#Now i need to write probably the most self indulgent song fic i could ever think of writting

[lonely--seeker]

This was drawn while Against the kitchen floor played on loop

[junkissed]

wait

member — joshua x gn reader genre — fluff, comfort (18+) word count — 1.1k synopsis — sometimes you just need to take second to wait.  warnings — allusions to past/future sex but no sex happens in this fic, implied that shua is more dom and reader is more sub, this is literally just pure aftercare notes — i never feel like i put enough aftercare into my fics because i'm usually drained by the end of writing and i just want to finish it and hit post so this is kinda to make up for that. also i'm really particular about the way aftercare is written and i feel like i never see the kind i want to read so honestly this is just a super self-indulgent fic, because if you can't find it then write it yourself or whatever toni morrison said, but i hope you can enjoy this too :) i haven't proofread this since 3am so if there's mistakes pls ignore! also this is not based on the song wait by dino as you might have assumed i just thought it was a fitting title because we all need a reminder to just slow down and wait

"wait, wait... wait!"

joshua starts to stand up off the bed, but hesitates when you call out suddenly. "what's wrong, sweetheart?" he asks quietly, eyes carefully watching your face, searching for signs and trying to figure out what you need.

"don't leave yet," you say softly, your fingers wrapping loosely around his wrist. "don't want you to go.”

he rubs his hand over the back of your palm. "just gonna get you a glass of water,” he explains but he sits back on the bed, waiting anyway.

you're exhausted and you know you both need to shower and change the sheets, but the thought of moving right now only sends you into a panic. you're overheated and sticky with sweat, but still you crave the warmth of joshua’s body next to yours, the feeling of his skin against you as close as he can possibly get.

“later?” you say the word like a statement, but your voice rises in a question. “just stay for now. please.”

there's a time and a place for everything, and joshua knows right now is not the time for rational thinking. sure, you've got twice the amount of laundry to do later and your mouth feels drier than a desert, but that can wait. it can always wait, for joshua. it can wait because right now you need to feel the grounding weight of him beside you, telling you he'll always be there, especially when you need him most. 

even though it's what he immediately wants to do, no amount of sweat-stained sheets could ever come before you in his mind. even though he knows you're thirsty and probably craving a cold shower and he wants nothing more than to jump up and take care of your every wish, that's not always what's best. yes, what you need is fresh laundry, but what you want is him. 

so he settles back in on top of the bed, easily sliding into place beside you without a second thought. because it's always about you. always has been.

"better?" he asks, his finger gently brushing your cheek in slow, repetitive motions. 

you exhale and lean into him, letting your eyes fall shut as you hum in reply. 

the gentleness of his touch is such a stark contrast from how he'd been handling you not even 15 minutes ago, but you can't help but love both sides of him. gone is the hair pulling, the slapping and biting, replaced with soft brushes of your hair and careful caresses of your skin over each of the marks he'd left in the heat of the moment.

really, it's joshua's favorite part, besides the fact that he gets the honor of fucking you and being the one to bring you pleasure. it's the part afterwards that he looks forward to, when you're at your most vulnerable and both still riding an emotional high, when he gets to build you back up after so meticulously taking you apart. it's the trust in him that you show without ever so much as saying a word, the sense of safety and comfort washing over you that only ever comes from the feeling of being held in his arms.

the air seems to hang silently around you, as if even the universe can sense that this is a moment that shouldn't be interrupted, your own little bubble together that exists outside of space and time.

you just need a second to collect yourself, and seconds turns to minutes turns to half an hour before you can fully feel like yourself again. sometimes it's minutes and sometimes it's longer, but he'll wait as long as it takes.

you slowly open your eyes and inhale, lips warming into a smile as you see joshua is still here, still cradling your head against his chest, and that this all wasn't just a pleasant dream. you can always rely on him that when you open your eyes, he'll be there waiting for you. no matter how long you need to rest, he's always there when you're ready.

your thumb brushes over his arm, and he rests his cheek against the top of your head. “okay now?” he asks. “or do you just wanna leave it and go to bed?”

as tired as you are and as comfortable as his body feels, the intense feelings have subsided a little and you've regained enough of your energy to realize that what you need most right now is a shower and a glass of water.

so joshua slips off the bed, but not without leaving you with another sweet kiss because why wouldn't he? and you let him leave without a word of protest, because you don't feel that crushing feeling in your chest anymore of being left alone when you really need someone to hug, so you just wait patiently for him to return.

he comes back not much later with cool, fresh water in your favorite cup, and he sits beside you as you drink with his hand on your thigh because now it's his turn to be cared for, and the way he feels cared for is knowing you feel good and knowing he's doing a good job at making you feel loved. and you know that he needs this time just as much as you do so you savor the seconds spent here, letting the water wash down your throat until you both feel refreshed.

“thank you,” you tell him as you sit atop the sink, watching as he sticks his hand under the faucet to see if the shower is the right temperature yet. the bed’s already been stripped of its sheets and a fresh stack of towels been laid out, one by one ticking things off joshua's mental checklist. it's a routine, one that isn't always this thorough every single night but always equal in the amount of care and love he puts in each step.

and eventually things will return to normal, and you'll wake up the next morning filled with nothing but adoration for the man still sleeping peacefully next to you, and then you'll go about your days and come home in the evening and still be so much in love with him that you do it all again. maybe it goes differently next time, faster or shorter or less intense and you don't need to wait like you did tonight.

but sometimes you need a little extra time. and joshua is a patient man.

i hope you enjoyed this!! if you did, consider reblogging or leaving a comment or an ask :) it shows me this is something people want to see more of, and knowing people like this makes me want to write more of it! thanks for reading!!

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[lululawrence]

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation 2023

Thank you for tagging me @allwaswell16! I am so happy every year that this (I believe) brainchild of @juliusschmidt's from 2016 still exists in various forms! hehe I apparently missed doing this in 2021 and 2022, and I was determined not to miss it again so here we go!

List of works published this year: My Other Half Was You Gemma's Dad (Could Use A Guy Like Me) Quite the Pickle Livin' In A Daydream (Gimme a Solution and) Watch Me Run With It You Are A Song Did You Know I Fit In A Dryer? Were You There On That Christmas Night? Team Gaelic FTW No Constraints Odds Are That We Will Probably Be... Damsel in Christmas Distress Snow In Love

Work you are most proud of (and why): Oof. This is always such a hard question to answer. Almost as hard as the next one, and the next one and the next one....... hah honestly though, I think... I'm honestly sincerely proud of most of my fics from this year simply because I got them written. I'll go more into that later, I'm sure, but maybe... I think maybe My Other Half Was You or Odds Are That We Will Probably Be... and for very different reasons. My Other Half Was You was written based on artwork by @moon-sun-thyme for @1dreversebang and the moment I saw her artwork I had these vague ideas coming to mind and I am quite proud with how I was able to bring them to life so closely resembling what I originally thought of when I saw the art. And for Odds Are, I wrote that for @1dtrickortreatfest so it had to be exactly 666 words and that's always a trick (heh), but in this case I had to completely world build and set up the situation and lead everyone to the conclusion within that word count while making it somewhat compelling... and I think I was able to manage it. I hope I was, anyway haha

Work you are least proud of (and why): lmaooooo usually this answer is really hard for me to answer, but this year it's not haha i have a few fics that I literally wrote to just remind myself that I could. That not everything has to be thought out and polished and pretty, sometimes it's just a matter of getting words on paper and putting them out into the world immediately, hoping for the best, and they absolutely served their purpose! I'm fond of them still, but that doesn't mean I'm proud of them necessarily haha So I would have to say Damsel in Christmas Distress (which I still love dearly, simply for how self indulgent that silly thing is for me haha) and Quite the Pickle. Again, my darling Stylinshaw fics getting the brunt of it here, but they did as they needed to for me. I'll maybe try to write them a longer, more polished fic with some thought behind it this year, as they clearly deserve.

A favorite excerpt of your writing: GAHHHH I hate this question every damn time! Okay, I don't know if this is my absolute favorite thing I wrote this year, BUT it immediately came to mind, and I do very much like it so, here's an excerpt from Gemma's Dad (Could Use A Guy Like Me). I just adore Harry being a fumbling idiot around a pretty boy hahaha Ever since he had dug up his garden, he preferred to start in the back where the job was a lot more complicated to work around and then move to the front, which was far easier.  Now, though, Harry was wondering if this was the right decision because Louis was also mowing his lawn. That wasn’t a problem, of course, except he was shirtless and that only defined for Harry the fact he really had grown up. Louis used to try to show off for the neighborhood by mowing any number of lawns shirtless in middle school and high school, but he had been a scrawny kid with little to no meat on his bones and Harry had thought it adorable back then. Now, on a sweltering day like it was, he was probably shirtless just to be as cool as possible as the sun beat down on him, and Harry’s vision wasn’t as good as it used to be, but he could still tell that Louis had filled out since going to college. He was still a thin man, but as he pushed the mower through the tall grass, Harry could see the muscles he clearly put effort into. Add to it the chest hair that was only growing darker as he continued to sweat and the smattering of tattoos he’d gotten since he turned eighteen and it was clear he had grown up. Harry couldn’t help it when the glint of the sun off Louis’ sweaty skin made him lick his lips without even thinking. Clearing his throat and thankful it was obvious Louis was too focused to notice Harry ogling him from his own yard, Harry pulled the starter and began to work on his own yard.

Share or describe a favorite review you received: I've got three that immediately came to mind, so excuse me while I mention all three as quickly as I can manage lol First was from @allwaswell16 for Gemma's Dad. I'd had a lot of difficulty with a someone reading motivations and meaning in the characters and story that I took a lot of care in ensuring were actually avoided as I wrote it. There were a lot of pitfalls I could have fallen into when writing the fic, but one person just kept asking over and over again for things I thought I had already done and my beta assured me I had sufficiently covered etc, but I still worried so when Anitra gave the review she did of it on her podcast, it literally made me cry a little bit lol Second was @londonfoginacup in response to (Gimme a Solution and) Watch Me Run With It when she commented "Ah so you really just tore your chest open and picked out your beating heart and handed it to me here, didn’t you" because... well I hadn't really considered it when I'd been writing the fic, but I guess I kind of did exactly that, yeah. haha And then lastly I want to thank @tommokat for their lovely comments on Snow In Love regarding the Michigan geography and freak lake effect snow that can be experienced there because I tried my very best to describe the absolute chaos that is that region in the wintertime and they basically affirmed that I had accurately captured it. Genuinely, the best gift I could have gotten haha

A time when writing was really, really hard: Excuse me while I laugh a bit hysterically until I cry alksdhglskfja The last year or two have been incredibly difficult for a whole host of reasons, but the ones that most affected my writing were my lingering (and seemingly unending) burnout combined with an absolute lack of time/energy available to write. There were so many times this year that I thought I wouldn't be able to do it or thought I'd have to pull out of various fests and just... cut down on things, but I kept pushing and kept trying and I did it. I'm so fucking proud of myself, honestly.

A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: Jordan North in Did You Know I Fit In A Dryer? Well, honestly, Louis in that fic too. And the entire premise of the fic. Really all of it surprised me lololol I never expected to write Jordan in a fic. Ever. hahahaa And as I've barely dabbled in a couple of weed candies is all, I certainly did not anticipate ever writing someone as THAT HIGH. sooooo...yeah just all of it hahaha

How did you grow as a writer this year: Psh. Bold of you to assume I've grown as a writer this year when I was merely doing what I could to survive haha if anything I kind of wonder if I went backwards in my writing abilities but who the fuck knows, really haha

How do you hope to grow next year: I just... I dunno man. I just kinda hope I'm in a better place this time next year so I'm just not so fucking tired all the time and so I have actual time to write, you know? lol continued good vibes are always welcome here, folks haha

Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): Like... everyone. hah I'm getting a little emotional thinking of everyone who helped me keep going this year. but the greatest? probably @londonfoginacup again. She was the biggest influence in actually getting my Big Bang finished because I didn't want to disappoint her (even though?? I know I won't??? like.. anyway) haha and then I wrote like three fics for her/dedicated them to her just because... like. she keeps me going some days honestly so yeah. Emmu. You're the bestest always babes. Love you.

Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: Listen, all I'm saying is in one of my fics it hits a little too close to home. Like I kind of wrote Harry's starting place... and kinda where he is for a lot of the fic... pretty much exactly how I was feeling, and still pretty much am, though for very different reasons. So it's maybe a little too much of my real life emotionally speaking in there yeah

Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: New? Not so much hahaha just don't give up!

Any new projects you're looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: YES. I was just talking with @moon-sun-thyme this morning that I started the year by posting a fic based on her art, and I'm going out of this year focusing on the fic we will be collaborating on together for the @onedirectionbigbang hehe so I'm very very excited to get started on that one. It's a fic I've been wanting to write almost ever since I first heard the song Satellite, so I am READY to delve in and lose myself to it, honestly. In the whole... one night every week or two I have to write. hahaha Here's hoping I make the deadline haaaaa

Tag three writers whose answers you'd like to read: MAN I have no idea who has and hasn't done this yet! So maybeeeee @justanothershadeofblue, @hellolovers13, anddddd @quotefromthatshow and @louandhazaf if you haven't done it already and want to! And shh I know it’s four but who cares lolol

*All answers should be about fics posted in 2023

Past Years: 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 and 2020 | 2022(ish)

[galactic-pirates]

Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?

How do you come up with fic titles? What's the one you're most proud of?

Thanks for the ask! :) :)

19) Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it. Part of me wants to skip this and substitute another question but I am working on some art for the Librarians exchange at the moment. That has to be secret but I don't think it's too much of a #Spoiler to do one line like

"Librarians win with what they know - not magic!"

36) How do you come up with fic titles? What's the one you're most proud of?

I'm quite fond of song titles to be honest. Not usually lyrics, or not formatted as such anyway.

Another place I have looked for titles are episode titles. Not for the show I am writing for usually, but from any show I have watched and liked. I used to keep a text file with a list of titles I had seen that I liked, and when titling a fic I checked that list first to see if anything fit.

Sometimes there is a line in the fic, or the prompt that inspired the story, that just demands a certain title.

As for the one I'm most proud of? Monstrare, Monere perhaps. A Warehouse 13 oneshot. The actual fic itself I am a bit meh about after all this time, but the title and summary I am like "I wrote that?" I also really like and the Sins of Atlantis. Totally self-indulgent ridiculous fic which I enjoy more than I should. It uses the same episode title structure as the Librarians show (I did that for all my prompt month fics that year, which I loved). I particularly like this one though as I feel like there's so many layers to it. Sins - so evocative, so many questions. Atlantis - how? why? I don't know. It was fun.

(Under the cut for the writing advice because despite making myself stick to just one point, I still went on a lot. Oops.)

28) Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing? Ooooh boy ok. The answer is both lots, and nothing, because writing is very individual. I can advise based on what works for me but it's so much a YMMV situation. I always feel like any writing advice needs to be prefaced with this.

So I don't write an essay (and I probably will anyway) but I will stick with just one point so it's not thousands of words. It's actually something I read once and no it isn't the classic "I can fix a bad page not a blank page" (which is also good advice btw). It's actually a point I super hated for a long time and that is probably why I have forgotten where I read it, so I apologise for the lack of attribution. The quote was something like - "Write what you want to have written, not what you want to write." Now that's crazy talk right? Well yeah, and I hated it, but I see the wisdom in it now.

Now a personal anecdote to illustrate the point. Writing fanfic brought me joy. I loved the plots coming together, how I could sneak in references. I don't know if this is egotistical to admit but I still re-read my old fic sometimes - I was my own intended audience - and I love it. However, I have original novel ideas. I have a dream of publishing. It's a future that I would like to build. Possibly just a fantasy but it's a dream that I've held for decades and it scares the hell out of me. Writing novels is hard. It's facing the fear of never being good enough every day, and making myself do the work anyway. Writing fanfic is so much easier and (for me) it became a way to self-sabotage.

