#also I did make this a mixture of things that could absolutely just be platonic or romantic

[eloquent-edits]

🗡️ “I’m all for platonic intimacy but this…?”

the subtext of romance is really peeking through 🗡️ friends to lovers scenarios

Person A going to person B’s house to watch a movie but getting looped into playing drunk card games with B and their parents

Working out together and A insisting on spotting B and adjusting their form

B playfully poking A in public and promptly getting tackled

B patting A’s cheek only to accidentally linger as they notice how the light catches in A’s eyes (A is DESPERATELY trying to not blush)

“Here’s the garage code.” “… Why am I receiving this information?” “You’re already over here a lot. My parents think it’s better than a key.”

Forced close proximity at a LAN party because there’s not much room at the table (and A’s arm keeps brushing against B’s, messing up their aim, but if anything the space between them decreases as the night goes on)

The “Oh, is B coming too?” to “A kidnapped me to come here and hang out” pipeline

Going from quick and funny head scratches to absentmindedly stroking/detangling their hair while chatting with friends

“Do I smell okay?” “You smell normal.” “Which is…?” “Like lilac and gooseberry.”

A melting into B’s hug after a long and stressful week

B helping A deal with a major headache by rubbing/scratching their back

A heating up B’s ears with their hands because B forgot ear muffs in winter

“My mom thinks you’re really pretty/handsome.” “My mom thinks you look like Adonis/Aphrodite.” “Can you ever take a compliment?”

Candid pictures give away the softness in B’s eyes when they look at A goofing around

B not minding when A gives them a long hug in public, even though they aren’t big on PDA in general

B drawing a shitpost and sending it to A, A setting it as their lockscreen, and months later B realizes that A still hasn’t changed it

B’s family automatically assuming that A might join for any family function and making A’s favorite dish accordingly

“I have to go into the office this week. Can I crash at your place since it’s closer?”

Hanging out for hours —> “I don’t want you to drive home this late.” —> waking up in each other’s arms because they both refused to let the other sleep on the floor/couch

“My clothes reek of you.” “You could’ve just told me to take a shower.”

[yan-lorkai]

Hello! I have a Black butler request if you don’t mind! (It can be yandere but If you can make it not to noticeable??? If that makes sense.)

If I may could I request a Ciel Phantomhive x Cruella De Vill reader? I mean not exactly like Cruella but the fact she was born with hair spilt between black and white, she owns multiple Dalmatians which are really aggressive guard dogs for her. And she has a wonderful sense of fashion, even though most her clothes are only black, white or red. She even has a nickname that combines her name and Cruel together (like “Cruel-(/N)”) because she can be really honest and it comes off as rude. She is short temper but unlike Cruella she is only occasionally sassy but most of the time she is quiet because she used to get made fun of for her hair.

Also I was hoping it would be a oneshot, with a few hc. But if that’s to much it can just be hc! Thank you and have a nice day!

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ A/N: I hope I did this rq justice because I absolutely loved it. Detailed rqs my beloveds. As you ask, I did some hcs and then wrote a little drabble, though I do apologize for such delay in answer it. Hope you like darling <33

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Warnings: Platonic content. Maybe typos too.

☆*: In Ciel's ears, the news of a figure with two-tone hair who only dresses in black and red reaches him through gossip that Lau felt the need to share. The rumors, however, were not enough to capture the earl's attention at first. Who cares if Londoners are talking about this girl because she acts different and has a sharp tongue? Who cares if she has some protective dogs who can attack on command?

☆*: Certainly not Ciel. He has better things to worry about being the Queen's Watchdog besides running his own company. Gossip and rumors are not something that holds his attention unless they are related to the murderers who killed his parents.

☆*: So it takes a while before you finally get to know each other and he can get a glimpse of your strong genius. And heavens, he's enchanted, even if he doesn't know it, feelings aren't Ciel's thing. One thing he knows, this night will be one he would never forget.

...

Reluctantly, Ciel was participating in the celebration. A glass of juice in his hand as he watched each of the nobles approach the throne, kneel and say their rehearsed congratulations. So typical of nobles, so insincere. He hated it here, he could be doing so many things right in the comfort of his office. Still, he smiled and played his part when all adults around him looked down on him just because he was the only child here.

The starry night became filled with light and laughter; The Queen was throwing a party to celebrate another birthday well spent. Her age-kissed skin was still glowing, her eyes carrying a tinge of unforgettable joy, and her voice a jovial tone. As usual, she sat on her throne and waited for one by one the nobles to greet and boast about the gifts that were certainly better than the others.

It was funny to watch though. They all just seemed like jealous peacocks, huffing and puffing their feathers, wanting the queen attention on them.

Sebastian when can we leave? was what he wanted to ask to the butler at his side. What he almost asked. But right at that moment he heard a commotion.

A few meters ahead stood the notorious Cru-y/n DeVil, your presence commanding attention. Ciel couldn't help but be drawn to you, his gaze fixating on you with a mixture of intrigue and caution. Despite your reputation, he couldn't deny your beauty, a striking contrast to the darkness that surrounded your name. You were young, much like himself, yet exuded a confidence that belied your age, almost as if you too had to grown fast to protect yourself.

You seemed to be fighting a much older and powerful woman. The duchess who was always looking to fight someone and today had just found her new victim. But you aren't having any of that, making exaggerated gestures and smiling mockingly at the duchess.

Ciel observed the scene with a mixture of amusement and exasperation, at least the party turned out to be entertaining with this little fight happening and the queen was also watching you two too intently, curious, not at all bothered by it. Ciel couldn't help but roll his eyes when the duchess continued to argue and pointed her finger at you.

"Your hat is adorable" You say in a loud and clear tone, with the sweetest smile you can produce. "I'm sure it was worth sacrificing Big Bird, its poor beautiful yellow feathers wasted on this hat that perfectly fit your head."

A murmur starts around the two of you, some are laughing loudly, others are whispering among themselves, repeating what you said. The duchess, wanting to appear strong and resilient, fixes her khaki yellow hat - that barely fits in her head, lifts her chin an extra millimeter and leaves. However, Ciel knew that your comment would still haunt her for months to come. Today she had lost a fight and was insulted.

Undeniable was that the hat was horrendous.

Holding back a laugh that seems to want to escape him anyway, Ciel takes off his hat in greeting to you as soon as your eyes meet. He understood now why everyone was talking about you so much. To the court you were like a fresh breath of air, devastating if you hate it, great if you like it. And he absolutely like it. Not a lot of younger aristocrats behave this way and he really needs someone different to spend time, as Elizabeth is quite overwhelming with her affection and Sullivan is busy.

He approach you and with this gesture, plans to know more about you. He is now curious and his curiosity must be satisfied.

[telperinquaar]

Noirlander

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet?

Noir was his mentor, of course. That didn't develop into feelings until later, but that's how it started.

2. What was their first impression of each other?

Homelander was, I think, impressed by Noir, if for no other reason than Noir had the experience and credentials that he himself lacked. (Mirrorlander, of course, saw him as a threat, but that wore off when Noir offered to help him out.) Noir, on the other hand, saw this wide-eyed (and quite frankly terrified) naive kid getting worked over by Madelyn and decided NOPE ABSOLUTELY NOT and decided "Welp, this is my son now"

3. Did any of their friends or family want them to get together?

Canonically, of course, they don't get together. In my little AU though, nobody cares as long as Homelander is leaving them alone. (And of course everyone is too afraid of Noir to say anything :'( )

4. Who felt romantic feelings first?

Noir, although I'm not sure either of them are emotionally aware enough to realize they're in love. I don't think Homelander would realize that he had a boyfriend (in a similar way that I don't think he ever thought of Stillwell as a girlfriend) and I'm not sure Noir could articulate what exactly was happening with his feelings--the mixture of parental/platonic/brotherly/romantic love baffles him. If asked, he just shrugs and says he loves the Homelander, and then goes back to his doodles.

5. Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

Nah. Like I said, I don't think either of them actually realized there were feelings like that.

6. If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

Noir would just shrug; he doesn't believe in soul mates. Homelander would make That Face. You know the one.

7. What would their lives be like if they had never met?

I think both of them would both be far more ensnared in Vought. Homelander would have been completely at the mercy of Stillwell, and Noir would have simply become Stan Edgar's lapdog.

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

Okay so I've got this whole little AU where Noir lives (you can see it on my AO3) and that's what I'm going with 😤 Neither of them did. Noir intended to leave, but didn't make it out of the building before turning back around and showing Homelader exactly what Soldier Boy had done to him. The night before the showdown, they had sex in an effort to comfort both themselves and each other. Although thinking about it, Homey moved in for the kiss first 🤔

2. Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

Not really. They're not actually aware they're in a relationship 😭

3. What was their first kiss like?

Noir was terrified because he had his mask off and I'm not sure Homelander was sure he was going to do it. (They obviously enjoyed it though.)

4. Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

They were both each other's first experience with a man. Noir, dealing with his own traumatic childhood and self-esteem issues, hadn't ever actually had a relationship before at all.

5. What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Noir is 6'3". Homelander is 5'11". Noir is in his early 70s, and Homelander is almost 40.

6. What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

Noir was more than happy to put Soldier Boy back in the box, and he absolutely adores Ryan. He also doesn't have any family for Homelander to get to know.

7. Who takes the lead in social situations?

Homelander, obviously. It's easier to take the lead if you're the only one who can talk.

8. Who gets jealous easier?

Again, Homelander. But Noir doesn't have any (real) relationships besides Noir, so there's not really anything for him to get jealous over. 😭

9. Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear?

Noir literally cannot speak so once again, Homelander 😭

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first?

Noir, although they both flash each other the sign fairly regularly.

2. What are their primary love languages?

Noir shows his love by... what do you call it. Acts of service. He actually knows how to cook (although he's got his own way of doing things) and likes to make people meals. Homelander does have to check on him though, because the only thing worse than dissociation in the kitchen is dissociation in the kitchen while the stove is on. Homelander is... he listens to Noir, asks questions, engages with him, and makes Noir a part of his life. His love language is treating someone as an equal, even though (to him) they wouldn't be otherwise.

3. Who uses cheesy pick-up lines?

Neither of them.

4. How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

In public? They don't. In private though, they're very touchy.

5. Who initiates kisses?

Generally Noir. There have been a few times that Homeland has tried initiating smooches when Noir was zoned out and it... did not end well. 😭

6. Who’s the big and little spoon?

They switch. Noir likes being the big spoon though. He sees Homelander as his responsibility, and when Homey's little body is curled up against his, he feels like he's actually able to protect him.

7. What are their favorite things to do together?

They enjoy playing with Ryan. It makes them feel as close to a normal family as they're ever gonna get.

8. Who’s better at comforting the other?

Noir is better at it simply because Homelander has the emotional skills of a potato. He tries though, and for Noir, that's enough.

9. Who’s more protective?

Oh, both of them. The most frustrating thing is that there's only so much each of them can do for the other.

10. Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

Physical, absolutely. Noir loves the way that touch makes him feel less monstrous and scary, and Homelander is just a very tactile guy.

11. What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

I don't really do this whoops 😭

12. What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

Again, they don't really do that, whoops

13. Who remembers the little things?

Homelander remembers things like dates, anniversaries, etc. Noir generally just has a vague idea of what day it is. But he remembers things like if you offhandedly said you liked a movie or a certain type of music. They both remember little things, just... different little things.

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes?

Time to break out the Momlander and Dad Noir AU (ft. nonbinary Homelander) Noir proposed. Homelander got pregante and Noir proposed a publicity wedding. It was meant to help keep Homelander's ratings up, as well as protect her reputation from the fact that she was having a baby out of wedlock.. It very much started off as a "fake relationship" thing.

2. What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

It's a very thrown-together affair, just something so there are photos for the news. They literally just wear their costumes and a bridal veil and tie. There were other members of the Seven, a few other big-name supes, and some Vought employees and and actors who filled out the world's strictest NDAs.

3. How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

Just Ryan, and he's... Ryan. He's a sweet kid who's a little shy. They've done their best to keep him out of the paparazzi, to the point where they actually do keep a house in the suburbs they retreat to. Neither parent enjoys going out in civvies, but Ryan is their precious perfect angel bab and they would do anything for him. 😔❤

4. Do they have any pets?

Ryan has an incredibly fancy aquarium when he's staying at the Tower. A gift from Uncle Kevin. He takes care of them when Ryan is off being a normal child. (The Homelander is not happy about this, but see question 3.)

5. Who’s the stricter parent?

Probably Homelander, simply because she... doesn't exactly know better. But she tries, and Noir manages to be a counterbalance to that so it generally works out okay.

6. Who worries the most?

They both worry 😭 Noir is worried that he's going to accidentally hurt Ryan--he barely held him at all at first--and Homelander is afraid that she'll screw him up. But again, their worries and strengths help balance the other one out, and things work out fine because it's my story and I said so :@

7. Who kills the bugs in the house?

Homelander would kill them, Noir would ignore them, but Ryan was very intent on the fact that they should take them outside, so lately, that's what they've been doing.

8. How do they celebrate holidays?

In addition to having their little suburban home, they've also got a cabin out in a more rural area, which is where they go to celebrate holidays, especially the ones involving fireworks.

9. Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

Oh they both do this. Noir was very sure to teach Ryan about Saturday Morning Cartoons so that they could get just a bit more sleep. :'(

10. Who’s the better cook?

Noir, but Homelander is learning.

11. Who likes to dance?

Noir, obviously. Look at those moves 😭

(questions)

[black-mambaaaa]

Rating the Songs of the Big Time Rush 'Another Life's Album.

Can't Get Enough

Chef's kiss

It's got like this funky kinda retro sound to it that I absolutely adore.

Has big og Big Time Rush vibes

I'm love, the 'ahs' give me chills every time.

9/10

Waves

This first time I heard this song I was blown away

This new sound they have going is so good

I adore their voices

No notes

10/10

I Just Want To (Party All the Time)

Has a very good beat and fun chorus.

They definitely sound like they partying, but not sure they're partying as hard as Party Rock 🤔

It's very catchy

The saxophone part gives me old tv show theme song vibes (maybe I'm thinking full house) and it makes me feel good so I like it.

8/10

Weekends

Okay so I'm biased cause I'm a slit for songs that are bumping but sad

Casually obsessed with this one, but only casually.

The lyrics are really clever and I'm still feeling over 'every word I ate made my stomach ache' well played

The chorus is so good

I feel this song on a deep level because too many similar experiences (platonically of course)

11/10

Work For It

I don't hate it

It's not my favorite though

The beat is very good, but I'm not gonna lie the chorus reminds me of a lot of Maroon 5 songs (not that that's a bad thing I like Maroon 5, fight me)

I could absolutely get down to this song on the dance floor (not the bedroom you weirdo I'm ace 🙄)

7/10

Forget You Now

I love Big Time Rush so much it's hard for me to give them a low ranking.

That being said the beginning of this song reminds me of the beginning of that one song about the body shop (I think it's called unholy or something like that)

The chorus is what grabbed my attention.

You spin my head right round baby right round

It's definitely not my favorite, but they really know how to get vibes going

The part where you hear them kinda echoing 'i can't forget you' is very haunting in the best kind of way

I wish Logan would've gone a little higher on that note he held out, but also idk his range

7/10

Brand New

No words.

This song has put me on the verge of tears (can't actually show weakness and cry 🥲)

It hit me on such a personal level that you could literally hate this song and I'd just 🤷‍♀️

If you hate this one you have no heart.

Holy shit they somehow took their normal love songs and made it HURT.

Their harmonies alone in this song killed me dead

Carlos, Logan, James, and Kendall's voices all blend together so well

I have not stopped listening to this song on repeat and self inflicting that good hurty

14/10

Ask You Tonight

This song is furthest from my liking not gonna lie, but I absolutely will still listen to it

This song is one you'd hear in a Hallmark movie

As a wedding photographer, this is a song people are going to dance to at their weddings

It's still very good

I literally cannot score these bois low

James hitting them notes always sucks me in help

I love that they can go from bumpin to soft and sweet

7/10

Superstitious

Help me

I keep getting a mixture of this one and Weekends stuck in my head

At first I wasn't sure I liked it, but it grew on me and is now in my top 4

The chorus is cute and fun

I too am not superstitious but I could be for those four 😘

It's another soft bop

I'm a slut for that soft electronic pop sound so this song automatically Ranks

They really did pour their magic on me with this one

10/10

Another Life

These boys have really really captured the hurty vibes with this album

The echoing sound it's got echoes in my soul, can you hear it?

Again, this one hit kind of close to home for me

I love how much we hear their individual voices, because they all sing like angels.

No notes

No thoughts head empty (except for this song)

The heart beat at the end was a little jarring at first but it's grown on me

12/10

Sorry if you disagree with my rankings, but if you don't like them, rank them yourself you don't need someone else to tell you how things rank for yourself. Anyways I adore Big Time Rush and have not stopped listening to this album, it has hardcore invaded my brain.

[laffy-taffy-creations]

DAY TWENTYYYYYYYYYYY

This fic was cross-posted on AO3 here

Shattered Worlds Shatter Hearts

Blanket | Found Family | "You will regret touching them"

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Words: 1,958

Warnings: Arguing, platonic break ups, kidnapping, implied manipulation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, out of curiosity, what’s your guys opinions on MEQAT3?” I asked. I waited with bated breath.

There had been some leaked documents, spread misinformation, things that painted me as the bad guy. Who I used to be known as. I tried leaving that place behind.

“Oh, fuck no. They’re nothing but pure evil, cold-blooded killer, extremely dangerous, I just want to… punch them in the face!” Deku spat out.

Yikes. I knew the misinfo was that bad, but… this? From him?

“I think that’s a bit far, but… yeah, from what I’ve heard they sound like another villain. Probably someone up there with the ranks of Voltluxe and the LOV I’d bet,” Ochako said.

“Huh.”

“Any particular reason for that question?” Midoriya asked.

I straightened. “Well, I keep seeing a bunch of stuff painting them as a bad person but, like… has anyone ever actually seen them? I mean, they could easily be strawman, or someone who’s image has been… misconstrued, and manipulated to push a narrative just as easily as they could be someone to stay away from,” I explained. “Also, yikes, I dont think I’ve ever heard you use those words to describe someone Midoriya.”

“I’m sticking with what I said. Nothing but a heartless monster the way I see it.”

A mixture of fury, fear, and helplessness swirled in my stomach. “Have you ever actually seen them? Ever met them?” I tried.

“Have you?” he shot back.

He was so… sure of himself! He barely even listened to what I had said, falling for the propaganda so easily!

“It’s pretty hard not to have met my fucking self!” I shouted. Then recoiled. I realized what I’d said.

His expression fell. “You’re… MEQAT3?” he asked.

With a deep breath I nodded.

Then it morphed into one of disgust. “I cant fucking believe you. YOU’RE ‘MEQAT3’?”

Shock. “Are you kidding? You’ve known me for… how long has it been now? And you seriously believe that I would do that?”

“Well if you’re MEQAT-fucking-3 then I dont know what else you’re hiding."

“I wasn’t hiding anything! MEQAT3 is a name that has ties to a lot of trauma for me, I wasn’t fucking ‘hiding’ anything from you guys! You’ve seen me, I’m not like that!”

Uraraka sat back during the whole conversation, shifting nervously.

“Well I guess I dont know you then.”

“You know, your blind faith in your sources is so amazing I could almost forget that you just called ME a COLD-BLOODED MURDERER OF ALL THINGS AND A HEARTLESS MONSTER!”

“You dont even know my sources. I have others that aren’t from the fucking internet, OV. I’ve heard things. Dont try shit like that with me.”

“You know I have a good feeling I know who you’re talking about and I cant even believe that you’re willing to believe him over your own friend.”

“You’re no longer my damn friend.”

All Might. He was choosing to believe All Might over me on the things that happened to me.

“I cant fucking believe you right now,” was the last thing I said before storming off to my room before I did something I’d regret.

So much for his usual belief of ‘everyone needs a hero, everyone deserves to be saved’. He cant even get over his own bias for the sake of saving friendship. How does he think he’s gonna save actual people in danger? What makes All Might soooo much more reliable than us? What makes him so special?

[Calm yourself a bit Clovie]

Absolutely not! He’s willing to believe Him over us and not able to recognize literally all ‘information’ about us came from him! It turns into a he-said-we-said situation but he’s too fucking blind to that because of his own obsession!

[It’s not fucking fair, it was never fucking fair. But we cant blame him for his own false conclusions.]

He said he wanted to punch us Augs. He called us a cold-blooded murderer, and a heartless monster.

[He’ll come around in due time… hopefully. All we can do now is wait.]

I’m gonna punch something.

[Just dont punch him.]

You say that like we’d ever consider it as an option…

----《 ¤ 》----

Trapped. Captured. Brilliant. With the one person who wanted nothing to do with me.

The chains around me clanked while I adjusted my position. I was kneeling on the floor, trying to get a feel for the situation.

I vaguely knew this place. Clearly we were being held captive. I didnt remember much of my actual capture, I could only tell that it had happened because, well, I wasnt where I was meant to be and also in chains.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Midoriya asked. He’d gotten a lot more… distant at the very least. I wouldn’t call it hostile. It most certainly was hostile, considering this was Deku, but most people wouldn’t really pick up on it, and it couldn’t really be considered that hostile.

