#anyway Wild tried to throw this spoon like 3 times before I liked the moment lol

[thethingsnerd]

Spirits below this ended up way longer than I intended. Fic under the cut bc my hand slipped and now my supposed "ficlet" is almost 2,000 words long.

The thing is, cooking is usually fun for Wild. Sometimes, in the long days of traveling before this whole “joint quest” mess, he’d pause at a cooking pot and throw whatever he had the most of in just to see what would happen. It was how he’d figured out carrot cake was delicious. It was how he’d discovered buttered acorns were not. Fun!

Never, even when staring at his most questionable dishes and regretting his life choices, had he felt anger bubble up like this. Not at the cooking pot. Frustration, sure, when he wastes a rare ingredient on something mediocre. Annoyance, when the other boys request something finicky while on the road.

Wild looks at the bottle in his hands. He remembers a joke he made to Riju, that he’d put anything in the pot once.

“What if molduga fins are secretly delicious when crispy?” He’d said with much gravitas. “What if safflina pairs very well with crushed up ruby? The world will never know if we don’t ever try!”

Riju had shaken her head to hide her growing smile. “So long as you don’t put any people in the pot,” she’d replied.

“Not even yiga?” He’d teased.

She’d sounded a little too serious when she declared even Ganon would hate the taste of those morons.

Wild stares and stares at the bottle in his hands, given to him so carelessly, and feels anger at the thought of eating something. Of pouring an ingredient in a pot and coaxing it into a meal good enough to share. He thinks of that moment with Riju years ago and the moment just minutes ago that has filled his veins with static.

“Forgot I still had one of these rattling around in here,” Time had said.

An innocuous comment, really, and Wild had looked over curiously along with several others. Their leader had mentioned drinking them in a pinch. Then, he’d looked right at Wild and asked if he had any recipes involving monster essences.

“Of course I do,” he’d grinned. Kilton was an invaluable resource for such things, and he’d been naively excited to apply those techniques to another era’s monstrous fauna.

“Here.” Time had handed him a bottle with something purple and wispy. “See what you can do with this.”

“What is it called?” Wild had asked, attention already half on his inventory.

Just as he pulled out his favorite ladle, Time answered, “it’s a poe spirit,” and Wild’s heart fell into his stomach.

He wonders if it’s a misunderstanding. If a poe is something different in Time’s era- surely, a hero wouldn’t-

But no, over on the other side of camp, Time is telling the rest of them how the ghosts lurk in the graveyard, and that can’t mean anything else, can it? The bottle in his hands contains a person’s soul.

There are rumors of poes in Wild’s era; he has yet to see one. They’re supposedly lost spirits. Ghosts who never figured out how to move on to the resting place, or who got there but fell back to earth? It’s unclear, honestly, and he’s not the anthropologist.

What he is certain of is that this spirit has been stuck in a bottle for who knows how long, and Wild has been asked to, of all things, cook it.

Static continues to build under his skin. Wild sets the bottle gently down next to him, so as not to shatter the glass, and picks up his ladle instead because he needs something to hold onto.

Maybe he’s taking it too personally, being a dead boy walking himself. Maybe it’s totally normal to eat the ghosts of persons past and the soul moves on regardless. Maybe it’s not as bad as his conscience insists it is.

Wild still can’t bring himself to consider putting it in the pot. There is only one thing he won’t eat, and that’s people- even if it’s their unconscious spirit.

Oh, Naydra’s bite, what if the spirit is still conscious???

He’s going to be sick. He’s going to scream. Static buzzes harshly in his ears.

Wild stands, quick enough to catch attention. Someone starts to ask him what his deal is, but if he opens his mouth he’s going to curse them all to the pit Khoga fell inside. If he lets them ask what’s going on, he’s going to get mean, and he’s already not winning any teamwork awards. No need to make things worse.

So, Wild ignores them. The hand around his ladle is white from the strain of his grip, and a sharp contrast to the delicacy he employs scooping up the bottle.

A voice right behind him stops Wild from getting more than three steps away.

“What is going on?”

Twilight. Concerned, stubborn Twilight, who’s not going to let Wild go into the woods alone without a word.

What is going on?

Rage. Rage and horror to a level he can’t remember ever feeling.

Twi tries to put a hand on his shoulder, but hisses on contact. Confused, he glances behind him in time to catch Twi shaking out his hand, and Wild deduces the static isn’t just his imagination, after all.

“I just need a few minutes to myself,” Wild manages to grit out. Then he sprints.

There are loud noises behind him. He runs until he can’t hear them. He runs and runs and runs-

Wild almost drops the bottle after jumping over a log, and decides it’d be for the best if he stops. He looks at his hands; he still clutches his ladle, so he finally stows it back away in the slate. All he’s got left is the trapped poe.

What if he just… lets it go? Would that make any difference, so far removed from its era and home turf? He doesn’t know. He’ll never forgive himself if he doesn’t try.

Wild kneels- height from the ground surely doesn’t matter, but the situation feels delicate, feels like the kind of occasion he should lower himself for. So he kneels, then he ever so gently uncorks the bottle, and tips it into a slow pour.

The little purple wisp falls out, hovering ever so slightly above the ground. The little wisp has the impression of eyes, but any other feature is lost on Wild.

“Hello,” he whispers. “I’d like to help you, if I can. Do you know if there’s a way I can help you back to the afterlife?”

The little poe bobs in place. Wild gets the impression it is looking at him. Perhaps judging his intentions, perhaps in incomprehension. The little spirit stares and stares, then it makes a low, mourning sound that nearly brings Wild to tears. Wild brings an open hand up slowly, and the poe nestles into his palm in a soft show of trust.

“Can I help you?” He implores again.

Foreign feelings start brushing against his senses.

Fear. He can’t see something is over his eyes he can’t see.

Regret. Will they forgive him if they meet again he hopes to the goddesses that they meet again.

Hatred. Even if he deserves to die he can’t deserve this.

Wild nearly pulls away, but he thinks over the sensations he’s been given, pulls the scattered pieces into a proper picture.

“You were executed. Cruelly? I’m sorry.”

The little spirit shoves disbelief at him, and Wild pats the poe as best he can. “Really,” he coos reassuringly. “What does it matter, what you were like way back then? You’re dead now. I’m sorry that you were afraid at the end.”

He is. He’s spent a lot of time thinking about how his fellow champions must have felt as they were slain, and how the regular people they failed to save might have felt, and how he himself felt at his own end.

Nowadays, the thought of anyone dying afraid makes Wild heartsick.

The poe brushes curiosity at him, then surprise and… something like affection. Appreciation, maybe? Whatever it is, Wild is glad the little ghost is feeling better. Wild tries to push care and sympathy back at it, and then it starts to fade.

“Did you figure out how to move on?”

The shape of a yes brushes his skin. Gratitude and peace and dozen other lovely things linger in his mind as the poe slowly makes its way home.

The poe is gone. Wild takes a deep breath, takes his time to appreciate that he still lives and breathes, that he was blessed with a second chance. When he stands, he realizes the static cling is gone as well.

Making his way back to the chain is awkward. He feels much better, but he has no idea how to explain his episode. Oh, well. He'll figure it out when he gets there. Actually making the meal he'd totally abandoned would probably be a good start.

He walks back into camp quietly. No need to make a fuss, or more of one, really. He shrugs at Twilight before the other boy even says anything, and kneels before the pot over the fire. He removes his ladle from his slate, idly holds it in his left hand, and quietly asks whosoever sits closest what they want.

"I would like an explanation, Wild."

Time. Wild still hasn't figured out what to say.

"Needed a time-out," Wild mutters. "Won't happen again."

"That's nice and all, but I'd like to know why it happened this time?" Time presses. All at once, explaining seems like a lost cause. The fury from before rushes right back in, and it's all he can do to keep from doing something drastic.

"Why? WHY? You asked me to put a person in the cooking pot. You told me that you eat people and acted like that's a normal and fine thing to do! What do you mean why!?"

There's dead silence following his outburst this go around. Time has the audacity to roll his eye.

"Poe spirits aren't people, Wild. They're just monster remnants-"

"That's not what I saw." Wild says darkly. "That's not what I felt from it." Wild can't help but look at Time and see his friends, his fellow champions, dead and trapped being consumed-

It's too much. He surges up, again, but this time he doesn't run. He throws the ladle in his hand down so hard that he hears the wood splinter, hears it shatter, and mentally curses because he's had that ladle since forever and that was his best one and now it's broken.

"I can't do this right now." So much for not causing another scene.

"Some things are worth throwing a fuss over," Flora assured him.

She'd been speaking of his tendency to fuss over which flowers to tie into Nava's mane, but it applied to other things. The boy he used to be fussed not at all, even when he wanted to- even when it would have been the courageous thing to do.

He won't be cowed this time. His traveling companion kept a person's soul in a bottle for so long he'd forgotten he had it. Time doesn't even…

Wild will have to dissuade him of his false notion. Later. Right now, he's too enraged to find any words that aren't awful and vicious, can’t think of any scenario where his teeth don’t end up in Time’s jugular, so he announces that they're on the own for food and climbs a tree.

He forces his eyes closed. Forces his breathing slow and muscles loose. Things will look better after a nap.

Wild falls asleep with static buzzing in his ears.

Mini fic prompt that Wild gets so angry when cooking he throws his stirring spoon on the ground so hard it shatters. If someone makes this, please tell me because I would love to read it.

[amysteriousmessenger]

May I request some fluff RFA headcanons? 🥺🥺

I hope these are okay!! I added Saeran and V just for the sake of it!! <3 these will be a random mixture of with and without MC!

Random Fluffy RFA + Saeran and V Headcanons

Yoosung Kim Fluffy Headcanons

He asks you to marry him in LOLOL, since there’s an expansion pack where you can set up a little house for extra storage. He gets really nervous and a bit sweaty about asking you to do it, he takes it oddly seriously and Zen almost passed out when he thought that you were actually engaged.

He tries to make you coffee every morning, especially if he’s trying a new style out. He thinks it’s really fun and he loves to greet you with it for breakfast. After a while, you come to associate the faint smell of coffee with Yoosung. 

At the start he starts sneakily using little bits of your shower gel because they smell so much nicer than the one his gamer student budget allows him to buy. Eventually, he’ll just cave and buy a bottle of the one that you use because it means he gets to be reminded of you all day and it’s a lot better for his skin anyway.

If you play with his hair when his head is in your lap, he’ll absolutely fall asleep. Yoosung is a little bit like a puppy in that way, it just makes him feel so happy and loved.

Zen/Hyun Ryu Fluffy Headcanons

Zen’s a big person for morning kisses, especially sleepy ones. He’s an early riser and definitely feels extra needy in the morning. He’s also always the big spoon, he likes to feel as though he’s protecting you even when he’s asleep.

Whenever you’re crying and cover your face so he can’t see, Zen’s the kinda person who would gently pull your arms away so he can get a look at you and figure out what’s wrong. He’ll kiss at your eyes and cheeks until you either stop crying, or let him get close enough to pull you in so you can cry on his chest. 

He loves doing skincare on you. If he thinks you’ve had a hard week, he’ll do your moisturiser, clay mask, face mask, eye mask- you name it, Zen wants to pamper you with it. He knows the importance of skincare and he thinks it’s a great way to relax and pamper you. 

Zen’s ‘Happy Place’ that he thinks of when he gets stressed is the two of you, beers in hand, spending an evening in the kitchen trying to cook food. He can hear the laughter, smell the ever-so-slightly burning food, taste the traces of beer on your lower lip. It just makes him so happy to think about and he can feel the desperation in his limbs to sprint home at full speed and make the daydream real.

Jaehee Kang Fluffy Headcanons

Saturday mornings are Jaehee’s favourite out of the whole week. She’s just worked 5 hellish days and Saturday is the day where she gets to have a bit of a lie-in. Usually, Jumin doesn’t ask her to come into the office on weekends and it’s usually just a case of working from home. Jaehee tries not to oversleep too much because she doesn’t want to throw off her schedule but sometimes she can’t help but pass out for 10 hours straight and undisturbed. 

She really enjoys bubble baths with you. When you first start doing it together, she’s a little shy at being seen undressed so intimately, but she still really enjoys the time alone with you. It’s a great way to unwind and she likes being so close to you.

Jaehee isn’t much of a cuddler when she’s asleep, she tends to just sleep flat on her back out of exhaustion. However, if you wake up for any reason during the night, you’ll frequently find her hand holding yours, whether she did it consciously or not. 

She collects really nice and cute stationary. She doesn’t really take them to work because she doesn’t want to be seen as unprofessional, but once she runs the coffee shop, she gets to write in her little hot-drinks-themed stationary and decorates the little cups with tiny stickers for the frequent customers and especially for whenever Zen comes to visit.

Jumin Han Fluffy Headcanons

Sunday mornings are Jumin’s favourites. He usually wakes up really early by routine, but on Sundays he spends a little bit longer curled up in bed with you and Elizabeth the Third, watching you both sleep. Jumin’s also usually the big spoon if he’s sleeping on his side, but when he sleeps on his back he typically still has one arm around your waist so you’re pulled next to him with your head on his chest.

He personally donates to many different cat shelters all over the country. He takes the money straight out of his own bank account and gives generous monthly donations to make sure that there’s enough funding to both feed the cats already there, and take in extra cats of the streets along with getting them adopted. Jumin’s staff actually has a company policy that if they adopt a cat from one of the shelters that Jumin supports, the vet and adoption fees are covered by him, he counts it as philanthropy.

Jumin has a bottle of wine in his cellar from the date you met, the date you first kissed, the date you got engaged and the date you got married. He hasn’t quite decided when he’ll share those wines with you, he just knows at the moment that he wants to keep them for a very special occasion. 

When he’s bored at work but he can’t call you because you’re busy, he pictures taking you to one of his vineyards on the weekend. He’ll picture your smile, you adjusting your hat and lightly squinting against the sun, you smiling at him over your glass of wine. Then he’ll tell Jaehee to clear his schedule for the weekend.

Saeyoung Choi Fluffy Headcanons

Your arms around him, holding him against you, is pretty much the only thing that can bring Seven out of an anxiety attack. If you’re not physically with him, he crawls under the duvet on his bed in hopes of still smelling you. He’ll call you and look through selfies with you that he has on his phone until he calms down. 

Seven frequently tries to make you food. He’s never had to cook for anyone before and he doesn’t really cook for himself, so it’s a lot of trial, error and frustrated takeaways. You try to eat whatever he makes though because you can really tell that he’s put his heart into it and you want to show him that you appreciate the effort he’s making.

He loves you feeling his biceps and gushing over how strong he is. He’s not even particularly ripped but you can tell he has strength in his limbs and seeing you give him any kind of physical approval makes him m e l t instantly.

He’s both the big and little spoon, depending what mood he is in. Sometimes he wants to hold you close and never let go, but sometimes Seven needs a little bit of support too and want to feel like he’s needed by you.

His absolute favourite dates are the arcades, the cinema, bowling and carnivals. He has far too much fun on the bumpercars and he absolutely has it out for you, you spend most of the time trying to escape him.

GE Saeran Choi  Fluffy Headcanons

GE Saeran always makes very over the top hot chocolates for the both of you. He has an arsenal of whipped cream, syrups, chocolate shavings and sprinkles. His hot chocolate is better than any you could buy in a store. He’ll make one for you whenever you ask, and then sometimes just to surprise you if it looks like you’re having a bad day.

GE Saeran ends up getting two cavities in his first few years of living freely. He does look after his teeth, but he let his sweet-tooth go little bit wild with all the new foods he got to try, it was all so new and fun to him, he just wanted to try everything! He took much better care of his teeth after that, but the trip to the dentist was quite a weird one since he’d never been before. 

Slight Angst: Saeran always serves your food first and makes sure there’s always extra helpings if you want it. He usually puts a little bit more on your plate than what you would usually eat. He never quite gets over the guilt of taking your food away at Magenta, so he spends the rest of his time making sure you have more than enough to eat now.

He likes to constantly buy you little gifts that he sees when he’s out and about that remind him of you. A little notebook in your favourite colour? A little forget-me-not necklace? A candle that smells like your perfume? He’d added them all to his cart. 

After lip kisses, Saeran loves giving cheek and hand kisses to you. For him, he really loves getting head kisses and he thinks it’s extra cute when you plant a little kiss onto the tip of his nose.

V/Jihyun Kim Fluffy Headcanons 

V usually wakes up first, unless he was working late in his studio. He wakes you up with a kiss to the forehead, a cup of coffee and soft words. After he’s put your drink on the table, he’ll climb back into bed with you and cuddle until you’re properly awake.

He actually enjoys baking with you. Well, he likes to help you bake and then he gets to do the decorating. You usually bring a cake to any RFA hangouts and it’s always very obvious when V’s helped you bake because it feels like he goes out of his way to put a piece of gallery-worthy art onto a cake with food colourings and icings. He thinks it makes it tastes better, and you have to agree. 

In recent years, V’s been considering trying a more plant-based diet. He thinks he’d like to try vegetarianism, but he’s frequently spend periods of time as a pescatarian, especially after he’s come back from travelling. It also means that he gets to practice cooking more too.

[seekingseven]

All I would like to request is Legend and Sky hanging out, maybe being friends. Also, love you lots Seeking! Hope you're taking care of yourself and having a good day. It's what you deserve ^u^

Linked Universe Prompt Requests #3!

First of all, I appreciate you so much, Silver! And second, here you go!