Now I owe fanfic a tremendous debt because it has broken through writers block, it has given me soooooo many ideas that I have mutated into something else entirely. Don't ever think I don't respect fanfic but I'm chronically ill and I only have a limited amount of spoons. I have written novel-length fanfic and pouring weeks/months into a fanfic, was weeks/months I wasn't spending on my original work and I hated myself for that. I was writing something that I really wanted to write but even in the middle of the process I was sometimes like "what am I doing???" and questioning my life choices. I love my fanfic ideas and I get so nostalgic sometimes for the ones on my list that I never got round to writing.

Fanfic was something I desperately wanted to write, but it was not what I wished to have written. It brought me short-term joy for long-term anguish if you like.

So my point - my writing advice - is essentially a riff off "life is short". Be damn sure before you invest so much of yourself creatively in a story (whatever that story might be), that you won't get hit by regret later. It's so easy with fandom events: exchanges, bingos, prompt months etc. to get bursts of inspiration and giddy FOMO, only to get months down the road and wish you hadn't happened that earlier WIP.

We all have a story to tell right? So don't write what you think will get you kudos/comments. Write what is in your heart to write. Not some surface level impulse, but what you will be proud to have committed to a year down the road.

I can't bring myself to regret any of my fanfics. Hell as I said I enjoy reading them. But I had to stop so my energy could be focused in a direction that brought my longer-term peace, rather than short-term joy.

Fandom can be a fickle place, and also playing in someone else's sandbox can turn to ash. When a show has gone in a direction I can't follow, or when there's drama in the fandom, it has stolen my joy. I suppose what I'm really get is with writing, it's a creative journey, it's pouring so much of your soul into something. Protect your mental health. Invest yourself wisely.

Write with joy.

[ultfreakme]

You must be in a tumblr bubble because how have you never seen posts with thousands notes claiming most classical literature is actually fanfiction of bible and the rest is of mythology. Like, this isn’t a hot take on tumblr, unfortunately.

Probably because I have a life outside of tumblr and curate my experience, but yes, I have seen posts about how Paradise Lost is just Bible fanfic and Dante's Inferno is self-insert fanfiction, but mostly from people who watch OSPD videos and say it as a joke. It's a major simplification of about a dozen concepts but okay, if you look at it from the point of definitions, yeah, Paradise Lost & the Divine Comedy are technically fanfiction; they are based on pre-existing work, with Dante there's irl people in scenarios they've never been in, etc etc.

Although I have never seen anyone saying any particular fanfic is a literary masterpiece that must simply be taught in academic settings, which is what that OP's post was actually implying.

And here's the thing; I think fanfic has the potential to be considered a classic. Because, what makes let's say, the Divine Comedy so important? It's not because it's old, but because it struck a nerve among the masses, it did things against the societal structure no one dared to do before, it transformed the Italian language as we know it, it's this carefully, excruciatingly crafted work in terms of sentence structure and is primarily a theological exploration. Now this stands out also because the og canon content, the Bible, is MASSIVE in influence. That thing STILL shapes social norms, conventions and expectations.

No current fanfiction now will ever come to be seen as a true classic unless the canon thing the fic is based on reaches Bible levels of influence on society, which is going to take centuries. Same can be applied to Greek Myths in general(also in both these cases the canon thing is also tied to social structure and religion which large portions of the world follow). We don't want to equate the term 'fanfiction' to that stuff because it feels like it's beyond that but technically, yeah. It's fanfiction.

But the term fanfiction itself is extremely recent, it was said first in 1939 and therefore carries temporal contexts and definitions. It's why it feels juvenile and uncomfortable assigning such a new, and initially frowned-upon term to classics. Being angry about what is and what isn't fanfiction depends entirely upon how you view the term 'fanfiction'.

For me, it is value-neutral and doesn't immediately denote lowered quality these days because at the most fundamental level, fanfiction is literary work based on pre-existing media. But if you add the current cultural context in which fanfiction is primarily written, ie., posted online by anyone and everyone with a desire to write, mostly to fulfill shipping fantasies or certain character scenarios canon didn't provide, then I can see why people would consider giving the label of fanfiction to the classics an insult or "shooting too high".

Maybe 'fanfiction' isn't fitting because of all the social stigma around it, maybe it doesn't apply because it feels like trying to apply modern story beats and terms to ancient mythology. What specifically, is making someone uncomfortable about the term 'fanfiction' on the classics? What the hell even is "fanfiction" in the first place because you could argue that The Song of Achilles is canon-compliant POV change fanfiction but its advertised as a retelling. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies also counts for fic. I think there's a good discussion to be had on what makes "fanfiction" as we know it now what it is because even I think assigning the term to Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost feels wrong. Maybe it's about intent? The classics are written with the need for social change or to make people see things different; art for life's sake. But most fic these days are purely art for art's sake- it is peak self-indulgence and self-expression.

I'm looking it up and people keep narrowing the definition of "fanfiction" as like

Amateur writing

Based on copyrighted characters

Without permission from og creator

Now that whole "copyright" concept complicates things because Romeo & Juliet? Not originally by Shakespeare. Dude borrowed characters from a different play, pretty sure he changed Juliette's name, and he wrote it when the og was only recently made. The concept of "copyright" and "author permission" is also VERY recent. What even counts as actually "amateur" because Van Gogh is considered a pro now but when he was alive he only sold one painting apparently so back then he could've been classified as "amateur"?

I have fully derailed. I forgot what I wanted to say-- Okay yeah I'm aware people say the classics are fanfiction, and in a way, yeah, it is, depending on how the individual defines "fanfiction".

[celestialevie]

Birthday surprise // Niall Horan x singer! Reader

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: none

A/N: Since it's officially my birthday week and Niall's has just passed, I decided to write this very self-indulgent fic (even though I can't sing, but a girl can dream </3). I mostly wrote this for myself because I adore this human with my whole heart. Anyways hope someone will enjoy this fic just as much as I did writing it.

Finishing the first two songs, you chat a little with your fans. Noticing some of the signs they brought with them to get you to notice them, some of them making you laugh, while some of them made your heart clench with love. Sitting down at the piano, starting to play 'champagne problems'. While you were in the happiest relationship to date now, you still had some issues with your past relationships, where you were made the villain and them a victim when in reality it was the literal opposite. Niall was the blessing you were praying for. So what if you were fucked in the head? Niall loved you just the way you were.

Your birthday was coming up, and you were going to spend it while being in one of the cities you absolutely love touring in – Dublin. Although you were heartbroken because this will be the first birthday you were going to celebrate without your boyfriend, Niall. Ever since you've known him, you celebrated both of your birthdays with one another. His tour lead him to being in America during your birthday, which really sucked. You were both bummed out about it, he even offered to reschedule that concert, so he can be with you in Dublin, maybe even visit his family whilst already being in Ireland, you told him no. You didn't want to be selfish just because it's your birthday. Talking on the phone with him right from the moment he was awake (which was already in the afternoon for you). '' It feels weird to not be with you on your birthday, how will I survive without my birthday kisses and hugs from you? '' you ask while pouting. Niall chuckled and mimicked your put. '' I will give you your birthday kisses and hugs as soon as I see you. With extra ones for each day between your birthday and the day we see each other again. I promise. '' he gives you a smile. And you just pout harder. '' I really miss you. I can't wait to see you soon. '' checking the time, you realize it's almost time for you to start getting ready. '' Hey baby, I have to go start getting ready soon. I'll make sure Jenna calls you to FaceTime and shows you at least some concert if you're not busy. I love you and I miss you. '' as you say that, you hang up and quickly text your makeup artist, she can come over. Two minutes later, her and Jenna (your assistant and close friend) are in your dressing room, and you're getting ready. An hour later, you were done with your makeup and hair and all that was left was to put on your outfit. Ten minutes later, you were slowly making your way towards stage. Quickly texting Niall another I love you, and wishing him good luck on his own show later, you were off on the stage, the intro of your song' dress' starting to play as you were brought onto the stage. Let the fun begin.

After champagne problems, one of your favourite songs you wrote was next.

''... Don Perignon you brought it, no crowd of friends applauded

your hometown sceptics called it, champagne problems.''

'' A lot of you might not know, but this next song was inspired after I was done watching the amazing spider-man 2 for the millionth time. My love for Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield is unmatchable. Just ask my boyfriend, who's been hanging out with Tom Holland, how both of them are feeling betrayed by my love for both Amazing Spider-man's movies. This is How you get the girl. '' The intro of the song started playing and so were the screams of people.

Singing two more songs, you go get changed into a different outfit. Going back onto the stage, you're surprised that your manager Anna is standing there with a grin on her face.

'' Stand there like a ghost

Shaking from the rain

She'll open up the door and say 'are you insane?'

Say it's been long six months

And you were too afraid to tell her what you want, want...''

'' Uh-oh, manager is grinning, prepare yourselves guys, it's not going to be good. '' The crowd laughs while Anna rolls her eyes and smiles at you. '' We have a small surprise for you. '' as she says that, she points on the big screen behind you, when you turn around you are surprised to see a familiar face of one of your closest friends, Lewis Capaldi, wishing you a happy birthday and saying you guys need to go clubbing again soon. Laughing as his face fades away and the next one shows up, your very close friend and sometimes co-writer Taylor Swift, again wishing you the happiest birthday and saying how much she adores working with you and that she loves you very much. It went on for a while, all your friends and even your parents were there. Tears were falling down, and you didn't care it ruined your makeup. And then at the end there he was. My favourite face to see. Niall. '' Happiest birthday to you angel. I wish I could be there with you, just like we are always for our birthdays, but unfortunately I am not there to give you all the birthday hugs and wishes. I love you so much angel, keep rocking the world, and I will see you as soon as we can. '' At the end you were full on sobbing happy tears, hugging your manager and your band. The best surprise ever. '' I am very sorry for being a mess so publicly '' wiping your tears and thanking to whoever invented waterproof mascara for being the reason your makeup is not that ruined. '' Anyway, the show must go on, so let's go. '' picking up your acoustic guitar, adjusting it, you announce the song. ''You are in love. Let's go.''

''(...)

As the show is slowly coming to an end, and you're about to play a song that is about your boyfriend, that he inspired you to write. And Taylor helped you co-write it.

Morning, his place

Burnt toast, Sunday

You keep his shirt

He keeps his word

And for once, you let go

Of your fears and your ghosts

One step, not much

But it said enough

You kiss on side walks

You fight and you talk

One night he wakes

Strange look on his face

Pauses, then says

You're my best friend

And you knew what it was

He is in love. ''

'' Sadly, the show is slowly coming to an end. You guys were the absolute best and I adore spending my birthday with you all. This next song is literally one of the most accurate songs I've written about any of my relationship. When I got inspired by my loveliest boyfriend, I had to invite Taylor to help me write it, as we all know she is the lyrics master. Lover is one of my many nicknames I use for Niall, and I know that he's probably watching this or will watch it later, so hi Niall. '' you wave to one of the camera's while the crowd laughs. Gently, you start playing the guitar.

What you didn't know is that your boyfriend is a liar and is actually hiding with your assistant Jenna, waiting to come on the stage to surprise you. Of course, he wouldn't miss your birthday, even if he has to reschedule the concerts. You were absolutely worth it. As he waits for the part of the song he's gonna crash in, Jenna and Anna are making sure you don't accidentally notice Niall before time. The plan is for Anna to quickly distract you on one side while Niall comes out on the other side of the stage.

'' (...)

We could let our friends crash in the living room

This is our place, we make the call

And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you

I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all

Can I go where you go?

Can we always be this close forever and ever?

And ah, take me out, and take me home (forever and ever)

You're my, my, my, my

Lover '' as you sing that part, you notice Anna waving at you like a maniac, distracting you and mouthing something to you. As you're trying to figure out what is she saying, the crowd starts screaming, and you freeze as the familiar voice starts to sing the next part of the song

''Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?

With every guitar string scar on my hand...''

The song soon comes to an end, and you're bringing Niall into another hug. He just smiles and wraps his arms around your waist. '' Happy birthday, angel. I hope you don't mind me crashing. '' You just shake your head while holding him as close as you can. '' You are always welcome to crash my show. The next song is your song anyway, so you might as well stay and sing with me. '' he pulls away and looks at you. '' Let's go finish this show, so I can give you all the birthday kisses and hugs you want. ''

You turn around with your hand on your mouth, as the man himself makes his way towards you. You're in absolute shock because this man is supposed to be in America. He only laughs at your reaction as he pulls you towards him in a tight hug while still singing. Hugging him back, not wanting to let go of him. Slightly pulling away, looking him directly in his beautiful blue eyes while singing.

'' I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover

My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

All's well that ends well to end up with you

Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover

And you'll save all your dirtiest jokes for me

And at every table, I'll save you a seat, lover ''

[coolnerdyandalone]

on FIMQ deleting her content and COVID-19 (and a gratuitous larry fic rec)

@freddiesmyqueen first of all queen i hope you’re doing ok although i know some shit must have gone down for you to delete/private list all your videos and i hope you know that the larry community supports you always. Also your talent is TRULY unmatched in the world of video editing - no one makes edits quite like you and that’s why your loss impacts the community so profoundly. 

secondly, i know at least i was hoping to turn to rewatching all of FIMQ’s videos while i’m being quarantined due to the coronavirus. and i’m willing to bet that i’m not the only one. this is a scary time and for people like me who feel profoundly alone right now, the only way for me to calm my nerves and fears is by reverting to the content and community that helped me feel not so alone when i was in middle and high school. For me, that looks like watching FIMQ videos and reading my favorite larry fanfics (which i will also link below).  because of this i thought it might be helpful to repost some links that were posted by @bluemoonlarryandkaylor for a signal boost (if my teeny-tiny account can be called a signal boost). 

link to a google drive with FIMQ videos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ONwfLOd_IYvAL5OUDqDb_LLgQsDpd9il

link to an acct with some FIMQ re-uploads: https://www.youtube.com/user/Joana3961/videos

link to FIMQ vids with spanish subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIouodFhArMkQhOHxv2t2NgxTwl6KvXAT

and now if you want to look at some good old fashioned larry fics that are my ABSOLUTE faves and could 100% be actual novels/movies, keep reading:

And Then A Bit** by @infinitelymint aka the best fanfic ever written (basically larry fakes a relationship for publicity with each other and it could be cannon if you really wanted to hope upon hopes): https://archiveofourown.org/works/1415272/chapters/2972746 (159k)

“We’d like to give the fans what they want.” Magee states, placing his hand on the table in front of him and leaning forward. “We want to give them Larry Stylinson.”

Or, take a parallel universe where Louis and Harry were never together, mix in a two year hiatus and an impending comeback, pour in a dash of lost fans, two tablespoons of strong friendship and a Modest! employee with a good idea. Add a squeeze of pretending to be a couple, lots of kisses and a tattoo or two. Stir. Serve: the mother of all publicity stunts.

(aka Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.)

Escapade** by @haydolce aka the Jack McQueen fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034197/chapters/9071932 (146k)

In the grand scheme of things, finding a date for a wedding should be no problem for Louis Tomlinson. He's rich. He's handsome. He's reasonably well behaved. But when the wedding is for his lifelong best friend (and former boyfriend), and is happening in under a month, finding a date for the ceremony and accompanying festivities becomes more of an adventure than he ever could have planned for.

California Sold** by @isthatyoularry​ : https://archiveofourown.org/works/5157680/chapters/11877494 (123k)

Notoriously closeted boyband member Harry Styles is famous on a global scale, meanwhile Louis, as his best friend, is back home in Manchester, living the typical life of a 24 year old. When Harry needs Louis with him in LA, a publicity stunt gone wrong changes their friendship forever.

A fake-relationship AU between two lifelong best friends.

Bring Your Body Baby (I Could Bring You Fame) by @theboyfriendstagram : https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263903/chapters/9652944 (84k)

Eighteen year old Harry Styles just graduated high school and landed a summer job as a waterboy for his favorite football team. His job description is simple: be ready to hand water and towels to players if needed. That didn’t seem to include Louis Tomlinson though, a twenty-three year old, recently transferred Paris Saint-German player, who seems to like making Harry’s job much more difficult than it has to be.

