#and partly because this is the point where I actually do start looking at Luca's aceness and exploring it a little more.

[thiscenturys31stenigma]

Rewriting the Hay family storyline atm bc I hate it so bad and need it obliterated!!

First off...

Just some general edits to the set-up. Lucas is not in young offenders! Look, if we're gonna see Lucas lose his shit at JJ. I'd prefer if it was timed better and done on screen. Leah also does not have a baby because that is stupid. This rewrite also mainly focuses on Leah!! I love Lucas but he has definitely had his time this year. Leah is fun and underrated and I want her to have a storyline that isn't stupid and out of character.

Leah and Vicky are the main couple is this one.

I am not a HUGE shipper of this one tbh. But it has some chemistry and it's lesbian so who am I to complain really. Hollyoaks has ZERO lesbian couples and I'm writhing in pain. This was also partly an excuse to have Chappel Roan playing. They do have some trials and tribulations though (as is the Hollyoaks way)

Lucas works at The Loft.

I know why some people might think that's a bit ooc but I need Ethan and Lucas to be friends for this. It's either this or Dillon Junior James Michael Steven Barnes Hay-Ray The First so take your pick lol. I know he's underage (or I think he is???) but he'll be a cleaner and Ethan will babysit him during his shifts it makes sense guys.

At the start, Ethan and Vicky are together but Leah and Vicky are kissing and stuff behind his back

Again, I know why some people might not like this one but I think it's believable, especially for a show like Hollyoaks. I'm not a fan of Ethan and Vicky but I'm even LESS of a fan of Robbie and Vicky and they are not permanent anyway.

Leah and Vicky have a secret-situationship type deal

Not much I can say about this one tbh. Leah probably tells Lucas first, which is where the trials and tribulations between them start.

Lucas and Leah fight a bit

As I half-mentioned earlier. Lucas and Ethan are friends due to working at The Loft and all that. Lucas is not happy about Leah being with his friends girlfriend and they have a disagreement. Dillon notices that Lucas amd Leah aren't speaking and tries to talk to Lucas about it, but he can't tell Dillon the full story beacause that would inadvertandly out Leah. This devolves into a fight and then they can have some drama too.

Leah and Vicky fight

This is where the idea for this rewrite came from actually! Leah (at this point) has accepted her feelings for Vicky. Vicky has not. I know this giving HayRay flashbacks but...idk I can't really defend myself on that one 💀 anyway they fight about how this is affecting the bond between Leah and her brother, Vicky and Ethan and any stuff that may have happened between this. Casual by Chappel Roan playing in the background. This is non-negotiable I fear.

So that's basically all I have!!

I know this probably has some oversights and mistakes but this is honestly just the basics of an idea. Anyway, someone put me in that writers room before I go insane.

[steel--fairy]

Hmmmmm, how about Barry? For the verse character thing.

barry! my very first rival! though i went with one of his other generic names and picked like. tyson for whatever reason. idk. 9 year old me was an enigma.

anyways that's to say, he has a special place in my heart the silly little kiddo

under a cut bc this, again, got super long

so to start with barry, we need to start with palmer. he and chryssas dad (henceforth referred to as cd since he doesn't have an actual name yet...) were both from twinleaf and dreamed of becoming great trainers.

and they did! palmer made it to the champion level, though being champion bored him so he quit after a bit. when plans to build a battle frontier in sinnoh popped up, he jumped at the chance to join.

cd eventually became a ranger which he was good at, but killed him in a freak accident. a lot of turbulent emotions for palmer--his best friend died the same week his son was born.

that's all relevant because it led to barry being childhood friends with chryssa and lucas whenever his dad was around... and then chased off by johanna whenever he was at the battle frontier.

cd's death shattered johanna and she partly blamed palmer. she'd never say that to his face, but she did kinda take it out on barry as a proxy.

as a result, barry had a weird time with his best friend (lucas). they could only spend time together at school or when johanna wasn't looking.

barry, despite his extroversion, was a very lonely kid. he couldn't see lucas that often and both of his parents worked busy schedules. palmer spent 5 days of the week at the battle frontier while his mom (who I should really also name) was a teacher who was constantly busy.

he had a lot of trouble making friends at school. he was a bit too extroverted yknow? tolerated at best as a class clown. lucas was basically the only person who actually liked him. (even chryssa basically tolerated him at best lol)

that left barry with a lot of time on his own. to most people's surprise, he actually spent a lot of that time studying! battling of course, not schoolwork. he studied video of his father or cynthia or whoever, went to the library to learn strategy, went by the high school to watch the older kids casually battle.

so, obviously, he couldnt wait to go on his journey! he just needed to wait for palmer to get him the perfect starter : )

...yea. he uh didnt. palmer knew barry wanted a pokemon but was also away from barry a lot. being home reminded him, but a lack of object permeance is mayhaps a family trait. barry ended up getting his starter from professor rowan.

which barry isn't bitter about at all! he's lying

barry really does love his daddy. he looks up to him as the coolest, greatest, awesomest person on the planet. the fact that palmer doesnt seem to be aware of how deep barry's admiration goes stings juuuust a tiny bit.

but he was on his journey now! and he had a rival in chryssa! (lucas was a boring nerd who worked under professor rowan)

....except chryssa avoided him. and turned down all of his offers to battle when he did find her. and the very few timea they did battle, she absolutely crushed him.

barry's journey was maybe a bit lonelier than expected.

but then he got a chance to study under crasher wake! ignore that wake didnt seem to want him around like everyone else! he was going to be as strong as his dad and this was going to help!

....if team galactic doesnt blow up sinnoh first. barry, despite a desire to help, doesn't get much done. he couldn't stop team galactic from blowing up the great marsh. he couldn't stop jupiter from taking uxie. he couldnt even make it to the peak of mt coronet in time to help there.

barry felt a bit useless and superfluous. he's strong, yea, but what's the point? he hasnt gotten his dads attention, he cant keep his friends, he cant make new ones, he cant help out.....

and uh. this is about where i am for barry. one of the things on my to do list for potential sinnoh fic is wrap up barry's plot line. have him talk to his dad, deal with his growing inferiority complex, all that. its one of those things i feel will be easier after actually writing it, alas, so I don't have much more to say.

but some other barry stuff!

adhd king as we all know

starts dating lucas as an adult. when they tell chryssa, she just kind of stares at them and says she thought theyd been dating for the past 5 years.

does make up with his dad and have a good conversation about everything. palmer never meant to make barry feel bad (and feels quite bad hinself for doing so on accident) and tries to make it up to him

eventually becomes a frontier brain? i have him as taking over from argenta but I'm not 100% married to that specific concept. i kinda want to see what others have for barry before definitively picking something

and that's barry! yay!

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 139

Chapter 139: "Demon Search, Part 2"

Yo demons can be so rude. Norman's extermination plan is extreme and while I think it should only target the aristocrats and those in charge of any farms instead of drag down innocent lives down as well, these select few randos can bite the dust too simply because they're making fun of one of the kindest demons this series has to offer.

I know this world runs differently and the demons only see us as food, so this scene is essentially like us watching fish or something on a conveyor belt being tossed out, but it's still a hard scene to witness as these are literal babies.

His panic over stealing from the farm is actually kinda cute and I love how quickly his intentions changed, even from him switching from saying "it" to "her." He could've very well just had her for dinner, possibly improving the state of his face (since eating other humans haven't really worked in the past so who knows if she would've helped or not), yet he decides to treat her as family instead because of the empathy he feels simply because both their faces are a little messed up.

Someone please help this precious demon, he's trying his absolute hardest to figure out how to raise a human child and it's adorable! It means everything that he's raising her as his own daughter and not as food like the plantation mothers/sisters are forced to do. I wish he has an official name though aside from us just referring to him as Ayshe's dad because he's just so special and I love him. He's tied with Lucas & Alex as one of the best parents in the series and I'll go as far to say he's my second favorite out of the whole roster. (no need to ask about number one when it's obvious.)

I don't have any strong opinions on Zazie, like he's okay, I don't necessarily like or dislike him a great amount, but I gotta say that killing this amazing dad ain't gonna reward him with brownie points.

A moment of relief for me that this scene wasn't animated because I'm sure it would've made me tear up. Poor guy didn't deserve this.

Of course, by extension, this means that Ayshe didn't need to suffer this unfortunate loss either. This whole event sorta parallels the shelter raid, to the point where Andrew & his men invaded the escapee's home & ended up killing Yuugo & Lucas. Only difference is the children managed to escape their pursuer while Ayshe was basically captured by hers. We learn later on that Norman was already knowledgeable with the demon language at this point, so it's pretty bold of him to bring this traumatized girl back with him to paradise knowing fully well that she's hellbent on ending their lives.

I'm.. starting to remember why Norman is my least favorite of the fullscore trio and unfortunately it's partly due to all the pain he caused Ayshe to experience. Granted, her father's death was a direct result of Zazie's attacks, but it goes without saying that the kid was acting on Norman's orders. Sorry not sorry but I don't do well with people who make my favorites suffer, just look at all the dislike I have towards the demon god (the effects the reward had on Emma), Andrew (killing bunker dads & the injuries inflicted on Dominic & Chris), the GF demon (taking my queen's life), and Peter (he's a Ratri, there's literally so much I could list here). Norman isn't as bad as the rest of them, but eh, I can't find it in myself to adore him as much as Ray or Emma.

It's smart of her to remain quiet though. She can't risk acting out, whether it be on her desires or just being rebellious, since she's seen first hand how powerful the Lambda crew is.

Not really relevant to these panels but it's what made me think of this.. I wish we got to see Ayshe and Emma interact more. Or at all, actually. Ayshe learning that someone like our best girl actually cares this much for demons must have been such a relief to hear. I get that Ayshe kept quiet around the Lambda crew because of the stuff regarding her father, but she couldn't really bond with the other paradise hideout kids either since they all have opposing opinions about demons than she does.

HELP she is so darn adorable!! I would've been fine if Ayshe remained this cool assassin throughout the whole story because I really do love those cold, silent characters but being able to see her have a little silly side is such a pleasant surprise.

Just because Ayshe is now an ally doesn't mean that the idea of assassins magically goes away! That's still a concern!

Favorite panel/moment:

I pretty much adore every moment of the flashbacks between Ayshe and her dad, even the tiny moments we get in this panel are super cute. Norman wondered in ch127 if it was possible to refrain eating your favorite food if it asked you, so let me tell him that this tiny, happy family is living proof of that! Aaahh, they deserved so much better! (ALSO, the lights on the small table behind them are identical to the ones Ray & Mujika used back in ch45, so it's cool that all kinds of demons use those plants the same way.)

Ayshe has many lovable panels as well, but the tiny one here has a special place in my heart for some reason.

[anchoviesinthenightsky]

In all my years of fandom, I don't think I've came across such a friendly blog and blogger and I'm so glad that the fandom here is so good. Usually fandoms are....ya'know. But here its nice. I love it so much. You are such a nice person at least from a screenview. It's nice to be here and I love a campfire. (Also have you seen that one comment from your new chapter? lmao they're a dork(

Oh thank you! That's really sweet of you to say :)

I think everyone who comes to this space really does try to approach it with kindness, empathy, and enthusiasm. Like, I think we all just want everyone to have a good time, so we put good energy out there.

(And I also spend a lot of time on my own thinking about community building, thinking about how to respond to y'alls asks, how to make sure my answers reflect the type of community I want to see, making sure I'm taking time to re-read and fully listen to what y'all have to say, and then also trying to make fun content on top of that!)

And I'm really glad that you find it nice to be here, that you love it, and that it feels like a friendly space. I love to hear that! :D

[alexiethymia]

A Case Study on Vanitas’ Character: On Vanitas’ Two Conditions

Since they’re animating the What is Love? episode next (episode 7), I couldn’t help but want to talk about that chapter. [spoilers for anime-only watchers!]

Vanitas has two conditions for Jeanne: 

1) She mustn’t drink blood from anyone else but him.

I admit that like Jeanne, it’s easy for me to fall into the trap of thinking Vanitas is a better guy than he is because of certain biases. Let’s admit it, this part was plain blackmail, and yet for some reason, with what we know of Vanitas now, there are also different ways of seeing this scene. 

Vanitas is ‘blackmailing’ Jeanne, but at the same time that blackmail is actually him also offering a solution to Jeanne’s problem. AND YET, HE DOES IT IN SUCH A WAY SO THAT JEANNE NEVER HAS TO FEEL LIKE SHE OWES HIM. More to the point, he does it in such a way to ensure that Jeanne continues hating him. In other words he, in his own twisted way, is doing a nice thing for Jeanne, while ensuring that she never likes him for it. Now I’m not saying it’s a purely altruistic thing, but I still think that Vanitas is drawn to Jeanne because she reminds him of himself back then. If so he knows precisely how to get her to receive help albeit through manipulative means. 

It’s not a purely altruistic thing. He states it so himself, what he gets out of it is the ‘divine feeling’ Jeanne sucking his blood gives to him again purposefully painting himself as a pervert so that Jeanne wouldn’t like him for helping her. But if we are to believe some theories that it’s not actually as enjoyable as he himself paints it out to be (I digress, but I think he’s being honest here. He strikes me as having a bit of a masochistic streak in him) (I digress from my digression, but theory time, what’s his bases of comparison?? Who besides Luna and Jeanne have drunk from him??), then there’s another dimension to his condition of ‘you must drink blood, only from me’. If he’s just in this for the feeling it gives him, then why word the condition that way? He’s never stricken me as possessive of Jeanne despite his words of ‘I want to possess all of you’, and as he’s stated, he doesn’t want Jeanne to love him back. I think this is just another case of his ��use me’ mindset rearing its head again. He’s said it to Count Orlock, and we know that it started since his time with Dr. Moreau. It is definitely, definitely, unhealthy, and I believe it’s also coupled with his slight suicidal tendencies. If worst comes to worst and Jeanne ends up going out of control and killing him, he seems not to care. 

Going off tangent here, but another one of his contradictions is how ruthless he is at surviving and yet how careless he is with his life, especially when it comes to people caring for him. He’d rather be left in the snow than have Jeanne take care of him as repayment for him protecting her, or when he got angry at Noe for protecting him from Ruthven.

But at his core and as Luna stated, Vanitas is a kind child. It’s developed in an unhealthy way, but he’s quite self-sacrificial. It’s fine for Jeanne to use him so that Jeanne has a focus or outlet. At least when the craving for blood gets to be too much, Jeanne knows there’s someone she can drink from, which helps her so that she doesn’t lose control and lash out against Luca for example. And on Vanitas’ side, it seems like it’s fine for him to be put at risk so other people don’t have to be, and on Jeanne’s part too, it also helps her from further hating herself if she ends up hurting other people. 

In other words, his condition is both a selfish and selfless one, yet he paints it to be blackmail. It’s not an entirely good thing for him to do, because there’s definitely power play involved, but it’s also not as scummy as it is initially presented out to be with what we now know of his past. 

2) For Jeanne to call him by ‘name’. 

There are so many things going on here that I just can’t help but ramble about it. Firstly, I’m really interested in how this’ll be translated in the anime. Did Vanitas say call me by ‘Vanitas’, or call me by ‘my name’? Because if it’s the latter, then couldn’t Vanitas also mean (although not fully consciously) that he wants someone to call him by his true name like Luna did before he inherited the name ‘Vanitas’? (And I will just die if in a future chapter, Jeanne and Noe do end up getting to call him by his original name).  

Second, there are slight parallels and contrasts with this arrangement he has with Jeanne and with the one he had back then with Moreau. Obviously Moreau is trash and took full advantage of ‘No. 69′. He exercised all the power. In this case, Jeanne is hesitant about hurting Vanitas despite how aggravating he is towards her. She doesn’t want to drink his blood at all. Moreau was a human. Jeanne is a vampire, and despite physically being superior towards Vanitas she changes her demand into a plea or request for Vanitas to keep her secret. (And whelp that’s when she sealed her fate, because she apparently triggered Vanitas. Don’t worry though Jeanne, you’ll get your payback soon enough). Vanitas was completely without power before, so faced with a similar situation this time around, I think part of him let the power get to his head, causing him to partly take advantage of Jeanne (he’s a complete sadist AND a masochist). He has complete agency this time around. Sure he’s once again offering himself with the expectation of pain and at the risk of his life, and he’s also doing this for another person, like with Misha, but unlike with Dr. Moreau, the power is on his side this time around. 

Going off tangent, that’s one thing that Vanitas and Jeanne have to work on. Balancing power and agency. I get where Vanitas is coming from, surrounded by vampires as he is, and with his past too, but he has to realize that caring about and loving someone isn’t a matter of power. You don’t lose when you love and care. You don’t surrender power. You don’t have to take away someone’s agency or exercise your own power for you to manage to do good things for the people you care about. He has to manage that balance - likewise with Jeanne, Noe, and Domi as well. 

Going back. Since he has full agency in this case, it’s his decision to offer himself to Jeanne in this way, he doesn’t want to be dehumanized while doing so. He’s had enough trauma about that already. Despite how he words it, it’s actually a somewhat equivalent exchange between Vanitas and Jeanne. He offers her blood as a way for her to keep her sanity, but she can’t be removed from it, she has to look at him properly and consider him a person with full agency and choices, and not just as ‘that human’. 

And looking at their faces - Jeanne’s is an incredulous one as if to say, ‘that’s it?’ It’s both an easy and difficult thing for her to do. Meanwhile, for Vanitas, I’d expected him to look goading, but he just looks patient and soft. At least in this instance, I don’t see it as him forcing Jeanne to do something she doesn’t want to do - just an unexpected moment of wanting to be known and treated as himself. 

LISTEN HE IS FULL OF CONTRADICTIONS OK. We’re led to believe that all of his interactions with Jeanne until the moment he realized he fell in love with her was just him teasing her, but I believe he was already in the process of falling in love with her slowly. I’ll go so far as to say that he was the one who fell in love first, but he just interpreted it as his being ‘excited’ by her. In other words, the words he said (’I love you’) which we thought was a lie was actually the truth, albeit a truth he didn’t realize much later. 

Why do I think so? It’s because he revealed certain moments of vulnerability or sincerity with her or about her without any of the teasing, as represented by the italicized dialogue. It’s the same case for when he said he didn’t want to trod on her foot with Noe, or when he happily grinned and he said forthright Jeanne was the side of her he liked best (or when he promised he’d kill her). 

This is just an example of his contradiction. He never wanted or expected Jeanne to fall in love with him, and sure this could just be his wanting to push boundaries or test limits, being the chaotic person that he is, and yet, wanting to be called by name is a desire to form a genuine connection. 

He could have just remained as ‘that human’ to Jeanne while interacting with her. After all, what could stop him? He also had the first condition in place to make sure they’d continue to interact. And yet, he refused (like how Noe refuses to be ‘that vampire’ to him). 

