#c!phil x you

[peskymumbo]

been thinking about watcher!grian & mumbo a lot lately but more so in the “mumbo adoring his godly boyfriend and worshipping the ground he walks on” . when i say worship, i mean worship like take that man to church NOW. sorry i’m a big fan of the “just some guy x god” trope

edit: it’s 2am this might not make any sense i should be asleep right now Help

[dandp]

Dan and Phil A-Z Ask Game:

I was craving a big ask game so had to go for the classic dnp format. Hope everyone enjoys!

A - Activity; You can choose to do one activity with Dan and Phil, what will you do?

B - Baking; Pitch a concept/outfit/etc. you want to see in a future baking video.

C - Conspiracy; What are your favorite and/or least favorite phannie conspiracies (past or present)?

D - Dan; What is your favorite video from Dan's main channel?

E - Emotion; What Dan and/or Phil moment has made you the most emotional?

F - Fashion; What are some of your favorite Dan and Phil looks?

G - Group; Dan and Phil are doing a collaboration video, who do you want it to be with and what will they do? (Could be someone they've collabed with before)

H - Home; What are some of your favorite domestic Dan and Phil moments?

I - Instagram; What are some of your favorite Instagram posts/stories?

J - Joke; What Dan and Phil moment(s) always make you laugh?

K - Keepsake; What type of merch item/design/theme/etc. would you most like Dan and Phil to make?

L - Lion; What is your favorite item/running gag/etc. that's ever been a part of Dan and Phil branding?

M - Manchester; What is your favorite early Dan and Phil moment?

N - Norman; If you could choose a pet for Dan and Phil to get, what would it be?

O - Opponent; What is your favorite Dan vs. Phil video?

P - Phil; What is your favorite video from Phil's main channel?

Q - Question; You can ask one question each to Dan and Phil and they will give you an honest answer, what will you ask?

R - Radio Show; What is the most iconic radio show moment to you?

S - Sims; You have to choose one of the three main storylines in the Sims (Dil/Tabs, Devan, Dalien) to never be revisited again, which one are you eliminating?

T - Tour; What is the best segment from each of their tours, in your opinion?

U - Underrated; What is the most underrated Dan and Phil video?

V - Video Game; What video game do you most want to see on dapg?

W - Wow; What have Dan and Phil done that surprised you the most?

X - Xylophone; What is your favorite music-related Dan and Phil moment?

Y - Youtube; If you could choose one YouTube video for dnp to make, what would it be? (Solo or joint content, your choice!)

Z - Zebra; What words or phrases have you picked up from dnp and/or always make you think of them?

[miraclewoozi]

DON'T SWEAT IT. - l.jh

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you.

pairing; lee jihoon x fem!reader.  content; fluff / gym crush au / strangers to lovers / kinda idiots to lovers / smut towards the end (MINORS DNI). w/c; just a breezy 18k- and some change? warnings; swearing, this is only proof read once because if i read it again i was going to lose my mind. please let me know if i've forgotten any. smut tags under the cut ( not sure that this counts as a warning but a heads up: the gym weight units, whenever mentioned, are in kilograms not lbs because i’m british and the metric system, am i right? sorry if there are any other british-isms, i try really hard to avoid them/catch them on a proofread but there are inevitably some that have slipped through the net.  )

note; gym-selfie jihoon, you will never not own my ass. ( screaming internally this is the first fic i've written since my dan + phil youtube era. i don't know what i'm doing. this has been in my wips for about two months. it's a bit all over the place. that's. literally just me. bon appetite. <3 )

smut warnings: making out, grinding, fingering (f rec), oral (f rec), blowjob started/implied (at the end), protected sex (be safe out there gang), little bit of biting, no huge power dynamics? reader & jihoon are both switches (and simps), some use of pet-names (good girl/baby).

—————

He first sees you around lunchtime on an otherwise unassuming Sunday. 

As you walk in, the gym is wonderfully quiet. A handful of regulars mill about, making full use of the rare freedom of the machinery. One of the club’s personal trainers is marching an impossibly steep incline on a treadmill. It could just be any other weekend session in this criminally over-equipped and under-used gym: the town’s worst kept secret. But when the door slams shut behind you, his head jerks up; it, in this moment, is the loudest sound in the room. It’s sort of the only one he hears at all.

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you as he sits with dumbbells rested against his thighs. He catches his breath as he wonders who you are, if you’ve ever been to this gym before, why he doesn’t recognise you. Are you a new potential regular, maybe? Or just visiting the area and making good use of the cheap pay-as-you-go rates? Maybe, he considers, lips turning downwards in thought… maybe you’ve been coming here for a long time and he’s somehow just always been so in his own head that he’s never noticed.

The last, he thinks, is sort of unlikely. No. He would definitely remember a face like yours.

His heart rate slows more than he usually lets it as he finds himself watching you fill up your water bottle at the fountain, taking a long sip on your way over to one of the stairmasters. His brain blanks out when he realises that he’s not just looking anymore, he’s sort of staring, and swallows the saliva on his tongue hard, looking back at the mirror. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He isn’t that guy – he just got distracted by the loud noise, and this is exactly why he checks the damn battery on his headphones before he leaves the house. 

The only problem is that now, he can’t remember how many sets he’s done. He lies back and stares straight into a slightly sketchy light-fixture, neglecting to pick up the dumbbells that he put aside for his next set of pushes. Jihoon adjusts the position of his shoulders against the bench, arches his back off it slightly, digs his heels into the spongy floor beneath them and pushes the ones still in his hands until failure. 

Today, he finishes his routine and leaves the gym without allowing himself so much as another glance your way.

He neglects to notice that your eyes are avoiding him right back. 

—————

You smile at him for the first time on a Tuesday. Not the following one – a week and a bit later.

Seungcheol is with him tonight. Jihoon prefers to train alone nine times out of ten: this is a truth widely acknowledged, accepted and respected among his friends. Gym time is his down time, his equivalent of movie marathons and comfort food, of face masks and glasses of wine. But it’s not a hard rule: occasionally, someone will ask to tag along and use one of his guest passes, and Jihoon very rarely says no. There are two reasons. One, he isn’t actually rude, contrary to approximately eighteen running jokes in the group-chat. But also, it adds a little bit of variety to his otherwise very set-in-stone regimen, and mixing it up doesn’t hurt. Like tonight, for example. Seungcheol is pulling him into the studio off the main gym floor, his own gym bag packed with boxing pads and gloves for them to play with.

Variety.

Jihoon grumbles a little at the idea, at first. He has a very love-hate relationship with cardio, favouring a simple steady-state run over everything else, and it just feels a bit against his moral code to use gym time for something like this. However, he comes to discover very quickly that smacking Seungcheol’s hands is very therapeutic; Jihoon knows he’s maybe getting a little too into it when his friend asks if they can switch around, grimacing and shaking out his wrist after a particularly beefy punch. 

He agrees, albeit reluctantly, tugging off the gloves he’s wearing and pulling on the pads instead.

This half of the activity is considerably less enjoyable for Jihoon; he starts to cool down and loses his flow almost straight away and after about thirty seconds, his breathing is back to normal and he feels ready to go again. Even so, he does what he needs to do to be a good workout partner, and goes one step further into ‘good friend’ territory as he allows Seungcheol to vent about the bad day he had at work in-between hits, offering murmurs and looks of disgust when it feels appropriate. Suddenly, the impromptu request to come to the gym tonight makes much more sense, as does the slightly bizarre choice of activity, but Jihoon tries not to ask about it in too much detail.

They swing at each other for a few more rounds apiece, working up a healthy sweat and getting out a few frustrations as the hour wears on. On the last set, Jihoon switches out Seungcheol’s hands for a punching bag, putting a lot more of his weight behind every hit and really tiring himself out. By the end, his hair sticks to his forehead and his cheeks have flushed bright red; he only stops when he gets that weird, metallic taste in the back of his mouth that says he’s probably overdone it. Again.

“Hit the shower?” Seungcheol asks breathlessly as he finishes his last set of Russian twists and lies down flat on the floor, equally sticky and flushed all over. 

Jihoon pats his face dry with his towel, shaking his head. “You go ahead. I’ll have one at home.” 

He doesn’t give Seungcheol much of a chance to respond, already cleaning down anything he’s touched or managed to sweat on and riding out the high of the endorphins flooding his veins. Secretly, he hasn’t had a cardio session this high energy or this satisfying in a long time. He isn’t going to readily admit to that though.

“Nah, I’ll do the same,” Seungcheol agrees. He starts packing the gear he brought with him into his bag and they leave together after, heading towards the exit. 

That’s when he sees you again. 

He doesn’t notice at first; you’re stowing your things into one of the higher lockers, and you have your headphones slung around your neck as he walks past. It’s the sound of a song he vaguely recognises through your speakers that makes his head snap over from the conversation he’s in the middle of. They walk past at the moment you drop down from your tiptoes, and you flash a small (but insanely pretty) smile at Jihoon.

By the time he manages to process this fact, he’s already walked past you and you’re headed over into the main gym area, so even though he turns around to try and catch your eye, all he sees is your retreating figure. He stumbles over his own feet, not looking where he’s going, and just barely catches himself on Seungcheol’s upper arm before he actually does fall over. His older friend glances down at his bicep before he adopts a look that Jihoon has seen many, many times before: just never directed at him. His cheeks heat up further and he looks away.

“What was that?” Seungcheol asks, one eyebrow so far up his forehead that it’s disappeared almost entirely under his soggy hair. He looks so smug, so incredibly entertained. Jihoon wants to smack that expression off his face, immediately.

“Nothing,” Jihoon rushes, managing not to act on the violent thought even though he wants to. He clears his throat. “No-one. I-... they’re new, I think. I don’t know.”

Seungcheol lets out a soft laugh, pushing the door open for them both to leave through. “Yeah,” he scoffs, eyes glimmering with something Jihoon doesn’t think he likes the look of. “Nothing, my ass.”

—————

Three days later, he hears you speak for the first time.

Granted, you aren’t speaking to him – at least, not at first. But that’s not really what matters.

It’s late, and it’s a Friday night. Fridays are usually Jihoon’s days rest days, but sitting around his apartment had him feeling impossibly twitchy, with far too much energy to burn and no way to do so without leaving the house. And he knows that he needs to take days off, now and again. He knows that they’re good for recovery and that it’s healthy to take time to himself that involves not lifting weights. But what he also knows is that if he doesn’t manage to shake the weird buzzing feeling in his muscles, in his joints, in his veins, he’s never going to get to sleep. So, here he finds himself at almost 10PM, walking down the street to get to the gym.

To begin with, he doesn’t know (or really care) who it is that’s coming up behind him. He can hear quite clearly that the mystery person is on the phone, and that they’re in the middle of what seems to be a rather heated argument: his brain latches onto occasional words, phrases, curses. Every now and again, their voice drops to a deep, frustrated mutter and he cringes slightly, making a point to keep his eyes forward and down so as not to draw attention to the fact that this presumably private conversation has become everything but.

He touches his entry fob to the sensor on the door as he arrives and pushes it open. Jihoon uses the opportunity to stand still, to glance back at whoever it is that’s walked behind him for the past four and a half minutes, and his eyes come to land on you. He falters, noting how your eyes are a bit glassy and your cheeks are stained with what he can safely assume are tear-tracks. In this moment, he wants to run; he doesn’t want anything to do with that, and he certainly doesn’t want to hear any more of your call. It’s none of his business, and he feels plenty weird enough already with what he has overheard. But, for some unknown reason, he stays in place.

“No – no, you don’t get to-...” you hiss into your phone. “It was our fucking anniversary, you asshole.” Jihoon’s face tightens at that, lips drawn between his teeth and his eyes blowing slightly wide. You pass through the door in front of him, flashing a small smile as you go. Another smile, he thinks to himself, but he’d be an idiot to compare them in any way; this one is so dramatically dissimilar to the first, he thinks it could almost have come from a totally different person. 

Unfortunately, there’s nothing ‘insanely pretty’ about it this time. Your smile is tight-lipped and exhausted, slightly apologetic. Maybe even forced. He does try to return a warmer one to you, but he doesn’t know if you notice. 

“Look, I’m at the gym – we’re not doing this right now. I’ll call you later.” You hang up the phone with the kind of sigh that groans in the back of your throat.

A small part of him wants to take this moment and use it to ask if you’re all right, but an even larger part of him doesn’t. It isn’t because he doesn’t care. In a weird way, considering this is only the first time he’s clearly heard your voice and he knows absolutely nothing about you, he does care. But there are a few things that stop him. Not only are you a near-complete stranger, not only would he have no idea what to say to you if the answer happened to come out as a ‘no’, not only is he already coming over a little bit clammy at the thought of having a conversation with you… Jihoon isn’t stupid. He knows from the sound of your voice and the way you’re rather aggressively typing a message into your phone that it’s a ridiculous question.

You’re walking into the gym at 10 o’clock on a Friday night, your eyes literally brimming with tears. Of course you’re not all right.

He’s still standing in the open doorway mulling all this over, but Jihoon only realises when a gust of wind slaps over his calves and sends a draught not only through the reception area, but up the length of his spine. He comes inside fully as you close the locker you’re using – he notices, but he isn’t sure why, that it’s the same one as last time – and throws his things into the one he always uses. Two below and one to the left of yours.

It’s quiet tonight: just the pair of you and one middle-aged guy. Jihoon recognises him as the friendly man who seemingly knows everyone who comes in here – including you, apparently, judging by the way he strikes up a short but energetic conversation. When the other guy walks away, you clamp your headphones back over your ears and return to what you were doing before, occasionally bobbing your head or moving your lips in time with whatever it is that you’re listening to. Jihoon steals little glances at you now and again when you’re in-between sets, watching how you breathe deeper, how your skin glows with sweat as you tap your fingertips against your thighs.

He almost drops the bar he’s holding when you catch his eyes in the long line of mirrors. He turns away, swallowing hard, completely missing how your own gaze lingers.

Jihoon becomes so obsessed with not being caught looking at you again that he doesn’t even notice when you disappear off the gym floor completely. It’s only when he pulls his headphones off at the end of his session and glances around that he registers your absence: your third companion is long gone, and he assumes you must have snuck out without him noticing too. He settles the speakers back over his ears before pulling on an old zip-up, flicking the hood over his head to shelter him a little better once he gets outside. But he’s in no rush to get home so he takes his time, resting his bag between his abdomen and the lockers, replying to a few messages and clicking his tongue at some of the nonsense being spewed into the group-chat. 

He isn’t sure exactly how long he’s standing there for, but he does know precisely what pulls him back to the world outside of the device in his hands.

To begin with, he doesn’t notice you approach, lost completely in his screen. He doesn’t hear your footsteps, or the way you politely clear your throat to announce your presence so he can move out of the way. He misses your moment of realisation that he’s listening to music and has no idea that you’re standing three feet behind him. He doesn’t even see you walk up next to him, your hair still damp from your shower and sitting loose over your shoulders.

It’s only when you try to reach over him to grab the last of your things that he snaps out of his trance. The fragrance of your body wash hits him first, and oh boy, does it hit him. Sweet, and delicate. Then, he gets something beautifully fruity: it’s not a perfume (it doesn’t smell like a perfume), but it’s you. Your shampoo, maybe? A conditioner? He can’t tell. Whatever it is, the combination of fragrances has him feeling like he’s been slammed into by a damn freight train. He drops his bag to the floor, freezing for a second, and then finally moves away just as the little door swings open. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says hurriedly, tugging his hood down and pulling his headphones off completely. “I didn’t even think you were still here.” He can’t shake the smell of you, nor the feeling of your warm frame leaning so close to his own. God, why is his heart pounding like he’s just finished a round of sprints? Why can’t he breathe?

“No – hey, no, don’t be,” you rush, shaking your head. You finally succeed in pulling your coat free and start trying to get it on; Jihoon wonders if you often struggle to find your sleeves like this, if you’re always chasing them around like a puppy after its own tail. He does it too, sometimes. He gets it. It’s cute. “It’s okay. I was trying not to disturb-... I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine,” he tells you. For the first time, he’s able to smile back at you properly. 

Why is it so hot in here, all of a sudden? Do they shut off the air conditioning after hours or something? He’s breaking out in a sweat.

“Call it even?” you suggest shyly, extending out a hand now you’ve managed to get both arms through your sleeves. He looks down at your fingers for a second before reaching to shake your hand once, a semi-firm grip securing the ‘deal’. (He feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted after, but he tries not to make that too obvious).

It goes awkwardly quiet for a moment then, and Jihoon wishes deeply that he had it in him to say something. Anything. But his brain has gone completely empty and apparently, all he knows how to do is stand completely still like a fucking statue. He shifts his gaze from you, to the wall behind you, to the carpet beneath his shoes, all the while tugging at the collar of his sweatshirt as if it might bring him a tiny breath of fresh air. The gentle sound of you clearing your throat has him looking back at your face again though; he assumes for a second that this is maybe you about to announce taking your leave. All the while, he’s cursing himself out in his own head for being totally inept, and he’s not entirely sure that it isn’t written all over his face.

“Alone, today?” you ask, idly fiddling with your zipper and succeeding in taking him by surprise. He really didn’t think you were going to continue this. And yet…

“Hm?” he questions. 

You swallow before answering. “You… the last time, you were with a friend?” you explain, and now it’s your turn to look away. He wonders if you’re a little warm too, if he’s right in what he was thinking about the air-conditioning. 

“Oh. Right.” 

He nods. An annoying train of doubt in his mind wants to know why you’re asking about Seungcheol; if maybe it was him that you smiled at the other night, even though he knows your eyes weren’t looking up at the man he brought with him. He thinks maybe he should be used to these turns in conversation by now – you certainly wouldn’t be the first person to ask if one of his friends is available, after all – but somehow, he isn’t, and he has a slightly bitter taste in the back of his mouth as he goes on.

He really didn’t have ‘you being interested in one of his best friends’ on his bingo card for tonight, that’s for sure. 

“Yeah. I think he’s with his partner, or… I don’t know. I don’t really bring other people, often. That was a one-off.”

You nod silently and Jihoon can’t quite get a read on what that means. He wonders if you’re upset at the revelation of Seungcheol’s partner, or maybe that he doesn’t tag along to every session. Or maybe, maybe, you were just being polite, and you don’t really care what his friend is up to that means he isn’t here. But whatever it is that you’re feeling, you do far too good a job at hiding it; he’s suddenly very overcome with the desire to run, again, except this time he might just bury his head in the sand too for good measure.

“How much were you deadlifting, just then?” you ask in the lull, just as he thinks he might have perfected the best way to say goodbye that doesn’t make him come across as even more of a tool than he probably already has. It throws him off kilter, but somehow, he manages to answer you in reasonable time.

“Oh, God… uh, one… 160?” He says uncertainly. “That’s not… I can do heavier-...” In his mind, he slaps his forehead. “Wait, no, that’s-... I mean, it’s true, but I didn’t mean-...”