OR  

A self-indulgent AU that takes place over the summer of 2015. 18 year old Harry hates pining after people he can't have, and 23 year old footballer Louis loves flirting with people even though it never means anything.

Pull Me Under** by @zarah5 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/870766/chapters/1672104 (140k)

AU. As the first British footballer to come out at the prime of his career, it helps that Louis Tomlinson is in a long-term, committed relationship. Even if that relationship is fake. (Featuring Niall as Louis' favourite teammate, Liam as Louis' agent, and Zayn as Liam's boyfriend, who just happens to be good friends with one Harry Styles.) 

You You You** by @isthatyoularry : https://archiveofourown.org/works/846690/chapters/1617212 (137k)

“Infamous boybander leaves club together with unknown,” read the headline. Underneath were pictures of a boy with dark curls, green eyes and very tight pants. They both studied the article for a moment, reading it through quickly. “Is that…?” Louis frowned. That guy almost looked exactly like... "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" "Louis," Niall said, looking absolutely fucked over. "You just fucked the most wanted guy on earth. You just fucked Harry Styles of One Direction."

Or, the one where Harry and Louis meet at a club and Louis takes Harry home, only for him to realize that the boy who just made him breakfast half naked is Harry Styles from One Direction.

Like an Endless Summer by @horsegirlharry : https://archiveofourown.org/works/11365494/chapters/25442085 (87k)

“You just wanna go fawn over Styles as soon as possible,” Zayn grumbles.

“I do not. Plus, he probably got ugly this year. Eighteen is an awkward time...I bet he’s got acne and one of those terrible fuckboy haircuts all the hipsters are getting these days, with the shaved sides? Just watch, the first year we’re gonna get any time together is gonna be the first year I don’t have a stupid crush on him.”

---

Or, Louis is a riding instructor at a summer camp, and Harry is a fellow counselor who he’s been successfully managing his crush on for the last two summers. That is, until Harry shows up this year leveled up and lethal, and all Louis’s formerly perfected veneer of nonchalance melts like a popsicle in the sun.

Three French Hems by @100percentsassy and @gloriaandrews : https://archiveofourown.org/works/3064493 (20k)

In which Louis is a designer at Burberry and Harry spends December wearing Lanvin… and Lanvin… and Lanvin.

The Dead of July aka the Marvel Fic by @whimsicule  : https://archiveofourown.org/works/3594570/chapters/7928520 (117k)

Being an Avenger means continuing to be Captain America and smiling and being honorable for the public and Harry does his best. But it doesn’t give him time to figure out who he is supposed to be once he takes off his uniform and puts the shield to the side. Just being Harry had always involved Louis, and Harry fears he doesn’t know how to exist without him.

or: Harry is Captain America, and Louis’ been dead for 70 years.

Gods & Monsters by  @mizzwilde : https://archiveofourown.org/works/2090982/chapters/4550871 (201k)

The instructions were simple: seduce and destroy Harry Styles. Not once did they discuss the option of Louis actually falling in love. So, naturally, that's exactly what he did.

Love is a Rebellious Bird aka LIARB aka the orchestra fic aka dont hum bolero by @100percentsassy and @gloriaandrews : https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162438/chapters/2362331 (135k)

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

Don't hum Bolero.

My English Love Affair** by @isthatyoularry​ : https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873962 (19k)

The thing about sleeping with a member of a famous indie band is that the inevitability of having a song written about you is most likely a hundred percent. The second thing is that in the end, nobody's supposed to find out it's about you.

The one where Harry writes a song about his English love affair and Louis sleeps with someone in White Eskimo and all he gets is a stupid song written about him.

Soft Hands, Fast Feet, Can’t Lose by @haydolce : https://archiveofourown.org/works/5799241/chapters/13366498 (113k)

American Uni AU. Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).

Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football.

A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

Wild and Unruly aka the Cowboy fic by @100percentsassy and @gloriaandrews : https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723093/chapters/6099611 (124k)

Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming, and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling his land.

For As Long As I Can Remember (It’s Been December)** by @greenfeelings​ : https://archiveofourown.org/works/15051122/chapters/34892210 (128k)

After recovering from a severe accident that causes Harry to lose his memory of three years, he moves to London to start his life over as a star chef. Little does he know that when he falls in love with Louis at first sight, it’s not the first time they meet.

Featuring an unintentional game of hot and cold, Harry chasing memories that won’t come back, Louis burying himself in work to try and forget what he can’t forget, Liam being torn between two of his best friends, Zayn as a moral compass and Niall saving the day with good music and brutal honesty.

the boys of fall** aka the american football fic by @godgavemelou​ : https://archiveofourown.org/works/5443037 (21k)

“And everyone, this is Harry Styles. He’s going to be our starting quarterback this year.”

Louis looks at him, the tall and lanky Harry Styles, and takes it all in. He’s got hair to his shoulders that curls at the ends, tattoos all down his arms, and a bright smile on his face as the team cheers him on. He’s lean and fit, and absolutely beautiful, and Louis hates him to the core.

OR an american football au where the boys play for the university of tennessee, and harry and louis quite hate each other.

** indicates that the fic is a log-in required fic, but if you want the pdf i can send it to you

[thegraystreaks]

i just read your fics on ao3 and they were so good, i love missing moments from canon! Idk if you ever take prompts but if you do i would really love to read a different way for percabeth to get together in canon?

anon, the way you got me to write something for the first time in ages….

anyway this is super self indulgent but I had a lot of fun writing it!! thank u for your kinds words I would die for you probably!!

this takes place during botl, the day Percy comes back from Ogygia, sometime after Annabeth storms out of the Big House.

-

“Annabeth glared at me. You are the single most annoying person I’ve ever met!” And she stormed out of the room.

I stared at the doorway. I felt like hitting something. “So much for being the bravest friend she’s ever had.”

-

He finds Annabeth in the arena. It’s empty save for her — everyone knows by now that sparring with her while she’s like this never leads to anything good. So she’s taking on a dummy, her anger apparent in the rigid lines of her body, fury in the force behind her blows. She rolls and kicks, dodging imaginary attacks, and Percy could swear that the air is thick, charged, like the feeling before a thunderstorm. Which is stupid — it’s camp, and the magical borders keep the sky cloudless as always. 

As he approaches, the only acknowledgement of his presence is her intensified rage, the way her blade slashes and hacks with renewed vigor. They’re gonna need to replace that dummy, he thinks.

“Can we talk?”

She wheels to face him, thunder in her eyes. For a moment, he’s scared he’ll need to pull out Riptide. She turns to the dummy one last time and stabs it straight through the heart. “You wanna talk? Then go ahead.”

He swallows nervously. Now that he’s got her attention, he doesn’t quite know where to start. His mind flashes to last winter, and how distraught he was when she had been kidnapped. How he’d have done anything to get her back. How he just knew that she couldn’t be dead. He reaches out hesitantly, but pulls his arm back when he glances at the hilt of the blade, still sticking out of the dummy. 

“I was thinking about how upset I was last winter, when you were kidnapped. That, um — well, ‘sucked’ doesn’t really cover it. That was awful. I really am sorry that I worried you.”

Something shifts in her eyes, and he can see the hurt dripping through the cracks of her anger.  “You couldn’t send an Iris Message? I thought you were dead, Percy.”

He scratches the back of his neck. “Drachmas were a bit hard to come by on the island.”

“Ha,” she laughs drily. She pauses to wipe at the sweat on her brow. “What was she like?” The words drip with contempt.

“I don’t — who?”

“Don’t play dumb,” she scoffs. “Calypso. What was she like?”

Air rushes out of Percy’s lungs. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Chiron was right, then. She had figured out where he’d been. 

“Does it matter?”

“Well, you spent two full weeks there, so I can’t imagine she looks like the ancient hag she is. How old is she again? Two-thousand? Or is it three?”

“Annabeth—”

“Two weeks, Percy!” she cries.

“I’m sorry, okay? Time was weird there!” 

“Oh, time was weird, that’s your excuse?”

“Yeah, that’s my excuse!” he shoots back.  “And I wasn’t just laying on a beach being fed grapes or something, I was recovering! From being blown up!”

That seems to drain some of the fight from her. She looks away, and her voice shrinks down: “I’m sorry you were hurt. I—I hate seeing you hurt.” 

In the silence that follows, he thinks inexplicably of Aphrodite coming to visit him last winter, the limo so out of place in the desert. The way that she had appeared, if only for a second, like the girl in front of him. How she had promised she wouldn’t let his love life be “easy and boring”. Gods, why couldn’t it be? The rest of his life is crazy enough. 

He had hoped, briefly, that Aphrodite might’ve forgotten about her promise when they’d returned to Olympus. He remembers a slow, sad song, and his hands on Annabeth’s waist as they had swayed. How it had felt like the pieces were maybe finally starting to fall into place. The memory seems worlds away.

“Annabeth, listen. I’m sorry I was gone so long. But I didn’t choose to be sent there. And—and I came back.”

“Duh, Percy,” she rolls her eyes. “That’s her curse.”

“Okay, you’re right.” She turns away. He reaches out, more confident now, and takes hold of her arm. “But curse or not, I chose to come back.”

She pulls her arm out of his grip. “Yeah, so that you could tell me I have to bring some mortal girl to lead my quest!”

“What does Rachel have to do with this?”

“Are you fucking serious?” she shouts. He can see the walls building back up, the storm returning in her eyes. She whips around and yanks her dagger out of the sparring dummy, kicking up dirt as she begins to stalk away.

This was not how he wanted this to go, not his intent when he came to find her. Of all the ways returning to camp might’ve gone, he had never imagined it like this. He tries to reconcile the girl that kissed him in the mountain with this one, who can’t go more than a minute without yelling at him, that won’t stop running off. Why is this so complicated? She kissed him, right? Isn’t that supposed to be it? The happy ending? If movies told him anything, it was that the kiss means you get the girl. It shouldn’t be this hard. It wouldn’t be, he thinks bitterly, if she would quit storming off.

“Gods, would you stop running away when we’re talking?” he shouts after her. “Would it kill you to stick around and listen to me?”

He’s taken aback when she actually turns around, arms crossed and foot tapping. “Well?” 

Percy blinks. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. Shit, what is he trying to say? “You know, Calypso offered me immortality. I could’ve escaped the prophecy, I could’ve lived in paradise forever—”

That probably wasn’t what he should’ve led with. “If you want me to ‘stick around and listen’, you’re off to a terrible start,” she seethes.

He steamrolls on anyway: “—but I didn’t, I didn’t take her offer, because — well, because of Grover and Tyson, and the quest isn’t over yet, but also because—” he stops. He’s rambling. Focus. How can he say this? “Did you really kiss me back there, or did I make that up in my head?” 

She freezes. Silence stretches out between them, and Percy kind of wants the ground to swallow him whole. But it’s out there, now. Might as well go all in. “I really hope you did, because I’m gonna feel insanely stupid if it was just some volcanic-explosion-induced fever dream.” 

Slowly, she unfreezes. Nods. “Uh. Yeah, I did.”

He takes a step closer. “I don’t care about ‘some mortal girl’. At least, not the way I care about….about you.” He can feel the blood rushing in his ears, can feel his heart beating painfully fast. She’s still just standing there, staring and staring but not moving. She’s not saying anything, why isn’t she saying anything?

“Gods, can you throw me a bone, Annabeth? I feel like I’m dying here—”

He’s cut off when she lunges forward and kisses him. It’s like their first kiss in two ways: it’s over before he can even react, and it leaves him staring, dumbfounded. How is it that she’s caught him off-guard with this not once, but twice now?

“Think you’ll remember that one was real?” she asks, still only inches from his face. Her breath smells of strawberries, and her eyes are puffy from his almost-funeral, but the storm in them begins to clear. 

He laughs, bright and full. “You should probably kiss me one more time, just to be safe.”

“Hmm,” she considers, arms coming up around his neck. “Should I count down so that you can be ready this time?”

He groans. “You are so not making this easy.”

“I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.”

“Gods, you’re insufferable. It shouldn’t be this cute.”

“Three, two—”

He’s on her before she reaches one, one hand pulling her closer at the waist and the other finding her cheek. When their lips meet, it feels like everything he’s been waiting for. Like the clouds parting, like sunshine, like warmth, like happiness.

It may not be their first kiss, but it’s their best yet.

[princip1914]

A few thoughts on writing longfic

I’ve had this post brewing for a while and I figured since today is a Friday I might as well let it out into the wild. 

First off, this is not writing advice. I don’t feel qualified to give writing advice. This is a few observations I’ve made over the course of trying to write something that feels, well, long. Fandom is full of excellent authors writing long chaptered fic, but I don’t see a lot of people talking about how they go about producing such fics. I remember feeling like long fic was really out of reach for me when I started writing again in the summer of 2019 after not writing for years and years and I wanted to talk a bit about how that changed for me. Of course, this post comes with all the caveats that there is no need to ever write long fic if you’re not feeling it. Some of my favorite authors write mostly or only oneshots! But, if you are interested, here’s my lengthy, self indulgent, and entirely personal take on ~the longfic process~ below the cut. 

First, to get this out of the way: long fic is anything that feels long or complicated to you, the author. “I’m working on my long fic” can mean that you’re branching out from microfiction to write something that’s 2k long, or it can mean you’ve got a multi-part 800k epic. There’s no objective measure of if something is “long fic,” Your own personal definitions can also change as you grow in confidence or change your focus as a writer (a little over a year ago when I finished Doubt Thou the Stars are Fire topping out at 31k, that felt very very long to me. Now it feels….still long, but not very very long.) 

Here are a few specific things that helped me write something long. I don’t know if they will be interesting for anyone else, but at the very least writing these down has been a fun way for me to reflect on my own process. 

Practice exercises. Ok, this is going to sound exceedingly obvious, but writing one shots prepares you for writing chaptered fic. Here’s what I mean more specifically: if you know you want to write (as a totally hypothetical example) a chaptered fic set in America in the summer that relies heavily on a nature metaphors, is written out of chronological order, and features a melancholy tone--it helps to write a few one shots like that before you embark on the Big Fic. Just like artists tend to do sketches before starting a big piece, it’s very helpful to write something small that gives you a feel for the ~vibe~ of what you’re trying to do in the long fic. It’s helpful for all the usual reasons--you get to know a specific version of the characters which helps plan out a character driven plot for the long fic--but it’s also helpful because you will learn if the tone and mood of the fic has enough staying power to capture your interest for the long haul. For instance, I have a few unfinished chaptered fics that have a humorous tone. I wish I had done more short humorous fics before starting them, because I would have realized that I don’t currently have the mental stamina to hold up a humorous tone for the length of a chaptered fic (hopefully that will change and I will finish Last Days some time this century!). 

Plan it out ahead of time. I used google sheets for The False and the Fair. I do not think God intended google sheets to be used for fiction, but that was not going to stop me. On a more serious note, I think the best tool for planning fiction is the one you’re the most comfortable with--the notes app in your phone, handwriting, word, google drive, sheets, chalk board, summoning circle, the blood of your enemies, etc. The reason I chose to use sheets is that I knew from the very beginning that I wanted certain things to happen at specific places in the story--for instance, I wanted the first kiss to happen at the end of the first third of the story and I wanted the “reveal” about the mine accident to happen at the end of the second third of the story. But, I didn’t know what was supposed to go in between those elements. A traditional outline for a story at this point in development might have looked like: 

Meet cute

Kiss

Reveal 

Ending 

But, what my brain needed was to preserve the blank spaces in between these story elements, and specifically to preserve the right amount of blank space between these story elements so that it didn’t end up, for instance, that the first kiss was halfway through rather than a third of the way through. In this way, I found google sheets an invaluable tool for pacing in the early parts of the planning process. I simply made 30 rows assuming 30 chapters, and started plugging in the elements I knew I wanted in the locations I wanted them. Then I filled in the blank spaces by asking myself “how do we get from X plot element to Y plot element in Z amount of chapters.” I’m not a mountain climber, but I’ve often thought about the first things that go into the spreadsheet in terms of mountain climbing terminology.  In climbing, a crux move, which can be anywhere along the route, is the most difficult move of the route: if you can’t do it, you can’t do the route. I think of the first things that go into the planning spreadsheet as the crux moves of the story, the most important pieces around which everything else turns. It was not an accident that those were also all the first scenes of the fic that I wrote; if I couldn’t do those scenes, I couldn’t do the story the way I planned it so I wanted to know early on if I needed to make changes.

