#and I know the piano kids will want to do movie night today because it's been forever since we had a chance to

[crowleyholmes]

All I want to do is go home and finish the gay angel smooch I started sketching last night but instead I have to sit here and work and I think that's just wrong and unfair 😔

[bangchansbackohmygod]

Hello, how are you doing?💗🌸

So I don't know if your requests are open or if you take any requests at all so feel free to delete this.

I was wondering if you could do a headcanon for yandere stray kids where they aren't just friends with the reader but not dating yet? Not fwb, just really crossing the line of friends and lovers.

Also sorry for any mistakes it's just that English is not my first language. And I hope you have a nice day!!🤗✨️

This lovely request came in a very long time ago, so I don't know if the anon is still following, but I still want to answer it because I just adore a pining yandere!

Just the Hyung Line for now, I'll post the Maknaes if y'all are interested!

Chan: The name of the game is isolation. He won't get rid of all your other friends, oh no, he's far too smart for that. Plus, as twisted as his love is, there's enough pureness in there that at least part of him wants you to live a happy normal life. He just wants you to live that happy normal life with him. So he builds your trust with a thousand little favors. Dropping off a snack for you when you have a long work shift, seconding your choice of film during group movie nights, and even picking up the phone when you need to rant regardless of his schedule. He's your rock, and your other friends trust him too just by seeing how sweet he is to you. So when he puts on a fake sad expression and says "I just don't understand *****, no matter how nice I am to him he's so rude back", you don't hesitate to start leaving that person on read. He's careful with the timing, only one or two per year. Sometimes he even plants the seed of doubt in one of your unknowing friends instead. They tell you about this "bully", and how Chan was "trying to brave through it so you wouldn't be hurt", following his composition like the notes he plucks out on his piano. Without your noticing, you're slowing being locked into a cage of dependency, where the only person in your life who is without question is Chan. He hasn't confessed yet, but he'll take a decade if he needs to so that when he does you'll have no reason to think twice.

Lee Know: Cat-sitting for Minho was something he asked for at least once a month, using his tours and schedules as an excuse. True, they lived with his parents, but he'd put on an effortless show of filial piety, taking his parents with him to foreign countries or paying for weekend getaways "just because he wants to repay them for raising him". The truth is, his parents' house and the three fluffy critters are the perfect recipe to get your guard down. You bring along your softest jammies and your favorite sleepytime tea, building yourself a little nest to snuggle into once you've finished checking the litter and filling the food and water bowls. Minho can't help but light up whenever he sees you giggling at a kdrama in his living room, half asleep and surrounded by his fur babies. How can he see you right now? The cameras. The tiny cameras he's installed all over the house just for your visits. By the tv, in the ceramic figurine in the kitchen, even in some of the kitties' more elaborate scratching posts. Your babysitting adventures are his favorite streaming channel, his ray of light when he has to be away from you. You may just be his friend now, but he likes to think of your little unknowing dates as practice for when you're his pretty little housewife. One day he'll come home to you waiting for him like that, his cold phone screen today replaced with the softness of your lips tomorrow.

Changbin: It's the Pretend Boyfriend trope taken just a step too far. It started with him warding off some creep at a party who kept trying to hand you drinks. A thick bicep around your shoulder and a "yo man, she's taken" got the unwanted attention off your back and earned him a smile and a thank you. Then he offered up a selfie that you could send to an ex that kept asking to get back together, saying that once he knew you'd moved on you'd finally be rid of him. Changbin even told you to give his number to the jerk, that he'd "act" like a protective lover if your ex didn't buy the bluff. The charade worked, and this time he got a thank you, a hug, and a bowl of ramen on you next time he had time to grab lunch. He was hooked. More and more, whenever the two of you were in public, he'd suddenly pull you in by the waist or plant his hand on the wall next to your head. He'd whisper that a guy across from you in the arcade was looking at you funny, and "it's probably better if he doesn't think he has a chance with you". The dim lights hide the blush on his cheeks and the giddiness in his eyes. You avert your own gaze and thank him as always, too flustered by his closeness to bother looking past him at the offender. It's a good thing you don't, actually. He'd rather you didn't know that over half the time there isn't anyone there.

Hyunjin: What else? You're his muse. He loves to paint, and he loves to paint you, and despite your own insecurities you can't deny that the you he translates through his art is nothing short of beautiful. It started as a portrait he requested you sit for, your insistence he find a better model shooed away with promises that he was painting all the members and some of the staff, too, for variety's sake (he's lying). He finishes the piece in record time, but since you can't see the canvas from your stool he fusses about and pretends to add lines when in truth his brush has long gone dry and his long gazes at your form aren't to get the curve of your nose right but simply for his delight. After the first painting he insists on another, and flattery tempts you to accept. You get more comfortable with each painting, and he gets bolder in turn. He begins picking out your clothes, styling your hair, even applying your makeup. The fingertips adjusting your pose before he begins slowly transition from a feather-light touch to something heavy and lingering. But he's in no hurry to break the tension he hopes you feel. As long as he has this time with you, he's content. With a shuddering breath, he dips his brush into the paint and etches his love for you into the canvas once again.

(Part 2 with the Maknae Line?)

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

thinking about the faroe situation again and like. Imagine something with me.

you are a babysitter five days a week. Part of your job is giving a bath. You usually do this at seven thirty and the parent usually get back at nine. You’ve had time planned off for months however, maybe just a movie, maybe a doctors appointment, but something you asked for ahead of time and asked they come home early so you can be there at eight.

they get in a little after you start the bath, the entire bottom of the bath isn’t even wet yet. You hear them get in, go out and great them. “Oh, how was the date, fine fine thank you for letting me off early today. I started her bath, waters still running so you’ll need to check on her, ok? Great thank you so much have a great night.”

and then you leave, because your job is over and you shared all the information needed and they’re her parents who love her more than anything and you’ve been waiting months for this night off. They said they had it handled.

you find out when you come to work the next day they never checked on her and fell asleep watching Netflix, and now she’s dead. This happened say, 15-20 minutes after you left.

now, what could’ve you done to avoid this? You had no way to know the parents would slack off, no reason to question or do any of the following, but you think about what you might’ve done if they seemed a bit distracted:

1: “Thanks for watching her! Heres your money have a great night!” “actually I’m going to stay here until I see you go into the bathroom.”

“excuse me? Are you doubting my parenting? I already told you it’s fine. Didn’t you have an appointment? Go.”

2: “I am physically taking you to the bathroom”

this might end in firing.

3: “I’m actually going to miss my appointment and finish her bath real quick.”

“no it’s fine we got this.”

4: maybe you should’ve never put her in the bath

“she’s in bed”

“yeah? Did she brush her teeth? Get her bath?”

“no I didn’t want to leave in the middle.”

“so now we have to wake her up and do your job for you because you don’t trust us to parent. I get that you had an appointment but I’m really displeased with you, it’s part of your job and why we pay you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll let it slide this time but you need to do your job.”

like. She told him. She was off the clock. She said months ahead of time she wanted the night off. She didn’t leave her in a full tub, it was still running. Her employer and parent of the kid dismissed her and told her to go. What else was she supposed to do. Was she supposed to psychiclly know he was going to be in the zone? Cancel her night off? Not do her job? How was she supposed to know he wasn’t going to do the thing he said he would when she left the kid? If it’s a “she should’ve know Arthur would be in the zone” 1 is it her job to take care of or pay any attention to Arthur? No. 2 Arthur should also know he’d get distracted and already knew she was leaving early that night. Maybe just don’t start the piano if you know that.

literally her crime was starting a job off for someone else, who again, SAID THEY WERE ON IT TO FINISH IT, and then leaving on her scheduled time off. Like. Come on. Is she actually at fault or are you uncomfortable with Blorbo being right about taking blame for something because he’s so sad and the main character? or maybe she should’ve been expected to do better because she’s a woman taking care of a kid? Like what.

[motownfiction]

observer

Charlie is the observer.

He might be Sadie and Sam’s kid brother, and they might include him in a lot more stuff than your typical siblings would. That’s the nature of growing up with a brother and sister as sweet as Sadie and Sam. But Charlie knew he’d never really be part of the group. For one thing, he’s a Cancer, not a Pisces. For another, he’s two years younger than the rest of them, two years behind, two years sprinting to catch up to the cool kids to almost no avail.

One night at Abby’s from behind her cherry Coke, Lucy tells Charlie that they are not the cool kids. She says they’re actually the opposite.

Charlie stabs the bottom of his vanilla milkshake with his straw.

“How can you not be the cool kids if you’re having sex?” he asks.

Lucy laughs.

“Not all of us are,” she says, and Charlie sees her glance at Will from the corner of her eye. “And, you know, come on. Just because you’re having sex doesn’t mean you’re cool.”

“How would you know?”

“Charles, look at me. I know everything.”

Charlie laughs a little. He’s pretty sure he could argue with that, but Lucy has that glare in her eye – the one that makes her look a little like a bull. She gets that look every time she feels challenged or like she might be wrong about something. Charlie’s noticed. He hasn’t had much of another choice. If he wants to be anywhere near in with them, he has to know them like they know themselves. He has to watch.

“Anyway, we’re not the cool kids,” Lucy says. “The cool kids are … well, actually, I don’t know what the hell they’re doing. There’s this part of me that assumes they just live at the mall. Take showers in the fountain, eat at the food court, sleep … well, there’s a part of me that assumes they’re vampires, so they probably don’t sleep at all. But I know it’s not that. It can’t be as innocent as that.”

“Then how do you know it’s cool?” Charlie asks.

Lucy shrugs.

“Well, if we’re pretending like I don’t know everything,” she says, “then I guess it’s just a feeling. I mean, if they weren’t the cool kids, they wouldn’t get away with acting like assholes, people wouldn’t smile every time they walk into the room, and they wouldn’t be the ones wearing sashes and tiaras at every dance. Not that I want that for myself. Just … the cool kids don’t know all the words to ‘Bus Stop’ by The Hollies, and they certainly don’t dance around to it in a diner on a Friday night.”

Charlie follows Lucy’s gaze toward Abby’s ice cream tubs, where Sam is dancing and pulling a reluctant Will and Daniel into the fray. Sadie claps from the sidelines, never once taking her eyes off Daniel. Charlie knows how wide his grin must be.

He ate lunch alone again today. Third day in a row. He usually eats lunch with Carrie, Katie, and Lola, but Carrie’s been out sick since Wednesday. And when Carrie’s not there, it just doesn’t feel right to crash Katie and Lola’s party. They’ve practically got their own language.

Charlie can play jazz piano classics in his head.

He watches as Sam puts more money in the jukebox. He hears Abby yelling from the kitchen, warning Sam that if he plays “Take a Letter, Maria” again, she’ll ban him from the restaurant until he dies. Naturally, Sam loads up that very song, and naturally, Abby smiles at him. Sam says something about haunting the place before dancing to the chorus. Charlie knows his smile is even bigger now.

Lucy says they’re not the cool kids, and maybe she’s right. But did anyone worthwhile ever want to be? The coolest kids are the ones who were never born to be teenagers, whose adolescence is a purgatory they can look back on with poetic profundity. Charlie already imagines his memories as distant ones. He can’t wait until the day when it’s true.

Until then, he’ll keep watching them like a movie in his head. Something like Godard, he thinks. Maybe Truffaut.

The coolest kids he’ll ever know.

(part of @nosebleedclub september challenge -- day xxii!)

[kaynai-sama]

Alright, alright. Here I come talking about my life because I haven't had enough time to draw... XD

So today was the school musical presentation. I'm in the music club as a tecladist and there are other clubs like theater, but I think that the only thing they lack doing there is taking some actual acting clases... SORRY but it's true.

It was a two hour play of The little mermaid, Beauty and the beast and Aladdin but with more dancing for elementary and preschool than actual acting.

And let me tell you this, if they had put in at least less three dances from each presentation the summary of the three movies would've been more coherent and with less argumental holes.

The little mermaid started good but it suddenly passed to when Ariel decides she wants to see prince Erick AGAIN (Where did the boat scene, when she saves him and king Tritone wrecks her place to hide human objects go? I have no idea.) I know it's a summary but, seriously? That's a big argumental hole. Then it passed to Ursula and the spell scene and the "kiss the girl scene" which was played by the music club (where I am) And suddenly we pass on to the wedding scene with Ursula and prince Erick suddenly just goes "who are you get away from me I choose Ariel for script convenience" And the play ends.

Beauty and the beast directly included fortnine dances... Yeah, I know, I know. You weren't there but it was hella cringy. Also there were remixes, argumental holes (less than in the little mermaid but still) But Aladdin in! Man, they went full on random dancing with that one! (THE only good actor in the whole presentation was the kid who played Chip in Beauty and the beast and Abu in Aladdin) But anyway...

Aladdin started soooo good with the dancing team an "Arabian Nights" the it all went to hell with the remix they suddennly shoved in. At least the dancing numbers in this one were good comparing to all the others. I got to play "a whole new world" Which was HARD AS HELL in piano. Although, in the version of the play, A whole new world turned into random electronic songs just to get back to the calm beat and don't even make get started with "Prince Alí" (I don't remember the song name lol) But you get me. Now that one turned into "Staying alive", "Eye of the tiger" and three more songs I guess? I was just so tired.

Every second I was there I was like ooohhh I miss my old school... Because it had a so much better organization than thing guys now.

Anyway I have to go now so...

Kaynai out 😎

[alreadyblondenow]

Second Star to the Right | Na Jaemin

✦ Jaemin x reader ✦ Fluff, Smut, Smut, Smut, Angst, Fairy AU ✦ 1/5 for HOLIDAY SERIES: Once Upon A December

Summary: Jaemin is a mere tooth fairy who’s just doing his job collecting teeth became you’re one and only true friend. You have strict parents so you crave for adventure and so Jaemin offered you one and brought you to Neverland. As you two grew old together, you became closer and soon fall in love with each other. Seasons change and so does your feelings towards Jaemin. Will a tooth fairy and a human will have a happy ending?

Word count: 7,532k

Warnings: Heavy cheating, swearing, skinny dipping, unprotected sex, loss of virginity, fingering, oral sex, nipple play, betrayal, slight swearing, mentions of Jaemin being peeping tom 

A/N: PURE FICTION. Inspired by the fairytale Peter Pan, but not following the main plot. Just the idea of never growing up, fairies and pixie dust. It’s a cute story of saying good bye to your innocence, childhood, and accepting that you’re growing. Nothing heavy don’t worry. 

Neoholiday entry #1 @nct-writers​ | To: @jimjamjaemin​ From: Bear

6 years old

Days have always been laid down for you from the moment you wake up until you close your eyes good night. At a very young age, you’ve grown very tired of this routine and dreamt of being a normal kid like your cousins or the kids that you see at the mall. Given that you’re homeschooled, you don’t know anyone that’s not family or staff in your house.

“Oh, would you look at that,” your nana hold your chin to look at your loose tooth and had a wild guess on when it’s going to come out. “If you keep playing with it with your tongue it will come out faster... and you will meet your tooth fairy soon” she tricks you.

As a very smart kid at a very young age, you know that tooth fairies are just characters from a storybook and probably not real. Maybe the idea of meeting someone new excites you to the core that you don’t care if they’re real or not and all you did is play with your loose tooth while reading a book, while drawing or coloring, while playing the piano, just so you could meet a new friend.

Your tooth came out the next day during breakfast with your parents. Unexpectedly you felt it came out while you were chewing your bread. Without any hesitation, you ran to the kitchen to find your nana and show her your teeth with the biggest smile.

“Where did she learned to be excited like that? Not so proper for a young girl” your mom says to your dad, pouting her lips and looking at him coldly.

While you were looking for your nana, all the staff in your house is busy eating breakfast and greeting you ‘good morning little Ms.’ as you ran past them and give them a sweet smile. “It came out nana, what do I do next?” you tell her the great news and showed her your tooth.

“Tonight, you put it under your pillow and try to catch that fairy! You’re a smart girl, I know you can do it” she smiled proudly at you and told you to go back to your parents.

As you go on with your normal routine, you waited patiently for bedtime and made the preparations for meeting that tooth fairy. Although you’re not sure if someone will really go in your room tonight, you still baked cookies for the fairy and hope to gain a new friend. When bedtime finally came, you secure your tooth under your pillow, fluff your blankets, and checked the baked cookies on your bedside table.

You waited with your eyes closed.

Waited.

Waited.

“Her room is big....” Jaemin murmurs to his friend Renjun. “Oh look, there's cookies” he whispered.

