#Might do one for Stan later

[connorconsumestrousers]

🖤 Siri play BATTLE OF THE LARYNX by Melanie Martinez 🖤

they're pretty silly 🪿

FAKE COLLAB THING BY @thenamesmobu !!!

[I waaaas gonna do a serious one. but it. didn't really look the best so we're gonna stick with the silly one.]

[scribbiesan]

“Gimmie your kneecaps!”

(Click for better quality if shitty)

Chase Stone:

Cockatrice, general menace, stealer of hearts and left socks, and maker of bad decisions.

His entire story got a massive overhaul, and I’m still working on the details once again. But instead of him being on the run from the government as a mutant, now he’s a giant feathery monster who hides in the Oregon forests, and has at least some grasp on magic to change his form to steal food from human towns.

His true form is about 12’5, while human form is 5’7. Fashion sense eludes him in either form. It’s a bit sad. He gets to be a bit silly as compensation. :3

Anyway!! Here’s a really, really old OC I made for Gravity Falls way back when it first came out. He’s gotten some changes, but still my lovable baby. Hope y’all enjoy!! (Also ignore the BGs for this. I was burnt out before I could figure out something cute for each one. Just threw some shit and it stuck)

Toodles!~

[mechazushi]

Kitagawa's Soulmate Customs Order.

Soulmate Customs is a channel on Youtube. They specialize in spicy/sweet/sad custom embroidery clothing for the loved ones in your life. This is a short story about Marin Kitagawa getting a reason for an order, giving it to Gojo, and the consequence of getting him a spicy sweatshirt. #not sponsored, just really like what they do. also #i am single and channeling my lonelyness through fanfiction.

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It was a cold and windy day in Japan where Kitagawa was at. It was January so she shouldn't have been too surprised, but the biting chill in the air felt a little over-dramatic for the season. Part of her knew she would've come to regret the decision to wear a pencil skirt and should have compensated for the weather with more than thick, fur lined leggings, but she wanted to look cuter than usual today. She was on her way to meet her boyfriend Gojo for a very important coffee date. It was important because they were finalizing the paperwork outlining Gojo's moving details into Kitagawa's apartment.

After working everything out and being the one to finally admit she liked him, it had been a few years and some life altering changes had gone down in this seemingly brief period of time. Kitagawa had gotten approval and started working as an official cosplayer for Sparkle Productions. Working with them meant she got a consistent income at a much higher rating. Meaning she could afford her own apartment in an inner-city location. It was close to work, but it inadvertently made it farther away from Gojo's home. It made her feel like she couldn't see him as often as she wanted. Speaking of which, Gojo's gone off to college.

He's still striving to become a Hina doll maker, but him and his grandpa thought it wouldn't hurt if he had some knowledge running a business. He was also partnered with Sparkle Productions as well, seeing as it was made very clear that him and his skills were inseparable from Kitagawa. Between the commissions he's been getting paid with from the production company and commissions from doll making, he's raking a bit of money as well. He's been living with his grandpa since the beginning of their relationship however, and some people( no stories will be told, but the grandfather has been the biggest advocate for this) felt it was time for that to change. Gojo has just ended his most recent semester, so now the time for this was about as best as it was going to get.

Tightening her pink fleece and strawberry decorated cardigan against a sudden blast of chilling wind, it made her wonder if she was going to die of freezer burn before she reached the coffee shop. The only thing keeping her warm in her mind was the possible chance she could convince Gojo to let her crawl into his lap in the public cafe. She knew he would object if she said it outright, but probably wouldn't notice if she came at the plan slowly. Start off with complaints about the weather while giving a longer than necessary hug, lather him in compliments about how warm he is, snuggle up as close as she could get away with and just... slowly invade his innermost personal space an inch at a time. She could see it working.

She turned the corner and charged in the direction of the glass doors to the building, before stopping herself as she caught a glimpse of her boyfriend sitting against the wall in side-view of the long expanse of glass acting as the front of the building. Gojo played on his phone as he was cross-legged and reclined languidly in the bench seats that lined the left wall. The low coffee tables set in front of them offered a full view of the daring outfit that he walked out with. Black from the shoes up, he wore leather loafers, corduroy pants, and a tight turtleneck. The main focus of the outfit came from the quilted biker-style jacket made out of boldly patterned and oddly shaped patches of red, grey in varying shades, and white fabric.

She recognized the fabric as scraps coming from a cosplay she did last year. The long and wide, tri-tiered, ruffled mermaid skirt it had was made out of geometric chunks that had to be individually sewn together, meaning there were a lot of off cuts left and were considered unusable. Despondent and irritated at the waste it created, Gojo was left puzzled as to what to do with the scraps, not wanting to toss it all out. Marin had sent as many pictures as she could, hoping it would inspire him to try his hand at street wear. While some of it ended up getting patched together as a Hina doll's outfit, she was told that the rest of it did end up as a couple personal projects, ones that she wasn't given any hints as to what they were.

She knew he was still uncomfortable with non-traditional clothes, but had been making personal strides in his own time. It was still a shock nonetheless, to see him not only in something that wasn't his usual samue, but something that he'd created. She knew it had taken a lot of willpower from him to commit to walking out of the house in something that absolutely would have sent his anxiety straight through the roof three years prior. Sitting there in the warm shop lighting made him come across as more of a model than she did most days. Seeing him without an ounce of fear in his dashing appearance tugged on her heartstrings and filled her body with pride.

Snugging the manila file full of paperwork up into her armpit, she reached up and tightened her high ponytail up even tighter, straightened her curled side bangs, and pulled down on the hems of her outfit. Checking her outfit in the mirror finish, she giggled a little once she noticed she was wearing a turtleneck as well under the cardigan. While it was white, she couldn't help but smile at how the two of them were going to look as they sat there. Lounging against each other, drinking hot drinks and sitting the warm cafe, soaking up each other's body heat- God she needed to get out of the cold.

As she entered the shop, Gojo looked up from his phone and immediately brightened. He stood up as Kitagawa got closer and pulled her into a friendly hug. Gojo tried to let go, but she clung onto him a little longer and hummed as the warmth began to replace the chill she developed walking outside.

"Blisteringly cold out there, isn't it?" Gojo questioned as he chuckled, realizing why Kitagawa was holding on so tight.

"You wouldn't mind if I just weaseled my way into your new jacket, right? I feel like my bones are shivering." Her eyes were closed as she tested her chin on his chest.

"So you noticed it, huh?" Gojo said as he tightened his arms again and swayed her lightly from side to side.

She opened her eyes as she looked up and saw that something was different about him. Feeling transfixed by his gaze, she noticed that his eyes seemed more intense than usual even though she could see the soft love he had for her in the plains of his face. Drawing attention to the shape of his eyes, she could see that they were rimmed in a thin, but noticeable line of smoky black. It helped emphasize the dark pools that were his ebony irises and strengthened the emotions in his gaze.

"You- you look different." Marin uttered out sweetly, not wanting to break eye contact.

"Ah. It's... noticeable, isn't it?" Gojo turned his head away in embarrassment

"N-no! It's good! I've just... never seen you in guyliner before." Kitagawa broke from the hug and the two of them sat down. She passively clocked the half finished mug of milky tea on the table before turning back to Gojo.

"Yeah, I was leaving an Economics lecture and a girl next to me retouched up her makeup with something I haven't seen before. I might have interrogated her over it, the poor thing." Gojo said as he looked somewhat ashamed, "Anyway, I bought it because it's never a bad idea to have more options for makeup with you. Before I left I had noticed that my eye bags were a little more obvious than usual and you had left your makeup bag in my dorm, so I might have helped myself to the concealer. Since I was already applying makeup I thought it would be a good idea to try it on myself and make sure I know what I'm doing. You know?"

"You've gotten really good with the color matching. I couldn't tell you had any on!" Kitagawa said as she tilted her boyfriend's head back and forth, "What did you use for the eyeliner?"

"It was this." he said as he pulled up a picture of the product listing and showed her an image of a surma stick.

"That's... Are we sure that's not a torture device?" Kitagawa said as she visibly paled.

"It does look like one, doesn't it?" Gojo giggled, "When I asked about it, she gave me some tips, but it still took me a few tries to get it to look straight. It's probably for the best that we keep the makeup on you though."

"Why? You look amazing!" Marin said, being very adamant in hopes it encourages him to be just as bold in the future.

"Maybe." Gojo said simply as he put his phone back in his pocket.

"Did something happen? I really think you look good." Kitagawa said as she inched closer, removing any space she could between their laps.

"it's just... I think I might've scared the girl at the front counter. She looked nervous before I started talking to her and I think she was shaking when I left." Gojo said as he pinched his lips and looked downcast.

"I sincerely doubt that was the reason." Kitagawa said as she patted his thigh. She tested her head against his shoulder and looked him in the eyes while smiling. He returned her smile, but it didn't seem as bright as it could be.

"Speaking of the counter, I should go order myself a drink. I still feel frozen on the inside." she said, already regretting having to leave his very warm side.

"I know it looks like I'm almost finished with mine, but I ordered yours a few minutes after you texted me saying you were leaving your place." Gojo said as his hand drifted to her wrist, preventing her from leaving.

"Oh, really? What did you get?" she asked.

"This place is serving the strawberry hot chocolate you saw on the TV. That sound okay?" Gojo questioned.

'OMG, You are amazing!" Kitagawa said as she threw herself into his arms.

An attempt was made to see if she could wiggle her way onto more of his lap, but she quickly slid off as she missed the landing. Almost as if summoned by their conversation, a nondescript looking waitress walked over to them with a tray carrying two drinks.

"A hot chocolate covered strawberry and a refill of the chocolate truffle chai." the rather petite looking woman said as she stuck around to confirm the order.

"Oh, I didn't order the refill." Gojo said, trying to be polite.

'It's okay. It's on the house." the waitress said as she winked before nervously scurrying away.

"Huh. That's never happened before. I think that was also the lady I talked to the first time as well." Gojo said as he watched her tip-toe back to the counter, puzzled. Immediately feeling skeptical of the waitress's intentions, Kitagawa began to inspect the outside of the fresh mug of tea that was placed on the table. Looking closer at the decorative napkin, she found that someone from behind the counter, probably that waitress, had scribbled down their number with the words 'Call Me' next to it.

"I take it you've never had a girl give you their number on a coffee napkin before either?" Kitagawa said as she held up the evidence to Gojo.

He was taking a sip from the first mug as he turned to look at it and proceeded to choke a little when he saw what was written. As Gojo was trying to recover from the lukewarm liquid almost invading his lungs, Kitagawa looked at the offending napkin a little harder. While she recognized that it happened through no fault of his own, she still felt mildly threatened and had a desire to make the waitress rethink approaching a taken man. Putting the number into her phone, she waited until Gojo had fully recovered from his coughing fit and asked him to lean into the camera's frame. As he adjusted his face, Kitagawa turned and planted her lips in a solid strike against his mouth. When she could tell he had relaxed into the sudden bout of affection, she took the photo and uploaded it to her text messages.

"Not that I mind getting surprised like that, but what was that for." Gojo said dreamily, his eyes only focused on the now smudged pink lip gloss she was currently sporting.

"Just sending a message. Literally." Marin giggled as she sent the photo to the unknown number with the caption saying 'He's taken." under it.

"Kitagawa... Isn't that a but much?" Gojo replied worriedly once he saw that the picture had been sent. No less than a minute had passed before everyone had heard a loud cry of disappointment echo through the cafe.

"Nope!" Marin giggled.

It was later in the evening now, hours after the date had ended and Gojo had walked her home. She was in bed relishing in the afterglow of a warm shower and wrapped in her fluffiest pair of pajamas. She knew it was late, but couldn't help herself as she scrolled down the infinite chain of short videos in an attempt to stop thinking about what had happened at the cafe earlier. She knew her Gojo was handsome and she felt it was an appropriate reaction to seeing him spending a little more effort on his appearance. Mainly because she could see herself pulling the same stunt if she hadn't known him before that day. It didn't change the fact that it had happened.

They had known each other before they started dating, but their relationship still felt a little young. She had no doubt that she could trust him to stop other people's advances, but Marin couldn't help but want to do something that would stop that all together, or at the very least make people think twice about it. It was impossible to spend all her waking hours by his side, not to mention that it would be an obsessive and quite toxic move on her part. She already felt that Gojo was the one for her, but since she made the first move she wanted to give him the chance to be brave and propose. Kitagawa had already accepted that it was going to be a while longer before that was going to happen anyway. A quiet, unhinged part of her said "Get a dog collar." but that was quickly disregarded as soon as it was brought up.

Deciding on one last attempt to clear her mind of the turmoil, she made the decision to scroll for three more minutes and then put the phone down. She had noticed that her For You page had begun to fill with happy couples recording their happy moments together. She would always joke with the people in the comments, all of them relating to each other about how single and alone the couple on screen made them feel. Now she just smiled and laughed imperceptibly to herself in the dark, feeling better about her situation because now... now she could relate to the happy couples. The ads felt like they were picking up on this too. It kept sending her listings for couple's gifts, with some being actually cute and some she just couldn't find a reason why there had to be a couple's variation.

Getting close to the end of her self imposed time limit, she almost scrolled past one that seemed to be an American ad, but upon closer inspection it didn't have the usual banners or the click bait links bordering the edges of her screen. What really caught her attention was the red faced and sweating emojis that took the place as the video's title. Kitagawa considered herself to be a simple girl. Hot emojis probably meant that the video's contents were going to be something she might be interested in. Yeah, it was a cliche tactic, but it is how she found some of her most recent eroge games and manga. Letting the video play out, she saw a pretty red-headed woman looking at the camera, her face looking shocked by what she found. Cue the camera angle panning over to a gold engraved key-chain with an outline of a woman in lingerie with the back of it saying "Cum home safe <3"

Kitagawa let the clip play over again, just to be sure that is what she actually saw. After confirming that, she immediately clicked on the clip's link to the redheaded woman's main page. Disregarding the self imposed time limit for the sake of research, she looked at videos after videos on this woman's page. She got the clear impression that this woman had a custom engraving and embroidery shop that didn't shy away from its more... risque submissions. Sure there were some fluffy, more sentimental pieces and a few sad memorial works, but the ones that had the half naked women on them clearly got more views (Go figure). To be fair, there were one or two male submissions. Kitagawa got a little chuckle at the thought of putting a shirtless Gojo on an embroidered hoodie for herself, but that would be next to impossible as even in the middle of summer she wouldn't find him just casually shirtless.

As she scrolled down one more, she found out that they did jewelry as well. Different types of necklaces as well as bracelets. That got Kitagawa thinking. Bracelets weren't as obvious as a ring could be, but an engraved bracelet could be something she could get away with. Gojo didn't seem like the kind of guy to be down for wearing a necklace, hell it took him four years to try and wear something that wasn't a samue. But she could probably convince him to wear something as small and innocuous as a wrist band. Getting him a sexy sweatshirt with her almost-bare ass plastered on the front of it should have been an immediate no as an option, but she had to admit it was right up her ally.

Kitagawa left her phone on the clip's main page and turned it off for the night. She wanted to take a closer look at what was available in the morning as she wanted to put some real thought and effort into what she wanted to get. She had already decided to buy something from them anyway, seeing at how cute and personalized each item could get. She knew she couldn't spend forever making a decision however, with Gojo slated to move into the apartment in less than two weeks. She was going to pay through the nose for express shipping, but it would be worth it.

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Two weeks had passed and it was finally Moving-In Day for Gojo. He was a minimalist at heart, but due to taking up cosplay as well as keeping up with Hina Doll creation, there was quite a bit of equipment to lug over. Thankfully the heaviest thing he owned was a sewing machine. Kitagawa would never admit this willingly, but she bought an apartment with a second bedroom with the intention that Gojo would move in eventually and take over that space and turn it into his hobby room and office. Four hours later, all furniture was rearranged and the boxes were flattened and put outside the door. It was a bit early for lunch yet, so Gojo decided to collapse in the main room and stretch out in the new environment. He landed on the floor with a comically long and low groan.

"Enjoying yourself down there?" Kitagawa said as she giggled at him, watching from her place on the low couch parallel to him.

"I'm going to get used to seeing this view, aren't I ?" Gojo responded after a moment, the realization of moving in settling into his mind and body frame. Kitagawa crawled on her hands and knees over to where he laid and gave him some deep and unhurried kisses on his lips. An activity Gojo reciprocated gladly in a similar fashion.

"You're gonna get used to the view of my bedroom ceiling first, I bet." Kitagawa whispered salaciously as she pulled away and moved her head to his chest. Gojo rolled his eyes hearing that and shifted his arm to lay across her waist.

"If someone had told me that I'd not only be in love and dating the most beautiful and extroverted girl in my class, but also living with her in a few years... I'd think it would have given me a heart attack." Gojo said and he sighed deeply.

"I think you would have the heart attack from finding out time travel exists." Kitagawa responded.

"Why time travel? Could have met a fortune teller." Gojo playfully interrogated.

"You're too skeptical to believe a fortune teller." Kitagawa offered simply as she moved a hand to the back of his head, longingly gazing at his face.

"That is true. Guess it would have to be a time traveler." Gojo chuckled out tiredly. His eyes were closed, but he could feel Kitagawa play with his short tufts of hair. Her hand brushing in a relaxed and loving manner, acting as an anchor to this moment.

"Oh! Almost forgot." Kitagawa said as she clumsily got to her feet as quickly as possible. Gojo watched over the kitchen counter as she got a footstool and used it to gain access to the top of the fridge. She pulled down an already opened cardboard box and walked around the counter with it.

"I know you're just moving in and all. buuuut I decided to get you a few housewarming gifts." She said as she sat down and crossed her legs, placing the box on top of her lap. Gojo propped himself up onto his elbows as she got herself prepared to show him the surprise.

"Do you want the Sweet gift or the Spicy gift first?" Kitagawa bit her lip as she offered and drummed her acrylic nails on the top of the box. Gojo groaned loudly in mock agony at hearing that one of the gifts he would be receiving was described as "Spicy".

"You know what, humor me. The Spicy one first." Gojo said, already preparing himself for the gift by throwing all expectations out the window. Hopefully mentally preparing himself this way meant that Gojo wouldn't be sent into a heart attack that he seemed to be prone to getting around her. Kitagawa giggled maliciously as she opened the box and pulled out a vacuumed sealed, plush feeling, rounded, and black object. After she handed it over, he gently pulled away the plastic wrapping. He could already see the outline of what could be a leg dressed in fishnet stockings.

"Oh, this already doesn't bode well- what is this?" Gojo exclaimed as he unfolded the black hoodie.

The smile on his face was unmistakable, but he was still very shocked at what he was seeing. Taking up as much space as it could on the front of the soft hoodie, was a detailed white outline of what he assumed was his girlfriend dressed in a very complicated looking lingerie outfit with her hair up in a bun. She wore a high cut pair of baby blue underwear paired with a similar colored bra that left little to the imagination with matching strips of fabric crossing her midsection. There was a garter belt harness holding up some white fishnet stockings and a bunny ear headband completed the look. She was posed sitting on her thighs with her knees spread and holding her phone off to the side so as to not obstruct any part of the outfit. Curiously though, her head was turned and looking behind her. The phrase "Dress me up" Was plastered in bold lettering at the top of the framed image.

"Wait till you see the back of it." Marin tented her fingers and continued to laugh manically.

"God, there's a back to this?" Gojo said astonishedly. He quickly turned it around and moved the hood out of the way before he held it up again.

It was the same pose, but seen from the back. The high cut underwear had a large white pompom stuck to it to represent a bunny's tail and he could see why her head was turned away in the first picture. While it didn't show the rest of her face's features, it showed her tongue sticking out. If one looked closely, they could see the smallest dot of silver on the tongue that was supposed to represent the piercing that she had. Under the photo this time was the phrase "I'm your mannequin.".

"You... you know I can't wear this outside, right?" Gojo stuttered, taking in the magnitude of the gift he was presented with.

'Come on, I know you better than that! Wasn't expecting you to!" Kitagawa continued to giggle though her fingers at her boyfriend's embarrassed appearance.

"Th-then why...?" Gojo tried to ask while processing the gift in front of him.

"You've been in the guest room, right? That room can get super cold in the winter. I think it's got a weird draft problem." Kitagawa answered as she sucked on her lips and rested her elbows on the edges of the box .

"I figured we would have gotten a heater?" Gojo questioned.

"Yeah, I think the money for that is gonna go to getting a window air con for the bedroom. You know by now that I'm a cuddler and you like the room arctic when you sleep, sooo..." Kitagawa left the sentence to hang as Gojo nodded in agreement.

"I'd hate to get paint on it if I'm going to be working in this." He said as his eyes landed back onto the hoodie.

"So what! Get some paint on it!", She said as she scooted over to sit behind his back, "You know what? I think you should get a fat dollop of white paint on it. Right about there, don'tcha think?" Kitagawa moved her finger over his shoulder and pointed to her right ass cheek.

"K-Kitagawa!" Gojo exclaimed in embarrassment once he remembered why she would say such a thing.

"What? It's what happened last time I wore that!" She laughed as her arms tightened around Gojo's neck playfully, making sure he didn't run away from the conversation. He could feel himself melting at the playful goading.

"I'm still surprised you would get me a hoodie in the first place. Not that I don't appreciate the gesture." He said as he tapped on her arms in hopes she'd give him back some breathing room.

"Well... to be honest... This might be playing a part in a master plan." Kitagawa said mysteriously as she side-eyed him.

"A-and what plan would that be?" Gojo replied, his tone already dripping in fear.

"To steal... YOUR SHIRTS!" Kitagawa stealthily pulled on the strings that held his samue together and swiped his top off his body with surprising ease. Before he could counter the attack, she stood up and had already put her arms into it. She grabbed the sides of the top and wrapped it as tight as possible around her. As he stood up to look at her, Kitagawa took a handful of the top's fabric and brought it up to her nose. He continued to watch in amazement as she took the heartiest snort and sighed in satisfaction.

"Ahhhh. Been wanting to do that for years." She continued to look content even as she heard Gojo try to hold back a fit of laughter.

When he finished, he looked at her like he saw what love really looked like for the first time. She looked at him like she always had. With the deepest, most complete understanding of what happiness really was. Gojo picked up the hoodie from the floor and shuffled it over his head. After tugging it into place, he spread his arms out for a hug. Kitagawa gladly fell into them, just like they fell into each other's heart years ago. They held each other in place in the middle of the room for a moment, savoring the other's presence and heat in the room.

Love never looked so damn good.

"Didn't you say there was a second gift?" Gojo muttered into the top of Kitagawa's head after a long beat of time. She shook her head in his chest and slowly pried herself from his embrace. She walked back over to the box and pulled out two bracelets.

"I know the hoodie is never leaving the apartment, but I wouldn't mind if you did start wearing a little something for me. If it's not too much, 'cause I know you're not really a jewelry person." She handed over a metal bracelet plated in rose gold and held onto the silver one. On the top of the rose gold one was an emoji of a needle and a spool of thread, while the silver one had a bow and hands making a heart.

"There's a little something on the inside too." Kitagawa said looking sheepish. Flipping them over, Gojo could see that there was a line of kanji etched on the inside.

"She's my doll." in the rose gold bracelet

"He's my doll maker" was in the silver one.

"Kitagawa..." Gojo sighed affectionately.

"Is... is it okay?" she slid the silver one on before she asked nervously. Gojo sliped the rose gold one on and gently took her by the hands before he responded.

"It's perfect." Gojo whispered as he leaned in for a kiss, one that Kitagawa was happy to return back. They gently played with each other's lips for a moment before Gojo broke it off to ask a question.

"Surprised you didn't get the rose gold one for yourself. I figured that color would be more up your alley."

"I didn't because of what you said right there." Kitagawa smiled. Gojo only tilted his head in bewilderment.

"You saw the color and thought of me. It's why I chose mine to be silver." She purred. Gojo chuffed at hearing that, understanding how it made sense. Kitagawa went to lean in to continue the kiss, but was stopped when Gojo asked another question.

"This is to get me used to the idea of wearing a wedding band, isn't it?" He said with a knowing smirk on his face.

"Wha-why would y-you say th-that?" Kitagawa sputtered as her eyes darted nervously, not thinking that her line of thought would be discovered and revealed so soon. He just chuckled quietly as he placed the adorned hand on her face. He held it still as he leaned down for a silencing kiss.

"I will. At some point." he offered simply when he pulled away again, thumb brushing her rosy cheeks.

"That's all I ask for." Kitagawa grinned.

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It was another month later and Kitagawa had a short workday planned out for her. There were plans to head home early because Gojo also had a short day ahead of him. Well, short enough. He had more classes after five, but he had a window of time around three. Their schedules had become fairly out of wack between the classes and the photo shoots, so they wanted to make the most of this opportunity. Which really just summed up to Gojo coming home and making dinner with an hour of watching shows or gaming before he had to leave again. As Kitagawa was wrapping up getting her normal outfit on, she received a text from Gojo.

Hubby <3<3<3] I'm out of class right now. I need to stop by the store before I head home however because I don't think we have enough dumpling wrappers for gyoza. Could you do me a favor when you get home and chop the vegetables that we have and defrost the meat?

She sent back a sticker of a rabbit saying okay and left the studio. Now back inside their apartment, she made a beeline for the bathroom and dug out a previously worn samue top and replaced the shirt she was wearing with it. She made it back to the kitchen and took the meat out of the freezer to let it thaw on the counter. After she gathered up the vegetables, she prepped them and started cutting, getting lost in the rhythm of the work. Nearing the end of the green onion she was chopping, she heard the door open.

Gojo? You're back already?" She cleaned her hands and went to see him at the door. As she turned the corner, she was stopped in her tracks at noticing a familiar black hoodie that he was wearing.

"Notice something Kitagawa?" Gojo said in a clearly playful and passive aggressive tone. He removed the strap connected to his duffle bag and let it drop unceremoniously to the floor.

"Uhhh... maybe?' she replied, her voice ticking upward several notches.

"You want to know how my day went?" Gojo continued, still in the same tone of voice, "My day was interesting, to say the least. I found out early this morning, that every time my girlfriend comes over to my dorm, she's somehow been maliciously stealing my samue tops and replacing them with the shirt she was wearing at the time." He said as he passed her and rounded the corner with some grocery bags to shove them onto the counter.

"Someone also thought it would be funny to put the hoodie that was never supposed to leave the apartment into my bag of clothes for the week. Which, if you can't tell where this is going, means that I had no shirts with my only option of tops for today being either a woman's top that is mostly likely too small for me or the sexy hoodie that was never supposed to see the light of day." He rapidly stalked over to her and grabbed at her waist before she could make her getaway.

"I had people giggling at me the entire day at college! I got yelled at by old ladies! Three different old ladies yelled at me and called me a prude!" Gojo began a vicious tickle attack on his girlfriend as punishment for the treatment he had been receiving all day. Kitagawa was rendered useless and disarmed as she helplessly fought a losing battle against his experienced hands.

"I had some guy on the train ask me who the anime character on my hoodie was and where I bought it! I had to tell him it was my girlfriend and when I did, he scoffed and said 'Yeah right. Guys like us don't get girlfriends.' It took me showing him my home screen and the bracelet for it to get through his dense head!" The attack never let up as he continued to berate her with his precise, wriggling fingers. Kitagawa started to feel lightheaded as she had a hard time taking in oxygen.

"Di-didn't I l-leave one o-of my m-en's si-sized sh-irts ov-over there?" She found it difficult to speak as she was still being tickled. Miraculously, Gojo stopped as he processed what Kitagawa was trying to say. Letting her have a moment to breathe again, he walked over to the duffle bag left at the door and rummaged around looking for a sign of what she had said.

"Aaaugh, I'm an idiot." Gojo groaned as he pulled out a shirt he recognized as having a men's design on it. Leaning for support against a corner of the wall, Kitagawa slowly gained the ability to speak again.

"Almost makes me wonder if you wanted to wear it out in public." She joked dangerously as she gasped. Gojo turned and started daggers through her soul.

"Alright, that is it." He snarled. He ran back to her and lifted her up into a princess carry. Using one hand, he pulled back the hem of the samue she stole that hadn't gone unnoticed by Gojo, and began to blow massive raspberries into her stomach. Sending her into another fit of laughter, she didn't notice until it was too late when he dropped her onto an open space on the counter. Moving to stand in between her legs, he continued his assault of raspberries while Kitagawa shrieked and squirmed while trying to knee him in the ribs. Another moment of relentless tickling passed and Gojo could feel the slapping against his shoulders start to make their intention clear. He lifted his head up to see Kitagawa's face before him.

Flushed red as a bright cherry with unfocused eyes and gasping for air, it was a familiar sight to him. He could feel himself flush a little in response, but decided to keep the angry act up.

"Well? Do you feel like apologizing?" Gojo smirked as he loomed above Kitagawa.

"If I say yes, will you let me breathe?" She gasped out tiredly.

"Only if you really mean it." He muttered into her belly, planting little suckling kisses while it twitched. Kitagawa giggled as her hands drifted to his hair.

"There might be a problem then." She moaned lightly as she felt the attention her midsection was getting, wishing that type of care was placed in other areas on her.

"Guess I'll just have to find other ways of making you pay, now won't I?" A small groan was muffled as he felt the heat of her exertion radiate through her skin.

It was still very cold outside and she felt oh so warm now. A hand came up and tugged on the tie holding the panels of the top together and used his hands to bunch up the sides of it to pull the panels away from each other. Opening up the stolen shirt, he could see that there was only a plain white bra under it. Using the grip on the shirt, he slid her down the counter's edge and used the opportunity to kiss a path up her stomach. Kitagawa moaned louder as she felt Gojo lick a strip in between her breasts, feeling the tip dig under the border of the fabric.

"I thought you were going to make dinner, Gojo?" Kitagawa goaded as her hands betrayed her thoughts, carding and tugging pleasantly on his short locks of hair.

"Dinner? I've got a juicy rabbit roast right here." His head continued up to her shoulder where he bit and pulled on the strap of her bra, letting it snap back on her skin.

"And use my first name." Wakana growled hotly into the spot where the strap landed. Marin rolled her body into the attention, not feeling guilty in the slightest for what she had done.

