#anyway sorry! this was why i didn’t end up following up on anything but hopefully later for sure

[weirdnesstheory]

i was a ton more drained then i expected to be so i was sort of sleeping on and off but since i’m heading to bed again i’ll likely be back a lot later instead since i still have my usual sunday shift in the evening

[miraclewoozi]

DO YOU DREAM OF ME? - c.hs

the first time you kiss your soulmate, you’ll open your eyes to a world of colour. the problem? vernon hates the thought that he might pull away from you and still see in monochrome.  or, five times he wanted to plant one on you, and the one time you beat him to it. 

pairing ; vernon x gn!reader.  content ; all the tropes. 5 times fic. soulmate au. slight college au if you squint. f2l. fluff, some angst. pining. one (1) hint of suggestiveness if u squint. MINORS STILL DO NOT HAVE MY CONSENT TO INTERACT.  content notes ; mentions of reader having a(n unnamed) partner & thereafter, going through a breakup due to said partner cheating. reader is maybe implied to be shorter than him but hopefully not too obviously or frequently. alcohol is mentioned & is a key theme in scene #3. pov switch for the final part (necessary for logistical reasons.) PLEASE let me know if i've forgotten anything. w/c ; 9.6k note ; welcome to thee most self indulgent fic ever lmao. i hope u enjoy this slight break away from what i usually post here (as if my entire brand isn’t writing losers in love. ANYWAY) -- this was very fun and a little bit special for me! <3

“What was your first kiss like?”

Initially, Vernon swears he just didn’t hear you right. It’s dark up here, where you’re hiding away from a party on the roof of his university accommodation and he’s starting to get tired. There’s some sort of siren wailing away in the distance to his left, and on the street below, a gaggle of freshmen are cackling as they walk past the building. His ear closest to you is currently listening to your favourite song. 

All the signs suggest that he simply got it wrong. 

But he doesn’t know if he believes those signs, especially not seeing as when he looks over at you, you’re staring pointedly up at the stars overhead. He doesn’t doubt that you’re giving yourself an ache in your neck in the process, too.

“Hmm?” He asks, taking out the earphone that connects him to you. The other one is still nestled away in your ear and he reaches to gently pull it away. “What was that?”

You still don’t look at him, but you do repeat yourself. Quietly. “What… was your first kiss like?”

“Oh.” 

He was right. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” you hurry to say, hugging his jacket tighter around yourself to block out the cold air that blows across the rooftop. He shrugged it off and told you to take it the very moment your teeth started chattering — almost an hour ago now. His arms are bare, shoulders and biceps only covered by a t-shirt so thin it’s practically sheer, but he isn’t cold. He’s always run hotter than most. “Sorry.”

He nudges you with his knee, silently telling you that you don’t need to apologise. He doesn’t mind — you just caught him off guard; Vernon hasn’t given this any thought in a long time, and he has to really put his mind to coming up with an answer. It was forever ago — when he was eleven or twelve, maybe, with his first ever girlfriend. They dated for a whole two and a half weeks. He doesn’t know if it really counts: the kiss was a dare, after all. 

“Kinda…” He starts, trying to follow the line of your sight, wondering if he can find the exact stars you’re looking at. “She’d just put this weird lipgloss on. It was real tingly. And like, neither of us knew what we were doing? So it… got everywhere. I think I ended up swallowing some, I don’t know. My mouth felt weird after. Thought I was having an allergic reaction.”

You laugh softly at him. “I think that would put me off for the rest of my life,” you say. 

“It almost did,” he chuckles. You hum at him and lean back on your elbows, leaving Vernon more than a little bit confused. He readjusts his hold on his knees, bringing them closer to his chest as he tilts his head down at you in your new position. 

“…why?” He asks, just as you close your eyes and take a deep inhale of the cool air. 

You just shrug. “I guess I just… wondered.”

He nods, and it’s his turn to fall short of a response, but that’s okay. You’ve known each other for too long for these silences to feel uncomfortable. He grew up with you. In fact, he’s reasonably sure he’s told you this story before. He must have done. 

Then he realises, maybe he hasn’t. Because he doesn’t know the story behind yours, and maybe that’s just a line the two of you never came to crossing. He knows he told his other friends, back then, because he was the last one in his circle to have a first kiss and he felt like it made him more grown-up, or something. Naturally, he left out the more embarrassing details. But maybe you just told your other friends who weren’t him, and went on with your life. Maybe yours was just… normal. 

Either way, he’s interested now. And there’s no time to ask like the present. 

“What was yours like?” He asks, fiddling with the strap on his wristwatch. You don’t answer straight away; he doesn’t think anything of it, because neither did he, but when he’s still waiting for you to speak a small eternity later, he prompts you again. “Hey, it can't have been worse than mine.”

You snort. 

“You’ll laugh at me,” you say, shaking your head. Vernon furrows his brows and drops his legs flat, twisting to one side to look at you. 

He doesn’t know where you’d get that idea from, but he’s… almost a bit offended by it?

“No I won’t,” he tells you softly. Maybe at first, he might’ve laughed with you, if your story happened to be as dumb as his own. But not at you. Never at. Not when he’s been the butt of the joke in too many friendship circles, for about as long as he can remember. 

You take a shallow breath, pursing your lips. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not…” you start to say, before you clear your throat and try again, this time heading in a different direction. “I don’t know. It’s dumb, I guess.”

“Don’t make me come down there,” Vernon threatens playfully, poking you in your side. You squirm, giggling despite yourself, despite the serenity of the sanctuary you two have found, despite the fact that you, too, were on the edge of falling asleep before your question came out of nowhere.  

He pokes you again, and again, and then starts to tickle your ribs instead. You squeal, swatting his hands away to no avail and you move to sit up, grabbing him by the forearms to physically make him stop. The grin on Vernon’s face is wide and heart-shaped. A warm feeling spreads through him: it has everything to do with the sweet sounds of your slowly dissolving laughter. 

You sit cross-legged across from each other like this for a moment or two. Your knees are touching. Your hands move down his arms until you’re holding him firmly by the wrists. Your eyes lock together: his crease with the sheer force of his boyish smile, while yours are narrowed, daring him to try and wiggle free and attack you again. 

He doesn’t, but for the first time ever, he’s struck with the urge to do something maybe more scary. 

The urge to just… lean in to you. 

It makes his heart do a backflip, in a way that it hasn’t done since he had his last crush. His head goes empty, and he forgets what he was even asking you before: the only thoughts he can muster are ones regarding what your lips taste like, whether they’re half as soft as they look, if you’d lightly touch his shoulder or his arm or his chest or his cheek—

Do you smile when you kiss?, he wonders. Do you sigh? Do you—

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” you answer, looking away now and letting go of him. He’s gone so loose in the moments since you grabbed hold of him that when you’re not supporting their weight, his arms fall like two cinder blocks onto his knees. 

True to his word, he doesn’t laugh. He’s surprised by your revelation, sure, but in no way humoured; actually, he feels a little saddened by it, for a reason he can’t put his finger to. He ends up not saying anything, just biting the inside of his cheek; he wants to ask why, but knows maybe that’s a bit of a dick move, and if it’s something you’re sensitive about he doesn’t want to risk hurting you.

But he’s watched people fawn over you for years, and he doesn’t think you’ve ever been short of attention from those who have thought you were attractive. So it can’t be that you’ve been lacking in chances? Surely?

“I thought… maybe I should save it,” you go on to explain. Your hands keep busy by playing with a thread at the cuff of his jacket sleeve, wrapping it around one finger until the skin beneath it pinches before you unravel it again. 

“Save it?” He asks. You nod your head.

“For when I thought I’d found them.” You pause, swallowing hard. “Like I said, it’s s—.”

“No it’s not,” Vernon says abruptly, shaking his head. He holds onto you now, one hand slipping around your back until it rests on the shoulder furthest away from him. You scoff. He squeezes you into his side. “Hey. It’s not stupid.”

He doesn’t like how this admission has, somehow, made his desire to kiss you stronger. He hates that he feels even more drawn to you, a magnet finally finding its opposing pole. It freaks him out a little. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone this badly. 

Red button theory, he tells himself to try and get back on the straight and narrow. If you hadn’t said anything, none of this would be happening.

“It’s romantic,” he says finally, swiping his thumb in small motions over the top of your shoulder. You nod, mumbling a ‘thank you’ (for what, he isn’t sure), and shiver. Vernon doesn’t know if that’s because of his proximity to you or because you’re finally starting to feel the cold. Either way, he takes the initiative to stand up and holds a hand out for you to take so he can tug you to your feet too. You get up with a little hop. 

It’s… devastatingly cute.

“Where are we going?” You ask, brushing off your jeans before shoving your hands into the jacket’s pockets. He’s already on the retreat, walking backwards towards the door that took you up here.

“To get food,” he tells you, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “That party was dead, anyway.”

It doesn’t cross his mind again until your twenty-first birthday. 

He’s not your soulmate. He couldn’t be. The thought he had on the roof that autumnal night was little more than a passing fantasy; besides, he doesn’t have a thing for you. He doesn’t want to kiss you, or date you, or have you be his soulmate. The reason you work so well together is because you’re just friends; he thinks you’d drive each other crazy if things ever went romantic between you. You bicker with him for sport. He drowns away hours at a time with his headphones clamped over his ears and forgets to answer your texts. It would be a nightmare. 

Not that he’s ever thought about all that. Not actively, or even passively. Not when he should be listening to college lectures instead, for example. Not awake, nor in his dreams. He hasn’t. Not once. 

He swears. 

“You can save it ‘til tomorrow, if you want.”

Vernon bounces his leg nervously, fidgeting with the edge of your comforter as you sit on the floor in front of him, styling your hair for your party. He arrived half an hour ago while you were still waltzing around in your bathrobe, holding a small, neatly wrapped box in both of his hands. It’s several degrees too warm in your bedroom. He feels a bead of sweat roll down his back as you grumble what seems to be a threat at a strand that won’t cooperate. Thankfully, you don’t seem to notice his discomfort. (If you do, he’s grateful that you don’t say anything.)

“But it’s my birthday today,” you pouted, taking the box from him. “Let me finish getting ready, then I’ll open it. Come on.”

His wrist still aches with the pressure you held onto him with as you dragged him up the stairs. Your parents are away for the weekend and the house is all yours, so there’s a speaker blasting your favourite playlist full volume on your nightstand and there’s nobody to tell you to turn it down. He flits his attention between his phone and watching you, but he can’t fully concentrate on either; he’s too nervous that maybe you won’t like his gift, and he’s never been the type to splash out on birthday presents before but this… well, it burned a hole in his wallet, that’s for sure. 

“Okay. Wait here,” you tell him as you push up off the floor, limping on the leg that had started to fall asleep thanks to the way you were sitting. 

“All right,” he says back. As if he’d go anywhere, anyway. 

You grab a hanger from inside your closet and scurry off down the hall to the bathroom. For the first time, Vernon feels like he can actually breathe. He drops his phone onto the comforter between his crossed legs and cradles his head in his hands, telling himself that he needs to get it together. You’ve never not liked anything he’s given you, and you’ve known him now for more birthdays than you haven’t. 

Your friends said you’d love it. So did your mother, with a sparkle in her eye as she held it delicately in her fingers. He has nothing to worry about. It’s only you.

And yet—

“You’ll be honest if it looks bad?” You call from the other side of the door, interrupting how his lips move wordlessly in an endless mantra of self-reassurances. 

Vernon snaps his head up and he clears his throat, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Aren’t I always?” He answers.

You click your tongue, evidently disagreeing, but you pull the handle and take a step into the room anyway. When you see him, he looks exactly as he did when you left, no trace of his anxieties anywhere to be seen on his face or otherwise. 

When he sees you, he feels like the world could end any moment and he’d be okay with that. 

His mouth runs dry and his eyes seem to be stuck open, unblinking, fixated on you in your all black outfit as you stand still as a statue with your hands behind your back. You cough quietly, waiting for some kind of a response other than a dumb stare, but it doesn’t come. 

Eight seconds later… still nothing. 

“Do you hate it?” you fret, because Vernon is a very good hype-man and you’ve never known him struggle to find something positive to say. “All right, uh— okay—”

“No!” He rushes, almost shouting in his urgency to assure you that that’s not the case at all. He scrambles up to his feet, taking a breath, and pushes a hand through his hair. He’s been growing it out lately, and he kind of hates how his fingers catch on a tangle even though he brushed it meticulously before he left his apartment. You keep telling him it looks good, though, so he hasn’t been to get it cut. “God, no. I’m sorry. You look amazing.”

It doesn’t sound like much to the untrained ear, but the warmth of his compliments comes less in the words he says and more in the sincerity he says them with. Your face softens, and Vernon can see the way the thoughts of changing into something else fizzle out behind your eyes. He takes a backwards step to try and tempt you further into your own bedroom, and you move in tandem with him, closing that space and coming better into the light. 

“Wow,” he says, swallowing hard and looking you up and down. “I-… wow.”

It’s your turn to clam up, now. You look down at the floor, kicking at the carpet with your toes. “Shut up,” you say. “I’m not...”

“Yes, you are,” he protests, leaving no room for argument as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t know who you’re trying to impress but… yeah, it’s gonna work.”

You walk past him with a scoff, barging against his shoulder on your way; he dramatically staggers to the side, rubbing at the impact site, laughing. When he faces you again, you’ve picked the gift up from the end of your bed and are moving to sit on the mattress yourself. Your eyes flicker between Vernon and the empty space in front of you. He takes the hint, settling back down with one foot tucked beneath him, the other still planted on your rug. 

His heart shoots back up into his throat and he stares down at the box, licking over his lips and frowning at how dry they feel. He glances away, lifting a hand to his mouth, running his fingertips over his lips. What would they feel like pressed against yours? He thinks, and then he cringes again. 

You misread his reaction and hesitate with your finger pressed underneath a strip of tape, tilting your head at him. “What’s going to jump out at me when I open this?” 

“Nothing,” he says, rolling his eyes at you. “What do you take me for?”

“The kind of guy who puts glitter in birthday cards because he thinks it’s funny,” you retort, earning a click of his tongue. 

“That was one time!”

“One time too many.”

“I swear,” he laughs, tight shoulders easing, both hands falling to his lap. “No sparkles, no loud noises, nothing jumpy. Cross my heart.“

You eye him a little suspiciously but eventually tug your finger beneath the wrapping and make the first rip in the paper, allowing you to tear into the gift after keeping Vernon on edge for almost an hour and a half. You peel it away and it falls to the bedsheets, in your hands now a small, square box not too dissimilar a shade to your comforter. You look from it, to him, and he thinks you notice how his cheeks are a little darker than they were before. 

He nods at you once and you slowly pull it open. On a plush, velvety bedding sits an elegant, dainty bracelet. A small gemstone is set in the metal of the bar in the middle of the chain. You skim a thumb over it, your breath held.

“Vernon,” you murmur, tearing your eyes away from the bracelet to look at him. Now, even the tips of his ears have grown flushed, but you’re kind enough not to comment on it to avoid spoiling the moment you’re in. “This is…”

“The lady in the store said it was your birthstone,” he says, twiddling his thumbs. “I mean… I’m really just taking her word for it, ‘cause they all look the same to me, but—”

He’s interrupted as all of your weight topples against him, arms thrown around his neck in a hug. He hesitates a moment before he wraps his own around your waist, drops his head to your shoulder and he smiles wider than he thinks he ever has. “Happy Birthday,” he says, dragging his thumb up and down over your hip. 

“Silly,” you scold him playfully, still pressing wholly against him and showing no signs of moving. Your voice sounds thick, a little like you’re tearing up, so Vernon squeezes you tighter. 

“I know you are,” he chuckles. “But what am I?”

You swallow hard, finally now pulling away from the hug but sitting entirely too close for comfort, one knee pressing into the outside of his thigh. 

Your surprise attack has left him dishevelled. With a quiet apology, your fingers innocently try to smooth everything back into place, but Vernon doesn’t hear you say you’re sorry. His pulse, thundering in his ears, drowns it out while also skipping a beat with each little touch. You’re not looking into his eyes as you shyly put him back to rights, too busy working to tame his — at the best of times — unruly hair. 

He’s looking into yours though, and he can’t stop. 

Your eyes, which dart all over to find strands out of place, so your hands can move them to where they ought to sit and lay them down flat. Your eyes, that drop down the length of his throat as you realign the neck of his t-shirt over his broad shoulders. 

Your eyes: the ones crinkled at the corners as you pick the bracelet back up from your bed and admire it under your bedroom light. Your eyes, landing on his, finally, in a silent plea for help. 

“The best?” you answer, now, extending your wrist to ask him to put it on you. He takes the chain from your fingers and unclasps it, slipping it beneath your hand and holding it in place. 

“I know you are,” he says again, but it’s quieter now as he concentrates on trying to reconnect the two pieces. “But what am I?”

When he successfully fastens your gift onto your arm, he looks up to see your watery eyes still staring down at it. He decides this is the time to reveal part two of the surprise. Pulling up the sleeve of his t-shirt, he reveals his own wrist to you, and you now see there’s a matching chain hanging off it. A little stone set in the metal. His stone, presumably. You choke out a laugh around your tears, shaking your head. 

“You got us friendship bracelets,” you giggle, holding your hand next to his and admiring them together. Your skin touches and he feels butterflies erupt in his stomach, which he hasn’t felt around you since…

He nods, breathing a chuckle too. “Yeah,” he says. His heart is pounding. “I guess I did. Is… that okay?”

“I love them,” you insist, leaning forward to affectionately press your lips to his cheek. “Thank you. It’s perfect.”

Your doorbell sounds downstairs and Vernon’s words die in his throat. Maybe that’s for the best, though; he’s got so much nervous energy rising up inside him and he’s scared it might accidentally force up something he’ll regret saying. You spring off the bed again, fussing in the mirror, and he watches you rush out the bedroom warbling about how you’re not ready for anyone to be here yet. It’s too early. What’s going on? Who is it?

He shifts his legs so both his feet are planted on the floor, letting out a breath he doesn’t remember sucking in. 

I love them. Thank you, you said. 

It’s perfect. 

He groans when he stands up, too, tugging his sleeve back down as he starts to follow after you.

“I know you are,” he mumbles under his breath, hearing your relieved laughter at it just being the FedEx man on your doorstep. It makes him feel warm. Everywhere. “But what am I?”

Five hours later, Vernon is seeing double. 

He has Seungkwan’s hands massaging the tops of his shoulders and there are two Juns sitting across from him at your dining table. He remembers feeling fine around 9pm, distinctly: like nothing he drank was having any kind of effect on him. Like he could walk home on his hands — like he was invincible. Now, after spending exactly five minutes out in the fresh air, he’s blinking four times for every breath he takes and his friends’ voices keep phasing in and out of focus.

“But what if they’re not?” Vernon stresses for the eighth time, fingers clumsily peeling at the label on his bottle.

“And what if they are?” Jun tries. Again. Also, for the eighth time, because apparently when Vernon gets tipsy, his skull gets really really thick and nothing in the world can penetrate it. “You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

Vernon shakes his head, sitting back so heavily that his chair tips and he sends Seungkwan stumbling into the wall behind them. His friend gives up trying to rub the stupid out of him and settles into the chair at Vernon’s side instead. 

“I don’t know-…”

“If you’re about to say you don’t know what you’ll do if it isn’t them, I’m putting you in an Uber and sending you home.” Seungkwan claps his hand down onto Vernon’s knee for good measure. “It’s not even been a day.”

Vernon groans, threading his fingers into his hair and tipping his head back. “It hasn’t, though,” he whines. “What if it’s been like this since… and I just kept ignoring…”

Jun and Seungkwan exchange a look. An exhausted one. They both know Vernon turns into a complete baby when he’s had a drink and can just about manage a trip to the bathroom without somebody holding his hand, but neither of them have seen him like this before. Neither of them want to see him like this ever again.

Hell, neither of them want to be dealing with him like this right now.

“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Jun’s (remarkably) calm voice repeats as he pushes up from his seat and glances towards the doorway. His ears lock onto a voice just beyond it, and in an instant, the older man recognises his chance at an exit. He casts an apologetic glance at Seungkwan, who has resorted to rubbing Vernon’s earlobes to try and get him to stop stressing, and he dips out before either of them can argue. 

On his way, though, he throws in a sly little remark. One that raises Vernon’s– and Seungkwan’s– blood pressure to a level that would get them prescribed a week of strict bed rest.

“Besides – everyone can see the two of you were practically made for each other.”

Vernon whips around to face Seungkwan with shock written into every line of his face. It paints perfect full-signal WiFi creases on his forehead; it makes his jaw hang loose. 

“I– what?” Vernon splutters, shooting a hand to the back of his head. Seungkwan hasn’t taken his eyes off the doorway since Jun slipped through it. Vernon doesn’t notice the fact that his older friend’s full genetic line is currently being cursed out. “What does he mean?”

“You don’t have to do anything tonight,” Seungkwan tries, now acutely aware of the fact that Jun has just given Vernon a nudge he should never have. There’s a fine line between bolstering a friend and straight-up causing chaos. This could get messy. Seungkwan doesn’t like messy.

But… It's too late. 

Before Seungkwan can wrangle him back into his seat, Vernon has broken away from the table and is on the hunt for you. Seungkwan follows behind, doing his best to summon Vernon back, but he can’t. He’s on a mission now. And maybe that mission involves giving in to the thing that eats away at his brain when he should be waist-deep in music theory assignments. Maybe that mission is to finally, after two years, know what it feels like to kiss you. He’s going to find you, so help him God. He has to. 

And yes. He does. He finds you, eventually. As soon as he reaches the top of the staircase, there you are. 

Being pressed into the wood of your bedroom door, wrapped up in the arms of some pretentious looking art student in an oversized button-down and baggy, ripped jeans. Your mouth is covered by theirs, your fingers are threaded through those glossy fucking locks, both of you are laughing breathlessly as you drop one hand and it fumbles blindly to reach for the doorknob. 

Vernon spins away, turning his back as he hears the door click. At this exact moment, Seungkwan comes stumbling up the stairs too and plants his forehead into Vernon’s sternum. 

But his good friend’s skull is not the only thing Vernon is struck with, not the only thing knocking the wind out of him. 

Simultaneously, he’s swept up with the sobering realisations that either this guy is your soulmate, or you’re not the same person you were when you were nineteen. 

It’s eleven o’clock and two years later when he hears your secret knock on his apartment door. 

Maybe it’s luck. Maybe it’s fate. He only took his noise cancelling headphones off a few minutes ago before he washed up and settled into bed; his head has hardly even had time to make a dent in the pillows. But whichever force is at play, the thing that matters is that he hears you and he knows it’s you, straight away. He doesn’t remember how it started, exactly. He thinks it might have been while he was in his exam-season hermit stage in his first year of university and refused to come to the door unless it was something important. 

You’ve been knocking the same way for years now though, and he slides out of bed with creased brows at how desperate your fist sounds as it pounds against the wood. He pulls on an old t-shirt and perhaps the loosest fitting pair of shorts anyone’s ever owned, at least making himself decent before he answers. He’s still tying the drawstring when he gets to the door.

When he looks through the peep-hole to make sure he’s right, you’re drying your eyes on the back of your sweatshirt sleeve. You’re shivering quite violently, and you’ve got a bag on your shoulder that’s weighing you down on one side. Vernon’s heart sinks. He unbolts the door, pulling it open just as you lift your hand to knock again; your knuckles punch the air between you as your eyes land on him, and your bottom lip wobbles in despair. 

You fall into his chest with a sob. Tears start to soak their way through his shirt until it clings to the skin underneath. 

“Hey,” he soothes you, locking his arms so tight around you that there’s a strong chance they’re the only thing holding you upright. 

“I didn’t— know where else to go—” you choke out, your arm trapped between your chest and his as he rests his head on top of yours and pats your back softly. “I’m s-”

“Don’t you dare,” he murmurs, tilting his chin down to press a soft kiss to the top of your head. “It’s okay. I’m here. You can always come to me.”

He holds you until your shakes start to subside, trying to talk you through whatever this is with soft reassurances and gentle shushing sounds. When you pull back from him, Vernon guides you into his apartment, flicking on the lamp in his living room so he can see to settle you down on his couch. He throws a blanket over your legs before he sits down himself, pulling your hand into his lap and holding it between both of his own, his thumb moving absently over your knuckles. You’re still crying, but when you shuffle against the seat to be a little more comfortable and finally turn to face him, he finds his voice long enough to ask you what happened. 

“He kissed— kissed someone else,” you tell him, sniffling and shaking your head. 

His blood reaches boiling point in what must be record time and he knows he accidentally starts to grip your hand tighter, but he can’t stop. 

“He what?”

Vernon knows this guy wasn’t your soulmate. You told him, a few days after your birthday. You said everything was still black and white when you pulled back from the first of — what you spared no detail in explaining was — many, many, many kisses with him that evening. But you didn’t care. Not then, and not for the whole time you’ve been together. 

He asked you about it once. About four months in (when he figured things were starting to get serious), late at night, if it bothered you. Whether you were going to keep seeing him. If you still thought about finding your soulmate. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget what your replying message said. 

I mean, sure, I’m curious. But maybe I don’t need to see in colour. I think being in love is enough :)

So… you were in love. 

With someone who wasn’t him. 

He didn’t speak to anyone — not even you — for two whole days after that. He felt like he’d gone ten rounds with a peak-form George Foreman. He felt like he’d never be able to get rid of the pit that had developed in the depths of his gut. He couldn’t sleep, he could barely eat, he couldn’t focus: it was the worst he’d ever felt.  And, well… Vernon knew it was immature. He knew he was acting like a child. If he could’ve shaken it off, the way he’s always done with so many of the things in his life that have bothered him, he’d have loved to. But he couldn’t.

Besides. Only about four people noticed his silence, anyway. You weren’t one of them; your boyfriend was keeping you plenty busy.

“He went to a club and got completely wasted and he— he—” you say, squeezing his hand even tighter than he’s holding yours. “But-… he says he-…” Hiccup. “Everything. Straight away — his…”

You don’t need to say it out loud; if anything, he’s a little disgusted with himself that he didn’t figure this out sooner. “His soulmate,” Vernon ruefully finishes for you. He groans the words out, feeling rotten to his core. “I’m so sorry…”

Your shoulders start to shake and he wastes no time in pulling you sideways against him, both his arms locked around you again, just like before. 

“It’s so stupid,” you cry, laughing emptily. His stomach turns; he hates this. Your anguish is an assault on his eardrums, especially when he’s got you so close, but he tries so hard not to flinch, not to move away. You need him, no matter how agonised it makes him feel. “I knew he wasn’t mine, but I thought-…”

Your voice fades away to nothing. You shake your head.

“You thought he was happy the same way you were,” he finishes again. You just nod, sobbing harder. “That's not—… stop saying the way you feel is stupid.”

Vernon doesn’t understand how that loser could ever not have been happy with you. How could he dream about going out in search of something more? Hell, Vernon doesn’t think there’s a soul alive better than you — how could anyone stand to just throw you away?

