#and when you’re thinking.. well ! you end up getting stuck in your head and spiraling. as one does

[dahldahlbills]

nano day 7

total word count: 1085

made it through the first week!!

[krirebr]

I'm Feeling Like I Never Should

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x female reader

Word Count: ~1.3k

Summary: It's bad enough you've been forced to be at this charity gala, but now you have to deal with your ex, Ransom.

Warnings: Explicit language, anxiety, insults, bad parents All of my work is 18+ - Minors DNI

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Masterlist

A/N: This is for @stargazingfangirl18 Siri's Birthday Bonenanza!!! The prompts I used were seeking comfort (or sexy times) from an ex and “Goddamnit, will you just fucking let me do this for you?” which both screamed Ransom to me. 😂 Thank you for hosting such a fun event, Siri!! I hope you had a great birthday!

Thanks as always to @paperweight91 who has an endless supply of patience for talking through ideas with me and helping me whenever I'm stuck.

Any comment, reblog, or ask to let me know what you think will be greatly appreciated. As always, thank you so much for reading! 💜

The noise from the party floated down the secluded back hallway, muted but still audible. You took a deep breath, leaning against the wall. You really hated these things. Too many people. Too much smugness. You didn’t understand why you couldn’t all just donate to charities in private. That’s what the internet was for. But no, you had to watch each other do it to prove how good you all were while eating canapes and drinking too much in designer gowns. You really hated these things.

And your parents knew that. Your mom, especially, knew exactly what rooms like this, full of distant acquaintances and strangers, did to you. Knew how hard forced mingling was for you. Knew the way it made your chest ache. And still, she’d insisted. And then she’d–

You wiped the stray tears from your face. It was pointless to get upset over things she’d always done, over a person who’d never change. You should know better by now.

The door at the far end of the hall opened and you reflexively looked over at the noise to find Ransom Drysdale standing in the doorway in a tux. Shit. Shit. He, of course, had seen you too and now he was striding over.  

 “Not fucking now, Ransom,” you whined, but of course he didn’t listen. He’d never fucking listened. Not when you were kids and knew him in passing. Not for the entire time you’d dated as adults. Why would he start now?

“Wow,” he said, gesturing to you with a crostini in his hand. “There’s a party going on out there and you’re playing wallflower in here? Color me shocked.”

“Yeah?” you said. “And what are you doing in here? Trying to find a caterer to pay to blow you?” No one could get your back up like him. He’d always brought the vile out in you.

He gave you a mean little smirk. “You rather I slipped you a fifty instead? Your mouth always was one of the best things about you.”

You felt your skin start to heat in embarrassment (and something else you had no interest in naming) as you growled, “Fuck off, Ransom. I’m sure this building has other hallways for you to lurk in. Please just leave this one to me.”

You looked down, waiting for him to leave, but he didn’t move. Instead, you felt his intense stare on you. When you finally looked back up, his gaze was softer than you expected. “Is it your mom again?” he asked. 

You pushed yourself back into the wall, for lack of anywhere to hide. It was easy to forget when he was such an asshole, when all you did was trade barbs, how much he’d seen, how well he knew you. All you could do was shrug, with a quiet, “You know how she is.”

He hummed thoughtfully. “Still wants a mini-me instead of an actual human daughter?”

You sighed. It was too much, too real, to have him here like this. You almost preferred it when he was insulting you. “I really just want to be alone right now, Ran. Please.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, shaking his head. His voice was so sure, firm.

“Excuse me?” you bit out, the acid coming back.

“If I leave you alone, you’re just going to stand back here and spiral until you’ve made yourself completely fucking miserable. To the point where it’ll take you days to come out of it. That is not what you actually want.”

His certainty lit a fire inside of you. “I know,” you growled out, “that you think you know everything, but you aren’t actually the expert on me, Ransom.”

“Aren’t I?” he asked, with a hint of that smirk returning. It made you want to punch him in his beautiful face.

“Just leave me the fuck alone.”

“Goddamnit, will you just fucking let me do this for you? I know it’s been a while, but I know you. Better than any of those assholes out there.” He threw an emphatic arm back towards the party. “Including your fucking parents. You can talk to me.”

“And say what, Ran? That she’s still dragging me to these things even though she knows what they do to me? That she’s decided that there’s not much to brag about in a single daughter to her society friends, so these fucking events have become matchmaking opportunities too? That she will never tire of reminding me just how much I’m not the person she wants me to be? It’s just the same old bullshit. It’s not your problem anymore. It barely was even when we were together.” You sagged back against the wall, all of your energy leeched out of you.

Ransom was quiet for a very long moment. You hoped that meant he might leave, finally seeing what a lost cause this all was. Instead, when he finally spoke, he said, “She always really hated me.”

“Yeah, Ran,” you sighed. “She hates a lot of people.”

“No,” he said, with a smile that still had a touch of meanness to it, but, as always, you could somehow tell that none of that meanness was directed at you, “what I’m trying to say is I bet it would fucking piss her off if you walked back into that party with me on your arm. Spent the whole night with me. Left with me, even. I bet she’d be so angry. I bet it’d ruin her whole fucking week.”

You burst into laughter. You couldn’t help it. No one could do petty like Ransom. You’d forgotten how fun that could be. “Yeah? That’s why you want to hang out with me? To piss off my mom?”

“No, that’s why you want to hang out with me. I want to hang out with you because you’re always the hottest person at these things.” And then he gave you the most shameless once-over you’d ever received.

“Oh my god,” you chuckled with an overly fond eye-roll, despite yourself. He was always just so Ransom. The things about him that pissed you off and drew you to him in equal measure never changed. You were sure they never would. “What about you? I’m sure you have lots of people to piss off. How are Richard and Linda?”

He gave you a bright smile. “Oh, just the absolute fucking worst. As ever.”

You laughed again. “Glad to hear we’re still in the same boat, at least.” You pushed yourself off the wall and took a step closer to him, feeling like you might finally be ready to venture back into the party. “What were you doing back here, anyway? Do you need to finish finding whatever it is you were looking for?”

Ransom glanced away from you for just a moment and then shrugged. “Nah. I was bored out of my mind out there and then saw your mom swanning around, in rare form even for her. Figured I’d probably find you back here.”

You touched his arm without thinking, warmth spreading through your chest. “Wait, you were looking for me?”

He shrugged again. “I know how much you hate these things. Thought you might need checking up on.”

All you could do was stare at him, all the best feelings from your time together rushing back over you. “You’re very surprising, Ransom,” you said, quietly.

He shook his head with a rueful grin. “No,” he said, “definitely not that. I’m just the same old asshole.” He offered you his arm. “Come on, let’s see if we can make that vein in your mom’s forehead throb.”

Tag list is open

@stargazingfangirl18 @thezombieprostitute @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @bval-1 @km-ffluv @texmexdarling @ladyvenera @roxyfan14-blog @darkserenity24 @midnightramyeoncravings @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @ronearoundblindly

[stxrshxpxd]

”thats my girl!” part 2

part 1

pairing: dr house x reader

word count: 1.5k

prompt: house and reader have both stayed late and found themselves, tired and worked up in one way or another, in his office

”You’re in my chair.”

I glanced up from my papers with several pens in my hands, one of them tiredly making notes in the patient’s file, and a last one between my teeth. I couldn’t remember I had put it there, what with it being my twelfth consecutive hour at the hospital, but I dropped it when I had to respond.

“Yes, it does the fun spinny thing,” I said in a joyless tone, staring down at the words that were beginning to not look like words anymore. House waddled up to plant his palm on his desk and blink down at me.

“Well, you can have the chair as long as I get to be in-between you and it.”

I thought House had gone home long ago. Just about everyone else had. The halls and his office were dark and the world outside was pitch black as of nearly five hours ago.

“Mhm,” I hummed nonchalantly and laid the side of my aching head in my palm. Staring at the old medical records and documented symptoms of our patient, I dotted my pen in the margin as I tried to think.

“Hey, spiraling into insanity trying to solve the case is my thing! Get your own shtick!” House snapped in a joking upset voice. I stared down still but was distracted by his hand in front of me and his index finger that mindlessly tapped on the desk, and the veins on the back of his hand and up his forearm.

He was impossible and an asshole and sociopathic on a good day, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t find him attractive. There was something about his intelligence, quick wit and superiority that secretly drew me in. But I refused to give in. I knew I could never forgive my lack of self-respect if I were to cave and sleep with him. The only way to get over it, I had always thought, would be to demystify him by getting on his level.

“When were you planning on going home?” he asked. Had I not known better I would’ve thought I detected concern in his voice. I looked up and studied the sharp shadows on his scruffy face. He himself was apparently planning on going home soon, having stuck his biker jacket on.

“Maybe when the patient dies,” I joked tiredly.

“Hm, well, then you might as well start looking at the next case instead,” House said and shrugged as he reached to the end of his desk for a stack of thin folders. I detected a snarkiness now, which I knew was part of his usual repertoire. It enraged me an unjustified amount and I stood up suddenly, nearly crashing the top of my head into his chin.

“I’m gonna save him,” I argued and pointed my finger into House’s firm chest.

“Hey, sweetheart, you’re the one who said he’s gonna die,” he chuckled and raised his one hand in surrender. “Also, haven’t you ever heard there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’?” he added in yet another silly tone, tilting his head down at me. We seemed to end up in this position a lot, I reflected. His pale eyes stared down at me in silence and I recognised he was putting two and two together in his head.

“What’s your obsession with being better than me?” he asked bluntly even though he had the answer. “You wanna put yourself above me and knock me off my pedestal, so that you don’t have to idolise and romanticise me anymore. Oh, this must be killing you.”

“Why do you ask questions you already have the answer to?” I countered, ignoring his calling me out. His smirk had grown wide on his lips.

“So that is the answer?”

“I’m going home,” I declared and shoved past him. My brain was fried and I had no witty one-liners left to throw in his face, plus my own face was growing red at his accusations.

“You can just say you wanna sleep with me,” he teased and I saw his arms were open in a conceited manner when I turned around quickly.

“Can you for once talk to me like I’m a human being with a brain and not a piece of meat?” I asked, trying to contain my frustration. He stood in the shade of my body but I could see him narrowing his eyes slightly.

“Please, you look at me like I’m a piece of meat too. I see the way you undress me in your mind all the time. As we all know by now; I’m not stupid,” House said daringly. It drove me crazy that he still wasn’t seeing the point and he was deflecting and refusing to give me an ounce of respect.

“You’re a jerk!” I stated and closed the gap between us, impulsively shoving him by the shoulders and catching his balance off guard. He was forced to step back with his bad leg and hissed in pain, before instinctively grabbing a hold of my arm for support as his back slammed against the wall behind him. I was pulled with him and crashed into his chest and his hand still gripped my arm tightly.

Suddenly I was in his space for real. All those times of staring up at his cocky face and just barely feeling his breath on my nose there apparently had been that last shred of a border between us. I hadn’t ever been aware of it but now it was gone and it was all I could think about. His heart beat against my chest and his breath was undeniably hitting my face and there was nothing holding me back from kissing him.

I enjoyed every time I had the upper hand with him, and now I did as I pressed a frustrated yet confident and harsh kiss against his mouth. He wouldn't ever be able to pull that kiss out of his lips, it was there forever. I realised though that he could give it back. And he did. He shoved his face harsher against mine and kissed me back while tightening his fist around my upper arm and holding me in my place. And a war broke out, both of us fighting to end up on top. Get the last kiss in, leave the most memorable mark, plant the most saliva in the other’s mouth, leave the nastiest sting of one’s teeth in the other’s lip.

My body was working quicker than my brain and before I knew it I was beginning to tear his jacket off. I could only get it half way off his arms before House’s phone rang loudly and startled us both. Pulled out of our cloud of lust, I let go of his jacket and took a step back. House fished the phone out of his pocket with a sigh. I saw Wilson’s name on his screen and he didn’t hesitate to click the call away. I laughed breathily at that and shook my head.

“I think he has cameras in my office. He’s jealous.”

“Of me that is,” I teased and he laughed shortly.

“Who else?” he was quick to joke along and those were the words that stayed hanging in the air as neither of us spoke for the next few, long seconds. House let out a soft sigh as he looked at me and pulled his jacket up to hang off his shoulders again. I stepped back to lean against the desk behind me and my gaze hopped around the room.

“Why do you think you’re on my team?” House asked at last but it was rhetorical. He raised his brows at me to make a point. “Obviously you’re incredibly intelligent and a fantastic doctor.”

He kept sighing as if this was the hardest thing he had ever had to say and it made me chuckle quietly behind my serious face. I looked him in the eye and we nodded at one another silently, both barely smiling. Then his phone rang again and he rolled his eyes as he pulled it out.

“Bright and early, 8 tomorrow!” House joked and pointed at me before he began walking out towards his office door. I laughed, knowing he hadn’t ever showed up at work before 10 am.

“We stopped kissing!” he answered Wilson’s call with mock annoyance. “You know, you’re gonna have to man up and put a ring on it if you want me to stop running around with other people,” he joked and I could practically hear Wilson’s confused sigh on the other end of the line as House disappeared down the hallway and I was left alone again, absentmindedly trailing my fingertips along my bottom lip.

[euphoricfilter]

regret:

pairing: jungkook x gn! reader

genre: non-idol au || angst ||

summary: regret is the worst emotion

tags/ warnings: kinda just angst… the ending is ambiguous so you can try make it happy if you want

notes: a little ramble based on how i feel at the moment as a little treat before bed <3 i feel very rusty because i haven’t written in so long

☆ where you can find the rest of my stuff!!

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆.

the knowledge that the thing you want to say is going to hurt someone you care about is the worst feeling. a strange sinking in your chest, malleable guilt that chews away at your mind and your heart.

words tacky on your tongue as you rehearse them in your head over and over, a well practiced script. because ending something with someone you like a lot hurts. really, truly, hurts.

it hurts knowing you’ll hurt them and it hurts not knowing how your relationship will be after you utter the miserable set of words stuck in your mind.

jungkook was your first.

jungkook was your everything.

he was perfect, within whatever limitation human perfection has. he treated you like you were the best thing on the face of the earth. you were the light of his eyes, perfect in all your imperfect ways. a piece of you tucked away in his mind all hours of the day.

quick to message back when you text about your day. always on the other end of the phone. always there. the one person in the universe who loved you for who you were, the one person who loved to spend time with you all hours of the day. just the silent comfort of knowing you were there enough for him.

gentle as his fingers would run through your hair, legs tangled together and breathing soft as you linger between the waking world and gentle sleep.

his love for you was all consuming.

which is why you didn’t understand why it felt like your world was crumbling. a phantom hand wrapped around your delicate neck, constricting every breath you took.

a constant spiraling anxiety, tugging you further and further into this abyss of worry and self loathing.

the strange self loathing you have when you don’t know yourself anymore. unsure why. what reason there is to your existence. why people even liked you when it felt like you had nothing else to offer.

and at the time you thought you needed a break.

palms sweaty as you hold the phone to your ear, boyfriend understandably concerned by your recent lack of communication.

“hello..?” jungkook answers.

you swallow, “hi” it comes out quiet, throat already lodged, eyes glossy.

“what’s wrong, baby?” he hums, you hear him shuffle on the other end of the phone.

your lungs inflate as you take a deep breathe

“i..” you start, all that practice getting you nowhere as your mind stops, guilt clawing it’s way up your throat.

“baby?” he presses on, worry evident in his voice.

“i don’t know if i can do this anymore” the bitter words slip off your tongue, “you don’t deserve this”

and of course jungkook had been baffled. though maybe a small part of him knew that this was coming, how you’d slowly started to creep away from him. the unintentional distance scratching the surface of what was rattling around your mind.

“if this isn’t what you want… then that’s okay” he breathes, “i just want you to be happy”

you feel the tears trickle down the mounds of your cheeks, “no” you huff, “god, jungkook please don’t be nice right now”

“what do you want me to do?” he laughs, though you can feel the lack of humor, laugh dry as it’s pushed past his lips.

you wipe your wet cheeks, “call me a bitch or something”

“i’m not gonna call you a bitch” he sighs.

“but you don’t deserve this… i should have at least come in person or… i don’t know” you cry, “i feel like such a horrible person”

“you’re not a horrible person” he hums, “i don’t want you to feel bad”

“too late” you murmur, “i feel like shit… you’re just so nice and i really like you…. but i don’t think i can do this anymore”

the fact he has been so nice had made it harder. the sadness in his voice as he reassured you as you cried. the moment sinking in when you finally put your phone down. you’d shattered something so lovely. you’d ripped away the only person who made you feel seen.

and the week after was no different. he didn’t message you. so you never tried reaching out, how could you when you’d broken his heart.

it felt selfish missing him. wanting any sort of contact you could get.

and when he messaged about bringing some of your stuff over back to your place, that wasn’t enough. you knew that the small exchange wouldn’t be enough because you missed him, and asking for friendship after you ended the relationship chewed away at your mind.

sometimes missing someone is a strange feeling. knowing that the dynamic you once had is totally different, that it might never be the same as it was.

and sometimes missing someone hurts a little less than the guilt that eats away at you for what you have done. or missing someone can hide that slither of regret you have, wishing you knew you’d hate life without them as much as you did with them.

the world is lonely when you don’t feel seen.

dread wrapping around your mind. slowly sinking further and further into the darkness. nights spent thinking about the moments you’d shared together. that maybe you want what was once there.

you missed jungkook more than you’d like admit and it was eating away at your heart.

all it took was a week. a week of silence. a week of being alone and figuring out life by yourself.

you tip your head up, full moon shining down on the street as you stand outside jungkook’s apartment building, feet shuffling against the ground as you hold your phone to your chest. you’d written a message, rewritten the message, thought about what you’d say.

and that selfish part of you wants to send it. that selfish part of you wanting him to be there, for you to touch him, know that he’s really there and you can change what had happened.

[mythicmanuscripts]

Okay so I have a request for an Aemond story about how part of him and readers sex life is her intentionally getting him to break a rule (like not coming) because he’s someone that beats himself up whenever he does something wrong, as well as a lot of the people around him, he asked reader if they could do this so that he can experience her unconditional love and forgiveness after

Oooo this is a very interesting idea. So I've actually had to something similar to this with my sub so I'm very happy to elaborate on something like this. I'm changing it ever so slightly to ensure good BDSM etiquette but the vibe is definitely the same and I hope you enjoy!

So obviously this will be NSFW sub!aemond below the cut :))

When you first this dynamic with Aemond, it was just you ordering him around in the bedroom and also occasionally giving him non-sexual orders too. Aemond loves this, and he really thrives when he's something to do and he knows he's being good.

I think rules first start being introduced when he does something that's very clearly not good for him. You love Aemond, and you never want to see him being self destructive and spiral.

Sometimes Aemond will get to stuck in his own head that he’ll just spiral and not look after himself. He’ll spend hours training with no rest, go straight from training to the library and barely get even an hour of sleep.

