#MIXTAPE 17 UPDATES

[renjunphile]

mixtape #17: track 1. with you, i'd dance in a storm | choi seungcheol / s.coups

word count ꕤ 4.6k pairing ꕤ seventeen's choi seungcheol / s.coups x female reader

tags and warnings ꕤ childhood friends to lovers!au, brother's best friend!au, just straight fluff, basically no plot just fluff

songspo ꕤ fearless [fearless taylor's version] synopsis ꕤ he's the typical boy next door; the one your mother would dream that you would end up with from the moment he helps you up after falling off the new bike you were yet to learn to ride. you wish you'd end up with him too, but you're separated by hundreds of miles for college and the first summer back will also be one of new experiences with a familiar face.

author's note ꕤ i'm so sorry it took me so long to get another part out :( i'm back at school and it's taking up so much of my time but i really want to keep writing, so i will try my best! this, however, is not my best work but i really just wanted to get something out. nonetheless, i hope you enjoy :)

hyung line masterlist | maknae line masterlist

ꕤ

You haven't been home in almost a whole year; expensive train tickets and your parents' desire to come to see you instead preventing you from returning even for the national holidays. At the end of your first year away at college, you had managed to take a leave from your coffee shop job in order to return home for an undefined amount of time before you returned for the fall.

Upon taking your first steps back on home soil, you noted the air smelled cleaner- something you and your lungs so dearly missed in the big city. You were excited to be back with all the memories of all your favourite activities to do in the town flooding your thoughts as you made your way to the exit. It was 8 PM now, but maybe tomorrow you would take a walk along the cliffs and down to the shore to feel the sea breeze on your skin again. Though expansive, the Han river could just not compare to the feeling of the wind and the sounds of the sea crashing onto the rocks.

"Welcome back," a familiar voice snaps you from the plans you were crafting in your head and you were left to face your twin brother. He takes your bags from your grip and opens the back of his truck.

"Jeonghan," you smiled softly. It had been a while since you felt the familiarity this town and the people in it gave you, "I thought Dad was going to pick me up."

"I was already out and about," he shrugged, wrapping you in a warm hug, "How was the trip?"

You clambered into his passenger seat and snort lightly at how the interior hasn't changed; peeling and always cluttered, "It was okay. Had someone sit next to me for half the journey so it was a little bit squished, but otherwise, it was quite quick. My bags were a pain to get on and off the train and around the station."

Jeonghan chuckled, "If I didn't know any better, I would have thought you were moving back. What did you even bring?"

"It's just my clothes and some shoes!" you defended, "To be honest, I might have overpacked."

"Might?" he gave you the side eye before starting the ignition, "Anyway, they're waiting for us to get home. Mom prepared a huge feast; I don't know how we're going to eat all of that!"

"More for us to eat tomorrow as leftovers," you shrugged and placed your head on the cold window, watching the streets that you grew up in. The problem with Seoul was that on most days, you didn't know where you were going. You'd always have to have directions up or look them up beforehand, but in this little town, you could probably navigate from one side to the other blindfolded, "How's your job?"

He sighed softly, "It's okay. A job's a job and at least I'm earning money. It's strange to live like an adult when just one or two years ago, I was running around all crazy. Now I have to think about my job. Like when I make plans, I have to consider that I have to wake up early the next day."

While Jeonghan was your twin brother, it didn't mean that he had to follow your path into Seoul to attend university. He was incredibly smart and was able to find a well-paying apprenticeship in the nearest city, which meant that he was able to come home often- almost every weekend or during the week if he felt particularly homesick.

"Well, it must be nice to have some money you know you worked hard for," you replied, "I know that each day at school is just more debt to my name for future me to clear just for a piece of paper. It's okay, I enjoy it and I've made good friends."

"You need to let me meet your friends!" Jeonghan reminded you of a promise you made a few months ago.

"But you're going to try and date them," you groaned, before noticing that you were already pulling up into your neighbourhood.

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Jeonghan whined, "I'd let you date my friends!"

"Jeonghan," you snapped warningly at him.

"What?" he said innocently, meeting your threatening eyes, "Fine. Fine. I'm sorry for bringing that up. Let's go inside before the food goes cold. I'll take out your suitcases later."

You hopped out of the truck and trudged ahead in front of Jeonghan. Luckily, the door was already open.

"Mom? Dad? I'm home!" you kicked off your shoes like normal, your brain failing to acknowledge the extra pairs of shoes.

"Ah, our favourite daughter," your dad cooed, entering the hallway from the kitchen to engulf you in a hug.

"Your only daughter," Jeonghan huffed behind you, "Your favourite son is also here."

"We see you every weekend, unfortunately," your mother takes you in after your father, "Besides, our other favourite son is here too and we haven't seen him in a year."

At that moment, you don't think your body has ever frozen and shut down like that ever before. You don't even think you blinked at all for a good minute.

Jeonghan's voice went low behind you, "What? What do you mean?"

"We invited the Choi's around!" your mother grinned, "Come and say hello. They've been waiting for you to get back so we can start eating!"

Jeonghan frowned, seeing you still frigid, and he wrapped an arm around your shoulders, gently guiding your feet in the direction of the kitchen, "It's okay. I'm sorry; I didn't know either."

You shook your head to snap yourself out of your trance, "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Aw, our Y/N!" Mrs. Choi rose from her seat and approached you to give you a hug and a kiss on the cheek, "Look at you! So gorgeous. What happened to you in the city? You've always been beautiful, don't get me wrong, but you look so grown up now!"

You giggled at her compliments, refusing to look past her figure, "I had to find an outlet to relieve my stress! I guess expensive beauty treatments and investing in good products became my retail therapy."

"You must have a boyfriend now, huh?" Mrs. Choi returned back to her seat and Mr. Choi gives you a happy wave.

You take your normal seat around the table, Jeonghan beside you, "No. Not found the right person yet."

You look up and Seungcheol is in front of you. It's weird seeing him again. The only way you can describe it is familiar- just like everything else in this town.

"Hi Y/N," he greeted softly. It's a tone you know too well and it's one just for you.

"Hi, Seungcheol."

"Well, let's eat?" Jeonghan sliced through the tension that never even developed between you and the man in front of you.

Dinner continued without a hitch. Your parents and the Choi's were incredibly talkative and somehow never ran out of topics to converse even after 2 decades of knowing each other and Jeonghan would fill in any gaps and divert any unwanted attention away from you. You spent the dinner looking mostly at your plate or your hands and only answered when you were directed to. It wasn't that Seungcheol's presence made you uncomfortable; it just surprised you. It was only your first day back and you were already being confronted by your previous grievances. Give a girl some time to breathe, would you?

"You children go do whatever," your mother shooed the three of you away once dessert was devoured, "We'll clean up here and crack open a bottle of wine."

"I'm going to get my bags from the trunk," you excused yourself without looking anyone in the eye.

You knew you couldn't make a quick escape as soon as you heard another chair scraping just as you crossed the threshold out of the kitchen. You didn't look back until you were at Jeonghan's truck, propping up the back.

"Let me," Seungcheol nudged your shoulder aside and snakes a grip around your suitcase handles.

"Thanks," you mumbled under your breath, hopefully, loud enough for him to hear.

"Anything for my favourite girl," you could hear a grin in his tone, but your breath hitched at the unexpected endearment, "How is my favourite girl, by the way?"

"I'm okay. School is school. The city is big," you answered reluctantly, "Am I still your favourite girl?"

"You'll always be my favourite girl," he replied nonchalantly, "Ever since you were 7 and stumbling off a bike."

"We're not all prodigies learning to ride a bike at 5 like you," you huffed, fighting the urge to smile at the fond memory.

"I was talented, wasn't I?" he chucked to himself while you shut the trunk door. He was lifting your two suitcases while you had managed to fight for custody over your duffle bag that he had also insisted he could carry.

While walking past your living room, you had noticed Jeonghan on the couch with a quirked eyebrow and you pieced together that he was once again scheming and probably made an executive decision not to follow Seungcheol out. You gave him a pointed stare and he pretended that the painting above the fireplace was the most interesting in the world and as if it hadn't been there his entire lifetime.

Seungcheol managed to wrestle your suitcases up the stairs and into your room which had been untouched for a year for the most part. All your mother did was dust the surfaces every month or so when the dust began to settle and form a coat.

"Ah, still the same," you muttered to yourself in reminiscing.

"The most Y/N place in this world," Seungcheol smiled, looking at all of your decorations on the walls. He had been in your room a few times before, less and less as the three of you grew up, but the picture of your room had begun to fade in his mind over time.

"You can just leave my bags there on the floor," you called over to him, "I'm a bit tired, so I might just unpack. You can catch up with Hannie downstairs if you want."

You're not dumb; you know that Seungcheol and Jeonghan have been in contact the past year that the three of you have been apart. However, you weren't at all prepared to see Seungcheol so soon and you were yet to gather your feelings and solidify an action plan on how to deal with him this summer.

He picked up on your tone, "Okay. It was good to see you again, Y/N. I'll talk to you soon?"

You gave him a tight-lipped smile, "Sure. You too, Seungcheol."

ꕤ

The next morning was a little strange for you. You had expected to wake up in your 14th-floor apartment bedroom, but instead, you were greeted with baby pink walls and posters of age-old boy bands plastering the walls. You should take those down soon, you note to yourself. Nonetheless, it's a nice feeling to wake up in your cozy bed and the bustle of your parents and brother downstairs making breakfast on a Sunday morning is a comforting presence.

You did your normal morning routine and changed into attire appropriate for long walks on the beach before emerging downstairs.

"How was your sleep, honey?" your mother placed a cup of coffee in front of you, just the way you liked it.

"It was good. Strange to wake up here again," you laughed, voice still groggy, "What are you doing up so early?"

"Cheol and I are going down to the pier," Jeonghan said, "Wanna join?"

"Nah, wouldn't want to interrupt your little date," you teased, "I'm going to go to the beach too."

"You're so annoying," he looked at your arm while rolling his eyes, "Do you wanna just catch a ride with us then in the truck? We can leave whenever you want; Cheol's on the porch."

"Why didn't you invite him in?"

"I was about to head out, but we can wait?" Jeonghan explained.

You pondered on the choice; would you rather sit in a car with Seungcheol for less than 5 minutes and save the walk down to the beach or curse yourself to walking all that way when all you were going to do on the stretch of coast was walk anyway?

"Okay, let me just finish my coffee," you nodded to your half-full mug, "Go wait outside."

He whined a little, telling you to hurry up, but following your order nonetheless as he slung his belt bag across his torso. Your mother hums a tune as she takes the seat across from you with a full breakfast spread in front of her. She let you steal a piece of bacon from her plate before she raised that mischievous eyebrow at you.

"What?" you squinted your eyes at her. 

"The summer fairground is up for a few more days. You and Seungcheol should go soon."

"Mother!" you wailed, "I know what you're doing!"

"I'm not doing anything," she smiled innocently, "You and Seungcheol have always loved going to the fairground. You haven't missed it your whole life and we've all been a few times, so make sure you invite him, okay? Otherwise, I'll tell him myself."

You just rolled your eyes and washed up your now-empty coffee cup, "I'll see you later. Should we be back for lunch?"

"My baby still wants her mother to make her food, aw," your mother cooed, dropping a kiss on your cheek as you stomped out, "But it's okay if you find other plans- if you know what I mean."

With another groan, you opened and slammed the door behind you, forgetting the two boys sat on the bench on the porch waiting for you.

"9 AM and already so grumpy?" Seungcheol chuckled from beside you, "Some things never change."

You had jumped from his sudden presence but began to relax as the sun bathed over your body as you walked out to the car, "I'm not grumpy. Maybe you're just too happy for 9 in the morning."

"What's wrong with that, sunshine?" he retorted, getting in the passenger seat of Jeonghan's truck. 

It felt nostalgic- the three of you in one car, with Jeonghan and Seungcheol bickering in the front and you in the back staring out of the window and lost in a daze. Ever since Seungcheol got his licence first, your favourite activities changed from bus hopping and cycling through the towns to road trips in the surrounding area. 

"What are you going to do at the beach?" Seunghceol's head was leaning against the window.

"Just walk around for a bit. Maybe get some ice cream. Haven't been here for a year so I miss it," you hummed.

"It misses you too."

"Dude," Jeonghan gave his best friend a puzzled look.

Seungcheol cleared his throat, "I was just saying the seafront businesses probably miss their economy booster back there."

"It's not my fault that the food there is amazing. We all know it!" the two of them hummed along with you in agreement. 

The rest of the short car ride was spent mainly in conversational silence, listening to the local news on the radio. Jeonghan quickly parked up and soon enough, you were parting ways with them.

Long walks on the beach left you a lot of time with your own thoughts, which were exceptionally busy the last day or so considering the return of certain people in your life. 

Choi Seungcheol had always and forever been your brother's best friend. They met in the sandbox in kindergarten and had been attached at the hip ever since. But if Jeonghan was an extension of you, and you of him, what should Choi Seungcheol have been to you? 

For a while, he felt like your brother too- protecting you from taunts and teases growing up in school and pushing you on your bike around the field when you were learning. Jeonghan had been your evil twin and Seungcheol had been your protective one. 

Your relationship with the boy next door probably started changing in high school. Boys, drama, school - it was all just a blur to you, but Choi Seungcheol was always a presence in your life. He chased away the boys that intended to break your heart and would walk you home in the winter months when it was dark by 3 pm and Jeonghan was training in every sport the school had to offer. It was Choi Seungcheol that would bring you snacks during your intense exam periods and he would sit and study with you and motivate you. At first, you thought he was just continuing his brotherly role, and maybe he was, but teenage you began to see it differently. It was the compliments, the umbrella sharing, the jacket-lending; your relationship had changed. 

And then the end of senior year came and he had smiled next to you, an arm around your shoulders as you posed in your gowns in front of your proud parents at graduation. And then he was miles and miles away from you, instead of being right next door. 

Before you know it, your legs had taken you to your favorite ice cream shop a considerable walk from where you were dropped off and you couldn't help but get your favourite flavour and wallow some more in your thoughts. The shop was pretty busy with tourists this time of year, but you were always glad to see the business booming. You had smiled gratefully at the cashier working today- a friend of yours named Chan- who gave you an extra scoop of ice cream. 

You had no idea what to do. You were going to be home for an extended amount of time. How could you be around Seungcheol while your heart tortured you?

ꕤ

"Sunshine," your window was wide open, the breeze flowing pleasantly into your room as you read on your bed, "Y/N!"

You wrestled the smile off your face as you poked your head out of the window, "You can just text, you know that right?"

"Where's the fun in that?" his smiling face was already sticking out of his window.

"What do you want?"

"What are you doing today? I'm bored already. Jeonghan's at work, right?"

"Yeah, he is. Maybe you should get a summer job, how about that?" you teased, "Anyway, I'm not doing anything. Just reading."

