#IS THE UNIVERSE FUCKING AROUND WITH ME WHAT THE FUCK

[randombush3]

the winner takes it all

alexia putellas x reader

summary: an unexpected invitation throws your world off-kilter

words: 6276

content warnings: it's a bit unfaithful

notes: in this universe real madrid is a proper opponent and rival to barcelona, in the sense that funding and history is relatively equal (so it's basically more like the men's rivalry)

idk where this came from tbh

Amb gran alegria, 

Alexia i Olga

T’invitem a celebrar la nostra unió matrimonial. 

10 d’agost de 2025

Gran Hotel Mas d’en Bruno

You haven’t read Catalan in years. You squint at the details. 

You wish you had forgotten it. 

Only Alexia would do this to you, twisting the knife as though it’s a favour, a compliment. Make it seem psychotic for not wanting to go, make it seem like it’s not a big deal. 

The invitation isn’t personalised. You are not special in her eyes. You have been allowed onto the guest list, you have no mark in her life. Surely Olga would have objected if she’d known, if she’d been told. Maybe Alexia doesn’t talk about it. Maybe she has heard your name on match reports and team sheets, announcements for captaincy, interviews with Las 16 who called you traidora then and call you traidora now. 

As if she knew it was coming, your phone begins to light up with messages from Alba. Apologies, perhaps, in her own Alba way. Stuff like ‘are you coming’ and ‘you don’t have to’ and then more buzzing, vibrating the shitstorm into a phone call. 

You don’t speak often. Why would you? But you answer it, listless, really, and unsure what the correct approach to this even is. 

“Hola, traidorita,” she says with a nervous giggle, reclaiming your nickname in Barcelona but reminding you of how you are perceived nevertheless. “I don’t know why you are on the guest list.” 

Alba is like this: straight to the point, unafraid of her sister and unafraid to tell you what she thinks. They are very different, which is why she is the only one who has your current number in her contacts. 

“You told her where I live,” you respond. Your shock makes no room for manners. “Because no one there has my Madrid address, Albi.” 

“No one here has it, yeah. But she asked around. Well, Olga did.” She laughs again. Her nervousness is high-pitched and easily detected. “Told Ale that she has to have her childhood best friend at her wedding.” 

“Childhood best friend?” 

“Estranged childhood best friend?” she tries, and you can hear the smile and the teasing fucking smugness in it. You wonder if anyone else knows you have been invited. Alba because your address was squeezed out of her, sure, but… “And my mother thought it was a good idea too, before you try to murder a woman you have never met.” 

“I’ve met Olga before,” you say without thinking, because that’s far easier to focus on than the idea of Eli getting involved in this completely undesired reunion that is about two centuries too early. “When I was going out with, eh, I don’t remember her name. A model. You know what they’re like. Olga’s the one who works for… thingie.” 

There’s a sigh from the other end. “So many models yet not one name has been retained. Do you even ask them?” 

“We’re not usually doing much talking.” 

“Zorra.”

“Coming from you…” You smirk at the thought of all the little secrets Alba’s had you keep, a tradition that started young and became increasingly frequent when you removed yourself from everyone else’s lives. It’s like a journal, only you judge her. “You’re doing a good job of distracting me until I agree to go.” 

She hesitates, then. You’re not an idiot and you know why she called. Alba is supportive but she has her own agenda most of the time, and no one else knows the exact time you get back from training aside from your fellow teammates. Even then, most are too intimidated to contact you in general, let alone to ask about being invited to Alexia Putellas’ fucking wedding. 

Alba is also very manipulative, a professional puppeteer. And she knows exactly what to say. “It’s been fifteen years. Are you going to let her win?” It’s an infuriating provocation but it hits its target with ease. 

…

The first step of preparing for this wedding takes place in the form of the Euros: you’re going to win it and be happy enough to ignore the impending doom hanging over your off-season plans. Going into the competition with heavy medals round your necks makes cockiness the slippiest of slopes, and it is safe to say that most of your teammates are prepared to cruise through at least the group stages. 

An unexpected injury rips Jenni’s opportunity to play from her grasp (an echo of her ex-girlfriend, you briefly think), and she is flying back to Mexico before the tournament begins. Montse is a captain down – of course only this kind of disaster could happen to her – and before Patri can even open her mouth to volunteer for the role, you are dragged into a leadership meeting.

You’ve worn the armband before, though it seared and burned and blistered until you threw it in Jorge’s face and demanded someone else absorb the hatred it brought. He went ballistic as you’d said it, you remember, his face going red in the soft glow of your hotel room the night before the World Cup final. He’d leaned forwards, fist clenched, knuckles white and wanting to choke the life out of you.

“You have no respect!” he’d roared, voice splitting like thunder against the thin walls of your hotel room. “Not for me, not for your country, not for anything!” His breath was coming out in sharp ragged gasps. He spat. You’d wiped it off your body. “I thought you had scraped all the Catalan out of you, but here it is!” he’d screamed, loud enough to be heard but so comfortable in his power that it did not seem to frighten him. “Selfish and arrogant. You should have made it Seventeen.” 

He’d left in his rage, slamming his door. 

You regretted smiling in pictures with him, shaking his hand, kissing his cheek. You regretted the press conferences and interviews, the shaky defence you had constructed, the words of faith and trust you had professed and tried to believe. It had changed you, just a little bit, that incident. Made you think about who you are, where you come from. Made you remember someone you’d tried to forget. 

But Irene and Alexia, staring at you with both contempt and confusion as you take a seat at the conference table, don’t know any of this. Why would they? To them, this is the traidora. 

“Y/n is going to take Jenni’s place as third captain,” says Montse firmly, if she even knows how to do that. Irene and Alexia share a glance. Their roles have been restored for this competition and they are not prepared for an intruder to take that from them, although Irene will later remind Alexia that it is not your fault Jenni got injured. “I trust you three will come up with a suitable management plan. If you need me, you know where to find me.” 

None of you really do know where she lurks, but she is walking off before you can clarify. 

“We already have a strategy.” And she says it in Catalan, looking falsely apologetic when she is kicked underneath the table. 

“Good job, Alexia,” you tell her, so nauseatingly saccharine that you almost think of the nearest route to a toilet. She’s surprised you’ve granted her a reply though, which is satisfying enough. About to spit out another remark to divide yourselves further, you shift in your chair, stretching out your legs underneath the table. 

It is then that her ring catches your eye.

It’s delicate, shiny. A neatly cut diamond set in platinum with slight details that tell you someone thought about Alexia when they had this made and got it all wrong. Or maybe this is what she likes now. It’s not what you’d have given her.

She sees your eyes fall to her fingers, watching carefully as your gaze heats the metal and makes it almost too hot for her to keep on. You don’t really want her to know that you’ve seen it but you��ve made it bleeding obvious and so the predicament spirals and Irene wants, desperately, to leave you two alone – she knows shouldn’t, she’s aware of the health and safety risk. 

There is something about the way Alexia clenches her jaw, posture stiffening as she allows herself one flicker from your face to the ring, that tells you she is bracing herself for a bullet. She always did have an uncanny ability to read you, however unwanted it was. 

You lean back in your chair, aware of how the bystander is holding her breath, and decide to swallow the words burning on your tongue. You’ve accepted her invitation, and bitter manners are still manners. “Congratulations,” you say, words clipped and brittle, each syllable more venomous than the last. 

The chair makes a screeching sound as you stand. Irene flinches but Alexia does not move. She refuses to watch as you walk out of the room. 

…

Three hours later, Alexia is off the phone with Olga and knocking on Irene’s door with an embarrassed suppression of urgency. Shoulders hunched and lips downturned, the sight is enough for her to be ushered inside with only the quiet flap of Irene’s arms to beckon her forwards. With this part of the training camp being not quite tunnel-vision yet, Irene’s room is littered with toys and toddler stuff. Usually Alexia would be looking at them in quiet excitement. Right now, she is not so sure. 

“Second thoughts?” Irene asks, and Alexia half-jumps backwards in shock, about to furiously shake her head and profess her love for Olga– “I think the plan is good. I don’t think we need to worry about Y/n in the centre, seeing how she’s been playing there this season.” 

It slowly dawns on Alexia that Irene has assumed this is pre-tournament nerves, and that she is being shown such a vulnerable side of her co-captain because, well, who else can be? No one wants to see their commander gulp at the sight of the battlefield. 

“She still favours her left,” Alexia gets out. “She might drift, leaving a big gap for you to cover.” 

“She’s got offers from PSG, Chelsea, and Washington Spirit. It’s in her interest not to drift.” 

“She’s good at drifting.” 

Irene doesn’t respond to that. 

“Since when did you wear your ring to training?” is what she chooses to say instead, asking the question with a healthy fear of getting her head bitten off, taking a small step backwards to put her at a safer distance. 

Alexia doesn’t reply immediately, her fingers grazing the ring as she thinks. The weight of it seems heavier now, almost suffocating in the sterile air of the hotel room, as though this is everything she’s been trying to avoid. Her heart thuds against her ribcage. It feels like everyone is starting to notice. 

“I didn’t think it was an issue.” Her voice is tight, defensive, but with a subtle, betraying crack. She pulls her hand back from the air, letting it fall to her side. “We hardly did much more than pass the ball today so I kept it on.” 

It’s a poor excuse. It comes off for the cameras, not the contact of the game. Irene knows that. But, to her credit, she doesn’t push. She just watches Alexia, eyes narrowed slightly in an unreadable expression. “I just thought you guys were keeping it a bit more… private.” 

Alexia turns her gaze to the floor, staring at the scattered toys and items around the room. The simplicity of it all, the domestic innocence, makes her feel even more tangled. She feels an urge to lie, to say that Olga asked her to, worried that you’d misinterpret its absence, but Olga doesn’t even know she has reason to lose sleep. She hasn’t found the courage to explain. She hasn’t felt the need to. 

And, really, the truth is right here, echoing between them. Irene would have pieced together the story, as many of Alexia’s teammates have, hearing drunken retellings on nights out from whoever has known the two of you the longest that time. Maybe Alba has spoken to her, revealing everything after a round of tequila shots, as she tends to do. There are a few suggestions the older woman could make to her teammate, wounds she could open and then nurse, but she doesn’t and so she waits. 

Until, finally, Alexia admits, “it’s complicated. She has caught me off-guard.” It could mean many things, but it is either your captaincy or the acceptance of her wedding invitation that has done Alexia in. She wonders whether this feeling of dread and uncertainty is the game – or the life waiting for her after she comes back from Switzerland. “Look,” she says abruptly, “I’m not here for advice, Irene.”

“Then why are you in my room?” She doesn’t have an answer for that. Irene sweeps her outside, gently but firmly. “I’m not going to tell you what to do,” she treads lightly, “but when was the last time you had a conversation with her?” 

…

The training pitch in Switzerland is unseasonably hot, the kind of heat that clings to the air and makes tempers run shorter than usual. It’s almost a cure to homesickness but then the team look at each other and are back to hating every minute of this. There’s an undeniable divide. Montse either does not care or has not caught on. 

It’s about your twentieth rondo this session, the ball zipping across the wilting grass as it touches Barça foot to Barça foot, the girls obviously enjoying this. You’re only holding back because too much investment will lead to another injury, and you are getting somewhat tired of being called a traitor. The players surround you with a ruthless efficiency that is starting to fray your nerves, and you make a note to talk to your coach about training, knowing that it will be easy to manipulate her into following something akin to what the girls at Madrid are more accustomed to. 

Alexia is one of your taunters. Of course she is. 

“Just three more interceptions,” she calls out, false strain, false support, false encouragement. 

You bite back a retort, instead standing still as Aitana rolls a ball right past you. You wipe the sweat from your brow, feigning exhaustion, but the pretense is only that in name. Everyone knows you are one of the best defenders, the Barça girls especially, with their insane pride for La Masia. 

“Lazy,” Alexia mutters. 

You don’t respond, focusing instead on the fire in your chest as you forcibly break the circle and march towards Montse. She looks up from her clipboard as you approach. 

“We should split training.” She pauses and then nods. “Attack and defence, at least. And don’t let the press hear this, but, my god, Montse, I do not like how they’re all back.” 

“We’re a stronger team,” she says, but she’s smiling and you are definitely her favourite. Another deep breath and she is calling a water break. 

The girls retreat to the sidelines for ice and hydration, and you reunite with the people you like. Your club teammates prefer you at national camp, because there is something less reclusive about you. It’s as though you’re trying to prove that you get on. 

Olga hands you a water bottle, the contents of which you guzzle down in one go. She begins to comment on the absurdity of Alexia’s mandated rondos (“why do they have to keep reminding themselves how to pass a ball?”) and while you agree, your attention is diverted. Alexia is standing a few meters away with Mariona Caldentey. She’s listening to something the forward is telling her, face focused, finger twisting her ring around in circles. 

That fucking ring. 

You look away before you are caught in such a compromising position, wiping your forehead with your damp training shirt. 

“Oye,” Misa’s voice pulls you back, “are you paying attention?” You’re not even sure when she joined the conversation. Your relationship with the goalkeeper has always been overly complicated. You work very closely, what with you commanding the backline and her… also commanding the backline. But she’s friends with people who must have at least once wished you dead, so it’s hard to tell where you stand. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” you lie, screwing the cap back onto the water bottle and placing it in Olga’s held-out palm. 

“You’re never this spacey. You’ve been off since the meeting,” she presses, her voice gentle but insistent. “If this is about the captaincy–” 

“It’s not,” you snap, harsher than what was meant. Her eyes widen slightly and you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Sorry. It’s not about that. I’m fine.” 

Misa doesn’t look convinced but she nods, letting it drop. Gratitude relaxes your shoulders but the uneasy silence that follows is punishing enough for you to be eager for training to resume. 

Now that the rondos have been left behind until tomorrow, you divide into teams for a scrimmage. The squad is split into four and you throw yourself into the exercise. Every touch, every pass, every run is perfect, and you are unrecognisable from your lackadaisical lull only ten minutes ago. You’re pushing your body and it flicks onto autopilot, driven by muscle memory and determination. 

Your head’s not in it. You can’t outrun her shadow. You can’t think when your teams are against each other. 

The ring must have come off now, and she is getting stuck in. She’s relentless and irritating, evading your teammates’ tackles and drawing you into her. It’s almost transportative: back you go to gardens after school or being barefoot on the beach, forced out of your relaxation and into an endless game of ‘tackle me like you mean it’. She has that same glint in her eye, that same goading gleam. You consider it, but crutches at a wedding is a low blow. 

And so you lay off. Just on her, and only just enough so that she knows you are not trying. You do not care for petty squabbles. You are not willing to go back to those memories, to that time. 

Or at least, that’s the message you hope she gets. 

The games slowly wind down, prompted by Montse’s whistle to signal the end of the session. You stay on the pitch longer than anyone else, taking you time to collect the stray balls scattered across the grass. It’s partly an excuse to delay walking into the locker room, where the tension will be thick (you were not the right choice for third captain in the eyes of your teammates), and partly because you need a moment to breathe. 

The others slowly disperse, peeling off to the showers or collapsing onto benches. Alexia lingers longer than most, wiping away her sweat with her shirt, abs exposed and tensed. She watches you as you move across the pitch, and though her gaze is subtle, you can feel it blazing hotter than the sun lashing down on you. But, despite her staring, she too is eventually coaxed away. You’re unsure whether she is thankful for the interruption. 

When you finally make your way to the changing rooms, most of your teammates are in the showers, and the sound of running water mingled with laughter echoes. You take a seat at the locker you were assigned and let out a slow breath, peeling off sweat-soaked socks with mild disgust. You turn to fling them into your laundry bag, but their flight path is blocked by a blonde who has clearly delayed her own shower to talk to you. 

She’s looking oddly pensive. You don’t like it. 

“We need to talk.” It’s uncomfortable for Alexia to say and it’s worse for you to hear. You’re not sure you’re okay with her decision to become reasonable and mature. It’s quite the compliment to always be the cause for stoic, rational Alexia Putellas going absolutely batshit crazy. 

Driving her up the wall is fun. 

“I’ll send you an invitation. No need to tell me which room is yours.” You give her a smile. And, like you always do, you walk away. 

…

There’s a charge to the air that is choking you by dinner time. The upgrade to captain allowed for your own room, and it is easy to blow off teammates who want to have plans with you with the simple excuse of needing to talk to your agent. You technically do, since you are going to leave Madrid during the transfer window, but you have no intention of dialling his number until he confirms the best and furthest team wants you. 

You’ve spent the evening avoiding the majority of the players, which Montse took advantage of, encouraging you to spend dinner discussing tactics with her and her staff. You feel like the teacher’s pet. You know how angry it is making Alexia.

Collapsing on the bed when you back into your room, you let out a loud groan, sinking into the mattress. Your phone buzzes on the bedside table and for a moment, you think it might be Alba, allowing you no peace and quiet despite her distance. Instead, it’s a message on the team group chat from the strength and conditioning coach about tomorrow’s gym session. A wave of relief washes over you; anything but her. 

Still, as you scroll, you catch yourself lingering on the names in the group chat, your thumb hovering near Alexia’s. Your stomach tightens and the memory of her tone, her expression, pulls at you like a tether. 

She’s not going to drop this. 