You put a stop to this of course, and thankfully the one thing that will always remain trump anything else for him is your orders. The moment you tell him what to do he’s doing it immediately.

After you’ve gotten him into a better state, you tell him you want to have rules around things like that. He likes the idea of strict rules and guidelines and he knows he’d thrive if he had a guide for what you want of him and he could always meet it.

The problem was, Aemond can’t stand disappointing you and he knows there’s always the possibility of him breaking a rule. When you suggest punishment, he likes it, but he goes quiet and then eventually softly asks, “Are you sure you’d forgive me? After?”

Which just breaks your heart.

You’re quick to assure him that of course you’ll forgive him. He still doesn’t seem sure, like he’s afraid if he messes up once he’ll lose you forever.

That’s when you decide to make the list of punishments with him and then to promise him he can mess up a thousand times and you will always forgive him. It’s safe for him to make mistakes here, you’ll always work through it together.

I think Aemond ends up gravitating towards punishments that involve some form of pain or suffering on his part? He won’t feel like he deserves forgiveness if he’s just written out lines or something. Spanking is a very good one for him, especially because he can be over your lap and feel really close to you at the same time.

Other ones he approves of are being made to hold certain positions for long, such as planking or holding his arms out and holding something heavy in his hands. If you’re alone and have space then you might make him run for a while.

He wants to feel exhausted when it’s over. That’s the only way he can forgive himself.

So you reach a point where you have all his rules clearly written out and all the punishments you have to choose from. It's all worked out and in principle Aemond LOVES this set up. But he still has a really hard grappling with the idea that you really will forgive him after the punishment. He knows if you don't forgive him then he will never be able to forgive himself.

You discuss this with Aemond, and you can see how much he wants to do this but he's still scared you won't care for him the way he needs you to.

So you suggest that you push him in a scene and if he fails you will punish him and forgive him. He's uncertain at first and originally turns the offer down but then a few days later he randomly brings the topic up again and says he'd like to give it a shot.

You agree to do so and that night you have him kneel for you. Your plan is so edge him until he's begging and then tell him he's not allowed to cum without permission and ensuring that he does cum without permission.

The moment his orgasm is over he's mumbling apologies over and over again, curling up against himself and being unable to look you in the eye. You call him to look at you and he still doesn't look up. So you put your hand on the back of his neck and then grab the hairs at the nape of his neck and force him to look up.

The moment you put some force into it he instantly relaxes and meets your eye. There are tears in his eyes but he's so much calmer now that he's under your control. You tell him he broke a rule and you're going to make him stand in a T pose while holding a heavy vase in each hand. He does it without complaint of course, and you stay with him the entire time. You don't leave the room, in fact you don't even leave his sight. You sit on the bed and watch him, praising him for how good he's being and how well he's completing his punishment.

When you see his arms start to shake, you count down from 30 to 1 and then take the vases from him and let him drop his arms. The moment you've put the vases down you pull him into your arms and he goes easily, practically falling into your hug and hiding his face against your shoulder.

You walk with him to the bed and let him curl up with you, his head against your chest. That's when you kiss his head and tell him he was so good. You tell him you forgive him and it's all over now.

He looks up at you then, unshed tears in his eyes and he actually manages to give you a small smile? He softly asks, "I'm forgiven? I'm good?"

You nod and give him another kiss on the head, telling him it's all over and now his only job is to lay with you and recover.

He does just that, maybe even falling asleep for a little while. When he wakes up he's feeling a lot better. You expect him to still be a little bit out of it but to your shock when he wakes he's wide awake? He sits up and smiles at you before rolling onto his back and thanking you. You ask if he's feeling alright and he says he feels great. You ask if he's forgiven himself and he nods.

He's just... you've seen him look so carefree? He's got this lazy smile on his face as he lays there, clearly feeling so so much better.

Needless to say, you continue with the rules and the punishments.

[miraclewoozi]

HIGH FIDELITY, PT 2. -c.hs

getting back on the horse is hard, and failing to hit it off with the cute gamer guy you went for a drink with last night has the potential to be your love life’s last straw. but when up and coming rockstar VERNON unexpectedly canters into your life, you find yourself asking one very important question: do you have it in you to saddle up, one more time?

( PART ONE )

pair ; vernon x fem!reader.  content ; strangers to lovers.  up-and-coming musician!vernon x record store owner!reader.   fluff, angst, smut. (MINORS DNI). warnings ; drinking + alcohol is a big theme pretty much throughout. mentions of past relationship breakdowns. reader experiences a lot of stress, anxiety and feelings of doubt, reflected in self sabotage. mentions of sickness (acute). wc ; 12.2k ( ~38k total. ) disclaimer ; this fic was inspired by rob + liam in the series high fidelity and is therefore pretty influenced by the show. if you’ve watched it, you’ll probably see a lot of similarities! i just felt so drawn to vernon in this kind of role that i really wanted to try and put a spin on it. i do not claim that every idea behind this is original. notes ; been working on this one for a while. hope you enjoy it.<3

smut tags : making out. some groping. some 'first time together' shenanigans. oral (m rec) & ball sucking hehe. he has a big cock because i have an agenda to push. implied f rec oral. implied multiple rounds. PLEASE let me know if i’ve forgotten anything.

The clock on your bedside table reads somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning when you resign from trying to fall asleep and force yourself to sit upright, fed up of tossing and turning between your now too-creased sheets, brain stuck in a foggy, hellish limbo. Your mind won’t shut down. Your body won’t rest. Birds are starting to chirp outside and you can hear them clear as whistles through the cheap window that doesn’t quite seal shut to your left. Your eyes squint in preparation as you reach for your lamp and flood the room in yellowish light, drawing your knees up to your chest. 

You’ve spent so much time in your own thoughts that you’ve begun to feel systemically unwell. Your stomach twists and aches, your eyes are so dry it hurts to even blink and there’s an ache behind them that started as an annoying throb, but has grown over the hours into a roaring flame. From the hairs on your head all the way down to your toes, you feel like you could burst. 

You wish you had it in you to cry. To let it out. Keeping this pent up is no doubt making you feel a hundred times worse, and you think it would be nice to feel something other than the endless swooping of the spiral you’re well and truly making your way down. Your alarms are going to go off in a few hours. I can’t let anyone see me like this, you think. I can’t work in this state. 

You throw ideas around in your head for a little while, thumbs tweaking over your phone as messages get typed, edited, deleted, and repeat. Part of you thinks maybe you could manage. Just tough it out and put on a brave face, because actually, what right do you have to be hiding away when you’re the one who ran out one of the nicest guys you’ve ever met? But you just know something will go wrong, even if you tell the boys that you need to camp out in the office for the day. When you need peace and quiet, you can never find it behind that creaky old door. When was the last time you got a full admin day without being called through to help with a problem or deal with a drama? And truly, the idea of facing the world right now makes you feel like you could be sick. 

Sick…

Could you—?

You’ve never enjoyed taking sick days, even on occasions where you’ve really needed them, when you’ve woken up feeling like you’re knocking at death’s door. Sometimes, you swear the guilt that it brings ends up making you feel ten times worse than whatever your ailment is doing to you in the first place. But your exhaustion lets impulse take hold and you’re already sending a message into your group chat with the boys before you can talk yourself out of it, biting the inside of your cheek as the little indicator pops up on your screen. Delivered. 

Well. You’re committed now, whether you like it or not. 

Not feeling so hot. I won’t be in today. Take it easy, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Sorry. 

You pick your comforter up off the bed and wrap it around your shoulders like an extravagant, well-padded cape, trudging your way through the apartment until you’re stood, barefoot and cold, staring into the bright light of your refrigerator. Somehow in the seconds between pulling the handle and now, you’ve managed to forget what is what that you were hoping to find. More out of spite for how the bulbs are currently bleaching your retinas than because you want it, you pull the milk from its home in the cradle of the door and fix yourself a glass to take with you and put it on the coffee table back in your living room.

Without an ounce of grace, you throw yourself onto your couch: your head rests against the arm of the seat like you’re in the apartment of a sketchy therapist, and you’re wrapped up in your duvet as if it’s a sleeping bag, treating yourself to the luxury of a slightly different ceiling pattern to stare up at. And it could be the change of the room that finally manages to drag you under, or it could be the total fatigue of the emotional rollercoaster that has been your last twenty four hours…

But your glass of milk goes completely untouched as you eventually drift off, either way. 

Of course, it’s not for nearly long enough. Barely an hour after finally managing to fall asleep, your phone starts to vibrate harshly against your chest. You tap at the screen blindly, hoping to shut off what you assume is your alarm; when it’s still buzzing a few seconds later, you reluctantly open your eyes, fighting back a sob. It’s not your alarm – it’s an incoming call. Why would it be anything else?

“Hello?” You grumble, putting the phone on speaker and resting it on the couch cushion next to your head. The energy expenditure of holding the device up to your ear feels mammoth.

“Ohh, you sound terrible.” Seungkwan’s voice sounds more taunting than it does concerned, but you pin that down to a symptom of his over-familiarity. “You’re sick?”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“I heard there was something going around,” Seungkwan tells you. Great, you think. Good to know. Now go away. “Yeah – one of my cousins… ah, what did she say…”

“Hey, man, I really-...”

“That’s it. She said she was love sick.”

You sigh so hard you think it’s a miracle you don’t pass out.  

“Don’t–”

“You better make sure Vernon gives you plenty of Vitamin D, today,” he harps on. “It’s quite the disease. I heard it can really–”

“Seungkwan!” You snap, finally, grabbing your phone and barking straight into the microphone. He doesn’t need to know that you’re stretching the truth to its absolute limit, but you certainly won’t let him keep believing that you’re calling out just to get laid. “Knock it off, okay? I’ve been awake all night.” 

(You suppose you should be glad that that much really is true.)

He falls silent, and you don’t know if he totally believes you, but a few breaths later, you hear his voice through the speaker again. He’s softer, this time. Quieter.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, hesitating a moment before he goes on. “Try to get some rest, all right? I’ll swing by after work and check in with some food, and… if you need anything, just text me?”

You’re immediately overcome with guilt at the sharp change in his demeanour, and it does nothing to settle the way your insides are writhing inside you. You clear your throat and pull your duvet up to cover your face, squeezing your eyes tightly shut. 

“I will,” you mumble. “I’m sorry – thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. You can hear the front door to his own apartment slam shut and his breaths pick up as he starts to rush down the stairwell of his building. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.”

“Hey–” he rushes, before you can hang up the call. “Rest up. Run a bath, drink plenty. Love you.”

You cringe a little, but not enough to stop you from saying it back. Sort of. 

“Yeah. You too.”

Nobody could ever accuse Seungkwan of not being a man of his word. As irritating as he can sometimes be, as determined as he is to get on your every last nerve, you’ve never known him fail to come through on a promise. 

Not long after 6:30pm, you hear a series of knocks at the front door of your apartment. You’ve managed to squeeze in odd shifts of sleep throughout the day and though your head is still in a mess, you feel significantly less irritable than you were this morning. Cleaner, as well. One of your (several) naps took place in the bath, where you laid there and let the hot water draw some of the anxieties clean out of you to float towards the ceiling amongst the lavender-scented steam. 

In the knowledge that Seungkwan’s expectations of you are quite literally zero, you don’t bother to fix the one leg of your sweatpants that’s rolled up before you heave yourself off the couch and go to let him inside. He stands in the doorway with a bag of takeout food in each hand, all wind-flushed cheeks and that brilliant smile, and you feel like your stomach settles almost straight away when you see him.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, toeing off his shoes as he comes inside and lets the door close behind him. He sets the bags down on top of the small table by your front door and cups your face in both of his hands, squeezing your cheeks and frowning down at you. “You look awful.”

“Wow, thanks,” you huff, squirming to get out of his grip. “I was going to say I feel a little better, but…”

“You look exhausted,” Seungkwan clarifies, picking up the bags once more and following you through to your living room as you start to walk away from him. “I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t realise you were actually… this bad…”

“This is doing wonders for my ego,” you grumble. “Keep it coming. Really.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“No, no. By all means, continue to kick a girl while she’s down. Super classy.”

Your best friend flops down onto your couch with an exaggerated huff at your petulance. You curl up in the armchair instead, bringing your knees up beneath you. 

“Do you think it was something you ate?” He asks, refusing to give into your bickering and changing the subject matter instead. 

You shrug your shoulders at him. “I don’t-... I mean, it was more of a head… thing?” 

He sucks his front teeth. “What, like a migraine?”

“Sort of?” 

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” He asks. “You’ve had a migraine before. Was it that or not?”

“Well, it’s difficult to-... It wasn’t exactly…”

“Okay.” 

Seungkwan interrupts you as you hesitate again, swinging his legs off the couch and resting his elbows on his thighs, leaning as far towards you as he can while still remaining seated. He wrings his hands, plays with his fingers, lips drawn forward in a stern-looking pout. 

“I thought something was up this morning on the phone, but I didn’t wanna push it because you sounded mad. Now I know something’s wrong with you. What’s going on?”

You swallow hard and cross your arms over your chest, dropping your gaze away from Seungkwan’s very intense one. 

“Nothing,” you lie. 

“Bullshit.”

“Seungkwan!” 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, tipping his head forward and running his hands through his hair. He’s never been a coddler, always one to prefer the tough-love approach: it’s no surprise that he doesn’t appear any softer when he looks back at you. “But we both know that’s crap.”

You can feel your pulse starting to quicken the longer he stares you down. It’s as if he’s burning two great big holes into your head, laser-beams where his pupils ought to be. He’s the master of the hard stare, and you know he won’t move until he hears the truth. 

Maybe I should just tell him. Maybe it’ll help…

“Look, I don’t care how famous he thinks he’s gonna be, if Vernon upset you last night, I’ll kick his ass myself.”

And there are the alarm bells. In hindsight, maybe you should’ve seen this coming; it’s not that far of a reach, and given the few facts that he actually knows, you can’t blame Seungkwan for jumping to this conclusion. It’s quite effective in triggering you to speak up, too. (You think that maybe, this was on purpose. Attack where you’re likely to defend. He knows you like the back of his hand.) In an instant you’re sitting upright with your feet firmly on the floor and you’re shaking your head at him like a dog trying to get itself dry. 

“No, no, no, back it up,” you rush. “It’s nothing like that. He hasn’t done anyth-... God, it’s not him.”

“It better not be,” Seungkwan tells you. His voice still has that dark edge to it, and you’re not sure how exactly to stamp it out. “I’m serious. If he’s done anything-...”

“He hasn’t,” you say more firmly. After a couple slow breaths, you clasp your hands together, swallowing your pride. “The food’s gonna go cold. Go grab a couple glasses and-... whatever else from the kitchen—”

“Only if you tell me what’s happening,” he says, slowly pushing himself up to stand. 

You don’t assent with words, but you don’t have to. You look up at him and nod a couple of times and that’s all he needs. Seungkwan strides off through the doorway, leaving you to shakily exhale away the stress that is once again squeezing at your lungs.

Once the containers are laid out on the table, food is divided up, utensils are handed over and he’s poured you each out a glass of soda, Seungkwan sits back on the couch. He doesn’t prod you, or ask you again – he doesn’t need to. You know what he’s waiting for. Even so, he allows you a few mouthfuls of your dinner first: seeing as this is the first substantial thing you’ve eaten all day, you silently thank him for the generosity.

“All right,” you say, gulping down a few mouthfuls of your drink to re-lubricate your throat. “Okay. Fuck – you’re gonna wanna make yourself comfy for this.”

The only way he moves is to pick up one of the food cartons and settle it on his thigh. Oh, how you wish you were joking. But if he really doesn’t want to heed your warning…

“You know I went on that date the other week?” You ask, biting the inside of your cheek. Seungkwan nods at you, lifting a helping of noodles out of the carton.

“With the hitter and quitter,” he confirms. “I remember.”

“Right,” you say. “Well – okay, wait, no. That’s a bad start. He didn’t do anything either.”

“I mean…”

“Not the time.”

He lifts his free hand up in surrender and gestures for you to continue as he slurps his food into his mouth. You clear your throat, bouncing one leg so rapidly that the decorative candle holder on your mantelpiece starts to rattle. 

“So… it was before the date. I was on my way to the bar, walking down past-... that convenient store. You know the one Chan keeps going into ‘cause he’s got the hots for the person who works there on a Friday night? Yeah, I was walking down that way. Actually running on time for once, and-...” 

You falter, sucking a breath deep into your lungs. It causes your next words to come out more strained than they ought to. 

“I ran into Jaehyun...”

Seungkwan swallows just in time to prevent himself from choking on his mouthful of food, but his eyes still shoot wide and you think his chest convulses a little bit anyway. His is a name you haven’t mentioned in a while, but he clearly hasn’t forgotten who it belongs to.

Because, well… how could he ever forget? 

Your ex-partner. Jaehyun.

The ex-love-of-your-life, Jaehyun.

The man who asked you to marry him after three and a half years of dating only to leave you, heartbroken and alone, six months later because he wanted to travel the world and there was too much that you couldn’t bring yourself to leave behind, Jaehyun. 

How could Seungkwan forget when he had been one of the people who helped drag you through what was not only the worst break-up, but one of the worst times of your entire life? 

Aside from the other week, it’s been… nearly eighteen months since you saw him last. Almost a year since you let yourself talk about him. Even sitting in your own apartment with a box full of your favourite food in your hands, a sense of dread chills you from head to toe just going so far as to say his name. But you’ve started, now, so you might as well finish.

“…right outside that stupid fucking store.”

Your voice cracks when you say it and you hurry to set your dinner down on the floor to free up your shaking hands. You cup them over your mouth, closing your eyes and taking a couple of deep breaths. It helps enough for you to be able to continue, even if you still feel a bit like you’re drowning.

“I thought he…” Seungkwan starts, putting his own food down and slipping off the couch. He comes to sit on the arm of your chair and puts a hand around your shoulders, pulling you into his side. “When did-...?”

“Yeah, uh… apparently he moved back a couple weeks ago,” you swallow, leaning into your friend’s embrace. 

Seungkwan looks down at you and you look up at him, all misty-eyed and drained. There’s more. He knows there is, but now he waits for you patiently, giving you all the time in the world to get through this and to let it out and to lean on him. He doesn’t butt in. The quiet feels worse than the talking. 

“He’s with someone now. They, uh— they met in Paris. Just over a year ago.”

Seungkwan finally dares to make a noise and breathes out heavily, so loud that it’s almost a groan. 

“Y/n,” he sighs, tightening his hold around you. “Shit – I’m so sorry,”

You shrug, staring across the room to where your record player sits on top of a low cabinet, lid open, table collecting dust. 

“For months, I sat here feeling… fucking, sorry for myself,” you say, barely above a whisper. You swallow around the lump in your throat and shake your head. “This whole time, refusing to get back on the horse ‘cause I thought maybe-... but he was-…”

The room goes quiet again as you lose the words you want to say and Seungkwan just rubs small circles against your arm. The problem is that you know this doesn’t explain why you called out of work today. It doesn’t explain what happened last night, and you’re not sure where to begin with that either. Especially seeing as the last time your best friends saw you and Vernon, the sparks flying between you were nigh-on visible. 

