#but oh well ill be back home on tuesday

[tony-andonuts]

So damn colf

[nerdie-faerie]

This has got to be the worst move out yet

[hongism]

what lies beneath us. - c. san (m)

➼ genre; fluff, smut, slight angst for the first half but i make it better quickly promise ➼ pairing; san x afab!reader ➼ au; established relationship, college au ➼ warnings; explicit smut ➼ rating; m/18+ ➼ wc; 6.4k

one busy semester is all it took for you and san to find yourselves struggling to find footing in the storm that is your relationship, yet rather than let go, he asked for one more week, one more day, one last chance to help get you back to shore

part of the ...and it's snowing collab.

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➼ smut warnings; unprotected sex, oral: m, vaginal fingering, praise, body worship, service-top san, san has some slightly submissive tendencies, coming inside

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You normally wouldn’t find yourself in Wooyoung’s apartment on a Tuesday morning, sitting at the bar counter beside his roommate with two mugs of coffee sitting on the granite between you, but you also haven’t had any leisure time to waste lately. It’s a miracle that Wooyoung is even up before ten o’clock, though that might be in part due to you pleading desperately over the phone to come over.

“Oh, you make her coffee but not me? The fuck is up with that, Hwa?” Speak of the devil, Wooyoung comes into the kitchen still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“She’s a guest, you live here. And I had to wake you up because you slept through three alarms so my sympathy levels are close to zero right now.” Seonghwa flashes a faux shrug despite the heated glare he’s sent. Wooyoung lets out a huff but lets it go in favor of redirecting his attention to you.

“Right, well, what did you need to talk about so badly that it couldn’t wait until the afternoon?”

“San is coming over tonight, I couldn't do the afternoon,” you mumble.

“Is it about him then? Did something—” he waves a hand through the air like that’ll explain his thoughts, and when confusion shows on both your face and Seonghwa’s, he gives up ��—did something happen between you guys?”

“It feels a bit awkward,” you admit over the rim of your coffee mug. Wooyoung scoffs at that, but Seonghwa is far more forgiving than your best friend in that he sends you a sympathetic grin. 

“Awkward?” he prompts, toying with his own drink. Wooyoung pushes away from the counter and turns to the coffee maker.

“I don't know. Yeah, awkward, a bit. I guess. Like we don't know what we're doing or how to be in a relationship anymore.”

The brutal semester you both just suffered has been the main factor in the wedge in your relationship. Weekends full of studying, ones that you spent together at the start of the semester when he would come to your place or vice versa so that you could be together even while working. Then, San started picking up more shifts at his part-time job, and you had to redirect your focus to a particularly important internship that required you to forgo those weekends in the blink of an eye. You did have two weekends free of school and work, but San had to rush home during one of those on account of his mother falling ill. The other one was shot by you falling ill with the worst cold you’ve known in all your years of living. San came by that Friday with your favorite chicken and beer, but you couldn’t bring yourself to risk getting him sick when you knew how important the semester was to him too. It didn’t keep him from coming by again Saturday and Sunday both, soup was delivered to your front door along with voice messages wishing you well throughout the night. Even your text conversations were fizzling into oblivion by the time finals rolled around, which only served to amplify your feelings of dread. 

“Has he been acting differently?” Wooyoung tunes back into the conversation, this time more serious with his tone. “Like, he's pulling away or something?” Wooyoung stands on a different footing in this conversation and knows things Seonghwa doesn't in terms of your relationship with San. He's been there for you since well before you started dating San, and you're certain that he'll be there for you if it were to end tomorrow, the next day, or years down the line. 

“It's gonna sound so childish and stupid but he hasn't been calling me nicknames since the semester ended.” You tuck your hands into your lap and shrink into yourself a little, feeling the hot burn of shame well up inside.

“That's not stupid at all, y/n,” Seonghwa reassures barely a second after you finish your train of thought. “That's not.”

“He's right. That's totally unlike San.”

“Not! Helping!”

“I'm just being honest?!”

“Look, y/n, I don't want you to start having doom thoughts or thinking the worst — that doesn't mean his feelings for you have changed.” You’re starting to think that you should’ve asked Seonghwa for advice from the start instead of Wooyoung. “Maybe he's feeling that awkwardness you are too, or maybe he's feeling insecure. The only way to know is to ask. Have an open and honest conversation about it.”

“But…” You glance past Seonghwa to look at Wooyoung's back. Without even needing to look back, he seems to feel the weight of your stare.

“You're scared that if you bring it up, the worst will happen and y'all will break up.”

“We've been dating for so long that I don't know what I would do if that happened. I don't know how to be single, no offense to either of you, but it's just that we've been together for so long now. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if it ended.”

“If…” Wooyoung bites his words back as though he's unsure of how they will come out. “I don't want this to sound harsh, but if all it takes for him to lose his feelings for you is one busy semester, then that's not someone I would want you to have a future with. I know it's not up to me and it's not my business, but I want you to value yourself more than you value your relationship with San.”

“I truly don't think he's lost his feelings for you, y/n,” Seonghwa cuts in again, hand darting out across the counter in your direction. “Woo is right; you should value yourself more than the relationship you're in, but that doesn't mean you can only have one of those things. They can coexist.”

“What if I’m fighting for something he doesn’t want any longer?” you inquire softly and under your breath.

“The spark isn’t gone, y/n, I’m certain of that much. Maybe you just… need to find a way to reignite it!” The coffee maker dings loudly behind Wooyoung. And like it’s turning on a lightbulb in Wooyoung’s head, his expression turns suddenly bright. “Why not do just that? It’s been half a decade, to be fair, so really you can’t be blamed if things feel a little stale. If you went and did things that made you fall for each other in the first place, wouldn’t that help a bit?”

“I hate to say it…”

“You always say that when I’m right!”

“Ignoring him, that does sound like a good plan, y/n.”

Despite the reassurance from both your best friend and someone you consider to be far more mature and wiser, it doesn’t fully quell the concerns settling in your gut.

It’s only been six days since you last saw San, though you would argue that it feels a lot more like six months given how absent you both have been from each other’s lives of late. While that isn’t particularly your fault or his wholly — it’s definitely a joint effort that’s kept you apart — it does make your skin itch with anxiety every time you think about seeing him again.

It’s all culminated into this moment right now, where you sit on the edge of your couch waiting for the doorbell to ring and announce his arrival. You want to see him, desperately so, you’ve missed him so incredibly much that you can hardly stand it. And yet — you’re rooted to the cushions riddled by anxieties. You tried to rid yourself of the lingering stress after leaving Wooyoung’s apartment by doing chores properly for the first time in months, going so far as to run to the grocery and restock some necessities as well. You hate to be the type of partner who cannot do anything alone without associating it with your partner, but San was on your mind throughout the day.

Will he feel the same as you even though the flame keeping your relationship alive has been inching closer and closer to nothingness? The two of you don’t fight, in fact, your friends like to say that things go a little too smoothly between you two, and while that’s true, they aren’t aware of what it looks like when you and San aren’t getting along. It looks the way this semester has, slow conversations that lead nowhere and less time spent in each other’s presence. You aren’t fighting right now, but you certainly aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. The weather mirrors your emotions — dim greys shrouded by white flurries of snow that have been falling since early afternoon.

You clench your fingers around the seam of the couch cushion. No part of you wants to play the part of the overbearing partner: if you’re too eager to see him, wouldn’t he find it off-putting? 

The doorbell rings.

It takes a moment for you to brace yourself for impact, standing and walking over to the door as slowly as you can manage without it seeming like a deliberate delay. The second you open the door, however, your worries melt away for a moment. 

San smiles so brightly like you’ve not gone a second without reveling in each other’s presence. The weather is clinging to his coat still even though he had to climb three flights of stairs to reach your door. The little snowflakes are beginning to melt into the fabric.

“May I come in?” The facade cracks a bit. It’s not like him to ask such things, but you choose not to hold it against him now.

“Yeah, yeah, I finally had time to clean the other day so everything’s — nice.” 

If your smile is strained, he says nothing about it, stepping over the threshold and into your apartment like it’s the first time he’s ever done so. He’s polite all the time, but now it makes those seeds of doubt sprout further because you’ve been together for five years now, what reason does he have to act like a stranger in your home? A home he’s been in time and time again, one he’s slept in, fucked you— 

“Do you want ramen or pizza?” You force the thoughts to come to a halt before your expression turns bitter.

“Let’s do ramen, I’ll cut up the vegetables for you.”

There’s an elephant in the room that it seems neither of you wants to address, and so you keep your mouth shut just the same as San with the thought of “maybe this awkwardness will pass after tonight”. You watch him remove his coat and hang it up on the door while still picking at your nails. He extends a hand to you, one you take eagerly, and you lace your fingers through the gaps between his. A bit like a well-oiled machine, you think, something that Wooyoung had noted about the two of you as far back as freshman year of college. San presses his lips to the top of your head. You lean into the touch ever so slightly. 

You share in a quiet synergy that carries you through the motions of preparing food, with no conversation exchanged aside from a “watch for the knife” and “careful, behind you” on occasion. You’re still trying to psyche yourself up to bring up what’s truly on your mind, so you aren’t sure that you’d be able to get any conversation out without it spiraling into insanity right off the bat. For the moment, for now, you want to simply drink in San’s presence. 

He hums as he opens a cabinet in search of bowls, but they aren’t there. 

“Oh, I��I moved the bowls to the other side.” Three months ago, your mind adds. It would do nothing but add salt to a blossoming wound. San stops dead in his tracks too. He seems to suffer the same crisis that you do right then. After a few seconds of mental buffering, he resumes his humming and shifts to the adjacent cabinet like the moment didn’t happen at all. 

You sit beside each other at the bar counter, atop the uncomfortable stools you’ve had for well over two years now, but it offers a weird comfort because it’s familiar, it’s something San knows, it’s something you share and have shared for years. 

“Thanks for the meal,” San says, still wearing a bitten-back smile. 

“Of course. Thank you for helping.” But the detrimental reality of not speaking to someone properly for a long while is that part of you forgets how to make conversation with them. There is nothing for you and San to “catch up on” seeing as you’ve been keeping each other updated on your lives through dry text conversations. “Um…” He’s eyeing you carefully now, and you could pass off the watering in your eyes as the spice of the food, but he would call your bluff in an instant. The funny thing about doubt is that once it’s taken root, it’ll keep growing back no matter how many times you chop at the stem.

“What’s wrong, y/n?”

“It’s just — I don’t — are we breaking up?”

San freezes halfway over his ramen, chopsticks nearly falling from his fingers as he rushes to put his noodles back down. Your shoulders start shaking before you can stop it. He doesn’t stop you from turning away from him, but San has always been endlessly patient and gentle with you so you don’t expect him to ask you to look at him anyway. He does rest a hand atop your forearm though, and his thumb drags small, comforting circles over your skin. 

“Talk to me, y/n, what do you mean by that? Why would we be breaking up?” The words themselves sound calm. There’s a slight quiver to his tone, however, that makes you want to crawl inside yourself and disappear. “A-Are you wanting that?” Your continued lack of response makes San more urgent than ever, and he shifts his hand to your leg, spinning you to face him. You can’t be certain of the expression on your face (though you’d wager there is some degree of hurt); whatever San sees makes him let out a distressed noise from the back of his throat. “Come here, duck, talk to me.”

Standing on somewhat shaky legs, you push yourself closer to San, and he instinctually moves his knees apart to let you tuck yourself into the space there.

“Don’t cry, baby, I’m here, you can talk to me,” he murmurs, hands cupping your face in his hands. You reach down to cling to his shirt like it’s a lifeline. 

“That’s the first time you’ve called me that in weeks. This is the first time we’ve spent time together in six days. We’ve barely spoken or spent time together all semester, and I know why — I know we agreed that school and work have to come first. I know that.” Your voice drops to a whisper as you lose the confidence to speak. “I didn’t think it would mean losing you though.”

“You haven’t lost me, y/n. I’m still here, with you, loving you just as much as ever.” San smiles a little as you push your cheek further into his palm. “My feelings have not changed. I thought about you every day, wondered how you were doing, and if you responded to my texts late, I hoped you were eating well and getting enough rest. I listened to your voice memos rooting for me every night. Your face was always the first thing I saw in the morning because I still keep that slideshow of you as my lockscreen.” Reaching around to the back of your neck, he gives you a little tug, and your foreheads bump together. “The thought of you helped get me through the semester because I knew that it was you who was waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.”

“Sannie…”

“How long have you been worried over this, baby? You should’ve come to me the moment you started having doubts. I wouldn’t have let this go on if I had known.”

“I thought I felt you pulling away so I was scared to bring it up. You weren’t calling me nicknames anymore, and I started reading into it too much and freaked myself out.”

“I’m so sorry, y/n. Don’t put the blame on yourself, it’s not a crime to have anxieties. I didn’t even realize I stopped using them. I suppose I just got swept up in my own feelings and wanted to call you by your name as much as possible.” He nudges you with his head again. “Because I missed you so dearly.” Your lips turn up at the corners, a gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by your boyfriend. “And because I adore you so so much, my y/n.”

“Stop that.” You hope he doesn’t, truly.

“But I’m so mushy and full of love for you, y/n.”

“You’re gonna make me blush.”

“Oh, I can think of other ways to do that, baby.” San stands, subsequently pushing his body into yours, but your hands are still on each other, his moving down to caress the back of your thigh before he hooks his fingers around the bend of your knee and hoists your leg up over his hip. “I haven’t been good to you, my sweet,” he murmurs close to your lips. “What kind of boyfriend am I if I let you feel unwanted?” Your heart skips a beat as he grips tight at your other leg, then you’re suddenly weightless for a second as he hoists you up to his waist.

“We just ate—”

“I don’t plan on letting that stop me.” You let out a gasp as San traces the line of your jaw with his lips, hot breath spilling across your skin as he carries you from the kitchen. “Unless you want it to?” This damned man knows what he’s doing, he knows the hold he has over you — your brain is already turning into a foggy mess of want, and even the prospect of waiting two minutes for him to lay his hands on you is too much to bear. Your nails drag across his shoulders, tugging at the thin material. He misses the doorknob to your bedroom thanks to your antics, sending you against the wood a little harshly and forcing the air out of your lungs. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Still on the pill.”

“Hm?” he echoes, managing to turn it right on the second try and popping it open properly.

“I’m still on the pill,” you repeat. San freezes in place to stare at your face. You bring a hand around to toy at his parted lips with your thumb. “So you can fuck me raw.”

San becomes so dumbstruck that his jaw moves up and down over and over without any semblance of noise coming out.

“Fuck, you’re gonna make me come in my pants like a horny teenager,” he says under his breath. You drop your head back and laugh. San’s hold on you feels so blissfully warm. You didn’t even have time for this during the semester, sometimes thanks to your workloads but more often thanks to sheer exhaustion. A few solo jaunts before bed are hardly enough to please you the way San does. Based on how tightly he’s gripping your ass, he seems to feel exactly the same.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

He manages to get you both to the bed without further incident, laying you down on the mattress with a sort of reverence that makes your chest swell with emotion. Even through the barrier of clothing, his fingers are hot and sear a path from your hips up your waist then right back down again as San wastes no time in stripping you of your pants. 

“I missed you so fucking much it’s insane.” You want to respond, but the sight of your lover dropping to his knees at the foot of the bed stops you in your tracks. All you can do is lie there and watch him tug your pants off, lips moving to kiss each bit of exposed skin along the way. Goosebumps rise across your body when he kisses his way up higher. His broad frame cages you in the closer he gets to your face, and despite his hands being on the somewhat small side, they feel all-encompassing when they’re sneaking under your shirt and exploring the skin beneath.

“I missed you more,” you murmur, catching his chin between your fingers and angling his face upwards so you can properly look at him. “I love you so so much, San. More than I can put into words.”

“Yeah?” You make no effort to pull him higher although he moves as though you do and climbs all the way up to be right over your face. He hums before dipping down to kiss the corner of your mouth. “I think I’ve missed you more still though—” another kiss, this time to the opposite side of your mouth “—but you’re welcome to challenge me on that.”

“San,” you whine. He pulls back and sits back on his knees. Your brain goes totally blank watching him take his shirt off. It’s something you’ve seen time and time again, truly nothing new or foreign to you, but something about it now makes your gut twist in on itself. He’s lost a bit of the muscle you’ve grown accustomed to seeing on him, now softer around the edges, at the waist and across his stomach. It doesn’t curb your desire for him in the slightest; if anything it makes you want him more, to cling to him tighter and feel him firmer against you.