It’s no longer a matter of avoidance in the camp. You’ve said you will be present. She must want to ensure you will not make a scene. 

A knock at the door, so quiet you are almost convinced it was imagined, breaks you out of your brooding. Your eyes watch the wood as though it will be splintered in a moment, but when you make no move to get up, a more insistent knock sounds. You sigh as you pull yourself off your bed, dragging your feet towards the door. Opening it, you find Alexia standing there, arms crossed and wearing an expression you can’t quite decipher. It lacks her usual burning hatred. She looks exhausted. 

You struggle to feel any sympathy. 

“What?” you snap. It’s a bit harsher than intended but you don’t let on that that’s the case. 

“Can I come in?” You guess that she didn’t pick up the hint when you gave her no invitation. You do not want to talk. You don’t do that to people much anymore. 

She expects the door to slam in her face – and you consider it – but it’s your hesitation that tells her she can, and so she slowly moves inside, shoulder brushing yours because you refuse to move out of the way. And then she raises a deliberate hand towards the door, pushing it shut. You ignore the ring. 

You lean against the door once it’s shut, arms folded as she wanders further into your room. She looks out of place somewhere so personal to you, standing awkwardly in the centre and trying not to look at the explosion of clothes and books that has been detonated on the floor. 

She reads the titles of a few – classics that look dense and boring. Something hungry inside her dulls a bit, because you have not changed in this respect. 

“You’re quiet for someone who wants to talk,” you prompt, mostly because the silence is unbearable. 

She doesn’t respond immediately. Her arms drop to her sides, fingers twitching as if unsure what to do with themselves. She tries to meet your eyes, but falters when she sees the cold indifference staring back. You’re looking at her like she’s a stranger. It stings more than it should.

“I didn’t invite you to the wedding,” she says finally. “Olga doesn’t know about us.” 

“There’s no ‘us’,” you snap, sharper this time.

Her jaw tightens and for a second, she looks as though she’s been struck. “Don’t lie.” 

“There is no ‘us’,” you repeat, your tone icy now. “That disappeared the minute I–” 

“Left,” comes her interruption, her voice trembling just enough for you to notice. She steps closer, her shadow crossing yours, and her eyes narrow. “Which was your decision, not mine.”

You scoff, a bitter laugh escaping you. “Don’t act like you didn’t have a say in it.” 

“I didn’t!” she fires back, her voice rising. There is something raw beneath it – something fractured. “You didn’t give me one. You walked out, and you shut me out like I was nothing. Like we were nothing.” 

Her words hang in the air and for a moment, you don’t know whether to shoot or turn away. But her gaze pins you in place, fierce and unrelenting, as though daring you to deny it. 

You hold her stare, your throat tightening. “And you didn’t try to stop me.” 

The silence that follows feels deafening. Neither of you moves. Neither of you blinks. You’re both standing on landmines and have nowhere to go. 

Her jaw clenches, her hands balling into fists at her sides. Her voice, though low, crackles with the heat of restrained anger. 

“You didn’t give me a chance to stop you.” And she steps closer, ready to bite. The door presses against your back as you instinctively move away. “You made up your mind before I even knew what was happening.” 

“Don’t pretend you didn’t see it coming.” You shake your head. “I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to leave, Alexia.”

Her expression darkens, something in her eyes flickering dangerously. “That’s not the point. You didn’t just leave the club. You didn’t just leave me. You left everything. Our family. Our life. Do you have any idea what that felt like? Watching you walk away as if none of it mattered?” 

Your chest tightens but you refuse to let her words land. “You don’t get to make me the villain here.” 

“I don’t have to,” she snaps, her voice rising now, accent thickening with her anger. “You were part of my family, part of me. You were at every Christmas, every birthday. My mother adored you. Alba still loves you like you are her own sister! And you just disappeared like none of it meant anything. Like we didn’t mean anything.”

You flinch at the weight of her words but force yourself into steadiness. “I didn’t belong there. It wasn’t mine, it was yours.” 

Her face twists in disbelief, voice trembling as it rises again. “That’s bullshit and you know it! You were my family. My first everything. My first kiss. My first…” She pauses, her voice cracking. You swallow hard – you don’t want the fucking itemised list. “My first time. You think I just gave that to anyone? You think that it was just fun and games?” 

Your stomach churns as she stokes a fire you’ve tried to smother for years. “It wasn’t nothing,” you agree, although it sounds like you are contradicting her in a way that causes her to falter on her drive forwards. “It was everything. That’s why I left. Because I couldn’t be what was needed anymore. Because I knew if I stayed, I’d only–” 

“Only what?” 

You gulp. 

She’s back in your face, voice laced with venom. “Hurt me? Ruin me? Let us all done? Guess what, you did that anyway. Leaving made it easier? Made it hurt less?” 

“I didn’t know what else to do!” you shout, voice splitting. 

“You stay!” It echoes and it bruises your skin. Her eyes are blazing now, tears threatening to spill but held back by sheer force of will. “You stay, because that is what you do when you love someone. When you love a family. You don’t just walk away from them. You fight.” 

You open your mouth to respond, but the words stick in your throat, caught somewhere between guilt and pride. She sees it and it only seems to enrage her further. 

Her voice drops, anger so torrid she has to purposely cool her tone. “You know, I thought that my world was ending then. I thought you’d done your worst. But I was wrong. Because your betrayal wasn’t just personal, it was… political. To not see someone you love except for when they are sitting at the feet of this. Corruption’s pet. Pandering to an organisation you hated, while the rest of us fought for scraps.” 

Heat rises in your chest. How dare she– “I don’t pander to anyone.” 

“Don’t lie to me,” she spits. She’s too close. She’s too inescapable. And her anger is no longer fiery but icy, piercing through your skin. “I’ve seen the way you act around them, bowing your head and playing the loyal soldier while they tear us apart. You think I didn’t notice how he favoured you? Or how Montse magically replaces an irreplaceable member of–” 

“It’s not like that,” you counter, but the words feel hollow even to you.

“Then what is it?” she demands. “What is it that makes you stand there and let them walk all over us? Let them divide us? And don’t you dare say it is for the good of the team. The team hates you for it. We all do. You’ve earned every bit of it, traidora.” 

The word hits you like a whip, lacerating and making you bleed. Your hands curl into fists so tightly your nails dig into your palms, the sting barely enough to contain the fury surging through you. “Don’t you dare call me that!” The sentence tears out of your throat, rough and jagged. You take a step forwards, the air between you crackling with tension, your voice breaking as you spit, “you don’t get to say that to me. Not you.”

“Why not?” she challenges. “It’s what you are. You left, you betrayed everything we stood for, and then you came back just to make things worse. You made your choices.”

For a moment, all you can do is stare at her, the anger and heartbreak in her eyes, eviscerating and leaving you hollow. But then, something shifts in the air between you, and you find your voice again, souring from before.

“Is that why you’re here, Alexia? To throw all of this in my face? To let out fifteen years of harboured emotion? Or is it something else?” 

Her brow furrows in confusion. Surprise. And then her expression twists into anger. “What the fuck are you talking about?” 

You take a step forward now, and she is forced to retreat. “Do you not want to marry Olga, Alexia? Is that it? Is that why you’re here? Because you think you can come into my room, dredge all of this up, and make me the reason you’re unhappy?” 

Her face pales as she takes a deep breath, hands trembling at her sides. “Don’t,” she warns, firmly enough to signal you need to push.

So you do. 

“You came here because you’re scared.” She shakes her head but it’s rigid and forced. “Because you’re not sure you can go through with it and you want me to give you a reason to back out. Well, I’m not going to do that for you. This isn’t my mess. It’s yours.”

She says nothing and you feel sick. Her chest rises and falls with each gasping breath. She opens her mouth but again, you are left with silence, and the expression in her eyes flickers between defiance, confusion, and vulnerability. For a long moment, it feels like everything that could be said has been. 

The air between you is charged, but neither of you know which way it will go. 

You stare at her watching her waver. And it hits you: she doesn’t know what to do. 

All of this, all the anger and the pain, all the accusations and betrayals, has led her here, to this moment. She thought she had an answer, she thought she would be able to end this, but now? Now, Alexia is lost. There is too much here, too much to lose. And for the first time in a long while, you are feeling the same thing. You are both no longer sure if you want to fight. 

She takes a hesitant step closer and you freeze. But then, just as quickly, her hand moves – not to strike, not to harm, but to touch you. Her fingers brush lightly over the fabric of your sleeve, almost tenderly, before they fall away, and you don’t know if the motion was meant for comfort or something else.

Her breath is ragged, coming in slow, uneven gasps. Her eyes never leave yours. You don’t want them to. 

“I don’t know what to do with all of this,” she murmurs, the rawness in her tone shattering any remaining wall between you. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

How do you respond to that? You want her to leave but the thought is unbearable. You want space but she is not close enough. Something inside you stirs, something you can’t fight; a need to understand her and make her understand you. To make her see how tangled this, how impossible it has always been. 

Before you can form the word, before you can even think, she moves in closer, and there is no longer distance. She doesn’t ask for permission. She doesn’t hesitate. And then, without warning, her lips are on yours. 

It’s soft, tentative at first, as though testing the waters of something neither of you is sure of anymore. But then it shifts. Her body leans into yours, and the kiss deepens, more urgent now, as if this is everything that has not been said and has been at the same time. Your heart races, a million conflicting emotions crashing through you. Anger, betrayal, love – it is all here, you can taste it on her lips. It’s fierce, desperate, and it feels like an endless cycle of need and regret, pulling you both back to something raw, something irretrievable. 

Her hands find your waist, gripping tightly as though anchoring herself to something that could pull her under. You instinctively respond, pulling her closer, drawing in the heat of her touch, the scent of her skin, the pressure of her body against yours. For a fleeting second, everything else fades away. There’s no past, no future, only here and now. 

And then the fog clears. 

You pull back, breathless and worse off. You’ve fucked up again. Alexia is crying. 

“I’m not the person you think I am anymore,” you say, but it’s hard to meet her gaze. “I can’t be that person for you.”

Her eyes search yours desperately for lies, for deceit. She wants it to be wrong. She doesn’t know why. And she replies, “I don’t care what you think you’ve become,” because she doesn’t. It doesn’t matter to her.

You stare at her, heart pounding, and you want to feel like this will be worth it, but nothing comes except cold emptiness. You force yourself to stay upright. “I think the wedding will be good.” She swallows. “You’ll be happy with Olga. I’m sure of it.” 

It’s a death sentence. 

This time, it is Alexia who leaves. 

…

The wedding is beautiful. Blissful sunlight makes the venue seem to glow and it is hard not to be impressed with how they have set this up. 

The model at your side is also beautiful, but you remind yourself it is not a competition. You focus on the whispers of anticipation from the guests, the rustle of the dresses as people pass in merry groups, clinking their glasses and finishing their champagne as they take their seats. Everything looks perfect, plucked from magazines and tasteful brochures. This must be what Alexia wanted. 

Your date is occupying herself in conversation with the man seated next to you, who might be hitting on her, though you don’t care. She slides a hand over your thigh anyway. 

The ceremony begins, although you’re not really concentrating on it. You try to focus, listening as the officiant speaks, but the words have become a dull hum. It’s all so rehearsed, so expected, and it’s boring. You won’t be getting married anytime soon, that’s for sure. 

You know the flow of these things: the vows, the promises, the kiss, and the crowd’s applause. It’s a performance, though it’s not quite a farce. 

And then, it comes. The moment. The one that feels like a trap. 

The officiant pauses, glancing out over the gathering. “Si algú s'hi oposa, que parli ara o calli per sempre.”

For a heartbeat, time slows. The air thickens. Every muscle in your body tenses and the world around you goes still. You catch yourself holding your breath, gaze instinctively shifting to the woman standing at the front of the altar. 

Alexia. 

Her eyes flicker briefly in your direction – just a flicker, but it’s there, unmistakable. It’s her moment of hesitation, well masked but clear as day to you. But before you can make sense of it, she’s looking away, eyes fixed back onto Olga. Her expression hardens, more composed now, and you know that you are not going to break this silence. 

The officiant, oblivious to the storm passing between you both, waits for a beat longer before continuing, his voice echoing in the silence. 

And she’s married. 

You breathe out a sigh of relief. It’s over now. You’ve let her win. 

[toothfa-1-ry]

JUST FATHER ACTIVITIES

Imagine in an alternative universe, somehow you and your baby daddy Thanos escape the games (don't ask me how) and you guys pay off all of your debts and have financial stability

Basically father! Thanos headcannons!!

First of all, thanos is a girl dad. Idc i do not make the rules you CANNOT and WILL not change my mind otherwise

After the games, irrelevant of whether you were also in the games with him or not, he'd quit his drug addiction and go to a rehabilitation for the sake of your daughter

You couldn't change him, but atleast your daughter could

Thanos would go with you to the gynae every single time without fail, he'd brag about it (very loudly) though

"Look" thanos points at all the patients in the waiting room in the gynae clinic "how many women do you see with their husband's accompanying them?"

"Thanos shut the fuck up" you'd hiss at him, while hitting his arm. The women around you guys giving you the stink eye which he proudly gave back

"I'm just saying the truth- is it a sin to speak the truth?!?"

Will brag to the doctor and nurses too

"Say doctor miss" he leans back at his chair with his head held up high "how many husband's accompany their wives to the clinic?"

"Oh well that depends, not all the time-"

*insert thanos's loud proud laugh, his head thrown back while you grimace*

"I'm the fucking best aren't i"

*insert your slow head shaking* "Yes babe, you sure are"

He was always protective of you, but it grew even stronger after he found out you were pregnant

The type to protect you from a pigeon if he felt like it looked at you for a second too long

"Wtf are you looking at you cross eyed motherfucker"

*glares at the pigeon from a distance"

The type of person to hyper fixated on whatever small movement you do cause he's doesn't want you to get hurt

"Oh be careful be careful" *Holds your hand* "hold my hand and dont let go, use your other hand on the railing"

Says that he doesn't need to read or watch those "pregnancy classes" or "how to take care of a new born" classes cause he's already fully prepared

You later find out that he signed up for one of those seminars online and attends those lectures at night while your asleep

Bro probably has even stronger baby fever than you do

Buys things for the baby and you

"Thanos.. what's that in your hand"

"It's a costume, a ironman costume"

"For?"

"Our daughter 🙄 duh y/n"

"Babe, she still isn't even born"

"I got you a costume too" *takes out a black widow costume that seemed a little too racey* "you should try wearing it now just incase-"

*he got hit by you for trying to get you pregnant again while you were pregnant*

Let's say nam gyu wasn't the slimy bitch he was in the series

Best GODFATHER ever. GOATED godfather, S TIER godfather

I already mentioned this but I'm sure Thanos and nam gyu would come up with names for the baby

I'm talking wack ass names that they genuinely find cool

The list of names would include marvel character names (cause cmon, the child's dad is literally called thanos) or rapper names

"Add cardi b on the list too"

"You know that's not her real name right?" Nam gyu asked, pausing before quickly scribbling the name down

"WHAT?!? Since when??"

I'm sure nam gyu even accompanied the two of you to the clinic atleast once or twice

He was banned from coming though cause him and Thanos together made too much noise

Whenever you and thanos are in public, it doesn't matter if your in a cafe or restaurant or if your just out for a walk

If he meets anyone and i mean anyone

He'd tell them that he was gonna be a dad

"Hey do you know that I'm gonna be a dad?" *points at you* "and that's the mom- she's carrying my baby"

"Sir I'm the waiter"

On the softer note though

Kisses you on the lips first and then kisses your stomach second before you both go to sleep

If you groan or even if he senses a inch of your discomfort he'll automatically try to figure out a way to make you feel in ease

Tries his best not to annoy you

(It doesn't always work cause being annoying is his entire personality trait but it's the effort that counts!!)

Ties your shoelaces for you cause you can't bend over

Traces shapes over your stomach while you both lie next to eachother

Reminds you how pretty you are everyday

"If I'm the legend Thanos, then I guess you would be a myth, cause only a face like yours could make a man like me want to quit"

"Your so corny"

But you wouldn't have it any other way

[fyllophobia]

think fast! surprise trust fall

[jinhyun]

—lost in translation.

pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader

genre: a little angst, fluff, best friend’s little brother au, friends to lovers, pininggggg, miscommunication (gone right?)

word count: 5.2k

summary: hyunjin needed answers and he needed them now. even if it meant showing up at your place late at night with a few drinks in his system, ready for things to go either terribly wrong or incredibly right.

warnings: miscommunication, mentions of alcohol and drinking

author’s note: hellooo, and thank you so much for being so patient<3 this is part 23 of my social media au “heart out”. part 24 will be written as well, so don’t worry if there were a few things left unsaid in this one lol. as always, i hope you guys enjoy! if you do, please don’t forget to leave an ask or a comment telling me your thoughts on it<3

Hyunjin was usually a very chill and spontaneous person. He did things when he felt like it, without really giving it much thought. If he wanted to do something and it felt right, then why would he hold back? He could always deal with the consequences of his own actions later.

When it came to you, however, he was the complete opposite.

Ever since he met you, he had been tiptoeing his way around your heart.

He wanted to do things right when it came to you, and, as a result, his interactions with you throughout the years tended to end up with him overthinking instead of doing.