Make changes if you have to: even though it helps to have things planned in advance, don’t resist the story if it tries to change on you while you’re writing it. Usually the feeling that you have to make changes stems from having a plot that is not entirely character driven. As you write the story, the characters reveal themselves and sometimes the plot has to change to change with the characters’ motivations. Here’s an area where fanfic writers have a leg up on everyone else: if you write fic, you already know the characters really well. That means, (in my experience anyway) it’s less likely that you’ll have a surprise character development which leads to a rethinking of the whole plot. Less likely, but not completely unlikely, unfortunately.

Lie to yourself: The False and the Fair was supposed to be 90k words. I thought that sounded reasonable, a little less than 3x the longest fic I had ever written. Now it's 161k and will probably top out a little over 170k. Ooops. But I never would have set out to write something that long. I wouldn’t have thought I could do it, even though anyone more experienced looking at my plans for the fic probably would have laughed at the idea I could cover all those plot points in 90k. Ignorance is bliss. Protect your ignorance.

Scrivener: Long fic for me means “fic that is long enough you can’t hold all the parts of it in your head at once.” That’s where Scrivener comes in (or another app if you’d rather, but I really like Scrivener for the ability to see the project either linearly or as condensed notecards). You can put together an organizational scaffold in Scrivener that allows you to move back and forth between the forest and the trees. So, for instance, you might be going for a jog and come up with the perfect line of dialogue for chapter 27 when you’re only up to chapter 5 in terms of writing progress. With Scrivener, you can go home, and put that dialogue in the “bucket”/index card/whatever for chapter 27 without compromising your ability to see chapter 5 clearly or muddying up your google doc. You can then use the fact that you’ve started writing bits and pieces of the later chapters in conjunction with the tool of lying to yourself that, actually, you’ve written a lot more of the fic than you realize and that when you get to chapter 27 it won’t be as hard as chapter 5 because you’ve put in the groundwork already. In my experience, this lie turns out to be true about 50% of the time, which is better than 0% of the time.

Digestible mini arcs: The False and the Fair was originally broken up into thirds. I thought it would be 90k and 30k was the longest I had written, so thirds seemed to make sense. Also, 3 is a nice, time honored storytelling number. I think it’s good to give yourself seemingly achievable milestones along the way to completion. These milestones (for me anyway) lined up well with the “crux moments” I’ve described. If you’re someone who likes to write out of order, writing your way to an already written milestone can feel like sailing to an island where you get to rest for a bit from the stormy seas before setting out for the next island in the archipelago.

“It's all part of the process”: I’m categorically incapable of describing things without resorting to running metaphors, and so I apologize in advance, but I am now going to do the insufferable thing of comparing writing a long fic to running a marathon. Here’s the thing with a marathon. You are not going to feel good every step of the way. We all know this. It’s a marathon, it’s supposed to hurt a little bit, especially at the end. In the same way you literally cannot write something novel length or even novella or long short story length without, at least at some point, feeling bad about yourself and your writing. But you also can’t run a marathon if the whole thing is agony, and for most people, it’s not--your meat sack shuffling along the course is subjected to the slings and arrows of all sorts of weird body chemistry that only happens when you push it to its limits. So, you’ll be in agony and then the endorphins will kick in for a while and you’ll be thinking “this isn’t nearly as bad as everyone said,” and then you’ll drink some water at a rest stop and feel like a God for half a mile before you crash and you’re in agony again until that one perfect song comes up on the playlist...and you get the idea. Writing something long, for me at least, is a bit like that. There are massive ups and downs. The key for me is to just understand it’s all part of the process, a necessary step on the way to the finish line. If the fic is 10 chapters long, at some point you have to write chapter 5. Just like you have to write chapter 5, at some point you also have to go through a bit of despair before reaching the end. It is unfortunately non-optional. In fact, despairing is something you can check off your list each time you’ve done it. Cut dialogue tags, check. Feel awful about my writing for thirty minutes, check. Write ending section, check. Often I feel that the stress and shame and fear that come with bad emotions while writing are worse than the bad emotions themselves. It really helps me to remember these emotions are all part of the process and nothing to worry about. If I didn’t have them, then I would worry! 

I certainly have plenty more to say about writing, but this ramble has gone on long enough. If you’re interested in any of this stuff, please feel free to send me an ask. 

I would also love to know more about everyone else’s writing processes, so feel free to pop into my ask box to talk about your own approach too! I am very interested in this stuff!��

[spiltscribbles]

you did the mini fic way i loved you (which was amaaazing) but how about champagne problems where remus says no to sirius' proposal because he gets spooked by a couple of purebloods :(

~Notes: Nonny babe! I can’t believe you made me write such angst😩😩😩 This isn’t quite that but I hope you like it anyways🥺🥺 ILU!!!

.-

A Reblog Is Worth The Sexiest Bottle Of champagne!  |  The Way I Loved You FIC  |  Send Me A Prompt/Song??💜

.-

“I’m afraid of a lot of things, but mostly, most sincerely, I am afraid of being completely unraveled by you, and you finding nothing you want in here.”

—L.M. Dorsey 

.-

When Remus’s father leaves for the final time three weeks before his tenth birthday, his Mam spends only two days in bed before she drags out an old bottle of Dom Pérignon and pops it open,  pouring them each a glass with a smile the wrong side of worn as she beckons him forwards with an indulgent bend of the knuckle. “Come along, mon amour. Just this once, just to say farewell.”

As he thumbs the skinny tumbler bubbling with the amber liquid that’s been his mother’s favorite ever since growing up in her Northern French town on the outskirts of Paris, Remus wonders if he’ll ever forget the words his father spewed before leaving— the declaration that they must be cursed if their first child turned into a monster and their second came out stillborn. Wonders if he’ll ever forget the livid, borderline murderous expression that spilt over his mother’s delicate features before she screamed at him to leave for the final time. Wonders if he’ll ever not feel so weary— So destitute.

“’S all just champagne problems mon petit lapin,” she says in that airy way of her’s that somehow still radiates a knowledge beyond his reach.  “None of  it ever matters, not truly. Not ever.”

Remus eyes the dark circles smudged against her pale skin, and the way her caramel curls fall limply from her bun. She’s always been the most beautiful woman in the world  through his eyes but he now thinks she might be the strongest too. So strong that she’s sitting there, right in front of him in their small kitchen— and she’s pretending that her tiny son, her first and only born, hasn’t brought absolute ruin to her life that should’ve been buoyant and lovely for such a pretty, quick witted Muggle girl.

“Yes, I know Mam,” he says instead of the truth, because if he’s being at all honest he’s always been a bit of a coward and a bit too desperate for some semblance of normality.

.-

It becomes a mantra of sorts to Remus as he stumbles into adolescence. He calls every inconvenience in his life,  champagne problems, and drinks the hurt away in a secret nook off the astronomy tower that he purposefully left off the map he and his friends had created with a sheer pulse of brilliance and adventure and a need to leave their marks on this stupid sodding castle.  A castle that’ll inevitably kick them out on their arses from it’s relative safety with such cold indifference. A castle that will soon be brimming with a new generation of students sullying the same spaces, same corridors   they once spent their days laughing and jeering and frolicking about— creating mischief in it’s hallowed halls. The one and only time that Remus was able to hold his breath and wrap himself in warmth he never knew and will never know again, not ever in the same sort of youthful ignorance— One that he only feigns to hold when around his friends because he thinks he’s never been young, not the way they are. Remus reckons he  aged a century and a half after the bite and a century more after his father had left, and then a millennia when his mother was diagnosed with third stage breast cancer when he was a fresh fifteen.  A death sentence dressed up in bows of apology by the doctors and shiny wrapping-paper of potential hope if the aggressive treatments they employ  make a difference. And soon enough the ever green that was his juvenescence will turn brittle and gray and awash with memories of hopelessness, only adorned sparingly by  memories of Peter’s  quiet companionship and  James’s affable grins. Lily’s easy laughter and Sirius’s searing snogs. Instances of respite that were eventually drown out by the shitty Wizard champagne he’s able to finesse after sucking off the twenty something who works night shifts at the Hog’s Head.

But it doesn’t matter.

All of his issues are inconsequential at the end of the day; from a paper cut, to his worst transformations to the time his first boyfriend sneered at him with pure distain after he had snubbed his wanting to go further subsequent two months of furtive touches and inconspicuous dates. It’s all just a load of shit, a collection of champagne problems just like his Mam had said all those years ago.

 Even that incident the morning in fifth year when he found out that his best friend— the boy he would’ve done just about anything for, anything only  just to see him smile— had weaponized his most hated form. When Sirius nearly made him into a murderer, into a beast, when he nearly proved true the self fulfilling prophecy that every werewolf is as dark as creatures can become. The charms of veelas, combined with the insatiable cravings of vampires and the wily natures of goblins.  When Sirius had nearly turned Remus inside out, made him everything he hates.

But no. That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. Because paper cuts heal, and the full moons set, and James hexes a legion of boils to sprout up all along Quintin’s face. And at the end of the day, he’ll always love Sirius first and last and the very most. He’ll always forgive him any indiscretion because when Sirius’s hand— soft palms and callus fingers— caresses his side, Remus feels close to whole, close to alive, close to something real. And God Remus loves him so much it aches in his chest and creeks in his bones.

So when he comes back to Hogwarts the night after his mother’s funeral— two months divorced of that incident, two months of painful quiet and empty arms and heart wrenching need— Remus lets Sirius collect him into his embrace, and lets them cry together under the canopy of night fall, and when Sirius begs him to come back to them, to forgive him, to let him inside the most protected nooks of his mind  once more, all Remus says is “yes,” and “All right,” and “I never stopped.” He doesn’t tell him that he doesn’t think he’s ever ben there’s in the first place, doesn’t think he’s ever been here or anywhere. He doesn’t tell him that sometimes it feels like he’s some faded sepia photograph come to life in the form of his too skinny body and too large eyes and too gangly limbs. He doesn’t tell Sirius that he doesn’t think he’s ever been anything meant to last on this plane of existence, but he does let Sirius kiss him and hold him and fuck him because it’s the first time since Sirius left Grimmauld back in December the he looks something close to at peace. And Remus knows that he never wants to be someone who makes him frown with that protruding vein on his temple. Someone like Sirius— Someone so beautiful, so vivid, so alive— deserves a life painted in technicolor. And Remus refuses to be the person to drain the vivacity from his every breath. To scuff out his lust for life.

.-

The first time Sirius asks Remus to stop gulping down the champagne and gin and Ogden’s finest by the fist fulls, it’s their final night of their final term and after Remus barbs a little too forcefully that their dingy little dormitory is the one place for him after Lily jokes that it’s a madhouse. 

“It’s gonna bloody kill you Remus, it’s already doing it for fucks sake. You can’t even walk straight most mornings damn it!” He shouts in the quiet of their room while James and Lily are ensconced in her own bed on the other end of the tower and Peter is off snogging his Hufflepuff girlfriend in some deserted third floor closet.

“All right,” Remus tells him after swallowing down the last of his champagne, words pouring out his mouth like warm molasses and arm slugging languidly when he tosses the empty bottle to the side before patting the empty end of his bed for Sirius to lie down besides him. He doesn’t want to fight, doesn’t have the energy for the shouts and accusations and hurt that they always fling at each other during these more heated moments. He supposes he doesn’t have much energy for anything at all anymore.

Sirius stilts from where he’s looming above him, tongue poised for another verbal lashing. But he must see something in Remus’s face, or probably just feels exhausted in similar ways, because he only breathes in— tension melting from his shoulders— and slinks off his jacket before shuffling into the comforter besides him.

And in the future Remus will wonder whether if he remembers it correctly that it felt like everything was standing on an axis as Sirius rode his cock— slow and steady and minutes that feel like decades. Or maybe he’s just recalling it differently because he realized for the first time that night that  for every inch of him that loves Sirius, the other boy feels that same sort of enthralling passion. Only difference is that Sirius’s always been the greedy sort, the once and future king of all or nothing. Remus is the contrary of that. He’s lived with nothing before and he’s perfectly fine with living that way again, had never really expected much from his life anyhow. But Sirius deserves to have everything and Remus knew then—  will always know, that he could never give him that.

.-

The year following their graduation is beautiful in that way that transitional periods always are. A turning of an age eclipsed by sunlight and laughter and kisses that makes Remus feel like they’re melding into one another, becoming indelible parts of each other’s very skin and bones.

But it’s also a time when Remus realizes just how helpless his condition has made him, how despite his top marks in no less than seven NEWTs, he’s always just a werewolf in the eyes of the Wizarding world. So while Lily studies in St Mungos and Peter takes up post at the ministry and Sirius joins James in the Auror’s academy, Remus works days at a quaint bookshop with a doting elderly woman who makes him soup when she thinks he’s looking peaky, and a gay night club with a handsy boss that leers at him with an intrusive air and asks regularly if he’s still with that boyfriend of his.

Remus feels like a fraud.

So when he gets that letter from Dumbledore sent to the flat that Sirius insists is their’s but Remus only ever calls his— he replies with a hasty scrawl on the back of some spare parchment, telling him  that of course he’ll do anything to help the Order. Tells him  that he understands the discretion that’s required of such a mission. He tells his past headmaster that he grew up collecting secrets like school children collected friends, so this won’t be an issue. He doesn’t tell him how it’s a practice so ingrained into him that sometimes even he doesn’t know who the fuck Remus John Lupin is most days, doesn’t know the seams that string him together like a pair of tattered trousers. He doesn’t tell him that he’s only afraid of one thing and it’s his boyfriend’s dedication,  because Sirius is the sort who loves unadulteratedly and without conditions. Sirius doesn’t yet understand that the boy who he’s let inside the most intimate parts of him, the boy who he shares a bed with night after night is the same monster a younger him— in a spur of passion—  had planned to deploy as a means of destruction.

Sirius doesn’t understand how foolish it is to intwine his life with Remus’s, even if he thinks it’s some sort of challenge, if he looks at it with the romantic lends that he could love the monster out of someone. And it’s positively idiotic to think as much, like Sirius’s tender hands and sweet whispers can be Remus’s cure. 

It’s so fucking stupid! And occasionally Remus wants to bash his head into a wall, but instead  kisses him with devouring intent before he could.

The owl nips at his finger for the last remnants of the stale biscuit Remus had offered it in thanks and he watches it soar away like he could never do.

.-

The first time Sirius tells Remus he loves him, it’s in the bathroom of the Longbottom’s small cottage— amidst panting breaths and thrusting hips and grappling hands as they try to get one another off as quick as possible before someone finds them in such a compromising state.

Remus has just spent three weeks in a werewolf camp in the south of Glasgow, and came here to find Sirius as soon as he can home. And while they get lost in one another in this cramped loo he forces himself not to think of how Sirius had been chatting up and chuckling with Emmeline Vance.

Emmeline Vance,  who is a beautiful blonde witch with vibrantly green eyes and a full smile that isn’t even slightly crooked like Remus’s own. Emmeline Vance who is the pure blooded daughter of the Swedish Minister of magic, and who came here to London because her country has never discriminated against half bloods or muggle borns— even if they brand their dark creatures with tattoos and lock them up in cages whenever they try to speak up against their lack of human rights.

