#and now i'm in folie world

[half-doomed]

FOLIE aaaaaand VIOLENT THINGS for the album asks

FOLIE MY BELOVED

Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes (this is apparently a basic answer now but i dont care she's My babygirl)

The (Shipped) Gold Standard

Headfirst Slide into Cooperston on a Bad Bet

(Coffee's for Closers)

Pavlove

wams

20 Dollar Nose Bleed

West Coast Smoker

27

America's Suitehearts

Tiffany Blews

She's My Winona

I Don't Care

Lullaby

What A Catch, Donnie

Disclaimer that these are all like 0.001 millimeters apart they're so close because i love this album top to bottom, even my least favorite is still one of my favorite fob songs and it's only ranked last because it Hurts me

Send me an album and I’ll put the tracks in order from most to least favorite

[thehermitsacedia]

Le sang coule à longs flots de sa poitrine ouverte ; En vain il a des mers fouillé la profondeur ; L'océan était vide et la plage déserte ; Pour toute nourriture il apporte son cœur. […] Et, regardant couler sa sanglante mamelle, Sur son festin de mort il s'affaisse et chancelle, Ivre de volupté, de tendresse et d'horreur.

The blood runs in slow waves from his open chest In vain has he plumbed the depths of the seas The Ocean is empty and the shore deserted To provide food for all he offers his heart. […] And, watching his bloody breast drop On his death-feast he sinks and staggers Drunk on pleasure, on tenderness and horror.

-Alfred de Musset, La Nuit de Mai

[prael]

c'est la vie - Kim Minju

Part 3 of folie à deux.

IZ*ONE Kim Minju x Male reader smut. (ft. a sprinkle of Wonyoung)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6

Masterlist word count: 10,553

c'est la vie - that's life

"I'm so fucked."

Fists clenched and eyes scrunched, you’re venting out loud to no one in particular. You repeat it, "I'm so fucked." Louder this time—to the sky. Well, more accurately, to the plastered ceiling of this little hole-in-the-wall. Either way, the solution isn't there.

It isn't at the bottom of a bottle either, but you're determined to find that out the hard way.

"Is there a friend I can call for you?" The woman behind the bar has stopped polishing off the glasses; interrupted by what she would say are the ramblings of a madman.

"There's no coming back from this." You throw your head forward, catching it in your now open hands, elbows resting on the wooden bar top.

"Sir? I'm going to call you a—"

"I don't need a cab." You draw your head from your hands and open your eyes—allowing the light to pour onto you from one of those little round lights above you. The drink sits in front of you, unfinished. Hard liquor in a tumbler just waiting to be thrown back like the three before it—a plea you can’t ignore. The large ice cube rests against your nose as you pour every last drop onto your tongue and swallow. "I do need another drink."

With the glass set back down, your body slouches and sinks. Eyes stare down at the empty glass and your face is cold to the world, cold to the woman across from you. You must reek of self-pity, the smell thick in the air. 

Let’s be honest, you've had far better days.

She's got her delicate fingers around the neck of the bottle, pouring you a fresh drink and placing it on a napkin, "you know, you're not the first person to stumble into this bar wearing a face like that."

You slide your eyes over to the glass and reach for it. "I highly doubt it."

"But, few of them show up this early, even if it is a Friday." She has a point: you’re propping up the bar alone and drowning your sorrows solo. In fact, there are only two other people in this whole place, sitting together at a table. "So what’s your story?"

"Does there have to be one?" You grip the glass in your hand, giving the stranger the best smile you can fake.

She steps back and brushes her hand on her trousers as she laughs, "I've seen many broken men and women sit at this bar and spend too many hours drinking their life savings, with hearts broken, dreams smashed and most of all, mistakes they regretted. But you seem different."

"Oh really, why's that?" Your eyes stare into your drink. It stares right back at you.

"You're still young."

"Does being broken have an age requirement?"

She shifts and reaches for something, something you can't quite make out, being locked in the most intimate of stares with your drink. It’s the sound of her placing down another fresh glass that gives it away. "Actually, yes. Because you've still got time to work with."

"That's the irony. All I have left is time."

“Then you have to believe in yourself to make the most of that time.” Her words are heavy, like their meaning holds weight within her too.

She lets you dwell on it for a moment while she pours her own drink. She settles herself against the bar top, across from you, resting her head in one open hand. Her gaze burns into you like sitting in the sun. You can feel something else too, a soft vibration in your pocket.

You finally break away from your staring contest with your drink—one you lost anyway—to fish your phone out of your pocket. The screen alights with Gaeul’s name and is followed by the words ‘1 new message’.

After a swipe, it reads, ‘wtf where are you? what happened?’ but the thought of sending a reply never crosses your mind. And, just in case, you switch it over to silent.

“Is that her?” The woman gently waves a slender finger towards your phone as you put it back where you found it. “The reason you’re here?”

"Do you press all your customers like this?"

“Only the interesting ones,” she returns her hand to her glass, taking a sip of it before continuing, “and there’s sadly so few of those.”

"And if I'm not as interesting as you think?"

"Then I'll buy you a drink.” She tilts her glass at you. "For the trouble."

"And if I'm fascinating?"

"I'll still buy you a drink." Another sip from her glass as her lip gloss stains the rim, "maybe two."

"Then no, it wasn't her." And here's the thing, you don't know who to blame. Yourself? Probably. Wonyoung? Maybe. The mystery cameraman who got it all on video? Almost definitely. 

“But it is another woman, right?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m not exactly rushed off my feet here.”

You sigh, unsure exactly where to begin with this whole mess. The complete story is a long one. You could tell her about your family—the trouble at home and why you had to leave—but that’s not for anyone to know.

"I transferred here. Moved here with my brother. He's at work right now, and he will be late into the evening." You pause to take another drink. Another burning sensation. "To keep food on our table and keep me in college." 

Even saying so little it weighs on you, the feelings of regret and the feeling that you're saying too much. You bite your tongue and hesitate.

"So why are you here and… you know... not at college?" She pushes you for more. She flicks a finger towards you with her free hand and then brings her glass to her lips.

You drag your eyes up for the first time and finally inspect the woman across from you.

She's your age, roughly—if you had to guess. She's pretty, and that part you're more confident about. She wears her long brunette hair over one shoulder, running in a loose wave, over her slate black blazer, which sits over a small black tee, cropped at the waist. She smiles when your eyes meet hers. And maybe she had no idea, and perhaps it's all subconscious, but the tips of her slender fingers squeeze slightly against the glass now that you're paying her some attention.

"I never got your name," you say with curiosity laden in your voice.

"Minju."

"And why is a young woman like you working here on a Friday afternoon?"

"Were you not the one telling me about your troubles?" She follows her words with a soft laugh.

"Call it quid pro quo. You answer and then I’ll tell you all about it," you say.

"Fine." She stands back upright, adjusting her blouse with a few gentle touches. The way her finger glides across the collar and tugs at it slightly. It's more than a little distracting. She cuts a sleek hourglass shape out of the shelves of bottled booze behind her. "I'm between gigs right now."

"Gigs?"

"Ah." She waves a finger. "My turn."

Minju tilts her head and then rests her palm against the bar—leaning toward you and eyes focused. It’s like an inspection and you instinctively sit up straighter.

"So why are you here?" she asks.

"Expelled. About..." You bring up your wristwatch into view. "About an hour ago."

Her brows go up a fraction and her eyes narrow on you again, almost as if to accuse you of lying to her. But her expression softens almost instantly. You would never notice if not for watching every second in painstaking detail. Her widening eyes reveal to you the thoughts passing through her mind as she racks her brain for a reason you would be expelled.

"You said that you're between gigs, so what is it you do?" you say, shifting the focus back away from yourself.

"I sing. I dance. I model. I act." She pauses with a bitter look. "However, right now, I serve drinks." You get it; she looks the part. That much is clear. She's far too gorgeous to be spending her time polishing glasses and serving screwdrivers to burnouts at happy hour. She looks every bit like a woman who should be so much more, but this isn't Hollywood, and the storybook tale of the waitress who makes it is so cliché.

You swill the last of your drink around in the glass, watching the little tidal pattern inside. The way the ice cube moves with the current, it hypnotises, entrances. You speak, looking down into the amber-hued ocean within your glass.

"And you have the talent to back up the looks?"

"So they tell me." There's no joy in the words or the tone. No pride or smug sense of achievement. If anything, it's dismissive. “It’s just a slow period. That’s life.”

“C’est la vie.” You catch her gaze as you utter the phrase under your breath.

Minju continues despite you, “but things will turn around soon enough. I'm going places."

"Every actor who is going places never seems to get there." Maybe it's the alcohol or maybe it's because, right now, you hate this city and everyone in it, but everything that comes out of your mouth is uncharacteristically curt.

And look, you regret it as soon as it leaves your mouth but that doesn't change the way you just dismissed her. It wasn't meant personally, but it's hard to stop your thoughts from curdling into words right now.

Minju is quiet, and the air becomes heavy. You swallow deep and finally look her in the eyes again. There's something there, some little flicker of emotion untold that gives her away for a moment. She is a woman told repeatedly that she has the world at her feet, but the hard truth of it is that she's here, working away behind the bar because, in fact, life is a lot more cruel.

Absorbed by her vulnerability, you feel the need to backtrack, "that's not—"

"So what, you look at me and see nothing but a girl who couldn't cut it?" There's a flash of fire in her eyes. A burn. A spark that sets the sky alight. A very attractive spark.

The way she fires it back. The passion in her words. The tension building between you as your eyes linger on each other.

You can't explain the attraction, but you can certainly feel it.

"No," you fire back without hesitation, leaning towards her, "what I see is a woman working two jobs just to afford a place to live." Your confidence rises with the alcohol pumping its way through your system and you do your damnedest to rescue the situation. "What I see is a girl with stars in her eyes and a dream that somehow she still keeps alive where so many more have given up. I'm not judging."

Silence.

Sudden, silent, and slightly sinister.

"Yeah, you were," Minju's eyebrows arch in amusement, "but that's fine, I'll take my turn now."

As she leans forward, there are words on her tongue. She looks ready to bite back, but she's looking over you, across the room, watching the only other two people in the bar leave. And for a minute, everything is held in suspense, you are locked together in silence, the clap of their shoes echoing through it. Then the sound of the door, and the brief exposure to the outside world, it's the rain pouring and the cars passing by and then it's the slam shut. It's just you and her, Minju, alone under the dim of the lights.

"So what was it?" she finally breaks the silence.

"Hm?"

"What got you expelled?"

You could lie. There's an opportunity for that. But what's the point? Even though she's a stranger, it doesn't feel like there's a risk if you just come clean and spill your dirty little secret, besides, you owe her one now.

"I got caught fucking in the library." The truth comes out plain and simple. It’s a brazen statement to make in the middle of the afternoon to a stranger. Her gaze shoots down at you. Whatever she expected, it wasn't that.

"I’m sorry, you were caught fucking in the library?" She repeats it out quizzically as if she’s taking time to process. Minju has this way of talking—a lilt in her voice. She has a tone and a pitch that rises and falls with each word. She's amused, that much is clear, by the slight smirk that has curled a corner of her mouth to accompany her sound.

"We were alone, or at least we thought we were, and it’s not like we hadn’t done it before, but apparently, there's evidence." You gesture your empty glass at her, a secondary conversation, unspoken but clear that you need another drink before you tell her anything else.

In doing so you see how she tenses her lips together, holding in her laughter at the thought. She’s holding and you’re watching until she finally cracks, her grin wide and laughter loud.

"Now I am the one judging you. You made fun of me for trying while you're too busy swinging your cock around to even try. So, you tell me, who is the stupid one here?"

"Alright I deserved that one." Your hand had been holding the empty glass to her but now you bring it to rest against the bar top. "In my defence, it's not like I had much of a choice. That girl..."

"Here we go. Let's see how you justify this one." She finally takes your empty glass and when the edge of her fingers brushes across the back of your hand, they linger for far too long. And when she draws back, dragging away those long, delicate fingers from your own, you find yourself suddenly cold.

"It's not like I could turn her down if I wanted to. Also I would never have done it in the library if she didn't make me."

"She 'made' you. Go on." There's scepticism in the words. Her mocking tone teasing you as you watch her turn to the shelves behind her, eyes scanning the possibilities.

"No one says no to her. Never."

"Wow, sounds like quite a woman," she says, ever more playful, as she reaches for the top shelf. Her blazer is pulled up now, ever so slightly exposing her back above the waist of her trousers. Trousers hugging the subtle swell of her hips. Her small, tight, round ass is defined through the fitted fabric. You can't look away.

"Everything comes easily for her. There are literally men fighting for her affections. They would die for her," the words tumble from your mouth, as your gaze lingers.

You must have been lost in the daze and absent-mindedly following the contours of her thighs because by the time you shift focus to her face, she's peering at you from over her shoulder. Eyes sharp as daggers, as if to say it’s a little too obvious.

"Wow she sounds like a real piece of work. I know someone like that too. " Minju turns with bottle in hand, hair swirling around her as she does so. She's graceful. Unbothered and unhurried by anything. "This one is perfect. This bottle is older than me."

She pours two fresh drinks with more ice in each.

"Am I going to regret this in the morning?" you question as the weight of the glass finds your hand.

"You might. But at this moment? No."

You trust her, somehow, inexplicably; you do.

She asks, “so, what will you do now?” it’s a question as funny as it is difficult to answer. 

The truth is that you haven’t got the slightest clue. You tell her as much and try to explain it as best you can, and her eyes soften as you share the details. It’s supposed to be a back-and-forth—quid pro quo—but she’s pressing you with question after question: how long have you known her? Is she pretty? Where does she see you in all of this?

“You and her. Still a thing?”

Minju is on your side of the bar now, sitting by your side with little caution about personal space; there’s not an inch of space between you. Her thigh presses against you and her upper arm is flush with your own.

"Me and Wonyoung were never a thing, not really."

Minju stops dead and chokes, holding her throat, and forcing the drink down. Her whole body shifts. She nearly falls off the bar stool and, after steadying herself, she stares blankly forwards.

"Wonyoung? Jang Wonyoung?"

"Yeah, her." The new drink meets your lips and its taste is a hell of a lot richer than the cheap stuff you were pouring down. It’s laden with a smoky taste over sweet tones.

There's a silence even after you finish taking a drink. Something untold hangs in the air. You know it. She knows it. She's here on the verge of telling you something, but what? And you sit here and wait, despite the racing of your heartbeat.

"I should have known." Minju shakes her head, laughing, but without a smile.

"Should've known what?"

"You're Wonyoung's new toy. I should have guessed as soon as I saw you, she has this effect on people."

You stiffen at that. It's always the truth that hurts the most and the fact is you really were just a toy. A convenient dildo.

"You know what you need right now?" She twists on the stool, and suddenly, you've got Minju looking straight at you. Eyes locking with you. Right there. Looking up at you. So close. Right there, leaning back ever so slightly so her chest arches towards you, accentuating her small breasts, straining against her shirt.

"Drinking helps," you reply, raising your glass.

"Yes, but so does fucking."

That’s a line. It’s one that shouldn’t come as a surprise because a girl like this probably has a lot of experience in being wanted, so who is to say she can’t turn the table for once? But in one breath you’re giddy, taken out of yourself and feeling drunker by the moment. Not on the booze, but her. She is intoxicating.

It takes you a few seconds to notice but her free hand slips on your leg, rubbing and caressing as it snakes further and further up.

"What?" You ask as if it needs confirmation and in those long few moments, you think you must have imagined it. And the same way a nervous laughter rises, the laughter spilling out of your throat, she is quick to quench the growing dread inside of you by sliding her palm across your bulge.