[chaostudee]

how you get the girl, lando norris.

summary : lando norris reveals in a interview that his celebrity crush is y/n. the majority of the grid teases him over his little crush but little do they know it is mutual. faceclaim : hailee steinfeld warnings : language?? a/n : aaaaagh 2nd win for lando im so happy :) hopefully ferrari can get on the podium in monza. also inspired by how you get the girl by taylor swift.

y/nusername felt cute. might delete later.

liked by zendaya, florencepugh, landonorris and 1,719,910 others.

zendaya 🔥🔥

florencepugh damnnn girl

user01 goddamn

user11528 wowwww

sabrinacarpenter obsessed with u always

username_90 DONT DELETE GIRL PLEASE

user22 how tf is she single?!?!

y/nfan LITERALLY LIKE WHAT

user92 pick me choose me love me

mclaren new video out now !!

liked by landonorris, zakbrown, f1fan and 479,929 others.

user828 OMG LOVE U MCLAREN

user01 they know what we want hehe

f1fan oh yesssss

username982 oh we are so backkkk

user_72 landoscar !!!!!

y/nusername

》 user929 omlll she's so pretty wtfff

》 user00 so gorgeouss ughhh

》 y/nlover i cant wait for future projects hehe

》 y/nusername something coming soon 🤫

》 username_89 yesss y/n active era

f1updates lando norris reveals that his celebrity crush is y/n y/ln !!!

liked by f1fan, f1lover, justaninchident and 129,920 others.

user01 stan oscar for calling him out hehe

f1fan UM WHAT

user472 he's so real for that acc

f1lover Y/N NEEDS TO SEE THIS PLSSS

justaninchident brb changing my name to y/n real quick

user555 so not normal about this

y/nusername SPIDERMAN INTO THE SPIDERVERSE OUT JUNE 2ND !!!!

liked by florencepugh, tomholland2013, zendaya and 1,293,920 others.

florencepugh yayyyy i cant waittt

zendaya eeeek so excited

tomholland2013 won't be better than homecoming.....but i have fate

user829 OMG OMG

user739 Y/N AS GWEN OH YES

username_777 i know where i will be june 2nd

lando.jpg

liked by alexalbon , oscarpiastri, georgerussell and 282,710 others.

alexalbon bros a photographer now

landonorris just a hobby :)

user829 ugh his style lately 😩😩

user119 obsessed with him alwaysss

username_425 bros doing sidequests now

f1fan aagh we need more content like this plsss

f1lover im love his jewellery smmmm

oscarpiastri this week was a good one 😜

liked by landonorris, y/nusername, georgerussell and 618,910 others.

landonorris :)

user289 your honour i love them !!!

user_19 ughhh they are so cuteeee

justanichident pookies

f1fan mclaren podiums are my favs :)

f1lover but carlando podiums 😚

y/nusername premiere in la last night

liked by landonorris, florencepugh, zendaya and 917,291 others.

landonorris stunning

y/nusername tyyyyy

user82 oh this look im obsessedddd

f1fan not lando commenting plss he wants her so baddd

user910 she's so hot omg

florencepugh my bsf is so gorgeee

zendaya you ateee so baddd

jimmyfallon interview with y/n y/n out now !!

liked by landonorris, f1fan, justaninchident and 628,019 others.

user8292 YES THIS IS THE CONTENT WE WANT

user00 okay truthfully i dont like jimmy fallon all that much but he ate with this one u fear

f1fan lando in the likes 🙈

f1lover heheheheheheehhe

username_29 girl was trying to keep it cool but she was blushing so badddd

y/nusername miami gp 🏎🏁 @ mclaren

liked by landonorris, mclaren, oscarpiastri and 828,001 others.

mclaren amazing having you in the garage today !!!

user929 EXCUSE ME WHAT

f1fan convinced lando invited her

user82 oh defo

user728 giggling

username_299 oh she's a menance for this

f1lover wait....are we going to get a lando and y/n pic???

justaninchident whos cares about the gp now I ONLY CARE ABOUT Y/N AND LANDO CONTENT

y/nusername finally met my celeb crush 🤭

》 user899 I LOVE HER FOR THIS

》 f1fan SCREAMING

》 user11 LANDO HAS TO SEE THIS PLS I BEG

》 f1lover i just know that lando is dying rn

》 user0_811 no2 this is why i love y/n

》 georgerussell can confirm that lando did infact scream when he saw this.

landonorris first win feels.

liked by y/nusername, oscarpiastri, charlesleclerc and 2,893,467 others.

y/nusername so happy for you !!!

landonorris thanksssss

oscarpiastri well deserved mate 🫶

georgerussell congrats !!

user929 EEK SO PROUD

user191 wdym we got y/n and landos first win today......best day everrrr !!!

username_19 i sobbed when he crossed the finished line

f1fan he's come so far 😭😭

justaninchident wdymmm lando just got his first win wtfff

user000 im convinced y/n was his lucky charm

username_10 this 🙌🙌

landonorris guess it's not a secret anymore 😏

liked by y/nusername, georgerussell, charlesleclerc and 2,729,920 others.

user72 help the emoji he's so unserious

user11 ughh i love them sm all ready

georgerussell reminder to never doubt you again

charlesleclerc i like to think that i had a part in this

y/nusername <3

username829 awwwww

justaninchident im sobbing acc

f1fan speechless

f1lover829 AS A MARVEL AND F1 FAN IM NOT OKAY

user243 screaming crying throwing up

y/nusername i love u sm baby

landonorris love u more angel

taglist ⭑.ᐟ

@mxryxmfooty

@lottalove4evelyn

@heavy-vettel

@llando4norris

@hadidsworld

[gay-dorito-dust]

Can you please do one where the reader is Stan and ford’s childhood friend? I’d imagine that they would both be SUPER protective, and later in adulthood they move in with does to help with his research. Stanley and ford secretly developed a crush on them over time but neither have admitted their feelings 🤭🤭

I made this one too fucking long as well the to might need to make a part two as not to overwhelming people.

You probably threw sand in some bullies eyes when they didn’t leave poor Ford alone/ and or comforted Ford alongside Stan afterwards bc confrontation wasn’t your thing. Either way it didn’t take long for you, Stan and Ford to become a well known trio in the town of New Jersey, one was never seen without the other two trailing behind.

You three were inseparable.

Ford was the brains and intellect

Stan was the protective fighter

And you were the mediator, the confidant, the person who’d encourage the twins to keep moving forward for that was the only way to go.

The mystery trio you called yourselves as you’d spend countless hours on the beech, searching for the abnormal and mysterious with nothing but your flashlights and determination to make a name for yourselves.

You didn’t give a shit about Ford’s six fingers, you thought they were cool and told him often that you were jealous.

‘Why?’ He’d ask.

‘It’s cooler to be different than it is to fit in the norm.’ You’d tell him as you’d both sit somewhere overlooking the beach, hearing the cries of seagulls and the crashing of the waves against the sandy beaches. ‘One day everyone is going to try and find something abnormal about themselves to fit in, as though they weren’t the same people who’d shun people for being a little different. They’ll never admit that they’re the bad guy and all they want is attention and will throw a tantrum when they don’t get it.’

You then placed a hand on Ford’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘So don’t listen to them Stanford, you’ll make a name of yourself one day and they’ll all flock to you like moths to a flame. High six?’ You raised your hand.

‘High six.’ Ford replied as you high-fived/ high-sixed each other.

Their dad didn’t like you but you didn’t give a shit because you didn’t like him all that much either with how he treated Stanley in comparison to Ford and would often refuse to go to their house when you knew he was there.

Shermie pines however adored you for keeping her boys in line and being their friend and practically adopted you into the family as she would then move her attention to her sons.

‘So which one of you is going to fall for them first?’ She would ask as Stan and Ford look at her with flustered cheeks.

‘They’re just a friend!’

‘Yeah a friend!’ The twins defective words would overlap which didn’t help their matching blushes that looked like cherry tomatoes by now.

Shermie would then throw her arms over the boys’ shoulders and said. ‘That’s what they all say until it becomes harder to ignore what you truly feel for them. Now it might be platonic but what about later on in the future where you look at them and suddenly think about planning a future with them.’

Now at this point neither Ford nor Stan truly understand what they felt for you at the time, they only thought they were being your protective friends who’d glare at whoever from behind your back if they caught them looking at you weird. They thought they were looking out for you much like you did for them as they stood on either side of you like two towering towers.

After all they didn’t have that many friends besides each other form such a young and so having you in their corner made you all the more special to the brothers.

You and Stan would playfully rough house, doddle in the margins of a notebook or write in code that you’ve only just made up on the spot to one, another and just do dumb goofy stuff in your spare time.

You and Ford would read, come up with theories about the things in New Jersey to make them more interesting than they were, go on a ‘monster chase of the week’ type of adventures when you were bored and in need of thrills.

Stan and Ford were your boys and you would have their backs no matter what as they always had yours in return. Much how like you made Cathy’s life hell after she threw punch at Ford, thinking that standing in solidarity with him as you and Stan both threw punch at each other and making a right ass of yourselves in order to make Ford feel better.

You and Stan then tp’d the bitches house and probably caused property damage but if they couldn’t see the person who did it, then did it actually happened in the first place? (Stans logical explanation to why tp someone’s house in the dead of night was a great guise.)

Or the time you had gotten stood up on a date and Stan threatened the beat the little shit up while Ford - equally as upset at the coward who stood you up- was more focused on comforting you and reminding you of your self worth and how it should be dictated by you alone and not some temporary crush.

You thought that it would be you, Ford and Stanley against everyone, that you’d get to live with them until you were old and grey but life ultimately took you and Ford in different directions from Stanley, who at this point had resorted to conning people for a living after being kicked out of the house by his cunt of a father.

The rift between the brothers that you though wouldn’t split from another for more then five minutes was larger then you’d like to admit, and it broke your heart to see them stand across from one another rather then beside each other.

Your parents refused to take him in afterwards despite your begging and pleading that you’ll do better in school if they house Stanley for a while. Needless to say you were gutted about not having your friend in your life that you didn’t take to your parents for a good while.

You did fairly well in school and ended up in Backupsmore university with Ford, who found a new friend in fiddleford and spent countless days and nights in the library doing extensive studies on the abnormal and the mysterious. You and Ford didn’t have as much time for each other as you use to as kids, that and you couldn’t contact Stanley who was god knows where, god knows what and getting into a fuckton of trouble. You missed it when days were a hell of a lot more simpler but that’s not how life worked and you were being told this constantly.

Ford was excelling at everything while you were average at best and while Ford tried to help, he could tell your heart wasn’t in to listening what he had to say and he knew the reason why.

‘You miss Stan.’ He says one day when you came to his dorm for help.

‘And you don’t seem to miss him one bit.’ You replied as you doodled a cartoon version of yourself, Stan and Ford celebrating a well earned victory over some weird lake monster that had a comedically large bump on it head.

‘He ruined his own life y/n why can’t you accept that.’ He reminds you but it was obvious that you weren’t so willing to hear him out as you use to be. ‘I could’ve helped him Ford, I could’ve!’ You cried.

‘But he didn’t want your help, he was on the path of self destruction and he didn’t want you getting caught in the aftermath of it all.’ Ford said as he placed his hand on your shoulder, much like you did to him when you were younger. ‘Stan is stubborn but wouldn’t avoid you for no reason.’ Ford adds as you look at him.

‘And how would you know that?’ You asked, brow raised.

‘Because I wouldn’t avoid you for no reason either.’ Ford admitted and you swore your saw a blush cut across his face. This conversation never gets brought up again by Ford as no matter how often you reminded him of it, he’s try to change the subject to something else entirely with a nervous laugh and shifty eyes.

You knew something was up and hated being left in the dark but you knew Ford was equally as stubborn as his brother, whether that’s something he’d like to admit or not. However life moved on and so did you as soon you found yourself becoming Ford’s assistant and moving to Gravity Falls, a small town not on any map but had a reputation for being a little odd much like its residence.

[ckret2]

I might tweak some details later (jewelry? take the ribbon off the bow?) but I've about got a Scalene design I like. The lipstick is really the centerpiece of the design. Now let's infodump! With more art!

🔺 Notice her lines are a a little curvy. It's not for artistic effect. She's got a Fictional Polygon Physical Disorder that makes her bendier than she should be—meaning, among other things, sides that curve and flex.

🔺 It's also the kind of condition with symptoms that are romanticized by people who don't grok that it's a debilitating medical condition. Sides that curve and flex? How exotic! This went to her head in the wrong ways.

🔺 Bill was born with the same condition. You know how squishy and blobby he was as a baby? Thaaat's genetic! He was a lot squishier than most babies! And, consequently, more adorable.

🔺Scalene dreamed of being a famous super model. Was actually a teen beauty queen at mid-tier beauty pageants. She thinks it's always somebody else's fault she wasn't more successful.

🔺 She took Bill to his first baby beauty pageant the day he was born. He did, in fact, have a Best Baby Ever award presented to him by the mayor, but to be fair he was only competing against like 6 other babies and who's going to withhold a trophy from a newborn on his birthday? Anyway the 6-12 month group and 12-24 month groups also each had a Best Baby Ever award.

🔺 This was an absolutely bonkers thing for Scalene to do.

🔺 What's that small scrunkly thing doing at a pageant, he can't even see color yet.

🔺 Their fictional squishy medical condition doesn't just accidentally make shapes cute. It's the kind of condition that affects just about all parts of the body: sides won't stay straight, poor muscle tone resulting in instability & weakness, poor motor coordination & clumsiness, back aches & pains (well, triangles don't have "backs." side aches?), easily dislocated joints, and increasingly skewed sides with age. Just about everyone in Scalene's family is born equilateral and ends up extremely scalene after young adulthood. The rest of her family have normal relationships with their condition, she's the only one who's weird about it

🔺 She was very rough on her body in pursuit of pageantry success, but her physical symptoms & associated chronic pain got a lot worse due to having a kid; she had to retire from pageantry for good. She doesn't blame Bill for this at all. Out loud, to his face. (If she hadn't been so rough on herself in pageants, having a kid probably wouldn't have impacted her health this much. She doesn't consider this.)

🔺 She's weirdly intent on seeing Bill become the success she wasn't. He's her little golden child, he deserves to be seen as the greatest! He'll show them how great he is for mommy, won't he? He won't let mommy down, will he? When he's very young, she takes him to child pageants—he'll appreciate the lessons they taught him when he's older—and this lasts until he finds out he can get out of it by pyrokinetically setting the stage on fire.

🔺 She jokes ("jokes") that she didn't realize that when she was having a kid, she was firing herself from the pageant circuit so she could hire & train her own replacement. These jokes had no long-term impact on Bill at all!!!

(Compare/contrast: how we're told Stan's "You watch the movie, you scare the girl, the girl snuggles up next to you, next thing you know you gotta raise a kid, your life falls apart" is repeating something he heard his dad say.)

🔺 Did you know that squeaky baby shoes are sometimes medical devices? Squeakers help children with poor muscle tone and delayed motor skills learn how to walk correctly: it makes them want to walk on their heels instead of their toes so they can hear the squeak. Did you know sometimes oversized squeaky baby shoes are worn by young kids who need ankle braces? Did you know that kids with poor motor coordination can take a longer time to learn complicated motor skills like tying shoelaces rather than using shoes with velcro straps? It sure is interesting that baby Bill's most defining visual feature is oversized squeaky sneakers with velcro straps and that he kept wearing velcro shoes until he was 16!

🔺 As a baby, Bill's angles were technically supposed to be equilateral,* but thanks to his inherited condition, his angles were so loose his top corner practically formed a right angle. Not good: the closer a triangle creeps to being obtuse, the more likely he'll have muscle strain and medical issues from his organs being squished out of place by his own exoskeleton.

(*supposed to be equilateral: but after receiving treatment, they discovered his angles were still 60º, 60º, and 60.1º, which is mathematically impossible for a triangle... on a euclidean plane. But on a non-euclidean 3D plane, such as in spherical geometry, a triangle's angles can add up to more than 180º... and it's this slight 3D flex to Bill's body that lets him see up into the third dimension.)

🔺 For his first few years of life he actually had a hypotenuse, until physical therapy and side braces helped him improve his muscle tone. Sometimes he still reflexively refers to his base as his hypotenuse. It's fine, sweetie, it's nothing to be embarrassed about, mommy had a hypotenuse too. Don't tell anyone.

🔺 Scalene took baby Billy to a lot of doctors as a kid, just like how she was taken to a lot of doctors! Doctor for his side braces, doctor for his physical therapy, doctor for his shoes... doctor for his eye when he started talking about seeing white glitter at the edge of his vision. Scalene didn't have that symptom, but the eye doc said their condition does occasionally come with visual problems—blurred vision, lazy eye, visual field defects... It sounds like Bill's main field of vision is unobstructed, but if the visual snow he's getting in his peripheral vision is distracting him and confusing his little toddler mind into thinking it's something real, they can give him a medication that'll narrow his field of view. From the sound of it, he's not seeing anything important at the edge of his vision, anyway.

And she only wants what's best for her golden child.

🔺 Scalene's "bow" is actually a medical device: sort of like a medical corset, it helps tug and press her anatomy into place to reduce pain. Bill started wearing one preventatively—if he can keep everything in place when he's young, it'll take longer for his angles to skew when he's older. Like wearing a retainer when you get your braces out.

🔺 He has a cane for the same reason—he doesn't need it NOW when he's young, but he might as well keep it on hand, by age 35 he'll probably want to stand more often than float and when he's standing he'll probably want the extra support! Even if he doesn't need it by 35, he will eventually!!

🔺 Bill doesn't medically need a bow tie in the third dimension either; but he adapted it to help tie his 3D exoskeleton on.

🔺 A trillion years later, Bill suspects that his mutation to see the third dimension came, at least in part, from his mom's medical condition. Except, she didn't have that vision. Nobody else with the condition on her side of the family had that vision. It's not a known symptom of the condition. His dad had stuff going on with his eye too, did he get it from his dad's side? A mix of both? Just a standalone random mutation? He doesn't know; and with the rest of his species dead, there's no way for him to find out.

But back to Scalene!

🔺 She's not quite red, she's rose gold. However she doesn't like it. She thinks it's a sort of pinkish brown and very dull. She uses makeup to make herself look redder. Note how bright red her sides are: in a species where only your edges are visible, body paint is the most common form of makeup+fashion. She's pleased her baby came out gold-gold, it's much cuter. Bill knows she's rose gold, but he only saw her with her makeup off when she was tired or sick; he remembers her painted red.

🔺 She adores her Billy; but she somewhat sees him as an extension of her will. She thinks he's just perfect and will tell anyone who asks; but she also demands he be perfect and is furious when he isn't. She'll protect him from ANY perceived external threat; but she'll tough love him into being the kind of success she thinks he should be. He learns early that when he screws up, he can often redirect his mother's anger by pointing his finger and saying it's someone else's fault, and she'll bring the wrath of heaven down on them. Woe to the teacher who gives Bill an F on a test.

🔺 I'm on a quest to write Bill as a foil to the entire cast of Gravity Falls, and that extends to writing his family as a foil to the entire cast's families. Scalene's a blend of Pacifica's mom and Caryn: beautiful, proud of her beauty, afraid of losing her youth, self-aggrandizing, quick to lie about her & her family's (false/exaggerated) accomplishments—and very aware of the fact that you can say anything about woo-woo mystical matters and nobody can prove you wrong.

🔺 So she takes it great when they figure out Bill is, like, legit psychic. And by "takes it great" I mean "starts a cult."

There's what I've got on Scalene. Fortunately, I got to keep all my pre-TBOB headcanons about Bill's mom, I only had to change her shape & color. I already had medical trauma baked right into the family!

(Preemptive disclaimer before I get any "but she doesn't look 2D" comments: we all understand that the baby Bill picture we see in the book is a psychically-generated 3D approximation of Bill's 2D Euclidean form, right? And that drawing a 3D baby Bill design alongside rigidly 2D parent designs would make it look like even in the second dimension Bill already had a 3D body, right? So, if we're drawing a 3D baby Bill and want to convey that they looked similar to him, we have to draw his parents in a similar art style, right? Okay, great.)

[espinosaurusrexex]

Celeste

FallenAngel!BuckyBarnes x Female!Reader AU

summary: Heaven is not what they tell you. The celestials don’t live in harmony and the devil is not as far as you might think. He’s vicious in his ways to seduce every being - makes even the mighty fall from grace. And one of them happens to be your guardian angel. When James is banished from the heavens, he is forced to amend his sins on earth. What did he do wrong, you might ask? Well, he fell for the one he watched over.

a/n: I thought I’ve read a FallenAngel!Bucky fic on here before. But I couldn’t find it. So please, if you know it, tag me. Anyway, this is my take on the au.

word count: 20.3k (good lord, someone take my computer away)

warnings: this might offend some people (remember this is my fantasy world - I don’t know much about angels and the whole shebang), soulmate trope, the devil, also God?, jealousy/envy, mentions of killing and abuse, banishment and punishments, he falls first (literally lmao), fluff and wholesomeness, agony, angst (of course, with happy end!), smut (wingplay, Bucky‘s got heavenly dick, Virgin!Bucky, size kink, cum play) !MINORS DNI!

ﾟ✫ 𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ｡✭･ﾟ✶ 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝐀𝐎𝟑 ✧*･ﾟ𝒄.𝒂𝒊 ｡✭･ﾟ

all image credit goes to @animarvelita on TikTok (there's more at the end)

James.

Wake up, James.

Wake up!

The wind hits his lashes before he opens his eyes. He’s falling. He’s falling and there’s nothing he can do. 

❁ ❁ ❁

It’s eerie outside, you note as your towel glides over the countertop. The entire window of the diner displays dark clouds. Dark clouds that will soon bring the heavy rain Old Lee has been mumbling about for days now. 

Not too many people believe what the crazy farmer says but you can’t help but notice how much he really understands of the world. 

Nick hits the little golden bell by the serving hatch and you take the fresh sandwiches to a table by the door. 

“Anything else I can get you?”

“We’re good, honey.”

You just nod as your eyes stay focused on the small parking lot outside. You wipe your hands on your apron and return to the counter when the first drop of rain hits the window pane.

❁ ❁ ❁

Branches are aching beneath his weight when he crashes through the trees. A deep thud echoes in the woods as his body hits the ground. It’s raining. 

Every tragedy needs rain.

❁ ❁ ❁

"Are you alright, dear?" Peggy, one of the regulars, a wise old lady, asks and points to your hand that's settled above your chest. 

You clear your throat. "I'm fine. Just a frog in my throat." You nod with a tight smile. Something seems to have knocked the air out of your lungs. But you've been feeling like you are coming down with something for a few days now. 

"Must be the weather," Howard comment's next to Peggy, and his newspaper crumbles beneath his touch. 

You turn and refill their coffee mugs. "Yeah... must be." But you can't shake the feeling it has brought to you. 

"It's always the weather." Peggy nods before the door to the diner opens and Old Lee enters, his muddy boots dirtying the checkered floors. You scrunch your nose. You'd be the one cleaning that up later, Scott surely won't do it. 

"This ain't a normal April storm, folks." His hat tips before he sits at the counter in front of you. "You look like you’ve been trampled by a cow.”

"It's just the weather," you say and place a cup of hot tea in front of him. That's just Stan: brutally honest and strangely right about everything. 

❁ ❁ ❁

Pain is strange. His feet get caught in the thorned bushes. Golden blood is the only evidence of his path.

And it’s slowly turning black.

❁ ❁ ❁

The storm outside intensifies, the rain hammering against the diner's windows with an unrelenting force. Old Lee's words linger in the air, stirring a sense of unease among the patrons. You glance outside, noticing the darkness creeping in as if it's swallowing everything in its path.

A shiver runs down your back as you remember how much Pietro would have loved this storm. Your mind drifts back to the memory of him. He always found solace in the chaos of nature, seeing beauty even in the fiercest storms.

But he's is gone now, lost to you in a way that is irreversible. The ache in your chest intensifies as you try to push away the memories, focusing instead on your tasks at hand.

Stan’s voice is low and gravelly when he murmurs again. "You can't outrun the storm, kid. It's coming for all of us, whether we're ready or not."

His words are chilling, but you shake it off, forcing a smile as you refill his tea. 

"We'll weather this storm just like we always do." Peggy chimes in as her hand lands on yours with her calming touch. But your heart is hammering in your chest, still. Something feels off. As if a piece fell out of place, waiting to be discovered, and raving to make a mess. 

❁ ❁ ❁

It’s cold and muddy here, no comfort in sight. But he’ll venture on until he reaches you. His soul is pulled to your very presence. 

He needs to find you. Needs to amend his wrongs. Though is it really wrong to love?

❁ ❁ ❁

It’s dark out when you hang your apron in your locker and wave a short goodbye to Nick. Pulling your coat tightly around you in an attempt to brace yourself for the wind, you step outside into the deluge. The rain lashes against your skin, soaking you to the bone on your walk through deserted streets and cold concrete. 

You sigh thinking about everyone that made it home dry, probably sitting in their beds right now, watching the rain roll down their window pane with a hot cup of cocoa in hand. 

But that seems to postpone itself, you realize as you abruptly halt. You look around. This isn’t your usual route home. But something pulled you off your intended path and toward an unfamiliar alleyway. Confusion mingles with a strange sense of anticipation as you find yourself drawn deeper into the darkness. 

Your head is screaming at you. This is dangerous. You shouldn’t be doing this. Why are your feet moving anyway?

And then you see it. Or rather... him?

A figure stands at the end of the alley, obscured by shadows and rain, but there's something about him that sets your heart racing.

"Hello?" you call out tentatively, your voice barely audible over the storm. You hate how weak you sound. 

He steps forward into the dim light, his features illuminated by a flickering streetlamp. Dark hair and a strong yaw, wide muscular shoulders, his arms are adorned by silver cuffs. His whole being is well over six feet. But he seems even taller as something wide reaches from behind him, almost hugging his shoulders and prodding up towards the sky. He steps forward again and your breath hitches in your throat when you can finally make out the grey feathery wings standing from behind his back.

But you don’t run. You don’t even stumble back. Your feet are frozen to the ground. Then his eyes meet yours, and for a moment, time seems to stand still as you’re caught in the intensity of his gaze. 

“I’ve been searching for you,” he says, his voice almost like a whisper to the wind. Calling and marvelous. 

Everything inside you tells your how absurd this situation is. How fast you should be running anywhere but here right now. But the way your heart races doesn’t feel like fear. In fact, you’re not even scared. More fascinated, awestruck, intrigued. You know he wont hurt you. 

“I don’t know you.” You manage to stammer, your eyes still locked with his. The tension overwhelming and electrifying all at once.

“That should be obvious.” He points to his wings smiling amused, a smile that you know holds a universe of secrets and promises. You want to learn them all, you catch yourself thinking as your eyes slip to his lips. 

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to understand,” he replies and it’s the first time his wings move behind him. “Just trust that we are connected in ways you cannot even begin to imagine.”

“Well?” You clear your throat and cross your arms in front of your chest, relieved your body is able to move again, though the pose feels rather awkward. “Why are you here?”

He seems shocked for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected you to play along so fast. And, to be honest, neither did you... at least a little. 

“I need to...” His mouth falls shut again and he turns his head down to the side, shoulders heaving. “I guess I need a place to stay.”

“With me?” That’s insane. You know it is. But why does it not surprise you? 

He nods, you shake your head. “I cant just accommodate a...” You gesture to him and he clears his throat awkwardly. 

“Angel.”

“Right, of course.” You chuckle as you scan his body again. Only now do you see the torn clothes and bloody feet. Drenched through and through. 

You sigh. “I don’t even know your name...” 

His eyes are sparkling, the smallest of twitches making him look a little softer, tangible even. You’re not afraid of him. And it messes with your head. You should be scared, right? But all there is in your body is the steady tingle pinging from your heart back to your stomach. 

“It’s James.” His smile is handsome when he reaches out his hands, offering you a better look to his toned arms.

Whywhywhy? “Alright.” 

❁ ❁ ❁

James looks out of place in your rather small living room. His size dwarves every piece of furniture carefully picked out to make your house a home. He makes it look like a doll house just by standing in it. 

But he doesn’t seem to care. James ducks when he passes through the door and you watch his feathers ruffle as they press themselves to his back in order to fit through. 

You’re not sure what to do. Never in your life did you think you would end up in a situation like this. There is no protocol for hosting celestial beings. Though a how to angel dinner party guide would come in handy now. Did he even eat?

Something must be wrong with you. You let a total stranger into your house, even though your track record of people skills is not exactly the best. One that is borderline freakishly tall and has wings. Wings that look soft and beautiful. But strong and kind of intimidating as well. But why does he feel so safe?

“You’re staring.” James notes and a handsome grin spreads across his face. 

“I’m not really used to having angels in my house to be honest.” The sarcasm is dripping from your tone in subtle undertones. But James seems to enjoy it. “Why are you here? On earth... I mean.”

He stares at the ceiling and his wings sag a little. “I have a mission, dearest.” He tells and his eyes meet yours. They’re deep blue and stormy - just like the sky. You can see yourself falling lost in them. His presence is all-consuming, making you shiver. It reminds you that the both of you are drenched from the rain. A puddle has formed around your feet and James’s wings guide the water droplets to your hardwood floor in two perfect circles. His hair is curling at the ends, in the nape of his neck and the water is also running down his throat, pooling in the remains of his shirt. 

“What mission?”

“I cannot tell you yet.” 

You nod, even though you don’t understand. But you don’t want to pressure him. “Do you need a shower? Or... clean clothes?” The second you ask you feel stupid. It’s silly right? Why shouldn’t angels shower? 

Then again, the way he looks at you is one of surprise. “Yes, that would be good.” 

“Good. Yes.” With a sigh you flee through the hallway to your room in search for some clothes. 

❁ ❁ ❁

A shower. James is giddy. Human things have always excited him. He has been watching from the heavens for eons, never truly experienced them quite like this. But he’s intrigued. Especially when you offer them to him like he’s not an intruder in your life. 

If things were different, you would never know he even existed. But James is guilty of happiness that he gets to meet you in person. 

Up close, you’re even more perfect. You smell nice, your home feels cozier than anything he’s ever experienced, and your voice sounds just a sliver more comforting when its directed at him. 

He is smiling like a fool, standing in your living room - the one he knows by heart but so much more personal now. And when you return to him with a pile of grey cloth, his heart skips a beat. You bring him the familiar warmth that made him fall in the first place. But having you within an arm’s length makes all of it feel worth it. 

There is not an ounce of regret in him for being here.

Electricity shoots up his arm when you touch his hand. It’s cold and wet - he immediately vows to always keep you warm from now on - makes it his purpose to have you be comfortable for the rest of your life. 

You lead him to the bathroom, grinning sheepishly when you gesture toward your shower. 

“It might be a tight squeeze.” You point at the glass surrounding your bathtub. “But it’s all I can offer.”

“It will do just fine.” He reassures you. 

“I will leave you to it then.” James is confused.

“Are you not staying?”

“Sorry?”

“To help me.”

“Help you... shower?” There is hesitance in your tone, but James truly doesn’t know how to turn the thing on.

“Well, yes.”

“I...” Your eyes are big, staring up at him through surprise and nervousness. “I don’t want to intrude. Give you some privacy to- oh.”

His clothes are already on the floor. He knows this much. Shower is something one does naked. But you seem to be shocked when his whole body is revealed to you. Do you like it? James is sure he looks as close to a human as a person with wings can. So why are you still staring at his stomach?

His eyes catch yours as they move a little lower, your eyebrows raising just that much higher and a smirk places itself on his face. So, you do like what you see. He confirms silently. Not that he particularly knows why. He never noticed people by their bodies - only their soul, because that is the important thing - the one that never changes. 

