#and i had to make it everyone elses problem too

[overtake]

via

(ty @rb19, @reigningm4x, + @blamemma for the source work 🤍)

[dear-ao3]

so. as you may know it’s christmas eve. as you probably don’t know i am eastern european. and probably the only real tradition anyone holds onto is christmas eve. normally my great aunt does all the food and very begrudgingly sometimes lets everyone help make like. one thing.

well.

this year. the year of our lord two thousand and twenty four. she decided she was done cooking and it was up to everyone else.

so i got a phone call from my mom a few weeks ago being like hey so. you’re making the cake. got it? good.

the cake in question is a walnut cake. i was entrusted with my great aunts recipe about seven years ago. i’ve made it twice. the first time i fucked up the frosting quantity. the second time i fucked up the eggs. both times were passable at best and notably! my great aunt did not taste either of them.

and i have to make this cake. on christmas eve. it is dessert. for everyone. my extended family will all be eating the cake. the walnut cake. on christmas eve. even my great aunt.

so yesterday, december 23 if you are counting, i went on the annual Last Minute Christmas Food Shopping Trip with my father, watched him climb into the case to get his half and half like he does every year, and stressed about my cake as i made sure i had all of the ingredients.

then. we went to my great aunts house. where i was met with Trial Number 1: The Cognac

this cake has cognac in the frosting. not a big deal really. except for the fact that my mom hates that there is cognac in the frosting. (my mom is hell bent on making christmas eve dinner vaguely healthier. no one else agrees.) and i was to be making the cake in my moms house.

also important to note: we (as in my parents) do not own cognac. mostly because none of us drink.

so my great aunt is like oh i have to give you the cognac. cause she knows. i am baking the cake. the walnut cake. (my dad told her. he is a traitor). and i say okay. sure. this won’t be a problem at all.

so she gives me. a shot of cognac. and when i say a shot. i mean an Entirely Full Shot Glass of Three Hundred Dollar Cognac. in a jar. for the cake. the walnut cake. that i have to make.

upon bringing the cognac home my mom says no we’re not putting that in. the cognac sits on the counter in its jar. no one touches it.

then i was met with Trial Number 2: The Frosting.

this recipe requires a pound of chopped walnuts. first. i couldn’t even find the walnuts. my sister and i searched high and low and in every cabinet we could find but no nuts. i called my mom. and said mom where are the walnuts? and she said. “they’re in the nut bag behind the basement door.”

oh of course. how could i have missed the nut bag? a holiday bag full of bags of nuts that was half hidden by wrapping paper and also behind a door?

in any case. could i have used a food processor? absolutely. did i? no. half because i forgot and half because i didn’t want to accidentally grind the walnuts into a paste. so i enlisted the help of my younger sister to chop the walnuts By Hand while i embarked on the real devil: the frosting.

which remember. is supposed to have cognac.

so i cream my butter. i add my sugar. i’m careful not to over sugar. i taste it a million times. i add my coffee and my vanilla extract (instead of cognac. which is still sitting on the counter) and it was all going so well until. the butter rebelled.

now remember. one time when i made this. seven years ago. i made too little frosting. so i made more this time. and i thought i had all my conversions right but evidently i did not because suddenly there was too much liquid in my frosting and it split.

the frosting for the walnut cake that everyone was going to eat. on christmas eve. the very next day.

i felt like a contestant on great british bake-off getting smited by the tent.

so i did the logical thing and shoved the whole mess into the fridge hoping that it would sort itself out overnight.

then it was time to face Trial Number Three: The Cake Itself.

as i have said this cake is a walnut cake. the christmas eve walnut cake that has been at christmas eve longer than i have been alive. and it requires no less than ten egg whites. which i whipped and i added to my walnuts and shoved the whole thing into the oven in my two baking dishes.

only to discover no less than 40 minutes later that the batter in the pans was Not Even (despite my best efforts). so i cooked one longer than the other and hoped that i hadn’t monumentally fucked up the walnut cake. like i had the frosting. which was in the fridge. and i was ignoring.

which leads to Trial Number Four: The Egg Yolk Cake

see i had ten egg yolks. i didn’t know what to do with them. my mom said flush them. my dad said make a custard. i proposed making egg nog. my mom said she didn’t want it in the house cause it was too fattening (a blatantly incorrect statement. please, if you are reading this, go drink a glass of eggnog. or some other fun festive drink. food is for the soul.) so i produced a recipe for an egg yolk pound cake. i made it. i still don’t know if it came out good cause i haven’t tasted it. i hope it did. but that was not the point. the point is the walnut cake. the christmas eve walnut cake.

and the following morning i was met with Trial Number Five: The Frosting Part 2

first i threw my failed frosting back in the mixer and it immediately secreted a brackish combination of vanilla extract and coffee so i did the only thing i could. facetimed my dad and said “father there are problems abound.” and he gave me the fatherly advice of “make it again.”

and so i did.

with more correct measurements. still scared it would split at any second.

though it didn’t.

and i didn’t add the cognac.

maybe no one will be able to tell???

my mom said that if anyone asks the first batch of frosting failed and i had to toss it. this is technically true.

but i had frosting. i had two uneven cakes. and it was time for Trial Number Six: Decorating

decorating cakes is easily in my top ten least favorite activities. decorating the christmas eve walnut cake is easily in my top three least favorite activities. because i am terrible at decorating cakes. and also because it has a filling.

the filling is jam. and i once again made the wrong choice because i put the jam on first before the frosting. which to be fair is what the directions say. but as everyone knows, the directions in recipes you get from your eastern european great aunt are not the real directions. so now i had to smear butter cream. on top of jam. for the filling of the walnut cake. for christmas eve. that we would be eating in a few hours.

and we didn’t have a cake plate. we had a large dish.

i had to use my fingers. i had to use three spatulas. i got jam everywhere. but i did it. and as soon as i set the top cake on top of the filling i realized my monumental mistake: i was supposed to trim down the cakes.

so now they were uneven. and lopsided. and there was nothing i, a mere mortal tasked with the impossible task of making christmas eve walnut cake, could do about it.

so i continued to spread my frosting. which i had enough of. and tried and failed to not get jam everywhere.

in the end it was almost presentable. not great. slightly lopsided. and definitely not as nice as any of my great aunts cakes.

which left me with Trial Number 7: Chilling It

our fridge was being taken up by other important christmas eve things (though not as important as my cake. the walnut cake) so i had to put it in the car. which was fine because there is snow on the ground.

i covered my cake. the walnut cake. in tin foil and hoped i wouldn’t accidentally squish it. and then i went outside. i tried to steal my moms shoes to walk outside. she was not impressed.

“you know, saph,” she said. “some of the time you’re pretty great. the other half of the time you’re really weird.”

i could not agree more.

i put my cake on the trunk. prayed to the cake gods and went inside.

on the one hand if the cake is good, i will be stuck making walnut cake for christmas eve for the rest of my life. on the other hand, if it sucks i will never have to make another one.

Trial Number Eight: The Tasting still waits.

[meeinthesea]

DIVINE FRAGILITY — gojo satoru

outline— the one time you make satoru feel less like a god and more like a human.

contains— gojo satoru x reader, fluff, reverse comfort (?) suggestive ( mentions of sex, not very detailed tho ) established relationship, anxious satoru ( pls give him a hug ) i think that's it...

wc— 1.7k

a/n— i had the vision, not sure if i did it justice. not very proud of this (T^T) anyways, im sorry for any typos ! enjoy <333

gojo satoru.

the prodigy, the honoured one, the strongest sorcerer of the modern age.

it's everything that he is known as.

these titles seem like a luxury to anyone else, but for satoru, they are far from that.

it's not his fault, though, not when you've been revered, put on a pedestal from day one. pushed onto the throne even before you've had the chance to learn and write your own name.

satoru's declared untouchable, protected by the infinity that runs all over him nonstop. a god of its own kind, that not everyone has the mercy of.

that's what his life has become.

well, until you happened.

because right now, at this very moment, he feels the farthest from that.

so restless and so much on edge.

in the soft glow of sunrise, he lies right beside you, well more precisely under you, cocooned in the cozy haven of your fluffy blankets and tangled limbs. you always had this 'weird' habit of rolling over to his side, laying right on top of him, presumably mistaking him for your teddy bear.

usually, it does not matter to him. rather, he finds it adorable how you squeeze him from time to time like he’s your personal plushy. he wouldn't mind being one if it meant you'd hold him, kiss him, and use him to your heart's content.

and he wants to do the same to you, too. things that are reserved only for you, that he does only to you. like every other time, he would've set an alarm at the crack of dawn — waking up hours earlier than you just so he could see and admire your sleeping glory, laid bare in front of him — only for him.

however, not this morning.

today, satoru's still as a rock. unmoving. all the cells in his brain are working overdrive, gravely focused on the feeling of your skin on his. the subtle pumps of warmth permeating through his skin right where the flesh meets, orchestrates his heartbeat.

you feel so soft and plump, reminiscent of the cotton candies he devoured yesterday. shivers run down his body as your natural scent hits his nose every time he inhales. your gentle breathing is barely audible to him. his mind is all fuzzy, and it's too much for him.

there is not a single layer blocking you from him, nothing to shield you from his prying eyes. the reddish marks littering your neck tells of an intense story. heat rises up his neck as the events from last night flash vividly in his mind.

everything remains clear, the painting still fresh in his mind. from the moment you both stepped inside the apartment, unable to keep your hands off each other to both of you, shrugging your clothes off before finally surrendering to each other.

he can still feel the subtle undulating beats of pleasure pumping in his body the moment he pushed into you, chills erupting at the base of his spine. the melodious sounds that left you, the sweat, the breathing. everything.

it was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. so intimate and vulnerable.

connected — souls intertwined.

satoru shakes his head. it is way too early for sprouting a problem he's sure will be a major trouble to get rid of. his blue eyes trace the ridges and hicks of the wooden ceiling before they are flickering to your naked sleeping form.

all curled up on his chest like a small kitten, nuzzling into his skin, seeking his warmth on a cold december morning.

it's a bit of trouble to see past your nest of hair, but he can make out a line of drool connecting your lips to his chest. so adorable, his baby. you look so much at peace, without any care in the world (his favourite version of you).

worried and afraid, he dreads the moment you wake up, not wanting to make you feel scared.

are there any bed etiquette you are supposed to follow after a whole night of passionate lovemaking?

god, he is so lost.

where is he supposed to put his hands? should he just curl his arms around your frame, holding you for a few minutes? or should he poke you here and there so the both of you can get ready for the day? maybe a few kisses along your neck and jaw will ease you a bit.

really, satoru would have no trouble going through the little morning ritual on any other today, and he could commit to it if he wanted to, but today is different.

why is he feeling like this all of a sudden?

aren't the two of you way past this stage now?

right on time, he feels you stir against him slowly, resurfacing back to consciousness. he hears the little happy sigh you always do, and he can picture how your face breaks into a little smile. he has all of this memorized, burned in his mind.

your hand slither across his arms, searching for his own, and he gladly lets you intertwine your fingers together.

“are you awake?”

your words are sluggish, still coming to the realization of the waking world. you breathe against his collar, not daring to look at him right now, which upsets him a little.

satoru hums, voice unusually low and a bit croaky and eyes closed now. his hand itches with an urge to slide across your back, but he holds back.

“morning…” he hears you yawn loudly before you settle beside him once again.

you think you're being sneaky, trailing your hands up his chest, brushing against the hair on his chiselled muscles, but he feels everything, your touch arousing goosebumps in its wake.

“how are you?” you ask him, properly looking at him now still propped up on your arms, leaning over him (he tries not to think of the way your weight is pressing on him, your chest on his).

you poke his face, trying to get him to look at you, “what's going on, toru?” but he doesn't yield.

“baby?”

softly kissing the corner of his mouth, you whisper words directly onto his skin, urging him to look at you

he opens his eyes, granting you with the bluest of blues, heaven skies unfolding to reveal the adoration and love written all over the stars. before he is quickly averting his eyes away from you, deep red running from his neck all the way to his chest.

“it's nothing…”

it doesn't seem like it, though.

before you can say anything, he speaks up first.

“i just feel so…” satoru trails off, not knowing how to continue. what should he even say? he stills beneath you once again.

“whatever it is,” you shift on top of him, so you're straddling his lap, “you’re fine, m'kay?” you take his hand and press a gentle kiss on his knuckles.

he nods slightly, his gaze still avoiding yours.

“look at me,” he feels you squeeze his hand, “please?”

and he does because he can never deny you of something that you deserve.

“i am here always.”

this little assurance has satoru opening up. it's so easy with you, always have been. everything flows like water rushing down a cliff. he can't hide it, his true feelings from the one closest to his heart.

satoru tells of everything. the burden of being the strongest. always expected to be the best of the best — perfect. the weight has been heavy on his shoulders since his birth. it's lonely, unfair to be only seen for the power; the person beneath all the luxury, attention, forever lost to the shadows.

“but you…” he inhales sharply, “being with you, i realized that i don't have to keep up with this act.

i realized that there's much more than all of this.

that i can be just me, ya know.”

you do, and you know how beautiful he is both inside out.

all these years, you have slowly peeled away the many layers of glory and lavish to find a simple man tucked away from the world, his soul so beautiful. he longs for the most mundane things. he's grateful for the tiniest of things, and most importantly, he longs to be a human. just a human.

still to this day, many things about satoru remain unknown to others. that he's not this demi god that most claim him to be, that he's not some untouchable being.

touch him because he's not going to burn your skin. cuddle him because all he wants is just someone to hold him close to his chest after a long, tiring day. let him fall asleep to the rhythmic beats and praise him because he strives off of the littlest of attention.

love him because he deserves it.

tell him, show him that he is, in fact, very much in need of the love. that he is deserving of this — of being a human.

and that's what you do.

when satoru gazes at you, he finds solace in your smile. your eyes shimmer with love and adoration, mirroring the same emotions he holds within. he returns the gesture with a small albeit genuine smile of his own, which makes yours grow even bigger.

“there's my sweet boy,” you giggle, leaping into his embrace, and he catches you effortlessly, wrapping you in his warmth.

“okay, now you're just teasing me,” he murmurs, nuzzling his nose against your neck, trying to divert your attention from the blush spreading across his cheeks and the rapid beating of his heart.

“i love you so much, my whole world,” his voice is raspy with emotion as he adjusts you on his lap, holding you close.

“i love you too,” you reply, leaning down to kiss him softly.

satoru thinks he was being overly dramatic. he now realizes that with you by his side, life doesn't seem so frightening or lonely.

he has never felt this content before.

many new years have come and gone since the happiest times of his life — his blue spring, but it seems like he doesn't have to worry anymore. with you being the very essence of his happiness, he feels like a young boy in love once again.

[eggfriedricedwasian]

Tim Drake probably got into fights at school, but he didn't start the fights, he'd finish them. He'd also get away scott free.

People think that they can ruin the Drake's name with their kid getting into fights and causing problems, but no. They encourage him to do these.

Janet had a firm stance in her belief to have the upper hand, so he'd never get in trouble, because she'd blackmail and/or grill into the principal so hard they had to let him go and give the other kid(s) punishment.

Jack had one solid rule, don't start a fight, finish it, and always win. He enforced it by having occasional spars with Tim whenever he could and signed Tim up for all kinds of martial arts to make sure he knew how to fight.

Janet signed him up for whatever else extracurriculars he wanted(ballet, gymnastics, theater, art, vocal coaching, instruments, figure skating, track, etc.).

So just imagine, Tim Drake, publicly known to get into and win so many fights but with no prior context is seen as a trouble maker till they see how well behaved he is. They talk badly about him though, how much of a bad kid little Tim Drake who physically looks like his father but has the face and acts exactly like Janet when he speaks and leads.

And then his parents die and he doesn't cry. They think he's an even horrible kid for not caring about his parents' death even though he's torn.

And then he becomes a Wayne and his reputation, which only Alfred and Bruce know, brings the Wayne name down.

And then he becomes CEO of Wayne Enterprises and everyone expects him to be just like Bruce. What they don't expect is Janet Drake 2.0 when it comes to getting his way and the way he acts or Jack Drake 2.0 with his outstanding leadership and ideas and proposals and what not.

When the rest of the Waynes find out about his reputation, they don't believe it till they see it for themselves.

It's probably at a gala or some sorts. A socialite is being inherently racist towards Damian and talking about how bad of a kid he is. Tim is not standing for it.

"Oh I'm sorry!" he says just a but too loudly to get the attention if everyone in the place, "Would you care to finish that vile comment about my brother? That he was a what now."

"I do, in fact. Perhaps after everyone hears this you Waynes will do better to control that little devil and his unnatural brow-"

The socialite doesn't even get to finish his sentence when Tim karate chops their neck, making them choke(literally) in their own words.

"Oh what was that? Did someone who is actively cheating on their own wife with the underage heir of another company be racist towards my underage and tri-racial brother? Sorry? Did a pedophile defiling the 15 year old daughter of the Miller's family say my 11 year old brother's skin was the sign of the devil? Hm?"

No one says a word, even as they watch Tim twist his words and spill out every secret and dirty fact about the socialite.

They don't even stop him as they watch him beat the crap out of the person with out even trying when said person tries to throw hands with Timothey Jackson Drake, publicly known for getting into fights and winning as well as being graduated from every martial arts class in Gotham ever.

Police were involved, headlines were made, the Miller heir was no longer seen in public and her younger sibling was pronounced heir, and Tim Drake, not Wayne, got off without a scratch, repercussion, or warning.

Damian has never felt an older siblings' loving protection more than he did when he saw Tim grill that socialite. He s never felt more respect for the guy before. And suddenly Dick was lower on the sibling scale.

He was lower on the sibling scale for everyone. Good by #1 sibling Dick Grayson and hello Tim Drake.

Have a problem? Someone's mean or is picking a fight? Don't worry, Tim Drake's there.

Drake is more noticeable than Wayne when it comes to Tim, and everyone finds it out the hard way.

[lunaiz4-misc]

I'm glad this exists, it's important to understand that self-regulation tools can look different than we expect.

However, I have had a very different experience that I haven't seen represented much. My brain loves the stimulation it gets from a screen. The lights, the sounds, the movement, all of it. It's an almost hypnotic effect. So hypnotic, in fact, that I often feel trapped by the screen, unable to speak, move away, or otherwise interrupt the incoming stream of information. The less spoons I have, the harder it is to pull away and focus on literally anything else.

It's a big problem in restaurants, where TV's are often placed in clear view of every table. I can't enjoy being out with my family/friends because of the screen tugging at my attention. It's a problem when someone else is watching or playing something without headphones, at home or in public. It's even a problem when I'm by myself, because I have trouble turning off content I don't want to watch anymore. Everything from autoplay videos (harmless, other than wasting my time) to legitimately distressing content.

I feel like that experience doesn't get talked about. We have "doomscrolling" to describe getting stuck on social media, and I know I'm not the only one that gets stuck in tiktok style video feeds (I can't have tiktok itself - I wouldn't be able to put it down.) My brother would routinely get so wrapped up in a game he would forget to eat, or use the restroom, and I know that happens to other people, too. But when I share my experience, even with other ND people, I'm generally told they've never experienced anything like that.

How you can help:

If you think someone might be stuck (which can happen with any activity, not just media!) try asking "is this what you want to be doing right now?" or "when is the last time you checked in with your body? Does it need anything before you continue?"

TLDR: every brain is different. Media is soothing for some people, some of the time. It's a good idea to check in and make sure everyone is having/still having a good experience.

Let’s Talk About Screentime for Autistic Folk

NeuroWild

[arom-antix]

Hey, just wanted to reach out to say that I found you pointing out and calling this person was really great and you shouldn't have apologized. It was incredibly true what you said, and to be honest it seems out of touch with the reality of a great deal of the japanese fandom, the nuances and their culture. Also, it was as you pointed out, extreme and may I say rude. I want to mention too that the way it was written, as if entitled of the knowledge and the 'explanation' made it all worse in context of the 'fucked up'. The original poster always gets away by using the 'well-written academic'' statement of their 'metas' as an excuse to do or say and make everyone else agree and if not, uses victim narrative and discourses exactly selecting wording for people to agree on it or feel bad.

I don't know if they tagging you in the way they did made you reblog and apologizing/backing up, but no one thought bad about you pointing it out. On the contrary, a lot of people had been bullied and discriminated by this person when they called them out/disagreed going onto lenghts of sending their friends to harass people, and the other persons can't even defend themselves because they are effectively blocked. To quite a few people in the fandom has been done, even accusing them as 'acephobes' (when they're not) or even Nazis by spreading lies. So yeah, I just wanted to say that. I think you were right to call them out publicly.

Thank you very much for this ask. To be completely honest I agree with everything you said here and don't actually feel bad about pointing anything out. I mainly apologised because I didn't want any potentially poor phrasing from my side to cause unnecessary hostility and because I myself have gripes with this person's behaviour but didn't want to cause a scene.

My honest opinion is that they have a serious issue with taking accountability for their own mistakes and highly overestimate their own intellect. If you're reading this, @thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai, sorry if I seem harsh, but it's true. I saw your post lamenting how you're the only academic meta writer / fan in the fandom and I didn't interact then because I honestly do not care enough to start that drama but with the information Blonndiec has just given me, I think it's necessary that someone calls you out.

You're not an academic. You're not beyond the mental capabilities of other fans. You're actually incredibly childish in your metas and analyses and I am not kidding when I say that I was halfheartedly writing essays more academic than every analysis I've seen from you when I was barely a teenager. I don't know how old you are and I frankly don't care. You're not as clever as you think you are.

