#but im gonna start setting aside like an hour or two a day to write and post

[gingerjolover]

You're Losing Me - Part 2

Read the preface and part 1 here!

Warnings: RPF, angsty + sad, mean!naomi, neglectful!naomi?, issues in relationship, fighting?

g's notes: welp....here you go

Naomi heard the door slam, wincing softly as they dropped their tense shoulders, sighing. The guilt runs down their spine like an uncomfortable shiver, turning their head to see your animals peering through the french doors.

"What am I doing?" Noami mumbles to themself, pushing away from the desk, abandoning the open work on the screen, throwing the french doors open and jogging to the front door, opening it like it owed them money.

"Hey, wait..." Noami says seeing you put your bag in the passenger seat, walking in front of the car to the driver's side.

"W-Where are you going?" they stutter, watching you adjust behind the steering wheel.

"I'm surprised you noticed I left," you mumble, voice full of venom, trying to hide the obvious wobbliness in your voice. "I'm going to Kelli and Jo's," you add on, turning the car on and grabbing the seatbelt.

"...Baby wait...come on," Naomi says moving back as you shut the door, looking at it with great offense as it shuts. You roll the window down with a huff, as Noami leans down arms crossed at the window.

"What happened to us talking about what happened? You're just gonna leave me and go stay somewhere tonight? You weren't even gonna tell me?" Naomi asks, the tone coming out annoyed as if the worry was buried deep down underneath the inconvenience of your big feelings.

"You went to your office," you say bitterly.

"Because you didn't want to talk!" Naomi exclaims back.

"I shouldn't have to tell you what's wrong, Naomi! When was the last time we talked? When was the last time you actually listened to what I was saying? What difference would it have made?" you exclaim, tone seeping in frustration.

Noami rolls their eyes lightly, standing up and rubbing their face. Hurt and betrayal rush through them, and they recognize what you're saying is true but cannot process it.

"Okay, I- I admit I've been distracted; I should be giving you more attention... you're right," Noami sighs, letting the pride iced inside of them melt away a little.

"But c'mon babe like, my god, do you have to be so dramatic about it? You don't have to just leave like that..." they ask, face scrunched in annoyance.

Your eyes soften in hurt, in absolute disbelief that Noami, your loving partner, the one who is usually obsessed with you and loves to spend time with you, the one who could listen to you talk for hours, is seemingly more annoyed that you're leaving to stay at Kelli and Jo's than by the conflict ravaging your relationship.

It's quick; the way your eyes show that what Naomi said was like a slap in the face.

Naomi's eyes widen, another twinge of guilt as they stand sheepishly in front of you. "That was- I didn't mean... I just think, we should, you know..." they start, stammering under the weight of your gaze.

"No..." Noami starts to say, shaking their head. "You know what? I do have the time to talk this out. I know I was wrong... I can pause what I am doing to prioritize you," they say, leaning back to the window, trying to see where your head is.

"You might as well finish what you're working on... you're almost done, and I already texted Kelli," you mumble softly, making no clear effort to leave the car, unbelieving of Naomi's willingness to actually talk this out.

Naomi audibly groans, "Can you please stop being so stubborn?" they mutter under their breath, hands running over their face again. Naomi looks into your eyes, softly pleading.

"I said I would pause what I'm doing, I'm serious," they continue, tone softening, "can we just...talk this out? please?"

"I'm being stubborn?" you ask incredulously.

Instantly Naomi knows they've fucked up. The way your eyes went from softened with hurt to a deep rage, Naomi's defenses are back up. Face going slightly red, the repeated words bring a new wave of frustration.

"Yes, you're being stubborn!" they say, softness gone from their voice entirely. The conversation gets completely out of hand again, Noami delivering blow after blow. "You're being ridiculous! Can't we just talk this out like adults? Instead, you're throwing a fit and leaving," Naomi half yells.

And it's devastating. The way Naomi raises their voice like second nature, that your response from weeks of tension in the house is considered "throwing a fit" to your normally communicative partner. There's a sense of dread, like the shoreline of an ocean right before a tsunami, withdrawing all the way inside. Is there really nothing left? Is what ever comes next bound to be a disaster? if this is what you're fighting over is it even worth fighting still?

"Go back inside Naomi," you say deadpan, exhaustion clinging to your bones, eyes feeling full of tears and screaming hurt. There's a level of tiredness in your voice that Naomi notices, but can't be bothered to acknowledge.

"Fine!" they say loudly, pushing away from the car. "Go stay with Josette and Kelli if you're gonna act like this; they can deal with you," Naomi huffs, walking with determination back to the house.

Naomi turns for a quick moment, any hopefulness the minute Naomi says, "Have a good night," sarcastically before heading inside with a nonchalant wave. The door slams, and even though it doesn't reverberate to your car, you can feel the quake, the finality of the slam sending shockwaves through your system.

You stare at the front door, reeling in how absolutely absurd and out of character Naomi is acting. The car is still in park, the engine rubbing beneath your seat, eyes staring blankly as you think about how you can move forward.

Naomi stomps back inside, ignoring the animals curled together on the couch, sitting at the desk in their office. They flick a stack of papers off the work surface, cursing to themselves as they spread out, head in their hands, elbows resting on their knees.

Pausing for a moment, Naomi knows that if anything were to happen to you, they couldn't live with themself. But the way you dismissed them upstairs? The way you packed a bag like it was nothing? escaping to your shared friends' house like it wasn't a big deal? It rocked Naomi to their core.

Like a toxic cycle, Naomi straightens up, quickly typing the passcode into their computer before starting to work again, telling themselves they'll call Jo in a little bit to see if you made it to the house.

You sit in the driveway for an hour. A whole hour waiting for Naomi to come back out. Waiting for an inclination that Naomi would change their attitude and be earnest. Waiting for Naomi to recognize why you are upset and apologize for it. Because surely, you mean something to Naomi, right?

The longer you stare at the house, the more you don't recognize the person within its walls. You know Naomi is stressing about the new record, the intense production, and the deadlines coming up soon. You've been as supportive as possible, always creating a space for Naomi to vent or talk, but Naomi has never acted like this.

You start to feel crazy, like a ghost trapped in your driveway. Your phone dings from a text, a "where are you?" from Kelli, that finally lets this sink in. Naomi isn't coming back outside. The tears start to fall before you can stop them, putting the car in reverse and heading towards a known comfort.

g's notes: sorry i HAD to split this part into two parts but that means part 3 is already written and then you'll be getting a happy ending in part 4! wee!

[2-shots2-thehead]

- I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else.. But you -

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

Summary : Dating Spencer headcanons bc I luv him n wanted to write smth smosh related >-<

Pairing : Spencer Agnew (Smosh) x GN!Reader (Use of Y/n)

Warnings : suggestive joke, other than that pretty much just fluff

A/N : the spencer brainrot is real oml 🙏🙏 im so fruity

- oh my god

- it took this man SO LONG. to ask you out

- like im talking working together for YEARS

- but once he finally did, it came off as like the most casual thing ever

- even if he was psyching himself up for this for MONTHS

- “hey, y/n, maybe after we’re done filming y’wanna grab lunch? like..as a date.?”

- he only started showing his nerves once you actually said yes

- he looked visibly surprised and then just nodded shyly without another word and walked off

- ever since that little interaction, you guys were together

- constantly.

- never seen without the other.

- “where’s y/n?” “well, i just saw spencer in the games studio so probably there”

- pretty much every single social media post since when you started dating has been about you

- CATS.

- you guys have at LEAST one cat

- you cannot convince me otherwise

- but hopefully more because you can never have too many, right ?

- always just bringing you random shit to work

- we’ve all seen the smosh mouth TNTL where spencer just keeps pulling random drinks out from under the table ?

- there’s just always little treats like that at your desk where you occasionally edit

- more often than not they’re drinks he grabs from the gas station, along with a kickstart for himself, of course

- just how you two are always inseparable, it increases by about 10 billion percent at parties

- i mean, let’s be real, there’s never a day where he’s at a party and wouldn’t rather be home playing a video game with your cats

- if he doesn’t know anyone else at the party, your hand is in his the entire time and he’s talking your ear off

- speaking of which, hand holding.

- so. much. handholding.

- like he wouldn’t be big on pda, but it’s just the little things like that

- him carrying you for many a TNTL bit

- or just putting your head on his shoulder while he’s streaming (we all know what i’m talking about)

- aside from the little surprise drinks, there are more often than not little sticky note messages on your desk

- especially at times where you’re editing and he’s filming and that means you’re apart for however maybe hours

- on days like that, he’s making it everyone’s problem

- “yeah, so then we-“ “y’know, this would be fun with y/n”

- yet another person who uses horrible pickup lines as a joke

- sometimes the sticky notes are the most poetic, sweet, romantic thing you’ve ever read

- ..and sometimes it’s “are you a beaver ? because DAM”

- “are you my laptop ? because you’re really hot and i’m a little bit concerned”

- “my favorite pokémon’s beedrill because i’m gonna bee-drillin’ y-“

- you guys build lego sets together all the time

- sometimes they’re little roses

- sometimes it’s the millennium falcon

- but his personal favorite is the hedgehog picnic date ⬇️⬇️⬇️

- they are now sat atop a very high, fancy shelf in your shared apartment

- you guys watch movies n shows together all the time

- you have a specific show though that you always and only watch together

- “you didn’t watch it without me, right” “don’t worry, I turned it off when you fell asleep”

- you guys play video games together all the time

- maybe you’re not as good as him, but he’s always open to teaching

- you guys practice instruments together if you play

- if not, he just plays guitar for you

- never too loud, but you can hear it of course

- he picks special songs he thinks you’ll like and learns them

[salvadorbonaparte]

hey feel free to ignore this if you want!

ive been following u for a while even tho i havent started learning a language because your posts just seem neat

so i wanna get into learning french, and i have a teacher im gonna reach out to after ive started a lil. i just wanted to ask, where would you recommend an absolute beginner to start? cause a lot of things are too vague and thats overwhelming 😭😭

Hi! Good luck with your French journey!

I totally know what you mean and the trick is to make it less vague. Here is how I approach this problem:

Get yourself some materials. They don't even have to cost money. Find some apps (I love busuu and mango), some textbook you like the look of (can be a pdf or charity shop find) and a notebook (can be virtual but I recommend paper)

Write down the reasons you want to learn French. These can be super broad or super specific. Write as many down as you want. This will help you keep motivated and will help during the next step

Identify what you actually want to achieve in French ie do you want to be able to read books? Talk to people? Travel to francophone countries? Do business in French? Watch movies? Understand music? Based on your answers you'll be able to adjust your planning and emphasize the skills that are most important for you. Ideally your skill set should be well rounded but it's way less overwhelming when you have some clear goals

Set aside a specific schedule for studying French. Every day for a couple of minutes? Every other day for an hour? Every Thursday for two hours? Whatever feels manageable. Ideally, this should be as regular and as much as possible. But that can be really overwhelming and unrealistic if you're busy. Try to find a good balance so that you can make regular progress and have time for revisions to not immediately forget everything

Slowly wade into the material. Most textbooks and online resources will focus first on things like the alphabet and pronunciation, greetings and introductions, numbers, the weather, time, directions, hobbies, food etc. Take it one step at a time

Try to use different resources in addition to apps or textbooks. For example it's difficult to learn grammar just from an app (especially since apps like Duolingo don't really teach grammar) and you'll probably want to have a textbook with exercises and solutions too. But apps are great for vocabulary building and revisions. Music, podcasts and films are great for listening comprehension and immersion. In the beginning you don't even have to understand anything and can totally use subtitles to get a feeling for the language. You can also try a graded reader for A1 after a bit.

It's really important to use the language as early as possible so try finding people to practice with, which can even be online, start writing posts on here even if they're just single sentences, talk to your pet or houseplant. This will also help you gain confidence before you reach out to your teacher.

I hope this was helpful!

[athene-studies]

k havin some trouble keeping out of The Ennui this past while and i realized i had 7 core values listed on my blog (listed on the little explore thing on my desktop theme as "live life on purpose • step off the path of least resistance • take care of myself • contribute to the community • get things done • always learn • appreciate beauty") sooo score thats a weekly challenge right there.

im just gonna start tomorrow (its the night of the 5th as i post this) since im lucky and my week isnt bounded by things like "weekdays". lets do them in order!

6. Tue - live life on purpose: to keep myself mindful I'm going to write down what I've done after every half hour of my day, plus im gonna plan out a couple things at certain points of the day and attempt to stick to those plans 7. Wed - dont get dragged back into my comfort zone: i do have a dentist appointment that day, but im going to also go to the library while im out, which ive been trying to do for a while but just never felt right. im going to wear a cute but maybe a bit weird outfit, and whenever i have an urge to do something (i should go read, i should cut up and eat an apple), im going to do it instead of succumbing to the Nah. ...also this isnt relevant to the daily challenge but i do need to pick up a prescription so im going to try to remember that 8. Thur - take care of myself: im going to try to do all of my self-care habits ive set up. most of them i do once in a while, but i havent managed to do all of them at once in a few weeks. so that means doing my workout, brushing my teeth, turning my phone off at 1 and reading instead for bedtime, making sure my laundry is put away... etc. this one's only a small part of the day but i guess that means its a good chance to rest lol 9. Fri - help others: its a terrible time of year to do things like volunteering, plus short notice, so im going to focus on chores around the house and donations and home political action, that sort of thing. maybe text my siblings to find out how theyre doing. 10. Sat - get shit done: i mean what else is there to say. at the beginning of my day im going to write down a list of things to get done (attempting to include things that are low on my priority list so just keep repeatedly getting pushed back, like calling my grandpa and working on a video edit) and see how much of it i can do. the slogan for the day is gonna be "if i think to myself 'yknow i could go do this thing' i fucking will" 11. Sun - learn: hopefully the rest of the week will have caught me up on my accounting course, but if not, id like to do that. after that, though, id like to set aside some time to read articles on things i care about but dont know much about, and do a lesson or two of language learning or coding or something. learning at my own pace isnt going very well so far considering "my own pace" is ✨stagnancy✨ 12. Mon - appreciate the world: not much else to note other than looking around myself more often. im pretty good at this one already. lets use it to mean "do hobbies"-- take an hour to do some writing, take an hour to do some music, drink a tea ive been keeping aside for a special occasion, idk

and i will let you know how that goes :)

[mesanthropi]

— EPISODE 3. (JUNHUI)

title: it's never too late to adopt! even if it's ghosts. (alt title: you have a daughter, i adopted a ghost and we watch cocomelon. we are not the same.)

— episode details: 2.6k words. warns/tws includes some language, an attempt at horror, secondhand embarrassment, implications of death. also some REALLY out of pocket shit from jun in the latter half, i swear to god

(it may be confusing with the format we're writing these in. so like, be warned!! its kinda like. multi,, pov ish in a sense with the narrative. but at the same time, i have no idea either)

w's annotation: i've considered going back and editing it from top to bottom just because it seems weirdly paced- but it's already so lengthy. plus, we've done what we could and that's ok ^^ but im not gonna lie. the ending was a bit hard to do because like- words weren't wording!! i had to do it like this im soso sorry. also, it's REALLY fucking long, so it'll be utc. please enjoy :3

— previous (mingyu) ; masterlist ; next (cheol)

; camping with the 95z and 96z guys is always a delight, if you put aside all the bullshit they get into. one simple detail was that sometimes, they think of the most random things to do.

; and one big example that was not in fact hypothetical, is playing truth or dare. no drinking, just going all crazy because they can, and YOLO as one does.

; and junhui was glad (very fucking happy even) that they'd played this dumb truth or dare game before evening. otherwise, he'd be switching lanes and begging for joshua to give him a truth.

; it was about five in the afternoon then, and he was strutting into a forest with many dark rumors surrounding it, like they didn't exist at all. no phone, no emotional support, and a complementary horror game flashlight. he's killing it, you guys.

; the rumors were mainly things like- "oh, some people came in here and never lived to see the light of day," or "deep inside, there's a monster that lures children and eats them", things like that. obviously just some things to keep their kids from wandering too far.

; and to be honest, he didn't believe that shit. people lived beside the forest, there was a camping site that they could have to themselves beside the forest, and like- google showed that there was a neat lake on the other side of this forest.

; there was literally nothing to be scared of, the fuck are these people on?? (the last thoughts of a dead man, 2023)

; but back to the present. with his long legs and his audacity, jun was near the very heart of the forest. even when the sun was starting to set, he pushed through because fuck it, it's wen junhui.

; (plus, if he managed to come back unscathed and untraumatized, joshua owed him cash. anything for that man's money.)

; though all he'd been hearing on the way were the leaves crunching underneath his shoes, the occasional whistle of the wind, and a bird. normal things that were to be expected in a place of nature and greenery. blinding in the day, calming in the afternoon, and horrible in the night. 

; despite what could happen, the what-if's and such, jun just continued for the sake of the dare. though in the back of his mind, maybe he should have brought his phone. so in case some axe killer was about to end his life, he could call joshua and blame him.

; (no, he'd call the police, duh.)

; and finally, after like. about two hours - though in reality, it's only been thirty-two minutes - something was off. what he shouldn't be hearing in this forest is other people, let alone people who were like. a decade and seven years younger than him.

; there were children laughing in the near distance, and the ravenette couldn't help but look to where it was coming from. his curiosity was accompanied by concern, as this laughter was accompanied by one person's cries.

; were they laughing at this nameless figure, or was the crying just… extreme laughing? he couldn't tell with just sounds. and when words started to become coherent, jun snuck over to a tree nearest to these people, and eavesdropped. (stupid, he's aware, but curiosity's killing the cat right now. very slowly.)

; "come on, candy, we've been here for a while now! you're scared of a little dark forest? huh?" some kid said to this girl curled up on the ground, crying into her hands. "seriously, this is probably why you're here in the first place."

; pause, what.

; 'candy' looked up, and even if jun was peeking from behind the oak, he could see that she didn't like what the other had said. not at all.

; a more lanky girl rolled her eyes and circled her, until she was standing right behind the shimmery form. "shut up, viv, you're making her cry. like a baby. we're supposed to be nice to babies, right? where's your mom, candy?"

; this was getting weird.

; "oh my god, you didn't," viv elbowed her. "you literally just said to be nice to her."

; "i am, viv. i wanna try helping candy, we have to find her mommy," she sing-songed, nudging the helpless girl with her knee. "or maybe she's at the lake with the rest of us!"

; "shut up, ivy!" she finally snapped, getting up on her feet with her small hands grabbing fistfuls of her vest. "you pushed me! i didn't even mean to-" 

; "hey hey hey, stop that right now!" jun finally broke the almost never-ending commotion but with the blank stares he received, he thought onto his plan b. as the kids stared at him in silence, clearing his throat, he rested his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. "bullying is not right!" ah yes. very mature. using his 'opera singer' voice.

; the reactions were flipped from his expectations. while he expected a more of a guilty look, all he heard were small snorts and giggles coming from the established bullies. 

; "is he really doing this right now-" vivi managed through her laughs. "that voice was so bad." ivy only nodded along, sort of doubled over with one hand on the other girl's shoulder. "and that pose- vivi, what is he, really, somebody's dad? get a load of this, candy."

; the mentioned child rolled her eyes this time, unamused by the two's antics. this thankfully went unnoticed as they were more focused on… to them, this weirdo that came out of nowhere. 

; humiliated? yes. jun was that very word at that moment. a grown man now being a target of the endless bullying was about to be his 13th reason. 

; "w-well, maybe i am her dad!" he was not this child's father. "and i'm actually… looking to take her back home with my very loving wife who is in fact her very mother, so excuse us," jun improvised as he approached the girls and ushered candy away from ivy and vivi. "i'll be taking her away from the likes of you two. i'm definitely telling your parents about this."

; (note from author w.: i'm amused but also getting secondhand embarrassment)

; as they were leaving them behind, candy spared him a glance, brows furrowed as he was recovering from the situation they were walking away from. only then did she speak up when they were further away. "um… thank you."

; "... i couldn't leave you with those two," he murmured, rubbing his neck with his free hand. then jun kneeled in front of the girl, checking anywhere for anything. "did they hurt you at all? push you, pull you, anything?"

; "no... not physically at least," candy answered, growing quiet near the end of her reply. she studied the man in front of her, eyes following as he actively searched for any wounds or potential signs of more life-threatening scars. the forest wasn't… exactly the safest place. especially for a child. let alone three of them- because while the two were particularly not the most pleasant kids around, they were still… you know, kids.

; it was on the backburner for now though, because his current concern was candy. 

; after jun close inspection, he finally eyed the girl. "alright. do you know where your parents are? any relatives?" his now stable voice quired, and a sense of relief washed over his whole being after a slight nod from candy.

; "thank god. let's get you out of this forest and then you can try to lead me to them, yeah?" 

candy sighed. "u-um… they're dead. both of them. you can't actually lead me to them… unless you were some kind of wizard." if the atmosphere wasn't tense before, it surely was now. probably even more unbearable and a bit suffocating.

; after a bit of silence, a small 'oh' was all jun could utter out. afraid if he says something more, this little girl will unleash all of her pent up rage and rip him into shreds.

; "... i'm… sorry," the older awkwardly responded. "i'm no wizard. but it must've been hard." the nonchalant shrug was a bit surprising though, as she wrung her hands. "mama's always said that i'm ahead of other girls. i know how to do stuff."

