears. Your fingers trace the lines of his face and you tilt your head in question. “What’s wrong?” You whisper. You’re completely naked before him and he’s still clothed, you don’t want him to leave now. 

He can’t keep doing this to you. He can’t keep forcing you into these vulnerable positions and then leaving. There’s only so much rejection you can take before you start to resent him for it. 

He tilts his head down, gaze dragging across your body appreciatively. He’s looking at you like you’re art and it makes you feel like you should be in a museum somewhere. Finally, his hand drags down from your chest, wrapping around your waist and dragging you onto his lap. 

You brace your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself. He leans towards you, lips trailing lightly across your jaw. “You’re not her,” he whispers against your skin. Your mouth parts, a pained breath slipping through. You try to move back from him. You hadn’t expected something like that, not now, not when you thought you’d made so much progress together. 

To have you naked, vulnerable like this, and then say something like that to you. It was fucking despicable. You shove his shoulders back but he barely moves. You shift, trying to cover yourself and fighting off the urge to cry. Why won’t he let you go? Why does he keep doing this to you? 

He reaches out, snatching up your wrist before you can get far. “I don’t want you to be. I never wanted you to be her, I need you to know that.”

He tries to kiss you but you snatch his jaw in your hand before he can. You let your nails dig in until there’s red blooming under your fingertips. He hisses, but he’s not mad, you can feel how much he enjoys the little pinpricks of pain. 

“No more pulling away,” you warn. “I’m not playing this damn game with you anymore, Logan. You want me, then commit.” You release him with a shove and his pupils dilate with want. You appreciate the gentle way he’s been treating you, but you know you’re both holding back. 

He’s the first partner you’ve been with that can actually take what you give and vice versa. There’s something only mutants understand sometimes. You normally have to hold back, have to make sure you don’t scare a guy off by making the walls shake when you come. 

You push him down onto the bed. Hands sliding under the hem of his shirt and running over the grooves of his muscles. You haven’t had a chance to appreciate just how gorgeous his body is before, but nothing is holding you back now. 

You snap your fingers and the buttons rip open, he surges forward catching your lips with his while you both frantically push his shirt off. He throws it off to the side and his fingers fumble with his belt buckle while you trail kisses down his neck. You glance up at him for a second before biting down on a particularly sensitive spot. 

He groans, head rolling back while you grin against his skin. You make your way back to his lips. “Don’t hold back,” you tell him, trailing your hands down to his fists and running over the spots where the claws come out. 

“Sweetheart,” he starts tone apprehensive. You shake your head, shutting him up with a kiss. 

“Don’t. Hold. Back.”

It’s like a switch flipping. Even the way he looks at you changes. You’re not something to be cherished and adored. You feel like a deer pinned by a wolf. He’s got you in his clutches now and there’s a real possibility you might not survive this. 

He stands up, dropping you on the bed and dragging your hips off the edge. He doesn’t kick his jeans off, just lowers them enough for his cock to hang out. You’ll address the fact that he wasn’t wearing boxers later, you’re too worried about what’s hanging between his legs right now. 

You’re no virgin, but goddamn, there’s no way that’s going to fit. 

He laughs, the noise cruel and it makes shivers crawl down your spine. “We’ll make it work, kid.” He spreads your legs and you tilt your hips up, making it easier for him to just sip inside. 

There’s a slight stretch, but you’re already soaked for him. You’ve been waiting for this to happen since you walked in on him naked in your bathroom. “Oh, shit,” you toss your head back, taking in a deep breath while he pushes in. It feels like he’s rearranging your insides, molding you to fit him perfectly. 

You can already feel yourself clenching down, just being so close to him is enough to make that tingle in the tips of your toes start. He leans down, placing your legs over his elbows and rutting into you like a wild animal. There’s nothing gentle or slow about this. 

You’re both so pent-up, tired from the weeks of dancing around each other. Your nails drag up his back, blood following your movement. Your powers are actively surging against him, pain only driving you further into each other’s arms. 

You can hear his breathy grunts and groans in your ears and it’s music to you. Neither of you cares about the party going on just outside the door. You’re loud, skin slapping against skin while you loudly call out his name. 

God, you hope they hear you. Hope they realize just how thoroughly you’re wrecked for each other. You can feel yourself getting closer, hips stuttering against his while you struggle to match his pace. “Come on,” he mutters in your ear. He releases one of your legs to reach down and rub your clit. 

“Fuck,” you groan, reaching up and tugging at his hair while your back bows. It only takes a few more tight circles of his thumb before you’re spasming around him. He’s quick to follow behind you. 

He pins your hips to the bed, dropping your legs while he thrusts faster. He loses his rhythm, the muscles of his abdomen flexing as he cums inside you. It’s like a mini death, you feel like you’ve lost time when you finally manage to come back to yourself. 

And when you roll your head to the side you realize just how much damage you’ve done to Wade’s bed. “Shit,” You glance up at the sound of his voice and notice little droplets of blood on your hips. Logan’s claws are out, stuck in the fluff of the bed. 

You force the words out, tongue heavy in your mouth. “Do that often?”

“Not really,” he mutters. The claws retreat and he rubs his fingers over the blood. It’s not bad, you’ve honestly done worse to yourself. It’s like a big paper cut. When the rough pad of his fingers presses against the cut you hiss at the sting, nearly enjoying it. 

“Must be special,” you tell him with a cheeky grin. He shakes his head with a laugh and takes his time pulling out. You hate the loss of him inside you but it's a slight relief. He's larger than any partner you’ve ever had and it’s almost overwhelming to be so full. 

“Come on, let's get you dressed.” He pats your thighs, glancing around for your clothes. 

“Uh, Logan,” he looks up and you glance at his still very hard cock. “I thought you came?”

The smile he gives you is slightly terrifying. Because there’s a promise in it. He’s not getting you dressed for no reason. He’s taking you back to your apartment so you can have more fun where there are less people and fewer reminders of Wade. “Stamina's part of the deal, sweetheart.”

“Oh,” you whisper, voice breathless in shock. You wipe the cum off your legs with Wade’s sheets. You feel like you’ve thoroughly gotten revenge on him for destroying your favorite bed set. Maybe, you’ve gone a little farther than revenge, though. 

You feel guilty, looking around the room and seeing everything you destroyed. Once you’re dressed, you wave your hand, putting most things back where they belong. But there’s nothing you can do about the bed. The sheets are soaked with a mixture of yours and Logan’s releases and there are six holes dug deep in the bed from his claws. 

When you step out of the room with Logan, struggling to press down your hair and get it back into place, Blind Al is waiting by the door. She’s doing a line off the back of her hand when you pass by. You think you’ve almost made it scott-free when she yells, “Man, I wish I couldn’t fucking hear,” at you. 

You tense up, shoulders to your ears while you run to the door. Logan laughs, grabbing your coat for you and pressing a hand to your back while he leads you to the apartment. “Weren’t feeling so embarrassed earlier,” he teases. 

“Shut up,” you grumble, dragging him into the apartment to finish what you couldn’t on Wade’s bed. 

You’ve managed to keep any holes out of your bed, you just have to use your powers to keep his at bay. It’s nice, not having to explain why everything around you is levitating to the person you’re having sex with. There were a lot of awkward conversations that came from that. 

You’re lying on Logan’s chest, fingers idly running over the veins in his biceps. “I want to be serious about this,” you tell him. 

His hand pauses from where it’d been stroking your back. You sit up on your elbow so you can get a better look at him. “I mean it, I,” there’s no way to say this without sounding like a complete bitch. You just have to rip the bandaid off. 

You take in a deep breath, “I know that you still miss her,” you say, unwilling to say her name. Logan sits up, looking more serious now. “But I don’t want to be with you if you think that I’m going to turn into her. Or if you think that I’m the last connection you have to her. I’m not her, Logan, and I'm never going to be her.”

You expect anger on his face or regret, maybe. But you don’t expect him to laugh at you. You roll your eyes, lips pursed while you wait for him to finish. He notices the pissy expression on your face and quiets down, but you still see a smile fighting on his lips. 

“I know you’re not her. You could not be more different” he tells you with a slight smirk, like there’s an inside joke you’re missing out on. “I was married to her for a long time and I loved her. But we had our time together. Now, I just want my time with you. You’re not her,” he leans forward, pressing a sweet kiss to your forehead. “That’s why I want you.”

You feel your heart flutter in your chest and have to fight to keep a stupid grin off your face. “Okay,” you whisper. “Good, well as long as we’re on the same page,” you tell him, faux serious. He just rolls his eyes and pulls you back into his arms. 

You’re going to cuddle up beside him when you hear your phone going off like crazy on your nightstand. Your face pinches in confusion and you reach over to grab it. 

Wade

Did you fuckers have sex???

In my bed!!!!

And you didn’t invite me?!

….

Wade

Tell Logan I want his claws in me next

“Fuckin’ dumbass,” you mutter, throwing your phone somewhere on the bed. Logan laughs again, drawing you closer. 

a/n: i have a really weird tendency for masochism, idk what that’s about. I just feel like if you were having sex with this man, he’s taking you like a wild animal. also feel like I might be a one-hit wonder. the smut just wasn’t doing it for me this time guys nor was the angst, i’m disappointed in myself

I just don't think I did justice to his character in the movie, I might have made it too OOC/ if I did PLEASE let me know

end. — I do not own the characters or the comics/movies Wolverine/X-Men, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

General Taglist: @evasmlp

Logan Taglist:  @nonamevenus ♡

[fireinmoonshot]

your fiyero | fiyero tigelaar x reader

Pairing: Fiyero Tigelaar x Reader Summary: Ever since Fiyero Tigelaar started at Shiz University, he found himself fascinated by you – the one student who didn't care about him. When he notices you starting to struggle with something, he'll do anything to make sure you're okay. Warnings: Mentions of fainting, falling over, academic stress/burn out Word Count: 2.2k A/N: I've seen Wicked (the show) three times now with the amazing Australian cast that's currently touring and I fell totally head over heels with Fiyero, and then yesterday I saw the movie and fell even more in love with Fiyero and so I had to write for him. I do intend to write more for him, especially if other people want to read more! He's so fun to write for and definitely a challenge compared to some other characters I've written for in the past. I hope you all enjoy! 💗

It’s not difficult to sense the presence of Fiyero Tigelaar behind you as you leave Doctor Dillamond’s classroom, shoving your books into the bag over your shoulder. With the way the students heading into the classroom are staring at someone behind you, it’s quite obvious who they’re staring at. Everyone at Shiz University wants Fiyero Tigelaar. 

Everyone, that is, except you.

“Classes are over, you know?” Fiyero’s voice comes from behind you as you round the corner, heading down the staircase leading to the courtyard. “You don’t have to rush off.”

Irritatingly, the fact that you can’t particularly care less about wanting Fiyero Tigelaar makes himwant you. He usually isn’t the type. If someone doesn’t like him – something he’s actually yet to experience – he would just let it slide. Why waste his energy? But ever since he’d started at Shiz and met you, he’d found himself unable to leave you alone. 

“I know,” you glance back at him over your shoulder. “But some of us actually want to study and spend their time here learning, Tigelaar.”

Fiyero hurries his steps a little so he’s walking alongside you. “Did you miss the part where I said it was my job to corrupt my fellow students when I started here? It’s never too late, darling.” He flashes a grin your way.

You can’t help but roll your eyes at him, right at the same time you almost miss a step and stumble a little. Fiyero is quick, catching your elbow to help steady you. You don’t look at him as you steady yourself, meaning you miss the look of worry in his eyes.

“Are you all right?”

You clear your throat and shake off his grip. “Consider me corrupted by your presence.” 

With that, you make a beeline away from him and you’re glad to notice that he doesn’t attempt to follow you. You highly doubt that he’s going to follow you all the way to the library. Fiyero and the library have never exactly gone hand in hand. 

~~

The next time Fiyero bothers you, you’re sat on one of the benches by the gardens. There’s a book in your hands and he can see you staring intently at it as he saunters over to you. It’s almost like he’s approaching a wild bird or something, he thinks. If he moves too quickly, he’ll frighten you and scare you away. It’s the last thing Fiyero wants to do.

He’s a few steps away from you when you look up from your book and meet his eyes. His face breaks into a smile as he moves the last few steps and takes the spot beside you on the bench. You turn to look at him, your eyebrows raised. 

“Now, don’t say I’m interrupting your study,” he begins. “That book is most definitely not in the curriculum. And yes, I did actually take the time to look the curriculum up after I saw you reading here the other day, if you can believe it.”

For a few moments, you only stare at him. Fiyero, for the first time probably ever, finds himself actually a little uncomfortable at your unwavering gaze. It surprises him. He’s never the type of person to feel uncomfortable. He’s confident in almost every situation.

You let out a sigh. “It may not be in the curriculum, but you’ve interrupted me nevertheless, Tigelaar.”

“Apologies,” he says, with a small smirk. “Am I corrupting you even more with my presence?”

“Something like that.” You close your book and sit it on the small space of bench beside you. You had actually just been reading the same page over and over for the last twenty minutes and trying to convince yourself to stop overthinking things. 

You had so much studying to do, so much to learn and so many assignments to do and so little time to do it all. It was probably a little counterproductive to be sitting outside, reading a book and doing none of those things, but if you didn’t try and have a break from them all, you were pretty sure you were going to burn yourself out, which was the last thing you needed. It would have helped if you’d actually been able to relax and enjoy your book, though.

“Is it any good? Your book. Not that I’d read it, of course,” Fiyero grins.

You try your best to conceal your amusement. “I’d offer to lend it to you but, as you said, you wouldn’t actually read it so… I’ll keep it safe with me. I doubt the Winkie Prince knows how to properly take care of books if he can’t read them.”

Fiyero gasps jokingly. “I’ll have you know I can read, I just choose not to. I prefer to fill my brain with much more useless things. That way, I don’t have to think. It’s a peaceful way to live, my darling.” 

You shake your head, this time unable to keep a smile off of your face. Fiyero likes the sight of it. It strangely makes his heart beat a little faster. He can’t actually remember the last time he saw you smiling… not that he’s been keeping track. 

“How about you join me?” He offers. “No more studying for the rest of the day and no more thinking? I’m positive I could find something we could do to fill the time.” 

The reminder of studying, however, brings you back to reality after you small moment of joking with Fiyero. You reach down and grab your book before standing up and turning to face Fiyero, who is looking at you with slight concern in his eyes at your sudden movement.

“I can’t,” you say simply. “I’ve been reading all morning and there is a lot I have to do. I’ll see you around, Tigelaar.”

He watches you with furrowed eyebrows as you walk away from him, clutching your book to your chest and heading in the direction of the library. Fiyero shakes his head and lets out a small laugh. He really thought today would be the day he’d win you over.

~~

A week goes by without Fiyero even getting to utter a word to you. He sees you, though, fairly often around the school. In the courtyard, in the library (where he definitely didn’t go specifically looking for you), in history class and in the dining hall. But every time he’s thought to approach you, you’ve disappeared before he could even make his move. It’s on the seventh day when he notices that something is different about you.

You’re coming out of the library, carrying several books and what looks like a stack of papers in your hands when you trip. Fiyero isn’t quick enough to cross the courtyard and get to you in time to stop your fall. He does, however, take off at a run to be by your side as you start collecting all of the scattered pieces of paper and books that had fallen out of your grasp.

“It’s all right, Tigelaar. You don’t have to help me,” you mutter, trying to shove books into your already overfilled bag. “It’s a Friday night. I’m sure you’ve got other places to be.”

Fiyero, truthfully, does have other places to be. He’s been invited to the Ozdust Ballroom by nine separate people today. But how can he leave you to just clean all this up by yourself? He can see just by the look on your face that you’re utterly exhausted.

“I do,” he says honestly. “But I’ll help you with this first.”

He’s surprised when you suddenly stop putting things in your bag and when he looks up, he finds you staring at him again. It makes him uncomfortable in the same way he felt last week when you’d looked at him in a similar way. 

“Okay,” you sigh. 

Your lack of energy in fighting him is the second thing to make Fiyero realise something is wrong.

After the two of you finish picking up all of the things you’d dropped, the both of you stand. Fiyero opens his mouth to say something when he notices you start to sway. He’s quicker this time, moving to catch you before you fall. His arm wraps around your waist to keep you steady, while his other hand takes the book bag off your shoulder and moves it straight onto his. He’s surprised by how heavy it is. 

“Woah, darling, what’s going on?” Fiyero looks down at you as you blink and push yourself away from him. “Hey, be careful, okay? I think you were just about to faint.”

You shake your head. “I just stood up too fast, that’s all.” You know the words are a lie, and you can tell that Fiyero knows that as well. First, he’d seen you trip coming out of the library, then he’d caught you when you’d almost fainted… you can’t hide it from him. That much becomes crystal clear immediately.

“Let’s get you somewhere you can sit down, okay?” Fiyero begins. “May I?” He gestures to you, asking silently if he can wrap an arm around you to support you incase you fall over again. 

You nod and allow him to guide you just around the corner into the small seating area off to the side of the library. It’s dark, the lanterns not being lit yet despite the fact that the sun had gone down over twenty minutes ago.

“I swear I’m not usually this clumsy,” you say sheepishly. “That’s twice you’ve stopped me from falling in the last two weeks… I suppose I should say thank you, Fiyero.”

Fiyero sits you down gently on the bench and sits your book bag down on the ground. He crouches down in front of you and reaches up to take your hands in his. He’s surprised when you don’t immediately pull away from him. “I don’t think you’ve ever called me by my first name before.”

“Oh,” you think on it for a second, trying to ignore the warm feeling of his hands and how comforting it is. “I guess I haven’t. Sorry, Tigelaar.”

“No, no,” Fiyero shakes his head. “Don’t go back to that. I like when you call me Fiyero.”

“Well, I suppose it is your name,” you offer a small smile.

“There’s that gorgeous smile,” Fiyero smiles back at you and squeezes your hands. “Now, are you gonna tell me why you almost just fainted on me and why you’re clumsier than you usually are, darling?”

You stay silent for a few moments and just when Fiyero begins to think that you might just brush him off and try to make a quick exit like you did last week, you start to speak.

“I haven’t really been sleeping well lately,” you admit quietly. “I’ve had so much work to do, I fell behind on my assignments and I took on some extra work from Doctor Dillamond and… despite my best efforts, I guess I let myself get a little burnt out.”

Fiyero looks at you with his eyes full of pity and you hate it. 

“Anyway,” you clear your throat, “that’s not important. Why would you care?”

Your attempt to make light of the situation fails spectacularly, judging by the look that Fiyero gives you afterwards. You’ve never seen him look that unimpressed before. 

“Of course I care,” he says, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Why, though?” You can’t help but ask. “Why are you so fixated on me?”

Fiyero sighs and moves to sit beside you, letting go of your hands in the process. “If you’ll allow me to be honest with you for a moment,” he starts, “I suppose… you’re the only person at Shiz that doesn’t treat me like the perfect Winkie Prince that everyone thinks I am. You’re the only person that doesn’t think I’m perfect, and half the time you act like you can’t stand to be around me, and for some reason that only makes me want to be around you more.” 

“Are you not the perfect Winkie Prince?” You ask.

Fiyero grins. “Oh, not in the slightest, darling. But let’s keep that between us. I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine. How does that sound?” 

You don’t even try to hide the smile that comes to your face at his words. “You promise you won’t tell anyone about what happened today?”

“I promise,” he nods. “But only on one condition: you tell Doctor Dillamond you can’t complete the extra work you signed up for and you take a break to make sure you get plenty of rest before diving into your other assignments. I’m sure I can sweet talk some of the Professors if you need help.” 