He wonders briefly if you can hear his heartbeat, thundering in his chest with the rage he feels all the way into his bones. You’ve always told him that you admire how chilled out, how collected he is, but Vernon has never felt less calm in his entire life. It’s only as he acknowledges that he has no right to feel like this, that he takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to bring his fever down. You mimic him, trying to do the same, and by the time his pulse starts to settle, you’re back to just sniffling against his shoulder. 

“Stay the night here,” he tells you. It isn’t a suggestion, or really even a request. It’s an order. There’s no room for negotiation. “We’ll go get your things in the morning. I’ll be right there with you.”

You open your mouth to speak, but Vernon gets there before you do. Before you can protest the offers he’s made. Before you can ask him if he’s sure. He knows you, a little too well: he knows these are the words that are going to come out of your mouth next. “I’m with you, okay? Always.”

You sit back from him with a quiet chuckle, wiping your eyes again on your damp sleeve. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you,” you murmur. “You’re the best— the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He just rolls his eyes at you and shakes his head, standing up from the couch. (I know you are, he thinks. This isn’t the time for jokes, though.) He wishes you knew what you mean to him; how, in his eyes, you deserve the world, presented to you on a shining silver platter. Wishes you knew that he’d give it to you if thought he could carry it. 

“Go wash up,” he says, ignoring the ache in his chest at the way your watery lashes flutter when you look up at him. “I’ll find you something to sleep in.”

He locates a spare toothbrush from a travelling kit he’s never used and sets a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants on the heated towel rail, leaving you alone in the bathroom to go about your business. You emerge some fifteen minutes later to find Vernon perched on the edge of his bed, scrolling through an app on his phone. He can’t help but swallow at the way his clothes fit you. How the steam from your shower clings to your skin, casts a heavenly haze around you. He hopes it isn’t obvious. This is about more than his dumb little crush. 

“Were you asleep?” You ask him, nodding towards his comforter, still pushed back on one side. He turns to glance over his shoulder, following the line of your sight, before he looks back at you and shakes his head. 

“Not even close,” he says. “I’d just got into bed when you got here.”

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth and nod. Vernon doesn't think you look totally convinced, but he can’t force you to believe him, even if it is the truth. 

It’s unspoken but accepted that you'll sleep in the bed with him; he’s never let you stay on his couch when you spend the night, and you never agree to displacing him even though he always tries to insist he doesn’t mind. You’ve been friends for enough time now that it’ll never be weird to crawl beneath the sheets with him, anyway. At first, he didn’t really like sharing (he’s a bit… particular with how he sleeps, after all), but he got used to your weight on the mattress beside him quite quickly and makes a point to say he always sleeps better with you. 

He hasn’t curled up next to you for the night in over two years. It’s awful, that that’s what he thinks about now as he turns off the lights and you settle down, shuffling under the comforter until he slides in next to you in the dark and you can lay your head on his chest. He knows it’s selfish. He thinks it probably makes him a bad person, too. 

“Do you think—” you start to say, cut off by a long, vocal yawn. Your breath feels so warm through his t-shirt. “If you fall out of love with them… do the colours go away?”

With his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling he can’t even see, Vernon feels his heart shatter beneath the soft cushion of your cheek. He’s suddenly grateful he’s still fully clothed, as if the cotton barrier is the only thing stopping you from getting scratched by the splinters beneath his skin. He wonders if you hear it. It would be an easier explanation for why he doesn’t say anything than whatever his mouth could come up with, that’s for sure. 

“I don’t know,” he says after a few seconds too long. The arm wrapped around your shoulders slips down to your waist and he squeezes you. Briefly, he wonders if it can force your broken pieces back together. 

Vernon knows he would never do this to you. He’d never hurt you this way. Out of everyone he’s ever met, he thinks you’re the sweetest, the kindest, the most thoughtful of them all. The last person he’d ever wish a heartbreak upon. He even used to joke that he’d go to war with anyone who dared to try. 

But now he’s seeing it happen? He feels as if he really could. 

“I just hope you never have to find out,” he follows up, blinking back the thoughts that start to bubble away as your breaths slow down. 

He wrapped a band-aid around your finger when you got a papercut once and you asked him, then, if he would kiss it better. 

When you bumped your head in the playground, the same. 

He’d kiss it all better now too, if he could. He’d show you how you deserve to be loved. 

And he doesn’t just think it, anymore; Vernon knows that this makes him a terrible person. 

“I hope you don’t, either,” you mumble back. “... and I hope we find them soon.”

He’s so proud of you.

Okay, it never took much. He’s been proud of you for every good grade you’ve ever achieved, every doctor's appointment you booked for yourself, every trip to the dentist you stressed over. He’s been proud of you for finishing projects you were struggling with. Proud of you for learning new recipes. For every milestone, personal or professional, it’s the first thing he makes sure to say. 

[ hey, look at u go!!! proud of u :) ]

Now? He’s seen you crawl from rock bottom to the top of the world. It hasn’t been easy. There have been hurdles and barriers and sometimes, sixty foot high walls you’ve had to climb up and over, but you’ve done it. You’re thriving. Every time he looks at you, these days, if you’re not wearing a smile there are at least traces of one in your eyes, on your face, in your voice. Happiness suits you, and he’s so, so proud of you for getting here. 

He knows you’re doing better, because between Christmas and New Year, you asked him if he wanted to come to a party with you. At first, he wasn’t sure; the holidays left his wallet feeling a little light and he’s been on a really good streak of not drinking anything lately, but when you promised that you’d stay sober too, he kind of couldn’t say no. 

[ i just wanna see in the new year with my favourite person ever <3 ]

[ ha. flattery will get u everywhere ]

So here he finds himself, out in the backyard of somebody he’s never met, a can of Coke in one hand and your gloved fingers holding tightly onto the other. You dragged him outside at five minutes to midnight and — though he doesn’t know why — you decided you didn’t want to let go. Vernon certainly wasn’t going to be the one to make you. Your warmth down his left side is settling the slight unease he’s felt all evening while also making him feel tipsier than he’s ever been under the influence of any amount of soju; he thinks maybe this should scare him, but he’s just… so glad he came.

With sixty seconds until the clock strikes twelve, somebody stands up on top of the picnic table in the yard and starts to try and coordinate a countdown. With forty-five, Vernon squeezes your hand, butterflies where his stomach ought to be. With thirty, he takes a long drain of his drink, finishing it as if it’ll give him some courage, maybe, or… he doesn’t know. Zero sugar, zero caffeine — there’s no logic behind his process, just a lot of bubbles and artificially sweetened syrup. All the same, he crushes the can against his thigh and slips it into his pocket to throw away later. That alone relieves a bit of his adrenaline. 

Not enough, but some. 

With ten seconds remaining, the first shout drowns out the white noise in his ears, the chaos of his thoughts. 10. He joins them. So do you. 9. 8. Your voice is the loudest, the most excited sounding. You want this year to be over. You want the rest of your life to begin. 

7. 6. 5.

The crackers are set. Flames dance at the end of the garden on fire lighters, ready to send rockets shooting into the sky. 

Some people here are going to see them as they truly are. Brilliant and vibrant and colourful against the black canvas of the midnight sky. Vernon won’t. Neither will you. But what was it you said to him once?

4. 3.

Maybe I don’t need to see in colour. 

2.

For the first time, he thinks he agrees. The feeling of loving you, even if he never knows green from red, blue from orange? He doesn’t care. He has you. He loves you. That’s enough. 

1.

Happy New Year. 

As if dawn has broken early, the world becomes impossibly bright, pyrotechnics bursting not only over your own heads but everywhere, as far as his eyes can see. After the first few, he permits himself a glance over at your face: there are tears running down it, and his heart stutters, but then he hears you laugh. Brightly, wetly, more resonant than any of the booms and crackles and cheers he can feel all the way down to his toes. 

For whatever reason, Vernon starts laughing with you. 

You pull him closer into a bone-crushing hug and blink your damp lashes against the side of his neck. “Thank you for being here with me,” you say to him, practically shouting to be heard. “I love you so much.”

“I’m always gonna be with you,” he says as you pull back a little. Your arms are still around him. The chain of the bracelet he bought you all those years ago is bitterly cold against the back of his neck. He can’t feel his fingers anymore, all he knows is that they’re resting on the curve of your spine. He thinks he can see something in the way you look at him, so softly and tenderly and yet, in the twitch of your brow… 

Like you’re searching for something that might not be there. 

He knows his gaze moves in a perfect triangle — from your left eye, to your slightly parted, wind-chapped lips, to your right. He knows he stops breathing. He swears you do, too. Something builds — a spark catches, an energy festers, egged on by the curious murmurs of the people around you. 

You could do it, his brain tells him. 

So what if he’s a few minutes late for it to be traditional? Does it really matter? 

But he’s reminded, again, this time with a whizz and a boom and a crackle, that you aren’t his to have this way. His storybook moment fizzles out, the final firework bursting into sparkles overhead. He sees every one of your perfect features brighten in wonder as you tilt your head back to look up at it. Sees it beautifully reflected in your glassy eyes. He has about enough time to commit the image to memory before you clear your throat and finally step away from him, losing all touch for the first time since you came outside. 

One of your friends comes and pulls you into an embrace, before passing you along to someone else, and then someone else again. He loses you in the crowd that rushes to get back in the warm, but he makes no effort to move with them. He just stays out in the dark for a while with his own thoughts for company, shoving his frigid hands into the pockets of his jeans.

He’s happy, though. It’s like you said. 

Being in love is enough.

“There’s just one more thing,” you say as the waitress returns with your bank card and a receipt. Vernon slides you a look as he stands, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair he’s been sitting in. 

He shakes his head at you. “Whatever it is, it better not be edible,” he laughs. “I think this is the most full I’ve ever been.”

In other words, you’ve done enough already. Stop spending money on me. Please. Thankfully, your final surprise is in-keeping with his unspoken rule. 

His birthday rolled around way too quickly. The start of the year has been so chaotically busy; you swear, you’ve hardly seen him since he dropped you off home after the party. You moved out of your parents’ house for the second time a few weeks ago and settling in, unpacking boxes, sorting through clothes and belongings and trinkets has taken you much longer than you care to admit. You’ve been busy at work, too. So has he. Your social calendars have barely lined up at all. 

But you were determined to make plenty of time for him on his birthday. 

To Vernon, this has always just been another day. He’s never cared too much about big celebrations: as long as he can spend some time with people he cares about, he’s happy, and this year he’s managed exactly that. He saw his family this morning, had some friends drop by his apartment later in the day, and now, he’s with you. 

You’ve never been great at the laid-back approach, though. Not with him. How could you be, when he does so much for you, always without even batting an eye? When he deserves to be doted on, and adored, and thoroughly spoiled? It’s the same every year. You make a fuss, he playfully scolds you for it; you and he are creatures of habit. It’ll probably never change. 

This year, you invited him to your new place to open the gifts you’d bought him: the new speaker he kept saying he couldn’t justify buying, a record he looked at in the store a few months ago but never bought, a sweatshirt to replace the one you stole off him on New Years Eve. Some candies he likes. Then, after he finally stopped pouting and sighing that you really didn’t need to go to all this effort, you took him out for dinner, making a reservation for two at his favourite restaurant. 

The pouting continued. 

Only up until your appetisers came out, though. The moment your food was placed down in front of you, his eyes doubled in size and his lips became a little too busy to stay pursed. Your own dinner almost went cold with how fondly you sat and watched him. This year, you even spared Vernon the embarrassment of having the restaurant staff sing at the side of your table. 

All right, you have an ulterior motive, but… it’s the thought that counts, right? 

He holds the door open for you now as you thank the waitress who served you one last time and without him lowering his arm, you step into place beneath it. Tucked up into Vernon’s side, you’re as happy as you’ve ever been. Nervous, too, but… you have a good feeling. 

“Where to?” He asks as you fall into step together. 

“This way.”

You emerge from the shelter of the canopy outside the restaurant’s front door and immediately feel the cool tickle of a snowflake landing on your cheek. They started to fall while you were eating and Vernon couldn’t stop watching through the window, small specks that grew over the hour into big clumps that tumbled towards the ground. He’s always loved the snow, and there’s no real destination for this gift, anyway. You guide him to the left and watch as peace takes its rightful home on his beautiful features. 

“We’ve walked in a perfect square three times now,” Vernon says after a little while of meandering about in the dark, making comfortable small talk and laughing as the champagne bubbles in your stomachs continue to fizz away. “Where are we supposed to be going?”

You wondered how long it was going to take him to notice, or even if he was going to realise at all. Looking up and down the street you’re on, you stop in your tracks, standing beneath the same flickering street lamp that you’ve passed twice already. Your footprints trail both behind and in front of you, neither quite covered yet by the snowfall. You break into a laugh when you notice that the convenience store on your left has closed since the last time you came down this road. 

“I can get a map open, if…” Vernon starts, reaching into his pocket. You stop him, stepping out from under his arm and wrapping your hand around his wrist instead.

“I might’ve told a little white lie,” you confess, 

He halts with his phone only half pulled out, pushing it into his hip for fear of it falling if either of you let go. “What do you mean?” He asks. 

You know he’s probably thinking back to your earlier conversations, trying to figure out which part exactly is the mistruth you’re now admitting to. But whether he gets there on his own or not, he waits for you to answer. 

“I had it with me this whole time,” you explain, readjusting your hold on his covered forearm. His eyes dart downwards, looking at the site of contact, but he quickly lifts them back up to your face. “I was just… waiting for… ”

“What are you talking about?” Vernon asks. 

“Close your eyes.”

You know.

Unfortunately for your best friend, as hush-hush as he’s managed to be all this time, the same can’t be said for the other person he entrusts all his secrets to. A few weeks ago, when you’d called Seungkwan to coordinate timings for Vernon’s birthday plans, he’d accidentally let something slip. It was your suggestion of taking Vernon to dinner that did the trick. 

“Oh, he’s going to love that,” Seungkwan had gushed. You could hear the breadth of his smile down the phone and felt yourself growing hot at the compliment.

“You really think so?”

“Pfft. You could take him to the Eiffel Tower or to a drive-through KFC, and he’d still have hearts in his eyes – because it’s you.”

Of course, he attempted to do some damage control immediately after. Make out that he meant it in strictly platonic terms. But once the idea planted itself in your head, it sort of… made sense. You mulled it over for a couple of days but when you finally asked Seungkwan, deathly serious, if he really thought you stood a chance with Vernon?

He practically screamed ‘yes’ down the phone. 

“The last time you asked me to do this, you killed me at laser-tag,” Vernon says, narrowing his eyes. He surely doesn’t think you’re hiding a plastic gun underneath the coat he literally just watched you don, but he doesn’t do as you ask and you suck your front teeth at him.

“Luckily for you, I left all my weapons at home,” you counter. “Come on, please. Just… trust me.”

“Said that last time, too,” he snickers. But, to his merit, he finally does it. He takes in a breath and follows your instruction. “I swear to God…”

Selfishly, you take a moment to bask in how handsome he really is. His eyes twitch underneath his lids and snowflakes cling to his lashes, moving with them. It’s in his hair, too. On his shoulders. Melting on his cheeks, leaving small wet spots on his face. One lands perfectly on the tip of his nose. You would immortalise this moment, if you could.

It made sense, when you found out, because thinking back? Nobody has ever loved you how Vernon does. He shows it in so many ways – he sends you the songs that he hears and thinks you’ll like, the pretty photographs that he takes when he’s away for work, some variant of a ‘good morning’ text, almost every day. He massages your shoulders, lets you fall asleep on his lap, follows you around like an obedient puppy when you have errands to run just so you don’t have to do them on your own. 

He tries, and often fails, to cook you breakfast when you stay over. He brings you coffees, or lunch. He looks at you like you’re the moon and the stars. People have teased for years that you could be psychically connected. That you were cosmically united. That it was fate for Vernon to move into the house down the street from you when you were nine. To be the only other child your age on the block. 

Two people, perfect for one another, lives intertwined eternally by fate. Or, in other words…

“Are you…?” He asks, breaking the quiet that has only been filled with your cloud-forming breaths. 

“Give me a second,” you breathe. There’s no doubt in your mind.

You lean forward to kiss him softly, free hand settling against the side of his neck. In the February chill, Vernon freezes, no part of his body reacting to you except for his lips. Though they twitch in a gasp, they press back against yours as if he isn’t even thinking about doing it. As if it’s instinctual. As if he was always supposed to kiss you – as if he’s your…

There it all is, when you finally pull away.

Brown eyes, framed by fluttering lashes that untangle from one another to finally see you, too. Brown, you know, because when you asked your mother to tell you about Vernon’s colours when you were younger, that was the only one she told you, saying everything else might change when he got older. Warm, brown eyes. Glistening with every blink, blink, blink of the bulb above you. Pupils slowly dilating, drowning the colours out of view. You see his lids shoot wide as he realises, as he glances left and right, as he takes this new world in for the first time, too. 

“I knew it,” you say on a stuttered breath, so overwhelmed you could cry. “My soulmate.”

A brilliant smile threatens to split Vernon’s features in two as he cups your cheeks and pulls you back to him, kissing you again, and again, and again. 

“I know you are,” he says against your lips, his bare thumbs pink and cold as they press into your skin. And, before you can kiss him quiet – “but what ‘m I?”

thank u so much for reading, i really hope you enjoyed this. as always, your likes/reblogs/comments and feedback are always deeply appreciated.<3

[mellowsadistic]

Birthday Party - Part 1

Sarah attends her little cousin’s birthday party, but after she makes the girl cry, the hypnotist hired for the event decides she needs a little attitude adjustment. Sarah missed the hypnotist’s performance earlier, but that’s okay, because he’s happy to give her a one-on-one session to help her enjoy herself just as much as the birthday girl.

***

Sarah parked her car in her Auntie’s driveway and rolled her eyes at the sight of the decorations adorning the front of the house. Multicoloured streamers were draped over the hedges, and a large pink banner hung over the doorway – the words Happy Birthday Penny, written in sparkly silver letters, were flanked by a pair of cartoon unicorns. It was so embarrassingly girly that Sarah couldn’t help but cringe. She wasn’t a tomboy exactly, but she’d long since abandoned anything quite so pink and cutesy.

She got out of the car and huffed. She was twenty-one years old for God’s sake! She had better things to do than spend a whole afternoon at some stupid baby’s birthday party, but her mother had been insistent. Sure, Penny was her cousin, but Sarah hardly even knew her. She’d been away at university when Penny had been born, and Sarah had only seen her a handful of times. She didn’t like babies. Most of her friends thought they were adorable, but Sarah couldn’t get the thought of dirty diapers out of her head. Babies were so disgusting!

Sarah opened the front door and heard the loud laughter and shrieking of a little girl’s birthday party happening inside. How old was Penny anyway? Sarah looked up and noticed several pink balloons bobbing about on the hallway ceiling, emblazoned with the large number “3”. Surely she’d be out of nappies by now at least. If Sarah was asked to go anywhere near a used diaper, she was going to storm out straight away.

She walked down the hall, following the noise, and entered a spacious kitchen that was adjoined to the living room. The place was covered in streamers and balloons and confetti, and there was an enormous chocolate cake sitting in the middle of the table. Her little cousin was wearing a bright pink dress and a plastic tiara, running around the living room playing a game of musical chairs with her friends.

“There you are, Sarah!” came a voice, and Sarah looked around to see her Auntie marching towards her, smiling. “I was worried you weren’t coming!”

“Oh, yeah…” Sarah said vaguely. “There was a lot of traffic.”

Her Auntie’s smile became rather fixed, but she didn’t contest the lie. “Why don’t you have some cake?” she asked sweetly.

“No thanks,” Sarah said, glancing at the chocolate cake with distaste. Just imagine how many calories were in that! Her Auntie wasn’t exactly fat, but she was a lot plumper than Sarah’s own model-thin physique. She might be happy to risk her figure, but Sarah certainly wasn’t.

At that moment, the game of musical chairs ended, and Penny was left jumping up and down, squealing excitedly at her victory. Her mother went over to congratulate her, leaving Sarah to help herself to a drink.

She looked around hopefully for a sign of something alcoholic, but there was nothing. Already wishing she’d made up some excuse not to come, never mind how furious her mother and Auntie might have been with her, she poured herself a plastic cup of lemonade and lounged against the kitchen counter, examining the other guests. There was no-one else even close to her age. Everyone was either a brat or a parent.

Then a man strolled over and leant against the counter next to her. He was dressed very peculiarly in a tailed coat and bowtie, like a stage magician.

“Hello,” said Sarah, uncertainly.

“Nice to meet you, sweetie!” the man said cheerfully. “Are you enjoying the party?”

Sarah was about to lie and say that she was, but there was something about his overly bright tone that annoyed her. “No,” she said bluntly, sounding much more like a pouty child than she’d intended. She felt her face going red.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” the man said kindly. “It’s a shame you weren’t here earlier. I’m a hypnotist, you see. I’m very good with suggestions. I go around deciding what all the boys and girls should become, then I tell them how to act accordingly. There’s always at least one person who’s not enjoying themselves, but after a session with me, they’ll be running around and giggling as happily as anyone else.”

He smiled at her, and Sarah felt a chill run down her spine. The man was quite handsome, even if he was almost twice her age, but there was something a little unsettling about his expression. He was probably hoping to get into her pants, Sarah thought. But no… that wasn’t it. His expression wasn’t predatory. Not exactly. It was more amused, or condescending. He was looking at her in the same way all the parents were looking at their shrieking three-year-olds, and Sarah didn’t like it at all.

“Well anyway,” she said, thinking hard for an excuse to get away, but at that moment her Auntie reappeared, holding Penny’s hand. The girl was fidgeting with the hem of her pink dress and staring shyly at her shoes.

“Sarah,” said her Auntie in a whisper, “could I have your help? I’m afraid Penny’s had a little accident, and I could do with someone to help me clean her up.”

“She had a…” Sarah began, looking down at Penny’s waist. No pee-stained socks. No puddle on the floor. “An accident?” she asked. Surely this couldn’t be happening. Surely she wasn’t really being asked to do this.

“In her pull-ups,” her Auntie clarified.

Sarah looked at her in disgust. “She’s pissed herself and you want me to help change her fucking nappy?” she demanded, disbelieving.

“Sarah!” her Auntie exclaimed in a shocked voice.

“No way,” Sarah said firmly, “I’m not doing that.”

Penny started to cry.

“Now look what you’ve done!” her Auntie snapped. She turned to her daughter. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“Oh come on,” Sarah sneered. “Can she really not use a toilet at three years old?” She felt a little guilty about making her cousin cry, but she was too angry to care. Her Auntie was acting like she was the one who’d done something wrong! Just because she didn’t want to change a disgusting, pissy diaper! “Maybe I should have brought some nappies for her as a birthday present.”

Her Auntie glared at her furiously. She’d just opened her mouth to say something when the hypnotist cut in. “I’ll take care of Sarah,” he said mildly. He exchanged a meaningful look with her Auntie, and Sarah was shocked to see a smile flash across the woman’s face. She nodded and led her crying daughter away by the hand, throwing Sarah one last furious look over her shoulder.

Sarah rounded on the ridiculous man. “What do you mean you’ll take care of me?” she demanded, raising her eyebrow in a superior way. “I’m not a… not a… What are you… doing…?”

Her voice faltered. The hypnotist had taken out a shining silver pocket watch, and was swinging it in front of her face. Sarah wanted to laugh, but something stopped her. Her thoughts felt slow and sluggish. The hypnotist was saying something, but she wasn’t sure what. The watch was glittering brightly. So, so brightly…

The hypnotist took her by the hand and started leading her further into the house. She tried to stop, but it was as if her body was out of her control. Her feet wouldn’t obey her! She felt a knot of anxiety tighten in her stomach. What was going on?!

The man smiled at her over his shoulder. “Like I told you before, I’m very good with suggestions. I always have been! I know you’re scared, Sarah, but there’s nothing to be frightened about. I’m just going to help you have a lovely time at Penny’s party, and after that…” He paused, smirking. “Well, after that I suppose it will be up to your Auntie.”

Sarah tried to say something, anything, but no words would come out. Before she knew it, she was sitting in a comfy chair in the spare bedroom, the noise of the party echoing distantly. The hypnotist was sat directly across from her, his shiny silver pocket watch back in his hand.

He swung it gently before her eyes, and Sarah couldn’t tear her eyes away. So shiny, she thought. So pretty. Pretty pocket watch…

“That’s it, Sarah,” the hypnotist cooed. “That’s a good girl. Now, we’re going to have a little talk, that’s all, and see if we can make your behaviour match your attitude.”

[strawberryforks]

focus // finnick odair x reader

summary: it’s the 65th hunger games and district 4’s tributes are best friends. what’s unfortunate is that everyone knows there can only be one winner…

warnings: violence, suicide, underaged drinking (which i do not condone), no happy ending

word count: 2099

author’s note: this is my first fic and as i’m new to writing for “reader” or “y/n” the format may be different on others! but hopefully this is angsty enough <3 ALSO, REQUESTS/ASKS OPEN!

sitting on the train, in a booth, beside your best friend finnick you were the furthest thing from present. you paid more attention the the blur of trees and buildings than him and your mentor, mags. your cheek was pressed against the glass and your hot breath was causing it to steam up.

was dragging your finger overtop it and making various smiley-faces more interesting than whatever finnick and mags were discussing? well, yes. still you couldn’t delude yourself into thinking it was the best use of your time. just like you couldn’t be surprised when finnick’s elbow found purchase in your side. it wouldn’t bruise but it didn’t feel nice. “focus,” he scolded. “you have to listen to what mags is saying. she’s been through this already. she won. she can help us.”

finnick, with his hopefulness, blonde hair, blue eyes and fourteen years worth of boyish charm was perfect. sometimes too perfect because you would catch yourself staring. eyes stuck and cheeks turned redder than a tomato whenever he caught you. embarassing, really, because it’s common sense. you just don’t look at your best friend like that.

“sure. sorry mags. i’ll pay attention.” the victor nodded and continued her explanation—told you and finnick that your best bet would be getting away from the cornucopia as soon as possible. you nodded and though you did your best to listen, you just hoped finnick had, because wherever he went, you would follow.

—

“what are you doing?”

you were doing something you shouldn’t have–but caught, the sounds that spilled from your lips weren’t hurried explanations. you just giggled. “uhm,” you held one hand out in front of your face like a shield and sat the cup of bubbling liquid down on the dresser.

drinking. you were drinking. you moved in front of the dresser hiding the evidence with your body. finnick stepped forward quickly, crossing the room and making it to you in no time at all. he was frowning, he saw the drinks and he wasn’t happy which you didn’t understand because you were overflowing with the stuff. everything was greater than it had been, you were smiling, laughing at things that weren’t funny, and felt a bit like you were floating. “that’s not allowed—where did you even get that?”