; jun words fell short. nods sending the basic sign that he was indeed listening. the slightly bewildered man cleared his throat, "let's… get you out of here. we'll figure out what to do afterwards." he nodded along with his request and candy copied the same gesture, also a bit hesitant on the next step of this mission.

; if joshua was expecting anything from jun once he was out, it would not have included an abandoned child he rescued from a forest with bullies. but hey, jun is a (in)sane man full of many quirks. 

; the mission out was fairly simple… to people who had this forest down by memory. jun was almost a lost soul upon the tall trees and the secrets that lie in the dark within. "you don't know how to get out, don't you?" candy wasn't shocked in the slightest. what do you even expect from a wannabe opera singer? exactly.

; "my friends just sent me in here! it's not like they gave me a map!" the male exclaimed, anxiety lacing his voice. he exhaled heavily while he combed his tensed hands in his unraveled hair. 

; silence once again engulfed them along with the trees. candy willingly letting it swallow them both whole for she can let the oblivious man calm down and then process that there was indeed a path that can lead them out. he was literally on said path. 

; "mister..." the more put together girl called out to the man pacing around. murmuring something along the lines of 'what am i going to do?' and 'where am i going to shit and piss here?' but candy really did not want to know the answer to the latter. "HEY, SIR." jun panicked motions come to an abrupt pause, heaving a bit shakily. "there's a path." candy hands rose and motioned forward towards the remainder of the trail ahead, leading to where he'd entered from.

; something took over jun. a sense of relief that he doesn't have to shit in a nearby bush and wipe with sticks? possibly. but whatever it was, it prompted him to do something.

; he took candy's hand (or tried to) and began to zoom ahead. only slowing and coming to a complete halt when he didn't hear the second pair of quick footsteps following behind. in a swift motion, he turned back around just to realize that girl was still glued to her place and has not moved not even an inch. 

; did he miss her hand? as bamboozled and startled as he was, he treaded back and  went towards candy again. steps slow and steady.

; once a few inches in front of the child, he reached for her hand again. this time making direct contact to make sure for a fact he grasps her hand this time.

; every inch closer his hand gets, the more goosebumps start to cover his skin. like seriously. his hand was freezing as the proximity between him and the child shrunk. as if candy radiated the season of winter from her very self.

; he slowly began to close his hand around the girls and… it went right through her. only the icy temperature wrapping onto him. what? what kind of AI bullshit is this? once again and the same outcome happened. it took jun a few (many) times before his mind started to click into place that this was not going to have his way. 

; he even went to the girl's other hand just to make sure his mind was not in fact teasing him. he already has to deal with that at home. "w-what is going on?" jun fested up. eyeing candy with a bit of hope because he did in fact know what was going on. but confirmation is what he needed and man… did he hope for one answer to his masked question. 

; "do you promise not to get scared?" it wasn't a direct answer, but jun did get what he wanted from that question alone. the much more taller man bent down again, slowly shaking his head. 

; candy stared the man down before admitting her truth. "i'm a ghost." 

a beat of silence. a silent 'i see' coming from the other. all he could do after though was stare at the girl blankly, expecting a laugh or a twist of emotion spiking out after her funny bone was picked a little too much but… nothing. just a look full of expectancy.

; "how did you die?" jun broke down the silent bubble. wow. what a way to add to the list of conversation starters.

; "can we go?" candy smoothly dodged the ticket to reiterate her very short-term life. "i know you want to leave too." 

; 'right.' jun placed himself back onto his feet with practiced ease. except the small ache in his knees but look, aging comes with some consequences. "just… follow along." 

; it took maybe around 20 minutes before finally hearing the passing of cars and an added 5 minutes before they were back on the sidewalk where joshua basically ended the poor man's life. the two stood there for a moment, breathing in fresher and less suffocating air 

; "thank you," jun heard candy speak out, and he was supposed to say something back with a turn of the head, but found nobody there. as if this couldn't get any weirder, the girl's sudden disappearance prompted him to do a double take, turn on his heel to get a 360 on where she could have gone.

; then again, he remembered what she'd said before; she's dead. a ghost, a spirit, and maybe she'd been put to rest by leaving that forest. leaving behind those other two girls who were picking on her, for no reason too, might he add.

; with a sigh and a lot of questions left unanswered (he didn't know if he wanted any answers anyway), the ravenette walked off to the campsite, just about done with the night. hopefully there was food, and hopefully the others were ready to be on jun control. the guy was ready to throttle joshua on sight because what the hell was that.

; for the rest of his stay, whenever silence enveloped the area, all that occupied his thoughts were candy's wherabouts and what exactly happened in the forest. that feeling from when he attempted to hold her hand, it was worry, and it was coming back despite the child's absence around him.

; even with her circumstances, he couldn't help but feel this way. he couldn't help but wonder what could have happened to her. but that could be saved for… some other time, or whenever he could think about it. life was full of mysterious things, after all.

. . .

(two days later, they all went back home to their respective places of residence, and jun was the last. his belongings were on his couch and coffee table, to be re-organized into their spaces in a couple hours. there was no way that there was energy left after that trip back, the guy's only plan was to sleep with his bag as a pillow.

after waving off wonwoo and telling him not to die on the way back (what the hell), jun closed the door and let out a breath. though upon turning around, that breath transitioned into a scream. it was followed by the coat rack getting knocked over when he stumbled. he stared in shock, for the nth time that week, at the girl that stood there.

"... c-candy, how did you get inside my house-")

[barnesandrogersfanfics]

Ocean Eyes - Part 13

A/N - OMG finally an update!!! I'm so sorry it has taken me so long but writers block is a bitch! Thank you all for sticking with me and being so patient 💕💕💕 Please like/comment/reblog.

"CHRIS EVANS HAS A SECRET FAMILY!"

Shit, shit. Shit! Oh my fuck this can't be happening!! I thought to myself as i clicked on the link Hannah had sent me, the page loaded showing photo's of Chris and I kissing, photo's of Chris and Mason...... my heart was racing and i could feel the panic setting in.

"Fucking Brian!" I mumbled, this was taken the day i saw his car outfront! I got up and made my way to Chris' office, i needed to let him know about this ASAP incase he was suddenly blind sided with a question while doing his interview.

As soon as i appeared in the doorway Chris looked up and gave me a little smile that soon fell when he saw the tears in my eyes.

"Im so sorry but can you just excuse me for two seconds..... i'll be right back" Chris said leaving Scott talking to Jimmy Fallon.

"Whats wrong?....." he asked quietly pulling the door closed behind him.

"Im so sorry Chris....." i shook my head.

"Why? Whats happened?...."

I passed him my phone showing him the headline and photo's "Everyone knows, I'm so sorry! This is all my fault...." i started to cry, this isn't how i wanted everyone to find out... we weren't ready for everyone to know yet!!

"Hey stop! This isn't your fault sweetheart!" Chris wrapped his arms around me "come on don't cry, i hate it when you cry".

"Im so mad Chris!...they have no right posting photo's of Mason!"

"Let me just go finish up this interview, i'll be two minutes" he kissed me before rushing back to finish up with Jimmy.

After Chris had finished up his interview he was calling his publicist Megan, he already had missed calls from her so she had obviously heard what was going on. An hour later she was sat on the sofa across from us listening to the whole story.

"I want those photo's of my son taken down now! They can't post photo's of my 6 year old for everyone to see!" Chris was yelling as he paced the room.

"I've already put in a call and told them to take it down, but you know its gonna be out there now....you can't hide from this Chris"

"I know but.... fuck! We didn't want Mason in the public eye..... he's just a kid!"

"I get it, they should have at least blurred his face in the shots, most tabloids do nowadays unless the parents give consent but this particular tabloid that published the story, they're not one of the big names so they're more interested in their 5 minutes of fame with this exclusive"

"Brian did this. He did it to hurt me, its not even about the money! He could've sold the story to one of the big tabloids and got a payout..." i shook my head "the guy is crazy! I wasn't even dating him!"

"We're gonna try and do something about him too, leave it with me" Megan gave me a small smile while writing something in her notebook "So, you should probably post something on your socials.... clear up the gossip. Usually id say don't react to this but we need to do some damage control because right now, i guarantee all people are thinking is either you've been an absentee father with no interest in your son for the past six years" she said looking to Chris "or you'll be public enemy number one for keeping Chris's son from him" she looked over to me and i lowered my head in shame, i had done that..... i had my reasons but i did it all the same.

"So what do we say?" I asked quietly as Chris came and sat beside me taking my hand.

"We say that even though the two of you haven't been together romantically up until now, you have been raising your son together but chose to keep him out of the public eye"

"I'll put something together for you to look over, make sure you think its okay" Chris told her.

"I know this isn't great but we can handle this"

"Thank you Megan".

Over the next couple of days things gradually calmed down, Chris had posted a simple statement which i was told to post too even though my accounts were private to friends only, he didn't go into much detail but confirmed that we do have a son together and asked for our privacy to be respected.

His fans had actually been amazing and so supportive, of course there were a few saying some not so nice things about me and Mason but we knew that would happen. The tabloid stories quickly disappeared regarding Mason when other celebrities started posting, calling the tabloids out for not respecting our privacy after we had made it clear we didn't want our son in the spotlight.

But i still had this constant pit in my stomach, a feeling that things would still get worse before they went back to normal.

I was currently laid on the bed next to a basket of laundry that needed folding and putting away, I had retreated upstairs with the excuse of doing laundry while Chris, Scott and Mason were out back playing some game. The truth was i just needed some alone time, i was tired of putting on a brave and happy face, pretending like everything was fine. My hands massaged my temples trying to shift the dull headache that seemed like a constant thing lately.

"Hey, you okay?" The sound of Chris's voice from the door way made me crack open an eye to look at him.

"Yeah, headache is all"

"You've been up here a while, i got worried"

"I was doing laundry i told you....."

"You mean the laundry still sitting next to you?" He teased with a raised eyebrow.

"Yep, i started then i got a headache. I just need a few minutes" i said quietly closing my eyes again.

"Sweetheart you know you can talk to me, you don't have to act like everything is fine....."

"Yes i do, if i don't I'm gonna loose it and i can't do that with Mason around".

I felt the bottom of the bed dip and opened my eyes to see Chris crawling up the bed towards me, he moved my legs so his upper body was resting between them as he pressed kisses to my T-shirt covered stomach.

"What are you doing?" I shook my head and chuckled at the playful look he had on his face.

"Trying to cheer you up, maybe help you forget for a while" he smirked pushing my T-shirt up more so he could kiss my bare skin this time.

"Is now really the time for that? Mason is awake downstairs...."

"Its the perfect time for that, Scott will keep Mason busy"

"You dont know that....."

Chris quickly pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped quickly on the screen before tossing it aside.

"Done, no distractions" he laughed.

"Oh god please don't tell me you told Scott why?"

"Of course not but he's not stupid"

"This is a bad idea..... we said slow...."

"This is slow, i just wanna make you feel better. Plus you know orgasm's are supposed to help with headaches" he shrugged with that cocky grin.

"Oh really? Is that right?"

"100%" he nodded making us both laugh, he reached for my shorts and starting to pull the them down my legs...

"Wait!" I said suddenly sitting up to look at him making him groan as he looked back at me from between my legs.

"What?"

"Lock the door would ya?" I giggled throwing myself back down on the bed shaking my head as he leapt from the bed and flipped the lock.

"Now where were we?" He said before crawling back into position.....this was a bad idea.

Everything taglist: @jesseswartzwelder @dumblani @barnesandrogersworld @patzammit @rynabarnesrogers-reading @rainbowkisses31 @rororo06 @supernaturalwintersoldier @fairlightswiftly @hiddelstannerbarnes @bellamy-barnes @buchanansebba @rosalynshields @turtoix @dottirose

Ocean eyes: @supraveng @michelehansel @melissaglenn5 @denisemarieangelina

@mrsjeffwittek @mery-be @marvelfansworld @cmalass @capstopavenger @fallenoutofrose @kelbabyblue @biebsmylife95 @loser-alert @traceyaudette @w3lissax @jennmurawski13 @ford66steal @saiyanprincessswanie @christocrave

@jakiki94 @torntaltos @my-dearest-agent @ms-betsy-fangirl

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

72 Hours In Montreal [Part I]

A/N: Many moons ago, the incomparably lovely @im-an-adult-ish​ pitched a Montreal concert fic idea (jokingly, I think), and quite a few of my followers fell in love with it. They were even kind enough to vote on which Queen member should be the love interest, and there was a clear winner: John! 

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and at last, here is the first of three chapters of this new mini-fic. I’m going to tag some of my past readers, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy. 💜

Series Summary: John Deacon is a rock star at a crossroads. Y/N is a world-weary employee at a Yankee Candle shop. They’ll only ever have three short days in Montreal together...or will they??

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (not graphic). 

Word Count: 6.8k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @escabell​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​ @deacyblues​ @tensecondvacation​ @brianssixpence​ @some-major-ishues​ @haileymorelikestupid​ @youngpastafanmug​ @simonedk​ @rhapsodyrecs​ ​​​ @joemazzmatazz​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​​ @namelesslosers​​ @inthegardensofourminds​​ @sleepretreat​​ @hardyshoe​​​ @sevenseasofcats​​ @jennyggggrrr​​ @madeinheavxn​​ @whatgoeson-itslate​​​ @herewegoagainniall​​ @anotheronewritesthedust1​​ @pomjompish​​ @allauraleigh​​  @bluutac​​ @johndeaconshands​​ 

The obnoxious British men are still laughing. The one with the mustache, suspenders, and illogically tight red leather pants is standing on the tiptoes of his equally red Adidas shoes to paw candles off the top shelf so he can sniff them. The blond one has no less than eight jars balanced precariously in his wiry arms. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing is billowing through the shop speakers.

“Oh my god, he’s gonna break something,” you moan in a whisper, covering your eyes but peeking through your fingers. Your apron is suddenly too tight around your waist; your cheeks are roaring with blood as you envision the inevitable confrontation: Sir, unfortunately you ruined some of our giant tacky overpriced candles and so now you have to pay for them. So sorry. Paper or plastic? We take Mastercard.

“Who?” Kevin asks. He’s holding a broom in one pudgy, pinkish hand and a dustpan in the other. He has surrendered.

“That one. Suspenders and moustache guy. Red shoes guy. Dorothy without Toto.”

Kevin cracks a smile. “That is frighteningly accurate. He is rather whimsical, isn’t he? Maybe he’ll click his heels and disappear back to London or wherever.”

“We aren’t in Kansas anymore,” you mutter in commiseration. Actually, to be perfectly literal, you’ve never been to Kansas in your life.

“Wait, I think I might have met that guy before somewhere.” Kevin squints with great concentration. “He looks oddly familiar…”

“Hm.” You check your eyeliner wings in your reflection in the cash register screen. From what you can tell, they’re every bit as tragically asymmetrical as you remembered. Spectacular.

“Staring won’t make it better,” Kevin notes, very unhelpfully.

“I know,” you reply, miserable, toying with your bangs so you can hide behind them.

“How does that even happen? The right one is practically a 90-degree angle. The left one looks like you drew it on with a Sharpie.”

You groan. “I’ll try to scrub them off during my break.”

“If you’re not too busy helping me sweep glass off the floor, sure,” Kevin says. “I told you, I took an electrical engineering class as an elective once. I could totally take a look at your bathroom.”

“I thought you said you failed that class.”

“No, I said I got a D in that class. Ds aren’t failing.”

“Well now you’ve convinced me.” You scrutinize your reflection again, frowning. You rent a rather dilapidated one-bedroom apartment above a bakery just a few blocks from the Yankee Candle shop. The apartment always smells like powdered sugar and baking bread, which you like. What you don’t like is everything else about it: the peeling paint, the low water pressure, the windows that you can’t wrestle open, the occasional mice, the shoddy electrical wiring. On any given day, there’s an approximately 27% chance that the bathroom light won’t turn on when you flip the switch. This morning you had been on the losing side of those odds, and with the only mirror in the apartment being the one mounted over the sink—and the overcast November skies outside offering painfully little natural light—you had haphazardly guesstimated your way through your makeup routine before dashing off to work. Your guesstimation skills, apparently, are not all that great.

“If he’s The Wizard of Oz...” Kevin points his broom handle from the snickering moustached man to the gangly, poodle-haired one who has been trying to decide between two candles—Christmas Cookie and Cinnamon Stick—for twelve uninterrupted minutes. He’s wearing a parka spotted with patches: a NASA emblem, a soaring rocket, a smiling green extraterrestrial face, Saturn and its rings. “That guy’s gotta be Star Wars.”

“Or Alien,” you suggest, clutching your chest and pretending to die melodramatically.

Kevin laughs. “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“Close Encounters of The Third Kind.”

“What about that one?” Kevin nods to the guy who has large blue eyes and bleach-blond, fried tufts of hair sticking out in every direction and a grin that is simultaneously childish and foxlike. Under Pressure comes on the shop speakers, and the British men all start cheering and high-fiving each other, leaving their candles momentarily tucked under their arms or quivering precariously on the edges of wooden display tables. You are entirely mystified. “God, he’s gorgeous.”

“Bye Bye Birdie,” you decide. “Beautiful. Charming. Beloved by all. Perhaps a little dangerous. I can picture teenage girls sobbing themselves to sleep as he gallantly marches off to war.”

“You think he’s gay?” Kevin asks hopefully.

“I don’t think he’s dressed well enough for that.” The blond man is wearing a shapeless, polka-dotted sweater that has ‘NIVEA’ spelled across the front, for reasons that are difficult to fathom.

Kevin sighs, crestfallen. He suffered a nasty breakup with his boyfriend Patrick two weeks ago, and is enthusiastically on the hunt for a rebound to distract him. “You’re probably right. Okay, last but not least.” Kevin aims his broom handle at the fourth and final British stranger. “What shall we call him?”

You consider the man who has wandered away from the others. He’s wearing Levi’s, a black bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses, a mop of unwrangled auburn hair, thoughtful lines that break around the corners of his hidden eyes. He is browsing unhurriedly, perhaps even distractedly, through the fruit-scented candles. He picks up a jar of Macintosh Apple, sniffs a few times, then sets it back down precisely where he found it. He even spins the jar so it’s label-side-facing-outwards again. You warm to him immediately.  

“One of the James Bond movies?” Kevin offers. “He seems…enigmatic somehow. Esoteric. Yet still clearly leading man material.”

“Casablanca,” you say, not tearing your gaze from the stranger. “I can imagine him waving off some old flame on a foggy, night-draped airport runway, breaking hearts with sparse words of wisdom. Can’t you?”

“Oh, that’s exactly right!” Kevin sighs again, dreamily, yearningly. And whether he’s yearning for his ex-boyfriend Patrick or Bye Bye Birdie a.k.a. NIVEA-sweater man or passion or sex or love or maybe just the ineffable high that accompanies the beginnings of things, you couldn’t say.

You peer at your reflection in the cash register screen once again, feeling more self-conscious than ever. “Maybe if I—”

“Freddie!” Star Wars cries, and you whirl just in time to see The Wizard of Oz, whizzing around and giggling and preoccupied with teasing NIVEA-sweater man, stumble into the six-foot-tall tower of Christmas Tree-scented candles and send countless jars crashing to the tile floor.

“I knew it!” you unleash in a rush of misery and exasperation, the biting threat of tears in your eyes and the back of your throat. And of course, it isn’t just about the mess on the floor, it isn’t just about having to tell your manager and hoping to God he doesn’t fire you. It’s about your derelict apartment, it’s about your fucked up eyeliner, it’s about everything that’s happened in the past eighteen months; it’s about the never-ending feelings of helplessness and inertia and predestined ruin, it’s about not being able to get fifteen meters down the street before life throws up another red light, another jagged sinkhole gaping like ravenous jaws. And none of that is these ridiculous British men’s fault; yet still, in that moment the fury you feel towards them is overwhelming.

“Jesus christ,” Kevin mumbles, stepping out from behind the counter to survey the damage, his hands still clutching the broom and dustbin.

“You couldn’t just mosey around and ask which candles are on sale and maybe sniff one or two like a normal person?!” you explode. “You had to come in here acting like goddamn animals and destroy like a third of our inventory?!”

“I’m so sorry,” The Wizard of Oz sputters, looking at you and Kevin with wide, profusely apologetic dark eyes. Star Wars and NIVEA-sweater man are helping him to his feet, albeit with very spirited chidings. Kevin is grudgingly asking if he’s alright. Casablanca is already trying to sort through which candles are broken and putting those that survived aside. And when he casts furtive glances from behind his aviator sunglasses, they’re directed not at Kevin or The Wizard of Oz but at you.

“Freddie, bloody hell,” NIVEA-sweater man laments.

“I’ll pay for them all,” The Wizard of Oz tells you. “I’m so, so, so terribly sorry, you’re absolutely right to be cross with me, and I’ll pay for everything. Here, let me get my wallet…” He digs around in the pockets of his preposterously tight red leather pants.

“Uh…sir…” Kevin begins uncertainly, not wanting to break the bad news.

“It’s going to be hundreds of dollars,” you inform The Wizard of Oz. “Maybe over a thousand. You’re really going to pay that? Or are you just going to wait until we start sweeping up and then sprint out the front door the first chance you get?”

“Hey,” Kevin warns you quietly. He wants you to keep this job probably even more than you do. You are, by his own admission, far and away his favorite coworker.

“No, no, darling, please, let her scold me, I deserve it.” The Wizard of Oz at last locates his wallet. He sashays to the counter, brushing nuggets of glittering glass off his clothes, and counts out two thousand Canadian dollars in hundreds. “Will that do? You can keep the change as compensation for the inconvenience. And we’ll help clean up as well, has anyone got an extra broom?”