(You can also read the fic here on Ao3)

~~~~~~

Legend leaned against his kitchen counter, chin in his palm and nose scrunched against the breeze leaking through the window.

"Foul ball, that was a foul ball!"

"Wha- no it wasn't! You can't call a foul ball whenever we score!"

Warriors and Twilight glowered at each other. On the far side of the backyard, Wind dribbled a spotted ball between his ankles and made small talk with Wild, who was trying to wipe away the sweat pooling under his arms with the end of his ponytail.  Legend scrunched his nose in disgust. Apparently the champion's bright idea to host a ball game in the hottest hour of the afternoon had come back to bite him.

His focus drifted over to the other side of his backyard, where Hyrule stood forlornly between two wooden posts. His team's poor excuse for a goal, most likely.

"You tried to trip me!"

"I did not! Stop whining, would you? If you wanted to win you should have learned the rules of the game beforehand."

"Cut me some slack, Twi. It's my first time playing!"

"Not an excuse. If you wanted to learn you could have just stayed inside with Sky and Legend or gone to the market with Four!"

Warriors took a few quick steps forward. Twilight stood his ground and puffed up his chest.

"That's enough, you two." Time said, voice snapping from his spot on a nearby bench. Legend grunted. What kind of referee watched from a bench? This was why there was an argument happening in the first place.

Behind him, the kettle began to whistle. Legend pushed himself off his elbows and turned to shut off the stove top, only partially ignoring the sounds of athletic revelry from the backyard. Porcelain clinked as Legend pulled a cup off the drying rack, then, glancing across the room, pulled off another.

If Sky was bothered by any of the commotion outside or the domestic ambience inside, he didn't show it. Instead, he sat at a table by the porch window, filing idly through the mounds of miscellaneous letters and trinkets piled around him. An overhead cuckoo clock wheedled out a dinky tune as Sky scrutinized an oddly-shaped mask.

"Coffee?" Legend asked.

Sky looked up from the table, then smiled.

"Yes, please!"

"Wrong, it's tea. What kind do you want?"

Sky's eyebrows furrowed for a moment before he caught on.

"Oh, haha! You got me. Uh, I don't really know. Surprise me."

Legend nodded to himself as he poured the kettle into the two cups. "You like sweet stuff?"

"Yeah, big fan. Can't drink anything too hot, though. Hurts my face. You got any iced tea or something?"

Steam plumed from the cups. Legend let out a small snort.

"Would have been nice to know that earlier."

Sky scratched the back of his neck and had the decency to offer up an apologetic smile. With a roll of his eyes, Legend set the kettle down and hoisted himself onto the kitchen counter.

He knew he stored the ice cubes in one of the overhead cabinets, but which one? Cabinets opened and closed as Legend balanced precariously on the countertop. Where was it? Had he really been gone so long that he didn't know where his own things were?

"Hey Legend, what's this?"

Paper rustled. The legs of Sky's chair squeaked as he leaned back, and in the corner of his eye Legend saw his companion hold something up to his face.

"Little busy here," Legend mumbled, closing yet another cabinet full of pots and pans. Maybe he should give some to Ravio; the guy needed some things for his new place, anyway. "Can you describe it to me?"

A snicker, then a stifled sound of agreement. Legend would have turned around to glare at Sky if he wasn't busy gloating over his find; the ice, at last! The countertop groaned as Legend plopped the bag of ice atop it and hopped onto the floor.

"It's a letter," Sky began, his voice uncharacteristically suave. Legend's eyes narrowed. "It's in this little pink envelope, and there's a little heart sticker on it. Says on the back....'from Elise.' Oh ho ho! Who's Elise? And there's another one here! This one's white, and it has a flower sticker on the lip. Very, very cute. Is this from Elise, too? Let me see...oh goddesses! 'From Carmen!' Carmen! Now tell me, does Elise know about this Carmen?"

Sky looked up at him with an impossibly smug grin. Legend pressed the corners of his lips down as he pulled out the rest of the ingredients for the tea.

"They're just girls," Legend began. "Just-"

"Just girls? What kind of philosophy is that? And to think you criticize Warriors for his womanizing tendencies..."

"You didn't let me finish! They're just girls who work at the bakery in Castle Town. I don't know how they got my address, but one day they all started sending me letters like that."

Sky's eyebrows piqued upwards. It might have looked innocent if not for the devious smile on his face.

"Oh, I see. So why did you keep them? Elise and Carmen must have been very sorry to have not received any response," Sky said, rifling through the stack of pink and red and crème colored letters and flipping them over to read the names on the back. Legend pretended he didn't see Sky's grin widen. "And I'm guessing the same is true for poor Lisa...and Donatella...and Trish..."

It was a good thing that Legend was preoccupied with measuring out sugar and honey, because if he had been any closer to the ice cubes, they might have melted from the heat radiating off Legend's face.

"I'm serious, Sky! I don't know any of them. I don't know why they kept sending the letters -- I never even gave them my address! I mean, I'm sure they're all really nice girls, but I'm just not, you know, in the position to be in a relationship right now...with the traveling and heroics and all that..."

Silverware clattered as Legend pulled open a drawer and retrieved a fruit knife. The sound of shouting and running echoed from outside. Light streamed through the kitchen window, and the breeze pushed along dust bunnies on the floor. Sky studied Legend, watching with unusual intensity as the latter skinned and diced a peach, then folded his hands behind his head.

"Fine, fine. But one more question, then."

Legend made a vague sound that could have been read as either grateful or irritated; most likely, it was a combination of both. Sky pushed forward anyway.

"Why'd you keep them?"

"What?"

"The cards. Why did you keep them? Did you just not have a chance to throw them away or something?"

"Throw them away? Of course not! Did you see the paper they're made of? That sort of high quality cardstock doesn't come from just anywhere! If I can find a way to bleach the paper without damaging it, I can use it for all sorts of things!"

Sky snorted, smiled, and tossed a handful of pink cards back onto the table. Hoarder, indeed.

"I think that Ravio friend of yours is starting to rub off on you."

"He is not," Legend insisted, placing a spoon and straw in both cups before walking over to the table. Only after Sky brushed away the cards in front of him did Legend hand him his tea. "He would have tried to sell them off as antiques or something. Guy wouldn't know what a real antique was even if it was staring him in the face."

Sky hummed. The sound bubbled into his tea and set little capsules of air drifting across the frothy surface. "Hey, did you put peaches in this?"

"Yeah, you like it?"

Outside, Warriors cried foul and Hyrule said something about headshots. Sky sipped his drink again, then grinned. "Mmmm, delicious. Yeah, I love it! Give me the recipe sometime, huh?"

"Heh, will do. Glad you like it."

"And speaking of Ravio, where is he? Didn't you say he used to squat here?"

Legend nodded, hands cupped around his drink and goosebumps flaring from its soothing coolness. "He did, but he just moved out. Got his own shop by the castle, with a big nice sign out in front. Professionally made. It looks pretty good, honestly. I haven't seen him in a while, but I might drop by sometime to say hi."

"Ah, I see," Sky said, absently threading one of the love letters through his fingers. Legend shot him a dirty glare, but he paid it no mind. "Hey, you said that these girls somehow figured your address, right? Do you think Ravio might have given it out? Maybe while you were gone or something?"

"Ravio? That's ridiculous. He's not the sort of guy to do that. For the longest time he's been telling me to...to..."

Legend's eyes widened. The goosebumps along his arms grew more pronounced, and this time it wasn't from his chilly drink.

"He what?" Sky prompted.

"He's been telling me to get a girlfriend for the longest time and...he...he set me up. He set me up! He gave out my address to those girls. I know it! He...this is his fault!"

Sky burst into laughter. Tea sprayed across the table, splattering across rose-colored envelopes and sparkling cardstock. Legend punched him in the shoulder, hard, but Sky didn't stop.

"Ravio! Ravio as your wingman, I would have never thought! Doing the goddesses' work, he is!"

"Oh, shut up, would you? I'm not going to make you tea again!"

Their punching and tousling cooled when the front door swung open. A moment later, Four stepped inside, arms laden with groceries and a peculiar grin on his face.

"You're back!" Sky said. Legend mumbled something about Sky stating the obvious before placing his cup to his cheek, trying to smother his burning blush.

"Sorry to interrupt whatever was going on here," Four said. That odd smile was still on his face. "I’m just about to put all these groceries away, but there's something I need to give to Legend first."

"Me?" Legend asked. Four's grin widened; it looked unnervingly similar to the one Sky had worn just minutes ago.

"Yes, special delivery. From a certain 'Amelia'. It's the red box, yeah, that one."

Legend picked up the box gently, sandwiching it between his forearm and bicep, and shuddered. Sky and Four traded a sidelong look before the latter darted off into the kitchen.

"Well? What do you think it is?" Sky asked.

"I don't want to know," Legend whispered. He took a seat by the table before tossing the box by his cup. Something rustled inside.

"Open it..."

"Open it!" Four chimed from the kitchen. His voice was unusually high.

With a world weary sigh, Legend edged his fingers under the box cover and slowly lifted it upwards.

"Well? What is it?"

"Wait, would you? I can't tell..."

Legend leaned forward, squinting.

His eyes widened.

With an undignified BANG, he slammed the box shut and launched it across the room. His face was stained a dangerous color of scarlet.

"...well?" Sky repeated, "what was it?"

Legend let out a short breath, then leaned over to cradle his head in his hands.

"...remind me to kill Ravio the next time I see him," he growled.

Sky and Four burst into laughter, and even Legend couldn't fully stifle a smile.

~~ Fine ~~ I hope you enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading! [Previous Request] - [Next Request]

[dothwrites]

@sextualfantasy requested destiel with Jealous!Dean, and the MotW being wildly flirtatious with Cas. <3 

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Dean grits his teeth as he stares down at the table, watching the couple--watching the two people across the table from him in the reflection of a spoon. He needs to relax. His jaw hurts from the force of his irritation, but every time he makes an effort to loosen his jaw, he hears the scraping, tinkling laugh of the kikimora. Worse yet are the cooed endearments, all dropped directly in Cas’ lap, for Cas to do whatever Cas does with compliments, but for Dean to obsess over, until he’s nothing more than a tightly wound ball of tension that’s three seconds away from exploding. 

Definitely wasn’t supposed to go down like this. 

It was supposed to be a fairly easy case--3 men, all in fairly good health, went to bed one night and never woke up the next morning. The perplexed medical examiner finally put the cause of death down to heart attack, in lieu of any other explanation. But the rictus expression of fear and the clawed hands, frozen in the act of clutching the blankets, had all spoken of something unnatural. 

It had taken them a few tries before they landed on kikimora. They’re not common. To Dean’s knowledge, Dad had come across the hint of one once, and Bobby had killed one, once, about twenty years ago. Silver and salt, was all Bobby’s journal said, and Dad’s journal didn’t even say that much. Don’t look her in the eyes, was Bobby’s other piece of advice, along with the warning that kikimora usually fixated on young men, to drive them wild with desires, and young women, to drive them mad with jealousy. This one has deviated somewhat off script in that she’s literally terrifying men to death, which means that she has to be put down. 

It had been a foolproof plan, or as close to foolproof as the Winchesters got. Find the kikimora--the instructions were a little vague there, since all the lore said was that she would be in the guise of a beautiful woman and possibly have chicken feet--but Dean had figured with Cas alongside them, there wasn’t much cause to worry. While his grace isn’t what it used to be, Cas can still venture into a bar or club and pick out any ten monsters, usually before both his feet are in the door. Plus, there was an added advantage to bringing him along.  

“After all,” Dean had said, tucking his silver knife into the inner pocket of his suit, “you’ll be able to look her in the eyes, no problem.”

Dean should really know by now not to say shit like that.

Cas clocked the kikimora from the second they walked into the bar. He’d pointed her out to Dean, a waitress with long black hair and pale, porcelain skin. They’d gone over together, Dean carefully looking into the middle distance as Cas introduced them as agents and could they just have a word--The kikimora had glanced up, taken in the whole breadth of Cas’ face--the persistent stubble clinging to his jaw, the thick dark hair curling over his ears, the piercing blue eyes--and her smile had spread, predatory and pleased, across her face. Have more than one word sweetheart, she’d said, lilting voice reaching out to Cas. You can have all the words you like. 

Cas had taken one look at her face and--

If Dean strains his ears, he can hear the low rumble and scrape of Cas’ voice. From the second that Cas looked into the kikimora’s eyes, he hasn’t looked away. And her...She must have her boss under some kind of spell; either that or she’s not a waitress at all, because this whole damn time, after the first Well hey there handsome, that she threw Cas’ way, she hasn’t shifted from Cas’ side. 

Dean tries not to think about how the lore says that kikimora fixate on attractive men. About how they’ll drive them mad with desire. 

He chances a look. 

Cas doesn’t look driven mad with desire, but he doesn’t...not look driven mad with desire. Mostly, he’s wearing that Cas look that he gets when he’s listening intently to someone--the small line that knits between his eyebrows, the determined little purse of his lips, the laser-like focus of his eyes on another person. Dean’s used to that person being him. 

An ugly emotion swirls in his gut and claws its way up his throat as he watches the kikimora laugh and reach out. Her hand rests on Cas’ wrist, fingertips daring to slip underneath the cuff of his shirt to flirt with the bare skin of his arm. Cas never shakes it off. No, Cas just leans in closer, tilting his head in the way that Dean had come to think possessively of as his. Dean watches him as he takes a sip of his drink. The beer leaves a remnant of foam shining on his upper lip. That’s when the kikimora reaches out and swipes her thumb over the curve of Cas’ upper lip, except it’s not a swipe, she’s just leaving her thumb there, resting on Cas’ lips like that’s her newfound property, and that--

Dean doesn’t register the low growl rumbling through his chest, or the fact that he’s already up on his feet, until he’s looming over the two of them.  

“Agent,” he says. He tries to repress all of the writhing emotions in his chest and it leaves his voice rough. He rifles through his brain for Cas’ alias and comes up empty. “Can I speak to you?” 

Finally, the kikimora’s thumb falls away from Cas’ lips as the angel turns to look at him. Dean keeps his eyes on Cas, ignoring the small huff of irritation from the kikimora. 

“We’re actually in the middle of something, if you don’t mind,” she says, when neither Dean nor Cas move. Her hand lands on Cas’ jaw, turning his face back towards her. “Hey sexy, I know your friend is cute and all, but he’s just going to have to wait his turn, all right?” 

For a moment, Dean forgets that they’re in a crowded bar. He forgets about all the bystanders and the need for subtlety. All he can see, through his red-tinted vision, is the kikimora, leaning in close to Cas, her hair cascading like a waterfall and hiding Cas’ face from view, as she calls him sexy. 

That’s his fucking angel, thank you very much. 

At the same time that Dean explodes out with Now look here skank, Cas leans in closer, tucks a bit of kikimora’s hair behind her ear and murmurs, “Come with me?” 

The kikimora flashes a triumphant smile at Dean as she runs her fingers through Cas’ hair, down to scrape across his jaw. “Of course,” she croons, stroking over his cheeks. “Let’s go.” 

Cas throws one impenetrable look over his shoulder towards Dean, before he’s up and walking away. Dean looks down to see that his fingers are laced with the kikimora’s. They disappear down the darkened hallway towards the bathrooms and, coincidentally enough, the back exit. The last thing Dean sees is the kikimora’s hand reaching up to twist a lock of Cas’ hair around her finger. 

Something hot and ugly curls in his stomach and Dean is out the door after them, pushing his way through various bodies as he makes his way past the bathrooms and into the alley behind the bar. It stinks back here, the dumpsters only feet away and the hood vents belching out grease, but it’s dark and private. 

His silver knife bumps against his hip and Dean draws it out, glad at least that bit of subterfuge is over with. Now there’s just the hunting things aspect of his job and he’s looking forward to that part more than usual. 

His ears pick up the unmistakable sound of a scuffle, followed by a sharp cry and an even sharper, “What the hell do you--” By now Dean’s running, the sounds of a fight sending adrenaline and anger and all those other twisted things that he likes to pretend don’t writhe around in him swimming to the surface. He rounds the corner of the dumpster to find--

Castiel, wiping blood off his angel blade, looking calm and collected as if he’s asking Dean’s opinion on which avocado is the right type of firm, I can’t quite tell the difference, and Dean has the sinking suspicion suddenly, as Castiel looks at him, that he’s never been as clueless as he’s let on. 

“Hello Dean,” Cas says, tossing the scrap of cloth onto the kikimora’s body with an almost imperceptible expression of distaste. His eyes flick to the blade in Dean’s hands. “I think you’ll find that unnecessary.” 

“Unnecessary.” Dean’s palm is sweaty around his knife; he doesn’t let it go. He stares at Cas, who looks at him as calmly as if they ran into each other in the library, but there’s something smoldering behind Cas’ eyes. Eleven years have given Dean a pretty good basis of knowledge for when Cas is fucking with him, and Cas...

Cas is fucking with him. 

“You let her put her hands on you,” Dean says. He can’t help how his walk changes--no longer the frantic, rush of worry and jealousy (all right, he can admit it, it was definitely jealousy twisting up his insides). Instead, now it’s the tight, coiled grace of a hunter. 

From the barely-there smile that ghosts across Cas’ face, he notices the difference as well. 

“She called you sexy and handsome, and she put her hands all over you.” 

“She did,” Cas agrees, smooth and easy and too fucking smug for his own good. 

Dean’s walking towards the edge of a precipice. He’s been crawling towards it for several years, but, it appears anyway, that Cas has gotten tired of waiting for him to get there on his own and has now taken the drastic step of simply drop-kicking him off the edge. 

And Dean should probably be more irritated that he was fucking played like a two dollar harmonica this whole night, but Cas is in front of him, smug and celestial, and everything that Dean ever wanted, and his, his his--

“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?” Dean crowds against Cas, pushes him back against the wall. Hips, legs, shoulders, his hands cupping Cas’ face and tilting it up so that Cas’ eyes catch the sickly yellow gleam of the streetlight. Cas huffs out in silent laughter and the sound scours away any of the bitter jealousy clogging Dean’s veins until he’s just overwhelmed with Cas. “Fucking flirting right in front of me, what the hell?” 

“It seemed the best way to get your attention,” Cas murmurs, which is all Dean allows him to say before he’s closed the scant inch of space between them, his mouth landing messily over Cas’. 

The taste of Cas on his lips purges everything else from Dean’s memory and replaces it all with the exact sensation of how it feels to have Cas’ hands slipping underneath his suit jacket to land, scalding hot, on his waist. The kiss starts brutal but it softens after a second, Dean nipping at the swell of Cas’ lower lip, Cas tracing the seam of Dean’s lips until Dean opens to him. 

Dean doesn’t know how they kiss, there in the alley behind a dive bar. It could be minutes, it could be years. All he knows, is that when he finally pulls away from Cas, just to catch his breath, Cas tries to follow, lips finally separating from Dean’s with a soft, wet smack. Dean keeps his hands cupped around Cas’ cheeks and presses his forehead to Cas’, unwilling to pull too far away. Their breath mingles together, close and humid, in the few inches separating them. 

“We still have to take care of the body,” Cas finally says, ever the realist. Dean muffles his groan by pressing his mouth to the side of Cas’ jaw. He likes the rough scape of stubble against the tender flesh of his lips, does it again, just because. “And while I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to doing anything more, I’m quite opposed to continuing in our present location.” 

His libido kicked into high gear, Dean pulls far enough away to get a glimpse of the wicked twinkle in Cas’ eyes. “You...” he says, overwhelmed by the sheer evil genius of Cas. 

“Take care of the body Dean,” Cas tells him, with a gleam in his eye that Dean suspects has always been there. “And then we’ll...talk.”

Played like a two dollar banjo and all Dean can do is grin as he grabs the kikimora’s body and tries to figure out how he and Cas are going to handle this. 

Damn angel. 

[mediocre--writing]

Hey! I just read a couple of your drabbles and I LOVE THEM!💙💙

So if you don't mind, could you please do a Harringrove drabble/ficlet based on either of the two (or a mix of both, if you can) Twenty One Pilots songs "Tear in My Heart" and/or "Smithereens"?

Because, for me, Tear in My Heart is very Billy and Smithereens is very Steve👉👈

Thank you!!💜

Ok so love this and you have an amazing mind, just so you know.

This is like a 2 in 1 fic post so :))))

So smithereens and steve work so well together, like

“I go step to a dude much bigger than me/ for you I know that I would get messed up, weigh 153/ For you I would get beat to smithereens”

Like this is just Steve's personality. He got into a fight every season and barely ever wins without intervention. And like i could see him just being so overcome with emotions that he just does what he knows, which is self destruct.

Like with his fight with Jonathan, he almost accepts that Nancy was too good for him and thinks that he might as well take other people with him.

Then with Tommy in the parking lot, it’s not really a fight, but it shows that he has a conscience and fixes his mistakes.

Then with his fight with Billy, he only tries to protect the kids, even if he’s losing miserably.

I could 100% see steve having snuck into billy’s room during the night once (before he really knew about neil), not to do anything nefarious, but just that he had a really bad nightmare, because there was a small power outage, and billy is really good at helping him sleep afterwards.

And let's just say that Billy's alarm clock (which is always set for 5:30am, half an hour before Neil wakes up just to give him peace of mind) doesn’t go off because of the power outage.

And Neil comes to wake up Billy for school because he hasn’t woken up yet, and sees Billy spooning Steve and both boys are snoring and pressing bare chest to bareback, and so deep asleep that Neil lets them sleep, letting them wake up on their own.

And they do. Billy wakes up around 8am, feeling insanely well rested. He smiles and squeezes Steve before turning to sit up from his bed to look at his alarm clock, that’s blinking on and off and reads 3:18am, but the sun’s up and… the house is quiet.

Billy feels the dread settle deep in his chest, and swears he could cry if he were .000000001% more worried.

He hears the creaking of work boots walking around the house and knows, just from the tension lingering in the air, that it’s just an angry Neil pacing in the kitchen/ dining room and waiting for Billy to wake up.

He doesn’t know whether to wake Steve up and tell him to escape out of the window and run or just let him lay there anyway, it’s obvious that Neil already saw.

He let’s Steve sleep and throws a shirt on and slowly walks out of the room into the pits of hell, seeing Neil turn to him with an angry face a brighter shade of red than a firetruck.

As slurs are screamed and Billy is thrown into the walls and has family tchotchkes launched at his face, Steve wakes up after a particularly painful shove makes the wall shake, pushing a single picture frame fall off the wall on the other side.

Steve shoots up after that loud bang and hears a wail and muffled yelling before something else hits the wall. He grabs his shirt and puts it on as he walks out the bedroom door, seeing glass shattered on the hardwood leading to the family room, but what he sees around the corner is so much worse.

Billy’s bleeding in about twenty different spots, body curled in a ball in the corner of the kitchen, Neil standing over him, but turning to Steve with a grin.

Steve feels his blood boil as dots connect and loose ends are tied up, making the connection between Billy's bad nights and the new bruises he’ll sport under his shirt. The way he tries to hide it when he flinches at loud, authoritative men who are bigger than him. Why he told Steve to never call his house and why he is the way he is.

So Steve doesn’t think for another second before launching himself at Neil, slamming him into the floor, but that’s about as much as he wins that fight, because Neil is slamming him back and beating him the same way he did his son.

And billy, let’s admit it, is probably much stronger and a better fighter than his dad, but it’s so hard to fight back against an abuser that has controlled your life for so long. Even when you know you could win and that they deserve it, neil hargrove is still his dad and he could never get it into his head to hit him back.

But Steve was trying too hard to take him down because he was doing the wrong thing and losing terribly, never having won a fight once in his damn life.

Billy’s sitting up against the wall, ribs in excruciating pain and vision blurry, but he sees Steve getting up and kicking Neil once before backing up, and Billy sees his camaro keys in the dish by the front door.

So he stands up as fast as he can, ignoring the dizziness as if that would make it go away, grabs steve’s arm and shoots to the door, grabbing the camaro keys and shooting outside

He takes the driver’s seat, despite his dizzying head, just knew that he’d have to drive for a few miles then they could reevaluate, and Steve was clumsily getting into the passenger side.

Billy had only just started the car when Neil came rushing out the door, screaming threats and slurs as if that would make them stop their escape.

The camaro backed out of the driveway and shot down cherry lane in record time, going to the center of town, the least likely place Neil would cause a scene.

It isn’t until Billy puts the car in park that he can bear to look at steve.

He’s got a bloody nose and his shirt sleeve is torn off, hair disheveled from both sleep and the fight.

But billy looks so much worse.

He’s still hunched to the left from his ribs, he’s got tons of cuts along his arms, legs, and face from, what steve suspects, the broken glass on the floor. He’s also got this wild-animal-look in his eyes. One that screams, I escaped alive, but at what cost?

“Bill-”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Why-- I’m sorry are you asking me why I attacked your dad when he was kicking you while you were, literally, on the floor?”

“Ye--no, I-- but you got hurt, why’d you do that?”

“Billy, what did you expect me to do?” a shrug is all he gets in response--”If you saw my dad doing that to me, can you honestly expect yourself to stand there and watch it happen, or walk away and let it happen?”

Billy turns to face the grocery store--Melvad’s-- that they were parked in front of.

“It’s all weaving together in my head. All the bruises, the jumpiness, how you like to control things, it all makes sense, but what doesn’t make sense is why you wouldn’t just tell me, Bill,”

“And what exactly would you have been able to do about it, huh? You gonna take care of the situation or some shit, Steve? Trust me, I’m used to it and--”

“But you shouldn’t have to be ‘used to it,’ Bill, that’s abuse, and you don’t deserve that shit, not ever,”

Their conversation is halted by a tap on the glass by Steve's window, and the boys turn to see Joyce Byers looking more motherly than ever.

Steve rolled the window down.

“The hell happened to you boys?” she asked but corrected herself with a shake of her head, “Doesn’t matter, just come in to clean up, we’ve got bandages and antiseptic, free of charge,”

Billy wiped away the tears he didn’t know had formed and nodded to her, “We’ll be out in a minute, Mrs. Byers.”

“Joyce, please,” she demanded softly.

“Joyce, of course,” Billy offered a subdued smile.

She walked off and Steve rolled the window back up.

“Thank you,” Billy spoke quietly after a moment. “I’m glad he didn’t hurt you worse,”

“Billy, for you I would get beat to smithereens,”

“Well of course you would, you weigh like 100 pounds, not like you could put up much of a fight,”

“Hey! I gave him a black eye, thank you very much!”

“Oh, well, my bad, baby, then maybe you weigh 150, huh?”

Steve grumbled from the passenger seat, “153,”

Billy chuckled and grabbed Steve's hand over the console, locking eyes and smiling at each other, enjoying their small moment.

“We should probably get in there before Joyce comes out herself?” Steve sighed as he moved to take his hand out of Billy's.

“One more minute, please,”

Steve just tightened his grip on Billy's hand and moved towards the center of the car to rest his head on Billy's shoulder, Billy's head falling onto his.

-

Billy and Tear In My Heart thooooooooo

Like it fits him so well, again this is amazing.

I also see billy as a resident hater of america and it’s fucking government becuase, well, they have a history between his myriad of speeding tickets and, oh what was it, oh yes, the tentacle monster that impaled and possessed him.

And in California, there’s no cold weather where he lives, so there’s not exactly potholes to avoid.

The first time he drives into the cooler states and has to avoid potholes, he decides that his car deserves a vacation after this.

But the potholes become the biggest issue after he and Steve start dating.

He’s absolutely enamoured by this boy, because who wouldn’t be. He respects Billy's limits and can hold his own in arguments, and they fit together like missing pieces of a puzzle.

Steve has changed Billy, not that he’d admit it, but he’s softer now and all of his sharp edges have been baby-proofed. They’re still there and dangerous, but they’re more difficult to be stabbed by.

All the cracks in his heart have been filled with gold, like Kintsugi (a Japanese technique of repairing broken pottery with gold).

And Billy can complain and complain about Steve's clinginess, about his intrusion into his life, and his persistence to stay, but deep inside Billy's never felt more loved or cared for in his life.

But these damn potholes might just make him lose it.

Because billy is anything but a bad driver, he can control the car even when it’s going 45 over the speed limit, but now that steve falls asleep after their movie dates or when they’re coming back from barbeques with the party, Joyce, and Hopper, he’s driving the speed limit.

Which is just appalling.

But some of these potholes are so deep you could dive into them and not hit the bottom.

Like what the fuck, Indiana?

And, one time, Max is with them after a barbeque when Steve falls asleep and Billy slows the car down to what feels like snail speed, but is just the speed limit.

“Why are we going so slow?” Max asked as she leaned forward from the backseat to whisper to billy.

“Steve’s sleepin’,” he said, as if it was the obvious reason.

“You’re whipped,”

“Shut up, Shitbird,”

Max leans back into her seat with a grin on her face at the absolute mush her big, tough brother has turned into for Steve Harrington.

[7wanderingpaws]

Simply, Yours. (5)

Pairing: Baekhyun x reader

Genre: family AU, hapkido teacher AU

Word count: 3.1K

Warnings: cursing

a/n: Finally I am updating this little story! I havent updated it in a long while for which I apologise, it wasnt my intention :( But there will be a slight twist in their “planned” pregnancy so... I cant wait to have a little fun 😁  I am always eager to hear your opinions.🙌 Stay safe!

MASTERLIST

PARTS: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5

This time, Baekhyun was the first one to be awake. Stirring a little bit around, he turned to his right side where your back was facing him, your hair splayed out on the pillow like a wild willow tree.

Scurrying a little closer, he brought his pillow to yours, his arm finding your sweet middle as he breathed in your fresh scent. He really liked moments like these, when the sun had yet to rise, the clock had yet to struck 6 and  you had yet to wake up, while he could just indulge in looking at you without being interrupted by anything or anyone.

Plus, the fact that few days had already passed since both you and him found out about your state did not mean he got used to the idea of suddenly three people occupying this bed. What a miracle, he thought. What a blessing.

Baekhyun carefully maneuvered himself out of the bed, his feet gently tapping on the wooden floor as he tiptoed to your side to turn off your alarm clock. He wanted to be the one to surprise you and wake you up with healthy breakfast in bed before both of you would have to head out to your work places.

Today he had a hapkido class with university students and as much as he loved the class, he just wanted to spend time with you.

He was just in the middle of pouring thick and rich pumpkin porridge into the last bowl when he heard you open the bedroom door.

“Baekhyun, what are you doing up so early?” you murmured, your voice low and heavy. “Sorry, it seems like I forgot to turn on the alarm clock. I would have done the breakfast myself,” you continued walking to his side to take the big pot out of his hand so that you could do it instead of him.

Baekhyun continued his job, not budging once at your prying hands. “Why are you up if your alarm clock didn't go off? I worked so hard this morning to turn off your alarm, and yet here you are beating the nature clock.”

“You turned off my alarm?” you asked, surprised.

“Of course I did!” exclaimed Baekhyun, as he put the pot back down on the stove and reached for the drawer to take out two spoons. “Now go back to bed, we have a breakfast to eat and you still owe me a face of surprise when I bring the food in,” he said, preoccupied with putting the bowls on the tray.

You held back the giggle that was threatening to spill at his antiques. “Alright, let me just pee real quick.”

By the time you were back, Baekhyun was bouncing on the bed, eagerly waiting for both of you to indulge in the hot porridge that was one of your favourites. You made sure to look completely taken aback when you sat down on the bed, giving him a loud peck on the cheek before making yourself comfortable. “You know this is the food we have after a hangover,” you murmured, taking a big spoonful and swallowing it in one.

“Oho, slow down, hungry cub. You will get a tummy ache if you eat so fast,” scolded Baekhyun gently, making you smile.

“Yes, chef.”

He gave you a wink. “And anyway. You love this porridge, might as well please your taste buds.”

You nodded, devouring a spoonful after another until you were done before him. And that rarely ever happened. “Done!”

he shook his head at you, trying to swallow the last bids of his porridge.

“Look at me! I rock today,” you laughed loudly when he pouted.

“It isn't fair,” he whined, putting down his spoon into now an empty bowl. “I am alone while you guys are two!”

Your laughter halted, melting into an endearing smile. Warmth spread through your insides. “I don't think its the matter yet,” you responded. “It has long way to grow for me to eat for two, you know?”

“No, it doesn't. It still counts.”

Rolling your eyes at him, you reached over the tray to mess up his bed hair. “Alright, whatever you say, mister. Still does not change the fact that I win for today, ha! And now, you better hurry, you need to be at the university in an hour!”

“First a kiss,” he demanded, crossing his arms on his chest.

Smiling, you pressed your lips to his warm ones, tasting the porridge. 

“Love you,” he murmured.

Once Baekhyun was out the door, you rushed to prepare for your work only to end up with your head in the toilet, throwing up all the porridge and more. 

____

You made it your absolute, utmost priority to keep your blessed state as far away from the workplace as possible. Not only was it all so fresh and new, but you also needed to wait till the first trimester was over to be 100% sure the pregnancy was safe and actually happening. Besides, you would lose your job immediately if your boss as much as whifs a baby around you. Thankfully, he was not the smartest man, as much as he insisted himself.

It only got proven when he called you into his office few days later, his meaty index finger pointing at the contract in front of him. It was a deal between yours and a Chinese company, but it was written in English. “I am sure there was a mistake on their side,” he mumbled, frustration slowly, but surely boiling in his facial features as he was gripping the piece of paper. He chuckled bitterly. “And they think I wouldnt find out? Just who do they think they are? I find out everything,” he seethed through gritted teeth as he suddenly snapped his eyes up at you, catching you off guard in the process.

You winced, taking a cautious step back, trying not to give too much attention to the meaning behind his words. “Sir, I believe this is correct,” you tried to explain gently, “the deal does not have any mistakes in English, we have already skimmed through it.”

He frowned. “But the calculations aren't correct. There should be one more zero.”

As calmly as you possibly could, you explained to him that he, indeed, bought much more than he actually thought. Making business was not always rainbows and unicorns, and today this fact seemed to dawn on your boss. “You were in a conference call last week,” you kept reminding him, “and because they offered you a good deal, you decided to buy more. Therefore you had to pay more, and we received less.”

He snatched the paper out of your small hands and gave you an ugly stare. “Whatever. I know my things,” he mumbled, turning his face back to the table.

“That is my job, sir.”

He whipped his head back at you again, but you only bowed at him politely, turning to walk out of his office when he started: “I still haven't scolded you for lying to me.”

Raising your head from your bow, you looked at him with worried eyes. “Lied to you, sir?”

He scoffed. “You lying about having a boyfriend was not the best move. Even if it is a white lie, I don't want any of it in my office. Nor in this company.”

You nodded, fully aware and guilty. You saw this coming sooner or later.

“And,” he started, giving you a side-look. “You plan on getting married?”

Holding back your breath, you knew you could reply to him truthfully. “No. Definitely not anytime soon anyway. As you know, it is a pricey matter.”

“Well, if you keep up the good work here, you might be able to save some money for such occasion,” he replied, his poker face giving you a slight unease. “Besides, I'm sure your handsome boyfriend would earn loads with that face of his.”

To that, you did not want to reply. Baekhyun, indeed, was a handsome man. This was a fact ever since you got to really know him back in the high school days, when he already graduated but still would sometimes visit your school for physical work around the building. The girls would be drooling and swooning in the big hallway windows during break, but he saved his handsome boyish smiles only for you,  always giving you a wink that would swoosh away the unwanted company of other girls.

When your boss realised he wouldn't get an answer from you, he ended the conversation on a very straight-forward note. “Whatever. Just don't get pregnant with him. Or anyone. No pregnancy in this company.”

-

It has been a few weeks later that the battle with the rollercoaster of your emotions had gone downward. There were still no direct signs of a small human being inside of you, but oh my goodness, were your hormones and emotions acting up. Tired of constantly puking your guts out on the morning, then rushing to work, dealing with the moody bastard of a boss, being either desperate for Baekhyun's touch or just plain hating his presence in the same room was driving you up the wall. 

Countless times you ended up bawling your eyes out in the bathroom in your work, or in the shower at home, because you didn't see a way out of this. Plus, the stress of accidentally revealing your pregnancy even to the ever-so-kind Sukyeong left you with a heavy soul. You needed to talk to someone of your age, you needed some help but your own independent self couldn't as much as think of such an option.

Another issue was scaring Baekhyun away from you and him leaving you alone in this mess that HE created… No, scratch that. Your slight change in weight made you feel so utterly unattractive that you were trying not to physically shudder whenever he complimented you about your looks. And the poor boy hadn't even a clue about your internal turmoil.

You sighed.

“You look freaking gorgeous, love.”

He said it again. And he meant it, he honestly did. You saw it in his eyes.

Being now almost past the first trimester, you and Baekhyun were both dressing up for your scheduled ultrasound at the doctor's. Although you were a bit nervous, you were thankful Baekhyun was always there throughout each check-up you had. And yet, here you were pissed at him, but you said nothing.

“Are you alright?” he asked you carefully, knowing how your mood could change within a nanosecond. He came closer to you as you were standing in front of the mirror you had in your tiny bedroom.

Swallowing harshly, you nodded, but did not look into his eyes. Ever so gently, through your tight dress, you saw a gentle baby bump. It could easily be covered up (and you did passionately cover it up for work) but it was there. Solid. A prove that it was real.

“Do we want to know the gender, honey?” asked Baekhyun gently, as he made another step closer to you and he let his hands hold your hips before his wide palms ever-so slowly slid over your stomach where he let them rest. Then his chin came resting on your shoulder as he turned his face to give you a gentle kiss to your neck.

You heart-rate picked up and it wasn't because of the high blood pressure you had been experiencing recently. “I don't know,” you whispered looking at him through the reflection in the mirror, “do we?”

This topic has been on your mind for the longest time. Do you want to be surprised? Or do you want to be prepared? Surely, in the nature of the village life, the answer would be an immediate: yes, we do want to know. Poor villagers always wanted certainty, and it was only understandable. But maybe this unpredictable city life of Seoul made you more adventurous. You might have not wanted to know.

He hummed, the vibrations in his chest sending electric shocks down your spine, causing you to squirm in his arms. He let out an amused laugh through his nose before he whispered into your ear: “So sensitive, my love.”

“You fucking tease,” you glowered, but leaned back into him.

He gasped softly and squeezed your body. “Now there, sweet cheeks, we do not swear with a baby inside of you.”

“Then stop teasing, love” you snapped back and he laughed now with an open mouth. “You know exactly what you are doing. You're sneaky.”

“Sure I am. You know me, hun. And now back to the point,” he emphasized, and you rolled your eyes but smiled anyways. “I don't mind if we get surprised. But if you want the gender to be revealed, I am supporting that as well.”