He throws the shirt down to the floor and drags a hand through his dark hair. His legs are splayed around yours, putting the prominent bulge in his pants on full display before you.

“I want you to use me, y/n.” He grabs your hand from where it’s resting against the bed and brings it to his chest. You dig your nail into his flesh like it’s second nature to do so. “Tonight, for your pleasure.” His eyes trail after your every moment, watching as you sit up and pull your legs out from under him. You graze the underside of his dick ever so slightly yet it’s still enough to make his lashes flutter. 

“Then…” San is like putty in your hands, conforming to every move you make while still maintaining that unbreaking eye contact. He turns with you, and you climb off the bed to stand despite feeling seconds away from toppling over. All it takes is the slightest push against his chest for him to lie flat on his back. “Will you be good for me?” 

His response comes in the form of a bitten-back whine thanks to you cupping the bulge of his cock as you withdraw your hand. It’s intoxicating to strip him of his jeans and feel every inch of his pretty tapered waist. You urge him to move further up on the bed, making room for you between his legs once you’ve tossed his pants down beside yours on the floor. The tip of his cock peeks out the top of his underwear, already stiff and leaking precum onto the elastic band. Saucy nudes here and there don’t do him nearly enough justice, you think. You tease just the bit of him that's exposed with your tongue, licking at the sensitive and swollen head, and he twitches beneath the fabric. Humming to yourself, you inch his underwear down just far enough to put his whole member on display, along with his balls, but you don’t go any further than that. It’s enough for you to get your mouth around him, after all, and that’s exactly what you do without giving San any time to brace himself for the touch.

He lets out a desperate moan the moment your wet heat envelopes his length, fingers curling into his palms around the comforter. His hips twitch with the desire to thrust upwards, but he keeps himself firmly planted on the bed, fulfilling his end of the bargain for you and being so delightfully good. The weight of him on your tongue isn’t nearly enough; you want him buried deep inside you as soon as possible, and you’d go on and do it now if you didn’t think it would hurt like a bitch given how long it’s been since you’ve taken him. San isn’t distracted enough to miss the way you retract a hand to touch yourself, and he fights to speak through broken moans.

“I w-wanna touch you, pretty.” You lift yourself off his cock until just the tip sits on your lower lip.

“I’ll let you later when I ask you to fold me in half and fuck me into the mattress.” You sink two fingers into your hole, taking San back into your mouth to revel in that full feeling again. You’re just as needy as he is, in reality, because your walls are already coated with arousal and it pools around the base of your fingers in such a way that it makes your cheeks flush. San’s noises aren’t helping in the slightest — for as quiet as he is in day-to-day life, he is ever so vocal when it comes to sex, especially when his cock is buried in your mouth. He’s just long enough to push right into the back of your throat, making it far easier for you to take him fully. 

“Your mouth feels so — fuck, fucking good, baby.” If you weren’t preoccupied, you would love to return his words with your own, so you settle for tugging at his balls a little. It earns you a delightful little yelp, and his hips buck up to drive his dick further into your throat than expected. “Hngh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“I want—” you don’t finish your train of thought, too rushed to bother with it as you scramble to rid yourself of your underwear. San greets you with his hands when you climb back onto the bed and grabs hold of your waist. He tugs and pulls at your shirt until it’s gone too, leaving you with nothing more than your plain black bra. However, even that San seems to find issue with, because he toys with the clasp until it comes loose and throws that aside too.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, settling back against the mattress. He’s always told you this is his favorite position, to see you straddling his hips and bouncing on his cock, though he favors missionary quite a bit as well because it lets him see your body and face while he’s fucking you (despite how much he loves your ass). His cock is trapped between your pussy and his stomach now, hard and throbbing for the same kind of stimulation you so desperately crave. You drag your folds along his length a few times just to tease San, but he grips your hip in warning. In hindsight, you should have let him finger you open more before because the stretch is far more than you remember — not enough to hurt, but enough for you to really feel every inch of him entering your body. It makes you writhe atop him, your spine arches, and you drop your head back. San holds you like you're a precious gem, thick arms circling around your waist as you rest your hands on his chest. The position gives you some much-needed stability, but San's fingers have begun to get severely distracting. He rolls his thumbs into your skin, pausing only to squeeze and pinch at the more sensitive parts of your sides. 

“I’m gonna start moving,” you whisper like being too loud will break some sort of seal. San nods and unwraps his arms enough to simply hold your hips. Despite the decrease in definition of his muscles, his strength doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere, because he lifts you with such ease that it’s a bit dizzying. Still, he lets the control rest in your hands. You sink down slowly on his cock, letting your walls get used to the drag, before doing the same motion two, three more times. The first whimper to fall from your lips is what snaps your resolve. San’s hold on you remains firm but only to ease the strain on your thighs as you begin to pick up your pace. 

“Beautiful, beautiful, you’re so beautiful, my sweet.” San rolls his hips up in time with your movements, driving his cock up into your cunt as you drop yourself onto him, and it reaches so deep inside you that you see stars behind your eyelids. “Missed you so much, missed this, seeing your body through photos wasn’t enough — fuck, it wasn’t enough.”

“How many, ah, times did you come to those photos, hm?” You crack one eye open to watch San’s face. He’s already flushed with want, but the red in his cheeks deepens more upon hearing your question. You lean your weight further into your hands. “I fingered myself so many times thinking of you, Sannie. B-But, hngh, it wasn’t good enough. Not as good as your cock. Nothing… n-nothing feels as good!”

San thrusts up with more vigor now, all but taking over for you to go slack above him as he drives your hips down with his hands and pushes his length into you from the opposite direction. Then, suddenly, his movements falter and stutter to a halt, and he looks just as shocked as you are when his cock twitches against your walls. A blooming of warmth fills you right after, along with the realization that San has just come inside you without warning.

“I-I’m sorry, I — I didn’t mean to, ah, I thought I would last longer.” He slings an arm up over his eyes, and the red in his face deepens in hue. “I’m sorry, I should’ve let you come first.” You click your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Leaning down over him, you peel his arm away from his face so that you can see his shamed expression better.

“Your dick is far from the only thing that can make me come, babe. Right?” 

He nods a few times, but there’s still a pout on his lips. You kiss it away. 

“Then—” you detach yourself from his body, bringing about an unwelcome emptiness as his spent cock slips out of you, and roll onto your back beside him. He watches with rapt attention as you spread your legs and open your pussy to him. “Why don’t you?”

San moves with surprising haste for a man who has just come, rolling into the space between your legs, and while you expected him to just use his fingers to get you off, he hooks his hands around your thighs and shoves his face into your used cunt instead. It yanks a startled moan out of you, and it’s only amplified when he closes his lips around your clit. He’s lucky you don’t give him a concussion with how quickly you slam your thighs around his head. You don’t notice that he’s moved a hand until fingers are prodding at your leaking entrance and urging the come he just pumped into you back into your hole.

“O-Oh, San.” 

Normally, he takes his sweet time eating you out, bringing you to the precipice of orgasm before sending you right back down time and time again without release. Though, either out of lingering shame at coming early or simply out of a desire to make you unravel, San laps at your clit so eagerly that it sends shudders through you. You can feel your blood rushing lower as he urges you to come, walls clenching around his fingers. It only takes another second more for the first wave to hit you, and it makes you scramble to grab hold of San’s hair as he keeps curling his fingers over your sweet spot. He does so throughout each wave of your orgasm until tears burn the corners of your eyes and you’re all but pleading for him to grant you some mercy.

“You — you had nothing to prove, you know,” you say between desperate attempts to catch your breath. San giggles and looks up at you from his lewd position. “Ugh!” You shove his head away from you half-heartedly just to spare yourself more embarrassment.

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that, duck!”

You only go as far as the pillows, turning back to him immediately and opening your arms to welcome him into them. 

“I came too early, of course I had something to prove,” he adds once he’s snugly placed against your chest. You slot together like two pieces of a puzzle, his head under your chin and your breath stirring the messy strands of hair in your path. “I’ve fallen out of practice. When was the last time I did that? It’s embarrassing…”

You can’t contain your laughter.

“You always come a little early when I ride you.”

“That’s not fair!”

All you can do to soothe him is pat his head. You feel a tad sticky and gross all over, but San’s warmth more than makes up for it, and if you’re not careful, you’re certain you’ll fall asleep within minutes. A small sniffle coming from the man atop you chases thoughts of rest away in the blink of an eye though.

“San?”

“’m okay, promise.”

“You’re crying, baby, that’s not ”okay“.”

“I just,” he inhales and licks over his lips, skating across your sternum in the process. “I wasn’t sure I was gonna stay afloat without you.” You comb your fingers through his hair.

“Tell me when you need me and I’ll be there. Always.”

“I didn’t want to disrupt your schedule and get in the way.”

“You have to trust that I’ll take care of myself and my responsibilities even if I help you too. You always tell me that when I worry over the same things. It goes both ways, San, okay?”

“Okay.” He nods against you. “Okay, I’ll try to remember that. As long as you don’t lock yourself away when things get tough. Rely on me if you need strength. And talk to me when something is on your mind.”

“Alright, we have an agreement.” Out of nowhere, you remember Wooyoung’s suggestion from this morning. Picking at a stray piece of San’s hair, you mull over your thoughts some more. You could let things settle as they are now since things seem to be back to a pleasant state of balance. But even so, would it do any harm to try anyway? “I’d like to go on a first date again. With you. I want us to go on a first date again.”

“Hm?”

“Like… I want us to go out like it’s the first time all over again. And feel that excitement and giddiness we had back then. We don’t have to, it’s just a thought. I don’t know. Maybe it’d be a good thing after this semester.”

Silence overtakes the room. San’s breathing is so steady that you think he’s fallen asleep, but the second you try to shift and see his face, he tilts his head up and looks into your eyes.

“Alright. Let’s go on a first date again.”

…

“I figured we’d go to that little Thai place by the grocery before heading over to the Christmas light show?”

“Oh!” Your thoughts rearrange themselves around his words. “That sounds really nice, yeah.”

“The guys wanna meet up at Wooyoung’s after for chicken and beer, but I told them I’d leave the decision up to you.” He tilts his chin a bit to the side as he speaks, lips quirked up at the corners, and you find yourself so incredibly fond of him all over again.

“Let’s see how we feel after walking around.”

You offer to drive tonight, but he denies you quickly, whining about how he filled his tank full of gas just for tonight so you don’t push the matter any further than that (though, you still tease him a bit once he opens the passenger door for you). When he turns the car on, music starts blasting through the speakers, a song you recognize well, and the dash shows that he’s been listening to the playlist you made for him at the start of the last school year. 

“Sorry, forgot the volume was up so high.” He scrambles to twist the dial down, but you stop him with your hand, gripping his wrist lightly and giving a firm shake of your head.

“I didn’t realize you still listened to it. Normally you just have the radio going.”

“Ah, well,” San’s cheeks are a bit flush under the low lights of the car, “I suppose I’ve been feeling a bit sentimental these days.” His next move is a bit hesitant; he reaches across the console and lays his hand atop your thigh. You reassure him by putting your hand over his, fingers curling around his once again. It feels normal and familiar, though you can’t count on two hands the last time you’ve done something as menial as holding hands with San. 

“San?” He makes a noise of acknowledgment while watching the road. “I’ve missed you.” His nails dig into your flesh a little, and the pressure makes your heart clench in your chest.

“I’ve missed you more.” You can only see his side profile, but it’s enough for you to catch the upturn of his lips. 

“I’ve missed you most then.” The statement slips out through a pout. 

“And I love you more than the moon loves the ocean.”

The weight of his hand is comfort enough for you to be at ease for the rest of the drive.

────────────

please like & reblog this work and consider leaving a reply or sharing your thoughts in a reblog or ask!

this work belongs to caly / hongism (2023). do not copy, repost, or plagiarize in any way.

[holdinggrudges]

what's my flavor?

pairing: sam winchester x reader

content: EXPLICIT 18+, oral (fem!receiving), vampire!sam, blood drinking, bloodplay (surprisingly little though tbh), fem!reader (afab anatomy + the word girl used in reference like three times or so), feeding being explicitly referred to as similar to drugs/getting high, mentions of serious illness (made up for plot reasons but still)

word count: 10.5K

summary: Working your way through college, you find a secretary job with great pay and more than enough downtime on the clock to get your coursework done. The only downside is that it leaves you with no choice but to attend night classes. But it's not so bad, especially with Mysterious Hot Guy attending them as well. Oh, and there's been blood bags going missing, but you're pretty sure that's not going to be relevant to your life any time soon.

notes: this was supposed to be pwp. it was also supposed to be posted on halloween. clearly, neither of those things happened. but fuck it, we ball.

crossposted on ao3

You don’t understand how anyone could get through college without a job. You hear about people surviving off scholarships all the time, and you try your first year, you really do. But, God, something has to change. You can’t imagine working your way through school could be any more stressful than the budgeting, and the skipping meals, and the cards declining at the grocery store. 

So you get a job. A good one, too; a secretary job at an office ten minutes away from your apartment, and only twenty minutes away from campus. The job is easy, with plenty of downtime for you to work on your coursework, and the pay is good. Better than good, even. The only problem is the hours; 9-5 is great, generally, but not very convenient when setting up a college schedule. You’re relegated almost exclusively to night classes. Which is fine. Not ideal, but fine. 

You take four classes, two a night, and it leaves your Fridays wide open after work. It would truly be a perfect schedule if it didn’t mean you were on campus until 11 o’clock most nights. But the classes are relatively empty and none of your professors are total hardasses, so it’s not so bad. Actually, you start to really enjoy it. 

You make a little game out of studying the other students, trying to figure them out. The woman who sits in front of you in your statistics class is a stay-at-home mom, you think. The older man a few rows down in english is retired military. It’s interesting, and it gives you a reason to actually make it to class everyday. Well, that and Mysterious Hot Guy. 

Mysterious Hot Guy (or MHG, for short) is in two of your classes: your 6 o’clock political science class on Mondays and Wednesdays sitting a row down from you, and sitting beside you in your 8:30 biology class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He first caught your eye because, frankly, he looks more like he should be on a movie set than night classes at a dinky community college. He’s drop dead gorgeous, and that’s putting it lightly. Even so, that’s not what has you so intrigued. Something about him is off somehow, strange in such a way that it has you completely captivated. Alluring in a way you can’t quite put your finger on, even outside his appearance. 

MHG hardly ever speaks. You’re pretty sure he’s only said one word to you the entire four weeks of the semester so far, and he sits literally a foot away from you every other day. He’s also, apparently, a genius. He never takes notes, never writes a single thing down, he never asks questions and never answers them either, for that matter. Still, you happened to catch a glimpse of his grade on the test your biology professor handed back last week, and he got a perfect score. 

He also doesn’t have a car. Or, rather, he doesn’t have a car of his own. Every Tuesday and Thursday as you’re walking back to your own car at almost 11 PM, he’s climbing into the passenger seat of an absolutely gorgeous vintage Chevrolet Impala that makes you simultaneously green with envy and desperate for him to push you up against the side of it. Or push you down against the backseat. Or the front seat, which you find out is a bench seat after some minor googling. Car like that, you’re not exactly gonna be picky about where. 

Still, even after all your observing, you don’t learn a single useful piece of information about MHG until six weeks into the semester—two weeks out from midterms—when your biology professor announces that you will be choosing your partners for the midterm project. You barely even let the words leave his mouth before you’re turning to your right, pouncing with what you hope is a normal amount of enthusiasm, although you’re so damn intrigued by this guy that all you can do is pray you don’t come across as a total stalker. “Hey. Would you wanna partner up?” 

MHG turns to you, his eyes wide in a way that leaves you a lot less hopeful about how normal your greeting was. “Uh. Me?” he asks, and his voice is…warm in a way you weren’t expecting. He could do audiobooks, or a podcast, or something—he has a nice voice is what you’re getting at.

You laugh. You’re almost a little starstruck—it makes sense; you’ve definitely turned this guy into your own personal celebrity. “Who else?” you respond, holding out your hand for him to shake. “I’m ____.” 

He eyes you for a moment before he clasps your hand and gives it a shake. Jesus, this guy must have anemia or something because his hand is fucking freezing. “Sam. Uh, Winchester. Sam Winchester.” His touch lingers for a moment before he tugs his hand back. “And…yeah. Yeah, we can…partner up.” 