As you stare down at the money, shocked into speechlessness, three hulking men dressed in black come barreling into the shop.

“Lord in heaven, Freddie, what happened?!” one asks. He has a thick beard and an Irish accent and closely resembles a grizzly bear.

“I made a complete ass out of myself and am now trying to win the affections of this marvelous creature,” The Wizard of Oz replies, flourishing a hand towards you. “Is it working, dear?”

“Kind of,” you admit, still stunned.

“Oh my god.” The broom tumbles out of Kevin’s grasp and clatters on the floor. He points at The Wizard of Oz. “I know where I’ve seen you before. You…you…you’re Freddie Mercury, right?”

In reply, The Wizard of Oz only flashes an enormous, toothy, dazzling grin.

“Oh my god,” Kevin says again, a starry, awed smile rippling across his round face.

“Please don’t make his ego any bigger,” Star Wars pleads.

“And you’re Brian May!” Kevin replies. “And you’re…” He turns to NIVEA-sweater man, snapping his fingers, trying to remember. “Robbie…no, Ronnie…uh…Ricky…?”

“Roger Taylor.” But it comes out like ‘Rogah Taylah.’ NIVEA-sweater man extends a hand for Kevin to shake, not the least bit offended. “It’s a pleasure. Sorry about the candles.”

“No problem, sir!” Kevin squeaks as he takes Roger’s hand, beaming. The men in black—the band’s security, you’ve gathered—have descended upon the crime scene, confiscated Kevin’s broom and dustbin, and are rapidly clearing glass and chunks of candlewax from the floor and discarding the mess in a trash bin that usually collects only chewed gum and unwanted receipts.

“So I guess I probably shouldn’t have yelled at you,” you tell Freddie Mercury guiltily, all the venom in your voice evaporated. You’re no Queen superfan, true, but everyone knows the words to Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. And Another One Bites The Dust. And Killer Queen. And Crazy Little Thing Called Love. And Somebody To Love. Your thoughts are suddenly a racing, indecipherable blur. Your knees are boneless. You’ve never met a celebrity before. Well, not unless you count professional hockey players, which you definitely don’t.

“No, you absolutely should have,” Freddie retorts. “I was dreadfully discourteous. I’m positively mortified about it. I should be punished severely. Have you got anything behind the counter to whip me with? A riding crop, perhaps?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “Not that I know of. I’m sorry I called you an animal.”

“I’m sorry about the candles. There, now we’re even. Wait, not quite yet.” He calls over to Kevin: “Darling, how would you and your friend like front row seats at our show tonight?”

The squeal that bursts out of Kevin is not human.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Freddie Mercury says, very pleased.

“This is really too generous of you,” you protest, although your heart isn’t in it; Kevin might legitimately strangle you if you screw this up, and you’re finding that you want to see Queen in concert too. It’s something to interrupt the powerless, unrelenting monotony; it’s like something that might happen in a movie or a dream.

“Nonsense!” Freddie announces cheerfully. Star Wars and NIVEA-sweater man—or, rather, Brian and Roger—are chatting with the security guys and nodding along as the bearlike Irishman reviews the day’s itinerary.

You peer over at Casablanca. Now that the floor is mostly clear, he’s migrating towards you and Freddie. You glance apprehensively down at your reflection. “Goddammit,” you mutter, manipulating your bangs again, wishing you could disappear. “I meet a rock star for the first time ever and I look like this.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kevin says, obviously lying.

“I like it,” Freddie tells you, propping his elbows on the counter and resting his chin on his knuckles. “It’s very goth raccoon chic.”

“My bathroom light wouldn’t turn on this morning and I was late for work and I guesstimated and that was clearly a poor decision.” Poor decisions are my expertise, you think instinctively, and feel a tug of something you don’t quite have the words for. Shame, grief, disappointment, a raw sting like a flame beneath your palm, a dread like a child who’s lost their mother’s hand.  

“I’ve offered to take a look at the wiring!” Kevin exclaims. “I told you, a D is passing!”

“Kev, babe,” you reply. “I really, truly appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’ll probably just make it worse. And then my landlord will hate me and keep my security deposit and write me awful references and I’ll have to live in an endless string of ancient, hideous apartments until I die.”

“It’s an electrical problem?” Casablanca asks, pushing his aviator sunglasses up into his unruly hair. His unveiled eyes are a blueish grey—they remind you of one of the candles, maybe Beach Walk or Bahama Breeze—and very direct. He stares at you and you stare back, and at some point you realize that everyone is waiting for you to answer.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess so. Sometimes nothing happens when I flip the switch. That’s the extent of my handyman knowledge, unfortunately.”

Casablanca nods. “I could take a look, if you like.”

Not Beach Walk. Not Bahama Breeze. Warm Luxe Cashmere, maybe. “Now that really is too generous. I couldn’t possibly put a rock star to work on my terrible apartment.”

“John’s got a degree in electrical engineering, that’s right in his wheelhouse,” Brian counters.

“Yes,” Roger says, grinning, teasing in a way that has absolutely no malice in it. “He’s more of an engineer than a rock star anyway, isn’t he?”

“Seriously?” Casablanca—John, you mentally correct yourself—doesn’t seem much like an electrical engineer. But Roger’s right: he doesn’t really seem like a rock star, either. What John seems like is steady and abiding and perceptive, attentive, unflinching. He studies you like some people study paintings, like you once studied paintings; not in a passing-by-in-a-crowded-hallway type way but in a patient way, a methodical way, with the quiet that comes from knowing that vision in the frame is older than you will ever be and will still be hanging on that wall when you’re bones in a box somewhere.

Freddie lights a cigarette and puffs on it decadently. Smoking definitely isn’t allowed inside the Yankee Candle shop, but you aren’t about to snap at Freddie Mercury for the second time today. “Oh, let him tinker around in your flat, darling. It’ll make his day.”

“Is it far?” John asks you.

“No, really, Casa…uh, I mean, John, I appreciate the offer more than I could possibly express but I—”

“It’s just a few blocks north,” Kevin says, and tosses you a wily smile.

“How convenient!” Freddie trills. “When does your shift end, dear?”

“Not until 5:30.”

“She can take a long lunch break.” Another smile from Kevin. “Honestly, there’s not much to do around here now that the Great Candle Massacre of 1981 has been remediated.”

“Splendid!” Freddie says, radiant.

You shake your head, very slowly. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”

“Then you clearly haven’t lived enough,” Freddie quips.

“Fred!” Roger presses. “Are we going to the bookstore down the street or not? That was the whole deal, we suffer through your candles, you suffer through our books.”

“You didn’t seem to be suffering,” Brian says.

“Of course I’m suffering. That cashier over there almost murdered me,” Roger slings back.  

Freddie sighs and rolls his large, dark, expressive eyes. “Yes, darling, of course, don’t give yourself an aneurism. We’ll go to the bookstore, John can rendezvous with us later.” Now he turns to you. “We’ll send a car to your flat at 7 to pick you and Kevin up for the show tonight. Don’t let John leave without knowing your address. Wear something deliciously opulent. Lots of sparkle. Maybe furs.”

“I make eight dollars an hour,” you tell him.  

“Or you could just wear nothing.”

“Sparkle and furs it is.”

Freddie chuckles and turns to the men in black. “Chubby, my dear?”

The towering bearlike Irishman replies: “Yeah, I’ll go with John. Don’t wreck anything else while I’m gone. Don’t get yourselves deported before the show. EMI will have your heads on spikes.”

Freddie pretends to be scandalized. “Causing destruction? We would never.” He saunters towards the shop door, jingling the bells as he swings it open, and waves like royalty. “See you tonight, darlings!”

“Bye!” Kevin shouts after him. And then, after Freddie, Roger, Brian, and the two non-bearlike men in black have departed: “Oh my god I just met Freddie Mercury and he’s amazing and he knows I exist and he spoke to me and tonight he’s sending a car to take me to a concert and I’m going to have front row seats and what if he invites me to have a drink afterwards oh my god.”

John, evidently unaffected, prompts you: “So your place is just a few blocks away?”

“Yeah. Just let me get my coat…”

The man in black—Chubby, as Freddie had introduced him—fetches your coat off the rack by the door and holds it up so you can slip inside it. No one has ever done that for you before.

“…Thanks…?” You button your coat, feeling a little like royalty yourself at the moment.

John pulls open the door, the tiny metal bells jangling, and gestures out into the streets of downtown Montreal. He’s wearing his aviator sunglasses again; the November wind gusts through his hair. You catch threadbare ghosts of cigarette smoke and cologne that the breeze lifts from his skin like pages of a book. And he smiles, just barely. “After you.”

You walk north together along the path of the sidewalk with your hands in your pockets, your breath fog in the cold, weaving through the bustling crowds of tourists and holiday shoppers, Chubby trailing not far behind and displaying his talent for keeping watch while not letting on that he is. To even your own horror, you can’t seem to shut up.

“John, this is so kind of you, this is completely unnecessary, you really shouldn’t feel like you owe me anything because Freddie already paid for the candles twice over and I was totally unprofessional for yelling at customers, even annoying customers, and Kevin and I are already getting a free concert tonight and so—”

“Okay,” John says firmly. “You have to talk about something else now.”

“I can’t talk about anything else. All I can think about is how ridiculous this is.”

“Have you lived in Montreal long?” he asks, very casually, as if you’re strangers in line next to each other at Starbucks.

“My whole life.” Minus a little over three years, but you don’t need to get into that. “My parents live over in Verdun, right on the St. Lawrence River.

“Sounds scenic.”

“It certainly is.” You’re trying not to look at John, because every time you do it’s hard to stop. You look at the cars rolling by instead. “This is super embarrassing, and I don’t mean to offend you, but what exactly do you do in Queen?”

He’s not offended; he thinks it’s hilarious. “I’m the bassist.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah, bassists are quiet and reliable or whatever. Bassists don’t terrorize Yankee Candle employees.”

“You’re not a Queen fan?”

“I’m a casual and appreciative listener, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I couldn’t pick any of you out of a lineup, clearly. Roger is the drummer, right?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Drummers are feral, almost universally. Which means Brian must be lead guitar.”

“And what do you think of lead guitarists?”

“Word on the street is that they are brilliant yet micromanaging egomaniacs, but I don’t want to bash your friend or anything.”

John chuckles, like there’s some joke you aren’t in on yet. “No, please, bash away. So you prefer bassists.”

And finally you do look at him, and you regret it immediately; because now you’re caught in the thoughtful crinkles around his eyes and the barely-there stubble of his cheeks and the playful curve of his lips and how the wind ruffles his auburn hair the same way it steals leaves off of slumbering trees. You almost walk right past the bakery. “Oh, wait, we’re here.”

You lead John and Chubby upstairs to your chronically irritating apartment. John removes his sunglasses, inspects your bathroom light switch, then asks if you have a specific kind of screwdriver. You bring him the toolkit that has lived beneath the kitchen sink since before you moved in and he roots around, finds what he’s searching for, and unfastens the light switch plate from the wall.

“Please don’t electrocute yourself,” you fret, as Chubby meanders around in the living room and tries not to intrude. “If you die your groupies will never forgive me.”

“Who says I’ve got groupies?” John replies, amused.

“I just assumed all rock stars do.” Your eyes flick down to his hands as he fidgets with the wiring; and you notice randomly—or, maybe, not all that randomly—that he’s not wearing a ring. You’re still ruminating over that when he returns the light switch plate to the wall, secures each of the four screws with a few deft twists of his wrist, and performs a test flip. The light turns on immediately.

“Mission accomplished,” John says mildly.

“What?! No, no way, no freaking way.” You flip the switch again. The light turns off and on obediently. You try it at least five more times. Perfection. “…How?!”

“Just a few loose wires. No great hardship.” He tucks the screwdriver back into the toolkit.  

You gape at him. “That took you…like…two minutes.”

“Aren’t you glad my band wandered into your candle shop and almost demolished the place today?” He rests his hands on his waist; his sturdy, skillful, ringless hands. “Anything else I can fix for you?”

“Definitely not.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

He stares at you. You stare back.

“Stop looking at my fucked up eyeliner.”

John laughs. It’s a delightfully clear, disarming sound. “That’s not what I was doing.”  

“I should fix my makeup and go back to work now. And you should probably go help your friends burn down the bookstore or blow up a Starbucks or do whatever else is on your agenda for today.”

“Soundcheck and dinner, actually,” John says. He slides the toolkit back beneath your kitchen sink, meets Chubby by the front door, and pauses there to give you one last lingering, laden gaze. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“In my best furs,” you purr in your most convincing Freddie Mercury impression.

“Or nothing at all,” John suggests levelly. And then he’s gone.

~~~~~~~~~~

It turns out better than you thought it would. Your tan, knee-high suede boots are celebratory without being too uncomfortable. Kevin brings you a faux fur jacket that he stole from Patrick during the breakup. You find a glittery black dress in the back of your closet that you once loved, then couldn’t stand to look at, then forgot existed entirely; but tonight it’s like you’re seeing it with brand new eyes. It fits even better than you remember. In the mirror, you look like a stranger and a hauntingly familiar acquaintance and yourself all at once.

Chubby arrives in a black limousine at precisely 7pm, parks along the curb next to the bakery, and honks the horn twice. You and Kevin dash down the narrow steps and climb into the backseat, finding complimentary cigarettes and bottled water and chilled champagne. As the limo rolls though Montreal under changing traffic lights, Kevin prattles on about the band, their history, their albums, their tours…and John in particular. He tries to tempt you. You resist valiantly…for the first fifteen minutes, anyway.

Finally, you sigh in capitulation. “Okay. Fine. I get it. What do you know about him?”

“I know he’s divorced,” Kevin says, wiggling his eyebrows. “I saw it on the cover of a tabloid a while back. Very contentious, spicy stuff. He’s got like eight kids.”

“He does not have eight kids!”

“Okay, maybe not eight. But he has a lot,” Kevin insists.

You rearrange your hair with deliberate flippantness. “What do I care if he’s divorced?”

Kevin grins. “You know why you care.”

“Stop,” you plead.

“Look, all I’m saying is that he definitely likes you. And you like him. And I haven’t seen you like anybody, ever, in the…wait, let me count…the nine whole months that I’ve known you. When was the last time you even had a boyfriend? When was the last time you got laid? Oh my god, it hasn’t been nine months, has it?! That’s way too long to go without sex. No wonder you’re so serious all the time. It all makes sense now. You poor thing. You’re in dick withdrawal.”

“Assuming that’s my problem—which it isn’t, by the way—if I wanted to get laid there are far easier ways to accomplish that.”

“Sure,” Kevin says. “But you don’t want just any dick. You want British bassist dick. John Deacon dick. Casablanca dick.”

“This friendship is terminated.”

Kevin cackles, pouring himself a glass of champagne that bubbles over the top and spills onto the limo floor. “I’m really glad you’re here with me. I’m glad we can do this together.”

You fill a champagne flute with bottled water and clink your glass against his, smiling. The limo is turning into the parking lot of the Montreal Forum. “Me too.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The backstage room that Chubby escorts you and Kevin to after the show is full of chatter and heavy smoke and roadies and fans and musicians and journalists, trays of hors d'oeuvres, wine and Stella Artois and vodka and tequila and rum, the electric promise of things that will go unmentioned in the morning. There are stacks of stereo speakers in the corner rumbling out Another One Bites The Dust. You and Kevin camp out on a green velvet couch—making small talk with each other to avoid making it with anyone else—until the band arrives.

John is still wearing his concert outfit: blue pants, blue shirt, a black leather jacket that gives him an edge like a knife. He passes out a few polite nods; but Freddie and Roger are undeniably the suns in this room, and the guests their planets. Freddie is soon surrounded by a constellation of followers and whisks Kevin away with him. John, meanwhile, comes straight to where you’re sitting on the couch and stands in front of you with his messy hair and his veil of cologne and his mystery-candle-blue eyes.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks in that calm, measured way that you’ve learned he has. “Rum and Coke? Moscow Mule? Hurricane? I’ve been on a mojito kick recently.”

“I don’t drink.” And you wait for the inevitable awkwardness that usually follows that sentence, when he says why? or seriously? or maybe just oh in wilted disappointment.

Instead, what John says is this: “No problem. Rum minus the Coke?”

You smile up at him. You can’t help yourself. “That would be perfect.”

There are innumerable drinks already poured on a table, dark carbonated liquid trembling in red plastic cups as the bass from the stereo speakers quakes through the crowded, droning, smoke-hazed room. John moves from cup to cup, taking tentative sips before shaking his head and putting them back down on the table. After each attempt, he casts you a rueful smirk before continuing on to the next cup. At last, he finds two unadulterated Cokes and brings them to the couch: one for you, and one for him. He sits beside you with one of his legs crossed over the other, a lit cigarette in his right hand, a red plastic cup of Coke in his left, and his eyes on you in a way that isn’t hungry or arrogant or restless but merely, benignly contemplative. You find yourself thinking of paintings in museums again, you even start to feel a little like one; and you wonder what colors he sees in you, what types of brushstrokes, what signatures scribbled in the corners of the canvas, what shadows painstakingly penciled in to mimic the angles of the sun.

You tell John about growing up in Montreal, about autumn strolls along the St. Lawrence River, about snowfalls and Mont-Royal and Chinatown and the Notre-Dame Basilica, about the exhilarating turmoil of the Summer Olympics in 1976. You tell him about how Kevin is in his last year at Concordia University and works part-time at the Yankee Candle shop for money to invest in his hair gel and travel fund. You tell him so many things he doesn’t notice all the parts you leave out. In return, John tells you about himself; not about John Deacon the bassist of Queen, but about the understated man who likes cars and electronics and the Beatles and tea in the evenings beside a roaring fireplace. And when his arm comes to rest on the back of the green velvet couch, and then across your shoulders, and then around your waist, it doesn’t feel strange at all. You lean into him as you exchange stories and clandestine giggles until you’re nearly in his lap, and that doesn’t feel strange either. And you haven’t had a drop of alcohol—you haven’t in almost a full year, in fact—but you feel a little drunk tonight, because your cheeks are hot and the room is blurry and the world is brimming with a pure, rose-gold, uncomplicated happiness.

The other band members periodically stop by to say hello, clutching their drinks and making stilted pleasantries as you and John smile drowsily up at them, looking nothing like the soberest people in the room. Chubby and the rest of the men in black are simultaneously omnipresent and scarce, which you are beginning to think is a requirement inked into their job description. Kevin, having been fully absorbed into Freddie’s entourage, is beaming and flushed and extremely, blissfully tipsy. And they all watch you and John not with scandalized sideways glances but with warm approval swimming in their gleaming eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you yet,” you tell John when you are alone again. “For improving my dreadful apartment. So thank you. You really didn’t have to do that. I hate that I marred your time in Montreal with unpaid labor.”

He shrugs it off. “I like fixing things. It’s what I’m best at.”

“Besides being an internationally acclaimed rock star, you mean.”

“I’m honestly not so sure I’m cut out for the rock star life.”

“You are, though. I saw you. I watched you all night.”

John just stares at you, and then he leans in even closer, inhaling deeply. You can feel the heat of his breath on your collarbone, your shoulder, your neck; goosebumps spring up across your skin like stars at twilight. “What the hell is that? Perfume? Lotion? Shampoo?”

“It’s probably sugar and baking bread, because I live on top of a bakery.”

“Does Yankee Candle make anything that smells like you?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “They definitely do not.”

“They should,” John murmurs. And with the rough whirlpools of his fingertips he turns your face to his so he can kiss you.

It should be kind of humiliating, right? Making out with some guy you just met on a green couch in front of thirty strangers, your hands getting tangled in each other’s hair, your lips meeting again and again, taunting darts of the tongue and quick painless bites and stifled moans and grasping tugs at clothes that you’re starting to wish weren’t there at all. It should feel embarrassing, you should feel overexposed, here in this land of unfamiliar expectations and accents and faces. But no one seems to be watching too closely. This must be so tame in the world of rock stars, it occurs to you; almost wholesome. And you can’t remember a time you’ve ever felt more at peace.

“There’s a pool table in the next room,” someone says, startling you, and you break away from John to discover Roger perched on the arm of the couch, grinning coyly as he sips his emerald glass bottle of Stella Artois. “I mean…you know. If you’re into that. John’s got all sorts of moves, we played for days at a time at Ridge Farm. You could challenge him to a round or two. Place bets. But be warned…he’s a total pool shark.”

“Is he?” you ask mischievously, clasping the lapel of John’s leather jacket. Even if you freed him, he shows no indication of retreating. He’s raking his knuckles back and forth along the length of your thigh that your little black dress leaves exposed, never venturing above the hem.  

Roger winks. “Just thought you might want to know.” Then he hops off the couch and disappears into the crowd again.

John is trying to keep his eyes locked on yours, and no lower. He’s trying to not be even vanishingly forceful. He’s trying not to sway you. But you know exactly what he wants. “Do you…?”

“Show me how to play pool,” you whisper. And you lead him through the shuffling bodies and boisterous, increasingly intoxicated laughter and cumulus clouds of cigarette smoke to the door on the other side of the room.

Beyond the threshold you find a pool table and not much else. It’s terribly unceremonious; it’s absolutely perfect. You can hear Blondie’s Call Me playing back in the packed room where the rest of the band is still reveling, the bass crawling through the walls to radiate in your eardrums, your bones. You lock the door and reach out to flick off the harsh florescent lights, but John stops you. You don’t have to ask him why. He wants to be able to see you. He asks if this is okay—again, wordlessly, with the forthright blue of his eyes—and you nod. And then he kisses you as you drag him in, breathing in his cologne and nicotine, tasting the virgin Coke on his lips that he drank just for you.

John tears off his leather jacket. You toss the faux fur that Kevin lent you to the floor. You climb up onto the pool table, and John follows you. You yank off his shirt, link your suede boots around him as he positions himself between your naked, down-soft thighs. And then John stops.

“Look, I have to be honest,” he says. His hands tremble as they cradle the small of your back, just barely. “I’m newly divorced, and I’m really out of practice, I mean really out of practice, and this is not at all my usual way of doing things, and if I’m total rubbish or only last like thirty seconds or something I just want to apologize in advance and swear that I’ll do absolutely everything I can to make this worth it for you. Because I like you. I really, really like you.”

“I’m a little rusty too,” you confess with a small, sheepish smile. But he doesn’t need to know exactly how rusty you are, or in how many ways, all those layers of blood-hued ruin that spin webs from the skin down to the marrow.

John seems relieved. “Then maybe we’re even.”

You’re not even, you’re nowhere close; but it’s comforting that he thinks you could be.

John kisses you again. His hands find the zipper on the back of your dress, and then the tiny metal clasp of your bra, and then the black lace of your panties…and then everything else as well.