You nodded as you held his hands on your belly, letting your fingers caress the top of his knuckles. “Alright,” you said, nodding. “I think I will, ehm, see how I feel once we are there?”

He hummed in approval before he turned his head again, waiting for you to turn your face to see him. So you did. And then he gave you the sweetest smile of support before he leaned in and gave you a breathtaking kiss, ending it with a loud smack. “Shall we go then?”

-

Usually it was always an uncomfortable experience to sit in the waiting room of your doctor with other pregnant ladies. When you weren't pregnant, you felt so out of place, despite you having an active lovemaking life. That was why you were sitting there, right? Even at those times, Baekhyun was going with you, just because he wanted to be responsible and also to support you. He knew how much the village ladies didn't go for regular check-ups.

So now, sitting there with your tiny belly as your hands were intertwined with your boyfriend, it was a completely different feeling. You were still shy to as much as lie on that stupid chair, let alone spread your legs in front of a stranger - even though it was a woman and a doctor. But now it just felt right. You were eager. Excited. Happy. Curious. And Baekhyun felt your excitement as your knee was bouncing up and down. He was excited as well. The sparkle in his eyes was proving it.

Once finally inside, you both took a seat opposite your doctor, who gifted you with a kind smile as she also took a seat and skimmed through your papers. “The lovely couple I could never forget,” she noted, briefly looking at you and Baekhyun before diving back into your records. “And the unplanned baby. So!” she exclaimed, folding quickly the papers before she rested her laced hands down on the table. “Any abnormalities?” she looked at you, obviously expecting you to answer her questions.

Squeezing Baekhyun's hand under the table, you shrugged, not sure if what you were about to say was an abnormality. “Crazy mood swings. Emotions are a mess. Throwing up is still on, but thankfully not so often… And my boobs hurt,” you mumbled the last sentence, looking at your hand engulfed in Baekhyun's, a slight blush creeping up your cheeks. This time Baekhyun squeezed your hand, although you didn't notice the affectionate look he sent your way. You dared to look up when you heard the doctor laugh.

“Those are all completely normal signs. Is your blood pressure still acting up?” she asked and as she was waiting for your reply she turned in her chair and grabbed the little machine. “I will check it now.”

You nodded but Baekhyun answered for you. “She had a couple of dizzy moments, but it wasn't as severe.”

The doctor nodded and checked you up, writing down the final results. “It's normal today. But if it will get too high, you need to go to the hospital. You know that, right?”

Not the happiest with her advice, you nodded.

“Good,” she replied cheerfully. “Any questions before we start the ultrasound?”

You were just about to shake your head when your boyfriend cleared his throat, stopping you from doing the action. You gave him a wary look, and he squeezed your hand again when he spoke: “How is it with, eh, sex? As the baby is growing, we are not sure how far we can go or if we should even do it. And I wouldn't want to hurt my girlfriend or the baby...” he trailed off, his ears growing pink. You felt your heart swell with love for him as you smiled like a little high school student.

“Oh my god, please do have sex,” replied your doctor, her eyes worried as she gestured with her hand to you. “She might not be showing it, but the sexual frustration can get out of hand, to put it nicely,” she continued, her stance confident. “Paying attention to your pregnant lady is very important in every phase of pregnancy and it is completely safe. Of course, around the due date you might want to be more careful, however it does not necessarily affect the baby in any way, so there is no need to worry, Baekhyun. It is more than healthy,” she laughed loudly, making you and Baekhyun giggle in the meantime.

“Any more questions? No? Good! Then let's get to it,” she clapped her hands, swiftly getting up from her chair and walking to the bed where you lied down, now familiar with the process. Baekhyun was sitting on a chair just where your head was, and he ran his fingers through your hair, giving you a reassuring smile while you tried not wince at the cold gel touching your hot skin covering your stomach.

“So do we want to find out the gender?” she asked as she spread the gel evenly, now digging into your tummy while she was already looking at the screen.

You contemplated quickly but before you could answer the doctor cut through: “Or do you want to know how many babies you would have?” she asked, but her voice was light but a bit unfocused as she stared at the screen. 

Not seeing Baekhyun's frown, he asked: “What do you mean?”

It was silent for a little longer, your doctor going through the same trail on your belly again, probably to double check whatever she saw there. Letting out a tiny laugh, she turned to look at your puzzled looks. “Well, this is fantastic!” she exclaimed and for some strange reason you had a feeling this might not be the best news, nor the news you were expecting when you were coming there. So when she uttered the next words, you felt your world crumbling down on you, and this time you could be sure Baekhyun wasn't as confident either. “You are expecting triplets!”

[kittenshift-17]

I'm a fic writer and I'm currently starting to get writing burn out. do you have any tips for getting through this? (I'm even burnt out from reading fanfic, so I don't even know what I'm doing with my life at this point)

Oh my gosh, I have an answer for this!!! Mostly because I have been living that feeling for about 8 months now and I know it's killer.

So first thing I recommend is set aside a day for yourself where you have nowhere to be. You got plans, rearrange them. You're gonna take a nap. A long one.

Tell yourself the following about writing: "It will be there when I'm ready. No one is depending on my writing solely for their survival. My mental health matters too."

And then have a glass of warm milk or a chamomile tea if you're lactose intolerant. Go to the bedroom. Jig the temperature to whatever provides you optimal comfort - for me, it's fan on high, air con set to as cold as it goes, and (I shit you not) 9 blankets. It's a weight thing, but I'm too cheap to buy a weighted therapy blanket.

Anyway. Do these things. Tuck yourself in. If you have a lover, ask them to tuck you in and request a lingering forehead kiss if they don't offer one of their own volition. If you don't have a lover, grab a pillow, you're gonna wanna spoon that bad boy (I do this every night, much to Boyfee's amused irritation 🤣). Turn off your phone, or set it to silent with no alarms, no notifications, and no means for interrupting your nap before you're good and ready.

Now, if you're anything like me, 3 things are gonna try and happen. Either you're brain is gonna start pointing out that you're not tired and could be better using this time. Or it's gonna start the guilt-cycle about needing to write, to read, to be in any way productive. Or, the worst one, "all that bullshit" is gonna start with the gag-reel of guilt and regret and embarrassing memories from your past.

And no one wants that shit, so we're turning that part of the brain off. Here's my method:

1. Think about your story. No, not about how you said you'd have a chapter ready this week. Think about the story. The actual plot. The characters. The hook. Doesn't have to be your main WIP. It can be anything. Any story. Old. New. Freshly invented. Doesn't matter. The idea is to actively think about a story and engage your imagination. Think about the characters. Call their image forth in your mind. Do they have dark hair or light? Are they short or tall? What are they wearing? Why are they wearing goth-metal get-up? Are they undercover? Is it a phase? Have they finally hit on their signature look? It's kinda hot, right?

2. Think about their motives. What's the plot? Are they going somewhere? Why are they plotting world domination? Did they have too much Red Bull this morning? Is a sugar crash imminent? Are they diabetic? This could take a turn. Oh, hey look, hypoglycaemia has resulted in a hot doctor appearing on the scene! No one should look this good in scrubs, right? It's literally not fair. Wait... hot doctor is saying something. They have a nice voice.

3. Let your imagination run wild. You don't need to remember the details. Pretend it's a dream until it becomes one. If you wake up with the burning urge to write, all the better, but that's not the point of this exercise, so don't be afraid to think up crazy shit you would never dream of writing. The goal is to trick the brain into pleasant distraction and to lull yourself to sleep.

4. When you wake up, take it slow. You've got nowhere to be. You took the day for you. It's a weekend. Chill. You don't have to get out of bed for another 4 hours if you don't want to.

5. When you do get up, find your favourite movie from the last decade. Grab yourself a cup of tea or a juice, something to snack on (sandwich is my go-to), throw on the movie, and watch it. Sit down, snack, and enjoy something you've loved for a long time. If you're not a TV person, seek out songs more than 5 years old on your play list. I recently tried this and happened upon all the songs I was listening to when I started a bunch of my oldest WIPs and shook a bunch of new ideas loose.

6. Go for a walk. If you're unable to walk, find a way to get out of the house, be it walk, roll or hobble. Go to a park and cruise around for half an hour. Take it slow. Remember, you have nowhere to be today. This is your you-day. You're here for nature and fresh air, not exercise. This is purely a Zen moment. Find a park bench and cop a sit for a while. Look at the other people in the park. What are they up to? Is that a Mum's group jogging by with strollers? A little old couple sharing an ice-cream? Are those ducks in the pond? They're cute, right? They like sweetcorn and lettuce. You should come to the park more often and bring them some lettuce to munch on.

7. Think about your writing some more. This time, the process of it, and what drew you to the hobby, rather than stories and plots. Why are you working on your WIP? Do you enjoy it, or has it become a chore? This is supposed to be a hobby, right? You're giving your hard-written words away for free if you're writing fanfic, so why are you busting yourself to meet self-imposed deadlines? Do you even still like your characters? The plot? Do you want to invest the effort of continuing the tale?

8. Say these words to yourself: "It's okay if I've had enough."

9. Say them again. "It's okay if I've had enough."

10. When you go home, don't do any writing today. Indulge another hobby. Draw a picture, even if you're not very good at it. Knit something. Glue tubes of spaghetti to paper if you want. Play the sims, or valheim, or candy crush. Literally anything that isn't writing. Find something else to do. Engage a different part of your brain. You're tired of the same old fandom, same old characters, same old tropes and same tired stories. That's okay. That's human nature.

The important thing to remember is that you're in control. You have the power. If you never want to write another word, that's okay, you know? If you want to write something else, something different, something fresh, do it! I do it all the time. I cycle through WIPs for 18 different fandoms just to keep things fresh and avoid burn out on any one story, trope, or fandom. Switching to a new fandom is like flipping over a rock and finding a live snake underneath - terrifying, but damn it gets your heart racing!

And this can be applied for non-writers too. Your life is up to you to navigate. You're the captain of your own ship and you owe no one anything beyond basic respect, kindness and decency. Speaking as someone who's job has been ruining her life for 8 months and burning me out so much that between September and December, I didn't write a damn word because I was all outta spoons making it through each work day, I get it more than I ever hoped I would.

The best way to stave off burn out is to force a hard reset of yourself. If you're worried about backlash from your readers if you take a break, post to notify them that you're taking a small hiatus for your mental health. Anyone who minds terribly much and is rude about it needs to remember that life is already hard, and they need not add to it.

Trust me, love, no one will mind overly much if you need a rest. Take a nap. Take a walk. Feed the ducks. And dive into something else you enjoy for a few days. I've found some of my best writing falls out of a factory-reset inside my own head. Maybe you will too.

Xx-Kitten

[ragnarachael]

Hi! Are you still taking requests for Peter? Your Parker!Reader verse is ssooooo Good!! Can I request one where before Morgan is born, Tony sees Reader taking care of Peter who's Idk sick or something? And he finds it really cute and fluffy cause you're cuddling cause Peter is a cuddle bear and then Tony's like lEt's hAvE kIdS. You don't have to tbh 💙💙

CHIQUITITA, TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG

Pairing: Peter Parker x Sister!Reader, Tony Stark x Parker!Reader

Word Count: 1,508

Summary: Peter's sick and barely singing along to Mamma Mia. You take it upon yourself as Peter's sister to try and make him feel better. Tony helps the best he can before he’s off to a meeting. Later in the day, he accidentally brings up a topic you've yet to discuss in your relationship.

Author’s Ramblings: i went a little wild with this so... whoops. i really should put this series in order, but i’m far too lazy to even think about that at the moment. after this i’m posting the last 3 wip guessing game asks and then going back to work on THE fic! (also i’m trying out this new formatting for when i write whole oneshots instead of drabbles, don’t mind me)

Peter was sick. Peter Benjamin Parker, who proclaimed that he never got sick—which was frankly a lie, due to your family’s history of shitty immune systems—was sick and whining as he lounged around on the couch of the Avenger’s Compound.

He was leaning on Thor’s shoulder while he kept two separate tissues up both sides of his nose, Mamma Mia blaring on the flat screen in front of them. Thor seemed to be enjoying himself, his head moving along with the rhythm of the song that had been playing. You observed them both as you sipped on your coffee. Peter was quietly mumbling the lyrics to the song that was currently playing, sounding like he was in some weird state of delirium.

That’s what worried you. When you watch Mamma Mia with your brother, he’s electric. Usually, he’s up on his feet, doing most of the choreography, singing the male vocals almost perfectly; he’s never not sitting and barely bopping to the music.

“Hey Pete,” you said gently from where you stood near the kitchen island, moving a bit to let Tony get by you to grab a mug, “you okay?”

All Peter did in response was hold a thumbs up over the edge of the couch.

You sighed, placing your coffee mug down on the countertop before slipping past Tony and dodging Steve as you headed to where Peter and Thor were sitting.

There was no hesitation in your laughter when you saw how Peter solved his nose dripping problem. It’s exactly what you do and you completely get what May meant when she said the two of you were almost the same person.

“Peter,” you started, squatting down to meet his eyes, “did you take some medicine?”

“Yeah,” he huffed out, feeling around to his left to grab his bottle of water he had with him. “I took some.”

“How long ago?” You asked, reaching a hand up to press it against his forehead. You clicked your tongue. He had a fever for sure and with his luck, it’s probably rising.

Peter shrugged as he kept watching the TV screen, resting his chin on the top of his bottle.

You glanced over at Thor with a questioning look. Thor returned it just as the music to the scene that was playing stopped.

“What?”

“Were you awake with him when he took the medicine, Thor?”

“No. Loki and I returned from Asgard just over an hour ago.”

You nodded and gave him a smile, turning your gaze back to your baby brother. Emphasis on the baby.

“How’s about I take you to your room and I’ll make some soup for you? That sound good, bubba?”

Peter didn’t even have to say yes or no because you were gently pulling him up from the couch with little struggle, slinging his arm around your shoulders so you could guide him back to his room. 

He was groaning quietly the whole way, mumbling stuff about Mamma Mia and Thor being comfortable. Just before you could get into the hallway with Peter, you nudged your head into the hall in Tony’s direction to get his help.

You continued trying to hold all of Peter’s weight yourself before Tony was coming to your rescue, throwing the other arm over his shoulders.

“Don’t worry champ, we’ve got ya,” he said reassuringly, a hand splayed in between his shoulders.

Eventually, you got Peter in bed and instructed Tony to get all of his things he brought out to the couch while you got on making the soup you mentioned earlier.

Part of you wished May was back in town so you didn’t have to care for Peter like this, since you couldn’t always handle how whiny your brother gets when he’s sick, but another part of you didn’t care that much. You weirdly enjoyed doing this as of late, and you couldn’t place it.

Once the soup was done, you got a bowl and spoon together for Peter and carefully navigated your way back to Peter’s room, telling whoever you passed that there’s soup, if they wanted any.

Tony was lounging in Peter’s bed, staring at one of the walls that seemed to have Star Wars projecting on it.

Your heart skipped a beat when you saw how soft Tony looked with Peter in this moment. Even though Tony was still dressed up for a meeting he had within the next hour, he looked so cozy.

“Hey,” you said, kicking the door open wider with your foot, “I got the soup. You’re free to go.”

Tony’s eyes were still on the projection of the movie as he replied with a grunt.

You couldn’t hide your chuckle as you placed the bowl of soup down and gently tug his rolled up sleeve. “Mr. Stark, you’re needed elsewhere.”

Tony immediately looked at you thanks to that title and gave you a pout.

“It’s the best part!”

“It’s literally the opening credits. You’ve got a meeting,” you replied sternly, trying not to let the way Peter looked when you started to gently peel him from Tony’s chest pull on your heart strings.

“Fine, fine! I won’t have Pepper call it off,” Tony relented as you kept trying to get him to leave as he dramatically resisted to get Peter to laugh. You could hear your brother laughing the same time as you when you finally got Tony to the doorway.

“Behave, Tony.”

“What’s in it for me if I do?” He asked, raising a brow as he lowered his vocal register. You knew what he was doing, and you weren’t going to let it work.

“Go, Tony.” You pressed your lips to his and pulled away before he could grab you and pull you closer. “Or I’m going to break some of your tech again.”

“Can you take this away from me?” Peter asked loudly, with a bit of energy. You turned to look at him, raising a brow.

“You’re supposed to be sick, y’know.”

“I am,” Peter heaved, starting to reach for the soup you left on the nightstand, “doesn’t mean I can’t talk. Now can I please have someone watch Star Wars with me?”

You sighed and rubbed a hand over your face, giving Tony one last look for him to get lost before turning back around and quickly passing Peter the bowl of soup he’s still reaching for. 

Tony stayed in the doorway for a moment, watching you walk away before letting a dramatic sigh out, starting to slink down the hall back to the main living space.

Peter actually ate all of the soup, to your surprise. Although he did sip at the broth during the first Star Wars movie before actually eating the noodles and extra things you put in that you knew he’d eat. But he still ate it, and that’s all that mattered.

When Tony came back to check on the two of you after his meeting, he caught the both of you dozed off as the third movie started to play. Peter’s head was resting on your shoulder, his face smushed into your collarbone while your head was resting against the pillows. Your arms were wrapped around him protectively while it looked like Peter was trying to make his body morph into yours.

He had his legs tangled with yours, almost like you were playing twister. It was then Tony remembered that Peter liked sleeping in weird positions like that.

The kid was weird, but he loved him anyway.

Tony couldn’t place why his mind was going haywire over the fact of you cuddling with your brother, it might just be because it was so cute. Both of you were adorable in your own rights, and it was tugging some thought from the crevices of his mind.

“Tony?” You questioned with your sleep filled tone, sitting up slightly, only stopping when Peter shifted his face on your shoulder.

Tony didn’t hold back the smile he had for you and carefully walked farther into the room, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead. “Hey, dear.”

“How’d the meeting go?”

“It went,” Tony replied, not at all thinking before speaking, “you’re great with kids.”

You tilted your head in confusion, pulling one of your arms from Peter to rub at your eye. “Kids?”

Tony shook his head instantly, not wanting to get on that topic right now. With Peter in the room? It’s a dangerous shot to take.

“Forget I said anything, you’re dreaming, this is a dream,” Tony recovered quickly, which caused you to let out a quiet laugh.

“We’re talking about that later, Stark.”

“What? Talking about kids? What’re kids?”

“Babe—”

Tony cut you off again, continuing to pretend you weren’t asking questions about what he said, gently moving to sit on the emptiest edge of the bed possible as you tried to smother your laughter.

Finally, you decided to play along, just so he could join you and Peter in bed for a nap. However, you’re definitely pressing on the whole “kids” topic later.

[brownstonearmy]

2020-05-24: “Legal” Litter Liberation, Part 3

July 26 (Sunday afternoon)

Picking up right where the last adventure left off, our party of intrepid adventurers has returned to Yula's mansion to settle their obligation. Except there's a tiny problem: the party's hourglass tattoos haven't run out of sand. Yula explains that it means they came back a few minutes before the 24 hour reclamation period was over and that the party could accidentally lead the vault reclamation guards back to the mansion. Yula storms off to his Breakable Objects Room and starts throwing things to release some of the stress of the situation.

As a precautionary measure, Lucky dons the invisibility cloak and casts invisibility on the rest of the party just in case something shows up. Six minutes later, the teleportation circle activates and one of the clockwork reclamation agents crawls through. It is missing one of its legs and is thoroughly scorched from its recent collision with lava, but it's still hunting for the treasures that were stolen from Goldleaf's vault. Everyone tries to remain still and quiet to avoid attracting any attention in the remaining 4 minutes, though it's more difficult for Spleenifer because of her chainmail and squeaky shoes.

Eventually, though, the timer runs out and the mechanical guard's body sags in defeat. It blinks out of existence after having failed in its mission to retrieve the stolen items. Yula returns to the party and begins inspecting the recovered items. He chastises the party for leaving fingerprints and mortal body odor on many of the items. Fuego flings a sizable booger onto Yula's 4,000 GP shirt in response. Half of the recovered items Yula deems to be salvageable, and takes those for his personal use. The items that Yula deemed to be unsalvageable or spoiled were gifted to the party. The items were still perfectly usable, so the party still came out ahead. Here's what Yula left the party with:

Portable Hole

Wand of Magic Detection

Wand of Secrets

Periapt of Health

Dust of Disappearance

Marvelous Pigments

Shield +1

Weapon +1

Slippers of Spider Climbing

Paste of Attunement

Moments later, a wagonload of gold appears in the teleportation circle. It's the insurance payment that will be providing the necessary funds to construct Yula's ostentatious litterbox. All that's left is to do is actually build the thing. Bostvick hears the commotion in the teleportation chamber and comes to investigate. He asks Spleenifer if she managed to get a relaxation chair for the litterbox to potentially negotiate Bostvick's freedom from his obligation. Unfortunately for Bostvick, there is no throne in the loot the party recovered.

While Yula stashes the salvageable items, the party gets to work building a litterbox. The sides of the new litterbox are lined with platinum, and the litter is a tasteful mixture of volcanic sand and gypsum dust (for clumping purposes). But the piece de resistance of the new litterbox comes from Lucky. The ethereal sand from the desert dream world appears to be made of concentrated energy. Perhaps it could be used to make the litterbox self cleaning? Or maybe it could be set up as a trap to set up to launch a holy lightning bolt up Yula's butt the first time he uses the litterbox?

WHY NOT BOTH?

Yula returns from hiding his freshly-stolen possessions and eagerly awaits the chance to use his new litterbox. Fuego almost used it first, you know, for quality control purposes and DEFINITELY NOT as display of dominance. Spleenifer stopped Fuego, because this is going to be a very intimate and personal moment between a fiend and his litterbox. Yula is thrilled at the quality of the siding and the minimalist aesthetic of the sand arranged to resemble a Japanese rock garden. He shuts the door in the party's collective face and rushes to attend to business.

There is a sigh of relief and some joyous exultations, but they are cut short by a warbling scream. All is silent for several minutes before the seneschal comes to check on Yula. Everyone is still under the effects of Lucky's Seeming spell, with Fuego still looking like Yula and Spleenifer still looking like seneschal Storm. Everyone with a coin of obligation feels the metal grow cold. Real Storm has an awkward conversation with her doppelganger about her future employment and eventually forces her way into the litterbox room to do a wellness check. Thanks to the brilliant energy of that spectral sand, Yula's corporeal form is no more!

According to the terms of the Coin of Obligation, the bodily death of one or both parties in an agreement ends the obligation. Storm, tired of her innumerable years stuck managing Yula's estate, takes the next train to Splitsville. The party starts sleuthing around the mansion looking for easily-looted things and also the treasure that was stolen. Spleenifer finds Yula's bedchamber with a dumbwaiter in one of the walls, but as she is looking around, she senses infernal evil below. Unfortunately for Spleenifer, she's too large to fit in the dumbwaiter. But Norm, on the other hand... Norm is dumbwaiter-sized. He hops in, ready to complete his first infernal exorcism (but you know... using daggers).

Lucky and Fuego are stuffing armload after armload of silverware into whatever they find that can hold it. Fuego's staying close to the dumbwaiter, though, in case Norm needs to make an emergency escape. But there doesn't seem to be anything immediately dangerous about the room in which Norm finds himself. It's a smaller room with lead-lined walls covered in infernal runes. The only furnishings here are a bed and a safe in one wall. Although too heavy to lift normally, the portable hole comes in handy as Norm is able to wedge some of the material into a small crack in the wall and dump the safe into the hole. If he can get it back to his house, Norm plans to use the Chime of Opening on it to find out what was inside. Success!

In an adjoining room, Spleenifer finds a shine to Asmodeus, complete with a blood-soaked altar. Naturally, Spleenifer smites the heck out of such an unholy place of worship. But so far, there's no sign of the missing treasure. After Storm's departure, word is getting around to the rest of the servants and slaves that Yula is no more. Everyone else starts looting whatever they can carry, and Spleenifer goes to check on Bostvick.

Bostvick thinks that Spleenifer is just there to gloat at first, but she offers him a job working at SHART. It's a decent position for a geologist like Bostvick to have, and best of all, the employment is completely voluntary. He accepts and starts packing his bag. When Bostvick learns that Spleenifer and the rest of the party were looking for the confiscated treasures, he gives Spleenifer some disappointing news: Yula has probably already teleported that treasure to a different vault for safekeeping. Yula has an entire network of vaults where he keeps his treasures, periodically rotating things between vaults.

Down in Yula's lead-lined safe room, Norm is now ready to explore what's beyond the door in this room. It leads to a staircase with yet another door at the top. But Norm has been in enough bad-guy hideouts to know that there's probably some traps here. Indeed, every other step is marked with a glyph of warding. Though he couldn't know it at the time, the glyph only triggers if someone without infernal ancestry puts weight on that step. So it's for the best that Norm didn't take any chances with those steps. He deftly avoids the traps and comes out the other door, which turns out to be a secret door hidden behind the large statue of Asmodeus in the shrine that Spleenifer previously desecrated (consecrated?).

Moments later, the party is reunited, but there's still the problem of how exactly to get home. Fortunately, the contingency plan that Norm came up before the heist comes into play. While everyone else was interviewing people for information about the vault's floorplan and defenses, Norm was collecting information about potential places to safely teleport in the event that the heist went pear-shaped. He also managed to find a spell scroll of Teleport in the seneschal's office (presumably to be used for business travel, but things are weird right now). Anyway, the party and Bostvick teleport into Brownstone and spend the rest of the day relaxing.

Lucky goes to visit Hilaria after unloading 10 sets of silverware (worth approximately 1,000 GP) from inside the shirt Lucky borrowed from Hilaria. This is going to be help Lucky and Hilaria throw an amazingly fancy party. Fuego has an equivalent amount of silverware, but they are more concerned with the melted salvage value of the silverware. But back at Lucky's place, Lucky asks Hilaria if she would mind watching Lucky while she slept to prevent any sudden or random wild teleports. Hilaria agrees to be the big spoon, and the two snuggle the night away. They may have done more, but we faded to black out of respect for their privacy. And either way, Lucky woke up the next morning glowing. Literally glowing. As in, emitting light in a 5 foot radius around her.

But let's not get too ahead of ourselves. Norm got the safe back to his house and booped it with the Chime of Opening. Inside were several ledgers detailing all of Yula's shady business transactions. The most recent transaction was recorded earlier today, and it mentions moving supplies to another vault in Fort Cainesbury, a town in the Kingdom of Obrus about 60 miles northwest of Cedar Hollow. That smells like an adventure hook if I ever heard one!

Spleenifer is eager to do some cross-stitching to unwind after such an eventful adventure, but she is unfortunately out of the necessary thread. She makes a stop at Oneida's, the local glovemaker, to acquire more supplies. As Spleenifer purchases the last spool of black yarn, a pompous and entitled woman named Gertruda Frostart gets up in Spleenifer's face about trying to steal her man by being better than her at cross-stitching. Apparently Gertruda is trying to court Hjalmar Magnusson, a local wealthy businessman, by showing just how literate and spiritual she is through tasteful renditions of holy verses on fabric. Spleenifer graciously offers to split the yarn in half for Gertruda, and in an extremely satisfying power move, slices the ball of yarn right down the center and leaving hundreds of functionally-useless tiny bits of yarn. Gertruda grabs her half of the yarn and flips Spleenifer a copper piece out of spite before storming out the door in pursuit of her dream man.

July 27 (Monday morning)

The party assembles at SHART HQ for after a restful and well-deserved sleep in their own beds the previous night. Dave gives them their work assignment for the day: deliver a notice to someone called Granny Agatha, informing them that the waste collection tax is going up for Granny Agatha. According to Dave, this has to be done in person, and he hasn't raised her rates in over a decade because Granny Agatha gives him the heebie-jeebies.

When Fuego (going by Q on this fair Monday morning) asks why Granny Agatha is so scary, Dave can't quite put a finger on the reason. She's shriveled and old, lots of black birds seem to hang out at her house, and sometimes she has lots of meat in her trash. To motivate the party to take on this assignment, Dave promises everyone the day off if they can deliver that notice.

Well, that and an envelope. Norm recognizes the envelope as the kind the constabulary uses to send important correspondence about legal matters. Dave doesn't specify or even know what's in the envelope, only that Granny Agatha is supposed to get that, too. Even though it's not illegal to open other people's letters, it's definitely frowned upon and the party eventually decides to leave the letter unopened until it reaches its intended recipient. The party sets out for Granny Agatha's house.

But alas, the journey to Granny Agatha's house is not a terribly smooth one. A well-dressed dragonborn preacher with a full head of hair, of all things, berates the party as they pass by. The dragonborn preacher is Jrr'al Oshtreeth of the Reformed Church of the Dragon Lord, and he's announcing his support of Zaribeth Quickfingers as the mayoral candidate in the upcoming special election. Jrr'al implores his congregation to similarly pledge their collective support to Zaribeth since the current mayor is clearly too cozy with SHART, having gifted the organization an interest-free loan of all the money in the town's coffers with no oversight while simultaneously employing disingenuous sorcerers, disgraced law officers, degenerate women of faith, and distasteful harlots.

Q and Jrr'al exchange several harsh statements, but Norm opts to stop the argument a different way: by stuffing Jrr'al into the portable hole. Although the action does stop Jrr'al's tirade, it is not appreciated by his congregation. Norm makes a few hostile remarks in kind, causing several churchmembers to rush at him. Q puts on a mighty fine performance with real tears and everything, pleading with the crowd that Norm was merely defending their honor. Lucky does her best to help quell the commotion, while Spleenifer uses her impressive wingspan to stop more people from attacking Norm. Apologies are exchanged with various levels of sincerity, and Jrr'al is dumped out of the hole with the promise that everyone leave each other alone.

Eventually the party reaches Granny Agatha's house. Just as Dave mentioned, a collection of crows are perched on the roof and squawking at the party. Agatha opens the door right after the first knock, swooning over how adorable everyone is and offering the party free cookies. Everyone politely refuses, though Q decides it's probably more polite to take some cookies for the road to make sure Granny Agatha doesn't feel slighted. The party informs Granny Agatha that the waste collection tax is going to be going up, per Dave's request. Granny Agatha doesn't seem to take it too hard, though she does mention that she's on a fixed income.

Next comes the letter from the constabulary. Her arthritic hands open up the envelope and she starts reading, her face growing increasingly dissatisfied. During this moment of silence, Spleenifer notices the stench of undeath coming from beyond the kitchen. Spleenifer hops up and goes to investigate, but Granny Agatha stops her. Agatha can sense that Spleenifer is a woman of faith, and asks her to please exercise restraint before proceeding.

Yes, Granny Agatha keeps an undead skeleton around to help with housework and baking. The skeleton's name is Tandy, and she's been with Agatha's family for at least 200 years. Tandy's been a part of Agatha's life for as long as she can remember, and she keeps Tandy muzzled and indoors at all times to prevent any unfortunate biting incidents. Spleenifer requests to see Tandy, and Agatha agrees on the promise that Tandy not be harmed in any way. It's a difficult choice, but Spleenifer agrees.

Inside the kitchen, a small boy is mixing up some more pastries. The boy is introduced as Milo Cherrycheeks, and Agatha legally adopted him about a year ago. Milo's arm is bandaged up, and Q asks him what happened. He replies that he burned his arm on the stovetop while cooking. Q asks to see the wound, and the injury appears consistent with a stove burn. They offer to heal Milo with Healing Word, and Milo readily agrees.

Granny Agatha remarks how wonderful it is that people are helping Milo, and mentions that she adopted him a year ago because his parents considered him to be a burden. The letter Agatha received from the constabulary was actually a lawsuit from Milo's parents, Rudd and Hadley Warren, accusing Granny Agatha of owing 9 years of late child support payment for Milo. Norm takes a look at the letter, and concludes that it is legitimate, though it would probably get thrown out in court. According to the letter, the court date is on Monday, August 17.

The adventure concludes for the evening with the characters having fulfilled their mission from Dave. Granny Agatha praises them for being such professional and polite individuals, and before sending them off, makes sure to apply a generous dab of icing to each cookie she sends with the adventurers. Everybody reaches level 10 at this point; stay tuned next time for more!

[luckyspike]

Adventures in America, Ch. 9 - Jackson County, Missouri

In which we learn about Rachael and Noel

Adam and Lucky bond over mutual interests that aren’t weather

And Aziraphale and Crowley share a soft moment at the edge of a corn field

Read the previous chapters here (not on AO3 yet!): ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4 | ch 5 | ch 6 | ch 7 | ch 8

or just check out my fanfiction tag

-

The next day brought a trip to the great state of Missouri, and more tornadoes. Bigger, this time, longer-lived. Adam and Lucky watched with great enthusiasm as the powerlines flashed when the tornado tore through them, and then with dread as they watched the biggest tornado of the day lift a barn entirely up off the ground and hurl it, in pieces, hundreds of yards to either side. When the danger had passed, Rachael drove the truck toward the property, the students taking in the destruction as they drove past the bits of barn on the way up the farm road. Noel and Rachael led the way to the farmhouse, where they knocked on the door and checked on the homeowner and were assured that it was just hay in the barn, thanks for checking but we’re fine, appreciate the stop. 

“It should be a compulsory part of storm chasing,” Noel told the boys solemnly as they piled back into the truck. “Lots of chasers do it, and that’s great, but I’ve seen vans and trucks blow past a trashed building just to keep following the storm.” He shook his head. “No excuse for that, not really.”

There wasn’t as much lightning with that system, so Rachael didn’t bother throwing the probes out. After they checked on the farm house, they drove after the storm for a little while longer, but it fell apart near the capitol, and they called it a night. Noel was driving by then, and when the group decided a diner sounded just perfect for a quick bite before bed, he somehow managed to navigate to a greasy spoon on the side of the road that promised some of the best burgers in the midwest. Adam wasn’t typically a fan of burgers, but when faced with a claim like that, he felt it was fairly mandatory to at least give them a try.

They chatted idly about the storms of the day while the waited, Adam nursing a Pepsi and Lucky working on a black-and-white milkshake. “So what are we thinking about tomorrow?” Noel asked, over the rim of his coffee cup.

Rachael had the laptop out, and she didn’t look particularly happy. “Not … not looking good. Not for the next few days, as much as I can estimate.” She sighed. “I can look again in the morning, for sure, but if there’s anything, it’s going to be little, and it’ll be all the way up in South Dakota, probably.”

Noel winced. “Worth the drive?”

“Well … I mean, I’ll check tomorrow, but if you want my money on it … no. Sorry. There’s a few little system set-ups in the works, but nothing I can forsee producing anything worthwhile. Probably a bust day.”

Lucky and Adam exchanged a look. “So what do we do on bust days?” Adam asked, over the slurping of the milkshake. Although this was supposed to be an educational trip, he was sort of desperately hoping the answer wasn’t going to be studying. Certainly, if he was in America, there would be something to do besides sit around and study.

“Well, Noel has some textbooks in the truck that you two can share, and -” Rachael caught their expressions and stopped to laugh. “Nah, just kidding. I mean, you can if you want to, but doesn’t sound very fun, does it?” They shook their heads slowly. “Noel and I have a lot of photos and video to edit, so we’re gonna be pretty tied up with that most of the day, but since we won’t be traveling anywhere, might make sense for us to head back to Kansas City tonight and stay there, and you guys can explore around tomorrow if you want. There’s museums and stuff there, and it’s not even a two-hour drive, so not too bad to head to tonight.”

Lucky nodded. “Kansas City’s good with me. I’ve never been there.”

“I have once,” Adam said, as the waitress set his food down in front of him. Regardless of the quality of the burger, it was certainly one of the biggest burgers he’d ever seen. Next to him, Lucky made a confused noise that reminded him, a little, of Crowley, and made something that felt a little like homesickness twist in his gut, although that might have just been hunger at the sight of the burger and fries. “Nah, just kidding.” He picked up a fry and smirked at the other boy. “I’m game though.”

“I was so confused for a minute.” The waitress set down Lucky’s meal: an enormous plate of fried chicken. “Oh man, oh yes.”

“You really gonna eat all that?”

“Or die trying.”

Noel sighed wistfully. “I wish I could still eat like that without needing a handful of antacids afterwards.” He’d ordered a BLT for himself, and Rachael had chosen a tuna melt.

“You can have a piece if you want?” Lucky pushed the drumstick close to Noel, who shook his head. “Sure?”

“Enjoy it for me. Much as I’d like it, I’d prefer to sleep tonight.”

They ate in silence for a while. Adam considered his burger. It was certainly good, but was it one of the best? He chewed each bite thoughtfully, and tried to balance the juiciness of the meat with the sharpness of the cheese and the varied tastes - sweet, acid, umami - of the condiments. About a quarter of the way through, he settled on the conclusion that it maybe wasn’t the best he’d ever had, but it certainly was in the top five. He set it down to take a photo of it for the group, which he would include with the tornado pictures when he sent them later.

“You guys still have to show me your pictures,” Rachael said, the sight of Adam’s phone jogging her memory. “Lucky, you took a million yesterday and today - I heard your camera. Any favorites?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed his mouthful of chicken. “I’ll show you when I’m not greasy.”

“Deal.” She cocked her head, a loose lock of dark hair falling across her nose. She blew it out of the way. “How about you, Adam?”

He thought about all the photos and videos he’d taken, and considered. “I think some are pretty good,” he concluded. “My friends back home loved some of the ones from yesterday, but I think that was more because of the tornado and not as much the quality of the photography. I’ll show you when I’m done.”

“That’s fair.” She nudged Noel. “I know you have some great pictures, I heard your camera going off all day like it was going out of style.”

Noel replied, and Adam ate quietly as they bantered back and forth. He grinned a little too, around bites of burger, because for two research partners, Noel and Rachael were really very funny together. He wondered if they were more than research partners, but neither had ever said, and while he wouldn’t have thought twice about asking when he was eleven, at eighteen he liked to think he had picked up enough social graces through the years to know better than to come out with a question like that*. Besides, neither wore a ring, and neither had made any kind of overt romantic gesture toward the other, which led Adam to believe that if they were more than research partners, they probably didn’t like to discuss it with customers. 