Like Luna said, as long as he didn’t close his heart, he wouldn’t be alone. Even if Vanitas thinks it burdensome or wants to be ‘free’, it seems that he still does long for connection - romantic, platonic, or otherwise. 

And this is why I ship them, even in this instance so early on in the manga when arguably the dynamic wasn’t at its healthiest. It’s because of their background that draws them to each other and allows them an understanding of one another. It’s because of that desire to know more about each other. It’s because of that genuine care and wanting to form a connection with each other, despite part of them rejecting it because of their issues.

Do I think they’re good for each other? Yes. Admittedly, they have so much to work on, but I believe that they push (Vanitas with regards to Jeanne’s blood addiction, and Jeanne with Vanitas in his moment of vulnerability) because the both of them tend to be self-destructive if left to their own devices. It’s just that their version of care for each other is aggressive. They’ll have to find that balance though eventually. On Vanitas’ part he also has to be inspired by Noe that the kind of salvation a person wants may not be the best possible outcome, especially for those left behind. I’m not sure what Mochizuki sensei’s end message is suppose to be, but death I don’t believe is salvation.   

tldr: Vanitas is a self-sacrificial idiot who longs for connections under layers of self-loathing (but he’s still an asshole), and VaniJeanne is a good ship which had the foundations laid down from the beginning. 

[i-growl-growl-growl]

Can you make a NCT U + Ten and Yuta yandere that they are CEOs and their s/o is their secretary who want leave the job ?

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Since NCT U is a sub-unit where the members are interchangeable, I included all members that have been in NCT U (from what I found looking it up, that is).

Warning This has Yandere themes. Read at your own risk.

~Ahreum Rhea

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Taeyoung: He’d be pissed off that you’d dare try to leave him. He’s been way too lenient with you and his kitten thinks she has the right to leave. No matter. All he’ll have to do now is discretely make your life hell to where no one else would hire you and you lose everything, including your reputation. He’ll use his connections to make sure that you’ll come crawling back to him after you’ve lost everything and this is when he’d quite literally drag you home, to hell.

“My kitten thinks she can leave. She need to learn your place. You’ll never leave this house, y/n- this is your home now. I’ve owned you since the day you started working for me, you just didn’t know it yet. I always get what I want and you know it. You will obey me, be mine, and do as I say, my fragile little kitten, or I’ll hurt you. It’s not like you’ve got a choice anyway, I can easily arrange the death of a family member or maybe I’ll make you watch as I destroy them with my bare hands. I’ve got a collar with your name on it. Come here kitten, you’ve been very bad.”

Doyoung: He’d honestly miss seeing you dressed up so professionally every day. He loved everything about you, your hard-working nature, your neatly kept and professional look, the ambition and intense focus in your eyes as you work, everything. That’s when he realized that he can’t let you go. He can’t have you working for anyone else. No one else deserves to have the pleasure of being your boss- to have you answering to them- they’ll just take advantage of you! He’ll plot your kidnapping for the rest of the time you’re working there, ultimately deciding to wait until you’ve officially quit to prevent any suspicion. A few days after your resignation, while you were out one night, you get chloroformed by a mysterious person, later waking up in some beautiful house you’ve never seen before.

“Good morning, y/n. Did you sleep well? Anyways, you’re probably wondering where you are and why you’re here. To put it simply, you’re at home- your new home- and you’re here because you’re mine. I couldn’t just let you leave like that and work for some rich and greedy old pig, not when you belong to me; not now and not ever. From now on, this is your home and I’m your bf. Don’t even think of trying to contact anyone unless you want them dead, understood?”

Jaehyun: He influenced you to quit your job after manipulating you for months, convincing you that he was a good man who just wanted to take care of you, which was actually partly true aside from the “good man” part. Winning your heart was a piece of cake since he’d been stalking you since you started working for him. He knew every single thing about you and he just couldn’t wait any longer. As soon as you officially resigned, and made arrangements in your personal life, he brought you home where you’d unknowingly remain, never to be free again.

“Finally, I get to be myself. Do you know how hard it’s been to play the perfect boyfriend? Honestly, it was exhausting! I’ve been waiting for this day for way too long and, finally, you’re exactly where you belong; here, in my house for good. Don’t worry, you’ll be very well taken care of unless you piss me off and, well, you’ll see what happens then. I’ve got the perfect dress for you to wear tonight. Go get dressed and we’ll have dinner. Oh, and, don’t keep me waiting.”

Yuta: He showered you with flirtatious banter and constant attention. He just wouldn’t let up and it had gotten to be too much for you to handle. He was overbearing. You tried to talk to him and tell him that you were uncomfortable, but this only made things worse. He began giving you long and tedious assignments that required you to always seek him out for clarification, approval, guidance, information, or even ‘meetings’ that he claimed were of importance. The last straw came when the office began spreading rumors that you and he were sleeping with him for raises and benefits, thus ruining your sparkly clean reputation. You had officially quit. This pissed him off, of course, and, he kidnapped you after learning about your plan to escape him.

“You seriously thought I’d just let you go?! You thought you could just leave me, just like that?! The only way you’ll leave is in a body bag, kitten. You’re mine and you’re not going anywhere. From now on, you’re my bitch and I own you. Every time you deny me, you’ll earn yourself a punishment, and I love punishments. As much as I’d love to give you pleasure, I’d love nothing more than to see my name carved into your precious y/s/c skin. Seeing you crying and bleeding beneath me- the thought of it turns me on. So, learn your place and learn it fast.”

Ten: He was a clever bastard. He gave you the chance of a lifetime to work for him as his personal assistant, which would paid substantially, and this is how you repay him? By quitting on him? On top of that, you had full benefits and paid vacations. What you came to know was that being his personal assistant actually meant being trapped as his s/o for life. Slowly, everything seemed to fall apart. He told you there were malicious rumors spreading about you behind your back due to jealously, and work started becoming more and more stressful. He even made up lies about your family to push you away from them and work due to exhaustion and depression until you couldn’t handle it anymore. It broke you and all you had left was Ten.

“Ah, jagiya. This just proves that you belong here with me, you didn’t even do anything wrong and this is how they treat you. They’re just jealous because of how much I love you. They wish they were as lucky as you, to be in your position. Don’t worry, you’re in a safe place now. You won’t ever have to work again or do anything except for love me and only me. I’ll take care of everything from now on.”

Mark: Everyone thought he was so nice, so handsome, and so charming, including you. You worked directly with him as a means for him to keep you close by at all times. You didn’t know how twisted and sadistic he could be. You also didn’t know that, on the day of your resignation, you would go missing. He took your resignation terribly, keeping is composure in front of everyone else but, once he’s alone, going batshit crazy, nearly destroying his office and anything else in his path. It happened so fast; as you walked to your car, Mark approached you from behind and knocked you out cold. Upon awakening, you were in a cold and dark basement chained to a bed and began screaming for help.

“No one can hear you,” he says coming down the stairs. “No, I won’t let you go, and no, I won’t unchain you. You’re mine from now on and this is home. I was planning to do this from the beginning, ya know, kidnapping you and all that, but I decided to wait. I’m glad I did because you ended up making this easy for me. Now, no one would suspect me of a thing, and I get to keep my reputation as well as you. Your family must be so worried for you. Oh well. Be a brat and I’ll beat your ass. Talk back, you’ll get smacked. Deny me and you’ll be starved. Got it?”

Lucas: He was very comforting, funny, and adorable in the beginning but, also controlling and downright intimidating. Anytime you’d tell him ‘no’ his eyes would get so dark and sinister. It scared you to come into work sometimes. You knew he had a thing for you, but he also had a thing for all the hot girls in the office, although, they never lasted long. One of them even went missing and you think you knew who was responsible. You’ve finally decided that you’ve had enough but he didn’t take it so well. Actually, he bluntly threatened you, telling you “you won’t be leaving. Not me, anyways. I always get what I want, y/n.” Everywhere you went you were scared- constantly looking over your shoulder. All of a sudden, you were knocked out cold by someone’s fist. You wake up in a strange room, tied to a bed.

“I told you I always get what I want, y/n. You could never leave me no matter how hard you try because I love you too damn much to ever let you go. You’ll never leave my side and you’ll never love or need anyone else but me. I’ll give you both pleasure and pain, and you’ll learn to take both. So small and so cute, it’s no wonder you were so easy to snatch. Those bruises on your wrist look beautiful, little one, I can’t wait to see you wearing my bite marks.”

Jungwoo: Everyone thought he was so sweet and innocent. He even had you fooled. Because of his reputation as being a highly charismatic and reputable CEO, he would be surprised that you’d want to quit. When he found out that he was losing you to one of his competitors, though, he’d be pissed off to say the least. He figured it was finally time to claim you as his, but he’d have to be smart about it. He already knew everything there was to know about you but now he’d use that to his advantage to worm his way into your heart and life. He made you feel like he desperately needed you and that he was a hurt and lonely man who needed your love and care. Which isn’t exactly a lie in his eyes. You began to fall for him after all his special treatment to the point where you trusted him to move in with him after a while, but this is where you slipped from the rest of the world. “You know, y/n, you don’t have to go into work anymore, right? I know I work a lot but I’m starting to feel lonely; you never spend time with me anymore. I miss you so much. I’ll take care of everything from now on, why don’t you just let me love and give to you from now on? I would love nothing more than to treat you like the queen you are. Just promise me that I’m the only one you’ll ever look at..”

Taeil: On the outside he was fine but, on the inside, he was devastated. He tried his best to convince you to stay but when nothing worked, he knew he had to take drastic measures. He had to kidnap you. How could he protect you if you weren’t with him? He couldn’t fathom the idea of you possibly getting hurt or moving on in life without him. Purposefully, he gave you a lengthy assignment that required you to stay at the office long after everyone had left for the day. This caused you to miss the train back to your town, much to the pleasure of Taeil. Thinking it harmless, you accepted his offer to take you home, but you were instead taken to his part of town. You nervously pointed out that he was going the wrong way to which he responded

“I’m not going the wrong way. I’m taking you home- to our home. I’d really prefer if this didn’t turn ugly so just be good and be quiet for now. This won’t turn out well for you if you do otherwise, I promise you that. I can’t let you go, y/n, we belong together, and I will not have you working for anyone else but me. When you quit, I realized that I could easily lose you- I was going to lose you. I won’t have that. You aren’t safe with anyone else, so you’ll be with me from this point forward.”

Kun: Kun made it clear that he was upset with your decision. He must have control and, right now, he doesn’t. What’s worse is that he doesn’t have control over you at this moment; in a short while, he won’t have control over you at all. You became the best thing about coming into work every gosh darn day; to him, you were the flower of the firm, and now, someone else was going to pluck you right from his hands. He found out who your new employer would be, and he made sure to ruin any chances of you securing your new position by spreading fake rumors about you that made it impossible to be hired anywhere else. He made sure to have you desperate to find work, even accepting to be his maid to get by. Little did you know that this ‘job’ was a lifetime commitment as his new s/o.

“Don’t bother going home later, you no longer have one. Actually, this is your home now; I have clothes, under garments, personal items, everything you need. You’ll love me, talk to me, please me, and love only me for the rest of our lives and beyond.”

Jeno: This dark yandere would pull you into his office for a talk. You didn’t know what to expect since you’ve heard mixed information about him varying from him figuratively, and literally, twisting arms and being fair and smooth to get what he wants. So, you didn’t know what to expect as you entered his dark and dimly lit office that you had come to grow accustomed to. Jeno would ask you out to dinner, much to your surprise, saying how he’s always admired your hard work and intelligence, so he wanted to finally ask before it was too late. After dinner, at his restaurant of choice, you began to feel very tired. Your eyes were heavy, and you just couldn’t keep them open, causing you to pass out in the passenger seat as Jeno was driving you ‘home.’ Upon awakening, you’re tied to a bed in a rather luxurious but dark bedroom room. The door opens and in walks Jeno, carrying some pills and a glass of water.

“Everything’s alright, I’ve got you now. I’ll take good care of you, y/n, don’t worry. As long as you’re with me you’ll never want for nothing, so long as you don’t tempt my dark side to come out. I’d hate for you to see that side of me. I can be very pleasant or very…well, maybe you’ll get to find out some time. The only life you have now is with me, so get used to it. Here’s some pills for the headache..take them now.”

WinWin: He would NOT take it well at all. You found out about his obsession with you once he cornered you in his office to confess his love for you- he knew things about you that he couldn’t have possibly known unless he’d been stalking you. Which was exactly what he’d done up to this point. He threatened to destroy your life and that of your loved ones if you did not leave with him that day. He gave you no other option than to sit in his office, right by his side, for the rest of the day until everyone else had left. You were terrified and anxious to find a way out, but he reassured you that any attempts to thwart his plans would result in someone’s life either ending or being ruined. What brought you to tears were the live footages of your friends on his computer.

“You see y/n, I see everything. Absolutely everything and everyone relating to you, so don’t push me to do something terrible. I’d much rather you come with me willingly and be mine than to have to waste time getting my hands dirty. I’ll give you the world in exchange for your love, so I’m being pretty fair with you, but that could change in an instant. If I can’t have you, I won’t allow you to have anyone else, do you understand y/n?”

Jaemin: You quit because he gave you no other choice. Other employees had their eyes on you and, despite having you all to himself as his gf already, he couldn’t handle the possibility of losing you to anyone else. You had asked, more like begged, him not to fire anyone and destroy their career to which he gave you an ultimatum- quit or they’ll suffer. He knew you hated him for it, but it was for the sake of the relationship. To make you happier, though, he told you that you could work from home instead, a much better deal than quitting all together. However, this meant that you could no longer go out, being stuck to the confines of his large and luxurious mansion.

“Listen, this is the only thing I’ll allow. I don’t want you going anywhere without me, do you understand? No more friends, no more family, nothing, unless I say so otherwise. Defy me and I’ll fire you my damn self and you’ll have absolutely nothing to do. You’ll die of boredom before you’re given anything else besides me to occupy you. Pft, you really only need me anyways, so don’t tempt me, sweetie.” 

Haechan: Pissed is an understatement. He nearly lost his damn mind. He’d be so angry he’d fire all of your friends, not only from his firm, but from other firms he’s got connections with as well that they work at, and he somehow did it all in just an hour. When you do confront him about it, he makes it abundantly clear that he couldn’t give less of a shit about those people. This is, in fact, your fault for thinking that you could just quit on him like that and leave him.  

“Funny of you to assume I care-I don’t give a fuck about them, y/n. Be thankful that that’s all I’ve done. Oh, yeah, I can be a mean son of a bitch, and you’ll get to see that first handedly. What do I want from you? I want you. I want your love. I want your body. I want everything about you, and I will do anything to get what I want, and I won’t hesitate either. Don’t even think of telling anyone, I’ve got connections in places you’d never imagine. I could destroy your family, your friends, and anyone else, or anything else, that you love if you ever dare to try and leave me again. When we get home- yes, when WE get home- we’ll have a nice cuddle session after dinner with ice cream to celebrate you finally becoming all mine. In the meantime, though, come sit over here and behave yourself. Now.”

[qqueenofhades]

The photo set you reblogged of Yusuf and Niccolo helping throughout time just filled me with so many happy feels and it made me realize that it seems so common in media with immortal couples that they take breaks from each other and reconnect after a few decades. Which is a great trope but seeing these two that seems to have been attached at the hip since the day they met just fills me with all the heart eyes.

(I haven't read your fanfics for them yet. I know I'm a bad fan but if it helps I havent been able to read anything since all this started but while writing this ask I got the feeling that all this rambling I spewed out is a big theme)

Hush. Bad fan nothing. We all are coping with this stupid, awful year in different ways, some of us by escaping into fandom and some of us being unable to engage with it and some of us doing both or anything else. You certainly don’t owe me or anyone any obligation to interact with our content, fic or otherwise. So just to have that there on the top. You’re good, hun. :)

ANYWAY, thank you for giving me a chance to meta a bit on the boys and their relationship and to have a window into what my brain looks like pretty much 24/7 these days. (I blame them.) I keep thinking about all the ways this couple is depicted in the TOG film and how lovely it was and how unusual it is for me to have an OTP where I actually love them in canon and don’t need to violently disavow it in order to create AU fan content with just the characters. (See: Timeless, Game of Thrones, pretty much any show I’ve hyperfixated on at some point.) I love AUs anyway, because that’s the way my brain works, but the fact that I can also enjoy canon just as much is rare for me and for a lot of us. I saw a post somewhere remarking on how the fanfic for Joe/Nicky isn’t fixing anything, which is usually the point of transformative fanworks: we take something that canon atrociously fucked up and fix it. But in this case, all our interpretations are based on actually appreciating the way they’re presented in canon and wanting to enjoy that and uphold it, and that -- especially with a couple like this one -- is shocking??

Like. Despite my historian gripes about the occasionally incongruous details for their graphic-novel backstories (which are the only things I HAVE fixed in my fics), I’m just... deeply appreciative of the care which everyone, writers and actors and all else, put into depicting Joe and Nicky and their relationship. And god YES, one of the things I love the absolute MOST is that they’re a loving, faithful, committed, happy married queer couple over centuries, and that seems to be the case for as long as they’ve known each other/ever since they got together. (See Booker’s “you and Nicky always had each other.”) These fools can’t sleep apart from each other even when they’re stuck on a freight train in the middle of nowhere, they flirt like teenagers at dinnertime and even when they’re strapped to gurneys in a mad-scientist laboratory, they make out to enrage bad guys and also because they’re just still that goddamn into each other after all this time.

I think it was Marwan Kenzari who pointed out that there’s simply no way to truly state the depth of their knowledge and devotion and commitment to each other. They’re 950 years old. They have known each other since they were in their thirties; they’ve been husbands for literal centuries. There is no way anyone else in the world could possibly come close to replicating the kind of bond they have with each other, and neither of them have ever had any inclination to look, because why would they? Especially with the fact that queer couples in media, even otherwise sympathetically portrayed ones, often have Drama and Third Parties and Promiscuity and whatever else (because of the tiresome old canard that Gays Equal Hypersexualized!), and Joe and Nicky don’t need or want ANY of that. There’s no urge to make their relationship a cheap source of soap-opera conflict. It’s the rock and the center and the core of both of their lives, and everything they do stems from that.

There have been some great metas/comments on how neither Joe and Nicky are sexualized, they dress like stay-at-home dads during quarantine (Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli are both objectively gorgeous men, and they’re out there looking like that, god bless), and the viewer is never invited to goggle at or fetishize their relationship. There are no leering or exploitative camera angles on anyone, and their expressions of love aren’t posed or intended to titillate the audience, they’re just solidly embodied and natural and lived in. It’s never bothered to be stated clunkily in dialogue that they’re a couple; we just see them exchanging looks and smiles in the early part of the film, and then we see them spooning on the train after the mission in Sudan, which confirms it.