Emmeline Vance who is the perfect complement to Sirius’s dark brooding and pale eyes and charisma that radiates off of him like the leading man in a novel written during the generation of disillusioned artists who had survived the first great war in the Muggle world. And Remus sometimes feels like Sirius’s gaze is trained on him like Gatsby towards  the green light he watched every night thinking of his beloved. And sure Lupin and Daisy might be a pair of flowers but one is poisonous and the other is bright with life and Sirius has always been the sort to pick the worst option because he’s a glutton for punishment, and sometimes Remus thinks that’s all he is. Sirius’s warped way of punishing himself for being born into such a fucked up  family— fettering himself to a poor, halfblooded, halfbreed, as some sort of declaration that he’s not the heir of the House of Black any longer, that he rebelled against them with every fiber of his being. That he’s the precise antithesis of their values even if he shares the same eyes and imperious air and steadfast beliefs on top of his  effortless genius— even if they are beliefs that juxtapose against his family’s blood supremacy.

And Remus hates these sorts of contemplations, hates how they make him feel like a trader to the love between them. But he forgets about it all when he remembers how Sirius glanced up and caught his gaze when he first stepped into the living room, amiable expression morphing to one of pure wanting the second he spotted him,   coldly disregarding an extremely glum looking Emmeline, as  he strutted towards  Remus and dragged him to the only empty spot and kissed the moonbeam scars that litters his skin and calls him beautiful despite it all— Maybe even because of it.

.-

The eleventh  time Sirius asks Remus to marry him, it’s the night of Regulus’s funeral, when his limp body was found slashed against the grounds of  the Hampshire woods after three weeks of being declared missing.

It’s spoken in a voice that’s so raw and primal and demanding that it makes Remus curl into himself when he hears it, getting lost in the sensations all around him— Sirius’s hot breath skirting the back of his neck, and Sirius’s large hand clenched around his dick, and Sirius’s length pounding into him with such force that their headboard smacks against the wall. And when they’re done, Sirius slides out of him amidst a round of peppering kisses along the ridges of his spine and expanse of the shoulders and on the hinge of his jaw. It feels like not an apology so much, but a plea. And Remus knows that the last year has been rough on them, on their relationship. Knows how difficult it is that Remus has been spending nearly as many nights spying on the wolves as he has in the flat. That Sirius wants to know where the fuck Dumbledore is sending his boyfriend, that he hates Remus only slightly because he’s so tight lipped about it all.

He’s argue that James tells Lily what he’s up to, and Remus would remind him that they’re married, and then Sirius would get a look on his face that’s so betrayed and so pained and so furious that Remus spends the night on the sofa instead— Well he would if Sirius didn’t have a habit to coax him back into his arms with mumbled apologies and gentle caresses and barely their kisses before the night ends.

So Remus lets him do the same now, and he ignores the questions about where he was all this time and shrugs off the way Sirius tries to reason that none of them know how long they have left living, how he wants to spend the rest of his days as Remus’s husband. And he watches Sirius flutter his eyes closed and waits for his breath to even out.

He never tells  Sirius that he wants to wed him  so badly that it’s cutting against his heart like a knife licked with flames,  even if he’s been in love with Sirius for practically half his sodding life.  Ever since he had jauntily invited him to sit in the cart with him and a  bespectacled lad, along  with another that was a bit plump and eager looking.

No. Through all the shouts and begging and sneers of tonight, Remus never dared tell him that. Remus knows Sirius, and if he had said as much,  then that would’ve been it for him. Sirius would have fought for Remus with every inch of his being. He would’ve made sure that Remus excepted his love, that he would have utilized the ferociousness and ferocity and indignation that breathes in his every vein and what makes up the marrow of his bones as the beautiful and brilliant and incandescent scion of the ancient and most noble House of Black— would’ve done so until Remus gave into his demands. 

Remus promised himself a long time ago that he’d never be the one to scuff out the light that shone in Sirius’s very soul. He’d never watch himself turn Sirius into  a  burnt shell of anything bright and fluttering and lively that ever existed in the spaces of his ribs and the valleys of his chest. Not like what he did to his Mam— eventually killing her. Not like how he drove his father away because the dread was too heavy of a burden to carry.  

Remus would rather Sirius hate him then watch him suffer through that.

Anything but that.

So Remus quietly packs his few belongings in the same trunk he’s had since first year with a flick and swish of his wand. And he pens Sirius a missive that he just doesn’t feel the way he had when they were in Hogwarts. And he tells him that his missions have him traveling all over the continent and it’s too much work to constantly be coming back home. Tells him that he knows about the brunette Muggle boy he had fucked back in August when he thought Remus was fibbing about his whereabouts and he lies  that it’s all right because he tells him that he’s been shagging a professor from Beauxbatons named Benjy for the past six months whenever he was sent to France under duress of Dumbledore. Even if the truth is that he refuted his every advance because his love for Sirius will always sing the loudest in his heart.

He sets the goodbye on the dresser that is only piled with Sirius’s things now, and doesn’t let himself sneak one last kiss while Sirius continues to doze. Tries to imprint the image of him— so gorgeous and so so human— in his mind’s eye, hopes he’ll recall the precise slope to the small of his back and the flyaway strands of his ink black hair and how he breathes in two beats longer with every third exhale. Knows that he’ll never memorize just how jutting his cheekbones really are, or how his lashes kiss the top of them with such grace that it’s close to angelic. And he’ll never again  feel the neediness Sirius could evoke with his fingers and tongue and cock, but maybe that’s all right. Maybe Remus got his time in the sun and now he has to repent for steeling that snatch of heaven for all these years.

Nothing could’ve kept the flame between them flickering for long, and that’s a truth Remus knows as inherently as his knowledge that Sirius was the great love of his life— But  Remus was always destined to either spare him or burn the golden tapestry that made up the picture of Sirius Black until it was nothing but ash.

So he leaves and he tells himself that it’s the right decision for both of them.

~My Wolfstar FIC Masterlist~

[dumbass-mha-simp]

Hawks x Reader: Bad Idea

Another self indulgent Hawks fic that I've literally had in my notes for months. He lives in my head rent free along with my other 22 fake boyfriend's because I'm ✨mentally unstable.✨ It is a song fic tho, Bad Idea ft. Shiloh Dynasty https://youtu.be/kH9hJnT7KkE

Tw: food, depression, Hawks is honestly just feeling it bro- same dude,

Word count: almost 2k? I think

Requests are open! Honestly I'm probably terrible but the only things I can think to write are those imaginary situations I put myself in

(Y/L/N)- your last name

(Y/N)- your name

Thoughts or emphasized talk are in italics

Also idk why but I imagine he removes his feathers to shower since they probably need different cleaning conditions and also they just seem like a hassle in showers.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Here he was, the number two prohero. Everyone assumed his life was perfect, anything he wanted served on a gold platter. He felt the guilt creep up into him.

I should be thankful. The thoughts ate away at his mind in the rare seconds he got alone. You shouldn't be so selfish. So annoying. So insufferable.

Takami pushed these thoughts back. "No one needs to know how you think, Keigo." He whispers out to himself in his office.

He scrawled at paper work, trying to not let the self depreciating thoughts feast away on his mind. Unfortunately for him, different thoughts came up.

His best friend, Rumi had this friend. (Y/L/N). Smart, attractive, sometimes a little rough around the edges, but amazing. He found his mind wandering to them all too often.

They were mostly unknown, despite their insanely strong quirk. They preferred to stay out of the lime-light, through that irritable exterior sat overwhelming anxiety and shyness. But they always denied it.

He stopped himself as he realized he's spent 10 minutes only thinking of them, a friend. Yeah right.

He lazily walked out of the office waving to all his employees as he made his way outside. His eyes slowly dragged to the darkly faded blue sky, dusted in clouds. Cold, tired, aching. Just how he felt.

He took a slow brisk flight to his house, feeling the wind bash his face and the air flow through his feathers. He gently placed a foot on the metal railing of his balcony, taking a deep step to the ground and opening the door.

The emptiness rung through his apartment like a blaring siren. You have everything. How can you still want more?

The voices in his head screamed and clawed their way out. You're nobody. No one ever loved you. You're so alone. You're nothing but a tool to the commission. You're actual character is useless.

He shed his coat, boots, and pants. Looking to himself in the mirror as he removed most of his feathers. He looked exhausted as he stumbled into the shower, numbly.

The next ten minutes seemed to elude him when he wondered how much time has gone by of him staring at the shower wall blankly.

He dried off a bit then looked around his kitchen for something to eat. Have I eaten today? The buzz and light of his phone on the counter startled him.

"Hey, Hawks." A single, simple message from (Y/L/N). Okay don't panic.

"What's up?" He replied swiftly.

"I had this feeling something was wrong and wanted to check up on you."

"Why would you think that?" He tried to play it off like it wasn't true without actually lying.

"I'm not sure. Do you maybe wanna join me?" You asked.

"Where?"

"Well, every once in awhile when I need a break I go and stargaze with a night picnic. It helps me relax, and if you think it might help I'd want to. I can tell something's off." You were always so convincing. It felt like you weren't too nosy or snoopy but you understood.

"Text me where to be and when?" He let out a gentle smile at his phone.

"The dollar store on 4th in 10 minutes? So we can choose some snacks together?"

"I'll be there."

Did Takami think any problems where going to be solved with some food in the dark? No. But would he skip the opportunity to be with you, to find out how he really felt when it was just you two? Absolutely not.

He landed down on the broken pavement outside of the old dollar store, scanning around to see you.

"Boo!" A bump from behind had him flinching to see the sound as you stood behind him giggling. "Got ya."

"Very funny (Y/L/N) the most amazing trick yet." He rolled his eyes with a slight smile.

"C'mon let's go grab a bunch of terrible snacks and call it a picnic, bird brain."

You two walked into the store and walked a large circle around it, choosing chips and candy and drinks at your leisure. Once you got to the counter, he fights you to his wallet.

"It's my picnic."

"And I'm the very special guest who was so generously invited. I'm paying." He grins as you pout at him.

Grabbing the bags you placed them in the back seat as you offered passenger side to him.

"I don't like cars."

"Why not?"

"Cramps my wings."

You look at him with the biggest puppy eyes you can manage. "You already agreed to keep me company and pay for the snacks, let me do something for you?"

"Fine, but only cause you're pouting kid."

He gently sits in your passenger seat as you strap yourself in and turn the car on. The car hums and the music playing softly on the radio are the only things heard. The peace feeling too good to break.

Once you pull your car up into the parking lot of a small park and grab your bags, you begin leading him to your usual place.

"Hold these." You hand him the bags as you jump and climb up on top of a big metal container. You peer over the side with big eyes and a smile as you say to him, "now hand me the bags and do what I did!"

He looks at you with a wide smirk before simply flying up to join you. "Or you can do it the cheater's way." You pouted and bumped his shoulder.

"It's not cheating, it's using my resources." He says with a triumphant smirk.

"Your cheating resources." You pull out your gummy candies and started eating as you leaned back till you were laying down.

"Do you like the stars, Hawks?" You say like your sleep talking, staring into the night sky.

"Keigo." He shifts to lay down about a foot away from you. "You can call me, Keigo. And... I don't think I've ever taken time to look at the stars."

"No sneaking out away from parents to sit on vans and stargaze? Or watching the sunrise with a partner while eating fast food?"

"What kinda date is sitting in a car for hours staring at the sky and eating?" He laughs.

"Ah one that never really happened, he just said he would. But never mind that repressed shit." A sad laugh forces itself out as you stare between the stars.

"Was he cute?" He tried to sound funny but it came out more sympathetic.

"Sometimes," you laugh with him. "But he had really nice hands."

"Hands? That's an odd thing to find attractive." He turned his head over to look at you as your eyes seemed to burn holes in the dark milky blue sky.

He continued laughing with you about this guy but couldn't help an overwhelming feeling of jealousy. Who was he? Did he look anything like him? Was this recent?

"Keigo?" A voice snapped at his train or thought, "Yes, (Y/L/N)?" He replied rushed.

"Do you want your mini cookies?" You ask looking to him with the bag.

"Oh, yeah. Thanks." He mentions grabbing the bag from your finger tips.

He ate his cookies and thought as you seemed either lost in your head, or lost in the stars.

Loving you would be selfish. As such a high ranking hero, he's made a target for himself and anyone around him. He's broken down, can't feel. You obviously have other people on your mind. Someone like you wouldn't be single long.

"When did he leave?" He blurts out without thinking. Maybe it's a sore subject-

"Long ago." You look lost, your eyes searching and wandering but never grabbing hold of exactly where you should be. "Why?" Well I guess if I'm gonna start prying might as well go all the way.

"He thought that maybe he could love me. But now that's just ridiculous," you laugh coldly. "Who would love me?"

"Falling in love with you seems like a really bad idea. But not on your part." He whispers into the wind, hoping it'll carry his words away from you.

"What do you mean?" You look completely confused, almost scattered.

"You're quiet, and I'm someone who puts a spotlight on practically anyone around me. You'd constantly be put in danger. Plus I'm arrogant and cocky, nothing at all like you." He acted like he could see the stars as you could. He stared into them finding any way he could to avoid your eyes.

"You could get hurt or I could annoy you." He whispers.

"I had no idea you felt that way, Keigo." You whisper back, shock keeping your voice quiet.

His eyes burned holes into the night sky, he felt he shouldn't look at you. The mental image of you already wouldn't go away.

"You wanna know something, Keigo? I can read people like books, I can read stars like stories, and I can read in-between lines like they were in bold font. But, you always catch me off guard. Reading you is like a mystery novel. Sometimes intense, sometimes peaceful, but always keeping me wondering." You smile into the stars, you can tell he desperately doesn't want to see your eyes. "You're always leaving everyone on the edge of their seat, and when you leave you can't stop thinking of the next time you'll come. What you'll bring."

"I....I don't think I understand (Y/L/N)-" Keigo's soon cut off.

"(Y/N)"

"Well, (Y/N)- I don't think I understand." He tries to sit up and look at you.

"You catch me off guard, something about you speaks to me in ways I know you never actually would. I can see it, the way you stumble or hesitate. I can tell somethings scared you into silence." You've never had much chance to talk about the ways you analyze people, you wanted to tell him how you could tell the way he acted wasn't always good.

"I think you might be reading too much into this, kid." He tries to intervene.

"I get if you don't want to tell me." You stared up at the stars, waiting for him to do the same. "You see there?" You pointed to a star. "That's a constellation."

"They just look like stars." He seemed a bit disappointed that he couldn't see stars the way you did, with such knowledge and wonder in your eyes.

"That's cause they are," you giggled to him, "it's not like I can actually see the pictures either."

"You.. you can't?" He looked to you confused but slightly hopeful, how could they look at them but not see too?

"That's the whole point, Keigo. It's being able to see what's not really there. Sometimes I stare into the sky hoping to see any semblance of hope, but that's not how it is. You have to teach yourself to look at what could be there." He stared to you, a small content smile graced your face. You were beautiful.

"(Y/N)?"

"Yes?"

"Maybe, loving you isn't such a bad idea.." he looked remorseful, staring into the stars. Maybe he could see it too one day.

"What do you mean?" You glace to him.

"You see so much, you can read and see the things I want to see. I want to learn, (Y/N). I want to see how you do."

The smile on your face spread.

"I'd love to show you."

[killmytyme]

cherry cola | calum hood

image from this post by @siyahraat​

this fic is brought to you by @myloverboyash​​ absolutely destroying me with this text post, which I reblogged and went off in the tags and then couldn’t get it out of my head so I had to write out the entire scene. is this maybe the most self indulgent thing I have written in a really long time? yes. is this good? probably not. but i saw this whole cozy 3am snack run in my mind and had to get it out here somehow. 

warnings: none except for the most gross amount of fluff

word count: 2.4k

_______________

The thing is, you had been craving a cherry cola slushy all day. It was all you could think about for the whole day, but you knew you didn’t need one, so when you had gone out earlier you summoned your willpower and didn’t indulge. The problem was that now it was 3am and you couldn’t sleep, and all you could think about was the gas station a 10 minute drive away that had the cherry cola slushy you needed. The other problem was that Calum was fast asleep, and you really hated driving alone late at night. It had been hours now of you laying awake and only thinking about the slushy before you decided you couldn’t take it anymore. You rolled over to face him and gently shook his shoulder.