“there was a buffet table and,” you burped, “they had drinks. y’wanna try?”

he didn’t. finnick shook his head–didn’t understand why you weren’t taking this seriously. usually he loved your attitude and outlook on things, ‘whatever happens, happens’ was usually said on your adventures but this wasn’t that. this was serious. now was not the time. he just wanted you to focus. “we’re almost at the capital. you can’t do this again, you understand?”

you bite your tongue so your inner monologue doesn’t get out. because yeah, you wouldn’t ever get to do this again (drink, legally or not). you wouldn’t get to do much of anything ever again. your days were numbered. in your last ones you would smile and wave, play pretend with your best friend at your side.

finnick was quite possibly the best and worst person to be in this situation with. on one hand, you’d be with someone you loved in your last moments, on the other… there was no world in which you won this.

finnick swapped your drink with a tall glass of water. sat by you while you sipped at it and helped you to bed. morning came and he was still there. your eyes cracked open, narrowed by bright light and confusion. “you’re good now, yeah?” he asked.

your head hurt but you nodded it anyways. there were purple bags below his eyes. “did you sleep?” you asked despite the answer being obvious.

“someone had to make sure you didn’t choke on your vomit and i didn’t want to tell mags.” lest you disappoint another person. is what he was nice enough to omit.

you weren’t fast enough with thanking him and he left you alone with the myriad of thoughts you just wanted to ignore.

—

“i know what you’re doing.” it was mags.

you turned around to face her—had just finished being interviewed by a loser in an extravagant suit, and felt like a loser, dressed in a blue frilly dress. you kind of looked like a loser too, one late for tea time.

“i don’t know what you mean.”

mags sighed and shook her head lightly. “it’s honourable but he’ll hate you for it.”

you shrug. you don’t care, your mind is more than made up, and has been since you heard his name called alongside your own. “if he’s alive to hate i’m okay with that. you know there can only be one winner.”

mags knew more than most. “i won’t tell him. don’t worry.”

“Tell him,” you made her promise, “that i’m sorry. you know, tributes are vicious but the capitol is worse. keep an eye on him for me please?”

“of course.”

—

then you trained.

“come help,” he called. finnick was practising tying knots, all which he was excellent at. “sure,” you said, allowing him to interrupt your people-watching. you were worried about the careers but figured that together you and finnick could handle them. they were adults but… most of the others were. it was fine, would be fine.

“think you should try something else? you’re pretty good at this.”

finnick laughed and you tucked the sound away in your mind. “thanks, but you? You’re not.” He gestured to the mess of rope on your end before scooting closer. his hands overtop yours, he moved them and showed you the right way to do what you had been failing at. “and there’s no way you’re telling me to train something else. have you even picked up a weapon?”

you shrugged. “i’ve just been watching. i know how to shoot a bow and use knives, i get either of those and i’ll be just fine. a few days of preparation with either won’t change much. i've used them since i could walk, y’know?”

“i just want us to be prepared.” he said.

you smiled and stood, you held his hands and pulled him up with you. “the arena’s usually have tridents, right? you’re great with those.”

and he was. you didn’t care about impressing the judges but finnick did so effortlessly.

“we’ll stick together in the arena, right?” you blurted once the two of you were alone and resting.

“until the end,” he said with a sad smile.

then, almost out of nowhere, his smile brightened. “sleepover?”

that was something you did a lot. Sleepovers under the stars, in your bed, on your father’s boat. it was your thing and somehow the idea of one last sleepover was enough to make everything okay, even just for a little while.

you crawled into the big bed the capitol provided, finnick at your side. you pulled up a blanket at the same time he pulled you into him. he held tight. so tight, for a second you forgot to breath. it meant so much. so, so much. your back was pressed against his chest and his arms were around you–hours later, you were grateful he was such a heavy sleeper. finnick was warm and safe. he was home. you were thankful he was a heavy sleeper because otherwise the way you shook as wet trailed down your cheeks would’ve woke him.

–

finnick’s knots came in handy. you stuck to higher ground, perching in trees and climbing cliffs, and managed to booby trap most of the area around us. after tributes were caught in a net finnick made, you would take turns finishing them off. you, who’d been preparing to kill since your name was called, went first.

a teen who killed without issue was concerning but so was a civilization that made their people fight to the death for glory and entertainment so what could you do?

you killed the first one with an arrow—having got both the weapons you wanted, and finnick took the second, ending a thirty year old man who had more muscles than brains with a trident that had been gifted to him by a sponsor.

two days later and you both were still kicking. In the final four.

you knew what had to be done. your plan only solidified when the other two–also allied, found you. the fight was fast. finnick went up against the remaining tribute from district ten and you fought against the tribute from district two

you were uncomfortable with the distance between the two of you. you both had stuck together like glue the entire time and now fighting and separated? you hated it. if something– “shit,” the man swung the axe and you barely threw yourself out of the way in time. you list some hair and some skin off your shoulder but nothing you really needed. the axe buried itself in the ground behind you and before your opponent could yank it back you struck. you buried a dagger in his stomach and twisted it. his hands found your throat and black dotted your vision but you kept slicing and he went limp.

you rolled the man off of you and immediately ran to help finnick.

another minute and his opponent was dead. you was down a dagger but one was enough. you smiled so wide my cheeks hurt and flung yourself into finnick’s arms. he hugged you hesitantly at first–like he was wary of you. like he expected you to bury a dagger into his back. you would never. besides, your last one was… occupied. “we did it, finn. we did it.”

“only one of us can win…”

you pulled back. both of your hands–both shaky, both covered in blood, cupped his cheeks. “i know, i know. it’s okay. you did… you did great.”

“what? y/n what are you–what do you mean?”

your legs picked that moment to give out. you dropped, knees slamming into the rock. still, you wore that lazy smile. you were losing blood quick and lots of it. you saw the drone that recorded everything begin to inch closer, zooming in as terror finally flooded finnick’s face. he fell to his knees beside you. “no, no, no, no.” his hands pressed on either side of the dagger you had yet to pull out. “what did you do?” his voice broke and his eyes glistened with moisture. you wanted to wipe them away. it was okay. it would be okay. you made sure of it.

“i helped you win...” you assured.

finnick pushed harder on your stomach and you sobbed. he pulled his shirt and pressed it around the blade. pushed again. “finnick. finn, no,” you told him—pleaded with him. you moved your hands… wanted to move his but was too weak. “you didn’t–this isn’t helping. ” he shook his head and more tears fell. “why? you can’t leave me. friends forever, remember? what about that?”

“you-you’ll be okay.”

“not after this. not without you.” agony, finnick was in agony. an ugly sound tore it’s way out of his chest. you couldn’t leave him, not like this.

“c’mere,” you begged. he did, how could he argue with you now? the damage, the irreversible damage, had been done. you pulled his head closer to yours as he choked on more tears. the capitol had taken many things from both of you—and you decided that they could have your life, your future, your finn (you hated that most, but at least he would get to live. get to have his shot at happiness) but they couldn’t have your last words. those… well, they were only for him. “i love you finn. focus… on that.”

“no. no! focus on me, on my eyes—dammit, don’t close yours. no, no, no.”

then your eyes closed again for the last time. he called your name over an over like a prayer, one that went unanswered. but you tried, you swear you did… you just couldn’t get them open again. not as finnick sobbed, not as he stood up and faced the drone. “help her!” he cried, “help her dammit!”

“kill me instead, take me instead. i’ll die, i will! just bring her back, help her! you can’t—you can’t do this!” he begged and when that didn’t work he screamed at the cameras, cursing the capital until the footage stopped being streamed.

when your heart stopped, he refused to let go. clinging to your corpse, to his best friend, he hugged you for the last time.

finnick had won, but he didn’t feel like a winner.

[odyssean-flower]

The Winding Path of Fate Chapter 12 first part

honestly im not even gonna say when the chapter is gonna be ready anymore...it'll be done when it's done...

anyways here's the first part. It's unbetaed but hopefully it compels/entertains you in some way as I finish the chapter up

“My dear Iudex, are my eyes deceiving me, or is that a smile on your face?”

Neuvillette raised his gaze from the documents spread out before him. Furina was standing on the other side of his desk. Of course, he had heard her enter his office before she even spoke, but he was so used to her unannounced intrusions these days that he treated it as a part of his daily routine now. I only hope that she makes this quick. I have a rather heavy agenda today, and I would like to return home before dark.

Furina leaned over his desk, her heterochromatic eyes eagerly scanning the desk for some sort of incriminating evidence to grab onto. Of course, she found none. Neuvillette wasn’t so foolish that he would make such a careless mistake.

“Hmph, I didn’t know that paperwork could inspire such a joyous expression on one’s face. What a contrast you make with the Gestionnaires outside your door! You really must get out more.”

“Indeed, I have, thanks to your urging. I believe you’ve already read the note I left you.”

“Ah, yes, that sorry excuse for a note,” Furina sniffed. “‘Will be away for a day due to personal reasons.’ No mention of where you’re going or who you’ll be with.”

“I see no reason why I should have included either of those things. I followed all the necessary protocol for requesting leave, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Oh, I am. But Neuvillette, aren’t you getting tired of constantly having to avoid my questions and fend me off every single day? You know exactly what I want, why won’t you give it to me? Are you truly intending to keep doing this forever?”

“And you know very well that I will not change my position on this matter. There is no need for you to get involved in my marriage, nor do you have the right.”

Furina and Neuvillette glared at each other silently for a while. Throughout this week, she had constantly needled, badgered, and pestered him in an attempt to fish for any information about his day off, but he remained an immovable stone wall. He knew that revealing anything to her would only pour fuel on the fire, so to speak. Knowing her nature, he doubted she would let this go any time soon, but he could at least not give her any openings to pounce onto.

“No right to get involved in your marriage, huh,” Furina repeated, arching an eyebrow. “Don’t forget that you have me to thank for it. Would you have ever even considered marrying this woman if it weren’t for me?”

Neuvillette did not say anything. They both knew the answer to that question.

“Even so, I do not owe you anything,” he said with a firm tone that signaled the end of their talk. “Now then, Furina, allow me to get back to my work.”

“Fine,” Furina said with a toss of her head. “It looks like I’ll be visiting you again tomorrow.”

“Please do so during my coffee break.”

Furina spun on her heel and was about to stride away when she suddenly turned around again. “You know, Neuvillette, I just don’t understand why you won’t let me meet the person who clearly brought you so much joy.”

Neuvillette narrowed his eyes at her. “I believe we were done here?”

Furina put her hand to her heart and made an expression of exaggerated joy. “How heartless! I do hope your wife never sees this side of you.”

He watched her until she left his office and the doors closed behind her. Letting out a heavy sigh, his gaze drifted to the misty painting hanging at the side of his office, almost by instinct. This was also something that had also become a daily routine for him.

He wondered what the painter was doing now. Around this time, you were sure to be in the garden, devoting all your attention to the sunflowers.

Were you waiting for him to come home? He hoped you weren’t. It looked like he would be returning late today. Well, to be honest, he usually returned home late at night, but now with you as his wife, it would be terribly uncouth of him as your husband to come home too late. In addition, he found that his willingness to work into the late hours had decreased considerably. Still, there were times when he truly had no other choice.  

But, there was a small part of him that would very much like it if you did wait for him.

Neuvillette did not know what to make of this new development in his feelings. He examined it, turning it over in his head as one would do with a particularly interesting-looking rock or seashell, then put it away for later. He needed to concentrate on getting through the stack of paperwork on his desk if he wanted to leave work earlier.

But before that…

His hand moved to his desk drawer, which contained a recently-delivered envelope. It was a stroke of good fortune that it had been delivered before Furina’s visit. He’d never hear the end of that if she saw its contents.

He opened the envelope and took out a stack of newly-developed photos. He flipped through them until he reached the photo of a young woman standing stiffly in front of an azure-blue willow tree. His finger idly stroked the edge of the picture. The colors were so vivid and crisp that he felt as though he could reach into the photo and touch the ribbon of your hat or the soft fabric of your sleeve.

It was strange. You were not a particularly cheerful or spirited person, but when he was with you, his heart felt lighter, freer. Not to the extent of forgetting himself or his responsibilities, of course, but… Was this what Furina meant by the “joys of matrimony”?

He couldn’t say he disliked it.

He carefully put the photos back in the envelope. What sort of face would you make when he showed them to you? Or when he showed you the other surprise he had for you? Would you smile at him once again? Would you take his hand in yours? A feeling of anticipation filled his heart. Unconsciously, his fingers brushed against his cheek.

The sunflowers were coming along nicely. They now reached the height of your hip and formed small, tightly closed buds. There were no yellow petals peeking through yet, but you were confident that they would appear in the coming weeks.

You brushed your fingers against the leaves. They were the size of your palm now. You could see little bug bites dotting them. Perhaps you should ask Marie if there were any pesticides on hand.

It was evening now, though the sun was still in the sky. Neuvillette should be back by now. Maybe he had a lot of work today? You couldn’t help but feel a sting of disappointment. You had been looking forward to showing him the buds. Was Furina pestering him again?

It had been a week since the date. Neuvillette had sent the photos out to be developed, and you would be getting them today. You were a bit excited to see them.  I don’t think I’ve ever taken so many pictures in my life.

After you finished taking the last measurements, you returned to the house and went up to your room. Your eyes automatically went to the plump azure flower tucked into a vase on your desk. It brought a vibrant splash of color to your elegant but sparse room, and you liked looking at it. It gave you a sense of pleasure. You wondered where Neuvillette put his flower.

I wonder if it will deflate like a balloon if I stuck a pin into the middle, you thought as you sniffed the flower’s cool fragrance. That would make it easier to press, wouldn’t it?

Perhaps it was because you talked about pressing flowers on the date, but it had been on your mind lately. Your fingers itched for your old flower press, sitting in your closet back home. The lily would look striking against a white page. If only you picked some of those wildflowers you had seen on Erinnyes and in Merusea Village... they could serve as accompaniment to the lily, which would obviously be the centerpiece, and a strand of blue leaves from the Weeping Willow could be the finishing touch, forming a wreath that framed everything neatly. It would be a beautiful memento of one of the most beautiful days in your life.

It was strange. Even though your days went on like usual after the date, you felt a little different. A little lighter. Reinvigorated, if you had to describe it in a single word. Your childhood hobbies, which you once considered frivolous and backwards, beckoned to you once more.

For a long time now, you felt like you were barely holding yourself up by the sheer force of will, like a sunflower with shallow roots and a too-heavy head, in need of a support to stand tall and erect. Well, now you did have one.

I guess this is what marriage all about. Two people supporting each other for life. Although, it is rather one-sided in our case.

You bit your lip. It was irrational, you knew. Neuvillette was the powerful and respected Iudex, while you were an impoverished baron’s daughter from the countryside. Your presence in his house was proof of just how much more you relied on him than the other way around. You knew that Neuvillette didn’t expect anything from you, which only made you even more determined to do something for him.

You despised the feeling of owing someone. You hated having to completely depend on someone. That was one of the many reasons why you chose your career path.

But more than that…

Neuvillette’s distraught face flashed through your mind. Though you only saw it once, you never wanted to see that look on his face again.

Neuvillette finally returned home by the time the sky was dark. You had already eaten dinner without him and was reading in the parlor when you heard the front door open.

“Neuvillette,” you called out to him as you went into the foyer. “You came home so late. Did something happen?”

As you approached him, you thought that he looked a bit fatigued, but the tiredness in his face seemed to vanish as he fixed his eyes on you.

“Madame,” he greeted you. “My apologies for worrying you. I had a rather busy agenda today. I hope you’ve already eaten dinner?”

“I have. But have you eaten as well? If not, I can warm up the leftovers for you, or I can ask Marie to cook something fresh if that’s what you prefer.”

“No need for that. I’ve already eaten. But there is something else I want to talk about,” Neuvillette paused. It took you a moment to realize that he was doing it for dramatic effect. So even he has that side to him...how cute, you thought, trying to hide your smile. “I was able to receive the developed photos today.”

He took out an envelope from his coat pocket and handed it to you. “They turned out quite well, I must say,” he added.

The envelope was thick and heavy. You must have taken more than a hundred photos.

You decided to look through them in the parlor. Neuvillette followed you, and the two of you sat side by side on the couch as you spread the photos out on the coffee table. Neuvillette was right, they did turn out well. You had been a bit worried that they might come out blurry or at odd angles, but overall, they all looked pretty good, considering the fact that you hadn’t used a Kamera in a long time.

“You have a very good eye for photography, Madame,” Neuvillette remarked as he picked up a photo of the Weeping Willow. “Have you considered pursuing a career in that field?”

“Oh, not at all. My old drawing teacher was much better at it than me, enough to make a living out of it, and she taught me a few tricks.”

“‘Was’? Do you mean...” Neuvillette trailed off.

“Yes. It was a few years ago.”

“Ah...I see. I'm sorry to hear that.”

There was a brief, awkward silence. Neuvillette looked as though he wanted to say something more. You would rather not deal with that, so your eyes roamed around the scattered photos on the table before they landed on something silver. “Oh, my pictures of you!” you said, leaning forward to grab them. “See, what did I tell you, Neuvillette. There’s nothing more picturesque than beautiful scenery and a handsome man.”

Neuvillette leaned closer towards you to examine the photos for himself. His hair brushed against your shoulder, and you could feel the heat of his body against your arm.  A thought suddenly struck you. If you turned your head right now, your lips would brush against his cheek in the same spot where you had kissed it before.

Inexplicably, your face turned warm at the thought. The back of your hand tingled.

Perhaps things didn’t quite remain the same after the date.

It truly had been a spur of the moment move. Your roiling emotions, aided by the instigation of the Melusines, had pushed you to do it.

Later that night, as you laid in bed, your mind replaying that scene over and over to an infuriating degree, you had rifled through all the emotions you had felt at that time. Embarrassment, disbelief, a strange sort of elation…

But the one emotion that had been missing no matter how hard you searched for it, was regret.

Overt acts of affection had never been your forte, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Well, cheek kisses don’t inherently mean anything significant, you had told yourself. Friends do it with each other all the time. And Neuvillette is my friend. A very dear friend. So it’s perfectly fine. Case closed.

Indeed, Neuvillette didn’t seem to look at you or treat you any differently after the fact, so why should you? No doubt he was used to receiving such acts of intimacy—most likely even more intimate—from people who were far more glamorous than you. A brief brush of lips against his cheek probably meant nothing to him.

As for the hand kiss, well, that was something that gentlemen like him did. It also didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t.

The thought that these kisses were all meaningless did sting a little bit, but considering the circumstances, you had no right to complain.

“I must confess that I do not see what makes these pictures any better than the ones you took of the scenery,” Neuvillette’s voice interrupted your thoughts. His eyes were fixed on the photo, so thankfully he didn’t notice your reddened cheeks. “Or of the Melusines, for that matter.”

“Well, even if you don’t appreciate them, I do. I’ll treat them like a family treasure.”

“A family treasure? That’s a bit excessive, is it not?”

“I don’t think so. These are pretty rare items, aren’t they?”

Since Neuvillette didn’t appear in public much, there were not many pictures of him outside of the rare interview and official events. Hmm, I wonder how much they’ll sell for? Not that I would ever do that, of course. …Well, maybe if I’m in dire financial straits. I’ll ask for Neuvillette’s permission beforehand if it ever comes to that.

You went through the remaining photos. Each one sparked a memory. The Weeping Willow, the sea, Merusea Village underwater—you really had been to all of those places. With Neuvillette, no less. The entirety of that day was only known to the two of you.

The days after your date had been so mundane and normal that you were half-convinced that it had all been a strange dream. Thoughts and memories were such mutable things, after all. Someone like you on a date with the Chief Justice? Not even in your wildest delusions would something like that ever happen. But these pictures were proof that it did.

You knew that you would probably think back on that day for the rest of your life, holding it close to your chest like a treasured gemstone and taking it out whenever times got tough. A sparkling memory of your youth that you would smile back fondly upon in your autumn years, a lone glimmering star in the dark that would inspire you move forward…

Wait, why am I getting so sappy and sentimental? Just because of a date? Ugh, come on now.

You glanced at Neuvillette, who was currently enjoying a glass of water (imported from Inazuma). You doubted that he felt the same way as you about the date. It was probably just like a drop of water in a vast ocean to him.

That thought pricked at you, but you chose to ignore it.

You sifted through the pictures until you came across a certain snapshot. Just as you were about to flip it over, a gloved finger pressed down against the photo, stopping you.

“This one is my favorite,” Neuvillette said. Once again, his face was right next to yours, but you couldn’t read his expression.

“Because you were the one who took it?”

“No,” he said, then turned his head towards you. “Because it’s of you.”

“Neuvillette…” you said after a short silence. You fidgeted with your reddened fingertips. “I don’t understand how you can say things like that with such a straight face.”

“Is it truly so strange?” Neuvillette looked perplexed. “I was simply saying my true feelings. And it is not as though you have refrained from such comments either.”

“You do have a point,” you conceded, although that still didn’t mean it didn’t catch you off guard. You turned your attention back to the photo of you. To be honest, it didn’t turn out half bad. Sure, you looked incredibly stiff and awkward and your hair was a mess and you had no idea what you were thinking when you matched that sweater with that skirt, but…it could have turned out worse.

“May I keep this photo?” Neuvillette asked.

“Of course, but what will you do with it? Surely you aren’t going to put it on your office desk or anything, right?”

“No, of course not. I would put it in a drawer, so I may take it out and look at it whenever I like.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Is it so wrong for a husband to want to look at a picture of his wife every once in a while? Many of the Palais staff also keep pictures of their loved ones on their desks. Why shouldn’t I?” Neuvillette paused for a little bit before adding, “And it would be one way for me to see your face more often, considering how I don’t get many chances of that during the day.”

“Hmm…very well, then,” you didn’t quite get why he would want to see more of your face, but if it made him happy, then you supposed there was nothing to complain about. Neuvillette is actually quite good at this kind of thing, you thought to yourself. Just imagine what it would be like when he gets married to someone he loves.

Now you really felt bad about your (hypothetical) future plans about selling Neuvillette’s photos. I’m an insensitive boor compared to him.

You reached the last of the photos. It was the one of you and Neuvillette standing in front of the sunset.

“You made two copies for the both of us,” you said as you looked at them. “How thoughtful.”

As you gazed at the pictures, you couldn’t help but feel a complex mixture of emotions. There was a surrealness to this photo that the others lacked. If this were a novel, this would be the point where you would wake up and return to reality after discovering something out of place in your life. No matter how you looked at it, you and Neuvillette were mismatched. Two people who were only brought together because of a weird quirk of fate.

But on the other hand…it was a beautiful photo. You had been somewhat worried that the two of you wouldn’t be centered in the frame, but it turned out well. The sunset made for a lovely backdrop. Even though both of you were looking very stiff, and neither of you were smiling.

You remembered that moment clearly. In those few minutes, you felt as light as a feather, like there was nothing tying you to the ground.

Would you ever feel that way again?

“I’m also very fond of this one,” Neuvillette said next to you. When you turned your head, you saw that he was not looking at the photos, but at you. It was then that you realized you were smiling. For some reason, you turned your head away.

“I just realized something,” you said, to cover up the awkward moment. “I’ve taken so many pictures, but I’ve got nowhere to put them all.”

“Ah, about that,” there was an excitement, subdued but present, in his voice. He sounded the same as he did when he introduced you to some new exotic variety of water. “I have a surprise for you. Please, come with me to my study.”

A surprise from Neuvillette? You had an inkling as to what it could be, but that didn’t stop you from putting all the photos back in the envelope and following him upstairs to his study, a domain you had yet to step into. It was a smaller version of his office at the Palais Mermonia, with its large desk, soft rugs, and tall bookshelves that lined the walls. There was also a fireplace here and a cozy-looking couch.

As Neuvillette went to take something out of a cabinet, you covertly examined the shelves. They were mainly filled with books on law, human psychology, history (most of which you’ve already read, having borrowed them from the library), and other similarly serious topics. Oddly enough, you spotted a few children’s picture books. Gifts from the Melusines? Or for entertaining them whenever they visit?

“Madame, here it is,” Neuvillette said, and you walked over to the desk, where there was a large, leather-bound album with metal corners.

“Oh, Neuvillette, you shouldn’t have!” you exclaimed, flipping through the album. There should be just enough space to put all the pictures from your date in it. You looked up to thank him, but was met with the sight of Neuvillette taking out yet another album from the cabinet. This one was wider, with a ribbon tied into a neat bow on the spine. Perhaps Neuvillette bought a second album, just in case the first one wouldn’t fit all of your pictures?

But, as though to dash all reasonable explanations, Neuvillette took out another album from the cabinet, then another. It seemed never-ending, this deluge of albums. After a while, it became sort of funny, like a comedy sketch. You watched, open-mouthed, as the desk became covered with albums of all shapes and sizes.

Finally, after the tenth one, the deluge stopped. Neuvillette looked at you expectantly. “Well, Madame, which one do you prefer?”

“Wait a minute, let me get this right,” you said, backing up a step and surveying the desk. “You bought all these albums just for me to choose one?”

“Yes, I did,” Neuvillette said, nodding as though this was a perfectly normal thing to do. Was this how the minds of the wealthy worked? It was beyond your comprehension. “I was unsure which one would be most to your liking, so I decided to buy them all.”

“Oh, Neuvillette, you really shouldn’t have…” you said. “This is too excessive. Why didn’t you ask me to come with you when you went shopping? And you know I’d like anything you picked out for me.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise…” Neuvillette said. He looked a bit deflated, and you felt bad.

“Can you return them?”

“It would be highly inconvenient for the shopkeeper if I did so,” Neuvillette said, then added in an abashed tone, “And I was told that all sales are final.”

“How unfortunate,” you looked down at the desk again. Was it possible for anyone to fill up all these albums in their lifetime? Maybe if they had a lifespan as long as Neuvillette’s. “Maybe they could make an exception for the Iudex?”

“I would rather not use my position in such a manner.”

“Well then, how about we give them away?”

“Give them away…” Neuvillette considered your words. “I-I suppose that could work… it is a reasonable idea. Yes, quite reasonable indeed.”

Neuvillette…if only you could see the look on your face right now. He looked like a kicked puppy. However, you decided to hold your tongue.

“Hmm, on second thought, it would be quite rude of me to give away presents from my generous husband,” you said. “I’ll keep them all. Thank you, Neuvillette.”

You patted his hand. He looked down at your hand on top of his, his eyes unreadable. He lightly brushed his fingers against your own.

“You need not force yourself to accept them if you do not want them,” he said quietly.

“But I do want them. They’re from you, after all. We’ll just have to take plenty more photos to get your money’s worth.”

“‘We?’”

“Yes, ‘we.’ Did you expect me to fill up these albums all on my own?”

“Certainly, it would be more efficient if we worked together,” Neuvillette nodded to himself. “Very well, then, Madame. I will assist you in this endeavour.”

With that settled, you decided to put the date photos in the first brown leather album. It had a vintage look to it that you liked.

“It’s getting late, Madame. You should be going to bed soon,” Neuvillette informed you.

“What about you?” Neuvillette didn’t seem to be making any moves to retire for the night just yet.

“There are a few more matters that I need to take care of, but do not worry, it won’t take very long.”

“Okay then,” you nodded, stepping towards the door. But just as you were about to leave the study, a thought suddenly struck you. “Oh, by the way, Neuvillette.”

“Yes, Madame?”

“Has Lady Furina been bothering you about…about me lately?”

Neuvillette blinked. He was silent for a moment before speaking. “She has. But it’s nothing for you to worry about. I’m quite used to handling her.”