He smiles as you hit him with the same look as before, but for the first time, he doesn’t find himself feeling uncomfortable at the sight of it. Now, he finds it slightly amusing and incredibly endearing. He has always found you endearing, he supposes.

“Sweet talking my Professors will not be necessary,” you chuckle. “But okay. It’s a deal. And I’ll keep your secret too. You can continue to be the perfect Winkie Prince to everyone… except me.”

Fiyero laughs. “I’ll just be your Fiyero, then.”

“My Fiyero?” You repeat after him, eyebrows raised. 

He ignores the way his heart beats faster at the sound of those words coming out of your mouth. 

“Yes, your Fiyero,” he hums. 

“Everyone will think that you finally corrupted me after all this time,” you joke, voice teasing. “I’ll just be like everyone else at Shiz. Part of the Fiyero Tigelaar fan club.”

Fiyero fixes you with a look. “Oh, darling. You could never be like everyone else.” 

[oh-men-of-dark-and-dismal-fate]

I have never wanted to finish a book so badly just so I can fling it onto my shelf and be like “welp, that’s finally fucking done, now to the fun books!” as I have with ‘The World According To Garp’.

[prettieinpink]

NEW YEAR, NEW ME

( A collab with thee lovely lele @bloombabydoll )

If you want to reinvent and rebrand yourself, or just continue to make positive improvements in 2024, the first thing is to evaluate your current year. 

EVALUATION

Reflect on how things went for you. Was there continuous growth? Were there many difficult times? Did you discover anything major about yourself and so on. Try to summarise your year in (a) paragraph(s) at least. 

Oversee your goals. Which ones you didn’t, did achieve, difficult ones, easy ones and the impacts it had on your life. 

Compare your dream girl then and now. Is your visualisation of your life currently different to the one you have now and why? 

List any major losses or successes you’ve had in your life, and how they have helped you or why it matters to you. 

This evaluation can be as detailed or simple as you like, but as long as you have a decent outline of your year. 

PREPARING & PLANNING

To prepare for 2024, you want to know what you want life to be like in 2024. Something realistic to a point, but still is a growth journey. 

Think of something that you can associate with 2024. This can be a word, a symbol, art, a song, a book, a movie, a place, or even just all of these things. When you think about your goals and your journey, this is your theme. This is something that should relate to your goals or your dream girl somehow. 

For me, I chose a word and a song. My word is growth because, for me, 2023 was a year for just being able to shed my old self which I did achieve however I just felt there wasn’t much growth as an actual person and not just in my environment. 

For my song, it is Mayflowers by Proleters and Taskrok. This song is the epitome of what I would imagine, is the most polished mindset. I would say perfect, but having a perfect mindset is near impossible. I want to have a mindset glow up because I’ve just been hard on myself lately which has caused my confidence to plummet. 

Before we get into the fun part of the preparation stage, we have to do some organisation in our life. I want you to take a look at your daily lifestyle and your habits, and be completely unashamed about this. 

Then categorise these habits into two sections; Leave and Leap. Leave habits are habits that you are leaving behind in 2023, leap habits are habits that are leaping into 2024 with you. 

Any habits that are self-destructive, addictive or generally harmful are leave habits. Beneficial habits and self-building are leaping with you into the new year.

I want you to do the same for people in your life, all environments (school, work, online etc) and anything else you believe needs to be sorted out. 

This works better if you can reason with yourself why it is a leaping or leaving habit, but don’t try to convince yourself a bad habit is good or vice versa. 

Now, I want you to document an honest paragraph about who you are right now. List your bad and good habits, your strengths and weaknesses and your behaviours. This one requires a bit more detail. 

Then, write a paragraph about who you will be in 2024, your dream girl. List her habits, lifestyle, behaviours, mindset, strengths and anything else extra. I’ll explain later but do not include materialistic desires in this your dream girl. Once again, this one also requires details. 

Stemming from those paragraphs, I want you to create specific and achievable goals. SMART goals are best, but I want to introduce you to how I set goals. 

I divide my year into quarters. For each 3 months, I have 3-5 goals for those months. Usually, it’s one from each area of my life. Then, I break down these goals. 

Questions and How They Help 

Why do I want to do this goal - For motivation and commitment. 

How it’ll benefit me - For the sake of improvement. 

How can I involve myself in this goal - To achieve your goal.  

I prefer this method because it is a lot simpler for me, as I am just a young girl and my bigger goals are more in the future in which I’ll utilise SMART goals. 

To create good goals; Make sure they align with your current values and life principles first. Try to avoid creating goals that you have just taken from the internet. Those goals just aren’t it and you most likely won’t follow through with it. 

Be specific. Don’t say you want to eat more healthily, instead say you want to include (a certain group of veggies/fruits) in your diet and reduce the intake of ( food/drink). 

E.g using eating healthy example

I want to eat healthy -> I want to start including foods that boost my immunity system and support my skin while reducing those that have the opposite effect. 

Then break down those quarterly goals into monthly, weekly and daily goals. Make these habits that you can establish in your lifestyle and have a way in which you can refer back to your progress. 

EXAMPLE GOAL BREAKDOWN

Quarterly Goal - Read 6 books.  

Monthly Goal - Finish 2 books.

Weekly Goal - Be or near half way of one book.

Daily Goal - 20 minutes of reading per day. 

AREAS TO SET GOALS IN YOUR LIFE

Academics

Spiritual

Fitness/sport

Health and wellbeing

Mental health

Personal life

Relationships

Hobbies and recreation

Now for the best part- vision boards! Collect all of your favourite images that embody your quarters or the whole year, then put them in one place where you can see them regularly!

Some ideas are a scrapbook, Pinterest boards, mood boards, playlists etc. 

Choose your theme; It can be your healthy girl era, your academic come back or whatever you want. You can have more than two btw.

Use quotes! Then actually say them in your daily life as a way to shift your mindset to reflect said quote.

Include inspirational people. It doesn't even have to be a millionaire or a very well established person, it could be your friends or someone on the internet.

Be imaginative. Your vision board doesn't have to realistic in my opinion, as the whole point of it to me is that viewing it daily and considering it to be part of your life one day allows for you to open up to those opportunities.

Materialistic Wants

I feel obligated to make this a separate section. This section is practically tangible objects that you want.

However, when choosing this said object that you want, mindfully think about why you want that thing specifically.

It doesn’t have to be meaningful, but as long as each thing on that list has got a purpose to you, and will serve you, I think it’s all good!

Conclusion

If you want, you can definitely start implementing habits before January. However, I believe that as long as you go into 2024 at least knowing who you want to be and shedding away any limiting beliefs, you’ll be fine.

Make sure to incorporate some self care rituals into your daily life as well✨

To end this, I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas! And that 2024 they will achieve to close that gap with their current selves and their dream girl selves! 💖🙏

[physalian]

What No One Tells You About Writing Fantasy

Every author has their preferred genres. I love fantasy and sci-fi, but began with historical fiction. I hated all the research that historical fiction demands and thought, if I build my own world, no research required.

Boy, was I wrong.

So to anyone dipping their toe into fantasy/sci-fi, here’s seven things I wish I knew about the genres before I committed to writing for them.

1. You still have to research. Everything.

If you want any of your fantasy battle sequences, or your space ships, or your droids and robots, or your fictional government and fictional politics to read at all believable.

In sci-fi, you research astronomy, robotics, politics, political science, history, engineering, anthropology. In fantasy, you have to research historical battle tactics, geography, real-world mythology, folklore, and fairytales, and much of it overlaps with science fiction.

I say you *have to* assuming you want your work to be original and unique and stand out from the crowd. Fanfic writers put in the research for a 30k word smut fic, you can and will have to research for your original work.

2. Naming everything gets exhausting

I hate coming up with new names, especially when I write worlds and places divorced from Earthly customs and can’t rely on Earthly naming conventions. You have to name all your characters, all your towns, villages, cities, realms, kingdoms, planets, galaxies, star systems.

You have to name your rebel faction, your imperial government, significant battles. Your spaceships, your fantasy companies and organizations, your magic system, made-up MacGuffins, androids, computer programs. The list goes on and on and on.

And you have to do it all without it sounding and reading ridiculous and unpronounceable, or racist. Your fantasy realms have to have believable naming patterns. It. Gets. Exhausting.

3. It will never read like you’re watching a movie

Do you know how fast movies can cut between scenes? Movies can balance five plotlines at once all converging with rapid edits, without losing their audience. Sometimes single lines of dialogue, or single wordless shots are all a scene gets before it cuts. If you try to replicate that by head-hopping around, you will make a mess.

It’s perfectly fine to write like you’re watching a movie, but you can’t rely on visual tricks to get your point across when all you have is text on a page – like slow mo, lens flares, epically lit cinematic shots, or the aforementioned rapid edits.

It doesn’t have to, nor should it, look like a movie. Books existed long before film, so don’t let yourself get caught up in how ~cinematic~ it may or may not look.

4. Your space opera will be compared to Star Wars and Star Trek

And your fairy epic will be compared to Tinkerbell, your vampires to Twilight, your zombies to The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead, World War Z. Your wizards and witches and any whisper of a fantasy school for fantasy children will be compared to Harry Potter. Your high fantasy adventure will be compared to Lord of the Rings.

You can’t avoid it, but you can avoid doing it to yourself. When people ask about your book, let them say “oh, you mean like Star Wars” to which you then can say, kind of, except XYZ happens in my book. These IPs will never fade from the public consciousness, not while you exist to read this post, at least, but Harry Potter isn’t the only urban fantasy out there. Lord of the Rings isn’t the only high fantasy. Star Wars isn’t the only space opera.

Yours will be on the shelves right next to them, soon enough, and who knows? You might dethrone them.

5. Your world-building is an iceberg, and your book is the tip

I don’t pay for any of those programs that help you organize your book and mythos. I write exclusively on Apple Notes, MS Word, and Google Suite (and all are free to me). I have folders on Apple Notes with more words inside them than the books they’re written for.

If you try to cram an entire college textbook’s worth of content into your novel, you will have left zero room for actual story. The same goes for all the research you did, all the hours slaving away for just a few details and strings of dialogue.

There’s a balance, no matter how dense your story is. If you really want to include all those extra details, slap some appendices at the end. Commission some maps.

6. The gatekeeping for fantasy and sci-fi is still very real

Pen names and pseudonyms exist for a reason. A female author writing fantasy that isn’t just a backdrop for romance? You have a harder battle ahead of you than your male counterparts, at least in the US. And even then, your female protagonist will be scrutinized and torn apart.

She’ll either be too girly or not girly enough, too sexy, or not sexy enough. She’ll be called a Mary Sue, a radical feminist mouthpiece, some woke propaganda. Every action she takes will be criticized as unrealistic and if she has fans who are girls, they will be mocked, too.

If you have queer characters, characters of color, they won’t be good enough, they won’t please everyone, and someone will still call you a bigot. A lot of someones will still call you a bigot.

Do your due diligence and hire your army of sensitivity readers and listen to them, but you cannot please everyone, so might as well write to please yourself. You’re the one who will have to read it a thousand times until it’s published.

7. Your “original” idea has been done before, and that’s okay

Stories have been told since before language evolved. The sum of the parts of your novel may be original, but even then, it’s colored by the media you’ve consumed. And that’s okay!

How many Cinderella stories are there? How many high fantasies? How many books about werewolves and witches and vampires? Gods and goddesses and celestial beings? Fairies and dragons and trolls? Aliens, robots, alien robots? Romeo and Juliette? Superheroes and mutants?

Zombies may be the avenue through which you tell your story, but it’s not *just* about zombies, is it? It’s about the characters who battle them, the endurance of the human spirit, or the end of an era, the death of a nation. So don’t get discouraged, everyone before you and everyone after will have written someone on the backs of what came before and it still feels new.

[dicenete]

Helloooooo0, some more Idia Shroud fanart, now inspired by screenshots from Disney's Hercules. Because I HAVE A THEORY! = I'm rambling again. :) Note that at the time when I'm writing this I have just finished Book 6 and I haven't started Book 7 yet. So this will contain some spoilers for Book 6. And everything under the cut as always :)

Also Disney's Hercules took a lot of creative liberties with the Greek mythology. Like Hera being the one trying to kill Hercules, rather than Hades because Zeus was being a horny bastard. And Hades being pretty straight up guy compared to his contemporaries. But I will be using the Disney movie as the basis since that is where the game takes its inspirations.

THESIS:

Idia Shroud from Twisted Wonderland is more like a twisted version of Hercules rather than Hades from the Disney movie.

Here me out:

Sure, his visual design is pretty much inspired by Hades and I love it. And the fact that he has a job that was bestowed upon him by his bloodline rather than by his own choice. (Zeus forcing Hades to take care of the Underworld full of dead souls and so on. ) And how Idia is pretty sarcastic like Hades when he is avoiding serious talking or pointing out absurd things. Let's just say, I take this as the surface personality of Idia.

But underneath it all, what do we have? We have a person who wants to be normal. What did Hercules want to be in the start of the movie? A normal person. Someone who was accepted and someone who could fit in among his peers. That is ultimately what Idia wants. Idia wants to be liked. That's why I think he was inspired to be a hero when he was young, something Hercules also wants to be to gain acceptance. (Hercules does it to be with his biological family again and so on.)

They are both awkward in social situations, other kinda in this himbo way and other in this nerdy awkwardness kinda way.

They both go into Underworld to find the person who was the most important to them. Hercules - Megara / Idia - Ortho

BUT ALSO! At the end of the movie, Hercules wants to stay as a mortal because he found acceptance with Meg. Idia could have stayed with S.T.Y.X. If he really wanted. I'm pretty sure with that. But he chose to go back to NRC because he, with encouragement with Ortho, wanted to experience life before he has to go and be the Watchman of the Underworld. He has a long way to go, he really harbors so much self-hatred and uncounciously self-sabotages himself. It is good thing that he has Ortho calling him out on it.

I really hope to see him grow and like himself more in the future :)

(I just loved all the Greek mythology names and references in the Book 6, it is such *chef's kiss * Like how Star Rogue is pretty much the tale of Zeus fighting against his father Chronos who has eaten all his other siblings and so on.)

[ghouldump]

hi i love your writing unfortunately there aren't many fics for the iwtv so tysm!!

i was wondering if you could write something about louis lestat and claudia with a (vamp?) reader that accidently timetraveld

Back In My Arms | Lestat x Reader x Louis

ෆ time traveling accidentally and you're able to relive bittersweet memories.

thank you and I agree, especially the amc version compared to the movie. The other posts are coming, but I had to rush and get this one out because it was so gut wrenching for me 😭 LOL

“What do you think? The blue or the purple,” you held the dresses to your body.

“I prefer your birthday suit,” Lestat said over the classical music, making you roll your eyes at him. Could he ever be serious when you needed him to be?

“Louis,” you called out, wanting a real opinion.

“Hm? Oh, the purple” he was hardly listening, more focused on the pages of the book.

“So the blue, got it,” you grumbled, storming away, to finish packing your things.

“Ma chèrie, why are you leaving again? It truly makes no sense to me why you remain friends with this mortal,” Lestat said.

“I don't see why you care, it's not like either of you will notice I’m away,” you said, as you closed the bag.

“Don't say that, we do notice,” Louis said, defensively.

“I'll only be away for a night,” you mumbled, checking your appearance in the mirror, and slinging the bag over your shoulder.

“Stay, you can give us a more detailed visual representation of the dresses,” Lestat said, straightening his posture when you scoffed.

“Sex doesn't fix everything”

“It is a start”

“And maybe that's why we’re in the situation we’re in, now, if you'll excuse me, I’m going hang with my mortal friend, who communicates with me and doesn't want to block out our problems with Mozart, books, and sex,” you said, storming out of the townhouse, making sure to slam the door.

Getting into your car, you began to drive to your close friend, George, or Georgie, you called him both. He was middle-aged, although he was closing in on becoming elderly. He'd oftentimes been told he resembled Bill Nye, but those comments usually only made him red in the face, before he sent a storm of swear words at the person, in his thick Cajun accent. Divorced and cut out of his kid's lives, he was lonely, but so were you. Georgie was the only mortal to ever know that you were a vampire, and he made you feel normal.

Although having a few questions at first, he eventually let the matter go, and hardly ever brought it up. The two of you had been friends for nearly a decade now, and you planned to hold on until the bitter end. He wasn't too keen on being turned, scorned by his wife leaving him and his children siding with her. Lestat and Louis weren't comfortable with your friendship at all, but after realizing your relationship was completely platonic and you weren't cutting him out of your life, they grungily accepted him.

As you finally parked in front of Georgie’s house, approaching the door, you shook your head, discovering it was unlocked. Letting yourself in, you locked the door, going to where you'd both hang out for hours, his basement.

“You need to keep your door locked old man, anyone could just walk in here,” you said, going down the stairs. Tossing your bag onto the couch you'd usually sleep on, in the windowless room.

“Nobody comes here but you,” he said, making you laugh.

“So how is it going?” you asked, sitting in a nearby chair.

“A little more progress than last time, how are things at home?”

“Lestat is…well Lestat and Louis will always act like our issues aren't there,” you shrugged.

“Have you tried talking to them?”

“Of course, Lestat doesn't take anything seriously enough, and Louis wants to brush over it all,” you said.

“Hopefully, this is a success, because then we can fix everything,” Georgie smiled.

“Maybe you, but I don't see my problems being fixed”

“Don't underestimate science,” he told you.

Georgie had been working on an actual time-machine portal. He believed if he could go back in time, undo his mistakes, could prioritize his family over work, maybe that would stop his wife from having an affair with the neighbor, from leaving him and draining his wallet, and taking his children who he couldn't even get a happy birthday from.

He insisted that you would be able to use it, to repair your companionship. A long time had passed since 1910 and much tragedy and heartbreak happened. Separating from each other and eventually reconnecting, recently everything had been so stagnant and bland. No energy to argue about obvious conflicts, but unwilling to leave each other again and be forced to deal with the pain.

“Oh, my goodness,” Georgie stood up, his hand going to his chest. Your eyes widened, worried that he would croak.

“What is it?” you asked, you couldn't sense any internal issues, noticing his thoughts were jumping for joy.

“I think…I think it works,” he said, as he began to type on the nearby computer. The pod he'd spent years building, lit up, the white light faint.

“It turns on, how will you know if it works for real?” you asked.

“Could you maybe catch a few raccoons, rats, birds, anything, we can try on them,” he asked. Standing up, you went outside, quickly grabbing a rat from near the drainage, bringing it to him.

“Done,” you smiled, holding it firm, tossing it in the pod, as he opened the door. The rat squeaked a bit, running in circles, as Georgie typed.

The machine began to make a noise before the rat burst. It’s guts splattering on the door.

“Ew, what happened?” you asked him, pressing against the door, to look inside in disgust.

“It seems like it is releasing some sort of radiation, too strong for animals and people, I'll have to keep working on it,” he grumbled disappointedly.

“I could try it if you want,” you offered.

“The radiation will be damaging-

“In case you forgot, I’m hardly human anymore, I am a bit intrigued, the worst thing that could honesty happen is I get burned up, and I’ll heal,” you said, as he faced you.

“Are you sure? I don't want you to feel like you have to do this, Y/n,” he said, but you brushed him off.

“Trust me, I don't, but you've put so much time into this, almost as long as I've known you, I want this to work out for you,” you said.

“Okay, let me get suited up, to clean it first,” he said, changing into the nbc suit to clean the inside of the pod. While waiting for him, you checked your phone, seeing a message from Louis.

“Sending a picture of the dress, I’m sure you look beautiful as always”

Smiling softly, you set your phone on the counter, taking your shoes off, watching as Georgie scrubbed the blood away. Little did Louis know, you wouldn't be wearing the dress to go hunting tonight. As soon as he finished cleaning, he was back at your side, typing on the monitor.