“Cal,” you whispered, watching his face twitch as he started to stir. “Cal, wake up.”

“Hmm?” he questioned, blinking awake slowly. His arm reached out to pull you into him. “’S’wrong? You okay?”

“I need a slushy,” you say, pulling at him to move with you as you sat up. “We need to go get one.”

“Babe,” Calum’s eyebrows raised as he glanced at the clock on the bedside table. You knew what it would say, you knew how crazy this probably sounded. “It’s 3am, we can get slushies tomorrow.”

“No, Cal, I need a slushy,” you whine. “I know it’s 3am, I know it’s crazy, but I think I’m actually going to die if I don’t get a cherry cola slushy right now. Immediately.”

“Cherry cola?” There’s laughter in his voice, and you know you’ve won him over. “Babe, the best slushy flavour is blue raspberry. That’s just an objective fact.”

“Okay, well, it’s an objective fact, Calum Hood, that I am wasting away here without snacks or a slushy to sustain me!” You hop out of bed and grab the hoodie he tossed on a chair before he crawled into bed, throwing it at his face while he laughed at your dramatics. “If you loved me like you say you do, you’d get up and drive me, unless you want me going out at 3 in the morning by myself, which is dangerous and-” 

Your voice is cut off by the feeling of the hoodie you’d just thrown his way coming down over your head, and you squirm your arms up into the sleeves, Calum pulling the sweater down over your body.

“You’re lucky that I love you, you know that,” he says, smiling fondly at you. You grin back at him, the smile not leaving your face as he gets dressed and starts the hunt for his keys. “Who would have thought I’d find someone who drags me out of bed at ridiculous hours because they need a slushy, of all things, and I’m still in love with them.”

“It’s all part of my charm, you know,” you say as you tap your foot impatiently.

“If you say so.” He finally locates his keys and you both make your way out of the house and into the car. The night air is crisp, and the street is quiet in that way that only the middle of the night can be; still and peaceful, knowing you’re likely the only ones awake and moving, feeling alone but nowhere near lonely as Calum starts the car and intertwines your hands, backing out of the driveway.

You start pressing buttons on the radio to bring up some music for the drive, and he laughs when you land on the Top 40s station. At this time of the night it’s a DJ set, some local up and coming DJ getting the 3am slot to play terrible remixes to popular songs. Just your luck, you flipped to the station in time to hear Calum’s voice floating out of the speakers.

“Don’t you love this song?” you giggle, turning up the volume and singing along as the chorus starts.

“I wonder who it’s by,” he comments, playing along with you.

“It’s this band from Australia, they’re not that big so you probably haven’t heard of them. Pretty underground stuff.” You can’t stop giggling, and Calum couldn’t wipe the fond grin from his face if he tried. You get like this when you’re tired, silly and giggly, and it’s one of his favourite ways to see you. “They’re okay, their old stuff is better. Newer albums aren’t their best work.”

“Bold words from someone who hasn’t missed a beat singing along,” he squeezes your hand as he teases you, and even after all this time the simple action stirs up the butterflies that never seem to vacate your stomach when you’re around him.

“Hey, I never said I had good taste!”

“Clearly, you dragged me out of bed at 3am for a cherry cola slushy.” He laughs again at your mock gasp, but you don’t have time to defend your slushy choice before you realize you’ve driven by the gas station.

“Cal! You missed the turn, we need to-”

“Don’t you want other snacks? If we’re up, I kind of want cheese puffs. We can grab slushies on the way back, okay?”

“Calum Hood,” your voice is serious now, and he glances over with concern on his face. “You are a genius. Cheese puffs are exactly what I want. Can we get popcorn, too?”

“You can have everything you want, babe.” Calum turns the car into the grocery store parking lot and you learn your head back against the seat, facing him, and it occurs to you then that everything you want is just him and a thousand more midnight snack runs like this.

Once you get inside the store you both give apologetic waves to the cashier who nods tiredly at you and waves you in. The store is 24-hours but you both still feel that twinge of guilt walking in so late. Calum grabs a basket and starts heading to the snack aisle but you pull his hand back and gesture towards the produce.

“We have to walk the aisles! Like we always do,” you say, staring longingly at the rows of fruit.

“We always do that when we come here at 3 PM, not AM,” he says patiently. You ignore him, still staring at the apples until he sighs and gives in, letting you drag him through every aisle.

You each comment on things as you walk by them, falling into your usual store rhythm. One of the things you’ve always loved about Calum is his ability to make even the most mundane errand fun, the way he plays into your bits and lets you be unabashedly silly. He doesn’t think twice when you pause in front of the assortment of breads, fresh from the bakery, and ask in all seriousness for him to choose which bread he thinks most represents him.

“Kaiser buns,” he says without pausing to think.

“Yes!” you shout, and you both dissolve into giggles when a nearby associate jumps, clearly shocked by the noise. Calum calls out an apology as you continue to laugh. “Suits you. Crusty on the outside, soft on the inside,” you say through your laughter, poking him in the side.

“M’not crusty,” he says, tone offended, but you can tell by the crinkles around his eyes that he’s amused by your antics.

“You said kaiser! Not me!” You grab a bag for yourselves and toss them in the basket, much to Calum’s chagrin.

The rest of the trip goes just like that, pausing every few steps to delve into a deep discussion about white eggs vs brown eggs, or the best breakfast cereals, or the uses for the wide arrange of infused olive oils. By the time you make it to the check out you’ve spent far too much time in the grocery store, but the cashier, a woman with grey hair and kind eyes, smiles warmly at you as she rings you through.

Finally back in the car you dig out the container of cheese puffs and feed some to Calum as he drives. The DJ set is still going, this time the song is a mashup of two popular songs. You do your best to sing along but it’s switching between the two so quickly you can’t quite keep up, and Calum nearly has to pull over from laughing so hard at your attempts to follow along with the lyrics. In retaliation, you refuse to give him any more cheese puffs, pouting in an exaggerated manner at him.

When he pulls into the gas station and parks the car, he leans over and presses a soft kiss to your mouth in apology, murmuring a soft “sorry for laughing” against your lips.

“You’re only saying that so you can get more cheese puffs,” you sigh dramatically.

“You got me,” he smirks, lips still close enough that you can feel it on your skin before he pulls away and - the asshole - snatches the cheese puffs from you as he goes.

“Calum!” Your yell is met with just laughter as he hops out of the car, cheese puffs under his arm, and races into the gas station.

You catch up to him, giggling at how ridiculous your night has turned out, and find him standing in front of the slushy machine clearly deep in thought at his options. Under the cherry cola slushy dispenser sits an already full slushy cup, ready for you. You open your mouth to thank him and he shushes you, eyes squinting as they flick over the 6 flavour options he has to choose from.

The feeling that has been creeping up on you more and more frequently comes back again as you watch him. It’s the butterflies in your stomach, and the feeling that your heart is going to actually come bursting through your shirt with how full and warm you feel just looking at him. An hour ago he was fast asleep, and now here is he is with you, being silly and selecting a slushy flavour like it’s the most important decision he’s ever made. You’re so in love with him sometimes it overwhelms you, and it’s never in the moments you expect. It’s in small moments like these - in the back corner of a gas station at nearly 4am, under fluorescent lighting, wearing your rattiest clothing. It’s single minutes in time that make you positive there is never going to be anyone else for you, you only ever want to spend your 3am moments with Calum.

You’re roused from your staring when he moves towards the machine, moving your cup so he can place his directly under the cherry cola dispenser and flipping the lever. You make an indignant noise, and he shoots a smirk at you.

“You’ve been talking about it all night, I had to get it,” there isn’t even a hint of an apology in his voice for all of his teasing earlier, but you don’t even have it in you to rib him for it because you’re too focused on trying not to let how ridiculously happy these moments make you show on your face.

In fact, you wait to say anything at all until you’re back in the car, happily sipping on your slushies, the music acting as background noise now. Your hands are tangled again, and Calum’s thumb rubs softly on the top of yours.

“This slushy flavour actually is delicious,” he says eventually when you’re close to home, breaking your comfortable silence. “I understand now why you needed to get out of bed to get this. It really was an emergency.”

He’s smiling at you, but not in a teasing way. It’s the smile he gave you when you first met Duke and won the small dog over after hours of patiently sitting on the ground and waiting for him to come see you. It’s the smile he gave on the first night you moved into his house and he looked around at the mess of boxes among his things. It’s the smile he gave you when he walked off the stage the first time you unexpectedly showed up on tour to surprise him.

It’s the smile he can’t control, the one that comes out in his happiest moments. Those moments always include you.

“We should get married,” you blurt out. You feel your eyes widen slightly when you say it. You hadn’t planned it, hadn’t even registered the thought before you were saying it. You knew, though, you wouldn’t take it back. You didn’t want to see 3am without him ever again, and you hoped he felt the same way.

“Okay,” he says easily, his happiest smile still shining bright on his face. “Wait, like now? There are some people who might actually kill us if we got married at 4am in sweatpants. Like, I think Luke might actually kick me out of the band if I rob him of the chance to dress up and attend a wedding. You know how he is.”

“Not now,” you laugh. “You’re right about Luke though. I just mean...we should. You know, at some point I’d like to get married.”

“Me too.” You’ve pulled into the driveway now, but neither of you make a move to exit the car. This moment feels small, but it also feels large and vulnerable in a way that even the sound of a door opening might break. “I kind of want to be woken up by you at 3am for slushies for the rest of my life.”

“Good,” you reply softly. He starts to lean towards you and meet him over the centre console, pressing your lips together. It doesn’t even make the list of the most passionate or heated kisses the two of you have shared, but somehow the soft press of your lips feels like more - feels like everything.

Later that morning you sit on the couch, his head resting in your lap as you chat about everything and nothing, finishing your snacks and watching the sun come up outside of the windows. In a way, this feels like everything, too. From the minute you shook his shoulder a few hours ago until now, it all feels like a moment that needed to happen, like the universe knew you needed this collection of small moments to get you here.

“Hey babe,” you say after a few moments of silence. He hums in response. “Do you think at our wedding we could have a cherry cola slushy machine?”

Calum bursts into laughter, but you can feel him nodding his head where it’s resting on your legs. “You can have everything you want, babe.”

He cuddles into you closer, and you can tell from his relaxed face that he’s drifting to sleep, and all you can think as you close your eyes is that you already have everything you want.

[stxphxn-strange]

you don’t have to hurry, you don’t have to try

a/n: i didn’t plan on writing this but this week has been v introspective and a little confusing? so it’s ~self indulgent fic time~. title from “walking on air” by king crimson, regular college au tony angst and a rly soft ironstrange moment

Stephen could tell, even without seeing his boyfriend’s expression, that Anthony was lost in thought. He’d been wandering in his mind for most of the day, and though they helped Stephen knew his gentle encouragements and praises didn’t magically fix everything. He was self aware enough to know he wasn’t that powerful, and he knew he couldn’t banish everything that bothered Anthony. But sometimes Stephen wished it was possible, with just a wave of a hand, to give Anthony the peace of mind that had been stolen from him time and time again. It was late enough to be asleep, but even without seeing his face Stephen knew Anthony was fighting the desire to close his eyes and let the day end. He was curled up in Stephen’s arms, head resting on his boyfriend’s chest as he wandered hopelessly through the maze of his thoughts.

Anthony was exhausted. He spent the day complaining, humorously of course because heaven forbid he gave anyone a reason to find fault with him, that he was tired. Stephen saw right through the act and knew he was legitimately tired, and not just physically. He also knew that Anthony didn’t feel fulfilled unless he accomplished something tangible, and on days when he wanted to do nothing, to just exist outside of the pressure he put on himself, he retreated to relentless self-deprecation for not doing more. He was still used to being judged, ridiculed, and used for what he did or didn’t do, depending on the circumstances, and he’d made a lot of progress unlearning those thought streams, but it wasn’t easy.

So Stephen didn’t fault Anthony for being upset and confused, his heart breaking when he saw how hesitant Anthony was to believe his reassurances. He still didn’t trust himself to let go of all of his façades, especially not the carefully practiced busybody energy he maintained when dealing with others. Sometimes, often without realizing, he really did act as if his entire life was nothing but deadlines. He thought that he didn’t matter, only his work did. Anthony didn’t know what to do with himself as a human, which fucking petrified him. He sometimes didn’t see himself as human, but he couldn’t say how he saw himself. Stephen frowned as he remembered Anthony once saying that he could only ever picture himself as a burden to everyone he knew, or just a mind and body to be toyed with and used.

Stephen was drawn away from the memory of that conversation and back to the present when Anthony looked up at him.

“Thought you were asleep,” he mumbled, shifting just enough to lay his head on Stephen’s shoulder.

“Nah, I’m genuinely not tired,” Stephen replied.

“I’m not either,” Anthony said stubbornly.

Stephen would’ve usually been a bit snarky or argued that during their earlier romp Anthony called him “exhausting”, but this was one of those moments where he didn’t want to banter.

Instead, Stephen took a gentler approach and scoffed at him. “You’ve never been a good liar, Ant.”

“Because I don’t try to lie to you the way I do to other people,” Anthony replied bluntly. “I don’t feel like I need to be protecting myself from judgement when I talk to you.”

“You don’t,” Stephen reminded him, softly kissing his head. “And you don’t have to stay up for me, if that’s what you’re wondering about.”

“Shouldn’t I?” Anthony asked.

“No, in fact I don’t want you to,” Stephen said. “If you’re as tired as we both know you are, you don’t need anyone’s permission to rest and leave today where it is. And you don’t have to sacrifice sleep or your well-being for anyone you’re in any kind of relationship with, and you shouldn’t.”

Anthony looked at him skeptically, as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was really fucking tired and wanted nothing more than to sleep soundly in Stephen’s arms, but he couldn’t overcome his anxiety and felt his heart skip as Stephen frowned.

“Hey, I’m not upset with you,” Stephen said, trying to disrupt Anthony’s anxious train of thought before it took off. “I’m just trying to decide how to say what I’m thinking.”

“I’m listening,” Anthony replied, instinctively reaching out to hug him.

“I know,” Stephen murmured, kissing him again. “But sometimes there’s a difference between you listening to me and you believing what I say.”

Anthony nodded. “Guilty.”

“I get it, though. I don’t blame you,” Stephen began. “And I’m not saying this to try and convince you of anything, if that makes sense. I just want you to understand that you’re one of the most important people, if not the most important person in my life.”

Anthony was silent, expectantly waiting for Stephen to continue as he shifted even closer to him.

“I love you, and I know I tell you that all the time but it means so much to be able to say it, and to be able to love you,” Stephen began. “I know you probably better than I know myself, both because we grew up together and because along the way you’ve always put your trust in me without hesitation. I know you don’t trust easily, and you have valid reasons for doing so, so to know that your trust in me has only increased is so important to me and I’m always going to cherish that. I’m always going to cherish you. Your kindness and selflessness are fucking insatiable and it makes my blood boil to know that people have tried to change and take advantage of you.”

Stephen let his words hang in the air, pressing a flurry of kisses to Anthony’s hair and face.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever really been close to, which you know so I don’t know why I’m telling you that,” Anthony replied. “I know I’m bad at emotions sometimes—”

“You really aren’t,” Stephen cut him off. “You’re very perceptive and empathetic, but much more towards others than to yourself. I didn’t mean to cut you off, I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been interrupting me our entire lives, since even before we could speak full sentences, and now you want to apologize?” Anthony teased. He laughed for the first time all day, his heart lighter than it had been in awhile.

Stephen’s heart sang.

“I love your laugh,” he murmured. “I love when you laugh like nobody’s listening, and when a song you love comes on and you start dancing. I love how you’re always talking about something and bringing people into your conversations. You’re magnetic, not even because of what you say but because of how you say it. Without a doubt you’re the most inviting person I’ve ever known, and I love you for that. I just really love the moments where it just hits me that I’m hopelessly in love with my best friend and that you love me too.”