Sam Winchester. Finally, a name to put to the face. No more thinking of him as Mysterious Hot Guy for you; you and MHG are on a first name basis now. “Awesome,” you say softly, and you really, desperately hope your smile looks less manic than it feels. “So. Sam. Would you mind giving me your number or something so we can set up a time and place to meet up?” 

He hesitates, but he does scribble a number down on the corner of his empty notebook page. “I, uh. I can’t do…daytime,” he tells you as he slides it over. 

Okay. Weird way to phrase that, but you assume he’s like you, he works during the day or something. So you shrug and take the proffered paper. “Me neither. I have work.” You pinch it between your fingers with a grin. “We’ll make it work.” 

He smiles at you, a shy sort of thing that makes your chest ache to draw out more. “Yeah. Okay.” 

You plug the number in your phone almost as soon as you get home, but it takes you almost an hour to actually text him. You go through probably a hundred different drafts before you finally land on: ‘hey!! it’s ____. does friday work for you? my only day without classes lol’ 

Once you press send, you figure you’ll probably have at least five minutes to freak out and overthink. Sam doesn’t really seem the type to be glued to his phone. Which is why, you suppose, that you nearly have a heart attack when your phone buzzes with a response no more than 30 seconds later. ‘Friday works. 7 at the library?’ 

‘see you then :)’ You debate over the smiley face for a solid minute and a half before finally sending it and then violently throwing your phone across the couch and screaming into your throw pillow. 

When you do finally work up the courage to pick your phone up again, he’s sent two texts back. ‘See you then.’ And then another one, a small bubble containing two characters: ‘:)’ Embarrassingly, you giggle alone in your living room. Oh, this guy is going to be the death of you. 

You spend the rest of the night googling Sam Winchester and coming up with absolutely nothing. He seems to have absolutely no social media presence at all, not even an old MySpace or a private Facebook account. The only reference you can find to his name at all has it listed as one of two sons of some random serial killer from, like, the 1800s, which is obviously useless. 

You give up your fruitless search with a sigh, closing your laptop and shoving it aside. Your tv is playing on some local news station—doesn’t matter which one, they’ve all been reporting the same story for weeks. You click it off, 100% disinterested in hearing about the blood bags going missing from local clinics for the millionth time this month. 

You go to bed and dream of brown hair and eyes that you just can’t quite place the color of, but you can swear you see them flash red.

Friday finds you at the library almost a full hour early. You’d agonized over your outfit all day yesterday, and for another half an hour after work to boot. In the end, you’d decided to go casual. After all, it is just a study date—and actually, not a date at all! A study meet-up. A study hangout, at best. The fact that you did your make-up and your hair for it is entirely irrelevant. 

It’s 6:45 when a cough draws your attention up from your phone. Sam is standing in front of you with another one of those shy smiles, and two coffee cups in his hands. Coffee cups from your favorite cafe. He shoves one in your direction. “Uh. I’ve noticed that you have drinks from here pretty often. And- I hope you don’t mind, but I…I read one of the cups? So. This is for you.” 

Your eyes flick over him, your heartbeat practically pounding out of your chest. So he’s been watching you too. Or—Jesus, not watching, that makes it sound creepy. Observing is a better word for it. He noticed a pattern in your coffee cups. He read one to find out what it was you were drinking. “Thanks,” you tell him, taking the cup from his hand. Turning it to read the writing, you find he’d gotten it right. Maybe you should find it creepy, actually. As it is, you’re sort of having a hard time not swooning. You beam at him. “I’ll…have to return the favor.” 

For some reason, that makes Sam laugh as he sits down across from you. “Sure.” He opens his backpack and takes out his laptop. “So, this project.” 

Sam, as it turns out, is a genius. Or at least exceptionally smart. A project that would’ve taken you hours on your own is done in record time with him, which leaves the two of you there at 7:30 with a fully completed midterm project and half-empty coffee cups. You don’t want to leave, and it seems Sam doesn’t either, as he closes his laptop and asks, “Why are you taking night classes?” like he’s really, genuinely curious. 

So you tell him. You tell him about trying to get through college on your own, deciding you needed a full time job, how it’s probably the best job you’ve ever had. You ask him the same question, and he tells you about his brother, who is, apparently, the one who drives that fucking awesome car. He drops Sam off at classes, and pretty much anywhere else he needs to go.

The two of you chat for an hour and a half before Sam gets a text that says his brother is literally going to leave him there if he doesn’t shag ass and get in the car pronto. So Sam walks you out of the library. 

“You know,” you blurt out before you can lose your nerve, “I feel like our classes would be a lot easier if we put our heads together like this. You know, regularly. Like, every Friday, maybe.” 

He ducks his head, smiling that same shy smile he’d had when he gave you the coffee. “Sure. Every Friday. Sounds…helpful.” 

You don’t realize until you get home that he never actually told you why he takes night classes. It turns out to be a pattern for him, as the two of you meet up week after week. You simultaneously feel like you know everything and nothing about him, and every week you like him more and more for it. Well, for that and the coffee that he gets you every time. 

It takes a week before he moves seats in your political science class. The Monday after the second Friday you meet up with him, you almost sit in the wrong seat because you’re so used to him sitting two rows ahead of you. Of course, when you realize what’s happened, Sam’s staring at you with an amused grin on his face, like he’s trying really hard not to laugh at you. So, you decide, you are friends, at least. And as far as friends go, Sam’s a pretty good one.

You and Sam text, constantly. Despite seeming relatively unplugged, he responds to you instantly almost every time. You hate to get your hopes up, but by the time finals roll around, you’re starting to really like him. You’re starting to think he really likes you too. 

He finishes his biology final on the last Thursday of classes long before you, but when you leave the classroom, you see him leaning against the wall, waiting. Again, you don’t want to get your hopes up, but when he lifts his head and sees you approaching him, you swear to God, you see his whole face light up.  He looks a little pale, maybe. But it also might just be the fluorescent lights of the hallway.

“How do you think you did?” he asks, falling into step beside you.

And, you think, it’s now or never, now, isn’t it? Classes are over. You may never see Sam again (although, you like to think the two of you are close enough now that you would at least remain friends outside of having classes together, but still, the sentiment remains). So you change the subject and ask, “Would you wanna get dinner with me on Saturday?” 

He pauses, freezes in place pretty much, and you stop to match him. “Dinner, like…dinner?” he asks, as if that question makes any sense. 

You laugh, a little awkward, and adjust your backpack straps. “Uh, yeah. Like, dinner.” You don’t want to explicitly mention it being a date. You feel like he likes you, you really do, but if you’re wrong…that rejection is going to sting. So you don’t say it, not explicitly. 

But still, Sam’s face lights up with a grin. “Yeah. I’d…really love to get dinner with you, actually. I’ll have to—I’ll text you. But…yes, yeah. I’d love to.” 

You’re pretty sure the smile on your face matches his. “Okay. Then, I’ll see you on Saturday. And you’ll text me.” 

“I’ll text you,” he agrees. 

The two of you linger for a moment before parting, and you have never been more excited to say goodbye to someone in your entire fucking life. 

When you get home, you have a text message. ‘I’ll pick you up. Does 7 work for you?’

You have to take a moment to squeal into your pillow before answering that yes, 7 does work for you, and you’re excited to see him then. And then, as an afterthought, your address.

God, you need to find something to wear.

Saturday comes around, and you’re fully ready by 6. Sam’s almost always shown up early, after all. Your TV plays news footage, stating that the clinics have taken to putting up extra security around their blood banks to no avail. You couldn’t care less, too giddy and girlishly excited to even think about the stolen blood bags. 

6:45 rolls around. Sam isn’t there. That’s…fine. He’s not obligated to show up early. You set up a time to pick you up for a reason, right? There’s no reason for the sinking feeling in your gut. 

7:00. No sign of Sam. But that’s no reason to worry. Maybe he got stuck in traffic. People are late sometimes, and you don’t need to panic just because Sam’s never been late before. 

At 7:30, you shoot Sam a text. ‘are you okay? don’t tell me you forgot about me :( lol’ You don’t get a response. 

You don’t change back into lounge clothes until 8, and you don’t take off your makeup until 8:30, and that’s only because you’re pretty sure you’re about to start crying and ruin it anyway. 

The real kicker is that you thought Sam, at the very least, considered you a friend. Or at least friendly enough to let you down easy rather than agree to a date and then stand you up. Clearly, you severely misread the entire situation. You entirely misunderstood Sam in general, if he’s really the type of person to do this sort of thing. 

Wiping hot tears off your face, you cork open your expensive bottle of wine. Desperate times, right?

Two hours and half a wine bottle later, you’ve swung from devastated to angry. How dare he stand you up? You’re a catch! You’re gorgeous, you’re funny, you’ve ignored all of his weird quirks and red flags, and for what? To cry into a glass or five of overpriced wine on a Saturday night? Screw that. You should call him and give him a piece of your mind.

Or…no, you’re pretty drunk, actually, so you probably shouldn’t call him. But you could text him. Yeah. You fumble for your phone, furiously typing out a text and hitting send without a second thought. ‘if u werent interested in me u cldve just said so. didnt have 2 ghost me’ 

Next thing you know, you’re opening your eyes the next morning with a killer headache, a damn near empty bottle of wine, and no response from Sam. While you’re curled over the toilet, the alcohol isn’t the only thing turning your stomach. There’s a worry brewing there too. 

Because the more you think about it, the more that this really just doesn’t feel like Sam. Now that you’re further out from it, you can acknowledge that much. When you ask yourself if you truly believe that the guy who bought you your favorite drink every time you met up, the guy who remembered every single thing you ever told him, the guy whose face totally lit up when you asked him to dinner—when you ask yourself if that guy would stand you up, you truly, honestly don’t believe he would. So the real question is: why did he?

You fight through the worry until about halfway through your shift on Monday when you realize that with finals over, you have absolutely no idea when, or even if you’ll see Sam again. You call him. It rings all the way through until you get his voicemail, and you wish the sound of his voice could calm you, but it only reminds you that he’s not answering. You don’t leave a message, sending him a text instead. ‘seriously, are you okay? please at least let me know you’re not dead.’ You’re not surprised to find you haven’t gotten a response the next time you check your phone, walking to your car at the end of the day. Desperately, heart-clenchingly worried, but not surprised. 

You open your laptop the second you get home, furiously searching anything you can think of. You search for his name again, hoping to find anything that could point you towards family or friends, to the brother he mentioned. You search local obituaries, John Does, anyone who might even bear the slightest resemblance to Sam, but there’s nothing. Nothing, until you accidentally click on one of the articles about the blood theft. There, in a blurry screenshot of footage from the new security cameras one of the blood banks had installed, you see it. You recognize his brother’s gorgeous fucking car. 

Your eyes go wide. Holy shit, you’ve been flirting with a criminal. You scroll up through the article, reading furiously, but it doesn’t even mention the car, focusing instead on the blurry, shrouded figure entering the doors. Is this why Sam went missing? Laying low until he can be sure no one will connect the footage of the car to him or his brother? Why the fuck is he stealing blood bags in the first place? Needless to say, the discovery leaves you with more questions than it does answers. 

The world, unfortunately, does not stop with this revelation. You go to bed. You get up, you go to work, you come home. You think about Sam. You have no idea what you’re supposed to do in this situation. Should you go to the police? It’s not like he’s killing people but…it’s still illegal to steal blood bags. Also morally wrong, probably. Plus, you now have information that could help forward an ongoing police investigation. You’re not entirely sure what counts as aiding and abetting, but you’re not exactly itching to find out where the line is. 

On the other hand, Sam never seemed particularly…criminal-like to you. Strange, sure, but he was nice. Kind, even. You never in a million years would’ve pegged him as some sort of criminal mastermind. That’s got to count for something. Right? At the very least, you think it allows him the benefit of the doubt. So…late Tuesday night, you send him another text, the last one you’ll ever send him. Probably. ‘hey so keep ignoring me if im wrong but are you the one stealing blood from the clinics?’ 

He doesn’t text you back, and you pretend that means you’re wrong. That you can clear your conscience and go to sleep. That you can go to work and stop worrying about vintage cars in blurry security footage. 

Then the sun goes down on Wednesday, and someone knocks on your door. 

The man on the other side of it is unfamiliar to you. He’s wearing a leather jacket, an amulet hanging off his neck. There’s absolutely no reason you should recognize him as quickly as you do. Except that he has this quality about him, something unreal or maybe inhuman, and you’ve seen it before. You can’t quite tell what color his eyes are.

He smiles at you, and confirms it. “You’re ____, right? Sam’s told me all about you.” This is Sam’s brother, the one with the car. The car that you recognized in the blood bank footage. “I’m Dean. Can I come in?” 

You keep your hand on the edge of the door, ready to slam it in his face if need be. “How’d you get my address?” you ask, instead of answering the question. This man could be dangerous. You trust Sam, mostly, but his brother…that’s a different story.

“Sammy had it. Remember? For your little date.” Dean says, taking a step towards the threshold. You take a step back. “Can I come in now?” 

You ignore the fear raging down your spine, the urge to turn tail and run away. Sam carries himself differently than Dean, presents himself in such a way that instead of cowering away from him, you want to keep looking. His strangeness is intriguing, not off-putting. Dean, though, he takes those same qualities and twists them on their head. Dean looks at you, and your entire body screams Danger! Like he’s some sort of predator. “Why are you here?” 

“Look, I don’t have time for this,” he snaps. He takes another step forward, but stays notably on the other side of the door. Just barely. “Sam needs help. Are you gonna invite me in, or not?” 

He could be lying. He could be manipulating the affection you already have for his brother to get you to let him in so he can off you, maybe the only person who’s connected him to his crimes. But, if that was the case, why wouldn’t he have just forced his way in? And also, why the fuck would he go that far just to cover up some stolen blood bags? “What’s wrong with Sam?” you ask, stepping back from the door to allow him inside. When in Rome, right?

His lips press together, like he’s irritated, though you can’t imagine why. You’re letting him in, which is what he wanted. He stares at you for a moment before sighing, world weary, like he’s holding the weight of a hundred lifetimes of idiocy on his shoulders. Jesus, this guy’s dramatic. “You have to invite me,” he grits out. 

Your confusion only grows, but you oblige anyway. “Okay…come in, then.” 

Dean steps into the apartment almost as soon as you’ve said it, like you’ve only just now opened the door. You back up a few steps further. 

“Just so you know,” you say, standing up taller and trying to act less terrified than you feel, “I have a gun. So don’t- don’t try anything ‘cause I’ll shoot you.” You’re completely bluffing, of course, but there’s no way Dean could know that. 

“No, you don’t,” Dean says, like he definitely knows you were bluffing. Well, great. “Besides, I’m not here to hurt you. My brother needs help, you think I’m gonna kill the only person who can help him?” 

He doesn’t look like he’s lying. Then again, you’re pretty sure this man is a criminal, so maybe he’s just a really good liar. “Yeah, you said that before. If he needs my help so bad, why didn’t he just tell me himself?” It’s not like you slammed the door in Sam’s face and told him to leave you alone. You’ve sent him four texts and a phone call since he dropped off the face of the earth last week. He’s had every opportunity to ask for your help. 

“Cause he’s sick,” Dean tells you. He lifts his hands before he approaches you, like you’re some sort of wild animal that he doesn’t want to spook. Embarrassingly, it works. “Really sick.” 

You shake your head, bemused. “I don’t understand—what does that have to do with me? If he’s sick, he needs a doctor. Not…a random college student.” 

Dean nods. “Yeah, he would. But he’s got…it’s complicated.” He pauses in his approach and nods his head toward you. “Can I come closer, or are you gonna shoot me, tough girl?” 

You roll your eyes, but gesture him closer. “Be my guest, so long as it means you’re gonna tell me something that actually makes sense.” You’re tired of the riddles, frankly. If he doesn’t give you real answers soon, you don’t care how terrifying he is, you’re gonna have to do something drastic.

Dean scoffs. “Yeah, I can see why Sam likes you,” he mutters, shaking his head. “See, me and Sam…we’re not exactly normal. If I took him to a doctor, not only would they not be able to fix him, they’d probably kill him.” He stops beside you, forcing you to look up at him as he speaks. He cuts an intimidating figure, even without the air of a predator about him. You really, really wish you actually owned a gun.

“What do you mean by that?” you ask, voice quiet in the face of this hunter. “That you’re not normal?” 

He grins, big and sharp and toothy. And then his illusion drops. Your eyes seem to fail you, like someone’s dropped the floor out from under you and then told you the floor was never real in the first place. His eyes catch your attention first, blood red and striking. And then, of course, you see his teeth—no, his fangs. Two long, sharp, killer fangs where his canines used to be. “Welcome to the night of the living dead, sweetheart.”