Starting with him hiding his feelings and keeping his interactions with you to the minimum when he was still a high schooler, to him still hiding his feelings while trying to get closer to you when he entered university, to then still say nothing about them when you started dating Mingyu, up until now, that he finally got another shot at getting close to you, yet he still refused to confess his feelings until you were ready to hear it.

And that was the thing, if it were up to him and acting accordingly to how he felt in the moment, he would’ve confessed a long time ago — probably back in his first year of university, particularly when he found out you and Mingyu were dating and he felt like calling you up and letting it all out. But he wouldn’t, because although it would be a huge weight to get off his shoulders, he wouldn’t want you to deal with the burden of knowing he loved you when you didn’t love him back; not like that, at least.

He wouldn’t confess, because he didn’t want you to feel bad for not being there just yet, if ever.

He didn’t want to ruin what the two of you had because of a whim, and so he decided to deal with his feelings on his own. Until he knew for sure that you were ready to hear a confession from him, he wouldn’t say the words out loud to you.

Of course, that was up until this evening.

After coming to the conclusion that Dahye had followed her word and told you about his feelings for you, and having you distance yourself from him ever since, which could only mean you didn’t feel the same and were preparing to turn him down; and, furthermore, after hearing from Yeji that you wouldn’t mind going out with her twenty three year old coworker once you were ready to date again, there was no room in his head for him to think of the consequences of confessing to you anymore.

If you were turning him down anyway, if you were going out with someone else anyway… if he was losing you anyway, then what did he have to lose by finally letting you know how deeply he felt for you?

Maybe it was the alcohol he’d been consuming with his friends that night, or maybe it was just him simply not giving a fuck anymore — maybe both.

Whatever it was, it was giving him the final push he needed, for he was now standing outside your building, ignoring the freezing breeze of the night —as the black cotton sportswear he was wearing did little to nothing to keep him warm—, while he desperately texted you in hopes of you being awake and letting him come up, so you would finally get to talk and turn him down if that’s what you wanted to do in the end.

If you were turning him down at one point in the next two days, he would rather have you do it now.

He felt like he was going insane; like no matter what the outcome was, whether you turned him down or not, he would collapse if he didn’t get an answer within the next few minutes.

When you wouldn’t answer his texts and there were no signs of you being online, he decided to call you instead. He wasn’t giving up that easily that night, if at all.

It only took one missed call and ten more seconds waiting on the line for you to pick up.

“Hyunie?” Your sleepy yet worried voice was enough to quiet his running thoughts down. “Something happened? Are you alright?”

He stayed silent for a moment, staring up at your window.

“Hyunie?” You repeated. He heard you shift in your bed, and then he saw the light in your room turn on. “Are you there?”

“Can I come up?” He asked quietly.

Silence filled the line for a moment. “What?”

“I texted you… I think you didn’t see it” he explained. “I’m outside your building. Can I please come up? I know it’s late, but I need to talk to you now”.

“Y-Yeah… of course” you failed to hide how taken aback you were. “Help yourself in”.

“Okay…”

Hanging up, his eyes went to the front door to your building, and he suddenly felt the weight of what was about to come on his shoulders. But he was already here, and even if he turned around and went home instead, he knew he would not be able to sleep for the second night in a row as long as he didn’t clear things up with you.

He was already here and you were waiting for him upstairs, so he might as well rushed up to you.

-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-♡

Entering the passcode he knew by heart, he made his way into your place; taking off his shoes and putting on the slippers you kept by the door for your guests, which he knew were pretty much his by now.

As expected, all the lights were out except from the one in your bedroom, where he caught you coming out from.

He would never get tired of seeing you barefaced; and the slightly messy hair you were running your fingers through in a quick attempt to fix, along with the pastel pink silk pyjamas you were wearing, could only make him adore you even more. However, you looked tired, and he couldn’t help but feel bad for waking you up.

“Hey” he mumbled, suddenly feeling the madness inside his head calm down at the mere sight of you.

“Hey…” you softly greeted him back, leaning against your doorframe and resting your head on it. “Did something happen?”

He denied with his head, coming closer to you. “Just couldn’t wait anymore to talk to you, I’m sorry”.

“It’s okay,” you reassured him, slightly frowning when you got a closer look at him. “Have you been drinking?”

A small, surprised pout formed on his lips. What gave it away? His eyes? Was he reeking of alcohol? Or did you know him so well that a simple look at him was enough for you to tell when something was off?

“Just had a few drinks with the boys, it’s nothing” he brushed it off.

“You didn’t drive here, did you?”

“No, of course not” he was the one to frown this time. “I’m fine, though”.

You said nothing, but he caught the hesitation in your eyes.

“I’m fine, Y/N” he reassured you one last time. “I didn’t drink that much anyway”.

Just enough for his inhibitions to shut down; not enough not to realise what he was doing.

“Okay…” you decided to believe him.

With a light tilt of your head, you invited him into your room, where the lightning was better — although the dim light coming from the white lamp on your nightstand could only make him feel sleepier.

You sat down on the edge of your unmade bed, as you’d been sleeping up until he called you, and motioned for him to do the same. Once he did, silence was fast to take over.

“Um… I’m not—I wasn’t really prepared to talk about this now,” you messily tried to come up with the right way to approach the issue. “So I don’t know where to begin, if I’m honest…”

He understood what you were feeling perfectly. In all honesty, although he had come all the way over here to get the answer he so badly needed, he, too, didn’t know where to begin.

There was so much to say, so much to ask, so many ways to word his questions, that his mind went blank.

So, he said the first thing he could think of right then.

“Dahye told you, didn’t she?”

You looked distressed at the mention of her, and that was enough for him to get the answer he was dreading. “Sorry?”

“She talked to you?” He rephrased it.

“Mhm…” you nodded, looking down to your lap. “She did”.

“And is that why you’ve been so distant?” Hyunjin asked carefully.

You nodded again, silently. “I’m sorry, I just needed some time to think” your eyes went back up to lock with his. “How’d you know she talked to me?”

“She kinda threatened me with telling you, so…” he rolled his eyes.

“Oh… that’s…”

Crazy. She was crazy.

Hyunjin nodded, not needing to hear any words coming out of your mouth to understand what you wanted to say. “I know. I should learn not to underestimate her”.

“Yeah, I probably should, too…” you smiled weakly. “Good thing I realised something was off and didn’t believe her in the end”.

“Wait, what?” His eyebrows furrowed.

Something was off? You didn’t believe her?

“I didn’t believe her,” you repeated. “I was a bit shaken up at first, and that’s why I took some distance from you. I just needed to think about it with a cold head, but all along I didn’t want to believe it was true, so ultimately I didn’t. It didn’t sound like you at all”.

Was he tripping? Was he really way more drunk than he thought for your words to make no sense to him?

“You didn’t… want to?” Hyunjin’s heart ached, mostly hung up on those words of yours. “Would it be that bad if it was true?”

“Yes,” you replied in a heartbeat. “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be able to let myself fall for you if that was the case, Hyunjin”.

I wouldn’t be able to let myself fall for you if Dahye will always be there and I knew you’d go back to her whenever you get tired of me; is what you meant.

It would be bad if it was true that you’re in love with me, because I wouldn’t be able to let myself fall for you and ever love you back; is what he heard.

Just like that, for the fourth time in his life, once again because of you, his heart broke.

Although he’d come here knowing well enough that getting turned down by you was a very high possibility, actually hearing you so tactlessly say those words to him right then, and getting every chance of ever being with you crushed into pieces just like that, had his heart hurting in a way it had never before.

Feeling physically ill and finding it hard to breathe, he stood up, pacing around your room for a few seconds before he looked for support on the wall by leaning his back on it.

This might’ve been his worst heartbreak yet, for unlike the previous times, he’d let himself be led on. This time, he really thought that there was something going on between the two of you. All the reciprocated flirting and touches… had it all been him? Did you really not realise what you’d been doing to him all along?

“Hyunie…” you whispered, feeling your own heart break at the sight of him and going up to him, unable to give into your own sorrow as he seemed to have just confirmed that what Dahye told you was indeed true.

He closed his eyes as he tilted his head up to keep the tears from coming out of them.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

He defeatedly shook his head when you placed your hand on his shoulder, rubbing his hands on his eyes to wipe the oncoming tears before he tried to walk away. “I’m sorry, this wasn’t a good—I can’t, I should leave” he apologised.

“So it’s true then?” You asked, grabbing his wrist for him to stay.

He shook his head no, and for just a moment there you felt relief, before he finally turned around and looked at you with reddened eyes. “Of course it’s true” his bottom lip trembled. “Why wouldn’t it be? Did I really get it all wrong?”

Your eyebrows knitted together, understanding this entire situation less and less by the second. “Get what wrong?”

“This,” he repeatedly pointed his finger from you to him. “Us. Whatever it is that I thought was going on between us”.

“Hyunjin…”

“I knew I was getting my hopes up too fast, but I thought,” he paused for a moment, shaking his head in disbelief over his own delusions. “All this time I thought what kept holding you back was our age gap, but turns out the problem was never my age, but me”.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’d be willing to go out with that one other guy who’s also my age, so it was clearly never the problem”.

“What guy?”

“You know what guy”.

“Felix?” You pinpointed, not really knowing any other guys his age. Not like you particularly knew Felix either anyway. “I’m not going out with him”.

“You said you wouldn’t mind him being twenty three, though”.

“Because I don’t care about age, not because I want to date him” you tried to defend yourself. “Weren’t you the one who told me to consider dating younger guys?”

“Exactly, I told you that. Me. I said it so you would at some point consider me, not so you would start looking at other guys my age” he clarified.

“Hyunjin, I’m not—Why does age suddenly matter so much to you?”

“Because if you’re willing to date a guy who’s three years younger than you, then why can’t it be me?!”

You froze.

During all the years you had known him, you had never seen him lose his temper. He was always calm, rational. Had he ever even raised his voice in your presence other than when he got excited about something?

This was a side of him you’d never seen before, and it broke you.

Seeing him look so hopeless and sound so defeated right then, made you feel like holding him and never let go of him.

Things were moving too fast, though, and when you wanted to reach for his face and wipe the tear that had just rolled down one of his cheeks, he beat you to it; harshly wiping his face with his hands, as he refused to look away from you.

“All this time I’ve done nothing but pour my heart out to you. I’m so… so fucking in love with you it hurts me, Y/N. There are times when it physically pains me to love you this much,” he confessed.

Right now, it was one of those times.

“I’ve done everything in my hands for you to stop seeing me like the teenage boy you met back then, for you to stop seeing me just like Yeji’s little brother, and I know you’re not ready for a relationship yet, but I was willing to wait for as long as you needed me to until you were, because I was delusional enough to believe that I could actually make you fall for me” a breathless, humorless laugh abandoned his lips. “And now it turns out you just won’t ever feel the way I feel for you, and this guy shows up out of nowhere and gets everything I’ve tried to get from you right away without even moving a finger, and I just… I don’t know where to go from here”.

Your heart squeezed inside your chest.

Of all the things you were expecting as the outcome of your talk, a confession wasn’t one of them. Not this kind of confession, at least.

You were speechless. Not only did you not know what to say, but even if you did, you were sure your voice would betray you by not coming out when you opened your mouth.

Hyunjin loved you.

It wasn’t just a crush like you thought. It wasn’t him looking for something casual like you feared. No, he loved you. He was serious about you.

Why did you feel so happy yet so afraid about his feelings for you being so strong?

He took a step towards you, and you felt your heartbeat raise when his face was only a couple of inches away from yours and his breathing began to mix with yours.

“I don’t wanna give up on you, Y/N, I don’t. But I just don’t kn—What do I have to do for you to consider me?” He asked, pulling you closer by your waist. “What does he have that I don’t?”

“I’m not going out with him, Hyunjin” you repeated in a whisper, hoping this time he would believe you.

Whether he believed you or not, he leaned in closer, faintly brushing his nose with yours. “What do I have to do for you to give me a chance then?”

“Hyun…”

“I’ll do anything,” he said, cupping your face and making you lock eyes with him. “Just tell me what and I’ll do it”.

You slowly shook your head no, unable to get any kind of word out of your mouth. Was it not obvious enough already that you did feel something for him? Had the way you talked to him and how you acted around him not been enough for him to get that you liked him as something more than just a friend? As way more than just your best friend’s brother?

You couldn’t find the right words to tell him that. The only thing you could do was to stare into his eyes, and then down into his lips, feeling the tension between the two of you grow by the second.

Hyunjin caught up on that immediately, leaning closer, so he could brush his mouth on yours for a second, before he closed the gap that kept them from touching.

Only you beat him to it.

Had you waited one more second, he would’ve been the one to press his lips on yours.

But you did not.

Instead, you were the one to press your mouth on his.

You were the one to kiss him first.

You were kissing him.

And he froze.

His right hand was still cupping your face, his left one remained on your waist, and his eyes had naturally closed the moment he felt the heavenly pressure of your lips on his. But he froze nevertheless.

For the first few seconds, he was too stunned, too overwhelmed —in the best way possible— to even react. And, unfortunately, a few seconds was all the kiss lasted; for he missed your touch right when he was about to kiss you back.

“I’m sorry” you apologised right as you pulled away and covered your mouth with your hands, as if only then coming to your senses. “Hyunie, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t—”

That was as much as you got to say, for in a second he had already removed your hands from your mouth and replaced them with his lips.

You’d be damned if you thought you could get away with letting him get a taste of your lips only to deprive him of you all over again.

You kissed him back right away, going against your poorly attempted apology, and driving him crazy when you wrapped your arms over his shoulders. His hands that had been previously cupping your face were now on your waist, pulling you closer to his body as he tried to feel you as close to him as he could.

He kissed you like he needed you, like he’d been deprived of you for decades and was only now allowed to get a taste of you; and yet, he managed to be so gentle that you were left craving more by the second, whilst wanting him to kiss you just like that for a little longer.

After all, you didn’t know he had been dreaming of this moment for nearly seven years now.

Just like you, he, too, started wanting more. Pulling your hips harder against his and getting a small gasp of yours to part your lips, he took the chance to delve his tongue in your mouth — unable to keep the corners of his lips from curving slightly up when he felt your tongue massage his right back.

With your breathings becoming heavier, and without even dreaming of letting go of your lips just yet, Hyunjin made you take a couple of steps back, until your legs reached your bed and you instinctively sat down on it, allowing him to lean over you as he followed your mouth.

“You’re drunk…” you managed to whisper, right after you laid back on the mattress and his mouth sucked on your bottom lip once more.

“I’m fine, I’m fin—I’m perfect” he whispered in between kisses.

He was perfect. Being with you like this, with him hovering over you while your fingers gently dug into his hair and your mouths so deliciously sucked on each other, he could not be anything other than perfect.

Kissing you felt like a dream, and a part of him was afraid that it was one.

“No, Hyunjin…” you mumbled, only a couple of seconds later. “We shouldn’t be doing this…”

“Why not?” He asked, pulling slightly away from you — not enough for your lips to stop brushing.

“I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship right now” you confessed what his sister had told him earlier that night and, therefore, what he already knew. “I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have kissed you”.

“No, don’t be sorry for kissing me. Anything but that, Y/N. You have no idea how bad I’ve wanted to kiss you all this time” he tenderly ran his thumb up and down on your cheekbone. “I can wait until you’re ready. Starting tomorrow morning I’ll wait all you need me to, but right now just… let me kiss you for a little longer”.

Having him whisper those words when his mouth was faintly touching yours, could only make you feel yourself give in to his plea.

“Hm?” He asked, tracing your bottom lip with his thumb. “One more and I’ll stop”.

Unable to speak, as it seemed to be the norm that night, you closed your eyes; and that was enough for him to take the hint and replace the thumb on your bottom lip with his mouth, sweetly sucking on it before he softly traced it with his tongue, for you to let him in and meet him midway.

The desperation of your second kiss was no longer there, as he now took his time to engrave in his memory every single second of your mouth sucking on his and your tongue massaging his own. He didn’t know when he would ever get to kiss you again, after all, and he wanted to take in as much as he could of it.

He wanted to take his time now; and kiss you slowly, deeply, lovingly.

When you were both left panting for air, he rested his forehead on yours, cupping your nape with his hand and digging his fingers in your hair before he hid his face in the crook of your neck, as a breathy laugh abandoned his mouth.

“You’re driving me crazy” he confessed.

“I should be the one saying that,” you chuckled rather sadly. “I don’t know what you’re doing to me anymore, Hyunjin…”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re confusing me so much right now. You say you love me and you make me feel so special, but then you go and…” you sighed, feeling him slowly withdraw his face from your neck as he tried to understand your point. “I wish it was that easy, but I can’t let myself fall for you now that I know what Dahye said is true”.

“I swear you’re making me question how much I actually drank, because that doesn’t make any sense and—You can’t do this to me, Y/N” his piercing eyes fixed on yours, and the way his voice sounded so calm now could only make your body tense up under him. “You can’t just kiss me and then tell me that…” he sighed, attempting to collect his thoughts. “If you don’t feel ready for a relationship I get it, and I’ll wait. I’ll wait for as long as you need me to, baby, that’s never been a problem. But you can’t just tell me that you’ll never love me back and then kiss me only to turn m—”

“When did I ever say I’d never love you back?” You questioned.

