#and by we i mean me and the 23 year old who told me he found a small feral cat in the bushes outside my office

[leguin]

does anyone have advice for gaining the trust of a small feral kitten very quickly? also what could one feed a small feral kitten if it's living on the side of a hill and all you can really do is toss things down the hill?

[kakusu-shipping]

Encase anyone was wondering why I’m blogging at 6 in the morning, yesterday was not a good day for me and I forgot to sleep.

[no-144444]

the break up of the century - (l.norris, no 4)

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pairing: lando norris (no.4) x fem! singer! reader

summary: you and lando break up on horrible terms, can a new album and a special performance bring you back together? is that even what you two want?

7.6k + words, brief fade-to-black smut, fluff, mainly angst :)

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You weren’t sure how it happened, one moment you were on stage, the next, you were crying in your dressing room, hating every single thing about your life. Funny how one moment leads into the next, right? 

Y/n Y/l/n. Household name at the age of 19. Now, 23. Fans impatiently awaiting your next album, the album you hated, and now on a world tour that is sucking the life from your body. 

Sounds like you have it all. 

The money, the fame, the clothes, the boys, the voice. It’s all you’ve ever dreamed of. And now it means nothing, because you have it. And it’s nowhere near as good as you wanted it to be.

You’d always been told of the horror stories of fame taking more than it gave, and you always brushed it off with a smile and a ‘that’ll never happen to me’. Low and behold, you’ve had 4 stalkers in 2 years, 3 lawsuits against you from old record companies that dropped you, 2 grammys, and 1 ridiculously public break-up with he-who-shall-not-be-named. 

Having it all really means having too much to think about, and too much to deal with. You would’ve preferred to just go to university like all your friends. Be young. Make mistakes. But those were luxuries you took for granted, and now you’re paying the price. 

“Y/n?” Sasha, your manager called from outside. “We have the meet and greet.”

And then there was your fans. They were great, obviously, but they were also very hyper teenagers and young adults that paid a lot of money to see you, and it made you feel even worse about not being 100%. At least you’d cut ticket prices down by 50% in meetings, meaning they were much cheaper than any other artist at the moment. At least you could do that for your fans. 

You nodded, sniffling as you wiped your eyes on the sleeve of your dress. 

“Do you need your makeup touched up?”

“Yes,” you answered, voice hoarse. “How many more shows?” 

“This was your 97th. You have 53 left.”

“Fuck!” You groaned. “Fuck this.”

“You have the British Gran Prix tomorrow, you have to make an appearance, alright? I’m sending Maria in to fix your makeup,” Sasha was trying to pity you, but she also had a job to do, which you understood. 

“Thanks Sash,” you sighed as Maria came in. 

“Hey babe,” she smiled softly, sympathy and pity shown in her eyes. 

“Hi,” you sniffled, wiping your last tear away. 

“Let’s get you fixed up, yeah?” She started unpacking her bag with all your makeup as you nodded, turning to face her. “You’re amazing. You were so pretty tonight.”

You somehow didn’t scoff in her face. “Thanks.”

“I know you don’t believe me,” she sighed. “I can’t even understand why. You’re the most beautiful girl in the world.”

You hiccupped, the tears threatening to pour again as you thought about him. 

“You’re the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Stop thinking about him. You told yourself. He’s in the past.

But he wasn’t in the past, how could he be when he was always on your fucking feed with his new girlfriend. Allison and Lando, what a beautiful couple. More like a bunch of crap. They weren’t real, everyone knew it was just pr, especially considering that she was promoting her new racing movie. You had no idea why they even tried to keep up the charade. They didn’t even look good together. 

Alas, they were together, and you weren’t anymore. 

And you were going to be reminded of it every single second of the next day. 

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You pressed your entry card to the barrier and walked through as cameras flashed and you smiled one of your best fake smiles.

“Y/n!” Oscar smiled, walking up and hugging you. You knew everyone, and you started to feel embarrassed about everything. This was his workplace, and you had to be here to do press and sing a song you didn’t want to sing.

Bullshit.

“Hey Osc,” you smiled, hugging him back. 

“You look so wonderful today,” he smiled, taking your hand instead. He led you to the McLaren paddock as you two chatted about tour and races. You asked about Miami, and Oscar answered. “It was the best day of his life- his words!” 

“Meeting you was the best day of my life. That’ll never change.”

Oh. I guess it changed. 

“How's the tour? It looks amazing!” He cheered as you two entered the paddock. Mechanics and engineers greeting and hugging you as you went through and lied about how ‘amazing’ the tour is. 

“Y/n!” Zak cheered. “My favourite girl!”

He pulled you into a bone-crushing hug, and you hugged back. It felt good to be back, and to still have so many people still like you. “Hi Zak.”

“I missed you so much! Please tell me that awful Allison girl is gone and you and Lan are back? She’s driving me crazy,” he scoffed.

“No, I’m just here to do some press with Ferrari,” you chuckled. “But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to come see my favourite CEO.”

He sighed but nodded, knowing that Lando had the board cut you off the ‘influencer list’ when you two broke up. “Well, once you know that you’re my favourite.”

“You’re my favourite too,” you smiled. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Lips are sealed,” he smiled and moved on, going about his various duties. For a moment you looked around the paddock you had known so well and felt your heart ache a little. You loved Lando, you still loved Lando. You loved McLaren, and you loved the people here, yet you didn’t get to see them anymore because of the stupid fucking tour. This tour was ruining your life. You didn’t talk to family, or friends, you and Lando had broken up, you weren’t eating or sleeping, you always felt sick, you were rarely allowed to speak during the day so you could ‘conserve’ your voice for shows. 

But the worst part was that nobody noticed. 

“He's right y’know,” Oscar  smiled. “We all miss you. Even Lando.”

“Lando is with Allison. He has no reason to miss me.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “All they do is fight.”

“So? That’s what Lando and I did for weeks.”

“But it was different. You two were in a bad situation, but you loved each other, so the fights meant something. Allison and Lan are just wrong for each other, they’re fighting to fight.”

You groaned, sitting on the bench and resting your head in your hands. “When did you become a philosopher?”

Oscar laughed, and placed a hand on your back. “I’ve always been this philosophical, you were just too busy to notice.” 

“Shut up,” you chuckled, pushing him off. 

“All I’m saying is that you should talk to him, that’s all,” he shrugged, walking away from you and further into the paddock. 

“Y/n.”

Your head snapped up, so hard it hurt. There he was. Lando. For the first time in months. With Allison. And a dog.

Oh. 

“Hi,” you smiled, standing up. It was a puppy, a jack-russell terrier, the kind you’d always wanted. The kind like your childhood dog. Great, now they stole your dog breed. “Nice to see you.”

“I didn’t know you would be here,” he said bluntly. “What are you doing here?”

“Press for Ferrari. Oscar just… brought me in to say hi to everyone. So, hi. And now I’ll take my leave,” you smiled, then started to try and walk off. But Allison clearly had other plans, since she stuck out her hand for a ‘handshake’ that conveniently stopped you from walking off. 

“Allison,” she smirked. “And this is Mila.”

You stared blankly at Lando for a moment. Seriously? He’d taken the dog breed and what you’d agreed to be the name of your first child? Give me a break. 

“Y/n,” you shook her hand. “And I have to go, bye and good luck today.”

Thank god Ferrari was on the other side of the fucking track. 

“Y/n!” Charles cheered, hugging you close. You’d been getting closer with Charles since your split with Lando and his split with his ex had happened within a week of each other. “How are you?”

You took a deep breath. “I’m fine, tired.”

“I have been seeing the tour, it looks great!” he smiled, pulling back. 

“Thanks Charles, it was amazing to see you, but I better go. I have to-”

“Sing the new song? Yes! I can't wait,” he cheered. You mustered up a small smile, and left him alone. 

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Sasha came and found you in the bathroom an hour later. “Y/n?” She was frantic, and stressed, so you just decided to give up and show yourself. 

“Yeah?”

“It’s time, come on,” she sighed. “I know this is hard-”

“How could you know it’s fucking hard? My entire life is in shambles and I’m supposed to be happy about it because I’m a ‘superstar’ what the fuck does that even mean? My boyfriend broke up with me because of this tour, and I thought I was going to marry him. Isn’t that insane? Isn’t that fucking crazy? And the worst part is, that I can’t even stop if I want to. I’m not allowed to stop. Sasha, how could you ever understand how hard this is for me? I’m 22. I should be in college, having fun. But instead I’m about to sing a song I don’t like or care about, in my ex-boyfriends workplace. Does that sound like fun to you, Sasha?” 

Her face was blank, stoic, unmoving. “Let’s go, you have soundcheck.”

You just followed her. Sasha was good at that, good at making you feel small, making you feel like a nuisance. The stage was big, bigger than most of your stadiums, but you didn’t care. You just had to get through it. 

“Have you eaten?”

“Feel sick,” you replied. “No thanks.”

Sasha sighed. “You’re going to faint one day.”

“Let’s hope I never wake up,” you replied dryly. Sasha scoffed and walked on, showing you the layout of the stage. You followed and asked questions, getting into ‘work mode’, and warming up your voice as you went along. A small crowd of the driver’s was gathering, even Lando was standing there, front row, just like he used to. 

You wanted to punch him, in all honesty. How could someone do that? He had no fucking right to stand there and watch you sing. He should be with Allison. 

���Start when you’re ready,” Sasha called and you nodded. 

The music started, and you were off. When the music started, you became someone else. You were moving around, laughing with your band, smiling. It was nice. Even if you hated the tour, you felt free on stage. Even if the song was sad. 

‘Champagne problems’, you’d written it right after your break up with Lando, it was new, and it had just been released. It had become the top of the charts in 15 countries. It would be on your next album, 

‘What if it doesn’t get easier like everybody says?’, and it was your most raw album. It was clearly all about your break up with Lando, there was no denying that. 

The song ended and the entire track clapped. You stopped moving when you spotted Lando’s parents, and you realised very quickly that you had to get out of there. 

You ran to the Ferrari hospitality, did some promos for your next album with them, and suddenly it was time to sing for real. The stands were full, the microphone was on, and the spotlight was on you. 

“Hi everyone,” you smiled, and the crowd erupted in cheering. “How are we feeling today?”

You had worn a short red dress, for Ferrari, and it was sparkling in the late afternoon sunshine. Everyone could see how beautiful you looked. Your hair perfectly styled, your makeup flawless, your beautiful face. 

Lando was entranced. 

You started singing and you sounded like an angel, truely. Lando had always thought you sounded otherworldly. He knew it was about him. He knew he’d fucked up. He knew he missed you. He knew it was too late, and that was the worst part. 

“Thank you so much for coming out and listening to my dumb sad song,” you chuckled as the crowd cheered. “But I have something else for you,” you were cut off by excited fans. I have something just a little bit happier, it’s called ‘Lover’. Please enjoy!”

Lando watched you as you danced around the stage, and he felt something dark growing in his stomach. You weren’t talking about him. It was someone new. You were seeing someone new. 

You couldn’t be seeing someone new, you’d been in a new city every few days. You couldn’t make it work with him, you were never on your phone, so it couldn’t be online. How did this happen?

You finished your song, and you left the stage. You fell into a chair and passed out. Maybe not eating was a bad idea? Probably. 

“Y/n,” Sasha shook you awake. “Someone’s here to see you.”

“I feel like shit-”

“We all do. Let’s go.”

And you followed. Because you had to. What else were you supposed to do but follow? Was this your life now? Taking orders and following them. 

“Now, you have to be nice to everyone, even Lando and Allison, alright?” she turned to you, stopping in front of the door. 

“I really don’t feel well,” you tried to protest. “Can I grab something to eat first?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’ll be 15 minutes, you’ll survive,” she sighed, opened the door, and pushed you into the room.

The drivers and their partners all cheered, happy to see you back in the paddock. 

“Y/n! I missed you so much!” Carmen immediately pulled you into a hug.

“I missed you too,” you smiled, even if it was forced. You needed to sit down, you needed a drink, and you needed to be alone. 

“Some pretty amazing songs!” George cheered, patting you on the back. 

“Thanks George,” you smiled. Soon you were all sitting on the various couches and chatting, even if you didn’t speak. Lando’s eyes were glued to his hands as Allison’s eyes were glued to you. She was practically sitting on him, on the verge of straddling him if you looked in their direction again. She didn’t know it, but you were looking at the door behind them, wondering when you’d be called. It had surpassed the 15 minute mark, and you felt yourself getting more and more faint as time went on. 

“Y/n?” Allison cut across Daniel chatting to you about your latest show in Manchester, remembering a story of the two of you when you were there, and telling it to the group. “How’s the tour going?”

You cleared your throat. “Well, thanks,” you smiled shyly. 

“So the rumours that you haven’t been performing to your full capabilities aren't true? Like I’ve heard you’ve been lip syncing,” she smirked as the rest of the drivers and wags just looked at her with disgust. Oscar rolled his eyes. He’d been sick of her for weeks, and he was usually quite good with people he didn’t like, but he hated her. So did Lily. 

You gulped. “I don’t lip sync, but obviously 97 shows in 113 days is quite a lot for my voice, so I don’t always sing my super vocally- challenging songs every night or else I’d have to go on vocal rest all the time,” you explained, feeling the change in energy in the room. 

“And that would just be horrible, right guys?” She turned to Lando with a smirk on her face, but he was just looking down, embarrassed by her. “I’m a huge fan of your music, how much of it is about Lando?-”

“What the fuck?” George stood up with Carmen by his side. “Allison, what is your problem with her?”

“It’s just a question!” Allison defended as Lando got up and left. She looked a lot less imposing with Lando gone. “He’s my boyfriend now!”

“Yeah, we wish he wasn’t,” Lewis said under his breath.

“Guys, it’s fine,” you just wanted to leave. “Some of my songs are, because I like to put my feelings into music, right? But not all of them, because my life doesn’t revolve around Lando, it never did. I am more than my relationships, and you’d do good to remember that for yourself. Don’t let love become who you are, it doesn’t end well.”

With that, you got up and left. You didn’t care anymore. You didn’t care if Sasha screamed at you, you didn’t care if they all came running after you. 

It was done. You and Lando were over. Was it your choice? No. Was it a choice you had to deal with? Yes. His choice. Yet, everyone had looked to you for answers. ‘What happened?’ ‘Was it going downhill?��� or your personal favourite; ‘Did he get bored?’.

You didn’t know. All you knew was that one moment, you were with him, and the next you weren’t. 

You ran to your dressing room and lay down, eating some random snacks you found. You felt better after eating, you felt-

Knock knock. 

“Come in!” You called, not caring much about who it was.

“Hi,” Lando’s voice was small and quiet. 

You sat up, staring at him. 

“Beautiful songs,” he smiled softly. “Missed hearing you sing.”

You nodded. “Good luck today.”

“Thanks,” he sighed. “I'm sorry about Allison, she’s the fucking worst.” 

You chuckled softly. “I’m sorry you’re dating her.”

He cracked a soft smile, then it fell. “Who’s the new lucky guy for you?” He watched as your face fell. 

“No… no new guy, just an old one I wrote back at the start of… us…” you trailed off. 

His heart was shattering, watching you be treated like this. Watching from afar as you lost your mind, lost your life, over a fucking tour. He saw the soulless look in your eyes, the dropped weight, the dampened smiles, all of it. He was shocked that other people couldn’t see it too. He’d regretted breaking up with you since the moment he did it. He was haunted by the way you begged him to stay, and he questioned how he’d ever said no to you. How was he so blind-sighted? How did he not see how much pressure you were under? How did he not see that he was what was keeping you above ground? 

“Oh,” he breathed out. 

You took a deep breath. “I’m releasing an album soon, and a lot of the songs are about our relationship,” you explained hesitantly. “I wanted to offer you a chance to listen to it before it goes out, just as a… heads-up? In case you’re worried about what’s on it.”

God, punching him square in the face would hurt less than watching you feel awkward around him. He cleared his throat. “Oh umm…yeah. I’d like that. Thank you.”

You nodded and got up, taking a cd out of your backpack. “Here you go. Sorry again, about… everything.” 

“I’m sorry too,” he nodded. “So, are you leaving now or…?”

“No, I’m holding the chequered flag today, so I’ll be up at race control,” you explained, trying to look anywhere other than him. “And I’m handing off the 1st place trophy.”

“Maybe I’ll be first to see you,” he chuckled. 

“Maybe,” you shrugged. 

“The tour looks… awful. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” he spoke after a minute’s silence. 

You just shrugged. “Not your fault,” you lied. 

He knew this was when he was meant to leave, but he wasn’t sure when you two would be in the same room again. He didn’t know when he’d see you again, so he took a moment to fully take you in. “You were really incredible today. You sounded like an-”

“Angel? Thanks Lando, see you soon,” you nodded, finishing the compliment you always used to get from him. He nodded and left, realising he had no more time. 

When the door closed you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. How could he do that? How could he stand there and be nice to you, after what he said that night? After what he fucking put you through?

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Weeks of complaining from him, blaming you for his performance in races, telling you that you needed to be there for him, not calling you back, not texting back, not listening when you told him about how awful everything was going. 

“I’m sorry Lan, I know how hard this is. It’s hard for me too-”

“How the fuck can you say that? You’re the one who choose to do this, you fucking decided to tear us apart! This is all your fault, and you’re telling me it’s ‘hard’ for you. What is hard for you? Spending all your time with adoring fans? Being on stage and living your dreams? Being away from me?”

“Lan, you know better than anyone that I didn’t want this tour to happen,” you cried. Even then, even 48 shows in, you were being driven crazy. You were exhausted, you missed home, and you missed Lando. “I had no choice-”

“You had every fucking choice! And don’t give me that fucking bullshit about your label forcing you, we both know that’s a fucking lie!” he shouted. You hated it when he shouted, when anyone shouted. He had no fucking right to speak to you like that. You didn’t want this to happen, you had no say, you just had a contract and an incompetent lawyer to thank.

“I don’t know what you want me to say to that,” you shrugged, your voice breaking. “I love you, and I miss you. We can make this work Lan, I just need time to figure it out, alright? I just need time-”

“Yeah? Well I’ve given you all the time I have to give. We’re done, I bet I could find a million girls just like you, girls who would actually take my feelings into account before she made huge life decisions!” he scoffed.

“Lando, please don’t do this. I-I don’t know what- I- Lan please, I need you,” you pleaded. “I’m trying my best I swear-”

“Your best isn’t good enough.”

And he hung up.

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The fallout of your relationship didn’t exactly go great either. A day later your feed was flooded with pictures of Lando out with someone else. One day later. 

What the fuck? Didn’t he care? Didn’t he love you?

Well, apparently not. 

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Lando knew he wouldn’t see you again for months. This was his only fucking chance to speak to you, to see you, and instead, he stayed in his driver’s room listening to the heart-wrentching songs you’d written about him. God, if he thought ‘champagne problems’ was devastating, ‘cowboy like me’ was worse. It was a long album, almost 2 hours long. It spanned your entire relationship, starting out, your first date, your grammy win, his podiums, the hate you two got, the start of the fighting, the end of the relationship, and the after. It was awful reliving it from your perspective, especially since you had tried to tell him, and every time he’d pick a fight. 

“Lando?” Oscar’s voice came from outside his door. “Allison’s looking for you.”

“Tell her to piss off!”

“You can do that, mate,” he scoffed and walked off, into his own driver’s room. 

“Lan?” Her voice rang out, and he wanted to scream. He had put himself in this position, he knew it,  but it was still difficult to fully self-actualise his own shortcomings. 

“What?” he groaned, opening the door. 

“The other girls are excluding me,” she pouted. 

“I wonder why,” Lando rolled his eyes. “They love Y/n.”

Her face fell into a frown. “But you love me, so they should love me. They keep going off to find her and talk to her, and any time I try to tell them that I’m uncomfortable around her, they tell me not to come.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” he sighed. 

“Talk to their boyfriends, ask them to include me!”

“Babe, I have a fucking race today, please leave me alone,” he sighed. He pushed past her to walk to the paddock, knowing he just had to keep his head down and race today, he just had to do the one thing he was good at. 

“Well, what am I supposed to do for the rest of the day?” 

“I don’t know,” he grunted, and moved on. The garage was somehow too loud yet not loud enough to drown out the negative thoughts in his head. Recent months had been difficult. Races were taking more and more out of him, he was lonely, and if he wasn’t training or racing, he was looking at old photos of you or watching the tour. He could see how you deflated as you left the stage, how upset you looked going on stage. It was all a terrible reminder of how selfish he’d been. How hadn’t he seen it? Why didn’t he listen? 

He remembered telling Max what had happened. He’d gotten so angry, begging him to call you back and apologise. He’d been so blindsighted, he wouldn’t listen to Max. Why was Max always right?

“You good?” Oscar asked, a hand on his shoulder to drag him out of his thousand-yard stare. 

Lando sighed. “Good,” he lied, and it wasn’t convincing. Everyone knew what you were to him. You grounded him, you knew him, every single part of him. You loved him. “You?”

“Good. Y/n’s set was great earlier,” he offered a small smile. “At least you have a good break-up album, right?”

Lando cracked a small smile. Oscar was good at that, making him laugh when he was down. “Yeah, it feels great when it’s about you.”

Oscar chuckled. “Story for the grandkids,” he shrugged. “Don’t sweat it.”

Lando nodded. 

“Oh yeah,” Oscar added. “When you left, Allison asked Y/n what songs were about you, so just… expect that conversation with her, I guess? I’m not entirely sure what’ll happen-”

“What did Y/n say?”

