#anyway; that's a real quick way to annoy me and make me think you're out of touch

[medicinemane]

Sometimes with people on youtube it's "upload what I fucking followed you for, not this junk"

And I'm not talking about when they go off on a side project or something, I'm not talking like if you followed someone here for some fandom and now they only talk about The Art of War

Literal example, followed on guy for global economics videos, I don't fucking need positivity videos from you, I definitely don't need videos on how to get rich (mate... I already ain't buying coffee, fancy cars, or whatever the other two things you said were, I literally own my house, I'm only not investing and I still ain't rich... out of touch aussie), and I sure as hell don't need a video about some mr beast challenge

You kinda get what I mean with this of "post the shit I followed you for"?

[pantherxrogers]

Coucou j’ai une requête une histoire d’Ateez sortant avec une fille plus petite mais vraiment plus petite (5,3) qu’eux . Please 🥹

bf!ateez dating a shorter reader

🐰 pairing: ot8 x gn!reader

🐰 warnings: kissing, a little suggestive, extremely fluffy, not proofread

🐰 summary: what each member of ateez would be like if they have a shorter s/o

🐰 a/n: i don't usually write about height, so this was a challenge lmao. thank you for your request bby! i hope i answered it correctly. i used google translate, so i hope it was correct 😅

also! i used lowercase for this one. it feels appropriate for a headcanon lmao. let me know if y'all prefer this or sentence case!

This is a work of fiction and is not meant to represent real events or the actual personalities of any K-pop idols mentioned. All characters and situations are purely imaginary. This story is created for entertainment purposes only, and no harm or disrespect is intended toward the idols or their fans. Enjoy!

seonghwa

as one of the taller members, seonghwa is used to helping out shorter people

it’s in his nature to nurture, so he uses his height to your advantage

he’s particularly useful when you’re in the kitchen, helping you reach anything on the top shelves

that being said, he feels like his heart is going to stop when he sees you jumping up on the counter to reach the bowls

“ah, hold on, honey. let me get that for you.” you pretend to be annoyed but secretly love how much he dotes on you

"thank you, 'hwa," you stand on your tip toes, pressing a kiss to his cheek

he's happy to help with no reward, but he's a sucker for the way you dote on him afterwards

hongjoong

given that he’s already on the shorter side, there isn’t much difference between the two of you

you don’t mind his height, it makes that all the more easier for you to love on him

you’re quick to wrap your arms around him from behind, pressing a quick kiss to his cheeks, causing a subtle blush to spread across his face

he is still slightly taller than you, so he likes to remind you of that sometimes

when you guys take selfies, he likes to hold the camera up a little higher to exaggerate the difference lmao

the other members often tease him about how you guys are perfect for each other, even down to the height

they really do mean it though, you guys are like magnets when you’re together

yunho

it’s no secret that yunho is the tallest member, always standing out in a crowd

whenever he goes in for a kiss, he practically folds himself in half to meet you. sometimes you scold him for his dramatics, but he doesn't want you to put in extra work

he loves picking you up randomly?? like whenever he sees you walking around the apartment, he will literally swoop you up and put you over his shoulder

it never fails to catch you off guard, but you'd be lying if you said you don't enjoy it

unlike seonghwa, he likes to tease you a little bit before he decides to help you reach things

sometimes he'll purposefully put things on the top shelf so you'll have to ask him to get it

"yunho, why is MY apron on the top shelf?" you huff, playfully rolling your eyes at him

"oh, that was YOUR apron?" he's terrible at playing innocent, but you find it adorable anyway

yeosang

like hongjoong, he's not the tallest member

still, there's a couple inches between the pair of you

he actually doesn't think much of it all, never being concerned with things like that

he just loves being around you and being as close to you as possible

we all know yeosang loves his sleep, and he's always firm on being the bigger spoon

"babe, i'm col-" before you can even get the words out, he's wrapping himself around you, cuddling into your neck

you're grateful that he isn't too much taller than you, often joking that he's the perfect sized body pillow

as soon as you're intertwined, he's usually out like a light within minutes. like literally.

san

san loooooooves being taller than you

not because he's superficial but because doting on you is actually his favorite thing in the world

unlike yunho and seonghwa, he can actually be a little overwhelming with how much he wants to help out

"san, i don't need you to get the milk. it's only on the second shelf, honey," you explain, softly patting his back from behind.

"oh, i don't mind. here you go, baby," he smiles, handing you the milk and kissing the top of your head.

you chuckle to yourself, knowing that this is just the way san is

he's never condescending when he helps you out, he really just can't help but spoil you in every way possible

mingi

mingi never really thought too much about his height before he started dating you

but now, you remind him of it all the time

not to be annoying, but you loooove that he towers over you

it's even more attractive that he never makes a big deal out of it

"mingiiiiii," you pout up at him, puckering dramatically for a kiss

"oh, sorry, baby," he hums, before leaning down to meet your lips. you're quick to loop your arms behind his neck, making it easier for him to scoop you up.

but now that he knows the effect his height has on you, sometimes he like to play into your hand

when you call him into the bathroom, he makes a show of leaning against the doorframe, his tall figure filling up the space. your words trail off, laser-focused on him and the way he crowds the space.

"yes, jagi?" he smirks, flexing his arms slightly, "i'll help you out, don't worry."

let's just say that he helps you out, buuuuut it might not be with what you actually called him in there for

wooyoung

wooyoung is so bratty about being taller than you lmao

(affectionate) teasing is his love language, which he amplifies when he's with you

"oop, watch out, babe!" he makes a show of steadying himself, "i didn't see you there!" he exclaims, loving the way you roll your eyes at his antics.

"woo, not this again," you sigh, nudging off the hand he used to pat the top of your head.

his laugh is over the top, but he's quick to soothe you with a soft kiss. "i'm just joking, baby," he hums, wrapping you in a hug. he brings a hand under your chin, coaxing you to make eye contact with him. "you know i love you just the way you are, right?" the sincerity in his voice makes your heart flutter. you nod at him, afraid of what your voice will sound like if you speak.

instead, you press your lips to his. you've never doubted his love for you. and you never will.

jongho

again, there's only a few inches between y'all

but let's not count jongho out! he loves doting on you too, even if he doesn't want to admit it out loud

now jongho really could not care less about height, but you like to boost his ego sometimes

"bear, do you mind grabbing my purse from the top rack?" you hum from the closet.

"of course, baby," he hums proudly, stretching his arms to grab your handbag. he holds onto it, puckering his lips in return.

you press a loud smack to his lips, giggling at his dopey little smile

"thank you, bear," you purr, going back in for more.

[poppy-metal]

BOY BEST FRIEND PATRICK TAKING YOUR VIRGINITY BECAUSE YOU ASKED??? OH I HAVE THOUGHTS

Can imagine him getting all annoyed about all the boys you’ve been hanging out with lately…all these random dates with assholes he KNOWS don’t deserve you…unsure why you even bother with them (you never did before).

It doesn’t help that Art’s supportive of it too, saying you just want to spread your wings. He doesn’t get why it bothers him anyway…

Finally he snaps and asks why, and well you try to brush it off

“it’s nothing patrick”

“just tell me what it is”

“well…”

suddenly it comes out how you just want to get your first time over with and patrick juat goes “ok”

“ok?”

“i’ll do it?”

“what?”

“you said you want to lose your virginity..let me do it”

“patrick…”

“well none of those assholes deserve you in any way”

he actually doesn’t even think he deserves you but its amazing sex. romantic and passionate and overall…you’re left wondering where your relationship with patrick stands

- 🍓

no because you expect it to be quick and easy but he actually takes his time with you - like hes gentle. he even books a hotel room at like, a fancy hotel instead of his shitty dorm because you deserve to be fucked on some real nice sheets on a real nice bed and not his creaky old mattress.

actually takes his time with kissing every inch of you - pressing his lips and tongue in spots you didn't even know could be engorgous zones. like the shell of your ear, the outline of your belly button, he dips his tongue inside, and your stomach shudders. by the time he gets to main event you're already shaking and trembly with pleasure. hes kissed the backs of your knees, your thighs, your pelvis, when his tongue delves between the wet slit of your sex you feel euphoric. his eyes never leave yours as his tongue slowly laps between your parted lips - splayed lewdly by two of his fingers so he can get to the heart of you. runs his tongue in circles around your little clit until you're coming in his mouth, and you didn't think it would feel this good, that he'd take it this seriously, that he'd make it this good for you. tears prick your eyes because hes still kissing you between your thighs.

and you want him so bad. you tell him so and he smiles, but its not his usual cocky side smirk its a genuine smile. "i know. i got you, baby, dont worry."

and you dont. worry, that is. you thought you would. you honestly thought it was be an uncomfortable affair from how stiff and nervous you'd be - you were always the stiff one, next to patrick, the moody girl, the one that had to be coaxed and dragged into having a good time - but you feel like liquid silk. the bed is soft and patricks body is warm and solid over yours and it feels so right to feel his body press against yours. when he licks between your lips you're lax for him, when he nudges your legs apart you spread for him, when you feel the hard pressure against your entrance, you dont resist it. your flesh gives way to his, soft blooms under hard thickness. an empty spot inside of you is slowly filled to the brim.

"god, fuck - you're so perfect. you feel so good - warm little pussy just let me right in, good fucking girl."

the praise lights you up. your fingers slide across his shoulders, feeling the muscles there bunch under his warm freckled skin as he starts to move.

"is this okay?"

legs tighten around his gently swaying hips. heels dig into the indents just above his ass, "yes," you hiss, "yes, dont stop - dont stop -"

"m'not." his mouth is back at your neck, nose skimming just under your sweat slick jaw - every part of you and him is sweaty, but you like it, the heat of your skin sliding, the moisture on his skin, the coarseness of his hair rubbing into your soft belly - "god, its so good. fuck, this is -" he burries his face in your shoulder as his hips lose control.

this is bad, he didn't finish. its bad because hes already addicted to your body wrapped around him. hes fucked loads of girls, but none have hugged his cock quite so sweetly as you. the warm bath of your cunt, milking and squeezing him - your soft body - the give of your cunt - you take him so fucking well.

maybe it's because he already adores you. his anxious little buddy. you dont feel like a buddy though, nothing buddy about the way your hole is gripping his cock. he just means, he already knows you so well, and he likes you, hes protective of you, you know him. the only part of eachother you didn't know was this - the intimate part. and now hes literally inside you, hes your first. and that means something, it means you trust him. it means you want him, on some level.

fuck.

[minisugakoobies]

Mingyu 💞

💞 [ Reunion ] - A longing kiss shared after being apart for a while

This almost ended up being 1k 🤦‍♀️ I am sorry! But the 'gyu brainrot is REAL and it is STRONG 💕

**********

"You know, you didn't have to come."

You roll your eyes as Jeonghan repeats himself. True, your brother doesn’t really need any help picking up his friends from the airport, but you'd insisted on tagging along anyway.

"They're my friends, too," you declare.

"No, they're not." He glances at his watch, then shoots you a look. "You're not gonna be weird about this, right?"

You ignore him, choosing instead to focus your attention on the faces of the passengers now crowding around the luggage carousels, wishing you could brush aside the buzzing of your nerves just as easily as you shut out your brother's voice. The only thing weird right now is how excited you are to see your brother's annoying friends again. You've known Seungcheol, Seungkwan, and Mingyu for ages.

It's been two months since the guys left for baseball spring training. Jeonghan normally would've been with them, but his broken ankle is keeping him benched this year. His incessant whining about being left behind made it a very long sixty days.

But the countdown is over. They're back. And you’re anxiously elated.

Because something changed in the few weeks leading up to their departure, between you and -

"Mingyu." His name falls from your lips as you spy him across the room. Even with his snapback pulled low on his face, you can see how his tanned skin glows, popping against his white tee. You bite back a sigh, wondering how it’s possible that he’s grown more gorgeous in just a few weeks. "I mean, I see the guys."

You lift your hand in a half point, half wave, and it catches Seungkwan’s attention, who then nudges Seungcheol, who in turn shoulder checks Mingyu. You feel the moment Mingyu’s eyes lock onto yours, stomach swooping like you’re in freefall when his lips lift in a soft smile.

You come crashing back down to earth as the other guys spot your brother. The regression is immediate, all four of them suddenly obnoxious teenagers again, with their secret handshakes and crushing bro hugs and unreasonably loud ballbusting. This is how they always say hello, so it doesn’t faze you one bit, though it does make quite a few of the other travelers standing around you glare.

Once they’ve finished their raucous greeting ritual, the luggage carousel begins to move, and all you get are a few quick head nods before the guys start pulling their bags off the conveyor belt. Your heart sinks a little.

Weird, don’t be weird, you think, plastering a blithe smile on your face and pretending to laugh as Seungcheol not so subtly trips Seungkwan with his roller suitcase. Maybe it was weird for you to expect more of a reaction from Mingyu. The two of you had only hung out a few times, a couple of casual dinners, some drinks, one movie, and then, the night before he left - 

Well, maybe it didn’t mean what you thought it did. The two of you had talked a little bit while he was gone, but never about anything serious. You suppose you could’ve asked him about it, but you knew he’d be busy with baseball, and maybe also you didn’t want to know. 

Your mind remains thusly occupied as you follow the guys out to your brother’s beat-up car. Jeonghan pops the trunk from the driver’s seat, using his now-healed ankle as an excuse to get out of helping them. Seungkwan and Seungcheol hastily toss their bags into the tiny space and clamber into the backseat, leaving Mingyu sighing in frustration.

“Thanks for the help, assholes.” 

“Here, let me,” you mutter, not quite looking Mingyu in the eye as you join him.

Together, the two of you rearrange the bags, trying to make everything fit. While the other guys sit in the car loudly fighting over where to grab lunch, you and Mingyu work quietly, in a comfortable silence. It makes you think that maybe it’ll be okay, if things go back to the way they always were before, even if your pulse still races the way around Mingyu the way it’s doing now. 

It’s not until the trunk closes that you finally meet his gaze. Mingyu smiles, that slow-spreading smile of his that makes you weak in the knees, and leans toward you, voice hushed as he speaks. “Sorry I didn’t get to give you a proper greeting earlier. Is it okay if I do now?” 

You’ve no idea what that means but your answer is, of course, yes, an emphatic head nod that makes Mingyu huff out a surprised (and pleased) laugh. His hands drop to your hips, shuffling you towards him just the slightest bit, and then he’s kissing you, lips moving against yours, slowly, longingly, like he’s been dreaming of this moment for two months and is bound and determined to make sure you feel it. 

Weird, how you’re surrounded by hundreds of strangers pouring out of the airport, and yet it feels like there’s no one else around. 

At least, not until your brother lays on the horn.