At every turn, the narrative celebrates the kindness and love shared by the Immortal Family, the individual characters, and Joe and Nicky, especially and explicitly in queer form. The villains of the film are also defined by how they react negatively to that love. @viridianpanther​ had a great meta on how Keane as a villain is especially set up to menace Joe and Nicky as the narrative representation of toxic masculinity, aggressive heterosexuality, and the usual “Kill Your Gays” trope that we’ve all come to wearily expect. But instead, after that scene where Joe and Nicky fight Keane, Nicky is shot and comes back to life in Joe’s arms rather than dying permanently like we probably all momentarily expected, and then Joe gets to FUCKIN’ BREAK THE NECK of the guy who enacted that violence.... good GOD. The first time I watched it, I almost couldn’t believe it was happening. (This goes for the whole film, but especially that scene.) Like... when do we get that?? When do we EVER get that???

Obviously, there are so many stereotypes, whether visually or in behavior or character traits, that could have been assigned to a gay Italian character (excessively dramatic, effeminate, fashionable, etc) or a gay Arabic/Muslim character (explicitly announcing He’s Not Like Those Muslims, having to actively reject his heritage to make him more palatable to westerners, being tormented over being gay, etc) and Joe and Nicky subscribe to none of those. I get very emotional about Joe referring to Nicky as the moon when he is lost during the truck scene partly because it’s SUCH a common motif in Arabic love poetry. To call someone your “moon” is a beautiful way to say they’re the light of your life, and since the Islamic calendar is obviously lunar and the holidays, months, and observances, are set by the phases of the moon, this also has a deeper religious significance.

I don’t know for sure if they did that on purpose, but it it’s a lovely and subtle way of showing us how Joe clearly doesn’t have an issue with being both queer AND Muslim, and is able to draw on both facets of that identity in a way that a lesser narrative would have denied him. And that is just really wonderful. Yes, we’re seeing these characters when they’ve had centuries to settle into themselves, but there are plenty of writers who would have forced those conflicts artificially to the surface, rather than letting them be long in the past. It’s the same way when you watch a film set in the medieval era, it wants you to know that it Is Set In The Medieval Era. Cue the filth, misogyny, racism, violence, etc! Rather than it being a lived-in reality, it has to be jarringly drawn attention to, and I’m just so glad they didn’t do that with Joe and Nicky. And for them to have met in the crusades and fallen in love??! Come on. That’s just rude. Rude to me, personally.

Anyway, this was a rather long-winded and feelsy way of saying that these characters are constructed, acted, and written organically in such a way that you hate to even THINK of them being separated, and it’s not because they can’t function without each other, but because they are two halves of a whole. We also see that the characters themselves can’t stand being forced apart: Joe’s freakout in the truck scene when Nicky briefly won’t wake up, Nicky making sure to tell Joe that he’s glad he’s awake in the lab, the whole post-Keane fight scene that I talked about above, the way Nicky fights ferociously to get to Joe when Merrick’s stabbing him, etc. For that to be given to the queer couple, where the strength of their love and devotion is reinforced as one of the emotional goals of the story, and for that queer couple to be written in the way that Joe and Nicky are, both individually and as a unit, is just so very rare.

Because yes, there’s plenty of drama and angst and pain in their lives, but there’s none at all in their relationship, and that’s what fans keep telling TV writers the whole time: they WANT to see the couple confront things as a unit, rather than being kept on tenterhooks the whole time and forced to go through manufactured or artificial drama. It would feel especially wrong for Joe and Nicky, who have known and loved each other for 900 years. The fact that their respective actors also put so much care and love into them is very obvious, and makes me feel even luckier that they’re played by people who clearly get them and honor them and know what they’re doing.

Basically: of course Joe and Nicky have been with each other the whole time, and of course we’re all drowning in feelings over it, and I feel very blessed that this ship exists, and I very much need the sequel ASAP. Thanks.

[jeongyunhoed]

Past-Present-Future Black Dahlia

Two major tragedies bring Lee Mirae closer to the edge as she goes through the stages of grief in a more violent manner that would affect not only her relationships with her boyfriend Jeong Yunho and her half-brother Choi San, but also has her becoming closer with the immortal mutant Kang Yeosang. Fueled by rage, grief, and pain, along with a very rude awakening that has Mirae spiraling out of control and questioning everything she holds dear.

Group: ATEEZ Member: Yunho Pairing: Jeong Yunho / OC Genre: Action, adventure, angst, fantasy

Watch Out! : Violence, blood, death, grief and loss, major character deaths, use of weapons, some jealousy (but no cheating ofc), implied smut (not sure if there is any but i’m putting it out there nonetheless), mental illness (probably?), gambling and alcohol

Anything else? : Mentions of other idols of course as well as other characters. SuperM, Dean, Chanyeol, Zelo, soloist Park Jihoon to name a few.

Author’s Note: Sorry for taking so long to update! Oh, and I thought since it’s my birthday, I’d treat everyone (at least everyone who reads this anyway) with another chapter! Hurrah! Things are happening!

Masterlist

Chapter 8

“So, it seems like one of us is dead,” Ten broke the silence between the rest of them as they looked over the city from where they stood. They were back in the real world, in the conference room of the skyscraper that Mark owned under his own enterprise.

“And one is being held hostage,” Lucas pointed to his temple. “That same one owns this building that we are staying in. Why didn’t we stay in your building? You own the tech company in the first place,” He glanced over at Taemin. 

“It won’t be long before Yunho comes here,” Ino said, seeing Taemin furiously disintegrate the vacant chairs in front of him. “He’s bound to come here since he’s got Mark. Taeyong proved to be a lot more expendable than we thought he was.” 

“How dare you say that!” Taemin disintegrated the chair the elder was sitting on and the table that had their drinks. 

“Taemin, it’s true. Taeyong clearly forgot he was up against someone whose mind he can’t read,” Baekhyun pointed out. “Mirae and San both have a shield. No one can get into their heads. You placed San in the mountains where he stayed with a woman for a while,” He glanced at Ten, who shrugged. “Wrong move.” 

“It was an attempt to get him to soften up,” Ten replied. “I figured if I brought San back to a place he would remember fondly, like that place, where he had quite a...sexually explicit affair with the wife of his mercenary group leader, he would be vulnerable. Apparently not. That was the reason why he fled to look for his sister in the first place.” 

“And what about Yunho?” Jongin asked. 

“Yunho, to the place where his immortality took effect,” Ten glanced at them. “Where he was vulnerable.” 

“So what is our next move?” Taemin fumed. 

Ino looked at the tablet at his feet, laying on top of the piles of dust that was once the conference room table. The tablet unlocked itself and showed the interface of the controls. “This is our next move. We go live,” He replied, some of the features on the interface tapping themselves. “Project Apocalypse is now live.” 

“You know, Yunho made a good point earlier when we visited him,” Ten glanced at them. “We go like this without any leadership, if we need any. Our think-tank will need a face.” 

“Wouldn’t it be obvious by now? I have been looking for mutants under the directions of my father back in the center for paranormal research. I am also far more powerful than any of you in this room,” Ino said. “I’ve waited for a long time to take my place among our kind. I realize that my place is above.” 

“It was my plan to track down Jihoon, Hyuk, and Chanyeol that led us to come up with this think tank in the first place,” Baekhyun interjected. “You only knew of that when you went away after the tall dope and the telekinetic were killed.” 

“But my powers are far more superior than yours, Baekhyun,” Ino repeated. “Are you really going to question my very obvious authority over you?”

“No, you are right,” Baekhyun got up from his chair. “You have a very obvious authority over all of us. Maybe not Mark as he is significantly older than you, but for the rest of us?” He kicked down the wooden floor lamp, making the base snap in two. Baekhyun picked up the two pieces and before he could strike, the two pieces disintegrated and Baekhyun was floating in the air. 

Ino stared at him, shaking his head slightly. “Tsk, tsk, Baekhyun. Even my powers surpass that of Mark’s. You ought to know better than to fight me.” 

“Yeah, because Mirae’s the only one here that can actually do damage to you,” Jongin chimed in. “Don’t think we didn’t see what happened to you. Put Baekhyun hyung down.” 

Ino’s expression stiffened and Baekhyun dropped to the floor. “You’re a fool if you even consider opposing me.” 

“You’re also a fool for assuming you can defeat everybody here, if I do say so myself,” Taemin pointed out, glaring at him. “You just tagged along when you found out what we were planning.” 

“And now I am changing the plans,” Ino countered. “Project Apocalypse won’t just be a think tank anymore, it’s going to be more than that.” 

Particles of dust and metal were floating in mid-air in front of Ino, suddenly taking the form of robots that towered over all of them. “Project Apocalypse will remake the world into our image.” 

Jongin stared at him. “We killed the goblins years ago when they were looking to do the same thing, Jang Ino. You should know this most of all.” 

“I’m not talking about the goblins,” Ino said. “Mutant supremacy at its finest. The diamond of the tree of life will power these robots,” the gem appeared in his hand out of thin air. 

Jongin and Baekhyun stared at the gem. “...You kept the diamond all this time?” said the older of the two. 

“Yes, all this time, the diamond was with me. It made itself known to me shortly after the explosion from the Center,” Ino said. “Have you already forgotten? This is a sentient gem. It could never be destroyed, it simply disappears and reappears to anyone it wants to appear to.” 

“You will need material for that, whatever you are planning on building,” Taemin said, now intrigued by his proposal. “Where do you suppose you’re going to get that?” 

“From you, of course. Your company also specializes in metals, don’t they? The same alloy Junhong uses to fit the cars at the Center come from your company,” Ino pointed out. “They will be indestructible, and they will usher in a new era in the world.” 

Lucas approached the window, staring down at the busy streets below them. “So your droids are going to act as the horsemen of the apocalypse, won’t they?” He asked. 

“Why yes, they will. The horsemen of Project Apocalypse.”

~ 

Mirae looked up at the sky. In the midst of the calm, she still felt some frustration, the seeping feeling of regret that she didn’t finish Baekhyun or Jongin off while she had the chance, Ino even more so. Her eyes began to glow as well as her fingertips. “We’re not where we should be,” She said. “Project Apocalypse is being activated in the city, our real city.” 

“You mean they went back?” Mingi said. 

“I got it from Yunho. Mark told him, he’s telling him everything,” Mirae replied. “If my instincts are right, you should stand behind me,” She was still looking up. 

“What are you thinking of doing?” Hongjoong asked. 

“Don’t ask, just stand behind her,” Yeosang said. 

Mirae channeled everything she was feeling, the glow in her eyes and fingertips growing brighter and brighter as she concentrated on the sky. The more she stared at the sky and at the clouds swirling above them, the more the sky began to turn red, as red as the glow in her eyes and fingertips. “For Hyuk and Chanyeol,” She muttered. “For Jihoon, for Yunho, and for San.” 

The more she concentrated, they started to see that Mirae’s form was beginning to glow as well, and a powerful wave of energy shot up into the skies, causing what looked like cracks in a forcefield. Another wave of energy shot up, but this time, they saw that it was much more powerful than before, breaking out of the cracks and shattering what was above them completely. 

As the sky broke down completely, it seemed to reveal where they really were and to Mirae, it was another familiar place. It was the deserted compound with the empty, partly demolished houses. One of those houses had the passage that led to the goblin kingdom court. 

“Wow, I knew she was powerful, but I never thought she was this powerful,” Jongho muttered, the rest of them looked at her in amazement. The glow in her eyes was fading. 

They saw Junhong get out of the van nearby, looking around in disbelief and almost stumbling as he ran up to them. “What happened? Where are we?” He called out. 

“She broke down the dimension Ten put us in,” Yeosang replied. “Which means Yunho and San would be very close by.” 

Junhong gaped at her. “Now we need to look for them,” He took out the thin sliver of metal that was their communicator and turned it on. “Yunho? San? Where are you?” He called out, hoping for an answer. 

“Hey! Hey!” They looked at a figure running from a distance, and Mirae broke into a run as well when she realized who it was. 

“San!” She called out, the two of them capturing each other in a tight hug. “San, I’m sorry,” Mirae said softly. 

“For what?” He said. 

“For how I’ve been acting these past few weeks,” Mirae said quietly. “I was acting like you weren’t my brother, like you didn’t exist or something.” 

San shook his head. “It’s okay, sis. Are you back now?” He asked. 

“I-I don’t know,” Mirae said. “For some reason I don’t know.” 

They heard a commotion come from one of the partly demolished houses. “That must be where Yunho is,” Hongjoong said, and ran to the house, speeding up to the second floor. 

The rest of them ran to the house as well to catch up. Wooyoung transformed into his shadow form and slithered along the ground and into the house as well. “Junhong, you better stay close to us,” Mirae said. 

“I already am,” Junhong nodded, as they stepped inside the house. “Oh, this is the same place from-” 

“Yeah, where we dealt with the goblins,” Mirae replied, seeing the blood stains on the floors and on the walls. “We always tend to end up in this place.” 

“We’re in a small country, we’re bound to always end up in places we’ve been to before,” Junhong replied. 

“Seonghwa, when I say go, control it,” Mirae said. “I have a feeling that’s how it’s going to go.” 

They heard several thuds coming from the second floor, until the figures of Yunho and Mark appeared and disappeared, both of them engaged in a tussle in front of them. 

The rest of them tried to surround the two that kept teleporting in and out. “Go!” Mirae said the moment she sensed the two would reappear. Seonghwa’s eyes and fingertips glowed green as he broke the two teleporters apart, the two of them floating in mid-air as they were surrounded by the rest. 

When Mark tried to teleport away, Mingi kicked him back, followed by a strike from Hongjoong then Jongho, Wooyoung, Mirae, and San. Yeosang cast another hex towards the immortal, keeping him frozen as Seonghwa dropped him and Yunho to the floor. “I guess this is what happens when we don’t have much of our weapons left,” Mingi said. 

“Excellent, Hwa,” Mirae patted him on the shoulder. 

“Hyuk taught me that,” He said. 

“He taught you well,” She patted his shoulder again. 

Yunho quickly got to his feet, seeing Mark bruised and incapacitated on the floor. “One moment, we were in a village in Casablanca, the next moment, we’re in this...place, whatever this is,” He said. 

“Mirae broke down the dimension Ten put us in,” Yeosang pointed out, Yunho looking even more surprised at the change in his appearance. 

Yunho turned to Mirae, who was still staring at Mark’s frozen form. “Mirae?” He said. 

She looked up at the mention of her name. “Yunho?” Mirae went up to him in a tight hug, Yunho almost lifting her off her feet. “I’m so sorry,” She said. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been.” 

Yunho shook his head. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” He kissed her cheek as he held her close. “I know how much they meant to you, and for a moment I thought I was going to lose you.” 

“Me too. I was so consumed by how I was feeling, I thought I was going out of control,” Mirae pulled back, staring into his eyes. “I couldn’t stop myself, I was just so angry and hurt and-” 

Yunho shook his head and kissed her. “What matters is that you’re back now,” He whispered. Back to me, he thought. 

“What do we do with him? Any ideas?” Hongjoong asked them, making Yunho and Mirae pull away to look over at Mark. 

“We could prolong the hex, if I may suggest,” Yeosang spoke. “Any other ideas?” 

“Skin him?” Jongho asked. 

“Burn him alive?” Mingi chimed in. 

“Make an example out of him,” Mirae said, her expression falling. She bent down to look closely at Mark. “Where in the city would they activate Project Apocalypse?” She asked. 

“Taemin and Taeyong’s company. It’s a tech enterprise,” Mark replied, seemingly defeated. “I must admit, I have underestimated each and every one of you.” 

“Don’t make that mistake again,” Mirae pointed out. 

“I killed one of yours,” San said, holding up a fragment of a diamond that was in his pocket. “Look familiar?” He said. 

Mark stared at him in horror. “...That’s impossible.” 

“It is, when you’re someone like me,” San replied. “What else can you tell us about Project Apocalypse?” 

“It’s too late,” Mark said. “Ino has activated the project, and it appears that he’s got more tricks up his sleeve, if I can hear his thoughts correctly.” 

“What tricks? What kind of tricks?” Yunho asked. 

Wooyoung stared at him, and then turned to the rest of them, blinking a few times as to what he was seeing. “Robots. Like the ones in the Danger room. Ino’s making robots that can kill,” He said. “Just like the robots you fought.” 

“Then let’s go. Yeosang can take care of Mark,” Mirae said, giving the vampiric mutant a nod. “Tough luck, Mr. Lee. You’ve weakened Yeosang enough to make him hungry.” 

“Should I call you an old friend? You’re not as invincible as you make yourself out to be. Then again, you’re now dealing with me,” Yeosang then bent down as the rest of them moved out of the house. Mark stared at him. “You can read my mind to know how much I need to feed, and unfortunately for you, your time is up,” He pressed his hand to Mark’s heart, shuddering as he absorbed the life out of him. 

~ 

“They got Mark too. This vendetta you have is becoming even more risky,” Taemin glared at Baekhyun. “And now they’re on their way here.” 

“We’re becoming outnumbered, it’s nine of them against how many of us?” Ten raised a brow, also looking at Baekhyun. 

“If they got Mark and Taeyong, that just means they were outsmarted, outmatched, and they’re not as strong as they make themselves out to be. Yeah, I said what I said,” Baekhyun shot back at Taemin. 

“It doesn’t matter if they were expendable or not,” Ino said. “All that matters is,” He gestured to the windows. They could hear a thud followed by the sounds of people screaming in the streets. The robot that Ino had built was walking out in the open. “Action must be taken now. If I were all of you, I’d make sure Mirae and the others don’t stand in the way.” 

“We should go then,” Lucas said, Ten getting up from his seat, followed by Taemin. “They’ve taken two from us, we should return the favor.” 

Baekhyun and Jongin got up, the younger of the two limping as he joined their colleagues. “Mutant supremacy,” Baekhyun said as if to remind them of their resolve. Ten and Taemin held on to Lucas’ shoulders while Baekhyun put his hand on Jongin’s and in an instant, they vanished. 

Ino closed his eyes and vanished as well. 

~ 

“If we’re here, then it means we’re getting close to home,” Mirae said as they approached another familiar dilapidated apartment building that revealed some of the floors. Yeosang quickly reappeared with them, his appearance returning to normal. She glanced at San and Yunho, “I mean, we’re getting literally close to home, the store is a bus ride away.” 

They entered the building, Mirae and Junhong seeing the familiar blood splatters on the doors and on the walls that had peeling wallpaper. Wooyoung gaped at what he was seeing. “Jongin got attacked here, didn’t he? During that time with all of you? He was with another guy,” He said. 

“Sehun, yeah,” Mirae replied as they climbed up the staircase, seeing even more blood spatters, some might even have looked fresh from how red it was. “Looks like some creatures come out to feed here then,” She muttered. 