And yours is the most enchanting of them all. 

❁ ❁ ❁

You watch as James sit’s down on the opposite end of the sofa. He’s declined every offer you have made for him to feel a little more welcome. But he seems content. His smile hasn’t left his lips ever since you led him to the bathroom.

You couldn’t help but notice his body when he revealed it all  to you. It’s like every inch of him is carved by the gods. He looks soft in the right parts, strong enough not to be skinny with his height. And his male parts. Well, they look more than satisfactory. 

You felt like a pervert staring him up and down while he stood there with this kind of proud innocence to him, wondering if he understood how proud he could be of his looks. There is so much you don’t know about him. It’s not like you haven’t talked. 

You have. But he speaks in riddles. 

“You are staring again.” James notes and you immediately snap your head elsewhere. 

“I’m just figuring this situation out, I guess.”

He smiles encouragingly. “You can ask questions. I imagine you’ve been eager to know more.”

You exhale long, taking courage to look him in the eyes. “And you will answer all of them honestly?”

“Honestly, yes.” His teeth find his bottom lip and you squeeze your thighs together.  “I cannot promise to answer them all.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

A comfortable silence settles between you as you think of the first thing you could ask him. Maybe you should get the most obvious one out of the way. Maybe you should ask him more about himself, though you’re not sure how personal he can get if he spent his entire life in heaven. You just assume there is too much to do to pursue actual hobbies and such. 

“Is there a God?”

“Starting with the light questions, I see.” You just look at him with intrigue. Already lining up all the other questions no-one else in this world has the opportunity to have answered. James sighs and then nods. “Yes, God exists.”

“Do you know God?”

He hesitates, his eyes fleeting to the end of the room and then back to you. “Yes.”

“Why did that answer take you so long?”

His jaw tenses and his eyes find the floor as if he was cursing himself for offering this situation. But then again, you haven’t heard him cuss once. Maybe you’re wrong. “It was under rather... unfortunate circumstances.” 

You nod as if you understand. But you can only imagine. “So, he’s like the big boss, only getting involved when things escalate?”

James looks caught, his wings draw in closer. After a moment, he clears his throat and his feathers ruffle with a small shake. “First of all, it’s she/they. And second, ... I guess you could say that, yes.”

“I knew it.” You grin as the pride washes over you at this information. “Why did she never correct us?”

“Let’s just say mankind doesn’t have a great track record of enforcing things that go against their believe... Not that it would be believable if someone told the story of meeting an angel who told them God is a woman.”

“Fair point. That person would have probably been burnt alive.” You nod again, crossing your legs and turning to him on the sofa. James takes a moment to rake his eyes over your body, making you feel tingles all over. You clear your throat. “Speaking of torture... Why do we have war and world hunger?”

“Please do not take this the wrong way. Those are issues that very much concern God or anyone that want’s the best for her people, but she’s busy. She manages everything else that has gone south since.”

“Since what?” You partly enjoy the way James talks to you as if you are an insider, but you only understand half of what he’s saying. 

“Since she and Lucifer had a big fallout.” He shrugs, but it just adds to your confusion.

“I’m not following.”

He rolls his eyes as if it were your fault you don’t know about this supernatural fight. “They had a disagreement. Lucifer’s response to God’s proposal was an ill-conceived frivolity which ended up becoming the patriarchy.” 

To say you’re stunned is a serious understatement. “You’re telling me the devil threw a tamper tantrum and that’s why we have inequality? How did he even do that?”

James shakes his head. “...Yes. The trial is still in progress. But it may be calming to know that we have not figured out exactly how he convinced an entire species of males being the stronger part of it.”

“No, James. It is not calming to know.” You sigh and watch as he clasps his hands in his lap, his cuffs glistening in the lamplight. God, they’re big. You immediately scold yourself for thinking this, feeling weirds as the words of your mother echo in your head ‘Don’t you dare use God’s name in vain’. “What exactly has God done since then?”

The smile returns to his face and you readjust yourself on the sofa. “Oh, you wouldn’t want to know how this world would look if she hadn’t kept busy with sorting it.”

Your nose wrinkles in a frown, as you check the points off in your head. “I really don’t think it can get that much worse. Climate change, mass genocides, what else could there be?” You nod at each one just as James lifts up his fingers and opens his mouth as if he is starting to count. 

But you stop him. “Please don’t.”

“Yes, that is probably for the best.”

It is silent for a moment as you try to process all the information you have just attained. It is a rather weird feeling. Knowing you know what no-one else on earth does and not being able to tell. Knowing there will be no-one believing you. 

You sigh when your head starts spinning from how crazy this day has been. James seems to be rather relaxed considering he barely knows you. His dark hair falls around his face perfectly, the back of it forming a cute curl in the nape of his neck and your fingers itch to touch it.

But you refrain, reminding yourself that he is a stranger - and an angel. Beside the fact that he has not once reached out to you, just randomly touching his hair would probably be the weirdest thing to do right now. 

“Can I ask you something?” He suddenly breaks the silence and you shoot a thank you to the sky for saving yourself from going down the mental rabbit hole of how soft his hair looks. 

“Yes.”

“Why did you take me in?” James’s eyes are boring into yours so innocently. If it weren’t for the giant wings on his back, he would almost look like a normal clueless and incredibly cute guy. And yet he just revealed outerworldly gossip as if you were discussing the latest celebrity TMZ. 

“I-“ you trail off, thinking about it for a while. You aren’t sure how much you can tell him. But James has been genuine from the start. It wold only be fair to do the same. “I felt like you needed me.”

A weird feeling takes over your body suddenly. Like a warm flush rushing through you. James fidgets in your peripheral and nods in understanding. “I did. I do.”

It’s like the reality of it all hits you like brick when a noise sounds from outside and his wings twitch, pushing over a pile of books on the cupboard behind the sofa. This is not normal, something tells you, and yet your stomach flutters in a way that feels a lot like butterflies. Everything about James is fascinating to you. You constantly fight the urge to reach out and brush your fingertips over every part of him. And for some reason, your mind tries to tell you that he would let you. 

“Why are you really here, James?” You voice is only a whisper when the rattling outside subsides. It’s probably a raccoon or something. But James looks a little nervous all of a sudden. 

“I’m afraid that is one thing I cannot tell you, love.”

You sigh. “I guess... I just want to help. Having you stay here doesn’t feel like it’s enough. There has got to be something you need to do.”

“That is very kind of you. I admire your bravery and openness.” His lips spread into a smile, his hand lifting from his lap as if he is about to place it on yours, but his fingers only strech and land back on the sofa between you. “But to be truthful, even if I knew what I had to do, I am not sure wether I would do it or not”

So he is a little deviant. You smile at the small observation. Maybe it’s the reason he is here in the first place. But you feel like you have asked James enough for tonight. Just on cue, a yawn escapes your lips. 

“You should rest. It has been a long day.” 

You nod, rubbing your eyes and rising from the soft cushions. “I have a spare bedroom. You can sleep there.”

“That is fine. I do not sleep.” James shakes his head as he rises with you out of curtesy. With his hands clasped in front of him he looks like a goth painting. 

“What? Never?”

“I am not human, dearest. My body attains energy in different ways.” You shudder again, blaming it on your sleepiness as you rub your arms when another yawn escapes you. 

“Maybe you can tell me about it tomorrow. I am really tired.”

“I will be watching over you.” Your name passes his lips like a song, sending another shiver through you. What the hell is the matter with you. You huff as you catch yourself again. It really never occurred to you how often you referenced to the supernatural... “Take all the rest you can get.”

“Good night, James.” You nod and wave awkwardly.

“Good night.”

You know James’s eyes are only you until you disappear into the hallway. But you cant help but feel safely watched over with him around. 

❁ ❁ ❁

They will find him, and they will send him further from you than he ever was.

❁ ❁ ❁

James hates the days you have to leave for work. He watches you with a sense of longing and resignation, knowing that he must find a way to navigate this separation once again. Though it is necessary he find a way to dodge the inevitable.

It’s the vexing thing about the celestial kingdom. They always leave one to find the laws on their journey. There is no book he could read on earth that could help him here. But he has seen the repercussions of disobedience, felt the weight of his transgressions bearing down on him like a heavy chain.

And yet, as he watches you prepare to leave for work, a sense of desperation gnaws at him from within. He wants to reach out, to beg you to stay, to keep you safe from whatever dangers may lurk beyond the safety of your home.

But he knows he can't. He's bound by duty, by the laws of God that dictate his every move. And so, with a heavy heart, he watches silently as you gather your things and head out the door, leaving him alone once more.

As the door closes behind you, James is left with nothing but the echoes of your footsteps fading into the distance. He knows he should use this time wisely, to prepare for whatever trials may lie ahead, but his thoughts are consumed by you, by the overwhelming need to protect you at all costs.

❁ ❁ ❁

There’s and angel in your home. And he’s so freaking attractive, it’s unfair. 

It has been a week since you found James. And despite the incredibly irrational decisions of yours to invite him into your home, nothing bad has happened to you. Sure, the first night you might have dreamt about him. He’s everything your fantasy books described an more. And you couldn’t help but let that tiny romantic sliver of you hope for the more. 

But James is more pious than any catholic boarding school kid you’ve ever met. 

He seems to enjoy a good joke and he’s quite confident. But he never once touched you. And while that should not be one of your first concerns, considering he’s a stranger and an angel, something inside you tells you he’s holding back. 

He never even flinches when you reach out to him. And the longing stares he sends your way make you shiver with anticipation. Yet there is no attempt to ever pull you in - even though you are so sure you were sending signals. 

Maybe there are no signals in heaven. What are you even saying? Of course there are no signals in heaven. You don’t even believe dating exists up there. 

“Yo, whaddup with ya today? I’ve been calling your name for a solid minute.”

“Sorry. Feeling a little off today,” you mumble to Nick and retrieve the food waiting in the serving hatch. 

“You can’t go home. I don’t wanna serve alone today.”

“Scott, there’s literally no-one here.” You gesture toward the few people sitting in their booths and sigh. “Besides, I never said I was going home.” 

“Don’t get mad. You barely texted me back this week. What’s so awesome about your home when I’m not there with you?” You feel the heat rising to your head at Scott’s comment. “You’d think she’d call me if she ever needed to hide something.” He mumbles to Nick who just laughs and flips a pancake. 

You turn to him with your fists by your side. “The weather is weird and cold, can’t I need a little down time?”

“Not from me!” Scott looks baffled. He’s your friend, and yes, you had other things to worry about than be on your phone this week. But you also knew he wouldn’t understand.

“You’re being a real pain in my ass today, Scotty.”

“Good, so everything’s back to normal then.”

You throw a towel in his face. “Shut up.”

“Cut it out, you two, there’s customers.”

Scott resumes to the back, effectively dodging his work and leaving you to serve the new customer. But your breath hitches in your throat when you look up from the counter.

James is standing in the door, already drawing looks of attention from a few people. He’s smiling back at them, even waving at a child before his eyes meet yours and your heart sets off again. It seems to always do that when he’s close. 

You rush toward him, wrapping your fingers around his cuffed wrist and he audibly exhales. 

“You can’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“Because-“ you lean in closer and James bows down to get his face to your level. “You’re and angel.” You mutter under your breath and the sexy smile returns to his perfect lips. 

“And how would they know that?” His eyebrow raises. 

“You-“ you lean back, examining his shoulders - only then noticing that his wings are not there anymore. “How?”

“I only show myself to truly important people.” He winks and you stumble back a little, his sudden boldness making your legs feel like jello. 

“What are you doing here?” 

James looks around the diner as though he has not planned this far. His eyes swerve to the counter and then back to you. “I want to watch you work. I enjoy spending time with you.”

“But you can’t be here without ordering.”

“Then I will oder.”

“You don’t eat, James. Do you even have money?”

That seems to surprise him. “No.” You shake your head and look at the tiled floor. James’s wrist is still wrapped in your hand but there is no attempt to hold you. So you drop it. Why did he even come here when he won’t touch you?

“Please, beautiful. Let me stay.” His eyes are genuine, his lips purse in a plea. All you can think about is how weirdly lucky you are that this Adonis of a being chose you for his quest. 

You bite your lip and watch him shudder. “Alright. Just sit by the counter and try to be inconspicuous.”

His smile spreads wide. “I’ll be as invisible as the air you breathe.”

You exhale and get back to work but unfortunately, his promise doesn’t last long. Before you know it, Peggy has chosen the seat right beside James. She’s leaning over to him at the counter and Howard just sits beside them with his newspaper in hand - as always. James seems just as invested in the conversation as Peggy and as you steal glances over to the pair of them, insistently hoping he won’t spill about his identity, you catch James’s eyes lingering on you. 

“You are a fine young man, James.” Peggy's hand lands on his, tapping it in a grandmotherly manor, though her eyes are glinting with something akin to longing. She whispers something into his ear you cant make out and James’s eyes shoot to yours, his face tinting rouge from one ear to the other. 

“And you are a remarkable lady, Peggy,” he clears his throat, his mind seemingly wandering elsewhere. “You remind me of a girl a friend of mine was in love with once.”

“Then he must have been the happiest man to ever live.”

Peggy’s hands tremble when she reaches for her cup of tea, her red lipstick taint the white porcelain as James watches her movements with a soft stare. He looks so protective of her, it makes your insides tingle. “He truly is, though he seems like he has forgotten about it lately. Is this your husband?” He gestures to Howard, who just slams the newspaper down in front of him, blank eyes staring at James while Peggy laughs and waves her hand dismissively. 

“This rascal?” She presses her hand to her chest as she tries to calm down. “No, dear. My husband died a long tome ago.” She smiles warmly, floating in melancholy when she continues, “I never loved another man since. He was a heaven sent. Strong, kind, always worked towards the greater good... and his looks were to die for, too.” She winks and James chuckles. 

“Oh I wish a love like that to everyone. Promise me something, James.” 

“Anything.”

“If your find it, never let it go.” Her hand clasps around his biceps, her tone a motherly sternness laced with affection. 

James eyes you again and it feels as if the air is shifting with tension. “My word is in God’s name, Peggy.”

❁ ❁ ❁

James feels the repercussions of his being on earth stronger every day. In heaven, he was miserable because he had to watch you live your life without him. On earth, he’s in agony because he knows, if he ever were to touch you, he would cease to exist.

It’s slanted. He gave up everything coming here and despite the fact that his wings stopped working the second he fell from the sky, he categorizes the uncertainty eating away at him as even worse. Hanging in limbo is more troubling than actually going to hell, he is sure of it. 

He watches you move about your house with the same longing look torturing his features since he realized how much he needed you. It’s laughable how dependent on you he has become. While you go about your life with the minor change of having a roommate, James despises the unforgeable distance heaven has created between you. 

You are friendly with him - you are friendly with everyone. James would even go as far as to say that you two are friends by now. But he wants so much more. So much more he cant tell you because even if you did know about his feelings, there is nothing either of you could do about it. 

James sighs standing from the sofa, ducking his head when he passes through the doorway to you. You never questions when he just follows you around. The soul bond probably keeping the curiosity at bay if it feels anything like his experience. It feels good for no explicit reason. 

You sort some bowls in your cabinet as he stands behind you, offering to place the ones higher up so you don’t have to struggle too much. “What’s heaven like, James?” You ask innocently through your movements. “Are there pearly gates and fluffy clouds?”

James loves when you say his name. It makes him feel closer to you than ever before. In a way, he equates it with your touch. Just as his saying your name is his way of reaching out to you. 

“More like endless paperwork and celestial coffee breaks.” Coffee breaks. He learned about those a while ago and he loves the concept. “But hey, the views are to die for.” He gets lost in your eyes, remembering how much more distant they felt when he was watching from above and he is thankful to be this close to you now.

You smile smugly, and thats when the heart race sets in again. He’s sure you feel it too. Because your eyes avert and your hand places itself atop your chest. 

You think something is wrong with you, he just knows it. It’s like the time you watched hours on hours of Gray’s Anatomy and then proceeded to research yourself into a frenzy about the sicknesses you might suffer. But James made sure then that there was not even a paper cut compromising you and he will do the same now, too.

He is desperate to tell you what it is you feel, that there is not much you can do and that he feels it ten times worse because he hates to see you suffer. But he needs to be careful about how much he reveals to you. 

“Oh my god, I’m getting paranoid,” you mutter to yourself and James smirks at your small slip up. He has noticed how you try to minimize your references in curses. It’s cute, really, because he knows how much you used to do it. It’s a little bit amusing, the small deviant trait of yours making him feel like he has found something in common with you and he’s almost proud of it.

You collect yourself, quickly, breathing in deeply and then turning around to him. “I have to run some errands today.” 

“Great, where are we going?” James asks with eagerness. Car rides excite him. He has always found them fascinating, but actually being in one is a whole new experience. 

You bite your lip and for once, James does not feel the familiar tingle in his stomach when you do so. There is sadness sitting in your eyes when you answer him. “Actually...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lip just for your teeth to dig into it again and an unfamiliar tightness travels through James’s body. “It is something I need to do by myself today. I hope that is okay.”

The angel nods vigorously, trying to ignore the pang in his chest. “Yes of course. I will leave you to it alone.” He steadies himself on the door frame and then heads to the living room where he grabs a book and settles on your window sill to look occupied. 

“It is nothing personal, James.” Your head dips from the doorway and he looks up. “It's just... it would be weird for you to be there.”

“I understand.” The way he adds your name to his answer makes him sick. But his body is feeling weird, not showing him the familiar signs of jealousy or anger he knows. It feels... warm and uncomfortable. 

“I will be back soon.” Your voice travels through the hallway and your footsteps along with it. James stares at the empty doorway for a while, his eyes shooting down to the book when you suddenly reappear. “Do you want anything from the store?”

“No, thank you.”

“Okay.”

And then the door falls shut. But before James can get consumed by his loneliness, he puts the books down - something about an ice breaker - and heads outside to follow you. 

❁ ❁ ❁

But earth can be a lonely place. At least hell will welcome you with warmth.

❁ ❁ ❁

You didn’t lie. You were at the store. But now that you’re treading on the small path towards the grey cemetery walls, James feels the fear spread through his body like a slow and painful death. 

He’s hiding behind the trees closing around the park, watching you as you halt before a simple headstone. He can feel your mourning deep within his heart, tugging, yanking, pulling on the tiny strings that sting so effectively. His temple leans against the rough bark as his eyes trace your slow movements. You place a small bouquet of flowers on the soil before the engraved letters, resting your forehead on the gold stone. 

He can’t see it completely, but he knows you’re crying. You always do. Everything within him screams to reach out to you, to hold you and sway you until the world feels less taunting, but he knows how difficult it could make things. 

So, instead, he remains hidden, a silent sentinel in the shadows bearing witness to your sorrow from afar. He feels the weight of your tears as if they were his own, each drop a dagger to his soul and a reminder of the distance that separates him from you. 

And yet, even in the midst of your pain, there is a flicker of something else - resilience, determination, a quiet strength that refuses to be extinguished. It’s a testament to your spirit, a beacon of hope in the darkness that threatens to consume you both. 

As you linger before the headstone, lost in your memories and your grief, James feels a surge of admiration swell within him. Despite the pain you carry, you continue to preserve. 

“It’s really a shame you never have the balls to comfort her.” A voice whispers in his ear and James shoots around to be met with a redhead whose eyes stare daringly up at him. “Then again... I guess it would be kind of ironic, don’t you think?” 

“What are you doing here, Wanda?” All angels are made weary of Lucifer’s spawn. They are vicious and manipulating, carrying the pits of hell to places that least expect them and watch it all go up in flames as they stand laughing on the sidelines. 

James knows the demon standing before him. More than once have their paths crossed throughout time, but he is surprised to see her every time anew. He refuses to show any sign of weakness in her presence, knowing that to do so would only invite further manipulation.

Wanda chuckles darkly, her laughter echoing through the trees. “Oh, nothing much,” she muses with a wicked grin, pacing around James to take a closer look at him. “Just though I’d remind you of what you’re missing out on by playing the good little guardian angel. But who knows... maybe one of these days, you’ll finally grow a spine and take what you want.”

James clenches his jaw, struggling to maintain his composure in the face of Wanda’s relentless provocation. He knows better than to let her under his skin, but the demon’s words cut deep, striking at the heart of his insecurities. He feels the surge of frustration rising within him as his fists clench by his sides, the weight of his silver cuffs pressing against his wrists like chains. “I can’t,” he whispers, his voice barely above a whisper. “You know I can’t”

Wanda’s gaze narrows as her arms cross in front of her chest. “Can’t or won’t?” She counters, her voice tingling with an unspoken dare. 

James hesitates, his mind racing with conflicting thoughts and emotions. "I... I don't know," he admits finally. "But it doesn't matter. My duty lies with heaven, with protecting her. I can’t do that when I’m lost in the in-between.”

Wanda's eyes glitter with amusement as she takes a step closer, closing the distance between them with an unnerving grace. "And what if heaven isn't where you belong?" she whispers in a seductive purr as her fingers flick against his cuffs. The sound travels through the trees, making you turn and look around you. "What if your heart longs for something more, something... forbidden?"

A shiver runs down his spine, a sudden realization dawning within James. For so long, he has clung to the safety of his celestial duties, fearing the consequences of straying from the path laid out before him. But now, as he stands face to face with the embodiment of temptation itself again, he can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, heaven is not the place where he can truly flourish. 

“I don’t trust you, Wanda.” He admits genuinely, though the possibility of her words holding truth gnaws on his very soul.

“You shouldn’t.” She smirks devilishly, eyes flashing in a short glimmer of red and evil. “There will be consequences to disobeying celestial rules. But you will never find out if a life free of them would be more fulfilling to you if you don’t try.” She winks, setting uncertainty free within him. “Find me when you have made the right choice.”

As he watches Wanda disappear into the shadows, leaving him alone with his thoughts, James knows that he is standing at a crossroads—one that would determine the course of his destiny for eternity. And though the path ahead is uncertain and fraught with peril, he can't help but feel a glimmer of hope stir within him, a whisper of possibility that promises a future filled with love, and happiness, and the chance to finally be as close to you as he has always wished for.

❁ ❁ ❁

The night has broken over your small town by now. James has made it back with a conflicted heart before you came home from your errands. He knows you notice his silence as he normally enjoys to talk a lot to you. But you don’t say anything. 

He is just sitting quietly in the kitchen as he watches you make a cup of tea, wondering what it tastes like right before frowning at how scared he is to try a cup of hot water just because he doesn’t know what it would do to him. 

Wanda’s words come back to the forefront of his mind and the unease she instilled within his heart right alongside it. He has been longing to reach out to you for so long, has wanted to touch and comfort you in so many ways his mind began to spin. Especially after days like this, when you went to visit your brother’s grave. You would be crying yourself to sleep tonight. And you would get up tomorrow, wipe the sorrow from your eyes and continue to live your life as if nothing happened. Because you are strong and resilient. 

And James, even though he is finally present, is not able to offer you the solace you so desperately deserve. 

At least he thought so.

His eyes wander to the silver cuffs around his arms, feeling the weight and letting the subtle clink of them seep into his skull. He has never questioned why or how the rules of heaven applied to him. He never even thought about the consequences of breaking them until he felt the need to protect you. He never really cared until you became the most important thing in his life. 

Now, seeing the pain in your gaze, and feeling the guilt for being here, not soothing you gnaws on him, sending him back to a state in which he would kill to see you smile again. Free of fear and sorrow. 

You bite your lip when you settle on the chair across from his. Your eyes look dull, but James can’t help but think there is a question posed within them. Something desperate and restricted. Oh, how he would love to know what you’re trying to say. He is just too inexperienced with human interaction that he can get a read on everything just yet. 

James feels his heart picking up, knowing it beats in the same rhythm as yours, but he doesn’t dare speak, knowing his voice will betray him. Your tea cup is empty, your eyes tired, and he knows that this evening with you will end within seconds. 

“Good night, James.” You finally say, following the small ritual you have established with him as you wave at him weakly. 

Normally, he says it back. Normally, he guides you to the bedroom and closes your door promising to watch over you in silence. Normally, he doesn’t have a demon’s words ringing in his ears. 

But today, something feels different. As you gather your things and head towards your bedroom, a sudden surge of determination courses through him. He can't bear the thought of being separated from you, even for a moment longer.

With a sense of reckless abandon, and the words of Wanda hanging in his mind James makes a daring decision. Ignoring the warnings echoing in his every being, he reaches out to you, his touch barely grazing your shoulder as you turn to leave.

In that fleeting moment of contact, something shifts. A spark ignites between you, a connection so powerful and undeniable that it defies explanation. Time seems to slow as you both freeze, caught in the throes of a bond that transcends the boundaries of heaven and earth.

For a heartbeat, everything hangs in the balance, the air crackling with electricity. And then ...nothing happens. 

There is no rush of wind and light that makes him disappear, leaving behind only the echo of his presence lingering in the empty space between. There is nothing else welcoming him in wrath or absolute nothingness or whatever is supposed to happen if a celestial ever dared to touch a mortal.

He opens his eyes that he had shut tight without noticing. And you’re still here. In front of him, staring at his hand that is softly wrapped around your wrist. His mind is struggling to make sense of what just happened - or rather what didn’t. It was all a hoax. 

James feels rage bubble within him. And as you stand there, alone in the quiet stillness of the room, touching. He counts yet another reason why heaven was never where he belonged.

A single tear rolls down his cheek when he pulls you into his body and wraps his arm around you tightly. His heart beats violently, pumping the anger of knowing how much time he wasted not being close to you through his body. His wings follow close behind, sealing you into his warmth and creating a space just for you and him. It’s as if you are made for him. Your body tugs perfectly beneath his feathery white wings and he knows he’ll hold you like this for eternity. 

❁ ❁ ❁

He’s touching you. 

James is touching you. No, actually, he’s consuming you with his whole being, pulling you into the best hug you have ever received. His wings wrap around you protectively, engulfing you into his scent entirely. It’s earthy, and clean, and... heavenly. 

You chuckle slightly as your cheek presses to his chest, your head barely reaching his collar bone, but it just makes you feel enclosed by his presence from all around. You heart beats just as rapidly as his and you exhale in content as you realize that you’re not the only one feeling this connection. 

You don’t know what changed. Maybe you are not as good as hiding your sadness as you think you are. Or maybe there is a whole other reason behind this angel guarding you into the most loving hug you have ever experienced. But fact is, you needed it today more than ever. 

And James knew ...because he strangely knows so much about you. He feels familiar without trying and it is a weirdly comforting thing to experience. Especially after all you have been through. 

Hesitantly, and almost sorrowfully, you pull away from his warm chest. His wings loosen around you, his arms leaving just enough space for you to lean back and stare into those azure blue eyes of his. He’s beautiful up close. Long lashes frame his loving stare as his mouth tugs into a smile, taking yours right with it. 

“You touched me.” You say in awe as James’s eyebrows slightly raise. “You thought I didn’t notice, but I did.” 

There is a steak silence as his gaze travels over your face then roams his arms that are still holding you tightly close to him. “Should I not be touching you?” He asks carefully.

You can feel his hands retreating but you pull him right in before they’re gone. “I was just wondering when you would.” You snuggle back into his shirt and his hands cradle your head to him. “Is it embarrassing to say I’ve wanted you to do it for a while now?”

“Not embarrassing at all.” His chest rumbles with a chuckle. “I’ve wanted to do it even before then. I just didn’t know if I could.” The last part is a mere whisper that dissipates in your hair when his mouth presses to it in a feather light brush. 

A rush of warmth floods through you, filling every corner of your being with a sense of belonging you've never known before. Time seems to stand still, the world falling away until there is nothing left but the two of you, entwined in each other's arms.

"You've wanted to touch me?" you murmur, the words slipping out before you can stop them, a confession born of the unspoken longing that has lingered between you for far too long.

James's gaze softens, his fingers trailing gently along the curve of your cheek as he meets your eyes with a look of quiet intensity. "More than you could ever know," he replies. "But I feared the consequences.”

“What consequences?” James shakes his head as his thumb still lingers on your skin. 

“I don’t know.” You reach up to cup his face in your hands, your thumbs brushing against his cheekbones as you search his eyes again. It was stupid of you to assume he didn’t touch you because he didn’t like you. He was probably scared of what would happen if angels ever dared. The look in his deep blues tells you how worried he was. How long he withheld for the sake of dodging the unknown. 

“It’s not bad, is it?” You hand travels across his chest, feeling the muscles tense in its wake. “Touching.” 

James's breath catches in his throat, his heart pounding against his chest as he gazes down at you with a mixture of awe and reverence. And once again, you would love to know what is happening inside his brain. 

With a trembling hand, James cups your face in his palm, his touch gentle yet possessive as he leans in to press his forehead to yours. You cant help but feel that there is something keeping him from you, still. 

“Let me stay with you tonight, my beloved.” His fingers tighten around your face ever so slightly. “Let me hold you and keep you safe.”

“Safe from what?” You ask in a trance as your fingers bury in his hair and you play with the thought of pressing your lips to his. But he has taken so long to hug you. You don’t want him to be overwhelmed. 

“Anything.” He whispers back and closes his eyes. A whole new warmth consumes you when his words seep in, blanketing you in cherish and admiration. If this is what being appreciated feels like, you will fight to keep the feeling forever. 

“Okay.”

❁ ❁ ❁

Oh how much the celestials have lied. Flying is nothing compared to this. 

❁ ❁ ❁

As you bustle about the diner, taking orders and refilling coffee mugs with practiced ease, Peggy sits at her usual spot at the counter, her eyes twinkling with mischief as she watches you work.

"Something on your mind, Peggy?" you ask with a smile, setting down a plate of pancakes in front of a hungry customer.

Peggy leans in closer, her voice low and conspiratorial. "I couldn't help but notice that smile of yours, dear," she says with a knowing wink. "It's positively radiant today. Dare I say, it's almost as if you've got a secret?"

You chuckle, feeling a flush of warmth spread across your cheeks at her observation. “Hmm, I don’t know,” you reply coyly, unable to suppress the grin that tugs at the corners of your lips as you tab your finger against them. “What makes you think I’d share it with you?”

“Well, I am a loyal customer for one...” She pauses as she thinks of another point. “And I am old enough to think the secret dies with me." Peggy presses, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

“Please, you know the entire town.” You laugh and Peggy waves her hand dismissively, though there is a proud smirk on her red lips. 

Before she can respond, a voice cuts through the air like a knife, sharp and tinged with bitterness. "What's all this about smiles and secrets?”

You turn to see Old Lee leaning against the counter with a grim expression. His worn-down straw hat flops over his eyes, making him look even more grumpy than usual.

"It's nothing, Stan," you reply, trying to defuse the tension with a forced smile. "Just some friendly banter."

Old Lee’s eyes narrow slightly. "Friendly banter, huh? You're squawking like a bunch of chickens in a henhouse."