You bite back your smile as he talks himself in a circle but Jihoon is too flustered to notice, convinced that he now sounds like every arrogant gym rat on the planet. God, he’s given himself the ick.

“I guessed you could,” you say. 

Oh boy, this freezes him. Mid-thought, mid blink, mid-breath: he’s completely stuck. What does that mean? What does that mean? He only just manages to unstick his now suddenly dry tongue from the roof of his mouth, looking at you with surprised, confused eyes and parted lips. There aren’t any words on them, though. Like a deer in headlights, he just… stares.

“I mean, okay. Come on.” Your eyes visibly drop as you look him over, gaze lingering at his shoulders, his biceps, his waist. “You can get another twenty on that at least, right?”

He doesn’t know how to explain what’s happening to him, but if he thought he was burning up before? It was nothing compared to this, now. And there’s no way you haven’t noticed how everything from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears has suddenly started staining scarlet. He bows his head and pinches his lips tight, wrestling away the train of thought that appears as you drag your bottom lip between your teeth momentarily, still eyeing his arms. God, he’s never felt so overwhelmed in his life. 

“Something like that, yeah,” he strains. He’s trying so hard to be nonchalant, even though he knows all of his personal bests by heart. Deadlift, 195kg. He hit it a few weeks ago: a couple of days before he first saw you.

“Mm. You can tell.”

Jihoon tries to shake off the compliment, but he fails. In equal measure he wishes you’d stop (he doesn’t know how much more blood can rush to his cheeks before he keels over) and never wants you to stop talking. It’s all going straight to his stomach, though, and he doesn’t remember having felt this specific brand of nervous and excited and stupidly shy since he was in high school.

He can hardly keep up. This is the danger zone.

Maybe it’s a bad idea that he says the next thing that comes into his head in a desperate attempt to change the conversation away from how much he can pull. But somehow, his voice doesn’t break when he asks, “are you parked far away?”

What? It’s dark outside, and this part of town isn’t exactly known for its upstanding citizens and pretty flowerbeds.

“Oh,” you say, eyes a little wide. “I’m-... just staying close-by. I walked here.” The space between his eyebrows must crease a little too quickly because you immediately hurry to speak again. “Really. It’s like… not even ten minutes. All main streets. It’s nothing.”

“Ten minutes longer than I’d walk around here at night on my own,” he says lightheartedly. In tone, at least. He’s actually completely serious.

You laugh at that; he lets out a chuckle, too. Now, Jihoon doesn’t believe in fairies but he thinks that if they were real, they’d giggle just like you do. 

With a smile still on your face, you say, “what? A strong guy like you? Come on, now.”

Do you have to keep doing that? Fuck, he’s absolutely done for.

He tilts his head forwards, eyes closed, trying so hard to stop the muscles in his cheeks from lifting in a grin that it becomes a workout in and of itself.

“I mean it,” he says, taking what he hopes is a subtle breath to settle the fluttering in his chest. The next thing he knows, he’s leaning one shoulder against the lockers, a little reminiscent of every douchebag in every teen movie ever made. If he doesn’t think about it too much, he won’t cringe into oblivion until he gets home and replays this interaction over and over in his head instead of going to sleep. “Maybe I’ve just lived here too long. I might be jaded, but it’s still true.”

“How long is too long?” you ask.

“All my life,” he tells you.

“No way?”

“Mm.” A beat. “What about you?”

“I’m just staying with a friend, right now.”

“Oh, right.” He falls quiet again as he remembers the first time he saw you, remembers making the list in his head of all the possible reasons he hadn’t seen you before. The second was true, then.

Why does that feel like the worst possible scenario? He decides not to unpack that here.

“Maybe-...” you start, glancing down at your hands, which have been twisting in front of you for a few seconds now. Your chest inflates, filled with the words you’re about to speak, but only a breath comes out when you shake your head instead of saying them. “No, don’t worry. Scratch that.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, because he thinks that whatever you were about to suggest, there’s not much he would have said no to. He feels like it’s only fair to give you another chance to say it.

But you don’t.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.” You pause. “I… should probably get going.” He glances over your shoulder at the clock mounted on the far wall, squinting to see the time. 11:45.

“Shit. Yeah, me too,” Jihoon agrees. He didn’t realise it had gotten so late, so fast: he’s hardly ever out at this time. Lord, he already knows it’s going to be an open inquisition when he gets back to his apartment. His neighbours, Soonyoung and Seokmin, are about to have a fucking field day. 

But it’s already long past the time he usually goes to bed, so he asks his next question anyway. He still can’t shake the thought of you walking back on your own at this hour. “Do-… you need a ride?” 

He’s not sure if you actually consider it, or just wait a moment before you answer just to be polite. Either way, you end up shaking your head.

“It’s okay. I’ve-… got a call to make, so.” Your voice is a little quieter, lips tweaking up into a regretful half-smile, and Jihoon curses in his own head. How had he forgotten about that? “Thank you, though. Really.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Just… get back safe.”

You smile and nod, taking a step towards the door and Jihoon does the same. He reaches the exit first and holds it open for you; when you’re both out in the street, he suppresses a shiver and looks in the direction of where he left his car earlier. Feeling the full force of the cold, it crosses his mind to ask again if you’re sure about walking home, but you’re already pulling a beanie down over your still damp hair and tapping something into your phone, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you around, uh-…” you start to say, only looking back up when you falter, realising that this is the first time you’re about to use his name and it occurs to you both, at the same time, that you haven’t done this part, yet.

“Jihoon,” he introduces himself, lips quirking into a side-smile. His gaze is expectant and you respond to it perfectly. 

“Y/n,” you introduce yourself. 

“See you around, y/n.”

You split off in the opposite direction to where he’s heading. Before he clamps his headphones over his ears for the short walk up to his car, the last thing he hears is the retreating sound of a dial-tone. 

—————

He doesn’t see you then for two whole weeks. 

For the first couple of days, he only idly notices; it’s not a big deal — it’s not like you’re always there when he is, and he’s sure it’s the same vice versa. But he notices your absence, nonetheless. By the end of the first week, he casually wonders if you’ve had a change in schedule. Maybe you’re on a different working pattern, something that means you can’t be there on Monday and Thursday evenings and at 11:45am on Sundays. 

It’s not weird. He only knows this because prior to that first conversation, acknowledging you as you crossed paths by the free-weights became part of his routine. It’s fine that he sort of misses those little interactions, isn’t it?

Maybe you’ve decided to start training ridiculously early in the morning instead? He tried that once. Never again. It then occurs to him, in the middle of a self-enforced rest day as he sits in the dark nursing a headache, that perhaps you’re not well. He sort of wishes he’d had the guts to ask for your number the last time he saw you, now: he thinks he’d check in, see if you were okay, ask how work was going or something. 

Deep down he knows he’d probably actually just be staring at a blank text thread with a ‘casual’ message typed, tweaked a few hundred times, and ultimately unsent. But that’s fine. It’s the thought that counts. 

The next time he sees you isn’t even in the gym, at all. It’s a Sunday afternoon — he finished his morning session, went home, showered, and headed back out into town after some lunch with a few errands to run. He finds himself spoiled with the luxury of a spare few hours to kill and dips into his favourite coffee place, thrilled beyond belief to find that it’s not obnoxiously busy and that there’s only one other person in the queue waiting to be served. 

Oh, he thinks when he looks up from his phone and sees a vaguely familiar set of headphones sitting on top of a definitely familiar mane of hair, standing right in front of him. Oh, shit. It’s you.

Jihoon goes back and forth with himself over it but ultimately decides he probably doesn’t know you well enough to just say hello out in the wild like this, so even though the urge to do so strikes, he holds himself back. It’s agonising, though. He really wants to. 

You step forward to order and he’s typing out a reply to a message in his, Seokmin and Soonyoung’s three-way group chat, in which he’s literally been fighting for his life as of late. He made the mistake of mentioning you in passing a few days ago and ever since, he’s had to vehemently deny that he has developed his first gym crush, insisting that actually, he’s just made a friend. They don’t believe him, because of course they don’t. That would be far too reasonable. Seokmin says that Jihoon wouldn’t be blushing just from saying your name if you were really ‘just a friend’. Soonyoung argues Jihoon wouldn’t have mentioned you at all.

“I’m so sorry — bear with me, just-…” your voice is quiet but Jihoon hears you apologising to the cashier in front of you, and it snaps him clean away from the tiff he’s having with the men who live in his building. He glances up and you’re elbow-deep in the bag over your shoulder, red in the face with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth. He turns his head slightly and sees the small hand-written sign that says the card machine isn’t working, and they’re cash only, today. 

He can hazard a guess at your predicament. 

After another few seconds of you trying to find whatever it is you’re looking for in your bag, he starts feeling bad for you. This, right here, is his own worst nightmare. Should the roles be reversed, he thinks he would’ve just turned around and walked out. It’s exactly why he doesn’t bother with backpacks and satchels day-to-day: if it doesn’t fit in his pockets, he doesn’t take it out with him. The system isn’t perfect but it has saved Jihoon a decent amount of public distress. 

But the roles aren’t reversed, and he has his wallet already in his hand, so… he only gives himself a few seconds to wonder if it’s appropriate before he does the stupid thing anyway.

“Don’t worry — I’ve got it,” he says, stepping around you, pulling out the cash to pay for your order. You’re dumbstruck when you look  at him, head tilted to the side. The person stood behind the counter glances at you, then at him, and back at you; you don’t see this, however, because your eyes haven’t left Jihoon’s face since he appeared — as far as you’re concerned — out of thin air.

“I can’t ask you to…” you start to protest, but your hands have stopped fishing around and he’s moving the cash further towards the barista, who hesitates just a second longer. 

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I’ve got you.” He says this with such finality that you quite literally can’t argue with him. The lady behind the counter accepts the cash and you nod, shyly, mouthing a thank you. He orders his own drink — an Americano, nothing exciting — and you both go to stand at the other end of the counter while you wait.

“Hi,” you finally say, and Jihoon can’t help but give a small chuckle. 

He doesn’t have anything hugely witty or creative in his arsenal, though, so he comes back with a matching, “hey.”

“How… have you been?” you ask. 

“Can’t complain, really,” he says. “Are you okay? I haven’t seen you around for a few weeks.” Oh, God — the second the words are out of his mouth, he wishes he could take them back. Why did he have to add that last part? Why didn’t he just leave it at the question? 

“Yeah — about that,” you breathe, ducking your head to conceal the heat that’s spreading over your cheeks. “You know how I said I was staying with that friend?” He nods, and you continue. “I was waiting for some stuff to get sorted out with an apartment and it all finally got resolved, so… I’ve been moving my stuff over to a new place.”

Jihoon feels his heart sink for a moment, but he keeps his expression pleasant and engaged. His fingers threaten to give him away as they fiddle with the aglet on the drawstring of his sweatpants. 

“Sounds tiring,” he says lightly, and you laugh again, nodding. It’s odd, having his heart taking residence low in his stomach and somehow also in his throat, all while hammering away at a mile a minute. All the caffeine in the world couldn’t have this effect on him. “Is it going okay so far?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “It’s a process, but… it’ll be worth it.”

The barista behind the counter announces herself by clearing her throat and slides your drinks across the marble surface with a little glimmer in her eye. Jihoon picks them both up, extending yours out to you. There’s a pause (in which he swallows a large helping of self-doubt) as he glances to the door, working through several combinations of his next words in his mind before he looks back at you. 

“Do you… maybe have ten minutes to sit with these?” He asks. You light up immediately, not even checking the time on any of your devices, nor the wall clock behind your head. He doesn’t let himself think about why it makes him giddy that you’re accepting the offer, just like that.

“Yeah — yeah, sure.” You smile, walking through the lines of tables and sliding into one of the big, comfy chairs by the window. He unzips his jacket and slings it over the arm of the other chair before settling in himself, his long fingers wrapping around the to-go cup. The drink warms his perpetually cold palms and he sighs sweetly.

“You must be excited to get into the new place, then?” he asks after taking a sip, letting it heat him up from the inside. It could be argued that this job is already being taken care of, but Jihoon is not about to go there.

“Oh, God yes.” You nod, relaxing back in the seat with your own cup. Jihoon subconsciously leans a little forward in tandem. “It’s been fun staying with my friend, but…” You pause, lips slightly parted, before going on. “Okay, a warning: I’m a terrible person for this, I know. She’s done me a huge favour, letting me stay there — but I can’t deal with how untidy she is. It’s driving me nuts.”

A chuckle bubbles in Jihoon’s chest, cheeks starting to ache as his smile grows and grows. It hasn’t fallen since he sat down opposite you, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, any time soon. “That bad?” he asks.

“You have no idea,” you groan, covering your face with one hand. He wishes you hadn’t — he thinks you look quite lovely when you’re all lit up like this. “She doesn’t clean her dishes after she eats — she piles them up in the sink for like, three days. I don’t think she’s used the vacuum the entire time I’ve been there. I keep finding wrappers and packets and mismatched socks everywhere —” 

His snort of laughter rolls off the back of his throat rather ungraciously and he settles back into his chair. You gently bump his ankle under the table with your foot, beaming at him. “I’m serious! I can’t live like this, Jihoon. I can’t!”

The more you speak, the less he can control the fits he’s descended into, and his abs start to ache after a while; there’s desperation in your voice but it’s just wrapped up so cutely in your lighthearted frustration and decoratively tied together with your sunshine smile… he can’t help it — he’s in pieces. It’s okay though, because you’re laughing too: it makes him think of fairies again, and he can picture you with dainty, intricately patterned wings under the soft lighting in the café. He wipes the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand as he starts to calm down, taking a few deep breaths all the way into his stomach.

“You’re so much stronger than I am,” he says.. “I couldn’t deal with that.”

“You know, I had a feeling you’d be a clean person, too,” you say, sipping at your coffee again. “I mean… I’ve never seen you use the gym showers, so I wasn’t sure, but…”

“Hey,” he says, mock-defensively. “I don’t trust the locks, okay? I shower at home!”

Your cup is lifted to your mouth and he can only see you from the nose upwards, but by the creases at the corners of your eyes, he knows you’re concealing a smile behind it as you nod back at him.

Ten minutes turns to twenty and then somehow becomes thirty — Jihoon starts feeling like you’re someone he’s known for years, and not just the person he accidentally ended up paying attention to in the gym just a couple of weeks ago. He bounces off you and you bounce off him. Both of you have long-since finished your drinks, too: there’s no real reason for either of you to still be here.

Except the obvious. 

“So, the apartment,” Jihoon says, leaning forwards again with his elbows resting on his knees. “Is it…?” He makes a few circular gestures with his hands with which he tries to imply something to the effect of ‘local’, or ‘nearby’, but he can’t quite bring himself to say that out loud. You seem to catch on though. Somehow.

Then again, you did say — a few subject changes ago — that Jihoon is on your wavelength. Maybe that’s it.

“About… a fifteen minute walk from here? Give or take,” you say, and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead so fast it’s like they’re on strings, being controlled by someone else. He doesn’t realise for a few seconds, by which point he isn’t even sure how to relax them. 

“No way?” he says, trying to feign nothing more than an idle interest. Obviously, he’s soaring. 

“Yeah. I’ll want to get back training soon, too, so there’s some incentive to get this done quickly. I miss it,” you tell him.

Jihoon comes out with what he says next without thinking. His mouth is moving before fully engaging his brain. It’s the coffee jitters. Apparently.

“Well, if you need any help with anything, I’ve got a car.”

“You’re too sweet,” you say. “I really couldn’t put you out like that, but…”

“You wouldn’t be,” he assures you with a shrug. “If I’m not working or in the gym… I’m never really that busy. It’s up to you, but-… I’d be happy to.”

You bite the inside of your lip for a moment, apparently mulling this over, before wiggling in your seat to pull your phone out of the front pocket of your jeans. You unlock the device and hand it over on a ‘new contact’ screen. 

Jihoon goes completely stupid: he thinks his brain stops functioning as he takes it to put his number in — for a moment, he’s staring dumbstruck, struggling to even remember the order of the digits now he’s under pressure, but it comes back to him eventually. His thumbs dart across the screen and he checks, double checks and triple checks that he’s typed it right before placing it back in your waiting palm. 

His fingertips brush against yours and it tickles, sending small shockwaves up his arms and straight into his chest. You smile down at your phone before glancing up at him.

“You need an emoji,” you tell him, and he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Huh?”

“Everyone in my contacts has one — I’ve been doing this since I was in high-school. You need to pick one, too.”

“Oh, uh-…” Jihoon swallows, and for some reason he’s completely forgotten every single little emoticon option there is. He draws a blank. “I can’t — you pick one for me. I don’t know.”

You narrow your eyes at him for a second, pouting your lips as you seem to scroll through the endless options. Now and again, you look up at him, as if trying to see what best fits him before you continue your search. He waits. And waits. And waits. He’s about to throw in an admittedly useless suggestion of some sort of boring animal when you turn your phone around to show him what you’ve chosen.

Jihoon, the contact name reads. And there’s the little angel face next to it.

“Oh, come on,” he says, blushing deeply. “You can’t be serious.”

“I totally am,” you say proudly, turning it back and pressing to save it. He hides his face in his hands. “If you won’t pick your own, you get what you’re given. You did this to yourself.”

“Wow,” he chuckles weakly, sliding his hands up into his hair and raking it back off his face. Your eyes move quickly across every inch and boy, does he notice. You shrug in response and test it, sending the same little emoticon to him. He blushes harder when it comes through and he saves your number into his own phone before placing it face-down on the table. 

More than an hour after buying your coffee, Jihoon stretches his arms above his head and checks the time on his watch. He frowns slightly, not sure how the afternoon got away from him so fast, and lets out a sigh.

“I think I need to get going,” he says reluctantly. Leaving you is absolutely the opposite of what he wants to do, actually. Alas, “I have some friends coming over tonight.”

“Yeah — yeah, of course,” you smile, leaning to one side to pick your bag up off the floor. “No worries.”

You both move to stand up and he throws his coat over his arm, leading the way out. He holds open the door for you to leave first, then follows you outside into the afternoon sun. 

“It was really nice to see you,” you say, turning to face him. 

“You too,” he agrees. “Text me if you need anything, okay? But actually do. Don’t just say you will?”

You laugh sweetly. Fairies. His ears might have actually caught fire this time. “Okay, okay. I promise. I’ll text you — thank you.” There’s a pause, but only a tiny one. “And for the coffee, too.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he insists, waving it off. You shake your head. He thinks your hands are twitching when you stuff them into your pockets but he can’t be sure. Your breath definitely stutters, though. 

“No, really. Um… next one’s on me?” 

He blinks, and blinks again. Next one? The next one? He feels like he’s malfunctioned and been forcibly rebooted. The next one? 

“I-…” he starts, his throat dry. “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” You nod, smiling with — what he doesn’t realise is — relief. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah — I’ll see you, y/n.”

—————

Jihoon has no choice but to admit defeat to the group chat that night when Seungcheol and Jeonghan come over for a takeout.