~~~~~~~~~~

Afterwards, you return together to the green velvet couch in the next room, not with bashful swiftness but with your hands entwined, your eyes satiated and calm, your clothes unapologetically rumpled. The partying is winding down. The song pouring through the stereo speakers is In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. And now you and John don’t talk very much at all; you just sit there with fresh cups of Coke, your head resting against his chest, his left arm draped around you, watching the rest of the universe spin on like a carousel as your feet stay rooted to the earth.

“So you’re the smart one,” you say eventually. “You must be, with an electrical engineering degree.”

“You’d be surprised. We’re rather erudite, as far as rock stars go.” He smiles drowsily down at you. “Freddie’s got a degree in graphic art and design. Roger has one in biology. Brian has the better part of a PhD in astrophysics. He might even go back to finish it one day. He probably will, just to be able to lord it over us.”

“Wow,” you reply, distantly, suddenly feeling very small.

“What did you study?” he asks you.

In truth, you never finished college; but you aren’t going to tell John that. “Something useless.”

John is intrigued, and perhaps a little concerned as well. His brow furrows with grooves like lines of fortune in an open palm.

“I wanted to be a painter,” you explain, smirking at the absurdity. “But the world doesn’t need painters anymore. They have pictures and videos that are just as clear as real life. They don’t need my fantasies or interpretations. They have reality.”

“I think we still need painters,” John disagrees, his calloused fingertips tracing lazy circles around your bare shoulder.

“Really?”

“Yeah. For when reality requires improving.”

You let a few moments of silence tick by. And then you put on your faux fur jacket, finish the last of your Coke, stand and find your balance on the low heels of your boots with exhausted, shaky calves.

John jolts upright, somewhat alarmed. “Hey, you don’t have to—”

“This was great, John. This was the best night I’ve had in a long time. So thank you for that. But I have to go home now.”

“Okay.” He studies you, processing. “Okay, okay. I’ll have Chubby drive you.”

“That’s really not necessary, I can get a cab…”

But John has already waved Chubby over, and the massive man appears serendipitously with an impossible degree of stealth. Kevin finds you, staggering, babbling breathlessly about all of his adventures, showing you where Freddie and Roger and Brian signed his chest with a black Sharpie, repeating the same stories on an identical loop every few minutes. As you leave, you offer John a brief parting wave; and he returns it, like a reflection in a mirror, but he’s wearing a pensive frown and eyes dark with thought. Then again, maybe you are too.

Chubby leads you and Kevin outside to the waiting limousine. You slip into the backseat, ply Kevin with bottled water, open the sunroof so moonlight and cold, reviving November air can flood in like a river.

Kevin is coming down now from the high of the champagne and the concert and the carousing with Freddie Mercury. He blinks, soaking you in, really seeing you for the first time in hours. “Wow, you had a good night with Casablanca. You had a really good night.”

“Yeah,” you reply softly, resting your head against the window and watching the stars and streetlights pass by above like seasons. “And it will never happen again.”

[system-of-a-feather]

Not necessarily DID related and honestly I have an art blog for this but I also don't use my art blog and shit, plus I don't really consider this "art posting" considering its actually more on just the hobby of it - but like, its around three years of arting at this point - probably a bit more. I had originally picked it up out of spite that one of our littles could actually draw somewhat well and was using it for chaos and found that it is honestly one of my best and most reliable self regulating activities that can help me ground, relax and focus the best.

And so ever since I started, I had originally made a deal with myself that we draw at least 30 minutes daily and for the first two years, we barely missed a day partially because we are (problematically) good at keeping routines and making hobbies out of work and work out of hobbies, but also just because it is really something I just >need< to do in order to properly maintain a sense of like, homeostasis and zen.

At this point, I don't even try to make myself draw regularly, I just naturally really try to set at least an hour aside to draw and its just become a regular part of my routine. Which is honestly a double win for me since I have this story I've been writing with a friend since I we were 12 and very much like to say "raised us more than our parents" and as a result both of us have a very strong need and urge to one day put the story out there so it can live on outside of our own mortal "foreshortened future experiencing" heads. And over time we realized that turning it into a comic / webtoon would probably be the best means of telling the story, and so as the art friend between the two, I've just casually added "becoming a reluctant mangaka" onto my list of side hobbies and skills I plan to one day do and am slowly working up, cause again - the story needs to get out there some point.

I don't plan to actaully even so much as draft anything until the RP-format of the prequel is over and at least a year or two from now has passed, so I'm currently just bolstering out skills in my art to actually make it so that I'm not gonna 1) be limited in how I can make characters and the world and 2) So that I can find a consistent style and method to going about drawing things and people

And with this up running year (I count years by art fight years) my main focus is expanding my designs to things I dont usually draw (I specialize in pretty boys, so I gotta expand out to different age groups, more traditional masc characters, remember how to draw women etc) and to actually drawing backgrounds / sceneries

And I just got done drawing my first somewhat old man in a while and not only is he old and more of a not-twink faced dude, but he actually has a beard and Im like huh. This is really out of my 'preferred character design' but I'd like to think it is turning out well and I'm just like huh.

It's really neat how my skill has developed over time.

Anyways, sketch of the character below to enjoy this art log. Please excuse the lazy watermark. @feathery-creations is the art blog I never update.

[dearly]

Pete Wentz (6:39:20 PM): Hey Ryan Ross (6:39:39 PM): hey Pete Wentz (6:40:09 PM): Is this the guy fro poanic at the disco Ryan Ross (6:40:23 PM): yeah im ryan, is this pete? Pete Wentz (6:41:12 PM): Yeah Ryan Ross (6:41:18 PM): hey man Pete Wentz (6:42:37 PM): How arer you Ryan Ross (6:43:17 PM): im not bad, working on a paper for english. hows everything with the new record? Pete Wentz (6:44:37 PM): Going really well Pete Wentz (6:45:04 PM): How's everything wiht your band are those just remixes Ryan Ross (6:46:01 PM): awesome, yeah we only did those on my laptop because we cant get into a studio yet. but we still have alot of those parts live and full band Pete Wentz (6:46:25 PM): Does it have samples like that Pete Wentz (6:46:42 PM): How many people are in the band.... Are you guys all in hicghschool Ryan Ross (6:47:20 PM): do you mean do we use a sampler? our drummer uses a drum sampler which we put some of the stuff on, and he plays some of it Ryan Ross (6:47:43 PM): im in college. im 18 the other three of them are 17 and in high school Pete Wentz (6:48:26 PM): Like of the pure volume site songs what would not be part of your live show Ryan Ross (6:50:18 PM): well right now the synth stuff because we need a keyboard player. we are trying out a few guys soon though. and some of the drum parts are different. Pete Wentz (6:50:48 PM): I absolutely love the stuff Ryan Ross (6:52:16 PM): but we have two guitar players one sings and i play lead. its kind of hard to describe it. we are a rock band but about half of a song will be dance-ish or sort of 80s sounding Ryan Ross (6:52:28 PM): really? wow thanks alot man Ryan Ross (6:53:12 PM): it really is a huge compliment coming from you Ryan Ross (6:53:35 PM): i was actually really suprised you listened to it Ryan Ross (6:53:40 PM): i didnt expect you to see it Pete Wentz (6:54:00 PM): Is there some pics of you guys anywhere Ryan Ross (6:55:10 PM): no, we are taking them pretty soon for the website, its just not done yet. i have some just of me on livejournal. but thats wierd haha Pete Wentz (6:56:09 PM): Yeah fuck get some to me Pete Wentz (6:56:19 PM): I think I may come see you in californaia Ryan Ross (6:56:44 PM): really? Ryan Ross (6:57:08 PM): that would be awesome Pete Wentz (6:57:46 PM): I've been listeneing to those songs nonstop. Is the band a side thing or is it gonna be fulltime? Ryan Ross (6:58:20 PM): no its full time Ryan Ross (6:59:24 PM): well aside from school. which sucks Ryan Ross (6:59:32 PM): but we want to do this Pete Wentz (7:00:00 PM): When are those kids out of school Ryan Ross (7:00:26 PM): the drummer and bass player are graduating early. so like january and other guitarist/singer graduates in the spring Pete Wentz (7:01:16 PM): Nice Pete Wentz (7:01:23 PM): Do you know about my label Ryan Ross (7:01:46 PM): yeah i think i saw something a while ago on a journal entry, is gym class heroes the only band on it right now? Pete Wentz (7:03:10 PM): Yeah. I signed the academy. But they are fbr strictly gym class and I am looking for another Pete Wentz (7:03:33 PM): The cool thing about it is I just met with waner and they want both of the bands and to give me an imprint Ryan Ross (7:03:55 PM): oh cool i like the academy alot, oh i see yea i was going to ask you about that Pete Wentz (7:04:03 PM): Which pretty much means a lot more money to promote cool artists Pete Wentz (7:04:14 PM): You guys plays out a lot? Ryan Ross (7:04:39 PM): thats awesome man. actually no we just kind of started this thing up a few months ago, the show in victorville is going to be our first one Pete Wentz (7:05:51 PM): Really Pete Wentz (7:05:56 PM): Interesting Pete Wentz (7:06:11 PM): How much do you guys practice Ryan Ross (7:06:45 PM): we've been trying to figure out the best way to do this stuff live, and we've been having a hard time on figuring out how to make it sound good. depending on the place we might not be able to use all the electronic stuff that we want to do which sucks but alot of venues, at least here might have a hard time setting us up. we practice at

least 4 times a week so like. between 24-30 hours a week Pete Wentz (7:07:09 PM): Nice Pete Wentz (7:07:21 PM): I am gonna come to the show Ryan Ross (7:08:13 PM): we wish we could more often. but school is getting in the way. and it sucks cause parents think its a waste of time playing music and want me to focus on school. im sure you know how that is. Ryan Ross (7:08:23 PM): thanks alot man really Pete Wentz (7:08:55 PM): I do Pete Wentz (7:09:05 PM): What are peoples reactions to it Ryan Ross (7:10:04 PM): some good some bad. everyone is so into post hardcore stuff these days that some kids just brush it off. which is fine but then some kids like it cause its a little different i guess Pete Wentz (7:11:30 PM): Can that kid sing live? Ryan Ross (7:12:54 PM): yeah, he's been taking voice lessons for a little bit so thats starting to help him Pete Wentz (7:13:19 PM): Is he on? I mean on here he sounds awesome Ryan Ross (7:14:21 PM): yeah he's on pitch, we recorded that stuff with like a 100 dollar vocal mic. the only effects we used was pretty much reverb on the main parts. Pete Wentz (7:14:42 PM): Yeah sounds good kind of like patrick Pete Wentz (7:14:47 PM): I like it Ryan Ross (7:16:57 PM): yeah thats the only thing we get that alot. and thats just how the kid sings. we like your band but we dont want to sound like you guys, or be compared to fob all the time you know? but yeah he is aware that kids say he sounds like patrick so he's just trying different vocal stuff sometimes. Pete Wentz (7:19:06 PM): Here's the thing if I show you guys interest a lot of crappy labels are gonna come and do the same and I don't want a huge mess out there. I mean how interested are you guys in going fulltime when you can Pete Wentz (7:19:19 PM): Yeah you'll get eh patrock thing but how many people. Sound like hime Ryan Ross (7:19:47 PM): so you really think we've got potential then? Pete Wentz (7:19:54 PM): I do Ryan Ross (7:20:05 PM): i've wanted to play in a band for my job ever since i started high school at least. Ryan Ross (7:20:07 PM): we all want to do this Ryan Ross (7:21:05 PM): its like i cant put enough dedication into anything exept playing guitar and writing Pete Wentz (7:23:01 PM): I'm with you Ryan Ross (7:24:05 PM): but yeah. i cant see myself doing anything else but playing in a band, cause every job i've ever had ive hated it Pete Wentz (7:24:57 PM): You don't have a picture of the band Ryan Ross (7:25:44 PM): no, but if you need it i could have my buddy take some tomorrow at practice Pete Wentz (7:26:58 PM): That would be rad Ryan Ross (7:27:37 PM): okay we'll take some Ryan Ross (7:28:08 PM): are you online much? Pete Wentz (7:33:12 PM): Sometimes Ryan Ross (7:33:35 PM): okay, i was just wondering if this was your email incase you arent on i'll just send them Pete Wentz (7:34:17 PM): Yeah send it here for sure Ryan Ross (7:34:36 PM): okay Ryan Ross (7:34:55 PM): dude this better not be a joke, it better be you Pete Wentz (7:35:12 PM): It is Pete Wentz (7:35:34 PM): But there are a lot of fakers out there Ryan Ross (7:35:55 PM): okay. yeah i know someone has shown me like fake journals of you and stuff. thats creepy Ryan Ross (7:36:10 PM): thats why i asked if it was you for sure Pete Wentz (7:36:32 PM): This guy who is iming me is your manager Ryan Ross (7:37:03 PM): is it xxxtoughffxxx ? Pete Wentz (7:37:22 PM): Yeah Ryan Ross (7:37:38 PM): i dont know if he's our manager. he's our friend, he's been helping us out with a website, merch and the show in victorville Ryan Ross (7:38:35 PM): he's starting a company up and he wants to help us out Pete Wentz (7:43:04 PM): Ah I got t Pete Wentz (7:43:32 PM): It Pete Wentz (7:43:37 PM): You guys are awesome and if its what I think it is I want ti to be thenext academy Ryan Ross (7:44:58 PM): wow thanks alot. i hope you like the stuff live, its not completely different but it is different. i mean the singing is the same and all that. Pete Wentz (7:47:46 PM): cool Pete Wentz (7:48:06 PM): You guys look good. The chicks gonna be swooning? Ryan Ross (7:48:38 PM): once we get

a keyboard player who can do all of the sampling we want to do it will be alot better too. its like we know how we want to sound, but just finding the right way to do it i guess is what we are working on. Ryan Ross (7:48:40 PM): hahaha Ryan Ross (7:48:51 PM): i dont know man, we look alright i guess Ryan Ross (7:48:57 PM): we look young Pete Wentz (7:49:42 PM): Youngs not abd at all Pete Wentz (7:49:47 PM): How does the singiner look Ryan Ross (7:50:05 PM): dead sexy. Ryan Ross (7:50:41 PM): he's no pete wentz. but still Pete Wentz (7:51:42 PM): Hahaha Pete Wentz (7:51:54 PM): Goddamn as long as he looks cool.singing Pete Wentz (7:52:14 PM): For sure send me pics and all how many songs you guys have? Ryan Ross (7:52:39 PM): haha Ryan Ross (7:53:00 PM): kk Ryan Ross (7:53:54 PM): we've only got 4 right now, its been tough to write since school started and everyone's busier. and those are the first 4 songs we've written as a band. at the show we'll play those and a cover of new order maybe. or depeche mode. we dont know yet Pete Wentz (7:56:08 PM): Nice Pete Wentz (7:56:21 PM): I gotta run Pete Wentz (7:56:32 PM): But ill hit you on here later Pete Wentz (7:56:38 PM): Send me those pics and write the hits Ryan Ross (7:56:43 PM): okay dude. good talking to you Pete Wentz (7:56:43 PM): Peaaaaaace Ryan Ross (7:56:44 PM): hahaha Ryan Ross (7:56:47 PM): later man Pete Wentz is away from the computer as of 7:56:51 PM. Auto response from Pete Wentz: Igot99problems Pete Wentz is back at the computer as of 10:05:48 PM. Pete Wentz is away from the computer as of 10:06:23 PM.

[firefly464]

The Real World - Chapter 13

"Oh Im gonna take a small break and go easy on this chapter :D" - me the other day. i then proceeded to write the longest chapter so far for no god damn reason.

ALSO YAY COOL SYMBOLISM IN THIS ONE

Thank you @i-have-this-now​ for helping me with transitions because im a complete mess Thank you to @rivys​ for beta reading and editing!

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~~~

“They WHAT?!” Wilbur yelled, wheeling around to stare at the teenager behind him. 

“They uh, they’re going to try and bring our Tommy and Dream back?” Tubbo repeated, taking a step back. “Is that bad…?” Hadn’t this been what Wilbur wanted? For their own Tommy to come home? Why was he acting so aggressive about it? 

“Yes that's bad! Thats really fucking bad! Not Tommy obviously, but Dream?! Tubbo, Dream could come and break the peace treaty. He might start a whole new war, just out of spite. I cant… We can’t do that again. We just don’t have the resources.”

Tubbo paled as he realized what Wilbur was saying. Yes, they might have a chance to bring Tommy home, but at what cost? They would have to go back to living in fear, terrified that at any moment, Dream would come up behind them and try to kill one of them. He took another step back, shaking his head. He couldn’t go back to living like that. He just couldn’t. 

Wilbur walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, crouching slightly so that he was at eye level. “Tubbo, I need you to tell me something, and I need you to tell me the truth. Where are they going?” Tubbo shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. On one hand, he had promised Tommy that he was going to help him get home. He had given his word. But on the other, he couldn’t go back to living in constant fear. He just couldn’t. “The eastern dark woods…” he muttered, trying to push away the guilt that gnawed at him. He had to do this. For his friends. He had no choice. 

“Got it.” Wilbur stood to full height, his eyes set and determined. “Go get your things together. We’ve got quite the trip ahead of us.”

~~~

“You can’t be serious. This is all you have? Why are there- why the hell do you have so many buckets? How on earth are you going to carry them?” George shook his head as he looked over the meager pile of supplies that Dream had gathered. 

Dream just shrugged as he rolled up the bedroll he had found in one of the chests. “You never know what might happen. I’m just trying to be prepared.” 

“Right. So you decided the best way to be prepared was to pack 3 buckets, but not pack any food or actual fresh water. You don’t even have a flint and steel!” 

A snort of laughter sounded from behind them. Dream turned to see Tommy, snickering to himself quietly. When the teenager noticed that they were looking at him, he wiped the grin off his face and stood up straight, trying to look serious. It didn’t work. 

“You know, you could be actually helping instead of just standing there and laughing,” Dream remarked. 

“Aw, but where's the fun in that? It’s much more entertaining to sit back and watch you struggle.” 

“Oh really? I would love to see you do a better job.” He clipped the bedroll to the base of his pack. 

Tommy stepped forward with a smug grin. “Ok, I will, since I’m just so cool and awesome. First off, you need coal for torches and shit. Second, toss the buckets out. You’re not going to be pulling any epic mlg moves here. That's just not how physics work.” Dream grumbled to himself as he took the buckets out of the pile. 

“Shut up, both of you!” George cried out, bringing the bickering to a halt. “Clearly neither of you have any idea what's going on or what to do. So instead of arguing, why don’t you just listen to me and do what I tell you to do. We’re on a timer, aren’t we?” 

Dream and Tommy looked down guilty. They had forgotten about the 48 hour limit, and had ended up falling back into their carefree habits. “Right, sorry.” Tommy said. 

“Alright, Dream, I want you to go and gather some water. Once you’ve got a bucket full, I want you to boil it and bottle it. We can’t have you getting sick from dirty water. Tommy, go and gather some wheat. We don’t need too much, just enough to make enough bread for if we can’t find any animals. I’m going to go and get the horses saddled.” George’s voice was calm as he explained what each of them was going to do. The other two nodded and quickly rushed out of the room. 

~~~

“Alright I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve never rode a horse before. I’ve got no fucking idea what I’m doing,” Tommy admited as he tried to find his balance atop the large animal. The three of them had gathered up all of their materials rather quickly, and were now on their way towards the forest. “Seriously, how the fuck do people do this?”

“By shutting up and not complaining.” Dream seemed to have figured out how to ride his horse pretty quickly, and was now spending his time taunting the younger teenager. 

“Yeah, well maybe if you weren’t so damn annoying, I would have less to complain about.” 

"C'mon, Tommy, hurry up. The sun's setting." George said, while Tommy almost fell off his horse.