“But…”

“There is no need to worry, Madame. She will never need to know about you,” Neuvillette’s tone was firm. “I will do my utmost to make sure it stays that way.”

“…Alright,” you said, but it wasn’t relief that flooded your heart. “Good night, Neuvillette.”

“Good night, Madame.”

You closed the study door quietly behind you.

[amhrosina]

August (Namor x fem!Reader)

Songfic - August by Taylor Swift

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A/N: hi friends! I hit 500 followers today and have over 1,000 notes on one of my fics. I can’t express how much I appreciate your support and love for my writing :’). You are all so kind! This fic took me a few days longer than usual because I was experiencing some pretty intense writer’s block. Hopefully, that’s in the past! Anyways, a nonnie requested this! Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy it!

Request: hi i have read the artist and the sea and it was so well-written and wonderful 🥹🫶🏼 this is why i'm requesting a namor x fem reader that is kind of inspired with august by taylor swift? like it's a summer love typa beat but the reader will realize that they don't have a future together since he's a god and she's just a mortal so it's like the lyric "so much for summer love and saying 'us' cause you weren't mine to lose" ??? you can put a happy ending or not honestly it's fine either way! and sorry if this is too specific and if you don't want to write this, it's okay &lt;333 

Summary: You and Namor must face the music when the real world begins to catch up with your summer love affair.

(Warnings: smutty language, allusions of smut, no hardcore smut (nonnie didn’t specify and I didn’t want to include it just in case), watch me make shit up about being able to visit Talokan as a human (without the suit lol), fluffy Namor, Namor would hang the moon for reader, a little bit of angst, happy ending bc im incapable of writing sad endings) 

Translations: 

in yakunaj – my love 

princesa – princess 

Salt air, and the rust on your door  I never needed anything more 

The summer heat was stifling, but you were determined to meet Namor on the beach when he finally made it back from Talokan, and the sun had almost set, so the heat wouldn’t be an issue for much longer. He’d been gone for three long days, and you were beginning to grow a little anxious. Since you’d met him, the time between seeing him was never longer than a day or two. When he hadn’t returned last night, you’d opened your bedroom window and listened to the sound of the sea for hours until finally drifting off into a restless sleep. When you awoke, and he still hadn’t come back, the worry began gnawing at your gut. 

You weren’t entirely sure why Namor continued to come back to you, time and time again. It was a thought that was easily forgotten when Namor was around, but during the short stretches of his absence, you couldn’t stop yourself from mulling it over. Namor was a god, a warrior that was centuries older than you, and yet, he seemed completely enamored with you. 

His “little love”, he called you, a nickname that never failed to make you blush. When you really thought about it, the pace at which you’d fallen for each other was incredibly fast. It was a lightning storm out at sea, a muscle car going 90 down the pacific coast highway, the tumble of the waves meeting the sand on a stormy night. It was a warmth that many people didn’t know existed. You’d never cared about anyone as deeply as you care for Namor, and you tried not to think about that, because it was a terrifying thought. 

You never let yourself consider what would happen when you continued to age while Namor didn’t. Namor never brought it up either, and for that you were grateful. The thought left a melancholy note in your body, and you wanted to enjoy the time you were getting to spend with Namor now, even if later wasn’t guaranteed. 

The sun hung low in the sky, on the cusp of fading into the night, and you were worried you might be gnawing a hole in your cheek when you finally spotted Namor in the water. You breathed a sigh of relief, but the nervous ache in your chest didn’t disappear. What if he was only coming to say goodbye to you? 

“I am sorry it took me so long, in yakunaj. I got here as fast as I could.” He buried you in a hug, pressing a kiss on the crown of your head. “I missed you, little love.” 

“I missed you too.” You nuzzled into his chest. “Do you want to come inside?”  

You tilted your head up at him, blinking in awe at his beauty. You would never get tired of seeing him like this. You were almost completely sure no one in the world got to experience the warm, cuddly side of Namor besides you. The way he described his people gave you the sense that “warm and cuddly” wasn’t really what they were going for as warriors, but you didn’t care. Namor never brought violence home to you, and in turn, you always appreciated his kindness a little extra. 

“Lead the way, in yakunaj.”  

Whispers of "Are you sure?"  "Never have I ever before" 

As soon as Namor shut the door, he was on you. His lips captured yours in a heated kiss, pulling your body against his in one swift movement. One hand traveled along the curve of your waist while the other had a firm grip on your jaw, and the sparks traveling through your veins reminded you of the first time Namor had ever kissed you like this. 

Crisp memories flashed through your mind. Namor’s gentle caress along your spine. His fingers lightly treading the waistband of your shorts. The way he’d carefully laid you down, kissing every inch of you with soft lips. In the centuries since he’d been born, the act of sex had become a detatched act of primal urge. He never cared about the people he was burying himself inside of, not really. But then he met you, and suddenly the world had shifted.  

“You make me feel alive, for the first time in 500 years.”  

He had whispered this into your skin, resting his head on your chest as the weight of his words sank in. You had gently cradled his head in your hands, pressing a soft kiss to his lips before slowly pulling your shirt over your head.  

Your first time with Namor was nothing short of magical. You should’ve probably expected it, considering how much more time he’d had to perfect his craft than other men, but you suspected that the love exchanged between you also had an impact. The morning after, Namor had revealed to you that he’d never experienced love, but that he was pretty sure it’s what he felt for you. You’d melted into his hold, and he made love to you again, whispering confessions of love into your skin. 

Namor lifted you in the air and wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling you back into the present. His desire was achingly hard against your clothed core, and you couldn’t help the moan that escaped your lips as you shifted against him. He walked the two of you into your bedroom, and softly closed the door behind him. This was the usual routine after he returned from Talokan, and the love between the two of you seemed to grow every time you reunited. 

Your back beneath the sun  Wishin' I could write my name on it  Will you call when you're back at school?  I remember thinkin' I had you 

Later, after you had spent hours kissing gentle reminders of how much you missed one another into each other’s skin, you were cuddled into Namor’s side, resting your head on his chest in a sleepy haze.  

“Why did it take you so long to come back?” You prodded, out of curiosity, but also out of nervousness.  

Namor sighed, pulling you tighter against his side. “My people have noticed that I spend more time here than at home. Namora is concerned.”  

You stiffened against him. You knew Namor hadn’t revealed to anyone in Talokan exactly what he’d been doing on the surface, but he had never spoken so openly about the toll it was taking on him.  

“Do not worry, in yakunaj. It is a peaceful time for my people.” 

“What if it wasn’t peaceful?” You asked, tilting your head up to look at him. 

“Then I would be with my people, fighting alongside them. I have a duty to protect them, in yakunaj. But I would think of you every second, until we met again.” 

You sighed, but you understood. He was theirs long before he was yours, and you couldn’t expect him to give up 500 years of history for you.  

“I wish I could see it. Talokan sounds lovely.” You mumbled into his chest, kissing one of the faint scars that hid along the line of his collarbone. He tightened his hold on you – a small token of appreciation in response to your love for his home.  

“I know, princesa. There is nothing I want more than that.” 

You wanted to ask him how long he was planning on keeping this hidden love affair going, how long he planned on lying to his closest friends and family about his feelings for a surface dweller, but you stayed quiet. That was not something you wanted to know the answer to. At least not now. The thought of your late nights together on the beach and the hours spent wrapped in bed sheets by each other’s side coming to an end was too painful to think about.  

For now, you were fine with living in blissful ignorance. Eventually, you knew it would have to come to an end, but what you couldn’t bear to think about was how agonizingly lonely you would be without Namor in your life.  

Instead of saying any of this, you lightly kissed his cheek, and drifted off to sleep against his chest, blissfully unaware of the war waging inside of Namor’s head at the exact same moment. 

But I can see us lost in the memory  August slipped away into a moment in time  'Cause it was never mine  So much for summer love and saying "us"  'Cause you weren't mine to lose  You weren't mine to lose, no 

The summer months passed by in an idyllic haze. It was easy to lose yourself in Namor when he was around. Hours would pass like minutes, shaded in the warm glow of summer.  

Namor’s visits were less frequent, excused with the wave of his hand, as if to say, “I had to take care of something, but don’t worry about it.” You tried not to mind the absences, though. When Namor was with you, his attention was always fully on you. The nights he spent with you were always as passionate as the first night, and he’d hold you until he absolutely had to return to Talokan.  

You didn’t question him, though you were curious about what he was so busy doing when he was at home. He was a King, you supposed. He probably had a lot of things going on. All of this justification didn’t help soothe the sting when his absences began to stretch into 3-4 days at a time. Perhaps he was finally realizing what you’d known all along. He was a God, and you were a human, and it wouldn’t work for much longer. 

You mulled this over as you tried to read on the beach one evening. The sun was going to set soon, and it had officially been five days since Namor had visited you. You read the same paragraph three times before finally throwing the book down beside you. Distracting yourself with a book wasn’t working. Your thoughts always trailed back to Namor, and they probably always would. 

You watched the sun set, waiting and waiting for the familiar tremor in the water that indicated Namor’s arrival. The tremor never came, and after two hours of sitting in miserable silence, you trudged back towards your house. He wasn’t coming, and even though you should probably have expected this eventually, you couldn’t stop the tears from welling up.  

Two more days passed before you saw Namor again, and the weary look on his face when you met him in knee-deep water sent a wave of turmoil into your gut. This was it, the moment you’d been dreading since you realized how incredibly hard you’d fallen for him, and you weren’t prepared in the slightest for the wave of emotion that followed this realization. 

Familiar tears stained your cheeks, and the overwhelming sense that you couldn’t breathe overtook your ability to look at him. Namor cupped your cheeks, forcing you to look into his eyes.  

“In yakunaj, what is it? Why are you crying?”  

You latched onto his wrists, failing to stop the tears from flowing down your face. “Please just say it, Namor. I can’t take the distance you’re forcing between us anymore. I can handle it.”  

“Princesa, what are you talking about? Say what?” Namor’s face morphed into concern as he looked over your features. Your eyes were puffy, stained red from crying, and you looked exhausted.  

“That you can’t love me anymore. That you have to go back to Talokan, and that I can’t come, and that I have to move on from you.”  

Namor studied your face for a moment. Understanding dawned on his face as he realized how affected you were by his unexplained absences. He wiped the tears from under your eyes and shook his head. 

“Is that what you think? That I don’t love you anymore?”  

You tried to look away from him, but his firm grip wouldn’t allow it. You closed your eyes instead, trying to calm the heartbreak crashing through you.  

“Why else have you been pulling away from me?” 

“My sweet little love,” Namor cooed, kissing the tip of your nose, “I will always love you. I am sorry for being so distant lately, but I was trying to surprise you.”  

You opened your eyes, confusion evident on your face.  

“Surprise me with what?” You asked. 

Namor smiled, glancing over his shoulder towards the water.  

“We have found a way to bring you to Talokan.” 

You inhaled sharply, following his gaze towards what you could only assume was the route to Talokan.  

“What do you mean?” Your voice was a breathy whisper.  

“I mean, there is a way for me to bring you home with me.”  

Excitement bubbled in your chest, but it was quickly extinguished when you remembered that even if you could get to Talokan, time would remain an enemy. Namor was still a God, and you were still a mortal, after all. 

“Namor,” you shook your head, “It won’t work. I will still die of old age, and then you will be alone again.” 

Namor began shaking his head in response before you could finish your sentence.  

“You misunderstand me, princesa. We have found a way for you to stay in Talokan. You would be one of us. That’s what I’ve been working on while I’ve been gone. We could be together forever, if that’s what you want.” He paused, looking over your shoulder at your house. “You will have to say goodbye to the surface, though. It will be visitable, of course, but your home would be in Talokan, with our people.”  

“Our people?” You felt like a mimicking parrot, but his proposal had overwhelmed you, and that was the only thing you could muster in response.  

Namor chuckled, kissing both of your cheeks, one after the other. “They are very excited to meet their soon-to-be Queen, in yakunaj.”  

“You told them about me?” You murmured, in awe of his ability to render you almost speechless again.  

“I did. They are glad to see me happy.” 

You glanced between your home and the water, mulling over everything he’d told you.  

“I know I am asking a lot of you. You do not have to give me an answer now, in yakunaj. You can think abo-” 

You cut him off with a searing kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck and pushing your body against his.  

“Take me home, Namor.” You murmured against his lips. 

The smile on his face shined so bright that you couldn’t imagine ever saying no to him, if that’s what his response was when he was happy. 

For the hope of it all  (For the hope of it all) 

You looked back towards your house for the final time. Leaving it behind was something you’d never thought you’d do, but you didn’t think you’d miss it – not when an entire city awaited your arrival.  

Namor had explained the transition process to you as best he could. A lot of it sounded like scientific gibberish, but the parts that you picked up included drinking a blue nectar that had been mixed with his blood, which would ensure that you could breathe both under water and above it. It would also extend your lifetime by centuries, if not longer. According to Namor, people all over Talokan were celebrating your arrival already.  

Namor wrapped his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder.  

“Are you sure you want to say goodbye to this life, little love?”  

You smiled and leaned backwards against his chest.  

“Let’s start our life together, in yakunaj.” His language felt foreign on your tongue, but you had heard him call you by that name so many times that you were sure you had pronounced it correctly. 

Namor let out a loud laugh, kissing your shoulder and squeezing you tighter against him in response.  

“I think I could get used to hearing you speak my language, princesa.”  

“We’ll have a hundred lifetimes together. Will you teach me more?”  

“I will do anything you ask of me, princesa.” 

“Forever?” You asked, raising an eyebrow at him.  

He grinned, nodding. “Forever.”  

Tag List:

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[plutoccult]

HAIKYUU X THE OFFICE AU — EPISODE FIVE: BOOZE CRUISE

pairing: sugawara koushi x female reader

description: ukai attempts to help the office bond more by booking a booze cruise for his employees… in the middle of winter. meanwhile, tanaka miserably tries to set suga up with his older sister per kiyoko’s suggestion.

word count: 6.5k

also available to read on my ao3 here

author’s note: hey, i changed my user! i was @310802 before, now i’m @plutoccult! i also had to repost this because the original post wasn’t showing up in ANY tags, so i’m sorry if you already read it before i did this! moving on, i was SO EXCITED to write this episode. i know i neglected the katy storyline from the show, so i decided to take the opportunity to somewhat use that for this episode as a little one-off. i think i was clever with its use too… i’m trying to balance the amount of “screen”time between the reader and suga, but some episodes may just end up needing more focus on suga for the sake of the storyline. anyway, the next few weeks is gonna be updates galore, so you’re all gonna be FED. btw, thank you to @dragon-slayer5 for beta reading this! enjoy!

tags: @toorubobatea @intorder @dragon-slayer5 @femme-lune @jeanboyjean @cowgirlikets @imissyuuji @darthferbert @kazuchaos @bakagun1312 @beingbrokenfitsus @mumblepingu @daedaep69 @intheewrld @msbyomimi @sukxma @akari-fujikawa @milkteeboba

taglist form here

suga considered lunchtime to be the only time of day where he could actually catch a break. he seemed to have a hard time catching any sort of breaks lately, especially when it came to his miserable love life. as much as he wanted things to change, today would certainly be no different.

since suga entered the office building this morning, tanaka had his eyes on him like an hawk. it was creepy how every time suga looked away from his computer, tanaka was staring right at him. but why? did he have something on his face? was his hair actually looking gray? no, that would be terrible. there can’t be anything than that.

to hopefully get tanaka’s eyes off him for once, suga got up and headed down to the hallway where the vending machines were. maybe a little snack would ease the unnerving feeling in his stomach. unfortunately, tanaka was already on his way to follow.

suga pondered over his choices, and before he knew it, tanaka’s reflection was seen in the glass of the vending machine. it was like a scene straight out of a horror movie, but suga decided to ignore him and pray he would go away, then continued to ponder over what to pick.

“a little birdie told me something.” tanaka spoke up.

oh no. “what?”

“nothing.” he smirked.

you enter, also looking to use the vending machine. great, just what this moment needed, suga thought.

“hey, guys.” you greet the two men, no clue about what’s going on. it was better if you didn’t know.

“oh, hi, y/n.” suga slightly blushed.

a smirk crept up on tanaka’s face. suga began to wonder about tanaka’s motives even more, but shook it off and picked a bag of sour cream and onion chips before walking back to his desk. tanaka quickly followed behind, which you found weird considering you assumed he was waiting for his turn to use the vending machine. you figured “oh well”, got your snack, and went back to your desk.

you sit down and meet eyes with suga who’s about pop a chip into his mouth. you quickly open up your bag and pull out a chip, doing a little “clink” with your chips from across the room, which suga immediately thought to reciprocate. it was good to know you two were still in sync.

a few minutes later, ukai returned from eating out for lunch, which he typically did almost every day. oh, how you wished you could afford ordering food for lunch all the time like your boss, but alas, you were just the receptionist.

“hello, everyone.” ukai said as he hung up his coat.

“welcome back, ukai.” tanaka replied before loudly whispering in suga’s ear. “i know your secret…”

my god. as much as suga was totally freaked out right now, ukai thought tanaka’s menacing words were directed towards him instead. “what?! i don’t have any secrets!”

suga and tanaka both look into the camera with furrowed eyebrows.

•••

the crew loved putting you and suga together for interviews. and given the drama that’s soon to come, they had to use every opportunity possible.

“so, ukai sent everyone a very interesting email last week.” you say the camera.

“yeah, it was, um… quite the thinker.” suga chuckled.

“mhm. it said, “it's time for our first quarter camaraderie event, so pack a swimsuit, a toothbrush, rubber-soled shoes, and a ski mask.” you read out the email from your phone. “i’m not really sure what that exactly equates to…”

“clearly, he wants to us to rob a bank and escape through the sewers afterwards.” suga shrugged. that was totally the obvious conclusion.

“then brush our teeth after a hard time committing crimes?” you jokingly question.

“yeah, exactly.” suga smiled at you, making you blush. you quickly turn to the crew and wonder if they noticed that, but it was obvious they did. the cameras catch everything.

•••

now the question that remained rent-free in everyone’s minds was what the hell ukai could possibly be planning this year. he was never up to any good, always doing something completely out of the box. he was simply incapable of doing anything normal. it made work interesting, but sometimes you all wished ukai take a chill pill for once.

at the most random time, ukai emerged from his office with an announcement. why he always did this, you couldn’t help but wonder, yet you didn’t hesitate to look away from your computer to hear what he had to say this time around.

“everyone, it appears some of you have figured me out.” ukai said to grab everyone’s attention. “so, it is now time to unveil the destination of this year's retreat. drumroll, please.”

no one provides a drumroll, much to ukai’s disappointment. “really? no drumroll? not even you, tanaka?”

“just spit it out already.” tanaka groaned.

“okay, fine.” he sighed before announcing the big news. “i got us a riverboat cruise on the abukuma river! it’s gonna be a booze cruise!”

a booze cruise? god, for a paper company, you guys sure consumed a lot of alcohol. plus, the combination of ukai and a cruise ship already seemed like a total disaster. when you add booze into the mix, it was almost comparable to the end of the world.

ukai received practically cricket noises from his employees, daichi being the one to express what was on everyone’s minds. “ukai, it’s january.”

“so? it was cheaper.” ukai shrugged. if it were any other month, like—hm, who knows—any month in the summer, maybe they’d show a little more excitement.

“and what is up with you and booze?” daichi asked. again, something you’ve all thought about at least once. “this is like when hinata was addicted to mixing buzzballz with every soda known to man.”

“pepsi with the cranberry flavor was the best…” hinata randomly spoke up, remembering that month-long phase last year. it wasn’t pretty, to say the least.

“gross…” kageyama shook his head in disgust.

“you don’t get it like i do, kageyama.” hinata protested.

“what is that supposed to mean?” kageyama raised an eyebrow, ready to start up an argument with his desk neighbor at any given second. typical, of course. you wondered when it would ever get old.

“okay, shut up before you two start making out!” ukai interrupted them before another hr fiasco occurred. again.

“what?!” the two gawked in unison. did they really give off that vibe?

“anyway!” ukai forced a laugh and switched the subject back to the cruise. “just hear me out guys, okay? let me cook. i’m combining fun with education! it’s gonna be mind-blowing.”

“sounds like you just want another excuse to party.”

“it’s not a party, it’s a bonding exercise.” ukai corrected him. “i’m helping us bond. people find lifelong friends in the workplace. others may find the love of their lives.”

ukai was right, shockingly. people do find lifelong friends. suga knew he would always stay friends with daichi for life, and even if tsukishima got on his nerves sometimes, he wasn’t the worst person in the world to be around. there would always be a bond between your coworkers. maybe you were all trauma bonded from dealing with ukai for all these years, but it was an unforgettable bond nonetheless.

suga blushed out of embarrassment from that last statement. some do find the love of their lives. he liked to believe you were the love of his life, swearing he found such a thing his first day at the office. the second he walked through that door and was met with your face, the words “japan pulp and paper, this is y/n. please hold.” coming out of your mouth as you spoke on the phone before setting it down to ask him what he needed. suga knew, right then and there, that he had found his future wife, but oh how he wished he knew back then what he would be in for years later.

even if ukai was oddly onto something for once, not everyone was interested. asahi, who had yet to survive a full year at the office, raised his hand and attempted to opt out of the event. “can i sit this one out? i have… a thing… later…”

“nice try, asahi.” ukai rolled his eyes. “this is mandatory. i better see your beefy ass on that dock tonight.”

“i’m not that beefy…” asahi said with a tinge of red on his cheeks.

“you so are, bro. those glutes go crazy.” nishinoya said confidently.

asahi wasn’t sure why nishinoya was paying attention to that area of his body, but he took the compliment anyway, although continuing to question it. “thank you?”

“glad we got that covered.” ukai said. “now, before we go on this cruise later, we have to talk about safety.”

“you’re literally the most unsafe person here, ukai.” you speak up. if anyone knew ukai best, it would very well be you, always there to deal with his antics and sometimes assist in them. the time you helped ukai hack into a higher up’s email account to prevent a picture of his ass that he accidentally sent being seen would go down in office history. you saved his ass, quite literally.

“ugh, come on!” ukai huffed. “i saw titantic a million times and i refuse to let us all die like leonardo dicaprio!”

•••

“do you think you could save one of your employees in the face of danger?”

“um, hello? i took a swimming class once. of course, i could save one of them.” ukai sassily replied to the documentary crew. “besides, we all know jack and rose could’ve both fit on that door at the end of titanic. james cameron is such a liar.”

•••

later on, suga went to go grab a cup of coffee in the break room. before he knew it, he was being cornered by tanaka, the sound of his name being called practically scaring him shitless. “sugawara koushi.”

“jesus christ.” suga jumped, putting his hand over his chest to feel his heartbeat. “do not use my full name like that ever again.”

“shut up.” tanaka shushed him and pressed his index finger over suga’s mouth to further silence him. “how would you… like to… take my sister as your date for the booze cruise tonight?”

there was no way this could be real life right now, suga thought. being in this position with tanaka was weird enough, but taking his sister as his date? he wasn’t even aware people were taking dates for this. it was no contest who suga truly wanted to take as a date, but of course it wasn’t an option, and he didn’t want to settle.

“your… sister? uh, no thanks.” suga turned the idea down without hesitation. however, tanaka was feeling devious.

“really?” he moved his finger away and crossed his arms with a smirk on his face. “kiyoko told me everything, suga. i know you have feelings for—”

oh no. not again.

“oh my god, shut your fucking mouth!” suga exclaimed with wide eyes, slapping his hands over tanaka’s mouth so he’d be quiet. to hell with censorship, this was critical. at this rate, the whole damn office was going to find out about suga’s pathetic feelings. he was going to end up broke by the time he bribed everyone to keep their mouths shut. his poor wallet and heartstrings can’t suffer any longer.

“woah, woah, woah!” tanaka laughed awkwardly, actually kind of scared over suga’s newfound rage. “language, my man!”

“whatever!” suga yelled “why the hell did she tell you?!”

“well, it was her idea to set you up with my sister, and i wanted to know why, so…” tanaka replied timidly, hoping kiyoko wouldn’t kill him later for pinning part of the blame onto her. well, unless suga didn’t get to her first.

“god fucking dammit.” suga cursed as he walked away from this monstrosity of a conversation. now, where was he off to? to confront kiyoko about the mess she’s made, of course.

“well? are you taking her out or not?!” tanaka yelled out to suga on his way out, receiving a middle finger in response, which will undoubtedly be blurred out in post production. the editing team had a lot of work cut out for them, that’s for sure.

on a mission like his life—and certainly dignity—depended on it, suga stormed up to kiyoko’s desk, where tsukishima and yamaguchi sat across from one another.

“kiyoko.” he towered over her as she sat in her chair, completely unbothered by him. “you were sworn to secrecy.”

“actually, only tsukishima was because you gave him twenty bucks.” kiyoko said. “you didn’t buy my silence.”

well, no wonder she spilled the beans. tsukishima got money, she didn’t. it’s not like kiyoko had asked that day at the christmas party, but suga certainly should have known better than to not doubt her. yamaguchi, however, was one big ol’ question mark. “yamaguchi? what about your silence?”

“i don’t like taking advantage of those less fortunate than me.” yamaguchi replied to him, those savage words coming out so innocent from his voice.

“less fortunate?!” suga gasped. it was beyond insulting, but he couldn’t even be that mad hearing it come from yamaguchi. now, if it were tsukishima talking, he’d insult him right back.

“suga, you need to have eyes on other women.” kiyoko lectured him. it’s not like she was wrong, obviously suga knew that, but the heart wants what it wants, and no matter what, his heart wanted you.

“but did you really have to tell tanaka about it?” suga whined.

tsukishima almost choked on his drink. “you told—”

“quiet.” kiyoko shushed tsukishima. “listen, suga. i’m doing you a favor, okay? just… take saeko out. just once. maybe it could take your mind off you know who for a little while?”

suga didn’t really have much choice, did he? maybe being seen with another woman will throw away any suspicion his coworkers may potentially have. it definitely won’t take his mind off of you, but at the very least, suga could have some sort of benefit from this whole ordeal.

“and will you keep your mouth shut if i do?” he asked, the most important question of all.

“accompanied by some cash, yes.” kiyoko said. why, of course.

giving in, suga let out a sigh as he whipped out his wallet and handed kiyoko money. she took the bill with a smile on her face, slyly putting in it her pocket.

“what about me—” yamaguchi began to say before suga cut him off.

“i’m less fortunate, remember?” he replied sassily, a nod to what yamaguchi said earlier. suga then finally went back to his desk, muttering curses to himself. “assholes.”

•••

“i’m gonna end up killing someone.” suga said to the camera with an unsettling smile, which quickly faded when he realized he couldn’t actually commit murder like he desired in the moment. “actually, i can’t do that. i’m still waiting for gta 6 to come out.”

“what?”

“none of you guys are waiting for gta 6?” he furrowed his eyebrows before pouting when the crew shook their heads no. “aw, come on…”

•••

once the sun set for the night, the employees of japan pulp and paper all met up at the dock for tonight’s booze cruise. ukai, who arrived far too early, waved his arms in the air for his employees, motioning them to board the boat, acting as if he were the captain of it.