Also, don't think I didn't notice that you didn't reblog my correction (link here to my correction and here to their "response" for those who didn't see that exchange) of your post so that you could control what your followers saw of the exchange. You're the opposite of an academic. You control information to tailor the narrative, you don't cite your sources properly if at all, you don't format your posts in anything close to how an academic analysis would be, you make unbased claims, you reference posts and canon material without in any way indicating where that information is from, you reference your own (equally unacademic) metas and your conclusions from them without indicating what post it's from or that it's your own theory this new one is based on and instead present it as a common fact, and I could go on and on and on. Your posts are also riddled with logical fallacies and you talk in absolutes and opinions when there's no canon basis to claim such things. I'm sorry, but that's not academic in the slightest.

To be clear, you don't have to be an academic to post on the Internet. You don't have to be anything at all. You could up front be a genuine idiot with no remorse and that's fine. But when you claim to be an academic and also put down the rest of the fandom for not being on your level, you have to be able to back that up. It'd still make you sound like a prick but at least your arrogance would have a basis. It currently does not.

I haven't personally seen the discussions that Blonndiec is referencing and I'm not going to claim anything definitive (because that would be unacademic of me, take notes) but if what they're saying is true and did happen as described, which I have empirical, if anecdotal, evidence to believe could very well be (a friend of mine has personally been blocked by you after they criticised you without actually mentioning your name which I of course can't prove is the reason for the block but the timing is awfully convenient), you should know that you should be ashamed of yourself.

If there's context missing, feel free to enlighten me and call out any incorrect accusations. You have every right to defend yourself. However, I encourage you to cite your sources since you're such an academic. If you don't, then it's just your word against Blonndiec and anyone else who might comment's word and that doesn't prove anything. Don't misunderstand, acephobia and nazi rhetoric should absolutely be called out but only if it's actually happening. False accusations can ruin lives. I hope you know that.

I'm not a fan of calling people out publicly and, again, thank you for this ask, Blonndiec. But considering many of the issues I've personally seen and those I've been informed of by second hand sources were posted publically, I don't really feel bad about calling this out. I could do a full breakdown of just the insulting "academic" comments alone and how there's no academia to be found in said academic metas and, Samurai, if you give me reason to, I will show exactly what I mean point by point (and academically just to give you an example of even low level academia).

If you respond to this, do it in a reblog. That's what a real academic would do. If I'm wrong and you can prove it, you'd have no reason to not show my post in your rebuttal. If I'm right, you'd have every reason to be upfront about your mistakes and how you intend to rectify them. There's nothing wrong with being wrong but there's a lot wrong with refusing to admit to it in a way that lets others peer review you (academic thing, look it up) and come to their own conclusions about the situation. That's what you did when you just @'ed me instead of reblogging my response. A true academic wouldn't hide a peer review. You'd know that if you were one.

I swing in many academic spaces and yet that doesn't make me any kind of expert and I don't claim to be one because I'm not. But since you want to be one so badly, reblog this with a response and show us all how smart you are. I'm dying to know what your academic take on this is.

[hismercytomyjustice]

Ngl I really enjoyed Via’s arc in Sinsmas. She is just SO MUCH like her father that it both delights and hurts me lol.

Their relationship is an interesting take on struggling to try to break the cycle of abuse/neglect.

Stolas grew up with his father not even knowing his name or showing him a shred of affection. He was a means to an end, a tool. The only way he’s ever received any kind of acknowledgement from his father is by doing his duty. Mastering his powers, entering into an arranged marriage, and producing an heir.

You can just so clearly see how he is trying SO HARD to give Via a different life. He wants them to be a family. For her to never doubt her parents love her. To be the father he never had.

To the point he shoves his own wants and needs so far down that he is barely holding on.

Via going from accusing him of not loving her to realizing that he loves her so much that he forced himself to play the role of a good father and husband. To the point he destroyed himself for her…

And that realization just devastates her.

Stolas getting involved with Blitz was the culmination of decades of forcing himself to be the person everyone else expected him to be. He feels he can’t be loved, but he can be useful. And maybe if he’s useful enough, people will care about him.

The reason his connection with Blitz is so strong is because both of them feel that way. The difference is that Blitz was able to create his own found family (tho it took him ages to realize it lol) while Stolas has always been alone. They’re two sides of the same coin. And while Blitz has spent the past few years healing, Stolas has been descending further into darkness because he doesn’t have that same support.

Via has absorbed so many of his insecurities. Especially the fear of not being loved or wanted despite Stolas trying SO HARD to be the perfect father to her. But he’s not. He can never be because he forgot the old adage of “put your oxygen mask on first before helping anyone else.”

I think that definitely can come across as him being neglectful of her. But to me it speaks to his desperation to be such a good father to her that he tries to hold himself to IMPOSSIBLE standards.

He doesn’t fail Via because he doesn’t care. He fails her because he keeps setting up these unrealistic expectations for their relationship. He massively overextends himself and puts his own wants and desires on the back burner so often that his life is imploding around him out of his control.

He doesn’t miss the stars with her because he doesn’t care. He misses them because he’s struggling to put his life back together after finally taking some initiative for himself. He’s trying to deal with the fallout of wanting a divorce from Stella, but he’s waited so long and he’s so overwhelmed by it all that the date slips his mind. And the instant he realizes what’s happened, he drops everything and goes looking for her.

Via keeps watching him make these promises he struggles with or fails to keep and doesn’t realize until she finds all of the happy pills how much he’s overextended himself for her sake. And because she’s her father’s daughter, she immediately thinks she’s at fault. She thinks he would be happier if he hadn’t forced himself to play house all these years for her sake.

She’s not wrong. If he’d separated from Stella years before, they’d probably all be better off. But he didn’t because of his sense of duty. Stolas’s problem is that he never advocates for himself until he reaches his literal breaking point. By then, the damage is more of a tsunami than a ripple because now his meticulously crafted house of cards is falling down around him faster than he can pick up the pieces.

Via is right that he would have been happier, but not for the reasons she thinks. He did it because he loved her, not out of obligation for her. And also because he is deeply broken and flawed.

Via’s dealing with a lot of complicated emotions too. Her father was willing to sacrifice himself for his affair partner, which she initially believes means he’s picking Blitz over her. But really it’s just Stolas trying to save the only other person in his life who understands him and who maybe cares about him.

How could he live with himself if he let Blitz die?

And it’s not like Stolas has time to sit down and think of a rational plan. He rushes to the trial because Blitz is literally about to be decapitated. And then he saves him the only way he knows how. I think part of him was also convinced that, as much as he loves Via, she might actually be better off without him because he is a wreck. He’s convinced he’s ruined his life and the lives of everyone around him.

I think this is why he doesn’t fight Stella much for custody of Via. Not because he doesn’t care, but because he genuinely thinks Stella is a more stable parent than he is and that Via will be better off with her as a result. The man also lacks a backbone too tho because his self worth is -9000.

But then Stolas doesn’t get executed. And the consequences of his actions hit him like a ton of bricks once the adrenaline and panic wears off. He saved Blitz, but at what cost? And, based on his statement in Sinsmas, it sounds like he would’ve done it all over again if given the chance. Because he’s the one who let Blitz use his grimoire even though he knew it was wrong. Because Blitz was in danger of dying because of him. And because he has a very strong sense of morality and justice too.

Dying in Blitzo’s place was a spur of the moment decision and once the dust cleared, Stolas realized how everything he’s tried to do to keep his shit together has fallen apart at the seams and now everyone knows it.

All Via can see when she looks at him now is that he’s hit rock bottom because of her. Again, not true. But Stolas has tried so hard to give her this idyllic family life, thinking that was the best thing he could do for her. Not realizing that she could see the cracks forming. She just didn’t understand why there were cracks until now.

I don’t think Via actually hates him. I think she hates herself. Convinced she’s the reason he’s hit rock bottom. Why couldn’t she see how much he was suffering? Why would he suffer so much for her? So she’s taking herself out of the equation, just like he tried to with Blitz. If she’s not in his life anymore, maybe he’ll stop killing himself to try to make her happy. Maybe he’ll stop being so miserable.

I think a big part of their arc together has been her going from thinking of Stolas as this perfect and larger than life figure to seeing him start to crumble and now getting a peek behind the curtain and realizing how much of that wasn’t real. And it scares and upsets her that her dad isn’t the perfect person he’s tried to be for her. He’s broken and hurting and she doesn’t know what to do to help because he’s spent her whole life focusing on her.

Not to say that he’s done that well. He genuinely hasn’t. He’s overcorrected so hard that he’s fucked her up in a completely different way because he’s overextended himself. He pushed himself until the illusion of a perfect happy family cracked along with him. He’s also made it difficult for her to know how to help him because he’s sheltered her so much.

I think this sometimes makes Stolas come across as selfish. He seemingly “ruined” his marriage and his relationship with his daughter for Blitz. But really it was just the pendulum swinging wildly in the opposite direction. He was so starved for happiness and connection that now he’s trying to live two separate lives and it’s just not possible and he’s falling apart even faster.

Stolas was so desperate for affection and to be of use that he lets Blitz have his grimoire, under the impression Blitz is attracted to him because Blitz literally tried to seduce him to get it. He also does all of the dirty talk because he thinks Blitz likes it.

I think he initially sets the terms for the grimoire usage because he thinks it’s a price Blitz is more than willing to pay because he showed up trying to seduce him. I think he l also just really wants an excuse to see/spend time with Blitz too. It doesn’t even cross his mind that Blitz might want anything other than sex from him. He’s once again playing a role based on what he thinks is expected of him.

It’s not until Stolas discovers he’s starting to develop feelings for Blitz that he realizes their arrangement is wrong. And the moment he realizes it, he immediately tries to make amends. He hopes Blitz will admit he has feelings for him too, but is willing to step away if not. But he also cares about him so much, he makes sure to give him the Asmodean Crystal so he can freely make the choice.

Meanwhile he has no idea Blitz will just view this as another person trying to abandon him or look down on him. Because Blitz struggles with self worth too and believes the only way people will care about him is if he can be useful. Blitz has a deep seated fear of abandonment while Stolas fears no one could ever love him just for himself. He offers Blitz the crystal to let him know his feelings are genuine and to gauge Blitz’s too.

All of this is to say that I think Via and Stolas will reconcile, hopefully sooner rather than later. I think Via needs some time to process who her father actually is vs who she thought he was. And both of them need to be able to forgive themselves/grant themselves some grace so they can finally meet each other in the middle like Stolas has finally managed with Blitz. Stolas needs to accept Via is grown up now and he can’t shield her from the negatives of the world forever. Meanwhile Via needs to understand everything doesn’t have to be so black and white.

[daechwitatamic]

Not So Loud || LC

banner by @itaeewon <3

Not So Loud lee chan x afab reader || fluff smut baby angst || f2l, only one bed trope NSFW - minors DNI

Summary: You've been in love with Lee Chan for almost two years, despite his rejection seven months ago. When you're impossibly coupled up on a friendcation, you're determined not to make it everyone else's problem. Of course, you weren't expecting to have to room with him, and you certainly weren't expecting only one bed...

wc: 16.6k

warnings: language, recreational drinking, sooo much pining, baby misunderstandings, kissing, breast play, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), piv sex (no protection mentioned either way), reader on top, mentions of shower sex

request by @eoieopda:

yes my fearless leader you may have even two crumbs of lee dino getting laid at the beach, i hope you enjoy every single second of it <3

“This,” you sigh blissfully, “is the happiest I may ever be.”

The sun is shining. Upbeat pop music runs like an undercurrent below the sound of the highway from the stereo of your best friend’s junky, decade-old sedan. Your iced coffee - light and sweet, but not too much of either - tastes like heaven. And the best part, the part that makes this day the best even if you didn’t have iced coffee or sunshine or Ruby or happy music, is that you’re less than an hour away from the beachfront house you and your friends have rented for the next five days.

All six of you had collectively been saving up for a full year and a half to make this happen, and there were times during the wait when it seemed like it would never come together between scheduling and money and rental availability. But now you’re here, racing down the highway to keep up with the flow of traffic, the ocean beckoning you closer.

“Now, now,” Ruby, the aforementioned best friend, scolds lightly. “What about your wedding day?”

You blow a raspberry. “What wedding day?” you shoot back sourly, but then you take another sip of caffeinated, iced perfection and your mood buoys immediately. It’s gonna take a lot to keep you down, today. Still, you rationalize, “I can’t even get to a third date.”

It was true. Your last third date had been almost two years ago. Since then, everything fizzled after one or two. Embarrassing. Something only Ruby - and, by proxy, her boyfriend Mingyu - would know about you.

“Because you compare them all to Chan,” Ruby says sagely.

The beams of sunlight are glaring. The pop music grates on your nerves, too boppy and much too happy. You set your coffee in the cup holder, your hand suddenly smarting from the bite of cold.

Coincidental to the third date thing, you’ve been in love with Lee Chan for almost two years. Another embarrassing Ruby-and-thus-Mingyu-only tidbit.

“Stooo-ooppp,” you whine. “If you’re going to spend the whole time making it weird about him, I’m going to find a way back home! I will walk there, just try me!”

“Now, now,” she says again, mildly. Your dramatics are nothing new to her. “I’ll behave. But I keep telling you - it would be significantly less weird if you’d just tell him you have a thing for him.”

You narrow your eyes at her. A thing.

An every problem I’ve ever had melts away and my soul floats three feet above my body every time your smile crosses your face kind of thing. A hearing your laugh makes me laugh even if I didn’t hear the joke kind of thing. A finding your gaze across a loud room makes me feel like no one else is there but us kind of thing.

A he doesn’t feel the same way, and he never will kind of thing. He made that super clear, about seven months ago.

And it gets worse.

You’ve had a week to accept your fate on this trip - a week since she’d called to tell you that the original rental had fallen through. To tell you that the replacement place is almost better (closer to the beach! a huge deck! a private pool!) except for the number of rooms. That since the other four people attending are made up of two couples, you and Chan would have to share a room.

(“The rooms are huge,” she’d assured you. “And the third room’s got bunk-beds! I bet will Chan will let you have top bunk if you want it - he’s a nice guy.”

You didn’t say, even though it is very true, that bunk-beds are really only a selling point if you are ten years old. But there were more important arguments to make. “I know he’s a nice guy,” you’d bit out. “He’s the nicest fucking guy I’ve ever met in my life, actually!” Hence the thing.

She’d paused and then pointed out, “You’ve met Seokmin, though.”

And, yeah, maybe on paper Seokmin is nicer but looking at his smile doesn’t feel like being filled with sunshine, so the point is moot.)

Anyway. You’ve had time to accept the fact that you have to share a room with the guy you’ve been in love with for over a year and a half. You’ve had time to accept that he might hear you snore, will see that you’re messy, that you’ll have to get changed in the bathroom for the whole trip, that you’ll have to get really good at pretending not to moon over him every time he speaks.

“I think,” you tell Ruby mildly, “that telling him that I want to lick his body from top to bottom and then get married might actually make things more weird.”

“I would just like to say,” Ruby’s boyfriend Mingyu pipes up from the backseat, his voice weary and long-suffering, “that this is an incredibly uncomfortable conversation for me.”

In your defense, you’d thought he was asleep.

Ruby descends on him like a swarm of locusts. “Don’t you think she should tell him she’s in love with him?”

“I actually do,” Mingyu says, covering his eyes with his hands as if he can’t bear to see what a disaster you are. “But I would heavily advise against mentioning the licking. Or the marriage.”

“It’s hyperbole,” you defend, flapping a hand in his direction. But, yeah, noted.

Excitement bubbles in your stomach, despite the rooming situation, when Ruby flicks on her turn signal and moves to exit the highway. Already, the smell of the air through the open windows has turned salty, and the thick tree-line along the highway has given way to cloudless blue sky and the occasional palm tree. It had been almost hazy when you’d set off at the crack of dawn (Mingyu had taken the back seat so he could stretch out and sleep a little longer) but now the sunrise has burned away all of that haze and given way to a perfect morning.

It takes only minutes for Ruby to navigate through the small, coastal town and to a row of vacation homes. You lose yourself in a daydream of waking up to take coffee on a sunlit balcony, listening to waves crash in time below you. In your daydream, across the balcony someone stretches their arms above their head, a sliver of belly peeking out for only a second, then turns to give you a sleepy smile, thinly-wired glasses perched on his nose.

Someone.

You shake yourself free of the fantasy; part of you feels like Ruby can read your mind, like she’s seconds away from calling you out for placing Chan in your seaside fantasy life.

Ruby, however, is too focused on finding the house to read your mind, and she slows the car and turns into a driveway, chirping, “We’re here!”

You all start grabbing luggage to carry in; the sun feels amazing on your skin, the sea breeze cool almost to the point of chilly and so salty it makes your nose twitch. You three aren’t even done emptying your car when you’re startled by a beep-beep-beepbeep-beep from the road behind you.

“That’s Soonyoung,” Mingyu says without even turning to look.

He’s right - it is. The second car, which carries Soonyoung, his girlfriend Lara, and Chan, pulls into the driveway next to you.

Chan greets you with a wide, happy grin (that, yes, makes you feel full of sunshine, whatever) and a quick, one-armed hug as he comes around the front of the parked car. Your moronic heart lifts, stupidly hopeful - until Soonyoung does the same thing. Your heart deflates again with the reminder that they’re just like this - nice, affectionate with their friends. It doesn’t mean anything. Chan’s attention to you is just as platonic as Soonyoung’s - which is to say, entirely.

You all manage to gather the luggage from both cars, and Mingyu follows the rental app’s directions to work the keypad at the front door. You all ooh and ahh as you step inside - the place is roomy, well-lit from sliding glass doors and windows that face the ocean, and decorated with (what else?) a kitschy, nautical theme.

You kick off your flip-flops onto a mat with an anchor on it (per the theme), and follow the others further into the house.

You head straight back through the house - the living room gives way into a dining room that ends with the sliding-glass doors. In tandem with Ruby, you press your face to the glass of the door and peer outside. You’re delighted to see that the ocean is right there, beckoning you to come play. Gulls swoop and call, loud enough that you can hear their cries from inside. Further down the beach you can see colorful umbrellas and tents that other beachgoers have set up. Below the deck, you can see just a strip of the private pool.

You pull yourself away from the back door and head into the adjoining kitchen, where Lara is standing at an open cupboard, examining its contents.

“We’re going to need to do a grocery run,” she muses, looking over at you. “I think all Soonyoung packed was ramen and soju.”

“What else could we possibly need?” he jokes from down the hall, his voice echoing.

“Coffee,” you say immediately.

“Beer,” Mingyu says seriously.

“Meat? Vegetables? Stuff for breakfast? Something to drink that isn’t alcohol?” Lara suggests.

“Who invited the Capricorn?” Soonyoung (the person who invited the Capricorn) grouses.

“Without me,” she tells him seriously, though the corner of her mouth twitches, “you’d be malnourished at best, and at worst? Dead.”

“Probably true,” you say, giving her a conspiratorial nod, and then you hear Ruby call your name from upstairs. Her voice sounds strained, and a little alarm bell goes off inside your head.

“Yes?” you answer loudly, hoping your voice will carry up to her.

“Can you come up here for a minute?” she calls down to you. Yes, there is definitely an edge to her voice that you don’t like. “Now?”

“Oh jeez,” you mutter, starting to make your way towards the stairs at the front of the house. You take the stairs quickly, calling Ruby’s name as you navigate the unfamiliar house.

She and Chan are both standing in the hallway, open doors all around them. Their faces mirror each other - disbelief, anxiety.

“What?” you ask, a little breathless both from the stairs and from anticipation. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s, uh,” Ruby stammers. It’s very unlike her to lose her confidence, and the unease in your gut churns again.

“What?” you say again, and when she doesn’t answer, you turn to Chan, who looks stricken. “What is it?”

“No bunk beds,” he manages, finishing Ruby’s sentence and gesturing to the room behind him.

You’re pressing forward without making the decision to move, without answering either of them, crowding Chan’s space so you’re chest to chest, peering over his shoulder. His hands hover near your elbows, like you might overbalance and he’s ready to steady you.

The room behind him is huge - as Ruby promised - complete with an ensuite bathroom and the balcony straight out of your daydream in the car. It also, as Chan pointed out, does not have bunk-beds. Instead, one king-sized bed is centered against the far wall, flanked by wicker nightstands with lamps on each and an old-school radio alarm clock on one.

You say nothing - you just back out of Chan’s personal space and swivel, heading for the other doors. Surely that was just the wrong room - one meant for one of the couples. Surely they just didn’t look hard enough, didn’t check the other doors, didn’t find the room with two beds that you’d been promised.

You find a full bathroom, a linen closet, one door that remains locked, and - to your dismay - two identical bedrooms, neither of which hosts more than one single bed.

Realization trickles through you slowly, building up higher and higher as you check the doors a second, and then a third, time. Ruby and Chan stay frozen in place in the dimly lit hallway, watching your frantic, pointless searching.

“Oh, my God,” you say hollowly. Then, turning, you narrow your eyes. “Ruby,” you growl. “You promised. Where is my top bunk?!”

“I don’t know!” she squeaks. “The listing said four beds!”

“Call them,” you demand flatly.

Beside Ruby, Chan’s eyebrows scrunch as he frowns. He says your name quietly, holding up a hand as if to calm you. “We don’t need to move houses,” he says gently. “I’ll take a couch. It’s not a big deal.”

You feel yourself shaking your head immediately. “I will feel like shit if you spend your vacation sleeping on the couch because of me,” you tell him.