Oscar swallowed. “Something like; ‘some of my songs are, ‘cause I like to put my emotions into music. But not all of them, because my life doesn’t revolve around Lando, it never did. I am more than my relationships, and you’d do good to remember that for yourself’.”

Lando nodded, and could tell by the look on Oscar’s face that he was holding something back. “That’s it?”

“‘Don’t let love become who you are, it doesn’t end well’,” Oscar finished. “Then she left.”

Lando nodded as the weight on his chest got heavier. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Of course,” Oscar offered a pity-smile and walked off to his side of the garage. 

Lando was always a person to be stuck inside his own head. He wasn’t good at expressing his feelings. He didn’t know how to talk about them. Yet, you always knew how to get him to talk. You always had the right solution, the right thing to say, the right face to make. He was in awe of you, so effortlessly perfect. 

He remembered back to Greece, back in the off-season, before the tour, before the season started. Before he fucked everything up. 

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You smiled as he pulled you closer. The air was anything but cold, and the water was still. There you two sat, sitting on the bow of the as the sun set. The clear water beneath the yacht you’d been on for the past few days was calm and steady, lulling you both into an unmistakable tiredness. Yte, Lando wanted to stay up, wanting to soak up as much time with you as he could. He was going to miss you so much this season. You hadn’t ever been to every race in a season, you were a busy person, he understood that. He was a busy person too. But you’d go to as many races as possible. Now, ‘as many races as possible’ means about 4. Stupid tour. 

“What are you thinking about?” you asked, your eyes closed as you soaked in the moment. You leant against his chest as you lay in his arms, your favourite place to be. 

“How much I’ll miss you this year,” he admitted. There was never any point in lying to you, you always knew. 

You pressed a kiss to his arm. “I’ll miss you too.”

You were straight forward with things, he loved that. It was a bad situation. You were off to a tour you didn’t want to do, and he was off to another season. 

“I love you,” he confessed. He said it a lot, but it always felt special. He made you feel special. You made him feel special.

“I love you,” you opened your eyes, a smile on your lips. You spoke again after a few moments of silence. “You’re going to win a race this season, I can tell.”

He chuckled. “Once I get back home to you, I don’t care if I win.”

You laughed. “Sure, we all believe you.”

He smiled. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

You looked at him for a moment, that perfect, soft smile on your face. “Ditto,” you laughed as he did too. Your laugh was melodic, his favourite sound. 

“Who says ‘ditto’ to that?!” he laughed.

“I do,” you chuckled. 

You two locked eyes for a moment, then he leant down and pressed his lips to yours, soft and sweet. 

The perfect night. 

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

He caught a glance of your red dress walking into the garage. 

“Y/n!” The engineers cheered. He heard your laughter. 

The room was a collection of cheers and conversation, and he wanted more than anything to be able to walk over to you and hold you, and kiss you, and tell everyone to leave you alone because you were his girlfriend, not theirs. 

You walked in with a smile on your face. That smile dropped in half a second. Everyone was talking, everyone was patting you on the back, everyone was looking at you. You caught a glance of Lando and immediately felt the pit in your stomach grow. Everyone knew everything, everyone looked at you. Everyone blamed you. Oscar wrapped his arm around you and walked you through the garage as he saw you getting overwhelmed. He’d learnt the signs from his little sisters. Blown out pupils, teary eyes, tight features, heavy breathing. Oscar had always been a great friend to you, he’d always cared for you. He brought you through, doing most of the talking if anyone stopped you two and let you in his driver’s room, promising to grab you when you could leave without being bombarded by crew, or the press. 

Lando followed behind after a few minutes, then knocked on the door. He knew how to calm you down, he was probably the only person who did. 

Oscar opened the door looking panicked. “She’s having a panic attack,” he whispered. 

Lando nodded and walked in, taking your hand in his as you hid your face in your other hand. He knelt beside you on the floor as you sat on the bed. “It’s me baby, I’m right here. Come on, squeeze my hand,” he said, voice steady. You didn’t. “You need to start breathing properly, squeeze my hand like I’m squeezing yours,” He put some light pressure on your hand, which jump-started you into squeezing his hand as hard as you could. It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair. You hated how well he knew you. You wanted him to not know you, to not understand you and your body better than you did. “Just like that,” he cooed. He pressed your hand to his chest, where you could feel his steady and calm breathing, feel his regular heartbeat. It was in stark contrast to you. The thump of your own heartbeat in your ears, the quick breathing, the erratic heart. “Breathe with me. Please baby,” his voice was soft and comforting. You tried, gently slowing your breathing down to normal. The adrenaline was still rushing through your body as you calmed down. Oscar offered you a water bottle and you let go of Lando’s hand to take it. 

“I shouldn’t have come here, I’m sorry,” you said, sounding smaller than ever. “Zak said he wanted to see me after my set. I should’ve just said no.”

“You’re always welcome here,” Oscar placed a hand on your shoulder. “Seriously.”

“We want you here,” Lando added. The air was sucked from the room. “I want you here.”

“You don’t,” you refuted. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Lando sighed. “Let me walk you back to Ferrari, please?”

You shook your head, finally looking up and making eye contact with him. “You and I both know how that’ll go.”

Lando nodded, his heart breaking for the thousandth time. It’s hard to find an end to something you never want to let go of. “Ok,” he whispered, his emotions getting the better of him. 

“Goodbye Lando,” you sighed, then took Oscar’s arm and let him lead you back to Ferrari. 

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

“I’m sorry about Lando,” Oscar sighed as you two walked up to the entrance to Ferrari. “About the break up, now, and basically everything in between. He’s been… difficult recently. He’s always been a ‘glass half empty’ kind of guy I guess… I just… you made him better, y’know?”

You chuckled sadly. “Thank you for apologising, but you don’t have to. Lando is an adult, so am I. Things just… end sometimes. Him and I just aren’t meant to be.”

Oscar cocked an eyebrow. “I think we both know that’s not true.”

You didn’t know how to respond. Oscar had never been this straightforward with you, and he sure as hell had never broached this topic before. You just nodded and took his hand. “Thanks for helping me.”

And then you walked back to Ferrari. 

Oscar did get one thing right, Lando wasn’t done with you. Maybe it was seeing you again, maybe it was the album, maybe it was Allison, maybe it was all of it, he didn’t know. But what he did know was that he was still in love with you. He’d never stopped. How could he? He missed everything about you, your lips, your smile, your kindness, the way you’d make him laugh, the way you’d make him smile. Everything. He missed listening to you sing, seeing you on a stage that you wanted to be on. Seeing you get to be you. 

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

The Silverstone after-party with Charles who dragged you along. You’d thought it would be a bad idea, but when you were already 8 shots deep, you didn’t really notice. Yuki had pulled you away to sing a karaoke duet with him as Pierre and Charles laughed at you both, and you somehow ended up outside on the balcony with Carlos, both of you laughing at something random. 

“Y/n!” Lando cheered, clearly as drunk as you. A part of you had forgotten about everything before this moment, like you were seeing him for the first time. Perfect, with his curls, unbuttoned shirt, and damn pretty smile. “I didn’t know you were here!” 

“Lan!” you cheered, pulling him in for a hug. Carlos gave you both a very confused look, but was called away by Charles for a game of beer pong. Surprisingly, these ‘fancy’ parties usually just turned into something out of a frat house in Florida. Maybe it was just Logan’s presence. “How are you?” You slurred. 

“I feel great!” he shouted. “We should go for a walk!” 

“Yes!” you agreed. 

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

And that’s how you ended up back in his hotel room making out with him on his bed as he pulled your dress off. Funny how things can happen when you’re actually 18 shots deep, not 8. Oops?

“So pretty,” he murmured into your neck as he settled you on his lap. “So pretty for me.”

You laughed into his mouth, pulling back. “Lan, speed up.”

He smirked at you, his eyes heavy, then pressed his lips to yours again. He fully pulled your dress off of you as you started making quick work of his belt and trousers. 

“Fuck me,” you whispered in his ear and he let out a low moan. “Please Lan.”

He didn’t waste time. 

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

You woke up the next morning with a blinding headache, and a very naked Lando Norris beside you. You had to leave. You’d just fucked him, and he had a girlfriend. You were a homewrecker. You didn’t know if the sudden urge to vomit came up because of that, or the 18 shots of straight vodka you did the night before. 

You quickly grabbed your clothes, shoes, one of his hoodies, and tried to salvage whatever dignity you had left, then made a swift exit. It was still dark out and you were just praying that you could get through the 2 blocks you had to walk to your hotel without running into someone, or running into cameras. You quickly dialled Sasha’s number and tried to stop yourself from crying. You just pray you two used protection, or fell asleep before doing anything real.

“Morning?” she answered groggily. 

“Sasha I did something really fucking stupid,” you admitted, the tears welling up in your eyes as you walked into the lobby of your hotel. “And I don’t know what to do.”

“Come to my room, we’ll sort it out,” she sighed. “You’ll be ok kiddo, I promise.”

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

You knocked on her hotel room door, tears in your eyes. 

“It’s 5 am,” she stated, opening the door. 

You rushed in, bursting into tears. “I think I fucked Lando, I mean- I-I think we fucked, last night- we were so drunk a-and then I don’t re-remember,” you hiccuped. “I’m so fucking stupid!”

She put a hand on your shoulder, sighing. “That was a very stupid thing to do,” she nodded. “But it’s not the end of the world. Did you use protection?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll go get Plan B, you stay here. Get changed into some pyjamas. Get some water, relax. Just don’t leave the hotel, yeah?”

“Alright,” you agreed. She left for the door. “Sash?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” you said in a small voice. She offered you a pitying smile, and went on her way. 

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

Months passed and you both went on with your lives. He didn’t reach out, you didn’t either. Sadly, you were in fact a homewrecker. A week after ‘the incident’ Allison and Lando broke up. You truthfully felt so ashamed and awful for the girl. It wasn’t right what you two had done, and truly, you were insanely drunk. In no world would you fuck Lando Norris sober. 

The tour had finally ended, and your world was no longer turned upside down. You were working on new music, healing your body after all the travel and abuse you put it through, and continuing to try and get over Lando. 

It hurt like a bitch. He hurt like a bitch. 

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

Lando two-wins. Contender in the Championship. Supposedly dating someone. Last Lap Lando.

Lonely Lando, more like. Max Fewtrell had decided to stage an intervention and join him for the rest of the races, worried about his mental state. Since seeing you again, he’d been… less than alright. He’d talk about you all the time, stalk your instagram (to the point that Max took his phone off of him in Greece), and generally just think about you a lot. It was coming up to the album drop, and you were having your launch party in Italy. The same weekend as the race. All because Charles wanted to come. 

Shit was bound to go down, and no one was more excited than Hallie. 

You were dressed to the nines, nervous and excited. You’d fired half of your team, you’d dropped your old label, and you’d become… happier? That couldn’t be right, not when you felt the oppressive weight of your own regret on your chest everyday. Not when you woke up reaching for Lando. Not when you watched every single race and couldn’t look away until he was safely across that damn finish line. 

You were surviving. That’s the best you could do. 

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

“You look beautiful,” Charles smiled as he walked into the party. The night had gone off without a hitch so far. A select group of fans, influencers, celebrities, and almost all the drivers were mingling with one another, and not one sighting of Lando Norris. Not that you didn’t miss his face, or him in general. You did. More than you’d ever thought possible to miss someone.  

“Thanks Charles,” you smiled, pulling him into a hug. “You look great too.”

He smiled and beside him, Alexandria smiled at you, then pulled you into a hug. You continued the superficial chatting for a few moments, just hoping Charles wouldn’t ask the dreaded question. 

He looked at you for a second too long, and you knew it was coming. “Are you alright?” God, why did he have to ask stupid fucking questions? Obviously you weren’t alright. Obviously, if you could, you would run away. Obviously, you were drowning. 

Didn’t he see that? Didn’t anyone notice? Didn’t anyone care?

Apparently not. 

You nodded, putting on your best fake smile. “Just nervous.”

He nodded. It was enough to fool him. 

The night went on in a flurry of uncomfortable small talk, ridiculous requests from your most esteemed guests, and it was finally time to start listening to the album. You stood on stage, a nervous smile on your face as everyone looked at David, your producer, who was speaking in length about how proud of the record he was, and how proud he was of you. Everything was perfect. Everything was right in the world. 

But, of course, because he had to always be the centre of your universe, Lando walked in. 

And you were fucked. Every single breathing technique you’d learnt, every single pressure point tapping you’d done, it all left your head. Everything stopped. You stopped breathing. You stopped. 

But it didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel bad to have him there. It felt awfully, and soul-crushingly, right. Lando was always meant to be there, a devastating realisation that you didn’t exactly want to make while on stage in front of 200 people. 

“Any words, Y/n?” David asked, passing you the mic. 

You looked at Lando and he smiled, waving at you. You smiled back. 

“Please enjoy this album, it’s from a very important time of my life where I finally learnt what it meant to be in love, and be loved wholly in return. Obviously, it didn’t end very well, and that’s when I learnt what grieving someone was. I still have a lot of love for him, probably more than I should. But I have it. And I had nowhere to put it, so I put it to music, which is really the only thing I think I’ll ever truly understand. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you understand it,” You explained to the crowd. You watched Lando the entire time, looking at how his eyes lit up when you talked about your relationship. Lando had always cared about you. He always would. 

The opening cords of the first song started playing, and the attention was off of you. The crowd just closed their eyes and listened. You exited the stage and joined the crowd, desperately trying to get out of there. You stood on the balcony as the music blasted inside. People danced along, sang along as they started learning the words, and you stayed outside, tears falling. 

“You’re beautiful,” Lando’s whisper made you jump. You turned to see him, standing there behind you. “The album’s beautiful.”

You scoffed. “The album’s an album. What was beautiful was us,” you sighed. “Thank you for coming.”

He nodded, leaning against the barrier beside you. “Do you even wish our lives weren’t as complicated as they are?”

You chuckled. “More than anything.”

“We were beautiful,” he shook his head, trying to remember why he ever ruined the best thing in his life. “If you ever find yourself wanting to love me again, just… call me?”

You nodded, looking at him. “I will.”

He nodded, putting his hand on your shoulder and letting it sit there for a split-second, just to remind him of what it was like to touch you. Just to remind himself that once, he didn’t have to wonder if you loved him, to remind him of the unwavering support you gave him, to remind him of how his whole world came crashing down when he made you leave it. “I love you,” he whispered before walking to the door. 

His phone started ringing in his pocket as he got back inside. Unknown number. He answered it. 

“I think I want to love you again,” he could hear your smile through the phone and he immediately whipped around, his smile growing as he got closer to you. When he stood in front of you again, you both took the phones down and smiled at each other.

Lando didn’t waste time. He closed the gap between you two in one simple stride, wrapped his arms around your waist and pressed his lips to yours. “I love you so much,” he pulled back. “I’m never letting you go again.”

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

landonorris

1,488,928 likes | liked by oscarpiastri, y/ny/l/n, and others

love of my life. @ y/ny/l/n

comments

user28: WHAT THE FUCK THEY BROKE UP MONTHS AGO THO????-> user92: they were seen kissing at her launch party

y/ny/l/n: who's that pretty girl? -> oscarpiastri: she's too good for him -> landonorris: >:( -> oscarpiastri: hurt her again and I push you off the track. ->carlossainz: I second this -> charleslecerc: I third this -> alexalbon: I fourth this -> georgerussell: I fifth this.

georgerussell: Trying to beat me with no shirt?

lewishamilton: Yay! (I begged her not to take you back you asshole). -> pierregasly: Yay! (I'm trying to be supportive of her).

lilymhe: fuck off. ->user83: LMAO -> user18: DAMN EVERYONE HATES HIM

danielriccardo: HAHAHAHAHAH (I'm crying.)

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

navigation for my blog :) (masterlist)

[hopesworlld]

౨ৎ being hayden christensen’s controversially young gf

masterlist

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yourusername

liked by haydenchristensen and more

yourusername 🪩🕺

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user1 LMAO HAYDEN 😭

user2 she’s slaying… he’s there ig

user3 who is this diva 💜

haydenchristensen i told you not to post that!

↳ yourusername sorry pookie 🤭

user4 mama a hayden behind you !

user5 i wanna be her so bad 💔

yourbestie had sm fun !! ( even though you brought the old man )

↳ user6 OLD MAN???

↳ user7 let him get up, let him get up

↳ yourusername ageism 💔

user8 HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LIVE MY DREAM

yourusername

liked by hayden christensen and more

yourusername i just wanna be part of your symphony 🗣️

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haydenchristensen literally what does the caption mean?

↳ yourusername oh my sweet chronically offline baby 🥹

↳ haydenchristensen you are just saying words

user1 wait how old is she?

↳ user2 22 !

↳ user1 isn’t he like 43?

↳ user3 and???

user4 do you guys need a third? ( PLEASE )

user5 is you look very closely you can see me drowning in the

back 🩷

yourusername

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yourusername stream so high school by taylor swift

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user1 didn’t you just get out of high school lmao

↳ yourusername GAGGED AND FOR WHAT 😭

↳ user2 Y/NNNN 😭😭😭😭

user3 HAND PLACEMENT HAND PLACEMENT HAND PLACEMENT

user4 gnawing at the bars of my enclosure

yourbestie i was literally with you too but okay

↳ haydenchristensen take her back, please.

↳ yourbestie no ❤️

↳ yourusername i did not come here to be bullied 😔

user5 i’m 😭 so 😭 happy 😭 for 😭 you 😭

haydenchristensen 1 hour ago

♫ ‘something about you’ by eyedress, dent may ♫

yourusername 1 hour ago

♫ ‘sailor song’ by gigi perez ♫

yourusername

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yourusername i love my boyfriend !!

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haydenchristensen love you, sweet girl

↳ yourusername come kiss me rn.

user1 the hayden cake??? 😭😭

user2 can’t believe they are still together

↳ user3 REAL

user4 doesn’t anyone find it weird that he is 20 years older than her?

↳ user5 no because he could be her dad

↳ yourbestie that’s why she calls him daddy 🥰

↳ yourusername LIES AND SLANDER OMG

haydenchristensen

liked by yourusername and more

haydenchristensen thank you for all your support this weekend!

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yourusername you’re welcome

yourusername no but actually

yourusername i’m obsessed with you and i’m so proud

yourusername marry me

↳ haydenchristensen okay

user1 DID THEY JUST GET ENGAGED???

user2 i’ve been a fan of you for almost 15 years hayden, so happy to see you thriving !

user3 was so lovely meeting you and y/n this weekend 🫶🏻

user4 i miss you already 💔

user5 our anakin skywalker always

user6 ARE WE IGNORING THE PROPOSAL GUYS PLS

yourusername 1 hour ago

♫ ‘older’ by isabel larosa ♫

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౨ৎ this is so random but i had a burst of inspo after a really bad shift at work and i just wanna be hayden’s controversially young gf so bad 💔 23 years isn’t that bad guys 😔

[royalarchivist]

YD: Ahh, so adorable. I recorded some stuff, like them trying yukke. [Reading chat] Right? I was flabbergasted when I heard his age! I didn’t know that he was… 20 years old??? He was also shocked when I told him my age. I don’t really ask their ages when I’m talking to foreigners, we’re just friends, ‘cause they don’t have distinct honorific and informal languages like we do. And he guessed I was like, 23? [Laughs] I laughed my ass off.

YD: These kids are polite. They seem very polite, don’t they? Especially after hearing how old I am. It feels like they’re saying, “Yes ma’am, it’s very delightful.” So cute, and they seemed like they really enjoyed their meal.

YD talked about meeting up with Tubbo while he was in Korea and shares two videos of them eating food at a Korean BBQ place!

MASSIVE thank you to @Forgetmelotz on Twitter, who translated and subtitled this video and gave me permission to share it on Tumblr! Please make sure to give the original video a like.

[Full Video and Subtitle Transcript ↓ ]

—

⚠️ This transcript is VERY LONG! ⚠️

—

YD: So I was planning to have a dinner with Kei [a Kpop Idol / Singer], but unexpectedly, there's a foreigner friend I met on QSMP named Tubbo, he's from the UK, and apparently he's visiting Korea. And he posted an Instagram story about it. I saw it and was like "Wait, are you coming to Korea?" and it [Tubbo's post] even says Korea blah blah within the date two days after my birthday. So I sent him a DM and he responded with "Haven't you seen my Twitter DM?"

YD: I recently distanced myself a little from Instagram and Twitter for a while, yeah I didn't check my phone that often, and it turns out he messaged me about 3 - 4 days ago saying "YD, I'm flying to Korea! Blah blah–" so I was like "Oh, oh... I'm sorry I didn't see that!" and I checked the DM the day before he arrived here... I told him that I am so sorry and asked if I can meet him in person.

* [Translation note: this can also mean the other way around, ie: he may have asked her if they could meet in person]

YD: So we ended up seeing [each other] on the 21st. I was supposed to have dinner with Kei, so I told her "but my friend from abroad... is in Korea now... what should I do..." and we rescheduled the dinner to inviting her to come over next week. So um, the, right– Tubbo, Tubbo's friend [Eryn], Seoneng [one of YD's crew members] and Kang-si [YD's husband] the 5 of us had dinner together.

