#anyway enjoy me poking fun at myself

[olrinarts]

alright so let's go on a tour of my current writing folder (or at least the part devoted to cotl, the full writing folder which includes my original projects is. a whole lot. and not actually a thing y'all are here to see)

tl;dr: let's just say there's enough fic that i had to zoom out a LOT to keep these to single screenshots, so this whole thing is me making fun of myself for my hyperfixation (it's all in good fun)

buckle up my friends, prepare to view the sum total of human normalcy

let's begin with two numbers: 52, and 582,499

52 is the number of different files with writing that isn't a 'discard' - so completed projects, projects in progress, and projects waiting for editing. 'Discards' are essentially the parts i've cut, because i really rarely delete a draft, diverging plots i've rejected, or paragraphs i'm cutting, etc

582,499 is the number of words in all 52 docs combined. i did the math. i am simultaneously proud and deeply concerned by this number. (with the most easily counted discard docs, that number becomes 694,737.)

also of note is that the earliest doc was created on the 2nd of February 2024, aka this year

normalcy is off the CHARTS, lads

so this is the main folder and where the projects that are either incomplete or in the process of being edited:

docs crossed out are excerpts from other fics for that zine application, and red dots indicate at least some nsfw content (i just wanna make the point from earlier lmao). I'm not counting fade-to-blacks in that nsfw marking. Also ignore the titles, other than chimes of bone and ashes ashes they're largely silly pretentious placeholders

from there we have:

'phone tag' (a collection of v short fics that won't be posted bc they specifically jump off a fic i read early on and wanted to rewrite bc i liked the concept, but i'm not gonna go posting something that's a reworked vision of something another fic author wrote, that's just bad etiquette and it's okay to write things just for you); these docs aren't pictured but add 6 docs to the total list

'extras' (where i put the discards and such, as well as fics that have already been posted for organisation purposes)

and 'complete', which is our next destination

So here's the 'complete' folder, which is more of a storage for things that aren't actively being edited but are otherwise complete drafts:

red dots are again at least some nsfw content, and the 'old' folder is essentially just the waiting room for getting moved to 'extras'

Next folder being 'pwp', but inside is actually this:

for these two folders assume it's all got nsfw content. the difference between the two folders is whether or not the fic required multiple scenes, not whether it's actually pwp (it is a liar of a folder)

'actually pwp' (again, ignore the doc titles, they're basically meaningless):

then this is 'has a story':

and lastly, pulled from the depths of the 'extras' folder due to being complete fics that have already been posted, is the 'posted' folder:

So what are the takeaways from this?

i have far, far too much time on my hands and use it extremely responsibly

i am very normal about the things i like (and also type very fast)

i'm picky about cleaning fic up and having my partner look them over before i post, so there'll be long dry periods, but i won't be running out of material any time soon

feel free to send asks about anything here (assuming you can read the text for ants and can glean even a particle of what it might be about from the vague titles)

i'm always willing to ramble a bit and it'll be a WHILE before some of these end up anywhere near posting

[revelboo]

Rambles/ clarification of my nonsense

• I just wanted to go ahead and clarify something before you guys make the connection between the TF One Megatron fic and the latest Thundercracker bit and start asking. First off, I have a fated mate series I write. I do love that trope, but I have an issue with how it’s handled sometimes so I will gently poke fun at it from time to time.

• I don’t like the insta-love eyes meeting across a room and falling hopelessly in love that some novels incorporate. I prefer love/affection to be earned over time through actions. Insta-love always comes across to me as losing a piece of yourself to another person, losing free will. Instant attraction or lust? I can work with that, tie it to a sense of belonging that keeps dragging you into that person’s gravity whether you want to be there or not. Just because it’s fated doesn’t mean it’s perfect or easy. I want the characters to clash, to fight that sense of need and maybe even resent that bond at first. Slowly building up trust and getting to know each other.

• If I write more TF One characters, I’ll probably use fated mates in that universe because I’m a gremlin and I like writing conflict. I wouldn’t mind writing that version of Starscream, B127, or Optimus Prime at some point.

• This blog started as a venting space. I needed to work on manuscripts, but I was so burnt out and my usual tactic of just swapping to a different project wasn’t working. I’d open the documents and just stare at the screen in dread. So, I wrote a silly little Starscream snippet, because I used to write fanfiction on FFN years ago under a different handle. And I missed writing silly, self indulgent nonsense that didn’t have to be perfect. The quick bullet point snippets I do are actually how I quickly get scenes down to expand later.

• I only meant to make a few characters and scenarios and then go back and start fleshing them out like a properly formatted story. Then you guys started asking questions, asking about different characters. So I just kept going, because I honestly missed writing for fun, for myself. Nothing serious, just telling a story to amuse myself. I needed an outlet for the stress and this is it.

• So, thank you guys so much. I’ll keep these going as long as folks want to read them, because I really did miss the Transformers community. There’s a sense that when you swap to professionally writing, you’re not supposed to keep doing the fanfiction stuff. You’re supposed to grow up and just write novels, nothing else. And that’s why I stopped ten years ago, but this makes me happy. I can do both and it’s not like I follow normal writing rules anyway. I’ve been told my writing can be too visceral, too much like a stream of consciousness instead of a literary work. That used to bother me, but that ship’s not only sailed, it caught on fire and sank with no survivors. Never been great at following rules anyway.

• And maybe someone else needs to hear that. You don’t have to stop what you enjoy because it’s ’unprofessional.’ Keep it separate, but keep doing it if it makes you happy. It shouldn’t be a trade off.

[exhaslo]

Hiii i was wondering if you could do a miguel x cinnamon bun reader who’s a chubby baker and catches Miguel’s eye sometime when he was out as spiderman and decides to wife her up. And now that they’re together since she’s always baking at home miguel comes home to the smell of cinnamon buns and her as well who’s filled with flour on her face. You can make it smutty if you want, i was just thinking that this scenario was cute 😭😩

have a good dayyy

Crying bc I wrote like half of this before Tumblr froze and deleted everything so I gotta rewrite it again.

Anyway, this is a cute idea. It would be super adorable if Miguel didn't like sweets either...so...without further ado...Time to write again

Warning: None, just fluff, light mentions of sex

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You owned a small bakery in the middle of Nueva York. It was no surprise that the smell of your bakery would attract anyone walking down the block. The aroma of your desserts would attract even the most grumpiest of people.

You were working in the kitchen, sweating as you tried to perfect your latest batch of cupcakes. You took a look around at your workers, smiling as they had fun while making your desserts. You loved your job.

"Hm, I'll take whatever you recommend. I don't really like sweets." A voice from outside said.

Your ears perked up as you heard such a phase. Your curiosity got the best of you as you poked your head out of the kitchen. You saw two men at the counter with your cashier. One was giddy with joy, ordering a bunch of sweets while the other had a stern look at his face.

Slowly, you made your way behind your cashier, avoiding the tall man's gaze. He was handsome, but also somewhat scary. Pulling one of your not so sweet desserts, you carefully placed it in a cute box and slid it towards him on the counter.

"T-This is on the house. I...I hope you like it." You whispered, glancing up at him.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't think anyone but this idiot heard me." The man said while pointing at his companion.

"Migueeeel!"

"Thank you," Miguel said with a fanged smile.

You felt your cheeks flush as you rubbed your eyes. You had to be exhausted from working because you swore you saw fangs. Returning your gaze to the handsome man, you smiled as he took a bite. His eyes widen, licking his lips,

"It's good,"

Miguel was surprised by the delightful treat you gave him. He glanced towards you, caught off guard by the cute smile you gave him. He watched as you hurried into the kitchen, shaking with excitement. Unable to stop staring, Miguel looked back down at the dessert.

"Shall I get more of those for you~" Gabriel, Miguel's brother, said with a silly grin. Miguel nudged him away,

"No. I can get these myself."

----------

Miguel was swinging around the city, patrolling for any crime. He stopped, catching whiff of something ridiculously sweet. Disgruntled, he stoop and searched for the source of the smell. His shoulders sunk, spotting your bakery.

Perhaps you were working on a new recipe? Miguel made it a habit to stop by once a week. He enjoyed your company. You were different. Miguel was willing to try anything you gave him as long as it meant seeing your smile.

Sitting against the roof of the building, Miguel just sat there and watched you. You were hard working, helping every customer and your employees. He knew the struggle of managing a business. Hell, Miguel was technally in charge of two companies, if the Spider Society counted as one.

"Haha! She probably eats all her sweets! Look at her!" A rude teenager yelled as his obnoxious friends laughed alongside him.

"P-Please leave!" You begged.

Miguel stepped in once he saw tears form. He jumped onto the sidewalk and quietly walked behind you. His presence scaring the teenagers away. You whimpered, rubbing your eyes and sniffing before turning around and yelping.

"It's okay. I just scared them away," Miguel whispered, not wanting to spook you.

"Thank you," You whispered, still shaking. Miguel wanted to comfort you, but he knew this wasn't the right time or place,

"Don't let those kids get to you."

"I-I'm used to it...A chubby girl who owns a bakery. I hear it a lot." You whispered. Miguel grinded his teeth together,

"You're beautiful."

"Haha, thanks. That cheered me up," You said with that sweet smile of yours, "Here, let me give you a treat as thanks."

You hummed happily as you held Spiderman's hand, leading him into your bakery. Your customers were surprised, but went about their business. You looked behind the counter and took out one of your newest desserts, placing it in a cute box.

"I just made this, I hope you like it."

You watched as Spiderman's mask slowly disappeared revealing his lower half of his face. Your eyes widen as you saw fangs when he took a bite. Your smile widen as you thought of your regular Miguel, whom you liked.

"It's good." He said. You just giggled,

"Thank you."

--------

Miguel was determined to wife you up. He had started to stop by your bakery three times a week, chatting and getting to know you on a deeper level. Once he found out that you were single, he did not hesitate to ask you out.

Miguel wanted you. He was determined to protect you and keep his sweet little baker by his side. You were so sweet and cute that Miguel was having a hard time restraining himself. He wanted to swing you in his arms and make you his.

By your fifth date, Miguel kissed you. He held you close to him, enjoying your flushed cheeks and shy expression. He was your first for everything and Miguel was going to savior everything about that. He was going to enjoy giving you everything.

By your twelfth date, you admitted to him that you knew he was Spiderman. Miguel was slightly embarrassed, but felt a weight off his chest since he didn't have to hide it from you anymore. With his secret known to you, Miguel was able to give you even more affection due to his powers.

The first time you guys had sex, Miguel went overboard. He joked about you being his dessert for the night and ended up filling you like one of your cupcakes. He had to apologize to you, but you weren't complaining. It was the best night of your life.

Finally, after a few months, Miguel offered to have you move in with him. You were hesitate, but after some reassuring, you agreed. You were currently in your shared house, making a new recipe while waiting for Miguel to return from work.

"Mhm~ I wonder if my customers will like this~" You cooed, trying the cookies.

"Of course they will. You're the one making them," Miguel hummed as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

"Miguel~ You're home!" You chirped. Miguel kissed your neck, his hands groping your tummy,

"Missed you, baby. Couldn't stop thinking about you all day,"

"M-Miguel," You glanced away, feeling flustered, "D-Do you want to try my cookies?"

"Of course, but I'll be enjoying my cookies later," He whispered, groping your breasts.

"Miguel~"

Miguel chuckled lowly, capturing your lips in a kiss before willingly tried the cookie. He scrunched his face up, still not liking sweets, but told you that they were amazing.

You chuckled towards him, letting him know that you'll make some dinner. Miguel wanted to complain, saying something about feasting on you, but you managed to convince him to shower. You couldn't help but smile, happy that you found someone who loved you just the way you are.

"Oh, (Y/N), I've been meaning to ask," Miguel started as he came out of the shower, "Did you give Spider Chef a recipe for a Spiderman burger that looks like me?"

"..."

Miguel sighed heavily, "It's a best seller." He muttered,

"Yai~ I knew it~" You cheered happily.

Miguel resisted a chuckle as he watched you do your cute little cheer. You were defiantly going to make it up later. Miguel did think it was time for you to have little helpers after all.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hehe, hope you enjoyed~

Part 2 (smut)

[boopshoops]

My oh my, what a turnout...

Set to home screen: Hm hm hm~🎵

Home Transition 1: Ooh finally! Finally, a dress all my own. I feel so gorgeous in this, the little star charms are to die for~

Home Transition 2: I saw Jocia asking Malleus for a dance. Hehehe, she looked so confused when he commented on how brave she must be. I don't think she has a single clue-

Home Transition 3: With Azul on prince duty, the leech twins were handling a lot of the food for this party. I'm sure if the three of them were allowed more time together, they would've planned some shitty merch or something... maybe if I act on that idea first-

Home Transition 4: The little decorations on my veil make jingling sounds while I dance. I didn't even realize that, it's so cute! Come, spin me around and listen!

Home, after login: Jocia keeps glaring at me... come on, can I not have a little fun around here? I did help set up, after all, can't I mess around after all my hard work?

Home Tap 1: Now now, keep up with me! Would you like me to teach you? Okay, stand up straighter, put one foot in front of the other. I'll show you a waltz.

Home Tap 2: Grimmm... you better behave. If I see you stealing anyones food, I'll be limiting your tuna access for the next week.

Home Tap 3: Ahh, I love the lighting in here. It's so graceful and elegant, it suits the vibe perfectly. Aesthetics like this are important, you know!

Home Tap 4: If I were able to claim the title Belle of the Ball... hehe, my name would be a lot more well known, wouldn't it? It would certainly be useful.

Home Tap 5: Remember what I said about personal space? Hmph... I suppose it's alright seeing as it's you. Just don't poke at my headpiece, it took forever to secure- Wh- HEY! COME BACK HERE WITH THAT! I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH IT!

Groovification: I haven't received nearly enough stares of awe, so let's make sure I truly imprint myself in their minds.

Home Tap Groovy: You think the crowd here would appreciate a serenade? I know most of the lyrics to these songs anyway, and I'm itching to perform.

Home Transition Groovy: Honestly, I'm enjoying this a LOT more than NBC's social by far! Not nearly as much chaos, and things finally feel like they're going to plan... hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.

Art tags!

@thehollowwriter @skriblee-ksk @lowcallyfruity @kitwasnothere @cecilebutcher

@scint1llat3 @distant-velleity @justm3di0cr3 @techno-danger

Glimmering Soirée event by @starry-night-rose!!

[sparky-is-spiders]

Okay actually further anti jm thoughts. Also general time travel AU thoughts.

Back when I was really into jm I read a bunch of time-travel fix-its where S5 Jon wales up in the body of S1 Jon. And every single time there’d be this uncomfortably niggling thought in my mind that what happened there was that S5 Jon essentially killed and replaced S1 Jon. Because… I mean that IS what happened, right? All of S1 Jon’s personality and life experiences written over by someone else’s memories and personalities. It doesn’t matter if they’re both Jon, they’re different people and different Jons. And I ignored it because the author did and the characters did. This was a comforting fix-it for my (at the time) favorite ship. Why muddy it up by worrying over Jon being overwritten and replaced by himself? But actually thinking about it now that my preferences have changed makes me sad. Do Jon’s friends (including the dude who is possibly in love with him) care that he’s basically been turned into a totally different person? Because in most of those AUs they ARE friends. Would Tim “Stranger trauma” Stoker be completely cool with finding out that his Jon had been essentially swapped out with a new, different Jon? There’s something depressing about it, I think, when the big reveal that this is actually future!Jon happens and nobody even thinks to ask “what about past Jon? What about the person we worked with for years?” They all just accept that Jon became a completely different person one day and that everything is fine.

Also don’t understand Jon getting with Martin in those AUs. Just like Jon is completely different in S5 compared to S1, so is Martin. I may not like Martin very much (at all) but. Does he deserve to be replaced that quickly and easily by his younger self? Would Jon not feel like they’re talking to a different person? That the man they grew to love (*cough* feel dependent for affection and validation from *cough*) wasn’t there at all? That this Martin was boring (because he is) or too cloying? Even if they still held some affection for him I can’t see it working out long term, with Jon chasing the shadow of a man who isn’t there and never will be and a Martin who gets Jon even less than he already did. I can see Jon leaning on him as a crutch while knowing they can never be with him (it’s too dangerous, they’re too busy trying to stop Elias) and slowly coming to the conclusion that they don’t want to be. They’re projecting their (complicated, messy, sometimes unpleasant) feelings for a dead man onto someone who (for better or worse (probably better tbh)) won’t ever become him. If we’re going full fix-it, this means Jon will have time to process their guilt and acknowledge that their relationship was actually bad for them, and that they weren’t compatible at all. They can move on from their version of Martin and start seeing this Martin as his own person.

If Jon needs a romance I think it should be another monster. Somebody who can understand Jon’s new nature without guilting them over it and who Jon wouldn’t feel the need to hide anything from. For something more gentle and soft we could have some nice Jonoliver. Alternatively Jon could ask for Peter’s help in hiding from Elias, leading to a much messier relationship (que Jon googling “how do you tell your crush that you killed them in a past life?”) where Jon’s never quite sure how much they can trust Peter but they have so much less to hide from him. And of course there’s Jon deciding to just. Seduce Jonah (I mean revealing that his plan to get permanent immortality and safety fails and he DIES would probably put him off his plans). Lots of options to choose from really, especially now that Jon has “haunted, mysterious eldritch monster” going for him. Like. C’mon. Powerful monster who’s torn up by guilt and trying so hard to save people while rocking the scrawny academic look? Jon’s got options now and I think they should shop around.

Okay my main point is that time travel AUs are best when they aren’t endgame Jmart.

.

[happeehippie]

could you do something with joe based on obsessed by olivia rodrigo?

obsessed. || joe burrow

(this is my first time doing something that’s writing instead of social media, and it’s longer than expected. i hope you enjoy.)

*if i told you how much i think about her, you’d think i was in love. *

I’m not typically an insecure person by any means, but when it comes to her I can’t help myself. When Joe and I first started dating everyone online made sure I knew that they wanted it to be her. That they were rooting for the downfall of our relationship because they believed he was meant to be with someone else. It took a huge toll on my mental health in the beginning. And as much as I like to pretend I don’t think about it, it’s never gone away. I compare myself to her at every turn, think about her often, curious if he thinks about her also..

*i’m so obsessed with your ex, i know she’s been asleep on my side of your bed.*

Joe and I had been dating for a while and he finally asked me to move in. I was ecstatic, spending every single day with the person I love sounded like a dream. No one could take the smile off my face, except her. Joe had told me to use the bedside table for some of my things, he told me to make myself at home because that’s what this place is now. I opened the drawer and found a peppermint chapstick and some lightly salted almonds.

“Hey babe?” I say loud enough for Joe to hear me from the ensuite bathroom.

“What’s up?” He pokes his head out of the door, toothbrush dangling out of his mouth.

“I was just wondering what I should do with these? I’m assuming they don’t belong to you..” I mumble, I didn’t even have to listen to his answer, I knew who’s they were.

“Uh.” Joe is frozen speechless for a moment before recovering, “Yeah, babe just toss them in the trash.”

He turns back to the sink to finish his nighttime routine and I sit there lost in my thoughts. I don’t want to think about her, I don’t want to think about the love he had before me because it’s over for a reason. But knowing that she has slept on this side of the bed that we now share is doing something detrimental to my brain. When Joe steps out of the bathroom it doesn’t take him long to notice the look on my face and the items still lingering in my hands. He walks over and gently opens my fingers to take them and toss them in the trash. When he comes back he tilts up my chin to look me in the eyes..

“I’m sorry, I should’ve checked everything before you got here. You didn’t need to see that.”

“No, it’s fine. I just wasn’t really expecting that I guess.”

“It’s in the past, I don’t care about that anymore. I always hated when she was crunching on almonds at bedtime anyway.”

We both laugh as he places a gentle kiss on my forehead.

*I’m starin’ at her like I wanna get hurt. And I remember every detail you have ever told me.*

She wasn’t supposed to be here. Joe promised me that she hadn’t RSVP’d and she wasn’t on the guest list, but here she is. Sitting across from me in all her glory, She is laughing with people I’ve never met and I’m reminded that I’m new here. I’m reminded that they had a whole life together before I came along, a life that included most everyone here. I’ve convinced myself people are staring. Do they want me gone just like everyone else? Do they think Joe would be better off getting back together with her? He told me once that they always had fun at weddings, he said things were good between them when everyone else was around. He said she smiled more and didn’t pay as much attention to the small things when there was so much going on around them. That she was always daydreaming about what they’d have one day and the tension would dissipate for a few hours. I wonder if she’s wishing she was here with him. She looks up and a huge smile spreads across her face, for a moment I think she’s smiling at me, then I realize that Joe is coming up behind me. For some reason that makes me sick to my stomach, that she’s smiling at him like that. He gives her a small wave before turning his attention to me.

“Would you dance with me? Please?” He adds at the end with his puppy dog eyes. I can’t say no. He takes me by the hand and leads me out onto the floor. “Have I told you how beautiful you look in this dress?” He whispers as he pulls me close.

“A few times. But I’m not tired of hearing it.” I laugh

“Well you do, I’ve barely been able to take my eyes off you. Everyone loves you, they’re stoked that you decided to come.” That Insecure part of me pokes it’s head out again. Do you mean it? I want to ask but that’s not what comes out.

“Are you just saying that so I don’t freak out later?”

“No. I’m saying it because it’s true.” I give him a pointed look, “And so that you don’t leave and over analyze everything you’ve done tonight.” He laughs, leaning in giving me a gentle kiss. Out of the corner of my eye I see her looking over at us and I feel like smiling because I realize.. he hasn’t looked away from me once.