He and Ruby exchange a long look (something that you don’t like very much, but no one is asking you) and then she tentatively says, “Could we work it out later? Maybe one of the couches pulls out into a bed or something? Or do you really want me to try and get us a different rental? This is already our second one, I’m not sure there are even other options still available…” She trails off, eyes wide.

You sigh, eyeing the ceiling above you as if it has answers. “Fine,” you say, because you can’t stand the thought of being the one who’s causing problems, ever the people-pleaser. “We’ll figure it out later.”

You head back down the hall, tromping down the stairs in silence to get your luggage.

Chan tries to take one of your bags for you, but you shrug him off and he lets you. You follow him back up the stairs, to the large room you’d looked at a few minutes ago. You both stand in the middle of it, looking around. You’re unsure if you should even unpack in here if there’s a chance you’ll end up moving to the couches.

“It’ll be okay,” Chan says, and it startles you out of your thoughts so badly that you flinch.

“Mhm,” you manage, because you don’t want to lie to him by agreeing.

“Hey,” he says, a little insistently, and you look up at him. He’s looking at you openly, his expression an impossible mix of concern and optimism. It disarms you immediately, in a way nothing else ever has.

There’s something always so earnest about Chan, one of your favorite things about him, and you can’t help but believe him when he continues to speak. “It will. We can, like, take turns with the bed or something. It’s not that big of a deal. Don’t let this ruin your trip. Okay?”

You nod silently, thinking about this. He’s right - there’ll be a solution. “Okay,” you say, managing to give him a little smile. “You’re right.”

The grin he gives you is mischievous. “I usually am,” he quips - and you love that about him, too: the way he’s playfully cocky, something ironic in the way he displays it, like you’re all in on the joke and he’s happily his own punchline. He disappears into the hallway, where you hear him heading down the stairs.

You wait for the tornado of butterflies in your belly to calm back down and then you look around the room. You finally decide to just leave your bags in a pile near the dresser, and head back down to find the others.

Everyone is standing around the kitchen table, where it seems like a grocery list is being split into Things That Can versus Things That Cannot be bought at the local liquor store.

“We can take one car and handle the drinks,” Mingyu is saying as you walk up and lean your chin on Ruby’s shoulder from behind. She absently reaches up to give your head an affectionate pat as you both listen. “Then the grocery team can take the second car, and whoever is handling the rental office can just walk.”

“Rental office?” you ask. “What for?”

“Just to grab our passes for the beach,” Lara answers you. “They’re like little tags. It’s part of what we paid for.”

“The rental’s under your name,” Soonyoung reminds her, “so we should probably handle that.”

“Yah, you just want the easy task,” Mingyu complains.

Soonyoung grins, guilty as charged not at all sorry about it. He grabs for Lara’s hand and heads for the front door. “If we aren’t here when you get back, we’ll leave your passes on the table!” he calls, and then the door slams shut.

“Asshole,” Mingyu grumbles affectionately.

The four of you look at each other in the resulting quiet. Then, Ruby asks, “Anything you want to add to our list?”

You lean further around her to read her phone screen, scanning what drinks had already been requested.

“Nope,” you tell her. “I’m good with that. Does this mean I’m on the grocery team?”

Chan looks up from his phone when you ask this, waiting to hear the answer.

Ruby and Mingyu meet gazes, seeming to have a silent conversation. Then, she gives you a sheepish look, almost a grimace. “Yeah - sorry, but I kind of wanted to go with Gyu on the drinks run, if that’s okay?”

You’ve been best friends with Ruby for a long time. You know her in and out, and you know this: she’s not like this, not sweet and apologetic. If it was just you two, she’d just say what she wanted. The act is for a reason.

You blink at her, trying to figure it out. “Of course it’s okay,” you say slowly. “If you and Mingyu are handling the drink run, then I’ll handle groceries with Chan.”

Ah. That was Ruby’s game - she paired you with Chan on purpose.

Meddler. Pain in the ass. Angel. Light of your life. She contains multitudes.

His eyes drop back to his phone. “You don’t have to,” he says, not looking at you. “If you want to go with them or catch up with Lara then I can handle it by myself.”

You frown. “It’s not really a one person job,” you observe. “And I don’t mind - really.”

“So it’s decided!” Ruby says brightly, moving to rest her hand on her boyfriend’s forearm. “We should beat you back, but we’ll wait for you guys so we can help unload the car.”

“Thanks,” you say, meaning it. For everything.

Ruby and Mingyu head out, and you meander closer to Chan. You’re not alone together very often - you’re pretty much always in a group setting.

You’d met through Ruby and Mingyu, years ago. You and Ruby were a very packaged deal, and Mingyu had a crew of friends that filtered in and out of your social events like they kept a scheduled rotation. When Soonyoung had settled into a serious relationship with Lara, the two of them became pretty permanent fixtures with Ruby and Mingyu, and Chan usually went where Soonyoung did. So then you were six.

How perfectly even. How serendipitous. How nearly fated.

If only he saw it that way.

But he doesn’t, he’s made that clear. It was Lara’s fault, actually. That night is burned into your brain, an unpleasant memory custom-made to slither into your brain when you’re trying to sleep before a big day.

The six of you had been bar-hopping on a Saturday night about seven months ago. It had been cool - late autumn teasing winter, and you’d been shivering as the six of you rowdily made your way up the block to your next stop. Laughing at something Soonyoung had said, Chan had reached around your shoulders sloppily, pulling you tight against him.

“Cold?” he’d asked you, as you tried to keep walking - a challenge because of both the alcohol in your system and the alarm bells going off in your head over his hand on your arm.

“Definitely chilly,” you’d managed to reply, looking up at him sideways. His profile was sharper than you’d realized before, and it sent a wave down your core, sinking like a weight through your stomach and into your lower belly and he grinned down at you.

You never wanted him to let go. Never, for the rest of your lives.

“You two are cute,” Lara had said drunkenly, the words a little slurred, as she leaned heavily on Soonyoung. You’d flushed, a little embarrassed, but Chan’s reaction had mortified you. His eyes had widened and he’d gone so far as to retract his arm from around you as quick as lightning, moving sideways to put inches between you again.

It left you frozen, a block of ice.

“No - we’re - we’re only friends,” he had said emphatically, and Lara had apologized, her hand over her mouth. Then, Ruby had tripped on the sidewalk and ripped the knees of her jeans, and the whole incident was forgotten.

Not by you, though. Never by you. This was the moment that floated up like the ghost of Christmas past whenever Ruby urged you to confess to Chan, which was more frequent than you’d like. The rush of cold in the absence of his arm, the way he’d stuttered in his hurry to refute the misunderstanding.

Message received, Lee Chan. Loud and fucking clear.

Didn’t change a thing about how you feel, though.

Presently, you try to push this out of your head - the fact that there’s no social buffer between you, no Ruby or Soonyoung to hide behind - before it can trip you up. “What’s on the list?” you ask. He hands you his phone, lets you scroll through everything he’d typed up.

“Okay,” you say, handing it back. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Yeah,” he says, a little absently, then starts patting at his pockets, eyes scanning the tabletop. “Yeah, I’m ready. Aish, Lee Chan, where did you put the keys?”

“They’re by the door,” you offer, remembering the small table you’d all dropped them on as you came in.

He shoots you a grateful smile. “Thanks. Let’s go?”

You nod, grabbing your sunglasses from the table and following him to the driveway out front.

It’s less than ten minutes to the nearest grocery, not even enough time for three whole songs to play through the car’s stereo, half-drowned by the roar of wind and sea through the open windows. Chan grins sideways at you as he parks, running a hand through his messy hair before unbuckling and stepping out of the car. You shake yourself from your daze and hurry to follow.

“What’s the game plan?” you ask, as you step out of the summer sun and into the fluorescents and air conditioning. Your skin prickles instantly upon the change. “Divide and conquer?”

He pulls out his phone and brings the list up. “I’d rather just stick together,” he says, looking at you sideways, his voice a bit thin - like he’s nervous you’ll reject the plan. “If that’s okay?”

“Of course,” you say, shrugging easily.. “I’m just following you. I’m the assistant. You’re in charge.”

Something flashes across his face - a shooting star of an expression, gone before you’re sure you saw it - and then he’s pushing the cart into the produce section, calling over his shoulder for you to go grab some peaches.

You wind your way together through the store. Each time he stops the cart, you each dart after something else from the nearby shelves then reconvene to look at the list again, shoulders pressed together as you squint at the small font.

It thrills you each time that he doesn’t pull away, each time that he doesn’t hurry to put space between you again as he had back in November.

Don’t make it weird, you beg yourself as you load a few cases of soda into the cart. Keep it in check.

A few rows over, the cart a third of the way full, you pause at a row of sauces. You step back, scanning the labels, then drop into a crouch to read those on the bottom shelf. Chan drops beside you, his knee gently bumping yours as he reaches for one of the jars, bringing it closer to scan the label.

“This one’s my favorite,” he says, and there’s something low in his voice that makes you look over at him. Your fingers overlap his for a second as you take the jar from him, turning it over so you can see which one it is. The moment feels staticky, charged with something.

You chicken out, shuffle back on your heels so your knees no longer touch. “It is a good one,” you agree, putting it back in his hand and pressing your palms to your knees as you rise again. “Get a few - I think Ruby likes that one too.”

He nods, looking away again, dutifully reaching to grab a second jar. You move on to the next aisle in silence. You almost feel like his energy seems… disappointed. But that wouldn’t make sense at all.

Turning the corner to the first row of freezers, you feel your body react instantly to the cold and you immediately fold in around yourself, goosebumps rising up your arms.

“Oh, it’s cold,” you complain. “Let’s hurry. Please.”

Chan doesn’t respond, but you can feel his eyes sweep over you, heavy, before he starts pushing the cart past you at, yes, a quicker speed. You shiver once, violently, before you hurry after him.

When you’re done, stepping outside into the sunlight feels like being released - like leaving school on the last day before summer break, like leaving work before a vacation, like stepping outside for the first time after rain has kept you inside for days on end. You let it warm you, happy, as you help Chan load the bags into the car.

You drive the few minutes back to the house in silence. As Chan makes the last turn, you wonder out loud, “Do you think Ruby and Mingyu finished before us?”

“Definitely,” Chan says, and he’s right - as the house comes into view, you can see that the second car is already parked.

True to their word, Ruby and Mingyu greet you at the door to help carry everything in and put it away.

“Lara grabbed us a spot down on the beach,” Ruby informs you, as you both stand at the back of the car, scanning for the lighter bags. “As soon as we’re ready we can head down.”

You let out a happy sigh. “I think an afternoon at the beach will cure me.”

“Nothing will cure you,” she deadpans, then literally stops mid-stride to correct herself. “Actually, something could. And it’s here, and available, and sharing your room.”

“I hate you a lot!” you tell her brightly, pushing past her with an armful of groceries and heading into the relative dark of the house, praying Chan hadn’t overheard her bullshit.

You hurry through the rest - getting the groceries away, getting changed for the beach, throwing the things you need to bring into a tote. Downstairs, the others wait for you by the back door. Chan is wearing Mingyu’s dumb-ass sunglasses and is clearly in the middle of an old-man bit, his voice reedy and sarcastic. Ruby cackles as Mingyu shoves Chan’s shoulder playfully, reaching to get his eyewear back. You can’t help the wave of affection you feel for them, your goofy friends.

You all step out into the sand, eyes adjusting to the sun. You follow Mingyu’s shadow on the ground as he makes his way towards the spot Soonyoung and Lara saved for you. You drop your tote in the sand and help Ruby spread out a blanket, using your shoes and bags to hold down the corners. Mingyu and Chan settle a small cooler off to one side, filled to the brim with ice and drinks.

You pull your cover-up over your head and toss it in the direction of your tote bag and stretch out, closing your eyes happily and letting your body relax under the warmth of the sun, the sound of breaking waves rhythmic and soothing. You’re startled by the sound of music and open your eyes again to find Ruby setting up a bluetooth speaker near the cooler. She looks at you sheepishly and hurries to lower the volume.

“Sorry,” she giggles. “Didn’t mean it to start so loud.”

To your left, Chan is pulling his white t-shirt over his head. Your eyes widen and you look away as fast as you can, catching Ruby react exactly the same, her eyes comically large.

You both turn your backs to the boys, and she mouths at you, what the fuck?

What the fuck is right. You’re used to being around Mingyu, who has an admittedly perfect body, and even Soonyoung is shockingly cut under those baggy t-shirts and cropped hoodies he sports. Chan’s always been the little one, the most normal, the most obtainable in his regular-ness.

Something’s changed since the last time you were all swimming together. He’d always had a nice body, but this…

You close your eyes against the bright summer sun, as if you can block out the curve of his pecs, the shadowed lines hinting at abs. None of those had been there last summer.

That motherfucker. First, he rejects you, then he gets hotter? You hope he gets eaten by a shark today.

You push yourself to stand.

“Where are you going?” Ruby hisses.

“I need a beer,” you tell her flatly. “Actually, maybe ten beers.”

“I’m not holding your hair today,” she warns you flatly, and you flip her off and make your way to the cooler. It’s going to be a long day.

You manage to get a few hours of peace and sanity by laying out with Ruby and Lara, just enjoying the music and occasional chitchat. Further down the beach, the guys run around with a volleyball but no net, making their own asinine rules.

“I still say you should tell him,” Ruby grumbles, after catching you watching Chan from behind your sunglasses for the ninth time, and you shoot her a warning look. But the damage is done - Lara latches on, her eyes sharp.

“Him… Chan?” she guesses. You feel your face heat.

“I’m that obvious, huh?” you murmur reproachfully.

“I mean,” she says uncertainly, looking to Ruby as if for backup, “I think you both are? If it helps?”

“Both?” you repeat flatly. “I wish.”

She exchanges a look with Ruby again, a silent conversation that you aren’t part of.

“He’s not into me,” you say, easy, like the words don’t cut at you. The salty air hits the wounds and makes them sting. “He’s been clear about that.”

Ruby’s brow furrows; you’ve never actually articulated this in front of her before.

“He has?” she asks, her voice suddenly gentle and almost sorrowful. “You never told me-”

“You were there,” you protest, then look over at the guys to make sure they hadn’t stopped yelling and running. “You both were, actually. That night when you tore your knee open outside of Ivy and Ivory?”

“Yeah,” Lara says slowly, her eyes on you, “I remember that night. That was… kind of the first time I thought he had a thing for you? Like, I know it was a while ago, but -”

“A thing for me?” you echo, working hard to keep your voice quiet. “When you called us out he was so horrified he couldn’t even touch me - he acted like it burned him -”

“Honey, no,” she says seriously, leaning forward. She looks incredulous at your perspective.

“Bestie,” Ruby says, giving you a please believe me, your best friend, who would never lead you astray look. “He was terrified that you’d get spooked.”

You press your mostly-empty beer can to your chin, eyes narrowing. “Explain.”

“He wasn’t embarrassed at the idea of being coupled with you,” Lara whispers, her eyes on the guys, whose game has drifted only minutely closer to your blanket. “It was one of those like, shut up or you’ll scare her away moments. He wanted to kill me.”

“Literally, if he’d had a cartoon thought bubble, it would have said shhhh, not so loud!” Ruby adds. She peers at you. “Did you really take it like that this whole time? You thought it was a rejection?”

“He practically pushed me into traffic!” you hiss defensively, and both girls explode into laughter.

“That is not what happened,” Lara insists, and then heads to the cooler, leaving you, Ruby, and your very confused thoughts.

You look at her. She looks at you.

“I thought you knew,” she says finally, holding up her hands in mock innocence. “I had no idea you took it that way.”

You can’t respond - the boys return at this exact moment, Mingyu flops dramatically next to Ruby, panting heavily, sweat running down his face.

“Jagiya,” he gasps like he’s dying. “Water. Please.”

Ruby rolls her eyes, but a water bottle lands next to Mingyu’s head before she can get up. You turn towards the cooler and see Soonyoung standing with his hands on his knees, also panting, while Chan digs around for presumably another water bottle.

“You need anything out of here?” he asks you over his shoulder.

You shake your head. “Thanks, though.”

You rise, brushing errant sand from the backs of your thighs, squinting at the water. The waves are breaking evenly, and there’s room to tread further out past the breaking point. “I think I’m gonna go in,” you announce to whoever is listening.

Lara shakes her head, reaching one hand up to tug at Soonyoung, obviously wanting him to sit by her. Ruby flaps her hand at you as if to tell you go on. She’s never been a big swimmer, more of a giant unicorn floatie kind of girl.

You stop when you’re ankle-deep, letting a few waves break and rush over the tops of your feet, adjusting to the temperature. You start to wade in, the water rushing around your shins, when you hear your name called breathlessly behind you.

Chan jogs up, his hair pushed back, a thin silver chain bouncing against his collarbones. You look away before you can get caught. Ruby and Lara’s words race through your brain. Have you been wrong about him this whole time? Have you misread every signal over the last three years, viewed it through the wrong lens?

“You can’t leave me alone with them,” he complains, face twisting in exaggerated suffering.

You laugh. “Can’t stand being the fifth wheel, huh?”

He shakes his head, smiling, still trying to catch his breath from volleyball and then the jog over here.

“You coming in?” you ask him. “I was gonna go out and tread for a while.”

He nods. “You don’t mind if I join?”

You look at him appraisingly, new information starting to process inside your mind, shifting the rules you’d followed for months. The sea air makes you bold. “You?” you say. “I would never mind.”

You don’t wait to see his reaction; you step further into the water, hitting just above your knees when you reach the spot where the waves are breaking. You stumble a little as a wave hits your thighs, and Chan’s hand finds your elbow, firm but unassuming, helping you steady yourself again.

When you reach waist-deep water, you eye the spot just ahead where the waves reach their tallest point as they gather on their way to shore.

“We’re gonna have to go under that,” you tell Chan. He actually looks nervous, which makes you laugh. “Want me to hold your hand?”

The smile he sends you is both self-deprecating and relieved, like he can’t believe his answer is yes, but yes, and he’s so glad you asked.

“Come on,” you say, laughing again. You hold out your hand and he takes it, and when the next ocean swell rises before you like a mighty wall you hold your breath and tug him under. It’s an act of faith, dipping below the roaring ocean, hoping you time it right. You keep his fingers tight between yours and let your body sink.

You surface on the other side, in an area of relative calm. Beside you, Chan wipes at his face with his spare hand, which makes you realize you’re still holding the other. You release it gently, treading water easily. Chan can probably just touch sand if he stretches.

You tread together quietly for a few minutes, less than six inches apart. The sun glints off the water around you, dancing and sparkling as the water moves. You wish you could ask him about that night, years ago, confirm Lara and Ruby’s interpretation of the events. You could - you just aren’t brave enough.

You look at him, familiar and beautiful and - until today - unobtainable. What if you swam closer, what if you pressed yourself close and kissed him, right here in the ocean?

If it ruined everything, you could just let yourself drown. And if it didn’t… well, you could let yourself drown a different way, then.

You chicken out. You chat about inconsequential things instead - his upcoming trip with his family, a work project you’d recently wrapped up that you’d been talking about for months, what the plan will be for dinner when you all get tired of the sunshine.

It’s easy to talk to Chan - it always has been. He’s quick with a joke or a bit, but always open and earnest. He watches you quietly when you talk, accentuates his stories with his hands when it’s his turn. Eventually, Ruby joins you. Mingyu stands at the edge of the water, one hand shielding his eyes, watching her go.

“He’s not coming in?” you ask.

She rolls her eyes. “Doesn’t want to get his hair wet. God, the water feels great. Anyway, we’re thinking of heading in soon, to get showers and stuff before we figure out dinner?”

“Sounds good,” Chan says.

“I’ll be right in,” you say, and beneath the water you grab at Ruby’s hand. Stay.

Chan gives you both a wave goodbye and heads towards the beach. You both watch as he steps onto land, approaches Mingyu, and shakes like a dog, spraying water all over his friend. You can hear Mingyu’s shout of protest even from here, and Ruby’s maniacal laughter echoes around you.

“How’s it going?” she asks you slyly, when she’s finished laughing at her man. Like she knows the answer already.

“Nice of you to ask!” you cry. “Actually! I’m kind of having a meltdown! Because for nearly eight months I thought he’d told me unequivocally, irrevocably no, and now I am finding out that he… I don’t even know. What does it mean? That was ages ago, surely even if he felt something then…”

“Only one way to find out,” Ruby says, way too sensibly.

“That’s not helpful,” you grumble.

“It is helpful, it’s just not easy,” she says sagely. You splash a handful of water towards her head and she shrieks, swimming further away from you.

“That’s enough of you,” you tell her, and start heading in towards the sand.

Back at the blanket, the boys and Lara have mostly packed up. You pull your rolled up towel out of your tote and dry off briskly. When everyone is accounted for, you all collect your things and head back up the walkway towards the house.

You put everything away - leftover drinks in the fridge, wet towels in the washing machine, etc - and the couples disappear into their rooms, doors closing and locking up and down the hallway.

Which just leaves you and Chan.

You follow him to the end of the hall and into the large room you’ll be somehow sharing. He turns on one of the bedside lamps and stops to plug his phone in, then looks over at you.

“You wanna shower?” he asks, tossing his phone lightly onto the bed. You can only stare at him, short-circuiting, until he clarifies. “Do you want to go first?”

“Oh,” you utter, quickly trying to recover. “Yeah, if you don’t mind?”

He waves his hand graciously towards the dark bathroom, as if to say, be my guest.

Showering turns into a reprieve - a locked door between you allowing you to jumpstart your brain again as you feel the hot water remove all the hidden bits of sand clinging to your legs and back.

While Chan takes his turn after you, you escape outside with a cold soda from the fridge. The beach beyond your rental’s deck is still pretty busy, but the crowd has thinned a bit since you all packed up. The sun descends behind the house, which means the sunrise tomorrow morning will come over the beach.