"Wait here." Something has switched inside her. You don’t know what, but either way, it's got her standing up and strutting towards the door. With each step, she opens her body language. A growing swagger, letting you see the sway of her hips. Left and right. Just enough to catch the eye. And oh boy, does your eye get caught. You couldn't pull your gaze away now if you wanted to.

She's swiping hands at the door now and flicking the locks. Then she's pulling the blinds shut. A giggle comes from Minju as she spins back to face you. She runs her bottom lip through her teeth and stares right into you.

You feel exposed but, strangely, comfortable. It's so very odd; with no clue as to what happens next. It has your heart pounding out of your chest.

"I thought you were alone tonight because you were upset, but no, I understand it now. You're frustrated. Angry. Stressed. She used you and got away with it."

She kicks off her heels, loses a few centimetres in height, and is walking barefoot across the floor - toward you. Her shoulder rolls to one side and then to the other as her body rises and falls, sashays with the pace of her hips. She can see that you're stuck. You’re rooted to the seat with a dumb look on your face, and yet she saunters ever closer.

“I am a little confused,” you finally say. She's so close that all your senses are lost to the approach of Minju's swaying frame. Her curves, her body, her gentle steps, the way her perfume smells—it's consuming you.

She ignores you and continues, "I’m frustrated too. I'm so frustrated that I'm wasting time in this damn bar. I'm angry at all the auditions that ended up with producers rejecting me. I know exactly what you're feeling. You're angry at the world and everyone in it." Her tone grows raspier. More raw and less stable. "You feel alone. Hung out to dry and in need of attention."

"And you feel the same?"

"Yes, and I'm hungry. Starved of any real satisfaction. You told me I’m going nowhere and I guess it means I need a little attention, too."

You watch her eyes flittering as she looks you up and down. The sultry grin she wears shows she likes what she sees.

"So what are you going to do about it, Minju? What is the solution?" You drop a look down to the soft and slender flesh of her neck.

"No strings. We get this all out of our system." Minju leans in. Lips so close to yours. She stays there. It's torture. "You let all that shit out. Take out your pent-up stress, frustration, anger."

"On you?"

"Exactly. You'll feel better. I will too. Because right now…" Her nose presses against the side of your own. Soft skin. Gentle pressure. "I need it rough."

Her hand lands on your thigh again, rubbing down the denim of your jeans.

The offer is enticing. It has your head swimming with dirty images of everything the two of you could do together, and your cock? Well, that's already twitching in your underwear.

"This isn’t going to help, it will just make things worse."

"Can they really get any worse?"

Minju brings your hand, hers and yours, to her waist. Your thumb feels the soft material of her shirt, and your fingers touch that small patch of skin below it.

"Are we prepared to find out?" Your lips graze gently against hers. The thrill. The electricity in the air.

"I’m ready. More than ready. Just this once, do what you want to do and make me the star of your fantasy. Use me. Make me everything you need." She plants her lips firmly on yours. You both go quiet, muffled by a kiss.

Nothing to do but feel.

Minju's grip tightens on your leg, and yours on her waist. The other hand slides up to her chest, finding her breast, cupping it and feeling her. She opens her mouth. And you follow. Your tongues are colliding and sweeping across one another, eager and desperate.

So you push, guiding the two of you to stand. Minju staggers back, and you're with her every step of the way. Stumbling through a kiss. Hands everywhere. Uncertain. Lost, confused, and passionate. It's an incoherent tumble that takes you both crashing through chairs, pushing them aside until you hit something sturdy. Minju's ass slams against the pool table and she grunts into your mouth.

Her lips drag away and she smiles. "Fuck me."

You grab her by the hips, lifting her onto the pool table.

"I need to see the big cock that’s got Wony all worked up. She wouldn’t settle for anything disappointing." She's fumbling at your waist, struggling with the buckle of your jeans.

"This what you want?" Your words vibrate through her. And when you take a handful of her hair and tug, there's a long, soft, desperate sigh from Minju's parted lips.

"Use me. Abuse me." Her fumbling finally succeeds and the waist of your trousers slackens. "I know how I look, but don't worry, you're not going to break me."

She's pushing at your trousers, your boxers, and when that stiff dick pops out, her smile spreads into a big, stupid grin. It's not an unattractive expression—not really. It just tells the truth. She is excited. 

It’s as clear as day that you are too. You’re rock hard, stiff as hell, ready to fuck, and this, this will give you the chance to let it all out. All of it.

"Perfect." Minju grabs your cock in both hands, still warm, throbbing, and strong. "Just look at this thing."

You pull on her hair again, harder, until she breaks away from you, until she gives way—losing the grip on your cock and falling back on the table. And now you slow as if to savour the moment as you’re sliding your fingers under the waist of her trousers. Not often you get afforded a measure of control.

"C’mon, please, don't be gentle," Minju moans out through gritted teeth. The desperation is painted on her face and that’s the difference here: while a girl like Wonyoung wouldn’t let you go slow, Minju is the type of girl who makes you not want to go slow.

So you pull at the trousers of the girl sprawling out in front of you, tearing the button from the fabric, yanking them open and pulling them down those long, slender legs. The flesh is soft. And to touch, so smooth and light. Minju's breathing picks up—becoming shorter and deeper with each touch to her sensitive skin.

"I might leave marks."

Minju stares you down, hands already massaging over her panties. "I hope you will."

The thought is intoxicating, so much more so than the alcohol in your blood, as your hands paw over her legs; you knead soft skin with a kind of aggression you haven't felt before.

Minju is a rare girl.

Beautiful. And by definition, beautiful women have seen it all before.

But her?

The look she gives? Like no man has ever fully satisfied the itch within her. It's deep-set hunger. The kind that she chases endlessly for.

This hunger makes people behave stupidly, careless and forgetful of the consequences. And maybe you know that all too well but even still it's a risk worth taking. Every choice has led you here and maybe that is your solace, that it's not all downhill from here.

And as your hands reach her small satin panties, the warmth embraces you, and the urge within you grows. You hook your fingers inside and draw the panties aside to expose the tight pink flesh of Minju's cunt.

Not that you would expect anything else, but she is clean-shaven. So smooth. Not a single blemish. This is a girl who kept herself neat and pristine, and yet from her mouth spills utter filth, "just look at how wet this pussy is for you."

She's running her fingers between her lips, showing you everything she has to offer between her legs, showing you where she expects you dick will get put to use.

"This tight fucking cunt can take everything your thick cock has to give."

"Minju, you’re so..." You're standing over her, her legs spread wide beside you, blazer falling from her shoulders leaving nothing covering her but that low-cut top.

Minju stares right at you, eyes fixed, wide and eager, her chest heaves with every deepening breath she takes in. She's wild, reaching for you with one hand, stretching to hold you and then pulling at your shirt to draw you in.

"I'm so needy. Please fuck me." She's whining through closed lips as her other hand slips away from her pussy and glides over her taut abs and leaving her cunt ready to be used. She wants it, desperately, and you're drawing it out. Making it build inside her, and you hold your cock in your hand.

You're stroking, and she's watching. And for all her strain to pull at your shirt, to pull you into her, you hold back. You hold just long enough. Enough for her arm to fall limp. Enough for her to almost give in. "Please..." she trails off with a whimper.

You push the head of your stiff cock against her cunt—against her clit. Your hips roll as you run the entire underside of your cock between her lips. She gasps and breathes deeply. She's holding it all the while. All the time it takes for you to draw your cock back, so the tip is right there. Ready.

She let's go as you do. The air escapes her lungs with a sharp squeal. You let your cock sink in. Slow but persistent, you push further and further, feeling her tensing. Then the clench and tightness overwhelms. She gasps and squirms, wriggles beneath you and her nails scratch at the fabric of the table beneath her.

You push again, sinking your cock as far as you can through her wet hole.

There's a loud snap and squeal from Minju. Pretty girl broke a nail. It flew off somewhere across the room, such is her grip onto the table. "Fuck. So fucking full," she manages, barely. It's more the noise you force from her than any actual communication.

You draw your hips back and she's quick to encourage you, "again," she says.

Your hips are driving forward again, pushing every last centimetre back through her.

Minju whimpers. There's this short, sweet purr from deep within her. You feel her stretch, she moves a little, adjusting herself atop the pool table. There's a warmth that swells, tightens, and pulsates. And you feel the breath come easier. It leaves her as though her body has settled to a kind of ease and pleasure, some form of satisfaction.

You refuse to let her rest. It's not what she would want.

It's not what you want.

You run your hands along her inner thighs, past her knees until you finally reach her ankles and pull them together and hold them aloft. You lift and pull her ass up slightly from the table. She's suspended now while you fuck into her.

The shake of her small frame is completely erotic. Watching her ass and thighs jiggle as you fuck into her. That plump little ass taking slap after slap from your hips.

Her perfect skin reddens as her moans louden the longer you last. There are high-pitched squeals and low and gritty growls. They bounce around the empty bar, reverberating and multiplying—echoing back louder than before.

"Harder." She thinks she can take more. Look, Wonyoung was demanding, she wanted to control everything and push your limits, but Minju? Minju is whole different type of demanding. She's welcoming everything you have with every fibre of her being. Her pussy so eagerly taking it all, and it just seems like no matter what limit you push past, or the more Minju takes, the more she craves.

You pull her legs to you, calves on your shoulders, feet in the air, and your hands move firmly onto her hips. You steady her—ready her. Your grip bruises the tender skin (hey, it's what she wants) and then you fuck her like your life depends on it. Your cock pumping inside with reckless abandon.

"Keep going! Just like that! Fuck!" her voice rises over the rhythm of your low grunts, and the crack of your hips slapping against her ass.

Minju's face twists, red and flushed. She's so tense. Muscles tight around the neck and her teeth buried in the soft flesh of her lower lip. Her voice is low and raw, growling, as she pleads for more with words you can't pretend to understand. It's not eloquent or graceful... In fact, it's that incoherence that makes this all the better—so utterly unbothered, unconcerned with anything other than being thoroughly used, fucked and defiled.

She has that hungry glaze in her eyes when you look down upon her, a girl being exactly the kind of filthy thing she promised to be. And those eyes only draw you in, you're pushing over her, folding her legs further against her body until she's truly helpless. Pinned to the table. Bent in two. No ability, nor want, to stop you from dominating her.

"I'm gonna—" she tries to speak until you press down, right into her. She squeezes your cock inside that tight, creaming hole. Then she whines, loud.

So loud.

Her back would arch high if it could. But she can't break free. You have her completely immobilized with your upper bodyweight. And fuck does she love every second of it. She's got handfuls of her shirt, pulling it, clutching, writhing. Ecstasy courses through her and eyes roll.

And now she's rolling, you're turning her. Ankles in your hands, you have pulled out and you're flipping her onto her front, face down into the table. She’s just… accepting it. Not an ounce of fight in her. Not even a word. Just a throaty moan.

"Be a good girl for me, won’t you?” you’re ordering, “give me your hands.” 

She reaches her arms back over her subdued body and lets you take her delicate wrists.

She submits.

Just lying there prone, her delicate body against the table, with that tight little ass perched on the edge of it, and that skimpy underwear still pushed aside for her throbbing cunt. Those slender legs left hanging either side of you. And go on, you're allowed to think it in the simplest of terms; Minju is sexy. In a word, that's it. Sexy. And yet, the reality is there's so much more you can say. Every soft curve of her toned body is alluring, she is magnetic and inviting, and that cute face peering over her shoulder, long hair spilled all behind it. All the words in the world couldn't do justice to describe her—couldn't properly capture the image.

"What are you going to do to me, daddy?" Oh, she says it so seamlessly, slips it in like it's been on her lips for a while - floating in the atmosphere since you took control. And now that it's finally landed, you feel its weight. It has her voice different; smokey and dripping with sex. And it hits you straight between your legs. 

She licks her lips and tests it out again, just for good measure: "what does daddy think I deserve?" 

One hand holding her wrists against the small of her back, another gripping her hip. Her legs sway lazily, unable to reach the floor. Helplessly dangling, waiting for her fate. And you're not a man to disappoint a girl like Minju.

"I'm going to use the needy little slut in front of me," you say as the head of your stiff cock probes at her cunt, slipping between her wet lips and sliding against her swollen clit. Teasing her. 

You draw it back up again and pushing apart her ass cheeks with the length of your cock. Slipping under the thin fabric of her soaked panties.

She bites her lower lip and whimpers through her teeth. The head of your wet cock slides against her tight asshole, and her hips twitch back. "Whatever you need, take it from me." She means that. There's yearning in every word. The hunger and desire in her voice growing thicker.

You push against her, cock sandwiched between her cheeks, pushing your weight down and pressing her against the table. Her eyes close for a moment, her fingers curl into her palms.

"Yes. Fuck," Minju's desperate encouragement spills through clenched teeth.

You pull back your cock and replace it with your thumb, sliding your hand over her ass and slipping it against her puckered hole.

"Please da—" You slip the tip of your thumb just inside her ass and hold it there while she holds her breath. 

Anticipation— 

Waiting— 

Knowing what's coming next. 

Minju is completely still as you drive your cock into her cunt again. Sinking yourself in so deep—balls deep. Her hands become tight fists and her whole body is shaking. You withdraw and plunge again, and she hisses, breathing from the bottom of her lungs, ragged and shallow, and fighting to speak.

"I'm a dirty, needy, little slut and you’re going to use me—"

You spit at her spread ass, right onto your thumb, and use it to dig a little deeper. "What are you?" your question provokes an instant answer,

"I'm a horny slut. I'm a fuck-hole. That's what I am."

As if it's a reward for her honesty, you fuck her a little harder. Push your thumb a little deeper. She smiles through a howl of ecstasy, the sound swelling into the room.

"Tell me again," you command with another pump of your hips, stretching her even more with your thumb.

Her words crackle, dying in her throat with each impact of your hips, "I'm just a dumb girl who needs to be full of cum."

No sane man would refuse it. Not you, not anyone. Definitely not you at all. You couldn't resist any part of her, but especially not that filthy demand. Especially not with how you felt watching those gorgeous fucking curves ripple every time your hips slapped against her ass.

It's all so easy, how you continue, keeping pace. Thumb deep in her ass. Balls smacking against her soaked pussy with every thrust. It's a pleasure all too overwhelming—a thrill, a sensation, a powerful sense of utter fucking satisfaction and all-consuming desire—an erotic overflow inundates, a swell, an ever-growing crest inside your balls.

"Minju. I'm. Gonna—"

"Cum in me? Please." She's the hallmark of innocence-gone-wrong; the way such words roll off her tongue with playful ease. And she knows all the right ones. The ones that she knows will bring all the right reactions. To speak to you on a primal level. She's at it again, cutting into you, "Inside— Inside me."

Cutting through you like the blade of a knife, right to your core and you obey—fuck.

"Daddy please."

You're incensed.

Dogged with the pounding you're giving her, you have lost control of just how deep you have your thumb in her ass. This is so Indecent. Obscene, even. For you, or for anyone, to just... enjoy something like this. Your body is roaring with lust as her ass and cunt both squeeze on you, clamping you as you drive yourself to the brink.

"I wanna... feel your hot load," her voice comes shaking through the unabated pounding you're inflicting. "Fill me please," she's begging and it sounds a little clearer now, stronger, a little louder, no doubt because she knows it's almost done.

You tug at her wrists, pulling her arms back and her body away from the table. Her head hangs forward beneath a wave of hair. Face covered by sweat streaks across those pretty sculpted features.

"Please, I'll be a good girl and take every drop. All the fucking cum that daddy has. Make me your stupid dirty little slut," she compels, then yelps with every new slam and stroke of the stiff cock being buried into her again and again.