“I thought I was handling it, you know?” You sigh, leaning harder into Seungkwan’s soft sweatshirt. “Like… yeah — it hurt… but I was okay? I guess. And then Vernon fucking… kissed me last night—“

“He— what?”

“Hang on — no, he… I wanted him to.” You fumble with a thread hanging off the sleeve of your t-shirt as you talk. Why is this all so difficult? At the same time, why does it feel so juvenile to say out loud? “I just… I don’t know…”

Your wall clock tick, tick, ticks away in yet another painful fall of silence. 

“How bad was he?” Seungkwan asks when you struggle to elaborate. 

You assume this is an attempt to shatter the gloomy atmosphere and lighten your mood a tiny bit; it works, you suppose, because despite yourself, you laugh drily. Not without nudging your shoulder into his ribs, though. He deserves it, and you won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that it does make you feel a little better.

“He wasn’t,” you groan. “Don’t—… you’re such an ass.” 

He pulls himself away from you at the sound of your laughter and moves to sit on the edge of your coffee table instead, careful not to disrupt any of your food while keeping himself close enough to you that he can hold both of your hands in his and soothe his thumbs over your palms.

“You freaked out on him, didn’t you?” 

He sees straight through you and truthfully, no part of you is surprised. No part of you tries to fight it, or reject his assumption, or even question why that’s the first explanation he leapt to. You just nod, looking to where your best friend’s fingers are currently the only things holding you together. 

“Ran out his apartment like the building was gonna burn down,” you sigh, still laughing but harshly now. He squeezes your hands gently, urging you to look up at him. You do, slowly. “It’s ruined everything.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Seungkwan tries, narrowing his eyes at you when you scoff your obvious disagreement. “No, seriously. Anyone can see the poor guy’s got it bad for you.”

“Even if that’s right, you didn’t see his face,” you say. “God, he isn’t gonna wanna look at me ever again.”

“Have you spoken to him today?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Maybe if you explain what happened–”

“Oh, sure,” you snort. “‘Hey, Vernon. Sorry for running out on you like a lunatic yesterday. I ran into my ex recently and when you kissed me, it reminded me of being with him and I got freaked out and had to dash. Hope you don’t mind.’ God.” 

You try to draw your hands back but Seungkwan just holds onto you tighter. “We’ll workshop it,” he says firmly. “Do you like him, or not?”

“Seungkwan–”

“That wasn’t an option.”

You scowl at him. “It’s not that easy.”

“It’s a yes or no question.”

“Yes,” you stress finally, groaning through it. “Yes – I do.”

Seungkwan’s face lights up for a second, his eyes sparkling, lips lifting. You’re half expecting him to say ‘I knew it’. Half expecting him to try and be all deep and philosophical and a little bit motherly, as he sometimes does, especially when you’re upset. He’s always been a sucker for a happy ending. But this isn’t a happy ending, you remind yourself, squaring your jaw. It’s past that, already. It isn’t going to happen, you just know it. 

“Stop being so fucking hard on yourself,” he tells you, squeezing your hands one last time before he lets go and moves back over to the couch so he can finish eating before his food goes cold. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.”

You’re not sure what’s in the air right now, but this has been one of the busiest weekends that you can remember. Both yesterday and today, almost as soon as the store opened, your first handful of customers came through. Apart from about an hour around lunchtime, you don’t think there have been any periods of time where you’ve not had someone milling around the shelves. It makes a nice change, really, from some of your weekend shifts – hours at a time where the dust starts to settle and hardly anyone disturbs the bell above the front door. But this means you’ve been in full customer-service mode basically all day, and you’re starting to feel exhausted from keeping up the persona.

Still. There’s only an hour or so left — you can push through, and when you get home, there’ll be a nice, hot bubble bath with your name written all over it.

The bell chimes again just as you finish serving a group of teenage girls. You watch them scurry away, excitedly giggling about their new albums and you look towards the door with a smile already plastered on, all ready to greet the new customer until your eyes lock with theirs.

A ‘hey, how’s it going?’ stops somewhere midway up your throat, a pathetic little ‘huh?’ sound escaping you in its place. You’re frozen all of a sudden; you and the man who just came in both stand perfectly still, staring at each other like a pair of bunnies in headlights. It takes you forever to register the strap wrapped around his fist, the purse that hangs just below his grip. My bag, you think to yourself, but the voice that narrates your thoughts is hushed for the first time ever, too. Everything in your head gets sucked away into a little vacuum. The only thing left is him.

“I-… thought you might want this back.” Vernon breaks the quiet first. Your throat runs dry. In a flash, the noise in your brain is as loud as it’s ever been and in amongst all the chaos of thoughts and questions and apologies, you can’t pick out the words you actually want to say. 

He slowly unravels the strap from around his hand and takes a few steps closer to you, inching towards the counter. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” he hurries to assure you. Your heart aches for how reserved and nervous he looks. It doesn’t suit him. You hate it. “It’s okay. I’m… really sorry, about the other night. I didn’t mean to—” A deep breath. “I’ll see you around.”

Vernon lays your bag so delicately on the wooden surface that you could be forgiven for thinking he was handling an explosive. Then, he takes one, two, three steps back, before turning and heading to the exit.  

“Wait—” you call out to him, finding your voice at the most critical time, right as his fingers curl around the door handle. “Wait—, please.”

He spins back around to face you as you slip out from behind the desk. His left brow lifts higher than the right but otherwise, he gives nothing away. He doesn’t even say anything as he stands there, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. 

You swallow around the golf ball sized lump taking residence in your throat and clasp your hands together in front of you, wringing and twisting and accidentally popping one of your knuckles in the process. “I shouldn’t have run out on you like that. It wasn’t fair.”

Vernon chews this over in his mind but ultimately just shrugs his shoulders at you. What is there to say? He surely agrees, but he seems so adamant to ensure you don’t feel bad about it happening that he just… says nothing. Again. It’s kind of maddening, even if you fully get why. 

“No, I mean it,” you try again. “It wasn’t you. It’s nothing you did.”

“We really don’t have to do the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ thing,” Vernon offers, his cardboard-like posture softening. There’s even a little bit of a smile on his face, you think — but it’s not the kind of smile you’ve grown used to seeing on him. It doesn’t reach his eyes; he looks kind of like someone who has read their cards and accepted their fate. “Seriously. It’s okay.” 

“It’s not,” you stress, stepping closer to him again. You sigh deeply. There’s something almost relieving about the position you find yourself in. You suppose this really is crunch time; it’s now or never. “Can we… talk? About everything?”

“What? Here?” Vernon asks. 

You glance around the store, at the few people doing a very poor job of pretending to be minding their own business, and frown. He’s right. This isn’t the time, or the place. The problem is, you have a feeling that if you send him away, he may not decide to come back and listen to you. In his defence, why should he? He’s already done more than the decent thing and brought you back that which you abandoned in his apartment; several of your previous conquests would have shoved the bag and its contents either in the trash or the back of a closet somewhere. This is more than you could have hoped for. 

You hold a finger up to him and ask him to stay where he is, and though he looks a little bewildered at the gesture, he ultimately doesn’t move. You rush off out the back to the storeroom where you banished Chan an hour ago, on account of his raging hangover and your low tolerance for his whining about it; you’re genuinely surprised to find him working, and actually alphabetising the records you got in a few days ago like you asked him to.

“Hey. Can you do me a huge favour?” You ask, not announcing your arrival and subsequently scaring Chan out of his skin. He jolts as he hears your voice and claps a hand to his chest, exhaling hard. You don’t entertain his dramatics, though. There’s no time. “I need you to close today.”

“Huh?” He asks, still acting as if he’s trying to catch his breath. “I thought–”

“Please.” You wave him off, knowing he’s about to ask about the task you gave him. “We can look at this together tomorrow. You did great. It’s just an hour – is that okay?”

He chews the inside of his lip, almost looking disappointed. To be fair to him, he did look like he was in a groove when you appeared, but he doesn’t argue with you as he puts down the record in his hand and picks his phone up off the table to his right, silencing the catchy tune that was playing while he organised. 

“Of course it is,” he says, holding his hand out for your keys and starting to walk towards you. “Everything okay?”

“It-...” you start, faltering as you place the store keys in his waiting palm. Your default response was about to be ‘it’s fine’, but you’re trying harder these days to stop pretending, especially around him. So you swallow, nodding your head, flashing him a tight lipped smile. “I’m about to find out.”

“Oh? Is it…?”

A brief pause later, not before cringing at how predictable you’ve apparently become, you say, “yeah.”

Chan claps you on the shoulder as he skirts his way around you, leaning in to give you a sort of side-along hug on his way. You stretch your arm across his waist and pull him closer for a moment, trying to drive home how much you appreciate this. He doesn’t comment on the uncharacteristic display of affection, and you want to find out why, but Vernon isn’t going to wait around for you forever. 

“Go get him, tiger,” Chan whispers.

“I owe you, big time,” you promise. 

He winks at you before he disappears through the door and you follow him briefly, but as he does a round of checking in with your customers and making sure they don’t need any help, you hurry off to grab your jacket from the office.

Vernon is exactly where you left him when you come back out into the storefront, hands unmoved from where he stuffed them into his pockets earlier, rocking back and forth on his toes and looking around from wall to wall. You think perhaps he took your request slightly too literally and the fact that even his feet are in the same position as before you left is reminiscent of a puppy commanded to stay, but if anyone here is at liberty to start poking fun, you think that it certainly isn’t you. Instead of trying your luck, you lock the office door and walk up to him, returning his polite, yet slightly awkward smile.

“You’re not, like, super busy right now or anything, are you?” You ask him. 

His brows crease and his eyes shift side-to-side before they land back at you. He shakes his head.

“Did you maybe wanna… take a walk?” 

Vernon nods this time, still not moving or even pulling his hands out of his jeans. His elbows are locked out and the length of his arms means his shoulders are raised quite some way. He could not be more uncomfortable looking if he tried, but he doesn’t say no and nothing on his face gives away that he wants to reject your proposition, either, so you’re the one to take that tentative first step towards the door. When you do, he follows. 

You left the store at least ninety seconds ago and still, neither of you have said anything yet. Honestly, it’s taking all you’ve got not to just burst and let it all out; it’s building and building and your stomach feels tight, but it’s less of a knot and more like a tightly-coiled spring. His eyes are dipped to the ground, incredibly aware of every step he takes, in what you realise now are a gorgeous pair of platform boots tucked up beneath his baggy jeans. He’s at least an inch and a half taller than the last time you saw him. 

“Your friend,” Vernon starts finally, pausing before he continues.  “Is he always so… you know?”

“What did he say?” You ask, peeking over to him. Trust Chan to start getting —

He hurries to shake his head. “Nothing. He just… kept looking at me. In a weird way, like…”

“Like he knows something you don’t, and he’s not gonna tell you, but he wants you to know that he knows it anyway?” You supply.

“Yeah— exactly like that.”

“Mm. That’s just… Chan.”

“Huh.”

“It’s worse when they’re together,” you say. He breathes out a chuckle and you feel his elbow bump into your upper arm. The distance he put between you when you fell into step outside the store has reduced, you realise now; you’re not sure when, or if it was on purpose. Did he move closer once you started speaking? Was it just so he could hear you better? Or…

Either way, despite being side-by-side, he still feels a hundred miles away from you. This isn’t enough.

“You get used to them, though,” you add, trying to stay on track. “I swear.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Jokes aside, he still won’t look at you for longer than a few seconds, which tugs at something deep in your chest. Discomfort clings to you, and even if it does seem like you’re making some progress, you can still feel unease radiating off him. A cheap laugh at the expense of your friends who aren’t here to defend themselves won’t fix that which you took a wrecking ball to a few nights ago. This needs to be heartfelt and genuine, and more importantly it needs to come out right. 

But when you open your mouth to speak, still searching your brain for the right way to explain why you acted the way you did, there’s nothing. 

How wonderful would it be for the perfect explanation to just tumble from your lips calmly and evenly, and for it to make everything okay? But the reality is that your throat runs dry as petrol fumes make their way through your parted lips. You hold your tongue again just a second later, sighing quietly. 

You’re starting to feel like a lost cause when Vernon breaks the silence for you, again. He slows his steps to a halt when he eventually says, “so.”

“So,” you repeat, freezing mid-stride as you go completely tense. It’s like you’re staring into oblivion’s wide open mouth. “I-… don’t really know where to start. I’m sorry.”

“The beginning’s usually pretty good?” He offers.

You nod. “How much did you want to know?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with telling me.”

If anyone on this Earth deserves a medal for their patience, it’s Vernon. You still haven’t turned to face him yet, your eyes fixated on the traffic signal some fifty yards away from you and you’re pretty sure if someone poked you too hard, you’d shatter into a million tiny pieces. But, as impossible as it seems all the while you try to get your thoughts in a reasonable order, you manage to swallow your nerves. 

It’s crunch time. It’s now or never.

The explanation you give him is messy. Disjointed. But once you start, it becomes difficult to stop: you end up sparing very little detail and circle back on yourself no less than three times. You tell him about how you were engaged and about the breakup, the run-in, your shitty date, gesturing with your hands to emphasise the most important parts. When you start to move again, Vernon makes his steps bigger until he’s walking alongside you. He never interrupts you. He acknowledges every sentence when you pause for breath. Encourages you to keep going when you fall over your words. 

“… and—... I guess I just lost my head. But it wasn’t your fault.” You swallow hard before you continue, “I’m… really sorry.”

He nods slowly, taking his time to digest everything.

“Don’t be,” he says, lightly bumping into your side. It’s a very small reassurance that he’s not going to walk away, but it means much more to you than you’re sure he meant it to. “I get it.”

“I—”

“No, like. I get it.” 

“Yeah?” You ask, only understanding when you catch the very pointed look in his eyes. 

“For sure.”

Of course, it makes sense. Vernon’s young. Attractive. Nice. Talented. He must have been with people before. Hell, you think he surely leaves a trail of broken hearts everywhere he goes. He gets it. 

“We dated for like… five? Years. Her name was Nari,” he tells you. 

A few seconds later, you watch him start to shrug off his jacket on one side and expose one of his toned arms to you. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t need to air his dirty laundry out if he doesn’t want to when he twists at his elbow; you catch sight of a tattoo you remember having seen the night he wore that black singlet on stage. Two lily flowers blooming up the inside of his bicep. 

It’s so pretty. Intricate. The line work is beautiful, the petals shaded with hundreds of little dots. You wanted to ask about it that night, but you never found the right chance, and now—

Lily?

It takes you longer than you’re willing to admit to join the dots, but when the penny finally drops, so does your jaw. Vernon slides back into his sleeve with a big, entertained smile and a little shrug. 

“Mhm.”

“Oh my God?”

“I know.”

It’s not that you’re laughing, per se. This isn’t your baggage to laugh at, no matter how unbothered Vernon seems to be by what he’s just revealed. But you do rub your hand over your face and cover your lips, shaking your head in disbelief as a breath that contains the edges of a bemused chuckle escapes you. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to mind; if anything, it appears to give him a boost to keep talking.

“I got that on our third anniversary,” he goes on to explain. “A couple years later… She called it quits. Turns out there was another guy. I thought about lasering it, but… apparently that hurts worse than getting the tattoo in the first place, so…”

“That’s…”

“It’s whatever,” Vernon says, shaking his head. “They’re my mom’s favourite flowers too. That’s what almost everyone else thinks it’s for.”

You haven’t looked back up at his face since the unveiling, not until now. When your eyes meet again, Vernon tilts his head in the direction you’re walking and continues down the street, spinning now so he’s walking backwards but still facing you. “I just mean... It’s okay. I get it.”

The moment you’ve caught up to him and you’re back by his side, he turns to face front, just in time to avoid a collision with a streetlamp. The lingering awkwardness starts to fade to nothing; you can see it in the way he holds himself, and you can feel it in the way you do, too. Everything relaxes. Your neck, your shoulders, your fists. It all ebbs away. 

“It really wasn’t anything you did,” you clarify once more. 

“So you keep telling me,” Vernon quips, tips of his ears turning pinker by the moment. “It’s okay, I swear. Do you want me to walk you home?”

You accept his offer and lead him down a side-street, picking up a completely unrelated conversation now to purify the air. Before you really know it (what was that everyone always said about time flying?), you come to a stop outside your building. Vernon’s sentence fades away when you stop moving; instead he stills, glancing sideways, and you nod confirmation at him with a lopsided smile. 

“This is me,” you say, reaching into your back pocket for your keys. “So…”

“So,” Vernon echoes, glancing around again. “Can I like, lay my cards out, real quick?”

You nod. 

“I like you.” He shrugs, now toying with the leather bracelet around his wrist. “Like, a lot. But…”

But. You feel like you should have seen this coming. But. But. Of course there’s a— 

“I’ve got some shows coming up out of town and I need to see some family, I’m not gonna be here from tomorrow for like, three weeks...”

Oh. 

Well. On one hand, it’s not what you thought. It’s not a flat-out rejection. It’s not a shut down. On the other? You bite the inside of your cheek and look at your hands, playing with your keys to keep them busy. Under any other lens, three weeks isn’t really a very long time at all. You’re pretty sure that the milk you bought yesterday is going to last longer than that. But three weeks… this early into things? 

That’s longer than you’ve even known him.  

“… and I thought, if you wanted — I could… take you out. When I get back. For real. Maybe.”

Oh.

“Like…?”

“Like… on a date,” he confirms, rubbing the back of his neck. “One where I’m not like… fresh off stage and all gross and shit.”

Relief replaces anxiety on both his face and yours when you let out a quiet laugh. 

“I’d really like that,” you say, twitching fingers suddenly still. “Yeah.”

“I’m not asking you to like, wait around, or anything,” he says as he pulls his phone out of his pocket, fumbles with it, and just barely manages to soften the fall with the toe of his boot before it lands screen-up on the concrete. “We’ll just see how it goes. And it gives you some time to… deal with things. Whatever you’ve gotta do.”

You nod, crossing your arms over your chest as he bends low to pick his phone back up, smoothing his thumb over the small scuff on the protective case. It seems remarkably undamaged otherwise. 

“And if you’re still interested, then…”

“Interested?” You ask with a small grin. 

“Aren’t you?” Vernon asks.

“I—...” You think about playing coy, but when he’s been so open with you about where his head’s at, it feels so silly and childish to bother pretending. That playful ‘I might be’ gets swallowed back. Instead – “Yeah. I am.”

“Cool. Then we’ll figure it out. At your pace, okay?” 

“Okay.”

