#and for the most part it’s okay i do think most of the characters sound too old Tumblr posts

[bridoesotherjunk]

Okay, so it's been a handful of days since I've seen Venom 3.. and I think I've finally got my thoughts together.

This review will have spoilers, so it will go under the cut.

these are all my opinions, so don't take my word as gospel or anything...

Anyone who knows me and my blog knows how much I've loved these movies since 2018, so to see me not ranting about the third Venom movie should be evidence enough how I feel.

I... don't feel like this was a satisfying conclusion to the Venom franchise. I really feel like there was so much more that could have been done, and should have been, instead of what we got.

I truly feel that introducing Knull into the story was a mistake. The first 2 films were so much smaller scale. Expanding all the way to the fucking symbiote god after only having done Carnage just felt like such a massive leap. And they really didn't do much with him anyway.

It felt like they included Knull because they were obligated to. Like Sony made them in order to have a weird spin off involving Knull trying to kill stuff. I don't know. He didn't do much besides tease future movies where he's the villain again. And that's kind of boring...

I will sound so narcissistic saying this, but I truly feel that the story I came up with, where the villains of Venom 3 are former Life Foundation employees angry at Eddie for ruining their lives, made way more sense. In terms of scale, you know? Much less "huge universal threat" and more of the small scale "threat to Eddie and Venom specifically" type story. Even Riot, being a threat to the Earth, was smaller scale than Knull. Knull is just too much. Too big. Too unfocused. It felt like too wide of a net. It felt generic, i hate to say it. It just felt like every other dumb ass gritty movie where the bad guy wants to destroy all life as we know it. (And quite frankly, he could have been taken out of the movie and not much would have changed. Venom and Eddie could have been hunted by the xenophages for any number of reasons.)

The part of the movie that I enjoyed most was the beginning. The part that felt like Venom. Where we saw Eddie and Venom working in sync to free those dogs. I loved that. I loved seeing how far the two of them have come and how well they work together. .. seeing their journey in a montage later? That felt... lackluster. After seeing them literally working together just an hour earlier in the movie, it felt kind of cheap. The way the story ended for these two didn't feel like a victory. It felt like the Avengers Endgame "well we gotta get rid of this character because their contract is up" situation.

The movie was definitely a fun time. I enjoyed myself watching it. But I was left feeling a sense of "That's it?" That I haven't felt since Avengers Endgame.

I'm happy that Tom Hardy got to do these movies. I absolutely will forever adore the first 2. They're fun, they're goofy, they're gay, and I love them. .. but this third one just... yeah. I'm disappointed.

I will always love Venom. That much is not going to change. I love these two gay losers and I'm so happy I got to have them in my life. They brought me so much joy, and so much brainrot, and I will miss the fuck out of them.

[dadattebayo]

thank you! the whole sentiment of "don't ask the actors about haladriel, it might make them uncomfortanle" is forced and ridiculous.

first of all, it feels like projecting. these are fully grown adults. a goofy question won't trigger them like it would a chronically online nerd.

but more importantly, what do they mean, "the interviewers shouldn't ask the actors about the central relationship their characters are the part of"??? their relationship is framed in a way that, at very least, is open to romantic interpretations. of course the questions will sound "shippy" and it is okay!

i think people, both the antis and some haladriels too, reacted too intensely to charlie's interview where he read the tweets. the issue there was that the tweet they made him read in the end was too "cheesy" and "vanilla-fying" sauron in its' tone, not leaving space for interpretation.

but other than that, i don't see the actors being "uncomfortable" about haladriel questions. it's the opposite, they seem to have fun with those questions.

Moreover, again about shipping questions in general, they are not cringe in any terms, because it's completely natural to be curious and excited about them also because this ship is brand new and unbelievable from the first view cause no one could even think of a possibility of such couple before. How could we stop asking for more details? Like if there was a prequel to HP where they would imply that young Voldemort and let's say McGonagall had a whole story between them and they were central to the plot, how could people just ignore it and keep silent? Would be weird.. :)

And one more thing. We used to think (after the principal books and the PJ movies) that Sauron is a flat type villain who was pure evil by nature, who was incapable of feelings and love itself. TROP through Galadriel and Halbrand's interaction gave us a hint that it's maybe not quite true, gave us a chance to explore more. That attracted me the most and made me so invested emotionally in the show. I think not only me but many of us. So of course Haladriel is a must question in agenda in all those interviews.

of course there is no need to enlighten the actors about some explicit content like fanfiction or fanart though, that would be creepy af haha

[molinaesque]

"You went against your word and defied our contract! In doing so, you brought the chaos of your world into mine! I will not abide it!" - Raphael (Baldur's Gate, 2023)

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 9 ! :)

[touchlikethesun]

why do dub kuroo and bokuto sound like creepy uncles who did the casting for this they are in high school ffs 😭 kuroo’s voice is wayyyyy to gruff and mean and bokuto gen freaks me out i can’t

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

how to ask / motivate your favorite fanfic writers to post new works / update a new chapter WITHOUT rushing them or sounding entitled and rude;

don’t comment “when” or “will there be a next chapter” or “will you continue this?” quite frankly, these type of comments can sound like you’re demanding from your favorite writer, even if it may not be your intention.

if you’d love a sequel or are wondering when or if the fic will be updated, try something like “I love this so much!” *bonus if you explain why you love the fic or what you love about it* and then add something along the line of “if there’s a part 2 of this, I would be so excited / would absolutely love to read it!”

the trick is to avoid a blunt question like “will there be a part 2?” or “it’s been so long. when will you update?” etc.

honestly, DON’T ever comment something like “it’s been ___ months, ___ years” or “I don’t think the author will continue this lol” that’s one of the most effective ways to make sure your favorite author doesn’t come back to your favorite fic, and it’s just so… dishearteningly rude.

it doesn’t matter if it’s been months or years since the author’s last update, demanding and rushing them will most likely NOT give you the result you want.

reminder that fanfic authors are humans with lives and jobs outside of writing fanfiction, especially when fanfic is something they do in their free time out of love and passion, and you — the reader — get to read their works for free.

rushing and demanding will only make it sound like ‘a task that needs to get done’ for your favorite author, and it sucks out the joy of writing out of love and passion. it can be so discouraging for the authors.

fanfic authors don’t owe you anything.

even if they completely abandon the fic, it still doesn’t give you the right to be rude to them or to ask why they stopped writing or to coerce them into giving you what you want.

I can never say this enough; fanfic authors write in their free time, FOR FREE, out of love and passion. and you get to read their works FOR FREE because they’re kind enough to share their love for their comfort characters with you.

they don’t owe you anything.

it’s okay if you’re wondering when or if they’ll post something new, but it’s not okay to rush or demand from them.

comments are mostly what motivate authors into writing faster, so if you want your favorite authors to post more, comment about what you love about their works, express your gratitude to them for giving you these amazing fics for free, but don’t be an entitled reader by rushing or directly asking when they’ll update.

let’s keep fandom space safe and comforting for both writers and readers.

[hiraethwrote]

i prefer it, actually

summary: after being called in the middle of the night, megumi comes over to take care of you while you're drunk

[ loner!megumi x popular!reader ]

cw: college au, f!reader, sorority!reader, pure fluff, intoxicated reader, party but mostly going on in the background, throwing up, aged up characters

word count: 2.2k

“Hello?” Megumi answered the phone in a confused haze, the blaring ringtone waking him up from his deep sleep.

“Megumi? I think you should come down here.” The voice that greeted him wasn’t one he recognised, and his confusion only strengthened when he checked the caller ID to see a picture of you.

“Who is this?” He asked, slowly rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he sat up in his bed.

In the background, he heard muffled music interrupted by a loud gag. “It’s Kasumi.”

Kasumi? There was something scarily familiar about that name, and after a few silent moments of thought he connected the dots, remembering she was a part of your sorority.

And as the pieces fell together, the concern started to fill his body, serving almost as an alarm clock as his sleepiness become nothing but a distant memory in a matter of seconds. “Is she okay?”

“Well…” Kasumi trailed off on the other end of the phone before another horrible gag interrupted the line. “She’s just really drunk.”

His shoulders dared relax just an tad. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he sighed before another sickening sound he only assumed was you hunched over a toilet bowl. Some of his worry had settled when he knew you weren’t in any immediate danger at least, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep again until he was certain you were safely in bed.

As he promised, fifteen minutes later he walked through the door of your sorority, the party still in full swing as he bullied himself through the thick crowd to get to the stairs.

God, he couldn’t stand this. Too many people shoved into a house where the mere concept of personal space was long abandoned. Obnoxious music that was so loud you were unable to hear your own thoughts — and not to mention how incredibly annoying people got when drinking.

Therefore he could not for the life of him fathom why you loved it so much. Only a handful of times had he accompanied you to parties like this, and you always managed to have a good time. That might be the only thing he has ever found himself liking with these things; seeing how much you enjoyed yourself.

So for the most part, he just decided to stay in when you wanted to go out so he wouldn’t ruin your evening by moping around, constantly checking the time to see when it was acceptable for him to go to bed. He didn’t want to be that boyfriend who stopped you from doing the things you liked just because he didn’t want to.

When he reached your room, his head cleared up as the people and music from downstairs was shut out, transforming into muffled background noise through the floor. He placed three knocks on your bathroom door before it creaked open, spotting the blue haired girl he assumed had to be Kasumi. “Hey,” he whispered, leaning against the doorframe as she opened the door further.

“Thank god you’re here. She’s been begging for you for like two hours,” she groaned, not hesitating to walk out of the bathroom so she could return to the festivities. "I think she's pretty much finished in there, just tired now."

He cleared his throat. “Thanks for taking care of her,” he said awkwardly as she was about to exit your room.

“Of course,” she smiled sweetly. “She would have done the same for me,” and she was gone.

He turned back around, pushing the door fully open to reveal you just in the position he had excepted. Your hair was tied back in a ponytail, makeup slightly smudged from throwing up for who knew how long, a constant little shiver running through your body.

“How you hanging in there?” He asked, a small amused smirk creeping up on his face.

Lifting your head from where it was resting on your arm, you turned to look at him, face lighting up the second your eyes landed on him. “Megumi, you’re here!” You nearly cheered, both hands immediately extending towards him, needy for him to come join you on the floor.

He does as you wished, his hands instinctively stroking away the stray hairs that hung in front of your face, behind your ears. “Feeling okay?”

“Better now that you’re here!” You slurred, flashing your teeth at him in a huge grin. The annoyance and frustration caused by the party below was quickly forgotten at the sight of you beaming at him. Even though you looked tired, appearance tainted by the evening, it did nothing to smother beauty. “I didn’t think I’d see you tonight.” You were clearly still intoxicated, eyelids droopy as you mumbled sentences he could barely make out.

“A little blue birdie told me you needed me, so,” he shrugged, as if it was nothing to think about.

“Awe, baby,” you squealed as you fell forward, head landing on his chest. “You’re too good for me,” you sighed, melting into his body, the heat radiating off of him soothing the shiver present in your own body.

A gentle hand finds your upper arm to give it a light squeeze. “Do you think you can get up?” He felt the movement of your head agree to his request. He stands up first, grabbing ahold of your clammy hands and pulling you to your feet, instantly lacing his arm around your waist when you nearly fell over the second you were stood up. “Easy there,” he chuckled quietly.

“I’m fine!” You rushed in a high pitched tone, grabbing onto him for support, feeling the room spin a lot more now than when you were leaned over the toilet. When you weren’t nuzzled up against his warm chest anymore, the tremble quickly found its way back to your muscles. “‘m cold.”

“You’re cold?” He asked for confirmation. You only nodded, bottom lip sticking out in a dramatic pout. “Okay,” he whispered to himself before letting go of you by the sink before walking into your room to get you something.

“No, not that one!” You whined when he came back with one of your hoodies in his hands, earning you a confused frown from your boyfriend. “Want yours.”

He just rolled his eyes, acting as if he genuinely thought you were being a nuisance — but in reality, his heart did a little skip at the fact that you so persistently wanted to wear something of his instead.

At the foot of your bed he spotted a familiar hoodie, where you’d thrown it after waking up. Whenever the two of you didn’t spend the night together, you made sure to have a piece of his clothing nearby so he didn’t feel so terribly far away.

Could you be considered a clingy girlfriend? Probably — but you preferred the term devoted.

“Thank youuuuu,” you cooed as he simply tilted his head to signal for you to raise your arms. You happily obliged and he pulled it over your head, a satisfied hum slipping out as you hugged your arms around yourself to take in the familiar scent of your boyfriend.

Without saying anything, he grabbed your toothbrush with one hand, and your face with the other to hold it still, fingers softly digging into your plush cheeks. He finds it surprisingly unproblematic to help you brush your teeth, suspecting your drunken state might actually have served as help, paralysing your usual restlessness.

He gently grabbed your hand and guided you back to your room again, but was abruptly halted when you decided to stop dead in your tracks. With pinched eyebrows, he turned to you.

“Babe, I can’t go to bed with my makeup on.” You let go of his hand to retreat them into the sleeves of the sweater, hoping the warmth it usually provided would find you soon.

“Okay?” He asked, nervously moving his hand to his neck, rubbing it slightly as he waited for you to give him the right instructions.

“There’s makeup wipes under the sink,” you said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered under his breath and went to get the wipes. When he returned, he nearly stumbled over your limp body. During his short trip to the bathroom, you had suddenly decided to just lay down on your back in the middle of the floor. With another sigh, he positioned himself on his knees by your head before carefully lifting it into his lap.

He started with your eyes, lightly rubbing the wet wipe across your eyelids. It didn’t take long before he managed to draw a drunken giggle from your lips. “What?”

“You’re so gentle,” you opened your eyes to stare up at him, thinking he was upside down but you couldn’t be too sure as the room was still spinning. The frown — you once had thought was a chronic condition — was very much present.

“I don’t wanna pop your eyes out.”

You only laughed. “You’re not gonna pop my eyes out. C’mon, you can put a little more pressure.” He let out a long and stressed exhale before going back to work, grimacing in fear as he did as you’d told him.

Eventually, the makeup came off, but you continued to lay completely still. You kept your head in his lap, eyes closed and a small smile ever present on your face.

“Did you have fun tonight?” His voice was soft, barely audible — especially with the banging from the bass downstairs seeping through the floor.

“Meh,” you said simply as you shrugged.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” you breathed as you open your eyes to meet his gaze again. “You weren’t there.” He snorted, slightly rolling his eyes at your statement, believing you were only lying to make him feel better about coming all the way down to your sorority in the middle of the night.

“Yeah, right. How much did you have to drink?”

“No, Megs, I’m serious,” you giggled as your hands acted on their own, raising to cup his cheeks. “There’s only so much fun I can have when you’re not here.”

He felt his cheeks heat against your hands — you didn’t seem to notice however. He always thought it strange, that even after the two of you became official, it didn’t take a lot of effort from you to bring that redness to his face, a colour that had only grown familiar to his features after getting to know you.

“Sure, so fun having me sulk at your heels all evening.” There’s nothing but sarcasm in his tone as he continued to try and hide his flushed cheeks.

“I don’t mind,” you said softly as you gaze directly into his eyes, his blush only amplifying. “I prefer it, actually.”

His soft eyes roamed your face, lips slightly parted in awe. He still didn’t understand how you, who was so sociable, always the life of the party, beyond stunning, had decided he was the one you wanted to be with. And time and time again you confirmed it to him that it was for real.

Without much more thought, he simply leaned forward to press a tender kiss on your lips, your lips curling up in a giddy smirk. You were unable to contain yourself, breaking the kiss by hiding your face behind your hands, strangling the sweet giggles spilling out of you.

“You still make me nervous,” you said in between the cute sounds that was like music to his ears.

“I make you nervous?” He scoffed. “Alright, you’re clearly still drunk. Time for bed.” He gently tapped your shoulder, trying to get you to lift from his lap.

“You can never take a compliment,” you grumbled, wearing the frown that was more often seen painted on his eyebrows. He didn’t entertain your complaints, merely helping you up before leading you to your bed.

When he was about to turn around, your hand grabbed a hold of his wrist, surprised by the strength in your clutch. “No, you gotta stay here tonight!”

“I’m not leaving,” he laughed. “I’m just going to get you some water,” he said as he grabbed your hand to force you to let go.

“Oh.”

He can’t help but shake his head a little. You were probably the only drunk person he liked — of course, he was biased. During the parties, you were so outgoing, in a way he always admired. And then, when it was time to turn in for the night, you became so incredibly cute.

After having fetched the glass, he returned to see you wrapped up in the covers, having pulled the hood over your head and nuzzled further into the clothing.

A content huff left his nose as he put the glass down on your nightstand before stripping down to his t-shirt and boxers, then he carefully climbed over you. He knew he’d only receive grumpy grunts of annoyance if he tried to shove you to sleep closest to the wall.

The second he closed his eyes, he felt you snake your arm tightly around his torso and burying your face against his back, wanting to consume as much of his body heat as possible. Two light taps on your hand caused you to loosen your grip before he wiggled to turn around so you were now burying your head in his chest instead.

A deep, much needed, breath filled your lungs before you simply melted into him as his arms wrapped around you, humming in satisfaction as his hands slowly began to rub your scalp.

tags (taglist is open) @sad-darksoul, @nyahctrl, @ssetsuka

a/n the layout for these drabbles and short entries will be a little different, but yeah hope you like it. oh, and if you wanna be in the taglist, just lemme know <3 - btw, all warnings will be in the masterpost at all times

reblogs, likes and comments are appreciated plagiarism not authorized

[sexlapis]

[◉°] … toji & y/n being a couple for 10 minutes straight pt.3

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ｡˚ 𓂋 ❄﹒✦﹒✿ ˚

꩜ actor!toji x actress!reader

⤷ synopsis : just toji & reader being idiots in luv…

꩜ content : crazy fans, very mild physical violence (toji pushing ppl lol), toji being a little ooc again. this is really not as wack as the warnings are making it sound.

- a/n : loads of people seem to be enjoying this & i enjoy making them, so here you go! :D

. . . part 1, part 2, part 4

masterlists

౨ৎ first clip

(recorded by your fansite) - you & toji are at the airport and it is packed. there are fans swarming you, practically suffocating you & toji, along with paparazzi taking pictures of you, flashing lights in your face. your bodyguards are literally at war trying to guard you and you have to cling onto toji’s arm to even get past the sea of people.

all of a sudden one fan somehow gets way too close, and grabs a hold of your shirt, trying to drag you towards him. you jerk forward and without even hesitating, toji just grabs the face of the crazy fan and pushes him away like it’s nothing, causing a domino effect having other fans falling over as well.

toji puts an arm around you and guides you to check your tickets, ignoring all the chaos he caused behind him.

(this got a lot of mixed reactions, some people siding with toji saying he was just protecting you & others criticising him for his rash actions that could’ve caused people to get injured 💀)

౨ৎ second clip

you & toji were doing a video for WIRED, taking part in their popular series, “Web’s Most Searched Questions” about yourselves.

“okay third question..” you say, and peel off the paper. “are _____ and toji..dating?”

you & toji look at the camera and then at each other, faces hot and you’re both awkwardly smiling before looking at the camera again. you & toji speak. “yeah, i dunno.” “nooo idea.” “literally no clue whatsoever.” “why even ask that like-like we’d know the answer?”

you peel the next question and it’s even worse. “are _____ and toji having- A BABY?!” you shout and cover your face laughing, both in shock and amusement. “what?!”

toji just facepalms, hiding his pink cheeks and sighs tiredly. “christ…”

౨ৎ third clip

you’re at a press conference for the series you and toji are in, all the cast members are gathered on a long table with microphones but it’s a pretty informal gathering and the fans are being very interactive with the cast!

a crew members hands the microphone to a fan who has a question. “hi! hi, i’m sarah and uhm..i have a question for toji. and _____ too! do you think that your characters have a chance of..like..getting together? like romantically-?”

“yeah we’re getting together,” toji responds bluntly, reeling in the loud cheers from the crowd & he decides to add fuel to the fire. “and we’re gonna have a make-out scene too.”

the audiences goes crazy with applause and whistles, while you pinch the bridge of your nose, shaking your head in embarrassment as the cast look to see your reaction.

then the director of the show pitches in, holding her finger up. “just to clarify, we did not discuss this..”

there’s a chorus of laughs and sad ‘awws’ among the pool of fans which only makes you giggle. you didn’t even know what to say to toji’s brashness.

gojo chimes in with his loud mouth while everyone is still buzzing from toji’s unexpected words. “talking about kisses and stuff like. this guy’s just saying what he wants to hear!”

everyone starts creasing up again and you & toji lean your heads to look at each other on opposing ends of the table, and he just smirks at you while you just shake your head and try not to look so obvious..

౨ৎ fourth clip

vogue did a video with you getting ready for a fashion show you were invited to, by the designer herself.

the makeup artists had just finished your shimmery, fairy-like makeup and now the stylists were accessorising you with jewellery and fixing your hair.

“yeah i really like how the hair is done,” you say, referring to the baby pink ribbon tied cutely around your bun. “it’s really cute! and the dress is just so-”

the door to the dressing room opens and toji pokes his head in, the camera zooming in on him. “‘ya done yet?”