*She’s got those lips, she’s got those hips the life of every fuckin’ party. She’s talented, she’s good with kids she even speaks kindly about me.*

Torture. That’s what this feels like. It’s Sam’s birthday today and he’s having a huge get together. She’s here, dancing with some of the other WAGs. Joe always said she was the life of the party, I wish I could hate her. I’m still trying to recover from the sickening feeling of watching Joe’s nephews run into her arms as they walked in when Jess approaches me.

“You’ve been staring.” She simply states.

“I know. I can’t help it.” I huff out a sigh, finally taking my eyes off the shiny bright light prancing around in the middle of the room.

“Maybe you should speak to her, she’s really great.” Bile rises in my throat at the thought of that encounter.

“That’s the problem.”

“She thinks you’re wonderful,” She doesn’t know me is what runs through my mind, “She’s glad that you and Joe are together. She wants him to be happy, and anyone can see he’s happy with you.”

“I wish that made me feel better.” I finish the rest of my drink and step out onto the lawn for some fresh air.

*I know you love me, and I know it’s crazy.*

I haven’t said a word since we left the party. Joe keeps looking over at me like I could explode any second, I can see his hand twitching like he wants to reach out and touch me but convinces himself otherwise. After several excruciating minutes he speaks up.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about.” He whispers, his voice gravely from sitting in silence.

“I don’t think you want to know what I’ve been thinking about Joey.”

“I think I already know. I just wish you’d talk to me about it. Instead of keeping it bottled up inside.” At this point we are pulling into the garage but neither of us makes a move to get out of the vehicle.

“Do you think about her? When we go to things like that do you miss her?” My voice is barely above a whisper and I’m holding my breath, I know he loves me. I’ve never doubted that. I think I just need to hear him say that he’s choosing me.

“I don’t.” He sounds so sure of himself, like this is the easiest question in the world, “I think about you. Every second of every day. When I go to things like that I watch you, I get excited when I see you with the people I care about, and when you’re not there, I miss you.” He takes my hand and squeezes it three times.

“They all love her.”

“And I love you. Hey, look at me.” I tilt my chin so that I can see him, “No more of this crazy talk okay? I love you, I want you, and I don’t like the idea of you comparing yourself to anyone else. You’re one of a kind.” I know. I know. I know.

“I think I just needed to hear you say it.” I give a small smile, “I promise.. no more obsessing over your ex.”

[bananami]

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

characters: dabi x reader (x hawks sort of)

synopsis: you've never "finished" before and apparently dabi is the first person you thought to ask to help rectify that issue. somehow hawks gets roped into all of this, and not even in the way he wishes. poor hawks. maybe next time bby. (2k)

warnings: 18+/mdni, MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW IF YOU'RE NOT CAUGHT UP ON THE LAST SEASON, anyways onto the good stuff - fingering, masturbation, a LOT of dirty talk, dabi says fuck a lot, implied threesome, recording and technically sexting, praise kink AND degradation kink, dabi is a little mean at certain points, somewhat implied yandere on hawks and dabi's end if you squint, reader is referred to with feminine pronouns and terms, reader is implied to have female anatomy

a/n: this took on a whole ass life of it's own. seriously hawks was never going to be a part of this but then I thought hmmm that could work. SERIOUSLY SPOILERS AFTER THIS. i am not responsible for what you read. you are responsible for the media that you choose to consume. i've given ample warnings on content and spoilers. if you're sticking around, HAVE FUN. and no i did not proof read this... xxx

"You want me to do what?"

"I'm not gonna say it again."

"Then I'm not gonna teach you."

"Touya!" You whined. "C'mon, I never ask you for anything- don't give me that look, I don't! I've never enjoyed it, I'm not asking you to show me, just maybe give me some pointers."

Dabi opens his phone to scroll through anything he can to distract himself from the effects of the conversation. It's bad enough hearing you talk about sex, let alone having to make eye contact with you at the same time. "Doll, I hate to break it to you, but if I'm being honest, it's probably got nothing to do with you and everything to do with the fact that you tend to date morons who think that if they grope around enough the clit will magically appear."

You scrunched your nose. "That was crass."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" He pokes at your forehead, knocking you off kilter and falling back onto the other side of the couch, before going back to scrolling through his phone. "You want me to help you get off and you think me mentioning the clit is crass? Make it make sense."

You wished he wouldn't word it that way, even if it technically was exactly what you were asking from him. "Like I said, I'm not asking you to show me how to do anything, I just a little advice to make it better."

"It takes two to tango, baby. You being good at it doesn't mean they will be. You're putting it all on yourself and you can't do that."

"Ok..." you pause for a moment, gathering the courage to even whisper the next few words that cross your lips, "what about when I do it myself?"

That makes Dabi pause, his attention drawn immediately away from his phone and back onto you. "What do you mean when you do it yourself?"

You huff, getting slightly irritated with his line of questioning, as though it isn't obvious what you're saying. "Ok look, we've been friends for a long time and there's no one else that I trust enough to have this conversation with." Your fingers together as you attempt to keep eye contact with him while speaking. "I have a hard time...finishing."

"Why?" There it was. No judgment, no laughing, no making you feel uncomfortable or awkward. Dabi was straightforward and you knew that no matter what you asked, he would find a way to accommodate for you.

"I don't know," you admit, "it's like I get right there and think it's gonna happen and then it just doesn't."

Dabi is silent for a long time. He looks lost in his head, leaving you unsure on what to say. When he finally speaks it leaves you with a bit of relief. Because he again sounds genuinely curious. Although a little strained.

Unbeknownst to you, that may be because of the raging hard on Dabi is trying to keep from getting any worse or more noticeable.

"What are you using?"

"I've tried literally everything. I even bought one of those cute little vibrators from that place you and Keigo always talk about."

Fuck. That's the last thing he needed to hear. Wait until he told Hawks. He'd probably kick Dabi's ass for not calling him immediately. He'd probably do a lot worse after finding out what Dabi was about to offer without shooting the fucker an invite.

"Maybe you just need someone to walk you through it."

"What, like...like you do it for me."

"Like I'll tell you what to do, and if that still doesn't work then we can improvise."

You sit stock still, wondering what this would mean for your friendship with Dabi if you were to go through with it. But he was offering, he wouldn't do that if he thought it would be a bad idea. Would he?

No.

No, you trusted Dabi. That's why you came to him for this. And if he thought this was a good idea, then it had to be.

So you shook your head. You swore his eyes turned five shades darker.

"Lay down."

You do as your told almost immediately, and it doesn't go without acknowledgement.

"Good girl, I'm not gonna touch you just yet, I'm just gonna help you out of these. That alright, baby?" And you shake your head without any hesitation this time.

Dabi's finger skim the top of your jeans until they find the button to undo them. He pulls them do slowly, your panties with them, until they're completely off your legs. He drops your jeans to the floor but your eyes widen just a bit when he brings your panties to his nose and he takes a deep breathe. The embarrassment hits you full force. He slips them into his pocket, and you just know you're not getting them back.

"Open those legs and let me see you, doll." Clearly you don't move fast enough, because Dabi grabs both of your ankles to pull them apart, setting one leg up over the top of the couch, and the other bent in the opposite direction, your foot and ankle laid against his lap.

"Show me what you usually do, pretty girl. Put on a show for me."

You don't know how you can be both so embarrassed and confident at the same time, but it's something about his words that make you feel so much at once. Your fingers begin their usual dance against your skin, and it does nothing but spur him on.

"There you go, pretty baby just needs some guidance doesn't she? Fucking rub your clit for me, just how you like it, show me."

Your fingers rub against your clit, and it makes your body hot having his eyes right on your most sensitive parts. You can feel it building inside you, heightening when his eyes find yours and he smirks. "What do you want? Need me to tell you how pretty that pussy is? You want some praise, you little slut? A little degradation? You like when I call you my good little slut? I bet you fucking do. Shove two fingers into the pussy, let me see you take them."

Your head is fuzzy as you do what he says. Your fingers aren't very long, but they get enough of the job done. Dabi's words do more of the work than anything.

"Fuck, listen to the wet cunt, pull your fingers out, rub your clit again. That's right, baby, make a mess for me."

You keep at it for a while, but it's not until you get to the closest you've ever been to cumming that you realize it's not gonna work. You can feel it, and you want it so bad you're practically crying, but there's just something missing.

Dabi catches on quickly. "No go, baby?" He teases you. "You need to cum so bad, don't you?" You can't do anything but keep moving your fingers and shaking your head.

He lets you go a little longer, savoring the tears glistening in your eyes. And then he's pulling at your wrist, yanking your hand up toward his face, and wrapping his lips around your fingers. The same two that were just inside you.

The audible gasp that falls from your mouth does nothing to quell the growing excitement inside him. He's licking your fingers clean, groaning at the taste of you on his tongue. He pulls them from his mouth, his eyes heavy with lust.

"Any of those shitty little boyfriends get a taste straight from the source?" You look at him with confusion written all over your face, and he rolls his eyes. "Your pussy, any of them ever eat it? Or did they skip the foreplay? The look on your face is telling me all I need to know. Their loss, doll. Taste so fucking good, could spend hours with my tongue inside you."

It's his fingers ghosting over your clit that makes you almost choke. You have to shove your hand against your mouth to keep from being too loud.

"Don't you fucking dare," Dabi's voice is practically seething, "let me hear every fucking noise I make come from those lips. Made me wait this fucking long, you owe me that."

Your hand is forcibly removed from your hand and pinned at your side.

"Keep it there." He commands. And then two of his fingers are slipping inside of you. "Such a fucking cocktease, you know that? Have me and Keigo practically drooling over you and you wanna choose a bunch of fuckboys instead? They can't even get you off. Now you're coming to me wanting to cum. Fuck you. Beg."

"Please, please, please," you don't hesitate. And all of a sudden all you can think about is Keigo. And Dabi. And Keigo and Dabi. "Need to, please, please-"

"Fuck, you're squeezing. So fucking tight. What are you thinking about, huh? Is it because I mentioned Keigo." You can't help it. "There you go again, baby, does he make you wet too? I bet you wish he was here to help too."

It's a fleeting thought, but Dabi can't help himself. Hawks would be pissed if he missed this. He tries facetime, but no answer. Sorry fuck. The next best thing will have to do.

Dabi pulls up his camera and hits record at the same time that his fingers curl and he snaps, bordering on too much and not enough.

"That's right, want it dripping all down my hand. Cry for me, little mouse, let me see those tears." His thumb plays with your clit as he focuses the camera right on the place where you and him meet. "Can't tell you how many times him and I have had to jack each other off to the thought of your pussy."

You choke on your tears, "Touya-"

"Need you to come all over my fingers, baby. Show Keigo how good I'm making you feel. You'll let him help out next time, won't you?" You don't understand why, but your brain is so foggy, and you nod vigorously, maybe to agree, maybe to clear your head, it didn't really matter at this point. "Yeah? You'll let him eat that little pussy, right? He's been dying for a taste. Is that what you want, you want us to share you?"

The thought of them sharing you is what does it. Dabi swears he's never heard a more beautiful noise than the sounds you make when you orgasm. He doesn't let up, his fingers still relentless inside you. You almost panic when you begin to feel the next wave pass over you, similar but different from the last one.

"He can lick your pretty cunt while I pound into you, hmm. Or maybe I'll let him have your pussy first since he missed out today, so long as I get to take your ass while he does. Or you think you can squeeze the both of us inside this tight pussy? A little effort, but I bet we can make it work, doll." The chuckle that leaves him is almost sadistic, and all of a sudden, you feel your body snap.

"Look how she squirts," you hear him saying, "pussy's a fucking dream." He lands a slap against it that makes you flinch from how oversensitive you feel, and hits send on the video.

The next couple of minutes are spent in silence, except for Dabi, who is whispering things like did so good, perfect for both of us, such a good girl.

Dabi makes sure your cleaned, having to pick you up and carry you to the bathroom, where he sits you against the countertop and begins running a rag over the inside of your thighs. It's distracting enough that you don't hear the vibration of his phone against the granite counter.

His smirk only grows at the message that lights across the screen.

Hawks: dICK

Hawks: im gonna kick your ass

Hawks: i'll be right over

[the-head-ancho-chilli]

The Hashira and their Sense of Humor

Apologies for the hiatus! A lot has happened over the last couple of months and I'm finally getting some of them (somewhat) resolved through therapy and A LOT of patience with myself. So here's a post that I written back in October that brings me so much joy! Thank you all for your patience ^^

Word count: 2k~

Mitsuri Kanroji

You know those types of people who want to tell you a really funny story but they need to stop laughing first?

And they've been laughing for the past fifteen minutes?

Yeah that's Mitsuri

I'm not entirely sure what to categorize this either than comedic storytelling

She could probably be a standup comedian too, she has some good stories to tell

But Mitsuri is really in her element when when someone else is telling a mildly amusing story

She will just keep adding onto it to somehow make it even more funnier than it was originally intended

Misturi could make an inside joke between you guys too, she is the designated funny friend of the Hashira

I also feel like she sometimes makes self-deprecating jokes, but not on any serious topics

Like she enjoys poking fun at the fact that she's still single

For an example, Mitsuri and Shinobu could be making an order at a restaurant for lunch

By the time Mitsuri finishes her first round of food and hands the dishes to the waiter, she accidentally drops them causing all the plates and bowls to shatter all over the floor

She tries to help clean up but the staff insists that she shouldn't worry about it

Sitting back down with Shinobu, cheeks red from embarrassment, Mitsuri will crack an awkward smile and say "Yeah, this is why I'm still single!"

Obanai Iguro

Obanai is the most sarcastic motherfucker on this list

I feel like his number one policy is "Don't ask me stupid questions"

He's already annoyed like 70% of the time, just don't annoy him even more

But then again...

"Hey Obanai, did you lose this?" "No I was just playing hide and seek with an inanimate object for fun, YES I fucking dropped it"

"You look really tired, are you doing okay?" "Hell yeah, nothing says healthy like eye bags as dark as my hair"

"Can I pet your snake?" "Yeah you just gotta let him nibble you first but don't worry, he's only venomous"

Usually he's kinda rude about it but he does have his nice moments

"Hey Obanai, can you pass me that?" Obanai will just say no but hand and just hand it to you anyways

Some people just don't understand sarcasm all the time and that's when he kinda runs into some trouble

Obanai and Kyojuro were walking to a meeting together, but Obanai had forgotten his jacket AND haori

It was quite chilly outside too, so poor Obanai was shivering while trying to keep Kaburamaru warm

Kyojuro asked Obanai "My friend, winter is coming! Aren't you cold?"

Obanai deadpanned and said "Of course not, I'm just practicing my acting. Glad to see that my shivering is that convincing"

"How interesting! Maybe you should audition for a play at the theatre!"

Obanai's annoyance kept him warm for the rest of the day

Tengen Uzui

Quite an obvious statement, but Tengen’s humor mainly comprises of sex jokes and innuendos

The man has three wives, of course he would find that shit funny

Like he will be in the middle of a meeting, and everyone will line up to receive some gifts from Kagaya

He will say "Come in a straight line, my students"

Tengen will chuckle and say "That's what she said"

Tengen is also the type to be "gay with the homies" and loves to embarrass Sanemi and Obanai by making jokes about being in love or hooking up with them

He chooses specifically those two because it felt awkward to make the jokes to Gyomei

Tengen once spent forty-five minutes explaining to Kyojuro that he didn't actually want to buy him dinner after Kyojuro gave him a genuinely offended look to the highest degree

"How deceitful of you, Tengen"

He pretty much wrote off saying jokes like that to Kyojuro following that incident, but he really can't help himself sometimes

I don't think that Tengen solely has generic innuendos he uses on everyone, he likes testing what SPECIFIC category of sex jokes makes people uncomfortable

Like if Giyu goes to the bathroom, Tengen will saunter up with a finger gun on his chin and ask "Pissing all by yourself, handsome?"

Everyone is throwing their shoes at him

Sanemi Shinazugawa

Of course this sadistic bastard likes slapstick, what we’re you thinking?

He may be good at holding in a laugh, but you can still see that stupid smirk on his face if anyone stumbles

One time Tengen's six foot ass fell face first while running late to a meeting

Sanemi actually struggled to keep his composure that day, he had to bite his lips together to hide the uncontrollable grin on his face

People getting smacked upside the head, tripping others, people getting violently angry, Sanemi loves it all

He refuses to admit that Zenitsu is funny

Now a regular civilian is one thing, but children getting roughed up is another

there was a particular incident where Sanemi had come across some kids swinging on a tree branch near a market he occasionally visited

This week ass branch definitely didn't have the strength to hold up any of those kids

So Sanemi did what any sane person would, and stuck around to watch this disaster happen

Well unfortunately for this one child, the branch snapped mid-swing and fell right on their face

And there was Sanemi, a hand over his stomach from laughing at these dumb kids

He didn't even stop to help them or anything, just calmed down from laughing so hard and walked away to continue shopping

Shinobu Kocho

An absolute queen of insult humor

Even Sanemi can’t beat Shinobu at her best

Do you even think she would stick with the basic ass jokes? Of course not

She can be an absolute menace if she really wants to

Shinobu is just tired of everyone's shit, and she can get even more exhausted from putting on that smile nearly as much as Kyojuro

She just can't keep up

Which brings me to my main point, which is that Shinobu's funny side usually comes out in rants or vents with the people closest to her

She and Mitsuri both express their humor by storytelling, Shinobu's just originates more from anger an annoyance rather than an effort to be entertaining

Regardless of who Shinobu's around, everyone can tell that when she walks through the door with steam coming out of her ears, everyone's gonna be laughing their asses off

As anyone can agree if they've worked in any form of customer service, there are some days where you are so damn close to breaking your cool

When Tengen got placed in the Butterfly Estate's infirmary, Shinobu was actually going to kill a patient instead of saving them for once

Like this man was just demanding shit and teasing his friend left and right, and Aoi had never been so afraid of her mentor in her entire life

Aoi tried to calm her down, "Sticks and stones Shinobu, don't let him get to you!"

Tengen only snickered

Ooooo, she lost her shit

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but PLEASE. FUCK. OFF"

Angy Shinobu is best Shinobu

Kyojuro Rengoku

Look me in the eyes and tell me Kyojuro doesn’t like puns

I know you can't do it

He will howl with laughter nearly every time you tell him a pun

"Hey Kyo, you're never gonna believe it! Remember my friend with a bakery? Well it just burned down!"

At first he'll show genuine concern, politely shouting "How unfortunate!"

"Don't worry about it, his business is toast"

Give him a minute...

"Ahahaha! Good one!"

Not only does he like being told puns, but if he has a good opportunity to tell a well timed pun he will not stop giggling until he tells it

One time you, Tengen, Mitsuri, and Kyojuro were all trying to decide where to eat after a long day of work

At one point Tengen suggested hotpot, even offering to take you all to one that Makio and Suma liked

Kyojuro tried muffling his laughing, but his attention was redirected when you asked him what he thought of the idea

Finally able to cease his giggles, Kyojuro proudly shouted "SOUPER"

It doesn't matter if you find the joke funny or not, Kyojuro's laughter is so contagious that you're dying at the silly pun

What a fucking dork <3

Giyu Tomioka

If there was a form of comedy that’s applicable at any given moment, Giyu would use it on a daily basis

Luckily for him, Giyu discovered it very quicky and refuses to let the tactic go

That's right, Giyu is physically incapable of stopping himself from making a "your mom" joke

Everyone can blame Obanai for that one

Quite literally at any opportunity, Giyu will mutter the phrase under his breath

Unfortunately, because it has become such an unconscious thing for Giyu, this bad habit of his ends up kicking his ass at the worst of times

with all due respect to Giyu's efforts, it just makes him unintentionally funny

in an awkward way

Giyu visited one of his favourite restaurants on his day off, the waiter asked "Is there anything else you would like, sir?" after giving his order

Now Giyu didn't mean it, he really didn't

It just slipped out of his mouth so easily

"Your mom"

Let me tell you, the silence was absolutely deafening

After the two stared at each other in mutual confusion, Giyu just wordlessly left due to the sheer embarrassment and awkwardness he had caused

He tried to go back, truly, Giyu made the effort and walked through the door

But he made uncomfortable eye contact with that same waiter and walked out

He hasn't gone back to that restaurant since ;,)

Gyomei Himijima

I have already established in my Gyomei Headcannons post that Gyomei is the dad friend of the Hashira (go check out that post if you haven’t btw ^^)

So of course he's going to make dad jokes, everyone saw this coming

God forbid you ever complain around him, he will see it as an opportunity (usually)

"Man, I'm really hungry" Gyomei will hand you a bento box and say "Hi hungry, I'm prepared

He is THAT GUY that makes "I haven't seen you since last year!" jokes

Every single year without fail

Shockingly, Gyomei and Kyojuro will bond over their mutual love for super corny jokes

One time while training Genya, Gyomei asked him "Child, what is long and sticky?"

Genya paused his routine to think for a moment, slightly disturbed by the question

"I don't know what you- fresh mochi?" Gyomei shook his head

Genya made a claw gesture with his hands, knowing Gyomei couldn't see it

"No idea, what's long and sticky?"

Gyomei gave a small, sly smile before responding

"A stick, little one"

To be honest, Gyomei's jokes do annoy some of the Hashira whenever he makes them (mainly Shinobu, Obanai and Tengen)

Normally because he's so calm about it

Tengen usually is one to lose his temper over it though

"You really got a joke for about everything, huh?" "Indeed I do, Tengen. I even have one about construction"

Tengen's eye will twitch as he taunts Gyomei "Oh yeah? Well let's hear it then!"