He grabs his earphones out of his other pocket, slides one in, and is about to step back away from you when you do something you don’t really expect yourself to. Something you’ve never done to a man you can barely even say you’re ‘seeing’. You close the space between you and, as if to lock in your words, push forward onto your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“Thank you,” you say when you fall back down to your heels. If he wasn’t so dumbstruck, you feel like he’d be about to ask what you were thanking him for; as it stands though, he’s frozen, blushing, and the only reason you can tell he’s still alive is because he can’t stop blinking at you. “For… giving me another chance.”

He still can’t quite find his voice, so Vernon just shakes his head, clearing his throat. (No need, he wants to say.) Alas, his lips just open and close soundlessly.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks,” you supply for him. He takes in a deep, mind-clearing breath and nods his head.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

You see the apples of his cheeks lift as he presses his thumb against his phone screen and restarts whatever song he was listening to when he walked into your store. A brilliant smile consumes his face. It only grows as he turns away from you and walks off down the street. 

For a second, you think it’s all very smooth. Movie-like, even.

Then, he stumbles over a crack in the pavement. When he glances back to pray you didn’t watch it happen, he catches you snickering into your fist. He shakes his head and continues on, leaving you to fumble with your key in the lock before you finally let yourself inside.

You overslept. 

Sort of. You heard your alarm go off straight away but you might have snoozed it, and when you heard it sound for a second time, you turned it off completely, telling yourself that you just needed one more minute. You just wanted to rest your eyes for a few more seconds. There wasn’t any danger of you going back to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, you practically fell off your mattress in a panic when you realised that there had, in fact, been a big fucking danger. 

You were still able to wash up well and make it to work on time, but you had to sacrifice your morning coffee stop after seeing that the queue at the register was going to take too long. For years, you’ve refused to consider yourself to be the kind of person who relies heavily on a caffeine kick first thing in the morning, but today? It’s barely ten thirty and you’re seriously flagging: like you’ve never known what energy is, like you’ll never feel it again. 

(You blame the fact that when you first looked at your phone today before rolling back over, there was no ‘good morning :)’ text to entice you out of bed. But you’re trying really hard not to think about why that is, nor why it was such a deciding factor.)

So, when the bell above your shop door jingles and you’re forced to stand upright (a change your back doesn’t thank you for when it has to readjust from the previous hunched position you had adopted over the countertop), you groan quietly. Nonetheless, your tired eyes crease at the corners as you smile at whoever it is that’s come across the threshold.

After a second, your eyes refocus; when you can finally make out their features, it’s as if someone gives you a shot of adrenaline.

“Oh my God,” You say breathlessly, brushing your hair back and moving to stand up fully unsupported. “I thought you weren’t back until Friday?”

“Change of plans,” Vernon grins, scratching the back of his neck. “We drove through the night. I got home like… an hour ago.”

This is the first time you’ve ever seen him dressed down, and hell, does he look incredible. Gone are the ripped jeans, scuffed boots, the leather jackets and chunky rings. Grey sweatpants and an oversized white hoodie (alternatively: the brightest outfit you’ve witnessed him in thus far) drown him, blurring out his usually so distinct frame. You pin both of these things as the reasons you hardly recognised him when your eyes were refusing to cooperate. Paired with what Seungkwan would call ‘dad-sneakers’ and completed by messy hair and tired, soft eyes?

If you could jump his bones right here, right now… God, you would. 

“But hey, it’s nice to see you, too,” he adds facetiously.

“Quiet down,” you groan, fighting the urge to run over and envelop him in a hug. You’re not sure that he’d mind if you did, but you also don’t quite know if you’re ‘there’, yet. “Obviously it’s good to-...”

His arms, both of which have been stuck behind his back since he arrived, now move around to the front, revealing to you a takeout cup and a little brown box from the coffee shop down the street. 

“Oh, shit. It is so good to see you.”

Vernon laughs, coming closer until he can set them both down on the counter. “If it’s wrong, Seungkwan gave me your order, so.”

You start to wonder how on Earth your employee and your… Vernon managed to have this conversation without you knowing. Does Seungkwan have his number? Did they happen across each other on one of their socials? Did Vernon call into the store while you were out in the bathroom a little while ago and ask? But whatever happened, you quickly stop caring to find out: popping the lid off your cup, the aroma of your favourite coffee immediately fills your senses. It’s so overwhelming that you think you might start to cry.

“Oh my God. You’re the best,” you sigh, wrapping your fingers around the cup and taking a long sip, eyes rolling back into your head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Vernon laughs, rolling up his sleeves before folding his toned forearms over his chest. “I got you a-... okay, they only had those gluten free brownies in, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know if they taste the same as the normal ones but… like, he said you hadn’t eaten today and I know you said you liked brownies before, — if you don’t like those ones, it’s okay! I can go back, it’s–”

He trails off, cheeks turning pink when you tilt your head to one side and feel your brow go soft. He asks, “why… are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re so cute,” you say, putting the cup down gently so as not to splash your drink all over the counter. 

“Huh?”

“You really didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to,” Vernon says, shaking his head. 

You almost definitely hear a floorboard creak and quiet shushing sound from just around the corner towards the back room. You don’t call out your eavesdropping friends for trying to listen in on your conversation, though: it barely even crosses your mind. Besides... you can’t take your eyes off Vernon, even if you wanted to. He looks so soft. Like he needs to sleep for a whole twenty four hours, and he must feel like it too, but he came here first. 

“So,” he starts, tapping his right thumb against the inside of his left elbow. (The reason why he came so quickly starts to become evident. He just couldn’t wait to ask.) “You don’t have to commit to anything right now…” The silver of one of his rings glints with every tiny movement. “…but, I was just wondering–”

Smiling at him over the top of your coffee cup, it feels like your heart could burst.

“I was just… wondering… if you’d thought any more about letting me take you out?”

You’ve been texting him almost every day since he left. He’s sent you a hundred and one pictures of statues and cool buildings and nice looking food and the sky, and far more animals than you think you’ve ever actually seen in real life. You’ve spoken to him about your strange customers. What’s going on with your friends. Sent him recommendations for songs that you discovered on obscure albums that you pulled out to play over the speakers. 

One night after one of his shows, he called you. He was a little bit drunk at the time, chilling in his hotel room with a pizza as he informed you that he’d snuck out of an after-party super early but couldn’t get to sleep. With an audible pout, he went on to confess that he was feeling kind of lonely, that he just wanted to hear your voice: one thing led to another and you stayed up talking to him until he passed out at nearly 4 o’clock in the morning.

To put it simply… 

“I’d still really like that,” you say. It’s incredible to you that you can see every one of his features brighten up. 

“Okay,” he breathes, unwinding his arms and pushing his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants now instead. “Okay, cool. I’ll… text you later? We’ll figure something out?”

“All right,” you agree. “Now go rest up, okay?”

He laughs as he swears that he’ll go back home and get some sleep, and with that, Vernon takes his leave. You’re once again alone, but this time you have a drink that could only hope to make you feel as energised as he does, and a treat nowhere near as sweet as him. 

You aren’t complaining, though, and neither are the two men that miraculously reappear the moment the door closes again. 

The smile Vernon leaves on your face doesn’t falter for the rest of your day.

You suppose a big part of the reason you haven’t dated anyone in a while is because you can’t stand the ‘talking stage’. That weird little limbo where you’re never sure if it’s too early to make certain jokes, where you’re checking and second-guessing all your texts, where you can’t figure out if someone’s really into you or if they’re just blowing up your phone to pass the time. The awkward small talk. The ‘getting to know each other’ part. The ‘why haven’t they replied yet — was it something I said?’ anxiety. 

Thankfully, with Vernon, that’s not really something you have to worry about. 

While he was away, you learned that he’s the kind of guy who just spews random facts at you in the middle of his day and then forgets to check his messages for three hours. Sometimes those facts are interesting things about himself. Other times, you’ve known him to shoot you a text just to announce [ just found out tigers have striped skin as well as fur. wild ].

(On one such occasion, Chan caught you giggling at your phone in the middle of a quiet Thursday afternoon, zooming in on a picture of Vernon’s heart shaped birthmark. This put a swift end to checking your messages while you’re at work.)

[ btw, im allergic to peanuts ], he told you one evening. Completely unprompted, just after dinner time. You spilled half of your glass of juice down your front in panic when you put two and two together and scrambled to ask him if he was okay. [ near miss, dw about it! just felt important haha ], he replied, and your response was just a picture of your newly stained t-shirt and a request for him to never do that to you again. 

He can drive — at least, he has his licence — but he doesn’t have a car. He chooses public transport, and he tells you that it’s because he likes not having to worry about fuel prices and it’s ‘healing’ to zone out of reality on the train until he reaches his stop. He tells you that he came up with the melody and two verses of one of his favourite original songs on the bus to his parents house, and one time, he dropped a giant cockroach on a class field trip to the zoo because it tickled when it crawled over his palm and he didn’t like it. 

(You later discovered that this piece of information was triggered by the appearance of a large bug in his shower.)

Last night, as you settled into bed after a whole evening of back and forth, he told you that he has all five of the top scores at the piano game in the arcade downtown, and that he has an approximate 75% success rate on claw machines. When you replied saying you hadn’t been to an arcade in about two years, he was horrified. Enough to send 7 broken heart emojis back to back, as individual messages. [ shakespeare himself couldnt write a tragedy that sad ], he said. 

But, harrowed as he was by your admission, it did give him an idea. 

That idea is exactly how you end up standing side-by-side at a basketball shootout game on Friday night. It’s how he ends up winning one of those cute reversible octopuses — true enough, on a claw machine — which he gives to you immediately. It’s how you watch him hunch over a pinball machine for twenty five minutes before he loses his ball, how you end up tied after four games of air hockey, at which point he calls it quits while citing a ‘cramping hand’.

It’s also how you deliver his ass to him in not one, but two rounds of bowling.

“All right — all right,” Vernon laughs, holding both his hands up in defeat as your final ball takes out all ten pins at the end of the alley. “You made your point. Damn.”

You shrug your shoulders as you walk back in his direction, picking up your glass from the table and sipping your soda through your straw. 

(Though the arcade has an entire menu of cocktails, some of which you’ve never even heard of, the thought of navigating an evening alone with him under the influence of alcohol was totally unappealing after last time. Thankfully, Vernon agreed. You quietly think that being stone cold sober has made tonight even more enjoyable.)

“I told you,” you say when you finally sit down. He puts an arm around your shoulders straight away. Naturally, like it’s instinct. Like it’s a position he’s adopted a few hundred times before. “I’m undefeated.”

“We’ll see,” he says, tapping out a rhythm on the ball of your shoulder. “I still think you just got lucky.”

“So,” Vernon says once your leisurely stroll back lands you outside his place, kicking the toe of his left sneaker into the concrete. “What… are the chances that I get a do-over?”

You blink at him a few times, tilting your head. “What do you mean, a do-over?” 

Does he not think this went well? Gods, it’s probably the best first date you’ve ever had, but what on Earth else could he mean by that? Did you say something earlier, and not realise? Has he not had fun? What does he m–

“I got these new coffee beans,” he says. “While I was away — and I figured something out with the-… the machine? So— ”

Ah. There he is.

You smirk at him, patting the outside of his bicep and rolling your eyes. When you glance down, Vernon is pulling out his key, thumbing over the ridges down the one side. He reaches for the door, happy to take your teasing as confirmation that yes, you’ll come up. Yes, he gets his ‘do-over’...

…but leave it to you to fall for the world’s dorkiest rockstar. 

As he slips the key into his apartment door, there’s a steady pressure against the small of your back: the same one that’s been there ever since he gestured for you to step out of the elevator before him. One of his palms rests over the fabric of your t-shirt and you feel weirdly tingly because of it. He gently guides you inside once the door falls open and doesn’t move away when it’s locked again behind him. 

With an anticipatory shiver, you turn around to face him. You make a point to leave just a matter of inches between your chests. To have your eyes soft, patiently waiting.

Vernon’s hands are - for the first time ever - cold when his fingers hesitantly come up to either side of your face, tilting your head up so that he can see you better, unobstructed by any shadows. You gasp at the contrast between them and your flushed, warm cheeks. He swallows thickly at the sound.

“Is this… okay?” he asks, gaze darting between the space separating your eyes from your lips. “We can slow it down, if you want. I just—...”

Your own hands find home against his chest in response, fingers curling into the muscle beneath them. Not harshly, definitely not so much that it could hurt — just enough that it makes him puff himself up a little bigger. Enough to make him square his shoulders as he drags a thumb over the corner of your mouth. 

“Vernon,” you say quietly, pressing him backwards. Balling his t-shirt into your fists, you send him stumbling over his own feet before his shoulders find the wood of the front door. A quiet grunt escapes him on impact, but he just holds you closer. “Shut up ‘n’ kiss me. Please.”

Clumsiness aside, the moment he obediently ducks his head and presses his smiling mouth to yours, you feel weightless. Even when you tilt forward onto your toes to meet him halfway, it’s as if you’re not even touching the ground anymore: clouds beneath your feet have you floating. Everything about it is so very different from the last time.

It’s so much easier. Not just for you, either – you can feel it from him as well. Your collective baggage has been left out in the hall, barricading the door, shutting out the hesitation and nervousness and leaving you together, wholly alone, to just… be.

Vernon gets increasingly more brave as the seconds tick by. When you separate for air, his head tilts the other way, lips a little parted, hot breaths fanning over your skin as he meets you again, and again, and again. It’s the perfect give and take. Firm one second, waiting for you to chase him the next. The soft sounds he starts to make are amplified as his tongue presses against your bottom lip: he tests the waters, groaning into the heat of your mouth when you so happily invite him into it. He drinks you up for all you’re worth. 

One of your hands uncurls from his chest and moves up to his head instead, threading into his hair at the top of his neck. It feels just as soft as it’s always looked, sliding through your fingers. A gentle pull makes him whine. He draws away from you. His lips are pink and shine with the gloss you touched up in the elevator’s mirror, his lids are heavy, his pupils blown, and looking up at him feels like staring into the sun; you physically can’t keep your eyes open, but it’s so hard to look away. 

You tuck yourself into his neck as a compromise, laying gentle pecks everywhere you can reach. His aftershave leaves a bitter taste on your tongue as you touch the tip to a stretch of skin just beneath the harsh cut of his jawline, but the way he shudders and drops his hold down to your waist makes the sting in the back of your mouth all worth it. You only stop when one of his hands sinks lower still and he squeezes at your ass, making your eyes roll back.

He mistakes your surprise for hesitation, though.

“Is this… okay?” he asks, tipping his head back and pressing his crown into the door. Though he doesn’t withdraw his palm from your backside, he also doesn’t pinch at you again. You press your hips backwards, pushing into his touch to encourage him, with this green light he starts to knead at your cheek over the top of your skirt.

“You have no idea how hard it is to keep my hands to myself around you, do you?” You say, slipping one up the hem of his t-shirt as if to prove your point, splaying your fingers out over his stomach. 

He takes a shallow breath, hovering with it in his lungs, holding back from saying something. You get there before he can.

“I want you,” you say certainly, pulling back from where you’ve been nestled into his shoulder so that you can look him in the eyes again. He releases that breath and his face flushes when his eyes find yours, moving both of his hands back up to your waist, tightly gripping at you as if his life depends on it as he nods. 

“I just… I really don’t wanna mess this up,” he adds quietly. “I—”

When you kiss him again, hoping to further assure that you’re just as into this as he is, he reciprocates, sure. You can tell straight away that there’s a little less bite though — a stiffness to him. He doesn’t relax into you the same way he did a few minutes ago. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, falling back onto your heels. Is this because of the way things went last time, or are you going too fast for him? Selfishly, you hadn’t considered that could be a barrier. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, you know that right? It’s okay.”

You make to step away from Vernon, unwinding your arms from around him to give him some space but he refuses to let you go too far. His hold on you is just as firm as ever.

“Trust me, I want to,” he says. “It’s just–...”

You stay silent, waiting for him to finish. He chews at his bottom lip, his blush deepening right in front of your eyes. To try and steady him, you lay one of your palms over each of his biceps, saying, “Whatever it is – it’s all right.”

“I just… haven’t been with anyone since…”

And when you laugh, it’s not at him (at least, not for the reason a fly on the wall might initially assume). You drop your forehead down onto the muscle of his chest, feeling his heart’s erratic rhythm underneath his clothes as you loop one arm back up around his neck.

“I thought you were about to tell me something awful,” you chide him through your giggles, lightly swatting at his shoulder. He starts to loosen up beneath you, his own body beginning to shake with laughter too. Those strong arms pull you flush against him, the gentle shift of his weight from one foot to another rocking you both side-to-side. “Like– like you were secretly married or you realised you didn’t actually like me, or something. Jesus.”

He stays quiet for another few seconds, but even without speaking, you can feel how he shakes his head above you. You look back up at his face and brush his hair out of his eyes, fingers lingering on his brow when you’re done.

“It’s okay,” you tell him for the third time. The last wisps of anxiety start to fade from his eyes, replaced with the same look he’s been wearing since he showed up at your apartment door earlier this evening. “I don’t care — I promise, I’ll go easy on you.”

The kiss that follows lands hard and with it, Vernon succeeds in wiping your brain empty. You can barely remember what you were even giggling about a few seconds later. 

“Don’t want you to go easy,” he insists against your lips. Then, he’s wallowing up your breathy sighs as he licks into your mouth again, pressing your tongue with his own, reminding you that he’s absolutely not incompetent, just rusty. 

When you make it into his bedroom, confessions and various articles of your clothing forgotten out in the hallway, you separate from each other long enough for you to be able to to lay one hand on his bare chest and push him down onto the mattress. He bounces on the foam and pushes up on one elbow, watching as you sink down to your knees and press kisses down his stomach while your hands deftly take care of the button on his jeans. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop, okay?” You say to him as he lifts his hips up and lets you pull both his jeans and his boxers down in one sharp movement. 

“M’not gonna want you to,” he laughs breathlessly, pushing a hand through his hair as he kicks the remainder of his clothes all the way off and nudges them away to the side. “But yeah. Okay.”

He looks so pretty like this and you can’t help but think he’s even prettier when the first time you curl your fingers around his length, his jaw falls slack and his fingers curl into the bedding underneath him. You drink him in and he watches you do it; your mouth is watering, desperate to feel him press down on your tongue, and you feel a pull towards him that you’ve never felt towards anyone before. 

“God,” you whisper, shuffling on your knees to get a little closer. 

“Okay?” Vernon asks. He tilts his head to the side and you nod up at him.

“Just… had a feeling you’d be…” you trail off, tugging a few times to feel its thickness in your fingers. Why are you mesmerised by it, a little? What the hell has gotten into you? “But it’s actually bigger, and—”

He laughs quietly and falls back onto the bed, crossing an arm over his eyes. “Shut up,” he groans. 

“Yes, sir.”

You lean towards him and gather saliva on your tongue, dragging it from base to tip before closing your lips around the head. He gasps softly and holds onto his next breath, angling his head back further; you give a satisfied hum and slide a little further down. 