At the very least it was aggressive.

“I’m just trying to figure out what the fuck my options are, because I dont use my quirks to save us, then I’m selfish. If I do use them, then I’m a monster solely for having them in the first place because of their capabilites, so I’m just trying to figure out the best course of action so that you dont get more mad at me!”

He sighed. “Vee, I’m not mad at you-”

“You told me our friendship was over just because I’m MEQAT3.”

“MEQAT3 is a monster who killed people. You are OV. There’s a difference.”

“And how exactly does that work?!” I turned to look at him. “Whether you like it or not, I’m MEQAT3, that is a name that has been used to refer to me many times, we are not separate people, but the version you’ve been lied to about is!”

“And that real version of MEQAT3 is a monster who killed people.”

I just looked at him in disbelief. “Okay, firstly, I AM the real version of MEQAT3! Second, those people I supposedly killed attacked me first! They experimented on me for years, put me in a shock collar when I stepped out of line, funnily enough THEY were the ones that killed MY friends, the other experiments in my line! They killed my friends, kidnapped me- I have not seen my parents a single day since I was nine -and I only ESCAPED their clutches because of these powers, ones they forced upon me by the way. And third, I didnt even kill them. I should’ve! Especially considering all the shit they did, to me and my friends! But I didnt. They were in the infirmary for a few days at fucking most, recieving more immediate care than anyone else already in the damn infirmary!”

The villain walked in through the doorway. “Well well, you two fighting already? Dang, that didnt take long, wasn’t even my original goal! But I can work with this~,” they purred.

"Oh shut it, this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

"No no, it doesn’t, please keep arguing,” they said with an amused smile on their face.

Deku tried breaking out of the chains with his quirk, but ultimately failed.

“Awww, trying rush to escaping? But I haven’t even gotten to the main part!” the villain said, drawing some sort of specialized gun from somewhere and charging him.

Well, they would’ve been, had I not put up a giant wall that ensnared them upon contact so they couldn’t get to him. “I dont fucking think so you lunatic,” I growled.

I snapped the chains around me and stalked towards where I held them in place. “You touch him I’ll make you fucking regret it.”

“Uhm… Vee?” he asked nervously from behind me. I turned. I assumed it would have been from seeing my powers actually in use for the first time, and it mostly was.

But there was also marks, running across what skin was visible, a few ever so slight slashes in his outfit.

My grip around the villain tightened. “Yeah?”

“What are you-?”

“I dont have the time for a sentimental moment right now, there’s a villain here but yes I’m saving you because like it or not I still see you as my friend.” I turned back to the villain. “And for you, since apparently you already had some fun, I will make you regret it.”

The place around us turning into some sort of void, a reality of its own, controlled by me rather than the bunker we had previously been in. The blurring of faded colors mixing with with a darkness far beyond was the only thing one could see in the environment, like something out of a video game. I ensured that me and Izuku were on a platform, safe from all else in the area while the villain got subject to plenty of horrors. Spikes, none deadly, choking to near suffocation, and finally when I switched us back to our reality, thrown against a wall.

“Hopefully you learn your lesson not to mess with class 1-A again, it’d be a pain to do that all over again but worse. Anyways, I’ll be taking this, bye!” I said before grabbing Deku by the shoulder and teleporting us both to the common room.

I didnt give him the chance to say anything, instead leaving to go get a blanket of sorts and gather my thoughts. Just a quick moment of decompression. Even when I did return, I didnt comprehend anything he was saying if he was talking at all. I chose to go on auto-pilot.

I would not be able to handle more verbal abuse. Not right now.

I settled him on the couch, healed up what injuries I could see, which was probably a new power he hadnt been told despite it being the first one forced upon me, which only proved my point about propaganda and slander, and then went to the kitchen to go make some food.

“If ever under an intense amount of perceived stress, you almost always resort to cooking.”

I froze.

“Aaaand your fear response is only ever freeze when something has to do with your past…”

“What are you doing?" I asked, going back to the food.

“Just…” He sighed. “Just starting over I guess. Going with what I know. They never mentioned that you had a healing power.”

I snorted. “Huh, I wonder why…”

“Shut up.”

“I told you from the first day. I’m not in control of my public image. The person who forced this all upon me is. And me having the capabilities to heal at all obviously would’ve been omitted, as well as all the time I actually spent caring for the others at the lab.”

“Whatever… Who even experimented on you? You mentioned something about that.”

“...okay, you’re gonna wanna stay sitting for this one. Snuggle up in that blanket, get nice and cozy, cause this is gonna be hard to take,” I told him, adding a few things to the stew I was making and putting a lid over it, lowering the stove temperature.

I turned around. He wore an expression of equal parts confusion and fear.

“There’s only one person popular enough to have made this much of a fuss about the old me, and it was a hero. And they would’ve had plenty of incentive to spread all that slander, to attempt and drag me down, keep me quiet and afraid. Would have worked, except that I’m not afraid.”

“...oookay?”

“Who exactly gave you all those first-person accounts about how ‘terrible’ I was?”

He thought for a moment, before his features morphed, and I could’ve pin-pointed the exact moment his entire reality shattered.

[that-one-fandom-girl]

Great theory! It really seems to fit!

And if we go a little further with it, like if we look at:

Felix:

He usually (when he’s not pretending to be Adrien) wears a white shirt and black pants/vest/tie; which we could infer as he wants to take control over Adrien’s and his own actions back from Gabriel, but while that’s his main goal, his actions are also mixed with love for Adrien and his mother.

Emilie:

She wears almost all white, but with a black undershirt and though we don’t know that much about her; maybe it means she was almost as controlling (towards Adrien and possibly Nathalie) as Gabriel, but her actions were still being driven by love? Like maybe she was a bit of a control freak, but it was because she wanted the best for her family?

Amilie:

Meanwhile, Amilie’s outfit is almost all black with the tiniest bit of white trim; which I thought about it, and I think it could show that Amilie is driven almost purely out of love for her family and probably primarily Felix, and the white shows that she has control over herself in how she acts. For instance, almost every time she’s in the presence of someone else (who isn’t Felix), she’s putting on an act to drive her son’s plans further into fruition (i.e. when she talks to Gabriel about the ring and tries to talk him into giving it to her in the episode ‘Felix’, and her body language also shows Felix that Gabriel is indeed wearing the ring and which finger/hand it’s on. Or when she lies to Ladybug and Cat Noir in Multiplication about whether she knows where Felix is). She controls herself perfectly to act how she needs to to help Felix; looks like Emilie wasn’t the only actress in the family ;).

Nathalie:

She wears almost all black, but she also has a red shirt on underneath (she also has red and black accents pretty much everywhere, even in her hair, lol); which probably symbolizes her love for Gabriel (romantic in S1-4, mostly platonic and tired of his schemes in S5), Adrien, and Emilie- and her feeling of loyalty and duty for the Agrestes, both because she’s, well, pretty much a servant for them, and because of her personal ties to them. Almost every action she takes in the series is driven by either love or duty (or a mixture of them); from ‘stealing’ Marinette’s gift to give Adrien so he’d have a birthday present and wouldn’t feel like his dad didn’t care, to helping Gabriel prior to the series-S4 and even going so far as to be Mayura when he asked her not to and she could’ve gotten even more sick, to also asking to be Akumatized so that she could double-cross Gabriel and make the wish herself.

Andre Bourgeois:

As much as I dislike him, he also has this color scheme, lol. He wears a black suit and a white shirt underneath, which could symbolize his love for his girls, but also his love for power, which he has almost absolute power at times because he abuses it.

Chloe:

She also has part of this color scheme in her undershirt with a black-and-white striped design (I don’t know what yellow could symbolize, so I won’t elaborate on her jacket); I think it could show her power she also kinda really abuses being the Mayor’s daughter, but I think the black shows both her love for Adrien and Sabrina (romantic and platonic, in that order), and the love she craves from her mother, Adrien, Ladybug…and most everyone. This may be a hot take, but I think Chloe (at first at least) just genuinely did want love but was still a brat, so she just drove away anyone who could’ve shown her love because something they did/had was “utterly ridiculous”, they disagreed with her, or they didn’t like her. Plus, her mother is Audrey 🤦🏼‍♀️, so her vision of love of any sort is messed up anyway. I think she’s similar to Adrien in that she wanted to feel loved, but she lacked Adrien’s manners, empathy, concern, morals, and she…just always wanted things her way and never relented really.

Audrey Bourgeois:

This one I feel is kinda simple; she wears an almost all-white outfit with just a stripe of black, and I think that really just symbolizes that she has a ton of power and she loves it, lol.

And staying with the Bourgeois’s a little more (😔), their ‘present’ from Gabriel in Heart-Hunter (the huge two-person robe) was white and red; which could very well be the control Gabriel was taking over them and the struggle they had over which one of them would be in control-and the duty the situation could’ve placed on them to act with at least a little decorum since they were in front of a lot of people if only they weren’t focused on being the more powerful person.

I know this is also a long post (sorry, just had a lot of thoughts about it), but finally, Juleka and Zoe both have some of the colors in this spectrum; and I think Juleka’s black outfit (besides being emo) also maybe shows that she does love a lot, but with her speech impediment/being shy, she doesn’t outwardly show it a lot. And maybe Zoe’s black and white shows that she is outwardly loving to people, but has to control everything she does so she doesn’t get kicked out of the hotel.

So a year or two ago I saw this amazing post on tumblr about colour symbolism in Miraculous (I really wish I could source it here but I can’t find it anywhere I am literally kicking myself right now). Anyway, it is an incredible theory and once start seeing the connections you can’t stop. The basic idea is that the some of the colours that characters wear or are associated with symbolise their general motivations. The theory focuses specifically on the colours red, white and black. The meanings kind of evolved as more people reblogged but from what I remember the basic gist is this:

Red= duty / loyalty

White= control

Black= love

I think they actually said that black was romance, but that definition is just a little too limiting in my opinion and broadening in it out allows you to make more connections. I am also broadening out red as well to include loyalty for the same reasons (besides duty and loyalty are also pretty similar, so it’s not that much of a stretch).

Anyway, I bring this up because I saw the post at some point during season 4—definitely before the release of season 5 anyway, but looking back on the latest season just made me realise that oh my god they were so right. So, I’m just going to show you some of things I’ve noticed when it comes to this theory, especially surrounding season 5. (Buckle up guys, this is gonna be a long post).

But before I get into all that, I just want to mention that the placement of the clothing also informs the meaning behind the colour. This was also mentioned in the original post too I believe, but I can’t remember exactly how it worked so I’m just gonna put my own spin on it based on what I noticed.

So when I say the placement of the clothing I’m really just talking about whether the colour is the top or bottom layer of clothing—jacket vs. T-shirt, blazer vs. shirt etc.. The bottom layer is the character’s core motive, with the top layer being more secondary. A lot of the time the secondary motive informs the core one, so it kind of becomes the means with which they achieve their core motive. For example, a character wearing a red coat with a black T-shirt could be interpreted as loyalty or duty coming from a place a love—they do what they believe is right because of the people they love etc.

Ladybug / Marinette

Ok, time to put this theory into action, and what better place to start than the main character? Ladybug’s costume is pretty straightforward: red with black spots. The red obviously represents her duty as a hero, her main motive when in costume. and the spots could either represent her love for Paris or if you’re a Ladynoir shipper, her love for Chat Noir, it could really go either way.

Her civilian outfit is where it starts to get interesting though. Marinette wears a black blazer with a white top underneath. With the white as the core motive and the black as the secondary one, this indicates love from a place of control, and this is backed up by the events of show. Marinette clearly does love Adrien but she can also be very particular about how she approaches her love. She knows every detail about him, such as the schedule she has in “Copycat”, and feels the need to control every detail when she tries to confess to him, such as Operation: Secret Garden in “Gigantitan”. This controlling nature is only solidfied in the episode “Derision” after Kim pranks her on their date. “I should’ve had a plan […] I’ll never tell another boy that I love him before I know everything about him” (11:53-12:04).

Chat Noir / Adrien

Chat Noir is also pretty simple when it comes to colour symbolism in the show. His suit is all black, indicating that his main motive is love. In earlier seasons this most likely symbolised his love for Ladybug but now that he is with Marinette we can assume that it symbolises his generally loving attitude, whether it be towards his friends, family, maybe even Paris itself.

His civilian clothing also points to this same idea, with his T-shirt being black. Adrien also has a white over shirt, but rather than this representing some need for control, I’d argue this more so symbolises Gabriel’s control over him, which of course, does inform a lot of Adrien’s actions. Gabriel’s control pushes the black down another layer—it suppresses it. Instead showing off his colours proudly like he does as Chat Noir he has to leave them cloaked under a white surface, trying to navigate his core motive of love while being unable to fully shake off the white. Think of the many times when Gabriel has kept him away from his friends, like in the episode “Bubbler” where he wasn’t allowed to have a birthday party, or in “Revolution” when Gabriel ships him off to London for the next school year.

Interestingly, this isn’t the only instance where a white top layer indicates control thrusted onto the character wearing the colour. Kagami also follows a similar pattern sporting a white blazer and a controlling mother. She also has both red and black in the bottom layers so make of that what you will.

Another thing to note is that many of Adrien’s modelling outfits are fully white, such as the one in the fragrance ad or the angel outfit in “Simpleman”, representing the complete control Gabriel has over him when he is modelling. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the only modelling outfit that is not white (apart from the stock photos like the ones in the mansion perhaps) is the one that he wears in “Queen Wasp”. Instead of fully white this suit is fully black, and it is topped off with a black pigeon hat, a hat that Marinette, who is in love with Adrien, made. Additionally, this is the episode where Gabriel almost gives up being Hawkmoth because of how Adrien was attacked by Style Queen in the previous episode. He is less controlling of Adrien and more loving in this episode, even go so far as to hug him in his first public appearance since Emilie’s death, and the black suit reflects that.

However, the idea that Adrien’s all-white clothes represent Gabriel’s control isn’t even just limited to modelling. When Chat Noir is akumatised in “Chat Blanc” his suit also becomes fully white.

In season 5, the Alliance rings are also closely linked to the colour white. The Adrien and Kagami avatars wear all white, indicating the controlling nature of the alliance and the fact that The two of them have no control over how their image is used. Even the virtual space that the avatars exist in is an empty white void, reminiscent of the padded rooms the two are placed in during the season 5 finale, rooms which are used to confine and control the two.

The only time when the Alliance interface is not white is when it changes to red. There’s two times this has happened as far as I’m aware: in “Revelation” when Hoaxer enters the Alliance rings and feeds the people fake news, and in “Confirmation” when Gabriel creates fake footage of Ladybug and Chat Noir kidnapping Adrien and Kagami’s avatars. In both of these scenarios, someone is preying on the public’s loyalty to the alliance rings and their sense of duty to get them to do their bidding.

And look, I know I’ve been straying away a from Adrien a bit, but I also just want to mention that the colour white is often associated with the rich and powerful of Paris in general. This is most clearly seen in “Emotion”, where the VIP party’s dress code is literally all white, reflecting how all the people in that room control Paris.

Gabriel

Speaking of rich and powerful, Gabriel also draws from the colour triad. He does have a few layers that aren’t one of these three colours but his very bottom layer is a white shirt, which isn’t a surprise really, we just went over how he is controlling with both Adrien and the alliance rings. He also has a striped red tie symbolising either his loyalty towards Emilie or the fact that he believes it is his duty to bring her back to life. The white stripes also indicate control, probably to reflect the way that he will do anything in his power to bring Emilie back, like using the miraculous wish, because he is incapable of accepting that sometimes things happen beyond your control and all you can do is move on.

In season 5 he wears all white as his obsession with the wish—his means of complete control, takes over. It could also represent how he’s become even more controlling of Adrien despite pretending to be more loving, (because again, he literally ships his own son off to a different country). Interestingly, in the episode “Destruction” he is inflicted with a cataclysm, a black cataclysm, which could be a visual metaphor for his love for Emilie literally destroying him, which is a really cool in my opinion.

Lila Rossi

Lila is definitely the most interesting character to analyse under this theory, because not only do her clothes draw from the colour triad but even her name does. According to nameberry.com, Lila means night (ie black) and Rossi means red in Italian. She also wears a red cardigan with black underneath—duty or loyalty from a place of love. If we take Lila claims at face value then this makes sense, like in the episode “Chameleon”, when she catches a napkin with her sprained wrist to protect Max, all the while saying things like “I didn’t have a choice” (i.e duty) and “Why wouldn’t I Max […] you’re my friend” (i.e love) (5:40-42 and 5:47-50). But of course, Lila is a liar which means that everything from her name to even the clothes she wears is a carefully constructed illusion.

In the episode “Confrontation” it is revealed that Lila has actually been juggling two fake identities: Lila Rossi and Cerise Bianca. Now this is where it gets really interesting because Lila’s second identity also draws from the colour triad too. Cerise is a shade of red similar to that of cherries or rubies and guess what Bianca means in Italian? That’s right—white.

This can mean a few different things. Perhaps her Cerise persona is more noticeably controlling. Lila’s name directly reflected her clothing, with her first name indicating the the bottom layer (the core motive) and her second name the top layer (the means) so if we apply the same logic to Cerise then maybe her name indicates that this persona’s motives are control from a place a duty, in other words being bossy and controlling because she feels like it’s her job to lead and help everyone.

Another interpretation could be that these are Lila’s true motivations, especially with her being named after the colour white, and if you really want to stretch it, then you could also argue that the red indicates loyalty to herself; she controls everyone because it exclusively benefits her.

it could also be interpreted as somewhere in between. Instead of it being solely Cerise’s fake motivations or Lila’s true motivations it is rather a step closer to the truth. The loyalty to herself theory is, like I said, a stretch. If anything, her true motivation is probably just control for control’s sake, and in this Cerise persona her true colours are shining through a little.

I couldn’t really find a natural place to put this but I also just want to point out here that when she was akumatised into Hoaxer she still had the red and black colour scheme that she does as Lila because she’s still using the same tactics that she does as a civilian, pretending that all she does is out of love and duty. She does also however have splashes of white on her belt, tail and ends of her hair, so maybe that also symbolises her true colours showing through too.

I’m honestly curious to see if Cerise’s clothes will change in season 6 to reflect her name, especially with a lot of the other characters getting new outfits too. Either way I think it’s really interesting how both her fake identities are based off of these three colours.

The great thing about this theory is that it’s not just confined to these four characters. Plenty of more characters also wear these colours, such as Kagami, who I briefly touched on, Emilie (and Amelie by extension), Tomoe Tsurugi, even Nathalie. The only reason why I didn’t delve into these characters is because this post is getting pretty long and I think I’ve made my point, but really, I’ve barely scratched the surface here. There is so much significance with these three colours, they are literally everywhere.

[monochromefilms]

Some beta writings for the Creepypasta!Yuus

go ahead and guess the characters.

Only TW is blood. You can guess who belongs with who. Go on and vote for which one I should write first.

Strokes of lifeless.

The mixture of coffee sets into the canvas. Each stroke beautifully painting and layering to create one sere image. The image of beauty and divinity. The image of…

Vil sits still as he realized he was being painted as did Rook. Both pose in a way that Yuu could paint.

Curiously, he wasn’t using any common mediums though. He was using things that he could just find off just about anywhere. Coffee, crushed berries, and some juice.

Once he was finished he had a rococo style painting of the two third years. He looked up from the canvas with his surprised resting face. His blue tinted (e/c) eyes shining in the sunlight.

He flips the canvas and shows the two.

“It’s done.”

______________________________________

Is it cold outside?

It happened when he was in his room. Just searching around when he saw it. A limited edition game. Life of Harp. The game known to be full of adventure just with the sound of music. The one game he could never find. Yet here it is. Right in front of him.

Idia was ecstatic as he got the cartridge delivered, Even if it was second hand. Ortho was happy for his brother… it was the only time he left his room… for two minutes.

As he opens the case he finds a note.

‘Good bye Yuu.’ Was written on it. Probably from the last user.

He kept it in the box and placed the cartridge in.

There were already one saved game. It was titled: YUU.

‘Creepy…’ Idia thought to himself.

________________________________________

Four cards.

Four cards laid splayed at the table. Five of the heartsylbul members look at each other with mixed emotions.

A Diamond: Cater, the spades:Deuce, the clover: Trey, and finally the trump of cards: Ace. Yet there wasn’t one for riddle… only a bloodied Osiris rose. And a singular note.

‘The first Alice walked into the wonderland.’

It was written by hand. There was also a dagger in the letter.

Riddle was enraged at such a prank done.

____________________________________

The mother’s obsession. A/N: A platonic!Relationship, this is not meant to glorify toxic familial relationships.

Another letter came in today. Lilia should really tell Malleus. But he just couldn’t. The shorter of the two looked towards the now 13 (in dragon years). He smiles with the bowl of I cream in hand. A sweet child.

The king and queen already know of this. They didn’t tell his grandmother until later, and now Lilia is here.

He makes the hard choice of walking to Malleus, letter in hand. He let’s Malleus read it.

“Lilia…” Malleus looks up quizzically, “What does it mean by my REAL mother?”

————————————————————

Go INSIDE!

It was complete static. That’s what Yuu was watching. Absolute STATIC. Grim is confused by his human. Why is he watching static?