“I think you’ve seen more of my real self than anyone else” Anthony replied. “Because you’ve always made me feel safe and comfortable enough to be emotional, even when I was discouraged from it. You’re one of the only constants, one of the only people who I know means every word they say to me.”

“I do, and I always will,” Stephen vowed. “I love you for everything you are, for much more than your mind and body even as amazing as they are. Everything at your core combines to make you the most creative, intellectual, and understanding douchebag I’ve ever met, but I wouldn’t have it another way. There’s no one else I’d rather call my lover and best friend.”

Anthony sighed shakily, beginning to cry into Stephen’s shoulder. He was overwhelmed, the stress of the day finally breaking from its orbit around him. His stress combined with the gratitude and love he felt for Stephen, leaving him emotional and vulnerable. Despite all of that, and despite how much Anthony hated to be vulnerable even in front of Stephen (he was still working on that), he knew he’d be okay. He knew he’d be able to be himself, no matter what mood he was in or how that looked, and find a home with his best friend.

Anthony let himself cry until he was almost asleep, his body still recovering from a brutal anxiety attack earlier. He could hear himself talking but was already drifting away, not thinking much before he talked. “I don’t think I’d be... I don’t think I’d be anything without you.”

“Give yourself more credit,” Stephen admonished, his voice sweet and loving and no louder than a whisper. “You’re incredible and unlike anyone I’ve ever known, but not because or in spite of anyone else.”

Anthony hummed, either agreeing with or questioning what Stephen said but it wasn’t clear which. He closed his eyes, looking content with the idea of sleeping for once.

Stephen didn’t say anything, still unwilling at this point to be snarky towards his boyfriend. He just petted Anthony’s hair, whispering as many sweet nothings and affirmations of love as he could.

Anthony still tried to stay up, not because he felt like needed to or because he was annoyed with himself, but because he wanted to hear everything Stephen had to say. Stephen knew this of course, smiling as Anthony fell asleep just after a soft, breathless “love you.”

tags: @stark-strange-love2 @h3mmy @ironstrange-chaos @doctorstephenvincentstarkstrange @majesticnerdynerd @spooky-n-spunky @kiwidino @chocopiggy @maya-custodios-dionach @thespacecryptid

[mylifeiskara]

fic writer asks

I was tagged by @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold and @burninghoneyatdusk!

Name(s): queenemori (though there’s an underscore on Twitter)

Fandom(s): The 100, though I used to write for the webcomic Check, Please! and I wrote one Stucky fic and some Harry Potter things that I hate now lol.

Where you post: AO3

Most popular one-shot (by kudos): My actual most popular one-shot is for Check, Please, but if we’re just counting t100, then it’s In Dads We Trust! This was a Bellarke/Memori prompt in which Bellamy and Murphy are stay-at-home dads with a Youtube channel and they get in a feud with Josephine, a popular mommy blogger. It was so much fun to write, and I’m glad people enjoyed it!

Most popular multi-chapter (by kudos): That would be You’re Already Breaking My Heart, aka my Bellarke To All the Boys AU, aka the reason this fandom trapped me in the first place, because it was my first fic. I hold it near and dear to my heart because it got me writing again after a long period of just not and I would not have the many other fics I have written for this fandom without it.

Favourite story you’ve written so far: We Don’t Need To Say It, my Memori actor AU! The longest fic I have ever written and the one I had the most fun writing as well. There aren’t very many long Memori stories and I knew I wanted to write one. This was rather self-indulgent, but I’ve gotten a lot of nice comments and other people seemed to enjoy it which makes me incredibly happy.

Fic you were nervous to post: Probably you’re the last best thing i’ve got going or danger has a hold on me (but i’m safe in your arms). The first, because it is my first Murven fic and I was not sure how some people would react to me posting for a different ship than I normally shout about. I’m pretty big on multi-shipping and I know some people are not lol, but I have gotten some nice comments on that one that have made me excited for some other Murven things I have in the works. And the latter because it is smut and I do not enjoy writing smut/do not like the smut I write, but I had the idea and it would not leave me alone so I had to get it written. 

How do you choose your titles?: Typically song lyrics, but a few of my titles are more based on the idea or something someone says in the fic.

Do you outline?: Yes, I outline obsessively (I’m a Virgo). We Don’t Need To Say It had two full outlines, one for the fic itself, and one for four seasons of the fake TV show I created for the story lol. 

Complete works: 25!

In-progress works: Currently one (but not for much longer). Piece Me Back Together is my Definitely, Maybe AU, featuring dad!Murphy, so it has Clurphy, Murven, and Memori all in one.

Coming soon/not yet started: Some holiday fics are mayhaps on the way 👀. A bunch of prompts that I need to catch up on, including another dad!Murphy story where he has a TikTok cooking show and a Memori Anastasia AU, among others! And in terms of multi-chaps, I have finally started the Bellarke Emma AU I kept talking about this summer, and I hope to post the first chapter in the coming week. And I’m working on my Gossip Girl rewatch for my Murven/Bellarke s1-s2 AU of that. It will most definitely be more Murven than Bellarke because I have not been paying attention to Dan and Serena on this rewatch but I feel like I’m okay with this outcome.

Prompts?: Yes! I’m accepting one-shot and WIP prompts through @t100fic-for-blm! There are a few prompts that are mine on our prompt ideas board and you can also check out our carrd for more general info. I typically write Memori, Bellarke, AU Murven, and I guess I dabble in Clurphy now too. But I’m honestly happy to write anything if Murphy is there.

Upcoming work you’re most excited about: I’m excited about a lot of things, but probably the Anastasia AU because I love that movie so much and I had actually been thinking about a Memori AU for it, so to actually get to write one is going to be a lot of fun!

Tagging/sending love: @mobi-on-a-mission | @bookwormforalways | @imunbreakabledude | @stealing-jasons-job | @useyourtelescope | @sparklyfairymira and whoever else wants to do it!

[cosmicbug379]

You Look Good in Purple

Pairing: Francisco “Catfish” Morales x Reader

Rating: T? There’s like one swear word. 

Warnings: None? This is super soft because I’m in a Mood™ and don’t seem to want to write anything else right now.

I’m back with another fic! Woo! This is extra extra SOFT because I woke up to a damn earthquake this morning and I felt like I deserved a little self indulgent fluff. I love Frankie so much and this is my first time writing for him so hopefully it’s not too bad. Honestly I should probably stop saying it’s my first time for anything because this is like the 3rd fic I’ve posted here so it’s safe to assume it’s my first time writing anything. SO if you desire to read my reader insert you may, but this is mostly for me. Also I suck at titles and endings, but I was afraid if I tried to drag it on more I would just make it worse so I hope the ending isn’t too bad.

Waiting for Frankie to get home was taking too damn long so you had decided to start painting the nursery without him.You hadn’t been able to decide on a color for the baby girl you had on the way and finally he had just picked one. You two had decided on a lavender purple for the walls and then Frankie had spent hours finding the perfect little pink butterfly decals to put over the crib. He was more excited than you had ever seen him and everyone could tell. He always made sure to research and buy the best things available for your baby girl. He was going to spoil her, you just knew it.

You had finished the white base coat by the time he finally got home and he was less than thrilled that you had started without him.

“We were going to do this together, baby,” he almost whined.

“I know, but I was bored and you were taking forever. Besides, I only did the base coat! We can still do the purple together and put up the butterflies and the crib and everything,” you defended. 

Frankie sighed but wrapped his arms around you and kissed your forehead.

“Alright, but you’re not getting on that step ladder anymore. It’s old and I don’t want it to break and you get hurt.”

“Fine,” you agreed. “But you have to buy me Chinese food because I’m really craving some crab rangoons and sesame chicken.”

He laughed and agreed to buy you Chinese food before helping you set up the rest of the paint and get started. You were on opposite sides of the room, and he smiled when he heard you singing along to the music coming from the speaker you had set up in the middle. He liked it when you sang, it usually meant you were happy. 

“I haven’t heard this song since our wedding,” he mumbled and turned to look at you singing along.

“Really? That’s impressive, because I listen to it all the time. It’s one of my favorites. It reminds me of you.” You smile at him before going back to your painting. 

Frankie watched you a little longer before switching sides and coming to stand beside you to paint the same wall. He doesn’t say anything, and neither do you, it’s just nice to be near each other. You’re about to say something about how nice it is to spend time with him when all of a sudden you feel some paint hit the side of your face and you gasp.

“Francisco! I swear to god if you just got paint in my hair I will kill you!” you turn to him and glare, but he can tell you don’t really mean it. 

“I didn’t do a thing,” he feigns innocence and tries not to smile too big. 

You roll your eyes and go back to painting. He thinks you might not retaliate, but after a few seconds, you gather a large glob of paint on your brush and fling it at him, getting it all over his shirt and face. It takes him a moment to register what just happened before he laughs and turns to you. 

“Oh, I’m gonna get you for that one, sweetheart. That was way more paint than I threw at you.” He waited a moment before lunging for you and you laughed and moved away from him, but he was faster. Catching you and pulling you back against his chest he uses the paintbrush in his hand to brush it all over your growing belly and then up over your neck before laughing and kissing your cheek.

You laugh along with him before turning around and kissing him deeply, pulling yourself as close as you can. He kisses you back enthusiastically and you both lose yourselves for a moment, but when Frankie is least expecting it, you strike. Using the paintbrush still in your hand you pull away from the kiss and immediately wipe the paint over his mouth and face before running from him again.

He chases after you, but not before gathering a little more paint on his brush for his revenge. The paint fight that ensues has both of you laughing and leaves you covered from head to toe. You decide Frankie looks good in purple and you tell him so with a laugh.

“Well thank you, beautiful. I was thinking the same thing about you. But we’ll have to buy more paint to finish up these walls,” he teases gently.

You look around and realize he’s right. Most of the paint has made it onto the two of you instead of the walls and there’s definitely not enough left to finish the job. 

“Well. Shit,” you laugh and look up at him. “To be fair, you started it. I guess we’ll just have to go get more and finish tomorrow when you get to stay home with me all day!”

Frankie laughs quietly but smiles and kisses your hair gently before whispering, “that sounds perfect, mi amor. Now let’s go take a shower and I’ll order us some food.”

You agree happily and follow him to the bathroom. It takes longer than you both anticipated to finally get all the paint off both of you. Frankie helps you wash your hair three times before it’s all out, but it was worth it. With everything that had been going on recently with Frankie getting his pilot license revoked and trying to get it back, and with a baby on the way, the two of you deserve a break to have a little fun.

When you’re done with your shower, Frankie orders the requested Chinese food for you and then sits with you to watch your favorite movie while you eat. It’s nice to just relax a little bit and spend time with him. You hadn’t been able to spend enough time alone together lately. 

Frankie has his head in your lap and you’re running your fingers gently through his hair while you watch your movie. You’re just starting to fall asleep when you feel the baby start to kick, but it’s a common occurrence at this stage in your pregnancy and you’re tired, so you try to ignore it. You keep your eyes closed even when you feel Frankie shift to kiss your belly and start whispering. 

“Hey, princesa.” he mumbles. “You need to let your mama sleep, she had a long day.”

You try not to smile when you hear him talking to your baby girl so he doesn’t know you’re awake, but it’s hard. You hope he’ll keep going, you love it when he talks to her. It’s so obvious how much he loves her, and it makes your heart melt.

“Do you know how much we love you, baby girl? We can’t wait to meet you. We’re getting your room all ready for you, you’re gonna love it. We got a little excited earlier, that’s probably why you’re not calm right now. Sorry about that, but your mama and I were having a good time. We’re just excited for you to get here and we love each other a lot, sometimes we get carried away. But don’t worry because everything will be perfect for you when you get here,” he keeps talking to your baby girl, telling her how much you both love her and how you can’t wait for her to join you.

The next time you feel her kick, it’s closer to Frankie’s head, right where he’s talking to your belly. That one is hard enough that it jolts you and you open your eyes and smile at him. 

“She likes hearing your voice. I think she might already like you more than me,” you tell him.

“Don’t say that. I’m sure she doesn’t like me more. She’ll like both of us.”

You smile a little bigger and push his hair away from his forehead. “Of course she will, you’re right.” 

“I’m definitely right. But maybe, just in case she does like me more, we should have another one and that kid will like you more,” he grins at you and you can’t help but smile back.

“Maybe,” you laugh. “We’ll see how we feel in a year or two. I have a feeling this little girl is gonna be a troublemaker just like her papa.”

He smiles a little then sits up and looks at you nervously, “What if I’m not a good father…? What if she really is just like me and something happens to her and I can’t stop it. God, what if she decides to join the military when she’s older?! I don’t want her anywhere near that. I don’t want her to go through all the shit I went through.” 

Frankie looks genuinely scared and it hurts your heart a little to see him like this. You know his time in the military isn’t something he’s always proud of and he always worries it will catch up to him and hurt you or your growing family. You cup his face gently in both hands and kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his nose and finally his lips, as light as a feather.

“Francisco Morales,” you begin quietly. “You will be a wonderful father. You already love me and our baby girl so much, there is not a doubt in my mind that you won’t do anything for her. The fact that you’re so worried about being a good father should prove that you will be. We won’t be perfect, that’s impossible. We’ll make mistakes and sometimes things won’t go exactly how we want them too. She’s probably going to fall off a bike or something and get hurt and she’ll have her heart broken, but guess what? Her wonderful, kind, sweet, loving papa will always be there to pick her back up and help her feel better. So never doubt that you will be a wonderful father.”

There are tears in his eyes when Frankie looks at you again. He kisses you with such passion, you think you never want him to stop. 

“Thank you,” he mumbles against your lips. “I love you, baby. More than anything, you know that right?”

You smile and nod before kissing him once again, “I know, Frankie.”

He kisses you one last time before standing and helping you up to go to bed. You follow him willingly and you two finish your nightly routine together before climbing into bed. It’s hard to snuggle with your belly in the way, so Frankie pulls your back against his chest tightly and kisses your neck while stroking your belly gently. “Get some rest, mi amor. Tomorrow we’ll go get more paint and finish the nursery.”

You nod sleepily and scoot back a little closer to him, “Goodnight Frankie. I love you.”

“I love you too, baby,” he whispers, but you’re already asleep.

Tags: @rzrcrst​ @landlockedmermaid77​

[musette22]

Dancing Queens

Dancing Queens

Pairing: Chris Evans x Sebastian Stan (Evanstan)

Words: 3.3k

Rating: Teen and up

Warnings: Outsiders POV

A/N: So I was writing an Evanstan AU and then I got one of those pesky ideas and I wrote a different Evanstan fic in an afternoon. I don’t why my brain does what it does sometimes 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyway, this is just something super self-indulgent and fun because I just LOVE to think of all the different ways in which Chris and Seb could’ve have gotten together (or could get together in the future), and also I love meddling friends and a tad of voyeurism. So yeah. Hope you enjoy this, and the Evanstan AU should be with you soon, too! ❤️❤️

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Twenty-two months.

It's been twenty-two months since Chris met Sebastian, and Sebastian met Chris, and the two of them fell arse over teakettle for each other. Since then, these absolute fools have been driving Hayley up the wall with their mooning, constantly making goo-goo eyes, laughing too loudly at each other’s jokes, desperately dating one pretty girl after another, only for things to fizzle out again and again because, obviously, their hearts aren’t in it. Their hearts, very clearly, belong to each other. Everyone with eyes can see that.

Well. Everyone with eyes, except for Chris and Sebastian themselves, it seems.

Tonight’s no different. The club where the wrap party for Captain America: The Winter Soldier is held is thrumming with life: people everywhere, some casually dressed, some in outfits that make Hayley, who’s not opposed to showing a bit of cleavage herself and who certainly isn’t religious, feel the urge to run to the nearest church to find a confessional booth. Lights are strobing, music is booming, liquor is flowing. Normally, Hayley would be dancing on a table at this point, or trying to get Sam Jackson to do an impromptu striptease, or doing belly shots off Hemsworth’s quite frankly spectacular abs.