YD: We went to a Korean BBQ place. I was searching through restaurants thinking “Uh… which Korean restaurant should I take these foreigners to so that they would be super impressed?” [YD thanks a dono] Yeah, I was searching hard and so I asked Ryeori. You know the Kwak tori & Ryeori couple? Ryeori the hair designer, I asked him, “Reyori, I’m trying to buy a dinner for my foreigner friend, do you have any recommendations for where I should bring him?” and he started listing up like Michelin star-rated pork gukbap restaurants and stuff. Then he also tells me that it’s really difficult to find an actual Korean restaurant in Hongdae, like it’s difficult to find a decent place. There are mostly fusion Korean food [places]. But then he goes, “Oh, hey, this place looks fine” and recommends me this Korean BBQ restaurant. I decided to bring them there and fed them.

YD: The reason I liked that place was that they sell doenjang-jjigabe, galbi-tang, jeyuk bokkeum, and other dishes as well as their main menu, the beef KBBQ. The banchans [side dishes] were also served neatly, they even had japchae, they sold yukke. Obviously there are better Korean restaurants outside of Hongdae, but their hotel was located there. It wasn’t like he had a car here, so I was trying to meet them somewhere they can just walk to. So Hongdae it was. On top of that, YD 4-cuts is also located in Hongdae.** So I thought it would be the best to just eat out here. And while we were eating, I’ve recorded some videos.

** [Note: This is a photo booth event with custom YD frames, as show in the background of this video]

YD: [Scrolls through to find the videos and laughs] Ahh, so adorable. I recorded some stuff, like them trying yukke. [Reading chat] Right? I was flabbergasted when I heard his age! I didn’t know that he was… 20 years old??? He was also shocked when I told him my age. I don’t really ask their ages when I’m talking to foreigners, we’re just friends, ‘cause they don’t have distinct honorific and informal languages like we do. [She thanks another dono] And he guessed I was like, 23? [Laughs] I laughed my ass off.

[YD plays a video she took of Tubbo and Eryn at the restaurant]

Tubbo: Oh, ok. [?]: You should tell them how to eat it together.  Tubbo: You’re overestimating my chopstick skill.  [?]: Here. [Passes Tubbo some of the meat]  Tubbo: Oh, thank you. [?]: And here, together. Tubbo: Ok. [Takes a bite] Waitress: With this vegetable. Tubbo: Mm, it’s really sweet! [?]: Foreigners quite like it. Eryn: [Reaches over and tries some food too, struggling a bit with his chopsticks] [?]: Unexpected, right? [?]: Oh, they like yukke? [?]: They just need to get used to it. Waitress: I will grill and hand it over to you, so please help yourselves. [?]: Ok, thank you. Eryn: [Tries more food and gives it a thumbs-up] [?]: Hm, good?! Tubbo and Eryn: Yeah! Tubbo: So far 10/10.

[The video ends]

YD: These kids are polite. They seem very polite, don’t they? Especially after hearing how old I am. It feels like they’re saying, “Yes ma’am, it’s very delightful.” So cute, and they seemed like they really enjoyed their meal. They were eating it up. They drank soju, they ate some noodles, and even doenjang-jjigae. I’ve heard foreigners don’t really like the taste of doenjang-jjigae, but they ate pretty much [all] of it. The restaurant also had pot rice, so I made them try that too. They ate that well too.

[YD plays the second video she recorded of them at the restaurant]

Tubbo: Go crazy ok, yeah! Alright.

YD: We ordered naengmyeon for a palate cleanser too. We ordered a lot.

Tubbo: [Struggles to cut the noodles with the scissors that were handed to him]

YD: He’s asking why we cut the noodles.

Tubbo: [Manages to cut the noodles] Kang-si [?]: Ok, and- and– [does chopstick motion] Tubbo: [Laughs] What am I gonna need?  Eryn: Chopsticks? Kang-si [?]: Yeah. YD [?]: Chopsticks, mm. Eryn: [To Tubbo] You go first. Tubbo: [Inaudible] Why is it cold? YD [?]: Oh, because the noodle is cold.

YD: Yeah, he found it interesting that the noodle is cold.

Tubbo: [He struggles with his chopsticks] Oh no, oh no… [Everyone laughs] Kang-si [?]: Very difficult. Ok! Tubbo: [Manages to fish some noodles out and holds his hand under them so they don’t splash everywhere as he transports them to his bowl] Seoneng [?]: Oh, uh, oh! It might be difficult for them to eat that. YD [?]: Hm? Kang-si [?]: Do you want some, Seoneng? Gimme the chopsticks, I’ll share you some. Eryn: [To Tubbo] Slippery. How did you get it?  Kang-si [?]: I’ll give you some, hand me the chopsticks. Seoneng [?]: Can I hand you mine? Just a small amount, please.

YD: They mimicked how Kangseok [Kang-si, YD’s husband] handles the noodles. Like, picking up the noodles like this and moving it to your dish.

Tubbo: That’s why you’re better than me (?).

YD: That’s Seoneng.

Kang-si [?]: Here’s your chopsticks, Seoneng. Eryn: I think this is enough. YD [?]: Oh, he’s taking some to his dish. Seoneng [?]: He learned. Tubbo: Do you like, spin 'em? Seoneng [?]: Scissors? Kang-si [?]: Like– [He holds up his chopsticks and shows them how to do it. Ok. OK! Eryn: [Picks up only a few noodles, which dangle] Seoneng [?]: Good! Tubbo: Maybe I did- I did a sht job of cutting, I'm sorry. Eryn: That's ok. Doing good.

YD: It had a nice atmosphere.

Eryn: Bravo. Tubbo: Oh, thank you. YD [?]: The noodles might be a bit slippery for them to...

YD: They really struggled to pick the noodles up. They asked why we cut the noodles then proceeds to eat like that 'cuz it's too long.

YD [?]: Shall we cut it? Kang-si [?]: Eryn? [He leans forward and cuts Eryn's noodles with scissors]

YD: –So we had to cut it for him like he's a baby.

[Everyone laughs] Eryn: It kept on moving!

[The video ends]

YD: [Laughs] Ah, so cute. It was fun. So we tried various dishes together. And uh, UK– UK– both of them are from the UK, but they didn't know there is a viral series of British students trying Korean food,*** so I told them "Seeing how you react to unfamiliar foods, like... How do I put this? You were very polite trying these out, not making any weird disgusted noises (so you can go viral too)." They didn't refuse anything. Well, they also said that this was the best Korean food they had so far. They might've been just being polite, but still, you know, they were... Hmm, very neat? Yeah. I get why he's so popular.

*** [Note: YT: Korean Englishman]

YD: Anyways, it was a lot of fun. After the meal, I asked them if they wanted to go take a YD 4-cut with us, explaining this is a trending form of birthday event amongst fans of younger generations in Korea where they rent and run a photobooth for their YouTuber / CCs / Influencers. I asked "It's close from here, you wanna go?" and he said yes. That's how we ended up taking a group photo. It wasn't planned beforehand.

YD: We arrived there– [Laughs] I tried, I knew it closes at 10pm, so I tried to visit there around then (to avoid people). So we got there around 9:30? And my fans were sitting there waiting for me. As soon as they spot me they go, "Wooooooo!!! It's so good to see you in person!!!" ...then they started crying, which made Tubbo and Eryn panic a bit. They were like "Wow YD, u a superstar! Whoa." [Laughs]

YD: No, 'cuz I told them that there might be a few fans because it's my birthday event, and they were OK with it. Well, he's also a Youtuber, so he wouldn't be too unfamiliar with this kinda situation I figure. But even though I warned [him] about it, they seemed a bit surprised as people started SOBBING, so Kangseok evacuated them all. He told them, "Let's get out and try some salted butter rolls while she..." The boys leave and get bread, and I go have a short conversation with my fans, take photos, give autographs... [Laughs]

YD: It was a LOT of fun. It was a memorable day.

The original VOD can be found here (please note that the video is only available to VIP members of YD's channel).

Timestamp for this conversation: ~12:30 - 23:00

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Doublethink sump linkdump

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

Trigger warning for #eikositriophobia: this is my 23d linkdump (Hail Discordia!), an erratic Saturday purge of the open tabs I haven't managed to blog this week; here's the previous 22:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

When I was a kid, I idolized Harlan Ellison. I loved his prose styling, his stage presence, the way he blended activism and fiction, and the way he mixed critical nonfiction with fiction. As a 17 year old, I attended a writing workshop that Ann Crispin was giving at a local science fiction convention and she told me that I had the makings of a great writer, just as soon as I stopped trying to be Harlan Ellison.

But Harlan was a complicated figure. I attended the Clarion Workshop in 1992 specifically because he was our instructor, and came away bitterly disillusioned after he targeted one of my fellow students for relentless, cruel bullying, a performance that was so ugly that the board fired the director and permanently barred him from teaching the workshop.

Later on, Harlan became the kind of copyright maximalist who called for arbitrary internet surveillance and censorship in the name of shutting down ebook piracy. During a panel about this at a sf convention, he called one of the other panelists a "motherfucker" and threatened to punch him in the face. He took to badmouthing me in interviews, painting my position – whose nuances he certainly understood – in crude caricature.

But Harlan and I had many friends in common, people I really liked, and they were adamant that Harlan's flaws were not the whole story: if Harlan liked you, he would do anything to stand up for you, no matter the cost to himself. Famously, when Harlan taught Octavia Butler's Clarion, he demanded to know why she wasn't writing full time, and she replied that there was the inconvenient matter of making rent and groceries. He replied, "If that's all that's stopping you, come live in my guest house for as long as it takes, eat my groceries, and write." Which she did.

Which is great, but also: one of my own Clarion students told me about when his then-teenaged mother met Harlan at a sf convention and told him that she dreamed of becoming a writer, and he propositioned her. She was so turned off that she stopped writing forever (her son, my student, is now an accomplished writer).

So Harlan was a mixed bag. He did very, very good things. He did very, very bad things. When Harlan died, in 2018, I wrote an obit where I grappled with these two facts:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/28/rip-harlan-ellison/

In it, I proposed a way of thinking about people that tried to make sense of both Harlans – and of all the people in our lives. There's an unfortunate tendency to think of the people that matter to us as having their deeds recorded in a ledger, with good deeds in one column and wicked deeds down the other.

In this formulation, we add up the good deeds and the bad deeds and subtract the bad from the good. If the result is a positive number, we say the good outweighs the bad, and therefore the person is, on balance, good. On the other hand, if the bad outweighs the good, then the person is bad, and the good deeds are irrelevant.

This gets us into no end of trouble. It means that when someone we admire slips up, we give them a pass, because "they've earned it." And when someone who's hurt us does something selfless and kind and brave, we treat that as though it doesn't matter, because they're an asshole.

But the truth is, no amount of good deeds can wipe away the bad. If you hurt someone, the fact that you've helped someone else doesn't make that hurt any easier to bear. And the kindnesses you do for other people make their lives better, no matter what bad things you've done to others.

Rather than calculating the balance of our goodness or badness, I think we should just, you know, sit with our sins and virtues. Let all the harm and joy exist in a state of superposition. Don't cancel out the harm. Don't wave away the good. They both exist, neither cancels the other, and we should strive to help more, and to do less harm. We should do everything we can to help those we harm. No one owes us a pass because of the good we've done.

That's the lesson Harlan taught me, and he taught it to me by absolutely failing to live his life this way – a fact that exists alongside all of the good he did, including the great art he made, which I love, and which inspired me.

Not long after Harlan's death, I got a phone call from J Michael Straczynski, Harlan's literary executor. As part of his care for Harlan's literary legacy, Joe was editing a new anthology of short stories, The Last Dangerous Visions, and did I want to contribute a story?

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/harlan-ellison-last-dangerous-vision-1235117069/

Of course I did. Harlan edited Dangerous Visions in 1967: a groundbreaking anthology of uncomfortable science fiction that featured everyone from Philip K Dick to Samuel Delany. The followup, 1972's Again, Dangerous Visions, was, if anything, even more influential, including Le Guin's The Word For World IS Forest, as well as work by Joanna Russ, Kurt Vonnegut, David Gerrold, and James Tiptree, Jr.

Though some of the stories in these books haven't aged well, together, they completely changed my view of what science fiction was and what it could be. But The Last Dangerous Visions was a different (ahem) story. For complicated reasons (which all cashed out to "Harlan being very difficult to work with, sometimes for damned good reasons, other times for completely petty ones), TLDV was, at the time of Harlan's death, fifty years behind schedule. It was "science fiction's most famous unpublished book." Harlan had bought early work from writers who had gone on to have major careers – like Bruce Sterling – and had sat on them for half a century.

Then Joe called me to tell me that he was starting over with TLDV and did I want to contribute a story – and of course I did. I wrote a story for him with the title "Jeffty Is Five," part of my series of stories with the same titles as famous works of sf:

https://locusmag.com/2012/05/cory-doctorow-a-prose-by-any-other-name/

Joe liked the story, but not the title. He thought Harlan wouldn't have approved of this kind of appropriation, and he wanted to do right by the memory of his old friend. My first reaction was very Harlan-like: this is supposed to make you mad, it's my art, and if it offends you, that's your problem.

But I remembered the most important lesson I learned from Harlan, about good deeds and bad ones, and I thought about Joe, a writer I admired and liked, who was grappling with his grief and his commitment to Harlan's legacy, and I changed my mind and told him of course I'd change the title. I changed the title because Harlan would never have done so, and that's rather the point of the story.The story is (now)) called "The Weight of a Heart, the Weight of a Feather" (a very Harlanish title), and it's about the legacy of complicated people, whose lives are full of noble selflessness *and careless or deliberate cruelty. It's about throwing away the ledger and just letting all those facts sit together, about lives that are neither washed of sin by virtue, nor washed of virtue by sin.

It's a good story, I think, and I'm proud of it, and I'm interested in what the rest of you think now that the book is out:

https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/products/book-fyhm

Harlan was the writer who made me want to get good at reading my stories aloud. I was a charter member of the Harlan Ellison Record Club, as you can see for yourself from the time Harlan (accidentally) doxed me:

http://harlanellison.com/text/paladin.txt

After nearly 20 years of podcasting, I'm actually pretty good at this stuff. I'm going to be podcasting a reading of this story – eventually. I am nearly done "de-googling" my podcast feed, ripping it out of Feedburner, a service that I started using nearly two decades ago to convert a WordPress RSS feed to a podcast feed. In the intervening years, WordPress has come to support this natively and Feedburner has become a division of Google, so I've been methodically removing Feedburner's hooks from my feed, which is now proudly available here, without any surveillance or analytics:

https://craphound.com/feeds/doctorow_podcast

I'll be writing up the process eventually. In the meantime, I'm about to embark on another podcast fiction project, serializing my novella Spill, a "Little Brother" story that Tor's Reactor just published:

https://reactormag.com/spill-cory-doctorow/

The first part of "Spill" will go out tomorrow or Monday. Reactor also just published another "Little Brother" story, "Vigilant," which I read in last week's podcast:

https://craphound.com/littlebrother/2024/09/29/vigilant-a-little-brother-story/

One of my long-running beefs with Harlan was his insistence that the answer of copyright infringement online was to create an obligation on intermediaries – like ISPs – to censor their users' communications on demand from anyone claiming to have been wronged by a post or upload.

This would be bad for free expression under any circumstances, but it's an especially dangerous vision for ISPs, who are among the worst-run, most venal businesses in modern society ("We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company" -L Tomlin).

It's hard to overstate just how terrible ISPs are, but even in a field that includes Charter and Comcast, there's one company that rises above the pack when it comes to being grotesquely, imaginatively awful: Cox Communications.

Here's the latest from Cox: they sell "unlimited" gigabit data plans that cost $100 for the base plan and $50 to add the "unlimited" data. But – as Jon Brodkin writes for Ars Technica – Cox uniquely defines "unlimited" as severely limited:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/cox-slows-internet-speeds-in-entire-neighborhoods-to-punish-any-heavy-users/

Now, you're probably thinking, ho-hum, another company that offered unlimited service and then acted like dicks when a customer treated it as unlimited, ::laughs in American Airlines::

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2019/11/13/unlimited-first-class-flights-for-lifehow-american-airlines-made-the-most-expensive-mistake-in-aviation-history/

But that's not the Cox story! Cox doesn't just throttle "unlimited" customers' internet to 2006-vintage DSL speeds – they slow down the entire neighborhood around the unlimited customer to those speeds.

As Brodkin writes, every Cox customer in the same neighborhood as an "unlimited" customer named "Mike" had their upload speeds reduced by more than two thirds, from 35mbps to 10mbps, to punish Mike. And they're not the only ones!

https://www.reddit.com/r/GNV/comments/gkicjg/comment/fr670cx/

Cox confirmed they were doing this, saying "performance can be improved for all customers in the neighborhood by temporarily increasing or maintaining download speeds and changing upload speeds for some of our service tiers."

Cox has been on a roll lately, really going for the shitty-telecoms-company gold. Back in August, 404 Media published a leaked pitch deck in which Cox promised advertisers that they were secretly listening to their customers' smart devices, transcribing their private conversations, and using them to target ads:

https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/

This isn't just appalling, it's also almost certainly fraudulent. As terrible as "smart" devices are (and oh God are they terrible), the vast majority of them don't do this. That's something a lot of security researchers have investigated, doing things like hooking up a protocol analyzer to a LAN with a smart device on it and looking for data transmissions that correspond to ambient speech in earshot of the gadget's mic.

My guess is that Cox has done a deal with a couple of the bottom-feedingest "smart TV" companies (as a cable operator, Cox will have relationships with a lot of these companies) to engage in this conduct. Smart TVs have emerged as one of the worst categories of consumer technology, on every axis: performance, privacy, repairability. The field has raced to the bottom, hit it, and then started digging to find new lows to sink to. This is just my hunch here, but I think it's highly likely that if there's a class of devices that are bugging your living room and selling the data to Cox, it's gonna be a smart TV (top tip: buy a computer monitor instead, and use your phone or laptop to stream to it).

Ask a certain kind of very smooth-brained, Samuelson-pilled economist about the enshittification of smart TVs and they'll tell you that this is a "revealed preference":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference

As in, sure, you may say that you don't want your TV to secretly record your private conversations and sell them to Cox, but actually you quite like it, because you have a TV.

While this is a facially very stupid argument, it's routinely made by people who think they're very smart, a point famously made by Matt Bors's "Mr Gotcha":

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Comics turn out to be a very good medium for stringing up the revealed preferences crowd on their own petards. This week, Juan Santapau's "The Secret Knots" added to the Mr Gotcha canon with an equally brilliant webcomic, albeit one with a very different vibe, entitled "Remind Me Later":

https://thesecretknots.com/comic/remind-me-later/

Santapau really catches the zeitgeist with this one, which is more of a slow burn than a zinger, and which shows how online "revealed preferences" nonsense grooms us for the same bullshit in every corner of our lives, even our psychotherapist's office. Highly recommended – an instant classic.

"Revealed preferences" comes from the Chicago School of Economics, a field that decided that a) economics should be a discipline grounded in mathematical models; and b) it was impossible to factor power relationships into these models; so c) power doesn't matter.

Once you understand this fact, everything else snaps into focus – like, why the Chicago School loves monopolies. If you model an economy dominated by monopolists without factoring the power that monopolists wield, then you can very easily assume that any monopoly you discover is the result of a lot of people voluntarily choosing to spend all their money with the company they love best.

The fact that we all hate the monopolists we have to deal with is dismissed by these economists as a mirage: "sure, you say you hate them, but you do business with them, therefore, your 'revealed preference' shows that you actually love them."

Which is how we end up with absolutely outrageous rackets like the scholarly publishing cartel. Scholarly journals acquire academics' work for free; get other academics to edit the work for free; acquire lifetime copyright to those finished works; and charge the institutions that paid those "volunteer" academics salaries millions of dollars to access their publications:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

These companies don't just lock up knowledge and tie an anchor around the scientists' and scholars' ankles, dragging them down. Their market power means that they can hurt their customers and users in every way, including through rampant privacy violations.

A new study from SPARC investigates the privacy practices of Springerlink, and finds them to be a cesspit of invasive, abusive conduct that would make even a Cox executive blush:

https://zenodo.org/records/13886473

Yes, on the one hand, this isn't surprising. If a company can screw you on pricing, why wouldn't they scruple to give you the shaft on privacy as well? But The fact that a company as terrible as Springer can be the dominant firm in the sector is still shocking, somehow.

But that's terminal-stage capitalism for you. It's not just that bad companies companies thrive – it's that being a bad company is a predictor of sky-high valuations and fawning coverage from the finance press.

Take Openai, a company that the press treats as a heptillion-dollar money-printer whose valuation will eventually exceed the rest of the known universe. Openai has a lot of problems – a mass exodus of key personnel, a product that doesn't work for nearly all the things it's claimed as a solution to – but the biggest one is that it's a bad business.

That's the theme of a fantastic, characteristically scathing-but-deep Ed Zitron article called (what else?) "Openai is a bad business":

https://www.wheresyoured.at/oai-business/

Zitron does something that no one else in the business press does: takes Openai's claims about its business fundamentals – its costs, its prices, its competitors, and even its capabilities – at face value, and then asks, "Even if this is all true, will Openai ever turn a profit?"

The answer is a pretty convincing "no." Zitron calls it a "subprime AI crisis" in a nod to Tim Hwang's must-read 2020 book about the ad-tech bezzle, Subprime Attention Crisis:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/06/surveillance-tulip-bulbs/#adtech-bubble

The fascinating thing about both Zitron and Hwang's analysis isn't that there are big companies that suck – it's that they are able to suck up so much money and credulous excitement, despite how badly they suck.