[juniperdugong]

In Your Dreams - Yoon Jeonghan

Warnings: Suggestive, mentions of "smut" but no actual smut, gn!reader but there's the use of the phrase "ladies' man"

"Hannie...Hannie...Jeonghan"

"Yes? My love. You're right next to me, just say what you want to say, I'm always listening", a slightly annoyed smile formed and curled upwards on his lips before Jeonghan took another slurp of the Shin Ramyun in front of him.

"Lose the attitude babe...", although he doesn't turn Jeonghan knows when you're glaring lasers into his head, he's claimed it's been his "superpower" since you've gotten together.

"You know I could never y/n - anyways as you were telling me..."

"Right! As I was telling you, look at this." A small scoff escaped your lips as you shoved your phone in front of Jeonghan's face. His eyes take a second to focus before he slumps his shoulders and looks at you with defeated eyes.

A large sigh comes from him as he speaks between chews, "Why are you looking at that?".

"I was just curious what Carats think of you these days, is all" A mischievous smile on your lips as you muse at him.

"That is not an accurate way to find that answer and you know that. Plus, I'm eating! How could you shove that in my face when I'm literally stuffing my face? Love."

"I'm not the one eating and you NEVER talk to me when you're eating, I have to entertain myself some how hannie."

"But with Smut? Of me?"

"C'mon~ It's funny!"

"It's not y/n..."

"Yes, it is! They think you're so nasty~!"

Another defeated and angry look is shot your way as he takes a spoonful of rice, dips it into the broth, and then shovels it into his mouth.

"Like I said not a good way to find what Carats think of me. If you really want to know you should look on Twitter or something, babe."

"But that's no fun" You give a small pout and he can't resist leaning over to give you a quick peck to make it disappear before his eyes.

There's a pause before the mischievous smile now spreads on his face with his little devilish squint in his eyes, "Or."

"Or..."

"Or you're showing me that stuff because you want me to do that to you..." His eyes meet yours and now you're the one with the disgruntled expression. A giggle from him turns into a laugh as you lightly punch his chest.

"As if, Yoon Jeonghan...Seriously, in your dreams" You let out a harsh scoff as you turn your head and roll your eyes in annoyance.

"No baby...In your dreams." He waits for you to turn back towards him before attempting to give you a wink.

"Oh woah, look at Mr. Seducer here everyone! A real ladies' man, Y'know I wonder if Carats know how much of a loser you are Han." This time you give him a smirk with your sarcastic tone.

"Loser! Ha, never been a loser. I win the games, I win the awards..." He starts listing things off on his fingers, slowly inching towards you before grabbing your shoulders and turning you to fully face him. "And I win the most wonderful person in the world to share my life with."

You roll your eyes but your mouth betrays you as it curls into a smile.

"See and I keep the love of my life smiling too~ I never lose."

"Shut up, Hannie."

Another giggle comes from him before he finishes the last bit of food before him. Well satisfied he leans back into his chair, gives out a big huff, and pats his stomach.

You're still scrolling on your phone when Jeonghan leans over and encircles your waist with his arms before resting his chin on your shoulder.

A whisper reaches your ear and you can practically hear the smile that accompanies the words, "I think you secretly do want me to do that stuff with you y/n..."

"Yah! Yoon Jeonghan!"

{If you're interested in being on the Taglist for my Seventeen works please let me know!!}

{A/N: Just a quick thing I wrote in like 2hrs between watching Bridgerton lol. This was supposed to include a pimple patch at some point (iykyk) but then I kept writing and it never happened lmao, my hands and my mind do not communicate, the story writes itself most times. Anyway...thanks for all the love my loves! Requests are open as of me posting this btw!}

[honkytonk-hangman]

Line of Sight [4]

JAKE ‘HANGMAN’ SERESIN X READER

Summary: In which everyone's worst nightmare is realised, and Jake's girlfriend isn't actually the reasonable one at all. She's actually just as bad. There's a reason she's with him, after all. or Penny bollocks you over your petty antics with Jake during a volleyball game, but you're too busy enjoying being the only thing on Jake Seresin's radar (on the ground, anyway).

Warnings: fluff, mentions of jakes clealry very healthy mental health that is in no way compromised or flawed and he defintiely wont be needing therapy. thats mostly a joke, this chapter is all fluff :P

Notes: Its done!!! thanks so much for readin this little series and sticking with it <3 I hope this is a nice little happy ever after for these two <3

MASTERLIST

“It's impolite to stare.” Jake scolds, not even bothering to look away from where he prepares to land his third bullseye in as many minutes. For your part, you don’t bother to stop staring as he at last throws his dart, earning a mix of impressed cheers and annoyed groans. You’re still watching him when he turns to you, ignoring the others as they clap him on the back or try to goad him into another game. Instead he steps in toward you, collecting his beer and taking a swig, now just as focused on you as you are on him.

“Say, you’re pretty good at this darts thing,” you ignore his prior commentary and instead shift your weight to pop your hip out. Jake takes another swig, raising an eyebrow, but shrugging all the same. “Maybe you could teach me a thing or two.” You bat your eyelashes innocently, earning an amused look from the blond.

“Who am I to refuse helping a lady out?”

Before you can even really respond, Jake has stepped around you, one hand trailing down your side and to your hip, the other curling around your elbow as he guides you the few steps over to the dart board. Just as ever when you do this routine, Jake is pressed right up behind you, and just as ever, he pays no real attention to teaching you a thing at all, instead simply using you as a vessel to show off once again. He knows you love it, and you do, your body growing warmer with every bullseye he lands, his hand at your waist gripping tighter when you snuggle further back into him. He squeezes you a little in warning when you wiggle your hips again, but when you glance up to shoot him your best innocent look, you find him grinning down at you with only trace amounts of smugness present.

“Gee, you really are good at this,” you tease, speaking softer now so only he can hear. Playfulness seems to leave his smile entirely then, and he leans in, hand tracing up from your arm to your chin, where he directs you to a much better angle for kissing. It’s only a quick kiss, but you can’t help but laugh a little at the way your little show melts Hangman right down to the Jake at his core. You bounce up to peck the corner of his mouth as he begins to pull back, aware of the crowded bar around you, and neither of you wanting to be that couple (although, you definitely were that couple, Phoenix has reliably informed you), but you weren’t willing to let him go so quick.

Jake chuckles at your display of clear affection, and even all these months later, you know it’s still something he’s getting used to. It saddens you sometimes, how he was so easy to give affection, but in many ways never seemed to expect it back. It makes you think of the year and then some that he practically ignored you, for what he thought was your own good, working off of the assumption that should you talk, you simply wouldn’t like him.

He was dead wrong of course, you had grown to like him without him ever saying a word to you, and once he did, your interactions only served to confirm the feelings you had. Jake’s soft little surprise anytime you plainly and clearly expressed your interest in him or what he believed to be his various character flaws quickly grew to be one of your favourite things about him, and you loved taking the time to complement or fawn over him at any given opportunity, to big him up in a way that you can.

You place one last kiss to the underside of his jaw as he straightens fully again, and you both become aware of the discussion of a pool competition. Still with his hands firm on your hips, he turns his head long enough to invite himself to the game.

“Duh.” Javy replies with a smile and a half-hearted roll of his eyes. Phoenix’s eye roll isn’t nearly as subtle, but her smile is.

“I’ll get you another drink,” you say softly, reluctantly extracting yourself from him. Jake seems to hesitate for a moment, eyes flickering between you and Dagger before you reach out and give his chest a light shove. “Go on, win for me, Hangman.” You have to suppress a giggle when his chest seems to puff out. A wide smirk pulls across his face, and he gives you a little nod. You loved how seriously he took these sorts of things.

“Careful what you wish for, baby, don’t want to get too competitive about a friendly pool game just to make you happy,”

“That is like the most romantic threat anyone’s ever given me!” you exclaim with a mostly genuine dreaminess. You yelp as you turn around, as the moment you have your back to him, Jake delivers a light swat to your backside. You fix him with faux-disapproval and flick your hair hastily in a way you know he finds extremely sexy.

“Careful there, Hangman,” you call in a sing-song manner, all the while he continues to smirk at you in a way that some may consider ‘infuriating’ (Review courtesy of Phoenix) or ‘annoying as fuck, man! Blink!’ (Feedback provided by Coyote). “Penny’ll have you thrown out for that sort of thing…'' you say with sickening amounts of fake innocence, batting your eyelashes at him, as he non-verbally calls your bluff, his smirk widening and his chin lifting as if to say ‘go on, then, do it.’.

You don't bother pretending you can win that sort of battle with him, especially not while you’re still clothed, so you flick your hair even more aggressively this time, and begin making your way toward the bar, swaying your hips dramatically for the sole benefit of the seaglass-green eyes that you know will follow you until you reach your destination.

You manage to find your way to the front of the drinks queues fairly quickly, and push yourself up and into the empty seat at the end of the bar. You’re in kind of a blind spot here, you’re more than familiar with the Hard Deck by now to know if you were anyone else, part of any other group, you’d be seriously worried about you chances of actually ordering, but all things considered, you aren’t anybody else, and you just so happen to be a part of the owner’s husband’s little band of merry men.

Penny spies you almost impossibly, and despite the heavy crowds at every other section of the bar, you see her pick up an already cleaned glass, and pretend to wipe it down as she makes her way to where you are, placing the glassware away and hitting you with a blindingly warm smile.

“If it isn’t one of my favourite love birds… what can I get for you hon?” Just as Penny finishes her eyes flicker to the place behind you before she frowns and looks back at you in slight confusion. “Where’s your shadow?” She follows up. You give her a little laugh and roll your eyes, gesturing the general direction of the pool table.

“He’s about to win some pool for me, although he did debate whether or not to come with me instead for at least seven seconds, so you know, we’re improving on the shadow front.”

Penny laughs loud and joyfully, giving a shake of her head at nothing in particular.

“If it weren’t so sickeningly sweet, I’d say good for him, but to be honest, at least I know he’s not going to get into that much trouble when he’s with you,” she says with the sort of wry knowingness one is only allowed to use when married to Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell. You raise an eyebrow and cock your head.

“Why does everyone always assume I’m keeping him out of trouble?” you wonder aimlessly, knowing Penny wasn’t one of those people, and in this rare context, she was also correct about keeping Jake from trouble.

Penny shrugs.

“You and Jake are just about the most perfectly matched duo I’ve seen in a while, but I think you hide your assholery better than he does,” Penny tells you with a laugh. You pout at her.

“You think I have assholery?!” you ask, faux-offended. Penny reaches across the bar to give you a light smack, rolling her eyes at you as she does.

“I saw you at the beach party last weekend, egging that man of yours on to humiliate your poor new friends,”

The memory brings an immediate smile to your face and you let out an involuntary bark of laughter.

“Oh my god, but that guy was such a douche! God, he had no idea what he was in for, challenging us to volleyball! Idiot,” you snicker only a little evilly thinking about how thoroughly you’d wiped the floor with the small group of beach goers who had wound up joining your party, only for you all to realise too late that they were kind of really annoying.

“Do you know what most mature adults do, what the other mature adults did?” Penny questions like you’re a preschooler. You roll your eyes, again. “They ignore school yard bait and try to make peace.” Penny tells you, which you don’t think sounds like the right answer. She looks at you expectantly, as if she’s waiting for you to concede her point. You make a face.

“Penny, those guys sucked, and they were talking such a big game about their volleyball skills. They didn’t even bring a volleyball with them! It was a netball!” you justify. Penny you can tell is only half telling you off, being a not-so-reformed troublemaker herself these days. “Jake and I play v-ball literally every sunday, we didn’t do anything or humiliate anyone on purpose, all we did was accept the invitation of a game.” you don’t believe a word of what you say, but it does sound almost convincing. If Jake were here he’d give you a supportive nod.

Penny lets out a laugh and shakes her head at you.

“Only you and Hangman can take something adorable and sweet and romantic that you do together, and turn it into an opportunity to dunk on some tipsy losers who’d mildly annoyed you,” Penny says, still like she’s scolding you, but the sparkle in her eyes says she would have done the exact same thing had she and Maverick been thirty years old again, and if the mere suggestion of beach volleyball wasn’t cause for a physio visit.

“Besides, I’m glad y'all got to watch us play at last. Since we made the mixed regional team last week we’ve wanted to get you all down to a game sometime,” you say, dodging any accusation of pettiness. Penny nods enthusiastically.

“You know Mav, Amelia and I will be at every one of those games. We’ve got to make sure you guys actually win and don't just tell us you win, to get the free drinks I promised.”

You can't help but smile warmly. It was nice to have a family in San Diego, to be able to rely on people.

“Really, Penny, thank you so much for sponsoring the team, you totally didn’t have to do that, but it means a lot to us, to both of us,” you say gently, reaching out to rest your hand over her. Penny returns your soft smile.

“See, this is the sort of thing Jake would never say, not without a heavy helping of sarcasm, irony or whatever else he thinks makes him less vulnerable.”

You laugh at that and bow your head in agreement.

“Hey, I’m working on it with him. I mean, Pen, he still gets surprised when I just tell him that I like a particular facet of his personality… Anyway, in the meantime, I’m happy to be the emotional go-between.”

Penny gives you a knowing, sympathetic hum.

“That man is everything he says he is and more, but he just can’t seem to bring himself to believe it. I’m glad he has you to show him it’s not just bluster.”

Your eyes momentarily prickle at Penny’s frankness, the words painful to hear from somebody else. Although she’s completely correct, it really does upset you to think of the way Jake must consider himself sometimes, and why you were so determined to adjust the way he clearly thought about certain things, mostly, himself.

“Very little of him is just bluster, and I can’t understand sometimes how he doesn’t actually see that, considering it’s a narrative he made for himself… he’s complicated, but I’m pulling at those threads as they come,” you nibble your lip with a small frown, before dropping your gaze to the bar top. “I just wish he’d see him the way I see him, and the way other people see him…” you pause, and Penny lifts a sardonic, incredulous eyebrow at you. You immediately relent, waving your white flag on that point in the form of holding up your hands. You’d had to come to terms a while ago now with the fact that you’re an exceptionally unreliable source when it comes to how you think others see your boyfriend, Dagger squad notwithstanding. “Okay, maybe not the way other people see him. Pretty sure that's the one thing he’s not mistaken about.”

You both share a soft laugh before Penny straightens, and throws a cursory glance over her shoulder at the seemingly ever growing crowd around the bar, though she still remains clearly unbothered as she turns away from the rush, and shifts her weight to her hip as she looks back at you.

“Anyway, I believe you came for drinks, and I believe I should go get them. The usual?”

You nod, thanking her as she steps away to fetch one bottle that supposedly contained beer, before she fetches your much nicer, far superior sarsaparilla, and waves you off when you attempt to pay.

“My shout, for the two of you making the regional team, and celebrating by destroying some amateurs, because you were bored.” She tells you with a playful wink. You grin widely, cheekily, before shooting her a faux-scolding look.

“Rewarding us for our supposed asshole shenanigans? That’s only gonna reinforce our poor behaviour, Penny! This is exactly why we’ll never learn!” you call out raising the drinks as your excuse for choosing to ignore any self-growth.