[*And if anything, Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship had taught him that an obvious friendship and incredible chemistry didn’t always infer a relationship that any involved parties would be willing to talk about for any length of time without blushing, or turning into a gigantic serpent and escaping through a window. Although Adam also knew the latter was significantly less likely within the general population.]

“So where are you guys from?” Lucky asked, and Adam startled out of his reverie. “I mean, I read your bios online, but like - Noel, you’re from around this part of the country, aren’t you?”

“Not quite - I’m from Montana.” Noel’s expression changed when he mentioned that state, settled into something calm and peaceful. “Big Sky country. Not too many tornadoes up that way, though, but the winter storms can be something up in the mountains. That’s home base for me, when it’s not chasing season.”

“So you like snow and stuff?”

“Oh, yeah! Cross-country skiing, trapping, fishing.” He laughed. “Growing up out there, just me and my mom, it was a little wild. She’s kind of a frontier-woman type, so we grew or hunted a lot of our own food.” He shrugged. “Not that I don’t love it, obviously, nothing better than being out in nature if you ask me, but I do like being able to run to the store when I’m out of peanut butter. College domesticated me, I guess.”

“Education’ll do that,” Rachael agreed, laughing. “One minute you’re Grizzly Adams, the next you’re eating Top Ramen and yelling at the weather channel in an air-conditioned dorm because it’s kind of hot outside.”

Noel acted affronted at that. “My dorm didn’t have air conditioning, excuse you.”

“Oh, so sorry, my mistake.” Lucky and Adam were laughing, which Adam rather suspected was the intended outcome of the little show the two scientists were putting on. “Was it actually a constructed building or did you fashion your own dorm out of hewn logs?”

Noel shook his head. “They wouldn’t let me build a log cabin on campus, can you believe?” He nodded her way. “Anyway, that’s me, what about you? Where you from? The public wants to know.”

“Florida.” Rachael sighed. “Sorry to say, I am Florida Woman.” Lucky and Adam laughed again. “Fighting alligators, selling fake Superbowl tickets, finding manatees in the swimming pool … Yes, all my doing.”

Lucky looked somewhat worried, and Adam paused. “Wait, really?”

“No.” She scoffed. “Well, okay, one time a manatee did get into our pool, but that was one time. During a hurricane.” She waved a hand. “Storm surge, you know how it is. Anyway, I did not grow up on the wild plains of America - I grew up like a normal American kid in a kind-of-nice trailer park on the Gulf coast, and was already completely civilized by the time I arrived at college.”

Adam nodded. “Did you guys meet in college, or … ?” he trailed off, letting the question hang. Rachael’s mouth dropped open.

“Adam, how old do you think I am?”

Adam winced. “Sorry, I just -” but she was laughing anyway, and he relaxed and broke into a grin. “Sorry.”

“Kidding, kidding. No, we didn’t meet in college. Well,” she amended, “I was in college. He was working for OSU at the time, I think?” Noel nodded in confirmation. “Anyway, I was working with OSU’s lightning research team and he was helping with the mesonet, so that’s where we met. Then a few years later, when I was looking to do more lightning research for my PhD, he had started storm chasing, and he actually hired me on.” She shrugged. “Free research opportunities for me, and another driver for him.”

“Plus I can pay her in Dunkin coffee, which is a lot less than what the other candidates I interviewed wanted,” he joked. She made a face at him. “Alright, and money, yes. Even benefits, eventually.”

Rachael pushed her plate away, the tuna melt long gone and the fries all but eaten. She rested her face in her hands. “Yeah, that was a bigger adventure than storm chasing was that year, I think. God, getting him to do literally any amount of official paperwork is actually painful.”

“Which is why I gave her a raise and expanded her duties to include the business operations.” He snorted. “Worked out great for me - I just keep the truck and the equipment running, and don’t get us killed, she finds the storms and does taxes.”

Lucky frowned then, and Adam could almost hear what the other boy was thinking. He watched Lucky chew a french fry thoughtfully, swallow, and then open his mouth. Rachael, grinning like a shark, headed him off before he could get a word out. “If you’re about to ask if we are anything more than business partners, the answer is no. Everyone thinks so, though.” She sighed. “Alas, I’m married to a lovely woman who holds down the fort in Florida, and Noel here is married to Montana, I think.”

“Yeah, okay.” He shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“And you both just really like weather?” Adam asked, also choosing to push his plate away, although the handful of fries left were practically calling to him. “S’how you got into storm chasing?”

“I mean, I grew up in lightning country, so I guess it just carried on from there. I always liked it, wanted to know how it worked.” Rachael shrugged. “You?”

“I like road trips and tornadoes,” Noel answered, simply. “I went to college with a plan to get a business degree or something, but I actually went chasing for the first time after my freshman year, kind of fell into it, and switched my major to geology after that.”

Adam sat back. “Wicked.”

The waitress came back with the bill, and they all threw down a little cash, before wandering back out to the truck. Behind the storm, the sky was clear and dark, a few stars winking over the light pollution. Noel looked up as they crossed the parking lot and sighed. “You know that’s the thing about Montana. It really does have a sky you don’t get anywhere else. Figuratively speaking.”

“My Dad took me out to Colorado once,” Lucky said, conversationally. “We were out at some base in the middle of nowhere. The stars were insane - you could see the milky way and everything. Back home, there’s so much light pollution you’re lucky if you see enough stars to count on two hands.” He sighed, wistful. “Sometimes I think I might move out this way after school. I’m sick of DC, anyway.”

“Can’t imagine it’s a quiet place to live,” Rachael said sympathetically. “And if you’re looking to study meteorology it’s nice to have it closer to your backyard, so to speak. ‘Course, if you stay in Washington, maybe you could lobby against climate change.” Lucky made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, and stuck out his tongue. “Or not. Just a thought.”

“No way. I’m over it. The whole DC rat-race.” He waved his arms, and then hauled the door to the back seat of the truck open. “Forget it.” Once in the truck, he looked across the back seat to Adam, who was fiddling with his seatbelt in the dark. “What about you, Adam? You think you wanna stay in England?”

“Oh, yeah,” Adam replied, without ever even having to think about it. He had, after all, made up his mind about that ages ago. “I like to travel and everything, though, so it’d be cool to find some job where you get to travel a bit. But yeah, Tadfield’ll always be home for sure.”

“That’s cool.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs, wiping the last remnants of chicken grease off on his shorts. “Is it a big place?”

Adam shook his head. “Oh, no. Few hundred people at the outside. But it’s close to Oxford, and not all that far from London, so it’s kind of the best of both worlds, I guess.” He looked out of the window, and tried to ignore the feeling of homesickness then - definitely not hunger anymore, no way it could be after that burger.

There was quiet for a minute, and then, gently, Rachael said, “Have you ever been away from home this long before?”

“No,” he answered, automatically, and then he flinched, glad for the darkness and the fact that his face was turned away from Lucky. He wasn’t ashamed that he hadn’t traveled for six weeks before, not at all, but he didn’t want the other guy to think he was some homesick little kid. “No,” he decided, going on as if he was bored with the subject, “but I’ve gone away for a couple weeks before, on holiday.”

“Six weeks is a long time,” Rachael answered, tone neutral. “I guess if we’re not going to be chasing tomorrow you’ll have time to call England at a reasonable hour, though, so there’s something, right?” She cracked the laptop open and smiled in the soft glow of the screen. “Silver lining in every cloud, right?”

“You see clouds?” Lucky leaned around the seat a little to get a better look.

“Not a one.”

-

When they arrived in Kansas City, the sun had long-since set, and the lights of the city illuminated the sky with a soft glow. They found a hotel on the outskirts of the city, cheap and clean, and parted ways to crash for the evening. Adam was looking forward to a quick shower and the soft embrace of a hotel mattress, but as he started to unpack for the night it appeared Lucky had other plans.

“So what do you think we should do tomorrow?”

“Huh? Oh. I dunno. What do you want to do?”

Lucky thought it over. “Dunno. We could just wander around the city, I guess. Oh, there’s an amusement park. You like rollercoasters?”

“They’re cool.” Adam shrugged. “Any museums or anything? Or like, barbecue?”

“Oh, a barbecue tour. Might be cool.” He tapped at his phone for a while, and scratched his beard thoughtfully. “What about this haunted building walking tour?”

“Oh yeah? Sounds awesome, actually. I’d be up for it.”

Lucky put his head to the side. “Yeah, I guess the Mormons were big around here for awhile? Oh, man, if we had a car we could take a day trip to the Garden of Eden, apparently.”

That drew a laugh out of Adam. “The Garden of Eden?” he asked, incredulous. “In driving distance? What is it, like a religious amusement park or something?”

“No, no, some people believe that the Garden of Eden was here in Missouri.” He giggled. “I always heard Eden was in the middle east or whatever. Like Mesopotamia area. Guess it could have been in Missouri though. Why not? No one really knows.”

Adam laughed. “I dunno, maybe someone does.”

“What, you know some immortals?” Lucky grinned. “Or what, wizards? Is Hogwarts real? I mean, I did move away when I was eleven, I could have missed my Hogwarts letter.”

“Never been to Hogwarts, nah. But you never know.” He shrugged. “All kinds of scholars figure it’s in the middle east. Maybe one of ‘em has an inside line, you know?”

“To who? God?”

Adam smirked. “You never know. Anyway, I’m gonna grab a shower. I’m in for the ghost tour thing tomorrow, though - sounds awesome.”

“You think they’re real?” The question stopped Adam halfway to the bathroom. “Ghosts, that is.”

Adam considered it. He could be honest**, of course, but then would Lucky think he was weird? But then the other boy had been the one to bring up the ghosts up in the first place. He chewed it over for a second, and then shrugged again. “Yeah.”

[** Not completely honest. There were things that he would always leave out. Being the actual Antichrist, for one.]

“Same.” He frowned. “I mean, I’ve never seen one, but there’s so many people that believe they exist, and that they’ve seen them, there has to be something to it, right?”

“Well …” Adam chewed his lip, and then, after a second, smiled. “Alright, maybe, yeah, but to play devil’s advocate for a minute, what if it’s not ghosts at all, but a totally natural phenomenon? Infrasound, or something?”

Lucky cocked his head. “Huh? What’s that?”

Adam looked to the shower, and then tossed his pajamas into the bathroom, haphazard on the tile floor, before he turned back around and headed to sit on his bed, legs crossed and leaned back, across from Lucky. He raised an eyebrow. “Infrasound. Supposedly can make people see and hear and thing all kinds of stuff. Hallucinations and everything.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” Lucky tossed his phone aside and fixed Adam with his full attention. “It can make people see ghosts?”

Adam grinned, wide and wicked. “You ever heard of the incident at Dyatlov Pass?”

“No. Is it weird?” Adam nodded. “Cool?” Another nod. “Mysterious?” A very affirmative nod. “Dude, tell me everything.”

Adam did. The pajamas sat, forgotten, on the bathroom floor, until the early hours of the morning, while the boys chattered on.

-

“Independence, Missouri.” The 4-Runner’s brakes didn’t dare squeak as it pulled to a stop. The engine hushed and shut off, and Crowley and Aziraphale sat for a long minute, staring out of the dark windshield to a field lit only by the car’s headlights. They didn’t need them, so Crowley shut them off too. “City of Zion,” Aziraphale observed, dryly. “Site of the Garden of Eden, they say.”

“I don’t remember all the corn,” Crowley said. Aziraphale didn’t respond, instead opening his door and stepping out of the car, into the humid night air. Above, the stars that managed to shine in spite of the light pollution glimmered weakly through the gaps in the clouds. 

Aziraphale surveyed the field below them, and when he spoke again, it was in a language so long-dead that Crowley had to scramble to figure out what he was saying, at first. But it surprised him, eventually, how easily it came back, how it rolled off his tongue when he replied, like it had never died, never been shattered to the four corners when the Tower fell.

“It’s funny, how they think, don’t you think?” The angel chuckled a little. “Wonder what our lives would have been like if it had really been here, don’t you?”

Crowley was silent for a second, and then Aziraphale looked over, surprised, as a skinny elbow dug into his ribs. “Maybe I’d have been a corn snake.”

“Crowley,” he admonished, while the demon burst out into laughter. “You’re speaking a dead language that’s not been heard in thousands of years, and you make a pun? Have some respect.”

“I never will.” He ran his hands through his hair, still snickering. “If the Garden was actually in Missouri …” He sighed. “Well, for one, we’d have different accents.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” He left the demon to his own devices for a minute, giggling and making terrible puns in a tongue long-forgotten, and instead looked over the cornfield, flat and stretched out across the plains. On the other side, he could just hear the sound of running water.

“Oy, angel.” Startled, Azirpahale looked to Crowley, wide-eyed. The other was watching him, and because his sunglasses were perched on his head, sending Crowley’s mess of red hair in all sorts of directions, Aziraphale could see his eyes properly. He looked amused, most of all, but somewhere in there he was watching Aziraphale carefully. Thoughtful. “What’re you thinking about?”

“The Garden. The real Garden.” He looked around, the creatures of the night crying and squeaking and chirping all around. “Do you think, Crowley, that if it had been here - really, in real life - things would have gone the same?”

Crowley puffed out a breath, thoughtful. “Deep, angel. S’a big question. You’re giving everything a whole new beginning, for a start. It’s all so big, an’ ineffable, hard to know, isn’t it?”

“The ineffable plan might have stayed the same.”

Crowley shifted uncomfortably. “It … would be different though, wouldn’t it? It’d have to be. The Garden is in a whole different place.”

“Not necessarily. What happened in the Garden probably didn’t happen just because the Garden was where it was. It happened because of the plan -”

“Oh, sod the plan,” Crowley said with a disgusted noise. “It happened because Eve wanted to know what else was out there, and Adam agreed with her. And She made it easy for them to find out, in a way.” He pointed upwards, to where the moon was trying to peek through the wispy layer of clouds left behind from the day’s storms. “Could have always put it up there.” He snorted. “She never had a plan, she just set the pieces out and let them fall where they did.”

Aziraphale scowled in the way he always did when his disagreed, and disapproved, but he didn’t say anything about it. It was an argument they had had time and time again - Aziraphale arguing that the plan is ineffable and therefore extant but not anything either he or Crowley would ever be able to understand, and Crowley arguing that there was no plan to begin with, and She was ad-libbing and rolling with the hits as they came - and he didn’t feel like having it tonight. Instead, he re-set his expression to a more neutral, thoughtful one, and slid his hand into Crowley’s. The demon, wordlessly, squeezed it. “What about us?”

Crowley looked surprised. “What about us?” He shifted nervously onto his heels, and then laced his fingers through Aziraphale’s, the better to keep his balance.

“Would we have turned out the same, do you think?”

“I …” Crowley trailed off. He thought. Aziraphale let him, and stood beside him in companionable silence, trying to corral his own ideas about that question into something he might be able to elucidate. “Depends,” Crowley decided, eventually. “I’d have still done the bit at the start of it all, but after that …” He fixed Azirpahale with a curious expression. “Would you have still given away your sword?”

It was a question Aziraphale hadn’t expected, only because the answer to it was so obvious. He blinked. “Of course.”

The demon nodded, satisfied. “Then angel, I would have followed you to the ends of the Earth to find out what you were going to do next, no matter where we started.” He squeezed Aziraphale’s hand. “So we’d probably have ended up just the same.”

The thought of it made the angel smile, and he stepped closer to Crowley, standing close enough that their shoulders bumped and settled together, close and familiar and soft in spite of Crowley’s bony joints. “With different accents.”

“Well, yeah. With different accents. Naturally.”

-

Now with Chapter 10!

[tjkiahgb]

Episode Recap: 2.15, “Perfect Day 2.0″

The episode starts with the GHC thinking about how to spend their last week together. Cyrus says, “It’s the world’s saddest countdown,” which isn’t true.

This is the world’s saddest countdown:

(This is a joke about someone doing a poor cover version of the song “The Final Countdown” by the band Europe. They were big in the 1980s. Ask your parents what the 1980s were.)

They decide they’ll recreate their perfect day, which, in my opinion, is a mistake. Perfect is a crazy bar to clear. You shouldn’t aim that high. I say aim to recreate a fairly good to decent day, like the time I spent a whole day eating Bagel Bites and watching a marathon of “House Hunters International.” Or the day I had three meals that were just fine and saw a cool cloud. Or the day I slept through.

The GHC commits to the plan, though, and get their bikes fixed up to take off on adventure.

They begin by doing some of the shakiest bike riding I’ve ever seen and Andi says this:

Which feels like a personal shot at me, because that’s all I’m doing here. I’m reading into everything. Including this line of dialogue. Which is a personal attack.

The GHC bikes through the countryside into the woods in search of pumpkin donuts, which seems like an Autumn-based seasonal product? Is this Autumn still? I thought last episode they were trying to get Buffy to stay until the end of the school year, so I assume it’s Spring-ish? I’ve lost all control of the timeline. I want to assume it’s Spring, but I have a tough time believing this store would do something so stupid as to sell pumpkin donuts out-of-season when there’s so much good, fresh fruit available! Who runs a small business out in the middle of the woods like this?!

Also, this seems way off the beaten path. They did this same trip years ago? Like when they were small children? That’s a lot of rope to give 8 year olds. Celia let Andi bicycle into the woods and buy sugary treats, huh? Ok.

Anyway, the GHC get cider and pumpkin donuts.

Back in town, Jonah gets an anxiety-induced attack.

Jonah appears to just be going everywhere now in a constant state of panic. He bursts into the music store where Bowie’s hanging out, panting and pacing. 

He’s also wearing half of a Def Leppard shirt and half of another shirt that’s also maybe a different Def Leppard shirt? I can’t make heads or tails of it. It just says “Def Le” and becomes another shirt. Like Jonah’s having so many panic attacks, he’s ripping his shirts in half and piecing them back together at random.

Bowie tries to calm him down and teach him some guitar chords. Jonah plays the chords with body language of someone defusing a bomb.

Bowie asks if he wants to play more. Jonah asks if the store manager will mind, which, of course not. If you don’t want hippy-looking dudes and teenagers just hanging around your store, playing music and not buying things, then you don’t open a guitar shop! It comes with the territory! Bowie invites Jonah to come watch him play a show sometime. Jonah agrees.

The GHC get ready to leave the food shack in the woods when they discover 2/3 of their bikes have been stolen, which is horrible. Used to be you could go out into the middle of the woods and not have to worry about crime. Nowadays? The world’s going to heck in a hand basket, I tell ya.

I wonder where TJ is.

Buffy says they should call Bex. Andi doesn’t want to because they need to recreate their perfect day down to the smallest detail. She thinks they can all ride on her old bike, which they can’t, so they start walking.

A bee, possibly the one that came near him earlier in the episode, comes after Cyrus. Cyrus takes off running.

I don’t know if it’s Josh the person bleeding through or Josh the actor is doing an amazing job pretending to be a very uncoordinated character, but every physical thing Cyrus does, from bike riding to running, looks incredibly laborious.

Cyrus ends up with his foot in a hole. He loses his shoe to nature. They try to figure out how they’re going to continue when, dear God a county sheriff officer is right up on top of them in her SUV. She came up really quick and out of nowhere like some kind of spirit guide of the forest that drives a very quiet Ford Explorer and rescues lost children.

The sheriff offers them a ride and they start getting into the car.

Meanwhile, Jonah and Bowie are having themselves a little jam session.

Bowie figures out there’s more going on with Jonah and that he’s having panic attacks. Jonah admits he’s not seeing a doctor about it, and though he doesn’t want to keep having them, it seems his plan is to just tough it out, ducking into random places to wait out his constant attacks until he either finds himself back in a relationship or... dies of old age? I’m not here to judge anyone’s choices regarding their mental health, but I got to say, I feel like that’s not going to work.

Jonah asks Bowie not to tell Andi. He says he won’t, but adds that he thinks she’d understand, which, yeah, probably. She’s been friends with Cyrus for this long and he’s like a walking panic attack. I’m sure she’s figured out some stuff by now.

Bowie says Jonah has talent and offers to give him lessons. I guess it’s a pretty lucky thing Jonah came into the music store where Bowie was and didn’t run into the bakery or something. Although, he could also have a talent for making pastries. The world will never know now.

Back in the woods, the GHC finally finish getting into the sheriff’s car. It took them a very long time. At least two static scenery transition shots worth. They see their stolen bikes being ridden away and ask the sheriff to stop the thieves, but the sheriff gets a call about a grand theft auto, so she’s got to go to that. Used to be you could park your car in town and not have to worry about it getting stolen. Nowadays? Heck in a hand basket. Heck in a hand basket.

What do you think TJ’s up to at this very moment?

The sheriff drops them back off at the donut place. They realize too late that they left almost all of their stuff in the back of the cop car. The sheriff is gone before they can get her attention. (Life pro tip: if you want a police officer to come to you, all you need to do is commit a crime, like violating a noise ordinance, or getting publicly intoxicated, or armed robbery. There’s almost literally no place you can’t commit a crime. Get creative. The GHC, for example, could’ve burned down the closed donut shop. Arson would’ve brought the sheriff back with all of their stuff in a hurry.)

Cyrus’ phone has 2% life in it. Buffy wants to call Bex to come get them, but Andi doesn’t want to give Bex the satisfaction of knowing she was right. Andi goes to tell Bex, but then bails as Cyrus and Buffy scream and the phone dies. Bold move on Andi’s part. I, too, would rather die in the woods than let my parents know they were right about something trivial.

Andi admits this craziness is all because she wants Buffy to leave with a good memory. The bee returns and stings Cyrus.

Look, off-topic maybe a little here, but I’m with Cyrus in his hatred of bees. I know, I know, everyone now is all like, “Bees are important. The bees are dying and we don’t know why. It could ruin the planet! Save the bees! Save the bees!” I’m like, nah, kill ‘em all. Do it. And while we’re at it: wasps, yellow jackets, any bug that can sting or bite. Dead. All of them. Also, cockroaches. They don’t sting or bite, but I hate them, too. Let’s just do it and see what happens. I bet we’ll be fine. And if not, the human race can go extinct knowing that at least we took the bees with us. That’s enough of a victory in my book.

Anyway, the GHC march through a field and are saved by a Deus Bex Machina (this is a really good joke, trust me). Bex takes them all back to town and to The Spoon where they joke about their misadventure. It won’t be remembered as their worst day, but possibly their craziest.

They then see two boys wearing shirts from the Alpine slide they never made it to and jump to the wild conclusion that those are the bike thieves. With rage in their eyes, and madness in their hearts, the GHC vows to get revenge.

They run out of the restaurant and steal the two boys’ bikes. They get 30 feet away before realizing the bikes they’re on aren’t theirs. Then they laugh wildly about their larceny.

Used to be a time you could park your bike outside the local diner and not have to worry about it being stolen by a group of maniacs. Heck, hand basket, and all that.

They suddenly remember they only have a week together again and the mood sours. They hug and say they’ll see each other tomorrow. Andi and Cyrus go to return the bikes and Buffy does this:

She turned around! Which, as anyone who’s paid attention to the show understands, means she:

a. likes Andi

b. likes Cyrus

c. likes stolen bikes

We’ll have to wait to find out, though, because that’s where the episode ends.

Unrelated, but I bet whatever TJ was up to during this episode was good. Like, I bet he was off practicing free throw shooting, or helping the elderly eat food or something. Whatever he was doing, I bet it wasn’t thievery, which is more than I can say for some of the characters on this show.

[bibibiyu]

Mia Chapter 6: Choices

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Tommy called Curly into the stable and he came running, still clutching the shovel in his hand.

“Yes, Tommy!” His enthusiasm bursting through the smile on the lower half of his face.

Mia knew now. The intonation of his voice, they way every thought and emotion was exposed on his face. He was a slow man, a child.

“Curly, I need a saddle.” Tommy asked, the tone in his voice already different. Softer. Maybe not warmer but definitely not as distrustful or mechanical as it tended to sound with everyone else.

This was a man Tommy cared about, Mia thought to herself.

But Curly, slack-jawed, was watching Mia still running her hand all over the horse’s crest and back.

“Tommy, she got the old yellow to come alive?” The excitement in his voice became even more loud.

“Curly,” Tommy repeated. “I need a saddle.”

“Are you going to let her choose that one?” Curly stepped toward her quickly. “He’s a sad one, ever since we had to lock him in because of all the wolves and foxes out in the fields these days. Joseph, from on down the road warned us. He lost two of his best mares to them wolves last month.”

Mia only nodded, eyes flicking towards Tommy. The annoyance wasn’t showing in his face, but his stance was starting to become tense with it.

“Curly,” Tommy grabbed the man’s arm and took the shovel away from him. “I need a saddle.”

“Is she going to ride him?” Curly asked quietly, smiling, not even aware that Tommy was irritably demanding something.

“Yes,” Tommy emphasized. “But we need a saddle so she doesn’t fall off.”

“Right, right.” Curly nodded, trying to look more serious. Mia felt a smile pulling at her lips but she knocked it off.

“Can you get me one?” Tommy asked again.

“Right, right. Yes, Tommy!” Curly sped out of the stable, disappearing.

It took him less than a minute to come speeding back in. He handed it to Tommy and Mia thought Tommy looked funny in his suit, holding the saddle. Curly came up to Mia, reaching for the slides on the stall door.

He swung the door open, stepping inside to guide the horse out into the larger stable. It stepped out gracefully and as Curly passed by Mia, who had moved aside to make room for both Curly and the horse, he whispered to her, “This one’s a wild one.”

Mia thought as much.

Curly took the saddle back from Tommy and swung it over the horse’s back, freezing to observe the horse’s response, before quickly continuing once he saw it wasn’t going to react in any type of way. As soon as he’d secured the saddle, he went to find the stirrups.

“We don’t put reins on this one, haven’t managed to since Tommy got it from the gypsy woman.”

“I hope you’re strong,” Curly added, eyes quickly flashing to Mia again before focusing back in on the horse. “Or else Tommy’s going to have to ride with you. It’s a good sign the yellow one chose you.”

Curly led the horse out of the stable, one hand on its neck.

Tommy followed behind closely.

Mia hesitated, mind fixated on the fact that, like Curly had said, the yellow one had chosen her. This gave her a heat, a warmness, in her chest.

It was that sort of thing, that feeling that comes over when one is told they’re special. Particularly when one’s life, like Mia’s, has been replete with statements and actions denoting the opposite. To be chosen by a horse, the only kind of creature on the planet that as of that point in her life Mia had come to understand and appreciate, it clouded the rest of the afternoon’s experience with a light air. A careful and somehow still and full, happiness.

Once outside, the sky looking extra overcast, a soft drizzle began sticking to Mia’s cheeks. Tommy and Curly had their caps to shield them from it, meanwhile her eyelashes were already catching specks of rain at the tips. She had to keep blinking to get rid of the bubbles in view.

“Good day, eh?” Curly said to the horse, who was looking and standing quite attentive, seemingly surprised it had been let out. “Get to leave your stable. But don’t get used to it. We have a visitor today, is all. Her name is…” he turned to her quickly.

“Mia,” she said, this time letting herself smile. Curly was funny. 

“Right, Mia.” Curly chuckled, seeming to remember she’d introduced herself earlier.

Tommy was looking up at the sky, “It’s gonna rain. Let’s fit her today and tomorrow we can do the rest.”

“Yes, Tommy.” Curly smiled at Mia and gestured her over.

“Those stirrups look too long,Curly. You don’t have any others?”

“No, all of them are this length.” Curly immediately responded.

Tommy was thinking. “She’s already too small for these, just looking at them.”

“I can ride bareback,” Mia offered, seeing as how that was how she had learned. 

“Not with this one,” Tommy responded. He walked off into the stable, leaving her with Curly.

Which was fine with her, she liked him. She neared him and the horse.

“What’s his name? Yellow?” Mia asked, hooking her right arm under the horse’s long neck, giving it a one armed hug, placing her cheek against it. It’s mane was long, the coarseness of it scratching at her soft skin.

“Oh, Tommy hasn’t named this one.” Curly shook his head. “I call him Old Yellow.”

“Is he old?” She asked.

“Oh no, not really. He just acts kind of old, especially when he’s inside the stables. Tired. Quiet.”

Mia nodded, eyes flicking towards the stable doors. Tommy wasn’t coming back yet.

“Tommy is great at riding horses.” Curly added. “He’ll teach you how to ride them amazing.”

“Tommy races horses?” She asked quietly.

“Yes and they always win.” He paused. “Except when he wants them to lose.”

Of course.

“Tommy is a good man. The best. He brought me to London.”

“Where are you from?”

“Small Heath.” A swell of pride painted his voice. “Where are you from?”

Mia thought about it. “I’m from here.” There was no better answer than that.

“Yes, you look like you’re from here.” He nodded.

A first time for everything.

“Really?” She smirked. “Everyone tells me the opposite.”

“Yes, you look like you belong here.”

“Thank you, Curly.”

“You’re welcome.”

Tommy came back empty-handed. “Curly, we’ll just have to prop her up.”

Curly immediately nodded and Mia let go of the horse. He stepped in between them and bent so he was crouching, lacing his hands for her to step on.

She looked down at her boots, noting how muddy they were, and paused.

“Go on,” Curly said. “I don't mind a little mud.”

She placed both hands on the horse’s back, spreading them far enough so as to use the span of her arms in bracing herself, and with as much momentum as she could attain from forcefully throwing herself up and forwards, attempting not step down too hard on Curly’s hands, she tried pushing herself onto Old Yellow.

For a moment, it seemed to work but because of the weather, the horse’s back was slippery with a light layer of rain water and Mia’s arms lost their locked steadiness. Scarily, for a moment, she started falling back and down again but then she felt two hands come around her waist, pushing her up again, holding her there long enough for her to swing her right leg over the horse.

She did easily enough with that boost and then there she was, on top of the horse.

Tommy, stepped back, running his eyes over the whole picture that was Mia on Old Yellow.

And Mia was smiling, she couldn’t help it.

She dug her hands into Old Yellow’s blonde mane before running her hands down it's warm flanks. The horse responded to this by shaking its mane out, and walking forward a little.

Once Curly had stepped back to stand next to Tommy, looking extremely concentrated, as if bracing himself for danger, Mia edged the horse, by the mane, to the left so it was facing Curly and Tommy and not the stable door it had come out of.

It responded easily enough, shifting onto its back legs while it gave a couple of steps with its two front legs, as if testing them out, before standing still.

Curly smiled.

“Looks like you’ve been chosen,” Tommy said.

 ….

Mia got back to the house early enough, feeling like her heart was racing. She had barely gotten through the front door before Peter had rushed her back into the closed off dining room to finish cleaning and organizing the silverware. 

Mia had stayed there until it was time for bed, for once not even minding how endless the stream of silverware and china was. Her mind was too busy replaying the day’s events, so much so that when the sun had set, without Mia’s knowledge, Mrs. Penny had had to pop in to say that everyone else had finished cleaning up and it was time for bed.

It wasn’t until she’d been lying down in bed for thirty minutes, Harriet already snoring next to her, that she realized she was hungry and hadn’t ate anything since noon.

She sat up and the creaking of her bed woke Harriet up.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hungry. I’m gonna go to the kitchen.”

This caught Harriet’s attention. By the time Mia had come up to their room, Harriet had already been asleep so Mia hadn’t even had time to explain any of what had gone on that day.

They both made their way into the kitchen, not daring to turn on any of the lights. The street lights shining in through the windows halfway illuminated the kitchen anyway.

“Where did you go?” Harriet immediately asked, sitting down at the wooden counter.

Mia pulled the bread out from its usual spot and began slowly lifting pot lids to see what had been left over from dinner.

“You remember that man I told you about? The one that brought me back here that other night?” Mia had found potato soup.

She sat across from Harriet, chewing on the piece of bread she’d cut herself.

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s working for Madam.”

“Oh wow.”

Mia nodded, taking in a spoonful.

“And what does that have to do with you?”

“Yesterday when I was called in to speak to Madam, he was there. Madam and him have some sort of deal.”

Harriet’s shock resided in her eyebrows. It always found them cozy. “What kind of deal?”

“I don't know. But it involves horses.” Mia took another bite of her bread. “One horse.”

And as she told her the rest, Harriet didn’t interrupt not once, which Mia noted quickly enough and appreciated. Oftentimes, when Mia tried to tell Lena and her any sort of gossip or news, she’d be interrupted so much that they’d forgot why they were even gathered all around whispering in the first place.

As Mia was nearing the end of her day’s summary, they both heard a sort of muted clang from inside one of the pantry doors.

They both froze, panicked.

Harriet eyed Mia and Mia eyed her.

Mia had already been standing, in the middle of depositing her now-empty bowl of soup in the sink. With Harriet’s eyes begging her to, Mia took a step towards the door, and Lena came barreling out of the pantry.

Mia held her back her gasp and closed her eyes, her hands coming to her chest.

 Harriet had let out a squeak followed by an exaggeratedly annoyed sigh.

 “Lena, what on earth?”

 “What are you two doing?” Lena’s voice was halfway muffled because she was chewing on something.

 “Mia was hungry.” Harriet was squinting at Lena, trying to figure out what she was eating. “What are you chewing on?”

 Lena froze, then smirked. “Peach tart.”

 “Didn’t your mom say to stay away from those?”

 “She set some aside for me. And you two. She always does.” Lena rounded the counter to sit on Harriet’s side.

 Mia sat back down.

 “Except, she says I can only have one every other day.” Lena continued. “And I’m not rather fond of that rule.”

 “They’re gonna have to re-adjust your dresses again if you keep at it.”

 Lena ignored Harriet, taking another bite of a peach tart she quickly brandished from inside the pocket of the sweater she’d draped over her nightgown.

 “What were you talking about?”

 Harriet and Mia exchanged a glance and Lena pretended not to see it.

She waited so Mia told her what she’d learned about that day, leaving out what had happened to her the other night.

When she was done, Lena asked, “what’s his name?”

“Well, his name is Thomas Shelby a-“

“THOMAS SHELBY?!” If a whisper could be loud, it was Lena’s. Her face was contorted in a mixture of awe and horror.

She put her tin of water down on the wooden table and Harriet and Mia could see the thoughts running through her blonde head.

“I take it you’ve heard of him,” Harriet rolled her eyes. Her and Lena had a rocky relationship. They were always arguing. Lena’s enthusiasm was tiring to Harriet. She also thought Lena daydreamed too much. But at the end of the day, they were still best of friends in their own weird way.

Mia knew because Harriet told her all of this.

“All of London has.” Lena leaned forward, her nightgown slipping down dangerously but she didn’t pay it any mind. Her white bosom was blinding, even in candlelight.

Mia eyed it warily. Mia hardly had a chest, very much less like Lena’s, who often had to have her dresses pulled out at the top.

Mia often had to have her skirts enhanced though.

“Madam said something like that. About how he’s very tale-“

“He’s a gangster.” Lena added, clasping her hands in front of her. “From Birmingham. His gang is the Peaky Blinders. Lads that sew razors to the peaks of their caps and blind anyone who gets in their way.”

As if she’d been pinched, Lena suddenly went quiet and Harriet and Mia watched her carefully.

Just as suddenly, Lena looked up at them, eyes wide, “My mom can’t know about this. That the house has these sorts of relations. She’d pull me out in a second.”

Mia could see that happening. She’d never see Lena again. And that would make her very sad, no matter how Mrs. Penny felt about her.

Mia, for one, when thinking fully on the man that was Thomas Shelby, truly examining his character, trying to decipher it in terms of what she’d come to know of him, was utterly confused.  

She’d been deathly afraid of him and now that terror had somehow become a cool apprehension. The truth was, she didn’t know him all too well.

She thought back to the way he’d spoken to Curly, a cautious patient voice.

She’d heard about gangsters in the stories Harriet liked to tell but in those stories, the men were brutal, cruel. Monsters.

They didn’t own horses or bring simple-minded men with them to London.  

Curly seemed to think Thomas Shelby was the greatest man alive.

They were quiet, as if all meditating on this reality.

Then Lena said, “Is he handsome?”

[written-s0ul]

A Good Time (3/4)

SUMMARY. College AU. Bucky Barnes x F!Reader. As a joke, your friends wrote your phone number on a graffiti wall for anyone who “wants to have a good time.” You didn’t expect someone to call. But someone did.

WARNINGS. Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader. Cursing / swearing. A little angsty, but still fun. Don’t be an awful friend, kids!

WORD COUNT. 1.5k

AUTHOR’S NOTES. I’m sorry Pietro, Wanda, Clint and Nat aren’t great friends HAHAHAHAHA. But they do their best. ❤️ This came out earlier than expected, bc by tomorrow until Tuesday, I’ll be too busy to even look at Tumblr. So, the final update may take a while, lol. And of course, I appreciate all your thoughts!

#1 // #2 // #3: you are here // #4

And indeed, they were! You were quick to spot the shiny, silver locks of your Sokovian friend, along with all the others, at a table beneath a tree, a little bit outside of the oven-like temperature of the cafeteria. Once you were close, Clint caught your eye and lifted his hand, only to waver at the sight of your harsh glare.

Before they could even say anything, you dropped your hands on the table. It quivered, strong enough to push their trays and to have all eyes on you. “You told me you were going to wipe off my number!” you said, gaze solely on Pietro.

He raised both hands, as though to appear innocent. It didn’t work. “Technically, she did–” he said, nodding at a sheepish Wanda beside him.

You gritted your teeth.

“But we will!” he said, resolute. Then, wavering: “After our last … two exams …” Wanda cringed, head shaking ever so slightly, almost like a warning, but he caught it too late.

You opened your mouth, ready to slap him with your words, but then, you felt fingers grazing the top of your hand, curling to grip it. Your gaze dropped, then following the length of the arm, landed on Natasha. Head tilted to the side, her smile was soft, and it brought you back to the ground. “What happened?” she asked, offering the empty space beside her.

“What else?” you said, taking the seat with a sigh. “Someone actually called me.”

All of their eyes widened, bodies reeling back. On Natasha’s other side, Clint coughed, his sandwich catching somewhere in his throat, before Pietro handed him a water bottle, which he took and drained in one gulp. Pietro narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re buying me a new one.”

Wanda glanced at them, worried, but remained focused on you. “You didn’t recognize the number?” she asked, leaning forward in her seat. You shook your head. “What did they say, then?”

“He asked if I was the one to call to have a ‘good time,’” you said, lifting both hands and curling your fingers, as though mimicking quotation marks. You shot Pietro a look, just as he was bending over to put his burger into his mouth, but seeing your glare, he froze and smiled, sheepish. “And I told him never to call me again.”

“Can we see?” Natasha asked, curious. Taking out your phone, you unlocked it and pressed the logbook of all of your calls, before handing it to her. She inspected it, eyes narrowed.

“He?” Clint asked, turning his body to face you. You nodded. “And he didn’t sound familiar?”

You shook your head, just as Natasha handed your phone to Wanda. “He didn’t sound – scary, to be honest,” you said, gaze shifting upward, thoughtful. “Not like an old, creepy pervert looking for someone to fuck. More like – someone our age? Kind of shy and reserved.”

Wanda looked up from your phone and arched a brow. After passing it to Pietro, she stabbed down a piece of chicken fillet she’s sliced, and spun her fork up to her lips. “He sounds cute.”

Wrinkling his nose, Pietro paused in his chewing. “Farh aull yuh knaurgh–”

“Swallow first,” Clint said, voice dry.

Pietro gave him a pointed look, the way a stubborn child would to say I do what I want after being scolded. But he still kept his lips sealed as he chewed.

Several beats passed, and he still wasn’t done. All of you stared at him, impatient. He jerked his head back, as though affronted, then gestured wildly to the burger in his hand, like I’m eating something beautiful here.