Within minutes, his oldest friend is asking about the girl from the gym — he’s been just as relentless as Seokmin and Soonyoung in quizzing Jihoon, except it’s slightly harder to deny to Seungcheol because he did witness, first-hand, the way you had his friend tripping over his own feet with a single smile. At first, Jihoon tries to shrug it off. Play it down. Change the subject. He doesn’t mention that he’s actually spoken to you since he and Cheol trained together, or that he accidentally bumped into you and paid for your coffee, or that you stayed talking with him for as long as you did. He definitely doesn’t say that you exchanged phone numbers. 

He absolutely won’t confess to being smitten. 

All Jihoon willingly admits to is that from what he’s seen of you around, you seem nice, and with a roll of his eyes he does agree that he thinks you’re attractive. He gets a bit of a glare later in the evening when  Jeonghan asks if he’s thought about where he wants to take you on your first date, and Jihoon tells him to stop asking stupid questions and eat his chicken before he eats it for him. But all in all he thinks he evades the worst of it pretty well. For now, anyway — he knows their pestering isn’t going away any time soon. 

Especially not when, on their way out, Seungcheol leans close and whispers that whatever is going on with his gym crush, it suits him. Jihoon jabs him on the arm and the two men leave, laughing brightly.

It’s about an hour after his friends have gone home, having washed the dishes and cleaned up his apartment that Jihoon is sitting on his living room floor doing a few lower body stretches before he turns in for the night. He finds himself tapping into your text thread — not for the first time this evening — and skimming over the short conversation you had earlier. You messaged him when you got back to your friend’s place to thank him for the third time, and Jihoon replied back telling you that if you didn’t stop being silly, he was never going to respond to you again. Your reply came in the form of a “:(“ and his was a simple “:)”. That was it, but he’s been thinking about the exchange ever since. 

He’s not sure why. Nor is he certain what about that has him looking down at the messages and grinning like a fool in his apartment, alone, at 10:30pm on a Sunday night. He could probably take a stab in the dark at what it means, though. He rubs at the back of his neck with one hand as he changes conversations and types out a short message with the other. 

jihoon: fine. you’re right. 

seokmin: ?

soonyoung: probs true, does need context

jihoon: about the gym girl. you’re right. 

soonyoung: OH

seokmin: Hahahahahaha

seokmin: Yeah, you’re definitely the last to know, dude

soonyoung: fr even chan and hansol know atp lmao 

jihoon: they what?

jihoon: how do they know?

jihoon: they don’t go to my gym! i haven’t seen them in weeks!

soonyoung: because we told them????? 

seokmin: So, we might have told everyone

jihoon: blocking both of your numbers immediately.

seokmin: Hey! We’re just glad you’ve accepted it

seokmin: When do we get to meet her?

jihoon: blocked.

Well, great, Jihoon thinks as he fights the urge to lay face down on the floor and let the laminate cool his searingly hot cheeks. 

At least he’s admitted it now. 

He’s vaguely confirmed in writing that maybe he has a bit of a thing for you — it’s out in the open and at minimum, two of his friends know that it’s real. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Fingers. Whatever. No doubt by morning, all of his friends will have found out. The point stands that he hasn’t confessed to something like this since he was approximately sixteen years old, so whatever you’re doing to him, whatever this… is, it matters. 

So, he asks himself, standing up off the hardwood floor and stretching his spine, arms locked behind him and pushed back as far as they can go. He turns off all the lights, checks the front door, goes through the motions to get himself ready for bed. So… what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

—————

Come Monday evening, he’s about ready to hit the roof.

As far as bad days go, Jihoon thinks he’s in the running for one of the worst ever. He slept awfully, tossing and turning through the night despite the usual winning combination of freshly washed bed sheets and his white noise machine drowning out the occasional disturbance from the street below. He wakes up two minutes before his alarm is due to go off, only to discover he fell asleep before plugging his phone in to charge overnight, and it’s sitting at a very risky 13%. The gel he uses to keep his hair off his face at work has gone weird and only does half a job, strands tumbling back in front of his eyes the second he goes to leave his apartment, very nearly forgetting his keys. Then, to really put the cherry on top, he sees that — at some point between getting home yesterday and now — someone has scraped his car while parking up next to him. There’s a large scratch right down the passenger side, with no note nor reliable CCTV in his apartment’s parking lot to confirm who it was, and of course, the space is currently empty. 

All this before he even gets to work.

He fundamentally knows that starting the week off with a bad attitude will only lead to a really shitty remainder, but when Vernon sends his routine ‘Monday Motivation’ booster message — “you’re going to have a great day, today!” — into the group chat, Jihoon responds with a crude photo of his middle finger, right in front of the massive scuff on the bodywork of his Hyundai. Jeonghan replies with an ‘oof’, Wonwoo with a ‘yikes’, and Joshua, ever the comedian, sends a picture of Garfield lying face-down captioned ‘Mondays’ that nobody replies to. All responses feel kind of appropriate. But he pockets his phone without sending anything else, sighing again; he locks the car and checks the handle just in case before he finally heads into the building.

It’s going to be a long day. He just has to get through it.

Things don’t necessarily improve. He ends up in and out of meetings all day, so when 5 o’clock rolls around and he’s on his way out the door, he’s feeling a bit like he’s done nothing of actual value. Just, for some reason, thinking about you and tapping out a catchy beat on the top of his desk as he pretends to pay attention to useless presentation after useless presentation. But it’s still somehow been exhausting on his brain and on the drive back to his apartment, Jihoon feels so drained that he contemplates skipping the gym altogether and going straight to bed. This internal argument takes up most of his journey, but it does keep him occupied during the rush-hour traffic if it does nothing else. 

Nothing has ever been fixed by ruining a perfectly good routine, however — so no sooner than he’s back in his apartment, he changes out of his button-down and trousers and into his regular gym gear. His protein shaker is ready on the counter for when he’s home again, the lights are off, his bag is on his shoulder and the door is locked. He pushes against it a few times, checking out of habit, despite the fact that his only neighbours on this floor are Soonyoung, Seokmin and an elderly couple with a cat they’re not technically supposed to have. Nobody tells, though, because Boots has become everyone’s emotional support animal. The only actual security threat is Seokmin maybe stealing something from his fridge, but he’s only ever satisfied after the third test anyway. 

A quick warmup and a few easy stretches later, Jihoon sets about his business. Mondays are for training legs (and often, as a result, incapacitating himself for the rest of the week), and these workouts are always some of his most intense.

So intense, in fact, that he’s sweating buckets and cherry red when he steps away from the squat rack, tugging up the hem of his t-shirt to dry his face, a brief flash of his toned abdomen on full view. He’s just about catching his breath when he glances in the mirror, and his knees nearly give out when he sees you walking in. You lock eyes and smile at him in the reflection as you start to walk towards him.

It’s not just any smile, but he’s way too flustered to notice.

He spins around to face you, mortally embarrassed that you definitely just saw that, but in a weird way… kind of elated? You drop your headphones to sit around the back of your neck to greet him as you get closer. He pushes his hair back off his forehead and tries to act as cool as he can, but Jihoon suddenly becomes incredibly aware of everything about himself in this moment: his posture, how his arms hang by his sides, the exact positioning of his feet. The fact that he’s breathing pretty deeply, that his pulse is so loud in his ears that he can see your lips moving but can’t quite hear what you’re saying.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit — you’re talking. Focus. He needs to focus. 

“Sorry — what was that?” he asks, eliciting a soft laugh from you.

“I like your shirt,” you repeat, a fraction clearer. Jihoon glances down at himself, at the same sweatpants and tight black workout top he wears in here several times a week, and looks back at you with a raised eyebrow. God, he lets himself think for half a second, entertaining his own stupidity with the idea that you’re finding this as hard as he is, too. Maybe I’m not alone in this. 

“Oh?” he says. “Um — thank you?”

“How’d it go with your friends last night?” you ask, hardly skipping a beat, and he’s a little thankful that you skim over his poor attempt at gratitude for a compliment he isn’t sure he deserves. Instead, his confusion wraps itself around the fact that you actually remembered what he was doing last night. Hell, even he’d forgotten in the heat of the day he’d had, but you remembered. He’s sweating over it a little and briefly wonders what the chances are of the gym floor opening up and swallowing him whole.

Slim, he decides. But not zero. 

There’s hope.

“Yeah — yeah, it was nice,” he says, internally kicking himself for overthinking this so much that he’s apparently lost his ability to speak. In the space of 24 hours, he’s gone from giggling over coffee with you to completely weak just at the sound of your voice. It should be easier here, if anything — this is home turf for him. His comfort space. He supposes the tight fit of your gym clothes accentuating your hips and thighs isn’t helping matters, and neither is the wide neckline of your own t-shirt exposing your throat and a collarbone. But still. He’s not a teenager. He should be able to handle a little bit of skin. 

He clears his throat, rolling his head side-to-side. Focus. “Sorry — I’m-… I just didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

“Yeah,” you chuckle. “I-… couldn’t stay away. Missed it a little too much.”

“I get that,” he concurs, willing his eyes not to drop down your frame to a newly exposed area of skin just around your waist, your t-shirt riding up as you adjust your bag on your shoulder. “It’s good to-… have you back, anyway.”

“Good to be back,” you agree. “Hey — can you leave that set up for me, when you’re done? I’m on legs today, too.”

Jihoon doesn’t want to say that he knows Mondays are your leg days, as well, so he doesn’t. Even if it is true. He wonders if you would find it odd that he’s remembered. “Sure,” he says with a small smile, which you return. Just as you’re about to walk off to drop your things into a locker, he pipes up again. “I mean — hey, if you wanted a spot, or to-… do, you know… anything…”

“Are you asking me to train with you?” you ask, eyes bright and smile wider than he thinks he’s ever seen it. This is torture. He’s not even lifting anything and his heart is about to burst out of his fucking chest — God, maybe this was a bad suggestion.

“I-…” he starts, but he lets the breath out of his lungs and shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah. I am.”

“Give me two minutes,” you agree, hurrying off to put your stuff away and fill up your bottle.

He manages to squeeze another set of squats in before you get back, which is sort of a miracle seeing as how his knees have gone completely weak ever since you arrived. He’s scrolling through his playlist as you cross the gym floor on your way back to him, but he looks up and smiles as you approach. 

“You go ahead — I’ve just finished.”

He knows he’s really fucking done for when, after the first round, you add plates onto the bar to out-lift him. All before he’s even positioned himself behind you to be a good spotter.

Jihoon doesn’t go down without a fight though, and things get a little competitive from there. Both of you throw some of your favourite (see: most agonising) exercises into the mix over the course of the hour, taking it in turns on the equipment and creating a session that just about has him able to move by the time you’re finished. You talk to each other when you’ve got the breath to do so, otherwise focussing on your workout with more intensity than either of you remember training with for a long time. 

And so what if he has to turn away from you once or twice to compose himself when breathless whines spill from between your lips on your last few reps, the sheer effort of the movements pushing your muscles to their absolute limit? So what if he feels his entire body run a thousand degrees every time you sweetly encourage him to manage just one more? So what if his palm stays tingling for fifteen seconds every time you high-five him for a set well done?

You slide out of the hamstring curl machine with a deep breath and legs like two sticks of jelly at the end of the session, and he holds a hand out to steady you as you regain your ability to weight-bear.

“You okay?” he asks, and you nod, patting what’s exposed of your chest and neck with your towel. 

“Yeah. Yeah — just… fuck.” You laugh, laying your hand over the top of his and squeezing. Only for a second — not even, only for a breath — and really just to let him know that you’re okay to stand on your own, but Jihoon feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted straight up his arm all the same. “You don’t come to play, do you?”

“Says you,” he scoffs, only now moving his hand from your upper arm. “I was wrong about you — you’re insane. Clinically insane.” 

Using the paper towels he went to gather while you were finishing up, he wipes the machine clean as you stretch out your now slightly exercise-swollen thighs. 

“I was just gonna finish up on one of the stairmasters,” you tell him, taking a long sip of your water. His eyes widen to the point of comedy, eyebrows high on his forehead. You snicker at his horror, the rim of your bottle hovering tantalisingly over your bottom lip. “What?”

“That’s-… got to be a form of masochism,” he says, exhausted just at the idea of marching up the never ending staircase even for a minute. You almost choke on your mouthful of water, only just swallowing it in time before a sudden, uncontrollable laugh erupts from your chest. 

“How?!” you ask, covering your mouth with your hand. Just like yesterday, the urge to pull your arm away, to reveal your hidden smile strikes him. He doesn’t act on it, but he wants to.

“What do you mean, how? Why would you put yourself through that after what you’ve just done?” It’s completely lighthearted, and the rush of heat on your cheeks intensifies at the cocktail of shock and awe in his gaze.

You shrug your shoulders once. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just better than you.” The way the tip of your tongue teasingly sits between your teeth as you grin at him sends bullets of adrenaline through his veins and Jihoon runs his hand over his face.

For about three seconds, he tells himself he isn’t going to take the bait. He’ll lose, he’ll admit it — he’ll put his hands up and say you’re absolutely, definitely better than he is, if it means he doesn’t have to push through a round of cardio after surpassing every single one of his physical limits. But God, he thinks you look completely irresistible standing there challenging him like this, your hands on your hips. His eyes don’t leave yours and yours don’t leave his; both of your chests stutter, just a little bit, and he can see your smile grow in his periphery.

How the fuck is he supposed to walk away?

“Ten minutes,” he concedes, matching your footsteps as you start to walk backwards towards his least favourite line of equipment in any gym, ever. “And you’re definitely getting the next coffee, now.”

——————

That Friday, you finally text him again.

His muscles have just about returned to a working state and Jihoon is quite proud to say that he has regained the ability to sit down without needing something to hold onto. He got home from work, showered the day away and has just settled down into the sofa to start on the book Wonwoo has been on his ass about reading when his phone vibrates on the side table. He reaches over for it, trying to figure out which of his friends might be trying to get hold of him early evening on a Friday, and already going over excuses in his head as to why he can’t go out to do whatever they’re inviting him to. But when your contact name flashes up on the screen, every single thought disappears from his brain.

y/n: hey :)

y/n: just out of interest, how good are you at assembling furniture?

He furrows his brows at this. There’s a very obvious answer, which is that he’s not. He doesn’t want to reply saying so, though, so he goes for what he thinks is the next best thing.

jh: well…

jh: what are you trying to put together?

y/n: a bed :(

y/n: today’s your rest day, right?

y/n: can i bribe you with dinner after? :)

Oh? His brain stalls, fingers hovering over the keypad. He can literally see your face forming a little pout before growing into a hopeful grin in his mind’s eye. He doesn’t see how he could ever say no. 

jh: apparently yes, you can.

jh: text me the address? i’ll leave in 5.

He changes out of his basketball shorts and hoodie in record time, abandoning Wonwoo’s book on his couch in favour of attempting to look at least somewhat presentable for you. He tugs on a pair of jeans that he hasn’t touched in about 6 months and one of his nicer t-shirts instead, even going as far as to spritz aftershave on the column of his throat. You’ve sent him your address and he makes to leave, doing his regular essential item pat-down on his way out the door. He puts your new apartment into his phone as he crosses the parking lot, stupidly delighted to discover it’s only 7 and a half minutes away from where he lives, and settles into his car with a series of deep exhales.

The breathing exercises don’t achieve much. His head is still spinning when he parks up in the street by your new place and lingers just outside the building. He sends you a text to say he’s arrived and you reply saying you’re on your way down. You appear in the lobby just a few minutes later.

“Hey,” you greet him warmly, crossing the space and putting your arms around him in a hug. He goes limp for a fraction of a second before his arms slide around you, too. God, he hopes you can’t feel his heartbeat right now. He thinks that the effect you have on him should be considered dangerous. But whether you can or not, you tighten your arms to squeeze him once before you unwind them from around his neck and step away. 

“Hi,” he says, feverish from the tops of his ears all the way down to his toes. His hands find his pockets as you take a few more polite steps back.

“Thank you so much for this.” Your bottom lip finds temporary home between your teeth before you’re nodding back towards the stairwell. “I’m on the third floor. Follow me.”

He does. He walks up the stairs behind you as you ask about his day at work, and he tells you that he thinks today has probably been one of the best he’s had in about 2 months. When he asks how your day went, you turn your head back to look at him and stumble on the next step, gently laughing and saying that you think you’re at your tether’s end with D.I.Y, but it’s been pretty good otherwise. By the time you reach your floor, his thighs are aching, a bit of residual fatigue from your session earlier in the week making it a little harder than it ought to be. He can’t imagine how you’ve coped every day since then; if his own building didn’t have an elevator, Jihoon thinks he’d have been sleeping in his car.

You give him a little tour of the apartment, and he stands next to you at the window as you point out where you were staying with your friend a few blocks away. He thinks the view is seriously pretty in the evening light, enchanted by how he can see the tops of the slightly lower buildings and the street below, lined with neon storefronts and currently alive with shoppers and bar-goers, but… He cringes at himself for thinking it, but the view through the glass is nothing compared to the one he has inside. 

You’ve started to put up a few decorations and knick-knacks around the place too. He doesn’t know you very well, but he still thinks it’s very you — all of it, and he likes them. Even with the room full of boxes and half-unpacked cases, there’s so much personality in it already. Charm. He brushes off your attempts to apologise for the ‘mess’, as you called it, despite everything being neatly pushed out of the way of the main space. It’s easily tidier than any other mid-move apartment he’s ever been in. 

“Did you want a drink?” you ask him, walking over to the refrigerator and resting a hand on the door. “I’ve got wine, or-… anything, really.” 

“Just some water would be great,” he says appreciatively, and a few seconds later you’re handing him a bottle, turning another one over in your hand. “I really wouldn’t be much help after a couple of glasses, trust me.”

“Does this mean you are good at it, then? Before a drink?” you ask him. Is it hope in your voice? Or do you somehow know how hopeless he is, and are you teasing? He can’t tell. Regardless, clearly his evasion earlier wasn’t quite as successful as he hoped it would be.

“About that…” He chuckles, taking a sip from the bottle and glancing sideways at you. “I’m sure between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.”

“My knight in shining armour,” you say with a laugh, closing your fingers around his wrist and leading him through the door to your bedroom. You’ve managed to separate all of the individual pieces, but you haven’t made any real progress otherwise. He settles himself down on the floor and reaches for the assembly manual, pursing his lips as he looks at the little baggies of screws and bolts and various other things he doesn’t know the names of.

“Okay.” He frowns, looking back up at you where you’ve kneeled down a couple of feet away. You’re grinning innocently back at him, but Jihoon’s lips are more aligned with a pout. “You maybe should have mentioned that the instructions are in Swedish.”

——-

Ignoring the fact that you can’t understand the directions printed on the flimsy little pieces of paper, you get to work. It’s… an interesting process, but somehow between the pair of you, you successfully manage to assemble the bed in just under two hours by mostly following the diagrams (and having to backtrack several times because Jihoon managed to miss a few steps). At three minutes to nine, you’re both finally standing up off the floor, stretching out stiff joints and tight muscles; the bed is fully assembled and made up with your sheets in the centre of the room, headboard against the back wall, the lamp you set on the dresser casting a pleasant orangey glow on every surface.