That's where power – the thing that neoliberal economists say doesn't matter – comes in. Monopoly power is a self-accelerating flywheel, as Amazon's famous investor pitch explains:

https://vimeo.com/739486256/00a0a7379a

Once a monopolist or a cartel wields market power, they can continue to dominate a sector, even though they're very bad – and even if they use their power to rip off both their customers and very powerful suppliers.

That's the lesson of Michael Jordan's lawsuit against NASCAR, as Matt Stoller explains in his latest BIG newsletter:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/michael-jordan-anti-monopolist

Jordan is one of the most famous basketball players, but after retiring from the game, he became a NASCAR owner, and as such, has been embroiled in a monopoly whose abuses are both eerily familiar to anyone who pays attention to, say the pharmacy benefit manager racket:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

But on the other hand, the fact this is all happening to race-cars and not pharmacies makes it very weird indeed. As with, say, PBMs, NASCAR's monopoly isn't just victimizing the individuals who watch racing, but also the racecar teams. These teams are owned by rich, powerful people (like Jordan), but are "almost always on the verge of bankruptcy."

Why is that? NASCAR rips them off. For example, teams have to buy all their parts from NASCAR, at huge markups, and the purchase contract prohibits them from racing at any rival event. There are a million petty schemes like this, and NASCAR carefully titrates its bleed-off to leave its victims almost at death's door, but still (barely) solvent enough to keep racing.

NASCAR also bought out all the rival leagues, and most of the tracks, and then locked the remaining tracks to exclusivity deals. Then the teams all had to sign noncompetes as a condition of competing in NASCAR, the only game in town – forever.

Hence Michael Jordan, a person who steadfastly refused to involve himself in politics during his basketball career, becoming a firebreathing trustbuster. Stoller cites Jordan's transformation as reason to believe that the anti-monopoly agenda will survive even in the event that Harris wins but bows to corporate donors who insist on purging the Biden administration's trustbusters.

That's a hopeful note, and I'd add my own to it: the fact that the NASCAR scam is so similar to the pharma swindles, academic publishing swindles, and all the other monopoly rip-offs means that there is a potential class alliance between university professors, NASCAR owners, and people with chronic health conditions and big pharmaceutical bills.

That high note brings me to the end of this week's linkdump! And here's a little dessert in case you've got room for one more little link: Kitowares "Medieval Mules", a forthcoming clog styled as trompe l'oeil plate armor:

https://www.kitowares.la/

Pair with old favorites like lycra armor leggings:

https://loricaclothing.com/collections/leggings-1/products/the-augsburg-legging

And a DIY crotcheted knight's helmet:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/590854477/knights-helmet-w-detachable-visor

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER s tories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; a nd SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/05/farrago/#jeffty-is-five

[charlotteking23]

Hi! I really enjoy your stories! I was wondering if you could write a batfam x batmom reader story about the boys (not including bruce) getting magically age reversed (i.e. dick becomes damian's age, damian becomes Dick's age, and Jason and Tim swap ages) and the 4 of them getting into shenanigans and chaos. And Batmom teasing and coddling them.

This sounds amazing, and sorry it took so long to post but I was writing it and my computer started resetting and it did not save this draft so I had to start over.

WHAT HAPPENED!!!

Bruce decided to take his kids to the Justice League hall, where he was showing them the Machine Hall which was VERY DANGEROUS. During the middle of the tour, there was an emergency alert, deciding to leave his kids in said dangerous room but why not.

"Jason, don't touch that Dad said it's dangerous", said Dick was already tired of Jason's shenanigans, and playing pranks on everyone. "Quit being such a buzzkill, and have fun no adults are around", Jason said in a playful tone. Jason was very unserious sometimes but when he's mad he will kill you. "You know Jason, you don't act very mature for an Adult and BTW there are adults around you and Dick", Tim was the smart one always pointing out his brother's mistakes in a not-so-kind way. Damian just stood there glaring at his brother fighting like little children.

"Oh what, touching a machine is going to get us killed", said Jason. "I hope it kills you first", Damian said. But It was too late for Jason had touched the machine despite Dick's warning.

Suddenly a bright light blinded the boys. "AHHHHHH", screamed the boys, The bright light dimmed down and the boys saw each other but of different ages. Dick and Damian's ages were switched so Dick was 12 and Damian was 25. So were Jason and Tim, Jason was 17 and Tim was 23.

The boys were freaking out, trying hard to comprehend the situation. Damian started to immediately blame Jason for this while Dick was trying to calm himself down from having a panic attack. Lastly, Tim wasn't that affected and went looking at the machine Jason touched. "Hey guys look at this" Stated Tim when the boys looked at where Tim was pointing They realized... "Jason you Idiot you touch an age switch Machine", said Dick. "Aww shit, I didn't think this would happen," said Jason. "No fucking duh Jason, if you knew this would not have happened," Damian said while hitting Jason on the back of his head.

Bruce later found out with a panic attack and was scared of how he would tell his wife this happened under his care. But he also grounded Jason for 1 month again.

Timeskip to the manor

"Hey, kids"..... was the first thing Batmom had said before seeing her kids not looking like her kids. "WHAT HAPPENED?" Her Dick looks so young and cute and her Dami looks so tall and mature, Jason looks like a teenager and Tim seemed well older.

"Mom we can explain", Dick said and explained the whole situation of what happened because of Jason's stupidity. "Well, where was your father when this happened?" What Tim had told her was not the answer she wanted. "You left the kids alone in a dangerous machine room", Batmom continued scolding Bruce and her kids for this misfortune but internally screaming about how cute her kids looked.

No matter how hard she tried, she absolutely adored Dick and Jason, for it reminded her when they were young. And then she started crying with Tim and Damian feeling sad they had grown up so tall and handsome even though they were still the same by heart externally they looked different.

DICK

Being a 12-year-old was not as bad as he thought or so he thought. His mother became even more protective watching his every move and she refused to let him go whenever they hugged each other. "Mom, you have to let me go", "NO!," his mother shouted. "But...Mom, I can't breathe". "Then breathe later."

During this chaos, he found out he had to go to school, don't ask why. The whole day was torture I mean who wants to go to school after already graduating not Dick, to make matters worse he had to hang out with Jon. He was the only kid he knew and he didn't want to socialize with kids younger than him.

Curfew for patroling was a lot different since he was 12, he had to be home at 10:00 and he couldn't go anywhere without an escort because he was too "young" to drive.

And even the Titans made fun of his appearance, I mean their brave and powerful leader was a 12-year-old and a short one. "Can you guys just help me!" Dick shouted in anger. "No, can do, not until we finished laughing at how short you are", kon said laughing at Dick who couldn't even reach the high cabinets.

JASON

"Jason, honey what are you doing? you need to get up", his mother said in her usual calm voice. here he was lying in his bed with nothing to do, it was only 7:30 am. "Why, I have nothing going on. Didn't I tell you, you're going to school to collect Tim's work so he can complete it at home", Batmom said while opening his blinds. "But Mama"..."No buts get up and get ready for school". Jason was not happy and grumbled the whole time getting ready for school.

Jason was getting ready for patrol putting on his suit and wishing his Mama goodbye. Before she told him the horrible news, He had a curfew. His mother used the excuse that growing boys needed energy and he had school in the morning. "Mom, please I don't need a curfew I am fine". "No, and that's final Jason", his mother said in a stern voice.

good news He could drive and hang out unlike Dick who needed to be escorted when driving, Man did Jason crack up and tease Dick. HA, you can't drive what a loser, Dick was not happy and vowed he would get Jason back.

With Jason's curfews, he had to sneak out but lucky for him, he had done it so many times. The only problem is his mama was watching him like a hawk, but when everyone was asleep he decided to climb out of his window. Only to be stopped by the infamous Batmom and her sidekick Batman, grounding him for another month. "Hey Mom, how did you know I was sneaking out and where I would be?", "hmm, Dick told me". "Damn it," Jason said cursing under his breath passing by a laughing Dick when coming upstairs towards his room.

TIM

was Tim happy? Yes, yes he was. Switching ages with Jason seemed bad but it turned out good when he found out he didn't have to go to school, he had the whole day to himself. While Jason had to go to his school and get all his assessments, It was good because it only took him an hour to complete the work Jason gave him.

First thing first, He explained to Stephanie what happened after she accidentally came to the manor expecting to see her boyfriend but instead saw a tall, handsome adult like Tim. It took some time for her to cope with what happened but after she was furious with Jason. After he came back from school she hit him with her slipper right in the face. "OWWWW what Hell Stephanie! why did you hurt me", Jason said in shock. "You turned my boyfriend into well this," Stephanie said with her hands still griping the slipper. "MOM, why are you standing there, do something!" but to Jason's surprise, his mother did nothing and instead told him, he deserved it.

Tim had no curfew which meant rubbing it in his brother's face. HAHA, Damian and Tim both laughed at Dick and Jason going home from patrols while they get to stay. Shut up, both of them grumbled not liking the feeling of being teased. Since Tim was legally an adult, why not have alcohol, after one glass of wine he got drunk. "HEy GUyS, LoOK at ME I aM a BAnANa", Then proceeded to start crying when Titanic came on, "NOOOOO, HOw COuLd JAcK DIe!!!" while the whole Bat-family saw this, well now we know he has no alcohol tolerance said Dick, with Jason and his mother laughing their asses off. Damian looked at his father to say something only for him to be astonished, trying to find the proper words only for nothing to come out. And Alfred gets Tim some tissues and water.

DAMIAN

Damian hated everything and everyone except for his mother of course. He Knew from the beginning this was bad and turns out he was right it was chaos.

Damian didn't do anything different except now he can drive legally, he could drive before but wasn't allowed for you know only being 12. He used this opportunity to get away from his crazy family.

Damian still hang out with Jon when he was out of school and gossiped about Dick and how he was at school, it was hilarious. Though Dick was not happy about it.

Unlike Tim, Damian had a high alcohol tolerance. "Dami, you are surprisingly good at drinking and not getting drunk easily, have you drunk before?". "No, Ummi"..... but could not continue, how could he lie to his Ummi so he told the truth. "Yes, Ummi I already had my first drink". "WAIT, WITH WHO?" said Batmom in a shout, ready to throw someone out the window. "With Dad", and that was not the answer she was looking for. "BRUCEEEEE!!!!," screamed Batmom. "Yes honey", Bruce said panting. "Did you take Damian to have his first drink?". "Umm oh no is that the Joker breaking into the bank again, Oh No better stop him bye", and with that, he left like he was Flash already out the door. And to say the least, Batmom was not happy.

Time skip after 3 days

Some random mad scientist Bruce found on the black market reversed the kid's ages. Dick was 25, Jason was 23, Tim was 17 and Damian was 12.

Everything was back to normal, SIKE. Batmom punished everyone in the manor except for Alfred of course for all the things they did when reversed. Bruce was grounded and sleeping on the couch leaving the kids alone in a Dangerous machine room and keeping the fact that Damian had his first drink.

Batmom was so happy but still sad. Of course, she's happy her kids are back to normal but her two eldest had to leave to go back to their house, it was heartbreaking. So to make their mom feel better they did Family Game Night 😉.

[snowysosturn]

Speeding Car - Matt Sturniolo Part 13

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29

Pairing : y/n x Matt Sturniolo

Summary : After six years with your boyfriend Alex, you start to mentally check out. At a UCLA party, Alex reconnects with his childhood friend Emily, who proposes a double date with her boyfriend Matt. Your attraction to Matt grows as he pays you the first real attention you've had in years, sparking a complicated emotional journey.

Warnings : MDNI, slight tension, angst, suggestive, praise, flirting (kinda), cursing

Matts POV

The sun was dipping low, casting warm orange and pink hues across the sky as I stared out the window. The day had been pretty chill now that Emily was gone, I had some space and could just hang out with Chris and Nick. But now, things were about to get a whole lot more interesting. Nate, our friend from Boston, was visiting for the next week or so and had just arrived at our house. It felt like old times again, having the whole gang together.

“Yo, Matt!” Nate’s voice rang out from the living room. “You ready to lose tonight?”

I smirked, walking in to find him and Chris sprawled out on the couch. “Lose? You mean, are you ready to lose? I’ve been working on my swing, man.”

Nate laughed, shaking his head. “We’ll see about that. My game’s been on point lately.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll put 100 bucks on it.” I said, rolling my eyes and grabbing my phone off the counter. “Where’s Nick?”

“He’s in his room” Chris said. “Probably trying to pick out an outfit like it’s some kind of fashion show.”

I chuckled. “Well, he better hurry up. We’re supposed to leave in like ten minutes.”

As if on cue, Nick walked down the stairs into the room, looking way too casual for someone who’d spent an extra ten minutes getting ready.

“Speaking of the devil” I said, crossing my arms with a grin, “You finally done making yourself pretty?”

Nick laughed it off. “I was just making sure my plus one could come.”

“Plus one?” I raised an eyebrow, not sure what he meant.

“Yeah?” Nick said, glancing around the room at all of us. “I invited Y/n to come with us.”

I felt my grin fade a bit, replaced by surprise. I hadn’t seen that coming. Not that I had a problem with Y/n coming along, but with everything that had gone down with Emily... things were complicated, especially after last time.

I shot Nick a look, trying to figure out what he was thinking. “You sure that’s a good idea? I mean, Emily wasn’t exactly happy about us hanging out.”

Nick shrugged, looking calm and collected. “If I remember correctly, she said she didn’t want you two hanging out alone. We’re all going, right? It’s not like it’s just you and Y/n. There’ll be six of us total.”

I thought about that for a second, replaying Emily’s words in my head. Nick wasn’t wrong. Emily’s issue was with me and Y/n spending time together one on one, not in a group. And honestly, Y/n was Nick’s friend too. We couldn’t just exclude her because of Emily’s feelings.

Nick gave me that knowing look, a half smile tugging at his lips. “Come on. Don’t overthink it. It’s just Top Golf.”

I sighed, feeling some of the tension slip away as I realized Nick had a point. There was no reason to blow this out of proportion. It was just a fun night out with friends.

“Alright, fine..” I said, clapping Nick on the shoulder. “But you’re dealing with Emily if she freaks out.”

Nick chuckled. “Deal. I told her we’ll pick her up on the way.”

The doorbell rang then, echoing through the house.

“That’ll be Madi” Chris said, getting up to answer it.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to shake off the last bit of unease. I grabbed my keys off the counter and turned back to the guys. “Alright, let’s do this. Nate, I hope you’re ready to lose your money tonight.”

Nate laughed, his confidence unwavering. “You wish.”

We all grabbed our stuff and headed out the door, the excitement for the night starting to build. As I locked up, I couldn’t help but wonder how the evening was going to play out. With Y/n along for the ride, things were bound to go one of two ways, to be very awkward or very interesting.

But as I climbed into the car with my friends, I pushed those thoughts aside. Tonight was about having fun. Whatever happened, I'd deal with it together. Just like I always did.

Y/n POV

I blinked at the message, feeling a mix of excitement and nerves. I hadn’t been expecting an invitation tonight. Before I could overthink it, I typed back a quick reply:

Me: Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.

His response was immediate.

Nick 💜 : Of course, you’re not intruding! Nate’s visiting from Boston, and Madi’s coming too. It’ll be a good time.

Seeing that Nate and Madi would be there made me feel a little more at ease. It wasn’t just going to be me and the guys, so there wouldn’t be any weirdness or pressure. Still, the thought of seeing Matt again had my heart racing. I wasn’t sure how it would feel being around him tonight.

Me: Okay, sounds fun!

Nick 💜: Great! We’ll swing by and pick you up in about 30. See you soon!

I set my phone down, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves. This was just a casual night out with friends, no big deal. But the potential thought that I’d see Matt again had my mind racing with thoughts I couldn’t quite push away. Shaking my head, I decided to focus on getting ready instead of overthinking.

I pulled open my closet and sifted through my clothes, trying to find something that was cute but casual enough for Top Golf. I settled on a cropped tank top with a flannel shirt layered over it. I paired it with my favorite jeans and some comfy sneakers. After giving myself a look over in the mirror, I decided to put a little extra effort into my hair and makeup. Maybe it was silly, but I wanted to feel confident tonight.

I was just finishing up when my phone buzzed again, this time with a message from Nick letting me know they were outside. I grabbed my bag, gave my reflection a quick nod of approval, and headed out the door. The nervous energy in my chest made me feel ridiculous, but I couldn’t shake it.

As I walked outside, I spotted a familiar car waiting at the curb. Matt’s car. My breath hitched for a moment. I could see Matt in the driver’s seat, Chris up front with him. I walked up to the car trying to not make direct eye contact with anyone. Nick slid open the back door and flashed me a welcoming grin.

“Hey girl! Hop in!” he said, scooting over to make room for me.

I climbed into the car, trying to keep my cool as I greeted everyone. “Hey guys!”

Matt glanced back at me through the rearview mirror, his expression softening as our eyes met. No words were exchanged, we just gave each other a half smile, the kind that made time feel like it slowed down time. I returned the smile, feeling a warmth in my chest that made me even more nervous.

“Hey, I’m Madi” said the girl sitting in the third row, offering me a friendly wave.

“And I’m Nate” added the guy next to her, a tall guy with a laid back vibe. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too!” I said, glad to finally meet the people I’d heard about from Nick.

The drive to Top Golf was surprisingly quick. Everyone was in high spirits, chatting and laughing, and I found myself relaxing as the conversation flowed easily. We unloaded from the car once we arrived, and Matt, being the gentleman he was, swung open the door on my side. Our eyes met again as I stepped out, and we exchanged another one of those small, lingering smiles.

“Thanks” I said softly, feeling a flutter in my stomach.

“No problem” Matt replied, his voice low and easygoing. The moment was brief, but it left me feeling strangely content.

As we all walked into the building, I found myself sticking close to Nick, who was happily chatting about how excited he was to see Nate again, and Matt stood on the other side of me, silent. “I’ve never done this before” I admitted to him as we waited at the reception desk. “I’m looking forward to seeing what it’s all about.”

Nick gave me a reassuring grin. “You’ll love it. It’s a good time, especially with this crew.”

We got our bay assignment from the receptionist and made our way up to the second floor. The place was electric with energy, people laughing, music playing, and the satisfying whack of golf balls being hit. We reached our booth, which had a great view of the range, and Matt immediately took charge of inputting all of our names into the machine.

I stood back, taking it all in. The setup was way cooler than I’d imagined, with all these targets spread out across the field in different colors. “So, what’s the deal with all the rings out there?” I asked out loud, walking past Matt to get closer to the yellow line on the ground to get a better look.

Matt joined me, leaning in slightly as he explained. “Each ring gives you a different amount of points. The farther away it is and the closer you get to the centre, the more points you score.”

I turned to him, genuinely surprised. “Wait, so there’s actually an aim to this? All this time I thought you were just hitting golf balls as stress relief.”

Matt let out a laugh, the sound making me smile. “Yeah, it’s a little more than that. But it’s fun either way.”

Chris was up first, so Matt and I moved out of his way, still chatting. He pointed out the different clubs sitting in the box beside us.

“So, these are your options” he said, picking up a golf club that was easily as tall as me. “This one’s a driver. Good for getting the ball as far out as possible.”

I eyed the club, tilting my head. “That thing’s huge. I don’t think I can even hold that properly. You’re sure I won’t just end up swinging and missing completely?”

Matt grinned, the playful glint in his eyes making me relax a little more. “It’s all in the technique. But if you think it’s too much, there are shorter ones too.” He handed me a smaller club, our fingers brushing briefly. “This one might be more your speed.”

I took the club, testing the weight of it in my hands. “Okay, this feels better. I can actually manage this one.”

“Good choice.” Matt said, his tone teasing as he picked up another club for himself. “But remember, it’s not just about the length. It’s how you use it.”

I rolled my eyes, laughing at his playful manner. “Right. I’ll keep that in mind, golf pro.” I blushed slightly. Was he flirting with me? No he didn’t mean it like that..

He chuckled, his eyes crinkling at the corners in that way that made it impossible not to smile back. “I’ll show you some tips when it’s your turn.”

“Thanks, I’ll need them!” I admitted, feeling more comfortable around him than I had all night.

We all watched as Chris took his first swing, sending the ball flying towards one of the targets. Everyone cheered, and I found myself getting more excited to take my turn.

As I stood there with Matt, bantering back and forth about the clubs, I realized that maybe tonight wasn’t going to be as nerve wrecking as I’d thought. We were just a group of friends having fun, and Matt’s easygoing nature was making it hard to feel anything but relaxed. He was one of those people I instantly felt comfortable around.

When I looked up at the screen to check whose turn it was, I noticed something that made my heart skip a beat. Instead of my full name, the screen showed my nickname, one that only my closest friends used. My face flushed as I realized Matt must have been the one who put it in like that. It was a small gesture, but it made me feel warm inside.

Feeling a mix of anticipation and nerves, I stepped up to the mark and placed the golf ball on the tee. I took a deep breath, trying to channel the confidence Matt had given me earlier, and swung the club. 

But instead of sailing out into the field, the ball shot straight into the netting below me. I froze in place, wide eyed and embarrassed as laughter erupted behind me. Turning around, I caught their amused faces and couldn’t help but laugh at myself too.

“You’re hitting the ball like it’s mini golf!” Matt called out, his voice full of laughter. His teasing was light hearted, and I could tell he wasn’t trying to make me feel bad.

“I’m scared to swing it properly!” I confessed, still laughing as I turned back to face him.

Matt shook his head, still chuckling as he made his way over to me. “Here, let me help you.”

My heart skipped again as he came closer, standing directly behind me. The next thing I knew, Matt was wrapping his arms around mine, placing his hands on top of mine on the club. His touch was gentle but firm, guiding me into the right position. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, and suddenly, we were practically spooning while standing up. My heart raced in my chest, beating so loud I was sure he could hear it.