“When we were talking earlier?” He tilted his head in confusion. “I asked you if it would be so bad if what Dahye told you was true and you said yes”.

“Yes,” you agreed. “Because I can’t put myself through the hell your messy relationship with her would bring me”.

His eyebrows knitted together. “What messy relationship?”

“You know…” you avoided his eyes, only then being hit with how much the thought of him with someone else actually affected you. “This whole ‘fuck buddies’ thing and you going back to her no matter who you are with”.

“That’s ridiculous” he blurted out, almost offended that such an atrocity had just left your mouth. “Where did you even get that from?”

“That’s what Dahye told me” you said.

“That’s what…” the puzzle pieces finally connected in his head. “Is that why you said you wouldn’t be able to fall for me?”

“Yes?” You tilted your head questioningly. “Isn’t that what we were talking about all along?”

He should be mad at Dahye right then. He should want to scream at her for playing with the two of you like this.

Any other time, he would’ve been fuming. Right then, however, with your troubled expression as you didn’t get what was going on, with your pretty lips all swollen from how hard he’d been kissing you up until a minute ago, and having experienced such a wide range of emotions in a matter of minutes, he could only laugh.

Tilting his head back and letting a throaty laugh escape his mouth, he slumped back next to you on your mattress and covered his face with both hands, as he let his laughter take over him.

Nervousness, madness, embarrassment, relief, happiness; it was all mixed up into one loud, painful laughing fit.

He felt like a maniac, feeling you stare at him in worry and obliviousness, but he couldn’t find it in him to stop laughing.

“What’s so funny?” You wondered when he struggled to catch his breath.

“She lied” he explained, finally feeling like his laughter was coming to an end.

“She lied?”

“She lied” he confirmed, removing his hands from his face and wiping a couple of tears off his eyes before he locked them with you. “I don’t like her at all, Y/N. We hardly ever even talk, why would I—” he took in a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling as he felt like he was going crazy. “Can’t believe I cried for nothing”.

You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your mouth, both over his last remark and over how relieved you felt to know it was all been a misunderstanding, and that you had been right not to believe her in the first place.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough” you pouted, gently cupping his face when he turned to you.

He shook his head no, letting you know it was okay as he placed his hand on yours. “I didn’t specify either, so I was at fault, too” he smiled softly. “And we probably wouldn’t have ended up kissing if I hadn’t gotten so heated up anyway, so it was totally worth it”.

“You’re an idiot” you laughed once again, smiling when he leaned in and rested his forehead on yours.

“You still kissed me, though” he pointed out, bringing some heat to your cheeks. “Does that mean I actually have a chance now?”

“Was me kissing you not a good enough answer to that?”

“Kisses can mean nothing to some people, so…”

“I’m not one of those people, Hyunie” you let him know.

“Good,” he smiled, pulling you to his chest. “Because kissing you meant everything to me”.

You wrapped an arm around him, nuzzling the fabric of the black sweatshirt he was wearing and taking in his scent you loved so much.

“Shouldn’t we properly talk about what Dahye told us?” You mumbled.

“That, and about where we’re standing now, too” he agreed, sweetly tracing his fingertips up and down your back. “My head hurts now, though. I feel like I’m spiraling, I went through too many emotions in too little time”.

You giggled, looking up at him. “You want to continue this conversation tomorrow? When we’re both a little less overwhelmed?”

“Yeah…” he nodded. “I can sleep peacefully now that I know you feel something for me, too”.

You chuckled, making his bottom lip stick out in confusion when you pulled away from him and sat up on your bed. “It’s late, you can sleep here tonight. I’ll take the couch”.

He grabbed your wrist before you could get up. “Stay with me?”

“Hyun…” you hesitated.

“I won’t try anything, I promise” he was fast to say, well aware of where your hesitation was coming from. “Just need to feel you close tonight”.

If he was honest, any other time, he would’ve offered to take the couch and that would’ve been the end of it, but tonight he really needed your closeness. He needed to know you were there, to feel you next to him. And, thankfully for him, you needed just the same.

Silently motioning for him to get under the covers, you let him know you agreed to his request. He smiled widely, pressing a lingering kiss to your cheek before he did as told — making you laugh wholeheartedly when you got under the sheets as well and he wasted no time to pull you to his chest again and to tuck you in with him.

This entire day had been a mess. Hell, the whole fucking week had been unbearable. But you had been able to talk it out at last. Although messily, you now seemed to be on the same page about everything; from your feelings, to what you were looking for, to where the whole misunderstanding had originated.

This may not have been the conversation the two of you were expecting to have, but it was coming soon enough. Tonight, you could just go to sleep in each other’s arms, knowing what each other’s lips felt and tasted like, and with the certainty that your feelings were reciprocated.

Neither of you would have it any other way.

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[wellofdean]

tags via @ilarual: #literally this is the thing!!#Dean has not explicitly said the words ''please stop leaving''#but he has tried very hard through his actions to express that#AND!!!! CRUCIALLY!!! BECAUSE DEAN IS ACTUALLY A PRETTY GOOD VERBAL COMMUNICATOR!!#he has ALSO!!! verbally expressed his desire for Cas to stick around using OTHER words!!!#not as explicit as ''please stop leaving and stay with me'' but absolutely conveying the same sentiment#what the hell do you think ''we're stronger together'' and the whole ''cursed or not'' speech were about????#like Cas needs it to be more clear than that to Get It bc he does not understand how his constant absence HURTS#but Dean does not want to BE more explicit than he already is#bc he feels like he's been VERY direct on the subject already#he literally told Cas he needs him. TWICE. and has prayed that he needs him there with them at least once that I can recall#Dean thinks he's been EXTREMELY explicitly clear already!!!#and that Cas is constantly leaving bc despite hearing Dean's tacit request to stay Cas is REFUSING that request and doesn't WANT to stay#he keeps asking and getting rebuffed WHY would he be louder and needier about it when he thinks all it's going to get him#is the emotional equivalent of a slap to the face?#in no universe is Dean going to ask for something louder when from his POV he's already been begging for it and being refused like????#this is one of those cases where neither of them is actually doing anything wrong#Dean is communicating perfectly fine it's just Cas is autistic and missing some subtext#Cas isn't wrong for prioritizing his missions when he doesn't understand that Dean wants him there as much as he wants to be there#they're just talking past each other and a deeper conversation or two would fix this problem for them#they just don't realize that conversation is necessary#bc Dean thinks he's been heard and understood and Cas is politely declining his request for more time together#and Cas is unaware that that's something Dean has been asking for at varying volume levels for years#and instead bc of his trauma feels compelled to ''earn'' his place in the family with feats of strength so to speak#no one is at fault for their emotional needs not being met it's just a miscommunication#unfortunately the fandom focuses super hard on only one part of that equation and thus the takes on it are so often Bad™#and ignore Cas's motivations and role as a complex actor with his own trauma and emotional issues and blind spots#anyway they're losers I adore them both <3#spn

OMG thank you. NO ONE IS AT FAULT FOR THEIR EMOTIONAL NEEDS NOT BEING MET.

I love them both so much, and they are so fucking hapless about this one particular thing: they are in love and Chuck keeps fucking with them.

And you are so right, @ilaurel, that Cas's motivations and traumas and complexities are ignored by so much of the fandom. I, an inveterate Dean enjoyer, who thinks Dean is a darling who has never committed a wrong that couldn't be forgiven if he just makes his bewildered wet eyes sad face, cannot understand why we gotta PICK ONE? Like, can't an autistic trauma survivor who's just learning the ropes on this whole 'free will' thing, and who's in love with god's favourite boytoy make a mistake here and there? Can we just give him a fucking break because his heart is the right place? By which I mean in Dean's lap?? If Dean and Cas can forgive each other, can't we just let them both be beautiful fuck ups and love them both?

Personally, I forgive them both their trespasses and hope they get to make out forever in a million beautiful hereafters.

on a realer note i do think people forget that a huge part of the destiel equation is that cas won’t stay. like yeah we focus a lot on the fact that dean won’t ask him to, but cas never sticking around is a huge factor there

[eggyrocks]

DRUNK WALK HOME

chapter seven: introductions

masterlist

"and i don't want your pity, i just want somebody near me / guess i'm a coward, i just want to feel alright," nobody by mitski

It’s Tuesday, and Akaashi’s studying, sitting at the university coffee shop with his notes splayed across a table, an empty seat across from him. 

He can’t focus. He couldn’t focus at his apartment, he couldn’t focus at the library, and he can’t focus here. Noises keep making his head turn, and he keeps thinking that he sees her out of the corner of his eye, and each time it tenses him up, makes his adrenaline spike. 

He keeps rereading the same sentence over and over, and going to drink from a coffee that’s been empty for about twenty minutes now. He’s not retaining any information, each word he reads turning into dust on his head. 

It’s making his head split. And as much as Akaashi does not want to admit it, the thought creeps into the back of his mind that she’s right: he is obsessed. It makes his grip on his pen a bit tighter. He tries, but he can’t stop thinking about her. Everything he does, she’s in the back of his mind. He wonders what she’d say to him if she could see him, what she’d do. He wonders what she’s thinking about, and if she’s thinking about him. 

He wonders if she would’ve been his friend, if he had given her the chance. 

This is what he’s thinking about instead of his studies, and it’s driving him insane. He grinds his teeth together, and tries to force himself to understand the content in front of him. 

A heavy leather purse drops down on top of the table, and he jumps. Akaashi looks up, and sees an older woman there, taking a seat in the empty chair across from him. She stares directly at Akaashi as she does so. She looks familiar. This scowl she has on her face feels like one Akaashi knows. 

“I’m sitting here,” she says, matter-of-factly, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her seat. “There’s no other place to sit, and I’m waiting for my kid to show up. She’s late, go fucking figure.” 

Akaashi tries not to let it show how immediately uncomfortable he feels. “Um, okay. That’s fine with me,” he says stiffly, nodding his head. 

She has wrinkles around her eyes and heavy frown lines around her mouth. “What’s your name?” she demands. 

“Akaashi Keiji, ma’am,” he answers, because he feels like he has to. Like he’ll get in some kind of trouble if he doesn’t.

“You look like a smart kid,” she comments, eyes briefly tracing over his collection of books and notes. “You get good grades?” 

“My grades are decent, yes.” 

She snorts. “That’s a humble way of saying yes. You look smart, studying here. Wish my kid was smart like you. But she’s a fucking dumbass.” 

His discomfort makes him squirm. Akaashi doesn’t know what to say, so he settles on, “I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“You got a girlfriend, Akaashi?” she asks bluntly. 

“Um, no,” he says, and for some reason his face gets hot. “No I don’t.” 

“Do you want one? My daughter’s dumb as rocks but she’s at least pretty. Gets it from me,” she says, and grins proudly. 

Akaashi looks over his shoulder, like he’s looking for someone to save him from this conversation. The last thing he wants is to date this random woman’s random daughter, especially if they’re anything alike. “Oh, well, I’m just trying to focus on my studies now.” 

“Well if you change your mind, let me know. Maybe you’d be a good influence on her,” she says, and then perks up in her chair, looking over Akaashi’s head. “Look, here she comes now.” 

Akaashi turns, and he sees her. For a moment, he tries to pretend that he doesn’t see her, and instead looks for the woman’s daughter, before it dawns on him.

It makes sense, once Akaashi realizes. They look alike. The way the frown is the same. The way they spit out words is the same. Akaashi feels something that is akin to satisfaction. 

She must see her mother sitting there, speaking with Akaashi, and feel dread, because this awful expression works its way across her face once she sees the two of them together. Her mouth screws up, her fists ball by her side, and she takes quick, urgent steps towards the table in the middle of the cafe. “Mom?” she questions, voice half horrified and half enraged. “What the fuck are you doing?” 

“I’m talking to this nice boy, Akaashi,” her mother responds, leaning back in her chair as if she has no intention of leaving, and is in fact just getting comfortable. Smugness blossoms in Akaashi’s chest, and he can’t help but smirk. 

She is deliberately not looking back at Akaashi. She has her head turned to face just her mother, shoulders tensed. “Yeah, I can see that. Why are you talking to him?” 

“Because I want to,” her mother replies, and then turns back to face Akaashi. “Akaashi, you know this scrub?” 

“No, I don’t know him, Mom,” she rushes to lie. 

“Actually, we do know each other,” Akaashi corrects her, voice level and cool. “I’m her writing tutor. All students on academic probation have to see a tutor twice a week.” 

It’s then that she finally turns to face Akaashi, and it’s not what he was expecting. He was expecting more of her rage, twisted up anger and some kind of rude remark. But instead, she looks horrified, eyes wide and jaw slightly dropped. It makes him shift. He’s never seen her look like that. 

“Akaashi,” she whispers, and he thinks it might be the first time she’s said his name since their reintroduction. It makes his spine straighten out. 

“Academic probation, huh? What a deadbeat kid you are,” her mother spits out, voice low and harsh. She stands, grabbing her heavy bag and swinging it over her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she commands of her kid. 

And, in a move that Akaashi doesn’t expect, she obeys without another word. Her head hangs and her shoulders slump, and she follows her mother out the cafe. Neither one of them say another word to Akaashi. 

Akaashi sits there for a moment, left with the impression that he’s done something wrong, just then.

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[thewertsearch]

If you can believe it, I was actually pretty confident that every important character in Homestuck had been revealed. I'd honestly assumed we were done with mysterious figures - but I guess the joke's on me.

So - we have a new conundrum on our hands. Just who is this new, green-blooded troll, and what's their agenda?

Well, despite the fact that I called this an 'Alternian' text console, I'm pretty sure they're not on Alternia. Every troll in that universe should have been killed by the Vast Glub - and, more broadly, the troll universe was violently bookended by Spades Slick during the events of Cascade. I don't expect us to ever hear from Alternia's universe again.

Therefore, I think our 'doctor' troll is dialing in from a completely different universe - or, potentially, a Sgrub session of their own. Their symbol implies some link to Scratch, or at least to the 'Doc' in his name - which, I should remind myself, was never actually explained.

I don't think there's much more I can say about them, just yet. Let's see what develops.

There she is! :D

Before we talk about anything else, let's take a moment to groan at the spoon symbol on reboot-Sburb's poster. The Skaianet of this universe is Betty Crocker, and – wild as it is to say – there's a very good chance that she's an agent of Lord English.

Sburb is almost certainly compromised.

Hiya, Jane! It's nice t-

God help us all.

Let me amend my previous statement.

Sburb is compromised, and so is Jane. It looks like she's in the custody of the Batterwitch - or, at least, the custody of someone who's loyal to the woman. I hope it's the latter, because her pre-Scratch counterpart was treated horrifically by Crocker during her own childhood.

Either way, Jane has been raised by a probable servant of English. Everything is fucked already.

You cannot enter her name!!! It was already engraved in her HONORARY PLACRONYM on her 13th birthday, which was about two and a half years ago [...].

So the Players are older, this time around.

Vriska was convinced that Sburb only chooses heroes on the cusp of puberty, but that assumption went out the window when we learned about Fedorafreak. Sburb chooses whoever it wants.

Attempting to engrave it with another name after completing this sacred rite of passage is practically unheard of [...].

This is clearly another riff on the naming jokes from back in Act 1, but... well, a world where your assigned name is sacred and inviolable is a pretty scary thought to me, personally.

[seat-safety-switch]

Let's be honest, folks: you've gone through like half a dozen socks in the last couple of months, haven't you? Yeah. Socks nowadays suck, and we've all got our reasons why. Blah blah globalization wah wah market won't reward quality woo woo creeping degradation of the moral universe. That's whining, and when I whined as a kid my mom locked me in the basement until I built an intricate machine to fix whatever I was whining about. Sometimes, if my uncle was already locked down there, she'd make me do it in the shed instead. Let's go to that shed right now and make a machine to make socks.

Winter is the hardest season for sock survival. For one thing, it's real dry. You get that rough skin, that static electricity, bristly boot soles all the time, and they fall apart on your feet. Big holes. I'm sure Big Sock gets a huge rise in their stocking price – get it? – around this time every year, as everyone needs new socks for Christmas or other seasonal/denominational shopping holidays. Fuck 'em, is what I say. We're going to fix their little red wagon.

Now, you might be unsurprised to hear that humanity already has a machine to make socks. We just don't put good materials in it. Unfortunately, I was never trained to make a machine that makes "good sock materials," whatever those are, so we're going to cut a corner here and slap a Chevy small-block V8 on an AliExpress "Full Automatic High Capacity Socks Machine Sock Knitting Machine for Sport," which I paid $39.95 for and got a 15% off coupon in exchange for giving it a five star review, no matter how many children it maims. Critically: it has free returns, so I can get that forty bucks back when we've made a year's supply of foot coverings.

The most important part of this job is building a good coupling. The massive amount of torque from the vee aight needs to be transferred into the sock-making machine, ideally without breaking it. Otherwise you're going to just spend more money on clutches, dowels, wrist pins and spring baskets than you would have on more socks. It helps if you've gone through an entire undergraduate materials-engineering degree, but for those of us who have gotten a restraining order from their local university, well, we have to do what works. Which is a truck clutch, tactically welded onto this sucker, using the display unit welder that they have at Princess Auto while the employees weren't looking.