Peggy rolls her eyes, clearly unimpressed by Stan's attitude. "Oh, hush up, Stan," she scolds, waving a dismissive hand in his direction. "Can't you see we're having a moment here? This is girl talk. Go and drink your tea like the grumpy old man you are.”

Old Lee shakes his head in response but wisely chooses to turn back to his drink. “We all know how the last time she came in here with a smile that big turned out.” Old Lee grumbles searching your eyes once more. “The frogs're telling me we’ll have another rain comin’ soon. You better be careful, sweetheart.”

You share a conspiratorial look with Peggy, either of you not sure wether to believe him or not. Stan is not one for sappy love stories, but he certainly hits the nail on the head with his predictions every time. His bold hint towards the last big death this town suffered glides off his tongue like a Sunday prayer and it ripples down your spine in ice-cold peaks. 

“That is in the past. Right now, I really am hoping we are talking about the charming gentleman I talked to the other week. He certainly is a sight for sore eyes.” Peggy’s eyes sparkle as Old Lee huffs into his cup.

She winks back at you and the smile returns to your lips, along with the giddy feeling you get when James is called into your mind. But before you can respond, the diner door swings open, signaling the arrival of another customer and putting an end to your conversation—for now, at least.

❁ ❁ ❁

A noise calls from the back of your house right before the sun starts its journey in the sky. You don’t wake as James tries to stir carefully with his arms still holding you tightly. He was not sleeping - he doesn’t need sleep, but he still feels groggy from the warm and comforting night being ripped away with the sound. 

It piques another time and now, James is sure, someone is trying to get inside. Within minutes he is out of bed, checking the window and then closing the door to your bedroom on his way to the back. 

He is ready to protect you at all costs, eager to show you how much you mean to him, but when he sees a touch of white beyond the window and hears the familiar rustling of feathers that accompany it, it only takes him a second to realize who has come to intrude your peace. 

Two men - angels - just as tall has James litter the kitchen once he opens the door and pulls them inside with both hands. Samuel, the one standing a little to the side, brushes his clothes off once he comes to a stand again, watching James with amusement and curiosity. “I see you haven’t changed much, James. A simple ‘hello’ would have been just fine.” He crosses his arms before his chest, his wings shaking the dowry rain from their feathers and right onto your kitchen floor. 

“Why are you here?” His eyes search those of Steven - a friend of his but also an angel ranking higher than James ever will.

“You know why we’re here.” He steps closer once he has composed himself again. “You are testing the heavens.” 

James huffs, feeling the anger rise inside him. If anything, heaven was testing him. So he goes on to ignore the blonde angel before him, willing his heart to calm at all the frustration accumulating at once. “Did you know it was a lie?” James starts instead. His voice is strained when he thinks of all the times he refrained from touching you just to keep you safe. “Just a way to keep us from initiating contact?” 

Steven doesn’t say anything and Samuel’s stare meets that of James again. Steven shows little remorse, the pride on display now more than usual. The supposed betrayal James has caused is nothing to the sting boring into his soul by the very man standing in font of him. Steven is cold, distant - when he should be a friend.

“I should have known.” James shakes his head. “Your duties have always placed higher than your friendships.”

“That is because duties are the most valuable virtue God can give.” Steven finally says and his jaw ticks angrily. 

James could never imagine being more loyal to a system placing as many restrains as heaven does. Not when he knows how good the real world can feel. How precious it is to smell flowers and hold the one you love in your arms well into the night. 

“You came here with a mission, James. And since your fall, you have done nothing but frolic throughout this place with your very own human.” Samuel is eerily still behind the broad blonde spitting one accusation after the other. But James decides not to comment on it just yet. 

“It is far more than that,” he rasps feeling the protectiveness flood his body. 

“We know. That is why you are here in the first place.” 

“What am I supposed to do, Steven?” James tries to keep his voice low, but his frustration is too great. Steven should be the one to understand better than anyone else. But he seems to have locked that part of him far away right now. “How can I amend a sin that is irreversible?!”

“Every sin can be amen-“ Steve’s eyebrows raise and Samuel’s eyes flickers from James and focuse behind him. That is when his heart beat picks up again. And as much as he loves you, he wishes with all his being that you are not standing behind him right now.

“Please, no.” He mutters and turns just to have you approach from the hallway with tired eyes. 

“What is happening? Who are you?” Your voice sounds sleepy, a hand rubbing over your face before you find yourself by James’s side.

“Angels.” He bites his lips, contemplating for a moment but deciding that you deserve to hear what is happening in your own home. A home he hopes to be part of forever. Besides, with Steven here, there is no ending this conversation without confusing you more. “They want me to abandon you.” The bitterness is evident in his tone. But he regrets it as soon as he catches the stutter in your heart.

“What?” It’s all you say, but the way you do breaks his collected facade. 

“James-“

“What do I have to loose, Steven?” his arms open wide. "They already cast me out. They took my freedom, they took it all.” His wings barely shake, just emphasizing his statement. 

Steve steps closer, causing you to slightly shove yourself behind James, his arm reaching around you, just not touching yet. ”But there is still a chance to redeem yourself.”

“What if I don’t want it?” James bites back. 

“Don’t act rash, James. Think about this.“

“I have.” Long and hard. Every night he holds you, he has enough time to do so. And he has come to the conclusion that nothing compares to having you this close to him... and only him.

“You know of the punishment placed for sinners who do not attempt to right their wrongs.” Steven is seething beneath the surface, James can tell. But he tries to stay professional. He can try all he wants. James has already made a decision. 

“What is he talking about?” Your voice takes him back to your presence. Your hands sneak around his forearm and hand, to which his body responds like a reflex. His fingers squeeze yours, his body seeks the heat of yours. Samuel looks at the interaction curiously, Steven settles for a disapproving taunt.

“I lose my wings. I lose heaven.” James explains to you, watching as your eyes open wider in shock. 

“What?” There is so much more behind your astound answer. What does this mean for us?

“James is banished from the heavens temporarily already.” Steven’s voice drips with authority, making you stiffen beside him. James hates it. And he doesn’t hate much. 

“Why?” You’re too soft for this, too fragile to take another betrayal so soon. He has just gotten started and he already feels you drifting away. Your eyes are glassy when you turn to Steven. “What could have possibly been so bad that you ended up here?” 

“You didn’t tell her?” Sam breaks his silence. The surprise is written all over his face just to be replaced by confusion when James utters his name in warning. 

“Tell me.” It seems as though his eyes switch between everyone in the room, trying to warn them all of what will happen if they take his opportunity of telling you himself.

“James is not just any angel.”

“Steve, stop it.” 

“He is your guardian angel.”

It all happens too fast. A look to Samuel tells him there is no ending this. Steven won’t stop until he has tried his all to have you turn from James. 

“And he committed the worst sin of them all.” You look shocked and expectant. The grip on James’s hands grows tighter with every syllable leaving Steven’s mouth. And James is silently cursing the angel in front of him “He killed a man... for you.” 

You stumble back and James catches you only to earn a warning glare from Steven and Samuel. 

“Brock,” you whisper and it sounds like the single word has taken the entire air out of your system.

Lighting brightens your house over the stifled morning gleam and thunder sounds dangerously in the distance. You’re flinching, though searching James’s eyes as he steadies you back on your feet. 

“You cant do this forever, James.”

“And what if I try?” He turns fully. “What if I would rather get myself killed than come back to heaven?”

“He wouldn’t” Steve is heaving, but Sam steps forward, Laying a hand on the blonde’s shoulder in an attempt to soothe his rage. “The soul bond affects her just as it does him.”

“What does that mean?” It’s barely a screech when you interrupt them again. Turning to James and tugging at his shirt, you convey the frustration of being kept in the dark through your features. “What does it mean, James?”

He sighs, shaking his head and then closing his eyes - hoping to escape this conversation. But it is happening. “It means, if I die... you will die, too. A soul need replace that of a guardian one.”

At this point, James questions his sanity. How could he have not realized the twisted ways of the celestial realm sooner? In an attempt to soothe both his aching head and your tired soul, he reaches out to pull you into a hug, but your hands swat his arms away.

James recoils as if struck, the sting of rejection shattering his heart into thousands of pieces

“You might think it wise to revisit what we offered you, James.”

The words hang in the air like a dark omen when Steven and Samuel disappear. With a heavy heart, James turns away from you, unable to bear the weight of your disappointment any longer.

As you walk away, James is torn between the desire to comfort you and the fear of causing you further pain. But when he reaches out to touch you, once more, your tears are a silent testament to the rift that now lies between you. 

"I... I'm sorry," he stammers, his voice choked with emotion. It’s a desperate attempt to fix this, even if he does not know how.

“Go, James. Please. I need time to understand all this-”

“I can help you.”

“-alone. I want to be alone.” You swallow hard. “Leave, please.” Your tears finally spill and James despises that he is at fault of them.

“Go.”

Feeling more abandoned than ever, James leaves you to your grief, the weight of his actions weighing heavily on his soul. In that moment, he realizes that the price of his newfound freedom may be greater than he ever imagined, leaving him trapped in a prison of his own making, forever haunted by the memory of the one he could never save.

He knows there are not many ways to fix this. But he is determined to find the one that will.

❁ ❁ ❁

He doesn’t remember earth to be quite this cold. 

Find me when you have made the right choice. The words keep ringing in his head. 

A little warmth would feel nice now.

❁ ❁ ❁

You were angry when you told James to leave. Angry, and hurt, and confused, and shocked, and fucking tired of it all. 

But now that he is gone, an unfamiliar emptiness has taken its place where your tingles used to be. Everything makes so much sense now. The weirdly familiar feeling. The sense of security around him - a total stranger at the time, who obviously possessed more strength than you could ever imagine. The instant pull from his heart to yours. 

The quiet of your house seems to close in on you. The walls feel tighter, the rooms emptier. Every corner holds a memory of James, a reminder of the presence that had once filled your life with warmth and mystery. His laugh echoing in the hallway, his silhouette framed in the morning light through the kitchen window, the way he seemed to know when you needed comfort before you even realized it yourself.

You sit at the table, staring at your untouched cup of coffee, replaying moments in your mind. The time he effortlessly carried your groceries when you insisted you could manage alone. The nights he stayed up with you, talking about everything and nothing, his voice soothing and familiar. The way he looked at you, as if you were the center of his universe.

The days seem endless without him. Simple tasks feel monumental in the absence of his reassuring presence. You find yourself hesitating before making decisions, second-guessing your choices, yearning for the silent support he always provided. The realization hits you: you had built your life around him, around the safety and stability he brought, even without knowing the full truth of who he was.

You cannot deny that a big part of you misses him despite all the lies he told you. Well, not lies entirely. You know he has always been truthful to you ...he just never told the whole truth until he was forced to.

And even though the other two angels who visited made him reveal his secrets to you, you feel like there is so much more to discover still. 

Your hand settles over your heart, trying to pull the constant racing around James back into existence. But it beats in profound silence, acting as though nothing has happened, when - in fact - everything has changed. James came into your life and unapologetically took your heart away. You don’t want it back. You want him back. Heart or not, your souls are connected. And now that he is gone, you know what you have truly been missing all this time. 

With a sigh, you rise form your chair and grab your keys, determined to find a way to help James out of the trouble he has caused because of you. A shiver runs down your spine at the memories of it all. James’s sin had good intentions, you know this much. But two people died at the time of it - though only one deserves your mourning. 

You pull your door closed and make your way to town hall. The entire left wing of the building is dedicated to the library and you are destined to find out more about the man who crashed into your life and took your heart away... and then disappeared. 

The library is quiet, the soft rustling of pages and the occasional whisper the only sounds that break the stillness. You approach the counter, where a librarian is meticulously organizing a stack of book. She looks up as you approach, her kind eyes lighting up with curiosity. 

“Hello, dear,” she says warmly. How can I help you today?”

You hesitate for a moment but then you decide to just start at the beginning. “I’m looking for some texts about angels,” you finally say, your voice barely above a whisper. “More specifically fallen angels... and the consequences of disobeying.”

The librarian raises an eyebrow and a look close to amusement and happiness reaches over her face. “That’s a rather specific topic,” she muses and your brow begins to sweat. Maybe this was a stupid idea. The woman is still eyeing you with a smolder, but then, as if you pushed a button, she shrugges and begins to type away on her computer. “Good thing it’s my job to get you exactly what you need.”

She nods slowly after a little while. “We do have some old texts and legends about angels. Let me show you.” With that, she lifts her body out of the office chair behind the desk and leads you to the far end of the library. It’s a quiet corner where the oldest books are kept. She pulls an ancient-looking leather-bound volume from a high shelf. For the place it has been kept, it is surprisingly dust-free. 

With a smile, she hands it to you and then wishes you ‘happy hunting’.

The book is heavy in your hands. The front is embossed in golden letters. Your fingers trace over it, feeling every ridge and dip. ‘Legends of the Divine and Fallen’, the title reads. 

When you flip through the pages, the book’s well-worn smell engulfs you and something inside you shifts. You brother loved old books. The one in your hand brings you right back to when you were kids. Pietro had a whole wall of shelves filled with his favorite stories. And more so than often, you snuck inside when he was out with his friends, grabbing one whose cover intrigued you the most and then getting lost in the pages until he came back and read it to you. 

He sparked your interest in reading - made you the bookworm you are today. And finally, probably caused you to jump into this adventure with James in hopes of finally living inside on of your fantasy worlds. 

You eyes get caught by a story in the book, your thumbs halting and fully opening the page as intrigue tingles in your entire body with every word you read. 

The Tale of Buchariel: The Curious Angel

In the celestial realms, where light and harmony prevail, there existed an angel named Buchariel. Renowned for his loyalty and dedication, Buchariel was also marked by an insatiable curiosity. His yearning to understand the world beyond the heavenly gates set him apart from his brethren, who were content to serve without question.

One fateful day, driven by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, Buchariel descended to the mortal realm without divine permission. His eyes beheld the beauty and chaos of humanity, the joys and sorrows that defined their existence. It was in this realm, teeming with life and temptation, that Buchariel's fate took a dark turn.

As Buchariel wandered the earth, a demon of cunning and allure took notice of the angel's presence. This demon, skilled in the art of seduction, approached Buchariel with promises of forbidden knowledge and experiences that no celestial being had ever known. Blinded by his curiosity, Buchariel succumbed to the demon's temptations, engaging in acts that defied the sacred laws of the heavens.

Word of Buchariel's fall reached the celestial realm, and the angels were dispatched to retrieve their wayward brother. They arrived in time to save Buchariel from complete corruption, pulling him from the demon's grasp and returning him to the realm of light. However, the consequences of his actions could not be undone.

The celestial court declared Buchariel's punishment. He was stripped of his rank and given an ultimatum: he could return to heaven only if he vowed never to betray the divine will again. God, in His infinite mercy, offered Buchariel a chance at redemption. He was to serve as a guardian angel, watching over humanity and guiding them towards righteousness. In this duty, he could be close to the world, yet stay obedient to heaven. 

Buchariel accepted his fate, grateful for the opportunity to make amends. Yet, the legend speaks of the angel's perpetual struggle. Constantly exposed to the allure of the mortal world, Buchariel walked a fine line between duty and desire. His heart, once pure and untainted, now carried the scars of his past transgressions.

Eons passed, and Buchariel's vigilance never wavered, but neither did the temptations. His soul remained in perpetual conflict, torn between his heavenly duty and the memories of earthly sensations. The legend warns that Buchariel's fall could occur once more, for the battle within him is eternal. He is an angel forever on the edge of sin, a guardian who knows the weight of temptation, and a being who understands the cost of free will.

Thus, the tale of Buchariel serves as both a caution and a beacon. It reminds all who hear it of the delicate balance between obedience and desire, and the endless journey towards redemption that even the most divine must undertake.

A chill runs down your spine as you realize the parallels between the legend and James. The delicate balance between obedience and desire - serving and sinning. James did sin again. When he killed the man who ended your brother’s life. 

You sit in silence, the weight of your realization settling over you like a shroud. It’s clear that Jame’s story resembles that of Buchariel in too many ways to be a coincidence. He was weirdly comfortable on earth, now that you think about it. For Christ's sake he even told you he had met God ‘under rather unfortunate circumstances’. If what the legend says is true, unfortunate is the understatement of the century. Now you cant help but wonder what price he might pay for his defiance.

❁ ❁ ❁

The diner hums with its usual activity, the clatter of dishes and the murmur of conversations fill the air. You move mechanically from table to table, refilling coffee cups and taking orders, but your mind is elsewhere, clouded with thoughts of James and the emptiness his absence has left behind.

Peggy, sitting at her usual spot at the counter, watches you with concern etched on her face. She waits until you pass by her with the coffee pot before speaking up.

"What's happened to that smile of yours, dear?" Peggy asks, her voice soft and maternal. "You used to light up this place."

You force a smile, but it doesn't reach your eyes. "Just tired, Peggy. You know how it is."

Peggy's eyes narrow, not buying your excuse for a second. "Tired, my foot. Something's bothering you. You can talk to me, you know."

Before you can respond, Scott chimes in with a smirk. "At least now I know you’re back to normal," he says, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Thought you were gonna float away with all that grinning you were doing."

You shoot Scott a glare, feeling a mix of irritation and sadness. "Thanks, Scott. Really helpful."

“Always at your service” He tips his nonexistent hat, almost bringing a chuckle up within you. In his own way, he never faisl to cheer you up a little.

Peggy waves a dismissive hand at Scott and turns her full attention back to you. "Don't mind him, honey.” She leans in closer, her expression softening. "But seriously, what's going on? I haven't seen you this down in a while."

You sigh, the weight of your emotions pressing down on you. "It's complicated, Peggy. Someone important to me... well, they're not around anymore. And it's just... hard."

Peggy reaches out and pats your hand gently. “We all miss Pietro, dear. Losing someone is never easy... especially after all you’ve been through.”

You nod, grateful for her kindness, but the ache in your chest remains. You can't bring yourself to tell her it’s not your brother you are mourning at this time. "I appreciate that."

The hustle and bustle of the diner continues around you, but for a brief moment, you feel a small measure of comfort in Peggy's concern.

As you turn to refill another customer's coffee, Peggy's words linger in your mind. Maybe opening up a bit more wouldn't be such a bad idea. Maybe, just maybe, sharing the burden could help ease the pain of James's absence, even if only a little. But who should you talk to? The only person you were every really close with is gone...

❁ ❁ ❁

Yet another day passes in which you worry yourself tired. The house feels emptier than ever, the silence pressing in on you as you move through the rooms like a ghost. You try to distract yourself with chores and routines, but your thoughts always circle back to James. Wondering if he’s safe or thinking about you.

You sink into the worn armchair by the window, your favorite spot to watch the world outside. But tonight, the familiar view brings no comfort. The sky is a dark canvas, the stars hidden behind thick clouds. You hug your knees to your chest, feeling the loneliness wrap around you like a suffocating blanket as Old Lee’s words echo in your mind once again. 

A quiet sob calls into the empty room - barely audible. And then the tears start falling down your face in constant streams. The memory of his touch, his warmth, his presence, feels like a distant dream. You close your eyes, trying to recall the feeling of James's arms around you, the sound of his heartbeat against yours. It's a comfort and a torment all at once.

You haven’t cried like this since Pietro died... No, actually, you did when the message of Brock’s death reached you. But those were tears of relief rather than pain. 

A sudden chill sweeps through the room, at the memory of the man who tormented your life in more ways than one. You open your eyes, frowning as you notice that it’s not only the thought of Brock making you feel this way. The air seems to crackle with an otherworldly energy. The hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, and you feel a strange pull, a familiar yet eerie sensation that makes your heart race.

You stand up slowly, your breath hitching in your throat. The room feels alive with a palpable tension, as if the very fabric of reality is shifting. You turn around, your eyes scanning the dimly lit space.

And then you see him.

❁ ❁ ❁

James stands before you, his presence both startling and comforting, he notes as your herts sync again. His eyes meet yours, filled with a mix of relief and sorrow. You look as if you've been through a storm, yet there is a resolute strength in your gaze that anchors him. He probably doesn’t look much better, considering he in fact has been in said storm. But he’d do anything to come back to you. 

"James," you breathe, your voice trembling with emotion. "You're here.”

He steps forward, closing the distance between you. "I’m here," he says softly, his voice carrying the weight of all the unspoken words and unshared moments.

You reach out, your hand trembling as it touches his cheek, as if verifying that he is real and not another figment of your imagination. Your skin is cold and the sensation sends a flood of emotions through him.

"Where have you been?" you ask, your voice cracking with the weight of your worry.

“It is a long story," he replies, his hand covering yours. "But right now, all that matters is that I'm here. With you.”

In that moment, the world outside fades away, and all that exists is the space between you and James. The silence is filled with unspoken promises and the electric charge of a reunion long overdue. 

When you fall into his arms crying, his knees feel like giving out. He has had a long journey behind him, but he would die before showing you weakness when you need him the most. “I thought I would never see you again!” You cry even harder and James wraps his arms around you with loving pressure.

“I’m here,” he tries to soothe you. His wings come around you once again in search for the calmness that washes over him when he realizes you feel safe. 

“I don’t think I can do without you anymore.” Your voice is muffled against his chest but his heart leaps at your confession. Warmth spreads throughout his body as the realization hits that you finally feel close to the emotions he has harbored for you for so long. 

James wants to promise you that he’ll never leave again. He wants to tell you that there is nothing worth losing you. Not the most tempting offer to ever exist. He wants to hold you forever, in fact, do more than just hold you and give into the feeling he has only ever heard about from demons and sinners. 

But he can’t. Because he knows it would not be true. 

His feud with heaven is far from over. And the journey he plans to venture holds great unknown. So, he settles for the one thing he can tell you with certainty. 

“I cannot be without you, either, my beloved. There is so much I want to experience with you but the most important of them all is love. I love you, with my entire soul and heart. I cannot deny you this truth any longer. I have done the unspeakable because of it and you deserve to know.”

You eyes look up at him widely, a question in them that has waited long enough to be asked. “Brock’s death wasn’t an accident,” you whisper, but your posture remains steady. There is no pain or sorrow in your face. Just pure, plain curiosity.

“They told me he was mugged and thrown in the river. But it never made sense to me.” You pull a little out of his touch and James lets you even though his entire body screams to keep you close. “This town is too small to be mugged in. He was killed with a single stab to his heart. A mugger would never be so efficient.”

You gleam at him, seemingly waiting for him to confirm. But James stands in your presence with a sense of pride. He does not regret is transgression, not when it meant keeping you safe - which was and still is his greatest aim. 

“The way he was found was too peaceful to be from a robbery, either.” You tell him shaking your head. “How can you make a murder look so respectful and honest?” 

“I am sorry if I have upset you, dearest-“

“You haven’t. Brock Rumlow was a bad man. It took me a long time to notice, but he was abusing and ill-driven. If anything, I am upset I couldn’t thank you sooner that he is gone.”

“I had played with the though of removing him from the face of the earth for quite some time,” James confesses, feeling all the secret’s weight rolling off him like avalanches. “From the moment he first screamed at you... to the time he laid his hands on you. But I knew you were strong. I was so proud of you for getting up each day and moving on. I would have never acted had he not hurt you in a way even i could feel throught the very bond that ties our souls together. I knew you could handle the hurtful words, even the hurtful touches - that no-one, and especially not you, deserves. Your brother is of similar cunning as myself. But he was brave enough to act while I was fearing the consequences of testing celestial rule once more.” 

James catches the new tears rushing down your cheeks. But he wont stop telling you. He knows you need to hear it. It hurts him to revisit the memory of watching Pietro die in his quest to secure your freedom. “I was trying to honor you brother as much as ensure your safety when I... killed Brock.” He clears his throat and takes your hands in his. “He would have continued to hurt every person he encountered. I do not regret what I did.”

“Oh, James.” Your hands reach up to his face. James bows down to follow the tug you apply to his jaw. “Thank you for telling me. I am not angry. And despite what the other angels said, I know you are a good person. I love you, too.” 

You smile as James’s hands cover yours on his face. Your foreheads are touching and the room around you fades into nothingness. In this moment in time, there are just you and him, and all the new feeling bubbling inside him that he his eager to explore. 

He’s known it for long, but now he is certain than going back to heaven was never an option. Not when you are still here. 

“I would love to kiss you right now,” you whisper in the space between you, igniting a heat within James he has never felt before.

“I would like that very much,” he confesses and as soon as the words leave his lips, yours are firmly pressed against his. 

The sensation is overwhelming. Your lips are soft and warm, moving against his in a way that sends shivers down his spine. His hands still press yours to his skin, unsure what to do and overwhelmed with the experience opened to him. You gently take them and move then to your waist, then a little lower, making him trace the curve of your body as your tongue slowly slips between his lips. The contact sends a surge of electricity through him, making his heart race.

The kiss is tentative at first, each of you exploring this new and wondrous connection. Your fingers weave into his hair, anchoring yourself to him as if afraid he might vanish with this daring protest against heaven. He can feel the gentle tremor in your touch, the same mixture of awe and desire that he feels within himself.

You pull back slightly, just enough to look into his eyes. Your breath mingles with his, cheeks heated and lips swollen. “Move your hands, James,” you whisper, guiding his hands to slide even lower on your body, teaching him how to hold you close, even though he thought he has always done so right. This is different. This is more.

He follows your lead, fingers trembling with the intensity of the moment as they squeeze flesh, eliciting a soft whimper from you that makes James’s insides stir. Or maybe it is not his insides after all, he notices when his pants feel tighter all of a sudden. 

Each brush of your lips against his, each caress, speaks of the longing and love that has been building between you for so long. James deepens the kiss, more confident now, feeling the warmth of your body against his, and it’s as if the world outside has ceased to exist.

Your thumb brushes over his cheek, and you smile, voice breathless. “You’re doing great.”

The kiss becomes more fervent, your guidance helping James navigate this new territory. He feels like he’s pouring all his love and devotion into this one act, wanting to convey everything he’s never been able to say. His wings reach round you tentatively, leaving enough air for you to breathe. He want’s to be wrapped up in you more - he cannot explain it.

James pulls back slightly, his breath coming in shallow gasps. “This... this is incredible,” he murmurs in a voice husky with wonder. “I’ve never felt anything like this before.”

You smile, eyes sparkling. “Neither have I.”

Your lips find each other again, more urgent this time, as if you’re making up for lost time - at least James is. The demon who lured him down the first time failed to mention this part of humanity to him.

“I want to show you more,” you finally whisper against his skin and at this point, James is willing to walk the sun if you asked him to. 

“Everything,” he rasps, his lips touching you with every syllable. He cannot get enough of your taste. “Show it all to me, my love.”

“I want to start with taking off our clothes.” You kiss him again, making Jame’s pants feel even tighter. He knows about sex and he knows it is what you are hinting at. But he has never experienced it. It is no use to angels, since they cannot impregnate another. In heaven, it is rarely talked about - and if it is, one is warned about it. 

Right now, James does not care why. He is eager to experience as much as there is on earth with you and then some. So, he lets you guide his hands over your shoulders, shrugging your cardigan off your body and letting his fingers glide beneath the thin straps adorning your shoulders now. 

His hands are so big compared to yours. He marvels in the fact of how much stronger he is, making him able to protect you that much better. 

James has no difficulty guiding the clothes from your body. Nakedness is something barely acknowledged where he comes from. But today... something about it feels different. This situation feels so much more intimate than it usually does. And he notices, when you kneel down to pull his pants down, his cock stands proud from his body, bigger than usual, and hard and- “Oh!” sensitive, he notes when your lips kiss his hip, your face slightly grazing his member in the action. 

With your head next to it, it looks disproportionately huge, but you don’t seem to mind. 

“This... I have never done this before.” James’s hands guide you back up to him. He is certain his cheeks are glowing red by now. He feels hot and bothered, yet so yearning for more of the teasing your face provided for mere seconds before. 

“Are you okay with continuing?” Your eyes find his again. 

“Yes.”

“Okay, good.” And when he nods, you take his hand and lead him down the hall to your bedroom. 

He has missed this place, missed holding you for the time he went away, but he can't tell you where he has been just yet. Not now, anyway. Right now, he wants to experience whatever you are willing to show him. 

You walk around him, touching him all over, watching him react and making him lean down only to pull back before his lips can get a taste of yours again. It’s beautiful agony and James is torn between pulling you into his strong grip and letting you wind him up until his balls feel like they are the ones squeezed tightly. They already are...

Eventually, you come to a stop behind him. He jolts when you fingers drive over the top of his wings, only for you to mumble a quick ‘sorry’ and coming back around in front of him. 

“Don’t be sorry. I was just not expecting it.”

You stare past him and at the white feathers protruding from his back. “They are so soft... and pretty.” You find his eyes. “All of you is pretty.”

He reaches for your face, finding pride in the way you nestle into his palm with a smile. “And dear, you are the most beautiful being the world has ever seen.”

“Can I touch them again?” You whisper only for James to now stare in awe. 

He watches as your hands pass his body in slow-motion. They travel past his ribs and reach carefully towards his wings again. This time, he is prepared, though his stomach feels tight with something opposite of worry. More of a physical feeling he can't begin to explain. He closes his eyes and lets your touch travel over them like a prayer. Your path leaves shivers in its wake and James lets his head hang, reveling in the feeling. He opens his eyes and watches his cock twitch whenever the tingles get too much. 

He gasps breathlessly when you graze the underside of his wings, making his whole body jump slightly. 

“Oh, are those sensitive?” You smile in awe, though your expression turns to excitement when he wheezes out his answer. 

“Very.”

“Do you like it?” 

Your fingers glide over the same spot again, making his cock leak, feeling like he’s about to explode. “Yes!” He grabs the sideboard next to him.

“I want to make you feel good, James” your voice is damp agains this ear and he bites his tongue before bursting. 

“You already do.” 

“I want to make it even better.”

James is not sure he can handle better. He’s already floating miles above the ground when you touch him in the ways you do. Maybe he has to distract himself to enjoy this some more. 

He could think about why heaven would withhold education of how amazing sex can be. That will make him calm a little, posting yet another reason why it was never the place to be for him. 

Your hands wrap around his silver wrists as you guide him to the bed, pushing down on his shoulders until he is sat on the mattress, looking up at you with intrigue and awe. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to ride you, James.” You straddle his lap and his arms immediately reach around you. 

“Ride ...me? I’m not a horse.” He states and watches as your smile lights up. But it settles a weary feeling in his stomach. There is a hint of mischief in your glint, and James is not sure he can handle it right now. 

“Do you trust me?”

“With my entire soul.”

You kiss him and push at his chest. “The lie back for me.”

And so he does, realizing - once again - that anything heaven could offer him pales in comparison to the love he feels for you, a love that knows no bounds or logic and that is reciprocated in your every touch. 

James watches as you scoot up his body until you are sat right behind his cock, which has not ceased to soften one bit since you kissed. It reaches all the way to your navel. But before he can take in the sight and calculate the size difference between you, you press him against your stomach, pulling another moan from his lunges. 