“We did it,” you say, a little in shock, a lot exhausted, and absolutely starving. At least, that’s what he assumes you’re feeling, because it’s what he is. “We actually did it.”

“I mean, you did most of it,” Jihoon says. It’s true; at a point, he was just handing you the pieces you asked him for and holding parts steady so that you could fit them together. But if you want to call it a joint effort, he isn’t going to stop you, and the roll of your eyes tells him that you do want to call it that. 

“Shh. You helped,” you scold him, bumping his upper arm with your elbow. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“If you say so,” he chuckles, taking another sip of his water. Jihoon isn’t sure he believes you, but the way you’re challenging him to argue further with your tongue pressed against the inside of your cheek scrambles his brain. Any remaining argument dies on his lips. “We make a good team.”

“We do,” you agree, expression shifting into a shy smile, bumping his arm again, your elbow lingering against him for a second longer. “Come on, I think I promised to feed you, too. What are you in the mood for?”

A movie has been playing in the background for about an hour by the time your food arrives and you’ve eaten everything. Jihoon relaxes back against the cushions of the couch and you’re settled comfortably next to him: there’s plenty of space on either side of you both, so there isn’t really any need for you to have your upper arm basically pressing against his, but Jihoon is too comfortable to say anything and you certainly aren’t making any attempts to move away. You shift your legs after about ninety minutes, bringing them up underneath you so your thigh is pressed against his now, as well, and you’re twisted slightly so you’re physically facing him but your head is still turned towards the TV.

Everywhere your clothed body touches him is scorching, and he wonders if maybe he should’ve worn a thinner t-shirt, or at the very least something a little less heavy on his legs. His jeans, slightly tighter around the thighs than perhaps would be their peak level of comfort, are clinging to him everywhere and he’s so aware of himself, so aware of you, of your sweet body wash, your fruity shampoo, every single one of your breaths… He’s cursed people out for breathing too loudly around him before, but he thinks he could replace his white noise machine with an eight hour track of just this and he would sleep like a fucking baby.

One of your elbows is propped against the top of the cushions behind you and you’re resting your head in your palm, and (not for the first time this evening) he glances sideways to look at you. They’ve been fleeting glances thus far, only stealing fractions of a moment before he turns his attention back to the TV. But this? This is the wrong moment. Entirely the wrong fucking moment because as his head turns, so does yours, and you catch him in the act. Fuck, if he thought he was burning up, before? He’s pretty sure he’s somehow just descended straight to the second circle of hell, greeting all the other lusty sinners like old friends. Several of his thoughts tonight have been considerably impure, and in this half second of blistering eye contact, they all come rushing back.

The universe is really testing him this evening, and Jihoon is stumbling. It feels like any minute now, he’s going to explode.

He straightens his spine and looks back at the TV, trying to force his eyes to focus even though he’s completely swallowed by the feeling of your arm straightening across the back of the couch, your fingertips grazing over the skin at the bottom of his hairline. He can feel your eyes still on him, your gaze burning into his cheek, no doubt following as his tongue darts out subconsciously over his lips. But he can’t quite help himself, can’t get the image of how sweet you looked out of his head; he clears his throat quietly and looks over at you again, coming over almost completely blank the second he notices the glimmer your eyes hold when they’re trained on him. 

Any. Fucking. Minute. 

“Jihoon, I-…” you start to say, and he turns himself a little bit so that he’s facing you better, completely forgetting about the movie now. That’s not a great loss: he couldn’t explain the plot even if he tried. “I don’t know if-… you can tell me if I’ve read you wrong…”

“You haven’t,” he hurries. Relief starts to ease the tension between your brows, before you scrunch them again and cock your head to the side. “I’m sure you haven’t, I mean.”

In this new position, one of his legs is bent and sitting up on the couch beneath him and you’ve adjusted your own posture to accommodate. Your knee sits just over the top of his, more of your impossible body heat radiating through his clothes, and he glances down at the site of contact before he looks back at you. 

“I just-... I don’t know, I think I knew I was interested in you from the first time I saw you, but the last few weeks especially…” You’ve been rehearsing this. He can feel it. It’s written in your eyes, holding the weight of the words you’re struggling to say, and behind them he can see cogs turning as you try to get the words in the right order. (He knows how that goes, because he’s been trying to figure out how to tell you, too.) He nods, urging you to keep going.

“I can’t get you out of my head. I really like you.”

He short-circuits, then. Even though part of him knew what you were going to say, hearing it out loud flips a switch inside him and he stops functioning. Blinking at you slowly, lips parted, heart racing – he feels as if his brain has been sucked clean out of his ears and is floating somewhere way above his head. Way outside of a contactable range, way beyond any level of rational decision-making. Jihoon knows what he wants to say, of course – he knows that he wants to say that he likes you, and that he has for a while, and that maybe you should let him take you out on a date or something, but all of that sits just behind the barrier of his teeth, so…

He leans forward and kisses you, instead.

He almost can’t believe that he’s only wanted this for as short of a time as he has; it feels like it’s been building inside him for so much longer. Relief floods through his veins, the emotional dam finally breaching. It only lasts a few seconds, but with his lips pressed to yours and yours pressing back, the static in his brain goes quiet, the movie falls silent: everything stops, except you. He thinks you could’ve been carved from stone around each other — he thinks something just feels so inexplicably right. Your hand tightens in his hair and he gasps softly as he pulls an inch back, eyes heavily lidded and looking straight at you through his lashes. You move forward, leaning your forehead against his, and the feather-light hold he has on your chin slides up to your cheek instead. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to-…” he says after a long, long moment of remembering how to breathe, how to blink, how to exist in your space without combusting on the spot. He still isn’t sure he knows how to do any of those things, especially not now he can see every single line of your face this close. He’s trying, though. “But — shit, I’m crazy about you.”

You kiss him, then, harder than before, colliding in a mess of half-finished breaths and bumped, stinging noses. His other hand comes up to sit against your rib cage, yours pressing into the material of his t-shirt over his chest. He smiles and parts his lips as yours move against them, your tongue gently sweeping into his mouth, finding his own; a soft, low moan tickles the back of his throat, his fingertips curling slightly to tighten his hold. 

Jihoon isn’t sure how you end up on your knees, straddled astride his legs with one of his hands tucked between your thigh and calf, the other on the curve of your ass — he just knows that he doesn’t mind one bit. You’re warm and comfortable, the arch of your back pressing you into him deliciously. He’s kissing you like his life depends on it (he really fears that it might), and you’re doing the same back, licking against his tongue and rocking slightly with every separation and reconnection of your lips. He feels your fingers brush at the hem of his t-shirt and slip just underneath at the same moment as you pull away from him, and he’s so dazed, so fuzzy, so lost in you that he can only tilt his head back to stare up at your face. In your current position, you’re towering over him. It’s easily the best view he’s ever had.

“Can I-…?” you ask breathlessly. The new roughness to your voice goes straight to his cock and he has to restrain himself from bucking his hips upwards.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning forward slightly to try and aid you. Your hands tug at the bottom of his shirt and peel it up over his chest: he raises his arms slightly and soon, you can toss it to the unoccupied side of the couch. He shivers slightly as he relaxes back, both at the chill in your unheated apartment and upon noticing the way you’re staring down at him. It’s addictive. 

“Oh my God,” you whisper, jaw a little slack, smoothing your hands over his shoulders to feel every ridge of hard-earned muscle. You travel down his arms, over to his chest, down his stomach… Jihoon sucks in a breath, your warm hands absolutely searing against his skin, and his abdominals tighten beneath them. Tilting your head, you press a line of kisses down the side of his neck, your lips brushing against one almost unbearably sensitive spot when you continue. “Fuck, you’re so hot.”

He smiles bashfully, rolling his head to the side and giving you all the access you want. Your lips tickle euphorically against him as he tugs you flush against his chest, both his hands now tightly pressing against your ass, fingers kneading the muscle concealed by your pants. You’re sitting right over his clothed cock and he’s reasonably sure he can feel your pulse between your thighs, letting out a soft grunt when you roll your hips deliberately down into his own. Your kisses travel to the swell at the curve of his shoulder before moving back up to his lips, where he meets you with a fire that he’s never kissed anyone with, before.

“Says you,” he murmurs into your mouth, your teeth clashing, his hips pushing slightly up off the couch. Just enough to make you sit back from him, just enough for Jihoon to open his eyes and look at you. His hair, thoroughly scrunched up and pulled around by your desperately gripping fingers, fans out at all sorts of angles and his chest has taken on a rosy hue since you last looked at it. With swollen, shiny lips, glossy eyes, breathing deep, he looks completely blissed out, like a man who could unravel beneath you if you moved just right. All from a little tongue action. He’d usually feel embarrassed, but it’s hard to when you’re the person on top of him; to be honest, neither of you would mind much if he did.

You’re pushing yourself up and off him before he can really get his bearings and an audible whine of despair parts his lips at the loss of your weight against his cock. Fuck, these jeans were a bad idea: he’s straining against the denim so much that it hurts, and there’s a near perfect outline of his hard-on. He stops pouting the second you take hold of his hand and tug him upright, though, your eyes dark and determined and intense. He thinks he might faint, actually: from standing too fast and feeling as though all the blood in his body is pulsing through his aching dick, he has to take a moment to stop the edges of his vision going dark before you’re pulling him through to your bedroom.

Something flips inside him the second you have him there. Jihoon, who was more than happy to sit beneath you and let you take all the control in the living room, is pushing you back onto the mattress by your shoulder and slotting himself between your parted thighs the moment the door is closed behind him. He’s past the point of wanting you, now: he needs you, and he needs you to need him, too. 

And God, do you. You prop yourself up on one elbow, staring at where he’s now leaning over you with wide eyes and your bottom lip drawn between your teeth. He bends down and kisses along your jawline in response, nipping gently just below your ear. Your back arches up and in a flash, one of his hands is beneath you, snapping open the clasp on your bra with a few slides of his fingers.

“Wh-…” you start, giggling and panting at the same time. He smirks against your pulse point. 

He flattens his tongue against you and licks a salty bead of sweat off your skin. “What?”

“Had no idea you could-…” You’re cut off by a gasp as one of his hands slides under your sweater, slipping beneath the garment he just unfastened. His fingertips graze over your breast and a pleading sob escapes you. His smile grows even wider. “You were so…”

“So what?” he prompts, pinching your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Another one of those beautiful sounds breaks the air above you. He does it again, massaging your breast with the palm of his hand. “Come on… talk to me.”

“So good,” you gasp, lying down flat and tilting your head back against the pillows. He rocks forwards to press his cock against you again and your thighs tighten around his hips, one leg hooking around his to keep him there. “So-… fucking good.”

You’re so impossibly irresistible to him, especially like this, and he sits up, settling on his knees to look down at you. Jihoon doesn’t even get the chance to move his hands towards the hem of your sweater to tug it off you though: you’re already grabbing it yourself, crossing your arms to pull it over the top of your head. He can see your bra now, and hell, it’s pretty even if it is just hanging off you. Baby pink and lacy. He thumbs over the material as he helps you pull it down your arms, briefly letting himself wonder if-…

“If only you’d been patient enough to see the set together.”

Oh, so you can read his mind now, too? 

You glance down to the small space between your bodies and his eyes follow, lips slightly parted, a heavy sigh on his breath. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck — he wishes he had. Even imagining it, he’s throbbing.

“You wear all this for me?” he asks, hands creeping up the insides of your thighs. You nod up at him and he smiles down at you. “Fuck. I bet you didn’t even need my help tonight at all, did you?”

You’re bucking your hips now as his thumb brushes, agonisingly slowly, over your clothed cunt. One arm has come up to cover your face: for the first time, he acts on his impulsive need to see you shy, see you needy, and leans over you to gently pull it away and pins your wrist down against the mattress. He kisses you, his fingers on the other hand pressing slightly more firmly to where he’s pretty sure your clit is.

“Y/n, you’re so pretty. Let me see you.”

“I didn’t,” you admit, voice wobbling as he works you up so much you’re actually soaking through not just your pretty underwear, but the leggings you’ve had on all night, too. He can feel it against the pad of his thumb and he raises his eyebrows for you to continue. “Just… really wanted you to come over…”

“Mhm. I know,” he soothes, bending low again and kissing down towards your chest. His lips purse over one of your nipples and he sucks it up into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the bud. He releases your wrist with the hand currently taking most of his weight and leans on his elbow, teasing your other tit with his fingers. The weight of it in his palm has him murmuring soft praises against your skin, telling you over and over how good you feel. You push up onto your elbows to try and press him closer — when his teeth tug just slightly, you’re about ready to beg.

“Jihoon, please,” you murmur. He short-circuits, again. Goes blank. His name has always sounded so much sweeter on your tongue, but this? This? Oh, he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to recover. That sound is going to stick in his head for days, months, forever, if he has anything to say about it. But even if his brain isn’t working, his body moves on autopilot: he sits up and hooks his fingers under your waistband, pulling your pants down your legs and discarding them onto the floor. 

He’s staring between your thighs with zero functioning brain cells and literal galaxies in his eyes, trying to figure out what cosmic miracle brought someone like you into his life, how on Earth he’s ended up between your thighs. The question is so overwhelming in his mind that he barely notices that you’re moving, at first. Jihoon doesn’t know what causes you to try and bring your thighs together — if it’s shyness or arousal, desperation, a search for friction? — but he stops you as soon as he realises, laying a hand on each of your legs, pinning your knees down now, instead.

“Keep your legs wide for me?” he asks, to which you punctuate a nod with an assenting hum. “Good girl.” 

You’re so wet that when he strokes two fingers over your covered pussy, pressing the fabric of your panties into your heat, they come away thinly coated in the arousal that’s seeped through them. He brings his fingers to his lips then, eyes fluttering as he licks your slick off them. You taste otherworldly and he doesn’t hesitate to tell you so with a groan.

“God,” he murmurs, tugging at the waistband of your panties with his other hand. His eyes ask if you’re ready — if you’re sure, and when you nod down at him, he pulls them off completely too. His middle finger slips between your folds, collecting the wetness dribbling out of you, and he drags it slowly upwards towards your clit. He repositions himself again, leaning down over you with his head at your neck, the heel of his hand resting against your lower abdomen. He draws small circles over the bud, laying open-mouthed kisses at your collarbone and listening to the gorgeous sounds you make, learning what you like, following each gasp and moan and chasing as many of them as he can draw out of you.   

At the same time as you start rocking your hips up to meet his hand, your nails scratching gently against his scalp again, Jihoon slips his finger down from your swollen clit to press it inside you. You gasp, high-pitched and needy, your cunt spasming around his finger and pulling it in deeper. He’s only in up to his second knuckle but the way you keen for him has him pushing further until it’s buried inside your pussy completely. 

“S’this okay?” he asks, but he knows your answer thanks to your vocal responses to him already slowly easing his finger in and out, in and out. You nod your head almost aggressively as he glances up at your face, your eyes squeezed tightly shut, jaw tense, throat bobbing as you swallow hard. 

“More — please,” you say not long after. A breath hitches in your throat when he does exactly what you ask, pressing the heel of his hand against your clit and positioning another finger at your entrance. He flexes his wrist slightly to get comfortable, pumping both fingers into you now, and he curls them upwards at just the right time to make your back arch off the bed. “Fuck — mhm, just like that—…”

He moves down your body slightly, reattaching his lips to one of your nipples as he fingers you deep and slow. He’s in no rush: Jihoon thinks he could do this all day and just deal with the RSI later on. You look so unbelievably hot with your face scrunched in pleasure, your thighs quivering as you fight to keep them apart like he asked you to, with your hips twisting down against his hand to try and get his fingers deeper and faster. When he lowers himself all the way down, settling completely between your thighs, he flicks his tongue out over your clit and your back arches up off the bed with a gasp.

“Don’t stop,” you whine, all high-pitched and rushed, both syllables merging into one hurried sound. “Fuck, fuck — please, don’t stop.”

“I’m not going to,” he murmurs, keeping pace and rhythm as he works you towards your high. God, he thinks there couldn’t possibly be anything in the world more sexy than watching you come undone from this angle. Your chest rising and falling in stuttered breaths, your hips rocking down against his hand, your pussy right on his mouth. Just the thought of it has his cock jumping in his boxers. “You gonna come for me, huh?”

“I-…” you start, releasing your death-grip on the bedsheets to bring a hand to cover your face. He clears his throat deliberately — perhaps it’s sort of closer to a growl than a cough — and he thinks maybe you really can read his mind, or maybe you’re learning that he wants to see every inch of you (especially like this), because a second later, it’s tangled up in his hair and holding him in place. “Y-yeah, fuck, I…”

“Good girl,” he coos again, and that breaks you. Your pussy tightens around his fingers and you feel yourself convulse, muscles clenching and releasing as you go over the edge with a cry. He eases you through your climax, tongue laving over your clit, fingers slowing but not stopping inside your cunt until your thighs close around his head in your oversensitivity. He takes the hint, then, and he slowly pulls away, sucking his fingers clean of your arousal while you take a few breaths to recover.

“Oh, my God,” you sigh as he moves back up and starts pressing small pecks over your chest and collarbones, your fingers lacing through his hair again to pull him up to kiss you. You groan softly at the taste of yourself on his lips, and can’t blame you. He still isn’t over it, either.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he tells you in-between kisses, one hand supporting the back of your neck to keep you close. “So pretty. So sweet. So good.”

“Shh,” you giggle, but he doesn’t. Just about every adoring adjective Jihoon has in his arsenal is murmured against your lips until you’ve gathered enough strength to get up on your knees and push him back onto the mattress, fumbling with the button of his jeans. 

He groans at the relief as you tug them down over his hips and thighs. “We don’t have to do anything else if you’re—”

“Shh.” This one’s a little more insistent, and he makes a show of clamping his lips back together. “You wore the tightest jeans on the planet, had your cock on-fucking-display for me all evening, and you think I wanna stop now?”

His jaw falls slack at the words that come out of your mouth. The incredulous way with which you say them has him involuntarily bucking up into nothing. Your expression matches his when you finally get his jeans all the way off and his thin, black boxer-briefs are the only barrier between you. The outline of his cock strains against them, tenting the fabric: Jihoon doesn’t miss the way you lick over your lips before glancing up at him through your eyelashes. It’s your turn to give him the look, now, asking that this last part is okay, with your fingertips hooked underneath the elastic waistband. He nods feverishly up at your heavy gaze.

“Please,” he groans, lifting his hips so you can pull them off. His length springs free the moment they’re pulled low enough, slapping back against his abdomen, sitting pretty against his toned muscles, thick and veiny and red-tipped. Desperate. His underwear joins the pile of clothes down the side of the bed as you throw one leg over him; sitting across his thighs, you take his cock into your hand, giving it a few gentle strokes. He fucks up into your palm when you squeeze your fingers around it.