“Henchman! Are you stupid? That’s just static!” He tries to yell but Yuu shushes him,

“Be quiet. Candle Cove is on.”

————————————————————

Sorry that it’s a bit much and placed in one post.

[tarosin]

Brownies

requested: yes/no

pairing: platonic tommy x reader

summary: y/n and tommy attempt to bake brownies

content warning: cursing

unbeknownst to y/n, tommy stood messing with the ingredients whilst they were preoccupied setting up the camera, making sure it was straight and in focus. “the recipe is straight forward it’s pretty difficult to mess up. let’s be honest if techno can make the brownies so can we.”

“go live already you’re taking ages- OH HELLO CHAT HOW ARE WE ALL? i’m only joking i only care about your money! also chat if you’re not subscribed already, make sure you sub as all money y/n makes today will be sent my way, isn’t that right?”

“absolutely not, anyway chat since several of you guys decided to give me all your money, i mean subscribe to me-”

“that is quite literally the same thing.”

“moving swiftly on in order to celebrate this milestone, we’re going to be baking brownies because how hard can it really be? all you do is mix a bunch of ingredients together, throw it in the oven, and wait.”

tommy stood pointing at the ingredients laid messily on the table, a confused expression etched on his face. “i’m pretty sure they know what we’re doing y/n. considering everything is on the table, and the stream is titled baking stream with tommy. chat i would personally like to add that if anything goes wrong it is all y/ns fault, purely because i never do anything wrong. y/n on the other hand.”

the pair stood bickering over who will be to blame if everything goes wrong, only stopping when their argument was interrupted by y/n remembering they didn’t preheat the oven.

“right let’s begin shall we! tommy can you pass me the scissors? the fucking bag won’t open and i don’t trust you with them.”

“no.”

“what do you mean no? i need to use the scissors.”

“back in phils day scissors didn’t exist, they used their strength! i’m sorry you’re weaker than a plastic bag, hand it here let a man like me show you how it’s done.”

chat started spamming how phil was currently watching the stream and heard everything tommy just said. the pair looked at each other, trying their hardest to contain their laughter. a minute passed tommy was still arguing with the plastic bag. unimpressed by the fact he too was unable to open it he gave up, and stabbed the bag with the scissors, allowing the dry mixture to fall into the bowl.

“well that was rather violent, i’m sorry you let a plastic bag annoy you.”

for a while everything was going smoothly, y/n and tommy managed to work together peacefully. that was until tommy decided his new profession was egg juggling.

“put the eggs down!”

following y/ns advice he dropped the eggs onto the counter.

“are you serious-“

“awe no chickens spawned.”

“tommy go touch grass.”

“ill fix the problem don’t stress that little mind of yours, after all they don’t call me mr professional baker for the fun of it!” tommy grabbed more eggs and started to add them to the mixture, whilst y/n stood there pointing out how much shell keeps falling into the mixture, causing tommy to defend it by arguing he’s adding more texture to the brownies, so they’re not boring. they both noticed the sprinkles on the counter, then all of a sudden as though they had read each other’s minds, they ran to the sprinkles.

“HA! let’s make a deal you can have them, if you can reach them!” he laughed holding the sprinkles above his close friends head.

“fuck you!”

forgetting the brownies were supposed to be edible, tommy had poured the entire container of sprinkles into the mix, then hid the container so y/n wouldn’t notice.

“they’re ready to go into the oven!” he smiled innocently at y/n, as they placed the tray into the oven. whilst the brownies were in the oven y/n, suggested playing try not to laugh so that chat could be included.

time flew by, neither of them willing to lose the game, as loser had to take the brownies out of the oven. however, at this point the brownies had been long forgotten, and should have come out of the oven 40 minutes ago.

“uh tommy did you set the timer?”

“i thought i had let me go check...oh i forgot to press start.”

y/n put on oven gloves and took the very questionable brownies out the oven. once they had cooled, they held it up to show chat, then cut two slices of the brownie.

“tastes like burnt sprinkles jesus christ. did you put the entire container in here?”

“like i said earlier chat, this was 100% not my fault as i never make mistakes. bye chattttt!”

[oswinpond]

Even after the new film, which certainly popularized Amy/Laurie in a way I’ve never seen before, I keep hearing a lot of the same old arguments: “Laurie never stopped loving Jo”, “Laurie didn’t really love Amy”, “Amy was a second choice/consolation prize”, “Jo should’ve been with Laurie” etc. And a lot of these people claim this is book canon. As I’ve just reread the book, I’ve got a lot of thoughts on all of this... 

(Note: This is all purely based on book canon.)

In the book, after Amy harshly scolds Laurie, he decides to go back to London and work for his grandfather to better himself. At first, he thinks he’s doing it for two reasons: Amy despises him and that hurts him, but also the idea that if he does something “splendid” Jo may love him (or at least respect him, as Amy put it). 

So Laurie decides to write a requiem for Jo “which should harrow up Jo’s soul and melt the heart of every hearer”. But he can’t come up with anything because he keeps humming the dance music reminiscent of the Christmas ball in Nice which he spent devoting himself to Amy all evening. So then he tries to compose an opera with Jo as his heroine, but it doesn’t work. “He wanted Jo for his heroine, and called upon his memory to supply him with tender recollections and romantic visions of his love. But memory turned traitor; and, as if possessed by the perverse spirit of the girl, would only recall Jo’s oddities, faults, and freaks, would only show her in the most unsentimental aspects.” 

Jo no longer fits as his heroine, no matter how hard he tries. So he gives up on that, and his imagination promptly comes up with another heroine for him without even trying: 

“This phantom wore many faces, but it always had golden hair, was enveloped in a diaphanous cloud, and floated airily before his mind’s eye in a pleasing chaos of roses, peacocks, white ponies, and blue ribbons. He did not give the complacent wraith any name, but he took her for his heroine and grew quite fond of her, as well he might, for he gifted her with every gift and grace under the sun, and escorted her, unscathed, through trials which would have annihilated any mortal woman.”

While Laurie doesn’t realize it, the woman he’s imagining is Amy. Amy with the blue ribbons in her golden hair, who put roses in his buttonhole, who he watched feed the peacocks in Paris, and who he first saw again in a carriage drawn by ponies. It’s also a little prophetic, as he does escort the real Amy through future trials. (Bonus: at the same time, Amy spends her time sketching some faceless man who clearly resembles Laurie, but she doesn’t realize it either.)

Contrary to what some in the fandom would claim, Laurie isn’t at all forcing himself to love Amy just so that he can be part of the March family. He doesn’t even realize that she’s become the “heroine” in his story, that she’s the woman he’s fantasizing about. He thinks he’s doing this to improve himself for Jo, but it’s Amy that’s inspiring him. 

And then Laurie realizes that his feelings for Jo are disappearing:

“Laurie thought that the task of forgetting his love for Jo would absorb all his powers for years, but to his great surprise he discovered it grew easier every day. He refused to believe it at first, got angry with himself, and couldn’t understand it [...] Laurie’s heart wouldn’t ache; the wound persisted in healing with a rapidity that astonished him, and instead of trying to forget, he found himself trying to remember. He had not foreseen this turn of affairs, and was not prepared for it. He was disgusted with himself, surprised at his own fickleness, and full of a queer mixture of disappointment and relief that he could recover from such a tremendous blow so soon. He carefully stirred up the embers of his lost love, but they refused to burn into a blaze: there was only a comfortable glow that warmed and did him good without putting him into a fever, and he was reluctantly obliged to confess that the boyish passion was slowly subsiding into a more tranquil sentiment, very tender, a little sad and resentful still, but that was sure to pass away in time, leaving a brotherly affection which would last unbroken to the end.”

This passage alone pretty much puts to rest the idea that Laurie never got over Jo. He actually got over her so easily and quickly that he felt disgusted with himself, thinking this made him fickle. His romantic feelings are gone, and soon will leave only a “brotherly affection” when the last of the hurt is gone as well. Maybe he got over her so easily because he simply mistook his strong bond with her for romance, or maybe it was just a rash and immature first love that was never going to last long anyways, or whatever else... point being, he got over her.

And Laurie was actually trying, and failing, to rekindle any love for Jo (unlike his unconscious growing feelings for Amy, which he wasn’t pushing for at all). As a last ditch attempt to revive that love, he writes to Jo asking if she was sure about her refusal, and when she responds that she absolutely could never love him that way, he accepts it without sadness or complaint this time. He’s already over her, so there’s nothing to be heartbroken over. That was his closure. He takes off the ring she gave him and locks it away with her letters, and that’s that. 

And that’s when he’s ready to open his heart to Amy. He starts corresponding with her so often their letters are flying back and forth constantly. He wants to go back to her, but he doesn’t want to until she asks; she finally does after she hears about Beth’s passing, and Laurie immediately drops everything to go to her “with a heart full of joy and sorrow, hope and suspense” (and this is after he knows she’s turned down Fred, so we know what he’s hoping for now). Amy is his first priority after Beth dies, even though Beth was dearest to Jo. Laurie meets Amy in Switzerland and, without saying anything, they both know their relationship has changed. 

They spend weeks doing everything together and spend all their time out at the lake. Despite the sad tidings, they wind up being their happiest together in Vevey. They both know that they’re in love with each other without even having to say it (they really seem to develop an unspoken communication at this point). And while Laurie knows that she’ll say “yes” to his proposal, he’s still nervous so he puts it off to enjoy his time with Amy in Switzerland. He imagines proposing to her in the chateau garden at moonlight, but instead blurts it out while they’re on a lake in the middle of the day:

Feeling that she had not mended matters much, Amy took the offered third of a seat, shook her hair over her face, and accepted an oar. She rowed as well as she did many other things; and, though she used both hands, and Laurie but one, the oars kept time, and the boat went smoothly through the water. “How well we pull together, don’t we?” said Amy, who objected to silence just then. “So well that I wish we might always pull in the same boat. Will you, Amy?” very tenderly. “Yes, Laurie,” very low. Then they both stopped rowing, and unconsciously added a pretty little tableau of human love and happiness to the dissolving views reflected in the lake.

And there’s so much to say about this little scene. While he had to beg and argue with Jo just to finally accept her firm “no”, he just has to ask a simple question with Amy and he gets his simple answer because they’re on the same page. The rather blunt metaphor of rowing well together, even when he uses one hand and she uses two, is all about how despite their differences they work. They keep time. And it calls back to Jo’s talk with Marmee where they both agree that Jo and Laurie never would’ve worked, in part because their similarities would clash horribly in a romantic relationship (but mainly because , y’know, Jo never once felt a single shred of romantic love for Laurie). 

Now, I can understand where people come from thinking Laurie was “replacing” Jo with Amy with lines like "Laurie decided that Amy was the only woman in the world who could fill Jo’s place and make him happy”. I get how this can be interpreted as Amy filling in for what was meant to be Jo’s place in his heart. But it makes a lot more sense in the context of Laurie’s speech to Jo towards the end when he explains his feelings:

“I never shall stop loving you; but the love is altered, and I have learned to see that it is better as it is. Amy and you changed places in my heart, that’s all. I think it was meant to be so, and would have come about naturally, if I had waited, as you tried to make me; but I never could be patient, and so I got a heartache. I was a boy then, headstrong and violent; and it took a hard lesson to show me my mistake. For it was one, Jo, as you said, and I found it out, after making a fool of myself. Upon my word, I was so tumbled up in my mind, at one time, that I didn’t know which I loved best, you or Amy, and tried to love you both alike; but I couldn’t. And when I saw her in Switzerland, everything seemed to clear up all at once. You both got into your right places.”

Laurie didn’t settle for Amy. Amy took Jo’s place in the sense that they swapped places in how he saw them, from romantic to platonic for Jo and vice versa for Amy. And those wound up being their “right” places. He believes he was always meant to fall in love with Amy and see Jo as his sister, and that he would’ve gotten to this point naturally even if things had played out differently.

I’ll admit I wasn’t a fan of how the 2019 film portrayed Jo in this situation, because in the book she was absolutely thrilled for Laurie and Amy, and is happily surprised when Marmee tells her she’d been hoping for them to fall in love. But in the film, they take her sadness over her loneliness too far IMO, and make it seem like she was actually bitter over Amy and Laurie being together, which unfortunately fuelled the “Amy stole Laurie from Jo” crowd a bit. And after her conversation with Marmee where she admits that she only wants Laurie because she longs to be loved, and Marmee points that “that isn’t the same as loving”, this makes movie!Jo seem “silly and selfish” as book!Jo puts it (because in the book, that was only a “what if” she entertained and never wrote any letter). 

Anyways, to conclude on all of this, when Amy and Laurie are married at and home, we get the thoughts of other characters on their relationship, and the unanimous opinion is that they’re completely in love and happy with each other. Jo herself insists that their happiness will for sure last, and notes how proud Laurie seems to be to call Amy his wife. Laurie, meanwhile, can’t stop talking about Amy through to the end (and Amy is clearly just as smitten). I dare you to read the last half of Part 2 and not find Amy and Laurie adorable together. 

And to hammer that last nail in the coffin on Jo/Laurie as a romance, we get Laurie meeting Professor Bhaer. It’s specifically noted that while Laurie is suspicious of Bhaer and notices his interest in Jo, it was “not of jealousy” but a “brotherly circumspection”. Amy even asks him if he’s at all jealous and Laurie tells her “I assure you I can dance at Jo’s wedding with a heart as light as my heels. Do you doubt it, my darling?” and it says that Amy’s “last little jealous fear vanished forever”. Laurie actually winds up happily supporting Bhaer once he sees he’s a great guy for his sister Jo, and suggests to Amy that they should try to help them out as a couple.

So no, Jo never loved Laurie romantically, Laurie absolutely did get over Jo, Laurie and Amy are so happy together it’s almost obnoxious, Jo is pro-Amy/Laurie and Laurie is pro-Jo/Bhaer, and Amy wasn’t a second choice, she was Laurie’s “meant to be” by his own words.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

*Cackling* Now rank your ot3's!

*long sigh*

SECTION 1:

Yes, there are sections, this is a list of 20 things. I like to be organized. These ones I seek out. I like them. I actively enjoy them on purpose.

1. Roloceit: My BOYS. Are these my 3 favorites? perhaps. You can't prove anything (you sure can, just look at my goddamn Ao3). Something about the dynamics here is just...so good for me? The combination of fluff/angst/multi-talented braincells is wonderful. I need these three to watch a documentary and tear it to absolute pieces. Also they would be so good at...actually having methods of supporting each other??? I love them.

2. Analogince: in the same vein, the SNARK. THE SASS. THE GROUPCHAT THAT WE ALL KNOW EXISTS THAT IS SOO OVERLOADED WITH SALT THAT IT'S A DEHYDRATION RISK. Also healthy communication??? supportive signifs??? good shit

3. Anxcietmus: The Dark Sides™. Again, I think these three just get each other. That means great fluff and great angst possibilities ABOUND and especially when it comes to being a menace in the rest of the mindscape. Yes. Good. Have fun.

4. Intruloceit: Someone please make this nerd take a fucking break for once. The chaos of leading what you THINK is a stuck-up buttoned-up nerd only to feel such an odd mixture of pride and mortal terror at discovering a TRUE mad scientist. Yes. Logan deserves to go ape-shit. Let him.

5. Analoceit: Did someone ask for some amused gay judgement? You got the whole scale here, Distinguished, Functional, and Disaster. They don't need the group chat because they can do it with just a look. Perfect. Wonderful.

6. Intruloxiety: slightly less snark, which is why it's ranked lower, but I don't think it would be any less supportive. Between the three of them I think they'd have a conversation about boundaries right up front and constantly be checking in with each other. Which is good!! Please do this!!

7. Loroyality (am i making up some of these names as I go? yes): The Light Sides™! The reason this is ranked lower is because I think they've got some in-canon struggles that would take some time and effort (from errybody) to sort out before I would consider this relationship healthy, but after that? Forget it. We vomiting sushine and rainbows and our teeth hurt from how sweet they are. I have faith in them.

8. Royaliceit: *sniff sniff* did someone say ANGST??? This is the only one I put up here that I mainly look for to get angst because BOY HOWDY. Especially post-POF? Roman you poor thing why do I project so strongly onto you, my god. This is a MESS and they need to do WORK to FIX IT but it's all about the misunderstanding and the healing and oh my god please someone tell Roman his worth is not based on how well his work is received please. Also if you're like me and you subscribe to the headcanon that the last time Patton and Janus agreed on something it was to stay in the closet as long as possible...*choo choo bitches angst town here we come*

SECTION 2:

These ones I don't actively seek out but you know?? For a headcanon post? They seem pretty chill. Haven't devoted a lot of brainpower to 'em, just think they're neat.

9. Moloceit (my keyboard is so confused you guys): Now THIS. THIS is the obnoxious trio of philosophy majors that ALWAYS hog the good library table. Someone will say ONE GODDAMN thing and they'll be talking about ontology and subjectivity for hours. It's impossible to tell whether or not they're being serious when they do it. As a most-definitely-not-a-philosophy-student, no. I mean, yes but no.

10. Anaroceit: you know those fucking divas that strut into the mall like they own the goddamn place? These bastards. They are the Heathers (except actually decent people) and you will not get between them and their purchases. If you come after one of them the other will overprotective the fuck out of them and rip you to shreds. You might be worried sometimes that they're hurting each other but they do actually talk about their boundaries. solid 7/10.

11. Analogicality: (whoa, we're halfway there...): These three just seem like they'd be super domestic. Not that it wouldn't also be adorable, but just kinda...routine? Virgil doesn't like new shit, Logan likes a schedule, and Patton enjoys doing things together in 'traditions.' Some spice but they're all fairly level-headed so...the most they get is screaming out songs with the windows down (WHOA LIVIN' ON A PRAYER)

12: Intrulogicality: You know those scenarios where you got Person A who runs headlong into crazy bullshit, Person B who likes to pretend they're not as into the crazy bullshit as Person A but is, and Person C who gets dragged into shit? There you go.

13: Anxmoceit: I think once they all sat down and had a conversation they might actually be decent??? But I can't stop seeing Patton and Janus coparenting Virgil so it stays platonic in my head. (listen i don't kinkshame but i am aroace, that does limit me a bit when it comes to this bag of nonsense)

14. Intrumoceit: Again, LONG conversation, but it's better to have one crazy dumbass whom you both love but please stop giving up heart attacks every two seconds bb we can't deal with these palpitations. I think this would require SO much work on Patton's end to make this healthy that I can't see it very clearly.

15. Intrumoxiety: This one I put down here because while Janus isn't the best at being straightforward (or straight) he DOES understand himself enough to actually have a productive conversation when he has to. I think Virgil would be too caught up between the dynamic of Patton and Remus for it to be healthy for him, especially at the beginning. It would end up dumping too much of the conflict resolution into his court and uh...no. No thanks. Do I think they COULD make it work? Yes, of course, but I wouldn't seek it out.

16. Anaroyality: Uhhh yeah they exist. Y'all gotta do some work to establish good boundaries but yeah, I think you could do it. Have a makeup day where everybody just fucks shit UP at a Sephora or an Ulta and try crazy looks on each other. You could do it. I believe in you.

SECTION 3:

These are the ones I will actively avoid, more often than not. If they're not handled carefully--which is not the responsibility of other creators, I take full blame, this is just how I personally interpret them--they can squick me out. The ones with Roman and Remus are down here, and as a disclaimer, this isn't because I view poly relationships where not all parties are dating each other as inherently inferior, not at all. I just think that within a relationship where both Roman and Remus are dating the same person, that has the potential to go REAL bad REAL quick.

17. Intrulogince: Do I want to see Roman and Remus playfully competing to win the favor of our favorite nerd? yes. Do I think it would end up aggravating the rivalry they already had to really bad places? Also yes. Either with Roman backing off and internalizing the idea that he's not good enough or by exploding on both of them. It's a bad time. No. That being said, I have seen things where Logan is just spoiled by incredible things made in the Imagination and those are very sweet. a good time.

18. Intruprinxiety (that looks so weird when it's spelled out, oh my god it sounded so much better in my head): Again, exacerbating a pre-existing rivalry, oh dear me, and this time poor Virgil's caught in the middle? a mess. There is also the potential for them to be childhood friends to lovers which would be very sweet but the overlap with all of their combined histories are...a lot of baggage. Like so much.

19. Intruroceit: The only way I can see this happening is Roman's inadequacy issues and abandonment issues going THROUGH THE FUCKING ROOF and it would force Remus into being a pseudo-therapist for them and Janus your habit of messing with Roman needs to gtfo right the fuck now.

20. Intruroyality: is anyone surprised that this one is my least favorite? Between the squicks I get from Patton as a character, the relationship between Patton and both of the twins in canon, and how much baggage Roman and Remus have...no. Absolutely not. I have horrible memories of some very toxic relationships that I can absolutely see here and no.

*phew* that was a long one. you're welcome.

EDIT: thank you @shinekittenace for names seriously this post is a mess

[organabanana]

leaves of three, let it be [2/3] || harlivy

Chapters: 2/3

Fandom:  DCU (Comics)DCUHarley Quinn (Comics)Harley Quinn (Cartoon 2019)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence

Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel

Characters: Pamela Isley, Harleen Quinzel, Selina Kyle

Additional Tags: Mentions of alcohol, mentions of batman fucking bats, most of this is straight up idiocy tbh, i just finished watching the cartoon so everyone swears like a sailor i’m sorry, rated for (ahem) happenings later on, ivy/harley/catwoman frenemies

Summary

After Harley mistakenly confesses her love and then promptly takes it back, Ivy spends some time sorting through the things she absolutely doesn't feel (and the ones she does). Selina and Harley don't quite help.