“We’ll do, let's say 5 minutes into the future, I’ll think of a number and when you come back, tell me the number, and time it to see if there is a significant change in time,” he said, as you nodded in agreement, accepting the small stopwatch, stepping into the pod.

Your arms at your sides, you briefly gave him a thumbs up, hoping to reassure his anxious thoughts. Typing on the computer, the pod began to light up again, the noise leaking out before it started to shake. Standing up, Georgie stood with his eyes wide, his jaw dropping as you vanished.

“Oh my Lord, it's working,” he said, his hand shakily went to his mouth.

Back at home, Louis and Lestat were relaxing, leisurely lounging around when it happened. A sudden feeling of dread washed over them as if you were gone. Glancing at each other, both of them stood up, rushing from the house to your friend, George's home. Bursting through the door, they went downstairs.

George looked back, gasping, surprised to see the elder vampires. However, before he could say anything or move, Lestat had him pressed against the wall, his hand around his neck.

“What did you do?”

“M-machine,” he choked out, looking over at the pod.

“Lestat, look,” Louis said, staring at the pod, fog seeping from the bottom.

“What is this?” he continued, looking to George.

“Time machine,” he struggled to say, before Lestat dropped him.

“You didn't put her into your experiment,” Louis said out loud, shaking his head, already pacing the floor.

“She offered, and it was only five minutes into the fut-

Suddenly, within the fog, you could be seen, smiling in excitement from the exhilaration of the atoms passing through your body. Your smile quickly faltered, seeing your lovers and a nervous Georgie.

“What are you doing here?” you asked.

“Get her out of it, now,” Lestat told Georgie.

“Leave him alone,” you argued.

“This isn't safe, Y/n, we thought you were gone,” Louis told you.

“Don't parent me, Louis”

“Get her out of it now, or it will be destroyed,” Lestat said, shoving George into the computer, his hands smashing against the keyboard.

“Stop it, Lestat,” you yelled.

“What did you do?” George stressed, as the machine lit up. Typing as quickly as possible, he couldn't see the results that he needed.

“Y/n, he made me press a few buttons, it is going to the past, I don't know how far, but I’m going to fix it,” Georgie said apologetic.

“What?” Lestat and Louis said at the same time.

“Do not kill him, fucking asshole,” you said before vanishing.

“Can you bring her right back?” Louis asked.

“I don't even know how far it has brought her”

“Well figure it out,” Lestat snapped.

“This is your fault, she told me all about you and your ugly ways,” George said. Tilting his head, Lestat was about to reach for him, but Louis grabbed his arm.

“He has to bring her back to us,” he reminded him.

“She is going somewhere in the 19th century, I can't pinpoint where and when. Time should be a little longer through the pod, so I’d estimate a few hours for us if it is a success”

“For us?” Louis asked.

“IF it is a success?” Lestat screamed at the same time as him. George truly didn't understand what you saw in the dramatic man, other than his good looks.

“I've been studying this for some time now and with time travel, it could feel like days, or even longer, but in reality, it should only be a few hours, and I say if because we haven't tried going to the past. The pod isn't sustainable for the undead and Y/n getting in was the first actual progress of real-time travel,” he explained.

“Maybe one of us could go in and-

“No, that is the worst solution, we don't know where she went, so I wouldn't know where to send you and it is only one pod, and overloading the database is the last thing that needs to happen, we’ll give it a few hours,” George said, standing.

“Where are you going?” Lestat asked him.

“Have a glass of wine, if it could take a few hours, I’m going to relax for a while, you're free to make yourselves comfortable,” he said, stepping out of the NBC suit, before going up the stairs.

“We just have to wait,” Louis reassured Lestat, who stood staring at the pod, unable to believe this was happening.

As the pod finally stopped shaking, you peered outside at the change of setting. You were outside, Georgie nowhere to be seen. Turning on the stopwatch, you muttered an apology to him, before punching the thick glass and pushing the door open. Immediately, you recognized the familiarly different environment.

Your bare feet touching the dirt, you recognized the small, poorly built houses. You hadn't seen these houses in ages after Katrina wiped the remaining pieces away.

“Hey, what are you doing-

“You saw no one here, and you won't let anyone get near this precious contraption, now go on inside,” you glamoured the man, watching as he went back up the stairs, into the house.

Sighing, you began to leave the area, ignoring the strange stares. From the way everyone dressed, you were somewhere between the first three decades of the 19th century, and you were sticking out like a sore wearing the knee-length sundress. There was only one place you knew to go, to be sure of the date.

Coming to a complete stop in front of your home, you could see the lights on. Taking a deep breath, you reminded yourself that if they were here, this wasn't the same Louis and Lestat you were having issues with, and so you'd have to act accordingly.

Opening the door, you could hear the shuffling of feet and the sound of furniture being torn apart. Furrowing your eyebrows, you went upstairs, surprised to see them in that room. Making eye contact with Louis, he did a double take.

“Y/n,” he said, taken away by your beautiful, he hadn't seen a dress made in such a way before, shorter than average, but still classy.

Hearing your name, Lestat opened that lovely pink coffin, climbing out, and tossing the diary to the side.

“Ma chérie, you stopped for shopping?” he asked, a small smirk in place.

“Did you see her?” Louis finally asked. At a loss of words, you struggled to speak for a moment.

“I'm sorry, I'm not feeling like myself, what year is it?” you asked.

“1920, you alright?” Louis asked, approaching you.

“Look who finally decided to crawl home to her coffin and write about her psychosexual behavior,” Lestat spat.

“You read my diary?” hearing that beloved voice, your eyes began to sting.

“Only a little bit,” Louis confessed.

“I read all of it and you are a little deviant brat,” Lestat said, as you slowly turned around. The bloody tears began trickling down your cheeks, as you stared into her eyes. She was real, in the flesh, not a figment from your dreams or old photos, but was here in front of you.

“Claudia,” you said, her name flowing from your lips caused you to visibly tremble.

“Mama,” she started, concerned, her eyes widening as you rushed over, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug.

Weeping bitterly, you held her close, unwilling to let her slip away this time, whispering sweet words of love to her. Confusedly, she hugged you back, as you both sat on the floor, holding her in your arms.

While the two men were originally set on disciplining their wild daughter, their concern now shifted to you.

“Claudia, you've been reckless-

“They're buried in Chalmette,” you interrupted, Lestat, your hand comfortingly brushing over her curls.

“How do you know that?” Louis asked, but you ignored him.

“My beautiful girl,” you whispered, hugging her one last time tightly, before letting her go.

“Are you okay, mama?”

“I couldn't be better at this moment,” you reassured her, kissing her forehead.

“Let her off this time, please, for me, she's still a child, and there will be a time when we wish we still had our beautiful girl staying here with us,” you said, facing them, seeing your blood-stained face, they were beyond concerned.

“It's still a little early for bed, perhaps you'd like to play a game of chess?” you asked her, wiping your eyes and accepting her hand, as she stood up.

Going into the living room, Claudia couldn't help but think about how unusually attentive you were being. Sure, she was just as spoiled as other children, but you never stopped her from being disciplined when you all agreed she needed to be.

“Claudia, you know I love you, right?” you asked her, watching as she set up the game.

“Yes,” she nodded.

“Without you, an eternity isn't the same,” you admitted, as Lestat and Louis came downstairs, joining the two of you.

Your lovers watched you intentively, as you played the game with Claudia. Lestat noticed how you were letting her win, purposely moving to the wrong places, as she took your pieces while showering her with praises.

He couldn't put his finger on it, but something about the interaction seemed different. Any other time you played chess with her, you gave her a challenge, expressing where she was improving or where she needed work. This time, you were treating her like a little child, like you hadn't seen her in forever, or would never see her again.

Time flew and after two long rounds, Louis stood, announcing Claudia needed to go to bed. Groaning, she stood, wanting to stay longer, but you shook your head.

“It's okay, you need your beauty rest, I love you so much, sleep well,” you told her, hugging her firmly once more.

“Love you too,” she mumbled before she was stomping up the stairs.

“Are you sure you are okay, ma chérie?” Lestat asked, as soon as her bedroom door shut.

“I am, I just, the thought of one day losing her, or being apart hurts my soul, our relationship would probably never be the same,” you said, smiling sadly at him.

“Why would we never be the same?”

“Because she's our daughter, and it would take losing her to see how much she is loved, even you, she's so much like you and that's why you clash so much,” you laughed.

“Wouldn't that make us stronger?”

“I wish that was the case, but holding onto the past makes you unable to communicate like you're supposed to-

“Where is all this coming from? Talk to us, what's on your heart?” Louis asked.

“Please don't question me, but there will be a time when we are so weirdly uninterested in each other, and we try to block out our issues with reading, music, and sex,” you said.

“Why though?”

“Holding onto the past”

“Then you'd have to remind us of what is ahead and not behind,” Lestat said, leaning down, pecking your lips.

Feeling your face burn from the passionate kiss, you looked down, your eyes widening noticing your fingers faded. You have watched enough sci-fi movies with Georgie to know it was time for you to leave.

“I need to make a quick run-

“The sun will be up in another hour,” Louis told you.

“I know, I won't be long, love you both,” you said, pecking both of their lips, before running out of the house.

As you ran back to the backyard, you were surprised to see the man back outside.

“What are you doing?” you asked him, seeing as he sat on the steps, watching the pod.

“I saw some kids run back here, so I’m just watching this contraption,” he shrugged. Staring at the man, you recognized him, Georgie’s grandfather, but much younger. You had seen the few photos hanging up on the house and you identified the face quickly.

“If you had advice for a future relative, a son or grandson, what would you tell him?”

“Life gets hard, we make mistakes, and we lose people, but we have to hold onto the better part of things. I get divorced, but I was able to experience a beautiful marriage, same with children, I was fortunate to experience fatherhood”

“Beautifully said, go get some rest,” you said, glamouring him, watching as he nodded, going inside.

Carefully stepping over the broken glass, you cautiously stepped inside, shutting the door, as the fog came back, the machine lighting up, before you were gone.

“Anything?”

“You just asked me that a few minutes ago, please, have some damn patience,” George said to Lestat, who was pestering him about you. The man was trying as hard as he could and Lestat did not care one bit.

Suddenly, the pod lit up, the fog coming back. Typing on the computer the door opened, before you stepped out, your feet dirty.

“I was away 6 hours and 40 minutes, how long has it been?” you asked, tossing Georgie the stopwatch.

“2 long hours, you've been crying,” Louis said, going to pull you into a hug.

“I saw her, our girl, she was perfect,” you said, feeling him stiffen in your arms before his shoulders shuttered from crying.

“What was she doing?” he asked.

“She had gotten in trouble, but I convinced you both to let it go, and we spent time together,” you said, as he smiled, nodding.

“You told her you loved her?” he asked, hopeful.

“Yes,” you nodded, as the hug tightened before he pulled away.

“And you told me something, so valuable,” you said, shifting to Lestat.

“Of course I did,” he smirked.

“You told me to remind you both of what is ahead of us and not our past,” you said, watching as he dabbed his eyes, stopping any tears on his part.

“Sounds like something I’d say, I guess,” he grinned.

“Are you ready to come home? I know you're probably exhausted from all of this?” Louis asked, grabbing your bag when you nodded.

Glancing at Georgie, who stood awkwardly waiting for you to finish with your reunion. Moving away from Lestat, you stood in front of your good friend, before pulling into a hug.

“Someone dear to you told me some valuable advice I want to share with you,” you smiled.

“Okay”

“Life gets hard, we make mistakes, and we lose people, but we have to hold onto the better part of things. Our past isn't meant to be changed, but rather we embrace the experience, both good and bad, because it shapes us into who we are. You might not be able to get your marriage back, but you could try to reach out to your children, Georgie,” you said, smiling as he teared up, agreeing with you.

“We have our own affairs to handle,” Lestat groaned, ready to leave the tiny basement.

“Shh,” Louis nudged him before you followed the two out of the house.

“Now that I think about Lestat was more charming back then, but now it's you, Louis,” you said, both of you laughing as Lestat scoffed, going on a rant about his greatness.

You missed Claudia greatly, but you had to keep moving, you all did. You still had an eternity of life, but maybe one day, just maybe, when you're reunited, she'll be where she belongs, back in your arms.

[gin-juice-tonic]

Another post investigating the book of bill coming for you out of left field here. There is a page whose contents I have discussed before, but mainly its words. Today I'd like to talk about some of the imagery on it.

This one is admittedly a little wackier than the other ones. To some of you, this post will surely read like this

However I invite you to come have a look anyway. Maybe you'll even think its funny.

Gonna be talking about another thing on this page yet again that bothers me. Ignore the prior highlighting, because I only want to talk about the drawing on here.

Bill being depicted as a holy light appearing and speaking through a triangle shaped hole in the clouds...

That's weird.

And not just in a "I think this is weird for the sake of thinking its weird" way but rather, we have seen how Ford chooses to depict Bill's presence without actually depicting Bill a few times in Journal 3:

The most comparable page appears to be the "The muse has spoken" entry. But even that page gives off a different feeling from what we have here. It almost feels like this "Cipher Speaks" one is a more blatant parody of the subtler divine inspiration-type imagery on the muse has spoken page. (And as an aside - thats not the only thing about this page that feels like parody)

This cloud imagery does remind me of something though...

Hold onto whatever goodwill you have towards my opinions and Steel yourself.

It reminds me of god from Monty Python and the holy grail.

It probably seems kind of random. You're probably thinking "god being represented in or by clouds is common imagery. You can't just call that a Monty Python reference"

But you know, I had a good reason to have the movie on my mind at the time, looking back.

At the very least, the movie was on Bill's mind while writing this book.

And for some reason... I cant help but wonder if whoever created the image on that journal page might've had the movie on their mind while doing so too.

As a completely unrelated aside, I'd just like to remind everyone that the Book of Bill Journal pages have this strange habit of referencing previous passages of Bill's .

Usually it's a little more... overt. But could this fit the pattern? Too silly to be true? Or just silly enough?

[seattlesellie]

the space between us

pairing: ellie williams x reader

summary: MINORS DNI!!!! this is basically fluff that leads to pure smut. i love ellie's fascination with space and i just had to write something surrounding it. i've never written smut in my life i'm sorry if this is awful but i truly tried...  warnings: smut, dom!ellie, sub!reader, fingering (r!receiving), oral (r! receiving), spanking, ellie's a little pussy drunk and slightly deranged, degradation kink, praise kink, spanking, choking, lmk if there are one's i might have forgotten!  ellie and you started getting close. too close. it was a dangerous game. it started with being paired up to go on patrols with her, and ended up with you two having regular movie nights at your place. somehow, she always ended up falling asleep in your bed, and you never dared to wake her up.

in those moments, when she was sleeping right beside you, you felt like you were in a dream. you'd study her features, taking every single one of them in. the way her freckles were scattered across her face, like a galaxy of stars. the way a strand of her hair fell perfectly behind her ear. the way her firm hand grazed the pillow softly, tattoo's on full display.  sometimes, you'd put your hand right next to hers, and find yourself admiring the contrast. compared to her firm hand, your hand seemed fragile, small. her tattoo's seemed to embody her spirit - confident, and unapologetically herself. you couldn't help but wonder how that hand might feel like around your waist. after entrancing in those deep thoughts, almost like a ritual, you'd fall asleep besides her.   it was a warm night in jackson, and ellie and you had made plans to meet up at her house. when you and ellie hung out, it was almost always at your place. she would always tell you that her place was too messy, too dirty, that you wouldn't like it. she didn't know all you wanted was to be closer to her, to know her. after patrol the other day, ellie mentioned she had a surprise for you, and invited you over. your heart fluttered at the invitation. finally, you thought.  you picked out a pair of tight, light pink pajama shorts paired with a simple white tank top. ellie always told you how pretty you looked with your hair like that.

you knocked on her door, and a few seconds later she opened it to greet you with a huge smile on her face and open arms. she pulled you in for a hug, her arms wrapping tightly around your body, and you leaned into her, feeling the warmth of her body against yours. she rubbed your back slightly. ellie's never been a hugger, but with you, she couldn't help it. she liked having you near her. whenever you'd go grab a drink at the bar, she would always make sure to wrap her hand around your waist if some guy tried it with you. you weren’t hers, but it felt like you had been for all of your life. 

you pulled away from the hug, a small smile on your lips as you looked up at her. "hey" you said softly, feeling a little shy in her presence. no matter how much time you've spent with her, you always felt nervous, giddy. she looked down at you, her eyes lingering on your chest for a second too long. it made your face heat up slightly. did you wear that just for her?  "hey yourself" she said, her voice deep, warm and playful. "are you ready for your surprise?" she asked, taking your hand in hers and pulling you inside. her hand didn't leave yours, and she was practically dragging across the entrance.   suddenly, she stopped, and put her hands on your eyes, covering them entirely with her long, sleek fingers.  "el, are you going to kidnap me?!" you said, giggling uncontrollably.

"nah, i'm saving that for another time... if you piss me off" she said. you couldn't see her, but you swore you could hear that smirk forming on her face. she kept on dragging you on, slower this time, so you wouldn't trip over the mess on her floor. books, records, clothes. she really was messy. she rested her firm hand on your waist in order to guide you. you prayed to god she didn't hear your breath slightly hitch up at the sudden contact. 

after she was done guiding you through her house, which ended up with you slightly bumping in to a wall (she swore she didn't do it on purpose, you knew she did) you felt a warm breeze caressing your body. her hand left your waist, which made you pout. finally, she removed her hands from your eyes. you found yourself on her porch, staring at a strange object.  "what is this?" you asked, your voice filled with excitement, which made ellie slightly scrunch her nose at you. your eyes fell on an object that you didn't recognize. it was a long, slender metal device. you furrowed your brows.  "it's a telescope" she explained. "you use it to look at the stars."  your heart leapt at the idea, and you turned back to the telescope, feeling a sense of awe wash over you. ellie watched as you gazed at the telescope with a look of wonder on your face. she couldn't help but smile at how excited you were. you always had a way of finding joy in the simplest things, and it was one of the things she admired most about you. 

"you like it?" ellie asked, her voice soft and teasing.  you turned to look at her, your eyes shining with excitement. "i love it." you said, a smile spreading across your face. ellie chuckled, reaching out to ruffle your hair affectionately. "you're so cute when you're excited" she said, her voice warm, teasing you even more. you blushed slightly at her words, as she stood with her hands fidgeting with the buttons of her grey flannel.  "where did you even manage to get that?" you asked. 

"found it on patrol the other day… and i knew i had to show you" she responded. she was thinking about you, she wanted to show you.

״come on" ellie said, gesturing towards the telescope. "let me show you how it works." you followed her eagerly, your heart racing. 