“Creatures?!” Hongjoong stared at her. 

“Creatures. Non-humans, goblins most likely,” Junhong nodded. “Mirae, you still know the way, right?” He asked. 

“Vividly,” Mirae answered, leading them down the hall to the door at the very end. “You all know what to do in case something happens.” 

“I wonder why this area hasn’t been developed? I could’ve made the way to where we’re going a lot...nicer looking,” Yeosang frowned at the sight of the deteriorating interiors. 

Mirae opened the door, revealing a staircase going down to a dark tunnel ahead. The passage was barely lit, and they could hear the sounds of something scurrying and squeaking. “Oh my god,” Seonghwa muttered, gripping the strap of his quiver tightly while Mingi took out his lighter to light the way from his place, the flames rising up high enough to make it bright for everyone to see. 

“Watch your steps,” Mirae looked over at them, holding Yunho’s hand tightly as they walked through the passageway, seeing rats scurry around them, and making Jongho and Wooyoung squeal in their places, Mingi holding onto Hongjoong who leaned away from the flame in his lighter. 

San gave them a look, shaking his head. “All of you realize we need to be quiet in case someone else is in here, right?” He said. 

More rats were scurrying, making the rest of them, including Yeosang, stick to Mirae and Yunho. “I think we were a lot braver against those rodents while we were under the trance,” Hongjoong said. 

“Clearly,” Mirae nodded as they walked on, seeing the familiar old-fashioned elevator at the end of the tunnel. There were still bits of dried blood on the buttons going up and down as the iron doors opened. “Not all of us are going to fit in here,” she said. “San, Yunho, Junhong, Yeosang, Wooyoung, and I will go in first, the rest of you will be next. We’ll wait for you.” 

“Got it,” Hongjoong said. 

“If something goes wrong, Hongjoong, you better run,” Mirae eyed him, and he nodded again. 

“How about we don’t do that? I’d like to try something, my dear,” Yeosang cast a spell, and the elevator in front of them expanded in size. “It can fit up to ten people now. We cannot afford to separate now, they will take advantage of us being split up.” 

All of them got inside, and Mirae pressed the button, the doors closing as the elevator began to go down. They could feel a cold draft coming from below as they were further lowered down into the dark shaft. “We haven’t been here in a while,” Junhong looked around. “I wonder what’s going to happen to us now after all of this is over.” 

“I suggest we still stick together after this,” Hongjoong said. “It’s clear that we all work well together, including executive Kang.” 

“Aside from that, I mean,” Junhong said. “Mirae’s got the store, Yeosang’s got his company, now that it’s clear that Ino is no longer willing to keep us going, the rest of us are on our own.” 

“What is that smell?” Jongho suddenly spoke, cringing and frowning the further they went down, the rest of them wrinkling their noses at the stench that was getting stronger. “It smells like something died.” 

“Something did die. A lot of somethings,” Mirae said. “I didn’t think it would still stink this bad years later.” 

“Goblins decay slower than humans,” Junhong said.

“Is that what it is? This smells even worse than the camel poop in Morocco,” Yunho said, glancing at her. 

The elevator stopped and Mirae opened the doors, all of them suddenly greeted by the rotting goblin corpses strewn on the floor in what looked like a library with one bookcase pushed to the side, revealing another passageway. “I know I should be used to seeing dead bodies by now, but I’m not used to this,” Seonghwa said as they stepped over the bodies, noticing the glinting gold armor that the creatures wore. 

“Come to think about it, this place seems like a good spot for all of us to stay in, kind of like a headquarters,” San glanced at his sister. “There’s all these cool passageways, we just need to uh, get rid of all the bodies and the blood.” 

“That’s not a bad idea,” Junhong nodded. “This place just needs a lot of cleaning up, an updated security system, and we’d have our own headquarters instead of that safehouse. Where we could really be hidden away.” 

They went inside the passageway into a torch-lit chamber that had a set of two giant doors in front of them, the wood that acted as a barricade had long broken, and some parts of the doors had already been busted through. Wooyoung could feel his senses go into overdrive with all the memories he kept seeing the more they walked on. “So much has happened here,” He said, blinking a few times, as if trying to organize what he was seeing.

Mirae led them down the marble aisle in the middle of the room, the water on both sides of the aisle also littered with rotting goblin corpses and the marble that was once white, had stains of blood. It somehow made sense that they were brought back here, that this place was where she would end up at some point or another. The grudge Baekhyun had on her started here and in what was the Center for Paranormal Research. It only made sense that the way to stop Baekhyun was to go through some of the old ways, whatever it might be. But given how things had turned out, Mirae knew she had to do the same with Ino, which seemed like a battle she knew she was going to lose. 

Mirae led them through the hole on the left, revealing what seemed like a newly built tunnel illuminated with white lights. “This was where Chanyeol passed through when we dealt with the Utopian cult,” She muttered, making Junhong glance at her. 

“Oh right,” Junhong noticed their surroundings the further they went into the tunnel. “Where does this lead to again?” 

Mirae looked up at the tall male. “Where my foster parents kept the bodies of the people they would turn into their followers. And the training room, what was once the training room anyway.”

Yunho squeezed her hand as they kept walking. “You know, I kind of feel naked without having anything to kill or wound something with,” He said. 

“Sooner or later, we would have to rely on our powers alone,” Mirae muttered, opening the door at the end of the tunnel, the red tapestries bearing the symbol of the Utopian cult hanging on the door and on the walls of the warehouse they now found themselves in. 

“And all this time, I had no idea a place like this existed,” Yeosang looked around. 

They soon heard a thud coming from a closed off part of the warehouse. The thud grew louder, almost making the ground tremble beneath their feet. Out from the closed off part, a giant robot appeared in front of them, and alongside the machine appeared Lucas, Ten, Taemin, Baekhyun, and Jongin. 

“Split them up,” Baekhyun said to the rest of them. 

“Junhong, can you protect yourself?” Mirae glanced at the taller male. 

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine, they probably wouldn’t. Remember what Hyuk and Chanyeol taught the rest of you,” Junhong muttered to them. 

“You know, I’m kind of glad Hyuk and that tall dope have now left this earth,” Baekhyun spoke. “All this sentiment, it just makes you weak.” 

“They were mutants too, Baekhyun, you knew them just as well,” Mirae said through gritted teeth. 

Baekhyun smirked. “No, they were nothing to me, and I knew they were everything to you. To the extent that you neglected those people around you right now.” 

“Releasing that robot into the city isn’t going to make you any more or less powerful, you know,” San blurted out, eyeing the rest of them. 

“One is already out in the open, this is just another one,” Ten pointed out. 

Mirae glanced at the males behind her. “Get the rest of them, but leave Baekhyun and Jongin to me,” She muttered. She turned back to the rest. “I’ve got a bone to pick with two of you.” 

“No matter how much we fight, there’s nothing that you can do to stop Project Apocalypse from happening. It’ll start from Seoul, and then to the rest of the world,” Taemin said. 

Mirae shook her head. “There’s always something.” Her eyes began to glow along with her fingertips. San’s and Seonghwa’s eyes and fingertips began to glow with their power signatures as well. 

[ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes]

Roguish Women Part 46

Summary: Kate is an American who fled to Paris to escape her past life. Now she's dancing and  playing the part of a courtesan at the Moulin Rouge. There she meets Tommy Shelby who thinks she can be useful in expanding his empire. But has he been blinded?

Part 46: Right before the storm, there’s a calm. 

            “Easy…easy.” Tommy enveloped Kate into his arms. The second he had told her what happened, she had gone into a panic. “It’s going to be alright.”

            Her knees buckled as she cried into his shoulder. “I told you! All that time ago, I told you! If John had just apologized. If you had made peace with the Changrettas none of this would’ve happened. I told you, Tommy, I told you.”

            “What’s done is done.” He pulled up a chair for her in the kitchen and eased her into it. “But you can’t have a fit.”

            Kate wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked at him. She hiccuped as she studied his expression. “You’re lying to me about something.”

            His brow creased slightly, an obvious tell that she was right. Maybe he had been hoping that the news would be so upsetting to her that she wouldn’t notice anything amiss.

            “I don’t believe that anything could’ve happened. You had the entire place on lockdown, you were in on it with Alfie. You…” It dawned on her. “You knew they were going to come and kill him. You let them kill your own brother?” She shouted.

            “No!” He grabbed her wrists before she could start getting some hits in. “No, he-” Tommy huffed. Leave it to his fiancée to unravel his plan in mere seconds. “He’s not dead.”

            There was fire in Kate’s eyes. The second his grip loosened on her, she whacked him in the shoulder so hard he actually flinched. “So, you wanted everyone to mourn another one of your brothers?” She snapped. “You just love to toy with everyone’s emotions, don’t you, Thomas?”

            “If you’d let me explain…”

            “Y’know what I did tonight? I murdered Mickey. You’re down one less Italian thanks to me. But you’re behind the scenes playing everyone like fucking puppets while everyone else does your fucking dirty work!” She continued to rant.

            “Oi!” He yelled over her. “If you’d let me fucking explain.”

            Kate was fuming but didn’t say another word, allowing him to continue.

            “We needed Luca to think Arthur was dead. You know the rules of a vendetta.”

            “There are no fucking rules. You think Luca’s going to suddenly go back to New York because he thinks he killed John and Arthur? Tommy, he wants your empire, and the only way he’s going to get that if we’re all dead.” Kate reminded him sternly. “He doesn’t respect some rule of getting even.”