His tip is leaking more and more with every touch you gift him and James starts to worry his body will give out before he can make you feel good. 

“You’re so big, so pretty.” You stroke him from base to top, letting your thumb press into the underside of his cock and send shiver after shiver through James’s body. “I need you inside me.”

“I need that to.” His voice is strangled when you lift up and grind his tip through your wet folds, moaning with the friction he can only assume is the same for you as it is for him. 

In a swift motion, the head of his cock sinks inside you, breaching tight muscle and making him feel dizzy with the new sensation. Your head falls back with a loud breath that makes his abs tighten. This whole time, he feels as though a gust of wind could make him unravel, but something inside him tells James he should hold out - or at least try to. 

The raspy sounds escaping his throat cant seem to stop when you slowly work yourself all the way down his shaft. And the high-pitched scream you set free when his tip reaches another barrier within you makes him twitch and leak even more. 

“Are you alright?” He asks through sweaty brows. 

“I’m amazing.” You smile and lift yourself up only to sink back down into his lap. Your movements become steady, and when he finally gets over the way your mouth hangs slack, the rhythm you set builds even more pressure inside him. 

The room is filled with messy sounds of skin and sweat and moans and heavy breaths. You sink down on him again and again until James feels like he is on fire. But you don’t relent. Your pace never falters when you fall back and your hands grip his thighs, digging into his muscles until his toes curl. 

It’s too much at once and not enough at the same time. James feels as though there is a cliff he could fall over every second now, but he’s too scared to loose the sensations he is experiencing right now to let his body do so. 

“Touch me,” you suddenly say, taking his hands which have fisted inside your duvet until now and placing them on the soft flesh of your breasts. Only now, your nipples are hardened when you guide his fingers over them. “Like this.” You’re somehow fare gone and right there with him. But he does as he his told again, flicking his thumb over the pebbled flesh until your moans grow higher and higher. “Ah, Yes!”

It’s doing something to him, he his twitching every time your pussy squeezes him in tandem with his thumb on your nipples. His body is moving without the permission of his mind when he suddenly thrusts up. And then again. And again. Until you are mewling and crying on top of him, your fingernails digging into his legs painfully hard. 

James immediately drops his hands only to watch you stare at him with wide eyes. 

“What’s the matter. Why did you stop?”

He bites his lips in shame when he realizes he misses your constant movement on his cock. “Am I hurting you?”

You eyes possibly widen further. Leaning forward and capturing his cheeks with both lips and hands, you shake your head after you pull away. “No! No, its a good thing, love. You feel so good. You...” Your expression changes to a rather shy one. “You’re just very big. You should be proud.”

Something inside James clicks as you confess with another kiss to his lips. A smirk spreads beneath them when he curiously thrusts up inside you and experiences your hot breath gains his face. 

In a second, his hands grab onto your hips, his body turns and flips the pair of you until your back hits the mattress as gently as he can offer in his compromised position. 

A last look of reassurance when your eyes lock with his set off the urges he has suppressed so far. His hips snap forward over and over again, your pussy tightening more around him with every push. Your hands are fist into the covers, head thrown back and mouth open. There is no more sound coming from you at this point. And James understands why. He is as overwhelmed with the feeling as you look. When you grow even tighter, gripping this cock until he cannot move anymore, white pleasure as hot as hellfire rushes through his body, kissing his nerves from head to toe. He feels his balls empty as he paints your inside with his spent, only being able to lazily rut into you after a minute to seize every last drop of pleasure this moment has to offer. 

Then he falls forward as if a higher force has taken all the strength from his body, though careful not to hurt you when his weight settles on top of you. 

“What-“ he needs to catch his breath first. “What was that?”

“That,” you open your eyes, chest having with every deep breath, “was an orgasm.” Your hands brush through his hair and James finds himself purring at the touch. “And it was the best one I’ve ever had.” 

You kiss him and chuckle when he looks at you questioningly. “I guess you could say it was outer-worldly... or even heavenly.” 

James rolls his eyes but can’t stop the laugh from slipping his lunges. He pulls back and watches as his softened cock leaves your pussy, only to be followed by your mixed arousal dripping out of you. 

Trance-like, his hand moves to collect the fluid and begins to smear it over your petals, up into the soft tuft above it. He knows angels cannot impregnate other beings, but he is fascinated by the scene in front of him. It’s like a little testimony when he marks you all around the best place he has ever experienced, wordlessly rubbing and enjoying the whimpering sounds you make when he flicks over a particular spot. 

“Is this sensitive?” He teases with a smirk only to be met with a playful smack on his arm. 

“Very.” you say. “But I am entirely satisfied as of right now.”

James sighs and falls into the sheets beside you. “Me too.” He nuzzles into your neck and pulls you closer to his body. He does not care that you are sticky with sweat or that neither of you are cleaned up. He just needs to hold you now that reality has taken its place back around him again. 

“So, you have been watching over me for - what? All my life?”

James hides the chuckle bubbling up his throat at your sudden question. He still has his eyes closed, taking in the feeling of your nails lightly scratching up and down his forearms. It makes him tingly. 

“All your life, yes.”

“And have you ever meddled with other things that were supposed to happen to me?”

“Do you remember the year in which you kept finding pineapples in arbitrary places?”

It’s silent for a moment, but your movements don’t falter. “I always thought that was a weird coincidence.”

James smiles into the crook of your neck. “Consider it my way of adding a little excitement to your life. And maybe a small attempt to make you notice me.”

You push yourself up slightly and rest on your elbows as you look at James. “I like you like this.” You smile.

“Like what?” He’s smiling as well.”

“Less angel, more...” Your hand comes up to gesture at nothing in particular. “...deviant.”

The smile on James’s face turns into a proud grin before he leans up to kiss you tenderly, savoring the moment and pushing away the thought that has been gnawing on him ever since he came back. 

He holds you until you fall asleep, purposefully missing the opportunity to tell you what he has gotten himself into while he was away.

❁ ❁ ❁

James stands in the garden, the sky overcast and heavy with the promise of rain. He’s out here to retrieve a bouquet of your favorite flowers, smiling like a fool because he finally has what he always wished for. All his mishaps and seem worth it when he holds you in his arms at night. 

The flowers are vibrant and alive, and he bends to pick them with a sense of purpose, each blossom a token of his affection. Even as the first raindrops start to fall, his joy is undiminished. The rain doesn’t bother him; it’s a minor inconvenience compared to the happiness he’s found with you. 

As he moves through the garden, he thinks of the moments you’ve shared—the way your eyes light up when you see him, the warmth of your touch, the sound of your laughter, the way you writhe beneath him in she sheets. For the first time in his existence, he feels complete. 

James clutches the bouquet and heads back toward the house, eager to see the surprise on your face when he presents you with the flowers.

But before he can pass the threshold, an eery feeling spreads though is soul, a shadow falls over him but vanishes just as soon. He scans the yard, his sight nestling through the trees at the very edge of it and then suddenly halting when he sees Wanda leaning against one at the very far corner of your property. Her presence is like a dark cloud on the horizon, a stark contrast to the bright joy he feels. Her red eyes glint with a knowing look, and her lips curl into a smirk that sends a chill down his spine.

“Are you not coming inside, James? The weather will only get worse.” You shout through the house only to appear behind him to inspect what is keeping him outside. 

But James’s stare is fixated on the demon in your yard, his protective instincts setting in immediately, scanning his surroundings while keeping a close eye on Wanda. 

“What is going on?” You ask and reach your arms around him from the side. He can sense you’re eyeing him but he knows you see what he is seeing when your entire body grows rigid beside him. 

“Who is that?” you whisper into James’s shoulder as you step even closer to him, your voice barely audible over the increasing patter of rain. He squeezes you a little tighter, trying to shield you from the inevitable storm brewing. A quick look at your state tells him he should have send you inside. But It is too late for that now. 

When his head turns back into the direction of the demon, it is no longer in its prior place. Instead, Wanda has moved across the garden with impeccable speed, looking up at the pair of you a few feet alway from the step leading to your porch. 

“You promised me time to explore the likes of this life.” His voice is low and intimidating, though he knows its futile in the face of a demon. They are scared of very little. 

“And explored you have,” her red hair falls over her shoulder when her head ticks to the side. “Tell me, Bucharius, is it worth the cost?”

The demon knows of the leverage it has on him. James was sure he would follow through with his request from the start. But he forgot, or maybe just hoped, the devil’s spawn would gift him more time until he had to go and seal the contract. 

“You know it is,” he pushes though clenched teeth, hating how your fingers clamp around his arm already. 

“Actually, I don’t. But I would be an idiot to refuse an offer such as yours.” Wanda clasps her long fingers together and grins with evil. “Oh, I will have so much fun with your soul once the time comes.”

The angel closes his eyes tightly, hating the way the demon pressures him to leave so soon. But it is for the greater good, for him at least. He need’s to be selfish for once - to be able to spend a lifetime providing whatever you desire. 

“Just give me a moment, Wanda,” James says, his voice steady despite the chaos inside his head. He knows his flicker of happiness is about to be shattered, but he wants to hold onto it for just a little longer.

“What is happening? What does she want?” There are tears brimming in your eyes and James decides he has seen them far too many times to be a good guardian to you. It just secures his decision to do what Wanda came to collect him for. 

James presses his lips to the crown of your head before gently tilting it upward with his fingers. His gaze is steady, exuding a confidence while you desperately cling to him in your confusion.

“I’m not sure I can handle all this newfound angelic drama,” you mutter with unease, and James kisses you—short and sweet, a fleeting moment of peace.

Then he whispers against your lips, “Please, you handle drama like a queen. Remember that time you dealt with Valentina from accounting?” His attempt at humor brings a small smile to your face, and he momentarily loses himself in the warmth and security it provides.

But the feeling doesn’t last long.

“James has made a deal with the devil,” Wanda grins, her red eyes flashing with malevolent glee.

Her words send shivers over your body, James feels the ripples pass beneath his fingertips. You pull away from your guardian angel, whose troubles have now escalated to an unthinkable level. 

“What does she mean, James?”

❁ ❁ ❁

James’s silence is deafening. You pray, you beg, for this to be a terrible joke, but deep down, you know it’s not.

“James.” Your words are strained, desperate for answers, desperate for reassurance. “What is she talking about?”

“It is true,” James finally admits, his eyes free of sorrow but filled with determination. “I have made a deal with Lucifer. My wings for a mortal life. My soul when it leaves my deceased body after spending a lifetime with you.”

“What?” The word is a whisper, your mind struggling to process the gravity of his confession. Because your cheeks feel salty and stained before you realize what James has just told you. “Why are you doing this?” you ask through your tears.

“Because I’d give up heaven if it meant being with you.” James’s eyes burn into yours, the rain dripping off his wet face deceivingly. His voice is steady, unwavering. “I’d go to hell a thousand times over until my soul burns to ashes if it meant I get to hold you one more time. You’re everything to me. Everything.”

Another wave of shivers slip over your skin with the way he presses the last word. His eyes are fiery, almost desperate. He is trying to make you understand how much better this decision is, but you fail to see how it can. “You can’t do this. You are destined for more. There are many more to come after me that need protecting and watching over.”

“And there have been plenty before you, yet none of them have or will ever compare, my love.” He touches your cheek, but you push his hand away. Your heart is already aching when you watch his face fall at the gesture. But you are not made for these types of dilemmas. You are human for fuck’s sake. “I would spend eternity regretting not experiencing life with you. I am tired of watching; I am over feeling the distance between us. Going back to heaven means finding you someone else to love. And I cannot do that. It would destroy me, burn me alive, rip my heart out of my chest.”

“James, think about this.” Now the first angry tear slips from his face and mixes with he rain which has grown heavier. Dark clouds cast over the scene, matching the mood perfectly. Dreary and sad - how poetic. 

“I have. For far too long. I will never feel truly fulfilled until I can be what you need me to be: a real, tangible person that grows old with you.”

You shake your head, your hair sticking to your skin. “You have to believe me when I tell you that I exist only for you. My life was dull before you entered it, and it will feel like a black hole when you leave. There is nothing—nothing—I wouldn’t do to be with you.”

Never before have words felt more genuine than this. James is hunched forward, his eyes pleading at you from above. A sneaky hand has captured yours and presses it to his chest, where his heart is beating vigorously against your skin. 

Resignation laces your voice when you finally answer him. “So you’re just going to leave now? For how long? What if he tricked you?”

You don’t know  much about all the rules but one thing is for sure, the devil likes to play and deceive. Just the thought of James walking into a trap makes your stomach churn. 

“Then it was worth it.” There is something akin to content and fulfillment in Jame’s stare when his hand squeezes yours and his heartbeat slows. Though your’s seems to do the opposite. 

“No.” You say breathlessly. 

“I’m sorry," he answers, and wraps your fingers around the bouquet in his hands.

“James.”

“I love you.”

“James.”

The rain intensifies, pounding the earth as if mirroring the turmoil in your heart. James turns and lets Wanda put him in chains, leading him away. You fall to your knees, crying, the three words you have yet to say hanging on your lips for nobody to hear. He’s gone. He’s gone without the knowledge of ever seeing you again.

❁ ❁ ❁

And just like that it ends like it began: in tragedy… and rain.

❁ ❁ ❁

Maybe you are just not cut out for happiness, you think as you wipe down the counter with a frown. The sun is shining today, almost mocking your bad mood with every chirping of birds outside. Earlier today, you were so angry about the reflection blinding you inside that you shut the blinds completely. 

James has been gone for a week now and you already feel like breaking down over what you’ve lost whenever something is mentioned that reminds you of him. 

A few days ago, after a really rough night, you swore you’d never let anyone this close to you. It’s the perfect start for you villain origin story, really. Losing your brother to an abusive ex. Losing said abusive ex thanks to a protective angel. Then falling in love with the angel only for him to go to hell for loving you back. 

You heart cannot take another hit. It’s constantly breaking as you think about the torture and pain James is probably suffering in the pits of hell. There is just no more room for another person, another worry, or anything else, really. 

You will just die an old and groggy lady, likely still cleaning this very counter until you cant anymore. The whole town is going to know you as the weird woman with seventy two cats.

You shake at the thought of it, disposing of your towel and grabbings some plates from the counter to clean up some more.

“New customer is yours, freaking weirdo has been standing outside the window and looking inside like some kind of stalker,” Scott mumbles as he paces by you with his head buried in his phone screen. 

You just sigh and throw a used napkin into the trash before loading the dirty plates onto a kitchen tray. 

“I’d like a sandwich, please.” A voice sounds from behind you and your entire body goes rigid.

It can’t be. It cant. For days you have been wishing for James to come back, now you are finally becoming crazy. 

But your heart picks up its familiar sprint and your entire body tingles with hope. Still, you don’t dare to turn around. 

“Are you not going to look at me, dearest?”

Your hands tremble as you grip the edge of the counter. What if it’s real? What if it’s not? The uncertainty gnaws at you, each second stretching into an eternity. You’ve dreamed of this moment, but dreams are fickle things, easily shattered by the harsh light of reality.

“James...” The name slips out in a whisper, a plea, a hope. Tears sting your eyes, and you squeeze them shut, bracing yourself for the worst.

You take a deep breath and finally turn around. Truly, there he stands in front of you, with a bright and gleaming grin on his lips. There is one thing you notice immediately: the silver cuffs on his arms are gone. And he looks oddly free without them.

Almost trance-like, you round the counter, your had reaches out to him, touching his jaw, gliding down the length of his neck until your fingertips disappear into the soft curls in the back of it. 

“Is it really you?” You whisper in awe as you start to drown in the familiar blue of his eyes. And when James covers your hand with his, squeezing his reassuring sequence to your bones, you know. It’s real. 

“In the ...flesh.” he frowns but then smiles widely. 

“What happened when you were gone?” Your curiosity gets the better of you, but James just shakes his head and then turns his face to kiss the inside of your wrist. 

“Not here, love. Take me home... if you’ll have me. Take me back. I promise no more secrets from now on.”

You just nod vigorously, finally pulling James into your embrace. The worry raging inside you fades into insignificance, eclipsed by the certainty that in this moment, you’ve regained something intently more powerful - a bond that defies explanation, but feels undeniably perfect. 

“I will always choose you over anything else, James.” You nuzzle into his chest as you ravel in the warmth of his body and the security of his touch. His heart is singing the same song as yours and his head hangs low atop yours, pressing meaningful kisses to your hairline between every stroke of his hand on your back. 

The diner around you might as well not exist. All that matters is this connection between you - the bond that defies the boundaries of heaven and earth. 

“But tell me one thing,” you whisper into his shirt and James moves to better hear your low voice. 

“I will tell you anything,” he presses into another kiss on your face, still holding you close. 

“Are you... did the-“ you’re not sure how to assemble the questions inside your mind without being bold. But James seems to know exactly what it is you want to say. 

He takes both his hands from around you and guides your face to his until his warm lips press a meaningful kiss to yours. “Yes,” he murmurs softly, yet steadily, conveying just enough seriousness to let you know how important and truthful his answer is. “I did what I promised. I am yours until the end of my life, and even beyond, my soul will be seeking yours for eternity. But until then, we will grow old together and finally be what we were meant to.”

His lips latch onto yours a second time and as the kiss deepens, a sense of completeness washes over you. In James’s arms, you find the solace and passion you have been yearning for, a promise of love that transcends all else. 

“I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me.” You smile back between kisses.

James pulls you even closer, his voice a gentle murmur against your lips. “We have a lifetime to show each other.”

And in that moment, surrounded by the echoes of a bustling diner and the warmth of his embrace, you know that no matter the trials ahead, this love will endure, defying all boundaries and transcending every limit. 

❁ ❁ ❁

Because at last, there’s noting more freeing than falling itself.

🫵 You cant get enough of this character? Go check out the chatbot I made for him! This way you can explore different endlings, plotlines, or just enjoy his company for a while longer 💕

Lord, can we take a second and appreciate these images???!! Got me on my knees - and not for praying, I'll tell you this much...

Hello, loves. As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. I hope you had fun! Maybe... juuuust maybe if you want to, you could leave a comment or reblog on this post. New fics will be on hiatus until August, I have some real life work to finish. But please feel free to interact and talk to me. I love hearing from you! Take care, and ill talk to you as soon as I can. ~Meg 💗

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[multi-fandom-imagine]

Sub Stan or ford… please please please please PLEEASSSEEE. I only found 1 fic so far and Ford wasnt even really sub. JUST A CRUMB PLEASE I AM BEGGING

A/n: Why not both?! I apologize if this sucks.

•Stanly Pines•

If you two were young, Stan might take some issue with you wanting to be in charge. Sure it's gonna be hot, watching you ride him in all but he can't sit still for so long and pretty soon he'd be switching positions. Hand's holding your hips tightly , face buried into your neck.

Though if Stan started this relationship with while he's older the man is more inclined to be a sub for you part of him still want's to resist but it's so hard to say no to you and that adorable little pout you give him, the mans a mess the moment you run your fingers through his hair.

He swears he'd do anything for you, I mean the man already has enough charges so what's one more?!

God's you feel so good riding him, your arms wrapping around his neck. The little whimpers that escapes your lips as Stan does his best to resist taking over, the man just relaxes under you. You wanted to be in charge after all. This is about you after all, he'll get his chance to be in charge later on, once he has a moment to catch his breath.

•Stanford Pines•

Gods this man is a mess when it comes to you being in charge.

Ford isn't Stan and back in High school / Collage the man could easily submit to you. His face flushing red when you even suggest the matter of dominating him.

He can't say no to you, never to you. Even with all the dimension hoping you and Ford do the man still has trouble saying no to you. Maybe it's because you still look good after all these years { though in his eyes you'll always look like a goddess. }

Ford suspected it started when you two were first intimate. You took charge while he sat back doing the best to thinking of something else other than coming undone. The man swears that the only time he really took charge was you taught him how to finger you, gods you felt so good.

Ford love's watching you ride him, the whimpers escaping your lips as he holds you hips thrusting up into you.

Sure Ford knows he can take control, the man is bigger than you, he knows he can easily flip you over and fuck you senseless but damn does he love being pampered by you, he loves falling melting under your touch.

[creativesplat]

I’m fairly sure the idea was that Stan and Ford wouldn’t be able to figure out the weirdmageddon bubble solution, not because Ford couldn’t give up something important for someone else (although its true), but because they were both fighting like cats and dogs.

Ford wouldn’t take the time trying to understand how Stan feels, because its not logical, and hates to admit that he cares about this man who ruined his dream life and took away his chance of defeating Bill in the nightmare realm.

Stan would never believe Ford if he told him his reality was an illusion that he should leave, and wouldn’t listen if he told him that he was on Stan’s side, because in the most important things (like when he was homeless, or when they were reunited before the portal incident) he wasn’t. 

It’s not that it’s bad Ford had a dream outside the Stan’o’War, its that they’re both so awful at communication and so hurt by the other that they wouldn’t be able to help each other out of it like Dipper and Mable could.

It took the children being hunted by a demon wanting to murder them for the older twins to even talk to each other about how they felt. 

Anyways, that's just my two Stan Bucks/ Trembly's negative twelve dollar bills on this post!

I hate that Alex said that Dipper and Mabel's solution during Weirdmageddon in the prison bubble was a solution Ford and Stan couldn't find because under the knowledge that said solution entailed Dipper giving up his apprenticeship implies that Ford was bad for having dreams outside of what Stan wanted. That Ford should've given up his individual dreams in its entirety and run off with Stan on the Stan O' War dream that was beginning to feel unrealistic and no longer obtainable to Ford than the college where he actually had the full-ride scholarship within his grasp!

Like, how dare he want to live his own life! How dare he want something different than Stan! How dare he get upset when Stan walked behind his back, ruined his dream, and failed to own up to it properly! He should've just stayed glued to the hip with Stan for the rest of his life and not have individual dreams from him! (This is sarcasm if you couldn't tell)

It feels very anti-Ford if I'm being honest. Dipper and Mabel were at a point in their lives where Dipper giving up the apprenticeship and staying with Mabel was a good thing because he was a young adolescent at the end of the summer and he still has time he needs to grow up! Also said apprenticeship wasn't really that good of an idea for Dipper! Stan and Ford, on the other hand, were different in that their adolescence was coming to a close! They were teens on the cusp of adulthood, almost ready to move out into the world! Ford's dreams actually got invalidated by Alex's statement! It paints Ford as a bad person without even talking about any of his own actual mistakes and I don't think I should explain why that's not good.

There's nuance here! If Stan hadn't bottled up his feelings so badly and actually talked about how he felt about Ford leaving (like, actually talked, not 'eluded to it' or whatever he was doing on the swings) perhaps they could've reached a compromise or at least a better understanding of their sides! Ford could've assuaged his fears, letting him know he won't be gone forever from Stan and that him leaving for the time being really wouldn't be the end of the world. Let's be real here, it wouldn't kill Stan to be without Ford for a few years while he was at college, they could still keep contact or visit! I hate this idea of black and white, no compromise, only two things you can choose from kind of thinking. 'Either give up your dreams or have a bad relationship with your brother, your pick'. Do you not see how ridiculous that idea is? Ford pursuing his own dreams wouldn't inherently ruin his relationship with Stan, it was Stan's own actions that started the long line of issues to break their relationship down into pieces! (I'm not gonna cover my statement with promises that 'I know Ford isn't perfect either and made mistakes too', by the way, everyone talks about that like no tomorrow and I feel like it shouldn't need to be said at this point. I am standing my ground on this. I hate justifying my love for Ford. I'm ironically covering myself here but the point stands)

On a related note, it's funny how the fandom is quick to get angry at Mabel for making Dipper give up his wants (even when it was justified) but instantly turns around and wants Ford to give up his wants for Stan. Feels kinda... hypocritical... But that's just me and my silly little opinion, huh?

Anyway, this was just something that brought me to anger last night and wouldn't let me go until I wrote it up. Not gonna argue with anyone about this because I am well over being exhausted when it comes to Ford and the fandom (also Alex to a certain extent) so you can yell at me all you want but I couldn't care less (i do care, but I'm not gonna engage unless it gets out of hand)

[viviennevermillion]

When they want attention

✧ ɴᴏᴛᴇꜱ: spontaneous idea. gonna get to my request once i'm done with the 7k words jing yuan commission i received so look forward to that, the jing yuan stans are getting fed. dan heng has his dragon form in this one.

✧ ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: still into you — paramore

✧ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀꜱ: blade, dan heng, sampo, yaoshi

✧ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: none

The former Xianzhou craftsman was mysterious in many different ways but one thing you knew for sure was that he was way too scarred and emotionally stunted to just go ahead and ask you for your attention and love. He does sometimes but it's only on days when he's been doing particularly bad and his mara-struck self has been coming through more and he feels like your touch is the only thing keeping him grounded. He'd sneak up to you and quietly ask whether you'd mind to just hold him for a while. You never mind. But on regular days?

When Blade is just touch-starved and wants attention, he doesn't even initiate it. The only reason you notice is because he doesn't leave your side even though you're busy and working. He just keeps sitting close to you and staring at you from the side as if he wants something but when you ask him if he needs anything, he shakes his head and says it's important that you focus on your work.

It takes you a while to realize what's up with him. But when you eventually put your work aside for a moment to open your arms to him, he melts into your embrace and you can hear him let out a relieved sigh once he feels your warmth and gentle touch.

Sometimes you dare tease him about it. "Seems you just wanted my love. You know you can have that whenever you want, right?", you chuckle and kiss his temple. Blade chooses not to comment on it and to just keep enjoying your affection.

Kafka can also always tell when he's needy for attention and feels free to inform you when that's the case. She'll stand in the door to your room and gently knocks on the door frame. You look up to her with a questioning look. "Your boyfriend is cranky again. Do something about it", she says with a slight smile on her face. Blade readily accepts your affection when you seek him out after that, melting into your kiss and smiling against your lips. Just don't tell him Kafka sent you.

Honestly Dan Heng's sudden transformation was a lot to get used to for everyone on the Astral Express but you in particular now had to deal with his dragon instincts when he wanted your affection. Usually he suppresses them but when he's tired he doesn't always stop himself from getting a little clingy.

You had to admit that this new side to him was quite amusing. Sometimes you'd be working until late at night and Dan Heng would just gently bonk you with his head from the side to get your affection.

Oftentimes he'd wrap his arms around you from behind and nuzzles your neck for a while. Usually when he's very, very sleep-deprived. You'll feel his breath on your neck and his lips leaving quick pecks on your skin repeatedly. Sometimes you'll lightly feel his tongue against your neck too when he kisses you there. He has his face buried in your neck now and it doesn't look like he's leaving anytime soon.

He purrs now. The first time you hear this your eyes widen and you slow-blink for a bit, having to do a double take that you're not imagining this. You don't even dare point it out to him. Not when he's being this cute. So you just accept it and kiss his lips first before pressing them to each of his horns, resulting in Dan Heng trying to snuggle even closer. You suppress a chuckle and start gently caressing the tail he apparently slapped into your lap for you to play with.

He apologizes later for getting a little too clingy there but he smiles when you shake your head and reassure him you quite enjoyed him being this affectionate. He might do this more often now, seeing how much it makes you swoon and how happy it seems to make you.

Unlike Dan Heng and Blade, Sampo shamelessly asks for your attention everytime he craves it. He's very overdramatic about it too. He wraps his arms around your shoulders from behind while you're working and kisses your cheek repeatedly to ease you into the idea of leaving your work just standing around and tending to your touch-starved boyfriend. "Honey...", he coos and kisses the spot below your ear repeatedly, "you see, Sampo Koski has had a very rough day. First I had to run from the Silvermane Guards again, then my bag broke and all my relics fell into the dirt and then it started to rain and a client threw a fish at me and told me to die." You roll your eyes, your eyes falling on his bag, standing perfectly fine in the corner of the room.

"What I really mean to say is I could really use some love right now", he looks down with an obviously fake sad expression and wipes a non-existent tear from the corner of his eye, "my heart is broken and I'm not sure it will ever recover."

If you indulge him, he'll happily take up all the space in your arms and just lets you pamper him for a while. If you push him away and insist that you need to focus here, he starts kicking the sob story up a notch. "Pretty please", he whines and takes your hands into his, "you see, as a child my parents never told me they loved me-" "Ugh, Sampo", you let out a frustrated sigh. If you look into his eyes and tell him in all seriousness that you'd really like to finish your work first, he concedes but usually you're too amused with him to not at least give in a little.

"Okay fine, you get 10 minutes but then I really need to continue my work", you open your arms for him and 10 minutes quickly turn into 20 or 30. You muse that you can still do your work tomorrow.

If you're not a clingy person, I advise you to not indulge Yaoshi and reciprocate their feelings because while they respect the things you care about and are passionate about and would never want to make you angry at them, they're very high-maintenance when it comes to receiving affection. Yaoshi always backs off when you tell them to but internally they also want affection constantly.

If you thought Sampo was overly clingy, Yaoshi is a whole new brand of desperate. I mean, they could have shaken our hand or patted us on the head upon meeting us, but no, they chose to go straight for the lips and this is a pattern that carries through even after getting together with you.

Yaoshi won't just ask if you have some time to spare for them, Yaoshi will straight up plant themselves onto your lap and attempt to make out with you. Sometimes they're successful, sometimes they aren't.

In general the fact that there is a time and place for passionate kissing is something that Yaoshi needs to learn. You'll be in public and they'll try this and you tell them that you can do this later. Yaoshi waits until you're in a different public location and then asks again whether this is now a suitable place to kiss you. Don't even give them one kiss in public. Don't give them an inch, they'll attempt to take a mile. They listen when you tell them this isn't the time or place for kisses but if you give them a quick peck to the lips, in their mind, which is very much not adjusted to societal norms, this means "okay so now is the time for kisses" so they'll try to give you more kisses.

When you tell them you have work to do, Yaoshi asks you when they can expect you to be done with your work. "About 2-3 hours", you tell them and pat their head gently. Yaoshi nods and disappears. A couple of minutes later you can smell something burnt from the other room. "Yaoshi?", you call out worried, checking up on them.

You find them holding your burning alarm clock in both of their hands. "My dearest, I was trying to 'set an alarm' as you always do", they have a sad expression on their face and a tear runs down their cheek, "it seems I have accidentally vanquished your strange little nightingale. I hope you can forgive me one day."

"What were you even trying to set an alarm for?" Yaoshi looks up at you. "You said you'd be done in 2-3 hours."

You let out a sigh and caress their cheek gently. "We can buy a new one and I'll show you how to use it", you shake your head, wondering what you expected from dating a literal god who usually spends their time on a different plane of existence, "but we should probably get rid of this one."

Yaoshi obliges and the alarm clock is gone in an instant. "It is in a better place now", they explain. You decide you don't have the mental energy right now for the discussion that would result from asking what exactly 'a better place' is. For now you let Yaoshi sit or lay down on your lap while you do the rest of your work, your fingertips gently drawing circles onto their shoulders.

