#and it came out in 2018 which feels like it should be early enough for there to still be some pop punk blogs hanging around posting it

[burningcomputerpersona]

'Cause I’ve lived my whole life so afraid of getting hurt

That I’ve never really been hurt

And the best I can hope is to zone out in a room

Full of people that I don’t know

On a hospital bed, is that too obvious?

I can say I want to heal, I can say I want to change

But really

[accio-victuuri]

(12) fake stories. 📝

I found this here and i haven’t seen this compilation or post before. I might have read some on it’s own but it’s only now that I knew where it came from.

The proxies are not written by me, they were discovered by archaeologists, everyone can just read them as fakes. I am a proxy shooter, although I know that I have the same status as an illegitimate student in the fan circle, but I also want to support a family.

In the four years of working in the industry, I have photographed many celebrities, and because of this, I accounted for the first pot of gold in my life. Received from last December, It is a job similar to illegitimate life. It is very labor-intensive to follow two boys in my city, so I accepted it. I did, but I didn't expect to fall into the pit of these two people, which made me feel so lucky to meet them. Tell you what I know.

******************************************

Big / Older = XZ ; Small / Younger = WYB.

Before you start reading, based on the stories below, this was 2018 when they were still filming CQL. Probably some early 2019, the gist is, their popularity did not “explode” yet because of the Drama. So this is why, they were not as careful yet. This will never happen after their change in status as celebrities. They are very much guarded all the time now. Even if there are slip-ups in the years ahead like 2020.

Take this as fake. Fan fiction. This is not me “confirming” things or anything. I primarily wanted to post and share for archive purposes.

Some might be confusing, I tried hard to make sense of what was being said by OP.

******************************************

1. At the beginning of February, the younger one met the older one at a tea house near a high-end residential area in Beijing. This is CK Tea House. In fact, there is a private chef, with relatively high concealment, there are three people at the same time, eating normally, and the big one after eating drove away by himself, and the small one went with another person.

2. The two met in March and recorded a song. The older one arrived first and it was difficult to park. His driver was in Guangzhou. I wandered around the field for a long time. The big one waited until the small ones came and got off. It was normal to meet and say hello. ( OP might be talking about Wuji recording )

3. At the end of March, my colleagues told me not to go to the original community to squat anymore, saying that the older one moved out of the community, so it was I who came to the address of the new community he gave me, squatting for a whole day without seeing anyone, watching their fans. this time should be in Beijing. That's right, I think it might be that he really is a nerd. He is not out today.

Well, just getting ready to go. I found out, the little one after following up for a while, I found out that he is walking @ Qingliu in the village, without an assistant to accompany him, he entered the community with a lot of food in his hand. This community — If you are not a resident, you can't get in, unless you have to verify with a resident before you can go through the registration, which means that he has a verification on his body.

The door is locked, I guess he also lives here, sure enough, he has not been out all night, he lives in this community, Real hammer. I reported this matter to the girl who gave me money, because no photo of the same frame was taken. So the salary is very little.

4. The father of the gold master gave me three times the money and asked me to follow the itinerary. I didn't know that the drama they filmed was about to be broadcast. To follow, under the temptation of money, I still left my dear Beijing. mid june, the older one was in a white T-shirt and the small one appeared on the side of the parking lot of a certain gold square on a certain Jing Road, probably waiting for the car to come out, and it was him. The two of them, I did not see the assistant, both of them wore masks, I have to say that the big one is really tall, and the small one passed a bag of things to the big one, the big one takes it, shakes it, looks at the small one, and laughs under the mask.

5. It was still June, and I found that my Alipay in June was really contributed to them. The price of a certain place is really almost the same as Beijing. Let’s continue, the big one and the small one came out together after the publicity, and there is a certain tolerance in the same industry. A young boy, probably promoted together. I'm such a bad fan, I really haven't watched their drama, so I can't name the boy, but I do know, 4 people got into two cars, the big one and the small one didn't get into the same car, and the assistant followed them to a restaurant hall. A total of seven people went in, the big one went in last, the big one didn’t know what to say to the young one. Well, it's the kind of ear-whispering that the two assistants may be familiar with it, and didn't look up at them. They all held their mobile phones to look at their own, and when they finished talking, the older one touched the little one's head, and the little one looked at it.

You can’t tell if you’re smiling or not, and here’s the point, the point where I got into the pit! That’s the point,. I didn't give the photo to the donor's father, so now I can only take pictures of other small fresh meat to pay off the mortgage.

It was 11 o'clock after dinner, I was lying on the steering wheel like a dog, they came out, they went in. There were seven at the time, but for some reason, nine came out. Well, I don't know about the other two either,They seemed to be saying goodbye, they patted each other on the shoulders, the big and small saw off the others, and the big assistant handed over a black jacket, the big one placed it on the little one, and zip him up. The weather is really fine this time, there is no need to wear clothes, the little one stretched his big arms, the big one lowered his head. I don't know what they said, and we walked to the side together. I really can't see it from that angle, I can't see it

Yes, I don't make it up. The two assistants were still chatting about themselves without looking at them, and about five minutes passed.

When the milk tea in their hands was ready to drink, they came over and said something to the assistant, they gestured. Then the two took the same car and left, they took the other one, and the assistant gave the younger one a bag and a brown paper bag. I continued to follow them to the center of XX Wen Avenue, the gate of XX Community in Times

The small one and the big one got off the car, but the car didn't go into the basement, these two people really have big hearts, the big one took things from the bag. the small one holds the bag in one hand, and the other hand starts to walk on the back of the big one, and the big one takes out the things. He touched Xiao's head again and smiled. I'm sure both of them were smiling, although they were wearing masks, their eyes is curved, very sweet smile. I suddenly felt that maybe it wasn't really brotherhood, it was a beautiful danmei. The plot made me delete the picture of two beautiful people looking at each other. Two people showed things to the property manager to look in. I guess they belong to one of the houses, but they definitely don’t live there often. I’ve been in this business for four years, and I’ve met a lot. Many surface brothers stabbed in the back, this kind of pure feeling is very beautiful.

6. After sending a photo to Xiaoxianrou and expressing his satisfaction, will I rely on him for my future funding source?

After going in, I didn't go out all night, of course it was already a little bit faster when I went in. i didn't drink in the shop, just make do with one night in the car to save money. The little one came out at five o'clock, wearing a black mask. The hood and hat, the top of the clothes were changed, and a brown Buick went in, and the big one didn't come out. The older one came out by 7:00 with no change of clothes, carrying a paper bag, wearing a hat and a mask, his eyes were obviously tired, and got into a car

I was very hesitant about whom to separate from, I decided to go with the older one, but he got on the highway, I wondered if I had returned to Xiangshan, so I reported it to the benefactor, but I didn't dare to say that I saw it last night.

7. After returning to Beijing, I did the math and spent a total of more than 6,000 yuan. You may ask me why I spent so much? Let me tell you, the oil price is really high, I didn't fly because it's not easy to hide, but the Lord is very generous and reimbursed them all. When I got home, I seriously searched Baidu for the two boys I was following. The drama is a danmei drama, no wonder the gold master keeps asking me if I see any sparks, she is one their fans, I've seen a lot of girls like her, basically I don't have time, but I'm curious about what celebrities are doing

They will send us out, They asked me to go to Xiangshan with the big one, I said you don’t like small one? Why? Why do you have to talk to the big one? They told me that since he finished his class visit in Hengdian last June, he felt Of course I have accepted it now, but I still want to know if it is true, so I I went to Zhejiang with full expectations. The plane I took this time was too far away, and my friend over there was picking me up at the airport is also in this business. He told me that he is very familiar with the places where the big one were photographed, and even the place where he lived.

I also know that Xiangshan Film and Television City is very broken. When I saw the big one, I felt that he was with the young one.

It's different, it's very quiet, and when I'm not taking pictures, I hold my phone and make a voice call, and I don't know what to send.

8. In late June, it started to get hot on the Xiangshan side, and there were a lot of mosquitoes. The big filming was very serious, although it was far away, but from the lens, the expression is still in place. There is a shot of a girl, that's that the little girl of 101, she is very good-looking, in a dilapidated town, she gave him a hand.

The drama may be a fairy tale drama, why do you wear such clothes. The hostess handed him iced water, he took it and smiled. He might have said thank you but I can’t see the shape of the mouth clearly. The heroine left. The older one put down the water and picked up a cup on the ground. After drinking water, I took out my mobile phone and continued to make a voice call. The voice was very obvious, because I used my ears to hear it after I finished speaking.

Listen, I laughed sweetly throughout the whole process, I was wondering if he sent it to the little one, but there is no evidence, so let’s not talk about it.

9. The filming is over at 8:00 p.m., there is no big night filming today, and it takes 30 minutes to drive back to a certain hotel. The fast one, the big one signed autographs and took photos with three or four fans at the entrance of the hotel, very gentle, without losing his temper,

After he entered, the fans left. When I was considering whether to leave, the older one came out again. He was already driving.Wearing a black jacket with shorts underneath, a hat and a mask, the assistant drove a black car. The SUV went out, took the Yongguan Expressway (belonging to Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province), and finally got off in Shanghai, I followed. It took three hours. I have to say that the big car has very good driving skills. I was driving a friend's car and almost lost track.

Closer to home, the older one stopped and drove in the green city community of a certain village. Even though the star is not very popular, he is a public figure after all. If he is so laborious, how should he meet. About an hour later, that is, around 12:40, because my mobile phone is almost out of battery,I took a look, and a small car appeared, got off the car, but the car did not enter the community. With a Shoulder bag, carrying things, I can’t tell what I’m carrying, there’s a lot of them in the bag, I carried them in.

The next day at 6:00 a car came out and parked on the parking lot outside the community, a small car came, and a small car got off. In the car, the clothes were not changed. The older one got out of the car and said something to the younger assistant, and patted the younger one on the back.

After watching the video, the assistant got into the car and took breakfast for the older one. After the older one got on the bus, the younger one also got on.

10. The older one returned to the set at almost 11 o'clock, and the assistant waited for him while walking and talking, walking very quickly, at night. It was a big night filming, and the howling sound from the heavy rain was heard far away. After returning to the hotel, he didn't come out again. End of june, I have been in Xiangshan for almost half a month, and I only saw the two of them once. I wonder if I am overthinking it, but I think it's the best way to give money back to the sponsor. After six o'clock in the evening, the crew puts out the meal, and the older ones enter the house to eat. I couldn’t get a picture of the meal, so I asked my friend, and he said that it would be finished in half a month, and asked me to wait another two weeks

God, I said yes, that night a black business car came to the crew and parked at the south corner of the film and television city, near the big car, the big one. After a while, I quickly walked out of the crew and got into a black business car. I didn’t look like it. The small car followed, they drove to the beach of the fishing village, the big one got off, the headgear was not taken off, and the clothes were changed into Simple T-shirts and shorts, and small ones, long sleeves and black slacks, two people on the beach. Walking up is very weird, because the seaside is very cold at this time and there is no one there. The small car parked in my car about 15 minutes.

I was really worried that I would be discovered, so I drove the car calmly to the east side of the beach in the fishing village, getting closer to these two people, I can only see that the older one took off the smaller hat and put it on his own head, and the hair was covered

From my point of view, he really looks like a woman with a good figure, with his small hands wrapped around his waist. Two people are talking, I don't understand lip language, and I can't see clearly, so I see the big one leaning back, and the small one may be afraid that he might fall, the stairs should be tighter. After about five minutes, the little one sat on the beach with his hands loose, and the big one sat down.

Looking at him, the little one looked up, and the two looked at each other. The older one sat down and definitely held the younger one's hand. I can see that the big one took the small hand and put it on his lap, and then he kept his head down and talked,

Maybe the big one rubbed his arms when it was cold, and the small one rubbed his hands back and forth on the big arm, and then pointed to the car, after a while, two people got into the car, the big one went back to the set, the young one continued in the car, early morning. It was three o'clock when the filming was over, and after taking off my make-up, I got into the small car, and the two of them went to a villa in a certain town, but I couldn't get in,

I really couldn't bear it anymore, so I went to find a place to sleep. When I woke up, it was past ten o'clock. I don't know if I should go or not.

I went back to the film and television city. My benefactor no longer needs me to follow, I have already witnessed this beautiful relationship. The love is young, but pure, don't destroy this relationship, so everyone just wait silently. Many people ask me if I am the king of the mountain, I don't know how can two people be so absolute when they are together, I believe it more —- Bo Jun Yi Xiao, that's all

11. When I arrived at the film and television city, my friend brought me fruit and told me that these two dramas were about to be broadcast, and they were not bad. It was the first time in my life that I became a member to watch a TV series, and it was because of their good drama. I don’t know when it was filmed.

At that time, whether the relationship between the two people was so good, but now I feel the contact like a family member, which is what I like.

I went back to the set, and it was like this again. I didn't go out after nine days, and everything was normal. At the beginning of July, the itinerary says to go to Changsha and recorded an entertainment program, and both of them went, so I bought a ticket, but I didn't get the program list. On-site tickets at production time. I left one day earlier than the older one, because I had to find a place to live and I had to pack a car. Bare feet can't keep up with the speed of the two of them. Two days ago, I squatted at the door of a certain electric station, the first time I recognized. Realizing that they are really popular, many fans are already outside, it is not the same as half a month ago, The small one who came first, the bodyguards and assistants were all there after getting off the car, and went in after getting off the car, and then the older one came. It's the second time I saw the big one with bodyguards. I followed it so many times, except for attending the endorsement, There are bodyguards, I have never seen his bodyguards, the big one also went in. I'm bored waiting, I'll just turn around at the door

Turn around, I heard a little girl say that Bo Jun and Yi Xiao must be real, that's when I knew they still have CP fans name the little girl is very cute, ask me brother, you also kowtow cp, I said my girlfriend likes them, so I will come and see

At a glance, the little girl gave me a popular science about the interaction between the two of them, saying that the brotherhood is very strong, I laughed.

The recording lasted around nine o'clock. I thought it was very fast to watch the show, but I didn't expect it to be recorded for so long. The older one and the other two men come out together, the big one wears a white t-shirt, the small one wears a black t-shirt, the other man wears a black hat and a green t-shirt, they come out. Then I drove to a fast food restaurant. There were not many people in the restaurant, so it was not easy to find an angle to take pictures. There was no shelter around, the big one sat with another man, and the small one sat opposite, one of the scenes was impressive, the small one

The one who didn’t know what he ate had a tangled expression on his face, the older one gave his own water to the younger one, and the younger one took it and went straight to drink it immediately, and the buddy next to me didn't say anything.

maybe it's not surprising, except for me, I really don't use other people's cups, even my parents. After dinner, the three of us went to the Rongguo Hotel, I feel that artists are really rich, the security is very good, I can't get in.

12. I went back to Xiangshan to continue filming at 6 o'clock on the second day. In fact, it was a reshoot. It’s green, the crew was too dark when it was finished, and the lights were yellow, which made the big one look very lonely, I don’t know — is it because I have seen him happy, I always feel that he is very distant from people and things in the crew, and the fireworks rise.

From now on, the trip to Xiangshan is over.

-END.

[pix-writes]

The Storm

Ezra x F!Reader | Ezra (Prospect 2018) x AFAB Reader

AO3

Rating: E | Explicit (MDNI) 

Tags/warnings: Porn without Plot, edgeplay, implied size kink & somnophilia, Ezra’s love of endearments and being an absolute tease. (Pre-movie)

Words: 1.3k

A/N: This was supposed to be a piece for kinktober, which was ages ago 😅 but my work has been insanely busy this year! I’ve had a lot to do for life in general too which has sapped time for writing away, but I’m making moves to tackle Rising Tides (my Ezra HG AU series!) next! Though I wouldnt be opposed to making a continuation of this, perhaps... enjoy!

You panted, chest rising and falling as you leaned back against his solid, broad body, head lolling onto his shoulder. He shifted so that your legs spread wider over his knees as he reached down once again to your aching cunt, beginning with only the slightest touch.

It's devastating.

A tiny circling movement, slow but with enough pressure to stoke the thrumming, gentle arousal that you felt into something more wanting and you whined despite yourself.

You can feel Ezra's exhale against the side of your neck and can tell of the slight amusement he feels at your desperation, even if you can't see his expression properly in this position.

This had been going on since early morning, pulled out of the cozy bubble of sleep from the wind hitting up against the pod - your temporary home on this unpopulated rock.

As you had predicted in the preceding days, a storm was raging outside and wasn't likely to let up for at least one cycle, if not more. You were grounded. Though you'd been working your asses off for several weeks, enough to be ahead of schedule.

The long working days usually melted into exhausted sleep, but the lack of recreation time started to cause tension a month into your dig.

Becoming distracted by Ezra's presence, watching him drink, parched in the sun whilst prospecting and feeling unable to do anything about it - not wanting to delay any further than you had to.

Ezra's lingering touches that should be innocent, if it weren't for the heated, longing look in his dark eyes, the promise of 'later' unspoken but clearly communicated to you.

Ever the early bird - likely purely by habit rather than anything else, you theorised, as he was usually a little quieter and grumpy in the mornings - Ezra was awake before you. And he wasted no time in starting. Dragging out the foreplay between you both.

It was something you both revelled in, the pleasure of it. Of course, when your lives are busy there are the occasional rough, frantic quickies, but like Ezra it always leaves you slightly dissatisfied, craving for more…

Now your focus wandered, your increased pants slowing Ezra's fingers against your slick cunt, until his hand stopped completely, cupping your mound. You hadn't even reached the edge this time and you wiggled a little in his lap, earning a small groan from him as the curve of your ass rubbed up against his clothed erection. "Please, Ezra!"

"Already?" He tsked. "This was your idea, little dove."

You could've protested- he was the one who had woken you up fully by eating you out and not letting you cum, after all. But you had definitely raised the stakes of his plans.

One of the things you had delighted about when you first started to be intimate with Ezra, was that you had similar minds when it came to sex and pleasure. Wanting to take your time, wanting to see exactly how far you could go - if that's something you wanted out of it.

It wasn't a pushing of boundaries, like so many, less worthy people have tried to do in the past, merely an exploration into how much you could both take.

And so, you had thrown the gauntlet down. Claiming you could handle being edged and teased, that you could likely last longer than him.

"Is that so?"

"I know myself." You had replied, smiling coyly in return to his own salacious, challenging smirk.

It had been hours since then, surely? Though you couldn't be sure, the shutters tightly closed on the pod's viewing ports.

Looking up at him you saw his blown pupils, little trace of the warmer brown irises left as he sucked his wet fingers, humming at the taste.

He leant down to kiss you, it was sloppy given the awkward angle, even with his fingers lifting and holding your chin in place. But it brought you back to the present.

Back to his spit-slick hand snaking down to circle your entrance, a small warning before pushing one of his fingers into your core making you cry out. His other hand teased you, circling your nipples, grasping at your breasts underneath your shirt in turn as he worked you open to fit another thick finger.

Unable to stay still any longer you moaned, canting your hips into his hand, palm coming to rest against your clit.

"I know, I know." He cooed. "You like my fingers don't you, dove?"

"Yes! So good - feels so good." You could feel every nerve alight at his fingertips as they hit that spot within you in a steady motion. "Please, ah, don't stop!"

In an attempt to coax him on, you ground down against him in earnest.

A bit-off groan came from behind you, Ezra bringing an arm over your chest, pinning you in place against him though you struggled in his grip.

"Ez, you're n-not playing fair."

"No? I guess I am not. But you can tap out, you know what to say." You did know, Ezra would play fair - give you the release you craved if you asked for it, or stop altogether and you could snuggle up together whilst the storm ran its course, instead. But you shook your head and he tightened his hold on you.

"You underestimated me, darlin', you may have better patience than me when it comes to harvesting… but I also know you are so good at keeping your smart, stubborn little brain of yours focused on a task, too…" he said, voice rumbling through you, moving at the perfect pace for you to come undone, feeling the heat rise along your skin. "... I know how much you can get lost in this, caught up in the sensations you feel… that you'll forget this was a competition." His teeth grazed the side of your neck and you gasped, hand coming to grip onto his arm, as something to anchor yourself to.

"Baby, I'm close!"

Ezra moved and you slid off of his lap and onto the floor. Tears sprung to your eyes as you tried not to fall over the edge which had already started to crumble, clenching around nothing as your body shook.

"Okay?" His warm palm was at your back.  

You nodded, tears springing to your eyes. Ezra reached out to smooth a hand over your forehead, damp with perspiration.

"You're doing so well, stardust." He said, his low cadence making you melt, tears falling as you screwed your eyes shut to the tender praise.  

"Just a little bit more. Then I'll make sure you are fully satiated and then some."

Turning around you saw him stand to remove his pants and you rushed to do the same with your top. He looked magnificent, naked before you. Resting his weight on one hip, the soft swell of his stomach, leg muscles flexing, and…

…From your kneeled position you were at the perfect height for your face to be level with his hips, cock flushed, hard and glistening.  

Looking up at his face you realised he had been watching your unabashed ogling of him, evidently preening under the attention.

You swallowed. "Can I?"

He hummed low in his throat, lowering himself down to your level. "Another day, I could be tempted into indulging in that desire, sweet thing… but right now I want you facing me and sitting on my lap."

Shuffling over to the bed and rearranging yourselves, both of you moaned as you eased down onto his cock. All the teasing had made the stretch easier, but you still rolled your hips a little to adjust.

(And to tease him back, just a little…)

He cursed; voice thin. “Dove, you have to stay still.”

With a sigh you relaxed back into his arms, praying to Kevva that Ezra wouldn't make you wait too long…

[xoxiu]

twinkle - ot7 x reader

chapter 05 table of contents masterlist

summary: she had just wanted attention, that’s why she kept texting the strange number, updating him on everything in her life. little did she know how dangerous this relationship actually was. it had been jimin’s idea to kidnap the girl, but the ability to travel across the world to actually do it had been all hoseok’s doing. convenient how some things work, right? they knew that they were destined to have their baby with them, whether she wanted it or not.

tags/warnings: kidnapping, forced age regression, spanking, noncon, mafia au, drug use, stockholm syndrome, caregiver!bts, little!reader, nonsexual, diapers, panic attacks, fluff and angst, sickfic, referenced child abuse, unrequited love

a/n: i wrote this fic in 2018 on ao3 and wattpad, but im putting it here for archival reasons ♡

Warmth. A comforting heat surrounding her was the first thing Ophelia felt as she slowly came back to reality. The softness of where she was laying alongside the warmth was enough to nearly lull her back to sleep until the realization that her bed at home should not be this comfortable held her back. But still, her eyes felt too heavy to open just yet.

While her current comfort never came from her own bed, it was a feeling she felt on frequent occasions. She and her friends often had sleepovers together, all of them cuddled up on one bed with piles of blankets surrounding them. Maybe that's where she was- she just had too much to drink and ended up blackout drunk with all her friends. She reached out her arm, which felt much heavier than normal, and attempted to hit one of her friends sleeping next to her to wake them up. Except her arm didn't come in contact with skin, only what felt like a wooden bar. 

A wooden bar?

Turning her head towards where she threw her arm, she could see through her barely open eyes that this was not, in fact, any of her friends' bedrooms. Ophelia went to rub the sleep out of her eyes and her arms were sore, almost as if she had been working out all night. Once her hands met her face, she left them there even after rubbing her eyes; they felt too heavy to move. 

Ophelia groaned and tried to sit up to see her surroundings better. She eventually sat up by putting her weight on her arms behind her to push her up, but soon fell backward, hitting her head on the bars on her short way down. Hissing in pain, she continued her attempt. Eventually, she sat up and rested her back on the white bars. 

The room surrounding her was dimly lit, with a light hue of pink due to the early morning sunshine shining through the sheer pink curtains. As her eyes adjusted, Ophelia noticed that the room had a pink and white theme to it- white furniture with baby pink accents. She looked down at where she was sitting; a crib with white bars, pink comforter and pillow, and white sheets with small cartoon pandas on them. Ophelia would've thought it was cute had she not been trapped in it. 

The crib was in the corner of the room, with a walk-in closet in the corner diagonally. A dresser was straight ahead of where Ophelia sat- it had multiple stuffed animals atop it. To the left of the crib, also in a corner, was a changing table with cupboards above it. A large sliding door was on the wall between the changing table and closet, covered by the pretty pink curtains, and Ophelia could see that it led to a balcony. 

Besides the balcony doors, there were two other doors in the room- one in front of Ophelia, to the left of the dresser, and another on the wall to the right of her. This gave Ophelia three potential options to escape this strange room she was in. She didn't know where the two wooden doors led to, but she knew the balcony doors led outside, guaranteeing her an immediate way out. Now her only problem was getting out of the crib with her weak limbs. 

Gripping onto the bars, Ophelia attempted to use them to pull herself up to her feet. After many attempts, she finally managed to stand on her shaky legs. Most of her body weight was on the bars of the crib, trying to flip herself over. The bars went up to her waist, making it rather difficult to just flip herself using her own weight, but she persisted. Once she managed to lift a leg up and over the rails, she quickly fell down, loud and hard, onto the white carpeting. 

She winced and opened her mouth in a silent scream as she landed on her back. After the majority of the pain passed, Ophelia rolled herself onto her forearms and was about to sit up when one of the doors open. 

Jimin had woken up when he heard a loud bang from across the hall. He didn't think much of it at first, assuming it was only Jin or Tae working on the baby room again. Once he remembered that Ophelia was now in the room, he shot up out of bed not caring if he woke Yoongi up or not. After the short rush to the nursey, Jimin opened the door, revealing his baby laying on the floor.

"Good morning, baby. You're up early," Jimin said with a smile, bending down to the ground so he was eye-level with Ophelia. "What are you doing out of your crib?"

Ophelia only stared at the stranger with a look of confusion and fear. Her trance was broken when the man picked her up, causing her to instinctively scream and attempt to get down. She pushed against his chest, kicked her legs, and squirmed as best as she could with her weak muscles, but it had no effect on Jimin's hold on her. 

"Let me down," Ophelia said, continuing her efforts to escape. 

Jimin wasn't phased by the girl's squirming. He actually found it cute. "Someone's fussy this morning," He said, continuing to gently bounce her on his hip. Ophelia quickly tired herself out and threw her head back with a groan. Jimin had to readjust his hold on the small girl so that she wouldn't fall backwards out of his arms. 

Once she was settled in his arms, Jimin gave a smile and began walking out of the room. Ophelia panicked at the sudden movement, instinctively grabbing onto Jimin to ensure she wouldn't fall. She dug her nails into the side of his neck, causing Jimin to wince at the slight pain. He grabbed Ophelia's smaller hand and held it in his own to keep it from harming him further.

"Don't hurt Mommy, baby- It's not nice,"

Ophelia stared at Jimin as if he had gone insane. "What the fuck." She said, confused as to why he had referred to himself as 'Mommy.' From what Ophelia could see, he was a young man not much older than herself; definitely not her 'Mommy.'

Jimin gave an overexaggerated gasp and released Ophelia's hand to tap his own against her mouth. "We do not use that kind of language, little one."

Ophelia continued to stare at Jimin, silently judging him. 'Did he just scold me?' she thought. Wanting nothing more than to get out of his hold, she reached up to scratch him again until she felt him walking down the stairs. The sudden bouncing and fear that he could potentially throw her down the steps caused her to hold back on harming of Jimin and instead hold on tighter.

Once they were down the stairs, Ophelia could see outside through the window, which was large and took up the entire front wall. The sun was rising, which coated the grass and trees outside in a sun-kissed, orange hue. Ophelia also noted that there were no other houses nearby, slimming her chances of being discovered by a neighbor. 

Ophelia kept her attention on the windows and front door, so she didn't even hear Jimin speaking to her until he gently bounced her, taking her out of her thoughts.

"Are you watching the sunrise, baby?" Ophelia ignored him again.

The front door didn't have an obvious lock, so all Ophelia had to do to get out would be to twist the doorknob lock. Or, at least she hoped. From all the murder and crime documentaries she's watched, she knew there was always a catch; it couldn't be as easy as twisting the doorknob. 

The only thing on her mind was getting out of the strange house, so when she felt herself being lowered from the man's arms, she started to make a break for the front door. What she wasn't anticipating was to be sat down and buckled into a highchair. 

A highchair, of all things.