"I'm afraid I can't, my friend. I'm still working on it"

Kyojuro's laugh echoes throughout the meeting as Tengen realizes he most definitely walked into that one

Muichiro Tokito

His sense of humor is weird

That’s all I have, anything that Muichiro finds funny is actually kinda strange

He does this thing where he will go in with a fistbump, but change it to a high five last second

Muichiro can do it the other way around too, but regardless it results in this silly fist-five thing that makes him chuckle

He's a little bit of a devious child so his sense of humor kinda comes from whatever will annoy the other Hashira

Sometimes he will sit in the middle of a meeting and just blow raspberries while spacing out a little

It annoys the fuck out of Sanemi and Obanai because Muichiro's spit gets EVERYWHERE

Even Giyu thinks that kid comes with his own splash zone

He's not one for pranks per say, but he likes reaping a bit of terror amongst the other Hashira

One time Muichiro stole Tengen's red eyeliner one weekend purely for entertainment

the next day when everyone showed up to the meeting, people got to witness a very distressed Tengen

Holding up Sanemi and Obanai midair by the collar of their shirts, Tengen interrogated the both of them where they hid his shockingly expensive liner

Of course no one would suspect the slobbering kid, who was inconspicuously blowing raspberries

Had anyone asked Muichiro if he saw Tengen's liner, Muichiro would turn to the fuming man and giggle

Secretly, Aoi is Muichiro's unknowing accomplice in these scenarios

"Here Aoi, could you hold this for a while?" "Uhh, sure? What is it for?" "Hmm? Oh nothing..."

Don't underestimate this little shit

꒷꒦˚︶︶꒦꒷︶꒷꒦˚ ꒷꒦˚︶︶꒦꒷︶꒷꒦˚ ꒷꒦˚︶︶꒦꒷︶꒷꒦˚

Hey y’all! Hope you liked this post, it was such a pleasure to write it ^^

I’m hoping that now I’ll be able to write more for this blog now that I have more time, and I have more posts lined up in the future :)

Ask box and requests are still open, just please read the rules before submitting anything!

[drabbles-mc]

Ever the Gentleman

Jax Teller x OC Natasha Moreno

Summary: When Natasha came back to Charming after hitting more than a few bumps in the road, she hadn't been ready to see Jax again. Things were complicated enough without all her old feelings bubbling up to the surface again. But all it took was one little look from Jax for her to know that she was just as done for now as she had been back then.

Warnings: 18+, light angst, smut, language, alcohol

Written for the First Time Exchange 2024

Word Count: 10.1k

A/N: Picked up this as a pinch hit in an exchange and thought i was just gonna write a quick little story about childhood friends seeing each other after a long time away and suddenly it was 10k and i didn't know what i was doing with myself anymore lmfao. Anyway!! Hope y'all enjoy!

The bike he saw when he pulled into the gas station wasn’t one that he recognized. It wasn’t a Harley, not like the bike any of the guys in the club rode. It was sleeker, sportier than that. The type of thing that could easily slice through traffic and lanes on the highway if someone was feeling brave enough. Even parked underneath the half-shade by the gas pump, enough light still hit it to cast a glint off the clean black paintjob.

The bell on the frame chimed as he walked in. The young girl behind the counter looked up, a smile instantly spreading across her face when she saw that it was Jax who had entered. She nodded in greeting before getting back to making change for the customer standing in front of her, an older gentleman who wasn’t nearly as enamored by who had just strode through the door.

When he reached the back wall where all of the refrigerators were situated, racks of soda and beer and water bottles, he gave himself a couple seconds to see if he really wanted anything before turning to look and see who else was standing there. Any thoughts of playing it cool or casual disappeared when he saw the woman standing hardly two yards away from him.

She looked different now, although he supposed that he didn’t look the same as when he graduated high school either. Some days it felt like it was just yesterday even though it wasn’t. Her hair was longer now than it had been back then, blonde and light brown highlights breaking up the long dark waves that fell down past her shoulders. The tattoos were new. Or, at least, Jax didn’t remember her having any that he could see back then—that hadn’t been quite her style. He could see some of them poking out now, though, ink spilling out from beneath her rolled up sleeves, peaking out from under the crop-top that she was wearing. They stood out against her tanned skin that was somehow even more sun kissed than it had been before. He wondered what the full picture of them was.

She wasn’t paying him any mind as he took another step closer to her. She was reaching to pull the door to one of the refrigerator sections open when Jax finally decided that it was time to speak up. “Well, well, well,” he said with a chuckle as he continued to collapse the distance between them, “if it isn’t little miss Natty Ice.”

Her head snapped in his direction, the anger on her face changing to a smile and then feigned annoyance when she saw who it was that was speaking to her. She braced her hand flat against the door that she’d been thinking about opening. “Most people these days just call me Natasha, you know.” She tried to sound bothered but a smile was still fighting to curl the ends of her lips.

The smirk on his face was familiar, and the jury was out on if that was a welcome familiarity or not. “Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” He leaned against the door next to the one she was about to open, the flannel he was wearing underneath his kutte protecting him from the cold glass.

Natasha made a point to look him up and down slowly. Her eyes lingered longer on his kutte than almost anything else, at least until she was looking him in the eyes. “Something tells me you’ve been having plenty of fun, Jackson.”

Jax chuckled and shook his head. “Lotta shit might’ve changed since you left, but it’s still only my mom who calls me that.” There was a pause, just the two of them taking each other in a little longer before he said, “So?”

She tilted her head in the opposite direction, brows pulling towards each other in confusion. “So...?”

He pushed himself back off the door. “So what’s the hot shot doing back here in little old Charming? Thought you were outta here for good.”

She scoffed and shook her head. Finally pulling the door open, she grabbed a bottle of soda from the top shelf. “Yeah, you and me both.” She let the door fall shut, allowing it to bounce from the force before it settled before turning so that she was facing him again. “Getting laid off tends to throw a wrench in the plans, though.”

The smug look on Jax’s face disappeared instantly. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” she dragged the word out long enough to get chuckles out of both of them. Clearing her throat, she said, “Well, it was good catching up. I’ll see—”

“Oh come on,” he cut her off, laughing. “How long you even been back? How long you been dodging me?”

She shook her head at him as she started to walk towards the front of the store to cash out. “You think an awful lot of yourself if you think that’s why you haven’t seen me since I’ve been home.”

“Yeah? How long has that been, then?” He popped up next to her at the cash register, gently nudging her to the side before talking to the girl behind the counter. “I got hers. Just grab me a pack of—”

“The usual,” she finished for him with a tiny smile and a nod. “You got it.”

Natasha rolled her eyes so hard Jax was surprised that they didn’t get stuck in the back of her head. It didn’t stop him from continuing his usual song and dance as he put a couple bills on the counter. He flashed the girl a smile as she gave him his pack of smokes. “Thanks, darlin’.”

Natasha was shaking her head at Jax, but still gave the girl a sincere, albeit far less flirtatious, thank you before carrying right on towards the door. It was only when Jax caught up to her, catching the door that she was about to let slam shut in his face, that she said, “Can’t believe you’re still at it with that whole schtick.”

He laughed, shrugging as he tucked the cigarettes away in his kutte. “Hey, if it ain’t broke.” The two of them were standing just to the side of the door when he repeated his question one more time.

She didn’t bother waiting for him as she started walking off towards the gas pumps. Jax watched her for a second before he got his feet to start moving. “Hey, wait up.” She stopped and turned, waiting for him to close the gap between them. Once he did, the usual smug expression on his face dimmed, something slightly more genuine taking its place. “What’s going on with you?”

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” He chuckled. “C’mon, Natty—you’re still not that good of a liar.”

“I haven’t lied to you yet.”

“No?” he asked, his tone goading in a way that was impossible to miss. When she just shook her head in response, a neutral expression on her face, Jax figured it was as good of a time as any to nettle her. “You miss me?”

Another eye roll. Another step farther away from him. “Oh fuck off.”

He laughed as he kept stride with her. “C’mon. How long you been gone? You’re not a little happy to see me?”

She stopped by the bike that was still parked by the gas pump. “I’m ecstatic,” she answered, her tone flat but there was still a glimmer in her eyes giving her away.

It took Jax a couple seconds longer than it should have to put it all together. He watched as she took another sip of her soda before shoving the bottle into the backpack that was resting on the seat of the bike. He looked back and forth between her and the bike a couple times before he said anything. His brain trying to sync up the mental image of who she was before she left Charming to the woman who was standing in front of him now.

Natasha watched him process his way through it all, too. She didn’t say anything about it as she pulled the straps of her backpack back onto her shoulders. She felt the way Jax was watching her in what almost seemed like awe as she slipped her hands into the gloves that she wore to ride. Not that she gave it too much thought, but she was fairly certain that there hadn’t ever been a time in history when he stared at her like that. She would’ve noticed, would’ve remembered.

When she reached for her helmet, that’s when Jax got himself to speak up. “How many times did Ope and I try to get you on the backs of our bikes and you said no? Now you’re—”

“To be fair,” she cut him off, propping her helmet on her hip as she spoke, “I still wouldn’t get on the back of either of your bikes.”

He chuckled, holding his hands out innocently. “Why not?”

She didn’t dignify the question with a response, instead swinging her leg over the bike to start getting situated. She still hadn’t put her helmet on yet—once she did that Jax knew it meant she was going to be jetting off whether he had said his piece or not.

“Where you staying now, anyway?” he asked.

She shrugged, the expression on her face not exactly an excited one. “Back home. Just until I figure out what my next move is. I didn’t wanna sign a lease on a place if I’m just going to be moving again in another month or two.”

“Bet your mom is—”

“Way too excited about it, yeah,” she finished the sentence for him with a laugh. There was a beat of a pause, both of them waiting to see if the other was going to say anything more. The feeling, the slight flutter in her chest, it was kicking up a feeling of dejavu that she hadn’t experienced yet in her two weeks at home. Clearing her throat, she decided that enough was enough for now. “Well, it was good seeing you. I gotta run, though. I’ll see you around?”

“You should come by the clubhouse,” he offered with a grin. “Got the bike now and everything.”

She shook her head before pulling her helmet on. Sliding the face shield up, she said, “Hard pass. Thanks though.”

“C'mon. Ope and Donna will be there.”

She gripped onto the handlebars, leaning forward to brace against them. “Yeah? Tara too?”

It was the first time Jax faltered throughout their entire conversation. “No, no. Tara took off, shit,” his hand rested on the back of his neck for a moment, “couple months after you, actually.”

She frowned in thought for a moment, the expression partially obscured by her helmet. It wasn’t the response that she had been expecting from him. She was caught between shock and a tiny shred of relief, immediately followed by guilt over her initial reaction. Regardless, it wasn’t going to change her answer to the question.

“Right,” the word came out sounding jilted, forced in a way that the rest of their conversation hadn’t been. “Well, either way,” she shook her head, “still isn’t my scene.” She brought her bike to life and Jax took a tiny step back out of habit. “I’ll see you.”

He cracked a grin as he watched her slide her face shield back down. “I’m sure you will.”

~*~

It was a couple days later when her mother knocked on her bedroom door. Natasha looked up from her laptop screen, a welcome break from the dozen or so tabs open of different jobs she was thinking of applying for. “Yeah?”

Her mom held out the phone, a landline that Natasha was willing to bet money only ever had incoming calls from her when she lived out of state. “For you.”

She cocked her head in confusion but reached out and took the phone. She said a quick and quiet thank you to her mother before bringing the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Never got your number,” Jax’s voice came through with a chuckle on the other end of the line. “Had to go digging but I figured your parents never got rid of the house phone.”

“Creatures of habit, all of you.” She laughed quietly.  “What’s with the house call, then?”

“You didn’t wanna come by the clubhouse—how else was I supposed to talk to you?”

Natasha shook her head even though he couldn’t see it, placing her laptop off to the side of her on the bed. She allowed herself to flop back onto her mattress, her head not even reaching her pillow with the way that she was laying. “I guess I didn’t think that you’d wanna talk to me that bad. Never called me up while I was gone.”

“Didn’t have your number then either,” he quipped.

She hummed in acknowledgment. “I guess not.” She paused, waiting for him to speak up. When he didn’t, she had to laugh. “Figured if you made the effort to call, you’d at least have a conversation in mind.”

“Wanna grab a drink?”

“That depends,” she said, letting the back of her hand that wasn’t holding the phone rest against her forehead. “Do you know a place to get a drink that’s not on the Sons compound?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I think I could figure something out.”

“Can’t wait to see it, then.”

“You gonna give me your number so I don’t have to go through your mom every time I wanna talk to you?”

Natasha laughed hard enough that it took her a moment to be able to respond. “Too much like old times?”

“Nah, I don’t even think I had to do that when it was old times.”

Her laughter quieted into a hum. “Should’a called more.” There was a beat of silence and she cleared her throat. “Anyway. Got a pen or something ready? I’m only gonna tell you once.”

She knew that she shouldn’t have felt excited to go and see him. It wasn’t just the joy of getting back in touch with old friends, although there was that part of it too. But she also knew that, for all the time that she’d been out of Charming and away from Jax, for all the ways that she had changed over the years, there was still something to be said for the fact that she was going to be meeting up to grab drinks with Jackson Teller, the boy she spent three out of the four years of high school being infatuated with. He'd felt so unobtainable then—still did, in a lot of ways. But the stakes were different now. They were older. He was, presumably, single. But she also knew that she didn’t really know him anymore, or him her. A lot could’ve changed in the time that she’d been gone. A lot had changed, at least for her. Even knowing all of that, though, she still felt a warmth spreading across her face as she grabbed the keys to her bike to go and meet him. Plenty of things had changed but apparently some things still hadn’t, no matter the front that she put on.

She spotted his bike when she pulled up outside the bar. She parked her bike right next to his, smiling to herself at the differences between the two. She’d gotten her bike during her second year of college, a decision that nearly gave her mother a heart attack but there was no going back on it once it was done. The argument then was that her parents weren’t going to have to watch her ride around on it anyway, so they didn’t have to worry. Natasha was surprised, really, at how little grief her mother had given her about it since she came back home. Too many other things going on.

Natasha couldn’t deny that she was a little surprised by the choice in venue. It wasn’t high-class by any means, which she was thankful for because she certainly hadn’t dressed the part for that. But it wasn’t really a dive bar, either. It wasn’t like the clubhouse—more orderly than places like that. The music was loud enough so keep people from eavesdropping on conversations, but not so loud that you couldn’t hear the person sitting across the table from you. The most surprising part of it all to Natasha was the fact that the place was well-lit. She didn’t picture Jax hanging out in bars that you didn’t have to squint to see in.

She saw him sitting at a two-top just a couple feet from the bar. He was already looking at her when she saw him, that same smirk on his face. He had a glass of beer in front of him, which he lifted in greeting once she saw him. She gave a small wave and a nod before going over to the bar.

Once she told the girl behind the bar what beer she wanted, she asked, “Did my friend over there open a tab?” The woman nodded and Natasha cracked a smile. “First one’s on him, then.” She swiped the glass off the bar-top. “Thank you.”

Natasha walked over to the table where Jax was sitting. He was watching her, a smirk on his face as she got situated and took a sip of her drink. “Glad you found it.”

Natasha laughed, leaning forward and bracing her arms on the tabletop. “What’s a guy like you doing in a nice place like this?”

He shook his head at her. “Figured it might be more your speed.”

She smiled. “That’s fair. Just, you know,” she took another sip, “surprised they let you in the door.”

He rolled his eyes but he was still smiling. “I know a guy.”

She laughed. “You always do.”

The conversation picked up and Natasha found herself waiting for it to get uncomfortable, but it didn’t. She asked about Opie, a little bit about the club, the things that she was part of back when she still lived in Charming. They dug up just enough old memories to laugh at without getting too caught up in it all. There was a familiarity there between them that she didn’t remember having with him before. Maybe there were always too many other people around. This was one of the first times that she didn’t feel like she was fighting for his attention—teenage Natasha would’ve been over the moon about it.

Jax asked her about her parents. He saw them around every now and again but it wasn’t like they ever really made the time to talk and catch up—the only thing they really had in common was Natasha and that might’ve been stretching it a bit on his part. He asked her about school even though it was too little too late. He wanted to ask about work, about what had happened, but he didn’t know if he could.

“You figure out if you’re gonna stick around?” he asked, figuring it was as safe of a question as any.

She laughed. “In the two days since I last saw you? No, no I haven’t figured that out yet.”

He smiled, blue eyes brighter than they had any right to be. “I could get you a job at T-M if you want.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jax—”

“What? It’s basically the same thing, right? Should be easier, actually. Car engines are way smaller than plane engines.”

Natasha was trying not to laugh and failing. “They’re not the same at all, actually. But even if they were,” she finished off her beer, “it’s not like you could afford me anyway.”

Jax had a smirk on his face as he swirled around what little was still left in his glass. “You’re the one living with Mom and Dad, so I dunno. I don’t think you can afford you either.”

She scoffed in mock offense. “Fuck you.”

He laughed and held his hands up in surrender. “I’m just callin’ ‘em like I see ‘em, Natty. Don’t get mad at me about it.”

She pushed her empty glass towards him. “I might be willing to forgive you if you get me another round.”

Jax didn’t even bother putting up a fight about it. He finished off his drink in one swig before getting up out of his chair. He grabbed his empty glass and Natasha’s, heading off towards the bar with a, “Coming right up,” as he went. Natasha laughed, shaking her head at him. She couldn’t help but to watch him as he sauntered up to the bar. She watched the way that the bartender was all smiles and batting eyelashes as Jax spoke to her. Everywhere Natasha went she seemed to be reminded that certain things about Jax didn’t change, and probably never would.

The flutters in her stomach were dampened by the knot that was starting to form. Part of it was Jax, the brutal reminder that he hadn’t given her any undivided attention back then, probably still wouldn’t be able to give it to her now. The other part of it, though, had nothing to do with Jax and everything to do with the series of events that led to her coming back home. It hadn’t been her choice, and it hadn’t been anything as simple as getting laid off from her job. No one really knew that, though. She tried not to think about it all if she could help it, but something about the butterflies in her stomach when she looked at Jax made it hard to forget.

When Jax turned back around to bring their drinks, he saw the change in expression on Natasha’s face. He cocked his head to the side as he walked back over, a wordless ask of what was wrong. Natasha gave an equally wordless answer by simply shaking her head. Jax wanted to press it as he set the glass down in front of her, but he stopped himself.

She nodded towards the bartender. “That the uh,” she took a sip of her beer, “guy you know?”

He cracked a grin. “Not quite.”

She shrugged. “Just seemed awfully friendly.”

His smile split a little wider. “I’m just a friendly guy.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and yet still found herself smiling. “One of your many endearing qualities.”

“So they say.” He paused, taking a drink. “What’s your deal these days anyway? You got a boyfriend you’re gonna bring back to Charming too?”

She laughed. “Please. If I had a boyfriend I would not be letting him inside county lines.”

“Why not? Afraid he can handle Natasha but not Natty?”

She waved him off with a laugh. “Fuck off.”

There was still a smirk on his face as he studied her expression. “I can’t tell if you’re lying to me or not just to save yourself some of the trouble.” He sipped on his drink. “Or save your boyfriend the trouble, at least.”

She crossed her arms and rested them on the table. “I’m not lying. Even when I was living out in San Antonio I never really had a boyfriend.” She saw the surprised look on Jax’s face and shook her head to emphasize her point. “I went on a couple dates with a couple guys but never…I don’t know,” she shrugged, “never really wanted to get to know anyone like that.”

“One less thing tryna pull you outta here, then,” he joked.

She laughed. “Of course.”

He leaned back in his chair. “What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.” She sighed, propping her chin into the palm of her hand as she continued, diverting the conversation just slightly. “Besides, considering I seem to be blacklisted from most places, I might not have any other choice.”

Jax’s eyes popped wider in shock. “No way. C’mon, there’s no way you did anything that bad.” He paused, waiting for her to argue with him. “What’d you do? Knife somebody?”

She barked out a laugh, and it at least eased the tension. “No, I did not knife somebody. Jesus.”

“Then what was it?”

“Nothing.”

“You can’t tease me with that and then not follow through.”

She cocked one eyebrow at him. “I don’t think that you have the right to give anyone shit about teasing.”

“Fine. But if the feds come knockin’ on my door I might just rat you out.”

She smiled and took another sip of her drink. “I’ll take my chances.”

Natasha thought that that was going to be it, that it was going to be the thing that did them in and doomed them to a night of uncomfortable conversation. But Jax didn’t seem too offput by it. She figured that given the club and everything they got involved in, Jax was probably no stranger to secrets by this point. He picked another topic and they carried right on, but she could feel that there was a gravity that hadn’t been there before.

Jax squared up his tab and the two of them walked out together. He couldn’t help the grin on his face when he saw that Natasha had parked her bike right next to his. He never would’ve thought in a million years that she would be the one out of their group of friends to turn up on two wheels instead of four. Somehow it felt fitting.

“Back to Mom and Dad’s?” Jax asked as he leaned back against his bike.

Natasha laughed as she nodded, pulling on her gloves once more. “Well, I’m certainly not gonna sleep on the street. My childhood bedroom that’s packed full of boxes of shit from my apartment is still somehow preferable to that.”

He lit a cigarette, letting it casually hang from his lips as he asked, “Wanna come over to my place?” He saw the pointed look she gave him and held up his hands innocently, cigarette between his fingers. “Just for a drink.”

She was still shaking her head at him as she swung her leg over her bike. “You’ve had it too easy around here, Jackson.”

“Anytime you wanna stop by—”

His sentence was cut short by the sound of her bike engine, and even though they couldn’t hear each other over the noise of it, they both knew that the other was laughing. Once her bike quieted down, she said, “Night, Jax.”