"I work all year at college; why would I make myself suffer here at home too?" he said, "Do you want to go to the fair? My mom said that it's getting taken down soon."

You glanced up at the sky, washed in a layer of light grey, "I don't know; it might rain, right?"

"Oh well. Summer rain is fun. We'll be quick, yeah? Maybe we'll miss it," his tone was practically pleading and it took everything in you to giggle at his adorable traits.

"Fine. I'll be out in like 20 minutes," you rolled your eyes playfully, secretly delighted that Seungcheol had been the one to ask you to go instead of the other way around. 

Less than half an hour later, the two of you were buying your tickets to get around the fairground and Seungcheol was basically brushing shoulders with you.

"I love the fairground," Seungcheol mumbled happily next to you, eyes scanning the rides.

"Should we do our usual plan? Bumper cars, Waltzer, swings, rollercoasters, and then Ferris wheel?" you recalled the route you usually took around the park.

"Of course. It's the best-devised plan and it always will be," Seungcheol's hand snakes around your wrist as he dragged you towards the bumper cars and you just have to pretend that it's not setting off the butterflies that have been caged away for a year, "Don't worry. I'll still hold your hand on the rollercoasters if you want."

The two of you are too busy with the adrenaline rush you're getting on the rides to even make substantial conversation about anything other than how fun or bad the ride you just went on was. You had stopped for some classic cotton candy, churros, and drinks, but even then, you were scoffing them down in order to get to the biggest rollercoaster before the rain hit the ground. 

"I think it's raining now," you sighed as you looked up at the darkened sky.

"It's okay, we're done with all the rides now, right? Just the Ferris wheel left and it's covered carriages, so that's good. Let's go," Seungcheol urged you toward the middle of the fair. The Ferris wheel was your favourite attraction- it gave you an amazing view of your seaside town and you could see for miles and miles out to sea from the top.

The line was fairly short, considering the weather, but Seugncheol had opened up an umbrella above the two of you. Clambering into the carriage, you found it strange how Seungcheol had opted to sit squished next to you instead of across from you. You found it even weirder when he pried your fingers apart to slot his own in between them.

"Cheol? This is not a rollercoaster," you murmured shyly as the wheel began turning slowly.

"I know," he was looking out of the window already, "It's just nice though, isn't it?"

Your heart melted and sank at the same time, "Cheol..."

"We don't have to talk about it," Seungcheol uttered, a sigh filling up the silence as he squeezed your hand in his.

Your heart was beating faster. Choi Seungcheol was holding your hand while bundled up together on the Ferris wheel and you had no idea how to react. The rain intensified slightly and you could now hear the pitter-patter on the glass. 

"We have to talk about it," you began quietly, "While we were away, I missed you so much. It would hurt more if you gave me even more of a reason to miss you."

He finally peeled his eyes away from the rising landscape and met yours with softness in his eyes, "Being apart for a whole year made me realise how much I need you in my life. It was practically torture to not talk to you, but I wanted to let you have the space to grow into yourself at college. You know how I feel about you, but if nothing else, I'd rather keep you in my life as my best friend than not have you in it at all."

You sighed, your memories taking you back to the night of graduation- you, Seungcheol, his car, and whispered confessions between the two of you. What you couldn't forget was the pain that came after the confession on the realisation that college was just around the corner and you couldn't head into an unknown territory with a newfound relationship. You trusted Seungcheol with your whole life- if someone had thrown you off a cliff, it would be Seungcheol you'd trust to figure out a way to stop time and catch you at the bottom- but you didn't know Seungcheol in a relationship and everything was too risky. 

You had a lot of regrets in your life. Maybe that night was one of them.

"You still feel that way?" you asked quietly. The Ferris wheel was on its descent and you didn't even have the chance to admire the view at the top.

"I knew my feelings wouldn't change. I've always felt this way," Seungcheol's palm in yours was beginning to get clammy, "Sunshine, just give me this summer. I'll prove to you that this is worth it. That we're worth fighting for."

You know that funny feeling in your stomach when you're dropping from height quite fast and then you feel a surge of adrenaline coursing through your veins as you raise back up? Looking into Seungcheol's hopeful eyes felt a bit like that. The leaping head first into this risk is the nerve-racking part- that stomach-dropping feeling on a roller coaster, but you know that Seungcheol is the only person in this world that could take you to greater heights than your eyes could fathom. 

ꕤ

It was Friday. You loved Fridays as intensely as you hated Sundays. 

Fridays could be described as full of excitement. Saturdays were filled with warmth. Sundays dripped in longing. 

There's a familiar and comforting grin on Seungcheol's face as he walks towards you. Even though it's raining pretty heavily and all you're protected by is this bus shelter, he would never let the weather ruin the mood of Fridays.

He takes you into his arms and you melt into his embrace as he hums into your ear, "How's my favourite girl?"

"Hanging in there," you plant your lips where his jaw meets his neck, "I missed you."

"I always miss you, Sunshine," his arms are still around you and the two of you are swaying slightly under the rain. Does this count as dancing in the rain?

There's no duffel bag strapped around Seungcheol these days when he gets off the bus or the train, only a small backpack. There's a drawer in your dorm room dedicated just for him, to make it easier when he came almost every other Friday. It's only fair since you have a drawer and a section in his bathroom cabinet for when you go to him the alternate Fridays. 

Friday was exciting because the two of you could feel each other again after the week without each other. Sure, it was a bit expensive to travel between the two cities, but both of you worked in the evenings during the week and you had been getting by. Sundays were the worst because the goodbyes never got any easier. 

"It's almost summer again soon. We'll be at home together," you sighed dreamily, as he slipped his fingers in between yours and began leading the way back to your dorm.

"And then it's almost our anniversary," Seungcheol reminded you as if you would ever forget when the man of your dreams finally became yours.

"The year's actually gone by so fast. We'll be graduating before you know it!" 

Seungcheol felt a smile take over his face, "Then we can both find a job in the city, get you an apartment with a balcony, and get that cat we've been talking about. We'll have breakfast in bed every Sunday morning and wrap up all cozy in blankets doing movie nights, and I'll try and cook for you, but I know it'll turn out bad and you'll have to order in. Our cat will claw up Jeonghan and you can have a little corner in the living room for your crochet supplies."

In everything he did, Seungcheol made it known that you were always in his future plans. You were his future. He couldn't imagine a life without you, and that made you so incredibly elated because you felt the same. 

There was no one that you would rather be walking in the rain with, hand in hand. 

Sure, saying yes to him that last summer when he asked for a chance was scary. You were putting yourself in a vulnerable situation with your heart open and practically giving itself away. Luckily, it was Choi Seungcheol that was entrusted to take care of it. He was the one man that made you feel like you were always enough, just the way you are. He was the one person that you would jump leaps and bounds for, no matter how scary they were.

You pulled on his sleeve to stop him in his tracks under a streetlight. The rain looked like crystals falling under the light and the ground seemed sparkling. Seungcheol seemed a bit confused as he turned to you, but you propped yourself up and connected your lips to his. You could never get enough of kissing him- you still got intense butterflies every time you did, just like the first time he kissed you in your favourite ice cream shop under the pretense of cleaning up the ice cream around your lips. 

"I'm glad it's you, Choi Seungcheol."

That was all the I love you's he could ever need. 

[worth-the-chaos]

Adventures in Babysitting - Steve Harrington x female!reader - Chapter 17

Chapter Summary: After finding out more information about Vecna, you and your friends prepare for the worst, and tensions rise as you mentally prepare for the possibility of a future without you in it.

Content Warning: swearing, general angst, mentions of sex (like nothing graphic or explicit), Jason being a dick, Upside Down scary shit, existential dread

Word Count: 7.7k

Author’s Note: Hey guys! I’m so sorry that this took so long for me to get written! I am home for summer now, so I’m hoping to have some more down time to write, so hopefully the next chapter won’t take so long! I also am curious as to what you guys think I should do with the story regarding the fact that season 5 isn’t out yet…should I go on hiatus until season 5 drops or would you rather me write an ending with season 4?

Message me to be added to the taglist and get updated when the next chapter is posted! I highly recommend this if you want to keep up with the story since I don’t do regular updates!

Series Masterlist | Part 16 | Next Part

***

Steve felt your body go limp as you dropped the makeshift rope, your head lolling backwards as you collapsed towards him. His heart stopped as he swiftly set you down on the floor next to him, pulling back to look at you.

He felt sick to his stomach when he noticed the way your eyes were rolled into the back of your head, and he felt like he was suffocating on the ash that drifted in between the two of you.

“Y/n,” he shook your shoulders, desperation lacing his voice. You didn’t respond, the only indication that you were still there was a slight whimper that escaped your parted lips. He shook you more aggressively and felt like he could vomit at the way your body caved to inertia.

You were somewhere else.

“Y/n, baby—stay with me!” Steve shouted, his voice cracking as fear invaded his tone, “Wake up, y/n! Wake up!”

His eyes were welling with tears and he felt like his legs were going to give out as panic began to fill his chest. He felt like he was drowning. You had always been his lifeline and he felt like he was watching you fade from existence. Blood started to drip from your nose, and he gently wiped it away, breaking down at the sight of it.

“Come on, y/n,” he sobbed as he pulled you closer, trying to shield you from the dangers of this strange world. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he whispered into your neck as he buried his head there, placing a small kiss against your skin.

He heard arguing above him, and his attention was momentarily pulled back towards the world he was trying desperately to get you back to.

“Madonna, Blondie, Bowie, Beatles—Music! We need music!” Robin’s voice rang out, and he heard the clatter of mixtapes falling to the floor.

“This is music!” Eddie shouted back.

Suddenly, Steve remembered the walkman in your pocket, and his fingers furiously pulled at the ziplock bag. His hands were shaking and he cursed himself as he struggled to get the bag open. He placed the headphones over your ears, hitting play and turning the volume up. He could hear the music faintly playing and watched as your eyes continued their rapid movement side to side underneath your eyelids.

He held his breath, hoping that something—anything—would change, and he thought the world was ending when it didn’t.

But then, suddenly, your eyes shot open as a gasp escaped your lips. You began falling backward and Steve barely had time to wrap his arms around your back to slow your fall, dropping to the floor with you.

You panted and your whole body trembled at the horrors you just witnessed. Vecna—or more accurately Henry Creel’s voice still rang in your ears as you hyperventilated, trying to push the images aside. As you began to settle, another voice filled your consciousness.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I’m right here,” you looked up to see your boyfriend’s big brown eyes staring down at you with concern and love and all the words he still had yet to say to you.

Your terrified expression broke into one of great sadness as tears began to fall down your face while sobs wracked your tired frame.

“Sweetheart,” Steve’s voice was a whisper as he wiped away your tears, neglecting the ones that were falling from his own eyes. He cradled your head in his hands and you melted at his touch. In this moment, it was just the two of you; nothing else mattered and nothing else existed.

You took in the sight of Eddie’s denim vest draped over his shoulders, your eyes drifting to his bare arms and the blood and dirt caked against his skin. “We have to get out of here,” you whispered, your fingers gripping into his bicep.

With that, Steve swiftly stood up, and helped you back onto the makeshift rope. You felt his hand on your ass as he pushed you up, trying to quicken the pace at which you climbed. You saw the way your friends stared at you from the real world, concern lacing their features. As you crossed the threshold between the Upside Down and your world, you felt your stomach drop as the gravity switched directions. Your heart jumped to your throat as you free fell for a moment before hitting the springy mattress with the questionable stains.

You didn’t lie there for long before Robin grabbed your arm, pulling you to your feet and into the tightest hug she’d probably ever given you. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying not to cry at the horrors you’d just witnessed as you held on to her. You released a breath you didn’t even realize you’d been holding as you heard a soft thud behind you, knowing your boyfriend had made it safely out of the hell that you’d just been stuck in for far too long for your liking.

“We can stay at my house tonight,” Max spoke up and you broke away from Robin to face her, “my mom should be gone until tomorrow afternoon so we should be fine.”

And with that, you all quickly made your way over to Max’s under the cover of night. Once you got there, everyone spread out as much as possible in the small home to camp out to sleep and Steve and you curled up together on the floor in the living room.

You shut your eyes tight as you tried to tune out the ticking of a small clock on the living room shelf. You buried your face in the crook of Steve’s neck as you both drifted off into a restless sleep.

***

The next morning everyone gave you a bit of space and no one really talked much, giving you a bit of time to cool down from the events of the night before. When you were finally ready, you all huddled up in the living room and everyone waited with bated breath for you to explain what you saw.

You cleared your throat before you spoke up. “He…showed me things that haven’t happened yet. The most awful things. I saw a dark cloud spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And this…giant creature with…a-a gaping mouth, a-a-and this creature wasn’t alone; there were so many monsters—an army—and they were coming into Hawkins, into our neighborhoods…our homes.”

You could barely get some of the words out, taking a deep breath before you continued. “And then he showed me my parents, and-and you guys and you w-were all….” Your voice trailed off as a lump formed in your throat, unable to say the words, afraid that you would speak it into existence. Tears began streaming down your face and Steve was quick to try and ease your pain.

“Okay, but…he’s just trying to scare you, baby. Right? I mean, it’s not real,” he tried to be the voice of reason, but his tone showed his lack of confidence in the truth he was trying to present. The real truth was that none of you knew what was going on, what would happen next.

“Not yet,” you whispered through teary eyes, “but…but there was something else. He showed me gates. Four gates, spreading across Hawkins. They looked like the one outside Eddie’s trailer, but they didn’t stop growing, and this wasn’t Upside Down Hawkins, this was our Hawkins.”

You looked between your friends, each one’s face twisted with worry and fear. The kids all looked so much older, the weight of the world constantly on their shoulders aging them, causing them to grow up too fast. You pushed the thought down as you continued. “Four chimes. Vecna’s clock always chimes four times. He’s been telling us his plan this whole time.”

“Four kills, four gates, end of the world,” Lucas spoke up, elaborating on your explanation.

“If that’s true,” Dustin took over, “he’s only one kill away.”

You felt everyone’s eyes turn to you, and you shrank under their stares, knowing that you were next.

“Try them again, try them again,” Steve looked at Max and she rushed to the phone. Max fingers worried at the cord of the phone before she hung it back up and turned around.

“Rang a few times and then went to busy signal,” she announced.

“Maybe you punched it in wrong, just try again,” Steve pushed, desperation lacing his tone.

“I didn’t punch it in wrong,” Max rolled her eyes.

“Dude I think she knows how to use a phone,” Dustin defended the redhead.

Max dialed again anyway, hanging up the phone with a resounding clang before turning around with a look that screamed I told you so plastered across her face. “Same shit.”

“I told you, Joyce has this telemarketer job. She’s always on the phone, Mike’s always whining about it,” Dustin explained.