Mingyu seems to be preparing the grill, and Ruby bustles around, bringing out ingredients and setting them close to the grill. On one of the cushioned benches, Lara drapes her legs over Soonyoung’s legs and talks with him quietly, both of them giggling.

Since it seems like your help isn’t needed anywhere - you’ll help set the table when the food is almost ready, as is your usual job as a non-cook - you sit with your cold drink and watch the waves break, lost in thought.

Lara and Ruby seemed so sure that you’d misread Chan that autumn night. There’s a small part of you that’s still doubtful, but at the end of the day you do trust their judgement. So, assuming they’re right, Chan had been interested in you. That was over six months ago, though. It doesn’t mean anything now except that… well… if he was interested in you once, there’s a possibility he could be again. Or still.

Your move, it seems, is to figure out if that’s the case. Chan hasn’t done anything recently to indicate that he’s disinterested, but he also hasn’t done anything to indicate that he is. He - like you - has played it very safe. It isn’t until now that you’ve questioned if it’s because he actually sees you platonically, or if he thinks that’s what you want.

One of you is going to have to push the boundary, to test the waters.

When Chan emerges from the house, freshly showered and hair falling over his forehead nearly to his eyes, you look up from where you’re sitting and watch him thoughtfully. He pauses at the grill to ask Mingyu something, then passes by the mess of limbs that is Soonyoung and Lara, then drops onto the seat next to you.

“Mingyu says it’ll be another twenty minutes or so until everything’s done,” he informs you.

“Guess I should get the plates and stuff,” you sigh, leaning forward to set your drink on the table.

“I can help you,” he offers, and follows you inside, where you both open cabinets and drawers in the unfamiliar kitchen until you find everything you need.

He heads outside ahead of you, his hands loaded with utensils and condiments, and you pause, watching his dark silhouette against the evening sunlight. Your heart tumbles, and you jerk back into motion, following him into the light.

You all stay on the back deck until well after sunset. As the sky sinks into deeper and deeper blues, you rise and plug in the string of lights that weave through the beams above the deck, casting everyone in a nearly-orange glow. Mingyu sets up the tabletop fire pit, but you end up chilly anyway as night takes hold.

You shiver once, and you notice Chan looking sideways at you.

“Cold?” he asks, and the wave of deja vu you get is almost dizzying.

You shake your head instinctively, more against the memory than actually answering the question. “I’m fine,” you say, even though you do have goosebumps rising along your arms.

He gets up anyway, heading into the unlit house without a word. You rise a beat later and head across the deck.

Ruby calls your name like a question, and in answer you point at the cooler tucked behind the grill, where you’d all stashed beer and water bottles. She gives a quick “ah” of understanding.

“You need one?” you ask her, as you shuffle behind the grill and pull on the cooler’s lid.

“I’ll take a beer,” Mingyu answers for her, and you dig through the bottles and cans until you find his preferred brand, reaching to pass it to him over Soonyoung’s head. Then you turn back and look at your options, trying to decide if you want a can of spiked seltzer or if you want to go inside and mix something a little harder.

While you’re deciding, the glass door to your left slides open, and Chan steps quietly back onto the deck. He’s in a baby blue hoodie that he hadn’t been wearing before, and he carries a bundle of dark material in his hands.

“Here,” he says quietly, holding it out to you. “It felt weird to dig through your luggage, so I grabbed one of mine.”

You take his offering silently, fighting a tiny smile. “Thanks,” you say, equally quiet, like you’ve both agreed you want to keep this moment between you, not call the attention of the others. You shake the dark hoodie out and pull it over your head, slipping your arms into the sleeves and fixing the hood so it’s not inside-out. The hem falls almost past your shorts, and the sleeves reach past your fingers.

Chan bends to grab a beer from the cooler, then heads back to where he was sitting before. You reach for your own drink, settling on a seltzer after all, and when you turn to head back to your spot you can’t help but notice him watching you through the flickering fire pit, something unreadable on his face.

“You good?” you ask him as you settle back into your spot.

“Yeah,” he says, but there’s something tight in his voice that makes the goosebumps rise on your arms again despite the new layer of warmth you’re wearing. That smells like him. You tug on the edges of the sleeves to pull the shoulders tighter and curl up on your chair, tucking your legs into the baggy material and locking back into the conversation.

The night moves slowly, the constellations rotating centimeter by centimeter above you, everything made comfortably fuzzy by the drinks and the firelight. Sometime before midnight, Ruby suggests a walk along the beach.

You go in bare feet, the cool wood of the deck stairs giving way to sand as soft as silk. Mingyu and Ruby take the lead, the rest of you trailing behind. At some point - long after the house disappears from view - Lara stops, pointing up at the moon - a sliver above the undulating sea.

The four of you stop and look for a minute. Down the beach, you can hear Ruby and Mingyu but they’re out of sight in the dark.

“We should probably catch up with them,” you say, looking in the direction of their disembodied voices.

“I think we’re gonna head back to the house, actually,” Lara says, looking up at Soonyoung to gauge if he agrees. “We’ll leave the back door unlocked for you all?”

They say their goodbyes and head back hand in hand, leaving you alone with Chan and that sliver of moon. For a minute, the night seems to expand around you, growing bigger and bigger and leaving the two of you so small within it. Chan looks at you silently, as if he’s waiting for something, one side of his mouth quirked into an almost-smile that makes your stomach swim with the desire to cause a real smile, to push that little almost into something fully-formed.

Then, Ruby calls your names loudly from further up the beach, and the spell is broken.

“Guess we better catch up,” Chan says wryly. You both turn and start walking in silence, nearly shoulder to shoulder. As you walk, the back of your hand brushes the back of his just once, and your entire body prickles at the contact. You almost shift away, give him a little more space, but something urges you to hold the line. You want to see what he will do.

You keep walking, close enough that you can hear him breathing, hear the sand slide each time he takes a step. The back of his hands brushes yours again, warm. He doesn’t react, so neither do you.

You carry on, knuckles occasionally bumping his, until you find Ruby and Mingyu. They’re standing watching the moon, Mingyu wrapped around Ruby’s back like a giant, love-sick koala.

“Where’re Soonyoung and Lara?” Ruby asks, when she notices you.

“They headed back,” you say, stopping a few feet away.

“We should, too,” Ruby muses, eyes on the moon. “But it’s so pretty here.”

“It is,” Chan murmurs from beside you and you glance sideways at him, trying to read him. He’s staring out at the dark sea, the stars flickering in and out above it, giving you his profile. Ruby’s eyes flick to you, one eyebrow quirked. You look away, not wanting to get caught in this silent conversation, but you can feel the heat on your face, the smile tugging at your mouth.

The house is dark when you all return, and you let yourselves back in quietly, just in case Soonyoung and Lara are actually sleeping. You bid Ruby and Mingyu goodnight in whispers and head to the end of the hall. Chan closes the door and you flick on the bedside lamp, casting a low yellow light through the room.

Wordlessly, Chan begins to rummage through his suitcase, transferring items to a small pile - a pair of loose shorts, a toothbrush, his phone charger. It occurs to you, suddenly, that he’s gathering what he needs to leave - to go sleep on a couch.

“Chan,” you say. You don’t even know what you want to say next. You just know you don’t want him to go, don’t want him to sleep on a couch, don’t want to be here alone.

He pauses, turning to look at you over his shoulder.

What do you want to say? Stay? You balk, suddenly chicken again.

“I can take the couch tonight,” you say instead. He shakes his head, but you press on. “We can switch tomorrow.”

“Nope,” he says easily.

“Chan,” you say again. He keeps rummaging, his back to you.

“Chan,” you repeat, insistent. He turns fully, still crouching, and raises his eyebrows as if to say, yes?

“Do you want to just stay here?” you ask, trying to keep your voice from shaking. It feels like a moment of great enormity.

He shakes his head, and the rejection stings enough that you feel your breath catch.

But then he says, “No, I’m not letting you sleep on a couch. I’m trying to be a gentleman - quit fighting me.”

You realize, slowly, that he misunderstood what you were offering.

“No,” you say. “I meant… like… no one on the couch.”

He stares at you blankly, his hands open like he forgot he was searching for something.

Embarrassment licks up the back of your neck like flames. “The bed isn’t that small,” you say, a little defensive. “We could just, like, stay on our own sides.”

The blank look on his face slowly transforms. His brows come together, his mouth tucking into a rare frown. He opens his mouth like he’s going to ask something, but nothing comes out. His eyes flick to the bed and then back to you.

“I don’t…” he says, and the heat of embarrassment heightens. He clears his throat and tries again, “I don’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable,” he says slowly.

“I wouldn’t suggest it if I wasn’t okay with it,” you point out.

He nods slowly, then pushes himself to stand. “Are you extremely sure?” he asks, peering at you. “This isn’t a High Noon decision, is it?”

You laugh, the tension dissipating a little. “No,” you assure him. “I just… feel bad putting you on a couch… and I don’t particularly want to sleep on a couch either… and I think we can… not make it weird?”

“We can,” he says, like a promise.

You second-guess your decision the whole time you get ready for bed - as you brush your teeth, as you change into pajamas, as you settle into the side of the bed by the balcony and plug in your phone. You’re nervous you won’t be able to keep it not weird - nervous that you won’t be able to keep your hands to yourself, that the magnetic pull to touch him will be too strong.

But when Chan climbs into the other side of the bed and clicks off the light, illuminated only by his phone screen, his warmth seeping into the blankets around you, it isn’t your hands that inch towards him. It’s your words. They claw their way out, desperate to reach across the six inches of darkness.

Chan, I’m actually really into you.

What really happened that night, when we were walking from bar to bar?

I’m in love with you, probably. I think.

Are you interested in me? At all?

You fight them all back, hold them all in. You don’t relax until Chan’s clicked his phone off and placed it on the nightstand, whispered goodnight to you, until you hear his breathing deepen. Just in case. Just in case the words get out the second you unclench - you need him to be asleep first so you can be sure he won’t hear them. You fall asleep with your face buried in the crook of your elbow, one last line of defense.

You wake up with your face buried in the crook of Chan’s neck instead of your own arm. You realize it instantly, body freezing like you’re about to get caught stealing, your whole body tight with panic. Like if you don’t move, you won’t wake him, and he won’t know that you cuddled him in your sleep.

Mortifying.

He’s mostly on his back but sort of tilted towards you, and you have one arm over his ribs, your nose pressed into the juncture of his shoulder. But, you realize as you stay frozen, his arms are around you. This was a mutual cuddle. Your legs are touching, too, one of your shins between his.

You try to breathe as shallowly as possible, fight the urge to stretch or roll or scoot away. You don’t want to alert him, pop this bubble, make the moment end. Chan is holding you as the sun rises over the ocean outside. It feels like another daydream, too good to be true. You never want it to end. You wish it was more real than this.

Slowly, you relax, one limb at a time, letting your muscles unclench and inhaling deeply. His skin, warm against your cheek, smells good - still a bit salty from the ocean, even after showering. But it’s only moments later that he stirs, his arms tightening around you and then loosening again as he makes a satisfied, low noise in his throat.

Then he goes still. You freeze back up, watching him for a reaction.

His mouth moves first, quirking sideways, and then he cracks one eye and peers down at you. A laugh bubbles from him and the cuddle is disintegrating around you as he shifts himself backwards and up on his elbows, still chuckling.

“Sorry,” he’s laughing, “sorry. I didn’t - that - I did not expect to do that in my sleep.”

You can’t help your own sheepish smile in return. “Me either, but it was actually comfy,” you admit. Now disentangled, you feel kind of cold and a little sad. But he’s acting like it was a funny goof, your bodies clinging to each other the second your brains turned off, so you’ll go along with the joke.

He rolls over and rummages on his nightstand, returning with his phone in hand and pushing thin-framed glasses up his nose. You look away, heart clenching. You love him in those; combined with the bedhead and his smell in your nose and the warmth of his skin not yet evaporated from yours and the feeling of his arms around you… it’s all a lot.

“I’m gonna… get dressed,” you say, reaching for your own phone. Chan hums a response and you vanish into the bathroom, brushing your teeth and getting ready as slowly as possible. When you come out, the bedroom is blessedly empty. You close your eyes and exhale. It’s going to be a long day.

When you finally head down to the kitchen, Lara and Chan are chatting easily at the table, steaming mugs in their hands. He’s still in those damn cute glasses.

“Good morning!” Lara greets you brightly. “There’s coffee!”

“God bless you,” you tell her seriously. You open a cabinet in search of a mug, but you’re faced with only plates and glassware instead. Chan appears at the cabinet next to you, reaching up and offering you a white mug with a cartoon seagull on it.

“Thanks,” you say, feeling weirdly shy considering you just woke up pressed against him. Once you fix the coffee how you like it, you take the seat next to Lara at the table. “Everyone else still asleep?” you ask.

“Soonyoung is, but I have to go wake him up in a minute,” Lara says, clicking on her phone screen to check the time. “We have a snorkeling thing at ten.”

“Ruby and Mingyu are out already,” Chan tells you. “Sunrise yoga. She texted us.”

“God,” you say, horrified. “Mingyu’s gonna hate that.” You realize at the mention of her text that you’ve left your phone upstairs.

Chan laughs. “Right?”

Lara rises, presumably to go wake up her boyfriend. “Her text said they’d be out until around four,” she tells you as she moves back into the kitchen to rinse out her mug. “I think they’ll beat us back, but not by much. Maybe we can go grab dinner when everyone’s back?”

“Sure,” you say, shooting a look at Chan to see if he has any opinions on this plan. He shrugs - no opinions to be found. You’ve always loved the way he could just go with the flow, happy to be along for the adventure.

You and Chan are still sitting at the table, coffees dwindling, when Lara pulls a bleary-eyed Soonyoung through the front door with a shouted goodbye, the sound of the car’s engine reaching you from outside. You look at each other, left alone together.

Again.

He gives you a flat, unamused look that he definitely picked up from Seungkwan or Vernon. “Are they doing this on purpose?” he asks, and a jolt goes through you. He’s said it. It’s like a curtain being pulled, shedding sunlight on something that had been shadowbound until now.

“Doing what?” you say, even though you know. “Leaving us by ourselves? Probably. Ruby likes to fuck with me.”

Chan laughs, and you’re filled with shaky relief that the moment isn’t weird. You both knew what this was, apparently, and facing it has put you on the same team against it.

“I thought it was to fuck with me,” he admits, still smiling.

“Two birds with one stone,” you muse. “For the sake of efficiency.”

But you wonder… why would it be fucking with him if he wasn’t interested in you? Is he admitting something?

“Well,” Chan says, stretching his arms above his head, fingers linked, “by all means, you can do your own thing today. You don’t have to babysit me. But it’s supposed to storm later, so I was thinking I’d use the pool a bit this morning while we still can, and then maybe go into town for lunch.”

You consider this. “That’s very pragmatic of you,” you observe lightly.

“That’s one of the first words I’d pick to describe myself,” he tries to deadpan, but the smile is too quick, telling on himself.

You let him get changed first, and when you make your way out back to the pool he’s already in the water up to his waist. You toss a towel onto one of the chaises.

“How’s the water?” you ask him, as you move to sit on the edge, preparing to let your legs dangle.

“It’s great,” he tells you, smiling easily, like he’s happy - happy you’re here, happy to be here with you.

You wonder if that’s the case, as you slowly lower your legs in, the water coming to lap a few inches below your knees.

“Feels cold,” you tell him. It doesn’t, really - way warmer than the ocean you played in yesterday, but you want to tease him a little.

Suddenly, his hands are on your ankles, holding you firmly. His hands are on your ankles.

“You should get in quickly,” he tells you, trying - again - to pretend to be serious, despite the smile he can’t combat. “Like ripping off a band-aid.”

“Lee Chan,” you warn, but a giggle rises up in you. “Don’t you dare. I will get in when I am good and ready!”

“I’m just trying to help,” he says, pretending to be hurt. His fingers are still pressing against your skin, your brain impossibly aware of the exact spot his thumb presses, as if there’s a beacon illuminating the place.

He gives your legs a playful tug, too lightly to actually move you. You squeal anyway, reaching down to splash water towards him. “Chan!”

He releases your ankles, taking a step back to avoid the splash, laughing. “Be careful,” he warns. “If it’s war you want -” He holds his hand like a knife above the water, ready to retaliate the splash.

“Oh my God, you menace. I’m getting in!” you cry, gripping the lip of the pool and sliding in, staying on your tippy-toes as your body adjusts to the temperature.

“Come on,” he goads, backing away from you, bobbing towards the shallow end. “You have to go under or it doesn’t count.”

“You’re a menace,” you repeat firmly, and he laughs, enjoying that his teasing has worked you up.

You eye the expanse of water between you - you’re at opposite ends of the pool now. “Do you think I could make it across in one go?” you ask.

He raises an eyebrow. “Like, underwater? I don’t know - how’s your lung capacity?”

You laugh. “Maybe not good enough,” you admit wryly. “But I’ll try.”

You take a deep breath of salty sea air, only minorly marred by chlorine, and slip down below the surface. You let the bottoms of your feet find the flat cement wall of the pool, and you give a hearty push. It’s hard without being able to see how much farther you have to go, but you hate getting chlorine in your eyes, so you kick and pull blindly until your lungs start to burn. When your natural buoyancy pulls you upward, you don’t fight it.

Your hands find something warm and solid before you surface. Surprise causes you to rear your head, fucking with your balance, and your feet find the floor of the pool. You stand up unsteadily, blinking water out of your eyes.

Chan comes into focus, his expression tight, and you realize that your hands had found his stomach, centimeters above his belly button.

“Sorry,” you say quickly, pulling away.

It’s like ever since last night, you can’t stop touching, your bodies fighting to come together even as you both dig in your heels and try to stop it.

“No worries,” he says just as quickly. You try to cover the moment by wiping water out of your face, but you feel warm all over, the cool water useless against your heated skin as you try to push away how his muscled stomach had felt under your fingertips.

You spend a good hour just floating and splashing around. Sometimes you chat and sometimes you lapse into comfortable silence. At one point you hear him singing lightly under his breath, his voice surprisingly clear but frustratingly quiet.

Eventually, your stomach growls. “I’m starting to get hungry,” you tell him. “You up for lunch in town, maybe? I’d just need to shower super quick first.”

“Sounds great,” he says easily, and you both head for the single runged ladder at the deep end. Chan climbs up first, standing by the ladder, dripping onto the concrete. You grip the metal handles firmly and find the bottom rung with one foot, pushing heavily to hoist yourself up.

And Chan helps you up - his fingers finding the dip of your waist and guiding you until you’re steadily on the pool deck, something protective in the touch.

Your entire body thrums, electric, cells vibrating. You hurry to your towel and wrap yourself up, hiding your face in the material - pretending you’re just chasing droplets away from your eyes, but actually smothering the urge to scream, if you’re going to touch me then get over here and do it properly!

“Did you know there’s a hot tub under the deck? Was that mentioned in the listing?” Chan asks, and you uncover your face.

“Huh?”

He’s pointing, and then you see that he’s right - tucked beneath the deck is a decently-sized jacuzzi, the lid on and straps fastened shut.

“Oh,” you say breathlessly. “Well, I know what I’m doing after dinner.”

Chan laughs, and you head inside, careful not to drip a trail of pool water through the house.

The rest of the morning passes pleasantly and without any touching; you shower and get changed and go on foot into the small beach town. You find a cute open-air cafe and order lunch, the iced coffee absolutely divine under the warm summer sun. The company’s not bad either.

After you’ve paid and left, Chan pauses on the sidewalk and gives you a mischievous smile. “Up for a little adventure?” he asks.

You frown. “What level of adventure?” you ask cautiously. “Like, on a scale of jumping out of a plane being ten to laying on my towel in the sand being one, what are we talking here?”

He laughs. “Like a three,” he assures you. “We just have a bit of a walk - maybe twenty minutes?”

The walk is pleasant - you don’t even get too warm, as there’s a constant breeze off the ocean and clouds pass overhead, pitching you momentarily into shade between longer bouts of sunshine. When you turn a bend and see the lighthouse rise against the sky in the distance, you actually gasp.

“Can we go up?” you ask, delighted.

“That’s the plan,” he tells you, and for once you can read his face perfectly - he’s pleased that he’s surprised you, pleased to have made you happy. Something warm simmers under your skin, affection and happiness and something else.

It takes forever to reach the top. You have to stop and rest more than once, your calves burning and protesting the many stairs. A few families pass you on their way down, one mother telling you cheerfully that you’re almost to the top. This motivates you to continue, and you press on until you reach the final landing and step through the metal doorway.

The view is absolutely worth it. The beach and the ocean stretch out before you, the town in the distance behind you. Alone at the top, you feel like you’re in your own little world, surrounded by sunlight and the calls of gulls, just you and Chan.

You stand, holding the railing, watching the waves undulate far below you for a long time. “Chan,” you say, and then falter. You don’t know what you were going to say. Some part of you thinks maybe you’d been about to confess, or to finally ask him something to shed light on his feelings.

When he looks at you, expectant, you say only, “Thanks for bringing me here.”

And maybe you did confess something, because he reaches over and squeezes your hand, just once.

And then, he looks over your shoulder and utters, “Uh oh.”

You spin, following his gaze, and echo, “Uh oh.”

Dark grey clouds gather to the west. You remember him saying it was supposed to storm later; it looks like rain will be rolling in soon, ushering in the storms behind it.

“We’d better head down,” he says regretfully, and you follow him back inside.