This brought her back to reality (somewhat), and she immediately began to try to take the tray off the highchair, since she couldn't reach the straps with it on. She didn't expect it to budge, anyway- she couldn't even take the tray off of Rose's highchair. After many failed attempts, Ophelia let out a frustrated groan and began yelling at Jimin to take her out of the chair.

Jimin, however, ignored her fit and continued to pour her cereal into a small bowl. The milk was being heated in the microwave, and once it was out Jimin poured in a bit of powder into it. It was a drug Taehyung had said would make her calm and compliant, something Ophelia really needed to be right now. Jimin wasn't too sure how much to put in, since Ophelia was small and Jimin didn't like the idea of drugging her, so he only put in a teaspoon of the white powder.

Taehyung was a genius when it came to creating drugs and medicines. He knew exactly what nearly everything did, and how much would be lethal (very handy when you're involved in mafia business). He really prepared for when Ophelia came; he knew she wouldn't naturally adjust, so he prepared powders to make her sleep, calm, excitable, heighten her emotions, and many others. Some were impractical, while others they had considered using daily- the calming one to be exact.

Jimin shook the bottle while walking back over to Ophelia, who had now calmed down but was still working on taking the tray off. The highchair was placed at the head of the table, so Jimin took a seat to the girl's right. Once Ophelia noticed Jimin was back, she stopped her attempts at escape and glared daggers at the short man.

"Take this off," she said, her voice low and menacing, "Now."

"You're so cute," Jimin cooed, placing the bowl of dry cereal on the tray, bottle still in his hands. "Do you want to eat your cereal first? Your bottle's still a bit too hot for your little mouth."

The glare never left Ophelia's face as she diverted her attention from Jimin to the pink plastic bowl of colorful cereal. Honestly, she was starving. Ophelia couldn't remember the last time she ate anything, but she was sure she could go a little bit longer without food- she's done it many times before.

Realizing she wouldn't eat the cereal willingly, Jimin grabbed a piece and held it up to Ophelia's mouth. "Open up, baby." Ophelia only continued to stare at Jimin with disgust, and occasionally looked down at the purple Froot Loop held to her lips.

"You want your bottle first?" Jimin asked, testing the temperature of the milk on his wrist. It had cooled down to a decent temperature now, and with a smile, Jimin now held the nipple to Ophelia's mouth. 

Ophelia's eyes went wide as the bottle was brought towards her mouth, and began to violently shake her head back and forth. In her thrashing, she swiped the bowl of cereal onto the ground, the noise causing her to stop her squirming. She looked towards Jimin, who now lost his smile and seemed pissed.

Oh no. 

[clever-fox-studios]

Saw @garbagechocolate post one and realized I had enough art to actually do one of my own! (also artist ramble/struggle journey/discussion/new years thingy below the cut if you care to read that sort of stuff)

It was a good year, and not just that but a productive one for me for art. For the longest time, I rarely finished pieces because I simply lacked the enjoyment or satisfaction of getting it done.

I spent a lot of time between 2018 and 2022 stuck in the "no one likes my art, why bother" spiral and when I saw others drawing always, all the time, and loving it I realized I lacked a certain passion for my own work. I was very jealous of so many artists, not because of skill, as I knew I had the technical ability to draw very well...

But because I didn't know how to draw for myself, and stayed in what I knew. I stagnated myself due to depression I didn't recognize was actually depression. I wondered and marveled at how anyone could draw their own content so obsessively--that others cared and loved to see their stuff--because I lacked that feeling myself; I actively hated my own content--my own OCs--at times. I couldn't draw to be "trendy", but also couldn't draw what I wanted; my soul was dark, and struggling financially wasn't helping. I told myself I lacked time, lacked money, lacked this and that to make excuses rather than just be gentle with myself.

Once in a while I got a flurry of energy, but it always snuffed out just as quickly as it came, and so the next dry spell came.

Then, I got a job. A good job. A well-paying, consistent job that I felt safe in, got back on my feet, and lost two of my excuses. Suddenly, I had a schedule, and I had my bills paid; I had a job that I couldn't easily lose to the next monkey in line if I underperformed.

I felt just a little bit safer.

Yet I still didn't have that passion. Instead of stress on it, though, since I wasn't dragging at the unfeeling internet to buy my art to pay my bills anymore, I felt less pressure to try and grind (I was bad at it anyway) and so I was finally, finally able to relax. Recover.

Heal.

And then, Security Breach came out.

I've always been a FNAF fan--OG first game train, let's gooooooo--yet I didn't do anything in the fandom; but Security Breach was... different. Generally I avoid actively engaging with fandoms because I simply don't have the time or patience, but now, I did.

I wanted to enjoy it--enjoy the weird spin off content it created, at least a bit. I started an AU of my own. However, I still wasn't quite... 'there'. The true passion was only flickering embers in a dirty, worn out hearth.

So, early 2023, I indulged myself. I told myself "cringe is dead and I deserve to be happy". I collected Tiktoks, made OCs again, and just let myself have fun. I cleaned out the fireplace like Sophie in the Moving Castle.

I joined a fan server of a SB spin off series I enjoyed at the time. Some of you might know which one by the art, recognizing the pieces or my name.

I immersed myself in a fandom for a short time. I let myself be weird, happy, indulgent...

And suddenly, I was free.

I spoke to fellow artists inside and outside the server, helped younger artists with their fundamentals, drew fanart not for money but for love of the content, made fanfics and stories, revisited my AU I'd been chipping away at off and on... I remembered how I loved drawing to draw, to spread joy and support, not for money. I remembered how to create, not just make. Gained confidence in my choices and ability to write and layer characters.

Learned to love them with their flaws instead of hate them for just existing because they weren't "good enough".

I started to enjoy my own things again, and how to embrace being self-indulgent. To draw what I wanted because I want it, not because it was needed or expected. To take risks, be experimental again--to lean into my strengths of what my art is rather than force it to what I think it should be.

I also came to terms with the fact that, despite what my mind was trying to tell me, I was not a bad person at heart. I was cringy and cared a lot, sure, but drawing for myself wasn't selfish, wanting to be self-indulgent wasn't toxic--that I, fundamentally, was an imperfect person but that didn't mean I was bad or evil. Wanting validation for my effort wasn't wrong, but how I went about it before was detrimental to me.

"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but it's source."

I took uncle Iroh's words to heart for the first time and worked to curbed my own ego, which had been the source of my artistic ennui (thanks Inside Out 2, for giving me that word) the entire time. By stepping toward the the edge where my pride had been holding me back, I realized I was not on the top of some great cliff where everyone could look up at me, but rather on a plateau no more impressive than a welcome mat on a porch. I had to accept I had quit climbing and settled in order to find the reason to climb again; once I stopped feeling like it was a race or competition to vie for attention from others, I could pace myself, avoid the exhaustion that had landed me on that plateau to begin with, and accept that I will reach the top when I'm ready, not when I think I should.

Now, at the end of 2023, I am basking in the satisfaction of having enjoyed myself, my art, in a way that healed me. Stopped me from despising my "talent".

I got to enjoy a few hours of going micro-viral on tiktok for Christmas, because I made something I actually wanted to make--something I cared about enough to share. It was unexpected, unplanned, but getting to see those numbers shoot up for something so small was like a stamp from the universe that proved what my best friend has been telling me all these years that my ego refused to latch onto.

"People can tell when you care about what you make, and when it's soulless trend fuel."

So, in conclusion, thank you.

Thank you, @quilandscroll for putting up with me and my dumbass artist ego all these years.

Thank you, Security Breach, for being the spark that reignited my rebirth as an artist, and to all the funny little blorbos I've met and talked to because of that fandom.

And thank you Sun and Moon, the silly, lanky bois that took that spark and turned it into a beacon with which I could navigate my own darkness with; for creating a safe space where I could be 13 again and just embrace my weirdness without fear of punishment.

2024 will hopefully be a big year as well. My goals are to learn to animate on Clip Studio and be comfortable with the system, to get the assets and refs prepped, and to release the first part of Legacy.

I want to share this project.

I want to bring inspiration and joy to the fandom that saved me from myself.

Oh, and if any of this sounded familiar or relatable to you...

I see you, and I love you.

See you all in 2024.

[dzpenumbra]

7/29/23

I'm "getting this over with" (in my not-so-positive words) because I want to go and give myself a deep tissue massage on my legs, and hopefully my back if I can reach it, before an early night to bed. The massage oil I ordered got here and I haven't had a chance to try it out. Tonight is the night.

Why tonight? I woke up after 2 hours of sleep at 8AM. I had this intense feeling that something happened. I really couldn't put my finger on it at all. I had no idea why I had woken up. I was exhausted, I had showered, I was good to sleep, I fell asleep somewhat quickly. But... something was off. And it was enough for me to wake up and not be able to go back to sleep.

I kept feeling compelled to look at my phone. So... I did. And I saw green, which means either a missed call or a missed text. I had missed a text from an old friend from college. One who I was a groomsman for at his first wedding. Who I hadn't talked to in 4 years... and when I did then, it was reconnecting after many years... And the last time I talked to him was the summer when... I was transforming, and smoking a ton of weed, and tapering off of meds unsupervised. And... I'm just going to say it. I had a lot of people close to me gaslight me into thinking that I was crazy in that period of time. Mostly because I was smoking a ton and having a lot of panic attacks, and experimenting with spiritual practices a lot and very openly. My family and one of my former best friends made very overt accusations that they were fearing I was "losing my mind", or "going manic" or something. When really... I was just starting to live again, and reconnect with my self and my imagination again, after being in an incredibly unhealthy relationship and mindset for way too long. It was really a surreal and blissful time in my life.

But I scrolled up to see the last texts we exchanged. There was an exchange where I told him I was sorry I had to get off the phone because someone showed up at my house. I have no idea who, and I guarantee that was the last exchange we had. But before that... was a very lengthy text from me that I didn't read the entirety of. It was at a time when I was rebuilding my life using some practices from Russel Brand's Mentors book, and some adopted 12 Step stuff that I picked up by proxy in mental health support groups. Basically, I reached out to people that I valued and hadn't spoken to in a long time, I tore my filters off entirely and I just poured my heart out. Said everything I needed to say, as though I was lying on my death bed.

I should be proud of that. I am embarrassed. The fact that none of those messages were really followed up on by anyone? In my recollection at least, maybe they did and I was just too high to remember. But I just... I see the long text. I remember it came from that summer. I flash back to the horrible accusations that my family and my "friend" made about me. For some reason... I side with them?! And then I reflexively start feeling super ashamed, like... "oh god, why did I do that. I don't even want to know what delusional shit I said." Like I had drunk texted someone or something, I guess.

But yeah, the text was from my college friend. He was a real blue collar guy, we used to play guitar together and went fishing a lot. He taught me how to play slide guitar with a Bic lighter, I introduced him to metal. When he used to drive trucks cross-country, he used to call me in the middle of the night (for my time zone) and we'd keep each other company until the wee hours of the morning just talking about life. I designed a full thigh tattoo for his ex-wife, it's by far my most impressive tattoo design, and the first one I did for another person other than myself (I think). But we haven't spoken in ages. He came over and visited my house in 2018 and went fishing with me at the pond I lived on, and stayed the night. One of only two visitors to ever stay the night in my guest room at the house I rented for 5 years. And that was that.

He was texting me saying he wanted a logo for his company and wanted to know if I wanted a paid gig. This is two gig opportunities in one month. It's hard to process. I... blew a gasket.

I wrote a full page google doc and split it into messages to my therapist which have still gone unanswered. And likely for the best, honestly... just writing it and getting it out to another person was exactly what I needed. (I feel like I should apologize to him, since I was looking for advice and I already made a decision... but I'm curious to see what he has to say.) I was upset that my friend was just approaching me all business-like. I felt like he was just throwing a bone to me out of pity, or doing what the last guy did and trying to like... get a budget piece done by me because I don't have any work right now... I don't have any viewers/followers... and like... I'm "a friend"... so... discount, right? <wink wink>

He wanted a design that was scalable. A logo. Graphic design. I have a degree in fucking acrylic painting. I haven't touched vector-based work since 2009. I don't even remember how Illustrator even works, I think I used it a total of two classes. I haven't even used an Adobe product in... god knows how long. But on top of that, I started getting super upset that... when people see an artist of any kind, they just assume you do graphic design. Like... if you are a pen and ink artist who has done B+W bird illustrations your whole life, you are apparently supposed to know how to work Illustrator and Photoshop. As though they're even the same medium. It made me angry. I told my therapist, it felt like if I went up to him and said, "hey man, you're a therapist, you could do physical therapy for me, right?"

After about an hour of freaking out and fuming, and sending the messages... I took like half an hour and got some food and really thought about it. What are my concerns? "I don't want to screw up, or make a sub-par product because of my lack of experience with a foreign medium." "I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how to use the program, I don't know file formats, it's all new to me." "I want him to get the best quality end result that he's looking for."

So... in a moment of absolute brilliance that may have changed the course of my life... well, at least in a minor way... I decided to pull up a tutorial on Illustrator. Adobe offers a 7-day free trial with it, and then it's $21/month just for Illustrator. And I thought... hmm... I might be able to use this for like... making scalable vector assets for my visualizer program... hmm... So I watched the tutorial on Illustrator and holy fucking shit is it easy to use. It's basic shit. It's just... a different way of drawing, and it's mostly going to be tracing, so it's really not going to be an issue. The only issue I have is file formats and I can figure that out whenever. And being able to afford the program but like... it's 20 bucks, man. I can afford that, and I can just cancel after if I don't need it anymore.

I decided... in a moment of genius... to do exactly what I did with that long text message. But in response to the job offer. I told him it really meant the world to me that he kept me in mind for this, and I'd absolutely love to be involved in any capacity I can. I also disclosed that I had not worked in vector-based formats since 2009. But I told him that Adobe makes their shit very user-friendly these days and I'd be down to learn a new medium as long as he's aware that... that's what's happening.

I know it's apparently really common to lie on resumes or lie to clients and say you have experience that you don't... and then google your way through projects. Or just hope they don't notice. I can't bring myself to lie to people, friends or strangers alike. And that has resulted in me losing a lot of opportunities. But the step I took today? I put that decision in his hands. So he can make an educated, informed decision about the logo for his welding business. I did not exclude myself from the running. I did not say "sorry, no, I'm not qualified for that. Thanks for thinking of me, though." I said fucking "yes, but this is the whole picture, is this picture okay with you?" And he confirmed. He was talking very business through text, which was kinda awkward for me, honestly. It... felt a bit like... home... <shudder> But I'm sure that's just... him trying to be professional because he's a business owner now, and holy shit and I goddamn proud of him for it. He is one of the two hardest workers I have known my entire life. The other one did it out of addiction, distraction, coping and fear. I'm still not fully sure what his story is. But I do know that he has been a garbage man, a cross-country trucker, a mechanic, tons of Dirty Jobs. And I've always known him to be a people-person, so I feel he has well earned his title to be running the show.

I was a bit... concerned that it would all be cold business with him. The he had changed. And maybe he has, jury is still out. But he sent me an email with his ideas... and in it he said some heartwarming stuff. In a very... closeted manly kind of way. Very brief, direct and to the point. "Thank you, I'm stoked to have your input on this." You know why this warmed my heart? Because super professional business people don't fucking say "stoked". XD And if we're going to brainstorm creative ideas, I'm going to be barefoot and have incense going and I'm going to be swearing up a storm, so... welcome to my office, motherfucker! XD

Being an artist is so weird. I feel like putting on a cold business persona literally damages my business. Because my work is like... a reflection of me. And I'm sitting here wearing hemp jewelry and beads and shit and talking like I'm wearing a suit? Doing good business is not wearing the proper uniform or speaking the proper language. Well, I mean... in some fields, sure... But sure as fuck not in art, in my opinion. And I'd say you could say the same for welding or mechanics, shit like that. I think it's WAY more important to be ethical. To be a Good Dude. To be kind and considerate and compassionate, and find ways for everyone to win, as much as possible. To make a good product, or provide a good service, and be thoughtful and kind. That's it. You can swear when you do that. You can talk like I talk. You can wear sleeveless shirts and be barefoot and smell like exotic essential oils. If someone judges you for that, they are not a good client.

So, that went well. We're going to link up tomorrow and... the ball is in... my court? And I allowed it to be there. ... Wow, right? And he left the option to either do a phone call or... meet... in-person? Right? This whole time I thought he was living several hours south of me... turns out he's 20 minutes away from me right now. XD Last I checked he wasn't even in the state!

So... that's going to be tomorrow. I stayed up and worked on my grip tape, got half of the 7th ring done. These big detailed pedals take a while, so it might be another 3 days? Plus this graphic design stuff on top. I am just dying to finish it though, I want to skate so fucking bad and I'm a bit scared to skate it before I finish the detail entirely.

I then did more dishes and... cleaned the kitchen counters... and... then went on to clean my entire fucking house. Vacuumed, mopped the floors, cleaned the counters, dusted, everything. Everything short of laundry and fully cleaning my work station. I even cleaned my yoga mat, which has so much heavy wear to it now that I might need a new one soon. Which is like... a "holy shit" moment.

I tried to nap, and... kinda failed? I don't remember sleeping at all, but I was there for an hour and a half. So... I must've dozed off for a bit. I got up and started working on prototypes already. I did two full notebook pages of 6 sketches and notes. Then I did yoga, ate leftovers from last night and... here I am.

Now I'm going to give my poor aching muscles a deep massage the best I can, listen to Adam Savage tell some stories from the glory days, and then take a nice shower because I am a stinky sweaty man. And then try to get to bed at a human hour, like... before 3AM. Thus... why I'm doing this now, around midnight. So... fingers crossed for a good night's sleep and... we'll see what tomorrow has in store!

[breathplayed]

4, 6 & 8 💜

below cut to save dashboards!!

(4) what is the plot bunny you've been carrying the longest? ooouuuuhhh..... so many............ So many............ i have full fic outlines from 2017 LOL but the most viable one is a jikook au where they're both vampire hunters + jimin is Turned + jungkook swears to hunt him and be the one to kill him bc it's "what he would have wanted" some good ole lovers to enemies bullshit Once Again. every year since 2018 i've thought it'd be a fun three-part fic i could post for halloween and have never gotten around to it. lately i keep thinking it'd be good for an original novel (hello lesbians <3) but then i would have to actually worldbuild and write well which is daunting......... so back to the drawing board every time...... Maybe Some Day

(6) do you have any kind of consistent writing schedule or just hoping for the best? 💀 i always tell myself i will try to write a little bit every day, and there's been periods where that worked well enough for me, but tbh i write the best and most when i am daydreaming about a fic idea and get batshit possessed and fuel a Fixation. in those moments i am seized by insanity and sit down to write for about 4-6 hours straight in the dead of the night and manage several thousand words in one sitting. the record is 10k for DSD pt1 in like a day, and when i wrote the 90k fic that is WBIO in like 3 weeks off the high of not having any responsibilities in early lockdown (incl almost 20k in one sitting)

So kind of a mix.... When I have more free periods of the year i tell myself *trying* to stick to a schedule is good, like "ok i should go TRY to write at least a little every day, and if it doesn't work and im not feeling it today that's fine" but I can't lie, most of what I put out is the product of a feverish manic haze. Where i daydreamed too hard about a fic idea and accidentally came up with the whole plot and exact dialogue lines and need to bullet point it immediately before I forget it all. I am tormented by visions

(8) what’s your relationship with constructive criticism and feedback like? do you seek it out? how well do you take it? Constructive criticism: not exactly a fan unless I ask for it lol, just bc I think it's kinda rude to offer constructive criticism unless it's asked for? So I already automatically feel a lil cornered. I spent a year as an art major bringing paintings in for concrit sessions, I can take it, but that feels like a facilitated environment where I knew I was opening myself up to hear things so I could improve..... however, I'm not super interested in 'improving' writing beyond naturally improving by doing it.... bc it's just a hobby if that makes sense? I'm also usually super aware of how/where one of my fics is weak (example: i Know my worldbuilding and side characters and settings are not the most fleshed out, that I usually only focus on the main pairing/conflict and let everything else be a cardboard cutout, RIP) and just didn't put the work in to improve it bc I want to have Fun doing this hobby and struggling with fixing weaknesses is not super fun. Yes i am very lazy but it's ok it's fanfiction posted for free not something I'm trying to publish ukno. I'm a perfectionist in other ways! It balances out

Important to note I define constructive criticism as like "it would have been better if you did x instead" and a lot of times in fanfiction that's just people's personal tastes. I do consider everything readers say to me! Like someone said they didn't think the side characters served any point in "folie à trois" and it's just me inserting my faves, I Considered that opinion. There's been times I consider feedback and changed how I continued in a story, like in TLG people said they wanted more Jimin pov/motives and I said hmmm yeah that's valid I'll do more of that. In the aforementioned case for Folie, I considered it and decided (1) no, they're there for jk to see that Everyone is a lil fucked up and (2) it's my fic i can put my kpop girlies in it if i want lol. So sometimes 'concrit' is really just someone saying 'what you wrote wasn't to my personal taste' and not actually anything to do with the quality of the story/plot/style whatever itself.

Feedback overall tho, I do always want to hear from readers!!??! How a story made them feel especially. Tbh , TLDR, I think it really depends on the tone.... My relationship to it is on a case by case basis..... like I'm fine hearing that a character/plot frustrated someone, that they disagree with a character's actions, etc.... because that's Conflict in the story and I think good writing makes the reader Feel something..... it really just depends on what is being offered? if something is obviously mean spirited (which I have gotten) or offering concrit without asking like telling me "btw this would have read better if you didn't write like a possessed failed poet" i'm like ok well i have no plans on improving that. I am down to clarify any points of confusion on a scene/character/etc but I will not be improving. Lol

I hope that makes sense sorry I rambled as always. I took one of my adhd meds for the first time in weeks and now I am tachycardic and overexplaining myself worse than usual. Thank u for the ask <3

[sor-vette]

#15.5 134340 (slowed)

“It’s a refurbished student housing,” you explain as they trail after you like ducks in a row. Even if they don’t understand what you’re saying, they seem to be clinging to every word. Wherever you look there’s always at least one pair of doe eyes staring expectantly back at you a.k.a. what do you do when you open your doors and find a certain retired boyband for some reason wants to move in

• type: ot7 x fem! reader (poly) • w/c: 10.6k • rating: explicit

• c/w: *cracks knuckles* passive & active suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt (drowning) & mention of previous attempts, depression, homophobia, internalized heterosexism, toxic family dynamics, parental issues, use of f slur, infidelity (not really but idk how to describe it), alcohol consumption & its abuse, unhealthy coping mechanisms, smoking, a relationship falling apart, (your beloathed) lack of communication, self - hate, arguments, sort of breakup, crying, pining, struggling with one's sexuality, mentions of depersonalization, so much crying like a ton, angst + smut!! oral (f receiving), spanking, use of a vibrator, light choking (it's...yeah.. hands... the ones who get it, get it), overstimulation, body worship, praise, light marking, just a dash of (healthy!) possessiveness as a treat, implied voyeurism, reader is insecure

• series’ masterlist • other works

• a/n: SMUT IS AT THE END SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ IT FEEL FREE TO SKIP :) In this chapter, the relationship between the boys is messy, like just pure angst. At this point in the timeline, they've understood that the nature of their relationship is not only "friends" but they're really struggling with it because 1) there's a lot of them, 2) some of them are insecure with their sexualities 3) all of them are stressed and overworked this year as it was in real life. No one has made it official, so they're all kind of struggling to understand what is this, some want to breach the next step, some are too afraid to commit. No one's the designated bad guy during this, everyone has their reasons, everyone has their hurt, which is I guess, the whole point of this fic. It mostly takes place from early 2018 to early 2019, with the exception of time skip to present day at the very end. In the endnotes, you'll find some trivia about this year and what's released when in this universe. Also, forgive me for the smut, idk how to write it lmao

There's no point in time that Yoongi could name as a schism, as a reason why he felt different to everyone else. There was a boy named Min Yoongi, born on March 9, 1993, and he reckoned that he lived like other kids did.

Yes, the point of darkness was overwhelming yet also invisible. One day a boy, next day a man on a brink of suicide. It wasn't like he wanted it all the time - to die. Maybe once or twice had he gone to the level of planning it out, of doing it, half-heartedly, of course, if not he wouldn't be here to lament on that fact. It was just a never-ending morbid curiosity, like a shock wire that zapped him intermittently over the years. It was just always there - unshakeable, unmendable, a deep need to just rest, disappear, become once again nothing from which he was brought out into life.

It was hardly a new experience, more of an old wound, a scab but he knew not how to treat it. Maybe he should just adjust that this was him, a fundamental part of his existence - to hate it.

Namjoon stormed into his studio, face chafed red from the wind and eyes dead to the world. He walked without speaking a word, dropped a stack of torn pages on top of Yoongi's desk and left just as mutely as he came in. It had become a routine occurrence. Their hatred towards each other had snuck up just as invisible. Or it was not hatred... Yoongi's hand reflexively sank into the pages. Hoseok... No perhaps not hatred, but whatever it was hurt enough to cause unceasing bitterness. Shaking his head, Yoongi purged any stray thoughts - of Hoseok, of Jimin, everyone. Fuck them, he was too tired.

Lazily, he raised the pages to his eyes, trying to decipher the erratic, jumping lines. The ink was smudged in some places and if he would brush them, the words would fade even more as faint moisture still clung to the paper. He glanced outside. The weather was beautiful, with not a single rain cloud in sight.

He drew a big, exhausted sigh but made no attempt to follow Namjoon, it would not be welcome anyway. Rather, he fished out a nearby pen and traced the lyrics.

If only I could, I wanted to ask you Why did you do that back then? Why did you kick me out? Without a name to myself, I still revolve around you Our goodbye is colourless, that unchanging colour

He stood frozen with flowers in hand like a complete fool, stuck mid-step. What he wanted, was to run to fly, no, to evaporate, perhaps never to be born. She was really pretty and nice, blushing timidly she adjusted Hoseok's shirt around her bare thighs and Yoongi turned away to not make her uncomfortable. He wanted to hate her, to scream and curse at her but it would be unfair and he was not in the habit of ever insulting women. As Hoseok padded out of his room, he froze as well, momentarily glancing down at the flowers. The ones Yoongi knew he knew were meant for and for a brief, passing moment Hoseok's face fell dour, even something akin to guilt coloured his cheeks but then it passed and if there ever was a sound to heartbreak it would be the one Yoongi heard right now.

"Hi, you're Suga, right? Hoseok's friend?" the girl asked awkwardly, trying to ease the surging tension.

"No," he croaked.

Hoseok was staring at the wall. How do you tell your sneaky link that Yoongi was not only "that friend" but also soulmate, a lover, a hole of fucking dirt it seemed that deserved no explanation, not a single word of clarity. Her eyes flitted between the two men as tension was rising to a nearly unbearable degree.

"I'll go freshen up," she at last squeaks and was quick to scurry away. Yoongi wanted to do much the same.

"What's her name?" Yoongi asked, tone deep and expressionless as he watched her disappear. His head simply refused to turn towards Hoseok and maybe that was for the better.

"It's...uh... Do-Yun, yeah."

"Do-Yun is blonde."

Hoseok fell silent, dropping his hands by the side. Yoongi didn't know which one was worse if Hoseok would start actually loving them or remain like this. Either way, he was tired of hearing how he was Hoseok's happiness, how he set him free, how he could be the only one Hoseok didn't have to pretend with, only to be met every other morning with this - a new starstruck fancy and his own heart in tatters. He was done.

"Hey...Yoongi," Hoseok began, perhaps telling from Yoongi's expression that this time was different but he didn't want to listen to anything anymore. Definitely no more lies.

Without replying, he took a step back when Hoseok reached out and tossed the bouquet into the trash without looking back.

The most aggravating thing, of course, whether they believed it or not, was that they were all connected. More like flies in the same spider web but connected nonetheless. So when Yoongi wanted to leave, he couldn't. There were still remaining five members with who,m the relationship was no easier nowadays. They didn't know what exactly was the catalyst but the situation was stifling. They tolerated each other only due to the sheer force of managers manifesting itself as being physically pulled by their hair to be in the same room, it was just that nauseating.