You manage to narrowly dodge a ‘rogue’ ice cube that finds itself mysteriously launched at your head, and poke your tongue out at the now distracted bartender, who somehow sees your childishness despite her mixing some brightly coloured cocktail, and spares a moment to throw you the bird, then a blown kiss. You laugh to yourself, as you push away from the bar, feeling quite pleased with yourself, and adjusting your focus to immediately inform your boyfriend of Penny’s definitely very real disapproval of your actions, and not at all conflicting response to the two of you grown adults humiliating some random pricks that in complete honesty, you certainly would have expended far less energy by just ignoring for the rest of the night.

You pause briefly, realising that that is the exact sort of petty assholery that Penny had suggested you hid, and briefly consider that you’re just as bad as Hangman, not Jake. You quickly come to the conclusion that you don’t find that to be a terrible thing, and so shrug to yourself, and continue on, unbothered by such little things like being a peaceful, non confrontational and relaxed person. In your eyes, being chaotic, always down to clown (on others) and quite likely an incredibly petty asshole at times sounded like way more fun, and involved far less unwanted self-introspection, you suspect.

The closer you get to the pool tables, the less you have to work to get through the crowds. All the Navy guys tended to congregate most thickly in this part of the bar, a sea of flight suits and unfamiliar patches greeting you, a fun quirk of which you’d discovered fairly soon after you’d visited Jake on base for the first time a month ago. Although you had no clue who any of these sailors were, or if they knew Dagger in any way, they definitely had become aware of you, and more importantly to this topic, who you were dating.

It's probably the petty-asshole in you again, but you get a sweet kick of satisfaction when you approach anywhere near the Navy guys, and for the first time in any bar ever, you don’t have to make yourself known to anyone for them to get out of your way. It’s almost as though a definitely unknown person may or may not have subtly mentioned (see: threatened to the best of his not-inconsiderable abilities) to any Hard Deck regulars on base, that should you be making yourway over to your regular spot, they are to clear the path and make sure you’re able to walk without going unnoticed by rowdy sailors who can't hear or see you.

You’d be annoyed that someone, surely not anyone you’d know, went to such efforts after just one incident in which you were trying to get past some sailors for much too long, only for one of them to step and into you, making you drop the round of drinks you’d been carrying, but honestly, as a remarkably unintimidating woman who wasn't known for her great assertiveness when not backed up by her six foot actually intimidating Navy Officer boyfriend, you kind of loved that someone, who you really had no clue as to the identity of, had gone out of their way to make sure you’d not have any more issues during what should be an uneventful commute from the bar to the pool table.

You have no idea who could be willing to use their mean side to your benefit, the result of which is the most unbothered walk anyone has ever done in a crowded bar, and a bunch of random sailors you don’t know occasionally giving you polite, stern little nods as you pass, as though their instinct was to salute you, before they remembered that you are not in fact any form of authority to them, but they couldn’t not do something as a sign of respect. You really do wish you could find out who it was that had put the fear of god into these men, if only to give him some really, really good head later.

You finally arrive back at the pool table, the red sea closing back up behind you to form a seemingly dense wall of uniforms, that Payback looks at in clear confusion, then to you, as if you had an explanation you were willing to give. He lifts his brows and you shrug, putting on your best smile.

“Guess they just all thought I was cute or something’!” you say brightly, wishfully. From the direction of the pool table, a familiar voice responds to you.

“Yeah, I guess they did, how polite of them.” Jake says meaningfully, though you don't know what he’s on about, but you suspect is in fact a veiled suggestion-not-threat to the sailors within hearing range.

You wander over to Jake, making sure he's not about to take a shot before you step right into his personal space, and hand him his what apparently passes for beer these days. Jake takes a sip, and thanks you, dropping a brief kiss to your temple. You see him briefly take a look at what you’d ordered, only to receive a scoff.

“And you have the nerve to call my choice in drinks ‘nasty’. Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but you’re drinking’ cough medicine.” This is the one facet of Jake’s personality you can’t stand, and have made clear to him you dislike.

“‘Oh look at me, I’m a grown man from Texas who hates Sarsaparilla, how unique and quirky!’” you mimic his voice in a fairly insulting way, it sounds not a thing like him, but that's part of the jab. Jake narrows his eyes and pokes you in the side.

“You ain’t witty, plenty of people hate that shit,” he tells you, frowning. You ignore him.

“Oooh, I claim to be accepting and appreciative of the few differences i have with my girlfriend, but always happens to forget her favourite drink when he goes out for snacks!’” you mock him further.

Jake huffs and is about to open his mouth, no doubt in his defence, but you cut him off, narrowing your eyes.

“You ain’t slick, Seresin.” you say darkly.

Somewhere around you, wherever your friends are, you don’t know, you hear Rooster whistle lowly.

“Hey guys, first fight!” he says mirthfully, but with no real conviction. You snap your head in his direction.

“This is not our first fight,” you correct him with an eye roll, no longer concerned with your petty argument, both you and Jake forming up into a single entity once more to face the rest of the world. Jake’s arm slings casually around your waist and he leans on his hip, into your side.

“Get a load of this, Rooster thinks that's what a couples fight really sounds like,” Jake adds, as if speaking to you conspiratorial, toxic levels of faux-sympathy for his squad mate.

“If that's what he thinks a fight is, I’d hate to see what he thinks a declaration of love sounds like,” you say, mostly for the benefit of Jake and yours little game you’ve started, and not for Rooster, who was already ignoring you both and rolling his eyes as he moves to take his shot.

You glance up at your boyfriend, who is smiling Cheshire-like, but he shoots you a wink when he returns your gaze. He turns toward you then, using both hands, both of which also hold a beer and a pool stick respectively, to grasp your hips and duck his face into your eye line.

“The corner store we go to for snacks doesn’t have sarsaparilla, but it’s kinda a bust most times anyway, let's find a new snack stop, alright?” Jake says, definitely earning him some extra, extra good head later.

“I didn’t think you really were leaving it out on purpose, it's so hit and miss in Cali what stores stock it.” you tell him, grumbling that you couldn't just go to any store and get you some cough syrup.

Jake hums, and steps around you, your convection on pause briefly as he steps up to take his shot, sinking all the balls he's supposed to and not the ones he isn't (you refuse to learn more about pool than absolutely necessary), before he turns back to you as if he’d never stepped away at all, and sweeps you up again.

“I know a place back home where you can get a year's supply, I’ll see if one of my sisters can figure something out,” Jake says softly, as if a little worried the others might hear him being so gentle and tender. The others, while certainly all pretending not to eavesdrop, only wear various expressions reminiscent of the sort generally worn after being shown a baby animal video compilation.

“And how are either of your sisters supposed to get a year's supply of sarsaparilla up to North Island from Austin?” you question, not wanting to bat away his clear intent to apologise for any wrong you may have thought he’d done. Jake’s eyes swing toward the ceiling like you’ve just said something stupid and he won't actually believe it.

“You forget I’m a pilot.” he says as if it's obvious and also a good point. You frown.

“Pretty sure your jet can barely fit you, let alone a bunch of sarsaparilla.” you say, feeling distinctly like you might be about to walk into a verbal trap he’s laid.

Jake huffs, and still keeping his eyes off of you, he all but stomps his foot at your logic and reasoning.

“Whatever, I’ll drive it back if I have to,” he says, even more quiet and even more worried of the others hearing him. You refrain from ‘aww��ing dramatically, and instead cup his cheek.

“You can just apologise or like, use your words you know. You don't have to communicate with me via intense acts of devotion and service.” you give him a little smile to let him know you were being serious, despite your light tone. Jake’s eyes fall on you at last and he purses his lips.

“It doesn’t feel like enough.”

“But driving around forty hours round trip to Texas and back again all for some cough syrup does?”

“Yes.”

You consider him for a few moments, but relent, and release him of his obligation to make eye contact during vulnerability, patting his cheek lovingly.

“Alright, well, if that's what you’d like to do, Jake,” you say, not fully understanding why words aren’t his thing in this one aspect of his life, when in every other area he excels in anything verbal, damn-near silver-tongued. But you also don't have to understand it, you just had to know it, and then see his displays of love and affection no matter how odd or unconventional or totally over the top and ridiculous, for what they were.

Jake takes a few moments to process the amicable end of that discussion, seemingly expecting a fight or more pushback, but you only nudge him, to draw him from his distraction.

“Hey Hangman, aren’t you supposed to be winning this for me?” you ask playfully. Making the blond frown at you as he looks between the table and your face.

“I said I would, didn’t I?” he asks back, making you pause. You glance back at the table with an earnest frown and after you seemingly take much to long to decipher the secrets of the little round balls, Jake chuckles, stepping up beside you and wrapping you up in one arm, pulling you in as he continues to laugh at you (you retract one extra off of the ‘extra extra good head’ you were planning on giving him later) and kisses your temple, his chuckle nothing sweet and instead completely, totally, and all-consumingly infuriatingly smug (Review by His Girlfriend).

“You have no idea what you’re looking at, do you?” he asks, quieter than you’re expecting, so only you hear. You glare, and answer him with an exasperated sigh.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, darlin’.”

You now glare directly up at him as he watches you with a mix of genuine assholery and softer playfulness that lets you know he’s fully aware of the former trait making a rare  appearance in reaction to you.

Sometimes, you almost wish he’d go back to ignoring you. It had to be better than suffering this. You didn't deserve it, you were an occasionally good person, right?

Jake draws you back from your silent pleading for a time machine, and he leans down toward you, smolderingly self-satisfied with how his little display has gotten under your skin, and his expression combined with his much more intimate proximity suddenly brings to mind that night several months ago now at the club, the night that Jake had paid attention to you for the very first time, and you’d understood clearly what it must feel like to go up against Hangman in a dogfight, what it felt like to be in his direct line of sight. 

Jake plasters on an identical smile to the one he has in your memory, but unlike that night, he gains an evil glint to his eyes, which you find out the reason for mere seconds later, when he gently boops your nose in a manner that tells you he definitely knows has lost him all extra good head privileges for the night.

Apparently, he deems it worth it, and sadly, you can't help but be swept up by him, rolling your eyes in mock frustration, but unable to keep from grinning up at him like a lovesick fool, waiting for him to finish his line.

Jake’s smile turns momentarily sweet, but he quickly covers back up with his bluster and fake mega-douche routine you actually definitely loved.

“Let ol’ Hangman take care of it for ya’.”

[mintkookiess]

I like you, okay?!

A/N: Fluff fluff just fluff after the whole fiasco with "It's Always Been Her." (I need to recover from it)

Anyways, enjoy!

Love,

Mint

POV: Miles comes into your room at 3 am unexpectedly :3

Tags: Miles Morales x reader, slight cussing, LOTS OF FLUFF, sassy annoyed reader, confessions

Word count: 1k

At around 3 am, your phone started dinging, making you groggily grab your phone from the bedside table.

The sudden light from the screen made you wince. "Why the fuck is Miles texting me, it’s too late for this.” You groaned as you clicked on the unread message from him.

Hey Y/n, can I come over real quick?

You clicked your tongue in frustration, placing a hand over your eyes, and rubbed softly in a poor attempt to wake yourself up before looking back down to type the shortest possible reply that you could muster at the time.

Sure.

After hitting the send button, you huffed, chucking your phone across the bed.

As your eyes start to close once more, a soft stealthy tapping at the window makes you open your eyes again, making you grumble from great annoyance at how your best friend always found the worst times to sneak into your bedroom.

Spiderman or not, this was plain fucking torture.

"Are you ready?~" You hear a muffled voice as the window opened wider. "Oh God, please no." You groaned, throwing a pillow over your face. This was your last attempt to just drown him out, but apparently, nothing is going your way tonight. 

You hear the soft padding of feet, accompanied by the familiar thwip sound of his web-shooters, swinging himself into your bedroom with a soft thud and faintly landing on his feet.

"What do you want Miles?" You said with your voice muffled by the pillow. "I know this might be a horrible time to ask, but do you think I could stay for a while?" He asked with a sheepish smile. Miles stood by your bed, awaiting your response.

You nonchalantly wave your hand off at him, eager to just get this over with. "Do whatever you want man." 

Miles' eyes glistened in delight. "You're so kind tonight, what's changed?" His stupid ass question just made you want to throw him out the window.

You didn't respond, too exhausted to even think of a sassy remark. It was literally 3 in the morning, you did not have time for his antics. 

However, he merely chuckled at your lack of a reaction as his lips curved into his usual smile. "Sorry, I'm a bit of a night owl. What with patrol and all that, but I couldn't go without seeing you. Your eyes have been haunting my dreams..." He trailed off.

"Ah yes, it's me being your sleep paralysis demon telling you to stop bothering me at such an ungodly hour." You replied sarcastically, finally removing the pillow from your face as it started to give you a hard time breathing. 

You turned to lay on your side and looked up at him, clearly unimpressed. It was just too late for this shit. 

Miles sees this, and suddenly gets defensive, sitting on the edge of your bed across from you. "Maybe if you weren't always so busy with classes—"

He suddenly stopped talking as he realizes what he said. Miles' face slowly turned red and he was internally hoping to all the gods existing that you wouldn't spot it from the darkness of your room. 

Ah, maybe I should just jump out of the window. He thought as he took a deep breath in, his fingers tapping against his thigh anxiously. "I like you, okay?!" He quickly said, nervously looking up at you. 

"You... WHAT?!" You suddenly yelled, causing you to sit up in shock, mouth agape and eyes widened. What the hell is this guy on about now?! And at 3 FUCKING AM?

"Okay okay, I know. Totally stupid to just jump the gun here but it's so hard to sleep. Sometimes I lose focus when I'm being Spiderman. I spend an awful lot of time thinking about you. Y-You're funny, kind, smart, all the things I like in a person." Miles rambled on, not even daring to stare directly into your eyes for fear of seeing your reaction to his sudden confession.

You pinched the bridge of your nose, sighing. "Is this why you deliberately tried to be my lab partner when I was new at school?" To which Miles' nervous expression became that of a guilty one.

"Maybe..." He admits, his voice sounding even less confident than before.

"Don't you like that Gwen girl from our class? I would've assumed because you two are literally so close." The guy in front of you only shrinks further into himself, feeling his heart sink and his face fall. "Gwen's like a sister to me. She isn't you." He said with a slight emphasis that really sounded more like a whine. 

Miles' words are slow but honest. His eyes trail up to the wall behind you to try to keep a brave face, which was slowly crumbling by the minute.

You snuck a glance at him before exhaling loudly. You flip your fingers back and forth, signaling him to come closer. "I guess you can cuddle with me." You mumbled, ignoring the way your cheeks are heating up. 

Not even wanting to see his reaction, you place your blanket back over your entire body, laying back down on your bed, facing the wall and away from him.

