#but I don’t want to speculate y’know

[nosowoso]

the chicago vanderquigs era has come to an end😭

this honest-to-god breaks my heart

[solarmorrigan]

I'm late, I'm sorry, but here's the full fic from this WIP post yesterday!

[CW: bullying, references to canon racism and violence, mentions of recreational drug use]

-

Steve makes it to the bathroom down the hall from the shop classroom—the one that’s far from the cafeteria and always empty during lunch, where people really only come to smoke, anyway—before he completely loses his shit.

“Son of a bitch!” He’s almost screaming as he hauls off and punches the wall of one of the bathroom stalls, putting every ounce of anger and frustration and humiliation into it, hitting it so hard that the whole construction rattles.

“Motherfucker,” he hisses, shaking his hand out, because it had hurt, and then he winds up to do it again, to make it hurt more, because at least he’s in control of that much, at least it’s anything but what he’s feeling right now.

“That’s a good way to break your hand, y’know,” a voice comes from the doorway, startling Steve into pivoting and aiming his fist at whoever is coming after him now.

He stops short when he sees nobody but Eddie goddamn Munson standing there, cringing into a startled flinch to protect his head as Steve nearly swings at him.

“Jesus shit,” Steve barks, dropping his fist and stepping back, shaky with adrenaline. “You walk like a fucking ghost, Munson.”

Munson peeks out of his defensive crouch before straightening up and sending a meaningful glance at the stall wall. “Somehow, I don’t think you would’ve heard me even if I was making all the noise in the world.”

Steve shrugs, his shoulders staying up near his ears in a defensive slouch. He can feel something dropping out of his hair and down the side of his face, and he feels the humiliation all over again as he tries to swipe it away.

“What do you want?” he asks, beyond caring if he sounds rude; he thinks he’s entitled, considering.

This time, Munson shrugs, a rolling, casual thing that belies the sharp look in his eyes. “Came to see if you were okay, I guess.”

Steve snorts. Is he okay?

Like, in the grand scheme of things, the answer is a really shaky “maybe.” But lately? It’s more of a resounding “no, not fucking really.”

Aside from everything else – aside from the nightmares, aside from the headaches, aside from the fact he’d had to drop basketball after his concussion, aside from having no real friends or allies at school now that he and Nancy aren’t together – aside from all that, there’s Billy fucking Hargrove.

Hargrove, who had taken all of a month to start pushing Steve’s buttons again. Who had taken less than a few days after that to realize that Steve wasn’t going to push back.

And then he’d started looking for the boundary line, pushing and pushing, shoulder-checking Steve in the hall, tripping him in the single class they share, knocking shit out of his hands, shoving him when his back is turned, all the while spitting names and insults, until it had culminated into today’s fiasco: dumping a carton of chocolate milk over the top of Steve’s head in the middle of the cafeteria with a deeply unconvincing “oops.”

It had gone dead silent, every eye in the room on Steve’s red face and Hargrove’s triumphant grin, while Steve had only been able to stand there, shaking with startled rage as milk had sluiced out of his hair and seeped into his collar and down the back of his shirt, knowing that he couldn’t retaliate.

He couldn’t.

He’d marched out of the cafeteria, shame and anger growing as voices had bloomed up behind him, already gossiping and speculating.

So, no, actually, he’s not really okay.

But instead of saying any of this to Munson, he just scoffs and turns away, looking towards the sinks.

“Wouldn’t have expected you to care,” he says, injecting as much lazy indifference into his voice as he can, trying to armor up the way he used to. “The number of speeches you’ve given about how much me and my group suck, I’d have figured you’d be the first to say I deserved it.”

Munson doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Steve doesn’t look back to see if the barb landed. He doesn’t really care, he just wants the guy to go away so Steve can finish his meltdown and clean up in peace.

“Not your group anymore, though,” Munson finally says.

Steve shrugs, pulling a wad of paper towels from the dispenser; might as well move on to cleanup if Munson isn’t going to fuck off. He guesses his little breakdown can wait until he gets home.

“Hasn’t been for over a year, now, right?” Munson goes on. Steve says nothing, using a dry paper towel to try to blot up the mess. “And whatever you were like then, you’re… less like that now. Like, anyone paying attention can see you’re kinda trying something new this year.”

Steve ignores the way that makes something catch in his throat. “Thanks for the endorsement,” he drawls. “I’ll put it on my college apps: Not as much of an asshole as I used to be.”

“It’s a start,” Munson says, and Steve glances up in time to see him shrug in the mirror.

“I guess,” Steve mutters.

“And, uh – hey, I grabbed your stuff,” Munson says, holding up the binder and notebooks that Steve’s attention had glossed over until now. “Some of it’s kinda… milky, sorry.”

Steve blinks. “Uh. Thank you,” he says, stunned for a moment into sincerity.

Munson shrugs again, putting Steve’s stuff up on the narrow shelf on the wall that no one ever uses to hold things because it’s probably never been cleaned. Not like Steve’s stuff is clean now, anyway.

Steve turns back to the sink, wetting a few of the paper towels and waiting to see if Munson is going to leave now.

“What I can’t figure out–” nope, apparently he’s staying, “–is why you’re in here punching the wall, instead of out there, punching Hargrove.”

At least that makes more sense; he’s here out of curiosity, not concern.

“I mean, most people would’ve hit him for that,” Munson goes on. “I would’ve.”

But Steve’s already shaking his head before Munson’s finished speaking. “Not worth it,” he says firmly.

“What, afraid of a little suspension?” Munson asks, almost teasing. “Pretty sure the school would let their golden boy off with a slap on the wrist.”

“Not anybody’s golden boy anymore,” Steve snaps, scrubbing a wet paper towel through his hair in a vain attempt to get some of the rapidly-drying milk out. “I dropped basketball, remember? Didn’t even go in for swimming this year.”

“Oh, yeah,” Munson says, like he’d genuinely forgotten. “Sorry, not really into the whole… sports scene. Like, at all.”

Steve shrugs. “Whatever. Not important. I don’t give a shit about being suspended. I don’t even care if he hits me back. Not like I need another knock to the head at this point, but – whatever.” Steve shakes his head. “It’s just that he could– there are other things he could do.”

In the mirror, Munson’s eyebrows go up. “What, does he have blackmail on you or some shit?”

Steve raises his brows right back. “If he did, do you really think I’d tell you?”

Munson tips his head to the side. “Yeah, okay, fair enough.”

“Anyway, he doesn’t have blackmail, he has… leverage, I guess.” Steve lets out a harsh sigh and gives up on his hair for now, wetting a paper towel to try to get some of the milk off his face and neck, instead.

“…are you allowed to tell me what that is?” Munson asks after a moment.

And for a moment, Steve thinks about it. The only people in school who really know are Nancy and Jonathan, and he’s asked them to follow his lead in just – not talking about it. He hasn’t told anybody any version of what happened in the Byers’ house, or why Billy seems to have made him his personal stress ball. But who the hell would Munson tell? All his nerdy friends in his game club?

(No, no, that’s not fair. Steve doesn’t even know those people, and he’s trying not to be that guy anymore. He doesn’t have to be nice, but he shouldn’t be unkind.)

(The point stands, though – who would Munson even tell?)

“Do you know why Hargrove beat my face in back in November?” Steve finally asks, avoiding Munson’s eyes in the mirror by focusing very hard on getting the tacky milk off his hairline.

“Well, I’ve heard most of the rumors by now, I think. Heard Hargrove’s version of events, as has pretty much everyone, I’m sure. Haven’t heard yours, though,” Munson says, his voice tilting up in interest. “I just figured it was because he hated you.”

Steve lets out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, you’re not wrong. But also…” He pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “There are these kids I babysit. Sort of.”

“Sort of?��� Munson presses.

“Well, most of the time it feels like they’re just ordering me around like a bunch of entitled shitheads. But I make sure they get where they’re going without, like, disappearing, and that they don’t have so much unsupervised time that they manage to get themselves killed,” Steve admits.

“Uh huh,” Munson says; he sounds… a little confused, but not disbelieving. “And you ended up with this gig, how?”

“It’s Nancy’s little brother, and his little nerd friends,” Steve says (he’s allowed to call them nerds because he knows them, and it’s true. And besides, it’s affectionate).

“Aaand you’re still doing it now? Even though you and Wheeler aren’t…”

Steve shrugs. “They grew on me. But that’s– that’s not the point. One of the kids is, uh. Hargrove’s stepsister. And the night me and Hargrove got into it, I guess she wasn’t supposed to be out.”

“Ah,” Munson says.

“Yeah.” Steve sighs, giving up on the milk as a bad job; he probably should’ve run off to the gym showers instead of a shitty bathroom. He turns and leans back against the sink, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the floor near Munson’s scuffed sneakers. “So he came looking for her.”

“So… Not that I’m advocating handing over children to pieces of shit like him, but – like, wouldn’t it have been the technically correct thing to do, to send her home with what is legally a family member?” Munson asks.

Steve passes a hand over his face. “She was terrified,” he says quietly, feeling a little like he’s betraying Max’s trust by saying it out loud, by saying it to a stranger. “She was terrified of what he would do if he found her there, where she wasn’t supposed to be. Terrified of what he would do to one of the other kids if he caught them together, since he’d specifically warned her to stay away from him.”

“What’s wrong with this other kid?” Munson asks, brows furrowed.

“Nothing,” Steve bites out. “He’s smart, and he’s brave, and he’s, like, slightly less of an asshole than some of the others, but what Hargrove cared about is that he’s black.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Munson snaps, and Steve’s hackles raise, ready to defend his kid all over again if he has to, but before he can get anything else out, Munson goes on. “We already knew he was a racist piece of shit, but – a fucking kid?”

Steve subsides. “Yeah. A fucking kid. So I told them all to stay inside and I went out to try to head him off. Or at least keep him out of the house. Which, obviously, I failed at.” He lets out a derisive little laugh, aimed solely at himself. “He knocked me on my ass, knocked the wind out of me, got past me– and by the time I was able to get up, he was already– he was inside, and he had that kid by the collar, up against the wall– one of my fucking kids–” Steve breaks off, the same rage and terror from that night choking up in his throat again. After the day he’s had, his emotions are all too close to the surface, too near to bubbling out, and he rubs at his nose, trying to stave off the angry, exhausted tears he can feel pricking at the corners of his eyes. “So I decked him.”

“Good!” Munson exclaims, and for a moment Steve actually manages a real smile.

“Yeah,” he says. “Then he hit me back, which, like, obviously. I was expecting him to, but– I mean, I might’ve actually won that fight if the fucker hadn’t hit me in the head with a plate.”

The expression that crosses Munson’s face is almost comically shocked. “What?”

“Yeah,” Steve says again, running a hand over his jaw, thumbing almost unconsciously at the still-fading scar where the porcelain had sliced him open. “I’m a little fuzzy on shit after that. Like, I remember being on the floor, and him kneeling over me, and hitting me, and hitting me, and then– I dunno, nothing.”

Distantly, Steve realizes that the expression on Munson’s face has turned from ‘comically shocked’ to ‘mildly horrified,’ but he’s a little too lost in the blurry memory of that night to do much about it.

“Holy shit, how are you not dead?” Munson blurts out.

He looks like he immediately regrets asking, but Steve finds he’s actually grateful for the question. He’s glad to move the conversation along.

“Max.” He smirks over at Eddie. “Hargrove’s stepsister. I guess she, uh– threatened him with a baseball bat? Saved my ass.”

That’s a deep over-simplification, but Steve can’t think of a way to explain the presence of heavy sedatives in the Byers’ house, and, anyway, she had threatened him with a baseball bat. The kids had all taken great joy in reenacting the way Max had nearly neutered Hargrove with the nailbat, actually; it’s almost like Steve had been there (and conscious).

“Holy shit,” Munson says, and whichever part he’s referring to, Steve is inclined to agree.

“Yep. So I was out fucking cold at the time, but the kids all insist that she got him to agree to leave her and her friends alone, but…” Steve shakes his head. “Hargrove is a fucking psychopath. I don’t trust him to keep that promise. So, at least if he’s focused on me, he might leave her alone. But if I hit back…”

“You think he’ll retaliate by going after one of your kids,” Munson says, only a hint of teasing in his words at the end.

“I know he will,” Steve says; Hargrove had implied as much more than once. He crosses his arms back over his chest. “And they are my kids.”

Munson throws his hands up, as if in surrender, but he’s definitely smiling now.

“I’m serious,” Steve insists, close to smiling himself. “They think I’m stuck with them, but they’re the ones stuck with me.”

“Lucky them,” Munson says, and– what?

“What?” Steve asks.

“Look, you’re either a better actor than, like, everyone in the drama club, or you at least seriously believe what you told me, which is more than I can say for Hargrove and whatever shit he came up with about the two of you getting into it over… what, his car was better than yours? He’s better at laundry ball? I don’t fucking remember, and it doesn’t really matter, because it was clearly and pathetically fabricated,” Munson says with an authoritative nod. “You, at the very least, really give a shit about those kids. So, yeah. Lucky them.”

“Well,” Steve scrambles for a moment, trying to cover the way he actually feels like he might start fucking blushing, “if I’d known all I had to do to change your mind about me was tell you about a fight I lost, I’d have done it ages ago.”

And now Munson’s back to smirking at him. “Seeking my esteem that badly, Harrington?”

“What? No. I mean – not– not specifically yours, it’s just… like, there’s not really an easy or fast way to make up for being kind of a dick for the last… while.” Steve runs his hand through his hair, stopping with a grimace when he remembers the drying milk. “You just have to keep not being a dick and hope people give you a chance. So, like, compared to that, convincing you was easy.”

“And all you had to do was get a severe concussion first,” Munson drawls.

Steve rolls his eyes. “I didn’t say it was severe.”

“You got hit with a plate,” Munson deadpans, and Steve can’t quite help the resulting flinch, at which Munson almost immediately softens. “Sorry.”

Steve shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

Mouth screwed to the side, Munson eyes Steve for a moment, glancing over his shirt and up to his face before gesturing at him. “You want some help with that?”

Steve blinks at him. “What?”

“Your whole… hair situation. You could bend ov– like, you could lean over the sink and I could, uh. Try to rinse it for you. Or whatever,” Munson offers, awkward but apparently sincere.

It sounds like a stupid as hell way to try to rinse his hair. The sinks are small, and not exactly high off the ground; Steve would have better luck just going to the locker room and showering it all out. His soap is there, too, and an extra shirt.

On the other hand, Steve really doesn’t feel like leaving the bathroom yet. He’s pretty sure lunch is going to end soon, and encountering everyone during passing period sounds like a nightmare. In here, with Munson, it’s quiet. It feels almost safe.

“Yeah, sure,” Steve finally says, and Munson looks nearly shocked that he’s accepted.

Credit to him, though: he doesn’t back out. He just slides his jacket off, tosses it up over the wall of one of the bathroom stalls, rolls up his sleeves, and gestures for Steve to lean over the sink.

“Hot or cold?” he asks, going for the taps.

“Hot,” Steve answers immediately; he doesn’t need any other cold liquid on his head today.

“Hm.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Munson says airily, turning on the water. “You just kinda strike me as a cold shower guy. Like, up at dawn, go for a run, take a cold shower – all that weird jock shit.”

It isn’t intended to mock, Steve realizes as Munson tests the water temperature—the school pipes take forever to heat up—but to tease. It’s a joke, and Steve is invited in on it. And anyway, it’s… actually kind of close to the mark, so Steve doesn’t say anything at all for a moment as he puts his head as close to the faucet as he can get it and Munson places one cupped hand over the back of his neck and uses the other to scoop water over Steve’s hair.

“Cold water is better for your hair. Not that you’d know anything about that.” Steve finally says, hoping that his own teasing tone carries even with the way he has to raise his voice to be heard over the running water.

Luckily, Munson sounds amused when he answers. “Oh! Shots fucking fired. I see how it is!” Even as he’s pretending at being offended, his fingers stay gentle against Steve’s scalp as he tries to scrub out the dried mess, and Steve fights very, very hard not to shudder.

He can’t remember when the last time someone touched him with gentle intent was. Maybe he’d gotten a hug from Dustin last week?

Shit, that’s fucking pathetic.

He tries even harder not to lean into the touch, into the surprisingly kind hands on the back of his neck and on his scalp, tries hard not to act like some kind of touch-starved weirdo and make Munson regret offering to help.

The irony of the fact that Steve is trying not to act like a freak in front of Eddie Munson is not lost on him.

After another couple of minutes of Munson manipulating Steve’s head this way and that, doing his best to be thorough, he lets Steve go entirely and shuts the water off.

“That’s probably as good as I’m gonna be able to get it,” he says, pushing another handful of paper towels at Steve as he stands up.

“Better than I could’ve done here,” Steve says with a shrug, rubbing the paper towels over his hair and grimacing as he can feel it frizzing in about a hundred different directions.

When he finishes, he turns to look in the mirror, watching in real time as it droops over his forehead and tickles at his wet shirt collar. Munson stands next to him, watching without judgement, but with what feels like an inappropriate amount of fascination.

“Well, I’m not going to lie to you,” Munson says at last, “you look a little like a sad, wet dog.”

Steve’s eyes snap to Munson with a glare. “Gee, thanks.”