The three of them rode across the rough wilderness, as the moon rose slowly along the horizon. This was going to be a long night.

~~~

“We can stop here to make camp for the night,” George said as they came across a small clearing. The three of them had been traveling for hours now, and found themselves in the middle of a birch forest. 

"Eugh, birch. This is literally the worst kind of wood." Dream said jokingly. 

"Agreed." Tommy nodded.

"What? Oh come on, birch isn't that bad." George relatiated as he set up a fire.

"What?" Dream laughed. "George, have you seen these trees?"

"Dream, they're just trees. Plus, we aren't gonna be here for long. We'll keep travelling as soon as the sun rises." George rolled his eyes.

“Ughhhh, really?! But that’s so early!” 

“Tommy, shut up. Stop acting like a child. You’re just lucky that we found a place to stop at all.” George handed both Dream and Tommy a couple of torches. “Here, set these up along the perimeter. The last thing we need is a bunch of mobs trying to kill us while we sleep.” 

Both Dream and Tommy stared at him in shock. 

“What? Do you guys not have mobs in your world?” 

“Wha- No of course we don’t! I didn’t think that they were actually real here, holy shit…” Dream exclaimed. 

“Damn… A world where you don’t have to worry about getting eaten alive in the middle of the night. That honestly sounds really nice.” he shook his head, trying to clear his mind. “Never mind that right now. I need you guys to set up the torches.”

~~~

The sound of a netherite blade slicing through the air echoed across the quiet forest. It had been several hours since they had set up camp, and Dream had long since given up on sleep. The events of the day had played over and over in his mind, making it impossible to close his eyes. And so, he had quietly gotten up and snuck away to a small open area where he could practice.

Over the past week, he had found that practicing sword fighting helped him to calm down. The simple, repetitive motions helped to quiet the intrusive thoughts that continued to plague him. He had started to grow quite reliant on it to stay sane. Maybe, when he finally got home, he would join a fencing class. 

If he got home. No. No he couldn’t think like that. Pessimism wouldn’t get him anyone. He needed to trust Tubbo and Wilbur. They were going to get him and Tommy home. They had to. 

“You know, you’ve really gotten a lot better,” said a voice from behind him. A squeal of surprise was torn from Dream’s throat as he spun around, his sword at the ready. “Pffft, what on earth was that?” George stepped out from the shadows of the trees into the light of the torches that Dream had set up. 

Dream placed a hand on his chest, trying to calm his racing heart. “Jesus man, you scared me. What the hell was that about?” 

The shorter man chuckled as he stepped further into the light. “Gotta keep you on your toes. What's the point of learning how to fight if you’re not constantly aware?” He drew his own sword and held it out in the form of a challenge. 

“You are actually the worst,” he said, raising his own sword in response. 

With a grin, George rushed forward in attack. Dream raised his sword to block the incoming strike, allowing his instincts to take over. He had learned that if he simply didn’t think about what he was doing, he often did quite well. And so he let his mind go blank, instead focusing on surroundings. The stars, the leaves, the trees, even the man before him was all taken in as they sparred. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” George asked, most likely hoping to distract his opponent. 

Dream only shrugged as he feigned an attack at his friend's leg, only to come up and create a small cut on his cheek. “Couldn’t sleep. I was hoping that doing some practice would help calm me down.” 

“And? How's your success rate?” 

“Well it was pretty good, until you arrived and scared me half to death.”

“Aww, I didn’t realize compliments scared you so much.” 

“Yes, I’m quite shy.” Dream couldn’t help but grin. 

As the two of them joked back and forth, they continued their little duel. It had been going for a couple minutes now, and they seemed to be at a bit of a stand still. A rush of pride surged through him. In roughly a week, he had gone from completely and totally useless to actually able to defend himself. Now, he just needed to set himself apart. 

His mind began working overtime, analysing every small detail. Quickly, he reached back with his free hand and pulled out a loaded crossbow. George’s face transformed into surprise when he saw the weapon. The bolt flew past his face, only just barely grazing the side of his head.

Dream quickly threw the weapon aside and pressed his advantage. Suddenly, the favor was tipped towards Dream. George was unbalanced, startled by the use of the crossbow. Still, he managed to raise his sword just in time to block another strike. 

With his free hand, Dream reached into one of the pouches around his waist and pulled out a small sphere, roughly the size of a marble. With a slight squeeze, the sphere expanded to the size of a baseball. While George was distracted with blocking the strike towards his face, Dream tossed the sphere behind him. With a crash, the sphere shattered against the ground.

Suddenly, Dream appeared behind George in a shower of purple. With a sweep of his foot, his friend came falling to the ground. With a final motion, he held the sword above his throat, his green eyes bright with exhilaration and delight. 

“Alright alright, you win. I surrender,” George said with a laugh. 

“Did you see that?! That was so cool! Oh my god that was so awesome!” Dream exclaimed as he helped George to his feet. “That was so damn cool!!” he started jumping around the small clearing in excitement. 

“How did you even do that? I’ve never seen someone use a crossbow in the middle of a sword fight before” 

“I’ll be honest, I’ve got no idea. I have no idea what the hell I just did. I just know that it was cool as fuck!” 

He shook his head, chuckling as he watched his friend dance around the area. George had never seen Dream show any sort of emotion before, much this level of excitement. Even though he knew the reasons why, he couldn’t help but feel a bit weirded out by it. Watching the pure joy flash across Dream’s face was strange. Still, it was nice. “You are such a dork” 

He only responded with a wide grin. 

A thought flashed through George’s mind, causing him to frown slightly. Dream stopped his playful jumping and walked over, his eyes now filled with concern. “Hey, you alright?” He asked. “Oh shit, you’re bleeding! Hold on I’ve got a few bandages on me I think…” 

As Dream pulled out a couple white bandages from his bag, George let out a slight chuckle. “Do you even know how to use those?” 

“Uhhh, not really? I’m sure I can figure it out. How hard can it be?” 

He wasn’t impressed. With a roll of his eyes, George held out his hand for the bandages “Here, just let me do it. It doesn’t really hurt, I think it's just a small cut. Probably just needs to be cleaned.” Taking a bottle of water from his bag, he quickly wet the bandage and started to clean the blood from his face. 

Dream pouted. “Well what if I wanted to help?” 

“Then you can go and wash the blood out of these,” George said, tossing him the now stained bandages. “No point in wasting perfectly good bandages because of a small cut.”

He caught them easily, but otherwise didn’t move. “Nope. Not until you tell me whats wrong.

The brunette cursed under his breath. Since when had he been so easy to read? “I uh, I was just thinking about… Stuff,” he waived his hand vaguely. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Dream plopped down onto the grass and patted the ground next to him. “Here, take a seat.”

He sat. 

“Spill.”

“I’m just… Worried, I guess? I mean, in a few days, you’re going to be gone and… the other Dream will be back. I guess I’m just scared about what he's gonna do.”

The smile faded from Dream’s face as he considered what to say. “What was he like?” he asked after a few seconds. “The other me, I mean.”

“He was… Scary. All he cared about was the thrill of the hunt. The mask made it impossible to tell what he was ever thinking, which made it ten times worse. Of course, it only covered his eyes and nose, so that you could still see his grin.” He shuddered. “I watched as he blew up the gates of L’manberg with a massive smile on his face.” 

“So then… why did you follow him in the first place?” 

“I had no choice. When Sapnap and I showed up, he was the only other person here. It was either join him or be left out to die to the mobs. After a while I guess I just didn’t realize how cruel he was. He was a good leader, and super charismatic. Not to mention a really good actor. By the time the war started… I guess I just trusted him, if that makes sense. He had kept me alive ‘till then, so why would anything change?”

Dream nodded. He wasn’t going to pretend like he understood what his friend had gone through, but he could still try and help in his own way.  “He taught you sword fighting, how to survive. You felt like you were indebted to him, right?” 

“Yeah… Pretty much. God, its so stupid! I should have been able to realize how messed up he was. Why the hell did I not realize?!” He took off his round sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut tight. “I was so fucking stupid.” 

Hesitantly, Dream reached over and placed a hand on his friends back, trying to comfort him. “Hey, that’s not stupid. You’d be surprised at how easily our minds can trick us into thinking we’re doing the right thing. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's not your fault.” A stab of guilt shot through him. He had been the one to add George onto the server. If he had waited a bit, would things have been different? Maybe if he had acted differently on stream, or not sent the declaration of war, maybe things would have turned out different. The other Dream might have turned out to be a decent guy, not someone that people trembled before and feared. 

“I should have been smarter… I should have joined Sapnap when he went off on his own.” 

The weight of George’s words finally sunk in. The other Dream was a monster, a killer. He was the living, breathing version of the mask Dream sometimes wore in his videos. The act of someone who enjoyed the hunt, and nothing more. These past two weeks had been peaceful and calm compared to what everyone had normally lived through, and it was all because the monster was finally gone. But now… now they were about to bring him back. They were about to bring everyone’s worst nightmare back to life. 

What choice did they have? It was either that, or let the entire world get destroyed. Either way, the other Dream was about to ruin people’s lives. He sighed. “It's going to be alright, ok? We’ll figure something out, I promise. You’re not going to go back to living like that. I promise.” 