He watched her roll back and get ready to jet off again. “Next round’s on you!”

She smiled before bringing her face shield down. “We’ll see.”

~*~

As one week turned into two, and Natasha was coming to grips with the fact that she had been back in Charming for an entire month and still had yet to make any headway on getting a job in-town, or hearing back from the places that she had applied to out of town, she realized that she was talking to Jax more than she was talking to most other people. Even if it wasn’t every day. The longer she stayed, the more familiar faces she saw. She didn’t know if she should feel comforted by the sameness of it all, by how many people were still there, by the fact that she was fading right back into things even though she’d been gone for so long.

Despite the calls and texts that they’d been exchanging, the casual comfort of having someone to talk to that wasn’t her parents, Natasha still found herself hesitating when he reached out and invited her over again. He hadn’t brought it up again since the night that they went to the bar. Held his tongue on it even when Natasha had stopped by T-M to see if they could give her bike an oil change.

“You’re tellin’ me that you don’t wanna get out of the house for a little while?” he joked when he heard her hesitation on the line. “Get out of the maze of cardboard boxes?”

Natasha laughed at that. She couldn’t deny the fact that it would be good to get out of the house. It didn’t feel suffocating the same way it had when she was a kid, but still she only wanted to stare at the same four walls for so long.

“Fine.” She could hear the smug victory in his voice before he even spoke, so she tried to catch him before he started. “But only because I don’t think I could survive sitting at the dinner table with you and my parents.”

Jax chuckled. “What’re you talking about? Moms love me.”

Natasha gave a playful scoff. “Yeah, that’s a whole separate problem.”

The sun was just starting to set when she pulled up to the house that night. She saw the lights on in the windows, and something about it felt so homey in contrast to the bike parked out front, in contrast to the man that she knew was living there now.

Walking up to the front door, she knocked and waited. She couldn’t hear anything coming from inside, no music or television. She was looking back over her shoulder when the door opened, revealing Jax in just his jeans and one of the seemingly countless Samcro shirts that he had. It briefly crossed Natasha’s mind that this was the first time since she’d been home that she saw him without his kutte on. He looked more like how she remembered him.

Jax’s house was about what Natasha had been expecting—a bachelor pad. Motorcycle posters and Harley paraphernalia scattered around and on the walls. She had the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that the matching, and fairly nice, furniture wasn’t picked out by Jax himself. That kind of thing had Gemma written all over it, but at least it meant that he didn’t have patio furniture in his living room and a mattress on the bedroom floor with no bed frame.

When they walked into the kitchen, Natasha saw the takeout containers on the table. There was only one place in town that had good Chinese takeout, and as far as she knew it was still the same family running it as it had been when she was a kid. Suddenly she realized how long ago lunch had been.

“Did me the kindness of not cooking for me, I see,” she joked as she stepped up to the table.

Jax chuckled as he opened the refrigerator. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

He handed her a beer before sitting down across the table from her with his own. Natasha watched him as he dug through the pile of silverware and sauce packets. She chuckled when he decided to forego the chopsticks and grabbed a fork instead.

The conversation started off with her asking if anything of note had happened at the shop. She’d been making it a point to not ask to much about the club—anything that she knew about any of it was because Jax had decided to tell her, not because she had pried it out of him. The question, though, was met with his usual rebuttal of, “You’d know what went down if you just let me hook you up with a job there.”

She shook her head as she deftly pulled noodles from the takeout box and placed them on her plate. “I told you, I’m not doing that. If I do that,” she shook her head, “then it’s like I’m committing to staying in Charming forever.”

Jax chuckled as she handed the box over to him. “And that’s the worst thing in the world?”

“Not the worst. I just, I don’t know, I loved being out in San Antonio I guess. It was great until it wasn’t.”

“Yeah, what happened with that anyway?” He took a bite of his rice. “You never told me.”

She shook her head. “Never told anyone, really.”

“So?” he asked, food tucked in his cheek. “What’s the deal?”

She sighed, slumping back in her chair. “Do we have to get into this right now?”

“What? Come on, you’ve been all mysterious about it—can’t expect me not to ask.”

“Can I at least eat my dinner in peace?”

Jax let slip a smirk as he nodded. The two of them shifted to silence for a couple minutes as they started to eat. He met her halfway at least, telling her about the antics that Tig and Juice had gotten into at T-M that day.

The two of them made it through dinner without it coming up again. Jax had started to accept the fact that she wasn’t going to tell him. He was ready to accept the fact that she wasn’t ever going to tell him. They were cleaning up, tossing the empty takeout boxes in the garbage and putting the plates in the dishwasher. It was only when she let the lid drop closed on the garbage can that she spoke up about the topic that she’d been dodging with Jax, with everyone since she came home.

“I got blacklisted out in San Antonio.”

He was placing the last plate in the dishwasher when she said it. Turning to face her, he raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“After they fired me,” she explained as she went to the fridge to grab another beer, “they pretty much put a notice out to everywhere I tried to go to next telling them not to take me on.”

“Shit,” he said, closing the dishwasher. “What the hell did you do?”

“Depends on who you ask. You ask my old boss and he’ll say that I assaulted a coworker.”

He came and stood, leaning back against the counter right next to where she was standing. “And if I ask you?”

“I’d say that I popped some guy in the jaw because he tried to put his hands on me after I told him to back off.”

Jax’s eyes widened, not expecting that to be what she said. “Jesus Christ.”

She shook her head, a bitter expression on her face as she took another sip of her beer. “Yeah. We worked on the same crew for almost two years. Thought we were friends, but…” she shrugged, knowing there was nothing to do about it now.

“You tell your boss what—”

“You know how tough it was to even get that job in the first place? The shit I had to go through there when I got hired? When I was in school?” She scoffed. “Yeah, I told him. But it’s a boy’s club over there—I never stood a chance.”

“Who was he?”

She chuckled, looking over at him. “Why? You gonna ride across state lines to beat the shit out of him?”

He allowed himself a small smile. “I would if you wanted me to.”

The laugh she let out had a little bit of heaviness lurking beneath it. “Jax Teller, ever the gentleman.”

He smirked. “Last man keeping chivalry alive.”

When the silence crept back in, it was the first time that Jax really felt how much older they both were now. Charming sometimes had a bit of a Neverland quality to it—even when people grew up it didn’t really feel like they did. But hearing what had happened, seeing the look on her face, suddenly he felt the years that had passed.

Natasha saw him trying to think of something else to say so she decided to save him the trouble. “So that’s why I’m home.” She chuckled awkwardly, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s also why I haven’t told anyone the real reasons why I’m home.”

“Not even your parents?”

She shook her head. “What’re they gonna do about it? Besides feel bad? Or,” she laughed weakly, “or lock me up in my room at home?”

Jax relaxed against the counter, a move that caused his side to be pressing up against hers. He knew that she had a point, that even if she gave her parents all the details of what had happened to her, it wasn’t going to change the outcome. He also remembered, way back when, that her parents hadn’t wanted her to leave. They said it was a big scary world out there and they didn’t want her getting lost in it—Natasha didn’t want to let them think that they were right.

She saw the way that his face was shifting, and not for the first or last time she wished that she could read his mind. Trying to ease the tension, she took another sip of her beer and nudged his shoulder with hers. “You look like you’re thinking way too hard over there.”

“You really don’t wanna stay?”

She shrugged, what little humor was in her face fading as she answered. “There’s no way to stay here and do what I want to do. And, even with everything,” she turned and placed her empty beer bottle on the counter behind them, “that happened, I don’t think I want to give it up.”

“No?”

“The work wasn’t the issue. And, shit, I’m good at my job. I just need to find somewhere with people who aren’t total scumbags.” She raked her hands back through her hair. “And that seems to be a tall order.”

“You really wouldn’t want to do anything different? I’m sure you could—”

“Why?”

Jax’s brows knit together, confusion all over his face at her interruption. “What do you mean?”

Natasha took a small step away from him, turning so that they were facing each other head-on. “Why do you want me to stay so bad? You didn’t care when I left before.” She’d thought it plenty of times before, but that was the first time she’d ever said the words out loud and all the emotions she felt all those years ago came back with a vengeance.

“You don’t know that.”

She laughed, but it was a sad sound. “I think I do. You hardly noticed when I was there, let alone when I was gone.”

He reached out, trying to catch her hand with his own. “Nat, c’mon, I—”

“No.” She yanked her hand away and started to turn to leave, not ready or willing to deal with the feelings that had been lying dormant for so long. “You don’t get to do this to me again.”

Jax quickly caught up to her. His hand landed on her shoulder, pulling and making her turn around to face him. “Hey! Hold on. What the hell are you talking about?”

She shook her head, not forcing herself to make eye contact with him. “Nothing. Just forget it.”

“No. You don’t get to say something like that to me and then just storm out.” He allowed her to shrug off his grasp. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Natasha was silent for a moment. She was staring intently at Jax, eyes flicking back and forth between his as she tried to figure out how little he knew, how honest he was being. She found it so hard to believe that he never knew how she felt, but looking at the confusion, the hurt on his face, for a moment she wasn’t quite so sure.

“You really don’t know? You’re really going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

“That I spent almost all of high school in love with you!” She shook her head, raking her nails back along her scalp. “Jesus Christ, Jax. I know you were a little preoccupied but you can’t really expect me to believe that you never—”

“I didn’t. I didn’t know.”

She scoffed, wishing that the soft, sad look in his eyes would go away. “Not like it would’ve mattered anyway.”

Out of instinct Jax reached out for her. “Natty—”

She took another step back before he could get to her. Ignoring the tears in her eyes she started to all but book it towards the door. “I gotta go.”

Jax wanted to go after her but he knew that it wouldn’t do any good. After a couple seconds he heard the sound of his front door slamming shut, the sound making him flinch. He shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment as he tried to work his way through what had just happened.

Natasha just tried to focus on the sound of her motorcycle’s engine and the road stretching out in front of her. She tried not to think about the tears on her cheeks or the way that her heart was beating rapidly in her chest. Or the look on Jax’s face when he heard what she’d said to him. She went a little faster, the roar of her bike getting a little louder to drown it all out as she took the long way home.

~*~

All of Jax’s calls had been going to voicemail after that. He texted her only to get no response. Every now and then he’d hear her bike or see her whipping down main street. She hadn’t stopped by the shop in the week since she stormed out of his house.

There had been part of him that wanted to stop by her parents’ house but with what little impulse control he had, he knew that it wasn’t going to do him any favors. He didn’t want to corner her—all he wanted to do was talk.

Underneath the embarrassment and hurt that was aching in Natasha’s chest, the sense of restlessness that she’d felt since she came home had increased ten-fold. The only upside, not that she was sure if she’d call it that just yet, was that in her moment of crisis she had sent out a whole other wave of applications to places out of the county, out of the state. That didn’t mean that there was any guarantee that any of those places were going to call her back, but the indecision between staying home and taking off again disappeared. Or, at least, it had until her emotions slowly started to settle, but by then the damage was already done.

It had been just shy of a week when she rolled back into Jax’s driveway. She hadn’t even listened to any of the voicemails that he’d left for her. She saw the texts but still hadn’t responded. She hadn’t even bothered to reach out and let him know that she had decided to stop by. The way she saw it, the worst-case scenario was that he’d just send her away.

He was opening the front door before she even had the chance to knock. He didn’t bother trying to hide his surprise at her sudden appearance on his front steps. The feeling was mutual as Natasha stood there staring at him in nothing but his jeans, hair still wet from the shower as he clutched what appeared to be a t-shirt in his hand. There was a moment of tense silence, neither of them really up for forcing an awkward greeting as they stood in the doorway. Without a word, Jax opened the door a little wider for her and she stepped inside.

He led the way, pulling the t-shirt on as he did, and Natasha tried to lie to herself about how intently she watched that happen. She was the one who broke the silence when they reached the kitchen. “Sorry to just drop in.”

He shook his head as he turned back around to face her. “No you’re not.” There was no malice in his voice, but there wasn’t humor either. Both of them still testing the waters.

She hummed quietly in response. “I just, um, about last time. I—”

“It’s fine.”

“No it wasn’t.” She shook her head as she stared down at the floor. “It was shitty to just throw that in your face. It was a lifetime ago at this point and I just…” she trailed off, not sure where she wanted the sentence to go. She hadn’t rehearsed ahead of time and she was kicking herself for it.

“You meant it though?”

She huffed, not wanting to look him in the eyes. “Well, yeah, but what good does it do anyone now?”

“Is it still true?”

She raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“What you said last time, do you still—”

“Come on,” she said, trying to ignore the heat flaring up in her face. “I don’t even know you anymore.”

He cracked a small smile. “Sure you do.”

“Jax,” she tried to say his name like it was a warning, but it didn’t hit quite right with the tremor to it.

He stepped in closer to her, enough so that she had to tilt her chin up just a touch to be able to look him in the eyes. “I haven’t changed that much,” he paused and studied her expression, “and I don’t think you have either.”

The responsible part of her brain was telling her to stop all of this before it even got a chance to get started, that nothing good could possibly come from getting mixed up in all of this now. The sentimental part of her, though, the part of her that still felt her knees getting weak whenever she looked into his bright blue eyes that were so focused on her in that moment, was telling her that she had spent so many years daydreaming of something like this happening that it would be silly to turn her back on it now that it was actually unfolding.

She pulled in a breath, gearing up to say words that she hadn’t even thought of yet, but it wasn’t as though Jax even gave her a chance. Leaning in, he caught her lips in a kiss that was softer than Natasha thought he was capable of being. Everything about it caught her off-guard, so much so that she only got herself to kiss him back when his palm cupped her cheek, the warmth of the gesture kicking her brain into gear.

Placing her palms flat against his chest, for a moment she thought about pushing him away, ending whatever it was that the moment was trying to be. She almost did it, too, but instead she found herself sliding her hands up until they were on his shoulders, the ends of his hair grazing over her knuckles.

Jax placed his other hand on the small of her back, pulling her in closer when he felt the way she was kissing him back so eagerly, threading her fingers into his hair. Even as the warmth of Jax’s palm was seeping through her shirt and into her skin, Natasha still was waiting for it to all be a daydream, a sick joke that the universe was playing on her. It wasn’t the wisest thing that she’d done since she got home but she figured she might as well enjoy it while she could.

Without a second thought, Jax placed his hands on the backs of her thighs and lifted her up to set her on the table. Out of instinct, Natasha wrapped her legs around his waist and kept him pinned tight to her. She felt the smirk on his face as he kissed her and it felt as good as she’d always daydreamed about—if anything it felt better than that.

She didn’t pull away until she felt Jax’s hands slide down her sides and start to creep up underneath the fabric of the t-shirt that she was wearing. “Jax,” her voice was quiet, breathless, “I don’t…I don’t think this is a good idea.”

He chuckled, pressing a kiss to her cheek, then another to her jaw. “Never said it was a good idea.”

Her logic and resolve were deteriorating rapidly when he began to kiss down the column of her neck. She tilted her head back, allowing him better access as her eyes fluttered shut. With what few coherent thoughts were in her head, she managed to say, “We—I can’t.” She pushed him away a little farther, enough so that his lips against her skin were no longer making her thoughts go awry.

There was still a smile on his face and Natasha briefly wondered if it would ever go away at this point. He reached forward, pushing her hair behind her shoulder as he spoke. “Why not?”

She shook her head, trying not to focus on the way his fingers were trailing up and down her arm. “I’m…I’m not staying. In Charming. I applied to a bunch of places and if one of them calls me back…” she hesitated for a moment, “I’m going.”

That got his grin to falter but it only took a moment for him to recover. “So we can’t make the most of it while you’re here?”

She scoffed but it wasn’t cruel. “I don’t,” she uncurled her legs from around his waist, “I don’t want to just…” She forced herself to look him in the eyes. “All this and then I leave?”

“So stay,” he offered, tone purposely casual.

She chuckled, hands on his shoulders. “Or you leave with me.”

He shook his head. “You’re over-thinking this.” He leaned in and kissed her again, noticing the way that her fingers wound themselves into his t-shirt as he did. “We can have a good time while you’re here. Being home doesn’t have to be so bad.”

“Jax.”

“Natty.”

She laughed and he took advantage of the moment as an opportunity to kiss her again. She gave right back into it, arms draping over Jax’s shoulders as her heels pressed into the backs of his thighs to get him closer to her again. The moan building in the base of her throat as Jax’s tongue slid to meet hers was involuntary. If she could’ve just melted completely into him in that moment, she would have.

Jax’s wandering hands finally came to rest on her waist. She could feel the pressure of his fingertips as he squeezed her tight. Something about the urgency, the need of it, had butterflies erupting in Natasha’s stomach all over again. To feel that wanted by someone she’d spent so much time wanting was its own unique type of high.

When he started to work the button on her jeans, Natasha pulled away again. “Wait.” Natasha hardly recognized her own voice with how out of breath she sounded.

Jax’s brows knit together. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing I just don’t do…this.”

He cracked a grin. “Not like I’m gonna tell on you.”

She gave a small, almost weak, smile. “No, no. I mean I don’t…I’ve never…”

It wasn’t until Jax noticed the way that she couldn’t meet his eyes that he realized what she was saying to him. He didn’t want to just let her run off again, but he also didn’t want to make her feel like she couldn’t leave.

Taking his hand away from the waistband of her jeans, he cupped her chin instead and tilted her head so that she was looking at him. He knew that he didn’t have the right things to say, so instead he kissed her again, soft and calculated. Allowing her to give in or pull away one more time.

“You can stay here tonight even if you’re not staying in Charming forever, you know,” he said, lips so close that they were brushing against hers as he spoke.

He felt the breath she pulled in as she thought about what he was saying, offering to her. The small handful of seconds that passed by felt like they dragged on for an eternity. Jax could feel the tension in her muscles, building up like they were getting ready to snap.

She only relaxed again when she crashed her lips back into his. Jax didn’t hesitate as he wrapped his arms around her, kissing her back just as eagerly. Reaching up, Jax grabbed her hands and interlocked their fingers before pulling away. He only let the space linger long enough to pull her back down off the table. Then he was bringing her body right flush to his again, kissing her as he guided her back through the house towards the bedroom.

Natasha was lying on her back on the mattress, stripped down to just her t-shirt and underwear. Jax hovered over her, pulling her legs so that they were draped around his waist. He still had his jeans on but his t-shirt was lost in the pile with the rest of Natasha’s clothes. He ran his hand up her thigh and over her hip, fingers tracing along the exposed skin there as he kissed her.

He felt the involuntary shiver when he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties. He pulled back, studying her face. “We can stop, you know.”

Natasha swallowed hard as she nodded. “I know. I don’t,” she reached and dragged her fingertips down the side of his face, the stubble trying to take away some of the boyishness and failing, “I don’t want you to stop.”

He smiled wide, kissing her once more on the lips before leaving a trail of kisses down over the t-shirt covering her chest, the exposed skin of her stomach, and then down to her hips and thighs as he pulled her underwear down and off her legs, casting them aside with everything else.

Jax let her legs hang over his shoulders, granting him the ability to kiss and nip at the insides of her thighs with ease. With every move and breath he could feel what it did to her, the way she squirmed with excitement, thighs tensing as he dragged his lips and tongue along her skin. He hovered over her core, waiting for her to look at him and give him some cue to keep going before he allowed himself to lick a stripe through her folds. The way she gasped and arched into him had him smirking against her as he continued to work her over with his lips and tongues, allowing himself to get lost in the way that she tasted, the sounds she made in response to everything that he did.

Her thighs were trembling on either side of his head when he pulled his lips off of her center. Her body was already pliant underneath him as he kissed his way back up her torso. He kissed her, running his tongue along hers so that she could taste herself the way that he did. She was gripping onto his shoulders, pulling him closer when she felt his fingers trailing up the inside of her thigh, touch featherlight over her wet and sensitive folds. He was slow, gentle as he pushed his fingers into her. her breathing was ragged, needy as she adjusted to what he’d given her. Once she was kissing him again, Jax began to carefully and methodically pump his fingers in and out of her, her moans and the way that she panted his name were like music to his ears.

“Jax, please,” she begged in pants. “Please.”

He felt the way she was working the button and zipper on his jeans, fumbling slightly as he reached over to his nightstand. Pulling the drawer open, he reached around blindly until he found a condom. Quicker than she even realized, Jax’s jeans and boxers were tossed to the floor and he was lined up at her entrance.

It was taking every ounce of self-control to not thrust into her. Leaning down, he kissed her again, murmuring soft reassurances in her ear that had her trying to pull him closer and into her. He kissed her right below her ear. “I’ve got you.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, nails biting into his shoulders as he pushed into her. He went slow, telling her how good she was doing and how amazing she felt around him, words that rendered her unable to do anything but whimper in response.

“You okay?” he asked as he kneaded the muscles of her thigh. When she didn’t say anything in response, he gave her leg a squeeze. “Nat? You okay?”

She had a blissful, hazy look in her eyes as she nodded. “I’m okay. Please, Jax.”

As he started to thrust into her, there was a moment when he wasn’t sure who was having a harder time controlling themselves. Her legs locked tight around his waist, nails dragging hungrily down his back as he started to find his rhythm, started to speed up his pace. She begged him to keep going like he’d ever dream of stopping.

He felt her breath against his skin, her lips on his neck and shoulder as he braced his arms on either side of her head. He pulled away enough to be able to look down at her, and the hunger in her eyes as her hands slid down his chest was a sight Jax didn’t think he was ever going to be able to forget. She fit him so perfectly, and when he felt the way she pulled at his hair while he kissed her his mind went blank.

She bit lightly at his lip, her legs trembling against him. Her words faded into moans as her walls fluttered around him. She took his chin in her hand, fingertips pressing into his jaw. He pressed his forehead to hers, both their eyes shutting tight as they soaked up the feel of the other.