He seemed surprised, and his face instantly lit up. Miles let out a happy gasp as he grabs your blanket gently, climbing underneath it as he cautiously wraps an arm around your waist and snuggles up against your back. He even mustered the courage to bury his nose in your hair. 

Miles' heart was beating erratically, rendering him absolutely speechless as he held on to you as if his life depended on it. Well, it was a dream come true for the poor boy. He'd been practicing how he'd confess to you for the last three months. 

"You do know that you're going to have to work hard to get my 'yes' right?" You mumbled, trying to use every ounce of energy left in your body to numb the way his arm around your waist made you feel. "I'm fine with that," Miles quickly replied, his words soft and comforting. 

"As long as I can be with you, in any capacity, I am content." He chuckled. Shortly after the two of you slowly drifted off to sleep, still in each other's arms. Or more like, you were still in his arms.

Fin.

See more of my Miles content here babes!

(if yall wanna be on my taglist feel free to let me know!)

[ktaerssoi]

same team, different goal

(pt.1) (pt.2) (pt.3)

summary: the three weeks leading up to the draft, or the three times you realize caitlin isnt all that bad.

(2k)

week one

march was coming to an end, and Iowa had made it to the elite eight. tomorrow you would play against LSU, and you were a little nervous. your nerves didn't ease up when you were practicing the night before on an empty court.

it was almost ten, but you hadn't eaten or even thought about anything but the game tomorrow until you heard someone enter the gym, and then you weren't alone.

looking up from the ground, you shot the basketball towards the net, your arm stretching out and your feet coming off of the floor for a moment, but to no avail, it hit the backboard and bounced back to you.

"you should ease up your arm, you're too tense to be playing to your full ability." you turn to see caitlin standing by the court's edge, a calculated look on her face. "clark, I really don't need your help, I just need to practice. you're not exactly helping with that by the way."

she put her hands up in defense, "Actually that was exactly what I was doing. Plus, this isn't your gym, I can come in and practice too if I want." and that's what she did. every time she threw the ball you heard a faint swish and turned to see her lazily going to retrieve the basketball. she's some freak of nature really.

"wanna run some defense real quick?" she throws the ball to you, which you catch with an annoyed look. "sure," the tone of your voice would be enough to turn anyone away normally, but caitlin was one to never quit.

you guys had been trying to block the other on and off for about an hour, caitlin having more success than not. "seriously caitlin, I don't get how you just walk in here and play so easy." you guys were over by the benches, getting some water and checking your phones.

she looks up at you, shrugging. "no I mean seriously, if I told you to stand anywhere on the court you could make it. you practice infinite hours and yet your grades almost never falter." you hadn't really realized that you were going on a rant, but you were nothing but amazed by her talent. well maybe a little jealous too.

"wow l/n, I didn't know you were that big of a fan, do you want me to sign a shirt or something?" you would usually be annoyed by a snarky statement like this, but something about the exhaustion of practicing and the smile on her face made you smile a little too.

-

you woke up the next morning feeling less nervous about the game. practicing with caitlin was helpful, even if you swear for the rest of your life that it wasn't. She had told you about herself, in between breaks you guys would talk about what it was like playing basketball growing up.

she was easy to talk to.

you had been warming up for a little, talking to kate and trying to relax, like caitlin said. by half, both teams were tied at 45, and you were trying not to stress. you knew that you had a good team, and you knew that even if we were to fail it wouldn't be the end of the world.

you had a short water break at half, and caitlin came up to you, leaning down and whispering in your ear. "hey just relax, we got this, just get out of your head." you nodded, looking up and her. kate had given you guys an odd look, along with the rest of the team.

once the third quarter started, you were trying to guard angel resse. she was a difficult player to block, but you had managed to stop a few points and by the end of the third quarter Iowa was up by 11.

you could tell caitlin wasn't happy that we were so close to the end of the game and we barely had a lead. "c, just play like you did last night, don't think just play. you're not the best at thinking anyway." she rolled her eyes at your comment but smiled nonetheless.

"That's not what you said last night," she said as the whistle for the fourth quarter blew. your cheeks had turned a light shade of pink, one that you hoped you could play off as a tough game. you hadn't been put in for the fourth quarter coach opting to put someone else in and give you a break.

"since when have you and caitlin been friends?" you turn to see jada, confusion written on her face. "um, we've always been friends, just, not like good friends." you say, taking a sip of your water. "not "good friends?" you guys fight like there's no tomorrow. something happened and I and kate will find out." you shake your head, a smile on your face as you picture her and kate in old-timey investigater outfits.

"you have fun with that."

the game ends quickly after that, Iowa winning by 7 points. you smiled as you saw the team celebrate on the court, still holding good sportsmanship to LSU (for the most part..), you walked by the other team, high-fiving and telling resse that she's a tough player to block. you guys chat for a little before you say goodbye and walk into the locker room.

"what were you talking to resse about?" you hear caitlin before you see her, but when you do see her she's in the middle of changing out of her jersey into some random shirt. "nothing really, I was just telling her that she played well." you shrugged, walking over to your bag to get changed as well, trying not to stare at anyone.

"yeah, she played well I guess, we still won though." caitlin grabbed her bag in a huff, seeming to be a tad annoyed. "if I didn't know any better I would say you're mad I talked to her," you mumbled, but caitlin still heard.

"I'm not mad I just don't get why you don't treat our team like that, I mean you didn't congratulate any of us and we were the ones who won." caitlin's voice was raised now, you weren't sure where this was coming from but it ticked you off nonetheless.

"fine, you need some praise? good fucking job caitlin, our very own lord and savior." you rolled your eyes, grabbing your bag, and walking out to the bus to head back to campus. sitting down in the seat next to kate you were silent, not wanting to talk to anyone.

one thing though was that you most definitely hated caitlin clark.

-

you had gotten to Cleveland earlier that day, you had talked to the UConn team, since you used to play for them it was fun to chat with old teammates and meet the new players. you knew that caitlin and paige were friends, they used to play together and were a great duo. That's why you weren't surprised when she came over and started making her presence known, shutting down the conversation you were having with paige.

"yeah and then she had the audacity-" you were cut off by caitlin, smiling as she walked over and hugged paige. "hey bueckers, you better be ready to lose tomorrow." you glared at her not so subtly, sighing. "clark I was kind of in the middle of talking." she looked down at you, rolling her eyes. "yeah because you always have to talk to the opponents?"

paige had turned away at that point, talking to ice because she knew it was bound to be awkward if she continued standing there. "what is your problem? just because I didn't feed your ego one time im a problem? you need to get a grip." her jaw tightened at your words, you hadn't spoken loud, not wanting to draw too much attention to you guys.

"me? I'm not the one with the issues, you just seem to hate me for no reason at all. seriously, ever since you transferred to Iowa I've been trying to be your friend but you've taken everything I've done as an attack on you. me getting you dinner was not meant to send you into an allergic reaction and get you out of a game!" she hadn't taken into consideration that other people were around and she was talking at a voice level far too loud for the small area you were in.

you had dragged her to a corner, deciding it would be the easiest way to defuse the situation. "okay I'm sorry, you're just good at everything, and it's kind of hard to be friends with someone like that. it makes me feel like I have to prove I'm better which usually doesn't go over well. also, it wasn't even about the allergic reaction I just don't know why you got me dinner. I was fine by myself." caitlin rolls her eyes at your words but nods regardless.

-

you guys had won the game against UConn the next day, and you and caitlin finally working well together and not arguing throughout the game. there was a sort of understanding between the two of you guys now.

week two

you guys had ulitamtily lost the game against NC state, it was close and you guys had played hard. caitlin was anything but happy by the end of it, and not even kate or gabbie could fix it.

"clark, like you said, its not the end of the world. there will always be another game." you had said it to not only help her, but yourself. you weren't exactly pleased with the outcome of the game, none of team had been.

for caitlin it was different, she was going to the draft next week and losimg her lat college game wasn't something she could live with. but she would have to.

even though you hadn't really meant to, you had cheered caitlin up. even if it was only a little bit, her mood had improved and she was able to talk to the team with out an undertone of anger. the ride home wasn't the best trip of your life but you guys had managed to make the best of it for everyone sake.

seeing caitlin sit quietly on the bus made you start thinking about what it wold be like on the team with out her next year. with out her it would be so different, not to mention you were losing a bunch of other great players. but with out caitlin who would you compete with? she wasn't just a teammate, she was a friend, whether you guys were fighting or not you would miss her. plus she was nice to look at.

half way through the trip back to campus you guys had stopped to stretch your legs. when you got back on, you sat next to caitlin before she could put her feet up and block the seat.

"hey c," you smiled at her, and though she didn't show it you could tell that she was okay with you being there. you had looked over at what she was doing on her phone and you saw she was looking at her possible outfits for the draft.

"i like that one." you had pointed to your favorite of the options, a sparkly cropped top with a white button down and a skirt. it would look good on her.

she nodded, and quickly sent a text to her stylist that that was the one she wanted to wear. you had just picked out caitlin clarks wnba draft night outfit.

"i don't know what im going to do next year. i mean, the wnba is going to be great but seriously this team is to good to not miss." caitlin was picking at her fingernails, a bad habit of hers. "even though im on it?" you laughed a little, you knew she hadn't always liked you.

"no i think especially because you're on it. you've really been my number one compeition and with you gone i don't know who's going to keep my ego in check." she smiles at you, and you shake your head. "trust me clark, someone is going to get fed up and humble you."

something about the way she smiled the rest of the way home made you feel good. you really were going to miss her.

week three

it was draft night, and you had been invited along with some other team members to attend for caitlin. she and everyone looked so good, and the outfit you had chosen definitely distracted some people. (you included)

the draft was about to start and caitlin had been standing with you, kate, gabbie, and jada for a while before she finally had to leave. your leg was bouncing with anticipation when the commissioner came on stage with the first pick, but instantly cheers erupted from your group and many others in the room.

you were surprised when caitlin didn't instantly get up and head to the commissioner, instead, she hugged her family, stepped down off the stage to hug you first, and then, kate, jada, and gabbie, and then finally went to the commissioner. that's going to be in an edit.

the night went smoothly after that, you were getting texts from her often, and one of the commentators had pointed out that you both both on your phones. when the cameras panned over to her and you, the crowd cheered and you both waved. you felt your phone buzz a few seconds later with a text from caitlin, "they're watching us 😉" the cameras were still on you, so you flipped your phone showing the camera her message.

-

later that night, at the after party you were talking with Nika when caitlin had excused you both and you walked over to some corner. "hey, you know I was tal-" you were cut off by caitlin's lips on yours. it took you a moment but you kissed back.

what the fuck was happening. 

she pulled away after a second and you looked at her stunned, confusion evident on your face. "um, so like why did you do that?"

her face guys pink, and she looks confused as well. "I, um, i don't know why i did that. i just really wanted to kiss you." you nodded at her admittion, yet still confused.

"i think i've liked you since you transferred. i mean, i just like, i think that's why I've always competed with you, i just wanted to show off. It's why i got mad the other day, sorry about that by the way-" she was the one to get cut off this time as you kissed her again.

pulling away after a few seconds you smiled up at her, taking in your high difference for what seemed like the first time. "you're not all too bad either clark." you gave her one more peck and your smile widened even more if possible. "congrats on getting drafted by the way. I'll have to get you to sign a jersey for me."

CHAT I HATE THIS SO MUCH SOME ONE END ME. no like all jokes aside this is actual dookie. but i finally finished this little side blurb thing so yay!! making brownies rn i will update you on them! thats all chat, once again sos. - kate

[egcdeath]

hello hello how are u!!?

i’ve been rereading a few of ur fics hehe i just wanna say that i love ur writing omfg like yes plz i wanna eat the words

ok ok so i’d love to know ur thoughts on a bully!patrick x reader?? he’s just so cocky and i’d love to see what would happen if he pushed *juuuuuust* a bit further…

maybe it’s their college years and he is practically jeering and ragging at the reader while she’s at her sports practice. i think patrick would like the way her face scrunches up in anger, but she ignores him because she knows better than to go back and forth due to his quick wit. he’d act like a schoolboy. i think he’d also like getting real up close and personal w her, but never touching. and maybe he’d even go as far as to pull at her hair. “accidentally”. hooooooo boy, and the sexual undertones within it all. reasons seemingly unknown, but i believe he just has a crush on the reader, he’s being a hellish brat about it.

and reader enjoys is cuz patrick has a certain charm and he’s just so irresistible xxx but sometimes she wishes he was nicer to her but also where’s the fun in that?? and at certain times maybe he shows that he cares about her…like omg my heart

…ok i am so sorry for rambling i did NOT expect to go into such detail and also sorry if it’s a little corny😭😭😭 anyway, you don’t necessarily have to write headcanons or a fic, i more so would just love to hear ur thoughts on it, the whole bully aspect is really interesting (and hot) to me 🫢 ok again sorry for writing a whole novel in here hope ur having a good day! ur most recent fic was [chefs kiss] and im excited to read what u have cooking up x

omg i absolutely LOVE this concept!! what i immediately thought of was patrick and the reader being in very similar tennis circles (idk how tennis works so lets just assume that they're playing at similar events and reader is obviously playing w women) and like, at first, you cannot stand this man at all. like he always seems to find you before you play, or at your hotel after you've played, or at parties for the players, and he ALWAYS has something to say. a comment on your technique. a snide remark on how you played that day. a taunt about how you're never gonna beat the opponent you're playing against that day.

but the thing is... in a way, his bullying kinda helps you perform better? like he gets you so riled up and feeling so spiteful that you goes out onto the court and demolishes whoever you're playing against. so in a way it's kinda helpful... but also fucking annoying.

and like, at first you try to go back and forth with him but you literally never win the verbal spars so one day you just give up. and also part of you knows that he doesn't genuinely mean it?? maybe he even knows that his pestering is helpful to you and maybe thats why he does it?? but he is being an annoying pest regardless and you can't deal with him buzzing around your ear all the time and getting in your head before you play. so you just stop entertaining it.

but once you stop entertaining it, he gets kinda worried. like you've had this thing going on for a while and now suddenly you just don't care anymore. so now his gibes turn into questioning you CONSTANTLY. are you seeing someone? are you planning something?? what changed?? and when that doesn't work out for him he starts being nice to you. and thats when you start getting worried. i think this would make them have to admit their feelings to each other then BOOM happily ever after!!

i loveee this idea and it was so fun to think about! i'm usually a little iffy about bullying stuff buttt i could totally see it working in this context.