Now, it was just a matter of keeping that promise. 

~~~

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[a-singleboat]

Virtual Reality

Word Count: 2.4k

Request: hi! if your taking requests, i was wondering if you could write a damien x reader, where they meet through Twitch? add anything else you want i always love everything you write, thanks so much!! - anon

Warning(s): like, one swear

It was a Thursday night when you first met him, or rather, heard of him. You had been streaming for five hours heading into your sixth when you decided it might be time for you to log off for the night. As per usual, you took at least thirty minutes at the end of your stream just to talk with your viewers, usually about how their lives were going in exchange for a story from your own day. 

Tonight, however, there was an influx of people asking if you’d ever heard of a streamer by the name of Damien Haas, which you hadn’t, and if you would do a collaboration with the man anytime soon. Apparently, your content was eerily similar and you were, and I quote, “Practically the female version of him, looks aside.” 

“Damien Haas…” you rolled yourself back closer to your desk, hands settled on your keyboard. You typed his name into the search bar, patiently waiting for Twitch to pull up his account. You clicked into the first one, making an impressed face at the purple checkmark next to his name. You squinted at the screen. “Is this him? In the profile picture with the LEDs in the background?” 

You glanced at your chat, chuckling as the viewers started spamming ‘yes’ and ‘oh my god it’s happening,’ and your personal favorite, ‘mom come pick me up the best crossover of 2020 is happening and im SCARED.’

“He plays a lot of Animal Crossing,” you observed, clicking on one of his videos and dragging the tab onto your main monitor so the stream could see it. You skipped through the beginning part, biting into a pretzel as you watched. 

“He’s kinda cute,” you commented, laughing as your stream freaked out once more. There were a few people commenting what looked like it could be a ship name though you ignored it. “Shame I’d never meet him, though.”

You paused his video, taking note of the time, before rolling out your shoulders. “I think it’s time for me to head out so I’m gonna end this stream with a huge thank you to you all for sticking with me through this entire stream and if you didn’t stay the entire time, I’m glad you decided to join in on the ride even halfway through. I’ll see you guys next time.”

You ended the stream, waving goodbye to your viewers before the light went out and you could relax the smile off your face. Don’t get it twisted, you loved streaming and you loved your viewers but just like any other job, it could get exhausting at times. You shut down your monitors, the screens turning blue before fading to black. You stretched, taking your phone up from its charger and launching yourself into bed, opening your phone and clicking on Twitter. 

Much like staying thirty minutes after you were done streaming to talk to viewers, you usually went on Twitter right after to answer questions and respond to DMs. This time, however, instead of opening the app to see a bunch of post-stream questions, your mentions were filled with the video clip of you saying, “He’s kinda cute,” as well as maybe a million people tagging both you and Damien in them. 

Well, shit. 

Soon enough, that was all that filled your timeline. You couldn’t move in one direction without running into another screencap of you admiring the man. God, you knew the consequences but something in the back of your mind was urging you to reach out to him.

After a few moments of contemplation, the lonely side of you won out, forcing you to message him against your better judgment. Without even thinking about it, you found his Twitter and sent this message:

Hey, I’m sorry about your mentions blowing up because of me tonight. My viewers recommended your Twitch to me and I spoke without thinking about it on Live. 

And with no expectation of his response, you fell asleep right there with your phone on your chest and the DM still open. 

You woke up the next morning with a sore neck and a dead phone, which was a terrible way to start your day. You rolled over, plugging your device into an outlet before crawling out of bed to start your day. When you weren’t streaming, you worked as a freelance editor for different YouTubers, helping their editors with their workload or even staying on as a Temp for different companies. Occasionally you edited the odd commercial here and there, but those gigs were rare. 

Most recently, you had received some material from a group of YouTubers, Smosh. This job was different, however, because if you did well on this you could be looking at a permanent place of employment through their parent company, Mythical Entertainment. 

You knew Mythical Entertainment, it was hard not to, especially since your aunt was one of the producers within the company, but tended to ignore everything the company did. The last you’d heard, they’d onboarded another YouTube group (which you did later find out to be Smosh, the same YouTubers whose video you were hired to edit). 

 After a quick shower and a half-assed attempt at a proper breakfast, you were ready to start your day. You situated yourself behind your monitors, opening the video clips that had been sent to you. The first was a sample video, something that gave you insight on what their editing style was actually like. 

But imagine your surprise when you’re staring down the same man you have called cute the night before, his approximately five-eleven stance taking up one-sixth of the space. He was standing next to a blond, who had been marked as “Shayne Topp.”

Despite there being five other people in frame, your eyes kept moving back to Damien’s figure, watching his mannerisms through the screen and laughing along to his jokes when they fell upon deaf ears. 

Your eyes slid over to your phone, now decently charged after sitting for so long. On your screen were dozens of notifications. There were maybe two from your mom, asking if you’d be coming home for dinner sometime that week but the majority came from Twitter. You picked up the device, unlocking and responding to your mom with a, “yes,” before opening Twitter. 

Nothing much had changed from the night prior. Your mentions were still being flooded with the video from last night but newer content had been ushered in, namely fan edits using footage from your streams and, you assumed, his. 

The only major difference, however, was the fact that Damien had responded to your DM from the night prior. The first message read: 

It’s really no problem! My stream had mentioned your name before, too.

Followed by the second:

P.S. I think you’re cute, too.

You couldn’t believe your eyes. Mr. Damien Haas, the man that you had made a thoughtless comment on stream about, also thought that you were cute. Suddenly, the fact that you had been staring at him for the past hour seemed less stalkerish and more like a blooming crush. You wrote back:

Aw, thanks! Have you seen the newer fan edits? They’re all so talented.

You cringed at yourself. A cute boy started talking to you and you’ve suddenly forgotten how to be suave, not that you really were in the first place. But still, you liked to think you had some tact when talking to people that you found attractive. 

Not even a moment later, there came a response. 

Yes, I have, he responded. And I agree! They are all very talented individuals. 

You looked from the monitor in front of you. You had about a quarter of the footage left to go through before you could start editing but this technically wasn’t due until the following night. Feeling emboldened by the fact that he had actually responded, you replied:

Are you going to TwitchCon on Friday? We should meet up or something. 

Anxiously you awaited his response, taking his silence as an opportunity to watch a bit more of the footage and take down notes according to the sample they’d given you. Roughly thirty minutes later is when the next response came in, reading as an affirmative to both questions. 

You didn’t respond, choosing to leave your social media for after you’d finished editing the video. Your heart still pounded, however. Just the thought that there was a possibility for the two of you to meet was, simply put, insane. You’d just heard of the guy the night before and decided that he was going to be your latest hyperfixation. 

But who could blame you? He was a nice, funny guy that showed the slightest bit of attraction towards you. It didn’t help that you were a sucker for guys that were nice to you. 

Fast forward to the Friday of TwitchCon, also known as the first day of TwitchCon. You and Damien had been talking steadily over Twitter DMs and just last night you had gained his phone number, giving you even more access to the man than you had before. But of course, who were you if you didn’t tease your fans with the prospect of you meeting. 

The night before, at the end of your stream, you’d given your fans the little tidbit of information that you and Damien were, in fact, planning on meeting up sometime during TwitchCon and would be greeting fans together for an hour at your booth. 

That sent Twitter into a frenzy, both of your combined fans getting your ship name to trend within the hour, which confused the hell out of a bunch of locals. 

It was nearing the time you and Damien had set to meet up. The plan was you’d meet around twelve for lunch, take an hour for yourselves, before going back to your booth and meeting with fans for an hour or so as promised. 

You had never been more nervous than you were in that moment. Not only were you about to meet your three-day-old crush but apparently a very popular YouTuber. You tried not to let the thought mess with your head. One of your friends, Wilbur Soot (who you played Minecraft with from time to time) was poking fun at you for being nervous about meeting a popular YouTuber. 

After three years of streaming and gaining a solid following, you’d think you’d be used to meeting other popular content creators. But because it was him, you found yourself unable to think straight. 

“What if I fuck up?” you asked Wilbur anxiously. He’d flown in from London for this event at your insistence and because you’d offered to pay half his airfare to get there and back. He didn’t have his own booth as his arrival was very last minute, but he didn’t mind. He signed the occasional poster though his main purpose was to provide you mental and emotional support. 

“You won’t fuck up,” he comforted, leafing through one of the comics a fan had given you. The entire thing was hand-drawn, which was an insane fact in itself. It looked professional, which was what blew you away when you’d received it. “Well, you won’t fuck up as badly as you did when you first met Schlatt.”

You groaned in embarrassment. “Don’t remind me.”

Long story short, you’d dumped a red in color slushy on the man accidentally after tripping over an unmarked cable. It really wasn’t your fault but the boys hadn’t let you live it down since then. 

Half a moment later, Wilbur was poking your side. “Is that him?” he asked, jabbing his pointer finger into your side while looking in the opposite direction. He was looking at a familiar figure walking down the hallway toward your booth. He stopped for a moment to take a photo with a fan, talking to them about something, before continuing on his way toward you. 

Your eyes locked and you gave him a smile while trying to beat Wilbur into no longer poking you. He stopped when you slapped his arm the first time, sticking his tongue at you before going on his phone. You rolled your eyes at his half-assed attempt of pretending he wasn’t about to start listening in on your conversation. 

“Hey, Y/n, right?” Damien asked as he approached. You nodded, reaching out for a handshake but becoming pleasantly surprised when he instead pulled you in for a hug. 

“You ready for lunch?” you asked glaring slightly at Wilbur as he made kissy faces over Damien’s shoulder. Luckily, Damien hadn’t noticed your moron of a best friend. 

“Yeah, I saw this sushi place on the way in if you wanted to try that?”

“I’d be down,” you agreed, reaching behind your table to grab your bag. Wilbur was set to meet with a few other Minecraft streamers, meaning you didn’t have to worry about him while you had lunch. You looked over your shoulder, making sure everything was set for you to leave before saying goodbye to Wilbur. 

Over the course of lunch, you and Damien had gotten to know each other pretty well. Once the conversation moved away from your fans and, well, work, and more into personal details, you found that you actually weren’t all that similar. For starters, Damien loved watching anime while your guilty pleasure was Gilmore Girls. The one show you both had a love for, however, was Avatar the Last Airbender, which made sense. 

Another thing was that he actually enjoyed being in front of the camera while you tolerated it on most days, really only putting on your face cam for the last thirty minutes on most days. Despite that, he still classified himself as an introvert. 

You returned back to your booth much later than you anticipated, thoroughly shocked at the line that had formed with Wilbur at the front of it, entertaining the fans that had shown up early to meet both you and Damien. 

“Y/n!” one fan called, pointing in your direction. Immediately, the entire line turned and gaped at the sight of you and Damien walking together. You greeted them happily, stopping for pictures and verbally promising that you’d stay until you got to meet everyone personally. 

“You really love your fans,” Damien observed as you put your things back down behind the table. Wilbur had set up shop on your right side, chatting with a few people at the front of the line. 

“I wouldn’t be anywhere without them,” you admitted, pulling a silver sharpie from your bag. You handed a gold one to Damien. “I also wouldn’t have gotten to meet you without them, which I’m still sorry about, by the way. Your feed must have been chaotic.”

“You have no idea,” he chuckled. “But everything happens for a reason.”

You nodded, grinning up at him. “Yes, they do.” 

Permanent

@beautiful-holland @toms-order @starlightfound @grandmascottlang @positiveparker @bippity-boppity-boopa @caswinchester2000 @andreasworlsboring101 @imladylunaticbitch​

[chubbyjungkook]

Just a chance

It was a normal day in taehyung's life , he was sitting in the university cafeteria ,scrolling down his phone as he waits for his  childhood best friend to arrive  when he heard a familiar voice calling his name and someone hugging him 

" hey jungkoookie , i was waiting for you " he answer giggling as he ruffled the younger's hair , jungkook sit down next to him as he saw , jungkook's boyfriend , Seokjin sitting down too 

" hey taehyung-ssi how you doing ? " he ask as he place some food they had bought in the cafeteria  for the 3 of them 

"Did you enjoy winter break ? " the younger ask as he started eating some of his food 

" i'm doing fine , i spend the winter break with my family it was nice to see them after so long " he answer as he started drink some juice 

"We went to my parents house also my moms told me that you should come visit soon " he comments with a soft smiled 

They continue talking about their small break and about some thinks about of the new cicle until jungkook decided to ask the older the question that he had been wanting to ask 

" ummm hyung and what happened with minhyuk ? " he asked as he watch the older expression turn serious 

" You know he was an asshole as all the boys I met " he says normally he was used to it . Between them , taehyung at always being in the heavier side and he had been bullied for that in high school , jungkook always defended him , so he was used to people being mean at him

"Fuck " he heard jin sigh " i didnt though he would turn out to be an asshole too , im s- " he was cut back for the excited jungkook"s  voice 

"That's amazing ! " he say as he watch seokjin and taehyung stared at him as he was crazy " i mean  umm im angry that he was an asshole and i wanna hit him so bad but since you are single now , i want you to meet someone " 

" first of all he wasn't my boyfriend we just went to some dates and two , kookie i don't really feel like meeting someone right now " he mumbled softly as he stares as his plate before he glance at jungkook back 

“i know you didn't had good experiences with the guys you had know , hyung ….. but i swear he is a sweetheart please hyung , just give him a chance “ he says softly as he watching him with his cute doe eyes

“i mean taehyung-ah , you know i don't always encourage jungkook when he want to set up dates or things like that but i know jungkook’s friend and he seem like a nice person , you should give him a chance “ he mumbles softly 

“ahg fine , i just do it cause i want you too stopped trying to make me meet people “ it was normal that jungkook try to find him dates , he normally rejected all of his best friend possible option but for the first time Seokjin was also agree with jungkook “ who is it ? “ he ask as he finish his food and take some sips of his juice 

“Park jimin. You remember him right ? we used to hang out with him in middle school“ he watch the older frown softly before he nodded

“yeah i remember jiminnie , he moved abroad right ? “ he mumbled a bit sadly as he remember that jimin was his first crush back then but he never told him because he was shy, jungkook nodded as he take a bite on his sandwich 

“ Yes , he did but when we were in Busan he recognized me . He said he had come back and he is living here in Seoul now and he will start studying here and guess what ? “ he watch taehyung watch him expectantly “ he ask me about you , i show him some pics of you and fuck you should saw him he look completaly whipped , he ask me if maybe you wanted to go on a date  with him “

His cheeks blushed madly at the younger’s words “yah jungkook you might be exaggerating he might just wanted to talk again “ he tried to stay serious even though he wanted to smiled softly 

“i was there so i can tell he was really whipped , anyways if he just wanna talk to you again there might not be any problem “ jin comments calmly as he give one cookie a bite 

Jungkook grabs the older’s phone as he saves Jimin's number on it before handing it back “ there it is !  just message him hyung , no matter what i'm sure he would enjoy going out with you “ the younger smiled softly at him before the bells ring . Jungkook and Seokjin got up as they waved at him before heading to their classrooms , taehyung walk to his classroom as he was considering if he should message jimin 

After classes he was looking for jungkook and jin so they could go home when he saw them making out , he giggled softly as he decided to send a message to jungkook 

                                                                                                                To:♡jungkookie♡ 

 I'm going home , don't worry ;))                   

 i hope you "enjoy " your night                          

  kookie . 

To : taehyungie 🐯

OH FUCK YOU SAW US ?!

I'm sorry hyungie haha and

YES i will enjoy it :)) 

                                                                                                                                                                                    To: ♡jungkookie♡

 Ew, gross i don't wanna know

  that 

To : taehyungie 🐯

Mean :((

Oh yeah , don't forget to message 

Minnie , hyung ! 

See you tomorrow                  

                                                                                                                                                           To:♡jungkookie

Yeah . Don't worry , i will 

See you tomorrow , tell Jin 

hyung not to be too rough

on you i don't wanna hear you

whining all day 

To : taehyungie 🐯

OMG SHUT UP HYUNG 

read at 6.30 

He giggled softly as he headed to the bathroom to take a shower , he changed and laid down on his bed staring at the ceiling wondering if he should message Jimin . He grabs his phone as he sigh 

To : jiminnie-hyung 

 Umm …..jiminnie ? Hi its me 

 Taehyung , jungkookie gave me 

 your number ^^

To : tae- tae 

Oh , hi taehyungie ! Yeah 

Its me jimin :)) 

How are you doing ?      

To : jiminnie hyung 

I'm doing fine and you ?Kookie  

Told me you move back to  seoul

To: tae-tae

Yes i move to seoul 

i really miss korea 

umm well …. i guess jungkookie 

already told you but i wanted to

ask you out 

read at 7.45

Oh fuck , was jimin inviting him to date ?! he never thought his middle school crush ask him out , he could feel his hands trembling as he try to write a coherent answer 

 To: tae-tae

i mean you don't have to

accept if you don't want to 

, taehyungie 

                                   To : jiminnie-hyung

ow , no , really  i want too  

                                                                            To: tae-tae

oh , really ?? 

wanna go out and take lunch

 with me after classes ?

                                                                      To : jiminnie-hyung   

Yeah , its fine for me :)) 

To: tae-tae

okey , i’ll wait for you in the library 

See you tomorrow honey ;) 

 Fuck did jimin just call him honey ?!  he could feel his cheeks blushing at the older’s words as he write his reply 

                                                                                  To : jiminnie-hyung                                                                                                                

 See you tomorrow ,      

  hyung :D

  read at 8.01

He let his phone aside as he stared at the ceiling , he didn't think he had been so excited in his whole life , he tried to sleep but he was just too excited to do that . He was think about the “ date “ ( he wasn't sure to call it a date ) with jimin that he didn't realized he fell asleep 

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

He wakes up when he hears his alarm as he turns it off , getting up to choose some clothes he tries to choose some clothes . He ends up wearing some jeans and a hoodie as he walks to the university .

As soon as he arrive he try to look for jungkook in his classroom watching him sitting in the back , he went and sit next to him 

"Someone seems excited ~" Jungkook hummed as he let his phone aside smiling at the older " you message jimin , right ?  Tell me what happened " he mumbled in a excited tone 

"He ask me out and he are gonna have lunch today after classes " he answer with a smile 

Jungkook smile warmly , happy about how happy the older look " you have to tell me about it " he giggled as the teacher enter the classroom 

As the hours pass taehyung was getting more nervous and excited by the end of his classes he walk with jungkook and jin to the library 

"Hyung , calm down i can watch you trembling " he says as he giggle 

" shut up im nervous " he says biting his nails anxiously as they got closer to the library 

" i know but just calm down , everything is gonna be alright " he says in a calm tone as he stop the older from biting his nails 

" well i guess we have go now , good luck with your date taehyung-ah ! " he smile at the younger 

" good luck hyungie , tell me everything after ! " he says as they both leave 

He waits for jimin outside the library , he waits for some minutes and jimin hasn't arrived yet . Did he plant him ? No jimin wasn't like that …… or that what was he hope 

Some he hear some loud footsteps and someone touch his arm 

" taehyungie ? Oh my god i'm sorry for keeping you waiting " he says as he tries to catch his break , since he obviously had runs to there but his voice sound guilty

"Don't worry jiminnie , i didn't wait that long " he answer smiling as calming as he could as they started to head to a restaurant nearby 

" you change a bit since the last time i saw you " jimin mumbled , taehyung's smile drops a bit , he knew the older was referring to his weight and he had expected a comment about it 

" yeah i know i used to be kinda chubby at middle school , now im properly chub- " before he could finish his sentence , he was cut back by the older

" you are even cuter now ~ and you look more mature now , you are really handsome taehyung - ah " he says smiling fondling at him 

He wasn't expecting the older's words and he couldn't hide his noticeable blush in his chubby cheeks 

"Ow i-i thank you .. you are even more handsome than the last time i saw you , i mean you were handsome back there too " he wished he could flirt as good as jimin did , but he saw a small smile in the older's face 

"Aish you are cute " he mumbled as they enter to the restaurant 

The restaurant look nice and cozy , taehyung couldn't believe he had never came there before 

"This place is so nice , jimin ~ " he mumbled softly as they sit down on a table at the back of it 

" i had came here sometimes , i thought you might like it " he smiled softly 

They talk about their lives in this year until the waiter arrives asking them if they were ready to order jimin order kinda fast since he had come there before but taehyung was struggling to choose 

"Want me to help you choose something ? " jimin mumbles softly as he feels him squeezing his hand under the table 

He nodded at him and jimin choose something for him from the menú 

"W-what did you chose ? " he ask curious about what the older order for him 

" i remember you really like spaghetti back in middle school so i order you some ,thats ok for you ? " he ask the last part in a worried tone 

" yeah , i still like pasta so much" he giggles softly 

There was a small silence , it was comfortable for both of them , until jimin had the encourage to break itn

" well the reason why i wanted to ask you out was because i wanted to tell you something …. " the confidence in the older's voice was gone now which made taehyung a bit nervous 

" you need to tell me something ? Oh then go ahead , i'm listening " he smiled softly at him trying to hide his nervousness 

" Okay look , I have liked you for a while now , I could tell you before I move out but I really need to tell you this , Jungkook told me a bit of your bad relationships experiences but c-can you give me a chance taehyung ? If you don't want to then that's ok , we can still be friends right ? "  he feel the older calm down after he finish talking watching him expectantly for an answer 

" wow , are you dumb ? I like you since middle school and i was so obvious that i just thought you didn't like me back " he answer giggling softly making jimin laugh too " and yes i wanna give you a chance " he smiled softly at him 

" fuck thank you so much taehyungie ! " he days with a big smile they talk for a bit before the food arrives 

The waiters place a salad for the older and a huge plate of spaghetti for him , it was bigger than his normal portion of food as he gulp down before he takes a bite of his food , his eyes widened at the amazing taste of it , he hear jimin laughing softly as he give him a glance 

" it tastes good doest it ? Looks like you like it " he says softly as he eat some of his food   

“it tastes so good !” They talk about university and Taehyung talks about his life in seoul until now . They were having a really good time. Taehyung didn't realize he had finished the huge plate of pasta , his cheeks blushed madly as he gave his tummy a glance just realizing how full he felt . The waistband of his jeans were digging painfully into his bloated tummy as he tries to rub his tummy through the pocket of his hoodie try to hold back the urge of burping 

He watch the older’s plate realizing he still had half of his salad there making him blushed at how fast he had finish his food , the older look at him and then at his plate smiling softly at him 

“wanna order some dessert ? there some tasty cakes here , jungkook told me you really like sweet thing “ he giggled softly as he saw taehyung blushed a bit 

“I'm kinda full , hyung … i don't think i can finish it ” he mumbled softly as he rub his tummy softly 

“oh come on you should taste some dessert , if you can finish it then you can take it home , there no problem “ he answer smiling softly at him 

Even to he feel really full , the cake sound tempting , he was really full but he sure can fit some cake there 

“umm okay , some cake sounds good “ he smiled softly at him as he try to choose between all of the good-looking cakes  

“you should choose this one “ the older point at a chocolate cake that look really taste at the pic in the menú “ i think you might like it “ 

he nodded softly “ then i wanna order that one “ he smiled as the older order the cake for him  

After some minutes of waiting , a waiter place a whole cake making taehyung’s eyes widen 

“hyung i think this is a bit too much for me … would you like some ? “ he mumbled as he stared at the tasty chocolate cake 

“i don't like sweet things that much , you don't have to finish it all . Just treat yourself ,cutie “ he giggled softly as he saw taehyung cheeks blush madly 

Taehyung started to dig into the cake , it was the best cake he had ever eaten . They continue talking when his tummy started to hurt a bit , he look down at his plate realizing he had eaten only the half of the cake 

He pressed his fingers against his bloated tummy , feeling how hard it was . He unbuttoned his jeans as discreet as I could , he was glad that he decided to wear a hoodie so it wouldn't be so obvious but what taehyung didn’t know was that jimin was watching him with a small smirk 

“oh , you are almost done with your cake , taehyungie ?   “ he ask the younger with a small smile as he take a sip of his drink 

“ u-uh yeah ….. im really full to be honest , i don't know if i might finish it “ he mumbled as rubs his stuffed tummy 

“ ow i know you can do it taehyungie , you can finish it and be a good boy for hyung , right ?~" he mumbled softly making taehyung shiver softly 

good boy ? he like how that sound coming from jimin’s mouth 

he nodded softly as his cheeks blushed when the older smiled warmly at him . He started to shove some bites of the cake eagerly into his mouth , soon in the place was only left a small part of the cake 

“want me to help you , baby ? “ Taehyung blushed madly as he nodded softly , Jimin got closer to Taehyung grabbing a spoon of cake and feeding him . After some bites he finally finish the cake and he feel like was gonna pop  

Jimin smiled softly at him , giving his tummy some pats before he called the waiter and paid for their meal .

“are you ready to leave ? “ he ask softly as he saw taehyung rubbing his tummy softly , he place one of his hands on the younger’s tummy looking at him for permission when taehyung nodded he started to rubs his tummy 

“ y-yes we can lea-” he was cut back by a blech when the older rubbed circles in the hardest part of taehyung’s tummy concentrating the pressure there , he covered his mouth as his cheeks blushed madly “oh my god , excuse me i'm really full “ 

“don't worry taehyung , it's ok “ he smiled warmly at him as he helped the younger getting up from his site making taehyung whined at how heavy his tummy was . He take taehyung back to his flat , promising that he will take him out to eat more often 

maybe he could get use to it  

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

After some months dating Taehyung was more happy and heavier , Jimin always made sure he was well-feed . He would buy him his favorite food and a lot of desserts everytime they would go out 

Jimin ask him to move in with him when they had been dating for 6 months , taehyung excitedly accepted and living with jimin just helped his weight gain , he used to have all the kitchen stoked with greasy food and a lot of sweets , taehyung was a bit shy at the begging to grab anything from there but jimin say he could eat us much as he wanted and it soon became a routine . 

“tae-tae im home ~ “ jimin shouted as he head to their living room finding taehyung lying there around a lot of wrappers and the younger eating a tub of ice cream as he watch some drama in the tv 

“uhm , hi hyungie “ he mumbled softly as he smiled softly at him before he shove some more ice cream into his mouth 

“looks like someone already had dinner  ~ “ he teased the younger as he watched taehyung cheeks blushed madly 

“ i was craving something sweet , i couldn't help it “ he giggled softly as he let out a loud belch “ can you feed me the rest of the ice cream please ? “ he mumbled softly as jimin sit beside him 

“fuck you are so gassy now ~ “ he giggled softly as he grabbed the icecream tub “ mhm you are so lazy to finish it by your own , mhm ? “ he shove a spoonful of ice cream into taehyung’s mouth

he whined softly before he shawlow the ice cream “don't tease me ~  just continue feeding me the ice cream “ he mumbled softly 

he continue feeding the rest of the ice cream to the younger until he finish it all as taehyung was whining while jimin rubbed the younger’s , digging his fingers into the hard swell in taehyung’s tummy making him belch loudly 

“fuck continue rubbing it , please~  “ he whined softly as the older giggled softly 

" uhm you like it when i do it ,right ?~ " he mumbled softly as he continue rubbing the younger's tummy 

He moaned softly when the older pinching some of the soft fat in his underbelly making his cheeks heat up 

After the pressure in his tummy was ease , jimin got up and clean all the wrappers in the coffee table before sitting next to taehyung again 

" do you wanna see something else on the tv ? Maybe a movie ? " he ask as he place his small on taehyung's plush waist rubbing his thumb back and forth 

He nodded softly " yeah a movie , sounds good " he mumbled , snuggling closer to the older

They watched the film cuddling each other until taehyung decided to talk 

"Hyungie ? " he heard jimin hummed quietly "Would you be okay if i wanted to gain more weight ? "  he mumbled in a nervous tone as he bite his bottom lip softly 

Jimin paused the movie before turning to taehyung. " tae-tae its it obvious that I'm more than ok with it ? It's your body after all plus you will look so cute if you got even chubbier ~ " he giggled softly before pecking the younger's lips  

His eyes widen in surprise before he hugs the older tightly " how about we make a goal ? How about 250 ? " he mumbled as his cheeks blushed lightly 

He nodded softly " mhm if you wanna reach that goal , then you should start eating more ~ " he smirked softly at taehyung 

"You should feed me more then ~ " he teased the older with a small grin 

"Mhm i gladly will , honey " jimin answer before he pull the younger closer for a kiss 

[getsojaded]

chemistry || calum hood

word count: 3.8k+

warnings: mentions of weed, swear words, mention of injury, food & the slightest bit of sex talk

a/n: hey twt moots ;)) anyways, this is inspired by this post! i hope u all enjoy <3

-

It was about 11 pm, and I had just finished taking an unnecessarily large amount of notes for chemistry class. With a sore, shaky hand and a vision that was starting to go blurry, I had finally finished ten pages. Who knew that there was so much information about 5 organic compounds?

I yawned in my seat, stretching my arms out and removing my glasses. I was more than thankful that I can call it a night, and walked towards my bathroom to get ready for bed, which took a good 30 minutes. It usually doesn’t take me that long, but fuck, I was exhausted this whole day. After all my skincare was completed, I walked back to my bedroom and hopped into my bed, prepared for a well deserved rest. After slouching for a good three and a half hours, comforter and pillows had never felt so good against my body. 