“Don’t stop,” she plead desperately, wanting anything that would prolong the feeling of him inside her, the waves of pleasure that rolled over her each time he slowly dragged himself out only to thrust back into her again.

Jax wanted to give her anything and everything she could ask for. She looked so dazed and sounded so needy—he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so entranced by someone. He thrust into her, slow but deep. It was only when he was buried as deep inside her as he could manage that he spoke up, his breath warm against the shell of her ear.

“Don’t know how much longer I can last when you feel this good.”

The laugh she let out was a breathless one, but it was music to Jax’s ears nonetheless. He kissed the side of her throat, starting to suck a dark mark to leave behind when he felt himself getting close to the edge. With his lips on her neck he slipped one hand up underneath her shirt, kneading her breast as he continued to thrust into her. Moments later he could feel it, the way that she was coming undone around him. His name fell from her lips somewhere between a whine and a moan, a perfect sound that had Jax unraveling right after her, pushing into her with one more harsh thrust as he spilled into the condom and collapsed against her chest.

He listened to the rapid beat of her heart for a moment before lifting his head so that he could look at her. She was already staring at him, and there was something about the blissful smile on her face that had a sense of ease washing over Jax.

Still, he kissed her softly on the lips and ask, “You okay?”

She smiled, nodding and pulling him in for another kiss. “I’m good.”

They laid like that, neither of them looking to pull away from the other. Natasha was expecting to feel exposed, the way that he was looking at her, the way his fingers trailed along her face and through her hair. But it was comfortable, like they’d been doing this forever.

Too soon for either of their liking, Jax slowly pulled out of her. He swiped his boxers off the floor to he could clean himself up, handing Natasha’s back to her as well. By the time that he came back into the bedroom she was under the covers and in one of his shirts instead of her own. He couldn’t lie and say that he didn’t enjoy the sight of it.

“Comfy?” he joked as he slid into bed beside her.

“I’d say so.” She moved closer, resting her head on his chest as she draped her across him.

He pulled her one leg over so that it was tangled with his. “So…you’re gonna stay, right?”

“Jackson.”

He laughed, squeezing her tight for a moment. “Tonight, I mean.”

She hummed in amusement. “Mhm, I’m sure.” She tilted her head so that she was looking at him. “Yes, I’m gonna stay the night.”

He gave that same smirk he always did. “Still can’t call you darlin’ though, right?”

She shook her head. “No you can’t.” She rested her head back against his chest again, letting her eyes shut as she listened to the thrum of his heartbeat. “Natty works just fine.”

He chuckled, lips brushing against the edge of her forehead in a quick kiss. He felt her relaxing more and more against him as exhaustion started to settle in. Despite what the morning held, or the next few weeks, they at least had this. He ran his hand up and down her back. “I’ll take it.”

(divider by @cyberangel-graphics 💖)

SOA Taglist: @withmyteeth @garbinge @littlekittymeow @yourwinchesterbros @i-just-read-stuff

@justreblogginfics @paintballkid711 @jitterbugs927 @fanfic-n-tabulous @beardburnsupersoldiers

@darqchilddaydreamz @choochoo284 @artemiseamoon @nessamc @narcolini

[mins-fins]

all flights are delayed !

"i like to call myself a pretty man connoisseur.."

synopsis: your sad to say it, but you don't have much going on in your life. you have a very time consuming major, just a few friends, barely any time to go out, and spend most of your free time either a: working, or b: sleeping. so for once, when you finally have the friday off, and your dragged off to go watch a football game between a rival school of yours, you really do wish you were anywhere else. somehow though, it turns out to be one of the best things to happen to you, because a charming oreo–haired musical theater major from your rival school just happens to saunter his way into your life, you didn't expect to fall in love in your junior year, but your also not complaining!

pairing: xiao dejun x male!reader

genre: college au, strangers to friends to lovers, musical theater major!xiaojun x health science major!reader, fluff, like the lightest of angst, lowkey fast burn 😖

warnings: swearing, mentions of drinking, kissing(?), gay people, a little miscommunication, reader having a crisis over oreo xiaojun, probably a lot of repetitive phrases, huang guanheng is EVERYWHERE

word count: 12.8k

notes: OKAAAAAAAY hello! now in the beginning i really did enjoy writing this but after like the fourth scene its all so disgusting and jumbled up but i am also very proud of myself because this is the longest ever fic i have ever written (it is all xiao dejuns fault), actually it is ALL of nct's fault because why do i have a bunch of 8k word fics of so many nct members..😢 anyway if this seems any rushed or makes absolutely no sense at times its because im tired and i worked extra today but it doesn't really matter because constructive criticism is good (i shouldn't even publish this tbh) but there is a first for everything! enjoy!

YOU'VE NEVER BEEN A FOOTBALL FAN. now you know that might be a little of a sour opinion, especially to the men in your family, but it's just never been a sport you enjoy. it is just a little fun to watch, especially when drunk, because the sight of men in tight ass clothes running around a field chasing a ball is possibly one of the funniest things you think your drunk mind has ever seen. which is why now— in the stands, listening to the loud shouts and screams from your schoolmates, and rival scholars, you feel as if your ears have just been popped.

after all the days of working, and doing nothing but schoolwork, you were glad to have the rest of the friday off. there was nothing else you wanted to do but put on an oversized sweater, make a bowl of ramen and rewatch gossip girl for the seventy fifth time already (yes, you keep count), but no— guanheng decided he was going to drag you out of the dorm to watch stupid football game, one about "school spirit" or whatever, you weren't paying attention to him when he decided to go on his ramble, and now he's abandoned you once again! probably off to go talk to one of his 1000 other friends or something.

you almost consider leaving, but then you witness the amount of people you'd have to maneuver through, the amount of excuse me's you'd have to utter, the amount of pushing you'd endure as you tried to make your way through the crowded stands, besides, you can't leave without guanheng, your pretty much the only person responsible for keeping him alive at this point.

so you somehow suck it up and manage to stick around. your ears are practically on fire right now, and you desperately want to take off your shoes because of how they are poking you at the moment. you almost feel like your being pressed together by all the people in the stands, as if walls are slowly pushing in and crushing every single bone in your body.

"that team is doing horribly.." you mutter to yourself in an attempt to calm your crazy mind.

"i know, we suck".

at first you think you've made up the voice, because in the past hour and a half all you've heard is shouting, cheering, and loud music blasting on your ears, no one has made any attempt to talk to you since guanheng up and left you alone in the stands, so the response almost seems like muddled up words created by your brain as a response—

but it's not.

someone actually did respond to you, and in a split second there is a completely new person standing beside you, also observing the game but not looking as pleased to be there. when you do glance to your left, you come across possibly the most beautiful boy— no, person, you come across the most beautiful person you think you've ever seen in your twenty years of living, for once it feels like everything stops.

you are not the kind of person that just.. does that. now you've met tons of pretty people, you've met so many people that you could definitely say are so beautiful they could be displayed in a museum as an art exhibit, but never in your twenty years of living have you ever seen yourself go silent at the sight of a beautiful person— your brain feels like it's malfunctioning, you're not exactly sure what to say, you open your mouth but no words come out, and you almost consider punching yourself because you probably look like a complete idiot right now.

"oh? you don't go here?"

that's what you decided to say? of all things you could've said, of course he doesn't go to your school, he just implied that the other team belonged to his school, why would that be the best thing to say out of everything else?

the stranger looks up, then he laughs, and your not sure how you keep your composure. "oh no, i go to vixsith" he replies, using his thumb to point backward, though he's not pointing at anything in specific, just pointing to point. you're not sure why you pick up on that, or why you're even watching where his hands are going anyway.

"your insulting your own team?" you inquire, and he laughs even harder at your question, covering his mouth with his hand. "this is about school spirit, have faith in them" you joke, and all he does is continue laughing, crossing his arms as he tries his best to calm himself down.

"i'm being honest, the only person on that team who knows how to play is mark, he deserves better" he remarks, eyes focused on the player he just named. he then seems to have a random realization and turns to you once again. "i'm dejun by the way" he holds out his hand for you to take, and you just blink at it like an idiot, before coming back to your senses and quickly shaking his head.

"y/n".

at the sound of your name, he seems to have yet another realization. he points at you and narrows his eyes. "we have a mutual friend don't we?"

at the question, you narrow your eyes, cogs turn in your brain as you think about who he could possibly be referring to, then it comes to you—

"guanheng".

the two of you say his name in unison, and the two of you both try to stifle your laughs as the realization dawns on you. "he knows everyone i swear" you mutter, and dejun snorts, looking away from you to laugh. "even from other schools.."

"oh we go way back" dejun responds, moving his hair out of his face. "middle school actually" he adds, and your eyes widen, as if your shocked, of course guanheng has friends from way back when, why are you surprised?

you don't feel as surprised as you do lucky..

"was he still as inhumanely flexible as he is now?"

dejun laughs again, he does that a lot. "yes, yes he was".

"he talks about you a lot.. you know" dejun comments out of the blue, tucking his hair behind his ear. "he basically lives with us, and if he's not sleeping over we always assume he's with you".

"oh so that's why he always just.. appears and disappears.."

"yeah that's kind of his thing" dejun scrunches his face, looking bored by the lack of action happening on the field. "i can never find him unless he directly comes to me first" he doesn't look at you as he says those words, but you're very much staring at him the whole time.

you almost feel like a creep in a way, you want to punch yourself in the face again for continuing to stare at him. you blink a couple times before turning your face away, trying to correctly articulate your thoughts.

"both teams suck".

you only say those words because you want him to continue talking, you want to hear him talk, it's nothing that crazy, having a conversation with him is just so intriguing to you for some reason..

"well yeah— but you guys get more training so you have an advantage" he comments, narrowing his eyes at the field, arms crossed over his chest. "the guys on our team have no idea what their doing".

"do you like football?" you ask, not sure why your so interested in his answer, you just are, you have no explanation for your sudden intrigue of this charming oreo–haired boy that goes to your rival school.

your much too distracted by how gorgeous he is to worry about giving yourself an explanation.

dejun laughs again, shaking his head. "not really, my dad does, so i just know things because of all his screaming and shouting" he replies, arms still crossed over his chest. "i'm not really a sports person, i do musical theater for pete's sake".

"oh so you sing?" you don't mean to ask another question, you're worried that you might be bothering dejun with your constant inquiries, but he actually seems glad, excited that someone is asking him about his major.

"well yeah" he responds, his smile growing. "all things theater, i write the songs, i act the parts, i play instruments, sometimes i even take offstage roles instead of my usual onstage ones".

he fiddles with his fingers, picking his nails. you assume, from his mannerisms, that he doesn't know what to say because most people don't really ask him about his major, or what he does, it's like he's elated that you even asked him.

"what about you?" dejun instead asks, veering away from the topic of his major and instead making yours the main topic of discussion. "what do you do?"

"health science" you say the words as if it pains you to, like it's the single most uninteresting thing you've said this whole interaction. "i know, it's boring".

dejun laughs again; "no no! i didn't say that!" he waves his hands in a disagreeing manner as he chuckles at your words. "i just don't meet a lot of people interested in pursuing science.."

"it's more of the health aspect than science actually" you mutter, and dejun just looks even more interested in what you have to say now. "but science is a big part of it so.."

"you must be very smart then" dejun remarks, smiling as the two of you make eye contact.

"i'm alright" you just say, finally pulling down your formerly rolled up sweater sleeves now that the air outside has begun cooling down. you only lightly shiver, and you glance back at dejun one more time..

"where do you think guanheng is?" he asks, clearing his throat as he scours the still full and lively bleachers, searching for your friend. "off doing whatever he does.."

you're currently very distracted, and you don't even realize what's going on when you snap out of whatever daze you were having and everyone is suddenly standing up and cheering like there's no tomorrow.

dejun looks over at you, and he can clearly see how confused you are because he laughs for one last time. "you guys won!" he somehow manages his voice over the roar of the crowd. "congrats!"

he's yelling, but he's not exactly loud, he still manages to sound so gentle whilst yelling at you.

"thanks!" you blurt out as a reply, and you feel like a complete idiot for that, but dejun smiles, so you don't feel all that embarrassed.

the game is over, and people are going to start to leave soon. dejun looks back, spotting a group he recognizes, then he looks over at you, a smile on his face. "i've gotta go now" he says, almost disappointed in a sense. "it was nice meeting you y/n!"

you nod, not knowing what to say. "yeah! you too!"

you too? you too?? is that what you say y/n!?

dejun gives one more beautiful smile before heading off, and you blink, having absolutely no idea what just transpired in those few minutes.

holy shit i forgot to ask—

but you couldn't— because he was gone, gone in such a flash you couldn't even spot his oreo hair in the crowd.

YOU FORGOT TO ASK FOR HIS NUMBER. YOU FEEL SO STUPID, your not even sure why you wanted to ask him that, but in the back of your mind that was the question you were preparing yourself to ask from the moment he told you his name, that he was friends with guanheng, the moment the two of you began laughing about your majors and stuff like that. the whole interaction with a pretty oreo–haired musical theater major at a football game is all that you were thinking about last night, as you tried to find pretty much anything else to think about as you struggled to sleep.

how did you forget to ask him for his number? you want to smash your face into your computer screen because of how stupid you are. you said "you too!" like a fucking idiot, but maybe you were just too distracted, he was smiling at you with that beautiful smile and staring at you with his absolutely gorgeous fucking eyes, how could you even think coherently whilst a beautiful man (from a whole other school but who cares?) was staring at you with his pretty brown eyes like you were the only person in the world?

okay your pushing it now..

but there is just something, something about him that drew you in, your not sure why you were so adamant on getting to know him, but he was just so— you can't explain it right now! you are currently very sleep deprived and also moody because of your disappearing roommate that always decides to appear at the worst times.

you don't remember the last time you ever got an actual eight hours of sleep, these days that seems like a dream more than a reality, but guangheng is just never tired. he's somehow always up, doing something, hanging out with people, he never sits down in once place and just stays still.

when he walks into the room, hands on his hips and gaze immediately focused on you, you barely bat an eye at him, just spare him a quick glance, noticing how pissed off he looks. you scour your mind for an explanation as to why he must be mad now, probably something someone said, or he got into yet another argument with one of his classmates, your not even sure anymore, you don't know where he is half the time.

"could you do me a favor?"

you almost laugh out loud, not at him, but at the idea that he wanted you to do him a favor. at this point, he probably owes you thousands of favors considering how many you do for him, but he seems upset, and you don't have any of that pettiness leftover to ignore him, so you move your eyes to look over at him.

"why should i?"

okay— you lied, your still just a little petty, but you totally have every right to be! guanheng deserves just some sass from you after disappearing each and every time he decides to take you out somewhere.

guanheng blinks, then he pulls out the signature guanheng frown, a sad stupid frown he always makes when he wants to persuade you into doing something. you're not sure how you've even ever fallen for that signature frown, maybe it's because he's just so great at looking sad, at looking upset, he somehow always manages to make you feel bad for him, and therefore, end up doing the favor for him.

"because i'm your best friend, your roommate, and you love me so much" guanheng smiles wide, like he just found out he won the lottery, and clasps his hands together as he rocks back and forth on his heels.

"i don't know.." you mumble, looking back at your computer screen. it's a saturday, you have no classes saturday, you can just sit down, relax, be the absolute lazy motherfucker you were put on this earth to be. "i don't feel like going out today".

guanheng huffs, crossing his arms. "one last favor! just one! then i'll get off your back!"

"your horrible at following your promises, heng" you comment absentmindedly, your tone is much meaner than you intended, and guanheng's gasp is enough to tell you that he indeed takes offense to those words. "what? i'm not lying".

"y/n!" oh great, he's whining now. "i will get you anything i can, anything! just this one favor! please?"

your about to say no again— but then it's like a lightbulb goes off in your head, and you get a spectacular idea. anything? he did say anything, and he can give you something you want.

the number of a pretty boy preferably!

you let out a sigh, and guanheng knows what that sigh means, it means you agree. "fine, i'll do you this favor, but this is the last one".

guanheng's smile brightens, and he cheers like a kid that just got the best christmas present one can receive. "thank you! thank you! thank you! i love you!" he kisses your cheek, and skips off to another room.

"get your jacket!" he shouts, already rooms away from you, so he has to shout.

"what?"

"get your jacket! were leaving!"

you furrow your eyebrows at his words, but you don't say anymore, because you did agree to do this favor for him after all.

so, without questioning it more, you get up and go grab your jacket.

"SO WHEN YOU SAID A FAVOR..?" you don't continue on with your sentence, pausing to let out a breath as you shove your hands into the pockets of your jackets. guanheng looks over at you, and he just chuckles at the unreadable expression on your face. when you agreed to do this favor for him, you didn't know it included leaving your dorm and having to be dragged out to yet another unfamiliar place. "did you forget to mention the fact that we'd have to leave the school?" you finally finish, eyes focused and narrowed on your friend, who again, smiles at you with that signature guanheng smile.

"it's a saturday, most of us don't have classes anyway, they won't question it".

"is that supposed to make me feel better?" you ask to yourself more than to guanheng, but he hears you anyway, and that results in a snicker from him. despite that, he doesn't respond to your silent question, making you frown just the slightest.

"stop pouting".

"i'm not pouting" your quick to rebut, rolling your eyes at his words. you almost bump into him when he suddenly stops, and your about to yell at him again for being stupid when he places a finger on your mouth.

he knocks on the door in front of him, not paying attention to the burning glare your currently sending him.

"i'll bite off your finger" you threaten, moving forward and pretending your about to do that. guanheng squeaks and quickly moves his fingers away from your lips, a flash of true fear in his eyes. all you do is give him a menacing and totally not threatening smile.

"psycho.." he whispers, he looks like he's about to say more, but the door opens, so he closes his mouth and turns around.

"come on!"

he grabs your wrist and drags you into the dorm, and you felt your heart rate increase. maybe he knew these people, but you sure didn't! what if they thought you were weird? you want to pull him back and tell him that he shouldn't just drag you into some strangers dorm, but he is much too distracted to even notice your uneasiness.

"i've returned!" guanheng yells, letting go of your hand to place his hands on his hips, as if he was proud of himself.

"can you slam the door on him!?"

"ten! come to me!"

before you can ask him what the hell is going on, he sprints down the hallway, you assume to go after this ten person, you just blink, shoving your hands into your pockets as you begin to rock back and forth on your heels.

"hello stranger!" an unfamiliar voice exclaims, you look up and come face to face with a pink–haired boy with a bright smile.

"hello" you reply politely. "i like your hair" you immediately remark, pointing at his hair like an idiot because you don't want to touch it and make him uncomfortable.

his face lights up, as if you were a millionaire that just gifted him a life changing amount of money. it was as if no one ever told him that his hair was pretty before, or that they liked it. he jumps up and squeals, excited. "thank you! ten said it was stupid!"

you furrow your eyebrows, then chuckle. "what? no it's very pretty, pink suits you!"

"hah! i told you guanheng! pink does suit me!" he yells down the hall, and you can hear the small shout of rebuttal that guanheng responds with from all the way down the hall. "thanks! only a few people actually noticed that i dyed my hair".

you laugh again, okay he is very funny, you like him!

"oh! i'm yangyang! the nicest person who lives here!" he introduces himself in the same fashion a reality tv star would, and quickly grabs your hand to shake it. you don't complain, just laugh again as he vigorously shakes your hand.

"y/n, it's nice to meet you".

he gasps, recognizing your name. "oh you're the famous y/n! guanheng always talks about you, for a long time i was convinced he was in love with you!"

"why are you tarnishing my brand!?" guanheng shouts again, sounding even more pissed off than he did before. "huh!? liu yangyang!?"

yangyang shakes his head, ignoring guanheng's loud shouts and flapping his hand, mocking him. you laugh as you watch him mock the other, who has absolutely no idea what he's doing right now.

"you have a project to do!" another unfamiliar voice shouts.

yangyang gasps again, suddenly looking stressed. "fuck yeah— um!" he turns around and reaches over to grab his laptop, then he turns back to you and gives you a smile.

"yeah, my apologies" you just wave it off, urging him to keep going. "um i'm doing a project where i have to interview people on their majors.. trust me i don't know either, but! i've interviewed like the whole school already, and i need one more person.."

"and that person is me?" you ask, but you already know the answer to that question, yangyang nods, much more quickly than he seemed to intend to.

"yes!" he exclaims, but then he clears his throat. "but only if you want to, i don't want to force you into anything you don't want to do—"

"no no no it's fine!" you cut into his sentence, shaking your head. yangyang, again, looks elated that you agreed.

okay so this was the favor guanheng wanted you to for him! (not for him necessarily— but his friend). he could've just told you about this straight up instead of being vague about it, it wasn't even that burdening of a favor, not like the other ones you've done for him.

"guanheng! why don't you bring him around more often? he's better than you are!" yangyang yells again, probably for the nth time that hour.

guanheng doesn't answer, but you knows he's pouting, you can just sense it at this point, you call it your "roommate instincts".

"oh hi y/n".

now that's a voice you recognize, and you almost don't believe your eyes when the one person that kept you up all night walks into the room and smiles as he sees your figure. "dejun, hi" you smile back at him, hoping you don't sound as awkward as you feel.

dejun looks so so pretty, as he always does. he fiddles with the necklace hanging around his neck, his eyes lingering on you for an unspecified amount of time.