"you put your eye right here..." she explained, with her hand right on your waist, never leaving your side. "you close one eye..." you didn't see shit, which made ellie laugh.  "one eye, like you're winking"  "you know i can't wink!" you exclaimed, with a childish tone.   "okay, okay. let me help you dummy"  ״hey!" you slightly pushed her off jokingly.  she got behind you, and you could feel her chest grazing your back ever so slightly. she covered your left eye, keeping you firm against her. you could feel her belt caressing your ass. you wanted to be pushed against her more than anything in the fucking world. you felt hot all of a sudden, as if someone lit a fire inside of you.   "now, look" her voice was quiet, deep, raspy.  your breath caught in your throat as you stared at the glowing orb in the sky. 

the moon was breathtakingly beautiful, and you couldn't help but feel overwhelmed with emotion. joy filled your eyes, and you turned to ellie, your voice trembling with excitement.  "oh my god ellie", you said, your voice barely above a whisper. "its so beautiful" she smiled at you, her eyes warm and tender.  "i'm glad you like it." she said, looking deeply into your eyes.  "you wanna see saturn?" she asked, with a smirk on her face. you nodded your head at her, like a little puppy. it made her heart melt.  "turn around then" she whispered to you, adjusting the lens.  she got closer to you. even closer than before, her fingers were trailing little circles around your tummy. you wanted to see saturn, you swore you did, but she was so close, so fucking close you couldn't focus on anything else other than her soft breaths against your neck. you were lost in the sensation.  "are you looking?" she asked playfully. it was like she knew. she knew what she was doing to you.  "y-yes" you said, stuttering, embarrassment washing over you.  "yeah?" she asked with a tone you couldn't quite recognize.  your heart was beating faster. your head was almost spinning. you couldn't even respond. your breaths became heavier, and so did ellie's. you could feel her heart pounding against your back.  "describe it to me then" she demanded with a low voice.  you swallowed. "umm..." you almost whined, as you felt her soft lips grazing your shoulder.  "the ring...-it has a ring...-" you stuttered. your voice was shaky and you couldn't focus. couldn't see anything. saturn was the last thing on your mind.  "which one do you like more, the moon, or saturn?" she teased. her lips were so close to your ear it tickled, making it even harder to breathe. 

"i… i cant- i cant pick" your breathing got heavier. her hands were still wrapped around your tummy, her head resting on your shoulder. you could feel the air coming out of her nose with every breath she took, caressing you. suddenly, you felt her soft lips on your shoulder, planting a small, light kiss.   "ellie..." you whined quietly, and that was enough for her. she pulled you in even closer.  "tell me what you want, y/n" her voice was husky, whispering in your ear, making your knees weaker. you couldn't even respond.  "you can tell me to stop..." she planted another kiss. "should i stop?" she said, as if she knew she had you wrapped around her little finger as you melted into her touch.  you were a silent, whimpering mess, and she didn't even start. the knot in your lower stomach was too much for you to handle. it was tickling, burning, all for her.  "i cant pretend with you anymore" she said, and she turned you around to face her.  "you're fucking killing me." she had a hungry look on her face. starving. her eyes were darker than ever. "ellie…" you said in a needy voice. you didn’t need to say anything else. she could sense your desperation from a mile away.  "fuck…" she grunted loudly. her hands trailed up to cup your breasts. she was squeezing them hard. it almost hurt, but you were too focused on the pressure building up in between your thighs to pay it any mind.  "ellie... ellie…" is all you managed to whine. your desperate little voice was making her go crazy, squeezing your tits tighter, until you were left shaking in her arms.  "if you want more, you're going to have to beg for it." she said with a breathy voice. she sounded hungry, like she needed you to tell her what you felt, more than anything in the world.  you surrendered. you were hers in this moment, and you'd do anything she said. anything.  "p..please ellie touch me, kiss me, please" you weren't even sure if that's what you said, since your voice was so breathy and desperate, mind clouded with the thought of her hand on your tits, fingers circling your nipples through your thin bra. 

she turned you around forcefully. she looked like a fucking animal, her eyes dark with lust. she let out a groan, and she smashed her lips into yours. her lips were slightly chapped, opening up your soft lips, begging for acceptance. begging you to let her in. it was wet, and your head was spinning from the burning desire. one of her hands grabbed you by your neck, and the other pulled you closer to her by the back of your head, almost pulling your hair.the warmth of her tongue was driving you insane, dancing all over yours. she needed you more than anything. the ache between your legs was killing you, craving some sort of friction. you couldn’t believe this was happening.  

all of a sudden, she picked you up, her hands grabbed your ass, and she carried you to her living room, lips never leaving yours. it was borderline pornographic, the sounds your mouths were making. she let out a grunt as she pushed you up against the wall, and broke the kiss. 

the feeling of not having her lips over yours was excruciating, you needed her bad. you were gripping her flannel's collar, and her hand started playing with the hem of your little pants, eyes never leaving yours. her gaze suddenly turned soft. 

"you sure about this?" she asked in a breathy voice, as she pushed a hair strand away from your face. "i can't be around you without... i can't do this anymore, you drive me fucking crazy." now, it was her turn to heat up. her cheeks were red, eyes hungry for you. 

"ellie, i want to do this right now" you said, you felt tears forming in your eyes. you were so desperate it hurt, and it was finally happening.

"don't play with me" she said as she roamed her hands all over your body, purposefully avoiding your clothed cunt. 

"im not playing with you..." you whispered, as you grabbed her face and pushed it closer to yours. 

"i think about you all the fucking time" you admitted, voice shaking. 

she flipped you over so your ass was pushed up against her jeans and her belt was borderline bruising you. your heart skipped a beat at every move she made. she slapped your ass and it made a sound so loud you swore it could have woken up every resident in jackson. you moaned loudly.  "jesus christ," she muttered under her breath. you've never seen her like this. it was primal. every grunt that left her voice was filled with pure carnal energy. 

"i want to fuck you so bad" she said, her voice shaking, as she gave your ass another slap, earning herself a moan mixed with the sound of her name leaving your mouth. her hands grasped the skin underneath your shirt, reaching for the hem of your bra. she almost tore the fabric away from your body, leaving you with no shirt on. her sudden act of aggression left you with a startled look on your face. "fuck. i don’t wanna hurt you" she said, it felt like she didn’t mean it. her hand was caressing your thigh, sending shivers down your spine. "i can't- i cant hurt you… youre so fucking pure…" her voice was slightly above a whisper. your breathing was rapid, her eyes were inviting you in. 

"i need you. i need you" your voice cracked. you needed her more than anything. her hands on your body were fucking electric, she could hurt you all she wanted, you didn't care.   she pushed her knee between your thighs, giving you that friction you oh so craved. you heard her loud groan, and she hit every single nerve in your body. she noticed your little moans and whimpers, which made her move her knee up and down on your pussy. every moan encouraged her to torture you even more. 

"fuck yourself. show me how bad you need it" she grunted loudly before kissing you, swallowing in your loud pathetic moans. 

you started moving up and down, feeling your clit against her hard jeans. you were grasping for air, pulling her shirt down, scratching the muscles in her arms. it was excruciating, you craved more of her touch, you needed her. your clit felt swollen, begging to be touched.

"please- ellie- touch me" you whimpered. she hummed, and kissed you again, tongue rough against yours. it felt so fucking good. 

with no effort, she slid your pants off, revealing a pair of lacey white underwear. she breathed heavily and grunted as she noticed the wet spot that formed right where your hole is. her eyelids dropped slowly. she furrowed her brows, looked as if she almost pitied you.

"so fucking wet for me.. such a dirty fucking girl", she gave a quick slap to your pussy, which made you flinch and let out a small scream escape your mouth. her eyes were blazing. you pushed your cunt closer to her face. you were barely aware of your actions, you felt as if something took over you. she smiled playfully and planted a little kiss on your pussy through your panties, licking the wet spot that grew larger with every move of her tongue, over and over again, just to drive you mad.

you moaned her name, again and again, it was almost like you were chanting, saying a prayer, and ellie was your god. 

"not so fast…" she teased again. she was staring at your pussy with a look you’ve never seen before. she slightly pinched your panties to reveal your outer lips, and started rubbing them up and down your slit. the fabric was burning through you, and she enjoyed every minute of it. it was intoxicating for her, how the pretty girl next door was in front of her, begging to be fucked. she still didn’t touch you. her mouth was salivating at the sight of your pussy dripping just for her. she owend you. 

your hand grabbed a fistful of her auburn hair, pleading for more.

"now ellie please- please" you were full on whining. that act made ellie stop in her tracks, and she got up to meet your eyes with a stern look on her face. 

"you don’t get to decide." she said firmly. her green eyes were wide, her pupils blown out. she looked high out of her mind.  

you practically pouted, tears almost forming in your eyes.  she took both of your hands firmly. 

"how long have you wanted this, huh?" she toyed, her tone mocking you. there was no going back. she knew of the effect she had on you. no more sneaky looks, no more thinking you were so in charge of your feelings. she cursed under her breath and bit your ear, which made you moan her name loudly. she planted a small delicate kiss to your collarbone.  The sharp contrast of sensations was sending you into a frenzy. one moment, it was the intensity of hardness that left you gasping, only to be met with the tenderness of softness in the next. a delicate kiss followed by a stinging slap, each touch igniting a fire within you.

"tell me, or i don’t touch" no no no. you couldn’t deal with that. 

"i fuck myself thinking about you" you admitted, throat dry with desire. she grinned and let out a loud groan, eyes dark with lust. that was all she needed to hear. 

you were still pushed up against the wall, but now, she was kneeling in front of you. she looked up with her predatory gaze, and that look made another loud moan escape your mouth. she started planting long, light, little kisses over your soaked panties. you could tell she was restraining herself. all she wanted was to ravage you, to fuck you into submission and leave you unable to walk for days. she wanted to break you, but not yet. "its like you were fucking created just for me" she said. it made you blush even harder. just for her. 

"tell me you're mine." she demanded with a grunt.

"im yours… jesus- ellie im yours" you gasped out. she planted more and more kisses on your pussy, burying herself in your scent and wetness. it was killing her, as she felt her own cunt leaking from just the sound of your soft moans. her words were like a drug, intoxicating and addictive, and you couldn't get enough. you arched your back, pressing your hips against her mouth, wanting more, needing more. 

"i need-" kiss. "to taste-" kiss. "that little fucking pussy" she bit your clit through your panties, making you scream loudly. "please eat me- please… fuck-" you moaned, the sound catching in your throat as she bit down. you were mumbling absolute nonsense, the word "please" not leaving your mouth. she got up from her knees again, pushing you firmly against the wall.

she felt herself go absolutely insane, she could feel how wet and needy you were for her. she wrapped her hand around your throat, squeezing it lightly. "you're begging for it, aren't you?" she murmured. "you want me to eat your pretty little pussy until you can't even remember your own name."

her hand was cupping your pussy, giving it small slaps that made your head dizzy. you were hot all over, burning, as her hand imprinted your neck. 

you nodded frantically, not being able to say a word, intoxicated by her grip and her eyes, fucking you with her look.  

she was kneeling again, with her head wrapped between your thighs. you wished you could burn this moment into your memory. it was fucking glorious, a pure work of art, like a scene out of a renaissance painting. your eyes closed in ecstasy.

"jesus christ" she muttered under her breath, and moved your panties to the side, not even bothering to take them all the way off. she needed to know how you taste. she planted a warm, wet kiss all over your aching clit, and sucked it ever so slightly. a moan escaped her mouth, and you saw her hand immediately go down to take off her jeans. she took them all the way off, and then she shoved her hand in her underwear. that sight made you almost come on the spot.

the fact that she couldn’t wait, that she had to touch herself as she was kissing your pussy made you see stars, galaxies. she spread your legs open, your pussy on full display, offering your glistening folds for her exploration. she took her hand out of her black boxers, and without warning, she slid a finger inside you, and you gasped at the sensation of her slick warmth mingling with your own wetness.

"taste so fucking good… so sweet for me" she said in her deep voice.

"holy shit-" is all you could mutter, feeling the tight coil in your belly about to explode. she looked amused, letting out a small chuckle. your loud moan earned you another slap right on your clit. you screamed in agony and pleasure, as she pumped her finger inside and out of you like a fucking machine. 

she spat on your pussy, her saliva mixing with all of your wetness. 

"such a fucking slut for me, youd do anything for me wouldn’t you?" she mumbled, with that hungry fucking look on her face. 

she added another finger, pumping in and out of you, making you come closer and closer to your climax. the moans that left your mouth made her go even crazier. ellie was licking up all the juices that had gathered, and started flicking your clit in a circular motion. you felt so fucking unholy. 

she sucked roughly on your clit, her eyes not leaving yours, demanding for your eye contact. you could feel it coming at you hard, you couldn’t control yourself anymore. you needed to cum and you were almost going to. your eyes rolled in your head, forcing you to leave her piercing gaze. 

she stopped. 

"no. no- no. ellie- wh-why?" you cried. she blew air on your clit slightly, making you twitch. "youre going to look at me when you cum- if you don’t, I'm gonna fucking torture you. understand?" she said firmly, and she spanked your ass once again. 

"i understand" you cried.

"atta girl" she praised, as she wrapped her arm around your ass, and started licking you all over again, with an agonizing speed. your cheeks were covered with tears, you felt so embarrassed but so fucking full of her fingers and her tongue. with every single one of your soft sobs, ellie became more and more eager, moaning softly against your core. 

your mind went absolutely numb, as you felt your orgasm come closer and closer. you were filled with so much pleasure you couldn’t handle it anymore. 

"m'gonna cum ell-… i'm gonna cum" you cried, as her pace got faster and deeper, ruining your pussy. 

"cum for me angel" she praised.  you cried out ellie's name until your mind went blank. you arched your back as you drowned in the pleasure. 

ellie never wanted to hurt you, but you came so hard it nearly broke your heart. 

[atinyfeels]

ateez: he compares you to his ex [2]

『 pairing: bf!ateez x fem reader ╺ requested? yes ╺ genre: mostly angst, slight fluff 』

warnings: slight cursing, depression

word cout: 6.1k

notes: I ended up writing this while at work and I got carried away -C ╺ May 3rd: Yeosang’s has been completely rewritten - C

masterlist | part one

Seonghwa:

"y/n!" you heard someone call from behind you.

You didn't have to guess who it was, his voice was engraved in your mind. But that didn't mean you were planning on stopping for him. Pushing the door opened, you made your way outside and headed towards the parking lot. You were barely half way to your car when you felt someone grab your arm and turn you around.

Seonghwa stared at you, his face showing concern when he noticed your red puffy eyes. "I am so, so sorry."

You scoff and look away from him, "It's not exactly your fault. I pushed you to go out with me. I pressured you when you were vulnerable. I thought that I could be better for you, that you would be able to move on with me. But I guess I was just getting my hopes up."

Seonghwa was shaking his head at every word you said. He cupped your face with his hands and gently made you look up at him. "I have no excuse for what I said to you. But don't put yourself down for what I said to you. It was not okay for me to say those things to you, it was rude and obnoxious." You swallowed hard, and blinked away the tears that kept building up. "I have no more feelings for h/e/n, I promise you. The two of us are just friends. But you and I, we are much more than anything my ex and I had. Accepting your confession was the best thing that ever happened to me. I will do anything to make it up to you, I promise you."

You licked your lips and stayed silent for a moment, processing his words. "I just...I just need some time, Hwa. There are some things I need to think about. Is that okay?"

He nods quickly, "whatever you wish, take as much time as you need. I'll be right here whenever you're ready."

You leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. Once you pulled away, you gave him a small smile before turning around and leaving him in the parking lot.

It had been one week since you last spoke to Seonghwa. He kept his promise and gave you as much space as you needed. His missing presence made your home feel so lonely. The thoughts of endless movie nights on the couch and staying in bed together with your bodies entwined. The first night you stayed on the loveseat, not wanting to be in the large empty bed.

You spent most of your time by the window, either watching the spring rain fall or reading a book. It didn't matter what you did, Seonghwa was the only thing filling your mind. You weren't okay with what he had said to you. Nobody should be. You knew the pair was still friends, but they weren't close anymore. Once they broke up and agreed to be friends, there wasn't much contact between the two. But what Seonghwa said still hurt, for the first two months, he was had started drinking more and went partying most nights. Hongjoong felt like he had no control over him.

The rain was hitting against your window, the dark clouds made it seem like it was much later than 5 in the afternoon. You had just poured yourself a new glass of wine, ready to continue your book when your phone began to ring. Setting the glass down, you walked over the kitchen and picked the device up off the counter. Hongjoong was the only thing it said on the screen. This couldn't be good.

"Hello?"

"y/n!" Seonghwa slurred into the phone. there was a commotion on the other side of the phone as he heard Hongjoong yell his members name. "hi honey." his voice sounded so sweet, which made you even more confused. "I've missed you. Joong told me not to call you, so he took my phone away, but I got his instead."

"Seonghwa, have you been drinking?"

He hiccupped into the phone, " a little? I didn't go to a club or anything, I promise. I was feeling mopey, because I missed you and Yunho suggested that we should drink something. I'm at the dorm, I promise." Hongjoong had given up on trying to get the phone from him. That or Seonghwa had went into a different room. It was silent for a moment before he spoke again. "I fucked up, didn't I? I hurt you and now I've lost you."

You sighed, "Seonghwa."

"I tried so hard not trying to ruin this relationship. I wanted to make sure everything was perfect you. I didn't want you to realize that you deserved better than me. And in the end I hurt you." He choked out a sob, making your heartache.

You weren't mad at him anymore, you just wanted some space. You wanted to clear your thoughts of everything before talking with him again. "Seonghwa, is Hongjoong there?"

There was a sound a shuffling before Hongjoong spoke. "Hello?"

"So, I'm going to come pick him up, can you take care of him for me until then?" you ask in a sympathetic tone. "I'm really sorry for this."

"Don't worry about it, I've got him."

You thanked him before you hung up the phone. As you grabbed your bag and jacket, your shoved your feet through your shoes and rushed out the door. It was only a ten minute walk to the dorms from your apartment. Yunho opened the door for you and stepped aside as you made your way to your boyfriends bedroom. He was sat against the wall and his knees brought to his chest.

"Seonghwa." His head lifted up quickly, staring directly into your eyes.

"y/n." He stands up and makes his way over to you, "what are you doing here?" His eyes moved over to Hongjoong who was attempting to sneak out without being seen. "I'm sorry for calling you so abruptly, I've been chugging a lot of water and I'm starting to sober up."

"Seonghwa," you say again, making the man stop talking. You sighed and looked at his puffy eyes. This wasn't what you wanted. You didn't want to hurt him like this, you didn't want to hurt him at all. You just wanted all of this to be over with. "Let's go home, yeah?"

Seonghwa stared at you, processing what you said to him before nodding. "please."

Hongjoong:

Seonghwa stayed quiet as he listened to you explain to him what had happened with Hongjoong. The words were choppy as you were crying, your voice shaky. You hadn't realized how much of a burden you being towards Hongjoong. He had never snapped at you before, it was all a new feeling for you.

Seonghwa reached over and rubbed your back softly, "I'm sure he didn't mean to. He's been really stressed out lately. Coachella, the comeback, the upcoming tour and his ex leaving him is just icing on the cake. I'm not making excuses for him, how he reacted and what he said was completely unacceptable. But I know what he's like when he's stressed. He says things he doesn't mean."

You swallowed hard and nodded, "I should probably get going. Work isn't going to finish by itself." You wiped your tears and stood up, giving Hwa a small smile. "Thank you."

"Uhm," he started before you could walk off, "maybe tonight, we can meet up and get something to eat? We can invite the others too if that would make you feel more comfortable."

"That'd be nice, would probably make me feel a lot better," You agreed.

He nodded. "Great, I'll message you the details later."

After you clocked out of work, Seonghwa sent you a message to meet at a local restaurant that you usually go to as a group. You didn't bother to go home and change your outfit to something more casual, you just wanted some alcohol. The restaurant was only a short walk from your office, so it didn't take you long to arrive.

"Back again I see!" The owner beamed with excitement when she saw you.

You smiled and politely greeted her, "this is the best restaurant on the street."

She laughed at your comment. "Don't you know how to make an old woman smile. Are you meeting with your friends? If you are, they haven't arrived yet but your back corner table to open if you'd like."

You smiled and thanked her before heading to the back of the restaurant. Given the weekday, the restaurant wasn't busy as it usually was. Only a younger couple and a table of three men dressed in suits. You placed your jacket behind your chair and sit down, your back to the door. It wasn't long before the chair beside you skid against the floor, causing you to look up. To your surprise Hongjoong was standing beside you, nobody else in sight.