[theladysunami]

I listen to a lot of audiobook murder mysteries, which has me thinking:

Shen Yuan transmigrating into a murder mystery… as the killer!

There are a couple of ways the story could go.

First Option: Shen Yuan lets his System know, in no uncertain terms, he will not be murdering anyone.

Its response: [Alternate Plotline Initiated. New Assignment: Designated Red Herring].

Poor Shen Qingqiu finds himself stuck in a whole murder mystery series, and any time anyone is murdered, he somehow ends up being the number one suspect!

The victim? Probably picked a fight with Shen Qingqiu at some point. (Shen Qingqiu tries to avoid such arguments, but it never seems to work!)

The murder weapon? Yeah, Shen Qingqiu is almost guaranteed to have touched it. (Shen Qingqiu is severely tempted to start wearing gloves 24/7.)

The body? Either Shen Qingqiu finds it himself at some inopportune time, and/or it was stashed somewhere “only” he is supposed to have access to. (At some point it's just: Shen Qingqiu opens a door… sees a body… closes the door. “Time to call the cops, yet again.”)

Shen Qingqiu ends up a tad paranoid about the whole thing, setting up cameras outside his house, in his office, in his car, etc. just to (hopefully) stop people from planting evidence any of those places.

If anyone asks about the truly absurd number of (eventually dropped) murder allegations, Shen Qingqiu insists he's cursed. Even with genre blinders on (making the number of convoluted murders in the area seem normal somehow), it's hard for anyone to argue the point.

For Shen Qingqiu's day job (when he's not busy being charged with murder) he works as a professor at a university with a highly regarded Criminology & Criminal Justice program. I'm thinking the original goods was a literature professor, with a strong distaste for cops, who was known for grading anyone in the criminal justice program exceedingly harshly. Naturally one of his students is the protagonist, Luo Binghe.

After his transmigration, professor Shen Qingqiu suddenly becomes a very kind and doting professor with a real passion for literature. This leaves Luo Binghe quickly smitten and makes him a very motivated amateur detective, since he's determined to prove his beloved's innocence as quickly as possible and as often as needed!

Second Option: Shen Yuan takes over after the original goods already committed the murder.

He wakes up with a splitting headache (the victim attempted to defend themselves presumably), looks at his bloody hands… looks at the victim… looks at the weapon… looks at his bloody hands again. “Damn it, Airplane.”

He decides he doesn't want to try and hide a body actually, just to be caught by the protagonist later and charged with a whole slew of things in addition to murder, so he calls the cops himself. He might as well take advantage of the fact he has a concussion and literally doesn't remember a thing. Maybe he can get the charges reduced somewhat and get a lighter sentence.

Of course the first cop that arrives at the scene is Yue Qingyuan, who as the #1 Xiao-Jiu stan gives Shen Qingqiu way too much benefit of the doubt. The most obvious evidence also keeps being erased or damaged by weird as hell coincidences.

Shen Qingqiu knows he certainly isn't responsible for damaging evidence and wonders if the System is working overtime behind the scenes to ensure there actually is a mystery for Luo Binghe to solve. (After all, it wouldn't be much of a story if Shen Qingqiu was already charged and sentenced before Luo Binghe had a chance to even do anything.)

To his complete bewilderment, after a few days leave to recover from the concussion, Shen Qingqiu is actually allowed to return to his university teaching job. He decides to make the best of it, since who knows how long he'll be a free man.

As in the first scenario, a few months later and Luo Binghe is absolutely smitten, not to mention all the other students and faculty that have come to adore him.

As Shen Qingqiu has successfully endeared himself to pretty much anyone and everyone local that could actually charge him or provide eyewitness testimony, not to mention all the shady shit about murder victim Qiu Jianluo the ongoing investigation keeps digging up, the plot stalls for a bit until the state police (aka Huan Hua Palace) are finally called in by Qiu Haitang.

Unfortunately for the ‘HHP’ folks, the protagonist himself is on Shen Qingqiu's side, and Luo Binghe is perfectly happy to muddy the waters by conveniently “losing” evidence, sending them after every single red herring he comes across, and “accidentally” digging up dirt on all the shady dealings going on in their department.

The System keeps trying to motivate Shen Qingqiu to hide evidence, lie, or do literally anything suspicious to progress the plot further, but all its punishment protocols involve sabotaging Shen Qingqiu's coverup attempts (of which he has none) or revealing information to the protagonist (who is complicit by this point) so it's fresh out of luck.

Eventually the System gives up and Shen Qingqiu is congratulated for “getting away with murder!” despite the fact he didn't actually do anything.

“Seriously? Does it even count as getting away with murder when the original goods was the actual murderer? I didn't kill anyone!”

[...]

[pix-writes]

Cuddle HC for Ford pls 🥰

This is such a cute request! <3 Hope you enjoy!

Cudldes with Ford (sfw):

He really likes to put his arms around you, Ford has a broad frame and fairly strong, so he will squeeze you! Likes the pressure but also makes him feel more secure, to have you close as possible to him, puts his emotions into the action; if you and/or Ford are upset, expect the hardest hugs! He takes a lot of comfort from it, being a little touch starved in his life previously.

The man is in love with his work as much as his family so cuddles can really happen anywhere, including the lab. Sometimes he will pull you in when he sees that you're tired, gets you to rest his head on him comfortably as he finishes is records for the day. Other times you basically have to crawl into his lap like a cat to get his attention/get him to take a break. But he really doesn't mind that, because he gets to sweep you up in his arms, is probably strong enough to carry you over to somewhere more comfy too.

You're likely to lean on each other a lot whilst absorbed in something (research or recreational hobbies) like this:

He really likes your scent too, will rest his head in the crook of your neck when you're cuddled up together, especially when tired. Maybe you're both on the couch watching TV or on the stan o war watching the sunset at the end of a day of adventure. He'll rest his head under yours and will likely fall asleep - he's had a lot of sleep deprivation in his life, so when he feels the most relaxed in your presence, it really should be no surprise that he wants to sleep. Ford reminds himself of these moments later when he has days where past mistakes and bill weigh heavy on his mind; he is safe now.

Cuddles in bed: Ford likes to be the big spoon at night, feels right to him because he feels he's protecting you, places a hand around you to keep you in place. That said though, he loves when you run your fingers through his hair, likes to lay his head on your chest and hear your heartbeat when you do, so it's not unusual for you both to fall asleep that way, either.

Doesn't like to go to bed without you, even though on other occasions he can stay up late after you've gone to bed, he hates it if he has to go to bed alone, he just likes cuddling you that much. Feels lonely if you staying out late for something or you're not in the same place as him - not that he'd stop you going, you're living your own life, but he might be more clingy when you return, he often gets nightmares when he sleeps alone. If you're not gone for days then he'll likely stay up for you.

Ford whilst asleep can end up tangling his legs around yours, if you don't like cold feet that have been sticking out of the covers to be placed on you, then this might be a problem! 😄 Secretly likes when you grumble about being cold when this happens because then he can pull you back into his hold to warm you both up (you can bet he has a cheesy line about this) ❤️

In the mornings though, Ford is quite alert, once he's awake he's awake! So there's only so much time you can hold him before he's out of bed to start the morning routine. Though, if you're less of a morning person, part of that routine is to bring you coffee/tea/beverage of choice to you in bed, should his persuasion to join him in the kitchen fails, so there's definitely the possibility of some morning cuddles! Not to mention that Ford is already dressed (likely in one of his many sweaters) so he's a lot warmer, which makes getting out of the covers not so bad. I think in the mornings, expect Ford's playful side to come out, will tease you about being sleepy to get a rise out of you (he's flirting). To him you look so adorable/beautiful when you've just woken up, even if you think its when you look your worst/most unflattering. He'll be nicer about it half of the time, waking you up softly and brush your hair away from your face if he can, like you do for him.

[sungbeam]

nonidol!jung sungchan x f!reader

at some point beneath the glittering summer sun and along evening tides, you and sungchan tripped over the line drawn in the sand.

▷ genre, warnings. brother's best friend!au, friends-ish 2 lovers, family vacay + sungchan lol, swearing, kissing, fluff, humor, sungchan does go shirtless (it's a beach), mentions of food, mentions of alcohol; lee jeno, sohee, and anton r ur brothers! (so u have the lee last name but u "look more like ur mom"); barely proofread, also im sorry if this is boring my head has not been in the game for Months

▷ word count. 10.0k

DISCLAIMER: i DO NOT actively write for or stan riize; this is literally just a birthday present T-T so if dynamics/personalities aren't right, i literally don't know these guys 💀

a/n: happiest birthday to my beloved soulmate and wife @justalildumpling :')) i hope u like it <3

OFTEN when you came back home from work, your joints and muscles ached to the point you could barely stand, your hair felt gross on your head, and your eyes stung from dehydration and sleep deprivation. That was the toll of working closing shift at the restaurant you worked at, and had been working at, for the past several years. 

It wasn't out of the ordinary to see the lights in the house still warm and bright when you got home either. Your family was a handful of night owls, not discounting yourself. They had witnessed you in this particular rat-nest dump of a state time and time again, which was why you didn't worry about looking like Death Incarnate. 

“Hey.”

Your soul left your body. 

Sitting on your living room couch was not a family member. Though, he might as well have been a part of it from how much you had been seeing him lately. Jung Sungchan was your older brother Jeno's best friend, but Sungchan was in your year rather than Jeno's. The two met via the high school soccer team and had been good friends since. 

Years later, he was sitting on the living room couch, nearing one in the morning, his hair damp from a recent shower, T-shirt sleeves rolled up his shoulders, and his phone paused from the game he was playing. Your brain was too tired to even register the amount of muscle packed onto his arms (what the fuck—). 

“Sorry, did I scare you?” He chuckled sheepishly, reaching up to ruffle his dark hair, grown out slightly. 

“What are you doing here?” You blurted instead. Exhaustion meant that conventional politeness was completely defenestrated. It was one in the morning on a summer night… usually your older brother was out clubbing or drinking (not that you were any different, but you worked quite a bit more nights lately). 

Sungchan's eyes danced up and down your form. “Jeno and I decided we're gonna pull an all-nighter for the road trip in—” He glanced over at his phone, “—seven hours and just knock out in the car. How was work?”

Road trip? Car ride? If you could just make it to the shower… “It was fine. Tiring,” you said with a sigh. You trudged over to the far side of the room, behind Sungchan, into the kitchen. You grabbed a cup to fill with water, then drained it down your throat just as fast as it had been filled. 

With water in your body, your systems were finally coming back online. Road trip. Car ride. Your eyes widened. “Oh my god. I have to pack.”

“You haven't packed yet?” He queried, tone light and teasing as he watched the progression of your panic with amusement. “Even Jeno's packed.”

You sputtered back at him, “Quiet, you!”

Sungchan's warm laugh followed you out into the hallway and all the way to your room. You couldn't understand why your face felt so hot; you should have been too preoccupied to be embarrassed, after all. 

You slammed your bedroom door shut, dragging a hand down your face. You couldn't believe Sungchan just saw your I-just-worked-for-eight-hours-in-customer-service face. Not even some of your closest friends had seen the aftermath of your night shifts at work yet. 

Crazy. 

It wasn't every family vacation where a plus-one was invited. Your family tried to set aside time for these trips just for the six of you, but this time was an exception. Somehow—you weren't a part of the delegations—Sungchan was invited on this summer's trip to the coast. Your mom mentioned offhandedly it was because Sungchan “was a nice boy,” or something to that effect. Your family rented out a cabin right along the beach for a week, and the lot of you were going to be stuck in the family minivan for a good eight hours together. 

And if Sungchan was tagging along, that meant you were going to have to fight for the middle row seat or—

“Yn—you’re in the back with Sohee and Anton.”

You came to a screeching halt on your way out of the house, a bucket hat shielding your puffy eyes from the waking world, your duffle strapped over your shoulder. It was seven hours later—an ungodly eight in the morning. “What? Nuh-uh; I don't think so.”

Jeno stood only a few meters ahead of you by the door of the minivan, his hands primed on either side of his hips as if he was the self-proclaimed guardian of the car seating chart. “Well, I said so. Sungchan has longer legs than you—”

“Why don't you sit in the back then?” You shot back with a saccharine sweet smile. You were too tired for this shit. 

Sungchan scratched the side of his head as he walked out of the house to stand by you and join the argument, his flip flops thwacking against the ground. “Uhh, I can sit in the back middle seat. It's cool, dude.”

“Sungchan's too tall for the middle seat,” your dad interjected. He took yours and Sungchan's bags to add to the trunk. “Yn's in the back. Sorry, hon.”

“Dad,” you groaned. 

“You can switch with Jeno half way.”

“Dad!” Jeno squawked this time. 

Your father gave a tired sigh, saying more than he would ever say aloud. “Everyone in the car. Can't you two be like Sohee and Anton? At least they're knocked out.”

“They know they'll be sent to the back without question,” you pointed out as you made your way to the minivan. As you passed by your brother, you sent him a very potent stink eye, then clambered into the back row. 

Like your father had said, your younger brothers, Sohee and Anton, were already dead asleep. Their mouths hung open wide enough to catch any wayward fly with their heads angled back against their neck pillows. You snorted and snapped a photo of them to add to your collection of brotherly blackmail. 

Your mom was settled into the front passenger seat already queuing up driving directions to get to the coast. From your perch in the middle, you had a clear view of her phone screen—seven hours and two minutes. Yay. 

You supposed there wasn't anything too terrible about the middle seat; you were out like a light as soon as the car pulled out of the driveway. 

When you woke up, it was about four hours later, and your parents were having a hushed discussion amongst themselves and Sungchan. A baseball cap had materialized on top of Sungchan's head at some point when you were asleep, and the sleeves of his T-shirt were once again rolled up to expose his muscled shoulders. Did this guy not have a tank top?

“...I like it, at least—well, I don't mind all the extra requirements, and I know it'll help me reach my ultimate end goal, so.”

Your mom let out a hum of approval. “Ah, that's good that you like it. You'll be busy as a nurse.”

Right, Sungchan was in the nursing program. Your brother wasa kinesiology major, and you were going into law. It made for quite the diverse pool in the car. 

You opened your mouth in a yawn and fumbled your hand around your lap for where your earbud had fallen out of your ear, carefully so that you didn't shake off Anton's head on your shoulder. (Oh no, was he drooling?)

“Yn-ah, good morning,” your mother teased quietly. 

You glanced up, eyes going wide when you realized both your mom and Sungchan were now peering back at you. “Morning,” you murmured. Your fingers enclosed around your fallen earbud to tuck it into the case left in the bag at your feet. 

“Sleep well?” Sungchan piped up. There was that twinkle in his eyes, the same one from last night. It made your stomach twist in a way that was more pleasant than not. 

You cleared your throat, unconsciously reaching up to adjust the placement of your bucket hat and praying you didn't look like a sewer rat. “For the most part,” you replied. “How about you?”

He shrugged. “I had a decent power nap. Your mom says you're going into law. That's really cool.”

“Oh,” you blinked. “Thanks. And you're in nursing, right? That's cool, too—super admirable.”

Sungchan's mouth widened into a small grin. “Thanks. It's only our first year, but it feels like so much work already.”

“Right? Tell me about it…”

Less than fifteen minutes later, the family van pulled into the parking lot of a diner off the interstate, exactly halfway through your journey. The seven of you, weary and hungry, filed out of the vehicle and into the establishment. You and your parents slid into one booth, while your brothers and Sungchan occupied the one behind you. 

There was a low-spun fan swirling above your heads, an 80s song you vaguely recognized wafting through the air at a dull decibel. Your phone was stashed away in the bag tucked into your end of the booth seat while you idly sipped on your glass of iced water. 

You jolted at the feeling of something light hitting the back of your head. 

A gasp from behind you. 

You rolled your eyes, twisting around in your seat while picking the wadded up straw wrapper from your hair. “Who did it?” You deadpanned. 

The boys table was filled with sheepish expressions, to their credit. Your younger brothers, who were sitting on the far side facing you, thrusted their fingers in each other's faces in a torrent of blame and accusation. 

“Aish, never mind. I don't care who did it,” you dismissed. Your eyes caught onto Sungchan's. He sat just diagonally to your left and for some reason, his eyes on you made you feel warm. 

You flicked the wrapper back; it hit Anton square in the forehead. Jeno barked out a laugh. 

“Nice shot,” Sungchan nodded, extending his fist to you. 

You couldn't suppress the smile from coming onto your face as you bumped his fist with yours. 

Food arrived swiftly afterward, and it was demolished as quickly as it came. In the sway of a palm tree frond, the seven of you were back in the confines of the family minivan. 

The remainder of the car ride carried over quickly. Though Jeno unhappily sat his ass down in your previous spot with you claiming his from before, he and your other brothers snored away five minutes in. You didn't go back to sleep despite having a full belly and less than five hours of sleep under your belt; you watched the world pass by outside the window in a blur. 

Urban skylines melted into rolling emerald mountains and pastures, sank into palm trees and sandy shores that met a blue horizon as far as the eye could see. 

The beach house your family rented this year was a two story cottage-type. It was small, with only one bedroom and bathroom upstairs, a bathroom downstairs, and a living room and kitchen. The rest was all beach. It was determined that you and your mom would be given the honors of the upstairs bedroom and bathroom, while all the boys piled into the living room. 

Once everyone was settled in, there was little else to do but go make use of your new backyard for the next week. 

“Yn! Come on, slowpoke!” Sohee shouted at you from the shoreline with cupped hands. You saw his bare back as he splashed into the waves after Anton, who was already only a speck in your vision. 

Your bare feet sank into the sand, and you wiggled your toes between the warm grains. Sunshine, glorious and concentrated above the distant horizon, soaked into your skin. Ah, this was the life.

Just as you reached for the hem of your shirt to reveal your bathing suit, you caught movement from the corner of your eye. Jeno and Sungchan were coming onto the beach from the front of the house, a disassembled volleyball net hanging between them. 

Your eyes nearly fell out of your head at the sight of Sungchan's back—

Before Jeno or any of your other brothers or Sungchan could catch you ogling, you gave yourself a nice, mental slap to the face. No more. You needed to stop this. When did you ever look at Sungchan like this?

(You could still remember when he was the gangly kid with the growth spurt trying out for the high school soccer team. He was paired with Jeno to test his potential, and the rest was history.)

Sungchan was the first to spot you as he and Jeno determined a place to set up the net. He beamed boyishly, his chin inclining toward you. “Hey, wanna play?”

Your eyes flickered to the corded necklace hanging from his collar and between his—Yn, shut the fuck up. “Sure,” you said simply, feigning nonchalance. 

If he noticed your wandering eyes, he didn't comment. Instead, he nodded back at you. “Sick.”

You both turned back to your original tasks. Your hands went back to the bottom hem of your shirt to tug it up and off your body. (Maybe you weren't the only one with wandering eyes, though.)

You draped your clothes over the back porch railing and began making your way down to the shoreline. “I'm gonna take a dip and then come back up!” You said to Jeno and Sungchan. 

“Oh, okay—ow!” 

You didn't see nor hear what happened, but when you glanced back, Sungchan had his back turned to you as he furiously rubbed the back of his head, while Jeno smiled innocently. 

Your older brother waved you along. “Carry on!” He said. 

Walking backward for a couple steps, you shot him an incredulous look, then turned around to meet your little brothers in the ocean. Whatever. 

You had been staring at the wooden ceiling above your head for the past forty-five minutes. Your mom's even breathing and the ocean waves rolling outside the window failed to rock you into unconsciousness. You'd figured the sunlight from this afternoon would have made you tired, or perhaps all the food you ate for dinner, but your eyes continued to stay wide open. 

A quiet sigh fell from your mouth as you rolled over onto your side and gently peeled the covers off. With near silent footsteps across the oak floors, you slipped out of the bedroom and down the stairs. 

The cacophony of combined snoring from all the men in the living room was comparable to the volume of the waves just outside. 

You barely contained your snort of amusement. You didn't worry about waking any of them up as you crossed the living room, full of a smorgasbord of limbs and bodies draped across the large couch sectional and blankets on the floor. 

The back door was left unlatched when you reached its threshold. Outside, moonlight dappled across the calm sea like a sprinkling of diamonds. You slowly pried the door open, freezing. 

You and Sungchan made eye contact from across the back porch. He was perched on the top step, nursing a bottle of beer in his hand. A loose breeze wafted through the strands of his hair. 

“Sorry,” you whispered, moving to retreat back into the house. 

“Oh, no—please.” He patted the empty space next to him on the porch step. 

You blinked, at odds. He was clearly out here for a reason and you'd figured he wanted some space, but if he was inviting you, then… 

You closed the back door behind you and settled beside him, with a comfortable amount of negative space between your bodies. You folded your arms over the tops of your knees and stared out at the midnight horizon. It smelled of salt and sea spray, and the light wind was a refreshing crispiness against the humid evening air. 

“Couldn't sleep?” He murmured, glancing over at you. 

You nodded. “Yeah. You?”

He hummed in response. 

“I'm not surprised,” you said. The corners of your lips curled upward. “I wouldn't be able to sleep amongst my brothers either. Their snoring could wake a bear.”

Sungchan sputtered out a laugh as his eyes crinkled upward and he pressed the back of his knuckles against his mouth. “I wasn't gonna say it, but…”

You shared a grin with him. “I will happily say it for you, dude.” 

His eyes were stunning in this lighting. The moonlight hit his irises at an angle that made them shimmer like a shade of molten copper. He licked his lips, and you saw his eyes dart from your eyes, down a few inches, then further down to the beer bottle in his hands. 

“Oh, uh,” he stammered, tipping the bottle nose in your direction, “want some? I thought the alcohol would help me sleep, but it's not looking awfully promising.”

For a split second, your heart leapt at the thought—your mouth pressed against the place his mouth had been, tasting the place he'd drunk from. 

You dashed the thought from your mind. It couldn't have been so significant as your brain was making it out to be. You were probably just sleep deprived. 

“Thanks,” you said while reaching across the gap to accept it from him. Judging by the weight, it was just about half full, and you took a light swig. 

A drop of liquid dribbled out of the corner of your lips, and you swiped it with the pad of your thumb, sticking the finger into your mouth to suck it off. You passed the bottle back over to him, catching his eyes not looking at yours. 

(The organ in your chest was no longer in your chest. Was it normal for your heart to make a home in your throat instead? Why did he look at you like that?)

“Any reason for not being able to sleep?” You asked him to break the silence. “I mean, besides the symphony my brothers and dad are conducting, of course.”

His eyes shuddered, as if breaking out of a trance. “Oh, uhm—nothing in particular, I guess. Maybe it's just from all the excitement. I think it's usually hard for me to sleep in new places.”

You bobbed your head in understanding. “No, I get that. It takes me a little to get used to new environments, too. I don't know how I would have survived if I was living in the dorms at uni and not at home.” The university you attended was a decent commute from your house, so living on campus was never something you gave much thought to. The idea of living independently appealed to you sometimes, but in general, you didn't have a ton of qualms against your circumstances now. 

“For sure,” Sungchan whistled lowly. He contemplated the opening of his beer bottle, then took a gentle sip of its contents. “Have you made a lot of friends? I feel like it's a lot harder than people make it seem.”

You passed him a curious glance this time. “Some, but it's definitely not as easy as high school. You haven't made a lot of friends?”

“The soccer team, mainly,” he chuckled. “The occasional ally in my classes.”

You let out a bright laugh that made his smile widen. “'Ally?’” You parroted. “What a fun word to call classmates.”

“It's true!” He insisted, chuckling. “Some of these professors are evil, man. Competitive grades? Not a chance,” He scoffed. “We're all in this together, even if the curve is against us.”

You clapped a hand over your mouth to keep from being too loud, but the rolling waves likely covered your noise plenty. Your family were deep sleepers. 

“I just figured that you meet lots of people,” you offered when your mirth died down to a giggle. You toed a pile of sand sitting on the last step of the porch. “Your socials are pretty active,” you said, “but I guess I shouldn't judge a book by its cover.”

“I could say the same about you, Miss Party Girl,” he smirked. “When are you gonna drag me to a rave?”

Heat raced up to your cheeks. “I've only been to one,” you said, rolling your eyes. He'd seen that post? First, the post-work daze, and now, the turnt raver? “I haven't gone to a party in a few weeks 'cause of finals anyway.” 

Now that you thought about it, you'd been so busy as of late, you couldn't even count the amount of outings you'd declined on your two hands. 

“Trust me, I get it.” He raised his hands in an act of surrender, his knees angling toward you. The negative space was suddenly a lot less negative. 

Another tip of his beer bottle; it swapped hands once, twice more. The liquid dribbled smooth down your throat just as Sungchan knocked the rest back. The empty glass made a dull thunk sound as it hit the wooden porch to Sungchan's right. 

“So what I'm getting,” you drawled, mimicking his position by angling your knees toward his. You felt your legs brush—the stimulus sent a jolt down your nerves that warned of addiction and tasted like the forbidden. “Is that you've never been to a rave before?”

Sungchan gave a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe I have.”

You mocked his shrug. “Maybe you have.”

“Or maybe it's just that I haven't gone with you yet.”

Even the waves seemed to quiet for a second. Your heartbeat stuttered in your chest, and you tied down the nervous laugh ready to bubble out of your mouth. You bit your lip and found yourself nodding. “We'd paint the town red, Jung Sungchan,” you murmured. 

There it was again—that flicker of his gaze to some place you both knew crossed a line. It was the beer, was what you were telling yourself. It was the beer. 

Seagulls surfed the ever-blue sky. Eternal summer could be thought of as a filter of golden, glittery gauze across one's already rose-colored glasses. But summer, truly, was the shade of Jung Sungchan's tank top peeling off his body as he sprinted down the sandbank after your brother, Anton. 

You watched the fabric whip around in the salt breeze before settling into a heap where his footprint melted into the mineral grains. You were giving Sohee the sunscreen spritz-down up on the covered porch, while Jeno barreled down the bank after his friend and brother. 

From behind you came the scratch of the back door sliding open. You and Sohee peered back to where your mom poked her head out. 

She just barely caught her sunglasses in time as they slipped off her head. “Hey, your dad and I are heading out. Watch each other, okay?”

“Got it!” You and Sohee chirped. 

One more nod from your mom, and then she was gone. Your parents were going to take a date into town, just the two of them. That left you and the boys here with the surf and sand—definitely not a terrible compromise. If you wanted, you could probably have the whole house to yourself, anyway. These guys could entertain themselves. 

“Yn! Sohee!” 

Jeno arced one arm up into the sky to beckon you down to the sea, only to get dragged underwater by his two comrades. You and Sohee harked out twin laughs as you watched Jeno fight for his life with limbs flailing and foam flying into the sky. 

You patted Sohee's shoulder as you set the can of sunscreen onto the porch step. “Alrighty, you're good to go, bro.”

“Thanks—race you down!”

“Hey!” Your laughter echoed as you bolted down the sand after him to join the fun. 

As your feet dug into the wet embankment, your palms made purchase against Sohee's shoulders to shove him into the water. A yelp leapt into the air, and you turned away to avoid getting hit in the face with the consequence of your prank. 

“I'm so gonna get you for that!” Sohee spat water out of his mouth, a wicked grin pulling onto his lips. 

“No, you're not, actually!” 

You bolted—well, stomped, your way through the knee-deep water, furiously trying to get away from karma. Water yanked down on your limbs in a forceful coax to give into your punishment, but you were determined. 

You could hear your brothers’ hollers of encouragement: “Get her, Sohee!” and “RUN, YN, RUN!”

Adrenaline pumped through your veins and you pushed your legs harder. 

“I got her!” Wait, was that Sungchan?—

You suddenly felt a pair of hands on either side of your waist—you swore as your legs came out of the water and your world twisted. 

“No, no, no, no, no!” You squawked, squirming wildly in Sungchan's arms as he scooped you into his hold like a bride. (NO. NOT LIKE A BRIDE. WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE A BRIDE?—) One arm cradled your back and the other under your knees, and he laughed—he chuckled—as you attempted to flip yourself out of his grasp. 

“You're not getting out of this, party girl,” he said close to your ear. 

For a heartbeat, you lost your breath at the rasp behind his words and the grin on his face. But a heartbeat was all he needed. 

There was free fall, and then all sound muffled as cold water engulfed your body. You plugged your nose and screwed your eyes shut. You felt your ass hit the sand at the bottom in slow motion, before the air in your lungs began to lift you back up to the surface of the water. 

You broke out with a gasp, hair flipping back as you furiously swiped your hands down your face to get the water out of your eyes. They stung like a bitch, but you could feel the rush of blood in your ears; it was thrilling. 

A hand in your vision enclosed around yours.

“You asshole!” You scowled up at Sungchan from where you knelt, though it was half-hearted. 

He beamed back at you boyishly with damp hair hanging in his eyes and water running down the crevices of his stomach like a goddamn system of canals. “You're a good sport, Yn.”

“I'm really not.”

You had the distinct pleasure of seeing the smile slip off his face before you used his grip on you to yank him into the water. You swallowed a good half pint of saltwater, but the revenge couldn't have been sweeter. 

When Sungchan's head broke the surface, it was followed by a dog-like shake of his head. You laughed to turn away from the spray of water; Sungchan delighted at the sound. 

Amusement still lingered on your lips as your eyes snagged on the piece of seaweed that made its home on his head. You didn't think twice about it before leaning closer to reach it. 

You stepped forward, and—oh boy, was that a mistake. 

You had a front row seat view of a droplet of water slipping down the slope of his nose, the curve of his lips, and the cliff of his chin. You wrestled down a swallow, and pulled the seaweed off his head, flinging it into the water. 

“You had, uhm, a little…”

“Right, thanks—”

You both flinched apart as a man-made wave of water crashed into your sides. “AMBUSH!” Your three brothers declared, springing up out of the water and parading a full-blown attack with all weapons firing. 

You and Sungchan were swift to launch your own counterattack. 

Merriment filled the summer air as much as saltwater embedded into your skin and eyes and mouth. You almost made the mistake of thinking your racing heart was just from the determination to beat your brothers, and not from the guy on your side of the war. The heat was getting to you and the sun was getting to him.  

It was about an hour later that you found yourself lazing upon the slick and smooth plane of a surfboard. The ocean rocked you gently from beneath the board; it had been surprisingly calm all of today. 

At some point, you and the boys established a truce in the Great Water War, mainly because your brothers were hungry and there was a big, juicy watermelon just begging to be cut open and devoured in the house. 

Suffice to say, you let your brothers figure it out. 

Your consciousness faded into the foreground of your mind as a distant sound of splashing neared. You peaked one eye open, lifting the rim of the hat up to see who dared to encroach upon your isle. 

You could recognize Sungchan's mop of hair from a mile away, at this point. You couldn't tell if that was a good or bad thing, but why did it have to be either?

He cropped up right beside you, pushing back his hair to keep the water out of his eyes. “Hi.”