That tight asshole, and that cock-hugging pussy. All the relentless slamming that you have done and will do. All the desires, with the pent-up frustration, the rage and anger and tension that has built up—you release it. Everything goes as you send your load rushing through your cock to paint her insides.

Pushing everything you have in. Pumping. Driving hard.

Her squeals are like music to the soul. Relief and rapture are overflowing. And fuck. What a ride. What a rush. You pump her full until she's gasping for air, struggling in your grasp and making sure to moan each and every dirty word into the atmosphere as she fights to hold on. What a thrill. And as the two of you hit the limits of physical exhaustion and exhilaration, you pull back. Letting the girl lay there, spent, and filled, on the pool table.

Used.

Satisfied.

Sullied.

Minju to you, today, is a feeling of freedom. Fulfilment. Absolution. As she lay limp, arms out, legs hanging, hair draped over her face and pooling on the table—a girl well fucked and on display. She is satisfaction. And she is dripping with your cum.

She slips her fingers under her panties. That shrivelled piece of fabric that clings, or struggles to. Now she pushes them off her hips and they tumble over her feet.

When this beautiful girl speaks her voice has the distinct scratch of someone whose lungs have had the oxygen stolen from them, her throat sore with moaning, "I need more."

She moves to her back and you can only watch in amazement as she turns to you with that flush face. One of her small, delicate hands falling between her legs and her dainty fingers tracing around her cunt—through her pink folds, and dousing them in your leaking cum.

There's a knock at the door. It rattles in the frame. "Open up!" It's the voice of the young man seeking an afternoon drink. You think that, luckily, hopefully, between the blinds, the posters and the neon lights in the windows along with the dim lighting, he can't see in.

"Fuck off!" Minju shouts. Her chest is heaving, and there are the gentle lulls of a giggle welling in her throat.

You notice she hasn't moved the fingers away from her swollen and sticky cunt. There's a building cackle, almost as if she is going to fall into hysterics.

"Let me in! You should be open!"

"I said fuck off!" Minju's climbing from the table with a wild smile on her face. Cum is trailing from her cunt, pooling, oozing, dripping down her thigh, down her leg. Her tongue slides over her lips, she's eying you up like a tiger.

"I want to ride your thick cock." She's breathing the words out heavy and finally pulling that shirt over her head. Small round breasts exposed. Stiff dark nipples. Hard and taught. That bare torso. Tight and tone. Firm and solid. Every muscle defined under glistening, sweaty skin.

She pushes herself against you until you push between a pair of stools and your ass plants against the bar. "You made me a dirty girl, and now I can't stop."

You find her strength a little unnerving, the way seems so unphased and determined. She's running on pure adrenaline. It's hot, sure, a kind of raw passion is certainly not without appeal, but also maybe a touch too overpowering. The way that she grabs at you, a touch forceful, and the way you come together is perhaps too rough and less than elegant.

So unkempt, un-romantic, yet so insanely gratifying as her soft skin finds yours.

You take her body in your arms, lips on one another, exploring mouths with tongues. Grasping the round cheek of her ass as she lifts her left thigh up to your waist. Hand trailing between the two of you and then grabbing a firm hold of your cock, guiding the thing back to her pussy—and not letting go.

This is it. This is where she belongs.

It’s all so natural for her to be on the end of your cock, so much so that she can casually pull away from the kiss to switch her focus to finding a drink on the bar behind you. She’s taking a drink of it now and some of it spills from the corner of her mouth.There is something undignified in that, but utterly perfect nonetheless.

She's grinding against you now, swirling her hips and cooing like a little kitten, as your hands move over her ass and that silken smooth back.

Minju sets the empty glass back down on the bar, and pulls back to meet your eyes. She presses a finger to her tongue, her eyes gleaming and focused solely on you, as she guides a small, playful trail of drool to run over her glistening tits. "Fuck," she breathes through a grin, taking both her hands and smoothing that drool over her chest.

Another knock at the door. Another fist pounded into its frame.

All these fucking interruptions.

"Ugh! Fuck this. Come on, follow me." And before you know it, she's guiding you across the room. "I'm going to ride you until I can't walk. Until I'm so sore that every step will remind me what it felt like to have you deep inside me."

Your phone rings, on the floor in the pocket of your trousers. Who would call right now? Just as one interruption finally concedes at the door, another emerges.

Minju bends to fish it out of your trousers. Her little ass, one cheek marred with a handprint from your grasp, is so close you could bend forward and eat it (any other time, you would.) but it's not that which intrigues you the most. When she rises, slowly, your phone is in her grasp, screen displaying Wonyoung's name.

"This should be fun," Minju chuckles to herself. She swipes the answer button and raises the device to her ear. "Hello?"

Minju reaches out to hold your hand and pulls you toward the staff only door. "Sorry, he's a little busy right now," she says as she walks through the door with you in tow. Her head pivots. Minju stares, eyes boring deep into yours. That sultry expression. The spark of desire igniting all over again.

Minju turns on her heel, letting you go and taking a step back. Thin fingers stroke over her cum-soaked thigh, up and along her wet lips, higher and past her flat stomach, sliding between her firm tits. "He is really busy."

She points at the couch in the break room, gesturing you to sit. You oblige, a little nervous about the turn of events. She's rubbing at her perky little tits as she speaks, "do you want me to take a message?"

"Minju..." you say with warning, ready to take the phone off her. But it's so hard to ignore how utterly sexy she is, and your hand starts to stroke along your shaft. She turns her body and poses, looking over her shoulder to you, and she grins. Minju affords you all the time you need to admire her while she listens to the ramblings of Wonyoung through your phone.

Minju steps toward you, looking down at you. "You need to speak to him?" She rests a hand on your shoulder, and then she clambers over you, straddles you. Her leaking cunt right above your cock. She licks her lips and rubs her slick pussy over your stiff dick, eyes focused on you, head tilted down. "Give me one second."

She holds the phone against her collar and shifts above you, resting the tip of your cock against her hole.

"Minju, let me—"

She sinks onto your cock. 

Inch by pleasurable inch, she takes you. Minju rocks forward and adjusts to settle on the length of your rod. Fully hilted and stuffed. She's a slick sheath of velvet on your stiff rod and you realise then just how perfectly she fits on you. You bite your tongue, trying to not make a noise so you don't alert the woman on the other end of the phone. Minju, however, is careless, and she lets out a soft moan as she shifts on you, readying herself.

Cum still seeps out of her cunt and down your shaft—your own and hers in some messy cocktail. The smell is sharp but unmistakable. It hangs in the air as the unmistakable evidence of what has happened and what will happen again. It’s so potent; invigorating and exciting. A reminder of everything and more, as if you would ever forget it—as if you could ever forget what she has become for you.

Minju draws the phone back to her face and, with a cocky smirk parting her lips, she speaks again, her voice breathy and full of lust. 

"He's in a bit of a tight spot right now." She throws you a wink and continues, "give him ten—wait, no—give him fifteen minutes and whatever is left of him is all yours."

There's the sound of a voice coming through the phone, so unmistakably Wonyoung's but you can't make a word of it out. There's another sound, one much dirtier, that fills the air between the two of you. The soft squelching as Minju rocks and rotates those full hips on you.

"Sorry, what was that?" Minju is stifling a giggle and not-really trying to keep the naughtiness of the situation in check. "Yeah, Wonyoung,you’re right. It's me, Minju," she purrs, biting her lip as her eyes fix on you. Then her tongue flits from her lips, sweeping from left to right.

‘It's me, Minju.’

Look, it’s not really a surprise that they know each other well. It was always a possibility that Minju had just heard of Wonyoung but had never really been acquainted. Thinking back, however, the strength of her reaction to the girl’s name should have told you everything. The truth is now ever so clear. 

Not that Minju is going to let you process it. She will not allow you to focus on anything other than the caress of her pussy over your sensitive cock. She's elegant with the movements of her hips—the motions subtle and slow. Her pace is sinful. She's running her tongue over her teeth and staring at you, enjoying the quiet grunts that rattle from your throat.

"He showed up in—" Her breath hitches and she catches a moan in her throat before it escapes. "In the bar, drinking alone."

There's a gasp, then another as she strokes her hands through the locks of your hair. "Yeah. He was doing that." She's laughing under her breath and looking you up and down. "That thing with his hand, yeah, it's cute."

“What? No. I wouldn’t.” You’re getting half a conversation and none of it makes any sense.

She reaches out her hand to the side of your face, thumb brushing the line of your jaw and her body leaning in. "He's got a sexy jaw line," she admits and then picks up the speed of her movement. 

Her hand slides down your neck and presses into your collar. "His body?" Minju hums as her hips are churning; her body is rolling and her abs are flexing. "Yeah, I think so too."

Minju's back arches and her tiny tits bounce as her movement changes, bouncing rhythmically on your cock. She's adjusting and getting more comfortable on you. As the seconds pass, she's getting rougher and moving ever faster. 

Fuck.

"Well, he's drunk, so it's no surprise."

It's been no end of strange situations over the past couple of months, but this may well be the strangest yet. The girls are having a friendly conversation, but one is on top of a cock that's dripping with her mess.You're still trying to piece it together. They're friends—that much is clear. But there's still so many questions unasked: How? Since when? And why are they having their catch up right fucking now?

Her delicate frame moves fast now and the rise and fall of her chest growing sharper leading to short breaths.

"Mhm," she utters, keeping her voice low and words at a premium. "N—No we aren't." To give her credit, she's actually very good at sounding natural. In some twisted way, it's one hell of an audition for how talented of actress she can actually be. 

But that image comes crumbling down before your eyes.

Just for a moment, the picture freezes. Her mouth is half-open, eyes wide. She bites down on her lip, silencing herself, and then she drops her hand from her ear. She's hitting her fist, clenched around the phone, against her thigh repeatedly as she fights against her own body. There's another choked grunt as she is being pushed ever so close to the edge.

She draws the phone to her face again, breathing in deep and staring at you with those glossy eyes scanning all across your body, and she swallows. 

"We aren't fucking," Minju denies, as your hands creep up from her slender thighs, sliding over those beautiful taut hips, gripping tight and helping pull her back and forth. It's clear, from the way she bites down on her bottom lip, the subtle trembling of her chin, she's hanging on by a thread, ready to lose it at any second.

"No. Don't—" Minju holds the phone out, and she’s looking at it—you can see it too—Wonyoung has just ended the call. "Ah fuck it." Minju throws the phone down on the couch.

She looks at you with a face that's a little lost in thought, considering things unknown to you. All while her body is on auto-pilot, still fucking down onto you. 

After a moment, her face changes, an expression of indifference, of calmness. She smiles a little and rests both of her hands on your shoulders. Staring deep into your eyes, she grows ever more serious with a tinge of intent. She shifts from auto-pilot to manual, tightening the grip with her legs and slowing the pace, but fucking you harder.

Minju rides the ridge of your cock. Your whole length is dragged up and down her insides, setting every inch of you on fire. She moans every time she slams onto you. 

Every time. 

She's falling further apart in front of you—coming completely undone. Eyes rolling and biting that lip again. Hips shifting in all kinds of directions. A cacophony of beautiful grunting sounds that flood the room.

Minju is a woman derailed by pleasure.

"God. Your cock— Your cock is—" She's struggling now and you're only going to make it worse. Using the hands on her hips, you buck yourself up into her, bringing yourself a fraction closer each time. 

"The things this cock— the things you— fuck." Minju has no power to string any kind of sentences together, no matter how many words you force from her. They grow less and less like words you can understand until all that remains are these loud and unashamed gasps. 

Gasp after sharp and unstoppable gasp.

The rush of exhilaration courses through her, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. She feels it. All over. It's written on her face, in the way that she moves and in the look in her eyes. A look like that is a hard thing to fake, even for her—there's nothing else like it. Minju is cumming all over your cock and every bit of it is evident in every tense muscle, the quiver in the corner of her mouth, the sheen across her brow, the mist in her eyes as she blinks lazily and tries not to be overcome, overawed, with emotion and all the intense sensations, one wave after another, rippling through her.

You're just about there again too. You try to warn her, but you're fucking up into her with so much energy that you're not sure if the words ever left your mouth. But she knows it, somehow, because she has renewed aggression in her. Even through her orgasm, she's bouncing on your cock with such ferocity. Minju takes hold of your head and draws you into her. Nose to nose. Foreheads touch. "Cum in me again."

They're four of the best words she could have said.

She rides you faster still as you pump rope after hot rope into her cunt, your entire length filling her already overflowing cunt. You cum so hard inside her that the world seems to distort, twist, and wane.

"Yes! Yes!" she shouts in a whisper—her voice stolen by pleasure. "Fill my little pussy."

And with every last ounce of strength you have, you continue. Bucking into her, driving deeper with the last throes of your second load. It's too much. It's beyond pleasure and into pain now, as you have nothing left to give her.

You squeeze at her hips and waist, holding her down and doing everything you can to stop her fucking you.

You're panting. Tired. Done.

Done.

Minju raises herself just enough to slip that ruined and swollen cockhead from the depth of her. You watch as your combined fluids flow out of her onto your leg.

All that filth, a dirty combination of the two of you. Two loads of your cum drained into that one pretty pussy.

Minju is stroking a hand up your stomach, your chest, along your neck and jawline. Across your face and to your chin, so slowly, as if memorising your features.

You watch her body, so fucking perfect, flexing and trembling still and her breasts heave beneath sweat and exertion. Her breath is so ragged that a chuckle emerges between the hard, deep inhales and exhales. She's sweating, perspiration painting her body and strands of long hair matted to her head. So beautiful. Always so fucking beautiful.

She looks into your eyes, studying, thinking. "You feel better now," her voice has returned to the softness of before, low and sultry. "Don't you?"

With a smile, your hands move again, wandering further up. They snake their way around her slender waist. There's something strange, something new, about how they explore her—before, you were quick to set them and demand control. But not now. Now, it's tender and grateful and you have a slow, searching rhythm to the touches that skim the skin across her skin. 

"Yeah." It's honest. You do. She has done her magic, she has restored the balance, and the release has cleared a space within the self, within the mind. You stare back into her gaze, "thank you."

"No." Minju brings her head forward, her face almost colliding with yours. "Thank you. This is exactly what I needed, I really—" She bites down on her lips and hesitates. She pauses for a second before she begins to move herself off you. Standing up straight, wobbling for a moment on the spot before stepping off and the sticky remains of your fucking cling to her inner thighs, glistening on the flesh, thick and trailing down from her hole.

She stares at you for a moment in some profound silence. You sit on the couch, on that musty old fabric, fully spent and staring. She's searching for something, eyes drifting over the room until it catches her eye, and she heads right for it.

You find the strength to stand and as you do, you’re still watching the sway of her body—noticing each bounce of her perfectly formed butt. Your eyes linger, appreciating the body that was given to you, enjoyed by you, and that gave so much to you. Your strength slowly builds from within, your legs are sore, your stomach and core are aching, your lungs feel crushed.

She's fumbling around on the table for something, she's leaning over slightly, her thighs pressed together. She wears sex like a crown—the pride, confidence, and accomplishment manifesting in her natural glow. Minju radiates. There's always something so electric about a woman in the post coital haze.

"You smoke?" she asks.

"No."

"You should," she says as she turns, fishing one out of the pack and perching herself on the edge of the table, crossing over her legs. "Makes you less nervous. You might need it."

There's an elegance in the way she slips the filter between her lips. An attractiveness in the casual way that she places the box down. With practiced poise, she flicks her wrist with lighter in hand so it flips open and her thumb runs against the sparkwheel. Once, twice, and on the third go the light takes and the flame holds steady. Minju lights the end of the cigarette and leans in, taking a deep draw and holding it.