Chapter 1: Tumblr | AO3

Chapter 2: AO3

If you ever asked Poison Ivy if she’s into meditation, she’d say she isn’t.

Actually, if you ever asked Poison Ivy if she’s into meditation, she’d probably stare you down until you crumbled under the sheer weight of her judgment and apologized for ever talking to her, but that’s beside the point.

The point is, Ivy doesn’t meditate. The concept of meditation, if you ask her, goes in the same patchouli-scented box as moon-charged crystals and essential oils.

No. What Ivy does is… introspection. Yeah. She introspects. She consciously clears her mind of all intrusive thoughts. Which may sound a lot like meditation, maybe? But — she cannot stress this enough — it’s not the same thing.

So there she is. Sitting on her couch. Introspecting. And it may look like she’s staring off into the distance, but she’s actually looking at a nearly invisible, tiny little hint of a green sprout that’s managed to grow in a crack on the windowsill.

There it is. A tiny little fighter. Just like—

Nope.

No way.

We are absolutely not thinking about her. We’re introspecting. So Ivy takes in a deep breath, in through her nose, eyes fluttering closed as she exhales slowly and then opens them and tries again.

As she was saying. A tiny little sprout. She could go over there and touch it and quite literally breathe life into it. She can’t tell what kind of plant it is, but she could make it bloom if it’s a flowering species. What if it’s a tree? She could make it grow so big its roots would tear this whole building apart just like her heart was torn apart last ni—

Motherf—

“Morning, my little dill pickle.”

Selina climbs in through the window, practically gliding into Ivy’s apartment with the kind of grace that would normally make Ivy stop and stare and perhaps have a not-quite-respectful thought or two.

Listen: she has eyes. Don’t read into it.

Anyway. As graceful and ridiculously nimble as Selina is, she’s also way up high in Ivy’s shit list at the moment (second only to you know who), so today is not the day for lighthearted conversation and platonic crushes.

“Fuck you, Selina,” Ivy offers as a greeting, glancing at the plant to make sure it’s still there. And it is, of course. Selina fucking Kyle may be a bitch and a half, but she knows how to move without leaving a trace.

“Now?” Selina cocks one perfectly manicured eyebrow at Ivy, the slightest hint of a teasing smirk on her face. “I mean I was gonna offer brunch, but that doesn’t sound like the worst midday plan.”

Ivy simply stares for a moment, as if she’s forgotten if there’s one person in the world that’s absolutely immune to even her most wilting looks, that’s Selina fucking Kyle.

“Oh, come on,” Selina practically groans, “stop it. Brooding is such a teen boy move.”

“I am not brooding.”

“Right.” With one single word, Selina makes it clear that she doesn’t believe Ivy and, most importantly, that she doesn’t care enough to argue. “Anyway. Brunch? My treat.”

Ivy closes her eyes. Not meditating. Just introspecting. Just trying to channel the urge to make a full-grown sequoia grow out of Selina Kyle’s ass into something productive. One deep breath in through her nose and—

“We can have margaritas!” Selina lets out a quiet chuckle as she admires the perfectly matte black polish on her fingernails. “Yikes. Too soon?”

Fuck introspection.

“I. Am going. To fucking murder you.” Ivy stands up with every intention to make good on that promise, and Selina must read it in her eyes because for the first time since Ivy’s known her — for the first time in her life, maybe — Selina looks scared.

Well, maybe not scared.

But she is absolutely concerned.

“Fuck me, Ive, damn,” Selina takes one step back, no longer smirking, “calm down, will you?”

Ivy stops, Selina’s audacity basically jolting her out of her murderous rage. “Calm down, Selina? Fucking seriously? You did what you did and now you come here and tell me to fucking calm down?”

Selina tilts her head just so, like she’s conceding (against her will) that maybe there is a reason for Ivy to be somewhat upset with her.

“Oh, come on,” she sighs, rolling her shoulders like the tension has to leave her body somehow, and it will certainly not be via an apology, “it wasn’t even real poison.”

Ivy’s eyes widen slightly in disbelief. Does Selina think she’s mad because she thinks Harley was in actual danger?

No. No, Selina can’t think that, because Selina may be an asshole, but she’s a very smart asshole. So she must know Ivy’s well aware of Harley’s immunity to toxins. She must know that’s not even remotely the reason Ivy’s spent the last eleven hours and some change introspecting all thoughts of last night out of her mind.

For a split second, Ivy feels something similar to warmth towards Selina as she considers that maybe she’s simply ignoring the embarrassing part of the event to spare Ivy. Maybe she’s pretending this is about Harley’s physical wellbeing and not… well. The other thing.

Sadly, the split second passes.

“If it helps,” Selina says, and even before she finishes the sentence Ivy can already sense it won’t help at all, “it’s totally reciprocated.”

Ivy feels it crawling up her veins, thick like sap. She’s managed to distill plenty of emotions, turned them into tonics and toxins and elixirs and used them for her own benefit and the Green’s. She’s bottled love — well, lust — and hatred and rage. Fear, even. Insanity, ironically enough. But this.

This… this humiliation.

Oh, this is something else.

Ivy closes her eyes. In through her nose, and even the air feels like it has to go through that thick mixture of (public) pain and weakness and acknowledged vulnerability to get to her lungs.

It’s one thing to have Harley see her like this. Like that. Like last night. Defenses down and heart out there in the open like her ribcage’s forgotten its purpose. That’s fine, she figures, because it’s been the norm for years and years and years. It’s nothing new, really, to have Harley see her accidentally stumble over the line into pathetic from time to time. It happens.

But Selina.

Selina fucking Kyle.

Selina saw that and she understood what she was seeing and now she’s acknowledging it, and Ivy isn’t even mad anymore.

I mean, she is. She’s really fucking mad.

She’s just many other things as well as mad, so it’s harder to focus on it.

Out through her mouth. Slowly. And her voice is nice and even when she opens her eyes and looks at Selina once again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ivy lies, walking towards the kitchen like that had been her intention all along, “there is nothing to reciprocate.”

Ivy can feel Selina’s look on the back of her head. She’s not going to give her the satisfaction of turning around, of course. Selina Kyle’s ego is healthy enough as it is. But she can absolutely feel it. A look involving an arched eyebrow and narrowed eyes and possibly a smirk. Maybe the slightest purse of painted lips, if she’s going for judgmental rather than smug.

Selina is multi-faceted in her scorn.

“You have got to be shitting me, Ive,” Selina says, and Ivy still refuses to turn around, focusing instead on staring at the interior of her fridge and ignoring the fact that ninety percent of its contents are there for Harley’s all-day snacking needs.

She ends up grabbing a jug of water not because she’s thirsty, but simply because it’s the only thing in there she knows for a fact is there just for her.

“Seriously?” Selina prods, walking closer and crossing her arms over her chest as she watches Ivy methodically fill a glass of water like it’s a delicate operation that requires her undivided attention. “You’re such a fucking pussy. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.”

Ivy does turn around then, gripping the glass with perhaps a little more force than strictly necessary. In her defense, she’d much rather be gripping Selina’s neck instead.

“Once again, Selina,” she says with a slight shrug, taking a sip of cold water, “no idea what you’re talking about.”

Selina gapes at her. It’s kind of flattering, actually. It’s not every day something leaves Selina Kyle fully unable to speak. Maybe — Ivy thinks to herself, enjoying her water — she’ll never speak again. Maybe she’ll leave Gotham entirely. Wouldn’t that be just—

Ivy’s train of thought is completely derailed by something that is never a good sign: Selina Kyle is laughing.

Not chuckling. Not snickering. Not letting out one of those sarcastic giggles she likes to use to obliterate people’s entire self-esteem.

No. No, this is honest to goodness, full-on belly laughter, and it’s fucking terrifying.

“Wh— what the fuck, Selina?” Ivy asks, trying to sound less scared than she actually is. Selina’s sense of humor is not so much dark as it is downright fucked up, and if she’s finding something in this situation funny, it can only mean someone is about to get crushed, metaphorically or otherwise.

All signs point to Ivy.

“Look at you!” Selina points in the general direction of Ivy, like she’s about to rip her fashion sense to shreds. But this, sadly, has nothing to do with clothes. “Holy shit, you’re in so much deeper than I thought, this is fucking hilarious.”

Ivy takes one step back, until her hip bumps against the counter and she blindly feels around to leave the half-empty glass on it. To her credit, she still manages to try and infuse her voice with something resembling nonchalance one last time.

“You’re not making any sen—“

“Man, you’re in love, in love, huh?”

Ivy’s been shot before. So she feels like she’s not being overly dramatic when she says Selina’s words feel just like that. Like being shot right in the gut. And Ivy tries to be as stoic as she usually is when faced with things like gunshots and blunt force and bat-shaped ninja stars (holy fuck, he’s such a nerd), but she feels a bit like she’s been standing on a castle of cards for the last… however many years it’s been since she met Dr. Quinzel in Arkham, and Selina’s just figured out exactly where to blow to make it all come tumbling down.

“I mean I knew you two were into each other. Obviously,” Selina continues, and Ivy suddenly understands the exact meaning of all those expressions regarding cats and mice, “but I thought it was like… well, you know. Friends in need of a nudge towards the benefits. But this.”

Selina shakes her head, smile as wide as her eyes. She looks both surprised and delighted. Like she’s really just found out there are feelings involved in whatever lust-filled fever dream she’d interpreted as reality before now.

“And you’re the one who’s doing all the yearning. I totally thought she was the useless one. Holy shit.” Selina takes a couple steps in the direction of the window, like using a door like a normal person is simply not an option for her. “How long?”

Ivy opens her mouth, but Selina interrupts her before any sound can come out.

“Don’t answer that. I already know.” Selina waves her hand dismissively. “No wonder you’re fucking terrified. You’d be safer falling in love with an actual hyena.”

“I’m not—“

“Please.” Selina reaches the window and notices that little plant for the first time, giving it a little pat that could almost pass for affectionate if you didn’t know Selina Kyle. “So what’s scarier, Ive?” Selina almost purrs the question. “That she may not love you back, or that she probably does?”

Ivy tells herself she could murder Selina right then and there, with the help from the little plant. Hell, she could probably kill her without help from the plant.

But that wouldn’t really fix anything, right?

“Anyway!” Selina lets out a happy little sigh as she slinks out of the window and onto the fire escape outside. “No brunch, then. I’ll leave you to your brooding.” Her smile turns into a smirk then, eyes narrowed like she’s about to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse. “And don’t worry, Ive. I can keep a secret.”

Selina winks at her before she disappears.

Ivy refuses, pointedly, to think about her conversation with Selina.

She tries to go back to her introspection, but it turns out there’s no breathing in and out when your chest is full of feelings to the point of actual physical discomfort, so Ivy gives up on that, too.

She could plot. Scheme, if you will. It’s been a while since she’s gone for an actual multi-step plan to rid Gotham — and, later, the world — of parasitic CEOs profiting off nature. A bit of environmentally friendly murder never fails to put her in a good mood.

But it turns out it’s nearly impossible to come up with a solo plan without being constantly aware of the fact that going solo is no longer her default. A plan involving only herself doesn’t feel like just any random plan anymore. Now it feels like a plan without her, and that’s just— that’s just the opposite of what she needs to be thinking about right now.

So.

What’s an eco-terrorist to do when eco-terrorism is not an option?

Eight hours later she’s in her lab, hair haphazardly held in a bun with a pencil as she looks at her latest experiment through her microscope.

The little sprout from her windowsill sits right next to the microscope in a beaker serving as a makeshift flower pot while Ivy works.

“You know, if this works,” Ivy tells the sprout, eyes trained on the cell that should enter active mitosis any second now, “you’re going to be my sidekick when we take down the next big guy.”

If this works, and she can give this tiny plant the powers she hopes to give her, they can take over Gotham and the world as a team. Ivy’s always worked best with plants, anyway. Who needs—

“Red?”

Harley’s voice is uncharacteristically mellow, but it manages to startle Ivy anyway.

“Jesus, Harley,” Ivy doesn’t look away from the microscope, “what the fuck are you doing here?”

She’s not mad. Not at Harley, anyway. None of this is her fault. She’s just—

Listen. Figuring out exactly what to call what she’s feeling would require introspection, and we’re not doing that anymore.

“Oh. I uh—“ There’s something in Harley’s tone that twists uncomfortably in Ivy’s chest. “Wanted to talk?”

Ivy doesn’t want to talk. Talking, as it turns out, may be the very last thing she wants to do. But there’s that something in Harley’s voice. Something that sounds a bit like embarrassment. Like shame, even. Like maybe if Ivy were to listen in on Harley’s inner monologue right now the voice in there would sound suspiciously like him calling her a fuck-up and an idiot and—

“I’m sorry.” Ivy leaves the little plant’s cell to enter mitosis in its own time and turns to fully focus on Harley. “I didn’t mean to snap. You just startled me.”

Harley visibly relaxes. Ivy decides she hates him just that much more than she did ten seconds ago.

“Didn’t mean to startle ya,” Harley leaves her bat propped against the trunk of a giant nightshade and takes a few steps towards Ivy.

Normally, Harley has no concept of personal space. She sits on whatever surface is closest to Ivy, invading her space and making it impossible for her to fully focus on anything that’s not Harley. It should be annoying, but it isn’t, for reasons Ivy is absolutely not going to consider at this time.

This time, however, Harley hovers just a step or two away from Ivy and her microscope and her standing desk.

It feels…

It feels wrong.

“What did you want to talk about?” Ivy taps the desk and tries not to smile when Harley beams as she practically bounces to sit on it. Her legs dangle over the edge, well-worn combat boots lightly bumping against Ivy’s legs with each soft swing of Harley’s feet.

Nothing really feels wrong anymore.

“I’m sorry, Pammy.”

Ivy shakes her head. “It’s fine. You know you’re always welcome here, I just wasn’t expecting—“

“No,” Harley says, and when Ivy looks into her eyes she realizes Harley’s not going to let her pretend she has no idea what this is about, “I mean I’m sorry about the other night.”

Ivy stands up a little straighter. Takes half a step back, like that’s going to help. Crosses her arms over her chest.

“It’s fine.”

Harley tilts her head just so, bright blue eyes narrowing for a second, and Ivy sees a flash of Harleen right there staring back at her. Reading her fucking thoughts, almost. It’s unnerving.

“It’s fine, Harley,” Ivy insists, tone sharper as she takes another step back. She can hear the low rumble of every vine in her lab stirring along with her mood.

There’s a moment there, maybe a few seconds long, where they both simply stare at each other in silence. Like they’re trying to figure each other out in a way that feels completely foreign because she knows Harley, and Harley knows her, and there’s nothing to figure out. Nothing at all.

“You know—“ Harley’s voice sounds a bit brittle, like it may just break if it hits the wrong word, “you know I didn’t mean it, Pammy.”

Ivy nods. Once.

“I know.” She knows now and she knew when she first met Harley and she’s known for the last however many years it’s been. She fucking knows it’s love but it’s not love like that. She knows. “It’s fine.”

“You know Selina just got in my head, right?” Harley keeps talking, and on some level Ivy knows there’s nothing to be angry about because Harley just wants to explain. She just wants to make sure things aren’t weird between them because they’re best friends. But it feels almost cruel anyway. “You know I don’t—“

“I know you don’t love me, Harley, yes, for fuck’s sakes, I’m not an idiot.”

“But I—“

“Don’t.” Ivy holds one finger up. If she has to listen to Harley say she loves her, but just not in that way she may lose her fucking mind. “It’s fine.”

For a few blessed seconds, it feels like maybe Harley will let it go. Like maybe she’ll just drop it and let Ivy get out of this with some semblance of pride.

But that would just be too much to ask, wouldn’t it?

“I do love you, Ive, it’s just—“

“Holy shit, Harley!” Ivy raises her voice and hears the tell-tale creak of vines growing up the wall. “I know! I fucking know, all right? Selina is a dick and you thought margarita mix was a love potion and you’re not fucking in love with me, all right? I know!”

“But—“

“No! No fucking but!” Ivy swears she hears it. The little snap when she loses her last thread of control over what she’s saying and things spill out before she has a chance to filter them. “I don’t love you either, have you even considered that?”

Harley’s eyes widen in the purest expression of surprise Ivy’s ever seen in her life.

“Right!” There’s a part of Ivy that wants to stop. She wants to stop and backtrack and tell Harley she didn’t mean it because she can’t stand the thought of hurting her, and she needs her to know that of course — of course — Ivy loves her. But she just can’t right now. “I’m not secretly in love with you! All right? I’m glad you don’t love me. I’m fucking fine.”

Harley opens her mouth like she’s about to speak, but closes it without making a sound. She doesn’t look hurt, necessarily. She looks… she looks disarmed, almost. Like she doesn’t know how to react.

“I’ll just—“ Harley swallows and jumps off the desk. “We’re fine, so I’ll just leave. Yeah?”

Ivy nods. “Fine.”

“Cool. Yeah.” Harley sort of smiles, but not really. She moves a bit slower than usual as she goes back to her bat and walks towards the door, and there’s a part of Ivy that wants to stop her and fix this somehow — because it’s not fine at all — but self-preservation wins in the end.

“Remember to lock the door on your way out.”

For a second, Harley almost looks like she may say something. And for a second, Ivy almost hopes she will. But Harley just nods and walks out, and when she hears the lock snap into place, Ivy knows she’s all alone with her plants.

Right where she belongs.

[headcanonsandmore]

‘Here with you’

Summary: Ron and Hermione spent some time together in a hotel room in Australia. 

This fic is a birthday present for @princesserica84; hope you like it, Erica! Happy Birthday! 

Warning: this fic contains scenes of a s*xual nature and is not ace safe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                                       Read on AO3.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ron opened the door, and stepped through.

He had never stayed in a muggle hotel before, but he thought this was rather nice. A nice wardrobe, table, and set of chairs.

And a double bed.

Hurriedly moving his mind away from that, Ron noticed a door off to the side, through which he could see a nice bath and shower set. A set of fluffy white towels were hanging on the wall.

‘Be nice to finally relax after all that travelling, eh?’ he said, turning around.

‘Yes,’ Hermione said quietly, as she locked the door behind her, before kicking off her shoes and sitting down in the chair. From her beaded bag, she pulled her notes regarding the various dental clinics in the area.

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Ron said, taking them swiftly out of her hands. ‘You’ve been staring at those nonstop for the past six hours; you need to relax.’

‘Ron, I’m perfectly fine-’

‘Oh, then you won’t want to take a bath with those lovely scented bubble-bath mixtures we’ve got in the bathroom?’

Hermione seemed to wrestle with her own internal logic, before giving in.

‘Okay, but just a quick bath,’ she said, easing her socks off to reveal very tired-looking feet.

‘Good,’ Ron said, before pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. The bushy-haired witch blushed.

‘Why are you so good at this?’ she asked.

‘I know you too well. You focus too much on other stuff, and forget to look after yourself.’

Hermione sighed, before kissing Ron on the cheek.

‘You’re too good to me.’

‘Nah,’ Ron said. ‘You deserve the best. Now, go and have that bath. There’ll be a test on which combination of bubble bath you used.’

Hermione chuckled, before pulling her toiletries out of her beaded bag and hobbling into the bathroom. The door shut with a quiet click behind her.

Ron busied himself with unpacking. Partially because it would save time later, and partially because he wanted to avoid thinking of the fact that Hermione hadn’t locked the bathroom door.

He sat down on the bed, before deciding that he didn’t want to seem like he was presuming anything, and sat down at the table instead.

Him and Hermione had been dating for a few months. The war had only ended earlier that summer, and Hermione would be going back to Hogwarts to continue her education that September. As much as he knew how much it meant to her, he wasn’t looking forward to not being able to see her so often. If he was lucky, he’d been meeting her on the occasional Hogsmeade weekend until the holidays. He knew that was selfish, but he’d spent several years at Hogwarts pining after Hermione, only to find that when they had finally become a couple, he’d be seeing her less than he’d ever done before.

And, no, it wasn’t just the fact that he wouldn’t get to kiss her, either. She was his best friend; he loved spending time with her, even if it was just sitting quietly with her while she read a book or studied.

Their relationship was still very new, and they were both still adjusting to it. Ron was absolutely terrified that he was going to mess it up in some way. What if it ended like it had done with poor Lavender? But the other way round; what if Hermione got sick of him? He honestly didn’t know whether he could handle that. He’d been in love with her since he was… eleven? Twelve? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he wasn’t sure when he moved beyond seeing Hermione as purely his platonic best friend.

Ron looked down at the room key, which was laid on the table. Their shared room. With the double bed.

Ron swallowed nervously. When they’d been planning this all out, they’d never really discussed that they would be sharing a room. Granted, they had spent most of the previous year sharing a tent, but that had been different. For one thing, that was during the war, and Harry had been there as well.

Now it was just Ron and Hermione. In a room together. With one bed between them.