            “He doesn’t. But his mother does.”

 ~~~~~~~~~~ 

            “Shelby residence.”

            “You really answer the phone that way, huh? Far as I’m concerned you ain’t a Shelby yet, love.”

            Kate smiled when she heard Alfie’s voice on the other end of the line. The day had been a mess of emotions as they faked Arthur’s funeral and met with Audrey Changretta. The more time passed, the more anxious Kate became. The end was coming very quickly and she couldn’t predict how things were going to play out. “Did you arrive safely at Margate?” She asked.

            “Yeah, well wouldn’t be calling you, now would I?”

            She laughed softly. “I was just being polite.”

            “Should be asking if all of you got out safely.”

            “I assume you already know.”

            “Yeah, right, well I do pride myself in having eyes and ears all ‘round the country. It’s a nice thing to have. Keeps me well informed in matters even if they ain’t none of my business.”

            “And what have your ears been hearing?” She asked.

            “The rest of Changretta’s men, including the man himself, stormed me bakery today. M’sure they were intending to take it as their own. Had a feeling they would.” Alfie replied.

            “And?”

            “Well, unfortunately, your fiancée’s trick of hiding grenades didn’t work out this time.”

            Kate rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Alfie, you were willing to blow up that whole building out of spite?”

            “If I can’t have it, no one can.” He retorted almost like a child. “Not that they would’ve done business well there anyway.” He mumbled to himself.

            “Well, if they’re there, Alfie, then I’m guessing they took over the building whether you like it or not.”

            “Right, but how long could they have control over it, aye? Just until ‘ol blue eyes comes in to end them all?”

            A sly smile crossed Kate’s lips. “Alfie Solomons, is that faith in Tommy Shelby I hear?”

            “Now hang on. This phone call weren’t meant to sing praise. Just stating some facts. ‘Sides, if it were me in his shoes those bastards would’ve been dead weeks ago.” He asserted.

            “So, you were just calling to tell me about the bakery?”

            “Partly. Also, when you run those rats out of the country, I would ask you to extend the bakery to Alice Diamond.”

            Kate looked a little shocked. “Alice? I’m not sure I understand.”

            “Y’know they’ve had hands in Camden Town for years without me permission. But I turned a blind eye because I am a very forgiving man and frankly, I would go to great lengths to avoid a meeting with that woman. If she wants to try her hand at baking, under your guidance, I think it might make a good fit. I’d rather have people I know take it over than some American fucks, you excluded.”

            Kate smiled. “You’re being awfully generous for one day. Is there any other reason?”

            Alfie cleared his throat. “I perhaps have to thank you and one of Alice’s she-devils for my current situation. Lillian, to be specific.”

            “Oh…I see. You took my advice then.”

            He took a deep breath as if it pained him to admit she was right. “I extended an invitation to Mabel to come visit me in Margate.”

            “And she said yes, of course.”

            “If ya wanted to talk to yourself, I might as well not have called, smug girl.” He retorted. “Don’t need you finishing me sentences like a fucking parrot.”

            Kate stifled a giggle. “Well, I’m very happy for you. Truly, Alfie, I am.”       

            “Right…” He didn’t seem to know how to respond.

            “And maybe one day soon I’ll come visit you and Mabel.”

            “She’s just visiting don’t get…” He groaned knowing he wasn’t going to win. “I suppose that’ll be alright. Although I’m not quite open to the idea of Tommy coming too. Lethe, right, it’s a very peaceful place and he’d just fuck that up, wouldn’t he?”

            “Lethe, am I supposed to know what that is?” She asked.

            “It’s what I’ve called the home I’ve bought. I’m not about to explain the intricate workings of Greek mythology to you.”

            “I see.” Kate turned when she heard the door open and Tommy came in. “Well, suppose we bring along the children, would that negate Tommy’s presence?”

            Her fiancée rolled his eyes knowing exactly who was on the other end of the line.

            “I’d consider it,” Alfie replied.

            “Glad to hear it. But I’ll have to go now, Alfie, it was nice talking to you and say hello to Mabel for me when she arrives.” The two friends exchanged goodbyes before Kate hung up the phone.

            “So now you and Alfie gossip over the phone?” Tommy asked, taking off his cap and coat.

            “Well, he called to tell me Luca and his men took over the bakery. At least for the time being.” She reported. “And also, that I was right.”

            “Yeah? Right about what?” The news about the bakery didn’t particularly bother him. Who cares if Luca had a warehouse full of rum? His days were numbered anyway.

            Kate followed him into the parlor. “Right about the fact that I could find someone for him. I did.”

            Tommy raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Then I’m glad I didn’t let you bet anything on it.” He sat down and patted his thigh.

            She smiled and eagerly curled up on his lap. “You still would get me something for being right.” She murmured and kissed down his jaw.

            “What do you want, then?”

            “Hm…” She thought to herself for a bit. “How about a nice wedding to the man I love?”

            Tommy chuckled. “You’re already getting that.” He reminded her. “Just have to be patient.

            “Then that’s all I want.” She rested her cheek on his shoulder.

            “Was worried you were going to ask for a summer home in Margate so you and Alfie could be neighbors and torment me.”

            She laughed softly. “I’m not that cruel.” With a heavy sigh, she returned to the real problem at hand. “Who were you going to the office to call?” She asked.

            Tommy was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think you’ll like the answer.” He admitted.

            Kate lifted her head to look at him. “Tom…who was it?”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

            It was a long argument while Polly and Tommy were gathering paperwork. Tommy was ready to ship Kate out to Margate to be as far away from the action as possible. He was confident enough in the plan, but if there was even a slim chance of Kate getting hurt, he wasn’t going to risk it.

            But she wasn’t having it. “So, I’m supposed to sit by the phone to wait and hear if he’s killed you or not?” Kate snapped.

            It was an already tense enough scene organizing the papers for the company. Polly was there as a fly on the wall for most of it, silently signing papers and glancing back and forth between the two arguing.

            “What choice do I have, aye?” Tommy, who was under a considerable amount of stress, was not about to lose this battle. “You’re the perfect target for him, Kate. I told you time and time again that I won’t have you dealing with any of this because you’re pregnant. Yet time and time again, you’ve stuck yourself in. This is the final stand and I won’t have you there. You aren’t changing my mind.”

            “You’re not the one who decides where I go, Thomas.”

            “Why do you feel the need to put yourself in unnecessary danger?” He asked exasperated that she was still pushing the matter.

            “Because I’m a part of this family and I will stand with this family.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

            “You’d be willing to put the lives of our children at risk because you want to prove some fucking point?” He demanded.

            Kate’s resolve faltered. Her stomach was in knots, it had been for days. “Tom, if something happens to you and I’m not there…” Her voice trembled.

            Polly finally had to step in. She touched Kate’s arm gently. “Darling, nothing is going to happen. We’ll be alright.”

            “Then there’s no reason for me not to be there.” She asserted.

            Tommy exhaled sharply and forcefully stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray mixed within the sea of paperwork on his desk. “What would I do, aye, if something happened to you? I’ve risked enough.”

            “But if it’s just Luca against all of us then how could you think that anything could go wrong?”

            “Because I’m not letting that chance happen. Now go home, I’m done fighting about this with you. The answer is no.” He spoke firmly, pointing to the door.

            Kate’s jaw tightened but she decided to turn on her heel and storm out instead of arguing further.

            When the office doors slammed shut, Polly looked up to her nephew. “She’s worried about you, that’s all.”

            “She should be worried about being pregnant.” He grumbled.

            “It will go as planned. And if it doesn’t, then who is Luca going to aim for first?” Polly reasoned with him.

            Tommy sighed and rested his hands on his desk. “I can’t fucking believe you’re siding with her.”

            “I’m not. I just know she’s going to show up there no matter what you say. So, you might as well put her into the plan or you’ll be caught off guard tomorrow.”

            Tommy looked angry that she was right. He couldn’t physically drag Kate into a car and send her off to Alfie’s beach house. “For fuck’s sake.” He muttered.

            Permanent Tag: @papa-geralt-of-cirilla @biba3434 @kimmietea @karmezii @enrapturedbythemoon @vampgirl1997 @tarafaithe @evelynshelby

Tag list: @radical-gecko @actorinfluence @meltingicequeen @merlettina

Masterpost

PB Masterlist

[gormitifangirl]

BlizzardStormshipping Headcanons for ROTLON (MasterPost because why not?)

Happy Blizzardstormshipping Day 2020! I'll be making this a master post so enjoy!

Initially I headcanoned that Jessica is the one who likes Toby first and he's kind of oblivious but now I headcanon it the other way around simply because I like the idea of Toby daydreaming about what their relationship could be like while Jessica remains oblivious, despite being a self- proclaimed "romance expert"

Toby starts to realize he sees Jessica as more than a friend at the judo tournament and has pretty much accepted that he likes her by the end of Season 1. Jessica, on the other hand, takes until the dome episode to even consider that she might actually like him and then realizes she really does at the school dance.

Despite what they like to think, both Nick and Lucas are aware that they are dating in Season 3 (granted, Nick had to tell Lucas since the poor guy is pretty dense)

Even when they're dating, if a competitive event happens, they cannot resist the urge to compete against each other

Jessica is saved in Toby's contacts as either "blow me away girl" or "wind witch 😉". Toby is saved in Jessica's contacts as..."fish boy 💖"

They both jokingly refer to any instance where they are paired together in Gorm as "dates" when they start dating

Toby insists that when Tori was born, he "may have shed a tear or two". In reality, he was positively bawling. Partly because he was overwhelmed and partly because Jessica nearly broke his hand.

Jessica does the cooking in the household. Toby tries once when Jessica's pregnant with Tori and, just like that one time when he was younger, he nearly sets the kitchen on fire.

Even though Toby insists he can't sing, whenever he notices that Jessica is particularly stressed or upset about something, he will sing to her to make her feel better

Toby works as a paramedic while Jessica writes a fashion column for a high profile magazine.

Whenever either of them aren't feeling 100%, they like to cuddle with each other until they do.

Jessica has a tendency to not be very hard on Tori and Erin because she doesn't want her kids to fear/hate her (she wants a better relationship with her children than she had with her mother) so Toby usually ends up being the stricter parent (not by much, though)

Jessica always makes sure she is awake to greet Toby when he comes home from work (he works nights) because she wants to be able to see him come home.

Nick is best man at their wedding while Lucas gives Jessica away. Gina is her maid of honour.

Toby is nearly always the one who initiates the kisses.

Their wedding takes place on the beach at summertime. Pretty much the entire town shows up.

Toby gives Jessica a red rose once when they're kids (at the time he didn't know what it meant) and he doesn't understand why Nick finds it hilarious until he explains it to him (Lucas also knows what a red rose means but he assumes it's just a gift in this case). After Jessica tells him that roses are her favourite flower (surprisingly she doesn't know what they mean, either), he makes it a point to give her roses every now and then, eventually not caring how it must look to everyone when he's actually developed feelings for her.

[mingisanshine]

Ateez As Boyfriends: Jeong Yunho Edition (M)

(not my gif credit to creator)

(It is literally impossible to hate Yunho. Like if you aren’t at least somewhat whipped for this man then I’m concerned for your well being.)

Ateez Boyfriend List.

Ahhh Yunho

The most boyfriend member in ateez

I might have combusted a total of A MILLION TIMES

He’s just so perfect

Anywhooo

When you two first met you found yourself infatuated with his humor

He just lit up the entire room with his smile

And when he laid eyes on you he immediately was whipped

Your laugh

Your smile

Your sense of humor

Yup you both were whipped for each other

Of course it was obvious, but Yunho

Being the sweetheart we all know he is

Would want to get to know you so much more

There would be constant hanging out

Hours spent just laughing with each other

And being completely infatuated

At one point it would seemed as if you two were already dating

Which is why he eventually had to ask you out

“Do you know if Y/N is seeing someone?”

Yunho almost choked on his water

“Why’d you ask Lucas?”

“I think she’s cute. I dunno.”

Cute?

Cute?!!

Yunho almost went on a rampage.

“Uh, no she isn’t seeing anyone.”

Fuck!

Why did he say that?

“Oh. Great! Do-”

“Maybe we should get back to dancing.”

Lucas nodded, smiling wide.

Causing Yunho to want to scream

It wasn’t uncommon for you to visit Yunho in the studio

You two had spent a lot of time in there and it kind of became a second hang out spot for the two of you

So seeing Yunho dancing wasn’t anything uncommon

But seeing him dance with this much passion made you want to pass the fuck out

His face was almost stern

his typical beagle like smile was no where to found

“Y/N?”

You shake your head only to met with Lucas’s eyes

“What are you doing here?”

You look over Yunho only to see him watching you two as he continued his movement

“I was here to see Yunho.”

You feel a shiver go down your spine when he squints his eyes in what seemed to be annoyance

“You’re not here to see me?” Lucas pouts

“She did just say she is for me.”

Yunho turned off the music and you here him sigh

“Yeah. I guess she did huh?”

“Hey Yunho. Think you can give us a minute?”

You stare at Lucas in confusion and then back Yunho

Who by the way was

LIVID

“Sure. I’ll be outside.” He grumbled before walking out

“Lucas do you what’s wrong with Yunho? He never acts like this. I’m worried.”

“Y/N-”

“Did I do something?”

“Y/N!”

“What?” you jump at his tone.

“I’m trying to tell you something.”

“Is about Yunho?”

Lucas rolls his eyes and sighs

“From the way you talk about him you almost make it sound like you like him.”

You immediately blush

Looking away

“Holy shit. You like Yunho!?”

“Shut up!”

You blush harder and cover Lucas’s mouth

“Yes. Okay! I like him.”

“You like me?”

You whip around to see Yunho holding the door open and shocked look on his face

“Fuck.”

“You actually like me?”

“How much of that-”

“I’ve been ease dropping this entire time.”

“You like me?”

“Yes! But it’s not nic-”

You’re cut off when Yunho places his lips on yours

His hand gently pulling your face close to his

And the other resting on the small of your back

You hands are still in mid air

Before falling and grabbing onto Yunho’s bare arms

Only whimpering slightly when he pressed into you just a tad bit harder

Eventually you both had to break away for air

You just stare at each other in shock

“This is awkward.”

And you both are aware that Lucas was still in the room

You turn and blush harder if that was even possible

“Um sorry about that Lucas.”

“No big deal.”

He walked out and you raise eyebrow at his colder tone

“What’s h-”

You’re cut off again when Yunho kisses you again

You forget what you were going to say

when he pulls away

it’s like his normal smile

went

x100

and you lose your breath for the second time in the last three minutes

“Y/N I like you too and I have for a really long time.”

Now it’s your turn to be like:

:) :) :) :) :)

“So would you like to be my girl?”

You almost snort at his cheesiness

but your blushing slightly at the thought of being his girl

“Yes!”

You may or may not have squeaked that out

Anwhoooo

Dating Yunho is literally a dream come true

Like someone pinch me because this can’t be real

He is literally the definition of boyfriend material

Y’all would go on the cutest dates

Like ever

Amusement park dates: yup

Bowling date: yup

Art gallery: yup

Concerts: yup

especially if they’re ateez concerts

Going to the gas station at one in the morning to get a whole bunch of junk food because you two decided to binge watch the all the avengers movies and making a big ruckus: yup

You two would definitely be the absolute cutest couple ever

He would definitely teach you his dance routines

Finding it cute when you mimicked his moves

He liked the way you looked and also it gave him a good reason to touch you

Which always loved to do

But it was something about being in the practice room and having you in it that just amplified his own thoughts

“Yunho are going to keep staring at me or are you going to teach me the move?”

He shakes his head

You just looked really good in your tights

Ever since he had started teaching you moves your thighs had been starting to fill out and he just found himself wanting nothing then to..

“Yunho!”

“Right! Sorry.”

He cleared his throat trying to keep the blood from rushing any further south than it already was

“So you’re going to kick your leg out and-”

You followed his movements slowly

And Yunho found himself slowly becoming more turned on by the minute

“Was that good Yunho?”

“Yeah! Yeah-”

He shook his head and looked straight in the mirror

Trying to avoid looking at you at all cost

And sparing you from the sexual energy

But you already felt it

You roll your eyes deciding to slightly entertain his issue

“Want to run it fully?

Yunho nods and plays the music

And you give it your all

Everything on the dance floor

(i just got done watching flash dance)

Yunho found himself getting lost in your movements

Stopping completely when he met your eyes through the mirror

As the song ended your moves came to hault

And you never broke eye contact with Yunho

“You okay?”

Without out even thinking Yunho pushed against the mirror

Pressing into you from behind

“You’re such a fucking tease.”

You slightly smile against the cool mirror

Trying to turn around, your pressed straight into the mirror

“Yunho” you whine

“You’re gonna watch, just like you made me.”

Yunho has you tightly presses against the mirror

Causing the bump that his dick normally produced to press back into you and driving you insane

Your right leg is lifted, thigh in his hand

You’re entire body is in shock at Yunho’s ruthless pace

And you’re a blubbering mess

“Fuck! Yunho!”

“Look at me Y/N.” He practically growled

You open your eyes and you let out a loud moan

He looked like sin

His lips were swollen from biting them so much

Hair stuck to his glistening skin

His eyes looked almost three shades darker

And you felt a shiver go down your spin

You practically lurch forward when he thrust into you and hit that one spot

“Oh-fuck!”

“Was that the spot baby?”

When you’re silent he hits again and you let out a yelp

“Y-yes, oh my god.”

You clench around him and Yunho slumps forward

“Fuck, baby-” He began his brutal assault once again

Not once breaking eye contact with you

“Yunho! I’m gonna- fuck. I’m gonna cum!”

“Then do it.” He mumbled in your ear

And you’re practically shaking when your orgasm hits

“Nnng-Y/N. Fuck!”

You open your eyes

And you see Yunho’s eyes rolled back

And jaw clenched in pleasure

You two stood there breathing heavily and enjoying the last few waves of the orgasm

“I didn’t think you had that in you?” You mumble against the mirror

And Yunho laughs pulling out of you

Causing you to almost trip from the lack of support

“Hey Hey. I got you.”

You’re baffled at his change

“And I’ve been wanting to fuck you in here for sometime now.” He said nonchalantly

Leaving your mouth hanging open

Tbh honest everything about Yunho is shocking

But what else can you expect from your amazingly perfect boyfriend

Seriously it’s almost like he was ripped from a fanfiction

The members get sick of how cuddly you two are

And how even in public he’s always holding you

Grabbing your hand

Giving you small kisses

Hugging you from behind

He’s just a PDA type of person

It’s not overly excessive

partly because it’s so normal

but because he doesn’t want to smuggle you

He does get a little jealous

but not like a Seonghwa jealous

but not like a Mingi jealous either

He’s mix between pouting and anger

pounger?

He just loses his happy virus energy

And it’s really noticeable

The entire mood will shift into a borning one

“Mingi I really like your earrings.”

“Really? Thank. I was coming over to tell you I like your watch.”

Then you and Mingi proceeded too talk about clothes and fashion for the next half hour

Before you noticed how quiet it got

The rest of the boys looked extremely uncomfortable/bored

As Yunho sat there with the most non-Yunho expression

ever

Then you realized why he must have been upset

“One sec Mingi.”

You flick his shoulder causing him to look up

Before he could even process anything you give him a small kiss

pulling away you see his face puzzled

“I love you. Now stop sulking you dork.”

And you kind of realized you may have accidentally said you loved him

but it cheered him up because he was smiling like a kid in a candy store

He’s immediately grabbing your hand and yelling out the door

Yelling I love you all the way out the door

Frickin weirdo

Overall y’all are just the softest couple ever

Like uwu (i hate that word sm istg..)

And Yunho is like the dream boyfriend

Always being gentle and listening

Being there to cheer you up

And to make you laugh

He’s just so perfect

You all better love Yunho or else I’ll break your kneecaps

He’s literally the dream guy

I just love him so much

[dickd0c]

STRIKE

CHAPTER NINETEEN — “day five, part two”

A while later, Nic found herself walking out of her room and down the hall. There wasn't much to do. She didn't want to text Lucas—she'd just met him and didn't want to come off clingy. Riot was gaming (loudly) in his room. Tank was still at the gym and probably would be for a while, and Athena was definitely still pity shopping.

So she wound up in front of the door to Alpha's room, asking herself why her heart was pounding so fast and her chest was growing so tight. She slowly pushed the door open a few inches, peeking in to see Alpha seated on his bed with his laptop a few feet away from him. He had a massive bowl of popcorn beside him. The lights were off and the curtains were drawn, so the only light illuminating his face was the flashing from his laptop. It had been hours since he'd popped into her room to annoy her, so she wondered how many movies he had watched in that time.

Nic pushed the door open a bit more, sidling in before quietly shutting it behind her. She walked over to the side of the bed, Alpha not even glancing over at her, and lifted the covers so she could sit with him underneath. As she lifted her knees on to the bed, she glanced up at him, noticing something different.

On top of his nose sat a pair of black-framed glasses that reflected the movie on his laptop. Nic had never seen Alpha with glasses before, but she had to admit, he truly pulled them off. Biting her lip, She slid under the covers, sitting up with her legs extended.

Wordlessly, Alpha wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her towards him. Nic nearly fell over, surprised, but she steadied herself and found their bodies so close together their legs were touching. She was angled a little so that her back rested on the side of her chest, and she was nearly sitting on him. He then moved the laptop so it was balancing on top of both of them. Nic didn't fail to notice the arm that stayed around her waist.