Tonight, though, she’s on a mission. A mission seemingly impossible, but when Hayley sets her mind to something, she won’t rest until she succeeds. For a long time, she figured that Chris and Sebastian would simply sort themselves out at some point. No two people flirt that obviously and constantly with each other without it ever turning into either an awkward one night stand or a marriage. But clearly, neither of these things has occurred yet, or else these two pillocks would’ve stopped making such pathetic heart eyes at each other by now. It’s getting a little ridiculous.

Something needs to be done, and it seems Hayley is the one who needs to do it. Well, ultimately, it’s Chris and Sebastian who need to do it – do it lots and lots of times, preferably – but she’s accepted that she’s going to have to help them get there.

Right now, Chris – beer in hand – is telling Anthony some story that involves wildly waving his hands around and almost sloshing his beer all over himself, while Sebastian looks at him like he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, laughing so hard he needs to hold on to Anthony for support. Truly, he couldn’t look any more smitten if he tried. Meanwhile, Anthony is looking between Chris and Sebastian with an expression of amused exasperation. Hayley feels for him. She’s been in his position plenty of times herself.

Right, then. To the rescue. Downing what’s left of her glass of red, Hayley puts the empty glass down on the nearest table and starts making her way through the throng towards where the guys are stationed.

“Hello, boys,” she greets them, doing a little twirl followed by a tah-dah gesture. “Missed me?”

She’s hailed enthusiastically, hugs all round and another twirl under Anthony’s raised right arm, before everyone starts clinking their drinks together again like inebriated people tend to do.

“Where’s your drink?” Chris shouts, louder than the volume of the music warrants, when he notices she’s not holding a glass for him to clink.

He’s clearly tipsy, if not a little drunk, all expansive gestures and slightly slurred words. Chris is always handsome and wonderful, but Hayley finds that he’s rarely as charming as when he’s had a bit to drink. The alcohol lowers his already low inhibitions further, rendering him even more affectionate and handsy than he usually is. Though he’d never be handsy in a pervy way. Mostly, Chris just wants to be close to people, preferably by enveloping them in a bear hug that will unfailingly last for longer than is strictly appropriate. The man loves to cuddle. That’s why it always pains Hayley to watch him struggle not to throw himself at Sebastian every time he gets a little tipsy. Somehow, despite the beer taking away almost all of his filter and sense of personal boundaries, he always retains a proper distance from Sebastian. At most, he lets their arms brush one too many times, or he reaches out to squeeze Sebastian’s shoulder when he laughs. But it’s not enough. It’s glaringly obvious how desperately Chris wants to be closer. He’s practically gagging for it, and it’s getting to the point where Hayley herself feels parched just from being around that much thirstiness.

Sebastian is only a little better. He’s more skilled at hiding his true emotions, better at pretending he likes Chris a normal amount, especially in professional settings. But more often than not, he does eventually slip up. He’ll giggle like a school boy with a crush at something Chris says, start to blush when Chris praises his acting skills, gaze at him adoringly when Chris is regaling everyone with some bonkers anecdote or other.

Quite frankly, it’s nothing short of a miracle that these boys haven’t figured out how they feel about each other yet, because Hayley’s sure pretty much everyone else has. It’s an open secret, if you will.

In response to his question, Hayley leans up to kiss Chris’s bearded cheek. “I don’t want a drink, I want to dance!”

Grabbing Chris’s free hand, she tugs him along behind her. “Come on, Christopher, show a girl what those hips can do.”

Mackie wolf whistles, taking the beer that Chris hastily hands him as he follows Hayley onto the dance floor.

Chris rises to the challenge as she knew he would. That boy has a competitive streak a mile wide – he reminds her of herself in that regard. It’s one reason why they would never work, even if they seem compatible at first glance. Way too similar.

Almost instantly, Chris’s hands drop to her waist, firmly settling on the curve of her hips while she starts to move them. They don’t go easy – that’s not the point of this, after all. Hayley winds her arms around Chris’s neck and presses herself up against him. Chris is a fantastic mover, even when he’s drunk, and dancing with him certainly isn’t a hardship. Still, Hayley can’t enjoy it the way she normally would, because her mind is elsewhere.

It’s a few meters to her right, in fact, where Sebastian, clad in dark skinny jeans and a white, v-neck shirt that’s almost see-through, is leaning against the wall. Watching them.

Oh god, the poor sod looks miserable already. He’s trying to hide it, of course, smiling through the pain, but the way he starts worrying his lower lip a few minutes in, averting his eyes only for them to dart back to their undulating hips, as if he’s compelled to make himself suffer… It’s clear as can be that Sebastian’s jealous to the point where he would probably quite like to strangle her, even if he also adores her.

Hayley dances with Chris a little while longer, just until the second song turns into the third, and then she figures she’s done enough. She pushes away from Chris, slapping him playfully on the chest.

“Good effort, my love,” she decides, before she cocks her head and adds, “But I think I’d like to dance with Sebastian, now. I’m keen to find out if I can tease out that pretty blush of his, what do you say?”

Chris’s eyes widen a fraction, but she doesn’t wait for a reply, instead turning on her heel and striding back towards Anthony and Sebastian.

“Alright, handsome,” she says, taking Sebastian by the hand. “You’re up.”

Sebastian splutters something about how he doesn’t really dance, but Hayley ignores him, pulling him along behind her. She knows Sebastian’s just sulking, because she’s seen him bust some serious (if not particularly graceful) moves over the years. He dances, alright. Granted, he isn’t as good of a dancer as Chris, but he’s light on his feet and he holds his booze better than Chris does.

Pressing in close immediately, she rests her hands on his biceps as his settle automatically on her waist. For a moment before she starts to move, she looks up at him, forcing him to look her in the eye.

“Hey, cheer up, grumpy cat.” She goes cross eyed. “Dance with me. Let’s show these Yanks how us European kids do it, eh?”

That gets Sebastian smiling again, that lovely, gorgeous smile of his that’s melting hearts all over the planet, if her friends who are more up to date on the latest celebrity gossip are to be believed. Hayley herself isn’t immune to it either, but while Sebastian certainly has his sassy side, deep down, he’s just too sweet for her. She’d bulldozer all over him, and they both know it. They’re much better as friends.

It’s fun, dancing with Sebastian, especially once he starts to really get into it. They make a striking pair, Hayley’s pretty sure. Two winsome brunettes, spinning and grinding on the dance floor, are sure to turn more than a few heads.

And sure enough, when Hayley darts a look over Sebastian’s shoulder towards the wall, Christopher Robert Evans is practically salivating. He’s staring at them so intently he’s nearly crushing his long-forgotten beer bottle between his hands, eyes so dark they almost seem black in the dim lighting. The seams of his too-tight, black t-shirt are straining with how tensely he's holding himself, and what’s more, Hayley is pretty sure things are beginning to stir inside those washed jeans of his.

She giggles, hiding her face in Sebastian’s neck.

“What’s so funny?” Sebastian sounds a bit bemused.

“Oh, just… men are stupid.”

“Hey,” he says, but there’s no heat behind it.

Hayley pulls back enough to look at him, placatingly patting his cheek. “It’s alright, love, at least you’re pretty.”

Predictably, Sebastian rolls his eyes in a poor attempt to hide the way the comment makes him blush. Good lord, the man has the biggest praise kink she’s ever seen in her life. Yet another reason why he and Chris are perfect for each other; Hayley’s pretty sure Chris would never shut up given the chance to praise Sebastian freely. Already, Chris can’t seem to help but call him sweet and talented and amazing every time he’s asked even the simplest question about his co-star.

Hayley deliberately steers them back towards the others a little, enough to make sure Chris can hear her when she calls out to him, “Oi, Christopher, do me a favour and come here for a second, will you?”

Chris starts, shaking himself out of his reverie. “What, me?”

“Yes, you.” Hayley clicks her fingers. “Come one, chop chop.”

Believing this to be his cue to leave, Sebastian lets go of her, trying to step back, but Hayley just grabs him tighter. “Oh no, I’m not done with you yet, pretty boy.”

“But-” Sebastian says, but Hayley shushes him with a finger to his lips.

“Sshhh. Trust me, okay?”

Sebastian’s eyes narrow slightly in confusion, but he doesn’t pull away. Hmm. Hayley always suspected he’d be good at following orders. She turns a bit, grabbing a handful of Chris’s shirt and pulling him closer, slotting him in behind her.

“Come on, boys,” she challenges, tilting her head up to look at each of them in turn. “Grant this old lady her dying wish of getting to dance with two handsome men at once, won’t you?”

“I’m a year older than you,” Chris protests – the big lug.

Hayley shrugs. “Yes, well, you know perfectly well a woman’s lifespan in Hollywood is significantly shorter than a man’s. Enough talking, now’s the time for dancing.”

She starts to move again, swaying her hips from side to side to the music and forcing them both to move with her. With her right hand, she feels behind her, finding Chris’s hand and placing it on her hip – where Sebastian’s hand is also resting. Their fingers touch, Sebastian’s left hand to Chris’s right, and Chris makes to pull away, but Hayley tightens her grip and doesn’t let him escape. Once it seems like Chris has stopped trying to resist, she switches to her left side to do the same thing, basically leaving the boys to hold hands on top of her hips.

“That’s it,” she nods approvingly. “Just follow my lead.”

Neither man says a word, both of them ostensibly focusing their attention on her, but in reality, Hayley is certain the only thing they’re aware of his how close to each other they’re dancing and where their hands are touching. She can feel the tension in both of them, feel their hearts beating fast where their chests are pressed to her back and front.  

They’re not exactly dancing now, more of a slow grind that Hayley is pretty sure some of the women in their vicinity are shooting her jealous looks for, but she doesn’t give a flying fuck. All Hayley cares about in that moment is her mission, of which the crucial stage is coming up right...

Now.

In a smooth, calculated move, Hayley twists out from between Chris and Sebastian, causing them to stumble and fall forward – right into each other.

“Oh,” Sebastian blurts, hands coming up to brace himself. On Chris’s chest.

They both freeze, eyes growing wide in surprise but unable to look away; the proverbial deer in the headlights.

Before they have a chance to snap out of their shock and do something undoubtedly stupid that will endanger her entire mission, Hayley quickly grabs their shoulders and gives them a firm squeeze, effectively pushing them closer together.

“Very good, just keep dancing now. Atta boy.” And with a final pat, she’s gone.

Of course, she doesn’t go far, just stepping back far enough so that she’s out of their space but still close enough to have a clear view of what happens next.

Sebastian’s hands are still on Chris’s chest, one on each defined pectoral, while Chris’s raised hands are hovering awkwardly at the level of Sebastian’s midriff. They’re not moving, but they’re not moving away either, which Hayley counts as a tentative win. Skittishly, Sebastian averts his eyes to stare at a point somewhere over Chris’s right shoulder, and it’s all very awkward, until eventually, Chris cautiously lowers his arms, resting his hands lightly on either side of Sebastian’s waist.

At the touch, Sebastian visible exhales, as if he’d been holding his breath this entire time. In turn, Chris’s shoulders relax infinitesimally once he realizes Sebastian isn’t shoving him off. One of them, she’s not sure who, slowly starts to move again; just the slightest movement from side to side, but it’s enough to make Hayley clap her hands together in glee.

Slowly but surely, Chris and Sebastian start to sway together, finding a rhythm and sticking to it, almost perfectly in sync. They don’t speak, clearly terrified to do something that will break the spell, and it’s so ridiculously cute that Hayley has to fight the urge to squee.

While Sebastian is still studying that elusive spot on the far wall, Chris is watching Sebastian, looking completely enraptured. God, he’s so in love, it’s almost painful to watch. Hayley prays this won’t fall apart at the last minute, because Chris would be absolutely devastated and go all kicked puppy on them and that would be too much even for her to handle. Finally, her prayers are answered. It takes a while for Sebastian to gather his courage, but then he turns his head a fraction, and meets Chris’s eyes.

Hayley could swear she can feel the electricity crackling between them, can almost hear the sound of those pieces finally clicking into place. It’s quite possibly the most satisfying thing she’s ever witnessed.

The air around them changes, slows down, becomes thick and charged as they look deeply into each other’s eyes. All the while, they’re still moving together, Chris’s hands now gripping Sebastian’s waist more firmly as Sebastian’s hands slowly slide around to clutch at Chris’s shoulders. Chris pulls Sebastian’s hips forwards, flush with his own, and Hayley sees how Sebastian’s fingers dig into the meat of Chris’s shoulders. When Chris leans in a hair’s breadth, Sebastian responds in kind until their foreheads are touching, their noses bumping together, breathing the same air.

Chris murmurs something Hayley can’t make out, probably some sort of endearment, and then he's moving in, eyes closing as their lips meet for the very first time.

Hayley doesn’t even try stop the sound of pure joy that escapes her. She punches the air, whirling on the spot and almost bumping into Anthony. Anthony, who is beaming, grinning from ear to ear.

“You did it!” he yells, holding up his hand for Hayley to high five, which she does with feeling.

“I fucking did it!” Elated, she throws her arms around Antony’s shoulders and lets him spin her around. “Wait, wait,” she says as she’s put back on her feet again. “I need to see the rest.”

She turns back to the dance floor, just in time to see Chris lift his right hand to the side of Sebastian’s face. His big palm cradles Sebastian’s jaw as his thumb swipes almost tenderly back and forth over his cheekbone. Both of them have closed their eyes and they’ve all but stopped moving, too caught up in the kiss to have any attention to spare for dancing. Hayley can’t blame them. They’re stunning, getting lost in each other after nearly two years of helpless pining. It’s a sight she doesn’t think she’ll forget any time soon.

As she’s watching, the kiss deepens. Someone opens their mouth, the other follows suit, and suddenly there’s tongues – tongues and slick lips, hungry mouths devouring each other as if they’ve been starving for years and are finally, finally being fed.

Chris has got a tight hold of Sebastian and doesn’t look like he’s planning on letting him go anytime soon, but fortunately, Sebastian doesn’t look like he minds. In fact, he’s slowly sliding his hands down Chris’s wide back, lower and lower until they find his ass and he squeezes. Hayley can almost hear the growl Chris lets out at that, the way his fingers tighten in Sebastian’s hair, making him gasp for air.  

“Whoa,” Anthony mutters next to her, “I feel like I’m seein’ some things I’m not supposed be seein’.”

Hayley’s never been a prude, far from it, but even she starts to feel a little voyeuristic. She hums. “Might be time for them to move it off the dance floor, at least.”

She wades into the crowd until she reaches the tangled mess of limbs formerly known as Chris and Sebastian, tapping them on the shoulder to try and get their attention.

“My darlings, I am ecstatic that you’ve finally come to your senses, but you might want to move this somewhere a little more private, eh?”

Neither Chris nor Sebastian really responds, which, kind of rude, but okay, she’ll let it slide just this once. Drawing the line at actually poking her nose into their business, Hayley starts to gently push at them until they finally get the hint.

“What’s – huh?” Chris finally lifts his head, giving her a dazed look.

“Just going to take you somewhere a little less public,” Hayley assures him. “See that corner over there? It has your names written all over it.”

“Fuck,” Sebastian mutters, blinking out of his trance. “Yeah, come on, quick.” He takes Chris’s hand, entwining their fingers, and starts to pull him towards the designated corner.

“Okay, then,” Hayley says brightly. “I guess my job here is done. Have fun, boys. Oh, and be safe, yeah?”

With that, she lets them go, fondly watching them stumble to their destination, where they immediately resume their lip locking. And hip locking. It takes approximately five seconds before Chris is sliding a hand down Sebastian’s thigh, lifting his leg so that he can slot their groins together more effectively and grind against him while enthusiastically continuing to suck face.

Reluctantly, Hayley turns around, smiling to herself.

Mission complete.

Now, where's Anthony? She rather thinks she owes him a dance.

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