Deciding that not thinking about it would be a better idea, Ron moved his attention to Hermione’s notes.

She was understandably very concerned about her parents, and wanted to return their memories to them as soon as possible. Ron could also tell that Hermione felt an enormous amount of guilt over the fact that she had memory-charmed her parents in the first place. And, as much as he didn’t like to think about it, Ron was worried about how Mr and Mrs Granger would react once they discovered what Hermione had done to them.

All Ron knew was, he was here to help and support Hermione as best he could. He’d be with her through anything that might happen.

Normally, when people met their girlfriends parents for the first time, it’s not accompanying her to reverse a memory-altering spell. But Ron’s life had never really been “normal”, had it?

There was the sound of the bathroom door opening.

Hermione walked out, and Ron’s brain seemed to turn to mush.

She was wearing nothing but a large white towel, which covered everything between her armpits and her knees. Another towel was trapped around her hair. Ron could make out beads of water dripping down her neck.

Not seeming to notice Ron’s unabashed staring, Hermione picked up her notes from the table and sat down on the bed. Her forehead creased in concentration.

‘No,’ Ron said, walking over and picking the notes out of her hands. ‘Your eyes need a rest.’

‘I’m fine, Ron,’ Hermione said, huffily. ‘That bath was a great idea; I’m all good now.’

‘What you need is to relax,’ Ron said. ‘Remember what you were like during our O.W.L exams? You wouldn’t have eaten or slept if me and Harry hadn’t kept reminding you to.’

‘But I… well, I have to…’

‘We’re here in Australia, Hermione. You don’t need to worry; we’ll start searching tomorrow after we’re good and rested.’

‘But what if we can’t find my parents?!’ Hermione exclaimed, her eyes wide and frantic. ‘What if I reverse the spell wrong? What if they hate me for doing the memory charm in the first place? What if-’

‘Ssssh,’ Ron said, soothingly. ‘Hermione, you need to calm down. You’re getting yourself all worked up. You’ll be no good to your parents if you’ve having a panic attack.’

‘But what if they-’

‘We’ll deal with that if we reach that hurdle,’ Ron replied, calmly. ‘No good worrying about things that might not even happen.’

‘How are you so calm?’

‘Because I’m your boyfriend, and I’m here for you.’

He reached forward to hug her, but Hermione stood up and walked away.

Ron’s heart seemed to stop. This wasn’t good. Normally, Hermione welcomed hugs from him, even if she felt bad. Her not wanting physical contact with him meant… that she didn’t want to be close to him at all.

‘H-Hermione?’

Hermione turned. She had her hands over her mouth, but he could just see her lower lip quivering.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s just…’ Hermione’s voice quavered. ‘What… what will happen when you get bored of me?’

Ron stared at her in confusion.

‘What? Bored of you? How do you-’

‘I’m not good with people!’ Hermione exclaiming, her eyes beginning to bead with tears. ‘I don’t know how to be in a relationship! I’ve already been beastly to you in the past; what if I do something that makes you lose interest completely?!’

‘I won’t get bored of you!’ Ron replied, guiding her back to the bed and pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket for her to use. ‘Hermione, how long have I known you? Since we were eleven. I’ve been hanging around you for years. I-’

‘Not as my boyfriend, though!’ Hermione wailed, blowing her nose. ‘I’ve b-been pining for you for years, and… oh, R-Ron, I just know I’m going to mess things up! I’m terrified I’ll do something worse than those g-godforsaken birds, and you’ll be done with me forever!’

‘No, you won’t,’ Ron said, cradling her head softly in his hands, before kissing her on the forehead. ‘Hermione, I’m just as scared of messing things up between us.’

‘Y-you are?’ Hermione asked, tearily looking up at him. ‘B-but why?’

‘Because I’ve been pining after you for years.’

‘R-really? Y-you mean that?’

Ron nodded.

‘I do. Hermione, I love you.’

There was a brief silence.

Then, before Ron knew quite what was happening, Hermione had launched herself at him and was kissing him hard on the mouth. Her hands wrapped round his shoulders, pressing her firmly against him.

Staggering backwards, Ron collapsed onto the bed. Hermione continued her fierce kissing, letting out soft moans against his lips as she did so. With a shock, Ron realised that the towel covering her was a lot thinner than he had expected. He could… feel certain parts of Hermione pressing into him.

Hermione eventually pulled back, her breathing heavy and her lips now slightly enflamed.

‘Do… do you mean that?’ she breathed, her face barely an inch from his. ‘Do… do you really love me?’

Still in shock from her passion, Ron nodded.

‘Y-yeah,’ he mumbled. ‘Have done for years. Sorry, I shouldn’t’ve-’

‘I love you too, Ron,’ Hermione whispered, her brown eyes warm. ‘I… I have done for so long, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t brave enough to say it until now.’

‘Really?’

Hermione nodded.

Ron pressed his lips to hers, gently.

‘How am I this lucky?’

‘What, because I’m lying on top of you naked aside from a towel-’

‘Hermione Granger!’ Ron laughed, feeling his ears burn. ‘Who would have thought you were such a saucy witch?’

‘Is that a problem, Ron Weasley?’ She said, pressed herself closer to him. ‘Feels to me like you aren’t complaining at all-’

With a husky growl, Ron flipped Hermione onto her back, and pressed his lips to hers once again. This time, his passion was far stronger, and he heard Hermione moan happily against his lips.

Breathlessly, Hermione pulled away.

‘Y-you’re definitely not complaining,’ she grinned, her chest heaving.

‘Not at all,’ Ron replied, smiling down at her. ‘Are you? I’m not going to push you if you don’t want to-’

‘I want to,’ Hermione said. ‘Now, hurry up.’

‘With what?’

The bushy-haired witch’s eyes burned with a look Ron had never seen before.

As Ron stared down at her in wonder, Hermione loosened her towel and unwrapped it.

‘Wow…’

Hermione’s cheeks flushed.

‘Was that an approving “wow”?’

‘Definitely,’ Ron breathed. ‘You’re bloody gorgeous, love.’

Hermione smiled.

‘Well… aren’t you going to join me?’

Grinning widely, Ron pulled his t-shirt over his head in one movement. Hermione gave an approving smile as his muscles flexed.

A few second later, his shorts and boxers were discarded too.

‘Wow…’ Hermione said, smiling. ‘God, this is an even better view that how I imagined it might be.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Ron said, as he slid down on the mattress. ‘Oh, hang on a second-’

Summoning his wand from the table, Ron cast the contraceptive charm, which left both their bodies with a warm purple glow before fading.

‘Was that a non-verbal summon?’ Hermione asked, as Ron dropped his wand next to his clothes.

‘Trust you to get turned on by spellwork,’ Ron chuckled, beginning to press kisses to her thighs.

‘I am not!’ Hermione exclaimed, giggling. ‘I just appreciate the effort, that’s-oooohhhh…’

Ron grinned, as he began to explore her centre. Hermione was breathing heavily, her eyes had fluttered shut, and her skin was beginning to become covered in sweat. Which, given what Ron was currently doing, was a good sign.

He had obviously never done this sort of thing before, but that was okay. Neither of them had. All Ron knew was that he wanted Hermione to feel as good as possible. Remembering some tips from the “Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches” book, his hands began to roam softly around her body, exploring areas that he had spent most of his adolescence trying not to ever think about.

Judging from the sounds Hermione began to make, she wasn’t complaining.

‘Ron… please…’ Hermione said, and Ron looked up at her. Her face was tender and her voice was pleading. ‘I need you…’

‘Are… are you sure?’

‘Yes, Ron. P-please…’

Scrambling up the bed, Ron lay down with her, and pressed a kiss to her lips.

‘Merlin…’ he moaned, as he cradled her close to him. ‘Hermione, I love you so much.’

‘I… I love you too, Ron,’ Hermione whispered. ‘God… oh… Ron…’

Ron could already feel his self-control beginning to strain. But he clearly wasn’t the only one. Hermione’s legs were now pressing around him, as she pulled him closer to her. Her eyes had fluttered shut again.

‘G-gonna…’

‘O-okay,’ Hermione gasped, gazing up at him. ‘Do it…Ron…’

Ron moved one last time, and lay still, their bodies still entwined.  

‘That was…’

‘Brilliant,’ she finished, smiling at him.

Ron lay down on the mattress next to her, and the two of them lay, their breathing returning to normal.

‘Really? I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t go on for-’

‘There’s always a next time,’ Hermione said. ‘Besides, we’ve got the rest of our lives to get… more acquainted with each other’s rhythms.’

‘That’s true. Did I at least… help you… y’know?’

Hermione blushed.

‘Well, yes.’

‘Oh, really?’ Ron said, grinning. ‘Well, probably just due to the build-up of everything, I expect, but I’ll take what I can get.’

Hermione giggled.

‘Do most men get excited about that?’

‘Only the smart ones.’

Hermione cuddled into Ron’s side. Her face was peaceful, and she put an arm across Ron’s stomach, hugging him closely.

‘You’re wonderful, Ron,’ she said, softly. ‘Truly. I couldn’t imagine I’d ever be lucky enough to have you.’

Ron felt his ears pinken under her praise.

‘And I know you always try to brush it off when people praise you,’ she continued, giving him a knowing look. ‘So just humour me, okay? No comments about how you’re nothing special. Because you are special. In more ways that you could possibly imagine.’

‘I love you,’ Ron said, kissing her on the forehead. ‘So much.’

‘I love you too,’ she said, smiling as she nuzzled into his side. ‘Thank you for being here with me, Ron.’

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

The two of them smiled, before drowsiness finally overcame them, and they drifted off, their breathing soft as they lay together. In the morning, they would be looking for Mr and Mrs Granger but, in the meantime, they had each other.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you liked it!

[crobby]

house in the sun

happy birthday @brittanyisart !!!! here’s a little something for you!

rating: t || 2.2k words || pepper potts/tony stark

summary: high school sophomores pepper potts and tony stark accidentally meet their future (alternate dimension?) selves and learn the meaning of the word awkward.

—

Pepper Potts knows a lot of things about Tony Stark. She knows that he pretends to like his coffee black, when he really likes it with deadly amounts of sugar. No cream, though. He says too much cream gives him indigestion. She knows that he likes to mumble things to his robots while he’s working on them, almost as if they’ll understand. They just might, for all Pepper knows. She knows that Tony Stark is a genius with an intellect far beyond his age—a sophomore who could best most seniors in college.

The most important thing Pepper Potts knows about Tony Stark is that he absolutely, most definitely, doesn’t like her back. He likes her as a friend, sure, she might just be his second-best friend only after Rhodey. That’s not the problem. The problem is that he doesn't look at her the way she looks at him. He doesn’t do a double-take every time he thinks he might’ve seen her in the hall. He doesn’t want that kind of relationship with her, and that’s okay.

Well, it’s not okay, but she’s accepted it. It’s just another one of the things Pepper Potts knows about Tony Stark.

She also knows that he likes to go over the top with his projects—that he likes to mess around and create crazy things just because he can. That brings her to right now, watching him from a couch in the corner of his workshop as he hammers away at something.

“I thought it’d be better not to ask, but now I’m curious—what are you even making?” Pepper says, folding her legs underneath her.

Tony doesn’t look up from his project. “It’s kind of a portal to another dimension? But also not really. I’m not sure what I’m doing. I'm just messing around.”

“A portal to another dimension is… messing around?” Pepper deadpans, her eyebrows inching their way up to her hairline.

Tony shrugs. “I guess.”

“I came over here to work on our English project, not to watch you break the laws of science. Can we get started on that, please?” Pepper stands up and walks to stand over Tony’s shoulder. She can’t help herself from breathing in the scent of gasoline and expensive cologne that always seems to cling to him. A scent that’s unique to Tony and that Pepper can’t get enough of.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony mumbles, still enraptured in his project, “Just gimme a second, I think I’m about to figure something out.”

Pepper sighs, resolving to stand next to him until he finishes whatever he’s about to do. It’s okay, really, because as much as she’s anxious to start their project, she likes standing close to him and watching him in his element even more.

“Fuck!” Tony says before a bright, blue light encompasses the entire room.

It’s blinding, and all Pepper can do is shoot her hand forward and grip as tight as she can onto Tony’s arm as she feels her stomach drop.

When the blue light fades and she feels like she’s on solid ground again, Pepper opens her eyes to find herself in a skyscraper overlooking New York City. She’s still clutching Tony's arm, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

People live here, Pepper is sure. Why else would there be jackets slung over the armrests of plush couches and half-filled glasses of water resting on silver countertops? They’re in someone’s home, which makes this whole ordeal even more uncomfortable.

“What happened?” she whispers.

“I don’t know,” Tony says, running an anxious hand through his tousled brown waves.

Before he can say anything else, the elevator doors at the end of the room open up to reveal two people—one in a black AC/DC t-shirt over a blue long-sleeve shirt and one in a put-together pantsuit, the latter tapping away on a tablet as she chuckles at something the former is saying.

Pepper can only gape. That’s them. They’re older. They’re different. But it’s them.

She glances at her Tony, who’s as shocked as she is. “It worked,” he mutters.

The other Pepper and Tony stop in their tracks, just noticing the other occupants of the room.

Other Pepper drops her tablet in shock. It shatters against the floor.

“What the hell?” Other Tony says, “How did you-”

Her Tony cuts him off, “What are you wearing?”

Other Tony frowns, picking at his shirt, “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Nothing,” Her Tony says, “It’s a great look if you’re a depressed dad who’s given up. Oh God, is that my future? Is that what’s in store for me? ‘Cause you’re obviously me but, like, fifty years older.”

Other Tony sends an exasperated look at Other Pepper, “Was I always this much of a bastard?”

“Yes,” both Peppers say.

“Is this your building?” Her Tony asks, glancing around the lavish room.

“That’s your biggest concern right now?” Pepper says.

“I want to know!”

Other Pepper places her palm on her forehead. Pepper catches a glimpse of silver on her hand and her heart skips a beat.

“Are you married?” She blurts out.

Other Pepper takes her hand off of her forehead to look at the ring on her finger. She gets a soft look on her face. “Yeah, I am.”

Pepper gasps, “To who?”

When a matching soft look crosses Other Tony’s face, Pepper almost screams. It’s him. She’s married to him.

Her Tony doesn’t seem to catch on, his brow furrowed, “Who is it?” he asks.

Other Tony lifts his hand to show a matching ring.

Her Tony’s eyes grow wide. “Oh,” he says.

Other Pepper frowns, “Are you guys not together?”

Pepper blushes, shaking her head. Her Tony runs a hand over the back of his neck, a blush to match hers spreading over his cheeks.

“Oh,” Other Pepper says.

Other Tony coughs. “Let’s figure out how to get you two home, yeah? Yeah.” He starts walking to the elevator, gesturing for her Tony to follow him, “Come on, I’m gonna need you for this one.”

Her Tony follows, glancing quickly at Pepper before jogging after him.

When it’s just her and the other version of her, Pepper allows herself to flop onto the nearest couch, burying her head into one of the pillows.

Other Pepper sits on the other end of the couch, resting a comforting hand on Pepper’s calf.

“You like him,” she says. It isn’t a question.

Pepper groans pushing her face deeper into the pillow.

“He likes you too, you know.”

Pepper sits up quickly, clutching the pillow to her chest. “He does not.”

Other Pepper smiles, “Does too.”

“Does not!”

“How do you know?”

Pepper squeezes the pillow, resisting the urge to bury her face in it again. “I just do.”

Other Pepper hums, guiding Pepper to rest her head on her lap and placing the pillow back against the armrest. She gently strokes Pepper’s long hair. It’s more comforting than it should be, given that it’s her future (alternate?) self who’s petting her.

“I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” Pepper whispers. “He means too much to me.”

“You have to take risks, love. It took me way too long to realize that. I know you want to measure every step you take, to make sure you’re on the right path, but life is so much better when you just take those steps without measuring them first: when you just live life freely rather than with so much restraint. Believe me, I’ve been there. I know how terrified you are of risks, but this one is worth it.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“What risks have you taken?” Pepper asks.

Other Pepper chuckles, “Far too many to name.”

“Which one was the best?”

“I’m not sure you’ll understand it yet,” Other Pepper says, a faraway look in her eyes.

“Tell me anyway.”

Other Pepper sighs, tucking her hair behind her ear. “There’s someone who’s really important to me, and they were making some decisions that scared me. I didn’t know if each time I saw them would be the last. I was going to walk away from them—I was going to leave before I got hurt. But I didn’t. I stayed, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

“Did you get hurt?”

“Yeah,” She chuckles wryly. “Yeah, I got hurt. But it was okay, in the end. We’re past that, and I couldn’t be more grateful for what I have now.”

Pepper shifts to look up at herself, her head still on Other Pepper’s lap. Her older self seems good. Real good. She has smile lines next to her eyes—something that Pepper had never wanted, but now she does. She wants those same smile lines because then she knows she’ll have been the kind of happy that never really leaves your face, that comes back years later to show that it was there. The kind of happy that isn’t fleeting.

“I think all versions of Tony were meant to love all versions of Pepper,” other Pepper says, “I think it’s a universal constant. What we have—what we’ve always had—is too strong to only be in one universe. It’s too strong to be limited to only us. Even if it’s platonic love, it’s still love.”

“You really think that?” The searing hope blossoming in her chest shouldn’t be so strong, but it is. If all Tonies love all Peppers, then that means there’s a chance for her. There’s a chance.

Other Pepper nods down at her, something warm in her eyes that makes Pepper feel safe.

For a long moment, they don’t say anything. Other Pepper resumes stroking Pepper’s hair, and they simply exist. Pepper finds herself looking around the space, at the photos hanging on walls and sitting on tabletops of them in various stages of life—there’s one of them sitting together on a park bench, eating ice cream. Other Tony has a mint-chocolate chip mustache and Other Pepper’s laughing so hard her eyes are watering. There’s another photograph of them at a gala: Other Pepper in a blue silk gown and Other Tony in a tuxedo. They’re not laughing, but their eyes are. They’re locked in an embrace—a dance, from the looks of it. Pepper longs, so sincerely, so viscerally, for what they have. This place is covered in them, in their love. It’s in the matching mugs in the kitchen sink and even in the way the room smells—like a mixture of something that’s recognizably Tony and something that she remembers from her own home.

Pepper doesn’t know how long they sit there, but eventually the Tonies resurface.

“We did it,” Her Tony says, grabbing an apple off of the fruit bowl on the counter, “We can go home now.”

“That’s good to hear,” Other Pepper says, gently guiding Pepper off of her lap so she can stand up to hug Other Tony.

He grins, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

Pepper glances at her Tony to see how he reacts and finds him looking at her, a faint blush on his cheeks. A matching one forms over hers. They both look away.

They all go back down to the lab, where a machine is whirring and ready to go. Pepper looks at her other self, “Thank you,” she says.

Other Pepper smiles, squeezing Pepper’s shoulder.

“I guess we should, uh,” Pepper gestures to the machine.

“Yeah.”

Pepper and her Tony walk to the machine, which has started to glow bright blue like before. She looks back at their alternate selves one last time and has to pry her eyes away from their joined hands. Before she can convince herself not to, she grasps Tony’s hand in her own as she lets the blue light consume them.

Her stomach drops, and then she opens her eyes to find herself back in her own universe.

“That was…” she begins, then stops.

Tony hums. “What did you think?” He asks. “Of them, I mean.”

Pepper takes a deep breath. “They seemed really happy.”

“Did you ever, uh…” Tony says, but he never finishes his sentence.

Pepper musters up all of her courage. “Think that could be us?” She finishes for him.

Tony blushes, then nods.

“I, um, think it could be. If we wanted it to.”

Tony takes a sharp inhale. “Do you want it to?”

Pepper looks him in the eye, then at the floor. She might as well be running a marathon for how fast her heart is beating. She remembers what other Pepper had said—about every Tony loving every Pepper—and thinks that even if he doesn’t want her romantically, they can still be friends.

So, she takes a chance.

Letting go of his hand, she places hers on either side of his face and brings them together into a kiss. It’s awkward, it’s fumbling. Neither of them knows what they’re doing, really. But it works, because it’s them.

Tony pulls back. “I’m gonna take that as a yes.”

“Yes,” Pepper breathes, before pulling him back in.

Pepper Potts knows a lot of things about Tony Stark. She knows that his lips taste like coffee. She knows that he likes AC/DC more than he lets on. She knows that his hair is soft and lovely to touch.

Most importantly, she knows that Tony Stark likes her back. And that’s enough. They’re enough.

[sunfloweradoring]

the one where five become four

masterlist

Hey everyone! I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone that has been following my writing recently, it’s absolutely insane to think nearly 300 people have read a couple of them! It means the world to me, so thank you <3 K xxx

word count: 2.7k

The boys had been on tour for a matter of months now; I couldn’t actually remember the last time I physically saw Harry. However, what got me through the lonely nights and long hours we couldn’t speak to each other was the knowledge I had - knowing he was doing what he loved and enjoyed above all else. There was only a few weeks of tour to go before they would all be home and with the people who loved them.

Everyone seemed just that little bit extra excited at this tour break because Zayn was to be getting married in this interlude. Perrie had kindly asked me to be a part of the wedding party, meaning me (along with many others of her close friends) had been beavering away back home, rigorously planning away from the wedding that seemed to be speeding towards us faster than we could process.