“I need you so fucking bad,” you murmur, head spinning, and Jihoon isn’t in much of a better state himself; he’s fighting to keep his eyes open, fighting to keep his breaths coming. He sits upright, one arm behind him for support, and kisses you hard as you continue to tug at his length. 

“Need you, too,” he breathes, shifting so he has both arms around you. In a swift movement, muscles rippling, he lifts you off him and turns you over so he has you sitting on your now impossibly scrunched comforter.

He finds home back between your legs as you reach over into the drawer at your bedside and fumble around for a few seconds. He hears a little clatter and a rustling and when your hand resurfaces, you’ve pulled free a small foil square. You don’t even give him a chance to lean forward and take it; you’re ripping it open and looking up at him with the biggest doe-eyed stare he thinks he’s ever seen. He nods at the silent question, a grunt tumbling free as you roll the condom down his length. This is the most pathetic little bit of contact and he’s fighting demons.

“Okay?” he asks, shuffling back a little and giving you space to lie down flat on your back. You nod up at him, already wrapping your arms around his shoulders. 

“Mhm, just-... take it slow?” you ask him, anticipation rendering you already a little breathless. “S’been a while.” 

A grin blooms all the way from his lips to his eyes and he leans down to kiss you again, positioning his tip at your hole and pressing forward just enough to tease.

Your thighs tighten around his hips and he pushes himself further inside you with a stuttered groan, agonisingly slowly, inch by inch. He stills every few seconds, both to give you the time to adjust and so that he can take a steadying few breaths and not collapse at how good you feel wrapped around him; he stops pressing his hips forward before he’s fully sheathed inside your pussy and you let a whine slip, the stretch slowly easing. 

“You can move,” you tell him, laying a kiss to his chest. “I’m okay.” 

Jihoon gives a soft laugh. Oh, he wishes this was just to be polite, but no. He’s in real danger of losing control any second. “Yeah, this isn’t for you, baby.”

“Oh?” you ask. You clamp around him and he gasps at the tightness, hips jerking forward until he’s buried up to the hilt. Fuck, there’s a bruised cervix if you’ve ever had one; a high-pitched whine erupts out of your lips and he ducks his head down to your ear.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You just-... fuck, you feel so good.”

“Mm, says you.” 

It’s another moment before he thrusts with intent, though. But when he does? When he pulls out halfway before sliding all the way back inside you, losing and regaining the feeling of your heat enveloping him entirely, hearing your gasps against his collarbone? The invisible reigns holding him back unravel and he settles into a slow but intensely deep rhythm, guiding your legs around his waist. You hook your ankles behind his back and somehow, you suck him in deeper still, your bodies touching everywhere they possibly can, so impossibly close.

The arm not holding his weight slides beneath your hips and raises them just a little. Now, at this angle, every time he rolls into you he grazes against your sweet-spot and you’re reduced to an incoherent mess within a few minutes. Good, he thinks, because he’s not doing much better, himself.

You hug him tighter after one particularly well-angled thrust, sinking your teeth into the muscle of his shoulder. He hisses at the sting, and your lips part as if you’re about to apologise but he doesn’t give you the chance to; he bumps your nose with his own to ask you to lift your head slightly, before he bends down and kisses you hard.

“Do that again,” he gasps, almost all of his weight against you as the hand not around your hips comes up to rest on your cheek. When your brows tighten, he swipes his thumb over your spit-covered, swollen lips. “Please. ”

So, you do.

Maybe not as harshly as the first time, but your teeth find his collarbone and you suck a bruise into his skin, drawing from him the highest pitched sound you think he could possibly make. He squares his jaw, ducking his head back down, biting on his bottom lip before he has no choice but to speak.

“I’m close, y/n,” he confesses, fucking into you slower, trying to stave it off for a few more seconds, his hips stuttering. “Can-... can you give me one more…?”

You nod, the knot in your stomach already growing tighter and tighter with every movement he makes, and when one of your hands unwinds from around his back to slide between your sweat-slicked bodies, he moves slightly away, letting you reach down.

It’s the sight of two of your fingers finding your clit and rubbing your favourite movements out on yourself that takes him past the point of no return, his cock sliding in and out of you messily, desperately, chasing the high that he’s right on the brink of. He kisses and nips just below your ear, breathy groans tickling your neck, and your high-pitched whine tells him you’ve hit your orgasm just as he starts to spill his into the condom, gushing around him, your walls fluttering and milking him for all he’s worth. 

—

You offer for him to shower first – an offer he gratefully accepts. While you’re taking your turn afterwards, Jihoon hunts down a fresh duvet cover in your room; he changes it, grabs you a glass of water for when you’re done, and sits on the edge of his bed with just the towel wrapped around his waist, scrolling through his phone. He looks up with a bright grin as the door opens and you emerge through it in your pyjamas, glowing from the light behind you, stray droplets of water clinging to your arms. 

You pause gently rubbing your hair dry with the towel, eyes brightening when you see him. “You didn’t have to do all this,” you say, and he pushes a hand through his own still damp hair with a laugh.

“It was the least I could do,” he counters. You raise your eyebrows at him, crossing the room to sit opposite him. He drops his phone down onto the mattress. “I couldn’t leave and make you change them yourself.”

“Leave?” you ask, picking up one of his hands and playing idly with his fingers. 

“I mean, it’s getting pretty late, so…” he says. “I probably need to get going at some point.”

“Or…” you say, tongue darting out over your lips. “Maybe you don’t.”

Jihoon looks down at your hands, then back up at you. Are you suggesting what he thinks you are, or has he still not quite come back to himself from earlier? It’s hard to say if the look on your face is hope, or something else.

“Are you… asking me to stay?” he asks. 

“Only if you want to,” you tell him. He lifts your hands up, pressing a kiss to one of your knuckles, then using it to tug you closer to him until he can plant one on your own lips. “I’ve probably got an old t-shirt you could sleep in.”

“Of course I want to.”

So you slip away from him to go rummaging through your drawers, trying to find the promised article of clothing. The whole time, he’s awestruck. Jihoon can’t take his eyes off you.

——————

He wakes up next to you for the first time on a Saturday morning. His sleep-fogged brain registers lying on an unfamiliar mattress, tucked beneath new bedsheets, eyes fluttering open to take in a room he doesn’t quite recognise at first. Part of him wonders if he’s still dreaming. When he rolls over onto his side, and his eyes land on the curve of your shoulders, the fall of your hair down your back, he has to ask himself the same thing again. 

All of last night must’ve been a dream, he muses, smiling shyly to himself and watching your frame rise and fall with every slow breath you take. There’s no way you really told him you liked him, too. There’s no way any of it could have really happened.

“Y/n?” He asks in the gentlest of whispers, only wanting to stir you if you’re awake already. When there’s no response, he moves a tiny bit closer to you, hesitating before he slips his arm around your waist and settles with his chest pressed against your back. A wildly insecure part of his brain tries to argue that just because you wanted what happened last night, that doesn’t mean you want all of this now. Maybe you only wanted to sleep with him, or maybe you’ll have changed your mind somehow now the sun’s come up. He considers moving away again, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling until you wake up and he can have a real conversation about where both of your heads are at with everything, but he barely gets a chance.

Those thoughts are silenced almost immediately, his brain falling quiet the second you roll over in his arms. You bury your head in the valley between his pectorals, tucked away from the world beneath his chin. His arms tighten around your sleep-warmed body.

“What time is it?” You ask. He contains a shiver at the softness of your voice, bliss running the length of his spine. Jihoon thinks that he could get used to this.

“I don’t know. Early, I think,” he murmurs, and you whine softly, burrowing deeper against his chest. “Go back to sleep.”

“Not if you’re awake,” you say. He’s not entirely convinced you can stick to that promise, though, with the way you yawn and he feels your eyelashes fluttering. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he tells you, the tips of his fingers ticking against your side. He ducks his head, pressing a kiss to your hair. A soft hum rumbles in your throat and he can’t hold back the smile that spreads over his lips. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

True enough, you fall back asleep curled up against him and Jihoon, to the sounds of your slowing breaths, drifts off too. A few hours later, at a far more reasonable time, you wake him up with a press of your lips to the tip of his nose.

Innocent, exploratory kisses grow heated in the warmth of the sun that streams through your blinds. Hands start to travel, sleep clothes get discarded, and you have him lying on his back, pressing kisses down his chiselled stomach when his phone starts to vibrate on the floor next to the bed.

He groans at the distraction, again as you shuffle up to sit on your knees and look at him expectantly. 

“Are you gonna answer that?” you ask, the tips of your fingers grazing his thighs. He shakes his head, no. “Come on, Jihoon. It might be important.”

“Not important enough,” he sighs. 

“At least see who it is,” you laugh. Despite a huffed protest, he props himself up on one elbow, leaning over the side of the bed and glancing down at his phone screen.

Seungcheol.

The arrangement to go for a run this morning comes rushing back to Jihoon, who slaps a hand to his forehead and reaches down to grab his phone off the floor, looking at you apologetically.

“Give me two seconds,” he says, and you grin wickedly up at him, ducking low to press a kiss to one of the lines that disappears down into his boxers. 

“Take all the time you need.”

He answers the call frowning, flopping his head back against the pillows. 

“Hey, look – I’m really sorry,” he starts to say, but Seungcheol’s voice cuts him off almost straight away.

“Jihoon, where the hell are you? I got to your apartment and your car wasn’t here, and Seokmin said he didn’t hear you come home last night. We all thought you’d died,” he hurries. Jihoon can picture the expression on the other man’s face perfectly, which is pretty unfortunate seeing as how you’ve moved to start palming his hardening cock through his briefs.

“I stayed out,” Jihoon says, a little wobbly. “I can’t make the run, someth-... shit.” You press an open-mouthed kiss to the outline of his length, the heat of your breath through the fabric sending him into overdrive. “Something came up-...”

The line goes silent for a second, and his breath stutters as you do the same thing again. Each press of your lips is euphoric agony, and he’s really not hiding this as well as he wishes he could. One look down at you tells him that you’re very proud of that.

“Dude,” Seungcheol gasps, snickering suddenly. “Tell me you’re not with a girl right now.”

“Shut up. Go away,” Jihoon grunts. “I’ll call you later.”

“Oh my God, is it gym girl? Did you finally-...”

“Bye, Cheol,” he hurries, hanging up before his friend can say anything else. He drops his phone onto the mattress, fake-glaring down at you and shaking his head. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Yeah?” you ask, pulling at the waistband of his briefs to tug them down his legs. “Let me make it up to you, huh?”

[phormlessblob]

An (incomplete list) of mad shit/thoughts I had at TIT Birmingham 2 (SPOILERS) (BUT ALSO NO CONTEXT?)

oh no! the merch stand ran out of photocards! :(

"phildo"

i love the dancing sister daniel + father philip cosplayers. i would trust you cunty legends with my life

hearing phil drop a c bomb took years off my life

phil is so beautiful and princess babygirl

the femboy catboy v tuber avatars made me gay (and all i got was this lousy t shirt)

the cheer when toxic came on before the show. deep lore.

the cheer whenever "gay" came up <3

i can understand why that doctor thought phil was dan's dad. the phlonde hair does give grey irl under these lights

phil getting cancelled for hating gravy

"gravy 2" which was genuinely harrowing

the person who wrote the dobby x hagrid mpreg throuple fanfic needs help and i also want to be friends with them

i've seen gay porn straighter than this boxing sequence

"i'm scared of life without you when i kill you"

close up dry humping on the screens.

i give the unnecessary pinof reenactment a 69/10

"You like a good stuffing"

pour bot hem... he makes a good point

sister daniel. i am bisexual.

this is the campest thing i've ever seen

dan really is a theatre kid huh

what the fuck?

even though i saw the rave sequence,, what the fuck?

i'm going to cry

despite the gay sex that was profound as fuck

phil is a modern day philosopher

i love this gay neurodivergent community

i love gay people and beautiful people

the entire monologue about the phandom giving them the ability to be authentic. <3

i really don't want to have to explain the concept of "dan and phil" to this really nice tram conductor who's just trying to make small talk

holy shit i'm so cold at this metro stop

[phovaries]

phil lester and the urge to bring up his phregnancy 😭

[x]

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

C: You know you’re breathing correcting when your thumb pushes out a little bit.

P: (noises from breathing exercise) Oh it’s-

C: Like that! Like that!

P: It’s like a little baby, I’m pregnant. Feel- feel the baby. (noises from breathing excerise)

C: Yeah! Exactly like that! It’s like a little baby kicking.

P: So if you have a baby inside you,

C: (laughs)

P: Then you’re doing it right!

C: Yes… sort of.

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

Alex Cabot x Casey Novak x Reader SFW Fluff Alphabet

Big thanks to to @scealaiscoite for their SFW Poly Fluff Alphabet for the inspiration here!

a = affection Is anyone more overtly affectionate than the others? You are definitely the most outwardly affectionate. Not in a PDA sense, you just tend to be the most sentimental. You don't initiate physical touch a whole lot, but Alex and Casey both know you are down to cuddle at any time, and they take advantage of it often. Alex is the snugglier of the two, but Casey gets FOMO when you snuggle without her, so she'll jump in, too. b = bed What's the sleeping situation like? California King (no twin bed! no roommates!). Casey on the right, Alex on the left. You are forever the middle spoon because (a) you love it, (b) you're by far the smallest, and (c) both Casey and Alex can feel a bit smothered after a whole night of middle spoon-ing. c = comfort When someone's feeling down, how do the others look after them? When you're down, your self-esteem takes a hard hit, so Alex and Casey do their best to be extra reassuring. When Alex is down, you and Casey do your best to make her feel important and to distract her. Nice clothes, expensive dinner, all your attention all night. When Casey's down, she needs to take a fucking break. The problem is that she never wants to. You and Alex usually have to take her phone and laptop away and force her to relax. Bubble bath, takeout, snuggles, the works.

d = dates What do dates look like? Who usually plans them, and are they individual or a group affair? You take turns planning, but also enjoy the occasional spontaneous date. Everyone is always invited, but not everyone always goes. You have lots of things you like to do all together, like dinner and a movie or a weekend at the beach or a trip to the farmer's market. But there are things you do in pairs, too. For example, you and Alex love classical music, so you've got season tickets to the NY Phil, but Casey's ears would explode if you made her go. Alex will attend a sports event with you and Casey once in a blue moon, but mostly it's just you two. Alex and Casey love dancing, from ballroom to clubbing and everything in between. You are a truly awful dancer and have a really hard time in loud, crowded environments, so you usually send them on their way and enjoy an evening to yourself.

e = events Who drags everyone else to their family's and friends' events? When it comes to family, you do all the dragging. Casey's parents live in the city, so you see them at least a few times a month, and Alex doesn't talk to her dad (her mom died when she was 17). You're very close to your family, and you're the only one who has siblings and nieces and nephews. Christmas at your family's is a given, and Alex and Casey are 100% there for it. But friend events? Those are all Casey. Alex will drag you to one, too, mostly out of obligation, but Casey genuinely enjoys going out and grabbing drinks with friends and will convince you both to go with her sometimes.

f = fights Are fights something that happen often? How are they resolved? Of course you fight. Everyone fights. But the fights are usually civil and logical and respectful. You've got twice as many relationships to maintain in a triad, so direct communication is a priority for you all. Casey and Alex have had to learn how to tone down their "lawyer-ness" during arguments, though. At first, they'd sometimes fight you so hard–like they were in court–that they'd end up making you cry. They always felt awful and backpedaled real quick. They're a lot gentler with conflicts now.

g - getting together How did you all get together? Alex and Casey met at work, a slow-burn career romance. By the time you came along, they'd already been together for several years. They'd discussed polyamory before and, while neither was necessarily opposed, neither one of them had anyone else they wanted to date either. So it was very much a we'll cross that bridge when we come to it situation. They came to the bridge when you moved to the city and joined Casey's rec softball league. It was Casey who fell for you first, Casey who started inviting you out to lunch with her and Alex after softball games, Casey who cautiously, gently asked Alex how she'd feel about her dating you. To which Alex said, Yeah, of course, if it'll make you happy. But I think I kind of want to date her, too. Can we all date? Do you think she'd be into that? It turns out that, yes, you were into that.

h = hobbies Do any of you share hobbies or passions? How do you include your other partner(s) in them? There's a foundational understanding between you that you don't all have to enjoy the same things. You and Alex share a deep love of reading and often spend evenings on the couch reading together, snuggled up against Casey as she plays video games or watches sports. You and Casey play softball together, and you love watching sports–baseball, basketball, football, you name it. Alex will watch with you, but she's mostly in it for the game day snacks you make. And obviously Casey and Alex have a whole career/calling in common, so they talk about that a lot, but they always try to make sure you're included in the conversation, and make sure to explain patiently when you have questions.

i = in sickness and in health When someone is sick, who's the caretaker and who's the germaphobe? Who's resistant to being taken care of? It depends on what kind of sick. If puking is involved, Alex and Casey are on their own. You are out of there, probably staying in a hotel, leaving soup deliveries outside the door with a mask on. Any other kind of sickness, and you absolutely dote on them. Casey eats this up. She is a pitiful sick person. Alex, on the other hand, will keep going until she literally can't anymore. And even then she'll tell you she's fine, and you have to force her to rest and take it easy. You can't exactly talk, you're pretty resistant to being taken care of, too. But that's mostly because Casey and Alex have important jobs to do, and you don't want to distract them.

j = joker Who's got the best sense of humor? Do you all like to tease and banter? You are by far the funniest of the three of you. You love making Alex and Casey laugh. It's one of the highlights of your life. Their jobs are so serious; they can tend to be on the serious side, too. So you make it your mission to brighten their days. That being said, there's a lot of good-natured teasing and insulting that happens on a regular basis. Casey calls you asshole more than she calls you anything else, probably. Alex has a razor sharp wit which is mostly funny, but every once in a while she'll toe the line between funny and mean. She can immediately tell when she's taken it too far, though, and is quick to make it up to you.

k = knowing Who can read their partners like a book? Is there anyone who has their walls up, even around their partners? By nature of being incredibly intuitive, you are the best at reading emotions. The problem is that you can usually tell what they're feeling but not why or who it's related to, so you almost always think it's somehow your fault. You're working on that one in therapy. Oddly, you're probably also the hardest to read. You have walls up, though they're slowly coming down. And Casey and Alex can have tunnel vision when it comes to work, so sometimes they miss things. Of the two of them, Casey is the more open with her emotions. Alex is open with anger and anger only. She's working very hard on being open with her other feelings, too.

l = lavish Is there anyone who really likes to lavish and show off their partners? How do the others react to it? Alex. Alex all the way. She's proud of herself, proud of the work she does, and proud of having not one but two stunning girlfriends. She dresses you and Casey up to the nines in clothes it would have taken you years to afford. When she walks into a room with you in a tailored Valentino suit on one arm and Casey in a designer gown on the other, she just knows everyone's jealous that she's living the best of both worlds. Since neither you nor Casey came from money, you both had a hard time with Alex's generosity at first, but you came to accept that showing you off is just Alex's way of telling you how proud she is of you and how happy she is that you're hers.