Yoongi breezed past Jin, not acknowledging his presence in the lobby. To be fair neither did he as Jin's gaze remained firmly focused on the ground. From one of the rooms, raised, furious voices were travelling down the hall, inciting piqued and also nervous attention. The door was ripped open and Jungkook ran out, cheeks covered in tears. He pushed past everyone, blind and deaf to Jimin's calls after him. Wasn't that a familiar scene. Jimin stood in the doorway, frowning. On his neck Yoongi spotted a hickey and though faint there was a perfume lingering in the air that distinctly didn't belong to any of them. It was sickening and yet by now familiar.

"What do you want?" he snapped at Yoongi watching him.

"Nothing from you."

Jimin turned around and slammed the doors shut so hard they made a loud creak of protest. Numbly Yoongi trekked on, ignoring everyone's inquisitive glances. But the day proved itself in desperate need to screw him over because in front of his studio lo' and behold sat Hoseok. Unkempt and sleepless, he was perched on the ground, seemingly gone to the trouble of being here the whole night - waiting. Where once this gesture would make Yoongi's heartbeat out of his chest, now it left behind a sour taste. He just wanted to be alone. They didn't want him anyway so why the display?

Noticing Yoongi's slumped shuffling, Hoseok sprung up, eyes wide in panic.

"Hey," he stammered but Yoongi didn't respond.

Walking straight ahead he typed in the code and would have run into the safety of the four walls if not for the hand grabbing his elbow.

"I'm... Listen... I can be better-"

"No, stop. Stop spewing the usual routine! I don't care anymore."

With some sick satisfaction, he watched Hoseok recoil. When he spoke his voice was thin and watery.

"You don't?"

"No," Yoongi lied, "I don't. Did you think I was going to wait for you forever? Like a dog? Am I your pet?"

Hoseok took a step back, shaking his head, mortified.

"No! Of course not! It's just..."

Yoongi narrowed his eyes.

"Just - what?" he asked venom dripping from his tone.

"You know...It's not... you!" Hoseok shrunk in on himself. "You're confident about it. You...you say who you are and you don't care what people think! I can't...you know I struggle."

"So does Namjoon," Yoongi snarled. "But he at least respects me."

"I do respect y-"

"No, no. I'm done, Hoseok, I'm just done."

And so the conversation ended with a similar door slam.

There’s no name allowed for me I, too, used to be your star You must feel nice to be the light All I did was to receive you

Yoongi sat fiddling with the water glass, his hands clammy and his heart trembling to the point he had half the mind to worry whether it was an early stroke. The pleasant music of the restaurant did nothing to soothe his nerves.

"Hello, son," his mother cooed all the from the entrance across the floor. He got up and was instantly welcomed in her arms. Her grip was so strong he began to choke. His father trailed behind and the only greeting between them was a brisk nod. While the attempts to remain civil and conversational were made, they quickly fell through and they were left ticking slowly away. The dam burst with a seemingly innocuous albeit difficult question.

"Are you still living with those boys?" his father asked, tense and glaring at the steak.

"They're in dorms, honey, of course, they would live together," his mother laughed, glancing anxiously at Yoongi. Her eyes pleaded to not say anything but as the night progressed, so were his nerves stretched thinner. He was just so very, very tired.

"Still, when you're on a break shouldn't a healthy young man live on his own? What if you want to bring a girl home?"

Yoongi's jaw tightened.

"I don't bring girls home," he quietly amended.

His father's lips thinned.

"What do you mean by healthy?"

The whole table stopped breathing and his mother drew a big sigh, preemptively hiding her face away.

"You know what I mean."

"I do," Yoongi hummed, "but please explain anyway."

He didn't, instead, simply kept glaring but Yoongi being now not a 15-year-old kid but a seasoned man well versed in all manners of hate, responded in earnest.

"Oh, did you mean if I would bring men home? Would I be sick then?"

"It's not natural."

Yoongi fixed him with a cold glare.

"You know what's not natural? For a father to ignore his family, for him to gamble away all day when his children and wife work themselves to death to eat."

"I WILL NOT HAVE A FAG FOR A SON!" his father smacked the table so loud, the wine glass tipped over and spilt all over the white linen cloth.

"Then I will not be your son," Yoongi calmly concluded, raising to stand. He bowed to his mother, expressing that he was glad to see her and left the restaurant.

Driving back home, he bought bottle after bottle,, so much so the cashier was worried he'd drink himself to death. Yoongi wanted to smirk and crack a joke that indeed that was the plan but deciding against traumatising a stranger he settled on an impassive shrug. He drank until laughter rose from his chest. Though when inevitably it stopped, he felt somehow even worse. His phone kept buzzing, and his father's words kept ringing into his ears, and the numerous arguments and disappointments kept replaying in front of his eyes and he just wanted for it to stop. Stumbling his way to the bathroom he looked at the clear water of the running bath. Then without much thinking, acting on a split second straying thought he stuck his head in and kept it there. He forced his head down as his lungs began to burn as it started to hurt, oh God, it hurt so much but stubbornly he kept his head underwater, feeling with every passing second like he was going to explode. Namjoon should have a fun time trying to get a call back if he was dead. But still, when the moment came, his body slung back, deprived of all strength and miserably Yooongi was still very much alive, only hacking up water and clawing at the bathroom tiles.

After that, he took a sick leave and was happy to not see anything but the wall for three days straight.

What meaning is left of the fallen planet’s remaining life I’ll receive it til' I die, your stifling stare I still orbit you, and nothing’s changed If love has no name, everything has changed

Yoongi was sitting the furthest away from everyone when in the meeting room they weighed on the idea of disbandment. Bang Si-hyuk and Sejin were sweating bullets, rightfully so, but there was nothing they could do to stop the golden geese from leaving if they wanted to. And by the looks of it - they wanted to. No one did so much as a glimpse at each other maybe for Taehyung and Jungkook but one glance at absolutely homicidal Jimin and Jungkook, at least outwardly so, cast away any regrets.

"Boys, boys, I'm sure you can patch thing up!" Sejin tried to appease. Namjoon opened his mouth but was quickly interrupted by Yoongi.

"I don't want to patch thing up."

To say that Bang Si-hyuk felt sick would be an understatement. If Yoongi wanted out there was little chance the rest could be dissuaded.

"I'm done being your doll and I'm done with everyone in this room," he sneered and walked out, trying to not even catch a peek of the heartbroken expressions.

He kept working still, too scared that if he would go home, the incident would occur again but when his head hit the edge of the desk and his shoulder hurt too much from lounging on the sofa, begrudgingly Yoongi dragged himself out. It was 3 in the morning and so Bighit was emptier though not entirely vacant.

He walked with head hung long, sight occasionally blurring. Another body slammed into his and Yoongi was just about to apologize when he recognized that it was Jimin. So he said nothing. The fights had been too many to count and so brutal Yoongi didn't even recall what he should despise Jimin exactly for but he did his best to keep the flame going

"Does your shoulder hurt?" it was said exceptionally wry and with a hard scowl.

"Yes," Yoongi grimaced as well.

"Take some pain medication."

"I will."

A beat of silence passed between them.

"You know what I hate most about you?" Jimin asked and Yoongi's fists bunched up as if to physically protect him from the heartbreak.

"What?"

Jimin lunged forwards and as he did there was perhaps a briefly humorous flash of "that gremlin is going to beat me up!" but instead of a punch, Jimin landed a hug.

He clung around Yoongi's waist like a lifeline and when his nose made impact with his neck, it became wet.

"I can't hate you, I try and I can't!" he cried. " I don't hate you or anyone or even her, I just..." his breath became a mess of incoherent sobs. " I just really hate myself."

Hearing the sharp desperation in his voice. Yoongi wrapped his arms around Jimin's waist in return. He was shaking so bad it was a miracle he was still standing.

"Tell me how to not hate myself. Tell me, Yoongi, please!"

And with a sad, hollow feeling that rises when such a realization takes place, Yoongi recognised he didn't know.

Could it be really that you’ve found��Eris Tell me, how am I not as good as that moon Us is the plural form of U Maybe I wasn’t there from the start

They agreed to at least stay amicable if the worst is about to happen. And it was about to happen. Yoongi felt much like he was strapped to a maglev train, rapidly breezing past everything towards an unforgiving and cruel cliff face. There was nothing he could do to stop the collision, nothing to save them from the painful demise, bounding without a care for their well being. Of course, the arrangement to at least call once a year is only made with Jimin. He was the only one Yoongi had spoken a single word on his own wish. But he was getting worse each day. They all were. When cameras turned away all smiles and cheer fled, leaving only soulless shells, lingering around like ghosts. The disbandment was largely now an undisputed fact. Preparations were made to say the final words and dance the final stage. It felt surreal to quit right at the height of their career but if anything that strained them only to new lows. No longer having their trusted supported system, everyone sought comfort wherever they could. Yoongi and Jimin drank regularly, Jin spent thousands if not millions on food or locked himself in the room all day, similarly to Jungkook. No one knew exactly what Taehyung was doing but since his other friends haven't heard from him either, the general understanding was that he did it alone. Namjoon busied himself into work, nearly all hours of the day could light be seen in his studio. But it was Hoseok who took to it the hardest. He reeked of cigarettes, sometimes came to work dreadfully hangover and spoke only in single sentences with long periods of silence between. It was hard for Yoongi to insist that he didn't care when watching them all just...fade. It did become easier when he recalled previous strings of lovers some amassed all while telling Yoogni that they were in love with him. Yes, then it became easier. But not by a lot. In many ways, time was ticking to an end for Yoongi's career, his friends and maybe his life too. He just wasn't sure of anything these days.

Someday, you’ll also understand my words My seasons were always you My cold heart is 248 degrees below zero It stopped the day you erased me Damn

"What do you mean you're in Rome?"

"It means that I'm here," Yoongi replied dryly.

"You are supposed to be in Paris!"

"I'm well aware."

If feasible, Namjoon would scream right into the phone but being a good leader he just relayed the information to Sejin who did scream. There was this little tiny detail that in twelve hours, he was supposed to be in concert in Paris but he was, extraordinarily and without his understanding, standing in Rome.

Yoongi was rather certain he had taken the right plane but the point stood that against all logic he wounded up many kilometres away from where he needed to be, without a manager or a bodyguard in sight. He was for the first time in a long time, longer than he could recall, free. With only a backpack to his name, he blended well into his surroundings with none the wiser of his identity. That actuality washed over him, making his head swim as though intoxicated. There was a great deal of chatter behind the phone, compromised security, postponement and such but it all brushed past him. He kept blinking at the airport announcement board with a newfound sense of amazement, wondering time and time again - what if he just kept being normal? Kept having the privilege of enjoying simple things?

All he gathered, in the end, was to not wander off. They shall send him security and managers. Jugnkook even advised to lock himself in the bathroom but Yoongi did no such thing. He got a coffee, a sandwich, plus some kind of sweet thing that he did not know the name of and while swaying his legs back and forth enjoyed this small reverie. It was somehow easier to breathe and his shoulder despite still aching, hurt a lot less than usual. If Yoongi didn't know better, he would almost think there was something magical at play this particular day. As he looked over the crowd of rushing people his eyes naturally lingered on one. He didn't know why he kept staring at the stranger but deep inside he had this gnawing like a distant suspicion. Intently following their journey, from the sleep-deprived stumble into the doors to the breakage of the suitcase. A suitcase whose colour made his blood run cold. Suddenly, he's taken years back, rain bouncing like bullets underneath the tarp of the 24/7 store. Him, tucked by Hoseok's side and someone, that someone, you, standing further away, red suitcase in tow and watching them back from the dark.

The longer he looked at, the less he could reign in the horrifying reckoning that her and well, her, were, somehow, the same person. He knew that red, he knew that shade. It was such a little detail but he remembered it so well. That red is the same red they kept mentioning in their songs, that red - the same red Jimin loathed so, that red - the same one which he saw behind his eyes, wondering how life would be if they'd done things differently.

She raised her head and met Yoongi's gaze. And he couldn't look away no more and he couldn't think of anything else. Did she understand? Did you understand who sat before you? Did you understand the things unravelling outside your reach?

No, you must not, because you fixed your suitcase, beat the fallen off handle in its place and walked away. Yoongi sprung from his seat. There are muffled complaints coming around - his coffee cup had fallen on the floor - but he didn't think of them. Didn't spend a single second on anything else. In frenzy one he didn't quite fully understand, he rushed after her. The only thing in his vision was the stupid red of her stupid suitcase which he chased like a moth does a flame. This is wrong, he told himself, it's wrong but he couldn't stop. He wanted to cry on her shoulder and tell her all the things that were or could be and most of all he wanted to know whether she had this space as well. Like a missing tooth or a piece of misplaced furniture, an awkward gap in Yoongi's heart that reminded him ever so often of what was not where it should be.

He finally found her right at the exit of the airport standing unsurely by the revolving doorway. The beautiful city of Rome was in front of her and the slight wind ruffled her hair. She should be excited but she was far from so. In fact, Yoongi had not yet seen eyes so lifelessly vacant. He thought to himself that she did feel as terribly lonely as he did.

He took a cautious step forward, ripping the skin off his fingers, not quite knowing what to do. But if she was as abandoned as he, maybe the story of having soulmates will bring some comfort, no matter how delirious. That there was someone, well, seven someone's meant to care for her. But then he recalled Hoseok, staring off into the wall as the next girl escapes their apartment, the endless arguments, the brushed off affections, crying, screaming, panic attacks in the corners, diets and his head below the waterline, hoping that this time will be the one he would be successful. That made him pause mid-step and gaze sadly on. What love did they have, could they give?

"I just really hate myself," Jimin's words rung crystal clear back into his ears. They had none for themselves where else to another person. Whatever dread she was feeling passed and after drawing a deep breath she stepped outside the airport. Outside this small miraculous bubble of impossibility that brought them together across the wide world. And as Yoongi watched her leave, the red suitcase trailing behind, he wished only the best.

The Paris show started as planned. It went so well, momentarily everyone forgot the circumstances around each other, animatedly chattering backstage. Jimin was lounging across Jungkook and Taehyung, Jin and Namjoon laughed heartily on the side, Hoseok hugged Yoongi and he did not push the man away. It seemed for an insane moment that the bad times will pass, that this hurt will heal on its own so that they could just enjoy each other's presence like they used to. But it doesn't. The second that rush died down, the hurt settled back like an oozing scab and one by one they realized what they were doing. And to everyone's chagrin, the playful atmosphere dissipated. And Yoongi, now brushed away, thought against mentioning that he'd seen her. Selfishly, he kept this memory to himself.

I’m just orbiting you (I missed you, I lost you) I’m just going in circles (You erased me, you forgot me)

I once belonged in a world under the sun (The song paused, the song stopped) A smoky layer of mist in the heart of the stars (You erased me, you forgot me)

It’s not much different from yesterday ay Same old days, except you’re not here We were together just up until yesterday ay But it’s to the point where it’s scary, same days but no you

This was it. The tour was coming to an end, ominous December 18th looming on the calendar. The last days. Yoongi had not seen anyone else for some time now. The only contact was Jungkook's text sent some time ago.

Even despite it all, I don't regret meeting you.

And that was it.

Eight years down the drain. Any day now Bighit will publish the disbandment announcement whilst furiously trying to arrange schedules, decline meetings snd generally ease them back into obscurity. They queued up their last songs, their final messages and prepared to promptly disappear from everyone's and especially each other's lives. Soulmates?

What a bunch fucking bullshit.

He heard a ring by the door, frowning at it from his nest of blankets on the bed. Around him there lay documents and chunks of scratched lyrics. Namjoon's song which he had worked all the way from March was yet unfinished and Yoongi feared it never will be. It was too much...too much of him had bled into it, leaving behind spots of ink pooling like blood around the paper. Sneering at the fallen papers when Yoongi at last rustled to climb out the bed, waddling his way to the door. Warily glancing through the peephole, he was surprised to see Hoseok on the other side. He was gnawing on his lip, pacing around with flowers in his hand. It had been nearly a year since meeting not-Do-Yun nevertheless he was hit with a wave of deja vu. His hair was unwashed and he was so tired, he couldn't even stand straight. For some unknown reason, his heart beat sickly in his chest, too faint and too strong at the same time. Should he just leave Hoseok, just never open the doors? He wanted to. It would be a safe action. But then he looked back onto the big bold letters of December 18th on the calendar. They didn't have much time left. Who knew maybe this was the last time he would ever see Hoseok face to face like friends, like... whatever the hell they were to each other.

Oddly self-conscious, he popped the door open and Hoseok jumped, clearly not anticipating that he would be listened to. When he saw the opening doors, his face was briefly illuminated by the brightest smile Yoongi had yet seen on him this year, and he tried not to think at all how it stirred something in his gut.

"Hey," Hoseok swayed on his feet, waving awkwardly. "T-these are for you."

He thrust a bouquet of colourful tulips into Yoongi's arms before he even could say anything. He held them close, not quite certain what to do anymore.

"Thanks," he wheezed. Hoseok looked him over.

"Are you taking care of yourself?"

Yoongi hoped that the bandage on his arm was not noticeable at this angle or the shards of glass from when he smashed the bottle of whiskey yesterday.

"Adequate enough."

It was obviously a lie but one Hoseok did not call him out on.

"I just wanted to say that they pulled out our appearance SBS’ Gayo Daejeon year-end show as well as KBS’ Gayo Daechukje year-end show."

Yoongi nodded along, gazing at the flowers. They smelt nice and the petals were in pristine condition.

"Jimin will release his solo track "Promise" on December 31 and then -"

"That's it," he concluded emptily and Hoseok's eyes began to get suspiciously damp.

"That's it," he echoed, trying to subtly wipe at his face. Yoongi shifted from one foot to another but nothing alleviated the lump rising in his throat. That train had picked up speed and he was breaths away from hitting the wall.

"Have you heard it?" he asked Hoseok lowly receiving a jittery shake of the head in response. He was on the verge of tears.

"N-no, h-he...we h-haven't made up," he gasped for air. "I-I've on-only seen Namjoon."

Yoongi remained standing in the doorway, wrenched apart by guilt and discomfort and pity and the need to protect and the need to curl up into a ball and just die. This was not how it was meant to be. They were okay with the world tearing them apart, expecting it anyway but not each other to do so. Why had the arguments become too much to be settled, since when was pride too important to listen to the other? When had they gone so wrong?

That point of darkness remained invisible still.

"I-I came here to say, th-that I don't regret meeting you. I regret hurting you, I regret lying but not meeting you," Hoseok cried in his sleeve, muffling most of his voice so that the tears would at least not be so audible. Yoongi heard it nonetheless.

"Take care of yourself. You deserve more. I'm sorry for everything. I love you, I'm sorry," and then he simply ran off.

Yoongi was yet again left standing alone and numb.

I’ll be honest, even up until one year without you I was fine, I didn’t have any feelings left The last day I had forgotten I don’t even remember your scent But wait, I’ve smelled this perfume somewhere, ay Just when my memory was about to come back I turned my head around and saw you You’re smiling brightly, but beside you there’s

I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry.

He glimpsed back onto the apartment. It was messy and trashed. He didn't have the strength to cook, to clean, to do anything but spiral, deeper and deeper. He knew, he knew it in his bones, that if he stayed he would do something to himself and that it was no little chance that his luck would finally wear out.

"What the hell are you sorry for, bastard?" he muttered to himself, stomping through the streets. Large, wet snowflakes were falling from the sky, dusting the world in a faint white layer that inevitably melted into a sludge of grey and brown. People and cars rushed past him but he nor heard, nor saw any of them.

I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry. I love you, I'm sorry.

It became too much. The words pressed on his head, creating a neverending noise looping round and round and round. All that was said, what should be said what won't be said. It was getting hard to breathe.

He won't see them ever again. They will remain too stubborn, then too scared to reach out. They will never see each other again. It will be over. He had met his cliff face and it destroyed him. Splatters of yellow, white and red painted the snow. It was the tulips. Yoongi had been holding them all this time and as he struggled to breathe, unknowingly he had broken the blooms from the stems when he had clutched them too hard.

With a sharp gasp, he kneeled down, trying to gather them up once again but the damage was irreparable. The flowers were broken.

"Are you okay, mister?" a pleasant voice asked and a swishing end of a bright red coat entered his vision. He raised his gaze, desperate for it to be her, he thinks she would understand him, but it was not. Snow fell into Yoongi's face and he didn't know whether that made his face wet or was he crying just like Hoseok. It was not her.

"No," he replied.

"I don't think those flowers can be repaired."

"I know."

Yoongi made no attempt to get himself off the cold ground. He wanted to melt into it, into serenity and stop all of this.

"You can pick up the blooms though. My mom used to do that. Just the blooms and then put them in a shallow bowl of water. They'll keep living at least for a few days."

Obeying her command, Yoongi picked up the blooms and bowed to her in gratitude though he spoke no more. As he walked further along the streets, holding tightly onto what he could salvage, he didn't see how the woman looked after him. When he turned the corner she shook her head.

"Idiots," she whispered to herself and walked away.

Yoongi moved without much understanding or even recognition of what reality was. The lights blended in one, all the sounds, all the people, everything was a mass that enveloped all around but he could not make sense of.

He will lose, he had lost everything.

Namjoon, his number one supporter, Jin, his number one entertainer, Hoseok, his ray of sun, Taehyung, his unexpected but devoted idiot, Jimin, both the angel and the devil on his shoulder and Jungkook, who looked at Yoongi like he was the star. Like he was someone special. They all looked like he was someone to be adored, someone to be loved.

He stopped walking when he tripped over something and fell flat on his back. The tulips he managed to keep close to his chest this time. And for some reason his coat smelt of Hoseok.

"Yoongi, are you okay?" he heard Jungkook's voice and not a second later was yanked upwards. He blinked wearily through the snow and saw the once familiar 24/7 shop, the tarp, the seats, the tight voices of everyone around. He had found his far way into Daehang-no.

How are you? I’m doing okay Unlike my heart, that feels like it’ll explode The temperature right now is -248 degrees

"I hate you more!"

"No, I hate you!"

"You had no right to say it!"

"You had no right to do it!"

"Do you want us to part?! Do you want to get away?!"

"No, I don't want to! Do you?!"

"No, I can't stand the thought!"

They screamed their throats raw and once they did that they talked, and drank, but mostly talked. Yoongi said little as usual, merely looking on. Jungkook placed his head on Yoongi's shoulder as neither had the strength left to put up the front that they didn't care. They cared so much, perhaps too much. Maybe that's what caused the drift in its core. Not the hate, but the care that had been left unspoken and unmentioned for too long.

"I can't stop thinking of her," he muttered to Jungkook, brushing the petals of the red tulip. "I can't stop thinking of what her day is like, what she's doing, how she's feeling."

Jungkook reached to touch his chest.

"She's fine today," he answered as if he knew.

"You don't know that."

"I know. I have... a talent."

Yoongi put his head atop of Jungkook's and pestered him no longer. If he said he did, maybe he did. The world was so strange, far stranger than Yoongi had given it credit for.

"I don't want to leave," Taehyung cried onto the table, the warm tears melting away the small remnants of snow that managed to stick to the plastic. "I don't want to leave! What am I supposed to do without you?"

"Don't cry, Taehyung," Jimin insisted wiping away his friend's cheeks even if he was the one that bawled the most.

"Fuck this, let's just stay together," Jin called out. "Who cares what we are? What we call each other? Do you care?" he looked onto Namjoon who shook his head furiously, turning briefly green as the motion sickness took over.

"Do you care?" Jin asked Yoongi and nuzzling into his padded coat, Yoongi shook his head as well. He did not.

"Then what, pardon my language, the fuck are we doing? Are we idiots or something?"

"Undoubtedly," Hoseok murmured.

After a few more drinks, Namjoon fell flat on his ass and announced in horror that Sejin was releasing a statement of their disbandment. Rushing, tripping and yelling over each other they rushed to BigHit and upon seeing Sejin tackled him to the ground.

"We changed our mind!"

"Cancel the disbandment!"

"We're not leaving!"

Sejin was getting purple in Jungkook's chokehold. And Yoongi who kept the tulips in his hand, standing by the side, laughed and laughed until his stomach hurt.

I’m just orbiting you (Beyond the fog, I watch you as you continue to smile Without you or anything There’s no meaning to my irregular orbit)

Jungkook and Jimin finished singing the chorus and Yoongi gave a thumbs up. Namjoon and Jin were sleeping behind him on the small of the couch, Hoseok sat next to him, chiming in occasionally on what sounded better what not and Taehyung was designated on the coffee duty.

It was April 2019 and there had been no disbandment. The tour was quickly gathered up, extension dates added and the single 134340 was set to be released soon, more than a year after Namjoon had dropped the initial lyrics onto Yoongi's desk.

It had not been easy after that, arguments still rose, insecurities still persisted but they did not allow them to escape their control. And when Yoongi told them of the "incident"... they accepted him as he was, while helping the best they could. It was, for now at least, easier to not settle onto any terms, they were as they had been and had no intention of parting and whatever relationship they had going on, that was its groundwork.

"I really like your part," Hoseok remarked, bumping Yoongi's healthy shoulder.

"Thanks," he replied, blushing faintly.

"You sure you want to keep Adora in the song?"

"Yeah, if it's a song about us, she deserves a spot in, even if it's actually Adora's voice."

"Yeah," Hoseok drawled as the door was kicked open and Namjoon fell on the floor, somehow yanking the lamp with him from the shock. Taehyung without batting an eye stepped over, beaming wide and with numerous coffees.

"I got cookies as well," he announced. "They started to sell those giant ones downstairs."

Yoongi's phone rang and so he left right when they began to squabble over who would get the chocolate chip one. It was his brother for some reason.

"Hello?"

But there was no one on the other end. At least, not directly so. There were voices, arguing and loud voices fighting in the distance.

"I will not lose my son!" his mother yelled. Yoongi had not heard her this angry...perhaps forever.

"But he's..."

"I DON'T CARE WHO HE IS OTHER THAN HE IS MY SON! HE'S BEEN WORKING HARDER THAN ANYONE IN THIS FAMILY! HE'S THE REASON WE HAVE A STURDY ROOF OVER OUR HEADS AND NOT YOU! DAMNIT, YOU STUPID MAN, YOU WILL EITHER ACCEPT HIM AS HE IS OR YOU'LL SEE NONE OF US EVER AGAIN!"

And there was a hard smack of doors behind her, most likely the front. Then only silence.

"So you got that, right?" his brother suddenly spoke, nearly sending Yoongi into a shock state.

"Yeah, I got it."

Then he dared to breathe.

"Why did you show me that?"

"I don't know," his brother replied, shrugging almost audibly. "They've been going at this for a while now and I just thought that maybe you might feel...I don't know...unloved, forgotten? ...So don't think that you are... I don't know."

Neither of his mother's sons had the gift of talking easy what they felt, oftentimes, it was easier to just settle on cut fruits, tokens of apologies but not actual words so to hear his brother reach out, no matter how awkwardly, was... it stirred something unexpected when it came to his family.

"Do you care?"

"Not really. I mean, no offence, but you didn't really hide that you're gay even back home."

"I'm not gay."

There was a pause of silence.

"Ok, do you...have you...I don't know, do you identify with something or is it more like "whatever" type of thing."

"I'm pansexual."

Surprisingly, his brother didn't linger anymore.

"Ok, noted. Congratulations?"

"This sort of thing is not congratulated."

They both snickered on each side.

"Ok, noted that as well."

"How...how is he?" Yoongi tapped at the wall while he spoke. His therapist had recently begun working him through on the habit of ruining his fingers be it biting or nibbling, tapping was supposed to help. So he hoped.

"He's...different. It's not that he doesn't...don't think that he hates you...he's just...yeah."

His brother truly had not been gifted with conversational skills, yet Yoongi understood what he meant.

"Hmm."

"Do you wish he would accept you without mom threatening to leave him?

Yoongi laughed dryly.

"Wouldn't that be a perfect world?"

"Yeah," his brother sighed. "Shame though. Listen, I know you're probably busy these days, but...maybe you want to...you know..."

"Meet?"

"Yeah, it'd be cool to catch up."

"Sure. I'll free the schedule. Next week?"

"Alright, next week then. Bye, take care."

"You too."

Still unsure that the call ever happened, Yoongi lowered the phone and a new message popped up. It was from his father.

You are my son.

It took him five whole minutes to send the following text, but Yoongi had kept staring at his phone, so he didn't miss it.