[lesbianloml]

the beginning

my babysitter au

type of piece(s): imagine, oneshot, drabble, series

type(s) of writing: smut, angst, fluff, dark (the story will contain all of the above)

pairing(s): milf!dom!dark!wanda maximoff x innocent!sub!immune!witch!fem!reader

warning(s): legal age gap (wanda is 33, reader is 21), perverted men, mentions of sex, this is just where they meet so nothing big

summary: when wanda hires a new babysitter, she is shocked to find that there are some things she doesn't know about her town. the biggest shock is you, you are immune to wanda's powers. an even bigger shock comes when wanda finds out you have powers of your own.

a/n: this series is going to be LOOSLY based on my wandavision dr. if anyone has anything they would like to see or something, let me know. and if anyone wants to talk about shifting, hit me up. i kinda imagined reader as a soft and quiet girl. also, you're kinda a whore. and you love to read and bake. in this series, wanda doesn't really do a tv show or different eras, it's all just normal. but the agents and stuff outside the hex have a big part. reader works at the local café that she owns and spends most of her free time in the library. anyways, enjoy part one!

1.8k words

(not my pics)

(pretend she had billy and tommy before the hex)

"what's the name for your order?" you asked, a little annoyed. you loved your job, but the older man standing in front of you made you want to throw your apron down and quit. "cohen, babe. don't forget next time" cohen shoots you a wink. you hold back a gag as you try to smile politely, writing the name on the side of the cup and turning your back to begin making the drink. grabbing a bag from behind you, you set the cinnamon pastry you made a few hours prior into a container and set it in the bag. as quick as you can, you mix up his drink and slap a lid on it while rolling up the top of the bag, wanting him to leave as soon as possible. "here you go" you say, spinning around and handing the bag and the drink to him. he gives you a look and opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, you tap the counter three times swiftly. your work best friend, sophie comes around from the back. "hey babe! is he causing you trouble?" cohen glares harshly at sophie, but one thing you love about her is the way she doesn't back down. sophie gives him a look that immediately has cohen scurrying out the door, tail between his legs. "thanks soph" "anytime love. we get off in fifteen, where you going tonight? your apartment or your mom's house?" you look around to see an empty café, emptier than usual. usually, the shop is packed full of starved or thirsty customers. but it's dark outside, and who would come get caffeine and food at 9:45 at night?

"I'll just stop by the library real quick before it closes and then head home and watch a movie or something." you say, smiling as you think about the old library downtown. it was your favorite place to be whenever you had free time or just needed some quiet. you turn and stacked some more cups and filled up the napkin container while waiting for your shift to end or another customer to walk in. you hear soph come out from the back room, where she was restocking supplies. "hey girl, can i ask a favor?" "yeah i'll stay and lock up so you can go fuck shawn" you say with a smirk and a giggle. sophie gasps dramatically. "how'd you know what i was gonna ask?" "because you ask me at least once a week. and the fact that you're a year older than me and supposed to be more mature makes it even funnier" "thank you! i'll see you tomorrow. don't forget, on sunday night we're baking treats for the elementary school bake sale on monday." "got it. i love you. see you sunday. enjoy shawn!" you sing as sophie laughs. "i will. love you too." "today is friday so on sunday, i need to be here by 5:00am so i can set up the tables and stuff to be ready to open at 6:00am. then i'll work until 10:00pm, close up, and help sophie bake some treats for monday's bake sale at the elementary school" you plan your day tomorrow in your head. glancing at the clock, you see it reads 9:55pm. 5 more minutes until you can lock up and leave. you work on monday, wednesday, friday, and sunday from 5:00am to 10:30pm. you usually open at 6:00am and close at 10:00pm 4/7 days a week. you love your job but hate the hours. your job at the coffee shop payed extremely well, so no matter how much you hated waking up before the sun, you weren't going to quit. you grab a rag and wipe the counters down. 3 minutes until you lock up and leave.

you spin around when you hear the little bell above the shop door ding, signaling someone came in. you almost drop the damp rag you're holding when you see her, a women, maybe in her early thirties. she had beautiful red hair and striking green eyes. her clothes were casual and relaxed, but you were sure she was some sort of powerful figure from the way she walked and held herself. you had never seen her in westview before, you were sure you'd remember her, and you'd lived in westview since you were eighteen, so three years now. you shake your head before walking around the counter to greet the women. she's even prettier up close. "you came in at the perfect time. i was just about to lock up." you tell the women with a smile. "oh, i can leave if you're closed-" before the women starts apologizing, you cut her off. "oh no, it's ok. i don't mind, i was getting lonely in here anyways. what can i get for you tonight?" "just a coffee and a piece of apple pie, please" you nod and turn to make her order. you don't ask her name, too shy to do so. it's a good thing that this women isn't. "i'm wanda." "y/n. i don't remember seeing you around westview. did you just move here?" you ask, sliding her drink and bag with the pie in the container to her over the counter. "no, we haven't moved here yet. i was just looking around, getting ready to move in with my boys" "oh, you have kids? how old?" "i have twin boys. they're ten" wanda's face lights up when she talks about them. "cute! i guess i'll be seeing you around more if you're going to move here" "you sure will, sweetheart." you wonder what that's supposed to mean as wanda smiles at you before paying and exiting the café, leaving a trail of perfume in her wake.

wanda turns the wheel to the left, not really knowing what she's looking for, but knows she's looking for something. wanda reminds herself that she needs to head back to the hotel and rest up for tomorrow when she and her boys were going to move into their new home. ever since vision kicked them out, they've been staying in a hotel but then wanda remembered the house that she owned in westview. the perfect place for her and her boys to start over. as wanda is thinking, her head droops and stomach grumbles. she hasn't drank or eaten anything all day. wanda continues driving around the streets, looking for a restaurant or something that she could get a bite to eat at. wanda slows the car when she sees a little café on the corner, letting out a sigh of relief as she sees movement and light from inside. she wouldn't have made it the forty five minutes back to the hotel without eating something. she quickly climbs out of her car and enters the café, not really paying attention to who's there with her. wanda just wants to get back as soon as she can. "you came in at the perfect time. i was just about to lock up" wanda almost falls over at the sound of the other female's voice. it was so relaxing and quiet. so beautiful. she glances up to look and sees you. wanda swears she stops breathing for a moment. you were the most gorgeous thing she'd ever seen. with the prettiest smile, even at the disturbance, and the softest voice, wanda swore she just met an angel. you had to be an angel. you're smiling. at her. "oh, i can leave if you're closed-" "oh no. it's ok. i don't mind, i was getting lonely in here anyways. what can i get for you tonight?" you were so sweet, so kind. "just a coffee and a slice of apple pie, please" wanda smirks to herself when she sees the tint of blush on your cheeks. you were so cute, too shy to talk to her or ask her name. "i'm wanda" "y/n. i don't remember seeing you around westview. did you just move here?" wanda watches you slide the bag and coffee across the counter towards her. "no, we haven't moved here yet. i was just looking around, getting ready to move in with my boys" wanda states. "oh, you have kids? how old?" "i have twin boys. they're ten" she smiles at the thought of her boys. "cute! i guess i'll be seeing you around more if you're going to move here" "you sure will, sweetheart."

as wanda clambers into her car to begin the drive home, she thinks about the girl at the counter. "y/n" wanda thinks to herself, smiling at the name. she thinks it suits you. and as wanda is turning onto the freeway, she thinks to herself, "that girl will be mine"

as you lock up the café and slide into your car, you think about the women you saw. she was very pretty, and you hope that her and her kids move in ok. as you turn you car on and pull out of the parking lot, you rest your hands on the wheel as you begin driving home. your mind is pleasantly empty on the drive back to your apartment.

the first time wanda ever met you, wanda thought about you the entire drive back to the hotel. you were the most angelic person she'd ever met, and she was enchanted by you. the first time that you met wanda, you thought about her once before driving home. she was just another customer to you. but little did you know, you were becoming so much more to her.

little do you know, this is just the beginning

[tothosewholisten]

Forever Healed | TUA insert

Chapter: 05

<<previous chapter | next chapter>>

Masterlist

…

Five and I discussed our new plan on the way back to the academy.

“We need to go back, now.” Five insisted as he paced around his bedroom.

I stood by the door trying to distance myself from the angry teen.

“I know..” I pause. “But you already saw how demanding works. And also you're a kid, of course they didn't take you seriously.”

“Why is this eye so important anyway?” I ask.

He huffs. “Whoever has this eye brings upon the end of the world. I need to figure out who it is.”

Every time Five repeats that the world is ending I try to ignore it. But with the D-day getting closer and closer I realize I need to do a few things on my bucket list.

“We need someone else.” He mutters, breaking me out of my thoughts.

He's right, our story wasn't convincing at all. You need a strong narrative to get information out of suckers. So we need a dramatic person who can play a part.

Suddenly it dawned on me. We need-

..

“You know, I am so thrilled to join your guys' spy mission! It's just like old times.” Klaus reminisced with sappy tears in his eyes.

“I don't think we've ever done this.” Five retorts.

I know that the boy wasn't the most excited about getting help from Klaus but I told him if Klaus puts his mind to it, we're getting that information.

Five and I went over to the dining room where Klaus was snoring on the couch. In his underwear.

At first he wouldn't get up, that was until Five offered him twenty dollars and he bolted upstairs to get ready. We trailed after him back to Five’s room where he was waiting on Five's bed.

I love Klaus but his outfit choices have always been questionable even when we were teens.

“What are you wearing?” I asked disgustedly.

I did not receive an answer because Five heard a noise and peered his head out the door.

An annoyed look on his face appeared when he turned back around to us. “Vanya's here. Klaus hide.” He whispers.

Klaus gets up from the bed and dashes around the room, looking for anywhere that's big enough to fit his lanky body. I point to Five's closet.

He contorts himself to fit inside and closes the door behind him. Just in time too because Vanya walks into the room.

“Thank god, I was worried sick about you two.” She expressed her uneasiness.

I frowned. “Sorry, we left without saying goodbye.” If only I wasn't dragged by that little boy I would've loved to talk to her more.

“No look. I'm the one who should be sorry.” Vanya turns to Five. “Yeah, I was dismissive, and I– I guess I couldn't process what you were saying. And I still can't to be honest.” She stutters out.

I couldn't tell if it was an act but Five’s face turned almost sad. “Maybe you were right to be dismissive.” He says.

I'm not sure where this acting was when we were at Meritech. But I match his hurt look.

“Maybe it wasn't real after all. It felt real. Well like you said, the old man did say time travel could contaminate the mind.” Five continued.

Five is interrupted by a loud crash that comes from the closet. I ran over to stand in front of it trying to distract from the noises Klaus was making as they kept talking.

“Then maybe I'm not the right person for you to be talking to. Look, I used to see someone. A therapist, I could give you her information.” Vanya shares.

Five is quick to feign a smile. “No thanks, but I think I'm just going to get something to eat. It's been a long time since I've had good food.”

Vanya nods and steps back out of the room.

As soon as Five goes back to the door to make sure that she is gone, the warm look on his face disappears and his permanent scowl returns instead.

The closet behind me starts to shake and I take a step away hoping that Klaus doesn't decide to fall on me.

His curled body leaps out of the closet. “That was so… touching!” He trips over fallen junk from the closet. “All that stuff about family and Dad and time. Wow!”

“Will you shut up, she'll hear you.” He yells.

“I'm moist.”

“What the hell Klaus.” I scoot further away from him.

Five takes a moment to look him up and down. “I thought I told you to put on something professional.”

The outfit he put on was a green button-up shirt with frilly red-lined sleeves. Honestly atrocious.

“What? This is my nicest outfit.” Klaus cries.

“Let's go look at the old man's closet,” I suggest pushing Klaus out of the room.

Five groans before following us out.

“As long as I get paid,” Klaus exclaims.

“When the job is done.”

He stops us. “Okay, but just so we're clear on the finer details. I just gotta go into this place and pretend to be your dear old Dad. Correct?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I replied.

“What's our cover story then?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Five gives him a puzzled look.

“I mean, was I really young when I had y/n? Like, 16? Like, young and terribly misguided. Then yada yada some years later you came along, Five.” Klaus rambles putting his hands on his chest.

“Sure.”

“Your mother, that slut.. whoever she was. We met at.. oh! The disco.”

I cackle at Klaus’s backstory but Five couldn't look more concerned.

“Remember that.” The man snaps. “Oh, my god, the sex was amazinggg.”

“What a disturbing glimpse into that thing you call a brain.” Five turns to go down the stairs.

Klaus holds out his pointer like a stern dad. “Don't make me put you into time out.” He yells.

..

“Like I said to your son and daughter?” The same doctor questions us from before.

We arrived at the same part of the building but this time the man had the decency to bring us to his office.

“Yes, these are my children,” Klaus replies affirmatively.

He now had on one of Reginald's many suits; it made him look the part.

“Yeah, can't you tell?” My hand messaging my temple as I throw that in, trying to mask my sarcasm, cause well none of us looked alike.

“Well, like I told your children earlier, any information about the prosthetics we build is strictly confidential.” The man emphasizes each word to us like we are all babies.

Klaus sat in a chair across from the man's desk and I sat in the other, but Five stood up in the middle of us with his hands on the doctor's glass desk. Getting ready for round two of his yelling match.

“Without the client's consent. I simply can't help you.”

“Well, we can't get consent if you don't give us a name.” Five yells.

The doctor looks defeated. “Well, that's not my problem.”

I’m sure Five wished his powers were laser eyes instead of teleportation because of how he was staring at the man so intensely.

“Sorry. Now, there's really nothing more I can do, so–”

Klaus looked up from his lap. “And what about my consent?”

“Excuse me?”

Everyone turns to look at him.

“Who gave you permission… to lay your hands on my son?” Klaus cried.

“What?” Five, the doctor and I all say at once.

“You heard me.”

“I didn't touch your son.” The man states matter of factly.

Klaus slowly gets up from his chair “Oh, really? Well, how did he get that swollen lip then?”

“He doesn't have a swollen-”

The man didn't have time to finish his sentence because Klaus suddenly swung at Five and slapped him in the mouth.

I hide my expression with my palm and watch.

He inhales sharply. “I want it. Name, please. Now.” He slaps his hands onto the doctor's desk.

The man stutters trying to think of something to say. “You're crazy.” He replies.

Klaus fakes a chuckle. “You got no idea.”

He picks up the snow globe on the man's desk. “Peace on earth? That's so sweet.” He reads out loud.

He then smashes the snow globe into his head causing everyone to let out a shriek as it breaks into tiny pieces. I cringe looking at all that blood on his head.

He screams out. “God that hurt.” Water from the snow globe dripped all over his face.

The man doesn't break eye contact with Klaus but hurryingly reaches for the telephone on his desk.

“I'm calling secur– what are you doing?” The man yells out but Klaus takes the telephone right from his sweaty hands.

“There's been an assault… in Mr. Big's office, and we need security, now. Schnell!” Klaus screams into the telephone before slamming it back onto its post.

He sighs. “Now, here's what's gonna happen, Grant.”

“It's… Lance.”

“In about sixty seconds two security guards are gonna burst through that door, and they're gonna see a whole lot of blood and wonder ‘What the hell happened?’ And we're gonna tell them that you… beat the shit out of us!” Klaus rambles.