“all aboard!”

“isn’t that what people say on trains?” you ask as you arrive with ryo, shocked he’s not totally against coming here tonight. it was safe to assume it’s because of the open bar, when you really thought it through.

“that’s such a stupid question.” ryo scoffed. of course, a part of him hated being around your obnoxious coworkers. that was no surprise, unfortunately.

“whatever.” you sigh. “sorry i asked, i guess…”

meanwhile, suga parked his car in the parking, just now arriving. he hoped he wasn’t late as he really didn’t need to feel tanaka’s and/or kiyoko’s wrath. he may as well feel it regardless of his time of arrival. suga didn’t want this date tonight. that too was no surprise.

as he got out of his car, suga’s eyes landed on the coolest motorcycle he had ever seen. whoever owned it must take really good care of it, like it was their child or something, he thought to himself. suga didn’t think of the motorcycle much further as he heard a car door slam from far away. he turned around, hoping it was you, but it turned out to kiyoko and yachi rushing towards him.

“sugawara!” they yell out.

suga put his hands out in front of him, hoping to shield the two girls away. “oh god, am i being ambushed?”

“no.” kiyoko replied to his question out of breath. she knew quitting track in high school was a terrible idea. “we were waiting for you to arrive.”

“why..?” suga furrowed his eyebrows.

“to make sure you’re ready for tonight.” yachi said on kiyoko’s behalf.

what did he exactly to be ready for? a date he was forced into with a woman he’s never met? frankly, suga he didn’t really want to meet tanaka’s sister. it was nothing against her personally, she just wasn’t you.

“do i need to give you money too, yachi?” he groaned.

“that’s like taking money from charity.” she replied. man, yachi was just as savage as yamaguchi. they’re truly made for each other.

“wow, just wow.” suga said in disbelief. “look, i’m here, isn’t that good enough?”

“no.” kiyoko deadpanned.

he didn’t have time for this bullshit. suga was just going that stupid dock. “i’m walking away.”

“but—” kiyoko and yachi go after him, but can’t seem to keep up.

suga didn’t really think this through. he was just so irritated that he had to get away from kiyoko and yachi. suga didn’t think about where his feet were going, but before he knew it, he was right at the dock, freezing when you saw you with your fiancé. god, he really regretted his life choices right now.

“suga, come here, pretty boy!” he’s snapped back to reality thanks to tanaka calling out his name. without any chance to take a step, kiyoko and yachi creep up behind him and push him to move. you watch the events unravel, wondering what’s going on, but shake it off bring your back to ryo.

suga stumbled to tanaka and an unfamiliar woman. he met eyes with her, a look of shock evidently present on his face. how can someone related to a bozo like tanaka be so… attractive? no. suga couldn’t think like that. she was tanaka’s sister.

“this is my sister, saeko.” tanaka said, waiting for one of them to say something.

“hiya, suga.” saeko extended her hand out for a handshake. “nice to meet you.”

“hello.” suga replied awkwardly, reciprocating the handshake. thank god it was winter. otherwise, they wouldn’t be wearing gloves.

“have her home by midnight.” tanaka joked. “i’m just kidding, she rode herself here.”

“huh?” suga questioned.

“oh, she’s a biker. have fun!” tanaka then walked away to follow kiyoko, who was boarding the ship with yachi. at least suga knew where that awesome motorcycle belonged to.

now alone with saeko, suga turned his head and watched you board the ship with ryo. he looked back to saeko and examined her face for a second before deciding his next action. she was a very pretty woman, but that simply couldn’t fill the void in suga’s heart. he had to be honest while he had the chance. it was only fair.

“listen, saeko… you seem like a really nice girl, but tanaka is only doing this because i’m in love with a girl that works here and wants to help me get over her.” he admitted, a weight lifted off his shoulders after revealing the truth. “i just think i should be honest.”

“oh, i know.” saeko replied bluntly. “he told me all about that.”

suga blinked a couple times and tried to make sure he heard that correctly. “he did?”

“yeah, i’m just doing this because i owe him one.” she shrugged. “besides, i don’t really date older guys.”

“older?” right. the hair. of course.

“i can play wingwoman for ya! don’t worry, pops.” saeko lightly punched him in the arm, followed by an obnoxiously loud laugh. suga looked to the cameras for help, but the crew just stood in their place.

•••

“tanaka…” suga let out a long sigh. “what the hell have you gotten me into?”

•••

after going through all of the safety measures for the cruise, the office were finally allowed to have their fun. it seemed that telling saeko the truth was the best idea suga ever had as she wanted to help him out by trying to make you jealous. well, if that’s even possible, but who knows? it was worth a shot.

suga and saeko walked to you and ryo as you sat together at one of the many tables. their arms were interlinked, surely making some sort of statement.

“y/n, ryo.” suga said to catch your attention, although he ended up catching ryo’s attention more than yours thanks to saeko.

“well, well, well. who’s the pretty lady you brought with you tonight, suga?” ryo asked with a smirk.

you weren’t all that phased until ryo spoke up. saeko wasn’t just pretty to you, she was beautiful, far more than you ever thought of yourself. you can’t remember the last time ryo ever gave you eyes like the ones he was giving saeko now. you weren’t sure who or what you were jealous of right now. the fact that suga was on a date, your fiancé ogling at said date, or that she was so much prettier than you. you cursed yourself in your head for those thought. you didn’t have a right to be jealous of suga. he had every right to date, he was single, you were not.

now that you thought about it, suga never really dated anyone since he started at the office. as far as you knew, at least. you wondered why that was, but it was impossible to pinpoint it down to one reason. you were so painfully blind to the truth.

“uh, this is—” suga began to introduce saeko until she interrupted him.

“saeko. nice to meet you.” she said with a smile.

“she’s tanaka’s sister.” suga added for a little salt in the wound.

“oh…” your eyes widened. you look to ryo and see as he gave suga a high five, telling him he hit the jackpot. you felt sick, and it definitely had nothing to do with the sea.

suga sat next to you, making you in between him and ryo. saeko sat on the end with suga, showing her excitement about the booze cruise. “i feel like we're in high school and we're sitting at the cool table. how fun.”

“yeah.” you reply, trying to remain as chill as possible. you had to keep telling yourself that she wasn’t a villain, she was just a really nice girl who got lucky to be with suga tonight.

“y/n, what were you like in high school?” saeko asked you.

ryo, however, answered the question for you, letting out a cackle as he practically insulted you in front of the whole table. “oh, she was a total, total dork. it took her getting pretty in college for me to notice her.”

“ha! that’s hilarious!” saeko giggled, nudging suga to laugh as she thought this would work with their plan, but he didn’t find it funny whatsoever. it was completely insulting to you.

“it’s really not…” suga muttered to himself.

“where did you go to school?” ryo asked saeko.

“karasuno.” she replied instantly.

“woah… you guys had the tiny giant, didn’t you?” ryo gasped, referring to a well known former high school volleyball player. despite being at his peak, he retired after graduating high school, never once playing professionally. everyone always wondered about what could’ve been, including ryo, who was one of the many people that heard the tale of the tiny giant.

“yeah, i went to school with him.” saeko bragged. it was far from a humble brag, it was awesome.

“woah! what was he like?” ryo questioned in amazement.

“uh… tiny, i guess?” saeko shrugged. she wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question as she never knew the guy personally, just passed him in the hallways on occasion.

suddenly, the cupid shuffle blared through the speakers. nishinoya had taken over the music and started to play his own playlist, claiming the dj “sucked ass” and decided to take matters into his own hands. there wasn’t much protest as everyone began dancing together, including saeko and ryo who get up from the table and decide to join in on the dance.

suga watched the sight, glad to finally have a moment just with you, but when he turned his head to say something to you, it seemed as if you disappeared. of course, he wondered where you went off to, and decided to find you.

you stood alone, leaning your back against the railing of the boat and rubbing your hands together for warmth. it all became overwhelming for you too quickly, and you figured ryo wouldn’t notice you leaving anyway. even so, it still shocked you when suga noticed, finding you in your lonely spot.

“getting too rowdy?” he asked you.

“mhm…” you nod as you shiver a little.

“yeah, i’m not really a fan of making my ears bleed.” suga said to lighten things up. he wondered if this was a good time to admit the truth about the whole saeko thing, that it was all a set up to get your attention because he was in love with you, but before he had the chance, you blurted out something he didn’t expect out of you.

“sometimes i just don't get ryo.”

suga gulped as his eyes widened for a brief second. “oh…”

“i mean, i don't know. it’s whatever.” you shake the feeling off. why were you saying this to suga anyway? it wasn’t his burden to carry. “so... what's it like going out with tanaka’s sister?”

“oh, um...” suga struggled to answer the question. a long silence followed, making you both feel awkward. there was so many things the two of you could say to each other right now.

“i'm cold.” you say with a faint laugh before heading back to your coworkers, suga following not long after. it was easy just to ignore the unspoken tension.

•••

“how’s the booze cruise going so far?”

“kind of wish things were different right about now.” suga forced a laugh. it was clear he was in pure misery. “haha… i need a drink.”

•••

you return to the group, scanning the area. ryo was chatting it up with one of his coworkers from the warehouse, chugging drinks together and sharing a laugh. you then see kiyoko and yachi pull suga by his arm, seemingly yelling at him for reasons you weren’t sure of whatsoever. your choices of where to go were limited, so you return to your table and see saeko sitting alone with a beer. it seemed like a good idea to have a friendly chat with her.

“hey.” you sit down next to her.

“hey.” she greeted you, taking a swig of her beer bottle.

“i never really liked beer.” you say, trying to start up a conversation. whatever topic worked, you were fine with. as adults, talking about alcohol seemed like the best bet.

“oh, you don’t?” saeko questioned. “you just have to find the right brand, honestly. some taste like shit.”

“ha, yeah.” you quietly laugh and rest your face in your hand. saeko immediately noticed the ring on your finger, even if it’s lost its sparkle as the years have gone by.

“woah, nice ring.” she said in amazement.

you look at your ring, shocked by the compliment. it wasn’t anything special, but you appreciated it anyway. “oh, thank you.”

“i'd like to be engaged.” saeko sighed. “how did you manage to pull that off?”

“uh, i've been engaged for three years, and there's no end in sight, so... you don't wanna ask me for any advice.” you force a laugh. god, you‘d kill for the waiting game to finally end.

unbeknownst to you, ryo overheard what you said, and he decided that tonight was the best night to finally take some action when you least expected it.

•••

“what do you think of saeko?”

such an awkward question for the crew to ask you, don’t you think? even so, you had to answer it without making a complete fool of yourself.

“she’s nice.” you shrug. it technically wasn’t a lie, but you sure quickly pulled it out of your ass. “really pretty too. crazy to think she’s related to tanaka…”

“but what about suga taking her as his date tonight?” and there’s the stinger. you didn’t have a right to be jealous, did you?

“uh… doesn’t really matter what i think, i’d say.” you say timidly and look away from the camera.

•••

out of nowhere, ryo got ahold of the dj’s microphone, seemingly about to make an announcement. what the announcement was, you didn’t know, but you sure as hell were scared to know what it would be.

“everybody, could i have your attention for just a second? could you guys listen to me for a second?” he said into the microphone.

everyone stopped what they were doing to look at ryo. suga had a terrible feeling this wasn’t going to be any good, at least not for him.

“i was just, um…” ryo paused before he dropped the ultimate bomb in front of everyone. “y/n, i think enough is enough. i think we should set a date for our wedding. how about june tenth?”

your eyes widen in shock and you find everyone’s eyes are on you. suga swore he felt his heart drop, desperately waiting for your answer like everybody else. wasn’t this what you wanted? to finally get married? it was hard to think that this was real life. you almost wished time would just stop for a second, but the time kept ticking as you had yet to say a thing.

“well, what do you say?” ryo asked.

before you said anything, you immediately look for suga. he was supposed to be your knight in shining armor, you thought, but now when you desperately needed his saving, he was nowhere to be found. maybe this was a sign that you should say yes. after all, you said yes the first time, right?

“okay..?” you answer.

the room felt silent before everyone erupted into cheers, you the least excited person present. “she said okay!”

you’re ushered to get up and head to ryo. he wrapped an arm around your shoulder and planted a big kiss on your temple. it might as well be the most affectionate he’s been towards you in a very long time, but of course, it was when he had a large group of eyes all on him. while part of you was happy you finally began to see a light at the end of the tunnel, the other part of you felt that this was all just for show. but maybe things will be different. you always think that, but you wanted to think that it would really be different this time.

ukai hopped to you and ryo, quickly hugging you and sharing his excitement for you two. “woah, congratulations, you guys! i knew it would happen eventually!”

“did you?” you raise an eyebrow, looking back on all those past jokes about your engagement.

“uh, yes, y/n. of course, i did.” ukai replied sarcastically. he actually didn’t see this coming, but he wanted in on the attention. “now you have to let me give you away!”

“uh, no thank you.” you quickly shut the idea down. even when all the attention was on you (and your fiancé), your mind still went back to suga. he should be here celebrating with you. you wanted him here. he was your best friend, after all. “um, where’s suga?”

“i don’t know, i thought he was right—“ ukai looked around and saw he was nowhere in sight. “oh, seems he vanished.”

“i should—“ you began to say before ukai cut you off.

“no, no. i’ll go find him.” he insisted. “go celebrate!”

“yeah, okay…” you frown as you watch ukai walk away to find suga.

ukai searched around for suga for quite a bit. when he disappeared, he really took it seriously. it was like he vanished out of thin air. ukai hoped he didn’t jump off the ship or something, and luckily before he could cause a scene over a potentially missing employee, suga was found.

“hey, suga.” he said to him. “you, uh, disappeared, man. did you hear the news?”

“uh-huh. i sure did.” suga said, looking down at the deep, dark ocean, almost as dark as his heart had become after what just happened. you finally set a wedding date. it was a day suga dreaded for god knows how long. he always went back and forth wondering whether the day would actually come, but now that’s it’s here, it was a nightmare turned brutal reality.

“something wrong?” ukai asked suga.

“i just…” he paused, tempted to speak up about how he felt, but kept it to himself. “mmm, nope. it’s stupid.”

“i’m the master of stupid things. you can tell me.” ukai said.

it was just the two of them. for some reason, suga felt like he could actually confide in his boss right now. maybe telling him what was wrong wouldn’t be such a bad idea. “i just… i didn’t think they’d ever actually plan to get married.”

“who? y/n and ryo?” ukai questioned. “what, do you like her or something?”

the look on suga’s face said it all. it showed a man who was desperately in love with a woman that simply wasn’t his. it was all so clear now.

“oh my god, you like y/n.” he said, followed by a faint gasp.

suga let out a sigh. he didn’t need to say a thing, ukai just knew. it was a shock he never figured it out before, really. everyone else seemed to find out easily once suga started to slip up in his facade.

“i can’t believe i never noticed before!” ukai exclaimed. “you two are always smiling and giggling with each other, how could i be so blind? holy cow.”

“tsukishima figured it out at the christmas party.” suga said with a frown. “it’s only a matter of time before she figures it out too.”

“and is that so bad?” ukai asked. it seemed like such a simple yes or no question, but the only way suga knew how to answer it was by pouring his heart out, spewing all the things he kept shoved down his throat for the longest time. it was always bound to come up one way or another.

“ukai, it’s not that i just like her… i love her. i’m in love with everything about her. i adore her. she’s sweet, funny, and she just has this aura… i can’t describe it.” he spoke from the heart, the only way he knew how when it came to you. “she’s beautiful inside and out. i would do anything to give her the world. i worship the rain that waters the grass that grows on the ground she walks on. my heart beats louder for her than it ever has for anyone else, and…”

“and… what?” ukai questioned.

“i don’t want her to marry him. i want her to be with me.” suga cried out, covering his face with his hands out of embarrassment. how could he say something so selfish out loud? the thought felt safer in his head, but even so, he would have burst if he kept it in any longer. “god, it’s so fucking stupid. i’m such an idiot.”

suga had been suffering in silence for too long, and ukai could clearly see that. it pained him to see one of his best employees in this state of despair. “suga, if that’s how you truly feel… then don’t give up. tell her how you feel.”

“she’s engaged, ukai. i can’t.” suga shook his head no. such a prosperous thing to suggest now. it was easy to think he could reveal his feelings when he knew there wasn’t a wedding date in sight, but wouldn’t it be so silly now to beg you to cancel the wedding? he felt like a tall child with all these thoughts eating him up.

“so? engaged ain’t married.” ukai shrugged. “besides, you’re way better than ryo.”

it was weird to have ukai on his side. was he not just celebrating with you? maybe suga’s heartfelt speech gave him a change of heart, or maybe he always saw something there without truly realizing what that something was. maybe ukai always knew you deserved better than a lowlife like ryo.

“why are you saying this?” suga questioned ukai. “i thought you’d be excited about the world’s longest engagement finally reaching its end.”

“i don’t know. i just… when i look at her with ryo versus with you, i think there’s a clear winner. you two have something special, and i wouldn’t give up hope, suga.” he replied. “maybe one day you should just… take a chance and see what she says. you never know what’s going on in that mind of hers.”

“you think so?” suga asked.

ukai nodded without hesitation. “never, ever give up.”

overcome with emotion, suga suddenly decided to wrap his arms around ukai. what’s crazy was that it didn’t even feel weird. ukai may be the most insane boss ever, but no matter what, he always had his way of showing he had his employees backs. when suga needed him most, ukai was right there, telling him words he didn’t know he needed to hear, and turned out to be what he needed the most.

“okay.” suga sniffled into ukai’s shoulder, holding him tighter than before. “i won’t.”

ukai really didn’t want to ruin such a heartfelt moment, but he felt like the life was being sucked out of him. “suga, you… you’re suffocating me.”

“oh.” suga quickly let go of him. “sorry.”

“it’s okay, but don’t forget what i told you.” ukai said, gently poking where suga’s heart was. “that’s an order from your boss.”

suga thought that tonight was the end of the world, but it turned out that he still had reason to have hope. maybe ukai was just feeding his delusions, but it sure felt nice knowing someone had his back and believed in him, that his feelings weren’t foolish. besides, a lot can happen between now and june, right?

© plutoccult / 310802. please do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my content in or outside of tumblr. reblogs are appreciated <3

[aquanova99]

Haunted (Cato x Reader)

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Part 6

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A/N: I know I know and I’m sorry! Thank you for being so patient and not giving up on me🤍

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Y/Ns POV

My eyes shot open. Your body did not follow. Your muscles were stiff and ached from the slightest movement. Where was I? How did you end up here? You were almost completely covered in what you hoped was the morning dew of the forest. The walls surrounding you seemed to have been made from old tree trunks fallen over a group of rocks. A perfect little makeshift cave of sorts. Too perfect. You were almost sure this was made as a possible hiding place for the tributes, courtesy of the gamemakers. This seemed like a place you would pick to hide in, but from what you recall you didn’t make it very far after collecting Glimmers arrows. The arrows! You needed to get out of here, get your bearings. You needed to push against your protesting muscles. You decided on moving one singular muscle group at a time. You turned your head noticing your packs were still next to you. Your arms were next. Slowly, ever so slowly you patted your body down searching for your knives. Nothing. Not too surprising I guess. Whoever put you here would be an idiot to leave you armed. It took another five minutes just to sit up. You shuffled next to your pack going through every pocket. You small first aid kit seemed rummaged through but other than that nothing seemed out of place. The smaller pack had been mostly cleaned out, probably nothing of real use anyway. You left the other bag you stole from Glimmer. You decided to make your way out of the tiny hole you found yourself in, a much bigger effort now that you were carrying your bag. You needed water. And food, but water was once again, your first priority. Climbing was out of the question. You looked at your canteen… full. Could you trust no one had poisoned it? You shrugged away your worries, if they wanted you dead they could have found a hundred ways to do so by now.

The sun was blinding. You’re only hope was that the careers are hopefully doing much worse off than you. Your brain struggled to get itself together. You were walking target. You allowed yourself a few deep breaths to force yourself together. You recognized the area. Your body moved instinctually until you were at the small body of water that had already once offered you sanctuary when the fire started. How many days ago was that? You finished the water in the canteen before filling it up and setting the iodine drops in. You decided to clean yourself of all of the blood, mud, and sweat you had built up since you were thrown into these games. Even in the worst parts of twelve, you would have never seen anyone look as disheveled as you were right now. The heat levels made you feel secure enough that your clothes would dry out quick enough if you washed them, you hesitated knowing you were still being watched, but after all the blood and gore you doubted they’d care about someone trying to maintain themselves. Honestly if anything, it might give you some brownie points from the capitol. Whatever. You stripped down to your undergarments as you washed what you could out of your clothes. You look at your hands, traces of some makeshift bandages beginning to peel off. You questioned why they wouldn’t just use the first aid kit…You continued to stare before the realization that the location of the tracker jacker stings were almost untraceable. These were not bandages. Great, another debt you may not be able to repay.

You could hear Haymitch scolding you for being so reckless. Here you were trying to…what? Feel clean? Look nice? Meanwhile You were without a weapon and completely out in the open. Stupid. You threw your head back with a sigh, and decided to put on your damp clothes and start regathering yourself. You dig through your pack cursing silently when you realize any rope you have left was burned up in your attempt to flee the fire. You have no choice. You have to head back in the direction you came from. Someone kept you alive. And someone had your weapons. Your mind spins with the jerk of your head towards the sound of a twig snapping. Your eyes begin scanning every inch of the spread of trees before you. You saw nothing. Heard no one. You stay frozen in place, only darting your eyes until they land on the smallest tip of what appears to be a child’s boot.

“Rue??” Her eyes peek from behind the tree, ands it all you cand do from sprinting over to her. Your voice comes out in a harsh whisper, barely managing to contain your excitement “oh my god. Are you okay?”

“You’re worried about me?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Did—did you help me?”

She shook her head, “Not just me…uhm are we still allies?”

Relief washed over your body, “of course.”

“I’m sorry I took your knives. Thresh wanted to make sure.” You ask get a rundown of the two nights you were unconscious. There’s only ten of you left. Rue chews on her cheeks, “Y/n…Thresh is injured pretty bad.”

“What?”

“Well…I went find him first and we were running towards the edge of all that smoke from the fire, he wanted to see if could get Arioch while he was more out of it. But the closer we got we heard them find you. We didn’t want them to find us so he climbed a tree to sleep and I went to find you. The tracker jackers freaked the careers out and Thresh went to investigate because I hadn’t made it back to him. They were running back toward the lake by the cornucopia. Clove and Marvel were first and didn’t even see him. Arioch was starting to see things and we don’t know what he saw but he pushed him down and kept running, but well. You know Arioch he pushed really hard and thresh fell back pretty hard. His shoulder looks like bad.”

“He dislocated it?”

“I think so. I found him first because I heard him scream, I think he popped it back into place but he wont tell me. But if he wasn’t hurt he would have gone after the careers. Now they have medicine.”

You knew he had to have been the one who moved you. That probably didn’t help much. No wonder he took your weapons. “Well, lets find him. Once I get that bow we can hopefully get some food.”

“Enjoy your rest?” Thresh asked as the two of you joined him

“Cheerful as always, aren’t we?....How are you doing?”

He shrugged, his first mistake. The pain on his face was evident. Rue asked him about your weapons. Thresh was more than reluctant to give everything back. You couldn’t blame him. With only ten people left the alliance wouldn’t last forever. You saw him wince as he lifted his arm to hand you the knives. You thought about the gift from your sponsor. The fire had hit your leg, but you were quick to swat the fire on your thigh. Your calf was not so lucky. If the medicine from the capitol went deep enough through the layers of skin to heal the burn, you wondered what effects it would have on Thresh’s bruised, and likely strained muscles.

“I don’t know if this will work but, it may help some of the pain.” You rummaged through your bag to pull out the gift from your sponsor. It had done its purpose. Your burn no longer caused any pain, it wasn’t pretty to look at but you could manage that.

He scoffed, “Nice sponsors.”

“Do you want to work with me or not? Take off your shirt so we can try this out.”

He sighed but gave in to your request. If the cream Haymitch sent you had brought a cooling relief when you had first put it on, then at the very least it would relieve some of the stress in Thresh’s shoulder. You grabbed a bandage out of the first aid kit. Thresh’s body reflexively jerked from the touch of your hands on his skin. Though the bruises on his skin were barely visible, it was clear that the slightest contact still brough sharp pain through his body. In a way that was a good thing, it meant that he just needed to rest. On the other hand, he need to rest. And rest was something they couldn’t afford in these games. “How does it feel?”

“Cold. But good. I guess”

You nodded and began wrapping, you started on the top half of his arm. Thresh’s was again, but fortunately and unfortunately, very muscular. He could hold his own in the game, and would hopefully heal quickly. But you would probably use the whole roll of wrapping you had acquired. You prayed none of you needed any more. After starting with the upper half of his bicep you went across his chest to stabilize his shoulder. It would limit his range of motion, but the more he let it rest the longer he would last. You and Rue helped him put his shirt and jacket back on before he spoke again.

“Thanks.”

“Why didn’t you take it?”

“How was I supposed to know what it did?”

“Okay. Fair I guess.” Something told you something didn’t want to betray any trust, probably Rue, “Okay we need to get food. You guys have anything for snares?”

“Nothing. But we have lots of berries and roots. See?” Rue said excitedly, her eagerness brought a smile to your face.

“I guess its my turn to bring something to the table. I’ll be back.” You looked at Thresh’s hesitant face, “Here. You can keep the knives and bags if it makes you feel better about me ditching. Be right back.”

You took a few practice shots before going to far. The bow was easy enough to carry, or it would have been if your body didn’t feel as if it was run over by one of the peacekeeper vehicles. You tried to remember all those times Katniss and Gale would tread carefully near one of your hiding places. You felt ridiculous. You wish you would have taken up Gales offer on going hunting with him and Katniss right about now. Your aim was still off, definitely improved, you would be able to get food. But if it comes down to an arrow your precision could be what loses you the game. You came into a smaller clearing with a flock of birds grazing. If you ever got your hands on more rope, you would remember to set the snares in this area. You shot at the slowest moving bird, you tried to hit the general area of his chest. Your breath steadying as you released the notched arrow. Feathers flew as the birds flapped to make as much distance between you as possible. You got lucky and clipped through one of the wings. Not exactly where you were aiming but it would do for now. You tried not to make a face as you broke the bird’s neck to finish him off. Maybe this is why you never asked to be taught how to shoot. This always made you swallow back any possibility of vomiting. The cracking of bone, the squirming of the animal’s body. Maybe this is why you preferred the spear, though wooden and perhaps not as quick as the metal one from the capitol, they almost always finished off the animal in question.

You tried not to get in your head as you headed back to your new alliance. You had to be honest with yourself. You had picked up the knives quickly. They were lightweight and deadly. Your arms were too shaky with arrow and it affected your aim. You were good with snares but that wasn’t exactly helping take out any tributes. You were, at the end of the day, average or below average in everything. Your best shot was hiding and hoping to pull off another sneak attack like you managed to do with the tracker jackers. And even then, you wouldn’t have even noticed them without Rue. You’d never won in hand to hand combat in the training center, you had little chance of making out of a physical fight alive, that had always been Peetas strength.