“Some people are into that!” Munson insists, holding his hands up placatingly. “That droopy aesthetic, with the big, brown puppy eyes. Someone might just wanna scoop you up and take you home to take care of you. It’s a thing.”

Do you want to? – the question comes immediately and unbidden to Steve’s head, and he quickly shakes it away. They might be on amiable terms right now, teasing each other a little, but he isn’t sure that wouldn’t be a bridge too far.

(He isn’t even sure it is teasing. For a moment, he’d had the genuine urge to ask.)

“Anyway, I think most of the mess is out of your hair, but I’m pretty sure your shirt is toast,” Munson goes on, gesturing to the brown stain around the collar, over one shoulder, and probably down the back.

If he’d been wearing a darker color today, it might’ve been alright, but of course today he’d chosen light blue. Steve sighs, plucking at the front of the shirt. If he can’t salvage it, he might as well ditch it; it’s getting uncomfortably stiff and tacky with the dried milk, and he’d honestly rather stick it out in his undershirt for as long as it takes him to get to the locker room than walk around with evidence of Hargrove’s little stunt all over him.

He untucks the shirt and yanks it over his head, no need to be careful of his hair, emerging from the depths of it to find Munson staring at him in a stunned sort of silence.

“What?” Steve asks. “If it’s wrecked, anyway, I might as well get rid of it. I’ve got a spare shirt in my gym locker I can go grab.”

Munson blinks at him, almost like he’s trying to clear his head. “Or!” he practically shouts – possibly louder than he meant to, since he continues more quietly, “Or, you could just ditch for the rest of the day. I mean, you have any particularly interesting classes after lunch you feel the need to attend?”

“Not really,” Steve admits with a huff of a laugh. “But leaving after that feels a little like– letting Hargrove win. Like I’m retreating or some shit.”

“Nah, don’t think of it like that.” Munson tosses an arm over Steve shoulders, waving his other in front of both of them, like he’s trying to show Steve a grand vision and they aren’t both just staring at the ugly tile on the bathroom wall. “Think of it as cutting class and getting free weed from Hawkins High’s most esteemed dealer.”

Steve turns to look at Munson, staring at him more closely than he’s ever had reason to, and realizing there are tiny freckles on his face. “What, seriously?”

“Sure.” Munson shrugs. “Lemme smoke you out, Harrington. Seems like a good way to let your stress go for a bit – though I am just a little biased.”

“Why?” Steve asks; he doesn’t understand the sudden turn this day has taken, the sudden and bizarre kindness offered that he doesn’t even know what he’s done to deserve.

Munson’s eyes slide away from Steve, though his arm notably stays draped over his shoulders. “Been where you are. It’s not great. And, I mean, if it had happened last year, then, admittedly, I probably wouldn’t have given as much of a shit. Jock on jock violence, whatever. But you,” he glances back at Steve, “you’re genuinely trying to be, like, a good person. And I don’t think you should be punished for that. I think, in fact, that you could probably use a friend.”

“I…” The words stick in Steve’s throat, because what the hell can he even say to that? On anyone else, Steve would have assumed an ulterior motive, but Munson had infused it with so much awkward sincerity that Steve can’t help but realize it’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s said or offered to do for him in… he’s not even sure how long.

His silence must stretch on a little too long, though, because the hopeful light in Munson’s eyes fades a bit, and he begins to slide his arm off of Steve’s shoulder. “Or, y’know, you can tell me to fuck off, because I’m, like, way overstepping some boundaries, and–”

“We should go to my place,” Steve blurts, while grabbing Munson’s wrist for some insane reason.

“What?” Munson blinks over at him, (understandably) startled.

“My place. We should go there to smoke. If you still want to.” Steve could cringe for how stilted the whole thing is coming out. “I want to be able to take a real shower.”

Munson stares at him for a moment longer before laying a hand over his heart with a gasp, suddenly leaning heavily into Steve’s side and forcing Steve to wrap an arm around his waist so they don’t both lose their balance.

“I see how it is!” Munson gasps dramatically. “My sink shower just wasn’t good enough!”

Steve holds in a laugh. “Your sink shower was… fine. But I’ve got milk dried in other uncomfortable places, so unless you want to wash my back for me, too, we should go back to mine.”

Munson’s gaze snaps back to Steve, something a little odd in it, and – oh. Oh, that hadn’t sounded quite like Steve had meant it. It had sounded a little like an offer of the kind you don’t go around making to just anybody.

Steve braces himself, waiting for the reaction (he doubts if Munson would get any kind of physical, but there will probably be an awkward pulling away and sudden remembering of something he has to do literally anywhere else that afternoon), but all Munson does is break into a sly smile and say, “I could, but I’d have to charge you extra.”

Steve can’t help it: he laughs, giving Munson a good-natured shove, who finally releases Steve but doesn’t stumble more than a couple of steps away.

“Meet you at my place?” Steve offers, balling up his shirt and dropping it on top of his notebooks as he grabs them from the shelf. “Half an hour?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Munson gives him a corny little salute before grabbing his jacket from over the stall wall and preceding Steve to the bathroom door.

“Munson,” Steve finds himself calling out, just as the other boy’s hand closes around the door handle; Munson glances back and Steve fights the urge to look away. “Uh. Thanks. For, like… yeah. Thanks.”

Whatever meaning Munson takes out of Steve’s absolutely eloquent verbal vomit of gratitude, it makes him smile. “No need for thanks, man,” he says. “I’m honestly a little surprised to say it, but the pleasure was definitely mine.”

And then he disappears out the door, leaving Steve in the bathroom wondering how the hell his day had taken this turn, and just what destination it’s leading him to.

And thinking that he’s honestly a little excited to find out.

[lovecla]

IF YOU LOVE ME, LET ME KNOW | jack hughes.

chapter nine:

<last chapter> <next chapter>

➴ warnings: none, just pure, domestic soph and jack

➴ word count: 2.8k

➴ author’s note: we’re so close to the end of IYLM,LMK that i’m feeling a little bit emotional :,) hope u guys like this one and as always, thank u so much for reading

“HAVE you guys thought about how you’re going to announce your relationship?” Grace asked, throwing herself in the chair by the fireplace.

You were all in your house, Jack, Grace, Nico and you, chatting after a dinner together. It was the 19th of December, and you were all extremely busy: Jack and Nico with the season, you and Grace with your concert next week, at the Jingle Ball in New York, on the 23rd

“I think the best thing you could do is soft launch it,” Grace answered her own question, nodding. “It would be the move.”

Jack rested his chin on top of your head. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Soft launch means hinting that you’re dating someone without actually saying who it is,” you offered, sitting closer to him. You were all on the floor, and you were between Jack’s legs, drowning in his arms.

“Why would I do that?” He asked, and you can hear the annoyance in his voice. “If I am dating Soph, I want everyone to know about it.”

You smiled, amused with his answer.

“I know that, caveman, but it would be fun to let your fans speculate.” Grace answers back, rolling her eyes.

“Bullshit.”

You and Nico laugh, watching as Jack and Grace argue back and forth over the topic.

You haven’t thought about how you’d share your relationship status with your fans. Sure, you were head over heels for Jack and you— now— knew he felt the same, but you still had your fears and worries. If you announced that you are dating Jack and you both end up breaking up after that, you knew it would cause a commotion— lots and lots of people talking about you and your bad taste in guys and how unlucky you are.

But Jack was so… he was your forever, and you knew it.

It might be soon to say this, but it is just how you feel; Jack makes you feel special in a way only your family had done before and you could see your future with him, and you actually wanted it.

Nico and Grace left shortly after that, because you needed to start packing for your trip. You and Jack organized the kitchen, putting the dishes away and wiping the counters. Surprisingly, Jack did most of the chores himself and even liked doing them.

After you were done, you both went back to your bedroom, and you started organising your things.

“Are you going to perform in sweatpants?” He asked, looking genuinely curious.

You rolled your eyes and laughed, putting another pair of socks inside your bag. “Of course not, Hughes. The outfit I’m supposed to wear during the concert is in New York, because it’s just borrowed. I don’t actually keep the dresses or the skirts and tops I wear during events.”

“That sucks,” he laid on the bed. “I’d love to see you wearing one of those little skirts while you cook lunch.”

“Pervert,” you mumbled, trying to remember if you needed anything else.

“Do you really have to go tomorrow? The concert is on the 24th, baby,” Jack questioned, for the third time today. You smiled.

“You already know the answer, handsome.”

He got up and closed your bag, before putting it on the floor and picking you up, making you laugh. He threw you on the bed, gently, and stood on top of you, his hands on each side of your head.

“I’m gonna miss you, y’know,” he whispered, before placing a gentle kiss on your lips, making your heart beat faster. How’d you get so lucky?

“Me too,” you replied, placing your hands on his cheeks. “I’m still feeling shitty for telling your mom that I wouldn’t be able to spend Christmas with you guys. I really wanted to,” you confessed, furrowing your eyebrows.

Ellen called you when she found out about you and Jack, and rambled for thirty minutes about how she knew you were the right person for him and how she adored you and that you now needed to spend Christmas with them.

You expected yourself to feel overwhelmed and anxious because they were great people and you wanted them to like you, but you found yourself feeling nothing but happy when Ellen called.

But you couldn’t miss the concert and it was damn near impossible getting a plane ticket on the 25th, especially with all the snowing happening in New York. So, Christmas with Grace in your hotel bedroom it is.

“I still can’t believe you’ll be all alone with Grace.” Jack added, looking distressed.

“It’s just how my job works, baby,” you shrugged, giving him a half smile. “I’m sure that if you had to play during the holidays you would.”

He blinked twice before getting under the covers and dragging you with him, so you could be the little spoon, but facing him still.

“Yeah, I would, but it doesn’t mean I’d be happy with it.”

You wanted to tell him that you really didn’t mind that much, you loved performing and you loved to make your fans happy. But you could see he was genuinely upset about the whole situation, so you just snuggled closer and kissed his neck.

“Let’s just sleep, okay?” Your voice sounded lazy and tired, just like how you were feeling. “I leave early tomorrow and you have to go to practice.”

He didn’t say anything, just held you tighter, sighed and kissed your head. “See you tomorrow, baby.”

“Mhm,” you smiled. “Love you.”

“Love you more.”

Even if you thought that was up for debate, you didn’t say anything, embracing the sleep with open arms.

— ⛄️

“FIVE minutes!” You heard the stage manager’s yell in your earpiece, while you read Jack’s texts on your phone.

Texting before concerts and games was just another way of trying to be closer to each other, even when you were away. One of your fears was Jack getting bored of your relationship because you couldn’t be with him whenever he needed— sometimes you had to work on his days off and couldn’t see him.

But whenever he texted you before his games, or when he FaceTimed you before you went to bed, no matter what time it was for him, you could feel your fears stepping back. Jack was a really nice boyfriend for a guy who had never had a girlfriend before, that you had to admit.

You replied back, giving your phone to Grace before you stood behind the curtains, waiting for them to open so you could enter the stage.

The Madison Square Garden Arena was filled with people and screams. You were the opening act, so it was a huge deal. Grace gave you a good luck kiss before you stepped on stage, smiling at how many people were there.

As you step on stage, the energy is electric, with the twinkling holiday lights reflecting off the excited crowd. The first few beats of the "Nonsense Christmas Remix" kick in, and the playful, festive vibe fills the air. You can feel the audience sway with anticipation, and you smile, your mic ready in hand.

‘Think I only want you under my mistletoe.

I might change your contact to “Has a huge North Pole,”

You lean into the light-hearted, flirty tone of the song, weaving your voice through the fun, upbeat rhythm. The holiday bells add a sparkle to the track, making your performance feel like a holiday party. Every line you sing is filled with a blend of mischief and charm, and the cheeky Christmas-themed lyrics keep everyone grinning and tapping along.

You said you like my stockings better on the floor.

Boy, l've been a bad girl, I guess I'm gettin' coal (no).

Lemme come warm you up, you been out in the snow.

Baby, my tongue goes numb, sounds like "ho-ho-ho"

As the chorus hits, you play with the playful nature of the song, giving it a bit of sass while staying in tune with the holiday spirit. You make eye contact with the crowd, as if you’re sharing an inside joke. Each note you hit feels effortless, and the remix’s fun twists on the original song’s lyrics bring a fresh energy to the room.

I don't even know, I'm talkin' Christmas

I'm talkin', I'm talkin' (ah)

I'm talkin' deckin' all the halls, I'm talkin' spikin' eggnog

I'm talkin' opposite of small, I'm talkin' big snowballs.

As you continue singing, the festive mood only grows. The crowd is now fully engaged, swaying and singing along with the infectious, cheeky lyrics. Your voice dances through the light-hearted verses, especially when you hit those playful lines that make the audience chuckle. The jingle bells and upbeat tempo add a sparkle to every word, and you let your personality shine, matching the quirky vibe of the song.

You can’t help but play with the crowd, flashing a grin as you hit the fun twists on holiday references, dropping flirty lines with a wink. As the chorus repeats, you raise your mic toward the audience, inviting them to belt out the words with you. It’s not just a performance—it’s a holiday celebration, and you’re at the center of it. Your confidence grows with each note, feeding off the energy of the room, and by the final line, everyone is wrapped up in the joy and fun of the moment, feeling that special holiday magic you've helped create.

By the end, before you started saying the outro, you could feel the audience wrapped up in the joy of the season and your vibrant performance. You kneeled on the floor besides the crowd:

Tell me is that giant package for me?

Santa's too excited, he came early

Jingle Ball you're so hot I'm not worthy

The screaming was loud, even with the earpiece in. You were smiling so hard, your chest going up and down, your legs feeling like jelly from all the dancing and jumping but you were so freaking happy.

“Thank you so much, New York,” you breathed, blowing kisses left and right. “I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and I love you all so, so much. Thank you.”

You bowed before leaving the stage, thanking the band on your way out. You removed your earpiece, still hearing the screams outside. The backstage was a huge mess, with other artists coming at you to say “hi”, and you greeting them back.

Some random man escorted you to your dressing room, and you thought it was weird because usually Grace was the one to do this, but she was probably just busy. Thanking the man, you entered the room, ready to change into some normal, warm clothes because you were freezing—

“Hi, baby.”

Jack was standing in front of you, with his winter jacket and white teeth.

You stopped midway, covering your mouth with your hand.

Jack Hughes was standing in front of you, in the middle of your dressing room.

What.

“Jack?” You asked, even though you were clearly seeing him in front of you. You smiled back, jumping into his arms, happy when he picked you up— you were sweaty from all the dancing but you still squeezed him strongly. “Baby, what are you doing here?”

He held you closer, kissing your temple.

“I don’t know much about this boyfriend thing, but I’m pretty sure a good boyfriend wouldn’t let his girlfriend and her annoying best friend spend Christmas all alone so I thought I’d ask for a few favors.”

“The annoying best friend in question is still in the room, you fuckhead,” you heard Grace’s voice behind you and you removed yourself from Jack’s hold, turning around and facing Grace, who was now smiling back at you. “Surprise, babygirl.”

“Oh, Grace, I love you so much!” You hugged her, kissing her cheeks. “Could kiss you right now!”

“Let’s not do that, right, baby?” Jack pouted behind you, and you giggled. “Save the kisses for your man only.”

“You’re crazy,” you whispered, looking at Jack and then Grace. “Absolutely batshit. What if someone saw you?”

Jack opened his mouth to reply, but Grace was quicker. “Jack was supposed to be here the entire concert, but somehow he convinced the bodyguard to let him watch the show from the pit, and if that wasn’t enough, he took a picture with a fan and the fan’s girlfriend posted it on Twitter. So, yeah,” she shrugged, throwing daggers at Jack with her eyes. “Pretty much everyone knows he’s here.”

You stared at your boyfriend, only to watch him smile naughty. It was clear he didn’t give a fuck about people knowing.

“I wish I could say I knew what to do with you, but I don’t,” you told him, kissing his cheek lightly so that the lipstick wouldn’t smudge. “What about your family?”

“They actually encouraged me to come,” he put his hands inside his pockets. “Ma wanted to send a gigantic apple pie.”

“Let’s call them later, mhm?”

“Sure thing, baby,” he tilts his head, kissing you gently and quickly. “You killed it tonight. My little popstar.”

You blushed and opened your mouth to answer, but Grace was faster— again. “Guys, I’m still here. Please.”

You laughed, hugging her.

“Let’s go home, I’m still jet lagged and so fucking hungry I could eat two entire large pizzas alone.”

“New York pizza sucks, by the way,” Grace added, grabbing your clothes and handing them to you. “Can we have sushi?”

You looked at Jack, silently asking what he thought of it. He just nodded, sitting on the couch and waiting for you to change.

It was going to be a great night.

— ⛄️

“JACK, we shouldn’t be doing this, oh my God, what if I fall, what if I die here—”

You heard Jack’s precious laugh beside you. “You’re not going to die, baby. And if you fall, I’m here to catch you,” he winked at you, and you rolled his eyes, not finding the situation funny at all.

You convinced him to walk around New York, to see the Christmas decorations and drink hot chocolate, but it somehow backfired at you because the minute that man put his eyes on an ice rink, you were done.

You and Jack spent the entire 24th of December sightseeing together. New York was full of people, so you didn’t really bother hiding yourselves.

Grace said she wasn’t going to be the third wheel so she stayed at the hotel. You and Jack walked around, taking pictures and eating food that definitely weren’t in your diet plan but neither of you cared.