A smile curled onto your lips, teasing. “Hi. Good swim?”

“Good nap?”

“As good as one can be on the open ocean,” you said, shifting the hat up so you could see him better, but keeping your face shaded. “I don't know how dolphins sleep with half their brain on.”

Sungchan's brows rocketed toward his hairline. “They sleep with half their brain on? Crazy.”

“I know. I can't even stay awake with half my brain on.”

You and he shared a laugh, and he set a palm on the board next to your body. “Aw, no,” he assured. “If you've got less than half a brain on at all times, then I've got one brain cell.”

“Joke's on you, half my brain is half a brain cell.”

He wrinkled his nose at you. Cute. “Sweetheart, hate to break it to you, but that's not how brain cells work.”

You nearly fell off the board. “Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, do tell.”

“I'm not about to talk about neurons on my vacation.”

You challenged him with a look. “Overruled, counselor. Answer the question.”

His mouth fell open in a stunned daze, and his reaction made you break face for a moment to laugh. He blinked. “I have to be really honest with you…” Sungchan carded a hand through his hair, then pressed his knuckles to his mouth. “That was really hot.”

Was it suddenly five degrees warmer out here? 

If blood rushing in your ears was akin to the sound of waves crashing, there must have been one hell of a tsunami in your veins right now. 

You sputtered a laugh. “You need to get out of the sun—”

“I'm sorry I said that aloud,” he grimaced sheepishly. 

“Nurse? Nurse!—” You feigned raising your head up to look around for an imaginary nurse in the middle of the ocean. “Oh, right. You are the nurse.”

He groaned, tilting his head back and playfully punching your shoulder. “You're so—”

“Hot?”

You howled at the sight of his cheekbones blooming the color of ripe watermelon. “I'm kidding; I'm teasing!”

He sighed, smiling despite the pain etched onto his gorgeous features. “Never living that down, am I?”

You shifted your position to laying on your stomach now, your arms folded beneath your chin. Sungchan carefully turned the surfboard so the tip faced him, and you were trapped in his gaze, head-on. “It was cute,” you consoled. 

“So you think I'm cute?” He cocked a brow. 

“And you think I'm hot.”

He flicked water at you. “Aaand, there it is!” 

You laughed again, delighted at the red lingering on his cheeks and the tips of his ears. God, he was fucking gorgeous. 

A beat passed for a second. Something settled between the two of you, a thing you couldn't yet put a name on, but it had been there since last night. Or maybe it had been there longer, festering in the negative space between you until said space could become something of a memory. 

You weren't sure why he was here—why he'd swum out here to meet you when his best friend was back at the beach house, gorging on watermelon and getting his ass handed to him in Mario Kart by his siblings; why he all of a sudden occupied a part of your mind like the tide creeping up the embankment at four in the afternoon. At first, he was far enough for you to settle into a false sense of security; until all of a sudden, there he was, the foamy waves lapping at your feet and his smile the only thing you could see when you closed your eyes. 

His tongue swiped over his lips and he cleared his throat. “So, uh, watermelon?” That was his original reason for coming out here. (He did volunteer, after all.)

You perked up. “Right, sure. Watermelon.”

“Great.” He broke into a smile, but the corners of it were softer, fonder. You could get used to the look of it. 

There was this saying—the elephant in the room—but here in the cabin living room, it was definitely more of a blue whale. Just completely out of the water, weighing about thirteen tons, the size of twelve school buses… yeah, that sounded about right. 

“GO FISH!” Anton flung his finger across the circle at Jeno with the glee of a kid on Christmas morning. “Suck it!”

Your mom sent an express glare his way. “Anton.”

Your youngest shrunk down sheepishly. “Sorry, eomma.”

The seven of you were settled in the living space this fine evening with a deck of cards. Your parents were on the couches watching the movie on screen and the game before them, while you, your brothers, and Sungchan huddled around the coffee table playing said game. Sunsoaked and weary, it only took one hearty and filling dinner to perk the lot of you right back up like a field of sunflowers.

“This is a stupid game,” Jeno sulked as he examined his hand of cards. 

“You only say that because you're losing,” you pointed out. “Anyways, Jeno, can I have that three?”

Jeno cut you a glare as the rest of the table rolled into fits of laughter. Your smile was cheeky, reaching out to snatch the three Jeno revealed he had during his turn. 

“That's cold,” Sohee snorted. 

Your eyes darted over to Sungchan opposite you. His eyes were glimmering. “Yeah, I didn't know you had so much ruthlessness in you, Yn.”

“Why do you think she's going into law?” Jeno grunted. Though one card less, it meant that he had one less pair in his finished pile. At this rate, you might win and end up with the most pairs. 

“Guys, it's literally just how you play the game.” You nodded over at Sohee. “Sohee, do you have a jack?”

Your younger brother handed it over without ceremony. “Unfortunately.”

“Anton, do you have an ace?”

He shook his head. “Go fish, noona.”

“See?” You said to the rest of the table, but your eyes went to Sungchan's. “The nature of the game.”

They let you off the hook because you didn't plunder everyone of their cards this round. It continued on with Sohee, then Anton, before landing on Sungchan. 

He made a show of considering his cards, a furrow between his brows. He glanced up at you over the rim of his hand and gestured with a curl of his fingers. “I'd like that ace, Yn.”

“Oooh,” Anton giggled. 

Jeno grinned as you extended the ace across the table to Sungchan. “Karma.”

“Thank you—” his fingers grazed against yours as he plucked the card from your grasp, “—very much.”

You pressed your lips into a small smile, nose wrinkling up at him. You had a few cards left to rid yourself of. 

Your dad cleared his throat as he stood up from the couch to bring his empty bowl to the sink. “By the way, are you kids still going into town tomorrow?”

The five of you exchanged brief eye contact with one another. “Yep.”

The idea had come up during dinner after your parents came back. They'd mentioned a variety of activities and little shops to visit that might be fun for you to see, including a hand churned ice cream shop and a port side arcade building. It would just be the five of you going, while your parents would walk down to the beach trails about a mile from the cabin to go hiking. 

In the morning, you and everyone else in the house took your time getting up and ready for the day. Breakfast was taken together at the table before you split off into your separate parties. 

Jeno took the wheel with Sungchan riding shotgun, and you sat in the middle row with Sohee, while Anton occupied the back. You rolled down your window to rest your chin on the fold of your elbow, your sunglasses slipping down the bridge of your nose as you watched the scenery pass by. 

Right in front of you, Sungchan also had his window rolled down with his arm propped on the lowered sill. He chatted animatedly with Jeno about whatever game he and all three of your brothers were playing this morning, but you could feel his gaze go to his side view mirror more than once. 

The ride was an easy, breezy one. 

The main town center bustled with locals and visitors alike in the late morning. Jeno found free parking about a block away, and the five of you walked over as one big group. 

“Ice cream first!” Anton declared with one arm raised toward the sky. 

“I concur,” you chimed in. You lifted your sunglasses up slightly so you could read the town directory easier. “Seems like we're close by.”

Anton nodded in approval. “Onwards, then.”

You and your youngest brother led the way. The idea of ice cream made your mouth water, especially since you could already feel a bead of sweat dribble down your spine. Why was it so goddamn hot?

The shop was a cute, little building with a pink and white striped awning and a large window in the front that gave visitors a front row view into the ice cream churning experience. You snorted as Anton pressed his nose up against the glass, a wide grin splitting his face. 

“You're scaring the workers, dude,” you jested, tugging your brother along. 

Anton scrunched his nose up at you. “You scare me every morning.”

“Just because you're a wimp when I put toner pads on—hey! Do you want ice cream or not?” You cackled as he attempted to flick you square in the forehead. 

Jeno groaned. “Guys, can we please act normal for once?” He asked as he swung the door open for everyone. 

Sungchan beat you to the punchline, slapping his friend on the back while he ducked inside. “That's rich coming from you, man.”

“Hey!” 

The squabble was swiftly swept out of your mind when you stepped foot into the shop. You were nearly knocked over from the potency of the sugary waffle cone scent that occupied the room. At the sight of tubs upon tubs of frozen treats kept within the display case, your entire face lit up, eyes going glassy with wonder. “Oh no, too many to choose from,” you gasped, cupping the lower half of your face. 

Sungchan chuckled beside you as he crossed his arms and assessed the dozen options before you. “I didn't know you were such an ice cream fanatic, party girl,” he mused. He glanced over at you with a fond sort of gleam in his eye. 

“Don't even get her started,” Sohee groaned. “She and Anton have a sweet tooth to rival Willy Wonka.”

Anton flagged down one of the workers, having already found his targets to try. He was in here for less than two minutes and was already rattling off the entire menu to the poor girl behind the counter. 

“Tiramisu sounds really good,” you muttered. Your eyes moved slowly from tub to tub. Another gasp flew from your lips, and you clasped a hand on Sungchan's shoulder. “Wait—but strawberry shortcake—hhhhh.” You wrinkled your brows together, lips pressed into a taut line. 

This was not good. 

“You could always get a double scoop,” Sungchan suggested. 

You bobbed your head. “That's true, but I'm just worried I won't be able to finish, y'know.”

“Well, maybe I'll get one of the flavors you want and we can split.” His shrug was all too casual. 

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, biting his lip through a smile. 

The organ in your chest gave a hop, skip, and a leap. You weren't sure if it was at the thought of it all working out alright or if it was because of Sungchan's generous gesture. You were telling yourself it was the former, but you could be persuaded it was the latter if given a light shove in that direction. 

When everyone's scoops were paid for, you fell into a loose formation to stroll around town while you finished your treats. 

You and Sungchan were glued to each other's sides out of necessity since you were sharing flavors. Jeno walked on his other side, however, lapping at his cotton candy blue scoop seated upon a throne of waffle cone. The two youngest walked in front, leading you all to wherever they wished to go. 

The town itself was rather quaint when you finally soaked it in. It seemed like the kind of place everyone knew everyone, and if you were new or only visiting, the locals were just as friendly and welcoming. The town center was stocked with anything a resident might need—a small grocer down the street, clothing stores and restaurants lining the boulevard, a newspaper stand at the corner, a laundromat, a hardware store, and more places you were certain you wouldn't be able to see in just one walk. 

As you scooped a bite out of some of the last bits of tiramisu in Sungchan's cup, Jeno was summoned up to his brothers who were debating over which way they should turn next. You and Sungchan lingered behind to finish off the ice cream in your respective cups. 

Just as you slurped up the melted shortcake ice cream at the bottom of yours, your eyes caught onto a storefront behind Sungchan. It was decked out in cliché boho-chic, with braided nets, shells, and sand dollars in the window and over the door frame. The souvenir shop seemed to embody the quintessential tourist trap, and you didn't mind falling into it. 

“—guys, we're gonna go to the arcade now!” Jeno said, beckoning you and Sungchan over. They must have decided on a route then. 

You made your decision. “You guys can go ahead! I'm gonna pop into this place for a second. I promised I'd get my friend Minjeong something.” Minjeong was one of the few close friends you made at university, and though you didn't promise to her face you'd get her something, you were determined to get her a little trinket as a token of your affection. 

“You're gonna go alone?” 

You blinked. “Yeah, I'll just meet you guys at the arcade.” 

Sohee piped up, “But mom said buddy system.” Okay, you should probably honor that, but it wasn't as if the four of you always followed that rule. 

“I'll go with you.”

All eyes went to Sungchan who tossed his empty cup and spoon into the nearby trash can. He gave a nonchalant lift of his shoulders. “I wanted to get my mom something anyway.”

You tilted your head to the side curiously as Jeno narrowed his eyes at Sungchan, like they were communicating telepathically. Odd. 

In fact, you didn't really know what to think about being alone with Sungchan. There was a difference between coincidentally ending up on the porch together or conversing in the ocean away from everyone else, to purposefully breaking off from the group to spend time with each other. 

Then again, he said he was getting something for his mom. That gave a different implication to him volunteering to accompany you. The goal was capitalism, not something forbidden.

Maybe you were thinking about this too much. 

“Okay, fine,” Jeno relented. “We'll meet you at the arcade, but don't take too long or we'll leave without you.”

“Aye-aye,” you teased, raising a hand to wave goodbye to your brothers. “C'mon, Sungchan.”

You dumped your empty ice cream cup and spoon into the trash before slipping inside the souvenir shop with Sungchan following right after you. You lifted your sunglasses up on top of your head, skin prickling with gooseflesh from the draft of air conditioning wafting overhead. A soft-toned acoustic played in the background, accompanied by the cheery greeting of a staff member from behind the register. 

You and Sungchan lifted your hands in warm reply, then disappeared into the aisles to explore. 

Your fingers grazed along the racks of clothes branded with the beach town's name and minimalist artwork; your eyes roamed over the ships displayed in bottles on the walls, the not-for-sale surfboard hung for decor. Like many souvenir shops, there were several turning displays that boasted rows upon rows of themed keychains with specific names engraved into them. 

“I will never find my name amongst these,” Sungchan mused quietly from beside you as the two of you rifled through the surfboards and seashells and sharks. “And yet, I look for the S names all the time.”

“Valid,” you nodded. “Sometimes I can't find my name either, but it's the hope that gets you.”

“And fails you,” he pointed out.

“Touché.” 

Near the keychain displays stood a tower of hats and head accessories galore. There were crocheted bonnets, straw hats, ball caps, and even headbands. Your expression glittered as you plucked up a headband with twin sunflowers on the top like a pair of antennas. 

After hanging your shades on your shirt color, you donned the headpiece, twirling around to show Sungchan. “Thoughts?” You asked, failing to sweep your grin away. 

Sungchan beamed back at you. “Oh, you're too cute.”

You ignored the heat creeping up the back of your neck to reach for another headband—this time, one topped with red crab claws. Sungchan graciously bowed his head for you to crown him with the piece. 

“Fabulous,” you declared with your hands on your hips. 

He peered into the small mirror to the side of the hat rack. “You think?”

“Of course.” So much so, that you pulled out your phone to snap a picture. You tilted your head toward his to fit both of your faces and headbands in the frame. 

Sungchan peered over your shoulder to take a glimpse at the photos. His tongue was jammed into his cheek, and you could feel his breath along the shell of your ear. “Send me those?”

“I'd need your number first.”

He grinned boyishly, roughing a hand through his hair before taking your phone from you. “You don't even have to ask.”

As he saved his contact information into your phone, you attempted to calm the giddy butterflies in your stomach by peering back into the mirror at the headband on your head. You squished the plush sunflower heads with your fingers, humming thoughtfully. “I low-key wanna buy this.”

He glanced up from your phone before handing it back to you. “If you buy that one, I'll buy this one,” he replied, pointing up at the crab claws on his head. 

“You're such an enabler,” you jested. A beat passed. “Okay, but only if you get it with me.”

“That is what I said,” he chuckled, eyebrows arched. 

The remainder of the time you and Sungchan spent in the shop was mainly to figure out what you would purchase for Minjeong and what Sungchan would buy for his mom. (Mainly, implying that there was still room for shenanigans.) It took a little more than half an hour, but you both emerged from the souvenir shop with a gift bag each, containing your headbands and the baubles bought. 

The arcade was only about a ten minute's walk from your location, so you and Sungchan took your sweet time getting there. As the two of you walked—the backs of your hands grazing against one another, shoulders bumping—you nearly forgot that Sungchan was your brother's good friend. Jeno had never made it a point that you and his friends should never mix, and you knew he could care less about your love life, but this was different. (Was it?) It felt like something that shouldn't happen, and yet, why were you starting to want it so badly?

The outside of the arcade was a cream colored building, much like the others in town, but with large posters on the outside beckoning guests to come in and try their hand. Your brothers texted you to let you know they were in a game of laser tag right now, so that gave you and Sungchan a little more time to yourselves within the arcade. 

“I have an idea!” Sungchan grabbed your free hand and hauled you off toward something in the distance. 

The feeling of your fingers slotting with his had more than just your steps skipping. “Hey, man—you and your long legs need to chill!” You hollered at him through a laugh. 

He sent you a look over his shoulder before stopping at one corner of the arcade. With jazz hands, he presented his marvelous idea. “Ta-da!”

Before you was an all-time classic: Dance Dance Revolution. 

Your eyes widened just as your smile did. “It's like you read my mind,” you marveled. 

The machine was just like the movies with a multicolored screen of bright blues and purples, a platform with two sets of arrows in the floor, and two arched rails at the back for each player to hold onto as they danced the night away. 

Sungchan marched up onto the platform and fished a wadded up paper bill out from his wallet. “Have you played before?”

When the machine devoured his money, the screen leapt to life and blasted its opening music to announce that somebody was willing to step up to the challenge. 

You set your gift bag down at the foot of the platform and climbed up to join him. “I've only seen it done before, but I've always wanted to try it.”

You and he locked eyes, and you were sure the twinkle in his was a reflection of just how excited you were. 

“Well, today is your lucky day, party girl,” he chirped. “Let's see what you've got.”

It didn't take long for you to figure out that “what you've got” was a lot less than whatever Sungchan had. 

You grappled onto the railing behind you tightly as you stomped your feet against the coordinating arrows that flashed on-screen. How long had it been since that fateful first round? Ten minutes? Two days? It was all mashing together. 

“This is unfair; you have longer limbs,” you groaned after missing a few arrows in a row. Why were you so out of breath?

A bead of sweat dribbled down the side of Sungchan's head. It was almost comical how serious you were both taking this game. “I have practice,” he corrected cheekily. 

“Same difference!”

“A master never blames his tools.”

You huffed. “Bullshit.”

At this point, your losses were becoming ridiculous. Desperate times called for desperate measures. 

For a sequence you knew you were going to miss, you leaned over and pinched his side. Sungchan jolted—it did the trick, and he missed the steps. His head whipped over to you, an impish gleam in his irises. 

“Oh ho ho… you wanna play that game?”

You placed your hand on your hip as the round ended. “If I'm gonna lose, might as well go out with a bang.”

His tongue swiped over his lip. “You're on.”

The next round commenced, and adrenaline spiked through you like a spear, more powerful than before. You knew to expect Sungchan's revenge, but you struck first. 

A poke at his side resulted in a tickle at your waist. You returned his parry with a blind poke at his stomach. 

Anticipating his response, you spotted his arm incoming out of your periphery and moved to step out of his reach. Instead of solid platform, however, your breath hitched at the feeling of half your sandal slipping off the edge. 

Sungchan's eyes went wide and his arm instead curled around your waist and hauled you to him. “Shit,” he muttered, “are you okay? Sorry, that was totally my fault.”

Your palms had landed on his chest, your heart rate slowing but not fast enough. All of the excitement in your veins was likely more so from the game itself, and not from almost falling off the platform… and perhaps, another part of it was you realizing just how close you and Sungchan were now. 

You nodded. “Yeah, I'm completely fine; don't even worry about it. And it wasn't your fault—I miscalculated my step and I started it anyway.”

He pressed his lips together. “Still.”

“Nice catch, by the way,” you said quietly. 

You saw his eyes leave your gaze, and this time, you followed in his movements. He ducked his head, almost shyly. “I guess so,” he chuckled. “I'm glad I caught you.”

If anything, your heartbeat was gaining speed again. The hand pressed into your waist was a little more addicting than you would have liked, and his mouth was closer than you thought it had been. 

In the neon glow of the Dance Dance Revolution screen, you and Sungchan leaned toward one another with one aim, and one aim only. 

“Hey guys!” 

You leapt off the dance platform at the same time that Sungchan zipped to his side, gripping the railing with an expression akin to a deer caught in headlights. 

You pressed a hand against your palpitating heart and turned to find all three of your brothers bounding over to where you and Sungchan were. 

“Oh my god,” Anton gasped, “is that DDR?”

It seemed that Anton and Sohee were more focused on the game than yours and Sungchan's compromising position. But Jeno… you noted the suspicious narrowing of his eyes, his arms crossed over his chest…

You swore you and Sungchan swallowed at the same time. 

“Did we interrupt something?” Jeno drawled. 

“Nope!” 

You and Sungchan looked at each other at your simultaneous answer. Great. That definitely wasn't even more conspicuous or anything. 

Jeno pressed his lips together. “Uh-huh,” he said, unconvinced. “Well, Mom and Dad texted and asked for us to meet them at the house, so we've gotta go.” He lifted the screen of his phone up for you to see. Dear god, you hadn't even realized they'd texted the group chat.

You cleared your throat. “Right.” 

You picked up your gift bag, and your younger brothers immediately flanked you on either side to gush about the game of laser tag they had just partaken in. Though you nodded and engaged in their conversation, your mind was elsewhere. 

Plus, it was hard not to be hyper aware of the fact that Sungchan was now alone to face Jeno somewhere behind you. You were not looking forward to the car ride back.

There were always some, unspoken fine lines that should not be crossed—at least, purposefully. In retrospect, you knew Jeno didn't care about who you chose to spend your time with, as long as they treated you right. In the same vein, you didn't care much about what he thought when it came to your own decisions, and yet, you found yourself caring a little more because this was one of his friends. Not yours. 

But feelings were feelings… and you were slowly coming to terms with yours. 

It was like déjà vu when you crept down the stairs in the dead of night for the second time this vacation. You simply could not bear staring at that wooden ceiling any longer with your mind reeling from this afternoon's events. 

The living room was yet again a cacophony of light snoring, and you crossed the room toward the back door once more. 

You paused again, the sight of Sungchan's back a familiar one. Instead of sitting on the porch steps, though, he leaned against the railing, gazing out at the dark waves. It was yet another calm night out on the embankment, but the moon tonight was hidden away behind a few wisps of cirrus clouds. 

He glanced over his shoulder at you. “Hey.”

“Hey,” you greeted softly, gently closing the door behind you so you could join him at the railing. It was funny how you both were on the same wavelength. Fate had a funny way of encouraging you.

You and he hadn't properly spoken since the arcade, and Jeno hadn't said a word about it to you either. Dinner had gone on normally enough, so you were unsure of where this all stood. 

“I wanted,” Sungchan began, “to talk to you about something.”

You glanced over at him and found his eyes already on you. “Sure, of course.”

He straightened, gesturing to the sandy beach beyond. “Walk with me?”

You nodded and followed him down the porch steps. Your feet met the cool grains of sand, and a sense of calm seeped into your bones from the bottom up. 

A hand outstretched in your vision, uncertain. You clasped your hand in his palm, and the pair of you began to walk. You couldn't recall whether you began to adore the feeling of your hand wrapped up in his earlier or just now. 

“So…” you trailed off. 

“So,” he picked up. “About earlier today. I wanted to, uhm, make sure we were on the same page about something.” 

He stopped you both when you were a good distance from the house, where the waves slipped along the sand louder than the snores. 

“I had a really fun time with you today,” he said. 

You nodded your head in earnest. “I had a great time with you, too.”

He smiled then, hand letting go of yours to drag over his face. “I'm—I’m happy to hear that,” he replied, and you were sure he was trying to hide his growing giddiness. 

You reached over and gently pried his hands away from his face. “Did Jeno talk to you about today? Did he say anything?” Before he could reply, you added, “Because I know he means well, but who I choose to spend my time with is my decision. If he can't handle us together, then he'll have to learn to suck it up.”

“He did say something to me about it,” Sungchan admitted, “but it was just to make sure I wasn't playing around.” With his hands locked in yours, he gave your palms a reassuring squeeze. “And Yn, I'd like to take you out sometime—properly. No playing around.”

No more toeing the line in the sand. 

Your heart rattled violently in your chest. “I'd really like that.”

His expression melted into something tender, like the dark swirls of molten chocolate in the scoop of tiramisu ice cream. His thumb grazed over the back of your hand. “Okay,” he murmured, barely audible over the soft laps of the waves, “good.”

He considered you for a moment longer, teeth digging into his bottom lip. “I also—I did intend on kissing you earlier today, and I probably should have prefaced it, but—mmmh!”

You looped your arms around his neck and pulled his mouth over to yours. He sank into your hold with a content hum, his hands slipping around your waist to tug you closer to him. You'd never really thought about what kissing Jung Sungchan would be like, but you knew that your imagination couldn't have been better than this. 

When you broke apart with your foreheads pressed against each other and sharing breathing air, you let out a small laugh. The sound coaxed a warm chuckle out of your counterpart. 

“Sorry,” you breathed against his lips, “I probably should have asked first.”

He smiled against you. “You can apologize by kissing me again.”

He most certainly didn't have to tell you twice.

a/n: pls remember to reblog + comment if u enjoyed! (idek if that was good, im off my Game and off my Rocker dkfnrj)

m.list

permanent taglist: @flwoie @vatterie @seomisaho @hqrana @ja4hyvn @outrologist @rikizm @luumiinaa @meosjinn @fluorescentloves @http-gyu @mvvnsseul @kflixnet

[tesscourtes]

saw you had asks open, not a drawing request but wanted to know if there was any more story to your human bill’s punishment-for-weirdmageddon-is-to-turn-weak-human au, I really like it (sorry if you explained this a while back, I only just watched gravity falls😭I’m a late-comer to the fandom)

it’s just superepiccool to me, how are dipper and mabel about him being human now? Soos n Wendy, Stan and Ford? What was it like for them (especially Ford) when he just turned human? What was it like for Bill?

oh hey don't worry, I haven't really talked much about the details of the AU like ... ever. I just started reviving it because I got my partner into the show (they are also a new fan! yay, new fans! Funny enough I had no idea TBOB was coming out so the timing was mad exquisite.) and they have just been an amazing help shaping my messy thoughts and coming up with new, fun plots! It's also nice to know there's someone out there interested in it, so thank's for asking! Now that I read TBOB I want to change the premise a bit, but the core is still the same.

Let me tell you this AU is silly. I'm aware Billford is toxic and there are many corners to dive into to picture their messy relationship. But I kinda wanna keep the spirit of the show here and make it equally as fun as it is disturbing. Given that Bill canonically is trapped in endless Therapy gives me even more food to work with, he just out there being toxic and people repeatedly telling him to cut it out.

I'm not gonna go into too much detail because I'm actually working on the first comic chapter for this AU, but regarding the characters: Each of the Pines, as well as Wendy and Soos, are not happy seeing him, but individually grow more accustomed to him and with him. I guess going from "most accepting" to "least accepting", Mabel took it the best. I wouldn't say she was quick to forgive, but quick enough to give the guy a chance. And I honestly have to say that, although this is 100% a Billford AU, there's so many plot ideas for just Mabel and Bill and their amazing, chaotic shenanigans. Put these two together and the stories basically write themselves. Wendy is pretty similar, and the most chill in actually helping Bill figure out human stuff.

Naturally, Ford took it the hardest. I'm aiming for slowburn here, haha. They got to figure out some stuff that I'm so ready to put onto pages... Ford is a lot of emotions. Confused, angered, curious... Meanwhile Stan is Bills biggest hater. (There is a lot of bullying in this AU) He just keeps up with it because his Family makes him. He's very protective and tries to kick Bill out several times. Soos sticks with Stan, but he's also Soos and has a big heart, so in Bills eye, he's very gullible and a target he can mess with easily.

Dipper is not a fan either, he has a hard time adjusting to the triangle just getting to ... be there. He's suspicious for the most part and Bill has to try hard to get on his good side. But honestly he might be more upset with Mabel (and later on Wendy) for making friends with Bill so easily, even though he knows that's just their nature. I just recently started thinking about Gideon and how I'd like to include him, but nothing worth mentioning so far yet.

With Bill himself, one my favorite parts trying to portray so far is how he's dealing with his new mortality. He adjusts to the body fine, he knows how to navigate flesh, but he has a hard time accepting that it's his body. His new prison, essentially. If it's gone, he's gone. If he treat's it like shit, he feels like shit. Then we add the psychological aspect of things. And more importantly, we add Ford to the equation. When I tell you, that demon is experiencing psychological damage here, and it's fully his fault. TBOB really pointed out to me that I need to dive into his obsession with Ford. How do you even get a man you fumbled so bad, to even acknowledge you again?

I love yapping about this AU, thanks again for giving me the grounds to do so anon! I'm an insecure writer so it'll probably take another hot minute to choose which script feels best to draw out, haha. But I'm glad you seem to be up for the ride!!

[gay-dorito-dust]

Hey hi so I just have this flash of an idea: Reader saving Ford / Stan out of a danger they’re facing. Like I’m talking reader carrying them bridal style and gently putting them down and being all “Are you alright, my love?” Hehehehhehehehe blushy boys

Stanley was a punch first, ask questions at a later date type of guy, he was use to being the protector of the family no matter if the guy he was up against was bigger. He always came out on top in the end.

So when he found himself being lifted into your arms and you brought him out of the line of danger and looked at him with a face full of concern before asking; ‘are you alright my love?’ He knew he watched too much of that sappy romance drama Mabel got him into as he felt his cheeks burn hotter then ever.

‘I’m fine now toots thanks to you.’ He replies, trying to keep his cool when his heart was hammering in his chest and all he could think about was how attractive you were in his eyes, then again you were always attractive in his eyes but there was something about being saved by you that made him conflicted.

On one hand, Stan was the man in the relationship, he’s meant to keep you safe from all harm -paranormal or otherwise- and if he didn’t do that, then he wasn’t a man. But he also felt relieved that he didn’t have to always look out for himself anymore when he’s with you, knowing you had his back as much as he had yours no matter what. It was reassuring knowing that he could fall back on someone and know that they’ll catch him when he falls.

So while he still might think that he should still be the one protecting you and all, Stanley doesn’t mind it one bit when you’re looking at him with such caring eyes, hands holding his face as though he was the most precious thing in your life. (he was, he very much was)

‘I’m glad.’ You said with a smile, ‘now let’s stay as far away from here as we can from now on.’ You added as you grabbed his hand to walk back to the mystery shack.

‘I dunno doll face, I might just get myself into a bit of trouble more often if it means having you come save me.’ Stanley teased with a wink.

‘Don’t push it. I might not always be there to save you.’ You said playfully as you nudged him with your elbow to his side.

Ford’s face was as red as cherry tomatoes the second he recognised he was in your arms, carried away from the skeletal deer anomaly that had seemingly lost all interest in both of you, but yet his face somehow got even more redder when you put him down on a nearby fallen tree stump to hold his face in your hands as you said:

‘Are you alright my love?’

He’s suddenly finding the fungi growing on the side of the tree trunk more interesting than meeting your eyes as the words caught in his throat. Ford always though it’s be him carrying you away from danger, keeping you safe and making sure that you weren’t hurt in any way, he could handle them thanks to the survival skills he built up whilst in the multiverse; and yet here he was feeling as though he was developing his first crush on you all over again.

‘I’m fine dear, apologise for being caught off guard.’ He tells you as he couldn’t help but be ashamed that he allowed himself to get lost in the excitement of seeing a new anomaly. You literally him while he was still mid sketching the cryptid!