“toji?” you ask, exasperated. “toji get out! we’re not finished yet..”

toji looks you up and down in confusion. “ya look done to me. we gotta leave in like-”

“toji i am clearly not finished. we have to go through which jewellery looks the best with the neckline of the dress and..my whole look altogether so it doesn’t drown me out! and then we have to pick the correct shoes and make sure i’m comfortable with them and that they look pretty but also don’t take attention away from the dress. and then for the perfume-”

“yeah, yeah, alright, i get it.” toji totes. “but we have to be there in 30 minutes so-”

“oh toji’.” you sigh, looking in the mirror while the stylist fuss around you. “it’s okay if we’re late. i’m the main event. the designer invented me personally. they won’t even start the show if i’m not there. it’ll be fine, trust me.”

toji looks at you for a moment and then simply shrugs, nodding and accepting your words.

౨ৎ fifth clip

“so yeah, this is the book i’m reading.” you hold up ‘pride & prejudice’ to the camera for your fans to see. you were on a livestream, which you don’t usually do, and many fans were watching. “i just love this book. the characters are-”

loud, thudding footsteps can be heard in the background and you pause. a deep, clearly a man’s voice can be heard and then a shirtless toji walks into frame (as identified by his tattoos bc his face is not on camera). he reaches out of frame.

“sorry, jus’ forgot my shirt.”

he puts his shirt on, not even realising what he just did in front of 50,000 people and walks out of the room

it all happened so fast, you sit with your jaw open like a fish, holding your now forgotten book in your hand while the chat goes wild, spamming questions of “who is that?” “is that toji?” “you and toji are together?” in a frantic, chaotic fashion.

you just look at the camera and reach forward, abruptly ending the live. fans did not stop talking about this moment for months and they most certainly did not believe you when you said toji was just at your house for a little ‘visit’.

౨ৎ

tag list: @tiredslepz | @hayatslife | @shxyxyxxxx | @snowprincesa1 | @laylasbunbunny | @mimiemie

a/n: yk how hard it is to think of ideas for this omg 😭💔

[rowarn]

hybrid au part 3 - FINAL

other parts: one | two

cw: major character death, angst, happy ending tho, lack of communication, loving!kyle agenda, mentions of price finally

a/n: SO THAT'S IT. i hope it was worth the wait!!!! mwah!!!

Kyle noticed the way your light dimmed the following days. He was at a loss, one day you're bouncing off the walls and filling every room with the sweet sound of your purrs and the next it's cold and quiet. 

He tried everything, bringing home fragrant, expensive food and snacks, toys, whatever he could find that he thought would make you smile again. But nothing seemed to work. 

When you spend the entire day curled up on the couch, blankly watching TV, he decided he had enough. 

The following day, he was hooking your collar around your neck and forcing you to go outside into the sunshine. 

Your eyes burned as you stepped out beneath the sun's blazing beams. Days spent indoors, sleeping most of the daytime hours away, had accustomed you to darkness. It was hot and you already wanted to go back inside but one pitiful look towards Kyle told you that you were not getting out of this easily.

So you hang your head and allow him to lead you down the sidewalk. The military housing area was surprisingly quiet, the only sound was a lawnmower somewhere nearby. 

Kyle was silent, content with keeping his hand on the small of your back, a kind, protective gesture to assure you that he was still there as you glared at the sidewalk. 

Before you knew it, the quietness of the neighborhood grew louder and louder until you were walking through the gate of the hybrid-park. 

You looked around, watching all the happy hybrids and owners running around and playing lighthearted rounds of soccer or football. Casting a glance to Kyle, he gives you a crooked, boyish smile. 

“What do you wanna do?” he asks, glancing around, “We can take a lap around the park if you'd like?” 

You shake your head, “Can we just sit?” 

“Sure, sweetheart,” he coos, nudging you in the direction of an empty bench. 

You both take a seat, and look out across the park. While the nights still got quite chilly, it was beautiful during the day - a soothing breeze that rustled the green leaves in the trees and clear blue skies that you could look at for hours. 

You hated to admit it but - Kyle was right. You were starting to feel better, like a weight was being lifted off your shoulders. Being cooped up in the house didn’t help anything, in fact it probably made things worse.

A hand patted your head and you looked over to see Kyle beaming, as if he could see the tension just melt off of you. 

“I'm going to get us something to drink,” he muttered as he stood up, “Lemonade okay with you?” 

You nod your head, fluffy ears bouncing atop your head as you do. Kyle has to resist the urge to reach out and pet them, forcing himself to turn around and find a drink stand to get the lemonade from.

You're staring off at a dog hybrid and a young boy playing a heated game of soccer when you hear your name being called. 

Your head whips around to see Johnny standing there, tail wagging and eyes wide in shock. It's obvious he ran all the way over to where you are from the way his shoulders heave up and down with his heavy panting. 

“I-” he clears his throat, thinking over what he wanted to say, “I've missed ye.” 

Your heart was pounding in your chest, making the blood rush in your ears, “Johnny…”

“Come home,” he says, desperate and breathless, “I miss ye and I want ye to come back.” 

“Simon doesn't want me, Johnny…” you mutter, feeling shame burn at your cheeks as you look down at your hands - nails neatly filed down by Kyle just a few days ago. 

“To hell with him!” he spits, “I want you back, isn't that enough?” 

Your frown deepens. His selfishness ignites irritation within you, tears pricking at the backs of your eyes. 

“Why?” you ask, voice breaking as the word slips past your lips, “Why should I have to live like that? Being hated while you get to be loved?” Johnny says your name but you cut him off before he can say anything else, “That's not fair, Johnny. I have Kyle now and he loves me! I'm happy with him.”

“Can't ye be happy with me too?” he asks, sad, teary eyes cutting right through your heart. 

“Of course I could Johnny but…” before you can continue there's a sharp call of the pup’s name and both of you freeze. 

Johnny looks over his shoulder to see Simon jogging up behind him, a fierce glare in his brown eyes. A rough, gloved hand grabs the back of the hybrid’s collar. 

“What the hell do you think you're doin’ runnin’ off like that?” Simon snaps, anger masking the clear worry he had experienced at his missing companion. 

“I was just…” Johnny’s eyes drift to you and that's when Simon acknowledges your existence. 

The sneer on his face is clear even through the mask and it makes you shrink in on yourself, ears flattened back. Even after all this time, the sting of his rejection remains strong and hurts just the same. 

“What’s a gutter rat like you doin’ here?” Simon snaps. 

It annoys him that you're always at the source of his problems with Johnny. Whenever the pup misbehaves, you're always there. A bad influence. Typical cat. 

You look at Johnny. He doesn’t meet your gaze, instead staring up at his owner with an apologetic expression. You want him to speak up. You want him to defend you, to tell Simon to be nice or to apologize or tell him what you mean to him. 

But Johnny just sighs, “Sorry, Si.” 

The lack of defense towards you in the face of Simon solidifies everything for you in that moment. You look down at your lap, the crack in your heart only aching and stinging more and more with every beat of silence that passes between the three of you. 

Something ice cold touches the back of your neck and you yelp, launching yourself off the bench and onto the ground. Laughter fills your ears and you turn to glare at Kyle who holds a large plastic cup of lemonade - the cold thing he’d just surprised you with. 

“Sorry, love!” he apologizes but the laughter shows he's anything but. 

Soap speaks up then, asking if Kyle knows you. Your owner’s brown eyes shine with pride as he affectionately ruffles your hair.

“Found them on the street and brought them home!” Kyle tells them, sounding much like a proud father, “Best decision of my life!”

Your cheeks burn at his praise, his kind, loving words remedy the painful stinging in your heart that had been brought on by your previous owner. You take the cup of lemonade when he offers it to you, taking a sip and cringing at the sour taste that hits your tongue – much to Kyle’s amusement.

“You guys are welcome to come over anytime,” Kyle says, smiling as he affectionately pets your ears, “I’m sure this cute kitten would love to have a friend to hang out with.”

“Yeah…maybe,” Simon mumbles, sending you a sidelong glance that was cold and empty – telling you everything you needed to know without saying it. Absolutely not.

You find that you don’t mind that much. The idea of never seeing Simon or his painfully hateful gaze was nice. But when you looked at Johnny, who was staring at you in despair – you find yourself mumbling in response, “Maybe someday.”

The hope in Johnny’s eyes seers into your mind, even long after you’ve parted ways and gone home for the day. 

The days pass in relative ease. The depressive rut you found yourself in melts away and Kyle is thrilled to see that you’ve returned to your bright, bubbly self. You greet him at the door when he walks in, sit and purr beside him while you both eat dinner together, curl up against his side and happily snooze the night away. 

It’s peaceful bliss.

But one evening, Kyle returns home and tosses his heavy duffle bag onto the floor with a thunk. You get up to greet him, stretching your arms high above your head before padding over to him with a sleepy smile on your face. Kyle opens his arms for you, letting you tuck yourself into his chest for a hug. A loud purr emanates from your chest that only seems to make Kyle’s shoulders drop.

“What’s the matter?” you ask when you catch a look at his face when he pulls away; brows furrowed and lips in a tight line.

“Just got some sad news, that’s all, lovie,” he mutters, patting your head before he moves into the kitchen to start preparing dinner.

“What news?” you ask, following after him, tail swishing nervously behind you. 

Did his parents pass away? Did a friend get hurt?

Kyle sets out some vegetables on the counter, hunting around for a knife before sighing, “You remember Simon and Johnny? We met them at the park the other day?”

You nod your head, “Of course.”

“There was an accident a couple days ago,” Kyle explains, slowly chopping up the celery on the cutting board, “Johnny got hit. He didn’t make it. Simon’s tore up about it.”

It feels like everything freezes right then and there for you. You no longer hear the chopping of the knife, no longer hear Kyle's voice or the sound of traffic outside on the street. All you can hear is the pounding in your ears and the sound of your own breathing.

Images flash behind your eyes in your grief. You can see Johnny’s boyish smile and his boisterous laugh emanating down the hallway. You can see him so clearly, wrapped around you as you snuggle and snooze together as the rain falls outside. You can hear the animated way he would tell you stories, waving his hands around and his tail thumping loudly on the floor.

You don’t even realize you’re crying until you feel a hand cup your cheek. You blink away the tears and Kyle’s face comes into view, worry etched onto it. 

“What is it, lovie? Why are you crying?” he asks, clearly concerned.

“Johnny’s dead?” you ask, voice broken and wobbly as you fight to talk through tears.

“Yeah, love,” Kyle coos, thumbing beneath your eyes to rub away some tears, “Why are you so upset?”

Everything tumbles from your lips then. You tell him about how you lived on the street, how your life changed the day you met a rambunctious pup who wouldn’t take no for an answer until he had himself a friend. You tell Kyle about how, even though Simon was awful to you, Johnny was a light in the dark and how much you adored him and how much he meant to you. You tell him how Simon threw you out like trash and how much it hurt and how much you missed Johnny despite everything. 

Kyle held you through it all, tucking you tenderly against his chest as you cried it all out.

“I had no idea, lovie,” he whispers into your hair, pressing sweet kisses to your forehead when your breathing becomes erratic. 

“I-I never got to settle things with him,” you wail, “He wanted me to come home and I-I couldn’t give him an answer.”

Kyle sighs, cupping the back of your head, rocking you back and forth until your cries quiet down to hiccuping sniffles, “It’ll be alright, sweetheart. Everything will be okay.”

Truthfully, he doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn't know how he can make this hurt go away or help you soothe the grief you’re experiencing. All he can do is hold you close and comfort you whenever you need.

This time, when Kyle notices how sad you are as the days pass, he doesn’t force you to leave the house or do anything. He just lets your sadness run its course, doing what he can to ease your burden by making your favorite dishes and letting you watch your favorite movies over and over again until he can practically recite them by heart.

There’s a knock at the door that startles the both of you one evening. Kyle’s on his feet in seconds, hand drifting towards the firearm he keeps nearby before he looks through the peephole on the door and relaxes. 

You peek over the back of the couch as he opens the door. Simon stands there. 

Although he is masked, you can practically see how worn down and utterly devastated he is. 

“What’s up?” Kyle asks, hand twitching to reach out for the older man but thinks better of it. “Do you need something?”

“I wanna talk to that one,” Simon nods in your direction, where you’re still peeking over the couch. 

Kyle turns to look at you over his shoulder, asking your consent. You think it over for a few seconds before you nod your head. Not like Simon would do anything with Kyle here. 

He steps aside to let the larger man enter and closes the door, giving an excuse about getting drinks before disappearing into the kitchen.

Simon’s heavy boots vibrate the floor as he takes a few large steps towards you. You scoot to the other side of the couch when he sits down, the couch bouncing with his added weight.

His hands are folded between his knees where he rests his elbows on them. His tattooed skin ripples and flexes as he nervously fidgets with his hands. 

“Johnny wanted you to come home,” he starts out, staring intently at the floor. You swear you can see tears beading at his lower lash line as he says his companions name, “So I’m here to see if you will.”

“You want me back?” you ask softly, anxiously pulling a pillow into your lap.

Simon nods, “It’s what Johnny wanted. He cared about you, loved you. You’re all I have left of him.”

You’re silent at that. 

Despite everything, your heart aches for Simon. He adored Johnny more than anything – even if he hated you, his love for the pup was palpable. You could see it in his face every time he saw Johnny, eyes scrunching up happily. Johnny was his world and now that world was gone and Simon was left with nothing but bitter emptiness and a void that he was desperate to fill. 

You found yourself opening your mouth, ready to agree – ready to be the one to soothe your ex-owners devastating hurt. But then you found yourself looking into the kitchen, to Kyle’s back. He was hunched over the counter, vigorously mixing something in a bowl and you realized that you didn’t want to leave him. 

Kyle was yours. Kyle was everything you could ever need or want. He wanted and loved you when you thought no one else would. He didn’t give up on you even when you were difficult and cold. He cared about you, thought about you every day. He gave you everything you wished for so desperately during your time living with Simon. 

“I can’t,” you find yourself whispering, tears filling your eyes at how much it hurt to turn Simon away, “I know Johnny would want me to be with you, to make sure you’re okay without him but…I love Kyle and I want to stay with him.”

“So that’s it then?” Simon asks, voice small and weaker than you’ve ever heard it before. You know there’s a crushing weight on his heart right now, knowing he will be going home alone to a painfully empty and cold house. 

“Yeah…” You whisper, unable to look up at him as he rises to his feet. 

Kyle comes out of the kitchen with a steaming bowl in his hands, asking Simon if he was okay as he passes by him to the front door. The larger man just grunts in response and opens the door. The quiet click of it closing is all you hear of his departure before the warm bowl is in your lap. 

It’s a bowl of broth that makes your mouth water. The fact Kyle had made it for your just because warmed your heart.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, sitting down next to you, arm tossed over the couch behind you, fingers mindlessly stroking over the fuzzy surface of your ear.

“He wanted me to go home with him,” you respond, taking a sip of the broth.

“You said no?” he asks. You catch the worry in his tone – like he was scared you were going to tell him you were leaving him soon.

But you nod and his body relaxes in relief, “He only wanted me back because I reminded him of Johnny. He didn’t really want me, just the image of Johnny.”

Kyle nods, leaning over to kiss your temple, “That man loved that pup. But I’m glad you’re here to stay.”

You look over at him from over the bowl of broth as you sip it, “Yeah?”

“I would have let you go if that’s what you really wanted but…” He looks a little sheepish as he continues, “It would have hurt to see you go, kitty. I meant it when I said adopting you was the best decision of my life.”

You place the bowl down on the coffee table before launching yourself into his arms. He grunts as your weight slams against him, knocking him back onto the couch as he laughs. His arms wrap around you in a bear hug, squeezing you so hard that your ribs ache but you don’t even think about trying to pull away.

Though you don’t say it, he knows that you’re his to keep and that you love him just as much as he loves you. He couldn’t imagine life without you now. 

BONUS: 

“I think my boss is gettin’ impatient to meet you, you know,” he mumbles in your shoulder.

“Your boss?” you ask, voice almost too quiet to hear over your loud purring.

“Yeah, the old man’s been dyin’ to meet the cute kitten I talk about all the time at work,” he explains.

“You talk about me?” you ask, peeking up shyly.

He grins, “All the time. I think everyone’s sick of my voice at this point. But the Captain's really been begging to come and meet you. I’ve been waiting for a good time to bring it up. He’s a bit of a lover so you’d have to put up with all the pets and hugs he has to offer.”

Your eyes shine in interest, “I want to meet him!”

Kyle chuckles, reaching up to pet one of your twitching ears, “I’ll make the call then and set up dinner.”

You were excited to meet a new person. You hoped he was as kind and gentle as Kyle was. And even though the idea of Simon sitting alone and hurt in his house with nothing but the memories of his best friend, you weren’t going to let that stop you from opening up new chapters in your own life. 

do not repost on other websites, translate, or modify. reblogs welcome!

[acid-ixx]

I hope you don’t mind but I need to ramble this to someone, neglected Wayne reader right? The fam would forget to bring them to social events and whatnot right? So there would be very few pictures, articles and interviews or even facts about them, meaning that reader Wayne is a rarity. Still following me? Reader Wayne with a small but devout fanbase.

I’m talking they are trading the latest pictures and sharing links to the rare interview with reader in it, following any social media they have that isn’t private, they are just fascinated by this micro celebrity that seems to always be forgotten. Okay but also imagine one of the heroes developing a para-social attachment to reader. My money is on Conner Kent, mainly bc he can project his own issues with his dads onto reader and he can Dolores ~Encanto~ reader with his super hearing and develop a even bigger parasocial obsession with them

I hope you enjoyed this ramble, I will leave you be now, see ya later alligator! 🐊

omg another one of my asks that actually predicted a major plot point... this ask ties well with the last part written here. i'm thinking about having the reader get a love interest/s but i have already written an outline but one thing is for sure—

you have more than just your family interested in taking you.

major spoilers below the cut. — an excerpt from chapter xx

(name) wayne may have been a name forcefully deleted off of the face of the internet, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its conspiracies of its own. nobody knows who you are beyond the blurry, unsolicited pictures of you. it may have been a photograph of your back, or articles published in unknown websites and buried at the far end about a kid entering through the fancy gates of the wayne manor.

you are a product of a one-night-stand.

but they don't know who the mother is, don't know your age, or where you come from, and what business bruce has with the woman to guarantee your adoption at the instance she had disappeared without warning.

your existence was a mystery most would like to solve. after all, it was your picture that was plastered all over the newspapers and articles, it was your name that journalists whisper and it was a silhouette of your face that the underground knows by heart. every known information about you was shared discretely yet efficiently like some sort of virus.

you were a target for interest, a large sum of money if they will. and alfred had taken it in his hands to make sure there would never be a repeat of what had happened before.

it was a clumsy mistake, one that cost you your memories, and one he swears on his life he'll never make again.

the first course of action he needs to arrange, which may seem difficult for most; he needs to confront bruce.

after all, your freedom is your doom.

maybe this is out of the picture, but id' like to imagine you and connor having a therapy session where one comes out absolutely obsessed with the other, and it's not you.

connor's character for me is so, so good for an angst potential. it's like his personal struggles is a way for him to show you how absolutely you two are meant to be. and he may have met you through bumping into you (false) or maybe... he has seen you stalking through the shadows back when he visits the manor. using his superhearing, he can hear your voice from the kitchen begging alfred to relay a message to bruce, sounding so absolutely desperate. it's the way you tell alfred how you wished your father actually spends time with you, or how nobody seems to notice you— that he kind of just makes a silent promise that he will talk to you soon, he needs to know why this family seems so keen on ignoring and how hypocritical tim is for literally doing the same thing to you when he's aware of kon's past.

if he (or anyone else) should be a love interest (though he is a minor character in the series unless you guys want him to be a major one), i can already imagine the absolute hell you have to suffer not only from your family but from your own lover. just imagine the stockholm syndrome or the delusions you convince yourself with because you're finally loved by someone but that love restricts you from the very freedom you tried to build.

the batfamily would be so conflicted because why are you choosing some stranger over them...? then you slap them in the face with, "well, this "stranger" wants to kidnap me and lock me up, sure! but at least they actually looked at me for more than five seconds!" and you can watch how the color drains off their face, their conflict giving you the perfect opportunity to run away from both your ex-family and your soon-to-be-kidnapper-lover who thinks your comeback is a funny way for you to propose.