At the end of the day, when you were both ready to head back and order takeout, but now, you were both wearing skates.

With Jack skating smoothly beside you while you were holding onto his arm for dear life. The last time you skated on ice you were like twelve years old so your fear was understandable.

He put his hands on your waist, guiding you from behind, not letting you fall. You were still surprised with how secure he was on ice, but then you reminded yourself that he skated more than walked sometimes.

“See? You’re doing great, baby,” he whispered in your ear, and you smiled, feeling proud of yourself; forgetting completely that he was the one doing all the work. “You’re one step away from stealing my job.”

“Shut up,” you laughed, feeling more certain of your steps now. “This is actually super fun.”

He hums behind you, skating a little bit faster and taking you with him.

You were having so much fun. Jack felt warm beside you and you wanted nothing but to kiss him all the time.

He laughed at your jokes, took dozens of pictures of you, held you the entire time. He listened to your rambling about the lights and how good the city looked.

He bought you doughnuts and hot chocolate, and watched with a funny face as you shoved them in your mouth, only to complain about the hotness of the drink.

“Be careful, baby.” he said, kissing the tip of your cold nose.

“Thank you,” you whispered, giving him a kiss.

He held the side of your face with his right hand, while his left pulled you closer by the waist. You stood on the tip of your toes, trying to match his height. The kiss tasted like chocolate, sugar and something else that you couldn’t remember the name of, but it didn’t matter.

You ended up spending Christmas Eve eating take out inside a hotel room with your best friend and your boyfriend, facetiming your mom and sisters— your nieces loved Jack— and Ellen and Jim— she cooked the gigantic apple pie either way— but you never felt so whole and happy.

If it could get any better than this, you weren’t so sure.

— ♡

liked by njdevils, lhughes_06, canucks and 245,982 others

jackhughes Merry Christmas from soph and I

View all 1,990 comments

sophiamontenegro i love u

nicohischier Finally 🫡

user86 I TOLD YALL WHAAT THEYRE DATING ?!!/!/?/??:

user1 I think imma start doing drugs

user78 How tf did he pull her

user21 The way jack’s feed is hockey hockey brothers hockey and then BOOM famous popstar girlfriend is insane

trevorzegras heartbreaking 💔

jackhughes trevorzegras keep crying

_quinnhughes Congrats, Soph and Jackie! Merry Xmas 🤶

morgan.grace is this the “soft launch” we were talking abt jack😭

jackhughes morgan.grace bullshit

njdevils our future miss HUGHES 💜

user93 who even runs this account lmfao 😭😭😭

user11 we got jack hughes dating before gta6

user12 THEY’RE TOGETHER AGAIN?? WHAT ABT THAT GIRL AVA WHO SAID SHE WAS DATING HIM

user13 user12 she deactivated her account after this post so i can only imagine she was lying 🤷🏽‍♀️

+

[wooziorgans]

13:27

pairing: woozi x reader

warnings: this one is set up kind of weird,,, it goes back n forth between past n present idk I hope it reads okay. hoshi doesn’t like reader initially. vernon makes a “they hit the pentagon” joke. idk just woozi n reader being in love n saying it for the first time.

word count: 1.5k

you don’t exactly know what’s going on with jihoon, but you suspect that he’s (in some way) superhuman. something about him is weird, and your speculation is that he has two hearts; one for seventeen, one for you.

he’s been a little different lately. ever since the two of you made it official, he’s been a lot softer. he’s more lenient with letting you touch him. often times, he seeks out your attention on his own. it’s very clear that he loves you, that he’s in love with you, you just can’t quite understand how it even happened.

jihoon has so much love to give in general. while he might not be the best with his words out loud, his actions speak volumes for him. even as friends, he always just seemed to know. he knew if something was wrong, if you were upset. he knew if you had something to tell him, if certain things he did made you happy. small quirks of his that you loved more than anything would make you smile softly with this look in your eyes, and he would do them more often just to see you happy like that.

jihoon always knows, and while he’s not good at saying it, he hopes that you know that he loves you.

and you do. you know he loves you. it’s a little strange transitioning from the dynamic you two had as best friends to partners. he used to groan whenever you wanted to hold hands. now, he gets shy and the tips of his ears redden when your fingers brush his. jihoon has changed, and it’s been for the better.

it was soonyoung who had given you two the final push towards confessing to each other. “he loves you a lot, y’know?” he had said one night. it was after seventeen’s monthly meeting, and vernon had decided to rent out an arcade for the night as his chosen activity. without even a word from jihoon, everyone seemed to have the same idea.

“yes, you can bring y/n.” seungkwan was the one to verbalize the groups collective thought. and so here you were, racing against soonyoung in mario kart at the arcade.

being civil with soonyoung was still a new concept to you. it wasn’t that you and soonyoung had it out for each other, it’s just that he was very hesitant about your presence. jihoon hadn’t really mentioned you much, and then he started bringing you to hang out with the rest of seventeen, and soonyoung had his suspicions.

he just didn’t trust this new figure, one that claimed his spot as jihoon’s best friend. god forbid, jihoon confessed in a drunk phone call that he was in love with you, and soonyoung became even more suspicious of you. he didn��t know your intentions, and he had yet to see if you had jihoon’s best interest at heart for himself.

“hoon, i don’t think he likes me very much.” you had confessed, back slumped against the mirror in the practice room as soonyoung had basically been holding mingyu at gun point to run over a specific part of the dance they had just learned again. jihoon laughed softly, hand awkwardly patting you on the head.

“it’s not that he doesn’t like you, it’s just that he doesn’t know you and he’s being careful. i’m sure he’ll come around soon.” and jihoon was right. all it took to absolve months of tension between you and soonyoung was giving him a little tiger plushie you had found at a pop up market the week prior.

he had gawked at it, and then smiled at you before speaking. “okay, i like you.” and he ran off, out of jihoon’s studio without another word or the chance for you to even say anything after handing it to him.

“i know he does. i-i love him too. he’s very important to me.” soonyoung laughed softly, before cursing as he got hit with a red shell.

“you’re in love with him. it’s okay.” and maybe kwon soonyoung had all of the secrets to the universe, or maybe it was just obvious. whatever was going on in this arcade, it caused you to lose the race, hands freezing on the steering wheel.

“you lost to soonyoung?” it was jihoon. of course it was. he threw his arm around your shoulder, ruffling your hair softly. the dumbstruck look on your face still didn’t change. one: because soonyoung of all people was able to tell that you were in love with jihoon. two: because you had just lost a game of mario kart to kwon soonyoung.

soonyoung had shot jihoon a look, nodding softly, and it all clicked for jihoon.

vernon had peaked around the arcade machine and muttered something that sounded a bit too much like they hit the fucking pentagon when he saw the look on both of your faces. joshua shoved him, and soonyoung found his exit as you and jihoon stared at each other.

“we’ll talk about it later, okay? just enjoy yourself here. can you do that for me? just for tonight.” jihoon had all but whispered. you listened, and let him kick your ass at guitar hero.

a week later in the privacy of his apartment you talked about it. both of you cried. both of you felt stupid for wasting so much time by dancing around each other. but a week later, you were together. officially.

you think there’s something wrong with jihoon because being in love makes him a better person. he denies this fact vehemently, but everyone else agrees with you on it. love makes him softer. he’s less stubborn, more willing to work on communication; sure he has a long way to go, but he’s less emotionally constipated than he used to be.

what gives him away is his eyes. they say the eyes are the window to the soul, and you’d have to agree. while he’s often blunt and abrasive towards those who don’t know him well, jihoon’s eyes give him away everytime. he’s not the cold caricature people draw of him. he’s sweet. jihoon is so sweet, and you tell him so often. he might roll his eyes at you when you say it, but there’s a certain amount of love in them that’s reserved just for you.

“there’s something wrong with you.” you’re having dinner with him in the studio.

jihoon just laughs. “yeah, i know. i work too much. we’ve been over this before.” he shovels rice into his mouth.

“no. not like that,” you sigh, picking at your own food. “you have so much love to give. i don’t know how you do it.” jihoon doesn’t say anything. he just looks at you as he puts down his chopsticks, urging you to continue.

“like, between me and seventeen, i don’t know how you do it. you just… you care about all of us. you’ve loved the guys long before you met me, and then i come into the picture and you still have love to give. i don’t know how you do it. and i can’t figure out why.” jihoon stares at you. it was obvious that he loved you, sure, anyone could see that. but almost six months into this relationship and he hasn’t been able to say it. neither of you have ever said the L word, even in conversation.

“i—” he starts, and you shake your head softly.

“you don’t have to say it, jihoon. it’s okay. i know you do.” but he shakes his head and clears his throat softly.

“no. i want to say it, i just don’t know how.” he shifts in his spot on the couch, fingers twitching as if they were reaching out to you.

“it doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary. sometimes just saying it on its own is enough.” you turn to him, hand finding his as you brush the back of his hand with your thumb. he doesn’t pull away or flinch. he just basks in it; in the feeling of your hand on his, and the way you look in the afternoon sunlight.

“i love you.” it’s simple, like him, but it’s enough. it’s enough because you can feel it everywhere in everything he does.

“i love you too.” you push your head against his, and he smiles. jihoon smiles so brightly that it reaches his eyes. he leans in carefully, and kisses you with the same tenderness he always has.

you know that there’s nothing wrong with jihoon. you know he has one heart, and it’s all yours.

a/n: these little time stamp thingys r supposed to be short but I got carried away whoops. also reminder that my requests are open!!! also also tysm for all the love on the last one of these that I did woahhh. glad we r all in love w jihoon amen.

[trendywaifus]

I've been dealing with the worst headaches ever for the past few weeks (the garbo ones that make you throw up)

And I also have been mildly irked by the lack of Marcher x Fem!Reader fics, so

🙏I wanna request March 7th comfort fic.

I feel like she's not very popular because she's a silly bonky-wonky loudmouth that just says what's on her mind rather than being all domineering and mysterious (like how Kafka, or Arlecchino might be portrayed), or hiding it because they don't want to stress you out (like how Robin might).

So anyways, I was curious how March comforts Fem!Reader after like, a really awful day.

It can be SFW, or not.

Hope you have a good day, Trendy :>

nah i made this a little different just for you and your stupid headaches! they suck ass! I’ve been having those type of headaches for the past weeks too. and march is underrated, I prefer to date her than kafka and the others cus at least she’s an open book😭. I hope your weeks been getting better, bud.

despite being in space, it feels like you’ve stayed in your cabin all morning. a pained groan rumbles in your throat as you turn in bed, series of sharp pains bouncing off the walls of your skull. you feel terrible, absolutely terrible. waking up with a migraine and not being able to get out of bed to even go to the bathroom sucks. everyone is probably at the dining hall eating breakfast. you let in a deep breath then exhale, mustering the mental strength to lift your aching head from the feathery pillow. “ up we go—ow ow. . “ as soon as you sat up, you dropped back down in pain. your stomach churns as defeat kicks in.

“ damn, should i text march to come and bring me a bottled water and pain pills? hopefully she’s on her way here since i’m missing breakfast. “

luckily your speculation was right as your cabin door slides open and your girlfriend strolls in. her gaze immediately locks onto you laying down on the bed. “ babe, you’re still sleeping? everyone’s waiting, come eat! “

you groan and march’s brows raise with concern. “ march. .headache. . “ you mutter, looking at her with pleading eyes. she gives you a sympathy look as she walks over to your bed and sits on your bedside. “ aww, sweetie, “ her digits brush the hair away from your eyes, “ do you need me to get you some pain pills? i’ll bring your plate to you too. “ you smile at her, grasping her wrist and softly squeezed.

“ please. but can i lay on your chest while you massage my head first? you’re great with massages so let’s see if you can help me. “

she looks a little hesitant but she nods with a smile. “ i don’t know if this is a poor excuse to cuddle me or not but okay. only for a little though! i gotta get you some pain pills and breakfast because i hate how exhausted you look right now. now scoot scoot. “

you give her as much space as you can without triggering a sharp pain in your head. she slides in bed and the soft scent of cherry perfume wafts against your nose. “ c’mere you. “ march helps you move on top of her and settle. you nuzzle into her chest while she loops an arm around your waist and starts getting to work with massaging your head. her manicured fingers gingerly graze your scalp, almost instantly sending warm shivers up your spine. “ i’m so lucky that you’re my girl. “ you mutter into her shirt, closing your eyes to the soothing sensation of her head massage.

you hear her playfully huff, “ sweetie that’s sweet n’ all but, but i’m worried that this won’t work. i’m not exactly a miracle worker, y’know. “

“ hm, you are to me, “ you mutter, the aches are of course still there, but you like to believe that your girlfriend’s fingers are helping you relax. “ even if you don’t think so, marchie. “

what you don’t see is her warm smile and dusty pink cheeks. what you do feel is her smiling lips planting a tender kiss against your temple.

[year2000electronics]

Are bud and honey good parents In your reverse au?

YES THEY ARE (i assume you mean mrs gleeful (i guess mrs pines in reverse falls lol) cos my headcanon name for me is Hope :] close enough) they’re definitely a bit of a dysfunctional family in canon gravity falls and a lot of people speculate on stuff but i don’t really think they’re monsters or anything. they’re just a group of people in a small town whos kid found an amulet that made him even worse and things just went out of control from there. for the record i don’t buy into any of the batshit stuff people tend to theorize about mrs gleeful i think she’s just stressed out and has given up on trying to salvage any sense of normalcy 😭😭 especially cos her husbands kinda gideon’s main mentor with the showbiz stuff

OH MY GOD OKAY IM RAMBLING this is supposed to be about reverse bud and hope i need to calm myself.

but yeah since gideon isn’t the one in the tent of telepathy this time he’s not a showbiz kid so their relationship is pretty sweet :] though bud does love to use gideon in his business endeavours (he switches them constantly, bud’s auto + shack of mystery is only his most current venture) where like. y’know how sometimes marketing people will tell you to hold a cute animal to seem approachable? yeah bud will hold up gideon like “look how cute my son is :) do you want to buy a used car”

gideon loves his parents but because of there not really being any kids his age in town he hangs around them maybe TOO much. he loves watching rodeos on tv with them and goes to estate sales with bud to buy clowns. they have to drive to the next town over to go to church every sunday. all that. at the end of the day he’s their lil cowboy :) they just wish he had some more friends his age (which is why they very happily accept paz into their home for the summer)

[squawk-chatterbox]

I sketched out my terror bird things in charcoal pencil.

I love speculative biology I do

It’s so much fun when my mind gets working on stretching out towards all the fun possibilities.

Here’s closeups of some of them with explanations

———

These are Horned Hollers, the smallest of the Rhacids in Aureole and devious little burrowers that can fly.

They’re mostly carnivorous, eating insects and reptiles, but they’re not adverse to roots, and a couple seeds every now and again.

They live in groups of pretty big, like meerkats, and they’re pretty ferocious for their size, usually able to drive off larger predators and animals with the power of determination and being really annoying.

———

These guys are Blue Rhacids, they can’t fly, but they’re big and they can run. They’re incredibly intelligent, nocturnal pack hunters and scavengers that live in groups of up to twenty, usually family and extended family, though a group of twenty-six members is the largest documented yet.

Y’know how crows can recognize human faces and will target and mob people they believe have wronged them or killed them. This is that, 5 feet tall at the shoulders.

Thankfully, they usually don’t want to get on people’s bad sides, but harass or kill a member and they’ll be out for revenge.

There’s also rumors and stories that they can tell when the humans in their territory are hunting too much prey, and they’ll start targeting hunters for food instead, but it’s hard to say if those are actually true or just things made up to make sure people didn’t over hunt or do more ecological damage during the Great Starving.

———

These are Crested Hollers, a bit like secretary birds mixed with hornbills. They’ve really loud, but melodious territorial calls which people used to use as measures of time, a bit like a rooster crowing. Up before the Holler, as they say in Aureole.

These birds can fly, and can run, and they stomp the souls out of snakes, reptiles, small mammals, even smaller birds. But unlike the other two Rhacids I’ve highlighted, these ones have a healthy fear of people, and tend to steer clear when they can.

[nattikay]

actually no wait holdup, I stumbled across some "Na'vi redesigns" recently, and while I don't want to make a stink about it on the actual redesign posts themselves because I don't want to antagonize the artists, who are clearly skilled in their own right, I do have something to say on the topic. While there is of course nothing wrong with re-designing characters or species for fun, there seems to be this condescending attitude surrounding Na'vi redesigns in particular, especially ones that make them significantly more monstrous/non-human, about how they're "better" than the canon designs for being less humanoid but....

y'all. Though there is a lot of cool speculative biology in Avatar, Avatar at is heart is not meant to be a speculative biology documentary, it's meant to be a story.

y’know, it’s interesting, there’s a section in Anomaly Inc’s epic eight-hour Avatar defense in which he’s refuting The Critical Drinker’s Avatar video. Paraphrasing a bit because I don’t want to dig through eight hours for this one line, but there’s a point where Critical Drinker says “if the Na'vi looked like this, or this, or this [showing images of much more monstrous alien designs from other movies], Avatar would be a very different movie”, and Anomaly Inc responds, “no actually, if the Na'vi looked like xenomorphs nothing in the plot would change, it would just be a whole lot less pleasant to look at.”