‘It’s okay Ford, I know how you get with new anomalies but I often wish you didn’t almost risk certain death just to finish sketching them.’ You said softly as you gingerly brushed your thumb against a thin cut he had gotten on his cheek from the skeletal deer anomaly, you knew this man has survived worse but you couldn’t help but worry every time he got hurt somehow. After all it was better to admire something form far rather then within it’s territory, and the anomaly happened to be hostile and territorial.

Ford sighed as he lent into your touch, still getting use to your tendency for physical contact after going so long without it, closing his eyes as he took this moment to cherish your unconditional love and affection for him. After all his dad only started giving a shit about him the moment he figured he could gain money from exploiting his own son’s intelligence. ‘Apologise once again my dear-‘ you cut him off by pressing a kiss to his forehead, thumbs caressing his face as though he were made of porcelain.

‘It’s okay my love, I just worry about your safety and want you to do what you love safely.’ You tell him as you pull away from him before offering him your hand with a smile. ‘Now let’s go find an anomaly that won’t hunt us down for sport.’ You add as Ford grabbed your hand and smiled.

‘I’m sure I spotted some mushroom people not too far from here having a dispute with some gnomes not too far from here, shall we take a look?’ He asks you and you gestured to the vastness of the forest in front of you both with your free hand. ‘By all means lead the way mr Pines.’ You replied softly as you both searched high and low for disputing mushroom people and gnomes.

[ckret2]

Chapter 58 of human Bill Cipher in a quantum uncertainty state between being and not being the Mystery Shack's prisoner:

Everything you've wondered about how Bill survived his execution.

Let's rewind a couple of days.

####

Friday, 11:00 p.m.

"Welp," Mabel said, "I've got the rest of summer to try to get the whole story out of him! Goodnight, Dipper!"

Dipper's stomach flipped with guilt. "Yeah." The rest of summer. Mabel left for Portland in the morning. "Goodnight."

He lay down, pulled his sheet back up, and stared at the ceiling.

####

Friday, 11:04 p.m.

It took less than five minutes before the guilt won.

Yeah, no, nope, nuh-uh, Dipper couldn't do this. Not to his sister. He rolled over and hissed, "Psss, hey. Mabel."

"Hm?"

"Listen," Dipper said. "I hate Bill, okay, but I care about you, and also I think Bill might be part of a prophecy, so, because of that—I... There's something I need to tell you."

####

11:15 p.m.

Bill hadn't even had time to start dreaming before something dragged his mind back into the waking world.

There were white points of light as he passed through the hazy twilight of half-sleep. Those lights were his eyes. Lately, every time he started to wake up, he'd been seeing his eyes in the distance.

This time, there was one right in front of him, so bright it almost blinded him. He thought he could see something in the light.

He touched it.

And then he woke up, laying on his cushion bed as usual, watching as Mabel slid out of her room, crept near, and knelt beside him. She shook his shoulder. "Hey, Bill. Wake up."

And then he woke up—which was strange, considering he'd just done that—and stared at the dark inside of his hoodie.

He pushed back his hood. There was Mabel, crouched next to him, just like he'd "dreamed." Huh. Well done, Cipher, it seems you've just learned a new trick.

He tamped down his excitement; he could figure out what to do with this trick later. For now, he had a higher priority. "'Sup, kid?" He pushed himself up on an elbow, roughly flipping his hair out of his hood so it wouldn't keep tickling and choking around his neck. "It's the middle of the night." He yawned and mumbled, "Not that it makes a difference to me, but..."

"Shhh! We've gotta stay quiet," Mabel whispered. "I need to get you out of here. They're gonna kill you."

He sat bolt upright. "All right," he said. "You have my attention."

####

Dipper refused to say how, but according to him they'd synthesized just enough fuel for one shot with their fancy quantum whatever gun, and they couldn't make any more. They planned to execute Bill once Mabel was gone.

Mabel could just open a door for Bill and let him escape in the middle of the night—but that had dangers of its own. Bill would have to travel to a hiding place on foot—and his shoes were crap for hiking—his feet were also crap for hiking—and he'd only have until the adults started waking up and realized he was gone. Even if he kept moving all night, the adults would probably be able to cover the same amount of ground in a couple of hours, he'd probably inadvertently leave a trail a mile wide, and the forest's local supernatural population would definitely snitch if one of the Stans asked if they'd seen anything.

Plus, it wouldn't be very hard for the adults to figure out that Dipper had cracked and Mabel had helped Bill escape, and then everyone was in hot water.

They needed a way to cover Bill's escape to make it harder for the adults to pick up his trail, to give him as much time as possible to get some distance from the shack, and to delay Mabel getting in trouble. ("And Dipper," Mabel said. "Sure," Bill said unenthusiastically.)

But if they could, it would be best if they found a way to ensure the adults never even thought to look for Bill, Mabel never got in trouble at all, and the Quantum Destabilizer could never be fired again.

It was possible, Bill said. It wasn't guaranteed, but it was possible. They had a good chance. A very good chance. In fact, never mind, he'd decided it was guaranteed, they'd pull this off easily.

All they had to do was fake his death.

He knew a way.

####

11:45 p.m.

Dipper was stirred out of a drowsy near-sleep by the door creaking open and a couple sets of footsteps shuffling in. He rolled over and squinted across the room.

Mabel was quietly collecting craft supplies—pens, papers, her small starter sewing kit she used for repairs. Bill climbed into the loft to grab some musty pillows and blankets that had been stored for years in a cardboard box.

"Mabel?" Dipper mumbled.

Mabel put a finger over her lips. "Hey Dipper," she whispered. "You can go back to sleep, we'll be up in the loft."

"Doing what?"

"Scheme-y stuff. Don't worry about it." She flung her arms around Dipper, whispered, "Thank you," and ran across the room to grab her backpack and the height-altering flashlight.

Dipper glanced toward the loft. Bill was waiting at the top of the ladder, a dark vaguely-triangular silhouette, only his eyes visible as they reflected the dim light like a cat's. Dipper had had more nightmares than he could remember about waking to find Bill hovering in the dark above him.

Bill's gaze flicked from watching Mabel to staring at Dipper. They made eye contact. Bill didn't say anything.

Then Mabel climbed up the ladder, supply-stuffed backpack slung over her shoulders. Bill gave Dipper one last silent look, then turned away to follow Mabel to the back of the loft.

Dipper rolled over and tried to fall back asleep.

####

The plan was to create a dummy that looked like Bill to take the Quantum Destabilizer's shot in his place, while the real Bill got as far from the shack as the weirdness barrier around town would allow.

Bill told Mabel that the dummy didn't need to be complicated: he had an enchantment that could make it completely convincing. All he had to do was write out a spell and leave the paper over the dummy, and anyone who looked at it would be convinced it was really him in the flesh.

Similarly, sneaking Bill out of the shack didn't need to be complicated. They could shrink Bill down and stick him in Mabel's backpack, and all she'd have to do was come up with an excuse to get out of the car and set him free before they left town. 

The hard part would be the choreography of the whole thing. They needed Bill to put in an appearance that morning, to prove it really was him walking around; and then go somewhere that Mabel could hide him away without anybody noticing; and then ensure that nobody would see the Bill dummy until they were safely out of range, just in case. "The enchantment's pretty good," Bill said, "but the more people see it and the longer they get to look at it, the less potent it gets. And all it'll do is make the dummy look like me—it won't be able to walk and talk. It's best if the only person who gets a good look at it is my executioner."

The word executioner made Mabel shudder. It would probably be Ford, wouldn't it? She knew he thought he was doing the right thing. She knew it wasn't the first time he'd tried to destroy Bill. She knew she'd been fine with it last summer. She even knew that Bill would be okay. But all the same, she wasn't sure how she'd look at Ford the same way.

Once they had the dummy set up somewhere away from the family's prying eyes, they had to discourage everyone from trying to approach "Bill" until they were ready to kill him. And, ideally—just in case the executioner tried to speak to Bill or the enchantment otherwise failed—they should stage it all in a way so that no one would think Mabel had been involved in the escape plan.

The solution was obvious.

"I live to cause drama for no reason," Bill said. "I upset mortals recreationally. Can you act?"

"Can I act? Pshhh!" Mabel flipped a hand dismissively. "Maybe you were too busy badly impersonating my brother to watch, but last year I kind of staged an entire puppet show performing and singing as every character."

So it was a plan: they would stage a fight.

They were sitting in the very back of the attic loft, behind stacks of forgotten boxes and abandoned junk, beneath the meager light of the loft's window. Bill didn't need the light. He had a pen and paper and was writing out his enchantment's spell while they talked, long lines of inscrutable text. It was so dark that Mabel couldn't even see what language he was writing in, but that was fine; Bill had said that if she read his spell—if anyone read it—it would break the enchantment.

"Whoops," Bill said, "yeah, afraid I missed your whole show! I was too busy backstage trying to avoid your friends and looking for a way onto the catwalk."

Mabel shook her head in disapproval. "You would have liked it. There were live pyrotechnics and lasers and fog machines and a giant tentacle monster war and seventy-four songs and puppets!"

"I'll admit, sounds like a killer show. How about gore?"

"There was a whole song about my love interest getting his legs chewed off in the war," Mabel said. "The sock puppets don't have legs, but everyone knows your own imagination is a lot scarier than anything you actually see."

This kid could have a brilliant artistic career as a serial killer. "That's familiar. Is this war based on that 'cats versus the giant octopus' dream you keep having?"

"Yeah, and you'd have known that if you'd actually watched the opera! Too bad you missed the whole thing," Mabel said. "I guess you were just too busy being evil to appreciate the simple joys of a good, clean, non-villainous puppet show."

"Oh no, I can't believe my actions have consequences," Bill said flatly. "What would I ever have done if you hadn't enlightened me."

"Died, probably."

Bill glared.

"You know! Like you did last summer? As a consequence of your—"

"You shush."

Bill shoved Mabel away when she started to laugh, and held the enchantment up between their faces so he didn't have to look at her. He read his work over, then folded the paper in half and half again. "Hey, maybe you can put on an encore presentation sometime." Bill carefully inscribed four symbols in a square on the folded paper. "I promise I'll laugh at the jokes and fake cry at the sad parts."

Mabel shuddered. "No way. I'm never touching that show again. Too many bad memories."

"Awww, how come?"

Mabel stared at Bill.

Bill said, "Oh, right."

"Yeah," Mabel said coldly. "Thanks."

Bill shrank back. He leaned against a cardboard box, not sure where to look, drumming his fingers self consciously on the floorboards. Trying to figure out the right thing to say to make it better.

"Hey," he said. "If you ever change your mind about reviving the show... can I play the reverend again?" He grinned.

Mabel wadded up a paper and chucked it at Bill's face.

####

They agreed that scripting out every bit of the argument would make it sound too fakey; and anyway they were going to do this on no sleep and with no time to practice, if one of them forgot a line mid-argument it would ruin their entire plan. Bill said he was great at improvisational acting (which Mabel suspected was his way of trying to make "great at lying on the spot" sound good), and Mabel was a pro at getting into character for pretend games, so this should be easy. They just needed to choose a few topics they could realistically argue about.

So they started making a list of things that would totally infuriate each other.

"I can't think of anything that would make me furious," Bill said. "Outside of something serious like a murder attempt, anyway. I'm an even-tempered triangle! I don't sweat the small things!"

"You got sooo mad when I forgot to tell you about my Summerween plans."

Bill grimaced. "Right," he muttered. "That." 

Teasingly, Mabel asked, "Are you still grumpy I made plans?"

"I was not grumpy you made plans. I wasn't grumpy at all! I just would have appreciated if I'd known sooner, I planned my whole evening assuming I'd have somebody around to open doors—"

He saw Mabel's increasingly amused smirk, stopped himself, held up a hand, and said, "I'll save it for tomorrow morning."

Mabel wrote down the idea beneath four ideas she'd already scratched out. She'd temporarily removed the crystal from the height-altering flashlight so she could illuminate her paper while she wrote. "The concert will definitely come up tomorrow morning! And you can act like that's the first time you heard about it."

"Sure, no problem. We haven't talked about the concert where your uncles could overhear, have we?"

"I don't think so."

"Then that's perfect. I can pretend to be mad you didn't tell me." Bill forced a smile. "All right, your turn." He rested his elbow on his knee and his cheek on his fist. "I realize that, apart from the unfortunate meat suit, I'm the most flawless person you've ever seen—" he ignored Mabel's raspberry, "—but for the sake of argument, just imagine something you might get mad at me for."

"Um... insulting Dipper?"

"Now that sounds fun. But no, can't risk it, he'd be too tempted to jump into the argument," Bill said. "Besides, what if I said something you agreed with?"

"What! Why would I agree if you insulted my brother?"

"He smells like a sweaty ferret and when he has a crush he turns into a creepy little stalker."

Mabel laughed. "Yeah, he does. Okay, um..." She went silent for a moment, tapping the butt of her marker on the paper. 

She stopped tapping; and then quietly said, "I'd be so mad if I thought you were trying to keep me from hanging out with my friends."

"Oh, I could do that easily." Bill reviewed his wording, decided a human could take that as a threat, and quickly amended himself, "Could pretend that I'm trying to do that easily. You know I'd never, but hey, the adults here are ready to believe the worst about me—"

"You promise?"

"Sure I promise!" He processed the question after he'd already answered it. "Hold on—you think I'm the kind of person who would do that?" He was, but he didn't want her to see him that way.

She shrugged, looking down at her idea list again. "You've done it to other people."

"Name one!"

"Grunkle Ford and Old Man McGucket."

Oh, of course. That snitch of a backstabbing ungrateful ex-student, bane of Bill's entire miserable postmortem existence. Had to find as many ways as possible to make Bill look bad, didn't he. "All I did was tell Stanford that hick was a coward and a flake. I didn't make him do anything! If he agreed with me, that's on him." Bill crossed his arms irritably. "And Specs was a coward and a flake. Is it a crime to be right?"

"But you ruined their friendship on purpose, didn't you."

Bill tried to find a graceful way to wriggle around the direct accusation that excused his actions without contradicting whatever she might already know. "Did not," he said.

Mabel frowned at him.

Bill averted his gaze. "So! That's great. Trying to keep you away from your friends. Something I've never done to you but would be a really good thing to fight about. What else."

Mabel sighed and looked over her list again. She wrote something, scratched it out; started another line and scribbled it out; and then said in exasperation, "Your morals are terrible."

Bill had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep his sudden laugh from waking Dipper. "You've got too many morals, it's your biggest character flaw. How many does one person really need, two or three? That's an easy topic, arguments about morality can drag out for hours!"

"We probably only need to fight for like ten minutes, right?"

"Sure. List done! That's everything we need."

Mabel heaved a sigh of relief. She read over the list, glanced at the flashlight she was reading with, and said, "I should get extra batteries. It'd be the worst if we got you way out of the shack and then the batteries died while you were still small."

Bill wasn't sure about that. Being so tall for weeks on end felt awkward and wrong. His limbs were always in the way. He bumped into things he should have been able to slide between. The more time he spent in this body, the more he wanted to spend a month at the size and thickness of a greeting card. He joked, "Hey, I don't know; it'd be easier to hide..."

"Yeah, and easier to get squarshed." Mabel turned off the flashlight and picked up her backpack. "I'm getting batteries."

While Mabel was downstairs, Bill picked up her list to see what topics they'd found to argue about so far:

Weirdmaged

Making me think you were Blendin to get the

Kitten fists meow meow

Almost killing me

Not sharing Summerween plans

Trying to make me kill myself by

Ruining Glove Story

Insulting Dipper

Insulting Waddles??? (too lovable!)

Weirdm

Mabeland Isolating me from everyone

Spray painting your eyeball

Weir YOU'RE TOO EVIL!!

I'M TOO NICE!!! ♡

He reread the list, feeling his guts writhe and twist involuntarily.

Yeah. Those were all the things he'd decided not to bring up, too.

At least they were in agreement on what they didn't want to talk about. That was true friendship, right? Friendship didn't mean never hurting each other; it meant mutually agreeing never to talk about it again.

He read the list a third time.

####

A spare pair of Bill's black leggings and a pair of black socks would serve as half of the decoy body, stuffed with old bedsheets and half a pillow that Mabel had sized up with the flashlight so it was closer to Bill's actual torso size. For the time being, the top half of the decoy was constructed out of a flannel shirt; Bill would have to put in an appearance downstairs in his hoodie, and then they could quickly go upstairs and put it on the decoy to complete the look.

He'd miss that hoodie almost as much as he missed his own face. But it was a small price to pay for his life.

"I don't know," Mabel whispered, inspecting the dummy with the flashlight from near the edge of the loft. "It doesn't look super convincing. It's kind of lumpy all wrong." She knelt by it and tried to poke the fake thigh into a slightly more convincing shape.

"Don't worry about it," Bill whispered, waving the folded paper with the secret spell written inside. "The enchantment will hide all that. As long as the dummy looks mostly human at a glance, no one will notice anything."

Mabel gave it one last worried look, but nodded and turned off the flashlight.

####

Mabel crept out of the office and eased the door shut. "Got it," she whispered, holding up a faded black umbrella. "Are you sure you don't want a better umbrella, though? Some of the spikes are broken and I think it's supposed to rain today."

"The other humans will be less likely to notice a broken umbrella going missing," Bill said. "Anyway, this one saved my life once. I'll take it."

"Then that's the last supply we needed to pack," Mabel said, sighing in relief. "It's still a couple hours until morning. Should we get some sleep?"

Bill considered it, and shook his head. "No. Better not."

Sleep scared him. Sure, he endured it when he had to—he had no choice—and, under the circumstances, although it was a close call, he grudgingly preferred sleeping to dying of sleep deprivation; but he kept it at bay as long as he could, sleeping irregularly, infrequently, and briefly. Knowing it was necessary didn't make the fear go away.

It was the helplessness of the whole thing—knowing that, once his mind had shut off, anything could happen around him, anything could happen to his body—and not only was he ignorant and defenseless, but he was also powerless to wake himself up any sooner than his tyrannical circadian rhythm dictated. He lacked even the power to think about waking.

If Mabel hadn't woken him tonight, he might have slept through his own death. 

He continued, "What if we sleep in and don't have time for the fight? I'd be doomed." Bill didn't even have the luxury of an alarm clock.

"Oh—good point," Mabel said. "So we should probably do something to keep us awake."

"Right," Bill said, wracking his exhausted brain for an idea. "Overdose on caffeine?"

Mabel was quiet for a moment. "If this works, it might be a long time before we see each other again," she said. "You'll probably have to keep hiding until Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan leave town in the fall. And by then summer will be over, and I'll be back in California..."

She was right. If they pulled off this plan, he might never see Mabel again. It wouldn't exactly be safe to ring up the Mystery Shack. Sure, sooner or later he'd find a way to restart Weirdmageddon, and then he could invite her into his gang... And she'd join, wouldn't she? Of course she would. He just needed a chance to talk to her about it away from the closed-minded killjoys in her family that were holding her back. But until then...

She groped through the dark to grab at Bill's sleeve. "Dance party? While we still can?"

"Sure, star girl." Where had this lump in his throat come from? "Sounds fun. Dance party."

####

5:30 a.m.

It was the first time Bill had danced since his death.

All Mabel had to offer was Sev'ral Times, upbeat kid's show soundtracks, unlistenable synthesized junk, and whatever was playing before dawn on the radio stations that could reach Gravity Falls; the stained yellow shag carpet and homely plaid wallpaper made him miss the dark smoky rooms and strobing multicolor lights of a real club; he couldn't risk drinking this early in the morning if he wanted to have a head clear enough for escape; and he never forgot that, outside of the living room, the halls were empty and silent.

But he'd danced to music that made his eye bleed and his memories howl and he'd danced to no music at all; he'd danced in millions of crummy makeshift dance halls and night clubs and dive bars that had tumbled into or been cobbled together in the Nightmare Realm; he'd danced when he was so brutally sober that time in all its sharp cruel clarity seemed to have frozen to turn a spotlight on him; he'd danced with his worst enemies and he'd danced all alone; and there wasn't any force on this planet that would stop him from dancing now.

After spending four songs in a row making fun of Bill for attempting to figure out how to puppet a human body into some approximation of a dance, Mabel asked, "What were dances like on Flatworld?" It made Bill internally wince each time he heard it called that.

But he welcomed the opportunity for a break; he leaned back to half sit against the living room table, breathing heavily, arms trembling. "Dif—difficult question." He had to pause to catch his breath. His lungs and muscles couldn't keep up with him; this body was too hard to keep moving, so inefficient, 90% of the fuel that went into it was wasted uselessly. It was already beginning to atrophy in the few short weeks he'd had it, muscles withering from days stuck indoors with nothing to do but sit and stare out the window. He'd been made of pure energy for so long that maintaining all the little systems to keep a flesh body energized—food, water, sleep, exercise, not too much exercise, oxygen—felt like a Sisyphean torture. "S'like asking—'what're human dances like'? There's a—lot of variety."

"You know what I mean!" Mabel was still half dancing, bouncing from foot to foot. Bill wanted that kind of energy. "How do you dance?"

Bill shut his eyes, seeing colors flash behind his eyes—gyroscopic, kaleidoscopic, shapes spinning and whirling in spirals. "I'd show you, but there's not enough room in here for me to do a cartwheel."

"Seriously, Bill."

"I'm being serious! Plus I can't float. It wouldn't look right in a human body." It would look better if he cut his silhouette out of a piece of paper, taped it over a flashlight, and projected the shape onto the wall. "Tell you what—as soon as I'm back in my real body, I'll show you how I dance, all right?"

"Come on, Bill! You're just trying to wiggle out of—"

"Mabel," Bill said, "I can't do those dances in this body."

Mabel's teasing smile faded. "Really?"

"Unless you know a way to dislocate my shoulder so I can slide my entire arm from one hip over my head and down to the other."

"Ew." Mabel grimaced.

"It looks cooler on a triangle." Bill smiled wanly. "But hey, I spent all day yesterday teaching you everything I know—you can teach me something. I haven't used a human body in thirty years! What dances are popular these days, I haven't learned anything new since the moonwalk."

Mabel's eyes widened. "You know how to moonwalk?"

"Sure! It's easy. I figured it out in Stanford's body."

"I don't believe you. Prove it."

Bill pushed off the table. "Oh, yeah? Are you ready to look stupid?" He effortlessly glided backwards across the floorboards. He pointed at Mabel's gaping face as he passed. "What do you think of that?"

"Show me how to do that and I'll teach you every dance I know."

Bill grinned. He loved deals that were unfairly biased in his favor, and he loved it more when he didn't even have to propose them himself. "You've got yourself a deal, Shooting Star." It would keep them occupied for the next hour.

####

6:32 a.m.

About fifteen minutes ago, Bill had warned Mabel that he'd just glimpsed the beforeimage of Ford crossing the living room in the future; and then they'd kept partying, wanting to get in every last second of joy they could before he arrived in the present.

But once Ford was no longer approaching but actually there, seeing his face was like a bullet to the head. Bill had been having so much fun, for a few minutes he'd almost forgotten that today was execution day. 

And it wouldn't be execution day if he had anything to say about it.

Bill demanded, "What's with the sour face?" (Ford's eyes were so dull, his expression so heavy; Bill had never seen him wear that look, not even any of the previous times he'd tried to murder Bill.) "Hey, am I not allowed to dance now?" He squeezed Mabel's hands tighter.

Ford just gave a tiny shake to his head and hurried past them, not even deigning to look at Bill, as though he were telling himself he'd only imagined he'd heard the voice of a ghost.

I know what you're up to, Bill thought at top volume silently in his head. But you won't do it. You won't do it.

He met Mabel's gaze. She gave him a tiny nod. Party was over. Time to get to work.

####

6:36 a.m.

Over the course of the night, Dipper had been woken twice by bursts of quickly-hushed laughter; three times by random bumps and thuds; once by Bill falling off the loft and Mabel's squeal of alarm; and several times by Mabel waking Dipper to ask if it was okay if she gave Bill Dipper's old shoes (so Bill could finally walk in the woods properly), his sleeping bag (so Bill didn't have to sleep on hard rocks under a single sad Pony Heist bedsheet), his "Edible Plants of Oregon's Blue Mountains" booklet (self-explanatory), and several other things he also said "yes" to without hearing properly. It had better be one heck of a prophecy that Bill was involved in, because Dipper was this close to just murdering Bill himself.

When Dipper went downstairs, he couldn't even look at Mabel and Bill—terrified something in his gaze would give the whole conspiracy away. He didn't even know what they were planning. Was dancing in the living room part of it? Was it some distraction? He'd hoped Bill would already be gone by now.

He couldn't meet Ford's eyes either, for the guilt of betraying his trust. He didn't deserve these scrambled eggs.

He couldn't meet anyone's gaze.

He really, really hoped Mabel and Bill had a plan. He hoped it was a good plan. Because whatever the heck they were up to—Dipper was afraid it was on him to prevent Ford and Stan from intervening too soon and finding out.

####

6:49 a.m.

After they'd escaped the kitchen, Bill glanced over his shoulder toward the stairs before Mabel got the attic door closed. "Do you think Ford noticed something?"

Mabel was already running across the room, retrieving her phone charger and phone to stuff in her backpack and pocket, making sure she'd packed everything she needed for her trip—everything except for Bill. "I wasn't looking. Did he?"

"I don't know." Bill flashed one last worried look at the door; but he couldn't afford to slow down, he had a dummy to finish. He hurried up the ladder, took off his hoodie, pulled on a tank top, tried to fish his pre-written enchantment out of his pocket in the same movement, and fumbled and dropped the paper over the edge of the loft.

Mabel had been checking her bag for the concert tickets when a paper fluttered down on her hair. She instinctively grabbed it and unfolded it before she registered the four sigils written on the outside and realized this was the enchantment Bill had said would stop working if anyone read it. She'd reflexively read the first few lines before she could stop herself. She froze. Her gaze jerked up to Bill, eyes wide.

Bill dropped down the ladder, snatched the paper out of her hand so quickly it almost tore, and immediately climbed back up. "I told you not to look." He carefully refolded it.

"Is that...?"

"It'll work," Bill hissed, with an insistence that said he wasn't sure it would work at all.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" He held up the dummy's pillow torso and yanked the hoodie on top of it.

When Mabel didn't say anything, Bill sighed. "Even if it doesn't—this only needs to work until we're on the road. They can't stop us then."

"Bill—"

He shakily inhaled, and then he raised his voice loud enough he'd be heard downstairs. "What do you need to spend all that time around those two brats for, anyway?! What, am I not good enough company for you?!"

They didn't have time to adjust the plan. They were in the middle of it, right now, and the guys expected to hear an argument. Mabel swallowed hard and raised her voice as well. "Not when you're acting like this, you aren't! You're a bigger brat than—than both of—and my friends aren't brats!"

Bill bit his lip, brows drawn in pain, eye squeezed shut, trying not to laugh.

Mabel chucked a sock at him, don't you dare. "You can't say I can't hang out with my friends, that's stupid!"

"I never said you can't!" Bill held the folded paper a foot above the completed dummy, the square of symbols face up, and tapped it twice so it hovered in place when he let go. "Hang out with your stupid friends, I don't care! But two whole days is ridiculous—!"

####

7:02 a.m.

"I THOUGHT you were my FRIEND!"

All three eavesdroppers cringed—Dipper hardest of all. His heart was hammering out of his chest and his t-shirt was at least 50% sweat by volume. Was this part of the plan? It sounded like an insane plan. This couldn't be the plan. It had to be the plan. He'd already prevented Ford from intervening, what if they were really fighting? But what if this really was the plan? 

"WELL! If you're gonna act like this just because I wondered what you're up to, maybe NOT! What kind of fun are you good for, you wouldn't even be into burning a house down!"

Dipper messed up. He'd actually ruined their friendship right before Bill was about to die and Mabel would be miserableand it was all his fault. This fight was real. They were furious. They hated each other—

####

7:03 a.m.

"OH YEAH, WELL—" Mabel faltered as she struggled to think of a fitting retort. "YOU WOULDN'T EVEN BE INTO—into—n-NOT BURNING A HOUSE DOWN!" She cringed at herself, struggling not to laugh.

Bill had been fighting the urge to laugh so hard that his face was turning red. "OHHH WOW, GREAT COMEBACK."

Mabel's voice went shrill with suppressed hysterics. "SHUT UP!" Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she socked Bill's arm. If he made her lose it when everyone was outside listening—

The door opened. "Hey—!"

They both rounded on Stan. "STAY OUT OF IT!" Mabel snatched up a discarded sweater. Stan shut the door just before the sweater hit it.

Mabel quietly wheezed, "Do you think he saw anything?"

"No, n—" Bill had to clap both hands over his mouth and nose to keep silent. Mabel wrapped her arms around him and smushed her face against his chest to muffle herself. They stood there, shaking, until the hysterics passed.

The stress was getting to them.

####

7:06 a.m.

"Fine!!" Mabel lifted the height-altering flashlight. "Then you can just stay here all weekend!"

Bill had on his backpack (Dipper had "agreed" Bill could take his) and was clutching his umbrella. He gave her a thumbs up; ready. "FINE!"

"FINE!" Mabel turned on the flashlight. When Bill was around four inches tall, she turned it off, knelt down, and offered her hand for him to climb on. She stuffed the flashlight in her backpack, carefully set Bill in a sweater nest (how had Gideon flung her and Dipper in a jar so cavalierly? she was terrified of snapping Bill's bones like toothpicks), zipped the backpack and gingerly put it on; and then Mabel was storming out of the room.

"Leave him in there," Mabel snapped, pointing at the door. She was shaking with fear. "He's in TIME OUT."

Dipper glanced nervously at the door, "Um..." He looked so worried. She hadn't had a chance to explain the plan to him.

Mabel glared into his eyes. She summoned up all her mostly placebic Twin Empathy Powers to beam her thoughts into Dipper's brain. Don't. Please don't. If you say anything you'll ruin it.

He raised his hands. "Okay, fine."

Mabel rushed past him to the stairs, trying to escape as fast as possible without jostling her backpack.

####

7:08 a.m.

Buckled into Mrs. Grendinator's car, voice shaking, Mabel said, "Can we just go? Please?" Now, before someone ran out of the shack and waved them down to demand Mabel explain where Bill had gone. Her hands were trembling in fear, clutched protectively around her backpack with its secret cargo. One of her best friends was in there. She couldn't let anything happen to him.

Mrs. Grendinator nodded. "Of course."

As they pulled around the Mystery Shack and toward the road, Mabel glanced toward the attic bedroom window, afraid the adults might have already gone in and discovered their trick; but no one looked back.

Now all she could do was hope the paper Bill had left floating over the dummy would do its job.

####

(Shoutout to the one person who theorized the size changing flashlight could be involved, I'd @ you but I don't want you to see this before you read the chapter. You may claim credit in the notes. Based on the messages I received, one person guessed Mabel got involved halfway through the fight, no one guessed she was in it from the start, and NOBODY guessed Dipper got involved.

For a fun time, go back and read last chapter and this one in chronological order via the timestamps!

But first I wanna hear all your thoughts.)