Shaking his head, Clint turned to you. “I think what he’s trying to say – if he knew how to swallow before speaking – is that, for all you know, this guy is some creepy pervert,” he said. “It could all be a front.”

Across him, Pietro nodded, agreeing, jaw still working on that burger, as he handed Clint your phone. Clint stared at the set of numbers, frowning, but in the end, returned the phone to you.

“Well,” you said, taking it from him and sliding it back into your pocket. “We wouldn’t be wondering right now, if someone hadn’t written my number on a wall.” Your eyes once again fell on Pietro, who blinked at you, bewildered.

He dropped his burger back on his plate, now finished chewing. A dollop of ketchup stood out at the top of his lip, like some kind of bloody mole, and seeing this, Wanda frowned, before reaching over and wiping it off with the pad of her thumb. He didn’t even blink. “First of all,” he said. “I did not expect this to happen. It was all a joke.”

“That’s not an excuse–”

“And second, you do realize that they–” he said, gesturing to all of the others with wild flourishes of his hands. “Are all in it too, right?”

Leaning back, you breathed out a resigned sigh, your eyes sweeping across all of them, their gazes angled away from yours. “I do,” you said, nodding. “That’s why I can’t count on any of you with this.”

They perked up, faces falling and lips curving downward. “We can help–” Wanda said, desperate, but you shook your head, already scooting off your seat.

“My final exam’s done by four o’clock,” you said, rising to your feet. “And I’m sure all of yours won’t be done until the next hour?” They exchanged glances, but no one disagreed. You nodded. Right. “I’ll clean it up myself then.” With that, you spun around and began your trek back to the apartment.

“Why don’t you eat with us?” Natasha said, voice steady but urgent.

You waved a hand, dismissive. “I still have some mac and cheese at home,” you said over your shoulder. And you kept going.

Not less than an hour later, the front door swung open, and Natasha stepped into the apartment. Eyebrows shooting up in surprise, you looked up from the textbook propped up beside the now cold bowl of mac and cheese in front of you, hand freezing just as it was about to scoop some of the cheesy goodness.

“Don’t you have an exam in–” You glanced at a nearby wall clock. “Fifteen minutes?”

Shutting the door, she pressed her back against it, nodding with pursed lips. “I wanted to check on you first,” she said, edges of her lips twitching up. But it didn’t meet her eyes. Something else must be on her mind.

Letting your spoon rest on the bowl, you squinted your eyes at her, curious. “What are you thinking, Natasha?”

She breathed out a sigh. Making her way towards you on the small dining table, she grabbed a seat and crossed her legs, hands curled on her knee, as though she was at a business meeting instead of with a friend. “I want to make it up to you,” she said. She glanced down at your phone, resting adjacent to the bowl. “I can find out who owns that number.”

You leaned back in your seat, eyes blinking wide. “What – how?”

She shrugged a shoulder, nonchalant. “I know some people.”

For a moment, you considered it. What if it was a guy from the university? A fellow student? God, your friends would freak. Even you would freak. It could only cause more trouble, and during this kind of week, the last thing you wanted was trouble. Maybe it would be much better if you didn’t know.

Shaking your head, you let your hand rest on Natasha’s. “I appreciate it, but you don’t have to,” you said. “I just want to put this all behind me.”

Her brows furrowed. “Are you sure? It’s for your safety too–”

“He hasn’t called me back, or started harassing me,” you said. With a shrug, you gave her a small, grateful smile. But she didn’t look pleased. “I promise if he so much as sends me a text message, I’ll tell you, okay?”

She pressed her lips together at this, considering.

“We can hang out tonight, if you want?” you said, conceding. “Girls’ night?”

“Oh, um,” she said, her eyes falling to her lap. When they met yours again, they’ve dimmed to a shy glint. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I have plans tonight.” The corners of her lips twitched up to an apologetic smile, while yours plummeted, puzzled.

“Plans?” you asked. She nodded, but made no other move to elaborate. You blinked, leaning back in your seat. “Well, alright. You have fun.” You tried for a bright smile, but it barely even pushed your cheekbones up.

Her smile didn’t waver, but neither did the glimmer of guilt in her eyes. Clearing her throat, she pushed back the chair and rose to her feet. “I’ll see you later, okay?” she said, voice soft and husky. With a squeeze of your hand, she turned away and headed to the door, throwing you one last smile over her shoulder. “Good luck with your finals.”

As the door clicked shut behind her, you looked back down at your mac and cheese, shoulders slumping. You have no doubt that something’s going on with her, no doubt that she’s as capable as a spy to find the owner of that number, and no doubt that she was going to, no matter how much you hoped she wouldn’t. You hoped anyway.

AUTHOR’S NOTES. I love Pietro and Clint’s dynamic HAHAHAHA. Also the twins’ dynamic. What could Nat’s plans be though? You guys think she will find out who called the reader? Lol. I hope you enjoyed this!

TAGGING. (Let me know if you want to be tagged to the story or permanently!) @courtneychicken @ailynalonso15 @monsis-world @cami23593 @redqueen1221 @cinthias-corner @shortiiqt16 @inside-lizzys-head @riddikuluslyemily @boyzines @ishipmybed @jorddeenn @fabulousfrankiefurball @omgikwangminwoo @cassandras-musings @gingerstarlight @magickandmoons @sleepingslytherin @itsanxietynotexcitement

[harshmallowffxv]

Sweet Tooth — a Promptio fic (General Audiences)

Written for day 3 of @promptioweek, under the prompt ‘dessert’.

Cross-posted to ao3.

Gladiolus feels like he’s being baked alive.

Ahead of him there’s a band of angry red skin visible just above the neckline of Prompto’s tank; whenever he moves, a little sliver of pale flesh shows beneath it. Gladiolus watches a bead of sweat trickle out of the blond strands of Prompto’s hair, watches it roll down his neck and into the neck of his shirt.

He looks away.

‘I’m dying,’ Prompto whines, his voice hitting a grating pitch. ‘How are you guys not melting right now?’

Gladiolus drops his head back against the seat behind him. He’s starting to despise the standard-issue leather interiors of the Regalia. Slick and stylish, certainly, but hell in hot weather. He can feel the backs of his arms sticking to the material whenever he sits still too long; has to periodically peel the skin away, wincing at the pain.

‘Hey, Iggy,’ Noct says, leaning forward to sluggishly tap on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Make a pit stop at the next gas station?’

Ignis pushes his glass up the bridge of his nose, whereupon they slide down almost immediately, courtesy of the sweat accumulating there.

‘I’ll not argue,’ Ignis says. ‘It might do the Regalia some good to cool down.’

The closest gas station still seems too far away; by the time they’re parked in the shade, the Regalia’s engine ticking noisily as it cools off, Gladiolus barely has the energy to peel himself off his seat and get out.

They trudge to the diner and Ignis puts in an order of tall, cool drinks.

‘And a chocolate sundae!’ Prompto blurts.

When everyone stares at him, he throws his hands up.

‘What? I get hungry when it’s hot.’

The seats in the booths at the diner are imitation leather and Gladiolus flinches from the thought of leaning back against them. Thankfully the window-side of the diner has been in shade for the better part of the day, and they’re cool to the touch. He lets Prompto slide in ahead of him before flopping down next to him.

The other patrons in the diner that day look similarly irritable. Gladiolus sees a mother, red faced and flustered, trying fruitlessly to settle a cranky toddler. He doesn’t envy her — he remembers Iris at the worst of her terrible twos, when she was liable to burst into fits of tears whenever she didn’t get her way.

The group’s usual chatter is glaringly absent while they wait for their order. The day is slow and sleepy, too hot to think straight. Outside, a haze of heat plays over the blacktop.

When their drinks are finally set down in front of them and Gladiolus takes his first sip, he thinks it might be the best soda he’s ever had. The server didn’t scrimp on ice, and the cubes clink melodically against the glass as they swirl in the liquid.

Across the table, Noct holds his glass to his forehead, his eyes closed as though he is at this very moment in heaven.

‘Hey, ‘member that heatwave a couple years back?’ Prompto says suddenly. His words are slurred and muffled between mouthfuls of ice cream. ‘This is hotter.’

Gladiolus doesn’t even need to ask for clarification — ‘54 went down as one of the hottest summers on record. Unrest had been rife amongst the people of Insomnia, and he had wound up with a scar straight down his face as a memento for stepping in to protect Noctis from a man in a drunken rage.

‘That might be a bit of an exaggeration,’ Ignis says.

He pushes his glasses up his nose yet again; yet again, they slide back down.

‘Nope,’ Noct says flatly. He still has his eyes closed, his drink now pressed to his neck. ‘Hotter.’

Gladiolus feels a nudge at his elbow. When he looks to his right, Prompto is looking up at him expectantly with a spoonful of ice cream poised in his grasp.

‘Wanna bite, big guy?’

There’s a melted drop of ice cream dangling from the bottom of the spoon. Before it can fall, Prompto uses his other hand to catch it and licks it from his fingers.

Gladiolus shakes his head.

With a shrug, Prompto tips the spoon into his own mouth and turns to look out the window.

It’s a painful prospect to have to go back out on the road, even with a few newly-procured share size bottles of soda and water nestled in the cooler in the back of the Regalia. Gladiolus tries to tell himself that it’ll be dark before they know it; that the heat will taper off as the sun dies down.

The on-demand forecast tells a different story, of course — the humidity looks set to worsen as the day wears on.

Prompto has an ice pop where he sits in the front. Gladiolus can tell Ignis isn’t happy about it from the way he keeps flicking a glance toward Prompto’s hands, and down to the cream-coloured upholstery to inspect it for stains.

‘How far to Lestallum, anyways?’ Prompto says. He has a hand thrown across his forehead to shield his face from the sun, not that it seems to be doing much good. ‘We’ve been driving forever.’

Gladiolus leans forward to check the clock on the dash; it’s not even three yet. A gust sends strands of Prompto’s hair brushing against his cheek, against his neck. He swallows, sitting back.

Prompto’s right about one thing — maybe they haven’t been driving forever, but it sure feels like it.

It’s too hot in the tent; Noct is a bundle of limbs, somehow sprawled across the space three men should take up. After throwing his arm off for the fifth time, Gladiolus gives up with a grumble, climbing out of the tent.

Prompto’s still up, head bent over his phone as he frantically taps at the screen. Gladiolus can hear the battle music from King’s Knight playing softly from the speaker.

‘Maybe you wouldn’t be so cranky in the mornings if you got a good night’s sleep for once,’ he says, shaking his head.

He settles down into the seat by Prompto and digs his own phone out of his pocket.

‘Co-op?’ he says.

Prompto nods, barely looking up.

They play awhile, but Gladiolus gives up before long. He’s tired and irritable, eager for a break in the heat; he keeps letting his character die when he should be more careful, and Prompto has to rush in to revive him.

He leans back in his seat and covers his face in his hands. There’s a pressure behind his eyes — a headache brewing. He hears scraping, then clinking, then rustling. When he uncovers his eyes and cracks one of them open enough to look, Prompto’s wrist-deep in the cooler, rummaging around in it. His blond hair falls across his face, covering his eyes as he bites his lip in concentration.

Gladiolus watches him pull his hand out, something closed within it. When Prompto plops back in his seat, he opens his fingers a little and Gladiolus sees the label of some generic brand ice cream sandwich.

‘Seriously?’ Gladiolus says. He drops his hands, sits up straight to look at Prompto in disbelief. ‘You haven’t put a single thing in your mouth today that wasn’t loaded with sugar.’

Prompto tears the wrapping open; takes a bite as he shrugs.

‘M’hungry.’

Gladiolus throws his eyes skyward. He had thought Noct was bad enough with his aversion to vegetables.

‘Want some?’ Prompto says.

His arm is outstretched as he proffers the dessert, his eyes open in an earnest invitation. Gladiolus thinks of earlier when Prompto had offered a spoonful of sundae, thinks of the little drop of melted chocolate that had fallen into his hand. There’s a trickle of ice cream running down Prompto’s hand even now, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed.

Gladiolus pushes off from his seat with a sigh. He takes the sandwich out of Prompto’s hand — careful not to get the sticky residue from Prompto’s fingers on his own — and bites off a corner of it from the untouched side.

It’s lukewarm at best, the ice cream all but turned to slush even with the cooler’s feeble attempts at fending off the heat of the day. The cookie base around the outside is still cold, however, and it feels good on his tongue, and down his throat.

He hands it back.

‘Good, huh?’ Prompto says, before stuffing the ice cream into his mouth once more.

‘It’s no ice-cold beer,’ Gladiolus grumbles.

Prompto is gone from his seat in a flash, one hand holding his dessert while the other roots around in the cooler. The clinking is louder than last time and Gladiolus winces, shooting a look in the direction of the tent. Nobody comes out.

A moment later Prompto raises his hand triumphantly.

‘Ta-da!’

Gladiolus laughs in spite of himself. Prompto looks so proud, standing there with a bottle of beer in one hand and an ice cream sandwich leaking all over the other. Gladiolus takes the former gratefully and twists off the cap, guzzling down a few mouthfuls.

‘I wouldn’t call it ice-cold,’ he says. ‘But it’s still pretty damn good.’

Prompto grins, visibly pleased with himself. He settles back into his seat and finishes off the ice cream, licking his fingers clean.

Somewhere, out in the dark, a wild dog howls. After a beat, its mate barks in reply.

[botanistlester]

The Summer Epilogue Part Two (33/33)

The Summer (33/33) | Dan Howell has spent the last three summers at Camp Bergamot, but it’s never been quite like this before. This year, he faces a summer full of new friends, a new relationship, and an entirely new view on his own sexuality. Perhaps Camp Bergamot should be renamed camp self discovery for all the changes Dan has gone through, but one thing’s for sure - despite all the hiccups and the drama, he just might have found the love of his life. | Phan | Mature | Smut, Misunderstandings, Insecurity, Panic Attacks, Bullying, Minor Violence, Physical Fight | 400,000+ Words

Disclaimer: In no way do I claim that this is real or cast aspersions on Dan or Phil.

This Part: 28,772 Words

For reference, @botanistlester is Dan, @snowbunnylester is Phil.

(Previous) (AO3) (Masterlist)

Warnings: schmoop, romantic baths, proposal, multiple orgasm, humour, edible body paint, penetrative sex

A/N: Wow, I can't believe this story is over! It's been literally such a wild ride and I'm so overcome with emotions now that we've officially posted all of this story for the world to see. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's been here with us since the start, and thank you to everyone who we've picked up along the way. Your support means the world to us. We love you all and will hopefully see you again soon with another RP <3

Chapter Thirty-Three: Epilogue Part Two

"Okay," Dan said, trying to keep his eyes open so he didn't fall asleep. Phil hummed in question as Dan tried to separate their sweaty limbs. He ended up giving up after a moment and just groaned, falling back into the bed. "Why did we think having a round two was a good idea when we are literally the least athletic people in the world?" Dan muttered, and smiled when it made Phil laugh at him. This time when he got up, his thighs were shaking and it felt like his legs were going to give out, but he stood his ground, staring down at a naked Phil buried underneath the blankets. "Get up before I drag you into round three. I don't think our bodies are quite ready for that, do you?" He shuffled around the room until he found his (slightly wrinkled clothes) and slid on his boxers, tossing Phil his own. "I swear to god Phil, if you don't get up right now..." Dan threatened, eyeing Phil up and down.

Phil did not want to get up right now. Why was Dan making him get up again? At this rate, he'd take the round three over getting out of this bed, where he was all warm and the sheets were cocooning his sore, shaking limbs. His heart rate had gone back up again, and he felt fucking amazing, but he didn't think he was ever going to want to go for a round two again. He'd just missed Dan so much, and Dan had made him feel so safe with him, able to discuss things like a breathplay kink of all things, that Phil had just... not been able to help himself. It didn't help that Dan was incredibly sexy. Groaning, Phil managed to get himself to sit up, and glared at the pair of boxers Dan had tossed his way. "Why do we have to get up again?" he asked, "And you can't tell me you didn't enjoy the hel/ out of round two," he added, managing to make himself stand and wincing as his bum started to ache. His legs were jelly, that wasn't helping, and he was far more sore than he probably should have been, but, well, they had had really rough sex the first time round, with a nice, calm, grinding session the second time.

Dan glared at his boyfriend, but there was no venom behind his gaze. In all honesty, Phil was endearing as hell and Dan was completely and utterly whipped. He wanted to just crawl inside of bed and hold Phil forever, just as Phil seemed to want as well. "While round two was fucking fantastic, I think we're forgetting an important thing." Phil stared at him dumbly and Dan shook his head, rolling his eyes and smiling. "It's our anniversary, you spoon." Still, Phil said nothing, and Dan threw a clean pair of jeans at Phil's face. "I'm taking you out to dinner. So get up! Rise and shine, motherfucker!"

Phil's jaw dropped. Had Dan just said that? Instantly, before he could control himself, Phil was laughing, throwing his head back with it, having failed to capture the jeans Dan had thrown at him until they were falling to the floor in a heap at his feet. Phil hadn't forgotten about the fact that it was their anniversary, but he hadn't really considered the fact that they would probably be going on a date for Dan's plans. He didn't know what was more funny - what Dan had said, or the fact that Phil had pretty much ruined and rumbled Dan's dinner clothes. "What are you going to even wear to this dinner you're taking me to? I've ruined all your clothes,” Phil said, eyeing Dan’s crumpled and soiled shirt in particular. “And where did you get any money for a dinner, anyway? It better not be fancy, Dan, whatever money you have should go to school," Phil complained, but there was affection in his voice, and all he really wanted was to tug Dan in and kiss him again for even thinking of a romantic evening. Phil's gaze flicked to the floor, then, and as he went to collect his pants, something small and black caught his attention. Heart leaping into his throat, Phil looked up to find Dan was yanking a shirt from Phil’s closet over his head, and kicked the box he'd just seen until it slipped under the bed, desperate that Dan not find out about the ring until Phil was ready for him too.

Like a light had switched on in Phil's head, he started laughing. Rather hysterically. Dan tried to glare at him, unimpressed, but he ended up giggling along as well. He busied himself by riffling through Phil’s closet for a dress shirt to pull on. "I'm just gonna wear some of your clothes, obviously, considering there is an actual cum stain on my nice shirt." He gave the offending object on Phil’s floor an affronted glare before turning his attention back to Phil, who suddenly seemed more flushed than he was before. He decided not to question it. They had just had two rounds of sex, after all. Dan was pretty flushed as well. "It's not too fancy, don't worry. We're just going to get some food and eat some dessert. Just like old times." Dan's voice had gone soft at the end, thinking about their very first date and how it'd been so, so long ago.

Now that the ring box was properly hidden, Phil turned back to Dan, yanking on the jeans he'd picked up as well, and smiling a little at the way Dan complained about the cum stain on his nice shirt. Some part of Phil was kind of happy for it, to have this little mark on Dan even if he wasn’t going to wear the shirt, just like the bite marks at Phil's throat that marked Phil as Dan's. It was the memory of old times, of the dates they used to go on in High School, their very first public date out at that coffee shop before the movies that really made him melt, though, and he felt his heart stutter in his chest. Phil was so, so tempted in that moment to crawl under his bed, retrieve the ring, and just propose right then and there - but he didn't. He wanted to wait until the right moment, the perfect moment, and that was hopefully tomorrow during the picnic he'd intended to prepare. "Alright, cool. I can't wait," Phil admitted, abandoning his search for a nice shirt to push in close to Dan so he could kiss him, cupping his cheeks softly in his own and sighing against Dan's mouth.

Dan tugged on his jeans, grumbling more about how he looked all raggedy, but he didn't actually care if he was being honest. It was worth it, and he didn't care about his own appearance as long as he was with Phil. As soon as his trousers were buttoned, Phil was crossing the room and giving him a sweet kiss, cupping his cheeks. Dan smiled and reciprocated, loving the feeling of Phil against him. He was the luckiest guy in the entire world. "Are you ready?" Dan asked when they pulled away, but Phil looked so kissable and smaller than Dan was used to, so he ended up kissing him once more, sighing. "Can't stop kissing you," Dan murmured, pecking Phil multiple times on the lips. "Let's leave before I start making out with you again, otherwise I don't think I can stop."

It wasn't fair. Dan had gotten far too tall, and he was using that to his advantage with all of the little kisses and the hovering over Phil and the staring with the softest look imaginable, Phil being forced to look up at Dan not for the first time, but the first time to this degree. Phil pouted, but his heart was still fluttering away happily,and all he could think in that moment was that he wanted to marry this man. He wanted to marry Dan, and he didn't care if they couldn't' actually get married until after school, didn't care that if they did get married anyway, they'd still have to be a part until they got their degrees or whatever, he was just ready to be engaged, to know that Dan would say yes, and that Dan would forever be his. Phil was one of the lucky ones, having found his one so early on in life, his first love. Dan was everything to him. He pushed up on his heels, and kissed Dan again. "Wouldn't be such a bad thing, in my opinion," he murmured, but sighed, knowing Dan really wanted to take Phil for this date, and made himself pull away. "Okay. Come on. Take me wherever - I'd follow you to the ends of the Earth.”

"You make a convincing argument," Dan murmured between kisses. He grinned, his dimple making a cave in his cheek as Phil said something so incredibly cheesy that Dan could feel the butterflies eating away at his stomach. He kissed Phil once more before backing away and taking his hand. "Ready then?" he asked softly. At Phil's okay, he started to lead them out of the house. The restaurant was a short distance away so Dan decided to just walk there and bask in the pretty summer scenery, holding hands and just enjoying each other. Dan had decided on a little Italian place that had the best Fettuccini Alfredo Dan has ever tasted. They'd gone here a few times and loved it, so Dan decided to take Phil here again. He planned to buy them a nice bottle of wine as well, just for the celebration.

They made their way out of Phil's house at a leisurely pace, something comforting after the day they'd both had already - what with the angst of Dan lying, and then the copious make up sex. It as nice now to just meander down the stairs, lock up the house, and then meander down the street as well. The walk was familiar to Phil, and he knew before they arrived at the italian restaurant where they were going. Phil found himself chuckling to himself, nudging at Dan lightly with his hip and sending him a happy smile, but otherwise not speaking. They were both rather quiet, actually, just basking in each other's company, knowing they could play catch up at dinner when they got there. For now, Phil just enjoyed their time together, staring up at the sky, and basking in the fact that he could hold onto Dan again. Being home was nothing without Dan. Phil always missed him so much.

It was perfect. Phil's hand was entwined in Dan's and they were swinging them between them happily. They weren't talking, but that didn't matter. They were just enjoying their time together, loving how they could be comfortable enough to walk in complete silence. Eventually, they reached the restaurant, and the hostess took them to a booth where Dan and Phil slid into the same seat together. They always sat in the same seat together, thighs pressed together and their hands still entwined. "I've missed this with you," Dan murmured, looking over the menu and giving Phil a sweet smile. "I can't wait for the day I can finally be with you every single day."

After their first fateful date, sat next to each other at a cheap but cute little burger joint, Dan and Phil had chosen to sit next to each other from then on, finding it far more comfortable and enjoyable to be pressed up together next to each other on the same seat. No one seemed to notice or care, and it left Dan and Phil able to hold hands while they ate, with Phil always sitting on the outside so their non dominant hands would be free to hold between each other. "I missed it too," Phil agreed instantly upon being seated, Dan taking his hand in his again, their menu's dropped off in front of them. Neither boy needed the menu tonight - which was why Phil was surprised when Dan picked his up. "Thinking about changing up your usual order?" he asked, surprised.

"I may change a couple of things," Dan mused, giving Phil an amused glance. He understood why Phil was so taken off guard; they always got the same thing to eat, so Dan didn't really need to look at the menu, never really did anymore. He was mostly looking at it now so he could check out the wine. He had a general sense of what sort of wine Phil liked, the sweet ones that tasted more like grape juice than alcohol, and Dan was glad because he was the same. What came along with growing up together seemed to be their sense of tastes and likes as well. They were practically the same person now. Except Dan was a drama queen and Phil was rather insecure. "I like to weigh my choices," Dan told him, but when the waitress came back and asked for their drink orders, Dan bought them the sweetest kind of red wine, making Phil complain. "Hush, let me do this for you," Dan whined, making pouty eyes at Phil.

Phil should have known when Dan started behaving strangely that he was up to something, and yet he didn't see it until it was too late and Dan was ordering them a nice red wine. Phil whined as soon as the waitress was out of earshot, not getting even the chance to say a word before Dan was shushing him and staring at him with puppy dog eyes. "Dan," Phil admonished, even as he tried to prevent himself from smiling. "Wine is expensive. I appreciate the sentiment, but, like, you need that money for school. Please don't waste too much on me," he insisted, even as he remembered the rather expensive ring he'd bought back home. That was different, though. Phil had been saving for that specifically, had - mostly - kept himself from dipping into his university money. Phil had a terrible idea that Dan had not been able to do the same. He was on a scholarship; he didn't need a job, and his parents gave him money for the semester. Phil didn't want to take that money from his boyfriend.

Dan batted Phil away with the hand that was free. He knew he didn't need to do this, but he wanted to and Phil was important. Today was important. He wanted to celebrate, and what better way to do so than to celebrate with a glass of wine? "Hush. I know it's not necessary but let me do this for you. I want to celebrate us." Dan grinned at Phil and kissed him on the cheek, loving how the gesture made Phil smile. "Look- it's not even the most expensive wine. I think I can spare a few extra quid if it's spent on you." Dan didn't dare tell him about the locket necklace sitting in his pocket either. Phil would probably have a fit that he'd spent money on that as well. And not to mention the other surprise he'd spent a few dollars on, but that one could wait until later.

The sensation of Dan kissing him on he cheek would always make Phil smile regardless of how upset he was. It made him warm to the core, made him feel loved, and he found himself sighing and giving in before he could stop himself. With small pout, Phil crossed his arms over his chest but nodded his head. "Okay, fine," he agreed. "But please promise me you won't overspend on me today, or this week we have together," Phil insisted, "and promise me you aren't breaking the bank to do this," he added for good measure.

Dan laughed, shaking his head fondly. Of course Phil would want him to keep from spending his money. He always seemed to have an issue with Dan spending money, but then he would turn around and spend a lot on Dan. Hypocrite. "Okay, mum," Dan teased, flicking Phil on the nose. "I promise I won't go too overboard, and it's not eating at my bank account at all. Let me spoil you today." It was then that the waitress came back with the two glasses of wine, and Dan watched with a smile as she placed them down in front of Dan and Phil. Dan took his glass and held it up to Phil, raising his eyebrows and smiling easily. "Here's a toast to two years," Dan murmured. "I'm sure there'll be many more years as well."

Phil couldn't exactly argue with something like that. Phil spent more than half of his own time spoiling Dan; it was only fair that he allowed Dan to spoil him as well from time to time. Giving in with a sigh, Phil nodded his head and offered Dan a small smile, reaching down to take Dan's hand. Not long after, the waitress returned with glasses of wine for the two of them. She offered them a smile before she too was gone, and then Dan was picking up his glass and offering it up to Phil's, like he wanted to toast. Phil picked his up as well, feeling something warm and giddy fill him at Dan's words. "To two years," Phil agreed softly, his eyes melting at the way Dan promised they'd have more time yet to come. Their glasses clinked, and Phil raised his own to his lips for a sip, eyes never leaving Dan's.

Two years. The realization that they had been dating for two years was pooling with excitement and warmth in Dan's chest. He couldn't believe it. After they'd been through so much, they’d made it. They’d made it through jealous ex girlfriends, separate high schools that moved to even further universities, and people telling them over and over again that they couldn't do it. Dan wanted to shove it in their faces, tell them all to look at them now. Two years. Dan couldn't have gotten luckier. He sipped at the wine, humming pleasantly. "So," Dan started, kicking Phil's foot lightly under the table. "What have you been up to lately? Tell me about what you do whenever I'm not around."

"Hmm?" Phil asked, lowering his glass and swallowing his mouthful of wine carefully. "I tell you like, everyday," Phil laughed, shaking his head a bit. "Well, I mean, when we talk on Skype...although I guess we have a bad habit of getting distracted." At that, both boys giggled, and Phil found himself smiling fondly up at Dan. He hadn't known a person like Dan could exist let alone want to be with him, so to have all that he did have with Dan was the most wonderful sensation in the world. Phil just wanted to cling onto it forever, wanted to marry this man, and soon enough, hopefully he would. He sighed, and lowered his gaze so Dan wouldn't' see the sheer emotion shining there. "Uhm, well, since school ended I've been pretty bored. Summer just isn't the same without you," Phil teased, thinking about how last year they'd gone back to summer camp one more time with their friends, and how they'd spent the weeks not at camp with each other, curled up in either of their bed's. "But it's been good. Mariah and Caleb visited, and so did Kim, but it's not the same without you either. School's good though. I've been doing some student teaching with one of my professors. That's actually the best thing," Phil said, proceeding to gush about teaching astronomy and how amazing it was to talk about all the things that interested him. He'd even taught a lab last semester, showing the kids later at night how to see certain constellations even in the summer with the telescope the school had. They'd gone on a field trip later on, as well, that Phil had joined in on. "The last semester has probably been the best of my life, aside from all the time I get to spend with you."

Dan grinned as Phil started talking about his summer, his school year, and all of the positives that came with it. If he was being honest, he could probably listen to Phil talk about school all day. The way that Phil's eyes lit up and sparkled in the dim lighting of the restaurant was intoxicating, and his cheeks would get a little rosy, and he would start to gesture with his hands. It was obvious that his studies were something that Phil loved a lot, probably only second to loving Dan, and he definitely showed it whenever he talked about it. Dan nudged Phil's shoulder with his own, smiling as he mentioned spending time with Dan being the best thing in his life. "You cheese ball," Dan murmured fondly. "It sounds like you've been having a good time. I'm so happy you like your studies. You've got to be the best teacher, in my opinion. I can see it now, how you probably go on little rambles about the stars and the stories behind them, and what constellations there are." Dan squeezed Phil's hand lightly and gave him a cheeky wink. "You're probably the hottest teacher around, as well. I'm a lucky man."

Phil's cheeks went instantly rosy, and he found himself staring wide eyed at Dan as he teased him. It wasn't all that much of a surprise; Dan flirted with Phil every chance he got, despite them being together already. It was just the idea of being a teacher, and having Dan crushing on him that kind of got to him - made him feel kind of awkward and like that was bad, but also kind of happy in a strange way. Phil had always been seen as the strange person, that would never change, and being a teacher wasn't exactly an "attractive" profession to most people, so to have Dan imply that he would still be attracted to Phil, even dressed up as a teacher... it was just. It was good. It made him happy, something fluttery happening to his stomach as he leaned in closer to Dan and pressed his lips solidly to Dan's. "Happy anniversary," he said again, grinning as he pulled away, fingers latched onto Dan's hip, and when did that happen? "You're the actual best thing that has ever happened to me."

Phil didn't answer in so many words, but he did surge forward and pressed his lips to Dan's in a way that made Dan melt. They kissed for a few seconds, lips soft and not demanding in the slightest, a complete contrast to just an hour ago. Dan grinned immediately when Phil pulled away, happiness bubbling in his chest. "Happy anniversary, babe. Thanks for being you and loving me and supporting me through all of my decisions." He kissed Phil on the cheek, loving the way the skin heated up under his touch. "Best boyfriend award goes to you."

Phil blushed and shook his head instantly, because Dan was the best boyfriend. Phil might be supportive, but Dan was like, the best person in the world, in Phil's opinion. He couldn't even quite explain that, really, but he did know that he loved Dan with all of his heart, and he didn't know what he would do without him. Reaching over, Phil squeezed Dan's hand with his. "No, that's you," he insisted. Before either boy could reply, the waitress returned to take their orders, and once they'd placed their usuals, they got to talking again. It was nice, just having this time with Dan, no rush or worry that they only had so little time left together and they needed to take advantage of it, do as much as possible in as little time as possible. It was nice because they never had this anymore, and all Phil really wanted was to spend all the time in the world with Dan - or all of his free time, at least. He already did that as best as he could, but it was different when the person was solidly in front of you. The two played footsie, teased each other, fed each other bites of their food once it had arrived, and giggled over their silly stories, until Phil finally stopped Dan to ask him "So what have you been up too, Mr. Scholarship? We talk about your art all the time, but how are you really? How is school really?"

It was like they were on their first date again. They were giggling messes, playing footsies under the table, making intense eye contact and blushing bright red. Dan's stomach was filled with butterflies and his cheeks hurt from smiling so much. He appreciated this time more than anything. The downside to going to school year-round was that he didn't get to see Phil nearly as much as he wanted to. Not even during the summer. He just got to see him on the off chance that they both were completely free, which was a rarity with Dan's school load. This was nice though, having their food arrived and being too distracted by each other to eat it much as they continued to joke and tease and love each other. Dan hummed at Phil's question, lips quirking upwards at the mention of his scholarship. When he'd applied to the school and sent in his portfolio, the university apparently thought he was good enough that they offered him a full ride scholarship. In other words, Dan didn't have to pay a dime. Of course, that meant he couldn't really have a life, but it was going to be worth it in the end. "I love it, honestly," Dan said, knowing that Phil already knew this. Maybe Phil just liked to hear him talk about his artwork, just like Dan liked to hear Phil talk about astronomy. "It gets really hard though, and I don't have much free time. I'm taking a glass blowing class, though, which is super interesting. I had to make a weird 3D sculpture using bits of glass that I glued on a little log to make it look like leaves. It was strange, but somehow aesthetically pleasing." That was one of Dan's hardest projects, in all honesty. His professor had told him not to superglue the glass to his project but he'd procrastinated so badly that he did it anyways, and on the way to class, his sculpture ended up falling apart. Dan cried so hard that his professor gave him two extra days to redo it. "I've also been messing around with a project series about skeletons in my drawings class. It features a skeleton named Billy Bones who likes to wear turtle neck jumpers and smokes cigarettes. It's really strange but I think it's one of my favorite projects I've ever done."

Phil remembered vaguely hearing about the glass blowing class this summer, but Dan hadn't gone into much detail about what had happened after he'd burst into tears for a half hour on skype, something he'd insisted on being comforted through with some dirty talk and his own hand, and then he’d disappeared for two days to finish a project he'd apparently failed. Hearing the details now made Phil smile indulgently, knowing Dan and his procrastination habits, but proud of him nonetheless. Phil would have to force Dan to let him keep all of his art projects when he eventually moved home, so that Phil could hold onto those bits of Dan he'd missed out on when he was at school. They still had a long way to go, but Dan would be done with school one day, and they'd live together, and hopefully... hopefully Dan would agree to marry him in the interminum. "That sounds amazing!" Phil said, laughing at the idea of Billy Bones in his jumpers and smoking a cigarette. "Let me guess; did you design him after Sans?" Phil teased.

"I may or may not have designed him after Sans," Dan admitted, letting out a little giggle. Undertale had been Dan's favourite past time whenever he actually had some free time during uni. On those rare nights, Dan and Phil would get on skype together and play Undertale together until the early hours of the morning when Dan was literally falling asleep on his keyboard. It was nice, relaxing, and Dan was thankful he could have something that simple and relaxing to look forward to after a hard day of studying. "Wanna know something funny about my glass class?" Dan asked, grinning as Phil nodded eagerly. "We call the furnace we put the glass into to heat it up the 'glory hole'."

Phil had just been about to take a sip of the wine Dan had gotten them, the glass near to half by now, when Dan asked him if he wanted to hear something funny. Unthinkingly, Phil nodded, and took a sip, only to promptly choke on the wine at Dan's comment. No way, no way did they call it that!? Thumping himself on the chest, Phil managed to choke down the wine, and slammed his glass down, only to turn and look up at Dan with huge wide eyes, lips pulling into a smile as a laugh built up in him. "They call it a what!?" he asked, already starting to chuckle, the sound loud and gruff from Phil's coughing fit seconds ago. "There's no way," he gasped through the laughter. "The kids call it that, but not the teacher, right? That's not like - that's not like, the name for it, is it?"

Dan snickered as Phil started to choke on his wine, thumping himself on the chest and practically looking like one of those characters from a television show. It was cute, how his face went completely red and his voice went all gruff as he asked Dan to repeat himself. "A glory hole!" Dan said excitedly. If he was a dog, Dan would probably have been wagging his tail in excitement and joy. "The very first day of class, my professor was explaining all of the equipment in the room, and he literally told us to call it a glory hole, because that's what it looks like. So now every time one up us has to use it, we just say, 'hey I gotta use the glory hole' in the most nonchalant way possible. It's amazing."

Phil was laughing so hard by now that he was crying. He could not believe it had been the professor all along who'd gotten the students to call it that. Phil's chest hurt from the choking, from all the laughing, and he reached out to grab Dan’s hand in order to steady himself, shaking his head as he tried to pull himself together. By the time he finally did, he was still kind of shaking with mirth, and he looked up at Dan with wet eyes. "Daniel Howell, are you telling me you've been using a glory hole without me on the other side? How rude."

Grinning triumphantly at his ability to make Phil laugh so hard, Dan squeezed Phil's hand tight and pressed his thigh into Phil's. His cheeks flamed red at the insinuation however, and he hid his face with his free hand, groaning. Despite his groans, he was still laughing, smiling so hard it started to hurt. "I suppose you could say I have been," Dan replied after his own giggles died down. He wiggled his eyebrows at Phil, trying to make his voice deeper and huskier. "What can I say? He blows me better than you do," Dan teased. Then he nudged Phil's side with his elbow, vibrating in his seat. "Get it? cuz it's a glassblowing class?!" Dan snickered at himself. He was so fucking funny.

For a second, Phil was going to get fake offended at the idea that anyone could blow Dan better than Phil did, but then it hit him what Dan was getting at, and before Phil could help it, he was bursting into laughter once more. He couldn't believe Dan's puns had gotten worse since the last time Phil had seen him, but he didn't mind it. It was cute, and endearing, and made Phil's heart do funny little flutters. He loved Dan so much that he leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "You're a dork," he stated fondly, "But I love you.'