And you know what? They’re both right. Anomaly Inc is correct that giving the Na'vi a more monstrous design would not affect the plot itself, but Critical Drinker is also right (though perhaps not in the way he intended) that it would make Avatar a different movie. A WORSE MOVIE.

Yeah, I said it. Because plot is an important element to a movie, yes, but it’s not the only important element. Film is a visual medium, and therefore design is very important too, and it’s not arbitrary: the design of your characters should be used to support the story you’re trying to tell.

The story of Avatar requires the audience to empathize with the Na'vi. We’re supposed to be able to relate to them, to see ourselves in them. We’re meant not to see them as just “aliens”, but as people, because recognizing them as people emphasizes the wrongness of the RDA’s treatment of them. Blowing up the village of a clearly humanoid species is going to hit the audience much harder than blowing up the nest of scary-looking aliens, even if we know the aliens are smart and have their own culture etc. (not to say that blowing up the “nest” wouldn’t still be bad, of course it would be, it just wouldn’t invoke quite the same gut reaction in the viewers and yes that matters in a story).

A more monstrous design would not only not support the Na'vi’s narrative role, it would actively hinder it. Like it or not, general audiences would have a much more difficult time connecting with the Na'vi if they were depicted as hunched-over four-eyed hexapods with gaping jaws and the inability to make human facial expressions. Making them more humanoid makes them much easier to read and therefore to emotionally connect to. And no, Mr. Drinker, making your protagonists appealing to look at is not “lazy dirty manipulation”, it’s character design 101.

And don’t get me wrong, there’s certainly a place for more monstrous-looking sapient alien species in fiction! And if that’s your cup of tea by all means go nuts! Make that alien species! Flesh out their culture! That sounds awesome! I know I’ve definitely seen some cool and interesting ones out there!

….but I just don’t think that Avatar is that place. And that’s ok. There’s a place for “monstrous” aliens (sapient or otherwise), but there’s a place for humanoid aliens too, Avatar is the latter and there’s nothing wrong with that.

…all that to say, my stance on Na'vi redesigns is heavily dependent on the attitude behind them:

“Here’s a Na'vi redesign because I thought it would be a fun challenge and look cool!” Awesome, go for it, have fun! :D

“Here’s a Na'vi redesign because the canon designs are dumb and lazy and mine is way Better and More Original because it looks more like a movie monster, the filmmakers were so stupid for not making them look more like this, I’m just Fixing It” shut up

[misted-dream]

🦢 A WALTZ IN THE DARK ₊˚⊹ ˚ ༘ ⋆

ACT III THE CURTAINS FALL. | to the programme

chapter info . . . content the smut chapter. a little bit of miscommunication? warnings oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, profanity, exhibitionism maybe w. count 10k

series synopsis . . . the first and last time you and doyoung danced together was 5 years ago. 5 years since the mishap that founded your mistrust of him, at least as a duet partner. with the annual swan lake showing rolling around, you think you finally stand a chance to audition for the leads: odette and odile. it's every ballerina's dream to play this role at least once in their career. little do you know, rumour has it that kim doyoung just so happens to be auditioning for the role of prince siegfried this year.

tags @00127am @beomgyusonlywife @bloomyroses

If you were to describe your relationship with Kim Doyoung… it’d be a difficult task. If the saying, ‘opposites attract’ were true, then you and Doyoung would be the same pole on a bar magnet. It felt like with every pull comes a stronger push. But all those speculations and theorisations come to a halt as an elbow nudges you in the stomach.

“Hello?” Karina pushes you slightly with her shoulder, knocking you a couple of steps back. “You’ve got to quit staring at him like that.”

“I wasn’t—”

With one raise of her eyebrows, Karina shuts you up. You take a few steps to close the slight distance between you and Karina again, your shoulders pressed up against each other’s. “I was just… zoning out.”

“Sure,” Karina replies brightly, “Zoning out just fantasising about our Prince over there, I bet,” her head nods towards Doyoung across the room.

Now, it’s your turn to give your friend a nudge in the side, wanting desperately for her to stop speaking before anyone else hears you. She can barely hold back her chuckle and all you can do is hope that everyone else is too preoccupied with trying to memorise the sequence to pay attention to your personal gossip. 

You were starting to dread these Fridays. With everyone in the company being in the same room at once, you felt like there were too many eyes on you. And Doyoung as well, but they don’t seem to be watching him for every mistake he makes like they do with you. Karina makes you forget about all that for a little bit, though, with her merciless teasing.

“Sorry! Sorry. I just never thought that you two would—y’know,” Karina leans into your ear, about to whisper the next part of her sentence before you stop her.

“Shh! What if someone hears?” You scan the massive stage as dancers line up row by row at the back.

Karina expels a shallow sigh, “Who cares! You two are grown adults, and it’s not like you’re doing anything wrong by kissing him.” She shrugs nonchalantly, watching as another lineup of ballerinas dance across the platform.

You try your best to ignore the acceleration in your chest at the mention of that. You’re not one to regret many things, but you do regret telling Karina about that night; she won’t stop questioning you like she’s some PI. 

You run a hand up your opposite arm, giving yourself a slight squeeze on the shoulder. “We still haven’t talked about it,” you mumble.

Karina turns her head towards you and narrows her eyes. You flash a quick glance at her, then another, somewhat uncomfortable with how closely she’s studying you. 

After a few moments of what felt more like hours of Karina intently just staring at you, it seems she has come to a conclusion.

She gasps a small breath, “Do you have feelings for him? God, you’re getting into character.”

“What?” You give her a light smack on the arm, “No! I don’t— I’m just bothered that we haven’t spoken in weeks. That’s all.” The words come out of you slowly and articulately, trying your best not to fall into the hole you’ve dug for yourself. One look at Karina’s face tells you that it’s not working as well as you’d hoped it would, though.

She turns her gaze back onto the stage in front of the two of you. Her eyes never leave Doyoung, now in centre stage, as she tilts her head sideways towards yours. “I believe you’ve fallen to what the professionals call, ‘method acting.’”

It was at this moment, that you knew you should never open your mouth about how your night-time practices are going nowadays to Karina if you still want to maintain some shred of dignity.

It’s another one of your customary late nights again. Thanks to this role, you’ve gotten a lot more familiar with each and every crevice of this practice room in the past month than you have in all your years working here.

Dejection seems to be a recurring theme during your OT hours lately. Not that you can help it. Colette’s still on you for not making your turns, though she has toned it down several notches, which is more than you can ask of her. And confronting failure face-to-face continually doesn’t necessarily boost the morale, especially when it’s 10pm and you’ve spent the last few hours by yourself, in silence. Just occasionally cussing yourself; your pointe shoes for giving out; or the wall that you spin into, out.

You sigh as you sit with your legs out in front of you in the middle of the studio, fingers squeezing the tops of your knees. For the first time tonight, you felt tired. You hadn’t paused to even breathe during this session, and now that you have, the weariness you’d built up is catching up to you. Still, there’s a tiny spark of determination within you that refuses to be extinguished—the only thing that’s stopping you from ending it here tonight and going home.

As a last-ditch effort, you pull your knees up to your chest and push yourself off the ground. One last try, for tonight at least, or you’ll end up causing more damage to your feet than you care to admit.

You don’t bother with the music, you haven’t bothered for a while now. Hearing the same build-up over and over again started to feel passionless. And something about it stirs a visceral reaction within you that you really wanted to avoid as much as you possibly can.

So, you position yourself in the very centre of the room. Eyes fixed on the ones staring back at you in the mirror. You spread your weight evenly between your two feet, one in front of you and the other behind. One of your arms round out in a semi-circle out in front parallel to your chest as the other stretches out to the side. You lean your weight slightly onto your back foot.

The room echoes with silence. A deep breath fills your lungs. Your eyes burn holes into the mirror, paying no mind to the stray strands of hair that splay out messily. You roll your shoulders back and straighten your spine. With one last breath, you sink into the heel of your back foot, and with all the remaining strength you can muster up, you push off into the starting turn.

You manage a double on the starting turn before coming back down on your heel to propel yourself up again. Your eyes never leave the spot you’ve marked on the mirror as you make your rounds. Mostly singles, some doubles, and some rare triples. In your head, you’re trying to keep count, but it’s not the easiest when you have multiple other things requiring your full attention.

12, 13, 14. Your heel lands again as you whip your other leg out to the side of you, forcing momentum when you draw it through into passé.

You’re nearly halfway there, and that’s when you remind yourself to not lose the strength in your core. You straighten back up as much as you can between turns, and you keep counting.

You’re starting to feel the inevitable stabbing of your nail against your own toe as you’re making your way through the 20’s. Your breathing is also getting heavier and heavier.

Expectations were low. You often get to this point, but fall short of just the 32 fouettés you need.

26, 27, 28. 

You have to admit, there is a certain adrenaline that runs through you whenever you get this close. However, that’s the trap. You get excited, lose focus, and you don’t make it. So, as you catch a glimpse of your reflection, you try to steel the excitement threatening to boil over inside you. 29. 

This time, as you come down, you push off again onto your toes with more force than ever, your other leg providing as much assistance as possible.

You spin once, meeting your eyes in the mirror. But you have enough momentum to not have to come down again. 30.

And again. Your gaze lingers as long as it possibly can before you have to whip your head around. 31.

The last, final turn you need. Friction is stretching your force thin. You’re on the finishing turn, and with the last bit of exertion from you, you manage to make a full spin. 32. 

You land on your back foot, exhilarated at this small triumph that you shared with yourself tonight. Breath after breath, your chest rises and falls rapidly as you’re trying to blink away the dizziness.

Your arms fall to your sides, planting themselves onto your hips. An overwhelming sense of relief crashes over you as you watch your own reflection. A gentle smile starts to break onto your lips.

Then, something in the corner catches your attention.

Your eye darts over to the door. And what do you know—if this was any other setting, the very thought of being watched would be unsettling, but you should be used to it by now, you suppose.

“That was good.”

You hear it before you can clearly see anything. Perhaps your habit of not turning the lights on late on night does have its cons. But you don’t have to see for yourself to picture who it was in your head: Him and his devilishly handsome face.

On any other given night, you’d put up more of a rejection to his simple compliment and argue that you deserved a rating better than ‘good.’ But tonight, the urge just wasn’t there. 

“Thanks,” you breathe out.

He walks in through the doorframe, more of him coming into light as he draws closer to you. With every step that he takes, it’s like your heart threatens more and more to jump out of your chest. Why am I feeling like this? It is the first time you’ve spoken in person since you kissed, yes, but that doesn’t change anything, right?

As he walks closer and closer towards you, the urge to have that sturdy wall of sarcasm you normally put up around you returns. 

He stops a few steps short of being in reach of you. The planes of his cheeks highlighted by the glow of city lights outside. The man you’ve tolerated for as long as you can remember, Kim Doyoung, now standing in front of you, and it’s your knees that feel weak.

The thumping of your heart resonates in your ears—it’s so loud that you’re afraid even he can hear it. Trying to push all that down and stuff it into some locked up part of you, you try to think about how to navigate this conversation. Just two colleagues talking after ignoring each other after kissing each other; nothing to worry about.

“So. No lunchbox for me tonight?” You’re hoping that the cheek in your tone distracts from your undoubtedly rosying cheeks. But maybe acknowledging that was the wrong move—too late now.

“Actually, I was just about to leave it outside. But I saw you, instead.” He lifts his hand up and that’s the first time you spot the small, rectangular box in his grip.

You drag your eyes from the box back up to meet Doyoung’s. A beat passes.

Then, you muster up the courage. “Why… are you doing that for me?” You’ve asked yourself this question more times than you can count. Why is he being nice to you? That is strictly out of character for him, if you were to judge.

Doyoung crinkles his eyebrows, as if he’s offended that you’d asked him that question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why are you bringing me…? Every night we’re here. I haven’t asked you to.” You speak slowly, as if you’re carefully treading through a minefield that is Kim Doyoung’s mind and reasoning.

“Skipping dinner’s bad,” he extends his arm out with the box in his hand, signalling for you to take it off of him. You’re reluctant, but he persists. “What? I’m… taking care of my costars.”

Your eyebrows quirk up at his choice of words. He holds it out a few more seconds before his patience wears thin. 

“My arm is getting tired.”

And as his last push is met with nothing from you, he drops his hand to his side. Without a word, he scoffs and makes his way over back to where the door is.

“Fine, I’ll just put it in your bag.”

Subconsciously, you follow him as he walks over to the edge of the room, a bit dazed at the man in front of you.

He kneels down, shoving the box through the opening of your bag. When he stands up again, he seems a bit surprised that you’re literally right there behind him. Serves him right for all those other times he’s snuck up on you.

You stare at him and he stares back at you, his eyes widening at your silence, as if to say, “What?” in his typical bratty, condescending way. 

“You’re overcompensating.” You shoot out.

“What?” His slight annoyance is replaced by confusion.

“Don’t worry,” your cadence loosens up as does your posture. In a more lax manner, you take a few steps towards the barre on the wall, next to Doyoung. “I’m not some charity case you’re condemned to because you feel bad for whatever.” You place your palms behind you on the barre, feeling somewhat pleased with yourself for having figured out Doyoung’s motivations.

Doyoung himself is slightly amused at your deduction. He leans backwards with his elbows on the barre, his legs stretching out in front of him. He turns his head, eyes looking down at you. “Believe it or not, I don’t see you as ‘charity work.’”

You take a second to still your heartbeat that seems dead set on betraying you with how you felt his breath fan faintly against your shoulder as he spoke. You turn to look him in the eyes, either to prove something to yourself, or to him—you couldn’t be sure.

“Then, why all this?”

Doyoung returns your gaze intently. You hadn’t planned for it, and now there’s no way you’re letting yourself back down. The way he looks at you—into you—hitches your breath. The last time he looked at you like this… You’re not sure you can stop history from repeating itself if he doesn’t stop now.

For a moment, you can swear his irises swirled like liquid pools of obsidian, the sheen in them barely visible under the dimness. 

Before Doyoung even tries to come up with a way to talk his way out of this, he gives in. Into you.

In an instant, his lips envelopes yours. You wish you could say you were surprised, but deep down you were screaming at him to kiss you first. 

You melt into the softness of his lips. The depth at which he takes you in makes the peck from last time seem like child’s play. 

As both of you ease into each other’s touch, Doyoung’s eagerness becomes more and more apparent. One hand cups your jaw and the other settles on your nape, pulling you in as much as he can. Your lips fitted together like they were sculpted for each other. The way his mouth moved over yours as if they were connected to one mind.

Doyoung steps in between your legs, positioning himself in front of you with your back pressed against the wall. He never breaks his lips from yours, not even to take a breath. The hand that he previously had on your neck runs itself down to your waist, grabbing hold of it like he has so many times before. He pulls your torso closer to his, your chests pressed up together, your back slightly arched.

In all honesty, you would’ve expected Doyoung to be more the passive type, but you were gladly proven wrong. The way he presses his lips onto yours is with a force so strong that you’re sure it’s bound to leave your lips swollen and bruised. You don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but a groan rumbles in Doyoung’s throat, and you can feel it with a slight vibration. Your lips can’t help but draw themselves into a small smirk that he assuredly has to have felt.

It is only now that Doyoung pulls himself away from you, or more so pry himself away. In a way, you’re grateful because you don’t know how much longer you could’ve lasted before you completely lose yourself to his touch. 

His face parts from yours with both of you trying to catch your breaths as quietly as you can. 

With those eyes of his again, he switches between looking at your (only slightly swollen) lips and your eyes. He gently brushes the side of his thumb up your cheek, sliding under the hair that framed that part of your face. 

His eyes follow the movement of his thumb, before glancing back at you. Breathily, he whispers, “Does that answer your question?”

It’s your lucky day. Karina had plans for lunch hour today, leaving you sitting alone in the middle of the canteen poking and prodding at your food. At first, you didn’t consider it entirely ‘lucky,’  but the more and more you thought about it, maybe it truly is. After all, if you tell Karina what happened two nights ago, she will no doubt hold it over you ’til the day you die. And not telling her isn’t exactly an option if she asks—she always has a way of getting inside your brain. And even if she doesn’t ask, she could definitely tell something’s up especially with how you’re having to bite back your own smile at random given moments of the day. So all in all, maybe you are lucky, at least for today.

That very sliver of luck lasted only moments, though.

Your eyes are down, staring somewhat blankly at your phone screen in an attempt to seem preoccupied. However, someone sees through your act—or maybe he just doesn’t care for it.

Doyoung slides his tray onto your table, swiftly taking a seat opposite you. You look up at him, watching his very nonchalant actions as if this happens every day.

“What are you doing?” You mutter, perhaps involuntarily. Some part of you is taken aback, another part is confused. Every single time—every one of your encounters with Kim Doyoung felt like a chess game. When you think you’ve seen through his tactics, he reveals that he already has several other countermoves calculated.

Doyoung does what he does best: ignore you. He places his hands on the table, eyes scanning over your tray and his briefly. Then, he lifts his gaze up onto you. “Are you free this weekend?” He asks with an expression on his face that’s a little hard to read. It’s a strange combination of politeness and formality that you’re not used to from him, at least not when directed at you.

“What?” Your response almost comes out as a chuckle. What is he up to? 