You make it down and outside before the rain comes, but the sunshine of the morning has gone and left gloomy grey in its wake.

“You think we can make it back to the house?” you ask breathlessly.

Chan checks the time on his phone, already walking brisky back towards the direction of town and your rental. “Maybe,” he says, but he sounds doubtful. “We’ve gotta be quick, though.”

You barely even make it into town; you aren’t even back at the cafe where you’d had lunch before the sky opens. It happens exactly like that - one second it’s not raining, the next second you’re drenched, hair plastered to your face, shirt sticking to your back, spluttering breaths through your mouth like you’re being sprayed with a hose.

You let out a cry of surprise, and then Chan is grabbing your hand and tugging, pulling you off of the sidewalk and into a nearby doorway. You don’t even manage to see what the doorway belongs to - Chan is already pulling it open, his hand still in yours as he leads you inside.

It’s dark, and it takes your eyes a minute to adjust as you wipe rain away from your eyes and shake droplets off of your arms. Beside you, Chan is doing the same, running a hand through his soaked hair and huffing out a noise of disbelief.

“That,” you say, “was bonkers.”

You seem to be in a dimly-lit dive bar, the kind that only locals go to. It’s pretty empty, since it’s early afternoon on a weekday, so when Chan raises a soggy, questioning eyebrow at you, you shrug and follow him towards the bar. Why not?

You take a seat wearily, and pull out your phone.

“We’ve got almost an hour until everyone is supposed to be back,” you inform him.

“In that case,” he says, and when the bartender meanders over, he orders you a row of shots to share.

You clink shot glasses for the first one, but after that you turn it into a game.

Chan narrows his eyes at you, mock-thoughtful. “What would you do if you woke up and your hands and feet had switched places?”

After answering (use my toes to order an Uber to the hospital), you volley with, “What would you do if aliens invaded tomorrow?”

Back and forth the game goes, punctuated by shot glasses being emptied and returned to the bar. What would you do if you woke up married in Vegas? … What would you do if you woke up one day and could only speak in rhyme? … What would you do if you were suddenly allergic to your favorite food? … What would you do if you were forced to join the circus?

You’re both laughing deliriously. Chan is wiping under his eyes in mirth, and you’ve hunched over so far that you find yourself with your hands on his knees, using him to stay upright on your barstool. Your surroundings have faded into colors and muted sounds with the alcohol in your system. All you can focus on is Chan, warm and solid under your palms, his eyes on you, the sound of his laugh cutting straight through the fog.

Then his next one isn’t so funny. “What would you do if you found out you only had a day to live?” he asks, and despite the seriousness, one last chuckle rumbles through his chest, like an aftershock.

Tell you. Tell you the truth.

You swallow. You take your hands off of his knees - you’re not sure he even noticed them there - and flex your fingers. And then, filter demolished by both alcohol and the sheer amount of time it’s been keeping you in check, you break.

Instead of answering, you fire back your own. “What would you do if I came onto you right now?”

Chan blinks at you, eyes as wide as you’ve ever seen them. He blinks twice more, and then his mouth opens. Your heart pounds.

“I’d - I - I guess, I’d probably kiss you,” he says, voice suddenly hushed, as if he’s a little unsure if he’s supposed to be honest or if the game is still a string of jokes.

You stare back. The two of you are frozen, both a bit wide-eyed, like neither of you is sure how you ended up like this.

Then, you breathe, “Okay, then do it.”

He nods immediately, breath coming sharply, and shifts closer on his seat. You feel like you’re holding your breath, waiting. Tentatively, he reaches up, brushes your jaw with his thumb.

Beside you, your phone blares to life on the bar. You both jump, startled out of the moment.

“Ruby,” you tell him hollowly. His hand still hovers near your face, but he nods, pulling it away. You feel like you can barely breathe as you slide your thumb to take the call.

“Hey,” you say into the phone, your eyes on Chan.

“Hey,” Ruby says, “where are you guys? Our thing ended early because of the rain so we’re back at the house.”

“Oh,” you say, trying hard to focus on her voice in her ear and not what just almost happened. “We’re in town. At… a bar? We came in to get out of the rain.”

“Perfect,” Ruby says. Across from you, Chan is rubbing his hands down the tops of his thighs, like they’re sweaty. You wonder if he’s nervous. “We’ll get changed and come get you guys in the car, and then we can go grab dinner together.”

You agree and hang up, then repeat the plan to Chan, who nods. He looks how you feel - a bit shell-shocked, a bit uncertain.

“We need to sober up,” you say. “Or, at least, I do.”

“No, me too,” he says, shaking his head. He sighs, and he might as well have said, goddamn Ruby. You hear it all. Then he seems to give himself a shake, orders you each a water, and asks to close his tab.

“They’re just up the street,” you tell him when Ruby’s text rolls in a bit later.

He nods, uncharacteristically quiet. You wish you could peek inside his brain and see what’s going on in there.

“Hey,” you say, and his eyes snap to you, that open look you know so well on his face. Your voice softens, and you resist the urge to reach out and touch his hand when you continue. “Here’s what I don’t want to happen - I don’t want Ruby to sniff out that something’s going on and interrogate me before we can… talk, ourselves. So let’s pull it together, and get through dinner, and then we can…”

We can what? Pick up where we left off?

He nods anyway, even though you’d left the thought unfinished. “You’re right,” he says.

And, somehow, you do. You both pull it together, rush through the pouring rain from the bar to the open car door. You smile and tease and laugh through dinner, like nothing had happened at all.

You feel relieved, in the back of Ruby’s car, as you all make your way back to the house. You did it - you got through dinner unscathed. Now you can go inside, and have some privacy, and talk and maybe figure out -

“Did you guys know the rental has a hot tub?” Chan asks, and you turn to look at him, baffled.

“It has a what?” Ruby gasps.

“Yep,” he says cheerfully, like he hasn’t just shattered your dream of getting a moment to yourselves. “It’s under the deck. Which means - hey! - it’s covered! We could totally go in, we wouldn’t even be in the rain.”

“That sounds great, actually,” Lara muses.

You say nothing, but when he catches you looking sideways at him, Chan sends you a wink, quick as lightning. You feel your face go puzzled, and he smiles and looks away, giving you no answers.

You’re somehow the first one to get changed and outside; it’s still pouring rain and you cover your head with your towel as you make your way down the steps and under the deck where some drips make it through, but you’re mostly out of the rain. A quick sweep of the area with your phone’s flashlight shows that there’s a string of the same lights down here as above on the deck, and you hurry to plug them in. Now that you can see, it’s actually kind of cute under here.

You unsnap the first strap for the lid, and jump when a pair of hands reaches next to you for the second one. You hadn’t heard Chan approach, but you silently accept his help as you push the lid up and off. You watch him out of the corners of your eyes to see if he’s going to say anything, address it at all. When it seems like he’s not, you turn to climb up the little set of steps, resigned.

His hand closes around your wrist, stilling you. He gives the tiniest of tugs and you relent, turning around. He gives you another tiny tug - you could resist if you wanted to, but you don’t, you don’t, you don’t. You let the tug pull you closer and look up at him, waiting. He kisses you quickly, firmly, close-mouthed for now but sure, his hands forming loose loops around each of your wrists as if he might want to tug you into place again.

The sliding glass door above you slides open and you step away, heart racing.

“Later,” he says quietly, and then you don’t get another second alone, Mingyu and Soonyoung’s voices bouncing through the space as they clamber down the deck stairs.

You climb into the warm water and choose a spot. Chan follows and sits a few solid feet away from you. You try not to look guilty when the other guys round the corner.

“Brought you a beer,” Mingyu says, reaching the extra can towards you.

“You are a legend,” you tell him gratefully.

Chan frowns, and for a crazed second you think maybe he’s jealous that Mingyu did something nice for you, but then he whines, “You didn’t bring me one? Hyung.”

“Calm your ass down,” Mingyu says, climbing into the water and finding a seat. You’re instantly more crowded, just from the sheer amount of space his long legs take up. “Soonyoung has yours.”

You snicker a little, and Chan gives you a light kick under the water. Above you, you hear the door slide open again, and a minute later Ruby and Lara appear beneath the deck, sheltered from the rain by Ruby’s towel.

“Oh,” Ruby says, surprised. “It’s not bad under here!”

“It’s cute, right?” you agree. “Still getting a few raindrops, though.”

“Eh, we’re in water anyway,” Soonyoung says easily, reaching up a hand to help steady Lara as she climbs in.

It’s crowded, and Chan’s two-feet-away doesn’t last. Instead, you’re crowded together, just inches apart. Ruby leans over the edge and turns on the jets, the top of the water creating a frothy layer.

“This is nice,” Lara says happily, closing her eyes and leaning against her boyfriend’s shoulder.

“It is,” you murmur, sipping at your beer. Under the cover of the jets’ bubbles, something touches your hand. Someone’s hand touches your hand. Chan’s hand touches your hand.

Your heart lurches. You beg your face to behave and give nothing away. And ever so slowly, you turn your hand over.

He doesn’t look at you, keeps his eyes on Soonyoung, who’s telling a story animatedly on the other side of the jacuzzi. But his fingers lace between yours, and his thumb brushes along the back of your hand, slow and tantalizing.

You’ve never been so undone by hand holding in your life.

You try to breathe. You sip casually at your beer and interject into the conversation when you can. You laugh at the jokes and look at whoever is speaking. You have no idea what the conversation is about. You hold onto Chan’s slender fingers like he’s a lifeline, like if you let go he’ll slip away, again and for good.

Later, he’d said, and his voice echoes in your head as you pray for later to be now. And finally, blessedly, Lara finally yawns, loud, and starts making moves to get out and head in. Which means so does Soonyoung. Then Mingyu lifts a hand from the water and examines his fingers, complaining, “I’m all pruny.” Chan gives your hand a squeeze and lets you go, reaching for his beer nonchalantly, watching Ruby and Mingyu carefully. You know you’re both waiting, impatiently, for them to leave you alone.

Leave, you silently beg, still trying to appear as casual as possible. Leaaaaave.

“You staying a little?” Ruby asks you, pausing halfway out of the hot tub.

“Yeah,” you say, trying to force your voice to stay casual. “I slept pretty late this morning - I’m not really tired yet.”

“Not all of us got up for sunrise yoga,” Chan says dryly, and Mingyu laughs, reaching for Ruby’s hand, clearly wanting to get inside.

“Okay, then,” Ruby says, her eyes still on you. “See you in the morning then.”

“Bye,” you tell her, and you have to fight the giggle out of your voice. You can’t help it - you feel giddy, nearly bouncing with excitement. You and Chan have been skirting the brink of something all day and you’re finally standing on the cusp of it, toes curled over the edge, ready to dive.

The second you hear the sliding door above you close, Chan’s hand is on your wrist again, pulling much more insistently than he had earlier in the day. Surprised, you let him tug you onto his lap, settling with your thighs bracketing his own, his hands wasting no time in finding your hips and pulling you more firmly against him.

His mouth is on yours, as insistent as his touch. You answer him readily, nearly sighing into his mouth as you get something you’ve wanted for years. You skate your hands up his chest and bring your arms around the back of his neck. He tips his head back a little, his hands sliding up your back, and the change in angle makes you sigh again.

“Thought they’d never leave,” he mutters against your jaw, and you let out a quick huff of a laugh before your breath leaves you entirely as his teeth nip a line down your neck, tongue and lips soothing behind each quick sting.

You chase his mouth, wanting him back, and he groans quietly when he realizes - like you wanting to continue kissing is just as good as actually kissing. But nothing is as good as the kissing, not if anyone asks you, nothing is as good as his tongue against yours, his teeth gentle on your lips, his hands clutching at your back and your arms and your hips like he can’t pick a favorite.

His hands roaming your body ignite you. You become only aware of their migration as they map the width of your shoulders, survey the dip of your waist, skate over your ass, then repeat the expedition. Your fingers have found his hair, curled up and held tight. He takes your hips in his hands and shifts you on his lap, causing you to tug slightly, and his exhale holds just the slightest hint of a whimper. You almost unravel, right there.

The shifted position also makes it absolutely unignorable that Chan is hard beneath you, and you can’t - don’t even try to - stop yourself from pressing yourself closer, your hips rolling almost involuntarily as soon as you feel him. Chan gasps at the sudden friction, his eyes squeezing shut for a second, like he’s already going under. Then his hands - frozen on your hips while his brain rebooted - come back to life, slipping up your ribs to cup both of your breasts over your bathing suit, giving one slow knead to both in tandem. You moan, low, unable to stop it, and he responds almost instantly, letting out an audibly shuddering breath.

He surges upwards to kiss you again, one thumb still rubbing circles against your hardening nipple, the other hand trailing back down your side and gripping your waist, holding you in place. You continue to move against him, his mouth hot against yours, the water bubbling around you and surrounding you in mist.

Chan’s nimble fingers leave your chest and work their way down between your bodies, pausing at the edge of your bathing suit bottoms. He looks up at you, pupils blown, panting out controlled little breaths like he’s fighting to keep himself in check.

Eyes unwavering on yours, watching your reactions closely, he slips his fingers between your legs, pressing the material against you, sliding down your slit and back deftly. His cock kicks beneath you when you whine. His gaze on you feels charged, almost like a challenge.

And then you’re blinded by a flash, followed almost instantly by an alarming crack of thunder.

“Fuck,” Chan hisses, twisting to peer out towards the ocean, his hands finding your hips again as if by instinct. “The storm.”

“Guess we have to head in,” you say, and it comes out wispy and breathless. Your legs feel like jelly and he’s barely even started.

“Yeah,” he says, the single syllable tight. He adjusts himself as you vacate the water, the rain beyond the safety of the deck seeming to redouble its efforts. You both hurry to turn the jets off and replace the cover, then stand at the edge of the dry space, looking out at the raging rain.

As hot and heavy as things were only a minute ago, you feel oddly still now, staring out at the storm. Chan places your towel over your shoulders.

“Thanks,” you say quietly, looking sideways at him.

“Ready?” he asks you, and you think he means ready to brave the storm. But your heart is answering another question - are you ready to continue, ready to move forward with him, ready to give life to something that has remained only a daydream in your mind?

“I don’t know,” you tell him honestly.

He slips his hand into yours. “I’ve got you,” he promises.

You move quickly but carefully through the rain, eyes on your feet as you take the slippery wooden stairs up the deck and towards the house. Chan doesn’t let go of your hand until you’re inside, sliding the door shut behind you. The house is dark and quiet, lit only by a single light above the kitchen sink. You both stand near the door and try to dry off, but your towels got soaked by the rain and don’t do much good.

“Come on,” Chan whispers. “There are fresh towels upstairs.”

You follow him through the house, up the stairs and down the darkened hallway. Chan pauses at the linen closet, pulling out two fluffy towels. You lead him into your shared room, closing and locking the door behind you as he clicks on one of the lamps.

Chan comes back into your space quietly, wraps you both in his towel, the spare forgotten on top of your dresser. You’re pressed tight together, warm in his arms. He presses his lips to the top of your head, leaving them resting there, just holding you. The moment is soft, heavy, a stark contrast to the lightning physicality of what happened outside. Something about the intimacy of it makes you feel hesitant.

“You okay?” he asks, pulling away a little to look at you.

“Yeah,” you breathe back. Your heart is racing. But it’s Chan. It’s Chan with his arms around you, and Chan who was kissing you and touching you, and - it all feels like something you aren’t allowed to have. “Just… maybe we shouldn’t?”

“We don’t have to,” he says immediately, shifting backwards and loosening his arms around you, giving you the option of pulling away if you want it. “We can do whatever you’re comfortable with. If you want to just go to bed… or if you want me to take the couch tonight, I can -”

“No,” you say quickly, because that’s the opposite of what you want. “No, it’s just… Chan…”

He seems to hear your uncertainty in your voice, his face softening and his arms pulling you back in. “What is it?” he asks quietly, and you slip your arms around his middle, giving in.

“I think I want this a lot more than you do,” you whisper, glad you don’t have to look at him while you say it.

He laughs, and you step back, looking at him quizzically. You’d been afraid of his reaction - of making him uncomfortable, of pushing the line too far. You hadn’t expected laughter.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he tells you, and you just stare at him, not comprehending. He reaches up, fingers still clutching a corner of the towel wrapped loosely around his back, and brushes a thumb along your jaw. You feel your face warm, but you wait him out. He adds, “I want this… a ridiculous amount. I’ve wondered for a long time if we could… be more.”

He says it like a confession. He says it like he’s embarrassed about it.

“Well,” you say, a fire - a hope - coming back to life behind your ribcage, “maybe we should find out.”

And there it is, that smile that makes the whole world melt away.

The towel drops to the floor, forgotten, and his fingers are at the back of your neck, tugging on the knot that ties your bathing suit top in place. When the material falls away he makes a satisfied noise in his throat as he moves to kiss you again, walking you back towards the bed.

You’d both been eager, but when the mattress hits the backs of your thighs Chan lays you back slowly, almost reverently. He kisses you sweetly, tracing your jaw again, and then lets out another little laugh.

“What?” you breathe, smiling despite being clueless. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing. It’s not,” he says, but he’s still smiling, eyes tracing over your face and body. “It’s just… hard to believe this is real. That it’s you.”

Your breath leaves you. It’s exactly how you’ve felt.

“I know what you mean,” you whisper, and you kiss him again. This time he doesn’t hesitate when his hand slips between your legs, brushing right past your bathing suit and pushing the pads of his fingers into the wet mess he finds there. You shudder an exhale into his waiting mouth as he presses one finger and then a second deep into you, his eyes on you as you arch into the touch.

You let your eyes drift close as he pumps them slowly, and outside the room there’s another flash of lightning chased by the crack of thunder. For a little, there’s only the sound of rain beating against the windows as Chan works little whimpers and half moans out of you.

He switches his angle, something snagging behind your navel, everything beginning to tighten. You gasp his name, and you’re answered by his too-familiar huff of a laugh again.

“What?” you demand through your own smile.

“You say my name like that again and I’m gonna bust,” he tells you seriously. Then he brings his attention back to where his fingers disappear inside you, and his gaze sharpens. “These are in my way,” he murmurs, pulling out of you and reaching for your bathing suit, which had been pushed to the side.

“Yours too, then,” you object playfully, lifting your hips for him as he slides the damp material down your legs. He smiles at you indulgently and shuffles backwards on the back, standing long enough to tug at his swim trunks, letting them drop unceremoniously before crawling back up to you, pressing his mouth to yours and cupping your jaw with one hand, like he’d missed you in the seconds he’d been gone.

“Chan,” you whisper, because you need more of him, because this isn’t enough.

He slides lower down your body, his chest brushing against yours, his lips mapping a path down your sternum, down your belly, pausing near your navel. He looks up at you, all glinty-eyed, that million-dollar smile going slightly sideways, a little mischievous.

“Can I? Please say yes,” he says in a rush, pushing his nose into your lower belly and caressing your inner thighs with his thumbs.

You lean up on your elbows so you can look at him better. Your heart hasn’t stopped racing for a minute. He’s going to give you a cardiac event. “If you want to,” you tell him.

He laughs again, so quiet. “You have no idea,” he says, shaking his head, and then he’s attaching his mouth to you and your arms give out. You eye the ceiling, a strangled moan working up your throat as Chan’s tongue delves into your heat. You squirm, trying to push him deeper. He loops his arms under your legs and then reaches over, his hands pulling you tighter against his chin, both of you working to the same goal.

You hadn’t spent a lot of time imagining how Chan might eat pussy, but you’re surprised that he dives right into fucking you on his tongue, determined and rhythmic. You’d have pegged him for the type to go slow, draw it out, tease and taste and work you up little by little. Instead he grunts in satisfaction, pulls on you hard enough that you wonder if he’ll leave little bruises from his fingertips, and spears his tongue in and out of your hole with abandon, his nose bumping your clit every few thrusts.

You’re a whimpering mess, fighting the urge to roll your hips into his face, one hand slapped over your face to muffle the sound. He shifts, lips working their way up to your desperately pulsating clit, and you feel your whole body seize with the change of sensation, a long, low groan emanating from your chest. He suctions his lips around your clit and sucks gently, then a little less gently, and your feet scrabble against the sheets, trying to find purchase.

His fingers enter you again, his spit and your wetness giving them the perfect slide, and it’s exactly the extra stimulation you need. He only has to pump his wrist twice, that delicious suction steady around your clit, before you’re grasping desperately at him - one hand sliding into his hair and the other finding his wrist and holding tight, which doesn’t stop him at all from pistoning his fingers into that spot on your front wall that has you unraveling faster than you ever have before.

“Fuck, fuck, Chan -” you gasp. Your eyes squeeze shut and your grip on him might actually be painful, a belly-deep ahhhhh ripped from you as the onslaught of sensation sends conscious thought spinning away.

“Shhh,” he soothes, fingers slowly but continuing to work you through it. You whimper, gasp for a breath, the room coming back into view. “Not so loud, baby.”

“God, Chan,” you groan, releasing your hold on him, flexing your fingers.

He grins at you, lightning quick, then kisses the inside of your thigh. “That’s my girl.”

You peer at him, boneless. “You up for more?”

He pushes himself up on his elbows, the triumph not completely melted from his face yet. “I’m up for whatever you want,” he promises. “You’re calling the shots here.”

“Excellent,” you joke. You reach towards him, barely stop yourself from making grabby hands. “Come fuck me.”

He damn near scrambles to obey. He comes up to kiss you, deep and heady, and you hook one of your legs behind him, pulling him closer. The head of his cock slides along your slit and you tilt, trying to get him where you want him.

You look up at him, feeling like he hung the stars, and whisper his name. His answer is a bite of a kiss as he pushes himself into you, stopping only when his hips are flush with yours.