“While making googly eyes at my young daughter!” He sobs.

Five stares at Klaus admirably.

“You're gonna do great in prison, Grant. Trust me, I've been there. A little piece of chicken like you. Oh my god, you're gonna get passed around like a…” He moves his hips in a circle to make a point.

Then shutters thinking back at old memories. “You're just– you're gonna do great. That's all I'm saying.”

Lance almost cries out looking at all of us. “Jesus, you are a real sick bastard.”

Klaus stares at him blankly. “Thank you.”

He spits out a piece of snow globe glass. The look on Five face is priceless, I'm for one so proud of Klaus right now. He never went Broadway but this was pretty close.

Lance rushes over to a long line of filing cabinets. Searching for the information that will satisfy us. Klaus sat on top of the cabinet making the doctor go even faster, fearing for his life.

“Oh, that's strange.” He says.

“What.” Five ask.

“Uh, the eye. It hasn't been purchased by a client yet.”

Klaus jumps off the cabinet and gets up into Lance's face. “What? What do you mean?” He whispers.

“Well, uh, our logs say that the eye with that serial number… This can't be right. It hasn't even been manufactured yet.” Lance looks up at Five. “Where did you get that eye?”

Five huffs. He walks away from all of us to the elevator and leaves us with Lance.

I grab onto Klaus to move him outside as he blows Lance a smooch before we go into the elevator as well.

We walk out of the building's doors when Five starts to talk again. “Well, this is not good.” He says.

“I was pretty good, though, right? ‘Yeah. What about my consent, bitch?” He laughs.

“Klaus, it doesn't matter.” The boy sighs and we stop walking.

“What? What, what's the big deal with this eye, anyways?” The hurt Klaus asks.

I grab onto the two men to heal them of their injuries before answering for Five who looks like he's about to explode.

“There's someone out there who's going to lose an eye in the next seven days. And they're gonna bring about the end of life on earth as we know it!” I say, rubbing my forehead.

“Yeah, can I get that twenty bucks, like, now, or what?”

I stare at my adopted brother with my brows furrowed. “You're not gonna question what I just said, at all?”

Five steps closer to him. “The apocalypse is coming and all you can think about is getting high?”

“Well, I'm also quite hungry. Tummies a rumblin.” Klaus wiggles his fingers to imitate grumbling.

“You're useless.” Five shakes his head while walking away from the two of us to sit on the building's steps.

“Oh come on, you need to lighten up old man!” Klaus mocks. I move from Klaus to sit near Five and listen to the rest of Klaus’s spiel.

“Hey, you know, I’ve just now realized why you're so uptight. You must be horny as hell!”

Klaus’s laughter is matched by my own as he sits next to us. “That’s not funny Klaus,” I reply still giggling. Five on the other hand wasn’t amused, he looked deep in thought not even staring in our direction.

“All those years by yourself, it's gotta screw with your head, being alone.”

Five concentration breaks, “well.” He starts. “I wasn't alone.” Klaus and I immediately go silent and stare at him.

“Spill,” I say.

“Her name was Delores. We were together for over thirty years.” The small bit of happiness on Five's face was very easy to see.

“Thirty years? Oh, wow!” Klaus chuckles. “God, the longest I've been with someone.. I didn't know for three weeks. And that's only because I was so tired from looking for a place to sleep.”

Klaus went on like that for a good five minutes rambling about his love life and how hard it was not having anywhere to stay. I yawned in desperate need of a break from whatever this was. And it looked like Five was ready to blink away.

I turned to him and signaled that we should leave by nudging my head to the busy road that was right in front of the building. He nods back at me.

“He did make the most fantastic osso buco, though. It was..”

Five takes hold of my sleeve and we blink from the steps into a taxi. “Don’t stop, just keep driving.” Five demands of the panicked driver.

“Hey! Where’d you guys go?” I hear Klaus yell as we drive past him. Five turns to the window and gives Klaus a wave that makes him instantly stand up and try to run over to us.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, what about my money?!” He shouts but we’re long gone by then. I would’ve felt bad if this wasn't so funny.

Five was bleak at times and angry, and a lot of other things but he had his fun moments. We missed a lot of time getting to know each other but, this made up for it.

“So where to now?” I ask.

“I am going to run, uh an errand. I'm dropping you off at the academy.”

“Sounds good to me.” I smile. I needed this break to rest today. It was exhausting. “Our adventures have been fun, we should do it again.”

He turns to me, “Oh yeah?”

I hum in response.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

The sky turned a vibrant shade of dark blue by the time we reached a familiar street, we were almost at the academy. I kinda wanted to join Five on his errand but I didn't say anything.

I paid the taxi driver the spare tens in my pocket for not freaking out and reminded myself that I'd pay Klaus tomorrow too. And walked up to the doors of the Umbrella Academy.

“Goodnight Five!” I call out as I open the front door. But I walked in before hearing his response, only hearing the sound of the taxi driving away.

..

I found myself in a spot I always went to when I needed to escape my ‘father’. It was a storage closet-like room that had a tiny balcony where Ben and I would hang out in the late hours of the night.

But now I was by myself and Ben was nowhere to be found. So I lit a cigarette and stared at the night sky. It’s a bad habit that I picked up during all my time with Klaus, It did help me calm my nerves though.

“Y/n?”

I turned around to see Alison in the doorway. A frown was painted on her beautiful face.

“It's good to see you, I didn't expect you to still be here.” She expressed while sitting down next to me.

“Me neither but I had a busy day chasing around a fifty-something-year-old. Thought I'd stay just to see what else happened around here. Or the truth could be I just kinda missed it around here, I'm not sure.”

Alison nodded. “I'm glad you're here, we haven’t really talked at all I've just been so busy with trying to get in touch with Claire and-“

I briefly cut her off. “Yeah, is everything okay with that?”

“My ex-husband, Patrick is trying to make it seem like I don’t care about this court stuff. Since I'm missing a session of mandated therapy.” She huffs.

“Can I have a cigarette?”

I reached into my black jacket pocket and pulled out the pack. Half of it was already empty but I just bought it before I came here, I guess I need more.

“Wouldn't the court recognize that as like, certain circumstances?” I ask.

“Yes! That’s what I tried to tell him. But he won't listen at all.” Alison groaned, holding the now-lit cigarette.

I smirk. “He sounds like an ass.”

“You don’t even know,” we both shared a good laugh.

“But,” she says while laughing. “What’s been going on with you? I know that's very broad because we haven’t seen each other since my wedding but, have you been doing anything new?”

I look forward to the pitch-black sky. “Yeah uhm, not much,”

Alison thinks for a moment, “Oh! I know. Whatever happened to your boyfriend? The guy you brought to my wedding.”

I froze, my mouth slightly open and the cigarette I held between my lips fell to the balcony floor. “Oh him..”

“Did something happen Y/n?”

“No no, we just broke up I guess.”

Alison grabs onto my hand, squeezing me tightly. “I'm so sorry.” She says.

It’s not that I forgot about my ex, no I couldn’t. I just liked to pretend that he was a part of my childhood nothing more. But in reality, we only broke up about half a year ago.

“We didn’t have the best relationship,” I told her. “He wasn't the nicest guy but I stayed. We were on and off but I officially broke up with him a couple of months ago.”

She fiddled with her curly hair. “I would’ve never been able to tell, he just seemed so nice at the time. I thought you guys were the perfect match. Y/n I'm so sorry, forget I brought him up.”

“It’s okay, I mean you didn't know,” I reassured the woman.

“If you need anything I'm always here for you, you know? I don’t think we were ever the closet but. I'm here for you.” Alison states.

I wasn't sure how to respond, this was all so surreal. Telling someone how I felt was like a boulder being lifted off my chest. I was comfortable enough to do it again.

“Thank you, Alison, I appreciate you.” I grinned

“Miss Alison, are you up here?” Pogo's voice called out. The ape walked into the room as dapper as ever in his suit. “Ah, Miss Y/n you’re up here too good.”

“I was looking for you.” He said to Alison.

We quickly put out our cigarettes and turned our attention to Pogo.

“How did you, uh.. How’d you know I was up here?” She asked.

“Well it wasn't hard, this is where you two would always come when you were upset. I remember it, yes.” He nodded.

I didn’t know that Alison would come here too. All of our childhood I felt myself slightly put up against her when really we couldn’t be more alike.

“Who told you I was.. Luther.” She sighs.

“It was Miss Vanya. She called to make sure you were okay.”

“What happened?” I blurt out.

Alison stretches her legs by walking around the room. “I said some pretty

unkind things to her earlier.”

Pogo shook his head. “She’s your sister. She knows you didn't mean it.”

“Doubt it” Alison scoffs. “She doesn't know anything about me, which is fine because I don’t know shit about here either.”

That was the downside of all of us branching out, we never stayed in touch. If I had moved to a different state I would’ve never known how Klaus was doing and how I could help him. How different my life could’ve been, I mean what if I didn't come to the funeral? Life would’ve died without me having the slightest clue.

“Language”

Alison chuckles at his humor. “Sorry.”

Afraid of just sitting there, I cut into their conversation. “It has been a while since we’ve lived under the same roof, you know?”

They both agree with my sentiment.

“Almost thirteen years,” Pogo said

“Wow,” Alison and I both remark.

“How did you do it? Also in this big house for so long?” I ask.

“Well, one grows used to things, even if sometimes.. one shouldn’t.” He replies, the sadness evident in his voice.

I should’ve visited him, I'm an adult, Reginald can’t scare me anymore and no one was here. I was so close to them but still, I never wanted to come back without a reason. This place was my home for many years, yes, but it wasn’t my first home.

Pogo senses that we’re both down in the dumps. “You two should come with me. I want to show you something. It might just cheer you up,” he says.

..

We followed Pogo downstairs into one of the mansion's many rooms. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen this room before. The hallway was dark with only a few orange lights that barely helped see anything.

The tiny room was filled with rows of old TVs and controls with glowing buttons. Most of the tvs were black but there were a few Pogo must've turned on. Then he went into a box and pulled out a tape. He placed it into the TV closest to him.

The tape played old security camera recordings of us as kids, probably around thirteen from what we looked like. It would’ve been creepy if it didn't make me sad, these memories are some of the good times at the academy that I ignored because of all the bad.

Alison and I gawked at the footage. We sat in two chairs that were in front of the TVs as Pogo talked to us from behind. “Your father stopped recording years ago. But I still come here from time to time. When I'm missing you kids.” He said.

Alison was the first to speak. “Pogo, this is..” she sighs. “Most families have home movies to look back on. We have surveillance footage.”

“I hoped it might cheer you up.”

I laugh. “This definitely does.”

Previous to the new tape Pogo just put in, some of the other TVs had more footage. My eyes drifted from screen to screen soaking up all the cute moments.

“Oh my god look how little we were,” Alison tells me.

One screen was Alison and I in her room trying on Grace’s clothes. “Ohh, I remember this,” I said.

And Alison turns to see the one I'm looking at. “This was so fun! Mom always had the best clothes.” She exclaimed.

Grace's dresses were obviously too big for us, but that didn't stop us. Her clothes were modeled after old housewives of a different time and might look strange and out of date to others. But we loved them.

I moved to another screen of me, Ben and Klaus talking. We were sitting on one of the main staircases. I wish I could freeze time to that moment forever, just the three of us again.

Alison follows where my sad eyes are staring. “I miss him so much.” She said upsetly.

“Me too” I whisper.

The screen next to that was of Vanya, playing her violin alone. You could hear the sound of us children in the background and Alison’s voice while she played by herself. It was the heartbreaking reality of our childhood.

“Why didn't we include her? I mean if anyone ever treated Claire like that, I can’t even imagine.” Alison wonders.

“You were children, Miss Alison,” Pogo replies.

“Yeah.. but I'm not anymore and neither is she.”

Pogo straightens up like he’s getting ready to head out. “If you two aren’t in a hurry. There’s more tapes in that cabinet.” He nudges his head to a large cabinet overflowing with tapes with all different labels.

The man drops the key into my hand. “Make sure to lock up when you're done, things have been disappearing lately. These are too important to lose.”

I tell him I will and Pogo heads back out through the door. But before he leaves he gives us one more look. I turn back towards the screens and rethink back to those happier days.

Alison stands up to go over to the cabinet, she picks up a similar-looking tape. But above the box, there was a rusty tape. The label was gone and it looked scratched up.

“What’s that?” I ask. She opens it and slides it into a screen.

“I don’t know but I guess we're gonna see.” She hits rewind and it starts to buffer before playing. The video was harder to make out than all the other black-and-white films. Alison and I both leaned in and once my eyes focused it was clear what was going on.

“Oh god, Dad.”

…

Aug 14 update:

If you'd like to be added to the tag list for rest of the series (starts at chapter 10) say taglist in the comments!

[eitaababe]

EVEN IF IT'S A LIE !

chapter eight. jump the gun.

a/n — i made it semi fluffier ur welcome guys

series masterlist. | previous / next

written portion below. —

you hear the sink faucet close and the door to the bathroom unlock, followed by the quick thumps of footsteps running to your room, and ao'nung appears, curls messy and untamed from being laid on.

"wake up sleepyhead!" his voice booms, a little too loud for your sleepy state. he takes you by surprise, jumping onto your bed and landing on top of you, causing you to groan— you're sure he forgets just how much he weighs, with an athletes build.

"get off of me, you oaf." he scoffs at the insult, but complies when you shove him to the side, and pulls you back in closer anyway. you end up situated in his arms, head resting comfortably where his neck meets his shoulder. you smile contentedly, and since you don't know any better you would almost say out loud that it feels right.

at the sight of you nuzzling your cheek comfortably against him, ao'nung smiles a genuine smile— not that you would be able to tell the difference, anyway.

"don't tell me you're sleepy again?" he teases, and you shake your head, trying to prove otherwise.

"you're just exhausting." you quip back, yawning against him.

he lets out a laugh— a real laugh, for once, and he's beginning to think that he's enjoying your presence more than he planned— and you feel him press a kiss to the crown of your head, a hand reaching up to play with your hair.

"okay." he responds, in a voice quiet even for him.

you peel your head from the crook of his neck, eyes just barely open, and you have such a sleepy, love stricken look on your face that he's unable to wipe his grin, and settles closer, leveling his face to yours.

"what now?" you attempt to act annoyed, but your smile gives you away.

he only shakes his head, chuckling at you, "nothing, can't a guy just admire his girl every now and then?"

his girl.

his girl.

you've never been anyone's before, never even considered yourself as it. so maybe it's a little too soon, but who can blame you for jumping the gun when this boy told you something that you've been waiting practically your whole life to hear?

"i- i guess." you year your gaze away from his, suddenly feeling more shy and the pink that dusts your cheeks shows it to.