The glide is made smoother by the spit your tongue left behind and that which mixes with his pre-cum in your mouth. As you start to bob up and down, some dribbles out past your lips so you start to move your hand, too, smearing the mess all over his cock. When it bumps the back of your throat — and on assessment, you realise there’s daylight between your lips and your fist — you squeeze your eyes closed and whimper softly, holding him in place while you adjust before you can take him deeper. 

“Fuck— just like that,” he gasps out in a shattered groan when you start to move a little more fluidly, no longer too intimidated by your gag reflex preventing him from slipping down your throat. Your hand and your mouth work in tandem to get him riled. Every sound he makes feels like someone injects lust straight into your veins. When you look up at him from between your dewy lashes, you ponder that you’d watch him fall apart from this angle a hundred times a night forever and still not get bored. 

Your jaw starts to ache from the thickness of having him in your mouth and the way he’s restraining himself from fucking his hips up to meet you tells you that he’s too polite to ask you for more. You suck harshly one last time before pulling away with a ‘pop’, using only your hand to pump his length as you shift down to gently suck one of his balls into your mouth. 

The sound he makes is so fucking melodic. You think he’s made a similar one before when he lifts into a falsetto, and you’ve never felt more powerful than you do right now. Knowing you have someone with such a commanding presence eating out of your palm could really do something dangerous to your ego. It’s a bit of a miracle, therefore, that you recognise his desperate tapping at your shoulder, but the second you feel it you settle back from him, looking up at his impossibly tense abs and his blissed-out face.

You catch on quickly and feel your features split into a grin at the realisation. When it takes him a second, you know it’s because he’s still trying to remember the mechanisms it takes to breathe. Bless his heart. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, pushing himself to sit upright and running a hand through his hair. “It-… fuck, that was so…”

“What happened to ‘I don’t want you to go easy’ huh?” you tease, resting your chin on the top of his left thigh, grinning up at him. 

“I’m gonna come if you keep going like that,” he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief at himself. “And trust me — I want to, but…” He swallows hard. “Not yet.”

You nod slowly up at him, starting to get up off the floor. You stop in your tracks when he says, “I’ve gotta taste you first. Please.”

Maybe it speaks too much to the quality of some of your previous lovers, but his desperation takes you a bit by surprise. You blink at him, ignoring how your thighs burn with the position you’ve frozen in. 

“If— that’s okay?” He adds. “I’ve… been thinking about it? A lot. Especially since-”

“Shut up,” you breathe, finally standing all the way up. He shuffles back further onto the bed and you quickly move to straddle across his hips, one hand coming up to hold his jaw in place when you’re in place. “Of course it’s okay.”

You lean in for an impossibly needy kiss, only breaking away when you physically can’t breathe anymore. Vernon’s eyes flutter open at the same time as yours do and as you reach behind yourself with one hand to unclasp your bra, he looks at you like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him.  

(He tells you that you are no fewer than three times before you fall asleep a few hours later.)

thank u so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed it! as always, likes, reblogs, comments & feedback are so so appreciated. there's approx a scene and a half left for part 3 and then we're all done with this baby! stay tuned for that, coming soon.<3 p.s. no i will not apologise to jaehyun, this is what he gets for making me feel insane. thanks !

[frvnkcastles]

Hello love! I know you’re probably still in recovery, so feel free to table this request as long as you like (or permanently if it doesn’t vibe with you!) but it came to mind and I immediately thought of you.

I thought, maybe something happens to the reader as a consequence of Frank’s life. Maybe they’re kidnapped or tortured or otherwise hurt, and it’s really not that bad - Frank gets to you in time, and you’re not too terribly hurt. But it sets off the readers cPTSD, which they weren’t ready to share with Frank yet. And he thinks they’re haunted and traumatized by the event, and you don’t know how to tell him it’s not what he thinks. And Franks doing his whole guilt spiral but you can’t explain that it’s not his fault, that these cuts and bruises are nothing. That you’re not scared of those men. That it’s something else you’re scared of

WILL YOU STILL LOVE WHO I AM ➵ F. CASTLE

Summary: You’re kidnapped and Frank comes to your rescue, but the ordeal triggers your CPTSD and you just want to make Frank feel less guilty.

Warnings: Knives, guns, mild torture, childhood abuse, hurt/comfort

Word count: 1.8k

Author’s note: I hope I did your idea justice!! I don’t feel like this is my best work but it’s a very heavy topic to write about and I really wanted to be respectful and careful with it. Sending you lots of love <33 (Also, I’m realizing I am NOT good at ending fics lmaooo.)

It was supposed to be a fun night out with your girlfriends. And you could have sworn you hadn’t taken your eyes off of your glass, but somewhere between laughing at your friend and reapplying your lipgloss you must have lost focus and that was when they had struck. The dancefloor was full, anyway, so you shouldn’t have been surprised that no one paid attention to a stranger dragging you away, and yet, you wished so dearly that someone would have.

That, you figured, was how you ended up in that warehouse, tied to a chair with your head heavy and groggy, just like your eyelids. You couldn’t tell how long it had been, but you were tired and scared and all you wanted was to go home.

You came to when one of your captors roughly grabbed your chin and tilted your head up. ”Smile. It’s for your boyfriend”, the man grinned in satisfaction, and as he squished your face and snapped a photo of you, you squinted at the flash. It was over quickly but the burn on your jaw remained, and it made you groan as you tried to look around you and process your surroundings.

”What do you say we make you all pretty for when he arrives?” the man spoke up in front of you, and when you turned to look at him, you saw the gleaming knife in his hands. You inhaled sharply and your whole body tensed at the implications, but with your wrists and ankles tied, there was nowhere for you to go.

He traced the knife across your stomach, not enough to draw blood but enough to remind you he could. He then fisted the material of your dress in one hand and, with his other one, drove the blade through the fabric, creating wide tears over your chest and thighs. He laughed mockingly, and as he trailed the knife past your revealed chest, tears welled up in your eyes.

”You’re going to regret this”, you mustered, but the shakiness in your voice didn’t make a very convincing case. Still, the attempt was enough to piss him off, and before you could do or say anything else, he had cut you right across your collarbone.

”Don’t talk back to me”, he warned you, and despite the tears running down your face, you stared back at him defiantly.

”You’re pathetic”, you spat at him, and within seconds, he had swung his hand across your face, making the warehouse echo with the smack. You cried out, and in an instant, you were back in your childhood home — at the hands of your parents, slapped around like you weren’t worth anything else.

You supposed that dissociating from the situation was how you got through the next hour. You were far too busy stuck in a flashback to fully process the cuts you received at the hands of your captor, but you heard every word he whispered in your ear.

You’re worthless. You deserve this. No one’s coming to save you.

It was all too familiar to you. But you had survived then, and you were determined to survive now — you knew Frank was coming to your rescue. Even if you had barely started dating, he wouldn’t let an innocent person get killed by his enemies, and that was exactly why you had faith that it was only a matter of time.

And, indeed, eventually you heard gunshots from behind the heavy door closing you alone with the man. He flinched, and when you both heard Frank roar out his name, you knew it was time. He reacted by circling behind you and holding the knife to your throat, so tight you barely dared to breathe.

Then the door opened, and Frank looked absolutely feral as he pointed the gun at the man behind you. ”Let her go”, he demanded with his gravelly voice, and the man only laughed.

”You stupid—”, he began, but Frank didn’t waste more time — he pulled the trigger, and your captor dropped dead, the knife clattering against the floor as he did.

You exhaled heavily, and immediately, Frank was rushing to your side. ”I gotchu, sweetheart. ’M here now. I’mma take you home, okay?” he rasped, using his own knife to free you from your binds. Your body slumped forward and he caught you with ease, supporting you against his chest as he gathered your limbs and heaved you up into his arms.

”I got you”, he repeated in a quiet whisper, before carrying you out to his truck and taking you home.

Soon enough, you were seated on the edge of your bathtub with an ice pack against your bruising eye and Frank’s hand ghosting over your body to assess all the damage. In hindsight, it really wasn’t as bad as it could have been — minor, shallow cuts littered your skin but they didn’t even need stitches, and the drugs were wearing off. Frank still made sure to disinfect the cuts and apply band-aids where it was necessary, but for the most part, there was nothing to do about the physical aspect.

He helped you out of your torn dress and into one of his sweaters, and the whole time, you could tell how tense he was, like he was a ticking timebomb about to go off.

”You saved me”, you voiced your thoughts out loud, after not having said a word since he had found you. Your words got his eyes to meet yours, and you gave him a weak smile. ”You found me and I’m okay”, you added, and with a wry scoff, Frank looked down at your conjoined hands as you stood in the middle of your bedroom.

”You’re not okay”, he grunted, his voice dripping with guilt and blame, all of it directed at himself. ”I never shoulda let this happen”, he continued as he let go of your hands and started pulling off his skull-adorned vest, only now finding the time to take care of himself.

”It wasn’t your fault”, you argued with a frown, and with his back turned to you, Frank shrugged.

”Wouldn’t have happened to you if you weren’t involved with me”, he pointed out, and from the fragile tone, you felt like he was on the verge of tears. It made you sick to your stomach, and in a sick twist, you started to feel guilty, for causing him distress.

You weren’t used to someone looking after you, either. And his care-taking seemed to only emphasize the voice in your head that your parents had instilled in. You didn’t deserve it. You would have been better off dead.

Swallowing, you gave Frank’s back a caress before dropping your hand. ”Let’s just get some sleep, okay?” you proposed, ready to put this night behind you, and with a small nod, Frank agreed.

It was 4 AM when you jolted awake from a nightmare. You cried out as you flinched up, and reacting to the potential danger, Frank snapped out of his slumber, ready to attack. When he saw you sitting next to him, on the edge of hyperventilating, he ran a hand across his face and reached for your arm.

”Sweetheart”, he called for you, and startled out of your haze, you turned to look at him. You let your shoulders drop and with a sigh, you buried your face in your hands, all the while Frank climbed out of bed and began pacing back and forth in the room.

”This is my fault, shit, I never should have let you go. I never should have gotten you involved in the first place”, he rambled away, ”I fucked up, I did, and now you’re sufferin’ ’cause of me.”

Shaking your head, you tried to open your mouth and tell him. You wanted to. But a part of you was nervous. You hadn’t told him about all your trauma yet, hadn’t disclosed the effects your childhood still had on you, and you didn’t know how to get the ball rolling.

”Frank”, you croaked out, but he didn’t stop pacing. ”Frank, listen to me. It’s not your fault”, you insisted, and finally, he gave you a weary look, like he was catching you in a lie. But it wasn’t a lie — your nightmare hadn’t been about the man with the knife, it hadn’t been about the cuts or the bruises, it hadn’t been about any of it. It was like any other nightmare you had on a regular basis, and if anyone was to be blamed, it was your parents.

”Look… I didn’t want to tell you like this, but it’s not the first or the worst time I’ve been hurt”, you started, and finally, Frank paused and sat on the edge of the bed to be closer to you.

”Whaddya mean?” he wondered, curiosity and concern in his voice as he looked at you intently.

”My parents”, you shrugged with an unamused chuckle. ”I guess all of this is reminding me of the way they treated me. They put me down, physically and verbally, and no one’s ever looked after me the way you do”, you explained, and instantly, something shifted in Frank’s eyes.

”Shit”, he breathed out, ”baby, I’m sorry. You realize you deserve to be looked after, right?”

You licked your lips in thought. ”I don’t know”, you answered truthfully, and that was what got Frank to snap out of his guilt. He sat closer to you and took your hands in his, peppering your knuckles with kisses.

”I mean it. I’m real sorry no one’s shown you that before. But lemme tell you, I was going outta my mind tonight. I was wonderin’ if I’d ever see ya again. And that’s a feeling I never wanna deal with again. I want you in my life, and I fuckin’ wish it wasn’t so dangerous”, he ranted, and pursing your lips together in a faint smile, you nodded.

”It really wasn’t that bad. I’m okay. You came to get me”, you assured, before adding, ”and you’re worth it.”

Chuckling, Frank ducked his head before leaning in to kiss your forehead. ”You’re worth everythin’. I adore you, y’know? There ain’t a thing I wouldn’t do for you”, he emphasized, holding you close to him.

”Thank you for saying that. I might need some support for the next few days. I think I can manage it for the most part but after getting triggered things suck a little extra for a while”, you spoke shyly, worried that you were putting too much pressure on him, or revealing too much of yourself. This thing with him was still so fresh, and that was why you had avoided telling him about your past before — it was too much too soon. But now, you supposed, you both had baggage and it was just a part of who you were.

”Hey, you got it. Anything else you need right now?” Frank tilted his head at you, and quickly, you nodded.

”Yes. For you to stop blaming yourself and to get in bed with me”, you decided, and with a chuckle, Frank nodded.

”Aight. I’ll try my best. C’mere, sweetheart.” And with that, he wrapped you into his embrace and helped you fall back asleep, satisfied that you were still in one piece and home with him.

[nanasparadise]

Crushing Ember

☆彡 Yan! Resident Evil Village Chris x gn reader

☆彡 Word count: 1348

☆彡 I do not condone any 'yandere' behaviour in real life.

! TW: stalking mentioned, implied isolation, implied age gap, yandere behaviour, overall soft though, Resident Evil Village spoilers, MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY/MINORS DNI !

Summary: You work at a daycare and Chris picks up Rose too late.

You sigh and take a look at the clock again. 7.15 pm. It’s getting late, Rose should have been picked up by now. The girl is blissfully unaware of your wish to finally return home. Though you think she secretly wants to leave as well. Her little fists rub her eyes as she desperately tries to suppress a yawn and focus on her drawing instead. You decide that sulking won’t make the situation any better, so you ask Rose if you can join her, which she happily agrees to. Besides, this isn’t so bad: she’s a sweet child, you could have definitely been stuck with more tiring candidates of the daycare. 

You both are immersed in your drawings when you suddenly hear a pair of footsteps walking up the flight of stairs. A few moments later, Chris appears at the threshold, finally ready to pick up the girl. He’s not even out of breath, but given his physique (all strength and muscles), you aren’t really that surprised. You gently nudge Rose, effectively getting her out of her focus. She first looks at you, but her big grey eyes soon wander over to Chris. A smile spreads over her face and she excitedly runs to him.

“Uncle Chris!” 

He leans down and opens his arms. Rose takes the invitation and all but jumps into them. He lifts her up and holds her close to his chest, the gentle smile on his face mirroring the one of the child.

Uncle Chris. She always calls him that, but you’ve been wondering if they’re truly family. Mia and him don’t look alike, after all. And he can’t be related to Rose’s late father, since they don’t share the same surname. Maybe he’s just a family friend and it’s simply Rose’s way of referring to him. Chris does love the little girl like family (anyone can see that, really: the way his eyes shine when he picks her up, the affection in his tone, or the fact that he never smokes around her, only before he comes upstairs), so does it matter if he’s related? In the end, Mia approves of him as a person who can pick up Rose and the girl clearly feels safe around him, so it’s none of your business. 

“I’m sorry for running late.” Chris shoots you an apologetic look. “You know, with the traffic and whatnot…” 

You offer him a small smile. “It’s fine, those things happen. Let’s just not make a habit out of them.”

Chris chuckles ruefully. “Yeah, let’s not.” 

You hate to admit that you’ve been strangely intrigued by him. It’s not only his attractive looks, but also the way he seems to carry himself, with an air of determination that makes you question how someone could ever doubt him. A quiet shame washes over you when you think about him in such a manner. The little wrinkles on his face give away the age gap between you two. And you don’t even know if he’s got a partner. God, he could be married and have kids for all you know.

Chris pulls you out of your spiral of thoughts. “Seems like someone else also wanted me to be on time.” His voice is gentle as he points with his head to a sleeping Rose.

You can’t help but smile in amusement. “Yeah, well, she was very adamant on not taking a nap this afternoon. She had an important tea party to attend with her plushies.“

He laughs softly at that. “She’s a stubborn little thing sometimes, isn’t she? She’s definitely got that from her father.” Even though his gaze is fixed on the girl, you could see the distance in his eyes, a quiet storm of grief and regret brewing in them. You wonder if they were close.

“Anyway, I’ll close the daycare for today and then head home. I’ll see you next time you’re picking her up. Have a good evening and take care.”

You turn around, assuming he’d leave now, so that you can wrap up everything. A call of your name stops you in your action. Your heart flutters a little. Maybe it’s a bit pathetic of you, but you’ve never considered that he’d remember your name. After all, the times he picks up Rose are few and far inbetween. You face him again. 

Chris shoots you a tender look before he opens his mouth once more. “Please let me know if I’m being a prying jerk, but I was wondering if you’d like to grab dinner sometime.”

Your face drops for a moment. Guess that answers your question about his relationship status. You quickly school your expression into something calm and neutral again, something that doesn’t read ‘complete fool’. “Oh, uh, you’re asking me on a date?”

Great. That definitely didn’t scream ‘complete fool’. You just hope your embarrassment isn’t too obvious. 

Chris’ eyes crinkle in amusement, the small wrinkles handsomely framing his face. “Yes, if you’ll have me.” 

“Uh, yeah, sure, sounds good to me.” 

His expression seems to slightly light up at that. “Great, I’m glad. Here, let me just get your number so that we can find a date and place.” With his free arm, he fishes out his phone and hands it over to you. You quickly type in your digits in his contacts, still not quite believing your luck. 

He offers you one last smile while reassuring you he’ll send you a text once he’s back home before he eventually leaves. 

Once he’s gone, you cannot help suppressing the stupid smile creeping on your face. 

***

Cool night air hits his face as Chris takes another drag on his cigarette. The smoke fills him up nicely and momentarily distracts him from his conflicting feelings. The pinging noise of his phone makes him draw his attention to the device. You’ve sent him a text, confirming that you’ve received his message. He smiles at his phone. 

As he watches the ember of the cigarette fall into the ashtray, he thinks back to when he first saw you at the daycare. Chris knew from the beginning that you’re a sweet thing: he could tell by a single glance. The warmth you radiate did not only draw the kids in (though he can’t deny how much of an effect you have on them: Rose cannot stop talking about you whenever he picks her up). 

He leans against the railing of the balcony and takes a last drag, savouring it. Chris is well aware that his feelings for you are selfish and somewhat twisted. If he had been sensible, he would have kept his distance. You didn’t belong to his world: a world filled with bioweapons, terror, pain, loss. But can you blame him? Your presence drew him in like a moth to a flame and now that he’s got a taste, he can’t let you go. And it’s not like you didn’t want him back, is it? Oh, how he relishes in the small glances you give him, how your gaze stays on his eyes or his muscles. You think you’re being inconspicuous, don’t you? You truly are adorable. 

Chris is sure that you’ll have it in your heart to forgive him for the stalking he’s done on you. Or how he’ll keep you inside, once he’s made sure you’re truly his. You’ll eventually see things his way, especially once he’s shown you all that gruesome footage of his missions. 