“Yeah yeah. We're here to work, Taeyong will be pissed if we don’t make it back in time- I’ll cover the next kid,”

He leaves his friend with great worries because Jaemin doesn’t know how to follow protocol, and always mess things up. Either way, Jaemin needs to learn how to be a tooth fairy.

Slowly, he opens your window and made his way inside, scanned your room, and looked at a few books. “She must be smart” he murmurs again. He scanned and feed his curiosity until he wants to while eating the baked cookies that you made.

“You’re a boy?”

The fact that fairies are true did not shock you at all but knowing that the tooth fairy is a boy was indeed a shocker to you.

“Well yeah... aren’t you supposed to be sleeping? I can’t give you a coin if you’re awake” Jaemin reasons out with a cute smile. “You baked these?”

he continues to eat the cookie in his hand.

“Yes. Did you like it?”

“Absolutely. Thank you”

You bit your lip out of disappointment as he came closer to you and stopped his curiosity when he sees your pout. Why? His curiosity switched to you and he wanted to know why you look sad, “I mean it. It’s delicious” he sat at the edge of your bed, near you but not close enough.

“I thought you’re a girl, I wanted a friend” you frown.

“Well, I can’t be a girl, but I can still be your friend- if you want” he smiles awkwardly at you.

Without hesitation, you turned your frown upside down and reached for your tooth under your pillow, and hand it to your new friend. “Wow. Did it hurt?” he asked.

“Nope. Didn’t hurt a little, it went off when I was chewing bread this morning. I was so happy” you giggle and smiled at him, you noticed he has a nice smile and his pearly whites.... are perfect. Just like how a tooth fairy is supposed to be. As you two exchange more stories and feed each other’s curiosity, Jaemin forgot that he’s supposed to meet Renjun at the gates of Neverland and go back together.

“Oh my, I need to get going-“

You see his body glow in an instant, as he ready himself to fly. A pixie dust he says, and it can make him fly if he believes in it. “I guess this is goodbye then?” you said as you come near your window and watch him float.

“Oh no no. We’re friends now right? And I’m your tooth fairy so we’ll meet again soon. Just believe in me”

“Where are you from? Can I visit you?”

He shook his head and pointed at a star in the sky. “Neverland. Second star to the right” he explains excitedly. Without any other word or goodbyes, he jumped from your window and flew away. You felt the wind gush on your face as you watch him fly, happy that everything happened according to plan, even happier that it’s never goodbye with Jaemin.

You now have a proper friend.

13 years old

Years have passed now and Jaemin’s job as your assigned tooth fairy is long gone. Although it was a test of patience because he can only visit you whenever you have a loose tooth, he taught you how to trust the next moments that are bound to happen, meaning “there’s always a time for everything. And besides, it’s never goodbye between us it’s always ‘see you later’ right?” he says. After being your tooth fairy, now, he’s just your friend and he can visit you every night after he collects teeth from different children, sacrificing your sleep just so you can meet Jaemin every night.

“How’s school? Are they nice to you?”

You and Jaemin lay on your carpeted floor while looking at the stars through your window. It’s your first day in school today and only Jaemin knew how nervous you were because you’ve been homeschooled all your life.

“They’re nice. But they’re not you” you answered truthfully.

“But you have to try because I’m not always with you. It’s hard to be alone in a place where you’re not used to”

“Look at you, you always take care of me” you turned your head to him and smiled sweetly, “I’ll try” you added.

“Just make sure you’ll never forget about me… or else I’ll fade” there's a slight hint of sadness in his tone when he told you that. Like he’s scared of losing you even though he has many friends already.

He told you a long time ago that he exists because you believe that he does, and if you forget about him he will fade.

As you gave your schoolmates a chance and befriend them, eating out and going out on weekends, you realized that if you have too much fun with them, eventually, whether you like it or not, you will forget about Jaemin. And you never want that to happen. Jaemin has done so much for you, and he doesn’t deserve to be forgotten. With that, you decided to make him your priority without being a loner at school.

“So after we went to the movies, we went to this park and walked hand in hand it was so romantic…” you’re FaceTiming with your friend while you wait for Jaemin, giggling like a little girl from your friend’s stories and secretly wishing to experience a good date someday. Holding hands while walking in the park, going to movies, kissing. Sounds…. normal, and you want every taste of it.

While you were fantasizing about holding someone’s hand, you see Jaemin floating outside your window smiling like he hasn’t seen you for weeks. “Hey-Uhm… I have to go, my mom is calling me and I should go. See you tomorrow-“ you finished the call without letting your friend say her goodbye and went to your window and welcome Jaemin.

“I saw you smiling, what’s that all about?” he says, giving you a small seashell from one of the islands from Neverland. He has a habit of bringing something small for you every time he visits as if he’s sharing a part of his world with you.

“Oh that. I’m just listening to my friend about her first date with her crush- Date, uhm it’s uh… humans do that to know each more, they go out and eat somewhere”

“I’m guessing you want to do it?” he knows you well. You smile shyly as you place the seashell on your shelf. You didn’t answer him yes, because you know he’ll figure it out himself. “Let’s go on a date then” he blurted out. Just like that.

“How are we going to do that when you’re not allowed to visit me when the sun is up?” you crossed your arms and squint at him. Amused with how much he’s willing to risk just so he can give you everything.

“Pixie dust. Neverland. Come on, it will be fun trust me”

His idea of a date was beyond something you could imagine. You never thought of someday going to Neverland but if he told you to trust him, then you will trust him with all your heart. He grabs his pixie dust bag from behind him and sprinkled some of it at the top of your head. Is this really happening? Is he really going to take you on a date to Neverland just so you could know how it feels like going on a date? The wind gushes on your face as you stand near your window, nervous because “Jaem, I don’t know how to do this” you weren’t scared, of course, you trust the pixie dust but you just don’t know how to fly.

“Right… right I’m sorry. Here grab my hand”

His offer made you feel shy for the first time. So it’s really a date then because you’re going to hold hands… Without wasting any more time, you grab his hand and grip it nicely, savoring the feeling of holding his soft hand for the first time. Little did you know that Jaemin is enjoying this. The way you hold his hand gives him a nice nervous feeling, butterflies in his tummy, and blushing like crazy.

Flying is an indescribable feeling, you thought. Walking on air and flying towards a star, it’s like you're having a dream when he told you to close your eyes, and the next thing you know you’re in Neverland.

“Time is different here. In your world it’s night time, here it’s day time- There’s Mark! I want you to meet my friends”

Your date started with Jaemin introducing you to some of the tooth fairies, you know everyone by name because Jaemin tells you stories about them for the past years. It’s like you are friends with them too by this point. From there on, you two enjoyed Neverland for the first time together. The date was nothing like how your friend described it. No holding hands while walking at the park, but he was holding your hand tightly while you fly to Neverland. No movies, but he brought you to a garden full of closed flowers and watch it bloom together. No kissing to end a perfect night, but he gave you a very handsome smile that made your heart race like it was your first time seeing Jaemin smile like that. The night was special, more than special actually.

When he brought you back safely to your room, you feel like something changed between you and Jaemin after having that date. He felt it too, but he’s shy to mention it.

“I’m glad you’re my first date,” you told him.

“I’m glad too” he puts a flower on your hair, something he’s been carrying all this time while you were flying. “See you tomorrow then?”

“Can’t wait, as always” He smiled shyly at you and fly away like he always does.    

That night, you slept with a smile on your face and dreamt about being with Jaemin again in Neverland. On the next day, you kept thinking about him and not just about your date with him. You kept thinking about his smile, his deep voice, and all the sweet things he said to you.

Everything changed after that date but no one is brave enough to admit it. The things you do together for years like laying in your bed and waiting for you to sleep while talking nonstop now make your body warm and it makes you shy. Whenever he tells you you’re pretty, you wanted him to say it over and over again. Until you two had enough of lying and admitted that you’re in love with each other. The problem is… you’re both too young. The way he told you how he feels for you we're sweet and honest, he intertwines his fingers with yours and hugs you tightly in your bed.

“Let’s wait a little longer,” he says. “we're too young and I don’t want to ruin us, I’m scared of losing you always” Again, him and his patience. Nonetheless, you understand what he’s saying and it’s true. There's no need to rush and it’s better to wait than regret bad decisions after.  

Days become months and months became years, you and Jaemin took your time before finally being adults. Soon, forehead kisses turned into soft kisses on the lips, hungry ones, or lustful ones. ’Goodnights’ were added with sweet ‘i love yous’ and ’stay a little longer.’ Dates in Neverland happens once a week, just being together and forgetting everything else. The idea of sex crosses your mind already but never actually doing it. It’s good that you’re growing together and learning different kinds of things. It makes you feel untouchable like it’s almost impossible that you two will someday break up. So impossible.

19 years old

Every day with Jaemin is nothing but adventure and new things, but ever since you two started seeing each other and acknowledging your feelings, days have been always sweeter than yesterday. Holding hands while flying, cuddling in your bed before you go to sleep, a lot of stolen and surprise kisses. These things are all new to you and Jaemin, but just like normal teenagers you just let love do its job and enjoy the wonderful feeling of being in love.

It was hot in Neverland today but Jaemin told you he had found another secret place that can make you stop sweating and he’s so proud of it. He brought you to a cave somewhere deep inside the forest but inside that cave, is an underground lake that has cool and very clear water.

“How did you find this? It’s beautiful” you exclaim as you look around the place. 

“I just did and it’s my way of making you smile“ he never fails to amaze you. “come on, let’s swim” he was quick to remove his clothes like it was a normal thing for him, he completely forgot that your relationship is not yet on the stage where you’re confident with seeing each other’s naked body.

“Uhm-Jaem,” you tried to avoid looking at his nice body and butt, biting your lip as he stretches his muscles confidently while his back faces you. He had grown confidently lately and not to mention so handsome and manly.

“What? Don’t be shy. But if you’re not comfortable, you can swim wearing your underwear. I don’t mind” he says, not facing you yet. It’s not fair you thought, he trusts you to see his whole being and so should you. You gulped and told him not to turn around until you’re fully naked and upon hearing that, Jaemin became suddenly nervous and blushing but you can’t see it.

“Are you naked now?” he asks, scratching the back of his head as he waits for you to give him permission to see you.

“Y-yeah” you answered. You told yourself that whatever happens, you will not look at his cock but as he turns slowly, you don’t know why your eyes can’t stop looking at it. You felt your cheeks warm and suddenly you became shy and you wanted to cover yourself. But he saw right through you, smiled, and hold your hand before jumping into the water together.

The cool water feels great against your skin as you and Jaemin enjoy the hot afternoon and turn it into a nice new experience for the two of you. Swimming deep into the water, racing against each other, picking up shells, the fun made you both forget that you’re naked and helped you with you’re shyness.

“So did you have fun?”  

You were laying on the grass with closed eyes, as you enjoy the warm sunlight peeking from above the cave and at the same time drying your skin before you wear your clothes again. Jaemin is beside you with his shoulder propped and is unbelievably close to you, secretly admiring your naked body and how beautiful you are under the warm sunlight.

“I did. Thank you” you turned your head to face and opened your eyes, “Jaem, what did you feel when you saw me naked for the first time earlier?” you reach for his face and cup it with one hand.

“Shy, at the same time excited because we get to do this but most importantly, I felt lust and my mind was so quick to think about dirty things I want to do- I’m sorry” he was quick to apologize and kissed your hand lovingly.

“No, it’s fine. I felt it too”

Jaemin was taken aback and felt the lust again but this time even stronger that he felt his cock hardens and poke the side of your thigh. “So” he was shy to ask you something but somehow the lust he’s been feeling is giving him the push, “can I try something? If that's okay with you? Baby?”

You only nod, but the way his voice deepens when he asked you made you nervous and excited. Just like Jaemin, you felt the lust he talked about. He came closer, closer, and closer, and until he reaches your exposed shoulder and planted a soft kiss there. But it didn’t end there. He kissed you on the same spot again, but this time he kissed you all the way down until his lips reached your boob and his hot breath is making your nipples sensitive.

His tongue made contact on your nipples first, then you felt his lips, and the next thing you know he’s sucking your right boob. It feels so good that you roll your head back and close your eyes again while letting out soft moans. Soon your hand rests at the back of Jaemin’s head, combing your fingers on his soft locks, and tugging whenever he playfully bites your nipple to make you giggle.

And right then and there your innocence was stained and it was the start of a different exploration and curiosity with Jaemin.

“How?” You were still surprised about what he just did but you love it and at the same time curious.

“Me and the other fairies peek whenever Mark and his girlfriend do it in the woods. Then we’ll tease him after”

“Pervert” you tease him.

“Want to do more?” he offers. You see the lust in his eyes as you look at him. You nod, of course, you want more.

He attacked you with hungry kisses and kneeled in between your legs without hesitation, putting his fingers to work and started touching you on your pussy. Once again you were taken aback by his confident move but instead of getting shy you accepted it and spread your legs wider so he can gain more access to your pussy. Jaemin noticed that his fingers were gliding smoothly on your slit because you were wet and he caused it, he also knew that you’re loving what he’s doing because your moans sound great, you’re rolling your hips, and you’re parting your lips. Which makes him want to dive into lust even more.

“Do you want to do it?” he whispers beside your ear while his fingers still drawing slow circles and gliding up and down your wet slit.

“Sex?” You asked back.

“Yeah” Jaemin started kissing your neck while he waits for your answer.

“If you promise you won’t hurt me”

He’s not stupid. He knew you weren’t talking about the sex. He knew you were talking about what you deserve. Jaemin stopped what he’s doing and kissed your lips sincerely, “I promise. I will never hurt you” he says and kissed you again deeply. It was a sweet promise, you thought and, hearing it made you fall in love with him even more.

Before he proceeds to the sex, he grabs your hand, kissed your knuckles, and made you touch his perfect body slowly, all the way down until you reach his cock. You touched it confidently without leaving his eyes, and you witnessed your boyfriend breathe heavily as you help him pump his cock.

“That’s going inside of you, baby. Ready?”

“Yes”

You feel him line his cock on your very wet entrance, kept his eyes on you as he pushes inside you oh so slowly. You were both virgins and neither of you knew if you’re doing it correctly, but it feels so fucking good that you’re heavily breathing as Jaemin continues to push in. Even tho he wanted to just force his way inside you, he can't because he knew you’re feeling the stretch because you’re so tight. You hiss but you smile, and when he asks you if you’re okay you told him that, “it hurts but I don’t want you to stop”

He chuckled low and said, “okay. But if I do this-“ he rolled his hips without a warning and it made you both moan a little too loud. “You felt that?” he asked, completely mind blown with what a single thrust can do to the both of you.

“Do it again”

And so he did. Again and again and again, until you’re scratching his back and he’s groaning beside your ear deliciously. Telling you how good it feels, praising you with every second that he can, pushing in deeply as he can because you request it.

“I can’t cum that’s dangerous,” he says and he sounded like he’s in pain.

“Shit- right, okay”

Without hesitation and before he loses his mind and makes you pregnant, he pulled out and lay beside you. Stopping himself with all the strength he has left. It was very frustrating for both of you not having the full experience.

“I'm sorry,” he says, heavily breathing beside you still handsome and very inviting.

“You did nothing wrong baby, what are talking about“

“For not making you cum, beautiful. I’ll get your clothes”

You watch him stand up from the warm ground with a hard cock and blushing cheeks. You didn’t cum but still, you felt so weak, and the sting from your pussy is still there. Nonetheless, Jaemin looked so handsome while fucking you, not to mention he sounds sexy. “Here” he helped you get up and handed you your clothes.

Just like that, you made another unforgettable memory with Jaemin that you wouldn’t trade for anything. He sprinkled some pixie dust on your head and flew you back to your room safe and sound.

“I meant what I said earlier. Don’t forget it okay? Just trust me like how you trust my pixie dust to carry you home. I love you” he kissed you on your forehead, smiled so handsomely “see you tomorrow” and left another great promise of seeing each other again.

The next day, while you were eating lunch with your friends they were telling stories about their weekends with their boyfriends. You wanted to tell them so bad that you had a great weekend with Jaemin too, but you’re afraid they will ask you too many questions. Questions that you can’t answer truthfully because you’re afraid they will see you as a crazy person that believes in fairies.

As you listen to them, you can’t help but envy them. You want to share stories with them too, tell all your experiences and such…. like a normal person. “I heard Lee Jeno has a crush on you” your friend whispers beside your ear, completely bringing you back to reality and taking your mind off of Jaemin.

“Lee Jeno who?” you answered and to them, you sound dumb.