"Joong," you whispered as he sat beside you. You turned around to see if the boys were with him but they weren't.

"It's only me," Hongjoong told you, making you turn back to him. "Is that okay? I was hoping we could talk."

You nodded as the owner came by and placed a couple of waters in front of you. "I'm sorry," you said once she was out of earshot.

Hongjoong furrowed his eyebrows, looking at you confused. "You shouldn't be the one apologizing. I took my anger out on you for no reason and said hurtful things."

"I know, but I knew you were stressed and I still pushed your buttons. I knew that you felt I was pestering you and I ignored all the signs. I'm really sorry for bothering you so much," you say looking up at him.

He shook his head. "I had no right to take my anger out on you. What I said to you was mean, and it never should've been said. This break up has been really hard on me and it's starting to cloud my judgement. I don't mind if you try to comfort me, you're much better at it than most of the members. I will do better with how I control my words and actions towards you.

"I will do better at trying to read the signs, and I apologize if my feelings for you were overbearing."

Hongjoong paused and looked at you confused. "Feelings for me? You have feelings for me?"

You mentally slapped yourself, guess your crush wasn't as obvious as you thought it was. "S-So are the other members planning on coming? I don't want to order without them."

"Wait, backtrack. You have feelings for me?"

You opened your mouth to say something when you heard a collection of voices come through the door. The remaining 7 members all went to the back to the room and joined you and Hongjoong at the table.

Seonghwa sat across from you and gave you a cheerful smile. "Did we miss anything."

You quickly shook your head, ignoring Hongjoong's shocked expression. "Nothing at all!"

Yunho:

You began picking at your fingers, looking around your apartment. You had been sitting her for well over 30 minutes, trying to find the strength to begin cleaning. Yunho's words echoing in your mind. You hated how he was right. Your depression was becoming an excuse for everything at this point. You didn't clean your apartment, you hadn't been eating properly, making excuses not to meet with friends and spending all your free time locked in your room.

Yunho walked out of your bedroom, rubbing his eyes as he yawned. "y/n?" He flicked on the ceiling light and looked over at you. "it's 7 in the morning, what are you doing up so early on your day off?"

You couldn't find the words, your mind was racing. You didn't want to explain to him that you spent all night watching motivational videos on YouTube. You opened your mouth to say something but instead you choked out a sob and broke down. Yunho quickly rushed over to you and put his hands around you. He held onto you as you both moved to the ground and cried. You felt like your were shrinking, like you were a small child who wanted to run away from the scary things.

"Shh," he cooed softly in your ear as he ran his fingers through your hands. "It's okay. You're okay, I'm here." He patiently waited for you to calm down, constantly repeating over and over again that you were going to be okay and he wasn't going anywhere.

Once you had finally calmed down, you laid your head against his chest and sniffled. "I have depression," you confessed. Yunho didn't say anything, allowing you to continue. "I went to the doctor about it about a month ago, she referred me to a therapist. Everything seemed fine at first but then the more I worked and came home on repeat." You stopped and took a deep breath. "It started to get worse. Everyone's been so busy and I didn't want to burden anyone. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to worry you. I thought that I could handle this on my own."

Yunho pressed a soft, long kiss at the top of your head. "I'm such an asshole. I'm so sorry I called you lazy, honey. I didn't even think to ask if everything was okay, I just automatically assumed things without talking to you about it first."

You turned and looked up at him. "You're not the only one in the wrong here. My therapist has been pushing me to tell a person. I should've spoken to you instead of trying to do this on my own." You swallowed hard, "I've been watching motivational videos all morning to try to help get me started. But the second I stepped out here, I couldn't do anything."

"Well, there's two of us and one apartment. I will help you do the laundry, clean the dishes and take the trash out," he offered, looking around the room before he looked back down at you. "Would that be okay or is that too much in one day?"

You shake your head and give him a small smile. "I think that'd be great."

"I'm going to start coming home more often, even if it's really late," he tells you, making your eyes go wide. "I don't mind the distance and we're just finishing up promotions. I've been missing you like crazy, the space between us is too large." You smiled and leaned up, giving him a long kiss on his lips. When you parted, he smiled and stood up with his hands on his hips. "Now, where should we start?"

Yeosang:

“Come on! You’re going to love it!!” Yeji shouts as she drags you into the house party.

“I’m really not in the mood for this, Yeji!” You tell her.

The house was flooded with people dancing to the loud music and drinking. You didn’t know half the people that were here, hell you weren’t sure if you knew anyone. Yeji was invited by someone from her workplace and insisted that you came with her. Someone bumped into you, making you huff and move closer to her. You kept walking until Yeji found a guy who was waving her over.

“Minho!” Yeji says, embracing the taller man into a hug.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Minho says before letting her go and looking over at you. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is y/n! It’s her first party!” Yeji tells him. You send him a polite smile and wave.

He nods, smiling at you. “I can tell.”

You zoned out the couple and looked around the room. There weren’t many people in this room, mostly people talking or lounging on the couch. You hated being here, you just wanted to pull Yeji out of here and go home.

“You must be a homebody,” someone says, making you look up to find one of Minho’s friends now standing beside you.

You nodded, “yeah. Parties aren’t really my thing.”

“I’m Chan,” he tells you, reaching out his hand for you to shake. He noticed your hesitation and chuckled. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”

This made you smile a little before you took his hand in yours. “I’m y/n.”

“Here take this!” Yeji appeared handing you an unopened hard seltzer. “It’s new out of the box and it’ll help with your nerves.”

You watched as she disappeared back to Minho before you opened the can and took a drink. She wasn’t joking when she said it helped with your nerves. You weren’t a lightweight so you weren’t going to get drunk or tipsy off it but it definitely calmed you down. For a while you found yourself chatting with Chan, it wasn’t anything flirtatious but he made you feel more comfortable.

The current song changed to Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter and you let out an excited hum. “I love this song!”

Chan laughed at your excitement, “Well would you like to dance?”

“She’s fine,” a voice says behind, making you look over to find Yeosang staring at Chan.

You furrowed your eyebrows and cross your arms over your chest. “What if i want to dance with him?” This caused Yeosang to snap his head towards you. “Who are you to say what I can and cannot do?”

Chan cleared his throat awkwardly, “I’m gonna go get another drink.”

Neither you nor Yeosang looked up from each other as Chan left the two of you alone. This was your first time seeing Yeosang since you stormed out of the studio a week ago. You hated how he still looked gorgeous as ever.

“What are you doing here?”

Yeosang crossed his arms over his chest, “I should be asking you that. Since when do you come to party like these? Yeji called me and said you needed to be taken home because she left Minho.”

“Yeji called you?” You asked confused, turning around to find Minho & Yeji gone. You groaned, the least she could’ve done was at least given you a heads up. Unless, this was her plan all along. You mentally face palmed your self and groaned. “Damn you, Yeji.”

“I’m not going to force you to leave,” Yeosang assures you. Of course you knew that, you knew better than anyone that he wouldn’t do that to you. “But I will be the one you’re leaving with tonight. You don’t know these people.”

You swallowed hard at his last sentence. “I thought I knew you.” You didn’t think he heard you, but the look on his face made it obvious he heard.

“Come on,” he says, grabbing your hand. You allowed him to lead you out of the party and towards the main road. He helped you into the passenger side of his car before getting in the driver side and pulling off. “You haven’t spoken to me since the day at the studio. I tried calling you the other day but it went straight to voicemail.”

“I’ve been busy, that’s all,” you tell him trying to brush off the conversation.

“It’s because of what I said the other day isn’t it?” he asked, making you look over at him. “About h/e/n?” Your silence was enough confirmation for him. “y/n, i promise you i don’t think that about you.”

“Then why did you say it?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest. “Do you not know how much it hurts to hear someone compare you to another person and say you would never compare?”

Yeosang chewed on his bottom lip unsure of what to say. “I don’t know. I guess I was trying to be funny but I wasn’t even thinking about your own feelings.”

You felt the tears build up, “It hurt so much. To hear being compared to someone who is considered perfect to people. Someone who’s considered perfect to you.”

“She’s not!” Yeosang immediately says, reaching over and grabbing your hand in his. The action made your heart skip a beat. “She’s far from perfect, I promise you. y/n, you are the most stunning person I have ever met. you light up the room when you come in. when I saw you talking to Chan, almost dancing with him I felt jealous. Maybe even a little possessive. I never felt that way with h/e/n.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Yeosang pulled into the parking garage of your apartment building and parked the car. Once the car was shut off he turned and looked you in the eyes. “I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you. Even when i was with h/e/n, I knew that it wasn’t her I was having those feelings for. It was you.”

You swallowed hard and placed a hand on his cheek, “don’t hurt me again.”

“I won’t, I promise,” he tells you before leaning over bringing his lips to yours.

San:

When the group arrived to the amusement park, you stayed glued to Hongjoong's side. Every ride you rode on, you sat between him and Seonghwa. During lunch time you sat them and kept most of your conversations with the two of them. Near the end of the night Hongjoong and Seonghwa began to realize what was actually going on.

San wasn't bothering to talk to you. Instead he was hanging around Yeosang & Wooyoung the whole day. Neither of you spoke to each other or even looked at each other. Hongjoong looked over at Seonghwa, who nodded his head towards a ride that he knew would get the two of you to talk.

Hongjoong picked up on the idea and spoke loud enough for the whole group to hear, "You know, it's almost the end of the night. Why don't San and y/n go on Ferris wheel together?"

Your head shot up towards Hongjoong, who was smiling towards you. San pressed his lips together as the other members started to chime in, agreeing with the idea.

"That's okay," you tell them, holding your hands up in defense. "The line looks pretty long and we don't have that much time left. Maybe we could find a ride that has shorter lines?"

Seonghwa shook his head and put your hand on your lower back, pushing you towards your boyfriend. "That's why we bought the fast passes, the 7 of us are going to go ride another ride while you two ride this one. We will meet back at the entrance once we're all done. Sound good?"

Before you could protest, the 7 boys rushed away from you leaving the two of you alone. Your eyes flicked up at San, who was peering down at you. You did not want to be alone with him right now. San sighed and started making his way towards the Ferris Wheel, you following close behind. The line wasn't nearly as long as you made it out to be, only a couple of people were ahead of you.

"You think she's cute?" you heard someone say behind you.

You looked up to see who the person was talking about, to find two boys from the other lane staring directly at you. Quickly, you turned around and kept your eyes forward.

"Gorgeous, isn't she?" you hear San say, making you look up as he stands behind you, blocking their view. San huffed and leaned down, pressing a kiss at the top of your head. "As if they'd have a chance to take you from me."

His words made you blush but you stayed quiet, still unsure of where to two of you stood. The line took under 10 minutes before the two of you were in a cart together. Instead of sitting beside him like you'd normally would, you sat on the opposite side of him.

San stared at you, as if he was trying to read your mind. "What's going on, y/n?"

You looked away from the sunset and up at your boyfriend. The shine of the golden sun on his skin making him look even more gorgeous. "I didn't want to upset you with being to clingy, so I've been doing my best not to disturb you. You seemed to be fine spending your day with the boys. I'm sorry for inviting myself on your day off."

The cart came to stop at the top of the ride, giving San an opportunity to move beside you. He took your hand in his and gave the top of it a kiss. "I'm sorry, for being so harsh. I could've said it nicer than as harsh as I did. I guess I just felt embarrassed. Wooyoung had been teasing me about you, saying that you get my full attention and you're glued to my side whenever we're together."

You frown and placed a hand on his cheek, "San if I'm doing too much or making you feel uncomfortable in anyway, I'd prefer if you come to me instead of saying hurtful things."

"But you don't!" San quickly said. "I'm not uncomfortable and you're definitely not doing to much. I love how clingy you are. I love how you constantly hold onto me whether it be my hand or just the sleeve of my shirt. I don't want you change that, in fact do more." You gave out a soft chuckle. "I'm really sorry I let Wooyoung's jokes get to me. I don't even know where that comment about h/e/n came from. I promise you, I was just being an insensitive jerk."

You give him a small smile and pat the top of his head, "well I'm glad you were able to admit your mistake and be honest with me. However, Wooyoung & I are going to need to have a serious talk."

San smiled at you and leaned over, giving you a kiss on the lips. The ride went another time around before two of you got off. Holding hands, the two of you made your way towards the entrance of park. The group of boys were huddled around a bench, waiting for you.

Seonghwa was the first person to notice the two of you. "Looks like everything is back to normal."

Once you two reach the group, Wooyoung gave you both a confused look. "When were you two ever not okay?"

You squinted your eyes at him and let go of San's hand. "Oh, you'd like to know all about that wouldn't you?"

Wooyoung's eyes widen as he turned and started to dash out of the park, you following closely behind. The rest of the group laughed as they started to walk out, watching as you chased Wooyoung' to the car. Wooyoung's shouting echoing from afar.

Mingi:

It had been a week since you last went to take Mingi any food. Hongjoong has been reassuring you that the younger member was eating properly, but he hasn't mentioned you since. You had occasional small talk with your boyfriend, but it wasn't like it was before. There was a tension in the air and it wasn't that hard to figure out why.

It had been a week since you last went to take Mingi any food. Hongjoong has been reassuring you that the younger member was eating properly, but he hasn't mentioned you since. You had occasional small talk with your boyfriend, but it wasn't like it was before. There was a tension in the air and it wasn't that hard to figure out why.

Tonight you were preparing yourself to go to meet the boys at dinner for Seonghwa's birthday. Mingi was the one who brought it up but Seonghwa was the one who invited you. You stared at yourself repeatedly in the mirror, debating whether or not going was the best idea. The sound of your phone vibrating on your desk made you tear your eyes away and look over at the screen. Mingi’s name appeared on the screen with hearts next to his name.

“Hello?” you ask after hitting accepting the call and bringing the phone up to your ear.

There was a silence on the other end making you think he called by accident. “Hey.”

“Hi,” you say softly, unsure of what else to say.

Mingi stayed silent before clearing his throat, “uhm, so would you want to ride together to the party?”

Your heart skipped a beat. Although still hurt after everything, you weren’t going to deny that you missed your boyfriend. “Okay, what time?”

“I’m actually at your door right now.”

You blinked and walked out of your bedroom, heading towards your front door. When you opened the door you came face to face with a rather nervous Mingi. You brought the phone down and ended the call, staring at him with a surprised look.

Mingi put his phone in his pocket before wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into a tight embrace. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Your eyes widened, Mingi was never the type to initiate contact like this. You were always the one to hold his hand, hug him and, for the most part, even kiss him first. Your arms wrapped around his waist, accepting his warm embrace.

“I’m so sorry for how I treated you,” he says, pulling away slightly and setting his forehead onto yours. “You were just checking up on me and taking care of me. I’ve been so stressed with the comeback, the tour and traveling that I took it out on you. It’s not excuse but I really am sorry. This week has been torture, it’s not like when I'm away for concerts. I don’t want to be apart from you, I don’t want space. I want you, y/n. I want your clinginess. I want your daily texts asking me how I'm doing. I want the lunchboxes you bring me everyday knowing well I forget to eat. I want you, y/n.”

“Shh, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore,” you tell him. You reached up and placed a hand on his cheek, gently rubbing your finger against his skin. “Can we just move on from this and go to the party?”

Mingi moved his head to the crook of your neck. “Screw the party, I can think of other things we can do.”

The feeling of his lips leaving kisses on your neck gave you goosebumps. You let out a soft sigh, “Seonghwa is your member and he wants you there. Plus, who are you to turn away a good party.”

Mingi hummed against your skin and whispered in your ear, “we can be late. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Before you were able to respond Mingi lifted you up, wrapping your legs around his waist. He started walking into the apartment, your lips pressed against his as he closed the door behind him with his foot.

Wooyoung:

You stared at the blank canvas that was begging for you to paint on it. You hadn’t even prepared the paint yet because you knew you weren’t going to get anywhere. Your mind was flooded with grey thoughts, none of them giving you inspiration for a new piece. Sighing, you stood up from your stool and walked out of your office.

Ever since your argument with Wooyoung, you had lost all motivation paint. Painting was your way of escaping reality and right now it felt like reality wouldn’t leave you alone. You walked into your living room, heading towards the couch when your front door opened. Startled, you picked up the closest object to you (which so happened to be the remote control) and turned around to fine Wooyoung standing by the door.

Wooyoung looked at you with a raised eyebrow, “do you really think you can fight off a person with the remote?”

You glared at him and crossed your arms over your chest. “What are you doing here?”

Wooyoung slipped off his shoes and stood in front of you. “We need to talk.”

“You couldn’t have called me? Or at least given me a heads up that you were on your way over? Scaring the crap out of me could have been completely avoided,” you told him, expecting him to crack a joke but all he did was stare at you with a blank stare. You stared at him and felt your heart drop for a moment. “You’re breaking up with me.”

Wooyoung swallowed hard and opened his mouth to say something but he stopped himself. You knew that the fight you had was a bad one, especially with how it ended, but you never knew your relationship would end like this.

“I said a lot of things that hurt you the other day and it wasn’t right,” he started, running his fingers through his hair. “I compared you to someone who broke me in so many ways that I didn’t even know were possible. Someone who took every insecurity I had and held it against me. And you…you are nothing like her. You treat me with respect and I feel like a goddamn prince when I'm with you. You’ve made me the happiest person I have ever been.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, confused by where he was going with this. “So why? Why do we have to end it all? You said it yourself, I make you feel like the happiest person.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he says. You watched him as he sighed and took a seat in your couch. “You deserve a person who will treat you just as great as you treat them. A person who won’t accuse you doing things with other people. A person who could trust without holding anything back. You deserve so much better than me, y/n.”

You could feel the tears build up as you stare down at him. “What if I say no?”

“y/n—“ you cut him off, “I don’t want to be in some perfect relationship. I don’t want some perfect guy who sweeps me off his feet and makes no mistakes. I want to be with you, Wooyoung. I’m in love with you.”

Wooyoung was crying now, tears on his cheeks as he looks at you. “I do nothing but hurt you, y/n. You deserve so much better than me.”

You cupped his face into your hands and brought your lips to his. The kiss was soft and only lasted a minute before you pulled away. “I told you from the beginning that I knew you were going to have a hard time trusting me. But I need you to believe me when I say, there will never be anybody else. Unless you absolutely want me to, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t want you to go anywhere,” he says before you pull him into a hug. “I’m so sorry, y/n. I shouldn’t have said those words to you. I got scared and insecure, and I acted without thinking it through.”

You didn’t respond, you just ran your fingers through his hair as he hugged you tightly. Of course this wasn’t going to be your final fight but it was the one that changed a lot in your relationship.

Jongho:

“Ugh, I'm starving!” Yeji groans as your friends make your way into the restaurant.

The place was packed with young college students celebrating the end of the semester. The four of you found a spot in between two couples who both seemed to be unfazed with the capacity. A young waitress comes over and takes your order before she disappears to the back of the restaurant.

“I need a drink,” Sumin says, not wasting any time cracking open a bottle and pouring herself a shot.

“At least we should take one together!” Chaeyoung says, watching as Sumin tosses her back as she downs the shot.

Sumin slams the glass on the table with a satisfied ‘Ah’. She picks up the glass again and starts to fill everyone else’s glasses with the alcohol. “Cheers!”

“To what exactly?” Yeji asks.

“To finally getting y/n to come out with us!” Sumin says.

You roll your eyes playfully and take the shot as the same time as the girls. The alcohol felt bitter against your throat as you swallowed it and set the glass on the table. “Please, you know I’ve been busy with work.”

“Hey, is that Jongho?” Chaeyoung asks, causing the group to turn toward the television.

You followed their heads and saw a picture of Jongho & his ex being photographed together at a restaurant. The gossip reporter was talking about the rumor of the two of them getting back together and being spotted over the past weekend. You swallowed hard and looked away from the TV.