Chris considers himself a good man, but he’s no saint. He’s gone through too much shit, seen too many innocent people perish in a blink of an eye. He’s been in too many life-threatening situations and for what? He’s only human. Chris feels this loneliness inside him, this seemingly endless emptiness that you might be able to fill. So let him be selfish for once. Let him have you, protect you, love you. Let him show you that you don’t need the outside world. 

He stubs out the cigarette butt and walks back into his flat. The last burning embers turn into ashes in this cold, starless night.

[lindsey-laufeyson]

Saying Goodbye

Tom Hiddleston x wife!reader oneshot

Your husband just finished filming season 2 of Loki, thus concluding his long journey as the God of Mischief, but as a stunt double for The Marvels, you’re stuck doing a reshoot on the night of the wrap party when all you want to do is be there for him.

Warnings: angst, fluff

A/N: After watching the Loki finale, as well as Tom’s interview on Jimmy Fallon, I guess I wrote this to process my own grief (and be a little self indulgent)…

When you walked into the wrap party, you spotted your husband immediately, talking to Ke Huy Quan across the room by the bar. Tom’s dyed black curls were slightly disheveled and he was gesturing wildly with his hands, clearly very passionate about whatever the topic of conversation was. You couldn’t help but smile to yourself as you watched him, until you were pulled from your thoughts by a familiar voice.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Owen Wilson greeted you, pulling you in for a hug. “Glad you could make it!”

“And just in time, evidently,” you added as you pulled out of the hug. “Is he doing any better?”

Owen shook his head and sighed. “He’s not doing any worse, I can say that much.”

The two of you walked over to Tom and Ke, and you slid your arm around Tom’s slender waist. “Sorry to interrupt,” you told them both.

Tom’s eyes lit up when he saw you. “Darling! You made it!” he said excitedly, standing up from his seat at the bar and quickly giving you a hug and kiss before addressing the entire room. “Y/n Hiddleston, everybody!” he shouted, pointing at you as if you were the big surprise guest for the night. Everyone played along and cheered while you waved bashfully at them all before turning back to Tom.

“How are you doing, my love?” you asked him, concerned, as you cupped his face in your hand.

“I’m wonderful,” he assured you. “Why?”

You glanced at Owen apprehensively. “Owen said you were sort of… spiraling.”

“What?” Tom looked at Owen confused. “You said I was spiraling?”

“You’ve been spiraling a little,” Owen said quietly from behind you. You and Ke proceeded to watch the two men bicker back and forth.

“I think I’d know if I was spiraling.”

“I mean, it’s a subtle spiral, but a spiral all the same.”

“Is there even such a thing as a subtle spiral?

“So you’re admitting that it’s not subtle. Good!”

“No, I’m saying there was no spiral to begin with.”

“Oh my god! If either of you say the word spiral one more time, I’m going to start spiraling,” you shouted abruptly.

“I promise you, darling, I’m fine. Really.” Tom attempted to reassure you as he pulled you close to him. You looked over your shoulder at Owen briefly who held up his hands in defeat.

“Alright,” you conceded, before turning to Ke. “I’m so sorry, Ke! I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.”

“It’s okay,” Ke said cheerfully. “Tom was just telling me about how I shouldn’t get too attached to anything because everything ends eventually.” You and Owen both gave Tom a look.

Tom chuckled nervously and then clapped his hands together. “Shots anyone?” he asked, as he turned to the bartender. “Another round of Loki shots, please! And add one more for my beautiful wife!”

“No need,” Owen called after the bartender. “She can just have mine!”

“Oh no, I’m good. I’m driving,” you chimed in, shooting a glare at Owen.

“That’s fine. I’ll just have both of theirs,” Tom said nonchalantly.

You quickly stepped between Tom and the bar. “Hey, maybe we should forget the shots and have a little fun of our own at home.” You gave him a playful wink, hoping to distract him.

“But you just got here,” he protested. “Please, let’s stay for a while and celebrate the end!”

The way he said ‘celebrate the end’ sounded excited and happy, but you could tell it was forced. Still, it was his night tonight (though he would never accept it if you told him that), and you didn’t want to be the one to spoil it, so you obliged.

You, Tom, Owen, and the rest of the ‘Loki’ cast and crew spent the next couple of hours laughing, dancing, and sharing stories (most of which ended up being about Tom), and it seemed like maybe Tom was handling things better than you had originally thought. There was a moment when he reprised his rendition of ‘Very Full’ from the first season of the show, and you thought for a moment, during the slower part of the song, that he was finally letting his feelings to the surface, but as the song picked up again, so did his demeanor. It wasn’t until people started to say their goodbyes for the night, that you really began to see his happy exterior fade.

“I think it’s time to call it, boss,” Owen said to Tom as the last few cast members departed, leaving only the three of you along with a couple of closing staff in the venue rented out for the night’s festivities.

“I suppose so,” Tom agreed with a sad smile.

“We’re still on for lunch before your flight leaves tomorrow, right?” you asked Owen as he hugged you and Tom goodbye.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” he replied. And with that he left.

You then turned to your husband and held out your hand. “Come on, love. Let’s get you home.”

The two of you spent the car ride reliving the fun of the party, and were laughing as you walked in the front door of the house. As you set your purse down on the buffet in the foyer, Tom wrapped his arms around your waist from behind and nuzzled into your neck.

“Thank you for coming,” he said softly.

You placed your hands over his and swayed back and forth. “Of course, baby. But I want to ask you one more time…” You turned around to face him, putting one hand on his shoulder and the other gently cupped his face. “Are you alright? Because it’s perfectly okay to not be okay right now. You just closed a huge chapter of your life and no one expects you to just take it on the chin.”

As you said this, Tom’s eyes slowly welled up with tears as he finally let go of the mask he’d so tirelessly upheld all night. “I’ve said goodbye to Loki before, and I thought I could do it again” he began, his voice cracking slightly. “But it’s only that much harder now. He changed my life. He’s become such a deeply rooted part of me over the last 13 years. How am I expected to just move on from that?”

A tear fell down his cheek and you brushed it away with your thumb. “No one expects you to, sweetheart,” you replied in a soft, comforting tone. “You’re allowed to grieve.”

Tom squeezed his eyes shut, causing more tears to fall as he hugged you tight, burying his face in the crook of your neck. You held him there for a moment, stroking his hair while he quietly cried.

“But, Tom,” you continued, taking his face in both hands, lifting his head, and looking deep in his eyes. “Even if Loki’s on-screen journey is over, it doesn’t mean he’s gone. You said it yourself that he’s a part of you. Even if Kevin Feige never calls you up again— which, let’s be honest, is never out of the question at this point—” He let out a small chuckle. “As long as you’re around, so is he, and that’s because you put your heart and soul into that character, much like everything else that you do. It’s one of the many reasons I fell in love with you.”

Tom smiled at you through his tears before leaning down to kiss you tenderly. When your lips finally parted he leaned his forehead against yours and sighed. “Thank you, love,” he whispered.

“No, thank you Tom,” you replied, tears forming in your own eyes now. “Thank you for giving us Loki.”

…

One year later:

[tacoma-narrows]

Twenty (Three!) Years of Humanistic!

Abandoned Pools' first album, Humanistic was released 23 years ago today, on September 25th, 2001! For anyone who doesn't know, Abandoned Pools is my all time favorite band! I found them through Clone High in September of 2020 and immediately connected with a LOT of their songs, and in that time, Humanistic became my all time favorite album! A spot that it still retains to this day hehe.

So when I found out that the following year, almost a year to the day from when I started listening to Abandoned Pools, was Humanistic's 20th anniversary, I knew I wanted to make something big for that occasion! I ended up making a drawing based on each song in the album! This is similar to what I did for Owl City's album Cinematic later on, which I posted last year.

This is also sort of a look at proto Let's Get Back! in a way! I made this when LGB! was still just a duo act with PB and Shep, since Rye and Pumpernickel didn't join the lineup until I was about halfway through the project, and the band wasn't officially named Let's Get Back! until February of 2022 lol. The cover image here is based on the actual album cover for Humanistic, and I edited later to say "Covers by Let's Get Back!" to make it consistent with the rest of my LGB! art :3

Each piece in the series is below the cut along with the song they're connected to and some explanation about each one. Again, these pieces are three years old at this point, so some of the art is a bit wonky looking and some of these piece I'd do differently if I were to do them today, but most of them still hold up pretty well I think! :D

1: The Remedy

I based this one on the line “save your breath, your soul is hollow” and wanted to do something simplistic but still interesting! According to my friend who also likes the song, this is “exactly how that song feels” lol. It was fun working with silhouettes here, which is something I've done here and there in the time since.

2: Mercy Kiss

I decided to not actually draw them kissing bc the song says “I don’t need your mercy kiss” haha. Wanted to capture sort of a defiant attitude for this one. Posing is a little off here, and I've tweaked some minor things abt their design but overall one that I'm still pretty happy with :]

3: Start Over

I was SUPER happy with the posing on this one, I love the sense of motion it has. Basically, I wanted to express being stuck in a cycle and just wanting to go back to the way things were, which was something I was REALLY feeling at the time, but is still sort of applicable today.

4: Monster

Another one I REALLY like, with this one, I wanted to show that I can be a force to be reckoned with when standing up for myself. Or at least that’s how the song makes me feel. It’s a good rampage song too. This is another case where I really like how the pose came out. As you can also see, this is the only piece without PB since I wasn't sure how to incorporate him into this idea, but I’m sure he’s still involved somehow lol. Also this is the best song called Monster, I do not take criticism at this time.

5: Blood

Blood always feels like a sort of gloomy, spiral-y type song, so that’s what I went for. The line “we watch it burn, and we never learn, this can’t be what you’re waiting for” was really the focus for this one. A neat vibe with this one overall I think that I'm pretty happy with.

6: Suburban Muse

Suburban Muse makes me think of like, a fake sitcom town where things look normal, but things aren’t as great as they seem if you look a little closer. It even says “cue the canned applause” at one point. Also, those sort of, weird reality dreamscape neighborhood liminal space images like this where you can see where it's coming from but they just feel, off y'know

7: Sunny Day

This one is kinda weird because Sunny Day is kinda weird (though in like the best possible way, I love it). I couldn’t quite come up with a solid idea for both my OCs here, so I based them on two separate lines: “my head is inside a cloud” for PB, and “get off the bathroom floor” for Shep. In hindsight, I don't think the two separate lines approach really worked here since it feels more disjointed and not really representative of the full song, but I still like it well enough.

8: L.V.B.D.

This one was hard to come up with something for. I’ve never been super crazy abt L.V.B.D. since it feels, Very Hetero™ and I’m not about that. But it’s still sounds great and I’m definitely super glad it’s part of the album. Went for drawing Shep and PB here as little stuffed dolls, which is related to the acronym in the song’s title (which stands for Little Virgin Baby Doll) and I couldn’t think of anything better aha. I should draw plushies more often though

9: Ruin Your Life

Important: Shep and PB are only upset with upset with each other for the sake of this drawing, as I refuse to let anything bad happen between them for real. Anyways, the expressions were really fun in this one, and oh boy does this song feel very relatable over the last year or so.

10: Never

This one is very similar to Ruin Your Life for me, where it’s a sort of comforting during a dark time kind of way. Just crossing the days off hoping that things will get better soon, that’s what I went for here. The calendar is listed as 10/12 since this is the 10th song out of the 12 on the album, and the image is a reference to a previous drawing I had done of PB and Shep together :3

11: Seed

Personally, Seed is my least favorite song from the album as a whole, for similar reasons to L.V.B.D. but in a, more gross kinda way that conflicts with my ace side. The song still sounds great musically for sure. Even tho I’m not super crazy abt the song, I actually really like how this drawing came out, in fact it might be my favorite out of the whole batch, ironically enough lol. The boys are looking down into a hole from the line “there’s no more grace to fall from, there’s nowhere left to go but down” and I'm really happy with how the perspective turned out!

12: Fluorescein

Finally, Fluorescein is my favorite song of the entire album, and my favorite song in general! It’s so aggressive and loud, I love it. I decided to draw PB confronting a giant Shep bc the song makes me feel like I can take on a huge adversary and win >:] Although I do like what I chose to do here, I kinda wish I had come up with something better to represent my all time favorite song lol

So in conclusion, like I said, Humanistic is my all time favorite album and it means so much to me. Really all of AP’s work really means a lot to me, but Humanistic in particular. I found the band through watching Clone High and I am all the better for it. So thank you to Abandoned Pools for making something that I’ve gotten so much out of and I absolutely cannot wait for the sixth album coming at the end of next year!! :D

So I hope you guys liked this little trip down memory lane with me, and if you're also an enjoyer of Abandoned Pools, please let me know what you think of these and what your favorite AP songs are! I'd love to know! And if you don't listen to Abandoned Pools, I highly recommend their music if you can't tell lol. If you enjoy early 2000s alt rock sort of stuff, there's a solid chance you'll enjoy Abandoned Pools :3

[nightfallgame]

(NSFW) SHORT — Hiroyuki Yamada (02)

Originally Written: 08-11-21

Prompt: Hiroyuki + a childhood friend and a marriage proposal that he never expected them to take seriously.

Hiroyuki wakes up to someone beside him. He’s in his shitty apartment. That’s the first thing he takes in. And... that’s a good sign. Probably. Even as drunk as he’s sure he was last night, at least he didn’t make the mistake of following the wrong person home and getting stuck. 

But there’s still a warm body right next to his, and when Hiroyuki dares to roll over... it’s to a face that he remembers all too well. 

The memories come crashing down hard. An old friend came to visit last night. He tried to drink a little to drown out his anxieties, to try to make himself a little less of an awkward, painfully stressed-out mess. And. Well. 

It clearly didn’t end so well for him. 

An instant later, when he curls up a little more into himself, Hiroyuki catches sight of his hand... and the ring around a very particular finger. His heart almost stops. What did he do to you? There’s no way that thing would be there because of something you chose. No, he had to have spiraled once he was drunk— and while Hiroyuki’s known himself to make stupid decisions when alcohol clouds his system, forcing some kind of engagement is new. 

Panic settles in his chest and takes root in his lungs. He did this to a friend, probably the only person he knows who was truly willing to visit him and give him a chance. Hiroyuki whines. He needs to be quiet. You’ll hear him. If you wake up, he’ll have to face the mistakes he’s made, and then, he’ll have to see someone who might have cared look at him with disgust. 

And then, you roll over and pull him into your arms. 

Hiroyuki almost shrieks. His whole body stiffens up like a coiled spring at the sudden contact, and it’s only through sheer willpower that he avoids letting out some kind of pathetic sound. You hum and squeeze him tighter. 

“Mmm... it’s nice to wake up to you,” you giggle. “I’m so happy you said yes! I was really worried there that you might not accept.”

“Wh-What!?” It’s undignified to the max, but still all he can say. 

“Marrying me. That’s why I came last night, remember? I’m here because we promised... and yeah, you had to get drunk to calm down enough to properly talk to me, but that’s okay. You said yes.”

Your adoring tone is coming close to giving him a heart attack. There’s no way someone could be talking about his sorry self in such a way. But just the same, when he fights to think through the mild hangover clouding his head, Hiroyuki stumbles upon the memory of you saying something very similar years ago, back when the two of you were in high school. 

“Y-You tracked me down for that—!?” he sputters incredulously. 

“Yeah. I was serious. I needed to wait until I was sure I could take care of you, but I meant what I said back then. And you’re okay with it, right? It’s like... I really do want to make you happy with this.”

“There’s n-no way you’re serious,” he squeaks. “Y-You can’t—, this is m-me we’re talking about. I’m a drunk! I w-work a shit job and, a-and there’s no way I can afford to be a husband, fuck—” He’s rambling now, panicking even more, and Hiroyuki can’t get a grip on himself for long enough to shut up the parts of himself that are insistent he feels guilt. 

“Don’t worry about money. I’m really sorry I took so long to get back to you. I needed to make sure I could do things properly, so... I can take care of things. You’re so sweet.” You reach forward and cup his cheek in your palm. “The same precious friend I knew way back then. I’ve missed you. So if you want to and you’re really okay with it, marry me. I won’t make you. You can take that ring off right now if you’d rather.”

The way you’re looking at him is terrifying. There’s so much genuine adoration in your eyes that Hiroyuki is pretty sure he could cry. Or that he might be about to. He remembers you vaguely— most of his past has sunk into a haze from stress and too much to drink, but you’re still there. 

His own family doesn’t want to see him. Even growing up, no one expected him to ever bring home a spouse. If you marry him, you won’t have any in-laws. He doesn’t have any money or assets to share. All Hiroyuki has is his cramped, dark apartment and the few possessions scattered throughout it. You claim that you’re capable of handling everything, but why would you want to? What has he done to earn something like that? You don’t get anything out of it. 

But the thought of someone actually wanting to have him for a husband is making Hiroyuki’s throat go tight and his chest heat up. He used to dream about that kind of thing, back before he realized it’d never happen. 

Even if it’s an obvious trick, can he really make himself say no? 

“I...” He hesitates, but desperation soon gets the better of him. “I-I’ll marry you. Please, um, p-please take care of me.”

It’s all he can do to whisper that plea and look away. Meeting your eyes while he still feels close to combusting is just too much. What if you take it back now and laugh in his face? Or what if he sees disgust in your eyes that someone as pitiful as him dared to assume you were serious? 

“Aaah, thank you! Thank you so much!” Instead of any of that, you shriek with happiness and pull his tense body even closer to yours. You bury your face against his neck and laugh with delight. “I promise, I’ll make you so happy. I’ll do everything to take care of you. You’ll never have to be alone again.” Your grip is tight and there’s conviction in your voice. Hiroyuki is so stunned that all he can do is lie there and fight back the insistent tears. 

. . . 

And it does indeed turn out to be true. You marry him.

The wedding isn’t as terrifying as Hiroyuki is expecting. You keep it small, in part because of his nerves and in part because it’s not like he has any family who’d even show up. In no time at all, he’s a married man. 

Maybe a couple of nights after, though, Hiroyuki’s nerves are eating him alive. Even though you went through with it, there are parts of his head that are utterly convinced this can’t be real. It’s legal. There’s a ring on his finger and you signed the papers and everything, but he still can’t stop feeling like he’ll wake up to you laughing in his face for falling for it. 

So when the two of you are going to bed (you share a bed now, in your apartment), Hiroyuki brings himself to ask the question. 

“A-Are you sure you want this...?” 

Without alcohol in his system, it’s hard to speak. You’ve slowly been getting him to drink less, and while that does mean he feels less like shit all the time, it also means that he’s in a constant state of nervousness with nothing to dull the strain. Asking something like that is way too hard. 

“What do you mean? This as in... being with you?” you ask. Hiroyuki nods and your nose wrinkles up. “Seriously? I married you, you goof. How would I not want to be with you? I love you. You know that by now.”