“Lee Jeno. The most handsome guy in school? Sharp jawline, small eyes, sexy figure?”

As she describes that Lee Jeno guy you can’t help but to think about Jaemin because for you he’s still the most handsome guy in your eyes. “Well, I’m not interested. Thanks for liking me I guess” they scoffed and teased you further, telling you that they will introduce you to Jeno soon so you will understand how handsome he is.

“Try me. I will still not be interested in him” you cross your arms as you challenge your friends, “in fact, what’s so special about this Lee Jeno guy? Is he nice? Does he know how to treat a girl right? How to touch a girl?” you were describing Jaemin to them, but they were clueless of course. They were quiet and smirking and you wonder why. Little did you know that someone is listening from behind.

He sat on the vacant chair beside you and smiled at you, “Lee Jeno” he offered his hand for you to shake, and of course, being the nice girl that you are, you introduced yourself back.

After that day Lee Jeno kept on talking to you at school, asking you out but you never said yes. But because of his consistency and perseverance, you finally said yes to him just so he could stop bugging you. And right then there, you know that Jaemin will not like this. It’s been weeks since you last saw each other and being a senior tooth fairy gave him a lot of responsibilities that kept you from seeing each other every night just like you used to. But even though he’s busy, sometimes, if he can, he always finds his way to your house before he comes home after working with Renjun.

“Hey” you were in deep concentration with writing your paper when he kissed you on your cheeks. Surprised that he’s finally here, your arms swing around his neck automatically, and kissed him back on the lips, letting how the way you kiss him tell him how much you miss him. “I miss you too-Sorry for not being here always. Taeyong is giving us a hard time, there are a few kids in your neighborhood and the new fairies weren’t ready yet”

“Right… kids” you sounded bothered, you wanted to tell him about your date with Jeno but you just miss him so much that all you did is tell him how much you’re proud of him for being a good tooth fairy.

“I brought you these” he hands you a few flowers from Neverland so you could put them in between your books, “so you could think of me while you study too,” he was just about to kiss you again when Rejun appeared on your window with Mark to get him and keep them on schedule.

“Sorry” he says before kissing you one too many times on the lips, your face, and your hands. “I love you. I have to go, see you soon okay?”

“I understand, go. Fly safe.” And that’s all you needed from him. You’re so in love with Jaemin that you understand everything he does in his life and never get mad at him even though sometimes he never gets to see you. “patience” you murmur to yourself and went back to writing your paper.

Today is your date with Jeno and you wanted to ditch him so bad that you arrived late and let him freeze outside the cinemas. But even though you missed almost half of the movie, he still smiled so sweetly at you that his eyes almost disappear. “I’m happy you still came. It’s so wrong of me to think that you’re going to ditch me last minute. I’m sorry”

“I’m sorry that I’m late” you’re not, but you tell him anyway.

“It’s normal. People can arrive late during dates, I’m just glad you came”

The word ‘normal’ lingers in your mind as you two entered the cinemas. The movie is nice, it made you cry and Jeno dried your tears while patting your head and providing comfort. He brought you to a place where you two can eat something good and heavy after eating popcorn. On top of that, he seems sweet and careful, he listens to you and he cares about what you think all the time. After the date, he brought you home safely and asked if he could kiss you.

“N-no…” you stepped away from him.

“It’s fine. I’m sorry. I can wait” he smiles awkwardly, hands inside the pocket of his jacket, “Did you had a great time?”

“Yes I did” and that’s the truth, you told him with a smile.

The night ended with you waiting for Jaemin in your room, but your mind kept playing every moment you had with Jeno. He’s more than just sharp jawlines and sexy figure, he’s a gentleman. Like Jaemin. And this is bad because it’s not hard to have a crush on him.

“you didn’t see me came in-“

“Shit!” Jaemin completely startled you when you saw him lying comfortably in your bed. He doesn’t look like he’s in a hurry, and that makes you happy.

“You were out late, you’re not yet in your sleepwear” he kisses your forehead as you cuddle close, oh you miss him.

“I did something normal today” and that’s all you could share about what happened today. He didn’t need to know what happened between you and Jeno.

“That’s great- listen, I will be away for a few weeks training the new fairies-“

“What- Away again?” you whine and pout at him, “But I miss you already. I never get to see you or spend time with you”

“I know. I’m sorry, but after this, I promise I will stick to like a shadow. I missed you too, I’ll try my best to speed things up. In the meantime, do more normal things like what you did today and leave the extraordinary things to me. Come on, smile for me”

Little did he know you cheated on him today. You forced a smile and kissed him hungrily until you ended on top of him. You removed your shirt and from there everything happened so fast. The next thing you know his lips are on your nipples with your bra cups pulled down and you’re moaning quietly. “I have condoms here” you whispered to Jaemin with a very sexy voice. Or at least you tried.

“Inviting. But I can’t stay for long. I’m sorry I kept disappointing you” And just like that your mood died and you grabbed your blanket to cover yourself. “Mark is outside. I’m sorry” he kissed you one last time before he tucks you to bed and you watch him fly away.

"Do tell!!!"

Because your friends don’t know the meaning of privacy, they kept asking you about your date with Jeno. ‘Did you guys have sex?’ ‘Did he used his tongue?’ ‘Second date?’ all these questions were hilarious because none of it happened, but to make them shut up you told them everything. It’s your first time sharing something that happened during the weekend it makes you feel… normal. Jeno made you feel normal.

You then realized that being with Jaemin isn’t normal, because he’s a fairy.

Days without Jaemin made you became friendly with Jeno. Eating together at lunch, reading at the library and doing study dates, soon the most awaited second date happened and this time it’s sweeter than the first, he brought you to your first college party where you really enjoyed yourself dancing and drinking with him. It’s not that you forgot about Jaemin already, you think of him every day and every night but when Jeno is around everything changes. It’s like your mind forgets about the pixie dust, the shells on your shelf from Neverland, how beautiful and magical Neverland is, but when you’re back home and alone in your room, all you think about is Jaemin. And you hate that you miss him, you hate that you can’t see or feel him.

Jeno never made you feel alone.

You are at a party right now, finishing something in your cup when you feel someone hug you from behind and bringing you back to reality. At some point, you thought it was Jaemin because he’s the only guy ever to startle you like that. But it’s Jeno’s arms that caged you this time, “You okay? If you want to go home I can drive you home”

“Yes. Let’s go home” you feel his hot breath brush on your nape and you’re not gonna lie. It made you want him.

“And?” he asks with a very sexy tone like he's trying to tell you something but shy to say it.

“And my parents are not home” you turned around to kiss him.

“That’s my girl” he said excitedly and walk you towards his car.

While you were kissing Jeno inside your room, and removing each other’s clothes until you hit your bed, you were thinking about Jaemin but Jeno is another level of hotness that he can make you forget something. Or maybe that’s because you’ve completely fallen in love with him. It was dark, and all you can see is the silhouette of your body grinding together. You were both in the mood to really get on with it and did not even bother turning your lampshade which made you both giggle, “bummer, I wanted to see you” he whispers and bit the shell of your ear.

Your hands roam around Jeno’s body and even without a light you can see, or feel how hot he is. His hard rock abs were brushing on your tummy while he grinds his body, he reaches both of your hands and put it on top of your head. Experienced, he is very much experienced than you are.

It was an eventful night indeed, and you had a lot of first time with Jeno in just one night. First time fucking from behind, first time giving a blow job, but most importantly, it was your first time having an orgasm using his cock. It took some time, yes, but he was incredibly good in bed.

You stayed under the covers and dozed off together, hands intertwined and bodies together.

Unfortunately, Jaemin heard everything. Because he was hiding inside your closet, with a flower in his hand, ready to surprise you after a very long time of not seeing each other. Normally when he peeks at Mark and his girlfriend having sex he usually gets hard, but now… he felt really heartbroken. Hearing the love of his life moaning because of another man, made him regret that he took being a tooth fairy very seriously. As he sneaks out quietly and effortlessly, he came close to you, kissed you on your forehead, and covered your exposed skin so you won't get cold.

“I’m sorry” he whispers and left with the flower.

Jaemin hid the truth and pretend that he knew nothing about Jeno because he loves you so much that he can’t let you go and face his reality. Meaning, you finally found a human that will love you and will make you feel like a normal person. It’s the ugly truth that he’s not yet ready to admit.

Over the days that he’s been present, he tried so hard on winning you back and making you fall in love with him over again. Even though he’s trying, he can’t help but feel so hopeless whenever he leaves you after a sweet visit so he decided to finally count his days with you, and finally, let you go when he’s ready.

Five months later

“You’ve been really sweet lately. Why?”

It’s a weekend in your world and Jaemin ditched his tooth fairy duties just so he can bring you to a quiet island and watch the stars with you. He hugged you tightly before he tells you half of the truth, “I just want to make you fall in love with me. Again”

“What are you talking about, as far as I know, I’m very much in love with you” truth, but you’re in love with Jeno too, just not that deep like how you love Jaemin.

“You and your sweetness, I love you” he sounds sincere. Very sincere actually, that it bothers you.

“I-I love you too. You’re not telling me something aren’t you?” you were slightly nervous as you sat up from between his legs and face him.

“Mhhm. Caught me red-handed. I have a surprise, turn around” you returned to your previous position and waited for him. After a few seconds, he puts a necklace around your neck and you felt something cold on your skin. A pendant that looks like a tooth, but it’s a pearl, “it looked like a tooth, don’t you think it’s amazing?” it was a parting gift because he was planning to finally give you up and let you be with Jeno.

You were speechless once again, “you’re amazing”

Sometimes listening to your sweet words hurt him. Because he knew you tell it to Jeno too. And he’s not the only man you love, at least not anymore. “Let’s get you home now” to be honest you wanted to stay for a while but he was so eager to bring you home already so you let him.

The fly back home was cold and quiet, something you have never experienced before. There’s something wrong and he’s not telling you. You waited for him to enter your room but he didn’t, and it was the first time he’s not tucking you in bed after a date, he just floats outside your window.

“Goodbye. Sleep well okay”

“Goodbye?” you scoffed, “Jaemin you never said goodbye, it’s always 'see you tomorrow'” by this time you’re mad at him because he’s not telling the truth. And to be honest he didn’t think you were going to notice that which breaks his heart even more because that means you still care about him.

“No- no, don’t be angry-“ he tried to hug you but you pushed him away and you’re not stupid to not realize that he’s breaking up with you tonight. “I-I know about Jeno. But I’m not mad, don’t get me wrong. He’s a great man, I’m happy you found someone, normal” he finally said the truth without breaking into tears and faced it like a man. “We can't be like this forever, someday you will get a job, marry someone, be a mom, grow old. So come on, let’s not part like this”

He was asking for a hug. One last hug, but you asked him to stay. You didn’t feel tears but somehow you’re crying nonstop and sobbing in front of him already, “I will break up with Jeno. Please- Jaemin I’m sorry for hurting you”

“Ssshh. You didn’t do anything wrong. I made up my mind, please don’t make this harder than it is already. Tonight is finally goodbye. Let’s part without regrets, we tried”

You still think that Jaemin is a different kind of special that’s why you can’t let go, and by this time you’re both crying and you were holding him so close that he had to make you let go of him so he could fly away from your window, one last time. Letting Jaemin go is like letting go of something you kept since you’re a little girl, something you’ve own then you lost it unexpectedly.

You didn’t want to say goodbye, but it happened anyway. You weren’t prepared. You never saw this coming.  

27 years old

“Mommy look! My tooth is out!” she showed you a big smile and you kissed your daughter on the forehead.

“Okay- okay, calm down. Daddy will get you ice cream after dinner, keep your tooth safe, please. So you won't disappoint the tooth fairy” she’s excited about the tooth fairy thing too, just like you when you were her age.

Happily married to Jeno and mother of a very curious 6 year old, you managed to move on and live your life without Jaemin and keeping him a secret forever. The heartbreak was an experience that you will never forget but thankfully, Jeno never gave up on you. Jaemin was right, he’s a great man.

When it’s finally bedtime for your daughter, you and Jeno tucked her to bed and made sure that her tooth is under her pillow before she sleeps. “tooth fairies aren’t real right?” he whispered to you after closing the door.

“For me they’re true. Come on, don’t ruin this for her” you playfully smacked your husband and went to your shared bedroom together.

It was really late when you heard something from your daughter’s room and you decided to look into it. Slowly you opened her door, but you see nothing and her window is closed. You checked the guest room quietly and groggily but you woke up when you see someone familiar standing near the window. “Jaemin?” you closed your eyes and opened them again until he turns around and flashes you that beautiful smile.

“Well you look old” is his first few words again to you after not seeing each other for many years.

“And you never aged” it’s like it was only yesterday when he broke up with you, he didn’t change. He’s still young and handsome.

“Fairy. I age but you know, -how are you?” he quickly changed the subject and walked towards you.

“Are you my daughter’s tooth fairy?” he let out a small laugh and held you close, trying so hard to stop himself from telling you how much he missed you and it was hard for him during the years without you.

“Sungchan” he whispered.

“That small fairy?”

“Mhhm. He’s big and tall now, so I’m doing his work for now because he made a sound earlier” that explains the thud you thought.

“I have to go now. You’re happy right?” you nod at him and tears started flowing from your eyes. You felt him let go for the second time but this time your heart is not breaking, or maybe it never actually healed that’s why you can’t feel anything now.

“Can I kiss you” you caught his hand before he flies away and hopes he gives you this one last request.

“No” he rejects you in the nicest way he can and fly away without saying another word. Jaemin respects Jeno and your daughter, even though he wanted to kiss you too he can’t. He can’t be selfish but he’s happy that you still believe in him, and passed the magic to your daughter.

That night, you felt that it is indeed goodbye from now and that is the last time that you will see Jaemin ever again.

The End.  

For Mona,

My first moot before I became close to everyone else. Thank you for accepting me as your partner. I remember we were so happy after we gave Kei our Neoholiday event and then followed by neo’clock which is very successful and we were so happy.

I don’t know but after we finished planning neoclock, I felt like I gained a new friend. And that’s my inspiration when the reader/ you met Jaemin for the first time. The first part was inspired by our first conversation actually, not really based on the messages that we exchanged but if you noticed I didn’t put anything romance related in the 6 years old part. I remember we were exchanging pieces of information about a few movies, princess Mia and I asked where you from.

So that is that WAHAHAHA sorry for ruining the surprise, but I lessen the smut I was overthinking you might get uncomfortable huhuhuhu…. Happy Neoholiday!  

[tefilovesreading]

It’s a match! Part. 1

Pairing: Charlie Gillespie x Fem!Reader

Word count: +1,7k

Warnings: language, mention of alcohol.

A/N: This is a mini series, I’m not sure how many parts it’s gonna have and there’s gonna be some texts in between. LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANNA BE TAGGED. 

Edited by: @theamazingtomholland

MASTERLIST // PART 2 // PART 3

She felt her hands start sweating as she saw the small circle slowly filling up, letting her know that the app was being downloaded. She knew what a dating app was, how it worked and what was its purpose, but never created her account, not that she needed it before because she had a boyfriend. Her roommate, on the other hand, was well acquainted with dating apps, and they’d spent nights swiping through the profiles together. 

Now that she was single for the first time since she graduated from high school, her roommate and best friend had convinced her to download Tinder and have fun.

“You don’t even have to go and meet the guy, Y/N,” Jo had said with a beaming smile to encourage her when they met for coffee earlier that day, “just have a look and see if you find someone you’d want to talk to.”

She nibbled on her lip when the circle filled up entirely and the icon appeared on her screen, bright and inviting. Putting her phone down, she decided she’d create her account later, for now, downloading it was more than enough.

In her sophomore year, she broke up with her boyfriend because they couldn’t find time to be together, too busy with classes, exams, and part-time jobs. But that didn’t last long, ‘cause they got back together after three weeks. 

Those three weeks ignited a spark in her, suddenly things were more exciting to her, and she didn’t feel like she was acting how others expected her to. Y/N felt a kind of freedom that made her go on a date with her co-worker, sure they just went for a coffee together once and decided that they were better off as friends, but that small rejection made her want to make that spark disappear.

Being with Lance made things easier, they knew each other since they were little, and that meant she didn’t have to open up to let him know her flaws and fears, because he knew her like the palm of his hand. Being with him made her feel safe, even when they were apart during his first year of college since she was a year younger than him and was still in high school when he left for college, but that safety net vanished when Lance decided he wanted to spend time overseas after he graduated from college. And it was useless to wait for him if he wasn’t even sure he wanted to come back.