m = memories Is anyone more on the sentimental side? You, 100%. Although Casey and Alex have their moments, too. But you're the one who packs lunches with little loves notes. You're the one who surprises them with flowers at work, who cooks their favorite dinner because you know they had a bad day. You'll pick up that book that Alex wants so bad, but doesn't have time to go get. You'll record the Giants game instead of watching it while Casey's at work because you know she'd rather watch it together later. Of course, they do sweet things for you, too. Like Alex asking you to read your favorite book to her because she wants to read it with you. Or Casey organizing a game night with the SVU folks at your house, because she knows you want to hang out with them, too, you're just much more comfortable at home. You all have your moments, but they'd both agree that sentimentality just comes so, so naturally to you. It's a gift.

n = nights What's the nighttime routine like when you're all together? You are a big, big fan of parallel play so, even though you usually like to quietly read a book before bed, you want to do it wherever Alex and Casey are. Alex spends an eternity in the bathroom on her skin care routine before putting on the softest, most luxurious pajamas. She fixes herself a cup of peppermint tea and curls up next to you with her own book. Casey always has "more work to do," but she'll go through case files while you and Alex read. Or she'll finish the newspaper if she didn't get to that morning. She always has a gigantic, messy collection of file folders, old newspapers, and half-full glasses of water on her nightstand. You almost always fall asleep first, and they don't stay up too much longer because "you're just so adorable" and "I can't pay attention when you look that snug-able!"

o = open How open are you with one another? Very. You don't keep secrets. You don't tell lies. When you first got together, Alex suggested you all lay down "relationship rules." Those were two of the biggest. It sometimes takes longer for you to open up about what you're feeling, but they've learned that it doesn't really have anything to do with how much you trust them, it's just how you process things.

p = PDA What's PDA like with them? Is there anyone who loves it? Anyone who hates it? Alex would full-on make out with you in public, but she knows that's not a good look for someone in her position. Also, you and Casey do not like PDA. Casey will kiss you on the cheek or put a hand on the small of your back at a party, but that's it. You might hold their hands, but you won't do anything else in front of others. Alex won't either unless she feels like someone's infringing on her territory (her territory being you and Casey). Then she gets really possessive and is not afraid to show people that you're hers.

q = quiet Who prefers to spend their time out and about, and who likes to spend it at home? Casey is the most social of you. She loves going out with you or going out with friends. Alex is kind of in the middle. She's very, very good with people and socializes quite a bit, but often out of political obligation (to grease the wheels, so to speak, and make connections) rather than for fun. You are a hardcore homebody. You'll go out with them because you love them, but you're always very excited when you all decide on a night in.

r = romantic Is anyone a bit of a sap for their partners? You. So, so you. You just truly can't believe you lucked out with these two gorgeous, strong, confident, crazy smart women. Oddly enough, both Alex and Casey tend to be more affectionate with you than they are with one another. It's not that they love each other less, but you've got a couple of theories as to why they're just a little more romantic with you. (1) You're much, much smaller than them. Like a full 10 inches shorter. So they sometimes baby you a bit. They think you're very cute. You both love and hate it. (2) They were together first, and then kind of simultaneously fell for you, so you sometimes think they see you as collectively theirs, tag-teaming to take care of you and love you. You don't mind. They're collectively yours, too. (3) You're more sentimental than either of them, so it's easier for them to be sentimental with you than with one another. But, all in all, there's plenty of romance to go around.

s = sharing Is there anyone who's particularly territorial of their partners? ALEX. Very possessive of both of you. Casey's pretty damn possessive of you, too. Less so of Alex, but that's probably because she knows nobody fucks with Alex. You are the least territorial, mostly because you're just glad to be there. It doesn't leave a whole lot of room for jealousy. Just as Alex and Casey did before you came along, you all have an open understanding that if someone else were to come along–for any of you–you'd be okay with one of you pursuing a relationship with someone else, too. But it seems unlikely. You're all deeply content with things as they are now and don't really see yourselves bringing anyone else in.

t = terms of endearment Nicknames! What are the nicknames!? Alex uses honey or my love. Casey uses sweetheart and honey and sometimes baby. You mostly use lovely, which drives both of them wild, and also honey on occasion.

u = urge Who's the most impulsive? And who reins them back in? None of you are very impulsive. You think things through before acting. But of the three of you, Alex is probably the one who lets her emotions get the best of her, which can sometimes get her into hot water. Both Casey's and Alex's emotions (and impulses to do something brave and stupid) run high during hard cases. Thankfully, you're usually there to talk them out of it.

v = vacations How do vacations go? And where do you travel? You do vacations big. Alex has a lot of money, and you all love traveling. Alex considers it her absolute joy to make you and Casey's travel dreams come true, because she knows you didn't grow up with the kind of money to make them happen. She whisks you away on far-flung vacations as often as she can. An even bigger test of her love: she'll go camping with you because Casey loves it so much. But only with the highest end camping gear. And she will not touch a fish or a fishing pole, but she'll sit in a chair and read with you while you and Casey go fishing. Your favorite vacation so far? A surprise holiday trip to Soneva Jani in the Maldives. You'd always wanted to go to the Maldives, but it was very much a pipe dream. Alex packed for you, and you had no idea where you were going until you boarded the connecting flight to Malé. You were so excited you cried a little. When you stepped into your overwater bungalow, you just couldn't contain your excitement, running around the building, staring out at the crystal blue water, and kissing Casey and Alex over and over again, saying "Thank you thank you thank you thank you!"

w = worthy How are insecurities handled? Are any of you more self-conscious than the others? You're the most self-conscious. Casey and Alex are just so conventionally beautiful and successful and confident. They're smart, powerful, career-driven women and you're... a dorky, tiny, androgynous little work-from-home ad copywriter. Sometimes it's hard to know what they see in you. Alex is almost never insecure because she's cocky as fuck. Unless she screws up at work, and then she needs a lot of reassurance. Casey is insecure in that she's never able to live up to her own standards, so you have to remind her often that she doesn't need to be perfect and she's doing great. Insecurities in your home are always met with love and reassurance, never annoyance or frustration.

x = xoxo Who checks up on their partners a lot when they're apart? Do they call or text? Casey. She'll call to check up on you at least once a day. If you're out of town, she calls you at night, too, right before bed, on speakerphone with her and Alex (or vice versa, if Alex is out of town). Alex misses you, too, but she's more likely to text sporadically throughout the day. You text or call when you see something funny or something that reminds you of them.

y = yearn Who misses their partners the most, even just throughout the day? You really like your alone time, so you miss them but you really like having your space (working from home is great for this). But Casey and Alex miss you. Because you're home so often, when you're not home–out with friends, spending the weekend at your parents', etc.–they almost don't know what to do with themselves. Bonus POV: The Group Chat Casey: babe when are you coming home 😢 💔 😭 💌 😫 Alex: my love I need you here in my arms You: omg chill you guys i've been gone for like 2 hours! Casey: yeah 2 hours 2 long

z = zealous Who was especially eager in pursuit of the relationship? Was anyone more reserved? When it was just Alex and Casey, Alex made the first move. With you, it was Casey who came after you the hardest. Alex was a bit more reserved because she didn't want to make you feel like you had to date her, too. She wanted to be sure that you knew if you just wanted to date Casey and not her, that was okay. but she really did want you. She was trying so hard to be respectful that you eventually had to ask her out. Alex, can we go out sometime? Yeah, I'll see when Casey's free. No, I meant... just me and you. I mean, obviously Casey can come, too, if she wants, but... I'd like to take you out if you'll let me.

[punksdoll]