[ennabear]

i beg of you to write more mean abby.. i reread all of ur mean abby works religiously i swear i just love her too much ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

ʕ≧ᴥ≦ʔ NONNIEEEEE STOP THIS JS TOO SWEET!!!! IM BLUSHING IM BLUSHING I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!! sorry this is a lil bit messy, i haven’t really had time to lock in on anything official I HOPE THATS OKAY!!!! here are some thoughts… 18+

i think mean!abby is one of those people who are discreetly rich. she’s not the type of person to go on big fancy vacations, or buy expensive sports cars, or to always have the newest technology. before she met you, she probably spent most of her money on books or expensive brands of tea imported from countries she’s never even heard of. after she met you, though? she’d swipe her card a million times a day to see you smile.

the best way i can describe her personality is like some old cranky grandpa, the scary guy on the block who never smiles but is very confrontational. if you’ve seen her around, you’d know that she’s always wearing a scowl, only leaves her penthouse apartment early to go to the gym, and has beef with most of her neighbors. but if you know know her? she’s a sweetie pie. she loves spontaneous sweet treats, slow dancing to 70’s music, old horror films (mean!abby letterboxd goes CRAZY i just know), and most shockingly, her cats.

and she LOVES those fuckers. it’s so perfect how she can have a companion who’s quiet and small and independent, and two of them? barely any responsibility. they have an automatic feeder, entertain each other, and only bug her about once a day for attention.

as for her job, i could see her having two possibilities. one being an extreme workaholic. maybe an office job or a surgeon or something?? (NOT a nurse because they’re supposed to be good at talking to people…) OR she only really works part time, some freelance job that doesn’t really have any rules. a photographer or a tattoo artist or some sort of small business that she can mostly manage on her own. money has never been an issue for her, coming from a family of doctors. her ass was spoiled rotten as a kid, and after her dad died she inherited all of that money.

she’s the biggest protector in the world. someone was talking shit about you? she’s breaking their nose right now actually. i think the biggest reason she’s “mean” is because she actually just has anxiety. the last time she felt a love this strong, it was for her dad. she can’t afford to lose you like she lost him, so she always has to make sure you’re safe and sound. it’s not like she’s trying to be controlling by texting you every half hour, she just worries that maybe she won’t be able to protect you for once, and it’ll be at the worst possible time.

ok lock in here are some nsfw thoughts :3

you know that trope that’s like “big mean stoic character is actually the subbiest bottomest little puppy in the whole world.” yeah…. if you don’t agree what are you still doing here.

it definitely took her a while to be this vulnerable, but jesus christ is it worth it!!! the way you get to watch her squirm and whimper underneath you, knowing that you’re the only one who can make her feel this way. to give your big protective guard dog girlfriend a night off, to take care of her in return for all that she does for you.

and she lovessss being tied up!!!! something about the intimacy of knowing you’re gonna give her a good time makes her submit to you almost instantly. she has to trust you on this, has sit back and relax and let her brain melt because she physically can’t do anything about it.

when she does dom i imagine she’s a pretty big brat tamer. c’mon, not everyone has the luxury of having a girlfriend like her. if you don’t act grateful she’ll whip you in to shape. literally. she’s not afraid of a good spanking.

also she’s strapped up 24/7 but this is canon in every universe… no matter what she’s doing or where she’s going or who she’s gonna meet, the strap stays ON!!! just in case she may need it….

but she’s the aftercare QUEEN. of course. apart from the basics like food, water, cuddles, etc. she has tonssss of knowledge on proper aftercare. you’d never have to worry about being hurt or getting a uti or feeling unloved because she’s read every forum to exist about aftercare!!! i just know this bitch runs a tumblr kink blog like it’s the military… 🤦

that’s all…. going to eep now……

[x0xomady]

espresso

short n’ sweet au

summary: harry can’t keep his mind off of you so he makes a three am visit.

♫: “espresso” sabrina carpenter

a/n: this could either be based on “espresso” or “late night talking” so i’m imagining harry wrote lnt for you and you wrote espresso for him :) oh how i love desperate men

warnings: 18+ smut, unprotected sex, mutual masturbation, not proofread i’m lazy.

“say you can’t sleep, baby i know, that’s that me espresso.”

“now you’re in my life, i can’t get you off my mind.”

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

“damn it…” harry groans in frustration as he lays in bed, unable to sleep. he’s been tossing and turning in the sheets for the last three hours, and nothing works.

he worked out this evening to make himself tired, drank an insane amount of tea to ‘calm himself down,’ watched a dumb rom-com to distract himself, got in bed, and STILL could not fall asleep.

he stares at the ceiling in frustration, unable to keep his mind off you, the girl he was utterly obsessed with, and drove him insane.

what makes it worse, is harry had absolutely know right to be this obsessed with you. you were his friend, his sweet friend that he collabroated with and wrote music with.

he feels sick for thinking this way about you, but he can’t help it. every time he imagines your sweet voice, the late night phone calls about lyrics, the blood shoots right into his pants, and he feels guilty.

how could he? you’re always so sweet to him, always give him the best advice, always listen to him talk, but he just can’t help it.

“oh fuck it.” harry drops any ounce of self control he had and shoves his hand down his boxers. fuck he knows this is wrong, but everything about you is engrained in his brain.

it’s going to be a long night.

-ˋˏ ༻ ☕ ༺ ˎˊ-

“alright yeah, add that after the chorus.” you’re sat next to one of harry’s producers, working on his knew song. harry had asked you a few months ago to help with the production on his new album, and seeing as you love working with harry, you immediately said yes.

overall the writing was going smoothly. you already had three songs done, and had two in progress. harry sounded amazing as ever, and each part of the song was going together really well.

“okay, let’s get another guitar part in.” harry’s producer motioned for mitch to get into the recording booth, which he did. “whenever your ready.”

the guitar sounded perfect with harry’s pre-recorded vocals. everything was matching up just like it should. you glance back at harry who’s sitting on the couch of the studio with his little lyrical notebook, probably going through his notes.

you can’t help but stop paying attention to mitch for a moment, when you notice how out of it harry looks. his curls are messy and in his face, something harry usually avoids when he’s writing. he looks exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days. something is definitely wrong.

harry is one of the most put together and organized people you know, today when he walked in he was chugging coffee and didn’t have his usual tote bag of stuff.

“that sounded great, mitch, what do you think, h?” tyler, one of harry’s producers, looks over at harry, who’s eyes snap up when he hears his name.

“oh… yeah that’s great, sounds good.” he nods and goes back to his lyric notebook. mitch and tyler give harry a strange look but shrug it off and goes back to listening to the recording.

you stand up from the chair by the recording equipment and walk over to harry, plopping down on the couch next to him.

“so… you good?” you glance over at him and watch his reaction. he shuts his notebook and nods, looking back over at you.

“yep all good.” he says bluntly and shoves the notebook in his pocket before standing up and walking away from you, over to the table with the other two.

that was extremely out of character for him. harry always gave you answers when he was upset, he always told you what was going on.

instead, he was acting like he needed to get away from you, he didn’t even hold eye contact for more than three seconds. weird.

the rest of the day felt uneasy, to say the least.

usually harry was really into it, but he was barely communicating with anyone if it wasn’t about the song. you assume it’s because he’s stressed about the album, but he’s never acted like this during one of your sessions before.

“alright i’m heading home.” mitch grabs his phone and stands up, patting harry on the back, before bidding goodbye and leaving. tyler nods in agreement and packs up his stuff before leaving the stuido as well, leaving harry and you alone.

you wave goodbye to the two of them before turning back around in your chair, looking over at harry. he’s sat in front of the table, writing in his journal quickly. he’s probably just in one of those moods where he needs to get the lyrics out as quickly as possible. so you respect that, and give him space.

instead of talking to him and interrupt whatever it is he’s working on, you turn back to the computer, replaying the song you had been working on all day.

it wasn’t weird, you and harry have been alone together more times than you can count.

sometimes harry liked to come to your house and sit on the couch quietly while you worked on your music. if you really think about it, most of your time together was sat in comfortable silence. which is something harry needed in his hectic day-to-day.

you hum along quietly to the song, typing down your own things into the computer. you’re working on your own album also, so adding little lyrics to your notes throughout the day wasn’t uncommon.

harry looks over at you and shakes his head, mumbling to himself before looking back at his journal.

“the song sounds great, h. are you happy with it?” after a few minutes you break the silence, glancing over at him.

harry nods and continues writing across the pages, filling it with lyrics you know you’ll love. “sounds nice.”

you sigh at his short answer, hoping for more, but you get it. he’s normally a pretty open person, but when he get’s in a mood he shuts everyone out.

after a few more minutes of tinkering with the song and relaxing in the calm studio, you stand up and grab your bag. “i’m going home. call me if you need anything.”

you give his shoulder a light squeeze, but don’t push anything so you don’t seem annoying, as you walk out of the studio.

harry nods and gives you a glance before looking back down. “mhm.”

-ˋˏ ༻ ☕ ༺ ˎˊ-

that night, you decided to take it easy. taking a long bath, doing your full skincare, blowdrying your hair, wearing your soft silk pajamas before slipping into bed.

it feels heavenly to take care of yourself and just let yourself be comfortable. harry and his weird behavior had been stressing you out all day, and it felt good not to think about anything.

you lay in bed comfortably, switching on the tv and playing your favorite show. rain can be heard outside the window, adding to the perfect atmosphere of your room.

as you’re laying in bed, finally feeling the anxiety of the day ooze out of you, you hear a bang on your door. you sit up in surprise, a little startled by the loud noise. you grab your phone and quickly look at the cameras, sighing in relief when you see it’s just harry.

what the hell is he doing here at three am?

it wasn’t uncommon for harry to make late night visits to you’re house, but he usually texted you first.

you sigh and flip off the tv, standing up from the bed and walking downstairs. you open the front door and are met with a drenched harry. his clothes are basically soaked through, and he has a kicked puppy expression on his face.

you immediately grab harry by the arm and pull him inside. “what are you doing?! it’s three am!”

he shrugs and walks into the house, his arms slouched and face down. “sorry… didn’t mean to wake you.”

“what- no you didn’t wake me, h. what’s wrong? are you okay?” you look at him in confusion, taking in the sad expression on his face.

harry nods and finally moves his head to look at you, the wet curls on his head sticking to his forehead. “i’m okay… just decided to take a walk. i couldn’t sleep.”

“you decided to take a walk at three am in the pouring rain?”

“well i left at midnight-“

“you’ve been walking around the city for three hours?!”

“i told you i can’t sleep!”

you look at harry, completely confused by his words and actions. he never acted like this. “cut it out harry, what’s wrong?”

“nothing’s wrong!” harry sighs in frustration and walks past you into the house.

you shake your head and follow him, walking over to the closet to get him a towel. “there’s obviously something if you’re cting like this! just tell me!”

he looks away from you and sits in one of the kitchen chairs. “i just have a lot on my mind.”

his voice is low and even, but you can sense the underlying tension in his words. you walk over to the closet and grab a towel, handing it to him as he sits there, his eyes fixed on the floor.

he takes the towel and rubs his hair, drying the dark curls. you can see the fatigue etched on his face, the dark circles under his eyes a testament to the lack of sleep.

you want to ask him what's wrong, to press him for answers, but something about his expression stops you. you take a seat next to him at the kitchen table, your eyes locked on his face. the only sound is the soft patter of the rain outside, the hum of the refrigerator in the background.

harry groans in frustration and rests his face in his hands. “you have no idea how much you’ve fucked me up.”

you feel a pang of guilt and confusion in your chest, but you try to ignore it. “what do you mean, harry?”

he looks up at you, his eyes filled with a mix of frustration and anger. “i can’t stop thinking about you. it’s driving me crazy and- and then you act like this! you act all sweet and you treat me so sweet and then- i have to just-”

harry's voice trails off, and he looks away from you, his eyes fixed on the floor again. you can sense the turmoil within him, the conflicting emotions that are tearing him apart. you feel a rush of guilt and confusion, unsure of how to respond.

"harry, i-" you start to say, but he interrupts you.

“no, don't. just let me finish,” he says, his frustrated as he sighs. "i know i shouldn't feel this way, and i don't want to ruin our friendship.”

you look at him in surprise, staying silent and letting him talk. harry takes a deep breath and continues, “you’re just so pretty and perfect- and i care about you so much and i can’t do this anymore!” he looks at you with a mixture of guilt and longing in his eyes.

“i can’t sleep at night, i think about you whenever i’m alone, i can’t even write a damn song without it being about you!”

you feel a rush of confusion and emotion, unsure of how to respond. you had no idea that harry felt this way about you, and you’re not sure how to react. you open your mouth to speak, but no words come out.

harry tosses the towel to the side and grabs your face gently so you’re looking at him, his eyes full of desperation. “please, love. either tell me you care like i do or cut me off. i can’t keep pretending like i don’t think of you every day like you aren’t everything to me.”

you feel a rush of emotion as you stare into his eyes, your heart pounding in your chest. you never expected to hear those words come out of his mouth, and you're not sure how to respond. your mind races as you try to process what he's saying, your thoughts a jumbled mess of confusion and fear.

“harry...” you start to say, but your voice trails off. you don't know what to say, and you can feel the weight of the moment pressing down on you. harry's eyes never leave yours, and you can see the hope and fear mingling in their depths.

unable to find the words to express your feelings, you take matters into your own hands.

you can't help but feel nervous as you reach out and gently grab harry's face, pulling him down against your lips. the kiss is soft at first, but it quickly becomes more passionate as you wrap your arms around him, pulling him closer. harry responds eagerly, his arms encircling your waist as he deepens the kiss.

harry moans into the kiss and pulls you against him. you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him back towards your room.

you push open the door to your room, and harry follows closely behind, his lips still locked on yours. the sound of the rain outside fades into the background as you move further into the room. you can feel the warmth of the space enveloping you, a sanctuary from the turmoil that's been brewing between you and harry.

you break the kiss for a moment, your forehead resting against his as you catch your breath. "please, i need you, harry," you mumble against his lips, tugging at his wet hoodie. harry responds by pulling you closer, his hands resting on your hips as he deepens the kiss once more.

harry breaks the kiss for a moment, his eyes searching yours as if asking for permission. you nod, and he lifts you up, laying you down gently on the bed. he crawls over you, his body hovering above yours as he continues to kiss you.

"you drive me insane, angel," he sighs against your lips, pulling his hoodie over his head before pulling your pajama top off. his hands linger on your skin, and you can feel the warmth radiating from his body.

"you had me touching myself in bed like i was 13," he continues, his voice low and husky. you feel a rush of heat spread through your body, and you pull him closer, your fingers tracing the lines of his tattoos.

“yeah?” you look up at him, watching the way he moves. he nods and presses kisses to your neck, trailing down your chest.

“i can’t control myself around you, i turn into a mess every time i see your pretty face.” the soft kisses against your breasts turn more urgent as he looks up at you, tugging down his jeans and tossing them to the side.

his boxers fall to the ground and his thick cock springs free, the pre-cum dripping from his tip. “look how hard you make me, shit-“

he chokes out a moan as he squeezes the base of his length, watching you intently. “please touch yourself for me, i need to see you, baby.”

you nod, your heart pounding in your chest as you slip your hand under your underwear, feeling the wetness that's been building up since the moment harry showed up at your doorstep. your fingers find your clit, and you start to rub in slow circles, your breath hitching as harry watches you.

“that’s it, angel,” he murmurs, his voice low and husky as he pulls down your underwear, his eyes trained on your wet folds.

you can feel yourself getting closer to the edge as you watch him stroke himself, the arousal glistening on his tip.

“please- i need you to touch me, harry.” you whimper. you can feel your legs trembling as you continue to rub your clit, your fingers slick with your wetness.

harry doesn’t hesitate, his hand moving between your legs as he gently parts your folds. before putting himself inside you, he rests his cock against your cunt, rubbing his length through your folds. his tip head bumping against your clit perfectly. harry’s eyes never leave yours, and you can see the desire burning in the green iris’s.

“do you see what you do to me?” he chokes out a moan as he slowly grinds his cock against you, his head hitting your clit each time. “you make a mess of me.”

you whimper, your body trembling as he continues to tease you. harry’s cock is slick with pre-cum, and you can see it glistening in the dim light of your room.

he leans down and gently presses a kiss to your forehead before moving to his knees between your legs. with a groan, he pushes his cock past your tight entrance. “harry,” you moan, holding onto his shoulders as he slips deep inside of you, pushing until his heavy balls rest against your ass.

harry’s thrusts are slow and deliberate, his eyes locked on yours as he fills you up completely. you can feel every inch of him, and it’s overwhelming in the most delicious way..

“so perfect, h,” you whimper and wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him as deep as possible. the movement causes harry to groan, his eyes fluttering closed as he buries his face in the crook of your neck. his hot breath sends shivers down your spine, and you can feel your body responding to his touch.

you tilt your hips, and harry responds by increasing the pace of his thrusts. his thick cock slides in and out of you, each thrust allowing you to feel each and every part of you.

the sensation is almost too much to bear, and you let out a soft cry as his spongy head grinds deep against your walls. harry's breath catches, and he watches you.

"angel, you're so tight," he whispers, his voice trembling with restraint. "i don't know how much longer i can hold on, you’re so sweet, so perfect for me."

you wrap your legs tighter around his waist, pulling him deeper into you. harry groans, his body shuddering as he tries to maintain control. his thrusts become more urgent, more desperate, and you can feel your own climax building.

your breath hitches as you feel yourself getting closer to the edge. "i- i love you, harry."

harry looks at you with big eyes as you say that, his thrusts slowing down a little. "really?"

“yeah," you whisper, running your hand through his hair. "i love you, harry."

harry's eyes light up, and he leans down to kiss you deeply. his thrusts become more passionate, more fervent as he hears your confession. you can feel yourself getting closer to the edge, your body tensing up as harry's thrusts become more intense. “fuck angel, i love you too, more than anything.”

your breath hitches as you feel the pressure building inside you. "i'm cumming- shit," you whisper, your voice trembling with anticipation. harry's hand moves swiftly to rub your clit, giving you the perfect amount of stimulation.

you squeeze your eyes shut as the sensation becomes too much to handle. your walls begin to tighten around harry's cock, your orgasm milking his release. he groans, his body shuddering as he tries to hold on.

harry's cock pulses inside you, releasing hot ropes of cum as he finds his own release. he sighs and falls next to you on the bed. you sigh and listen to his breathing for a minute before breaking the silence.

“i think i have an idea for a song.”

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

taglist:

(lmk if you want to be added!)

@madstyles3204 @harrysbxtchh @harrrrystylesslut

@blondegirlygirl @virgopr1ncess @jayjsslutt @bubblesbaby0

@wtfisaharrystyles @lagataprrr @fruity-harry

[flawseer]

In your last ask, you mentioned misgivings with Book 10's ending, and especially how it pertains to Winter. I absolutely agree, and I know why, but I wanna hear your thoughts on it, too: What's up with Book 10?

The following is a (very long) examination of my personal feelings with regards to the WoF second story arc finale. While it is based on what is in the text, this analysis will be interpretive and fill in blanks with my own thoughts. Keep that in mind.

Hahhhh... okay. Since mentioning it in my last post I’ve gotten several requests to talk about my feelings regarding the second arc finale. There’s probably no way around it then.

If you haven’t read that last post (it was admittedly very long, and so will this one be), I talked briefly about why I didn’t like that part of the story. I have to warn you now, this will likely be the most negative and dour post in the history of this blog. In a few parts it will sound like I hate Wings of Fire, and I want to say now, while I still have the chance, that I don’t. I love this series, thinking about its setting and characters brings me joy.

I also—very emphatically—want to make it clear that I have no ill will against Tui T. Sutherland. I’ve looked around other people’s stuff a bit and there are a huge number of posts wishing violence upon her or threatening her for doing things to her series that people don’t agree with. That is NOT what I am doing here, shit like that is NOT okay! While I will be critical of her choices, I still respect her effort of bringing this vibrant, wonderful world of dragons to all of us.

Also, obligatory last disclaimer: If you liked the finale, that is okay. You are valid for feeling that way. I’m here to share my point of view, not to demand people agree with everything I say. Just be warned that you most likely won’t enjoy what I have to say. If you don’t think you can handle that kind of criticism, this is your guilt-free opportunity to stop reading.

Otherwise, let's get into it.

CW: Discussion of parental abuse, depression, disease, and extreme acts of violence.

In defense of the finale

Before I start to systematically disassemble this narrative and get lost in a quagmire of negativity, let’s talk a bit about the circumstances that brought forth this part of the story. The plot of this arc was a mess from the moment animus magic was unshackled from the restrictions it had in the first arc, and from then on there was no longer any conceivable way to end this story in a clean way. Sutherland had created an invincible, unbeatable, omnipotent villain; he could read minds, see the future with perfect clarity, and anything he could imagine he could conjure into existence at any time with no cost to himself and no drawbacks. She was likely wracking her brain about how to resolve this impossible conundrum. What we got wasn’t good, but I believe nothing could have been. The foundation was rotting and by the fifth book it couldn’t bear the weight of the plot anymore.

The thing about animus magic in arc 2 is that it is so potent, so all-powerful, and so free of restraint that everyone who uses it also HAS to be a simpleton, or they would be able to break the plot immediately and become god. From the moment Darkstalker broke out of that mountain, he could have said “Any and all spells that are cast with the intention to harm me, interfere with my plans, or do something I don’t consent to will not work, from now on until forever”, and he would have instantly won. The strawberry would have fizzled out. The Darkstalker-blocking earrings would not have been created, and no one could have saved the Icewings. On the flipside, Turtle or Anemone could have said “I enchant the concept of animus magic itself to no longer obey Darkstalker”, and his threat would have been neutered. Point is, powers as potent and easy to use as this really need limitations, or they will quickly eat your plot alive.