It made me so happy to see her so looking forward to the marriage - it was evident how she felt about him; and I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like for my own wedding. This year would be mine and Harry’s fifth together, and it only encouraged the small flame of excitement within me. Of course we’d spoken about marriage and the future we could have together, but he was yet to pop the question. I knew that it was definitely something I could do myself, but there was something in me that really wanted it to be Harry that asked me to be his wife - for the rest of our lives. 

I didn’t mind though, I was beyond happy where we were in our relationship currently. I felt so lucky to be a part of his hectic life and I loved to hear all the tour stories each time we got to sneak in a phone call or text. 

He really was the love of my life.

I couldn’t contain the smile that was threatening to come across my lips as I dialled Harry’s number and patiently listened to the dialling tone.

“Hello, love.” Harry’s gravely tone greeted me. Almost instantly, a frown took over my features as I pulled the phone away from my ear to quickly inspect the time. I’d been careful to leave my call late enough in the day to avoid waking him; yet his voice sounded like I’d done just that.

“Hiya, baby.” I gently responded. “Did I wake you up? I thought it was the afternoon or something there?” I questioned, leaning my body back against the pillows of our bed, my right hand absentmindedly stroking over his side of the bed as I spoke. There was a brief amount of shuffling on the other side of the phone before he spoke again.

“Y-yeah, it’s like three or something.” He replied. Now I was a little concerned. It really wasn’t like Harry at all to be so blunt on our phone calls - especially after so many weeks apart. Perhaps he was just feeling the distance particularly hard today, or recording hadn’t quite gone as smoothly as hoped. 

“You alright, Haz?” I was careful to keep my voice soft and smooth to prevent him from detecting my concern. 

“One sec,” Harry quickly replied before I heard his voice again, this time, though, at a distance from the phone. “Mate, I’m on the phone,” There was a muffled response from whoever ‘mate’ was. “No, I don’t wanna keep talking about it. We’re all in the same boat, here, I think we’ve talked about it enough for one day, don’t you think?” There was a brief moment of silence before: “You still there?”  I hummed in response, now completely confused as to what was taking place on his side of the the phone. 

“Baby...” My voice was met with a loud huff.

“Zayn’s thinking of taking a break.” He suddenly said. “He said he’s feeling too pressured and wants to go home for a week before coming back and continuing the tour.” Whatever I was expecting to be wrong, it certainly wasn’t anything like that.

“What?”

“He said we’ve been doing this almost nonstop for years and that he needs time to go home and breathe.”

“Oh my god.” I muttered, hand pushing the hair from my face. “Have you guys been talking about it all day? Is that what you just said?”

“Yeah; he just announced it at breakfast this morning and then just kinda shut himself in his room. He missed all the recording we were meant to be doing today. I don’t even know if he’s gonna come to the show tonight.”

“What are the others saying about it?” 

“Liam and Niall seem to having some sort of existential crisis about it. But honestly I’ve never seen Louis so angry before in my life.” As he spoke his words seemed to become more and more strained. 

“And you?” I spoke after he finished.

“What about me?”

“How do you feel about it?” His sniffles told me all I really needed to know but he did speak up after a minute.

“God I feel so conflicted.” His tone was a mixture of frustration, sadness and pure disappointment. I didn’t speak, allowing him time to continue. “This is like... the best thing that’s ever happened to me; this opportunity to go around doing things I love in different parts of the world, meeting fans, you know? And yeah, of course I understand the pressure he’s going on about; we’ve been putting out an album basically every year since X-Factor, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like a chore - it’s something I want to do. It’s something we all want to do!” Pause. “Well, I thought we all wanted to do it.” He added quietly. I really felt at a loss for words. I’d never heard Harry sound so manic before and I worried what would come of this new situation. 

“Are you coming home?” I asked.

“N-no. Well, at least, I don’t think we are. I think it’s just him.” Another silence came over the phone. I really didn’t know what to say to him that would make it any better. “Baby...” Harry trailed off.

“Yeah?”

“Can you come? I just... I just really need you here right now.” I could hear him feverishly fighting back tears.

“Do you want me to come?”

“Yeah...” It almost sounded like a child, desperately calling for the comfort of his mother.

“Of course I can, my love. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

                                                    ----------------

I managed to get a late night flight out that same day, getting me in the next day, early morning for his timezone. The hours on the plane seemed to pass at a snail’s pace; I couldn’t contact Harry; I couldn’t see if there was any news about anything for that period of time - only fuelling my anxiety at the situation. 

Finally, though, the plane landed and I was able to get into the airport, through immigration and retrieve my bag without too much delay. My knee nervously bounced against the floor of the car the entire ride towards the hotel. Harry had already notified the reception that I was to be arriving, so they gave me a key to the room without trouble. I almost ran to the lift, pressing the button about four times; as if it somehow sped up the process. 

I scanned the numbers on the walls next to the doors as I made my way down the corridor; I was pretty sure that this entire floor was dedicated to the boys and their extensive team, but I wasn’t about to waste time knocking on a million different doors. As I came closer to the end of the corridor I could hear shouting from inside room 803. I quickly glanced down at my phone, open on the text Harry had sent me with the information for the hotel.

‘Mine is 803, they should give you a key but I’ll leave it open for you xxx’

I huffed out a breath, pulling my small suitcase to a stop as I reached out for the door-handle. Before I could pull it, however, the door swung open and a red faced Niall was stood in front of me. 

Since 2011 Niall had become one of my best friends. A part from Harry (obviously) he was the one I was closest to in the band. We shared many things and I’d often been the one he called for advice on girls, or even held him (in a purely platonic way, of course) as he cried about his most recent heartbreak. He’d also been my shoulder to cry on in the times Harry and I experienced a particularly tough fight and was always willing to help both of us out in any way he could. His surprise to be met with me was evident in the way he spoke my name.

“Hey.” He cleared his throat, rubbing his palm roughly against his face. “I guess you’ve heard, then?” He asked, stepping to the side to allow me to enter the room, seeming to have forgotten about his departure of the space.

“Yeah.” I nodded in sympathy, reaching out to rub a soothing hand up and down his arm. 

“I just can’t fucking believe he could do this.” Harry came into my view as Niall spoke, his eyes red rimmed. 

“He’s just stressed, I’m sure he’ll come round. Just let him go home for a few days and cool off.” I suggested, walking towards Harry to pull him into a hug. 

“Let him go home?” Niall repeated.

“She doesn’t know, Niall. She’s just got here.” Harry speaks, voice croaky. 

“Don’t know what?” I asked, keeping my arms around Harry’s middle as I pulled away enough to look up at him. 

“He’s gone.”

“Gone?” I spoke Niall’s words again, looking between the two men in the room in utter confusion. “What do you mean he’s gone?” Harry pulled away, taking my hand to lead me towards the sofa in the room as Niall pushed the door closed and followed us. Harry and I sat, legs touching, on the sofa as Niall sunk down into the chair opposite. 

“Well you know that I said he just made the announcement at breakfast yesterday?” Harry asked, leaning back in the cushions, arm slung over the back of the furniture behind me. I nodded, urging him to continue. “He just stayed in his room pretty much all of yesterday; he spoke to Lou before the rest of us left for the show, he didn’t come, even though he said he would.”

“He was gone by the time we got back.” Niall finished. 

“Oh my god.” I breathed, my head falling into my hands. “Well what the hell does that mean?” 

“We don’t know.” Harry replied. Both men looked in a right state; I wouldn’t be surprised if they told me neither of them had a wink of sleep last night. Both of their hair, usually pretty immaculate, was now roughly sticking out every which way as if they’d been pulling and pushing at it in frustration. 

“Has any of his family said anything?” I asked. “Perrie?”

They shook their heads in reply, looking down sorrowfully. Suddenly the door was pushed open and one of their body guards walked in. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” He started, shooting me an acknowledging nod. “There’s been some... developments.”

“What developments?” Niall asked.

“I think you should just come into Liam’s room, there’s a meeting.” He said, refusing to say anything and standing to the side of the door, watching the three of us. 

“I’ll stay here.” I offered, watching Harry and Niall get up.

“No, come.” Harry said, holding his hand out. I took it, following him as he pulled me towards him, his hand at the small of my back as we were led by Niall out of the room. Collectively we muttered a ‘thanks’ to the man holding the door open as we went to the room three doors down.

“One sec,” I said, feeling my phone vibrate in my back pocket. “I’ll meet you in there.” I slipped it out, giving them an encouraging smile and nod before answering it - not looking at who the caller was. “Hello?” I was answered by someone crying out my name. “Perrie?” Harry stopped, reaching out and grabbing Niall’s arm to stop him continuing into the room as they both spun around to watch me.

“It’s Z-Zayn.” She continued to cry.

“What’s happened? Has he made it home?” I asked, exchanging a worried look with Harry. As I spoke, Louis, Liam and their tour manager emerged from the room, all standing and watching me.

“What’s going on?” Liam whispered. Niall quickly explained.

“He just texted me. He said he’s back in London, but he said that was it. He wasn’t going back. The band is over for him. And so are we!” She hiccuped between each sentence, her explanation laced with sobs. My heart seemed to come to a juddering holt at her words.

“The band’s over? What do you mean? You’re over?”

“He’s called off the wedding!” 

                                                   ----------------

I sat in Liam’s room next to Harry as their tour manager explained the situation. “So he’s quit?” Louis asked after what felt like an eternity of silence between the seven of us. It was evident in his ton and body language it was taking every fibre in his body not to rage.

“What the fuck?” Niall cried, face falling into his palms. His shoulders were shaking, showing us that his tears were falling. Liam moved to sit on the arm of his chair, pulling him into a hug, but it was clear he himself was fighting tears. 

“And he’s broken up with Perrie?” Liam confirmed, looking between me and their manager. We both nodded. 

I was absolutely stunned. I didn’t know what was going on. The last twenty four hours and been a rollercoaster, a whirlwind, going from one thing to the next in what felt like a flash.  

“Christ... I can’t believe this.” Louis said. It hadn’t gone unnoticed to me that Harry remained silent. I turned my head to look at him; he seemed to be in a sense of shock. I gently squeezed the hand that was in mine. 

“Haz...” I prodded quietly, my other hand rubbing up and down his thigh gently.

“Can we go?” He croaked, averting eye contact. 

“Um... I think we’ll be right back.” I spoke up, standing and waiting for Harry to follow. The other seemed to have an unspoken understanding; all feeling this sense of numbness and loss. We made our way back to Harry’s room in silence. I pushed the door shut behind us, watching cautiously as Harry went straight to the bed and almost fell onto it, his gaze staring up at the ceiling. I slowly approached him, laying beside him without a word. Both of his hands were sort of cupped around his mouth, eyes welling with tears. 

“Come here, baby.” I whispered, pulling his body into mine as he let out a choked sob. His head rested on my chest as I wrapped him in my arms. Soon more sobs escaped his mouth, morphing into an almost continuous cry as his body shook. “Shhh, my love, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. Just let it out.” I spoke gently into his hair as I kissed the back of his head. With each passing moment my heart was breaking more and more. Never had I seen him like this and it saddened me to no end. 

About half an hour had gone passed where he had uttered no words or sounds. “Thank you,” His voice was hoarse and muffled into my jumper.

“What for, my darling?”

“For coming, for being here. For just... being you.” He whimpered. I sniffled, a couple of my own tears falling from my eyes.

“Of course.” I replied, squeezing him gently. “Of course.” 

Neither of us knew what was going to follow this day; would the band continue? Would this be the end of the road for all of them? All I did know was that as long as Harry and I were together, we could weather any storm thrown our way, because we loved each other, supported each other, unconditionally. 

[astralsweetness]

I can’t be honest (but neither can you) || Changkyun/Reader (m)

➣ I cannot believe this is my first contribution to Monsta X, this is really how I’m entering the writing side of this fandom OTL Also hello idk how to write short summaries?? I proof-read this at 4:30 AM so please tell me if I missed something lol. Fair warning I switch P.O.V.’s often in this and with absolutely no regard to any writing rules

➣ Changkyun/Reader | Angst[?] with a surprisingly happy ending that I didn’t mean to write | Showcases some bad coping mechanisms from both he and the reader | Mentioned Wonho/Reader, but it’s purely platonic in a sexual way | Smut warnings include: mentions of choking, pegging, fingering, mentions of a ruined sexual scene, sort of self-imposed edging if you squint, hair-pulling, facesitting

➣ It’s been almost a year since he called off the relationship and your name still tastes like a mixture between sugar and ash on his tongue when he says it, your picture is still saved in his camera roll, and he’s taken the plunge these last few months to reach out to you to be friends again. His hyungs tell him it’s a bad idea, and he tells them he knows, because he does, really, he swears he does. It’s just that his heart soars when he gets to talk to you and he can’t remember why he was ever scared of letting you in past that last wall he’d put up, and he’s going to your place and he hates himself because instead of “I love you” he says “please fuck me” and even now he can’t be honest to you about his feelings.

“I want you to fuck me.” He’s standing at your door, speaking in English with that deep voice of his, and you just blink blankly at him - he hadn’t called or texted to say he was coming over, and to be completely honest you hadn’t seen him in over a week. The silence is uncomfortable, but his eyes are intense, and he refuses to shift shyly under your blank stare.

“..well, come in I guess.” You invite him in with raised eyebrows - he goes easily, knowing your apartment like his own home. It’s been almost a year since you two broke up, but he hasn’t forgotten anything. That same stupid plant he hated was still on your table. He had no idea how it was still alive.

“So.. we aren’t together anymore, we haven’t hung out in a while, but you decided I’m the person you want to fuck you. Suddenly.” Your tone of voice conveys your lack of belief - this sort of feels like some very strange joke, but you have no idea who’d ever come up with one like this.

“You fuck Wonho-hyung all the time, and you aren’t dating him, so why can’t you fuck me?” His words are said in a rush, the first sign of nervousness, and you cross your arms and cock a hip. It’s your default power-pose, lets you feel like you’re in control when you have no idea what’s going on.

‘Is that really all it is?’ you want to ask, but you stay silent. He doesn’t seem aware that when you’re with Hoseok it’s more for the other man’s emotional well-being than it was just to get laid. Sometimes people needed to be broken apart and pieced back together lovingly just to feel okay. For Hoseok, you were a friend he trusted enough to let break him and then take care of the pieces that remained shattered on the floor.

“If you tell me why then maybe.”

“I’m not doing shit for a maybe.” He fires back instantly, gaze narrowing. His shoulders have tensed and he’s widened his stance, an unconscious reaction to the way your own body language had changed. Whether he actually felt it or not, at a subconscious level he believed he was being threatened.

You step forward and snag him by the forearm - the fight goes out of him instantly, replaced by pure innocent confusion as you lead him to your bed. He notices dully that you’ve redecorated your bedroom - though it makes sense considering he was the one who had helped you liven it up before.

“Sit - and try to relax. All the muscles in your shoulders are tensing up.” Your words have the opposite affect you wanted them to have - he tenses more, seemingly thrown off by your care, your notice of his minute actions.

You watch the way his gaze drifts over your room – it catches and lingers on a group picture of you and the rest of his group, tucked safely into the frame of your vanity mirror.

It’s a nice picture, though you really don’t remember taking it. You’re fairly certain everyone was drunk though, since you’ve got your arm thrown around Minhyuk’s shoulders in it, pressing your cheek against his.

It’s cute, even if looking at it is bittersweet. You can see the question on his face, the ‘why did you keep this?’.

“It’s not like I stopped being friends with them just because we broke up.” You feel defensive over your choice, face heating – you weren’t even near him in the picture, on completely opposite sides in it. He just murmurs a soft “oh” that sounds dejected, and you desperately don’t want to think about it.

“Anyway –“ You’re desperate to move on at this point, and he seems to feel the same because his attention snaps back to you. “You’re not really in a position here to argue and make demands, but fine -��� It was just sex, right? For you, anyway. “I can’t literally right now, I have a class in 30 minutes, but if you tell me why then we can negotiate.” You feel like some sort of fucking dealer.

He seems vaguely surprised you’ve agreed so easily, but he works his jaw and tries to figure out how to explain his reasoning to you - whatever it may be. You let him think and go in search of your computer bag. Online classes were a pain, especially those that required attendance in the form of a webcam. The bag has been thrown into a corner of your room, and you sigh and bend down to begin your annoying search.

“Well, we’re not together anymore, so..” You crane your neck to look at him, even as you continue to rummage through your backpack for your computer cord. Damn thing was in there somewhere, you knew. “I don’t have to worry about what you think of me anymore?”

He finishes his statement with an accidental upwards inflection that turns it into a question, and your hands pause before you turn back around and continue searching, mulling over your word choice carefully. ‘You never had to worry’ sits on your tongue, something that is desperate to be said, but you swallow it back down. He wouldn’t believe you and it’d cool the current mood.

“I see.” You finally settle on, standing and popping your vertebrae back into place as your prize - the fucking charging cord - dangles from your hands. Your two words could convey many meanings, and you can see from your peripheral that his brow has furrowed. It’s not the answer he was expecting, though you think he probably didn’t know what he’d been expecting in the first place. “Then - what is it you want?”

“For you to fuck me.” He answers again, and then swallows as he notices your blank stare has returned.

“I know that, you said that. I meant what specifically are you looking to get out of this?”

“I want it to hurt.” His words make your breath catch in your throat, emotions swinging between vaguely turned on and worried. Sure, he’d had some masochistic tendencies in bed before, but - “I mean - I don’t – not physically -“ He’s switched to Korean in the wake of your silence, a comfort language, and you wonder if he even realizes he’s done it.

“Okay.” You respond simply in Korean back and he stops his rambling, just blinks at you. You see the tension finally start to drain out of his shoulders and switch back to English purely for your own sake, because it was easier, definitely not because you wanted to be able to hear his voice speaking your native language. “So long as you promise to use safewords, I won’t ask. I’m not your therapist and I’m not -“

“My girlfriend.” He finishes your sentence quietly, back to English as well, and your mouth goes dry.

“And I’m not here to judge you.” You remedy - you weren’t going to mention anything about your past relationship, and he looks away quickly at that realization. “You mentioned Hoseok -“ His hand twitches at his side when you call his hyung by his real name, but you mercifully don’t call him on this. Maybe this was a bad idea, but you’ve gone this long purely on the denial that he regrets breaking up with you, and it’s too late to stop that now. “- so I’m going to treat this situation exactly like that.”

“Okay?” Changkyun has no idea what that means, his fingers curling into your bedspread. You check the time - 20 minutes until class.

“I’m your friend, and I want to help you. This doesn’t change anything between us, this doesn’t add some extra dynamic, some extra layer.” Your voice has gone business mode and he’s stiffened his back at it, an ingrained response from being in the music industry for so long. “I’m not doing this just because I want sex - if you are, that’s fine, but I’m just doing this to help you out. Is that clear?” He nods once, eyes wide. You think he’s cute. You’ve always thought he was cute, and it reminds you of how cute turned into smitten and smitten turned into perfection and perfection turned into love and love - well, he ended love. “Changkyun - do you promise this is just about sex or release of some kind and nothing else?”

Your tone had softened, and he’d been let out of whatever thrall your no-nonsense voice had put him into. The question hangs in the air heavily, dripping of a nectar so sweet it’s sickening.

“Yes. I promise.” His voice is hoarse, cracking and quiet - and you think he’s lying.

But you’ve held on to your denial for so long. He had said before that the spark was just gone - and what were you supposed to say to that? It wasn’t his fault; people fell out of love all the time. You could barely believe he’d ever been interested in you from the beginning and you refused to believe you were worth falling in love with for a second time. The fact that you had managed to remain friends is more than you could have ever hoped for.

“Okay.” You repeat his assurance, more for your own benefit than his. The room is quiet, and thunder rolls in the distance. Fuck - a storm meant spotty WiFi for your class.

You check the time again - 15 minutes.

“We can use the stoplight system -“ His gaze has blanked so you take the time to roughly translate it into Korean, explaining until his brow smooths out, and then you’re back to English. “Aside from that, though, I need to know what you’re interested in, what you want to happen or don’t want to happen. You can hang out here if you want during my class, or leave, I don’t care - but take the time to think over what it is you want in this session.” Your words are too clinical, you know this, but you can’t keep yourself from doing it that way. You know most of the things he’s into and not into, but if you don’t take this route then it all feels too intimate. Besides, he’d always kept a very careful hold of how much control he’d let go around you before, never wanting to slip too far into subspace, always wanting to seem in command, even when subbing for you. You wonder if that’s changed. You certainly don’t remember him ever blatantly asking outright to have something done to him before.

Memories flash across your mind eye, his back covered in your scratch marks, the way he moaned brokenly when you pulled on his hair, the way he came when you pressed your fingers to his throat. But he never asked for any of it - you had to ask if it was okay to do to him, and he always brushed off any of your attempts of aftercare.

You swallow again, feeling vaguely sick. Things had been broken in your relationship long before he called it off, but neither one of you wanted to admit it. Your heart hurts for multiple reasons, but when you glance at him out of the corner of your eye you know the biggest one: ‘I hope I didn’t hurt him by not talking about it’.

But he didn’t talk about it either. Did he care about whether it hurt you?