Just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard a loud ding! from my phone and I opened my heavy eyes, which immediately annoyed me. I ignored the first one and tried to go back to sleep, but one ding turned into six and I couldn’t take it anymore. I angrily ripped the covers off my body, sitting up right after reaching for my phone on the nightstand beside my bed.

6 New Text Messages from: calum hood

hey wyd rn

can you do me a favour

i need your help

im at this party right now and i’m about to get high as fuck but i forgot about our homework for tomorrow and i was wondering if you could do them for me

you don’t even need to make them look pretty like how you do it just take down the important shit

please

“What the fuck?” I whsipered to myself as I looked at my phone. “Who does this bitch think he is?”

to: calum hood

are you fucking serious right now

from: calum hood

please i’m really sorry LOL i completely forgot about it

i know your smarty pants finished it the second you got home please

i’ll literally buy you starbucks tomorrow morning

As much as I hated to admit it, his last text message kind of convinced me. I was a sucker for coffee, and could really stop spending money on it every morning. But was I really about to lose some more sleep just to do the party boy’s notes? I barely know this kid anyways. How’d this guy even get into college? 

to: calum hood

is it gonna be a venti

from: calum hood:

if that’s what you want, sure

I knew I was going to regret this decision, but I threw on my glasses and put my hair up once again, walking towards my desk. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I sighed out, opening my laptop and gathering my supplies together. I unlocked my phone, seeing that the time was 12 am. Am I doing this for coffee or am I doing this because he’s attractive and I couldn’t really say no to him? I groaned and leaned my head on my desk, texting him back.

to: calum hood

i hate you so much

get me a venti iced white mocha no whip and an extra espresso shot

actually no make that two extra espresso shots cause bc of your dumbass im staying up 

from: calum hood

i gotchu angel

thank you so much, see you tomorrow :)

“Fuck off with the petname and the smiley face,” I angrily cursed at my phone, picking up my pencil and beginning to write another ten pages of notes. 

“I hate this bitch,” I said, throwing my pencil onto my desk and slamming my laptop shut. The time was now 3:45 am and tired was an understatement for me. I crawled into bed, falling asleep almost immediatly, hoping that these 5 hours of sleep will give me enough energy to get through class tomorrow.

-

“You have got to be fucking joking me,” I mumbled, reaching over for my phone to turn off the alarm. I was definitely not a morning person, and the fact that I didn’t get at least 7 hours of sleep meant that I was not going to be in a good mood today.

I slowly crawled out of bed and began trudging towards my bathroom, seeing I had gotten a text meesage from the man himself. I rolled my eyes seeing his name pop up, opening the conversation between him and I.

from: calum hood

goodmorning!

to: calum hood

fuck off

I set my phone aside, getting ready for bed in the slowest way possible. I honestly could care less about what I looked like today, so I decided on a hoodie and sweatpants. I went back into my room and packed my bag with everything I needed, including Calum’s stupid study notes. I threw it over my shoulder, putting on my shoes and walking out the front door, into my car. Thankfully my college was not too far from my apartment, so it didn’t matter if I was running a couple of minutes late.

Parking my car and walking towards class, more and more annoyance filled my body, hoping that nobody would say a word to me, or even better, look in my direction. As I walked into the classroom, I walked towards the empty seats in the very back, choosing the one closest to the wall. I got settled into my seat, leaning the side of my head against the wall, hoping that I’d get the tiniest bit of extra rest.

“The last text message you sent to me wasn’t very nice.” I heard a voice beside me say. I opened my eyes and looked up, seeing the stupid Calum Hood. He was holding two cups of coffee - one for me, and one for him I’m assuming - and was wearing a maroon hoodie, which he actually looked really good in.

“I don’t think you deserve to have a nice goodmorning text, because you are the reason I’m in a pissy mood today, thank you very much.” I responded, taking my coffee from his hand and placing it on my desk. I reached into my bag and took the study notes I wrote for him, slapping it onto the desk beside me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as our professor began to speak up, indicating that class had begun. “What can I do in order for you not to be mad at me?” I turned to look at him. He had the biggest pouty face I had ever seen, which was absolutely adorable. But I’d never tell him that.

“Just shut up.” I sighed, turning back towards the board, opening my notebook and beginning to take notes. 

Not even ten minutes later, a green sticky note caught my eye as I was writing. My eyes gazed towards the sticky note, scoffing at what was written on it.

Pls forgive me :(

I turned towards Calum, who was currently well focused on the board in front of us. I lightly chuckled, knowing he was more than pretending to actually pay attention in this class.

I thought I told you to shut up, I wrote underneath his writing and stuck it back onto his desk, and continued from where I left off. I got maybe 5 words in before I saw the neon green appear back onto my desk. I can’t shut up if I’m not talking.

I rolled my eyes before crumbling the paper in my hand, looking at Calum once again. “You’re distracting me. What do you want?” I asked him, the brunette boy turning his head to me once again. 

“For you not to be mad at me.” He responded. “What can I do for you to at least smile at me? Besides telling me to shut up.” 

I stared at him with the bitchiest face I could put on, then rolled my eyes and began to take down more notes in my book. First, he makes me write ten pages for him and now he’s distracting me in class. Can he leave me alone for at least five minutes? 

“And now you’re not gonna talk to me. Fine, be that way.” He grunted. The two of went back to what to we were doing for the remainder of class.

-

“That’s all for today folks, I hope you have a good rest of your day and don’t forget to read pages thirty to thirty-five and finish questions one to twenty-seven.” Our professor said to all of the class, which resulted in me grabbing my bag and standing up immediately, wanting nothing more than to just get the fuck out of this place.

Please don’t talk to me please don’t talk to me please don’t talk to me-

“Hey wait,” Calum said and grabbed my hand. 

Fuck

“Yes?” I asked him, turning my body towards him as he let go of my hand. 

“What’re you doing the rest of the day?” 

“Nothing, why..?”

I saw that Calum had the cheekiest grin on his face after I gave him my answer. “As an apology for making you write down my notes, thank you very much by the way, along with making you angry this whole morning, how about we go get breakfast on me, and we can do our homework together, except I will do all the work, and you just copy my answers? How does that sound?”

I thought about it. One part of me just wanted to flip him off, go back home and get the sleep I missed out on last night. The other part of me was actually kind of down for that idea. Free food, free homework answers and I get to hang out with pretty boy? I wasn’t really losing anything here, huh? 

“I mean, I would say yes, but I took my car here and also I’m dressed terribly right now, the last thing I need is for more people to see me looking like this..” I trailed off, looking down at my current outfit and laughing lightly. “Babe, you don’t even look bad whatsoever right now. However, if you insist, you can go home and change and I can come get you when you’re ready. Is that a plan?” He asked in response. First angel, now babe? What is this guy doing?

“I mean.. I could do that...but-” “Pleeaaasee?” Calum cut me off, pressing his hands together, acting as if he was praying. 

“Ugh, fine, I’ll go with you! I’ll go home and get ready, and I’ll text you when I’m done.” I responded as the both of us walked out of the classroom, towards the parking lot. 

“Pinky promise you won’t cancel on me last minute?” Calum asked, extending his arm and putting his pinky in front of me as we reached my car. I hadn’t even noticed that he walked me to my car, which honestly made my heart flutter when I realized. 

“Are you kidding me?” I laughed lightly, taking my pinky and sticking it out with his, interlocking it. “Pinky promises mean everything, sweetheart. I’ll see you later.” He responded, winking at me then walking away. Getting into my car, I hit my steering wheel, squealing while I repeatedly hit my head against my wheel. “Fuckin’ angel, babe and sweetheart?! What’s next?” I asked myself, driving back to my place to get ready for this little study.. session? Hang out? Date? 

I never noticed how nervous I was to hang out with Calum until four different outfits were placed on my bed, with no ability to choose which one looked best. “Fuck, these are all terrible.” I groaned, flopping onto my bed and closing my eyes. I was interrupted by my phone ringing, seeing that Calum was calling.

“I know you pinky promised that you wouldn’t cancel on me, but angel what is taking so long?” He asked, laughing into his question. “I’m so sorry,” I groaned, getting back up and looking at the outfits I planned on my bed. “I’m having a little wardrobe crisis. I have zero idea what to wear.”

“You could’ve showed up in the hoodie and sweatpants and I’d still find you gorgeous,” He responded, making my heart flutter for what felt like the hundreth time today. This man throws small compliments left and right and it’s kind of driving me crazy. “But lemme see what you got planned out. I’ll make it easier for you.” I responded with an okay, quickly snapping a photo of the clothes that were currently on my bed. 

“Okay first off, none of these are bad at all. I think you could’ve chose any of these and rocked all of ‘em. Second, little shirt big pants is always the way to go. I say the second one.” He told me, choosing a white long sleeved shirt and the baggiest light wash jeans I had in my closet. It might’ve been basic, but Calum was right - you really can’t go wrong with a little shirt big pants combination. 

“Okay, thank you.” I sighed in relief, taking the clothes into my hands and walking into the washroom to change. “You can come now, I’ll text you my address. I’ll probably be done by the time you get here.” 

“Now was that so hard?” He asked in response, causing the both of us to laugh. “I’ll see you in a bit. Bye bye!” 

“Bye Calum, see you later.” And with that the call ended. I quickly changed into my clothes, put my laptop in my bag - along with everything else I needed - and slipped my shoes on. Once I finished doing so, I heard a loud honk outside, indicating that he was outside. 

Walking out of my house I saw Calum exiting his seat, walking over to the other side and opening the door for me. “Wow, what a gentleman.” I laughed as he closed my door and got into the drivers’ side once again. “You look great.” He told me, his eyes focused on my outfit. “All thanks to you.” I said nervously, as he started the car. “Where are we going again?” I asked him. 

“You can never go wrong with IHOP,”  He said proudly, with a wide grin on his face. “How’d you know I loved going there?” I asked him, gaining a chuckle from him in response. “Not sure if you knew this, but I’m a mindreader.” He joked, causing me to roll my eyes and laugh in response. 

Arriving at the place and ordering our food, Calum and I began to have a little conversation. It started off with an are you still mad at me? which resulted into talks about other classes, finals and parties. 

“You’re telling me you’ve never been to a party?” He asked in shock, me shaking my head as I took a sip of the water that was given to me. “Are you kidding me? We’ve been in college for what, two years, and you’ve never been to one?!”

“Yeah, in case you didn’t notice, I go to school to learn and not to party. I don’t ask people to take ten pages of notes for me so I could blaze up, unlike somebody I know,” I responded, Calum looking at me in disbelief. “I cannot believe you just called me out like that. I said I was sorry!” 

“Yeah yeah, I know. You’re making up for it with free food and free homework answers, so I decided to get over it.” I responded, laughing. “Also, when are we gonna start doing the questions?” I asked as the waiter came with both of our plates of food, thanking them as we began to eat. 

“I mean, we could go back to my place and work on it, if that’s alright with you.” Calum said, his mouth full of pancakes. “Is that your way of trying to get in my pants?” I asked jokingly. 

“You’re a fiesty one aren’t you?” He asked, with a simple nod from me in response. “Well to answer your question, no that is not my way of doing such a thing, I’d be much more smooth about it.” 

“Oh, so you think you’re slick or something?” “Nah babe, I know I’m slick.” There’s the cocky party boy that I was much more familiar with. I rolled my eyes in response.

“I’m gonna ignore what you just said.. Anyways, I am fine with working on it at your place.” I told him, getting a nod in response. Throughout the whole breakfast, we got to know each other quite well. I learned that he played soccer in highschool, but due to a torn ACL he had to quit. But because of that, he got into music and started playing the guitar. I told him that if there’s enough free time when we finished, he should play me something. He happily agreed to it, saying that I will fall in love with him after I hear his singing. I just roll my eyes at his cocky compliments about himself. 

I also got to hear his totally wild college parties that he goes to, telling me about this one time one of his friends’ houses got shut down due to the various noise complaints from neighbours down the block. “you should come join me in one”, He offers, with a “fuck no” in response from me. 

“C’mon, they’re not that bad. They’re actually really fun, and everybody’s always so nice.” 

“I literally can’t tell you the last time I got high, and the last time I got drunk it was not pretty, I’m retired from that shit.” I said, as he paid for our food and began walking back to his car.

“Oh, so you used to be rowdy?” He asked, the two of us laughing in unison. “High school me was a different story, we don’t talk about that.” I responded. “The things I would do to see that side of you. You gotta go to at least one before you get outta this place. They take a lot of stress off your shoulders for the night.” He told me as we walked towards the front door to his place, which made me laugh at the fact that he tried to make parties seem like a really good thing. A simple Maybe, was all I responded with as we got settled into his apartment, which was fairly clean to my surprise. 

We were currently sitting across each other at his dining table, the both of us reading over the textbook and him answering the questions after every section. He worked effeciently, which also took me by surprise. I underestimated this guy a lot, didn’t I?

A good two hours later, Calum had finished all the questions for homework and I had finished copying them down, thanking him for doing such a thing.

“It’s no problem. I had no idea that the notes were ten fucking pages long, you deserve a break after that- wait, you wear glasses?” He asked me, analyzing them.

“Yeah, only at home though. I don’t really like how they look on me,” I replied, taking them off and rubbing my eyes. He took them in his hands and put them back on me, smiling. “They look really cute on you, I like them.” He said, causing me to blush. “What’re you so flirty for?” I asked. Keep these compliments up and I might just fall in love with you before you even sing, I thought to myself.

“Well, with somebody as pretty as you, I gotta slip in a flirty remark every chance I get, eh?” He smirked, taking my hand, and taking the both of upstairs. “Don’t take this the wrong way, my guitars in my room.” He reassured me as we walked inside his room. He took the guitar from the side of his room, and sat on the edge of his bed, gesturing me to sit down next to him.

“Ready to fall in love with me?”

“Try me, Hood.” 

He chuckled, playing the intro to Sam Smith’s Leave Your Lover. “Holy shit, I love this song,” I whispered, watching his hands strum the guitar.

He began to sing, immediately amazed by his voice. It was so soft and raspy, I literally could listen to it all day. I closed my eyes, leaning my head on his shoulder. He laughed softly when he noticed, continuing on with the song. 

He finished playing the outro, which caused me to open my eyes and look up at him. “So, how was that?” 

“It was beautiful, your voice is so pretty.” I responded, smiling at him. “You should drop outta this whole college thing and just become famous.”

“Oh man I wish, but I think it’s too late for that.” He told me, now leaning on my shoulder, which made me want to scream and kiss him. “Did you fall in love with me yet?”

I patted his cheek with my hand lightly. “Not yet Cal, not yet. Stil kinda angry about that whole ten pages of notes thing.” 

“You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”

“Nah.”

He laughed, then took my hand and intertwined it with his, rubbing circles on it with his thumb. “What if I told you I’d be down to do this again, minus the whole ‘let me do this for you today as an apology’ thing?” He questioned, lifting his head from my shoulder and looking at me.

“What do you mean, ‘this again’?”

“I mean picking you up with a coffee before class, bothering you the whole time, getting breakfast with you afterwards, studying together, and then playing a song for you once we get too lazy to finish our assignments.” He replied with a soft smile that made my heart warm and my cheeks red.

“And what if I told you that I’d be down to do those things aswell?” 

“Well then my love, I will pick you up on Wednesday at 8:15 with a venti iced white mocha with only one extra shot of espresso, because I won’t keep you up to write more notes. After class, I’ll take us to any place you wanna go. Denny’s? IHOP? Waffle House? You name it. Then, we can go back to my place, study our asses off and then I can play you as many songs as you’d like. How does that sound?” He offered, the biggest smile appearing on my face.

“That sounds perfect.”

“Now if we’re going to be doing this... does this mean I can finally take you to a damn party?”

“Fuck off, Hood.”

[locallysourcedfriend]

roadtrip p2

She may or may not have mentioned the idea of planting a few other trees from the desert nearby so "Neg", as Tamilyn chose to call it, wouldn't feel as lonely in the day cycles in what was essentially just a hot dirt and rock room to Tobias. He wasn't directly in charge of how containment was set up but the promise of behavioral testing and the chance it could reveal how it hid so well up until this point and possibly find others like it should get him talking to people eventually. She'd made a hat similar to it's own in the meantime for when the the installments finally happened, and they did!

The very first day cycle after she had Cacti, (she knows it's factually incorrect to call anything in the yucca genus a cacti, but she does not care.) pick her up to tie down the top leaves and slapped a replica of it's headwear before making it back to her three dollar rental and making sure the tarp and straps are secure- she didn't need a 4 ton abomination falling out on the freeway and killing someone. It started to rattle again and that caught the attention of an onlooker causing her to slap the truck bed hard enough for it to move and seemingly rattle the cactus mimic. They just squinted at the scene momentarily before going back to talking on the phone.

Holding the abused hand and almost crying, a short "You owe me-" is hissed but it falls onto deaf ears. Getting to I-15 and into Yuma, Arizona was going to be a trip that she honestly wasn't too excited about the more she thought about the what might happen when she gets back-...

pulled off the highway in the middle of the Mojave to rest for the night. Not safe to drive more than 10 consecutive hours. Driver seat reclined, back window popped open, and Cacti tasked with "protecting" her for the night even though she doubts anything else was ever around these areas aside from them and a couple of moths. Did... They have any correlation to the flowers it was growing from its head recently? She'll keep note of that.

"Night, Cacti." A hum of acknowledgment and she was out.

Loud rattles and sporadic barking woke her up just before something nicked the top of the truck and left a dent in the roof

"COLLY-" a hold tighter than she was comfortable with had ripped her out of the car and two different growls were heard, one from Cacti and the other- Christ what the fuck is it looking at that it has to crane its neck? Oh. Big, glowing eyes stare down from a silhouette covering the moon. Cacti had stopped growling and the rattles grew faint when the figure swayed, it swayed back in response but hid Dr. Collymore further into its side leaves. It took a step back when the giant attempted to crouch and reach to touch them. Nodding, the giant stood back up and took a few steps away from the road but didn't go any further than that. It stared for a little while longer at the other cryptid and faintly whined before remembering that smaller creatures don't like being held tight.

"Sorry..." It felt bad for disrupting and taking her out of the truck even if it was important.

"You're fine. I'm not hurt, just a little scared." Cacti put her back in the front seat and readjusted her blanket to cover her up to the best of their ability.

"Better to drive a few minutes further and get out of his migration path. He's old. He can't tell the difference between the road and rivers anymore. He... Never means to hurt anyone but it happens sometimes. Avoid it." When it finally sat itself in the back it let to a wail, not unlike a distorted woman screaming and rattled while waving at the elder. He waved back and turned to continue on his path. She was... So tired but ten more minutes driving isn't gonna hurt after a half hour nap.

when im done writing these im probably gonna take more time to fix a few things before posting it all together if that's ok? almost got got stepped on by a saguaro but it's ok, dude's just old as fuck n looking for a creek to sit and listen to. feed some bats.

Awesome I love it! @itsflowers second part of collymore fic just dropped!

[mintseesaw]

huling sandali 

translation. last moment ⇀ an entry for paraluman playlist

pairing: namjoon x reader genre: angst, est. relationship au word count: 2.2k warnings: themes of insecurities being triggered, emotional struggles, a break-up drabble a.k.a not a happy ending // pg-13

drabble request by @jim-parkin​​ with “pighati + namjoon” hi hjdgdhsgsg im sorry it took me 3254 years to write this :((( i hope you like it. Also, happy belated birthday, alyssa!!! huh i just found out like 10 hrs ago prior to posting this on my first attempt hfdkdjdh im a horrible friend but ily ;-( *unedited

Namjoon arrived home by the time you started packing your stuff. He found you sitting on the living room floor, casually sorting things and putting them in labeled boxes laid in front of you.

You were supposed to ignore him, just like what he’s been doing in the past week. You realized, days of argument after argument before seems better than a whole week of silence in the apartment. The loneliness becomes greater, the glassy tension— unbearable, and his passive treatment more than anything else, hurts you the most.

You couldn’t look at him, having no will to possibly see the indifference on his face while he watches you gradually removing your traces in his place.

As seconds turn minutes since the distinct click of the door closing snaps shut, you took notice of the prolonged silence without the tap of the heels of his black shoes on the granite floor resonating through the living room. With your curiosity suddenly distracting you out of your focus, your head tilted on your side to peek behind you.

There he was, standing so tall and so formal with a frown on his face. His eyes shone not because of the lenses of his glasses but from the unshed tears on his eyes. When your gazes met, he was quick to crane his neck to the opposite side.

You open your mouth to call him to gather his attention. But he was already walking away out of the living room.

It’s been a whole week since you told him you’ll move out. He perfectly understood the implication of it. He objected, tried to convince you not to leave. When his attempts went futile, he did stop trying. Then fostered the silence between the two of you.

He avoided you while you try to make things right by keeping the break up somewhat acceptable on both terms. His refusal to speak with you seemed to convince you that, somehow, he had given up, silently giving you the signal to proceed on your plans.

Half an hour later, you began emptying half of the wardrobe in the walk-in closet. Coincidentally, he was in the shower at the time. After work, he’d routinely clean himself up before he rests or eats dinner with you. However, he stopped taking meals with you nor stayed in the bedroom to read the day you broke the word to him. With his persistence to avoid your presence, you’re almost sure he would let you be in peace while you packed the last bit of your clothes from the closet.

You’re supposed to leave days ago. The tenant of the apartment complex you found weeks prior has been non stop bugging you to move in.

However, you cannot just leave without a proper goodbye to him. In fact, he should be the one leaving you, not the other way around. But he couldn’t do that. Because he owns this place just as much as he owns nearly everything here including your heart.

Namjoon would never ask you to leave, even if he wants you to. That’s how much goodness there is in him. You just happened to take advantage of it and live comfortably by his side.

With your emotions at bay, a silent tear spid down your cheeks, leaving a dot of patch on the fabric of your folded clothes as you fill up your luggage on the bed.

Mere seconds later just as you hear the bathroom door opening, you feel the familiar, strong arms snaked over your waist from behind making you still instantaneously on the spot.

“Namjoon—“

“Don’t… don’t leave.” He says to you for the first time in a week.

His wet hair quickly drenches the spot on your shoulder where he laid his forehead.

Squeezing his hand pressed on your stomach, you smile weakly without facing him. “We talked about this.”

You felt his forehead grazing your shoulder blade as he shakes his head, “I don’t agree with this.”

“We both need this. We need to give each other time to breathe.” You murmur under your breath, nearly admitting the real reason behind your decision. That you knew. You knew he was suffering, and he was trying not to show it to you.

“I don’t need it if you’re not with me.” Namjoon says back, the grip of his arms around tightening.

Sighing, “You’re smarter than me, Joon. You know it’s been tough for the both of us. You’ve been so patient with me and I know you’re getting tired.”

“We can s-still make this work. Fighting is normal. Arguments allow us to speak of our minds. We learn but we move on from it because we love each other.”

“We tried, Joon. So many times. So many times that there’s nothing left of me but doubts and insecurities.”

Namjoon plants a subtle kiss on the side of your head. You remained pliant to his embrace, almost not wanting for him to let you go. For him to insist his place in your life despite your determination to fulfill what you need to do.

“I can wait until you’re ready to love yourself, again.” He attempts once more. He’s always honest with his thoughts so you know he’s sincere when he speaks his heart out.

“That’s not how it works.”

“Then tell me what I should do, please don’t give up just yet.”

His words are like a twisting fire of a knife in your chest, slithering your heart apart and burning the shreds into ashes. The room suddenly feels suffocating and stiff.

Disentangling his arms around your waist, you turn to finally face him. If you’re not only so emotionally invested with the confrontation, you could have stared at him and let your eyes admire every detail on his face until he shies away from your peer that cheeks bloom with crimson tint. Just like the old times.

But your chances have run out, moments have fleeted, your time with him is almost over. Your palms harshly wiping wet traces on your cheeks, refusing to cry in front of him. With a tilt of your chin up, he struck you with his sorrowful, pleading eyes.

“Do you really want someone like me? Someone who depends on you— financially, physically, emotionally? You meet a lot of successful women and I fear that I’m not gonna be enough for you. Joon, I’ll always worry and pick up fights with you.”

Tears brimmed on his eyes, shaking his head to stress his disagreement. “You are more than enough for me. I didn’t love you because of what you have. I fell in love with you because of what’s in here,” he points at your chest.

“Why, it’s you who has a pure soul. You have everything a man could have asked for. Any woman would fall at your feet to earn your attention,” your voice deteriorating as your head falling in morose, suddenly losing the ability to hold his stare with the facade of a strength you’re putting up. “You know, I’m so lucky to have you. I’ve always told you that. But now, things changed. You’re suffering because of me. It’s how I realized I have to let you go because I want you to be happy, again.”

He gathers your face with his palms, forcing you to look at him. “No, no, no. That’s not true. You make me happy.. Please, stop this, you’re everything to me…”

His warm breaths fanning your skin with his heavy, calculated breathing.

“It’s me,” you pause, “You’ve taught me how to love but I chose the wrong way, I loved you too much than what I’m capable of giving. Now I’m lost and I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

He inches his face closer until his nose is touching your cheek. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I didn’t mean to change you. I thought I was doing the right thing for you. I want you to dream, I want to see you soar high with your chosen profession. Please, baby don’t leave me. We could fix this.”

No, he was getting the wrong impressions. You didn’t regret going back to college when he pleaded you to. You didn’t regret setting aside your passion for art to continue the education you once took up before you left ran away from home. None of the ugly thoughts poisoning your mind were his doing. It was you and your insecurities.

“It’s not your fault. You saved me, remember? I met you at the time I was drowning in grief. Then I started dreaming. And the day you confessed your feelings to me, you made my dream come true. That was more than enough for me, Joon. Every inch of you became my happiness and it pains me to see I’m the one making you suffer.”

“Listen to me, _____. You make me happy. There’s no perfect relationship. But you’re perfect to me. You’ve always kept me grounded, made me think of my future, made me thrive for our future. No woman has had me at my worst, they only want the good things in life. You’ve been through tough times. But the kindness in your heart remains immeasurable, do you hear me? You deserve everything I have offered and so much more, baby.”

His thumbs patiently brushing the tears away.

“I can’t keep dragging you with my downfall.”

“I don’t want us fighting but sometimes, it gets out of hand. I stay at an arm’s length but it doesn’t mean I want you gone. Because at the end of the day, I’d want to go home to you even when we’re not okay.”

Your eyes fluttered close, not bearing to see the tears free-flowing on his cheeks. Namjoon rarely cries in front of you. Even before when you were purposely trying to aim his heart with your sharp words, nothing could seem to break him down. It’s always you who’s end up losing. Crying.

Silence filled the air for a moment until you heard him shifted. Then you felt a pressure on the side of your thighs and when you caught up what he did, your knees almost gave out.

“Namjoon— w-what are you doing? Stand up!”

His fingers dug deep on the skin of your thighs, head hung long, “Don't leave,” he begs.

“No, stand up!” You sob in disbelief. He couldn’t do this when you should be the one begging for forgiveness for failing him.

Hurriedly, you shuffled on your knees, fisting his shirt as you sobbed on his chest.

His arms gave you warmth as they enveloped over your back. As the room starts to drown with your muffled cries, he cups your face and in a matter of second, Namjoon’s lips are on yours, swallowing your sobs and murmuring sweet I love you’s while keeping your connected lips with his.

Seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into hours, your insides are a mess, dreading for the end of this moment. With his concern to your plan, he refuses to loosen his hold on you. Even when you urged him to lie down on the bed with you, he didn’t move not until you tugged his body down beside you.

The rhythmic brushes of your fingers on his hair have calmed him down but with his arm secured over your back. It was only when he finally fell asleep when the grip of his arm loosens.

It’s been hours. You haven’t gotten a wink of sleep, and the sun will soon rise in a matter of an hour or two.

It doesn’t resolve the issue. It won’t because you know the next day, things will be the same. Same insecurities will eat you up alive until you burst your anger at him. And then the fight starts, arguments will inevitably tear you two apart. It’s an unending cycle of toxicity that not even yourself can control. Not until you allow yourself to heal.

Until then, you deem yourself unworthy of his love.

You need to leave before he wakes up. You know, it wouldn’t take long before you regret your decision.

“Meeting you was the best thing that happened in my life. I’m sorry for failing you, for failing myself. I hope,” you choke as a lump forms in your throat, “... you’ll be proud of me when I get better even when you have found someone else.” You ended your parting words with your lips pressing gently on the back of his hand.

Your shoulders slightly shake, your hands tremble as sobs threaten to break from your throat.

Your thumb carefully caresses his knuckles, watching him sleep so peacefully with your blurry vision. Suddenly, you couldn’t find the strength in you to pull yourself up.

“Why is it so hard to leave?” You whisper, looking at his sleeping figure.

He is your strength. Your happiness. The owner of your heart. Your dream come true. Someday, you’ll return and take your heart back from him. But for now, you’ll have to start living without it.

With one last look, you stood up with all your might and let the tears fall mercilessly as you fought back the urge to run back to him.