"ten hit me with his shoe" guanheng suddenly storms into the room, arms crossed over his chest. "asshole.." he mutters under his breath, huffing like some sort of baby.

dejun then laughs, covering his mouth with his hand, and that causes you to laugh, turning your head to the side as to not make it obvious.

guanheng exchanges glances between the both of you, a prominent glare in his eyes, but then the look in his eyes changes, and he points at the two of you. "you two have met?" he asks.

dejun pauses, still humored by the previous words said by guanheng, and your brain almost malfunctions once again. "i— um" great, you just sound so natural and not awkward.

"we met at the game" dejun immediately says, saving you the awkwardness of having to collect your words in your brain. you thank whatever god or deity up there for dejun's quick response, and he just flashes you that familiar pretty smile. "yesterday, you know, while you were off doing who knows what.."

guanheng gasps, looking at dejun like he'd just cursed his entire bloodline. "you— your just such a bitch! you know!?"

"ow! don't punch me! i'm fragile!"

guanheng lands one more punch on his shoulder, and it gets one more squeak out of dejun, who jumps once again. "i don't care, your horrible".

yangyang blinks, probably already used to their little quarrels. he then turns to you, just shaking his head as they continue to whisper–argue. "so, what do you major in?"

it's almost like you totally forgot, his project, the thing that guanheng dragged you here to help him with. "health sciences, i take courses in everything related to healthcare and like— half actual science courses?"

"so your looking to work in healthcare?"

"yeah basically, i've already taken courses in emergency service's, becoming a paramedic is my top option!"

yangyang gasps at your words, he looks over at guanheng, then quickly back at you. "are you single?" he asks, again with the same quickness.

dejun snorts, hitting guanheng as begins laughing hard. guanheng scrunches his nose, staring at yangyang like he's crazy. "what kind of question is that!?"

"what? that is a totally valid question to ask!" he exclaims, crossing his arms. "it's for my project! clearly!" he lies.

"your— oh my god, unbelievable".

"so are you?" yangyang asks again, looking at you with suspenseful eyes. he is very much interested in your answer it seems.

your finally finished with your laughing fit, and nod, still very amused. "yes i am, i'm single".

"good, this is very important information".

yangyang gives you a giddy look, and dejun just continues to laugh.

you're not sure why your so focused on him though..

YOU AGAIN, HAVE NO LUCK SLEEPING that night, and after the first hour and a half of tossing and turning, you gave up on trying to chase slumber you knew you wouldn't be able to catch. you assumed that the longer you stared at your computer screen, the quicker you'd get tired and the quicker your eyes would become heavier, but no! it's now almost two in the morning and you still aren't sleepy in the tiniest bit, you didn't know insomnia got this bad, if you knew this prior to coming back to school this year, you would've bought more of those sleeping pills. you lean your chin onto your hand as your computer continues playing audio from a random episode of brooklyn nine–nine.

the millions of thoughts rampant in your mind were probably distracting you, rendering it impossible to sleep, and also rendering it impossible to focus, seeing as your just looking around your room, which is pretty much boring you considering all you've been doing for the past thirty minutes is looking around your own room.

you think your gonna bore yourself to death, you pretty much prepare to stay up for the next five hours until your alarm rings and startles you out of your daze (which has happened way too many times for your comfort), but then your phone rings.

it's almost two in the morning, who exactly is calling you at this time? who knows that you're awake at 1:56 in the morning and decided to call you? they probably knew you'd pick up..

and you know who it is— it's so obvious.

dejun.

you don't mean to pick up your ringing phone as fast as you do, you want to punch yourself in the face for how desperate you seem, and you almost don't answer the phone because you feel so embarrassed. "hello?"

"hi!" dejun sounds way too joyous for someone who is sleep deprived, and up at 1:57 am. "sorry? was that too loud?"

"no no your fine" you reply, even though the speaker is on, guanheng can quite literally sleep through anything, there was one time the fire alarm was going off for a good ten minutes and he didn't even budge. "guanheng is a pretty heavy sleeper".

"he's lucky, i can't sleep" the sound of shuffling on the other line resonates in your ears, and dejun huffs, sounding frustrated. "you were the only person i assumed would be awake".

you snicker. "why is that?" you inquire, he was right, of course, but you just wanted to hear his reasoning, and also wanted him to keep talking.

you really like dejun's voice for some reason, it just scratches the right part of your brain. in these past two days you realized that you like a lot of things about dejun, many more things than you thought you might.

"your major has the word 'science' in it so i just assumed the amount of sleep you get is slim to none".

now that gets another laugh out of you, you laugh much more than you intend to, but also— it's dejun, and you can't resist the loud laugh that escapes your lips.

oh your such a desperate little bitch—

"well you'd be correct" you respond, humming as you pick at your nails. "at this point sleeping is beginning to make me tired".

there's a long pause, and your worried you made everything more awkward, because you don't hear anything from the other line. for a moment, you're almost convinced dejun hung up on you, but before you can speak he beats you to it.

"i can keep you company until you get tired" he immediately suggests, and you almost choke on your spit when he says that. "i don't mind".

you go silent, feeling as if all logical thoughts in your mind have suddenly disappeared into the air. you might sound like a complete loser right now but that was just so sweet of him to suggest, you smile much too wide for your own comfort, but you don't even think about that, because your just so charmed by the words.

"you are.." you pause, clasping your hands together as you think about what words to say next. "yeah yeah, that's fine" you finally continue, your new words having no connection to the previous ones you previously said, you just hope dejun doesn't notice.

"good! it would've been awkward if you said no" dejun giggles, and you just can't get over how cute he sounds. "plus, i wouldn't want you to be tired in the morning, lord knows how much you do in a day.."

you feel an unfamiliar fluttering feeling in your stomach, because he is so considerate? he wants to help you, he's just being so nice to you at.. two! two in the morning! you bite down on your bottom lip, hoping it doesn't bleed from how hard your tooth drives into it.

"aww, you care about me that much?" you ask, just wanting to hear him talk again. you feel like a teenage girl giggling and kicking her feet over a high school crush, except you can't kick your feet and giggle because then dejun would know.

"okay, be quiet, don't make me hang up".

"okay okay don't do that!" you say, totally meaning to sound as desperate as possible this time. "if your not here i won't ever fall asleep".

you hear something similar to a squeal on the other line, as if dejun had heard your words and just freaked out.

the realization honestly boosted your ego.

"you— you suck!"

"you offered to help me jun, don't get like this now!"

you're not sure how long it goes on for, but you swear you two laugh all night while on the phone.

"SO WHOSE THE GUY?" the question is asked so abruptly that at first, you assume you heard your friend wrong. when you look up, he stares at you with that deadpanned gaze, and that's when you realize he's completely serious. you chuckle at the realization that your friend is sure that your in love with someone (well you are— your just surprised that he figured out so quickly). "what guy? there's a guy?" you tilt your head, acting as if you have no idea what he could possibly be talking about. you giggle as you watch him slowly get even more irritated by your answer.

"you always come in here looking a little less miserable each day" chenle observes, leaning forward as he narrows his eyes at you. "someone is making you excited to live life?"

"do i always come in here looking miserable?" you ask, completely diverting your attention from chenle's previously asked question, which makes him pout.

"yep!" renjun exclaims, sitting beside you, he crosses his legs in his chair and presses his lips into a thin line. "so! who is he?"

the two seem way too excited to know about your never talked about before crush on dejun. now— you didn't know it was so obvious that you were now smitten for this new guy, you're usually the friend that's known from straying the furthest away from love, you don't remember any people you've legitimately liked that weren't elementary school crushes..

so yeah, your friends totally had every right to be surprised, because your absolutely smitten for a man and they just want to know who this man that is making you so happy is!

you hate that you give in so easily. "he's one of guanheng's friends.." you mutter, picking at your nails, looking down to make sure you don't witness renjun and chenle's reactions with your own two eyes.

renjun gasps, sounding like those ladies at the hair salons that just heard the juiciest gossip. "ooh! who? does he go here? do we know him? is he pretty?"

chenle looks over at renjun like he's crazy, that familiar judging stare in his eyes as he watches renjun lean closer to you with a totally not creepy smile on his face. "don't you think your acting a little too interested in this?"

"i just want to know!" renjun shouts, playfully glaring at the younger. he then turns back to you, and you assume his cheeks must be hurting from how hard he seems to be smiling. "tell me please?"

"he's— he's just your run of the mill pretty guy who is nice, and smart, and absolutely adorable who tells horrible jokes that still end up being funny in some way and he has a pretty laugh and i just love his voice, and talking to him, and, i can't even explain it because it'll sound stupid!"

"you sound like a psycho" chenle immediately says, laughing at you like you just confessed to an atrocious crime against humanity. you sink into your chair, slumping towards the side.

"aww! the pessimistic y/n is in love!" renjun squeals, again, like those women at the hair salon who just heard the juiciest gossip. he grabs your arm and shakes you vigorously, causing you to get dizzy in the slightest bit. "i can't believe i've lived to see this day!" he shouts, continuing to shake you as you can't properly get out your cries for help.

"renjun you're gonna kill him" chenle pinches the older in the arm, making him yelp and jump, he giggles as he witnesses the glare the older male sends him, his crushing grip remains around your arm, but you don't even mention at this point, because at least he's not shaking you anymore.

"sorry" he remarks, definitely not sorry as he squeezes your arm once again, beginning to get overly excited. "it's just.. exciting you know?"

"it's exciting that i'm in love with someone?" you raise an eyebrow, and though you expect renjun to respond, chenle quickly does.

"yep! you'll finally be gone!"

his cheer results in a gasp of offense from you, and all chenle does is giggle in victory.

THE ONE THING YOU'VE LEARNED FROM THE now excessive amounts of times you've hung around guanheng's other friends is that they're loud, they are all really loud (even sicheng! who, for a good majority of the time, is always quietly staring at his friends with clear concern in his eyes), even if they don't mean to, they're somehow always either yelling, shouting, or making some sort of scene. they're all just naturally hilarious, like comedians that don't realize they're comedians because they're just being themselves. in the past few weeks, it's like you spend more time with these people that don't go to your school in comparison to people that actually go to your school and that you can see easily.

but if you're being honest, you don't really mind that your spending all your free time with them, because they are indeed very fun to be around (and you get to see dejun much more regularly, which is something you rather enjoy), and because life would be insanely boring if guanheng didn't decide to drag you out of the dorm every other day to go do stupid things with his friends that go to a whole other school.

"you are such a cheater! i won fair and square!"

"you did not! your the cheater! sicheng is my witness!"

sicheng, who was not listening to anything either ten or yangyang had to say, looked over at the younger with a look of concern washed over his features. he blinks as he's suddenly put on the spot, smiling nervously as the youngest stares intensely at him, waiting for his answer. "uh.. i— i don't know".

his delivery makes you burst out laughing, and you cover your mouth with your hand as to not make yourself look like an absolute fool. you don't even realize that you picked up on one of dejun's habits, you might be spending too much time around him..

actually, forget that! there is no such thing as spending too much time around dejun, and that might make you sound like a "simp" but you don't care.

you've fallen, and you've fallen hard.

"okay.." guanheng presses his lips into a thin line, ignoring the way ten and yangyang now begin discussing the logistics of cheating in card games, unfortunately dragging poor sicheng into their argument. he turns to dejun and scoots closer to him. "can you do me a favor?"

dejun groans, playfully rolling his eyes. you assume he's done as much favors for guanheng as you have, and you barely stifle the snicker that dares to escape your lips.

dejun hears the sound, and smacks your arm hard, making you jump. he only gives you a teasing smile before turning to guanheng, having to give him a response.

"at what lengths do i have to go for this favor?"

guanheng scoffs, crossing his arms. "it's nothing insane or anything, i just want you to get me something.."

"and you can't get it yourself because..?"

"i have no money on me" and there goes that signature guanheng frown, dejun opens his mouth to argue but then he shuts it so quickly it seems like he just got out in some sort of trance.

"fine fine" dejun rolls his eyes once again, surrendering much too quickly. "you owe me though—"

"take y/n with you".

there's a pause, both you and dejun go very silent for a moment. whilst dejun is just confused, you absolutely know what guanheng is doing, and you have to use every bit of patience in your body to restrain yourself instead of jumping over the table and tackling him right then and there.

dejun is clearly clueless, though, because he just raises an eyebrow. "why?" he inquires, somehow sounding so sweet even though his question is asked with so much confusion.

"y/n knows what i want".

what a smooth lie, dejun glances over at you, and you just shrug, having no idea what more to say. "he needs to take a walk anyway" guanheng lies again, wow, two in a row! he's on a roll.

"okay..?"

so that's how you find yourself on a walk with the person that you are very much in love with, a somehow comfortable silence spread between the two of you as dejun hums an unfamiliar tune to himself, hands in his pockets, eyes closed as he slowly sways back and forth.

he looks very peaceful, just doing what he does, being effortlessly pretty as he does so, and you observe his behavior, almost entranced by it in a sense.

you only stop when he speaks up—

"do you think they're still arguing?" he suddenly asks, and you snap out of whatever daze you were having, praying that he totally didn't notice you admiring him like a creep. "or are they just.. conversing calmly now?"

you don't want to seem like even much more of a weirdo, but you feel like he asked that question just as an excuse to talk to you, and maybe your thinking too much into it, but you've definitely done that before, so you know what it looks like.

"i hope they aren't still arguing" you answer, and dejun looks up at you, smiling. "that'd be a long ass time to argue".

"well they like arguing just to argue" dejun replies, fiddling with his necklace. "but they're harmless.. for the most part".

his delivery makes you laugh, and you look down at your shoes. "you're a very calm person, you know, the opposite of guanheng".

the sudden statement from dejun makes you look up at him once again, and this time, he's staring directly at you, as if he had been waiting to make eye contact with you the whole time. "calm?"

"well compared to my roommates you are" he giggles, and maybe he doesn't mean to, but he stares at so intensely that your legs feel shaky.

"who knows? maybe i'm a fraud" you tease, purposefully leaning closer to him so your words have an effect. dejun's eyes widen, and he lightly leans away from you, looking speechless. "you'd never know, though".

you don't know how you suddenly got so bold, or why you were so amused at the sight of dejun freaking out, you feel like some sort of genius for what you just did, and you snicker at yourself before leaning back.

dejun takes in a deep breath, looking like he's trying to fix himself. he clears his throat and stumbles through his next words. "i— uh.. you're such an idiot!" he decides to say, crossing his arms over his chest.

your not sure how the two of you became so casual in this amount of time, a few weeks ago, dejun wasn't such a regular figure in your life, and you were just any other college student doing their best to get by, not thinking about falling in love with a gorgeous oreo–haired man—

but you're also not complaining.

you aren't sure how you got so lucky, how it just happened that you could continue to spend time with the cute boy you met at a stupid football game simply because the two of you shared mutual friends, it's one of times guanheng's actually done you a favor, without even realizing it too!

"okay i'm sorry" you giggle, shoving your hands into your pockets, you once again begin taking from dejun's habits and sway back and forth. "seriously!"

"you're unbelievable" dejun exaggerates, rolling his eyes, but it wasn't serious, and you knew it wasn't serious. "but i meant what i said, your calm".

you raise an eyebrow at him, wanting to know more about the observations he has about you. "could you elaborate on that?" you don't mean to laugh, but you do, and it causes dejun to laugh too.

"you just.. seem content with what you have" he explains, but he doesn't explain it enough, so he continues. "like someone could get you a piece of paper as a birthday gift and you'd be pleased".

you laugh, hard, because he somehow managed to get you spot on. you almost feel like he is reading your mind, because he nailed you down with each word. "really? i guess i am like that".

"ah, so my prediction was right then!"

you laugh at how glad he is. "yeah, i am truly not that hard to please, gifts are gifts and if someone gets one for me, there's no use in being mad if the gift isn't something i like, at least they remembered to get me something!"

dejun stares at you for a specifically long time, looking you up and down. he stares at you with warm eyes, a gaze that seems so near and dear to his heart, a gaze so loving that it looked like he was about to get down on one knee and propose to you.

"i like any and all gifts" you continue.

"are there any specific kinds of gifts you like?"

dejun asks that question in a tone that makes it seem like he's totally not trying to sound suspicious, but he is totally asking you that question for a very specific reason.

guanheng must've told him something..

at least, that's what you assume, but dejun is patiently waiting for your answer, and you can't daydream the whole time about the true meaning of his words.

"i like books, plushies, music tapes, vinyl's, you know.. regular gifts that people like receiving".

dejun hums, as if he's noting down the information you're telling him in his mind, still, you don't say anything about his mannerisms, just keep it to yourself.

"are you noting down my reply?"

"i'm just keeping it in mind!" he says, smiling brightly at you. "just in case your special occasion comes up and i don't know what to get you".

oh! so guanheng definitely did tell him something..

"i mean— were friends! any gift from you will be a good gift".

at the word friends, dejun seems to pause, cogs in his brains turning as he tries to process your words. you don't understand why he would be trying to understand your words, because the two of you were clearly friends, did he think you two were something else?

you see the flash of disappointment on his face, but it quickly reverts back to a smile and he simply acts like nothing happened. "sorry, the word 'friends' just caught me off guard".

a lie..

how interesting.

"seriously though, i just want to get you a gift you'll appreciate forever".

but you're already enough for me— do you know how much you've changed my life?

your own thoughts manage to surprise you, because the words that you just told yourself in your own mind startle you enough that you make a judging face at yourself. luckily, dejun is turned away from you, so he doesn't notice.

"well that's thoughtful of you".

"i try my best.." he responds, finally looking back at you with that same loving stare, one that wants to lure you in and make you trip on your own feet.

for some reason, the two of you stop. there's an uncharacteristically long pause, like the world just decided to cease for a moment, and you both are completely stuck in place, just there, staring at each other.

dejun's eyes move, as if scanning your face like a camera, and they (of course) stop at your lips. he stares at them for what seems like forever, and it almost looks like he's restraining himself, but by the way he bites his bottom lip, it's clear—

he wants to kiss you.

and maybe there's a small voice at the back of his head that tells him to cut it out, because he almost immediately snaps out of whatever daze he was having, and clears his throat, his cheeks going a bright red.

"uh— sorry, yeah, um, we should get going" he says, shaking his head as he pulls his sleeves down.

"guanheng will yell at us if we're late".

okay, so he just decides to not talk about it? you want to ask him why he didn't just do it, because he clearly wanted to, but before you can even open your mouth, or get any words out, he grabs your hand and the two of you continue walking back to the group.

he doesn't say anything more, doesn't try to make anymore small talk, and while you do want to bring up what just happened there, you don't.

you just bask in the feeling of dejun's hands intertwined with your own.

it's a good feeling, you decide.

THAT MOMENT IS STUCK ON YOUR MIND for what seems like years. you can't get over it! how he was looking at you, how he clearly wanted to kiss you, but for some reason, decided to stop himself from doing so. you're not sure why you didn't just tell him that it was okay, that you would be completely fine with him kissing you, but you guess that you're just a complete idiot as well, because you just stayed silent throughout the whole thing, the two of you equally deciding in silence to not bring it up, just sitting next to each other in awkwardly for the rest of the night.

and yeah, it's become normal for dejun to constantly run through your mind these days, it's like he has his own subsection in your mind, dedicated to thoughts about him and him only, but it's like he's just become rampant in there ever since that.. thing he did (or should you say, didn't do, considering he decided to not kiss you when the opportunity was right there), maybe you should've pulled him in, maybe you should've (for once) been impulsive and done the first thing put to your mind.

and this crawls through your mind for days, then those days become a good week and a half. now— you and dejun aren't not talking or anything, it was just sort of difficult to look at him without thinking about that.

you're so into your thoughts these days, that you are much more spacey during your classes, at home, and somehow, guanheng picks up on your weird turn, which is crazy, because guanheng was the last person you expected to notice something like that, he usually never notices most things in front of him anyway.

"okay, what the fuck happened?" he decides to randomly drop it on you when he seems to have had enough, which is funny, because he's technically the person that started the whole thing.

you look up from your phone, blinking at him like he just said something out of this world. "hm?" he scoffs at your lack of a response, shoving your shoulder, which results in a glare from you.

"what happened?" he asks again, this time without the extra swear word, he makes himself comfortable on the other side of the couch. "you are acting weird" he points at you accusingly, like you'd just been accused of a crime and he was trying to figure out if you were truly suspicious.

"i don't know what your talking about.."

"stop stalling!" he complains, grabbing your arm and beginning to shake you back and forth. "tell me! you can't keep acting weird and just not tell me what's wrong".

now you want to tell him, but in your mind it sounds so stupid that you feel like guanheng would laugh at you the moment you uttered the first few words of your sentence. "you're going to laugh".

guanheng gasps, offended by your response, though it is true, he just wants to be dramatic. "i won't! i'm concerned! i'm being a good roommate and asking you what's wrong!"

so, you roll your eyes, taking a deep breath. "okay so hypothetically.." you begin, because you have no other idea how to start your sentence.

hypothetically just means = it was indeed not hypothetical!

"hypothetically, uh huh.." guanheng hums, understanding the true meaning your words have. "okay sorry, continue".

"let's just say that, hypothetically, i am totally in love with one of your best friends, and that friend totally wanted to kiss me but then chickened out last minute and like an idiot i didn't say anything and i have no idea how to go about it".

guanheng's eyes widen at your words, and his jaw almost drops. "hypothetically though" you add to the end of your sentence after a long pause.

"right right! hypothetically.." he nods, though he can't contain his look of excitement at the words. "and you didn't kiss him back!?"

you're almost knocked off the chair from how intense his yell is. you groan and cover your face with your hands, embarrassed and ashamed. "i didn't know how to bring it up and not be awkward!"

"just say 'hey dejun you could totally kiss me and it'd be fine because we are both mortifyingly in love with each other'!" guanheng shouts, louder than his previous words. he's always so straight up, and you almost wish you didn't tell him anything. "it's that easy!"