“Yeah, but the phone’s been busy for, what, three days now? That’s not Joyce. No way. Something’s wrong,” Max countered.

“Whatever’s happening in Lenora, it’s connected to all of this,” you spoke up. “But Vecna can’t hurt them…not if he’s dead. We have to go back to the Upside Down.”

Steve and Eddie both immediately voiced their disagreement, Steve standing to put his two cents in.

“Woah, woah, woah, let’s think this through,” he put his hands up in a pacifying way trying to calm down your impulsivity.

“What is there to think through?!”

“Y/n, we barely made it out of there in one piece!”

“Yeah, because we weren’t prepared! But this time we will be. We’ll get weapons and protection, we’ll go through the gate, we’ll find his lair, and we’ll kill him.”

“Or he’ll kill us!” Steve yelled back at you. “The only reason you survived is because he wanted you to. He’s not scared of us and I’ll be damned if I let him have a chance to hurt you again. No, not happening.”

He said the words with such finality, but you opened your mouth to argue with him again, anger boiling below the surface. Before you could speak, Robin spoke up.

“We learned something new about Vecna/Henry/One…He’s a number like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin, but-but my point is, he’s super powerful. He could turn us inside out with the snap of his fingers, it is not a fair fight.”

“So why fight fair?” Dustin interjected, “he’s like Eleven but that gives us an upper hand. We know Eleven’s strengths and weaknesses. When El remote-travels, she goes into this sort of trance-like state. I bet the same is true of Vecna. When he attacks his next victim, I bet he’s back in that attic, physical body defenseless.”

“Defenseless? Yeah? What about the army of bats?” Steve gestured to the deep bruising around his neck from his last encounter with Vecna’s very present defenses.

“True. We’ll have to find a way past them. Distract them…somehow,” Henderson replied.

“And, uh, how do we do that exactly?” Eddie looked like he was damn near close to killing the boy.

“No idea. But once they’re gone, he doesn’t stand a chance. It’ll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin.”

“That all sounds good in theory, but there is no pattern to Vecna’s killings. I mean, at least not one that I can decipher. We don’t know when he’s going to attack next. We don’t even know who he’s going to attack next.” Robin countered.

“Yeah we do,” you spoke up, “I can still feel him. I ditch Kate Bush and I draw his focus back to me.”

“No way in fucking hell!” Steve was quick to cut across the room to approach you. “He’ll kill you!”

“I survived before, I can survive again…I-I just need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic.”

“There’s got to be another way,” Steve pleaded, grabbing your hands in his, his thumbs gently rubbing over the back of your hands.

“Maybe there is,” Dustin spoke up. “Y/n, other than last night—which was clearly just a scare tactic—the last vision you had was in the cemetery, right?”

“Yeah?” Your words came out as a question, not quite following the fast paced turning of the gears in the young genius’s mind.

“Well, then maybe he isn’t after you anymore…I mean, you basically found the antidote. He can’t get to you with that music playing, so maybe you don’t have to be bait at all…maybe he’s moved on to someone else.”

“That’s so highly hypothetical, Dustin. I mean, we’re not in a position where we can operate purely on a hunch!” Robin exclaimed. She wanted nothing more than for it to be true, for you to be safer than you had been, but it was too big a risk to take.

“Think about it! If Vecna was going to kill y/n, why didn’t he just do it last night? They all spent hours in the Upside Down yesterday, and he didn’t even try to get her until the very end to send a message! We’re all so convinced that Vecna isn’t scared of us, but maybe—even to just a small degree—maybe he is.”

“He’s always been two steps ahead of us,” you spoke up, your voice quiet but sure.

“Exactly! And I can’t help but think that he is expecting us to fawn over y/n, trying to keep her safe to prevent the end of the world while he’s just gearing up to cause it somewhere else.”

“I mean, I gotta say, that kind of makes a shit ton of sense,” Eddie supported the boy’s hypothesis.

“But what if we’re wrong?” Steve questioned. “What if we’re wrong and Vecna is still coming for her and she fucking dies? What then?”

“If we don’t do anything, it’s the end of the world either way; it’s just a matter of time,” you replied. You sounded so confident and your words seemed final. He knew you were stubborn enough that once you settled on something, there was no way that you were budging on it. It was something he loved about you—your pure grit, your determination—but he couldn’t help but hate it in this moment.

Eddie had moved across the small living room, pulling a thick phonebook from the highest shelf. He quickly thumbed through it and brushed past you, dropping it down on the table with a satisfying thud.

“Check this out. The War Zone,” he pointed to the bottom left corner of the page, “I’ve been there once. It’s huge…they’ve got everything you need for, uh…well, uh, killing things, basically.”

“Do you think fake Rambo has enough guns there? Is that a grenade? I mean how is any of this even legal?” Robin inquired, critiquing the advertisement in the phonebook.

“Well, lucky for us it is, so…this-this place is just far enough outside of Hawkins. As long as we steer clear of the main roads, we oughta be able to avoid cops and, uh, angry hicks,” Eddie explained.

“If we’re trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn’t go to some store called the War Zone,” Erica spoke up.

“Normally, I’d agree with you but we need the weapons so I think it’s worth the risk,” Nancy replied. She sounded tired and you couldn’t help but feel the same. You wished you could just be young adults who had to worry about normal things like figuring out what you wanted to be, what you wanted to do with your lives. Not trying to determine if a calculated risk was going to get you killed.

“Is it worth the time though? It’ll take all day to bike there and back,” Dustin pointed out.

“Who said anything about bikes?” Eddie chimed in.

“You got some car we don’t know about?” Steve questioned.

“It’s not exactly a car, Steve. And it’s not exactly mine, but uh, it’ll do,” Eddie smiled and you knew you were all in for a hectic, chaotic time. “Hey, Red, uh you got a ski mask or a bandanna or something like that?”

And that’s how you all ended up sneaking around the trailer park following Eddie Munson in a Michael Myers mask…which somehow wasn’t the weirdest thing that this group has had to do for the sake of the greater good.

Eddie rounded the corner around an RV and slid open a side window before hoisting himself through it. Steve followed suit and helped pull you through the window, steadying you as you dropped very ungracefully into the vehicle.

Eddie began pulling at wires under the dash and Steve watched him work with a concerned confusion plastered across his face. “Where’d you learn how to do this?”

“Well, while the other dads were teaching their kids how to fish or play ball, my old man was teaching me how to hot-wire. Now, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t wind up like he did, but now I’m wanted for murder, and soon, grand theft auto. So yeah, I’m really living up to that Munson name.”

“Eddie, I’m not sure I love the idea of you driving,” you spoke cautiously as you leaned into Steve’s back to join the conversation happening at the driver’s seat.

“Oh, I’m just starting this sucker. Harrington’s got her, don’t ya big boy?” And just like that, the RV revved to life, and the owners of said RV began banging on the sides of it, screaming at you to get out. You felt bad, like really bad, but you kept reminding yourself it was for the greater good as Eddie and Steve swiftly switched places.

“It’s just a car,” Steve whispered to himself, trying to psych himself up before yelling back to the other passengers of the now stolen vehicle “everybody, hang on to something!”

“Drive, Steve! Drive!” Dustin’s voice rang out and he didn’t have to tell Steve twice, as he put his still bare foot on the gas, taking off out of the trailer park.

“Shit they look pissed,” Lucas pointed out, watching as the RV’s owners tried and failed to run after their vehicle.

“Well, it’s not every day that you lose your house and your car in one fell swoop,” you cringed at how awful your actions were, hoping that you’d somehow be able to return the RV undamaged but that was unlikely given your present predicament.

“Hold on, hold on, hold on!” Steve shouted, making a sharp turn. You nearly would’ve fallen out of your seat if it weren’t for Eddie’s quick reflexes as he grabbed at the collar of your shirt, pulling you back towards him.

What had you gotten yourselves into?

***

Everyone was asleep in the back, catching up from the eventful night that you had the day prior. Naturally, you couldn’t sleep, so you found yourself sitting in the passenger seat next to Steve, and you couldn’t help but feel wistful for the way it all felt so normal. You had fallen into a comfortable silence, until Steve broke it as he spoke up.

“You know, it’s silly, but I…I’ve actually…I always had this dream that I’d have this really big family. I’m talking, like, uh, a full brood of Harringtons, like five, six kids.”

“Six?!” You asked incredulously.

“Yeah, six of ‘em. Three girls, three boys…and-and every summer, I figured all of us Harringtons, we would pack into something like this and just…see the country. You know, the Rockies, Grand Canyon, maybe Yellowstone. And then end up in some beachside town in California, spend a week parked in the sand…learn how to surf or something.”

Your heart was beating a million miles a minute. You and Steve rarely ever talked about the future because everything always felt so precarious. The most you’d ever talked about was wanting to simply have one together. The fact that he’d been day dreaming about a life was almost too much for you to handle. You thought about Vecna and your visions and your headaches and your eyes began welling up with tears at the very real possibility that it would be someone else giving Steve the life that he wanted, the life he deserved.

“That sounds nice,” you whispered through your watery eyes.

“Baby,” Steve noticed your tears, reaching over and putting a hand on your thigh to comfort you. “What’s wrong?” There was a lump in your throat and you couldn’t quite get the words out, so Steve jumped in, trying to make you laugh. “I mean, I guess the six kids part is a bit much—a bit tear inspiring—so maybe I should’ve held that detail back, you know? I’ll work up to it once we already have a few little Harringtons of our own, what do you say?”

If it were under any other circumstances, his effort to make you smile would’ve paid off but instead, it just made you cry harder, considering this future that you were damn near sure you wouldn’t have.

Watching you react like that was sending Steve into a spiral. He wished he could go back and just keep his damn mouth shut because maybe you didn’t want that. Maybe you didn’t want a future like that with him. Hell, maybe you didn’t even want a future with him at all.

He knew that you loved him, but he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe you were falling out of love. You had been through so much together, but this shit was so much fucking worse than what you’d been through before. Maybe you were realizing that he wasn’t the one for you…that he wasn’t enough. There’s nothing like a series of near death experiences to make someone rethink all their life choices.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, quickly getting up and moving to the back of the RV, needing some space. Robin had been awake and overheard the conversation the two of you had just had, her heart breaking for her best friends. She’d be damned if she let this blip break up her favorite couple, so just like that she gave Eddie a swift kick to the shins.

“Ow! Robin! What the fuck!” He exclaimed, the abrupt wake up something he was not happy about.

“We’re putting out fires okay? I need you to go talk to Steve and keep him from going fucking crazy.” This was a divide and conquer situation.

Eddie noticed the way you sat in the back corner, sniffling and staring out the window. “Trouble in paradise?” He asked.

“Yeah, but under these conditions, I’d hesitate to call it paradise.”

With that, Eddie made his way up to the front of the RV.

“What do you want, Munson?” Steve groaned, gripping the steering wheel tighter as he tried to keep his anger in check.

“Nice to talk to you too, Harrington,” Eddie rolled his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m just really not in the mood to fucking chat right now, okay?”

“You need to chill out man.”

Steve stared incredulously at the long haired freak in front of him. “Did you seriously just fucking say that to me? Munson, I’d like you to tell me how the fuck you think I should just chill out. It’s not like I’m barefoot, driving a fucking stolen RV to a store called fucking War Zone, and the world is fucking ending, not to mention my girlfriend is basically fucking dying…oh, and if we end up getting out of this shit storm okay, I think she’s going to dump me anyway…so forgive me for not being fucking chill.”

The words dripped like poison from his lips, but he kept his voice to a seething whisper so as not to upset you further. He could hear your soft sobs from the back of the RV and his heart ached as he tried to figure out where he went wrong.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Harrington?”

“What do you mean?” Steve answered Eddie’s question with a question.

“Like yeah, yeah, yeah, all that shit you listed is, well, pretty fucking shit…but there is no way in hell y/n is going to dump your ass.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Steve rolled his eyes, aggressively flipping on his turn signal as he pulled up to another side street.

“I don’t think you know what the hell you’re talking about, man. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people as in love as the two of you dipshits are, and considering you’ve faced the end of the fucking world more times than I can count, I’d say that your relationship outlook is pretty fucking solid.”

Steve sighed, debating whether or not he should open up to Munson. He didn’t really like Eddie all that much before all this shit, but he was learning that the metal head wasn’t as terrible as he thought. Besides, half of his hatred was no doubt misplaced jealousy over the fact that you had been tutoring him and spending extra time with him. Despite this, Steve decided to take the calculated risk of being vulnerable.

“We were sitting up here talking…and-and I just brought up how, in the future, it would be nice to have some kids of our own and pack up into an RV like this and travel the country…and…ugh, and then she just started crying! And, yeah I did say that I want like six kids—“

“Six kids?!”

“Yeah, it’s a lot, but that’s besides the point. And! And I made a joke about it, because yeah it is a fucking lot, but that just made her cry harder and I feel like the only explanation is that maybe she doesn’t fucking want that with me, and she just isn’t ready to rip off the band aid yet. I mean, I know we love each other, but maybe she’s realizing she doesn’t love me like that, you know?”

Eddie sat there quietly for a second considering what his newfound friend just said. I mean, Steve’s thought process did make sense, but Eddie thought back to the conversation you had with him; the one where you told him that you were pretty confident Steve was the one. Eddie swore himself to secrecy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put his two cents in.

“Look, there’s no way she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life with you dude. She is head over fucking heels for you, trust me,” Eddie started out, “Besides, you guys haven’t been officially dating for that long anyway…I don’t see something happening in that short amount of time that would have caused her to change her mind like that. No way, man.”

“I don’t know,” Steve mumbled, and Eddie could tell he was holding something back.

“Spill it, Harrington,” when Steve looked at him hesitantly, Eddie rolled his eyes. “Dude, I’m a wanted man and the whole fucking town hates me. Who am I going to fucking tell? Besides, bro code and all that patriarchal shit.”

Steve looked over his shoulder. You were still locked in a pretty serious and hushed conversation with Robin, so he felt a bit better about the fact that you wouldn’t overhear what he had to say.

“If you tell anyone, I’ll fucking kill you myself, understand?” Eddie nodded, and Steve continued, “okay…we…um, you know how we broke into the high school to find all those files and shit?”

“Yeah…?” Eddie replied, not quite sure where this was going.

“Well, that night, y/n came back to my place to spend the night because she had her first vision and we needed to talk a lot out, and….well, and we had sex.” Steve whispered the last part so quietly it was barely audible.

Eddie stared at him like he was a fucking idiot. “Okay….? And….? You two have been dating for like eight fucking months. You had sex. I don’t get what the big deal is.”

Steve rolled his eyes, trying not to flush with embarrassment about giving Eddie Munson of all people the intimate details of his love life. “We had sex for the first time, okay? So yeah, it’s a pretty big fucking deal,” Steve defended himself.