It was odd sitting with him like that. He wasn't the most touchy guy in normal situations. He barely cuddled after sex, he didn't even tapped her shoulder if she was in his way. Nic's body stayed tense, feeling his arm get comfortable. He pulled her a little closer so that his hand could rest peacefully on her thigh, but that just forced Nic to resist the urge to squirm.

Nic forced herself to zero in on the movie playing on his laptop. It seemed like a comedy, which kinda surprised her. She figured that he would be the type to watch action or thrillers, but hey, everyone can use a good comedy every now and then. An actor on the screen cracked a joke, and next to her, Alpha let out a humored breath. Nic smiled to herself, feeling her body slowly relax against his.

Between scenes, the screen went black. Though it was dark in the room, it was still light enough for her to be able to see their vague reflections. She looked at Alpha, watching him adjust the glasses resting on his nose. She really did like those glasses on him.

"Damon," Nic said suddenly, as if testing the name out on her tongue. It clearly startled him, though.

"Yeah?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing behind those glasses.

"Nothing. Actually, how old are you?" Nic asked quietly, reaching for the popcorn.

Alpha quirked his eyebrows, as if caught off guard. Nic had to admit, it was a bit random. "Uhh, twenty-one."

"Oh. So you just graduated college, didn't you? Congratulations," she said with a smile, watching him nod and shrug. "What did you major in?"

Alpha gave her a weird look, like making normal conversation was new to him. "Nursing," he said, and Nic could feel his abdomen tense up against her back.

Nic's face brightened. "Oh, that's great! I have a friend who's doing nursing. She says it's really hard. Wow, so you've got your bachelor's?"

Alpha made that face again, looking steadfast at the flashing laptop screen. "Yeah... why are you questioning me, again?"

Nic huffed, turning her face away from him with a small scowl. "Because... I know Tank, Riot, and Athena's ages. I know what they're studying. I know their favorite colors too. But you? I didn't even know you wore glasses."

It was true. She knew a lot about those three. Tank was nineteen, like her, and an athletic training major. Riot was twenty and a communications major. Athena, twenty as well, was a compsci major. Nic learned all of that in one or two weeks, but she just found out the same information about Alpha after nearly two months.

"You didn't even know any of their real names until today," Alpha pointed out in a snarky voice, his abdominal muscles shifting against her back.

Nic rolled her eyes but stayed silent. Partly because he was right and that was awkward, and partly because she wasn't in the mood to get him angry.

Alpha sighed, long and loud, and Nic nearly turned around to tell him off for being unreasonably irritable when he spoke again.

"Green," he said in a quiet and raspy voice.

Nic smiled to herself. "Mine's purple," she said softly, leaning comfortably into his chest. His arm tightened around her and his thumb started rubbing circles on her thigh. A brief glance at Alpha told Nic that he was doing so absentmindedly.

"So..." Nic thought out loud, thinking of a question to ask him. She just wanted to keep him talking. "Are you going to be getting a job?"

Alpha cleared his throat, clearly unfamiliar with talking so much with someone he didn't already know well. "I'm going for my master's actually, so I won't have time for a full time job."

Nic didn't know jack shit about nursing. She had made up that friend she had mentioned.

"You really like nursing, huh?"

Alpha just shrugged, but Nic could see the small smile that he swallowed back.

Nic slowly let her head fall back to rest on Alpha's shoulder, feeling his body tense under her before it slowly relaxed. She watched the movie, smiling slightly as the actors cracked corny jokes and managed to get into sticky situations every ten minutes. Every once in a while, Alpha would chuckle lowly, making her let out a small laugh of her own. She hadn't heard Alpha laugh this much in...

Ever.

There were still so many questions she all of a sudden wanted to ask. There were so many things she didn't know about him, so many things she didn't even know about the others. Come to think of it, she'd never had a single conversation with any of them about their or her family life. Maybe a few brief ones, but the fact that Athena had homophobic parents was honestly the most she knew.

Nic looked down at the strong hand resting on her thigh, wondering what Alpha's family was like. A heavy pit in her stomach told her that it was probably a bad idea to ask.

A few minutes later, the movie came to a sappy end, where the short balding man finally kissed his stunning, sweet ex-wife. Alpha chuckled, a rumbling sound that made his chest vibrate against Nic's back as his fingers reached for the laptop and fiddled with it.

"What do you want to watch next?" he asked her, catching her by surprise.

"Um... something horror, maybe," she replied.

"Alright, try not to hold my hand too hard," he said, sounding amused as he scrolled for movies.

Nic rolled her eyes. "I don't scare that easily," she proclaimed, and Alpha's hand tightened around her thigh.

"We'll see..." he mused, clicking on a movie and letting it play. He then moved the lap top between his legs. His hands shifted to Nic's hips, catching her by surprise when they lifted her and pulled her over with ease.

Nic landed between his spread legs, feelings arms wrap around her torso to pull her back tight against his flexed chest. Alpha's head dipped to the side of hers, mouth brushing against her ear as he whispered.

"If you get scared, I'll be holding you."

Nic's heart pounded against her chest, and she was sure that he could somehow hear it. She sat there, slightly dazed, trying to figure out if his words were supposed to be sexual or sweet.

The first scene played out on the screen, sharp blades slicing a woman's head clear off.

Stomach churning, Nic hoped it wasn't sexual.

As the movie progressed, Alpha's arms seemed to grow tighter around her. Nic wasn't sure if that was for her comfort or his, because every time something gory took place on screen, she'd flinch violently, but he'd gasp in shock.

"Oh, I don't think I'll be touching the popcorn," Nic nearly gagged when the killer cut open a man's abdomen and took an organ into his hands.

Alpha nodded, briefly moving an arm away from her to push the popcorn bowl away. He wrapped his arm back around her, resting his chin in the crook of her neck. He still hadn't shaved, so his light scruff scratched the sensitive skin on her neck. Nic tilted her head and rubbed her face against his ever so slightly, enjoying the feeling of his scruff against her cheek.

"What are you doing?" Alpha whispered, his hands moving to grab hold of her waist, fingers digging into her skin.

Nic froze, grateful for the dark room covering up her pink cheeks. She shifted her head away from him, feeling her embarrassment pool up in her tightening chest. She cleared her throat—"Sorry."

She couldn't see it, but Alpha frowned, looking confused. "No, I didn't mean it like that," he said, dipping his head back down to rest in her neck. He then winded as a body fell from forty stories up in the movie, flinching as it landed with a loud thud. "Shit..." he muttered into Nic's neck, burrowing nearly his entire face into it so that just his eyes could peek out and see what happened next.

Nic laugher lightly, moving her hands to rest on top of each of his and give them a light squeeze. "Look who's scared now," she teased, feeling his hands tighten their grip on her.

"I was just pretending to make you feel better," he responded arrogantly, and Nic could practically hear his smirk.

"You keep telling yourself that," she cooed, moving her hands back to rest in her lap.

Alpha didn't respond. He just pulled her tighter against him, if that was even possible. Nic grinned to herself despite the gory scenes before her eyes, catching herself sometimes flinching on purpose so that his fingers would rub circles on her skin.

She never thought he'd touch her like that. It was new, it was different. It was nice.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD Commentaries: 5.08 - Exposure

Commentary with Nick Parker (writer for this episode) and Brian Millikin (writer for 5.07)

In which the writers discuss various aspects of the episode including, Mara and Duke, Vince and Dave, the Trouble of the week, production and writing challenges, and Duke’s backstory with regards to his mom.

Content warning for discussion of alcoholism.

[They talk about how a lot of the episodes this season function almost as two-parters, including 5.07 and 5.08 and how the two of them worked together to make sure these two episodes fit together well.] BM: We broke these two episodes on the board side by side and the outlines and scripts went out together. That was the way we did it this season, both for production reasons, because to help us save time we shot two episodes together in block shooting, and also it kind of helped up to ever so slightly change up the pace and story telling of the show a little bit. Keep it a little fresher in this super-sized fifth season.

[They talk about how happy they are with the director for these two episodes and how they turned out; “Nice, dark, moody.”] NP: Some of the most fun scenes to write were between Duke and Mara here where she’s chained up, but she is the one that’s in control. BM: I love it. I think she’s so good as Mara. Look at this, just leaning into Duke’s face and just trying to work him at all times. She was great. They basically spent two full days doing all of these scenes in the hold of the boat. So Emily sat in this chair, literally chained to it (she had to be unchained to get out of the chair) for two days, and Eric just came in and out. And Lucas is in there a couple times as ghost Nathan but that’s it. And I think, she’s never been better. She’s been just as good, but never better.

NP: Yeah, these were super fun to write and then when we started to get the dailies in they were even more fun to watch because they did such a good job in these scenes. And what’s fun about 5.08 is the task of this episode was partly to tell an important Duke story but also to draw them closer together for where they’re going in episodes 9, 10, 11, 12. And starting to elevate their story. And in these scenes Duke starts to see a little bit of, maybe a kindred spirit, or he sees something in Mara that he respects if not likes. BM: And of course the question to be asking is, is that real what he’s seeing? Or is she putting on a show for him? Is she trying to draw him closer, or is it legitimate? Which is a question you’re asking all the way up until 5.13, when … spoilers. NP: Yeah, and also, what she asked him for there, she says she wants the Crocker Journal at first but then that’s not really what she wants. It’s about getting the story about Duke’s mother. Which is something we’ve never heard about, Duke has never talked about his mother. We’ve heard him drone on and one about his father who we’ve even seen in the past (episode 2.12, back in the day) but never heard tale of his mother. Which was an important thing. BM: It’s funny, I know big fans of Nathan groused a little bit because we once again are dealing with a story about Duke’s history and we get comparatively little about Nathan’s past. I think, they’re not wrong. It’s just kind of the way it worked out. The first season of the show was so much about Nathan and his dad - his dad was a regular on the show. And about the loss of his father and the aftermath of that. And we set up that his mom was gone from an early age and we learn a little bit about that in season 5b. But it was just the way of things that is just worked out that Duke’s history just kept coming up in ways that were more organic to the story. But never more so than this episode. I think it’s my favourite part of the episode. NP: It was my favourite part to write, outside of some lines from a character who’s going to be introduced very shortly [Seth], a returning character from an episode I wrote in season 4, 4.11 - Shot in the Dark.

BM: Now, Audrey and Duke here are both in the same wardrobe that they were in the previous episode. But we imagine this is the next day, we imagine a work-all-night situation. I think you kind of get that a little bit with Mara’s cut being a bit more healed. But it made sense that they’d be in the same clothes from working all night - if they know that Nathan’s out there and they need to save him, are they really going to go home, take a shower, change clothes?

[Nick comments on the Ghost Busters reference as Duke calls Seth and both of them laugh as Seth appears on screen, and comment how good Kris Lemche is in the role.] NP: Seth is named after my brother. BM: Kris is fantastic. NP: He’s great. He was such a delight on set and everything. The cast and crew liked working with him so much. He also brings shot of energy into everything. BM: Absolutely. He’s just a different kind of voice than we have in the show a lot. Especially without Jennifer who was a little bit of that outsider commentary. But I just love him. That scene in the script was exactly as written; cut to the inside of the van and a mountain of dirty clothes and cheetos and then you see hair like a shark fin pop up. NP: Which is basically a description of my bedroom and how I wake up every morning. BM: Absolutely.

[Vince and Dave in the hospital] NP: Ah here they’re playing Gin Rummy, which is a game I used to play with my grandfather all the time, before he passed away, and yeah I just thought it would be a great game for two old men - I imagine all old men play Gin Rummy, that’s just how they go through life. BM: Well this is the third time I think we’ve seen them play a different game together. It’s king of a motiv for Vince and Dave that we find them in the middle of playing something. I like it, it speaks to them a little bit. NP: Yeah and I kind of wanted to have them in a little bit of a different space in this episode. Seasons one and two especially, Vince and Dave were comic relief. BM: Absolutely. NP: We’d go to them and we’d have some nice back and forth, and bickering and banter, and it was a nice change of pace. But as things got darker and Vince revealed who he really is and Dave’s revelation about him being adopted, things got darker and I enjoyed being able to write them in a little bit of a lighter way. Which happens in this scene a little bit and then more so later in the episode. BM: Yeah and they also were not in the previous episode. These guys have never been in every single episode in a given season, but I think we had them so much in the previous episodes that they’re absence was felt in the last one so we were happy to have them back.

[Both of them laughing as Seth appears on screen again.] NP: That was also a nice thing about Seth. There’s kind of timelessness about Haven in some ways. We know when it’s set, but it feels kind of timeless because it’s the quaint small town and everything. And to be able to have Seth come in and make some strange pop culture references is always fun. BM: Yeah. We don’t typically have ton of pop culture references, so when we do it it stands out pretty well, like the Groundhog Day joke from a couple seasons past. But yeah you just get away with it with Kris Lemche. NP: Well luckily he sells it so well I can just be silly. And it’s fun. BM: It was great. I don’t remember when it was that we came up with the idea of bringing him in for this episode, but I think it was after we had settled on the idea of the ‘ghost’ Trouble. And then we knew that episode 7 was going to have All The Bad Things, and then episode 8 was going to be; now we actually have to solve the thing. And even you and I were like; how are we going to do that? And I think it was someone else who suggested, what they need is to try to find a way to reach out to Nathan and we’ve had one other episode where we’ve had devices that do that kind of stuff. And I remember someone was like; Come on, we can’t do a ghostbustery thing. And I was like; Well if you think about it, Nathan is the victim of a Trouble which means it’s caused by aether which means there’s a kind of residual aether quality to it, so of course it would work. NP: It was a conversation I was having with our excellent leader Gabrielle Stanton, where she was saying; We’ve been looking for a time to work Kris back in, they want to have him back up there and this could be a good time to do it. And I jumped all over the idea of writing him again, because he was just so much fun to work with. BM: Yeah, it’s funny, it’s a little bit like with William who shows up again in season 5b and so Seth, and they were just characters we really liked and actors we really liked in the role. And whenever we have a chance to, it’s something we’ve always tried to do, is bring people back. It helps to flesh out the world and make it feel a bit more real. NP: Absolutely. Living in the reality of the way things are. And though William is a transdimensional character from another world, he still brings - he jokes about the situations there’re in, he points out the ridiculousness of where they are, which is something that Seth does as well. So that’s always nice to incorporate whenever we can. And also necessary to  just lighten things. I mean Audrey is now talking to her ghost boyfriend in a desperate attempt to bring him back; it’s pretty heavy. BM. Yep. But this episode establishes Seth as a solid recurring character in our world, right along the lines of Marion from the pilot, Agent Howard, Stan, all the other people who have come to have a real role to play and I’m happy that he’s part of the club.

NP: The bourbon Duke and Mara are drinking here, Gunslinger Standard, we named that for a Stephen King reference. Gunslinger is a reference to Roland Deschain from the Gunslinger. And now they are just going to drink, and drink, and drink. BM: I love his glassware. NP: It’s pretty classy. I love how Duke is like; I’m going to have to tell this story so I’m going to have to be drunk, and the first thing he does is drink about three shots of bourbon in one go. BM: We joked about it internally and maybe we should stop joking because maybe it’s a serious problem that Duke has; he might be an alcoholic. We joked about having a drinking game; what if you just drank whenever Duke drinks. If you were to watch a couple episodes in a row, you would be hammered. NP: Yes. Luckily Eric Balfour is drinking sweet tea.

[As Seth and Audrey are talking in her office] NP: So we’re seeing Audrey’s confidence hit the bottom here. She’s come to rely on Nathan, she doesn’t have her immunity any more; she kind of feels lost in a way. And so this is asking a lot of her to put all this weight on her shoulders while also going through the stress of losing the person that she loves. And with Seth talking about he lost his partner as well (Anderson from 4.11) there’s a little bit of kinship there between them. BM: Yeah absolutely, I think that parallel of them both having lost a partner, and what are you without your other half, is fantastic. NP: It was fun to write. BM: And also just on a purely mercenary level; she needed someone to talk to in these scenes. Because Duke is off on the Mara side of things, which he has to be. Audrey can’t talk to Nathan. And there’s nobody else. So the fact that he’s there is useful, but he really brings something to is; the actor does, the character does. NP: Yeah he’s good. And he did a great job with Adam Copeland in past episodes, though we don’t have Adam for these episodes as we said before. BM: Yeah and Vince and Dave are still in North Carolina. NP: And thankfully for us, Emily is a hilarious person with great comedic timing, so her dry delivery works so well. BM: Yeah I know, I always wish that we could get more opportunities for her to be funny. Because she is.

BM: So we’re back in the Raleigh hospital with Dave trying to make a desperate escape. BM: I remember how much conversation we had, you and I in particular, about the fact they’re in the Raleigh hospital. NP: Oh my god. [They discuss the journey from North Carolina to Maine and how they’ve driven it before and the routes you might take and the places you might go past, and how Raleigh is not one of them.]  BM: But we figure they’re not locals, they don’t know North Carolina. NP: I was fighting hard. But I remember it also came down to a discussion about how is Manteo pronounced. And I called the Manteo tourism board to confirm. BM: But these hospital scenes were fun for these two. We shot them all in one day, I think, one afternoon? And it wound up being really fun. You had kind of an uphill battle because you knew they basically just had to be in the hospital room; that was it. And we needed four scenes. But you did a great job with it.

NP: Oh here comes the story about [Duke’s] mother, which was quite a doozy. BM: Now I remember, we had always talked about how this episode would be the one where Duke opens up and tells Mara a story. Tells her a story about his mom, something that Mara wanted him to tell her. And it was a big deal because she’s asking for something and now he’s giving it to her. And something he didn’t want to share, something he hasn’t shared before. In the thumbnail document, the story pitch and then the outline of these scenes, it just said; Duke tells a story about his mom. And the outline was great, so it’s like; Nick, go write the scripts, and I think it was Speed Weed, one of our other writers, was like; Should we talk about what this story is? And our show runners were like; Nah, Nick go deal with it. We call it a WP - Writer Problem. So a lot of times the outline will call for someone to steal something, and the details of how they steal it is a WP, it’s left to the writer to figure out. But this was a HUGE WP, because this was a significant story about one of our main characters, and none of us knew which way you were going to go. I remember seeing you in the office thinking and working on it, and then we all finally saw the script you came up with, and it was Awesome. NP: Thanks! It was a lot of fun to write. But, as you said, it was a mountain because, I mean Duke is such a big character. So I kind of decided to go the whole way with it and turn it into a kind of origin story. BM: It’s what made Duke, Duke. Or, finished the job of turning him into Duke. NP: Yeah. Duke had learned some things from his father and saw the path his father was headed. BM: He’d already been abandoned, his father was a douche, and then he died. NP: We know from past episodes that his father died in 1983-ish, because of Lucy. And so he would have been 8 years old or something. So it’s like, where does he go from there, how does he turn into the character that we know, this guy who speaks Mandarin and is a rogue and smuggler and everything else? And so I really kind of tried to have that story tell what made Duke, Duke. BM: Yeah, like part two of his origin story. NP: Yep. BM: But it was really great. Really sad. NP: Real sad. BM: But it felt earned. I don’t know, I just loved it. I think If it changed at all [from the first draft], I’m talking like we moved the word ‘the’ or ‘and’ around. Sometimes we have stuff that really doesn’t get changed at all, just because everyone really liked it. And it made perfect sense. Once you read it, it really couldn’t be anything else. NP: Thank you. It was also funny later on in production when we were talking about cutting a couple things and knowing we had to cut for time, there was never any discussion of shortening any of those scenes whatsoever. It was like; everything in the hold we’re keeping, forever, so the cuts are going to have to come from elsewhere. BM: I remember you also had to work a lot on the details of Seth’s stuff because one of the other WPs was; And then Seth’s got “the device”. And it was never really specified what that was. But when you’re writing the script you’re going to have to talk about what it looks like and how it works. So this idea of having to stick the electrodes on Nathan, but that won’t work because he’s a ghost - you had to come up with all this too. NP: Yeah and hopefully it works, because he’s developing this idea but then we put a much quicker ticking clock on it, so that he doesn’t have a chance to modify the device the way he’d envisioned. And so it has to be taken through to the other side as Audrey ends up doing. [Both of them laughing at Seth with his hands in the air as Audrey reminds him she’s armed.] BM: Congratulations by the way on that classic moment, of wait say that again, what you said just gave me an idea. This one totally works, because of the pose that he does with his arms up, the exact pose that Reggie did before he disappeared. NP: Yeah I tried to cover that moment with some Kris Lemche joking and of course he sold it super well. BM: They both sold it, and that idea that it was the pictures that was making them disappear and that the shadows they left were related to the photos, that was something that we had from the start.