"it is not!" you shout in rebuttal, crossing your arms and frowning. your acting like guanheng at this point, but that's not what you're noticing at this very moment. "it's easy for you! you date people and you kiss people all the time! i don't do that!"

"excuses excuses!"

you're at a loss for words at his lackluster words, you once again, frown and turn away from him. "i'm sorry! i have never been hardcore in love with someone like this before! i don't know how to talk about it!"

guanheng looks like he's about to yell again, but he takes a deep breath and relaxes himself, leaning back in the couch. "okay, i'm sorry for yelling.."

"y/n, you really just need to tell him how you feel straight up, because if you keep stalling than none of you will end up confessing in the end and you'll both just be going through a loop of 'should we or should we not?'"

you blink, staring at guanheng for a good few minutes, honestly surprised. this is probably the best advice he's ever given you, usually, you’re the one that has to give him advice because he always ends up doing something stupid and has someone that wants to murder him because of that stupid thing he did.

"that was actually.. good advice" you reply, laughing at guanheng's eye roll. he just shoves you, making sure he does extra hard this time to get his point across.

"shut up! i always give good advice!"

"you usually don't give any advice at all.." you mutter, running a hand through your hair as you look away from your roommate, who just glares at you like you just committed a federal offense.

"say something again and i'm gatekeeping dejun from you!"

"your what!?"

at the sound of your shout, guanheng giggles as he scurries away, proud of himself for the words that escape his lips.

YOU'RE NOT SURE HOW YOU SOMEHOW LET guanheng drag you off to a party on a friday night where all you wanted to do is relax. parties have never truly been your thing, but that's because being surrounded by a bunch of drunk and high adults just isn't your idea of fun, you're also just not a big drinker, so the only reason you usually even end up at parties is to take guanheng home when he gets too drunk and can't fully articulate his thoughts. so, the fact that guanheng was somehow able to convince you to get out of the house and go to a party when you truly should've been at home, watching horrible sitcoms.

but no, you're here! and you can't leave without guanheng because if you did, he'd probably find a way to end up killing himself, or he'd say the wrong thing to the wrong person and would end up getting punched in the face.

so you find yourself in a familiar spot, your back against a wall as you stare at your phone, somehow able to ignore the hundreds of screaming drunk people that surround you, it's become a skill of yours, and you're not sure how exactly it developed, you've just become such a natural when it comes to ignoring others.

guanheng, of course, has already walked off to do his own thing, but not before reminding you of the advice he'd given you a few days prior, yelling at you to 'just tell the boy you like him!'

maybe his advice is burned into your brain, because now all you wish is that you were with dejun, talking about something stupid, or just talking.

and there must've been somebody listening in on your thoughts, because he suddenly walks around the corner, head whipping around like he's searching for someone.

your not trying to look at him, but he catches your gaze immediately, and he skips towards you like a kid in a candy store.

"hi" he greets, a little giggle to his words. his face is a shade of bright red as he giggles once again, though nothing's funny. "pretty".

he whispers the last word, with the intention of you not hearing it, but his mind must be too clouded for him to realize that he said it much louder than he thought he did, but you don't say anything, just hum.

"hello" you greet back, and he laughs once again, covering his hand with his mouth. "are you okay?"

a loud snicker leaves his lips, and he moves closer to you to link his arm with yours. he rests his head onto your arm, a content smile spreading across his face. "i'm drunk".

his honest answer makes you question his state for a moment, since when do drunk people admit that they're drunk? or maybe he's only just tipsy.. your not sure, but he's not acting like a totally sober person right now.

"are you sure?" you raise an eyebrow, dejun just responds with a small 'hmph', and he keeps your arm linked with his. "dejun".

"yes! i am!" he yells as rebuttal, shaking your arm a few times. "do you wanna smell my breath?"

"oh no no no" you reply, covering his mouth with your hand. he laughs at you, his cheeks as pink as yangyang's hair, he grabs your hands, and whilst yours are cold, his are burning hot. "okay you have energy".

"i'm sorry" he suddenly blurts, another snort escaping his lips as he leans his head against your chest. you give him a look, confused as to why he felt the need to apologize.

"for what?"

"for doing that thing" dejun responds, closing his eyes as he sways back and forth. "i probably made everything awkward, i didn't mean to".

that's what he thinks? he thinks that he made everything awkward? you feel your heart break at the realization, but all dejun does is laugh sadly.

"you didn't— you didn't make everything awkward, it's okay".

dejun laughs again, clearing his throat. "just tell the truth, y/n.."

you chuckle, not at dejun, just at his words. he wants you to tell the truth? fine.. you will!

"dejun" you begin, using your pointer finger to tilt his chin up so the two of you make eye contact, you watch as his eyes widen, but he doesn't move, just lets you do your thing. "you can kiss me, it's okay".

he blinks, as if trying to figure out if you were lying or not. he opens his mouth, but no words come out, so he closes it again. "it is?" he asks again, just wanting reassurance, you hear his voice crack, but he's getting impatient, he wants your answer.

"yeah it's fine".

that's all the conformation dejun seems to need, because he finally presses his lips to yours after what seems like years of waiting. your arms naturally rest on his waist, and there's just something, something about this that makes you smile.

there's an urgency in the way he kisses you, and his hand comes up to hold your face. he is just so desperate, and it would be a lie to say that you weren't just as desperate as he is. you'd been wanting this for so long, you don't even know how many times you thought about what it would be like to kiss dejun.

his fingers caress your cheek, and the contact feels like your skin was set ablaze. maybe this is what you needed, and you assume it's exactly what dejun needed to, because he pushes on your shoulder with a seemingly inhumane amount of force, which makes you gasp a little.

while your one arm is around his waist, the other one goes up to run your fingers through his hair, somehow causing the two of you to both smile, barely stifling your laughs.

after what seems like forever, dejun pulls away, and while you're standing there, breathless, he just smiles, relaxing as you play with his hair. "you like my hair?"

you aren't sure why out of all things, that's what he decides to ask, but you laugh, completely enamored by the boy in front of you. "yep, it's soft" you reply, biting your inner cheek. "the color suits you".

dejun tilts his head, looking up at you with his insanely pretty eyes. you just want to squish his cheeks, or wrap him in a blanket and hold him forever, you aren't sure why you just have this surge of loving emotions for absolutely no reason, maybe it's the way he's staring at you, or that he just left you breathless and did it so flawlessly.

he hums, not knowing how to respond to your compliment. he just suddenly gets shy, his ears turning red at your words.

"you're so stupid.."

that's probably his favorite phrase to say to you by now, but you don't mind, you just smile as he hides his face away from you. 

"dejun" you call out despite him being right in front of you, and he looks up at you again, gaze warm as he gives you a small smile.

"yes?"

"i love you" you immediately spout, not even surprised by how high your voice has gotten. "like— in the i'm in love with you kinda way and not in a i just want you to kiss you but not call you my boyfriend kinda way".

dejun pauses, snickering at your words, he looks at you like you're the only person in the world.

what other way could there possibly be?

but you don't get any response, at least, not from him, because all he does is lean forward and press his lips to yours.

YOU'VE NEVER REALLY BEEN A FAN OF YOUR BIRTHDAY, and you aren't sure why. it used to be a fun thing up until you turned twelve and it suddenly felt like a switch had flipped, as if your birthday was making you miserable. now it's not like you always feel depressed on your birthday, it's just that sometimes you don't want to have a huge birthday celebration. most of the time— you only request for huge birthday bashes on specific days, like when you turned ten (you were very excited about becoming a double–figured age), or when you turned eighteen (you became an adult, not that exciting but it was definitely something, you could finally legally drink), but it's truly only specific days that you don't mind having large, people–filled birthday parties.

and not only were you not exactly anticipating your birthday, you already had something even bigger on your mind the whole time.

like dejun ghosting you! that's definitely one!

okay so you tell the guy you love him, you make out with him at a party (in the opposite order but oh well), he doesn't give you a response and then he decides to just ignore you?

maybe he just didn't know what to say, and that also lead to him just not picking up his phone for a good two weeks as he completely ignored your calls and texts and voicemails!

and with this being the only thing on your mind, your birthday seemed to be the least important event at the moment.

you didn't really want to think about it, and the campus was starting to make you feel sick, so this year you planned on visiting your parents after the day was over, considering your special day fell on a friday—

but guanheng, guanheng had other plans.

he practically begged you to let him throw the party for you, he wanted to do it so bad that he vowed to never ask you for a favor ever again (which is a lie! he never keeps his promises!), he was acting so desperate, it was like you'd just saved his life or something.

you're not sure what made guanheng so eager to throw a party for you, especially because you just didn't know what you would do with a bunch of people in your dorm.

but he insisted, he would throw you the best party in the world.

and after what seemed like forever, you two finally agreed on something—

you go visit your parents friday evening, and guanheng throws your party on saturday, easy!

"what do you mean strawberry isn't a good flavor!?"

you scoff at his question, nodding your head, as if confirming your words. "i don't like strawberry flavored things, you get me a strawberry cake and i'm making you sleep outside".

your threat results in a gasp from your roommate, who looks genuinely hurt by your words as he places a hand on his chest, horrified. "you are such a horrible roommate! threatening me when i'm throwing a party for you".

"it'll be a horrible party if you get me a horribly flavored cake".

you totally mean what you say as well— you truly dislike strawberry cake.

and when guanheng said party, you didn't exactly anticipate how many people he would decide to let into your dorm.

now you know a good chunk of these people, but most of these people probably decided to come just because they knew guanheng, all they did was utter some happy birthday's and then they ran off to do their own thing.

guanheng got most things right, he just invited a bunch of people that really didn't care for your birthday, just wanted to be around him.

so it's no surprise that you felt just a little disappointed about the people at your party that just didn't give two shits about your actual birthday.

and guanheng was off doing something else, though you could actually see him this time, he was telling people where to put the gifts they brought for you.

your beginning to feel suffocated in your own dorm, which is ironic to you, because this is quite literally the place you go to get away from a bunch of people, it's the only place of yours that isn't full of people.

so, you clear your throat, and push through people to get to the door, not wanting to stay inside with all these people, you'll probably end up throwing up everywhere if you stay inside even longer.

when you exit the dorm, you take a deep breath the moment you close the door, letting your back fall against it. you immediately jump as you see a person behind the door—

okay so dejun (who you confessed your love to by the way!), is pacing back and forth in front of your door, totally stressing. you blink, a look of confusion spreading across your face. "um.."

"are you okay?"

you aren't even sure why you opened your mouth, but if you didn't, this would just go on for a good twenty more minutes.

dejun jumps, clearing his throat as he smiles awkwardly. "you— scared the shit out of me".

he's acting so casually? after not talking to you for a good two weeks!?

"sorry—"

"i'm sorry!"

dejun immediately yells, covering his face with his hands. "i'm so sorry for not texting you! or calling you! or giving you a response! it was so stupid of me to not consider your feelings and instead of just telling you straight up how i felt i decided to ignore you but i was scared that i wouldn't be able to tell you without making it awkward and it—"

"dejun" you place your hands on his shoulders, turning him around to face you. "your rambling".

he sighs, eyes darting away from your face, he frowns. "but it's not okay, i didn't talk to you, i probably came off as such an asshole! you were probably so confused, and i just.. said nothing!"

you observe his features, and he looks even more anxious at your silence. his face goes red, and his leg begins bouncing up and down, whilst his hands look for something to hold.

"okay, calm down.." you mutter, reaching for his left hand and lacing it together with yours. "it's okay, there's no need to be worried".

"i'm sorry" he says again, finally looking up at you. "i get it if you don't forgive me—"

"dejun" you cut into his sentence, squeezing his left hand. "i forgive you.. i love you".

you repeat your confession once more, and dejun blinks, processing your words.

"i love you too".

and finally, after what seems like forever, after what was so long, he gave you a response.

before you could say anything more, dejun pulls you in for a hug, his arms circling around your waist. you're a bit taken aback by the sudden display of affection, but you also don't mind, because he squeezes you tighter.

"happy birthday" he mumbles, a small smile coming to his face as he feels your hand comb through his hair. "i'm sorry".

"stop apologizing" you say, lifting his chin up so you could look him in the eyes. "i forgive you, it's okay".

and it is, you're being completely honest, but dejun doesn't say more, immediately pulling you back into a warm hug

but suddenly, the door to your dorm swings open and guanheng peaks his head out, eyes widening as he witnesses the current thing. he has absolutely no context to anything which was happening at the moment, he just opened the door to witness a totally unaware dejun hugging you.

"uh.." he blinks, glancing between you two, but not asking anything, just clearing his throat. "it's time to cut the cake?" he laughs awkwardly, and you just smile, giving him a i'll be right there look.

"o...kay" he doesn't say anything more, just goes back inside and closes the door.

dejun giggles as guanheng closes the door, pulling away again to look up at you. "oh he is totally tired of us".

"we didn't do anything, though".

dejun snickers, lightly hitting your arm. "okay okay, you need to stop, it's your birthday, you have to go cut your cake".

"and.." he pauses, pulling a box out of nowhere and handing it over to you. "open your gifts".

you raise an eyebrow, confused. "where were you even hiding that?"

"that's irrelevant! it's your birthday, come on!"

and you let him drag you back into your dorm, smiling at him the whole time.

YOU ALMOST CONSIDER THE WAY YOU are acting to be absurd, and it's funny how much of another side dejun can just bring out of you. now you would never consider yourself to be a grumpy person, but people usually do describe you as having a 'natural frown'. you never really thought of yourself as being like that, but you guess that people don't see you look so happy much, because they continue to point out how it's like some glitch in the matrix to see you just a little less miserable as each day passes. chenle especially makes comments, talking about how you need to "put your smile away" because not seeing your resting face constantly freaks him out, renjun on the other hand, is elated, or maybe he's just glad he can finally be rid of you, you don't know.

but all that put aside, you are happy, and you have a cute oreo–haired man to thank for that.

and maybe this is all you really need, just dejun, the two of you don't even have to do anything, he can just lay his head down onto your shoulder and you'd be having a good time.

you like it when he sits down and paints your nails for you, or when he watches you bake over your shoulder, not knowing what to do but happy to watch you do your thing, or when he coerces you to win prizes from carnival games for him with his absolutely adorable eyes (he doesn't even need to try to coerce you, you'd do it either way).

"i'm pretty sure this is illegal".

"it's not!" you reply, though you mean to reassure dejun, your words seem to worry him more than anything. you take his hand, squeezing it. "dejun, i'm not getting you into any illegal activity".

"i can never tell with you" he retorts suspiciously, keeping your hand in his as you lead him up, he would have tripped if not for you holding your hand and guiding you up.

you clear your throat, patting the spot beside you as dejun immediately sits, so close to you that your legs are touching. "if i ever wanted to do something illegal, i'd know better than to bring you along".

he gasps, and you can't resist the urge to laugh at how offended he sounds. "what is that supposed to mean!?"

"you" your pointer finger touches his nose, and he doesn't even try to move. "are a snitch, you would be horrible to commit a crime with".

dejun slaps your hand away, and you laugh at the way he crosses his arms, a familiar pout gracing his absolutely beautiful features. "you— i.. take that back!"

"it's true! even yangyang would be a better option than you!"

dejun is even more offended by the words, and he slowly scoots away from you, arms still crossed as he pouts. you giggle as he remains scooted away from you, still angry about the words you said.

"uh— jun, i was just joking!"

"you suck".

dejun glares, but his glare is anything but serious, as you can see the way he slowly starts to break under your gaze, resisting the urge to burst into laughter. "i hate you".

"you love me".

he does, and he can't pretend he doesn't, because he almost immediately snickers, looking away from you as to not laugh more.

oh he is just so adorable.

you scoot closer to him and wrap your arms around his waist, making him yelp. "you're so cute" you mutter into his shoulder, and at this point, dejun doesn't even try to pretend anymore.

"you're so corny" he says, patting your arms that currently circle around his waist. you lean your head down onto his shoulder, making yourself comfortable, and he just lets you, because at this point he can't really push you off him.

"don't fall asleep, i'm not going to carry you back to your place".

"you would be too weak to carry me anyway— ow!"

you yell loudly as dejun nudges you in the stomach with his elbow, and while he looks absolutely proud of himself, you just glare, absolutely done with him.

but you don't say anything, just lets your fingers run through his hair, probably your favorite thing to do with him. he just cups your face, and he just smiles at your face, giggling. "your just as cute as when we first met".

the statement makes you snicker, because you did not expect for him to say that out of all things he could've said. you get why he says it though, because you are at the place where it all began, the bleachers, the same bleachers where you two were standing when you shared your first interaction.

you tilt your head, wanting to tease him more. "so there were moments where i wasn't cute, then?"

dejun scoffs, turning away from you. he lightly pinches your arm, and you yelp once again, inching away from him. "why do you enjoy hurting me?"

he smiles innocently. "i don't, i have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!"

your face drops, and all dejun does is laugh, squeezing your cheeks. "don't be mad, babe, you know i love you".

and you do, you do know, he never fails to remind you of how much he does.

"i love you too.."

with your eye rolls, and tiny mutters, dejun knows, he knows that you're telling the truth.

[etherealfishyfeelings]

Synastry Notes: Sun/Moon

Disclaimer: these are just my personal experience with sun moon aspects in synastry. This is also essentially a rant.

Another Disclaimer: the conditions present in the natal chart such as signs, aspects and house placements can radically alter how one person experiences synastry aspects from another. As well as how developed someone is. I have moon conjunct mars and squared to chiron and widely squared to pluto personally. And it's in the 12th house. Please keep that in mind, I really don't like things poking at my moon. Also I am very sorry that this was so long. I did not think that I really had this much to say.

The Conjunction: I have a love/hate relationship with this one. I thoroughly enjoy being the Sun person in Sun/Moon aspects in general. But with the conjunction as the Sun person I really tend to feel strong sense of protective care over the Moon person. I tend to take their emotions very seriously, it may not show up that way though since its in Aquarius but internally I feel a very strong pull to ensure their comfort and support their emotional needs. However, as the Moon person, i don't really tend to like it. All that attention on my Moon in the 12th? Ew. I feel really exposed and I often feel like the Sun person just seems to have no comprehension that they are trodding all over sacred ground. It isn't all bad though, I often feel like the Sun seems very accepting of who I am(no matter how weird or wacky) even if they do kinda feel like a bull in a china shop. I find that they usually do mean well, and they tend to be very good listeners, I feel very heard when talking to them about my feelings and thoughts.

The Opposition: Also a love/hate relationship I love being the Sun person but I genuinely loathe being the Moon person here. As the Sun person it feels very similar to the conjunction, I take the Moon persons feelings very seriously and go through great lengths to give them comfort and keep them entertained. Lots of gift giving?? Now that I think about it. Like LOTS OF GIFTS now that I'm really thinking about it. However there were times where I really felt like I was missing the mark and I didn't really get the Moon persons reactions to things. On the other hand as the Moon person, just no. I felt like the Sun person constantly rained on my parade, and they often required me to explain myself, like a lot(Virgo vs Pisces at its finest). I felt very judged and boxed in. Very uncomfortable for me, and for them from what I could see.

The Square: This one really depends. As the Sun person(in Aquarius) here I really tend to struggle with Scorpio and Taurus moons. They tend to find me fickle and I really, I mean really struggle to understand their emotional needs and even the ones I do sort of understand are so foreign to me that I am left baffled anyway(like I get it, but I don't get it. Like I get why doing XYZ is nice for you but I would never do that for 6 hours day, especially if I was ???sad???) and any attempts I make to have fun or do anything really are usually seen as threats to their person security. This aspect is REALLY loud for me. Especially because I have Saturn in Taurus. It's almost like I am uncomfortable with how uncomfortable I seem to make the Moon person just by being me. And if you live with them it's basically arguments galore. And getting a lot of the silent treatment. When I'm the Moon person it's sort of better, mostly because it's between mutable signs. Gemini and Sagittarius are light enough in their demeanor that I can ignore most of the friction but this also means that their Sun Squares my Mars and its very evident here, esp with the Sag suns. Like waaay more evident here than in the opposition for some reason. Like there is a general sense of interest in just meandering through the world together, like it's quite explorative in the physical world and in thought but most of the Sagittarius Suns that I've interacted with said they thought I was a bit of a bully(and I quote, "Do you even care about anything? Why do you always have to be so rude? And loud?") and too aggressive for their liking(I did ask why every time, I never really got a clear explanation so I cannot confirm the exact reason. My interaction with Sag Suns generally tend to be goofy and nice if it's kept short but long term its just goofy and confusing). And the Gemini Suns were great, had a lot of fun with them but ultimately it just fizzled out after many of the big clashes between us became evident. Overall as the Moon person the aspect wasn't too loud. But I prefer these two signs as moons signs.

The Trine/Sextile: actually pretty neat? Like both ways, especially with the trine. Takes me a while to notice the serenity of them but when I finally do take notice, I am hooked. Being the Sun is similar to being the Sun in the conjunction, just far less intense and more playful. And this is the only Sun/Moon aspect where I thoroughly enjoy being the Moon person. I love how light and almost airy it is, even when I'm dealing with a Scorpio Sun. Which seems crazy but it really works fine.

[breadbrobin]

the bet

part one.

cedric diggory x reader — harry potter

[fem!best friend reader]

summary: you could turn down many things. food, romantic advances, friendship. but you could never turn down a good bet

warnings: quite a lot of swearing, betting/gambling, GOD they’re so in love it’s stupid, minor character death (sort of???), i think i’m a comedian (i’m not), switched from an x oc story so might have a few mistakes oops

word count: 1.1k

(this is the x reader version of this story! i figured i might as well put it out there. why not, ig? anyway this story is kinda old now but i love it sm it’s so silly and fun so enjoy!!)