Eight months later, Y/N felt that spark reigniting again, making her feel like she was missing something. Ever since Lance left, she spent too much time afraid to put herself out there. How can you let someone into your life and trust them to not hurt you? After all, she trusted Lance for so long just to get hurt because they didn’t want the same things, and their paths went in different ways. But Y/N knew she couldn’t hide much longer, she wanted to go out, have fun, go on dates and meet new people, she just didn’t know how to start.

Her phone vibrated with a new notification from her best friend, and she snorted at her text.

Jo: Any matches yet heartbreaker???

If only Jo knew she still wasn’t able to bring herself into making an account. Maybe she could choose the pictures first, plan her bio, and then create it. Planning that out was definitely better than staring at the app icon.

Y/N: Not yet, but I’ll let you know ;)

After an hour of scrolling through her photos, Y/N chose five pictures where she looked decent. Hell, she looked really hot in one or two of those, and she wasn’t going to act as if that wasn’t true.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself after her account was finally set up. 

It was a strange feeling swiping through the profiles, reading their bios, and rolling her eyes at some of them. But after a few minutes, she started enjoying it, not even feeling bad if she didn’t match with a guy.

She smiled at the simple bio on her screen and swiped right, not even bothering to go through his other photos. He was cute, he seemed like he liked to have fun, and even though he was cute, he was also hot. A dangerous mix, but a really nice one.

It’s a match!

“Honey I’m home!” her best friend sang, entering  the living room.

“Shit Jo!” Y/N scolded the girl, “you scared me.”

“Why?” Jo faked an offended look, “were you sending dirty messages or something?”

“Oh shut up,” Y/N said, handing her phone over to her friend with a sheepish smile on her face, “check out my last match.”

“Okay, so he likes outdoor activities, he plays the guitar, and he has a cute smile,” her friend listed, swiping through his photos, “what are you waiting for, Y/N? Send him a message!”

“I was actually waiting for him to send one first,” she admitted, feeling her cheeks heat up, “you know I suck with conversations over chat.”

“But what if he’s waiting for you to talk to him, and you don’t do it,” Y/N looked at her friend and knew she was already making up a whole movie in her head, about how they could be soulmates, but they would never know if she didn’t send him a text.

“Fine!” She huffed and took her phone from her friend’s hands, “Do I send him a hello or what?”

“No, that’s too dry,” Jo replied, “you should ask him about where he took that picture, the one where he’s in the snow.”

She bit her bottom lip to distract herself from the fact that she felt as if her stomach was tied up in knots. He was really cute, and she had a good feeling about him, almost as if the universe was telling her to go for it, meet up with him and have fun.

Hesitating at first, she let her finger hover over the little “send” button for a few seconds, before pressing the screen and sending the text.

Y/N: Hey! Where did you take the first pic? The place looks great

“What now?” Jo looked at her with one of her eyebrows arched.

“We wait, you idiot.”

“I need to do something,” Y/N locked her phone and got up, “if I stay on that couch waiting for a reply I’m gonna end up with no nails.”

“I did your nails last night, Y/N, don’t ruin my work,” Jo complained, “why don’t you cook dinner today?, and I’ll wash the dishes, so you can text with that guy if he replies to you by the time we’re done eating.”

“I’m gonna ignore the fact that it was your turn, Jo” she pointed out but made her way to the kitchen anyway, “and you better wash, dry, and put the dishes back in the cabinets.”

Cooking was the perfect distraction, and the glass of wine she drank while they were eating helped her loosen up just enough to check her phone without feeling like she was getting back some important results.

Charlie: It’s in Canada Charlie: Sulphur Mountain Trail! Charlie: I like your smile btw

She smiled with excitement when she opened the app and saw those three messages, and just as she was about to respond, Charlie sent another one.

Charlie: How was your day??  Y/N: It was good, pretty relaxing actually Y/N: Yours?? Charlie: Great! I went hiking with a friend, so now I’m just chilling at home Y/N: I’m assuming you’re into hiking, don’t you??? Charlie: Hahaha yeah you’re right Charlie: I guess I enjoy being outside, it keeps my mind occupied

Y/N: I get it, I’m not really into outdoor activities Y/N: I mean Y/N: I don’t mind going on a hike once in a while, but I prefer reading, painting, or playing some music  Y/N: To keep my mind occupied 

Five texts in a row. Was that too much? She didn’t want to appear intense, but she also didn’t want to send just one massive text and type it for way too long.

Charlie: You play an instrument?? Charlie: I love music Y/N: Yeah I play the piano Y/N: I just don’t have one with me now, so I haven’t played in a while Charlie: Oh! That sucks! Charlie: When I moved here I think I packed my guitars first and then the rest of my stuff

Y/N let out a soft laugh at his text, he did seem like the kind of guy to pack random stuff before things that he might actually need. She should’ve done the same, she missed playing the piano, and now that she was miles away from her parents’ house it wasn’t like she could just go and play. Especially because she didn’t even know how to drive a car.

Y/N: Should’ve done the same if I’m honest Y/N: Where are you from? You said you moved here

After reading his answer to her last question, she groaned in embarrassment because it was the most obvious answer, and yet she didn’t notice it.

Charlie: I’m Canadian

She lost track of time talking to him about things they both enjoyed doing, what was their favorite movie, favorite musician, and to her surprise it was so easy to talk to him about small things like that could help you a lot to get to know another person. Y/N got startled when Jo touched her shoulder to get her attention.

“I’m off to bed, babe,” Y/N dodged when her friend tried to ruffle her hair as if she was a little kid, “don’t go to bed too late.”

“I won’t mom,” she replied jokingly, “sweet dreams, Jo.”

With a heavy sigh, Y/N typed a message, telling him that she needed to get some rest and that she was hoping they could keep talking the next day.

Charlie: Do you mind if I ask you for your number?? Charlie: I’d love to call you or FaceTime with you if you’re okay with that

“Shit, shit, shit,” she whispered, wishing her best friend hadn’t gone to bed already. Of course, she wanted to give him her number, but was she supposed to give her number to the first guy she talked to on Tinder? “fuck it, I’m doing it.”

Y/N sent him her number and after telling him goodnight, she closed the app and got ready for bed. She really had a good feeling about this whole thing, and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, because the feeling started even before they even matched. 

Maybe it was just fate doing its work.

[jaehyunsuh]

nct ot23 reaction to: having a lazy day with their s/o

MASTERLIST

REQUESTS ARE: OPEN

feel free to come to my blog and express yourself about everything you want, i would love to interact ♡

taeil

taeil

lots of hugs and cuddles!!

he would like to wrap you in blankets so you can feel warm and look fluffy.

he would like to put some music on (like in his vlog) and he would dance for you and make you laugh :(

he would act cute for you just because he feels like it.

he would be like a little kid because he would feel so happy to have a day just with you.

johnny

he would just be flirting with you ALL DAY!! even tho you are his s/o because he would want to see you be blushed and flustered the whole day.

he won’t stop holding you, he would snuggle.

kisses all over your face.

romcom movies.

makeout sessions.

lots of laughing.

he would probably tickle you just to annoy you and make you mad, that would make him happy.

taeyong

he would like to stay in bed for the whole day because he deserves to rest and so do you.

he would try to be cute and make breakfast and bring it to bed.

for some reason I see him doing gardening that day, talking to you about his plants and how he takes care of them.

he would play some of the of the songs that he has been working on and ask you what you think because your opinion ia the most important.

he would lay beside you and hug you like there’s not tomorrow.

he would leave soft kisses on your nose.

yuta

he would make you watch his favorite anime shows and movies and would passionatly explain his favorite scenes and characters.

for some reason I feel like he would become really open and talk about is trainee days and his memories in Japan when he was young.

he would insist on teaching you how to play football (or soccer, whatever you call it).

even if you are bad he would just smie and tell you that you are doing well.

he would give some passionate kisses out of nowhere.

kun

it would be such a perfect day for him.

he would pamper you like there’s no tomorrow.

for sure he would cook every meal for you and he would do your favorite ones.

for fun, he would make you help him bake cupcakes and you both would make a mess but you had a lot of fun while doing it.

lots of kisses while he laughs amd shows his dimples!!!

I also see him taking out board games and play with you for the rest of the night.

doyoung

kisses all day long !!

he would always be attached to you like there’s no tomorrow.

he would sing the whole day just to impress you.

I seem him look for some diy stuff on the internet and asking you to do it together:

he would probably make a mess and get frustrated but he would look so adorable :(

he would ask you to watch as much kdramas as possible. He would comment about them and be really excited about specific scenes.

he would ask you to help him redecorate his room as well.

he would just keep hugging you and telling you how happy he is for that day, the whole day.

ten

he would want you to pamper him and give him lota or affection.

he would act cute just for you.

it would feel limw you are taking care of a little kid because he just wants you to take care or him.

he would show you some dances that he choreographed and would interpret the for you to see what you think.

he would make you listen to some nice music so you can help him choose a new song to dance to.

he would teach you how to draw on his tablet and you would have so much fun while doing it.

jaehyun

having some alone time with you like this would make him be really affective.

he would want to cuddle on bed all day.

he would make you watch the most romantic kdramas or romcom movies.

he would definitely cook something for you, whatever you want he would do it.

he would teach you some recipes and he would laugh whenever you start to feel stressed because of the cooking.

he would teach you some songs on the piano, oh my god i’m soft.

soft and sweet makeout sessions!!

he would ask you to help him organize his vinyls.

he would play some of those while he shows you his favorite songs and albums.

winwin

he would be really happy to spend the whole day with you.

he would want to watch some nice movies and cuddle.

smiles all day !!

he would ask you if he can bring louis or bella over to play.

he would love to spend time with you and his pets and y’all would play for the rest of the day.

he would show you some dances that he’s been working on.

he would teach you some wayv choreography just for fun.

jungwoo

he woud smile for the whole day !!

he would spend saying “I love you”, “You are the best”, “You are beautiful”. Basically all the cute things that you can imagine.

he would want to cuddle.

pouts all the time when wanting something!!

he would attack you with kisses.

he would tell you to play some football and he would teach you some tricks.

by mistake the ball would hit you and he would kiss where you got hurt.

lucas

he would just show up with bella.

he would show you all the toys that he bought for her.

he would also show all the tricks that she knows now.

y’all would lay in the couch together and play a nice movie.

you don’t notice but lucas would atare at you with heart eyes all the time.

he would hug you all the time.

he would grab your face in between his big hands hands and kiss you like there’s no tomorrow.

mark

he would smile all the time because he would be able to rest plus spend time with you.

I feel like he isn’t into skinship that much but whenever you hug him, kiss his cheek and snuggle he would blush, smile and be really excited because he likes it when you do it.

he would like to do something chill like watching a movie or playing some board game.

the board would become wild and you would be a laughing mess.

rap battle out of nowhere because he wants to make you laugh.

he would also show some songs that he’s been working on.

xiaojun

he would be the cutest ever.

he would ask you if you want him to do anything.

he would cook, clean, whatever you want him to.

he would like to cuddle 24/7 and never leave your side.

he would take out his guitar and simg for you.

he would show you some songs he is learning.

later he would be the sweetest ever and would give you a romantic guitar lesson.

he would encourage you when you start getting stressed and would say that you are the best.

hendery

he would be so insanely happy about it.

he is always smiling but you have never seen him smile like today.

I see him wanting to take naps, and you would do it together and it would be ao cute.

after the nap, some cuddles and watching together because resting is the best.

after you make a mess in the kitchen trying to make lunch.

after eating lunch he insists that you play some videogames with you.

he would teach you and later you would spend the rest of the night.

he would laugh really laugh whenever he wins because you would be pouty.

renjun

the sweetest boy ever.

he would be really happy to have some time alone with you.

I see him wanting to try something new and fun with you so he probably would look how to do donuts or smth like that.

it would become really really messy.

when decorating them he would try to impress you and would make the prettiest donuts you’ve seen.

he later would bring out his drawing tools and would make you draw something.

he would also show you the works he has done before.

jeno

i’m just telling you that he is bringing his 3 cats because he misses them a lot and he wants you to also be with them.

he would love to see you play and interact with the cats.

you would later lay on the couch with the cute cats while watching a movie.

he would look at you and admire you, thinking how important you are to him.

he would play with your hair softly and later would leave little soft kisses on your cheeks.

haechan

he would hugh you really really tight like there’s no tomorrow!!

he would kiss every parto of your body that’s possible.

he would tell you the corniest flirting jokes ever just to make you smile.

to make things more fun he would pretend that he is mad or jealous over something.

you would become a little upset and you would pout.

when you realize he it’s just joking you two would bicker a lot and he would be living for that!!

later at night he would want you to play some videogames together.

jaemin

he would be so freaking happy and just with the most beautiful smile for the whole day.

he would hug you and hold you in every way and position that’s possible.

he would pamper you for the whole day, you are his baby and he feels like you deserve it.

he would carry you all over the house he is being clingy and feels like it.

he would be around with his camera all the time!!

he would take the cutest pics of you while you are distracted.

later he would convince you to do a little photoshoot and you two would take the cutest and most romantic pictures.

yangyang

he would want to have fun with you on this day.

you would be there, chilling in bed and trying to watch a movie and 3 seconds later there’s yangyang jumping in bed.

he would beg you to play videogames with you.

he would become competitive and start moving you and taking the remote of your hand. You two would just be a laughing mess.

later he would ask you to some weird tiktok challenges that he found and you’ll spend the rest of the day laughing because of the mess you two are.

shotaro

he would be so excited to be with you !!

he would be the cutest ever and he would just spend the whole day telling you that you are the best s/o ever.

he would like to show you his gaming skills so he would make you play his favorite video game.

he would be nice and would lose on purpose just to see you smile.

he attempted to cook dinner but sadly it burned a little bit but you said it was okay and he felt happy :((

you would convince him of showing you some dance and some of the old tiktok dances he used to make........

sungchan

for some reason I see him wanting to do something different on that day with you.

maybe doing a puzzle??? or playing something like just dance.

while playing just dance your tummy’s would hurt of how much you are laughing.

he is kinda shy but on that day he would open up and talk about his feelings, his trainee days and your relationship.

he would feel so happy to have some free time with you.

chenle

he would want you to take care of him.

he wanta you to pamper him like there’s no tomorrow.

he would tell you that you need to do it because later he would have busy schedule and you will regret it.

he would be so cute and adorable all the time like he has never been before with anyone else.

he would even do some aegyo because he is happy that you are there.

he would 100% bring daegal around.

you two would spend hours playing with daegal🥺

jisung

he would be so insanely excited for this day, his cheeks are about to explote !!

he pretends like he doesn’t like skinship but as soon as you arrive he would instantly go to your lap you can play with his har and give him kisses.

he would feel like doing some diy too!!

he would like to do bracelets for each other because he liked doing it with chenle before.

you would compete on who does the cutest braceltes and dream members would be the judges through the group chat.

just to tease jisung they would choose you as the winner.

jisung would be a little grumpy but you kiss his cheek and everything goes back to normal lol.

he would show you some choreographies that he has done and wants to post in the future.

you would cheer for him really loud, making him blush but he is feeling happy.

[chrisevansluv]

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

[perksofbeingradioactive]

Dick and Wally loved rom-coms. It was a public secret at the Mountain. At first if someone caught them watching, they would find an explaination as to why it was on or blame M'gann, but after a while (and too many "accidental" scenes of "Love,actually") they ran out of excuses and just gave in. Wally's all time favourite was "Four weddings and a funeral", while with Dick, it was a tie between "One day" and "When Harry met Sally" (because, friends to lovers). The first time they watched "Four weddings and a funeral" when the scene with the funeral passed,Wally turned to Dick:

"I want somebody to recite that at my funeral"he stated,mouth full of popcorn.

"Dude,why are you thinking about that??"Dick responded, still a bit shook from the emotional scene that just passed.

"Well, it could happen any day in our line of work, so I'm telling you, as my best friend, my requests"

"Pfft, any musical wishes?"Dick asked sarcastically, "Also,who do you think would read the poem anyway? I don't recall you having a husband last time I checked. And if you do, well, that funeral will be much sooner than expected, given that you didn't invite me to the wedding."

"Hmm" Wally furowed his brows, deep in thought, "I haven't figured out that one yet, but when it happens I bet it'll be my smoking hot, smart-ass girlfriend with whom I'll have at least two dogs".

Dick scoffed "Okay,sure Kid Mouth, lets lighten up a bit, we still have two weddings left"...

Every single time they watched the movie, the same conversation would come up and it would never get past the"Who will read the poem" part.

...