As you talk, you get closer and closer to him, scooting over until you’re in his space. Hiroyuki’s breath grows tight. Your bed is bigger and warmer than his futon ever was, and sharing it with someone feels entirely different than sleeping alone. You’re always holding him, getting closer and closer until he’s lost in your touch and not feeling quite so scared. This time, like many others, you lean in and kiss him. Your mouth is soft against his, and in no time you’re pawing at his shirt with reckless desire and need. 

He doesn’t resist. When you’re like this, it’s better to just enjoy it... and try to block out the negative things still hovering in his head. Focusing on the feeling of your lips trailing down his jaw is better than paying attention to the persistent thought that he’ll never, never be good enough. 

You suck a mark into the space just below his jaw. If he was still working at Oracle, Hiroyuki would have had to squeak at you not to do it where he couldn’t keep such a thing hidden. Now, when you’re helping him search for a new job that won’t tear him apart and leave him in pieces, Hiroyuki has no excuse. It feels good. He’s hard in no time. 

Legs rubbing together to try to get any kind of friction, Hiroyuki arches up into yet another bite. You’re down to his collarbone, his shirt is gone, and he feels like he’s starting to burn up under your persistent touch. 

“H-Hey, why are y-you being so... affectionate...?” Hiroyuki mumbles. His dick is twitching embarrassingly in his underwear, and if you keep this up, there’s a good chance he’ll come before you even manage to touch him. 

“To prove that I love you and want you to be my husband forever,” you say bluntly, as if blurting it out doesn’t faze you for a second. 

“Th-That’s—!” Hiroyuki starts, but promptly gets cut off when your mouth finds one of his nipples. The sudden shock of heat makes him twist and squeak, his cock pulsing out a shamefully large drop of pre-come from that much stimulation alone. His hips buck uselessly into thin air.

It doesn’t stop. You cover his chest in marks and bites and slick trails of your saliva left behind from kisses and the drag of your tongue. You suck and bite at his nipples until they’re pink and flushed, pebble-hard, and so sensitive that Hiroyuki swears he’s minutes away from spilling in his pants like a teenager. He wants you to touch him, but begging is just too much, and anyway, how is it his place to ask for more than this?

One of your hands finds his thigh. You rub long, slow lines over his skin, up to the juncture of his thigh and pelvis, where the aching bulge of his cock is just inches away. There’s no way you can’t see the (slowly growing) wet spot where his tip rests. Where he’s leaked so much it’s visible. Hiroyuki’s face burns at the thought... but his dick twitches once again. 

“Do you want my hands or my mouth?” you ask, smiling so fondly it hurts. “Either one is fine. I want to make you feel good.”

Hiroyuki opens his mouth to say that you can do whatever you’d like to him, but he closes it slowly when his thoughts stall. He... He’s allowed to ask. You’ll do what he requests, and you won’t be angry with him for it. 

“Your hand, p-please...?” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. This is beyond embarrassing. And— while he’s come to adore the feeling of your throat around him, there’s something special about your gentle fingers stroking him off like he deserves all of the kindness you can possibly offer. 

“Of course.”

His underwear is down a second later, and your fingers curl loosely around his shaft. You don’t tease. Instead, you stroke him at the perfect pace, only breaking the rhythm to kiss him stupid as he whines. 

This is bliss. He’s in someone else’s bed where he’ll fall asleep by their side. He’ll wake up to your face in the morning, and every morning after that. There’s someone who will touch him whenever he wants it and make sure he doesn’t break down in tears after he comes and what would have been loneliness sinks in. You care enough to keep him from drinking himself to death, and you give him all of the world you can offer. 

“I-I love you,” he moans. “So much. Thank you f-for wanting me—, I’m so grateful, I-I really am. I’m happy to be your husband.”

Hiroyuki buries his face against your shoulder after that. He comes in your hand within a minute to the sound of you saying you love him in return.

[spxllcxstxr]

I’m the Fool • N.T

(Gif not mine)

Request: I really love your writing. Could you do a pining after tonks while she loves Remus and it just overall being very angsty? If not totally chill but just wanted to say I love your writing too — anon

Summary: Seeing your longtime crush with someone else leaves your mind spiraling

Warnings: fem!reader (no pronouns used), internalized homophobia (?), Remus x Tonks, kinda panic attack descriptions, a little bit of canon divergence

Word Count: 690

A.N: yes I was thinking about Good Luck, Babe! while writing this lmao, hope you guys enjoy!

•

You’re really trying not to be obvious. Your eyes have been stuck on her figure across the wooden dining table the entire meeting, but honestly how could you not stare? How could you not admire her beauty, especially when it’s right in front of you, nestled underneath Remus Lupin’s arm?

You glance down, fingernails picking at the polished wood as Moody drones on about the Deatheater spies infiltrating the Ministry. Biting your lip you know you should be paying attention; the fate of the the British Wizarding World was much more important than your feelings for your best friend.

And yet, as per usual, she captures your attention.

You had hoped that this infatuation with your best friend would have ended when the two of you graduated from Hogwarts, but when you saw her on the first day of Auror training a few months afterward, you knew you were fucked. Tonks always handled her wand gracefully and the way she effortlessly dueled the other trainees was mesmerizing. Her spells were always well calculated and her flicks of the wrist always confident. The way strands of her colored hair fell perfectly over her face made you just want to brush them away gently.

But you were too scared then, unknowingly throwing away any chance of confessing to her.

Remus had her in the exact way you wanted her.

Your eyes drift back up to the pair, watching the way Remus’ thumb traced circles on her shoulder and how she would occasionally lean her head back in the crook of his neck.

Moody, Snape, and Sirius argue about something but it’s all muffled in the back of your mind. You try your hardest to focus on their voices, but it’s so hard to with your heart beating wildly in your chest.

Haphazardly, you rise from your seat, ripping your eyes away from your friend, instead focusing on the tips of your shoes. “Excuse me,” you mutter, leaving the dining room to hurriedly rush to somewhere less overwhelming. You feel her gaze on the back of your head until the door finally separates the two of you.

Lightly shutting and locking the door to the second floor bathroom you pause to stare at yourself in the mirror, hand over your heart. You will yourself to take deep breaths, to just calm down.

Your clothes feel too tight and your skin itches and all you want to do is forget about this stupid crush on Nymphadora Tonks. These unreciprocated feelings bubble beneath your skin making it harder to catch your breath.

“(Y/N)?” There are light taps at the door, making you grow quiet. “Are you alright, mate?”

The fact that Tonks is just outside checking up on you has your stomach twisting and your mind drawing up blanks.

You could tell her. You could tell her right now and get it over with. Maybe she’d shun you out of her life, you think, being so uncomfortable around you that she’d never want to see your face again.

The little morsel of hope hidden in your thoughts makes you think of the possibility of her kissing you the moment your confession leaves your lips, and she would break up with Remus and the two of you could fly out of England to be together and forget all this war nonsense.

You wish it could be that simple.

“(Y/N)?” Tonks asks again, snapping you out of your thoughts. “If you don’t respond, I’m kicking this bloody door down.”

You snort at that, making sure you look presentable before unlocking and opening the door.

Your friend’s features are scrunched in worry, her eyes darting around your figure searching for any physical explanation as to why you ran out from the meeting.

“Are you ok?”

You swallow down whatever it is you thought of saying only moments before. “Yeah, I was just coming back down.”

“Oh good!” She smiles, lifting your arm up to place it around her shoulders as the two of you descend the staircase.

And from the second floor bathroom to the dining room table, you know what it feels like to be Remus Lupin.

•

[stitchdfox]

Cross posting from my Twitter fan account!

Eddie’s on Tour pt 1

Eddie can’t remember the last time he tapped out first from a night of celebrating with the band post show. Sure, they were only on the third show of the tour they, by some miracle, booked to open for A Day To Remember. It felt like a fever dream.

His head was swimming with excitement from the exposure of playing with a legit band. They had only ever played at local bars like the Hide Out and that one time they played Battle of the Bands in Indy. It’s crazy the last show of tour will be at the House of Blues in Chicago.

Eddie had to figure out a way to make it through the tour without vibrating out of his skin.

So, here he was, half drunk and spiraling in the van. Thanks to his favorite crop top his back stuck to the vinyl of the middle bench he deemed the best place to suffer.

“Goddamnit,“ he sighs as he shoves his hand into his pocket, pulling out his phone. He opens his contacts and selects /Uncle/ and clicks the speaker icon before dropping the phone on his chest.

As it rings Eddie realizes how late it must be in Indiana and thinks about just ending the call when—

“Hellooo?” The voice says on the other end.

“You’re not Wayne” he sputters out.

“You’re right.” The voice is deep but sweet somehow.

“Why are you on my uncle’s phone?” Eddie is so confused.

“I’m not, actually.”

“Shit.”

Wayne had a new number from when he moved out of the old trailer.

“I’m an idiot,” Eddie whispers. The new number was under /Wayne/. He’d have to write the old man, like he promised, and tell him about the mix up. He’ll find it funny—

“You okay over there, stranger?” The voice asked.

Eddie had gone silent, lost in his thoughts.

“That’s a loaded question, sweetheart.” Eddie drummed his fingers on his bare midriff.

“That’s fair. Why don’t you start with why you were calling Wayne?” The man on the other end of the phone urged him on.

“Why the hell not?” Eddie hums. “I guess, I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed.”

“Hmm.” There’s a sudden clatter of dishes. “Shit.”

“You okay over there?” Eddie holds in a laugh.

“Fine. It’s fine.”

“Are you doing dishes? Oh my god. I’ve called a complete stranger and I’ve interrupted his chores. You were probably busy cleaning up after you made dinner for you and your lady friend. She’s patiently waiting for you to join her for the movie you settled on but you’re that weirdo that insists on doing the dishes right away.” Eddie rubs his hands down his face.

A sharp laugh comes through the phone. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”

“Hardly.” Eddie sighs. “Look man, I’m sorry I interrupted. I’ll let you go.”

“Wait.” The response was quick and Eddie could swear there was a pinch of desperation. The man continues. “I mean… uh. I don’t mind. See I just… um. I wouldn’t mind the company is all I’m saying.”

Eddie couldn’t help the stupid grin on his face anymore than the butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

“Well then… Hi.”

“Hi.” The man chuckles on the other end. “Wanna tell me why you’re overwhelmed then?”

“It’s kind of a long story.” Eddie isn’t sure he’s ready to dive into this deep rooted fear of failure with a complete stranger. Nice enough as he seems, it would be weird, right?

“I’ve got the time.”

There’s silence from both of them for a three count.

“Fine. I’m in a band.” Eddie pauses.

The man on the other end hums.

“We have only really played dive bars and Battle of the Bands type shit before, right? And I’m convinced one of the other guys made a deal with the devil to get us here, touring as the openers for one of our favorite bands. We’re three days into this tour and I can’t even enjoy it because I’m waiting for the fallout or to wake up from this dream and I can’t stop wondering when they’re gonna pull the rug out from under us. You know?”

“Sounds like you don’t see how amazing you really are then.” The man’s voice is so soothing, motherly almost. “Clearly this favorite band of yours saw something in you. They probably started out just the way you did. Give yourself some credit here, man.”

Eddie swallows back tears. “You don’t even know me though. I’m the freak, the fuck up. I…” he sighs. “Why do they think I can do this?”

“I dunno. It’s not just you though. You’ve got your bandmates with you. Don’t you believe in them?”

“Of course!”

“Don’t you trust them?” The man asks.

“With my life.”

“Then reel it in a bit. I’m sure they need you as much as you need them right now.” The man’s tone goes low. “Trust it.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Oh, I know I’m right.” There’s a smile in the man’s voice.

“Cocky, cocky. Wish I had your confidence.” Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Shit. I’ve got call.

“I can let you go, man.” Eddie couldn’t mask his disappointment in letting the stranger off the line.

“No! No. Sorry. It’ll be a quick call. I’ll be back.” There’s a lull. “I promise.”

The phone beeps and Eddie is left with a faint static sound and his buzzing thoughts. This is absolutely not where he thought he’d be after the show tonight. There’s something about being on stage and the confidence he has in himself when he’s performing, but the second the lights go down and their gear is packed up, he feels like an imposter. Maybe the stranger was right, maybe he just can’t see what everyone else does. Maybe–

“You still there?” The man comes back on the line.

“Yeah. I– Still here.” Eddie covers his face, embarrassed.

“My friend needs a ride and I’m the designated driver it seems. I gotta go, but I…” there’s a soft huff, Eddie can almost feel the warmth of the breath, “I’d like to chat again. I mean, uh, if you’d like to. I figure the tour could get lonely? But now that I say that I realize you have so much happening and so many people there and fans to meet and this is probably dumb and–”

“Hey now. I’m the one that’s supposed to be spiraling tonight. You can spiral the next time, okay?” Eddie chuckles.

“Next time?” The hopeful sound of the man’s voice was all Eddie needed.

“Yes, sweetheart.” Eddie coos. “Next time.”

“I’m Steve, by the way.”

“Eddie.”

“Can’t wait. I’ll talk to you soon, Eddie.”

The line dies before Eddie can make a bigger fool of himself.

There’s a ruckus outside and he jumps as the rest of the band topple into the van.

“Are we sleeping in the parking lot tonight, fellas?” Eddie asks.

They all grumble. —

Part 2 on the way. You can catch up on Twitter if you’re impatient enough. Ha!

[joyfullyacat]

Unordinarily Foolish

haha, don't hurt me, not beta'd it's another hurt no comfort - but this time no one dies! woo!! inspired by @gniteruirui 's animatic here (except then it spiraled way from that and im a little sorry-)

CW: so much self loathing, general heartbreak, pining when your heart wars with your brain, no happy ending word count: 2.7k

-

You’ve hit rock bottom it felt like.

What respect did you have for yourself any more?

There’s been a pain, irate and grating on the nerves right in your sternum lately but it was better than feeling numb.

At least, you think it is.

You go years single without affection, you had your time to date and you took time away from the pool, you got your licks from it, you thought you learned all the lessons. 

Now look at you.

Unsteadily, your hands follow the curves and grooves of the toys you clean with wipes. Under here, around there, get into that crevice. Your thoughts travel and your eyes wander to the subject of those thoughts.

Sun is cackling with giggly kids hanging off every limb, clutching about his legs and wrapped about his arms. He’s carefree and radiant, in his element, there seems not to be a care in the world with him… And maybe that was what had you ensnared. You stare at the panel in the back of his neck that his jointed neck comes out of. A distinctly inhuman appearance to his otherwise human personality.

Just maybe, this is what kept you away. You were an ordinary fool with a silly heart but your brain was logical… Cruel but logical.

You were an ordinary fool with not so ordinary lessons to learn. Like how bad of an idea it is to be in love with something - someone incapable of feeling as you do with temperamental chemicals and functionalities that dictate every part of you from head to toe. Who won’t share the experiences of life with you like an ordinary couple.

What you had was not an ordinary love.

This was no ordinary circumstance.

When did you take his exuberant nature for something more than what it was? When did his crushing hugs of friendly greeting become something that stole your breath away - more than just physically. The nicknames too, the sunshines, dewdrops, and daydreams, every single one of them stuck into you and hid between your ribs, becoming new butterflies that’d flutter in your stomach haplessly against your will.

You have enough respect for him to not dump this onto him or his lunar counterpart, Moon. 

Oh yes, a counterpart. A double decker to your psyche, really.

To be in love with not one but two distinct personalities and individuals that weren’t even human. Who likely could not grasp the concept of love, it wasn’t something to be easily defined like happiness or sadness, it was muddled by every emotion and bolstered by them similarly.

This wasn’t including the fact that you were fleeting in their very, potentially eternal, lives.

This also wasn’t including the fact that at any moment, they could be torn in twain and scrapped against your wants to make new animatronics, better ones, new personalities. They wouldn’t remember you - even if they kept the same face.

It already happened once, after Sun and Moon were split into their own bodies.

Most of their memories outside of the employee data bank were lost. You were pretty much another face in the crowd to them.

You were happy to befriend them again - at the time that’s what they were. Friends.

Because denial is not just a river in Egypt and you were hopelessly flowing down it back then, oh it’s just a crush. Merely infatuation! They were new, exciting, interesting and human enough, but you know now.

No, you were utterly endeared and helpless to how your heart speeds up around them.

Well over a year later.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Moon approaching, slinking in the designated shadowy corners you created with well placed large plushies and decorative hangings.

The animatronic lifts a finger, pointing to what you’re doing unknowingly. “I think that toy is clean enough…” He speaks in his typical low grumble, a permanent growl to his voice that rattles in his chest. Something that comforted you in your lowest moments when he’d hug you on days of stress.

His words bring you back to the moment, looking from him then over to the poor anthropomorphic turtle figurine with colored bandana in your hand.

You had stripped some of the color from it. Faded smears of green staining the little white rag.

“Ah, yeah. It is…” You cough, setting the toy in with the others and picking up a sort of tubby looking unicorn toy with cheap white hair and a set of sparkles on its hind quarter.

“You’ve been spacy lately.”

Ah, he was always the more confrontational of the two. A trait you admired and feared. You thought you were confrontational once upon a time, then you met him. Then you learned how ham-fisted your emotions could be to you. Making you clam up entirely.

Both were observant, eventually a comment would be made on your actions lately, your behaviors. Whatever vitals they’ve been able to read from you.

Sun was far more subtle, much more rounded. Acting sort of as a bumper to your feelings with careful gestures and honeyed words that served to entrap you further, much to his unknowing warmth. Leaving you little sticky notes of well wishes that you’d save and so on.

You felt�� Dirty, really. Dirty about it all. Guilty may be more apt. Taking their gifts of friendliness for your own selfish needs. To fuel fantasies of your own design.

A low timbre breaks you from your thoughts, “Starbright?”

Right. He’s still there.

Moon brought himself closer, even in that moment of thought. Just an arm’s length away, well for him anyway. You’d have to lean forward.

“Things have been… Going on is all, Moon. Sorry about that, I’ll pay for a replacement toy.” The funny turtle guys are usually stocked in toy aisles, it’d be easy to pick one up the next time you’re going out for the easiest and cheapest premade meals because you haven’t been able to bring yourself to cook properly otherwise lately.

He doesn’t look convinced, looking past you to something just over your head, probably over to Sun if you had any guess. The two had a way of communicating without necessarily having to be in speaking range of one another.

Likely some technological link.

You watch as he nods once... Twice... Three times before suddenly decisions are made.

“...Come on, you’re taking your break early.” Is all he says before you’re swept up with an arm around your shoulders, promptly escorted to a doorway tucked behind one of the play structures with quite the tall baby gate that keeps wandering tikes from going into it.

Also known as the way to their personal room that wasn’t through that funny hook system that made them “float” to the balcony.

You squirm and writhe against his hold, trying to dig your heels into the carpeted area with all your might but he practically picks you up in your struggles. “Ho-Hold on now, I didn’t agree to this-!”