“Is that okay?” He’s been talking to you, and you startle out of your thoughts - a half-formed little smirk dances at the corners of his lips, one eyebrow quirked in amusement. He knows you well enough to know when you’ve been drifting. “I said, I’ll stay here if that’s alright with you.”

“Yeah, it’s fine - sorry, was just.. thinking.” It doesn’t really surprise you that he’s decided to stay - he’s confident to a fault, it’s true, but there’s a slash of shyness that strikes through his character, and you know that if he left he might not be able to come back. The thunder rumbles in agreement.

You half-watch him as you set up your computer on the coffee table – he’s looking around your apartment with thinly veiled curiosity, though you don’t really blame him. It didn’t really look anything like when you two had been together, and yet.. you felt it still had his subtle touch all over it. You wondered if he noticed that.

The class is boring, as it usually is – you’re watching the screen but your mind is far away, listening to your admittedly enthusiastic professor talk about the hyoid bone and articulations while your focus is on Changkyun. He lingers around you with a nervous type of energy, clearly not feeling allowed to roam around your apartment (it’d be kind of weird if he had, you admit) but also not feeling comfortable enough to sit on the couch next to you, even if he would have been off camera.

It’s almost like it was before, and you half expect him to sit down next to you anyway and throw his arm around your shoulder, always just off-screen, sitting next to you during your classes while he amused himself with his phone, just so he could be near you.

You’re just about to be able to feel the phantom warmth from the memory of his arm around you before he coughs and you startle, eyes snapping to him – he looks back wide-eyed, not understanding your surprise but murmuring a quiet apology anyway.

God you were so fucked.

.｡..｡.

“So?” The instant your class had ended you’d snapped the computer lid shut – you hadn’t retained a single thing said, what a complete waste. It wouldn’t have mattered if you’d skipped and focused on Changkyun in the end after all. “Did you decide on what you wanted?”

You’re so flippant with your question that he feels like he’s being asked about what it is he wants to eat instead of how he wants to have sex – the entire hour of your class he’d been nervous, and those nerves had by now tightened into a very tight ball at the base of his spine that periodically sent white-hot flames licking along his muscles.

“I –“ His mouth is so fucking dry and he hates how small he suddenly feels – he’d never felt like this around you before, but usually it had always been you asking if you could do something to him, hadn’t it? “I said it earlier. I want you to fuck me.”

He watches your reaction with pin-point precision – the small widening of your eyes, the way your gaze darts to the side like it always did when you were thinking something over – it wasn’t like you hadn’t ever fucked him before, but he’d never asked you to do so, and you clearly hadn’t expected him to come out with something like that so easily.

Why the hell could he say something like that and not something as simple as ‘I love you’, or even ‘I miss you’?

“Okay.” You’ve wrested your thoughts back under control – it wasn’t fair of him to say something like that, looking so utterly and effortlessly attractive. “As long as there’s no kissing I’ll fuck you any way you like, Changkyun.” You were over him and he was over you and this was just sex.

If you said it enough you’d start to believe it, right?

Changkyun just nods at your terms, looking a bit despondent – you can’t help the strong surge within you that says to fix it, fix whatever upset him, but you have a feeling you knew already. He’d always been a bit fixated on kissing you, but you knew if you let him this time then it’d all be over.

“I don’t remember you ever falling this far into the ‘submissive’ side of things, Changkyun.” You’re desperate to regain the upper-hand, and he flushes a bright red at your comment, grumbling out a weak “shut up” that has you smiling.

“Have you been experimenting?” You’re still teasing him but he bristles at the insinuation that he would have been with anyone after you – you had no reason to think he hadn’t been but the mere thought of being with anyone other than you makes him ache deep in his chest, in his soul.

“No.” He tries to keep his voice calm, but it wavers still and he digs his fingernails into the soft leather of his belt, pausing. “I haven’t been with anyone since –“

He can’t say it, but you understand regardless – he doesn’t like how surprised you look, ducks his head and lets his hair obscure his view of you as he refocuses on undressing. It’s not that you’d been wrong to be surprised with his decision for today, either – before you, he’d never really definitively considered himself particularly dominant or submissive, happy with having the choice to be either at the drop of a hat. That changed with you though – you had been so uncompromising with your power, beautiful and self-assured, and he knew without a doubt that if you so much as even hinted at it he would be on his knees for you every single time.

Not that he had ever told you that, of course. He’d never told you anything he really wanted to. Even now, with you looking at him softly, trying to see if you’d crossed a line with your little teasing jabs, the words ‘I’m happy being this for you’ get stuck in his throat and all he can do is tug his shirt over his head wordlessly, fingernails clicking nervously at his belt as he undoes it. You pretend not to notice the way your heartrate accelerates as he reveals his body bit by bit to you, slender waist but powerful figure, beautiful skin, beautiful body.

“Well, then – lie down.” You gesture to your bed and he swallows down the stupid fucking butterflies he gets at the gesture – he’d been on your bed before, he’d been in this position before, there was absolutely nothing to be nervous about.

And still, despite his nerves, a pleasurable chill runs down his spine when he hears the cap of the lube being clicked open, and he forces himself to exhale as he shifts and tries to get comfortable on a comforter he no longer recognized, in a room that had no trace of him in it anymore.

You look at him with a level gaze, always so calm, and he ignores the erratic beating of his heart and nods his assent for you to begin, immediately shifting his gaze to your ceiling.

Why the fuck was he so goddamn nervous?

(He tries to forget the way he instantly whimpers when he feels your finger, slick with lube, probing at his rim, tries to forget the way he gets hard in under a minute from your heavy gaze and one finger alone, and god he aches for more, aches for anything you’re willing to give him.)

“You’re taking this awfully well.” The teasing comes out unbidden, spilling past your lips before you can even think about the words – but it’s true, for someone who had claimed to not have been with anyone since you he was taking your fingers incredibly well.

“My own hands – fuck – exist..” His snarky response turns into a shaky moan halfway through when you decide to carefully – but quickly – add a third finger. There’s something erotic (and interesting) to you about that, thinking over the fact that Changkyun had been finger-fucking himself ever since you two broke up.

“You look good like this.” It’s an attempt to make up for the previous teasing but all it does is cause him to groan and throw a forearm over his eyes, legs spreading wider when you hit that spot deep inside.

“Fuck, jesus – fuck..” It’s a broken sob instead of an actual sentence (though he manages to stick with English), a familiar feeling already building deep in his gut. He’s not sure if it’s because it’s been so long since he’d been fingered by someone else or if it’s because it’s you doing it, complimenting him while doing so, or if it’s a combination of everything, but his back arches against his will and he knows he is seconds away from coming undone already.

“Stop – stop, oh my god –“ At his desperate plea you stop moving completely and he wants to sob as the pleasurable feeling slowly ebbs away, an almost painful drag as it settles back into a dull burn. He’s gasping, tiny whimpering sounds as he sucks breath back into his lungs, chest heaving – his eyes are wide, fingers curling into your comforter. He looks frantic, frightened almost, and even if it wasn’t your responsibility you knew you’d be desperate to fix it.

“Changkyun, ar –“

“I’m fine.” He bites it out angrily, doing his absolute best to look like he had been anything but moments away from an orgasm five minutes into.. whatever this was. He’s shutting you out again, before anything even begins, and it fills you with such an irrational anger that you have to suck in a breath of your own to keep from lashing out, taking gentle care to extract your fingers even as your blood boils.

“Stop fucking lying to me.” You can’t keep the ice from your words, even if you manage to control the volume and pitch – his dark eyes snap from the ceiling to you in surprise. There’s a panicked feeling bubbling up in his chest, because he really doesn’t know if he can handle you calling him on his true feelings for you right now, doesn’t want to have to admit he still loves you while he’s naked and so vulnerable.

“I’m not –“

“Stop it.” His mouth shuts with an audible click of his teeth, so sudden is your cut-in. Your brow has smoothed out, no longer angry, instead immensely sad, and he’s not sure this is any better. “You said you wanted to do this because you didn’t have to worry about my opinion. So why are you still doing it?”

He can’t breathe, and the lube is drying sticky on your fingers, and for a moment neither of you are aware of the position you’re in, the way the thunder has become your constant background music – he’s looking at you unblinkingly and you’re staring back, and it’s too intimate, too much, but neither of you look away.

“Please stop.” He speaks and it’s barely a whisper, the sound of someone’s heart breaking louder than his voice. You don’t know what to say but open your mouth anyway.

Lightning flickers outside your bedroom window and then your apartment is shaking from the resounding thunder, the power flickering and then plunging the two of you into darkness. Suddenly you can breathe again, and you’re quickly trying to slide out from in between his legs because he said ‘stop’ and he was fully coherent even if he hadn’t said ‘red’, because he said ‘stop’ and you have only ever wanted him comfortable.

“Wait –“ He is frantic, grabs your forearm with frigid fingers as he leans half off your bed to catch you from retreating too far. It’s hard to see him but you get flashes from the light outside your window, electricity reflecting off his dark eyes in starbursts.

“You said to stop.” Your voice is broken and you feel so powerless, sick inside because while you rarely manage to ruin a scene it still tears you up inside each time, and Changkyun wouldn’t let you try to fix it with aftercare and you don’t know what to do anymore.

“I meant –“ Stop talking, stop laying me bare and open, just fuck me and make me forget everything, stop being you so I can stop loving you. “I just want to be ruined.” He says instead, and his voice is so low but so weak that you barely recognize it.

“I can’t do that if you don’t let me.” Your clean fingers curl around his and gently pry them from your arm – but then you keep holding them, and you want to let go but you can’t remember how to tell your body to do so. “Will you let me, Changkyun?”

The air is still and silent aside from the rain slashing angrily at your windows – there is no thunder, your own heartbeat loud enough (or maybe it was his, you didn’t know anymore).

“I want to.” He answers instead, voice quiet but a bit stronger than before, and your eyes have adjusted so you can see the features of his face vaguely now, follow the line of his brow to his cheek to his lips, and you’re leaning in and you hate yourself because you had promised this was the one thing you wouldn’t do.

“Let me wreck you then, baby.” And oh that nickname was a mistake but you’d said it anyway, a ghost of a whisper against his lips, a proposition and a plea all in one. He moves forward the last centimeter and connects your lips as an answer, a sound that is almost one of pure relief being ripped from his throat.

It’s like he’s been waiting years for this moment, doesn’t even fight as you grip his jaw lightly and angle him into a better position so you can scope out the inside of his mouth with your tongue, relearning things you had known long ago but had thought were forgotten.

There’s a flighty feeling in his chest, one of nervousness and expectation – he doesn’t want to give you control so easily, he doesn’t want to be opened and laid bare in front of you, he doesn’t want you to see something you dislike in him – but more than anything he wants you to touch him and keep kissing him and god he fucking misses you, has missed this. He’d asked you to ruin him, you’d asked to wreck him, but he knew he was already both ruined and wrecked just from being near you again, from having your lips on his own.

You try to slide your hands back down his body but he stops you, continues to kiss you as his fingers curl around your own, and the act is so intimate it almost feels wrong.

“Just – hurry up, I’m ready enough.” He manages to say scattered between four different kisses, never apart from your lips for more than a few seconds. You hate yourself for not even trying to stop him, leaning into them each time.

“You can stretch yourself some more while I get ready.” You have to pull away from him completely to say this, and he follows you like you’ve got some magnetic pull on him before you’re off of the bed and the connection is broken.

Even with your eyes adjusted it’s hard to properly get the harness on, fingers fumbling with the straps but managing in the end. You can hear him breathing harsh, anticipating – you can tell from the sounds alone that he hadn’t taken your advice, but you’re not surprised. Always your little pain slut, even if he had never wanted to admit it.

When you approach him again his eyes are wide, brow furrowing as he notices you’re still fully clothed – he keeps his mouth shut tight though, gaze darting in the dark. The storm still rages on outside but neither of you even notice it anymore.

Your fingers on the inside of his thigh startle him – he jumps, trying to close his legs, but you force them back open again. Something about that simple action makes a moan trickle into his throat, but he swallows it back down stubbornly.

He can’t conceal the next sound he makes when you press the blunt tip of the strap-on to his opening, though, a rasping whine as you push in slowly, so fucking slowly. Even with all the lube he knew you’d slathered over the toy it still takes a bit of work to get it into him, and every slight stretch makes him grit his teeth in a masochistic type of pleasure, feeling so full by the end that it makes him so painfully hard his head spins. It hadn’t taken long to get him worked back up, but he’s not really thinking about that right now.

All he knows is that he wants to be close to you, wants to feel good, wants to make you happy – he wants so much that he doesn’t think he can even begin to put any of it into words. It always ends up at ‘I love you’ and he already knew that was a phrase that lodged in his throat like knives.

“Please.” This he can say – you don’t know what he’s begging for but he’s begging all the same, the word ‘please’ becoming a chant that slowly shifts back into his native tongue when teeth mark his throat, fingertips pressing insistently into his hips as you fuck him hard and rough. He hopes, distantly, that it bruises. He wants to be able to remember this for as long as possible.

If he was present enough in the moment he might have been embarrassed by the sounds he was making – his naturally deep voice has transformed completely into high breathy whines, all trace of his ‘savage rapper’ persona gone when you bite his lip hard enough it throbs before you’re flipping him, pushing his shoulders down into the bed with one hand.

The feeling of your palm, small but blindingly warm on his back, makes him weak enough that his thoughts stutter, head a chaotic mess of fractured thoughts and sensations. His eyes are open but unfocused – it’s dark in the room anyway, but he’s unaware of it, cognizant only of your presence and his, that warm fuzzy feeling in his chest competing with the white-hot fire you were stoking lower in his pelvis.

You want to cry at how beautiful and perfect he is for you, the way he arches his back instinctively, presents himself as your own personal plaything – but he wasn’t yours, you had to remember that, remind yourself over and over that this was just sex. (If you repeated it enough it started to stop sounding like real words, and that was equally as dangerous as forgetting them in the first place.)

The head of the strap-on teases his entrance and he groans, clenching his fists into your pillow – you’d taken it out when you’d flipped him and he was fighting against every fucking urge and want and need his body was screaming at him to just take the plunge and force himself backwards. (But another part of his brain is telling him to wait, to make you happy, to draw this out as long as fucking possible because he has no idea if he’ll ever get to experience it again.)

“Can you tell me what you want?” Your voice is soft as silk, quiet, and a fluttery feeling rises up in his stomach at the sound, at how you’ve modified an order to be a request. He doesn’t know how he feels at the realization that you were taking it ‘easier’ on him verbally, that you had at some point come to understand he was having trouble letting go completely.

“I –“ He tries, he really fucking does, but like always the words get stuck in his throat. He just can’t seem to bring himself to admit what he really wants out loud and it is destroying him. One of your hands smooths down his side, lingering at his hip, and he feels like you’ve left behind a line of pure fire on his skin, almost burning away the shame and hatred he feels at himself for his fucking inability to be vulnerable, his cowardice.

“Just fuck me.” He says instead, defeat coating his words – and he can feel you hesitating, because it was obvious he’d meant to say something else and hadn’t.

He opens his mouth to say something, though he has no idea what, at the same instant you decide to slide the strap-on back into him. Whatever he’d been planning to do is gone from his mind instantly, his world reduced to just the dull burn, the frustratingly slow drag against his innermost walls, the way you manage to somehow brush up against the spot that has him trembling and dropping to his forearms. He curses in a strange mixture of Korean and English and you laugh softly at the sound, even as you slide out and thrust back into him hard enough that he jolts forward.

He feels, in a sense, like he is being broken in all the best ways – all he can focus on is you, all he can feel is the way you’re fucking him, grabbing at his hips. His breath is caught in his throat and he just knows he is going to ache later, bone-deep and satisfying.

But it’s not enough, never enough – you’re not asking to do more to him like you had in the past and he can’t manage to tell you what he desires most (though, at this point, he’s not totally sure he could say anything coherent anyway). He reaches back with one hand, groping – your fingers wrap around his and he drags them up to his hair, a wordless plea. He hopes you understand what he’s asking for.

A broken moan is ripped from his throat when you fist your hand in dark strands and pull backward, forcing him into an arch – his mind has blanked into varying shades of white, electricity on his skin and molten lava running through his veins, your heat against his back overwhelming.

You know it’s a bad idea before you do it, but you lean down and press you lips to his shoulder anyway, teeth scraping over feverish skin – the hoarse whine he gives at the feeling makes wetness pool between your legs, uncomfortable and wrong because this was just sex, this was just supposed to be for him.

The urge to mark him up is so strong it’s almost distracting – your hips falter in the bruising pace you’d set as your mind drifts, Changkyun groaning at the sudden shift in speed.

“Let me –“ He’s gasping, feels like he’s been running a fucking marathon or drowning (and oh, he has, drowning in you, in his expansive and terrifying feelings for you) but he knows your hips have to be sore by now and to be completely honest he is just downright greedy, wanting to feel you deep inside, wanting to –

He just wants so much. He reaches back to press at you gently and you let him move you instantly, trying to figure out what had bothered him – as soon as you realize he just wants a change in position you’re grabbing at his hips again, tugging him over your legs. His cock drags against the fabric of your shorts and he nearly sucks in a breath, trying to focus on lining himself up instead of the way it throbbed (or the way you were looking at him, hair splayed out on the pillow and yet so in command still).

He thinks he should feel more in control like this, on top of you, hands braced on your shoulders – but he doesn’t, not at all, and he knows instantly that he isn’t when you snap your hips up to meet his and he falls onto you, moan vibrating against the skin of your neck. He can feel your fingers in his hair, nails scraping against his scalp, can feel the infuriatingly teasing way his cock is rubbing up against your fucking shirt you never took off. It’s gone untouched for so long that it’s absolutely aching by now and he thinks he might actually be able to orgasm like this – but he doesn’t want to, not yet, even with how border-line painful its become. He doesn’t want this to end, doesn’t want to have to go back to a world without you in it.

His hips stutter on top of yours when you tug on his hair again, grinding hard against the strap-on, and you lift his face high enough you can press your lips to his, all hot breath and panted moans. He tastes of honey and heartbreak and you want nothing more than to make him cum and fall apart, trembling, on top of you.

“Am I ruining you properly, baby?” Your voice is dark red and sinful, and he trembles at the sound and tries to seek out your lips again, a whine lodged in his throat when you tighten your grip on his hair and keep him in place, rolling your hips languidly up to meet his frantic movements. “Tell me.”

“Fuck..” He responds instead, deep and rough in his chest – it cracks into a high moan when you punish him with a harsh upwards thrust, fingers curling into your shoulders. Your soft laugh, amused or delighted he’s not sure, makes a feeling like electric butterflies break out across his skin. If you had let go of his hair he’d have buried his face into your neck again to hide his expression – but you haven’t, and he knows you can see everything, every part of him, every expression he makes.

He thinks he must look stupid, embarrassing – but all you see is pure beauty. His brow has furrowed and sweat drips down to his collarbones, bruised lips parted slightly, glistening from where you’d kissed him earlier. Hazy eyes try to look anywhere but your face failingly, allowing you to see the foggy galaxy residing in their darkness. You’re not sure if what you’re seeing is his pupil or iris, but you find it gorgeous all the same, intoxicating.

“I’m going to make you cum, Kyunnie.” He shakes at your dangerous words, your knife-sharp gaze. You’re aware he never responded to your last question. “You’ll fall apart up there, ruined, just like you asked to be.”

Your words wrap around him, coiling tightly like chains – he feels caught, trapped, and he wants nothing more than for you to make good on your word, even if it sends a sharp trill of fear through his stomach.

The grip on his hair lets go suddenly and he sags forward, as if your pull on him had been all that was keeping him upright. He’s left a mess of pre-cum on your shirt, flushes a dark red when you drag your fingers through it thoughtfully.

“Messy boy..” You muse, heat spreading through you when you see the way his cock jerks at those two simple words, so red and aching, so fucking beautiful and desperate.

Fuck, you wanted so badly for him to be yours.

One of his hands flies to your wrist when you finally wrap your fingers around him – more of his weight is on you now but you can’t find it in yourself to mind, not with the way he’s breathing hot and wet against your neck, the way he doesn’t stop you when you move your hand, just clings to your arm desperately like he’s not totally sure he wants to be touched yet.

A choked sound leaves his mouth, lips bitten bloody, and you turn your head so you can breathe against his ear, let him press his face further into your neck. “Such a little whore..” You murmur, and he sobs open-mouthed against your skin and thrusts weakly into your fingers and then back onto the strap-on, unsure of which feeling he wanted more of. “So beautiful. So perfect.”

A part of him feels like he’s dying, unsure if he was really okay with being so vulnerable with you – but another part of him, the larger part, feels like he is fucking soaring, like this is all he had ever wanted and more. There are flames licking at his body, coiling tighter and tighter in his stomach, and he’s not sure how much longer he can last like this.

“You can fall, Changkyun.” Your voice is in his ear, like the sound of silk sliding over skin, fingernails tracing lightly along the back of his neck. He hates the way he reacts so viscerally to it, climax surging forward at the sound, at the way your fingers slide wetly over the head of his cock pinned in between the two of you. “It’ll be okay, you can fall to pieces. I’ll catch you.”