Eddie looked absolutely dumbfounded. “So you’re saying that you, King Steve, have been dating a girl for eight months and you haven’t fucked her until like a few days ago? I’m sorry man, but I have to call bullshit on that.”

“I swear, dude. Y/n hasn’t really dated anyone before so it was her first time, first time, so we were waiting until she was ready.”

“That had to fucking kill you, man. I’m surprised you waited that long at all,” Eddie tried to hold back a chuckle.

“Hey! Knock it the fuck off, Munson!”

“Was it good?”

“I’ll pull over right now and beat the shit out of you. I’m not fucking joking.”

“Well I am, so you can chill the fuck out,” Eddie laughed. “I still don’t see how this has anything to do with her potentially wanting to dump you.”

“Well, it’s just a change, you know? Like what if she didn’t like it and—and…I don’t know, the spark is gone?”

“Dude, respectfully, that’s surely not the case. There’s probably a shit ton of women in Hawkins who would be lining up just to sleep with you, so there’s no fucking chance that she’s going to break up with you because you’re bad in bed.”

“I did not say that I was worried I was bad in bed; don’t put fucking words in my mouth.”

“What a fragile little ego you’ve got,” Eddie teased, “no dude, but seriously, please don’t worry about it. There’s no way that your little lady isn’t hopelessly in love with you.” Eddie gave Steve a pat on the shoulder before moving back to the back end of the RV.

Meanwhile, Robin was trying desperately to calm you down. Sobs wracked your tired frame as you wiped at the tears that were flowing down your face.

“Y/n, please. What’s wrong?” Robin asked, pulling your hands away from your face so that she could get a good look at you. You took several deep breaths, hiccuping through a few more sobs until you calmed down enough to speak.

“I-it-it’s Steve,” was all you could manage to say before another communication breakdown had you unintelligibly sobbing again.

Robin shook her head, “honey, you have to tell me what’s wrong; I can’t help you otherwise, and I want to help. Please.”

“He’s just so perfect,” you whispered, your eyebrows furrowed together with such a hopelessness that Robin nearly wanted to cry with you. She wasn’t exactly sure what you meant, so she just stayed silent for you to continue. “Like, he was talking about how he wants this future together with all of these kids and-and…and Robin, I want that. I want it so fucking bad, but I don’t think we’re both going to make it to the other side of this.”

Robin’s heart stopped in her chest. “What do you mean, y/n?”

The sympathetic look you shot Robin was enough to kill her. “Robin.”

“No, y/n. What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I’m making it out of this one alive, okay?” You sighed, another tear falling down your cheek that Robin was quick to wipe away. “And…and it’s just hard to hear him talk about a future that he’s going to have to have with someone else…because I want him to have that—I really do, Robin—but I just know it’s not going to be with me.”

“Y/n, you have to let us try. I’m not going to fucking let that happen,” Robin argued as a tear fell down her face, “you and Steve can have all the gross, sticky children you want because our plan is going to work, it has to work, okay?”

You took a deep breath and wiped at your eyes one more time. You didn’t feel confident, but despite that, for your friend, you agreed, the words coming out in a whisper.

“Okay.”

***

As soon as you stepped foot into War Zone, you were immediately overwhelmed. “So much for avoiding angry hicks,” Robin voiced what you all were thinking. The store was packed full of people, and you figured that everyone from Hawkins was probably gearing up for what they thought was the inevitable with an alleged murderer on the loose.

“Let’s be…fast,” Nancy spoke up, and you all split off in different directions to gather the supplies you needed to face Vecna. Not quite ready to face Steve after your breakdown in the van, you sped off to a corner of the store away from him, ducking and weaving between other customers before he could argue.

As he watched you disappear in the crowd, his heart jumped to his throat. He didn’t like the idea of you being out of his sight right now; none of you had any way of knowing what was going to happen, and he liked to keep you close so that he could be there if and when shit hit the fan. The fact that you were still upset was also killing him. You guys usually communicated so well, but this whole Vecna situation was really throwing you off your game. How long would it be before you guys couldn’t communicate at all? How long until you were shells of the people who fell in love, destroyed by grief and pain and tragedy?

Robin pulled him out of his thoughts before he could spiral too much. “How many of these do you think we need?” She asked, holding up a canister of kerosene.

He threw on a jacket he had found in the store, throwing another canister in the cart. “Five or six,” he answered, though in all honesty, who could really be sure?

Steve placed a few more canisters in the cart before noticing that Robin was suddenly very sidetracked. His heart rate picked up for a second, thinking it was due to some sort of threat, but he calmed down a little when he realized that she had spotted Vickie.

“What are you gonna do, Rob? Just stand here and gawk at her?” He asked as a smirk broke out across his features.

“Shut up,” she was quick to respond. Steve’s heart soared as she took a step towards Vickie, but it quickly shattered to the floor when a guy came up behind Vickie, wrapping his arms around her frame. His heart was breaking for his friend as she turned around, running the other way, embarrassed by the hope she’d allowed to grow in her mind.

“Robin! Robin!” Steve called after her, but it was no use.

You stood at the gun counter, rifle in hand, heart pounding as you inspected the firearm. “How much is this?” You asked the man at the counter.

“$120.99, but I’ll throw in twenty rounds of buckshot for ya,” he replied. You were glad you weren’t the only one that was going to have to cover the cost for all of this shit, because you certainly didn’t have the funds for end-of-the-world-apocalypse preparation supplies. You nodded softly at the clerk and he turned to help another customer when you heard a voice that made your stomach drop ring out next to you.

“Hey, can I see this real pretty .375, please?” Jason asked, his hands pressed against the countertop, letterman jacket looking pristine compared to your dirty and disheveled clothes from the hell you’d been through.

“Here you go son,” The clerk handed the gun over the counter and Jason thanked him. You tried to turn away so as not to be recognized, your heart pounding in your ear.

“Y/n,” Jason spoke up, gesturing at you with the pistol, “wouldn’t expect to find you here.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just…scary times,” you used the easy excuse at your disposal. “I’m…really sorry about Chrissy,” you added, and you meant it with every fiber of your being.

“Want my advice?” He took a step closer to you. “Shotguns are not good for much of anything past killing small birds. I mean, they got power, sure, but not much range.” You swallowed back your fear as he took another step closer to you. “And that’s just gonna force you into close-range combat, then someone can just grab that barrel like this and redirect it.“

You jumped as his hand wrapped around the barrel of the shotgun you were holding, inertia carrying you as he jerked the gun towards him.

“You look nervous,” Jason pointed out, his steely gaze not wavering from your eyes.

“Like I said, scary times,” you refused to look away either, meeting his intensity with a burning hatred of your own.

“You…you know Munson,” Jason continued, leaning even closer towards you, if that was even possible. “Physics. You tutor him, right?”

“I did,” you tried to emphasize the past tense nature of that sentiment, hoping that giving him as little as possible would make him let it go.

“He…he here with you, by chance?” You could see the craziness in Jason’s eyes as he said it, and your heart began beating faster. This was a man that had snapped, and you were afraid of what he would do to you and your friends if he knew that you were helping hide Eddie.

“No,” you shook your head, still not breaking eye contact.

“I’m only asking because, after all, he’s in charge of Hellfire, you know?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you feigned ignorance.

“What about his friends?” Jason pushed the question, tightening his grip on the shotgun and taking another small step towards you. “They here with you?”

“Would you let go?” You asked in a hushed tone, your expression settling into something fierce and serious. Jason didn’t respond, his eyes still locked onto yours, his stern expression matching your own, so you raised your voice a bit. “Let. Go.”

“What’s going on over here?” A familiar voice rang out behind you and you felt relief flood your veins as you felt a hand at the small of your back. You wanted to roll your eyes as Jason eased up a bit, his grip loosening on the barrel of the gun in your hand. The countless ways a man will not hesitate to disrespect and intimidate a woman astounded you compared to the complete change in demeanor as soon as his actions could be construed as disrespectful of another man. Bro code was a bunch of certified bullshit.

Steve knew Jason better than you did. After all, they played basketball together just the year prior, with Steve being the team captain. Steve looked at Jason quizzically, his eyes practically daring the letterman jacket wearing jock to cause trouble.

“Steve,” Jason’s crazy, out of control expression melting into a polite smile, “nothing’s going on. Just two friends having a chat. Right, y/n?”

Jason’s stare made you feel nauseous, so you moved your head in a small and stiff nod, being agreeable to avoid any further confrontation. Steve could obviously sense the tension and felt his blood boiling at Jason’s clear attempt to intimidate you.

“It’s just, you’re standing awfully close to my girlfriend, and she’s very clearly uncomfortable,” Steve refused to back down.

“My apologies. Store’s quite crowded, is all,” Jason explained, his expression swiftly changing, menace dripping behind his mundane words.

“Certainly still enough room to back the fuck off,” Steve moved between you and Jason. You quickly waved down the clerk to ring you out for your purchase.

“Woah there, Harrington. Being a little defensive, don’t you think?” Jason’s eyes narrowed. “If I was crazy, I’d even go as far as to say you’re hiding something.”

“I don’t have any clue what the fuck you’re talking about,” Steve took a step towards Jason before continuing. “She’s my girlfriend, so I’m just trying to make sure she’s alright.”

“And Chrissy was mine,” Jason shot back, and you watched the way his fists clenched and unclenched. He looked like he was about ready to lose it and you weren’t really too confident in his ability to self regulate right now with everything that was going on.

“Is everything okay between you boys?” The clerk asked after handing you your bag. At this, Steve and Jason took a step away from each other.

“Everything is fine, sir. Thank you for all your help,” Steve spoke up, putting a hand on the small of your back again and moving you in front of him as he began guiding you through the store towards the front.

Before you could get far, Jason spoke up from behind the two of you, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder to make him stop. “If you know anything, I recommend you tell us because we’ll find out one way or another.”

“Is that a threat?” You questioned, finally finding your voice. You were surprised by the way that it didn’t waver.

“Oh, no” Jason chuckled, “it’s a fucking promise.”

With that, Jason backed away, moving to the other end of War Zone to meet up with the rest of his entourage, and Steve quickly moved the two of you towards the front of the store. Robin, Nancy, Max, and Erica had clearly realized the presence of Jason’s group and were finishing up checking out the rest of your supplies. Nancy finished paying and the five of you swiftly exited the store as fast as you could, all piling back into the RV parked outside.

“Your old friends are here,” Erica announced to Lucas as she boarded the bus.

“Shit!” Lucas exclaimed.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Dustin shouted, fear lacing his tone at the thought of what Jason would do if he got his hands on any of them.

“I’m going! I’m going! Sit down!” Steve shouted as he rushed to the driver’s seat, starting the vehicle up and peeling out of the parking lot.

No one talked for a while, everyone still reeling from the close encounter you had just had in the War Zone. Once you were a considerable distance away, Steve spoke up.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” you let out a bit of a chuckle, trying to play it off like you weren’t still a little freaked out from the way Jason was acting.

“Babe, come on,” Steve glanced over at you, “I know you.”

You sighed. “He just seems so unhinged right now. I felt like he was going to try and fucking kill me right in that store. And I’m just…I’m worried about Dustin and Lucas and Eddie. If Jason was that willing to be that aggressive towards me, who knows what he’ll fucking do to them if he gets ahold of them!”

“He’s hot headed, that’s for sure,” Steve agreed with you, “but we’re going to figure it all out, and it’ll be fine.”

You weren’t so sure that you agreed with him, but you didn’t say anything as he continued driving. He took several backroads until the occasional buildings disappeared, the scenery shifting to rolling hills and open fields. He pulled off into an open field that was shielded enough from the road by the tree line, and you all exited the RV, ready to prep your various weapons.

You sat on a basket, sawing at the barrel of the shotgun you had just purchased as Max and Nancy watched.

“Is this legal?” Max asked.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s a felony,” you replied, continuing to saw without a care in the world of the legal repercussions of your actions. “But it guarantees one thing. I won’t miss.”

Once you were finished, you handed the shotgun to Max, standing up and wiping your hands on your pants, before smiling at her and moving to sit with Steve and Robin.

“I mean, it just doesn’t make sense,” Steve spoke up, holding a funnel as Robin poured kerosene into an empty bottle.

“What doesn’t make sense?” Robin asked.

“That was Dan Shelter. He graduated like two years ago,” Steve went on, and you realized you were clearly missing something.

“So?”

“So, he’s in college, which means he was visiting on spring break. Fast Times was returned, like, I don’t know, a week ago? Right? Unless she’s got some horndog brother we don’t know about which is possible. Or she’s just really into Judge Reinhold?” You finally caught on and realized that this was all about Vickie. Putting two and two together, you figured she must have a boyfriend, putting a total wrench into your plans to land Robin a kick ass girlfriend.

“Steve!” Robin cut him off. “I don’t care, and I don’t understand why you do either with everything that’s going on. Honestly, this feels like a prefect time for that little pull of the rug because in the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low.”

“You deserve to be happy though, Robin,” you spoke up, weighing in on the conversation.

“Not everything has a happy ending,” she reminded the two of you, and your mind flashed back to Steve’s dream of six kids packed into an RV together. You figured now was the right time to speak your mind…after all the world was ending.

“I have this terrible, gnawing feeling that…it might not work out for us this time,” you explained, leaving out the part where you were pretty much 100% confident that it was specifically going to be you that was caught in the crossfire.

“You think we shouldn’t be doing this?” Steve asked, concern flooding his brown eyes.

“I think we’re mad fools, the lot of us…but if we don’t stop him, who will?” You looked out at all of your friends, each of them with their makeshift, modified weapons, and you willed yourself not to cry. “We have to try, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, his expression stoic. He picked up one of the empty bottles that had yet to be filled with kerosene. “To killing Vecna?” He proposed a toast.

“Slash Henry,” Robin added.

“Slash One,” you finished as each of you picked up bottles of your own to clink together. Your free hand searched for Steve’s as you wrapped your pinky around his, silently making an additional promise to him too.

A promise that you were going to fight like hell to live for the future Steve was dreaming of. A promise to believe that maybe—just maybe—everything was going to be okay.

His pinky tightened around yours, and for a moment, that was all that mattered in the world.

***

a/n: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! If you commented or reblogged or even sent an ask about what you thought of it, it would honestly make my whole day! I really enjoy reading your comments and it 1000% motivates me to write more (I also have a list of some ideas for once this story is finished, so stay tuned for that!!!)

taglist:

@season4steve @sassyheroneckgiant @tangledinthegreatxscape @kahhori @palachannie @keeryverse @usaguisenpaisblog @emilieluckwood @sabrinadelreyy @mochminnie @xprloki @kitdjarin1 @kissmxcheek @daemonskitty @bethsvrse @aheadfullofsteverogers @quinnsadilla @chervbs @sheisjoeschateau @goosy-goose @frtfvthg @criesinlies @cycat4077 @kachelleee @killerqueenfan @newyorkangelbaby @spaghetittied @anxfl @huffledor-able541 @mikariell95 @nothergoaway @angie2274

[motherdanger]

Sawtober 2023 | Day 10: Tape

Introducing BILLY'S MIXTAPES VOLUME 1 - 4! Spice up any game with hot soundtracks masterfully curated by everyone's favorite puppet!