Now, let's rev this piece of shit up and make us some socks.

Okay, things have not gone well. I admit that "roaring fire" is a big downside. Turns out that these things really need some yarn loaded into them first. If you just fire it dry, what it actually does is try to turn its own asshole inside out. The good news is that I can probably wear this prolapsed chunk of smouldering wiring harness as a sock. Seems pretty warm, I'm going to count this as a win.

[bugslaststraw]

See it's funny because in the games, and in any other assorted media before the movies came out, everyone low-key just hates Robotnik. And not even in the fun dedicated way like they all seem to think he's a bit of a failure. Which sounds weird if you don't know anything about Sonic (and certainly sounded weird to me three weeks ago when I was one of those people) but it really is just genuinely the case. I think?

Obviously his family all hate him. Movie-only fans will have an idea about this one; we've got good old Geralt Robotnik who didn't give a rats ass about him in favour of his long-dead cousin Maria, whom he wants revenge for. Geralt manipulated him and used him and said "oh Ivo you're no Maria" even though Ivo probably doesn't even know who the fuck Maria is in the movie universe and so on, et cetera. Geralt sucks just as much in the games and did approximately the same thing there.

What you may or may not know is that in one of the games, Eggman runs into a descendant of his from generations into the future. That guy's name is Eggman Nega, and he absolutely hates his ancestor. He thinks he's cramping his style? He's trying to go back in time and kill him to restore his reputation as far as I remember. Not to mention he has other family and cousins, none of whom give a flying fuck what happens to him. I distinctly remember someone who's name was Collin but who's nickname was Snively and who also worked with Eggman at some point, but hated him, and then later betrayed him. I can't remember a single family member of Eggman's that actually seemed to like or even tolerate him.

He's had a lot of henchpeople too. Most of them were robots. A lot of them, like Omega, and Gamma, and Sage to an extent (although she was more like a robot daughter he built for himself) betrayed him and joined the good guys too (Sage is another outlier, she isn't exactly switching over I mean she definitely likes him but she definitely isn't loyal either so.??) I mean, Eggman isn't even surprised by the fourth time. Smaller minions like Orbot (and Cubot? another outlier) and their predecessors weren't able to betray Eggman, but definitely would've if they could've because they all disliked him because he's allegedly a shit boss. (Who says he isn't. He's evil after all.)

He "contracts" a lot of spies and stuff too. Animal characters. They all hate him as well, but he tends to hate them in return, so at least those are entirely fair game.

Not to mention all the villains he's conveniently happened to need the same thing as at the start of the game, but become inconvenient to towards the end, so they betray him as quickly as possible to get ready for their final boss fight with Sonic towards the conclusion of the story. There's more of those than I can count or care to remember. He meets his alternative universe self once and they hate each other. There's even a moment in I think the comics where Eggman loses all his memories and temporarily becomes nice, and hangs out in a village and builds things for the furry people who live there. He makes a wooden puppet style robot that also becomes like a daughter to him. She's good at engineering, just like him. Of course when he gets his memories back and becomes evil again she leaves as quickly as possible and later helps Sonic & co. She's very resentful about it all, I've heard.

None of that is surprising, of course. Eggman is an evil villain to the heroes and a loser to the villains. It's funny! It's a joke. They need to introduce scarier villains in the games to ramp up tension but they can't exactly just drop Sonic's nemesis down a hole somewhere, being as iconic as he is... So he sticks around. But as a joke, rather than an actual threat. And it's a little sad, yeah. But he deserves it! He's trying to create some sort of totalitarian egg-state and he bullies Sonic for having friends, for Christ's sake. Why should anyone want to stay loyal to a guy like that- and why should anyone do it at all? Joining the heroes is the cool thing to do! Shadow does it, Knuckles does it, Omega kinda sorta does it, Sage is toeing the damn line from what I've heard, it's...

Okay, it's kind of a lot? I mean I understand having nobody that's a good guy like the villain, but like... Not even his damn henchpeople robots? In a lot of the animated shows and comics he keeps building robot wives for himself that are explicitly created just to like him, by him. That or he's into someone who's into one of the animals, or similar. I mean, it's that bad. And it's like... Nobody? Not even once in like thirty years did anyone come up with the idea to give Eggman?? This behemoth among famous pop culture characters? A loyal henchman?

And- well, okay, nowadays this isn't true anymore. I'm sure we all know why. And that's kind of fun; in 2020, Doctor Robotnik gained his first and only loyal henchperson. Great! But...

Jeff Fowler is a Sonic fan, isn't he. Would he know..?

Would anyone involved in making the movies know that Eggman famously... Doesn't have any friends? That nobody seems to like him? That he's apparently infinitely betrayable? Do they know? Do they know? Is that why the third movie is written like that? Is it not just a character complex pulled out of someone's- I mean, when movie Eggman says that there's only ever been one person who actually liked him and one person who actually cared about him... He's quite literally right, isn't he. As in... Since 1991... Like 34 years since conception as a handful of red pixels in the hottest new platformer game there's actually, literally only been one character..? ooh I think I need to lie down for a bit

[castdust]

⤷ wish that i could !

yn, a part-time barista, and daniela, a busy university student, have never crossed paths despite frequenting the same cafe. their schedules have always kept them apart--until finals season at ADMU forces daniela to adjust her routine. as late-night study sessions and caffeine cravings bring her to yn's shift.

⤷ playing after hours by kehlani.

03. dance with me? - written (828 words)

the club pulsed with life, its energy palpable as the bassline reverberated through the air, a heartbeat shared by everyone inside. the dance floor, a kaleidoscope of movement; alive with swaying bodies lost in the music’s hypnotic rhythm. faces glistened under the shifting glow of colored lights, their joy and abandon amplified with each strobe of electric blue, crimson, and gold. 

yn and jungwon are outside of the club prepping themselves for the smell that they'll inhale as they walk inside the club. the air smelled of sweat, perfume, tang of spilled alcohol and a faint smell of weed. the two looked around to spot their friends, but it was unnecessary since yn already saw minji standing up on their table.

even though the club had a reservation policy it was still crowded as fuck inside and the air felt so hot. the two needed to go across the dance floor for them to go to their table; jungwon held yn’s jacket tightly as they walked on the dance floor—a few excuses and lightly pushing as they were almost across. 

“YN! YOU MADE IT!” yunjin yelled as she hugged her.

yn smiled lightly and reciprocated the hug “and you’re drunk, lotts” yunjin dismissed what yn said and proceeded to take two shots and gave it to the two. 

yn and jungwon clinked the shot glass and downed the tequila in one go. the way yn scrunched her face when the alcohol ran down on her throat made yunjin chuckled—these are the times were the six let everything loose, these are their doings when they know that they’ll get busy the next week, and these are the times they sometimes bonded; they may not remember things the next day, but that’s how they know they had fun at that party. 

shots after shots, minji and jungwon gained confidence to dance at the dance floor and as for yn, she’s not at that point of drunkenness, so the two leave her be and join their three other friends. 

as the five dance their asses off at the dance floor; yn observes them and thanks whatever gods that they gave her these kinds of friends and not snobby and fake ass people—even though they are annoying and sometimes tiring. they still treat each other like a family and always be there for each other no matter what—no judgement. 

yn stood up and went to the bar to get her and her friends another shot of jose cuervo. 

she’s not really an irresponsible drinker and she’s not definitely a huge drinker like yunjin–who literally does not remember anything the next day and puking her insides and definitely not a person that instantly be sober like jake–who can carry his friends and drive them safely at their own dorms; she knows her limits and how light-weighted she can be, so of course the way she lets herself be sober is by vaping and little sips of water. 

but before yn could even reach the bar someone stumbled towards her and thankfully she caught the girl on time. 

“careful there,” she says as she helps the girl stand up. 

the girl looked at her—curly blonde hair, light-hazel almond eyes that complements her face shape, and those scattered moles. 

“sorry, i’m kind of tipsy,” 

worry spreads across yn’s face, even though she doesn’t know the woman; she still worries about her being since there are a lot of assholes and freaks inside a club. “are you with your friends? do you want me to bring you back to your table?” yn offers, holding the girl close in case she stumbles again.

“yeah, i do, but don’t you want….want to dance with me?” yn looked at her surprised.

since she doesn’t want to be rude and kind of intoxicated, she just nodded and accepted the girl’s offering, so the girl lead her towards the dance floor—when yn said she doesn’t dance unless she’s drunk enough like her two best friends, there’s an exception when a pretty girl ask you to dance with her; the answer is always a yes. 

the two girls danced like there’s no tomorrow, the distance between them is crucially close and yn thinks– maybe the smell of jack daniel or what perfume is the girl wearing, or whatever it is, it draws her closer. 

what shocked her the most was when the girl turned and faced her, “you know, i actually already saw you at the entrance” the girl said lowly, but yn picked up what she said. 

“really? did you plan this all along?” she whispered to the girl, who nodded slowly and pressed her backside closer to yn’s front. the girl smiled in victory when she felt yn’s hand on her waist and guided how they swayed to the music. even though the colorful lights strike their faces this isn’t enough to mask the rush of the feeling that she knows she got yn’s attention to her only. 

.° ༘🎧⋆🖇₊˚ෆ masterlist next

a/n: kind of rushed :p

taglist: @gtfoiydlyj @saysirhc

[magicalrocketships]

You talked in the author's note about having more thoughts on Max's sexuality in Breaking every rule for you. I'd love to hear more about that, if you want to? 🤍

Oh, thank you for asking!! I did a whole disassociation thing after I posted the last chapter and I was like "it's very important to reply to comments and asks about this fic which meant a lot to me to write and to receive" and then I simultaneously thought orrrrr, alternatively, you can keep putting that off because you won't be able to properly tell people how much all the comments and asks meant. Anyway, that's a perfectly sensible series of thoughts to have, which brings me to this ask.

So, Max in Breaking Every Rule For You. This is half brain-dump, half director's cut of Max's POV. Either way, I accidentally wrote 3000 words about my beloved, feral Max. Sorry? Not sorry. I'll always want to talk about him 🧡🧡

He has literally no conception of this (and neither does Daniel), but he's very much on the asexual spectrum. He's demisexual, which is a word he's never heard and wouldn't know to use even if he had. 

He continues to tell the truth about his experience of life, but Daniel doesn't know enough to understand what Max is accidentally telling him, and Max doesn't know that his experience isn't universal. So! This fic is basically Max experiencing sexual attraction for the first time.

OBVIOUSLY this does not excuse Max behaving monstrously to Zoe and being hopelessly cruel to Daniel. He is, however, experiencing a lot of stuff for the first time and he didn't know! That he could feel like this! He is horny about someone else for the first time in his life! He'd be feral anyway, and he and Daniel stay completely feral after the fic's done and long into the future, feral and horny and all over each other, but there's this whole extra layer to it that's just Max being like... you can feel like this about another person? You can want someone THIS MUCH? You can want to fuck and come and kiss and touch another human being? Everybody in the world isn't lying about wanting it?

So on the one hand you've got Daniel's much more linear experience of oh, fuck, I've been bisexual all along, and the person who's opened my eyes about it is Max, what does this mean for my life and am I allowed to have something with Max for the longer term? In contrast to Max being so fucking thirsty to experience all of these things he's wanting for the first time, and barely understanding what it is he's wanting and the impact on the lives of the people around him who love him. He's so fucking needy and he barely understands the reasoning behind that, but that's partly why he keeps bringing Daniel back and reminding him of everything he's promised, everything Max is dying to experience but hasn't yet.

Even like, right back at the beginning when Max wants pictures of Daniel, it's because he's literally never felt attraction to another person. He's never looked at someone's body and wanted to touch it (or, in Max's case, to come all over him over and and over again and make him fucking filthy and his and have him show Max how he touches himself and how he looks soft and hard and horny and everything in between).

And all the things he wants to do to Daniel, he's never done to anyone else because he was horny about it. Everything he's done is because he thought he should, because he thought everyone was faking it when they said they were horny for touching other people. He can't slow himself down. He wants all of it. And then he'll do things like just warm Daniel's dick because he didn't know it felt good, and it feels so good.

On the other hand, Max has a fixed conception of love and relationships and they are work. They are a job. He has had girlfriends because he was supposed to have girlfriends and he's literally not figured out he's gay because he's not been close to a man long enough for attraction to develop, and with Max it takes a lonnnnng time, he's known Daniel for years and it's only been in the past few months it's started to change how he feels about him, ever since Daniel said he was going to leave and Max realised he not only wanted him to stay, he wanted him. And he doesn't want what he has with Daniel (something good) to crossover into relationship (something bad, something that's work, something that's always been a to-do list item) because then it will be bad. Max is getting every single thing he wants for the very first time in his life, of course he wants to keep things exactly how they are and ringfence this space in his life where Daniel is and he's getting everything he wants. The downside is that it's horribly cruel, but he doesn't entirely understand that, because he doesn't entirely understand either how he feels or how Daniel feels, and because he thinks that what he experiences is the universal, which is that relationships and love are bad and work. 

I kind of love that Max at the beginning isn't a great kisser - Max kisses like he jerks off, fierce and unimaginative. A race to the finish line. One day Daniel will make him slow it down. And part of that is literally because he's never enjoyed it before. He's never kissed anyone he wanted to have kiss him back.

But also, Max loves to jerk off. He loves to jerk off. Masturbation is the one thing he's always loved to do, because he's never been low on sexual desire, just attraction. He's jerked off thinking about Daniel before, too. Even before being really attracted to him. It's sort of why he wants Daniel in his bed, not because it's where he shares with Zoe when she's in Monaco, but because it's where Max jerks off, which is the one hugely positive sexual thing he's ever had in his life. Yeah, there's also some kind of "having a girlfriend is boring and work and I'm beating the system by having a better time in the space where that boring work happens" but Max isn't pre-meditiatively cruel in this. His cruelty is a by-product. 

Also: Max doesn't know that things can be better than what he has. 

He's barely managed to get his shirt off before Max is launching himself at him, making some Max-like attempt at human touch by cupping Daniel's face in his hands and pressing their mouths together. It's not romantic. It's not anything, other than fast, and maybe a little furious.

"You talked about kissing me," Max says, pulling away just enough that Daniel can feel the heat of his breath against his mouth. He's still cupping Daniel's face, and Daniel wants to cover Max's hands with his own and keep him there, make him stay still, make time slow down for them just this fucking once. "You said you thought about it. Kissing me. I've never kissed anyone like that, Daniel. I want it."

Max is telling Daniel the truth but Daniel doesn't pick up on it. Max hasn't ever kissed anyone like this before. And he wants it. 

Daniel spends a lot of time thinking about Zoe. Max doesn't think about her at all. He buys Daniel gifts because he's wild about him, because he needs to, like, put some of what he's feeling out into the world but he just— doesn't know how to do it. He's overflowing with it. 

"Think all the time about kissing you," Max tells him, still kneeling over him, leaning in so that he can mouth at Daniel's neck, kiss him so that Daniel will have a fucking love bite he'll have to cover with concealer if he wants to leave the house. Daniel doesn't stop him. Max can mark him up any way he wants. Daniel will take any scrap he can get. People shouldn't live off scraps, but Daniel will take anything Max throws at him. He'll judge himself later. "You have a good mouth, Daniel, I think about it so much." He kisses Daniel's jaw, along the line of it, over his stubble and up to his ear. It is not foreplay. It is just Max, taking what he wants. Daniel giving it because he wants the whole fucking lot of it and to drown in it afterwards. Better drown than starve. Max kisses his cheek, the corner of his mouth. Once, twice. The side of his nose. Is this Max, trying to be gentle with him? Trying to give something he normally only takes?

And then Daniel changes things, he tries to break up with Max and Max goes insane with it. For Max, Daniel really is ruining things. He is being a stupid motherfucker. This really is just sex because Max doesn't know how to understand what he's feeling. And he doesn't want to feel! Feeling is bad. He keeps trying to make the feelings stop. Of course Max just keeps trying to take things back to the space where things were working, because he wants it so much. Of course he's jealous, because he's fucking feral and a mess and he has no idea how to feel things like a real boy, because he never fucking has, and how he feels about Daniel is really fucking easy if only he knew how to identify or name any of the feelings he's feeling. 

So yeah: Max is heartbroken for the first time in his life, but he also just doesn't understand it. His chest hurts. He wants Daniel back in the space where it was all working. Daniel isn't the stupid motherfucker, Max is, for not managing to keep it so that Daniel would still kiss him and want him and touch him and text him, and Max is for not being able to stop himself from feeling stuff he doesn't understand. And then Zoe goes, and he doesn't feel anything. Not really. The only thing he's thinking about is Daniel. And then you get Max's entirely pragmatic, ruthless side, whereby he just makes sure Daniel is safe. He pays whatever he needs to pay to make sure Zoe is satisfied. He tells her the truth about not feeling about her the way he feels about Daniel. He doesn't mean to be cruel. It's a by-product again. It still is hopelessly cruel. He still only wants Daniel. He's the stupid motherfucker, not Daniel. 