If you want to be.

That was a very good question. A complicated, hard question he didn't know the answer to. Still, he gathered enough courtesy to reply.

Give it some time.

Drawing a deep breath, he tucked the phone away and re-entered the studio. Taehyung was brandishing the chocolate chip cookie.

"My king," he bowed deeply with a lopsided smirk, presenting Yoongi the treat like a crown.

"Knock it off," he scowled playfully, feeling his face grow hot and rushing back into the chair. "What did I do to earn this luxury?"

Namjoon yawned, nearly splitting his jaw in two.

"You've worked on this song harder than any of us. You deserve it."

"Do you think she would like it?" Jimin asked, staring at his cup of coffee. Lately, all his questions were about her but no one could fault him for that. Now, that everyone had stopped arguing, they were left wondering, wondering and dreaming of possibilities far away.

"I like it," you finally gave in as Jimin had gripped your face in his palms and refused to let go. "Of course, I like it. What do you want me to do, say no when you're here to strangle me?!"

It was Friday evening and years had already passed since the creation of 134340. Looking around Yoongi could hardly believe that things could have ever gone so wrong. Sitting in the small sofa, with word games and cards scattered around, squeezed amid the various take out boxes it felt so far away - the bad days, though Yoongi was not naive enough to assume they were out of reach. The arrival of Mark to him felt ominous and your mother even more so. He had somewhat patched things up with his father, not completely but enough to stay in touch, mostly for the sake of his own mother's well being. But he would rather have you not be strained into something like that.

While you and Jimin kept squabbling, he crossed eyes with Hoseok who was watching you intently from the sidelines. He hadn't let you out of his sight ever since the meeting with Mark. Sometimes Yoongi pondered had he looked at Hoseok the same way - reverent but so scared, scared to hurt, to be hurt. As they glanced at each other, they bloomed into knowing, bittersweet smiles. Everything still hung in balance but they had pulled themselves out of a more hopeless ditch so maybe, despite their shared idiocy, everything would fall in its rightful place.

He rather not think of an alternative. The "incident" was not entirely forgotten.

"Yoongi, there's literally a seat over there," Namjoon pointed out, peeking over his glasses as he leisurely munched on a fry, simultaneously obliterating Jungkook at Pictionary.

"So take it then," he tossed back, snuggling deeper into your lap.

"Dear God, it hurts," you whined as he pressed you deeper into the sofa.

"Life is pain, baby, you just have to bear it."

And so he continued to practically purr in your lap while Jungkook was breaths away from tearing into Namjoon. It felt nice having everyone around. Felt like a dream, to be honest.

When the house had quieted down and they retreated for the night, he lingered back to stare through the kitchen window. It still threw him out the loop to find somewhat unfamiliar sights staring back at him. But he didn't regret it. How could he?

When he heard someone padding into the kitchen, he turned around, expectant.

"What are you doing sitting in the dark, weirdo?" you accused him walking to get a cup of water. A habit of yours, one he hadn't at all anticipated this night.

"Waiting for you. Big bad wolf and all that."

"Get the garb, wolf, you're supposed to look like a grandma," you smirked back.

He glimpsed you all over, darting his tongue to wet the drying lips. Your bare legs, your shoulder from which that small piece of fabric you dared to call a nightgown had slipped away from. There was nothing really seductive per se and yet also it was everything. No wonder, Jin had gotten a nosebleed when you started wearing this thing.

"Come with me," he reached his hand out, standing upright. You eyed his hand dubiously.

"Why? It's 1 in the morning and again - why?"

"Do you have to ask so many questions?" he rolled his eyes.

"Yes, because you have this zoned-out look in your eye."

"I do not!"

He perhaps had a very vivid dream three days ago. One he, up to this point, thought had hidden rather well.

"Yes you do and if the Red Riding Hood had asked more questions maybe she would not be eaten."

"What if she wanted to be eaten?"

Even in the dark of the kitchen where the only source of light was the streetlamp outside, he could not miss how you squeezed your thighs closer. He licked his lips once more.

"No one wants to be eaten," you grumbled, peering anywhere but him.

"Get your ass over," Yoongi grabbed your hand and pulled you closer. You began to stare at the ceiling.

"I want to show you something."

Not even a bomb could distract him from the fact that your eyes peered downward, for a millisecond but they did.

"Not that, you pervert," he snickered.

To say that it was mind-boggling to sit in between Yoongi's legs was an understatement. Everywhere you turn, you look or smell, he's just there, like a wall. A very sturdy, warm wall. Or perhaps a blanket. He had wrenched you in between his legs as you both sat and listened to his new tracks. The mystery of his daily appearances had been solved, he was still working, renting out a small space, three streets away and creating his own private little studio. You try to listen, you really do but his arms were flexing right beside you and his fingers were gently but skillfully gliding over the keyboard. And he had interrupted the now daily pleasuring session. It put you to sleep and it eased the nerves that gathered during the day. You may have gotten used to their presence, but not to them always fondling you, especially Jimin and even more so Yoongi. He'd gotten brazen, ever since Jae first appeared. In your own private dreams, you had the delusion to think that maybe he was flirting with you. More often than not he would just stare at you, sometimes looking away when caught, blushing and giggling shyly to himself, other times meeting your gaze full-on with a fuckboy-ish smile.

It was just weird.

"Hey, are you listening?" he nudged your shoulder with his nose, still typing and adjusting something on the equalizer. You had about the same gathering they did when you talked about cornice.

"Uh uh," you were intently following his middle finger stroking down the edge of the laptop.

"I could have sworn you were instead thinking of all those fun times you have with yourself here," his voice dropped down by an octave, not even really sounding like himself while your stomach lurched.

Mortified, you pretend to not understand what he was talking about, trying to not at all weigh on the fact that his arms, shockingly muscular arms, were squeezing you tighter. Or that his breath was in your nape. Or that he was in fact real. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe you were having a dream too good.

"And what would those be?" you snapped but your voice was breathless.

"You should really invest in a quieter vibrator if you want to keep it subtle."

He laughs, not exactly mocking but it does make you shiver.

"Every night as well! Me and the boys can hardly get any sleep."

It should gross you out but it doesn't that they had been listening. The embarrassment of it all of course tells you to toss yourself off the bridge, how were you supposed to look them in the eyes afterwards, but the more frivolous part of yourself is over the moon. These remarks make you feel something you never thought was possible - desired.

"Oh, shut up," you grumble, adjusting the silky nightgown.

It had been an impulse purchase, something to remind yourself once in a while that you were not a formless, putrid blob. Your mind was so loud it was hard to connect it to your body. It was perhaps silly and juvenile to do such a thing through sleepwear but now basking in someone's touch and attention it was more than successful. You felt like you were about to erupt, every touch and every graze reeled you in and out of reality.

"Why? Can't wait to get back to it?"

Yoongi toyed with the strap of your gown and you can barely remember how to breathe.

"Why are you doing that for?" you squeaked.

"Because I want you," he replied like it's easy, like it doesn't just cause your brain to explode. "Do you want me?"

You keep quiet, eyes somewhat squeezed shut. It's not horrifying but it is scary. What are you supposed to say? You hope Yoongi after all this time is not the type to lead you on as a joke, or just because you could but you never met someone who didn't do that. Most of the time you weren't even an option, let alone second or the third or the tenth and it had not bothered you because you hadn't wanted anyone. Before them, at least.

And it was them not just Yoongi.

Images of Hoseok pinning you to the wall, kissing you like he's starved, like was going crazy about not kissing you invade your mind. You well remember the heartache it caused and also the conversation. About asking. Was this Yoongi...asking?

He gently spins you around and you come face to face with his sombre expression. Fuck, he was asking. But you still don't know what to say. Hoseok said that you wouldn't be thinking, really thinking, what it meant being with them. And you weren't. It was hard to think when it all felt like a fever dream.

"Do you want me, baby? The same way I want you?"

You lick your lips and his eyes instantaneously focus there. He even seemed to be shaking, his hands on your shoulders definitely were.

"Don't overthink it, but be certain. If you don't want me, I'll go."

You skim him over. He's good looking of course but that's a little factor, a mere footnote, he was just...comfort. Even now, wearing an oversized shirt and sweats, he looks cosy, like he belongs here, there's no gap of him, the star and the idol and you, the mere mortal with your own mountain of trobles.

"I do want you," you say, squeezing your eyes shut. It was easier to say these things in the dark. "But I don't know how you want me..."

He throws his head back and lets a deep, throaty laugh, hands coming up to squeeze your sides. You shudder violently.

"Is it really not that obvious? Have we been not fawning over you enough?"

He gently noses at your neck and you lean back allowing the small space where he can lay a series of gentle pecks against your thrumming pulse.

Everything of you was rapidly going into overdrive.

Holy shit, holy shit, this is real, you're not dreaming this is real! Wait, you hadn't shaved! Wait, maybe your breath stinks! You still have that rough patch of skin around your knees! You need to shower, you need to shave, you need to get ready! Does he have a condom? Will he fit? Does your vagina even look like how it should?

Yoongi sensing your tensed shoulder leans back, gently massaging them.

"You're overthinking," he mutters, "don't."

"I have anxiety, this is the only thinking I do," you growl back at him and immediately feel a harsh slap on your ass.

Your eyes shot open and you find a mischievously giggling Yoongi staring back at you, smile so wide, his gums show.

"Did you...did you just spank me?" you ask, stunned.

Still snickering, he dares to shrug.

"It'll distract you."

Half joking, you wrap your hand around his neck. Feeling how his heart is threatening to rip out of his system. He blushes bright red but otherwise seems happy.

"You don't know how to choke someone."

"Maybe the intent is not sexual," you threaten.

Quickly he grabs your fingers into his, holding them still and wraps his free hand around your neck. His long fingers wrapping around with ease, noticeable but not overbearing. You stop moving, struggling to breathe from the excitement. Thoughts form and pass by without the capability to stick because - holy shit!

You sit in his lap, the faint sound of his newest tracks still playing in the background, forgotten for now and the room settles with a newfound intimacy of just being close to each, taking in the actuality of the scene.

"If you want to stop, if you feel uncomfortable, say so or tap my shoulder, clonk me on the head, okay? This is about you and what you want."

"That seems slightly unfair," you murmur, caressing his hand absent-mindedly. He shivers.

"I just want to make you feel good. We all want to."

It's the sincerity in his words that makes your shoulders slump back. You relax as best as you could.

"That's a nice start, you're doing very good," he purrs and begins to leave a series of warm kisses against the column of your throat, occasionally biting on the skin, though his palm stays wrapped around your throat. It makes you tremble.

"I thought hickeys are..." your breath hitches, "are...a teenager thing."

"Don't care," he whispers, running his teeth against the soft flesh, "he marked you purple, so will I."

It seems like no passage of time will make them less salty about Jae.

Once he's satisfied meaning your neck looks like you've been chewed by a pack of boars, Yoongi tugs you upward, hands still kneading any knots of your shoulders, releasing any lingering tension.

You might just black out from pure anticipation alone.

As you lean back on the bed, shivering in the cold air, Yoongi stands over you, eyes as dark as the night, seemingly content to just keep watching.

"Stop staring," you murmur, self-consciously, covering your chest with your arms. Your skin feels feverish and you have to squeeze your thighs to lessen the rampaging need for someone to do something. Anything.

"How can I?" he retorts, quickly crawling on top of you. "When you look like a fucking dream."

Oh, he was a menace.

"Quit saying such things," you hide your face in the pillow.

"What that you are gorgeous?" he repeats innocently, kissing your collarbone while his fingers flutter across your inner thigh. "That you're a dream come true? That if I would have my way, you'd be in this bed for days?"

His finger lightly teases your entrance.

"You're so smart, baby, so, so smart but in some areas, you're really not getting some things."

He begins to kiss down your stomach, and even with the nightgown in the way, you can feel everything. You were having a fever, he was putting you in medical condition from all of this.

"So we're just going to make you do some affirmations, alright?"

His hands reached to grab around your ankles as he pushed your thighs open. You stare at the ceiling, unable to breathe or think, just wondering somewhere in a distant brain cortex whether one could die from teasing.

Kissing up each of your thighs, lingering a tad longer on the stretch marks and imperfections, he finally breached the pregnant silence with a guttural growl.

"Question time, baby. What do I love about you?"

"I-I don't know."

He smacks your thigh, the flesh jiggling from the impact.

"My legs!"

"Correct. What else?"

Your mind is coming up blank when his breath ghosts over your cunt.

Giving another hint, his arm reaches to squeeze your nipple.

"My breasts!"

"Correct. What do I want more than anything right now?"

He dives in with a bold lick, teasing your clit.

Your blood reaches a new boiling point.

"Me," you gasp and he hums in agreement. All of which you can feel. It's not long before your thighs begin to shake and attempt to close and the familiar coil begins to wind up in the pit of your stomach. He keeps them open, fingers digging into your flesh while he eats you out like there wasn't anything on heaven or earth that could compare.

Tears begin to collect in the corners of your eyes as you start to shiver violently all while trying not to make a sound.

If they all liked you, which both Yoongi and Hoseok had implied, wouldn't they feel betrayed?

As if sensing your inner turmoil, Yoongi briefly retreats for a breath.

"Keep singing, baby," he insists, smacking your thigh again. "So that everyone can hear you. Namjoon, those stupid neighbours in 38."

Apartment 38 and Yoongi had been having beef for some time now. Something about wrong mail in the wrong mailbox. You couldn't give less of a shit.

"Why Namjoon sp-specifically?" you tug at his hair and he grunts appreciatively.

"He's probably suffering right now, all blue-balled. He's been the horniest out of us all."

That...honestly wasn't as surprising.

Something digs in your back and you whine in pain. Yoongi is quick to look up, sobering slightly at the sound.

"You want to stop? Everything alright?"

Trying to ignore the embarrassing feeling of him just seeing you bare, you dig for the offending object. To your neverending mortification, it is your purple rabbit vibrator.

Yoongi laughs loudly when seeing it.

"Hello, nemesis. I've been wanting to see this thing for quite the while."

He grabs it out of your hand and to your horror, turns it on. The sound is indeed loud.

"It's like a whole truck," he giggles. "And it matches your hair as well!"

"Would you shut the fuck up," you hiss fake crying and then jolt upright as without warning Yoongi pushes it up against your clit. The sound alone had ramped up your nerves to a thousand and you feel that damning sensation of needing something in you as your pussy clenches around nothing.

"You got so wet," he remarks continuing to greedily eat you out, circling the vibrator around your clit. Your back arches and no matter how hard you try, you can't stop making sound. Moaning, whimpering, begging to stop or to continue, it's getting harder to tell.

"Another question, baby," he growls, turning the vibrator to the highest setting. You scream louder, trashing around, all mind and worry escaping.

"Who do you belong to?"

"You! Please don't stop!"

"Say that again."

"I'm yours! Just, please -"

"And who am I?"

You frown in confusion but after a quick slap on the thigh, you dare to say the unimaginable.

"You're mine," you gasp, one stray tear rolling past your temple. "You're mine."

"That's right and don't you forget it."

If Yoongi feels any pain from your attempts to rip the hair out of his head, he doesn't voice it and for a moment all world disappears as that coil in the pit of your stomach rips open. When you come from your high, Yoongi softly pecks at your thighs, casting the vibrator aside.

There's a suspicious bang coming from the other side of the wall and you remember that Jin was sleeping just there. He must have heard, there's was no way he couldn't have but still shivering from the pleasure, it's hard to care for it.

"You did so well, baby, so, so well," he praises crawling away from your lower half and wiping the stray tear. "Do you want to continue?"

You nod mutely, nuzzling already boneless into his arm.

There's no way no one is unaware of what's happening, definitely not when Yoongi has to reach up to the headboard to get the proper angle and it pounds repeatedly against the wall. Or when he hoisted you on top of him, laying his sweaty forehead in the crook of your neck and muttering incoherently how much he adored you, while he palmed your breasts and when subsequently the bed broke and you both rolled onto the floor. It didn't deter anyone. In between sloppy kisses, thrusting so deep you could swear you could feel him in your throat, he opened his mouth to say something, something important, to say that, but you smacked a hand over his lips.

"Don't-don't say it, I'm-I'm not ready for that."

His eyes briefly widened but he understood and nodded along.

When you both came, sticky and covered in sweat, panting and shivering, he whispered in your ear.

"Still, you know that I do. We all do."

You sniffled lightly, overstimulated and emotional. No matter how hard you tried that simple truth was rather hard to grasp. He moved to lay next to you, trembling from the cold seeping off the floor.

"When...when did you start?"

Yoongi sighed with all the weariness in the world.

"Longer than you think. Before we met, really."

You peeked up to his relaxed face, while he leisurely carded his fingers through your hair.

"How is that possible? You can't love someone you've never met."

"Sure you can. If they're your soulmate. Now shut up and go to sleep."

previous ⟷ next

me, dropping this beast of a mess after a long ass time

so, the promised trivia about this universe:

1. 134340 was released as a single in 2019 and not in LY album

2. ARMY was convinced that the boys will disband in 2018 bc it was really apparent how bad their relationship was this year. 2019 started really messy because they were supposed to disband but instead they picked up the tour where they left it off starting with Japan in January 12, 2019

3. Because of the whole situation with Yoongi, Hoseok is so hesitant with MC, he once saw how bad he could mess things up so he's scared that it'll happen again

4. Namjoon saw MC in UN on September 24th and Yoongi saw her in FCO Airport in Rome on October 18th, 2018. She was just accepted late into the interior design program hence why they met. As for how did Yoongi even ended up there, let's just say fate lol

5. I know that irl Yoongi didn't solely create 134340 but in this AU the lyrics really fit with his storyline (and it's one of my faves), so here it is more of his song

6. Yes, literally everyone but MC has gone to therapy lmao

© sor-vette, 2022

[stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland]

I’m here since May 2019 and I’d like to brainstorm with you about the Big Proof of Love post if that’s alright, Stuck.

I remember that ask too, but I never believed and I’ll tell you why. Not only L warned us about the circus: she also was on board with them. The NY Pride 2019 picture from a CS account was a huge tip that things were fine between the girls even with the PR in it’s beginning stage. We also had several other hints like it while L kept interacting with the Diva. For me this 2019 fight didn’t happen, because they were simply sticking to their own plans.

I was a huge enthusiast of your MOM theory, but now that the PR is over maybe we should take another look at it. I don’t think anymore that her plans were to leave Epic to be independent. The Diva was never the savior like DaBaby plays in the mv and Camila’s image may have been stained a lot the last couple years, but not to a point of making her less profitable. At least until 2025, that’s when I think her contract with her management ends, I don’t see her going independent. I remember lots of asks about how damaged her image was and how her fans were leaving, but they started to repair that image and the fans came back even before the PR breakup.

In my opinion, her plan could be to leave Epic for another label negotiating a better contract that gives her a little more control than she has now. For me C&L parted ways with the Diva and his team just before or right after the pandemic started. I remember L’s first attunement live when she said no one needs to be seen right now, just after the first yawnmila stunts. Since then she’s being hell of shady and always pointing betrayals and fake friendships.

About L leaving Columbia, I think C could’ve helped, but not the same way you think. When Prelude was out she was emphatic that going independent and owning her masters at such young age wasn’t something she was expecting and that many artists dream about it, but can’t at the beginning of their careers and how she was lucky to be able to do it. So it wasn’t something they planned, it was probably a opportunity that came along and they took it.

You see, usually a label pays in advance from six to seven figures when they sign an artist. It’s not a lot of money for them to pay back considering the money they make with sponsorships and other incomes, but take look at Prince’s saga with Warner. Despite having millions of dollars, the best lawyers that money could buy and a huge fan base even he couldn’t get out of his contract. He did get away with certain loopholes, though.

And that’s what I think happened with L, she found a loophole. As much money as the PR could have brought C, still would be really difficult for her to leave Epic, and here I think her management plays a decisive role against it, because sometimes it’s not only about money. Camila signed her solo deal with them late 2016/early 2017, but for how long or how many albums? With what specifications? It’s yet to be discovered. I have a feeling the her deal with them ends before the one her managers. Hopefully 2022.

Lauren on the other hand, signed with Columbia in 2018 and with RECORDS CO in 2019. Maverick in fact played a huge role in her signing with them and you can see it in that picture from when they signed the deal: we have Tara, Larry Rudolph, Lauren, Barry Weiss and others. So they were not fighting over her, they actually got her. And even signed to both labels somehow she managed to change her management from Maverick to Brenda and later to Elena and now to Chantal. Which tells me she learned not to sign long terms contracts with any management.

With all of this info I believe two things could’ve happened: she found a loophole/breaches in the contract or she managed to get really important information from the big sharks. In both cases she could’ve had enough cards to negotiate with them to go independent, own her masters, but still with the condition to have Sony as her distributor, something she would need as an independent artist. She could have chosen a distributor outside Sony, so I don’t know if this was something she wanted or agreed to.

Also, in my opinion all 5 girls image contracts with Xfactor are still active somehow, because the others keep postponing their debuts. If it was just a matter of money why wouldn’t Beyoncé or Rihanna, huge N supporters (or anyone else with money really), help to buy her out from RCA or whatever label she’s signed to? You see? Remember the rumor that A’s label dropped her due to 5H contracts interference? I do and I think it’s pretty plausible. So clearly it’s not just about money.

For me Milamoon deactivated is more related to her management than with her plans to go independent. I really don’t think she can take this route for now. Do you know that the bald man is the lead investor in Olipop, right? Not another investor: the lead one. So it all comes down to her being tied to the deals he pushes. Regarding the big proof of love, as much romantic as it is the idea of ​​C paying the labels for L to be free is not realistic, in my opinion. But she definitely could have helped L to find those loopholes in the contract and with the negotiations that ended up freeing her boo.

And without a doubt no matter how hard C situation may be right now, she has L looking for and trying to come up with something to help her too. Otherwise we wouldn’t have so many things happening that doesn’t fit the narratives they’re supposed to sell.

Link: https://thatgrapejuice.net/2019/04/lauren-jauregui-signs-new-expanded-record-deal-with-industry-heavyweight/?amp

Wow... the long ass ask...

Thank you so much for your thoughts my friend. You not only made me remember a lot of things that I forgot about what happened with the girls but you helped me to think about this twice and I really loved it despite that you didn't believe in my theory.

It's absolutely fine. It was my idealistic heart talking there, not my realistic brain and I needed that. A hit of reality.

I need to read all of this again in Spanish but thank you. This helps me to understand everything better 😊👍🏽

[1ore]

Now that I have internet i can spring this on you from the ask meme C:< (edited the wording on it for my own personal clarity LOL) 23. Introduce an OC that has changed a lot from your first draft of them

Oh man. Okay here's a long one because I’m going and going and going and g

Old Mora has the funniest visual development I think, just because she’s as old as Moribund itself is, and you can tell just how badly I struggle to nail down her design. I think I’ve finally gotten the challenging bits out of the way, but I need to draw her more to get everything else in order.

In Moribund, there’s this concept of the world being birthed and given motion by the interplay of two ur-beasts, an osprey and a snake. It’s not technically correct to say that Old Mora is the definitive osprey, but she rhymes with it, if that makes Any sense at all. So designing her is kind of like designing that in terms of “need to be getting it right”

In her earliest drafts (early ~2014 above) she looked a lot like the ur-snake, funny enough. The defining features of her face came to me all at once, like it should be impossible to tell which side is up and which is down, she should have a jowl window that doubles as an eye, a throat that doubles as an iris, streaming light-tears that are like threads in the eye of the needle, an arrow-shaped beak, etc. And I was really attached to this specific face for a long time, but the rest of her body wasn't coming to me.

like this is very cool but this is not my beautiful wife. (also 2014)

At some point, I went in the fucked up handbird direction, and I stayed there for a longo time too.

These wyvern-y ones are from 2014 as well. I remember the bottom one being kind of a bolt of inspiration re: uncanny feethands and winghands, but looking back she does just look like Smooth Lugia here.

2014/2015 was when Moribund started to find its way in terms of like, cohesive vision and feel of the world, (and also just me as a visual artist finding my way to drawing what I really liked to draw) and I think one of those growing pains was Mora moving from slippery handdragon to giant death bird.

Then I finally knocked the silly beak horns off her face.

Then in 2015 Iuhhhhhhh

violence magenta and indigo blue became morb (TM) blue-black and red. her beak is extremely funny here. you can tell i was struggling so bad, but I forgive her. I still like this piece.

she kind of middles around here for a while. She is pretty much quadruped for all of these; I experiment with making her handwings into seperately-motile coverts and primaries.

During this time I am so very concerned with wings and with the launching power of birds vs. pterosaurs and with figuring out a quadruped Mora.

Long story short: Birds can only get so big, because there’s a tradeoff between having more wing muscle and having more leg muscle. Your legs aren’t what you use to fly, so as they get bigger, they’re better for launching but heavier and more unwieldy while flying. If you get more wing muscle to compensate for carrying them, then that means you are now heavier and need more leg muscle to initially get you in the air. Eventually, you hit a ceiling where you either can’t launch, because you don’t have enough power out back, or you can’t fly, because the clap of your asscheeks keeps alerting the gravity. But pterosaurs can get Absolutely Ginormous because their wing muscles are also their launching muscles and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

and then I get over it, because I like birds and mora looks cute but kind of dorky on all fours. (^ 2016)

(2018 ^) She’s allowed to get more organic over time. At some point I ditch the feethands completely, but I still choose to struggle with her beak teeth.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. that’s a design issue I had with her from day one. Drawing Mora from the front was a logistical nightmare because she’s so... shape (^ 2018)

I flirt with giving her perforated nostrils and making her more condor-like. (^2019)

doesn’t seem to stick. im still not giving up her beak teeth, but they’re still causing me problems. I want to go back and fix this piece actually, because it’s so recent but she looks sooooo dorky here. (^2021)

From here I think her most important additions are a.) extremely big feather boots and b.) moving the beak teeth up to her jowls. which fixes everything, for some reason

she's been one of those design journeys where a lot of the ideas were cool in isolation, but had to be abandoned because they just weren't serving the actual character that she is: a really big death bird who is also, like, just a woman.

now i just have to make good on drawing her more. and not at two in the morning. waw.

[causeiwanttoandican]

Robert Lacey excerpt

I fully expect them to say William was the one commenting about the baby’s skin color after this. Battle stations! Book excerpt

The Times

Prince William ‘split his household from Prince Harry after Meghan bullying claims’

June 07 2021, 7.00am BST

‘So, are you saying,” asked Oprah Winfrey, talking to Meghan and Harry in their famous interview of March 2021, “that there were hints of jealousy?”

She was inquiring about the Sussexes’s wildly successful tour of Australia and the South Pacific of late October 2018, and the couple shifted uncomfortably in their plush wicker chairs.

“Look,” replied Harry, “I just wish that we would all learn from the past.”

By bringing up “the past”, the prince was venturing into an area that was almost taboo. He was making a sensational comparison between his mother and his wife. Harry was suggesting that Meghan had demonstrated in Australia the same massive star quality as Diana and was now having to face the family envy that went along with that.

“It really changed,” he said, “after the Australia tour, after our South Pacific tour . . . it was . . . the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories.”

Memories of what? Again Harry shied away from putting words to the almost unmentionable. But Oprah had prepared and polished this moment, like so many others in the interview, and she had a reference ready to prompt her prince’s revelation. The latest, fourth season of TV’s The Crown had depicted Charles and Diana’s 1983 tour of Australia, showing how Diana had been “bedazzling” in her ability “to connect with people”. Episode six had depicted how the crowds would groan when they realised that Charles, not Diana, was walking down their side of the street — hence the beginnings of the “jealousy” on the family’s part.

“So is that what you’re talking about?” asked Oprah. “It brought back memories of that?”

“Yeah,” Harry finally replied in a fashion that was both dismal and unmistakably aggressive.

What on earth had happened, viewers had to wonder, to the old and once-familiar happy side of Prince Harry?

When trying to define the moment that marked the decisive rift with his brother William — the break-up and actual separation of the joint household they had established together in 2009 — Harry would fix upon his triumphant return with Meghan from their Australian tour at the end of October 2018. But if asked the same question, William would have fixed on a more specific event: the explosive argument he had had with his brother earlier that month.