“Well, if you are, I have two tickets to a show.” He ends his sentence with a small smile on the corner of his lips.

Is he…? Now, you’re almost certain that today is your lucky day because thank God, Karina isn’t here to witness this.

Back to the situation at hand… what are you supposed to make of this? Is this a date? Or maybe you’re jumping to conclusions for even assuming he’s asking you out on a date. Yes, you two kissed, twice. But does that equal a date now?

God.

Does he like you?—Why does that matter? 

Stop thinking.

You open your mouth to start saying something, and Doyoung looks at you expectantly. You suck in a quick breath, then your lips purse together. But you have to say something.

“If this is because of the other night, you don’t have to—” You cut yourself off as Doyoung raises his brows, prompting you to go on. “What are you up to?”

Doyoung leans in closer, planting both elbows on the tabletop. He tilts his head slowly to the side, gaze fixed pointedly at you, “You keep thinking I have ulterior motives.”

The urge to push his head back with your finger entertains you for a second, before you shoo it away. “Because this is unlike you. 5 years, and I’ve never seen you speak to someone if you’re not forced to.” You lean back into your chair, folding your arms across your stomach. “You’ve always had a kinda cold, and mysterious aura to you,” you mumble, maybe more to yourself than to him.

That seems to pique his intrigue. “You think I’m mysterious?” His eyebrows lift, exposing his amusement.

“That’s not what I meant,” you refute bluntly. “I just thought you were keeping up an image. The whole, ‘I’m a loner, but I’m still cool’ thing, you know?”

If this whole encounter was a chess game, then you just found checkmate. Doyoung looks at you a bit in disbelief, and maybe slightly insulted.

“You think I—Okay, no,” he shuts you down firmly. He places his hands onto the table again, “Now, the tickets.”

Truth be told, you’ve been thinking about him ever since that night, but you would probably die before ever admitting that.

“I mean, sure. But you’re not denying that you have an image problem.”

At the first sound of your acceptance, Doyoung slides his fingers underneath his tray and is preparing to get up out of his seat. He stands up and tucks his chair in with his free hand. Once again, doing what he does best, he ignores the latter half of your sentence, “Saturday night, 7pm.”

With that, he’s set off in some direction to wherever he’s going. He’s just taken a few steps away and before he’s out of earshot, you follow up, “And what if people talk?”

He doesn’t stop walking away from you with his back turned, countering, “Sounds like you’re the one with an image problem.”

Saturday night, 6:55pm.

Shit.

Apparently, the entire population of Paris decided to get on this very subway all at the same time. The doors slide open but you’re having to budge and shove through row after row of people just to get off the car and onto the platform.

It’s a 10 minute walk and you have 5 minutes. If you don’t run to the theatre, Doyoung will inevitably be complaining about how you’re late for the whole night.

Running is a bit difficult though (and not to mention embarrassing) especially in the heels that you’re in.

You walk as fast as you possibly can out of the station and onto the city streets. The sun is just barely peeking out from the horizon and the lampposts begin to turn on as you weave your way through the avenues.

You’re just a crossing away from the theatre when you spot a particular silhouette. Their back is turned towards you, but you recognise that person as Doyoung. It’s in the way he stands, and the positioning of his feet. It’s undoubtedly him.

His head is down, presumably on his phone. The light turns green and you begin to cross. Just as you’re about to reach the other side of the street, you feel a buzz in your hand. You face the screen towards you. 7:02pm. And as you predicted, Doyoung is already starting his carping. A message pops up on the bottom of your screen, “Are you here yet?”

For whatever reason unbeknownst to you, your lips curve into a tiny smile that you have to force away, ignoring his message at the same time. You walk the couple of steps that separate you and Doyoung.

His back is still turned towards you, completely unaware of your being there behind him. He dons a long, black wool coat that amplifies his already broad shoulders, making him look and feel larger than life. To your surprise, the outfit you’re wearing coincidentally somewhat matches his—a long black dress with a coat over top. If people didn’t know better, they’d probably assume the two of you matched on purpose..

You hesitate before tapping his shoulder lightly with two fingers. His head turns around swiftly. And before you even get the chance to say anything—

“You’re late.”

You can’t resist the urge to roll your eyes and sigh. “By 2 minutes! And look,” You glance downwards at your shoes, Doyoung following your gaze. “You should be grateful I even made it here with two intact ankles.”

Doyoung eyes your heels, chuckling lightly to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he looks at you with a satisfied smile on his face. “We should go in before we’re too late,” he suggests with a dip of his head towards the entrance of the theatre.

You mumble a quiet, “Whatever,” under your breath before you start heading towards the theatre ingress, Doyoung closely following behind you.

The theatre stands majestically. Every single element of it meticulously ornate, as is the rest of the architecture in the city, but this truly was something else. Its facade is adorned with intricate columns and statues sculpted to perfection. The golden lights illuminate the archways between the sculptures, leading to the interior. Every detail of the design echoed a timeless charm and glamour.

You’ve passed by this theatre more than a handful of times, but it’s your first time actually going inside. 

“What are we watching, anyway?” You turn your head around to voice, being cautious as you climb the steps leading to the open doors.

“You’ll see,” is all Doyoung responds back with.

It’s your turn to follow behind Doyoung as he hands the tickets to the man standing next to the entrance doors. You glance down at the tickets as the doorman studies them briefly before welcoming the both of you inside.

You give him a polite smile as you pass by, still following Doyoung. You make up the couple of steps between you and Doyoung so that you’re walking parallel to him.

“Swan Lake? Really?”

Doyoung smiles at you gently, “It’s a classic for a reason.”

Three beautifully devastating hours later, the ballet finishes. And Doyoung was right, it is a classic for a reason. No matter how many times you watch Swan Lake, it still manages to completely beguile you. The ballerina they casted for the main role was incredible, undeniably so. It’s then that you begin to question if you should’ve came here tonight.  All that it seemed to do was make you doubt whether or not you can give a performance half as enchanting as hers.

You and Doyoung are walking silently next to each other in streets illuminated by nothing but the warm glow of the lampposts. He insisted on walking you home, though he lives in the other direction.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Doyoung utters after a prolonged silence. He steps under the gleam of one of the lamps, highlighting the sharpness of his features as he looks back at you.

The mellow breeze of the night blows softly against you. “They were good.”

“We can do better,” he follows, resulting in you cracking a small smile.

“Cocky.”

“No—Just confident.”

“Fine, overconfident then.” 

He takes a big step ahead, balancing on one foot as he tilts his head to catch a glimpse of your face, forcing you to look at him. “And what’s wrong with that? I believe in us.”

Soon enough, the two of you arrive in front of your apartment complex. The chill in the night lingers in the air between the two of you. You mumble a quiet, “So,” under your breath, disguised as a sigh.

Stuffing your hands inside the pockets of your jacket, you rock forwards onto your toes. You suck in a long breath. “Thanks for the date,” you make it a point to highlight the sarcasm in your tone, but really, you were just trying to see his reaction.

Doyoung, however, doesn’t buy your facade. His eyebrows tick up and his eyes glisten with a hint of amusement. “A date, huh?”

“That was a little something called a joke,” you quickly follow.

“Well,” he leans forward an inch or so closer to your face. “Joking or not, we can’t end the perfect date without a kiss,” he mutters lowly as he looks into your eyes. 

You stare back at him, frozen. Your heart beats faster and faster with every second that he has his eyes on you. He raises an eyebrow, waiting for any sign from you.

Inching ever so slowly towards him, you drop your gaze onto his lips. Softly, you press a gentle peck onto him. When you lean back and open your eyes again, he’s wearing the faintest trace of a smile on his face that you’re sure has already burned its image into your mind.

“You should really find funnier things to joke about,” Doyoung utters. “Good night,” he whispers as he’s about to take a step back from you.

“Wait,” you reach out and grab ahold of his wrist. There’s an eagerness in your voice that you regret as soon as you spoke aloud. Doyoung looks at your hand wrapped around him, then up at you, causing you to loosen your grip. You know you’re probably going to regret this but—“It’s still early. Do you want to stay for a drink?” Your head and your heart has never worked against each other like this. You regretted it as soon as you made the offer, but your heart was just a beat faster than your mind tonight. 

There’s a brief moment of quiet where you’re sure he would say ‘no.’ But instead, he looks down at the ground, biting back his bottom lip before nodding along. “Sure,” Doyoung agrees with an easy shrug.

You lead him into the lobby of your complex silently. The air only seems to thicken with every second that you spend with him by your side, and it doesn’t help that the lift takes forever to arrive. You step inside, your heels clicking against the marble floor, and Doyoung follows along. 

He watches your every movement, from your pressing of the elevator buttons to you leaning back against the banister along the walls. You catch his eyes, and he doesn’t even try to hide his observing you.

A chuckle catches in your throat, “What?”

“What?” He echoes you with a certain smugness in his expression.

The lift stops right in time and the doors slide open. You let your eyes linger on Doyoung’s as you walk past him to exit into the hallway. Pulling out your keys from your pockets, you instinctually unlock your door in one swift motion and let yourself and Doyoung in.

Your arm reaches out to the side to flick the kitchen lights on. Stepping out of your heels, you slip off your jacket at the same time, throwing it onto the chair by the door. “Red or white?” You ask Doyoung, who’s slowly taking his own jacket off and setting it down on top of yours. 

You open the cupboard to where you store all your wines, scanning through your options. Doyoung sidles up to you, looking up at the cupboard himself. Then, you make the mistake of turning your head. 

He reaches his hand onto the handle of the cabinet, boxing you in between him and the wall. His gaze is fixed on the bottles, as if he’s really studying through each of them right now. The top buttons of his dress shirt are undone, the collar slightly crooked. A hum sounds from him, reverberating in the close distance between your bodies. His neck catches a sheen from the city lights filtering through your balcony doors behind you. And it’s only then you realise you’d just about made the biggest mistake of your life.

He angles his head downwards to look at you, an oh-so-innocent expression scrawled all over his face. “What do you think?” He asks with a feigned cluelessness in the lift of his brows.

You catch a subtle hint of his cologne—which was probably more effective than any other bottle that you had up in that cupboard in making you drunk. “What do I think?” you breathe out. Doyoung tilts his head towards the cabinet, but the look in his eyes told you he had no intention of opening up any of the bottles.

Doyoung drops his hand from the handle onto the edge of the countertop as he takes a step closer towards you. One step. And he’s cornered you between himself and the glass doors to the balcony.

“That’s what I asked, wasn’t it?” His voice is low and sultry as his eyes study each and every detail of your face.

For the last time tonight, you try to still the pounding in your chest, but it was clear that your attempts proved futile. “I think…” you start slowly, lightly tracing the tips of your fingers from up his hips to his collarbone. “Fuck the wine.”

Your fingers grab onto the silky fabric of his collar, pulling him close. His lips crash onto yours in an instant. Once you’ve given him the green light, there’s nothing holding him back. 

Doyoung’s hands roams every inch of your body as he kisses you as if you are the very air he needs to breathe. One of his hands grip tightly onto the flesh of your thigh, fingertips digging into the sides of it.

You wrap your arms around his neck, holding and keeping him close to you. For a moment, it felt like deja vu with the way he’s kissing you. So deeply and fervently. You throw your head back to catch a quick breath, but Doyoung doesn’t let even the tiniest fraction of a second slip away from him. 

He attaches his lips to your neck, leaving a trail of his kisses down onto your collarbones. His hand covers the small of your back, arching it into him as he sucks on your skin. 

You move your arms down behind your back, hands searching blindly for something. Then, a noise clicks in between your panting and the sound of Doyoung leaving desperate kisses on your skin. Doyoung pulls back slightly with a darkness in his eyes, as if he knows exactly what you just did. A smirk overtakes his lips, quickly taking yours into his again.

“You want everyone to know what we’re doing up here?” He mutters breathily in between quick kisses. God. You can feel his smirk against your lips when he envelopes you, twisting your stomach in ways you never thought possible. “I don’t mind.”

The click was the sound of you unlocking the handles. He takes a step backwards, pulling you along with him as he swings both doors to your balcony open. Immediately, a breeze brushes against your skin that only adds to the butterflies in your stomach. 

Doyoung presses you up against the cold, iron railing of the balcony, prompting a quiet ‘shit’ from you. The contrast of his warm palms on your thighs and the icy metal on your back sends chills down your spine.

His hands inch higher and higher up your legs, slipping under the chiffon of your dress. Meanwhile, his lips are never parted from you for more than a few seconds at a time. You open your arms, hands each gripping the top rail of the banister so tightly that your knuckles are beginning to change colours.

Doyoung moves your leg up, wrapping it around his waist. He trails his lips again over the delicate skin of your neck and chest. When the neckline of your dress gets in the way, he simply had no choice but to move onto the next part of you that’s uncovered by fabric.

Doyoung kneels down onto his knees. As he does so, his grip on your leg remained steady as he lapped it over his shoulder. He presses gentle pecks onto your inner thigh as he continues to lift the hem of your dress up, unveiling more of you bit by bit at a time.

Patience was never your strong suit. Doyoung, however, seemed to be the complete opposite. He takes his time peppering kisses all over the skin of your thigh as anticipation builds up within you. For a moment, you forget that you’re out on the balcony, but you’re reeled back into the present as another subtle gust of wind catches itself in your hair.

You bite down on your lip as Doyoung’s mouth inches closer and closer to the hem of your underwear. The anticipation practically pooling in between your legs. He lifts the dress up slightly above your waist, holding it in place as he grabs onto your hips with his big palms.

He leans in closer, moving excruciatingly slowly. You can feel the warmth of his breath so, so painfully close to you. He traces a finger along the lace trim, then softly presses his lips onto it—half of it touching fabric, the other half touching your bare skin. You wrap the leg you have thrown over his shoulder tighter around him at the sensation, or the lack thereof. 

Doyoung slides two fingers under the hem. He’s a tease. He runs the tips of his fingers downwards along the edge. Doyoung looks up at you watching him expectantly, smirking at the sight of you, breathing so heavily. He bunches the fabric together, pushing it to the side, and immediately, the chill in the night jolts you.

This is remedied by the presence of Doyoung’s lips on your clit. He first plants a gentle kiss, then, doing what he did on your neck and your chest, he swirls his tongue over it. His humming adding to the pressure building steadily within you.

You purse your lips together, desperate to not make a noise, and your leg tries to clamp itself shut.

Doyoung pulls away, licking his lips before tutting his tongue. “You wanted everyone to hear, didn’t you? That’s why you opened these doors?” He presses the tip of his middle finger up onto your folds, drawing ovals as he spreads the wetness all over your cunt. “Don’t get shy now.”

He latches his lips onto your clit again, and without notice, pushes that very finger up into you. The surprise of his movements forces a moan out of you, one that you couldn’t suppress.

Steadily, he slides in another finger, continuing to go deeper and deeper, —threatening more and more noises from you.

You let go of the rail with one of your hands, unable to hold back from the aching neediness you feel between you. Your fingers find themselves entangled in Doyoung’s hair, drawing him closer to you as you begin to move your hips against the friction of his touch.

He mumbles contently against you, “That’s it, princess.” Humming approvingly as you continue to grind yourself down into him. The entire length of his fingers disappear inside you and gradually, he pulls them out before picking up his pace.

Still, you’re straining your whines and whimpers, as if you’re embarrassed for him to hear them. You throw your head back as he begins to slide his fingers in and out of you at an increasing pace, a strangled moan catching in your breath.

He mumbles again, “Don’t hold back for me.”

The next morning, you wake up in your bed. Pillows scattered over the floor, sheets sprawled out on top of you. You turn, facing the other side of the bed only to find it empty. A haze covers your memory of the night before, as if the events have been frosted over, sealing last night to the you in those moments only. 

A sudden pounding plagues your head and you begin to feel the ache all over your body. You shut your eyelids tightly, trying to will away the pain searing through your muscles, but it doesn’t work.

Sliding on your slippers, you shuffle your way out of your bedroom only to find your entire apartment empty. There’s a sinking feeling in your chest for a brief moment before your eye catches something on your kitchen countertop. A note.

You sidle over, and immediately you can recognise the paper that the note’s written on. The neat handwriting on it read, “I’m off to practice. I made some breakfast for you with what you had, hope that’s alright,” with a small smiley face on the bottom corner.

You glance back at where the note was, and sure enough, there’s a plate of pancakes sitting on your countertop.

Taking a deep breath, you put the note back down. The sudden need to decipher and ascertain what last night means overtakes you, and you know just what you need to do.

You head back into your bedroom, throwing sheets and pillows all over the place to look for your phone. After scouring around for 5 solid minutes, you find it tucked into your bed frame.

Somewhat half-awake, you scroll through your contacts to find Karina’s name. The tone dials three times before she picks up.

There was no way that you wouldn’t tell her what happened between you and Doyoung—you could only keep things from her for so long. After Doyoung had left you that day in the canteen, it took you a little over 24 hours to spill everything to Karina. She was neither surprised or impressed.

“How’d it go?” She answers the phone, no greetings or anything.

You take in a deep breath, certain that Karina can probably hear you. “I don’t know,” you blurt out truthfully.

“Good-you-don’t-know, or bad-you-don’t-know?”

“Good? I guess? Karina…” You sigh, for probably the dozenth time since you’ve woken up this morning.

Karina waits a few seconds before she speaks again, “Tell me everything.”