I don’t envy the situation Sutherland was in at the time at all. If you’re an author, that kind of thing is a nightmare. It really is no wonder she decided to blow up animus magic for good in her next arc, even if I would have preferred it to get more healthy restrictions instead of killing it outright.

The Darkstalker age regression thing

Everyone has talked this part to death already, but if I am to write a thorough analysis of my feelings regarding this finale, I’m going to have to talk about it as well. I’m sorry if I end up repeating a lot of things you’ve already heard.

This final fate of Darkstalker, to have his memories wiped and be reset to an infant, is really uncomfortable. As far as I am aware, though correct me if I’m wrong, Sutherland said in an interview that she didn’t want Darkstalker to die because, in her view, he did not deserve to. We can debate here about the philosophical question of whether anyone is truly deserving of death, and the merits of “justice” and “punishment”, but in general, Wings of Fire did not seem to have any issues killing off its villains prior if they committed suitably terrible acts. That makes this moment stand out as noteworthy.

Who is Darkstalker then--and if we assume villains can be “deserving” and “not deserving” of death--what about him speaks in his favor, or against? The guy had a pretty crappy childhood, coming from a broken home (there is that inadequate parent theme again). He genuinely loved his sister and felt protective of her, and whenever he liked someone he wanted them to be happy and feel affirmed. The thing that Queen Diamond does to his mother is awful and he is justified in hating her for it. He is also portrayed as rather sympathetic in Moon Rising. When he asks Moon to find his scroll for him and not to leave him, he is not manipulating her, he is sincerely begging for her help. He is stuck somewhere underground, trapped in darkness, in a space so tiny that he can’t move. He remains that way for months, lonely and sad. If you just focus on these aspects, it’s easy to understand why he has so many fans who want him to see healthy and happy.

On the flipside, while he is dedicated to the happiness of his friends, he doesn’t always go for the most ethical way to achieve it. He tries to brainwash said friends without their consent whenever they exhibit behaviors he doesn’t like, or when he thinks he knows better and wants to “fix” them. He has very little regard for other people’s autonomy, lies to his loved ones with alarming frequency, and is unhealthily attached to the idea of power. Those things are certainly not good, but they are his character flaws. These are his demons; everyone has them and they make him a person. If this was all there was to it, he might still be a villain, but I’d argue he’d not be wholly irredeemable.

But there are things about him that take him beyond the pale. Things that go beyond the realm of just being misunderstood, or easily excusable.

He is possessive. He wants Clearsight and Fathom for himself, and for them to listen to him primarily. When Indigo makes it clear she doesn’t like him and cautions Fathom against trusting him, he deceives his friends and traps Indigo in a wood carving, just so he can isolate Fathom from his support network and manipulate him easier. He alters Clearsight’s mind to make her more agreeable and stop her from holding him accountable for his actions; while he thinks he loves her, he only loves an idealized version of her that is wholly devoted to and unquestioning of him. This is why, when he later forcibly overwrites Fierceteeth’s existence to recreate her (which is another horrific thing), he tries to excise the parts he finds undesirable to create a perfect version of his lover. But this caricature he has created in his head is not and can never be Clearsight, which frustrates his attempts.

He is vengeful. Not against people who have actually wronged him, like Queen Diamond. That would be questionable, but understandable. What makes this unacceptable is his frequent targeting of innocent people who just happen to be related to the person who wronged him in some esoteric way. He enchants a secret murder knife that kills random Icewings regardless of who they are or what they think about the Queen, just because the one who took his mother from him happened to share their tribe. He hates Turtle and wishes death upon him in Moon Rising just because he is a green Seawing, like Fathom was. And then there is the big one: He tries to kill all the Icewings who are alive in the present day, where Queen Diamond is long dead and none of them have ever even met her. Even his mother, who suffered from Diamond’s actions the most and has the most reason to hate her, is horrified and calls him out on that one.

And lastly, he is sadistic. He revels in torturing those he hates. He forces his father to disembowel himself, while the latter is fully aware and powerless to resist AND the man’s traumatized daughter is watching. Later he sends a magical plague to kill every single living Icewing sans one.

It should be noted that Darkstalker possesses virtually infinite magical power; whatever he declares, with very few exceptions, will happen. Even if he wanted them dead, he had the power to prevent unnecessary suffering. He could have said “Arctic, fall dead instantaneously”, or “Every Icewing will fall asleep and pass away peacefully,” but he didn’t. He wanted them to feel pain and pass away in the most wretched, agonizing ways he could imagine.

So what he chose to do instead is—and I want you to picture this for a moment—Darkstalker sat down, calmly, and said “Henceforth every living Icewing, excepting Prince Winter and those of hybrid blood, will fall ill with an incurable disease. This disease will cause heavy internal bleeding and make its victims cough up blood and waste away for a few days, followed by certain death.”

This spell does not discriminate with regards to who its victims are. The book glosses over the implications, but imagine the ramifications. Young children are notoriously frail, how many newborns got infected and died because of this? How many families were torn apart because they couldn’t get the magic earrings fast enough? Or accidentally got one earring less than there were family members and had to decide who has to die?

Most of the Icewings were physically cured by the earrings, but an experience like that sticks with you for the rest of your life. Somewhere surely, a dragonet watched as his mother put the earring on him and then slowly wasted away because she didn’t have one for herself.

It’s really easy to overlook how horrific this spell is because it isn’t shown or dwelt on. But the trauma, grief, and suffering it caused must have been immeasurable.

And none of those victims have ever even met the person Darkstalker wanted to get revenge on. None of those deaths meant anything to anyone.

The attempted death toll and scale of the calamity here puts even Scarlet to shame. The ones who come closest to it were Queen Battlewinner and Morrowseer with their attempted Rainwing extermination. All three of those died for what they did. Gives you some food for thought for sure.

Peacemaker’s burden

Despite just airing all of his dirty laundry and declaring him an irredeemable villain, I actually do have a lot of sympathy for Darkstalker still. His story is really sad. He was a child born with an amount of power that nobody should possess, and it corrupted him to the point where it destroyed his life before it began. His parents were always fighting and no matter how good his intentions were, he was unable to understand why he couldn’t hold on to his friends and relationship. He kept making mistakes, then made bigger mistakes to fix those, until his hands were covered in blood and he couldn’t stop anymore. My belief is that, after he wakes up in the present and realizes Clearsight is dead, he loses his reason for living and becomes completely lost in his grief.

Therefore, my opinion is that it would have been appropriate for him to die. If not to punish him, then to finally grant him reprieve from all that rage and pain, and let him rest. I think that would have been a dignified end.

But instead he got turned into a baby. ... And then they decided to magically erase his father’s blood from him? I don’t know what it is, but something about that Icewing erasure makes my skin crawl?

The thing that turns this baby twist from weird into highly unsettling is the context. Darkstalker’s mind is erased, then modified into a new person via animus magic. This is the technique a lot of this arc’s villains used to victimize Hailstorm, Queen Ruby, Peril, Kinkajou, Fierceteeth, and Winter. The same technique is now used again, by the heroes, which is a dangerous thing to have your protagonists do if you want them to remain morally upright.

It is also very reckless, because in almost all of these instances, animus mind alteration has been shown to be very unreliable. The spells seem to wear down over time and are susceptible to partial breaking upon encountering certain strong stimuli. Hailstorm—while trapped as Pyrite—seems to retain trace amounts of his former memories, which is why Pyrite is subconsciously drawn to Winter and clings to him all the time. Ruby is able to ignore half of her conditioning because her familial love for her son partially overpowers the magic. Qibli is just straight up able to reason his way out of it.

The thing to note here is that spells of this nature require a very meticulous approach; you can’t half-ass your reprogramming or the victim will just think their way past it. If you alter someone’s mind, the wording of the spell must be ironclad, lest you risk it wearing down over time and even break.

Luckily we have nothing to fear in that regard, because the spell that created Peacemaker was written by a Rainwing with a total of four days of literacy training. No one better mention the name Clearsight to the new baby Nightwing, or next month is going to be rather interesting.

But that’s just speculation on my part. Let’s assume that, somehow, this spell isn’t as unstable as all the others. Somehow Kinkajou threaded all the needles, and masterfully dodged every conceivable pitfall to pen the perfect incantation, despite having been illiterate just a few weeks prior. This one is built to last and Darkstalker is sealed away really thoroughly, for good.

That is still absolutely terrible and morally dubious, because now you have Peacemaker, who for all intents and purposes is a COMPLETELY innocent little kid, saddled with this huge burden of being the certifiable reincarnation of a genocidal ancient wizard. He’s gonna grow up thinking things like “Mommy gets real quiet whenever the topic of the Icewing tragedy is brought up,” and “Why does Auntie Moon look at me like that? One time she accidentally called me a weird name, who is Darkstalker?” “What is this ‘Clearsight’ name my mind-reading friends from the village found in Mommy’s mind?”

In a village that will be full of mind-readers soon, eventually the secret will come out, and Peacemaker is going to learn what was done to him. A huge, messy load of undeserved baggage was forced onto this completely separate, innocent entity. He will be devastated. Whether he then chooses to forgive them for this remains to be seen. To be honest, he would be well within his right not to, and turn resentful.

Poor kid.

Qibli’s callousness

I love Qibli, he is one of my favorite characters. This happens to be his book, and the fact that I fundamentally dislike half of it makes me rather sad. If anything, I hope this tells you that I’m not just hating on it for my personal amusement. I really wanted to like this. I tried to, and I couldn’t.

Qibli is really weird in this one, to be honest. He is suddenly made to be co-dependent on Moonwatcher, fawning over her every third paragraph, saying how much he loves her, how he is an incomplete and dysfunctional wreck without her, how it physically pains him to be apart from her, oh if only the stars would grant his wish and split the mountains apart so that he may fly to his princess, his muse, his goddess of ebony wit. It gets so old.

And it’s not Qibli. He never acted this clingy towards Moonwatcher. It’s more intense than even Winter gets about Moon, and Winter was actually depicted with a crush on her in book 6. Qibli was always just a supportive element, eager to befriend Moon but never desperate, like he is going to keel over if he is separated from his true love five minutes longer. These very frequent love declarations feel so forced coming out of him. It strikes me like it was just written in service of the love triangle. Maybe if we make him confess his love every four seconds readers will overlook the fact that they had no proper romantic build-up.

You might rightly accuse me of bias. I have previously admitted I am fond of Qibli/Winter as a romantic pairing, on the surface this seems like I am just not happy with my pet ship being blocked by Moonwatcher. But I assure you, I am actually pretty flexible and accommodating even towards pairings that contradict my preferences. I have no issues with Winter/Moonwatcher, for example, because the possibility was properly established and they have good romantic chemistry in Winter Turning. In theory, I would have no problem with Qibli/Moonwatcher either if it was ever set up as an interesting romantic dynamic. But to me, it seems like Qibli is written as a good, supportive friend to Moon for four books, only to pivot hard into “Moon moon moon moon moon moon swoon” at the last second, and it just reads to me as obnoxious.

I got distracted. This section is called “Qibli’s callousness”, and I haven’t even talked about the main part.

Qibli and Winter have excellent chemstry together, whether you read it as romantic or platonic—both of these interpretations have merit and are set up. They’re always the highlight of any scene they’re in. Throughout the story arc you get the impression that these two really get on each other’s nerves, but they bond and grow into really strong friends who bicker a lot but have each other’s backs when it counts.

Then there is a scene where Qibli casually tells Winter that he wouldn’t object if someone wanted to mind-control away some of Winter’s more objectionable traits.

This is genuinely a terrible thing to say to your friend. Like, it crosses a line and ceases to be harmless banter; you’re just telling them that there is something you hate about them so much that you wish they were someone else. Winter actually WAS mind-controlled earlier and felt (and proably still feels) guilty about having attacked Qibli in that state. And now Qibli says “Hey, I wouldn’t mind if someone did that to you again! Hue hue!”

It is awful, BUT I don’t necessarily object to Qibli saying this here. Qibli is in the middle of his character arc at this moment, so he is expected to be flawed. He is making a mistake by thoughtlessly telling Winter this horrid thing, and it seems like a believable continuation of his current character track. This is a reasonable development as long as the plot acknowledges that it’s a mistake.

Spoilers: The plot doesn’t acknowledge that it’s a mistake. Qibli never has a scene after where he reflects upon what he said and apologizes to Winter. When Darkstalker has Qibli trapped in his mountain jail and mind-wipes Qibli’s grandfather into a toddler (hey, wait a minute), Qibli gets visibly disturbed. Like, this is so off-putting to him that he gets queasy and Darkstalker hastily changes the spell. That could have been a great way to bring this back. Like in the epilogue, have Qibli track down Winter and tell him about disturbing baby grandpa theater and how he realized that wiping people’s minds is actually messed up and should have never said that to him.

But he doesn’t. He just lets Winter go, allowing him to believe he is broken and needs magical intervention to be tolerable. It leaves me to think that maybe he’s still okay with it, and fantasizing about rewriting his friend’s mind. Great.

Moonwatcher’s character death

You will find as this goes on that, I get the impression that the second half of this book takes all of the wonderful, endearing characters I have learned to love throughout the story and replaces them with really mean, or stupid, or otherwise inaccurate caricatures.

Moonwatcher’s relationship with Darkstalker gets plenty of setup and development in Moon Rising. You get the sense that these two could be great friends if their circumstances were a little different. It does a great job at making you think maybe Darkstalker is just misunderstood; maybe Moon should free him from his predicament.

Then at the end of Escaping Peril comes the emotional gut punch. Darkstalker actually IS a villain. He callously admits to Moonwatcher that he used his magic to make his own father gruesomely disembowel himself. Moonwatcher is horrified and disgusted that he would do that. There is no circumstance in which something like that would ever be okay. She ends the scene awash in tears because the person she thought was her friend is a murderer and a sadist. This is good, that is a natural reaction to what she was just told.

A few hours from there, in Talons of Power, Turtle finds Moon again and she is completely cool with Darkstalker walking free, despite crying her eyes out after feeling so betrayed earlier. That may seem strange, but this is still good because later, Darkstalker’s mind control plot is discovered. This scene was obviously written to set that up, Moon is mind-controlled into forgetting that Darkstalker could do something that morally reprehensible, and thus forgives him. This is also completely in line with his characterization in Legends: Darkstalker. It’s a kind of stunt he would pull to get Clearsight to shut up about him slipping into villainy.

In my earlier post I alluded to a moment where Moon is set to narrative auto-pilot and says something so rampantly off-kilter that it does irreversible, permanent damage to her character. It happens here, in the second half of book 10. Qibli gives Moon the Darkstalker protection earring, and Moon, somehow, says “I’m not being mind-controlled, Darkstalker really is my friend.”

I get what the plot tries to do here. It’s taking this concept of mind-control and adding a nuance, in an attempt to flesh out Darkstalker and give his character depth. He is ready to control everyone in the world, but for Moon, who is his best friend in this era, he wants her to remain herself. Perhaps this is his attempt at attonement for playing with Clearsight’s mind and driving her away from him. It is very touching in a way, viewed in isolation.

Unfortunately, it does not work with the full context of all the books. Because Moon is in auto-pilot mode right now, her main character trait is “Darkstalker=Friend,” so naturally she would speak in support of him. But this revelation has devastating retroactive consequences. The earlier scene that was written with Moon under mind-control is now altered into her having been in her right mind! She is completely okay with Darkstalker’s admittance to cold-blooded torture and evisceration, within hours of being so shocked by it that it made her cry and ready to denounce him. That is such a quick turnaround it’s giving me whiplash. And what’s more it turns Moon from a principled, upstanding girl into a sociopath who casually accepts gruesome torture and murder if it is committed by someone she likes.

Did Sutherland forget about the scene two books ago, where Darkstalker’s actions were so inconceivably horrid for Moon to learn of that she started crying? It baffles me that this made it into the final version. Her saying she was never mind-controlled makes Moon come off as so awful. This torture-excusing lunatic is not the same kind-hearted and insightful character I followed in all the other books.

Kinkajou’s character derailment

The world is a sad place when I have to question the way Kinjajou is written. Fortunately she is mostly fine, despite her having the biggest excuse to act out-of-character since she’s the victim of a mind-altering spell. Her only real moment of “what!?” comes at the end.

I already talked about her role in casting the spell that regresses Darkstalker into an infant. But I didn’t mention how her being the source of it is questionable in itself.

The clue is in the first paragraph of this section: She herself has experienced the effects of invasive mind-alteration. She was cursed by Anemone in the previous book to be in love with Turtle, and kind of half-struggles kind of not with it, it’s really strange. Turtle is appropriately horrified and acts like really awful things are happening, but then it’s mostly played lightly for some reason. My assumption is that Sutherland introduced this plot point, but then realized how uncomfortable this premise really is and tried to downplay it until the story got to a point where it could get done away with.

But I think the takeaway is still supposed to be that this was a horrid thing to do (which it absolutely is), and that Kinkajou will have to spend a lot of time trying to untangle her real emotions from the fake ones the spell created.

The point is: Kinkajou knows first-hand how awful it is to do something like that to another person. Ideally she should never even conceive of the idea to cast a spell like that, but if we’re really set on this Darkstalker baby thing and it has to happen, she should at least be a bit hesitant about it. And afterwards she should struggle with the guilt of having resorted to it. Not celebrate it and be proud, like it’s funny.

The assassination of Winter’s future

Now we come to the part I’ve alluded to previously; the part where all of these threads converge to utterly destroy one character and drive him to the brink of ruin. Let’s talk about Winter.

Prince Winter is the son of Tundra and Prince Narwhal, hatching in the same clutch as his sister Icicle. He spent his formative years being unfavorably compared to said sister—who easily took to traits that Icewing royalty considers desirable—whereas Winter struggled greatly to embody those same ideals. He was just a little too kind, too merciful, too gentle. As a result he often had to endure abuse from his parents, who made him feel like he was defective.

Because he was young and didn’t have any other frame of reference, he embraced this abusive narrative and began to drive himself with a vigor unreasonable for someone of his age. He scraped and cloyed for every bit of credit he could get, obsessing over advancing up the circle rankings in an attempt to “purge” the wrongness out of himself. To make his parents as proud of him as they were of Icicle.

This never worked. He was always seen as the runt, poised to embarrass the family name. Whatever he did, no matter how hard he strived, there was always something he could have done better.

The only real source of love and affirmation in his life was his older brother, Hailstorm. Where everyone else only saw what Winter wasn’t, Hailstorm embraced his brother despite of his “failings” and was openly affectionate with him. When Winter was with him, it was okay to not think about rankings all the time, and just be himself for a bit. I assume Hailstorm fulfilled a similar role for Icicle as well, which is why both of them love him dearly, and Icicle destroys her own life to bring him back.

Winter also has a fascination with scavengers, possibly because they are small and perceived as useless, like he himself is. He likely feels a kinship with them and observes them being craftier and more adept than everyone else sees them. This is therapeutic for him, to see that a thing can have merit even if no one wants to see it.

One day, he and Hailstorm sneak into Skywing territory so Winter can catch a scavenger as a pet. This excursion turns hostile when they are discovered by a roaming Skywing troop and faced with the prospect of capture, possibly execution. In a gambit to save Winter from this fate, Hailstorm mirrors the words of his parents, calling Winter pathetic and useless, so the Skywings will not think of him as a threat and show mercy. His act succeeds in convincing the Skywings, but it also convinces Winter, who does not understand Hailstorm only said these things to save his life. He returns home—believing his brother hated him all along—to face the wrath of his furious family for losing them “the desirable son”.

For all of his life, these themes have repeated themselves and haunted him. “I was born wrong and defective,” “I am unlovable,” “No one wants me.”

A few months after the war ends, Winter is one of the five Icewings enrolled in the newly founded Jade Mountain Academy. Shortly after departing, he unexpectedly returns home, having successfully rescued his older brother and bringing him back. He is made to believe that this erases his mistakes, his mother even pays him a backhanded compliment, an uncharacteristically “nice” gesture. He is promoted to the top of the rankings, finally his parents are proud of him.

But of course it is all a trick. The “adoration” afforded to him was all a ploy. Secretly, his parents abused power and tradition to arrange for Winter’s death. They force him into a lethal trial they intentionally rigged against him, all to finally erase that stain on their family’s honor.

Winter finally realizes the true nature of his parents’ opinion of him. Even when he succeeds, and does everything right, he is still defective, unlovable, and unwanted. He will never be anything else to his family. And so he leaves his homeland, pretending he is dead, resigned to live in hiding forever.

During this time, while at the brink of despair, Winter is able to draw strength from one source: His new friends from the academy. He vocalizes that, for all the abuse he suffered at the hands of his birth family, he fervently believes that THEY would never do anything like that to him. They chose to stuck with him, even when he was awful, and told him he was not hopeless. He was not a mistake; he could be deserving of love.