Both brothers agreed how bitterly they had clashed back in the early days over William’s attempt to slow Harry’s courtship of Meghan — “Don’t feel like you need to rush this . . . ” But both of them had subsequently moved on. Harry’s transparent contentment with Meghan had relaxed the tensions, give or take the odd row over bridesmaids’ dresses. The “no speaks” had eased just a little by the time “best man” William escorted his brother down the aisle in May 2018.

Then five months later came the conclusive and determining rupture — the division that has lasted to the present day — though here the brothers’ retelling of history diverged. As Harry explained it to Oprah, Meghan’s Australian tour success sowed the jealousies that caused feelings to “change”. According to this scenario, William and Kate resented the Diana-like popularity that was generated by Harry’s wife. William had a different recollection.

We now know that Princes William and Harry were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia. Feelings had already “changed”, as Harry put it, and drastically so. The brothers had parted on extremely poor terms, with the trouble centring on Meghan’s stringent treatment and alleged bullying of her staff.

Most Kensington Palace courtiers were noted for the comparatively long tenures of their comfortable and prestigious jobs. But it came to look as if employees could not wait to escape service with Harry and Meghan. Those who left formed themselves into an informal fraternity that they titled the “Sussex Survivors’ Club”. They had finally hit back, and their organising agent had been PR man Jason Knauf.

The joint communications secretary for Kensington Palace — who was still, at that date, working on behalf of both of the brothers and their wives — had become concerned by the numerous stories of mistreatment being brought to him by colleagues whom he knew well and trusted.

Texas-born and New Zealand-educated, Knauf, 34, was a popular character in Kensington Palace, widely noted for his friendliness and loyalty towards his colleagues. He had been considered a real “catch” when the brothers snared him from the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2015, and one of his concerns was that professional management practices should be more effectively enforced inside the traditional British palace. Knauf’s American sensibilities caused him to see the Meghan situation as raising principles of human resources management in the palace system that needed to be formally addressed.

Knauf’s first priority was to set down the facts, as he saw them, for the record: “I’m very concerned,” he emailed to William’s private secretary Simon Case, in a document he drafted in October 2018, “that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.”

Knauf described Meghan’s treatment of one aide as “totally unacceptable . . . the duchess seems intent”, he wrote, “on always having someone in her sights”. Specifying another staff member, Knauf alleged Meghan had been bullying her as well, “seeking to undermine her confidence”. His office had received “report after report”, he wrote, from people who had witnessed “unacceptable behaviour” by Meghan towards this member of staff.

“Meghan governed by fear,” claimed one courtier. “So many people said it. Nothing was ever good enough for her. [She] humiliated staff in meetings, [would] shout at them, [would] cut them off email chains — and then demand to know why they hadn’t done anything.”

As early as 2017, around the time of the couple’s engagement, according to a subsequent report in The Times, a senior aide had spoken to the couple about the difficulties caused by their treatment of staff. “It’s not my job to coddle people,” Meghan was said to have replied.

“Americans can be much more direct,” wrote the authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in defence of the duchess, “and that often doesn’t sit well in the much more refined institution of the monarchy.”

A Brit might have raised an eyebrow at Meghan’s alleged behaviour, then looked the other way. The Yank decided to act. Knauf was actually one of Meghan’s most senior advisers — her chief adviser, in fact, when it came to public relations. Earlier that year she had gone to Knauf for help when drafting the disputed letter of severance that she sent to her father. She valued his PR expertise.

Before that, Knauf had helped Harry to word the fierce anti-media statements that he had framed to try to protect Meghan from press harassment, both as his girlfriend and then as his fiancée. The PR man had taken considerable stick from some of his non-royal contacts who criticised him as being overprotective in fighting the newcomer’s corner. Like so many people in all the palaces, Knauf had started off on Meghan’s side.

But as the months went by the American’s feelings became more ambiguous, as numerous colleagues — women whom he greatly respected — continued to bring him stories of what they said they had suffered at Meghan’s hands.

“I can’t stop shaking,” one aide had told a colleague in anticipation of an encounter with Meghan. Another reported that the prospect of confrontation with the duchess had made her “feel sick”. “Emotional cruelty and manipulation”, were the words of a third, “which I guess could also be called bullying.”

The b-word featured prominently in the accounts of several, along with an even more sinister set of initials: PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a deeply serious condition to allege — flashbacks, nightmares and feelings of deep anxiety — but that was how one complainant said that they had felt.

Several people maintained they had been “humiliated” by the duchess, and that criticism extended to Harry as well.

“I overheard a conversation between Harry and one of his top aides,” recalled one Kensington Palace courtier. “Harry was screaming and screaming down the phone. Team Sussex was a really toxic environment. People shouting and screaming in each other’s faces.”

Shouting and screaming? PTSD? Making people feel sick? Prince William went ballistic when he heard the “dossier of distress” that Knauf had gathered. We do not know whether the communications secretary brought his allegations directly to his boss or submitted them via Simon Case. What we do know is that the prince was astonished and horrified. He was instantly furious at what he heard.

“I remember Christian Jones [William’s press secretary and later private secretary] explaining to me how the Cams [the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge] are paternalistic with their staff,” recalls one royal correspondent. “They copy the Queen in that respect with all her Christmas parties and Christmas presents to her people. They’re proud to treat their staff like family. They recognise that they don’t get paid loads of money, so they are just really nice to them. So this was a very deep clash of philosophies, with Meghan being used to a Hollywood service culture — getting exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted in that famous way that Harry said.”

William personally knew and liked all the individuals whom Knauf had named in his dossier. The prince regarded them as assets to his household — colleagues to be cherished and for whom he was responsible. Human beings. Like Knauf, the prince was appalled that his respected staff may have been put in this position.

For William, Knauf’s allegations also clarified something that the prince had long believed — that Meghan was fundamentally hostile towards the royal system, which she failed to understand as an outsider. William wondered if she had not wanted to leave from the very start — even dreaming, perhaps, that she could whisk Harry back with her to North America.

But Meghan’s lawyers and PR representatives said this was quite the wrong interpretation of their client’s thinking and behaviour in a statement that they issued to The Times early in March 2021. They denied all allegations of bullying as inaccurate and the product of what they described as a “smear campaign”. The duchess wished to fit in and be accepted, they insisted. She had left her life in North America to commit herself to her new role.

I have never met Jason Knauf. What you have just read is based upon the published accusations that Knauf set down on paper — refuted as “defamatory”, it must be stressed again, and “based on misleading and harmful information” in the view of the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers. It also relies upon William’s personal account of these events to one of his friends who then spoke to this author.

The moment the prince heard the bullying allegations, he related to this friend, he got straight on the phone to talk to Harry — and when Harry flared up in furious defence of his wife, the elder brother persisted. Harry shut off his phone angrily, so William went to speak to him personally. The prince was horrified by what he had just been told about Meghan’s alleged behaviour, and he wanted to hear what Harry had to say.

The showdown between the two siblings was fierce and bitter. William’s pre-engagement questioning of Meghan’s suitability had been quite reasonable, in William’s opinion. His fraternal doubts had been provisional, based upon how the new recruit appeared to be. The elder brother did not really know Meghan in those early days.

But now William had seen enough of his sister-in-law to feel sure that, sadly, he did know her and that many of his reservations linked unhappily with what Knauf’s colleagues had alleged. William believed Meghan was following a plan — “agenda” was the word he used to his friend — and the accusations he had just heard were alarming. Kate, he said, had been wary of her from the start.

Meghan was undermining some precious principles of the monarchy, if she really was treating her staff in this way, and William was upset that she seemed to be stealing his beloved brother away from him. Later courtiers would coin a hashtag — #freeHarry. It was only half a joke.

“Meghan portrayed herself as the victim,” recalled one Kensington Palace staffer, “but she was the bully. People felt run over by her. They didn’t know how to handle this woman. They thought she was a complete narcissist and sociopath — basically unhinged. Which was why the pair of them were drawn to each other in the first place — both damaged goods.”

William felt deeply wounded. “Hurt” and “betrayed” were the two feelings that he described to his friend. The elder brother had always felt so protective. He had seen it as his job to look out for Harry but this was the moment the protection had to stop. At the end of the day the British crown and all it stood for with its ancient traditions, styles and values — the mission of the monarchy — had to matter more to William than his brother did.

Harry, for his part, was equally furious that William should give credence to the accusations against Meghan, and he was fiercely combative in his wife’s defence. Some sources maintain that in the heat of the argument Harry actually accused someone in the family of concepts that were “racist”. But it must be stressed that neither brother has ever confirmed that the hateful r-word was used face to face.

Only William and Harry can know what they said to each other and they have respectfully maintained their silence on that. But Harry made clear to the world in his interview with Oprah that he considered his family’s response to Meghan to have been essentially racist — using the heavily freighted code words “unconscious bias” to provide an intellectual framework for his analysis.

Where could the two brothers go after such painful and damning notions had been thrown into their debate?

We have reached the crux of the drama. What painfully unforgettable and surely unforgivable things have been said? These are not passing differences. They are two core sets of values in conflict �� love versus duty — going to the very heart and deriving from the deepest beliefs and loyalties of each man. Two opposing identities butting heads. In the months following the tragic and not-obviously bridgeable rift of October 2018 between William and Harry, the younger brother solidified his belief that his family were suffering from “unconscious bias”.

William, for his part, felt just as strongly about Meghan and the need for her subversive “agenda” to be removed from the operations of the British monarchy, which she did not appear to understand or respect. He certainly wanted Meghan removed, for a start, from the hitherto harmonious joint household that he and his brother had operated together for the best part of a decade. William simply did not want her or Harry around any more.

When accounts of the rift started seeping out through the winter months that followed, it was generally assumed that the volatile Harry must have set the pace in the splitting up of the joint Kensington Palace household. He was the brother who visibly departed, stalking off to set up a new home in Windsor, with offices for himself and Meghan in Buckingham Palace.

But the reverse was the case. It was William who made the decisive move. Following his furious confrontation with his younger brother in the autumn of 2018, the prince instructed Simon Case to start the process of dividing their two households immediately. William wished to be separated from Meghan on a day-to-day basis — and that meant being separated from his brother as well.

“William,” says a friend, “threw Harry out.”

©Robert Lacey 2021 Extracted from Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult by Robert Lacey, to be published by William Collins on June 24 at £9.99

[donutdrawsthings]

NO THIS POST IS NOT A DISCUSSION FORUM. EITHER KEEP SCROLLING OR VIBE WITH THE REST OF US

I thought I had already been clear on what my stance was on the matter, but after today I feel like I need to yell it off the top of my lungs. I SUPPORT ROETVEEG PIET AND BLM. LISTEN TO BLACK VOICES AND ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR WRONGS.

(Information about the Dutch holiday and why it’s racist under the cut! includes extern sources and images!)

Summary

Sinterklaas is a Dutch tradition that starts at the first Saturday after 11 November and ends at 5 December. A figure called Sint Nicholaas comes on a boat from Spain to the Netherlands to celebrate his birthday on the 5th with his little helpers, the Zwarte Pieten. The Zwarte Pieten give candy to the kids and on the 5th kids get a gift from Sinterklaas.

The Racism (Black Pete)

All sounds fairly innocent, until you see what the Zwarte Pieten look like.

These are the traditional Zwarte Pieten (it translates to Black Petes btw). These individuals are usually played by white people and are purposely darkened to black with red lipstick, black curly hair and sometimes golden earrings. I have always been told the dark skin was to represent “soot” from the chimneys, however, up until recent years there was no effort made to actually appear as smeared. In fact, a lot of effort was put into making sure not a single speck of light skin was visible because that could ruin the illusion. (the illusion being, hiding your identity behind blackface.)

These characters are also played to be playful, hyperactive, carefree, happy to do their work and often praise Sinterklaas himself. Which are all traits often depicted alongside the “happy slave” stereotype from way back when and the S*mbo stereotype.

other racist depictions are also on display in stores and houses (often on display near a window for kids to see) in the form of little Black Petes, most of them resembling the G*lliw*g. (first image is a common window prop during Sinterklaas, the second image is the racist G*lliw*g)

This very outdated depiction of black people only really started being questioned in the early 2010′s. However, support for questioning Black Pete only started to become somewhat acceptable around 2016/2017... And even then the public has been largely Pro Black Pete until 2020, after the Black Lives Matter movement also started to become a valid topic of discussion in the Netherlands.

The Transition

Between 2010 and 2020 a lot happened since Black Pete officially got taken into question and talk about whether or not Black Pete should be changed started to become a genuine topic of discussion. When the question first rang, the majority of the Dutch folk were against the change. I was against this change as well. I think I should note that I was around 13 at the time and it is a very common phenomenon for kids to mimic the opinion of their parents and teachers. But this indeed a genuine opinion I had at some point and I acknowledge that with full responsibility. 

The main reasons everyone was against this change was because we did not see it as racist and were convinced the “goal” with this movement was to entirely remove Pete from the holiday or remove the holiday as a whole from the list.

I would also like to note that the Dutch folk’s opinion on what is and isn’t racist is very outdated as well. (As I write this now in 2020 it is still not a whole lot better but around the 2010′s it was definitely worse.) As this topic gained attraction, jokes about black men having huge dicks (the m*and*ngo stereotype), “watering the Africans” and much more were made to me and other people regularly enough to be normal or at the very least, were seen as a bit of a cheeky thing to say. And despite being a multicultural country, Asian people were still referred to as “Chinese”, Native Americans as “Indians” and Islamic women as “Penguins” as well.

But back on the topic. As the years went on, more and more protests against Black Pete gained attraction and by now parents started to use these protests as another reason to be against the change because “they are ruining it for the kids”  White parents would also start to praise the word of their 1 black colleague/friend for being against the change as well.

When the topic started to become more prominent, people made the attempt to change the Black of a Black Pete to another colour. This created the short lived bizarre creation of Rainbow Pete. (also seen in the picture above)

Rainbow Pete was a very short lived idea and was considered weird by many. However, I personally do believe this was an important step in the transition. Rainbow Pete took the depersonalisation tied to Black Pete and quite literally, showed its true colours. It’s ehhh hard to explain what “A Pete” is in English. But growing up I never considered them as human, nor were they ever explained to me as ACTUALLY being human. They are just described as a Pete, and a Pete is all they are. They aren’t people who can have other jobs in Spain or can travel the world to find something else to do. They are a Pete, and therefore they will always be with Sinterklaas in Spain, making toys for us, giving us candy and then going back to Spain with Sinterklaas again.

And that’s why I think this odd colour change was so important. Because by making them green or blue or pink it properly showed how ALIEN Petes felt. Like a whole other species. It tied a certain uncomfortable environment to the depersonalisation and after it’s short lived appearance, Soot Smudge Pete was a much easier step to make

Soot Smudge Pete, or in Dutch known as Roetveeg Pete, is the most recent and most inclusive variant of the Petes. This Pete only requires a few dark smudges to mimic actual soot and can be played by all races.

in 2018/19 Soot Petes started to become more present in the official parades, which a lot of parents were rather disgusted about. I personally think this is the period in which a lot of people just straight up outed themselves as racist, actively being against “White Pete” and actively longing for the “Real Petes” to return. Even with these Petes slowly becoming more popular, it is still not safe for most people who are against Black Pete to discuss the matter with Pro Black Pete individuals in this time period. Pro Black Pete individuals (often family or coworkers) more often than not become very heated when the topic arises and I cannot say I’ve ever seen the same attitude from people who are against Black Pete.

Present Day

In 2020, thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement, it has become way more socially acceptable to support Soot Smudge Pete. Parents who are still Pro Black Pete are still vocally voicing their disgust every time Soot Petes are present instead of Black Petes and much like what happened to me back then, their opinions also seep through onto their children. With these people still present in Sinterklaas spaces it also sadly occurs they press their believes on Soot Petes by giving them too much soot and still giving them a black, curly wig.

However, with the way things are going right now and the positive, multicultural depiction present in the media, I believe we are finally on our way to a more positive environment for kids of all kinds of backgrounds!

Afterthoughts

This whole post sparked after I dealt with a nasty situation myself while playing a Soot Pete at my old Elementary school. I really wanted to play this role to tie a more positive view on Soot Petes with all the parents creating such a negative environment around the Sinterklaas times and thought I could take matters into my own hands. However, I was Sooted up by a Pro Black Pete mother and thus, nearly got as dark as my brown hair. (besides that I also have gender issues and despite the school knowing I’m called Josh, put me in a dress outfit,, but that’s a more personal issue) I was able to wipe most of it off by the time the kids came in, but not without sharing some discouraging words with my mother, who told me to “just suck it up”.

It’s really important to me for people to know how Bad stuff like that still is in this country and I just... don’t understand why people would still support Black Pete after all this time. These people are either friends, family, or just kind people I know and love who around November open their mouths to say the most vile things and create such a sour situation for everyone involved. And after Black Pete is proven to be racist time and time again, still supporting it... It makes me wonder if this has to do with pride more than anything.

No one wants to be called a racist, but is it really that hard to acknowledge some of the shit you said and did was just plain wrong to the point that you’re taking your opinion to new extremes and decide to die on a sinking ship..?

I’ve said racist things. I have compared the curly black hair of a Black Pete to black classmates. I have compared Black Pete to black classmates. I have joked about them not needing to be face painted to be just like Black Pete. I have made those connections and I’m ashamed I did. But you do what you can to deal with it and become better for those around you. You listen to black voices, support black artists and black businesses and become better as a person. We need to start acknowledging how much our society is actually structured to belittle and undervalue black people and you can’t do that when you’re THAT far up your own ass. 

phew... anyways. Black Lives Matter! Don’t use tradition to defend racism! Fijne Pakjesavond!!

[ms-demeanor]

Some meandering thoughts about jokes about rape and cultural changes in the last decade and a half

Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad we’re in a place now where we DO question rape jokes and it would be much harder to get away with “raping Jonah Hill is incredibly amusing” as the center of a scene the way that you could in 2007-2013 but I do kind of feel like we don’t talk about how sudden that change was enough.

People talk about how you should have always known that awful things are awful but if you’re surrounded by rape jokes and pedophilia jokes all the time and that’s what’s funny to the other kids around you and the adults in your lives and what makes up the jokes in the movies you watch then it’s hard to act like you always knew it was wrong.

Dead baby jokes were a HUGE thing when I was a teen and in my early twenties and sitting around swapping dead baby jokes was just a thing we did, and tossed in among them were things like:

A joke about incest with the punchline “Get off me pa, you’re crushing my smokes.”

This joke about a pedophile murdering a child.

Let’s not turn this rape into a murder.

And hell, look at the activity graph for “soap on a rope” on urban dictionary:

2014 starts a significant taper.

Letterboxd has their “sexual assault against men played for comedy page” and if you sort by release date there’s a downward trend with 2014 as a really stand-out year for rape jokes about men in popular movies:

2010 - 10

2011 - 12

2012 - 14

2013 - 12

2014 - 18 (jesus, which includes a prison rape joke in “Paddington”)

2015 - 9

2016 - 9

2017 - 11

2018 - 15

2019 - 4

2020 - 1

(this is of course with the caveat that this is only what has been documented so far)

Shock porn sites used to be a thing and they used to be a COMMON thing. A thing that would get remixed and have late night hosts make jokes about them and that got parody music videos.

So on the one hand I was really glad that in 2010 the hacker conference WASN’T asking me to make a rape joke on their tee shirt, but since Pool 2 Girl came up at every single “this is what defcon is about” discussion and some of the guys from the con had printed up “lemonparty.org” stickers to slap up around town it wouldn’t have been *surprising* if they’d been asking for that.

If you were a teenager in 2005 would you have known how much of a dick move goatse-ing people was? We didn’t have the same culture of trigger warnings (not that I disapprove of trigger warnings, they are good and I like them) and there was very much an attitude online at the time of “if you can’t handle it log off.”

I think the fappening was the turning point for a lot of this stuff - I think that was a big cultural moment that changed a lot of people’s attitudes really quickly and I’m seeing echos of that with what Chris Evans is dealing with right now: people are a lot faster to say “oh, that sucks, don’t be an asshole, report people for posting the pics” while I remember sitting and arguing in an imgur thread because there were a bunch of people saying “if you don’t like it don’t take nudes” about the celebrities who got caught in the icloud leak.

People look at Shane Dawson’s (admittedly gross and incredibly inappropriate) behavior with a poster of Willow Smith and act like it’s unprecedented***** but as someone who remembers not only Olsen Eighteenth Birthday countdowns but ALSO the jokes about fucking the Olsen twins that came BEFORE they were legal that’s just bizarre. Seeing people my age and older react to James Gunn’s pedophilic twitter jokes like they’re worse than Jay Leno’s jokes about Michael Jackson (which were made on TV! Across America! On a major network!) is just. It’s bizarre.

I’m glad we are where we are now, I’m glad that making rape jokes in public or jokes about incest or pedophilia (or murder or abortion) is less common and less okay (especially in children’s media, jesus fuck) and more likely to get criticized.

But I’m also pretty sure I’m going to get called a rape apologist by *someone* for saying “2010 was a different time, rape jokes were more common and we didn’t realize how shitty it was” when it really was a different time and rape jokes were more common and most people didn’t realize how shitty it was. I sure didn’t. I do now, and I’m glad I do now. But pretending that we should have ALWAYS known this, pretending that this was NEVER acceptable, pretending that it WASN’T a different time is ignoring the fact that for over a decade there was an entire genre of pedophilic rape jokes (that were frequently also racist) centered around one celebrity and that people told these jokes in public and in pop culture *all the time.*

Does that make it right? Fuck, I don’t know, shit is relative. It was still largely acceptable to electrocute gay kids and people tossed around the word “faggot” pretty freely. Mean Girls is full of jokes about how awful it is for people to think you’re a lesbian and Superbad is full of jokes about getting people shitfaced so they’ll sleep with you (so date rape) and there’s an entire “cute comedy” from the 80s starring Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn that’s an extended rape-by-fraud joke. I think that as a whole we’re better now as people than we were in 2010 and the 90s and the 80s and the 50s and I don’t think that someone who made a sexist joke in the 80s is irredeemably evil and I don’t think people making rape jokes in the 2010s are rape apologists in 2020 and I wish there was a lot more understanding of both history and nuance in these conversations.

*****to be very, very clear Shane Dawson has been filmed kissing underage fans on the mouth and having explicit sexual conversations with his very young cousin - Dawson has done things that go beyond “inappropriate” and fall clearly into “wrong” “bad” “dangerous” “illegal” etc, which is all the more reason that it’s so strange to see people focusing on him fake masturbating on a poster of Willow Smith. YES doing that was gross but why is it even being compared to the way he’s been filmed interacting with fans? The lack of nuance, making “fake masturbating at a poster” and “creating a sexually abused puppet character” the same as “inappropriately touched and kissed minor fans and engaged a young child in explicit sexual conversations” is NOT GOOD. That is a bad thing. Two of those things are tasteless and two of those things are actively harmful and it’s the actively harmful stuff that we should be focusing on and part of why it’s really weird to see shit like “pizzagate conspiracist accuses James Gunn of making inappropriate jokes” like yes Gunn please don’t but can we maybe refocus and talk about the dude who can be pretty significantly assigned blame for a fucking shooting? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/01/james-gunn-alt-right-marvel-film-director-tweets

Actually, you know what, I thought I was done ranting, I’m not.

It’s purity culture.

YES you should attempt to do less harm with your language, YES you should attempt to not use slurs, YES you should try to avoid making rape jokes. But there’s an entire huge group of people who are willing to drag up rape jokes from a decade when rape jokes were REALLY REALLY common in order to say that nothing you say or do today matters.

And that same group is ALSO really interested in expanding the concept of what pedophilia is to include age differences in adults or liking the wrong style of drawing and it’s a purity culture silencing tactic and can we PLEASE stop pretending that gross, tasteless jokes are the same thing as actually sexually abusing people? Can we stop pretending that pointing out “rape jokes were more common fifteen years ago and I feel bad about it but that’s just the way it was and I don’t make jokes like that anymore” is the same as saying “rape isn’t bad and you shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.”

It’s always good to try to be a less shitty human but if you’re only allowed to grow and improve and be less shitty if you never fucked up in the first place then it’s all just calvinist bullshit and none of us could ever really be saved in the first place.

I dunno, dudes. We got so careful about disapproving of the wrong kind of language that we let a white supremacist concern troll Disney into firing a director who caught the attention of the alt right by shit-talking the president.

I think perhaps we need to reexamine some strategy here.

[mack3030]

Things the Sims 4 Community Can Do About Paywalls...A Post...

[This is going to be a bit long, so you may want to save it and read it when you have time, or just...you know, buckle in.]

I thought I would ring in the new year by talking about something that I feel we as a community need to finally decide on. (It’s been debated since 2017 or so, and it’s now 2021...) I’d like, if possible, to try to suggest some real solutions and choices that we can make that will hopefully create a better and more honest community out of all of us.  Now I would like to start by making some postulates. In geometry, postulates are facts that do not need proven with a mathematical proof. They are assumed to be true. Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers would call these “Self-Evident Truths”. I would like to use these as a bit of a basis for my arguments. 

Truth: The Sims 4 has been enough of a cash cow for EA.  If you buy the base game ($40) plus all expansion packs (40 each x 10) + all game packs (20 each x 9) + all stuff packs (10 each x 17) you would come to a total of seven hundred and 90 dollars ($790) plus tax. This is of course, without sales, bundling, etc, which many people DO take advantage of, but STILL. That is a TON of money for EA’s pockets.  EA makes a majority of its money on the fact that the Sims 4 is an “incomplete game”. It “completes” the game further and further by adding more “expansions” to the game to the point that it seems almost useless to buy the base game alone without adding to it. 

Even with sales and other things, it’s easy to spend over $500 dollars on the sims 4 game + expansions. Still a lot of cash for a game that is years old. This is just money that is spent on the game that goes to EA. This does not account for:  * Money spent to buy a new computer because your old one wouldn’t run the sims.  * Money spent supporting CC artists who have donations open or early access.  * Money spent on access to sites that have ads/paywalls/exclusive sims 4 CC such as Leosims, etc. (Which are the problem, frankly)

We should be able to respect the fact that a majority of us paid a hefty amount for this game. It is unfair, and frankly greedy to REQUIRE people to pay MORE just to unlock or gain access to specific user created content. 

I am not talking about a VOLUNTARY support or donation because they like what you offer. I am talking about FORCING people to pay if they want to ever be able to use the CC or mod you offer. 

Now, the typical defense for this is “Well, I’m an artist! I spend time/effort/etc working hard on these meshes, the code, etc to make this content!”  Which leads me to point #2. 

Truth: Mods, CC, and other content for the Sims 4 are useless without the game. Once they are created/uploaded to the game, all copyright to those objects IMMEDIATELY transfers to EA. 

I teach art in a Missouri public school. Our state standards dictate that when art students are in middle school grades, they have to learn about copyright, fair use, and creative commons. While I am not a copyright lawyer, I have had to learn enough about this subject to teach it. So allow me to break down a few facts about copyright: 

First, when ya make it, ya own it. There’s not a process to apply for a copyright. The moment you create something that is 100% your own work, you hold the copyright to it. 

Second, when you make something that is created based off of or USING someone else’s intellectual property as a reference or resource it is a fan creation. In art, we call this “fanart”. It is not 100% your own work. Someone else’s intellectual property is involved. 

Fan creations always have tread a very thin and shadowy line when it comes to different companies and the legality of them. You can easily search google for various articles explaining it, but to summarize it in a short method: 

Most companies do not actively go after those who create fan creations unless they are making profits that could instead be going to the creators of the intellectual property. If the fan creation is discovered to be making profits and/or taking the intellectual property in a direction the creator does not approve of, they have legal options to pursue (court, cease and desist letters, etc). 

Third, Copyright can be transferred from person to person. In most cases this is done through a written document that both parties sign, however there IS an exception to this that EA uses to allow itself to transfer your copyrights to your content to them: 

EA’s agreement with you is non-exclusive, meaning that the moment you hit “agree” on the sims 4 terms and conditions, you have handed over your rights to any CC you create for the game. 

If you want to maintain full creative rights over the mesh/mods/etc you make then, you have to not make that content for the sims 4 and make your own platform to host it on. This is way easier said than done. 

Truth: There have been various examples in the past of CC creators who have stolen meshes, bases, bits/pieces of work, or “inspiration” for CC from other sites/companies, who have been called on it publicly. 