The night before Kid Flash officially retired, he and Dick watched their favourites in Wally's room one last time. After "Love,actually", "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Jones' diary" (it almost seemed like Wally had a thing for Hugh Grant,the blue-eyed,brown-haired heart throb) "Four Wedding and a funeral" got its turn. As the funeral scene was ending, Dick was ready to repeat the same sentences he always did during the years,but Wally's opening line surprised him:

"I've decided who's going to recite at my funeral" he said with a smirk(yet again, mouth full of popcorn).

"I hope you told Artemis cause she does not like surprises" Dick looked away, feeling a sting of jealously over a hipothetical situation. And even if it weren't, god forbid, Arty is his girlfriend, Dick snap out of it!

"Oh no, she doesn't, but she shouldn't be worried cause I chose you" Wally turned to Dick, who went through 17 different emotions in 3 seconds.

"Why me?" Dick asked after processing the newfound information for much longer than his mind usually did.

"Well, your my bestest friend in the whole wide world plus with how many times we've watched this masterpiece, I bet you know the poem by heart"

"Just because you love it doesn't mean it's a masterpiece" Dick tried averting from the conversation.

"I know, but it still is. You haven't responded"

"But its a love poem and most oftenly linked to these two guys!" Dick slightly raised his voice, panicking.

"If someone even tries to comment anything even slightly negative on that matter, they will be haunted by yours truly for the rest of eternity" Wally joked, punching Dick in the shoulder.

"So,will you do it?"he asked after few minutes of silence.

"Yeah, of course" Dick huffed "but don't you dare die any time soon!"

"Well, with Artemis' cooking, it might be sooner than you think" Wally grined,enjoying his best friend's company...

...

It was a rather gloomy day, although it wasn't raining. You'd think that rain was an essential part of every funeral, but people died throughout the whole year. Dick was sitting in the first row, next to Artemis and her mother, Barry and Iris, wearing dark sunglasses and a black suit. He felt a deja-vu, but unlike at his parents' funeral, he wasn't crying. Not that he didn't want to (he wanted to lie and weep and scream at the sky and curse into the ground all at the same time) it just wasn't his assigned role. Artemis was sobbing into her mother's shoulder, Barry's face was puffed, he definitely spent the night crying, same as Iris'. Dick couldn't cry in front of them, he was just Wally's friend. Who also got him killed. Wally was never supposed to get back into the superhero business and now he was gone. It was all Dick's fault. No one said that to him,but Dick knew it was the truth. And there was nothing more that Dick wanted than to dig up a hole and just die in it(that is actually a lie,more than that he wanted his best friend back) but unfortunately, that wasn't possible, so he got up to hold an eulogy for his (former)oldest,best friend.

Dick cleared his throat, checking if he actually had the strength in his voice to pull this of, and started: "Wally loved romantic comedies. He would cheer when it came to the happy ending and complained and cried when there wasn't. It was always easy to figure out Wally's emotions. When he was happy he smiled and when he was sad he ate 2 gallons of chocolate ice cream. When he asked me to read a poem from one of his favourite movies at his funeral I could see he was being serious. That was weird because: 1)he wasn't serious very often and 2)we were teenagers and you don't really think about these thing when you're a teenager. So here I am, today, respecting my best friend's,at the time,riddiculous wish."

Dick pulled out a piece of paper with the scribbled poem but then he stopped and put it away. Wally was right,he knew it by heart.

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West." Dick paused,trying to keep himself together.

" My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good. "

He whispered the last line,saying a final goodbye to the one that got away.

[sagefzy]

PART FOUR: POPCORN AND GREEN TEA

perfectionism | prev | next

You tapped your foot on the pavement, anxious to finally meet the eyes of your old friend. The feeling of excitement was almost overwhelming all your senses, the only thing you could focus on was the plain, faded brown door in front of you. Quickly, you sent Suna a text to let him know of your arrival, however in the corner of your eye, you suddenly noticed two figures approaching. You shrugged it off, thinking that it was just two guys passing by on a walk, but rather than walking past the house, they stepped up the driveway slowly drawing near you.

Hearing Ennoshita's words in your mind about being aware of your surroundings, you discreetly glanced back observing the two. But, much to your surprise, it was the exact two guys who bombarded you at the supermarket yesterday. Well, actually, more like the one blond who smashed a shopping cart into your heel, blubbering apologies and looking away, while the other one stood there and watched the whole incident play out.

You watched them for what seemed like forever. Could they possibly be Suna's friends? No, the whole thing seemed too coincidental, surely that couldn't be the case. Not willing to take the chance, you took out your phone once more in hopes to get Suna to clarify that those were, indeed, not his friends. Unfortunately for you, it appeared that the universe had decided to make you a pawn in its game because the two of them were, indeed, his friends.

You let out a heavy sigh, you could already tell that the next few hours would be nothing but awkward stares and embarrassing conversations. Not wanting to ruin your one day of freedom- the one day where you didn't have to listen to your dad's constant yells, telling you how much of a disappointment you are- the one day where you didn't have to sit in front of the piano all day just to feel some sort of gratification. It was then that you decided to just ignore the situation, and pretend as if the blond wasn't the reason that the back of your foot was wrapped in a bandage. For all Suna knew, this was you guys' first encounter, so be it.

Right as the door opened, your eyes were drawn to the tall green-eyed boy who you used to spend every day with as a young kid. "Y/N, so glad you're here!" Suna smiled, as he went in for a quick hug. "Those two behind you are Atsumu and Osamu." He introduced, pointing to the two that were now directly behind you. The blond looked absolutely horrified, stealing brief glimpses at the bandage that hugged your heel, the other one, however, stared back with a nonchalant smile. "They may have almost the same face, but the one with the ugly piss-colored hair is Atsumu, and the normal looking one is Osamu."

You grinned back at the two, showcasing your brightest smile, hoping that they'd get the message to not bring up the fact that this was not your first encounter. You were going to introduce yourself to the two, but the blond seemed to beat you to cut. "How come Samu is the normal one?" He whined.

Suna snickered, "Because Osamu doesn't act like a dramatic brat who needs his hand held every damn second of the day."

Suna's blunt words made you softly chuckle, there was something in friendly banter that just made it so pure and innocent. You looked up at the two, noticing that the blond's expression had softened after hearing your giggles. With the brief moment of silence at hand, you decided to take this as the moment to introduce yourself. "I'm Y/N, it's nice to meet you Atsumu and Osamu."

"Well now that we got introductions out of the way, why don't we go inside and find something to do," Suna suggested.

"Rinny, can we watch a movie?" You asked excitedly. The last time you had watched a movie was when you hung out with Nishinoya, Tanaka, and Ennoshita before leaving Miyagi, and your dad hardly ever let you engage in anything other than school work or piano, making it a rare treasure.

Suna nodded, "Watching a movie it is."

As all of you entered the house, you couldn't help but hear the blond, Atsumu mutter to his brother, "If I called 'm Rinny I think he'd punch me on the spot."

A smile quickly reappeared on your face as you heard his brother respond, "I don't know, I'll give ya one thousand yen to put it to the test."

"No, I think I'll choose life," He giggled.

You found your way to the couch and swiftly pulled out your phone, eager to let your friends know your current situation. The whole scene sounded like something straight out of a book.

You clicked your phone off and turned your attention to the aroma that seemed to be emerging from the kitchen. The familiar scent, caramel popcorn and green tea, jogged an almost forgotten memory of your childhood. An unlikely duo, yet even as a child you couldn't get enough of the weird combination. No one would've ever thought to put the two together, but it just worked.

You almost laughed at the sight. Suna walked out of the kitchen juggling three bowls of caramel popcorn, three bottles of energy drinks, and, of course, your mug of green tea. Since he had such little grace, you got up and lent a helping hand. "No, no you're my guest and you're injured go sit back down," Suna scolded.

"Well it's too late, I'm already here, so I'll just take some of that off your hand," You said while grabbing the mug of tea and the three energy drinks. You walked over to the twins and handed them each their bottle.

"Say what happened to yer foot over there?" Osamu asked with a smirk on his face.

"Oh yeah you never told me what you did to your foot, Y/N," Suna added as he placed the remaining bowls on the side table.

"It's not a big deal I just scraped myself with glass while unpacking," You blurted. You hoped that the lie was convincing enough, but to be honest, scraping yourself with glass sounded way more believable than being run over with a shopping cart.

"I see, sorry to hear that," Osamu responded in an almost surprise-like manner. You thought that maybe he expected you to call out his brother, however you decided to stick with your initial decision of ignoring the situation to save your night from awkwardness. His expression only got more surprised as he realized the unusual food combination you were eating. For only eating caramel popcorn with green tea, he looked as if you were committing a crime against food.

"Green tea with caramel popcorn?" He asked.

With no shame you nodded your head. "Don't knock it until you try it, it's my favorite combo in the world. I can never get enough of it."

Suna sighed, "Yeah, it's no use to convince her otherwise it's been more than a solid seven years since i last saw her and she still likes it."

The night ended almost as quickly as it started. Although you were initially worried about it being awkward, your worries were soon rested once Osamu started explaining his love of cooking. You both talked endlessly about all sorts of sweets and savory foods you both enjoyed indulging in. However, his twin, on the other hand, barely talked as he aimlessly played around with his phone.

Your eyes noticed the time on the nearby clock, the numbers displaying that it was near midnight. Your stomach instantly knotted, if your dad wasn't asleep, you for sure were going to get an ear full when you arrived home. You picked up your phone, and smiled at Suna and Osamu who's chest softly rose up and down as they slept.

You stood up quietly, getting Atsumu's attention. You didn't expect him to do or say anything since he'd been quite dull the entire night, but it seemed like this was a night of surprises. "Yer not planning to go all the way to the bus stop by yerself now are ya?" He asked.

"Well I'm not waking either of them so they can escort me if that's what you're asking," you responded "But, you're more than welcome to join me if it'll put your mind at ease." You fully expected him to not care, however he grabbed his jacket next to him and stood up, walking over to where you stood by the front door.

He quietly opened the door, careful to not make a creaking noise. "After you," He said as he directed you out of the house. The crisp winter air hit your face, your whole body jolted from the sudden change of temperatures. "Don't suppose yer cold now?" He asked, probably noticing your shivering. You replied by shaking your head and continued on the trail to the bus stop.

The rest of the walk was mostly silent, neither one of you knowing what to say. This was definitely uncharacteristically of Atsumu, anyone who'd even slightly know him would expect him to be chatting your ear off with overdramatized commentary. However, things seemed to be different in this situation, there was an eerie feeling about you that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Of course, it didn't help that your first encounter with him was him, in fact, running a shopping cart into you, but it wasn't just that. Maybe it was the way you presented yourself, in an almost sickening sweet-like manner. It all felt artificial, like a facade.

"Well this is it," you said, snapping him out of his thoughts, "Just in time for the last bus, thanks for walking with me." You turned around to enter the vehicle but before you could, a hand made its way to your arm. You immediately flinched at the contact, pulling away at the light hold he had on you.

"I'm sorry I just- i um," He started, trying to find a way to word what he wanted to say. "I wanted to say that 'm sorry for yesterday, it was kind of a shitty thing to do, and 'm also sorry for not really talking all that much today, ya seem really nice and I'm usually not this bad when it comes to meeting new people. And, I totally ruined the night by ignoring you I-"

You lightly laughed, "It's alright, plus any friend of Rin's, is a friend of mine, and you didn't ruin tonight at all, I thought it was perfect." You both smiled back at each other, not saying anything for a moment. You cleared your throat, "Um, I'll see you around, have a good night, Atsumu."

He watched as you entered the bus. A small smile made it on his face as he watched you wave goodbye from the bus window. He waved back and muttered under his breath, "Good night, Y/N."

The bus ride was only about ten minutes. Anxiously, you opened the door to your house, hoping that by some miracle your dad would be sound asleep. The old door slightly creaked, you peaked inside and all your worries flushed away as you saw your dad passed out on the couch. Granted he was passed out drunk, at least that's what you gathered by the four bottles of empty beer that laid at his feet.

Even for you, life wasn't as perfect as it seemed. As much as you wanted it to be, as much as you led people on to think that it was, it just wasn't. The worst part of it was that deep down, you felt accountable for it all. Maybe if you would've been just a little better at piano, you could've achieved your perfect life.

You reached your bedroom and exhaustedly plopped down on your bed. You glanced at the picture of your mother on your bedside table. Her long hair glided down her lavender dress, her face gleaming with a smile. In one hand she held her violin and the other held an award deeming her the best violinist in the nation. She was talented, beautiful, intelligent, and made your dad happy. She was absolutely everything you weren't, and your dad made sure to remind you everyday.

Life before she died was perfect. You could never recall a memory of you being sad around her. Before you closed your eyes, you whispered, "I wish I was perfect like you."

fun facts !

Whenever Atsumu doesn't know how to address a situation, he just goes on his phone and plays angry birds.

If you're ever bored, Osamu will talk forever about all the different ways you can cook the same recipe.

Suna can never stay awake during a movie night, he always falls asleep somehow.

Before getting into volleyball, the twins' mother tried to get them into violin, however that quickly failed once Atsumu broke his bow on the second day of lessons.

perfectionism ©

smau written by @sagefzy

tagist: open just send an ask :)

[chxrrysangel]

Stark Tea Time

Summary || Morgan Stark drags Bucky to one of her legendary tea parties, Sam leaving him to drown in pink fluff and glitter.

Warnings || Bucky actually smiles

You do not have permission to post my work anywhere else

“Lay up Cyborg, live a little. It’s not like I’m gonna di—”

“Look! Sam, I drew something for you!”

The two men’s attention is diverted from their conversation as little Morgan Stark comes barreling down the hallway, paper flapping in one hand and an assortment of crayons in the other. Her hair is covered in little butterfly clips, strands adorned with a wide array of colors from the chalk dye strewn across her cherry wood floors. She’s wearing a massive tutu, dressing to the 9s in a blue ballerina costume.

Sam smiles at the little girl, always excited to see what she has to offer. Ever since Tony passed, all of the Avengers men have taken on a father-like role towards the child, always making sure she feels loved and cared for. It’s the least they can do.

He bends down to her eye level, giving her his full attention. The smile on Sam’s face is in complete contrast to the grimace adorning Bucky’s features.

“What’s up sweetheart? Whatcha got?”

The little Stark giggles in excitement, overjoyed to see her two favorite Avengers come to see her again. They’re always quite busy, saving the world and everything. So each visit is quite meaningful to her. They’ll never replace Tony, but they ensure that his memory and love for Morgan is something she’ll never lack. They’d all die before that happens, and she knows that.

She takes the drawing from behind her back and lays it out for both of them to see. It resembles some sort of bird-like figure, Sam thinks to himself. Next to it is a robot-type figure, not failing to notice the frown etched into his features with a Crayola marker. Shaking with excitement, the little Stark looks at the two men expectantly.

“What is it?”

Morgan sighs loudly, annoyed by their stupidity and lack of “artistic vision”. The two men have yet to figure out where she learned such a concept.

“It’s you guys! Duh!” Their mouthes form into an ‘o’ shape in understanding.

“Well it’s stunning. It’s absolutely beautiful Morg. You know, I might have frame this one actually. When you become a famous painter, this is gonna be worth so much money!” Morgan squeals, jumping around excitedly as Sam praises her.

“I think it’s kind of ugl—” Sam cuts him off by sending a small electrical current to Bucky’s arm, causing him to hunch over in pain as he’s being electrocuted.

“What he was trying to say is that it’s very avant-garde, meaning unique in the art world. Don’t worry little Stark, it’s a good thing.” Sam smiles at her encouragingly, hoping Terminator’s harsh words back there wash over her. She nods in understanding, James’s words already long forgotten.

The two men attempt to continue their conversation from before, discussing details about their next mission. There’s a hostage situation in the Palace of Westminster, the perpetrators threatening to blow the whole thing up with everyone in it. But before they can really strategize how to scope out the place, Sam feels a tap on his leg.

“Yes princess?”

“Can you guys come to my tea party?”

“Actually Morgan, we have to go so—” Bucky starts to say before being rudely cut off my bird-man to his left. Sam shoot daggers in his partner’s direction and the words die in his throat.

“Actually, I have to go take care of something really quickly. But Bucky can join you.” At those words, Bucky’s head jolts in his direction, giving Sam one of the meanest looks he’s probably ever seen. But the big man is all bark and no bite, so Sam just laughs in his face. Bucky’s fists tighten at his sides, thinking of all the ways he plans to torture and murder Sam when they leave the Stark house.