So naturally, he returns to them; they accept him readily, are willing to be his new surrogate family. When he almost burns to death at a later point, they fear and weep for him. When Qibli sets out to confront his own abusive family, Winter, despite being mind-controlled into a placid potato at the time, feels concerned enough for his friend’s safety to insist to come along (returning the favor of them accompanying him in his time of need in book 7). When Darkstalker’s mind control forces Winter to attack Qibli, he is shown ashamed and guilty of it once the control wears off again.

They bicker and struggle, and make mistakes, they break up but always come back together again. Time and time again the one thing that is always reinforced: When the cards are down, Winter loves his friends, and they love him. They would never intentionally hurt each other, or give up on each other.

I want you to keep in mind how wholesome, and loving, and mutually supportive this ramshackle band of misfits has been portrayed to this point... Because we’re moving on to the arc 2 finale, and it will do everything it can to corrupt all of it and consign Winter to a life of misery.

We arrive at aforementioned scene, where Moonwatcher receives her earring. Just a little bit prior, Winter had learned that Darkstalker unleashed a magical plague onto his people in an attempt to wipe them out. Now here is Moonwatcher, revealing that she is not under any spell, and has aligned herself with this guy willingly, speaking fondly of him as if he was a dear friend who never did any wrong. Winter takes this badly and accidentally breaks a vase; the narrative lingers on this moment and really tries to sell us on how unreasonable Winter’s reaction is, how he is overreacting, but let’s examine that interpretation for a moment.

Moonwatcher doesn’t yet know about the attempted Icewing genocide, but she DOES know about Darkstalker being okay with casting spells to inflict immeasurable torture upon those he hates. WE know that she knows this, so her stance here is already suspect. Yet she goes on to praise Darkstalker and refer to him as a friend. Look at this from Winter’s perspective. This “friend” of Moonwatcher just tried to kill his entire tribe, and he actually succeeded in killing his aunt, Queen Glacier, a person Winter greatly respects. Winter is currently unable to return to his homeland for fear of being branded a traitor. Even if he could return, he knows his obstinate and spiteful family would prevent him from attending the funeral, meaning he is not even afforded the basic dignity of saying farewell to his aunt. The aunt whom Darkstalker murdered by making her vomit her own blood until she withered away in her bed. And here is Moon, absolving the person who did this to Glacier from his appalling actions, despite knowing full well what Darkstalker is capable of and choosing to look away.

I don’t know about you, but I think I can forgive the grieving, emotionally overwhelmed boy for shattering a little pottery after hearing his trusted friend—who held his hand when he was dying—say that the guy who makes people disembowel themselves and wipes out entire countries may be misunderstood and not so bad. I think I would have a similar reaction. In fact, I would never want to talk to her ever again.

There is no way I can read this scene in which Moon doesn’t come off as either an absolute lunatic, or critically stupid and callous. In fact, based on her earlier behavior I half-expect her to get over the news of the attempted Icewing massacre in a couple hours, saying “Eh, it’s kinda bad, but you just have to do these kinds of things sometimes, you know? I’m sure he had his reasons.”

Then there is the part where Qibli makes his off-color comment about how Winter’s brain could really use a good wash. I already went into how it could have worked but didn’t. But with the timing here, we’ve already had Moon spit on their friendship, so as Winter’s other closest friend, it naturally follows that Qibli also craps on his feelings.

Consider the context: Winter comes from an abusive household where his parents forcibly tried to change him away from who he was to purge the “wrongness” from him. When they betray him and he narrowly escapes their attempt on his life, he re-affirms his belief in his friends, and the knowledge that they wouldn’t treat him like that gives him the strength he needs to keep going. But now, Qibli asserts that Winter DOES need to be altered, thereby AGREEING with Winter’s abusive parents, rendering Winter’s affirmation from book 7 erroneous. Qibli WOULD treat him like that if it made Winter less “intolerable”.

Neither Moonwatcher nor Qibli ever make an attempt to repair this rift. Winter is left betrayed and alone.

Stuff happens, and the forces of the Nightwings and Icewings come to blows over Jade Mountain. With his two closest friends having written him off and his support network eroded, Winter relapses into thinking he is worthless, seeks validation in unquestioning patriotism, and realigns himself with his abusive family by throwing himself into the battle. Nobody wants him to, in fact his parents still hate him for it, but whatever. His father dies and his mother blames him for it.

Meanwhile Turtle, Anemone, and Qibli are cooking up a solution to the battle problem. They have the idea to make everyone’s minds connect in a huge empathy wave for a few moments, which I think is a pretty interesting idea for what it’s worth. But then they teleport both armies back to their homes, and the spell sweeps Winter up with them, taking him out of the rest of the finale and bringing him to the Ice Kingdom. The characters say “whoops” but aren’t further concerned with the situation. It’s all a big laugh.

Let me remind you that Winter is currently considered not welcome on Icewing territory. His family, whom he was sent back with, is extremely abusive and vindictive. His friends know this. Said parents have previously arranged for him to be killed, and are still on record as wanting him dead. His friends KNOW this. And now he is alone with them and a gaggle of other royal Icewings who all are extremely pissed off at him for ruining their sacred trial site.

It is very possible that he is being torn apart and mauled by an enraged mob right now. He could be forced into captivity and flayed. Maybe the interim regent is sentencing him to death and getting the rope ready. There is a million different horrible things that could be happening to Winter right now, while he is trapped alone with people who hate him, things his friends would be reasonably able to anticipate. And nobody is doing anything to get him out of there, to suggest bringing him back, even though it would only take a single spoken sentence to do so! They aren’t even concerned!

Then the climax happens, strawberry thing and all, and we get the coup de grâce. After all is said and done, the group decides that Winter is untrustworthy, and that they must protect the secret of Darkstalker’s fate from him, because they fear if he knew he would kill Peacemaker.

Moon, who read Winter’s mind in book 6 and reached out to him about how the “ruthless Icewing warrior” persona in his head is a facade and how she sees he has a gentle and good heart... Moon, who in book 7 finds out about Winter’s secret deal to kill Glory and STILL trusts him, who calls out his bullshit to his face because she KNOWS how kind-hearted Winter is and that he would never resort to murder... Moon who, again, held his hand while he was dying... thinks that the dragon she has reminded of his compassionate nature time and time again would kill an innocent child.

This is disgusting. Moon believing that is so far off the mark with regards to anything this group has embodied or done for any of the last 4 books, that my only conclusion can be that these are different characters. Maybe the Nightwing library collapsed on top of original Moon, and when Darkstalker magiced her back to health she came back wrong or something. I don’t know.

So after all of this, Winter is left alone. He somehow escaped from the Ice Kingdom; luckily there is a timeskip so we can just gloss over the horrible situation he was put in by his friends. He thinks about Jade Mountain. He reflects on everything that happened, how his parents never really loved him... How they hated him so much they tried to kill him... How he despaired, but found solace in his friends who loved him for who he was.... How those friends then betrayed him too and magiced him away... How they didn’t care about what happened to him... And he decides he is done. He won’t bother going back. A few people, probably Sunny, reach out to tell him he is welcome back, but he says “it wouldn’t be fair to other Icewings if an exile took up a bed”. The decision isn’t hard to make, after all there is nothing left for him there. Everyone has written him off, moved on and left him behind.

Kinkajou visits sometimes, tries to stay in touch, but that’s just how she is. Maybe the others sent her to check on whether he’s going to become troublesome. They don’t trust him. Better to keep an eye on him, he might kill the baby.

With nowhere else to go, Winter moves to Sanctuary, a place for rejects like him. I picture him standing there, at the edge of a cliff staring blankly into the distance. He is completely alone; no one wants to go near him or talk to him beyond the bare necessities. He could probably make new friends with the Talons of Peace if he tried, but there is no point. Why should someone like him have friends? It wouldn’t work. They’d just decide he is too inconvenient to be around. Sooner or later they would just tell him to leave anyway. It's better not to try, so he doesn't get hurt again.

And slowly it dawns on him. His parents had been right all along. It was never them, or the others, it was him. He is the problem. The Icewings said it, Qibli said it, Moonwatcher said it. There is just something fundamentally wrong with him.

He is defective. He is unlovable. Nobody wants him. He will never be anything, or have anyone. And so he stands at the cliff, looking over the broken vase fragments of his life... This is who he is. Prince Winter. A mistake.

And quietly, where no one knows or cares, he does the only thing he has left to do... he begins to weep.

As it is written, the tale of Winter is the story of a boy who is told he is wrong for being alive. He closes his ears and tries to keep walking forward, desperate to prove that he is not an error, that he has merit. But this book comes out and it unmistakably says that he doesn’t. He is nothing, and he deserves to have nothing.

And I just cannot accept that.

Why did this have to happen?

I think that the author was really struggling with the ending of this book. I’ve said before how much of a corner she wrote herself into with such an invincible villain. I think she came up with the strawberry idea as a solution to this problem. But as she was writing it, the characters kept fighting her. It was not a natural solution, not a decision the characters—as they were established—would ever make.

So concessions had to be made to force the issue. Established traits had to be bent slightly to make this plot work. The farther she went, the worse it got. The concessions piled up and turned into contrivances. Eventually the characters were no longer acting like themselves. Their bonds got stretched too far and some snapped. It’s a very tragic pitfall that occurs with long-running series.

I think Sutherland must have also been tired. Writing an entire book is a monumental task, and writing 6 connected ones even moreso. She also comes out with these things really quickly. Maybe she was burnt out? Maybe she wanted to be done and her attention lapsed. Maybe that’s why she forgot that Moon knew about the disemboweling. It seems reasonable to believe when you consider that the next story arc would make a relatively clean break from the problems of this arc, especially with regards to the magic system.

But I don’t know what ultimately happened, so I can only speculate. I reiterate, I bear no ill will against Sutherland for writing this. Even if I kind of hate everything about this finale, and very vocally wish it would be different, I don’t want this examination to generate (or reawaken) any hatred towards her, or to attack her personally. I understand the pain of an artist who gets trapped with something for too long and has to find the means, any means, to see it through to the end. I criticize the story, but I could never hate anyone for that.

But for me, I do not consider this half of the book as part of the story. The characters act too unnaturally for it to have happened. So to me, it didn’t. We don’t know what happened, maybe Darkstalker is still out there. Maybe they dealt with him. Maybe what actually happened is my crappy and self-indulgent rewrite of the ending which I will never show to anyone because it would be really embarrassing.

But whatever actually ended up happening, I am sure Winter never ended up at that cliff, pondering how worthless and meaningless his life was. He is currently at Jade Mountain, surrounded by friends who love him, and bickering with Qibli about the correct solution to their advanced calculus assignment that is due tomorrow.

Is there anything left to say?

Probably.

I didn’t talk about Anemone yet. You know, in the epilogue she enchants herself a bracelet that makes her “not be so mean all the time”. I find that creepy. To me it reads as Anemone voluntarily brainwashing herself with magic to erase her negative traits instead of growing past them naturally because she finds them undesirable and wants to work to change for the better. I would ordinarily assume that this is an overreaction on my part, and I’m just reading the scene wrong. But no, we just got through a part where the heroes brainwashing someone is treated as an unequivocal good and worthy of celebration, so I think my reading may actually be spot on. Why are we letting the little kid alter her own brain without supervision? Hello? Tsunami? Someone intervene maybe? This cannot be healthy.

Turtle stands out to me as the one bright spot in all of this. He (and Peril, but she’s mostly out of focus) remain as the only main characters of this arc who don’t have any mind-boggling out-of-character moments or sudden streaks of uncharacteristic callousness. I really like the part where Qibli goes to free Turtle from his captivity and plans to give him an earful about the comically unhelpful messages he’s been sending him. But when Turtle asks if what he did was helpful, Qibli sees how beaten down and exhausted Turtle is, and wordlessly drops his frustration to tell him “Yeah, they were helpful.” That is the true Qibli shining through for a moment, showing that he cares about the well-being of his friends.

Do I hate the pairing of Qibli/Moonwatcher? No. Well, I DO hate how it happened in the book, and how the story tried to assassinate Winter’s character to resolve the love triangle and make it happen. I don’t hate it on principle though. If you are a fan of Qibli/Moonwatcher and want to write fanfics about it, please do! I absolutely encourage you to do that! Maybe you can fix this mess and turn it into something that’s actually properly handled!

Mightyclaws keeps the power that Darkstalker granted him past the finale. That means all the spells that Darkstalker cast are technically still active. Does that mean the Icewings have to wear earrings for the rest of their lives? Do they get sick again if they take them off? Is Peril forever cursed to think of Darkstalker as a cool old uncle and has to somehow reconcile how everyone else thinks of him? How did the Nightwings relinquishing their powers work, do they have to wear the earrings forever too now?

And there is one more thing to mention.

My confession

You may have already intuited this, if you’ve been following the content of my blog. It is very heavily skewed towards the first and second arcs of the series. I would now like to confess something.

When I read the second half of book 10, I found it so disillusioning, Winter’s fate so upsetting... that I put down the series then and there. And I haven’t picked it back up since.

That’s right, I have not read arc 3. I don’t know if that makes me a fake fan. I know pretty much everything that happens in it, the controversial twist at the end, Pyrrhia coming back into the story later, Snowfall getting brainwashed by a piece of jewelry until she cares about a plot that had nothing to do with her or the fate of the Icewings, etc..

It’s not out of malice, or because it’s a new continent. The opposite in fact; I would have greatly prefered a clean break with a new setting—Bug-themed dragons in a slightly more contemporary, developed environment sounds fascinating and full of potential. I don’t hate Pantala or the new characters.

I just... I can’t really do this again. I can’t handle the thought of Pyrrhia coming back post-Darkstalker, with Winter showing up and talking to these guys again like nothing happened, seeming like a different person, joking around with them like his entire character wasn’t dragged through a mountain of manure to make the plot bend a certain way. I think as long as this is the ending that the story is continuing from, seeing that would just make me miserable.