hi!! can i request a cm punk x reader?? do it of whatever u want (fluff pls)

~~~𝑺𝒖𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒍𝒍~~~

gif not mine like, comments, & reblogs appreciated

𝑪𝒎 𝑷𝒖𝒏𝒌 𝒙 𝒇𝒆𝒎!𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓 ^owner of gif

𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚: 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆

𝒂/𝒏: 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒆’𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆. 𝒚𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔. 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒚 𝒏𝒆𝒘𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒇𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆. 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒆𝒏𝒋𝒐𝒚<𝟑.

𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: 𝒔𝒐𝒇𝒕 𝑷𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝑷𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒍, 𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒓, 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒓, 𝒉𝒆 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒔, 𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔, 𝒉𝒆’𝒔 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊’𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒏, 𝒇𝒍𝒖𝒇𝒇𝒇𝒇𝒇

not proofread

Y/n lets out a deep sigh as she pulls up into her and her boyfriend’s driveway. All she wanted to do was curl up in her boyfriend’s arm and force him to read a book to her to lull her to sleep. She found his voice rather calming to her and the easiest way to fall asleep. She also adored his side commentary whenever a character would do something stupid in the book.

Y/n gets out the car and makes her way towards the door, unlocking the door and walking in. “I’m home.” Y/n broodingly says with no enthusiasm whatsoever. Y/n throws her stuff into a corner and starts walking away to try and find her boyfriend.

“You sound excited.” Cm Punk says sarcastically as he pops up from nowhere. Y/n turns towards him and rushes over to wrap her arms around him and shoves her face in his neck with a sigh.

“Now I am…” Y/n closes her eyes and Phil can feel her lashes flutter down on his neck as he wraps his tattoo covered arms around her.

“You ok?” Phil rubs her back with his thumb as he lays his head down on her head.

“Just tired…can you read to me after i take a shower?” Y/n moves her head away to position her chin on his chest to look up at him.

Phil chuckles and shakes his head, “No.” He says making y/n face drop immediately. “I have a surprise for you instead.” He smiles, moving his hands to brush away her hair from her face.

“Oh?” Y/n smiles, “What is it?”

“Go take a bath and you’ll see. The bath is already set and warm just for you.” Phil gives her a quick kiss before y/n could break away and rush to the bathroom where the bathtub is indeed filled up with hot water.

•••

Y/n walks inside her shared room and sees Phil lying down and waiting for her.

“I’m doneee.” Y/n smiles as she grabs one of Phil’s hoodies and puts it on herself.

Phil smiles and throw his phone on the side and gets up, “C’mon.” He grabs her hand and leads her out the bedroom and towards his office. It wasn’t actually his office, it was more like a storage room for all of his old wrestling stuff such as titles, old merch, etc.

“Are you gonna show me some new title or something?” Y/n questions with a frown.

“Nah…that’s nowhere near what i’m gonna show you.” Phil stops in front of the door, “I actually have been fixing this room up to surprise you.” Phil opens up the door and lets y/n go in first and when she does, she feels herself get emotional almost automatically.

Instead of seeing a bunch of wwe championship titles and old merch, you see books. You see bookshelf’s merged together with books all in them. Some being y/n’s and some even being new ones that she had put on her wish list on amazon. Around the bookshelf’s there were fairy lights and in between two bookshelf’s was a big fluffy bean bag that already seems like it’s been broken in. Next to it is a y/f/c record player that settles on a night stand with an open shelf that holds different vinyls. Y/n finds herself walking over to it and grabs a vinyl and sees it titled with her boyfriend’s messy handwriting.

A Sky Painted Gold, read by me. your boyfriend weirdo.

Y/n giggles and puts it back then looks over at Phil who is leaning against the doorway with a proud smirk. “Like it?”

Y/n lets out a high pitched squeal as she jumps up and down, clapping her hands and falling back on the bean bag, immediately sinking into it. “OH I LOVE IT!” She shouts, standing up and running towards Phil, throwing her arms around him. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” She thanks him multiple times, giving him multiple kisses.

Phil smiles and gives him a big kiss, “Now whenever i’m away and gone and you miss my voice? Just play one of those vinyls and it’ll feel like the real thing. If you wanna take it with you?” Phil pulls her phone out and goes on spotify where he made a private playlist for her that’s filled with him reading multiple books, “Just go right here, doll.”

Y/n feels her eyes burning as she looks between her phone and back at him, “You’re so good to me…”

Phil smiles and gives her a big kiss, “Marry me.”

Y/n eyes widened, “What…?”

Phil smiles and pulls out a box, opening it up to reveal a pretty black ring. “Will you marry me?” He repeats himself, “I’ll do a lot of things but getting down on my knees can’t be an option. I’m too old for that.”

Y/n stares at the ring then back at Phil then at the room that he turned into her own library, “YES!” Y/n shouts as she throws herself at him, wrapping her limps around him.

Phil laughs and holds her close to him, fumbling around before grabbing her hand and putting the ring on her. “Hello to you Mrs.Brooks.”

[lmanburgseulogy]

C!WILBUR INSANE POSTING. guess what. It’s actually about revival arc 😎 wahhoo

Sorry if it’s unorganized i’m too lazy to read it back 💯 plus probably none of you have the attention span to read this /j

LONG LONG POST UNDER CUT!

Brown mop of curls that are frizzy and uncared for, white streaks contrasting the rest. They stick out no matter how much he tries to hide them. When he gets so stressed he tugs at his hair, he notices that its gotten longer since when he actually tried to keep up with it. It wraps around the curves of his ears and turns upwards at the scruff of his neck.

There’s a deep wrinkle between his eyebrows, a reminding mark of a general with a heavy expression going into battle.

His eyes look unfocused over cracked glasses, it always seems like he’s not fully in the moment. Maybe he isn’t, not anymore. His gaze only settles on the ways everyone has changed, when he’s the same person who stood at that button. His absent stare contradicts the heavy smile lines gained years ago. He can’t remember the last time his smile reached that high. Feels awfully forced these days, even when he is happiest. He knows he doesn’t deserve it.

Wilbur struggles with bright lights after being in the dark so long in limbo. His head is always throbbing, and by noon it feels like a very tiny man is pushing his eyes right out from behind. Sometimes he gets too overstimulated and can’t think or stand straight. Tommy worried about him, but he can handle himself.

He has permanent eye bags from decades of sleepless nights. When he puts himself on the stage to be perceived by other’s judgmental stares he lathers thick foundation over the darkest parts. he knows they would notice if he covered all of it. They notice every little detail.

Wilbur’s nose is crooked and hooked at the end. A bump holds his glasses in place where freckles spot his skin. He loves the sunrise, he likes the marks it leaves for him. Maybe the light is finally reclaiming him.

His chin is covered in scratchy stubble. It’s thick and itchy, but his hands are to shaky to shave anymore. He learned that the hard way. He could get someone to do it for him, but who would? People always attack him in the small, minor inconveniences. They seem to hit wilbur harder than anyone else.

His Adam’s apple is very prominent. He gets it from his father.

Two white scars cross down his chest, making an “X.” They are surrounded by dark, unruly burns. When he gets the motivation to change his clothes, he thinks about a fallen country’s flag, which looks very similar to his own body. A part of him hates it, a part of him knows there was a time he would live the flag with pride. He almost hates that more. Sometimes he feels like all he is is the day he got those scars, since that’s all they see him for. He tries not to think about it. Never turns out well when he falls in the pit that is his mind.

*weight mentioned ahead, implied starving as a form of self harm

Wilbur often squishes the fat on his arms and stomach. He doesn’t remember a time where his belly or thighs were this soft, only his ribs casting jagged shadows down his front or his skin wrapped tightly over his bones. It didn’t take long for him to get tired of the potatoes in Pogtopia. Or, that’s what he told everyone when they gave him that look. Pity, he knew it to be. He didn’t need to be pitied, not when this is what they want him to be. A man falling apart, another dog in the ring.

Wilbur thought it was odd, his new shape and stretch marks. He didn’t really hate it though. He is almost comfortable in himself, even when most of his meals were barely choked down. Phil likes to reassure him the healing continues, and he knows his dad isn’t a liar of course, but Wilbur tends to spill his uncontrollable emotion into every good thing. It’s whatever.

Wilbur has lumbar scoliosis, so right before his hips his spine curves into a “C.”

He remembers his mother talking to Phil after his exam for it. Her voice was wound up tight, ranting to phil about how he might be paralyzed when he got older. He can’t remember his mother much, yet that memory is clear as day. He would love to tell her he’s moving about just fine, except for the constant pain. Tommy says it’s normal though. (yes lets ask tommy for medical advice. sure king)

Scars litter his body, all around. Some big, some small. Some major injuries like The Final Control Room, and some are minor losses not even worth noticing during battle. A lot he doesn’t remember. Which might be for the better.

His fingernails are short and chipped. He expects it to be from clawing at the walls in limbo, the scraping sound makes him shiver to think of.

When Wilbur hits his head on doorframes he remembers family photos of him sticking out like a sore thumb in the line. He had his growth spurt early, and got a little too tall for his liking. Techno joked he was 1/4 torso 3/4 leg. Easy to intimidate people though!

Wilbur’s bones ache a lot. They’re old things, he thinks when he hears the pop of his knees. Sometimes the aching gets so bad he can only sit, which is embarrasing when he has to plop down on the prime path while Tommy gives him the worry look again. One time Eret found him catching his breath by the museum, boy he hated that. He remembered the last time they saw each other, when he apologized. Kind of awkward. He wished he could run away, like during L’manburg. A slight smile on his face when the breeze swept his hair back, legs moving in rhythm against the ground. He’s pathetic now, not even able to walk away if he tried. Potions never numb it as much as he hopes.

[seeingstarks]

weight of two souls

summary : it's thanksgiving and neither you or phil want to leave each others arms to go and meet the family. does it even happen? pairing : cm punk x afab!reader cw : pure fluff, cuddling, kissing, hip/thigh squeezing, cursing, nose nuzzling, babygirl/good girl & king/queen nicknames, innuendos "sound proof walls" / "taking his scepter" a/n : can you tell how much i've been missing the old man? x) i've been working on this for about a week or so and put my entire heart & soul into it. please reblog!! keep rude comments to yourself. <33 there may be a few spelling/grammar errors. word count : 1,291 words tag list : @harmshake gif credit : @adamjf

once the leaves started to fall your mood did the opposite, haunting month passing by in an instant.

calender flipping to november, the days went by agonizingly slow, this being one of your least favorite months of the season.

thanksgiving was soon approaching and your family always wanted to make it this huge get together. no being anti-social and locking yourself away, wishing you could every year. atleast they allowed you to bring a friend from work, if you could call him that.

the chicago native was more than a friend to you, he stayed up with you through your worst nights, steeping you both fresh cups of tea and/or coffee even if it meant catching up on sleep the next day, as long as he knew you were okay.

ever since he laid eyes on you, he made a best friend with just a simple hello and allowing you to pet his dog, larry. restless nights sharing deep dish pizza and mindy's eventually lead to cuddling, his inked arms wrapped around you, placing a kiss to his scruffy cheek.

the alarm clock chirping as sun peaked through your blackout curtains, neither of you wanted to get up for the morning - well afternoon.

you were the first to wake up, groggy eyed with phil having his arms snug around your waist, sleeping soundly except for his snoring which could wake up the entire neighborhood. larry decided to seek slumber at the foot of your bed, his head propped up on the chicago native's leg.

managing to shift away from his grasp, you hit the alarm clock with a clenched hand in hopes it would stop the commotion.

"rise and shine sleeping beauty, one hour 'til we meet my family. much as i don't wanna' go.. you promised to tag along for the torture."

phil didn't budge until you deciding to smack him with a pillow, "i'm up! i'm up!" he half-yelled, removing his hands from under the warm covers in an attempt to shield his face.

"a simple g'mornin' kiss would've woken me up too, y'know."

yawning and stretching his arms out, phil took his sweet old time getting ready while you on the other hand began to brush your hair out. bristles making contact with the h/c strands, they untangled after a few more brushes, setting it to the side and entering your closet.

luckily, you prepared your ensemble a night beforehand, slipping out of your clothing from the previous evening and stepping into a pair of black underwear with white polka-dots.

lifting your arms up to put on a shirt, you were met with a firm pair of arms which wrapped around your curvy frame, his lips placing gentle kisses along your neckline.

"mm, phil- could stay like this forever but we gotta' finish getting ready." you informed and looked up into his light brown hues with a playful smile.

"not complaining but i'm more ready than you are- atleast i have pants." shaking your head at the chicago native who indeed had pants on, but no shirt.

you raised an arm up to trace his pepsi tattoo, almost lost in a trance - simply enjoying the moment and his warm embrace as you remained standing still, being held close.

glancing over at your alarm clock, ten minutes seemed to pass by swiftly. spending all day in with your love would usually be no issue, but today you both had plans.

pouting softly and burying your head into the crook of his neck, you debated staying in and bailing on family dinner.

"so cozy.. don't wanna' move." you peeked up at phil, removing your head from his shoulder as he kept his arms securely around your waist, giving your hips a slight squeeze.

tongue darting out between his lips, the chicago native licked them, "i know babygirl... but think of all the cuddles we can get in afterwards. you're my favorite little spoon."

"i better be your only-" before having the chance to finish your sentence, phil captured your lips in a deep kiss one which you returned happily, "you're the only person i want to wake up next to every morning, binge watch horror movies with and much more. i'm so fuckin' lucky to have you in my life, y/n - but we truly should get goin' soon if we don't want to be late." he spoke sincerely although a half-chuckle escaped his lips, a few noticeable smile lines showing.

nodding, you captured his gaze only looking away when blinking - "you mean so much to me, phil. i felt as if there was a missing puzzle piece in my life.. and no matter how hard i tried nothing seemed to fit until you came along. we're the perfect match." placing your forehead against his, the two of you nuzzled noses briefly prior to pulling away from one another.

phil finished getting ready by throwing on his t-shirt which read i'm a collision girl in white letters across the back, tying up his sneakers. you did the same, sporting combat boots and a pair of black pants.

it was a miracle you and phil managed to make it out of the door in time, grabbing your keys and starting the engine up as larry sat buckled in the backseat pampered with dog treats.

"first time i'm officially meeting your family. do they know what to expect?" the chicago native asked, you had told your family about phil countless times.

the fact he was your boyfriend going on six months now and how he treated you perfectly. his queen who could hold a throne all on her own, independent but yearning for a partner. someone to feel safe with - who wouldn't hurt you like past partners. phil was your king - protecting you from harm, trying his best to keep the dark thoughts at bay, you doing the same for him.

"haven't shut up about you ever since we met. if my father heard the words cm punk or phil leave my mouth one more time they may have tried to disown me." you laughed, keeping your eyes on the road.

"ah, well it's a good thing we have sound proof walls - ever since the neighbors complained and when my babygirl gets needy, isn't that right?" you nodded, cheeks a bit flustered as phil placed a hand to your thigh, giving yet another squeeze, while you reached a stop light letting out a whine.

"what's the matter?" phil asked with a smug smirk along his face, causing you to roll your eyes over at him.

"best behavior, daddy-" words betrayed you while squirming under his touch, desperate for more. a loud horn halted you from any obscene thoughts running through your mind, the light turning from red to green as you began to drive again.

the ride wasn't too much longer, a brisk breeze going throughout the car as you cracked the window open for larry, he would let out the occasional bark when stopping by his favorite restaurants, one bakery in particular catching your own eye.

"want to make a quick stop for some sweets?" you asked already entering the parking lot.

"hell yeah, but won't be be late?"

"exactly my point." phil took your suggestion, wishing to spend the rest of the holiday with him only and not your family.

bell dinging as you two entered the bakery hand in hand with fingers linking together, a variety of treats on display behind glass.

"let's get some muffins to go. 'wanna spoil my queen," he leaned closer and whispered against your ear, "while you take my scepter like the good girl you are."

mr. and mrs. best in the world has a nice ring to it, don't ya think?

[wol-fica]

-𝕊𝕙𝕖-

pairings - jennaortega x fem!reader

summary - before jenna ortega became a huge actress and held the world in her hand, she only had you

warnings - angst, high schoolers lol, all characters are 18 and up :)

an - school au! senior year for these babies, new series?

—————————

You hooked up with Jenna Ortega.

Big statement to say, but it’s very very true. How it happened though, well that’s a long story. It dates back to when you were both seniors in highschool….

———Past———

You were a dream girl; straight A's, decently pretty, wasn't talkative yet everyone ended up having a conversation with you, just all around good. You were the girl everyone wanted to be friends with, the girl that guys would fawn over and other girls would envy for your vigorous reputation. But alas, that's only the shell that people saw.

In reality, you were someone a mom would scold you for hanging out with because you’re so risky. When you were nine, you climbed a telephone pole and did the macarena sitting on top of it. At fourteen, you somehow hot wired your fathers car and proceeded to crash it, breaking only a toe. And now, at the ripe age of eighteen, you have caused your entire family to move from Miami to Coachella Valley; what a big jump.

It wasn't your intention to almost burn down the school just because you got into a fight and your first defensive measure was to whip out a lighter attached to a can of hairspray and try to turn poor Greta Stone into a Doctor Phil look-a-like just because she called your brother a fag.

You liked to say it was an accident.

But expulsion was given and boy were your parents angry, so angry that they hopped a few states and ended up in a small town full of party people.

Your brother, Theo, was so disappointed in you that he called you a "queer failure".

"I am not a 'Queer Failure'!" You snarled, mocking your brother's voice.

"But you are, and that is a tragedy." Theo replied, his nose buried in a picture of Rob Lowe.

He was already engorged in a magazine from the local drug store that he didn't even realize he was spilling his Pepsi, which you found of the utmost amusing.

"Will both of you please stop bickering? You've been nipping at each other for so long you didn't even notice we are here." Your mother said, scolding you both..

You peered out the window, your y/e/c eyes focusing on the large familiar building. It was already busy with people, some rushing through the doors while others loitered around their cars and by the bike parking area.

You frowned, but got out of the car with your usual calm demeanor. Theo followed suit, hopping out with what he would call a 'gay swing', and strutted off into the ocean of high-smoked teenagers to presumably get a buzz.

"Behave, okay? I don't want a call again." Your mother said through the car window, smiling warmly at you.

"I'll try mom." You replied, leaning down to kiss her cheek before you walked off.

It was a normal thing for teachers to call home about your behavior; you always ended up being reckless and snappy with everyone and everything you come across. 

But that's just how you are.

With your bag loosely hung over your shoulder and your head held high, you lazily walked towards the school, ignoring the looks you received from passersby.

See, your wardrobe was different from most girls. You didn't wear any of the typical sundresses or skinny jeans with floral shirts, you wore guys clothes, nike shorts with hoodies and converses, no matter the weather. Not trying to peg yourself as ‘i’m not like other girls’, but you were definitely a heavy masc.

As you walked in, you noticed a pair of three girls ogling a guy walking past. He had blonde curly hair styled back into a mullet, with matching denim jacket and jeans, and a white button down. A cigarette hung loosely between his lips, completely disregarding school rules as he went towards the parking lot.

'Typical lazy fuck.' You thought as you passed by.

You eventually made it into the school, and proceeded to head straight for your locker as you didn't need any interaction with anyone here. You fumbled with the lock and it's nerving combination before successfully opening it. You took out your assortment of books and binders, placing them neatly on the top shelf before hanging up your backpack.

You were so engrossed in organizing your locker that you almost missed a certain latina girl walking out of the bathroom. Your eyes snapped to her and followed her down the hall to three lockers down from your own.

That girl was Jenna Ortega, the prime jewel of your highschool, or so you liked to think. She was drop dead gorgeous in your opinion, with wavy brown hair that framed her beautifully freckled face, chocolate brown eyes that sparkled in the sunlight, and slightly tanned skin that looked warm and inviting. She was the girl that you first fell in love with, and probably the last.

You first met Jenna when you were outside fixing your bike in the driveway; Jenna happened to go a different route on her morning walk and had noticed you working your ass off in the California sun. She stopped to say hello and introduced herself seeing that you were new to the neighborhood.

Ever since that day, you couldn't stop thinking about her.

Jenna’s heart belonged to no one, but that still didn’t mean should or even could make a move.You didn't mind, it was actually easier to just admire and imagine instead of embarrassing yourself with a potential rejection.

Doesn’t mean that you still yearned to be with her.

"Hey Y/n!"

You were snapped out of your thoughts by a voice you knew almost instantly, your body turning to the short girl.

"Hey Jenna." You replied smoothly, though your heart was running forty miles a second from the voice of a girl who could easily end your life with a wink.

“How was your weekend?” She asked, looking up at your with the most gorgeous eyes you’ve ever seen, “Was it enjoyable?”

“Meh, it was alright.” You said, grabbing your binder out of your locker, “How was yours?”

“It was relaxing, just what I needed.”

You hummed and nodded, reaching down to grab your water bottle, “Did you need something from me?”

"I was wondering if you had anything to do after school today? I need to study for my chemistry quiz and you are the only person who I trust to help me get it done." Jenna asked, toying with her fingers.

Truthfully, Jenna didn't need help studying for her chemistry test, she actually didn't need help studying at all due to the fact that there wasn't a chemistry test. She just wanted to spend time with her friend, the one she couldn't get her mind off of for some reason.

See, she found you to be one of the utmost unique. From your cinnamon brown skin, to your silky hair that was always pulled back into the cutest pony tail. Jenna saw you as the prime reason to why she questioned her sexuality.

But she wouldn't tell you that, she wouldn't tell anyone that.

"Uh...sure, I don't have anything to do today." You muttered, shutting your locker.

"Awesome! Want me to drive you there?" Jenna asked, smiling brightly, which you found entirely cute.

"Whatever works best for you."

Jenna whooped and threw her arms around your neck, burying her face in your green sweater. She loved the smell of her undying crush, finding that your scent was that of coffee and morning air, far better than any candle or air freshener she could buy.

"I'll see you later!" She said, leaning back to smile at you for a moment before hurrying off to her first class.

You watched her go, smiling to yourself as the girl of your dreams waved to every person she saw. Times like these made you question whether love was a feeling or a curse, especially since your heart thumped for one of the most famous upcoming actresses ever.

What a predicament you were in.

——————————

taglist: @cartierdreamx@tundra1029@red1culous@vorsdany@andsoigotabutterfly@theafterofnevermore@yomomisgay@house-of-lovin@slvt4lanadelrey@thenextdawn@nepobaby08@dunohilly@somekindofpoet@alexkolax@cinffy23@pedrosprincess@amberfreemansburntface@myfturn

[elen-benfelen]

welsh remus guide pt.3

Third Lesson

Right then, lads. It’s alphabet time.

Often, when looking at Welsh place names, it can seem confusing and overwhelming for anyone who is unfamiliar with Welsh. Sometimes, the confusion comes from not realising that the names are in Welsh. 

Visually, we use the Latin alphabet and so it’s easy to make the assumption that the Welsh alphabet is exactly the same as the English. 

It is not, my dudes. 

To begin with, the following letters do not exist:

K, Q, V, X, Z

Secondly, these are the vowels:

A, E, I, O, U, W, Y 

(Occasionally H is also a vowel but I couldn’t tell you when or why??? I usually go off of vibes) 

Next, are the double letters. They count to us as single letters and each make a unique sound:

CH, DD, FF, NG, LL, PH, RH, TH

NG as in thiNG

PH as in PHil

FF as in Fun

RH as in RHiannon

TH as in THat

Now comes the uh, more complicated sounds. 

For those familiar with German words such as Nacht or the name Brecht, the Welsh CH is that same sound.

CH as in naCHt

DD is like a harder TH sound. It is NOT a D sound. 

LL sounds like hissing. I genuinely don’t know how else to explain this. It straight up does not exist in majority of languages but there are some out there with the same sound (sometimes shown with a different letter). 

To hear it and learn more here’s a better explanation.

This is a really fun video on the different accents but someone mentions the town Llanelli so it’s also a good example of the LL sound. 

And so in full we have:

A. B. C. CH. D. DD. E. F. FF. 

G. NG. H. I. J. L. LL. M. N. O. 

P. PH. R. RH. S. T. TH. U. W. Y. 

There’s no K because the C is always a hard C sound.

There’s no V because a single F is always a hard V sound. 

J is a modern addition to help us with new modern words we’ve loaned from English. Such as Joke becoming Jôc. 

G is always a hard guttural G sound. 

Despite misconceptions, Welsh is actually vowel heavy and we tend to stretch vowels. If a letter has a little roof on it, like “ô” or “ŵ” then it’s an extended/longer sound. 

This means, when speaking English, our vowels are more likely to be elongated. 

Similar to the “r” in Spanish, the Welsh “r” is rolled and therefore many will still roll their Rs when speaking English. 

For a reason I have yet to discover, despite H being perfectly clear and pronounced when speaking in Welsh, when we speak English, a lot of areas have a habit of dropping the H sound. 

“Here” becomes “Ere” or “Yere” 