“Shit, you feel so good,” he breathes, eyes closed for a second, as he holds himself over you.

“Please move,” you beg, needing more.

“God,” he groans. “Okay. Okay. I got you.”

And he does. Chan fucks like he moves - quick and precise, each motion purposeful. His eyes have narrowed with focus, brows slightly furrowed with exertion as his hips snap. He slides one hand under you to help lift you, the angle changing just slightly.

“Yeah,” you breathe, desperation lacing your voice. “There.”

The drag of him is delicious, and so is the feeling of his body under your hands, and so is the sound of his ragged breath mixed with occasional gasps and groans. It’s the fact that it’s Chan driving you even higher.

A crack of thunder sounds directly overhead, and Chan takes the moment to roll you over, laying back and letting you straddle his lap without even slipping from inside you. You whine as the new position drives him deeper than he’d been before, your hands splayed over his pecs. He’s breathing rapidly now, struggling to keep his eyes open as he continues to fuck you from below.

“I-I’m - so -” he pants, “close. Really close, baby.”

You lean down to kiss him, his arms coming up around your shoulders to pull you chest to chest until his strokes grow sloppy and his hands tighten on you. You kiss along his jaw sweetly until he releases you with a sigh. He kisses you once more before he pulls out, and then again when he returns from the bathroom with a damp cloth.

“I might need to actually shower,” you muse.

“Yeah, okay,” he says easily, nodding. “Maybe I’ll go after you. I smell like chlorine.”

You shrug. “Might as well just join me. If you want.”

He grins. He follows you into the bathroom, waits with you while the water heats up. And then he fucks you again, against the cool tiles of the shower wall.

Later, back in bed, you face each other through the dark.

“I should have said earlier,” you whisper. “But I’ve liked you for a long time, too.”

His smile makes you feel full of sunshine, even when it’s shy, even when he’s asking what you want to do about it. Especially when he’s asking you, "What are you doing next Saturday?"

Tonight, the decision to cuddle is made while you’re awake. When you wake up in the morning, sunlight streaming through the windows, Chan wastes no time in reaching between your legs, finding you ready, and rolling over top of you, pushing between your thighs before he even has his eyes all the way open.

When you both emerge from your bedroom, stomachs growling and with the beginnings of a caffeine headache, your friends are all sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded with the evidence of a breakfast come and gone. They begin a slow clap, eventually lauding you in a mostly sarcastic but still loving round of applause. 

“It’s about time,” Mingyu grouses. “You two have been circling each other forever.”

“Shh,” you tell him, as Chan slips his arm over your shoulders with a grin. “Not so loud.”

thank you for reading!!! <3

[pedroscurls]

christmas confessions (pt. 4 - day 4)

summary: it's christmas eve and you and logan reveal your true feelings for each other. pairing: origins!logan howlett x fem!reader content warnings: n/a. word count: 1.4k a/n: we're almost at the end of the story everyone. i've had so much fun writing this and absolutely love love love origins!logan. next and final part will be posted on xmas! pt. 3 | series masterlist.

DAY 4 — The weight of Logan’s words linger throughout the night into the following morning. You hadn’t slept all night; your mind racing over and over again at the thought of Logan’s feelings for you. It was mutual. He loved you too, but his scars just ran too deep. The trauma he experienced was just too much. 

And you couldn’t blame him, but you were determined to change his mind. He had avoided you the entire night last night, resorting to staying in his bedroom. Even when you knocked on his door to tell him that dinner was ready, he just said a quiet thank you without even opening the door. 

His words continue to repeat in your mind as you step out of the bedroom. 

“I’ve lost everyone I ever loved and I’m not losing you.”

There’s an eerie silence that encompasses the cabin; it doesn’t feel like he’s here. So, you tiptoe over to his bedroom and knock on the door. No answer. You let out a sigh and then turn on your heel to walk into the kitchen instead. You take a quick glance at the front door, taking note of his missing keys and coat from the rack. 

He isn’t here. 

You shake your head to yourself and walk into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. You grab your phone and send him a quick text, asking him where he’s at and if he’s okay. He doesn’t respond, just reads your message. It upsets you because you didn’t even get a chance to tell him how you felt, how his fear of losing you is completely valid. 

But Logan made a decision for the both of you without even giving you a chance to make your choice. 

You don’t even bother to eat, the emptiness of the cabin making itself known. It’s so much bigger than you thought, even as you walk around the living room with your mug of coffee. You look at the decorations Logan had put up for you, the fire that’s going that he probably put on before he left. 

It pains you to know that nothing might ever happen between you and Logan. You feel the safest with him and these last few days have just proven to you that he also feels like home. Despite not being able to spend the holidays with your family, there isn’t anywhere else you’d rather be but here with him. 

You sit on the couch and bring your legs up to your chest, glancing down at your phone to see that he hasn’t yet replied. You try to give him a call, but he doesn’t answer. You let out a heavy sigh; Logan always liked to run away from his problems and you hated it, but you know that he probably needs to cool down, needs to reevaluate what he needs to do moving forward. 

—

Hours pass before he finally gets back home. He walks in and doesn’t find you in the kitchen or living room like he thought he would. Assuming you’re still in your room, he removes his coat and boots and then makes his way into his own bedroom, making sure to pass your door without hesitation. 

It isn’t until he opens his own door that he sees you lying on your side on his bed. On his bed. You’re curled up in his sheets and he can tell you’re sleeping, the sound of your soft breathing filling his ears. He bites his lower lip and walks over to you quietly, grabbing the blanket to drape over you. When you feel the weight of the blanket encompass you, to move to lie on your back, his name escaping your beautiful lips. 

Gently, he reaches out to brush his thumb along your cheek. Logan watches you lean into his touch and he leans down to lightly place a soft kiss on your forehead. “I love you,” he whispers almost inaudibly. “And it scares me.” 

Logan fully stands and walks towards his closet, grabbing a change of clothes. He walks into his bathroom, stealing another glance at you in his bed. He wants so badly to climb in and pull you into his arms, tell you that he loves you, that he’s willing to give this a try with you. 

But he can’t. 

He doesn’t want to lose you. 

Because if he ever did, he’s sure that it’d break him. 

Logan’s shower doesn’t take long, but when he steps out of his bathroom, he finds you beginning to quietly climb out of the bed. He clears his throat, bringing the towel to run through his damp hair as he leans against the doorframe of his bathroom door. 

“Hey,” he calls out. 

You stop in your tracks and slowly turn to face him, eyes gazing up at him. “I’m sorry. I just–”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Logan interrupts. “Didn’t get enough sleep last night?” 

“No,” you answer. “Was up all night.”

He sighs and moves to sit on his bed, gently patting the empty space next to him. He moves his eyes down to his hands, thumb brushing over his knuckles. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t– I just–” he sighs. “I care about you, you know?” 

You slowly walk over to him and sit on the edge of his bed with him. You bring your legs up underneath and turn your body so that you’re facing him. Hesitantly, you reach out and take hold of one of his hands. “Logan…”

“I can’t lose you,” he whispers. “I need you to understand that.”

“You won’t,” you answer as you slowly play with his fingers. “I do understand your fear, Logan, but you– You can’t make that choice for me.”

“Baby…”

“I love you,” you blurt out, stopping your movements to look up at him. He turns his head to look over at you, eyes glistening with unshed tears as he stares into your eyes. “And I think I’ve loved you for years now. I’d take every risk with you, Logan.”

He stares deeply at you, eyes moving down to your lips and then back up to gaze into your eyes. Logan slowly reaches up to cup your cheek, thumb brushing against your jawline. He can hear your heart rate pick up, sees your eyes drift down towards his lips and slowly, he leans in to press his lips lightly against yours. 

Just as your lips touch, he hears you let out a quiet gasp and it only urges him further. Logan slowly moves his hand from your cheek to cup your neck as he moves to hover over you. His free arm wraps around your waist and lifts you further into the middle of the bed, settling himself between your legs. 

You card your fingers through his long hair, feeling the dampness of his hair. You part your lips for him, feeling his tongue slide in as your legs wrap around his waist. 

Logan pulls away for a moment, resting his forehead against yours. “Tell me again,” he whispers. “Tell me you love me…”

“Only if you tell me the truth too.”

Logan looks into your eyes as he contemplates the consequences of telling you how he feels about you. He tries to push away the lingering thoughts, the memories that he had tried so hard to forget, and even as he gazes into your eyes, all he can see is the possibility of losing you.

He feels your hand move to cup his own cheek and he realizes just how meaningful and grounding that simple action is. He leans into it, keeping himself propped up on his forearms as he continues to gaze into your eyes. 

Soon, the thoughts that linger transition into the memories he’s shared with you. The laughter and joy he’s felt ever since meeting you, the hope he feels whenever he’s around you, and the way he’s only ever felt at home with you. 

“I love you,” he whispers quietly. “And it scares the shit out of me, but I love you,” Logan repeats. “I think I loved you the moment I met you.”

“Logan…” you smile, tears filling your eyes. “I think Christmas Eve might be my favorite day now.” 

He chuckles. “Oh? What about Christmas?” 

You shake your head. “Christmas Eve will hold a special place in my heart now… it’s the day we told each other how we felt.”

“I love you. I really do and the fear will always be there–”

“Then we handle it together, baby,” you finish for him.

---

taglist: @kellyxo1 @misscrissfemmefatale @mooneyloveydovey @oatmilkriver @steviebbboi

[anonymousewrites]

A Not-So-Disastrous Romance Christmas Special

Saiki Kusuo x Reader

Christmas Special

            “Kusuo, the cookies are ready!” said (Y/N), pulling the pan out of the oven. “Ow.” They hissed as the metal pan burnt their finger for a second. They drew it back and shook it out.

            “Don’t hurt yourself,” said Saiki. His psychokinesis picked up the tray and set all the cookies to cool down while he also healed (Y/N)’s finger.

            “Thanks, Kusuo,” said (Y/N), smiling and kissed his cheek before walking to a cupboard.

Behind them, Saiki eyed the cookies—shaped like little people—and one began to float into the air.

            “No eating them until we’ve decorated,” said (Y/N), not even having to turn around. They knew their boyfriend well.

            Saiki let out a mighty sigh, and (Y/N) just laughed, holding icing and sprinkles. “They’ll be even more delicious when we’ve finished and they have icing, and you know it.”

            “Fine,” said Saiki. Not only did he know they were right, but, as usual, he was unable to say no to them (which was maybe why he thought they were right…chicken and the egg problem).

��           “I was thinking we make our friends,” said (Y/N), excitedly setting out the icing. “I’ve gotten better at cookie art, and I think I can make chibi-versions of them on these gingerbread men.” They smiled excitedly.

            “Who are our friends?” said Saiki, feigning ignorance.

            “Your ‘bothers,’ as you’ve nicknamed them,” teased (Y/N), knowing he cared. “We have enough gingerbread for a bunch of friends. I was thinking at least Nendou, Kaidou, Kokomi, Miko, Chiyo, Akechi, Hairo, and Toritsuka.”

            “He’s our friend?” Saiki was really doubtful of that.

            “He’s a perv, but he’s got his moments,” said (Y/N), shrugging. They grinned. “But we’re not including Saiko.” Giggling, they pretended to be posh and put on an accent. “ ‘You didn’t capture me well enough, and I have my chefs prepare an entire cake designed after me every year!’ ”

            Saiki smirked. That was a good impression. “Who do you want to make?” He would let (Y/N) choose first so they could have as much fun as they wanted.

            “Hm…Miko, Kaidou, Kokomi, and Chiyo!” said (Y/N) with a grin.

            “Then I’ll do Nendou, Akechi, Hairo, and Toritsuka,” said Saiki.

            “Let’s get to work,” said (Y/N) excitedly.

            Saiki nodded and got to work. With his psychokinesis and art-related abilities, he was able to represent the people he knew fairly well (and by ‘fairly well’ he meant perfectly but then he dumbed it down so they looked funnier). They all had school uniforms on, but Nendou had little question marks to represent how thick he was, Akechi had giant white “text boxes” with scrawls of black to represent his rambles, Hairo had his usual energetic fire around him, and Toritsuka…was just Toritsuka. If Saiki added too much of his personality, it would be inappropriate. …Maybe he’d add a tiny ghost and that would be enough.

            On (Y/N)’s part, they were also hard at work. Cookie Miko had sprinkles as barrettes all over her head, and (Y/N) carefully placed a round sprinkle in her hand as her crystal ball—they had been really excited to find those for this reason. Cookie Yumehara was also turning out quite nicely with some heart sprinkles around her because of her romantic personality. Cookie Kaidou was a lot of fun since (Y/N) added an “evil aura” around him for his battles of magic against Dark Reunion. Hey, they might tease him for it, but it was a cute, creative outlet. Satisfied with his cookie, (Y/N) put it with Cookie Yumehara.

            Cute, they thought, smiling.

            Teruhashi was next. (Y/N) happily made their friend with blue hair and put her in the same pose as everyone else. They added the golden glow that followed her around afterwards and nodded in satisfaction. Teruhashi looked adorable even as a cookie, unsurprisingly.

            Saiki watched (Y/N) work and looked at the remaining cookies—two. Floating one to him, he didn’t even have to think. He knew who he wanted to make. (Y/N) reached over and picked up the final cookie and smiled to themself. They knew who this was going to become.

            It was silent except for the soft Sinatra Christmas music playing through the house until (Y/N) and Saiki finished and looked up. Excitedly, (Y/N) smiled and looked at the tray of cookies.

            “They all look so good! You added their personalities, too!” said (Y/N), grinning. They knew he cared and paid attention to his friends. “That’s so cute.”

            “They’re so loud it’s impossible not to notice,” said Saiki.          

            “Uh-huh,” said (Y/N), shaking their head and grinning.

            “Yours look good,” said Saiki, seeing their knowing look. He saw through him like he was transparent. And I like it. No point (or ability) to lie there.

            “Thanks!” said (Y/N). “I tried to make it look like everyone and have important parts of them.” They paused and grinned. “And I made one more—here.” From behind their back, (Y/N) held up a Cookie Saiki.

            Saiki stared. It had his glasses, power dampeners, everything down to his deadpan expression. However, it did have a tiny sprinkle heart on his chest where his own heart would be. Oh, wow. It was so…sweet. (Y/N) saw him so nicely.

            “Do you like it?” said (Y/N) nervously.

            Saiki looked at them. “Of course I do.” He picked up another cookie. “And this one is for you.” He had also meant to surprise them by creating a Cookie (Y/N).

            They let out a surprised and pleased laugh, looking at the cookie. It had them in a little baker’s hat with hearts on it, and they were smiling widely. “It’s so cute,” said (Y/N). They smiled just as widely as the cookie’s expression and looked at Saiki with shining eyes. “I love it, Kusuo.”

            “I love you,” said Saiki, the words coming quickly.

            (Y/N)’s smile softened to a loving, gentle one. “I love you, too, Kusuo.”

            They put the cookies down and held out their hands. Saiki nodded, and (Y/N) hugged him. Saiki’s hands raised and pulled them close.

            “Merry Christmas, Kusuo,” whispered (Y/N), leaning back only so they could look him in the face.

            “Merry Christmas, (Y/N),” said Saiki. He leaned in to kiss them, and (Y/N) kissed back happily.

            The (Y/N) and Saiki Cookies lay side-by-side under the glow of Christmas lights, together just as (Y/N) and Saiki would be forever.

Taglist:

@elaemae

@painstakingly-juno

@characterreaderwriter

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[weministertomonsters]

The Alien Emissary

Or, It's Hard To Be An Emissary When Everything In Space Hates You

➤ Wordcount - 1.9k (ignore the double spacing, the format always gets fucked when I write on my phone. I'll fix it later!)

──────────────────

Sweat drips down your temple as you yank the decelerator on the shiny new spacecraft you just stole from a bunch of angry aliens. When your superior broke protocol to squeeze every last drop of advantage out of the deal, the alien race you were negotiating with decided to solve the problem by lighting his ass on fire. Bye, Frank. The show of aggression made everyone trigger-happy, and within seconds, bullets were flying on what had once been neutral ground.

You’re not built for warfare. Your expertise lies in intergalactic extraterrestrial correspondence, preferably from the safety of a comfy spaceship. So you hauled ass and ran for shelter, which just so happened to be the Vathri shuttle; a smallish, compact transportation vehicle nowhere near as flashy as one of their motherships. You had no trouble finding the cockpit and silently thanked the stars for your former career in piloting as you got the shuttle off the ground.

Before the Vathri could notice what was happening, you had sealed the entrance ports to keep them out. There was plenty of spear-waving and shard-snapping, but none of them want to attack their own spacecraft, so you took off without a hitch. By the time they realized you’d taken their only mode of transportation, it was too late. You can only hope they have another way to call their mothership for a ride. You're not too worried because the tech-savvy Vathri are probably already tracking you, thirsting for blood.

You wipe the sweat from your brow and drop into the pilot’s seat, scanning the unfamiliar controls for a tracking system to make sure they can't locate you too easily. Despite your piloting experience, the Vathri controls are difficult to decipher, like trying to use a keyboard made for a foreign language. Every dial and button looks like a potential disaster. Two buttons in particular catch your attention—a blinking red one, ominous and foreboding, placed next to a glowy green button. Some real Matrix-level bullshit. After a moment’s hesitation, you reach for the green button.

A fuzzy sound echoes over the intercom, followed by a glitchy, deep voice: “Inadvisable.”

Well, shit.

“Who’s this? Are you the system?” you ask, glancing over your shoulder just in case. The voice came through the speakers, and there’s no one behind you.

The response takes a moment, but the voice comes again. "No."

"Who are you? Are you one of them?"

"Partially."

"What does that mean?"

"I am Vathri, but I am not with this contingent."

"Um, how's that?" You manage to find the hover feature and turn it on, multitasking figuring the shuttle out and talking to the voice.

"I am a prisoner of the Vathri State."

"Wait, so you're on this shuttle?" Your eyes widen in alarm.

"How else would we be in conversation? I am chained in the hold."

"Great, then stay there. The last thing I want to add to my list of crimes is assisting in a jailbreak," you mutter.

Now that you're hovering, the last thing you want is something sneaking up on you. There are much worse things than the Vathri out here. The Vathri you're talking to takes so long to speak again that you almost forget about it as you search the compartments on the dashboard for a manual. Unlikely, but you're not one to go without checking these kinds of things. Everything is scrupulously clean. There are even any bits and bobs in the compartments. The small square screen in front of you looks like it's for scoping, so you turn that on. Bingo. Your surroundings blink on the screen, which is nice and empty.

"A platoon of Vathri is headed your way," the intercom buzzes. "And they make haste."

"No!" You look at the screen and the prisoner is right.

An indicator has just shown up on the radar and it's coming up fast. The system beeps politely to let you know. You grab the controls and kick the little spacecraft into gear. You might not know A from B, but you do know how to fly things in general. The shuttle shoots forward smooth as butter sliding across a hot plate, and you grapple with the steering, which suddenly seems to have a mind of its own.

"Careful," you mutter, leaning back in the seat and reminding yourself to breathe.

You haven't got a helmet on to enhance your vision, so you have to rely on your human eyesight and just pray you don't fly straight into asteroid spray. There's probably a mode for that on the scoping system but it's beyond your understanding. You can't just mash buttons and hope something goes well. You're sweating again.

"I can assist you."

"I'm handling it," you snap, jolting in your seat. Your almost forgotten about them. "We're fine."

"You have little knowledge of the controls and have effectively made this spacecraft a potential coffin."

"How are you seeing what I'm doing anyway?" You demand, taking a hard right.

The shuttle wheels around so sharply that it does a neat little flip over your pursuers. There's a thump in the hold, and you wince.

"I guess you're not strapped in. Sorry," you mutter. You can't help but gasp when you see the behemoth of a ship that's after you. It's black and the gloss on the exterior makes it look slippery. It's clearly meant for stealth and packed with heavy artillery. The spiked flare on top resembles a shark's fin, and you nearly shear the hull of the shuttle open on it. That's how close the ship is.

"Shit!" You scream. "What the fuck is that?"

"A Deathglider," the imprisoned Vathri says. Their voice sounds far away. "Calm yourself, human. You will lose control."

"That thing is massive! Oh my god, I'm so fucked," you moan, pushing the acceleration as high as it can go.

The Deathglider is too big for quick turns, but it has triple the thrusters and once it curves around, it's quickly gaining on you again.

"I can pilot the craft."

"Not a chance!" You snap. "I'm managing!"

Indeed, you are. If you can turn the correct scoping mode on, you might be able to lose them in an asteroid field. If your sense of direction is still holding true, then you know from the briefing earlier today that there's one nearby. You're confident you can pull it off up until the Deathglider starts shooting at you. The first shot misses by a good twenty feet—or maybe that was a warning—and your mouth falls open as you see the metal shaft of the bullet burning past the cockpit window.

"I'm human, you assholes!" You holler into the air. "I made a mistake, but I'm not that big of a threat! Stop with the missiles!"

"I do not believe they are much interested in you."

"Oh yeah? Then why in the blazes..."

"That was for me."

You gasp and steer to the left as the Deathglider takes a second shot. Another near miss; and now the system is giving you a warning of the engine overheating. Your ride isn't meant to accelerate this fast and for so long.

"What the hell did you even do, kill the Queen?" You demand. "Why do you have a army after you?"

"I fucked the Princess."

"Come again?"

"Is that not the word you use? To fuck—"

"I heard you the first time! I thought you were joking!" You screech.

"They are almost upon us. Let me help you."