(I actually couldn't be bothered to make the playlists for these now but if anyone wants to make them, please share with the class!)

UPDATE: @vincentdice made playlists! everyone cheered! thank you for your work! listen to 'em here:

bathroom boyfriends vol. 1

nerve gas house party vol. 2

DIY surgery vol. iii

Full prompt list here. 🐝

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31

[5eraphim]

eras of tumblr i could give hour-long Ted Talks about

(only including eras i participated in, not what i’ve lived through second-handedly. these are what i personally remember seeing on my dash, i’m sure there’s plenty i missed. This is an ongoing list/not fixed/subject to future edits.)

2015 gravity falls 

the rise of sexyman bill cipher 

depravity falls and putting 12 yr old characters in violent guro situations 

alex hirsch worship

billdip discourse

the diehard thirst for Gruncle Ford 

“i want to fuck that dorito”

2015/16 Black Butler

SebaCiel discourse

Grelle discourse (like, i don’t even know how to elaborate, but if you were there you would remember how people were fighting over her characterization in all different directions. Which is funny because, love her or hate her, she is barely even in the show lol)

The needlessly intense sjw vs anti-sjw/ fiction doesn’t effect reality/ shipping fighting

can’t quantify this, but i swear 80% of the fans were ex-hetalia fans 

Black butler 2 being either loved or hated, while book of circus was almost unanimously loved

the Scott Freeman incident...

no one giving a fuck about the female characters

Yana/Jay Michael Tatum worship

2016 Undertale

Sans undertale sexyman rise

the most raw video game soundtrack of all time

papyton

no one agrees how to draw undyne, but we all agree that she’s gay as fuck

(This is a personal anecdote, but i actually made a friend in highschool bc i drew undertale fanart on the board at latin class nd she added to it the next day, i added to it the next day and eventually we met up and it was so adorable)

“get dunked on”

2016-17 hamilton, heathers, great comet, dear evan hansen, be more chill musical theater insanity

rip tumblr user galactibun

The Hamilton craze breathing new life into the 1776 musical fandom

Most bizarre fanfic aus seen on tumblr thus far (hamilton)

The great comet Tony snubs

BMC and DEH blowing up, despite most fans only caring about the characters, totally ignoring the plot.

“Miku binder Thomas Jefferson”

No one giving a fuck about “The Hamilton Mixtape”

Gatekeeping fans who didn’t read war and peace or the ron chernow biography (i don’t think anyone ever gave a shit about the BMC orginal book which is SO FUNNY)

lin manuel miranda worship

real people fanfictions of actors/shipping them (especially hamilton!)

Key Figures include: Lin Manuel Miranda, Ron Chernow, Philipa Soo, Daveed Diggs, Ben Platt, George Salazar, Barette Wilbert Weed, and Mike Faist

2016-2017 the yuri on ice, killing stalking, kaikyu yaoi trifecta 

Yaoi take over

The anime fans collective salt over YOI winning anime of the year 2016

Not in this time period, but the Killing Stalking fans despising the ending en mass several years later.

Free! was also huge as the second season concluded not long before, but wasn’t receiving new updated in Realtime like the other three.

honestly? i mostly just remember people drawing some of the most beautiful fan art of the characters and not bothering to follow the plots

2015-2016 steven universe discourse peak craziness 

There are no words, looking back this all feels like a fever dream

Insane fan-theories (as in- even for Tumblr, these theories were very out there)

Pink diamond character derailment

“watching steven universe is the opposite of eating pussy” 

Gemosonas

fusion = sex???

“it’s over isn’t it” single-handedly inspiring some of the most beautiful fan art to come out of the show; "Stronger than you” def inspired much more fan-creations, but they were nowhere near as good imo

That terrible lily peet video that sent a tidal wave of fandom-fighting 

Concrete

Nicki Minaj guest appearance 

the porn avalanche predating the 2018 nsfw ban

My OG account got banned >:( (i never posted porn, tried to email support to no avail, I DID NOT DEVERVE THIS YOU NARCS)

50-50 mix of people posting lewd art and people posting links to find them as they migrated to twitter

“Female presenting nipples”

The return of the citrus scale (orange: PG/G, Lime: PG-13, Lemon: R, Grapefruit: X)

“Too Spicy for Tumblr”

Didn’t even stop the porn bots, mostly just screwed over artists and writers

IMO the peak of user v staff animosity

2020 hannibal

The small but loyal anthony hopkins defenders

Some of the most beautiful creative gore art

The moodboard to web-weaving pipeline

People being surprisingly respectful of fans who only watched the show, or who didn’t read Red Dragon/Silence of the Lambs, or where otherwise not invested in the greater overall Hannibal canon.

Manipulate, mansplain, malewife

Key Figures Include: Madds Mikkelson, Hugh Dancy, Anthony Hopkins

november 5, 2020

You just had to be there man, i don’t know what to tell you.

Key Figures include: Donald Trump, Castiel, Dean Winchester, Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and debatably Sherlock season 5

the 2021 coquette girl blogger era

Lana del rey worship

The ungodly amount of softcore porn

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

Glorification of eating disorders, benzos, trailer parks, predatory men, age gap relationships, and so much more!

Teenagers blogging about Russian lit you know they never read

Waifblr

Still not sure to this day how much of this was ironic and how much wasn’t?? Or if any of this was self-aware???

Yes babe you’re so bambi, kate moss, diet coke, wellbutrin, dasha nekrosova, ballet, klonopin, trad cath, fawn, dior, sofia coppela, can you please shut the fuck up now?

key figures include: Lana del Rey, Daisy Randone, Dasha Nekrosova, Nina Sayers, Fiona Apple, Anya Taylor Joy, Sylvia Plath, Kate Moss, Kirsten Dunst (probably so many more, but this is just off the top of my head)

(bonus)

2015/16- My personal earliest memories of really getting into tumblr, and witnessing the tail-end of the Hetalia reign

2016- the end of Homestuck

2016- the epidemic of overwatch porn

2016- Does Jumin Han is gay?

2017- RWBY’s nosedive in quality from season 3 to 4, losing the majority of the fanbase

2018 Boyfriend to Death civil war (Gatobob v ElectricPuke)

2018- Detroit become Human drops and the robot-fucking gatekeeping 

2018- the Game of thrones/Endgame joint disaster ending melt down

2019- Sub-par Omens

2020- the Dead by Daylight community rioting when Pyramid Head’s ass got nerfed

2020- Cyberpunk 2077 is released and is torn apart almost instantly. Looking back by my approximations post were made up of- 10% people who were actually playing the games and enjoying themselves, 20% people who were playing the game and WEREN’T having fun, 55% People who never bought/played the game who were making up crazy glitches for clout, 15% hardcore pornography of characters you’d never seen before. (I’m quite salty about this bc I worked at GameStop at this time and had people constantly talking about glitches in casual conversation and I just know most of these bitches were LYING.)

20??- don’t remember the exact dates, but phase 3 marvel was un-escapable at this time

2020/21- Succession blows up

2022 Ghost bc blows up on tiktok, the fandom already sizable on tumblr only goes up from here

[lizziexmeow]

TODAY'S UPDATE (241010) PART 1

00:00 SVT SPILL THE FEELS ‘LOVE MONEY FAME’

08:00 TXT YEONJUN FEATURING FOR KATSEYE

14:05 SVT MINGYU WEVERSE POST

15:16 TXT SOOBIN IG POST

17:52 SVT SEUNGKWAN IG STORY

18:00 BTS JUNGKOOK: I AM STILL

18:59 SVT WONWOO WEVERSE POST

19:00 TXT YEONJUN ‘GGUM’ WEVERSE MEDIA

19:15 TXT TAEHYUN WEVERSE POST

20:15 SVT ‘FIRST LOOK’ FOR BBC EARTH

[bts-hyperfixation]

What would be your dream setlist for the boys to return on??

Okay,

So did a quick bit of research for this one and the boys seem to average 20 songs per concert with four encore songs. Obviously this won't take any songs they could release between now and 2025, and of course we don't know if they will launch straight in to a tour or if they will pause to work on an album, (my money is on a tour)

So this turned out to not be a set list so much as a full concert outline… bighit can absolutely hit me up to use it, I want VIP tickets as compensation. Okay,

We open on a video of the boys from children to their release from the army

Teasing us with opening notes from a dope until Namjoon appears centre stage from a trap door with the opening line from dope. Army cheer thinking that’s the first song until the other members pop out of the floor each to different songs where they have sung opening lines

1. No more dream - got to start strong, I would want them in costumes that are updated but still reminiscent of the original concept.

2. N.O.

3. Danger - I think you could edit these three songs together nicely

4. Run BTS

5. Opening ments with a soft costume change in order to get the rapline into regency wear for what the crowd assumes will be Deang… nope

6. The rap-line disappears from stage through trap doors leaving behind the vocal line as the opening tones for Haguem toll

7. Haguem goes into arson

8. Sexy Namkim just nj verse- none of NJ's mixtape songs currently fit the vibe I'm aiming for and I would pay all my money to see the moves done at the W performance done by fresh military personal vocal line

9. The lights fade dramatically and just as you think a VT will start the rap line descends on a UFO stage from above the sound booth. They are dressed like 90's pop stars - the next stage is a medley not full renditions

10. Seven blasts out Choreo done to a T

11. Like crazy

12. Some kind of spoken Segway

13. For us

14. Astronaut - all members sing as they return to the stage (the UFO flys the rupline over army heads)

15. Since kind of banter about them all singing each others solo stuff being weird.

16. Some kind of fan service where they sit together and look and find things fans have done while they were gone

17. Spine breaker

18. Anpanman

19. Dynamite/butter

20. Ending ment

21. Take two

22. Encore

23. Spring day

24. Magic shop

25. Mikrocosmos

26. What ever their first release after the army is

I may have gone a little over board on this….. is there anything you guys are dying to see them do as a band?

If you wanna please leave me your own set lists in my ask box. They don’t need to be anywhere near as detailed as mine.😂 or leave me your judgement on mine.

[bangtanpurplearchive]

The schedule for October has been updated

📅10/01 – Jung Kook ‘3D (feat. Jack Harlow)’ Listening Party on STATIONHEAD (8pm KST – 7am ET)

📅10/02 –  Jung Kook ‘3D (feat. Jack Harlow)’ Listening Party on STATIONHEAD  (7pm KST – 6am ET)

📅10/03 –  Jung Kook ‘3D (feat. Jack Harlow)’ Listening Party on STATIONHEAD (7pm KST – 6am ET)

🎶10/04 – Golden by Jungkook announced – pre order begins

📰10/06 – JK x Vogue magazine release

📅 10/06 – 08 – ‘Golden’ Concept pictures (0am KST -10/05-07  11am ET)

💿10/10 – Wings Anniversary (161010)

🪖10/12 – Jin 8 months to discharge

📺10/12 – Tae on ‘God of Business Trip Communication: Seojin’s Edition’ Ep 1 (8.40pm KST)

🎂 10/13 – Jimin’s 28th Birthday

🎤10/13 – JK pre -recording and broadcast – on KBS Music Bank

📅 10/14  – V Solo Album [Layover] SPECIAL OFFLINE FANMEETING

📅 10/16  – ‘Golden’ Tracklist (0am KST -10/15 11am ET)

📅 10/17  – ‘Golden’ Main track poster (0am KST -10/16 11am ET)

🪖10/17  – JHope 12 months to discharge

📺10/19 – Tae on ‘God of Business Trip Communication: Seojin’s Edition’ Ep 2 (8.40pm KST)

📅 10/21- 30  – ‘Golden’ The Tracks (0am KST – 10/20 – 29 11am ET)

🪖10/21  – Yoongi 20 months to discharge

💿10/23  – Mono. RM’s 2nd mixtape Anniversary (181023)

📺10/26 – Tae on ‘God of Business Trip Communication: Seojin’s Edition’ Ep 3 (8.40pm KST)

💿10/28 - The Astronaut by Jin  Anniversary (221028)

📅 10/31  – ‘Golden’ Preview (0am KST -10/30 11am ET)

[writingfics-passingtime]

JJ’s Mixtape || masterlist a collection of MCU reader-insert drabbles and one-shots inspired by my followers’ favourite songs and characters; the lyrics don’t dictate the story, most of these plots come from the feel of the music ~

TRACK LIST

1. Compromise (Marc Spector) || 🎵 Fahrenheit

2. Even If I Tried (Kate Bishop) || 🎵 She Keeps Me Warm

3. Forever In Your Eyes (Peter Parker) || 🎵 Dandelions

4. Wait for Me to Stay (Matt Murdock) || 🎵 Cry

5. Who We Really Are (Bucky Barnes) || 🎵 I Hear a Symphony

6. Of My Own (Clint Barton) || 🎵 Que Sera Sera

7. Wasting My Time (Matt Murdock) || 🎵 Miracle Baby

8. A Scar of Age (Bucky Barnes) || 🎵 Like a Tattoo

NEXT UP

9. It’s Only War (Marc Spector) || 🎵 Men on the Moon

masterlist will be updated as prompts are completed

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16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

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[alcego]

Words Written: 2,082 words Projects:

Commission - Slow going. Moved it back into GDocs so I can write at work. I think the format is what's throwing me the most - it's not a style I usually work in and I am in a touch over my head. It's fully planned and otherwise moving along well.

REDO-REPEAT - Wrote this AFTG fic on a whim, chasing motivation-inspiration to get the gears oiled up. It's not everything the idea could be, but I'm happy with what it is given why I wrote it. Not everything needs to be perfect lol. You can read it here, but do mind the tags.

Original Work - Haven't spent much time on my original work, although I do have an idea percolating in the back of my head that I should probably rough out soon. I have a couple other shorts that need to be re-drafted, but I think I need more space from them before I get going again.

Notes:

Wasn't feeling great this week for a variety of reasons. I'm trying to catch back up on life after my second ever kidney infection (caught it early enough this time that my suffering was significantly easier to deal with), not to mention worrying and checking in on Winnie daily now that she's due to foal any day now. (Most likely she has a week or two left. However, sometimes they progress very quickly, so it's prudent to be watchful.) There are other things going on beyond that, of course, but suffice it to say I've been overwhelmed and that is not conducive to writing for me.

Have been consistently frustrated that I don't have a good "writing nook", which has been doubly frustrating because I have several places from which to work, but none of them have been facilitating Getting Things Done. This is a problem for writing but it's equally troubling on my WFH days. Lately I've been most productive in bed. I do not like this, as my bed is supposed to be for sleeping only. Have been looking into purchasing a used chair/ottoman for writing purposes, but there are a lot of logistics to consider there.