Dan was proud of himself, he could admit that. He liked making Phil laugh, liked watching his face light up as he realized what Dan was saying, little giggles bursting out of his throat. It was Dan's favourite thing in the entire world, how happy he could make Phil with his dumb jokes."I'm your dork at least," Dan murmured, smiling at Phil's lips on his cheek. "I love you bunches." It was then that the waitress appeared with their check, dropping it off with an overly enthusiastic smile on her face, and Dan had to quell his surprise because he'd forgotten that they'd come to a restaurant for a meal and not just so he could flirt with his boyfriend. Dan started to dig into the food he’d mostly forgotten about, groaning appreciatively at the delicious food. Going here to eat had definitely been a good idea.

Phil rolled his eyes at Dan, despite knowing he was right, and turned back to his plate, finishing off the last few bites of his pasta and then grabbing his cup of wine to finish the last few sips of that as well. He closed his eyes with a small sigh, feeling a bit tipsy, a bit light, and full in all the best of ways. Dinner with Dan was something Phil had not realized he'd needed so bad, and he was so, so ready to just head home with his boyfriend now and get him in bed to cuddle and watch a movie. They'd had enough sex for the day. Meanwhile... Phil had to pull together his plans for tomorrow, and for his hopefully successful proposal.

***

Waking up next to Phil was something Dan wanted to do for the rest of his life. He smiled sleepily and snuggled further into Phil's chest. He could hear Phil's heartbeat pounding rhythmically through his ears, so calming in the morning sun. It seemed as though Phil was still sleeping, so Dan just let himself enjoy the morning cuddles, thinking about how lucky he was to have such a wonderful boyfriend. Last night, they'd watched a movie called In Bruges, and Phil had laughed as Dan fed him popcorn, trying to be 'romantic'. It ended with a fight between them trying to shove an entire handful of popcorn into each others mouths, but it had been the most fun they’d both had in ages. Dan fell asleep before he saw the end of the movie, but that was okay, because he fell asleep with Phil next to him so he didn't mind all too much.

It had been a long time since Phil had woken up wrapped up in someone's arms like this - so long, in fact, that for a moment he was disoriented as he came awake, confused and a little bit afraid he'd managed to do something really stupid last night. The thing was, Phil knew himself better than that though, knew he could never ever cheat on Dan, and so after a quick shake of his head, his eyes fluttered open and he knew exactly whose arms he was in; Dan's. Dan was here, and Dan was spending the night for the time in months, and it was their anniversary. Two years. Dan and Phil had been together for two years, now, managed to survive a year apart going to school, and Phil wanted nothing more than to marry his man. His lips curled into a smile as he rolled over in his bed only to find Dan's face this close to his own, eyes open as well. "Morning," Phil whispered, voice gone all husky and rough. There was popcorn on his bed, he could see it now, from where they'd fallen asleep in the middle of a movie, but Phil didn't mind. He could clean it up later; for now, he was just going to soak up the fact that he was finally, finally waking up in Dan's arms again.

It wasn't long after Dan woke up that Phil started to wake up as well. Dan could tell when he started to wake when his breathing sped up slightly and his body started to move underneath Dan. Dan turned his face up to stare adoringly at his boyfriend, watching as his eyelids fluttered and then his eyes slowly opened. Dan grinned, leaning up to press his lips to Phil's, not caring about his own horrendous morning breath. "Morning," Dan murmured. He shivered at Phil's husky voice, and curled himself further into Phil's chest. He tucked his toes under Phil's calves. "How was your sleep?"

It was so, so wonderful to have Dan kissing him awake like this. Could this moment get any better? Really, this was the best morning Phil had had in ages, and he sighed a little as Dan kissed him, a little put out to have Dan pulling away from him. despite the fact that he knew they both had horrible morning breath just then. If Phil had it his way, they'd kiss for far the rest of the morning, maybe get themselves worked up... and then Phil remembered his plan for the day, and his heart skipped a beat at what he wanted to do. Hissing a little as Dan's cold toes pressed up against his calves, Phil tucked his chin over the top of Dan's head, happy Dan still seemed to want to be the little spoon, even if it was backwards. "Amazing with you here," Phil replied.

"I like being here more than anything," Dan replied quietly. The entire mood was quiet, almost raw, gentle. It was sleepy and filled with complete affection that made Dan's heart swell in his chest. He littered kisses over Phil's collarbone, just wanting to kiss every inch of Phil that he could possibly reach. Phil was warm and his arms were tight around him, and Dan could feel his small breaths puffing against his head. It was such a soft atmosphere, and Dan didn't ever want to move. He would probably be able to die happy here, as long as he got to stay in Phil's arms for the rest of his life, as cheesy as it sounded. "Don't ever wanna move. You're comfy," Dan murmured against Phil's collarbone, lips brushing against the skin as he kissed it again.

Phil shuddered a bit under Dan's kisses. Dan always made him feel incredibly sensitive, like he was on fire from every tiny little touch. He let out a little sigh, because Dan was getting comfortable all settled in against him again, but the kisses were still there and they were almost unfair. Phil didn't want to get worked up this morning. Dan's mouth was hot, though, always hot, and so, so good. It was impossible to resist him. "Me neither," Phil agreed softly, voice probably breathy enough to give him away. "But we have to. What time is it? I have an anniversary to plan, seeing as you ruined my plans last night," Phil teased, pushing Dan away so he could climb out of bed

Phil's voice was breathy when he responded, and it made Dan grin triumphantly. He loved how easily he could work Phil up, even through the tiniest touches and (almost) innocent kisses. Dan liked having that impact on his boyfriend, and it made him feel good about himself. But then Phil was pushing Dan away and getting out of bed, and Dan whined at the loss of a warm body under him, the coldness of the outside air chilling him to the bones. He stole all of the blankets and buried himself beneath them, glaring at Phil through a tiny hole in his self-made burrito. "I can't believe you would just get out of bed when your boyfriend so obviously wants a cuddle," Dan scoffed. He wasn't really offended though, smiling blearily up at Phil as he started to move around the room. "At least let me take a shower before we do anniversary things. I feel like a ball of trash."

Phil had fully intended to take advantage of Dan curling up in bed to go downstairs and take care of their picnic for lunch when Dan stopped him one foot into his boxers to suggest a shower. Phil turned to look at Dan slowly, all curled up and warm, and melted. He wanted to save the sex, or hopefully celebratory love makin, for after the proposal, but a shower he would be on board with. Even better; "How about a bath?" Phil suggested, dropping the boxers and turning to smile at Dan. Dan really did look warm and soft and perfect in Phil's bed.

"A bath!" Dan exclaimed excitedly. He nodded furiously, a grin lighting up his entire face at the suggestion. He hoped Phil would be joining him, that way he could curl up and just feel Phil against him, warm water cascading around them. It was a nice thought. "Can we make it a bubble bath?" Dan asked innocently. At Phil's nod, Dan started to peel the sheets away from his body, shivering at the coldness that touched his skin. When he stood up, he attached himself to Phil's side, throwing his arm around his shoulders. "Join me?" Dan whined, kissing Phil's cheek sweetly.

Phil chuckled at Dan's enthusiasm, and nodded his head as Dan moved into his side. "Course I'm coming with you. Did you think I'd spend more than a few minutes outside of your company these next few days, really?" Phil teased, immediately wrapping his own arm around Dan's waist to pull him in close. Dan nestled into Phil's side where Phil wanted him for the rest of their lives. He sighed. "Not that we'll fit very well, but I'll force us to fit," Phil added, and then started to lead Dan away so they could both get warmed up. Hopefully it wouldn't be a cold day, therefore ruining Phil’s picnic.

Dan did a little hop as Phil said he was definitely going to be joining him in the bath, humming in triumph. "Good! I get you all to myself then," Dan teased, squeezing Phil's shoulder. They started walking to the bathroom, still tangled in each other's arms, and Dan was so happy he could be as disgustingly in love with his boyfriend as he wanted to be. When they got to the bathroom, Phil immediately started to prepare the bath, and Dan sat on the edge of the tub, a small grin on his face as he watched Phil start up the water. "Bubble bath," Dan demanded, getting up to go through the bathroom cabinets. Then he gasped, eyes wide. "I take that back. When the fuck were you gonna tell me you have bath bombs?!" Dan exclaimed, taking one out and shoving it towards Phil. "We are so totally using this. I don't care what you say."

Phil was just about to point out where the bubbles were to Dan when Dan gasped and apparently found Phil's mum's supply of bath bombs. Phil didn't mind, and it made him laugh a lot to see, so he reached past Dan in the cupboard for a night sky one. "Galaxy," Phil insisted. "If we're borrowing from my mom, I insist on picking what we borrow," he added, giggling. Instantly, Phil was turning back to the bathtub with the bath bomb in hand, and preparing to drop it. Once the bathtub was filled, Phil turned off the water and said, "Ready?" to Dan, who nodded enthusiastically. Phil dropped the bath bomb, and they both watched as it turned the water a beautiful menagerie of colours, reflecting the sky Phil studied night and day.

Dan pouted a little as Phil completely disregarded his choice of bath bomb, reaching past him to grab a different one. But then he brightened up, seeing it was the colours of the galaxy, swirling with pinks and blues and whites. It was much better than the pink one Dan had picked out. He watched excitedly as Phil dropped it into the water, the bomb immediately fizzling and spreading colour through the bath tub. Dan smiled, nudging Phil's shoulder. "It does look like the night sky," he murmured. "Reminds me of you. Good choice." Then he began to strip himself of his clothing, not waiting for Phil to give him the okay. Phil had seen him naked plenty of times anyways.

Phil couldn't help beaming. Dan was so cute, and obnoxiously sweet. Honestly, Phil should be sick of him by now, but he wasn't, so as Dan moved to start stripping, Phil moved into his space and kissed him. He couldn't help it; Dan just made him so happy. Dan was his ray of sunshine, and after spending so much of yesterday laying around moping in bed, assuming his boyfriend was cheating on him like a jackass, and then having the heat pulled out from under him like a rug, he'd really needed this. He just needed Dan. His lips played with Dan's for a moment, sucking and licking at him, as they both hummed, but before they could get heated or too interested, Phil drew back, grinning fondly up at Dan. "Still can't believe you're taller than me," he complained, and then started to strip himself of his own clothes too.

Dan smiled as Phil kissed him, his lips gentle before gaining intensity. He bit down and sucked on Dan's lips, and Dan just let him. He loved the feeling of Phil getting like that, anyways. He wasn't even in a particularly horny mood for once, didn't feel the need to press their dicks together to get some friction, didn't feel the need to get down on his knees and take every inch of Phil into his mouth. The entire aura of the room was loving and gentle. They were enjoying each other's body heat and company, and Dan's heart swelled in his chest. He giggled and rested his forehead on Phil's, nuzzling their noses together until Phil pulled away and started to get undressed. "I think I've won the trophy for 'Tallest Awkward Noodle'," Dan said, licking his lips as Phil's skin was revealed. He stepped closer to Phil and laid a kiss right on his bare shoulder, humming. "I kind of like being taller than you. Gives me easier access to forehead kisses." To accentuate his point, he then kissed Phil's forehead and grinned like an idiot.

Phil snorted. Dan was such a dork. There was nothing but fondness in the sound, however, and Phil sighed at the feeling of Dan so softly and sweetly pressing a kiss to his forehead. It made him feel warm inside, made him feel loved, something he didn't get as often as he'd like anymore. Of course he always felt loved talking to Dan, but the physical touches were something even better. Phil honestly couldn't wait for the day where they could just have each other like this all the time, never have to leave each other's sides for days at a time instead of hours. One day, Phil was going to get to come home to Dan every evening, and he couldn't wait for that day to come. "Come on you nerd," Phil complained jokingly, stripping out of the rest of his clothes, happy when Dan finished undressing as well. "Let's get in the bath. I have plans for us today, remember? And they're important!" Phil complained, already climbing into the bath and deciding that despite Dan being taller than him, Phil was going to act as the big spoon. Dan could sit between his legs for once, and that was that.

"Fine, fine," Dan huffed, but he was grinning, watching as Phil got into the bath. Water splashed around his ankles, blue and sparkling, and the scent of lavender and honey was making Dan's head spin pleasantly. They were going to smell so fucking good after this. "They better be good plans if you're making me hurry up my loving attitude!" Dan joked. He stepped into the tub after Phil settled down, seeming to want to be the big spoon by the way he settled against the back of the bath and opened his arms and legs for Dan to sit between them. He did exactly that, sighing as he made himself comfortable between Phil's legs, his back to Phil's chest. He hummed, the bath water licking warmth against his skin. "This is the perfect start to the morning," Dan murmured, leaning his head back and resting his head against Phil's shoulder.

Phil couldn't help the way his lips tugged upwards at the mention of Phil's plans being good. Phil didn't doubt that Dan would eventually come to agree that Phil's plans were definitely more than good, and if he had his way, and everything went according to the plan, he thought this might be their best anniversary of all time. Well, maybe not best, but best up until now. Phil wanted nothing more than to be engaged to Dan by the end of the night, and his thoughts flickered to the ring he'd bought earlier again. It was beautiful, just like Dan... Phil could not wait to present it to him. He found himself chuckling after Dan settled against him, and wrapped his arms around Dan's waist. "I promise, you won't regret hurrying up for me," Phil whispered in the shell of Dan's ear, before kissing just behind it and humming to himself. The water was licking against their skin, pleasant, warm, and smelling amazing. Phil hadn't had a bath in forever, and he was kind of amazed that he and Dan fit, even if it was tight. Honestly, he could not have been any happier. "You're right," he agreed. "This is the perfect start to the morning, and it's all because you're here."

**

Later, when they were finished with the bath, Phil sent Dan downstairs so Phil could get ready in secret. What he said was that he wanted to surprise Dan with his outfit of choice, but what he really meant was that he needed privacy to find the ring he'd kicked under the bed sometime last night. With his bedroom door locked behind him, and Dan bustling around downstairs, Phil scrambled to his knees and crawled under his bed to the best of his ability, head stuck under uncomfortably and his fingers scrambling around the crap underneath for the little silken box. His heart was racing in his chest when, after five minutes of searching, he came up empty handed. Heartbroken and devastated all over again, Phil pulled himself out from under his bed, and started to shake. No, no, this could not be happening. How had he lost the ring he'd spent all of his savings on? How could he have done that? How was he so stupid? Phil was mortified, but just as he was getting up to scramble around in his desk drawer, praying he somehow maybe put it away rather than throwing and kicking it around, his foot landed on something hard under a crumpled upshirt he'd uncovered a few minutes before. He hissed, and then kicked the object, only to watch as the ring box was uncovered from the movement of it rolling across the floor. "Oh thank God," he said, releasing a heavy breath and working to regulate his nearly panicked breathing. "I found it," he expressed happily. and picked it up, placing it carefully on his night stand so he could get dressed. He did so quickly, in a nice pair of jeans and a cute button up, suitable clothing for the current weather, for a picnic... for a proposal. Before he left the room, he shoved the ring box into his pocket, and felt excitement began to fill him.

Dan was a bit surprised when Phil kicked Dan out of the room almost as soon as they were done bathing. He'd allowed Dan to take his straighteners into the bathroom downstairs, but Phil was smirking as he did it, his eyes warm as Dan complained about being kicked out. Of course, that didn't change Phil's mind, saying something along the lines of how he wanted his appearance to be a surprise to Dan, but Dan liked to complain anyways. He obliged, grumbling to himself as he went to the downstairs bathroom and did his hair, effectively straightening out those god awful curls he'd been born with. It didn't take him long, only about ten minutes, and Phil was still not downstairs by the time Dan was sitting at the table, bored and scrolling through his phone. "Where is that fucker?" Dan wondered aloud. It was then that he was interrupted by a throat clearing and Dan turned to grin as his boyfriend walked into the room. "About time!" Dan exclaimed, standing with a large grin on his face. "I feel seventy years older just waiting for your slow ass." He did a once-over of Phil, whistling as he took in his beloved boyfriend's appearance. He was wearing a blue button up that accentuated his eyes and a nice pair of jeans that had Dan's mouth watering. Phil was seriously the most gorgeous person in the entire world. "You look lovely," Dan commented, swooping over and kissing Phil on the cheek lovingly.

By the time Phil got to the kitchen where he'd heard Dan waiting for him, he was starting to feel the nervous, terrified butterflies filling his stomach and making his heart race. He was honestly terrified about his plans. What if this was too soon? Or not what Dan wanted for them? He knew they'd talked about marriage before, but proposing? Actually proposing? What if Dan said no? Phil was knocked out of his thoughts by Dan moving over to him and kissing him on the cheek, complimenting him on his appearance and helping to settle his nerves some. Dan loved him; even if Dan refused now, Phil knew better than to believe that it was an actual no. Dan loved him, regardless of the outcome of today. Phil just had to remind himself of that. "Thank you," Phil murmured back shyly, grasping Dan's hip and drawing him close to kiss him again. His fingers played with Dan's towel, and he grinned. Later. Later, he wanted to make love to all of that beautiful tanned skin. But for now - "Go get dressed! Lazy bones. I'll take care of... the rest of my plans while you're upstairs. Off you go," Phil insisted, swatting Dan playfully on the bum.

Dan pouted as Phil insisted he go and get dressed. If he was being honest, he quite enjoyed the nakedness. Besides, it wasn't his fault that he hadn't gotten changed yet. Phil had pushed him out of the room as soon as a towel was wrapped around his waist, so he blamed everything on his smug looking boyfriend (who also looked too damn good to be a real person). He obeyed anyways, excited about their plans. What did Phil have in store for him today? Especially that made him have to get together some stuff downstairs? Dan shrugged it off. He'd find out soon enough. In the meantime, he hummed as he slipped on his clothes, slightly crinkled from being in his travel bag overnight. It was pretty hot outside so he wore a pair of nice shorts and a gray button up, trying to look half as nice as Phil. When he was finished, he poked his head out of the door. "Phil?" he called, "Can I come down?"

Phil hadn't even felt this nervous yesterday, or the days before as he'd mentally prepared and even gone shopping for picnic foods. He supposed then the idea had still been far too insubstantial for him to really feel anything about it, though, and now the idea was looming in front of him, about to happen, taunting him. In a few hours max, Phil was going to be getting down on one knee, something he'd almost never foreseen for himself as a kid. He could not believe that Dan... might finally be someone he could really call his. Fiance. What a beautiful concept... Phil sighed, trying to pull himself together, and got out the picnic basket he'd bought before pulling out the makings for the perfect picnic lunch; he made sandwiches, deli meats and cheeses, smeared with mayonnaise because Dan loved it so, and a little hint of spicy mustard, cut to perfection just how his mum had taught him, and wrapped up in cellophane before being packed away on top of ice packs wrapped thickly in napkins. Next came the soda's, a few of them, because Phil could see now that it would be hot, two water bottles as well just in case, and then the chips and the snacks and the fruit bowl and - "Almost! Just one more minute!" Phil shouted back, panicking once more as tried to fit everything, including the desert he'd gotten in the hopes that Dan would say yes. As soon as everything was packed away, and Phil's heart had managed to settle into something close to normal, Phil sighed and tried to relax. "Okay, Dan, I'm ready!" Phil shouted up to his boyfriend, before straightening out his clothing, and checking once more in his pocket for the ring. It was still there, a great relief to Phil, who suddenly wanted nothing more than to get this over with.

Dan made sure to groan extra loud as Phil told him to wait just a little longer. He didn't want to wait. He wanted to get himself back in Phil's arms as fast as humanly possible once more. Phil was just so warm and welcoming and Dan didn't want to be away from him for even a second. But he knew that Phil was planning something out that would make Dan the happiest man in the world, probably trying to come up with something surprising and cute for them to do. So he didn't try to rush him. He just leaned against the door, waiting for Phil to tell him when he could come back down. True to his word, it didn't take much longer at all. Only a moment later, Phil was yelling at Dan to come downstairs, and he threw the door open, bounding down the stairs to go meet Phil in the kitchen. There he was, with a big brown wicker basket, looking slightly nervous. Dan raised his eyebrows. What the hell was Phil nervous about? It was just him, not Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. "You good, babe?" Dan asked slowly, smiling as he walked over to Phil. "What's in store for me today?'

Phil could hear it as Dan started to race down the stairs from his bedroom, clearly excited to see what Phil had planned for them, but Phil mostly just felt... terrified, in the strangest of ways. He couldn't' seem to get past the lump quickly forming in his throat, now, couldn't' get past the part of him suddenly terrified that nothing was going to go to plan. Dan was going to think the picnic was dumb, was going to think Phil was proposing too soon, was going to be angry at Phil for - for - who know's what, but Phil knew it was going to happen. Things had been going far too well... there was just no way they wouldn't crash and burn now. Then, quite suddenly, Dan was stood in front of him, smiling as he moved slowly towards Phil. Phil's mouth was dry. "'M fine," he muttered, blushing darkly, He shifted his eyes down and away from Dan's face, and lifted the wicker basket in his hands. "The - the weathers nice. I thought we could go on a picnic?"

A picnic. It was perfect. It was different, something people didn't really think about doing anymore. They could sit outside and eat with each other, enjoying each other's company and just chatting. It wasn't too fancy, wasn't too stressful. It was perfect. It was them. Dan grinned widely, leaning in to press his lips to Phil's forehead, just because he could. "That's the best idea I've ever heard," Dan assured his boyfriend softly. He could tell Phil was still nervous, so he brushed his fringe out of the way and stared into his eyes. "I couldn't have thought of anything better for us."

Phil could see the confusion on Dan's face, despite the gentle way he spoke to reassure Phil that he thought Phil had the best ideas in the world. Phil could see that he didn't understand why Phil was so nervous, and he couldn't imagine Dan's mind right then. Phil, at least, knew what was coming. Dan could only see that Phil was insecure, the way Phil was always insecure, and he knew how to handle that at least. It made Phil's heart swell with warmth; this is why he wanted to marry Dan so bad. There was no one in the world as perfect for him as Dan was for him. Dan was just... amazing. Lips curling up in a hesitant smile, Phil nodded his head. "Okay... okay, yeah, great. Uhm, so I know this really pretty spot," he insisted, and reached out with trembling fingers to take Dan's hand in his. The feeling made him sigh with relief as Dan squeezed around his fingers, and despite the way his heart was racing away in his chest, he felt better already. They started to walk, then, heading out together, Phil grabbing his keys to make sure he had them, his wallet in case he needed it, and a surreptitious grope at his pocket to check for the ring, and shoved everything into his other pocket. He locked the door behind them, fingers unsteady, and offered Dan a heartfelt smile when he looked at Phil carefully, cocking his head like he wanted to check to make sure Phil was alright. "Let's go," Phil insisted, and started to lead Dan down the street. This was going to be okay. Dan wasn't going to say no... was he?

Why was Phil so nervous? Dan didn't understand. He could see the way his fingers were quivering as he grabbed the remainder of his items before they walked out. His pretty eyes were filled with uncertainty and his voice was soft, hesitant, as he answered Dan, trying to assure Dan that he was okay. Dan didn't believe him because he didn't sound sure of himself at all. But he couldn't exactly tell Phil that he didn't believe he was alright. So he just followed along, tried to understand why Phil was so nervous when they were just going on a picnic for their two year anniversary. Maybe Phil was worried Dan wouldn't like it? That was the only thing Dan could think of, the only thing that actually made sense. It's not like Phil was breaking up with him or anything, so that was out of the question. Dan pressed his lips together and didn't say anything. Instead, he grabbed Phil's hand to calm him down, rubbing his thumb over Phil's smooth skin. "Love you," Dan reminded him easily. He wanted Phil to be okay, wanted him to be happy and without uncertainty.

"Love you too," Phil murmured back, soft, but too shy to turn and look at Dan in the eye. He didn't want to look at Dan, not just then. He was too afraid Dan was going to see it on his face what Phil wanted to do, what he planned to do. Phil just wanted to take Dan by surprise, but he also wanted Dan to say yes, and he wanted this to be the best picnic either of them had ever had in their lives. "I really hope you like this," Phi added, talking anxiously because what else was he going to do? "I made the sandwiches myself, and I got chips and dip, and theirs fruit and soda and water too," he went on, dragging Dan around the corner to a park he'd stalked out the other day in order to find the absolute best place for this picnic. He'd almost picked right next to the lake, but then he'd seen the ducks harassing people for food, far too friendly and terrifying for Phil to face, and then he'd nearly picked a nice little bench with pretty trees just overhead, and then a fucking spider had fallen on him, and then he'd found it - their spot, the perfect place, in the perfect weather, just waiting for them. "You can't imagine how hard it was to plan this without telling you outright, either. Remember when I texted you about the scary duck's and the spider? Yeah, I was trying to find the right spot," Phil said, as he led Dan into said park and down a path he knew far too well now because he'd walked it six or seven times just checking if everything was still perfect - nature had a bad habit of fucking everything up, after all.

Phil didn't look at him, but he replied with an I love you, so Dan tried not to worry about it too much. Phil was just so tense. Dan could see the way his shoulders were all tense and his eyebrows were slightly furrowed and his eyes were troubled as he stared straight ahead. Dan wanted to reach over and smooth the crinkle from his brow, to kiss him over and over again and tell him that this was perfect, that Dan was so happy to be with him. There was nothing else Dan wanted except for Phil, so there was no need for Phil to worry. "I already love it," Dan assured, squeezing his hand tightly. He was dragging Dan to a little secluded patch of grass and he was babbling words without taking a breath and Dan just wanted to lean over and kiss the breath out of him, make him stop worrying so much. Dan laughed as he remembered Phil telling him about the ducks and spider and how there had been several terrified emojis following the texts. "I was wondering why you'd been out somewhere with ducks! Your excuse of just going for a walk was shit! Since when do you go on walks?" Dan teased, bumping their hips together before pulling away as he watched Phil open the basket and drag out a quilted blanket.

They managed to reach the small secluded area Phil had found a few days before, a little patch of grass just on top of an almost hill far enough from trees and lakes that nothing could bother them, but with a wonderful view at the same time. Phil could not wait to point it out to Dan, who was distractedly teasing him just then. "Hey," he complained, hip checking Dan now they were putting all their stuff down. "It fooled you, didn't it? You can't tell me you saw this one coming," he added, eyes twinkling as he looked at Dan, their fingers brushing as they both worked to smooth out the blanket Phil had had the foresight to bring. Phil's lips were twitching in happiness, though. This was Dan, the love of his life, the only person he would ever want to know him so well, they could see right through his silly surprises. Clearing his throat, and pulling back from Dan, Phil stood up straight as soon as everything was prepared, and then pointed out the view. "Look, Dan. This is what I wanted to show you."

Giggling, Dan helped Phil smooth down the blanket. The teasing seemed to calm him down a little bit, allowing him to actually joke back with Dan, and it made warmth spread through Dan's entire chest. He was just so fucking happy, especially because it seemed as if Phil hadn't been thinking about breaking up with him after all. Not like Dan thought he was going to anyways, but it was still a relief. "I didn't see it coming," Dan admitted, shaking his head. "But I still thought it was weird you suddenly took up walking. Since when do we like getting exercise?" Dan was then pulled out of his thoughts by Phil pulling him up and spinning him around to look at the view. Immediately, Dan's eyes widened and he lost his breath. "Wow," he whispered, taking in the scenery around them. It was a sunny day in London for once, and the sky was a beautiful eggshell blue with puffy cotton candy clouds. They were on a slightly raised hill, so he could see a vast expansion of green grass, only interrupted by foliage and a pond in the distance. Further away, Dan could see a group of children playing what looked to be tag, and he could even see the ducks Phil was talking about fighting over bread an elderly woman was throwing to them. "It's fucking beautiful, Phil."

Phil was watching Dan when the other male turned around, wanting to see the look on his face when he finally seemed to take in what Phil wanted to show him. He was eager, probably too eager, terrified that Dan wouldn't love the view as much as Phil had hoped he would, but when Dan turned around, it seemed Phil's fears were unfounded. Dan was - breathless, it seemed. Phil had done something good, and as he watched Dan take in the sight before him, he felt his heart flutter anew. This was going to be fine, this was going to be okay. Dan... Dan loved him, and Phil hadn't fucked up the place to propose, and hopefully he wouldn't mess up when he got down on one knee, and soon, so soon, he was finally going to be with Dan... hopefully, forever. Grinning softly, Phil leaned over and pressed his lips to Dan's cheek. "You're fucking beautiful," Phil shot back.

Dan hummed and leaned into Phil's embrace, letting his eyes flutter shut. Phil's lips were warm against his cheek and his breath tickled his skin as he spoke, making Dan's entire body feel as if it was alight with flames. His cheeks heated up at Phil's compliment, and he smiled softly. "You're the one who's beautiful," Dan murmured quietly. He turned and grabbed Phil's hand, tugging him down to the blanket. "Now show me what you made! I'm starving!'

Dan was the most perfect person Phil had ever known. The way his cheeks went all soft and cute, reddened from their mutual compliments, the way he smiled, and his eyes twinkled. Phil was so, so in love, and he couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't stop thinking about the ring resting in his pocket, couldn't stop thinking about how amazing this moment was going to be. He laughed at Dan's pushing for them to sit down and eat finally, and rolled his eyes affectionately as he willingly let Dan drag him onto the blanket. They settled in together, and then Phil started to pull out their meals, sandwiches wrapped as well as he could make them, drinks, depending on what Dan was feeling for, and some fruit and crisps for them to share. Dan stared like he was the hungriest man alive, and Phil laughed at him. "Does it actually look good, or are you just hungry?"

"It looks fucking amazing," Dan moaned, taking in all of the different kinds of food Phil had packed for them. There was literally an abundance of food, so much that Dan had no idea how they were expected to eat it all. He made grabby hands at one of the sandwiches, smiling softly as Phil laughed heartily and passed him one. "How did you even fit all of this in one basket?" Dan wondered, unwrapping the sandwich. "There's so much food!" He then took a rather large bite of the sandwich, groaning as the taste of it exploded across his tongue. It was amazing, and Dan didn't know whether it was because it was a damn good sandwich, or if it was just because Phil had made it. "You're amazing at making food and I'm signing a petition to make you my own personal housewife."

Phil blushed. He had packed a lot of food, but it was mostly because he wanted to make sure he had all of his bases covered. Besides, it was a good way to distract them both from what Phil was about to ask Dan, if things went well. "I brought a card game as well, if you wanted to play that later, so we don't have to go home for a while?" Phil offered, though he was slightly unsure if he was really going to push forwards and do so when all he really wanted was to propose to Dan, and then make love back at home. He'd see where the day brought them. Phil just... wanted to be with Dan, that was all that mattered in the end. He chuckled at Dan's comment about the food, though. Dan always seemed to love when Phil cooked for him, and it made him feel warm inside. He'd cook for Dan forever, he promised himself that now. "Yeah, well," he murmured, and started to dig into his own sandwich. "Anything for you."

Dan nodded and scooted closer to Phil, pressing their thighs together because he wanted nothing more than to be close to him, to feel him. "Sounds perfect," Dan replied, settling his hand on Phil's knee and rubbing circles there with his thumb. He was extremely hungry and had apparently not realized this beforehand, either, so he was scarfing down his meal as if it was his final one. Dan hummed, smirking sideways at Phil. "You'd do anything for me?" Dan purred, winking seductively. "Would you..." he looked around, trying to figure out what he wanted Phil to do. "Would you hug one of those geese for me?" Dan asked, pointing to a group of geese at the bottom of their cozy hill.

Phil had been expecting Dan to find the comment romantic, had been expecting a blush or some kind of positive, romantic gesture in return; instead, the jerk that he was, Dan asked Phil to go and hug a goose for him just to prove his love. Smile slipping into a frown, Phil glared at Dan for all of a few seconds while his boyfriend laughed at him, and then his own expression morphed into something like wry amusement. With a sigh, Phil heaved himself from the floor, and glared at Dan again. "If I do this, I expect you to marry me immediately," he teased, heart racing and lodging into his throat the second the words were out of his mouth. They were so close to the real proposal Phil wanted to make tonight. What was Dan going to say in return? Phil tried not to let the terror show on his face. If Dan agreed, surely the real proposal would go alright?

Dan was wheezing by the time Phil started to stand, glaring at Dan as if this was all his fault. Which it was, but Dan didn't care. Because, was Phil actually going to hug a fucking goose? It seemed like he was, because the next words out of his mouth had a mixture of both seriousness and teasing in it, and Dan found himself gaping at Phil. His cheeks were steadily turning redder as he processed the words, the tone of voice, everything in that little sentence that made Dan's heart want to escape from his chest. But then he giggled, nodding up at Phil. They'd already discussed marriage before and Dan had known for the longest time now that he wanted nothing more than that. Even if it did take him some getting used to, hearing Phil saying something as sappy as that. It made him feel like a teenager again. "If you hug a goose and then don't ask me to marry you, I'll be mildly offended," Dan replied dramatically, putting a hand to his chest. He could feel his heart beating against his fingertips, and he grinned at Phil so wide that it hurt.

Phil's eyes went wide for a moment, and his heart stopped in his chest as he stared at Dan. Had he just said that? Phil felt his mouth go dry... He really couldn't believe Dan had said that. But now that the words were out of his mouth, who was Phil to deny him. Suddenly feeling a thousand times more confident than he had pretty much all day, Phil turned around, and marched right on up to the geese at the end of their hill. Dan was shouting behind him about being half joking, but Phil ignored him, filled with determination now. His sights were set, and before he could stop himself, he was there, stood right in front of an angry looking goose who wanted nothing more than food. Phil turned to look behind him; Dan was there, still giggling, staring at him. The ways his eyes twinkled... Fuck, Phil loved him so much. He stopped to stare for one more second, and then he turned around, and did his best to scoop the goose into his arms. It honked at him, ruffled its feathers, panicked, and Phil couldn't blame it as he tried to grab hold of it's tiny little body, fighting against it, but it ran, and Phil ran after it,shouting "Come back here!" all while Dan giggled behind him.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck. Was Phil actually going to do it? Was he going to hug a fucking goose? Just because Dan said he'd marry him? That probably wasn't the reason why, but the way that Phil turned towards the geese with such determination in his eyes made Dan's chest flutter with warmth and love. Christ, he was an absolute sucker for Phil. "Phil! I was kind of kidding!" But Phil didn't stop. He just kept going. It was fucking hilarious and Dan didn't know what Phil was expecting. He was surprised the goose hadn't bit him yet, if he was being honest, instead just honking at Phil like it was mildly offended by the picking-up. Dan was pissing himself, clutching his stomach as he doubled over in laughter, watching as Phil chased the geese around the park. It was amazing seeing something like this, seeing his lanky boyfriend trying to catch a goose that was much faster than he was. Dan fell in love just a little bit more.

The goose was not having any of it, and every time Phil managed to catch up and scrabble for it's feathers, nearly pulling it into his arms, the goose fluttered its wings and scared Phil so much, that he dropped the creature. He found himself growing more and more frustrated, but he as amused at the same time, because he could hear Dan laughing at him, and if there was one thing Phil loved above all else, it was the sound of Dan's laughter. His heart lifted and fluttered, and he grinned to himself, finally letting it all go when he grasped for the goose one more time and it honked at him, nearly bit him. He dropped it, and promptly fell on his ass. Dan was running up to him now, and Phil's heart was hammering away in his chest, painfully hard. He could feel the emotion swelling in him, the love for this man, and he thought, fuck it. What better time to propose than now, like Dan had said? Phil lifted himself up, reached into his pocket, pulled out the ring, and got on one knee all at one time, staring as Dan's movements slowed to a walk the closer he got to Phil. Phil could see the surprise filling his eyes, the smile dropping from his lips, the humor gone, but Phil didn’t think he was upset. Dan was just surprised, and Phil could hardly blame him as he stared until Dan came to a stop right in front of him. Slowly, Phil looked up, and opened up the ring box to present the shiny diamond inside to Dan. "I didn't quite manage to hug the goose, but will you still marry me anyway?"

Phil, the idiot, didn't stop running after the goose, trying to get it to hug him, and Dan's cheeks were hurting from laughing so hard. He watched as the goose got a tad angrier, hissing and trying to bite him, and Phil, the nerd, got so scared that he dropped the bird and then fell straight to his ass like a wet log. Deciding to intervene now that the hell birds were starting to disperse, no longer a threat to him, Dan started to jog over to Phil, the grin still not gone from his face. He thought it'll be there for forever, his lips frozen in place, and then Phil began to move. He got to his knee and reached into his pocket and Dan could hear his heart pounding through his ears. He slowed down a bit, confusion flowing through him as he gaped at Phil, coming to a stop in front of him. His cheeks were red, and he wanted to speak, but no words would come out. And then Phil was opening the little box, presenting a diamond ring to him, and Dan had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from crying and flinging himself at Phil, forcing himself to listen to what Phil was saying. He laughed wetly, putting his fingers on his eyes and pressing down because he could feel his eyes stinging with tears. "You're the only person who would propose after trying to hug a goose," Dan exclaimed, sniffling slightly. But then he nodded, dropping his hands and looking at Phil with warmth. Phil, who had been with him for two years. Phil, who has made him happier than any other person. Phil, who was now on one knee and presenting a ring that probably cost more than Dan's life with fingers that were quivering so badly, and a green stain on his ass from where he'd fallen. "Of course I'll marry you, you nerd."

Phil was shaking, from head to toe, absolutely trembling with the terror that Dan was somehow going to say no. There was no way, right? But Phil couldn't possibly know, watching as the confusion swelled over Dan's face, and then the tears as Dan reached up to press his fingers to his eyes before they could truly fall. He was grinning, and that should have been good news, but Phil still didn't know. For all he knew, Dan was gearing up to tell Phil it was too soon, or asking if this was a joke, or saying yes but not realizing that Phil meant this with all his heart, had, to some extent, planned this whole thing out. It took a moment, but eventually, Dan started to speak, and his voice was choked with so much emotion that Phil couldn't even begin to decipher it in that moment. And then, Dan was saying yes, and Phil's heart soared, his face splitting into a grin as he stared up at his boyfriend, who was staring at him with all the love in his eyes. "Really, though? Cause, like, I wasn't kidding this time, and I kind of spent a fortune on this ring for you," he teased, just checking, eyes glistening with love of his own.