And all the time, Max thinking he can get Daniel back to what they had before if only he keep trying. He knows Daniel wants him back. And he thinks he's getting it. He thinks he's getting Daniel back. It's want like he's never wanted. He thinks he's managed it, and then Daniel just— shuts him down. And Max just… breaks. It takes him by surprise as much as it takes Daniel when he sees Max crying, like he's crying and he didn't mean to start but he also can't stop. He loves him. That's what this is. 

"You are not listening," Max says, wiping his tears on his shoulder. "All of this time I am trying and I am trying not to want you and not to feel things but it did not work and I do and I did and I feel it in here and it won't stop." He presses the side of his fist to his chest, like Max is referring to his own fucking heart, which he can't be, because Max is Max, and Max doesn't feel anything, and he doesn't fucking feel anything for Daniel. "It is not fair that you won't listen. Always I am asking how do I make it stop, because you are just supposed to be sex, you are dick and that is for the dark and instead you are always just here, in my head and you have made me go mad thinking about you. Everything I do is very insane and it is all about you and my girlfriend left me and I do not care because she is not you and you tell me that you miss me too but now you are saying no when I want you more than I want anything and it is not okay."

It's the first time in his life he's ever been in love, and he's trying to make sense of it because he couldn't stop loving Daniel if he tried, but here's Daniel telling him he doesn't, and that he's stopped, and that is just— so far outside of Max's understanding. It's not fair and it's not okay and he doesn't know how Daniel could stop loving him if love is what he feels back for Daniel. 

And then he stays. He tells Daniel that no one kisses him like Daniel does. He says: "Nobody touches me like you do," Max says, which is probably a lie since Zoe loved him and wanted him and probably would have touched Max any way he wanted if he'd only told her. "Nobody, Daniel, nobody makes me feel like you do."

Daniel makes a soft, unholy noise in the back of his throat.

"It's true," Max says, urgently. "It is true."

Daniel doesn't realise how true. That no one has ever made Max feel or want like this. That this is the first time he's ever been attracted to someone. 

And for Max it's so clearly worlds apart from him and Zoe. They're not comparable. 

"She was my girlfriend," Max says. "But I didn't love her like I love you."

For a moment, Daniel's brain judders to a halt. It's felt like he's been on a constant spin cycle since last night, but for a moment, everything's still. "Yeah?"

"With you it is very different," Max says. "Everything is very different."

He keeps stroking the inside of Daniel's wrist. Daniel can't think of anything to say. He just watches Max touch him.

"Of course I kissed her, Daniel. She was my girlfriend. I did all the things you're supposed to do with your girlfriend. You cannot be tearing yourself up into knots about her when she is gone and you are here."

And

"I thought about your dick a lot. I thought I would like to see it. I jerked off and used my fingers and thought about you jerking off. I thought if I was going to suck a dick then it would be nice if it was yours."

"You had a girlfriend."

"Yes. I had everything I was supposed to want. Red Bull and Zoe and one day I will have my World Championship. But not you because you are a stupid motherfucker and you left me."

And Max loves jerking off. It's his favourite thing. 

But like, Max finally gets what he didn't know he wanted, which is more than just having sex at regular and irregular intervals, he gets a boyfriend, someone he can actually love and want to be with and it's all turning his conception of relationships and love upside down and he has to re-evaluate how that fits into his life, because relationships have been a boring part of work before, and now they're not, so he just has to… figure that shit out. 

This conversation where Daniel asks Max if he's gay: 

"Max," he says softly, after a minute. "Max, do you like girls?"

Max shifts on the pillow. He rolls his eyes. "Of course I do, Daniel, do not ask stupid questions. They are 50% of the population."

"I'm not—" Daniel searches Max's face. He wants to find something there that Max isn't showing him, some measure of understanding, of common ground beyond the fact that they're fucking and in love. "Do you like dating them?"

"I am dating you," Max says, as if he's talking to someone who barely understands English.

"Yes, but. Before. Did you like having sex with girls?"

"Zoe was my girlfriend. Of course I liked having sex with her."

This isn't Max just obfuscating. He hasn't defined himself as gay. He is, but he didn't necessarily— need to know it or define himself as such? It just wasn't important to him. He didn't really want to have sex with anyone so not wanting to have sex with girls less than him not wanting to have sex with guys he wasn't attracted to didn't matter so much? And now there's Daniel so it's even less of an issue because it turns out he can ferally cheat on Zoe for months and still not intend to ever be with anyone who isn't Daniel. 

Honestly it's more of a journey than Daniel will ever know to get Max to this: 

"I will do better," Max says, when there's nothing else coming, and Daniel's about to step out into the road. "I will learn, Daniel. To be a good boyfriend." 

It's not something he ever even considered before, and now not only does he want to, he's going to work on it too. 

Max smiles at him. He still fingers Daniel, because Max likes to multi-task and do it efficiently, but he lets his gaze rest on Daniel's. He looks happy. He looks so, so happy. "It has never been like this," he says, and Daniel doesn't say because you've been having sex with girls and you don't like them. He'll believe it's just about him. That Max feels like this about him and him alone.

Max telling the ultimate truth - it never has been like this, not a single element of it. Not kissing, not sex, not loving somebody else. Daniel doesn't entirely hear it, but then why would he? Even Max doesn't realise how much of a truth it is. 

"I always thought people were lying about kissing," Max says, without moving or looking at him or anything. "It was so boring. Everyone had to be lying. Nobody could like it unless they liked boring things."

What the fuck.

"So boring," Max says. He still doesn't move or look at him "Sex was boring too. I didn't know why anybody went out of their way when they could just jerk off. Masturbating was so much better than sex, Daniel."

Christ. Daniel's fingers twitch in Max's. "Did you ever think that was because you didn't like girls? And you kept having sex with them?"

"Eh," Max says, and shrugs. "I kissed boys too. Two of them. It was still boring."

Daniel's never thought sex was boring. He's liked it pretty much every time he's had it. He's been kissing girls since he was 14 and could make them laugh enough to kiss him over bags of crisps after school. He thinks about the two boys Max has kissed. What he did with them. When it was. Who it was. If he really thought it was awful. "Do you still think it's boring?"

Max shifts at that, twisting so he can look up at Daniel with the most insulted, don't be fucking stupid look on his face. "I have just licked my come out of your ass, Daniel. I want to have sex with you all the time. All of the things I jerked off thinking about doing I want to do with you. I want to kiss you forever."

Anyway. TL;DR, Max is demisexual and is new to sexual attraction and wouldn't be able to label himself as that if somebody paid him. 

[lost-in-fandoms]

hi esi! for writing game:

maxiel + 53 bc I remember your amazing wingfics!

From here: Wings/supernatural body features. Hello!! <3 and thank you <3 This is set in the same wingfic universe, right after the last thing I wrote I guess and the same cw apply: unsafe and painful wing care practices.

"You should sit."

Daniel points at the pillow he had set on the floor as soon as Max steps into his room, a belligerent frown still on his face, shoulders curling in, protective.

Daniel can't see his wings, which means that Max has bound them again, after keeping them away for the whole day. It makes him want to cry, cluck at him and fuss like he's just a fledgling, but he doesn't want to spook Max. Or at least, spook him more than he already as.

"I clean them," Max snaps mutinously, going to cross his arms, but immediately aborting the movement with a barely suppressed wince.

He's hurting and he still bound his wings again. Daniel is going to kill someone. A very specific someone.

"I know you do, Max," he says, swallowing his anger like a too big gulp of protein shake, trying to keep his voice soft and level. He knows the fear that hides behind Max's facade.

"Sometimes though, it's not enough to just wash them. You have to actually preen your wings, to keep them healthy, and it's easier to let someone else do it for you."

"I'm healthy!" Max argues, as if he's not standing there, literally unable to do full movements because of how he's treating his wings on the daily. If he didn't think it would get him punched, Daniel would laugh.

"Yeah, but you can be healthier. It would probably make it easier in the car, too, if you could raise both your arms at the same time."

He means it as a joke, but Max seems to take it as a challenge, because he immediately raises his arms above his head, face stony, only betraying his pain with the way he bites his lower lip until it goes white.

Daniel rushes forward, cursing himself internally, and forcing him to lower them again.

"Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

He knows it's the wrong thing to say as soon as it's out of his mouth. Max flinches back, lowering his eyes, shoulders curling even more inwards.

"Fuck you," he spits, voice trembling. Daniel is an idiot.

"No, Max, fuck..." he sighs, dragging a hand over his face and breathing deeply. "I'm sorry."

Max freezes, eyes darting up to look at Daniel's face before snapping down again, tension and confusion hanging around him like a cloud.

"Let's try again, alright? Just listen to me," Daniel says, dredging up all his patience.

Max nods, a tiny movement, fingers tangled up in the hem of his hoodie in what looks like an attempt to keep them from shaking.

"I am not judging you, but I think you would benefit from me preening your wings. If you hate it, or if you want to stop at any time, you'll be free to leave and never do it again. Does that sound okay?"

Max takes his time to consider it, long moments in which Daniel feels his heart beating too fast in his chest, but then nods again.

And then, without any further discussion, he takes off his hoodie and drops down on the pillow.

It makes Daniel's breath stutter, to have such faith put on his hands, almost as much as it makes his heart ache to see how tightly Max's poor wings are bound.

He knows this is his only chance. If he fucks this up, Max's wings will probably never be taken care of again.

He takes a breath, grabs the cloths he had taken out while waiting for Max, and then sits on the small couch behind Max.

Game on.

[melonlord98]

Love That Waits: Chapter 1 - Rhea

Summary:

"He had the type of smile that seemed to increase the light in a room when it reached his eyes. Brown eyes. Deep brown eyes that seemed to become molten when he spoke fondly of something. Though she rarely saw him speak much at all since she met him. She was surprised at her own attentiveness in that moment. When the fuck had she started to notice Jey Uso?"

~

A character study of the romantic relationship between Rhea Ripley and Jey Uso, through their eyes and the eyes of the people who love them. Starting from Smackdown 2023 to the present day. Somewhat kayfabe compliant, but also putting my own little spin on the most interesting love story in the WWE Universe!

~

These chapters are all written in third person, so if that bothers you, I'm sorry 😢. The first two chapters will be exploring Rhea and Jey's emotional states as individuals, but from the third chapter onward, each chapter will be split between both of them equally. With bonus chapters from the perspectives of Damian Priest, Jimmy Uso, Sami Zayn, and many others as they watch the relationship between Jey and Rhea blossom.

I will warn everyone in advance. This story is the textbook definition of slow burn and it will also not be including explicit smut. If anything sexual happens between the characters, it'll be more of a "fade to black" type vibe.

I wanted to write this fic to explore how Rhea and Jey truly fell in love with each other as they navigate through their own individual traumas. And since this story begins around 2023, I will admit that Rhea and Jey are not in the best place emotionally early on. So, be warned, "Fluff" is tagged, but it's not coming for a while 🤣.

My hope is to have a new chapter uploaded every week on Wednesday. This is my first fic and I hope you all enjoy! Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!

Btw, all the chapters will be posted on AO3 as well if you prefer to view it there 😊!

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

April 18, 2023

The shrill chirp of her alarm was what woke her. She leaned back, her arm sliding away from the slim contour of Dom’s waist as she fumbled to grasp the device. Cursing as it nearly fell off the nightstand. Rhea grunted as she pulled her other arm free from under her lover’s head, narrowly managing to catch her phone as it forcefully separated from the charging chord. She flinched back at the brightness of the screen and stamped the alarm off before tossing it onto the armchair just beside the nightstand. Sitting up dully, her shoulders sagged at the weight of what she now acknowledged was a rapidly growing hangover. Her head ached and she hissed as a sharp thread of pain shot from between her eyebrows and spread to the base of her skull. 

“Fucking, Damian.” She groaned, falling heavily back onto the pillows, with her forearm falling over her eyes. Somehow a room shielded by blackout curtains was still too bright. They had gone out the night before with the Bloodline to celebrate the beginning of their alliance. She wasn’t usually the most overzealous drinker. She typically left those duties to Damian and Dominik, but something about that night had just felt right and so she had indulged them. Fuck was that a mistake.

A throb, just barely there, began to pulse at the right corner of her forehead and she cursed again. She’d swear off drinking if it weren’t so damn numbing. The thought was interrupted, however, by the sharp snort from the man laying next to her. She laughed low in her throat, wincing as action went straight to her aching forehead. Dom was a rather enthusiastic sleeper with a likely undiagnosed case of sleep apnea. Any other person would have been rudely awakened throughout the night by the sheer volume of his snores, but Rhea, who lived in a constant state of bottomless fatigue, often slept with a deepness just on the cusp of death. A match made in heaven (or hell, perhaps some would say).

Turning onto her side, she reached out to stroke delicately at the hair cascading over his ear. She was amused at the state of him. His body was turned away from her, but his neck was tipped back rather awkwardly and his mouth seemed to follow, hanging out to the side as he continued to snore. Her eyes scanned him lazily, stopping occasionally to scrutinize the dark spots on his purple silk pajama top from the steady steam of saliva that dribbled off his lip. A man who sleeps as immaturely as he lives awake. Rhea shook her head fondly at the thought. Her fingers continuing to stroke her fingers absentmindedly through his hair as she fell face first into the usual cogitations.

Her mind drifted to the previous year, the thought of her new beginning. How she and Damian had betrayed Edge and welcomed Finn. There was always something about it that never sat right with her. They had done everything right. She believed that. Edge had never deserved their patronage and so they outgrew him. Yet, it still haunted her. Even as she, surrounded by her two closest friends, had looked down at her old mentor and laughed in his face, that look in his eyes had remained imprinted in her mind. Betrayal. One in what had become a disturbing pattern. Her mind flitted to Raquel, her first loss. Her partner that had chosen everyone else over her. And Liv, a dead weight she had needed to shed the way a snake sheds its old skin; reborn in new, more vibrant color. Friendships she had sacrificed to become better. She was in the right. Edge had reassured her in the beginning. Damian too. She had needed to be selfish. She deserved to be! She was right—

Dom suddenly shifted in his sleep and Rhea jerked her hand back in alarm. His body rolled back toward her, realigning with his head and he smacked his lips before settling back into his usual snores. Not yet awake. Rhea stared at him and she could feel that familiar coldness in her chest. She cowered away from it. Throwing her legs off the side of the bed and nearly falling over herself as she made her way into the bathroom.

The pulsing forehead spread back into her hairline and she sucked air sharply through her nose as she felt bile rising in her throat. She fought against it, knocking her knuckles against the carved marble of the bathroom sink. The bathroom went pitch black as the door slid shut behind her. She couldn’t see anything and yet she felt stripped naked. Her skin hot, yet damp from sweat. As if she had been laying on hot coals. It was always like this when she thought of them. The memory of her many lost friendships like a disease that clung to the darkest parts of her. Parts she had layered over with molten rock and steel. She had made herself a blade, to protect against the reminders of her own past heartbreaks. However, it was moments like these where she felt like a snake eating its own tail.

Edge had told her that to be warm and embrace comfort was weakness. You could never get too comfortable. He did. So she and Damian had showed him the fruits of his labor as they usurped him. Rocking back onto her heels, she flailed for the switch and nearly fell when the white light of the mirror hit her square in the face. Her eyes burned with it, but the pain of the headache had dulled. An old pain replaced with a new one. A cycle she knew well. She could sleep, but she never rested. 

She was able to blink as her eyes slowly adjusted and she finally caught sight of herself in the mirror. As she looked on, she realized that the dampness she had felt on her cheeks had not been sweat but were tears. The wet onslaught had flowed past her chin, soaking the collar of her t-shirt with a pale layer of foundation she had forgotten to remove the night before in her drunken state. Rhea sighed before turning her eyes down and flipped on the sink. She watched curiously as the water pooled in the cup of her hands before shoving it across her face. Repeating the process a couple more times before placing her hands on the counter and leaning fully over the sink. The harsh gush of the faucet a welcome buffer to the never-ending whirring that went on in her head. 

For a while, she just stood and breathed. The yelling chorus of voices in her head eventually came down to a more gentle stage whisper. This allowed her to move her attention to something much more important than her many past lives. She needed coffee! With two harsh pats to her cheeks, Rhea straightened her back and shed her clothes.

The chill of the hotel hallway could be felt even through the thick cotton of her hoodie as she made her way down to the lobby. This hotel was not as nice as the other ones they stayed at in the much larger cities. This hotel chain’s buildings were always old, but now haphazardly disguised with a new coat of a rather jarring orange and baby blue paint combo whose ugliness Damian often bitched about during his hangover-fueled breakfast rants. He was a surprisingly chipper alcoholic on the morning after a long night of indulgence. Grumpy, but eloquent. Rhea would typically call him in the mornings and they would eat breakfast as a duo, since Finn and Dominik was particularly unpleasant if not allowed to rise of their own accord. This morning, however, she didn’t feel that she had the patience to deal with what Rhea knew would be a good-natured parental lecture about how she “actively suppressed her negative feelings”. Followed closely by an accusation of taking it out on her boyfriend who was no where near as strong as she was. Damian could do it later, once Rhea had been filled with a minimum of three cups of heavily sweetened coffee. 