BM: Oh here’s Vince [sneaking into the hospital office]. I always like when we can show Vince and Dave kind of being badasses a little bit, showing off their skills. NP: Everyone knows them as the lore-keepers and protectors of Haven, but you don’t get that job in a place as crazy as Haven by being a softy or being a sweet man who wears pink glasses. You’ve got to be a bad ass and these moments are fun to write for that reason. BM: They are, and we always talk about a Haven prequel series you could do about these guys in the prime of their youth. And they were probably the Nathan and Duke of the town. But they’ve still got it, sometimes, and it’s always a great opportunity when we can have them doing stuff as opposed to just being the librarian-type exposition devices that in previous season they often ended up being, just by necessity because they knew so much. NP: I also find that whenever you can have Richard Donat pull out a Southern accent. BM: He’s also really funny. He doesn’t often get to play as much comedy as John Dunsworth as Dave does. So I like seeing him try and fail at this grifting attempt here. And he gets busted, which was great. And the other actor in this scene is really great too. NP: Yeah we had some great casting in both of these episodes, between Chris Masterson [as Morgan], Kris Lemche [as Seth] and Lara Jean Chorostecki [as Amy Potter]. We both know Lara Jean originally from Hannibal, as investigative journalist Freddie Lounds. That was a role that was gender-swapped from the books for the TV show and she was cast in it and that could not have been a better move on Hannibal’s part. She is just awesome, awesome, awesome in that role. BM: She is terrific. We were totally in her corner from the get go. I think she even just looked like what we imagined the character might look like. But just her energy and everything, we were just like; let’s get her. And so she did it and everyone loved her. And we were like; Can we bring her back? But her Trouble doesn’t really lend itself to something that we could keep using. So we were like; Could we just give her a job in the police station or something? NP: New crime scene photographer? BM: But I think she’s going back to Hannibal, or some other project. We were lucky to get her. NP: We should write a Haven spin off series that’s just Kris Lemche and Lara Jean Chorostecki on the road. They just made people turn into ghosts.

[As we’re back with Duke and Mara again] BM: How much of the bourbon is gone by this point I wonder? NP: They have drunk a lot of Gunslinger Standard, and that is some strong, strong bourbon. BM: But think about his tolerance. I mean, he’s not slurring his speech. I’d be asleep. Or at the very least drooling on myself or something. He’s a cool customer. [They joke that maybe Mara is immune to alcohol as well as the Troubles.] BM: But they did a great job with this. We’ve talked about how well this scene was written but they take it the rest of the way. It’s kind of like passing someone a football - it’s a good pass but then they have to run the rest of the way with it. And they absolutely did. NP: They score a touchdown. Eric really, really killed it here. We do tone calls before each episode to talk through the big scenes, and I just remember the tone call with Eric was so very, very short this time. Because I think he had just really lived in that story and really kind of got a good handle on it. And then once we saw the dailies we were like; Yeah, we didn’t need to say a single word to him. He couldn’t have done a better job with it. Kudos Eric. BM: Yeah, he was like; Totally get it, completely, let me do it.

[As Nathan is searching Guard HQ] NP: Here you can see what we talked about before, the desolate Children of Men, post-apocalyptic look to this warehouse. BM: It’s a little bit of a preview of things to come. I love Nathan going through the wall there. NP: Yeah we had a bunch of these moments, but it was a production question as to how man can we actually afford to do, how many do we have time for. There are some that are critical, like Morgan falling through, and the gun getting knocked away. BM: But there’s none for me that are cooler than Nathan with his gun out going through those two walls. It looks great, the fact it was all just this one swooping camera move. And it’s good from a story stand point because it’s Nathan using his situation to some extent to his advantage. NP: Yep and coming up here we’ve got Audrey doing the same thing of using her situation to her advantage. Right now they’re putting together all of the math of how the Trouble works. She’s understanding that Nathan is in mortal danger, which leads to a big decision for her, to put herself in danger and using her lack of immunity to her advantage in order to be able to save Nathan. BM: Our art department killed it with these photos here. And this is great with Seth being the voice of reason a little bit. And Audrey stepping up - this is a really important moment for her because she’s not immune and that’s been getting to her but now she’s going for it. NP: And credit goes to you for that set up, because it was something that you were really pursuing that her being immune is going to be the story for these episodes. And I think it worked out great. BM: That’s the thing people will refer to these episodes as; Ghost Nathan and then Audrey not being immune. I think the cutting back and forth here [from Audrey and Seth at Amy’s place to Nathan fighting Reggie in Guard HQ], both in the script and by our editor, works so well. The gunshots come [into Reggie’s back] and you don’t know if it’s Audrey, and then you reveal that it’s Morgan. NP: And it’s funny, that kind of action sequence would normally come much later in an episode, but we were trying to keep things so fast here, and really the last couple of acts of this episode take place over the course of minutes. It’s all in real time and it’s really fast, so we were trying to keep it energetic as a result. BM: Pretty much everything this season is real time. Like, last week’s episode happened 25 minutes ago.

BM: It’s funny, we had one real goal going into this episode for what the Vince and Dave story was going to be, and it didn’t really have much to do with this scene [where Vince is caught trying to steal Dave’s biopsy sample from the hospital]. All we knew was that Vince and Dave were going to get a sample of Dave’s leg wound taken, by the CDC as it turns out at the end of the episode. NP: Oh, Dearing Place there [on the note Audrey’s left for Nathan], that’s the street I used to live on. BM: So all of this with Vince and Dave trying to steal the sample back and failing and pretending to be other people, was all sort of invented to make more of a story out of it and it ended up working out really well. It’s fun for those guys, because things have gotten pretty serious for them and they get very serious as the season goes along, so it’s good to give them an opportunity to have fun. NP: Yeah and I was trying to accomplish a lot with that storyline; giving them some playful banter, having them show off their skills and what got them to where they are and the men that they were, and also platforming where they’re going because Dave’s leg wound is getting worse and worse. BM: Yeah, and it’s my favourite kind of B story, or C story really, which is that it has nothing to do with what’s going on in the episode but it’s the last scene in the episode and that story with Charlotte Cross coming to town comes to dominate the entire series. So it seemed like it was just this, tangential something, but it winds up being more significant than anything else in the episode. The best kind of C story there is. NP: I enjoyed this scene as well [Mara and Duke talking in the hold again], this was fun because they’re trying to figure out the math of the Trouble and how it works, and for dramatic, and also story, purposes we needed a delay between when Amy takes the picture and when the person disappears. And so we were trying to figure out how does that work? And because this is a Trouble that has evolved from a painter back in the day, the printing is the completion of the photo. And that just made sense and felt right for us in the digital age. BM: It’s funny I’m not sure when we came up with that idea, it must have been pretty early on. But it solved so many problems. Because we needed there to be a delay, and also a reason why Audrey tries it on herself and it doesn’t work. And I think we were struggling with that at the same time someone else - it might have been Speed Weed because he so frequently bangs the drum of like; Well, this is the Trouble now, but what would the Trouble have been like hundreds of years ago when Mara and William first made them? You know, they didn’t have cameras back then, so how did it work back then geniuses? And we were like; Well, back then it would have been something else. NP: Oil painting. BM: We’ve always liked the idea that they, sort of, not evolve but that a Trouble could mean something different nowadays than it would back then. So we thought well it could have been a painter’s Trouble way back when. Or a sculptor, maybe it left some clay dust. NP: Yeah a splash of paint, or clay dust. BM: And nowadays it leaves this photographic imprint. But before it was when a painting is finished, so when is a picture ever finished, in the world of photoshop, resizing, filters … Well it’s when you print it out. NP: And I think once we found that in our conversations, it was like; Great, perfect - now we know and everything evolved from that. [And they then compare that moment they had to Seth’s kind of triumphant reaction when Audrey disappears.] NP: I think this [as Dave comes to Vince’s rescue with his Garland impersonation] is my favourite of all the Vince and Dave scenes, just because John is so funny here. I remember writing this and I think I went a little bit … BM: We share the same office, Nick’s desk is on another wall, and I could hear you laughing. I had my ear buds in but I could hear you laughing to yourself. And you were writing this scene. NP: I was laughing at myself, which was not cool. BM: But this was one of the few scenes that’s really written specifically for him to play this kind of comedy character and he sunk his teeth into it. NP: He goes fully nuts. I actually ended up cutting the rest of that scene and moving it later. But the interesting thing about this here [as Amy’s getting ready to take a photo of herself] is, there used to be another scene in between where we saw the Morgan side of it. But instead we wanted to delay the mystery of what’s happening in the other room. So we cut that whole scene, and I couldn’t have been happier with that.

[As Amy hugs Morgan] BM: This is where we realised how good Laura Jean was too in the role of Amy, because this was an incredibly hard scene for her. You don’t really think about it, but if you’re the actress that has to play the role; this is impossible: she thought that her fiance was dead and gone until a few minutes ago, and now she’s seen him again, but she’s also processing everything else that’s happening with this situation. She’s got an incredible amount to work though. And she totally did it. NP: Yeah, and she doesn’t get to do it in a lot of lines, because a lot of the exposition of it has to come from the other characters. BM: She was great.

[Both laughing at Dave rescuing Vince] BM: This makes me wish we could have them as con artists more frequently. NP: Yes, they’re good at it. BM: And that was kind of the impetus behind episodes five and six, to get Vince and Dave out of Haven and on a mission. Even if it goes horribly awry.

NP: Laura Jean is really selling it here. She gets two or three words to go through all of this emotion but she really sells it so, so well. BM: Yeah, she’s terrific. I mean I thought she was great in Hannibal, but I really thought she brought something even more to the table here. NP: Well and what’s great about it is, her character in Hannibal is very manipulative, a bit of a psychopath in her own way, she’s very, very cold. But here, she has to be extremely empathetic but also go through really complex emotions super, super fast. And she handles both the Hannibal role, and this much smaller - and probably less rewarding - role both very, very well. BM: She’s very good.

[As we see the final flash that signals the Trouble’s resolved] NP: It’s always tough figuring that exact moment when the Trouble is solved and, how does everyone know. BM: What I also really liked about this is that she kind of solved it herself. NP: We’ve been talking about Lara Jean a lot but Chris [as Morgan] also does an awesome job, escalating this emotion here, getting in Nathan’s face; he’s really selling it. And there’s Seth with the knock-out blow. I just really like his line here [“I am the one who goes bump in the night”]. It is terrible and it was a fun thing to write - and I knew Kris would exactly get the humour of that moment. And in the dailies it was funny, he kept picking up the tripod and saying other ridiculous things; I’m sure it’s going to be all over the blooper reel because he was just hilarious. BM: It was originally going to be a picture frame that Seth used to knock Morgan out, but I think there was concern that we could have seriously injured Chris Masterson, so it became a tripod. But his line there is an obvious reference to Walter White’s “I am the one who knocks” line which is just one of the best lines ever in television. This being of course one of the worst lines ever in television.

[As Seth is saying goodbye to Nathan and Audrey] BM: So this scene here ended up touching on maybe a bit of a touchy subject for Audrey and Nathan, which was brought in relief with what Morgan said earlier about; Why are you the only ones who get to be happy? So they’re starting to ask themselves if Morgan was right and if they’ve been selfish - because, she got Nathan back, but at what cost to Morgan? NP: And it’s been going for a while too, since season four - they keep fighting for each other so much, and what is the cost? BM: I think it’s an important thing, a realistic conversation for them to have. Granted of course it’s not just Nathan; they’ve just saved a bunch of people around town who were also ghosts. And Morgan’s a bad guy, and Nathan can do a lot of good, as a human being, not a ghost. NP: It’s funny, the tail end of that scene changed a lot because as we were getting closer to it, it became more and more clear that we were going to want to bring Kris back as Seth again for more episodes in the back half of season 5b. So before he was like; I’m getting out of Haven, goodbye forever, kind of thing. And then it softened and softened. BM: Yeah we left the door open because at this point we knew we were going to bring him back, but we didn’t know if he was going to be a surprise new resident of Haven, or if we were going to have them be like; Hey man, come back to Haven. So we had to be super vague about where he was going.

[As we’re back with Mara and Duke again] BM: So they’re probably on a second bottle at this point, right? NP: They are fully drunk. BM: I would be on the phone with a hospital [if I had drunk that much] NP: A hospital or an ex-girlfriend, one of the two. [As Mara is talking about the importance of intention when releasing a Trouble] This also is something that was in the works from the very beginning, what we always knew we wanted to accomplish was Mara saying; You were the one who was in the driver’s seat when you split me and Audrey, this was your Trouble you were expressing. And over the course of those episodes he’s probably learned better how to express them and she’s saying here that; You want me here - why? BM: And it kind of answers a question that was posed at the beginning of 5.07, which was - how did this happen? Why did this happen? Duke was flicking through the Crocker Journal but he had no idea. And then Mara poses a theory here which is that he selects the Trouble that he wants to, whether he knows it or not, and that he maybe wanted to split Audrey and Mara apart. NP: Yep. BM: And I love it, it’s great.

[The final scene with Vince and Dave outside the Gull] NP: Of course they drink drinks with little umbrellas. BM: It’s not exactly a sunny day outside either. NP: Well it was funny, for production we didn’t have a Grey Gull day. BM: This moved tons of times. NP: Moved a bunch of times; I re-wrote this scene probably half a dozen times. BM: It was going to be outside the Haven Herald at one point, or just on some patio somewhere, some place they could shoot in town. But in the end we shot this weeks later, right? NP: Yeah, Shawn picked it up with a second unit some time. BM: But from back in the beginning of the year when we started mapping out what are the big tent poles for every season, this was always the last scene of this episode; Charlotte Cross comes to town. Because that really kicks off what is the rest of the season; it’s really the main story for the next couple episodes. NP: I thought the art department did a great job with the CDC logo. You can’t use the actual CDC logo; every show that uses CDC has to come up with their own logo, and our art department is really good with those kinds of things. BM: Yes. Shout out to Laura Mennell as well, as Charlotte Cross. We were really lucky to get her. NP: She’s so good. BM: She ends up joining the cast as a regular and I think we’re better for it. She obviously has some big surprises to come, which I guess we can’t talk about now. NP: It’s funny, we’re kind of the book ends for her character; introduced and then …. BM: Oh that’s right, well we can’t say. But this was a great episode. Thanks Nick! NP: Thanks for watching y’all.

[peterthepark]

hey your stuff is really good, could I request some steve ?? something along the lines of just hanging out with him ( and possibly the party ?? ) and realising that you love him, like really love him . thanks

i kinda changed this up a bit?? kinda made it so that it was steve who realized it? hope it’s still what u want tho, thank u! <3

I Know.

Steve Harrington x Reader

The forest is dark and eerie as owls hoot throughout the night. Moonlight peeks from the slender branches of the tall trees, welcoming with a light breeze.

It would be scary if you weren’t surrounded by a bunch of idiots.

The leaves under your shoes crunch loudly, causing you to cringe at the sudden noise. Dustin’s head snaps around to look at you, eyes wide as he shines a flashlight at your face. You squint through the harsh light, groaning.

“Dude! What ever happened to staying quiet?” He whisper-shouts at you, arms outstretched by his sides. Steve chuckles, turning away from his curly-haired friend to stop himself from laughing any louder.

“I’m sorry that I can’t see where I’m going! You’re the only one with the flashlight!” You point at him, clutching onto Steve’s arm as you all continue to walk blindly.

Who the hell thought that playing hide and seek - in a forest, nevertheless, during a dark Halloween night - would be a good idea?

“Okay, I saw Mike go that way, and I think Lucas is somewhere up high, so... wait, did you hear that?”

Dustin’s voice slowly fades in the background as you and Steve lag behind him. His boots drag against the October leaves, a strand of hair falling in front of his eyes.

You and Steve had always been good friends. Maybe a little more - but you weren’t sure, considering you had never talked about feelings or where you stood in his life. You knew he wasn’t looking for anything serious after Nancy Wheeler, so any plans of trying to ‘date’ anyone was probably out the window for him.

You hadn’t seen him or your younger friends in months, only coming home during breaks or summer to visit.

“So...” Steve starts, eyes trained on the earthy ground. He glances up at you, puffs of air leaving his mouth from how freezing cold it was. “How’s college? You, uh, you go to-“ He gestures randomly, stumbling over his words as he avoids your questioning stare. “You go to, um, Purdue? Right? Yeah? Purdue?”

“I do, yeah.” You nod slowly, finding amusement in how flustered he seems to be. Weirdo. “Congrats on being able to read my sweatshirt.” You chuckle at him, stuffing your hands in the front pocket.

“Oh! Oh, woah. I-I actually didn’t see that. Just... guessed, y’know?” He nods at himself, sticking his head out to read the design on your clothing. His Adam’s apple bobs with uncertainty when he gulps audibly, eyes searching around through the darkness. “How is it? Purdue, I mean. It’s a great school from what I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, it is. But, nothing beats home.” You grin, bumping shoulders with him playfully as you step over a fallen tree trunk. “I’ve missed you, Harrington.”

“Really?”

You can just picture his expression - eyebrows raised and lips pulled into a straight line. He coughs unexpectedly, pausing in his tracks.

That’s when you realize.

“Where’s Dustin?” You murmur, spinning around slowly in hopes of finding the kid and his stupid flashlight.

“He’s fine.” Steve clears his throat, hitting his chest with a closed fist before he places his hands on his hips. “Uh, he... he really knows his way around these woods so, you know. He’ll be fine.”

A comfortable silence washes over the forest, and you can’t help but keep talking.

“How are you, Steve?” You groan softly as you crouch down to sit on a rocky ledge, patting the empty spot beside you. He quickly moves to sit, almost losing his balance as he tries to squat down. You both laugh, feet kicking at one another subconsciously.

“I’m alright. It’s too quiet down here without you. Not that - not that you’re too loud or anything, but...”

“I know.” You reply comfortingly.

Steve places his hand down, jumping slightly when he feels yours beneath his. “Oh! Sorry. It’s dark. Didn’t mean to do that. Sorry.”

“Did you give Dustin all your charm or what?” You tease him, feeling around for his hand. You blush for a second, feeling a bit doubtful of the confidence radiating off of your behavior.

“What? Never. It’s still here, somewhere.” His voice dips to a hushed tone as he mentions the last phrase, before he stares down shyly at his lap. “It’s cause you’re back, I think.”

“Hm?” You furrow your brows, partly confused at what he seems to be getting at.

“Whenever you’re around, I-I kinda get...” He scratches his neck with his other hand. His face scrunches up in embarrassment. “I kinda get nervous around you? I just - ugh, I just don’t know. You’re cool and - and pretty and... you being gone made me realize a lot of things.” He bites at the inside of his mouth, cursing under his breath with closed eyes. “Y’know?”

You’re surprised. A little bit taken aback.

Your sudden silence doesn’t help Steve with his thoughts at all.

“And well, if you don’t feel the same then - then that’s okay! It’s, ha, it’s okay with me.” He shrugs, pushing his hair back. “I can handle rejection. I suck, anyways.” He chuckles, rubbing his nose out of nervousness.

“Hey.” You nudge him with your shoe, looking up at him. “I like you, too.”

He’s an idiot.

“But uh... I-I don’t like you?!” He says loudly.

Ouch.

“What? Dude, okay. Ow.” You scoff at him, feeling your chest tighten with hurt. You stand up, brushing your hands on your jeans. “Could’ve said that a bit nicer, Steve. Lighten the load on me.”

“No! No! That’s not what I meant!” He scrambles to his feet as you walk away from him, arms swinging hastily at your sides in an effort to get away from him. Steve facepalms himself. “Y/N! Come back!”

“You’re such a - ugh!” You groan at him, whipping around to face him. You stomp your shoe onto the ground, feeling mud splatter everywhere. “You’re an ass.”

“Listen-“

“No!” You pull at your hair, eyes wide with offense.

He really had to hurt you like that.

“Listen to me!” Steve shares the same look, enunciating his words with irritation. You both look like wild animals - chests heaving as you stare each other down. He huffs at your quivering lip and your defensive stance, laughing at how far of a turn this took. “I don’t like you... because I love you, Y/N.”

“Dude.”

You turn around as Steve looks past your shoulder, rolling his eyes.

Dustin stands with a look of shock, jaw hanging open. Lucas and Max are whispering to one another, snickering. Mike is grinning with beady eyes, glancing around at his friends.

“Dude, what did I tell you?!” Dustin punches Mike’s shoulder, dropping his flashlight in doing so. “He loves her! He fucking loves her!”

“Hey! Language!” You and Steve shout simultaneously, pointing fingers at the foul-mouthed boy.

“This is a private matter, guys!” You sigh at the kids, cheeks hot with embarrassment. “Just...”

“Steve loves you, Y/N. He’s a dumb doofus who doesn’t know how to show it, but he does.” Mike interrupts, stepping forward. “He’s literally cried about you to all-“

“Hey! Hey! No! Shut the hell up!” Steve rushes towards him, but you press your hand to his chest, stopping him.