Maybe I will just stay in the parts of the story that I fell in love with. And imagine a version of reality in which Pantala is allowed to exist on its own, where Swordtail was the fourth POV character of arc 3, where Queen Wasp stayed the villain throughout, and Snowfall got her own legends book about how she reformed Icewing society and fixed all the shit that poisoned Winter’s life, so future generations don’t have to suffer through the same stuff he did.

~~~~~

If you’re still with me, thank you for reading this far. I think this is everything I ever thought about the finale of the second story arc, so now I never have to talk about it again. Writing this was difficult. I found it crushing at times. This will probably stand as the only overtly negative post I have ever made on this blog. I love Wings of Fire, and I want to celebrate it. To add to it, not tear it down.

I hope this wasn’t too boring, or painful, or frustrating, or soul-crushing to read through. I’ll see you later, hopefully with a more constructive post.

[diddybok]

asking best friend!stray kids what you are pt.2

all characters depicted in my writing are from my own imagination and do NOT in any way represent nor reflect the people in real life :)

➩pairing: ot8 x gn!reader

➩genre(s): angst, some fluff

➩warnings: strong language, mentions of sex, some of the boys are still mean, some unhappy endings

➩wc: 9.4k (9433)

➩author’s note: i am so serious if anybody talks to you in a way to undermine, condescend or just simply belittle you and make you feel stupid, pls pls pls cut that person out of your life. even if they’re doing it as a ‘joke’. it never ends well. ily all and you deserve the best of the best, always <3

➩parts: part one

chris | 1.2k (1201) words

After the fourth ring, you swipe the little phone symbol across your screen and the time starts. You watch it go from one second, to the next, and the next, before a deep elongated sigh pulls you out of your trance. 

You put him on speaker, afraid of the way you’d react if you were to hear him so close to you in your ear. You can’t handle that right now. 

“Y/n?” His slightly distorted voice says. You don’t reply, placing the phone down in front of you as you sit and fiddle with the rings on your fingers. 

“Come on sweetheart, say something please. What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” Chris asks softly. Akin to a parent who would try and get their child to confess to stealing cookies out of the cookie jar. 

You run your hands down your face. You’re annoyed with him, most definitely. But you can’t deny the butterflies that start to flutter in your stomach when he addresses you like that. 

It’s not fair. 

The line is painfully silent for another two minutes. Chris patiently, or rather stubbornly, waiting for you to speak. 

“This…this is harder than I thought it’d be.” You say, your voice croaking slightly as this is the first time you have spoken in a while. 

“Okay. Try not to think too much about it. Just speak your truth, unload it all.” Chris encourages. 

You take a deep breath and run your hands up and down your thighs to stop them from clamming up. 

“You hurt my feelings. You are continuing to hurt my feelings. I feel as if I’m the only one who is missing out on an inside joke that everybody seems to know but me.” You halt, waiting to see if he would have a rebuttal. Except he doesn’t and his silence spurs you on to continue. 

“I thought we were practically dating. I thought that night would be the night that you would ask to be together as a couple. You know, exclusive?” You chuckle bitterly. “So imagine my surprise when you decide to ignore me for a week. Do you know how shitty that felt?” You ask him. 

You can just about hear his breaths. They’re soft and collected. Yet the more you wait for his response that he doesn’t seem to be giving, you are becoming the opposite of that. 

“I asked you a question.” You say curtly. 

“I can see how that would make you feel shitty, yes. For that I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but I felt like I fucked everything up for us.” You think he sounded genuine enough when he said that, so you elect yourself to be quiet so he can continue. 

“I should’ve stopped it. Doing it knowing I wasn’t ready for it to happen—like that anyway—was not fair on you. I wouldn’t say that it has complicated things per say, but it has led me to think about a few things.” Chris finishes. 

You sit there, the flaps of the butterfly wings now causing the bile to travel upwards and out. You reach over and grab your water bottle from your bedside table and chug as much as you can. 

“Think about things like what?” You will yourself to say, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand at the water that managed to escape and drip down your chin. 

He doesn’t reply which does not settle your nerves. Especially not after that last sentence he said. Silence is not your friend at this moment. 

“Chris—”

“I think that we should be together.” He practically vomits out. 

Your eyes widen and your eyebrows shoot up to the top of your skull. 

“What!”

“Y/n?”

You both speak at the same time. 

“Oh sorry you go ahead.”

“Sorry, you first.”

You hear a small chuckle over the line as you speak over each other again. He stays silent this time, letting you talk. 

“Are you serious? Like you really mean that? You aren’t playing me for a fool right?” You ask quickly. 

“Yes. Yes. No,” You release a silent scream. “I really do want us. I have always wanted us, but this—you—made me realise that we should’ve made it official a while ago. There were only so many more excuses I could pull out of the bag to mask me taking you out on dates as just ‘best friends hanging out doing questionable things’.” 

Of course, you knew this as you are smart. The excuse he gave when he took you to a rooftop restaurant with candlelights everywhere was certainly not ‘for practice when I get a partner’. Him having your favourite meal prepared and the playlist the two of you made playing in the background? Dead giveaway. 

“Plus it is also totally unrealistic that you as my best friend would splash that much cash on me unless it was because you lost a bet. So I had a feeling I knew something was up. Which I guess is why I got a bit too excited and jumped to the conclusion that we were already a couple.” You say scratching the back of your neck. 

“Not true! I would always buy you things.” Chris corrects. 

“Yeah but you’d always complain whilst doing so. So when you stopped complaining, something had clearly shifted.” You clarify. 

You can envision the eye roll he does paired with the sigh he releases making you laugh. 

There’s another silence that fills the space, albeit this time it is comfortable. Until he sneezes down the line and you catch yourself smiling warmly as you bless him. 

“What happens now? Do we get a level up on our relationship or something? Or do I magically spawn in your arms and you cuddle me until I fall asleep? I’m thinking that sounds like the correct thing to happen next.” He teases. 

“Of course that’s what you think.” 

“Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just work here.” He says in a seductive drawl. 

“You’re still very much in the dog house. Honestly, I feel it’s only fair for me to leave you waiting a week to even see me.” You speak without a hint of sarcasm. 

It goes quiet over the phone again. You look down at your rings, twisting them around your finger gently. 

“Okay…I guess that’s fair.” He finally responds. 

You release a breath you weren't aware you were holding, nodding to yourself in agreement. 

“You’re one hundred percent certain you want this? Want to be together past just best friends?” You clarify. 

“What do you not trust me already? Y/n I want to be with you. I have wanted to be with you. Our communication just wasn’t great. But we will work on it together. Okay?” Chris speaks gently down the phone. 

“Okay.” You say softly. 

Though it will take a day or two for you to get over the fact he didn’t message you for a week, you feel as though a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. 

Whatever the next step of your relationship with Chris is, you’re just relieved that you get to do it together with no more misunderstandings. 

minho | 1.0k (1032) words

You and Minho decided that it would be best for you to discuss your relationship over lunch. He even offered to pay which you certainly were not going to turn down. 

You have been hyping yourself up in front of the mirror for about twenty minutes since Minho said he was en route. If Minho texting you earlier was any indication of how this conversation will go, then you are sure you aren’t silly for practising breathing techniques and how to not make a fool of yourself on a whole. 

You’re getting your jacket when you hear his knock at the door. You know it’s him because he only ever knocks in a pattern. 

Opening the door, you’re glad to see him greet you with a smile on your face. Though that’s how it has always been in your relationship. Even when you fight, you always know to resolve the issue with a smile and to never yell at each other. 

Even though you could tell he was anxious, he was masking it well. Throughout the drive, playing your favourite songs. Even now in the café ordering you your favourite meal when he caught you scanning the menu acting like you didn’t know what you wanted already. 

Safe to say, the both of you calm each other down, which makes this conversation much easier to have. 

“So, let's address the elephant in the room.” You start, taking a sip of your milkshake. 

“I first want to say that whatever we choose to do from this point on, you are not allowed to leave me. Well, you can’t anyways because I am always going to be in your life.” He says with an unwavering smile on his face. 

You hold back your smile and nod, letting him carry on. 

“No I do mean it. I just think that we’d be better off just being…us. You know what I mean?” He says using his hands to emphasise.  

“Mmm, let’s dig a little deeper. I just don’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us. Obviously what we shared was nice and I don’t think that we should regret it, right?” You say with a tilt of your head. 

“I agree. I had a think about it whilst I drove to your house to pick you up and I don’t think it was fair of me to question what we did. In terms of making you think that I felt that it wasn’t right of us to do.” Minho explains. He looks around before leaning in slightly. “Especially since that was the best sex I have had in months.” He throws a wink your way and you have to stop yourself from taking a bow. 

Him saying that feels as though numerous weights have been lifted off of your shoulders. You were most anxious about whether he either hated it or thought it was a mistake. So you’re now glad to hear that neither of it was the case. 

The waiter comes over with your food and you thank them. You’re about to pick up your fork and take a bite of food to fuel your courage but you’re abruptly tutted at. 

“Just because we are in the midst of an important conversation does not mean we skip tradition.” Minho says, raising his eyebrow at you. 

You place the fork down and put up a peace sign as you pose. He takes out his camera and snaps a photo of you with both his and your meal in the frame. He then puts his middle finger up and poses with an over exaggerated bored expression. You chuckle to yourself before taking the photo. 

“You said that we moved too fast assuming that we were moving in the first place. Do you still think that now?” You say before taking a bite of your meal. 

He finishes his mouthful as he furrows his eyebrows and thinks about your question. 

“Well I mean, I’d be an idiot to say that I didn’t think that it wouldn’t be going anywhere. But for us right now, I don’t think we should be moving at all.” He speaks. 

The food you are swallowing seems to get a little stuck as you start to quietly choke. All the while Minho grows increasingly embarrassed at your lack of ability to stay alive. 

“Okay calm, people are starting to look over.” He says to you, pouring you a glass of water from the jug on the table. 

You take a few gulps and tap your chest.

“Damn. You shouldn’t say things like that when I’m mid chew.” You scold. 

“My apologies, from now on I shall wait until the food has made its descent to the pit of acid in your stomach.” He lightly chuckles. 

“So what I’m hearing is that all things considered romantically, we should stop. So we just continue on as friends?” You clarify. 

He nods. 

“Hit the nail on the head.”

“Right…I mean I guess that works. After all, we were friends before we got curious so I’m pretty sure we can just laugh about it and carry on.” You smile albeit quite painfully. 

“Yes of course! We were just curious…” Minho adds, a painful smile also etched onto his features. 

Can you just laugh about it and carry on? Even when it felt so natural? So…right?

There’s a silence pregnant with awkwardness as you and Minho avoid each other’s gazes and continue to eat. 

Akin to a supporting artist having a cue to interact with the leads of a movie, the waiter comes over to ask if everything was alright with the food. 

You both bombard him with praise and he seems a little taken aback and hurries away to the next table. 

You don’t lie to Minho often, much like he doesn’t lie to you. However, in this café it seems the two of you are egregious liars. Which explains the way you both see right through each other. 

You know that it’s only a matter of time until something happens again because unfortunately you have crossed the line. Let’s just hope you can go at least a month before you’re entangled in each other's arms again. 

changbin | 1.1k (1120) words

One, two, three knocks on your door. You approach it slowly, looking through the peephole to see Changbin standing in his big puffer jacket and gloves. 

You consider letting him stay in the cold a little longer, but the goodness in your heart wills your hand to open the door. 

“Come in quickly, it’s cold.” You order. 

He doesn’t dally with his movements, coming inside quickly as you shut the door behind him. It’s quiet as he takes off his shoes and coat, giving you a mildly awkward smile that was still dulcet. 

“I was just making breakfast, would you like some?” You offer, walking into the kitchen. 

“Oh, yes please that’d be nice thank you.” He says, following after you. 

The atmosphere feels a little strange and you aren’t used to it. Changbin hasn’t yelled at all since stepping foot inside and usually you would’ve threatened the duct tape on his mouth by now. 

You engage in some aimless chit chat with him whilst you cook. You figured you would ease into this conversation rather than just immediately diving head first. 

“I like what you’ve done with the place.” Changbin admires as he looks around your kitchen. 

You turn to him, bewildered. 

“I haven’t changed my kitchen since I moved in here, bin.” You establish. 

“Really? Oh. I thought there was something different about this place in the week and a bit that I have been gone.” He says with genuinity. 

“Why would I have changed my kitchen around in the week that you’ve been gone?” You ask. 

He shrugs, stealing a blueberry from the bowl when your back is turned from him. 

“I don’t know. Some people dye or cut their hair when they’re upset. I figured since you like your hair too much, you would’ve changed the next best thing.” He solidifies, feeling much too content with the way his brian works. 

You on the other hand aren’t sure whether you’re being tested or if this is truly how he is choosing to behave.

You plate up the food and as you’re about to slide his plate over to him, you pull it back. 

“For every question answered, you get a mouthful of food.” At this, Changbin gawks. 

“This seems illegal in some form or another.” He sulks. 

You open up your phone to your conversation with him. 

“So it says here that you didn’t want to mess up our friendship, but emotions were running high and we weren’t thinking about the consequences. What consequences would that be?” You state. 

He looks at you quizzically. 

“Why do I feel like I’m in court right now? You’re reading the text messages out like evidence and I’m scared.” He says laughing awkwardly. 

“You answer the question. You get to eat.” You redirect. He clears his throat before he begins. 

“Well the consequences would be, erm, how us sleeping together will create ripples in our friendship whether we like it or not. I mean I’m not saying I regret it fully…but maybe a tiny bit?” He says fiddling with his hands. 

He opens his mouth wide as he awaits your end of the deal. You pick up the fork and scoop up some food before you feed it to him. 

For people who aren’t a couple, you sure do act like it. 

“Why is that?” You press further. 

“Because I didn’t want something like this to happen. By that I mean, if we were going to go all the way, then we should have established what we were prior. Even though our friends may think we are a couple, it wasn’t exclusively spoken about between us.” A beat. “But now I think that by letting ourselves get carried away, we missed the opportunity to settle things out with both of us clear on where we stand in our relationship.” He finishes. 

You decide to give him two mouthfuls for that answer to which he hums happily in response. 

You cannot doubt that what he said makes sense. You should have spoken about what you guys were before engaging in something as intimate as sleeping with each other. 

Yet for two people who have already gone to second base countless times before and couldn’t control the libido this time, you also understand where things got messy. 

“I think I get where you’re coming from now.” You say, eating your own mouthful. 

Changbin nods in acknowledgment before stealing a handful of blueberries. 

“But you also said that you still wanna be my best friend. Is that still true? Do you think we can get past this?” You ask apprehensively. 

Changbin’s eyebrows furrow in disbelief. 

“Of course! To both of your questions. Look at us, we’ve lasted this long. Yeah so I’ve been inside you, that’s fine! At least we had a good time, right? We can say that we’ve done it and gotten it out of our system.” He exclaims. 

You pull a face at the last sentence and he is immediately scrambling to reword what he means. 

“No, I don't see it as a throwaway act! I meant that because we had been stopping at second base because we were too scared to take it all the way, we finally reached the goal.” He stammers. 

You raise an eyebrow and cross your arms. 

“No I don’t mean that sleeping with you was the goal, if anything it was off the pitch.” He tries to explain. 

A single tilt of your head was all that was needed in order for him to slam his head into his hands and mutter a ‘I give up’. 

You shake your head and slide the plate over to him as you move across the island to sit on the stall next to him. You place an arm around his shoulder as he sighs. 

“I don’t want to lose you as my best friend too, bin. Let’s just take it one day at a time, yeah? What happened, happened. Now we both know where we stand about our friendship, it’s okay.”

He lifts his head from his palms and looks over you with his big black eyes. 

“You mean that? Like actually? We’re good?” He asks. You laugh slightly. 

“Yes bin, we’re good.” You reassured him. 

“Oh thank God. Does that mean I can still call you my sweet—”

“One day at a time.” You say sternly. 

The both of you smile as you finish the rest of your breakfast. There’s a twinge of hurt that you feel for you and Changbin not going forward as a couple, but you would rather this than to lose him forever. 

So for now, you’ll cherish what an amazing friendship the two of you have and will continue to have. 

hyunjin | 1.1k (1113) words

“Y/n open the fucking door.” You mimic Hyunjin’s last text message to you aloud as you walk down the stairs. 

You were by no means rushing to get to the door, if anything, you think that standing right by it for a good two minutes or so to really irritate him would make you feel much better than you currently do. 

Hyunjin continuously banging on the door pulls you out of your stubborn demeanour. If not for your neighbours, you’d have let him continue to bang against the door until his knuckles bruised. 

Yet it seems your night couldn’t get any worse considering you’ve just taken a fist to the face. Perhaps that was your fault for catching him off guard when he was vigorously knocking as he appeared to have ‘knocked’ your face instead of the door. 

“Oh fuck! Y/n!” Hyunjin yells as he cradles your face in his hands. You appreciate the gesture, you do, he was still your best friend after all. But if this wasn’t the cherry on top of the cake then you don’t know what is. 

“Yep, good to see you too hyune.” You groan. 

You scrunch your face as your hand moves to soothe your forehead. Shrugging out of his hold, you step inside of your home, trusting that he would follow suit and shut the door behind him. 

“Y/n darling I am so sorry. I promise I didn’t mean to knock against…your forehead.” He speaks with utmost genuinity as he shadows behind you. 

You don’t say anything as you just grab yourself some frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel before moving to your living room to make yourself comfortable on the sofa as you wait for him to explain everything. 

You’re thankful that he seems to be getting the hints tonight. He takes his place beside you, worry etched onto his beautiful face. 

Damn his prince-like features…

“Explain yourself then, since texting wasn’t working for you.” You spit. He bites his lip nervously and fidgets with his hands before his eyes look from the bag of peas until falling onto your own. 

“When…when I said I didn’t want you as my best friend, I meant because we can’t just go back to being best friends after that. It would just kill me knowing that you aren’t mine even after the night we shared.”  He starts. 

You sit still and listen, switching hands since the frozen peas were adding to the chill you already had from the conversation that loomed over your head. 

“I don’t want you as my best friend because I want you to be mine. I want to be yours. I want us.  Together.”

You wince. There’s a small part of you that just doesn’t believe him. You place down the now damp tea towel that holds the slowly melting peas. 

He looks at you, trying to read your reaction, but you were giving nothing away. 

“I just wanna know what was going through your head all those nights we spent together. We may not have had sex, but we did everything else. The cuddles, the kisses—when you familiarise yourself with every inch of my body—it would make sense that I thought we were something more than just best friends.”

He breaks eye contact, his interest now on the rings he adorns on his fingers. You can tell he is trying to think of something to say, so you wait patiently. 

“I understand if you feel like I may have been using you.” He acquiesces in meeting your gaze, but he persists. “It hadn’t really occurred to me that you may have thought of us as more than best friends. Granted, instead of sitting in my uncertainty I should have just asked you. Then that night happened and it hit me. Afterwards, I just knew that I shouldn’t have let it get that far.”

You feel nauseous. You can’t decipher exactly what that was supposed to mean. You look over at the now wet kitchen towel. 

“So you do regret it?” You pressed, your voice soft. 

He holds his hands out and shakes his head as he quickly refutes his words. 

“No of course not! I just meant that I know I should have asked you about us before that happened. I didn’t want it to be the case that you felt that I was not serious about us. ‘Cause having sex with someone is serious and I never wanted you to think I was playing around with your feelings.” He finishes. 

You sit there thinking about what he said. Maybe he was being sincere. Maybe he really does want what you thought the two of you had for the past couple of months. 

“How can I know that you aren’t just saying this? That you feel somewhat obligated to make us a thing because of the fact we slept with each other?” You ask. 

“Because I was too much of a coward to say this earlier.” He speaks without missing a beat. 

He scoots closer to you on the sofa, his hands providing warmth in yours. You don’t mean to dither, but you can’t help but weigh all the options. Hyunjin tilts his head to try and meet your eyes.

“I know you’re thinking about all of the things that could go wrong. About all of the things that could go right. What I could be for you in a day, a week, a month or even a year.” He cups your cheek, his thumb gently stroking beneath your eye. “But just be with me in this present moment. Think about what I could be for you now.” He says quietly. 

After some time, you lift your head to meet his gaze, the faintest smile on your lips. 

“Okay.”

Hyunjin’s eyes widened in shock and by the look on his face, you were certain that he thought you were going to reject him. 

“O-okay? You’re sure?” He presses. 

“I’m sure. I can tell you truly meant what you said and I think this would be the better outcome for us. I don’t think I could picture my life without you in it.” You admit. 

“Then I promise you won’t ever have to picture it because I won’t leave you. I won’t leave you, Y/n.” Hyunjin declares. 

You lean in and press a soft kiss to his lips. You aren’t sure whether your head is throbbing from your injury or the thrill that comes with you and Hyunjin finally being together. 

You just hope that Hyunjin is able to keep his promise that he won’t ever leave you; and that in the end, you made the right decision. 

jisung | 1.1k (1115) words 

You and Jisung sit on your sofa with a cup of tea in both of your hands. It’s been ten minutes since he has arrived and not one word has been said between the two of you. 

That’s how things usually are between you and him though. You don’t particularly need to say anything to know what the other one needs. 

However, you fear that your senses haven’t quite been tingling like they ought to be. Since what you thought was commonly shared between both parties has seemed to only be dumped into one. 

An unrequited love is always bound to end in heartbreak and you’re sure that is how today is going to end. 

“Is it just me or do things feel a little odd?” Jisung says breaking the ice, but in a way which has submerged the two of you in ice cold water. 

“Well I think I would be a little more fraught if things didn’t feel odd.” You add. 

You aren’t exactly happy with him at the moment either. In fact you think it’s in his best interest to explain just what he meant in those text messages. 

“Explain yourself then.” You say not beating around the bush. 

Jisung places his mug down before turning to you. 

“I wanna start by saying I’m sorry. I’m sorry for how I worded what I was trying to say in those texts. You aren’t stupid Y/n, I promise. I’m the one that’s being stupid.” He meets your gaze and you give him a single nod. 

“The truth is, I don’t think I’m ready to have a relationship with you.” 

If your feelings are hurt, you will yourself not to show it on your face. Except your face goes pallid as you feel the knife stab directly into your beating heart. 

“Then why make it seem as if we were? Why not shut it down? Better yet, why use me to get your rocks off and make me think that I am going to amount to more than just your best friend?” Your voice croaks, unable to hide the emotion you’re feeling. 

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. 

“I can’t give you a definite answer of why I did all of that right now.” He says quietly. 

You can’t help the scoff that falls from your mouth. 

“What the fuck Ji? Why are you even here then? What are we even doing?!” You say starting to grow more upset. 

His eyes widen slightly as he looks at you. He places a hand on your arm and is surprised when you don’t shrug him away. 

“I promise I don’t mean to vex you, I just don’t have an answer because I don’t know. I just know that us having slept together made things seem…real. Like we were actually happening. When in actuality we weren’t and never will be.” 