This entire time, the Vathri's voice has remained at the same eerily unaffected pitch. If they're scared of dying in an exploding ball of shrapnel, they don't sound like it. You give up trying to do this alone when the next shot takes out one of the thrusters. Luckily, it clips clean off instead of going up in a fiery blaze, but unless there's a miracle, the shuttle will soon be dead in the black water of space.

"Tell me what to do," you say.

"Press the third button to the left of the scoping system. It will mask us. Then turn and fly underneath the Deathglider. It will buy us a few minutes. Long enough to unlock my—"

"Okay, third button, got it." You're panting as the system starts making a blaring sound to warn you of the incoming projectile which is a huge ship hurtling towards you.

You press the button, flip the shuttle over, and dip under the Deathglider with what feels like moments to spare. You book it in the other direction, so concentrated on getting away that it takes you a while to notice that everything is invisible. Including yourself. The visual of space stretching above and beneath you, sparkling with stars, is impossibly beautiful. At the same time, not being able to see your body creates a disconnect with your brain, and your vision starts to go all funny.

"Press the red button!" Finally, there's some haste in that voice. You feel a warm ping of smugness.

"Huh... What button?" You mumble as your ears pop from the pressure. "What?"

"The red-" What comes after that is a jumble of Vathri that grates in your ears like nails on a chalkboard.

It's just enough to prevent you from falling asleep and remind you that you're in some kind of danger. The Vathri told you to do something... Your body moves like it's in a pool of syrup. You know your hands are there somewhere, but you can't see them and everything feels numb. You pat the invisible dashboard, poking at things. You press something and the shuttle powers down and starts to float, tipping belly-up like a bloated fish. With what feels like the last of your energy, you smack your hand down in the spot where you remember the red button to be.

Nothing happens, or so you think. Your eyes start to close. You're strapped into the seat, but it feels like the seatbelt came loose at some point and you're slipping. Your head seems to be drifting away from your body. Suddenly, blinding lights sting your eyes, which snap open and stream with prickling pain. You're coughing and gasping for air as the pressure lifts off of you and you're able to breathe again. The interior has returned, and the scenery of space is whizzing by outside the window as the shuttle flies. You unclip your seatbelt and stand, bumping into something.

It takes a moment for your vision to connect to your brain, which fires up with an enthusiastic thought: that's an absolute unit of an alien. The imprisoned Vathri is now standing right in front of you, leaning over the controls. You did it, you set him free. Your movements still feel a little wobbly, so when you lean in to see what he's doing, you sort of tip off balance against his side. He's warm and it's nice. He glances at you.

"Did you do it? Are we safe?" You ask.

"We have bought ourselves a few hours." He straightens and turns to you. "I apologize for the oversight with the cloaking. I did not realize it would affect you so."

"It's nothing a few minutes won't fix," you reply woozily.

Famous last words, because you end up passing out.

──────────────────

I'm aliveee! Passing out is the easiest way to close a scene but I think I use it too often. Oops? Also, are the spaceship shenanigans accurate to scifi? Don't know, don't care. I had lots of fun writing it and I intend to write more. I have another story somewhere that is very similar to this one. They're kind of the same idea that I just keep sort of rewriting until I'm happy with it? I think I'm happy with it now.

[cgogs]

all i wanted | c!dnf oneshot | 4k c!George breaks c!Dream out of prison and tries to fashion a normal life.

secret santa for @rglozwriter (happy holidays! i hope you enjoy!!)

George has never once in his whole life thought of himself as a hero. He could count on one hand, maybe two, the number of times he ever came close. 

When he saved a little girl from the wolves. Oh, but he was rather little as well, and just as terribly afraid as her. So maybe it doesn’t count. When he restored clean water to a dirty river village— oh, he’d only broken the dam to help Dream, and that’s far too selfish in nature to be considered heroic. He hadn’t done it on purpose. 

And that’s precisely the problem, George isn’t sure he’s done anyone any tremendous good on purpose, and furthermore out of the pure goodness of his heart. He doesn’t think that makes him a bad person, not everyone is meant to be a hero. Not everyone has the heart for it. 

It was always Dream who was the hero. In all their childhood adventures, Dream was the one who would have them stop in their path to help the needy, the sick, the suffering. George was the one who would try and fail to get some sense through his head. It’s not that he’s a bad person, he just didn’t think they were in the means to be heroes, needy, starving, and sick as they were. 

But Dream had a habit of being a hero, and it’s one that didn’t break until they settled down. Until they invited more people into their lives. George watched that heart of gold dull and hide itself away. The heroism didn’t leave, it just turned itself into something else. And it was unfortunate because no matter how much George protested his selflessness (because it was so often at the cost of his wellbeing and safety), it was something that he truly loved about him. His hero.

It’s half of why George doubts the reality of his situation. It can’t be. Because George would never claw his way through obsidian in the water like a half-drowned rat to save someone. He would never put his own neck on the line for someone else. He would never do something so stereotypically heroic, something straight out of a book. 

He stares at Dream, sitting on the floor weaving a basket from flax and reeds. 

Dream once called him a selfish damsel. It was a joke, but George didn’t think it was untrue. Well, the damsel part was untrue. Mostly. Maybe. Their scoreboard of saving each other is… uneven. Breaking Dream out of Pandora has to count for fifty tallies. George demands it.

George is in his weirdness again. The heavy state between sleeping and waking, where he doubts everything he sees. Dreaming, he dares to think. How many times has he dreamt about saving Dream? Saving Dream and convincing him to run away? Too many times. And he remembers the feeling of waking up after all too well. The heartache and disappointment and hatred for everything and everyone.

The memories of walking the halls of the prison seem so distant, filled with water and oil. They seem impossible. 

Dream pinches himself and hisses, the half-done weave unfurling slightly as his hands recoil. He checks his fingers as if they were cut. George takes too long to react.

“Are you okay?” he says finally. Dream looks up at him, green eyes shining. He looks embarrassed.

“Yeah, no, yeah. I just cut myself a little.” Dream’s voice is soft and a little embarrassed in a way that makes George’s heart stop and start again. It peels one layer of fog off his mind. “Good morning. How long have you been standing there?”

Dream is nervous and awkward like a new roommate. It could be appropriate if they haven’t loved each other all their lives. Well, George never actually got confirmation if that’s wholly true. Dream could have stopped loving him for a little while there. But he’s at least mostly sure that Dream loves him now. Hopefully not just for saving him. 

George blinks, looking around. His feet are deathly cold in the doorway. Dream sits in front of the fire weaving his basket, and the world outside is pure white with snow. George comes to sit with him, vision glossy, like the world was smeared with grease.

“I dunno,” he answers, too late, “I just woke up.”

Dream pulls the pile of flax and reeds and willow to the side to make space for him. George pulls his blanket further around himself, rubbing his eyes. He’s sitting on a couple crumbs of dried plants but he’s decided he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to move to fix it. Luckily for him, Dream notices and pulls the bent reed out from under him. George mumbles a gratitude. 

“Are you okay?” Dream asks. He doesn’t cast his voice like he used to. He’s quiet these days.

“Uh… yeah.” 

“Are you feeling weird? The soup?”

George laughs a little like it’s the first time he’s heard him call it that. All the memories come to him a few moments too late. Yes, right, this is a common occurrence. George’s smile drops in a way that’s too obvious. Dream frowns at him.

George is remembering himself. The heroics he thinks of as so alien aren’t quite so against his nature as he thought. It’s just that they only show their face if it’s for Dream. It doesn’t make him a hero, he’s still a selfish prick, but it means this is all a little more real than before. He’s remembering more and more as he wakes up, feeling more and more grounded. 

“Do I need to, um… do anything for you?” Dream asks. George hates how he asks for things now. Like he isn’t sure how to be a person anymore. This time isn’t as bad as others, but sometimes just the questioning quirk of his voice will make him sad. “I can jog your memory again. Or I can get your journal–”

George replies too fast. “I don’t want you to get up.”

“Okay. Um… this is our house,”

“I know this is our house.” George rolls his eyes.

“Okay. How about you just ask me, then.” Dream picks his basket weave back up, setting to work tightening the braids that went loose while he wasn’t holding it down. George feels bad snapping at him, even if it wasn’t much. He rubs his knuckles on Dream’s wrist as an apology. The little nod he gets back means it was accepted. It’s always nice to know Dream still remembers their old rituals. 

“I’m just, um… it doesn’t feel real.” George leans his head on the edge of the coffee table, the one Dream pushed up against the couch to make room for his weaving. George lets his eyes get lost in the braids and patterns, following the maze of reed. He thinks Dream must be planning to use it as a fish trap– he’s always been partial to pike. “I don’t remember how we got here.”

This must happen more often than George thinks, because all of the concern he was expecting is pushed to the back of Dream’s mind. He watches it happen. 

“You broke me out of prison. We’re waiting out the winter until summer, and then deciding what we want to do.” Dream’s voice is a practiced calm, like reciting a textbook. “You want me to stay. I want to tie up loose ends.”

“Why are you here… if you don’t want to be here?”

“I can’t do anything in the state I’m in right now.” Dream almost-laughs, only letting out a small sardonic snicker. The details of his face and body finally load in George’s mind, suddenly, as if they only just now took form, and he feels so stupid for not noticing before. The skinniness of his body, the scars on his arms, the two prosthetic fingers. Having just woken up is the culprit, it dulls his senses and replaces them with delusions. Or maybe he’s simply gotten used to the way he looks, and his hindbrain took no issue. “And you keep my bedroom door bolted from the outside.”

“What? Is that true?”

Dream smiles at him. “No.” 

“You’re an ass.” 

“I know.”

“So– how? How did I get you out?” George tries to imagine it. Clad in shiny armor with a formidable weapon, a getaway horse and a real plan. It’s just not him, even if it was for Dream’s sake.

“I don’t know.” He says it in a way that suggests he wishes he did. “You were– weird. Like this. And sopping wet, and like… sleepwalking.”

“How long ago?”

“Um… it was when the trees were just starting to turn orange.”

He’s not good with time. George groans, rubbing his eyes still. His memories are slow to appear, but they do. It’s not cause for huge celebration. They fade in and reveal themselves at his prompting like the tide reveals the stones.

He looks around at their house, hidden somewhere deep in the tundra. Nobody for miles. He remembers Dream, in a state, hiding food and weapons in every nook and cranny he could finagle. He thinks of it as safe. Dream feels, to some degree, safe here. That makes George happy.

“I remember.” George nods. 

“It’s not very complicated.”

“Everything with you is complicated.”

Dream rolls his eyes. He’s farther away from the fire than George– and then a memory hits him, one of Dream in that cell. Cowering from the heat, eyes big like dinner plates. He went off his head, if his memory serves. Begged him to leave: he couldn’t be here, he has to leave, he wasn’t real…

He remembers guiding him through the tunnels and corridors by the hand, leading in front and pulling him along. He was so skinny he weighed nearly nothing, and when he protested and tried to yank away, George was able to keep him in his grip. Which meant that there was something very very wrong with him.

Dream has asked him, over and over, how he’d managed to get in and out, and George has never been able to tell him. He still isn’t able. He truly doesn’t know. All he knows is that he’s made it a habit to always get what he wants. Maybe something in the universe finally bowed to that will. 

And in true fashion to tradition, when he got what he wanted, Dream was the one who had to figure out the logistics of their situation. What they were going to eat, where they were going to go. If you heard Dream tell it, you’d think George fainted or something as soon as they could look back over their shoulders and not see Pandora’s Vault any longer. But Dream just doesn’t remember the nitty gritty of it. George remembers holding him close to his chest while the sirens went off for hours, felt like days. They hid like foxes in a hole in the ground. 

Dream is paranoid. He’s always been paranoid but it’s worse than ever. It’s not like George can blame him. It’s just different. And ‘different’ is neither bad nor good, but it certainly means ‘not the same.’ 

George knows he’s changed too. He doesn’t know the exact ways how, or if it’s anything like how Dream has changed, but he knows Dream isn’t the only one who’s different. They’ve been making it work, regardless.

Sometimes he catches Dream staring at him when he thinks he can’t see him, or when he thinks George is asleep. He looks at him with something sick– something so grateful and reverent it’s awful. A new cog in his hero– he’s been well trained by someone else. It makes him angry. Possessive in ways he’s too ashamed to let materialize. He can’t let himself feel good about the way Dream looks at him now.

Dream takes his new fish trap and gets them a pike and a rabbit. Presumably not caught with the fish trap. By the time he comes home, George is at his wits again. The journal helps, notes his fully-awake self writes for his sleepy-self so they’re both on the same page. It was Dream’s idea. They both have one– George isn’t proud of it, but he reads through Dream’s every time he leaves the house.

Today, he reads through Dream’s before he even cracks open his own. Dream writes about his week, the things he’s been eating and when. Sometimes George is blessed to read his own name. 

george has been remembering easier lately. i should be waking him up earlier

The guilt from invading Dream’s privacy washes away when he opens his own journal and sees Dream’s annotated his latest entry in green ink. They’re equally in each other’s business, and that makes his day. The entry itself is mortifying, but George would be lying if he said he didn’t secretly wish Dream would read it and answer him.

I don’t know if we’re still together. don’t act like it because if he weirdchamps me again i’ll kill you 

^ when did i weirdchamp you?

They eat fish together with nothing to talk about. Dream’s been doing better, too. With touch and being less… like he’s always in a crisis. They’re sleeping in the same bed again. Dream preferred the floor for a long time. 

In the middle of the night George wakes slightly to the feeling of kisses being planted to the back of his neck, down his spine and over his shoulders. Dream pulls aside his shirt to reach his skin and everything. George smiles where he can’t see.

Since it’s winter, they don’t have a lot of vegetables. Sometimes Dream brings back a pumpkin from god knows where– George suspects Techno, but it’s not like Dream tells him anything. They have some berry bushes in the backyard, good for juice and pie. 

Dream says he finds peace in hunting. George can’t imagine how, but he goes with him sometimes and it seems to be true. Maybe it’s easier for him to focus his thoughts. George isn’t sure. George is just a half-functioning damsel, after all. He’s useful for skill shots and skinning the rabbits, at least. It’s hard sometimes, sitting around and letting Dream do everything. 

It’s how it used to be, but… well, it’s just different now. George frequently finds himself out of character. He wants to be useful– it seems like Dream has grown a love for useful things. He wants to be in that category. He wants to be all the things Dream loves and deems important. If only he’d let him in whatever hell he’s thrown himself into.

“I love you,” Dream says one night, in the hallowed hall they call their bedroom. Where the deepest secrets are confessed. It takes George by surprise, lungs and heart still racing. He’s not quite all-there after fooling around for so long. He blinks, processing the joy, the accomplishment– but also the exhaustion. He turns his head to look at Dream, hair messy, like gold threads on the pillows. “I’m sorry.”

“Why would you be sorry for that?”

He shrugs hopelessly. “I just think it puts you in a bad spot.”

“Ugh, I don’t care.” George rolls into his chest. It’s all too cold without him. “I want to be there. In the bad spot.”

An arm comes to wrap around his back and hold him close. A soft kiss is planted to his bruised mouth, already sore and bit from kissing all night. George is quickly becoming too sleepy to stay awake. Maybe Dream knows that, maybe he can feel the magic in the air when George starts to slip away. He presses his cold, cold hand to Dream’s heart. He wishes he could pull it out and keep it safe. Keep him.

“I wish you knew what was good for you.”

“I don’t have to. That’s your job.” George mumbles against his lips. Dream doesn’t kiss him again, lowering his head to let him rest. “I know what’s good for you.”

“Do you really think that?”

“I know that.”

As time passes and the worst of winter is over, George can’t help but pray for the frost to stay. In Dream’s journal, he writes about the steps he’ll take when he goes back home. He still calls it home. George’s eyes sting with tears as he closes it and tucks it away. 

At dinner, George doesn’t sit. Dream doesn’t sit either, despite food already plated for him. He knows what it’s about. 

“Are you really going to leave again?”

“...yes. When summer comes.”

George leans back against the counter. “Are you going to come back?”

“I want you to stay here. It’s, safe here.”

“But you won’t come back?”

Dream looks stressed almost instantly. George can’t bring himself to feel bad. His heart is too close to breaking, even though Dream never promised him anything, so it really isn’t fair to him. 

“I won’t promise you anything. For your sake,” Dream runs a hand through his hair, and George scoffs, “But I want to come back. Until this is all over. And– and when it’s over, we can be together all the time!”

“Is that what you want?”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

George’s crossed arms fall to his sides. His mind is full of cotton. He pronounces his words emphatically. “I want to be what you want. If you’ll only come see me out of– pity, then don’t bother.”

“That’s not what I said,”

“You’re barely saying anything! Do you not feel like you owe me anything? I don’t– I won’t ask for a lot, I just, I just thought–”

“Okay, okay, George, please, just listen to me.” Dream is in his space now, which is unusual. It makes his spikes lower. Dream is trying. “I’ll– I’ll come see you. I promise.”

And there’s that look again. The one where his eyes train on George, hyper focused on his expression and body language. The one that feels like all the devotion and obedience in his body rise to the surface to prove that they’re still there. It makes his skin crawl. 

“I just– I can’t have you involved. I can’t. I got a taste of it months ago and I can’t ever feel that way again.” Dream lowers himself. For a second George thinks he’s going to drop to his knees and the mere thought makes his stomach invert. But Dream’s posture only bends, eye to eye as he pleads with him. “You understand that, right? Please.”

“Dream, stop, I’m not– you’re not–” 

In trouble, he wants to say. But as it stands, that isn’t true. Dream is very much in trouble with him. Should he change that? How can he reach inside himself to turn his heart off and talk to him like a normal person? Or should he accept the reverence, should he think it appropriate?

No, he shouldn’t. Because it isn’t his. This isn’t what he trained Dream to do. This isn’t anything like their old rituals. Or maybe it holds remnants, he can recognize some of it, but it’s become corrupted now. It’s not an affection he can accept, because it wasn’t written with him in mind. He’s not Dream’s authority. He may want Dream to obey him, bend to his will, but George knows the subtle differences between love and obedience.

“Dream. It’s okay. I just, I don’t…” He looks to the window, then to the floor, desperately avoiding his eyes. “I don’t want you to act like I don’t exist. Okay. That’s all I want.”

“I love you.” Dream says. “I just want to keep you safe.”

A subtle confession. Abandoning him was all in the name of keeping him safe. George almost laughs. It’s so stereotypically heroic, so self sacrificial. George should have ironed out the heroics in him when they were younger, when he still had the chance. 

“We’re not good people.” George looks at him. “I wish you’d stop acting like it. You don’t have to go back. You don’t owe anything to anyone.”

“I owe everything to everyone.”

“And you want me to stay here. You’ll come by when you need a warm body, right?” He says it like it’s a deal he wouldn’t gladly accept. 

“I will come by when I can. You know. When it’s safe. And we can do anything you want.”

“Don’t make it sound like– like I’m renting you!”

He steps on one of the hair triggers that rule over Dream’s frustration. George thinks it’s a victory. “How do you want it to sound? I’m really trying here!”

“I want it to sound like you actually want to be with me, you ass.”

“I do!” Dream says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And maybe it is, and George just can’t see it from this angle. “I have responsibilities that aren’t– negotiable.”

George doesn’t understand why he’s fighting this. Maybe he’s scared of what will happen if there’s no one around to wake him. Maybe he’s ambitious enough to think he can haggle a better deal. The strength it takes to fight with Dream is quickly leaving him. It’s a great arrangement. More than he could ask for just half a year ago. Something he clawed through obsidian to obtain. 

He’s seen the leash prison put on him. He’s held it, even. Pulled on it, led Dream around with it. George has decided he doesn’t want it. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it takes the words out of Dream’s mouth, whatever he was going to say. “You have no idea what it was like to be without you. I can’t do it again.”

“I promise–” 

“I trust you.” George’s eyes are furrowed and serious. “But I can’t wait until it’s all over.”

If he can’t make Dream see how futile this all is, then it’s something he’ll have to discover himself. But George won’t wait another two years for it to happen. 

It’s the spring after their winter together, and George hasn’t seen Dream in two months. He knows because he’s been tallying it in his journal, which has seen an uptick in use without a roommate. 

Techno visited, once. Gave him supplies. They must be closer than they thought, George somewhere on the fringes of the tundra where the four seasons are allowed to exist– watered down as they are. It pissed him off more than it should have– of course Dream would send someone else before he came to do it himself. 

Maybe he’s making a name for himself again. Maybe he’s in hot water and can’t come, or he’ll be followed. It’s not like George gets a lot of news out here. He’s slept through days straight, he’s sure of it.

He’s pouting at the ceiling, in the middle of some pessimistic bratty rant about his life when he hears that stupid knock Dream does on everything. It knocks the gloom straight out of his chest. He races down the stairs, everything in the world leagues and bounds less important than opening the door. 

Dream stands in his mask, a light smattering of snow on his hood and cloak. George reaches to pull him in by the neck before Dream can even get a word out. A promise kept. He’s halfway through pulling his mask off when George jumps up to hug him. The force of it makes them both wobble. 

“Are you real?” George asks in his shoulder. He almost doesn’t believe it. An armored hand rubs his back. 

“Yeah,” Dream’s voice rumbles in his chest, vibrations sending through George’s bones. It’s his new favorite feeling. 

George pulls away. He interrupted the de-masking process, so half his face is still covered. It looks stupid. It’s George’s new favorite thing. 

George couldn’t care less about the gift. It's nice, and he'll use it every day, but all joys are overshadowed by the presence of the man in his home– even if covered in dirt and scorch marks as he is. If he could choose any gift, he’d wanted a burner comm that he would be allowed to message him from, but the quilt is nice. George leaves it folded on the kitchen table, all pleasantries said and done with. Yes, he loves it, it’s beautiful, I love the color green. 