Sumin looked over at you with a concerned look. Out of all your friends, Sumin was the only one who knew about your relationship with Jongho. She knew about the break up too, she insisted on you telling your other friends but you were too embarrassed by falling so hard so fast.

“I heard she’s blackmailing him,” Yeji speaks up, gaining everyone’s attention. “Apparently she found out a he was seeing a girl and she took photos of them. She told him that if he doesn’t get back with her that she’s going to release the photos.”

Chaeyoung nodded, “I heard that too! He ended up breaking up with the girl because he wanted to protect her from the public.”

“The ex sounds insane,” Sumin chimes in dramatically, giving you a look, “I don’t know why anyone would choose her.”

“I-uh…I’ll be right back, and if I'm not. I’ll call you,” you say, quickly getting up and heading out of the restaurant.

“Where are you going?” Chaeyoung called after you.

“She’s going to get her man,” Sumin says loud enough for you to hear.

Once you got outside, you got into a taxi that just dropped a group of girls off and gave them the address to Jongho’s apartment. You quickly paid the fare and rushed inside the building. Instead of taking the elevator, you took the stairs to the third floor and walked up to Jongho’s door. Standing up straight, you caught your breath and knocked on the door.

It didn’t take long before Jongho opened the door, confusion on his face when he spotted you. “y/n? what are you doing here?”

“Is it true?” You asked, not giving him much information. “Did she blackmail you into breaking up with me.”

“H-How did you know about that?”

“People in the industry are talking about it. If it’s true, they know that she’s blackmailing you. They are saying you broke up with me because she was threatening to expose us,” You say quickly, “so is it true? You didn’t actually want to be with her? You don’t still love her?”

Jongho stayed quiet, unsure on if he should confirm or not. But what was the point of denying it if you already knew pretty much everything? “Yes, she’s blackmailing me.”

“Jongho, I don’t care if she releases anything that has to do with us,” you tell him, taking his hands in yours. “And even if she does have anything on us, it’s most likely not much considering we don’t go out much to begin with. Your true fans will support you if you’re dating a person or not. I don’t want us to end what we had because she thinks she can hold something against us. That is…if you want to be with me.”

“Of course i want to be with you, y/n,” he confesses, pulling you into a hug. “I didn’t confess to you on a whim. I confessed to you because I have feelings for you. I should’ve stood up for myself, for us and told her to screw off.”

You pull away and look up at him, “You did what you thought was going to protect me. I’m not going to be upset with you for that. But no matter what she tries to do, I’m not going anywhere.”

Jongho smiled and leaned his forehead against you, “I’ve missed you so much.” You smiled back at him and brought your lips against his.

[starlostseungmin]

whispers ─── lee felix.

✰ notes : first of all i'd like to announce that i reached 3k friends here! thank you so much for that and i appreciate every single one of you! <33 anyway if you watched ABOUT TIME movie, you are already familiar with this scene because it's inspired by it. i just made a bit of changes and with felix in it so i hope you guys like it (this is not proofread btw) also, please DO NOT FORGET TO REBLOG, COMMENT AND LEAVE TAGS after reading! thank you <33

✰ tags : @notastraykid , @ameliesaysshoo , @l3visbby , @reignessance , @lix-ables , @skzfelixlove , @rachabreathing , @hyunverse , @minluvly , @sleepyleeji

masterlist | taglist.

felix went home a bit late that one saturday night after work. he had to see the movie he promised to watch with jeongin at the cinema. you bailed out after he invited you when he mentioned he got tickets and made a reason to sleep on a day off. he parted ways with jeongin around the block and walked home, alone. 

it was cold, he could see the smoke coming out from his mouth as his hands shoved inside the pockets of his jacketーthe stars were illuminating the dark sky with a few clouds in sight but his eyes wandered around the streets. he was supposed to take the train back to your shared apartment but didn’t want to be disrupted by noisy passengers with loud music banging their ears from their earphones and he tried to take some time to think. 

you’ve been dating for the past three years and it has been amazing. he never felt so happy and contented. the joy cannot be compared to any other things. it was that time when the two of you met at a diner just outside the office where you were working. the purpose was to grab dinner and go home then, this wonderful man showed up who had gotten the love at first sight experience. an opportunity came in and a conversation. he invited you to dates every weekend until the feelings got deeper after getting to know each other for weeks, made the relationship official with labels, and decided to live together. 

for the past three years, it was magical as it made tons of memories that you and felix couldn’t write every single one of them in your journal. the polaroids that were taken are hanging on the walls of your room with dates written on each one of them. those plushies he won for you sat on the shelves, the books being piled up being read or untouched, the albums from your favorite artists being displayed on the table along with the music player and vinyl, the flowers on the vases, the letters and other gifts you’ve exchangedーit was sweet. 

having this amazing relationship with felix is like reading a book without a synopsis or a summary from the covers or even the first pages. you don’t know what’s going to happen. it’s like living every day and there are things you cannot control. it’s either you read and go on with the story with curiosity and braveness or do not read the book at all and miss a series of events that could change your life. yet, you chose to read the book and the author created a love story you could ask for. it did change your life as well as felix’s but one thing’s for sure, there are a lot of trials on the way but it would start by holding your hands together to make a stronger bond, just like how chemical bonds create structures. 

he went inside as quietly as possible as he didn’t want to ruin your slumber. the lights were switched off in the living room and only the entrance’s light censor made him see through the dark as he removed his shoes. 

felix has thought of all the possibilities and the impossible, the rights and wrongs, the obstacles and smooth ways while walking. the consistency of this relationship must remain and be locked. he knew it wouldn’t be fancy but he promised himself that he’ll do it in a way that the two of you would prefer. and now, he’s here, looking at your sleeping figure being wrapped around that white duvet. 

“baby,” he called softly as he shook your shoulder lightlyーkneeling down on the carpeted floor of your room. 

“hmm?” you hummed in response. “five more minutes.” you muttered making him let out a soft chuckle. 

“no, baby, wake up,” he said. “i have something important to ask,” 

your eyes flutter open, from a blurry vision to a clear frame directed at his face. a smiley felix welcomed you as he caressed your hair when you were about to sit up. 

“no, just lay down,” he said. 

“okay,” you smiled. “what is it?” you asked, feeling relaxed on your soft mattress and the coziness of your pillow. 

“you know that we’re happy, right?” he paused as you nodded in response. “i don’t know if it’s the movie i watched with jeongin that made me feel this way, it's always the romance genre that would hit me to reality and the thought that i always have you by my side—” he added when you put your index finger on his lips, hearing a piece of romantic music playing gently from the living room as it echoes through the open door of your room. 

“is that romantic music?” you asked. “and you’re on your knees while saying something that i doubt is not just a love confession,” you added while fighting to stay awake which felix laughed shyly. 

“yeah,” he said, licking his lower lip in embarrassment. “i am,” 

“go on,” you smiled. 

“will you marry me?” he asked which made your smile bigger and now you’re fully awake. 

“i think,” you paused, clearing your throat. “i’m going to say, yes to that,” you added, looking at him in awe, saying; “and thank you for doing this that does not involve a lot of people and other crowds. i don’t like many people,” 

felix smiled gently and placed a soft kiss on your lips before tracing his fingers on your cheeks, “i also don’t like people,” he said. “thank you for saying yes,” he whispered before leaning forward to kiss you again. 

“i love you, darling,” you said in between. 

“i love you more,” he answered. “get back to sleep, alright? i’ll join you in 10,” 

“okay,” you said softly as he smiled, leaving a kiss on your forehead before exiting the room shushing han and seungmin for playing the instruments he asked for support outside. 

©️ 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐌𝐈𝐍 , 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒.

[lenaswritingandstuff]

Meant to be mine - Regulus Black x f!reader

Pairing: Regulus Black x f!reader; Evan Rosier x f!reader

Summary: When you start thinking Regulus only sees you as his best friend, you date someone else. However, Regulus' reaction to your new relationship is not what you expected.

Word Count: 8.8K

Warnings: Angst; English is not my first language!

A/N: Loosely based on the dating Headcanons I posted. I had to make up two Slytherin students because well, apparently we don't know any Slytherin girl from Regulus' era - feel free to correct me if you do know one. It was supposed to be Barty instead of Evan but I want him to get the girl lol so I'll write something for him in the future. Comments and feedback are always appreciated. Enjoy!

Tag list: @helendeath @im-jesus

Tag list for this story: @pompeygirl89 @angemyrtille

Regulus and you had clicked immediately on your first day at Hogwarts several years ago, and he was the best friend you ever had. You essentially spent most of your time together, sitting next to each other in class, doing homework and studying together, and spent your free time reading, watching movies or simply talking and laughing, incredibly comfortable with each other. Sure, you had made other friends, and also spent time with them, but it couldn’t compare to what you felt when you were with Regulus, for the simple reason that, during your third year in school, you fell hard in love with your best friend. 

But much to your chagrin, Regulus never hinted at sharing your feelings. You had noticed how he looked disappointed when you told him you were spending time with Emmeline and the others, but you thought he just felt that way because, well, you were the only friend he had - for some reason, he had never managed to create a friendship with any other boys from your house, despite a lot of them also coming from a pure-blood family. You never told anyone about your feelings for the sweet, caring boy with dark curls, and, too shy and scared to tell him how you felt, you buried your feelings for him, secretly - and shamefully - thankful that while your love wasn’t shared, he didn’t seem interested in any other girl, and instead, continued spending all your time with him like everything was fine. 

But pretending became harder and harder with time, and summer break almost came as a relief. You were spending it debating over confessing your feelings and risking destroying your friendship or keeping on slowly breaking your heart -, you decided to move on. However, it turned out to be even harder than to love someone who didn’t love you back, especially since Regulus kept writing to you about how bored he was in his family’s house despite his parents’ affection, and how much he missed you. Your first instinct was to not answer his letters, but you eventually did write a polite yet very short letter where you told him you missed him too. He didn’t seem to notice how cold your letters were, and kept writing to you, asking about what you were doing and talking about the books he was reading. But several days before going back to Hogwarts, you finally made up your mind, and decided to move on from Regulus. 

After saying goodbye to your parents on Platform 9 3/4, you waited for the train next to your bags, feeling a bit anxious at the thought of seeing Regulus again, when you suddenly felt a hand on your shoulder. It made you jump, and when you turned around, you felt your heart miss a beat when you saw Regulus’ sweet eyes and smile. 

“Sorry, y/n,” he said gently, “I didn’t want to startle you.”

“It’s fine, hum,” you said. “How…How are you, Reggie?” 

“Very well,” he said. “It’s nice to come back to school and to see you again. Oh, I almost forgot.”

You frowned as he turned around for a second, only to turn around with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers in his hands. 

“There for you.”

“Oh, Reggie,” you said, hiding your annoyance when you felt your heart beating faster, “they’re beautiful, thank you.” 

You reached a hand and took them, but froze when your fingers touched Regulus’. Your eyes met his, but after a few seconds, he didn’t move his fingers. You only dared to move when the train’s departure was announced as imminent, and you took the bouquet, trying but struggling to grab all your bags in one hand and the bouquet in the other. Regulus immediately saw your struggle and reached out a hand.

“Please let me help, I’ll put your bags on the train.” 

“I’m fine, Reggie,” you said without looking at him, walking to the train’s door. 

“Come on, y/n, let me…”

Not waiting for an answer, he grabbed all your bags and, acting like a gentleman as he always did, he opened the door and let you get on the train first. He then followed you in, and you started walking quickly to put some distance between the two of you while you were looking for a compartment. You eventually found an empty one, put the bouquet on the seat next to you and went back to Reggie, who was about to enter the compartment, and took your bags from his hands. 

“Thank you, Reggie,” you said, still not looking at him. 

You put your bags where they were supposed to go, over your head, and sat close to the window, and looked at the other students saying goodbye to their relatives. Regulus did the same with his bags before sitting on the opposite seat. 

“How did your summer go?” he asked. 

“Good,” you said, still looking through the window. “Yours?”

“Good.”

Soon, there were only families or relatives on the platform, and the train started moving minutes after. Regulus tried to make conversation during the whole journey, asking you about your activities during the summer or your family, but you only gave him short answers while avoiding looking at him, which he didn’t seem to notice. He never notices anything. Regulus later tried to buy something from the trolley for you, but you politely refused despite his insistence. You knew you were acting like a child, and knew it would be simple to take risk to face rejection but you couldn’t help it. You felt as if the only way you could get over him was to put distance between the two of you - maybe if you saw him less and talked less with him, your feelings would go away, and you could try to find interest in other boys. But as the train got closer to Hogwarts, you realized seeing Regulus less was going to be harder, considering you shared all your classes. I’ll just sit next to Emma, you thought. And I’ll just have to find excuses to not spend as much time with him. The rest of the journey was spent in silence. You looked at the landscape in front of you, and while Regulus remained silent, you sometimes felt his eyes on you. Two hours later, the sun was starting to set, which meant the journey would be over soon. You rose from your seat, and, for the first time in hours, looked at your best friend.

“We should put our robes on.”

Regulus looked at you before slightly nodding.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The next few weeks in Hogwarts went on quickly, and you managed to avoid Regulus outside of class - and managed to ignore the ache his sudden “absence” caused in your heart. As you had decided on the train, you now sat next to Emmeline or Mary in class - neither of them thankfully asking you why you no longer sat next to Regulus. Regulus himself didn’t ask any questions either, and every time he tried to talk to you outside of class, you found an excuse to leave. He never insisted, however you would sometimes catch him looking at you in class, which secretly kept you awake at night, wondering if after all, Regulus might like you. Spending time with Emmeline, and Mary was nice, as they were funny, nice, and always made sure to include you, but deep down you were missing Regulus, his voice, his presence and your conversations more and more with each day passing. 

One day, you were on your way back to your dorm after a study session in the library when you heard laughs in the next corridor. As you got closer, you recognized the voices, and you were eventually proven right in your guessing when you walked past Sirius, Regulus’ brother, and his friend James Potter. The latter didn’t see you, too busy laughing at some joke, but Sirius noticed you. 

“Hi, y/n,” he said, walking to you. “You all right?”

“Yes.”

You knew Regulus didn’t like you speaking to Sirius, but deep down you always thought he wasn’t as bad as Regulus thought of him and you actually respected his courage to stand up to his family. Plus, in the few interactions you guys had, he had been nothing but polite and kind to you, so you didn’t have any reason to hate him. 

“Cool. Had a good summer?” 

“Yes, thank you. Yours?”

You knew through Regulus that Sirius had left the family’s house and thought it would be inappropriate to mention that you knew, as it wasn’t really any of your business. 

“Great. And how is school so far?”

You were about to answer when another voice was heard in the corridor. 

“y/n!”

Your heart almost sank as you heard Regulus quickly walking up to you, and you finally dared to look at him, you saw he was angry. 

“What’s going on?” he asked you before turning to his elder brother. “Why are you talking to her?” 

Far from being intimidated, Sirius raised his shoulders and frowned, while his friend James slowly got closer to him.

“And why not? Plus, I don’t really see why she would need your permission,” he answered before giving you a reassuring wink.

Regulus gave him a death stare before he suddenly grabbed your arm. 

“Come, y/n.” 

Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but you slightly shook your head, meaning it was okay. You knew Regulus better than everyone else, and knew he would never hurt you in any way - well, other than the fact he didn’t love you back, that was. You followed Regulus into several corridors before he stopped walking and turned to you.

“What was that?” he asked as if he was both shocked and confused.

“Your brother and I were just talking,” you said calmly.

“Oh, so you speak to him, but you won’t speak to me?” 

“Well,” you said, trying to act detached, “we are talking now, aren’t we?”

Regulus had a false amused small laugh, “You know very well what I meant. Ever since we’ve gotten here, no, ever since we got into the train, you won’t speak to me or even look at me. Do not think I didn’t notice how you always sit next to your friends in class, and that when we aren’t in class, I don’t know where you are most of the time.”

You couldn’t help but feel joy knowing Regulus did notice the distance between you two, 

“I’ve just been busy,” you lied. “Is that a crime?”

“No, but I’d like to know which crime I did for you to ignore and avoid me in such manner.” 

“You didn’t do anything,” you said in a reassuring tone. “I’ve just thought that… I should spend more time with the girls. That’s all.” 

 Regulus stared at you, and you feared for a second that he didn’t believe you.

“Then, can we go back to how things were before? You…Is there any way you could spend time with the girls and me?” 

He sounded so sad, hurt even, that you felt your heart break and felt immensely guilty for how you treated him and how alone he must have been - even more considering you did that only to get over him and it didn’t work at all. In that moment, the only thing you wanted was to be in his arms.

“Of course. I’m sorry, Reggie,” you said with a small, sad smile. “Truly.”

You didn’t know if it was going to be easy to be around Regulus again, but maybe it was time to think about another solution. Maybe I could give him hints? Or maybe just try to make him jealous? Or maybe I could simply not care anymore and just tell him how I…

“It’s okay, y/n. I’m glad to have my best friend back.”

You froze, and so did your heart.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

“Girls, you won’t believe who asked me on a date today!”

You and Mary were in the common room after a long day of class - which you spent next to Regulus - sitting on one of the sofas and Emmeline was now coming back from giving back a book to the library, with pink cheeks and a great smile on her face. 

“Who?” you asked with curiosity. 

“Marius!” she said excitedly. 

“No way!” Mary said, putting her books down. 

“Yes!” Emmeline said, both hands on her heart. “We’re going to Hogsmeade tomorrow afternoon.”

“We’re happy for you,” you smiled. 

“You two should find boyfriends too, you know,” Emmeline said, sitting between you and Mary. “Not anybody, of course. You deserve the best. He obviously needs to come from a good and respectable family.”

Emmeline was a Rowle, and while she had a kind heart, she had been raised to believe she should marry a man from a wealthy Pure-Blood family - a belief your family and Mary’s didn’t share - and Marius Avery, from your class, while being an overall polite and quiet student, just also happened to fit that criterion. However, you always had a bad feeling about him, but you just couldn’t put your finger on it.

“As long as he’s a good man himself,” you said, going back to reading your book, “his family doesn’t matter to me.”

“y/n is right,” Mary said. “Wealth and blood doesn’t matter.”

“As you wish, ladies. Still, we need to find you boyfriends. y/n, what do you think about dear Evan?”

You turned your head to look at the light-haired boy from your class, chatting with one of his friends on the other side of the room. You didn’t look at him for long, but still enough for him to notice, look back at you and give you a smile. 

You smiled back at him and felt your cheeks becoming hotter. While ignoring and avoiding Regulus, you had been exploring other options, and Evan had definitely one of them. You admit he was rather cute, with his green eyes, great smile and sand hair, and you only had warm conversations with him through the years - your feelings to Regulus not allowing you to feel anything else but fondness for Evan or any other boy in school. 

“He’s nice.” 

“And?” Emmeline insisted, raising an eyebrow. 

“‘And’ nothing else,” you retorted patiently. 

“Marius and he are best friends,” Emmeline continued, apparently not caring about your non-interest, “I could ask him tomorrow about it.”

“Emmeline, please,” you sighed.

“What? Do you have someone in mind?” Emmeline asked. “Is it Regulus?” 

“What?! No!” you immediately protested, trying to keep your normal voice. “Reggie and I…are just friends.”

Emmeline shrugged and turned to Mary.

“What about you, Mary? Any boy you like?”