That was a punch to your gut so hard that your body viscerally reacted to his words and hunched over slightly. You can’t believe what you’re hearing. 

This can’t be the Jisung that you were friends with for so long. No, he would never say something so outright. 

It’s as if he hasn’t even registered what he just said because his face is that of worry as to why you are stunned silent. 

“Jisung,” he winces at the use of his full name. “What did you expect to happen between us? Be honest, don’t say that you don’t know.” You speak gently. 

He thinks for a moment, his hand slipping from your arm as he uses it to fiddle with the zipper of his jacket.

“I just expected for us to play around and not take it to the next step. I just wanted a bit of fun with my best friend. That’s not so bad is it?” He confesses, looking at his feet. 

The knife is pushed deeper. 

You honestly aren’t sure how to react. What to say or even do. So you sit in silence. 

Minutes go by and all you can hear are the hum of the electronics in the room and the breathing of Jisung. He always has been a loud breather. 

A clearing of the throat pulls you out of your trance. 

“Please say something, anything.” He pleads. You slowly turn your face towards him. 

“What would you like me to say Jisung? I have just found out that my best friend—you—has been using me for shits and giggles and being a total ignorant asshole while he does so.” You retort. 

He shakes his head as he frowns at your words. 

“No, no I’m not the bad guy here. I didn’t use you just for that. Why would I do that Y/n? You mean more to me than that.” He runs his hand through his brown locks, getting frustrated. “Look, I don’t think we should blow this too much out of proportion. We did something that we shouldn’t have and now we just have to move on.” He says. 

“You don’t mean that.” 

“You’re my best friend Y/n. You know me inside and out. Maybe I haven’t been so transparent with you lately. I just think that I need to figure out some stuff on my own because clearly everything I say is hurting you and I hate the way I hurt you. Fuck, just seeing your face now, knowing I was the cause. I can’t do this. Not anymore.” He says solemnly. 

You blink. The tears trickle down your cheeks as you take into account what he is saying. 

No. This isn’t your Jisung. Just give him some time and he’ll be back. He’ll come back. 

“What are you saying to me Ji?” He places a hand on your cheek before standing up and putting on his shoes. 

You immediately get up and follow him to the front door. 

“Jisung.” You whisper. He opens the door and steps out, stopping and turning to you once more. 

“I’m always gonna be in your corner Y/n. Okay? Always.” Jisung says as he smiles sadly at you and turns away from your door. 

Watching him leave feels like the knife is twisting uncontrollably. You shut your door, not wanting to see him in case you’ll do something stupid like run and stop him from walking out of your life. 

You’re angry, you’re hurt, you’re confused. You’re in a state of shock. Was that a goodbye? Will you ever see him again?

You cover your mouth with your hand as you sob quietly as reality sets in. You had just lost the man you had fallen for, your best friend. 

You aren’t sure if he is ever coming back. 

felix | 1.0k (1077) words

The sun is setting and you find yourself in the familiar skatepark which you and Felix frequently visit to hang out. 

This was a first, you getting here before him. It felt uncanny, especially since the skatepark is an empty void. It’s not like you’re here at the late hours of the night which is what you guys usually do, so where are the people?

As you sit atop the ramp wondering this, Felix climbs up and sits next to you. 

“Hey Y/n.” He greets. No remark about you being here before him for a change. You face him and greet him with a small smile. 

“The sky is pretty this evening. Any particular reason for why you wanted to meet at our spot earlier than usual?” He asks you. 

“I knew the sky would be worth seeing from here today. I also wanted to be able to see your face when you lie.” You deadpan. 

He audibly swallows at this which makes you chuckle and start to swing your feet. 

“I’m kidding. Just wanted to watch the sun go down.” You tease. 

It’s silent, bar the birds chirping and the rustle of the leaves as the wind dances through the trees. 

“So about what happened with us,” Felix starts. “You think that we are more than just best friends?” He asks. You hum in acknowledgement. 

“I thought we were more than best friends for a while. You know, since this whole shebang started. The sex was just what I thought was you being ready to take our relationship further. Though that was foolish of me to think and not double check with you.”

Felix, now turnt to face towards the sunset, is quiet as he takes into consideration what you have just said. 

“It wasn’t foolish.” He says ever so quietly. 

Your legs still their movement as you turn to look at him. His face is being kissed nicely by the sun right now, his freckles practically glowing. 

“Of course it was foolish Felix. Or else we wouldn’t be here now.” You smile as you tip your head back and close your eyes, letting the last of the sun’s warmth seep through your skin. 

“No. It wasn’t foolish because I was ready. Okay that’s not entirely true, I caught feelings months ago but I only became sure about them during that week I was away.” He softly speaks. 

You drop your head and look towards him. His eyes are still glued to the vast blanket of orange and yellow across the horizon. 

“But that’s not what you said in those text messages. You said that you think that boundary shouldn’t have been crossed in the first place. Yet now you’re saying this? Forgive me Felix, but I’m finding it hard to believe what’s coming out of your mouth.” You sigh.  

He finally turns and looks at you, a small scowl on his face. 

“I know what I said in the texts Y/n. I don’t go back on my word. I do think a boundary was crossed and as best friends it shouldn’t have been.” A beat. “Though that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel something towards you. That’s why I’m so confused.” He turns his head back towards the sky, the deep shade of blue starting to make itself evident. 

“Like I said, I didn’t expect to catch feelings for you and then have sex with you.” He finishes. 

You lay down, watching the dark grey clouds move. 

“Do you remember much of that night?” You ask. 

“Of course I do. How could I ever forget. I mean we are literally sitting on the ramp that it happened on.” He reminisced. 

“Remember when I told you that I was yours and you were mine? That was probably said in the heat of the moment, but I meant it Felix. I’m not the kind of person who says things for the sake of saying them. Plus, I’m not focused on anybody other than you.” You say, closing your eyes again as the cool air brushes against your face. 

Though your eyes are closed, you sense that Felix was staring at you. You hear his clothes rustle before you’re wrapped up in his arms. 

He is cuddling you. 

“Doll, I’m sorry. I didn’t just say those things because we were high off oxytocin. You really mean so much to me. I don't want us to argue, I just want us to be together. For real. No hesitations, no take backs. Just you and me living how we do, but together as one.”

You can feel something wet drip into the crook of your neck. You know it’s not raining so you figure he has started to cry. 

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings Y/n. It’s not what I wish to ever do to the person I love.” He sobs. 

You open your eyes as you hear his admittance. The person he loves. The person he loves. 

“You love me?”

“I’m in love with you. I was trying to make sense of if I truly meant it over that week and I reacted like I did earlier because I know you didn’t love me back. I was embarrassed.” He confessed. 

You turn over in his arms as you grab ahold of his face. It’s dark now, but a nearby light creates a twinkle in his eyes. 

“I want you to be sure that this is what you want. You don’t have to promise me forever, but promise me that this is truly what you want until it isn’t.” You say gently. 

His bottom lip wobbles slightly as he takes a deep breath in then out. 

“I am sure. I promise. I love you, I’m in love with you. I want us to be best friends. I want us to be lovers. I want it all. I want you.” He whispers against your lips. 

You smile, wiping his tears away with your thumb. 

“Okay, me too. We’re locked in?” You hold up your pinky. 

“We’re locked in.” He connects his pinky with yours and pulls your face in to kiss you softly. 

The two of you lay there in each other’s arms for the rest of that evening until a security guard ushered the two of you away. 

As you walk hand in hand down the street, you’re just glad that you have this ball of sunshine all to yourself. For as long as time allows. 

seungmin | 1.5k (1518) words 

You were nervous. More nervous than you expected yourself to get. Which is probably how you find yourself scrambling to get your phone, sending Seungmin a message to say that you don’t want to meet up and would rather just call. 

His reply after reading your message was to immediately dial you up, leaving no time for you to think about what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. 

You answer the phone with baited breath. 

“Why didn’t you want to meet me? You nervous or something?” He says very straightforwardly. 

Yes. 

“No. Just realised that I have things to do and I can multitask if I speak with you over the phone.” You lie. 

You hear him sigh on the other side of the line. 

“I’d rather you weren’t multitasking whilst we are having an important conversation about us. Pay attention.”

Your jaw clenches as you bite your tongue. 

“Fine. Since you want to be such an adult about this, why don’t you do us the honour and start us off?” You quip. 

“You already know how I feel about that night. About us blurring those lines between friendship and something more. We shouldn’t have. Having said that, I value our friendship too much to let something like that fuck it up.” Seungmin says plainly. 

You roll your eyes, not understanding what exactly he means by that. 

“Okay…but you do realise that us sleeping together has changed everything, right?” You say unwavering in your tone. 

“Wrong.”

You waited for him to finish what you hoped would be a longer sentence, but all you could hear was the minor feedback from the other end of the line. Taking a deep breath to calm yourself, you try again. 

“What do you mean, wrong? Things can’t go back to normal after that night, shit, after everything that’s happened between us.” You exclaim. 

“And I’m not saying they have to—”

“You are absolutely not still using me as a way to blow your load Seungmin.” You interrupt harshly. 

You hear him groan on the other end of the phone to which you decide to put him on speakerphone and place him on your bed. You wipe your face with your hands in frustration as you wait for him to speak. 

“I’m not going to do this with you if you’re going to be angry for starters. Especially if you’re going to be interrupting me. Got it?” He asserts. 

You release a huff of air, choosing to stay quiet in regards to what he has just said, but you reluctantly agree. 

“Fine, sorry. Carry on.” You say as nicely as you can muster up. 

“What I’m saying is I care about you Y/n. I don’t think it’s fair that people have also been feeding you troubles about our friendship. It’s between us and not them. They don’t know what the fuck is going on and I’ll be getting on their asses for that later, but right now my focus is on you.” He explains. 

You stay quiet, noting the fact that he is now outside and walking. 

“Seungmin, you can’t seriously fault our friends for noticing something you were determined to ignore. We were doing things couples do!”

“But we aren’t a couple. That is what I’m trying to get at Y/n.” He says exasperated. You hear a police siren go by on his end of the line which muffles the last part of his sentence. 

“Then why even do all that with me? Of course I was going to catch feelings. I’d be stupid not to!” You exclaim, resting your head in your hands. 

He’s quiet. The only sounds to be heard is the distorted traffic. You sit there unmoving, wondering why he isn’t speaking. 

A loud series of knocks on your door jolt you out of your trance. 

“One second, someone is at my door.” You alert Seungmin. Putting on your slippers, you rush to the door. You open it and you feel your face run cold. 

Seungmin huddles over, catching his breath before he makes a show to end the call between the two of you. 

“I am not having this conversation with you over a fucking phone.” He pants. 

He lets himself in, your mind still boggled at the fact that he chose to fast walk over here just to have this conversation. You’re both touched and terrified. Touched because he seems to really care about talking about your relationship in person. Terrified because this is getting much more serious than you thought it was. 

It’s times like these where you wish you and Seungmin hadn’t planned to live so close together. Now you have no choice but to face him in the flesh. 

In the time that you were finally able to come to your senses and shut your front door, Seungmin had taken off his shoes and jacket and was standing behind you waiting. 

He grabs ahold of your hand and leads you to your own bedroom. 

“Seungmin, I don't want to have angry sex with you.” You blurt out. You could’ve sworn you heard him chuckle, but he’s already sitting you on the edge of your bed. 

He places his hands on your shoulders and imitates taking a deep breath in and out. 

“No, that is not what I’m here to do.” He crawls up to the top of your bed and sits resting against the headboard. “I am here to make amends and stop what shouldn’t have started in the first place.” He says calmly. 

You have to hold your stomach to try and soothe the impending vomit that is about to ascend up and out of your mouth. 

“I’m gonna be honest with you Seungmin. What you did, knowing you never wanted it to happen or go this far, was not cool. I’m not saying you’re to blame for the whole of it…but as someone who was catching feelings and seemingly thought you were as well, I genuinely thought that us continuing to be intimate with each other was because you liked me.” You finish. 

As you sit crossed-legged at the foot of the bed and Seungmin sits at the head, you start to feel this strange disconnect between the two of you. 

Seungmin sits there silent, clearly thinking of something to say in response. 

“I…I think I didn’t stop it because it felt good.” He says. 

“Good because it was us or good because you had someone to calm your sexual frustrations?” You ask. 

The way he hesitates to answer and hold eye contact with you tells you everything you need to know. 

You let out a scoff, getting up from your bed and starting to pace laps in your room. 

“I cannot believe this. You were the last person who I thought would do this to me.” You say, pointing an accusatory finger at him. 

“Y/n you know I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. I-I care about you!” He says now getting up from the bed. 

He goes to reach out and grasp your arm but you step out of his way, causing him to stumble slightly. 

Not only are you fighting your tears, but you are battling your inner turmoil. Something like this would deem him unfit to stay in your life, no?

You couldn’t possibly still be his closest friend if he truly just used you for pleasure, right?

“Y/n please look at me.” He says, his hands now balling up besides his legs. 

“I can’t do this anymore. I want you to leave.” You speak barely above a whisper. 

“What?”

“I want. You. To leave.” Your voice cracks slightly, but you turn around to face him. His eyes are wide and his mouth hangs open, as if he isn’t quite sure that this is what you mean. 

Taking the initiative, you walk out of your bedroom and to your front door. You hear his footsteps behind you, murmuring a few ‘waits’ and ‘calm downs’. Grabbing his jacket, you shove it in his chest and step back. 

Your arms are wrapped around yourself for comfort as you keep your head held low. 

Seungmin silently puts on his jacket and shoes and reaches for the door handle. Yet, as he is about to open the door, he pauses midway through his movement. 

“Leave your house or leave you forever?” He says disconcertingly. 

You lift your head up, his back facing you. You assess him for only a moment. His hand that strangles the door handle shakes slightly and his other hand grasps his jacket. 

“Both.” You choke. 

He doesn’t miss a beat. Swinging open the door and leaving without looking back. 

Just like that, all those years of friendship cut abruptly due to the confounding circumstances that conspired between the two of you. 

Some could say it was rather quixotic of you to expect that you could actually have a relationship with Seungmin. 

Though you would just say that perhaps falling in love with your best friend was never the right path, but one you were unfortunate enough to take. 

i.n | 1.2k (1257) words

You can’t control the way you feel. You’re hurt. You’re beyond angry. You’re hysterical. How dare he talk to you like that? How dare he disregard everything the two of you have been through because he wants to stay your ‘best friend’?

You well and truly can’t promise that you won’t blow up on him when he gets here. That’s if he even bothers to show up. He’s already twenty minutes late and you’re sitting in the cold, on a park bench, drinking your hot chocolate.

“Y/n!” Jeongin calls out to you as he walks over to sit beside you on the bench.

“Where’s mine?” He says, his voice laden with sarcasm as he points to your drink. He quirks his eyebrow at you as he assesses your mood and it certainly isn’t one accommodating his jokes at the moment. 

Breathe…breathe…

He turns to face you, one leg crossed beneath him as his arm rests on the back of the bench, his gloved fingers tapping a beat on your shoulder. 

“Are you feeling better now? You’re gonna talk this out with me like the adults we are, hm?” He smiles.

You turn to face him, unable to mask your ire. 

“Just best friends huh?” You speak for the first time in a while. 

Jeongin stops tapping your shoulder to run his fingers through his hair. Tugging his coat closer around him to provide some sort of warmth to not only protect himself from the bitter chill of the air, but the icy look in your eyes.

“I admit, crossing those lines with you was never my intention. Being that I didn’t kiss or sleep with you because I wanted a relationship with you. I guess I was just lonely, you were available…tensions were high and we couldn’t control ourselves.”

You actually feel your heart drop to the pit of your stomach. This is not the Jeongin you knew and loved as your best friend. No, he was far nicer than what you’re currently faced with.

You are rendered speechless. The only thing you can think to do is take another sip of your hot chocolate.

It would be ideal if your hands stopped shaking.

“You get where I’m coming from though right? Like I said, I care for you. More than anybody else I know, but what we did was a mistake and that’s okay. We’ll know to never let those boundaries be crossed again alright?” He says placing a hand on your thigh.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Y/n–”

“Jeongin get your hand off of me, now.”

The smile that you used to adore, now falls from his face. His lips thinning as his jaw clenches and his gaze hardens.

“I genuinely thought that you had reason to be so pissy at me, you know, due to your work being so busy and all,” You laugh bitterly. “But you really are just a fucking asshole.”

He rolls his eyes and moves to get up before your hand reaches out to stop him.

“Sit the fuck down, I’m not done with you. I’m only going to say it once.” You say acrimoniously. 

Heeding your warning, he sits back down, his hands finding solace in his lap. 

“See, I was speaking with Hyunjin when you were supposedly too busy to talk to me and he gave me some pretty good advice.” You say finishing the rest of your drink and setting it aside. 

“What are you doing asking him for advice? He has no business knowing what goes on between the two of us, let alone an argument.” He spits.

Ignoring his disapproval, you elect yourself to continue. 

“He said that you don’t deserve me in your life. That a best friend would never, should never treat me like that–”

“Oh bull-fucking-shit! He is only saying that so that he can gets his filthy hands on you himself.” He interrupts, shaking his head as he looks beyond the lake at the horizon.

“I agree.” 

Jeongin nods his head in approval to your words. 

“You don’t deserve me in your life.”

His head snaps to yours as he sits up straight, clasping his hands together as he tilts his head.

“What?”

“I am not your little fucktoy for you to use whenever you get sick of your hand. I’m not the easy option because I’m the closest you can get to getting off without people catching on. You know because we’re best friends, right? No one will suspect a thing, right?”

You have started, gone past the point of no return as you lay into him and rightfully so. 

“I thought you had calmed down from earlier? What, did you discuss with Hyunjin all of the things to say to me before I got here? The fuck does he know? He doesn’t even know you like I do!” He exclaims, his voice raising in pitch. 

You gawk, unable to believe how he just bypassed what you said to talk shit about his friend. 

“This isn’t about Hyunjin for fuck’s sake! This is about us! Or rather the lack of.” You stand up, taking deep breaths as you pace in front of him back and forth. “You keep talking to me like I’m some fucking child. Like I can’t comprehend the words that are coming out of my mouth.”

You stop in front of him, sighing. 

“I don’t want to be in your life anymore. I’m done.”

His eyes widen as he grasps ahold of your hands, his thumbs rubbing over your knuckles.

“You don’t mean that. You’re just angry. You want me to apologise? Okay sure. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used you like that and let it get that far knowing I wasn’t ready for a relationship.” He begs. 

You feel your eyes start to well up with tears. This isn’t how you imagined a six year friendship to end, but alas, here the two of you are. 

He stands now, moving his hands to cup your cheeks, his eyes darting between yours. 

“Come on. Let’s not act rash now Y/n. It was a mistake.” He keeps trying to reassure you. 

You shake his hands off of your face as you take a step back. 

“It wasn’t a mistake for me. It never was and never will be because I didn’t just see you as someone who was available. I’m serious, I won’t be treated like shit. Not anymore and certainly not by you.” You affirm. 

He lets his hands fall to his sides, his fists clenching. 

“So this is it huh? You really wanna leave me, leave six years of friendship because you got your feelings hurt?” He asks. 

“Fuck you, Jeongin. Don’t contact me ever again. I’m finished.” You say scoffing a laugh. 

You pick up your empty cup and start to walk away, not bothering to turn back to see how he reacts. Only then do you let the tears run marathons down your face. 

Little did you know, his fists unclenched and his hands were brought to his face. He collapses onto the bench, watching your figure get smaller and smaller until he can no longer see you. 

It was in that moment, where Jeongin only just realised how royally he had fucked up. His head falls into his hands as he takes deep breaths. 

The smoke caused from the cold air and the warmth of his mouth floating along the sky. Much like you, floating out of his life and disappearing. Lost to the abyss of a forever memory in his heart. 

a/n: the plate is still full i fear because why do i hate this so much AHSGAIA SGAISBSKSVG (i apologise. i said i would deliver, but the package got lost in transit)

ʚ hope you enjoyed ^.^ you can support me by liking, commenting  and reblogging! it is heavily appreciated ᵕ̈ ɞ

i do not permit my work to be translated or reposted in any way, thank you. 

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[baronessvonglitter]

Halftime Show

Joel Miller, Javier Pena, Dave York, Frankie Morales, Marcus Moreno x f!sexworker!reader (lucky girl)

Word count: 2.7K

Summary: you're an escort hired for a private Super Bowl party hosted by a mysterious client and his four friends

WARNINGS: 18+ Only! Mature and Explicit, reader's work name is "Angel", reader is a sex worker, mildly dubious consent (though she does state that the men can do as they want, it's her first experience in sex work), rough sex (but no violence done to reader), group sex, threesome to sixsome, oral sex (f & m receiving), unprotected p in v sex, double p in v, anal sex & fingering, multiple penetration, hand jobs, face fucking, facial, verbal abuse/humiliation, squirting, swallowing, creampie, spitroasting, reader gets slapped w/a dick for a bit, porn without plot, you know.. all the sweet stuff.

Author's Note: another cross-post from AO3 but honestly, football is barely mentioned so if you want you can ignore the whole Super Bowl aspect. Y'all might know by now I love a little romance in my smut but this particular fic has zero romance. Reader is there to do a job and leaves having done it very well. Also.. I'm considering creating a part 2 featuring more Pedro Boys, so any input on that is welcome!

FULL MASTERLIST | JOEL MILLER MASTERLIST

MARCUS MORENO MASTERLIST | FRANKIE MORALES MASTERLIST

DAVE YORK MASTERLIST | JAVIER PENA MASTERLIST

It's your first day as an escort and you're a little nervous. Okay, a lot nervous. You never know what you're going to expect from clients, but these guys you're about to meet have been pre-screened and even had to turn in blood tests just to be considered as clients. The escort service you work for is very prestigious. You're even driven to the location by a security detail who is tasked to wait outside for you. This makes you feel a little better.

You take a quick look at your outfit before you leave the car. The rule is you show up in character and leave in character. No real names, no background stories, just a persona and an exchange of goods. Simple as that. Should be easy enough.

Taking a deep breath, you exit the car and go up to the front door.

The doorbell rings, and Dave York springs from the sofa, a little smirk on his lips. "Guys, I think she's here," he announces, and the rest of the group look up from the Super Bowl game, groaning when Dave mutes the sound even though it's just gone to commercial.

"Who?" Frankie Morales asks, swigging a beer.

"The halftime entertainment," Dave answers mysteriously.

Marcus Moreno and Joel Miller trade inquisitive glances. Javier Peña raises his brow. He knows what Dave means.

Dave brings you into the living room and you take a quick survey of your surroundings: the home is nicer than most, two stories, decorated tastefully but with an obvious woman's touch. You give him a once-over. He's forty-ish, handsome, clean-shaven.

"The wife got the house in the divorce," Dave tells you, as if reading your mind. "This is my last weekend here, so let's make it count!" He raises his glass of whiskey to the guys, most of whom also salute with their drinks. They are all eyeing you like a pack of dogs that haven't eaten in days.

Marcus, a kind-looking man with dark eyeglasses who gives you Clark Kent vibes, smiles awkwardly at you, blushing. "Aren't you going to introduce us?" he asks Dave politely.

"Angel," you give your working name, smiling at each of the men. They're all cute: some scruffy, some dapper.

Dave smirks. "I'm Dave, and these are my buddies Marcus, Frankie, Joel, and Javier." Each of the guys smiles or nods at you as they're introduced.

"I heard you guys are looking to get wild," you say, opening your winter coat to reveal your see-through lingerie. Joel, Javier, and Dave whoop in excitement. Marcus and Frankie are more reticent but can't take their eyes off you. "What do you plan on doing with little ol' me?" you ask innocently, kneeling on the cushioned ottoman in the middle of the living room. You glide your hands over your body and smile as the men shift in their seats, watching you, getting hard already at the idea of you offering yourself.