The most recent event concerning this was drama concerning itsbrandysims and their use of meshes from imvu/secondlife (you can see my opinion on the subject HERE), but there have been other documented cases. Leosims, for example, has been listed as an example of someone taking meshes from secondlife creators and reuploading them (when it was told to me, I was shown THIS thread as evidence). Another well known creator was accused by a former sims 4 cc creator (who now makes content from second life), and was called out in THIS post in 2019. 

The horrible part of this? Many of these creators are charging people (often at not so great rates as well), for STOLEN content. Content they don’t even own, that they ripped from another place. This should not be accepted by a community that loves a game as much as the Sims 4 community.  Truth: EA has provided a way for people to make money while not hiding content behind paywalls entirely, and the INTENT of this was to OFFSET COSTS.  Almost every post about content locked behind paywalls features this post found on the Sims Forum from 2017. In it, SimGuruDrake, who was the community manager at the time (she has since left the Sims 4 team for another job).  Most of you who have seen this discussion topic before know this post by heart, but I’d like to highlight one important aspect of it: 

One thing that is always important about communication is the intent behind it. The intent for people to be allowed to make patreons and allow early access wasn’t so people could just make money for themselves, the idea was to offset costs to buy programs to make the content. For example, a yearly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud (which has photoshop, illustrator, etc) costs a couple hundred dollars US a year. If someone was using photoshop to help them create their CC in addition to blender or other free programs, EA/Maxis wanted to allow the creator to not have to pay for making the CC out of pocket.  Can EA/Maxis control what people spend the money they make off of patreon on? No. But it should be noted that the intent of this action was to help people pay for supplies for their hobby more than to make a business out of it. 

Onto the next truth! Truth: There is an image that disputes this post above, however the authenticity of it and timing of it are very disputed. 

This image is often thrown around by people who lock content behind paywalls, but I would like to take a second and try to provide an honest assessment of it.  First of all, I have a bit of a problem with the fact that the original person who “messaged” SimGuruDrake this question has not been identified. This image was not posted on the tumblr of a CC creator who claimed “Hey I reached out to a sims guru and this is the answer I got!” The main pages that have this image are either tweets from CC creators using it to defend their stance on paywalls (ex: here), or tumblrs/tweets “debunking it” (ex: here, here).  I even reverse image searched this image using google, and another platform and could not figure out where this originated from. Of course, I’m not an expert, but...still. 

The fact that the origin of this picture is unknown casts doubt on it. If it were a well known CC maker who is known for being honest, that’s one thing. But the fact that we don’t exactly know where it came from is suspicious. Because frankly, anyone with some decent editing ability could photoshop this. 

Here’s my imperfect edit, but I’m just a self-taught graphics nerd and I am not as dedicated at faking screenshots as some. (And the crap photo quality didn’t help.) Another common issue is that at the supposed “time” that this question was being asked, some state that SimsGuruDrake had already left the Sims 4 team. I will admit, this photo is within the correct timeline, as SimsGuruDrake did not officially depart the sims 4 team until February 2018. (There is a post on the sims forums that has a timestamp that confirms this.) But, if you were in the process of leaving your job within the next month (as a two week/30 day notice is common when leaving a job), would you REALLY be answering questions in DMs on twitter, or be focusing on packing up, and training your successor?  The last thing that really makes me doubt the validity of this picture is the fact that it’s not really easy to message the sims gurus on Twitter. This appears to be twitter from the screenshot (although there are some things that are a little out of place from the current UI): But when I attempt to direct message a sims guru I get this message: 

I even tried seeing if I could reach out via DM to Drake herself, (who now posts under a different twitter) to see if it was possible: 

Could the policies have changed since 2018? Possibly, but I feel that opening up direct messages is just asking for Sims 4 team members to get angry messages, so this could very well be a long running EA policy. I have also reached out to her via a twitter tag (as of 1/2/21), and will update y’all if I get a reply:

Okay, so now that we’ve gone through all of this, let’s talk about the last truth that’s really important:  Truth: Putting content behind paywalls has generally been considered disgusting by many in the sims 4 community, and TAKES AWAY the choice of people to support CC creators they love/appreciate WILLINGLY.  A few notable posts sharing the disgust with this practice can be found: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE). And these are just what I can find from a simple precursory search.

Okay, Brainiac. So what can we do to solve this problem? 

Well, there’s a few methods we can employ, and sadly, it’s going to take a bit of a commitment and concentrated effort from the community. 

Step #1: Make the COMMUNITY the VICTIM instead of EA. 

Now when I say this, I don’t mean we’re actually victims, but mean that instead of constantly saying things like “WHEN YOU DO THIS YOU VIOLATE EA’S TOU!”, thus making EA the “victim” of the crime. We change the dialog to saying “When you lock stuff behind paywalls, you cheat the sims 4 community and disrespect their choice to support you or not.”  Because let’s be honest. Maxis/EA really doesn’t give much of a care about if people aren’t following this rule. You can report people to the team, but as far as most people have seen, it doesn’t get anywhere. But if we make it where the community is the party being “wronged” it is much harder for those who have paywalls to not be scared. Because the community, in the end, has to be with them.  DepthofPixels had a really amazing post about this HERE. 

Step 2: Decide to not support anyone who puts their content behind exclusive paywalls and do not hesitate to spread the word about why you choose not to do so. 

By that, I mean

not paying any patreon accounts that don’t offer either their content 100% for free, or offer early access.

And sharing about why you choose to do that on your social media. Something I might suggest would be to make it a bit personal and share something like:

Instead of spending $15 a month to get exclusive content from Leosims (or any other patreon/paywall creator here) I’m spending that $15 supporting creator x, creator y, and creator z, who don’t put their work behind paywalls! 

Link their patrons, share why you like their content, and why you take the stance to make the community better. Make it a positive thing, praising the people who are doing RIGHT by the community. 

Yes, you may not get their content for a while (although there are some different places (

x

,

x

) to find them *cough*. But in the end, is it worth supporting someone’s content when they’re treating the community badly? 

Step 3: Report creators who actively steal content from IMVU/secondlife to those respective companies, and all others to EA. (Even though nothing may happen.)

Here’s the deal. When people steal from either of those sites, they are infringing on someone’s copyright, as well as Imvu/secondlife’s copyright as well. It’s not okay, and they should be held accountable for it. Here’s the LINK for submitting a ticket to Secondlife. I haven’t been able to find one for IMVU, but maybe someone else will find one. Let those companies know and allow them to handle those specific creators.  As to the other creators, EA may not handle them at the moment. But IF (and this is a wishful thinking “if”) there were suddenly a flood of messages about certain creators...? I think they might have to pay attention to some of those messages. There is an official report form, but it might even be worth tweeting to SleddingGuruFrost, who is the current community manager asking about their stance on paywalls.  And last but not least: 

Step 4: Make sure that those who are doing the right thing and not putting their work behind paywalls feel appreciated. Show them some love via a tumblr ask, or by tagging them on twitter, or by going up a tier on their patreon (or pledging for the first time). Celebrate these heroes who are creating content and not forcing it on us. 

Us asking for people to give us a choice to support them isn’t being greedy, or disrespecting their time. We just want transparency, and respect from those who create content for the game we love so much versus them treating us like we’re just a source of income. I know it might seem a bit hard to do this for some of you, and for some it may seem like I’m preaching to the choir, but we have to decide where we stand on this issue and stop letting those who abuse this system keep doing it. We can make a difference if we decide as a COMMUNITY to work together.

With commitment,  ~Sunny

[ill-be-your-honey-bri]

STORY PAGE | PLAYLIST | INSPO

PROLOGUE WORD COUNT: 7,764

The early afternoon heat of LA was radiating off the pavement as Harry made his way up the Azoff-Christiaansen driveway after his five-mile run. He could feel his grey tank top stick to his back and couldn’t wait to take a cool shower to rid himself of the grime and LA smog that had accumulated on his tanning skin.

Since the tour had ended, Harry had been staying as a house guest. He had made it a point to do some small chores around the house as a way to show his appreciation. On his way in the house, he had checked the mail and picked up the newspaper that was laid on the doorstep before he had keyed his way into the home. He was greeted by an overly-excited Myles, who happily wagged his tail, seeing his best friend had returned home. Harry made sure to give the pup some much deserved scratches behind the ears, before walking him to the back of the house to let Myles out to do his business.

Harry returned to the counter leading to the kitchen, where he had dropped off the mail after grabbing a glass of water. He flicked through the pile, knowing that there might not be anything for him, but organized and separated it for the homeowners when they returned from work. Towards the end of the pile, he came upon a ruby red envelope that had, not only Jeff and Glenn’s name, but also Harry’s. He had read over the font and looked to the return address, a smile began to spread on his lips.

Since it was also addressed to him, Harry decided to open it. Upon turning the envelope over to pop open the lip, Harry saw the gold wax was sealed with an embossed “D”. He ran his forefinger along the seam to expose the milky white cardstock, edged with gold flake. He had pulled out the invitation to the 40th Wedding Anniversary for Don and Elenore D’Angelo.

Harry met Don at Shangri-La Studios when he was just starting his solo career. Don just so happened to own the studio.

Don was always so warm and welcoming, as was his studio. It seemed fitting that the studio fell into the hands of Don, always in the world of music since he was a child. His father was in an Italian folk band when he was growing up in Italy; He was certain that the music world was where he needed to be. He had always known that he had wanted to be a music producer, to help musicians make music the way they want, to sound the way they desired. He had decided to move to one of the only places that made sense to make music; Los Angeles. Music in the ’70s was booming in LA and after learning the trade, Don was lucky enough to get a job at Shangri-La, which is where he had met the love of his life.

One day, when Don was working, he met Elenore, his Ellie, who had been interviewing The Band at Shangri-La. She was one of the first women to be working for Rolling Stone as a writer. She was a 70’s work of art with her Farrah Fawcett hair, high waist wide legged trousers, and a cropped tank top. She was a firecracker. She gave Don a run for his money when he had tried to get a date with her but when she finally agreed, he had always joked that “she couldn’t say no to the Italian charm”.

Harry had always loved hearing their love story whenever he was lucky enough to see them both at the studio. He has always been a hopeless romantic, so it was an honor to be invited to a monumental anniversary. Harry had walked over to the fridge and grabbed the puppy faced magnet to post the invitation on the door to remind him and his roommates of the date of the party.

September 29, 2018

Jeff had called up to Harry as he was spritzing on his Tom Ford, gently placing it on the dresser before walking to the bed to pick up his suit jacket. He pulled the simple black blazer over his shoulders, flattening out the black velvet lapels while taking a final look in the mirror. He ran his fingers through his hair,  breaking up the curls he had just put product into. He had lightly jogged down the stairs, meeting Jeff and Glenn in the front hall before they collectively went to the car to make their way to the anniversary party.

The party was in full swing when they arrived. The venue was already full of people, some of which Harry had known, including the rest of the Azoff family. Harry had come to learn through Jeff that the Azoff’s and D’Angelo’s had “practically grown up together”. Irving Azoff had met Don at a party when they were both starting their careers and the rest was history.

Irving was quick to call his son and company over to him where he was sharing a drink with the man of the hour. Don was quick to give firm hugs all around, beaming and resting his hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“Long time since I have seen you! You look good!” Harry blushed at Don’s compliment, agreeing that it had been too long since they have been together. Don was just about to say how excited Ellie was going to be to see him but she was already making her way over to the group before Don even had the opportunity to warn Harry of her eagerness.

Harry had turned to his left, away from Don, when he felt a hand rest in the middle of his spine. A wide smile grew on his face as he saw Ellie start to wrap her arms around Harry’s neck, squeezing tightly and kissing his cheek thrice. She pulled away, holding his cheeks in her hands, her glowing smile lighting up the room.

“I’m so glad you could make it! It has been too long!” Harry’s hands remained on Ellie’s waist as he nodded his agreement, commenting on how he and Don had just said the same thing. “You should come over for dinner on Sunday, join the family! We would love to have you there.”

She had continued to hold his cheeks, rubbing her thumbs on his blushing cheekbones as a shy grin formed on his lips. With a quiet, “alright, I’ll be there,” he agreed to dinner. Don was chuckling as he watched his wife swoon over the boy. He mumbled her name to grab her attention and it took her a moment, but she finally looked to Don and saw one of their sons approaching. She gasped and grabbed Harry’s hand pulling her over to her eldest.

“Harry, have you met our son, Justin?” Harry had reached his hand out to shake hands with the man, who looked like a younger version of his father.

“We may have met once, I believe, at the studio?” Justin had nodded in agreement.

“Nice to see you again man,” He greeted. A woman had walked over to their group and wrapped an arm around Justin’s lower back, catching his attention. “Have you met my wife, Christine?”

Christine had smiled at Harry and shook his hand, telling him that she was a fan of his first album and how she went to both of the LA shows. At this rate, Harry felt like there was a good chance he would be blushing all night. Christine’s attention was quickly pulled away, to what Harry was told was their two children, Dylan and Matthew.  Two other men were quick to walk over to the group, both kissing Ellie on the cheek and hugging Justin.

“This is our other son, Micheal, and his husband, Dean.” Both shook hands with Harry as they greeted themselves. Micheal was quick to pull Justin away with him, leaving Dean with Ellie and Harry. Ellie was looking around the room, clearly searching for someone. Harry took the opportunity to take a look around the room as well.

He watched Don walk over to them, kissing the top of Ellie’s head. “Have you seen our baby, Don? I want to introduce-”

She was cut off when the music had stopped and there was a clearing of a throat in a microphone. Everyone had turned to the stage and whoever was front and center was a vision.

She was dressed in a soft yellow sundress with light brown leather wedge heels. Her smile matched Ellie’s, who happened to be beaming back at the girl on stage.

“Hello everyone. Um, I just wanted to thank you for coming out to celebrate our parent’s love.” Oh. Harry didn’t know that the D’Angelo’s had a daughter.

“Us D’Angelo kids wanted to perform a little something for you, Mom and Dad. Seemed fitting since we are the damn Partridge Family.” The crowd had laughed as she had scoffed a laugh into the microphone. “So, Mom and Dad, if you would kindly make your way to the center of the floor…”

Don had grabbed Ellie’s hand, kissing it softly as they walked to the middle of the room. Their daughter turned to grab an acoustic guitar and nodded at Michael who was sitting behind a piano, and Justin behind the drumset. She made her way back to the microphone and the first chords to a song Harry knew very well, began to fill the room.

“Looks like we made it, look how far we’ve come, my baby. We might’ve took the long way, we knew we’d get there someday.”

Don and Ellie began to sway to the song, held close to each other, and exchanged smiles and kisses as they listened to their children perform. All eyes were on the couple but Harry couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

She performed effortlessly, hitting every note perfectly with her warm and angelic voice. He watched her delicate fingers switch chords and strum soothingly. She was smiling down at the couple in the center of the floor as she finished the song. Without waiting for the applause, she was quick to put down the guitar to climb off the stage to hug her parents. Harry watched the interaction as well as watched as she made her way to the bar.

Harry’s feet had a mind of their own as he found himself at the bar next to the D'Angelo's daughter. She was leaning over, talking to the bartender while tapping the toe of her shoe into the floor to the beat of the music. She had turned to look and the man standing next to her, which so happened to be Harry.

“Well, hi! My mom was waiting for this moment all day.” She was breathtaking; her smile was like sunshine breaking through storm clouds. He could get lost looking into her warm eyes. They were surrounded by long, dark lashes and her long dark hair was in loose curls cascading down her back. He had to fight the urge to wrap one of the silky curls around his finger.

She continued to look at him, raising her brows as her smile grew. “I’m Bianca, by the way. Nice to meet you, Harry.”

He cleared his throat and reached his hand out for her to shake, “Nice to meet you too”. He felt her soft hand, also littered with rings of gold, just petite for her smaller hands. He turned her hand to look at the jewels, which had caused her to laugh.

“I was just about to look at yours too.” He smiled as he continued to hold her hand in his, his pointer finger of his free hand running over the jewels. He had pointed out one that he liked in particular, it sticking out more than the other simple ones.

“It was my mom’s. It was the first piece of jewelry my dad got her. I’ve been obsessed with it since I was little, always stole it, so she just gave it to me one day.” Harry smiled, knowing the feeling of stealing loved ones’ things and wanting to claim them as his own. She had also looked at his, both complementing the metals and jewels.

Her drink came to the bar and Harry had ordered a drink for himself, both sitting on stools to enjoy their drinks with each other.  After ordering his drink and she began to sip on her limoncello, he knew he had to know more about her.

“You are a great performer. All of you are. I guess you weren’t wrong about the ‘Partridge Family’ comment.”

She had smiled as she was finishing her sip, “It’s not hard to be a musical family when you're surrounded by music.” Harry nodded in agreement. She was focused on her drink, running her finger around the rim of her glass.

“Ever since I was little, there was always music. Dad owns a studio, mom used to write for a music magazine, and now books about musicians. Justin is a manager for bands like fucking Metallica. Michael is a composer for movie soundtracks and used to work in orchestras for Broadway, that’s how he met Dean.” She finally looked at Harry again, tilting her head like a cute puppy, “He’s a dancer.” She smiled and suggestively raised her eyebrows, making the both of them laugh.

“And you?”

She hummed, “What about me?”

“What do you do?”

“Well, my brothers had nicknamed me Jack.” Harry had looked at her curiously, the nickname nothing like her own. She giggled at his furrowed brow and confusion written all over his face.

“Jack of all trades, master of none. I have done a little bit of everything, but as of late, I have been lucky enough to be a freelance creative director.”

“Freelance?” She was in the middle of a sip when she hummed a ‘yes’, slowly turning so she was facing him more.

“I’ve been hired for music videos, photoshoots, fashion shows. I’ve even worked with a few of your people; Harry and Harris.”

Harry’s eyebrows shot up, “No shit?” He turned his head slightly and thanked the bartender for the refilled glass. She had turned away from him and pulled out her phone, pulling up her photos to show Harry some pictures of her with Lambert and Harris. She even showed him some of her work, quick to pass over sketches she had done, though he could see that she was also talented in her art.

“So you do a little bit of everything and you're good at it. I would say that you have mastered a lot of talents, Bianca.”

This was the first time tonight that he had seen her flush. It could be the limoncello, but he will keep thinking that it was his compliment. She breathed a soft ‘thank you’ as she put her phone away.

She had heard the call of her name, looking over to the dance floor where her sister-in-law had been motioning for her to join. Her two nephews ran over to grab both of her hands to drag her to dance with the rest of her family to one of the most well-known Whitney Houston songs. She threw an apologetic look over to Harry before joining her clan.

Harry watched on from the bar, seeing this alluring woman swaying with her youngest nephew while belting out lyrics with all the other bodies on the dance floor. Harry couldn’t help but yearn to know everything about the D’Angelo who has caught all of his attention.

October 4, 2018

The sky was still in a hazy pink as Harry, Kid, and Mitch walked from Harry’s car to enter Shangri-La. The air surrounding them filled with the salt of the ocean and that heavyweight of heat, moving from one air-conditioned place to the next.

The house was clean and pristine when the boys entered, Don already in the kitchen, setting up the catered breakfast and coffee maker. Don looked to the door as it opened, smiling and wishing the boys ‘good morning’ as he quickly went to wash his hands to give everyone a proper greeting. Don encouraged the boys to make themselves their plates of food and guided them to the studio for them to make themselves home.

Harry was eating some vegan bacon as he followed Don. Upon entering the studio, he saw the back of a girl in overalls and a tie-dyed t-shirt, with her dark messy hair sitting at the top of her head. She was sitting at the piano but Harry could hear no sound.

“My bambina loves to warm up the instruments before they are used to record.” Don pressed the button to allow the sweet melody to melt into the sound room.

The men could hear the melodic piano and a voice that Harry has come to love, even after one blessed encounter.

“You've taken my love, and now desert me.”

Bianca continued to do Freddie Mercury justice as her fingers toyed over the keys, vocalizing the guitar melody as she crescendoed the arrangement before softly vocalizing the final verse. Harry watched as her delicate fingers moved up the keyboard to finish off the song.

“Bellissima, bambina!”

Bianca turned to look at her father, smiling until she saw the three other gentlemen standing beside him. Two of the men continued to eat while one, Harry, was looking right at her, smiling just as big as her father.

“Uh, thanks. I’m done in here, it’s all yours.”

She was quick to stand up and pick up her tattered high-top Chucks, padding out of the room. She was sure to give her dad a kiss and avoided eye contact with everyone else. She made her way to the kitchen to put her shoes on and leave.

When Harry walked out to say hello to her and put his plate in the sink, she was already gone. Harry took the opportunity to look around the kitchen to see that there was a margarita maker. Quick to make his way into the sound room, Harry asked if it was too early for a margarita, to which the room responded with a mixture of ‘no’s’ and ‘never’s’.

More people from Harry’s and Don’s teams began to filter in, enjoying margaritas and partaking in eating some chocolate-covered mushrooms that someone happened to have brought, to help with creativity.

Bianca offered to pick up the catering for the team’s dinner and started to walk the trays into the house. Everyone had been outside, enjoying the last minutes of sun for the day, as well as the joint being passed between bodies. Harry saw her through the window, putting a few trays on the counter.

Harry decided to make his way into the kitchen, though decided to take the unorthodox route of using the window, tripping over the lip of the windowsill, landing face-first onto the kitchen floor.

“Jesus Christ, Harry! You alright?!”

She was quick to make her way over to him to help him up. He sat on the floor for a second and began to laugh. As he opened his mouth, blood started to drip down his chin.

“Fuck, Harry! You’re bleeding!”

Bianca got up quickly to get a dish towel and wet it while Harry continued to giggle on the floor, reaching his hand for his chin and it quickly filled with red. She knelt between his legs on her knees while holding his chin up so that she could wipe it with the wet towel.

“Do you mind if I look in your mouth?”

“You can do whatever you want with my mouth…”

Both froze and while Harry’s eyes went wide, Bianca raised her brows and snorted at his comment.

“Feeling good, I see? I just want to make sure you didn’t knock out any teeth.”

Harry gave a quick nod and allowed her to look into his mouth. She tsked at him as she continued to wipe his mouth.

“You bit your tongue pretty bad. Let me get you some ice.”

She was quick to get a clean towel and fill it with ice, brushing her loose strands of hair out of her face as she kneeled back down in front of him. He continued to sit with his tongue out, making her giggle as she rested the towel on his wound.

She shook her head as he was looking at all of the features on her face, reminding himself how warm her brown eyes are, the soft barely there freckles on the bridge of her nose. The zit that she tried to hide with makeup on her chin, the scar in her right brow that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t this close. He could see the hole where a piercing used to be on the left side of her lip, how she had just put chapstick on her lips from how slick they looked.

“You okay here while I get the rest of the food from my Jeep?”

Harry slowly nodded while in his trippy daze mixture from the drugs and her beauty, he gently took the towel from her hand and kept it on his wound. She finished bringing in the food as everyone made their way back inside, laughing at Harry’s child-like position on the floor.

Bianca waved and said goodbye to everyone, gave Don a kiss, and checked up on Harry one last time. Harry was quickly hit with inspiration and an itch to start recording.

October 7, 2018

Walking up and down the aisles of the wine and spirits store, Harry was feeling the prickles of anxiety in his chest as he was looking at the selection of red wines. He had felt the restlessness since he had been invited to the home of the D’Angelo’s for a Sunday dinner, even more so after being in the studio. He wanted to make a good impression as he decided to grab the overpriced bottle of Sangiovese.

As he left with the bottle in hand, he had stopped at the flower shop across the street on the way to his car, deciding on a primarily yellow bouquet. The bouquet had called for him as his figures graced the petals. When walking to his car, he looked at the flowers and he couldn’t help but wonder why he had picked this specific bundle.

Showing up at the D’Angelo’s earlier than they had told him to arrive, Harry had made sure to have both the wine and bouquet in hand. He had taken his time to approach the door, more nervous than he has been in a while. He lifted his hand to rap on the door and before his knuckles made contact, the door flew open and Bianca walked right into his chest.

Both let out a noise at the impact but she began to laugh hysterically before profusely apologizing. Her mother was quick on her heels on the way out the door, asking both of the young adults if they were okay.

Harry gave a soft smile, confirming that he was okay before Bianca gave the excuse that she is ‘always in a hurry’. Ellie was quick to grab her daughter’s hand to pull her along with her, pointing in the direction of Don in the living room.

“We’ll be back sweetie, just need to pop by the store to pick up some things for dinner.” Ellie kissed his cheek as she and Bianca walked to the car. Bianca gave a little wave with a beaming smile, apologizing again for her clumsiness.

Don had called out to Harry from the couch as Harry was watching the girls cruise down the driveway. He got himself out of his daze, following the sound of Don’s voice, closing the door behind him. Don stood up from his spot to greet Harry in the entryway, shaking his hand after he moved his host gifts to his left hand and pulled him in for a hug.

Harry presented the flowers and wine to Don who was quick to rain his praises on the “wonderful taste” Harry had. After putting the flowers in a vase in the center of the family dining table and popping the wine into the wine chiller in the kitchen, Don guided the young man into the living room where a family movie had been paused on the screen.

“I always wait until I'm home alone to watch this video; I get emotional and the famiglia gets embarrassed.” Don gave a deep chuckle as he pressed play.

It was well edited with music playing over montages of a young couple’s romance, time at the beach, ever-growing love. Moments of pregnant Ellie and children slowly made appearances as the video continued. There were scenes of conversations in Italian that Harry could understand just slightly, causing him to laugh at Ellie's awful accent that Don made fun of as he rubbed her swollen belly while talking about, “la nostra piccola bambina”.

It transitioned from a couple’s home videos to a compilation of moments with the whole D’Angelo family. It comprised scenes of family vacations and Sunday dinners, moments where the young D'Angelo's speaking Italian, better than their mother. There were cutaways of all of the children playing and running around, laughing. Harry couldn’t help but smile seeing scenes of Justin on Don’s lap, sitting behind a drum set, Michael helping Ellie make pasta with flour all over his hands and cheeks.

Then he saw a very young Bianca standing in the living room with an ankle-length Little Mermaid nightgown, swaying back and forth while watching Grease play on the screen of the television. Don couldn’t help but beam at his little girl singing Hopelessly Devoted along with Olivia Newton-John, flawlessly at the age of four.

“My bambina, always the singer. Was singing before she could babble.”

Harry’s smile grew as well, especially when the little girl on the screen with mussy hair in her face stopped her swaying when the song ended and turned to give a shy smile to the camera her father was holding.

More scenes of the younger D’Angelo’s showing their musical talents; recitals, musicals, and plays. Harry could see that Bianca was quite the actress, even when she was playing the lead as a zookeeper for the Kindergarten production on animals.

Another moment where it was strictly Bianca had started, her walking out onto a stage towards a piano dressed in a sparkly red semi-formal dress, sitting behind the keys of the piano, and kicking off her ballet flats. The loud chords of It’s All Coming Back to Me were played expertly by a Bianca that could not have been more than sixteen. Her beautiful voice rang out as she emotionally sang out the lyrics.

The door had opened when a giggly Bianca and Ellie carried multiple bags. Bianca was quick to stop in her tracks when she saw the video on the television.

“Dad! Turn that off! Harry doesn’t need to see that, for fucks sakes!”

Don laughed out and leaned closer to Harry, “Told you they are embarrassed.” Don quickly turned off the video before both he and Harry stood up to help the girls with the bags of groceries. Ellie had pointed out the flowers in the center of the table, thanking Harry and kissing his cheek.

Bianca was pulling out ingredients from the reusable bag in front of her, separating by recipe. Harry was helping with a bag next to her, holding up each item for Bianca to guide him where they were to be set.

“Have you ever made homemade pasta, sweetie?” Ellie was popping an olive in her mouth as she was setting up some snacks on the table for people as they arrived, looking to Harry for a response.

“Uh, no, I haven’t. I would love to learn though.”

“Bianca is a great teacher! She can show you how to make linguini for a veggie dish we are making for you.”

Bianca was giving her mother a blunted look as she pulled the ingredients for the spinach and sun-dried tomato linguini towards her. She smiled at Harry before she took all of her rings off, indicating Harry followed suit.