She stopped in her tracks just as she turned the corner into the lobby at the sight of a familiar face (or back rather). Jey Uso’s silhouette was hard to miss and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t snuck a handful of curious peaks backstage. He had his back to her, his arms hung bare through the cropped sleeves of his shirt and she could see the slight curve at the bottom of his spine that peaked out from the slit in the equally cropped bottom of his t-shirt. Her eyes moved back to the tattooed contours of his arms, the intricate line work shifting and bending with every minute flex. Art in motion. Rhea was always one to appreciate the artistry of a good tattoo. She and Jey had chatted enthusiastically at the club the night before about their many tattoos, though much of the conversation now only existed in jumbled scraps throughout her memory. His face had been so bright then. He had the type of smile that seemed to increase the light in a room when it reached his eyes. Brown eyes. Deep brown eyes that seemed to become molten when he spoke fondly of something. Though she rarely saw him speak much at all since she met him. She was surprised at her own attentiveness in that moment. When the fuck had she started to notice Jey Uso?

Rhea thought back to all the months before. All the confrontations, but nothing really stood out until yesterday. She’d known of him, but she didn’t know him. Even now, in the infancy of this new alliance. Last night was the first time she’d actually spoken to him outside of provoking him to Super Kick her in the ring. She looked at him wholly now. The coffee long forgotten as she pondered him. Apparently, this was a morning of way too much thought. But she’d worry about that later. Something about him drew her in. Made her want to know more as she continued to watch him prepare his breakfast. Now, leaning lazily against the counter as he waited for a paper cup to fill with orange juice. Rhea pondered Jey Uso’s appearance. His hair, his skin, his tattoos, his build. Once again, she had to admit that he was nice to look at. 

However, that was never what truly interested her about him. There was a heat to him. Something buried so deep, yet burned so bright that you could narrowly manage to avoid getting scorched by it. A longing for something that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to figure out without asking him herself; something she’d never even dream of doing. 

Rhea was brought out of her contemplation by the stiff jerk of Jey’s hand as he thrust it into his pocket. She looked on as he glanced around warily before pulling a small pill orange bottle out of his pocket. He hastily popped the white cap and levied the a couple tabs into his palm before tossing his head back and quickly downing the contents of his cup to chase it. Prescriptions from the looks of it. Considering who he fell under, she wouldn’t be too surprised if it was anxiety medication.

Jey bowed his head as he swallowed, the muscles of his back tensing under the thin black layer of his t-shirt. But it was his hand that truly caught her eye. The one not gripping the pill bottle lay open. She could see the patchwork of callouses that decorated the weathered skin there. But to her surprise, his hand was shaking rather violently. From the tips of his fingers to the curve of his shoulder. His whole body taught and coiled like a snake, poised to strike at the first sign of a threat. As her eyes made their way about him, she came to the unnerving realization that his feet were no longer facing away from her and when her head snapped up she was met eye to eye with him. The swiftness with which Jey moved had been what startled her initially, but her focus quickly pivoted to his eyes. No, what hid behind them. Or rather what didn’t. There was nothing there. A calculated emptiness. They both remained anchored in place. She wasn’t afraid to move nor was she afraid of him, but something was keeping her there. Something was keeping him there. Looked in at the eyes, but neither spoke. What was there to say anyway? Any individual with a single modicum of intelligence would tell you that it would be ill-advised to speak to someone who looked you the way that Jey was now. Like an animal. If he had gun it would be drawn. The empty heat she had been pondering before was now looking right at her and she couldn’t look away­–

“Hey, Rhea!” Rhea was embarrassed to think about the rather indignant noise she made at the sound of Damian’s voice that called from down the hallway. She whipped around. Her face set into a glower that deepened as she noticed the crooked-toothed smile Damian flashed back at her.

“Yo, take it easy. Did I scare you?” he teased, nudging her suggestively with his elbow as he came to stand next to her. She turned her head dramatically, her face pinched into a pout as she shoved him back. 

“Fuck off, Priest.” Her voice dripping with an exasperated fondness that she only ever offered to him. He shrugged before pulling his loosely tied robe closer around him and crossing his arms over his chest. His face the picture of amused curiosity as he said, “I called out a couple times and you didn’t answer. So, I got creative.”

Rhea blew air at her bangs, snorting a laugh as she said, “By creative, you mean loud, right?” He shrugged again, then he glanced behind her. Seemingly looking for something that he couldn’t find. She followed his gaze over her shoulder and almost audibly sighed in relief when she noticed Jey was no longer standing there glaring at her.

“Whatcha lookin’ for?” she questioned with feigned innocence. Damian did seem to clock it in his hungover state, but he just shook his head. “Nothing. You just seemed lost in something.” he said matter-of-factly.

“Nah, just staring off into space waiting for our usual appointed breakfast date.” Damian scoffed, but made no objection to her explanation, moving past her toward the breakfast spread where Jey had once stood. She could still almost envision the perfect silhouette of Jey as he had been just moments before. A ghostly visage with some kind of death reflected in his eyes. An emptiness she now realized felt so familiar, because it was one she shared within herself. A loss of something. Of someone. A loss of innocence that only your greatest love can cause. A loss she’d felt twice but had been remedied by the new family she had now. Maybe Jey could use a new family too. She laughed out loud at the absurdity of the thought and Damian fixed her with a concerned look but made no moves to address it. She resumed her pondering. Jey was too loyal to be fooled out of leaving his family. An absurd thought on her part. Impossible at worst. Yet another thing she’d add to the long list she chose to worry about at a later time.

Or she was full of shit, because even as she made her plate and get several cups of coffee in her system (maybe there was a way to just inject it into her veins first thing in the morning instead. She’d have to do research on it.), her mind wandered back to Jey Uso. More alarmingly, Roman Reigns. A man she had yet to lay eyes on in-person yet loomed large over the union of the two factions. The deal had been made by him. Paul Heyman had just been the typical obedient messenger. When she considered it, Roman was largely responsible for the man that Rhea had narrowly avoided a confrontation with just minutes before. He had beaten Jey down so completely that he was left with only his instincts to guide him. A weapon Roman had sharpened to act as an extension of himself. Jey was no longer an individual, but a cog in the great machine that Roman Reigns had built his now vast empire out of.

Roman was a familiar shadow to her. Like her own mentor, who haunted her even now. Roman Reigns did not seem like the type who took kindly to betrayal. Those who grew brave enough to stand before him was put down expeditiously. It’s why the Judgment Day had agreed to the alliance. Why try and fight a god, just to lose everything, when he’s willing to make you kings? Their faction was still young and while they didn’t have much to lose, fear was enough. Perhaps Edge would be ashamed of them now. The man who thought he was bulletproof. The one who taught them to fear nothing, but he showed his weakness then. He made them too strong, too strong to need him and they took full advantage. They had felled the king who believed himself to be the same god that Roman was. 

Still, maybe Roman’s time would be coming soon too. The tension radiated off all the members of the Bloodline in waves. Sami Zayn had opened a door inside a house that every believed to be forged shut with steel. A door no one had thought to check for. And answer to a question that she was sure none of the Bloodline had ever dared to ask. 

But that was none of her business. What choices the Bloodline members chose to make didn’t matter to her. So long as they stayed out of her way.

[thehelltingvilleclub]

Matt Montgomery - Closet Geek & Closet Freak

An Adult in Eltingville that actually acts like an adult???? WHAT???

Matthieu "Matt" / "Mattie" Thomas Montgomery [02/16/1978] Not Affiliated with TEC - Known Tournament winner amongst Jerry's MTG players. Cosplayer and College student in Manhattan. AOL / Online Users: [MTM_cosplay] | [GoblinHoarder] Theme Songs: Talk talk - Charli xcx | Move Along - All American Rejects | Somebody Told Me - The Killers

Favorite Shit: Trading Cards, Puzzles, Sports cards, Cosplays, X-Men, Monsters, Kaiju, Robots/Mecha, Dr. Who, Rubicks Cubes, Hard Cover books, YAPPERS, Movie Marathons, Beast, Wolverine, MTG, D&D, Cosplay Contests

I don't know how tf to describe this man other than tired and done with everybody's shit and he hasn't been awake more than an hour. He's three years into his bachelor's degree, essentially has 3 full time jobs between cosplay, tournaments, and all of his school work PLUS TUTORING, homie barely has enough time to breathe let alone deal with the TEC. However, that doesn't mean he won't find a way to weasel himself in-- even if its.... by unconventional or rather... *unexpected* means.

Guys I have like no art of him SORRY

Mattie generally only gets introduced very sparingly during 1999-2005, essentially in passing by Jerry or Josh, but he's still present and alive during this time, obviously. Him being friends with Jerry is what gets him to recognize Josh later.

Matt is studying for a Bachelors in English Comp, specializing in Journalism.

Speaking of, Josh and Matt work together at the editors office for the Comic Book News site in the epilogue. It's how they find each other again after Matt graduates and moves back home.

Matt is from northern Vermont, around the Canadian border, and has a bit of a Canadian accent because of it.

Everyone picks on him about it except for May and Jerry, (yes, even Josh, but it eventually becomes endearing to Matt.)

MATT. LIKES. YAPPERS. He doesn't talk much, he doesn't have much to talk about. Books and papers and trying to explain gymnastics routines isn't exactly the most interesting thing in the world, y'know.

He also doesn't have the time to really subject himself to the extreme absorption that Josh and Bill can get with their comics and shows, so.. Tell him about them!

He didn't get access to a lot of the more nerdy, pop culture side of things because of his parents. They had a significantly stronger iron grip on what he and his sister were exposed to, so he never really...

well, he didn't get to express his love for the more geek-y side of life until he moved to NY for college.

He became a professional cosplayer via his roommate forcing him to post, invited to events and photoshoots for his live floor routines he'll do in character, though he almost always wears a full-face mask or enough make up that you can barely tell who he is.

he can't have his sister finding out he dresses up as a blue demon freak in his spare time, yknow? (god she'd bully the shit out of him if she did--)

He's been in gymnastics since he was in middle school, and he's actually quite good; he's on a scholarship at his university, for pete's sake.

unfortunately a bad fall broke his clavicle and made it so he can't do vault anymore, but he enjoys his time doing floor routines and fucking around on the pommel horse from time to time.

Matt also.. is weirdly envious of TEC's... closeness? The fact they barely get along and yet they're all still together, they all still try and see each other or keep in touch..

He's never had that, and it makes him horrifically jealous, but he keeps it to himself-- smile and wave, swallow it down like normal, hm?

please subject him to a movie marathon. Infodump on him everything about whatever you're fixated on. He likes listening to people's voices, so please, just do it. It doesn't bother him at all.

This man has a TEMPER. His mother and his sister have this too, and it is BAD. Matt, however, learned ways to keep his temper at bay and calm down. to an extent. Bill, however, always manages to get his blood to boil by just the mention of him, so maybe... don't

Also, Matt and Pete absolutely bicker. A lot. Matt is constantly showing off that even though he's only an inch taller, he's able to do soOOSOooo much more! and Pete is convinced that Matt isn't actually gay and is trying to steal May away (guys Pete is such a fucking jealous goober I hate him)

Meanwhile literally the only person Matt wants is Josh. Pete should open his eyes maybe but like it's fine.

HOLY SHIT GYUSY

Okay UHM Hi Matt probably won't be talked about much but if you see me Vermont Honey posting it's because I need my comfort ship back okay THanks Also the NSFW cut is coming guys It's gonna have em all And I'll draw Jane and Matt's little sister soon, as they go to school together (Jane absolutely hates her guts OOPS unfortunately she's a bitchy cheerleader so you bet Jane has a voodoo doll of her somewhere in her room).

[katethetank]

Rating: 18+, minors gtfo Chapter Summary: Eddie meets the family! CW: None? Tell me if I missed anything Tags: Alternate Universe - modern setting, Rock Star Eddie, Counselor Steve, Eddie is gay, Steve is bi, slow burn, eventual smut Word Count:3,308

Chapter 9<<Masterlist>>Chapter 11

Mama Steve: Hey dickheads, does The Dungeon close at 5 on Sunday?

Dustybuns: It always has asshole

Mama Steve: Watch your mouth kid!

Mama Steve: Stick around after close

Mike Fucking Wheeler: You’re not the boss of us

Mad Max: Listen to your mother Michael

🧙Will the Wise🧙: What’s going on Steve?

🏀Lucas🏀: You’ve been MIA man, you alright?

Dustybuns: So you blow us off for weeks and now you’re making demands? Some mom you are 

😇El😇: We’ve missed you Steve!

Mike Fucking Wheeler: We have?

Mama Steve: Thought you assholes might wanna meet my boyfriend, but forget it

Dustybuns: YOIR WHAT

🏀Lucas🏀: I need you to be so serious right now

😇El😇: Steve I’m so happy for you!

Mad Max: Holy shit, you actually locked that down?

Dustybuns: STEVE!! 

🧙Will the Wise🧙: whaaaaaaaaaaattttt

Dustybuns: WHAT US HAPPENITN

Mad Max: I think you broke Dustin

🏀Lucas🏀: Omg are you bringing him to the shop?!

Dustybuns: STEVENNN ABSWRS NOW

🧙Will the Wise🧙: Yeah Dustin is malfunctioning

😇El😇: Do we really get to meet him?

Mad Max: This is hilarious omfg

Dustybuns: STOP IFNORING US!

Mama Steve: Are you assholes gonna behave?

Mad Max: No

😇El😇: Yes!

🧙Will the Wise🧙: The odds are not in your favor 

🏀Lucas🏀: You better not be fucking with us

Dustybuns: [voice message] Steven Angela Harrington I swear to fucking Christ if you’re fucking with us I’m gonna be so pissed! Tell us NOW what the fuck is going on!

Mama Steve: Sunday after the shop closes I’m bringing Eddie to meet you guys 

Mama Steve: I’m gonna regret this aren’t I?

Dustybuns: [voice message] Did I ever tell you you’re my favorite brother?

Mama Steve: You’re an only child

Dustybuns: How dare you

🏀Lucas🏀: We’ll be there!

😇El😇: I can’t wait!

🧙Will the Wise🧙: This is gonna be great

Mad Max: This is gonna be a disaster

Mike Fucking Wheeler: I’ll believe it when I see it 

“Oh my god this is total chaos. I love them already.” Eddie is reading the texts over his shoulder as they blow up his phone. These kids will be the death of him.

“I’m totally coming, I have got to witness this.”

Steve grabs a fry off of Eddie’s plate and throws it at Robin. He told her immediately that he and Eddie had made it official (ok not immediately, there may have been another handjob before he texted her) and she insisted on meeting them at Wayne’s on Steve’s lunch break so she could congratulate/grill them in person.

“Don’t get grouchy with me Dingus, you’re gonna need all the support you can get. Both of you!” She pointedly looks at Eddie.

He points to himself, “Me? Why me?”

Robin straightens up in her seat explaining, “These kids can be great, but they can also be total assholes. And it might look like they just give Steve shit all the time, but they’re fiercely protective of him. He’s seen them all through different rough patches of their lives and he’s been there for them in ways that nobody else has. They might be fans of yours, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to worship you. You bagged their mom, Eddie! You’re going to need someone in your corner to vouch for you.”

Steve turns and takes in Eddie’s profile. He looks nervous. “Robin, stop scaring my boyfriend!”

That actually gets a smile out of him and a kiss on the cheek. “God, I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of hearing you say that word sweetheart.” 

“Good, cuz I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of saying it,” Steve replies.

“Ugh gross, you two are disgustingly cute.”

“Thank you,” Steve says and flips her off.

Eddie turns his attention back to Robin. “So Rob, you’d  have my back with these hellions? Have I proven myself worthy of Steve’s hand?” Under the table he laces their fingers together. Steve gives him a squeeze.

“Oh my god you are such a dork. You might actually fit right in. But yes, you have. I can see how happy you make Steve, and you’re obviously obsessed with him. You've shown that you’re committed to this, you’ve been respectful of his boundaries, Wayne doesn’t seem to think you’re a dick. Just keep making him happy and we won’t have a problem.”

“Nope, just the same old pain in my ass he’s always been.” Jesus, Steve didn’t even notice Wayne approaching the table. He’s gonna need bells for both of the Munson men. “Good kid though, you don’t got nothin’ worry about darlin’. He’s been all moon eyed over his boy here since day one, won’t shut up about him.”

“Wayne, what the hell!”

“Don’t deny it son, you’re a shit liar. Steve,” he says looking down at him, “he ever do you wrong, you come to me, understood?”

Steve has to hold back his glee at Wayne’s protectiveness. “Yes sir, you got it.”

“None of that ‘sir’ shit, you’re practically family now. And ya ain’t paying either! You and Birdie here both.”

Robin looks ecstatic, but Steve feels a pit in his gut. “Wayne, I can’t do tha-“

“Shush! I ain’t gonna fight you on this! Just watch some Sunday games with me when you can and we’ll call it even. Ed here ain’t got no interest and just complains the whole time.”

Steve laughs at that, it sounds absolutely accurate. “You got it Wayne.” Wayne pats his shoulder and heads back to the kitchen.

“Christ, I think he likes you more than he likes me,” Eddie grumbles.

“What can I say? I’m like the son he never had!” Steve beams.

Eddie gasps, dramatically offended. “Rude! That’s rude Steven! Just for that, I’m going to steal all of your children’s favoritism.”

Like they share a brain, Steve and Robin tell him, “Good luck!”