He pushes himself up to kiss him. He tastes like gunpowder and blood. It’s George’s new favorite taste. 

[minart-was-taken]

Mr Reca is a Welt Theory🎭

I'm bout to cook. It may not be food but it'll be COOKED.

It's canon in the Hoyoverse that sometimes people have counterparts in different dimensions. These counterparts usually have many similarities to the original such as in name and design, but are also different enough to be considered a different character. In this post I'm going to argue for the case that Mr. Reca and Welt are an example of this.

(Disclaimer: This is for goofs and fun. I do NOT think this is anywhere near canon or even totally sensical.)

Let's go from the least convincing evidence to the most convincing evidence:

Look the same 🫵

Although most of their similarities can be tossed aside as it being an anime game and people in this genre of just tending to look very similar-- I'm still including it. They both have brown hair with a parting a bit to the side, hair that covers one of their eyes partially, and some handsome greying.

We also know when Welt is using his powers his eyes can start glowing red

But uh yea I get it. This is a strech. Moving on.

2. Similar career choices

Welt claims* to have been an animator before boarding the Astral Express. Mr. Reca is a VERY passionate filmmaker. Yes I will point out that these are very different careers, but I will ALSO point out the similarities. Visual storytelling in the form of video!! Both include character development, shot planning, colour theory... The list goes on.

Also for some goddamn reason Welt has the power to summon animations from his homeworld...? That's weird. But it works with my theory so. Uh. Yeah.

Now again, these ARE different things for many reasons. You may even say this bit of evidence is a bit of a stretch-- But, hold on!

Acheron in Honkai Star Rail is an emanator of Nihility. Raiden Shogun, her counterpart in Genshin Impact, is the Archon of Eternity. Extremely similar at face value, but come with very different duties.

*Whether he was or wasn't doesn't really matter for the theory as the fact he chose that still says a lot about the man.

3. Mr. Reca is a Memokeeper Memokeepers canonically give up their mortal bodies to exist as memories so that they may travel the world as efficient as possible with the goal of collecting memories. I can't find confirmation on whether they also give up their memories of their once mortal existence, but whether that's canon or not it's very easy to imagine a Memokeeper could do that to themself.

This leads me to the major point of this theory: If we were to take away Welt's bonds, what would be left? A goddamn nerd. Have you seen how this guy talks about his favourite shows?

So here's the tea. We know our Welt Yang is from an entirely different dimension, meaning there's very much space for a Welt of this dimension to exist as well. I propose that the man may be who Mr. Reca used to be before becoming a Memokeeper.

Here's what I'm imagining: Welt is a very old man, so perhaps long before the events of the game there existed a man who worked passionately in filmmaking. One day for one reason or another he chose to let go off his mortal life and any possible bonds he had, and became an immortal Memokeeper-- Now without bonds, he was stripped to have only one passion: films.

Its certainly an interesting fanfic 👍👍 There's a lot of holes in the theory and in the end it doesn't really matter-- Welt and Mr. Reca would probably never figure out this connections between them and even if the did I doubt they'd care too much.

But it came to my brain and I'm making it everyone else's problem.

TLDR; What if Welt had a counterpart in this universe and that counterpart was Mr. Reca before he basically de-welted himself.

[pansy-picnics]

Not to derail the convo too much but i want to add my own input onto this….it sucks bc there are multiple VERY clear reasons why yong and nuru are both pushed aside, but i feel like everyone is afraid to say the quiet part out loud.

- Nuru is a black girl

- Yong is an asian kid

- nuru and yong werent really pitched as main characters to begin with. Maybe they wouldve been, had the pitch been fully realized, but we can only really make educated guesses based on the little information we have. The entire story was really built around varian and hugo, fundamentally- and yeah, obviously we only have the brief outline, but said outline doesn’t really mention nuru and yong like, at all. Doesnt mention any character arcs for them, any prominent relationships, any development theyd have over the series- not even their reactions to hugos betrayal or their involvement in the final fight. its all just about varian and hugo. We can only ever assume, at any given moment, that theyre just….There. And so thats how everyone writes them- as background characters to varigo.

i dont think its wrong to build a story around one character, i mean kay and anna really just did it for fun and i dont see any problem with that- but when people try to make it into a fully realized story, it doesnt really work because there are basically only two main characters and two guys who are just There. so instead of the VAT7K Fandom we just end up getting The Varigo Fandom. i honestly do think its why so many people come and get hyperfixated on it for a few months and then leave. There just isnt really any content to work with, because there are only 4 characters and people are only fully utilizing two of them.

-Did i mention theyre a black girl and an asian kid next to a yaoi couple featuring White Boy #3567488 and Kind-Of-Racially-Ambiguous-Probably-White Onceler Jr because the implications there are Not Great.

I joke, i love them all, i promise, but it is really something that bothers me a lot, especially since ive been here for so long and i dont really consider myself “in” the fandom enough to like, get super obsessed with any of the characters and make 1000 fics and drawings of them. If anything vat7k is kind of like the tts dlc to me. Im mentally ill about varigo and i love nuru and yong to bits and have SO MANY thoughts about them but they just usually stay in my head because i dont have the energy to expel them in any efficient way LOLOLOL. At the end of the day i consider myself more of a tts fan than anything else.

bc nuru and yong never really had any substance to begin with, people cant usually get super attached to them past a surface level, and it gets REALLY frustrating.

- When it comes to nuru, im like, the whitest girl imaginable so i dont want to talk out of turn here but i do want to mention it bc nobody else seems to be willing to- the way nuru is made into either the mature “mom friend” of the group or the “sassy best friend” is something that makes my blood BOIL, because they both feel SUPER stereotypical considering that shes a 16 year old black girl!!! i’ve talked to my friend, who is black, about it a lot (Id tag him here but hes Not in the fandom so i dont want to drag him into this LMAOAOAO) but weve discussed how black girls are “adultified” by mainstream society and quite literally robbed of their childhood and innocence. they’re treated as “mature for their age” and are expected to act as such…..It makes the way people portray nuru as the “mature one” rlly gross to me 😭. and luckily i dont see that “mom friend nuru” AS often anymore, but when people dont do that, i feel like they kinda just turn her into the “sassy voice of reason” which just feels like a whole black best friend trope to me…..😭 Guh. I think just the best anyone can do is actually make her a fully realized character!!! She feels so one note so often 😭

- And yong…I feel like he so often just gets made to be the Baby of the group and the comic relief (which is DEFINITELY because hes also a fat kid but thats a Wholeee other can of worms (eye twitching)) And like that can be fun sometimes, but also i feel like the main appeal about team radical, at least to ME, is that theyre all just stupid petty teenagers who are unparented and sent on a little coming of age quest and they all probably immediately start beefing with each other like its fucking lord of the flies. Yong is Twelve Years Old guys. Have you ever met a twelve year old? Theyre at that age where theyre like weirdly edgy and think theyre the Shit and that every adult around them is a fucking idiot. Yong has the potential to be soooo fucking funny past just being the cutesy little baby of the group and i feel like people just arent really willing to explore that. And like he can still be the more emotionally open one too! I feel like he starts out a lot more silly and more of that steven universe type hes usually portrayed as, but the longer he spends with the gang he just quickly becomes equally as deranged as them LOL. Id love to see a much more mischievous yong whos sweet but also a Very insecure 12 year old and kind of a shithead. I think it’s such an untapped market.

Idk i dont think that if you just Can’t get attached to nuru or yong that you’re like…Bad or like. racist or whatever Thats not what im saying at all!!! bc i do think that kay and anna for all their amazing work on the pitch did kind of contribute to the problem bc of the way nuru and yong are shown, or, well. not shown in said pitch lol. And i also think that everyone should consider the implications these characterizations have and like…Try and challenge themselves to branch out a little more!! and i also feel like a lot of people who ARE nuru and yong fans already arent very loud in the fandom, cuz like, with how varigo centric the community is i think its just assumed by default that nobody cares….and if thats you i want to encourage you to please PLEASE speak up and make more content about them bc people DO care!!!! it is a niche that so many people are willing to invest in!!! Especially me!!! Please please please please im on my knees plea

Guys I NEED to rant about my thoughts on Nuru because i love her <3 ramblings ahead

Like I feel like in almost every fic i read, she's just like, a side character that's there to make whitty remarks to Hugo and be the levelheaded one. If she has an insecurity or problem it's usually pretty surface level and solved quickly, or only mentioned once or twice. I think there are SO many aspects of her character that are so cool.

Okay first, I think we sometimes forget that she's a nerd just like the rest of the gang. Yes, on the outside she's definetly the most 'normal' one, but I think we should concider the fact that she's the only girl in the group, and she's literal royalty. She was raised with a completely different set of standards than the other three. I don’t think I've really ever seen anyone cover that. I feel like she would get called "mature for her age" when she's only 15/16, and almost always gets critisism when she talks back with her own ideas (like her concerns about the meteor shows for example). I feel like out on her journey, she would finally get the freedom to just be herself, and be a kid and be able to rant on about her intrests with the rest of the group. It could be a struggle at first, but it would be awesome to see her getting more comfortable with the group the longer they spend together! Nerds encouraging nerdy rants lol

Since she is a kingdom figurehead, you could also argue that she always has a lot on her hands (especially since she's very proactive when it comes to science and solving problems). This could bring up a need to be productive, or always feeling like she needs to make the right decision, even for the littlest things.

I also feel like a lot of the time she's potrayed as the "right" one, who is 100% right when it comes to stuff like arguing with Hugo. Since they're opposites when it comes to class, they often are compared through that lense. I think it's cool just having Nuru tell Hugo off for judging a book by its cover, but I feel like they have a lot more in common than they realize. I think it would be interesting to see Nuru judging a book by its cover too. Maybe not to the degree that Hugo does, but I feel like calling out both their judging would not only call out character flaws, but it also enforces that even though they hate eachother and would never want to be like the other, they have a lot of the same flaws.

Also, being sheltered in a palace her whole life, I think she might think kind of black and white sometimes, and while she knows when people are just being mean as an act, she might struggle when it comes to people like reformed criminals.

Maybe she's able to be meaner to Hugo because she justifies it by telling herself he's criminal, and therefore bad, possibly glossing over the reasons he might be like that (maybe it crosses her mind, but she tells herself it's not a good enough reason, because stealing is still stealing, and he literally steals EVERYTHING. Even little trinkets and stuff he definitely doesn't need!). When they find out about Varian's criminal history, maybe she reexamines her views on morality and how she used to see people, because by her standards, Varian is a 'bad guy' who's caused harm to SO many people, but he's also the kind, caring, helpful friend that she's been traveling with who would never willingly hurt anyone.

Moving on to Amber x Nuru, I honestly never find myself liking the ship because Amber isn't developed enough which is fine. I don't think every character has to be a magnificent work of art. Side characters are side characters, but their romance is usually written like: "wow that girl is cute! I have a crush now!" Which is cool, but then that's about as far as it gets, then timeskip! Or offscreen they're a couple now. I know it's a side couple so it won't have as much devlopment as something like Varigo, but I never really see their dynamic play out in different situations. Like I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like they solely exist to be a couple? Amber sometimes just feels like an extention of Nuru, and their relationship feels surface level a lot of the time.

I feel like too often she's just watered down to the nice, smart, grounded friend, and I don't know I just think there’s so much more to explore with her. She’s not just some side character. She's literally part of the main cast! Even in fanart I feel like she doesn't really get a lot of stuff besides funny art and just like, pictures meant to look pretty. Unlike something you get a lot with characters like Varian or Hugo.

And honestly I get it. Some characters you just don't take an intrest in. I know I find Varian, Hugo, and Nuru more relatable than I find Yong, but I feel like part of that is developing their characters rather than just seeing them on a surface level. Ofc there are exceptions and there are some stories that dive deeper into Nuru's character out there! I just happen to see this A LOT.

Wow i said "surface level" a lot didn't I 😭😭

Anyway thank you for reading my rant i wanna know what you guys think!!

[celticcrossanon]

Why do you think Camilla's unable to accept she's not liked and people still see her as "the other woman" to this day? I think Camilla's problem is the public didn't know her until she was publicly outed as "the other woman" during Charles and Diana's marriage and first impressions matter. Plus, Camilla didn't seem to do anything with her time except be with Charles until she married him 12 years after the affair was exposed. That's a long time for public perceptions to be baked into the cake.

Hi Nonny,

The general public knew about Camilla long before Prince Charles's marriage. She was one of his 'special ladies' and regularly featured in the newspapers as his partner at events, both before and especially after her marriage, along with Lady Kanga and others. When Prince Charles was looking for a bride, there was open speculation about if and how this would affect his relationship with his 'special ladies'.

See point number 4 in this article, https://people.com/royals/camilla-duchess-of-cornwall-life-in-photos/, and don't believe the 'just friends' nonsense - the newspapers of the day knew exactly what was going on and alluded to it constantly.

Camilla has a reputation as Charles's mistress before he married Lady Diana, and the public soured on her when it became known that instead of doing the decent thing and ending the relationship, they continued in a tight emotional affair that became physical again a few years later. Charles called Camilla every day on his honeymoon, gave her expensive jewellery, and was reported to be unable to go a day without having some sort of contact with her (as per Charles's valet). This is not the actions of people who are focused on making a success of their marriages, this is people who want to have their cake and eat it too.

Remember Camilla and her husband did not divorce until 1995, after the publication of the phone tapes called 'Camillagate' in Jan 1993 and the revelation of their secret phone messages, including Charles wanting to be her tampon) one and half years after he married Lady Diana in July 1981 and before the birth of Prince Harry in 1994) . So Camilla was quite happy to be Prince Charles's mistress (emotional and/or physical affair) for all that time and to cheat on her husband for all that time (from whenever their affair started, through her marriage until divorce). Again, this is not someone (someones if we include Prince Charles) who are interested in making a go of their marriage (because if they did want to make a go of their marriage, they would not commit adultery, let alone for such an extended period of time).

Living rent free in crown property as Prince Charles's official mistress/girlfriend after his divorce didn't help her much either. Neither did getting Charles to give the contracts for decorating his properties to her sister. She did get points for carrying out a few events in the face of the (completely understandable) outrage directed at her.

So Camilla has a long, long history of being in the public eye and influencing Prince Charles to favour her and her family above everyone else. Her being exposed as the 'other woman' (which everyone suspected) and the revelation of her power over Prince Charles and her influence and constant presence in his marriage to Lady Diana are, for me, the reasons the public turned on her. No one likes a person who behaved as she did (except Prince Charles, obviously).

EDITED BECAUSE I STUFFED UP THE DATES

Charles and Diana married in 1981

William born 1982

Harry born 1984

Camillagate in 1992, tape published in 1993.

Squidgygate in 1992

I have crossed out the bit where I mucked up the dates - my point about the close contact between Charles and Camilla still stands, but the P-B divorce and the phone tape scandals x 2 were about 10 years later than I had them - sorry!

[ashyjingles]

jason grace headcanons

as requested by @sacrifical-lamb-core

ive been known to enjoy some more feral leaning jason grace but this is more of an authoritative take on his personality if you will. feel free to add to or dispute anything i have here!! this is all kind of a jumbled mess of first-come-first-serve deal in my head and i have yet to go through and weed any out

he has problems with authority. not outwardly; in fact, to everyone else, he’s the picture perfect kid who follows all of the rules. but that’s because he’s terrified of what would happen if he stepped out of line. he grew up with lupa, who was incredibly harsh to ensure survival in her pups. and then when he got to the legion, all of the officers were required to uphold the law. jason saw what happened to people who stepped the line, and the results were never pretty. (in son of neptune they mentione tying someone in a bag with weasels and throwing them in the little tiber for fuck’s sake) he grew scared to even TOE the line. 

because of the previous hc, he’s scared of kids. he knows how rambunctious they get, and he knows that if it came down to it, he would have to punish them and follow through on it by necessity. its what all his predecessors did after all. but he doesn't want to harm them. hes always had that soft spot for the new and/or younger kids. so he’s not scared of kids themselves, he’s scared of being the one to give them consequences to their potential actions. he leaves that to someone else with more guts

the previous two leave him with a lot of cognitive dissonance that he never really gets over. he’s an incredibly empathetic person and no matter how much he tries he can never really stop that feeling of regret when he has to punish someone who clearly regrets their actions. but give them an inch and they'll take a mile. he has major problems with dissociation where he removes his sense of self from the scenario and lets his logical processing take over without any emotion. reyna has had to pull him back from it a few too many times.

between the dissociation, magical amnesia, adhd, and constant brain damage, that boy has one of the worst memories youve ever seen

he really likes steak. specifically rare steak. (wolf!jason truther…)

he can see electrical currents! and can. see? wind currents. its more of a knowing the wind currents are there without thinking about them rather than a visual thing though. its how despite his poor eyesight he was an excellent fighter before he got the glasses

jason has really sharp canines! so does thalia! they get it from their mom, who filed her own canines down for a softer appearance and would have done the same to her kids once they were old enough for that type of dental work. 

jason is left handed, but because of military-style training early on it was forcibly trained out of him either because nobody realized he was left-handed or because they looked down on left-handedness for the sake of unanimity in the formations on the field. he just thinks hes naturally ambidextrous

gay. mlm. boy kisser for certain that man does NOT like girls. he treated reyna and piper the exact same despite one of them being his girlfriend (and treated reyna in a way where she thought he might have liked her back) because he treats them both in accordance to his emotions toward them: ie, he likes both platonically, which is why theres no difference. he just cant tell.

he fucking LOVES mint. says brushing his teeth and chugging a cold glass of water makes his mouth feel like being up in the air and 15 thousand feet with the wind in face.

he’s half asian! beryl grace is asian (i usually go with either thai or vietnamese) and usually i just went with wasian but then the show came out and now i go with blasian. or maybe beryl grace is wasian? whatever the case, i always pictured him and thalia as having some sort of asian descent.

hes really good at archery. dont tell anyone its just him controlling the winds though

hes such a dog person oh my god

his eyes light up like circuits/lightning when he uses his powers. specifically his lightning powers. 

jason doesnt have dyslexia but he does have dyscalculia. like, really bad dyscalculia. but he still greatly prefers reading in latin!

jason hated reading for the longest time because they didnt have any books purely for enjoyment on base. in new rome itself they had bookstores with plenty of books. (they were mostly classics because they didnt have too much contact with the rest of the world, but they were more than just military reports or old historic scrolls you needed express permission to even breath on) but when he discovers newer books he finds himself really liking them! though his favourite genre is definitely classics, and when someone breaks the news to him that he couldve had these books the entire time hes devastated

when he was younger he was better at latin than english because most kids who arrive at camp jupiter know english already and theyre well equipped at teaching people latin, but not english. they had to send him to a school off base/in new rome for younger kids to learn some more rudimentary skills

it was under juno’s orders that he lived on base. she wanted him to be as prepared as possible for his future, which meant starting his training bright and early. otherwise he probably would have spent some time in camp jupiter as a normal kid until he could at least, oh i dunno, read and write. tie his shoes. eat with cutlery. take a bath by himself.

if jason had been there long enough without the swap ever happening, when he stepped down from praetor (not for another longggg few years) he would have done law in new rome. 

if post swap jason grace had the opportunity to do law in new rome, he would have pushed for rules regarding kids safety. of course, if another jason case were to happen nobody would have been able to deny a god(dess) but jason was never a normal case, was he?

can you tell i like lawyer!jason

less of a headcanon more of commentary on his character but as strong of a character as he was, camp half blood taught him how to have a back bone. in rome he was incredibly disciplined and had no trouble ordering other people around, but it was always in accordance with new rome’s laws. camp half blood taught him how to abide by his own moral principles rather than ones that someone else gave to him. (after all, new rome was about unity while chb was about individuality.) 

he honestly really likes his work as pontifex maximus. it fulfills his inner desire to be doing the ‘right’ thing by rome’s standards (especially because the title is highly revered) while giving him the room to express his creative desires, which is something that he had never been able to do. its also not at the cost of someone else, which usually ended up happening when he was upholding the law as praetor

this one works in contrast or in tandem with my previous bullet on his sexuality (specifically the comment on how he treated piper and reyna): he knew that reyna had a crush on him. he didnt know why he couldnt feel the same. queer culture wasnt really a thing in the modern world for the time it took place, and i dont imagine new rome was any more progressive. he didnt understand lots of things about his sexuality at the time. he didnt know that not liking girls might have been an option, and that he didnt have to like reyna back. so he tried his best to convince himself into having feelings for her, which led to reyna thinking they were reciprocated. once he met piper, that confusion happened all over again and even without his memories he found himself repeating the process

his favourite is blue like the sky, and ironically his and thalia’s eyes

thalias eyes are slightly darker than jason’s. more grey as well. jason’s are the brightest fucking blue youve ever seen. think the clearest, sunniest day youve ever seen, and it still doesnt hold a candle to his eyes. thalias are more like the sky before a storm.

jason can feel (along with see as given by previous bullet) electrical currents. he could feel someone switching a light switch from half a mile away if he thought about it

hes constantly brimming with static electricity and WILL shock everything he touches. a handshake? you get shocked. he tries to open a car door? literal sparks. as a kid he had to wear electricity resistant gloves because he didnt have a hold on it and it became dangerous because when his emotions are heightened, so are his powers. if he gets angry or excited or sad the air around him smells like ozone, and sometimes you can even see the sparks

cows really like him. straight up adore him. theyre his favourite animal!

he smells like ink, ozone, and something metallic. some people say blood, but hazel says its something like copper or nickel