It's mesmerising to watch. The way her mouth closes around the stick, how the soft glow dances upon her features. A darkness in the hollows of her cheeks as the smoke fills within, while she flicks the lighter back closed and slides it on the table.

Minju tilts her head back as her lungs empty, billows and tendrils escape into the room.

In the silence, you've had some realisation.

Minju is cool.

Like— really cool.

So you stand naked, facing her, in the breakroom of the bar she... works in? Owns? Hell, you don't even know that. Doesn't matter. And you finally ask her, "how do you know Wonyoung?"

For a long moment she just smiles, blowing smoke towards you, teasing with silence.

"We go way back," she says, and that is hardly the complete answer that you've hoped for. 

Eventually, she offers more. "High school. We were friends." Minju studies the cigarette, eyeing the burning stub. "Guess you could say we were closer than that. Fuck. If not for—"

Silence.

And yet you wait.

"Well, there was this boy," she continues eventually, offering a soft and resigned smile. "My crush, and then my boyfriend. He was my first. First kiss, first date. First—" Minju looks over to the wall and inhales hard on the cigarette again. She breathes in slowly and you watch the small ember dance, the edges turning amber and glowing bright before she brings the cigarette down and flicks ash in the tray.

"What happened?" you ask, taking a seat alongside her on the table, pushing a cup aside to make space. It's not exactly hygienic, but nothing the two of you just did was.

"Wonyoung happened. Right before we left school, he left me for her and he thought he had a chance, but, well, you know Wonyoung. She's unattainable."

"You blame her?"

"Fuck no. But it didn't exactly bring us closer. He left me for her, she rejected him. What a mess."

There is always something when Wonyoung is in the picture, a messy little tangled web, something hidden behind those silky smiles. She's the reason for many lost loves and many lonely nights. You take a pause to appreciate that fact—to see what's really at the core. She’s the common denominator. Wonyoung—the arrogant heartbreaker.

"So what was all that about? On the phone?" you ask, trying to make some sense of it all.

Minju laughs aloud, tilting her head back and blowing smoke up towards the ceiling. She holds her cigarette between her slim fingers and rests her other hand on your thigh. "I wanted to play with her a little. I wanted her to know. Because well, and no offense, but you’re one of her possessions. She basically owns you. Don't get me wrong, it's kinda hot, but I wanted to see how she would react."

"So you teased her."

"Pretty much."

She laughs a little. There is some spark in her eye, born out of childish fun.

"Don't think she cares," you shrug.

You both turn toward the door that leads back into the bar. You both heard it. Out there. The knock against the front door of the bar.

Minju turns to you, crushing her cigarette into the ashtray beside her. There's a smirk on her lips and amusement in her eyes. In that look alone, there's a lot to unpack; there's an air of knowing, a glimmer of deviousness, and something else lurking beneath the surface.

"Then why is she knocking on the door?"

Next Part

[music-orthemisery]

Pre-Folie Release Madness of (p)2- A Timeline

After spending a few days in cuckoo bananas world thanks to the video re: Patrick's best man speech, @grandtreeangel and I have some things to slide across the table.

Between October 19, 2008 and November 7th, 2008, FOB played a series of shows leading up to the release of Folie a Deux. Each show featured a Pete/Patrick banter moment that, when put together, creates a very...interesting narrative.

October 19th - Birmingham, England show

Pete making a Top Gun reference to the $20 bar bet scene while Patrick plays the Top Gun theme song.

The scene in question: "Total carnal knowledge...of a woman this time, on the premises"

October 22nd - London, England show

First live performance of Patrick's "Love Lockdown" cover

Please see @grandtreeangel’s post HERE for more context on this totally normal thing Patrick did.

October 25th - Lille, France show

OG "my little cabbage" moment Pete, in French, says to Patrick, "You are beautiful, my little cabbage."

October 27th OR 28th - Blog post

Pete posts this on his Tumblr . It says 10/27, but there's some disagreement on time zones so it may be 10/28. EITHER WAY...

Originally, this linked to a clip from the movie Love, Actually. In this scene, a man confesses his love to a woman who is married to his best friend.

There's plenty of debate about this movie, scene, and storyline in general, but we aren't here for that right now!!!

Let's just focus on the facts:

Woman. Married. To BEST FRIEND.

The man was the best man AND the videographer at the wedding.

This whole moment is done secretly. He confesses, they kiss, she goes back inside and tells her husband it was just some carolers.

In general, this whole story arc is ripe with longing and unattainable love due to a marriage keeping the man from being with the woman.

I...wonder what this sounds like...

October 28th - Toronto, Canada show

Love Lockdown cover where Patrick says, "That's for you, Pete."

Again, Patrick being very normal!!!

October 29th - Blog Post

Pete contributes an entry to Bill's "Mondayeyes" poetry club on friendsorenemies.com:

Credit to @alphadog's post for this HERE

The entire poem is quite impactful, but a few lines of interest:

"Where do you get off?" or more like "how"

and...

"You chose this"

When Pete uses quotes, it's noted that this indicates things that have been said to him.

There are scents and spells that keep us coming together, there are sparks that keep us forever

The art of keeping up disappearances

Also, big hello to some Rat-A-Tat lyrics

Whenever I could make the sweat roll backwards and your pulse stream in reverse

(Big thank you to @dykeandyhurley for sending this to me)

November 6th - Boston, MA show

Pete shares the story about Patrick's best man speech.

Huge props to @predoom for finding this moment!

If you haven't seen Top Gun (?!), the context here is very important:

The line "Ice, fire, or clear," is said in the scene where Goose dies.

Scene: "Ice, Fire or Clear!"

Also, it should be noted that, to Pete, he is Goose and Patrick is Maverick.

The fact that Patrick picks this quote to say to Pete...in his best man speech...at PETE'S WEDDING. A quote said when Maverick LOSES Goose.

AND...apparently no one else in the reception quite...get's it. Pete is the only one who does. That line was just for Pete. From Patrick.

Of all the lines in that movie, he picks that one, from that moment.

Then, of course...

We have "The Kids Aren't Alright."

Featuring the lyrics:

Stuck in the jet wash Bad trip I couldn't get off And maybe I bit off more than I could chew And overhead of the aqua blue

Along with Pete's annotation:

November 7th - Philadelphia, PA show

Patrick sings Lullabye.

Take a peek at this post for all of that mess.

"Well, Bronx was about to be born!"

Sure, sure. I'm not DENYING the relevance there. Just. Go look at the post, damn it. Trust me.

And then...?

Nothing. They take a break, Bronx is born, and then they play a show in Columbus, OH on December 1, 2008. This whole little back and forth ends. Folie a Deux is released on December 10th and...well...we all know what happens after that.

[ybcpatrick]

like i'm so fucking ill about it. the (shipped) gold standard was the last song they needed to play to have performed every single song off of folie à deux live at least once. the record that has caused them the most pain. the one that they avoided like the plague for over a decade after its release, save for i don't care and the occasional instances of disloyal order, what a catch, or 20 dollar nose bleed when they toured with panic! that one time. the one that patrick wouldn't even talk about, for the longest time. it got them booed visciously, it got them dissected by critics, it got them pelted with garbage and glowsticks at shows, it got them stressed and strained to the point of needing to pause all efforts as a band to make sure they could still stay FRIENDS in the wake of it, and now it is the only fall out boy record that they have played 100% of, INCLUDING lullabye and fucking pavlove. and the last song left was (shipped).

you can only blame your problems on the world for so long. i want to scream "i love you" from the top of my lungs, but i'm afraid that someone else will hear me.

(or, they used to be afraid. evidently, not anymore.)

[foli-vora]

masterlist | foli jolly xmas list

A/N: gif by moi. Yeah I recycled the same from part 2 idc. Are you telling me it's been two fucking years since I wrote this? Get out. The flow of time is fake. Everything was against me this week trying to get this fucking thing out but I finally got there! Merry late Christmas, angels! Thank you all for being so fucking wonderful and supportive and patient with me while I worked out a really messy year and I wish you all nothing but the very best! Enjoy x

Word count: just shy of 7k

Warnings: cheesy hallmark romance, I want to be kissed by a cowboy under the mistletoe. Swearing, this hot af man, a solid semi-public make out sesh with said hot af man, SOFTNESS! so much fucking softness I want to throw up, smut with all the feels 18+ ONLY: soft and sweet and so fucking tender I'm so into it, fingering, oral (f rec), this man practically makes out with pussy and I won't hear otherwise, bit of hair pulling, mention of the implanon, unprotected p in v and a christmas creampie yay

PART ONE | PART TWO

It’s quite the occasion, he finds. This Christmas Eve ball-party thing. The whole town and more is there, crammed into the town hall decorated heavily with tinsel and lights and spilling out onto the snowy grounds around in the form of various food and Christmas stalls. There are craft tables full of parents with their kids, a little choir singing carols, and people having a snowman contest in the taped off carpark.

There’s an older man dressed as Santa sitting on a big seat for family photos, joyfully laughing and ho-ho-hoing as kids wander by in awe. Jack watches on comfortably, not yet interested in pursuing any of the stalls or food until he knows if you and the kids have eaten.

Despite his general dislike of the holiday, it’s hard to not feel… well, merry, and it has a content smile tugging at his lips. If Tequila could see him now, he’d never let him live it down. He’d get matching Christmas ties or some other ridiculous shit. Maybe there’s somewhere he could buy one for the agent here, he’s sure you’d find that funny.

“That’s not the real Santa,” Gabe says suddenly, appearing beside him.

Jack startles from being broken from his mental reverie, briefly wondering if a couple of weeks worth of leave had gone and ruined his well tuned Statesman senses. Champ would only have himself to blame. He turns expectantly, heart hammering wildly from the hope you’d be only a few paces behind your boy, but when he looks he finds you nowhere to be seen.

Gabe continues, oblivious to the way Jack shifts and deflates next to him.

“The real one’s too busy, so he gets George to step in. He does it every year.”

“Is that right? Suppose he would be a busy man.”

“Are you kidding? One night to get around the whole world? Dude’s insane.”

Jack grins, looking down at the boy and noting his styled hair. “You’re lookin’ sharp tonight, kid. You brush your hair?”

“Mum made me,” Gabe grumbles, ruffling his neatened curls with a thick gloved hand. “She’s in the hall with Lou, if you were wondering.”

“And why would I be wonderin’ that?”

The boy gives him a look, something bordering the line of smug and Jack rolls his eyes, giving him a gentle shove. Jesus, even the damn kid knows.

“Cut it out.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t have to. Now go on, lead the way. And stop lookin’ at me like that, or I’ll tell the big guy you need to go on the naughty list this year.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would. Believe me. You think he doesn’t know about you hustlin’ me out of my hard earned money? You’re messin’ with fire, kid. You’re probably already on it.”

—

“Should’ve gotten more lights. I told him, you know.” Edith tuts to herself, frowning up at the hall ceiling.

You briefly pause from fussing over the cake competition table and glance up at the warm fairy lights dangled and intertwined between tinsel and garlands. She’s worrying over nothing, as always. Every year it’s a winter wonderland—inside and out, and this year is certainly no different. Has Jack seen it all yet? What does he think of it?

“Edith, any more lights and people would need sunglasses in here. Everything looks wonderful, as always. Now please relax and have some rum with your eggnog before your heart gives out. You don’t need to worry about anything tonight, leave it to the committee.”

“The only thing I’ll worry about is you not getting on top of that cowboy.”

You and me both, Edith.

You snort, directing your attention back to the cake stands and ensuring every label was front and centre. “On second thought, maybe stay away from the rum.”

“Speaking of the cowboy, here he comes. Fix your dress.”

“What’s wrong with my dress?”

It’s too late to worry, that southern drawl melts into your ears as he jokes about something with Gabe within the next few seconds and suddenly your insides are twisting and turning upside down. You play around with the table some more, gathering up a bit of courage before turning and smiling at Jack.

“Hi,” you breathe softly, cheeks already warming as his eyes meet yours.

Does this man ever not look like pure sin?

“Hey sugar,” he greets with a grin of his own. “You look incredible.”

“Oh, this old thing?” You tease, running a hand over the brand new dress you had painstakingly agonised over in an attempt to impress a stranger only in town for a few weeks. You’d spent an admittedly ridiculous amount of time in the local boutique trying and retrying dresses trying to find the right one. God, he doesn’t need to know that. “Not looking too bad yourself, cowboy.”

“Save a dance for me, won’t you, Jack?” Edith rasps sweetly, acting the innocent and delicate elderly lady and tapping his arm softly.

“Just try and stop me, ma’am.”

She wanders off into the crowds, more than happy to be stopped along her way to be praised on the decorations. She’s still going on about the damn lights.

“So what’s all this?” Jack asks in interest, body brushing yours as he steps up beside you to eye the table.

“It’s the yearly Christmas bake off, which I unfortunately have to judge as the town's resident baker.”

“Unfortunately?”

“I don’t like judging people's creations. They’re all wonderful and everyone always puts so much effort into it… makes me feel like a villain when I have to pick winners.”

Gabe steps up on your other side and eyes this year's entries. “Mum made a kid cry last year.”

Jack laughs in surprise. “What?”

“I didn’t know it was made by a child, okay?” You stress, rubbing along your brow line as last year's nightmare plays in your mind. After pinning the ribbons in place, a ten year old girl had promptly fallen into tears after not being given one, and you’d felt guilty about it for fucking weeks after. “If I had known, I would’ve picked them.”

“Well that defeats the purpose of it being a competition then, doesn’t it, sugar? You can’t pick a winner just because they’re a kid. I’m sure they knew that upon enterin’.” His hand runs comforting strokes up and down your middle back, entirely innocent, and yet your skin feels like fire beneath his hot palm.

“I think that one is the ugliest.”

Excellent timing, baby.

You sigh, “Gabriel—”

“Ah sugar, I gotta give it to the kid,” Jack drawls, eyes locked on the cake Gabe’s finger levelled at, “I’m thinkin’ it, too.”

“Well… obviously,” you agree quietly, discreetly looking around just in case its creator is somewhere lurking close by, “but we don’t say that out loud. That’s something we keep in our heads, okay?” Your gaze darts between them until they give a nod in agreement.

It’s quiet for a moment longer, Jack’s hand never once straying from your back or ceasing its gentle strokes as you each silently judge each cake, until Gabe smacks his lips and shrugs.

“They definitely lose.”

“Gabriel.”

A little body squeezes itself between you and Gabe, and your hand automatically falls to rest on Lou’s head. She’s quiet, happily making her way through a gingerbread cookie and swaying to the music being performed by the town's little local band when Jack peers curiously around you, smiling indulgently at the little girl.

“There you are, sweetheart. Was worried you didn’t make it tonight, thought I was gonna have to dance by myself.”

She grins shyly, hiding her face in the long length of your dress and forgetting about the half eaten treat in her hand. You don’t blame her, Jack definitely has that effect on people. 

“Will you dance with me, little lady?”

Lou peeks up at Jack from under her lashes. It takes only a minute until she gives a small nod before pressing the cookie into your hold and reaching out to take his large hand in her much smaller one. He gently spins her as he leads her to the dance floor, and her giggles as her bright red tulle dress flows around her can be heard from over the crowds.

You watch them go with a content smile, before moving your gaze to Gabe.

“Would it be totally lame for you to be seen dancing with your mama?” You ask him softly, brushing a hand over his hair. All the kids from his school are here, and you know he’s starting to reach that age where others' opinions may sway his decisions on things. He still lets you hug him at school drop off and pick up though, so maybe you still have a bit of time.

He gives you a toothy grin, looping his arm through yours and pressing into your side. “I don’t care.”