“You really do love me?” You ask, hand still pressed against his sternum.

“Yeah, dude.” Steve blinks at you, hands on his hips.

“Did he just call her dude? Oh, my god.” Max shakes her head, groaning with frustration. “We’re leaving. Come on.”

“You love... me?” You question once more, clutching the fabric of your sweatshirt as you feel tears brim at your eyes.

“Y/N...” Steve takes your hands into his, looking down at you lovingly. “You know I’ve loved you. I always have.”

“I mean... I thought - I’ve thought that you’ve had a crush on me, but this is totally different.” You shake your head, seriously astonished. “So much for plot-twists.”

“Was it really not obvious?” He squints at you, pulling you closer to him.

“You call me dude, Steve.” You laugh at him, pushing at his shoulder as you try to catch up with the others.

“Yeah? And?” He grins, following after you.

“You’re actually an idiot.” You glance back at him.

“I know.”

He stops in his tracks, smiling widely as you continue to walk.

He loves you.

“Aren’t we gonna kiss?” He shouts after you, throwing his head back with a dramatic groan when you decide to flip him off.

He loves you so much.

[michellemagic]

Just in Case

Felix wasn’t as much as an idiot as people believed him to be.

He was loyal, brash, sweet, and very very curious.

So when he saw Princess Athanasia sneak into the woods with only Blackie accompanying her, he follows.

At the time, Felix had dismissed it as a simple fascination, a quirk that the princess had. Nothing that needed to be worried about.

He had been mistaken.

_____

Felix wasn’t as much as and idiot as people believed him to be.

A Knight first and foremost? Yes.

Loyal to a fault? Definitely.

A puppy masquerading as a man? Oh thank God I thought I was the only one who saw it.

He just wasn’t an idiot.

But he had always been a curious person and really that can prove to be worse

_____

Nothing really happen until Athanasia was around 8 years old.

It had been 3 years since Claude officially met his young heir by this point, and Felix couldn’t help but feel giddy when he thought about it.

Claude and Diana’s daughter was adorable, she was all smiles and cute gestures. With the uncanny ability to steal hearts left and right. Sure when Felix had first meet her she seemed uncomfortable and unsure but that was probably just because she was meeting new people for the first time. Felix wasn’t ignoring the fact that Claude was a scary asshole, nopity nope. That was not what was happening. But Princess Athanasia was always generally an open person. She did what she pleased and spoke her mind no matter who she was with.

Remembering Duke Alpheus’ face in the moments after he first met the princess had Felix rolling on the floor with laughter for literal hours

Which was why when he saw her walk off into the woods, her pet Blackie trailing after her as she checked to make sure no one was following, he couldn’t help but follow. He didn’t think he was doing any harm following her. It was his job as her guard to protect her despite the general lack of threats against her…  and he wanted to see what it was in the woods that the princess needed so badly that she couldn’t ask someone else to grab for her. If anything, he’d be able to get it for her next time.

Just like he did his best to please Claude, partly because he’s the emperor mostly because he’s all Felix has left, making Princess Athanasia happy would be a pleasure for him.

At some point while he was lost in his among his own thoughts, Athanasia had stopped. She looked around one more before pulling the hem of her dress up-

-and Felix turned. It didn’t matter how old she was, the princess was a lady and he wouldn’t dare besmirch her virtue so boldly.

Felix was getting ready to book it by this point, his curiosity gone and anxiety to leave filling his veins. But then he heard the clang of coins behind him and he turned once more.

Athanasia had her dress back down which was great, and held two decently sized bags in her hands. She watched, swaying softly as Blackie begin to dig at the roots of the tree they stood by. Then to Felix’s complete bewilderment, Blackie’s digging eventually led to a hole full of similarly sized cloth bags, some opened slightly to reveal the smallest glints of gold coins and rubies jewels.

“Wha- what are you doing princess?”

Athanasia jumped high at the sound of his voice, for a second Felix thought she flying, next to her Blackie -who was getting hilariously large actually- started growling, obviously unpleased with the fear Felix made his master feel.

Ahhh, Felix didn’t mean to startle her so badly. He didn’t realise he walked right behind her until he asked his question, but he was very curious.

“Why would you need to do that?”

Because, truthfully, if she wanted a giant pile of shiny things all she had to do was ask. Claude may seem cold blooded, but Felix could see how soft he was with his daughter. She dug so deep into his heart he'd give her the world if she asked.

But still Felix figured there must be a good reason why the princess would try so hard, and be so sneaky about collecting all of her gold and jewels. Maybe it gave her a sense of accomplishment?

Princess Athanasia stayed silent for a long while, her eyes low and her lips pursed ever so slightly before looking at him, eyes big and shining, -it reminds him of Diana when she was thinking and scheming, making some big thing to surprise Claude with or making up an excuse for something. It was both comforting and chilling-  voice soft and tone unlike anything he’d ever heard from her.

“Just in case”

_____

He stares at her for a moment before he nods like he understands (he doesn’t, he really honestly doesn’t.). Still, he smiles at her, voice sure, “Well, your dad is here to take care of you. So why do you have to worry about?”

The small smile she gave back gave him hope.

Yes, the princess had no reason to worry.

and if Claude’s next birthday present to her would be the keys to the treasury, well it’s not like Felix had any part of that

_____

And he’s right for the most part, Athanasia has 7 more years of childhood happiness and bliss. She has her loving if emotionally compromised dad, Lily who looked at her like she hung the stars, people who love her unconditionally, and himself.

But then she’s coughing blood at a tea party and Lucas isn’t here to help her this time. Lily won’t sleep isn’t looking at him again and Claude does a thing to heal her but when he wakes up he doesn’t know who Athanasia is and everything’s wrong

_____

Then Claude goes insane and tries to kill her. (which, by the way- Holy shit)

And Felix takes two seconds to run after he and Lily confront Claude about not being able to find the princess. He doesn’t really think at the time, why his mind jumped to the tree. Why that’s where his feet decided to take him. He hasn’t thought about it for years now, maybe at the back of his mind yes, but never consciously, never what it could mean.

Still he moves. He turns and ducks -and gets lost for a second- and turns again and runs and runs and runs and hopes-

He’s halfway through the woods in 4 minutes. And he only stops when he finds a great old tree, dirt overturned at the roots and little string bags gone.

He feels his heart jump to throat, and his falls to the floor as his knees buckle. His mind jumps back to 8 years ago, when he found the princess and her pet dog adding bags of shiny things -valuables- to a shallow hole and how small her voice was when he asked what she was doing.

Her response echoed sullenly in his head

”just in case” _____

And suddenly Felix understands. _____

Princess Athanasia collects shiny things, collects things that glitter with gold and gems that shine with luster.

And after 8 years Felix finally understood why.

[choupichoups]

Press F (Instagram/College AU) Ch.10

Lucas swears he’s the absolute master of undetected stalking. Or: Eliott is instagram famous and Lucas is the disaster gay who accidentally likes his post.

"You’re sure you're okay with this?”

Lucas pauses, croissant halfway shoved in his mouth as he regards Eliott with an inquisitive brow. “With what?” 

“Me announcing to… uh… all my followers who I’m dating.”

Lucas resumes eating, rolling his eyes as he brushes the crumbs off his fingers. “I already told you it’s okay,” he says, partly muffled due to the food in his mouth. “What can they do anyway?” 

Eliott chokes on a laugh, “What can they do? Lucas, have you seen the shit people do on social media?” He runs a fork over the leftover avocado on his plate. “You know what, I should probably delete that story, it’s only been half an hour anyway—”

“There’s no point, someone’s already saved that by now. It’ll just be up somewhere else.” He shrugs, feeling not an ounce of worry on this subject. “You posted about me before and if you haven’t noticed, some of your fans already found my account too.” He takes a sip of his coffee, smiling as he nibbles on the straw. “And your face is all over that one.” 

Eliott reaches over the table for Lucas’ hand, entangling their fingers together before bringing their hands up to his lips. He brushes a light kiss over the back of Lucas’ hand before pressing a smile into the same spot. “I just don’t want you feeling bad over any of this.” 

“No stranger on the internet can get to me, Eliott,” Lucas says, rolling his eyes again despite the fact that his voice might sound a tad too fond for eight in the morning. “Here.” He detaches their hands to get to his phone, pulling up that adorable photo he took of his boyfriend before leaving the apartment earlier. Tagging Eliott on the post is barely an afterthought and he cackles over the caption before placing his phone back down. “There, now if your admirers attack me it’s gonna be equally my fault.” 

Lucas hands Eliott’s phone over, laughing to himself when his boyfriend’s expression morphs into outright affront after seeing the comments. 

He goes back to eating his food, noticing that his own phone is now buzzing with a phone call. He’s been getting calls from an unknown number for the past week but no voicemails are ever left. Lucas makes a point not to answer until an actual human voice leaves a message, convinced that it’s some marketing company trying to sell him their life insurance or some shit. The buzzing stops eventually but it goes straight to into ringing again immediately after. 

Lucas wipes his hands down and turns the phone over, almost choking in his haste to swallow down the food in his mouth when he sees the caller. 

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m looking for Lucas Lallemant?” 

“Yeah, that’s me,” he responds in a rush. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m so sorry for calling in so early, but Mrs. Lallemant has been asking for you all morning and we’re having trouble having her cooperate--”

Lucas doesn't let the nurse finish. “I’ll be there, I’ll be there soon. Can you let her know that?”

“Of course, we will, thank you--”

He’s already digging around his wallet before he ends the call, looking up to his boyfriend’s worried eyes when Lucas leaves money on the table that is very likely much more than what they owe. 

“I need to go,” he says, stumbling out of his chair in his hurry.

“Whoa, hey, slow down, what’s going on?” Eliott follows after him, catching his arm in a strong grip before Lucas can dash out to the streets without him. 

“My mom--” Shit, he doesn’t have the time nor the brain power to give Eliott the entire tragic backstory so he settles for an agitated, “It’s complicated. I have to go see her.” 

“Can I take you there?” Eliott asks carefully, holding Lucas’ face in between his hands so that the latter’s eyes would quit darting around and just focus on him. “I won’t go in with you, I’ll just drop you off. Is that okay?”

And Lucas does focus on him, worry increasing as he thinks of what Eliott’s reaction would be. But explaining to his boyfriend why he can’t accompany Lucas to a task as menial as dropping one’s significant other off to their parent’s house sounds more taxing than simply agreeing, so he nods. If Eliott notices the reluctance in the act, he doesn’t question it. 

But the closer their bus gets to the clinic, the more Lucas is starting to regret that decision. 

He can feel Eliott’s confused glances when Lucas gets off at a stop nowhere near the residential areas. The clinic is a lengthy building that takes up the entire acre beside the road— there are no other buildings beside it and the giant sign by the gated entrance gives it away without Lucas needing to explain where they are. 

Chancing a glance up at his boyfriend, Lucas can’t tell what’s going through his mind. Eliott’s face is blank, the confusion and worry from earlier have disappeared. It makes Lucas nervous.

However, that’s something he’ll have to deal with later. 

“Hey, I’m Lucas Lallemant, I got a call earlier for…”

“Ah, yes. I’ll get the nurse for you right away.” The receptionist busies herself with the phone and Lucas turns to Eliott, fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt. 

“Um, you don’t… have to stay if you don’t want to.”

Eliott’s eyes are trained on something over Lucas’ shoulder. “I’ll wait for you out here.” 

“Lucas?” A frazzled looking nurse addresses him and Lucas follows after her, trying not to think too much about Eliott being present for this. “Thank you so much for coming so quickly, we had notes on her file to call you if something like this happens but with Marie gone, we weren’t quite sure how to proceed.” 

“That’s fine, thanks.” To be fair, his mother hasn’t had any terrible meltdowns since moving into this clinic. 

“She’s in her room, not acknowledging anyone, just keeps saying your name.” 

Lucas thanks her again with a small, apologetic smile. The nurse looks young— she’s probably new, judging from the many emotions flitting across her features for every word she speaks. Lucas hasn’t seen a professional in this field who feels so much. Not even Marie. 

“Mama?” No response, but he’s figured that would happen. “I’m here now,” he continues, sitting by the bed and fixing the sheets around her shoulders. She’s situated to face the window, back towards him. “Did you need me for something?”

Still nothing. He sees the untouched glass of water placed beside her pills and Lucas runs a finger over the condensation forming on the side as he thinks of what to say next. 

She’s told him once before that hearing his voice helps her a lot. Especially on days like this, when she’s unresponsive and away from the reality she doesn’t quite want to face. 

“Do you hear it?”

Or maybe not as unresponsive as he’d thought.

Lucas straightens up, leaning on the edge of the bed to hear her soft voice better. “Hear what?”

“The trumpet.” 

There’s only silence around them. “No, mama, where is it?” 

“It’s been playing since this morning.” She turns on the bed, facing towards the ceiling. Lucas can see the pooling tears in her eyes. “The rapture’s here and I’ve been left behind. It’s because I’m such a bad mother is it? A terrible wife?”

“No—” He shuffles forward to take one of her hands in both of his. 

“Ephesians 5:22; wives, submit to your husbands,” she quotes absently, hand limp inside Lucas’ hold. “Is it because of the fight?”

A frown etches its way onto Lucas’ features. “What fight?” 

Tears escape from their fragile perch in her eyes. “He’s right.” She turns her head, looking at him this time. “Your life would be so much better if I just go.” 

Lucas doesn’t know where all of this is coming from but there’s dread forming in his chest, his mind picking up on everything that goes unsaid. “Where are you going, mama?” He shakes his head, the sight of her delicate tears triggering his own. “That’s not true, I don’t want you to go.” 

“So much better without me,” she whispers, head shifting back to resume gazing out the window. Her hand remains small and slack in his grip. It’s evident that she’s not listening to a word he says. 

Lucas gets up, scrubbing at his face as he closes the door to her room. He needs to tell Eliott to leave without him as he’s probably going to take a while— he doesn’t feel right, leaving his mama right away when she’s in this terrible of a state. 

Eliott’s standing by the walls only a few steps from the room and he gently takes Lucas’ face in his hands, wiping at the tears that stubbornly make their way down his cheeks despite his best efforts to stop fucking crying already. 

“Sorry, sorry I’m— this is so sudden I—” He tries to speak through the hitches in his breath. 

“Shh, don’t apologize,” Eliott says, pulling Lucas closer to place a sweet kiss on his forehead. 

This only serves to make him cry harder for whatever reason and Lucas has to take a deep breath, fists balled at his sides as he tries to reign over his emotions. “I’m gonna stay here for a bit, you should go.” His hands raise to hold onto Eliott’s forearms, thumbs tracing soft lines from back of the palm to wrist. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.” 

Eliott nods but doesn’t make a move to pull away. 

They only do so when a pair of footsteps echo in the hallway and Lucas does a double take when he sees the man walking beside his mama’s temporary nurse. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

Both his father and the nurse pause and Lucas is starting to really feel bad for the poor nurse, getting caught up in their family drama all in less than a day’s worth. 

“Please excuse us,” his dad says to her and she takes the golden opportunity to scramble the hell away from them. Eliott doesn’t take the same cue, moving back to give them space but staying within Lucas’ reach. “Hello, Lucas.”

“Why are you here?” Lucas brushes off the niceties. If there’s one thing he can’t stand it’s his father pretending to be a decent human being in front of others. “Have you been talking to her?”

“Yes.”

“Who says you can do that?”

“She’s my wife, I can talk to her.”

“She’s not!” Lucas steps closer, raising his voice as if he’d done the opposite. This man has lost the right to call them his family. “You don’t get to talk to her whenever it’s convenient for you! Did you see what you’ve done? She was doing so fucking well without you!” 

“Mind your language, Lucas,” his father grits out. The sound of crumpling papers makes Lucas look down to where the man’s hands are clenched around a file folder. “I’m still your father and I won’t tolerate—”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Lucas scoffs, shaking his head at the audacity. “You’re so full of it.” 

Lucas sees the man’s fisted hand move— he sees it, but he does nothing to stop it. Maybe if the hospital cameras catch the bastard acting with violence then Lucas would have a real reason to want to throw him into jail. Or at least to have him stop stirring shit in their lives. Legally. 

But no pain reaches him even as he braces for it and when he tunes back in, it’s to Eliott’s back in front of him, one hand gripping Lucas’ father’s wrist in a firm hold. 

“That’s enough, sir,” Eliott says, mock polite. 

All hands drop back down to their respective sides but the tension remains high up in the air. 

His father’s eyes switch from Eliott to Lucas, face impassive. The thick silence only lasts a for few moments, however, because Lucas’ father is as shameless as one can get. He thrusts the file folder under Lucas’ nose, sidestepping the entire wall that is Eliott standing in between the two of them.

“Sign these and mail them back to me, pronto,” the man says, pocketing his hands once Lucas has taken the papers. “Don’t give me a hard time about this, it’s for your own good.” 

Lucas spares him the coldest glance he can manage as he reads through the file. Insurance claims? Transfer permission? To Marseille? Taking a sharp breath through his nose, Lucas simmers in silent rage. So this sad excuse of a man finds a new job that provides extra allowance to employees caring for disabled family members and suddenly he’s husband of the year? Fuck that, fuck him. 

Fuck everything and his fucked up life. 

“Fuck you,” he says, throwing the papers back at his father. He doesn’t give a shit that they land scattered on the ground— maybe the man would pick up some of his dignity along with those papers that way. 

Lucas turns around before his father gets over the shock of his reaction, gazes at his mama’s door but he can’t. He can’t deal right now, not after this. There’s a chance that he’d actually lose whatever’s left of his sanity if he goes in and is faced with the hopeless look in her eyes. His mother, who’s supposed to take care of him, hasn’t been able to care for herself for years and years. His father, who’s supposed to provide for him, has abandoned him for longer. Now, he’s stuck dealing with their escalating issues again, an unwilling tether to a breakable thread. He doesn’t know why his mother’s holding on so tight to the delusion of a complete family, he doesn’t know why his father’s holding on so tight to the farce of being a good man. 

And Lucas is so tired of this bullshit. 

His phone rings with the same unknown number and Lucas wants to throw it to the fucking floor.

He runs for the back exit, not wanting to run into his father when the man leaves the clinic as well. There’s a dire need inside him to breathe in some air, one that doesn’t linger with antiseptic, that clean, fabricated hospital smell that drives him up the wall. 

Eliott’s there to hold him when his knees threaten to buckle under him. Lucas turns into his arms immediately, clinging onto the hood of his sweater as he takes in unsteady breaths.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that,” he says into Eliott’s shoulder, tears making their unwelcome comeback in his tired eyes. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Eliott assures him, hands running back and forth over Lucas’ back. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Lucas retorts. “It’s not.”

“Hey.” Eliott tilts his chin up with a thumb and smiles fondly when Lucas sniffs miserably up at him. Eliott brushes a hand through his hair and kisses him on the forehead again. Lucas’ heart melts, settling calmer with the knowledge that even if his world feels like it’s going for another ride in hell, at least Eliott’s here with him this time, the angel that brings light to his life. “Don’t worry, I get it.”

More tears spill over the corners of his eyes. Eliott deserves happiness all the time, not Saturdays with strange clinics and witnessing shouting matches with horrid fathers. 

“I’m so tired,” Lucas whispers, closing his eyes when Eliott’s thumbs come up to brush away his tears. He doesn’t know what he’ll do without them now-- doesn’t ever want to go back to a time without Eliott’s warm, gentle touches. “I just wish that everything’s normal for once.” 

“Normal how?” 

Lucas gestures to the clinic where he and his father held that unpleasant confrontation. The clinic has started to become his mama’s safe space but now that man’s just gone and ruined it. “I’m tired of that bullshit. Why can’t I just have a normal family?” He shakes his head, feels his phone ringing in his pocket for the thousandth fucking time and he doesn’t even want to think about what’s brewing on that front. Telemarketers aren’t that persistent. “Why can’t I just have normal people around me? A normal life? Fuck, I hate this. I don’t wanna deal with any more of this.” 

Eliott’s quiet above him but he holds Lucas tight in his arms, very tight. Lucas buries his face in Eliott’s neck and locks his own arms around Eliott’s torso, deflating after finally getting those thoughts out in the open. 

“You don’t have to.” Eliott whispers into Lucas’ temple, cheek nuzzling into his hair. 

“Hm?”

“You won’t have to deal with it.” 

“How?” 

“Let’s get you home, okay?” 

Yann is still there when Eliott drops him off at the apartment. Lucas must look as shitty as he feels because Yann doesn’t tease when he opens the door for them, Lucas being too out of it to bring out his keys. He can feel his best friend and his boyfriend exchange glances above his head and in a better state, he’d probably coo at how they’re able to hold silent conversations already. 

But as it is, Lucas just wants to take a goddamn nap.

Lucas turns to ask if Eliott would like to stay with them but his boyfriend brings him in for a rather abrupt embrace, so quick and inexplicably strong that Lucas loses his breath for a moment. His hands fly up to Eliott’s shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of his hoodie as he presses his nose to Eliott’s chest. Eliott has his face buried in his neck and Lucas feels him take a deep, lingering inhale before pulling away with a soft touch to Lucas’ hair. 

“Take care of yourself, hm?” 

Lucas nods dumbly, watching Eliott walk away. 

lucallemant thank you for coming with me earlier do you have any plans tomorrow?

srodulv me and idris actually have to start another project so I'm gonna be busy for a while

lucallemant oh ok airplane mode type of busy?

srodulv yeah

lucallemant okay, take care of yourself this time lol don’t forget to eat and sleep  good night eliott ♥️