She washed her hands and left the water on for Harry, grabbing the flour and eggs to place on the island. She cleaned off the service and grabbed the measuring cups to put two equal piles of flour on the counter.

“This is going to get messy, do you want an apron?”

Harry shook his head as he watched Bianca make a well in the center of her flour. Harry was quick to copy her movements, making a matching well in his flour mound. Bianca handed him four eggs before grabbing her own, cracking an egg, and pouring out the contents with one hand.

“How do you do that? I’d probably get shells everywhere.”

She had giggled, “Lots of practice, but I can show you.” She took an egg in her hand to show the motions. “First you crack it like you normally would, maybe a little harder to make sure the crack is deep. Then, stick your thumb in between the shells, using your nail. Your pointer and your middle finger will pull the top open with the help of your thumb, while your ring and pinky will pull with the help of your palm and then woop, out pops the egg.”

Harry followed the instructions, though a little slower and gentle as to not squeeze the shell too tight. Bianca moved closer to make sure Harry had a clean egg and sure enough, the perfect, shell-free egg fell next to the one he had cracked previously.

“There you go, a quick learner.” She looked up at him smiling before moving back to her station, finishing her cracking, and started to fork the eggs in the flour. Harry mimicked her motions until he saw her start moving flour into the center with her fingers. He watched as her hands became covered in flour, kneading the now developed dough.

Bianca talked Harry through the process as she continued to knead her dough. Harry continued his motions as she washed her hands to wrap the dough in plastic wrap to let it rest. She also wrapped Harry’s as he washed his hands. Don pulled down the pasta roller for them to use when the time was ready, kissing the top of Bianca’s head before grabbing a bottle of wine for the four of them to enjoy and turning on some music.

Come and Get Your Love by Redbone began to play through the house as Don popped open the bottle Harry had gifted and Ellie started dancing around the table as she set it for ten.

Everyone was quick to start singing the lyrics to the upbeat, feel-good song. Don grabbed Bianca to twirl her into a fit of giggles as she worked at the stove on sauces. Harry moved to Ellie to help her set the table and she bumped her hip to his while continuing her swaying.

The door had opened with Dean and Michael walking in, quickly transitioning to dancing into the kitchen. Dean had another bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other, pulling out the freshly baked bread as he kissed Bianca’s cheek.

Michael was quick to move to his mother, kissing her cheek, and wrapping his arms around her, as he embraced her while simultaneously dancing and singing. Ellie beamed as she held her son’s cheeks, “Come and get your love!”

Both made their way around the room, hugging and kissing everyone, Harry included. Dean went around and topped off everyone’s wine glass as he poured himself and Michael each a glass as well.

Christine and Justin walked in, followed by their sons, Dylan and Matthew, who ran right to their aunt. Bianca hugged and kissed them, helping them get their stools to be her sous chefs.

Harry went with the flow of the family, helping where he was needed and was fully immersed in the D’Angelo Sunday Dinner tradition. He felt truly welcomed by the family, able to be himself fully.

The Shoop Shoop Song began to play and Bianca let out an audible gasp, quick to join Cher in singing the song. Ellie made her way to her daughter, singing and dancing, both with massive smiles. Harry continued to sip his wine while watching the two women lose themselves to the song.

“She loves Cher. Probably her favorite artist.” Michael stood next to Harry while munching on bruschetta, dusting off his hands before grabbing his wine glass.

“Cher is great.” Harry also grabbed an appetizer, popping it in his mouth.

“Jack is great too. Bianca, I mean.”

Harry smiled, “She told me of the nickname, clever.”

Michael smiled as Justin had joined them, “She is also bambina, or bumblebee if you ask Michael.” Justin joined in on the snacking while Michael nudged Justin’s shoulder.

“Bumblebee?”

“Michael couldn’t say bambina when he was little, thinking it was Bianca’s name, so he always called her bumblebee.”

Harry looked back to the girls, Christine having joined in, now dancing to Marvin Gaye, focusing on Bianca, thinking that bumblebee is a very fitting nickname for the girl.

Everyone had finished their part of the dinner, making many pasta dishes, multiple portions of meat and enough vegetable-focused dishes to make any vegetarian happy.

“Bianca wanted to make sure you had lots of options, sweetie. Don had said that you're vegetarian.”

Harry nodded, taking a bite of one of the many delicious dishes in front of him. “I am, and thank you so much. Most people aren’t as accommodating.”

“Of course, you’re a guest.” Bianca smiled across the table, taking a sip of her limoncello over ice.

“You’re part of the family, Harry.” Don had said as he lifted his wine glass, the rest of the D’Angelo family raising their glasses and voicing their agreement.

October 26, 2018

“Dad! Stop moving! I’m going to mess up!”

Ellie had been giggling from the bathroom as she was pinning her wig on. She looked to her husband, who was sitting at her vanity while their daughter was painting the signature Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt across her father’s freshly shaven face. He had been claiming the brush was tickling him, causing him to squirm and to annoy his bambina.

Bianca let out a frustrated sigh as she swung her extensions behind her shoulders and adjusted the sequined bikini halter before leaning back in with the brush and red paint. After she had finally finished her paint job, she ran a brush through her long, straight hair before adjusting her sequined two-piece Cher costume designed by the one and only Harris Reed.

Don allowed Ellie to help put on his Ziggy Stardust wig after she threw on her leather jacket for her Debbie Harry costume.

The three had left the bedroom to meet Dean in his Purple Rain Prince costume and Michael in his Live Aid Freddie Mercury costume. They met in the kitchen for a cocktail before they made their way to the Casamigos Halloween Party.

The clan had all arrived together, the flashing of cameras began as they exited the car and made their way into the venue. They could hear their names called in every direction, always polite as they smiled and waved to the photographers.

It wasn’t long until all of the attention was off of the D’Angelos and on to who would be the talk of the night with his custom Gucci, Elton John Dodger costume, with large funky glasses and all the glitter in the world.

Bianca accidentally ran into her mother due to the distraction, Ellie quickly looked at what had caught her youngest’s eyes. Ellie began to smile when she saw her daughter in shock and Harry mimicking her expression back. She pulled on her husband's jumpsuit sleeve, showing him the two in awe.

Don’s smile matched his wife’s. “Giovane amore.”

Each person went off to venture around the venue, catching up with old friends and colleagues. Harry once again found Bianca standing at the bar, waiting for a drink. This time, he was the one to start the conversation.

“What will Cher be having tonight?” He leaned on the bar, facing the girl beaming at him as she ‘Cher swung’ her hair over her shoulder.

“Whatever Sir Elton John will be having.” Harry returned the smile and ordered them each a Paloma. They sipped on the tart drinks while catching up, since they haven’t seen each other since Sunday dinner.

“Your costume is phenomenal Harry. You would think you stole it right from Elton himself.”

“Thank you. Gucci always treats me well. Could say the same for your perfect Cher costume. Walked right off the Sonny and Cher Show set.”

“Thank you, but you should thank Harris.”

Harry had checked out the outfit for the hundredth time that night, “Leave it to Harris to do Cher justice. Honestly, though, don’t think anyone could wear that outfit as well as you and Cher herself.”

Harry loved to see the blush that had crept to her cheeks, his vision moving to her lips to watch her smile mold around the rim of the glass to take a drink. He looked back to her eyes as she moved her long hair again.

She cleared her throat, “Are you having fun? Enjoying the party?”

“More fun now that I’m at the bar with you. Tired of getting pulled to take pictures with everyone.”

“Yeah, that must be annoying. Can’t enjoy anything for yourself.”

“I’m enjoying this though.” Again, Harry was proud of her blush. “I would love to take a picture with you though. Would make sense since Elton and Cher are friends and all.” He raised his brows with a shrug of his shoulders.

“You want to take a selfie with me, Harry?”

“It would be my favorite picture of the night.”

“Alright.” She adjusted the high-waisted sequin bell-bottoms as well as the halter before moving her hair so that Harry could comfortably wrap his arm around her waist. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder comfortably, being his height in her heels. Harry pulled out his phone and took a few shots, one including him kissing her cheek.

“I could send these to you, but I don’t have your number.”

Bianca gave a playful scowl but quickly gave him her phone number and received the pictures. She reviewed them, smiling at her phone.

“These are great.”

Harry couldn’t help his grin, though it was interrupted by the call of his name. Harry internally groaned, not wanting to be taken away from Bianca but his mood changed when he saw Ziggy Stardust walk toward him. Harry let out a laugh at the slightly inebriated Don.

“You look great H!”

“So do you, Don.” Harry let Don embrace him before he wrapped himself around his daughter. He began to slur in Italian, so it was hard for Harry to eves-drop. Harry knew he was talking about him when he heard his name and both were smiling in his direction.

“Dad wants to know if you would like to join us for some midnight greasy food.”

Don started mumbling again, though this time, Harry could understand Don’s dire need for a bacon cheeseburger. Harry finished his drink and followed the family to the diner down the street.

All dressed in their rock-star attire, they were the life of the party at the diner. All the staff came out to take a look, even asking to take some pictures. They even took a group picture for the crew to have as a keepsake.

Bianca had noticed how a group of girls in the corner were in fits of giggles and constantly had their phones out. Harry had been facing them as well, keeping his head down and sipping a milkshake to avoid his face from being in the pictures. Michael had been sitting across from her, obnoxiously laughing at Don’s animalistic ingestion of his greasy burger.

Bianca nudged his leg under the table to get his attention, to which he looked up, “What’s up, Jack?”

“Switch seats with Harry.” She nodded her head inconspicuously to the group in the booth, to which Micheal had turned to kiss Dean on the cheek to take a quick look. He was quick to get up and rub Harry’s shoulder to indicate for them to switch.

Once Harry was sat across from Bianca, he fully joined the group in conversation and contentment. He looked at her and she was already looking at him smiling. He mouthed a ‘thank you’ and she nodded in return.

December 18, 2018

After spending the day with his family, helping his mother with the holiday baking, Harry was happy to be in his London abode, able to relax for the night. He changed into his most comfortable sweatpants and most tattered t-shirt and clipped his hair from his face before settling on the couch with a holiday movie playing in the background.

He pulled out his phone to catch up on his emails and social media, seeing his friends and family enjoying holiday festivities. Harry saw that Don had started a live video on Instagram, so he decided to watch what the D’Angelo family were doing for the holidays.

To no surprise, there was music playing in the background while the family was surrounded by food and wine. Don was walking around, loving on each family member and encouraging them to chat to the live stream.

Harry’s heart rate had increased when he heard Don call for ‘bambina’, who appeared to be holding a baby.

“Who do we have here, bambina?”

Bianca was beaming down at the little bundle in her arms who was sound asleep.

“Meet the new D’Angelo; this is Ms. Adeline.”

Michael was sitting next to his sister, looking down lovingly at the tiny girl in her arms.

“And who is Ms. Adeline?”

Michael turned to look at his father who was holding his phone, filming the moment.

“She is Dean’s and my new daughter.”

Harry watched on as the family loved the new member until the video ended. He had decided to check out Don’s Instagram page, seeing pictures and videos of his family and the bands he had worked with while they were in the studio.

He had scrolled back towards the beginning of the year, seeing a still of a video of a young Bianca running in with a guitar the size of her. Harry stayed on the frame and let the video play.

“Daddy! Daddy! Look what Michael taught me!”

She sat on the floor with the guitar covering most of her frame, her head poking out, and her little hands forming around the neck of the instrument. She watched as her fingers formed chords, strumming slowly.

“Moon river, wider than a mile. I’m crossing you in style, someday.”

The video had ended and Harry saw that there was a second video to the post. He slid his finger over to watch an adult Bianca continue to sing Moon River expertly while sitting in a window, similar to Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She smiled at the camera as the song and video ended.

Harry read the caption to the video.

Happy 25th birthday, bambina. So proud of the woman you’ve become. 💛

Harry unconsciously clicked on her tagged name and went to her Instagram page. He scrolled through seeing selfies, pictures with friends, and even videos of her doing covers of songs.

The most recent video was posted right before the anniversary party. She was sitting at the piano, the angle was a view of her side-profile with a beach behind her through the window. The sun was shining, casting a shadow over her in the black and white video. Bianca was performing a heartbreaking rendition of Silver Springs by Fleetwood Mac, putting all of her emotions into the climax of the song, belting out so that you could hear the echo of her voice throughout the house she was in.

Harry browsed the family and foodie pictures, admiring how effortlessly happy she had appeared the summer of 2018.

Another video had started to play of Dean and Bianca in their loungewear and socks, drunkenly giggled with Bruno Mars playing in the background. They made their way to the middle of the screen and effortlessly danced the dance break of Finesse that was performed at The Grammys that year. He giggled when at the end of the dance, Bianca jumped into Dean’s arms screaming because they had perfected the dance.

Harry continued to peruse her Instagram page. He couldn’t recall how far back he had gone, but he had paused on a picture of Bianca in a mirror selfie with Harris, wearing the sparkly purple shirt Harry wore in Vancouver. He read the caption, “When working with friends, you become a model.”

There were more pictures of Bianca with Harris as well as pictures of her with Lambert on sets of shoots. Pictures of different cities from travel were more frequent. Then, there was a video that Harry had watched more times he could count.

Bianca had been sitting at a studio piano, in a different location than other videos of her performing she had posted more recently. She even appeared a little younger and fresh faced with a natural glow. He could see a few windows in the background open, the sounds of a city as background noise.

“I know this song just came out, but I’m so obsessed that I couldn’t help myself from learning it as fast as I could.”

She began to play Sign of the Times flawlessly, belting out the lyrics and occasionally adding her own flair that Harry couldn’t help but melt at. He knew that he had to have this person in his life the moment her child-like smile shined to the camera.

Harry watched it one last time before he pulled up her contact, the picture of them from Halloween as her contact photo. He pressed the call button and put the phone to his ear.

“Well, hello Harry. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Would you like a permanent job working with me and my team as our creative director?”

There was a pause on the other line and Harry thought that he made a mistake.

“I would love that.”

Here she is! I have to say, working over a year in the plot (that is still changing daily) has made me so damn proud of this fic. I cannot wait to see what everyone has to say and if people love this fic as much as I do.

I have to give the biggest and most loving thank you to @mysweetcreaturestories for working on the plot and inspiring me to write the fic, to @harrysgoldenbum and @for-fucks-sake-h for being the most amazing betas and helping me through out this whole thing, and @nattalina-shop for making the most beautiful header that I could have dreamed of. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Please feel free to drop me an ask, tell me your thoughts, ask me questions, whatever your heart’s desires.

[i-dont-want-your-hysteria]

The Hangover (Def Leppard x Reader)

(Happy birthday to my blog!! To celebrate 3 years of the place where I concentrate my insane Leppard obsession, I thought I’d celebrate by posting the FIRST Def Leppard fanfic I EVER wrote ((which I have NEVER posted anywhere before!)) I began writing this exactly 3 years ago today- the day I made this blog ((February 19th, 2018))- and officially finished it about a year later. This is not intended as a romantic/sexual fic, it’s simply just an x reader in which the reader is basically one of the guys. In other words, it’s on crack.)

((I am aware this is kind of cringe-worthy at times... but I still like a lot of things about it. While I revised it very slightly before queuing it,  I was still 16 when I started writing this, okay... gimme a break...))

(Illustration by @paper-sxn​)

Words: 8,684 Prompt: Dublin, 1984. You’re with the Leppards in their early pre-Hysteria era house. You all wake up with hangovers after a boozed-up night at home, and you each try to put the pieces of the previous night back together. Meanwhile, you’re praying that one particular piece won’t fit in anywhere... (partially inspired by the “Blitzgiving” and “The Pineapple Incident” episodes of How I Met Your Mother)

-----

Gently piercing white light made its way through the windows of the bedroom. It hit your eyelids, and it hit your brain, igniting a brief but killer headache. As your eyes clasped together more, you turned your face into the gloriously soft pillow. For a second you asked yourself why you would have a headache so early in the morning, but then…

You laughed quietly into the bed, recalling without warning some vague happenings from the night before. There wasn’t much you remembered, but you clearly saw the image of the guys flat out drunk at some point (you along with them). There were some blips of you all singing together, Sav hanging from a door frame, you chugging some scotch, Joe chugging some vodka, Steve’s hair being in pigtails, and you think Phil might’ve been giving you a lap dance... or vice versa. It was, all in all, hysterical (at least- that’s what you wanted to think).

 Other than those faint events, unfortunately, the night was gone. Still, you were thrilled that it happened. Crazy times with your boys were always good.

You rubbed your eyes, ready for more sleep to combat the pounding in your head. When you did, they opened a little, and you realized… this wasn't your room you were in. Squinting around, you noticed that you were sleeping in Phil’s room instead of yours.

Oh, it’s not that much of a problem, you mused, I’m sure he doesn’t mind. I’ve woken up to worse in this place.

You let your eyes close again easily, and you found peace as you began to fall under again. That is, until you felt someone move next to you.

When it happened, you became aware of the warmth coming from someone else in the bed. They only shifted in their sleep a little bit before going still again. Your eyes went wide, and you held your breath. You don’t remember getting into bed with someone (in fact, you don’t remember getting into bed at all). Turning your head, you looked to see what sort of stranger was in bed with you currently. Instead of a stranger, scraggly blonde hair over a kind and shy face met your sight, and you were instantly calmed upon realizing that it was just Steve. That was good, that was good, but why were you and Steve sleeping in Phil’s bed? You were sure you didn’t have sex last night- at least, not with Steve. This tiny moment of appeasement and confusion was cut short by the faint sound of guitar chords coming from downstairs. The music echoed to your ears, signaling that it had to be Phil, and that he was playing the opening to Bringin On the Heartbreak. Cautiously taking the covers off you- not wanting to wake Steve- you felt obliged to go to the other guitarist. When you stood up and began walking, you nearly fell forward from the sudden vertigo of your hangover. You had to hold onto the counter of Phil’s dresser for extra support, and that’s when your reflection in his mirror caught your eye. Not only that, but that’s when your outfit also caught your eye. One of the guys’ Union Jack tank tops had been slipped over you somehow, and two hand prints were on either side of your face in dried paint; one was blue, one was green. "What…?“ you whispered, touching your face and feeling the shirt on you. It seemed to fit you alright, which made you wonder whose it really was. You were also in black underwear, and nothing else. While eyeing yourself, you took notice of Steve in the reflection. You now saw a few big red lipstick stains on his face, untouched and unsmudged. It was pretty cute, you had to admit, but another thing that came to your attention was that it wasn’t you who was wearing the lipstick at the moment. So then who kissed Steve all over his face? You treaded carefully down the hallway, putting one foot in front of the other and dragging a hand on the wall for support. The melody of the distant guitar didn’t cease the whole time you trekked through the house to get to Phil. When the chords of the song dragged on to the part where the vocals should have begun, no vocals came. Everything in the house looked remarkably the same (despite everything you remember from last night). There were large, ripped pieces of cardboard in the middle of the hallway;  scattered out as if leaving a trail. Alongside that, there was a piece of paper labeled “pay 2 the orerr of Rick: one fuckin bendee straw” in what may have been Sav’s handwriting on top of the stairs, and blue paint smudged on the railing going downwards (guaranteeing that whoever did that eventually got to your face, too).

Step by step you descended as the scenery of the house teetered around you (a little too reminiscent of Me & My Wine, you would add). When you reached the bottom of the stairs and looked into the living room, sure enough, Phil was there, strumming away.

“But it’s easy come and easy go…” he hummed.

“You’re…” you mumbled, burped a little, and continued, “Awake. How?” He stopped playing and crossed his arms, quietly sassing you, “Ah, she rises again. You regrettin’ anything yet?” You blinked and rubbed your eyes, scratching a little bit of paint off of your face and inquiring in a scratchy, tired tone, “I guess so… but- how? You, how?” Phil took off his guitar and stood up with his hands in his pockets, “Because I barely drank at all last night, and I also sure as hell didn’t shag Steve in someone else’s bed!” “How do you mean- I didn’t- wait- and Steve- what?” you rubbed your head, getting dizzy, causing Phil to guide you to the couch. “I didn’t- I didn’t shag Steve last night,” you insisted. “Mm hmm,” the guitarist hummed disapprovingly, “Alright.” “What the hell are you on about?” Phil smirked evilly and laughed, “He carried you upstairs, we heard the door close, and then some rather happy noises were heard, so we all just assumed-!” “That’s not-” you swallowed and lay your head back on the couch, “-a valid assumption.” “Oh, you poor thing,” came the sarcastic remark, “You really don’t remember, do you?” “Well I figured if I ever fucked any one of you I would- you know- remember it!” you raised your voice at him, then rubbed your temples. “I’m touched, really. But I’ll fill you in a bit,” Phil yanked up his guitar he’d put down, placed himself next to you, and played the into to “Ballroom Blitz”. Then a bit of the night came back to you. “Oh... that’s what started it all, didn’t it?”

~The night before~ Rick began banging out a tune on his drum kit in the house with you, Sav, and Steve sitting close by, them being at the ready with their guitars. “You ready, Steve?” you mimicked the original lyrics. “Uh-huh,” he replied exactly like Steve Priest in the original song. “Savy?” you said next. “Yeah,” Sav bopped his head to the beat. “Rick?” “Okay.” “Alright, fellas,” you called out, “Let’s go!” The two guitarists let their instruments ring out around the house, playing the all-too-familar tune. As soon as they started this, the front door opened, and none other than Phil and Joe walked in. Joe was holding a bag that was weighed down by the mass inside it (a painfully obvious sign that there were a few bottles of booze). Although the two of them weren’t talking, they were physically hushed upon hearing the situation you and the others had created. “Oh life’s been getting so hard, living with the things you do to me…” you sang lowly and quietly along with the music being made, just to make sure the musicians knew their places. You noticed Phil run out of the room in excitement, and into the one where he keeps his guitars. Joe, on the other hand, stayed put and watched the rest of you from afar, fighting a smile. “My dreams are getting so strange, I’d like to tell you everything I see…” You stood up, and Joe began walking towards you when you called out the next line of the song, “Oh- I see a man in the back, as a matter of fact, his eyes are as red as a sun!” Joe chimed in without warning at the next line, putting an arm on your shoulder and pointing at you, “And the girl in the corner, let no one ignore her, ‘cos she thinks she’s the passionate one!” *** “It’s, it’s a ballroom blitz, it's, it's a ballroom blitz,” Phil sang the ending teasingly to you when he put his guitar back. It felt like he was rubbing his energy in your face (since you lacked it). Before Phil could continue, Joe suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Yeah! It’s a ballroom blitz!” he announced, throwing his arms into the air and taking a bow. He sounded a bit tipsy still. Joe was wearing his Union Jack shorts, but no shirt. Instead of a shirt, though, he had the words “PROPERTY OF DEF LEPPARD” sloppily painted across his chest in blue and green paint. Right over his nipples there were also two handprints, almost exactly matching the ones on your face. Joe stumbled in the doorway, falling to his knees and groaning in discomfort, “Ohh... probably should’ve stayed in bed.” Phil sluggishly trekked over to the singer and pulled him partially to his feet, yanking him towards the couch, “Oh yeah? And by ‘bed’, you mean-?” “Definitely not the bathtub.” Joe assured him, but winked at you. “No matter where you slept, it’s still not as bad as where she slept,” Phil pointed at you, “And what she did there.” “Why? What’d you do?” Joe’s tipsiness wore away in his sentence, making him sound genuinely concerned and curious. You rolled your eyes, knowing exactly what Phil was going to say, “Phil, I-” “It’s not what she did, it’s who she did- she shagged Steve in my bed!” the guitarist accused you again while pointing a finger. Immediately Joe exclaimed, “Nice!” and held up a hand to high-five you. “Joe!” you scolded him, surprised that he took this as good news. “Oh-uh, not… nice?” he took away the offer of a high-five and scratched the back of his head awkwardly instead, “Also, is that my shirt?” You took a look down at the Union Jack tank top you were wearing and back at Joe’s torso. Then something clicked in your head. “Ohh…” you continued staring at Joe’s chest, feeling yourself blush as old memories unraveled in your head, “I think... I think I remember something else that happened last night.” *** You were all drunk; it was no lie. After your quick jam session, there was a booze-filled music fest going on in the house. Joe had even put on his Union Jack outfit, pretending he was getting ready for a show. At one particular point of this “festival” you'd all created, records were being played, and you ended up dancing in front of Joe to REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run”. “You’re bringing up your white lines, you’re pullin’ on a bedroom eyes, you say you’re going home, but I won’t say when,” you sang the wrong lyrics as you swayed and drunkingly made flirty faces at Joe on the couch. Sav, meanwhile, was playing with some old craft paint off in the corner. The blue and green substances were all over his hands (but somehow, one color managed to stay on each hand). “Yeah, you dance for him, Y/N!” Rick cheered you on from the kitchen as Steve and Phil sat on the couch. Phil was perfectly sober, and Steve was giggling and laying with his head on Phil’s lap. You, on the other hand, were now moving closer to the singer, almost like you were giving him a lap dance. “You take it on the run, baby,” you sang along, slowly taking Joe’s Union Jack tank top off of him (with no objections from below), “If that’s the way you wanna, baby...” In return to Joe being shirtless, you slowly took off your own shirt (triggering wolf-whistles and cheers from the guys) to replace it with Joe’s tank. “Sav, mark him up!” you ordered the painted bassist in the corner as you tried to dress yourself. He happily made his way over to you and questioned, “What should I mark him with?” A single hazy idea came to you, and you eagerly whispered it into Sav’s ear. He giggled in response, and proceeded to move over to Joe, drawing something on his chest in the paint. To keep Joe from looking at what it was, you went behind the chair and covered his eyes, ordering coyly, “No peeking!” “All done!” Sav announced and retreated back to whatever he was doing in the corner. “Now, wait, Sav!” you sped over to him, lifted his hands up, and double high-fived him, getting the paint on your hands as well. To finish off what Sav had started, you ran back over to Joe on the chair, and slapped your hands on his chest, right over his nipples. Laughter erupted from everyone in the room (including Joe) and you repeated Sav’s words. “All done!” Joe gazed down at the words “PROPERTY OF DEF LEPPARD” on his chest as you continued to dance to the song playing. “You’re mine, now! You take it on the run, baby... if that’s the way you want it, baby...” Joe tried to tell you in a sexy voice, “Am I your baby now?” “If that’s the way you want it baby,” you repeated the words from the song to him, “Now I’m done dancing for you! Somebody dance for me!” Steve began pointing at everyone individually, childishly suggesting, “It should be, eenie, meenie, miney, Phil!” “Why me?” Phil laughed in objection as you took a seat across the room. “Because you’re not wasted,” his terror twin argued, poking him on the nose. The sober guitarist looked over at you with happy anticipation, awaiting a comment, while all you did was wiggle your fingers at him with a goofy grin. After that, you returned the gesture to the man on his lap, giving Steve a sexy wink. *** “Oh my god...” you put your head in your hands shamefully as Phil and Joe giggled at the memory of the previous night, “I can’t believe I did all that...” “That was a treat!” Phil laughed, hugging you from the side and pulling you closer to him in consolation, “It was funny! We never get to see that side of you!” “There’s a certain reason why you don’t...” you moaned with embarrassment, then asked out of guilty curiosity, “How many times did I grab your ass during that lap dance...?" Phil thought for a bit before telling you, “Four. Well- four and a half...” You gave a loud groan of protest as Joe laughed and slumped back into the couch. “Oh, you only did those things because you weren’t thinking!” Phil consoled you, swayed back and forth with you in his arms. Joe chimed in, “Yeah, and see what happens when you don’t think? You do! Most importantly, you do Steve!” “I didn't do Steve!” you shot your head up and yelled at Joe. You received only laughs and snorts from both men in reply. Suddenly, Sav appeared on the staircase and began singing “Squeeze Box” by The Who with a tired yet cheeky smirk, “Mama’s got a squeeze box she wears on her chest, and when Stephen comes home, he never gets no rest-” Joe and Phil joined into his song with, “Cos' she’s playin’ all night, and the music’s alright! Mama’s got a squeeze box, Stephen never sleeps at night!” You just put your head back in your hands, trying not to accept your fate of being teased. You didn’t want to think that you possibly shagged Steve. He always seemed so innocent to you in a way, and you feared that this would kill your friendship. If everything the boys said was true, you would never hear the end of it, and you don’t even know what Steve would think of you from now on. Was it possible that he remembered anything about the night before? “It didn’t happen, it didn’t happen...” you repeated to yourself in a whisper as Phil unwrapped his arms from you. Sav came all the way down the stairs; his body language making him look grumpy with the world, but his tired grin signaling that he was pleased with seeing you. “Oh, it happened, sunshine!” the frizzy-haired bassist laughed, but quickly regretted it and rubbed his head with his still-painted hands, “Ah- yep, it happened. You could probably hear you two up the whole damn street.” As Sav wearily joined you all on the couch, Joe complained, “Sounds like that was a treat; I wish I remembered it!” Phil was caught off guard at the comment. His head turned to Joe in the blink of an eye and gasped, “Wait, you don’t remember hearing them?!” “I wish I could say I do, but there’s nothing there,” Joe stood up after he spoke, and quickly held onto the wall nearby. His hand went over his stomach as he whined, “Oh... fuck, Y/N, why did you make me race you last night?" “'Race me'?” you squinted as you inquired, “Race you with what?” Joe didn’t answer, but slowly took steps into the kitchen, using the wall as his guide. His answer came when you, Sav, and Phil all heard him throw up into the sink. You sighed, resting your hands over your eyes, trying to remember the cause of Joe’s sickness, “Oh no, was that really my idea?” *** “Look what I found!” you trotted into the room tipsily, holding two bottles; one of scotch, one of vodka, “Only half full! Who wants em?” While you weren’t full-on drunk, it was no secret that the title wasn’t that far away. After your little Ballroom Blitz, it was one beer after the next, then it was digging into the fancy liquors that Phil and Joe had just brought home. Your judgment was impaired, no doubt about it, and so was the judgment of all the guys. Joe even changed into his normal live-show-only Union Jack tank top, claiming that he was gonna "put on a show." The only one who was still sane and sober was Phil, who seemed to be staying away from your poison. Upon registering your sacred offer of alcohol, Rick ran forward, chanting, “Me! Me!” You lifted the bottles away from him, commanding, “Uh-uh! I get the scotch.” “Oh, bollocks, then you can keep the vodka,” the young drummer grumbled and turned away from you. Just as Rick rejected your offering, Joe sprung up and eagerly trotted over while shouting happily, “I’ll take it!” “Sold!” you handed the bottle over to him, “Betcha can’t finish before me!” “Betcha I can!” he sneered back before taking the cap off his bottle. There was no official “ready, set, go” for the race; you both just kind of went for it without any saying. While your throat and stomach were already protesting your actions (and you could almost sense that Joe’s were doing the same), you didn’t stop once; neither of you did. You held up your bottle and announced, “Done!” Looking over, you saw Joe was also finished. “I finished first!” “Nuh-uh!” you insisted, “It had to be me! Tell him, guys!” The four others hadn’t been paying attention to you and Joe’s little competition; they were instead focused on a box that Sav had pulled out from a cupboard. From the box they pulled out bottles of paint and various types of used makeup.