—

It’s hours later when you finally get him selfishly to yourself, once Lou had promptly fallen asleep on your thick winter coat spread over some chairs in the corner and Gabe had been whisked away to a snowball fight with the other kids. Jack had approached after your yearly duty had been completed with thankfully no one falling into tears, and asked you to dance.

You don’t usually dance. Not properly, anyway. Swinging the kids around and twirling them under your arm while they giggle and jump along is one thing, but this? Tucked up close to someone and trying not to trample on their toes? You haven’t done this in a long time. 

Jack doesn’t seem to mind, and with the feel of him pressed up against you? You don’t care if you seem a little awkward. It gives you both a chance to talk, and without interruptions. You ask more about his work, his life, which he seems to still not want to divulge in as much as you had hoped. He does tell you a little more about himself though, what he enjoys during his limited free time and that he’s starting to realise he doesn’t get away from work as much as he probably should.

“Maybe you should invest in a holiday cabin,” you tease, head tilting in a playful manner as you sway between the other locals crowding the hall. “I’ve heard they’re pretty popular to rent out when you don’t need it.”

“That’s not a bad idea, darlin’. Know any good locations?”

“Nowhere local, I’m afraid. You don’t fit in.”

He makes a low noise of understanding, pushing you softly away only for him to spin you under his arm and drag you right back up against him. You’re fucking giddy at the movement.

“Too handsome?”

“Too much of a grinch.”

“Hey now, that’s not fair. I ate a candy cane.”

“And I heard you singing along to a Christmas song, too.”

“Me? I would never,” he responds gruffly, but when his gaze slides to meet yours he grins. “It’s your fault, sugar. What’re you doin’ to me?”

“Working my Christmas magic.”

Christmas magic? Is that what you’re calling this? He feels like a damn school boy, twirling a pretty girl around at a winter dance. He quite likes it. Working at the office and back to back missions have filled his days sure, but there’s a slight tug of loneliness he hasn’t quite been able to hide with distractions for a long time. It feels damn nice to finally soothe that.

His eyes dance across your face, the hand splayed on your lower back tightening and bringing you in impossibly closer. “You’re workin’ some kind of magic, that's for damn sure.”

Holy shit. Heat immediately flares beneath your skin and spreads across your cheeks, biting sharply at your ears. What a smooth bastard. You fight the urge to shyly curl in on yourself, instead letting your grin widen in amusement as you trail your hand from his shoulder to the base of his neck. 

“Is that right?” You ask softly, fingers gently twisting and carding through the small patch of hair you could reach from under his stetson. He likes that, you discover quickly, catching the way his eyes drop to your lips the second your nails scratch lightly over his skin. Noted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, cowboy.”

His chest heaves with a sigh, his lips never losing that charming upturn. 

Shaking his head at your playful antics, he coaxes you to rest your head on his shoulder with a rumbled, “C’mere,” and it’s impossible not to melt into a fucking puddle right then and there. Thank god he’s got a good hold on you. He thinks you’re working magic? Then what the hell is this?

“You can’t do that. It’s not fair.”

“Do what?” His drawl rumbles into your body from the close proximity and settles thickly in the pit of your stomach. You feel the slightest brush of lips over the shell of your ear and fight the urge to shiver. 

“That. This.”

You’re so incredibly aware of him, of every move and touch. It’s overwhelming, maddening, and you want so much more. He absolutely knows what he’s doing, feels the way you’re practically jelly in his hold. His lips press into the side of your head before his breath ghosts your ear again, and this time you can’t fight the tremble when he speaks lowly.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, sugar.”

Air. You fucking need air.

Jack must feel the same, or at least know what you need, because as soon as you pull away to meet his eyes, he’s giving you one of those heart achingly handsome smiles and gently leading you through the people towards the doors. The night air nips at your uncovered skin, cooling the heated feel of it and thankfully bringing some clarity to your mind. 

Any more of that low honey drawl in your ear and mouth watering aftershave sinking into your nostrils and you would’ve absolutely made a fool out of yourself in front of your friends and neighbours. The last thing you need is to be the topic of town gossip for mounting a tourist right in the middle of the bloody dancefloor.

The few steps are thankfully clear of people when you tread just outside of the hall doors, with the late hour bringing most of the remaining people inside as the temperature drops. The food trucks and stalls had been mostly dismantled and packed away, those remaining still working away before the snow comes in and otherwise ignoring you and Jack lingering on the steps.

You feel the slight tingle of nerves all of a sudden, which is ridiculous considering the amount of time you’ve spent with him recently. Maybe it’s because this is your first time properly alone, without the kids running around and without having to say goodbye. You have time to just be, to enjoy his company and not have to worry about interruptions.

“Forgive me for sayin’ so, sugar,” Jack murmurs, halting your train of thought and bringing your attention fully to him, “but I can’t help but notice—that looks an awful lot like mistletoe up there.”

You fight the immediate tug pulling at the edges of your lips and glance up to where he points, spying the familiar cream bulbs amongst a sprig of fresh green leaves wrapped neatly in a small red bow.

“I believe you’re right, cowboy.”

“Now hear me out… I know I ain’t big on this whole festive season thing, but I figure it’d be mighty rude of me to break a well loved tradition.”

“I agree,” you breathe in reply, eyes falling to where his lips morph into an indulgent smile before snapping back up to meet his warm brown eyes. They’re soft, radiating with such a sweet tenderness that you feel it deep in your chest.

A warm hand cups the side of your throat softly, his thumb brushing your jaw delicately and it’s ever so easy to lean into the touch and relish in the comfort it provides. Your breath seems to hold as he moves in, stepping closer until you feel the brush of his jacket against your torso through the thin material of your dress. He holds for a moment, seemingly content to let his gaze roll along your features before he gives another little smile.

“Would you mind, darlin’?”

Returning his smile is automatic—it simply can’t be helped.

“Not at all, Jack.”

The tickle of his moustache and tender press of his soft lips is nothing short of perfection. You don’t feel the bite of the cold, you don’t hear the music and the laughter and the constant roll of chatter from the hall. It’s just him. Just Jack. It’s all Jack. 

He pulls away far too soon, and you merely make a low noise of denial before curling your fingers into his shirt and pulling him gently back for more. He indulges you with a throaty chuckle, lips returning to yours with a little more pressure, a little more wanting. This time his tongue ever so slightly comes to trace your lips, and they part immediately, the kiss deepening until you feel the effects of it right down to your toes. 

If you thought you were in trouble before, you don’t stand a chance now. The faint traces of peppermint still linger on his tongue and you chase the taste eagerly, stomach in knots when an arm curls around your body to bring you flush against his. Though you’re lost in the feel and taste of him, Jack remains aware of the goings on around you both and inwardly curses the sound of people nearing the door inside of the hall.

Words are mumbled against your lips. 

“Darlin’, is there somewhere we can go a little more private?”

He’s not quite finished with you yet, and he’ll be damned if anyone’s cutting this short. Your boy included. He’s a great kid and all, but not the best with his damn timing. You don’t even realise your hands have wandered, finding a home on his hips and fisting desperately at his shirt.

Private? There’s nowhere private in this town, especially here. The hall is practically the centre of it. There’s out the back, you suppose, where the dumpsters are. It’ll have to do, because you need more of those lips preferably as soon as fucking possible. 

You snatch his hand and start leading the way, the icy air nipping at your arms. 

“Is there nowhere inside? You’ll catch your death out here,” Jack speaks behind you with a tinge of concern as you lead him down the steps and around the building. 

“Guess you’ll have to keep me warm, then.”

“I got no problems with that, sugar, believe me, but still—”

There’s rustling, his hand pulling softly out of yours and then the cover of something heavy and warm, smelling distinctly of that intoxicating cologne that has your mouth watering, over your shoulders. You shift in his jacket, smiling at the typical chivalry that seems to come so naturally from him.

Jack eyes your surroundings when you eventually get around the building, not exactly pleased by the thought of not being able to give you the romantic environment you deserve, but he can’t see or hear anyone in close range and that’s damn good enough for him. He sweeps you into his arms, grinning at your little sharp cry of surprise and crowds you into the wall, his jacket saving your thinly covered shoulders from rubbing against the rough brick facade.

Settling back against the building with a smile of your own, you blink sweetly up at him and tilt your head in playful curiosity. “Is there something I can help you with, cowboy?”

“Yes, darlin’, as a matter of fact there is.”

His hot breath sweeps over your lips and they part in anticipation, your heart beating heavily in your chest as his nose brushes along your own. He drags it out, teasingly pulling away at the last second when you get only centimetres away from his lips and grinning when you make a low noise of impatience.

“Did you need somethin’, sugar?” He drawls deeply, warm brown eyes hooded as they flick between your eyes and lips.

“Oh, shut up,” you groan softly, tangling your fingers into the front of his shirt and tugging him forward. His mouth slants messily over yours, a sudden tangle of tongue and teeth, and you can’t help but moan softly at the overwhelming intensity of it.

A sound that has the power to be his entire fucking undoing, he finds as it ricochets through his ears and right to the very core of him.

Gone is the tender moment of before, cuddled under mistletoe and filled with the warmth of something sweet and unknown. He presses into you fully, firmly, his body pinning you to the wall and giving you the chance of feeling dip and curve of him. His hands grab at your waist, fingers digging roughly into your skin and you curl into him even further, your own hands finding and clutching at his broad shoulders.

You’re left panting against the side of the building when you eventually part, the sound of shouts and laughter off in the distance cutting through the dizzying haze that had fallen over your mind. Jack’s no better, clearly struggling to regulate his own breathing as he braces himself against the wall with his palms, effectively caging you in.

One shared glance and you both dissolve into quiet laughter, either the kiss or the cold bringing a charming pink tinge to Jack’s cheeks, which you trace softly with icy fingers.

“I think the snow’s about to come in, I should get the kids home. Are you still okay to give us a ride?”

“Of course, but I’ll uh… I’ll catch up with you, sugar. I’m gonna need a minute.”

—

Despite the obvious exhaustion hanging in the kid’s limbs, he does a damn good job of fighting the call of sleep long enough to set up for the big visit. Cookies that absolutely had to be presented on a christmas tree dish, a glass of cold milk and nine individual carrots. When Jack asks if using the whole bag was necessary, Gabe levels him with an unimpressed glare.

“One carrot isn’t enough for nine reindeer.”

“That’s a fair point.”

“Will you still be here in the morning?”

Jack casts a glance towards the kitchen, where he can hear you washing the cups that were used for hot chocolate upon getting home. “Uh, probably not, kid.”

Gabe deflates with a quiet oh, his face falling into a little frown. He shifts on his feet, gaze moving from the twinkling Christmas tree to Jack before stepping closer and wrapping his arms around the man. Jack holds still, not exactly sure how to take the sudden sweet affection from the boy whose love language was calling him lame and taking his money.

“Well, Merry Christmas, Jack,” the boy mumbles into his chest, and Jack swallows the sudden feel of something building in the back of his throat as he returns the embrace. 

“Merry Christmas, kid,” he rasps quietly, hand stroking through the hat flattened curls on the back of his head. 

“Alright mister, time to hit the hay.”

Gabe releases his hold as you reenter the room and nods, giving Jack one last smile before making his way to the stairs. You follow behind him, stopping him on the third step and spinning him softly to face you.

“Did you brush your teeth?”

“Yes mum,” he sighs dramatically, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling and back.

Grinning, you fix his baggy pyjama top and plant a kiss on his cheek. “And what about your Christmas wish?”

“I don’t need to make it anymore,” he shrugs, and you recoil in surprise. “My wish has been the same for ages, and I think it’s coming true now.”

“Oh?” You frown in curiosity, brushing a stray curl from his forehead. He’s never told you what he wishes for, so the fact he thinks it’s suddenly coming true has you wondering what it could be. “Can I ask what it is?”

“Nope,” he grins, casting one final glance towards Jack before giving you a cuddle and starting back up the stairs. “Night mum.”

You watch him go with a look of interest, listening to the creak of his bedroom door as he closes it behind him. Did he somehow know he was getting a new iPad? Did he find it stashed away before you could wrap it? Damn, you thought you hid it so well. 

“He’s a real good kid,” Jack says from where he lounges against the doorframe of the living room. “They both are.”

“I know,” you smile.

The conversation echoes the one you had when he first came over, and the memory isn’t lost on Jack either as he grins in return. 

“I had a good time tonight, sugar. I suppose this festive season stuff isn’t too bad, after all. Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

His grin widens briefly as he looks back to the tree, uncertainty beginning to stir in the pit of his stomach. It’s probably getting to that time of the night where he should leave you to it, no doubt you’d have a few things to organise before going to bed yourself, but he doesn’t want to just yet. Can’t seem to find the strength to grab his stetson and jacket and say goodbye.

He doesn’t want it to seem like he’s expecting anything to happen. The night could end with that kiss shared against the hall and he’d leave a damn happy man, but curiosity has him waiting, wondering what move you’d make next, if any. You don’t say anything for a few moments, comfortable with the silence you share as you each watch the other.

Louisa’s long gone and lost to dreams, the girl barely able to keep her eyes open for more than thirty seconds when Jack pried her from the car to bring her inside. Gabe’s ability to fall asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow should be scientifically studied, so you wouldn’t have to worry about him either.

You quietly start making your way up the stairs, pausing just half way up and glancing back at Jack over your shoulder. He’s watching, waiting. The shy little sultry smile you send him is all the invitation he needs.

Knowing he’s right there and following your footsteps has your heart going wild with every step you take closer to your bedroom. A hand presses to the small of your back when you eventually reach your door and push it open, Jack moving damn near silent as the grave as he steps in behind you and closes the door.

“I haven’t done this in a long time,” you admit, nerves finally getting the better of you when his eyes land on you.

“Don’t you worry about that, sugar,” he replies, stepping forward to cup your jaw and you turn into his hand, seeking the reassuring touch. “Now you’re sure about this?”

A silly question.

“More than anything.”

His mouth is on yours as soon as he hears your words, and your head swims from the sweet press of his lips. It’s soft, a moment to put your nerves at ease and work you gently into it, something you’re thankful for as the tension slowly leaks from your shoulders. You follow his lead, letting him kiss you into an absolute frenzy until you feel brave enough to move your hands to unbutton his shirt and push it from his shoulders.

It’s when you trail your hands softly over his ribs and stomach does he kiss you deeper and let his own hands wander, palms smoothing over your sides and back before finding the zipper of your dress. You hold your breath as he tugs at it, shivering at the warm fingers that run along your bare skin when it’s finally open.

You slip your arms out of the short sleeves and let the fabric puddle at your feet, your bra quickly following, and your body warms under the way he unashamedly rakes his eyes over you in the muted light of your bedroom. 

“Lay down for me, darlin’. Let me take care of you.”

He watches as you sink into your mattress and wiggle yourself up the bed until your head rests comfortably on your pillows, that charming grin you love oh so much tugging at his lips when you give him another shy smile. 

“You’re beautiful.”

He’s one to talk, standing at the foot of your bed shirtless and looking like that.

“And you’re too far away.”

Your thighs part as he climbs onto the bed after you, crawling between your spread legs and over your body, chasing the taste of your mouth before directing his attention to your jaw, and then your throat. His teeth nip at your skin, his tongue soothes the brief tinge of pain away, and you don’t know whether you’re trying to pull him closer or push him away with the more he works your body into an absolute fever.

Fingers trace the waistband of your underwear and your heart starts to beat that much harder in your chest you think he must be able to feel it under his lips. You start to squirm beneath him when his fingers slip beneath the fabric and run softly over your core, brushing over the slick build of arousal and tracing your clit.

“Fuck—”

“Easy,” he murmurs soothingly against your skin, and you swear you hear a smile in his tone.