Dan laughed, shaking his head. He was truly crying now, wet tear drops dripping from his eyelashes and cascading down his face. He didn't think he would be a crier when it came to something like this, but he should have guessed that he'd have this kind of reaction. Considering how much of a drama queen he was and how much he loved Phil with all of his heart, Dan should have assumed he'd be a sobbing baby. "I'm not kidding!" Dan said loudly. He waved his hands at Phil, trying to get across all that he was feeling in that moment. His emotions were going to suffocate him. "Now put that ring on me and get off your knees so I can kiss the daylights out of my fiance." Fiance. Holy shit. Holy shit. Dan was getting married. To Phil, to the person that he had been in love with since he was sixteen years old. He felt like he was going to faint.

Dan's voice was so broken up, but so happy that Phil could do nothing but do exactly as he'd been asked; he was up in an instant, fingers still shaking as he worked the ring free from the box and took Dan's hand in his. Dan was shaking as well, the both of them staring at each other, Dan with tears dripping down his cheeks, and Phil with a lump in his throat so big he was certain he would start crying as well any second now. He smiled at Dan, eyes going misty, and finally slipped the ring onto Dan's finger, staring between them at the way the delicate metal framed his hand. Dan looked beautiful. Not to mention, the word finance kept dancing through Phil's head, until it was all he could think about. "So kiss me," Phil insisted, then, and then Dan did. Dan practically threw himself at Phil, his arms winding around Phil's neck as he drew him in flush to Dan's body, and pressed their mouths together rough, but sweet. There was the clash of teeth, and then nothing but lips on lips, and them loving each other, the tears breaking free from Phil until he was finally crying as well.

Having metal around Dan's finger was undeniably strange, but he couldn't have been happier. Dan was shaking, they both were, and the ring was absolutely stunning against his tanned skin. He laughed wetly again, and then he was launching himself at Phil, pressing their lips together urgently. It was messy and painful when their teeth clashed together, but it was perfect nonetheless. Dan dragged Phil closer by his hips, not giving a fuck that anyone could see them. He was too happy, too wrapped up in their own little world, to give a crap about anyone else. He pulled away slightly, lips still brushing against Phil's, foreheads resting together. "Fiance," Dan giggled, smiling dopily at Phil. He still had tear tracks on his face but they both didn't care. "We're getting married!"

Phil made a small humming sound at Dan pulling away, fully intending to take Dan's mouth back into a searing kiss when Dan kind of prevented that by pressing their foreheads together, sniffling and speaking up instead. The reminder once again that Dan had just said yes coursed through Phil like nothing else, and he giggled as well, this time forcefully moving to kiss Dan again, gasping into the kiss and finding himself taking Dan's mouth over and over and over again, enjoying the feel of it, the affection coursing through him. Dan was such a beautiful soul. By the time Phil pulled away again, he was full on crying. "We're getting married," he agreed softly, and didn't even care when. It was just the fact that Dan was promised to him now, and all of his own free will. Phil kissed him again, just for good measure.

Kissing Phil was so much better now that they had a promise to get married. Dan had thought he'd known what Phil's kisses were like, but there was nothing in the world that he had experienced like this. They were both crying, Dan could feel the wetness on both of their cheeks and lips, and he could feel how urgent Phil was feeling by the way he drew him in close and refused to let go. Dan couldn't fucking breathe. He kissed back just as passionately, and he couldn't stop smiling, so Phil kept kissing his teeth, but then Phil was smiling too and it was sort of sweet amidst the way their teeth knocked together. Dan didn't want to stop kissing. He didn't want to let go. He wanted Phil to kiss him until his lips were numb. Fuck the picnic, fuck the geese. Dan was happy and nothing else mattered right then.

Eventually, eventually, the two let their mouths come apart, eyes closed, to breathe softly against each other, grinning like two idiots who were completely in love; which is exactly what they were. If Phil had it his way, he'd do nothing but kiss Dan for the rest of eternity, but as it was, he kind of wanted to get home. Or, you know, finish that picnic. "I have desserts. For if you said yes," Phil finally said, grinning like a fool as he finally opened his eyes for Dan. "And, you know, we didn't' really eat much," he explained. The faster they ate, the faster Phil could get Dan home and love him so, so freaking hard.

Phil all too suddenly pulled away and reminded him of the rest of the food sitting just up the hill. Dan whined a bit, kissing Phil on the mouth once more. "Wanna eat you for dessert," Dan snickered, but then he pulled away fully and started bounding back up to their picnic blanket. "Can't let this food go to waste, I suppose. It's too delicious for that." He plopped down on the blanket and patted the area beside him, smiling warmly up at Phil. "You can't just let your fiance eat by himself, you know." Now that he was using the word, Dan couldn't seem to stop himself from throwing out that they were fiances every chance he got. It made him feel warm, loved, and he wanted to shout it to the world. Not to mention, he couldn’t for the life of him stop grinning, and he felt like he was vibrating in place with happy energy.

Heat surged through Phil like no other at Dan's heated comment, and he let out a soft sound close to a moan, eyes closing, as he felt himself twitch with interest. He needed to try and control himself, especially as Dan started to run off back to their food, clearly intent on finishing his meal despite their jokes. Phil kind of wished Dan would eat him for dessert instead, but they could do that anytime, technically. Well. One day, they could do it anytime. For now, what they had was wonderful, and they had a few days still together, and Phil was going to make the best of it. "No, I suppose I can't just let my fiance eat on his own, can I?" Phil teased back with a little roll of his eyes, though the continual use of the word was making him happier than he could say.

Dan ate his meal as quickly as he could. It was probably disgusting because he was quite literally shoving food into his mouth like a homeless person, but Phil was staring at him like he was the most precious thing in the entire world despite it all. He tried to keep a straight face, but ended up grinning into a bite of fruit. "Stop staring at me," Dan whined, shoving a strawberry at Phil and laughing as the entire thing - stem and all - went into his mouth. Phil glared at him and spit it out, but Dan couldn't stop grinning anyways. "Eat quickly! We need to get back home to have our actual dessert!" And then just because he could and because he liked to tease, he watched as Phil quickened his pace slightly, and then Dan started to eat slower in reply.

As soon as Phil settled back down on the blanket, far closer to Dan than before, the two started to eat again. Dan was so ridiculous that he was making a mess, however, a mess unlike any other, almost hilarious in his ridiculousness. Phil just grinned at him, fond as ever, until Dan shoved a strawberry into his mouth that he nearly choked on, because he'd given him so much of it. Phil spit it out, moaning at Dan a little, but ate it anyway, another thrill going through him at Dan wanting to get home for their real desert. Just as Phil started to speed up his eating, however, Dan started to slow his down, and Phil reached over to shove at him. "You're a tease," Phil whined. "Aren't you supposed to like, give me everything I ask for now that we're engaged?"

Dan snickered, beaming as Phil called him a tease. Of course he was one, he wouldn't be Dan without being a tease. As Phil shoved him, he bounded right back and leaned against Phil's side, putting his head on his shoulder. Phil was always so comfortable. "Everything you ask for," Dan snorted, shaking his head and feeling his hair tickling Phil's neck. "Hell no! I get to make your life hell now, remember? Got you under lock and key." He knew it wasn't really like that, but he thought it was appropriate anyways. "Now I get to torture you for the rest of my life."

Even as Phil continued to shove bites of his sandwich into his mouth, he was distracted by Dan. He wanted to finish eating as soon as possible though, work up the energy to go home and have sex with his beautiful boyfriend, but Dan was so annoying in the best of ways. Even with sex on his mind, even with Dan teasing him, Phil couldn't help feeling anything but affection towards him. Everything Dan did was just so fun in the oddest of ways. Dan made Phil feel light inside, always had. He laughed at his boyfriend, shoved him over, and he would have climbed on top of him for good measure if he wasn't afraid he'd lose control of himself and do something stupid in public. Instead, he just said, "If you get to torture me for the rest of my life, then I get to torture you back, Daniel Howell." Phil couldn't help wondering, in that moment, whose last name they were taking. A slow grin took over his face. "Wait. Since I was the one to propose, does that mean you'll be taking my last name? Daniel Lester, my husband," Phil thought dreamily.

Dan opened his mouth to tell Phil that he would let him torture Dan right back, that he would rather have that than nothing at all. Having Phil teasing him was so good and pure, and if the rest of their lives were how the past two years had been, Dan would be the happiest man in the entire world. Hell, he already was. His stomach flipped as Phil interrupted him before he could speak, asking about what their last names would be. He was beyond excited. Daniel Lester. It had a nice ring to it. But he couldn't tell Phil that, no. So he just kissed Phil on the cheek, smirking, and said, "We'll have to fight to the death for last names, I suppose. Whoever wins the brawl gets to keep their last name." Dan snickered, tickling Phil's sides with dancing fingers. "You'll be Philip Howell before you know it!"

Phil wasn't exactly expecting Dan to agree to taking Phil's last name, but he also wasn't expecting the sudden attack of tickles, and he found himself giggling before he knew it, gasping and shouting "I don't like it!" as he squirmed away from Dan's relentless fingers. "No!" he complained, giggling and falling backwards, sandwich thankfully landing mostly on a napkin on the blanket below them as he squirmed and fought against Dan. "Stop it!" he moaned, and pushed Dan over until they'd both rolled onto the grass, tickling Dan back to the best of his ability. He was breathless with laughter, breathless with the sensation of being like this with Dan at all, beyond happy, and filled with endorphins. This man was his. Before he knew it, they were kissing all over again, with Phil muttering, "I'll take any last name, if it means I get to have you," before licking into Dan's mouth passionately.

"Take your punishment!" Dan squealed, chasing after Phil and refusing to let up. He giggled along, and then screamed as Phil pushed him over to return the favour. Dan groaned and wriggled his body around. He was laughing so hard that it hurt, and after all of the laughing he'd done today, he'd probably have some really nice abs by tomorrow. Then the tickling stopped, and Phil's hands were steady on his hips as he held him in place, his lips coming down to meet Dan's. Dan moaned quietly as Phil whispered to him, licking into his mouth, and Dan couldn't fucking believe that he was now engaged. If Phil had this planned the whole time... oh. Oh. No wonder Phil had been so upset by Dan’s idiocy yesterday. He'd been planning to propose and Dan had 'cancelled' on him. Dan could punch himself. But instead, he just intensified the kiss, biting at Phil's bottom lip and sucking it into his mouth, running his hands down Phil's back.

The little moan Dan let out was making Phil well excited. He couldn't help himself; suddenly, his cock was growing stiff in his jeans. It didn't help when Dan started to kiss him back just as passionately, biting on Phil's bottom lip and then sucking on it, forcing Phil's tongue back into his mouth. He let out a moan of his own, surprised by the sound and feel of it, deep from within him. Dan... Dan was his, and it had never felt as real as it did now. To be fair, it never felt real in general, like Phil was always in a dream every time he got to touch Dan, but this was so much more now. Dan and he were going to get married, how amazing was that? Phil pressed his body down on top of Dan's, and he kissed him harder, lips pulling back from his mouth to trail down his chin and to his ear. "Are you full, yet?" he asked, voice husky and hot.

Phil was pressing his body down onto him and Dan could feel the way their hips were pressed together. Just a small movement and Dan would be able to get some friction on his responding body... No. He couldn't do that. Not here, no matter how hot Phil sounded when he spoke, his voice deep and wrecked just from kissing. They were both obviously excited, the emotions from Phil's proposal making them revert back to their sixteen year old selves already. "I'm full," Dan gasped, biting his lip harshly to try and hold himself back from bucking up into Phil's body. "I think I'm ready for dessert," Dan teased, but the joke fell flat because of how turned on he was already. Damn himself and his body's hormones.

Phil could hear how wrecked Dan was just from the way the joke fell flat from his mouth, and it made him shudder on top of Dan. He was so tempted to roll his hips down and really make Dan crazy, but he wanted to get Dan in private even more, so he pulled back some, grinning down at Dan's flushed face. "That was a faster picnic than I was expecting," Phil murmured. "But we can finish the rest later," he added with a small wink, and then pushed himself to his feet. He stretched, and then adjusted himself in his pants, before going about getting the food put away. He was grinning from ear to ear, still hyped on the fact that Dan had said yes. He laughed because he couldn't contain it.

Dan grinned as Phil said they could finish later and pushed himself to his feet as Phil started to pack everything up. He was painfully hard, but he couldn't bring himself to care in the slightest, knowing they would be able to celebrate when they got back home. In the meantime, he had to adjust himself to hide just how turned on he was, and tried to help Phil pack up what was left. There wasn't much after throwing away the empty wrappers from what they had eaten, but there was still a hefty amount to save for later. It didn't take too long, and then they were walking home at a fast pace, holding hands and just drinking in each other's company. Phil kept playing with the ring on Dan's finger, and it made Dan smile at the reminder of what had just happened.

As they walked, Phil found himself obsessively playing with the ring that now adorned Dan's left ring finger, twirling it around his fingers softly and smiling to himself. He kept wanting to stop walking and make out with Dan some more, so fucking happy that they were engaged now, but he knew it would only dissolve into more if he didn't wait until they were home. He did his best, turning to smile at Dan nevertheless, until finally, eventually, they made it back home. Phil unlocked the front door, was the one to get it open,and before Dan could distract him anymore, forced himself to put the food and the picnic basket in the fridge, too lazy to get it all put away himself.

Dan was kind of expecting Phil to push him against the wall and take him as soon as they were in the house, but that didn't happen at all. Not in the slightest. Instead, Phil went and started to unpack their lunch, sticking everything uneaten into the fridge, and Dan whined pathetically. He grumbled all the while, until Phil quite literally put the entire picnic basket into the fridge. Dan grinned triumphantly and crowded Phil against the refrigerator, humming as he nudged their noses together. "I've been waiting all morning," Dan murmured, breath fanning across Phil's lips. "Best not make me wait any longer, dear." And then he pressed his lips hungrily to Phil's.

It wasn't until Phil got the fridge door shut that Dan pressed him into said door, and he found the breath knocked out of him. He'd nearly forgotten how amazing it felt to have Dan pressed to him like this. He didn't have much time to react before Dan was kissing him hungrily, reminding them both of the fact that Phil had avoided sex that morning as well. He moaned against Dan's mouth, but fought against him until he had room to speak as well. "Wanted to wait - wanted to make love to you with a ring on your finger," Phil explained. "Would have waited yesterday too but I was mad at you," Phil explained, before kissing Dan back just as hard.

"At least I can see what you were mad about now," Dan breathed against Phil's lips. He felt like his entire body had burst into flames, like he needed to get doused by cold water to put himself out. He shivered as Phil dragged him closer, his lips unforgiving, and Dan couldn't speak anymore. His body was Phil's and there was nothing else he wanted in that moment. He was already panting, already so hard, just from being kissed. Perhaps it was from the excitement of the proposal, or perhaps it was just from Phil kissing him and saying he wanted to make love to him, but Dan didn't know how long he could possibly last if he was this worked up already. "Phil, please," Dan whimpered quietly. And then, to be funny, he said, "Talk about the future to me," in a sultry voice, as if asking Phil to talk dirty to him.

Dan was always so unforgivingly pliant under Phil’s touch. It was kind of amazing and wonderful, to have someone trust him so much. Phil sighed into Dan's mouth, hands moving to his hips in order to drag him in closer, already pushing his shirt up and running his palms over Dan’s back. Dan just felt so good. Already Phil's mind was a mush of want and desire and not very much else. He wanted to take Dan to bed almost more than anything else. So, when Dan asked him to talk about the future, Phil almost didn't know what to say for a moment; therefore he just said whatever came to mind first as Dan’s crotch finally met his. "Gonna get a dog with you," Phil gasped into Dan's mouth.

Dan moaned low in his throat and his hips stuttered forward of their own accord. Why was that so sexy? Why did Dan's dick twitch with the words? Of course, it could have to do with the fact that Phil's voice was so completely wrecked, throaty and filled with lust, paired with the promise of a future. Dan attacked his lips with more fervor, and he felt sort of like an animal. He pulled away only to press kisses along Phil's jawline, trying to calm himself down because he was way too turned on. At this rate, he wouldn't last. "Yeah?" Dan breathed. "Fuck, how many dogs do you want?"

Dan's mouth was hot and hard on his, harsh in the way he kissed, desperate and needy. Phil found his cock twitching all over again and they were hardly grinding on each other yet. His hips kicked, and his fingers found Dan's hips as he pulled him close, got their bodies lined up, and started to press them together properly. A low moan fell from Phil's lips, but honestly, he just wanted more. He was about to suggest they take this to the bedroom when Dan pulled back from attacking Phil's mouth and asked him instead how many dogs they were going to have. Why was that a turn on? Maybe it was the way Dan asked, desperate, like having a future with Phil was the only thing he needed in life. Phil didn't even think, forcing Dan's hips into a steady rhythm rolling into his own, and pronounced, "Four, four dogs, Dan, fuck."

This shouldn't have been such a turn on. Why was this such a turn on? Dan already felt like he was going to explode, and it worsened when Phil dragged his hips forward and started to grind against him. He groaned, dropping his head onto Phil's shoulder and just letting Phil rock their bodies together. Phil's breath was hot in his ear as he spoke, and Dan was glad that Phil was actually going along with his request, because fuck, this was good. Dan was riding on endorphins and lust and it was the most amazing combination. But then Phil bucked into Dan in just the right way, where he could feel their hard ons sliding together through their trousers, and Phil's words washed over Dan, and then he was coming. He let out a loud choked noise and dug his teeth into Phil's shoulder, shaking with the force and surprise. "I- oh fuck!" Dan squealed, spilling into his jeans as his hips stuttered to give him the stimulation he needed. He didn't even have time to be embarrassed before Phil started to giggle and Dan's cheeks were flaming red. He couldn't believe he just came in his pants. Was he sixteen again?!

It was clearly a surprise to both of them; one second, Phil was grinding their hips together as a kind of foreplay, trying to get them both worked up enough to head upstairs, to want to strip out of their clothes so they could properly touch, and the next, Dan was coming in his pants purely from the sensation of Phil speaking hot words into his ear that weren't even that hot. Before he could help it, Phil was giggling, holding Dan in place as his boyfriend bit into his shoulder, and rocked forward with the force of his orgasm. Phil knew it was there from the way Dan had tensed, from the way he'd moaned, and his pants started to grow wet. Phil didn't mind so much as he was a little bit confused, and hella turned on now. He found his hands moving up from Dan's hips to press up under his shirt, caressing his skin as he moved to press kisses down his throat. "Well, now I know how badly you want a future with me," Phil murmured against his skin, biting down at Dan's clavicles as he went.

"Don't laugh at me," Dan whined, lifting his head to glare at his boyfriend. He knew it was all in good fun by the way Phil was grinning widely at him, amusement and fondness in his gaze, but he was embarrassed, damn it! Phil started to run his hands all over him, brushing against his skin under his shirt. He connected his lips to Dan's neck, making Dan whimper quietly. He was so oversensitive from his orgasm that each touch made Dan feel like he was on fire. He shivered and pressed closer to Phil. "Of course I want a future with you," he muttered. "Didn't we establish that with your proposal?" Phil shushed him by biting down harshly on his neck, and Dan's eyes rolled with pleasure. He could tell he was going to have a second orgasm already, and the excitement made his spent cock twitch in interest.

Phil found himself chuckling against Dan's skin, and while he had yet to have an orgasm of his own, Dan's orgasm seemed to have calmed him down some. He was kind of glad for it. He hadn't intended rough, heated sex just then. He wanted to make Dan feel loved, amazing, like he was the most important person in the world to Phil, because that's what he was. Phil found his hands moving more gently against Dan’s skin, his lips trailing back up to his mouth to take him into a kiss, but this time, he took charge, licking into Dan's mouth sweetly, trying to show Dan just how much he loved him. "M not laughing at you," Phil said as he drew away again. "I'm just so happy you're mine, and that this is real."

Before he replied to Dan's complaints, Phil kissed him so sweetly, so lovingly, that it made Dan's knees weak. He hummed, reciprocating with just as much love as Phil was putting into it. It didn't last too long before Phil was pulling away and speaking soft words to him. Dan's eyelids flickered closed and he smiled happily. "I'm happy too. The happiest man in the world." He giggled and nosed Phil's jaw. "I wanna show you off to everyone. Just wait until all of my friends and family know we're getting married. I'm never gonna shut up!" He kissed Phil once more, sighing softly. "Wanna go to your room?"

Dan was still kind of shaking in his arms, clearly trying to come down from his orgasm, but the way Phil had kissed him had made him melt all over again. Phil loved the feeling of Dan melting in his arms, loved the way it felt to have Dan seeming to come apart for him. He loved Dan so, so much, and knowing how much Dan loved and trusted him in turn was the best thing he had ever experienced. He rolled his eyes a little at the way Dan nosed his jaw and suggested they head up to his room, feeling arousal surge through him once more. "If you keep touching me like that, we might not make it at all. Think you can come for me again, Dan?" Phil asked, nosing him back and kissing his way along his jawline. "I think it gets us both going, talking about the future. God, I can't wait for everyone to know you're mine..."

Dan nodded eagerly at Phil's question, not letting up and just breathing against Phil's skin. He liked the way Phil felt so hot against him, how he leaned into his touch just that little bit more. "Might take me a bit, but I'll get there," Dan admitted, pulling back. He stared into Phil's eyes, loving the amount of adoration and fondness he found hidden in their depths. Dan felt his stomach clench with love, shivering. "I can't wait for our future. Love you so much." He grabbed Phil's hand then and started to drag him away from the refrigerator and back to his bedroom. He was eager, eager to have Phil show him just how loved he was and eager to show Phil how much Dan wanted himself to belong to him for the rest of their lives.

Dan's hand was warm in his as he dragged them both on their way, Phil smiling like a mad man at Dan and the ring on his finger. The band was pressed to Phil's skin, and one day, it would be accompanied by an actual wedding band. Phil truly could not wait. He knew that moment was going to be the best in the world for him, knew that every first of his from here on out would be made amazing by the fact that it would be Dan guiding him through them all. All he wanted was to kiss the living daylights out of Dan, so halfway up the stairs, Phil stopped and shoved Dan against the wall to do just that. He kissed him fiercely but lovingly, with as much soft passion as he could manage. "You are the love of my life," he whispered against Dan"s lips.

They were almost to the bedroom, almost where Dan could lay Phil down and kiss him all over, show him how much he loved him, when Phil stopped them both. Dan turned to look at him in question but didn't get to stay confused for long, because Phil was quite suddenly pressing him to the wall and kissing him hotly right on the staircase. Dan made a small noise of surprise, but didn't complain. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Phil and brought him in closer, opening his lips to let Phil explore his mouth. He giggled when Phil spoke and showed him just how much the words meant to him by squeezing Phil's love handles and kissing him softly. "You're the love of mine. Forever and ever."

Phil shivered under Dan's touch, appreciating it because it made him feel so overwhelmingly loved. Dan loved all of the parts of Phil that Phil didn't always love about himself and vice versa. Not bothering to reply to Dan, Phil let himself get lost in the sensation of kissing, and pressed his own hands up the bottom of Dan's shirt to play with his chest, nails scratching gently down the skin. Dan hissed under him, and Phil grinned, pulling back from his mouth to lick down his neck. "Where were we?" he asked, teasing, knowing Dan would want to get back to Phil's room now.

Dan didn't know how Phil did it. He'd literally had an orgasm not even five minutes ago, and his body was already responding so strongly to Phil as if he hadn't just busted a nut. It was amazing, and Phil had some really talented hands and lips. "You better get me up to your room before I make you fuck me on the stairs," Dan threatened, glaring at Phil as hard as he could. Phil didn't seem to find him scary, though instead just giggling and dragging him back towards his room.

The threat was less of a threat and more of a turn on; for one moment, Phil even considered it. He'd quite like to fuck Dan on the stairs, and in the kitchen, and just about everywhere, really. Phil wanted to have an imprint of Dan's memory all over the house, even if it wasn't sanitary. Despite the temptation, Phil wanted to make love to Dan more than anything else tonight. They could be kinky anytime, right now, Phil wanted to love Dan until Dan couldn't take it anymore. "Don't tempt me," he whispered, voice husky, before pulling away from Dan and tugging him by the arm gently back up to his room, letting out a small giggle at Dan's attempt at a scary face. "Or I might just fuck you here. Later. Right now, I want you on the bed," Phil decided.

Dan muttered under his breath how Phil was an evil man who just wanted to see how much he could turn him on in a short period of time. It wasn't fair. "Deal. Fuck me on the stairs later, love me in the bed now," Dan mused. He flung open the door to Phil's bedroom and didn't wait a moment before literally throwing himself on the bed. Then he froze and a smile came to his face. "Phil, Phil, Phil," he said darkly. Phil looked at him with confusion as Dan stood back up and made his way over to his luggage, rifling around in it. He snickered to himself when he pulled out something he'd been saving for this exact week. "I bought this the other night. Can I paint on you?" And then he flung the package of edible body paint at Phil. "No kinks involved. Just me, you, and my fabulous painting skills."

Phil couldn't help the next surge of arousal at hearing Dan suggest that Phil fuck him on those stairs later, just as Phil had admitted to wanting to do, and he bit back a moan as he stared at his boyfriend's ass as he pranced across his bedroom floor to jump on Phli's bed. Phil, meanwhile, was busy pulling his clothing off - or attempting to, all while he stared at Dan all pretty and spread out for him, just waiting for Phil to come and make love to him. Phil loved sex with Dan so fucking much, and while Dan had come in his pants mere minutes ago, Phil was still rock hard and desperate. Therefore, when Dan stopped everything to head to his bag, suddenly asking if he could paint on Phil, Phil frowned. He didn't want Dan to paint him right now, didn't Dan know how horny he was? But then he saw the name on the paints, and realized that Dan wanted to literally paint on him and lick hun clean afterwards, and while the foreplay almost seemed too much, Phil couldn't say no. "Fuck yes," he agreed, and stripped off his shirt instantly.

Dan could have started purring just from hearing Phil's agreement. He watched hungrily as Phil stripped his shirt from his body, revealing his pale chest and stomach. Dan wasted no time and practically attacked Phil, shoving Phil backwards until he was sprawled on the bed with Dan hovered over him. Dan licked his lips as he stared down at his boyfriend, trying to decide which part of him he wanted to paint first. Every part of Phil looked like a canvas; it was hard to make a decision. Dan attached his lips to Phil's collarbone first, biting and sucking on the skin while he ran his fingers down Phil's sides until they rested on the waistband of his jeans. "Take these off. Don't want to stain your clothes," Dan purred, tugging on the material. He couldn't wait to get his mouth all over Phil.

The shirt was on the ground the same second that Dan was shoving Phil onto the bed this time, climbing over top him and staring at his body like he wanted to eat Phil - which, technically, he did, when he leaned over and bit at his collarbones, sucking to soothe over the mark he'd made. Phil could feel his cock twitching in his jeans from the sight, and was tempted to reach down and palm himself, but before he could, Dan was interrupting his movements to instead tug at the waistband of them, purring out a demand that made Phil's skin prickle with heated tension. Nodding his head dumbly, lips parted as he panted, Phil reached down and undid the button and zip, wiggling out of his jeans almost instantly afterwards; all the while, Dan stared on, looking almost cat like as he stared at Phil's body.

Phil obliged Dan's commands, shoving his jeans off as fast as he possibly could while Dan just sat back and watched. When he was sat in just his boxers on Phil’s bed, he made a noise in the back of his throat that resembled a growl more than anything else. Phil's boxers left close to nothing to Dan's imagination, his milky thighs revealed and a large tent in the fabric. "So gorgeous," Dan murmured, wasting no time getting his hands all over that beautiful pale skin. He leaned in for a kiss, rubbing his fingers over Phil's thighs. He was still fully clothed, but Dan paid no mind to it yet, instead directing his entire attention to how good Phil felt underneath him, all laid out for him and ready to be made into a piece of art. Ready for Dan to lick him clean.

Phil's favorite thing in the world was Dan petting over Phil's thighs. He didn't know why but it was a massive turn on, and only made more so when Dan was calling him gorgeous and admiring his body like this. Phil often spent so much time in control that he forgot how wonderful it felt to have Dan saying sweet things to him. Phil made a small moaning noise as Dan leaned in to kiss him, and hummed sweetly into the kiss, feeling small and vulnerable in all of the best ways. His body shook under Dan, and he was suddenly cold as Dan pulled back to stare at him again, blushing darkly to be stared at like Dan wanted to eat him. Biting his lip, Phil said, "Are you going to paint me now?"

Dan was shaken from his awed stares by Phil asking him if he was going to paint him. He'd nearly forgotten what he was going to do because he was so caught up in how gorgeous Phil looked, how Dan had gotten so lucky to have Phil as his boyfriend- no, Fiance. He shivered, realizing he'd been getting lost in thought again, and nodded. "Of course,” Dan murmured. But first... he started to strip himself of his own clothing, starting with his shirt before moving to his trousers. His boxers came off with them due to how tight his jeans were, but he hardly cared. "Oops," he said noncommittally, dropping all of his clothing to the ground and then grabbing the box of paints. He smiled at Phil, trailing one of his fingers over Phil's chest. "I figured I'd experiment and try finger-painting this time." And with that, he dumped the little of bottles of paint on the bed.

Dan, newly galvanized into action, made Phil remember that he still had his own boxers on, so while Dan stripped, Phil did too, pulling off his last article of clothing to leave himself open and exposed to Dan. He shivered under the cold evening air, but was happy to see Dan getting undressed, giggling a bit at the way Dan accidentally yanked off his boxers and his jeans all at the same time. Seeing all the skin newly revealed to him, though, was amazing, and he stared hungrily until Dan reached for the paints, declaring he was going to try finger painting this time around. Quite suddenly, Dan was sliding a playful finger down Phil's chest and dumping the paints out all over the bed next to him, something that made Phil shiver in anticipation. "Fuck," he muttered, and arched his chest into Dan's chest. "Paint me, then. Wanna see what you can do to me, wanna see you lick me clean"

Dan shivered at Phil's words. Fuck, how was he so attractive all the time? Dan didn't know how he'd gotten so lucky. He hummed, rubbing over Phil's abdomen and thighs before finally reaching for the paints. "Lay down, love, let me take care of you," Dan purred, cracking open the jar of red paint. It was apparently supposed to taste like cherry. Dan didn't know how he felt about that. He dipped his index finger in, swirling it in the paint while he stared at Phil thoughtfully. When he was presented with such a beautiful canvas, where could he even start? As it stood, Dan pressed his painted finger to Phil's chest, drawing a heart. It was quickly followed by more paint and him drawing the words, i love you in sloppy script. "Love you," Dan murmured quietly, just before leaning in to lick the paint from Phil's chest. It was slightly strange, a thick and chalky consistency, but it wasn't terrible in the least. He liked laving his tongue around Phil's skin, even caught Phil's nipple between his teeth playfully, his fingers splayed on Phil's thighs while he leaned over him.

There was something particularly erotic about having Dan painting his skin, painting his chest. Something erotic in the way his fingers moved over Phil's body with a purpose that wasn't exactly sexual, but was all the same. Maybe it was the knowledge that Dan was going to lick it off, or the way Dan looked at him, but Phil's' cock started to strain painfully, and he was panting before Dan had even properly done anything to him. He could see that Dan was starting to grow as well, until he was nearly fully hard again so soon after his first orgasm. Phil was never going to forget the way he'd made Dan come just from talking about their future together. Even now, it turned him on, until he was gasping out an "I love you, too," and moaning at the feeling of Dan leaning in to kiss and lick away the paint on his body. It was.... an amazing feeling. He gasped as Dan licked around his skin, and then let out a proper, loud moan at Dan biting his nipple, body bucking up into his touch, legs shaking at the way Dan stroked his thigh along with it. Dan knew all of Phil's spots, knew everything he loved, and he was going to scream with how intense everything suddenly seemed to feel. "Dan," he said.

"What?" Dan purred, loving how needy and wrecked Phil sounded already. And he hadn't even really touched him yet. Dan was lucky because he had already had an orgasm, while Phil was probably desperate by now. Dan was starting to get there too, ignoring how his own body reacted to each slide of Phil's skin against his own and how good Phil looked laid out for him like that. "You like that? Like me licking all over you and cleaning you up?" To prove his point, he dipped his finger in blue and dashed it right under Phil's chin. He didn't give him time to process before he was leaning forward and lapping that off as well, his mouth exploding with the taste of Phil and blueberries. Phil shivered under him, and Dan smirked, trying not to just give in and grind down on Phil right then and there. It'd be so easy. Phil was just laid out underneath him, Dan could feel Phil's dick brushing against his stomach. He marvelled at how much self control Phil had not to just tug him down and have his way with him right then. Dan knew he wouldn't have done that if he hadn't just come.

Dan was hot like this, taking charge. It happened so rarely, but now, two days in a row, Dan was the one making love to Phil and taking care of him in all of the best ways. It made Phil heady with desire, and his eyes were half mast as he stared at Dan hover over top of him, made him grunt in agreement when Dan leaned in and licked a stripe of something blue from his chin. Phil was so, so tempted to forcefully drag Dan down, to make him grind against him, but Phil wanted this to last. He wanted Dan to make him feel loved and marked all over. "Love it," Phil agreed, closing his eyes now as Dan swiped something along his neck, only to chase it with his tongue. He shivered, cock throbbing at the feeling, and clenched his fingernails into the duvet underneath him. Shit, shit, Dan's mouth felt so good on him. He turned his head, gave Dan better access to his neck, and arched once more, though he was doing his best to keep himself in check. He didn't want to come too early.

"Good," Dan said, and he went to town on Phil's neck. He liked the way it made Phil shake under him when he licked along the sensitive skin, how he seemed to be doing everything in his power not to just buck up into Dan right then and there. Dan bit down lightly on Phil's collarbone, sucking to make a mark, and then leaned back to look at his work. He pressed a purple finger into it, drew a star, and then licked it off again. He made his way all the way down Phil's body, laving along his skin and tasting grape and lemon and apple. He licked orange off his hipbones, smiling into the skin when Phil moaned loudly and tried to thrust into his touch. He had to force Phil's hips down with his hands to keep him in place while he sucked love bites into Phil's hips and his inner thighs. He liked the way it made Phil whine above him. Heat pooled in Dan's abdomen and he panted against Phil's skin, rubbing his erection against the bed to get some of the pressure off. He wanted this to last, wanted Phil to make love to him. Phil was just so attractive like this. Dan moaned lowly and took a bit of green on his finger, pulling away from Phil's thighs. He smeared the paint on Phil's lips, chuckling as Phil's tongue immediate flicked out to lick it up. "No," Dan ordered, tapping on his lip and leaving a green smear again. "Don't lick." Phil obeyed, his eyes blown wide with lust as he looked at Dan. That's what spurred Dan forward, pressing their lips together sloppily. It tasted like apples and Phil and everything that Dan loved when he sucked Phil's lip into his mouth. His tongue lapped off the paint and he groaned low in his throat, finally collapsing on top of Phil and feeling their bodies slide together.

It seemed to take forever, Dan painting over him and licking it back up, sucking marks into his skin and driving Phil crazy. It reminded him of back when they'd first gotten together, first had sex, and Phil had loved every inch of Dan's body with his mouth. That's what Dan was doing now, what Dan had done many times in the past, but this time, this time, he was eating literal food off of Phil's skin, and somehow, that made it so much more erotic. The feeling of Dan painting on him, only for his tongue to come along and warm up the cold bits of skin, sucking and biting marks into his body, the most sensitive of places, was driving Phil furcking insane in the best of ways. His hips kept pushing up, trying to get something, but Dan was good, Dan was good at keeping them in place, in pushing them back down, even as he bit and licked at Phil's inner thighs, so close to where Phil wanted him most. Phil was glad for Dan though, glad Dan was taking his time with him, glad that Dan loved him so fucking much. When Dan finally moved back up to his lips, Phil immediately licked at them, only to have to force himself to hold back when Dan asked him to, painting over his lips all over again before surging in for a proper kiss. It felt so fuckin good, to finally have Dan's mouth there, and then, just as it was getting good, Dan pressed his body over Phil's and Phil gave in. His hands fell to Dan's hips, instead of the bed, and he shoved them both over until he was climbing on top of Dan, rutting his hips down into his boyfriends - fiances - and licking into his mouth hotly. He took control, fingers trailing up Dan's skin, nails scratching, mouth yearning, and he let his hips take over. They rutted together in the best of ways, with heat pooling in Phil's belly, only he didn't want to come like this. He wanted more, wanted to take Dan, to have him, to make him feel amazing, and so, despite the way his body screamed at him to keep going, Phil pulled his hips back and panted down at Dan, pupils blown wide. "Fucking - fucking love you," he groaned, and then he was attacking Dan's mouth all over again, scrambling for something to use to prepare Dan's body to take him.

The paints dropped from Dan's hands as Phil surged forward and kissed Dan back as if he'd been waiting his entire life just for that one gesture. Dan almost felt bad; he could tell that paint had gotten on Phil's bedsheets. But then, Phil was pushing them over, climbing on top of Dan, dominating him like he knew Dan liked, and he didn't have the willpower to care about the dumb paints. Why would he, when he had the man of his dreams grinding into him so deliciously and devouring his mouth like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted? "Love you more," Dan gasped, opening himself up for Phil. He put his legs around Phil's waist, dragging them closer together while Phil tried to scramble for something, probably lube. He just wanted to hold Phil closer, to feel him against him. To show him how much he loved him. Dan groaned, scratching his nails down Phil's back hard enough to leave marks behind. "I can't wait for you to make love to me," Dan admitted softly, pressing a kiss to Phil's jawline.