Vampires are real. There’s a monster in your fucking living room. This is crazy. You should be screaming. You should shove this man out the door and lock it behind him and maybe never leave your apartment again. Instead, you blurt out, “So that’s why you were stealing blood bags.” Honestly, a lot of things are starting to make way more sense now. You’re almost embarrassed you didn’t think of it before. 

Dean laughs. “Right on the money.” You flinch as he claps you on the shoulder, and he laughs at you again. 

“So…I’m guessing Sam doesn’t just have a regular old stomach bug, then?” You really feel like you should be having a more extreme reaction to this situation. You just found out that not only are vampires real, but you’ve been actively flirting with one. You think maybe you’re in shock. “This is some sort of weird…vampire virus, or something?” 

“Smart girl,” he says, pointing at you approvingly. “Though it’s not exactly a virus, more like…food poisoning. Actually, we call it blood poisoning. Comes from drinking stale blood—bagged blood, for example—rather than fresh from the source.” 

You frown. “Why drink bagged blood, then, if it makes you sick?” 

“Why do people go vegan even though they need protein?” Dean counters. “Harm reduction. Plus, it doesn’t always make us sick. It’s pretty rare, actually. More common now than, you know, the olden times, but it happened back then too. Storing blood in vials, bottles, anything can make blood go stale, but it means you don’t have to hurt as many people getting it. Some things are worth the risk.” 

That much, at least, you can understand. “So this…this stale blood, whatever—it makes you sick,” you repeat, that same worry for Sam from before roiling in your stomach again. “How sick?” 

Dean grimaces, so whatever it is is clearly not good news. “It can kill us. Pretty easily, too. I have to tell you, I don’t know exactly how it works. Sam’s way better at this sort of thing.” He taps his fingers against your coffee table. “But I do know how to fix it.” 

It’s pretty easy to guess. Dean’s here, despite the fact his brother is apparently dying, and there’s really only one thing you have that they don’t. “He needs blood,” you say quietly, beating Dean to the punch. “Fresh blood.” 

He nods and shoots you a stilted smile. “Quick on the draw, huh?” The two of you stare at each other for a moment before he sighs, shaking his head. “Sam hates what he is. Doesn’t matter that he’ll die without it, he won’t hurt anyone. He just won’t.”

You cross your arms over your chest, suddenly uncomfortable with Dean’s intense stare, like he can see straight into your soul. “So- so, what am I supposed to do about it?” you ask, your shoulders shrugging helplessly. “I’m still a person. I can’t force him to do something he doesn’t want to do.” 

Dean takes a step toward you, and this time you don’t step back or shrink away. He’s dangerous, sure, but not to you. Not as long as you’re the only thing standing between his brother and certain death. “Look, Sam really likes you. If he knew I was here right now, and he wasn’t on his deathbed, he’d kill me. But I just—I’ve tried. It’s been a week, and I’ve tried so hard—” He ducks his head as he cuts off, his jaw working over clenched teeth. “I know that you care about him, right? I mean, I saw the texts; I know—I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t desperate. I can’t just sit around and watch my little brother die. I had to try. I have to try.” 

Seeing him now, you almost can’t believe you were afraid of him. He looks almost terrified himself. And despite the uncertainty you feel, the fear, well…there’s a clear answer here. Yes, there’s a chance Sam refuses to feed from you, but there’s also a chance to save him. You can’t just stand back and let him die because you’re scared. “Okay.”

Dean’s eyes snap to yours again. They sparkle with hope, and even though the illusion is dropped, even though his eyes are red and his teeth are viciously sharp, for the first time since you first saw him, he looks human. “Okay?” 

“Take me to him,” you tell him, moving past him to grab your coat off the hanger by your door. “Let me try to save him.” 

Dean gives you the key to the apartment and a wish good luck, but stays in the car (which, yes, is just as nice as you imagined, though you wish you’d gotten to experience it under different circumstances). He tells you as you climb out the passenger door, “If this goes the way I hope it does, you two aren’t gonna want me there. Trust me.” 

Apprehension keeps you rooted outside the locked door, biting a hole through your bottom lip. There’s a lot of ways this could go. Quite a few of them could end up with you dead, and you’d be a fool not to acknowledge that. Then again, you’d also be a fool not to acknowledge what you know about Sam, what Dean’s told you about him today. Kind, gentle Sam, who is sick and dying, but apparently still refuses to hurt anyone. Who drinks from blood bags, despite the risk, simply because it means he can live without harming others. He doesn’t deserve to die.

You take a deep breath, and unlock the door. 

The apartment is…Well, it’s a little dingy, but it’s cozy. Homey. There’s clutter and trinkets on every shelf, books that look so old that you fear they’d disintegrate if you touched them. It occurs to you, then, that you don’t know how old Sam actually is. A memory flashes in your mind of his name mentioned in records from the 1800s. Holy shit. 

“Dean?” You recognize Sam’s voice, but it’s thin and croaky. Weak. Really sick, Dean had said. “Are you home?” 

  You follow the sound of his voice into a bedroom, and the stale smell of illness almost makes you stumble back from the doorway. It doesn’t smell bad, necessarily, so much as still and wrong. Sam’s been in this room, wallowing in sickness, for a week. Your heart aches for him. “Not Dean,” you say quietly, hoping not to spook him. You approach the bed, and only just keep from gasping at the state of the man curled up in it. Sam is pale and sunken, visibly weak and malnourished. He’s trembling, shaking all over with chills, maybe, or just tremors in general. 

His face changes when he hears your voice, his brows furrowed in confusion. He opens his eyes and peers up at you over his cocoon of blankets. His eyes, like Dean’s, are red, but unlike Dean’s, they’re glassy and tired, his eyelids fluttering like he’s struggling to keep them open. “____? What…what’re you doing here?” He pushes himself up to sit, and you can see the effort it takes him to do even that, his arms shaking under his own weight. 

You sit gingerly on the edge of the bed beside him. “Dean sent me,” you tell him, ratting Dean out immediately. 

Sam groans, rubbing his hands over his eyes. The veins in his hands are standing out, ugly, mottled red under pale skin. As if the blood really had poisoned him. “I’m gonna kill him.” Wow, Dean hadn’t even exaggerated, huh?

“Not like this, you’re not,” you mutter, reaching out to take his hand in yours. “Jesus, Sam…” He’s ice cold to the touch like he’s been out in the snow for hours. You curl your hands around his, trying to warm him. 

His gaze flicks to them, your hands barely covering his. “Sorry I missed our date,” he says, mournful like he really is repentant, like standing you up is the worst sin he could’ve possibly committed. “It…was a date, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it—I meant for it to be.” You huff out a laugh, sympathetic as you smile at him. “And, you know, somehow I can’t find it in myself to hold it against you.” 

Sam laughs, and for the first time, you catch a glimpse of his fangs. They’re just as viciously sharp as Dean’s, but they somehow look less dangerous on Sam. You’d worry you’d been charmed or something (isn’t that supposed to be something vampires can do? You have to admit, you’re a little out of the loop of vampire lore), if you weren’t certain that Sam would never do something like that. No, not charmed, not in any sort of magical sense. “I’ll die happy then.” 

Wow, you see the dramatics run in the family. “You’re not going to die,” you say firmly, releasing Sam’s hand to brush his bangs out of his face. He’s freezing all over. It makes you want to wrap him up in your arms, make sure he never goes cold again. You settle for pressing your palm against his cheek, your fingers cupping around his jaw. 

“I am, though,” he shoots back, like he’s arguing about who’s answer on the homework is right, not about his actual, literal life. “I’m going to die. But that’s—it’s okay. It’s been a week, so I’ve sort of come to terms with it.” 

“Screw that.” You turn more firmly towards him, pulling your legs under you to kneel on the bed. “Seriously, screw that. I can help you. If you think I’m just gonna- what, stand aside and let you die, then you really don’t know me at all.” 

“Sure. And you’re just gonna fix me, huh?” He shakes his head, turning it away from you with a huff. “All sunshine and rainbows after that. Not like I’ll have to bleed you to get better, right? Oh, wait.” Oh, he’s such a fucking diva, even on his deathbed, apparently.

“Oh, my God—yeah! I sort of figured it wouldn’t exactly be pleasant.” You didn’t spend all that time hesitating at the door because you thought it would be a walk in the park. “But if the choice is between that and letting you die, there’s no contest. I don’t understand why you’re so set on it when I’m sitting here offering you a solution!” 

“Maybe I don’t want to be saved!” His outburst silences you, especially because it seems to take a lot of energy from him to snap at you like that. He stares you down, red eyes meeting yours, and you…you don’t know what to say to that. 

You can lead a horse to water, but… “Sam—”

He cuts you off with another shake of his head. “Dean…he used to tell me that what we are doesn't make us monsters, it’s what we do. And I really wish I believed that, but the thing is, I…am going to die if I don’t feed from someone, like- like a fucking parasite. What is that if not monstrous?” 

“I don’t think you’re a monster,” you tell him. Slowly, cautiously, you reach for his face and replace your hand on his cheek, turning his gaze to meet yours. “I actually happen to think you’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. I don’t know what kind of monster would’ve apologized for getting deathly ill and accidentally standing me up.” 

His eyes flick over your face, like he’s searching for something. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” His voice, thin and mournful, is heartbreaking. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t know—I’ve never been sick like this before. It’s possible I won’t have a lot of control if I feed on you like this.” 

That’s sort of what you were afraid of. But that’s the benefit of him feeding from you, rather than some random person off the street, right? You know what’s going on. “I won’t let you go too far,” you assure him. “Sam, please. I want to do this for you. Let me…let me help you.” 

His eyes meet yours, and he seems to find what he’s looking for. He lifts his hand and brushes your hair back off your neck. “If I do this—if—it’ll hurt, at first,” he tells you, placing his hand on your shoulder. Just resting there. It sends sparks down your spine all the same. “But not for long. It’ll start to feel good, kind of like getting high. But if I—I’m not going to bite you if I’m not sure you’ll be able to stop me if I take too much.” 

“I’ll stop you. If I have to.” You trust him, mostly. But you’re also aware that he hasn’t fed in a week, so you’re prepared to have to at least alert him to your blood loss. 

His fingers trail along your neck, goosebumps following in his wake. His eyes follow the path of his touch, and his hands may be hesitant, but you can see the hunger in his eyes. Maybe you can make the horse drink, after all. “Are you sure?” he asks, and his hand moves to the back of your head. Bracing. 

“I told you—” you say, your voice coming out almost as quiet as a breath— “I want to do this for you.” 

“Okay.” He leans forward until you can feel his breath on your neck. It’s almost cold, unnaturally so. “Tilt your head a little more, that way—there you go,” he instructs, and that tone in his voice is…yeah. You are definitely glad Dean didn’t come in with you. His lips brush your skin when he speaks next, “Ready?” 

“Yes.” You’re not sure how you manage to get your voice to come out as stable as it does. You bring your hands up to brace on his shoulders, and your grip goes a bit tighter when you feel his fangs press, just barely, against your skin. “Yeah, I’m—go ahead.” 

You’ve never been bitten by a vampire before. You have no frame of reference of whether this is what it’s like every time, or if it’s just a Sam thing. Or if it’s just a you and Sam thing. But the whole process is intensely intimate in a way you weren’t expecting. Even when he first sinks his fangs in and it stings, makes you draw in a sharp breath. He’s a little uncoordinated, you think, and maybe goes in at a weird angle, because he draws his teeth out to sink them in again, but not before his tongue flicks out to catch the blood that drips down the side of your neck. The gasp that escapes you this time is not just from the pain.

He was right, of course. It does hurt at first. But the pain is offset by his hand on your head, his fingers curling just so to grip your hair. You swear you can feel in real time as he gets his strength back. As your blood flushes the sickness out of him. You’re not sure there is anything more intimate than that. 

You think maybe you expected a transition between pain and euphoria, but there is no slow fade. In between one blink and the next, the pain disappears, replaced with a floaty, echoing pleasure that has your fingers clutching at Sam’s shirt. Everything around you goes a little unfocused, fuzzy, except for everywhere Sam touches, where you swear your nerves are lighting up with sparks and ecstasy. You might be making noises. It’s a little hard to tell, your senses dampened as they are. 

“Sam…” You shove a little at his shoulders when you notice your hands start to shake. He hums, and you feel it on your skin. You can see, now, why he likened this feeling to getting high, although you’re not sure it’s the feeding that you can see yourself getting addicted to. You shove him a little harder. “Gettin’ dizzy here.” 

He pulls back from your neck, and your senses return to you in a rush of sound and a pinprick sort of ache where his teeth had sunk into your skin. You watch, full focused vision returned, as Sam wipes at his mouth and then drags his tongue over his hand, now free of mottled veins, to catch the blood that had, you assumed, spilled as he drank from you. Like he can’t bear to waste a single drop. You swallow thickly, your mouth suddenly very dry. 

“You taste like…” He trails off, and then his mouth is on you again, but not biting. No, his tongue drags up your throat, and it occurs to you—vaguely, through the fog of earth-shattering, soul-bending lust that settles over you—that if blood had spilled down his mouth, then it stands to reason that it had made a mess of your neck as well. Not that you’re complaining, if this is the result of a little mess. He makes a soft noise against your skin, his breath hot now in a way it hadn’t been before. “Taste like…” His voice peters off again, distracted or just unable to find the words to describe it.

Yeah, screw this. “Let me find out for myself,” you murmur, your hands moving from his shoulders to his face—and his skin, too, is warmer now, almost the temperature you would generally expect it would be—until you can drag him into a kiss. The answer, as it turns out, is blood. You taste like blood, although you sort of assume it tastes different to him. Strangely, the flavor isn’t as off-putting as you would assume, especially not when he groans and uses his grip on your hair to tilt your head, kiss you deeper. !You lick into his mouth, tasting your actual, literal blood on his tongue, and you…don’t have the words to describe how absurdly hot it is.  

He’s not careful with his fangs, not really, lets them catch on your bottom lip and draw out pinpricks of blood that he soothes with his tongue. It makes the whole thing a little messy; he’s got blood smeared over his lips when you pull back to breathe. Your eyes track his tongue as he licks it up. 

His hand, the one that’s not braced on the back of your head, brushes against the skin of your waist under the hem of your shirt. “Is this okay?” he asks quietly, still so close that you can feel the words on your lips. 

Is this okay? You almost have to laugh at the question. As if you hadn’t wanted him since the first moment you saw him. “Yeah,” you tell him, a little smile tugging at your lips. “It is so absolutely more than okay.” 

At your confirmation, he smiles too, and his hand rests more firmly on your waist, almost grounding. “Well, I didn’t buy you dinner first. Wouldn’t want you to think I was ungentlemanly,” he says, drawing a soft laugh from you. 

“Aw, well. You did try.” You press forward, leaving a short kiss on his lips as your hand shifts from his face to tangle your fingers through his hair. “Plus, I mean…technically, I—”

Sam cuts you off with a kiss, but you can feel his grin against your mouth. “That does not count,” he protests.

“I dunno,” you say, a little sing-song in your voice as you grin at him. “I did quite literally just save your life. I think we might be a little past dinner.” 

He scoffs, shaking his head at you. He’s not annoyed though. You can tell, because his fingers flex on your waist and then move, brushing up your side. “Uh-huh. Sounds to me like I’m slacking.” He ducks his head and presses two short, soft kisses to your neck, right on top of the pinprick aches. “I’ll have to repay you. You did just save my life, after all.” 

Almost subconsciously, your fingers tighten in his hair. Anticipation settles in the small space between you, a space that grows even smaller when his hand presses against the small of your back and tugs your closer. “I did just save your life,” you repeat, your voice significantly breathier than it was before.

He laughs, a little puff of breath against your skin, and his lips drag down your throat in a line of open mouthed kisses until it lands at your pulse point. You swear to God, time slows down as he breathes in, slow and deep like he’s smelling your blood beneath your skin, and then presses his teeth to it until you can feel the points of them, precarious like water pooled on top of a penny. He doesn’t bite down, doesn’t break the skin, but fuck, you almost want him to. It seems like he wants to, too, as he closes his mouth with a snap. “Fuck…” He pulls back and lifts his eyes to yours. “Can I taste you? Please?” 

It takes you a second to understand what, exactly, he means. He’d already tasted you; if he wanted more blood, he could’ve just bitten you again. Then, it clicks, and you…well, what are you supposed to say to that? Sam Winchester, all big, cow eyes and mouth smeared with your blood, so politely asking to eat you out, like you’d be giving him a gift. How could you possibly turn that down? “Yeah. Yeah, fuck, that’s—yeah.” 