A thick finger slides into you, probing and curling against your hot walls before a second joins, and the stretch burns in the best of ways. He works you open slowly, more than content to go at his own leisurely pace and indulge in every twitch of slick muscle and quiet moan he can pull from your lips as he kisses his way along your body.

By the time his mouth reaches your stomach, you’re an absolute mess.

He pulls his fingers from your pussy to rid you of your underwear and you whine at the sudden loss of them filling you, but anticipation builds deep in the pit of your stomach as he settles comfortably between your spread legs, arms hooking under your thighs until they rest over his shoulders.

“Are you trying to kill me, cowboy?” You breathe weakly, biting at your lower lip when you feel his warm breath blow over your pussy.

He chuckles softly, “Sorry, sugar.”

The feel of his tongue making a path between your entrance and clit feels like anything but an apology. Your hand flies to his hair, fingers tangling tightly in it as he applies pressure to your clit, lips sucking at it softly and tongue rubbing slow, firm circles until you could almost go mad from the steady lull of it.

He likes to take his time.

There’s no rush with Jack, no quick foreplay so he can turn around and ask for his turn and get right to what he wants. He seems to enjoy working you up as much as you enjoy being victim to it. He waits until you’re breathless to change course, to alternate between building up your climax with firm laps of tongue and then letting it die down to taste you deeper, open mouth flush to your pussy as his tongue tastes you right from the source, and then right back up to start all over again. 

Again and again.

“Jack, please—”

You feel a touch of teeth against your clit as he grins and you think then and there that he really is out to kill you. Slowly, and very fucking nicely.

“You can handle a little more, sugar.”

“No, no I really can’t. Please, please do something—”

He groans softly against you, and the vibrations against your clit have your fingers tightening in his hair. He does like that. You tug at it some more, breathing another few pleas for good measure and finally—finally—you get what you want. He breaks free of his routine, tongue merciless as it strokes and rubs into your clit.

There’s no room to wiggle or squirm free of his hold. His arms lock around your thighs, giving you no room for reprieve as he chases your climax and you can only endure, barely remembering to keep your noises to a minimum as he drags you up and over the edge and then some.

You’re trembling in his hold when he finally breaks free of you, sweat slicking your brow and clit throbbing from the overstimulation. That damn smile is back on his face when he eventually crawls back over you, placing a wet messy kiss to the corner of your lips when you can only manage a half hearted glare his way.

“How’re you holdin’ up?”

“Shut up.”

“That’s the second time you’ve told me to shut up tonight.”

“Yeah, well… you deserve it.”

He chuckles quietly, resting his body weight against yours and you whine at the rough press of denim to your sensitive flesh. Your eyes flutter closed when his lips close over yours, his moustache wet and slick with your arousal. It’s hard to feel self conscious about any of it when he’s kissing you like this—tenderly, hungrily.

“Jeans,” you murmur into his mouth, hands tugging impatiently at his belt until he kneels and undoes the thick leather band and begins to slip out of his pants.

He’s back over you within minutes and you relish the feel of hot skin against yours, the heavy feel of his hard cock resting against your core. Your pussy clenches as he gives a small thrust against you.

“Do you have anything?”

“I don’t exactly get a lot of action, cowboy. Do you?”

“I wasn’t really expecting to sleep with the town's prettiest baker, sugar.” He grins, eyes warm as they dance across your face. He kisses you again, soft and reassuring. “It’s alright, we don’t have to—”

“No. No, no—please. I’m clean, and I’ve got the rod. Are you—do you—”

“Clean,” he rasps, and with your final nod of encouragement his hips shift until he’s lining himself up and sliding into you. He’s thick, the stretch of him almost too much even with his earlier attentions to get you ready. He stops halfway before pulling back out, only to sink deeper in on the next thrust.

He keeps the pace slow and steady, letting you adjust to the feel of him while kissing you senseless. Your hands are unable to stay in one place too long, going from curling around his neck to keep his mouth on yours, to his shoulders, to his back and hips. You start to rock up to meet his thrusts, coaxing him deeper and harder until he drives into you hard enough to rock the bed and knock the headboard against the wall.

You both freeze at the sudden sound, and he breaks away from your mouth to eye the headboard with a frown. This won’t work, not with the way he wants to have you, the way you obviously want him to have you. And how could he disappoint you? No, this won’t do.

“It’s okay,” you breathe softly with a smile, “we’ll just have to be careful.”

“‘scuse me, sugar,” he mutters after a moment of thought, tugging a pillow free from under your shoulder and leaning up over you to shove it harshly between the headboard and the wall. He gives an experimental heavy thrust of his hips once he deems it in position and your hands scramble for purchase, coming to tightly clutch at his waist.

When the headboard doesn’t knock against the wall again, he gives you a sly look of victory and grins.

“There we go. Now where was I?”

“Doing that again.”

“Of course, how could I forget?” He teases playfully, curling back over you to swallow your broken moans as he resumes the pace he had been working into before.

You clench, tighten and flutter around him as he fucks into you, mouth still so sweet and soft against your own it’s hard to keep up with the contrast of it all.

He kisses you until he physically can’t anymore, breaking away to hide his face into your throat as the slick feel of your pussy builds that tightening growing in the pit of his stomach. He pulls you closer, tangles his fingers with your own, finds every possible way to be even closer still. He wants to drown in you, feel and taste you and be surrounded by nothing but you.

It’s your final barely coherent utter of his name that sends him hurtling off the edge, a long drawn out fuck muffled into the skin of your throat as he feels himself fill you. He doesn’t move from covering you until he’s long gone soft, barely able to bring himself to pull out of you and collapse softly beside you.

His heart hammers in his chest, something else swimming beside the post-climax bliss and he’s not quite sure what to make of it, what to think. This is more than a simple fleeting attraction.

He likes you.

He really fucking likes you. Great sex out of the equation, he likes your company. He likes that you can laugh at and with him. He likes your home and how comfortable he is in it. He likes your kids.

Shit.

Now what?

“You doing okay over there, cowboy?” You ask gently, head rolling to the side to watch him. He’s thinking long and hard about something, and you hope to god it wasn’t something like regret.

“I don���t think I can leave this behind, sugar,” he mutters, eyes locked on the ceiling as he works his way through his thoughts and swallows the brief shake of nerves. “I thought I’d be runnin’ out of town by the time my vacation was up, but this… you and the kids, I don’t think I can leave it so easily.”

He leaves his confession to sink in for a moment, tongue sweeping along his lips as his heart starts to roar in his ears. He can’t look at you, doesn’t want to see the potential rejection build in your eyes before it passes through your lips, so he keeps his eyes away.

“I know I said I don’t have the option of datin’ because of my work, but… would you let me try?”

It’s a long shot. You’ve never had this conversation, never broached potentially taking this further than just a little fleeting moment in your lives. There’s a chance he’s just gone and ruined whatever casual thing you’d both crafted, but it was worth a shot, right?

Maybe he should’ve just kept this to himself and thought more on it back at the cabin.

“Long distance is hard, but we can take it slow,” you decide quietly, smiling softly when his eyes dart to you. “I don’t think I can just let you run out of town and never see you again, cowboy.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Thank Christ. He heaves a sigh of relief and rolls onto his side, coaxing you into his arms and brushing a few fingers gently across your cheek. You turn into the heat of his body, winding an arm around him and letting your fingers dance random patterns up and down his back.

“Would you like to stay for Christmas?” You ask against his chest, nuzzling into his hot skin.

“It’s a special time for the kids, I don’t wanna intrude—”

“You wouldn’t be. You’re invited. They’d love to have you here, if you want to be. Do you think you’ll be able to survive a proper Christmas with us?”

He grins, “I’d love nothin’ more, sugar.”

“So it’s settled. Come on, you grinch. I’ll show you how to play Santa.”

He watches you roll from the bed and tuck yourself into your dressing gown, and you only notice his frown when you’re tying the thin belt and sliding your slippers on.

“What's wrong?”

“The fact that you’re up and walkin’ so damn easily. I’ll take care of that, once we’ve taken care of this.”

—

The chair next to him is empty when he sits down, and Tequila throws a curious glance Champ’s way. He’d half expected Whiskey to be clawing his way back into the building first thing this morning. His desk had been untouched, the corridors empty of his presence. No one had seen or heard anything about him.

Worry begins to stir in his chest, wondering if they’ve maybe pushed him too hard and he’s gone and quit for another agency, but it quickly dissolves away when he realises Champ’s at ease and unbothered. Losing Jack would hit the older man quite hard, so to see him reclined in his office chair with a cigar in hand is a sign everything is well. 

“Agent Whiskey’s extended his vacation,” Champ states, breaking the silence and answering the questions building on the young agent's tongue. “He’ll be back after New Years.” 

Tequila settles back into his chair and grins. So good ol’ Scrooge ended up having a decent Christmas after all. Good for him.

“Finally enjoyin’ some peace and quiet, then.”

“He’s enjoyin’ somethin’, alright. He’s asked for the weekend of Valentine’s Day off, too.”

—end.

[seven-meds]

Will you be posting more Arthur content in the future, perhaps Folie À Deux content of Arthur, whether it’s art, creative writing or META? I enjoy reading him from your perspective, it’s a tremendous honor to have been following the growth of your content. Arthur is my world. Until next time!

Thank you! The reality is that things are planned but there is little time to do them. Since meeting @kissaubleu I'm no longer as alone with my thoughts as I once was and the need to constantly make things in order to feel close to another person isn't as pressing. It's not a loss of motivation or interest so much as a compulsion now more easily abated by voicing a thought to someone and exploring it together. I'll reintegrate dedicated time for art (and Arthur) soon, I can feel it.

[minhosimthings]

A La Folie ft. Jay - The Vows

Synopsis: Wounds came and went. All in the circle of life am I right? The greatest warrior among all the kings, Park Jay. For him, seeing blood was like seeing the sky. It was a daily routine which he could not escape. Yes sometimes he had grave injuries, which he wouldn't stop to take care of, with him being a workaholic. But sometimes healers do more than heal physical wounds, and for Jay, you did exactly that.

Pairings: King!Jay × healer!fem!reader

Warnings: fluff fluff fluff, mention of bruises, VOWS BITCHES YAYYY

A/N: and with this, Jay's fic is officially done for the French Quotes Series! Now we move onto Jake. Please enjoy the vows everyone!

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || The Wedding

The French Quotes Series Masterlist

You had never attended a wedding before Heeseung's wedding with his Princess. She was from the Kingdom of Witchelm...you think. Either way, you couldn't remember much from the wedding, except the fact that the bride looked stunning and Heeseung looked stunned.

And all the dancing of course. You were worried that your toes wouldn't adjust to the fast pace of Jay's spectacular dancing skills, but, being the lovesick man he was, he managed to help you.

And he promised that you'd be the best dancer in all of Vadronia by the time of your own wedding.

Time flies fast and it indeed did race across and suddenly it was your wedding.

Never in a million lifetimes would anyone have thought that a mercenary king would fall for a mere healer. But as you admired your carefully woven dress in the mirror, with Heeseung's wife (who was now your best friend) giggling behind you, you laughed at the thought of Jay's fellow kings losing their bets with each other.

And then suddenly you were on the aisle. Flowers in your hand, flowers in your hair, and tiny painted flowers decorating your shoulder, perfectly merging in with your bruise, Jay thought that this was heaven.

"L/N Y/N of Vadronia," Jay cleared his throat before speaking, looking nervously down at his parchment, your smile being the only thing that could stop his tears from flowing down their barricade.

You could see Heeseung, trying not to stare at his wife, who was behind you holding the ring, and you smiled. Love was truly in the air today.

"I used to think love was poison, a darkening thing, meant to rage all and turn everything to horror." Jay took a shuddering breath, before looking up at you. Her smile, he thought, focus Jay!

"Love, to me was the worst thing in this world, at some point I managed to convince myself that it didn't exist. Hell, I wanted to convince myself that I didn't exist. The pages of my diary were rotten to the darkness. Just ask these idiots standing behind me." He motioned towards the silently crying kings behind him.

"Perhaps that's the thing I want to thank you for today, my love. I don't think I've ever understood what love actually is have I? And then you stepped in like some guardian angel, ready to seize me by the collar of my shirt, shake me into pieces and scream at me about what love truly is."

Had you truly done that to him?

"Maybe I'm exaggerating, you haven't grabbed my collar until the day before yesterday, the colour of the flowers were genuinely not my fault." That elicited a laugh from your lips.

"I would like to thank you for making me see the beauty in the little things in life. In all the daffodils, or carved rubies, or even baking powder to calm a bubbling liquid down."

A love-sick giggle escaped your mouth.

"Thank you for sharing your dreams, and your nightmares with me.Thank you for showing me what life truly means again.Thank you for making me feel wanted, needed and most importantly, loved. Thank you, for teaching me to see love not as it is but as it could be. Because I realise now, more than ever, that love, it isn't something which stays constant, like forged metal. It's an ever moving, ever changing thing, like the waves of the sea, like a lavender in the breeze, or maybe a scar or a bruise which heals as time goes on."

A scar. Your scars or his scars?, you thought. Whichever one it was, you knew Jay meant to talk about some old red string tied to a pinkie.

"You know, there was this thing my mother used to say. To love a person means to love them to absolute insanity."

A la Folie.

"She always told me she would explain the meaning of it to me when I grew up. She never got the chance to, but I hope she knows today, that I understand what her engravings of a la folie means. Would you like to know why?"

He leaned forward, raising a hand up to cup your cheek ever so gently.

"Insanity is a meagre price to pay if it meant I could have you for the rest of eternity, even if I was a madman and you were the figment of my imagination. Then you'd be the best thing I'd have ever imagined."

Insanity.

A common topic among healers. Apparently no one knew how to heal it.

But at this moment, when your lips pressed against Jay's in a bittersweet moment of longing, loss and love, you felt that insanity would truly be a coin to pay for the man in front of you.

Maybe he truly was the actual healer out of both of you.

Love's an insane thing don't you think?

Tags: @amazzwon @heeseungshim @kvmariii @mwahvvis @hottiewifeyyyy @sacrificeatmeup @perfectnighttt @yawnzzhoon @niinjo

[devildomditzy]

Are there any fob songs you associate with Mammon? I was on a listening spree earlier when Disloyal Order came on and "What a match, I'm half-doomed, and you're semi-sweet" feels so MC/Mammon coded.

aksjs sorry my two interests constantly intertwine, and Mammon lives in my mind rent free 👉👈

oh ho ho I should have a large sign on my back that says please talk to me about fall out boy

I’m going to just give you the list and the lyrics, but this will still be a loooong ass post

I'm sorry this post took so long anon it's been sitting in my drafts forever.

From Evening Out With Your Girlfriend

Moving Pictures

"Last night I saw a movie And I thought about many movies I've seen at your house Excuse me if I'm rude But I'd rather that we just strike from the record ones I'd see again without you Leaning on my shoulder Distracting me from the plot line

Where can I go when I want you around But I can't stand to be around you? Go home, I'll walk myself to you I'll walk myself away from here"

From Take This To Your Grave

Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy?