You went back to reading your books about magical creatures, grateful Emmeline was now playing matchmaker for somebody else. Regulus arrived in the common room at that moment, and you two went to the Great Hall for dinner while Emmeline and Mary stayed in the common room. A few days had passed since your conversation with him, and everything seemed to be back to normal, except he was now spending time with other boys from your class while you were with the girls and you were know sure Regulus only saw you as his best friend - because if he felt anything else for you, he would have told you after seeing you with Sirius, wouldn’t he? It had made you cry at night, and also made you want to avoid Regulus again, especially since you now felt uncomfortable around him - and basically had lost your appetite. The only option was now to move on, as you were now too scared that trying to make him jealous would fail and were sure you couldn’t endure the heartbreak and it would mean the end of your friendship with Regulus. 

Maybe Emmeline is right, you thought in your bed that night, making sure she was asleep before allowing yourself to cry. Maybe I should get to know Evan better. 

The next morning, you would have stayed the whole day in bed feeling sorry for yourself. But knowing the girls would come looking for you at some point, you decided to go to the Great Hall for breakfast, and as it was still early, there were only a few students there. You sat down on the table, looking down on your empty plate. 

“Hi, y/n”

Lost in your thoughts - who were mainly about a dark-haired boy with green eyes - you didn’t hear Evan coming. 

“Oh, hi, Evan. How are you?”

“Good, thank you. Do you mind if I sit?” 

“Not at all, please do.”

He gave you a smile and sat on the opposite bench. He served himself some breakfast, and you imitated him, even though the usual tasty food tasted like ash in your mouth and you felt your stomach closing itself. 

“So, any plans for this weekend?” he asked, serving you both pumpkin juice. 

“Thank you. Well, no, I don’t really have plans. You?” you answered.

“Same.” 

He seemed to hesitate a bit before clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair. 

“Well, I…Maybe we could go for a drink in Hogsmeade?” he asked with a nervous voice. “I mean, I think it’s a shame that we’ve been classmates for years and don’t know each other much.” 

Speechless, you stared at him, and soon his cheeks became pink in embarrassment. 

“Hum, just forget it,” he mumbled, lowering his head, “I understand if you don’t want to go…” 

“No!” you said a bit too loudly, and his eyes were immediately filled with hope. “I mean, of course I’d love to go to Hogsmeade with you! I’m sorry, I was just surprised.” 

“Great. Actually, do you have anything to do right now?” he suddenly asked. “‘Cause why wait? We could go right now.”

Surprised again, it took you a few seconds to answer, “Hum, yeah! Absolutely,” you nodded. “I’ll just grab a jacket and my purse in my dorm and we meet in the common room?” 

“Perfect,” Evan smiled again. 

You both had finished eating, so you went directly to the common room, which was empty. Barty went to his dorm and you went to yours, and after brushing your teeth and grabbing what you needed, you went back to the common room, but this time, Regulus was here, sitting on a sofa and apparently waiting for someone. You approached him, thinking you could at least tell him you wouldn’t be free today. 

“Hi, Reggie.” 

He raised his eyes and gave you a smile. 

“Hi, you. Already had breakfast?”

“Yes. You?”

“Not yet,” he shook his head, “I’m waiting for Alexander and Dorius, then I’m gonna help them do the homework for Slughorn. You know, what we did on Thursday. Ah, here they are.” 

You nodded, and suddenly heard two people coming from the dorms. It was indeed Alexander and Dorius, who were like Regulus from the Sacred Twenty-Eight - respectively from the Avery the Mulciber family.

“Wanna come with us?” Regulus asked, standing up.

“Um, I’m sorry, I have things to do.” 

“You sure?” he asked. 

You nodded with the most confident smile you could force your mouth to make.

“Alright. I’ll see you later, then,” he smiled, and squeezed your shoulder as he brushed past you to leave the common room. Seconds later, Evan arrived with quick steps.

“I’m so sorry for making you wait,” he said. “I couldn’t find my jacket.”

“It’s okay,” you smiled.

“Should we?”

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Spending time with Evan was surprisingly very enjoyable, as you found him to be kinder and warmer than you already thought he was. He also acted like a true gentleman, offering you flowers from the village’s flower shop, and his conversation was always funny or interesting - and sometimes both. You also could feel he was a bit shy, which made him adorable. 

“Wanna go to the Three Broomsticks?” he asked. 

“Sure,” you said.

He smiled at you, and opened the door for you.

“Madam.”

“Thank you, good sir.”

You both had a small laugh before he followed you in, and you sat at a free table near a corner of the room for a bit more privacy, but you could still see the door from where you were sitting.

“Thanks again for the flowers,” you said with genuine thankfulness, “they’re beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you, but you’re more than welcome.” 

Mrs. Rosmerta took your order and gave you a wink, probably thinking you and Evan were on a date. 

“What do you want to do next?” he asked. “We could go see the Shrieking Shack, unless you want to go back to the castle?”

“Your pick,” you said. 

Evan laughed, and you were surprised to find that his laugh was as cute as he was. 

The conversation continued, and you were focused on what he was saying when the door of the pub opened, and you almost choked on your drink when you saw Regulus coming in, followed by Alexander and Dorius. 

“You okay?” Evan asked, frowning.

“Yes, yes. Sorry.”

You tried to put yourself against the wall so Regulus couldn’t see you, but as his friends went to the bar, he looked around the room and froze when he saw you - and from where he was, there was no chance he didn’t see Barty as well. Feeling panic rushing over you, you tried to act as if you didn’t see him and instead looked at Barty’s glass, was thankful when you saw it was empty. 

“Should we go? A new restaurant opened at the end of the street, maybe we could have lunch there?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about it. Let me go pay for the drinks.” 

Usually you would propose to pay, but going to the bar would mean the impossibility of avoiding Regulus and an uncomfortable conversation. You rose from your chair and went outside despite the cold wind, but only a few seconds later, the pub’s door opened and Reggie was now standing in front of you. 

“What are you doing here with him?” he asked.. 

His tone was barely a bit more confused than usual, but words still had a hard time coming out.

“I…We…We’re just hanging out.”

“Is this a date?”

“I…I don’t know if he sees it…”

“I don’t care about what he thinks,” Regulus cut you off harshly, “do you see it as a date?”

“I don’t know!” you answered in the same tone. “What does it matter to you anyway? Shouldn't you be helping your friends with their homework?”

“Alexander didn’t feel like doing it,” Regulus spoke quickly, “but don’t try to change the subject, this is about you and Evan, since when do you hang out with him?” 

“Since I’ve wanted to! Regulus, I do not need your permission to talk to Sirius or to hang out with any boy I want!”

Regulus opened his mouth to answer, but no word came out. He looked at the ground for a second, his face and eyes hardening, before staring at you with angry eyes. 

“Very well.”

Before you could answer, Regulus turned heels and went back inside the pub, slamming the door behind him. Not even a minute later, Evan came out, frowning.

“Is everything all right? Did Regulus talk to you?”

You nodded, “Yes. He just had a…question.”

Evan looked unsure, but didn’t say anything.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The next day, you were getting ready in your dorm when someone knocked at your door. Expecting Emmeline coming to ask you questions about your day with Evan, you opened the door, but it wasn’t her. Instead stood Regulus, with flowers in one hand.

“Reggie?”

“y/n. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“No, no, come in.” 

Regulus gave you a small smile and entered your room, and you saw his expression change when his eyes met your desk and the bouquet Evan gave you yesterday. 

“These are for you,” he said, handing you the flowers.

“Thank you so much, Reggie,” you smiled. “You shouldn’t have, they’re beautiful.” 

“I was really surprised to see you with Evan,” he continues as you put the flowers in a vase. “I’ve never seen you hang out with him.”

“He’s nice,” you shrugged. 

Regulus gave you a nod, “And…Do you want to see him again?” 

The question took you off guard. “Well, I…I don’t know, I…I mean, even if I see Evan again, it doesn’t have to mean anything. Him and I could just remain friends.” 

I should really talk to him to see how he sees it. Regulus remained silent, only staring at you. 

“Well, I have Quidditch practice,” he said. “Can we have lunch together after?” 

“I’d love to,” you nodded with a smile. 

Regulus smiled back at you, and left. You could feel something was off with him, but maybe it was just because he felt guilty for the argument you had yesterday? You tried not to think much of it, as you didn’t want to get your hopes up. A few minutes later, Emmeline and Mary came to your door, asking you if you wanted to do your homework together - however, while it was not the first time the three of you did that, you knew very well Emmeline would take that opportunity to ask you about your time spent with Evan. 

“Sooo, y/n,” Emmeline said with an amused and curious tone, “a little bird told me you spent the day with a certain blond boy from our class.”

“How was it?” Mary asked kindly. 

“It was nice,” you shrugged. “Evan is very kind, and we had a good time.” 

“Did he kiss you?” Emmeline asked abruptly. 

“Emmeline!” Mary protested.

“What? I’m just asking,” she raised her shoulders before turning back to you, “you better be prepared for it, girl, because I heard Evan and Marius last night, and he really liked your time together, so much so that he plans on courting you and asking you to be his girlfriend.”

“What?” you said in a whisper. 

“It’s a bit early, isn’t it?” Mary frowned. 

“Yes!” you said with panic in your voice. “Of course it is! We’ve spent barely a day with each other and it’s not like we talked that much before that!”

“Calm down, y/n,” Emmeline said, a bit confused by your reaction, “if you think things are going too fast, just tell him. He seems to really like you, so he probably won’t mind.” 

You sighed and did your homework in silence, and the subject quickly shifted to something else. Once you were done, you noticed Regulus would soon be back from practice, so you put back your things in your dorm before going to the Great Hall to wait for him. Next time, I’ll go watch the practice like I used to. But, on your way, you heard someone calling for you.

“y/n!”

You froze, and turned to see Evan almost running towards you. 

“What’s up, Evan?”

“I just wanted to say I really had a good time yesterday.”

“Me too,” you smiled. 

“And I was wondering if we could hang out again sometime? We could, I don’t know, have a picnic near the Black Lake or go to Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop? Or do anything you want, really.”

You were about to politely refuse, or at least tell him that it would only be as friends, but suddenly Regulus’ “I’m glad to have my best friend back.” came back to your mind. 

“Actually, I’d really love that,” you answered with a genuine smile. 

“Brilliant. I’ll see you later, then.”

You nodded vividly, and without thinking, got on your toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. His blue gaze shifted, and he turned around and left after giving you a smile. Why not? Maybe it’s worth giving it a shot. A half-smile on your lips, you turned heels to enter the Great Hall but your heart skipped a beat when you saw Regulus standing in the corridor. 

“Hi, Reggie.” 

Why did your voice have to be shaking? 

He only greeted you with his head, not speaking a word, and you two went to sit at the Slytherin table.

“How was practice?” 

“Good.”

He usually would give you details or just tell you how he did, but apparently he didn’t feel like it today.

“Did something happen?” you asked. 

“No,” he said coldly, only looking at his plate. 

His sudden cold behaviour made you too nervous to insist or ask other questions, and you also didn’t want to make him angrier than he already seemed to be, so you kept silent. You guys were almost done eating when he spoke again.

“What did Evan want?”

“Um, he wanted to ask if we could hang out again sometime.”

Regulus nodded, “That’s nice. Did you accept?”

“Yes.”

He nodded again, and his mouth turned an unusual smile.

“I’m happy for you, y/n.” 

And with that, he got up and left, leaving you more confused than ever.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The week that followed was normal, spent between classes, homework, Emmeline’s constant and annoying teasing and questions and Regulus acting strangely. While you guys spend time together, he always seemed elsewhere and somehow full of melancholy. You had asked him if something was wrong, but he had said no. Evan, who now would sometimes smile at you in class, had also asked you to go to Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop on Saturday, and here you were, sitting among other couples. The place was nice, and Evan was still as kind as ever - even showing up with flowers again. You had done your best to focus and enjoy your time with him through the whole afternoon, but your mind kept coming back to Regulus and his attitude. 

“I didn’t think this place would be that nice,” Evan said. “I had never come here before.”

“Me neither,” you said. 

He gave you a smile, and soon after proposed to go to Honeydukes, as he had promised one of his friends to buy some sweets for him. You went in too, and bought Regulus’ favorite sweets with the hope that it would cheer him up - or that you two could at least share a moment of closeness and laughs with your stomachs full of sugar. 

You then both decided to go back to the warmness of the castle, and were mostly alone on your way back.

“I had a great time today, y/n,” he spoke, suddenly stopping.

“Me too,” you assured him. 

He looked at you, and before you had time to take another breath, he got closer, bent over and pressed his lips on yours. Your first instinct was to protect yourself, but after you realized what happened, the kiss started to feel a bit nice and you even kissed Evan back before he pulled away. You were now breathless and still processing the fact that you had your first kiss. 

“I’m so sorry,” Evan said. “I know I should have asked, but…I couldn’t help it. I really like you, y/n. Actually, I…I’ve liked you since last year.” 

Your eyebrows rose in surprise, “Really?” 

“Yeah,” he said, running his hand through his light hair in embarrassment, “I never asked you out because I thought you and Regulus were dating or something.”

You felt your heart sink and gulped.

“No, we…There was nothing between us.”

“Can’t say I’m not glad of it,” Evan had a half-smile. “Shall we?”   

You both went back to the castle, hand in hand, and sat in the common room. You somehow felt a bit overwhelmed with both Evan’s kiss and confession, and also by the fact that you were starting to think that things were going a little bit too fast. Maybe I should tell him? I can’t date him if I’m not fully over Reggie yet. You took a deep silent breath and turned to him.

“Evan? Can I tell you something?”

“Of course, beautiful.”

“I’m really enjoying our time together,” you started, “and I’m glad you told me about your feelings, but…”

“We’re going too fast,” he completed.

You nodded, and he had a small smile.

“I understand, don’t worry. It’s true this whole thing is really recent, so if you want us to take our time, I’m totally fine with it.”

You felt relieved, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you, Evan.” 

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

A few weeks later, it felt like, except classes, everything else had changed. You now spent a lot of your time with Evan, who was still as sweet as ever, while the rest was spent between Emmeline and Mary. As for Regulus, you had noticed that as time passed, he had become more and more distant. While you didn’t think much of it - after all, he also disliked when you spent time with Emmeline and Mary back then - but it still made you sad and ashamed - sad, because you disliked the distance between the two of you, and ashamed, because you were more or less officially dating Evan now, but didn’t tell Regulus, and kept saying you were just “friends” instead. You tried your best to spend time with him, or just ask him how he was doing, but it was now his turn to avoid you, always finding an excuse to spend as little time with you as possible. And the few times he couldn’t leave, he was polite but cold, only answering your questions with short answers and focusing on something else. It started to annoy you a lot, and you planned on getting him somewhere he couldn’t escape from to finally get him to tell you what was wrong with him. 

But you also felt scared, because the more time you spent with Evan, the more your feelings for him started to grow. He now had the habit of coming to your dorm to kiss you goodnight every night, and you had even taken the initiative to kiss him a few times when you two were alone, and he was more than delighted. He didn’t seem to mind that you guys weren’t official yet, and for that you were thankful. But you also felt guilty to think and worry about Regulus - and having the kind of thought someone with a boyfriend shouldn’t have - and not be able to focus solely on Evan and your relationship. 

That said, Evan was so sweet and patient, and it made you want to make some effort too, and you were starting to think that maybe, going public wasn’t that bad. After all, you were not ashamed of Evan or your relationship. So, why not? A little voice inside your head was telling you only did that because of your guilt, but you ignored it, and one day after classes, you asked for Evan’s attention by touching his arm, and when he turned his head to you, you gestured for him to go into an empty corridor. He seemed pleasantly surprised, and had the usual small, serine smile he always gave you. You put your arms around his neck, and he soon wrapped his arms around your waist. 

“I’ve had an idea,” you said with a smile.

“Oh, really?” he said. “Should I be worried?”

“No. Actually, I…I thought it was maybe time to…not hide anymore?” 

Evan’s eyebrows raised and his blue eyes started glowing. “Really?”

You nodded, and Evan’s hands left your waist to cup your cheeks and pull you into a deep kiss. You kissed him back, and after a few seconds, you heard footsteps. You instinctively pulled away from Evan, and when you turned your head, you felt your stomach drop when you saw a boy with familiar black curls and green eyes - green eyes that were now looking at you with confusion, anger and sadness at the same time. Without realizing it, your hands left Evan’s neck, and you stepped away from him. 

“Reggie, I-”

But before you could continue, Regulus turned around and left. 

“Reggie!”

You turned to Evan, suddenly feeling guilty.

“I’m sorry, I…I’ll see you later, okay?”

You didn’t give him time to answer, and went after your best friend. As you started catching up with him, you realized - or decided - that it was time to confront him and finally have a proper discussion. 

“Reggie, wait!”

You both were now in the common room, but thankfully there were only a few people at the moment. He finally stopped walking, and turned to you. You almost took a step back, as you had never seen him with such a closed, angry face. 

“Can we talk?”

He looked at you, and took a look around. “Not here. In your dorm.”

He started walking again, but this time it was easier for you to follow him. He walked through the common room and climbed the stairs that led to the dorms. He entered your dorm first, his back turned to you, and after coming in, you closed the door behind you. 

“Reggie,” you started, “I-”

“Was that your first kiss?” he cut you off. 

It was now your turn to be confused. “What?”

He turned to you, and your heart started beating faster. 

“Was that the first time you’ve kissed someone?” 

You opened your mouth, but no words came out. 

“Tell me!” Regulus demanded in a louder voice.

“No!” you answered in the same tone. “No, it wasn’t! Why?! I don’t understand why you’re so angry. Why does that concern you all of a sudden?”

Regulus closed his eyes, had a small sigh, and ran both his hands through his face. 

“It should have been me,” he muttered for himself. 

At first, you thought you heard him wrong, and frowned in disbelief.

“What?” 

What in Merlin’s name is happening now? Regulus looked at you, sighing again, but this time it seemed as if he had lost all his anger, and now looked at you with broken eyes. 

“It should have been me,” Regulus repeated. “Me. Your first kiss. Your first love. Me, y/n. Not him.”

All the annoyance his reaction had provoked inside you suddenly left your body, leaving only confusion. 

“But, Reggie…You see me as your best friend. Nothing else,” you said as if it was obvious. 

“My best friend?” Regulus’ eyes widened. “My best…”

He had a laugh - and you would have been angry again if you had been capable of it - and he shook his head.

“y/n,” he said patiently. “I’ve been madly, desperately in love with you since our third year.” 

Your heart almost stopped, and your knees suddenly felt weak. For a second you were scared to lose balance and fall, but you managed to keep your body standing. Your eyes went on the ground, taking in what Regulus just said, and you shook your head. 

“No. No, you…You never showed any…Never said…”

“I know. I was scared you didn’t feel the same way, scared it would ruin our friendship. I’m sorry, y/n. I didn’t want to lose you, y/n, the mere thought broke me. You’re what I cherish the most in this life. Without you, I’d be lost.”

You felt tears burn in your eyes, and as you tried to take long breaths, you felt anger rise inside of you.

“I understand if it’s too late now,” Regulus continued. 

“You…You’re unbelievable.”

Regulus looked at you in confusion. “What-”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me since I’ve started seeing Evan?”

“Yes. I- I had this feeling you were starting to fall in love with him, and it was tearing me inside. I know it’s childish, and I also hated not seeing you, but it was too hard, y/n.” 

“And how do you think I felt all these years, thinking you only saw me as your friend and thinking I wasn’t good enough?” you snapped. “Thinking nothing could ever happen between us because you didn’t share my feelings? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get over you, how scary to think I might watch you fall in love with another girl one day, and also how scary it is to think I could probably meet the best man on Earth and still think I would rather be with you? How guilty I felt that, despite being with a great man who admitted he loved me, my heart was also still somewhere else?”

“You wanted to get over me?” Regulus asked in a low, almost broken voice.