You only see his answering smile for half a second before his lips are on yours again, kissing, biting, while his hand caresses over the bare skin of your stomach. His kiss, his touch, is almost overwhelming, doesn’t leave you much room to think about anything else but him. Not that you really want to. He tugs at the hem of your shirt, pulls back just far enough from you to speak, and even then you can feel his lips move against yours as he asks, “Can I take this off?” 

You really do laugh this time, drawing your hands down his neck and over his shoulders. “I appreciate the whole gentleman thing, I really do, but Sam, baby, I’ve wanted you since before I even knew your name. So let’s just assume that whatever you wanna do, I really fuckin’ want it, too.” 

His eyes flick over your face, and you can literally feel the cocky ass grin he gets at that. It is, unfortunately, like everything else he does, ridiculously sexy. “That long, huh?” He’s such a dick. You want him more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your entire life. He tugs back and drags his gaze down your torso, his hand leaving your hair to join the other in toying with the hem of your shirt. “Guess I shouldn’t keep you waiting any longer, then.” His hands brush against the skin of your stomach as he pulls your shirt up and over your head before tossing it aside, not caring where it lands. You’ll find it later. Or you won’t. 

His eyes lave over your newly bare skin, his hands following shortly behind. “You are so beautiful,” he murmurs, pressing his palms flat against your stomach and dragging them up your ribs. “Can you lay back for me, darling?” he asks, even as his hands press you back against the mattress before you can respond. 

You go easily, not in the least because the name knocks the breath out of you. “Darling?” you echo, shifting until you’re resting comfortably against the nest of pillows at the head of the bed. 

Sam climbs over you, his knee nudging yours until you spread your legs to make room for his hips to settle between your thighs. “Is that alright?” he asks, ducking his head to press his lips to the hinge of your jaw. 

More than alright, if the fluttering in your stomach is anything to go by. “It’s fine,” you say, playing it cool. Then, because his hands are rubbing up and down the bare skin of your sides and his teeth (the blunt ones, not the fangs, because he has much more self control than you do) are nipping at the skin of your neck, you play it decidedly uncool and continue, “Darling.” 

You feel his answering smile against the skin of your collarbone as he and his kisses and his teeth travel down the line of your neck and chest, pausing at the edge of your bra. He lifts his eyes to meet yours through his lashes as his lips press the softest of kisses there. “‘M gonna take this off, now,” he tells you, his voice deep and rumbling. His hands move up your back, and you arch your spine to allow him room to do so. He undoes your bra clasp without removing his lips from your chest, tugs the garment down your arms and tosses it vaguely in the same direction as your shirt without a second thought. 

“I thought about this, you know,” he says, softly, against the skin in the valley of your breasts. “Getting my mouth on you. How it would feel.” He shifts his attention, his lips closing over your nipple while his hand palms your other breast. It draws a soft gasp from your lips, your fingers twisting in his hair. “How you’d sound,” he continues, his voice a little cocky now. 

“Sam…” His name falls from your lips on an exhale, like you’re breathing him in, like he’s pumping through your veins the same way you’re now pumping through his. 

He smirks. If you thought he was cocky before… “Yeah, pretty much—” He presses that smirk against one nipple and brushes his thumb over the other, and while your head is dropping back onto the pillows with a moan, he laves his tongue over it to make you moan even louder— “just like that.” He's got you so distracted, you almost don't notice his free hand trailing down your stomach, brushing along the waistband of your jeans, not until his fingers undo the button with practiced ease. 

“Oh, God, you are so unfairly hot.” You lift your head to watch as he kisses his way down your stomach until he finally reaches your waistband with his mouth, too, and leaves a nippy little bite there. 

He laughs, glances up at you with that fucking smirk as he drags your jeans down your hips. “Unfair to who? You?” The two of you maneuver a bit until he can tug your pants off your ankles and toss them aside, another clothing casualty lost to the war on your sanity led by the swooping in your gut whenever Sam looks at you like that. 

“Not me,” you elaborate, although it’s hard to do so when Sam’s hands are settling on your hips and his thumbs are rubbing slow circles on your skin and dipping just so under the elastic of your panties on every other pass. “But, like, every other guy. How is anyone supposed to compete with…this?” 

This being Sam motherfucking Winchester, who had spent months shyly testing the waters and cautiously flirting so subtly that you were terrified you’d read him wrong, suddenly suave and confident and practically begging to eat you out. Oh, and also being, objectively, the hottest monster. This man has been terrorizing the dating pool for maybe centuries. You shudder to think how many women’s standards he has completely obliterated. 

Continuing the streak of obliterating your standards, he ducks his head, that shy smile on his lips again. “I mean, I should hope no one is competing with me in this particular instance,” he says, voice hesitant as if there’s a chance on Earth you’d ever turn him down. 

You shake your head, and honestly, you can’t help but laugh because a literal vampire is about to go down on you, and somehow the most unbelievable part of this situation is that he thinks he has an ounce of competition. “Are you actually asking me if I want to be exclusive right now?” you ask, drawing a hand up and through his hair, brushing his fringe off his forehead. “Because I feel like I made it so obvious how much I like you. Obviously, there is no competition.” 

You have the honor of watching Sam blush for the first time, and knowing that you made it possible. Your blood flushes his cheeks, makes his face go the prettiest shade of pink you’ve ever seen. 

 “Obviously,” he echoes, his words brushing against the skin just above your panties. His hands brush down your thighs, and he pulls one of your legs up and over his shoulder so your heel rests against his back. He turns his head, and with your thigh now bracketing his head, it’s easy for him to press an open-mouthed kiss there, and then another, and then another until he’s brought you back practically to panting again. 

“‘M gonna make you see stars,” he tells you, his lips pressed against the crease where your thigh meets your hip. “And then, because I am a gentleman, I’m going to buy you dinner. And I’m gonna be thinking about this—” He nips at your skin, bares his fangs this time and draws a well of blood and a gasp from you simultaneously— “The way you taste; the way you feel—I’m gonna be thinking about it the whole time.” He draws his hands back up to your hips just to tuck his fingers under the elastic of your panties, lifting his eyes to yours as he tugs on it. “Can I take these off?” 

You think you might die if he doesn’t. “Please.” 

His fangs seem to glint in the light when he grins, but he ducks his head before you can look again, a sort of hyperfocus to his posture as he shifts your hips and legs until he can pull your underwear off your ankles, and finally, finally, leaves you bare to him. He doesn’t waste a second, his hands dragging up your thighs and then spreading them further, his eyes roving over you like you’re the most beautiful work of art he’s ever seen. “Gorgeous.” His voice, breathy and sweet, washing over you is the only warning you get before his lips press against you in a surprisingly gentle kiss. 

Your lungs expand on a gasp, and then deflate on a moan as he laves his tongue between your folds, the muscle pressed flat and soft like a tease. Or a preview. You’re not totally sure you’re going to survive this actually. You might die with Sam’s tongue licking over your pussy, and honestly, what a fucking way to go. 

“Taste so good all over, huh?” Oh, holy fuck, he’s still talking. His lips brush over your skin and make you whine, and you’re pretty sure you can feel the vibrations of his voice better than you can hear him. “Feel like I should thank you. Letting me feed from you, and now this?” He makes it sound like it’s some sacrifice to let him go down on you, like you’re not gripping his hair so tight you’re surprised you’re not pulling it out. “You’re perfect.” 

“Oh, my God,” your voice comes out high and tight as he closes his lips over your clit and sucks. Your back arches off the bed, but as your hips shift to press up against his mouth, you find his hand pressed low on your stomach, pinning you down. “Sam—oh, my God.” 

You can feel as much as hear the soft, contented hums he’s making, like he’s never wanted to be anywhere more than with his head between your legs and his tongue drawing circles over your clit. His fangs, sharp and dangerous, are almost artfully pressed against your skin, just barely enough to feel the points of them. His free hand, the one not pressing you down against the mattress, keeps trailing up and down the outside of your thigh, making you shiver and press your heel into his back. And it’s so obvious he’s loving this maybe even as much as you are, his whole body shifting as he grinds down against the mattress, and God, that feels almost as good as his mouth on your cunt does. He’s getting off on the taste of you, on making you squirm and whine and moan.

It’s over the second he presses his tongue against your entrance and his nose smushes against your clit—everything after that is a jumble of sensation. The feeling of his tongue fucking in and out, his nose rubbing against you with every movement of his mouth, his hand grabbing at your thigh and holding your legs open when your muscles go tense and tight and anticipatory. 

He draws his tongue out of you with an obscene slurping sound that just has you hurtling even faster towards the edge, your hands grabbing at his hair for dear fucking life, white knuckled. “Are you gonna come?” he asks, his voice low and gruff and almost fucked out. You squeeze your eyes shut, nodding as if it wasn’t obvious from the constant stream of noises spilling from your lips. “Yeah? Go on, come on my tongue. Give it to me, darling, let me taste it.” 

How could you resist that? His words and his stupidly talented mouth draw you over the edge, your pussy spasming as you do exactly as he asked and come on his tongue. True to his word, he does, in fact, make you see stars, lights sparking behind your eyelids. His mouth works you through it until you’re whining and using your grip on his hair to tug him away, oversensitive as you come down from an explosive fucking orgasm. 

He presses kisses on your inner thigh as he shifts it off his shoulder, your body loose and pliant now. “There you go, good girl.” The words make your cunt give a valiant twitch, even as he draws himself up your body until he’s laying beside you and pressing kisses over your face. “Was that good?” 

You peek one eye open to look at him, incredulous. “Was that good—you’re so ridiculous, c’mere.” You turn your head to draw him into a slow, lingering kiss. Much like the taste of your blood in his mouth, the taste of your pussy on his tongue is, frankly, life-changing. You’re addicted already. 

He draws back with a soft laugh, his eyes traveling over your face with such obvious fondness that you have to press another quick kiss against his lips. “Okay, understood.” He brings his hand up to brush over your face, soft and gentle and such a contrast to the obscene pleasure he’d taken in going down on you that it makes your cheeks go warm. “So when can I buy you that dinner?” 

The question gives you pauses, and your eyes flick down his body, curious. “Did you not want me to…” 

You watch your blood, again, flood his cheeks as he laughs and rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “That’s not—I really like giving head,” he explains, as if that is not literally the hottest thing he could’ve possibly said. 

Fuck dinner, you wanna go five rounds with him back to back right now. “Okay,” you say, because he’s very sweet and he wants to be a gentleman and who are you to take that from him? “You can take me to dinner, if you swear you’ll let me suck you off when we get back. Deal?” 

The way his face lights up is worth having to wait. “Deal.”  

“And,” you continue, your hand smoothing over his hair where your grip had mussed it up, “next time you need blood, let’s just skip the whole ‘I’m a monster’ thing. I am more than willing to supply you; I have a vested interest in keeping you around.” 

He rolls his eyes, but the way he kisses you, fangs and all, tells you he gets it.

[youling-the-ghost]

sfth incorrect quotes pt.5 because who needs a normal hobby anyway (the generator I used)

Luke: That's a nice arguement, Sam. Why don't you back it up with a source? Sam: My source is that I made it the fuck up! Luke: How high are you? Tom: Mm, I don’t know how to say it in feet. Sam: No, he's asking what drugs are you on. Tom: Oh, antidepressants, why? AJ: Where the devil is Tom? Luke: Well, it is raining outside… Maybe he melted? Sam: Shall I look outside for a tiny, ill-fitting hat?

Sam: If bees can be fish and boys can be girls, then why can't my dad love me? Tom: I thought I was going to have to yell at you, but now I think I should hug you.

Luke walking into the kitchen and seeing all their limes peeled: Tom, I love you but, what the h-e-double FUCK. Tom, sipping coffee happily: I love you too :) Sam, after sneaking into AJ’s bedroom: Hey, wake up! AJ, half awake: Huh!? Sam: I just murdered your entire family! AJ: …But I live alone. Sam: Huh? Then who are these people in your house??? AJ: There’s people in my house? Sam: Well not anymore! Dumb bitch! You could’ve died! You’re welcome! AJ: They… well, I wouldn't call it inheritance per se. What do you call it when you kill someone and get their stuff? Tom: Um, murder??? Sam: Adventuring! Luke: Tuesday. Luke: You can de-escalate literally any situation by asking ‘are we about to kiss?’ Luke: Doesn't work with getting out of speeding tickets, though. Luke: How do tall people people possibly sleep at night when the blanket can't possibly cover you? Tom: Luke, it's four o'clock in the morning. Luke: So, you can't sleep, huh? Is it because of the blanket? Tom: Sam gets offended by everything. Sam: What did you say about me?!? Tom: Tom: Case in point. Luke: wow you and Tom are home early from the movies. What happened? AJ: We got kicked out because Tom wouldn't stop yelling diving scores as people jumped off the titanic. Tom: That last guy had a solid 8, I'm telling you! Sam: The best part of an oreo is the cookie part, not the frosting. Deal with it. Tom: Darkness without light is an abyss. Light without darkness is blinding. You cannot have a coin with one side. Luke: YO SOCRATES! IT'S A FUCKING COOKIE! Sam: What are your three best qualities? Luke: I’m hot, I have soft hair, and sometimes I cry because I love my friends. Sam: A pessimist sees a dark tunnel. AJ: An optimist sees light at the end of the tunnel. Luke: A realist sees a freight train. Tom: The train driver sees three idiots standing on the tracks. Tom: Luke! Have you no dignity? Luke: Of course not! How long have we known eachother? Tom: AJ? What are you doing here? AJ, wearing a hawaiian shirt, sunglasses and holding a gatorade: My best. Luke: A stake to the heart won't kill a vampire if their tits are big enough. AJ: Yeah, you just catch it. Tom: Nah nah nah, deflects it. Stake? Just bounces right off. Done. Back to doing hot girl shit. Sam: Then I just use a spear instead. Luke: You are trying so hard to kill a vampire with big bazongas, and for what? Why would you do that to the ecosystem? Tom, cowering in fear: What do you want from me?! Sam, standing in front of Tom: *bites into the whole KitKat bar like a heathen* Tom, crying: Please...stop...

Tom: Be right back, gonna hit the toilet for a quick power sob. AJ: I did it! I memorized everything in the book! I'm gonna ace this test! Sam: Ok, AJ, I'll give you one more question before you go. What ended in 1918? AJ: 1917. Sam: ...You're ready. Luke: Welcome to my very first vlog, in which I try different hair products! Luke: *sprays hairspray in his mouth* Luke: Well, right off the bat I can tell you this one is not very good. Tom: Sam just said "I have an appetite for destruction" and then he reached down and untied my shoe. Luke: I'm going the fight the next person who insults Sam. Sam: I hate myself. Luke: Alright, square up. *AJ is considering cancelling plans, and Tom and Sam are advising him on what to do* Tom: Just don't go. Sam: Say you’re ill! Tom: Pretend to break your leg. Sam: Really break your leg! AJ: Remember that time you dared me to lick a swingset? Luke: No, I said "AJ, don't lick that swingset" and you said "Don't tell me what to do" and licked the swingset. AJ: You fuckers don’t know about my knife stick. It’s a knife taped to a stick and it’s the ultimate weapon. Tom: Spear. AJ: BLOCKED. Sam: Quacking in my boobs over this Sam: QUAKING* Sam: BOOTS* FUCKER.

+ Bonus message from the programmer of the generator:

Congratulations! You've stumbled upon a secret message from me (the programmer of this generator): Remember to drink water. And also take your meds if you have those and are supposed to take them. Also, have a nice day if that's a possibility. I hope y'all are doing great, and remember: Happy pride month! Always respect eachother's pronouns! (sadly it's no longer pride month but that that doesn't mean that we shouldn't continue to respect each other's pronouns)

[aworldoflovely]

I think it would be funny if during all of the post-reveal dramatics it turns out that Fuyumi has been a pretty big player in the criminal underground since like, 15.

Like, she knows Giran and has a professional working relationship with Mr. Compress. There's a really strong party drug named after her, and she has an off shore bank account with millions in it. She's run drugs, robbed banks, and has made a few people disappear.

She and Dabi had actually crossed paths a few times before. I personally like to think both their mental illnesses meshed well enough that they compartmentalized those meetings and had relaxing time catching up over drinks.

This all comes out when maybe Shouto is confiding in her about how he is hurt and confused and she's like

"Oh Shou, I don't think he actually hates us. When I was talking to him the other day-"

"You talked to him before all this?"