You recap how the night went, leaving some details out when it got to the later part of things. Though you can’t see her, you can visualise her reactions just from her squealing over the phone.

“This method acting thing is really working, huh?” She chuckles to herself.

“No!” You rub your palm over your forehead. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he likes me or if I like him. It’s… weird.”

“Be so serious right now,” Karina says bluntly, “You’re kidding me.”

“What if it’s just physical?”

“Is it just physical for you?

“No,” you’re quick to answer that, “I don’t think so.” Karina stays silent for a moment or two, and you can picture her eyebrows shooting up in that familiar way when she’s trying to prove you wrong.

“Listen,” Karina sighs, “Friends who fuck for fun don’t cook each other breakfast. And go out on dates. I’m sure it’s a thrill to have anyone’s hands on you,” The sarcasm heavily blanketed her last sentence.

“It wasn’t a date,” you weakly try to object while thinking over her words.

“Yeah, just two people hanging out casually ending in a hook-up. Not a date. Just saying, that’s never happened to us before.”

Karina spends some more time trying to open your eyes to the truth that you were so repellent to, to no avail. 

By the end of the phone call, you let yourself fall onto your bed, mind more muddled up than before. Not exactly what you hoped for in this situation.

It’s been exactly 4 days since that fateful night. The date, as Karina kept referring to it as. You haven’t had the opportunity to see Doyoung this week, yet, which, thanks to partner practice, will change today. As soon as you step through the door to the studio, to be specific.

The moment you do, you hear a voice squealing out your name. Jerking your head upwards, you catch the eyes of Colette who’s making a beeline towards you.

“So, how was it?” She asks excitedly, catching you off guard for multiple reasons. 1, she’s never that cheery in the mornings. 2, you have no idea what ‘it’ is.

“How was…?” You trail off, letting her fill in the blanks of her query.

“The date!” Colette exclaims. And in the corner of your eye, you can see a head snap sharply in the direction of the two of you in the front of the room. You look over, and Doyoung’s standing there, in the middle of rolling up his long sleeves. Your gaze locks with his for a second or two, and a sudden embarrassment burns within your eyes that you’re not sure if you need to hide from him. You look back at Colette, her anticipation evident in her features.

“It was delightful,” Doyoung answers from across the room, rolling up the other sleeve. “Is that enough gossip for you today?” He says pointedly.

Colette widens her eyes at you. She leans in to your right side, putting her hand on your elbow as she mutters quietly into your ear, “I asked him earlier before you got here and he wouldn’t say anything.” She pulls away from you, “Did you have a nice time?”

You give her a polite nod with a small smile and she seems satisfied enough with that answer, mirroring your grin. Colette drops her hand from your elbow, letting you settle your stuff down.

Doyoung makes his way up to the centre, where Colette stands facing him. You shoot a quick glance back at them, a slight nervousness bubbling up inside you as they mumble among themselves, too quiet for you to make out anything they’re saying. As you’re pulling your pointe shoes out of your bag, Colette suddenly remarks again, “And to think you wanted to drop the role because you didn’t think you’d have chemistry with him, Y/N.”

You look back again at the two of them. Doyoung is facing away from you, stretching his ankles on the floor. You flash a tight-lipped smile at Colette before standing up and joining them.

Practice ended earlier than usual today—you’re not complaining about it though. Despite you never going home until later into the night, you’re still thankful that at least you have a slightly longer break today before you start your individual sessions again.

You dig through your bag for your purse, wanting to maybe get a snack or two at the canteen. You’re fishing around, and instead of your purse, you find your box of cigarettes. Your arms freeze momentarily. Flipping over the tab, you see that there’s only one left, having not touched them since the last time Doyoung caught you smoking and being his usual irritating self, chided you for it.

A small curve forcibly tugs on the corners of your mouth. You fold the tab back over, burying the box into a pocket inside the bag.

That evening, Doyoung freely waltzes into your practice room whilst you’re in the middle of practicing your turns. You haven’t been able to execute them as well as you had that one time, and you’re determined to perfect it.

Leisurely, as if he owned the place, Doyoung coasts through the door. He leans against the barre in front of the mirror as he takes a sip of his water from his bottle, eyes fixed on you in midst of a set of pirouettes. 

“I thought you got those down last time,” Doyoung speaks right as you land, appearing to be perfectly balanced despite the blur over your vision. He continues, “You can’t work yourself to the bone.”

“Once is a fluke,” you take a deep breath in.

“You’re plenty skilled.” He treads lightly towards you.

You look up at him coming closer, leaning your torso over to even your breathing again. “What? You’re done with practice so you’re here to distract me?”

Doyoung joins you in the middle of the room, taking a swig of his water. “I mean, nothing better to do.”

You plant your hands on the sides of your hips, eyes still locked on his. A beat passes by.

You drop your eyes from him, “Thanks for breakfast the other day, by the way.” You lift your foot from the ground slightly, pretending to be stretching it just so you don’t have to look at him.

“You’re welcome,” his tone is indecipherable.

The silence between the two of you quickly becomes awkward for you, desperate for some way to escape it.

“About the other night…” Doyoung’s voice softly begins as he sets the bottle in his hand on the floor.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” you reply trying to sound as nonchalant as you can, leaning your back into the wall of the pillar in the middle of the room. Truth be told, you were the furthest thing from nonchalant, but you couldn’t afford for him to know that.

Doyoung closes the gap between the two of you. He looks down at you, a hint of desperation in his eyes. “Okay, we don’t have to talk about it,” he repeats. He turns around so that his back is up against the pillar as well. “But we should do something about it.”

You glance over at him looking into the reflections of the two of you. In that moment, you’re not entirely sure what he’s hinting at. Then, you catch a glimpse of his hand, and suddenly your breath hitches. Without him even needing to say another word, your chest begins to burn, thanks to your sudden recollection that kicks in right at this moment. “Something like…?”

Doyoung pulls his eyes away from the mirror and onto you, watching as you take step and step closer, until you’re positioned in front of him between his legs. His gaze grows more intense as he continues to watch you, his smirk too. “That’s not quite what I meant, but I’m not complaining.” He finds himself putting his hand onto your hips without even thinking about it, as if it comes naturally to him. To be fair, he has already done so multiple times earlier in the day during your session, and it took all the will in you to focus on the choreography instead of his hands on you.

Your palms travel up against his chest, fingers clasping together at the back of his neck. You tilt your head slightly, “Really? This wasn’t what you had in mind?”

He purses his lips together briefly, and you can see his Adam’s apple bob slightly as he gulped. “You're right. Let’s not talk.”

In a split second, your lips were pressed against each others. By now, the feeling of his lips on yours felt familiar enough that you’re sure your features have been moulded to fit his own. The softness of his lips contrasted by the pure desire driving his eagerness is a deadly combination. 

Your fingers inch their way into his hair, and his pulling on your waist. His palms slide downwards, and effortlessly, Doyoung hoists you up into his arms with your legs wrapping tight around him. 

The sudden movement catches you by surprise, making your lips part as you gasped gently. Doyoung settles his hands in the nook of your knees, and with you around him, he walks the two of you to the wall nearby, setting you down on top of the wooden barre.

His fingers push the strands of your hair back as he slides them up along your jawline. Your entire body pressed firmly against the wall, Doyoung buries himself in the crook of your neck. His hand caresses your cheek as he laid down kiss after kiss on your skin.

The whole time, you’re letting stifled hums and whines out, and every time you did, you can feel Doyoung smirking against you. You can’t help but to pull his hips closer to you with every second that goes by, desperate to have something. Your fingertips work their way around to the front of his waistband, hooking a thumb inside. If he didn’t sense your agitation before, he certainly did now. 

Doyoung pulls himself away from your neck. The visual of the low lighting combined with his disheveled hair, courtesy to you, was enough to drive you insane.

“You’re not very patient, are you?” He mutters as he runs a hand up and down your thigh tauntingly.

Can he blame you? Your mind has been driven to a place where you can’t even think straight anymore, only wanting to have your way in that instant. You bite down on your bottom lip, and slowly, with your eyes locked, you pull back the waistband of Doyoung’s sweatpants.

His eyes are filled with a deep carnal desire. Placed under his astute observation, you unhook your thumb from his sweats and instead, begin to peel off your leotard one strap at a time. He follows the movement of your hand as it slides the thin straps off of your shoulders, revealing your chest to him.

He hangs his head back, eyes closed, almost like he’s trying to not look at you. A quiet ‘fuck’ slips out from under his breath. You continue to strip off the rest of your leotard along with the thin, chiffon skirt that you had wrapped tightly around your waist.

Doyoung brings himself to look at you again, now with your entire torso bare. “Fuck, okay.” He sucks in the hollows of his cheeks as he brusquely pulls on the bunched up fabric and slides them off of you entirely.

You shoot him a quick look and he immediately pulls his shirt off with one of his hands. He takes your lips into his fervently as the tip of his thumb grazes against the underside of your breast repeatedly.

Your hand travel down to the front of his trousers and not as discreetly as you’d thought. Doyoung groans lightly as you palm his bulge, even biting down on your lip when you apply more pressure.

“Okay, okay,” he whispers breathily, grabbing your wrist to direct it away before pushing down his sweats.

You try to keep your eyes on him but even in the bottom of your eyeline, you can see it spring up, hard and red. Doyoung wraps his long fingers around his cock, giving it a quick couple of strokes as he grunts lowly. 

The aching desire within you increases tenfold. And you couldn’t resist looking down, watching his hand travelling all the way up and down his length. A spark of frustration ignites within you, wanting desperately for him to just be inside of you right this second. 

Doyoung watches you watching him. He tries to stifle a chuckle, which catches your attention. “If you’re just going to jerk off, don’t waste my time here.” The movement of his arm slows down slightly, but his smirk grows wider.

“I would never want to waste your time,” he mutters tantalisingly.

Doyoung holds a firm grip around the base of his length. He looks down, having to stop himself drooling from the sight in front of him. He taps the head of his cock on your cunt, catching you by surprise and making you clench your thighs around him harder, which does nothing but elicit a chuckle from him.

Doyoung tightens the grip he has around himself, trying to still his shaking hand. And not being able to hold himself back any longer, he gently pushes himself into you, knocking the air out of your lungs. Your nails find themselves dug into the skin of his back as he drives further and further in. 

Your lips are parted, but you’re holding your breath. Doyoung’s gaze falls upon your face, watching every slight movement in your features as he pushes the last of himself into you. And though he hasn’t even done anything, yet, just the sheer size of him inside exhausts you. You rest your forehead against his bare shoulder, needing him to hold you steady with his arms. 

He plants a gentle kiss on the back of your head, “You’re so fucking pretty like this.”

And when you think your body couldn’t feel any weaker, your thighs tense up at the sound of his words. 

Doyoung lays his fingers on the nape of your neck, gently lifting your head and forcing you to look at him just inches away from your face. “You okay?” he mouths, earning an eager nod from you. You’re met with a small, pleasant smile from him at your response. 

He slowly drags himself against the tightness of your walls, groans catching in his throat. 

Doyoung begins to thrust his hips forwards and back, filling you up with his cock again and again. You let yourself wholly collapse into his chest standing up tall against you. The friction very quickly proves to be not enough for you, causing you to move your hips in unison with his.

A string of curses and moans falls from Doyoung’s lips as he picks up the pace. His hands also tighten around you, to steady himself or to steady you, it’s hard to say. He, once again, buries himself into your neck, panting into your skin and leaving subtle bite marks on it.

You snake a hand around to your clit, rubbing in synchrony to the rhythm of his hips. The stimulation overwhelms you, your mind solely focused on the desire to cum. Your head is propped up on Doyoung’s shoulder, and every time you moan into his ears, his heart skips a beat and he thrusts harder into you.

He mumbles your name over and over again, followed by a series of ‘fuck’s and ‘shit’s. His breathing, as well as yours, become rugged and uneven.

You can feel the pressure steadily building up within you, the circling of your fingertips becoming more violent by the second.

The bubbling of anticipation inside of you brings you closer and closer to the edge. Your body threatens to tremble, even when propped up by the strength of Doyoung's arms.

“I’m so close,” you manage to whimper next to Doyoung’s ear. And unbeknownst to you, that completely unravels him. Desperation taking over, he plunges himself deeper and harder into you.

The sudden change in tempo almost urges you to sink your teeth down into his shoulder. Your fingers are beginning to cramp but you’re so close to your orgasm, it’s basically within reach.

You lean your forehead onto Doyoung’s shoulder as weariness begins to take over your muscles. You just needed a little bit more to push you over the edge, and the sight of him ramming his cock inside of you made you fall apart.

Your walls clench so tightly around Doyoung that it’s physically hard for him to continue thrusting into you. Even if you tried to quiet yourself down, the overwhelming pleasure takes over any logical mind and you’re practically screaming out his name. Preoccupied with your own pleasure, you hardly noticed the stiffening of Doyoung’s arms around you, until you felt the warm ropes of his cum threatening to spill out.

For a moment, the whole world seemed to go quiet. Time stopped for a minute or two as your body slowly comes down from such a high. Your chests rise and fall in unison, both desperately panting to collect your breaths again.

You lean your head back against the wall, your half-lidded eyes meeting Doyoung’s. Your lips hang slightly ajar as the thumping of your chest increasingly gets louder and louder in your ears. You rest your forearms on his shoulders, weakly interlocking your fingers together.

You pant. “Do you fuck all your costars like that?” Lazily teasing him with half of a smirk.

Doyoung leans in, still inside of you, unthinkingly pecking the side of your lips.

He whispers into your ear, “Just the one I like.”

END OF ACT III

© misted-dream 2024

[thatapostateboy]

just don't lie to me

Pairing: Marie Hawke x Varric Tethras (with established Marie Hawke x Anders... it's complicated)

Word Count: 1087

Synopsis: on the night before the final battle, Marian demands the truth from her best friend

Prompt: Day Thirteen: Things We Say In The Dark from the Veilbound challenge by @/nympthi and @/citadrells on Twitter

Warnings: references to a big final Veilguard final battle; complete speculation

Crossposted: Here on AO3

“What in the hells in this?”

Varric looked up from the mug of ale he had carried to his room to finish before bed to see Marian striding in through the slammed open door. In her hands, she holds his new crossbow.

“Shit,” he sighed, pushing his drink aside on the desk, spinning in his chair to face her properly, “Y’know it’s rude to go through other people’s belongings.”

“Shut up,” she snapped back, “What is this?”

“I’m going to need something to fight with, I don’t fancy bare knuckle boxing an elven god tomorrow.”

She stared at him, a little stunned that he was still trying to banter with her despite her obvious anger, “Don’t be an asshole. Answer the question.”

He sighed, “It’s late, I think we both need some rest, don’t you?”

He slid from his chair to take the weapon from her hands, but she held tight, staring down at him with barely concealed… anger, confusion, perhaps even desperation, he noted.

She turned the crossbow in her grasp so that he could see the name he’d carved into the side of it.

Marian.

“What does this mean?” she asked, her voice quieter now, and he can feel the warmth of her skin as they both hold the weapon.

“Well, it’s your name, Blackbird,” he said with a tone just a smidge too casual that she relented in frustration, thrusting it hard into his arms.

“All these years and you still can’t be honest with me?”

He heard the edge of tears in the back of her throat, and he almost turned his head away in shame, but urged himself to keep his walls up, as he always had.

“Wasn’t sure Bianca Two had the same ring to it,” he said with a half sighed laugh, but she didn’t smile.

“Why my name?” she asked.

“You’re my best friend,” he told her.

“Bianca wasn’t.”

“She designed the last one,” he pointed out.

“And what input did I have on that contraption?” she challenged.

Everything, he thinks. The entire weapon was inspired by her, the deep red wood it’s crafted from, the Fereldan silverite detailing, the feathers that Davrin carved into the base that he’s pretty sure she hasn’t seen yet.

He looked at her, drunk in the sight of her here, in his room, in the depths of the Fade, at the end of the world. Tomorrow they would face the Evanuris in battle one final time. Either it would be enough, and they would be victorious… or they would all be dead.

He hadn’t wanted her here, had lied about their search for Solas, desperate to keep her safe, to let her live what semblance of a retirement she had earned, back in Ferelden raising her children with Anders. And yet, once she had heard he was in trouble, she’d had Merrill more or less punch a hole into the Crossroads to come find him. And there she had stayed, an acting agent of the Veilguard, Anders as their live-in healer and back up Warden, whilst their twins ran amok in the Dread Wolf’s lair.

The years had been kind to her, despite everything. She looked older, though he had aged gracefully into it, laughter lines etched into her face, a few steaks of grey in her dark locks, loose around her shoulders for once as opposed to the ponytail she had favoured in Kirkwall.

It had always been the assumption that he and Garrett were the closer pair, forever laughing and drinking with each other. But it was her, his Blackbird, that had truly known him all these years. The one who called him out on his bullshit, but his fiercest defender. He had wanted to protect her in turn, from getting involved with Anders, from the Inquisition, from everything happening with the Evanuris.

And yet again, he had failed.

He sighed, shaking his head, “Like I said, it’s late. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

She turned away for a moment and he prayed that she was heading for the door, but she looked back at him.

“The world is ending, Varric, and you still won’t say it?”

“What would you have me say?” he challenged.

“The truth, for once in your damned life.”