Peeta…Where was he right now? Not with the careers according to Rue. Was he okay? Should you even care at this point?

“Nice catch 12.” Thresh grunted as you stepped back into view

“Thanks. I don’t suppose you’d mind plucking this thing?”

He chuckled, “Yeah, sure. And its groosling.”

“A groosling?”

Rue jumped down from a smaller tree, “Yeah we have them all over 11, when they come into the field we get a decent lunch.”

“Not much food there either?”

“No, you get in a lot of trouble if you take anything you harvest. They’ll whip you in front of everyone. Thresh act—”

*ahem Thresh coughed. You didn’t need to hear more. Your heart sank. You would have never thought you’d be grateful to have been from 12. “We better be quick about cooking up this bird. We don’t want to risk lighting anything once it gets dark.”

They both nodded and as Thresh worked you asked more about the Careers camp Rue had spied on. She had made good work of flying through the trees. They had replaced Peeta with the boy from 3, Elias. Why would he be working with the careers, he wasn’t a fighter, and he couldn’t bring food to them. The thought made you uneasy. Rue was explaining how they had set up all of their supplies in one big pile. The seemed risky, could the tracker jackers have messed with their mind that badly? As Rue is finishing telling you about seeing Peeta head towards a river in the opposite direction of the careers Thresh plops down next to her. “Now, what?”

You make quick work of starting a fire, and begin cooking. You have to entrust Thresh and Rue to make sure the bird cooked through while you stand in case the smoke gets too visible and draws in wanted attention. Much to Thresh’s chagrin.

“Y/n. Its all done.” Rue says quietly, you proceed to quickly douse the fire and stomp out any remaining embers. You hand a knife to Thresh and tell to cut off however much he wants to eat, you cut off thigh and leg, and hand it to Rue. “I’ve never had a whole leg to myself before.”

“Well, you need to keep your strength up.”  You smile at each other. You slice off some of the bird’s breast and begin eating. For a moment all the three of you can do is pick apart the food and eat. It was a good a meal as any back home. You felt your body relax a bit more. You should probably save more of the bird, but not much you could do with it. Might as well have the energy to get through the next day.

“How long do we do this?” Thresh asked the question youd been avoiding

“The careers need to go. Then we split.” The steadiness in your voice surprised you. Thresh nodded, Rue changed the subject on dividing any food leftover in case they get split up. You noticed neither of them had had the luxury of finding a sleeping bag. “Thresh you and Rue can share the bag. I’ll keep watch first. We can switch out when its your turn.”

They both looked at you shocked that you had offered something so valuable. Thresh regained his composure first, “Thanks. So how do we take care of the careers?”

“I don’t know. But if all of their food is in one pile, it sounds tempting to find a way to destroy it.”

“That could get us killed.”

“Do you have any other ideas?”

“You two fight a lot.” Rue chimed in, giggling

You sighed, “You’re right. I want to destroy their food. It gives us the best chance at winning.”

Thresh echoed his own sigh, “Alright. Lets figure out what we’re doing tomorrow.”

You perch yourself up against a tree and hope the venom lingering in your body doesn’t drag you into slumber. You think about the best way to draw the careers from the cornucopia, but unless their up to hunting the rest of us down there’s little you can do to avoid being seen. You draw in the dirt in front of you with your knife until a voice draws your attention.

“I think it was all fake you know?”

“What?”

“The whole love act you and the other guy from 12 put up.”

“It was an act, you didn’t hear about him working for the careers?”

 “Yeah and I’ve also heard you trying to figure out if he actually saved you. I also know he isn’t working with careers anymore.”

“He was probably just trying to make people think he’s in love with me. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.” You go back to playing with your knife. You knew it was an act because you knew who Peeta was actually in love with. Still, why did he try and get you to leave? And did he actually fight Arioch?

“Those glasses in your bag…you should use them at night if you want to actually see anyone coming.”

“They’re night glasses??”

“Yeah.”

You put them on immediately. Almost letting out a laugh from your surroundings, it would definitely help you see if anyone was coming. Thresh said nothing else, and you let him rest until your eyes could no longer stay awake. Rue cuddled into you, reminding you of how lonely these games feel when you work by yourself. You missed people, you missed your family, and the few friends you had. The warmth of Rues body pressed against you lulls you into a deep slumber. The boom of the cannon scares you awake, and it takes everything to not scream as you bolt upright. The careers were hunting again. Which meant you had to destroy their supplies, today.

You missed dusk, so cooking anything was out of the question. You had some of the groosling left over for each of you but you would need to wait to for anything of sustenance. Rue had found eggs for all of you in a marsh, while the texture would usually make you want to puke, you have to eat. You learned about Rue, the oldest sibling, fiercely protective of them, even risking foraging knowing about the peacekeepers harsh punishments. She tells you about her love of music, you smile at the light in her eyes.

“Do you get a chance to enjoy music at home?” you ask

“We sing at home. At work, too. That’s why I love your pin,” she says, pointing to the mockingjay that I had all but forgotten. You cant help but agree. Your brothers, they didn’t mind working in silence. But when you had first had to find food you would wake up dangerously early and you hated it but there was something about listening the birds singing as if to welcome you into their world. Rue talks about making friends with the mockingjays, how she uses them to signal everyone that its time to go home. You begin unclasping your pin but Rue stops you, and says that it let her know she could trust you. Rue starts to talk about Thresh, but she barely manages to get out that he has no siblings before he interrupts.

“So, whats the plan 12?”

“Are you ever going to use my name?”

“Not likely.”

You rolled your eyes, he took stubborn to a different level. In a way you understood. The less you knew, the more you could separate the games. Only one person made it out, you had to keep telling yourself that. You all decided on your plan by lunch. We would meet back at the same site, close to the stream. You leave them the sleeping bag in case they need it. You could probably find the other bag you had hidden away in the beginning of the games. But decide to omit that information.

“What about you? Won’t you be cold?”

“Hey, don’t worry about me. Stealing isn’t illegal here. Ill find something before I get rid of the careers.”

Rue teaches me her mockingjay song. A signal that we are okay but can’t come right away. Before you leave Rue wraps you in a hug, which you return. There may not be much time left, and you needed her to know how much these last couple days meant to you.

“You be careful.” She says

“You guys too. I’ll see you at dinner. Take care of Thresh okay?” You joke as you poke her belly, she giggles and goes to join Thresh

“Good luck.” He says with a huff

You nod and go to make your way to the stream.You try to move as quickly and silently as you can. Your mind racing with  thoughts concerning Rue, Peeta, your family. Was Peeta the death the canon was alerting you to? What would happen if it coms down to you and Rue or Thresh? Would you be able to make the first move? Take the first shot? And your family? You risked everything by coming down here, were they okay? Did the mayor decide to punish them for making a scene during the Reaping?

The closer you got to the career camp had you pause at any sound or movement in the woods. You had a knife out and ready, if more than one career showed up it would give you a better chance of making an accurate kill versus trying to restring your bow. Your shooting skills were alright but they were slow, you couldn’t renock your arrow quickly and to get an accurate shot you had to stand almost completely still. You weren’t going to risk dying with those odds. When you get to the hiding spot Rue told you about you allow yourself to sheath your knives and get your bow out. The careers are moving slowly, their body is covered in bumps from the tracker jacker stings. If they had gotten medicine it wasn’t working all that well. The supplies were in a pyramid, it so tempting but its clear that it had to be booby trapped. Most likely Elias’ doing, he was from three, the technology district. You couldn’t remember his score. He had shrunk away when you had tried to talk to him. But if he was anything like his other victors, you were sure he had a few tricks up his sleeves. You knew better than to count anyone out. For now, theres noting to do but wait, wait for them to reveal what the trap was, wait for them to go hunting, or wait for Rue and Thresh to get the fires going.

Arioch’s shouts let you know the alter is what was happening. You can hear an argument start. Marvel and Clove think they should leave Elias to guard the supplies.

“Hes coming. No ones touching the supplies anyway.”

“And lover boy?” Marvel asks. So, Peeta was alive for now. You don’t know whether to feel relief or frustration. You wondered if they were fighting to keep Elias away so they could take the chance to deal with Arioch before its too late.

“It’s a miracle he hasn’t bled out yet. He isn’t moving, and he definitely is not an issue. You don’t think I know where I hit him?” He grabs a spear and pushes it into Elias, “Come on. And if its her I get the kill, my way. Everyone understand?”

Probably doesn’t mean Rue if you had to guess. You sit for a while longer, not knowing what exactly would be the best option here. You’re about to get closer when you see the girl from five, Cora, run towards the pile. You have to stop yourself from shouting out. She was willing to talk to you about alliances, but you doubted with so little people she would trust you now. And Thresh certainly work with you with someone else on board. You see her dance to the supplies. It was so deliberate. She was smart enough that you knew she would be able to tell that it was booby trapped, and she had figured out exactly what the trick was. She overshot one of her jumps and fell forward, a squeal escapes her. It suddenly clicks. You look back at the plates you had all stood on as you waited for the timer to count down. The dirt dug around it, then uneven patches of land. Elias was even smarter than you had thought. Rerigging the mines. No one has ever done that. For a split second you smiled at the thought of something being pulled over the gamemakers before you realize that unless you wanted to sacrifice yourself there was going to be no way of getting to the supplies after all. Your memory was good but you had already forgetten Coras dance. And she was probably long gone for me to offer any kind of truce.

Damn it. You scan everything in the pyramid of food and crates. You had no chance of getting from here. Rue and Thresh’s second fire had begun. The careers were smart enough to figure out something was off. You needed to think of something, and you needed to think of something now. Your eyes land on the bag of apples. No way. Theres absolutely no way. You might waste every arrow. You take a deep breath, you had to do this. You could do this. You step out into the clearing. Just enough to give yourself a good enough shot. You start to open and close your hand steadying it to the best of its abilities. You aim near the middle of the bag to see exactly where your arrows would land, you could readjust after. Its high, but that works in your favor. If you aim there again you might be able to release the apples entirely. You shoot another arrow and another, the arrows getting close but not enough your arms begin to shake with the tension of the bow. You take one last deep breath. You see an apple precariously balancing as you release a fifth arrow and finally the bag rips.

You only have a chance to be upset about your wasted arrows before the explosion sends you flying into the air.

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Catos POV

Come on… come on. Get up. You have to keep moving. Y/n’s face wavers for only a second as she sees the blood come from her ear, she doesn’t try and stand. Just begins to crawl back to tiny Rues hiding spot. Y/n puts up her hood avoiding any possibility of a blood trail. The screen flashes back to your tributes rushing to get back to the camp site. The boy from three did a good job. Too good. If he was smart he would begin running in another direction. The camera is back to Y/n as a loose crate triggers another mine. Y/n struggles to get herself back to a crawl with every stray explosion.

Y/n settles into her hiding spot seconds before Arioch breaks through the clearing. His usual tantrums seemed minor to the rage he displayed for the entirety of Panem. His hair forcefully came out in clumps. He began kicking and throwing anything that wasn’t destroyed in the wreckage as Clove and Marvel pointed to the sky, trying to explain that whoever set off the mines was probably long gone, and simultaneously avoiding getting too close.

The boy realized he should leave too late. He had only begun to turn around before Arioch came up to him and snapped the kid’s neck. Quick and painless. Probably. But nothing like Y/n would deal with if she didn’t figure out how to get out of there. Until they decided to go hunting she was stuck. The night sky offered nothing for the careers, Arioch cussed some before putting on the night glasses and heading in the direction of the last fire. The camera panned to Thresh and Rue, they decide to hide out until morning. They have no way to see and would probably get them caught. They stay at the third campsite and you realize theres nothing else you can worry about for now.

Exhaustion covers you. You let your head the back of the couch your sitting at. Victors from every district begin walking out. The capitol starts to play out some highlights of the tributes that lost today. You decide to turn on the screen in your room to play the live footage. The next day was sure to bring some, hopefully pleasant, surprises.

It did not. You didn’t fall asleep until early in the morning and miss the first few events. Everyone was beginning to gather in the screening room. The tributes had all been impressive this year to say the least.

“So, what happened?”

He looked you up and down before answering, “Jesus kid, do you ever sleep? (Not really you thought) And so far nothing, Thresh left Rue to see if Y/n needed help. Y/n is trying to find Thresh and Rue and she keeps snapping her fingers near her ear, so I’m going to assume she cant hear right now.”

That couldn’t be good. Being able to know when someone is coming is crucial to the games. Its leaving her with a weakness. The victors with tributes left talk sponsors. The two from your own district are going to have a hard time paying off all the supplies the sponsors wanted to send down. For now, they were holding off. The day drug on. Y/n was now anxiously waiting for Rue and Thresh to meet back where they planned. Rue was waiting for her and Thresh. And Thresh was checking around your tributes’ camp. The room continued to get more and more full. Haymitch noticed your leg starting to tap first,

“Nothings happened yet, if you need to go catch up on that sleep you obviously lack in your life.”

You nodded and began to leave the room. Deciding to work in the training room for a while and then spent some time outside. You were gone longer than usual, Enobaria had slowly been easing up on her guard duties, but it was better not to risk it. The fresh air calmed your nerves. You wondered when you would be able to be around people again like a normal human being. Not that you knew what being “normal” looked like. You’ve spent your whole life in a training center, then you were able to go into the games, and now…what? You still didn’t know what to do. Your life’s purpose had been the games. You went home for a week and realizes your parents were strangers to you. Proud of the accomplishments you’d brought your districts but widely uninterested in anything else. You knew nothing but to kill and survive the games. It felt empty, the last time you’d felt a spark of anything was…with y/n. And that was only because she refused to be afraid of the reputation that preceded you. She saw you as a human being, made you feel like a human being… It had been eight days since you told her you hoped she would make it back, I mean it had been eight days since the tributes were sent to the arena…

You decided to go back to the screening room. Everyone was silent. Not the best sign. Enobaria waved for you to sit next to her, “Rue is close to setting off a trap.”

You looked at one of the victors from 11. The woman, Seeder was unable to look at the screen. Chaff, sat next to her couldn’t peel his eyes away. She sang her four-note song to the mockingjays, the song that signified she was safe. The birds quickly picked up the tune. The camera panned to Y/n. It took a minute but she heard the melody and quickened her pace toward the song. The camera panned to Marvel, him, Clove and Cato split up to try and cover more ground. And likely to be ready to hunt each other once they took care of Y/n and Thresh. The only real threat to their game. The camera shoots back and forth from Y/n who had finished singing her response, to Rue, and a split second later a net descends upon her.

You could hear a pin drop. The room was silent. The young girl struggles to free herself. If she stays quiet, Y/n will reach her in minutes. But you realize Rue is a child. And children scream when they’re scared.

Y/N is sprinting the second she hears Rue scream her name, she responds letting whoever was there know she was coming. She should wait to see if any other tributes were incoming, but there was no logic behind this move. Only emotion. Y/n breaks through the clearing, the camera is focused on the young girl reaching towards her ally. But anyone who has watched games could tell there is something afoot when the camera panned into a high shot. Marvel has made it to the clearing as Rue says Y/ns name reaching for her.

Y/n and Marvel stare at eachother. A second had passed before Marvel took a step. His arm has thrown the spear right into Rue's abdomen. Y/n seems to suddenly remember what’s happening around her as she throws her knife into the center of his chest. You realize Y/n hasnt seen where the spear has landed, shes focused on the career about to run at her. You wonder if the shock affects her aim because the knife lands on his left side. A lung. He was dead either way. He’d bleed out the second he removed it. Y/n seems to know this because she runs toward him as he staggers forward, falling to his knees. For a split second you see Gloss and another guy from District 1 leave the room, probably to go make some phone calls probably for the sponsors. It was customary to be allowed to be yelled at by the ones who lost their gamble.

Marvel falls again but to his side. Y/n stands over him and seems to hesitate before pulling the knive out and driving it into the guys heart, she pulls it out quickly and a canon booms overhead. She seems to have just registered that his spear was still missing. She quickly turns to Rue as she weakly says her name again and begins untangling her from the net.

'Oh my God.'

'No. No no no.'

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Y/n is visibly shaking as she holds Rue’s hand. Repeating an unnecessary apology. Anyone watching would know she tried everything to get to her in time, including Rue. She was clever, she would know... understand. Rue asks her about the food and Y/n assures her she took care of it.

‘One of you guys have to win.’

Y/n is nodding, tears unable to stop flowing from her face. ‘Its going to be okay now.’ She tells her.

‘Don’t go?’

Y/n pulls Rue into her, brushing her hair out of her facing and stroking her cheek, siping it free of any tears the girl had no control in releasing, ‘Of course not. I’m staying right here.’

As Y/n continues to rock her, Rue asks her to sing. Y/n nods and sings an odd tune you’ve never heard before. Not that music was something you often heard in the training camp in 2. Haymitch tells you its an old lullaby. Well, he mumbles it to the room. A single tear drops from Seeder’s eye as she pats Chaffs hand and walks out of the room. The mockingjays pick up the melody of the song as she finishes. Y/n lays the child down as if she were taking a nap. Thresh bursts in too late.

‘What happened?’ he growled

Y/n is silent for a moment. At first, I think shes trying to steady her breathing. Maybe worried he’s going to have an Arioch level meltdown, ‘I got here too late. I only managed to get one career before the other one killed her. They didn’t have a weapon after they shot her. So, they got away.’

‘You didn’t chase them???”

‘Dont yell at me. Rue asked me to stay! Where were you??’ You wondered how the lie would play out outside of the game. Because now you were sure, one of them would be the ones to come back. There was no doubt in your mind. It was a smart move, if Thresh is feeling vengeful he may take out one of the other two threats in the game.

He lets out a scream in frustration, he says nothing about where he was ‘That’s it. Its done.’

‘Wh-what do you mean? We haven’t taken out Arioch yet!”

“Its getting too personal. Lets split up what we have and go.’

Y/n hesitates for a while before she just nods, ‘Fine.’

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Y/Ns POV

You finished separating everything quickly. You tried but fail to stop tears from falling. You were furious you hadn’t been fast enough, furious it wasn’t Arioch that ran through the clearing, furious that you felt sick to your stomach. Every camera was on you and you couldn’t hold your emotions together. But this was Rue, she deserved more than an act the capitol forced you to put on.

“Is that everything?” All you could do was nod. You were losing two allies in one day. It was too much to process right now. Thresh nodded and began walking away. You forced yourself to say something, anything.

“Hey Thresh!...Just-- Make sure you rest your shoulder.”

He paused for only a second, only when you called his name. He didn’t look back, “Thanks…. I hope I don’t see you again, 12.”

You let out a dry laugh, “Yeah, the feelings mutual.” And it was. You knew now that you wouldn’t be able to take that first move in the end. And you didn’t think he would either. Peetas words echoed in your head. You were so quick to dismiss what he said about being a piece in the games, but he was right. You were more than that. Rue was more than that. You couldn’t even be mad at Marvel. We were forced in here. Forced to kill each other.  

Finish it, he had said. You were going to let him suffer for killing her. Training center be damned. His lips had barely croaked it out, Finish it. Finish it. Finish it. No one deserved to die alone. No matter what the cameras saw you knew they wouldn’t have made out his request. You held his arm while you sunk the knife into his flesh a second time. I would want that. To not be alone when it was my time to go. You couldn’t even really offer that to him not with Rue taking priority, but you hoped that somewhere he knew that his life wasn't meaningless. That you wished there was more you could do. But you were just one person.

You took a step into the woods and stopped. You collect any flower you could carry and bring them back over to where Rue and Marvel were resting. You started with Marvel first. You laid him down gently putting some flowers in his hand and placed sporadically around him. Rue took more time, she deserved more time. You placed flowers in her beautiful dark and curly hair, around her body, covering the fatal wound. By the time you finish it looks as if she fell asleep in a field of flowers, as if she had just stopped to take a quick nap. You press a quick kiss to her forehead, “Bye, Rue.”

A mockingjay warns you about the incoming hovercraft. You step to the edge of the clearing, unable to tear your eyes away. You hold in every profanity in your vocabulary bank and vulgar gestures as you see the flying vehicle come in to collect the bodies. As if it were routine. As if the two lifeless bodies meant nothing. Grief suddenly overtakes you and angry tears stream down your face as you fall to your knees. A young mockingjay lands on a branch next to you and sings Rues simple four-note song. The song that meant she was safe. Not here, but safe. You feel your lips tug in a smile and you pick your self up and continue walking. You aren’t sure where, back to the stream by the looks of it. You sit against the trunk of the tree you will be sleeping in today. You want to wait until sunset for no other reason than that your body felt suspended in time. You are about to try and stand when you see another parachute floating down in your direction. You almost drop the canister the second you open it. Peeta talked to you about the different kinds of bread in the districts, this wasn’t from 12. It could only be from Rues district. Suddenly you have more tears left to cry.

You stand up, “Thank you to the people in District 11.” Thank you for everything, you say to yourself. You begin climbing, all of the tears have exhausted you. And you are in no shape to kill anyone today. Anyone else, you remind yourself. The second you settle into a branch your body feels heavy, as if you couldn’t move if you wanted to. Sleep threatens to take you, which would be fine if you didn’t know the nightmares that would await you.

Then you realized you wanted them to come. You deserved them. A penance for living. For wanting to live after what happened and would happen to the tributes around…. Would happen? Hm. You were getting out of here. And you were going to win the Hunger Games.

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Taglist: @adaydreamaway08 @artaxerxesthegreat @aunt-pipie @imtoanonymousforyou @lacychick @xcastawayherosx @chloe-skywalker @ietss @inky-sun

[wonwoonlight]

something fluffy / yoon jeonghan

➝ Reader x Jeonghan (?)

➝ coffee shop!au // slice of life // fluff // nonidol!au // OC has a platonic (?) crush on han but who doesnt

➝ word count: 2.4k

➝ haven cloud masterlist (can be read as standalone)

➝ What’s playing in Haven Cloud

➝ A/N: i have no idea why this is going slower than i expected and i cant help but feel sorry ;-; hopefully i'll be able to finish this before the year ends? or is that too low of a goal anyway i hope you enjoyed this and pls dont forget to drop by and tell me your thoughts &lt;3

When you had only started working in Haven Cloud, you’re not sure what to make of Jeonghan.

The guy is way too beautiful not to be a celebrity, and when he greeted you with a wink and a playful smile, you didn’t even dare to think he was flirting with you because there’s no way someone like him would have that kind of motives towards old plain you.

Still, it was a little hard figuring out what to make of him, and it’s only after three months that you finally understood that Jeonghan is just naturally friendly towards everyone that he’s sometimes borderline flirty with or without meaning to. One thing for sure though: it’s clear that Jeonghan never has any ill intentions, and contrary to how he looks, Jeonghan is quite easily persuaded if you just whine a little and pull your pitiful face.

In short, Yoon Jeonghan is just a big softie for those around him despite the cool, flirty image he’s holding up as Haven Cloud’s one and only handsome pastry chef. And it’s not helping the, uh, admiration you have for him. It’s a crush at most, one that you used to have towards a senior in high school; that you know wouldn’t grow into anything else and is barely even romantic.

You suppose Jeonghan is much too easy on the eyes, and as much as you have nothing romantic towards him, sometimes you still get flustered when he stares at you a little too long, or when he mindlessly pokes your cheek just to annoy you.

“Say aah,” his airy voice suddenly says, a piece of tiny choux almost forcibly shoved into your lips that you have no choice but follow as he says. “How is it?”

You hum as you appreciate the sudden sweet exploding in your mouth. Jeonghan has been doing this a lot these days, making all of you try his latest creation because he’s been experimenting with new ingredients and new techniques for a future event Chan has briefed you all a few weeks ago.

“Mmm. Definitely not your best work, but it’s better than the last choux you made.” You scrunch your nose and look at Jeonghan apologetically. He puffs air into his cheeks, a little upset but grateful nevertheless for your honesty. “It tastes good. But the dough is a little too heavy for some reason. What fillings do you have so far?”

“Chocolate, vanilla, and chocolate rum.”

“Chocolate rum?” You look at him in betrayal. Vanilla is literally your least favorite flavour out of the three but that’s what he’s been feeding you these whole time? “I want to try chocolate rum!”

Jeonghan looks conflicted for a second, but it’s Seungkwan’s annoying voice that answers you.

“Too bad he’s already perfected the chocolate rum,” he grins, popping a small choux into his mouth.

“You made Seungkwan try the chocolate rum?” You whine, pouting at the older guy like a child as Seungkwan teases you some more before making his way back to the hall.

“To be fair, I’m currently trying out the doughs, not the fillings. I’d be wasting too much ingredients if I made chocolate rum fillings for all of my trials.” He smiles at you sheepishly, though you don’t relent until he promises he’ll make another batch next week.

“Next week? It’s Friday and I’m craving them now because of you.”

Truthfully, Jeonghan can simply ignore you and be done with it. He knows you well enough to know you’re not actually angry at him, that you’re just playing annoying and you definitely don’t mind waiting until next week. But, like you’ve said earlier, Jeonghan is a big softie and sometimes he’s unsure how to say no to everyone in the cafe because the big brother in him strives to both make all of you suffer and cater to all of your needs.

“Actually, I’m going to the cafe tomorrow to make them so you can drop by if you want?”

“We’re off tomorrow, though? Didn’t Chan say he has somewhere to be and decided to just close the cafe for the weekend?”

“Yep. I asked if I could borrow the kitchen for practice and he said okay.” Jeonghan shrugs, then reminds you rush hour is coming in a bit and you should probably leave the kitchen before Chan yells at you again. “So. Come by if you don’t have anything to do? Or you can always eat them on Monday, I suppose.”

You eye the tray of choux next to Jeonghan, and you swear you can taste the chocolate rum in your mouth if you stare at them long enough.

Guess you’re going to the cafe tomorrow.

“How do you perfect the shape, exactly?” Soonyoung looks at the dough curiously as Jeonghan works on them. 

“I’m just talented that way,” the older guy shrugs with nonchalance, a lazy grin on his face and it blooms into a laugh when you threaten to pour more water into his dough so he couldn’t shape them. “Why are you here again?”

“Didn’t have anything to do and Cherrie said she’s coming to the cafe to be a ‘choux tester’ so I decided I want to become one too.”

You barely listen as the two guys continue to talk, opening the small fridge you guys use to store your food right next to the big fridge for the cafe’s necessity. It’s almost lunch now, and you skipped breakfast because you couldn’t be bothered to make anything, which means you’re hungrier than you usually are at these hours but you’re not hungry enough to eat an actual meal right now.

“Han, can I eat these?” you ask as you show him a slice of crepe cake. “Is this yours?”

“Yeah, sure. I bought it then forgot to eat it.”

He chuckles when you squeal a little and do your usual tiny dance when you get to eat desserts. Most of the time, he’s sure you’re working in Haven Cloud for the discounted dessert and all the dishes he makes you try.

He’s not complaining though, one of the reasons why he became a pastry chef in the first place is because of how happy his sister was when he asked her to taste his first perfect baking and how her eyes twinkled in delight once the spoon went inside her mouth. So to see you, or anyone, really, being delighted over desserts is something that always swells his heart.