Somehow, Phil's fingers came into contact with the paints, first, and while there was no way he was sticking that up Dan's bum, it did make him pause. As Dan pressed a kiss to Phil's jawbone, wrapped his legs around his waist, and generally made it known that he wanted Phil to fuck him now, Phil couldn't help thinking of the fact that he hadn't really gotten to work Dan up at all. Slowly, very slowly so as not to upset his fiance, Phil untangled himself and stared down at him with a soft, predatory gaze. He licked his lips for good measure, grinning widely, and then shimmied down the bed while Dan watched, popping the lid on the green paint he'd accidentally grabbed. Dan hadn't done this, so maybe it wasn't the safest thing, but Phil had heard of people eating whipped cream off each other... surely...surely. Phil lathered his hand in the green paint, and then slowly reached for Dan's cock, stroking it gently but avoiding the slit as he watched Dan stare with his mouth open at Phil. Phil winked, and then, when he thought Dan was worked up enough, when his eyes went half mast, Phil leaned in and sucked Dan's cock into his mouth, moaning around the taste of him. It was some strange appley thing, but it was nothing compared to the taste of Dan on his tongue, and Phil moaned as he realized he could still taste Dan's last orgasm on him. He sunk down low to get more of the taste, more of the sensation, before bobbing back up, gasping around Dan's cock and pressing his fingers into his hips when Dan started to buck into the sensation. Lube. They needed lube. Phil couldn't for the life of him remember where he'd stashed it last night. Gasping as he pulled off of Dan's dick to a whine of protest from Dan, Phil reached for the green paint again, coated it over his hand, and said, "Find the lube, and I'll finger you too."

Dan let out an immediate whine as Phil started to disconnect himself from their embrace. How dare he try to get away? Especially when Dan was so comfortable and turned on, kissing him like that! But then Phil reached for the paints, seeming a mix of cautious and curious, and Dan kind of just went, oh. His mouth dropped open and he stared at his boyfriend with heavy lidded eyes and ragged breaths. Was he...? His question was answered when the bottle of green was popped open with a loud pop and Phil smeared the liquid on his hand. He looked between the paint, and then to the area between Dan's legs, and Dan spread his legs further subconsciously. His mouth dropped open as Phil reached for him, wrapping his hand around Dan's cock and smearing the green paint all over it. Dan wanted to make a joke about the Hulk, but his thoughts came to a screeching halt as Phil leaned forward and quite suddenly sucked him into his mouth. Dan gasped loudly, his hips bucking into the delicious heat of Phil's mouth. He could feel Phil sucking around him, running his tongue over his skin to lick off the paint, and Dan's eyes rolled back with pleasure. It didn't last long before Phil was pulling back, demanding Dan find lube, and he scrambled for the drawer as Phil coated more green on his hand. He couldn't find it. Where could the lube have gone?! They couldn't have thrown it that far! Dan rifled through the drawers and all over the bed, coming up empty handed. He was about to say fuck it and just tell Phil to take him raw, when he looked on the floor and found it amidst a pile of clothing. "Finally!" he gasped, reaching for it and chucking it at Phil. "Finger me open. Please!"

Phil hadn't actually thought about the fact that, if Dan went looking for the lube, he wouldn't be staying still enough for Phil to suck on his cock some more, so when Dan started to move around just as Phil reached for his dick again, he found himself pouting and instead reaching for his own cock with his paint less hand, stroking over himself languidly as Dan went about searching for the lube everywhere. His lips were parted, his breathing heavy, and he couldn't stop staring at all of the skin left exposed to him. Dan was so, so beautiful. Phil grunted a bit, his hips bucking into his hand, and then, just when it seemed like all hope was lost, Dan was reaching over the bed and coming back with the lube, which he then tossed at Phil with the demand that he finger him open. Phil grinned, letting go of his own dick and pushing Dan back down against the bed, the hand coated in paint going straight for his dick to stroke over it again. Dan let out another moan, and Phil reached for the lube with a grin and popped open the cap one handed. It was a messy struggle, but Phil managed to get his fingers wet with lube, and then he was leaning in and taking Dan's cock back into his mouth to suckle at it, messy as ever, fingers prodding at Dan's bum. Dan spread his legs further for Phil, which he appreciated, and then, when Dan seemed to have relaxed, Phil pressed the first finger forward, all the while never once moving his mouth from Dan's cock.

There were so many sensations. Phil immediately got his hands back on him, his hand wet with paint that he smeared all over Dan's dick the second Dan laid back down. He moaned and bucked into the touch, his eyes hungry as they followed Phil's fingers where they opened the bottle of lube. He watched through half lidded eyes as he poured it over his fingers, a bit messily, and then let the bottle fall back to the bed. Dan spread his legs, presenting himself to Phil, and awaited for the moment Phil sank his digits into him. Before Phil got his fingers in him, he leaned forward and took his cock back into his mouth, sucking it down as far as he could take it. Dan moaned, and then keened even louder as Phil suddenly prodded at his hole, sinking his finger into him. Dan didn't know whether to fuck his hips forward or back, and he ended up messily thrusting into Phil's mouth while simultaneously trying to grind back into Phil's fingers. It was messy and didn't really work, and they both knew it. Phil ended up slapping Dan's thigh as a warning, and Dan stopped moving his hips. It was so hard, though, especially when he was so hard he could feel the pleasure of Phil all the way through his toes.

It was the strange sensation of Dan attempting to fuck forwards and backwards that threw Phil off, and he ended up slapping at Dan's thigh to make him stop despite his whine of protest. It was just too difficult to keep any kind of rhythm when Dan was fucking himself messily like that, and besides - "Wanna take care of you myself. Let me take control," he insisted, knowing Dan liked it best that way regardless, even as he always acting like a bosy bottom. Dan moaned at the words which spurred Phil on even more, and he found another rythym despite pulling away from Dan's cock to instead lick at his belly. His intent was to kiss the soft, tender flesh of Dan's tummy, but he was distracted by Dan's hips where Phil had pressed some paint on accident. He nuzzled at Dan, fucking him slowly with his finger, before biting into that bit of flesh on his hips and licking it over for good measure. Dan always tasted so good.

Dan gave into Phil without a fight. He liked having Phil take control anyways, liked to just let him do as he pleased without any input. He always made Dan feel so, so good no matter what he did. He let his head fall back onto the pillows, his hands bunching into the duvet as he tried to hold himself back from grinding into the feeling. Phil fingered him skillfully, knowing exactly where to press and how to curl his fingers. He knew just how to pleasure Dan now that they'd been together for so long. Dan was then distracted by Phil pulling off of him, whining at the loss of warmth. That was then turned to a moan of surprise as Phil bit his hip. He soothed the wound with his hot tongue, and Dan shivered. "Want you," Dan murmured quietly, practically shaking in his skin.

Grinning against Dan's skin, Phil just continued to nip at his hip lightly, the bone there tender and warm. Dan always seemed to like when Phil bit into places like that, usually preferring his collarbones, but he'd have to make do down here because the sweet scent of Dan's dick was so intoxicating that Phil didn't want to move too far away from it. Besides that, he had a finger pressed deep inside of Dan at just the right angle. Shifting up to bite Dan's collarbones would only cause him to lose it. Panting a little, Phil pressed a second finger to Dan's entrance, and really started to stretch him, spreading his fingers apart inside of Dan and watching him writhe under Phil's ministrations. "Want you too," Phil finally muttered back, licking over Dan's hip again now, and moving down to the supple skin of his thigh. "You are so, so beautiful Dan. My fiance," He whispered, reminded once more of the fact that Dan was so, so his.

Finally, Phil was adding another finger, stretching Dan open further. This was one of Dan's favourite parts of sex with Phil. He loved how long Phil's fingers were, how delicate and gentle they were. He also liked the feeling of being fingered open slowly, getting him ready for something much, much bigger. Maybe Dan had a kink for Phil's hands. He wouldn't put it past himself, if he was being honest. By now, he practically had a kink for everything to do with Phil. Dan shivered, whimpering out high pitched and needy. "Your fiance. All yours. Can't wait to marry you."

Shit, fuck, there was nothing like hearing Dan say those words to him, nothing like Dan being so desperate to marry him, nothing like having him whine and shiver under Phil's touch. It did something crazy to Phil's insides, and he bit down harshly on Dan's thigh to hide the overpowering whine that was about to slip past his own lips. His fingers kept working, but they stuttered inside of Dan's body, pressing into that little bundle of nerves he knew Dan loved so much. He heard Dan cry out and felt him arch his hips, and had to fight to keep himself from pulling his fingers out and just fucking Dan right then and there. "Shit, shit, Dan," Phil groaned, and crooked his fingers, rubbing the pads of his fingers against that little spot. "I am so in love with you."

A sharp pain notified Dan of Phil's teeth biting down harshly on the sensitive skin of his thigh. He cried out, squeezed his eyes shut, to try to contain himself. He felt like he was going to lose it already and he hadn't even gotten Phil's dick in him yet. He was probably going to last a total of two seconds when Phil finally got inside of him at this rate. “Fuck!" Dan cried out, his body lurching violently when Phil's fingers crooked and they were pressing into his prostate. Hard. Dan let out a moan akin to a sob and arched his hips, unable to stop himself from moving with the pleasure. "I love you, I love you, please Phil!" Dan sobbed, wriggling on the bed. Phil's fingers were relentless, rubbing into the same spot with no cares in the world. Dan was mumbling gibberish, but he couldn't bring himself to care when he was this pleasured just by Phil's fingers.

God, Phil wanted to make Dan sound like this forever. He could already see Dan's cock dribbling pre cum, and Phil knew he'd only come maybe a half an hour ago now. Seeing Dan getting so close already was particularly hot, but it wasn't helping the way Dan was gasping out "I love you's" you like that. Phil loved that sound more than anything in the world, loved getting to hear Dan say those words so close to him now, when he could kiss them off of his tongue - only he couldn't, and he wouldn't, not just now. Instead, he slipped his fingers out only to press in three instead, and, doing his best to avoid Dan's sweet spot, stretched him open the rest of the way to take Phil's cock. "Tell me when you're ready for me, love," he whispered against silky skin, and kissed his thigh all over again.

Instead of just fucking him senseless like Dan wanted, Phil took his fingers out instead. Dan whined with the loss, trying to chase them, to shove them back inside so he could be in blissful pleasure for the rest of time. Then Phil was pressing in three fingers, narrowly avoiding his prostate, and Dan didn't know what was worse: nearly coming again with just two fingers, or being stretched open without any prostate stimulation. Apparently Dan was just insanely sensitive today, because he could hardly hold himself back from screaming at Phil to just forget the third finger and fuck him already. He made himself wait. It wouldn't be very pleasurable if Phil was forcing him past his breaking point just because he was too impatient to be stretched properly. So he waited, breathing heavily through his nose with his mouth gaped wide open. His eyes were closed and he was trying not to focus so much on the amazing feeling, but rather whether he was okay to continue or not. It worked to calm him down a little bit, just enough so he didn't feel like he was going to come at any moment. Finally, after a few agonizing minutes, Dan caved in. "I'm ready," he panted, opening his eyes and staring down at Phil. "Love me, Phil. Please."

Phil could practically see the struggle painted across Dan's face as he attempted to control himself, not wanting to come before the real fun began. It made Phil tempted to take a break, but it wasn't as easy as that. It was clear Dan didn't want to stop, regardless, so Phil just continued to prep.him all while avoiding any actual prostate stimulation. He knew Dan didn't prefer that, but Phil was more concerned with getting them to the end; therefore, when Dan begged him to love him, Phil could do nothing but groan and pull his fingers out of him. "Yes," he agreed instantly, wanting nothing more. Being pressed to Dan like that - it was all that Phil could ever want. He reached for the lube once more to coat it over his dick, and leaned over Dan at the same time to finally kiss him again. The touch was electric. It made Phil feel loved in a way not much else could as he panted into Dan's mouth, lining his hips up with Dan’s. He wanted to do this face to face for once. "Dan," he whispered. "Ready?" he asked, just for good measure.

Dan was glad that Phil had opted out of a condom this time. Sure, sometimes he preferred to do it with, just because he was lazy and didn't like to clean up after himself, but he wanted to feel Phil today. He wanted to feel every inch as Phil pressed himself into him, and every slide as he pulled out. He wanted Phil to show him how much he loved him, wanted to feel connected. He watched through lidded eyes as Phil rubbed lube over himself before lining himself up with Dan. He kissed him, his mouth hot and passionate, and it was all that Dan had wanted. He hadn't noticed that he'd closed his eyes again until Phil was whispering his name. Only then did he look up, staring into Phil's gentle blue eyes. Dan nodded wildly when Phil asked him if he was ready. He could feel the head of Phil's cock pressing against his entrance, and his hole was practically twitching with anticipation already. "Oh, fuck yes," he whispered breathlessly.

Lost in the moment, Phil couldn't even consider stopping to find a condom, and Dan wasn't complaining. They both liked it bare sometimes, and today seemed like as good a day as any to go without. Phil was waiting, though, waiting for Dan's approval, so when he got it, Dan's voice already gone, Phil grunted and shifted his hips forward with a drawn out sigh of pleasure as the head of his cock pressed past Dan's rim. This was always one of the most wonderful parts, the feeling of sinking so slowly into Dan, a tease to both of them, but the best kind of tease. Phil’s stomach curled with pleasure, and he could feel heat flaring through him from head to toe. His mouth dropped open, and Dan was crying out beneath him, so Phil leaned in and kissed him just as passionately as before, but doing his best to make this feel like love, rather than getting so lost in the pleasure that he just took. Once he'd bottomed out, he stayed there, just reveling in the sensation of being connected to Dan, in the sensation of being pressed so far into him, cock warmed by his body. "Dan," Phil whispered once more into his lips, and then kissed him again, soft and lazy.

As soon as Dan was giving his approval, Phil was sinking into him. He went slowly, making sure that he didn't hurt Dan, but it never really hurt much more anyways. It was always the same overwhelming feeling of being full, of being connected, and it was always much more intense without the condom. Dan was glad they decided not to use one this time. His mouth fell open and his eyes fluttered shut so he could just focus on the amazing feeling of Phil's cock entering him, dragging against his walls and opening him up little by little. He whimpered, reached down to clasp a hand around the back of Phil's thigh to urge him forward. When he bottomed out, it was the most amazing feeling, as it always was. Except this time, Dan had the knowledge that this was their first time having sex engaged, that he was able to keep Phil with him for forever. Phil's groin was pressed snugly to Dan's ass, letting Dan adjust to his length, and he just stayed there while Dan clenched around him. "Phil," Dan whined. His eyes were still closed but he could feel Phil bending down to meet his lips, kissing him with so much love and passion that Dan could feel tears start to prick at his eyes. He was just so happy.

This time, when Phil started to move, it felt like something entirely different to normal. His mouth was still on Dan's, sweet and gentle, his tongue stroking sweetly along Dan's, and his hips shifted just the barest amount. He didn't truly want to leave the warmth of Dan, not even for pleasure, but he knew what they both wanted, both needed, and he picked up a slow pace of rolling his hips, pulling out the tiniest bit before pressing back in. Dan was whimpering underneath him, one of his hands on Phil's thigh, and the other locked in his hair, but Phil didn't mind. He had both of his own hands braced on Dan's sides, holding him as gently as he could while he rolled his hips into Dan, taking him slow and neatly. It felt so fucking good, even these tiny little movements, and Dan's cock kept sliding along his belly, and it made Phil feel warm inside. He could feel all of Dan, so tight and warm around him, his rim fluttering to take Phil, his body sucking him in. He groaned against Dan's mouth, felt tears starting to prick his eyes. This man was his, all his now, and always would be. They were engaged, and God, God, did that feel amazing.

So slowly that Dan probably wouldn't have felt it if he weren't so sensitive right then, Phil started to move. It wasn't their normal, needy fucking. Instead, it was just Phil gently holding Dan while he made love to him. He was so soft, as if he was scared Dan would break, and for once, Dan didn't try to hurry him up. He was happy with the pace, happy to have Phil showing him how much he meant to him. He was whimpering, never breaking their kiss, and tried to meet Phil's tiny thrusts each time. He stopped that after a minute though, wanting to have Phil take control and decide where they went next, so he just reveled in the feeling of Phil's cock stretching him open and the slow and steady movements. This way, Dan could feel every inch as Phil pressed into him, every slide as he pulled back out. It made it so much more intense. "Love you," Dan breathed once again, not being able to say much else. He kept his eyes closed, knowing that if he opened them, he would probably start crying right then and there. Sometimes, he just couldn't help it though. Phil just made him feel so loved that his tears came out, and there was not much he could do to stop them.

Phil smiled at the words, at the breathless way that Dan said them, whispered them against his lips, and finally stopped kissing him to press his lips to Dan's ear instead. The pleasure was sending sparks of fire up and down his spine, and his body wanted to move faster, to take and take and take, but Phil wasn't having it. No, he pressed his lips to Dan's ears, and he started to talk, all while he kept up the slow, steady pace of his hips, rolling them into Dan, back and forth, pulling out a little bit more here and there, and pushing back in, but never in a rush. "I love you so much, Daniel Howell. You're the love of my life, God, all I want is to marry you. All I want is to spend every waking moment of the rest of our lives together. How did I get so lucky with you? You're so amazing, Dan, so, so fucking amazing. You make me feel alive," he whispered, gasped as Dan clenched down around him, hips stuttering, and then groaned as he leaned further down to bite down into Dan's shoulder. He could feel his body starting to shake from the effort of taking this slow, could feel himself starting to sweat, but he didn't care. "Beautiful," he whispered then, and kissed at Dan's perfect skin. "And mine. My fiance."

The words were exactly what Dan needed to hear, and were too much at the same time. He was shaking, his hole clenching down and his cock jumping with the praise. He moaned loudly, his fingers squeezing tighter to Phil's thigh and his head nuzzling into the crook of Phil's neck. His heart swelled in his chest, adding onto the sensitivity of the experience. "Oh God," Dan choked out, and then he made the mistake of opening his eyes. Phil was staring down at him with a look of complete adoration, his hair messed up from where Dan had tangled his fingers. His cheeks were tinged pink from the exertion of taking Dan slow, and there was a fond smile on his lips. He was looking at Dan like he was the most amazing thing that he'd laid eyes on, and Dan believed it too. Lips quivering, Dan could feel his eyes well up with tears, and he threw his arms around Phil's shoulders to bring him closer as the tears started to overflow. Dan clenched his eyes shut and wrapped his legs around Phil's waist, doing everything in his power to get Phil pressing deeper into him until he could feel the extra burn, the extra stretch. It was Dan's favourite feeling. "I love you, I really do. I don't want anyone else, Phil. I can't wait to marry you and call you my husband soon. I want-," Dan cut himself off, gasping as Phil moved a bit and consequently rubbed against his prostate. The responding fuzzy feeling was welcomed. "I want to be a Lester more than anything in the world."

When Dan opened his eyes, Phil could see the tears there, and the only reason he didn't panic instantly at the sight was the fact that there were tears in his own eyes, and he was certain, so certain, he wasn't hurting Dan. Dan was crying because he was so overwhelmed with love for Phil, and when he threw both his arms and his legs around Phil's body, dragging him closer and getting his cock ever deeper, Phil knew that he was right. He gasped at the sensation regardless, hips jerking for more, but he tried to hold himself in place, tried to keep up that same pace, making a small whimpering whining noise when Dan gasped and Phil realized he was pressing into his prostate. Dan's tears had started to fall, but Phil's did not until Dan told him he wanted nothing more than to be a Lester. In that moment, the tears flowed freely, and his hips really started to take Dan, fucking into him, deep and that little bit faster. Phil just wanted now, wanted so much, and he pulled himself up to kiss Dan sloppily and deeply. "Daniel Lester," he gasped, giggling out a half sob of desire, and closed his eyes to just take this moment in.

Like a switch had been turned on, Phil let out a noise akin to a sob and started to actually thrust, fucking into Dan like he physically couldn't hold himself back anymore. They were overwhelmed with the feeling of each other, of the promise of a future, and it made everything feel so much more intense. Dan let out a giggle as Phil kissed him hard, sloppy, so overcome with joy that they couldn't even try to make it good. He was pressing so deep into Dan, and his body was responding accordingly, precome dripping from his slit and his toes curling with pleasure. Phil was pounding repeatedly into his prostate, and it was making his head spin and his stomach clench. "Phil, Phil," Dan gasped, throwing his head pack and panting. He was squirming, trying to keep himself from coming undone. "I'm close! So close!"

His hips were well and truly out of his control now as he rutted into Dan, chasing his pleasure despite wanting to make this good for Dan. His balls were clenching up tight to his body, and his stomach was clenched as well, his breathing broken and ragged as he panted against Dan's lips. He wanted to touch Dan, to pet him, to tell him again how much he loved him, but he couldn't. He was just so overwhelmed, so desperate for Dan, so needy and ready to come, the orgasm drawing out of him impossibly slow. Phil gritted his teeth, the feeling of fucking Dan so deep giving him the most intense of pleasure, but if he was honest, he was so ready to come now. He'd been hard for ages, and Dan was clenching up around him as well, gasping out that he was close, squirming under Phil's ministrations as Phil's cock continued to rub along his prostate, stimulating him from the inside. That's when Phil started to feel the pull behind his belly button, the tell tale sign that was he was going to come, and he gasped out his own warning as he reached between their bodies to grasp Dan's cock in his hand. He collapsed, half on top of Dan, as his hips lost their rhythm, fucking Dan good and proper now, and then he was well and truly coming, feeling himself fill Dan up with his come, and overjoyed with the fact that Dan was well and truly his.

Phil only fucked him harder when Dan gasped out, hitting his prostate each time he pushed back into him. Dan could feel Phil's cock pulsing, growing impossibly harder as he drew closer to the edge, and Dan sobbed with pleasure. It was almost too much when Phil reached between his legs to stroke him, his thumb sliding over the head of his cock to gather the leaking precome. He knew the moment that Phil started to come, slamming into his hole hard, once, twice, and then there was the feeling of warmth as he came in Dan, filling him to the rim. "Fuck, you feel so good!" Dan moaned, long and drawn out, his eyes rolling with pleasure and his mouth slack as Phil continued to ride himself through his orgasm. It was with that that Dan came as well, his body going completely still and a sob tearing from his throat as he came in hard spurts over his stomach and Phil's hand. It was almost like he'd never orgasmed the first time, and he was left twitching as Phil stroked him through it until he was squirming away from the overstimulation.

The orgasm had basically knocked everything else out of Phil, and it was kind of a miracle that Phil even managed to keep stroking his hand over Dan's dick, his hips pressing pressing, pressing inwards until his own crotch was flush to Dan's ass and there was nowhere for either of them to go. It was one of the most intense sensations of Phil's life, something he got often with Dan, but never like this; never when he was still high off the feeling of love that came with being newly engaged to Dan. He managed to work over Dan's dick with his hand until his boyfri- fiance came as well, and then he just kept going until Dan was squirming away. "Sorry, sorry," he whined, still panting and trying to come down from his own high. "You just - you're amazing," he gasped out.

Dan was still feeling extremely fuzzy, shaky like he'd just run five kilometers. He breathed out a laugh, shaking his head fondly. "You're even more amazing," Dan admitted, relaxing into the pillows. He was so tired all of a sudden that he felt as if he could sink into the bed and through the floorboards. He made grabby hands at Phil, pouting. "Well?" he asked, teasing. His voice was tinged with both warmth and tiredness. "Aren't you going to cuddle me until I'm sick of you? Fiance?"

Phil could hardly hold himself up, let alone pull out of Dan, so at the pouty face and grabby hands, Phil merely moaned and tried to move himself so he could at least properly pull out of Dan. "Let me, just - shush, you can't use that as a weapon against me!" he complained, even as he did manage to push himself up so he could feel free of Dan. Dan would only be even more sore later if Phil stayed in him too long. Meanwhile, his mind was fuzzy with the love he felt for Dan and the ecstasy of the orgasm. "I just. Love you so much," he said once more, and let himself collapse into Dan's hands once he was free of his body.

Dan giggled as Phil whined at him, catching him red handed. "I'll do as I please!" Dan argued. He groaned as Phil pulled out of him, and he crinkled his nose at the feeling of Phil's cum leaking out of him. It was always the weirdest thing, and Dan wasn't sure if he liked it or not. He ignored it in favour of Phil collapsing on top of him, snuggling into his chest with a sigh. Dan wrapped his arms around him, trailing his fingertips over Phil's spine softly. He nuzzled his face into Phil's neck, smiling. "I love you very much, dear," he replied. He didn't know what he'd do without Phil, to be honest. This was all he'd ever wanted.

It felt so good having Dan reach his arms around Phil to hold him, and he smiled when Dan nuzzled his neck, reassuring Phil that he did indeed love Phil as well. He knew that, he did, but it was good to hear it. It was good just feeling loved. Phil pressed a kiss to Dan's neck in return, sighing as Dan's fingers pressed to his spine and caressed down them lightly. It felt so nice. "I'm tempted to have another bath with you, if you keep petting me like this," Phil explained, voice whisper soft and content. He just wanted to be in Dan's arms like this forever. They still had like, six days together. Phil was going to treasure every second.

Dan laughed, pressing a dozen kisses to Phil's neck and shoulders. He kept doing that over and over, just wanting to sprinkle Phil with as much love as he possibly could. "I might have to take you up on that offer," Dan admitted against Phil's skin, nipping his shoulder teasingly. Then he perked up, almost shoving Phil off of him completely. "Ah!" he exclaimed. Phil gave him a strange look and a glare, like he was mad Dan was disrupting his comfort, but he definitely wouldn't be mad in a couple of moments when he understood what Dan's fuss was about. "Get up, get up," Dan urged, giving Phil a quick kiss on the lips and gesturing him to roll over. With a lot of complaint, Phil complied. It allowed Dan to hop out of bed with sudden energy and to rifle through his backpack. His fingers came in contact with the little black box and he smiled, straightening up and walking back to Phil. "Here," he said, handing it to him. "Happy anniversary. Again."

The worst feeling in the world was having to roll off of Dan when Dan had been treating him so well, those tiny little kisses and the warmth of his touch the best thing in the world. Phil missed it already, and it was worse because he couldn't for the life of him figure out why on Earth Dan would insist on getting up and moving now. So when Dan returned to him with a large silky box, something that was also clearly jewelry, Phil felt his breathing stop. "What is this?" he asked, sitting up and taking it tentatively in his palm. "Dan.... you got me too much, I," he started, only to trail off as he opened the box and found a heart shaped locket necklace glinting up at him. He felt a grin starting to tug at his lips as he gingerly picked it up. "Dan..." he whispered, taking it gently between forefinger and thumb, and then carefully pulling it open. He laughed, bright and loud, when he saw the pictures of them inside, and turned to grin up at Dan. He was so tempted to throw himself bodily at him, gross sweat and body fluids be damned.

"Consider it your engagement ring for now," Dan teased, smiling warmly. He watched with complete and utter adoration as Phil opened the box and started to tear up upon opening it. Dan knew how it felt, considering he'd had the man of his dreams kneeling on one knee only hours before. "You deserve the world. How could I not get you a bunch of stuff?" He motioned for Phil to turn around, taking the necklace from his fingers. Delicately, he put the locket around his neck and kissed his nape. "You deserve the world. This is the least I could do."

Phil would never understand how he'd gotten so lucky. It seemed impossible that he had a boy securing a locket around his throat just then, seemed impossible that he could have someone who'd want to give him the world, and he found himself covering his mouth over the soft sound of a hiccuping laugh that was half sob. He was crying again like an idiot, and he didn't know whether or not to hate himself for it, but mostly, he just wanted to kiss Dan some more, so the second the necklace was hanging freely on it's own around his neck, Phil turned and really did throw himself at Dan this time. "It's perfect. You're perfect, Dan, fuck, I love you so much. Come here," he said, and pulled Dan into his arms, dragging them both back down and onto the bed in a messy tangle of sweaty limbs. He laughed, and Dan laughed, and Phil kissed him soundly on the lips the second they were available to him, sinking into the feeling and thinking, this is it. This is the future I want, and the future I can't wait to have. "You are my world," he added for good measure when they pulled apart. "And you already gave me you. Happy anniversary, Dan," Phil said, and kissed him once more.

fin  

[7wanderingpaws]

A Windy Encounter (GOT7 Jinyoung) 3

A/N: Sorry for the longer wait. I am excited for the upcoming chapters though, I hope you will be too! 😊💕 

Pairing: Jinyoung x reader

Genre: Pretty Woman AU

Warnings: None

Word count: 2.2K

Part 3 :before the reunion:

“And what will you and Alexandra do in Seoul exactly?” chirped in Jenna as you were having dinner with your family. She blinked at you innocently, smiling as she wrapped her mouth around another big spoonful of sticky rice. She grabbed a piece of kimchi as threw it into her already full mouth.

You tried to look absolutely nonchalant as you stole a glance at your parents who were eating contently, not catching up on the hints Jenna was throwing. “We are going for an exhibition,” you said, sounding a tad unsure but you coughed quickly, recovering. “And then there will be a k-pop concert that is for free, so why now?”

Your mother smiled gently, the wrinkles around her eyes ever so present. “Of course, my daughter. You should go and have fun. Enjoy it as much as you can.”

Your father nodded although he did not pay much attention to the women’s talk.         “Sure, I agree with your mother.”

Smiling daringly, you boldly looked into Jenna’s eyes. There was no doubt she was challenging you and threatening as well, in a way. Too bad for her as she wasn’t even in the picture anymore. You were done with your night-time occupation, she couldn’t hold anything against you anymore.

Eating contently, you were thinking of the upcoming few days that awaited for you with Jinyoung. There were a few sleepless nights where you simply couldn’t get him out of your head no matter how hard you tried, imaging how you would talk to him, how would the entire gala go. How would you bear make up and the clothes he will buy you?

You shook your head slightly, not realising Jenna was still watching you. Gulping the last pieces of food, you stood up from the floor, grabbing all the empty plates before disappearing to your room. You needed to pack and you wanted to make sure you have all the important things like books. Your medical books.

As you were trying to fit your massive, thick book of general human anatomy into your half worn out back pack (that fell into mud that morning as you slipped on the dirt road), your phone beeped, catching your attention.

Sighing, you unlocked your phone.

Park Jinyoug (13:24): I’ll pick you up at 7pm

Your stomach dropped as your heart sped up. At 7pm? Wasn’t that late? Your parents (with the support of your evil sister) wouldn’t like that idea.

With shaky hands, you typed: You don’t have to. I’ll take the train this afternoon.

Not even managing to place your phone back on the table, it beeped again.

Park Jinyoung (13:26): I already said that I am taking care of everything. Please, be ready by 7pm. You will get lost in Seoul by yourself

You squeezed your eyes shut, contemplating what to reply to him. Your thumb made it to your lips, teeth biting into the dried out skin.

You (13:30): Can’t we hit the road a bit earlier?

You (13:30): Please…

Not even a second went by-

Park Jinyoung (13:30): Ok. What time is good for you?

You snickered.

You (13:31): In two hours?

For some strange reason, you were imagining Jinyoung sighing over your messages. Sighing and then smirking. Oh yeah. You could not get that smirk out of your mind despite your hard trying. It haunted you and something was telling you, you were not getting any less of that smirk in the upcoming days. And guess what? You were so up for it.

Oh shit. Did you just admit that?!

Ah, no you didn’t mean it like that. This was just a business trip-

Park Jinyoung (13:33): Ok

You didn’t reply to him anymore. Rushing around your messy room, you quickly packed all the clean clothes you managed to wash in the past few days and neatly put them in your small suitcase that was, once again, a bit worn-out. Jinyoung was already aware of your situation and you made a promise for yourself that you would not let his judging eyes bother you in any way.

 He was not giving you any judging eyes.

You were giving judging eyes but you did not realise it.

Seated comfortably in the passenger seat, you had your knees politely connected, not daring to move much around on the white leather of his Mercedes. You felt your neck sigh in pain as you did not move in the past hour of the drive, your stare stonily fixed on the road ahead of you.

Radio was softly playing to break the tensed up silence that was between you two. Jinyoung did not seem bothered by it and after few more hundreds of kilometres you figured he was not a big of a talker.

But he looked elegant, and even while driving he gave out strong charisma that was too shiny, too strong for you to misbalance it with your presence. Fidgeting with your fingers, you noticed with pure horror in your eyes that your fingernails were completely dirty. Still having to do stuff at the farm in the morning, you didn’t even stop to think about dirt under your nails. You were so used to it…

Ever so slowly, turning your head enough so that from the corner of your eyes you could see Jinyoung’s hands casually holding the bottom of the steering wheel, you saw how clean and soft his hands looked.

Silently cursing yourself, you turned to look out the window on your side, making a silent note to clean them as soon as you would be alone.

“Are you regretting?” Jinyoung’s low voice interrupted your train of thoughts.

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“I mean if you are regretting this decision – going to Seoul with me.”

“Oh,” you sighed and looked at him. He was staring out at the road but just as you turned, he stole a quick glance at you, your eyes meeting. You looked straight ahead of you. “No, not yet.”

He chuckled. “You seem like you just ate a rotten tomato.”

You pushed your hands between your thighs, hiding them from him. But for all you knew, he might have noticed already. “No, I just haven’t really been on such a long car ride.”

“Do you feel nauseous?”

“No,” you said, turning again to look at him, your eyes meeting again. You swallowed. “I’m all good, thank you.”

“We will have to stop at the gas stop in a bit to refill and we can eat something.”

Ugh. Why was Seoul so far away? Why weren’t you there yet?

In an hour, you found yourself seated at one of the many tables inside, the weather being too cold for you to sit outside (although that bite of the cold wind would be a good slap for you).

Jinyoung took a sip of his coffee while you were munching on a cookie, the sugar being a very needed in that moment.

“So,” started Jinyoug when he swallowed, licking his lips.  He leaned on his elbows that were resting on the table, getting closer to you. “What is it exactly that you do in your daily life?”

You swallowed quickly the chunk before coughing in surprise.

“Careful,” said Jinyoung, already opening the bottle of water that you still hadn’t touched. “Are you that intimidated by me?” He handed you the open bottle and you took it, sipping slowly.

Once you were done, you cleaned your mouth with the sleeve of your long sweater, too quickly for you to stop from being so unmannered. Although Jinyoung saw you, he didn’t say anything as his eyes met yours again.

“I am not intimidated,” you stated finally, hiding the hand with the dirty sleeve under the table. “This is a business trip, so I don’t find it necessary for me to share my secrets with you.”

Jinyoung smirked (!!!) but you proudly kept your stare steady. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy, miss.”

Miss. He said it just the way when you first met. Miss. The first man to ever call you like that. He called you a miss when he saw you in your natural, definitely not pretty self and he did it now again.

You didn’t know how to reply so you just nodded, averting your gaze. Noticing his bag on the seat next to him, you saw a few books sticking out. Jinyoung catching up on your gaze, he smiled. “Ah, those are my medical books and some poetry ones too. You like reading?” he turned to look at your again.

Surprised, you nodded. “Yeah, books are… cool. Ehm, why do you have medical books with you?”

He laughed as he reached for his cup. “That’s so cute. Even though I was part of your clientele you still don’t know anything about me.”

You bit your lip. “Why would I need to know that? I treated all the clients the same, Mr Park.”

“Jinyoung,” he corrected.

“So you’re a doctor.” Your heart was beating loudly at the realisation. He must have been someone big if he was coming from Seoul, owned a fancy car and all the other idiots in the bar loved him and respected him.

“Yes, I am a doctor. But that is private information, isn’t it?” he said cheekily as he leaned on his elbows again.

You shook your head, amused. “Whatever. It isn’t important anyway. As you said, you’ll pay for everything, right? That’s important for me.” You stood up, seeing his cup was now empty and you finished your cookie (without suffocating). “Shall we go?”

You didn’t wait for him to respond. You grabbed everything from the table that was finished and walked to the nearest trash bin, disposing them. You were still searching for a reason or a stem from where all you bravery suddenly showed up when you were with him.

There were two sides to you: extremely shy and the cocky one that was so unfamiliar to you, it made you confused. It wasn’t even that you were trying to impress him, no. As he said, you were so intimidated by him that you constantly had to keep yourself in check and act self-confident to keep up with his type of strong charm.

It was very fair to state that you were failing miserably at that. Jinyoung was confused with your behaviour, but more entertained than confused. He could see right through you, but there was one or two things that he could not figure out about you and maybe that was the drive that led him to get you to come with him to Seoul.

He was too eager and fascinated by you.

 The hotel room – no, scratch that, hotel itself was something you did not except no matter how wild of a dream you dreamed. What was the name? Hyatt. Oh, no, sorry, Park Hyatt. Right. Because everything was revolving around those Parks.

“Do you think it will be good for you?” asked Jinyoung as he was looking around the room while one of the managers was standing in the big doorway, intently analysing each and every face expression of Dr Park Jinyoung. Or more like body language of Dr Park Jinyoung. He was a hard one to read.

A doubtful laugh bubbled out of your belly. You quickly looked at the manager who gave you a pressed kind smile. “It is perfect.” You trailed off, completely speechless. He was joking right? Park Jinyoung was possibly not willing to pay for this room, right?

“The swimming pool is just one floor above you, miss,” said the manager from the doorway, misunderstanding your words. “The best time to have a swim there is the night time. The room service is for free, as Mr Park is a regular,” he added sheepishly.

You looked at Jinyoung, a bit shocked at the revelation. He was a regular at this hotel?

Jinyoung was not phased though. “Thanks, Jaewan. I think it will be all good.”

You sighed, rushing to Jinyoung so the manager wouldn’t hear you. “I don’t think this-“ you said, manoeuvring your hands gently, “is going to work. It is too expensive.”

Jinyoung was staring at your worried face. “It is none of your business, remember?” he looked at Jaewan. “Please, make sure that miss y/l/n will have the best service and all the comfort there is to offer.”

Your cheeks were burning as the manager deeply bowed, noting all of Jinyoung’s requests.

For Christ’s sake, this was a five star Gangnam hotel. Whatever it was you imagined under Jinyoung’s “I pay for everything” stuff, this was not it. You were hoping for a humble hostel where the most you were asking for was for the bathroom and bedsheets to be clean.

Once Jaewan left, Jinyoung took a step closer to you. “Enjoy your night.”

Shit. That made you weak and your throat close off as you dared to look up into his dark eyes. They were so gentle, no other intentions needed. You managed to nod.

“Your bags are in the bedroom, including the heavy one. Did you bring rocks to kill me with in case I try something?” he asked, entertained as he pushed his hands into his pockets.

Your lips tightened, smiling. “You sure are clever, Dr Park. You see right through me.”

I wish was all he thought before he turned to head for the door.

Before he closed it, you said loud enough for him to hear: “Good night.”