In a similar note to the above, I'm irritated by the size of my MacBook. It's a 13", which I ordered during the pandemic and decided it was "good enough" upon realizing it was smaller than expected. I no longer think this, as the keyboard is cramped and the screen doesn't have as much space as I'd like. I've considered going back to my old 17" Dell, which I wrote on prior to purchasing this laptop, but that laptop has fallen victim to planned obsolescence and is unable to receive the updates it needs to function at the level I require. I've looked into larger MacBooks (for budgeting purposes, mostly, although I wonder if I could trade-in my old laptops and have enough store credit for a used one?) but so far as I can tell the keyboard does NOT scale, which is irritating, as I'd prefer one with slightly larger keys so I stop stumbling over how close everything is. The other option is go back to Windows, but this is problematic as I very much prefer the iCloud files syncing to access my WIPs from my phone. Basically: no good solutions. I'll have to keep looking, which is fine, because I don't have the budget to get anything yet.

Not sure how to tie this in, as I suspect it's related to most, if not all, of my whining, but I've been noticing yet again that I have more "luck" writing analog than I do when I'm working on my phone or laptop. That makes it harder to track what I've written, but it's functional, and has gotten me through several sticking points.

Not sure what I'm going to work on after this commission is complete. I think, tentatively, that I might finish a JereJean PWP that has been on the backburner for a while, then finish roughing out my ex-mixtape fic (I got sick and ran out of time, so dropped the event) before polishing it for posting. After that, I want to revisit Vestigial, which has been shelved for a while. I'm hoping that if I get back in the groove of finishing stories, I'll be in a better headspace to get back to my original work, but we'll see. Nothing's set in stone just yet, and my writing stamina isn't high enough yet that I can just bust through any of these without long term repercussions. Slow and steady is key for a bit.

[dreaminemz]

updated • my little driving playlist

01. Lovesick - BLACKPINK.

02. There It Goes - Maisie Peters.

03. Vampire - Olivia Rodrigo.

04. All Too Well (10 Minute Version) - Taylor Swift.

05. You & Me - JENNIE.

06. she’s all i wanna be - Tate McRae.

07. Seven - Jung Kook ft Latto.

08. The End Of The World - Billie Eilish.

09. Shut Down - BLACKPINK.

10. Boyfriend - Dove Cameron.

11. LALALALA - Stray Kids.

12. 29 - Demi Lovato.

13. Numb - Jessi.

14. Moon - BTS.

15. Red Dress - Lucy Hale ft Joe Nichols.

16. Wild Flower - RM ft Youjeen.

17. Prayer For The Broken (with Friends from Glee) - Naya Rivera.

18. Eight - IU ft SUGA.

19. All Those Pretty Lights - Andrew Belle.

20. Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield.

21. Outro : Ego - BTS.

22. Mixtape : Time Out - Stray Kids.

23. Dopamine - Jackson Wang.

24. Kinda Fun - Bailee Madison.

25. BATTER UP - BABYMONSTER.

26. Flowers - Miley Cyrus.

27. Yet To Come - BTS.

28. Potential Breakup Song - Aly & Aj. (2020 Version)

29. My You - Jung Kook.

30. The Happiest Girl - BLACKPINK.

[hopeonmyphone]

U.S. Forbes "BTS J-Hope grew up in the U.S. music industry as a solo artist"

[SPORT NEWS]

BTS J-Hope's solo activities have drawn attention from Forbes, an American economic magazine.

BTS' J-Hope will release a physical (CD) album (Jack in the Box) of his solo album "Jack in the Box" on August 18, and a dance documentary "Hope On The Street" and an OST album containing six songs in 2024.J-Hope completed the production of these works before joining the military in April.In response, Forbes published three articles on the 17th, 19th, and 20th and expressed great interest.

Forbes said on the 17th about the release of the physical album, "J-Hope is taking a break from his music career due to his military enlistment, but fans will be able to hold the actual album for the first time."(And) you can listen to an updated version that includes not only the original track but also three live songs from the 2022 Lollapalooza Festival," he said.

Also, "J-Hope was successful on Billboard 200 with his mixtape 'Hop World' before 'Jack in the Box'."Jack in the Box" reached a new high in his solo career, reaching number 17 on the Billboard 200.In addition, he entered the Billboard Hot 100 with "On the Street" featuring J. Cole and set a remarkable record.

Forbes then said in an article published on the 19th, "When 'Jack in the Box' was first released in the summer of 2022, it gained huge popularity on the Billboard chart.This was a demonstration of his growing skills in the U.S. music industry," he said.

Last year, J-Hope released a documentary "J-Hope in the Box" containing the production of his solo album "Jack in the Box" and the live performance of the Lollapalooza Festival through Disney Plus, receiving great love around the world.The documentary "Hope on the Street," to be released in 2024, will feature J-Hope dancing with dancers in cities around the world.

In this regard, Forbes introduced "Hop on the Street" as an "interesting new project, fascinating documentary" in an article published on the 20th.

Meanwhile, J-Hope is currently serving as an assistant in the Army's 36th Infantry Division boot camp in Wonju, Gangwon-do, and his scheduled discharge date is October 17, 2024.

Source: Sport News

[famedpoints]

available claims updated:    

music production → canon discography claims *open to respective group members only until 12am edt, march 23

july 7 - arcadia - girls

girls

illusion (*may 31 release)

lingo

life’s too short

icu

life’s too short (english version) (*june 23 release)

july 26 - quantumphase - dreamers **japanese release**

dreamers

blue summer

still here (acoustic ver.) (partial arrangement only)

august 1 - femme fatale - the album -jp ver.- **japanese release**

how you like that (japanese ver) (partial lyrics only)

pretty savage (japanese ver) (partial lyrics only)

lovesick girls (japanese ver) (partial lyrics only)

you never know (japanese ver) (partial lyrics only)

august 4 - platinum - our twenty for

love me love me

island

august 16 - selene - b.l.e.s.s.e.d. **japanese release**

b.l.e.s.s.e.d.

i love you (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

l.i.e. (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

official

ddd (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

night rather than day (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

ah yeah (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

cream (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

break my heart

b.l.e.s.s.e.d. (korean ver.) (partial lyrics only)

september 4 - catalyst - in life

the tortoise and the hare

back door

b me

any

ex

we go

wow

my universe

september 6 - cloud - 24h **japanese release**

24h

pinwheel (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

247 (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

chili (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

together (japanese ver.) (partial lyrics only)

september 13 - catalyst -  livin’ it up **japanese release**

livin’ it up

black swan

september 18 - candy - feel special

feel special

rainbow

get loud

trick it

love foolish

21:29

breakthrough (korean ver) (partial lyrics only)

september 25 - quantumphase - zero fever pt. 3

eternal sunshine

feeling like i do

deja vu

rocky

all about you

not too late

dance & choreography → canon discography claims *open to respective group members only until 12am edt, march 23

july 7 - arcadia - girls

girls

illusion (*may 31 release)

lingo

life’s too short / life’s too short (english version) (*june 23 release)

august 4 - platinum - our twenty for

love me love me

island

september 4 - catalyst - in life

back door

ex

we go

wow

september 6 - cloud - 24h **japanese release**

24h

september 13 - catalyst -  livin’ it up **japanese release**

livin’ it up

september 18 - candy - feel special

feel special

get loud

love foolish

september 25 - quantumphase - zero fever pt. 3

eternal sunshine

deja vu

rocky

creative direction → canon discography claims *open to respective group members only

june 14 - catalyst - go live (full-length album)

june 19 - cloud - heng:garæ (mini-album)

july 4 - lily - why so lonely (single)

july 7 - arcadia - girls (mini-album)

july 26 - quantumphase - dreamers (japanese release single album)

august 4 - platinum - our twenty for (single album)

august 16 - selene - b.l.e.s.s.e.d. (japanese full-length album)

september 4 - catalyst - in life (repackaged album)

september 6 - cloud - 24h (japanese mini-album)

september 13 - catalyst -  livin’ it up (japanese single album)

september 18 - candy - feel special (mini-album)

september 25 - quantumphase - zero fever pt. 3 (mini-album)

video direction → canon discography claims *open to respective group members only until 12am edt, march 23

march 16 - selene - white wind

gogobebe

25

march 17 - titan - breaking dawn **japanese release

breaking dawn

march 20 - equinox - the equinox festival 2023 - feel my rhythm

feel my rhythm

march 22 - catalyst - mixtape : on track

mixtape : on track

march 27 - catalyst - the connect: deja vu

jealousy

march 29 - cloud - fallin’ flower **japanese release

fallin’ flower

april 5 - equinox - bloom **japanese release

wildside

april 7 - polaris - film out **japanese release

film out

april 17 - candy - fancy you

fancy

april 26 - femme fatale - no. 1

no

april 26 - catalyst - piece **japanese release

puzzle

may 1 - titan - maverick

maverick

may 26 - polaris - butter

butter

june 14 - catalyst - go live

unveil : track “go live”

god’s menu

unveil : track “easy”

unveil : track “blueprint”

unveil : track “ta”

unveil : track “top”

june 14 - candy - breakthrough **japanese release

breakthrough

june 14 - candy - happy happy **japanese release

happy happy

june 19 - cloud - heng:garæ

left & right

my my

july 4 - lily - why so lonely

why so lonely

july 7 - arcadia - girls

girls

july 26 - quantumphase - dreamers **japanese release**

dreamers

august 4 - platinum - our twenty for

love me love me

island

august 16 - selene - b.l.e.s.s.e.d. **japanese release**

b.l.e.s.s.e.d.

september 4 - catalyst - in life

back door

unveil : track “b me"

unveil : track “any”

unveil : track “ex”

unveil : track “we” / “wow” / “my universe”

september 6 - cloud - 24h **japanese release**

24h

september 13 - catalyst -  livin’ it up **japanese release**

livin’ it up

september 18 - candy - feel special

feel special

september 25 - quantumphase - zero fever pt. 3

eternal sunshine

deja vu

deja vu (performance video vampire ver.)

[thetoxicgamer]

Respawn Overhauls Apex Tdm Mode in Response to Players Demanding Quality-Of-Life Improvements

With Team Deathmatch finally making its debut after first appearing in apex legends Mobile and being confirmed to stay as a permanent game mode, taking the place of Arenas, Season 16, Revelry, has seen the highest player count of all time for Apex Legends. This success can be attributed in large part to a focused commitment to the casual player base. But despite the positive reception to the classic game mode, Apex’s version of TDM found many criticisms and bugs that plagued the user experience. Respawn quickly took note, and in a tweet one day after season 16’s release, announced changes to the game mode that would fix all of the prominent issues. https://twitter.com/Respawn/status/1626020736304582656 Team Deathmatch pits two teams of six legends against each other in past Arenas maps like Party Crasher, Skull Town, and Habitat 4. Players can switch legends and loadouts mid-game like in Control, as they race to 30 kills in a best-of-three format, with teams switching map sides after each half. Teams who lost round one would often quit early, however, leading to imbalanced teams and additional players subsequently leaving, until lobbies were completely empty. Not only would the game continue without any enemies to fight, but players would have to manually leave the game itself, wasting more of their time. Players abandoning their team currently receive no penalty for leaving TDM, unlike other LTMs like Control and the standard Battle Royale. With the day two patch announcement, Respawn addresses all of TDM’s critiques and seeks to improve the game mode further with later updates. Games are now shortened to one round of 50 kills, shortening the overall length of the game and discouraging players from leaving early, further reinforced by the addition of abandon penalties, where players are locked out of joining any mode for a period of time, extended with consecutive offenses. The fourth-anniversary celebration of Apex brings the Nemesis AR, a new collection event, updated classes, and the new Mixtape playlist, where fan-favorite limited-time game modes like Control and Gun Run will now permanently reside. Team Deathmatch will stay for three weeks until March 7, before joining the rotating Mixtape lineup of LTMs. The new changes to TDM can be watched in the Twitch Rivals Drop In, set to take place on Friday, Feb. 17 at 5pm CT on the Twitch Rivals official channel. Read the full article

[lizziexmeow]

TODAY'S UPDATE (240915) PART 1

11:00 TXT YEONJUN MIXTAPE: GGUM

13:00 TXT ACT: PROMISE IN FUKUOKA DAY 2

13:00 SVT JUN WEIBO POST

15:00 SVT JUN IG POST

17:40 BTS TAEHYUNG IG STORY

18:14 SVT SEUNGKWAN WEVERSE POST

18:42 SVT HOSHI WEVERSE POST

18:54 SVT HOSHI IG POST

19:15 TXT WEVERSE LIVE

19:32 SVT MINGYU WEVERSE POST

[deejaym-tsile]

Deejay M-Tsile - Season Mixtape 104 (My Lil Sis S-Bu's Birthday Mix) Link 1 : https://hearthis.at/deejay-m-tsile/deejay-m-tsile-season-mixtape-104-my-lil-sis-s-bus-birthday-mix No Tracklist Keep It Locked Download/Share/Leak Genre : Private School Piano BPM : 112.00 Length : 01:08:17 Size : 94.6 MB For Bookings(M-Cafe Records ZA) Email: deejaymtsileza@gmail.com Twitter & IG : @Deejay_M_Tsile Snapchat & Tumblr : deejaym-tsile WeChat ID : Deejay_M-Tsile You Tube Channel : Deejay M-Tsile ZA Telegram : https://t.me/DeejayMTsile Phone Call & Whatsapp : 084 471 8773 Aso Visit & Like My Facebook Page : http://www.facebook.com/OfficialDeejayMTsile Check Out All My MiXeS & Updates : http://deejaymtsile.blogspot.com/ #MCafeRecords #SeasonMixtape https://www.instagram.com/p/ClbwBIVj-wi/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[renjunphile]

mixtape #17: track 7. on a wednesday, in a café | lee jihoon / woozi

word count ꕤ 7,068 pairing ꕤ seventeen's lee jihoon / woozi x female reader tags and warnings ꕤ producer!woozi, soloist!reader, fluff, strangers to lovers, friends to lovers? songspo ꕤ begin again [red taylor's verion] synopsis ꕤ the world awaits your second album after a tumultuous and very public break-up that left you with pages and pages of lyrics. you knew exactly the person to help produce it, but he brings with him a plethora of unexpected surprises and a lot of healing along the way.

hyung line masterlist | maknae line masterlist

ꕤ

You thought the world stopped spinning the first time you had read his message breaking up with you. You had thought that the world crumbled around your feet, leaving you stranded on an island of rock just big enough to hold your collapsed body. It had felt like your lungs were collapsing, your heart crushing into itself.

But it's been 8 months now and you only feel a twinge of pain as you see the preview of the paragraph you never replied to on the home screen of the texts app. If you dared to click on it and read it again, you might've been moved to tears, but not the earth-shattering emotions it inflicted on you the first month. You were doing better nowadays.