"You need him, I could be him I could be an accident, but I'm still trying And that's more than I can say for him"

From From Under The Cork Tree

A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me

"And you're just the girl all the boys wanna dance with And I'm just the boy who's had too many chances I'm sleepin' on your folks' porch again, dreamin' She said, she said, she said, "Why don't you just drop dead?" I don't blame you for bein' you But you can't blame me for hating it So, say, what are you waiting for, kiss her, kiss her I set my clocks early 'cause I know I'm always late"

Of All The Gin Joints of All The World

"We're making out inside crashed cars We're sleeping through all our memories I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive (now I only waste my time dreaming of you)

Turn off the lights and turn off the shyness 'Cause all of our moves make up for the silence And oh, the way your makeup stains my pillowcase Like I'll never be the same"

Sugar We’re Goin Down

"Am I more than you bargained for yet? I've been dying to tell you Anything you wanna hear 'Cause that's just who I am this week"

From Infinity on High

Bang the Doldrums

"Best friends, ex-friends 'til the end Better off as lovers and not the other way around Racing through the city, windows down In the back of yellow checkered cars"

The Take Over, The Breaks Over

"Baby, seasons change, but people don't, and I'll always be waiting in the back room I'm boring, but overcompensate with Headlines and flash, flash, flash photography"

"Wouldn't you rather be a widow than a divorcee? Style your wake for fashion magazines Widow or a divorcee? Don't pretend, d-d-d-don't pretend"

From Folie à Deux

Disloyal Order of the Water Buffalos

"Oh, I'm a loose bolt of a complete machine What a match, I'm half-doomed, and you're semi-sweet"

Tiffany Blews

"Oh baby, you're a classic Like a little black dress You're a faded moon Stuck on a little hot mess (little hot mess) Whoa, whoa"

From Save Rock and Roll

Miss Missing You

"Making eyes at this husk around my heart I see through you when we're sitting in the dark So give me your filth, make it rough Let me, let me trash your love

I will sing to you every day If it will take away the pain Oh, and I've heard you got it, got it so bad 'Cause I am the best you'll never have"

Where Did the Party Go?

"This is the story of how they met Her picture was on the back of a pack of cigarettes And when she touched him he turned ruby red A story that they'll never forget, never forget"

From American Beauty/ American Psycho

Jet Pack Blues

"Did you ever love her? Do you know? (I remember) Or did you never want to be alone? (I remember)"

From Mania

Last of the Real Ones

"I was just an only child of the universe And then I found you, and then I found you You are the sun and I am just the planets Spinning around you, spinning around you You were too good to be true, gold plated But what's inside you? But what's inside you? I know this whole damn city thinks it needs you But not as much as I do, as much as I do, yeah"

Hold Me Tight or Don’t

"I got too high again, realized I can't not be with you Or be just your friend, I love you to death, but I just can't I just can't pretend, we were lovers first Confidants but never friends, were we ever friends?

But when your stitch comes loose, I wanna sleep on Every piece of fuzz and stuffing that comes out of you You, I took too many hits off this memory I need to come down"

From So Much For Stardust

Flu Game

"Last night I dreamt I still knew you You I carved out a place in this world for two But it's empty without you

I got all this love I've got to keep to myself All this effort to make it look effortless"

Hold Me Like a Grudge

"Hold me, hold me like a grudge The world is always spinning, and I can't keep up, woah Faster and faster, can't do it on my own Part-time soulmate, full-time problem, yeah So, hold me like a grudge"

"Call you up and demand, you have no fun without me"

From Believers Never Die Volume Two

Bob Dylan

"When they say, "You and what army?" I guess they're talking about you and me Baby, nobody will love you, nobody will love you like Like I do, I guess that's half true"

"Baby, no one ever thinks of you, no one ever thinks of you As much as I do, not, not even you"

"Cause everyone loves Bob Dylan I just want you to love me like that, yeah Would you bury me next to Johnny Cash? I'm obsessed, do you love me like that? Yeah

I'm sure there's a million more of their songs/lyrics I could correlate to him but we'd be here all day.

I could literally yap about Mammon and Fall Out Boy all day.

[rudnitskaia]

I'll probably regret this note later, but I need to sort my thoughts on this somehow, so let it be. It's not a review, not a feedback, it’s just a skein of thoughts.

Let me start from afar: I wasn't going to watch Joker: Folie à Deux after all the scathing reviews I've seen. But then I accidentally found out that Sylvain Chomet took part in the creation of the credits for it, and I decided: to hell with it, at least for the sake of the credits, but I have to see it. I'll watch the first part and then the sequel in a row.

And now I'm in such contradictory feelings that it's hard to describe.

Don't get me wrong: this is a really bad movie. Everything about it is broken beyond repair: the genre, the plot, the pace of the narrative, the dialogues, the characters’ development arcs. Everything that could be screwed up is screwed up…

…on purpose.

The team that made the first movie couldn't have made its sequel so exceptionally bad by accident. It's really pure sabotage.

And from that point of view, this picture is genius. Joker: Folie à Deux is the bloody Taras Bulba of the cinema world. “I gave you life, I will also kill you!” Todd Phillips says from the screen with every misplaced song, every drawn-out scene, every gratuitous feint. I know of only two precedents of this sort, and both are from the world of literature, not cinema. Burgess, who considered and told everyone that A Clockwork Orange is unworthy of attention and even dangerous to read, and Conan Doyle, who hated Sherlock Holmes so much that he tried to kill Sherlock, but had to resurrect him anyway to meet the public's desires.

Joker: Folie à Deux truly fell victim to its creator's hatred of both the character and the industry that demands to put a comma, or even never-ending ellipses, to the place where a period is unquestionably placed. I can only applaud Phillips’ courage to bring this statement to the screens so unashamedly explicitly.

What I can't neither understand, nor justify, on the other hand, is Phillips' apparent inability to draw the line between fiction and reality. To treat a character as a real-living person is sacrilege. A fictional character, no matter how vivid and solid this character is, is still a character who is meant to tell a story, to be a tool, a prism through which the viewer or reader perceives certain events. For some unknown reason, Phillips hates his character, or, to be more precise, his actions, as if he was a real person. And this statement he conveys through the story of Arthur Fleck in the second part in full. Phillips literally forces his character to become pathetic, so that God forbid anyone to have pity for him or desire to empathize and sympathize with him, forces the character to personally debunk the image he himself created, as if telling us from the screen: “Wake up, idiots, this is not the way it fucking happens”.

Thanks for the revelation, bro, we're aware. We're watching a movie. A fictional story about fictional people.

I can kind of understand that level of judgement from people who’re not involved into creating any fictional stories, at least it’s explainable, but from a person who is a long-term director himself? Never. That's a level of judgement like "videogames make people violent".

I'm fully convinced that if there was to be a second part of Joker, it shouldn't have been about him. Arthur Fleck's story didn't need a continuation, at least not a direct one. But the world Phillips created in the first movie still had plenty of material to explore, and Harleen Quinzel's character could have mediated that journey for us. She is a fan of a serial killer (there is a wagonload of such people in reality), a person living in illusions, a victim of a fake idol. You want a musical? Let it be. In her head. Like that very episode of Scrubs, you know which I mean. But it had to be her story. Not Joker’s/Arthur’s story. Not a love story, not at all — or rather, not a story about the romantic kind of love that Phillips mocks and makes fun of for the entire sequel. It must have been a story of love that was fanatical, sick, false a priori, doomed to shatter in the end. In this story, Joker was needed purely in the background, not as a real character, but as an image in fantasies, and then Harleen, blinded by his fame she extols over herself or anything in her dull unremarkable reality, would’ve been our guide to the world that was changed by Joker’s unintentional influence, and I think you yourself are quite capable of realizing how many subjects could’ve been explored in interesting, multifaceted ways from such a delicious starting point. Not to mention the fact that it's just one variant of the starting point, because the main character could have been someone other than Harleen, and the time period relative to the events of the original could’ve been different... well, you got it, there was plenty of material to explore and develop.

And that's a damn shame it wasn’t.

One thing I know for sure is that I will not forget this movie. It's a fascinating specimen that I'll put in my personal mental cabinet of curiosities for two reasons. Adoration for how filigree bad it is — it takes courage, ingenuity, and a lot of resilience to do so, for any creator; and frustration over the fact that a really existing potential that could’ve been perfectly brought into existence in talented hands was thrown into the trashcan because of the creator's mere lack of understanding (which is doubly ironic in the context of the movie I’m talking about) of where the line between fiction and reality lies.

[snake-eyesx]

I am the face of Love's Rage. 19+. Semi-Selective.

Hello my little devils, you can call me Jude. I’m a 22 year old F. writer on the prowl for more plots! You can find a little more information about me here but just know, if you’re looking for someone to absolutely match your freak ooc, to fangirl, share multimedias about our beloved characters, I’m your girl! 

With up to 6 years of writing experience I’m comfortable playing a variety of characters, both male & female in MxF & FxF ships, trans and NB inclusive! However, although I tend to have more ideas for male characters, please don't reach out to me solely for that- I would love to practice writing women as well! 

I absolutely adore multi-faceted plots, with dimensional/multiple characters, and would label myself as a more introspective, detailed writer. However, quality > quantity always & I'm really only looking for writers that can match my enthusiasm and love for character development !! That being said I also love brainless dynamics as well, so variety is a big aspect of my search, as well as something I strive for :).

That being said, please read my guidelines before interacting with this post! Now, onto the good stuff. Under the cut are plots/genres that I’m DYING to explore!

Medieval/Period plots. Give me warring houses. Give me arranged marriages. Give me forbidden affairs. Give me pride & prejudice yearning. I want it ALL. I'm an absolute sucker for historical plots spanning all kinds of generations from the pre-plumbing to the 90s !! Also open to incorporating multiple storylines/world building for this. Crime. Mafias, blood-stained daggers, ulterior motives, crooked cops. Give me yakuza, jopok, italian and irish gangsters, give me intensity, revenge…. And the poor detective/civilian  caught  in the middle of it all. Single muse or mumu flexible!! Vampires. Gothic, predator vs prey. I’d love to explore beauty & the beast vibes, classical vampirism, abandoned manors and the likes!  Spies/Assassins. I'd love bullet train, The Man from U.N.C.L.E-esque plots !! Give me multi-muse shenanigans, the “you shot me two years ago and I’m still offended” trope, best friends, code names,  enemies to lovers, Mr. & Mrs. Smith core PLEASE! Folie À Deux. Give me the dark & twisted, a serial killer and his muse except his muse happens to be a detective that’s  just as obsessed with catching him. Give me Bonnie & Clyde, The Glory - two strangers inflicting revenge on the same person.  Mystical/Mythical & Everything Between. Give me mermaids, witches, the accidental summoning of a deity in the modern world. Fish out of water situations, with a clumsy human involved in their world, or a shameless creature involved in ours!  Pirates/Wild West. I want outlaws. I want a small ship sailing the rockiest seas. I want swash-buckling vigilantes, sweet belles, nobles and thieving pirates. Hand them all over! Other dynamics/plots. best friends to lovers, older singles, outcasts, upper east side elitists, genuinely weird/strange characters. 

Annnd that’s all folks! Please like this post or message me if anything resonates with you! Have a wonderful rest of your day my beauties :). 

[carefulfears]

okay i just watched folie a deux and now I'm thinking about the subtle nuanced way vince giligan deals with the msr relationship through the psychological horror of his scripts (particularly pusher, paper hearts, folie a deux, even bad blood though it's portrayed through a different tone) bc like....their relationship IS kind of a psychological horror show of shared madness, and folie a deux illustrates that the most blatantly and kind of is the culmination of that idea. that's why the "one in five billion" confession isn't even romantic in the traditional sense, it's this horrible soul-bearing wound-exposing thing that neither of them knows what to do with, bc facing the implications of it is just...too much. a madness of two!!

"this horrible soul-bearing wound-exposing thing that neither of them knows what to do with" !!!!

you worded this so well, and that's what's so heavy about vince episodes; especially in season 5, which carries this theme throughout.

folie a deux is a scary episode, and it has nothing to do with the bug monster. it's the isolation, the effects of not being able to trust what you see, the danger of a spooky reputation.

it reminds me of her face here, when he says his famous line. unlike redux, fight the future, amor fati, and other times when he’s being open and appreciative of her, she doesn’t cry. she doesn’t smile. there’s something solemn, and wary to it.

out of five billion people in the world, he has one that would believe him, even if his life depended on it. he has one that would listen to him. he has one that would care if he ever made it out of this hospital, enough to come back for him later. and it’s her, who nearly died of cancer earlier that year.

there’s fear in being needed, there’s grief in being starbuck.

i love your point about vince episodes utilizing psychological horror, and it makes me think of the end of paper hearts.

paper hearts is my favorite episode of the series, but also arguably the darkest, and it really serves to ground the characters in a way. it doesn’t get more brutal, for mulder, than 16 dead little girls. it doesn’t get more human, than digging for bones in the dirt.

in conduit, when he unearthed a body that might have been a missing teenager’s, she implored him to stop with protocol and reason. in oubliette, when he gave CPR to a cold kidnapping victim, she begged and tried to grab him. in paper hearts, she hears “help me,” and she digs with her bare hands.

in the end, their tones are so different. he gives her that smile and a hug (the same thing he did to try to convince his mother he was okay, earlier in the episode).

and she stares at the floor. she calmly strokes his hair, holds him. he hurts so much, for so long, and he has one person who knows it. “death’s best girl.”

and isn’t that a kind of shared madness, in itself? the things that control your lives and give you direction, not mattering or existing to anyone outside of that office?

his pain is real to her. samantha’s loss is real to her. they don’t know it yet, but what samantha suffered is closer to scully’s own experience than they had imagined. she is more entwined and enmeshed with this journey than she thinks.

“folie a deux” might be romance to some, but it isn’t to them. “you’re my one in five billion” might sweep some off their feet, but it doesn’t to them. it’s scary, and it’s painful.

the episode doesn’t end with her saving him through her own position. scully sees the monster, she joins him in delusion, and only then is he permitted safety.

it ends on the elevator, going down side-by-side, neither of them ever meeting the other's eye.

like you said, there are some things that are just too much to face.

[falloutboylyricss]

Fall Out Boy and Night

Evening Out With Your Girlfriend

"Last night, I saw my world explode" - Switchblades and Infidelity

"Walking off that stage tonight, I know what you're thinking" - Pretty In Punk

"Forget it, I'll go out tonight and piss on her doorstep" - Growing Up

"Start the van, get me out of this one horse town, waste this night" - The World's Not Waiting (For Five Tired Boys In A Broken Down Van)

"Last night, I saw a movie, and I thought about many movies I've seen at your house" - Moving Pictures

Take This to Your Grave

"Where is your boy tonight? I hope he is a gentleman" - Grand Theft Autumn / Where Is Your Boy

"Tonight the headphones will deliver you the words that i can't say / Tonight I'm writing you a million miles away / Tonight is all about 'We miss you'" - Homesick at Space Camp

"Another night alone in the city" - Sending Postcards From a Plane Crash (Wish You Were Here)

"And the sun burnt out tonight" - Calm Before the Storm

From Under The Cork Tree

"Tonight it's 'It can't get much worse' versus 'No one should ever feel like...'" - Dance, Dance

"I spent most of last night dragging this lake for the corpses of all my past mistakes" - My Heart Is The Worst Kind Of Weapon

Infinity On High

"At night, we're painting your trash gold while you sleep" - This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race

"A teenage vow in a parking lot, 'til tonight do us part" - Hum Hallelujah

"One night and one more time" - Thnks fr th Mmrs

"One night stand, one night stand off" - Thnks fr th Mmrs

"And the full moon pills got me out on the street at night" - The (After) Life Of The Party

"Everybody wants to drive on through the night if it's a drive back home / Things aren't the same anymore, some nights, they get so bad you almost pick up the phone" - GI.N.A.S.F.S.

"You saved my life that night on the roof of your hotel" - G.I.N.A.S.F.S.