“Just relax” Matt said softly, his voice close to my ear. We swung the club back together, and in one smooth motion, he guided the swing, sending the ball flying down to the bottom of the field. I watched it soar, feeling a rush of excitement at how far it went.

“Do you feel better about it now?” Matt asked, his voice still low, sending a pleasant shiver down my spine.

“Yeah, it’s a little less scary now” I admitted, smiling up at him as he stepped back.

With my newfound confidence, I picked up another golf ball and placed it on the tee. Matt walked back to his seat, and I focused on the ball, trying to replicate what Matt had shown me. I took the same stance, swung the club the same way, and to my amazement, the ball flew straight to the furthest ring.

Everyone cheered in unison, and I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. “That’s the girl!” I heard Matt yell from behind me, his voice full of encouragement. My cheeks flushed at his praise, but I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

I took my last two turns, each time sending the ball further than the last. Every time I hit a good shot, the group cheered, and Matt’s voice always seemed to stand out above the rest. After my final shot, I put the club back in its slot and turned around to see Matt standing there with a big grin. He held up both his hands, and I gave him a double high five, our palms smacking together in a satisfying way.

We both sat down, still buzzing from the game. Matt and I started chatting, the conversation flowing easily between us. It felt good, natural, like we’d been friends forever. Before I knew it, the hour was up, and the game was over.

Nate won by a country mile, with Chris and Matt tying for second. I won’t mention where the rest of us ended up, but let’s just say it was clear who the pros were in this group.

‘Time to cough that 100 bucks up Matt.’ Nate teased.

As we all started gathering our things, Chris groaned. “Ugh, I’m not ready to go home yet. Can we do something else?”

“We could all go for a walk on the beach?” Nate suggested, his tone casual, but the idea sounded perfect to me.

Nick lit up at the suggestion. “Fucking brilliant idea, Nate.”

Matt looked over at me, almost as if he was checking to see if I’d be up for it. Our eyes met, and I gave him a reassuring smile. “The beach sounds nice. I love the beach at night.”

With that, the plan was set. We all piled back into Matt’s car, the mood even more relaxed and happy than before. I slid into the back seat next to Nick again, feeling the cool night air on my face as we drove toward the beach.

It had been a fun night so far, but something told me that the best part was still to come.

a/n : i wasn't going to post this until sunday but here you goooooo (but now you have to wait until sunday for the next part lol)

taglist : @muwapsturniolo @anitahunt @sturnfannn @jayde510 @chrissfavhoe @babyalliah-777 @v33angel @urmom69lol @willowrites @ribread03 @2muchofaslvt @sturnsaver @sleepysturniolo @jcsturniolo11 @jessie-essie @hoeforchrizz @mynbbys @sturniolopanini @mattsturnxoxo @delicatechrry @t77te @sturnsyaper69 @hotdismylife @maggot3647 @ivysturnss @noplaceissafeanymore @mattssgf @yourfavsturniologirl @maethem0nth @sillyponygrl @mattyblover07 @imjusthereforthesturniolosmut @dominicfikeenthusiast @mattsfavbigtitties @ncm9696

[babiebom]

Sdv Age and Height Headcanons

A/N: hi! It’s officially my birthday(the 15th) and I am now 23 :((((( I didn’t know what to post because everything is in the works right now but I wanted to post something to celebrate in a way so here!! Only base game stardew characters so no ridgeside or expanded. I do count Rasmodius/Marlon/Gunther/Morris as base game even though they’re expanded upon in mods. If anyone has questions for me (personal or about my fics or whatever) feel free to request or ask!!

Tw: none other than a mention of death in Shane’s part.

Sdv Masterlist

Sebastian

We always have to start with the loml (it tries to autocorrect loml to mommy and lonely btw)

I think he’s about 23-26 I think he has a degree in IT but I’m not sure. He has to be able to have graduated or taken classes or something.

I think he’s 5’10 at the shortest and 6’2 maybe 6’2 1/2 at the tallest.

Idk just seems tall to me because he’s lowkey intimidating.

Sam

Him and Abigail are in the same age range. I think they were born in the same year.

This means he is about 22-25 and his birthday occurs right after summer break(maybe I should do birthday headcanons?)

I think he is a very tall boy(keep in mind that I am short af so what I mean by very tall depends)

So maybe he is 5’10 at the shortest like Seb and 6’3 at the tallest.

I think him and Seb can be interchangeable when it comes to height? Both of them however come behind Harvey and Elliott but not by a lot.

Shane

The shortest bachelor for sure

I think he is very short and stocky he gives me big strong dad energy like your dads not the tallest but man is strong af.

So maybe 5’5-5’8? I mean 5’8 isnt short at all really but keep in mind I’m saying this is the tallest he can be, and the height really does make some guys seem really short when in reality they arent( also my phone tried to add king every time I typed short so there’s that)

Among the older bachelors so about 31-35?

I feel like that’s enough time to go from playing football(sorry gridball) in high school, getting a scholarship to play in college, dropping out to take care of his goddaughter when his friends die and becoming depressed.

He just seems like a 30 something year old going through the trenches :(.

Harvey

I think the oldest out of the bachelors and bachelorettes. He has gone to med school and that is I think at least like 4 years then 8 years? Unless I’m wrong lmao

So I think he would be around 35-38

He’s an older man that has spent his life helping people it’s so cute

He is on the taller side. In my mind he gives gentle giant vibes.

So 6’0 at the shortest and maybe 6’5 at the tallest. I think he towers over people but his posture is so bad that no one notices.

Alex

I think he is between the ass trio and Maru so 21-24

I think he graduated high school only a couple years prior to year one because of how passionate he is about gridball and how he thinks it’ll happen I don’t think anyone older would be like “someday I’ll go pro” they’d be crushed already

I think he is 6’0 exactly. He gives off 6 feet vibes like I can see that if he had a tinder profile it would 100 percent say “I’m 6’0 btw”

Elliott

I think he’s 34 exactly.

He seems like during his 20s he worked in the family business, he did what was told of him because he didn’t really know how to be an adult.

Then when he hit 30 he decided that he didn’t want anything to do with the family business and decided to move to Pelican Town to follow his dreams of writing.

He had enough money saved up to move and cut contact with his parents after they threatened to disown him because of him choosing to chase his dreams.

I think he is up there with Harvey as I’ve already said. I think they could be the same height range and who is taller is interchangeable.

So 6’0-6’5 really. Gives off hunk on the cover of a romance novel vibes.

Penny

I think she’s around 24-26. And I do think she has a teaching license and an education degree so this would give her enough time to have graduated and come back to Pelican Town after like a year of teaching in the city.

She seems sort of mature but immature at the same time, like immature when it comes to romance and dating, and sort of life but also she has the vibes of an introvert that was forced to mature quickly so she is good at making decisions, but at the same time her emotions are out of whack.

I think she’s a petite girl she doesn’t look very tall at all.

So I think she’s 5’2-5’5 I think for women to me 5’5 that’s the cap on people seeming short to me for women.

Abigail

Luckily I didn’t have to think about this too hard because I already answered this in one of my very first posts

I think she is 5’4 to 5’8 (sorry I’m American so 162 to 172 cm?)

She’s the first one I’m doing I’m not converting everyone but it’s like 2.5 cm per inch and 30.5 per foot

Her age is around 22-25 in year 1 I think. I know I’m my original Abigail headcanon I said oldest is 24 but I think 25 is okay.

She is amongst the youngest in her grade level during school years.

Haley

I think she’s on the younger side, like the same age range as Alex. Especially because she gives the vibes if she just graduated and hasn’t grown out of her mean girl/insecure personality

So she’s about 21-24

I think she’s similar to Abigail where she gives off like petite girl energy but also tall girl energy. Like I feel like she was a cheerleader and people always said that she could model so maybe she’s on the taller side

So maybe 5’4-5’7

Idk what it is about women that are 5’7 are specifically beautiful to me, they seem super tall but not so tall that it makes me feel like they’re a giant, their arms and legs are long idkidk.

Emily

She’s the older sister of Haley, and I think she’s pretty close to Shane and Gus so I think she’s on the older side

I also think that she could be the oldest out of all the bachelorettes.

So maybe 29-35

She seems a lot more mature than Haley, as well as understanding and confident in her life and her choices

As well as she doesn’t seem insecure or as if she’s weird at all like I think younger people are.

I think her height range is very small compared to the others like

She’s 5’5-5’6

She gives off the vibes for that like not too short not too tall just average.

Maru

In my opinion Maru is the youngest out of the bachelorettes AND bachelors because I think everyone is around the same age and she’s the younger sister of Sebastian who I think is closer to everyone else’s ages so it makes her younger.

I think she’s about 19-21

Like yes she’s working as a nurse, but it’s a small town and she’s an actual genius, I don’t think they care that she’s young. Besides Harvey handles everything on his own she mostly does paperwork and assistant stuff.

Her height has to be around like 5’2-5’4 I think she is a very small girl despite Robin and Demetrius being a little on the taller side.

Leah

I think she might be the second oldest out of the bachelorettes

Like her backstory is her working in a dead end job, she was in a longtime relationship and could’ve gotten married had she not decided to leave

So she’s about 27-31 she’s not the same age as Emily, but she does hang out with Elliott so I think she’s a little older.

I think she’s about 5’6 she makes me feel as if she’s about average in heigh because of how artistic she is I feel like anyone smaller would be very disadvantaged when carving or doing anything and so would someone taller.

Pierre

I think he would be about 5’9-5’11

Like he doesn’t seem too tall but he does give me taller side energy

Would probably tell people he’s 6 feet bc he gives me the vibes of someone who would because he wants to seem like he’s perfect.

I think he’s like 45-48

He is for sure older than Caroline especially because I believe he is into the traditional gender roles which means younger wife and older husband.

Caroline

Caroline I think is a very average woman. And not by looks because I think she actually would be quite attractive like I feel like she would be vERY beautiful.

I mean in terms of her body, she isn’t too big or too small, she didn’t have too much fat or too little her body is just average.

So I think she would be 5’4-5’6

I also think all of the moms are in a similar age range so she would be 44-47

Honestly with the way they’re designed I would’ve said 30s but that would make no sense if their kids are in the marrying age/having kids range.

Jodi

I think she is on the shorter side, she gives me short thicc mom energy. Especially because Kent is a military man.

So maybe 5’2-5’5 bc I think Kent towers over her and so does Sam. The kids did not get her genes because I do think Vincent would be quite tall when he is an adult.

I also think she would be like 43-46 she has a kid that’s an adult and a kid that’s a child so I think this age range would be more plausible for her to have had one kid young and the other one at an older age.

Kent

Is large and in charge like BIG MAN

So I think he must be 6’2-6’5

Like towers over most people and intimidates them based on size alone.

Similar age as Jodi. I think they probably were in the same grade in high school so same age 43-46

Vincent

Right now like as of year 1 would probably be tiny

Like people think he’s going to turn out like Jodi but would actually turn out to be like Kent and Sam and be huge.

So maybe like 3’10?

Kinda small for his age but not like super small?

He is probably 6 or 7 years old

So CUTEEEEEE

Evelyn

Granny Evelyn is probably TINY

Like I think she is 4’9

She’s so cute and small and was probably taller when she was younger

Also old as HELL from how she looks

So maybe from 80-95

Because she as well as George have to older than everyone on the older side.

George

Was probably on the taller side before he was wheelchair bound.

Probably 5’11 exactly like not super tall but tall enough.

Him and Evelyn have such a big height gap and it’s ADORABLE.

I think maybe 2 or 3 years older than Evelyn

83-98 so super old lmao

Pam

I think the oldest out of the parents

So maybe 49-54

She hates the fact that she’s on the older side out of the parents, especially because she isn’t really close to the others as much as she would like to be. She feels out of place among them.

I think she’s about 5’6 I can see her being VERY beautiful when she was younger, and she probably still has a nice body and face, especially if she stops drinking.

Lewis

His ass is probably in his 60s but sees himself as younger

I think 60s isn’t really old at all, like it’s still enough time to do different things.

But his glory days are over

Probably 5’9 like average height.

Clint

I think he might be younger than Emily. His crush seems very immature to me. And it makes him a little less incel-y but idk.

So maybe 27-30?

He’s definitely old enough to know not to act a fool but like it makes sense at this age that he’s an asshole after being rejected for so long y’know.

I think he’s maybe 5’9? Not too short but not too tall. Definitely thinks being taller could’ve helped his situation.

Gunther

I cannot tell anything about this man at ALL

He’s very mysterious

I think he is literally 40-59

Could literally be anywhere in that

He’s probably 5’10 too since I think he’s able to see something on the shelves, and he can see over the counter.

Gus

He’s on the older side. Idk if he has kids or anything, but he gives dad vibes

So maybe 50-59 not too old but like middle aged.

Very sweet and that’s what gives me the father vibes.

Also he doesn’t seem like a gossip but knows a lot which gives me that age range.

I think he’s either 5’6 or 6’3 nothing else. I think 5’6 is more likely though.

Demetrius

I think he is a little younger than Robin. It’s lowkey what makes him and Sebastian to be so bad at getting along.

So maybe 40-42?

Old enough to be a dad but not really old enough I guess.

I think he is VERY tall. Especially since in game it looks like he has a little height over Robin.

So 6’3 at the shortest? 6’5 at the most?

Robin

43-46

I think she had Sebastian at 20? Maybe younger but I think 20 is a good age. She was young and barely out of teenagedom that her parents were probably upset.

I think she’s a little tall but not too tall like 5’7

Very beautiful and her legs are longer than her torso but not in a tall SpongeBob vibe y’know.

Marlon

I think he’s in his 50s? So 50-60

I think he is younger than Lewis and that’s also why they can’t really get along other than Marnie.

Probably 5’10

Like tall enough that when fighting monsters he has no disadvantage but not so tall that he can’t get anything done.

Linus

He is also mysterious.

He looks old but at the same time he lives in nature and his looks probably don’t match his age.

So anywhere from 50-70?

Some 70 year olds look young and can move around and I don’t doubt that he is agile due to him being a nature man.

Leo

On the taller side of kids.

So sort of like 4’5 or almost 5’0

I think Leo is older than Jas and Vincent

But not too much older that it’s weird.

So maybe 10?

Marnie

I think she is on the older side. I don’t think that she is too old, for sure younger than Lewis

I think she’s like 50-56?

Young enough that Lewis wants to sleep with her for sure

Also young enough that she still hopes by some miracle that she has a child

I think she’s like 5’2-5’4

Rasmodius

I think he is either like super old like hundreds of years or like a mortal person old

So maybe like 60-70

Quite a bit older than Caroline and old enough that he has lived and seen some things

Like an affair and a divorce and losing everything

Probably 6’0 exactly ngl

Jas

Also on the smaller side, and will end up like 5’2 at most when she’s older

So like 3’7 first year she is a very small BABY

She’s also the same age as Vincent so 6 or 7

Willy

I think he is old but doesn’t look it

So in his 60s-70s

Has time to fish and perfect it has time to gain things and lose things

Has lived through a LOT

I think he is 5’5-5’9

A bit on the smaller side but y’know short kings exist.

[puripurin]

Again, thanks 4 da idea, @littlekohai77!! Now this is the one where cute yan monster's darling is meeting his mother.

Tw: rape (a person mentioned in an ask.)

— "You have a human mother??" You said in confusion. I mean, you could see it, but was there anyone who could survive this long with a hanging jaw? It's been a few weeks since you met Aimilios, but you've never seen his mother roaming around.

"Yeah! You've never seen her because my mama is always in the basement of the building now because in recent years, many people have come and tried to "save" her, I don't know why, though. She looks safe and happy! She enjoys running around, hiding from my father, and loves being tossed around him. They're actually trying to kidnap her and experiment on her because she's very pretty. That's what I've come up with. How horrifying." You tried your best not to look skeptical, though. You didn't want him to burst out crying because you told him what people actually see when a woman is running around in an abandoned building being manhandled by a monster. So you kept your mouth shut on that part and changed the topic to his father.

"Wait, but your father is that crazy horned bastard who doesn't like me?" You furrowed your eyebrows as Aimilios tilted his head, trying to understand what you mean.

"Yeah, and he and my mama love each other very much! Just like you and me, we love each other very much, mh! You are my one and only." He hugged you and snuggled into you before grabbing your hands.

"Because papa finally trusts you enough. He finally allowed me to show you where mama is staying and meet her. So can we meet her now?" He smiles at you and grips your hands tightly. Although you go swooped up into this ridiculous situation by force, you could tell that it means a lot to him to see his mother.

"I-... okay, we can see her." He squeezed your hands tightly and hugged you one more time before leading you down a flight of steps to the basement. He breathed in before opening the door too fast and hit himself in the face and slammed his hand on the wall when he pulled the door open. He slowly crumbles to the floor in pain.

"Oh! Amy, is that you– ACK!" You heard a harsh thud as the woman fell to the ground. You slowly led Aimilios inside the room with the hand that wasn't swollen with pain and saw the woman covering her mouth in pain. How unfortunate is this family that they get injuries at the same time??

After a couple of minutes, it was silent. Aimilios' mother was looking away in embarrassment as she held an ice pack to her lips while Aimilios, who was sitting next to you, held an ice pack to his nose and his hand was on the table with an ice pack resting on top of it.

Now that you're looking at her, you can see where Aimilios' cuteness came from. This woman looks young, almost similar in age to Aimilios, and has the exact same eyebrows, eye shape, and nose as him. The eye colour came from his father, but his hair? You have no idea where it came out from.

"R-right. I'm sorry about that you had to witness that, (Y/n)... My first impression of you must be bad, so I'm sorry about that." She lifted the ice pack when she needed to speak and was extremely embarrassed by the situation.

"Ah, no worries. I can see where Aimilios got his clumsiness from. My name is (Y/n) (L/n), and im 23." You smiled at her and gave your hand for her to shake, to which she obliged to.

"You can just call me mom. I'm the mother of Aimilios and the wife of that grumpy little beast. Im 44 years old." She smiled as you looked surprised.

"44? You look the same age as Aimilios!" His mother just chuckled and put her hand on her cheek from the compliment.

"So how did you meet Aimilios because I have a feeling that he's lying to me about saving you from one of the ruined rooms in this place." Aimilios' face exploded into a bright red blush.

"N-no! I wasn't lying! Mom!" Aimilios covered your ears, but it was too late, you burst out in laughter.

"T-that's what he told you!?!? Hahahahaha!" You wiped your nonexistent tears as Aimilios put the ice packs into the bowl on the table and covered his face from embarrassment. His mother let out a couple of chuckles.

"Well, I was exploring this place because I was bored, and when I was walking when all of a sudden, he came out only to hit his face on a hanging piece of metal. He was going to cry--" You laughed, but Aimilios covered your mouth.

"I-I'm going to get water." He said in embarrassment and shuffled to the makeshift kitchen to open the tap. He huffed turned back.

"Mom... There's no water. I'll go outside to turn on the water..." He quickly left with a set of keys. As soon as you heard the door clicked, you turned back to the mother.

"Why are you not telling him the fact that people are really trying to save you out of concern??" You spoke out, really wanting to know the reason why she hasn't told him anything. His mother slapped a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes out of embarrassment.

"You don't know how hard it it to go up to him and say, "Oh, it's not because people want to kidnap me because they want experiment on me, it's because when i have fun with my husband, they either think he's mauling me to death or raping me! Sorry, son!" It's not easy-" There was a drop of keys both you and his mom eyes widened in horror as Aimilios was standing at the door, tears welling in his eyes.

"Mom! (Y/n)! How could you lie to me!!!" He cries and runs away.

"aMy NOOOOO!!!"

Okay, okay, that ending was super fun to write 💀💀 this is better than the storytelling one cus this is goofy asf. Anyways how do yall like the names ive picked out for cute yan monster and his father? I better hear amazing, Googling shit is hard /j

Also the hair colour thing is intentional cus i have an idea with that 🤭 sorry if your oc has blond hair thoughhh.

Note prooftread.

Edut: forgor tags again. Mb

[venuscarrotsoup]

Gyomei and Kagaya friendship analysis/yap

Everybody overlooks this relationship, not on purpose of course, but it’s not really noticed. Yes, Ubuyashiki views all the demon slayers as his children, especially the hashira, but him and Gyomei have a special bond.

Side note: I find it cute how Kagaya calls all the demon slayers by their first names because no parent would call their child by their last name 😭💓🤞

Gyomei was around 18 when the temple incident happened, he was rescued by Kagaya shortly after, meaning he’s been close to Kagaya for around 9 years, allowing them to have a really close bond.

Kagaya did so much for Gyomei, he saved him from being executed, and saw him differently from everyone else. Gyomei felt like others viewed him as a monster after the incident, but Kagaya knew of his innocence, and saved him. And when Gyomei broke down, Kagaya held him and comforted him. Gyomei even stated that Kagaya would say exactly what one wanted to hear, he told Gyomei that he wasn’t a murderer, which caused Gyomei to break down, as he was experiencing guilt and self-loathing after that incident.

Gyomei would’ve been there to see the Ubuyashiki family grow, since all the kids are around 8 years old. I feel like Gyomei and Kagaya have been there for each other every step of the way, I believe they were good friends, despite having distance due to Kagaya’s status as the master.