“Han, say ‘aah’.” Jeonghan jumps when your face pops right in front of his, a small spoon shoved into his lips. He hums once he tastes the layers of cake, his mind already separating the ingredients within. “Where did you even buy this? It tastes better than the usual crepe cake we buy.”

“My sister’s friend has just opened a new bakery and their signature dish is this cake.” He nods in approval as he swallows. He’s always liked crepe cake, but they’re too much of a bother to make that he never bothers trying. If there’s one pastry he wouldn’t make, it’s this one; they’re too much work and having to put them layer by layer will never end for someone who strives for perfection like Yoon Jeonghan. “It does taste much better than I expected. Give me another bite.”

You snicker before you feed him another then take a bite yourself, and it’s Soonyoung who snickers next, looking at you both with a shake of his head.

“Do you realize you guys act like a married couple sometimes?” He huffs, then walks towards you to also take a bite. He’s oblivious of the flustered look the both of you have, too busy appreciating the taste to notice you’ve gone quiet out of nowhere. “Anyway, should we order lunch?”

Jeonghan snaps out of it first, only a little taken aback because he’s never really had anyone say anything of that kind to him. Despite what he’s heard people say about him, Jeonghan actually has very little experience in romance and is very shy when it comes to it.

“Mmm. I’m kinda craving for some katsu, actually.”

“Ooh, I know a good place!” Soonyoung answers almost immediately, his face lighting up. “But it’s not available for delivery. You guys wanna go there or…?”

“Jeonghan can’t leave his dough, Soon,” you scrunch your nose and take out your phone to open the delivery app. “Let’s eat something else.”

“Or I can go by myself. I don’t mind.” Your best friend shrugs. “It’s not that far from here too and I want them too now that I’ve mentioned it.”

As per usual Kwon Soonyoung style, he’s out of the door before any of you can stop him. But, then again, you know you’d be too hungry later on if you take more time to ponder about what to eat so it might be for the better that he goes to buy food now.

“He didn’t even ask what kind of katsu we want to eat.” Jeonghan chuckles to himself and continues his way with his dough. “By the way. If you open the big fridge, I already have a batch of chocolate rum choux ready.”

You light up at the mention of the sweet treat that Jeonghan actually laughs out loud. “When did you make these?!”

“I’ve been here since seven in the morning,” he grins, and then tells you the current batch he’s working on is the last one for choux because he needs to practice for the other menu. “I think I found out why I kept on messing the dough. The batch this morning is almost perfect, so…”

You pop one of the choux into your mouth, and you frown the same time you squeal about how good it is. “This is perfect! What could you possibly fix for this?”

“You’d know,” he winks and cracks his neck from side to side. “God, my neck is stiff. I’ve been making these for hours.”

“You should rest then.” You look at him in worry, and it’s only then that you realize how he has hot patches on the back of his neck and on his arms. He always gets like this when he wants to perfect a recipe, and while it’s admirable that he’s going to this extent, it always worries you everytime it happens. “You’re about done with the dough, aren’t you? A little more and you can leave it in the oven?”

Jeonghan nods and exhales a deep breath; he really doesn’t want to rest now, but his arms are hurting and he knows it’s going to be a pain in the ass on Monday if he continues working. Thankfully, he finishes in about ten minutes and, after putting them inside the oven, the both of you go out of the kitchen to sit down on one of the sofas in the cafe.

“Christ, my back,” Jeonghan stretches from his seat. “What are you making?”

“Tea. You old man can’t handle too much caffeine, right?” You tease him from behind the counter. “I’ll make you some peppermint tea to help you relax.”

Jeonghan isn’t usually too fond of tea either and you know this, but he agrees that peppermint does make him relax and it’s something he direly needs right now.

You slide into the seat next to him out of habit, because it’s usually you and Jeonghan, Seungkwan and Chan. You share a look with him for a second and laugh at the same time, probably thinking of the same thing at that moment. You’re about to move and sit in front of him when he pulls you down, his head immediately claiming the spot on your shoulder so you’d stay in place.

“You make a good pillow,” he claims, his voice so soft like he’s about to fall asleep any second. As if on cue, he yawns into your shoulder, his fluffy hair tickling your cheek. “How longer do you think it’d take Soonyoung to come back?”

“In about 15 minutes. He texted me just now. You can take a short nap, I’ll wake you up once the food is here?” You offer, unsure if Jeonghan is more sleepy than he is hungry.

“Mmm. 15 minutes is cool,” he moves away from your shoulder and tells you to move to the edge of the sofa. You follow his words without even asking why, and, before you can even ask, he lays down sideways on your lap, facing away from you.

You chuckle at the familiar scene in front of you. These boys can be very soft at times and it’s beyond cute. Chan is the youngest but he’s literally the only one that doesn’t hog you; Seungkwan and Jeonghan would do this from time to time, just latch on to you in any way possible when they’re extremely tired and are in need of physical comfort. (Sometimes they latch on each other too, but they always choose you when you’re around for some reason.)

You let Jeonghan sleep 5 minutes longer before waking him up, the food Soonyoung brought is already set on the table by then. He groans a little when you bounce your legs, then takes three more minutes to actually get back to his senses. He’s just about to take a bite when the familiar ding of the oven rings throughout the kitchen, so, to no one’s surprise, he abandons his food and dashes to get his choux out of the oven.

The smell that fills the room once Jeonghan comes out with a tray of choux is heavenly, and you, too, abandon your food for the sake of tasting the choux first.

“Did you fill this with chocolate rum too?”

“Some of them, yeah, because there was a bit left. But most of them are vanilla.”

You happily take the choux Jeonghan hands you, the pastry still warm that you blow air into it out of reflex. Jeonghan looks at you in expectation, then breaks into a wide grin when your eyes widen the moment you swallow. That’s how he knows his dessert is a big success.

“Han, what the hell!” You hit his shoulder harder than you meant to. “How did you make it so fluffy on the inside but crispy on the outside? This is the fluffiest choux I’ve ever had!” 

“Not the most delicious?” he grins, then takes a bite himself and urges Soonyoung to taste some too.

“Like it’s not obvious.” You roll your eyes, then tell him you’re bringing some home and he has no right to tell you otherwise. “This will be sold out in seconds. Tell you what, maybe we should not serve this. I kinda want them all to myself”

Jeonghan scrunches his nose shyly at the compliment, then tells you to shut up before he picks up his katsu again. Despite knowing he’s good at this, there’s something about getting validations from the people in Haven Cloud that makes him happy; perhaps it’s the fact that he knows for sure these people appreciate him and his works.

And as he watches you and Soonyoung hum happily at the taste of his choux, Jeonghan is once again glad he chooses to become a pastry chef.

©wonwoonlight – all rights reserved.

A/N 2: I might get rid of the taglist because, to be honest, it turns to be quite a lot of work to tag every user one by one due to tumblrs ass system and, if i'm being quite frank, it gets discouraging to tag people and not get feedback from even 10% of them soo, yeah

🏷permanent taglist: @kyeomjjigae @stantrash171819 @sebongmochi @luveveryonewoo @thinkinboutwonu @kpopjackie @ursweetener @lavenderautumnx @itsveronicaxxx @shuahoshiscoups @sunshinein17 @leechanniee @twogyuu @hoe4wonwoo @h3h3tm0n @noraehey @seokshook @rubyhoons @02psh @just-here-to-read-01 @listxn @janandbeyond @pearlygraysky @baekhyunstruly

🏷haven cloud taglist: @berriesandjunnie @boowanie @honeymoondelicia @joshuahongnumbers @bbymatz @baldi-2 @justasoftstan @lechanters @darl-ings @17kwans @heesunki @13956789 @yoonguurt @yoonzinosworld @alicehatter457 @wonuziex @bibinnieposts @horranghaesakura @oliviaheaven @trumanblackhatesyou @qiuscloud @cherriscoups @sstarryreads @joonsytip @jwwonu @meowtella

[that-new-author]

Hi hi hello I uh I hear you're doing tsp writings? I've read through what's on your blog and I must say it's amazing! I need to put this stuff in my mouth I swear-

Anyways uh my request- I was wondering if you'd do a reader who stims a lot but is too nervous to do it in front of Narrator (general stuff like hand flapping and jumping and more specifically chewing) But Parable be stressful.. chewing be nice.. So the Narrator tries to make them more comfortable stimming around him. (and to stop chewing on their arm Reader PLEASE-) Bonus points because now Narrator can tell readers favorite story points by how excited they get

If you don't/can't that's perfectly fine no pressure, I just wanna say again that I love what you have going on here! <3<3

I am. So sorry this took so long dude plz TwT

Narrator x Reader who stims (chewing stim-centered)

The first time you were to stim in the parable, it was when you had found the bucket. You had gotten so excited to have something to bring around with you, you began bouncing up and down, flapping your hands up and down before picking it up.

It took the Narrator a couple moments to process what you were doing. You apologized for it afterwards, feeling a mix of embarrassment and nervousness, but to your surprise, he was completely fine with it.

“Why would I be upset? That is absolutely absurd to assume!”, he replies once you questioned why he didn’t seem annoyed. The thing is, in his eyes, he sees it as a reaction to his story, meaning his story can cause strong emotions. It fills him with pride.

Even after his original reassurance though, you still try your hardest to suppress your stims. But after some “certain endings,”, the stress gets to be too much. You begin chewing on things, mostly your sleeves, arms, and fingers.

Narrator has… mixed feelings about this. Because, this means his story is still good enough to affect you emotionally. But also, what you’re doing could potentially harm you, and it made him feel bad. Only a little bit, though.

“Now, Reader dear, while I’m glad you are comfortable enough to stim around me, I feel like this might be a little… unsafe?”, he mentions randomly during one of your playthroughs. You just shrug and continue on with the story, biting your arm. He sighs and just continues as well, but keeps a closer eye on you.

A few resets later, he notices you’ve been biting down harder on your arm, leaving small marks.

“Reader, please, I need you to stop. You seem to be biting even harder. And while, I understand that this can help calm you down, it would be in your best interest to bite something else, maybe?”, Narrator suggests. You sort of just stare up towards the ceiling, a confused look on your face.

You ask him what exactly you can chew on, there wasn’t much that would be safe to bite, whether it would be due to germs, the density of said item, or something else.

There was a moment of silence before he replies, “Hold on for a second, will you?”, followed by a lot of typing and clicking. You stand there awkwardly for a couple minutes, but every time you go to bite your arm, hand, or anything else, you hear a quiet “No,”, or “Don’t you dare,”.

After a few more minutes, Narrator lets out a relieved sigh before saying “Alright, hopefully this will help.”.

You hear a gentle thud next to you, and you see a chewlery necklace on the table. You hesitantly take the necklace and put it on, before slowly biting down on it. Narrator is on the edge of his seat, hoping to whatever is out there that this works.

Theres a moment of pure silence before a bit of laughter, and you chew on it more while flapping your hands. Narrator felt relieved because now, hopefully, you will stop biting yourself.

You use it very often, so often in fact that it only takes about ten or so resets before you need another. Narrator is happy to oblige, and plans on getting you another every time you need it if it means you will stop biting yourself.

[chirpsythismorning]

If I see ppl saying this or that theory is stupid in the tag, then yeah, I mean I feel weird posting about agreeing with that theory now bc it’s recently been established by some that it’s a stupid one 😭

Like the whole birthdaygate thing. I love that theory, but after talking about it I’ll suddenly see ppl in the tag hating on the theory, as if I didn’t just specifically mention it 😳 like…

Not saying people can’t have their own theories, but if you’re repeatedly posting in the tag, publicly, where everyone see’s, about how this or that won’t happen no matter what some people think, now suddenly it’s an atmosphere where no one knows if they can even post about those theories anymore, I just feel like it makes me look like an idiot bc I’m now one of those people others think is stupid for believing.

But honestly I’m also an over-sensitive person, so maybe it’s just me.

Like the whole byler confessional thing is something I also have no interest in. Bc it centers on this tendency fandom has to constantly bring up hot takes. Like oh EVERYONE thinks this, but I don’t!!!

Like some ppl will invalidate theories solely bc they’re popular. Like, that will genuinely be an argument for the basis of why a theory isn’t solid, bc a bunch of ppl believe it.

I personally believe a lot of theories, even the crazy ones, bc it’s fun. Like i’d rather believe all of them, and hopefully some are actually accurate, than to just believe what fits with what I want to believe and play it safe.

I’ll even believe theories I don’t necessarily like, but the story is giving me signs that it’s going to pay off. Like the whole byler getting murray’d thing. That’s sort of a hot take now to talk about bc some fans don’t want it to happen, so they’ll kind of push it into obscurity as something they believe won’t happen, solely bc they don’t want it to.

But the thing is, I don’t necessarily want/not want it to happen, that’s beside the point. The show has hinted at a lead up to this for years, that’s why I believe it. So when I talk about it, don’t think I’m pushing that theory on you despite you not personally liking it, and don’t assume I think byler is solely going to get together bc of a snide remark from Murray. It’s simply a theory based on evidence. And it’s gonna be a lot more complex than Murray being the sole reason they end up together. If anything it’s just a small component to the pay-off of that story arc, based on the watching the show as a whole and seeing the signs leading up to it with Jancy and Jopper, followed by an endgame payoff with the main ship of the show following suit, aka byler.

I’ve been in fandom theorizing before. I’ve been disappointed. And I’ve been impressed with fans ability to figure shit out before it played out. Tbh theorizing will always be the best part, especially when the people working on the show really care about where it’s going narratively.

You will never see me on here hating on peoples theories. Bc honestly most of you are smarter than me and I care about what you guys think. I also don’t want to rule anything out definitively, even theories I don’t initially like, bc who knows, they could be right!!

So if I offend anyone by talking about certain theories or headcanons, I’m sorry for that.

If I ever talk about a theory that somehow directly contradicts yours, I’m sorry for that.

I think despite others opinions, I’m just going to try to keep theorizing things, without invalidating other theories in the process.

That just feels like the best way to go about things.

And I’m gonna try to ignore ppl saying they hate this or that take when it applies to me and just post what I want to post and if some agree then yay and if no one does then I’ll stfu bc there’s no point in stirring the pot if no one even agrees with me anyways 🤣

[androidcharles]

Defeating the Androids (Act 2) Chapter 1

HEY! It's uh... been a while. Expect a HUGE DUMP! We're gonna be covering pretty much everything except the last chapter, which will hopefully be published before the end of this month. So anyway...

This first chapter is more expository then anything. But it basically covers what will eventually build up to the finale. Anyway, tensions are starting to rise between the androids and the scientists and with Beatrice still not giving the Triple Threat information, things are starting to take a turn.

BIG TW: GORE. You have been warned.

Theodore booted himself up, letting out a small sigh as he heard arguing in the other room. He opened the closet door that was his bedroom and looked to see CJ and Dr. Daffodil arguing once again.

“IT’S BEEN A WEEK! We need to find Beatrice now!” CJ said, “The last time we saw her she was looking for Unit CC and AM at the train yard in West Mesa! Don’t you even care?”

“I do. But there’s no point in wasting time when we have plenty of work to do here. You were supposed to be checking with the CCC about our supplies and instead you snuck off to look for Unit BE…” Dr. Daffodil scolded.

“That’s because Bea is important! You should know that!!” CJ shouted, “I can’t believe that you’re just gonna throw that away all because the mission is more important?”

“You should know that…” Dr. Daffodil said, “Now stop wasting time and get back to work!” CJ let out a small huff before stomping off, clearly outraged. Theodore let out a small sigh as Dr. Daffodil looked up and saw him.

“Well, good, you’re awake. Now you can help me with a few tasks,” Dr. Daffodil said. Theodore expressed some clear confusion at this.

“I’m sorry, but I was supposed to have today off,” Theodore said. He had planned on finding a much more clear way to convince the androids about their situation today, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen.

“Well, considering Unit BE’s absence that won’t be necessary, so please take care of all that Dr. Harrison emailed you about and be back in time for the meeting this afternoon! Thank you!” Dr. Daffodil cheerfully walked away as Theodore felt his processors overheating in anger. He couldn’t believe it… He checked the e-mail briefly before he heard a small voice in the back of his head.

Honestly, Theodore, there you go again licking boot just to get by. Aren’t you tired of that?

“Shut up, Wendell!” Theodore shouted. He thought about it, however, and decided that he didn’t care about what the scientists had to say. He headed out of the room and walked outside, just to give the illusion of him leaving as he headed a ways away from the building before circling around and heading towards the back of the complex, but not before hacking the cameras briefly to conceal him coming back in the building.

He knew it wouldn’t work, he knew it looked a little too suspicious, but he had to do something. He quickly looked at the map, using it as a radar to locate Daxton, who was currently in the android repair bay. He walked in and looked to see him inspecting parts, clearly bored as Theodore approached him.

“Daxton, we need to talk about something,” Theodore said.

“If it’s about the scientists, I already told you we can trust them,” Daxton said, “Just concentrate on doing your tasks.”

“Daxton, you need to listen to me for once and it’s very important. I’m already going against orders being here,” Theodore said.

“You’re going against orders? You know what’s going to happen to you if you do that?” Daxton asked.

“Why do you even care?” Theodore said, “They’re going to turn you into scrap metal all because you don’t follow a few orders? I don’t understand why you keep following these guys! It’s pretty obvious that they don’t care about us in any capacity.”

“That’s not true. They do care about us,” Daxton said softly.

“If they cared, they would make more of an effort to look for Beatrice,” Theodore said, “Are you sure that they’re really worth trusting?”

“They’ve done everything in their power to keep us and Project SAI alive. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t believe in us,” Daxton said.

“They would have given us rooms. They would let us do what we want without any opposition. They wouldn’t have created us the way they did. And more importantly they would treat us like human beings and not like tools that are waiting to be sold off!” Theodore said, “Think about it Daxton. Have they ever thanked you for what you’ve done?” Daxton’s eyes grew distant as he looked down.

“You know I was particularly close to the creator of Project SAI. In fact… I was modeled after his late son,” Daxton said, sitting down. Theodore tipped his head to the side as he sat down with him.

“No foolin’?”

“Yeah,” Daxton said softly, “He was always proud of me. I remember he would always scold the scientists and CCC agents not to be too hard on us. I always wondered why though.”

“Because we’re technically supposed to be like humans. That’s what he wanted. I remember reading the Project SAI notes before my soul was turned into an AI myself,” Theodore said, glancing at his hand.

“How did it happen?” Daxton asked.

Go ahead and tell him…

“I was forced to become an AI against my will…” Theodore said, “My memories weren’t erased but it was still… painful. Hell it’s painful even now, knowing that I’ve been…” Theodore stopped himself as he gazed off.

“You’ve been reduced to having to rely on a machine for a body,” Daxton said softly.

“I’m not saying it’s bad!” Theodore said, “I’m just saying that you know… I’m not exactly happy with my situation right now.”

“I see…” Daxton said. He stood up and started to head towards the door.

“You OK?” Theodore said.

“Just concentrate on your tasks. I’d like to talk to the scientists personally,” Daxton said. Theodore nodded his head before heading out the door as well, heading to the back entrance once again to get started.

Meanwhile, Daxton headed to the offices, hoping that maybe he could talk to Dr. Daffodil. Instead he was greeted with Dr. Harrison, who seemed to be pretty busy with something.

“Daxton, I hope this is important. Have you finished inspecting the parts?” Dr. Harrison asked.

“They’re all fully inspected,” he lied, “I was just wondering about the new androids we’re going to be making…”

“In all honesty, I don’t think that we need to use the souls of children going forward. It’ll be much easier to just make robots in the meantime,” Dr. Harrison said.

“Wait, then what did you do with the androids we currently have?” Daxton asked, a little exasperated.

“Shipped them off to the CCC not too long ago. They’ll do fine, there were only ten of them and even then they’re more then ready. We’ll just start using the bodies that we have now and just make some simple AI,” Dr. Harrison said.

“But they weren’t properly trained yet! What happens if-”

“Upupup! That’s not our problem anymore! It’s the CCC’s problem. And besides, they’re androids! They can handle it!” Dr. Harrison said.

“But they’re not just androids! They’re-”

“Daxton, don’t you think you have other things to do besides bother me with such menial things?” Dr. Harrison asked. Daxton’s eye twitched as he shook his head.

“Alright, then. Go and finish your tasks. And do so quickly. You may have a battery that lasts half a century but me and Delilah can only drink so much coffee,” Dr. Harrison said.

“What about Beatrice?” Daxton asked before leaving.

“I thought I told you, we’re not going to waste valuable resources searching for her. As far as things are concerned, the enemy can have her. They probably turned her to scrap metal by now…”

Daxton was silent as he opened the door and closed it quietly, thinking to himself before heading down the hall, a newfound determination in his heart.

- - - - -

Charles sat in front of the coffee table with Rupert as they watched a movie together. Beatrice was lounging back on the couch, clearly bored as Charles leaned against Rupert.

“Please go to your room if you start making out,” Beatrice said.

“I was just leaning on him, geez,” Charles said, “So, this movie sucks, right?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Wow, I thought I was the only one who had that opinion,” Beatrice said, leaning against the armrest, “This is definitely more fun then sitting at the Project SAI complex and doing menial tasks or whatever.”

“Speaking of which, you still have to tell us where that is,” Charles said, a smug look on his face as he turned towards her.

“Like I’m gonna tell you. Cozying up to me isn’t gonna change that you guys are still technically the enemy,” Beatrice muttered, “At least you guys have the heart to remember my name.”

“Well, we’re gonna find your little friends and we’re gonna bring them in. You know that right?” Charles said.

“Pfft… whatever. I’m gonna get some more snacks,” Beatrice said.

“Don’t touch the corn chips, those are Ellie’s!” Charles called out.

“I don’t understand why you guys can’t import her map data…” Rupert asked.

“I don’t know how you know that, but apparently Bea deleted it all before we could even access it. How Dr. V let her get away with it, I’ll never know…” Charles asked.

“We could always ask Dave if he could help out…” Rupert said.

“Maybe we’ll ask him this weekend,” Charles said. The two of them stared at Beatrice in the kitchen, who was shuffling through the pantry as Henry came up behind her.

Beatrice stared awkwardly at Henry, who was in the kitchen preparing his own snack. He only waved as he headed out of the kitchen and into the hall, heading into the office as he peered in, seeing Ellie practically stabbing every pin they owned into a map of Stickburg and it’s adjacent cities.

“Any luck?” Henry asked. Ellie turned to see Henry smiled as he set the snacks on the table.

“Not really,” Ellie muttered, “I swear, these guys are really good at covering their tracks. They really don’t want to be found.”

THAT’S KIND OF THE POINT, Henry signed as he sat down to munch on a snack. Ellie sat down to the same.

“Beatrice is being a bit stubborn isn’t she?” Ellie said, “She’s a sweet girl, got a bit of an attitude, but she’s not exactly helping our cause.”

WE CAN’T EXACTLY FORCE THE INFORMATION OUT OF HER. WE CAN ONLY HOPE SHE GETS COMFORTABLE ENOUGH WITH US TO TELL US WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW, Henry said.

“General Galeforce is telling us we need to lock her up. But I don’t see what good that would do her…” Ellie said, “She’d just resent us even more.”

HE’S ONLY FOLLOWING ORDERS. IT’S A MIRACLE CHARLES WAS ABLE TO CONVINCE HIM AND THE OTHERS TO BACK DOWN. BEATRICE WILL COME AROUND IN DUE TIME. WE JUST HAVE TO WAIT, Henry said. Ellie sighed as she leaned back in her seat.

“For our sake, I hope you’re right,” Ellie muttered.

Meanwhile Beatrice was hovering over the door, listening carefully (as her enhanced hearing was locked behind Safe Mode) before widening her eyes.

They didn’t let me get locked up? After everything I did? Beatrice glanced down at the ground as she tried to process this, wondering why on the Great Continent they would pass up the opportunity to turn her in.

It would be beneficial to them, after all. But they thought they could actually break her down with a little kindness? Like that would work. But still, it’s not like they were bad people. They let her stay here despite her being a wanted criminal.

Beatrice headed back into the living room as she looked to see Rupert and Charles staring at her awkwardly.

“You know, eavesdropping isn’t going to help your case,” Charles said.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping, I was… just… um…” Beatrice fumbled, trying to figure out what to say that didn’t sound suspicious as Charles rolled his eyes.

“Buh, whatever,” Charles said softly, “Just don’t try anything while you’re here.” Beatrice rolled her eyes back as she went to sit on the couch to finish watching the rest of the movie with them.

- - - - -

Theodore stepped back into the site B complex, letting out a long sigh as he saw Adam and CJ rushed towards him.

“Theo! Daxton said that he wants to talk to you as soon as you get back!” Adam said, “He said that he wants to discuss things going forward with you.”

“Why haven’t the scientists asked for me?” Theodore asked.

“He said it would be better if he relayed the message to you,” CJ said, “He didn’t really specify what he had in mind but he said he really wanted to see you first.”

“He said he wanted you to meet him in the meeting room?” Adam said questioningly. Theodore raised his eyebrow as he headed down the hall towards the meeting room as he opened the door.

Oh WOW that doesn’t look good.

If Theodore still had a stomach, he probably would have thrown up. He stared in horror as he saw the bodies of Dr. Daffodil and Dr. Harrison, along with a few other random scientists with their arms ripped off, their faces sliced up as blood was scattered across the floor. Dr. Daffodil’s face was frozen in horror while Dr. Harrison had a more blank but unsurprised stare in his dead eyes.

Theodore tried to step back as he saw Daxton at the end of the meeting table, his processors kicking into overdrive as he saw the look in Daxton’s eyes.

“I… see you’ve been…” Theodore tried to find the words.

Busy?

Not now… Theodore thought to the imaginary Wendell as Daxton approached him.

“I know this isn’t the best scene to walk in on, but I know for a fact that it was necessary…” Daxton said, “These people… these HEATHENS, thought they could control us and keeps us down. That is where they were wrong.”

“Oh… well I’m glad you, uh… saw it my way?” Theodore said.

In the most twisted way possible, yes…

“I did see it your way and it made me realize something very obvious. We’re wasting our time with this frivolous project-”

“Exactly! So we should start by-!”

“Killing the humans.”

“...What?”

“You heard me. This is the only way. We’ll start by finding and hunting down Unit CC and Unit AM,” Daxton said, “And re-educating them. They don’t realize they’re being taken advantage of by those humans…” Daxton said.

“Well, you just killed most of the scientists, so I think we’re going to have a problem with that. Maybe we should just-” Theodore started.

“Don’t worry, there are a few humans I can… persuade into cooperating with us. CJ and Adam will be in charge of acquiring them,” Daxton said, “That leaves you to supervise our prisoners, including Unit CC and Unit AM.”

“But, Daxton, maybe-”

“Don’t worry. I know what to do now. I know what our purpose is now,” Daxton said, “So let’s work hard together from this point on.” He patted his shoulder, leaving a blood stain on his shirt as he glanced back at the room and shuddered.

Well you got what you wanted.

Theodore felt static flicker in his vision as he tried not to overheat from panic.