Morgan, on the other hand, is practically bursting at the seams. Bucky doesn’t know this, but he’s her favorite of all the Avengers, especially because his titanium arm reminds her of her dad’s suit. She feels closer to him when she’s with Bucky. Plus, they’re both kinda stoic, but it’s only an act in her eyes. She knows that deep down, he has a heart of gold.

Morgan takes Bucky by the hand, dragging him down the hallway back to her room. Meanwhile, Bucky looks back at Sam, pleading for some kind of mercy or aid. Sam, of course, provides no such thing and only cackles at his best friend’s misfortune. He says goodbye to Pepper, promising to be back once he finishes talking to Torres.

Meanwhile in a certain Stark’s bedroom…

Morgan bounced from corner to corner of her large bedroom, capturing all of the items she needs for this special occasion. It’s not often she has a guest for her weekly tea parties, let along James Buchanan Barnes of all people. She has to make a good impression if he’s ever going to come back.

Standing like a dark looming giant,surrounded by tiny chairs and more pink and purple than he’s ever seen, Bucky is clearly out of his element. At 6’0 tall, he stands taller than anything in this room, standing neck and neck with the canopy bed in the middle. Morgan doesn’t take notice of his discomfort however, she’s just happy to have him. She whips around him, gathering her stuffed animals at the table and setting up the placemats for each guest.

Almost as if having an epiphany, the mini Stark girl gasps and runs out the bedroom, yelling that she’ll be right back. Bucky wanders around the room, taking notice of all the little trinkets and toys that he, along with the rest of the team, gifted to her over time. His lips contort into a ghost of a smile, reminiscing all the times Morgan screamed for joy every time they came bearing gifts. The gifts didn’t really matter to her, though. It was just their presence that set her heart into cardiac arrest and her cheeks aflame. They were her family.

Not soon after, Morgan returns dragging a more normal sized chair into her room. Bucky is surprised at this action, as the small girl is barely breaking a sweat. That is, until he noticed the two small gadgets attached the back of the chair, marked with Tony’s insignia. So little Stark is smart, just like her dad.

Morgan sets the chair down next to her own pink, fluffy and bedazzled throne at the head of the table. She sits down, motioning Bucky to take a seat and calls the tea party into session. Bucky’s eyes wander over the pristinely white tabletop, taking in the wide assortment of snacks. From shortbread, frosted oatmeal cookies, to cheeseburgers and mini sandwiches, you name it and she’s got it. The baked goods are Pepper’s doing of course, courtesy of her daily afternoon attempts to become the next Martha Stewart. Morgan doesn’t mind at all, eager to indulge in a daily sugar high as the designated guinea pig.

“Tea?,” the child offers, “it’s raspberry, your favorite.” James can’t help but blush as her consideration of his tastes. For a kid, she’s a pretty decent host. He quickly covers up his blush by coughing and nods firmly.

After filling up the China tea cups lined up around the table, Morgan moves towards introductions. “Bucky, these are my friends. There’s Mr.Whiskers, Genevieve, Fae, Natasha, Tony, and James. They’re very happy to have you here with us. They think you look quite nice today.”

James? As in… Bucky can’t help but blush again, honored that Morgan named one of her beloved stuffed animals after him. He smiles shyly, staring at the lavender Elephant across the table. The girl doesn’t fail to notice his smile, happy that he’s happy.