~~~

That moment still remains vivid in your mind, as fresh as the wound in your heart a year later. If you could only turn back the time, you wish he was awake to stop you from leaving. Now, all you could do is watch him from afar at his favorite coffee shop with someone else. The same one he used to take you at. He looks genuinely happy. At least, the break up did him good.

Every time you stood up from your seat to leave, you keep reminding yourself it’s the last time you’ll hope for your paths to cross. Somehow when the pain gets too much to bear, you always find yourself coming back here. Hoping. For another chance. You have the answer to that now. Someone else has already taken your place in his heart.

Inside the coffee shop, the girl sitting across him huffs while watching you walk away out of the establishment. She shifts her gaze to the man in front of her whose attention has speechlessly zeroed in on your figure through the glass walls.

“When will you actually start talking to the girl? You’ve been dragging me here for over a month now. My time is precious, Kim. It’s so obvious you’re smitten for her!” She glares.

Namjoon didn’t answer, only because he doesn’t know how. How do I win her back?

mintseesaw © 2020

[hopelikethemoon]

Pool (Javier x Reader) {MTMF} [smut]

Title: Pool Rating: Explicit  Length: 3100 Warnings: Fluff and shower sex.  Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set after “Anniversary” in 1999. FULL DISCLOSURE: This chapter is entirely unbeta’d and I’m not 100% sure what I’ve written makes sense. I’ve been in horrific pain since Sunday night. I’m talking on a scale of 1-10, I was at an 11 while writing this. I’m loopy, sore, and haven’t slept in two nights. I think, with my naps, I’ve had four hours of sleep over the past two days. So I have no idea what you’re walking into but, you know, I make great decisions. Enjoy???? Summary: Reader and Javier continue celebrating. 

@grapemama​​​​​ @seawhisperer​​​​​ @huliabitch​​​​​ @beccaplaying​​​​​ @thewallpapergoesorido​​​​​ @twomoonstwosuns​​​​​ @gooddaykate​​​​ @livasaurasrex​​​​​ @ham4arrow​​​​​ @plexflexico​​​​​ @readsalot73​​​​​ @hdlynn​​​​​ @lokiaddicted​​​​​ @randomness501​​​​​ @fioccodineveautunnale​​​​​  @roxypeanut​​​​​ @snivellusim​​​​​ @lukesrighthand​​​​​ @historynerd04 @mrsparknuts​​​​​ @awesomefandomsunited​​​​​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​​​​ @exrebelshocktrooper​​​​​ @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​​​​​ @ah-callie​​​​​ @swhiskeys​​​​​ @exrebelshocktrooper​​​​​ @u-wakatoshii​​ @space-floozy​​​​​ @cable-kenobi​​​​​ @cool-ultra-nerd​​ @himbopoes​​​​​ @findhimfives​​​​​ @pedrosdoll​​​​​ @frietiemeloen​​​​​ @arrowswithwifi​​​​​  @cinewhore​​​​​ @random066​​​​​ @uncomicalhumour​​​​​ @heather-lynn​​​​​ @domino-oh-damn​​​​​ @cyarikaaa​​​​​ @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​​​​ @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl​​​​​ @yabby-girl​​​​​ @xqueenofthecraziesx​​​​ @punkass-potato​​​​​ @coredrive​​​​​ @pascalesque​​​​​ @theduchessofkirkcaldy​​​​​ @queenquazar​​​​​ @sabinemorans​​​​​ @buckstaposition​​ @holkaskrosnou​​ @yespolkadotkitty​​​​​@seeking-a-great–perhaps @kochamcie​​​​​ @jaime1110​​​​​ @katlikeme​

You propped your chin up on your palm, tapping your fingers against your cheek as you looked across the table at Javier. 

He had his tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek as he calculated out the tip total. His brows furrowed momentarily as he double checked his math, before he jotted his signature down and sat the bill aside. 

Javier glanced up at you, “What is it?”

“Nothing.” You shook your head and smiled at him. “I was just appreciating the view.”

He chuckled, rubbing at the back of his neck as he looked away briefly, “You’re gonna make me blush, baby.”

“Maybe.” You stretched your leg out beneath the table and tapped your foot against his ankle. “It's only my first anniversary once.” You pointed out. “So I’m savoring it.”

“I think that champagne went to your head,” Javier retorted with a smirk, tapping his fingers against his temple. 

You rolled your eyes, “I’d flip you off if this weren’t a nice restaurant.” 

Javier snorted, shaking his head slowly as he nudged at your calf beneath the table. “Alright, so you were appreciating the view?”

“Mhm.” You bit down on the edge of your bottom lip as you held his gaze. “I was trying to remember what you looked like that first day.”

“About ten years younger.” Javier scratched at his jaw, leaning an arm against the table. “A little less grey.”

“A lot less grey.” You teased, reaching across the table to rest your hand over his. “Still just as handsome though.” 

“Yeah?”

You cocked your head to the side, “Have I ever told you how much I love your eyes?”

“I always figured they were part of the package.” He shrugged, scraping his fingers over his mustache to neaten it up as you studied him. “They’re not that special.”

“Well, I think they are.” You shrugged, “They're kind. Even on your worst days, even chewing someone out… They stay so gentle. I don’t know if you even know that.” 

“I hadn’t made a note of it, no.” Javier shifted again, leaning back and then forward in his seat. “You done?”

“I guess I am.” You laughed, giving his hand three squeezes, “I was planning to sit here and tell you all the things I love.”

He gave you a look. “This is the last time I’m buying you champagne.”

You lowered your voice, glancing around to make sure no one was within earshot. “I can promise you this. It has more to do with you fucking me into the hotel mattress than it does the champagne.” Your brows rose upwards as you leaned back in your chair, “So we can stop that if you want.”

Javier scoffed, “Now that’s just cruel, baby.” 

You shrugged, “It’s just the facts.” 

“Alright, what else is on your list?” He picked you the red and white mint the waiter had left with the bill, fiddling with the wrapper, before popping it into his mouth. 

You pursed your lips as you studied him. “Your lips are definitely on the top of the list.” You tapped your foot against his, mulling over your decision. “Your nose.”

“My nose?”

“It’s a good nose.”

His brows furrowed. “My nose?” He questioned again, rubbing his finger down the length of it. “So you like... my face?”

“Obviously.” You laughed, reaching for your champagne glass and downing the last of it. Maybe it was the champagne, but you felt happy, bubbly, and just a little bit more in love with Javier than you were yesterday. But that wasn’t something new. Every day you found yourself falling in love with him all over again. 

Even on the days where you wondered if Steve would help you hide the body. 

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” You questioned as you stood up and smoothed your hands over the skirt of your dress. 

Javier couldn’t help but laugh, “I can only imagine.” He held his hand out for you and you took ahold of it as the two of you walked towards the front of the restaurant. 

“I’ve always wanted to jump into a pool in a nice dress.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” You squeezed his hand. “Come on, it’ll be fun.” 

“You’re serious?”

You stopped, turning to face him. “You can watch if you don’t want to jump in.” 

Javier scoffed, pulling you towards him. “If you’re jumping in, I’m jumping in.”

A grin spread over your lips as you met his eyes, draping your free arm over his shoulder as you leaned in to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Now you’re seeing things my way.” 

“The question is… the inside or outside pool?” Javier questioned, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

“Indoor will likely be vacant since it’s nice out.” You suggested, rubbing your lips together as you considered the options. “Indoor.” 

You tightened your hold on Javier’s hand, guiding him past the elevators and down the hallway — following the scent of chlorine. 

“We could go back up to the room and get our swimsuits.”

“Or we could jump into the pool fully dressed.” You arched a brow at him. “You were on board a second ago.” 

“I’m still on board.” Javier shrugged a shoulder. “Just keeping our options open.” 

“You better not be keeping your options open.” You held up your left hand, wiggling your fingers. “You’re stuck with me.” 

“That is not what I meant.” Javier huffed, stepping ahead of you to open the door that led into the pool room. 

As you had expected — the pool was vacant. Beyond the wall of windows, you could see that there were still people enjoying the last rays of sunlight at the outside pool. 

“We chose right.” You pointed out as you stepped past him and slid your purse off your shoulders. You say it down on one of the pool chairs, tucking your earrings, necklace, and ring into the inner pocket for safekeeping. 

“It’s silk.” Javier stated as he tugged off his tie and passed it to you. 

“And a gift from Josie.” You reminded him as you folded the tie carefully and placed it into your purse. “Have you ever done this before?”

Javier looked between you and the pool, “I was always fond of jumping in buckass naked.” He gave you an unamused look. “Can’t say I’m interested in getting arrested for that.”

“No, that wouldn’t be ideal.” You laughed and kicked off your heels, walking towards the edge of the pool. 

“Is this a bucket list thing?” Javier questioned. You glanced back over your shoulder, watching as he peeled off his socks and tucked them into his shoes. “Did you get a look at all of my greys and decide it was time to start on one?” He tossed his wallet onto the chair beside your purse, before joining you at the edge of the pool. 

You shook your head, “This is what happens when you pair a bottle and a half of champagne with a really good mood.” 

Javier turned to grin at you, “So it was the champagne?” 

“Oh, fuck off Javier!” You laughed, getting your chance to flip him off, just before you leapt into the pool. 

You resurfaced just as Javier jumped in to join you in the pool. You wiped at your eyes, laughing as he came back up with his hair plastered to his forehead. 

“Well?” Javier questioned, coughing a little as he waded in the water, keeping himself afloat. “Was it everything you thought it would be, baby?”

“Oh yeah.” You grinned at him as you swam towards him, reaching out to ruffle the hair that was stuck to his forehead. “Thank you.”

“For jumping into the pool with you?” He arched a brow at you. “I’d do anything you asked, baby.” 

“Anything?” You wiggled your brows at him, leaning in to kiss him. “You taste like pool.” You laughed, brushing your nose against his. 

“I wonder why.” He wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you towards him. 

“Could it be that we’re in the pool?” You laughed, winding both of your arms around his shoulders. “We should do this every year.”

“This?”

“No! Just… something spontaneous.” You kicked your legs in the water to keep your dress from dragging you down. “I mean, last year we did decide to get married.”

Javier let his head tilt back as he laughed, “What are we going to do next year?”

You pressed your tongue to the inside of your cheek, “Matching tattoos?”

“I could do matching tattoos.” Javier grinned at you, running his hand up and down your back. “Did you have a good day?” He questioned, keeping you close to him, as he guided you both towards the shallow side of the pool.

“It was perfect.” You told him with a warm

Smile, “I’m looking forward to tomorrow. As much as I love the girls, this is really ice.”

“We never got to really enjoy just us without being parents too.” Javier agreed with you, rubbing at the small of your back. 

“I feel guilty about it sometimes,” You admitted, chewing on your bottom lip as you searched his eyes. “But I think that’s normal. Wanting a break from reality — just for a day or two.”

“I think that’s perfectly normal, baby.” Javier assured you, leaning in to press a kiss to your lips. “You ready to go back up to our room?”

You nodded, laughing a little, “Yeah. I think I’ve got my fill of chlorine.” 

 —

 “Cold?” Javier questioned as he stopped unbuttoning his shirt to reach into the shower and check the temperature of the water. 

Your teeth chattered a little as you wrapped your arms around your waist. “Just a bit. Know any way to fix that?” 

“I might.” He arched a brow at you, tracing his tongue over the edge of his teeth as his gaze raked over you. “I think the first step is getting you out of that dress. You’re dripping everywhere.”

“So are you.” You retorted, rubbing your hands over your bare arms as Javier crowded close to you. You turned to face the mirror behind you, meeting Javier’s gaze in the reflection. “I can’t reach the zipper.” 

Javier brushed your hair out of the way, kissing the back of your neck before working the zipper down your spine. “I’ve been waiting for this all night.” 

“Oh?” You questioned as he peeled the straps of your dress down your shoulders, letting the wet fabric drop and pool at your feet. “You already got me naked once today.”

He clicked his tongue against his teeth, “And yet I look forward to it every time.” 

You turned back around to face him, feeling much warmer now that his gaze was wandering over your naked body. “I guess I can’t judge. I’m just as bad.” You reached out to finish unbuttoning his shirt, tugging the tails out of his pants before shoving the sleeves down his arms. 

Javier cupped your left breast, dragging his thumb roughly over the pebbled peak of your nipple as he pressed you back against the counter. 

“I love you.” You reminded him as you pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. 

He trailed his hand down your side, grabbing at your hip as he pressed his knee between your thighs. “I love you too, baby.” He murmured, kissing the hollow of your throat. 

“We’re wasting water.” You said, tugging at his hair with one hand, while the other slid down to work at the zipper of his slacks. 

Javier kissed his way up your throat, before he was nose-to-nose with you, “Then I guess we better get in.” 

You grinned triumphantly as you tugged his slacks down his hips, “I can think of something I want to get in me.” You tossed back, scraping your nails lightly over his lower stomach, playing with the coarse hair that led downwards, before you slipped out of his grasp. 

“You’re a tease. You know that, baby?” Javier retorted as he shucked off his slacks and boxers. 

You narrowed your eyes at him, a smirk playing over your lips. “A tease would wind you up and offer no release.” You gave his cock a pointed look. “And I’m not interested in doing that.” 

You slid your pool-soaked underwear down your thighs, kicking them aside before stepping into shower. The warm water made you hiss softly, a sharp contrast from the icy pool water that chilled your skin. 

Javier followed you into the shower, curling an arm around your waist and pulling you back against his chest. “Even looking like this, you’re the goddamn most beautiful woman.” 

“Looking like this?” You pressed your ass back against him. “What? Is there a problem with runny mascara and pool hair?”

Javier snorted, pressing his lips to the crook of your neck. “It's a good look on you.” He mumbled as his hands wandered up your stomach to cup your breasts. 

You curled your fingers around his forearm, nails biting into his skin. “Javier.” 

“I’m not going to tease, baby.” He promised you releasing his hold on your right breast, his hand traveling downwards until he found his destination between your thighs. 

You let yourself get lost in the moment. The water falling against your skin, the steam rising from the warmth of the shower, his fingers grazing over your clit as he wound you up. 

You were still sensitive from before. Thighs aching from the strain, cunt tender from the way he’d slammed into you — but you wanted more. 

Sure, the two of you made time for each other at home, but this little respite gave you freedom from the daily demands of life. It didn’t matter if you slept til ten tomorrow because he’d kept you up all night. 

“Oh.” You breathed out as you sank back against his chest, spreading your thighs wider as he stroked his fingers over your slick center.

Javier rasped out your name as you reached behind you and curled your fingers around the back of his neck, “You’re so fucking responsive, baby. Have I ever told you how crazy that drives me?”

“Show me.” You hissed, grinding back against his cock. “Don’t make me wait, Javi.” 

His teeth scraped over the curve of your neck, as he pulled his fingers away from you. “Maybe I should make you wait.” Javier taunted. “Make you beg.”

You turned in his hold, water running down your back as you met his gaze. “You know, two can play that game.” You tilted your head backwards, letting the water soak into your hair. “Maybe,” You mimicked his voice. “We should just shower and go to sleep.”

Javier pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek as his eyes followed the path of the water as the rivulets ran down your breasts and stomach. “We could do that.” He retorted, “But I don’t think either of us want that.” 

You exhaled shakily as you watched his hand wrap around his cock, slowly pumping his fist along the length. “You’d be right. Tragically.” You rolled your eyes, a wry grin spreading over your lips. 

“Thought so.” Javier said lowly, working his hand over his length still. “C’mere, baby.”

You closed the short distance between the two of you, reaching out to brush your fingers over his cheek. “Tonight was fun.”

“Yeah?” Javier cocked his head to the side, curling his hand around your hip and pulling you towards him. 

“Yeah.” You nodded, brushing your thumb over his bottom lip. “There’s no one that I’d rather jump into a pool with.” 

He gave your hip a playful swat. “You’re ridiculous.” 

You grinned, sliding your arms over his shoulders as you leaned in to kiss him. “Gotta keep you on your toes.”

Javier guided you back under the shower’s fall, before pinning you against the wall. “Right now, I’m more concerned about keeping you off your toes.”

You snorted, running your hands over his shoulders. “Let me see what we’re working with.” You gave his arm a squeeze as you looked downwards. “Hang on.” 

He helped you balance on one foot as you pressed the heel of your other foot into the little built-in shelf near the faucet head. “You got it?”

“I think so.” You nodded, holding his gaze as he slid his hand down your hip, curling his fingers around your thigh and drawing your leg around his hips. “Oh.”

Javier groaned out your name as you reached down to curl your fingers around his cock, holding him steady as he slid into you. 

Your head fell back against the shower wall and you bit down on your bottom lip to keep from crying out as he pulled out and drove back into you. 

“That’s it.” You urged, grabbing at his arms and his shoulders for support as he started to move. 

Javier held fast to your hip, keeping your leg firmly wrapped around him. His lips ghosted down your throat, his tongue dipping out against your skin. “You feel so fucking good.” 

“So do you.” You scraped your nails over his back, just to hear him hiss. “Good?”

“Fuck, yes.” Javier’s teeth caught against your collarbone, causing you to clench around him in response. 

Through the opaque shower curtain, you could make out your reflections in the mirror. Two blurry bodies moving together.

Twelve years as partners, seven years as a couple, and a year of marriage. It felt like the years had slipped by in the blink of an eye. 

You curled your fingers in his hair, a quiet moan slipping past your lips as he felt that subtle shift in the way he moved. “Come on, Javi. Come on.” You urged, nails scraping down the back of his neck as you tilted your head to kiss him.

He was there before you, his pace turning uneven as he spilled into you. His hand hastily wedged between your bodies as he coaxed you over the edge with him. It wasn’t as earth shattering as earlier — but the pleasure still warmed every inch of you. 

“Shit.” Javier huffed out as he lost hold of your hip and you slid an inch down the wall. He stumbled back, slipping from you, and you managed to grab at his arms for support, getting your foot back on the ground without falling.

“Fuck!” 

“Sorry, baby.” He rubbed his thumb over your hip. 

You laughed, shoving him playfully in the chest “I mean, just drop me next time.” 

He rolled his eyes, “I’ll remember that.” He gave your ass a quick swat. “The water’s getting cold.”

“The hotel probably pulled the plug on us.” You winked at him, leaning up to kiss him. “I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He chuckled, winding his fingers through his hair. 

You brushed your nose against his, stealing another kiss. “Rude.” 

Javier curled his arms around you, pulling you towards his chest. “I love you too, baby.” He assured you, even though you didn’t need to hear it to know it.