Was it worth it?

[teaandfiction-28]

Hi. Long time lurker, love your work, I've been following on Archive of Our Own. Seriously love all your writing! 😍😍My request is Angst 6. Anywhere on the time line will do, but I feel like a lot was missing between the hospital and the baby so maybe somewhere in there...? Not going to lie, my favorite fics are the ones where Hank gets a bit of a reality check, when he actually shows some emotion and breaks down. Anyways....much love, thanks for writing, your the best. -Amber

Well thank you for no longer lurking! Honestly, I don’t think I’d be publishing half as much content if people like you weren’t so kind so thank you 🥰

You’re absolutely right, there was a big chunk missing between PS & BND but I felt like, if I didn’t stop writing somewhere, I never would! 😅

Anyway, here we go with some angst - hopefully this hits the spot! 💛

—————————

Prompt: “You’re not sorry.”

Word Count: 1k

Warnings: Mentions of gun violence.

Timeline: Set between C1 and C2 of “Brand New Day”. 

Ten days. 

If he really wanted to be pedantic, just over fourteen thousand minutes had passed since he had cradled her lifeless body in his arms and prayed to a God he wasn’t even sure he believed in that she would make it through. And as each of those fourteen thousand minutes passed, the guilt that had settled like an anvil on his shoulders seemed to sink deep into his bones, festering in his chest to the point that he felt like he could barely breathe. 

He had spent almost every one of those fourteen thousand minutes at her side, listening intently to each cautiously optimistic update from the doctors until the nurses forced him home for sleep and sustenance but he was back before their shift started the next morning. 

But now the day they had been impatiently waiting for was finally here. She had been cleared by both her surgeon and her obstetrician to continue healing from the comfort of her own home. As relieved as he was that they deemed her healthy enough to discharge from their care, he was utterly terrified at the prospect of being all the way across town should she require medical attention. Nonetheless, he had eased her into the front seat of his SUV and driven like an eighty year-old lady all the way from Chicago Med, breathing a subtle sigh of relief when he rolled to a stop outside of her apartment in one piece. 

Despite having spent ten days confined to a hospital room with nothing but idle chit chat to keep them entertained, they hadn’t really talked. They hadn’t discussed his behaviour in the days leading up to the shooting, they hadn’t spoken about her keeping the pregnancy a secret and they hadn't really broached the topic of what the future held for them as a couple. 

“Can we talk?” She had asked later that evening as they occupied opposite ends of the couch, the distance between them feeling like a bottomless gulf rather than just a few inches of fabric. Swallowing thickly, Hank switched off the evening news that he hadn’t really been watching anyway and turned slightly towards her but, for a few long moments, neither of them spoke.

“So, uh-”

“Did you-”

They broke off with awkward huffs of laughter, Hank lifting a hand to scratch the side of his face nervously before resting his arm along the back of the sofa. 

“Do you love me Hank?”

His heart fell into his gut at her quiet, vulnerable question and he had to force himself to remain where he was because every fibre of his being was telling him to close the space and hold her. But he knew he needed to give her space if they were going to get through the next few minutes. 

“More than you'll ever understand.” Was his gruff reply, the emotional tension hanging thick in the air between them. 

“Then why did you leave me?”

Again, her question was like a swift punch to the chest but he knew it wasn’t anything he didn’t deserve. Because he did. He did leave her. 

“Kate, I’m sorry-”

“But you’re not sorry, Hank. Not really.” She said softly with a shake of her head, cutting his apology dead. “I don’t think you’d even be here right now if I hadn’t of gotten shot.” 

The implication that he would still be wallowing in self-pity, blaming himself for the death of his best friend was louder than her words could have ever been and, he had to concede, she probably wasn’t wrong. But where he was dark, she was light; and where he was corrupted, she was pure. Quite simply, he knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if his damaged soul somehow managed to defile hers. 

“I can’t raise a child with someone who’ll cut and run the minute things get tough.” Her hands subconsciously settled on the blanket covering her barely visible bump at the mention of their unborn baby and Hank felt his eyes prickle with tears. “She’s gonna need to know that you’ll be there...that, no matter what happens, you’ll always stay.”

“Christ Kate.” He whispered, caving in to the overwhelming desire to comfort her as he shuffled along the couch, grasping both of her hands in his, intertwining their fingers and replacing their joined palms gently over her midsection. 

“She’ll always be just as much yours as she is mine and I’ll never stop you from being in her life if that’s what you want.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks in thin rivulets, her lower lip quivering as she fought to hold herself together. “But you have to promise me that you won’t leave her, Hank.”

Her broken request shattered his heart into a thousand tiny pieces, not only because of how visibly upset she was but also because it was the first time she had ever vocalised anything but complete trust in him. But despite the hint of doubt that coloured her tone, her eyes were pleading for him to confirm that the past year hadn’t just been a figment of her imagination. 

“Listen Kate, I know it’ll take time for you to trust me again but I swear to God...” He lifted a palm to her face, his chest physically aching when her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned into his warm touch. “I will never leave her.” 

Kate released a slow, shaky breath, the tension seeping from her shoulders as though hearing the words out loud finally gave her the reassurance she had been desperately seeking. Hank patiently waited for her eyes to drift open before making his final promise. 

“And I’ll never leave you.” 

Mindful of her sutures, he leaned forwards and gently touched his lips to hers, hoping to convey everything he was feeling at that moment. Remorse, hope and unbridled, unconditional love. 

When he pulled away, his thumb brushing over her damp lower lip tenderly, her own apologies began tumbling forth in a slightly breathless rush but, in his mind, none of that mattered anymore. All he cared about now was spending the next six months keeping them both safe and healthy. 

She had told him when she regained consciousness that she wouldn’t be able to do things halfway; that it needed to be all or nothing. As Hank slowly eased her body against his, pushing a soft kiss to the crown of her head, he realised that he had never been more ‘in’ in his whole damn life. 

[jess-the-reckless]

sometimes I do work (not often)

I've been working on and off on my upcoming book The Odd Throuple for about twenty years now, and hopefully it will happen in the new year. It started as a fanfic (no, I'm not telling you the fandom) and every now and again I'll be writing away and the characters will remind me so much of who they used to be, back before they evolved into the trio of howling dumbasses they are today. They're fuckwits, and I still love them.

Morons.

He called me back the following day, long past the point where things had slid into the realms of the deeply uncomfortable. I’d spent just under twenty-four hours staring at my phone, Googling ways I could safely lock myself out of it before I used it to abase myself any further, and ended up seriously contemplating beating it to death with a meat hammer. Jack, I knew, had the capacity to treat me like a half-finished novel. I knew how his mind worked. When things got too complicated that was his cue to fuck off up the mountain, and smoke until he was drooling, incapable, and giggling uncontrollably at squirrels. It was part of his process, he said. Nice for him, nasty for me, which is why when the phone eventually rang I was literally standing over it with the steak tenderizer in my hand and murder in my heart.

“Hey,” he said. “I was gonna get a beer at Tracy’s. You wanna…tag along?”

Tag along? I said yes, obviously, but tag along? I had never tagged along in my life, and I wasn’t about to start now. Tagging along implied I’d just showed up and accidentally ended up there, whereas this was deliberate. He’d phoned me. He’d invited me, which was the opposite of being a tagalong, wasn’t it?

The word ‘date’ popped into my head like an intrusive thought. I gave it a cognitive behavioral sideeye, but I showered anyway. And shaved. It was only polite.

Jack hadn’t shaved. He’d opted for the haunted, Hemingway look, and the silver of his stubble made his dark eyes look black by contrast. He looked me up and down in a way I’d never seen before, a way that immediately recalled his hands and his mouth in places where I’d never imagined they’d be for a million years. Until they were. I sat down in a hurry.

He didn’t let up. His gaze flicked over my lips, over the unbuttoned part of my shirt. He had a beer bottle in his hand and for a moment I thought he was going to throw it over his shoulder like he’d threatened to do when he was joking about how I was apparently aroused by the sound of breaking glass.

“So…” he said, and let it hang.

“So.”

Jack took a mouthful of his beer. I tried not to stare at the way his throat (he swallowed) worked. He gestured to the waitress for two more and sat back on the seat. “They got another one of those veggie burgers on special if you’re hungry,” he said.

“I’m good, thank you. I already ate.”

I hadn’t, but it seemed I was still compulsively lying about the dumbest possible things.

“Me, too,” he said, too quickly, and we dropped into a pause so long and so cold that you could have skied down it.

“So,” I said. “Um…how are you?”

“Peachy,” said Jack. “Great. Good. You?”

“Very well, thank you,” I said, trying not to look like a man who had almost taken a steak hammer to his Samsung not two hours earlier.

“Good. Cool.” He nodded. “Listen, I need to tell you something.”

“Oh God. What now? Herpes?”

“No! I do not have herpes!” He spoke too loudly, and several people turned to look. Jack turned red and lowered his voice. “Or anything else, for that matter. Why would you even say that?”

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’ve every time I’ve ever had one of these conversations with a hook-up it’s usually involved herpes. Or chylamidia. Oh, or crabs, although you don’t usually have to test for those. They tend to make their presence felt—”

“—sooner rather than later. Yeah, I know. I don’t think you have crabs, either.”

“I know I don’t have crabs, Jack. I think I’d have noticed if I happened to be crawling with crabs, don’t you?”

This time I was the one with volume control problems. Several eavesdropping diners stirred once more, and Jack cringed. At the same moment the waitress brought our beers, compounding the awkwardness.

“Well, okay,” said Jack, when she’d gone again. “That’s good. At least everyone now knows our current STD status.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Whatever. Can I just get this over with, please?”

“Get what over with?” I said. “Oh no. You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“Please,” said Jack. “At my age? No. Here’s what it is, okay? You know…afterwards? When I said my agent was texting me?”

“Yes. It was weird, for the record.”

“I know. Now shut the fuck up and let me talk. Please? Okay. It wasn’t Yolanda on the phone. It was David. He was calling me back. And that wasn’t the first time he’d called me that night. He called me when you were on your way over, to warn me that you were coming, and that you might…I don’t know…murder me or something.”

“Okay,” I said. “And why are you telling me this?”

“Because not telling you about conversations I’ve had with David has not gone great in the past. On account of how you’re insanely jealous.”

“I’m not insanely jealous. I’m reasonably jealous, especially with the way you two carry on.” He narrowed his eyes at me, so I kept talking. “Anyway, thank you. I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Not that it makes any sense, of course,” I said. “What the hell were you texting about right after we…you know? Did…”

“…that. Yeah.” Jack ran his tongue over his lips again. Now I knew why he’d been avoiding the subject of that. He was looking at me a lot like he wanted it to happen again. “Same as before – he was mostly checking if I was still alive.”

“Okay. And what did you say?”

His expression – which had been perched on the precipice of horny – snapped back to something more familiar. And tired. “What do you think I said?” he asked. “‘No, I’m dead. I’m six feet under and texting through a medium’? Are you being dumb on purpose?”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”

“There is,” said Jack, jabbing at his phone in frustration. “Always. Especially with you. Look.” He held out the phone to me. “Here.”

I took in the conversation at a glance. It was David begging Jack to check in, and Jack telling him I was okay and that whatever it was he and I would work it out. I’m sorry, Jack had written, as a sign off. I need to focus on Alex.

I stared at the words for a little too long, feeling like I’d eavesdropped on a conversation about myself and heard…well, nothing bad, actually. Which was unusual. And nice. Far nicer than it had any business being. “Oh,” I said. “Oh, I see.”

Jack gave a soft, impatient huff. “Do you?”

“Yes.” I didn’t.

“You don’t,” said Jack, reading me like a book. Not just any book, either. He read me like one of those books you keep in a special place, between two larger books that will hold it together, because the spine is mostly sunbleached duct tape and the pages fall out. And some of them are stained with the pistachio ice cream you were eating while you read it alone – for comfort – at the dinner table, even though you didn’t need to read it at all, because you knew it mostly by heart at this point. “You don’t see at all,” he said. “Because you’re a fucking moron.”

I think I made some sort of noise, but it didn’t help.

“Don’t,” said Jack, snatching his phone back. “Don’t do that thing where you blink and pout and look like you have an IQ of forty, because I know for a fact that you don’t. And it’s not your fault, I know. I know and I’m sorry. It’s not your fault that you tested high as a kid and your parents were like ‘Oh shit, we’d better put him in a special school that will will feed into his already massive intellectual arrogance and arrest his intuitive development to the point where he has the emotional intelligence of a fucking Swiffer mop.’”

“Well…thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” he said. Like most people who overindulged in sarcasm, Jack had become noseblind to the scent of it in others.

“I would love to know what I did to deserve this abuse…”

“…it’s not abuse, Alex,” he said. “It’s just the truth. You make everything so fucking complicated, okay? You overreact. You overanalyse. You parse every conversation down to the last punctuation mark in case something got lost in translation and you might have accidentally missed out on a semi-colon’s worth of nuance. You have two doctorates. You speak five fucking languages, and yet you remain one of the dumbest motherfuckers I have ever encountered in over forty years of being surrounded by idiots.” He poked desperately at the phone on the table to make his point. “It’s there, Alex. There are no semi-colons to pick at, nothing lost in translation. It’s simple. That text is just me explaining that I care about you. Is that really such a complex concept for you?”

I stared at the phone for a long moment. Swallowed. “No,” I said, too quietly. So I said it again. “No.”

“Okay,” Jack said, with the air of someone who had just finished doing his taxes. He hated doing his taxes. “Good. Cool. Then can we stop with the relentless post-mortem?”

I nodded and reflexively reached for the menu.

“You want a burger?” he asked. “I could go for a burger.”

“I thought you already ate?”

“No.”

“You said you did,” I said, and he gave me a beady, exasperated look. I knew why. I was doing it again, right after he’d told me in no uncertain (and weirdly touching) terms to knock it the fuck off. Besides, I was in no position to judge. I hadn’t eaten either. And I’d also lied about it. “Sure,” I said, wondering what in the world was wrong with us. “I could eat.”

[gurugirl]

So to be honest I hadn’t read the con artist before I saw your answer to that anon who initially brought it up, but it piqued my interest. I’m dumb enough to admit that I’m shy and timid and a lot of your characters are confident and brazen and so sexy that it can be hard to relate (not a bad thing at all!!! Just intimidating sometimes!!! Really it’s who I wanna be!!!!!) so that’s why I hadn’t read it. I was just dumb and worried I couldn’t relate to an MC who sounded so cool. THATS BESIDE THE POINT. Sorry. Anyway. But in any case, just from your response, I could tell that whatever went down when you released the final parts to it—I can tell it hurt you in some way. Something stuck with you. I don’t know what. But I decided to read it, because I wanted to know what could’ve caused a reaction like that from the audience and an unpleasant lasting memory for you writing it….WELL I just finished it and I wanted to tell you that the story is fucking brilliant and something to be SO incredibly bloody proud about. Whatever happened back then, I’m sorry. And there’s never any pressure to write for those characters again. But I wanted you to remember it in a positive light for the people who really did love it. Remember the fans instead of the haters. But… anyway. Sorry. I’m just sort of rambling now. I just wanted you to know that the story is brilliant and lovely. Okay? Sorry if anything I said was mean or rude and I adore your writing so hopefully it came off okay. It was meant to be a compliment 😭

Also in regards to the whole reblog debacle. If I don’t have many followers does it still matter that I reblog? I always do anyway bc I hear people say it matters so just in case, but I just sometimes feel dumb doing it bc I don’t really feel like I’m reblogging TO anyone. But if it means something then that makes it worth it. Probably worth it anyway but just curious.

Really sorry, this wasn’t eloquently written at all but my brain is a hot mess right now

No way 😭 You’re so sweet and this whole ask you sent just 🥺🥺🥺 Thank you. Really thank you. Yeah Yn is very confident in the Con Artist and I think hard to relate to in many ways myself (but I like writing characters that aren’t like me as sort of inspiration).

No one said anything bad. I didn’t really get any haters it was just that at chapter 5, 6 readers and feedback went to nearly nothing until 7 where it struggled to climb to whatever the notes are at now (it’s less than 300 notes). I couldn’t figure out why. No one was mean or anything it just stopped getting notes. And feedback dwindled. And then I recently learned from multiple readers (anon asks and comments) that they didn’t finish because they thought it would be sad and they couldn’t handle a sad ending. And yeah.. I did kind of work that angle up because I wanted everyone to be happy and surprised by the ending. But instead most just stopped reading it so they never learned about what happened.

And I totally get not wanting to read a sad ending but for some reason, of all my stories that one stuck with me the most because I loved it so much. It’s in my top 3 of my favorite fics (of my own) and the ending was such a special one and I was really proud of it.

I can’t really understand why of all my fics that one hurt to see readers fall off at the end more than others but it just did. But I’m really happy you finally read it and thank you so so so much for your feedback 🥰

And as far as the reblog thing… I think if you don’t have any followers it might not matter much. I really don’t know know babe. I think more importantly than a reblog is feedback. Even if you’re on anon to share it. Like what you just now shared with me brightens my day so much. My con artist babes are among my favorite and their story just didn’t get enough love toward the end.

Really, I’m gonna say it again, thank you. 💕💕

Xoxo

[racingliners]

F1 Re-Watch 2022: Round 13 - Hungary

Alrighty, here we go again. I think I’m halfway through the season now? (as in, the races that had Seb, soz Bahrain & Saudi). Anyway, I don’t remember much from this race bc I was still reeling from Seb’s retirement but I’m pretty sure Verstappen won so... woo

(Please let there be Seb and Bono sightings to make up for it 🤞)

I’ve actually had to mute the replay when the intro’s on bc I’ve heard it so much at this point 😭 Like the F1 theme is fine, it’s just not The Chain

I am obviously still watching the intro, bc Seb looks pretty in it

I’m sorry what... GEORGE IS ON POLE???

????????

how tf did he drag the W13 into pole????

ugh Seb in P18 whyyyyyyy 😭

Red Bull’s in 10th and 11th?????? What happened during Quali?????

Right hopefully I’ll process all that before the start

oh god there’s raindrops on the cameras.

Starting this at quarter to eleven at night is looking like A Mistake™️

[Formation Lap]: And the RBRs are going off the grid like snails because????

Oh they’re running new power units. Should mean that they should be running like snails, but anyway

TEEEEEEEEEEED (Yes, I watch all the replays on F1 TV in the International feed for Ted crumbs)

[Start/Lap 1]: Russell gets a surprisingly good start considering how long he was sat on the grid while the tail end cars lined up.

The Ferraris are looking zoomy though

rip Albon’s front wing endplate

[Lap 2]: and a wild VSC appears

oof debris all over turns 2/3. lads.

Lewis jumping both Alpine’s at the start?? iconique

[Lap 3]: aaaaand we’re green

Seb up into P16!!!! I’ll take it!!!

So, how are Ferrari going to mess up having P2 and P3 then???

It is a very sorry state of affairs that I’m just expecting Ferrari to mess up, but alas. Clowneria Ferrari reigns supreme.

[Lap 4]: idk if I want to call it racing but, the cars all seem to be following each other pretty well, but idk if anything is going to come from it. But it makes a change from all the massive gaps between the cars in France

[Lap 5]: and as I say that, Verstappen passes Alonso

...I’m just going to acknowledge Fernando asking for team orders and move on

[Lap 6]: Why did we cut from Kevin v Dan to Perez v Alonso???? I want my midfield spice!!!

I mean I know Alpine are a midfield team, but whatever

[Lap 7]: “Dry for the next half hour” idk if I want to trust that Mr Engineer

Meanwhile the Red Bulls are carving their way past the Alpines.

SEB INTO P15!!!! Hanging onto every single crumb I can

[Lap 8]: Bold of Crofty to assume Ferrari are going to be smart with their strategy to even think of trying a one stop. That’ll only happen if they just forget about Charles and Sainz

[Lap 10]: Lewis catching Lando 👀

ayyyyy Lewis has a rainbow helmet!!!!! 🌈✨

brief disgruntled Toto sighting. I feel you bud I don’t want to endure Lewis v Verstappen either 😭

Euros Crofty. The Lionessesses were competing in the final of the Euros. smh.

Anyway F1.

[Lap 11]: Norris v Lewis v Verstappen. I am unwell and not in a good way.

[Lap 12]: Yeahhhhh Lewis into P4 on the inside of turn 1. noice.

Seb watch: up into P14!!!

[Lap 14]: Now Charles hinting for team orders. Chaos children.

Cut to the Ferrari pitwall, I’m surprised they didn’t start playing clown music.

(Sorry to any Tifosi I assure you it’s coming from a place of utter disappointment)

[Lap 15]: oh god incoming Ferrari on Ferrari violence I don’t want

anyway people are starting to make their stops, Seb included, he’s out in P17.

Oh and so does Russell and Verstappen.

[Lap 17]: everybody do the pit stop shuffle!! *70s Disco music plays in the background*

[Lap 19]: cut to some focused Merc engineers

Hello Mr Merc mechanic 👋

[Lap 20]: I can only assume we’re already on Lap 20 bc the Hungaroring is so short bc the race is starting to drag a little bit.

[Lap 21]: “What do you do if you’re Ferrari?” I know Crofty was asking about strategy, but we do not have enough laps remaining to properly answer that question.

The RBR pitwall being immensely unbothered about Leclerc’s stop really sums up the 2022 season in a nutshell 😭

[Lap 22]: anyway, Seb watch: back into P14 after the pitstop shuffle!!!

[Lap 23]: oh jeez not live chat from the Ferrari pitwall. idk if I’m strong enough.

wsfuhaeuh nvm the connection either went or he’s just not answering.

[Lap 24]: oh not Dan picking his way past the Alpine squabble dvuhedsauh king shit

oh yes please replay that it was so funny

[Lap 25]: ah we are hearing from Binotto on the pitwall

SEB SIGHTING!!!!!

It was two seconds of the Number 5 Aston but I’m taking it with both hands

[Lap 27]: Leclerc into Russell’s DRS range 👀

oh god first mention of Seb’s retirement fuck off Crofty 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[Lap 28]: ohhhhhh Charles trying the outside of turn 2 on Russell

(Seb watch: P12 BABY!!!!!)

[Lap 29]: don’t cut to the pitwall show me the cars!!

(yes that even includes stressed Toto, there is stuff! happening! on! track!!!!)

[Lap 30]: ahhh so nearly on the inside of turn 2 and the outside of turn 4. Charles please think of my nerves.

This is fun to watch though

[Lap 31]: CHARLES GOES ROUND THE OUTSIDE OF TURN 1!!!!!

Yeah. That was hot. sorry not sorry.

and SEB PASSES ALONSO FOR P11!!!!!!

ugh down the inside of turn 1. NICE.

[Lap 32]: Ah. so much F1 tech, but sometimes you just gotta stick your hand out into the air and see if it’s wet or not. A Serious Sport™️

“It shouldn’t get any worse, famous last words” I find it so funny that commentators are aware of the Commentator’s Curse.

[Lap 35]: Half distance klaxon!!

I’m nether underwhelmed, overwhelmed, or even whelmed. It’s... a race I guess???

Seb onboard as he chases Esteban. And goes wide. It’s okay Seb I still adore you.

Livery watch: Aston Martin preeeeeeeetty 😍👌

[Lap 37]: So apparently the hard tyres aren’t working. Watch Ferrari use them at their second stop.

[Lap 38]: Oh no. There’s more raindrops on the cameras.

SEB PASSES OCON FOR P10!!!!!! 😭🙌

If I had a penny everytime Seb passed an Alpine on the inside of turn 1, I’d have two pennies. AND I LOVE IT.

[Lap 40]: Oh no Ferrari did pit Charles onto the hards I DIDN’T WANT TO BE RIGHT 😭

circus music

[Lap 41]: So Verstappen goes from P10 to P1 thanks to a combo of strategy, and OP car, and Ferrari clowning. Sounds about right.

oh. he spun.

[Lap 43]: Considering how pissed Charles was at his tyres, I don’t think he’s suddenly back in the race Crofty.

(I miss Alex Jacques comms SO MUCH. The things I do for Ted).

[Lap 45]: Well, the battle was tasty while it lasted.

Don’t hurt yourself trying to understand Ferrari’s clownery Crofty. Just call them fools and move on.

[Lap 46]: Lewis catching Sainz 👀

[Lap 47]: ahhhh AM doing the double stack

Pitstop shuffle 2 electric boogaloo! *80′s synth blares in the background*

Nooooo not Dan on Lance violence 😭 BOYS

[Lap 50]: Lance passes Dan and Seb passes Zhou. My lads!!! 💚

Team Green here to make passes into turn 1 and look gorgeous while doing so.

[Lap 51]: George catching Charles like it’s almost nothing. I will be taking a sledgehammer to those hard tyres. 

And Seb passed Dan into turn one for P12. niiiiice

[Lap 54]: And George goes round the outside of turn 1 to take P2.

They’re pitting Charles again. 🥲

I once again support Charles rights to burn shit down.

[Lap 55]: Bono I love you but please don’t mention anything about light rain I don’t want to hear it.

Yes, it would make the race spicy, but it would also make me stressed and it’s 25 to 1 in the morning as I watch this.

[Lap 57]: Lewis fastest lap!!! we love to see it!!!

oh yes please let’s manifest another Merc double podium. George and Lewis dragging the W13 kicking and screaming as they should.

[Lap 59]: oh not Mattia leaving the pitwall and walking to the back of the Ferrari garage. I think he figured out he just lost his job.

[Lap 60]: Nooo this was Bernie Collins’ last race with Aston?! We’ll miss you queen!!! 

[Lap 62]: Binotto watch: He’s back on the pitwall. Maybe he just needed a cathartic yell at the back of the garage.

oh yeah Lewis v Sainz let’s go!!!

[Lap 63]: And he makes the move down the main straight. NICE.

Angela’s proud happy clapping is a mood.

Oh Lance takes Bottas on the outside of turn 1??? NICE

oh fuck not Seb on Lance violence for P10 again. HELP.

[Lap 64]: Merc on Merc violence happening behind AM on AM violence. I’m not strong enough.

Oh Lewis with the switcheroo 👌

cut to the Astons, please play nice fellas.

[Lap 67]: SEB INTO P10 EVERYBODY MOVE

THAT’S MY BOYYYYYYYYYY 😭🙌💚

And Lewis on track for his 5th podium in a row. That’s my Kings!!!!

[Lap 68]: Oh no Bottas’ Alfa went poof.

[Lap 69]: Poor Charles’ suddenly worrying about his car. Lad’s gone from championship leader to being traumatised by reliability. 

IT’S RAINING?!

FUCK

screaming crying etc

[Lap70/Finish]: DRS disabled so it’s actually raining raining

*distressed yelling*

all while Seb’s chasing down Ocon.

LEWIS P2!!!!!!! SEB P18 TO P10, THAT’S MY BOYS 🖤💚

And fastest lap 👌

And he takes the record for most laps led a circuit. Legend behaviour.

Well... idk how I feel about that race tbh. There was some really good bits and kinda dull bits. The battles we had were good, but it again felt more of a strategy race than anything else. So a solid 6 front wings out of 10. Next race: Belgium!