“So James, how do you feel about glitter?”

~~~

The doorbell rings sometime around 7:00, just after sunset. Pepper opens the door to a smiling Sam, carrying a mysterious box by his side. He just left Torres house, the two men agreeing to scope out the place just before dawn when everyone is still sleeping. That way, they can get a good picture of what it looks like on the inside without having to use night vision technology.

“What’s in the box?”

“Lemon Merengue. For Morgan.” Lemon Merengue is Morgan’s favorite dessert. So by bringing her some, Sam hopes that she’ll forgive him for taking a rain check on one of her illustrious tea parties.

“They’re still down the hall.” Pepper points in the direction of mini Stark’s room, before returning to her baking. Tonight, she’s trying devil’s food cake.

Even from down the hall, Sam can hear the chatting of two distinct voices, a deep scratchy one and a much higher, daintier tone. He shakes his head at Morgan’s complete lack of an inside voice when she’s excited. They must be having a blast in there.

To Sam’s surprise, Bucky actually seems to be enjoying himself. He stands in the doorframe, watching the two chat back and forth while a Disney movie soundtrack plays in the background. From the distinct piano, Sam recognizes Beauty & the Beast (also one of Morgan’s favorites).

Sitting down obediently, Bucky gives Morgan his full attention as she places puffy stickers on his titanium arm and adds little doodles to his real one. He smiles as he watches her drawing a picture of the two of them with princess tiaras and feather boas, just like they are now. She babbles away, telling him the details of the movie she wants them to watch together. It’s called Tangled, he learns.

Sam decides to leave the two alone, going back to help Pepper bake in the kitchen. Although, not before snapping a picture of the two together, reminding himself to print it and put it on the fridge. He knows that Pepper isn’t exactly the kindest person to be in the kitchen with, as she is very bossy and demanding. But he’d take that over ruining this special moment in the princess-themed room down the hall.

He can still hear the faint giggles and screams of Morgan, this time begging Bucky to stop tickling her. She pleads for mercy but he refuses to budge, only making her laugh harder and her giggles to bounce off the walls like they’re in an echo chamber. And to think, he was gonna say no earlier.

[asphalt-cocktail]

Hear me out..kay?

'70s John Lennon with younger female home assistant reader getting into a lil dispute because John thinks he let himself go after the Beatles broke up, but the reader believes otherwise and it ends up in the two of them having passionate/slightly rough sex because he's more or so angry with himself than anything? And the two of them are really close too, like John allows her to watch Julian and Sean when he's at the studio or on business trips?? And the two boys genuinely like her???

(a universe where he isn't married to yoko ((no hate intended)) and is single and happy that way..)

Oh my god, I love this idea! 70s john is so pretty. I love how he looks as he gets older. it’s like fine wine. Some of the ages might not add up but we’ll call this an AU for the sake of consistency!

Warnings: Some smudges of angst, smut, insecurities, language

Also it got WAY longe than I expected so i got a little carried away. 

As John slept, he dreamt he sat perched on a throne made bones. It overlooked a high cliff that faced the ocean where the wind burned his face and he could hear seagulls screaming in the background.

He was alone. For once he wished he had the screaming crowds and bandmates calling his name. But only the shrieking gulls filled his ears.

The dream seemed to go on for two lifetimes and the atmosphere felt staticky as the waves repeatedly crashed against the shores and hit the rocks. At times he could feel the soft kiss of saltwater sprinkling against his face.

He blinked for the first time in what felt like ages and suddenly his throne of bones began to collapse, he grasped at them panicked as he desperately tried to prevent himself from falling. Just as his footing slipped John shot up in his bed breathing heavily. He blinked to clear the bleariness that had settled from sleep and palmed his bedside table for his glasses and crudely wiped them on his sheets to clear the fingerprints before slipping them on. 

Suddenly the room was clear, and the sound of gulls was replaced with Sean’s squealing laughter. It helped John feel grounded in his brief moment of panic. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Christ, what did he have to do today again? John ran his fingers through is knotted hair and slipped out of his bed. Right, he had to do several interviews to promote his new album and single that was just released then he had a dinner party. He grimaced at the thought of having to sit for several hours with a group of yuppies and pretend to enjoy their conversation.

As John walked through is bedroom he slipped on a pair of slippers and his dressing gown before stopping in front of his full length mirror. He gave his belly a firm pat, he’d lost a significant amount of weight in the last five years, mostly from depression, but it was still a small victory in his eyes. Atleast he had that going for him.

The bedroom door open and John found himself lured to the kitchen by the smell of syrup and pancakes. He flashed you a tight-lipped smile, “You’re early.” He greeted you.

You shrugged your shoulders, not looking up from the batter as you poured it into the skillet, “I know I thought my exam was going to take much longer than it did.” You said sheepishly. John had been gracious enough to accept you as his assistant and sometimes nanny. He was nice and the job helped you learn a lot about public relations and management, which is what you had hoped to do after you’d graduated from university. 

“Do you want some pancakes? Sean helped with them.” You said waving the ladle towards John.

He shrugged, still groggy from sleep. He really didn’t want any, but the way Sean stared at him with his big black eyes begging changed his mind. He sighed after his idle moment in thought and nodded his head, “I suppose I should see what the little chief has made for us.” He smiled and ruffled the kid’s hair.

After breakfast John rushed to get ready, “And you’re okay with taking Julian to piano lessons? Remember Sean still needs to finish that cough medicine from his cold earlier last week, and they can’t stay up past-” he rushed out his of things that he now only worried about due to having children.

You placed your hand on John’s arm and gave him a look, “John I’ve worked with you for almost three years, I think I can handle a day of babysitting. Julian will get to piano lesson on time and Sean will get his medicine; and don’t worry I won’t give them any sugar past 6pm.” John chose to ignore the little wink you gave Julian and Sean from the other side of the room.

He let out a sigh and his shoulders relaxed, “I know, I just” Worry I’m not good enough, his intrusive thoughts echoed in his mind and he shook his head before sharply inhaling, “I just worry about them, you know how it is.” You didn’t, you weren’t a parent. But you understood a little bit with where he was coming from.

You gave John a sympathetic nod and patted his shoulder, “Go on, you’re going to be late for the interview.” You said and turned him, pushing him towards the door.

A small smile settled on John’s face, it didn’t matter if he left for 8 hours or a full week, he still gave you the same reminders and the same list when Yoko or Cynthia couldn’t take the kids. John rushed out the door and you turned towards the boys and grinned at them. They were both nice, Julian had a wee bit of an attitude, but you chocked it up to him being in double digits while Sean was a curious and surprisingly even-tempered boy.

You made sure Julian got to and from piano lessons okay and wrestled with Sean to take the last dose of his medication, bribing him with some cookies. The remainder of the afternoon and evening you watched a movie with them, walked in the park, and drew pictures of the cats.

At lunch time John called to check in on the boys and to let you know it was going to be a late night, after reassuring him everything was fine you resumed your conversation with Sean about some fabulous story he was making up.

John sat at the dinner party, poking at his food and listening to his scientist friend tell them about a fancy new machine they got at work. The autoclave used immense amounts of heat and pressure to sterilize items, nothing survived the autoclave. In that moment John decided he saw some of his own likeness in the machine. As the voices turned to mumbles and John fell deep into thought he found that his own heart was harsh an inhospitable, much like the machine. That was why he was mostly alone in his 17-room apartment in New York City. His two wives couldn’t even make his home their home, and when he received a phone call from Cynthia or Yoko saying they were coming to pick the children up or to send them home on the morrows next fight he couldn’t say it struck him by surprise.

As the evening grew late you put Sean to bed and then an hour later you sent Sean to bed, much to your surprise neither of the boys fought with you tonight over why it was unfair they had different bedtimes or how they should be allowed to stay up later because it was summertime.

Infomercials from the television droned in your ears and lulled you to sleep as you sprawled out on the couch. A hand touching your shoulder caused you to jump and you blinked before John came into focus, “I’m home, you can stay the night in the guest room. It’s too late for you to go home alone.” He said kindly.

You rubbed your eyes and groggily sat up, “How did the meetings go today?” You asked after a deep yawn.

John’s face scrunched up, the way it did when he was frustrated and deep in thought, “It was alright.” He shrugged.

“What do you mean alright? You just released a new single, no one had an opinion on it?” You asked as you made your way through one of the many long hallways that made up his Dakota apartment.

John followed you, hoping for conversation and company, “I don’t know, I must have termites in me brain or something.” He frowned leaning against the door of the bathroom and watching you rummage through the cabinet for your spare toothbrush. Your movements moved on memory and you pushed aside the antacids and ibuprofen to get to the toothbrush you kept in the back of the medicine cabinet. The familiarity in your actions made John feel comforted.

“what do you mean?” You asked before you began brushing your teeth. You watched as John shifted, leaning against the door jam. He felt uncomfortable. You could tell.

He looked away from you, “I’m washed up I suppose.” He dug his shoe into the grout of the bathroom tile, “No one wants to listen to a former Beatle without the other three.” John wanted to open up to you but his body felt like an unstable bag of foam and bones and his ability to speak clearly vanished.

You spat out your toothpaste and wiped the remainder off with the towel that hung on the wall, “Oh come off it,” You scolded him, “You don’t mean that do you?”

Now it was your turn to follow John as he walked through the house, kicking his shoes off and tossing his jacket to the side, “That’s how it seems.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, “Every time I talk to one of these hokey television people, they just rub it in me face how successful Paul or George are doing.” He frowned, “And I’m just sitting here, a one hit wonder. No songs in the last five years.” He tugged open the door to his wardrobe and pulled out sleeping cloths and tossed them onto the bed, “Paul’s got his 87 children, and his new better band. What do I have?” His cheeks started turning red and his thick brows furrowed.

You listened to him complain about his imperfections, he obviously needed to get them off his chest, “John,” You said softly interrupting his monologue, “You don’t mean that.” You bluntly said.

John looked away from you and huffed loudly, “First I get called the fat Beatle, then I get torn to shreds for saying one thing about Christianity and now I can’t even write a damn song anymore.” He angrily pulled his shirt over his head, “If I can’t even write a damn song what use am I?” He continued to mumble to himself and tug the thin and worn sleep shirt over his head and stuck his arms through the hole.

You walked forward and boldly grabbed John’s wrist as he reached for his lounge pants, “Stop it,” You said in the same tone of voice you used to scold one of the children, “I don’t want to hear you say bad things about yourself that aren’t true.” Your brows knit together as John turned to look at you.

His eyes narrowed to little slits as he studied your face. John felt as though the throne of fame he once sat upon was now crumbling, much like in his dream “You’re just an assistant, you don’t know anything.” He said coldly and shrugged you off.

You know he didn’t mean it, but the words stung, “Yeah, I’m just your assistant who watches your kids, and takes them to piano lessons, and does your laundry, and brings you take away when you are too sad to leave your room.” You shot back.

Your words hit John like a 10-ton truck, and he looked at you shocked, none of his assistants had ever been this bold before. They all cowered beneath the mighty John Lennon, but you were different. Your tongue was just as sharp as his, and he hated to admit it; but he liked the way your brows furrowed, and your eyes ignited with fire every time you argued back at him. He wanted to get a rise out of you, so he pushed you, “I pay you for it, don’t go around thinking you’re special. I could post your job in the paper and have hundreds of college kids lining up to work for me.” He hissed stepping towards you.

You were backed into a wall, literally and figuratively, you felt at a loss for words. John was right and you both knew it, what was the worst that could happen if you pushed back a bit? “Do it, I dare you.” You scoffed and moved to push past him, “Surprised anyone would like to work for a washed-up Beatle.” You mumbled under your breath knowing that he would hear you.

John brought his arm up and pushed you back into your spot between the wall and pushed his lips against yours. It was hard and messy; your teeth clicked together, and your noses knocked. It took a moment for you to realize what was happening until John roughly shoved his knee between your legs. You let out a whimper feeling him pull away and start leaving hot open-mouthed kisses along your jaw and trailing down to your neck. Your chest heaved against him and you swallowed thickly, and you desperately tried to focus as he continued to latch onto your neck, sucking and biting at the sensitive skin, “John.” You whined and ground yourself against his thigh.

He loved how you practically purred his name as you spoke. John’s hands pushed down on your hips, helping you as you slid against his thigh with wanton need. Your breathy sighs sent a shiver that crept down his spine and settled in his belly, “We can stop, just say it and I’ll stop.” He said rubbing his nose along your jaw.

You swallowed thickly, “Please don’t,” You didn’t want to go back now.

John pulled away and pulled you by your wrist before pushing you back onto the bed. You bounced back against the plush large mattress and laid against the pillows and watched as John knelt between your legs. He rubbed his hands along your thighs and kissed you’re the skin that had become exposed from your shirt riding up and pushed it up more. He sucked and left kitten licks as he exposed more of you stomach and chest, kissing between your breasts and sucking at the soft skin on the sides.

John peeled your shirt off and in one swift movement your breasts were exposed and your top and underclothes tossed aside. He dove against your neck again, deepening the marks he’d already left prior and adding new ones, nipping at the skin and inhaling your scent. You reached your fingers and laced them in his soft long hair. You’d always wondered how it felt and how it smelt. You found yourself burying your nose into the side of his head and breathing deeply. He smelled like stale smoke, the gum he always chewed as a nervous habit, and like his eucalyptus shampoo. It made your brain feel dizzy.

Your legs wrapped around John’s narrow hips and pulled him flush against you. He groaned feeling your heat against his awakening erection and ground against you. he felt like he was 18 again, sneaking home some blurry faced bird through the back door at Mimi’s after coming home too late. But this felt better, it wasn’t some random company for the night; it was you.

The assistant he hired on a whim because he needed someone to watch Sean while he flew to LA for recording, the same person who folded his laundry, the first person he told of his divorce from Yoko. Even in his dream as he stood alone on the edge of the cliff as his throne collapsed, he knew if he called your name you would come.

Now, here he was; swallowing your moans eagerly in his mouth and listening as you left ragged breathy gasps in his ear as he ground against you. His hands fumbled with the buttons on your pants before he finally gave up and pulled them open, the small button popping off and bouncing to the other side of the room. John kissed your hips and along the lower half of your stomach and it twitched.

You squirmed, looking down and seeing his intently focused face as he yanked down your underwear and jeans and carelessly tossed them aside. You suddenly became aware of your nakedness as you stared down at John, fully clothed in a loose sleep shirt and the pants he wore today. Your eyes trailed his body and you sat up, tugging at his shirt. Your movements were hesitant and less confident than his. John’s hands guided his shirt up and he tugged it off, throwing it to join the rest of your discarded cloths and you ran a hand along his chest. Admiring the freckles and imperfections that made him distinctly human. He pulled back and shrugged his pants off and resumed his spot between your legs, pushing you back down.

John kissed the sides of your knees and made his way up your thighs, “Is this okay?” He murmured.

You shivered feeling his lips moving against your legs and nodded your head, urging him to continue. The pit of nervousness that settled in your belly violently vanished as you felt John’s hot tongue swipe between your folds and lap at you, “Jesus Christ,” You gasped out.

You could feel John smirk as he hooked his arms under your legs and pulled you close. He spread you apart, groaning and rubbing your clit with his thumb, “Has anyone ever done this to you before?” He asked glancing up at you.

You swallowed thickly and shook your head, “N-no,” You choked out.

John hummed acknowledging your answer and licked at your core again, taking his time to trace lazy shapes around the bundle of nerves. It sent a tingle that rang through your whole body, from the tips of your toes to your fingers and you desperately reached for John’s hair to keep him in place.

Your toes curled and you pressed John’s face closer against you and bucked your hips, grinding against his face. He groaned and pressed back, pulling you closer against his face. The plug between your brain and mouth disconnected and your mind felt like it was swimming. The string in your stomach tightened as you continued to grind against John’s tongue as he lapped at you. Your soft breathy sighs climbed in pitch before it snapped and your hips squirmed against him. John firmly held you down and he harshly rubbed your clit. The burning sensation caused your toes to curl, your eyes to blissfully shut, and made your legs shake. Your hips tried to jerk away from his hand, but he held you down, watching you writhe, jaw hanging slightly ajar.

“St-op” You choked out and gripped his wrist, letting out a sob as he pushed you to your peak once again. Your chest heaved and your legs shook as it washed through you. You curled into yourself and your face scrunched up.

John left you no room to breathe as he pulled your face close to his and captured your mouth in an open mouth. His tongue explored your mouth and you could taste yourself. You gripped at his forearms and pulled him back down, thumbing his briefs and tugging them down. John smiled against your mouth as he wiggled out of them, twisting his legs and shifting before he finally gave up and broke your kiss for a moment to tug them the rest of the way down.

You reached to kiss him and frowned as he pulled away, settling between your legs and rubbing his cock teasingly between your wet folds before he pushed in. You gasped, feeling John stretch you as his pelvis pushed against the back of your legs. He sat there for a moment and his face reached up and cupped yours as he hovered just inches away from your face.

You brought your hand up and placed it on John’s, his thumb traced your bottom lip and he slowly moved his hip, pushing deep inside you. Your mouth fell open and you let out a soft moan. John eagerly took the opportunity to slip his thumb into your mouth and pushed harder into you as your lips wrapped around it.

John’s hands gripped your hips as his picked-up speed, pulling them against him and making your skin slap together. He fell over you and you wrapped your arms around him pulling his body close to yours. His head fell next to your shoulder and he messily kissed up your shoulder and up to the side of your mouth before you captured his. Your kiss lacked tact and was only motivated by wanton need for each other. Your teeth clanked harshly together, and you clung to John as though he would vanish from you in an instant.

John broke the kiss and latched onto your neck once again, nipping at the skin and leaving a lingering and dull pain as he continued his trail before settling near your ear. John’s grunts and soft breathy sighs were perhaps the best sound’s you’d ever heard. In that moment you didn’t care that your bodies stuck together with sweat, or that your head kept bumping against the headboard.

You found yourself reaching for John and whimpering as he pulled away and hooked his arms under your knees and brought them up, leaning onto you and pushing deeper inside you. Your back arched off the mattress as he pulled back and began to slowly rut deep inside you.

John clenched his teeth together and hissed, feeling your walls twitching around him as he continued his languid pace, “Please,” You said softly, your brows knit together and your eyes looking helplessly up at him.

His lips spread into a knowing smirk, “Please what?” His voice sounded ragged and strained as he continued to tease you.

“More please,” You barely recognized the whiny tone of your voice.

“Yeah?” He asked and harshly snapped his hips against yours, “Like that?” He asked snapping them again. The headboard lightly tapped the wall as John’s thrusts grew harder and faster while your staccato moans followed jointly. John watched you, your mouth hanging open and skin shiny from the combination of his and your sweat that coated your body. He felt more human in this moment than he’d felt in a long time.

John’s brows knit together, and his thighs clenched, he didn’t want this to end. You pulled his arms and pulled him close to you, not caring if it seemed like you were being clingy, “Come inside me,” You breathed out next to his ear.

John’s body seized up and he huffed out a shaky haggard breath before he came, holding you close against his body and riding out the high that fogged over his senses.

For a moment he laid on top of you, softening inside you but enjoying the intimate closeness the two of you shared in your post coital haze. John kissed your shoulder before pulling back and kissing your lips. He pulled back and the two of you smiled at each other.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

You couldn’t help but turn your head and breath out a small laugh before John rolled over to your side. The two of you laid on top of his wrinkled duvet staring at each other. You pursed your lips and remembered what you said earlier, “I didn’t mean it, what I said.” You said sheepishly looking away.

John’s expression was soft as he looked at you, “I’m sorry for what I said, I didn’t mean it either.” He said his arm now resting on your shoulder. He pulled you against his bare chest and you pushed your knee between his legs, entangling your bodies together as John held you. 

[girlactionfigure]

There's something I need to get off my chest.

I'm an Ultra-Orthodox, Chassidic, Hareidi Jew. I live in Jerusalem, in an area that is exclusively Ultra-Orthodox Hareidi for street after street, suburb after suburb, for miles and miles. In all of these neighborhoods where the roads are blocked off and no cars drive on Shabbos, each black-hat-wearing family has many many children and literally no TV’s. I personally only ever wear black and white clothes, my wife only dresses in Chassidic levels of tznius (modesty), and my boys and girls all attend mainstream Hareidi Chassidic schools where the main language is Yiddish. My kids don’t and never will have smartphones, nor have they ever been on the internet at all. Period. They don’t know what social media is and they’ve never seen a movie — not even Disney animation. 

Having lived exclusively immersed in this culture for the last 21 years, I think I'm sufficiently qualified and well-researched enough to state that the consistent depiction of Hareidim and Torah Judaism by mainstream media, from Netflix to the daily news, is somewhere between delusion, slander and the literal equivalent of racism. If you consider yourself less closed-minded than how you imagine we Hareidim to be, then permit me to share a few personal details about my family, and other families in our neighborhood, to see how well your mental narrative matches up to reality:

- Besides learning Torah each day, most of the men in our neighborhood work full or part-time.

- Many women in our area work. Some even manage their own business or company. These are not special or “liberated” women — it’s so normal here it’s not even a discussion point.

- My wife is a full-time mother by choice, who despite attending an Ivy League College,  finds it a profound and meaningful thing to dedicate her life to. If she didn’t, she’d go get a job. Mind you, she also attends Torah classes each week, works out with both a female fitness coach (who’s gay) and a frum Pilates instructor, writes and edits articles for a couple global websites and magazines, and personally mentors a number of women. None of this is seen as unusual. 

- Kids in our community go to Torah schools where they learn (surprise!) Torah. They are fluent in three languages from a young age and the boys even read and understand a fourth (Aramaic). All the kids learn grammar, math and science. Weekly after-school activities have included music (violin, drums, piano), Tae Kwon Do, swimming, art, woodworking and robotics. The girls' school teaches tools of emotional intelligence. The principal of the boys' school doesn't hesitate to refer to kids to OT if needed. I practice meditation with my children multiple times each week. None of our kids think the world is literally 6,000 years old. They devour books about science and think it’s cool. They know dinosaurs existed and don’t find that existentially threatening. They have a telescope with which they love to watch the stars. 

- The women in my family (like the men) only dress modestly according to Hareidi standards. The girls don't find this burdensome or oppressive. Period. They aren't taught that beauty is bad. They're certainly not taught to hate their bodies, God forbid. Each morning when they get dressed, they are as happily into their own fashion and looking pretty as any secular girl is. They just have a different sense of fashion than secular culture dictates. (Unfortunately for me,  it's no cheaper.)

- The local Hareidi rabbis we receive guidance from are deep, warm, sensitive, supportive and emotionally intelligent. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t go to them.

- My boys assume they will grow up to learn Torah, as much as they want to, and then when they’re ready, get a good job or learn a profession to support whatever lifestyle they choose. My girls assume they’ll be wives and mothers (which they can’t wait for) but they're also warmly encouraged to train in whatever other profession they desire. (My 9-year-old daughter, chatting with her friend in the living room, just commented, "I want to be a mother and a teacher and an artist." Her friend replied, "I'm going to be a ballet teacher.") All options are on the table, and their future seems bright.