“Don’t care…” He draws out in a mocking sing-song. “Attendant’s orders, we care for children, this includes adults who act like children.”

Was this how you lost what shred of dignity you had left? Cornered to fess up by your coworker and crush? Could you dumb it down, play it off as if it were nothing? Make up a story about something in your personal life going on?

…Better question, did you want to?

You wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this, even if you wanted to do it with both of them present at the same time. No having to repeat yourself and becoming mortified twice over if there is only one band-aid to rip off, after all.

Though that question was answered for you with the reveal of Sun awaiting you up the stairs, hands on his hips and leaning forward, primed up and ready to chastise you for your mistreatment of yourself.

Quickly, you try to find a way out of this impromptu grilling on your being, “I know you did not leave the kids unsupervised.” You point out stiffly, gesturing to the balcony that the solar-themed animatronic likely scaled.

“You are correct, I set up their nap hour! We are both capable of it… Remember I was doing it alone for a time!” He’s chirpy in his jest but distinctly, you feel that smile he can’t necessarily help is more sarcastic in this moment.

“So that leaves you alone with us - ideally uninterrupted with plenty of time to figure out what is wrong with you.” Moon elaborates simply, resting his arms over your head and leaning his weight into you comfortably.

A common way he liked to make fun of his height over you. 

“Mhm! So tell us, sweet sunshine, what’s been eating at you?” Sun holds his hands out to you in invitation, flexing his fingers once.

You don’t hesitate to take his hands into your own two, staring right into his daylight-bright eyes that’d somehow shine more when he was excited you noticed. You hoped they’d stay like that. You don’t ever want to see that light dimmed.

With a deep breath, you decide to take the leap.

“...What would your guy’s responses be if I said I liked you?”

The way Moon goes tense, able to tell even with the rigid, barely padded metal resting against you, has you worried.

Sun twitches in your hold, almost as if wanting to pull away, “Well… It depends in what way you mean by that!”

The animatronic above you doesn’t reply.

Well, here goes nothing for you. Maybe you can ask to be transferred to a different area. Does Bonnie Bowl need any sort of supervision? Children are in every corner of this place, surely someone good with kids would be good in just about any place…

How hard do you play this up… Pouring your heart out would dramatically be for the best you figure.

A little tap to your temple makes you jolt and you can only wish to be able to look up and glare at the attendant who radiates smugness over your head.

“I want to experience life with you in the long run. I want to feel your hands in my hair and I want to be able to care for you similarly, maybe I’d pick up sewing or something to make sure your things fit, I don’t know. I wish to teach you what lies beyond these walls I want you - both… You and…” You point to Moon above you. “I don’t think I could ever choose and risk separation or division. I know there are differences and I'm sorry to dump this all out, it's unwanted and complicating and-” At some point, you start to cry, your frantic blinking had only kept the tears at bay for so long and you couldn’t bow your head to hide the waterworks.

So you stared at Sun who looked to you with, you think, eyes that weren’t remotely as bright as they once were. You caused that.

The seeming pity you felt from them, the awkward, stoney silence.

Your love for them was theirs to keep, your heart would never be your own you think, not for some time. They could do as they wished with it, it was the only blessing you could give them. For them to know they were loved in that way, even if for them, it does nothing.

“...I’m sorry.” You apologize once more after a few moments of the deafening quiet that you couldn’t bear any longer. “I didn’t want to say anything, I was trying to keep it under wraps hoping it’d go away but it didn’t even when I took that - stupid long break using up all my vacation and sick days in one go-”

“Wait, that was why you left for a month?” Moon speaks up, interrupting you swiftly and flicking your temple soon after. “You’re unbelievable. See Sun, this is what I mean. They’re a big child.” 

He’s so huffy about it you can see the silent tapping of his slippered foot against the ground… Actually no, you hear it now. The little bell jingles and his pants sound with the movement.

“Mmm, yes. Yes they are.” Sun confirms with a nod.

You huff out something that you think was supposed to be laughter, “You two are not making me feel any better about this.”

“Because you’ve chewed yourself out thoroughly I think! We had to get you smiling somehow.” Sun releases one of your hands to poke at your nose. “I say we did good.”

Your now free hand automatically went to rubbing at your eyes to forcefully clear the remaining wetness away, using your knuckles and making your vision scramble momentarily. 

“This… Doesn’t give me your answer though.” “Because I’m afraid we don’t have one, Starlet. You’ve dreams and ambitions - but we don’t share them… Especially when it sounds like this like is more of a love, isn’t it?”

Moon has you pinned and you can only let your shoulders lower slowly, forcing down that sticky feeling in your throat, the ball that wants to come out in a sob. 

They didn’t need to be so gentle about it. You wanted them to… Mock you. Do something that’d make you view them at least - something less than pleasant?

Something less than the sweet as peach nature of Sun and the toying black cat nature that Moon possessed, endearing even if sometimes you wanted to take him by the waist and shake him from side to side.

“...I’m sorry.” Is all you say, again.

You’re not sure what this means for you and your friendship with them. Do they view you as silly? Hopeless? A daydreamer with too lofty ideas? Potentially, too idealistic? Romanticizing what wasn’t there? 

“There is no need for an apology, really…” Sun soothes, hushing you when you went to apologize a third time with a press of his finger to your upper lip. “I think you knew our answer to begin with, somewhere in you, didn’t you?”

You did. The one your brain would tell you whenever your thoughts went down the rabbit hole of what-ifs and possibilities. 

After all, they were made with a purpose in mind. Artificial in design, they had their directive, and you were not part of it. They were in love with their duty, their charges, adoring the children they take care of and see grow with each visit. They were caretakers first and individuals second.

You want to find an end to this conversation, a solid conclusion, something of change, meaningful and positive and before you can broach the topic of how this should go on, the sound of a child crying echoes through the dying conversation, silencing it fully.

A part of you laughs deep down at the comical way the two attendants shoot-up like dogs catching the movement of a squirrel. Another part of you cries and laments at their presence leaving yours, the bubble thoroughly popped as arms drop from your head.

Not a moment of goodbye, not a note of continuing this later. They go over to the balcony.

“Oh ho ho! It seems we are up and shining already! Rise and shine from the clouds, who’s ready for snacks?! I say we have little apple bunnies!” Sun cries out with all his joyousness coming out in full force as he launches himself over the railing with a dive.

Moon only spares you a glance, giving you a simple two-finger salute with minimal words before his departure. “Go home.”

The moment he’s over that rail is the moment you feel the urge to keel over and curl up. You feel you screwed that over spectacularly.

This was never so painful, this was never such an agony. Never did feeling love make you feel like such a wretch of an individual. Like an utter bother.

But you go home as instructed. A quick text sent to your coworkers and a brief, phony explanation to the security guard stationed at the front how you sicked up in the bathrooms and wasn’t sure if it was contagious, and you’re out of there.

The rest of the day that’d serve as your shift, you spend staring blankly into nothingness while going about chores you neglected previously due to your shifts and emotional turmoil that left you unwilling to move once you got home.

Anything for normalcy.

Anything to not feel useless. 

Even got to cleaning your bedroom, sorting your messes and putting things where they belonged - briefly you feel accomplished.

You go into your prettily made bed at an hour that’d surely give you a sneer and a direct order to nap by Moon. The sun is kissing the horizon and the inky blackness of the sky, making way for heartwarming pinks that bleed to oranges and purples.

All you feel is cold however.

A meager handful of hours later and you wake up just a bit before your alarm is supposed to go off, to your phone chiming with a text.

…A text.

From your manager.

No email, nothing professional, no official slip of paper.

Hey, sorry to hear you aren’t feeling well, I hope it was just something bad you ate and not an actual issue since you don’t have sick days but, hey, you’ve been moved stations. Effective immediately and all that.

The arcade with DJ Music Man is pretty cool, you’ll do just fine there, you may have to learn some basic engineering and wire tampering though.

Your throat hurts from the wail that falls from you. Miserable and broken.

Desperately, your brain tugs at you. It tugs at your heart. That these tears aren’t needed, you’ve cried, this was for the best. You could heal from this, it wasn’t a break up. You still have your job, there are brightsides to this, that change was good.

All your heart could pound about was that you weren’t wanted anymore.

Unloveable. 

Foolish.

[marokra]

The circus was quiet, after the dinner. Far too quiet. So quiet, that the recently-dubbed Geminitay was left alone with her thoughts. Which, for the record, was not a very favorable situation given the dangers of mentally spiraling in the digital plane.

She hoped that this was some sort of messed up nightmare. That she’d wake up in a cold sweat, and return back to her dead-end job. A job she hated, really, but she’d rather take that over this.

Gem pinched her arm, and then held her hands in front of her face. Yep. Not a dream.

She sighed and pulled up a mental checklist. Pretending this was a dream would get her nowhere. Might as well begin to process it all, right?

Can’t leave? check.

Trapped in a body that is most definitely not her own? check.

New name because her memory got messed up and she can’t remember any of the important details of her life? check.

Yep. All the signs were there. This was Geminitay’s own personal nightmare, and she was stuck living in it.

Earlier today when she went to check on Ren, Martyn had called this place Hell. and Gem was starting to think he was right. Everything she had seen today, The Void (with the eyes so many eyes that were all watching they were watching-), The Circus that was covered in deceivingly happy colors, the abstracted (unnatural, horrifying, dangerous) form of the so-called “Red King”, the fact that she couldn’t even remember her own damn name-

Not to mention how that “exit” from earlier seemed to be mocking her. Laughing at her feeble attempts to escape. And hell, if Gem’s theories were right, said “exit” was the thing that drove Ren to insanity. The thing the ringmaster had created to try and appeal to everyone’s desire for a way out drove one of his own to Insanity. Pretty messed up if you asked her.

Gem sighed, sinking down into the chair. Honestly, she should have expected this. You can’t be that surprised when the circus’s ringmaster is an AI that has no foresight.

A similar sigh was heard next to her, and she whipped around to see Scott sitting on the floor, the two making eye contact for a moment before he looked away. The plush glanced her beady button eyes to the side, and sure enough, Martyn was sitting across from her. Right. She wasn’t alone. This was fine.

She should say hi, right? She barely knew these people, hell, she had just met them, but it wouldn’t hurt to say hi. This was awkward. The silence was awkward. She was awkward. The tension could easily be cut with a knife. So, Gem did the most logical and reasonable thing to do in this situation. She grabbed the knife and started cutting.

“soooo. What’s the deal with Scar and Grian?” Worst icebreaker ever, Gem! this is the worst one you’ve ever used in your entire life! And sure, you can’t remember most of your life, but still!

Scott seems a bit caught off guard at the question, but recovers quickly. He plucks a star out of his hair, twirling it between his fingers absentmindedly. “Nobody knows. There’s been theories, yeah, but we’ve never figured out what’s going on with those two. Something about a previous adventure. A desert monopoly and a cactus ring, we’ve gathered that much.” the celestial replies, not bothering to spare a glance at Gem as he answers the question.

Martyn sighs. “Scar’s been making sad wet cat eyes at our,” he pauses to do air quotes. “‘ringmaster’ ever since we were thrown into this mess.” The marionette adjusts his position on the bean bag chair, sinking down to Gem’s eye level. “If you’re asking me, i’m tired of it.”

“So something happened with a past adventure and now they’re being all weird about it?” Gem tilts her head slightly, celebrating a little in her mind. You managed to start a conversation with the worst icebreaker known to man! Score!

“They’ve been weird about it for years, but sure, let’s go with that.” the marionette shrugs.

“Maybe it’s trauma. With Scar, at least. Not sure about Grian, is it even possible to traumatize AI?”

“Oh no no no,” A previously unseen jester poked her head over the edge of the balcony above, earning a surprised screech from Gem. “Grian isn’t an AI. He’s human. from our world.” the jester—Pearl, Gem’s mind supplied—hummed.

“Wait, what? but i thought he was-” She felt something hit her plushy body, glancing over to see that Scott had flicked a star into the side of her head. Ow.

“A lot of us thought that, when we first arrived here,” He paused, “Mainly because of his involvement with the circus itself. But over time, his more human mannerisms became glaringly obvious. I’m honestly surprised you haven’t noticed yet.”

“No AI starts wars for no reason.” Martyn commented. “And no AI has an inexplicable fear of being watched.”

“He started wa-??”

“-AI don’t take in other circus members as their own either!” Pearl cuts her off mid-sentence, the jester’s bells jingling as she jumps down from the tower, landing a bit to the right of Gem with an unceremonious fwoomph. “Grian saw us as family, siblings even, when we arrived. Well, me and Jimmy anyways.” Her voice drops to a low whisper, her uncovered eye darting around, making sure that nobody was eavesdropping. “Which was why he was so devastated when Jimmy. uh. abstracted.”

Gem could only nod. She noticed Martyn and Pearl have some silent communication for a moment, Martyn’s expression asking if he could continue. Pearl nodded, and the marionette turned back to Gem.

“It was something we hadn’t dealt with before. Nobody knew how to handle it. we didn’t even know it was possible.” Martyn added, frowning as he did so. The plush deer glanced over at Pearl, who sat in silence. Her gaze returned to Martyn.

“We tried everything we could to bring him back. Nothing worked.” Scott took in a deep breath before he continued. “He became too dangerous. People were getting glitched out left and right. The circus was a mess. And we had to put Jimmy in the cellar because of it.”

Well. That’s quite a bombshell to drop on somebody. Gem couldn’t even begin to imagine what everyone in the circus has gone through. And judging by Scott’s voice and the amount of crossed out portraits in the hall of doors, Jimmy was hardly the only one. Just how easy is it to lose your mind in the digital plane? How easy would it be for Gem to lose her mind? To actively harm the people she’s stuck with, no mercy involved? To be seen as a threat, and get thrown in a cellar with countless others? To experience a fate worse than death? She had to be careful. She had to be careful to never get too close, to always keep tabs on her mind. Because she’d never know when someone would get “abstracted.” She’d never know when she loses someone until it’s too late. She’d never know when she loses herself. Just one more thing to add to the list of reasons why she hates this place-

“Hello! Earth to Gem! Yoo-hoo! Hi! Hello!”

Pearl’s hand was flying in and out of Gem’s vision. The plush shakes her head. Better snap out of it. Dwelling in the possibilities would only make everything worse. Plus, this wasn’t even about her! This was about Jimmy!

“Right! Sorry. What were you saying?” Gem tilts her head as much as her stuffed animal body would let her. Which wasn’t much.

Martyn sighed. “As i was saying, Abstraction has become pretty normal for us nowadays. Yeah, I was a little bit caught off guard by Ren-“

“Extremely caught off guard.” Pearl chimes in.

“Extremely caught off guard, but someone getting abstracted is far from abnormal at this point. We’re used to it.”

“Mm.” Gem nods. “So, Jimmy was the first, right?”

“Yeah. Canary call, first to fall, forever caged in different walls and all that. That’s what They say about it anyways.” The marionette shrugs.

“Who’s They?”

A pause. Pearl, Scott, and Martyn immediately tense. A deafening silence blanketed the room, all eyes on the deer who asked the question.

A few seconds pass.

“Soooo, who wants to go drown in the digital lake?” Scott panickedly proposes. He glances behind himself, seemingly trying to make sure nothing was Watching him.

“Ahaha, I sure do love drowning! Come on guys let’s go like right now-” Pearl blurts out, a fake laugh tumbling from her lips.

Martyn nods. “I can’t wait to go dr-aha-own, byegemseeyoulater-”

The trio of circus members all but ran out of the tent, leaving Gem alone in a confused daze.

“Huh.” Weird.

[captainsparklefingers]

Yes, it's technically Thursday, I'm always a bit behind the wheel. I got tagged by @grayintogreen, and I figured...well, what the hell. Maybe sharing a little bit of Unhappy Families will help with the writing motivation; I'm stuck in 1945 and absolutely dreading writing 1947, which is probably part of the problem. Turns out, trying to figure out how to write a downward spiral bender ending in a drug overdose? Not exactly fun!

But anyway. I don't really know who to tag but if you're working on something and want to share with the class, consider this a poke in the ribs?

And without further adieu, here's a little bit from Unhappy Families (or: one went up, two went down), specifically from 1929:

Pops dropped them off along the banks of the Hudson after what felt like the longest, quietest, most awkward car ride of Jonathan’s life. Tony’d sat uncomfortably close to him the entire time, his hands balled into two white-knuckled fists. Pops was silent the entire time, only speaking when the car stopped and he popped the trunk open to hand them two shovels.

“You two, get diggin’. I’m going to grab a few things and pick up our guest, and I’ll be back in thirty. I expect to see a decent size hole when I get back, understood?”

He and Tony’d quickly mumbled out a ‘yessir’ that seemed to satisfy Pops, who gave them a short nod, got back in the car, and drove off. Without looking at Tony, Jonathan started to dig. It was almost second nature to him at this point; he’d been digging graves for his father since he was fourteen, it was easy at this point to just turn his brain off and work through the task methodically. In, up, out, in, up, out.

He let himself get lost in the task and didn’t notice right away that Tony wasn’t digging until he caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye, gripping the shovel and staring at it like he couldn’t understand what it was.

“Tony…ya gotta dig. You can’t leave me doin’ all the work myself here.”

Tony just kept staring at the shovel.

“Fer Chrissake…Tony, Pops’ll know you didn’t dig when he gets back. You gotta at least try, kid.”

Fuck, was he shaking? He’d been doing so well, too, kept it together in the car the whole time, why did he have to slip up now? Christ. With a groan, Jonathan shoved his shovel into the dirt and walked over to his little brother. “Tony. Look. I know what you’re thinking. And…you can’t think, with this sort of stuff. You think it was easy for me when Pops took me out to do this for my first time?”

He still thought of it sometimes, that night when he was fourteen, when Pops took him along to take out a few rival soldiers mooching in their territory. The way they’d begged and pleaded, their terrified eyes…how quick his father was with his gun, not even blinking as he shot man after man in the head. The way the blood spray looked on the wall behind them. The smell of blood and bodily fluids and gunpowder.

How heavy the shovel had been. How heavy the bodies were.

“You just…you get used to it. You learn to turn your brain off and go somewhere else. Don’t…don’t think of it as diggin’ a grave, Tony. Yer in Mamma’s garden, helping her plant the tulip bulbs in the spring. Just…we do what Pappa wants,” he said quietly, staring into the hole he’d been digging. “I’ve told ya before. Keep acting the way he wants you to, and when it gets tough just…hide in your head for a bit, let instincts take over. Eventually, it gets easier.”

“Is that what you do?”

“...yeah. Yeah it is.”

Tony sniffled and looked at the hole, the shovel, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he had this look of grim, strangely cocky determination on his face, and he shot Jonathan a toothy grin.

“Bet I can dig faster than you.”

“Like hell you can, you little shit!”

For a few minutes, the two of them were able to forget why they were engaged in a digging contest; they were just two brothers trying to get one over on the other. And…it was nice.

And then the car came back.