You sigh and scroll up from where it had been buried to and click on the most recent contact. His last message was that he was on his way down to come and get you from the reception you had been at for a couple of minutes.

The HYBE building was incredibly vast and expansive and it made you feel even smaller than you usually do these days. The electronic billboards inside flickered between pictures of their artists and music videos and there was a steady bustle of people moving in and out of the building.

You had told him that you would be in a black zip-up hoodie and some blue jeans with a mask on, so you were easy enough to find with your leg bouncing against the floor anxiously.

"Y/N," a mask covered his face as well, but you knew him well enough from his voice to recognise him. You exchanged a few deep bows and handshakes, greeting him politely before he led you to the elevator after some security checks.

"It's nice to meet you in person," Jihoon commented pleasantly, "Why didn't you bring your security with you? Someone might have recognised you."

"Ah," you click your tongue, "I just didn't feel like it. Didn't want anybody hovering around."

Some days, your broken heart made you forget that you were famous and had eyes on you always. Someone was sure to have spotted you in the reception, but Jihoon had been quick enough before anyone mustered up the courage to approach.

He hesitated in speaking, as if unsure what to respond since he had never been in your situation before. Jihoon simply hums, "Okay, I'll take you back down to your car later on when we finish then."

Affection swirls in your stomach at his nice words and he leads you out of the elevator and down some winding hallways before he stops before a mighty door.

"This is my studio. Make yourself comfortable here okay?" he punches in some numbers that you avert your eyes from and the door clicks open, "Welcome to Universe Factory."

The walls are a pleasant shade of beige and there's a pillar near the centre of the room with long paintings on each side. From when you walked in, there was one of a woman with a cigarette and a man drinking from a glass on the adjacent surface. There's a sprawling couch on the far wall and some shelves with varying displays and memorabilia, but your eyes are dragged up to the ceiling.

A section of the ceiling was plain with some lights on, but a part was carved out and recessed with a black base and lights piercing through.

"Like a night sky," you mumble in awe, "Or a galaxy. That's really pretty."

Jihoon follows your gaze up and smiles, "Yeah, everyone notices it when they first come in. It's my favourite part of the room too, other than all my equipment of course."

He motions over to the other side of where you were facing, which hosted a desk with gear that you'd never quite wrapped yourself around, and then a small recording booth-like contraption in the corner made out of erected soundproof material.

"Your studio is really nice," you compliment, fixing yourself on the couch, "It seems like a great place to work. Most of my writing is done either on my bed or my kitchen floor."

"Very valid places," he says, "My writing is spontaneous too, but I had to settle down in a place to do my producing. I've only been in this studio for a short while, ever since HYBE bought Pledis, but you should have seen my old studio. Size of a shoebox but I'm so fond of that place."

"I'm still fond of my old company building too," you begin to reminisce, "Even though by the end, the floors were all scratched up and the walls were about to collapse, and it was so damp it made me sick once in a while, that's where everything started."

Jihoon chuckles as he reorganises some loose things on a smaller desk across from the couch that was pushed up to the frosted glass divider in the middle of the room, "Should we get down to business? I'm really glad you reached out to me to produce your next album! I'm a big fan of you."

You grin bashfully, "I mean, likewise considering I basically begged your team to jump on this project. I scoured the industry for new producers, since I'm not really in contact with my old producers and your work is everything I want for this next album."

It had been a year and a half since your last full album and three since your debut. To say that your next album was one of the most anticipated albums by the industry would be an understatement, but that was mostly because in the year and a half since your love-stricken last album, you had experienced a breakup with one of the industry's favourite soloists. And they were right, to be fair, because you had pages and pages of lyrics from every stage of grief after your breakup.

But that was where Jihoon came in.

You were perfectly able to write hundreds of complete and sensical songs in the past, but with this album, you just couldn't string together the perfect words or melodies. There were so many words on each page, but they were all just jumbled together and tear-stained. Lee Jihoon was one of the most prolific songwriters and producers; you had always wanted to work with him after the stories of how amazing he was from your industry colleagues. However, since meeting your ex-boyfriend a few months after your debut album, he had pushed all different producers and writers and directors from his connections in your direction and you were so caught up in his network of professionals that you never had time to make your own relationships and connections. After the breakup, you felt the need to pull away from all of them, in fear of anyone taking sides.

Fortune just happened to be on your side when Jihoon agreed for his studio to help you write and produce your next album and after a brief conversation on the phone on the direction you were going to take with your album, he was inviting you to Universe Factory.

"Well, we're gonna make great work," he takes a seat on the arm chair adjacent to the couch, "How about you show me what you've been working on and we can take it from there? I think it's important to get the feel for each song as early as possible so we can create the right melodies and the early demos."

You'd never shown anyone your lyric book, not even your ex-boyfriend, but you had to trust Jihoon 100% if you wanted this to work. It was more of a scrapbook, really, than a diary, considering all the scrap that you had glued into the pages from all the times you came up with lyrics but only had tissues or receipts nearby. It was definitely a bit past it's life with the tattered lilac cover and bulging spine, but you didn't have the heart to part with it.

"I think I've written lyrics for like 12 tracks?" you mumble, flicking past the pages that contributed to your old albums to reach the now-dried crumpled pages, "I also have endless voice recordings to go with them that we now have to connect."

You found in the next three hours under his sparkling ceiling that Jihoon was an incredibly good listener and one of the most patient people you'd ever met. He'd hum along with the voice notes you nervously played and just nodded encouragingly when you would try to figure out rhythms for the lyrics on the page. He would stare pensively at your smudged receipts, giving suggestions for changes rather than demands. He would smile comfortingly whenever your tears would well up re-reading what you had written and hand you snacks from his mini-fridge when you would take breaks out of frustration.

The sun was starting to set by the time you decided to call the session quits, seeing the tiredness slowly seep into his features.

Jihoon shrugs on a coat as you packed up your things and begins to switch off his devices in the room, to indicate he was leaving for the day as well, "We did a lot today, Y/N. I'm really excited to work with you."

"Thank you Jihoon. You're definitely the genius that everyone says you are! I don't know how your brain just creates these awesome beats and lyrics right there on the spot!" you utter in awe.

The two of you exit out of his studio that he locks behind him, "I mean, I don't know either but I'm glad my brain does that. I've met the most talented people because of my job."

You go to return the compliment, but Jihoon shoots you a look that stops you in your tracks and makes you burst out in laughter and he starts laughing too. It's hearty and sincere, something you hadn't experienced in the past few months with everyone tiptoeing on eggshells around you.

Jihoon presses the button for the underground parking floor and starts telling you about the other people from his studio that he plans on bringing in for the project if the both of you see fit and the way he talks is dripped in fondness for his colleagues. You think that the music industry is a very emotional and personal one, with everything somehow rooted in experience that makes all the relationships you make so raw and close; these people know everything that goes on in your mind. He talks about his closest colleague Beomju that you were bound to meet and you feel yourself asking about his other industry friendships.

"Do you know Hoshi? Singer and dancer-extraordinaire and tiger in his spare time?" Jihoon asks and you clap your hands in laughter.

"Of course I do. That guy is legendary and we've met enough times at music shows and award shows to have each other's contacts. He's a really sweet guy- you know him as well?"

"We actually grew up together," Jihoon smiles shyly, "I produced his first album and that was like, both of our breakout projects."

You reply with all the stories you have about Kwon Soonyoung, and before you know it, you've reached the car that you had told him about on the way down. It was only then that you realise he made good on his promise from when he picked you up in the reception.

"Thank you for walking me to my car, Jihoon!"

"Anytime- I need to protect you until we get this album out since your team is paying my paycheck," he jokes.

"Well now I know your true intentions, I don't know how long we can keep this going," you tease back and open the door, "You get home safe too."

"My car's just over there," he gestures to an unspecific direction and moves a few steps back. He waves goodbye and you go to get in the car when he turns around with an unsure look on his face, "Y/N? I don't know if it's my place to say, but I'm sorry about what happened and I'm glad you were able to open up today with your song lyrics. I think you're so strong."

Strong. Your heart flutters at the word. You hadn't been called strong at all since the event. Everyone treated you like a damsel in distress; they acted like you were fragile and would break at the lightest touch. Sure, at one point you were, but it had been months and the world still treated you the same and only associated you with the breakup. Plus, treating you so different only made you feel worse.

Maybe the reason why you felt so free with Jihoon and why your heart didn't feel heavy walking out of his studio like it did with every other schedule you'd had since the breakup was that Jihoon just treated you like a normal person.

"That really means a lot, Jihoon. Thank you."

ꕤ

The next time you see him, it's been a week and you had spent 4 days of it on a schedule in Thailand. That wasn't to say you hadn't spoken to him; in fact, every day or so, he would send a voice note accompanied with no text, but it would just be the sound of him pressing the spacebar on his keyboard before the sweet realisations of your lyrics into full melodies.

You had known that Jihoon was a fantastic lyricist and producer, but his voice had never really crossed your mind. You only had other people's songs that he worked on to go off when you reached out to him, but now, with him sending you demos that he sung, you found yourself growing fond of his smooth vocals.

The first time, you had replied with wide-eyed emojis and tons of praise to his voice, to which he replied with a bashful thanks and a long voice note of one of his covers to your songs. That made you smile for hours just at the thought of someone so talented admiring your work.

"Are you ready for another session?" Jihoon insisted on meeting you in the parking garage if you continued to insist on not bringing your security team. 

"I'm excited," you say, "It really hurts my heart to revisit all these feelings, but it feels good to let them out. It feels like closure, you know?"

"Did you get any closure? With him?" he asks hesitantly as the two of you get into the elevator. He delivers it in a tone that conveys you're not obliged to answer.

"I guess. He tried to break up with me over text and I drove straight to his apartment to confront him," you shrug, "As much closure as you can get with someone in a nasty breakup, I guess. This album will be good for me to finally bury him in my past and move on with my life."

Jihoon nods along to your words, "That's good. Music is powerful like that; that's why I love my job."

"You like being music artists' therapist?"

"You know, I've never thought about it that way, but I kind of am," he chuckles, "You'd actually be so surprised at all these secrets I know about the people in the industry. They're lucky I am a very moral person."

The two of you soon arrive to his studio, "I'm an open book to the world. You don't have to worry about accidentally exposing me to the public."

He gives you a look and you can't tell if he feels sorry for you that the world seems to know everything about you or if he feels indignant, "Surely that's not true."

"Oh, it is. I saw an article about my usual orders at some restaurants and coffee shops and I didn't even know that I had usuals! They know my shoe size, my mother's maiden name, the name of my childhood schools-"

"Sounds like they're trying to get into your bank account."

You glare at him playfully, "But anyway, the public really knows everything."

"No, think about it. Tell me something the public doesn't know about you so I can have one of your secrets," Jihoon insists, which makes you sit back on his couch and think.

"One time, I broke my hand when I jumped off a swing- no I told that on Knowing Brothers- um," you cock your head, "Ah, I do have one, it's my favourite story. A few months ago, I ran away to Italy."

"You ran away to Italy?" he's prying for more information with his curious eyes.

"Mhmm. My PR team said that I was sick and going on media hiatus for a while, but I actually booked a ticket alone to Tuscany, dyed my hair blonde and spent a week drinking wine in the afternoons and having gelato for dinner. I met the most amazing people and ate the most amazing food and now a bunch of Italian restaurant owners know my story," you recall fondly.

"What happened to your blonde hair?"

You run your fingers through your now-brown hair, "I dyed it back right before my flight back. Tuscany me felt like just someone else. It was like an alternate reality."

"And no one caught you?"

"Actually, this girl from Korea recognised me, but I convinced her not to post them anywhere, then I treated her for dinner and now we're best friends," you laugh, "She lives in Daegu, but I see her when she goes here or vice versa."

"Well, see- there are things that the public doesn't know about you."

"I wrote a song about it, but maybe I'll never release that just to keep it to myself," you gesture to your journal that was on top of the coffee table, "But now you have to tell me one of your secrets so we're even."

Jihoon's smile sparkles in your direction, "I've never been in love."

Your jaw drops, "You're lying."

"Nope. I've liked people before, but never in love."

You laugh in disbelief, "You could've fooled me with all the lyrics you write."

"Maybe that's why I'm so good at writing love songs; I've only got this fantastical idea of it so it's all rainbows and roses to me," he explains, "And why breakup songs are harder for me, since I've never experienced the pain of it. I wanted to jump on this project with you to challenge myself."

"Then, I'm glad to be your first experience of heartbreak," you pick up the notebook and sigh, "Do you want to see the lyrics I wrote the night of the breakup?"

Jihoon shuffles closer to you on the couch, "Let's get started."

And it continues like that.

The two of you work once or twice a week in his studio for months and you finally meet Beomju in your third week. He still sends you voice notes in the middle of the night and you start doing it too when you get eureka moments in makeup chairs at salons before schedules. The two of you were yet to properly record the songs, just creating demos with the lyrics you croon into the mic at his desk instead of inside the booth.

Your relationship has never crossed beyond the confines of the Hybe building. If you wanted to get food, there was a café on one of the top floors and the two of you ate within his studio. It was all just very private since no one had yet caught wind of you working with the Pledis producer; it was a breath of fresh air, really. But within the Hybe building, you found a new friend in Jihoon and he was much more than just this coveted producer. 

It's getting closer to 4 months since the two of you started working together and almost every song you wanted to be on the album was finished, save for the final recording and finishing touches. You already had a lead single in mind and were in the last stages of finalising concepts for the music video, outfits, stages and the album itself. It was getting a lot more real and you hadn't expected it, but each day brought you more feelings of nervousness. 

You thought it would have been freeing to write and release this album and at first, sharing all those lyrics with Jihoon, it was. But seeing the album come to light and paint the story of your life had you in wrecks. It made you feel vulnerable as if a giant spotlight that seemed to come from space wasn't already shining on you with every move you made anyway. 

It was Wednesday. You usually met up with Jihoon on Wednesdays and today, you were sat up stiff on his couch and slightly shaking from the coffee he had ordered for you, "It's just getting so real, you know? And everyone's going to know everything that happened in my relationship and I just don't want to give him that satisfaction of the world knowing how he destroyed me."

Woozi shoots you a pitying look from his chair by his desk, "We can scrap the whole album, if you want. I'll do it. We can write all new songs together."

You scoff, "I might've taken you up on that offer if my company wasn't pushing me for this album. I would've put it off for another year if they didn't threaten to drop me. I know they're joking, but they're the ones that pay me."

"But you're the one that makes them their money," Jihoon reminds you, "What do you want to do, Y/N? I'll follow your lead; you're the star after all."

You grin at him and your stomach fills with butterflies at the undeniable trust you have in each other, "But you're the brains, Jihoon. Let's just finish this album; we're so close."

"But that means our time together is coming to an end," he says.