Joe scolded them all in a more sober manner, “Oh come on, you lot weren’t even watching!” “Yeah, yeah, it was probably a tie, anyways,” Rick chuckled, pulling out more items from the box. “This box is much more interesting, too," Phil protested, holding up a stick of lipstick as Sav held up two bottles of paint, "This is a box of makeup that I had for me and the lads in Girl! Just look at it all! Think we can have some fun with this?" "Oh, piss off," you threw the empty bottle onto the couch, "We need some music." Joe had slumped down onto a chair, and you stumbled your way over to the shelf with all the records on it, flipping through and eyeing them all as carefully as your body would let you. After only a few seconds of searching, your eyes lit up at a discovery. "Here's a good one!" you exclaimed as you pulled out a copy of Hi Infidelityby REO Speedwagon, "Let's give it a spin!" ***

Joe wandered back into the room and fell onto the empty couch with a grumble. “Sorry, Joe...” you muttered over to him, realizing that you pressured him into more consumption of the booze. “It was probably gonna happen anyway...” he admitted, wiping his hands over his face, “It’s was my stupid choice to go through with it.” “Woah,” Phil pointed out out of nowhere, looking at you with great surprise, “What’s that on your neck?” You felt your heart drop into your stomach. “What!?” you shot up from where you sat (bringing on more dizziness), and rushed over to a mirror. Once your dizziness subsided, and you could finally see your reflection, the pink shape of a hickey on the side of your neck was now clearly conspicuous. You wondered how you hadn't noticed it before. Joe exclaimed with a smug and proud grin, “Is that from Steve!?” You groaned angrily, feeling yourself become more and more defeated. “I can’t believe it,” you gasped, slapping a hand over the mark, “Something did happen between us-!” “Y/N,” Phil pointed out again, “There’s lipstick on your thigh...” Looking down at your legs, you saw that he was right. There was a single red symbol on your right thigh that marked a kiss from the night before. Upon seeing this, what you saw when you woke up popped into your head. “Looks like Steve went to town down there,” Sav smirked at you, only wanting to rub it in more. “Guys,” you softly noted, “That wasn’t Steve... he has lipstick marks all over his face from someone else...” The three men all exchanged confused looks with each other. There was a dead end to the story of the previous night. None of them knew how to solve the mystery of the lipstick. Not even Phil, who was as good as sober 12 hours ago, didn’t have any input. Sav suddenly blurted out, “Wait a minute, I know what happened- I think...” No one said anything, but eagerly leaned forward, ready to hear the tale the bassist had to tell. “You lot remember how we found that box of old makeup last night?” he began, “Well, I walked into the bathroom with you afterwards, Y/N...” *** Rick looked at himself in the mirror in the bathroom, carefully applying the makeup to his lips, and being extra careful to not get it on the blazer he was wearing. The drummer put on his best suit just to see how it would look with the makeup he was putting on. He thought he was doing a good job for the most part; he didn’t look half bad at all! It was far easier than he expected it to be, and wondered if he was good enough to help you with your makeup at times. Thinking of you seemed to have made you appear in the doorway next to him. Both of your hands were still covered in paint. “Sink,” was all you commanded of the drummer. He moved without a word and you began to wash your hands. At the same instant, Sav appeared nearby. He grabbed the doorframe and began to swing from it, leaving conspicuous handprints afterwards. “Aren’t you gonna wash up, too?” Rick crossed his arms to sass him. “Nah, I want the colors, they’re makin’ me feel- colorful...” Sav grinned, walking over to you at the sink, requesting, “C’mere.” You looked up, only to have your face taken in Sav’s paint-covered hands. He softly giggled as you squared your vision in on him with a sneer. “Rude,” you teased, then went back to washing your hands; paint now all over your face. “What’s really rude,” Rick pulled back the shower curtain and taking a step into the tub, “Is you two interrupting my makeup time! Good night!” He sat himself down in the tub and laid himself down as if he was going to sleep.

Before he had the chance to catch some shut-eye, you marched over to the tub and objected, “Rick, if you’re gonna sleep, I want a goodnight kiss first.” Without another word, Rick sat up and planted a kiss on your thigh (since it was closest to him). There was now a bright red imprint of his lips on your leg. “Thank you.” you smiled down at him, “Now goodnight.” “Don’t leave the water on, you hear?” Sav nagged him, pointing a colored finger, “You’ll drown." Rick chuckled with his eyes closed, “I’ll drink myself out. I'm in a drinkin mood, anyways." “Oh yeah? You haven’t got a straw or anything,” the intoxicated bassist continued to argue with him. “Then don’t let me drown! Get one!" “I’ll get you one later. I’ll just-“ Sav burped, and continued, “I’ll write a note or something.” “Sounds good, mate,” Rick slumped further into the tub and pulled the curtain closed, “Now you gonna stay here all night?” “Actually,” you noted out loud to yourself, different alcoholic emotions boiling up inside you, “I wanna go downstairs- I just need to see Steve- like right now...!" You turned on your heels, speeding past Sav and flying back down the stairs. *** “So that explains the paint on my face, and the paper in the hallway, and the lipstick, but what happened after that?” you asked Sav, as you were now slumped on top of Phil’s arm again. “Beats me,” Sav ran his still-painted hands through his hair, “That’s all I’ve got.” “But wait, if you said that Rick fell asleep in the bathtub...” Phil began his sentence, only for you and the other two men to exchange knowing looks with each other. All four of you immediately sprung up and rushed (as much as you could) up the stairs and into the bathroom. Upon getting there, Phil flung back the shower curtain to reveal a partially awake Rick, dressed in a suit, and still wearing the lipstick from the night before. “Mornin’,” he groaned as he stretched, then winced, “Ah, fuck- sleeping in here wasn’t the best idea for me neck.” Sav looked back at the paint on the doorframe and asked the drummer, “So then why did you sleep in here?” “Oh,” Rick looked around the tub, stating as-a-matter-of-factly, “The porcelain keeps the suit from wrinkling. I guess drunk me was very careful last night.” “I’ll say,” Joe complemented, “The lipstick’s still holding up pretty well.” Phil halted the conversation, “Wait, so you were in here when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night?” Rick chuckled, “Yeah, and let me tell you, for a smaller guy, you’ve got a big bladder.” “Wait,” you slowly turned and pointed at Joe, “I thought you said you slept in the bathtub-?” He gave you a cocky smirk in return, “I told you, ‘definitely not the bathtub’...” Rick sleepily laughed and pointed at you, “Ha- Y/N, you look like Joe!” “Why, just because of the shirt?” you inquired, pointing at Joe’s tank top on you. “And the paint!” Rick corrected you, “I can’t believe you guys didn’t wash it off yet!” In a second, you felt a rush of worry upon realizing that Rick hadn’t said anything about you and Steve yet. It made you suddenly come to the possible conclusion that he may not know about it all. “Wait,” Phil snapped his fingers, “So you do remember some stuff from last night?” “Yeah, a bit, I think. Why?” “Philip Kenneth Collen, don’t you fucking dare....” you growled at him in an almost pleading manner, rubbing your temples and grinding your teeth. “What do you remember?” Phil asked him, not giving any sort of reaction to your begging. Rick thought for a few seconds, clearly as hungover as the rest of you. It didn’t take him long to list off some brief happenings he recalled. “Well, I remember us singing Sweet, there was a lap dance, I remember- uh, being denied a bottle of scotch, there was, uh... there was lipstick... and did I try to ice-skate on pieces of cardboard down the hall...?” “Is that why there’s cardboard all down the hallway?” you motioned towards the door. Rick gave you a big proud smile and a nod in response. “So...” Joe looked around, definitely looking eager, “What’s the last thing you remember before falling asleep?” Rick rested his head back on the tub again, thinking as hard as his hungover mind would let him. You hoped to every god there was that he didn’t say anything about Steve. “Just Phil comin’ in here and having a long piss, that’s all.” came the verdict. “You sure you didn’t hear-“ Phil anxiously began to ask him, but got a hand slapped over his mouth by you. “No!” you yelled on impulse, sending more daggers through your burned-out head. All eyes were now on you, and silence fell. For a few tense seconds, you stared into Phil’s eyes, sending him visual messages of both threats and desperate requests. “...what the hell happened last night?” Rick broke the silence in a tone of utter confusion, knowing that something more serious than what he remembered had taken place. You pulled your hand back from Phil’s face, “Yuck, Phil, come on!” “You licked her hand, didn’t you?” asked Sav. “Yes,” Phil confirmed, and continued without missing a beat, “And I’m glad you asked that, Rick, cos' I know what happened after Y/N and Sav paid you a visit last night.” “Phil, if you love me in any way, shape, or form, you will not tell Rick what happened,” you begged to him as you began to walk out the bathroom door, heading back downstairs to wallow in more of your shameful hangover, “I refuse to believe it happened until there’s hard proof.” “Well what more proof do you want? A positive pregnancy test?” Phil shrugged, but suddenly slapped his own hand over his mouth, realizing what he’d just said. You shot him an angry look. You were too tired to have it out with him, so you stumbled away. Right about now, you were ready to give up and accept the fact that you probably did shag Steve. Phil turned to Rick, gaping, and slowly began to speak again, "Right... so last night, after those two were in here, I think that’s when they came back downstairs..." *** "So why are you tying up my hair again?" a drunk Steve asked Phil, who was happily putting his hair into pigtails. "Because I knew you’d look pretty, and I knew you wouldn't object, either," the other guitarist laughed evilly as he finished tying the second bundle of golden locks together, "There, you're all done now." "Cool... I think," Steve tilted his head, staring at himself in the mirror on the wall as footsteps began pounding their way down the stairs. "I think you look pretty, Steve. Pretty, pretty, pretty," Joe giggled as he was flipped off by the pig-tailed guitarist. As this happened, you trampled the stairs in your descent, calling out, “Steve- Steve! Come here!” More than happy to be ripped away from Phil’s pigtailed plans, he let you run up to him as you belted out, “I’ve got an idea...!” He didn’t say anything, but he did let you whisper something in his ear. The second he heard your idea, his eyes lit up and an evil smirk crossed his face. Steve was always in the mood for causing terror. You pulled back and exchanged the same look of understanding with the guitarist. He stared at you with a sort of appreciation, and without another word, swept you off your feet, carrying you bridal style now. With a quick smooch to your lips, he began carrying you up the stairs as you giggled with some sort of glee. Phil’s jaw dropped, looking at Joe with astonishment in the process. The singer’s face mirrored the exact same expression. “I should’ve bloody known...” Phil gasped in astonishment, “She’s been eyeing him up real funny all night... I can’t fucking believe it!” Sav came down the stairs slowly, his life depending on the railing as he dragged his hand on it. He left a long streak of blue paint as he did so. “What’s gotten into their pants?” “Each other, apparently,” Joe scoffed, taking a sip of a beer he found, “Lord knows how the hell that happened.” *** You were all sitting back on the couches in the living room, all seemingly regretting the night before (you knew you most certainly were). Everyone knew that the end of Phil’s story was the true ending of the night. Now there was really a dead end to the whole tale. “I can’t believe it,” you whispered with sorrowful acceptance, “Me and Steve...? What happened next?” Joe scoffed, “Well that’s kind of a stupid question.” “That’s where it ends, Y/N. I went up to bed afterwards, only to hear-“ Phil cleared his throat to impersonate you and Steve, “‘Oh, Steve! Yes!’ coming from my room! So after an immense helping of disapproval, I slept in Rick’s room.” “No, no, that can’t be it!” you insisted, “Guys, what really happened next?” “Can’t say,” Joe mumbled, holding his head. “Sorry, mate,” Rick apologized. Sav remained silent, but looked apologetic. “That can’t be where it ends...!” you persisted, “Sav? Tell me I’m right!” Sav rolled in his lips, and darted his eyes away from you. You continued to stare at him suspiciously, but no one else thought anything of it. Phil tried to finalize your fate sympathetically, “Give it up, Y/N, at least it’s all over now.” “But it still happened! What am I gonna say to Steve when he wakes up? You know what- no. It didn’t happen, I refuse to believe that it did.” “How much more proof do you want?” Rick shrugged, pointing at Phil and Sav, trying to make you face the terrible truth, “They both heard ya, and Steve even gave you a hickey.” You hung your head, thinking you might just decide to cry out of shame. Yes, you loved Steve, just as you loved anyone else in the band, but you never had (or planned to have) any sort of sexual relationship with them. Even if you ever did, you were afraid it would ruin everything your friendship had stood for. “Sav, what’s wrong, mate?” Joe asked out of the blue. The bassist in question was still avoiding the conversation, staying eerily silent and weaving his hands together. At this point, you noticed that he was also blushing. “That wasn’t Steve.” he stated bluntly, still not looking at you. “What wasn’t Steve?” you asked as you stared at him dead on, your heart now pounding. “That hickey... that wasn’t Steve,” he paused, “That was me.” Immediately you gasped and slapped a hand over the mark on your neck. “What?!” the other three exclaimed. Joe and Rick immediately hissed at the searing pain their outbursts caused. “Sav, what the hell?!” you scolded him, finally happy that you weren’t the only one being called out for their mistakes. “Now before you say anything else,” he finally looked at you and held up a hand, “It was your idea.” Your face fell, softly asking him, “What do you mean?” “Well, after you and Steve-you know- and only Joe and I were downstairs, you actually came back down, too- wipe that smug look off your face, Joe. You’re not entirely innocent here, either.” *** You stumbled down the stairs, giggling to yourself. Your mission was now accomplished, and Steve was asleep upstairs. In a word, you were pleased. In two words, you were still drunk. Records were still being played when you returned to the living room, and Joe currently had his copy of Sheer Heart Attack on the turntable. “She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettos)”flowed softly from its speakers. “There’s our killer queen!” Joe cooed to you happily. He was now sprawled out on the couch, two empty beer bottles on the floor beside him. Sav wasn’t too far off. The paints on his hands were now dry, and he was reclined in a chair across the room, twiddling a bottle in his hand. They both looked ready for bed, and it made you wonder how they held out for this long. The singer slurred on with an interested smirk, “You two have fun?" Sav spoke up with a scoff-like laugh, “Sure sounded like it!" “Oh, you know it,” you gave them a wink, setting yourself down on the couch next to Joe, “Guess Phil finally ditched, huh?” “Yeah, the wanker went to bed- but you’ve lost your pants!” he gestured to your black underwear, made room for you to lay down with him, and took you in his arms like a teddy bear with a sigh of appeasement. You reached back and playfully poked at Joe’s dimple, “Steve's fault." “Well, that’s no good,” Sav objected, pushing the footrest of the chair in and returning to a sitting position. “What isn’t?” Joe asked him, "Steve gettin' into it with her?" “No, that cuddlin' you're doing- it’s boring. You stay like that, you’ll fall asleep on me!” He was certainly right about this. With you in Joe’s arms and his face nuzzling into your hair like some sort of animal, he was already falling asleep. “What do you want us to do?” you chuckled, thinking that Sav was only jealous of his friend. Joe mumbled happily into your hair, “How 'bout you just do me like Steve, and we’ll be good.” At this point, you noticed the feeling of something pressing lightly against the bottom of your back; a certain weight where Joe’s hips were, and a weight that wasn’t there at first. “Joe,” you whined at him, “You’re fucking gross.” He chuckled, then slowly moved his hips to lightly rub himself against you, a low quiet moan rising in his throat from the temporary pleasure it provided. “Ah- Joe!” you protested again, reaching back and hitting him as best as you could. You wiggled out of his embrace as he burst into giggles like he had just accomplished something. Sav, on the other hand, cringed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re even hornier than when you’re sober!” you grabbed a pillow and whacked Joe with it. “You’re one to talk! You just shagged Steve!” he smirked evilly, "Why not me?" “Ha! The only way I’ll do you is by some miracle, or at least a dare,” you threw yourself onto the other couch, picking up a nearly empty beer bottle and pouring whatever was left into your mouth. Sav’s eyes finally lit up, “That’s what we oughta do- truth or dare!” “Ooh, sounds like terrible fun,” you turned yourself so you were sitting upside-down on the couch, “Sav, truth or dare?” “How come he gets to go first?” asked Joe, “I wanna get down to business!” “Dare,” Sav declared, ignoring the singer’s objections. Immediately, your intoxicated mind thought of a scheme. Despite the plan you and Steve had executed ever so perfectly, you were still a child seeking more terror. You knew Joe wanted you, and it was no secret either, so how exactly would you use Sav to reign terror over him? You wanted something to rub in Joe’s face- something that would leave a mark on him. “I dare you to-" you clumsily pointed to your neck, "Gimme a hickey.” Joe's jaw dropped with offense and jealousy; exactly as you had expected. Sav began to laugh rather loudly at the request, and stood up, now understanding your true intention of making Joe jealous. “C’mere,” he motioned with his hand. More than happy to obey the command, you strutted over to him and paused, waiting for him to make the first move. He took a step so your bodies were practically pressing together, moved your hair out of the way on your neck, and dove right in. You smiled with glee, taking in the feeling of Sav’s mouth and tongue moving over your skin (as well as Joe’s groans of protest coming from a few feet away). As the bassist sucked on your neck without hesitation, it only made you think of one thing: “Wow, there’s definitely gonna be a mark after this.” *** Rick and Phil were staring at Sav with their mouths open in shock. You kept a hand over the mark he left on your neck to prevent everyone from looking any more than they already had. “So, wait, if it was you who gave me this, why didn’t you say anything before when we said it was Steve?” you asked Sav, more suspicious than outraged now. “I- ah, didn’t... wanna say anything...” he looked away, beginning to blush again, “I guess I was too embarrassed." “I think the only person who should be embarrassed is you, Joe,” Rick turned his attention back to the singer, “You fuckin dry humped her!” Joe exclaimed in his own defense, “Yeah, and I don’t even remember it! It’s not my fault- I was drunk and horny!” “See! Just like me and Steve! I don’t remember shagging him, either! So I guess we’re even.” “Even Stephen,” Phil scoffed. You slumped into the couch more, staring blankly ahead and realizing, “So I pretty much got to second base with all of you last night...?” “I think you made it all the way home with Steve,” Rick pointed out. “Thanks, Rick,” you kept your head hung, “I feel like a slut.” “You mean you’re not?” Phil joked, only to be hit in the arm by Sav.

Just then, you all heard the sound of movement upstairs. Your heart stopped and your blood ran cold; Steve was awake now. Everyone's jaws hit the floor, and for a second, you thought they were all afraid of what you were fearing. "He's awake..." Rick announced in a sing-song voice, teasing you. “Oh no...” you gasped quietly, “Oh no, oh no! Oh god, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna say to him?!” “Hate to break it to ya, but this isn’t necessarily our problem!” Joe shrugged in a panic, hearing Steve’s footsteps get closer. “But guys! You’ve gotta help me! You’re his best friends! What should I say to him?!” “Just act like it didn’t happen! Maybe he doesn’t remember-?” Sav proposed. Rick suggested, “Just straight up ask him if he remembers anything!” “Just get out of here!” Phil made a swatting motion towards the other room. “None of those are gonna do me any good! It still happened!” you yelled at them in a whisper, “I have to live that with that fact, even if neither of us have any memory of it to live with!” It was too late for any salvation; Steve was already at the top of the stairs. The band members held their breath, and- without words or warning- all scrambled out of the living room. “No!” you whispered, “Guys- wait!” You caught Rick by the wrist when he stood up. “Rick, c’mon, please don’t leave me here!” you begged. He yanked out of your grip and apologetically condemned you, “Sorry, Y/N, but this is your business.” As the four of them retreated, you tried to bolt after them. As soon as you hit the doorway, however, Phil turned around and pushed you back on the couch nearby as slowly as he could. It was so sudden that you were on your back before you knew it, and they were all gone. “Hey!” you called out after them, “Assholes!” Steve’s voice suddenly came to your ears (rather closely, too), “What’s their problem?” You jumped, “Ah- Steve!” He had a silent step, and made it down the stairs and across the room without making a sound. He also looked just as he did a little while ago when you first woke up; scraggly hair, lipstick stains all over his face, but no visible evidence of a hangover. “Hey, wow,” you forced an awkward chuckle at him, “Nice- uh, nice- lipstick...” Steve slumped down onto a chair and grumbled, “Thanks. Who even did this to me? Doesn’t look like it was you.” “That was, that was Rick- I’m assuming... I don’t remember that happening and I don’t think he does, either. He’s still got the lipstick on, too.” He played off the remark with a tired smile, “Oh, nice... last night really was something, wasn’t it?” Heat rushed to your face, and you tried to look away without being conspicuous. “Ha ha... yeah... really something!” you faked your amusement for him, now wondering if he was implying anything about the previous night. Steve leaned forward and asked, “Do you remember Sav and the paint? That was pretty funny, wasn’t it?” Still blushing, you darted your eyes around the room and nodded in agreement, “Mm hmm, yeah... he was like a toddler or something.” He sunk back into the chair again and closed his eyes, reminiscing about the events of the previous night. For a second you thought you were in the clear, and that maybe he didn’t remember the specific event that Phil and Sav did.

That illusion was shattered when his eyes snapped open, whispering “Wait a minute”, and sitting back up. Immediately, your heart dropped into your stomach.

“How did our plan go?” he questioned quietly, figuring that the others were still somewhere nearby and listening. “P-plan?” you stuttered, partially afraid of what he meant, but partially caught off guard, “What plan?” “You know-” he whispered again, thinking you remembered, “It was your idea. Did they believe it? We were convincing enough?" You darted your eyes down to the floor, confused, but also embarrassed. 'Convincing'? What did that mean? "Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t remember!” he smiled playfully. As you stared at him with fearful confusion in your eyes and redness on your cheeks, his smile was suddenly wiped away. He muttered under his breath as his face fell, "Oh... you don't remember... bloody hell, okay, this is gonna be hard to explain..." "Then explain it, because I'm really fucking confused..." your voice wavered with a sarcastic chuckle. Steve sighed and leaned forward, slowly weaving his hands together. He didn't know where to begin. "This is one of the few things I remember from last night..." he started off, "And there's no way to make this sound... good... in any way, but you came up with the idea of us pretending to shag- like making noises and shit like that- to trick the others into thinking we really did. For some reason I thought it was a great idea, and I'm pretty sure I carried you upstairs, too.” Instantly, a huge weight was lifted off your shoulders. It wasn't real; you didn't shag Steve, and he could even tell the guys himself! You blew out a big sigh of relief, and slumped back into the couch, closing your eyes. "Oh, god," you slowly panted, "What a huge relief- I suppose we were really convincing, then." "Why d'you say that?" You laughed tiredly, now feeling rather thankful for your raging hangover, "The guys are all convinced that we fucked last night. Only Phil and Sav seem to remember it, though. They've been hounding me about it all morning. I kept telling them it couldn't be true- and I was right!" "What, would it be so bad if we actually did?" he teased you in a hushed voice. "Well, I've had to live my day so far under the impression it did happen. I was teased, ridiculed, embarrassed, and felt guilty about it. I was afraid it'd ruin our friendship if it was true... I was kinda hoping you didn't remember so we could just forget..." The red in your face returned all over again. Steve, however, didn't seem bothered. "If you really want to, we can keep pretending it happened and steer into the act; give em' what they want." "What? No!" you laughed out loud, standing up, "You're crazy, Clark! I think I better go tell the others the bad news. They'll be disappointed-ha!" You walked across the room to go find the others and disclose unto them the "bad news", giving Steve a pat on the shoulder when you passed him. Once you were gone and out of sight, Steve also blew out a big sigh of relief. "She didn't remember anything," he thought to himself, "That was a close one." While he knew you two didn't go all the way the previous night, he figured if you didn't remember it, then it was for the best you didn't find out. It was nothing serious; just a bit of fooling around, really. Just a bit of drunked-up teasing, and nothing more. The guys had no proof that anything actually happened between you two, and you were about to tell them the partial truth anyway, so why say something to reignite the suspicion? After all, they were all hungover to begin with, so there wasn't much memory of the whole affair, either. "Thank god for these hangovers,"Steve thought, "Thank god. I couldnt've asked for anything more." ~Epilogue~ When you got to the top of the stairs, Steve put you on your feet and spun you around. "You ready?" he whispered, childish excitement in his voice. You nodded with equal excitement, "Take me away, Clark." The two of you began eagerly walking hand-in-hand to whatever room you pleased, but before either of you had the chance to pick one, the bathroom door opened, Rick popped his head out and commanded, "Stop right there!" Both you and Steve froze and looked at him. He still had his lipstick and his suit on, and a kind of serious look overtaking his face. A finger was kept in a pointing position at you, a few large pieces of cardboard were underneath his other arm, and he slowly took steps down the hall to meet you. Neither of you moved, but both of you waited. When Rick got to you, he didn't say a word, but did take Steve's face in his hands (dropping the cardboard in the process), and proceeded to the kiss the man all over his face.

Steve remained silent, and let Rick have his way until he decided to stop. When he did, there were several lipstick stains on various parts of the blonde's face.

"Thanks, mate," Steve muttered sarcastically as Rick kicked some of the cardboard pieces in different directions. He then stepped on two of them, trying to slide down the hall on them as if they were ice skates. When he got back to the bathroom, he went back inside and shut the door again.

Without another word, you turned Steve's face toward you, gave him a peck on the cheek as Rick had done, and kicked open the door behind you (which just so happened to be Phil's bedroom). You both fell back into the room, giggling with makeshift lust in your eyes.

After all, you had to make this authentic, right?