(i’ll be posting part two and three anyway but lmk if you want them!)

part two

part three

—————————————

The Inciting Incident

It all started when Lizzie Crawford entered the bathroom.

“God, Liz, do you ever knock?” You asked, mostly unfazed. You were used to her friend bursting in unannounced almost every time you were showering.

“No,” Lizzie said, perching on the edge of the closed toilet and picking at her chipped nail polish. “Now, I have a proposition for you.”

You poked your head around the opaque shower curtain. “Oh?”

She hummed absently, running her hand through her hair. “So you know how Diggory’s spending some of the summer with you, and then you don’t live that far away so you’ll probably be in each other’s pockets all break?”

“Uh… yes? Obviously, I know that? Why does that matter?”

“Well, I’ll bet you twenty galleons that you’ll get some action with him over the holidays.”

You turned the shower off and peeked around the shower curtain at your friend. “Come again?”

“I bet you twenty galleons that you’ll get some with Diggory over the holidays.”

“He’s my friend.”

“And? Do we have a deal?”

You paused, considering your options. On one hand, you knew you didn’t have feelings for Cedric. On the other, it felt wrong to take a bet like that. Finally, your lack of moral compass won. “Fine. We have a deal.”

“Great! I can’t wait to be twenty galleons richer.”

“Yeah,” you laughed, turning the shower on again and letting the water run through your hair. “Keep dreaming, Liz.”

“What are the conditions?” Camilla Maquez asked, leaning across the table at dinner.

“Conditions?” you asked, buttering a bread roll and handing it to her.

“Yeah, like, what constitutes as ‘getting some’,” she used quotation marks. “Because you two are so affectionate anyway, so Liz, you need to specify.”

You rolled your eyes and pulled a face at your friend.

“No, she’s right,” Lizzie cut in. “Kissing? That counts.”

“Only lips though right?” you clarified.

“Yes, babes. Holding hands romantically counts. Gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes.” she hummed in thought. “Hugs with romantic context.”

Camilla snorted into her bread. When the other two shot her a confused look, she raised her hands. “It’s funny because they do all of this anyway.”

“Not romantically,” you pointed out.

“Mhm,” she smirked.

“Piss off.”

“Anyway,” Lizzie continued. “Legs. Anything to do with legs. Touching your leg with his hand or leg or anything romantically.”

“Mm, that’s sexy stuff,” Camilla mocked.

“Like I said, piss off.”

“Obviously sex.”

“Liz!”

“Which you probably won’t do, but I need to keep my options open here.” she rectified.

“I have a bet myself,” Camilla spoke up again.

You sighed. “Yes?”

“Not with you.” she waved you off. “Five galleons says Diggory makes the first move.”

“That is not fair. We all know Y/N’s a pussy.”

“Hey!”

Lizzie laughed. “Just speaking the truth, hun. Oh! Pet names, but like, meaningfully, counts.”

“Are you taking my action, Liz?” Camilla implored, sticking her hand out.

She shook her head. “I guess so. You better prove me doubly right, Y/N!”

“Not planning on it,” you sang quietly, returning to your dinner.

The Cow Situation

Before you knew it, the school year was over.

You woke up around midday, that first day back, and stared at the ceiling, relishing in the silence that surrounded you. The birds chirped outside you window and a thin ray of sunlight peeked through the tan curtains, leaving a golden line across your body and room.

With a sigh, you rolled out of bed and rubbed her eyes. Your hair was a tangled mess around the back of your head, but you simply pulled it into a loose bun and headed downstairs.

A note sat on the kitchen counter.

Taken the dog for a walk, be back around 1:30. Hopefully you’ll be up by then…

Love, Mum

You smiled softly and put two pieces of bread in the toaster.

You leaned against the counter and stared out into the yard. A few chickens pecked and scratched the dusty ground and a pair of cows grazed in the field behind them. A small girl sat on the trampoline, not bouncing.

You frowned as you opened the door and walked over, scaring a chicken out of her way.

“Hey, Little C,” you called. “What’s up?”

Cordelia Ridge, your nine year old sister looked over her shoulder and looked back. “Hi.”

Your smile fell from your face and you climbed up onto the trampoline beside her. “Uh oh. What’s going on, Cords?”

“Mummy says Diedre is sick,” she pointed at the black and white cow.

“Sweetie, Diedre’s always getting sick.” you sighed. “Shoddiest immune system I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen you.” you poked her side, enticing a giggle out of the girl.

“So she’s gonna be okay?”

“Of course. It’s Diedre. She’s always pulled through before. Why not now?”

They were holding a funeral for Diedre the cow.

Cordelia was absolutely beside herself. You stood behind her, a hand on her shoulder, the other hand holding a bouquet of long grasses, hand picked and arranged by Cordelia that morning.

It was a dry day, and the sun was shining, and Cordelia was glaring up at it like it was personally offending her.

“Don’t look at the sun, Little C. You’ll go blind,” you chided, pulling your sunglasses off and slipping them on your sister’s face.

“Maybe I want to,” she sniffed. “Maybe I deserve it.”

Your face contorted in confusion. “What?”

“I should have realised sooner,” she wept. “I should have given her the love she deserved.”

You stared down at your younger sister, whose bottom lip was wobbling precariously. You crouched down and tucked her wispy hair behind her ear. “Listen to me, Cordelia. There was nothing you could’ve done. The animal doctor said that it was just time for her to go. Like Grandma.”

That apparently did not help.

The floodgates opened and the sunglasses fell off. Cordelia planted her face in your shoulder and wailed.

As the young girl cried, your eyes caught onto two tall figures walking towards the family.

Your mum smiled softly at you before walking over to the people.

The larger of the two hugged her and she led them over to you and Cordelia.

You saw it was Cedric and waved slightly.

He raised his brows at the crying girl you held before crouching down beside her and tapping Cordelia’s shoulder.

“Hey, Dells.” he said quietly, making her sobs quieten and her head turn towards him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She sniffled once, then twice, and detached herself from you. You breathed a sigh of relief, believing the worst to be over, when the nine-year-old launched herself onto Cedric, crying into his black shirt.

He shot you a small smile, reaching out and patting your knee gently as he comforted her sobbing sister.

Your stomach lurched.

That should have been your first sign.

[lovely-showtimes]

Saw that your requests are open and felt a tiny bit of whimsicality in me😈 anyway, if it's not too much, can I request Rui, Honami, Nene, and Tsukasa with a s/o who's always eepy? Like they just woke up then says "I'm sleepy" and goes back to sleep? Something like that! I love your writing so much I just had to request something to indulge myself wawahwahaa take your time with it!!

feeling sleepy . . . ♡

characters - honami, tsukasa, nene, rui.

type - hcs.

a/n - reader just like me fr </3 i love to snooze it's so fun. i hope you enjoy ~

Honami is very... curious about your sleeping habits

How could someone always be so tired like you?

But eventually, she just decides not to question it. It's not like it's harming anyone

(Well, maybe it's harming your sleep schedule. But you're somehow always sleepy, so maybe it's okay? ...Honami tries not to think about it too much.)

If she notices you falling asleep somewhere kinda uncomfortable, she'll try to move you to somewhere that is

And sometimes, that place is her lap. She's embarrassed about it, but you never seem to mind, so it's probably fine

...She also enjoys being your pillow sometimes but she isn't ready to admit that yet

"Oh, you're waking up! Good morning, sleepyhea- ah, there you go again..."

Tsukasa is incredibly confused by you

How do you never wake up and feel energised?? Are you okay?? Do you not get enough sleep at night??

He bombards you with such questions out of worry, but when you reveal you're just sleepy for no real reason, he calms down a little

He's still concerned about you, but he'd probably worry no matter what you do

If you ever fall asleep on him, he'd just kind of... freeze up and panic

He doesn't wanna accidentally wake you or anything!

But at the same time, he doesn't want anyone else to wake you either. And he does that in the most 'Tsukasa' way possible

"OI! Stop talking so loud, can't you see they're sleeping?! W-What do you mean I'm gonna wake them up?!"

Nene doesn't mind how sleepy you are. She thinks it's nice to be around someone so calm

Somehow being around you makes her feel more exhausted, so it's not uncommon to find the two of you napping together

You're someone she can collapse beside at the end of a long day to relax with, to feel her worries washing away

...Although sometimes she does get mildly annoyed by how tired you are

Not that there's anything particularly wrong with it, but... She wants to spend time with you! In more ways than just napping with you!

Don't be surprised if you ever wake up to someone poking your cheek, okay?

"Are you awake yet? Finally. Come on, I want to- did you just fall asleep while I was talking again?"

Rui never once thought it was strange or out of the ordinary for you to be so sleepy all the time

And somehow he's always ready for a 'sleepy spell', as he calls them

You feel tired when you're out and about? He just... picks you up with zero issue

You fall asleep on him? That's fine, he's got a blanket and pillow handy. No matter where you are. Somehow.

You wake up and immediately fall back asleep? Rui didn't have any plans later anyway, he'll keep you company while you nap

This almost always leads to him dozing off with you, too

"Asleep again, hm? That's alright. If you're going to be asleep for a while, then I... *yawn* I might as well get some shut-eye, too."

[wjhik]

Hiii!! How are you? Can I ask for a jude request where both the reader and him go on Ridiculousness and it’s just all fluff and jokes, thanks anyway

Cuddles (Jude Bellingham)

Soft moonlight seeped through the curtains, casting a gentle glow over the room. The walls were adorned with pictures of cherished memories, and the bed is a cozy haven of warmth and comfort. I was scrolling through movie options to watch. I worked my ass off all morning to get all my uni work done, so I could enjoy my weekend, not needing to stress about having to get anything done. As I picked an M&M out of the package I heard the door open. I perked up and listened. I heard keys being dropped on the table and bags being put down. I heard footsteps moving towards the bedroom, where I was. The door swung open to reveal my beloved boyfriend.

“Hey, baby.” Jude says with a sigh. “Hi.” I smile at him. He rushed into the bathroom to settle himself.

Jude came out in a t-shirt and his boxers. “Hey.” He says, settling himself in bed, next to me. He laid his head on my chest and wrapped his arms around my waist. “How was your day?” I asked him. He always got clingy after a hard day. “It wasn’t bad. But I got cold, and wet.” The rainy season was hard for Jude. All he wanted to do was cuddle in bed with a warm cup of hot chocolate. “Yeah? I’m sorry, baby.” I comfort him, running my hands through his hair. I moved my hand to grab his under the blanket. Once contact was made, he immediately pulled away. “God, woman. Your hands are so cold. What the fuck?” He exclaims. “Why do you have to freeze my ass every night?” He whines. I don’t understand why he thinks it’s so cold. It’s really not. I only keep the thermostat at 16C. (that is really cold for me, but that’s what i keep my room at so wtv)

I playfully grabbed his face, enveloping him in my coldness. “AY! GET AWAY!!” He yells out. “You’re such a drama queen.” I giggled. “I’m not. You’re fucking insane.” He says, referencing my temperature preferences. I simply rolled my eyes at him.

“What are we doing tonight, girlfriend?” He says, poking my side. “You tell me, boyfriend.” I  replied, my eyes stuck to the T.V., struggling to find something interesting. “Well, I thought we could have some fun.” He whispered. “Stop being a horny teenager. Let’s watch Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.” I dismissed him. “You’re genuinely such a child.” He said.

“I never want to leave this bed.” I said, seemingly out of nowhere. Jude makes me feel so comfortable and safe. Nights like those were my favorite, because it was just me and him. No cameras. No media. No interviews. No judgment. Just a man and his girl. It was perfect.

“I second that. It's like a fort of coziness.” Jude replied. He held me in his chest tighter, and kissed the top of my head. He put his finger under my chin and made me look at him. I looked in his eyes, but instantly got nervous. I looked down, blushing to myself. He lets out a breathy laugh. He lifted my face once again, and kissed me. I felt all the butterflies that have ever been in my stomach all at once. 

I pulled away and kissed his nose. I propped myself up on one elbow, gazing up at Jude with a mischievous glint in my eye. “What’s going on in that brain of yours, huh?” Jude asks, seeing past my eyes. “You know, we could stay here forever. Build a tiny world of blankets and pillows, and never face the world outside.” I say, holding him tight. Jude flashes me a heartwarming smile that I will never get tired of. “I'm all for it. We'll need to hire a breakfast delivery service, though. Can't survive on cuddles alone.” Jude jokes. I rolled my eyes and asked, “Why do you have the humor of an 86-year-old grandpa that gets called ‘pop-pop’ by his grandkids?” I ask him. He gasps loudly and places his hand on his chest. “For your information, girls would die for this humor.” He huffs. “I am girls.” 

We shared a laugh, our fingers playing an intricate game of interlocking puzzles. My hand found its way to Jude's cheek, and I stroked it gently. “I love you so much. You don’t even get it.” I say. Jude quickly reciprocated by kissing me. He pulled away with a dramatic smooch to my head. “You do realize we've been in bed for hours, right?” I observed. “Hours? More like days, I think. Time ceases to exist in our cuddle kingdom.” Jude said. This guy is such a dork. “Please, stop. I think I’m going to be sick.” I said. “You love me.” Jude said, rolling his eyes. “You know I do.” 

We laid there in silence, savoring the tranquility of the night, enveloped in a cocoon of love and comfort. I lifted my head to plant a soft kiss on Jude's lips, and he responded with a gentle caress, our affection speaking volumes without the need for words. “I’m so sleepy.” I said, yawning into Jude’s chest. “I know, sweetie.” Jude twisted at an awkward angle to reach for the T.V. remote on his side table. He grabbed it and turned off the T.V., as well as flicking off his side lamp. He reached above me and turned mine off as well. He shimmied down slowly, trying not to disturb me. “Sleep, my love.” He whispered quietly, kissing my head.

“I love you, you know.” I say, dreamily as I doze off into a deep sleep. “I love you more.” Jude whispers, knowing I can’t hear him. Our embrace tightened, as if trying to fuse our souls together, seeking solace and strength in each other's arms. The world outside may be calling, but for now, in the safety of our love, time stands still, and the only reality that matters is the one we've created in the quiet sanctuary of our shared warmth.

Dm for Requests

Wattpad: Funkyfishfeet

[tvgals]

stay at home dad! eren x black! wife! reader 🫶🏾

- i love powerful women 🤩

cw- eren has a daughter and a son, eren trying to manage his kids’ hair, modern au + carla never died, glasses! wearing eren, black! reader, enjoy !

what was eren doing? well, currently, he was trying to add beads to the bottom of his daughters twists, his large calloused fingers constantly slipping from the beader, beads falling onto the floor. “just call mama!” nevaeh — you two’s daughter — called from her spot in front the couch. her blush pink fold out chair in between eren’s legs while he sat on the couch.

“i can do this. your mom said i need to learn how to do it myself.” and with that, eren pushes his glasses up with his wrist and gets back to work, his tongue poking out his plump lips in concentration. “daddy look!” his daughter calls out, pointing at the tv in awe. when eren looks up he sees the clear imagine of tiana and naveen having their bayou wedding. “it’s pretty, right? your mom said she wanted a wedding just like that.” eren says, a dopey smile on his face - reminiscing on his beautiful wedding day. the day he became practically conjoined forever with the love of his life.

“what’d it look like daddy? was it pretty? did you do pink?” nevaeh beamed, turning around in her chair. “of course it was! i only had to have the best for your mom,” eren replied, “i have a bunch of pictures. i’ll be back.” eren stands up and rummages through the storage closet, finding a white photo book, labeled ‘wedding day <3’ eren grins and walks to his son’s room, knocking on the door before walking in. “jay, wanna look at pictures with me and ��veah?” eren asks, showing him the photo book. “yay!” his stubby three year old legs waddling his way to eren. eren picks him up and walks back to the living room, plopping onto the couch. “cmere ‘veah.” eren says, patting the spot next to him. she sits down and peers over eren’s arm, the photo book in his lap.

eren opens up the photo book and is presented with a picture of you and him at your bride and groom table, whispering and laughing about something. “see, your moms wearing blue flowers around her wrist. you can see her big dress from under the table.” eren chuckles, he can only remember when you insisted carla didn’t have to go all out for your dress, but she shook her head and made one anyways, she wanted only the best for her daughter in law. nevaeh giggles. “where was i at?” looking up at eren with wide eyes. “well just after this we made…you! then your brother two years later!” eren smiles. just before his sentence started once more, all three of them heard the door unlock. nevaeh and jay jumped up and ran to the door. you open it and are greeted with a pleasant surprise. “momma!” nevaeh said, hugging your legs, jay following her.

“hi ‘veah, hi jay! did y’all have fun with your dad?” you smile, picking them up in each arm. “had alotta fun! daddy showed us pretty pictures of you at your wedding!” nevaeh said, pointing at eren and the photo book. “did he?” you giggle, walking over to eren.

“hey baby. how was work?” eren coos, kissing your pretty lips. “tiring as usual. i can see you’re watching princess and the frog again today.” you snicker. “princess frog!” jay blabbers, playing with eren’s fingers. eren smiles. the princess and the frog credits started playing, so he went to turn on another movie. “again, daddy!! again! pleaseeee!” nevaeh pleads, trying to do her best puppy dog eyes. “pleaaseeee!” jay echos, giggling. “fine. but just this last time, then we have to eat dinner.” eren gives in, pulling jay into his lap and nevaeh to his right side, giving you two space to cuddle on the side. the movie started once again and you look to eren.

“sooooo,,,what’s up with ‘veah’s hair?” you whisper.

eren sighs,“i tried.”

[thus-spoke-lo]

cw: 18+, minors dni. a little crack-ish. suggestive content. weed usage.

“You ever tried this?”

Toshinori stares at the small, pungent-smelling cookie held in your outstretched hand. “Tried what, marijuana?”

‘“Marijuana,’” you taunt, snickering as you reach to tap him lightly on the ass before hastily retreating to the edge of the kitchen, attempting to avoid retaliation. “I swear to god you say it like a fuckin’ cop. Although, I mean, you kinda were, sorta like, the world’s premiere cop. So I guess that tracks.”

“Honeybear, I wasn’t a cop, you’re being absurd.”

You throw your head back and let out a groan. “I know you weren’t a cop, love. I’m just exaggerating. Anyway, you do say it like a cop, I’m telling you.”

“What do you want me to call it, then?” He furrows his brow, still exaggeratedly rubbing his backside where you’d swiped at him.

“I dunno.” You sink down to the floor, sitting cross-legged against the counter. “Pot? Weed? Literally anything else, you square.”

“Square?” He places a hand on his hip, long wooden spoon still clutched in his fist, and scowls. “I’m not square.”

“Well you never answered my question.” You flop sideways on the wooden floor, tapping your fingers on the faux-wood panels.

His brilliant eyes darken slightly, his lips just barely parted as if to speak. A deep flush spreads across his face, and he quickly turns away from you, suddenly intensely interested in his pasta sauce while he grumbles under his breath.

“Toshi? Toshi.” You slowly rise up from the floor like a freshly-resurrected ghoul and pad across the kitchen to stand in front of him, poking your finger lazily at his cheek. “You have, haven’t you?”

“I’m not answering that,” he mumbles into the steaming pot of sauce, gently batting your hand away.

“Why, in case the apartment is bugged?” you cackle.

“No, of course not.” He glances at you out of the corner of his eyes, sets his wide hands on the counter. “That’s not it.”

You cock your head and smile softly, running your hand up and down his sinewy forearm. “Toshi. I’d hope you’d know you can trust me by now. I’m not gonna go to the tabloids and blab about every little secret you tell me, I’m not a fuckin’ snitch. Besides”—you lightly trace your fingers over the veins on the top of his hand—“if I was gonna do that, don’t you think I’d tell them about something more interesting first, like how big your dick is or something?”

He chokes on a mouthful of spit and turns to glare at you and your damned shit-eating grin. He shakes his head and sighs, smiling at you resignedly. “Of course I’ve tried it.”

Your eyes widen and your loud gasp fills the room. “Seriously? When?”

“When I was in America.” He rolls his eyes and shrugs. “I did manage to have a little fun while I was over there, you know.”

“You mean to tell me… All Might was a pothead?” you cackled, the cookie you nibbled at earlier starting to make this whole situation even more comical than it already was.

“Keep your voice down!” He places a long finger on your lips to shush you. “I wasn’t a—a pothead. I just enjoyed myself a bit. It was a different time then for me. For everyone I guess.” His eyes stare off past you somewhere as he pauses for a moment, his finger dragging down your lips. “It that really so hard to believe of me?”

“I dunno, a little.” You kiss the tip of his finger. “You just seem so, you know.”

“No, I don’t think I do know,” he says, his voice low, as he settles his hands on your waist and pulls you a little closer into him, your body just barely brushing against his cooking apron. “Why don’t you enlighten me, hm?”

“Well,” you start, your hands settling on his chest, “you seem a little… straight-laced sometimes.”

He leans down, kisses you softly along your jaw, down your neck. “Straight-laced, huh?”

“Okay, maybe—ah—maybe that’s not the word I’m looking for.”

He laughs, whispering hotly in your ear, “Do you mean ‘old,’ sugarpop?”

“No! God, no.” You exhale heavily, thoughts of Toshi—his past, his life before you—running through your mind like a melancholy newsreel, while his large hand caresses your forearm. “I just mean, like. You had the world resting on your shoulders. Didn’t seem like you had a lot of time to enjoy yourself, you know?”

“No, I suppose I didn’t,” he breathes into your neck before snatching the rest of the cookie out of your hand and holding it to his lips, grinning at you. “Good thing I have all the time in the world now, wouldn’t you agree?”