Kagaya trusts all his children, but he had the most trust with Gyomei, because of that strengthened bond from all the time they’ve spent by each others side. Kagaya entrusted Gyomei with his plan, and I believe he also wanted to say a final goodbye to one of his closest friends, he knew Gyomei would understand, because he has such a kind, calm and understanding soul, he wouldn’t freak out, he would simply go along with the plan and carry it out in Kagaya’s honour.

I like these two images paired together, it’s a nice parallel. In the first image Gyomei is at his lowest, and had just escaped death, relieved and emotional due to Kagaya’s actions, and Kagaya is there to comfort him. In the second image, Kagaya is at his lowest, his illness at its worst, and he is about to meet death, Gyomei is there to support him. And of course, Gyomei is crying in both images, and Kagaya is smiling, just like his calm, serene self always is. It’s a nice contrast as Kagaya was part of the reason Gyomei escaped death, and gyomei was part of the plan that would ensue Kagaya’s death.

Their relationship truly is beautiful, and I wish we had a bit more content of their friendship, because I know it was a strong one.

Another detail I really liked is how gyomei got so angry here when sanemi disrespected Kagaya, veins were popping out of him and everything. Gyomei is normally a calm and collected guy, but Kagaya is literally such a good friend to Gyomei that he can’t stand anyone disrespecting him, that was such a nice detail.

Look at him, still trying to remain calm but not being able to mask his anger because Kagaya has just been screamed at by this roach. Gyomei obviously really appreciates Kagaya for what he did for him (freeing him from death.) and it’s so adorable.

In conclusion, what I’m trying to say here is that these two have a very good relationship/bond which is very underrated and overlooked. I only came to this conclusion when I first watched season 4 episode 8, as it’s not very obvious since the two act professional in the only episodes they’re together before that (s1 e22-23). Please nobody try and twist my words to make it out like I’m shipping the two because I’m not, key word in the title: FRIENDSHIP.

Kagaya himself is underrated as well, give my king some more attention!! Anyways if you read this THANK YOU SO MUCH, I needed to yap abt them, and plz any gyomei fans and even better, people who share the same views as me on this, moot me up on TikTok at @inlovewithkorra <3

[willowsnook]

coach's daughter

hii can i get ham and swiss on rye mikes way 🙏

a/n: I wrote this whole thing, forgetting it was supposed to have smut and didn't really feel like it fit. i am sorry :( but I could do a pt. 2 with it if anyone wants it

joe burrow x taylor!reader

just let me in

———————————————————

Joe had known quite a few coaches in his football career and, for the most part, liked them all. They were all good people that he got along with well. Zac was no different when it came to that, but there was one thorn in their relationship: his 23-year-old daughter. 

You did not like Joe Burrow. You didn’t really have a reason not to like him, but you just didn’t. You liked underdogs, always drifting towards the undrafted guys on the team, and he was the opposite of that. It’s not like you were out right mean to him, you just regarded him with cold indifference. Everyone’s infatuation with him made you dislike him more, much to your father’s dismay. Your dad was your best friend, and he had made sure you were by his side ever since you were a kid, which meant that football was also your life. You’d studied sports management at Cincinnati and now worked on the scouting team for the Bengals. You knew you only got your foot in the door because of your dad, but why waste opportunities right in front of you? 

This season had been rough, and you felt it at work and every time you talked to your dad. He was quieter, dejected almost, as he tried to figure out how to move the team forward. It didn’t help either that some players spoke more candidly with the press about the struggles. 

“I’ve done everything I can on the field. Ask the coaches, ask Zac, man, I don’t know,” Ja’Marr told a reporter who asked what could have been done differently after another loss.

The comment made you feel conflicted because, on the one hand, he was right, and you knew football well enough to know that. But on the other hand, it was your dad, and you knew your dad. You know how great of a coach he can be. Leaving the facility that night, you were irritated and, of course, had to run into the one person who you knew would make it worse. 

“Hey,” Joe said as he followed you out the door into the private parking lot. 

“Hey,” you replied, your voice clipped and he sighed next to you.

“Why the attitude? " he said, and you didn’t say anything; you just kept walking towards your car. You’d made it and were just about to open the car when you felt Joe grab your arm, forcing you to turn around. “I don’t agree with what Ja’Marr said.” 

“I find that hard to believe,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest. “You are two peas in a pod. I’m sure you’ve talked about it.”

“We are two different people ya know,” he argued, eyes narrowing. “He’s upset. We all are.”

“I’m upset too Joe, but what the fuck do you want me to do about it right now? I don’t care if you do agree with Ja’Marr, why are you cornering me in a parking lot to tell me that?” You snapped and you could tell he was starting to get annoyed. 

“I was just going to my car but thought it might be a good idea to be nice to you, but I guess I was wrong,” he said, frustrated, and you took a step closer to him. 

“I don’t need you to be nice to me, I need you to do your fucking job on the field,” you shot back. Logically, you knew there was nothing he was doing wrong on the field, but you were too mad to admit that. 

“Tell your dad to do his first,” he automatically said, and you flinched back, eyes blinking, trying to process whether he actually said that. 

“i didn-,” he started but you held up your hand to stop him from continuing. 

“Heard,” was all you replied before turning and getting into your car. The audacity of that man. He stood frozen watching you as you pulled out of the lot, praying that his words didn’t reach your dad’s ears. 

————————————————

You didn’t tell your dad what Joe had said; you were trying to keep anything the press was saying about him away, which was difficult considering he had a phone, but hell, you were trying. The weeks were starting to wear you down, and along with doing your workload, you were carrying a lot of emotional weight for your dad.

The two of you were closer than most dads and daughters, and you saw it as part of your job as his daughter to get him through this. For the past two weeks, you have been doing deep analysis of both games and talking it over with him, highlighting good things and how he could expand on them moving forward. Because of this, you have been running on about 5 hours of sleep each night, less on the weekends when you have to travel for college games.

Clocking in another late night at the facility, you were stopped on your way out by the sight of two people on the field throwing the ball back and forth. Curious, you stepped out and realized it was Joe and Ja’Marr getting some reps in during the cold night.

Ja’Marr noticed you first, jogging over to meet you as you stepped out on the field. Joe turned to see what he was looking at and hesitated as he saw you.

“Late night practice?” You joked with a forced smile.

“Thought it couldn’t hurt,” Ja’Marr said before looking at the ground. “I’m sorry for what I said about coach. I know you aren’t him but I’m sure it didn’t feel good hearing it.”

“It’s alright,” you said, looking at him. “We’re all going through it.”

Joe frowned at your response to Ja’Marr, which turned into a slight pout. “I don’t understand why you bit my head off about this, but you are being nice to him, and he’s the one who said it.”

“He doesn’t irritate me like you do,” you said, rolling your eyes. Ja’Marr smirked, looking between the two of you.

“I don’t even do anything to you,” Joe complained and you shrugged.

“What are you guys really doing out here?” You asked, catching them both off guard. You didn’t miss the nervous glance Ja’Marr gave to Joe so you turned to him waiting.

“I’m worried about my wrist in the cold,” he admitted, bracing for impact of what he imagined would be a million more questions from you.

“Okay. Get on with it,” you said, and Ja’Marr nodded, running back out. You stayed rooted where you were standing, wrapping your arms around yourself to try and keep a little warm. Joe was looking at you, trying to figure out what you were doing, but eventually accepted it. He tugged off his sweatshirt, leaving him in only a tight long sleeve, and handed it to you.

“I’m fine,” you said stubbornly and he gave you a look.

“Put it on,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument, so you begrudgingly slipped the hoodie over your head. You stood watching for about 10 rounds of passing before walking closer to Joe, eyebrows furrowed. He looked at you expectantly.

“You have a problem,” you stated and he stiffened, nervous about what you were thinking.

“It’s my first time doing it tonight, and I think it will feel better if I keep at it. It feels okay now, just a little stiff,” he started off, but you shook your head, stopping him.

“You have a mental problem, it’s not the physical wrist,” you told him and he rolled his eyes.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“How could you even know that? You’re not me,” he said and your eyes hardened at his stubbornness.

“Ja’Marr, come here,” you yelled and the receiver jogged over. “Are you getting the same passes you normally get from Joe?”

Ja’Marr shifted nervously, “he’s throwing good passes.”

“That wasn’t the question,” you said, and Ja’Marr finally shook his head no as Joe glared at him. Your eyes softened as you looked back at Joe. “You’re hesitating. Afraid of re-injury, which is completely normal.”

Joe's jaw clenched as he processed your words. He wanted to deny it, to argue that you didn't know what you were talking about. But deep down, he knew you were right. The fear of re-injuring his wrist had been gnawing at him, affecting his performance more than he wanted to admit.

"So what if I am?" he finally said, his voice low and defensive. "It's not like I can just turn it off."

You sighed, running a hand through your hair. Despite your usual animosity towards Joe, you couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy. "Look, I'm not saying it's easy. But you need to address it if you want to move past it."

Ja'Marr nodded in agreement. "She's right, man. We've all noticed it, but didn't want to say anything."

Joe's shoulders slumped slightly in defeat and you felt a wave of sadness wash over you.

“We have a team psychologist for a reason,” you said. “No one has to know.”

He nodded and you could tell his mind was reeling. Deciding that it was time to go home you started to lift up the hoodie he gave you but he stopped you.

“It’ll be cold going home, so just give it to me sometime later,” he said, and you nodded. Waving goodbye to Ja’Marr, you headed off the field, your mind focused on a certain quarterback.

———————————————————————

Something was off with you, but Joe couldn’t figure out what it was. You looked tired, he thought, and you weren’t taking jabs at him when he provoked you anymore. It was starting to irritate him mostly because you had figured him out so quickly. He contemplated this as he headed towards Zac’s office, stopping short when he saw you outside of it talking to a couple of assistants.

“I saw the interview this morning. I don’t think he’s seen it yet, so let's try our best to make sure it’s not brought up. I already talked with PR this morning, who is trying to distract away from it.”

The assistants nodded as you finished talking, and everything started to click for Joe. You were trying your best to shield your dad from the negative so that he could focus on fixing the team, but it was clearly taking a toll on you.

He walked into Zac’s office a couple of minutes after you and saw Zac looking over some papers you had just handed him. You gave him a small smile as he entered and turned to leave. Joe sat down, waiting for Zac to dive into the meeting.

“God, this team would fall apart without her,” he muttered and looked up to see Joe, curiously looking at him. “She’s been writing up game analysis from this year with suggestions and whatnot, trying to keep me focused. Maybe the team wouldn’t fall apart without her, but I certainly would.”

Joe nodded, “She forced me to see the team psychologist.”

“I heard,” Zac replied, looking at his quarterback.

“I was surprised, considering it doesn’t seem like she likes me that much,” Joe admitted and Zac laughed.

“Yeah whatever, she likes you more than a lot of the guys here,” he said.

“She’s not very friendly to me,” he said and Zac was amused at seeing an almost pout on Joe’s face.

“That’s how I know she likes you,” he said. “She’s always been like that, putting up a brick wall to guard what she’s feeling or thinking.”

Joe's brow furrowed as he processed Zac's words. He'd never considered that your cold demeanor towards him might be masking something else. It made him think back to your interactions over the past few weeks - the way you'd figured out his mental block on the field, how you'd given him advice about seeing the team psychologist. Maybe there was more beneath the surface than he'd realized.

"I never thought about it that way," Joe admitted. "She just always seemed so... irritated by me."

Zac chuckled. "Trust me, if she truly didn't like you, you'd know it. She's not one to hide her feelings when she really dislikes someone."

Joe nodded slowly, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "So you're saying I might have a chance then?"

Zac's eyebrows shot up. "Woah there, did you forget who you’re talking to?”

Joe immediately turned red because he had, in fact, forgotten. He was frozen, thinking about how he had just asked his head coach if he could date his daughter.

————————————————————

The loss to the Steelers broke you. It finally felt like everything was starting to fall apart. After the game, you were silent, staying on the field longer to think. It felt like you were shouldering everyone else’s burdens, and now you were collapsing.

“Have you seen y/n?” Joe heard Zac ask as people were leaving the locker room. “She normally stops by after the game.”

He had noticed that during the season, win or lose, you always walked out with your dad, so this was unusual.

“Do you know where y/n lives?” He asked Ja’Marr, trying to act as casually as possible. Ja’Marr looked up at him with a wide grin.

“Why do you want it?” He asked, a teasing glint in his eyes.

“No reason,” he replied quickly and somehow the grin got wider.

“I fucking knew it,” he said.

“Knew what?”

“You have a thing for her!” Ja’Marr exclaimed and Joe quickly looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot.

“So what?” He replied, trying to act like he wasn’t rattled.

“Here’s her address, lover boy,” Ja’Marr teased, letting Joe copy it into his phone. “Enjoy your last weeks alive before he finds out.”

Once he had finished at the facility, Joe drove over to your place, admiring the cute little cottage-style house you owned. He knocked on the door, trying to figure out his game plan.

You had just gotten out of the shower and changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt as you headed towards the door. Shocked was an understatement about how you felt seeing Joe at the door.

“Can I come in?”He asked, shivering from the cold. You stepped aside as he came into the warmer air.

“What are you doing here? And how do you know where I live?” You asked, watching him sit down on a barstool and turn to face you.

“I wanted to see if you were okay,” he said nonchalantly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Don’t you have my number?” You countered.

“Would you have answered?” He shot back and you stayed silent while he smiled triumphantly.

“I’m fine,” you said, crossing your arms. “Now leave.”

“Nope.” Joe said staring you down.

You sighed heavily, realizing Joe wasn't going to leave easily. "Look, I appreciate the concern, but I really just want to be alone right now."

Joe's eyes softened as he looked at you. "I get it. But I also know what it's like to shoulder everyone else's burdens. It's not healthy to keep it all bottled up."

His words hit closer to home than you wanted to admit. You felt your defenses start to crack slightly. "What do you want from me, Joe?"

"Just talk to me," he said gently. "No judgement, no expectations. Just... let me in."

You hesitated, warring with yourself. Part of you wanted to maintain the walls you'd built, to push him away like you always did. But another part, a part you'd been ignoring, craved the connection.

"I don’t know how,” you admitted. “I’m so focused on everyone else I don’t think I can understand how I’m feeling.”

“Why?” He asked softly. “Why do you feel like you have to fix everyone?”

His question caught you off guard. You had never really realized it about yourself, but it checked out. You were the friend everyone came to for advice or help fixing a problem. Historically, all your boyfriends had been guys with something you wanted to fix. And now you were spending your time studying games so closely to help your dad fix his team.

“I don’t like things I can’t control, but everything is starting to feel like it’s spiraling,” you said and your voice cracked on the last word. Joe quickly got up and had pulled you into his chest as the first tear hit your cheek.

You stiffened at first, not used to this level of intimacy with Joe. But as he held you tightly, rubbing soothing circles on your back, you felt yourself start to relax. The dam finally broke and you let out a choked sob, burying your face in his chest.

"It's okay," Joe murmured, his voice low and comforting. "Let it out."

And you did. All the stress, the worry, the frustration of the past weeks came pouring out. Joe just held you, occasionally whispering words of comfort, but mostly just being a steady presence.

"I just... I feel like if I can't fix everything, then what good am I?" You whispered.

Joe's eyes softened with understanding. "You don't have to fix everything, y/n. You're not responsible for everyone else's problems or failures.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” You asked, trying to lighten the mood. “I’ve been so mean to you.”

“Your dad told me that it meant you liked me,” he said with a small grin. You blushed, burying your head back into his chest. You felt the rumble of his laughter as you burned with embarrassment.

“Why don’t I order us something to eat, and we can watch a movie or something?” he suggested, and you nodded, grateful that he had come. You heard him call a pizza place before he joined you on the couch, choosing to sit right next to you.

You felt yourself relax as Joe settled in next to you on the couch. The warmth of his body was comforting, and you found yourself leaning slightly towards him without even realizing it.

"So, what are we watching?" Joe asked, grabbing the remote.

You shrugged. "Something mindless? I don't think I can handle anything too heavy right now."

"Mindless it is," Joe agreed, scrolling through Netflix until he found a cheesy rom-com.

As the movie played on, you found yourself forgetting about the stress of the past few weeks. Joe’s arm had somehow ended up draped across the back of the couch, and you weren’t sure when, but your head was now resting on his shoulder. It was surprisingly…nice.

“I never pegged you as a rom-com guy,” you teased softly, breaking the comfortable silence.

Joe smirked, his voice light. “Don’t knock it. Sometimes you just need a happy ending.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, fighting a smile. “Is that so?”

He turned his head to meet your eyes, his expression uncharacteristically serious.

“Yeah, it is. And maybe you need one, too.”

His words hung in the air, the weight of them settling in your chest. There was something so genuine in the way he looked at you that it made your heart race.

“I don’t know if I’m cut out for happy endings,” you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. “I’m too busy trying to keep everyone else’s story from falling apart.”

Joe reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering just slightly. “Maybe it’s time you let someone else take care of you for a change.”

You felt your breath hitch, the vulnerability in his words sending a warmth through your chest. Before you could overthink it, before you could convince yourself otherwise, you leaned in and pressed a soft, hesitant kiss to his lips.

Joe froze for half a second before kissing you back, his hand coming up to cup your cheek gently. The kiss was slow and unhurried like he had all the time in the world to show you exactly how much he cared.

When you finally pulled away, his forehead rested against yours, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Guess your dad was right,” Joe murmured, his tone teasing but his eyes filled with something much deeper. “You do like me.”

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t help the smile spreading across your face. “Shut up, Burrow.”

[madelynraemunson]

CALL OUT MY NAME ♛

(Book #2 of the Hellfire Gentlemen's Club Series)

CEO!bachelor!steve × fem!college grad!reader

𝐌𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍 𝐀𝐔 • 18+ | BOOK #1 (e.m.)

Chapter 002: Long Live the King

Isabelle is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile at the club, you gather up the courage to buy a Handsome Stranger a drink.

↳ 001 (PROLOGUE) // 002 // 003 // 004 // 005 // 006 // 007 EPILOGUE

CW: slight age gap (steve is 31, sweets is 23) , homoerotic steddie workout scene (just guys bein dudes) 😵‍💫🚨 drinking, smoking, gambling, drugs mentioned, shy girl makes one (1) unaliving joke, weight discussed briefly, this chapter contains scene/POV splits, each chapter will have its own warnings

card suits divider by @cafekitsune 🃏🧡

a/n: the hargroves own 'rock you like hurricane', do not try to change my mind.

“SHUT UP & PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS.”

word count: 5.6k words

♛

12:03 PM - Sweets and Isabelle

“There he goes again,” Isabelle sighs. “Long Live the King…”

It’s the sixth Elvis impersonator you’ve seen so far. Further down the strip of Old Vegas there was Jailhouse Rock Elvis, Unchained Melody Elvis, Elvis-If-You-Tried-To-Draw-Him-By-Memory, and Donuts-On-The-Toilet Elvis.

“I feel like I’ve seen every variant of The King possible,” you remark. “All that’s missing now is ShowGirl Elvis or Stripper Elvis.”

The statement alone piques your curiosity while you and Isabelle continue to walk. Suddenly, you find yourself asking your BFF a very interesting question.

“Would you ever wanna be a stripper?”

Isabelle stiffens abruptly.

It’s a pause you’ve never seen before in your life. But given that Isabelle has been an extreme empath for as long as you’ve known her, women in sex work may be a very sensitive topic.

“No,” Elle says to you, flatly. “They go through entirely too much.”

It’s the response you expected. It’s very easy for Isabelle to put herself in other people’s shoes — or heels in this sense. Even easier if they’re women at the hands of a man who holds a fair amount of power over them. It’s no wonder it seems triggering.

“It’s an admirable job though,” she manages to add. “Strippers don’t get enough credit. If I had a stripper in my life I would treat her like a queen.”

“Well, you'll have the chance to tonight," you smirk. "Given where we're going..."

Tonight you two are headed to Jackpot Gentlemen's Club, a strip joint on the outskirts of Vegas right outside Winchester.

It's more of a business endeavor than anything. The plan is to support all the beautiful dancers, all while promoting Isabelle's lingerie line, Bright & Belle.

For as long as you've known Isabelle, she's always been money-driven.

But in the best way. After divorcing from her ex-husband — Eddie, you believe his name was — Isabelle had been hyper-fixated on the hustle. And after seeing that ‘Girl-Boss’ mindset of hers flourish throughout the years, you wanted to be there for her in anyway you can.

What you haven't told Isabelle though, is that you wanted to feel sexy too. You’ve been deficient in Vitamin A(ttention) as of late, and a non-committal hook up in a "What Happens Here, Stays Here" type city sounded pretty enticing. A graduation reward and all.

"When was the last time you got laid?" Isabelle abruptly pries.

Piggybacking off your thoughts. How on-brand for the two of you.

You mask your thoughts further with a scoff of annoyance.

"Elle."

"Don't Elle me," she bumps you with her hip. "When was the last time you got a proper dicking down? Like really."

"I'm celibate," you lie snarkily.

"Oh come on!" she groans. "I know that's a lie. You know that's a lie. I mean, have you read the room? We are in Vegas."

You indeed have read the room. But that was besides the point. Isabelle has been so focused on creating a better life for herself, and she's done so much for you as well that you felt as if your presence at all times was mandated.

"I just don't wanna be all lovey-dovey in your face," you shamefully admit. "Especially since you're still healing from your own losses with love. Given your divorce from Eddie and all."

Isabelle rolls her eyes.

"Oh you mean the divorce that happened four years ago?!" she demands. "Almost five now, I think. Just because you're more likely to have a night to be celebrated and adored as a goddess, doesn't mean any of that is taken away from me."