Sunday rolls around faster than Steve anticipated. He won’t say he’s nervous exactly, more anxious of how the kids are going to act around Eddie. He just hopes they aren’t total buttheads. He pulls up to Wayne’s house and Eddie is sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette. He doesn’t smoke often, and Steve has a feeling Eddie is more nervous about this than he thought.

He gets out of the car and walks up to the porch, offering Eddie a reassuring smile. “Hey baby. You ok?”

Eddie nods his head and puts out the cigarette in an old coffee can. “Yeah I think so. Sorry, just a little anxious about this. Didn’t wanna smell like an ashtray, but I needed something to level me out a bit.”

Steve shakes his head. “No, it’s ok, I don’t mind. You ready to go?” Eddie nods again, looking anything but ready. “Kiss first?” Steve asks.

That gets a smile out of him. “You don’t mind smokey kisses, sweetheart?”

“No. Not from you. C’mere.”

Eddie steps off the porch and puts his hands on Steve’s hips. It always makes him feel small. He cups Eddie’s face and smiles into the kiss. He can already feel him relaxing.

“Mmm, I think I needed that more than the cigarette. Ok, now I’m ready.”

They climb into the car and Steve pairs Eddie’s phone, offering him DJ privileges this time. Driving guitars pump through the speakers as they make their way out of the neighborhood. Eddie turns the volume down after a couple minutes and turns to Steve. “I don’t know how to ask this without sounding like a dick, so I’m just gonna ask. How does a counselor at a community center afford a BMW? God, there’s no polite way to ask that, is there? I’m sorry, never mind, forget I said anything!”

“It’s ok Eds! You’re not a dick. I definitely don’t make a fortune working there, but it’s whatever. You know how I said I was a trust fund kid? Yeah. I had a trust fund. My grandparents set it up when I was little, and even though my parents basically disowned me, they couldn’t touch it. I got access to it when I was 25 and got myself a car. The rest was better spent.”

Ah fuck. He realizes he just opened a can of worms. He hasn’t told Eddie about this yet because to him it doesn’t really matter. But people are weird about money.

“Yeah, you treat yourself to a trip around Europe or something?” He laughs. Steve pauses for a moment and Eddie makes a questioning face.

“No. I uh…I gave it to the kids so they could open The Dungeon.”

Eddie just blinks at him for a minute.

“Stevie. Are you serious?”

“I know! I know it was probably stupid, but they had this dream and didn’t know how they were gonna get it started, and I didn't really have much use for all that money, plus the guilt I had even taking it meant I couldn’t even really enjoy it, so I figured that was the best thing I could do with it.”

“Pull over.”

Steve glances over at Eddie, bewildered. “What?!”

“I said pull over.”

Steve pulls the car to the side of the road and the second he has it in park, Eddie is on him. He’s so surprised that he doesn’t even kiss him back for a second. Steve pulls back to ask, “What is happening right now?”

“Steven Rebecca Harrington-“

“Not you too!”

“-You are the most selfless,” he gets a kiss to his cheek, “caring,” his forehead, “generous,” his nose, “man I have ever met!” Eddie plants a firm and passion kiss to his lips.

Eddie breaks the kiss and holds Steve’s face in his hands. “You gave all that up so you could help the people you love. You’re incredible, sweetheart, do you know that? You need to know that. Those kids better fucking know that! I am completely, unbelievably in awe of you. How the fuck did I get lucky enough to call you mine?”

Steve never thought he’d be crying on the side of the road in the arms of a rock star, but here he is. Eddie embracing him while tears slip down his cheeks. “I’m the lucky one,” he whispers. It’s true. He’s never felt so appreciated or adored or seen. 

They take a few minutes for Steve to calm down and then they’re back on their way to The Dungeon. They park and get out, and Steve takes Eddie’s hand in his, giving it a squeeze. “You ready for this?”

“Nope! C’mon, let’s get in there!”

Steve guides him through the front door and he’s struck with the memory of their first meeting. The last time they were in here together they were strangers. Now Eddie’s his boyfriend. Who’s about to meet…oh fuck, the whole family! Not only are the kids and Robin here, with eager looks on their faces, but Hop and Joyce are here too.

“Uh. Hey everybody. This is Eddie!”

The silence lasts about 1.8 seconds.

“Jesus it’s about fucking time!”

“Finally!”

“He’s taller than I thought.”

“This is crazy.”

“Oh he’s handsome!”

“Looks like trouble.”

“Hi Eddie!”

“Are you our new dad?”

They all rush towards them, Dustin leading the charge, sticking his hand out to Eddie and introducing himself, “Dustin Henderson, Steve’s honorary brother!” It’s the most aggressive handshake Steve’s ever seen. 

Max stands back with a smirk and her arms crossed. El gives Eddie a hug because she’s a fucking angel. Lucas shakes his hand like an actual human. Will gives him a shy finger wave. Mike is standing nearby, scowling at Steve. 

Steve looks at him and asks, “You believe me now, asshole?”

Mike steps closer and asks, way too loudly, “Have you been crying?” Steve wants to smack him. Then Mike turns to Eddie with fire in his eyes like he’s never seen. “What did you do?!”

Eddie looks like he’s ready to flee. “N-nothing! I swear! Stevie?!”

Steve’s flabbers are gasted, he’s never seen Mike get so definitive like this. At least not towards him. “Mike, I’m fine!” He doesn’t look like he believes it. “Seriously, I’m ok. Just had a moment before we got here. Eddie didn’t do anything, I swear.”

Mike shrinks back only slightly and mutters, “He better not have.” What the fuck got into this kid?! 

Joyce shoves them all aside and heads right for Steve, throwing her arms around his waist. He hugs her back and it’s just one of those things that makes his heart smile. “Steve sweetie, it’s been too long! I can’t believe I had to hear about your new beau from the kids!”

Steve gives her a squeeze before letting go. “Sorry mom. I’m glad you guys are here though. Missed you.”

“We missed you too, baby. Now! Introduce us properly to your boy here!”

Steve smiles at Eddie, who already has a fond look on his face as he’s taken in their interaction. “Eddie, this is my mom Joyce. Well, not actual mom, but you know.”

Eddie takes her hand, kissing the back of it like some Disney prince. “It’s a pleasure to meet you ma’am. Steve has spoken very highly of you!”

Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen Joyce blush. He's definitely seen that look of annoyance on Hop’s face though. “Oh, honey, you don’t have to be so formal. Just Joyce is fine.” She looks back and Steve and mouths so handsome! Steve just wiggles his eyebrows back.

Hop steps in and grabs Eddie’s hand with one of those bear paws of his. “Jim. You can call me Chief Hopper.”

“Dad, Jesus,” Steve sighs.

“Hop, enough!” Joyce looks up at Eddie with her can you believe this? face. “He’s harmless, ignore him.”

Hop still hasn’t let go of Eddie’s hand. Eddie looks mildly terrified. ”It’s nice to finally meet you sir. I’m glad to know that Steve has had someone like you in his corner.”

Well fuck. He’s never seen Hop fold so quickly. He’s actually got a ghost of a smile on his face. Hop relents, letting go of Eddie’s hand and taking a step back. Why is this such a turn on?! Eddie turns to look at him and immediately clocks the desire that must be apparent on Steve’s face. He leans and whispers directly in his ear, “Save it for later baby.” Yeah that’s not helping.

They finally sit down at one of the big wood tables where Robin has been observing the entire interaction with glee. Dustin plants himself on Eddie’s other side, no doubt ready to grill him about something nerdy. The rest of the kids are scattered around the space, and Will comes up to ask, “Did you guys want a coffee? We still have everything up and running.”

Eddie smiles and tells him, “That would be great actually! Thanks…Will, right?” Will nods eagerly. “Just a coffee with cream and sugar would be awesome. Thanks man.” 

Will turns to Steve. “You want your drink, Steve?”

“Yeah, thanks bud.” Will nods and heads behind the counter to get started.

Eddie quirks an eyebrow. “Your drink?”

“Yeah,” Steve replies. “The Paladin? They made a drink for me. It’s a vanilla latte with like, caramel and shit. You should try it!”

Eddie just stares for a moment. “And it’s called The Paladin?”

What is Steve missing here? “Uh…yeah? Something from their nerd game or whatever. I never got into it.”

Eddie shakes his head and says under his breath, “Of course it is.” He turns completely to fully face Steve. “Sweetheart, do you know what a Paladin is?”

Steve furrows his brows. “It’s like a fighter guy or something, right?”

Eddie scoffs. “A fighter guy. It’s more than that honey. Paladins are holy knights that are sworn to fight evil and uphold justice. Divine spellcasters who train in combat, and wield the power to heal and protect. They’re self-sufficient, and they serve as defenders of the party. So no, it’s not just a fighter Steve. It’s a position of honor.”

Steve can’t swallow the lump in his throat. He looks away from Eddie to try and ground himself again, but that’s when he notices everyone has gone quiet. As he takes in the faces around him, his found family, his people…he sees it for the first time. How much they love him, how they see him. Their champion, their protector, their knight. 

He never thought he’d be crying in a coffee shop with his family and his boyfriend around him. But here he is. Robin grabs his hand from across the table. Eddie’s hand wraps around the back of his neck as he kisses his forehead. Mike gives him the softest look he's ever seen. Lucas rubs his back and Will sets down their drinks with a smile and a handful of extra napkins. Dustin, speaking in a much more subdued voice says, “We thought you knew, Steve.”

He dabs his eye with a napkin and laughs through a sob. “Clearly I didn’t! Fuck! I uh…I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t have to say anything, baby.” Eddie whispers to him. “Just have to accept it.”

Careless of his family around him, Steve leans in and kisses his boyfriend, hoping it can communicate all of his appreciation. The room erupts in cheers and complaints.

“Aww, they’re so sweet!”

“Sweet my ass”

“Ew, get a room!”

“Ugh, that’s my mom!”

“Get it Steve!”

Eddie caresses his cheek and asks, “You ok Stevie?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Very ok.”

The rest of the night goes smoothly without any more emotional breakdowns thank god. Dustin talks Eddie’s ear off about D&D - Steve, did you know Eddie used to run a D&D club in high school? It was called Hellfire right?! We do campaigns here once a month Eddie, you should come! Will is our DM but if you want you could do it sometime! He loves the kid, but yikes.

If Eddie hadn’t already won everyone over with his charm, he’s definitely doing it with food. As the night goes on, he suggests having pizza delivered. Steve tries to offer to pay for it, but Eddie isn’t having it. “Sweetheart, no. Let me do this. You take care of them all the time, let me have a turn.”

Everyone gets stuffed with pizza, breadsticks, and somehow Eddie gets cupcakes delivered. He even promises Dustin that he’ll DM for them the next time they play. As they’re saying goodbyes Mike pulls Steve aside. “Look, I know I can be asshole sometimes-“

“Sometimes?!”

“Ok, a lot! But you’ve always been there for us. You've looked out for us for years, helped us get all this off the ground. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. So. I just wanna make sure you’re…happy or whatever.”

Steve didn’t have Mike warming his heart on his bingo card. “Thanks for that, kid. And I am. Eddie’s amazing. I haven’t been this happy in a long time. Maybe ever!”

Mike nods and avoids eye contact. “Good! Good, I’m glad. I wanna like him. He seems cool. If he hurts you though, just wanna let you know, I’ve got your back.”

Steve chuckles, “Don’t think we’ll have to worry about that, but thanks man. I appreciate it.” They share a quick bro hug, complete with back slaps and Mike scurries away to be closer to El.

Robin steps up to his side and throws her arm around his shoulders. “Damn, Dingus. I didn’t think it would go this well! Your man’s little speech about how amazing you are sure won everyone over quickly. Didn’t see that happening.”

Steve wraps his arm around his best friend and smiles as he watches Eddie say goodbyes to everyone. Hugging Joyce and the girls (and Dustin), exchanging a much more amicable handshake with Hop, excitedly making plans to play the nerd game with the boys. 

“Yeah. Yeah, he did great.”

Chapter 9<<Masterlist>>Chapter 11

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

Taglist is open!

@annachronisme @mrsjellymunson @kozuuji

[susiekern]

16. the one with the boys

a/n: after two important chapters, I present to you: this fucking thing

warnings: swearing

word count: 1.096

masterlist

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“Are they mad about it?”

“Nah, Toge almost cried about me getting a girl faster than him, but Yuta and Cho are actually pretty chill about it. They know it’s serious and all.”

“Shit, it’s so weird when you say it’s serious.”

Megumi’s eyes move towards you, giving you the meanest side eye in history. You’re on your way to one of the bars, so you can meet the rest of the Fallen, or more like just Megumi’s friends. It’s been a few days since you officially started dating, the right way this time, and it was his idea, believe it or not. The three of them are the closest people in his life, besides you and Yuji, and he wanted you all to meet and get along. You know Yuta, obviously, but you’ve only heard stories about Toge and Choso.

“I’m kind of nervous. What if they don’t like me?” Saying that, you furrow your brows. Megumi sighs and squeezes your hand tighter in his own.

“I couldn’t care less. Besides, Yuta already likes you, Choso is as chill as it gets, and Toge’s been following you on Twitch for the past few months. But don’t tell him you know that; he wanted to act all cool around you or something.” He says with a smirk. “And I’m not with you to show you off, they could hate you, and I wouldn’t give a fuck.”

Your smile is back on as you get on your toes to peck his lips. Before you pull back, one of his hands is on your neck, keeping you close and deepening the kiss.

“We’ll be late, Megs.” You laugh quietly, but that doesn’t keep the black-haired man away from you.

“They’re constantly late for rehearsals, I don’t care.” He murmurs, relishing your taste for a few more seconds. When he finally lets you go, your cheeks are blushed, and you have that glint in your eyes he loves so much. “If you hate them, you can just talk to Yuji or tell me, we’ll go home and watch that weird show of yours.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

He opens the door for you, following close by as you enter the bar. It’s the middle of the week, so it’s relatively empty, which makes it much easier to find a booth occupied by the boys. The sight of Yuji’s pink strands soothes your nerves a little. He’s talking with Yuta and a black-haired man with a dark streak running through his nose bridge who must be Choso. There’s also Toge, you assumed, his white hair making him stand out from the group. He’s also the only one who’s not dressed in dark colors, with the pink t-shirt (that’s weirdly almost the same color as Yuji’s hair) and light jeans on. His focus is on his phone, tapping fast on it, until he notices you two coming their way.

“Gumi! Finally, I can’t deal with another minute of their boring shit.” Toge puts his phone down on the table and gets up to greet Megumi with a typical manly handshake and back pats. His brown eyes then land on you, and he smiles. “And you must be y/n?”

“Be nice, Toge. She doesn’t know how weird you are yet.” A much taller figure appears behind him, the man you recognized as Choso, based on Megumi’s stories.

“You don’t need to spoil it for her then, gosh. Give a man a chance.” Toge sighs and moves a little, so Megumi and Choso can greet each other. “The tall emo is Choso, I’m Toge, as you probably know already.”

“Nice to meet you both. Y/n y/l.” You offer them a smile and a polite head nod. Before you can say another word, there are warm arms wrapping around you, as Yuji almost jumps your way.

“Finally, a crossover episode.” He grins, squeezing your body and pulling you to the leather couch, where you quickly greet Yuta. Thankfully, without any awkwardness. You haven’t seen each other since your little date, only exchanged polite texts where you thanked him for the evening, not expecting that the next time you’ll meet will be like that. With you, meeting your boyfriend’s friends. The universe has a weird sense of humor, you have to admit.

“I’ll do that, and you all will see. It’s a new way.” The evening is going great; it turns out they’re all as welcoming as you could ever ask for, and it’s not long before the conversations are flowing naturally.

They share a few funny stories about Megumi, asking you how you’ve met Yuji in exchange; Toge admitted to following you, to which Choso reminded him about the time he called you a “twitch baddie” in their group chat. You’re really enjoying this. Megumi is by your side all the time, keeping a hand on your thigh or at the small of your back, smiling almost constantly. It eased his mind to see you getting along with his friends, something he was anxious about, even if he’d never admit it. He doesn’t keep a lot of people close to himself, so the sight of you joking around with his support group warms his heart in a way.

“Toge, I guarantee saying random food items won’t make you popular among the girls.” Yuji is shaking his head, barely keeping the laugh in. For the past few minutes, Toge explained his brilliant plan to the whole group, and you weren’t sure if you should laugh or cry.

“It works for him!” The white-haired man says offended, brows furrowed as he looks around, looking for any support but meeting none.

“It’s a guy from an anime. He has a magic tongue, and you think it’s about saying salmon all the time?” Megumi lifts one brow before taking a sip of his drink.

“First of all, he’s a cursed speech user, he doesn’t have a magic tongue. And second, I even look like him!”

“When was the last time you looked in the mirror?” It was Choso’s time to stick a pin in. “If you look like him, then I look like the blood guy you talked about yesterday.”

“Yeah, I’m with Cho on this one, you don’t look nearly similar.” Yuji nods, eyeing his friend up and down.

“Just admit you all hate me.”

“Easy. But when did we start playing truth or dare?” You almost choke hearing Megumi’s words.

“Shit, and you say Nobara’s rude.” He rolls his eyes as you murmur, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“She is. You just don’t notice it anymore.”

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