He ran a hand through his hair, “Fucking things up with my best friend isn’t the last thing I want to do before I die. I can’t lose this. You, us. So just… drop it.”

“Just drop it? Like we dropped it for years in Kirkwall? Ignored it, said it was nothing? Fuck, part of me thought I’d imagined it, this thing between us. And now, after everything that’s happened, everything that I’ve lost, that we’ve lost, all of this time… and you put my name on your crossbow the night before we face certain death.”

He set the crossbow on his desk, avoiding her gaze, “Blackbird, I-”

“For once in our lives, will you call me by my actual name? Instead of hiding behind that fucking nickname?” she yelled at him before she let out an exasperated sigh, her amber eyes seeking his, “Varric, please. Just be honest with me, with yourself, just this once.”

He wants to, more than anything. To let those final few walls down around her, to bare himself to her heart and soul, to tell her how he feels, how he’s felt it for years. He wants to spend his final few hours in this world with her in his arms, so that he could face whatever end would come for them all with no regrets.

But this isn’t one of his stories.

“And what exactly is it that you want?” he meets her eyes with a hard expression, “You’re married, and you love Anders. What would hearing any of this change, hm? You shouldn’t…” he tried to maintain the hard tone he’d taken, but seeing the way she pulled back from him, he felt it break something deep within his chest, “You shouldn’t be here. Not with me. Not tonight. You should be with your family.”

“You’re right,” she said, taking a step back, putting physical distance between them, “Goodnight Varric.”

He turned his back as she left as he couldn’t bare to watch her walk away. He heard her pause as she reached the doorway, waiting for him to call to her, to stop her, but when he didn’t, she kept going, closing the door behind her.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, sniffing back tears, “Goodnight Marian.”

[gardenschedule]

Perceptions of Paul as calculating & John's paranoia

“McCartney’s mistake, which he now admits, was to seem invulnerable. […] And yet, he says, the contrast between himself and Lennon, so assiduously cultivated by journalists, was a fabrication. “I wasn’t brilliant at school. I was trouble, just like John. I got caned practically every day, and the only exam I ever passed was Spanish. John and I weren’t black and white, although people took John, for all his aggression, to be the good guy, because he showed his warts. I’ve only just realized, after all this time, that people like to see warts. It makes them sympathetic. I’d always though that, in order to be liked, you had to be unwarty.””

Living with The Beatles’ legacy, the smears that Lennon left behind… and the battle to win my babies back, The Times Newspaper, Monday January 4, 1982.

Paul was the easiest to talk to. He had such energy and such keenness and, unlike John, enjoyed being liked, at least most of the time. I don't see this as a criticism; John himself could be very cruel about Paul's puppy dog eagerness to please. The irony was, and still is, that John's awfulness to people, his rudeness and cruelty, made people like him more, whereas Paul's genuine niceness made many people suspicious, accusing him of being calculating. Paul does look ahead, seeing what might happen, working out the effect of certain actions, but he often ends up tying himself in knots, not necessarily getting what he thought he wanted. I think there is some insecurity in Paul's nature, which makes him try so hard, work so hard. It also means he can be easily hurt by criticism, which was something that just washed over John.

Hunter Davies, Western Mail: The Beatles. (April 9th, 2004)

Even Paul’s immaculate manners could not thaw her. ‘Oh, yes, he was well-mannered–too well-mannered. He was what we call in Liverpool “talking posh” and I thought he was taking the mickey out of me. I thought “He’s a snake-charmer all right,” John’s little friend, Mr Charming. I wasn’t falling for it. After he’d gone, I said to John, “What are you doing with him? He’s younger than you… and he’s from Speke!”’ After that, when Paul appeared, she would always tell John sarcastically that his ‘little friend’ was here. ‘I used to tease John by saying “chalk and cheese”, meaning how different they were,’ she remembered, ‘and John would start hurling himself around the room like a wild dervish shouting “Chalkandcheese! Chalkandcheese!” with this stupid grin on his face.’

Philip Norman, Paul McCartney: The Life. (2016)

“He always suspected me. He accused me of scheming to buy over Northern Songs without telling him. I was thinking of something to invest in, and Peter Brown said what about Northern Songs, invest in yourself, so I bought a few shares, about 1,000 I think. John went mad, suspecting some plot. Then he bought some himself. He was always thinking I was cunning and devious. That’s my reputation, someone who’s charming, but a clever lad. “It happened the other day at Ringo’s wedding. I was saying to Cilia [Black] that I liked Bobby [her husband]. That’s all I said. Bobby’s a nice bloke. Ah, but what do you REALLY think Paul? You don’t mean that, do you, you’re getting at something? I was being absolutely straight. But she couldn’t believe it. No one ever does. They think I’m calculating all the time.

Paul and Hunter Davies, 1981

In the wake of his death you didn’t tour for most of the ‘80s. People suggested that you were scared to go on the road. Was that true? No. People speculate about anything. They always credit me with motives I haven’t even dreamed of. It’s interesting, the way they sort of perceive my life and analyse it for me. In that case, I never thought about touring much. People used to say, “Oh, it’s 10 years since you’ve toured.” I’d go, “Is it? Y’know, I’m not counting.” That’s all that was, really. I don’t know why. Maybe I didn’t fancy it.

The Q Interview, 2007

Astrid in Germany was always a bit suspicious of Paul at first, though his relationship with Stu was also bound up in this. 'It used to frighten me that someone could be so nice all the time. Which is silly. It's ridiculous to feel at home with nasty people, just because you feel that at least you know where you are with them. It's silly to be wary of nice people.'

The Beatles (Updated Edition) (Hunter Davies)

Paul is the easiest to get to know for an outsider, but in the end he is the hardest to get to know. There is a feeling that he is holding things back, that he is one jump ahead, aware of the impression he is giving. He is self-conscious, which the others are not. John doesn't care, either way, what people think. Ringo is too adult to think about such things, and George in many ways isn't conscious. He is above it all.

The Beatles (Updated Edition) (Hunter Davies)

Paul today is still the public Beatle, giving interviews at fairly regular intervals, being open and honest about himself and his past, his worries and his pleasures. Naturally, as ever, there are people who suspect his motives, putting him down for being too charming. Paul may be a bit of an actor, acting the part of Paul McCartney, the charming superstar, still loved by every mum, which can make him sound rather prissy at times, but I believe he does tell the truth about himself.

The Beatles (Updated Edition) (Hunter Davies)

“My problem is to me, I come over as this very together guy, always got his finger on top of everything: the man with no problems. School – a doddle, got all the exams. This is the sort of image of me. Actually, I had murder getting through exams, like I was saying about being on tour during my GCEs. I was like the kid who was getting the cane. Just like John was, but he [Phillip Norman] makes me the very shrewd, always-going-to-succeed guy, and John is the kind of cute, working-class hero. In actual fact though, John was just as shrewd and ambitious as I was. What does me in is he adds to this image I’ve got; I resent that, because I know I’m not that, and I know I’ve never been that.

Paul McCartney’s thoughts from 1983 on Phillip Norman’s ‘Shout!’

The funny thing is, when Apple [started], everything was laid out on the table, it’s like a Monopoly game. We saw who had what. I suddenly had more Northern Song shares than anybody, and it was like, oops, sorry. John was like, “You bastard, you’ve been buying behind my back.” John saw everything like a Harold Robbins movie, you know, which it was. He’s not incorrect. I couldn’t get over the fact that we were really involved in all this. I think to this day, he’ll not understand. I don’t think he would accept right now, my naïveté in it. I think he still suspects me of trying to take over Apple. He still suspects that when I offered the Eastmans as [managers] instead of Allen Klein, he naturally assumed that I would be taken care of better than the others, and that the Eastmans could never be moral enough to be equal in their judgment and do the Beatles’ thing rather than Paul’s thing. I think they still suspect to this day.

The point I was trying to illustrate is that it wasn’t so much John being a bastard as it was his being suspicious towards me, always being suspicious towards me. There was Northern Song shares. And I swear on any holy book you want, I know he won’t believe it, but I know for sure that I didn’t buy them with the view to— If I was really trying to do it, I could have bought an awful lot more. So it does hurt a little bit that there’s someone who still thinks, like, I’m out to get them, or that I always was. That’s one of the nice things about it— It’s a pity [I never said to John, “Fuck off, I’m not trying to do it”—and never was]. But he knows I was kind of— We were behind the scenes, and we did a few little [things] that we had to do, and our ambitions, and it was never a kind of terrifying skeletons in the closet. It was always just normal—but, uh, they …

All You Need Is Love – Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

SG: Were the other Beatles anti-Linda? PMcC: Uh, yeah. I should think so. Like we were anti-Yoko. But you know John and Yoko, you can see it now, the way to get their friendship is to do everything the way they require it. To do anything else is how to not get their friendship. This is still how it is with John and Yoko. I know that if I absolutely lie down on the ground and just do everything like they say and laugh at all their jokes and don’t expect my jokes to ever get laughed at, and don’t expect any of my opinions ever to carry any weight whatsoever, if I’m willing to do all that, then we can be friends. But if I have an opinion that differs from theirs, then I’m a sort of an enemy. And naturally, paint myself a villain with a big mustache on, because to the ends of the earth, that’s how they both see me. They’re very suspicious people [John and Yoko], and one of the things that hurt me out of the whole affair, was that we’d come all that way together, and out of either a fault in my character, or out of lack of understanding in their character, I’d still never managed to impress upon them that I wasn’t trying to screw them. I don’t think that I have to this day.

All You Need Is Love – Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

I was never out to screw him, never. He could be a maneuvering swine, which no one ever realized. Now since the death he’s became Martin Luther Lennon. But that really wasn’t him either. He wasn’t some sort of holy saint. He was still really a debunker. “For ten years together he took my songs apart. He was paranoiac about my songs. We have great screaming sessions about them.

Paul and Hunter Davies, 1981

SALEWICZ: Oh, he was presumably very paranoid. PAUL: I think so. I mean, he warned me off Yoko once. You know, “Look, this is my chick!” ’Cause he knew my reputation. I mean, we knew each other rather well. And um, I felt… I just said, “Yeah, no problem.” But I did sort of feel he ought to have known I wouldn’t, but. You know, he was going through “I’m just a jealous guy”. He was a paranoid guy. And he was into drugs. Heavy.

September, 1986 (MPL Communications, London)

Miles says, “I think Jane was always a bit irritated by John. Because he was so acerbic and difficult to get on with. And paranoid. He didn’t make life easy. I suppose it’s a sort of rapier wit, but it was usually just plain ordinary rudeness. There was nothing special about it.”

Paul McCartney profile for FAME Magazine (March 1990)

“They [Lennon & McCartney] saw each other again in 1977. The Lennons and McCartneys ate dinner together at Le Cirque, Paul’s favourite French restaurant in New York. John regretted going; it was a loathsome night. Paul and Linda blathered on and on about how perfect their lives were, how they had everything they’d ever wanted, and how they were as happy as they’d ever been. Something very paranoid suddenly occurred to John. Maybe Lorraine Boyle was spying on him for the McCartneys! He woke up the next morning still feeling disturbed; he consulted the Oracle. Swan assured him that Paul and Linda were frustrated and unsatisfied. Their marriage was in trouble, he said, predicting it would break up within the year. Lately Swan’s visions had been astonishingly accurate. Relieved, John began composing a song—a little ditty, really, that would never be released—in praise of the Oracle’s powers. But he still couldn’t understand why Paul and Linda had been together for as long as they had. There appeared to be a psychic connection between John and Paul. Every time McCartney was in town, John would hear Paul’s music in his head.”

Robert Rosen, Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, (2000)

JOHN: […..] And he’s (Jagger) goin’ on about “he never calls. Do you think he ever calls? He never calls me. And he keeps changing his phone number all the time… And he’s hiding behind the kid.” I was hurt by it! You know… The fact that… A, I never call anybody. It’s not pride, it’s just that I never, ever have. REPORTER: Why? JOHN: I never call the other Beatles, I never call anybody. They always call me. REPORTER: Why? JOHN: Cos I’m self-involved! I’m paranoid, too. I don’t like phones… There’s nobody on this earth ever got a call from me that isn’t related, probably. Or a very old friend…

Sept 1980 – John

“Yoko was an extremist and was even more intense than John taking any idea or comment of his to the limit. If, for example, he complained about any of his fellow Beatles she would hint that that Beatle had always been an enemy implying that John should never deal with that person again. Her extreme positions fascinated John and help him take his mind off himself but when she became self-involved and paranoid herself -her paranoia usually dealt with her career, her fame and the fact that even though she had always been famous everyone conspired to keep her from getting even more famous- he had no place to turn. His insecurity about his solo career, his childhood, his relationships with the other Beatles, the way the public perceived Yoko overwhelmed him and he became more and more involved with drugs.”

May Pang, Loving John (1984)

John was lucky. He got all his hurt out. I’m a different sort of a personality. There’s still a lot inside me that’s trying to work it out. And that’s why it’s good to see that wedding-funeral bit, because I started to think, ‘Wait a minute, this is someone who’s going over the top. This is paranoia manifesting itself.’ And so my feeling is just like it was at the time, which is like, He’s my buddy, I don’t really want to do anything to hurt him, or his memory, or anything. I don’t want to hurt Yoko. But, at the same time, it doesn’t mean that I understand what went down.

Paul McCartney: An Innocent Man? (October, 1986)

Some three year later, during the making of Abbey Road, Lennon installed a twin bed in the studio so that Yoko, recuperating from a car crash, could survey proceedings and pass comment though a mike he had suspended over her. The other Beatles positioned themselves around the room as best they could. Yoko would later tell Paul that if, for any reason, he’d seemed to be standing too close to her, all hell would break loose when John got her home. Lennon, she said, was ‘very paranoid’ like that.

McCartney by Chris Sandford

But we were actually quite supportive. Not supportive enough, you know; it would have been nice to have been really supportive because then we could look back and say, “Weren’t we really terrific?” But looking back on it, I think we were okay. We were never really that mean to them. But I think a lot of the time John suspected meanness where it wasn’t really there.

Paul McCartney, interview w/ Chris Salewicz for Musician: Tug of war – Paul McCartney wants to lay his demons to rest. (October, 1986)

I just read about this thing that’s going on sale at Sotheby’s – this Apple booklet with John’s comments in the margins in his own handwriting. It is so bitter. Like, there’s a picture of Paul and Linda’s wedding – and John’s crossed out “wedding” and written in “funeral.” I think it starts to tell there. Another caption says, “Paul goes to Hollywood” – and then he’s apparently written in the margin, “To cut Yoko and John out of the film.” He often thought that we were tryin’ to cut Yoko out of things, to cut her out of Let It Be. I suppose we were, in some degree; because she wasn’t in the Beatles, and it was a Beatles film, and it wasn’t absolutely necessary to have long footage of her in there. She certainly was in there, but obviously they felt she should be in there a little more. I bent over backward trying to see John’s point of view. I still bend over backward trying to not malign him.”

Paul McCartney, Rolling Stone, September 11th, 1986

[aquaquadrant]

thoughts on the new character bios/interviews that the dreamworks twitter posted below the cut, as promised

so right off the bat, i’m trying to figure out when these interviews took place. it seems to be along the lines of a ‘where are they now?’ for the nublar six, so it’d be long enough after their rescue for them to be settled back in their lives. in terms of exact timing, my guess would be it’s 2-3 years before the time frame of chaos theory, and here’s why.

ben’s part mentions him starting college. if he was 14 during JWCC, he would be around 17 at the time of JW fallen kingdom (ie. during the epilogue scene) cuz it’s 3 years after JW. this would make him roughly 21 during chaos theory cuz it’s supposed to be around the same time as JW dominion (i think so, anyway, could be misremembering), which is 4 years after fallen kingdom. while it’s possible ben delayed his start at college bc of the whole ‘was stranded on dinosaur island for a while’ thing, starting at 21 seems pretty late. so this would most likely indicate the interviews were closer to the timing of the epilogue scene, maybe a year or two after (putting ben at 17-19).

more evidence: darius’s part portrays him as fairly well-adjusted and mentions him traveling to give talks, as we saw in the epilogue. we know that at the start of chaos theory, darius has been isolating himself for an unknown amount of time following brooklynn’s supposed death. i doubt ‘the dino times’ would’ve been able to get ahold of him for an interview.

final point: kenji’s part mentions his relationship with brooklynn and that “all is good in casa de kenji.” so like, it’s very unlikely brooklynn is ‘dead’ yet LMAO

the only thing that snags at me is sammy’s part saying she has her own ranch now. if this interview took place a couple years before chaos theory, she wouldn’t be older than 20. that’s a pretty damn young age to own and operate your own ranch- but since she comes from a family of ranchers, it wouldn’t be impossible. perhaps her family purchased some additional land for her to manage a smaller herd and they stay in close business with each other (providing surplus calves as replacement heifers for sammy’s herd, for example). either way, we stan a strong independent businesswoman.

also there’s the fact that they didn’t make one for brooklynn, when theoretically she would’ve still been alive at the time these interviews were done. but i think the dreamworks team might’ve just been concerned that ppl would confuse the timeline and use it as proof brooklynn is alive (full disclosure: i fully believe brooklynn is alive but ofc the show wants us to still think she’s dead) so i could see them leaving her out just for that reason.

now that the timeline junk is of the way, here’s more random thoughts.

yaz doesn’t seem to have returned to her career as an aspiring pro athlete (seems like something the interviewer would’ve mentioned if she had). this feeds my headcanon of her retaining permanent damage to her ankle quite well. also, the trauma. sammy’s part says they “don’t have time to keep worrying about all that running for our lives stuff.” maybe that’s part of it: yaz decided to just settle down and enjoy the quiet life on the ranch. good for her!!

kenji opened up a climbing school?? that’s random as fuck but i’m here for it. on the surface, it seems like the kinda thing rich tourists would sign up for- y’know, the ppl who travel to exotic places around the world to climb shit. but it’s actually a super useful skill to have in a post-dinosaur world, and kenji knows all too well how important these kinds of skills are for survival. so for me, it’s a choice that reflects the maturing he did during his character arc.

i’ve seen some ppl speculating that yasammy might’ve had a breakup/relationship issues. i sincerely hope that’s not the case- at the time of the interviews, they seemed to be in a very committed relationship, but since that was prob a couple years ago i guess there’s a chance something could’ve happened after. fingers crossed i’m wrong and we’ll just get loads of wonderful yasammy content in the show🤞

i’m curious what ben went/was going to college for. considering the epilogue slated him as researching with mae on mantah corp island, i wonder if he’d pursue some kind of neuro/psych/animal behavior thing.

yaz anxiety mention! god please let the show delve into all the PTSD these kids must’ve brought back from the island.

every new bit of info we get has me so excited like can the show just drop already 😩⚰️

[nebula-blitzar]

Just kinda in the mood to post this so like

There’s a lot of rumors and speculations on how Fizz and Oz met and when so I thought I would share my personal theory.