He orgasms with a wail that makes him flush a dark red, and he would have been mortified at the sound if every nerve ending in his body wasn’t currently sparking, his muscles spasming as he tries to keep thrusting into your fist even as the lightning bolt sensations turn from overwhelming to painful. He doesn’t even realize tears have slipped from his eyes until he feels your lips kissing them away, and he is hit with such a wave of emotion that he can’t breathe all over again (and it is just pure emotion, he couldn’t identify a single one of them if he tried).

After you slowly pulled out and settle him on the blankets he watches, distractedly, as you slide the straps down over your hips, leaving it on the floor to be dealt with later. Impulsively he reaches out to catch the edge of your shorts when you try to head to the bathroom, tongue sliding over chapped lips when you turn that powerful, beautiful gaze of yours on him. One of your eyebrows has raised, appraising him as he slowly tugs you back to the bed until you’re resting on your knees next to his waist. Sweat is drying sticky on his skin and he’s trying not to feel like he’d done something wrong, reacted in some undesirable way that you’d remember and relate to him for the rest of your life - but above all that, he wants to taste you. It’s the only consistent thought running through his mind, more prevalent than the lingering unease at having bared so much of himself to you.

“Please.” Again, it’s all he can say, eyes so dark and wide, pleading – his fingertips rest lightly on your hip, over the waistband of your shorts, lips parted ever so slightly. It’s so obvious what he’s asking for, and you want to say no. You’re pretty sure you need to say no. “Babe –“

You surge forward to cut him off mid-sentence with a brutal kiss and he gasps – you didn’t want to hear that, and you can tell from the way he’s frozen that he hadn’t meant to say it, even as his body returns the kiss on pure muscle memory alone. This entire experience had been a mess, a mistake, and yet –

“Okay.” It’s more a breath against his mouth than a word, but the way he smiles at your soft agreeance makes your heart hurt. You were in so deep, had fallen so far – how foolish of you to think you had been over him. How fucking stupid you’d been.

He wastes no time, pulling your shorts and underwear down like he’d done it hundreds of times before – because he had, you note dully – fingers wrapping around your thighs. When you sink down onto his face a tension drains out of his body that neither of you had even noticed was still lingering.

All he can smell is you, all he can taste is you – you surround him and this is all he’s ever fucking wanted, to be possessed by you, to be as close to you as possible. He’s not even totally sure what he’s doing aside from the fact that he’s putting his absolute all into it – he’s just trying to taste every inch of you he can, tongue delving as deep as possible before switching to suck on your clit. There’s no rhyme or reason to his method and it has you letting out a quiet sigh that borders on a gasp. He tries to memorize the sound instantly – any sound he could get out of you was a treasure in itself, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever get to hear them again after this.

There is no particular build-up to your orgasm – it’s at first lingering briefly bone-deep and then suddenly it is upon you in streaks of lightning, hips grinding against his face but mouth stubbornly shut. You can’t let this be any more intimate than it already was. (And yet you instinctively reach down and lace your fingers with his, and his thumb smooths across the back of your hand as he continues to mouth at your cunt, drink up your fluids. You are so utterly and completely stupid, your heart in your throat.)

There is a moment you want to carve out afterwards, a small bubble in time where the two of you could just bask in the afterglow and pretend like nothing had changed from a year ago – but you can’t let yourself do that, pushing yourself up off the bed even as every fiber of you begs to remain beside him for a moment longer. His fingers remain holding yours a moment too long before dropping to your bedspread, defeated.

Your heart suddenly felt like it was three sizes too big for your body, filled to the brim with love for a man you knew you’d have no second chance with, and you clench your teeth tightly to keep it from oozing out between your teeth like bittersweet sugar.

He’s still panting when you return with a damp cloth, reaches for it as if he really expects you to make him clean himself off. You scoff and catch his hand with your own, setting it back down on the bed as you begin to clean off his face first. Whether you wanted to avoid intimacy or not there were things you simply refused to throw to the wayside just because you wanted to remain distant, and one of those was taking care of him after sex. (He’s more receptive this time than he used to be, not fighting you and claiming he was fine, letting you dote on him with a sort of hesitant and soft acceptance. It makes your heart hurt all the more, the pure ache and want almost unbearable.)

“You’re always so messy..” It’s meant to be a light comment but the two of you accidentally lock gazes when you say it, your hand stalling in its motions. He looks like he wants to say something, lips parting – your breath catches in your throat, waiting, but he ultimately just shuts his mouth, gaze darting away from you. Your breath leaves you in a small burst. “Just relax, Kyun, I’ve got you.”

It’s the typical words you say to a sub after an intense session (with an accidental affectionate nickname that you bite the inside of your cheek for), but you mean them, and you don’t want to, but you do, irrevocably. You know that if he needed it, if he asked for it, you would let him stay here for as long as he wanted. You knew that tonight you wouldn’t be asking him to leave. And for that you are so, so incredibly fucked. (You wonder if he is too, judging from the way his eyes widen at the nickname and his breath stutters – but you crush that thought instantly, don’t dare to get your hopes up.)

He’s surprised that you take the time to clean him up, bring him water and a change in clothes – they aren’t his but they’re clearly a man’s, and he wonders if they belong to Hoseok considering the size. Something deep in his chest hurts at that thought. He’s even more surprised when you pull on an oversized shirt instead of telling him to leave – he faintly realizes that he recognizes it, a soft violet that hung down to your lower thighs and always felt soft against his chest when he’d hold you – crawling into bed next to him after changing into it, though he’s automatically moving to accommodate you, perfectly content to throw the thick comforter to the floor to be dealt with in the morning.

“Is.. this okay?” Your voice is quiet, so tentative and soft and hesitant, and all he wants to do is tell you yes, this was more than okay, this was everything he had ever wanted.

“Yeah – I mean, it’s your bed, so..” He hates himself for the way he responds, swallowing hard but taking the initiative to slide his arm over your side, nose in your hair. He can feel the way you tense, but you don’t say anything against it or try to pull away. “And.. this? It’s okay too?”

“…it’s okay.” It’s a small response but he inhales deeply in relief, drinking in your scent half by accident. It’s the same smell he had missed for so long, the one he’d dream of and wake up thinking there was a chance it still lingered on his pillow, heart dropping through his ribcage when he realized it wasn’t.

Despite the nerves fluttering in your stomach you fall asleep fast, mentally drained and physically exhausted - his fingers trace the line of your shoulder, head pillowed on his own arm as he watches you sleep. There is a purely warm and happy feeling trying to spread through his body, but it doesn’t make it very far before the remembrance that you still weren’t his and he still wasn’t yours freezes it in its tracks. He feels like his heart is melting, dripping through his ribs and oozing into his stomach and making him sick.

He’s shaking your shoulder before he even knows what he’s doing, and you’re half-awake and groggy but so fucking beautiful and every single one of his nerves feels like a live wire underneath his skin, buzzing and loud and painful, and he is so scared, but he is also tired. Tired of hurting, tired of missing you, tired of the way Kihyun will be talking about you but stop awkwardly when he notices Changkyun listening, tired of the way he smiles so big his cheeks hurt when the two of you talk on the phone, tired of how he swallows down the words “love you” every time you hang up – and he’s fucking tired of being scared most of all.

“Changkyun, you better be fucking dying..” You’re angry, always angry when woken suddenly, and he just wants to kiss you.

‘I love you, I’m stupid, I was scared, I always loved you, I never fucking stopped, did you know I would dream of you? Did you know that you were the only thing on my mind? On plane rides, in the vans, backstage, all I could think about was you and my hyungs all told me I was just hurting myself and I knew that but I still hoped that somehow you and I would end up happy together.’

Like always he can’t say any of it. It sits on his tongue and he just utters a quiet ‘fuck’ instead, throat tight. Why couldn’t he fucking do this?

“..Kyun?” He’s sitting up now, and you are too, side by side – your expression is open, sleepy but worried, and he has a sudden urge to take your face in his hands and kiss your eyelids.

The scariest part of telling the truth, of laying yourself bare for someone, of letting them in, was that they could take one look and never come back. And maybe he’s not afraid of loving you – maybe he’s never been afraid of loving you, with your eyes that hold the only stars he ever wants to look at. Maybe he’s been afraid of not being loved back.

He swallows hard, reaches for every bit of confidence and courage performing has ever given him, forces himself to be brave the way the industry has taught him to be. Moonlight filters in through the window and he thinks your eyes might actually house the milky way in them somehow.

“I love you, still – always. I never stopped.”

He can’t breathe because you’re just looking at him, stunned and disbelieving, tears collecting on your lash-line but not falling, never falling, and he feels like the fucking worst for telling you now, this way, this bluntly – but he knows if he didn’t say anything he would have never said anything, and he’s not sure he could have survived that, so the words had fallen from his lips hard and heavy and desperate to be said. (And a part of him is still surprised he even managed to say them at all, rushed and frantic as they were.)

“I –“ Your brow is furrowed and your voice is thick, but when he reaches to brush your tears away you let him and his lungs start to tentatively fill themselves with oxygen again.

When you smile it is watery and weak but it is there, and he feels like sunlight has reappeared in the lining of his skin, bright and blinding and warm.

[pronouncingitwang]

s1 archives crew | 1.7K words | basically tim and martin think sasha and jon are dating and have a Time about it to my specific amusement

[INT. BUBBLE TEA SHOP]

[BACKGROUND: PEOPLE CHATTING, BAD DANCE MUSIC PLAYING OVER THE SPEAKERS]

TIM

(bitter, reminiscent of a cup of black tea that’s been steeping, forgotten, for an hour) I hope they’re having a good time

[PLASTIC HITTING PLASTIC, LIKE SOMEONE IS JABBING AT HIS BUBBLE TEA WITH HIS STRAW AND FAILING TO CATCH ANY PEARLS ON THE POINTY END]

MARTIN

(bitter, reminiscent of a cup of black tea that’s been steeping, forgotten, for two hours) I don’t.

TIM

(heh) Wellll… It’s more that I hope they’re having a good time, until something about the way Sasha talks reminds Jon of his grandmother, and the thought is so awful that he starts wishing it weren’t a date.

[ON THE WORD “DATE,” MARTIN LETS OUT A SOFT GROAN]

MARTIN

(glum) Cheers to that.

[THE TAP OF TWO PLASTIC CUPS AGAINST EACH OTHER]

MARTIN

(wistful) What do you think they’re talking about right now?

TIM

(glum) How smart and perfect they are, probably.

That, or work.

MARTIN

I don’t even know if Jon’s capable of not talking about work.

TIM

He was, back in research. (contemplative) He and Sash always got along swimmingly, but I never thought…

MARTIN

(oddly agitated) I didn’t even know he swung that way. Do you think— (lowering voice to a whisper) is it possible Sasha’s his beard?

TIM

(laughing) What, he needs her help staying closeted from us? You know, come to think of it, we are both such raging homophobes, so—

MARTIN

(laughing, but still tense) Yeah, alright, alright, lay off it.

[SILENCE]

TIM

Are you alright? You look… really wound up. Like, shaking.

MARTIN

(agitated) I’m fine, I just— (words bursting out) Look, I’m sorry, but—what does Jon see in her? Like, Sasha’s my friend, and she’s great, but—

TIM

(trying for lighthearted but landed on “stern”) Going to have to stop you there, Marto.

MARTIN

What? Oh, right, right, I’m sorry—

TIM

How about some ground rules. I don’t talk shit about Jon, and you don’t talk shit about Sasha.

MARTIN

Y-yeah. That sounds good.

[AWKWARD SILENCE]

MARTIN

I hope… that Elias calls Jon down to the Institute for an emergency live statement before they’ve even ordered food?

[CLINK OF ICE, A CUP BEING RAISED]

TIM

That’s the spirit!

-

[INT. ARCHIVES, THE ARCHIVIST’S OFFICE]

ARCHIVIST

I know you said, but your wording was ambiguous earlier, and I’ve gotten this wrong before in the past—this is strictly platonic, yes?

SASHA

(amused) Yes, Jon, I promise I’m not trying to steal your virtue—

[SPLUTTERING NOISES FROM THE ARCHIVIST]

SASHA (CONT’D)

—or your heart.

ARCHIVIST

That’s, ah. That’s good to hear.

SASHA

God, Jon, if I knew you were going to be this flustered over “My corkscrew wound hurts, so you’re taking me out to dinner because I said so,” I wouldn’t have asked.

ARCHIVIST

No, it’s perfectly alright, I’m happy to—

SASHA

If it helps, I’m also aromantic as hell.

ARCHIVIST

Oh! That’s, well. (inhale) (enunciating each word clearly and sincerely) Thank you for telling me, Sasha.

SASHA

(laughing) You can stop making that face, I haven’t been hiding it, or worried about your reaction or anything. I only really figured it out recently. I haven’t even told Tim yet.

ARCHIVIST

(awkward) Ah. Well, either way, I’m glad that you found a label that works for you.

SASHA

So am I.

ARCHIVIST

(abrupt) I’m… I’m asexual. Not that it—but I thought you might like to know.

SASHA

Nice!

[SOUND OF A HI-FIVE BEING EXCHANGED]

SASHA (CONT’D)

And you’re right, I do like to know.

So, you ready for Aspec Solidarity Dinner?

ARCHIVIST

I thought this was Sorry You Got Stabbed Dinner.

SASHA

(with exaggerated gravity) Sometimes, things… can be two things.

ARCHIVIST

(heh) Fair enough.

-

[INT. BUBBLE TEA SHOP, SEVERAL HOURS LATER]

[LESS BACKGROUND CHATTER THAN BEFORE]

MARTIN

(dreamily) I hope they both get food poisoning. Not— (correcting course) not anything too bad, just… unpleasant enough that their neural pathways start connecting the idea of a romance between them with feeling sick.

TIM

(mock-offended) What, you think getting food poisoning with someone means you can’t stomach the sight of them again? And here I was thinking we were friends!

MARTIN

Well, we weren’t on a date, then. The logic works out differently. You don’t make me ill, but the idea of stakeouts does.

TIM

I mean, we could.

MARTIN

Could…?

TIM

Go on a date. A proper one.

MARTIN

What, like, to make Jon and Sasha jealous?

[BEAT]

MARTIN

Shit, Tim. I’m—

TIM

(quiet) I was just thinking a date in general, but—

MARTIN (CONT’D)

—so sorry, that was so inconsiderate—

TIM

(overlapping) No, no, it’s alright. It was… stupid to ask. I know how much you like Jon.

MARTIN

And I thought you were—I thought—Well, you just spent an hour talking about how you were interested in Sasha?

TIM

Doesn’t mean I can’t have other interests.

MARTIN

Right. I mean—

TIM

Let’s just agree to forget about it.

MARTIN

I mean, it’s not that I don’t—

TIM

We’re having fun, right? Let’s keep having fun.

[SILENCE]

MARTIN

(quiet) So you really want to forget about it?

TIM

Martin, what does that even me-

MARTIN

I don’t know! I just—Can we talk about it tomorrow?

TIM

... Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.

[MORE SILENCE]

TIM

(with forced enthusiasm) Hey. I just had an idea. Do you want to get really, really drunk?

-

SASHA

(laughing) And then— (laughing harder) they just hung up on me! Just like that!

ARCHIVIST

(engrossed) What did you do then?

SASHA

Called them back, of course.

ARCHIVIST

No.

SASHA

It was my favorite sweater, Jon, I wasn’t going to let it rot just because Tim left it behind while trespassing for you!

ARCHIVIST

So now it’s my fault, too?

SASHA

Absolutely. I think you owe me, oh, at least two more dinners for that.

ARCHIVIST

(audible smile) That can be arranged. Though, (hesitating) I don’t know if that’s… wise.

SASHA

(mildly exasperated) Listen, Jon, just because you can technically fire me now doesn’t mean we can’t still spend time together.

ARCHIVIST

Well, yes, but—

SASHA

You’re my friend, Jon. I missed talking to you.

ARCHIVIST

(somewhat touched) I… also consider you a friend, Sasha.

SASHA (CONT’D)

(smug) Besides, I know you’d never fire me, anyway.

ARCHIVIST

From a professional standpoint, I can neither confirm nor deny that.

SASHA

Ha! Knew it.

Movie at mine after we—sorry, after you—pay?

-

[INT. TIM’S FLAT, SEVERAL HOURS LATER]

[SOUNDS FROM THE TV]

MARTIN

(earnest, clearly inebriated) I can’t believe David broke up with you! That was so mean! How could anyone be so mean to you?

TIM

I can’t believe Jon’s so hard on you. I know you didn’t get a degree, but you work so hard, Marty. It’s not fair.

MARTIN

(sighing) ’Least he’s pretty.

TIM

So pretty.

MARTIN

Just wanna hold his hand.

TIM

(daydreaming) Sash has nice hands.

[SILENCE AS THEY FANTASIZE]

MARTIN

(coming back to himself) This isn’t fair. You’re hot! People should be getting weepy over you!

TIM

And you’re hot and you write poetry! We should be the fucking office heartthrobs!

MARTIN

Fucking David.

TIM

Fuck that guy. Or don’t, actually.

[TIM GIGGLES]

MARTIN

What?

TIM

Your face is so red, Marty. (contemplative) Sash’s favorite color is red.

[DRUNKEN SILENCE]

MARTIN

(whispering) Hey. Hey, Tim.

TIM

Yeah?

MARTIN

Y’know what you should do?

TIM

What?

MARTIN

You should text her.

TIM

Nuh. No way.

MARTIN

You should!

TIM

Only if you text Jon.

MARTIN

No, no, Tim.

TIM

Yes! Where’s your phone? Gimme.

MARTIN

(whining) Tim, no, he’s my boss, Tim!

TIM

It doesn’t have to be weird! Either you write something and send it, or I do.

[MARTIN RECOILS IN HORROR]

MARTIN

Fine.

-

[INT. SASHA’S FLAT]

ARCHIVIST

(puzzled) I just got a text… from Martin.

SASHA

(with a mixture of surprise, anticipation, and amusement that can only come from suspecting something that Jon doesn’t) Oh? What does it say?

ARCHIVIST

It says, um, (spelling out the typos) “hpe ur date went well an no food poisonig”?

SASHA

(laughing) Sorry, what?

ARCHIVIST

I really don’t see—W-wait. (fast) When Prentiss had Martin’s phone, she kept talking about a stomach bug—do you think this is her again? Is he in danger?

SASHA

(suppressing laughter) I really don’t think it’s Prentiss.

ARCHIVIST

How can you be sure? We should probably go to the Institute, or at least call Elias, or—

SASHA

Martin’s fine, Jon. I just got a text from Tim about him.

ARCHIVIST

Oh! Well, that’s a relief.

SASHA

(giggling) Listen to this: (enunciating each word) “me n marty r soooo drunk i miss u an i thin ur lauh is pretty also lrgally u have 2 tell me if bossyboss is a good ksser ok byeeeee.” And then, five—no, six exclamation points.

ARCHIVIST

Good… kisser? (horrified) Wait, do Tim and Martin think we’re…

SASHA

(giggling) Apparently so.

ARCHIVIST

Should we—should we correct them?

SASHA

Well, yeah.

[BEAT]

SASHA (CONT’D)

(sly) On Monday, that is.

-

[INT. TIM’S FLAT]

MARTIN

He said, (reading off his phone) “This is highly unprofessional, but yes, Sasha and I are passing a—” Passing? Tim, they’re still…

TIM

(with a deep and heavy sadness completely at odds with the actual words) Damn. Get it, Sasha.

MARTIN

(continuing) “—a perfectly pleasant evening. It was kind of you to ask.” (despondent) Tim. I hate this.

[BEAT]

MARTIN

Tim?

TIM

(flat) I just got a text from Sasha.

MARTIN

(dreading the response) What’s it say?

TIM

See for yourself.

[THEY LOOK AT TIM’S PHONE IN SILENCE]

MARTIN

(quiet) I’ve… I’ve never seen Jon with his hair down before.

[MORE STARING]

TIM

They look fucking adorable.

[MORE STARING]

MARTIN

Jon looks so happy.

TIM

So does Sash.

[A LONG MOMENT OF CONTEMPLATION]

MARTIN

(inhale) (determined) You know what? (exhale) (forcing the words out) I’m… I’m glad they’re having a good time.

[A LONG SILENCE]

[TIM GROANS]

TIM

(glum) Yeah. Me too.

-

bonus:

[INT. SASHA’S FLAT]

SASHA

Aw, look at this.

[FABRIC RUSTLING AS JON SHUFFLES CLOSER]

ARCHIVIST

Is that…? Oh. Well, they certainly look alright. No worms, or… Michael.

SASHA

I’m just glad Martin has a place to crash tonight other than Document Storage.

ARCHIVIST

I mean, I can’t imagine that Tim’s couch will be that much better than the archives cot.

SASHA

(heh) Tim’s couch, right.

[BEAT]

ARCHIVIST

(surprised) You think…?

SASHA

That they’re sleeping together? I mean, I don’t know for certain, but Tim’s talked to me about Martin before, and…. well, let’s just say I “strongly suspect.”

[DEAD SILENCE. THE ARCHIVIST FEELS HE IS CLOSE TO AN EPIPHANY, BUT BATS IT AWAY. ALTHOUGH HE NEVER REACHES IT, THE GRIEF THAT WOULD ACCOMPANY SAID EPIPHANY IS STILL FELT ACUTELY]

ARCHIVIST

(flat) Oh.