Folie à Deux

"Lot lizards scales cool my nightlife moods" - Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes

"Does he know the way of the crickets that would convince me to call it a night?" - Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet

"Doing lines of dust and sweat off last night's stage just to feel like you" - 27

"The P.A. system keeps my heart, heart beating tonight" - West Coast Smoker

Save Rock And Roll

"I'm on deck, I'm up next, tonight, I'm high as a private jet" - Alone Together

"Maybe I'll burn a little brighter tonight" - Miss Missing You

"'Cause tonight is just fire alarms and losing you" - Death Valley

"Tonight, the foxes hunt the hounds, it's all over now" - Young Volcanoes

PAX AM Days

"Now I've got love flowing in my nightmare girl" - Caffeine Cold

American Beauty/American Psycho

"And I slept in last night's clothes and tomorrow's dreams, but they're not quite what they seem" - Uma Thurman

"She's in a long black coat tonight, waiting for me in the downpour outside" - Jet Pack Blues

"Fight off the light tonight and just stay with me, honey, don't you leave" - Jet Pack Blues

"I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare" - Novocaine

"In between being young and being right, you were my Versailles at night" - Fourth Of July

"Do you, do, do you remember when we drove, we drove, drove through the night and we danced, we danced to Rancid?" - Favorite Record

"I just need enough of you to dull the pain, just to get me through the night 'til we're twins again" - Twin Skeleton's (Hotel In NYC)

MANIA

"And I'm stuck, night vision, so stuck, night vision, but I come to life, come to life" - Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea

So Much (For) Stardust

"Who am I dialing tonight? That's a bummer" - Hold Me Like a Grudge

"I'm just a cherub riding comets through the night sky, screaming at the stars like night lights" - Hold Me Like a Grudge

"Late at night in my room, lie awake, think of you and all your little dooms / Last night, I dreamt I still knew you" - Flu Game

"Oh, I'm going neon in the night time" - What a Time To Be Alive

"I need the sound of crowds, or I can't fall asleep at night" - So Much (For) Stardust

Misc.

"Forget your night time, summer love on a gurney with a squeaky wheel" - Lake Effect Kid

"I just wanna come back to life, spark my crazy head to keep you warm at night" - Lake Effect Kid

"Call it a night when the booze hits (Sorry) / That'll never happen again 'til tonight (I'm so sorry)" - Super Fade

[music-orthemisery]

wait, I'm confused, what's blondegate? what happened on the 4th of july 2011??? i'm new to the fob/peterick life please enlighten meeee

oh, anon, i am so giddy right now!

ok, first off, i'll point you to THIS timeline created by @princesspete, @dykepatrickstump, and @stumpwentz - a source-supported and straightforward theory that "fourth of july" is about july 4, 2011. i could just say go there, but, i'm a yapper, so i'll break it down a bit.

in (very) short:

things were...tense between p2 around folie times/early hiatus

there seemed to be some re-kindling in late 2010/early 2011 based on lots of tweets, references, etc. this is also when pete's marriage was ending...which could mean nothing, of course.

after july 4th, 2011 suddenly things go cold with them again and, on july 14th, patrick shows up at a cubs game sporting his bleach blonde hair (blondegate)

this was also the year of lollapalooza (august 2011) where they "missed" each others' performances and did not seem to be in contact

so, do we have concrete proof or knowledge? nah. do we know exactly what happened on that day? nope. but the p2 pieces just fall into place a little too easily here. like, why did they go from being the best of buddies again to ICE COLD by lolla?

and, i mean...blondegate is really just me joking around a bit. but it's a common trope for people to drastically change their hair after a big break-up. sooo....

if you really want to go to crazy town with me, though...

when "4th of july" was released, pete captioned this on fob's insta:

@princesspete did a post about the french parallels here for more info on how this ties together with everything. it's um...quite telling imo!

i am MORE than happy to keep yapping about this, so let me know what else you want to know about p2 world. it's literally TWO FUCKING DECADES of insanity and parallels and weaves. hence why i will never know peace...

[skatoonyfan1234]

The Lonely Ex-King

WARNING: SPOILERS for the film Wish. The former king of Rosas, trapped in his own staff, experiences anger, sadness, and then, loneliness, and defeat. [I do not & never ever will own Wish]

Deep in the Castle in the Kingdom of Rosas, there was a dungeon - a place where the worst ever lawbreakers to the kingdom were locked up.

On one of the walls in one of the cells in the dungeon, there, hung up on the wall, was a diamond mirror.

This diamond mirror housed King Magnifico, the ex-king of Rosas, having been defeated by Asha and her friends, and having lost his kingdom and reign to his own wife, Queen Amaya, and now, he was trapped in the finial of his diamond staff he'd created, and hung up on the wall in the castle dungeon.

He sighed, as he looked out longingly at the outside of the dungeon. "I used to be the King of Rosas," he lamented. "I used to be the one they asked for wishes. I used to be so adored." "And now look at me." he growled bitterly. "I've lost everything. Trapped in this mirror-like prison in the dungeon! All because of that… that… ASHA!!!!"

He remembered Asha; The girl who wanted to be his apprentice. The girl who stood up to him. The girl who wanted nothing more but to have her grandfather's wish granted.

The girl who, along with the help of her goat, Valentino, her friends, and his own wife, Amaya, beat him, folied his plan to steal Star, and trapped him in his own staff.

At the mention of her, King Magnifico felt a new emotion - Anger. It flared up inside him. His eyes glowed green, and rage bubbled in his blood.

"SHE DID THIS TO ME!" he yelled.

"SHE AND HER STUPID! IDIOT! FRIENDS!" He started breathing heavily, his mussed-up hair now even more mussed up than usual. "SHE, AND THAT WOMAN I USED TO CALL MY WIFE, AMAYA!" he snarled, his eye twitching. "THEY TOOK EVERYTHING I HAD AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!" He let out a fierce roar of anger. "I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE ON YOU!!!!!" he roared. "I will smash this prison and escape, if that's what it takes!" he yelled.

He punched the glass of his mirrored prison. To his surprise, it didn't crack. He tried again. Nothing. He pounded it over and over. Still nothing.

His heart pounding like mad, King Magnifico went into a full-blown tantrum, punching and kicking the glass of his mirrored prison rapidly, hoping it would at least crack.

"I Gave people their wishes!" he snapped as he pounded on the glass. "I helped them out, I fulfilled all their requests! All I want is a little respect!" His voice soon rose to a yell. "AND THIS IS THE THANKS I GET?!!?!?!!?!" He let out an ear-breaking scream of anger, and pounded hard on the glass with both fists.

Slowly, but surely, his anger began to calm down. Rubbing his now throbbing hands, he stared at the glass in the mirror.

Sadly, not a single crack had formed in the glass. Reality struck him like a freight train. He was trapped in his own mirrored prison for eternity. He couldn't have felt more distraught in all his life. He slunk down to the floor.

And then…… He started to cry. Tears poured down his face and soaked into his robes. Loud uncontrollable sobs of anguish escaped from his throat, and echoed in the mirrored prison. King Magnifico pulled himself into a ball, clenched his eyes shut, and buried his face in his legs, trying to stifle his sobs.

"Some king I am." he mourned. "Trapped here for all eternity. It'll be a miracle if anyone, even Amaya, even talks to me. Nobody cares about me now." "Heck, i bet even a prisoner that comes to this dungeon won't even talk to me." he sulked, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm nothing but a fool."

He shivered, for despite being trapped in a mirror-like prison, he could feel the cold of the dungeon. He pulled his cape over his body, and let himself mourn.

"I'm the lonliest man in the world now." he sobbed. "It's hopeless." His quiet muffled sobs echoed through the dark cold dungeon.

To say he deserved his fate was an understatement.

[ihaveatheoryonthat]

I don't know if I'm winding down my time in this fandom, or if I just need a blank slate to work from, but I'm going to get a few partials out of the way, just in case that helps get me going again. As per usual, it's completely unfinished and doesn't have an ending. I called this one Folie a Deux.

---

Ingo was [at wit’s end/whatever]

They saw odd happenings at the station on a daily basis-- got a glimpse of hundreds of peculiar interactions and thousands of unique faces. No one would bat an eye if he reported watching [w/e], but apparently this was simply too much to believe.

For the past several days, Ingo had seen a man wandering the station, or on a rotating [?] of platforms. He recognized a substantial number of patrons, but this man was not one of them; his eye had been drawn by the [unique] garb, and after he’d noticed it, he’d been unable to not notice it the next day, or the one after that.

That wasn’t the strange part; people boarded trains dressed in far, far weirder, to the point that they saw Hatenna Miku cosplayers on a weekly basis. The part that Ingo simply couldn’t look past was that it just wasn’t a matter of the man’s chosen wardrobe.

He looked like him.

Now, that wasn’t a concept entirely divorced from reality, as Ingo saw his own face turned back at him on an hourly basis, but that wasn’t his brother. It wasn’t… exactly him, either, but all of the major strokes were there; the creases below the eyes and mild hunch weren’t enough to throw the uncanny resemblance off.

The first time he’d noticed, he’d passed it off as a trick of the imagination-- poor lighting that made him fill in the blanks with the features he was most familiar with-- but the second instance had disproven his theory. He’d been able to see the stranger’s face with perfect clarity, well enough to read the emotion in the tilt of his eyes and angle of his downturned lips: anxiety, anticipation-- the wanting for something, but the inability to reach out and take it. Ingo had seen much the same in the days he’d bothered to practice in a mirror, trying to force his face into anything that the layperson wouldn’t see as stern disapproval.

When he’d seen the man next, it had been on departure from a shift on the Multi Line, and he’d been startled to face that [wanting] stare head-on-- fixed not on him, but his twin standing beside him. It was followed by a flickering of attention, the realization that he was being watched in return, and they’d spent an [odd/uncanny] few seconds trapped in a mutual [stare]. Ingo hadn’t realized his gait had faltered until Emmet looped back to take him by the arm, asking what was wrong. He’d torn his gaze away to nod in the man’s direction, but all his brother had done was look, raise a brow, and said, “Huh. Verrrrry weird cosplay.”

Ingo hadn’t pressed; when he’d followed up, the man was poised to leave, shoulders raised uncomfortably with his hands clutching at his arms as he turned away. He was embarrassed, and it was kinder to let the matter drop. When they’d finished their shift for the day, Emmet had wondered, aloud, what the cosplay was supposed to be-- last week there had been a [theme] Miku, so what was the idea behind that version of Ingo’s uniform?

There was a key point of miscommunication in that [?] which+ Ingo didn’t notice until well after the fact.

The next time he saw the man, it was without the ragged hat and coat; he wasn’t focused on anyone or anything in particular, just staring blankly out over the crowds. Under different circumstances, Ingo might have passed it off as waiting on an arrival or biding time until his train arrived, but he wasn’t paying any attention to the world around him. No repeated looks at clock or scanning of the [crowd], just the [dull] [stare] of a man lost deep within his thoughts.

He wondered if he should let this [chance] pass without comment, but he felt he had to say something.

Ingo approached from an angle, so as not to march in with reckless abandon the way his twin might. He stopped a respectful distance away: close enough to be heard over the din of the station, but not so close that he was invading the man’s personal space.

He cleared his throat politely to wake him from his [trance] and said, “I’m terribly sorry if we made you self conscious the last time we met. It wasn’t [appropriate] of me to stare, and I promise you Emmet’s commentary was born of curiosity, not criticism.”

The man seemed tense as he listened, and while he nodded, accepting the apology, none of that [tension] bled out of his posture. He seemed like he was about to say something, then turned his head to cough into his far shoulder.

“It’s no matter, I wasn’t offended.” He said. His voice was rough, and… strange, like he was speaking in a lower register than came naturally to him. Ingo made a note of it for later, but not an urgent one; if he was a cosplayer, he could be practicing his vocal range.

Even if it was true that he hadn’t been offended, he’d clearly been ashamed of his previous ensemble. Ingo hadn’t been paying a great amount of attention, but broad strokes were the same as what he’d worn before-- a thick pink tunic and dark, unremarkable pants and shoes-- with the only changes being the absence of his coat and hat. It was the first time he’d seen him without them, and it couldn’t have been coincidence that the [change] had come directly after their last interaction.

“While I admit that I only saw your work in passing, the attention to detail was quite impressive.” Ingo knew it wasn’t just cosplay-- short of visual effects make up, no amount of contouring or [?] could recreate someone else’s face so precisely-- but he didn’t know what it was. Maybe, if he got to know the man, he could solve this minor mystery. Their conversation had been a short one thus far, but already, he could strike a curious Zorua or Zoroark from the list of possibilities.

The man didn’t say anything for a moment, and, eventually, his eyes [?] down to the ground. “I… don’t know what to say.”

On its face, it made perfect sense-- the words and the gesture together should have indicated bashfulness, and while that was a [subsect/subset?] of [being uncomfortable] he was simply uncomfortable. His pale skin was unmarred by any blush, and he wasn’t peeking up to gauge Ingo’s response. He was staring at the floor, avoiding eye contact. No denial in regards to being a cosplayer, but no attempt to lean into the cover story he’d just been handed, either. Interesting.

“I don’t mean to keep you from your work.” He said, risking a single glance in Ingo’s direction. His brows twitched inward, [?], and then flattened. “Please continue with your business, I’ll vacate the premises shortly.”

“There’s no need to--” Ingo began, only to be cut off when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“I’m interrupting.” Emmet announced-- not a question, no hint of apology, just boldly asserting his presence. In the moment’s distraction, the man turned and briskly walked away, leaving Ingo with no [?] but to see what his brother needed from him. “[idk why Emmet’s interrupting]”

[Response to the problem/whatever]

He nodded, and then glanced in the direction the stranger had vanished into the crowd. “Your conversation seems to be over. We can [?] immediately.”

“Thank you, I’ve noticed.” Ingo said, pinching the bridge of his nose. As he turned to accompany him, though, something clicked, “You didn’t recognize him?”

Emmet shrugged shallowly. “No. You did?”

“Of course I-- did you not look at his face?” He asked, promptly switching from one unhelpful thought to a more productive one. While Ingo’s initial statement began with disbelief, the question he rerouted to was genuinely [?]; there was every possibility that Emmet simply hadn’t noticed, too focused on the man’s clothes or [interruption].

“Vaguely.” His brother said, dashing that theory. “I saw no reason to investigate further.”

“How?” The disbelief was back, more potent than before. Ingo himself had passed it off as a quirk of the human mind at first, so he was reluctant to judge, but seeing the man head-on had dispelled his uncertainty. He simply couldn’t believe that Emmet had looked into this particular mirror and not seen his reflection [shining?] back at him.

Emmet’s face twitched in irritation and he waved a hand out over the crowd, demonstrating that he found this particular individual indistinguishable from the masses.

“He looked precisely like us, Emmet; it was uncanny.” […]

At that, his twin’s eyes lit up with comprehension, lips twitching at what he took to be a joke. “Oh. It was the cosplayer. Did you ask what the premise was?”

It was tempting to ask if Emmet was yanking his chain, but the subtleties of his expression made it clear: he hadn’t noticed a thing. He truly didn’t recognize the man-- either as the person he’d seen in passing, or on the basis of their own resemblance.

Was Ingo’s perception flawed, then? While he’d never been diagnosed with prosopagnosia, he occasionally failed to recognize commuters or coworkers in different environments. He’d thought it was just a natural function of the human mind, filtering out information when it wasn’t immediately relevant, but perhaps they were indicative of a greater problem? He was tempted to look back, as though the empty spot could answer any of his questions, but he refrained. Instead, he turned, bumping Emmet with his shoulder to get them moving, and [went to address the interruption].

He might have convinced himself that it was a [flaw] in his [?] after all, had pure coincidence not run them straight into one another once again.

The man’s cap and coat were still absent, leaving his face as the most identifiable part of him, but his clothes seemed to be the same as well. There were odd creases in the shirt, as though it had shifted while hanging out to dry, and odd creases below his eyes, as well.