“At first it was impossible, no matter how hard I tried. But, after you asked me why I had been avoiding you and called me your best friend, I thought you didn’t share my feelings and started moving on with Evan, because he was sweet and had a good heart. We started going out in secret, but despite how much I wanted it to work you were always in the back of my mind, especially since you’ve been avoiding me. It made me sad, and I was so worried about you that I couldn’t focus on my relationship.” 

There was a moment of heavy, almost sad silence, before Regulus spoke again.

“Do you love Evan?” 

You sighed, “He’s a sweet boy, and I guess you two are alike in some ways. In other circumstances, he might have been the kind of boy I would have fallen for, and I admit I like him.”

Regulus had no reaction at first. You thought he was going to give up, tell you to be happy, but after a minute you noticed his body stiffening.

“I’ll fight for you.”

“What?”  

He stepped closer to you. “I’ll fight for you. Now that I know you feel the same as I do, I won’t let you go. Ever. I’ll do what it takes for you to love me again. There is no way I’ll let us be apart. I love you, y/n. More than life.” 

“Reggie-”

But his warm, soft hands suddenly cupped your face, making your heart beat faster, and put his forehead against yours.”

“Please, y/n. I can’t stand the distance between us anymore, and I can’t stand thinking that you’re not mine. Please, I’ll beg you if I must, but give me a chance. A chance to prove that I can be the man you both need and deserve.”

“Reggie, Evan…”

Reggie pulled his head away, though keeping it a few inches from yours, and slightly shook his head.

“Stay with him if you feel that you must, but know I will not ever give up on you. Be it ten days, ten months or ten years, I’ll still be here, waiting for you to realize that you were destined to be mine, and I yours.” 

“Reggie, it’s not that easy-”

“Yes, it is! Don’t you see it?!”

And before you could say anything or take another breath, his hands were on both sides of your neck, his grip tight yet still gentle, and his lips crashed on yours. His kiss was desperate and starving, and awoke sensations you had never felt in your body. You soon kissed him back, suddenly also hungry for more, and Regulus immediately deepened the kiss, bringing your body close to his as much as possible. You didn’t have any idea how long the kiss lasted, but after a while, your lips and his parted, and you were both breathless. 

“You can’t imagine how many nights I’ve spent imaging kissing you,” he whispered. “How your lips would taste, how it would feel…How it would feel to feel you love me back…”

You sighed, realizing you couldn’t lie to yourself anymore. 

“I do love you, Reggie.” 

It seemed almost stupid now that you thought you could love another. You were doomed to love this kind, sweet, quiet boy for the rest of your life, whether you wanted it or not. 

“Then allow us to be together.” 

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

You came back to your dorm feeling better than when you left it. Fortunately, Evan had taken the breakup very well, but seeing him clearly upset hurt you more than you thought it would. Regulus had asked to come with you, but you knew Evan wouldn’t hurt you, and you felt like you had to finally take responsibility. Reggie was sitting on your bed and his eyes were curious when you walked in. 

“How did it go?” 

“As good as it could,” you sighed. “But it was necessary. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I lied to him. He deserves better.” 

Regulus nodded, and feeling you still felt guilty about Evan, he reached out his hands, and when you took them, he made you sat on his lap, wrapping his hands around you. 

“You’re right. I’m sure he’ll get over it quickly, he’s not as emotional as he may seem.” 

“What do you mean?” you frowned.

“Well, I’ve heard several times that he doesn’t seem to be affected by things. For not long, at least. But it’s just what people say, it might not be true after all.” 

You gave him a nod but remained silent. 

“I know it was hard,” he said gently. “And I know how much you hate hurting other people. But now, we can focus on what really matters.”

“Us.” 

“Yes. I know things have been tense between us these past few weeks, and I hated every second of it. But it’s in the past now. Now that we’ve been true with each other, it will be better. Better than they ever had been.”

You nodded in approval, and he gave you a kiss on the cheek. You started better under his touch, and suddenly had an idea.

“Reggie?”

“Love?”

“Can we…” you hesitated, but he encouraged you to continue, “Can we cuddle?”

Reggie’s mouth parted in the cutest, happiest smile. “Of course.”

You got up, allowing him to take off his shoes and robe, leaving him in his white buttoned shirt and green and silver tie. He then laid on your bed, and after doing the same as him, you put your head on his chest and put your hand on one side of his neck. One of his hands was on your lower back and the other around your shoulder, with both his thumbs gently stroking you. Once you were fully comfortable and stopped moving, you felt him sigh in contentment, and he put his cheek against your hair. 

“Every time I came here,” he said in a lower voice, “I would imagine what it would be like to just lay there and hold you in my arms like that.”

“I imagined it too,” you whispered, and you felt him holding you tighter. “I never thought it would actually happen.” 

“I’m sorry, my love. Truly.”

“Don’t apologize.” 

You raised your head to give him a gentle yet loving kiss, before putting it back on his chest. Despite not feeling tired, you closed your eyes, feeling more at peace and happy than you ever did. After a few hours of just staying here, happily holding each other, you went down to dinner, and thankfully didn’t run into Evan - Reggie and you had agreed to wait a few days before making your relationship known out of respect for him. Dinner was spent talking and laughing like you had done all these years, and you could have almost cried of how it felt to have things really go back to normal. Once you were both finished, you guys immediately went back to your dorm, and spent the rest of the night cuddling, kissing, whispering sweet things to each other while eating sweets. You eventually started falling asleep with Reggie’s body pressed against yours, his arms wrapped around your waist and his head in your hair. 

You woke up the next morning in the exact same position, except that Reggie’s leg was now over yours, as if to stop you from leaving the bed. Still half asleep, you managed to turn around to face him, and saw how adorable he looked when he slept. You resisted the urge to caress his face and his soft dark curls, too scared to awake him. But after a short moment, Reggie started moving, and his eyes slowly opened. He immediately smiled when he saw you, and you couldn’t help but smile back. 

“Morning, handsome,” you whispered, kissing his nose.

“Morning, love,” he yawned. “Slept well?”

“Perfectly. You?”

“Perfectly as well. We should go for breakfast, it’s probably like 10 am,” you added with a laugh. 

“Want to have it here instead?” he asked, suddenly completely awake. “I could go in the kitchens and bring some food here.” 

“It’s okay, Reggie,” you smiled, “we can just down there with the others.

“But I wanna stay here with you,” he pouted, and his adorable child-like expression made you laugh. “Alright, we’ll go down for breakfast, but today is free, and I want us to have a special lunch.”

“Of course,” you assured him. 

He kissed you before allowing you to leave bed, and after you both showered and got ready, you went down to the Great Hall. After breakfast, you spent the rest of the morning in your dorm, quickly finishing the homework you both hadn’t done yet and cuddled again before Reggie left, giving you a kiss and telling you to meet him fifteen minutes later by the entrance’s hall. 

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

“y/n!” 

You turned to see Emmeline and Mary walking towards you, dressed in their winter clothes. 

“We’re going to go shopping at Hogsmeade, wanna join us?” Emmeline said.

“Oh, hum,” you said, “no, sorry, I’m waiting for Reggie, we’re gonna have lunch by ourselves.” 

“Like a date?” Mary asked with a kind smile.

“What?” Emmeline retorted. “But I thought you and Evan were this close to be dating. What happened?”

“Evan was nice, but I don’t think it would have worked between us,” you shook your head. “Also, I haven’t spent time with Reggie in weeks, and I want to change that.”

As you said that, you saw Reggie coming, with a basket in his hand. You smiled goodbye to the girls, and followed Reggie near the stairs, resisting the urge to hold his hand. You followed him to the third floor of the castle, and you wondered what he had in mind until a large door appeared in front of him, and you finally realized this was the Room of Requirement. He opened the door, and invited you inside.

“Madam.”

You smiled at him before coming in, and gasped. The room was decorated with candles, flowers and Christmas decorations all around and, in the middle of the room, a large picnic blanket with several large pillows. On the opposite wall, a fire was burning in a marble chimney. 

“Reggie! It’s so beautiful.”

“Well, thank you, sweetheart, but I didn’t do anything. Though I have to say, I exactly had that in mind. 

You sat down on the picnic blanket, and when you opened the basket and saw all that Reggie had taken - sandwiches, cheese, some fruits, different kinds of small cakes, pumpkin juice, hot chocolate, Christmas biscuits - you couldn’t help but give him a thankful kiss. 

“It looks good, Reggie.” 

“Help yourself, love.” 

You both started eating while chatting and laughing, and you didn’t know how much you had missed laughing and talking with him until that moment. Once the basket was empty - because apparently being happy and in love made you hungrier - you got closer to Reggie, putting your head on his shoulder. He immediately kissed your forehead, gently putting you between his legs, with your back against his chest and his hands around you. You immediately felt your body relax and your heart beat faster. 

“I could stay here all day,” you said.

“It’s Saturday, love. We absolutely could. And, to be honest, spending the day here with you in my arms sounds like the perfect day.” 

He nuzzled your nose, which made you giggle. However, as you looked at the Christmas decorations around the room, it reminded you that Christmas break was soon, and that both Reggie and you would have to go back to your respective homes. You knew your parents would love Reggie if they ever met him, but you couldn’t say the same for his own parents. You must have been lost in your thoughts longer than you thought, as Reggie gave you a quick kiss on the temple. 

“What are you thinking about, beautiful?”

“Do you think your parents would love me?” 

“Oh.”

You shook your head, “Yeah, I know, it’s probably too soon to think about that. I’m sorry.” 

“No, you’re right,” Reggie answered. “You’re gonna have to meet them one day if we’re gonna get married.”

“Reggie!” you turned to him, chuckling and turning to face him. 

“What? I was serious, y/n. I’m never gonna you let you go. You’re the only person I will ever be with. You were meant to be mine, and I was meant to be yours.” 

He leant to kiss you, and you realise that he was right. You and Reggie were meant to be together no matter what.

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[ashwhowrites]

Eddie Munson x cheerleader! reader, Eds and Reader don't know each other, but Max and Dustin know both Eddie and Reader, and they both think that they would be a great couple so they try to get them to know each other but it never works. But what if Reader goes to the trailer park to take care of Max, or help her with homework but on her way to Max's trailer, Reader falls and Eddie sees it and helps her, after some time, Eddie and Reader start dating and it made Max and Dustin happy but they argue about who made that it happened? (I hope this make sense! I just imagine Max and Dustin seeing how similar Reader and Eddie are in some aspects so they're like, yeah, they would be a great couple, but for some reason, they can't make them like meet each other or even see each other! you can change some things if you think it'll be better!)

I love writing Max as a bestie. This idea is adorable. I hope this is what you wanted and you enjoy it! Thank you for requesting♥︎

Wingman vs Wingwoman

Max was surprised to find herself being friends with a cheerleader, granted it was forced in the beginning. Max's mom has been on an insane level since everything happened with Billy, so she refuses to let Max be alone. Y/N became Max's babysitter, Max wasn't warmed to the idea at first but now it was more of friends hanging out compared to babysitting.

Y/N was way more chill and interesting than the other cheerleaders, shocking Max. They talked, watched horror movies, shared comic books, and went to skate parks. With all of Y/N's badass interests, Max realized she might not be the only one who would adore her. Max knew she had to get Y/N to meet Eddie.

Dustin fell in love with Y/N the second she walked into the student council. Dustin's mom wanted him to engage in more school activities ( apparently hellfire wasn't real enough. ) But the student council wasn't horrible when Y/N was the president. Dustin was a love-sick puppy when it came to her and he practically was her vice president with how much he did for the club. Or for her. With her leading confidence and how high she held her head, Dustin couldn't help but see a bit of Eddie in her. That's when it snapped in Dustin's head that Eddie would love to meet this girl.

~~~

Max was rushing Y/N to Hellfire with a purpose in mind.

"I'm gonna be late for the student council!" Y/N groaned as Max dragged her arm down the opposite hallway.

"I know! I just need to show you something." Max said, a tiny smirk on her face. Her blue eyes lit up with mischief.

Max cheered as they reached the door, Y/N looked at her confused for two reasons. One, Max was excited about something, and two it was about a door with hellfire written on cardboard.

"What the hell is this?" Y/N asked, Max didn't answer, so she yanked open the door.

Max's smile and mood fell when she didn't see Eddie. Just the same losers she always saw.

"Where is he?" Max demanded, her foot stomped against the glossy floor.

~

"Dustin, dude, we can't be late for this campaign. The rest of the sheep are already set up." Eddie scolded but Dustin didn't listen. Just yanking Eddie down the hall.

"Just one minute!" Dustin groaned. He sighed at the lack of patience Eddie had.

"Where are we even going?" Eddie huffed.

"Tada!" Dustin cheered as he yanked open the wooden door. Eddie peeked in over Dustin's head and felt confused.

"Tada? It's a group of nerds talking about the school."

"It's called the student council, and she's not here!" Dustin growled. Where the hell was she?

~~~

Max and Dustin had no idea they were trying to get Y/N and Eddie to see each other. And they had no idea they were backfiring each other's plans.

"No! I need Eddie, I've been trying to get him to meet this girl for weeks!" Max snapped at Dustin, her icy blue eyes glaring straight at him.

Dustin felt himself shivering in fear but tried to stay confident.

"I don't care. I've got a way better girl for Eddie to meet."

"Mine's better, just watch." Max scoffed as she raced off on her skateboard.

"What did red want?" Eddie asked as he walked to his van.

"No clue. But look, I need you to drop me off at school early tomorrow, student council meeting." Dustin lied, Eddie huffed but agreed as he started the engine.

~

"Max, what's up? Dustin said he needed me this morning." Y/N asked as Max kept looking up and down the hallways.

"I just need to see something!" Max said as she looked into the parking lot. She saw Eddie's van but she couldn't find him at all. She checked all the rooms she knew Eddie knew but nothing.

~

"Dude, we've been here for ten minutes, when does this meeting start? We are the only ones here." Eddie sighed. He could have gotten another hour of sleep but this damn kid.

Dustin checked his watch with a pit of anxiety in his stomach. Y/N said she'd be here and she is nowhere to be seen.

"Whatever. I'm going to have a smoke." Eddie said as he walked out the door.

Not even two minutes later Y/N walked in with a grumpy Max.

"Of fucking course," Dustin said as he shook his head.

~~~

Max and Dustin were slowly wanting to give up. Every plan they had was backfired. Somehow Eddie and Y/N were always at the wrong place at the right time.

Y/N groaned as she walked through the muddy trailer park. She regretted wearing her nice shoes. A huge van came speeding down the road, frightening her into slipping in the mud.

She groaned as she landed on her ass. Now her clothes were as muddy as her shoes.

The van slammed on their breaks and a boy came running out.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." The boy apologized, he kneeled next to her as he softly helped her stand up.

She went to scream in his face but once she took in his face, she was silent. He was the most gorgeous boy she's ever seen. His soft skin, bone structure, nice jaw, and flowing brown curls rested on his shoulders.

"Oh, that's alright." She shrugged off with a smile. She was sure she'd have fallen for him the same way if he still wasn't holding her up by the waist.

Eddie didn't hear a word she said. Too amazed at how beautiful the girl was. He didn't even realize he was still touching her until she shifted.

"Shit sorry." He apologized again as he removed his hands. He took in her muddy clothes.

"This will sound so creepy, but can I drive you to my trailer to get you new clothes? I feel awful." Eddie smiled as she laughed.

"It is super creepy, but I also don't want to babysit in these clothes." So she agreed and they rode off to his trailer. Only to connect the dots that Max was right across the way.

"Here! It's just an old shirt and some sweatpants." Eddie said as he handed Y/N the clothes.

"Do you want me to drive you to the trailer you need?" Eddie asked as they stood at his front door.

"It's actually just right there so I can walk. Thank you, what was your name?" She asked.

"Eddie Munson, and you?" He asked as he held out his hand.

~

Max eyed Y/N as she walked in covered in mud and clothes in her hand.

"What happened to you?" Max asked as she got off the couch.

"Slipped in mud, but I got new clothes so gonna change!" Y/N said she walked into the bathroom, with a smile on her face.

~~~

A month passed and Max was preparing to give up. No matter what she did, she never got Eddie and Y/N in the same room.

"Why can't you come tonight again?" Max asked, Y/N walked beside her down the hallway.

"I've got a date, but your mom is staying home," Y/N explained.

"Where is the date? I've got a guy for you and I bet he's way better than whatever loser you picked yourself."

"Rude, he is not a loser. I appreciate in a weird way that you want to set me up, but I'm fine. We are going to the movies."

~

"Dustin, I can't! I'm going to the movies for a date." Eddie sighed as he searched for an outfit to wear.

"Waste of time, bro. I've got the perfect girl for you. Just cancel, then come be my wingman at the diner then I'll set you guys up!" Dustin argued.

"First, I am way too old to be your wingman. It's creepy. And second, this girl is hot, I'm not ditching."

"Come on dude! You are my only ride and my mom said I needed a babysitter. Steve is working so please?"

~

"She's here, see ya," Dustin said as he ran to an empty booth with his date.

Eddie picked a seat where he could see the back of Dustin's head.

He smiled when Y/N took the seat across from him, blocking Dustin.

They dived into a conversation and the time flew by in seconds.

~

Dustin said goodbye to his date and walked over to Eddie, he noticed Eddie was alone.

"Stood up?" Dustin mocked as he pointed to the empty seat.

"Bathroom, now beat it," Eddie said, but Dustin sat down instead.

"I've got nowhere to go, you are my ride." Dustin shrugged, grabbing a fry from the plate in the middle of the table. "Plus, my girl would be so much better for you."

~

Max walked into the diner, and her mom drove her to pick up dinner. She waited near the counter as she waited. She gasped when Y/N walked out of the bathroom.

"What are you doing here? I thought you had a date?" Max asked, her arms crossed.

"I do! We changed it to her because he had to babysit." Y/N explained.

"Babysit? Can't get a real job?" Max mocked and rolled her eyes.

"Watch it. I'm a babysitter." Y/N declared as she glared at the younger girl.

"Is he still here? I want to meet him so I can prove my guy is better."

Y/N sighed but agreed, walking Max to the table.

"Dustin?"

"Y/N?"

Eddie looked between them confused, "you two know each other?"

"How the hell do you know her?" Dustin spazzed as he looked at Eddie with huge eyes.

"EDDIE IS THE GUY!" Max squealed, and Y/N was confused about her showing a positive emotion.

"What is going on?" Eddie and Y/N asked at the same time.

~

After Dustin and Max explained their sides, they left the couple alone. Dustin walked Max out to her car, killing time until Eddie was ready to leave.

"I so did that." Dustin bragged, he nodded in improvement as Eddie slid his arm around Y/N as they walked out.

"They didn't even know you were trying to set them up, plus she met him because of me!" Max argued

"No, she did not!" Dustin fought back.

"Yes huh!"

"No huh!"

~

"It's kinda cute they wanted us together so much," Y/N said, walking out of the diner.

"I'm surprised Dustin thought I was in your league." Eddie chuckled, his arm still over her shoulder.

"I'm surprised you'd even like a cheerleader," Y/N replied.

"When they look like you? Yeah, I like the cheerleader." Eddie teased, but his heart raced as she laughed and swatted at his chest.

He might have to give Dustin a praise for this.

tags!

@bmunson86 @mxcheese @ladymunson @michaelfuckinglangdon @z0mbie-blah @biittersweet @mirrorsstuff @somethingvicked @micheledawn1975 @ago-godance @magnificantmermaid @tlclick73 @hargrovesswifee @cityofidek @silky-luxe @lokiofasgard616 @loving-and-dreaming @eddiemunsonsbitch69 @thegemaqua @ashlynnkennedy @strangerthingsstories5255 @harringt8ns @pleasinghellfire @whoscamila @stusdollface93 @gretavankleep37 @bellaisswagger