"hey, don't hide, i'm trying to look at your face." to emphasize his point his palms move to your cheeks, gently forcing you to look at him.

and it's like he's cast a spell on you, each time you meet his eyes. you'd do almost anything he asked with the way he looks at you, and it feels like you're hallucinating when you feel him lean in, gaze traveling down your face to land on your lips.

and without much thought you lean in too, eyes half-lidded and chin raised, lips about to meet until he pulls away suddenly, clearing his throat.

and the spell is broken.

it ends as quickly as it had started, and your drowsiness is replaced by a rush of adrenaline. the space between both of you is now widened, and he picks up his phone, looking at the time.

"i should- go," he awkwardly points a thumb to the door, looking just as distressed as you are. "i don't wanna be late for practice." and he gets up, but not before leaving a chaste kiss to your forehead, which does little to settle your nerves, but makes you feel slightly better nonetheless.

you nod, offering a small smile but your silence is what scares him. he stops just before leaving your room, turning around. "i'll see you soon, yeah?"

"yeah."

the confirmation takes a little weight off his chest and he smiles that boyish grin once again, leaving you alone, thoughts scattered and wondering why he didn't kiss you.

but what you don't know, is that he's wondering the same thing.

FUN FACTS !

— lo'ak and ao'nung have an unspoken rivalry, so he's being really skeptical of him and y/n considering she's one of his closer friends

— ao'nung is telling his friends he didn't kiss y/n because he thought it would be too soon and he'd give himself away

— ao'nung lied to his friends.

[🏷️ ; taglist. / open ] @loaksbitch @8resa @n7ytiri @yukichan67 @dearstell @netemoon @halibanana @aonungmyaddiction @teyums @lightskinloak @ipoopedmypants47 @aonungmybf @wenvierismycomfort @il0veheartz @syulangg @chittakii @jjkclub @universal-s1ut @netey6m @ilovejakesullysdick @calums-betch @izuoyarmin @yeosxxx

[kangshxrtie]

ch. 18 ⤍ roommate stream

"yujin, that's my leg!" you complained as yujin kicked your leg.

"i know, it was on purpose," yujin retorted with a smirk.

"wonyoung, tell your girlfriend to stop feeling me up," you said, feigning exasperation.

"wait—i wasn't!" yujin stuttered, "don't lie on my character like that! wonyoung, get her!"

wonyoung, caught in the middle, sighed and shook her head. "yujin, behave. and y/n, stop provoking her."

you crossed your arms and playfully pouted. "i blame yujin."

yujin leaned back with a satisfied grin. "i was just finishing what you started."

"i didn't even do anything to you today," you retorted.

"we literally just turned on the stream, can y'all get along for a second?" gaeul scolded as she turned to the two of you.

"she literally just started antagonizing me out of nowhere," you complained.

"your presence bothered me," yujin stated.

"i will fight you," you threatened.

"come out then," yujin gestured to the door.

user1 i'd bet money on yujin

user2 yujin & y/n best duo

"at least chat loves us," yujin remarked.

"yeah, they're the real ones," you replied.

wonyoung chuckled and shook her head at how fast you two made up. "i swear, you two are impossible."

"anyways, we decided to do a roommate stream because we haven't done one of those in a while," gaeul said.

"even though half of us aren't even here," yujin added.

"they said they were five minutes away twenty minutes ago. i was lied to," you said.

just then, the door creaked open, and leeseo, rei, and liz rushed in, breathless.

"sorry we're late!" leeseo panted, holding up several bags of snacks as a peace offering.

"we got caught up in the snack aisle," rei explained sheepishly.

"i also got some from the kitchen earlier" liz announced holding a big box of brownies.

you turned around quickly with your mouth wide open, noticing immediately that it was your secret stash. "but... that was hidden!"

liz sat down with the box in hand, and everybody immediately went to grab some from the box.

"obviously not hidden well enough," liz shrugged.

you stared in disbelief as the rest of the group was just munching away at the brownies, ignoring the way you were glaring at them.

"you thieves," you scoffed in disbelief at the audacity after you took the time out of your day to hide those brownies. you really thought you had hidden them well too.

user3 not them taking y/n's secret stash 😭

"i know, right?" you rolled your eyes as you responded to the chat. "i need new roommates."

"don't worry, i'll buy you some more," gaeul promised.

"find a better hiding spot next time," liz teased as she took another bite of her brownie.

"you're telling me you bent all the way down to look behind the pots and pans and inside of an unlabeled box to find my brownies?" you asked incredulously.

"yes," liz nodded her head.

"i can't. i'm actually about to put a lock on everything after i buy food," you said.

"we have one of our managers here to help us with today's game," yujin told the chat, making your team's manager come into the frame for a quick wave at the camera before leaving just as fast. your manager covered the camera to choose the mafia for the first game, including the chat in the game. as soon as you all raised your heads, yujin immediately started accusing you.

"it has to be y/n."

"i haven't even done anything yet," you sighed.

"was that you confessing?" yujin questioned.

"i'm not doing this with you; i'm just a normal civilian," you replied.

"seems suspicious," yujin hummed.

"why are you pushing me so hard, just trying to get an easy kill?" you retorted.

"why are you two like this?" leeseo chuckled.

"i think it's gaeul. she looked a little too happy when she raised her head," rei suggested.

"i was just happy to be a civilian," gaeul shrugged with a small smile on her face.

"it's you and y/n for sure," rei accused.

"i breathed," you said in disbelief.

rei just made an annoying face in retaliation.

"what if we go around saying why it isn't us?" liz suggested.

"i want to start off by saying i would never kill anybody," you said.

"not yet," yujin mumbled.

"i also think it's yujin because she wants me out so bad."

"i'm innocent because i'm never mafia," yujin said.

"you right," liz nodded her head.

"i am an innocent civilian," wonyoung stated.

"i believe her," leeseo said.

the rest of you went around defending yourselves, with each statement becoming more outrageous and hilarious.

"okay, i vote wonyoung. she always gets a role," you told the group while raising your hand.

"y/n?" wonyoung asked dramatically.

"but what if it really is y/n?" rei chimed in, narrowing her eyes at you.

"i don't know what your problem is with me today, but i swear it's not me" you tried to defend yourself.

"let's just go to sleep without voting anybody out," gaeul suggested. "we're baselessly accusing each other."

when you all rose your heads, liz was found "dead," and the accusations started flying again.

"it has to be y/n now. liz died because y/n still resents liz for stealing her brownies," rei suggested.

"i'm not gonna lie, if it was me, i would have done that, but i don't have that ability," you said in disbelief. "i am being framed!"

"it makes sense," leeseo said.

"no way! i swear it's gaeul," you insisted. "remember how happy she looked? that was the smile of a killer"

"i'm just a happy person," gaeul protested with a laugh.

"not that happy," you mumbled under your breath.

"i think it's y/n because she keeps accusing everybody else," leeseo said.

"i'm defending myself after being wrongly accused!" you retorted.

suddenly, yujin looked at wonyoung and began laughing, making the taller girl look at her weird and slightly scared.

"it's you, right?" yujin asked wonyoung with a laugh.

wonyoung shook her head, "it's not me"

yujin laughed harder talking louder now and pointing at the girl, "it's wonyoung"

"i'd vote her" you said.

"no she's wrong" wonyoung tried to say.

"she doesn't seem like the mafia" gaeul said.

"don't protect your partner" you waved her off.

gaeul sighed, shaking her head. "she's not my partner"

rei raised an eyebrow at the comment. "so who is then?"

"i'm not the mafia," gaeul denied.

"well, i don't think it's wonyoung," leeseo suddenly said.

"because it's not," wonyoung exclaimed in relief.

"but i do think it's gaeul. she's a little too quiet," leeseo continued, looking at gaeul.

gaeul's eyes widened in surprise. "i'm always on the quieter side."

"a little too quiet," rei said.

"exactly!" yujin interjected. "you usually talk more during mafia but now you're just trying to fly under the radar."

gaeul laughed nervously. "because as soon as i started talking, y'all would call me the mafia."

wonyoung, sensing an opportunity to shift the suspicion off herself, added, "you know, gaeul did seem a bit too happy earlier. maybe she really was happy because she was mafia."

"i was just happy to play the game!" gaeul protested, her smile faltering.

"can't believe you were that happy to kill us off," you sighed dramatically. "i say we vote gaeul."

"me too," yujin quickly added.

rei nodded. "it makes sense. gaeul's been deflecting suspicion since the beginning."

leeseo looked around at the group, then shrugged. "alright, i vote for gaeul too."

gaeul looked around at all of you in disbelief at how fast everybody turned on her. "guys, come on! it's not me!"

but it was too late. the majority had spoken. with a sigh, gaeul raised her hands in surrender going back to stand with liz. "fine, but i am innocent."

with the vote in place, you all covered your eyes and liz, who was now the host of the game, confirmed who the mafia went to kill, and you all rose your heads back up. you all watched as liz

"leeseo was killed during the night."

leeseo let out a small cry dramatically sliding off of the couch and onto the floor, going around to the back to stand with gaeul and liz.

you looked back at all of them, making eye contact with liz, who was trying to keep a straight face but ultimately ended up smiling.

"i think we were right. liz looks too happy," you said.

"now i think it's between y/n and wonyoung," yujin suggested.

"well, i think it's between yujin and rei. i don't trust either one of them," you countered.

"i think it's not rei because she would never kill off liz," yujin said.

"oh my god, you're right," you exclaimed, covering your mouth. "i'm going back to my previous accusation: it's wonyoung."

"you just said you didn't trust yujin," wonyoung pointed out.

"but then she started making sense," you explained.

user4 they all look so stressed 🤣

"if gaeul was mafia and wonyoung pushed her hard, that means wonyoung is super innocent or she's super big-brained," rei analyzed.

"i say we be safe and vote wonyoung and if it's not her we end the stream," you declared.

"what y/n?" yujin laughed.

"because if both of y'all are mafia after that, then i'm leaving this team and joining le sserafim," you said, causing the rest of the team to laugh.

"wonyoung then?" rei asked for confirmation.

"do i get to defend myself?" wonyoung asked.

"floor's yours," yujin said, gesturing to the empty space in front of the couch and in front of the camera.

wonyoung took a deep breath and looked at you all with a determined expression. "i know yujin has some idea in her head that i'm mafia, but she's wrong and clearly just trying to pin something on me. also, why would i kill leeseo if she was the only person who believed me?"

"i think that was just a really smart move on your part," you said.

"that was a nice speech, but i'm still voting you out," yujin stated.

wonyoung glared at yujin upon hearing her remark. "fine, do it," wonyoung eventually gave up.

user5 yujin is def spending the night on the couch after this 😹

there was a moment of silence as you all waited for the results of the game.

"and the citizens have won the game!" liz announced.

"this whole game was rigged," wonyoung huffed.

"i just knew it was wonyoung when she looked at me," yujin boasted.

"this is why i can't play with you. you know me too well," wonyoung playfully rolled her eyes.

"i just want to say i knew it was gaeul from the start," you said triumphantly.

"you literally just guessed me and got lucky," gaeul countered.

"and i was right!" you said.

you all were supposed to play another game but ended up chatting for the rest of the stream.

user6 updates on y/n and zuha

"that's literally the love of my life, we're still happily together," you told the chat, "we're actually filming part two together in the next couple of days."

"she literally won't stop talking about seeing kazuha again," gaeul exposed.

"okay, they didn't need to know that part," you said.

"add it to the y/n and kazuha ship compilation," leeseo suggested.

"don't say that, they'll actually make one," you protested.

"trust, they already exist."

"do you happen to know the links to any of these?" you asked in an exaggerated whisper. "for research purposes."

"mhmm, i'm sure," wonyoung replied.

after talking some more, you all ended the stream with an outro, waving goodbye to the camera.

ALL CHAPTERS !!! | NEXT CH !!!

[lily-alphonse]

what if... shane and mr. qi

Bro what 😭 I know absolutely nothing about Mr. Qi. BUT I have like 2 or 3 more asks with him in it so it looks like Im gonna have to build a characterization for him real quick lol. I love him though. Love a weird little cryptid man and the fanart is so good.

What interest would he have in Shane I wonder? Maybe it's an AU where Shane is the one to take over the farm and everything so he's secretly special. OR... Mr. Qi just enjoys watching a dumpsterfire. There's no TLC in Stardew Valley so what better reality TV content than to watch the town drunk? Maybe even make things a little worse for him sometimes just for funsies.

You know how in the Sims, if you have an unlucky Sim they can cheat death because Grim either pities or is amused by their shenanigans? That's the dynamic I think. Shane is so unlucky that Qi finds him endearing over time.

Qi would start to leave notes for him, trying to send him on adventures or test him. Shane would have none of it, crumbling the weird notes and suspecting someone was playing some kind of prank on him. Qi gets annoyed about it. Enough to even reveal himself, but he picks (what may or may not be) the best time because Shane is so drunk he doesn't even care.

Mr. Qi almost blends into the darkness by the dock, except his cape shimmers with moonlight and catches Shane's eye. He approaches him when he's discovered.

"Shane," he says in greeting.

It makes Shane wonder if he knows him. Then he wonders if he should be worried about this random shady character approaching him. But he also looks kinda silly, a wide hat and sunglasses obscuring his face, and the most obvious answer is that he’s finally snapped.

Shane narrows his eyes at him, trying to decide what to name this odd figment of his imagination. "Mr..." he starts, and Mr. Qi is almost ready to be impressed until Shane settles on "Hat."

Qi isn't sure whether to laugh or disappear in a rage.

A sort of scoff comes out instead and he sits next to him on the dock. 

"Where did you come from?" Shane asks.

"I come from everywhere." 

"Figures," Shane mumbles into his beer can. He downs another drink. "You're not gonna be some kind of like... conscious that talks in riddles or something are you?"

It feels appropriate, almost making them equals, for Shane to see him as an imaginary friend. It makes up for the way Qi had started to see him as a pet. 

"Not a conscious, though I might speak in riddles occasionally."

“Dammit. Tracks I guess. Can never make sense of any of the shit up here,” he mumbles, gesturing to his head.

Qi had been planning to ask him about the notes, maybe even scare him a little. But here he was being handed the golden opportunity to see into Shane’s mind, and that was even better.

Actually, being an unknown, an enigma, had always been the goal. Short of that,he was forced to keep a carefully curated reputation of mystery, which was not at all the same. Meeting in this way turned out to be a blessing.

“Why do you think you’ve summoned me here?”

“I'm drunk.”

“I can see that.”

“I dunno, I'm pathetically lonely," he says with an exasperated sigh, "Obviously.”

Qi feels a twinge of something unnameable at that, though it's still pretty amusing. He likes the blunt way Shane speaks, especially when he puts himself down, its pure dark-comedy gold. It feels different when directed at him personally though. Like some long-dormant human urge within him makes his heart ache to match Shane’s.

“Are you?” he asks simply.

"D'you have eyes under there?" Shane slurs, looking at him more closely.

"Would you have made me without eyes?"