Dave is the first to put his hands on you, first on your hips then grabbing your ass. Joel, an older man with graying hair and green flannel shirt, interrupts him, rising from his seat. "Now, who told you you get to go first?" he asks in a deep voiced Texan accent.

"First? We're running a train on this girl?" Javier asks from his seat, a cigarette burning between his lips. He's dressed like someone from the 1970s but his clothes fit him well, accentuating a lean physique.

"You can do whatever you want with me," you tell them with confidence. "But of course, no hitting, no biting, no leaving marks." You are resolute on this, as is your employer.

"Hell, darlin', we're not monsters," Joel says, his eyes full of concern for you. The others chime in that they aren't into really rough stuff. Only Dave looks a little disappointed by your rule.

"I'd expect you to be more methodical about this," Javier tells Dave, rising from his seat and casting an amused glance at his friend. He eyes you up and down then reaches into your bra to cup your breast while his other hand dives between your thighs. "Christ, she's already wet. And so fucking tight. You haven't been doing this kind of work long, have you, baby?"

"You all are my first clients," you admit, your breath hitching as his thick fingers tease you.

Javier manages a small smile then looks over at the group. "You haven't thought about these guys," he tells Dave, and nods at Frankie and Marcus. "They're completely baffled by this."

"We're not, I know exactly what's going on," insists Frankie, an adorable middle-aged guy wearing a t-shirt, cargo pants and baseball cap. His innocence is palpable and quite touching.

Dave and Javier's hands are still on you, grabbing and groping. It's a good start. "I'm paying for her. I should get to go first," Dave complains.

A few of the guys (well, okay, Javier and Dave) start to bicker about it, fueled by testosterone and alcohol. Joel strides up to you, effectively taking you away from Dave and Javier. "It's kind of a shame that no one's puttin' her feelings into consideration. She's gonna be providin' a huge service for us. Least we can do is give her a little pleasure beforehand." With that, he takes you and places you on the ottoman, kneeling between your open thighs. He rips open the crotch of your lingerie and dives in, sucking on your pussy. Your initial shock gives way to thrill as you register the warm, wet stiffness of his tongue rasping your folds, your clit, not taking his time about it. Your fingers curl into his hair as you lift your thighs back. You're still on the clock, still giving a show, even if this part is currently for your benefit. With Joel's aid you manage to take the now-ruined lingerie off and are naked but for your knee-high stockings.

"Way to get the party started," Javier says approvingly. "I'm not about to waste any time." He goes to you and sits you up. You take a moment to admire the bulge in those tight trousers before he pulls them down enough to take out his thick shaft. You obediently open your mouth to accept it and he slowly moves into your throat, allowing you to get used to him. Saliva pools in your mouth as you start to moan around his dick, still exhilarated by Joel's ravishing you with his tongue. You feel a hand massaging your breast and look over to see Frankie, his puppy dog eyes wide with wonder, as if he can't believe you're real.

"That feels so good," you tell him, sensing he likes praise. He lights up, encouraged by you, and continues to pinch and pull at your nipple before sucking on it, extracting a pleasured moan from your lips before you go back to sucking off Javier.

Marcus and Dave stand back. Marcus looks flustered and Dave has his hands on his hips, making a face. He's figuring out where to squeeze in but at the same time doesn't want to share.

Meanwhile you're keeping busy with Javier's cock in your mouth, Frankie's mouth on your breast, and Joel still lapping at you between your thighs. The most exquisite feelings comes over you and your scream is muffled as you come so hard, your body spasming while surrounded by these men. It's the most sensually charged moment of your entire life.

Joel lifts himself up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "She's wetter'n a cucumber in a convent," he chuckles, standing and trying to get the feeling back in his knees. Frankie then moves down to finger you just as Javier is on the verge of coming. Just as he gives a strangled growl, spilling his cum into your willing throat, you feel one of Frankie's fingers in your ass. You gasp and clench around him as Dave takes Javier's place. Your body is buzzing with energy, with lust.

"You're gonna earn every penny," Dave growls, thrusting into your mouth as if he hates you. You don't have a gag reflex but you pretend to choke on him, bringing tears to your eyes.

Frankie starts to undo his pants then quickly steps away. "I'm, uh, not ready yet."

"Let her take care of it," Javier says, lighting up another cigarette.

"No smoking in here," Dave warns, his eyes still on the mascara running down your face.

"Fuck you."

You start stroking Frankie, smiling at the plumpness of his cock, uncut. He's gazing down at you with tenderness in his eyes.

"Marcus, you joinin' us?" Joel asks, getting ready to pull down his jeans.

Marcus watches from the adjoining kitchen, his beer growing warm in his hand. "Maybe.. in a bit." He smiles nervously.

Joel shrugs and unzips himself, releasing his thick, veiny cock. It's all you can do not to stare at it in wonder.

"Hey, I was gonna go first," Dave says aggressively.

"You snooze you lose. Aren't we all gonna get a turn?" Joel smirks before aligning himself to your opening. "Such a tiny, perfect little pussy.. you're gonna be completely wrecked when we're done with you, babygirl..."

Your eyes widen when he begins to slide into you, but you're already slick enough to take him. You remove Dave from your mouth so you can watch Joel's cock disappear inch by inch into your cunt.

"Don't forget about me," Dave warns you, tapping his dick against the side of your face. You compliantly return to sucking him off and he grunts contentedly in response. At the same time Joel pushes in to the hilt. "Hell she's taking every inch of me," he groans. "What a good little slut she is.."

"Well shit, don't stretch her out before the rest of us," Dave complains.

"That's not a particular worry of mine," Javier smirks, getting himself ready again as he goes to your free hand, opposite Frankie, who is already hard and ready. Joel is building up a nice tempo, sliding deep inside your pussy, Dave thrusts avidly into your mouth, Frankie and Joel are watching you as you zealously prime them for whatever they want to do next.

"Oh my god!" Frankie's eyes go wide and without warning he comes on your stomach and you make a sound of surprise when you feel the warm stickiness of him on your skin. "I'm sorry," he mumbles.

"Don't be," you tell him with a smile. "Think you've got another one in you?" you wink and scoop his cum into your mouth as Frankie watches in wonder.

Dave seems upset that you keep removing him from your mouth to talk to Frankie, but Frankie looks so happy that you're not grossed out or upset. Dave grabs hold of the back of your head and rams himself in your throat. "Less talking, bitch," he growls.

You would give him a death glare but then you feel Joel speeding up, his thrusts strong, the loud slapping of your flesh fills the air. Before you know it you're throbbing around him, milking him as you feel him finish inside you. He doesn't stay long, and soon Javier takes his place. "Flip over, cariño," he says, moving you on all fours. Dave takes over from the front, Frankie strokes himself while fondling your tit. Javier grabs your ass and slides in, letting you feel every inch of him as you moan around Dave's cock. He cums soon, spraying the back of your throat with his thick white cum.

"Get in there, Frankie!" Javier encourages, pumping away none too gently as he watches your ass ripple with each thrust. "Marcus get over here and do something or you'll miss out!"

Marcus seems frozen to his spot but Frankie follows orders and you open wide to receive him. He looks down at you like you're some kind of miracle, and you make sure to look at him the same way, charmed by his good nature.

Javier leans close to you. "I'm gonna put it in your ass, cariño."

"Do whatever you want," you purr.

He pulls out of you and you feel a warm glob of saliva at your rear entrance. Javier smears it around your puckered hole and eases himself in. You gasp, fists clenching the edge of the ottoman. "Fill all her holes, boys," Dave says, watching from the side. "That's what she's here for."

Frankie pulls away from your mouth. "Let me get under you." he says, and Javier pulls out enough for you two to get positioned. Frankie aligns himself at your entrance and sinks in easily. "Jesus, you feel so good, Angel.." He thrusts up into you as Javier continues to fuck your ass. The three of you are a fusion of lust and frenzy. Joel watches, running his tongue over his lips, still tasting your sweet essence. Dave tells everyone he's next to claim your ass. Marcus has since inched closer, undeciding yet if he's going to join, or how. He's obviously hard, his eyes dark with craving.

"Marcus," you mumble as he approaches your side. "Fuck my mouth," you beg.

He suppresses a gasp but he unbuckles his belt. "I haven't.. in a while.."

"That's okay.." you smile at him, helping him pull down his pants and briefs, running your nails over his solid girth, and he immediately rises to the occasion. "You were shy before, but not now," you notice, and give his cock a couple of gentle tugs before taking him into your waiting mouth, just the tip, and letting him go in as deep as he wants.

Javier speeds up, fingers digging into your hips as all your cries fill the room. He comes, filling your ass as he grunts savagely, causing you in turn to come, clenching around Frankie who buries himself deep inside as he lets go. Once Javier pulls away Dave takes over, gripping your hips and moving you against him.

You finger your lonely pussy, unable to make yourself feel as good as any of these men have. “Oh god, I want all of you at once.. please!” You beg.

Marcus approaches you and lays beneath you as Dave moves away, scoots up so he’s practically standing over you. Joel claims your mouth and Javier lets you pump him with your fist. Frankie approaches from behind and at the same time Marcus enters you from beneath. Two men fuck your cunt, stretching you, ruining you, and all you can do is give them what they want and then ask for more.. one man in your mouth, in your hand, in your ass.. you are working for every penny just as Dave said.

You're practically dazed by the countless feelings of pleasure coming from every man inside you, the way they move, the way they taste, how their hands grope your ass or your breasts, your hips.. you're just a receptacle for them, a plaything. This allows your brain to soak everything in without having to think. Just feeling. None of them really care about your pleasure, not at this point. You're just a means to an end, and you like it. You've never felt more alive.

"God!" you gasp as you feel yet another wave of absolute euphoria threaten to take you under. You don't even bother to hold back. As soon as you come you feel them all come with you, like tiny explosions set off in a chain. You gulp down Joel's spunk as Dave spills himself inside your ass, and Marcus and Frankie throb then release, one only seconds after the other. Javier takes control of himself from you and spurts his cum onto your face. For the first time ever in your life, you squirt, gasping at the relief and suddenness of it. The six of you try hard to catch your breath, all of you taking in the moments of this night.

"I don't think I'll be able to cum for weeks," Joel says, chuckling as he pulls up his pants.

Showered and dressed, you leave in a skimpy outfit that covers more than the lingerie did, as Dave uses the escort agency's app to send you a very generous tip from himself and the rest of the guys. The guys, cleaned up and all in relaxed moods, watch the game, not even upset that they missed most of the second half. You take your money and leave, blowing a kiss to the guys.

"God damn, you hired a good one," Javier mutters to Dave.

"Let's make this an annual thing," Dave smirks. "Next one's on you, Peña."

dividers by @saradika-graphics 👑

[zhongrin]

“no, i’m not jealous.”

— he is, most definitely, jealous.

◇ characters ◇ zhongli (ft. platonic!childe), al haitham, ayato, cyno

◇ tags ◇ fluff, crack, (character) is so totally not jealous, okay? okay.

◇ a/n ◇ i wrote this at like 2am don’t @/ me-

bad summary of content utc: 1) rip childe. 2) legends say you can foretell your future by the shape of al haitham's pecs. 3) ayato vs taroumarou; who wins? the result might surprise you. 4) cyno just wants some cuddles someone save him.

𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ⬙ 𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡

zhongli, jealous? ridiculous.

zhongli is unyielding and self-assured. he was a revered archon, for celestia’s sake; he knows he’s wanted, and even now as a mortal he’s not foreign to the longing looks, stuttered words, and the blushes that rise to his fellow mortals’ cheeks whenever he speaks to them.

and you - you want him just as much, if not more; yet you’re different than the others in the way that you’ve successfully managed to carve a perfect little home in his heart and chose to stay there, much to his delight.

you’ve promised him your heart and the entirety of your life. he’s promised you happiness and his eternal love. you’ve been bound by the most sacred contract of all, the proofs of your vows to each other clearly wrapped onto your ring fingers.

so really, what would such petty, shallow emotion like jealousy serve?

“wow, you’re really good with your hands!”

“i’m not sure if being able to use chopsticks is a good measurement of one’s proficiency with their hands, but... thanks?”

“isn’t it harder to-” childe pauses to speak when you offer him a bite of sweet-and-sour pork and rice, gratefully takes the food, and hums in appreciation before continuing his words, “-feed others with a chops-”

“chew and swallow first; you’ll choke.”

the harbinger obediently obeys, but not before chirping a playful “okay mom/dad!” with his mouth full. you sigh and turn towards your abnormally silent lover, finding him barely picking at his own food.

“li? why aren’t you eating?”

“hm? i was just… thinking.”

“thinking,” you repeat with a fond roll of your eyes and a teasing grin on your lips, “when are you not? well, i’m sure you haven’t forgotten how to use chopsticks, so i don’t need to feed you, right?”

your husband’s lips part, as if he wanted to say something, but right at the same moment, you notice childe trying to pick up his rice, failing miserably with his horrible chopsticks control. as if on autopilot, you used your utensils to pick up the grains from his bowl into his mouth.

zhongli’s words fizzle on his tongue. the way you fuss over the brunette fuels the rumbling growls of the slumbering dragon which has been sleeping for eons, slowly baring its fangs inside his chest. gloved fingers wrap around his teacup a tad too tight, but alas, you fail to notice your brooding husband's silent fury.

he knows it’s just your instinct, to care for others and to cater to other people’s happiness. it’s one of the traits he adores from you. if anything, it looks more like a parent-child(e) relationship rather than that of lovers - besides, no personage living in liyue would think of you as the snezhnayan's significant other. that, he is confident of.

but do you really have to hand-feed a grown-up man - a fatui harbinger who almost leveled your whole nation onto the seabed at that - who was most definitely capable of feeding himself, and with your chopsticks nonetheless- wait.

before you can bring the two sticks anywhere near the plates containing childe’s food, your husband's hand gently pushes your chopsticks away. upon the questioning arch of your eyebrows, he opts for a patient and calm-sounding tone, “darling, please. eat. you haven’t touched your food for far too long.”

he then replaced your set of utensils with his own; the movement so smooth and natural you didn’t even notice, before turning to childe and scooping the extra spicy vegetable stir fry towards the brunette.

childe’s blue eyes widen in half shock and half embarrassment, and you nearly choke on your food at the comical sight.

“um-”

“eat.”

“a-ah, miss xiangling, can i have a spoo-”

“eat.”

no, he most definitely isn’t jealous.

“-who’s my prettiest boy? yes you are!”

“… what in teyvat are you doing?”

you blink innocently at your boyfriend, who had just woken up judging from the way his coat is still missing from his person, and momentarily your eyes flit downwards to appreciate the way his muscles look in his tight black bodysuit.

hmmm. ah, yes. you can see it from the way his abs look today. it is going to be a good day.

“hey,” a condescending snap of his fingers right in front of your face, and you glare at the smug expression on al haitham's face, “eyes up here.”

“i wasn’t looking at your pecs.”

“i never said anything like that.”

“not your manboobs either.”

“for the hundredth time, i do not have manboobs. and for the second time, i never said nor implied anything even remotely close to that.”

“well, i would like to inform you that i was not.”

al haitham gives you a knowing smirk and you huff in embarrassment, choosing to ignore him by looking away and refocusing on the tiny sprout (the actual plant, not that little adorable sprout on the top of his head), smiling and going back to the higher, loving pitch you used previously.

“i’m sorry baby, ignore mr. narcissist over there. now. you’re growing up so well! i can’t wait to see you grow taller and see the beautiful blooms you make! i just know my little pogchamp will-”

“what in lord kusanali’s name are you doing?”

“shut your damn mo- ahem!” you sigh and throw a pointed look at the scribe, “i am conducting a research, mind you. kindly fu- i mean- kindly ignore me and go prepare for your day.”

“enlighten me, then. what kind of research involves baby-talking to a plant?”

you roll your eyes and turn to address him properly, “ugh, fine, if you’re soooo curious, i’ll tell you. so, i read a research journal that testified something along the line of ‘speaking positive words, such as encouragements and praises to a plant, will aid its growth and make them bloom faster’. i’m trying to test that theory. now - this is veveh. i am going to tell him he’s a good, beautiful boy every day and praise him and sing for him. that one,” you point towards the plant at the far opposite side of the room near the windows, “is hawky. i’m going to tell him he’s a bast- the opposite of what veveh is. and we have [nickname] in our bathroom, which will be the control group. i’m going to give them all an equal amount of sunlight and water, and i have a journal and a kamera to regularly record the state of the plants. i plan to monitor them at least three times a day, and-”

“and who named these stupid plants?”

you gasp, scandalized, and swiftly move to cover veveh as if you’re covering a child’s ears from harmful words. which, in this case, the image isn’t far from the truth in your eyes.

“hey!! what did i say?! watch your words!! and it was kaveh’s idea!”

“of course it was,” the scholar sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, “are you not my significant other? surely you’re smart enough to notice the implications behind the names and the assignments of the roles. why would you agree to make the plant named after me the specific sample that would have to suffer from derogatory words?”

“…”

“…”

“…… wait, haitham, are you jealous?”

al haitham blinks and looks at you as if you’ve told him that you’ve replaced him as the akademiya’s scribe and he’s been exiled from the akademiya because his performance is unsatisfactory.

“i never said anything like that.”

“awww, would you like me to tell you you’re a good boy too? want me to tell you how pretty and lovely you are? how you’re doing suuuuch a good job at work? oh, sweetums-”

“i will be leaving now, you’re creeping me out.”

you giggle uncontrollably and lean closer to the tiny plant, snickering and lowering your voice into a whisper as you watch your beloved running away in embarrassment finally leaving you to your own devices, “hey, veveh. your dad is adorable, isn’t he?”

. . . ⚘ ⚘ ⚘

veveh ends up flourishing and its first flower bloomed way ahead of the two, therefore concluding your research on a high note. however, the morning after you submit your first draft of your thesis, you find the plant missing.

instead, in its place is hawky. you also find your boyfriend sitting right beside it, reading his advanced quantum theories book outloud.

yes, your boyfriend is truly very adorable indeed.

ayato loves dogs, he really does.

he also does not condone animal abuse, and that principle is currently the only thread that’s preventing him from pushing the animal away from your lap. your lap, which should have been his pillow. his much-needed, much-deserved, comfiest pillow on teyvat that could make him fall asleep in minutes and is the only reason he would skip work.

“oh, darling, i thought you were busy?” you ask in surprise upon seeing his form standing by the door.

“i needed a break, i was getting a little stressed,” he says, walking towards your side to sit on the cushion, hoping you’ll catch on to what he’s implying with both his words and actions.

your eyes are shining as you regard him, and his heart jumps-

“good job, i’m happy you’re not overworking yourself, love.”

“... why, thank you.”

you nod and glance down as taroumaru twitches and whines in his sleep, crooning softly at the adorable sight of the animal’s twitching legs.

“i wonder what he’s dreaming about,” you giggle softly.

ayato doesn’t understand how you can make him feel as if he’s falling in love with you all over again, yet at the same time, you make him want to punch the nearest wall in frustration.

with a tired sigh, he flops his head onto your shoulder it should have been your lap darn it and he nuzzles into the fabric of your kimono like a cat that’s seeking attention. the sweet soft laugh escapes your lips once more and he waits.

….

….

.... your hands are still petting the dog.

this is ridiculous, he thinks. the mutt is asleep; surely you would turn your attention to your poor fiancé, right? surely you wouldn’t be so heartless as to ignore him when he’s seeking you out like this? surely you would pity his overworked self and grant him some comfort even just a little-

“you really don’t have any meetings?”

“…. no, i don’t,” he hums casually and adds an exaggerated yawn.

“i think you need a nap, ayato.”

one of your hands finally rests upon his cheek and caresses his skin lovingly. a content little smile stretches his lips, but it disappears when your touch retreats all too soon for his liking.

maybe he should consider having a ‘no pets allowed in kamisato estate’ rule.

the door suddenly slides open to reveal thoma, who took one good look at the two of you and being the ever so polite man that he is, immediately splutters an apology for interrupting what seemed to be an intimate, relaxing moment between lovers.

the yashiro commissioner seizes the chance.

“it's fine, thoma. you’re here to take taroumaru on a walk, yes?”

at the keyword, the canine’s ears flick and his beady eyes open.

“huh? no, i just-”

“wonderful! why don’t you take him on a long walk, i’d say he’s just itching for some exercise after napping for so long.”

“eh? um-” thoma freezes at the cold smile on the young master’s face and forces a laugh at your inquiring gaze, “-y-yeah! waka is completely right! c’mon boy, it’s time for your walk!”

with a happy bark, the dog leaps out from your lap and bounds towards the housekeeper, who gave the two of you a sheepish nod before sliding the door shut.

ayato hums in satisfaction and reclaims his throne. without him even needing to ask, your fingers settle onto his blue locks, blunt nails scratching his scalp. you bend down to place a loving peck on his forehead, your scent envelopes his senses, and he melts.

ah, the taste of victory is always sweet.

“just one more game!”

“but love-”

“just one more game, please please please please!”

cyno sighs, “you said the same thing three rounds ago.”

i’m tired, i want to cuddle you now, the general mahamatra tries to telepathically communicate right into your brain by staring at you with his soft and downturned vermillion eyes. alas, you are too focused on refining your tcg deck and testing it against the man and the legend himself.

“i swear this time it’ll really be the last!!”

being a rather new player that you are, you’re still clumsy in your actions and strategies, but he can sense you improving with every match you lost. the way you’re so passionate and fully throw yourself into the things you’re interested in never fails to bring a sense of pride into his heart, but seriously - even the most serious of men needs a cuddle every now and then. plus, you fit so well into his arms! can you blame him for being a little needy after a whole three hours of being denied any sort of affection despite the fact that you’re seated right across this stupid table??

you can’t and you shouldn't.

“you promise this will be the last round?”

“for today, yes!”

your boyfriend sighs and nods. yes, his need to cradle you in his arms is overwhelming. but when you look at him with eyes that shine brighter than the stars in the desert at night, how can he refuse? he’d give you a whole oasis if you asked for it. he can last just one more round of tcg.

... right?

cyno swears it has to be the longest match of his life.

you’re so cute when you’re thinking over your actions; eyes gazing upon your cards and his in contemplation as you mumble strategies under your breath. you’re so cute when you do a little cheer as the dice gods graced you with luck on your dice rolls. you’re so cute when you gasp in awe as he pulls a rather tricky maneuver that ruined your plans to attack his deck in this round.

archon kusanali give him strength, for you’re so cute and he wants a cuddle so badly.

“nooooooo,” you cry out in despair as he downs the last two of your characters at the same time with a well-timed elemental reaction, your body slumping against the table.

cyno can’t help but smile, although he does feel a bit bad from beating you yet again, so he decides to give you a little tip to hopefully cheer you up, “almost got me there. why don’t you try using a freeze team next time? you have the cards for it, and i think it'll suit your playstyle.”

at once, your head snaps up and you meet his gaze with determined eyes.

oh.

oh, he just dug a grave for himself didn’t he.

“[name]-”

“you’re right. let me- let me rebuild my deck, wait-”

“you promised-”

“i know, i know! just- fifteen minutes! give me fifteen minutes!!”

cyno wishes he could bang his head against the table, rattle his stupid brain and zip big mouth shut.

he just wants a cuddle.

why is it so hard to get a cuddle?

what’s a man gotta do these days for a cuddle??

cyno sees you staring at your character cards with your hand on your chin, clearly in deep thought. your boyfriend then opts to glare at his character cards, as if they were the ones who had stolen his cuddles, but a few seconds into that and he scoffs, looking away to the side as warmth rapidly bloomed across his cheeks.

seriously, what kind of man gets jealous of a card game?

but cuddles...

© zhongrin | 2023 ◆ no repost. reblogs much appreciated. feel free to reach out to submit suggestions, feedback, comments, or if you just want to talk!

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