- We love living in modern Israel, feel proud and blessed to be here, and frequently count and celebrate its blessings. Everyone in my area votes. Sometimes not even for Hareidi parties. I pay taxes. (And they’re expensive!)

- As a Hareidi person, I’m glad we have Hareidi representation in the government — though I don’t always love or approve of how the Hareidi politicians act, or what they choose to represent. For the record, I'm equally dubious about secular politicians, as well. 

- While I don't spend much time in Tel Aviv, I do have a few close Hareidi entrepreneur friends who have founded high-tech start-ups there, and are — Boruch Hashem! — doing very well.   

- We don’t hate all non-religious people. Our kids don’t throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos. I doubt they even know anyone who would do that or think that it’s ok. We frequently talk about the Torah value of caring for and being compassionate towards everyone. As a family, we proactively try to find ways to judge others favorably (even those people who throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos.)

- We invite all manner of religious and secular Jews to join our Shabbos meals each week and the kids are open, happy, and confident to welcome everyone. (No, we're not Chabad.) One of the many reasons for having such guests at our table is to teach the kids this lesson.

- While we would technically be classified as right-wing and we don’t at all buy the modern “Palestinian” narrative, we certainly don’t hate all Arabs, nor do we have any desire to expel them all from the land. We warmly welcome anyone seeking to dwell here with us in peace and we are pained and saddened to see the suffering and loss of lives of all innocent Arab families and children — as would any decent human being.

- Of the few local families I know whose kids no longer identify as religious, none at all chose to disown their kids. The very thought, in such lovingly family-dedicated communities, is hard to imagine. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying it's not as common as it's made out. Rather, these families have tirelessly, profoundly, compassionately committed to maintaining any connection with their children, and to emphasize that, no matter what, family is the most important thing. Because it is.

- We aren't just living our life blindly, dogmatically following empty religious rules; rather, we are frequently engaged with, exploring and discussing Torah's richness, depth and meaning. Our kids honestly love learning Torah, praying and doing mitzvos. They’re visibly excited about Shabbos and festivals. This lifestyle is in no way oppressive or burdensome for them. If you suggested to them it was, they’d laugh and think you were crazy.  

- We Hareidim are normal people: we laugh, we cry, we buy too much Ikea furniture, and we struggle with all of life's daily ups and downs, just like the rest of you. Some of our communities are more healthy and balanced, some are less so; some of our people are warmer, nicer and more open, some are more closed, dogmatic and judgmental; some of our leaders are noble and upstanding, and some are quite frankly idiots…JUST LIKE ANY SECULAR NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE WORLD TOO. But having grown up living a secular lifestyle myself, and today being Hareidi-by-choice, I can testify that in these communities there is generally a greater and more tangible sense of well-being, warmth, tranquility, connection and meaning. We love and feel blessed to be living this life and wouldn’t want any other.

If this description of Hareidi life is hard to swallow, be careful not to push back with the often-used defenses like: "Well, you're just an exception to the rule...", "You're just American Hareidim", "You're baalei teshuvah", "Well, I know a bunch of Haredim that aren't like that at all"....because the truth is, while there might be many Hareidim who aren't like what I described above, it's still an accurate description of literally hundreds of thousands of Hareidim in Israel and the US — a decent portion of all Hareidim in the world. Which is my very point — how come you never see this significant Hareidi demographic represented in the media, television series, or the news? How come we mostly see the darkest and most problematic cliches instead? 

And finally, if all the facts I've listed above about our communities are hard for you to accept as true, then perhaps the image you have in your head about Hareidim is less based on facts and reality and more based on stereotypes, fear, hate, and discrimination — like any other form of prejudice in the world. 

Care to prove me wrong? Well, you're welcome to come argue it out with me and my family at our Shabbos table on Friday night. It would be a joy and honor to have you. 

Doniel Katz

[purplesurveys]

1498

What's a restaurant that you won’t ever have dinner/eat at again? I’ve been stuck on this question in the last ten minutes but I guess I’ve never had a particularly horrific experience with a restaurant to the point of me not wanting to ever go back. 

But in general, I do avoid dining in at fast food restaurants because I’m never sure of how clean (or not) those places are. I know it’s no different when I get fast food for delivery lol but I feel more comforable when I’m eating in my own home.

Did you have your morning coffee this morning? Or do you not like coffee? I did. I always have to for work, or else I’d be cranky, all over the place, or both.

Is there someone you know that is absolutely repulsive? One of my former religion teachers. He got away with a lot of crap in the past, like throwing students out of the class for not having textbooks, yelling at his students, etc, because for the longest time no one spoke up (times were different and disciplining kids through those methods was seen as normal). He really only started getting cancelled in recent years now that the younger generation has felt more empowered to call out shitty behavior.

Are you tired from last night? Did you stay up late last night at all? Not last night since it’s already currently 11:30 in the evening, but I am tired from today’s workday, yes, as I usually am. And yes, my body clock has slightly adjusted recently too – I normally sleep at around 2 or 3 AM now.

Have you ever seen like THE hottest guy ever and just almost collapsed? I would probably react like this if I saw Taehyung in concert but otherwise no.

Do you eat randomly, just whenever the hell you want? Not really. I like to feel super hungry first before I dig in.

Did you have trouble getting up this morning? Eh, I wouldn’t say so. I will say though that I used to regularly wake up at 8 AM to get pre-work done (my shift starts at 9) but it’s been months since I did that. I roll out of bed at like 8:55 now - just enough time for me to make coffee and splash some water on my face. Burnout does that to you.

What's a movie you cannot BARE to ever watch again? I mean it’s bear, but ANYWAY. I don’t think I will ever watch I’m Thinking of Ending Things again. I’m a big Charlie Kaufman fan so the fact upsets me, but it was the last movie I saw before the breakup that I had to go through, so. Lots of personal layers in there that I would prefer never to revisit and unpack again.

What’s a few things that automatically make you go, “Awww”? Parent-child reunions always hit me right in the feels. Stories about human connection also make my chest heavy -- like that viral TikTok series of the piano dude who found a bond with his elderly neighbor who also played the piano.

Do you have soft hands? Do you like holding hands? I have quite soft hands. Idk how it is in other cultures but in the Philippines the older generations will usually judge kids and whether they’re lazy or otherwise by feeling their hands, because the idea there is someone who’s gone through hardships in life and have done some hard labor will inevitably have rougher ones. And I’ve definitely been suspected that I “don’t do a lot of chores” because of my hands, lol.

Have you ever burnt a food, and make the whole house smell gross? Not me but it happens all the time with my mom - she always forgets she’s making rice. Fortunately burnt rice doesn’t emit a foul smell per se, but it will give off a scent that will send alarm bells ringing and will make you run to the kitchen immediately.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you had your own personal jet pack? Nah. Jet packs only sounded cool in Grand Theft Auto LOL but at the end of the day I think there are other convenient modes of transport.

What’s your opinion on perfumes that are REALLY expensive? Do you like them? I’m fine with those as long as they don’t smell too strong. There are perfumes that straight up smell like the inside of an old old OLD closet and I hate those.

Have you ever really hated a teacher and practically made it clear you did? No because I went to Catholic school, aka a place where they constantly instill fear and trauma onto students. I hated some of my teachers but had to express those feelings very privately and only with close friends because the second I made it obvious, I know they wouldn’t have hesitated to make my life hell.

Who got you hooked on the addiction you’re addicted to (If you have one)? Nobody got me into this Bangtan shit other than myself, lol. Angela helped a lot with orienting me with them though. Are you a little bit cautious around horses? Do they scare you a bit? I’m not scared of being around horses, but I also don’t like getting on them because I’ve never taken any lessons. I’m also constantly paranoid that they might get spooked and throw me off and onto the ground.

Have you ever burnt your tongue like REALLY bad? If so, what on? Once. I don’t remember what it was that I ate anymore, but I was stuck in a situation where I couldn’t just spit the piping hot food out so I had it in my mouth until my tongue essentially felt numb. It had some tiny red spots for a few days after the incident.

If you could live next door to ANYONE, who would you want to live beside? Someone who knows how to play the piano and likes to play full pieces.

Do you think your friends are pretty? Do your friends think you’re pretty? They are. Idk what they think of me though.

Do you like having random power naps now and then? Only during the weekends.

Are you currently worried about your parents finding out about something? No.

Do you like concerts? If so, do you like being in the mosh pit? I love concerts, but I’ve never been in a mosh pit. Even though I’ve gotten literal front row tickets to a Paramore show, this was during the era where they shifted their sound to more new wave/synth pop (to the point of them actually doing their Riot!/Brand New Eyes songs with the corresponding synth-y vibes) so no one was moshing that night lol.

Have you ever “liked” two guy best friends at the same time? I’ve never even liked one guy.

Do you think having a sleepover with a guy is theoretically acceptable? Not in the Philippines it ain’t, unless you’re sneaking out or you have the chillest parents in the country.

Do you like to have cake on your birthday? Which kind of cake in mind? Never was a fan of cake. I’ve always preferred savory food to celebrate lol, like sushi and wings.

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Behind Closed Doors

Keanu Reeves x OFC (Emma Mathers) (A/n-I swear, if I accidently double posted a chapter again and embarrass myself, I will simply yeet myself off of tumblr. Anyways, this is the next chapter lol)

Masterlist Behind Closed Doors Masterlist

Warnings- brief NSFW mentions, angst

Reality Bites

November Her fingers trailed along his jaw, his trimmed beard rough against their softness. Beneath the cozy, Egyptian cotton, they laid a tangle of limbs and when Emma’s thumb skimmed the spot just below Keanu’s lip, so feather light that if he closed his eyes, he might not have even felt it, he smiled. “What are you doing?” Keanu mumbled, turning his face towards hers, smiling when she cupped his cheek, nuzzling into her touch.

Emma’s leg was hooked over his waist, while the covers barely guarded her modesty. There was a warmth still throbbing around them, and the hazy afternoon sunlight cast a warm, golden hue on the room, illuminating Keanu perfectly, accentuating the features she’d long started falling for. “Touching you,” she giggled softly, brushing a few dark strands away from his face, “I like touching you,” Emma hummed, her gaze unfocused as it traveled to his lips.

“I like it when you touch me,” absently, he ghosted the tips of his fingers up and down her thigh, the weight of the duvet unnoticed as it rested on his knuckles. His other hand sneaked between them, slipping under Emma’s neck, “But is that all you want to do?”

Her grin split wider, and Emma tried to scoot closer, almost intoxicated by his scent, which she knew would linger on the sheets for a while after he’d leave her room. It was something she’d grown used to falling asleep with; the remnants of Keanu clinging to her sheets and pillow; even if he never retired to bed next to her, he was always there, in the smallest parts, as he slept down the hall, without her. “I donno,” her gorgeous eyes twinkled brightly, and as Keanu tangled his fingers in her hair, an ever present ache intensified in his chest. He wanted to stay with her like that, never go back to the confusing reality that served as their lives and have Emma be the woman he spent the rest of his life with.

It had been almost two months since they’d first laid together, and ever since, they couldn’t seem to get enough of each other. It wasn’t long after that that he and Emma had started sneaking around, stealing kisses in vacant hallways, touching each other adoringly in ways the twins wouldn’t notice and, when the occasion arose, falling between the sheets together. “Ke…..” She teased, sensing that he was running with his thoughts, “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” He repeated, leaning in to capture Emma’s soft lips, in a long, lingering kiss. Their sweet lip lock was punctuated by the occasional, brief peck, and even when they were done, the tip of Keanu’s nose brushed hers, “I want you.” His hand on her thigh slid upwards, rounding her body to momentarily grope her ass before traveling to her lower back, holding Emma close, “I always want you.”

“I’m all yours,” playful mischief was replaced by something darker and wanting, luring Keanu in. In one swift move, he shifted their positions, effectively pinning Emma beneath his hulking frame. Immediately, Emma felt smaller, grabbing her lower lip between her teeth, excited for whatever he’d do next. Keanu looked alarmingly attractive like that, strong arms boxing her in, broad chest barely six inches away from hers and dark hair curtaining his face. “And I love being all yours,” she purred seductively, running her hands up his biceps.

“Do you now?” Keanu cocked an eyebrow, lowering himself to her. Already, he could feel his body responding to the moment, and propping himself on an elbow, Keanu was about to reach for the nightstand drawer where Emma kept some extra condoms, when both their phones went off, shrieking loud enough to kill the mood.

With an irritated groan, he rolled off her, flopping onto the bed, taking a minute to stare up at the ceiling, while Emma huffed defeatedly, sitting up. “How is it three already?” Keanu bemoaned, scrubbing his hands over his face, more than upset that their time together for that evening had come to its designated end. It was Wednesday, the only day of the week where both Matt and Poppy were out of the house, off at piano lessons. Usually, piano on Wednesdays meant that Emma would be alone in the house for two hours, probably cleaning up after them so Zelda wouldn’t have to, or preparing dinner, but ever since they’d begun their little affair, new habits had emerged. Keanu would clear those two hours, just so he could spend some guilt free time with her, and they’d set alarms to go off half an hour before the piano lesson was over.

Leaning her head against the headboard, Emma grabbed her phone, silencing the annoying noise, resisting the urge to just toss it across the room and just hop into Keanu’s lap, “Because,” she whined, “Reality bites.” After turning off the noise and setting her phone down, Emma scooted off the bed, padding barefoot to the bathroom, grabbing some clothes on her way.

“Are you going back to the office? She probed absently as she freshened up, not having to look to know that Keanu was probably already gathering his clothes so he could go to his room and do the same.

“Uh,” he was scouring for his t-shirt, unable to recall where it had gotten tossed in the heat of the moment. Their time alone together was so precious and so very short that concern for something as hampering as where their clothes had fallen was almost mute. “No,” he faltered, finally finding the last of his ensemble, tugging on his jeans and deciding that he’d deal with the rest in his own room.

Emma was already in the shower when he entered the bathroom, and at the sight of her silhouette behind the fogged up glass, Keanu stopped, taking a minute to just stare, knowing that there definitely wasn’t time for much more. Besides, in that moment, so singular and defining, Keanu felt utterly terrible for the next words that left his mouth, knowing that they were going to ruin the moment, “I’m actually going to the airport.”

“Oh?” There was an air of confusion about the little expression though Emma carried on when rubbing the beige loofah along her skin, almost eradicating the remnants of his touch. The fragrance of her body wash swirled around in the steam that seeped from around the door, and rivulets raced down the glass, making the scene before him something of a movie. She always looked so picture perfect, it was a pity she had no interest in being in front of a camera. If only the world could see what Keanu saw, then they would be just as enamored as he was.

Or maybe, he was selfish, he thought, selfish enough to simultaneously want Emma only for his eyes. Beauty of that caliber should be protected, privy to only a precious few.

“I have to…..” his voice was wavering, and Keanu cleared his throat. Of course, the time was long coming, two months had been plenty already, but he wasn’t ready for it to be over. He could spend forever in awe of existing in Emma’s orbit and it still might not have been enough. But it was like she said, reality bites. “I have to pick up Miranda. She’s coming home today.”

Emma hesitated before speaking and Keanu knew that the truth had stung. They’d have to be more careful with his fiancée around, if they were even going to continue. “I….I didn’t know she was coming home today.” She’d hoped she wasn’t coming back at all. “Are you two coming back here after?” There was a caution in the way she spoke, as if Emma were afraid to know the answer.

“Yeah,” despite himself, Keanu approached the shower cubicle, closing his hand around the sleek, silver barn handle. “Eventually, but I’m taking her to dinner first,” licking his lips, he held back on pulling the door open, “I must have forgotten to mention it.” And finally, he gave in, revealing Emma beneath the shower spray, eyes glazed over with unshed tears and he desperately longed to just get in there with her, hold Emma and tell her that even with Miranda back in the picture, it didn’t change the way he felt about her, “I’m sorry-”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” blinking away her emotion, Emma sniffled, putting down the loofah and reaching for her shampoo, “She’s your fiancée, I’m sure you’ve missed her.” Averting her gaze, Emma sniffled quietly again.

Dropping the rest of his clothes to the foot mat, Keanu stepped inside of the large walk in shower, not caring if his jeans were getting wet as he went to loop his arms around her waist, “You know it's not like that,” he pecked her forehead, his heart stilling as Emma reluctantly leaned in, “Her being back doesn’t change what I feel for you. I want to be with you.”

“Then be with me,” Emma stared up, hurt tugging at her features. Her beauty was sullen, giddy mood from earlier now gone, leaving behind only the pain he was inflicting, “We can be good together.”

She was right; Emma was perfect for him, and Keanu knew that he was his best when he was hers, she was amazing with his kids and if he had to choose blindly, he’d choose the woman that had stolen his breath from the minute she walked in for that interview. But there were too many factors involved, Miranda had already organized their engagement announcement, she had started to consider wedding planners. She was mature, his age, had her life figured out and was, at least on paper, the better option for the kids. Sure, she’d made mistakes, he reminisced on the night he’d met them at the hospital after Poppy's allergic reaction, but it could have happened to the best. They were already engaged, people thought of them synonymously, Keanu couldn’t just leave all of that behind. “It’s complicated,” he summarized his mountain of worrisome thoughts into two words, “I can’t just-”

“Leave the woman you love for the nanny you barely know,” Emma glanced down at their feet, seeing how his jeans had gotten soaked from the warm spray, “I know that,” she determined meekly, her resolve only hardening when she met his eyes again.

“Em,” Keanu sighed heavily. He hadn’t meant for it to seem like that, but at the core of things, that was the truth. The cold, hard, painful truth. “You know you’re more than that to me,” two fingers beneath her chin tipped her head up and Keanu pressed a sweet, reassuring kiss to her moist, plump lips.

“You should go, so you aren’t late to pick her up,” Emma was the one to pull away first, untangling herself from Keanu’s affectionate grasp, stepping back so the water falling would act as a barrier between them, blurring his image of her.

His shoulders slumped sadly and Keanu’s features fell, “Yeah,” a stiff nod followed and he seemed reluctant to leave her, though they both knew he had to “Can we talk later?”

Hesitating, Emma eventually nodded, “Sure, yeah, okay.”

Keanu lingered for a moment more, just to take one last look at her; huge sad eyes staring back at him, olive skin flushed from the heat and long, drenched hair matted to her skin, falling over her shoulders and almost covering her breasts. “Okay,” he managed softly, ducking out of the shower, shutting the door behind him and setting off.

Emma waited until she heard his heavy footfalls dissipate and the bedroom door open and then shut before pressing her back to the cool beige mosaic tile mounted to the wall, sliding down to the damp floor and pulling her legs up to her bare chest. The first sob rang through, bouncing off the walls and she lost her tears in the drops of hot water that had already peppered her face. Her breathing was shallow and ragged and Emma’s lungs burned; it hurt, excruciatingly. She hadn’t thought of what would happen when the real woman in Keanu’s life inevitably returned, pushing her deeper into the shadows. It made her feel dirty, like she was becoming something she didn’t want to be.

Hell, she was already something she didn’t want to be. The mistress, the one he kept behind closed bedroom doors.

It was late when Keanu stumbled in through the garage door with Miranda, carrying no less than three of her bags collectively on both his shoulders and holding one in each hand. That wasn’t even all of it, Miranda was holding on to one of her small her carry ons and there were still a couple more in the car while the rest of her luggage was meant to be sent to his house later that week. Keanu never really understood her desire to travel with that much, she had, an entire wardrobe, in New York, surely she didn’t need as much as she’d taken.

In silence, they lugged her things to the bedroom, and by the time they were finished, Keanu was beat, ready to just shower and flop into bed. Though, he did remember that he’d promised Emma they’d talk when he got back. Debating whether or not he should go to her before or after showering, Keanu stood near his side of the bed, trying to look busy though really just passing time and he hadn’t even noticed Miranda coming up behind him, not until she snaked her arms around his middle, hugging Keanu from behind, “So,” she tiptoed, nuzzling his neck, her front pressed to his back, “Did you miss you future wife?”

Not nearly half as much as he should have. In fact, he was already starting to miss the time when she was gone. “Of course I did,” Keanu turned in her embrace, forcing himself to smile as he took Miranda in his arms. It didn’t feel the way it felt when he held Emma, it didn’t feel right. Miranda was barely a head short that he was, not as small in stature as Emma, and it was so easy to meet her eyes, those piercing pools of green that he once adored, maybe a couple years or more ago, when they’d first met. Looking at them then though, Keanu merely felt the nonchalant twinge of familiarity, Miranda was what he knew, his safe choice. Sure, he loved her, at least, Keanu thought he did, but since Emma, he wasn’t so sure that he loved her enough. He was merely playing a part, no longer wanting to be an active participant in their relationship.

Still, he’d rather brave the storm that confuse his kids and hurt Miranda. He did still care. Smiling faintly, Keanu let his hands skim her sides, rounding to her lower back, “But you must be tired from your flight.”

“Not that tired,” she reached up to kiss him, and without thinking of it, Keanu turned away, surprising them both, “What? Two months and you don’t want me anymore?”

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Keanu shuffled away from Miranda, moving towards the door, “No, it's not that,” he dismissed coolly, “I just have a couple things to finish up in my office.” Already, he’d started stepping out into the hallway, “I don’t know when I’ll be finished, so don’t wait up.”

Keanu barely waited a moment to hear Miranda's response before he was easing the door shut, as to not seem like he was in a hurry, and then jogging down the hall without even looking back. He bustled straight past his office and the twins' bedroom, not stopping until he reached Emma's door. Briefly, he contemplated knocking, though dismissing the idea so he wouldn't rouse suspicion, instead just turning the knob slowly and hoping it was unlocked.

"Em?" Keanu stuck his head into the low lit room. It was almost dark, though, not completely and he could still make her out, curled beneath the thick duvet, a book still in hand while her glasses laid nearby. Blowing a soft breath, Keanu's shoulders slumped; defeated. He was too late; she'd already fallen asleep. Running his weary hands through his already slightly disheveled mane, Keanu walked around the bed, crouching so he was face to face with her. Soft, steady breaths blew the dark hair that had fallen over her face, and with gentle fingers, hoping not to wake her, he brushed them away, letting his thumb graze her cheek. Even with her eyes closed, they looked puffy, like she’d been crying and he knew it was because of him. “I’m so sorry sweetheart,” his low, gravely voice was barely audible as he leaned in, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead, “Goodnight, sweet dreams.”

Afterwards, Keanu stood again, giving her smooth, tear stained cheek one final caress before weaning the book out of Emma’s loose grasp and placing it on her nightstand, doing the same with her forgotten glasses. Still not wanting to disturb her, he gave the comforter a tentative tug, so it would be tucked just below her neck and finally toed off, sparing her one final glance before completely turning off the lights and quietly shutting the door behind him.

Little did Keanu know that as asleep as she’d seemed, her eyes blinked open the minute he’d turned the lights off, a gasped sob suppressed and warm tears once again falling freely.

She’d avoided their talk because Emma knew that the more morale action would be to end things with her boss, but how was she supposed to when every time he laid a finger on her, she fell deeper for the one man she should have been forbidden to love?

*****

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