I think when the incident first occurred, Mam freaked the fuck out because he had just signed a contract, had been doing work for him on the side, and made him lots of money. So Mam calls up Oz and asks him for prosthetics for cheap. They were decent quality (especially for the price,) and Oz had written instructions and stuck them to the prosthetics so Mam would see them. Mam, being the lazy ass he is, threw them away and just gave Fizz the prosthetics, with no guidance on how to use them.

Now Fizz was further indebted to Mammon, so he couldn’t really leave. He worked full time for him, and was still paid as much as he needed to get by (decent apartment, food). At some point along this timeline, Mam also had Asmodeus make the Fizz-bots, which lightened the load. But Fizz’s performances became more intense, and further put stress on him.

I do want to note I have a theory that imps with irises (all the time) have chronic anxiety or other problems. Since other imps’ irises only appear when they’re upset in some way, shape, or form. So that would be Barb, Blitzø, and Fizz. Cash didn’t have irises, but Tilla did, and since she was sick and shit, it kinda makes sense.

So with all of this stuff happening to Fizz and around Fizz with no one to help him, he had worsened anxiety. But he kept performing since he felt so indebted to Mammon. Around the four and a quarter year mark, Fizz started to feel some pain where his limbs were attached to his body. So he asked Mammon. Mam, being the asshole he is, said no, obviously, so he just kinda..kept performing through the pain.

Since the pain was persistent enough to get in the way of Fizz’s performances, he kept asking Mammon. Finally, Mam let him go do it so he would shut up about it. So Fizz and Oz finally got to meet in person, and they learned the problem was basically some pretty severe friction burns from not wearing them properly (y’know since Mam threw the instructions away) and so Oz was pissed about Mammon not listening to him (as always) and wanted to call him to give him a piece of his mind.

Fizz stops him, saying it’s a bad idea, and that Fizz will get in more trouble, so he doesn’t call Mam.

Then Fizz leaves, and Oz goes back to work, but not without texting Bee asking if they can meet up (if you don’t hc Bee and Ozzie as friends we can’t be friends/j) sometime soon. Bee is obviously like totes dude and a few days later, they meet up.

Oz asked to hang out to consult Bee on the fact he kinda had a crush on Fizz, Bee is super excited (duh) and is like tell me everything they talk more and come to the conclusion Oz has a genuine crush, and him and Fizz should talk more.

Oz doesn’t want to be awkward and text Fizz just to talk, but lucky for him, a few weeks later, Fizz applies for a job application at Ozzie’s, cause he wants to be able to afford some luxuries, and for that he needs more money, and Mammons not gonna give him a pay raise. Since Fizz actually is a really good fit for the job, he gets it.

Anyway the pair get really close both business wise and friend wise, and Fizz does more shifts at Ozzie’s. Mam isn’t actually that mad since he has the Fizz-Bots to perform, advertise and sell.

At some point near the five year mark, the pair kiss, and while both sides enjoy it, it keeps both of them up late. So the next day after Ozzie’s closes they talk it out and end up accidentally confessing their feeling to each other.

So yeah that’s first meeting, how they got together, and why they got to know each other. I am writing a fanfic about this in more detail, and this is probably not the last time I mention this theory, so stay tuned!

Ps thanks for reading this long ass rant lol

[astradyke]

If u have dnp fic recs I would owe you forever 🙏🙏

hi, darling anon. i have not one, not two, but twenty two (+) of these! however, i don't want to overwhelm you or my dash, so i am going to go with seven pieces that i think display a range in tone, style, length, etc. if anyone would like other recommendations-- or perhaps at a later time, i'll do this without prompt-- please reach out! i have so many more that are wonderful and all-time favorites <3

(when you gonna realise) it was just that the time was wrong by The_Blonde (T, 96.5k, 6/6)

this is quintessential “i need to sink my teeth into something for the next XYZ hours of my life” — it’s a long, incredibly well-written piece of work. while this is obviously a piece of AU fiction, it really did shift how i view and appreciate Dan and Phil's relationship, and overall is an incredibly well-thought out exploration of love and internal want. masterfully executed, which seems to be a trend of this author. this is what got me into reading more phanfic-- i read this, found it imperative that i read the rest of this author's works, and spiraled into AU content. set aside a few hours and really soak this one in, it's worth it.

back to those tokyo nights by waveydnp (M, 3k, 1/1)

i am so obsessed with reading domestic fics, and this is so perfectly that. it’s a realistic, earnest exploration of the perspective character in a way that masters show not tell and unreliable narrator skillsets. i have other recommendations by this particular author and have found that they are excellent at introspection and dialogue. in 3k words, the author manages to say quite a lot, and i find it a very good read altogether.

now i know there is no other by georgiabread (N/A, 970, 1/1)

a very quick hurt/comfort read that is just nice on sad nights, y’know? i really love this one for nostalgia’s sake— this was one of the fics i believe i read when i was first/last immersed into the phandom, back when i was thirteen or so. i recognized nearly every word— so i’m fairly certain i had seen it back then. perhaps not, but either way, something about it is really familiar and comforting so i’ll put it forward. it's set during the earliest parts of their relationship, and just feels really true to the newness and simultaneous depth of their connection, and how young they are. something about the dialogue really feels perfect for the 2009 era-- the anxiety, the freshness, the infatuation.

walk slow and low on a tightrope by chickenfree (T, 6.5k, 1/1)

with my whole heart, i am telling you, this fanfiction left a seismic impact on me. it’s left me with a lot of new thoughts and perspective on Dan and Phil together (setting aside the speculative nature inherent to RPF, etc. etc., it definitely reflects on love in general and theirs in the more particular). it’s also affected me on a separate, personal scale. it explores loving in a way that is not typically actualized in display, something hard to wrap your mind around if you struggle to feel loved, and in a way that i had my own journey with and found that this piece explores expertly. and again, just the writing style of this author really captivates me. i’ve been meaning to rec this fic for a while now; the author's style is idiosyncratic and may not immediately click, but i maintain that this is a must-read, and is best to read a few times over. i cannot emphasize how much i adore this one, it's top 3 if not top 2 if not top 1.

let chance take me to your shore by basl (G, 15k, 1/1)

astonishingly under-appreciated piece that i am absolutely in love with. very enjoyable magical realism AU that implements hurt/comfort, internal and external angst, and fluffy domestic scenes in a really nice, seamless way. i really love how this fanfiction ends but am very attached to every scene— if you don’t have endless amounts of time, but want to get really invested into an AU setting, i couldn’t have a better fic to rec you.

slutty, slutty soulmates by sierraadeux (E, 7k, 1/1)

my God, this is THE explicit fic while simultaneously being THE soulmate fic. it’s an incredibly sex-positive and consistently sweet piece that has like, to die for prose. the way that the author writes amplifies the sensuality of a lot of scenes in a way that makes it intoxicating and fun to read. it’s honestly a very real, grounding piece, with funny moments and emotional moments as well. definitely top five favorite pieces, really heavily recommend if you are an adult that’s comfortable with explicit content.

as he goes, so i go by cloej88 (mutual alert! @bitchslapblastoids) (E, 16.9k, 1/1)

i am also in love with the companion piece to this fic, but i wanted to recommend the first in this series here. i am selective about works that describe their relationship during tour, and can positively say that i really love this one. i think it’s a really fascinating interpretation of their relationship at this time, and features a lot of key moments in the 2015 era that i really just have to applaud the writer for including in such a seamless way. i love the interesting subtype of yearning that the prose exhibits here. obviously, everyone has their different tastes and draws, but i think this is a strong universal recommend.

let me know if you want any more, and i hope you enjoy these! i tried to hit a wide range, but if you like one author's piece, check out their other works; some of these appear again at other places in my rec list, and i know many of them are active writers and/or have a substantial number of fics!

[devil-doll13]

Some House of Wax/Sinclair Brothers Headcanons I’ve had in my head that I’ve already shared w the server but… The rest of the world deserves to know.

Related to gif, Vincent is the ‘medical expert’ of the house solely because he’s the one who knows the human body/first aid the best. I mean, in the movie we see him stitching up those wounds on what’s-his-face pretty neatly, right? This is also part of the reason why he automatically reaches for Bo during this scene.

Given his birth date was sniffed out by fans before me (1970) and this man looks like he’s a cosplayer sometimes, I truly believe Bo idolised Elvis Presley as a kid, and maybe a bit as an adult as well. He still enjoys listening to rock n’ roll from that era when he’s in a good mood. When he’s in a bad mood, or doing his business™️ in his sex dungeon/basement, that’s when the Marilyn Manson comes on.

All of them have had an alt phase of some sort. For Vincent it was goth, for Bo it was rivethead/industrial rock and for Lester it was grunge.

Les is also down bad fucking horrendous for alt people in general. Yes, he has magazines stuffed down his sofa, yes, they used to be Bo’s.

Bo is allergic to nuts. He also gets really nasty hay fever. I also think possibly him having sensory issues/picky eater could’ve led to meltdowns as we see in the opening. And really, it’s the 1970s/80s do you expect his parents to understand or sympathise?

In contrast, Lester has the constitution of a Greek god somehow and has probably eaten some absolutely vile shit as a kid.

I know most people interpret Vince as sweet and shy but… While I do think he’s more measured and withdrawn compared to Bo, I also think being the ‘favourite’ in terms of being Trudy’s little art prodigy contributed to a sort of spoilt brattiness esp as a kid. (Exhibit A: The ‘Bo Sux’ fridge art in the opening) As an adult, there’s still a sense of entitlement to him. What I’m saying is that he’s an insufferable art nerd lol. He definitely isn’t toothless and his arguments with Bo aren’t necessarily one-sided, he’s just capable of ignoring him when he wants to; he’s used to his twin, after all. While I do think he’s capable of being soft, don’t forget this man killed a woman in cold blood and recorded it. I also think he can get snippy enough during arguments to combat Bo’s generally sharp tongue.

Speaking of which, everyone in the (surviving) family knows ASL. It’s necessary when communicating with Vincent.

Again with how prolific a killer Vincent is, I suspect he may be the one who does the most murder out of all of them. Bo is the handsome ‘face’ of Ambrose, and Vincent is right under the seedy underbelly with a knife, ready to spill guts (and then sew it up again once he’s got them in the workshop). Lester is similar to Bo in that he mostly just guides people toward the town, but I do think he gets his own notions sometimes.

From a more x reader perspective, Bo strikes me as a man who’s most charming when he’s not trying to be. Of course he can put on an act for victims/tourists, but those are just empty words, y’know? Also, has a kinda cheesy side.

I know everyone has Jonesy as Lester’s dog but… I think she’s really Vincent’s. In the movie, she’s always seen with Vin or in the house of wax itself, it’s only when he dies that she goes to Lester. I actually think Les is a cat person (tell me he wouldn’t actually encourage their hunting habits for his own personal collection…) while Vin is a dog person. Also, hot take I think Bo loves snakes and reptiles.

Given that the House of Wax and Ambrose itself is a big ol’ art project, and we’ve seen the state of the church (permanently in the middle of dead ass crusty Trudy’s funeral) I think there may be a sort of difficulty letting go of their past in the brothers, maybe some hoarding as well (I mean we haven’t even seen some of the other houses in Ambrose but this is just speculation). We get the sense that Ambrose is a place where time stands still, forever, until its conservationists finally die. Idk I’m talking out my ass here

[edosianorchids901]

Deferred Momentum

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt - "out there"

“What do you ssssuppose is out there?” Crawly asked speculatively, resting his chin on Aziraphale’s knee.

Aziraphale absently petted him, then went back to peeling some sort of curved yellow fruit he’d found. He made a pleased little sound as the peel gave way, revealing a paler yellow.

“Oy.” Annoyed, Crawly nudged the angel’s arm. “Aziraphale.”

“Hmm?”

“What do you ssssuppose is out there?”

“Out where?”

Crawly sighed. He hadn’t known Aziraphale long. They’d been stuck in the Garden together for months now, watching the humans explore their new environment. Crawly had already run out of things to explore, and was bored out of his mind.

“Out there.” He flicked his tail towards Eden’s towering stone walls. “Y’know. The rest of Earth?”

“Oh yes, that.” Aziraphale, who had been occupying himself by sampling every single plant in the Garden, didn’t seem bored at all. “Well, I don’t know. I suppose I haven’t really thought about it. There’s so much to experience right here.”

“Fine. Fine.” Exasperated, Crawly piled himself into Aziraphale’s lap and flipped upside down. “But I have been thinking about it. I wanna ssssee everything else. Earth’s big, right? Right?”

“I suppose, yes.”

“Ssso, how long until we get to leave? Get to go check out the rest of the world?”

“Hmm.” Gently, Aziraphale stroked the underside of Crawly’s chin. Plump fingers traveled down his belly, another light stroke. “I don’t know. Have you tried one of these yet?”

“These?”

Aziraphale wiggled the fruit at him. “It’s called a ‘banana’. I’m very curious about it. Do you want some?”

“Not really.” Crawly wasn’t that interested in food, unlike Aziraphale. “When are the humans gonna get around to inventing alcohol?”

“Soon, I imagine.” After breaking off a piece of the banana, Aziraphale popped it in his mouth. He chewed, expression contemplative, then swallowed. “Oh, that’s lovely. Here, Crawly. You really ought to try this.”

He broke off another piece and set it on his white robe near Crawly’s head. Crawly nudged it, curious, then snapped it up and gulped it down. “Not bad.”

“I quite like it.” Aziraphale petted him again, then ate more of the banana. He put another piece down for Crawly. “Why are you so eager to go out there anyway? I thought you said you’re just happy to be out of Hell.”

“I am.” Being on Earth was a billion times better than being in Hell, even if he still felt almost as trapped here as he had in Hell’s narrow stone hallways. Everything was wider here, and so much brighter, but just as surrounded by stone.

The sensation of being trapped sent a shudder through him. He coiled up and piled himself against Aziraphale’s soft stomach. The warmth was always soothing.

Aziraphale cooed a little and stroked him. “It’s quite all right, really. I’m sure that eventually, the Great Plan will include exploring the rest of Earth.”

Crawly was pretty sure that actually, the rest of the world was waiting on him to make some trouble. But he hadn’t actually been given the go ahead to make trouble yet, only to figure out ways that he could. He had to wait.

Granted, there were worse places to have to wait. He snapped up the second banana piece that Aziraphale had left for him, then slithered up onto the angel’s solid shoulders. After piling himself comfortably, he rested his chin in Aziraphale’s white curls. “Okay. Okay. But.”

“But?”

“I sssstill wanna know what’s out there.” Crawly contemplated it. “And I bet there’s different food. New treesss with new fruit.”

Aziraphale ate the rest of his banana. “That’s quite likely true. I know there are different sorts of ‘climates’, I believe they’re called. No doubt they’re quite lovely. Although Eden, of course, is paradise.”

In Crawly’s opinion, paradise shouldn’t be surrounded by stone walls. “Don’t you wanna try new fruit?”

“Well, yes.” Chuckling, Aziraphale gently flicked the scaled coil dangling over his shoulder. “You naughty serpent, are you trying to tempt me?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, you needn’t bother. I’m an angel. I’m quite above being tempted.”

Crawly also had his doubts about that, but the warmth of his current basking position spread contentment through him. He did still want to know what was outside those walls. He wanted to know it almost more than anything.

But right now, he was comfortably full from all the bits of fruit that Aziraphale kept feeding him, and relaxed from snuggling against all that warmth. He dropped his head down to Aziraphale’s shoulder, nestled into the crook of his neck, and decided to take a nap.

Someday he, Aziraphale, and the humans would find out what was really out there, beyond Eden. For now, Crawly was content to dream about exploring the newly created world.