"Oh I didn't mention it? Yeah it was last Thursday when I was supervising a delivery at the docks-"

"What? What delivery? Why were you at the docks?"

"I'm at the docks at least once or twice a month Shouto, remember? When you were living at home those were the nights I'd leave dinner in the fridge for you and Dad."

"No, I don't remember this! Are you telling me that you spend your nights-"

"I'd leave notes on the fridge and would update the family calender. I know you get alerts on it because you always come home early on soba nights"

Shouto then takes out his phone, goes to what he considers his Soba Alert app, sees it's actually a calender and sees months and possibly years of-

Tuesday, March 18th. Making deliveries at drop points A, D and H. Will be back late.

Thursday, May 23rd. Overseeing production of new product in Kamino ward. Will bring home take-out.

And Saturday, July 9th. Henchman and Goon Appreciation day at the park. Will bring home leftovers from the barbecue.

[ask-pokeprofvoid]

Pelipper mail!

[Oh! It's a letter from Polaris!]

“Dear Dewdrop and Drea,

I am so so sorry for my lack of a letter on Tuesday. Things are really staring to kick up at the sanctuary and I simply did not have the time. So today you are getting a Thursday letter instead of a Friday letter to try and make up for it.

It seems that we have resolved the Walrein issue. Unfortunately, it seems that the only Walrein that the pod will accept as their leader is…Wallace. It’s going to break my heart to see him go, but it’s for the best for both him and the pod.

Drea: Hi darling. Of course I can help you with the service mon stuff when I get home, it would be my pleasure. It can be a bit nerve wracking, but you’re being very brave asking me about it and I promise I will train you up the best and most gentle service mon. I see Ingo and Emmet are visiting! A shame that I missed them, they are excellent battlers and I would have loved to have a mock battle against them. Another time. I’m sure they will train up your Larvitar to be wonderful and strong! It’s lovely to see Liam and Dune getting on well.

Viv: Hello dewdrop :) Augh I’m missing you so much. My futon is lonely without you in it. I would say cold but it turns out Bird is quite clingy at bed time haha. I got an idol commissioned for you, a carved on of a crowen gyarados. And one for Drea of a sudowoodo but that’s a surprise. It’ll be ready next week. Ah. Speaking of. It’s going to take me a bit longer to get home. Skie got it in xer head that while I’m here I should do an interview on the main Sanctuary account, so it seems that’s what I’ll be busy with next week. But I’ll be on my way home as soon as that’s all done. Lovely to hear that Queenie and the babies are doing well. How is Dreamie? I’m missing seeing her little face in the tank by my bed every morning, lovely little girl.

I love you both bunches and bunches!

-Your Starlight and Birdie”

[ There's photos like always; The babies seem more round and have their bristles now, looking like small pom poms while one dramatic photo labeled as 'Mr.Mischeif' shows a feisty lil bab using Bounce on a toy. There are several photos of Dreamie too, mainly with her sleeping on things or chasing a small ball toy around her tank.] Hi Opie! That sounds super nice! Uncle Ingo taught me about batles Battles and types! All the mons are super duper cuddly this week for some reason but Miss Viv only smiles sadly when I ask why :( Maybe they are cold? I might have to bring them my blankets!

Alots A lot of things happened at school too! My teachers are now letting me write with a pen and they say i'm learning very fast! Plus!! Miss Viv said she's getting me a therie past! I don't know what that is but she says that they will help me get better and to be prepared if they ask sad questions because they want to help me get better!! We cannot wait for you to get back home all the Pokémon miss you loads! [Theres another piece of tape that has many little Eevees on it, Seemingly as another border for the letter.] Hello Starlight, It is lonely without you. I swear im used to the smell of you baking in the kitchen haha. Had to get out the old Crown cook book to make some stuff, My mum sent over some recipies to make when you get back.

Take as much time as you need pumpkin, I admit some really weird things have been happening and Xena of all Mons is really on edge. Might need to take her out of the house to relax a bit the poor thing...But, don't worry. I am sure it's just one of those months where odd things happen.

I guess ill need to set up a new shelf for all the trinkets you bring back home, huh? Dreamie is missing you, I swear as soon as you left she started making little hissing noises; most likely doesnt understand where you went but I assure you shes getting alot of love along with all the other mons. Had to hide this photo but I thought you would love it Starlight. I love you and please keep safe. -your Dewdrop [Theres a sneekily hidden photo of all the mons in a cuddle pile; Andrea is cuddled up with them too having dragged all her blankets downstairs to nap with them all]

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

Workshopping an idea below the cut, feel free to ignore, im mostly organizing thoughts for therapy lol.

Warnings for mentions of medical neglect, self deprecation, illness/COVID, and related stuff.

When I had COVID, it went bad. Not just because I was sick, although that was certainly part of it. High fevers and constant exhaustion are misery-inducing, let alone the amount of missed classwork I had to work on from my bedroom. But that’s not what I remember about having COVID. I remember going hungry.

COVID, until recently, was handled by my university differently than other illnesses. I think that’s rather stupid; I fully support masking and mandatory self-isolation time during illness, but I don’t think those should be COVID-exclusive policies. I should be guaranteed a rescheduled exam if I have strep or the flu, also. But, because of the ongoing pandemic, COVID was unique as far as enforced isolation policies. For five days after first symptoms (at the time I was infected), you were forbidden from attending class, and for the next five days, you had to mask. You’d get a doctor’s note from the clinic excusing you from all your classes for a few days, it was a whole thing.

I did not initially get diagnosed with COVID. I started showing symptoms on Saturday night, but on Sunday, my rapid test at home was negative. On Monday, my rapid test in the university clinic was negative, and I only got a doctor’s note for the day, with instructions to return if I got worse. That afternoon, my fever soared to 101 degrees, and I was so delirious that I forgot how to treat a fever. I had to cancel attending DND, even masked and socially distanced or online, because I was incoherent from exhaustion. The next morning, I was too ill to talk or drive, and had to use an AAC to ask my friend to drive me to the doctor.

Funnily enough, even in that state, I did not think to ask my roommates to drive me to the doctor.

Which is odd for a couple reasons, honestly. On Monday, I had been in the living room the whole afternoon, shivering under a blanket on the couch and staring at a wall for hours. My roommates both had schedules which had them passing me by several times. Neither interacted with me at all, until I went into the kitchen and used my AAC to try and talk to them. Even then, they often breezed past me or ignored me when I did use my AAC, and I left that conversation frustrated because I didn’t get enough time to type a sentence. I may as well have been a rock. A sweaty, shivering rock. But I had talked to them, and I had known I was going to need to go to the doctor, and they were right there. So why didn’t I ask them to help me?

I didn’t eat at all on Monday, as far as I recall. I know I woke up on Tuesday starving. I know the only thing I have evidence of me consuming is water and tea. I know I got stuck in the shower that night, laying in the tub, too weak to climb out. For a while, I couldn’t lift my head. I’m impressed I didn’t fall asleep there.

Tuesday came, and I was diagnosed with COVID after the third rapid test came back aggressively positive. There’s something to be said about not assuming a negative test means you’re not infected with COVID, but that’s a different discussion. To be safe, I was given a doctor’s note exempting me from class until Friday. I tried to be responsible, and so I told my friend, my roommates, and anyone I had been in contact with since Saturday. Most people said “oh, I’m so sorry you’re sick, feel better!” My friend mentioned they’d disinfect their car. My roommates told me not to leave my room. Don’t get them sick.

And that’s reasonable. I’d already planned on self isolating. We were all Honors students; because the university treated COVID differently, if they were considered infectious, they would also have to miss a week of class. But their concern had nothing to do with my health, or their health, or anyone else’s. Their only response was “don’t get us sick. We can’t afford to miss class. Don’t leave your room.”

And so I didn’t.

It’s funny, how not leaving your room gets very difficult after a while. For starters, I had to use the bathroom. That, I accepted, was a necessary quarantine breach. I couldn’t pee in my room. The landlords would kill me, but more practically, that’s just unsanitary and would make me getting sick more likely. I couldn’t hold it forever, either. At some point I was forced to leave. And that was fine, small dilemma resolved, I’d only go when I desperately had to use the bathroom. But what about leaving for other things?

I never thought to ask if I could leave to get my things from downstairs. That was frivolous, even if I wanted them. Or to go downstairs for my water, or snacks. Too risky. Common areas. My roommates had been very clear that any risk of them getting sick would be dire.

Which meant that when my sick body started having bodily needs, things quickly got very complicated.

That first day, after my appointment, I ordered chipotle. My mom had venmoed me some money when she heard I was sick, worrying that I hadn’t been eating. Which. I hadn’t. I asked my roommate to bring me my food, and after a while, she did. Perfect. The burrito would tide me over for a while, I thought. I’d be full for a long time.

Then thirst started to crawl up on me. I had juice at the doctor’s that morning (I was hyperventilating and they needed an accurate measure of my heart rate), but other than that, I’d had nothing. I needed water.

But I didn’t ask for any.

Instead, I waited until the dead of night, and then stole down the stairs, grabbed several waters, crept back upstairs, and chugged desperately while hoping my roommates didn’t catch me leaving my room.

Why did I do that?

Why didn’t I just ask for water?

Why did I feel ashamed, like I had broken some law?

The next day, I woke up starving. Which makes sense. I hadn’t eaten since noon the day before. I was sick. My body needed energy to heal and it didn’t have any. I complained to my friend that I was hungry and sick; they were very kind, and went to the grocery store for me, buying me popsicles and juice and Gatorade and other foods and medicine and such. Except, my roommates didn’t want any strangers in the house, so they delivered it on my doorstep. Which I couldn’t get to. One roommate collected the groceries, sent me a photo, and I was suddenly struck with guilt. Here I was, inviting a stranger to her to our home, inconveniencing her by forcing her to put away my groceries. But I was also very thirsty, so I asked for one of the Gatorades to be delivered to my room. She brought up the whole pack. Left it outside my doorstep. I waited until she was back downstairs. She didn’t bring up anything else; none of the medicine or food my friend had bought me. But in fairness, I didn’t ask her to.

The next 48 hours were marked by living off of that Gatorade.

I was thirsty, so I drank a Gatorade. And then I realized I felt less hungry afterwards, so I opened another one. Drank that one too. The fun thing is, I don’t actually like Gatorade? I asked for it because I was dehydrated and knew I needed electrolytes to replace the fever sweat. But usually, Gatorade is something I begrudgingly sip at.

I finished four bottles that day.

That night, I texted my roommates and asked if someone could microwave me some food. It was already precooked, I just needed it microwaved. I got back one roommate’s text: “I’m in class”.

Around an hour later, the other roommate stopped studying long enough to make dinner, and saw my text, and apparently felt kind enough to microwave precooked sausage for me. She didn’t really check it? It was still cold in the middle. Which. Was not great, given that I have major texture sensitivities surrounding cold food. But she had made it for me, and I hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours since then, so I ate it. Slowly. Forcing myself to swallow. Don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it, just *swallow*. You have no room to complain.

I was still hungry. So I had another Gatorade.

Thursday arrived, I was on my last day of quarantine, and I had a weekend of recovery to look forward to. I was egregiously sick of Gatorade. My teeth, in my phone’s camera, were pink from the red dye. The paper plate from last night sat on my floor, forgotten, still smelling of sausage. I caught up on schoolwork. One of my two labs had leftover recordings from 2020, so I could make that one up online, and I got an exemption for attending the other one. I was weak and shaking from low blood sugar and illness, but I had shit to do, so I did it. Was it my best work? No. Did it get done? Yes. I was too tired to care about scores.

My homework was done. It was 3:48 PM. I was starving.

I texted and asked for someone to make me a frozen meal from the freezer. Slightly more inconvenient than the microwave. It had to go in the oven. I winced typing it. My roommates were so busy. They didn’t have time to waste on me.

Return text: “I’m in band til 5:20”.

Coolcoolcool. I can wait. I’ll sip another Gatorade.

5:20 comes and goes. I hear the door downstairs open. Half an hour passes. No sounds of food making. Welp. She’s busy. Maybe she forgot, or class ran overtime and I misheard, or she just can’t do it.

I text: “Checking in on the food situation?”

Suddenly, in that moment, my roommates stopped caring if I got them sick by leaving my room. The third time I ate in four days was by dinner I cooked myself, sitting on the floor of the kitchen with a mask on, trying not to fall asleep and let it burn.

Honestly, I walked away from that situation feeling like I was in the wrong. Clearly I had misunderstood something. Every time I asked for something, there was a long pause, or I was told someone was too busy to help me. I was burdening my roommates with my needs, when they were trying to work on schoolwork. Maybe I should have known I could leave my room for water, or to cook, during the day. Nevermind that I was so tired that standing up made my legs shake. I could still walk. I could sit on the floor and wait for my food. I could have taken breaks on the stairs if I was tired. I’d been lazy and needy and presumptuous.

My friends had… a different opinion about that situation.

This week, I got sick. I knew I was likely going to get sick. I went to visit some close friends, knowing some of them weren’t feeling well, and that I was going to be staying in their house. It was a calculated risk for me. I wouldn’t be in contact with a lot of other people during the trip, and if I did get sick during the trip, I wouldn’t leave the house, and regardless of how I felt, I would wear a mask while outside the house. I knew I could easily self isolate when I got home from the trip, since my bedroom is across from the bathroom and right next to the kitchen. I thought that I could just sleep during the day and eat at night, and nobody would have to be bothered by me when I got sick. I love these friends very much, and for me, it was worth it.

Notably, I live in a new house now, and with new roommates.

I did get sick, like I predicted. During the trip, no less. The second half of my visit was mostly me sleeping on a couch, or trying very hard to stay awake on a couch. I was miserable a lot of the time. I cried several times over minor inconveniences. I felt lazy and needy and presumptuous; now my friends had to put up with me being sick and weepy. I wasn’t being helpful. I wasn’t being energetic and fun to be around.

The way they treated me was night and day, compared to my old roommates.

Every time someone passed me by, they asked if I was okay. Did I want tea? Did I want some Emergen-C? Could I be persuaded to eat something? Did I need ibuprofen, or perhaps some pseudoephedrine? We ran out of sparkling water, and my friend just. Went to the store and got me some more, and some chips I liked, and some candy as a treat to snack on. I misplaced a plushie, and started crying, and… someone got up and helped me find her. They also played video games and streamed it so I could watch it from my phone while resting. Someone made my favorite dinners. My sensory issues flared up halfway through eating toast, and suddenly I had multiple people helping me get food I could eat to take my meds with. When I needed to shower, I was given access to a shower chair. I was never more than a word away from help, even if it was just something I wanted and not something I needed to feel better.

And then I got home, and my new roommate did the same thing!

I went to self isolate in my room, fully expecting to be forgotten about for the rest of the day. But my roommate sat six feet away, through my doorway, just talking to me until I was laughing. They made me dinner, and then lunch the next day. They bought me groceries again. Told me I could leave my room whenever I needed to, and that I was allowed to get water and food, why was that even a question? Hey, come watch me play Baldur’s gate. Yeah you can sit in the living room; you have a mask on and we’ll be distanced enough.

And every time I said how nice someone was being, or tried to apologize for being needy or inconvenient, I got pushed back. No, we’re not “being so nice to you”, this is basic decency, Blue. This is normal. People are meant to take care of each other when they’re sick. Who would just abandon a sick person to starve? Why are you apologizing? Why do you keep asking if you’re “allowed” to take care of your basic needs?

I don’t know.

It’s easy to point to my COVID experience and say that’s what messed me up. But even when I was sick with COVID, I didn’t want to ask for help. The negative responses reinforced that I was being too needy, but that idea wasn’t new to me. I already didn’t want to ask. I didn’t ask for food multiple times a day. I didn’t ask for the food and medicine my friend had bought me. I didn’t ask for water; I stole it from my own minifridge in the dead of night. Why didn’t you just steal food too, Blue? Great question! I felt so guilty about getting the water that it outweighed my intense hunger.

And the whole time I recounted it to other people, I doubted my own experience of the events. My memory is notoriously shitty when I’m tired or sick. I lose chunks of time. It happens. Maybe I forgot when my roommates did help me. Maybe I was emotional and misremembered how they treated me. Maybe they did care, and did ask about me, and I was too feverish to remember it. But I do have text records of every conversation we had between that Tuesday and Thursday. Because I was in my room the whole time. And could not talk to people. I have timestamps for their responses, and I have what they said and what I said.