"Good point. The fuck are we talking about? Who are you?"

"Mr. Hat, apparently."

"Right."

Anyway, they continue to meet like this, with Mr. Qi as his supposed imaginary friend, and Mr. Qi begins to genuinely enjoy the connection they have because no one has ever treated him like this. Everyone he meets is intimidated by him, afraid of him, or looking to screw him over. And beyond that, when he was younger and more human, it was always people wanting to know him. Always so many questions.

His goal was always to be unknown.

He gets that with Shane, under the pretext that he does not exist. It’s freeing, and paradoxically allows him to open up. Any perceived oddity about him only gets turned into a reflection on the darkness in Shane’s mind. In this way, Shane might know him in a deeper sense than anyone else has in a long time. Plus, Qi doesn’t laugh this much with anyone else.  

Shane wants to be unknown too, in his own way. But he starts to hate himself a little less, after these late night talks to ‘himself’. Weirdly he starts drinking less and the hallucination stays. 

I think there would be quite a dramatic falling out when he finds out the truth, but in a way, Shane would also be relieved that this was a real person he could potentially be with.

This ask is a part of the (now closed) SDV Rarepair Challenge! Check out the other answers here, and make sure to boost your favorite so it can appear in the final fic poll! More info on that here.

[nikibogwater]

Niki Blethers: Echoes of Wisdom gameplay (spoiler free)

I've only been posting about EoW's story/characters/aesthetic so far. I think it's time to gush about the gameplay itself for a while. Honestly, I would've done this sooner, but I've had the hardest time finding the words to describe just how GOOD this game feels when you're playing it. Like the title says, there's no spoilers in here, just discussion of raw gameplay, but I've gone ahead and put most of it under the cut to avoid clogging everyone's dashes.

First thing I noticed right off the bat is the movement and controls. I don't know what voodoo witchcraft the devs used to make this, but just moving around in the world feels so silky smooth. Which is excellent, because it turns out a surprising chunk of the gameplay involves rudimentary platforming.

You can jump in this game. Just, right off the bat, no items required, that's a thing you can do. And it's not like Link's little hops in Breath of the Wild either. These are proper jumps.

Outside of combat (which I'll get to in a minute), you mainly use the Echoes to explore. Building bridges, getting up on high ledges--stuff like that. There's no weird collision or confusing perspective that makes placing Echoes difficult. When you move, you move in the way you actually WANT to, and when you interact with an object, it goes the way you'd expect. I know this shouldn't surprise me--this is Nintendo after all--but janky platforming is one of my pet peeves when it comes to gaming, so I deeply appreciate how polished EoW's is.

EoW draws a lot of inspiration from Breath of the Wild when it comes to puzzle-solving. Once again, there are multiple different solutions to any given challenge, and progress isn't locked behind acquiring specific pieces of equipment. But unlike BotW, EoW doesn't give you all the puzzle-solving mechanics you will ever need at the start of the game. Instead, it merely provides you with the means to acquire those abilities for yourself.

Once you've made it through the tutorial section, you will only have a handful of basic object Echoes, plus a couple of weak monsters to help you fight. At this point, the world opens up for you, and you can go just about anywhere you want (though the story can only be progressed by completing Main Quest objectives, which are a bit more linear than they were in BotW). There's a real incentive to explore Hyrule here, because discovering new objects and creatures is the only way to expand your arsenal of Echoes.

Case in point, I've mostly just been focusing on the main quest storyline, and haven't spent as much time exploring all the different areas. As a result, I ended up finding myself encountering a puzzle in the main quest that I wasn't able to solve with my current collection of Echoes. I had to leave and go find new ones. If that sounds like a tedious backtracking nightmare to you, don't worry. This game is very generous with Waypoints that you can warp to at any time and from anywhere. Getting back to where I was after I'd found the Echo I needed took roughly 30 seconds.

Now, while I love the Echoes as a gameplay mechanic, they are also the source of my one and only complaint with this game: namely, the inventory system. Throughout the game, you will inevitably collect dozens, if not more than a hundred individual Echoes to choose from, and finding the specific one you want quickly becomes a chore after a few hours of gameplay. I've said this in another post, but Nintendo really needs to figure out a way to give us a customizable quick-select function--some way to equip just a handful of Echoes to a scroll wheel so that you don't have to bring up the pause menu to avoid cycling through your entire collection of Echoes. Coincidentally, this was also my biggest complaint for Tears of the Kingdom. I guess someone over at Nintendo just really enjoys scrolling through long lists of items. Anyways, it's not a huge issue, it's just one of those annoying things that feels like it should've been ironed out at some point during beta testing.

While EoW feels very comfortably Zelda-ish in all other aspects, the combat is radically different from what series fans are used to. I think that more than anything is going to be what makes or breaks this game for people.

Outside of Swordfighter Mode (which I will also get to in a minute), Zelda cannot do any direct damage to enemies by herself. If a monster gets close enough to hit you, you don't have any immediate defense or counter-attacks. This means that every encounter with an enemy has to be approached from a small distance. You have to think about how you're going to defeat enemies before you actually fight them, otherwise you will get overwhelmed.

While you are given plenty of objects to hurl at your foes, a lot of the combat will be fought by your own monster Echoes. There's a large variety of creatures to collect Echoes of, and they all have different abilities and fighting styles, which means certain monsters will fare better against one kind than another. But the game doesn't tell you about any of those advantageous monster match-ups. You have to figure those out for yourself.

Creature Echoes can be directed to attack anything you're currently Z-targeting, or they can be let loose to attack according to the whims of their AI. Echoes can also be directly moved around with the Bind ability, which is handy for repositioning any monsters who might've gotten stuck on some terrain or what have you.

You have a limited amount of energy to spend on Echoes, which means you can only have so many out at once. That energy is immediately replenished once an Echo is defeated or recalled, which allows for some pretty hectic swapping strategies that are a lot of fun to pull off. Individual Echoes have their own energy costs, based on how strong they are. So you can't just sic 3 copies of the same mini-boss on every Moblin who is unfortunate enough to cross you.

The best way I can sum it up is that the combat is like a turn-based strategy game set in real time. And as someone who has played an ungodly number of hours of Fire Emblem, I really enjoy it. I downright revel in strategically summoning minions to fight for me (my favorite attack is spawning in a bunch of crows like a malevolent little witch). However, if you're someone who prefers the more direct style of fighting from past Zelda games, this might end up being a deal-breaker for you.

Swordfighter Form is your other major weapon in combat. For a limited amount of time, Zelda can assume Link's abilities and weapons, allowing her to attack enemies directly and do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. But since this ability has limited duration, and the energy guage has to be manually refilled by collecting a specific item, it cannot be your go-to default way of handling every fight. Swordfighter Form can be upgraded as you progress through the game, allowing you to extend its duration and increase its moveset and damage output. But it's always going to be something that you use sparingly, mostly just to get yourself out of overwhelming combat scenarios.

So yeah, I think that just about covers the major gameplay mechanics. In conclusion, Echoes of Wisdom is not only its super cute aesthetic, banger soundtrack, and engaging story. Ignoring all of the more superficial stuff, at its core, this is a really good game, that feels really good to experience. If you've enjoyed any of the past 2D Zelda titles, or even just want to see what all the fuss is about, I genuinely cannot recommend this game enough. Regardless of its differences in presentation, Echoes of Wisdom was made with the same level of care and craftsmanship as any of the other entries in the Zelda series, and I've adored every moment of it so far.

[ashestoroses018]

Lost & Found

Slight Steve Harrington/Reader

Summary - You're F/N Henderson, or N/N for short. Your rabbit goes missing. Steve and the Original Party(tm) help you find her.

“Dustin! Where's Pepper?” you call through the house, looking for your pet bunny.

“I-I have no idea where she is, N/N.”

You run your hair through your unruly curls, annoyed that your brother has no idea where your beloved rabbit is. “I can't go out until I know she's safe, Dusty. Especially after Mews disappeared a few months ago. I don't want that to happen to my baby.”

Dustin walks up to you and pats your shoulder lightly. “I'll help you look for her until Steve gets here, okay?”

“You and Harrington are getting awfully chummy, huh, Dusty?”

Your brother nods, his curls bouncing. “He's really badass--”

“Language, Dusty.”

“--Sorry. He's really cool. I used to think he was a jerk, but he's actually really nice.”

“Well, maybe Mr. Nice Guy can help find Pepper when he gets here.”

“But we were gonna play DnD here with the guys.”

“Steve Harrington plays DnD, Dustin? Seriously? You know we don't lie in this house.”

Dustin's voice gets a whiny tone to it. “ He's not gonna play. Steve's just babysitting, because you and Mom are out tonight. Or at least you're supposed to be.”

“What kind of eighth grader needs a babysitter, Dustin?”

“Look, Steve's my friend, okay?”

You sigh. Ever since your dad passed away, Dustin has had a sincere lack of any real male figure in his life. For a while, now, he has leaned on his science teacher a bit much. Maybe Steve Harrington is a good alternative.

“Yeah, okay. Maybe I'll stay in tonight.”

“Oh my God, don't threaten me like that, N/N!”

Your face falls. “I wasn't threatening. I thought it might be fun. You used to want me to play Dungeons and Dragons with you guys.”

“But you're gonna make me look so uncool in front of Steve!”

“What's uncool about me?!”

“Have you seen the way you dress, N/N? You dress like you just stepped out of 1975. It's 1985, and you're a high school senior. Not a mom!”

“Wow, okay. Hurtful.” You're only slightly joking. His words had hit a little bit harshly. Are you really that uncool?

“I-I'm sorry, N/N. I didn't mean that. I'm just...you're you, and Steve is Steve. He's a really cool friend to have, and I really don't want to lose him for any reason, you know?”

“Fine, whatever. As soon as I find Pepper, I'll be out of your hair, okay Dusty? Then you won't have to worry about me embarrassing you.” You stick your tongue out at your baby brother (you can't call him your little brother, anymore, because he shot up by nearly a foot during Christmas break!).

“Just in case he shows up, can you, like, put your hair up or something?”

“Why, what's wrong with my hair?” you ask, a tone of warning laced through your voice.

“Nothing...I just think you look really pretty when your hair is up, with some of your curls around your face.”

A grin lights up your face at your brother's sweet words. “You're such a little charmer. You're gonna be a heartbreaker, Dustin Allen* Henderson, you know that?”

Ruining the sweet moment, your brother does his infamous growl. “Dammit, Dusty. I take it back. You need to quit that shit. Anyway, can you go look under the couches and stuff while I put up my hair?”

Your brother nods, so you head off to the bathroom you share with your mother and sit down at your shared vanity. Maybe you can even wear a little bit of makeup. Actually...you know what? If your brother is so convinced you dress for the wrong decade, you're going to prove him wrong, dammit.

After you've brushed your hair into a quick ponytail, carefully leaving some curls around your face, as Dustin suggested, you run to your bedroom and pick out the trendiest clothes you own. They just so happen to be overalls that you choose to pair with a thin, brown belt, and a nicely fitting white crop top. Scrunching your face, you also elect to wear some bright pink hoops, because, God dammit, you are a trendy 18 year old young lady, not a mom .

Bringing the clothes to your bathroom, you quickly change into them and put on some light makeup. You double-check your hair and makeup, making sure your appearance works well.

“N/N! Where are you? The guys and Steve are here! You can leave.”

You roll your eyes and head to the living room. “Thing is, dipshit, I can't leave without knowing where Pepper is. Have you found her, yet?” When you walk into the living room, you're met with stunned silence and wide eyes from all the males in the room.

“What the hell are you wearing, F/N?” It's rare that your brother uses your actual name, so he must really be shocked.

“Well, you told me that I dress like a loser, so I decided to actually dress up for once.”

“Aren't you just going to the library to study?”

You shrug. “Who says I can't dress up to go study, shitbag? Hey, guys. No girls tonight?”

Mike shakes his head. “Jane is... studying with Hopper, and Max got grounded for getting detention.”

“Um, you could...study here, keep me company while these losers play Dragons and Dungeons,” says the Steve Harrington, looking at you with an indecipherable expression.

“Dustin said I'm not cool enough for you guys, though,” you say, sticking your tongue out teasingly at your brother.

“Oh my God, N/N, this is why!” Your brother's face is turning bright red, and you can't help but laugh at him. However, you're quickly brought back to reality.

“Actually, I can't do anything until I find my rabbit. Boys, have you seen Pepper?”

The kids respond with a chorus of nos and shaking heads. You sigh, feeling deflated. What if she got crushed under a piece of furniture, or something? You knew you should have replaced her cage, instead of letting her get away with a loose cage door.

Steve looks up, suddenly. “What does, uh, Pepper look like?”

“She's white, with brown patches. Floppy ears. 'Bout this big.” You hold your hand out a few inches.

“Oh shit! Yeah I saw a rabbit like that!”

“Seriously? You're a lifesaver, Steve! Where did you see her?”

“She was hopping around in your front yard. Um...she ran away when I drove up, though.”

You bite your lip, trying to hold back tears. “Domestic rabbits can't survive in the wild. I've gotta go find her!”

Without waiting for a response from anyone, you slip your sneakers on and grab your coat, bracing for the early February weather. Luckily, there hasn't been much snow, so you don't have to worry about your baby being camouflaged by it.

Clicking your tongue in a sound you know she'll recognize, you begin slowly traversing your front yard. Come on, Pepper , you think. Where are you?

“Want some help?” someone suddenly asks you, tapping on your shoulder lightly.

You turn around, only to see four boys staring at you sheepishly, Steve standing behind them, looking almost...smug. If you were to hazard a guess, you would be willing to bet your limited money from working at Burger Bob's that Steve Harrington had put them up to this.

“Yeah, I'd like that. Thank you, guys. You remember what she looks like?” Your brother's friends nod in unison, wandering off.

After a moment, you turn to your classmate. “Thank you for putting them up to this. I'm not sure how you managed to pull them away from DnD, but I appreciate it, Steve.”

The boy flushes – whether from the cold or your words, you can't be sure – as he runs a hand through his absolutely perfect hair. “Don't mention it. You looked really sad, F/N – “

“N/N,” you say gently, correcting him.

He coughs quietly. “N/N. Anyway, I just wanted to be able to help, and I can't leave those kids unsupervised. Mrs. Byers would kick my ass.”

You nod. “Yeah, she's super overprotective of Will, these days. Thanks again, Steve. I'm gonna go keep looking.”

“Sure. I will, too.” He smiles gently down at you.

Twenty minutes later, Steve comes running up to you, a squirming bundle in his arms. You run to meet him, taking the rabbit out of his arms, tears springing to your eyes.

“Oh...Oh my goodness. Steve. Where'd you find her?” Before you can answer, you whisper comforting words to your rabbit. A moment later, you look up to see his bewildered face. “Steve Harrington, I could kiss you right now. You just saved my rabbit's life. You're literally my favorite person in the world, right now.”