You smile sheepishly at the floor, hooking your arms with Isabelle's as you two continue on your walk.

"Besides, I'm much older than you," she points out. "I've had my glory days. Now it's time for you to be selfish. Enjoy the rest of your 20s. What other place to do it than Vegas?"

She flashes a charming grin your way. "And I've got your back through and through."

"I love you," you beam at Isabelle tear-eyed. "You're the sister I never had."

“I love you too," she coos. "More than anything in the world. I'd be your non-biological sister in every lifetime if I could."

You two take a moment to fully admire each other, doing your little handshake you came up with when you met her in the early years of college, to honor your established sisterhood.

You and Isabelle against the world. No matter what.

Afterwards, Isabelle wraps you up in her arms as you two walk.

"Onwards, sweetheart. Let's go find you a King of your own.”

“I WANNA SEE YOU WORK OUT FOR ME. WORK OUT FOR ME.”

12:03 PM - Steve and Eddie

“Mmmh…fuck…shit.”

The room echoes with Steve’s strained grunts as sweat pools at his forehead.

It’s the workout of his life. But of course anyone would feel that way, running solely on coffee and a single scoop of creatine, right at peak lunchtime.

“Shit,” The King pants. "Don’t know how much left I got in me, Eds."

His pumps? Weaker. His reps? Gradually more incomplete. And with enough intensity to draw blood, Steve bites his lower lip in concentration, the grunting inevitably summoning Eddie over to his struggling friend.

The rugged metalhead leaps from the bar he was doing pull-ups from and strides towards the retired jock.

“You can handle it, Big Boy.”

Situating himself over Steve, Eddie floats his chalky palms over The King’s protruding chest, feet shoulder width apart and ready to spot.

“I…UGH— I…can’t!”

“Quit whining. I know you can.”

“I CAN’T! It’s too much…m literally shaking, Eds.”

“If you aren’t shaking you’re not doing it right,” Eddie Munson smirks. “Finish for me, Stevie, let’s go.”

The bulk of Steve’s arms relax and contract as The King pushes upwards, face scrunching in euphoric agony with every pump.

SLAM! CLINK!

Eddie's quick to swoop down to the base of the machine with one hand, reach extending to Steve with the other. Meanwhile Steve scrunches himself upwards, leaning forward on the bench as he wipes his forehead that was dripping with sweat. He's tapped out.

"You okay?" Eddie asks.

“Yeah..." Steve pants as he collects himself. "Yeah. I am. Thanks."

Steve takes a moment to look at himself in the high-rise glass mirror.

Naturally the arms come into sight first. There's a foreign roundness to them, and an undeniable softening of Steve's chest that the girls at Hellfire call "broad and beefy", but he can only categorize it as "fluffy". His gaze then dips down to his tummy, an avenue once firm and washboard-like now presenting with a soft, undeniable curve. No abs. Just flesh... a sobering manifestation of what too many nights of dry gin and "The Eddie Special": Spice Level Unforgiven can do to a guy. And while others might call it a “Certified Dad Bod,” Steve never found the compliment flattering. It just reminds him—he's getting older. Living on borrowed time.

"Holy shit," Steve breaks the silence. "I need to lay off the margaritas.”

“Well now isn’t the time to do it!” Eddie exclaims, clearly doing pirouettes on the opposite side of the pendulum. "Have you read the room? We're in Vegas, baby! We need to be excretion-less, out, and ready to party by tonight!"

Finding it nearly impossible to match his energy levels, Steve studies ‘Sweaty Eddie’ as he downs his water, the protrusion of his razor-burnt Adam’s Apple bobbing with every large gulp, the B.O. radiating off his hairy armpits being enough to wipe out the entire state of Nevada with just one brisk movement.

“Man, how did you manage to get married before me?” Steve huffs. “Twice!”

Eddie laughs, keeping the water contained in his mouth with a swipe of his fingers.

“Was that supposed to be a dig?”

“Well you weren’t exactly hot shit in high school.”

“There’s your answer then," Eddie clicks his tongue as-a-matter-of-factly. He does a boisterous dance around his burnt-out buddy. "Ladies love the freaks.”

Eddie studies Steve as he continues to ponder in a tone-deaf abyss.

“That's another thing I've been meaning to talk to you about," Eddie emphasizes. "We’ve gotta get you out of that high school mindset, dude."

Steve looks up again. "Huh?"

Eddie shakes his head. “It's beginning to look like you peaked when you were 18..." He takes a minute to playfully check him out. "Which obviously isn't the truth. But operating from that headspace is what’s stopping you from getting a good lay. I guarantee you."

"That or I just don't have rizz..." Steve grimaces. "Or whatever Dustin always says."

Eddie grimaces with him. He really wished Steve would quit saying that. Or anything from Dustin's vocab bank for the matter. "Yeah. Right. Let's keep that shit a Dustin thing."

He sets his water bottle down.

"Alright Harrington, here's the plan," Eds scoffs. "Tonight we'll put on our best Gatsy cosplays, get some drinks to loosen ya up, and then meander around Jackpot so you can talk up some babes. Work on the confidence...w-"

"Yeah, I think I'll pass," Steve shrugs. "I've got some emails I gotta reply to anyway."

“Oh come on. Think of all the honeys you’ll attract post-pump!” Eddie incentivizes. “Look at them ARMS, baby. Them ARMS!"

Eddie issues himself a seat next to Steve. Steve allows him the space, but doesn't appear to be sold on the plans Eddie had for tonight.

"Look, I'm sorry the girl of your dreams ended up with my bartender," Eddie begins. "And that I unintentionally stole your other dream girl when you guys began hitting it off pretty well... and that her best friend that you were madly in love with ended up being a lesbian and you didn't find out until after the two platonic outings. And that..."

"Are you trying to make me feel like absolute dog shit?"

"No, I'm turning this into an inspirational Ted Talk if you'd let me," Eddie scorns. "Fact of the matter is, Hawkins? Is Lover's Lake. WE..."

Eddie points in the opposite direction, south of The Strip.

"...have arrived at Treasure Island, baby! Lots of fish in the sea. Lots of beautiful women looking to have a good time. You can't make any progress in the same environment that drained you. You gotta lean into new beginnings. And maybe that means finding love in a city outside your comfort zone."

"Yeah, yeah. Just cuz I spawned into a new city doesn't guarantee complete past erasure," Steve mutters. "13 years later, but I'm still that same asshole ASB kid who gave others a hard time for validation. Maybe that's my karma. Maybe I don't deserve love."

"That's where you're wrong," Eddie snaps. "You ARE deserving of love."

It is that moment the two friends' eyes meet. It hurts Eddie to see Steve self-sabotage himself. He was so excited to come to Vegas with him and Shy Girl. Imposter Syndrome will ruthlessly make someone their bitch if they let it. Not today, though. Not under Eddie's watch.

"Your life is just beginning, Steve," Eddie emphasizes. "It pains me to see that you haven't seen your full potential yet. And just because this gentleman got his happy ending... doesn't mean there isn't one for you out there."

"Why do I always run?" Steve sighs. "Why do I always run away from good opportunities knowing full well I deserve to be happy too?"

"Because you're so used to rejection," Eddie snorts. "Believe me. Takes one to know one. You'll miss out on a lot of opportunity doing that. Which is something I'm not gonna let you do. For as long as you're under my wing."

The two friends then share an affectionate, and sweaty, hug. It took a lot of hashing out for these two to get to this point. They weren't exactly the best of friends in high school. But over time, when life reared its ugly head and all they had left was each other, the two gentlemen realized they were more alike than they thought. And that was a whole 'nother avenue of self-love they had to discover; and of course they did it side by side. Steve and Eddie forever.

“Whew, let’s go!” Steve whistles, getting out of his feelings for real this time. “We earned ourselves a Fat Tuesday!”

“Now we’re talkin’!” Eddie smirks. “Can't wait to hit the clubs and find you a hottie.”

"HERE I AM! ROCKED YOU LIKE A HURRICANE."

12:30 PM - Shy Girl and Nina

"If I can't find anything to wear, I'm gonna kill myself."

Shy Girl and Nina are found anxiously strutting around Fashion Show Mall, attempting to find some cute lingerie sets before their guest performances tonight.

"Bold of you to say for someone who looks good in everything," Nina scoffs.

The club they're performing at tonight is called Jackpot, a strip joint in the outskirts of Vegas right outside Winchester. It's no Hellfire, but the name of the game remains constant: CAPITALIZE OFF OF MEN'S DESIRES.

"I need something dramatic and sexy,” Shy Girl prowls. “Something Vegas has never seen before. Something to make me stand out for the tips. Something that screams... here I am."

"We can check Victoria's..." Nina suggests.

"Tried that. Eddie pretty much bought me every set from there."

"How about Love Loft on the second floor?"

"Their sets fit me weird. And I would like their wires to hold my titties up. Not puncture my lungs, thank you very much."

Spoiled with every piece of lingerie she could ever ask for, Shy Girl still had nothing to wear tonight.

It's expected coming from a dancer who has worn and done it all. Having rocked the city of Hawkins like a hurricane straight out of California, Shy Girl was just aching for some action elsewhere. And in light of her friend Steve's booming business over the past couple of years — and in celebration of her husband's early retirement from CEO-ism — why not bring the goodies to Vegas?

"What about this, Hargrove?"

"Ew. Too much glitter."

"Okay... this then?"

"Too little glitter."

"Bitch, if you don't just DECIDE!"

It's taken ages for Shy Girl to take up the amount of space that she does. And with this newfound confidence, there was no going back. During her time at Hellfire, Shy Girl had learned to become a goddess in her own skin, the baddest bitch who was deserving of the softest life; and there wasn't anything her controlling twin brother could ever do to change her mind. And even if he wanted to, he would have to get past those steel, metal bars first. Something that's remained unsuccessful for the past year and a half.

"It can't be too sparkly, but it also can't be too basic," Shy Girl notes aloud. “Something that hugs the girls just right, but isn’t too snug in the crotch area.”

Nina nods absentmindedly as they continue to patrol.

“Something that won’t cost an arm and a leg,” Shy Girl adds. “But also not something made by a child in a sweatshop.”

“Totally,” Nina hums.

They tread onward, having probably met their steps for the day, Shy Girl growing increasingly more agitated with every stride.

“I just want something that makes me look pretty, ethereal, and soul-snatching!" she grunts again. "Is that too much to ask?!”

“Something like that?”

Shy Girl turns in the direction of Nina's pointing finger. And in her field of view is the prettiest set she's ever seen.

"Are you kidding me?!" Shy Girl squeals in excitement.

Seductive and scarlet red. Tight, satin material embellished with extravagant-looking faux diamonds. The star of the set is the heart shape neckline, with showgirl-like frills at the hips that resemble an eternal flame.

Running to the display now, Shy Girl reaches over to fondle the set while Nina desperately sets off after her.

The set is more stunning the closer they got, with so much attention to detail, it was surely crafted by a girl's girl. Someone who knows what the people want and exactly how to get it. And also a woman who is calculated.

Lady in Red.

"It's even called Lady in Red, dude," Shy Girl beams, a prominent twinkle in her eyes. "This set is made for me. WHO IS THE MASTERMIND BEHIND THIS MONEY-MAKER? I could just kiss her."

“Hmm... Elle Warren," Nina reads. "CEO of Bright & Belle.”

Beside the set is a podium that show-cases the set's creator. She's smiling in her headshot, with a pink suit and her arms crossed, showing off her radiant smile, and even more radiant ocean eyes and Barbie-blonde locks.

"Every woman deserves to feel beautiful, bold, and UNSTOPPABLE. My mission is to empower women by turning pain into power. Bright & Belle is designed to celebrate all body types, all shades, and all sizes, offering a collection that makes every woman feel confident and comfortable in her own skin. I hope to become the rainbow after someone's storm, one sexy set at a time."

“Wow," Shy Girl coos. "She’s so pretty... and inspirational.”

“Biased much?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Wh- look at her! Blonde curly hair? Piercing blue eyes, she looks just like you.”

“Maybe Billy and I have a triplet we just don’t know about,” Shy Girl theorizes, the conniving pearly-white Hargrove smirk reappearing on her face.

“Girl with the life you live, y’all might as well," Nina rolls her eyes. "Now c'mon. Let's go see what this club's all about. Bet it can't beat Hellfire."

9:00 pm - Sweets

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH A NIGHT OF SIN?"

“Now this… this is heaven.”

It appears that Jackpot is where the party is at. Isabelle's eyes light up with dollar signs when she observes the booths filled with patrons, stage badazzled with the sexiest dancers you both have ever seen, and a bar so full that there was hardly any room in the corners to wall-sit.

"Looks like we've got some impressions to make," Isabelle remarks. "That being said, I'll be in the powder room, if you'll excuse me."

You watch in disapproval as she issues a joking tap atop the tip of her nose. When she sees you scowling at her, Isabelle shrinks herself back down immediately.

"I'm joking, Sweets," she says. "I'm just going to the bathroom. You know that."

"With every joke there is a little truth," you mutter. "And you've been making a lot of blow jokes lately."

Isabelle was hooked on benzos and cocaine her first year of college. Granted, you both went to school in PULLMAN, the "hippie haven" of Washington State, so it didn't make her that much of an outlier.

But the abuse was heavy, most of it correlating with the abuse she endured in her marriage.

"Are you using again?" you accuse.

"No, honey."

"Then why'd you make a joke?"

"Because I thought it was funny. Stop looking so much into it."

You take a second to issue yourself some deep breaths. Noticing your distress, Isabelle gives you a consoling rub on your shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made that joke," she frowns. "I know how much you worry for me. But I'm clean. I promise."

"Okay," you mumble.

Friends don’t lie. And Isabelle has never given you any reason to doubt her. So why should you?

"I'll be back," she excuses herself again. "Just gonna go use the lil Big Sisters’ room. We'll be shaking ass with the strippers before you know it."

You snort to yourself as she scampers out of your sight. Now it’s just you alone with your thoughts and yearning.

Isabelle's speech from earlier echoes through your ears once again. It's time for you to enjoy your 20s. College is over and you can finally let loose. So why did you feel guilty, wanting to roam free during Isabelle’s most pivotal moment instead of supporting her? You two have been joined at the hip for so long, it felt unnatural to exclude her from things. You wanted to do everything with your “big sister”.

"Alriiiight, ladies and gentlemen," the DJ announces as he transitions his performance track to a familiar 80s song. "Thank you so much for coming and supporting all of these beautiful dancers!”

The crowd erupts in rampant cheers and whistles. You clap along too, while scanning the room for a nice guy to talk up.

“We have a special treat for you tonight,” the DJ continues. “We’ve got some dancers from out of state, so give them a warm Las Vegas welcome…”

Your gaze piques in curiosity as the R&B track fades into a guitar riff, soon to be melted into a very familiar song from the 80s, critically acclaimed by people who lived on the edge of Sexy and Wild.

“…All the way from Hawkins, Indiana…” says the DJ. “…from the HELLFIRE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB...GIVE IT UP... FOR SHYYYY GIRLLLLL!"

The music now blares through the speakers as one of the dancers makes her grand entrance. And soon a specific corner of the room erupts in a frenzy the moment she fully emerges onto the stage.

"Here I am! Rocked you like a hurricane."

And she is a smokin' hot hurricane if you ever did see one.

You fawn over the stripper’s captivating eye make-up. Her bouncy, golden blonde hair with just as bouncy, perky, tits. And the ass on this chick? That thing’s got a zip code and a mind of its own. Just look at it go.

Everyone cheers, specifically two people in the corner, presumably her hometown peeps who flew out to see her perform. There's a girl with long, dark hair, and given her attire, you presume she's a performer too. There's also a man next to her, also with long hair and is most likely her partner, hooting and hollering as if he wasn't even allowed to hoot and holler at home, handing everyone around him some shots while he praised every move she made.

“What a fucking badass,” you say to yourself. "She's got the crowd by the horns."

And that captivating red set. It suits this ‘Shy Girl’ so well it almost makes you tear up. It is then not too long after that you realize you’ve seen this set before.

It’s one of Isabelle’s sets. One of your best friend’s creations. The Lady in Red.

"That's my wife!" the Van Halen-looking guy boasts proudly. "THAT'S MY WIFE! Doing amazing, baby!"

Your suspicions were correct. Shy Girl is that man’s wife. And what a lucky man he is. Urgently grabbing your phone, you go to shoot Isabelle a text about the dancer wearing her set.

to: Isabelle Warren

Girl come quick! A dancer on stage is wearing Lady in Red! She's really good!

Enamored, you watch as Shy Girl swoops down to her knees on the left side of the tip rail. She blows the bar a kiss. When your eyes follow in that direction, you see a — very attractive — man who seems to be part of that same group, judging by how they interacted with one another from across the room.

There's a glimmer, a familiar pining in his fiery, molten eyes as he leans back against the barstool, admiring the dancer from head to toe. When they meet gazes, Shy Girl winks at him and struts away.

The exchange draws you to reach two conclusions: the man is either secretly in love with this chick, or they've been friends for a really long time.

Suits was about to be deeply infatuated with you, though. With your sudden boost of confidence to want to approach him tonight.

Without another lingering thought, you strut over to the bar to greet the older piece of eye candy with your signature, warm grin.

"Hi there.”

But his reaction is the least of what you expected.

"Oh god," the gentleman sighs. "Did he send you to me?"

Confused, you take a look around.

"Who are you talking about?"

"Oh cut the crap, kid, I've seen it all before,” the man scoffs pessimistically. “What'd he promise you? Huh? Tickets to see Adele or Blue Boys? Free rounds of shots?”

"He didn't promise me anything," you huff in protest. "God forbid I actually wanna talk to somebody on a night out. Is this a trauma response because if so, this needs to be visited. In therapy, perhaps. Not a bar."

The ego — or lack of — of the guy seemingly deflates, a flushed red color appearing at the heat of his cheekbones before radiating to his ears.

"You mean you willingly came up to me?" he continues to stare in disbelief.

"Yes..." you narrow your eyes at the Pick-Me-Nice-Guy in front of you. "But something tells me I shouldn't have."

His gaze softens even more. It's apologetic now.

"It's not every day I get approached anymore," he says. "Usually I'm the one that does the chasing."

"Well, why not?" you shrug, deflating your ego along with him as well. "You're handsome, young, look like a fun time... How can the ladies not?"

It catches him off guard.

"Young," he laughs at this. "How old are you anyways?"

"23," you gaze at him through your eyelashes. "How old are you?"

"I'm 31, cutie."

You can feel your heart beating in more places than one. And when your eyes travel down to his lap, you're greeted by a warm and open manspread, the base of his knees angled towards your body, the same way his broad torso invites you into him.

You accept his advance.

"Oh come on," you blush. "That's not even that much older."

"Not that much older? Just you wait," he says with a slight chuckle. Your breath hitches his knee brushes against your ass. "Soon you can't drink the way you used to, your knees hurt, and you wake up ten pounds heavier than the day before. Trust me, I know."

"Rich coming from someone who's a few years removed from my generation."

And rich, judging by the intoxicating cologne that clung to his skin like a second layer. Rich, judging by the perfectly pressed, popped collar of his Maceoo dress shirt. Rich, judging by his wait-list only watch that rested neatly on his wrist, catching the glare from the strobe lights every so often.

"You're kidding," he snaps you back to reality. "You're really Gen Z?"

"Yeah, can't you tell?" you tsk. You watch as his pupils drastically increase in size the more you sway into him. "I'm part of the knows-what-they-want-and-gets-it type of crowd."

You nod to the bartender to start a tab for you. Playing it safe, you request two gin-and-tonics, offering a glance to the now more-than-receptive man in front of you.

"Can't relate," he breathes. "'m a millenial."

"Ah, the hate-my-life crowd."

"Better than the hate-my-wife crowd” he winks, subtly jabbing at the ever-so-argumentative Generation-X.

"Oh definitely," you agree, clinking your glass with his. "And I can tell by your friends you guys are the total opposite."

Both of you look back over at the his friends, and to your surprise, discover that the group is staring back at you as well. Group being the Shy Girl dancer's husband and the dark-haired dancer beside him. When your eyes meet theirs they immediately look away, but sheepishly smile to each other along with "do you see this?" type of nudges.

"So what's your deal?" you smirk, turning back to the guy. "You seeing anybody?"

"If I was, I wouldn't be here talking to you, honey," Suits smirks, his espresso eyes devouring you while his palm hovers over the small of your back. "I’m really sorry we got off the wrong foot. I’m Steve.”

You tell him your name. “It’s nice to meet you, Steve.”

“You as well, Sweets.”

“What do you do for work?”

“I own my own business,” Steve smiles. “Been doing it a couple years now, and it’s really taken off.”

“What business is it?”

“I sell bobby pins,” Steve explains. It confuses you at first but you remain supportive. “But they’re a special kind.”

Intrigued, you watch as Steve digs into his pocket to fetch you some samples.

“My buddy Eddie over there owns a strip club,” Steve explains, nodding towards the feral, long-haired guy over in the corner. “And unfortunately one too many dancers have gotten roofied, so I made bobby pins that change color when it senses something weird in your drink.”

"Do they now?"

"They sure do," Steve nods proudly. "The bobby pins turn black if they detect the roofie drug. So if you think your drink's been spiked, that's a foolproof way for ya to check."

“This is very neat,” you beam, holding the pretty pink bobby pin in your hand.

You’re twiddling it between your fingers when you notice Steve’s breathing falter. He clears his throat for a brief second, before resting his hand slightly over yours.

“May I?”

You nod and allow him his bobby pin back.