And from those brief texts, I can tell you that I was treated as needy. and lazy. and presumptuous. I can tell you that my needs weren’t met, and instead of being angry, I apologized. I can tell you that my roommates were quick to respond when I talked about the cat sitting in the bathroom sink, or where to find the pizza cutter, but when I asked for any help, it was radio silence or “I’m in class”. Any help I did receive in that time was delayed, with no verbal confirmation it was happening, and I was left in extended limbo wondering if anybody would help me or had even read my messages.

All that’s changed is, now I know it didn’t have to be that way.

These old roommates still call me their friend. I don’t really know that I want to be their friend anymore. My friends didn’t neglect me so much that I spent hours shivering on the couch ignored, or got stuck in a shower with no way to ask for help, or stole water in the dead of night.

[iantimony]

yay tuesday is back

return of tuesday! i had two weeks in the UK which was very fun but i am definitely vacationed out - i miss my routine. longer trips like that are only fun towards the end if you have a home base that isn't just a hotel room.

listening: newest coral bones ep is very chill. it's only three songs and they're all very vibey but i think my favorite is 'seatac'. i wish they were still posting on bandcamp. alas.

SeaTac - Coral Bones

also got back into listening to the altogether - their album 'when we were kids' is very travel-coded to me for some reason, it was on loop my entire train ride from london up to edinburgh. (i'm also pretty sure brian david gilbert of all people is featured on this album haha)

Billy & Anne - The Altogether

finally, i saw st. vincent live in london this past weekend!!! it was a really good concert, lots of fun, interesting venue. she's definitely got an insane stage presence. the opening act (heartworms) was fun too, my brother and his friend weren't interested and described it as 'moody goth bullshit' and i was like well. that is right up my alley. you boys enjoy the bar im gonna go be moody and goth. it was good!

i think if i do standing room tickets again i need to invest in some platform shoes, at least two or three inches, because some of that was a struggle to see Anything ... i did manage to find a spot where i had a decent little corridor between heads to see the stage, however i was directly behind a guy in a bowler (?? fedora?? idfk) hat and his boyfriend who kept moving around and dancing (fine) and gyrating (also fine ?? i do not consider st. vincent particularly gyrate-able music but what do i know) so i also had to do some leaning side-to-side to see around them. one of her songs has a line about jumping off the london bridge and the way they both looked at each other and pointed gleefully at themselves while going "meeee" was very funny. i bet they're on tumblr, they had the vibes. hello gay guys at the london st. vincent concert, if you're reading this.

reading: i read 'when the angels left the old country' by sacha lamb in the two days that i was alone in edinburgh before my brother came! it was good, speedy read, i enjoyed the characters and overall conceit well enough. probably not on the to-buy list, i'd just rented an ebook for my trip.

some miscellanous articles from my pocket emails:

How to Coexist With a Belligerent Catbird by Caitlin Gibson (<3)

The Last Kid in Ninth Grade Without an iPhone by Liz Kreiger (this was relatable as a kid whose parents did Not let her get anything more complex than a flipphone for emergencies until i got myself one as a senior in high school and i think i was better off for it)

The Case for Doing Laundry Every Day by Rebecca Onion (insane, IMO)

watching: mostly fallow, did watch one of the dunmeshi eps that came out when i was gone with the boy yesterday and will probably watch the second one tonight.

i have Opened the jenny nicholson star wars hotel video, not yet watched, but saw in my patreon emails from friends at the table that the tablefriends did a related episode on their star wars podcast, which, i then noticed like [leo decaprio pointing meme] xeecee spotted in the credits for the cover art ?? i'm not surprised they are aware of each other but i thought it was funny

playing: fallow! completely, for once! no ttrpgs, no video games, etc. i guess i played a Lot of solitaire on my flight back from the uk, maybe that counts lol

making: i did a lot of sketching on my trip! i made a watercolor travel journal that somehow doesn't have enough pages so i'll have to rebind it but oh well. no watercolor pics for now but i'm excited to share those as i go! in the meantime, some sketches i did in the east princes street gardent, the scottish parliament, and the victoria and albert museum in london respectively:

i think once i finish the travel journal ill try to do a higher quality scan of it and upload a pdf somewhere, i feel like that will be fun.

eating: ough i ate a lot of good food in the uk. mostly the non-british food unsurprisingly but i Did have some really good fish & chips moments. last meal of the trip especially we got a recommendation from one of my brother's friends who goes to cambridge and ouuuugh that shit was So good.

misc: it's good to be back ... now i'm back in The Grind (work) but i don't mind it. despite the jetlag i'm feeling refocused and excited to get moving on stuff again. i liked a lot of stuff about the uk (trains, vibes) but i also did not like some stuff (why are the cold meds So weak there lmfao) and overall i'm glad to e home :)

[flockofdoves]

im going fucking cuckoo bananas. why is it so hard to fill my schedule to be a full time student for my last semester when i am infamously the type of person who wants to learn about everything ever and jumps at any opportunity to take random classes

have really really really wanted to take advanced spanish grammar for so long but every fucking semester i have a necessary class during that time (due to the epidemic of every class in the world being in late morning on tuesday/thursday) and this semester my One Singular Class I Absolutely Need To Graduate is at that time

so then i was like. oh well. i'll take italian 1 instead since my grandfather has been trying to plan one last trip to where his family is from and if i get to go it will be good to practice italian in a formal context

but then that trip fell through and i just really really want to improve my spanish so i emailed a class for heritage speakers to see if it would be appropriate for me and the professor got back to me and said i was welcome to come to the first class and try it out

and so today i went to the spanish for heritage speakers class and it made me so so excited to be immersed in spanish again and going over the content of the course, with the exception of how i don't really need much writing help since when i was learning all the basics of how to read and write i did that as much in spanish as i did english, all the grammar topics were exactly what i needed and the idea of a class where everyone talks at a high level and theres no english but you still get into the basics of explaining different grammar topics is so so refreshing!!!

and at the end of class the professor was like your spanish is at a high enough level for this class so if you want to take it then see you monday! and it got me so excited

and then the italian class was just really extremely basic. i understand basically anything said to me in italian and know a decent amount of vocab i just have trouble speaking but throughout my life i have at least studied basics like past and present tense and articles and stuff. so my goals were to learn more grammar and make my pronunciation better (i always pronounce everything so spanish and dont have a good sense for what words have which e or o sound)

but this professor was like yeah basically this whole course is just present tense and well learn the sinple past tense right at the end. but i already know that!!! and also unfortunately she has a noticeable american accent while speaking so thats not much help for improving my accent either

so i was like well whatever that makes my decision easy ill drop italian and take the spanish class. but still just in case i asked her about if i could take an italian placement test (was nervous about that originally because the next level up was during my necessary class again) and she was like yeah ive never had to do that before but i can figure that out for next week. which is a little nervewracking bc add/drop ends on wednesday. but whatever i was excited about taking spanish now

but then when i got home today i saw an email from the spanish professor (technically a grad student) like ‘i talked to my colleagues and even if your spanish level is high enough since you are not a heritage speaker here are some classes better suited for you [classes where you write huge essays in spanish which i do not have the time or desire for rn]’

and that was upsetting because i just really most of anything wanted to take a spanish class but then i was feeling a bit better because it turned out there was a new section added of the italian 2 class that fit my schedule and looking through that classes textbook it seemed the exact mix of easy but not boring because ill still actually be learning stuff that i needed. and i even called my mom (who used to be an italian language professor) and read the textbook units and she agreed it seemed exactly right for me

so i went to start writing an email to that professor to be proactive even before taking the placement test but in the fucking half hour since i had last checked the page rhat section of the class filled up with no waitlist

so i looked through the entire search of classes in a certain block of time not on tuesday thursday for my giant university and literally rhe only thing that seemed both manageable and interesting was an intro to japanese class. and i was excited like wow! how did i miss this when i was first searching for classes! only to click on it and remember i did see it and the reason it wasnt on my backup class list was because it doesnt allow seniors to take it

[theretirementstory]

12/1/2025. The festivities are well and truly finished for 24/25, decorations packed back in boxes (not in this house 😱) and the house looks “normal” once again.

We have had bright days, cloudy days and days when the temperature has been so low, it feels like your ears will fall off 😳. Yet despite that, the sunrises and sets as it has done for millennia.

Normally, I would start to tell you about my woes (that’s later) but let’s just take the time to remember people who have lost loved ones during these 12 days. Some suddenly, some following years of illness, it’s still a shock no matter when it happens. In fires, war, all kinds of other disasters plus of course the normal progression of their life cycle. Will 2025 improve? Let’s hope so it’s just so depressing! That’s life though I guess ups and downs for all people.

Now to me! I had the chat with the Gendarme for my telephone appointment (well Anie and I did) the good news is I don’t have to wait for conclusion of the inquiry before I can sell my car. Anie went straight to the garage in her little 🚗 to ask if someone could ring me and arrange to view the car in the hope that they will pay a good price. Well good or not, I need it gone, so 🤞that could be pretty soon.

I finally had the cleaner here (after four weeks) I knew I wasn’t feeling 100% when I lounged in my chair while she did upstairs, then could have slept really well when I laid on my bed. We have agreed that for the following weeks when I go to the hospital on a Tuesday she will have a key to come in and do the work.

My visit to the hospital did not go as well as anticipated. Due to an infection (this horrible head, nose, ears, throat etc) I was unable to have the treatment or start the tablets again for their three week stint. So we are pushing back the treatment, hopefully just for one week. All I could think was “don’t keep me in hospital”. Anyway home I came, even though my eating has been sporadic, I have enjoyed a day (or two) where taste has returned and I have enjoyed my meals. Tablets are taking control of my eating pattern and I have a notebook telling me what has to be taken before, during and after meals 🙄. Despite all of this, I have still managed to wash bedding, towels, clothes and everything else in between. The nurse coordinator (at the hospital) was surprised I only had a cleaner coming in to help me. Well no good having someone pop in to stick a ready meal into the microwave for me, that would just make me feel 🤑 again.

My neighbour has been asked to go to the pharmacy, do little bits of shopping for me and I think it is starting to tell on him. He never refuses but I am sure after all this time (June 2023) to hear his phone “beep” on a morning must be an “oh no not again moment.

It’s the Fete Sans Frontières on the 19 January. It also happens to be Anie’s birthday. Her sons had tried to persuade her not to go but it’s such an important fete for her that she dismissed her birthday and seeing her son/s. Last year I attended, there really is no chance of that this year but I will be thinking about them all.

“The Solicitor” now has a shared office (with the accountant) and is the Wills and Probate Man. “The Recovery Coordinator” has had a busy week, although it’s demanding she loves her job. They have joined the gym and been and bought new trainers, swimming gear for “The Solicitor”. Now all that’s needed is a determined approach (on his part anyway).

My grandchildren are with daddy and grandad this weekend. Grand-mere was not an interesting proposal against a snooze for grandson and definitely no comparison to Barbie which my granddaughter was playing with.

They are going to a birthday party this afternoon so I guess they will be shattered when they arrive at Mummy’s.

It’s the week of the grand move for “The Photographer and “The Jetsetter”. It’s ok getting a removal man to remove the heavy items but there are still boxes to pack. “The Jetsetter” has been packing boxes and selling things which are not needed.

Let’s have a look at some songs, I do hope I am not repeating a lot of them but, in my opinion, its worth listening to them again. The first is “Almaz” by Randy Crawford which was released in 1986. The second is “I Go To Sleep” by The Pretenders which was released in 1980.

On Friday evening a friend from the knitting group brought me a trough full of spring plants, she put them on my kitchen window sill then rang me from her car. About 10pm I opened my front door, there was a kalanchoe plant, she had said leave it outside for two days incase there were any bugs keeping warm in there. How kind of her. I am thrilled that I can watch spring bulbs grow and flower.

Until next week.

[traveltrainsandcoffee]

THE EURO FFL 2024 REVIEW

Picking the teams was a big challenge this time, in the old days it was easier to tell players positions, but much harder now. Confusion over who were forwards, Midfielders and even defenders. Newbie Team Aroma barista Tilda tried to pick Newcastle midfielder Bruno Guimaraes, but he wasn’t in the Euros, because he’s from Brazil. To add to the mix we had a general election going on at the same time. Good news Rishi, the euros are on BBC and ITV, so you don’t need Sky. As the Euro’s got closer the sad news broke that Liverpool and Scotland Legend Alan Hansen was seriously ill in hospital. Former Arsenal and Everton striker Kevin Campbell was also seriously ill in hospital. He sadly died on the first weekend of the euros.

So who were the favourites? The current Euro FFL champion was Steve Tatham, but he hadn’t really challenged much since winning it. Colin Fenwick was a contender, back in April he won the FA Cup. Could Kieron Mullin win the only FFL title he’d never won before? Jon Thomson had come very close in the main league before coming second to Kieron. Before the kick off most of Scotland seemed to go to Munich. I got a text from a German friend saying ‘I saw a drunken Scotsman in a kilt in the street at 6am.’ The news seemed to be full of my favourite places full of drunken Scott’s, from The Augustiner Keller to swimming in the fountains in Marienplatz. Oh yes sir, the Scotts were boogieing all over Germany. Then there was the English in their campervans. One family on the BBC news had just been to Lidls. How strange, they have Lidl and Aldi in Germany, whatever next.

With all the teams in I sat in the mailbox with Team Aroma’s Olivia and Shann to watch the mighty Deutschland completely destroy Scotland 5v1. Sorry Liv. After game one Chris Geoghegan was top. Senol Durmush then proved he didn’t know his Hawks from his Grimsby Romas. Spain, Portugal and the Dutch made good starts. England in a slightly under par performance beat Serbia with a Bellingham goal. VAR disallowed 2 Lukaku goals, costing Belgium, meanwhile Austria were knocking hell out of the French players. Lots of kicking, Griezmann was pushed into the advertising board, cutting his face. Then Mbappe had his nose broken and would miss the next game. Christian Eriksen had pretty much died on the field at the last Euro’s. Amazingly after those horrible scenes he made a full recovery and scored for Denmark at these Euro’s. Tuesday morning and Team Aroma got a mention on BBC Radio 5Live, ooohh Kolsch. The first full league table of the Euros saw Colin Fenwick top, with Paul Taylor 2nd, Jon Thomson 3rd and Senol Durmush 4th. Team Aroma were bottom.

Round 2 started with a bit of controversy. Scotland scored what look very much like an own goal, but the UEFA goals committee gave it to McTomiany, Pleasing Blessing who had picked him. These dodgy goals committees once gave Crespo a goal, which he didn’t really touch, resulting in Kieron Mullin winning the 2006 World cup by just 1 point. Thursday night, in the Mailbox, with a few members of Team Aroma. Kane scored, but Denmark battled back for a poor draw. England were very poor and the folks back home weren’t sticking by them. All across England fans got very angry, even Shearer and Lineker were having a go, like a pair of angry uncles at a wedding.. Even in our FFL group chat people were saying how boring England were and should Southgate be sacked right now. Then things got a bit weird, Barista Sarah called for Positivity. Manifest a win, align our Chakras. Chakra? Didn’t they sing, I feel for you and I’m every woman? Well you cant say Manifest without thinking of succulent Chinese meals. In the end the call was to ‘get your hands off my portico pizza’. All this fun couldn’t takeaway how poor England had been and how unhappy England fans were. Another unhappy person was Dutch Manager Ronald Koeman. A very dodgy bit of VAR stopped the dutch beating Mbappeless French, get used to that Ronny. Turkey scored a terrible own goal in their 3 nil defeat to Portugal. The match will also be remembered for loads of Ronaldo selfie hunting pitch invaders running on the pitch during the game. At the end of round two Paul Taylor was top, 3 points ahead of Jon Thomson, with Senol 3rd ,Our Grimsby Roma 4th and Danny Lawson 5th.

Round 3 and Germany were through, but the Scotts were out. Austria won the group of Death and amazingly Georgia beat Portugal. A poor performance by England and a draw resulted in them winning the group unbeaten and in the easier looking half of the knock out draw. All good news, well the England fans didn’t see it that way. Boos, gestures, abuse, calls for Southgate’s sacking and some even started throwing things at Southgate and the team. Whatever happened to backing and supporting your country? In Euro FFL, Jon Thomson was still top, but facing a strong challenge from Colin Fenwick, Paul Taylor and Pam Taylor. Team Aroma were off the bottom at the expense of Holly Shakeshaft. Good news as Alan Hansen was now out of Hospital and recovering.