If you dared to look up, you would've seen him pouting, but you don't think you could have handled such a sight. Instead, you rise from the position you had been moping in for half an hour and head towards the recording booth, "Let's record track 1, Jihoon. I'm ready."

ꕤ

Lee Jihoon holds a lot of people in high regard. His parents. His family. Beomju. His colleagues. His best friend Soonyoung. Soonyoung's amazing backup dancers Chan, Minghao and Jun, who became Jihoon's found family too. Himself, once in a while when he creates something amazing. 

Now, you too. 

Jihoon sometimes forgets that he's there to actually do anything when you start singing into the mic. Sometimes, he gets so lost in your voice that he zones out and forgets the technicalities of every switch, button and dial in front of him. He'd never tell you that though.

It's different hearing someone's vocals on an already released song once it's been through all the editing and processing to someone's raw vocals less than 6 feet in front of you. There are only two of you there, but you absolutely command the room and it's so easy to see how the whole world falls at your feet. Jihoon's stumbling there as well.

"How was that?" you breathe deeply as you finish the bridge of the 7th song on your album.

"You are so talented," Jihoon hums, flushing as he got caught up in his trance to realise you were already staring at him, "I just can't comprehend your voice; it's out of this world."

"Stop boosting my ego," you scold, "But for real. You're here to be mean to me and tell me the truth so I can have the best album!"

"I wouldn't lie to you," Jihoon turns to his laptop to see how the clip translated onto his software, "Let's finish this song and we can call it a day if you want. Do you have the lyrics for the last part?"

You flip the page and briefly read the words you had penned about how alone you felt after the breakup and you smile. It doesn't really hurt as much anymore after a year, "Yeah. Let's go."

It only takes you less than 20 minutes and 4 takes to get the final bit of the song and a smile decorates your face as you stand behind Jihoon with his headphones on your head as he plays the almost-complete song. 

It was day 4 of finally recording your songs and while the nervousness was still there, you felt some kind of happiness from hearing the songs coming together. Maybe you were more excited for the craft than less nervous about the content.

"It's exactly how I wanted it," you beam, "As usual."

You hand him back his headphones as he closes down the programs and looks up at you, "What's your plan tonight?"

You check your phone and it's only 4 pm. You're feeling better about your album these days than you did a week or three ago and you're feeling braver, "Do you want to grab coffee with me?"

"Upstairs? Sure, let me grab my things."

"No, I mean, outside. Like my favourite coffee shop is actually just down the block from this building," you offer shyly. Jihoon hasn't seen you shy since the first time he met you.

Jihoon looks taken aback for a second and you prepare yourself for rejection, but his body softens again before you overthink and he smiles, "I'd love to grab a coffee. Let's go."

A mask covers both of your faces as the two of you traverse the building to get onto the street. He walks right by your side, shoulders almost touching and you're humming one of your old songs.

"That's one of my favourite songs from you," Jihoon mutters next to you quietly.

You almost smile and thank him, about to tell him it was your favourite song you'd written when a stray thought at the back of your mind barges past all the positive feelings you had today.

"What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?" Jihoon quickly notices the frown on your face.

"No, no. Thank you, Jihoon. I don't know; every time someone compliments the song, I always remember how he always told me he just didn't get the song every time I hummed it or sang it around him even though he knew it was my favourite song."

Jihoon feels his heart twist at the look of you so upset and he bumps his shoulder against yours affectionately, "Don't think about him, Y/N. He's in your past. You're an awesome songwriter and he shouldn't call himself a musician if he couldn't see how genius that song is."

"You always make me feel better, Jihoon."

"I told you; I'm my musicians' therapist," Jihoon chuckles, "Anyway, it's Christmas soon. Do you celebrate?"

You look up around you and the streets are decked out in both colourful and soft plain lights. The sun is setting already and if you wanted to cross any lines, you'd say it was almost a romantic setting, "Yeah I do. My family live in Seoul and we celebrate at my parent's house. What about you?"

"I'm going down to Busan the day before for a few days," Jihoon utters, "I don't have any siblings, so my parents and I celebrate with the whole extended family that still live there. We always watch Christmas films the night before and in the morning."

Jihoon continues on about the traditions his family hold for the holidays and you feel all those thoughts that sprung up on you about your past life melt away and all you can think about is how relieved you are to know someone like Jihoon. 

You reach your favourite coffee shop just some minutes later and you're thankful it's not that busy. You tuck yourself away in your favourite corner of the shop, under a framed photo of a pop-art print and Jihoon orders for you at the fear of anyone recognising your eyes or your voice. 

He waits for it at the counter, shooting you a smile, judging from the way his eyes crinkle up in your direction and he sets it in front of you, still talking about different holidays. He's moved onto Chuseok by this point and you feel a little lighter.

ꕤ

The first time Jihoon properly sees you crying is 3 days later and the day you're recording the final track on the album. He'd seen you tear up plenty of times before, both out of frustration at the process and at the lyrics the two of you write.

But you're choked up in the recording booth and you just don't know why.

This last song is about moving on and leaving someone behind in your past. It's a song about healing, but Jihoon doesn't know why there are tears streaming down your face. He had turned around to set up the program for the song and when he turned around, the lyrics sheet was crumpled up in your hand and you were sniffling.

"Y/N, are you okay?" his voice sounds out inside the booth, "Let's take a break, okay? Do you wanna talk?"

You strip the headphones away and place them down, making a beeline for the couch as you put your head in your hands, "It's been a year Jihoon. I've moved on, but why is this so hard?"

Cautiously, he approaches you and takes a seat beside you. He lets you cry a little longer and formulates his thoughts, "You're doing really well, Y/N. From what I can tell from what you've written, you've done so well. Healing isn't linear. It won't always be up because sometimes, you might think about it and it still hurts, but that's okay. You lived through it and you have the right to feel however you want. The past you still got hurt and present you can still feel sad about that, but you just have to keep going and it'll start to hurt less often. That's what healing is. Don't let this take away from the progress you made."

You don't reply for a while and Jihoon plucks up the courage to pat your shoulder in comfort. Your cries reduce to sniffles and eventually, you look up at him with red eyes and a tear-stained face, "And you say you've never experienced heartbreak?"

Jihoon cracks a smile, "Pain is pain. It's all the same," he says, "Do you want to go get coffee at your coffee shop then come back and finish up? It's the last song now!"

He stands up and offers out a hand to help you up. You take it and it feels like a new beginning. 

ꕤ

Your dress falls around your figure like a waterfall. The silk is divine and soft to your touch and the champagne colour catches the light beautifully, as well as the attention of everyone in the room.

You're posing on the red carpet so naturally and the lights stopped becoming blinding a year into your career. You try your best to smile as naturally as possible, but to be honest, you never really got used to forcing your expression on the carpet. Smiling came naturally to you, but having to do it while all these people shouted at you.

Award show season got a little lonely for you and you sometimes envied the idol groups who had their members to depend on through it. You had a lot of industry friends, but you could imagine the bonds that idol groups made within themselves.

"You look beautiful," a familiar voice pulls you away from your thoughts as you enter the venue.

You grin up at him, giving him a brief hug, "Kwon Soonyoung. Haven't seen you in a while."

"You haven't promoted in a while," he pouts. While you hadn't released a full album in almost 2 years, you did release a mini-album one year ago, just before everything went down.

"I saw you backstage on your tour 6 months ago," you remind him, "Are you excited for tonight? AAAs 2021! Woo!"

"Mhm, I'm performing," he walks you to your seat, "You're going to sweep all your categories tonight! I'm sitting over there, by the way."

He gestures over to an area in the adjacent block and you could recognise a few idols already sitting down. 

"Who are you sitting with?"

He smirks, "As if you don't know."

You roll your eyes and nudge him away, "Go away now before we get embroiled in another dating scandal."

He winks at you and you groan, "It's not your fault I'm irresistible," he teases before walking away, "Good luck, my Dispatch lover."

You make yourself comfortable in your seat and begin to chat with the few soloists that are sitting around you. You had industry friends, but you wouldn't say that you were close to that many people. All the celebrities you saw frequently were friends of your ex (who thankfully, was not there that night), so when you broke up with him, you also lost contact with them.

The next time you glance over to Hoshi, Woozi is occupying the seat next to him and he's glancing over in your direction. You give him a smile and a wave and he reciprocates your actions along with a fist pump to tell you good luck. 

The night starts out as normal- a few endearing rookie idol group performances and some vocal powerhouses as they start handing out the awards. You win one for best female solo and give your usual rehearsed speech, but a few minutes later, you realise that it was already time for the Best Producer award. 

Of course, you knew that Jihoon was nominated since you kept up pretty well with award shows. He never spoke about it and shot the conversation away whenever you tried to bring it up and tease him about it. 

When his name was announced, the first thing you heard was Soonyoung's excited yelp and you found yourself on your feet quicker than anybody in the room. Jihoon had to walk in front of you and you thought he would just brush past you, but his eyes were trained on you with a soft smile on his face.

"Congratulations," you call out quietly, watching his smile grow as he walks past you. 

Jihoon is never really the one with the attention on him; he's always worked behind the scenes, but it's undeniable that it feels nice to receive praise for the work you do. He thanks his company quickly, his colleagues and his friends, before thanking the fans for liking his work and the artists that have put their trust in him. You think he might've glanced at you during that part, but you dismissed that thought as soon as it came. Pride swelled in your heart as you watched him up on the stage and you attributed the feeling in your stomach to that as well. 

Soonyoung was holding an afterparty at a club he rented out and had convinced you to make a brief appearance considering you didn't want to go at all. Still in your champagne dress, your arms were linked to another female soloist as you walked in, but the two of you soon parted ways to start mingling. 

Jihoon quickly found his way to your side, "Congratulations to you, Y/N. You're always a star."

"I should say that to you, Mr Best Producer," you tease, "You really deserved that, Jihoon; I'm proud of you."

You hadn't noticed before, but Jihoon was soon handing you a flute of a sparkling drink. Had he been waiting for you?

"You look really beautiful, Y/N-ah."

What was this you were feeling? 

ꕤ 

It's been a month and a half since the AAA's. You've been to countless award shows. Christmas passed. New Year's passed. Your album was just about to get released. Your schedule has been packed with shoots, interviews, end-of-year shows and everything under the sun that a celebrity can appear on. 

And you were so screwed.

It had been a month since you saw Jihoon. The last time you saw him was a few days after the AAA's when you recorded the final touches for your album and finished it. He had submitted it to your company and it had been a month since the end of your working relationship with Jihoon. He had no more obligations to see you, but by God, you missed him. 

Sure, the two of you became friends. It would definitely not be weird for you to contact him and ask to have lunch or dinner or a coffee again, but you were utterly in confusion. 

You came to the realisation that maybe you missed him a bit more than you missed your other friends. Maybe you were craving his company and maybe you were desperate to just spend time with him. Maybe you needed, absolutely needed to feel all the things he made you feel when the two of you were together. Maybe you had a crush on him?

Surely not, right? 

Of course, the two of you still texted. It would often start with texts about the album promotions and any updates with the release, but it would soon divert to a tangent that would last into the late hours of the night. More often than not, he would be the last person you would say goodnight to and the first person you texted in the morning to carry on the conversation. 

It was absolutely driving you crazy how much you enjoyed his presence and how much of a positive impact Jihoon had on your life. What was even crazier was the thought of dealing with your feelings, so you always just boxed them up and pushed them down every time they popped up after all the particularly flirty texts you exchanged.

You liked the way he made you feel. It always seemed like he was always sincere and honest and he made you feel heard and valid. He always took into account your thoughts and feelings and gave you the perfect advice back for anything you were dealing with. He always made every situation into a positive one or at least gave you the courage and encouragement to deal with anything. 

Jihoon suddenly started seeming like the person you wanted by your side.

It was the night before your album launch, but you had been listening to the record for weeks and weeks already, trying to make sure it was something you were proud of. Safe to say, you definitely were and it was all thanks to your's and Jihoon's hard work and nothing felt more rewarding. 

You were hosting a release party with a few friends from the industry and most people from your company, as well as anyone who helped with the album.

Of course, Jihoon was first on the guest list. 

When he entered the room, you were in the middle, talking animatedly with a few people around you. It seemed like you were glowing from the way he could pick you out so easily. You had spotted him soon after too and excused yourself from the conversation. Jihoon hadn't expected you to, but you welcomed him with a hug and an excited squeal.

"It's almost time, Jihoon-ah," you grin, "I can't believe it's here. How has it already been so many months since we met and started working together?"

"Time flies when you're creating the album of the year," he tries to shrug as nonchalantly as possible, but you could see how excited he was, "We did so well, Y/N. I'm going to miss you a lot."

Your cheeks heat up at his confession, "Why are you acting like you're never going to see me again?"

"When would we?"

"I'm going to hire you for every album for the rest of my career- duh!" you bump your body against his and it takes Jihoon everything in him to not wrap his arms around you and hold you close to him.

"I wouldn't be against it," he laughs melodically.

You settle back on the balls of your feet and the skirt of your dress twirls as you fall back into position. You meet his eye and reach out for his hand, "Jihoon-ah, why don't you just stay with me anyway? No obligation."

Jihoon looks around. There must be a hundred people in this room and he thinks that the song playing is one from a session where he took you to the coffee shop after and pulled out your chair for you for the first time. It's not really the best time for a confession, but he thinks that your tone is pushing him to one. When would be the time anyway?"

"Well, I'm obliged to stay with you because I like you. A crazy stupid amount,"

A smile invades your face at the same time your heart bursts with glee, "I like you too, Jihoon. A crazy stupid amount."

ꕤ

Jihoon is the sound of softly-plucked guitar strings in an empty room or on a rainy day. He's the sound of birds singing as grass crunches under your feet during a walk. He's the sound of the bed creaking and the duvet rustling as he climbs into your bed when you're already asleep. He's the sound of a kiss being pressed onto your sleeping shoulder. He's the sound of piano keys delicately filling up the house as you come downstairs in the morning and he's already up, but hair still messy and eyes still drooping. Jihoon feels like home, for once in your life, and you like to think you'd like to have that feeling of belonging for as long as you could hold onto it.

"Y/N," It's Wednesday and Jihoon is waiting for you, standing by your favourite table in your coffee shop. Two coffee cups adorn his hand and he hands one to you as he pulls your chair out for you. 

You shoot him a look of thanks as you look around the deserted cafe, before nudging your nose against his and pressing a delicate kiss on his lips, "Hi, Hoon."

He chuckles to himself, thinking about how endearing he finds you before the two of you sit down, "So, album number 4? What's it about? I should know what it's about before agreeing to produce your album again."

You laugh as if he doesn't know that he is all that fills your mind and your lyric book these days, "It's about falling in love."

He smiles, eyes sparkling, "Ah, I have some experience in that department now. I look forward to working with you again."