There's little you can do except try not to melt, quietly swooning as the older man you're perched on gazes at you like a muse. His touch is gentle, as if you're a marble bust—his fingers brushing away the shorter strands of your curtain bangs, savoring the dimples above your chin.

“There,” he grins. “Now I can see those pretty eyes.”

You and Steve find yourselves getting lost into conversation, well past Shy Girl's set, and most likely way past her friend's as well. He tells you about his life back home and you tell him about your final year of college. The gloominess of Seattle. Your excitement about being able to start a new life. And when you reach to give him back his bobby pin, he gestures it away.

"Consider it a gift. If I won't be seeing you again, I'd at least want you to be safe."

“Who’s to say you won’t see me again?”

"Well," Steve chuckles into you. "Maybe you'll find some other sucker to charm and you'll forget all about me."

Closing up the space between you two, you shuffle yourself closer in between his knees, rubbing yourself teasingly against his iron-pressed lap while he wraps his strong arms around you to keep you in place.

“Oh don’t be so silly,” you hum, softly tracing his stubble before clasping his beating chest. “You’ll definitely be seeing me around.”

"You trying to give me your phone number?" he cocks an inquisitive eyebrow.

“I mean... I was implying that you’d see me walking around The Strip. Vegas is pretty small,” you point out. “But if you’d like to stay connected, I’m not opposed to that either.”

Steve tongue dances in his cheek as he stares you up and down.

"Or who knows," you add. "Maybe you'll see me at an Adele show."

Steve cackles at this, receptive to the teasing you're giving him and reeling you in as a response.

“Well, Sweets, if that's the case, then I’d love to see you again before I go back.”

You two exchange phone numbers, close out your tab, and Steve is on his way. Turns out, he's also part of the In-Bed-By-9 crowd, but tonight was considered a splurge. When he disappears from sight, you set out to find Isabelle.

Luckily, her golden blonde locks are easy to spot in the crowd.

“There you are!" you exclaim when you find her, hooking arms with her as you two start towards the tip rail. "I met a guy while you were gone. His name is Steve, he’s a CEO.”

“Such a CEO name,” Isabelle tuts. “But that’s amazing. Is he older?”

You nod, blushing. Isabelle squeals, ecstatic for you.

“Ugh, older men are the bestttt, girl. Where is he now?”

“Rounding up his friends," your eyes scan the room. "I think they’re done for tonight. His friend was one of the dancers and she was wearing your Lady in Red set. She's from Indiana too, but I forgot where.”

“And I missed it?!" Isabelle exclaims, completely engaged now. "Now you HAVE to point them out to me.”

So now you two are on a mission, peddling through the strip club like two lost sheep looking for their herder. After five sweaty drunks and lots of assertive "excuse me"s later, you're able to catch sight of the guy just by the back of his head.

“That’s Steve," you immediately point him out. "Right over there."

“Oh my god,” is all Isabelle says.

You turn to Elle and it's like she's seen a ghost. Panicked, you watch the color drain from your best friend's face in real time, followed by a nearly audible gulp in a pulsating room and obnoxious strobe lights. And for a brief second, it seems like Elle had nearly lost her footing, with how her knees seemingly buckled below her.

“Elle…" you nudge her. "A-are you okay?”

"Yeah… I'm fine...it’s just…” she stammers. “That's Steve Harrington."

"You know Steve Harrington?"

"More than you know."

Suddenly, her gaze shifts when she studies his friends.

It’s a look you’ve never seen before in your life. At least not on Isabelle’s face.

Her once radiant ocean eyes, so full of warmth and sunshine, have turned icy and sharp, like shards of broken glass. A tension builds in her face as her jaw clenches. You look down at her hands and see that they're curled inwards, as though she'd been fighting to keep a brewing anger from the depths of her, relatively silent, fury from erupting. And then, before you know it her ocean eyes flare with an almost palpable heat. Danger. Fire, almost.

"And the guy next to him?" Isabelle grimaces. "The erratic one with the stripper around his arm?"

Isabelle's lips tighten bitterly.

"That's Eddie Munson... my ex-husband."

🏷️ taglist: @xblueriddlex @angietherose @winchester-angel @aactuaaltraash @hugdealer @hazydespair @frostandflamesfanfic @mediocredreams @bl0ssomanddie @corkadymu @eddiesguitarskills @mrsjellymunson @cadence73 @m-chmcl-rmnc @n-slayaaaaa @corrodedcoffincumslut @kennedy-brooke @micheledawn1975 @maisiepotatobeans @1deverland

[somethingswift19]

Who? JJ Maybank x Tattooed (f) Reader

| Warnings: mentions of abuse, swearing, over protective JJ (mildly), alternative reader

| Summary: JJ noticed your medusa tattoo for the first time. All characters are in their 20s in this

| (a/n): I don't know how I feel about this ending. But I hope y'all enjoy!

You weren't like the others on Kildare Island. Technically you were a kook like Kie, but also like Kie you were a pouge through and through. Your dad was ex military and now worked for the local prison while your mom owned the only tattoo shop in the county. Due to this, your family tended to stand out which also meant you lacked in the friends department. That was until you met Kiara.

You and Kie had been inseparable since you met at the kook academy your freshman year. Neither of you wanted to be there but were forced by your mothers to attend. For her 16th birthday present, the two of you even got matching dolphin tattoos. Then when Sarah came along it became the three of you.

This led you to now. You were a 23 year old bartender at The Wreck, Kie's family restaurant, and the two of you had just gotten off shift. Running to the back you threw on your black "I <3 Hot Dads" hoodie, jean shorts, and red high top vans before throwing your messy, curly hair up into a bun. "Hey (y/n), are you ready?" your best friend yelled from the doorway.

"Yeah I'm coming!" grabbing your backpack, you followed her out. You had plans to meet the boys at the beach for a bonfire tonight after work. You had only met them a few times, and all of said times a certain blonde had caught your attention. Getting in the car you got settled but Kie didn't stop staring. "Can I help you?" you laughed.

"Oh no. Just wondering if you were gonna spend the whole night drooling over JJ again and not make a move like last time," she shrugged. Rolling your eyes you told her to just go.

Grabbing the beer out of the back, the two of you made your way towards the beach. "Hey girlies!" the familiar voice of Sarah Cameron rang out. "We were beginning to wonder when the two of you were showing up!"

"Blame the one who had to get ready before we came here," Kiara side eyed you before all three of you began to laugh.

"Listen! Is it a crime to want to look half way decent for my two besties other friends? I mean gotta make a good impression right?" you continued laughing.

"Yeah right. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that JJ is here tonight," Sarah teased you causing you to lightly hit her in the arm as the three of you headed down to the sand. After reaching the firepit you got settled onto the soft sand sitting crisscross applesauce. "Where's Pope?"

"He had homework for his fancy college program," the blonde boy you had been looking forward to seeing all night responded as he sat down next to you and handed you a beer. Nodding your head you took a swig out of the bottle you had been handed. The other three in the group were busy talking about something Sarah's brother did when JJ leaned over and broke the silence between the two of you. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look like anyone I've ever seen around here." You gave him a funny look before he quickly added, "Like it's a good thing! It's cute! Just very different!"

A blush formed on your freckled cheeks, "Thank you...I Think." He was right though. You had long curly black hair with tiny bits of green throughout, both sides of your nose pierced along with your septum, and both ears pierced all the way up. Not to mention the tattoos. Yet you still had a sweetness or "innocence" to you.

"You're welcome!" he smiled proudly to himself for causing the pink tinge. "Now tell me about your tattoos!"

"Well what do you wanna know?" You inquired. The two of you being so wrapped up in your own conversation to realize the other three had left you two alone.

"Well for starters, how many do you have?" genuine curiosity was shown on his face. You fascinated him. "I mean I can see you have your traditional patchwork leg done here, but do you have any more?"

"Well," you began. "I have my leg sleeve (of course), then I also have a full arm sleeve, and one down my side. And then a secret one that matches Sarah and Kie's." you smirked before beginning to giggle when he looked astonished.

"We are gonna circle back to the mystery tattoos later!" the blonde boy exclaimed. "But can I see your sleeve?" You nodded with a hint of reluctance only because of one tattoo. You took off your hoodie so you were only in your tank top. JJ began examining all of the colorful pieces you had but quickly stopped when he saw the medusa adorning your upper arm. His face went from curious and playful to stern. "Who?"

"It's really not important," fixated on the fire you really were hoping to not have this conversation yet. You were always cold but the hoodies also helped keep that hidden.

"You can talk to me," his blue eyes softened. He didn't want to push you but wanted to at least offer. "My dad...he used to beat the shit out of me. I used to blame myself. Would convince myself that I deserved it somehow. My fiends helped snap me out of that."

The two of you sat there in silence for several minutes before you brought yourself to open up, "It was my ex. He had a hard time taking no for an answer." JJ didn't say anything but just let you confide in him. "But before that, I went through something similar to you. My dad was an angry guy. I remember showing up to school with black eyes and having to have my friends cover for me. Then when I was 16, things got particularly bad. He slapped me so hard I fell down and he stormed out. Said 'He should have left me and my bitch of a mom a long time ago'...he came back the next morning in tears and never laid a hand on me since. So then when my ex did what he did, it just brought out suppressed memories."

JJ immediately brought you into a hug while wiping a tear off your cheek, "I am so sorry." You looked up into his beautiful baby blue eyes when the two of you leaned in. He kissed you so gently and tasted so sweet you thought you were in heaven. That was until he whispered onto your lips "So what are these secret tattoos the three of you girls share?" Laughing you buried your face into his chest.

"It's so embarrassing," you blushed as he started to chuckle right when the other three showed back up from what looked like swimming. "Oh! Just in time! (y/n) here was just about to enlighten me on these secret tattoos of yours!"

"Don't do it!" and "She was not!" were said in unison by other two.

"Come on guys we should tell them," you smiled and you all three agreed. "Ok, so just know the three of this did this to celebrate graduating high school. We were young and dumb."

"Oh this is gonna be good," John B mumbled.

"We all have a different fruit," Sarah continued.

"On each of our asses," Kiara finished. The two boys burst out laughing.

"Are you being for real?" John B asked. "I mean I knew about yours Sarah, but all three of you?" he couldn't hold back the laughter anymore.

JJ leaned over and whispered just to you, "I can't wait to see what yours is." Causing you to once again turn bright red. You knew you were in trouble with this boy when he just smirked down and kissed you again saying, "You're too damn cute when you blush like that."

[chillinglyadventurous]

Spooktober Day 23 - “Look at the mess you made.”

I believe this is BillStill AU (I don't remember who created it, but I love it).

Ford had wanted to clear his mind. He enjoyed his daily adventures with you and Dipper, but he wanted some alone time, to relive the good old days. He loved his adventures with you. Sometimes, however, he wanted to have his own time. There were certain dangerous activities he just didn't think were safe for you or Dipper to experience.

He had been gone for longer than he had anticipated. He had gotten caught up in an intricate labyrinth beneath the lake. He was excited to tell you and Dipper about it and planned to take the two of you tomorrow.

Once he'd finally made his way home, he couldn't wait to see you, to see the excitement on your face when he told you what he'd found. When he walked in, the Shack was quiet.

“Hello?” he called out, setting his bag down by the door. “Anyone home?” Silence greeted him. His brow furrowed. Normally, he would hear the chatter of the twins, your voice in conversation, or Stan grumbling about something, but, now, there was nothing.

“[Y/N]?” he called again. “Kids? Stan?”

The living room was empty and so was the kitchen. Then, a sinking feeling gnawed at his stomach. He quickened his pace, heading toward the attic. That’s when he found you. You were lying on the floor, unmoving. Dipper and Mabel lay beside you, equally still, as though they had simply collapsed where they stood. Your bodies were oddly posed in the shape of a triangle.

Panic shot through Ford. He rushed to your side, kneeling down. His hands trembled as he checked your pulse. You and the twins were alive, but unconscious, and he had no idea why.

He leaned over you, shaking you gently. “[Y/N], please wake up.” He glanced over at the twins. No response. Ford’s mind raced, trying to think of what could have done this. Was it a curse or a spell?

As he stood up, his heart pounding with fear, a slow clap echoed through the room.Ford turned sharply, his heart stopping mid beat as he saw the source of the sound. Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the dim light was Stan. The yellow glow in Stan's eyes.

“Bill,” Ford whispered, his blood running cold.

Bill grinned wider, tilting his head in mockery. “Well, well, well, look who finally decided to show up. You’ve been a little busy, huh, Sixer?”

“How are you here? We erased you!”

Bill chuckled darkly, taking a step forward. His hands tucked casually in Stan’s pockets. “Oh, come on, Fordsy. You really think you could get rid of me that easily? I’m a multi-dimensional being. You can’t just zap me out of existence.”

“What have you done to them?” He glanced at your motionless body. Ford’s jaw clenched. He could feel rage bubbling beneath his skin, but he knew better than to let Bill Cipher provoke him.

Bill’s grin stretched wider, “Oh, don’t worry. They’re just taking a little nap. I needed them out of the way.” He waved a hand lazily at the scene before him. “Look at the mess you made me make.”

Ford’s eyes narrowed, confusion and fury swirling inside him. “What do you mean?”

Bill spread his arms, still wearing Stan’s twisted grin. “You made me do this. All those years of chasing after things you weren’t supposed to know, I helped you find, smart guy! You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

Bill laughed. The sound was horrific, Stan's gruff laughed mixed with bill's high-pitched shriek. Ford put himself between your unconscious bodies.

"We had a deal, Stanford," Bill insisted.

Ford’s heart ached at Bill’s words, but he shoved the guilt aside. He wouldn’t let this monster break him. “If you’ve come to kill me, just do it. Leave them out of this.”

“Now, where’s the fun in that? You think I’d come all this way just to end things quickly? No, Sixer, I want you to suffer. I want you to see the people you care about get hurt and it's all because of you.” Bill tsked, wagging a finger.

Ford’s breath hitched, refusing to show fear. “You won’t win, Bill.”

Bill’s eyes gleamed with delight. “I already have.”

Ford was torn. He wanted to protect you, protect the twins, but he couldn't hurt Stan. One hand hovered over the gun on his hip, fingers twitching as he struggled with his own logic.

Bill strolled closer, his grin never fading. “Oh, don’t worry, IQ. I’m not going to kill you, yet. I want you to watch me take everything from you. Your brother Your girlfriend. The kids. One by one, and you’ll know it’s because of you.”

Ford’s vision blurred with rage, but before he could even think of a response, Bill snapped his fingers, and the room began to warp. The air felt heavy, the walls bending and distorting as reality itself twisted around him.

[taeraemisu]

i found you ; gunwook zb1

synopsis ; gunwook and reader were lovers in their past life but a certain accident kills the two, separating them. gunwook, who remembers all his past lives, made it his personal mission to find reader over and over again, even if it meant living multiple lifetimes without them

genre ; based on see you in my 19th life ! (was listening to one of their ost while writing this) reincarnation, soulmates if you think, angst, i-love-you-in-every-universe, deaths

pairings ; gunwook x reader, mentions of junhyeon

word count ; 1.5k words

“look at what i got!”

gunwook looks up and sees you wearing a new semi-formal outfit. the both of you were in his house, just wanting to spend the day together. gunwook shows you his signature smile and ruffled your hair. maybe there are good things to look forward to in life. “i think you look great, what’s the occasion?”

“no occasion, i just wanted to look good.”

gunwook smiles again and pokes your cheek. he does not hesitate to show you how much he adores you. he had lived so many different lives that he never bothered to find love, but yet you, were different. knowing most of his lives were short-lived, he never hesitated to tell you how much you mean to him. this time though, he is praying for a life where he could grow old with you. “you always look good,” he says, admiring you once more.

you blushed slightly and hit his shoulder playfully. “you and your way of words-“

he grins and gives you a hug, cutting your words off. “let’s go out today. we can’t let that good outfit go to waste, can we?” he holds your hand and picks up a few of his belongings, before leaving the house and heading to the car. he opens the car door and lets you go in first. “after you, my lady,” gunwook says in a british accent. you laughed at his words and get in, gunwook closing the door after you before getting into the driver’s seat.

you both drive off, you admiring how gunwook looks while driving. how could you get so lucky? you were not that affectionate of a person but gunwook knew that he means to you as much as you mean to him. “hey gunwook have i ever told you-“

the screeching of the tires rang throughout your ears, causing the both of you to flung forward and back, your foreheads bleeding upon impact. glass shards flew everywhere, cutting your skin before you passed out momentarily.

no, no, no! gunwook panicked when he regained consciousness, barely able to open his eyes. the both of you were now on the ground, the car flipped over. he quickly unbuckled his seatbelt and crawled his way towards you, unbuckling yours and trying to drag you out of the car with as little energy he have left. “yn! wake up! please!” he pleads, tears pouring out of his eyes. he pokes your cheek softly, hoping you wake up. he feels his energy start to drain away and he knew he did not have that much time left.

“yn, you can’t hear me but-“ his voice cracks and he lays down beside you, losing his energy. “i will find you, please, remember me.” gunwook was crying by now, you weren’t responding to him. “i will remember you so promise me you will, please?”

sirens were ringing in his ear and he wanted to see you do any sort of sign that you heard what he said. why was life so unfair? why did his current life end so early when he was finally happy?

“yn, i-“

and it all went black.

first life without you . .

gunwook groans. he was reborn as the son of a conglomerate family. although his current life is luckier than most, he could not enjoy it.

you weren’t here.

he did not know where to start. how could he find you? what are the chances you will remember him? or your past life? he was currently 23 years old, twenty-three years without you.

“i arranged a blind date for you,” his father enters the room, giving gunwook the details. he sighs but doesn’t protest. going on blind dates was the fastest way to find you.

he went on the date, but he did not like it. she was someone who was arrogant and believed she should get her way, which was so different from you that it disgusted gunwook. he left halfway through the date, not wanting to deal with her further.

how much longer could he live without you?

third life without you . .

gunwook was reborn as the son of a nice couple that owns a family restaurant. gunwook took full advantage of the fact, serving and helping out as much as he can. with more customers, the higher the chance he could find you.

he has now lived forty-eight years without you, his previous two lives being short, but it wasn’t worth living if it meant you weren’t around.

“this is for table 2.” his mother handed him a tray with stir-fried noodles with mayonnaise all over it and tempura on the side. gunwook looked at the dish. it was your favourite food. he remembers the first time he has seen you eating this particular combo and how unappealing it looked, but you were adamant on how good it was. gunwook had once took a bite and realised it was actually delicious but because he did not want to admit you were right, he would make the dish behind your back.

the memory brought a smile to his face and he quickly went to serve the dish, a little hopeful but to his dismay, it was someone that he immediately knew wasn’t you.

“enjoy your food,” he says, a little disappointed before turning away.

sixth life without you . .

gunwook has now lived a hundred and fifteen years without you. in this life however, he was blessed with the ability to sing and dance. in fact, his name was the one he was given when he first met you. he was park gunwook again.

“you should audition to be an idol!” his friend, kum junhyeon, would constantly tell him but gunwook would always shake his head, disagreeing. he does not want to bring any attention to himself, when he still could not find you.

“you being an idol or famous could help you find that person you have been wanting to find-“

gunwook did not have to listen further. he immediately recorded and posted a video of him singing to a song and it went viral almost immediately. he has been scouted by companies to train under them but he declined them all, hoping to stay independent. junhyeon, however, has taken the role of his manager, helping gunwook edit videos and secure any deals.

a year or so have past by since then and gunwook made a small name for himself. he performs at small cafes and restaurants and holds small fanmeetings every now and then. only to find you, of course, but yet, he was making very little progress.

“the fansign starts in a few minutes,” junhyeon mentions, preparing gunwook before he gets on stage. “maybe the person you like is here?”

gunwook sighs. he does not want to give up but his chances are getting slimmer and slimmer. “i don’t know man, what if they aren’t here?”

junhyeon gives his friend a sad smile. “even if they aren’t maybe …” his eyes goes all over the place, finding a way to cheer his friend up. “i am sure they are cheering for you from afar!”

gunwook returns a smile before heading onto stage, greeting fans and soon, the autograph session begins. an hour or so passed, the autograph session ending but with no sign of you. he has lived over a hundred years without you, how much longer must he live till he finds you again?

“no luck?” junhyeon asked, patting him on the back. gunwook shakes his head, disappointed but not surprised. junhyeon drops him off at home, assuring him that there is a right time for everything. he drives off, leaving gunwook standing in front of his apartment block.

disappointed and sad, gunwook heads to the nearby convenience store. he did not have the urge to cook anything. he goes in and bought a few items for himself, planning to have his late-night snack in the store itself. he opens a bag of chips and pops a few into his mouth when-

“i didn’t go to the fansign.”

gunwook, intrigued, turned to look at the person who was sitting a few chairs away from him, talking onto the phone. for a moment, he thought it was about him but he wasn’t that famous so he dismissed the thought away, not wanting to stare.

“i wanted to okay! but my boss needed me to work and i just … didn’t go. it’s probably better that way, i would have panicked and not talk at all as soon as i see the park gunwook.”

gunwook’s ears perked up and looked right back again. the way the person said his name felt all too familiar.

“there will be another chance in the future-“ the person turned to looked at gunwook and that’s when everything clicked.

it was you.

“i have to go, bye.” you hung up the phone and stared at gunwook, embarrassed that you were just fangirling over him when he was right beside you. but an unknown feeling came over you as you look at him. then, everything clicked.

“i found you.”

“it’s you.”

© taeraemisu do not copy my works !