Round 4 and it was the weather that was making the headlines. I’ve never seen so much rain in Germany, not in all my visits. It poured down, even thunder and Lightning. It got so bad that the Germany Denmark game had to be suspended for 20 minutes. When they returned back to the field Germany beat Denmark. Defending champions Italy had been very disappointing and were now out. Also on that Saturday night Chris Geoghegan posted some very strange photos of Tattoos and urinals, no idea why, but he seemed to be “loving it, loving it, loving it”. England were terrible against Slovakia. Even Bellingham was poor, somehow Southgate had turned him into Carlton Palmer. Slovakia were winning and England looked out, but with seconds to go, Bellingham scored an amazing overhead kick goal. Kane scored in extra time and somehow England had turned things around. Belgium were out, while France and Portugal were through. Several FFL managers had picked Ronaldo, but he couldn’t score. To try and cheer the England team up and improve the mood, Ed Sheeran turned up at the England camp. I’m not sure that helped much. In our league Jon Thomson was still top and 3 points clear of the Hawk, with Danny Lawson 3rd, Our Grimsby Roma 4th.

Round 5 and in one of the best games of the Euros, so far, Spain beat Germany. So as Rishi was being kicked out of number 10, the hosts were being knocked out of the Euros. After a great game, followed a terrible game. France beat Portugal in a bore draw. Was this the end of Ronaldo and FFL??? Mbappe or Batman as I like to call him seemed very out of sorts, who knew that a broken nose would have such an affect. England took on Switzerland and went behind, but a great Saka goal took the game to penalties. England won and Saka got his penalty redemption like Stuart Pearce did in Euro96, was it coming home? Jon Thomson who had led for most of the Euro’s was still top and 5 points clear. After leading the FFL back in April and letting it slip he wasn’t counting any chickens, even quoting A Tribe call quest. The main competition for the title was coming from Danny Lawson and Sally Sands. England would play the Netherlands in the semi finals.

Round 6 and with only 3 games to go Jon was top of the league, but not that confident of victory. France who had been terrible and broken nose Batman couldn’t save them. Spain were through to the final and 16 year old rising start Yamal was shining. Remember those pitch invaders from the earlier rounds? Well another one ran onto the pitch to celebrate victory, chased by security men. One of which lost his footing and two footed crashed into Morata, hurting him. Would he be fit for the final. The England semi and I was in The mailbox with some of Team Aroma. Many went to Lincoln castle including Our Grimsby Roma, who even made the BBC. Blessing said that England were always getting away with it. Yet another 90s song reference. Netherlands took the lead, but a controversial VAR penalty from Kane got England level. In a tight game it was Super sub Watkins who scored a winner right at the end. Amazing scenes as England made the final again. Jon Thomson top and 5 points clear of Sally Sands. All the 90s references and Jon and Sally top, it felt like the old days of 90s Tesco Lincoln 1. Oh the memories of England Spain penalty shootout on the radio in the staff canteen, while the shop floor was left empty. 1 point behind Sally stood Kieron Mullin, Danny Lawson, The Hawk and Ashton Lawson. At the bottom Holly was still adrift , 7 points behind Ollie Taylor Yassin and 13 behind Lee Ritchie.

So just the final to go. Off to Germany I went. Saturday morning and lots of England fans getting the Eurostar to Brussels, then Cologne. I spent the night in Cologne even saw the fan zone. Sunday morning and as I was getting the I.C.E to Munich the Spanish were getting the I.C.E to Berlin. Me and Ducklan Rice went to the Augustiner Keller very early and got a great seat. Caught the end of the tennis, but it was the football that matters. Having to explain to the Germans why I had a small yellow duck next to my beer was funny.

The final kicked off and the beer garden was packed, well over a thousand there. England had plenty of the ball, but couldn’t really do much with it. Few chances. In the FFL Jon was still clear and closing in on his first trophy since winning the champions league in 2002. Spain scored and lots of Spanish and Spanish supporting Germans cheered. England scored and lots of English and English supporting Germans cheered. Unfortunately for England, Spain were just too good and scored again. The side which had beaten Germany and France, had now beaten England. Back to back euro final defeats. Spain won their 4th major title in 16 years. Jon Thomson won Euro FFL 2024. He was 5 points better than the man who had snatched the FFL title from him in the final weeks of last season Kieron Mullin. Then came a couple of Lawsons, Sally Sands, the Hawk and our Grimsby Roma. The wooden spoon went to Holly Shakeshaft.

So that’s it, the Euros are over. I’m on holiday across Europe for the next 2 weeks and when I return we’ll be starting to think about the next season of FFL. Thank you for being part of Euro FFL 2024, I hope you’ve all enjoyed it as much as I have.

Final thought

60 years of hurt

MT

[frogsandfries]

This is bullshit and I'm fucking done.

So I guess my sister thinks the dog walker is going to call the cops on "us"--first off, don't look at me. I'm not the home owner and this has been pointed out to me loud and clear. Second, I'm supposed to be acting in the capacity of a pet-sitter, but I guess I'm also a maid. Not to mention, I'm sorry. It fucking turns out forty bucks a day to be a pet-sitter for--again--a hedgehog, two dogs, two rabbits, three guinea pigs, and four cats. Plus I still have to take care of myself, go to work at my actual job, and take care of my cats--plus do housework that my sister rarely, barely does?????

Nope. Not enough. I'm pretty fucking pissed right now. Honestly, this is almost a goddamn full-time job. Ain't no pet-sitter in the country going to do all this--bring in packages, open the packages, assemble furniture, assemble the cheapest automatic cat boxes possibly on the market, scoop shit, clean enclosures, feed goddamn near a small zoo, and go to a full-time job still.

That IS a full-time job.

If I was just any other boarder, she'd have to hire at least three people--a maid, a dog-walker, and honestly, probably two pet-sitters.

Oh and third, having been outside for the first time all week--Monday, I had heat sickness; Tuesday and Wednesday were spent trying not to get more heat sick but also get shit done downstairs so I could keep bringing in packages--if this lady is going to call the police on "us" for anything, it'll be for Capone shitting all over the garage.

Again, I've been either sick, or avoiding illness all week. I'm on not one but at least two drugs that make me more prone to heat sickness. I haven't been able to get him outside this week. Until today.

Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday were too goddamn hot to exist. What a fucking coincidence that on the first day it's cool enough to exist, the dog walker straightens to the back of the kitchen. Like, if this is the first day you can stand to do it, how do you think I feel? I'm not from around here, and worse, I am realizing what a giant fucking mistake this was.

If I wasn't here, I wouldn't be fighting off way-too-frequent bouts of derealization; I wouldn't be having fucking SAD in the middle of fucking summer. And I sure as hell wouldn't be here to point a finger to and be like, why isn't she helping.

Anyway, I'm staying up well past the time my body said it was done for the day to bitch about this.

She better either bring me a coffee or take me to get a coffee next weekend.

[isaswifty]

week: whos even counting lol

I was unable to go to class the past 2 weeks due to me not feleing well/being kinda sad the first week and then the second week i was stuck in the lobby of my apartment trying to DEAL WITH STUFF because i signed a lease, so i could live with my friend next semester and she ended up backing out AFTER i had signed the lease!!!!!!! oh my gosh!!!!!! THANK YOU QUEEN YASSSSSS!!!!! but anywho, i was so pissed off oh my gosh!! Then on that thursday i was stuck in the admissions office because my old college did not send my transcrips so i couldnt sign up for class for fall semester! Anywho currently writing this from a panera because the wifi in my apartment is down. so... yas.

ANYWHOO TTPD CAME OUT LAST NIGHT WTF!!!

ill get to that later, lets talk class. On tuesday we talked about our rankings of the Taylor Swift albums and red and folklore were in first place for me. We also watched some presentations, it was fun!! I worked on my project until 11pm at the library that night and it was so fun!!

wednesday i went to taylor swift trivia and it was si much fun! also worked on my project a little bit more as then after trivia (we got 5th!!) me and riya went and filmed our project and i went home and edited it until 2 am!

The next day we showed some people in class and they thought it was funny!!

ANYWHOOO TTPD CAME OUT TODAY AND WTFFFFFFFFF ITS SO GOOD!! LIKE I DONT EVEN KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN BUT LIKEEE florida!!! and the tortured poets department are my faves obvi

anywhoo!! it was the seocnd to last class which is so sad but it was so much fun and im so glad i got into the class!

XOXO Bella!!

[umichenginabroad]

Abhi in Paris

Week 10: Parisian Adventures

Hey everyone, welcome back to Week 10 of my blog! It feels crazy to think about the fact that I've been here for 10 weeks now - oh my god, the time is flying. And funny enough, from the Scottish Highlands to the Volcanos of the Canary Islands, one of the few things I haven't done so much is explore Paris. It's a massive city with so much to explore, and although I feel I've seen other parts of Europe really well, I know that Paris has so much more to offer. So, this week I'm going on Paris adventures - from learning more about the bakery scene to trying out new bars and meeting new people. So here we go...

Monday, March 18th - Monday began as a usual start to the week. I got a morning cycling class in before making my way to ENSEA in Cergy, France for my afternoon classes that day. I got my first ever midterms back, and I'm proud to say I didn't fail :) I was able to come back from class and catch a few hours of TV relaxation.

Tuesday, March 19th - Tuesdays are always the worst! I have a morning class at 8am, which means I wake up at 6am to make the hour and a half commute up to school. After one class, I have a six hour break before by three hour french class. It's so tough because if I got back to Paris for the break I only have two hours there, and if I stay in ENSEA, I don't have much to do. It's always a coin toss, but today I went back to Cergy, managed to hit the gym and grab lunch, before heading back up to ENSEA for my evening French class. After a tiring day of class, I always make my way back, cook up some pasta for dinner, and then crash.

Wednesday, March 20th & Thursday, March 21st - I'm gonna gloss over these two days a little bit, because as luck would have it I caught a cold. Somehow, I recovered pretty quick, but I was out for most of Wednesday & Thursday.

Friday, March 22nd - Friday was so fun! I started the day with a French Culture class, where our new Professor, started the clas by giving us some French treats from the Brittany region of France. After that, we had an amazing discussion of French work benefits, and hoenstly, after I heard what she had to say, I have to say I was tempted to move to France permanently. Here's a quick summary of what the average university graduate in a full time rolled (called Cadre or CDI in France) gets:

35 Hour Work Week & Any Extra work above that can be claimed in the form of extra vacation time later

5 weeks paid vacation per year, 11 public holidays, bonus Mondays & Fridays off when public holidays are on Tuesday/Thursday, 16/20 week paid maternity leave & 2 week paid paternity leave, 2 week paid leave if your child is ill, 1 week paid leave if you get married, and the list goes on!

Once you get hired as Cadre, it is literally impossible to get fired unless you commit a felony - in fact the french have a phrase that goes "to put in a cupboard" because its easier to silo a bad employee into a meaningless role (cupboard) than to fire them

Incredible social security type pension benefits

Free Public Insurance that covers a lot of things including all life-threatening ailments like caner & private insurance that costs 150-200 euros a month for a family of four

This is all a super longwinded way to say that the benefits in France are incredible. Anyway, after class I managed to go to the gym and relax for a few hours. That night, I went to a warehouse party in the 19th arrondissement with some friends in ENSEA. Man do the Europeans never quit - I was there until 5am!

Saturday, March 23rd - Saturday was a late start given the events of the previous night :) After grabbing a Portugese delicacy "Pastel de Nata" with friends from ENSEA, I came back home around noon and took a fat nap. I woke up without much homework to do and spent the evening going down a weird rabbit hole of algorithmic forex trading, working on building my own trading bot. Just a really random and weird evening.

Anyway, that night the same friends from ENSEA made thier way back to Paris, where we had a few drinks and played some card games. We then explored a youthful area of Paris known as "Bastille." It was amazing meeting a bunch of exchange students like us there!

Sunday, March 24th - As you might imagine, after the last two late nights. Sunday was a recovery day. I woke up super late, managed to get to the gym, and just spent the rest of the time catching up on homework.

For me, this was a week to explore in Paris, something I haven't had much of a chance to do with all the travel across Europe. But don't worry, next week I'm back off to the races with a 6 day trip across Germany!

A plus tard,

Abhi Athreya

University of Michigan, Aerospace Engineering 2025

ENSEA in Cergy, France

[skinni-girls-eat-books]

Tuesday, February 20th, 2024! Part 2 (Positive)

6:24pm: 2sday, 02/20/2024 pt 2 lots of 2s

Anyway lol came home, blew the biggest final boss wad out of my nose, took a dump and let me tell you I'm smelling colors now 😂 I've never been so happy to smell my shit. I was really fucking scared that I had covid on some permanent sensory deprivation shit and I was on the verge of losing my mind. This morning I have never blown so much ODDLY colored snot out of my nose all at once before, it was like the weirdest fucking orange color but it's like I want to think it was from the cough drops but I really don't think it was because there was SO MUCH and it permeated all of the snot I just don't know. It was all so thick no wonder I've just been fucking miserable 😅 but I'm the biggest trooper I know I did the most this weekend and I'm SO GLAD I didn't let that mf stop me.

So glad I got my sense of smell and taste back I could actually taste the last Valentine's Day macaron I had left 😂 it must have been a sinus infection, that's so insane. Being sick is horrible I wouldn't wish it on anyone 👀

I have so many things to be grateful for. I am grateful that I don't have to live my life angry and upset forever like some people. I am grateful that I forgive people and have an amazing heart. I love life and I'm just going to keep doing the best I can with what I've got. ❤️ I love my cats every day I'm just going to love them with all my heart, don't be scared something will happen to them (anxiety) just love them everyday and you'll never have any regrets. I even forgive him for everything, calling me a shitty person, threatening my brother, all because he's just mentally ill. I have a feeling he'll be back, I just don't think that was the end. But that's not something I'll concern myself with for now. Just try to be at peace with what's going on right now.

7:52pm: I've literally just been scrolling on my phone enjoying doing nothing to the sound of my clear nasal passages and just enjoying breathing. Got my heated blanket out, just reading reddit stories about trash men and I am so glad I can't relate anymore!! It's not even so visceral anymore, I don't get like physically angry the way I used to reading these anymore. I feel very healed, it takes a lot to trigger me anymore. I think that's my way of knowing that I just will never fall for some crazy shit ever again 😂 I'm not even upset anymore. All that random ranting this morning and now it's like, poof! Goodbye. I knew I've been done in the back of my head, I was just enjoying the attention :) it felt good! You can't blame me for wanting to feel good, it's part of human nature! And it's not like I ever felt true respect for their relationship, it was truly a farce, an act, and I just didn't gaf. Oh how the turn tables, huh? I got mine as far as I'm concerned and I'm well convinced that is a really fucked up man. It's unfortunate, but it's not like I never tried to help him 1000x. I still am shocked how unempathetic I felt towards her even when bad things happen to her, I just don't feel bad for her and I never will, she's a really trashy, vain, disgusting person who does not deserve empathy or sympathy as far as I'm concerned. Lmao I feel like he would really get pissed off whenever I said they were perfect for each other, I think bc he knows exactly what I meant by it. What a joke.

10:39pm: it's ok to wake up from the nap and realize he's really gone :) you'll sleep and wake up again and sleep and wake up and good things will happen :) it's ok to feel the twang. This is a perfect example of how I would never do this to someone I've known for years but it's nothing for him to do it to me. We are not the same and that's good news for me :) I will survive and thrive because I'm actually a good person with a heart. At least I own my mistakes. He's too chicken shit to accept my apology like a fucking adult, he just had to run away again, no explanation. He never learns, never changes, acts like this is something I've done before?? Really thinks this something I'd do on purpose. Idc I know who I am, you would think he would know but he seems too self absorbed once again. How could he not realize how his words affect people, he's cruel. I'm not cruel, you hurt me and I told you I was having PTSD like feelings about you coming here and you always have acted like you're the only mf in the whole goddamn world with mental health issues, I've tiptoed around yours for years and you continued to dismiss mine repeatedly. Yeah I don't trust you mf and it's sad af how hard I tried to, but sad for you, not me.

12:16am: Coward is so the best word to describe him still, he acted cowardly by not even knocking on the door when he came the first night, so weird. Coward by blocking me when so many other exes would've burned his shit. Makes no sense, but nothing he ever did made sense ever. He treats his gf like shit by telling me wack ass things. He's such a bad person lol. I'm not gonna chase after him anymore I already resurrected this friendship back from the email grave once, I guess somehow that meant I was on thin ice with him?? Idc I'm not chasing him anymore. The comfort I find within knowing I would never act like him is all the comfort I need.