I am guilty of this. Why do I do this? I genuinely can’t tell you. 

For the reasons above, the following words sound stupidly similar to each other:

Ear

Year

Here

Hear 

As with any language, understanding the basic sounds helps you understand the core of the accent. 

In terms of character dynamics, I would take note that the “CH” and “LL” sounds along with our supposed “lack of vowels” is usually what the language is mocked for. Usually by English folk but other folks, including non-Welsh speaking Welsh folks are perfectly guilty of this mocking. 

Fun fact: I didn’t realise W and Y weren’t vowels in the English language when I was a small child. So I really didn’t get why they thought there wasn’t any vowels in our place names. 

Another thing to note is that the Welsh language and accents are very up and down. It’s not usually flat or monotone. A lot of people also describe them as melodic. Sing-songy even.

Colourful alphabet video with BSL

Shorter alphabet video 

Note: I am not the collective consciousness of every Welsh person. My experience is not universal - especially when it comes to North Walian things. This is just meant to serve as a general guide. Hope this helps and good luck with your writing!

pt.4

[bradleybeachbabe]

NSFW Alphabet

pairing: Phil Wenneck x Fem!Reader

warnings: 18+ themes, MINORS DNI

a/n: this is my first time writing anything that is related to smut, so please bare with me on this. also i’m currently obsessed with bradley copper as phil wenneck, so don’t be surprised if i post a whole bunch of fics of him. also a huge thank you to @startrekfangirl2233 for helping me beta read this!!

© bradleybeachbabe , do not steal or translate my work

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Phil is so good when it comes to aftercare. He’ll clean you up. Also If you need anything, he’ll go get it for you. You want snacks? Phil will go to the kitchen and get snacks. You want something to drink? Phil will go get it for you. You want him to draw a bath for you? He will. Or if you just want him to stay in bed and cuddle with you for the rest of the night. He definitely will.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His favorite part of his body would probably have to be his abs. Whenever you two are both home, he’s walking around the house without a shirt. You’re looking at his abs, and he lost track of the number of times he has caught you just staring at them. When he does, he just smirks at you.

Phil loves all of you, but if he had to choose one, it would have to be your thighs. He loves to kiss them before he goes down on you. He loves to leave hickies on them, and he loves to lay his head down on them.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Once in a great while he’ll cum on your boobs or even on your stomach. But for the most part, he cums in you.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Phil enjoys being a sub. He loves when you take control though. He just lays there and relaxes. Sometimes he’ll have a smug grin on his face.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He’s experienced. He was a frat boy when he was in college. During those times, he was constantly hooking up with girls, so I’ll say that he knows what he’s doing.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Cowgirl. He loves watching your tits bounce. Plus, he loves to see you be the dominant one, and of course, we can’t forget that he loves being the submissive one, so that explains it all.

Missionary. He loves that he’s able to look at you. He loves that he can also just lean down and kiss you if he wants.

G - Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Goofy sex isn’t rare between the two of you. It happens more than you realize. Phil is always saying something about who knows what, or smiling about something. Honestly, he’s more serious in the moment if he gets upset about something, which doesn’t quite happen that often.

H - Hair (how well-groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He keeps it pretty well groomed. He’s not completely bare down there.

I - Intimacy ( how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Phil is a romantic guy. He will plant kisses anywhere that he could reach. He will say sweet things to you during the moment too.

J - Jack Off (masturbation headcanon)

He rarely does it. You’re usually available for him for his needs. If not, then he’ll do it.

K - Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Phil has quite a few. Cokwarming, slight innocence kink, breeding kink, slight choking kink, marking, praise, and body worship.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Honestly anywhere. It could either be in your shared bedroom, in the backseat of his car, in the shower, in the hot tub, or either in the pool. It just all depends really.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

You. You could be doing anything, or doing nothing. Or, better yet, just wearing any sort of clothing, and he’s instantly turned on.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He wouldn’t do anything that would hurt you. That’s the last thing he wants to do when you two are having sex.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Phil does love a good blowjob from you, but he prefers giving. Phil loves eating you out. If he could, he would do it for the entire day. He loves the noises you make when he does eat you.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

It just depends on the day. If he had a stressful day, it’d be fast and rough. But on days when he isn’t stressed out about anything, then it’s more slow and more sensual. On days like that, Phil takes his time with you. He wants to cherish the moment between the two of you.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Phil doesn’t mind them. You two will have one, once in a great while, especially if you are in a hurry to get somewhere or to do something. But most of the time, he wants to take his time with you and not have to worry about rushing.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Phil loves to experiment, especially when it comes to wanting to test out something new in the bedroom. Phil loves to take risks too. He loves the thrill he gets when he takes risks.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Phil goes until he can’t anymore. Once he can’t, he’s done. That’s it.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Phil doesn’t own any toys personally. But you do, you have a couple of toys. Once in a while, Phil will use your toys on you. He loves how you come undone when he uses them on you.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Phil loves to tease you all the time. He loves the way you react when he’s teasing you, and even the pretty sounds you make when he does.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Phil is loud, and he has no shame in it. He’s either moaning, grunting, or whimpering. No matter what, he’s making some type of sound.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Phil has polaroid pictures of you in the lingerie sets that you or either he buys. Every single time you get a new set, Phil has you model them for him, so then he can take pictures of you with the polaroid camera that you own.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

He’s about seven inches. He is more long than wide. Also, he knows how to use it.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

His sex drive is pretty average. Going at least two or three rounds a week, Phil is totally satisfied. But if you are up to wanting to go more rounds throughout the week, he’s totally fine with it.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

No matter how tired Phil is, he will wait until you fall asleep. Once you are sleeping peacefully, then he falls asleep.

i don’t have a tag list anymore. go follow my library blog to get notified when i post any fics! @bradleybeachbabe-library

[akingdomscrypt]

War is Over (and what have we done?)

Part Four

Pairing; Graves x m!reader (slow burn)

WC; 2.9k

Summary; Graves is tired of being ignored.

Warnings; not really any? Not yet at least. Minor flashback stuff where it's implied he's trapped in the tank when it caught fire, mentions of death/pondering

A/n; probably my shortest chapter yet. I spilt what was originally one part into two because it just felt??? Off?? To put them together as one thing?? Idk but I felt like it called for more than just a few paragraph breaks

(also thanks to @/rousseau-vargas and @/embry-garrick who are my biggest motivators rn, next half of part will be out soon)

(idk how to explain it, but I love how his mouth moves..)

---"more than he bargained for"---

Phillip was bored out of his goddamn mind and a prisoner in his own fucking base. Which, to be fair, he had definitely anticipated would happen when he came back.

He had known he’d fucked up; he knew you would be angry. It had been a long time, Phil had been gone for nearly an entire year. Him suddenly appearing again after being presumed dead? That was sure to stir up some unsavory feelings; he had expected a bit of rage, some lashing out here and there.

He, for some unknown reason, hadn't predicted this.

You, trapping him in his own goddamn base.

Phil doesn't know how long he's been stuck within these same four walls—thankfully he'd been detained in one of the spare rooms, one with a small bathroom, and not where the temporary prisoners were usually kept—, but he does know that, especially if he stays here any longer, he's about to lose his damn mind.

He thought he knew you. Figured you'd eventually calm down—like you always did—and come back to collect him. Maybe chew him out a bit more, which would be well deserved, but then let him go. Reconcile. That's what usually happened when you two had a minor scuffle.

But this wasn't just a small mishap, some little blip on the timeline because Phil had gone a bit too far once again. Been a bit too snappy; had said the wrong thing. Was it?

With every day that passed, every second that dragged on, Phil was starting to believe he didn't know you as well as he had thought he did.

It's hot. It's so fucking hot. Phillip should have known better than to actually be in the damn tank when all this started, you, his dear co-founder, had warned him against it. But what was Phil to do? He'd rather face this heat a thousand times over, relive it again and again as much as it took, than have one of his own soldiers trapped in this chunk of metal.

Did he really think he would win? Well.. maybe. Phil had his doubts before this, you had your doubts, but he had insisted. And now he was going to pay for it stuck in this gradually melting, scalding hot box.

Another few raps of his knuckles on the wall, and still no answer.

Phil was really starting to get annoyed at this point. He was more than tired of being ignored, which only manifested in an uptick of his provocative behavior.

The hallway is on the other side and you, his dear Phantom, wouldn't leave him unguarded, would you?

Definitely not. So, again, he follows his obnoxious knocking with a shout of, “V! For Christ’s sake, I know you're out there!”

And he did, who better to have stand guard outside his door than your most trusted soldier?

He may not know you like he used to, and you may never admit it, but Phil could pride himself in the fact that you were at least a little predictable. And you had always been fond of their dearest Venn.

But, as had been the norm of how ever fucking long Phil had been trapped in here, there is no reply.

Phil had warned them. He had tried his damnedest to get those damn 141 boys to stand down, his orders hadn't been against them. Not originally. Not until they, as per usual, stuck their fucking noses into shit they don't belong in.

Was this what hell was like? Was this him paying for the horrid massacre he had commanded?

Phil could have gone against orders. He could've told Shepard where to shove it and be on his merry way—with his family Shadows alive. No one had to die. No one but Hassan and his goons had to meet their end.

But, goddammit, so many had. So many innocent lives were wasted.

Phil had been doing this shit for years, doing the dirty work no one else would, the kind the average military couldn't.

That didn't make it any easier.

He often put on a front; he had to. For his family's soldiers sakes’. If he was afraid, if he shied away from the blood and the gore, the screams and the terror, then he wouldn't be the strong, unmovable rock his soldiers relied on. Now would he?

He should have said no. Or maybe made some sort of compromise. But he hadn't, and there was no point in ruminating over what had been done. He was going to die here—it is what he deserved—, stuck and helpless.

Just like the innocent people whose lives he had stolen.

He knew you were just being stubborn. You would come around eventually- right?

Phil had never doubted you before. Having started this damn company together, just two wayward souls searching for something to call their own, tired of being tied down with yards upon yards or red tape—oh, the irony of that sentiment. You two had never been free.

Even when he pushed you away. When he left you the morning after—every damn time—to wake in his bed alone and cold. Not a trace of the warmth from the night before left behind.

Even when he refused to admit what you truly meant to him.

Phil had always assured himself that it didn't matter, he could say and do whatever he pleased, because you would always come crawling back to him. And you always had. No matter what.

Until right now.

Until you didn't.

“V! Goddammit, open the door!”

It was so fucking hot. He could barely move, mind fuzzy and breaths coming out in short, labored gasps.

What little movements Phil could make were sluggish and weak. The latch didn't work, and subsequently that meant the door didn't either. He was well and truly stuck.

Phil thought he was starting to make peace with that. Dying. It had been a long time coming, hadn't it?

After all the bloodshed. After all the things he had done in his life—all the blood and gore, the purposeful ignorance and choice to look the other way. To pretend not to care.

He deserved this, right? He was getting what had been coming for him. Finally.

It should have come sooner. He had lived plenty; he had done enough harm in his time.

Phil's tactic at this point was simply to be as obnoxious as he could possibly be, and annoy Venn into inevitably opening that damn door.

And after a few more harsh pounds of his fist against the wall, and several more calls of her name, Phil gets his wish.

In the form of a frustrated shout and the door slamming against the wall so hard it's a surprise the poor thing stays on its hinges, but he gets his way nonetheless.

“What.” Venn spits when she finally gets inside, arms crossed over her chest and one boot tapping furiously against the floor.

“That's no way to speak to your Commander, V.” Phil sing-songs, all upbeat and shit, against his own better judgment.

Ah, yes. Let's piss off the one direct line you have to Phantom more than you already have.

That's sure to get him his way.

“You're not-” Venn cuts herself off, sighing heavily and starting over. “What do you want, sir?”

She says the word with none of the respect she used to and, honestly, that was fair.

“Better.” Phil still hums. Because he's an asshole. And because he can't seem to stop himself, apparently, the snark seems to be hardwired into his brain or some shit.

“What. Do. You. Want.”

“You know what I want, V.” She makes a face at the nickname, and Phil pretends not to feel that little twinge in his chest. It's not like he doesn't deserve it. They used to be close. All of them.

“Not going to happen.” Venn snaps immediately. Defensive. Predictably.

“You know I'm not going to stop asking.”

“And you know it's never going to happen.”

“Fucking hell, V, why not?” Because he doesn't deserve the right of seeing you. Because he already fucked this up before it had the chance to be great.

“Because he doesn't want to see you.”

She's told him that before, several times over, to be honest, but Phil still can't hide the slight grimace that pulls at his features when Venn says it again. Says it with so much confidence, so much conviction, like it's an obvious fact everyone else has been made aware of and he's just been too stupid to pick up on it.

Phil has already been made well aware plenty of times. He just didn't want to believe it.

But what about you?

Would you be okay without him? Would the others? Phil knows you have never been the most.. well put together. But after you two got out of that wretched regimen, when you two banded together and created this little pretend family, things had been better.

Phil had been able to get you to open up more. To get you to behave more as yourself, and not like the shell of a man who he’d met when you two were still green.

You talked to him more. Got a bit better at talking with your fellow Shadows. Let him touch without flinching first, let him get to know the person beneath the aloof exterior.

Even though he had given nothing in return.

Would you make it out if this? And if you did, would you forgive him?

When you dug up those pieces of metal from the wreckage, those little markers of his identity, no doubt having melted to be nearly incomprehensible, would you bury them with his singed corpse? Or would you keep them safe? Tucked into a pocket of your vest, above your heart?

Would you tell his grave the stories of your future when the ashes settled? Would you bring flowers, or would you spat over the very earth he rested beneath?

Would you leave the stone unmarked, or with those few precious words you two had agreed upon all those years ago?

When he was gone, would you mourn? Would you miss the warmth of him above and beside yourself? Those whispered confessions spoken under that blanket, amidst the cover of night, would you forget them?

Would you forget him too?

“And he told you this?”

Venn goes silent then. One thing about her; though her moral compass was just as fucked as the rest of theirs, though her hands were bathed in the same amount of blood, Venn was a pretty shit liar.

“He doesn't even know you're in here, does he?”

More silence.

“Oh, you poor thing. First lying and now going against your Lieutenant's direct orders? What has become of you, V?”

“I don't need him to say it to know it's true!” Venn huffs, sending Phil a scathing glare.

“So you're making assumptions now? Dearest, Venn, you know what they say about people who assume..”

“The same way you assume he'll want to see you?”

Phil opens his mouth to protest, say something, but he draws blanks. What if she's right? What if you really didn't want to see him? Hell, did he even cross your mind anymore? Did you even remember you'd put him here?

Phil clamps his mouth shut and there's an audible clack of his teeth snapping together.

He hasn't seen you since that fateful day when, like the absolute dumbass he is, he had sent you storming out. Taunting and prodding, as Phil usually did, but you truly had been acting differently that day.

Or maybe it wasn't just that day. Maybe you had really changed, and Phil didn't know that man beneath the shell anymore.

He should've seen it more clearly when you walked in dressed head to toe, even that pretty face of yours masked. You didn't like shit like that. Always used to complain to Phil how much you hated them, being so covered up, made you feel claustrophobic or whatever.

But these days you wear it like a second skin.

“I deserve to see him.”

You had always been so calm, and he would often compare you to the soothing waves of the ocean washing over the cool sand of a beach after midnight.

But even calm waters can turn deadly in the blink of an eye.

“Deserve? You think, after what you did, you deserve anything?” Venn isn't masked, so the disbelieving look she gives him is quite obvious. Paired with a humorless, and honestly a little off-putting, laugh. “You don't deserve shit, Graves. And you definitely don't have the right to seeing him, not when-”

She cuts herself off then, and, if Phil had been thinking clearly, he would've asked for clarification. For her to continue because maybe, maybe he wasn't the only one privy to see that you weren't the same man you used to be.

But he doesn't look deeper, doesn't dip below the surface of that pretty ocean blue.

He never does.

“You can't keep him from me forever-”

“I'm not keeping anything! He hasn't even come down this way all week-”

“But he has come down here-?”

“Yeah- but not for you-”

“Just get his ass over here, V-”

“No! Why are you so stubborn? He doesn't want you!”

Ouch. But he's heard worse. From you—to be completely fair, Phil had usually said his own scathing handful of words beforehand. “You don't know that!”

“I understand you two started this shit together, so you assume you've got some weird, cryptic claim over him-”

“-that's not what this is about-”

“But he is his own person, Phillip! You two may have been friends before, but things have changed. You don't own him-”

“It's not like that-!”

“Oh, really? It's not like that?” She's up close and personal now, face to face, mere centimeters away. Huh, Phil never noticed the few inches she had on him. “How is it not? All you talk about is how you deserve to see him-”

“I do!”

“That's not a good enough reason! You can't just say “I do” and expect me to drag him down here. He's a very busy man!”

“You don't understand, V-”

“Then tell me! Help me understand what could possibly earn you the right to deserve seeing the man!”

“Because I fucking love him!” He shouts. “and I deserve to see my fucking boyfriend, for Christ's sake!”

Phil doesn't realize the words that had accidentally tumbled out of his mouth until Venn is pulling back, brown eyes widened in shock.

Oh. Oh shit. Ohhhhh shit.

You were going to kill him.

Seriously this time. Phil was a dead man.

“You-” she stutters. “Him- what. I- huh??”

“Shit- V-” Phil rushes closer, hands fidgety and hovering awkwardly around Venn as if wanting to grasp hold of her shoulders. He backs off and opts to pace the same nine foot strip of carpet instead, hands fisting into his hair. Tugging a bit here and there until he manages to settle enough to cross his arms instead.

Still pacing, pulse jumping.

“You can't tell him I let it slip, alright?”

One dark eyebrow raised, she asks, “Why not?” and rightfully so. Phil probably looked like he was losing his damn mind right now.

“Because-” because he had never said it before. Had never had the courage to admit it. To name what he had with you. What he wanted with you.

Because despite that so clearly being what you wanted from him, written so openly on your face when you looked at him. The most obvious you ever had been, about anything—and it was him who caused that.

Still, he had never put a label to it.

“Because he doesn't need to know.”

“Bullshit.” Venn scoffs, curiosity now flipped back to protective anger.

“It's not that big of a deal-”

“If it weren't, you wouldn't be acting like this. Would you?”

Ah. She had him there.

“Listen, Venn,” he says, voice low, tired. “You don't know Phantom like I do. This won't blow over well if you tell him.”

“I think I know him plenty well...” She says, more so like that of a stubborn child.

“If I get him-” Venn starts, hesitating. For a moment Phil thinks she's going to give him some big speech about not doing anything, blah blah blah, or she'll send him to an early grave or whatever. She exhales deeply through her nose, shutting her eyes briefly before looking at Phil again.

He doesn't think he's ever seen her look so damn exhausted. Suddenly seeming much more like the grown woman she is, and not the rambunctious teen they usually tease her for behaving like—all in good fun, of course.

“Just..” she trails again, as if weighing her options on whether to tell him or not. “Be.. gentle.. with him. He's not–not the man you used to know. He's.. changed.”

He had figured that much, but Phil surprises even himself when he utters an, almost soft, “okay.”

Venn gives him the barest hint of a smile before dropping the expression entirely, a far away look in those dark brown hues.

After a moment of silence, she turns to walk away. Appearing unable to even gather the energy to speak a goodbye, the door shutting inaudibly behind her; Phil can't even blame her for that one. Seems he wasn't the only one to pick up on your odd behavior, and he had only spoken to you once since his return.

He wonders what you had been all this time with no one to report to, under zero supervision—then he considers that he may not want the answer.

__

Masterpost | One | Two | Three | Next

__

@cptg00s3 @ruthgrimxiao @20nerd04-blog @gloma08 @mikahrh @in-down @hauntedapplefarm @mello-life69 @unkn0wnd3ad @tayaisback @starre-eyes @gabbvr-dog @suhmie @lazyrel @spiritsofthedead @yeonpm @its-ares @k1ssesofdeath @ravagerdogz @embry-garrick

If you want to be added to the tag list, or removed, let me know in the comments!

[sethdomain]

my hot take would be that i fear we’re past the whole “do not ship my character thing” from streamers, sorry. these characters are not these streamers at this point, like at a time they were but everyone is now an adult who have their own lives. they are the people’s characters now. anyways

- polycule benchtrio someone pleaseee see my vision. romantic, queer platonic, super close friends, i don’t care. they moved away from the smp, they all just live together and share responsibilities and help each other live with the trauma they went through. they raise micheal together and tommy is a weird uncle/dad to him.

- emerald duo, c!techno: “this is my husband(?) phil, and his wife kristin.” i don’t think they’d have labels but everyone is like “two old men living out in the woods together. i know what you are.”

- cdream x cpunz but it’s the worst yaoi in the whole world. cpunz begging for this man’s attention and all he fucking thinks about is some weird blonde kid.

- i never understood puffychu i’m sorry guys. if someone would explain the appeal i would deeply appreciate it cause i really want more wlw in this server. speaking of c!niki i love her she’s my favorite aromantic lesbian!!

real asf, all dsmp character is now public domain and you can now do whatever!!

i agree with benchtrio marrying, they actually do that in dsmp season 2. ctommy is that homophobic grandpa this is real and he throws michael into a river once

-old man yaoi.

-u guys r making me ship cdrunz

-sorry dude its the rule all yuri is peak and you cannot change the laws #nature

[taylorhawkins]

14 Essential-Listening Taylor Hawkins Tunes

… that aren’t “Cold Day in the Sun”!

1. Pitiful (Taylor Hawkins & the Coattail Riders)

One of his most emotionally raw tracks. I love the strange chords he used on the acoustic guitar to convey the somber depiction of guilt and shame associated with drug addiction described in the lyrics. This is a really painful song to listen to, but it’s beautiful.

2. The Path We’re On (Nighttime Boogie Association)

Matt Cameron and Taylor share vocal duties on this tune (Taylor sings the verses, Matt sings the choruses). Their voices together are pure heaven! Also features Melvins’ Buzz Osbourne snd Steven McDonald on guitar & bass. This group unfortunately only put out 2 songs during the pandemic, but they’re a magical 2.

3. I Could Be Somebody Else (NHC)

Psychedelic in every aspect of that word, this one is best experienced cranked with headphones. Trippy as hell. Dave Navarro was right when he said Taylor is a mind-blowing lyricist and singer. Another emotionally raw tune, when he said one of NHC’s songs makes him feel naked, I think he was referring to this one.

4. Running In Place (Taylor Hawkins & the Coattail Riders)

This song takes you on a journey. It eases you in, then crescendos into classic prog-influenced chaos before it turns to a stream of pretty guitar work and layered vocals as it drops you back off. Taylor said this one was something he wrote talking to himself, trying to bring himself back down to earth and not go crazy. “The Teacher” by Foo Fighters almost certainly took inspiration from this song - the breakdown is nearly identical, and the “…say goodbye” outro is very similar.

5. Too Much for My Own Good (Phil X & the Drills)

This song by Phil X features Taylor on the drums. This is such a fun rock & roll tune that will definitely be stuck in your head for days but you won’t be mad about it. Every person I’ve ever played this to has loved it!! PS- you’ve definitely heard Phil X before, his discography as a studio musician is wild.

6. You Drive Me Insane (Taylor Hawkins & the Coattails Riders)

I love the trippy riff and the vocals in this song, it’s a California rock & roll vibe and it’s one of my top favorites of his. One of his sexier tunes he said was written about Mrs. Alison Hawkins.

7. Southern Belles

No group credited as he played every instrument and sang this one! (I think the bass is either Chris Chaney or Nate Mendel, but I couldn’t find out for sure). This is a heavy-hitting, super catchy one about his southern family roots. Really under-appreciated track from the same EP that gave us “Range Rover Bitch”.

8. Never Enough (Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders)

Taylor’s vocal range doesn’t get talked about enough… The cathartic way he belts his heart out at the end of this song gets me every single time. His voice was so beautiful. Another of that emotionally raw side of his music.

9. It’s Ok Now (Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders)

Another earworm, this one’s rhythm is bound to make you move. His voice is pure rock and roll. I think you can really hear how much his songwriting impacted the Foo Fighters’ music on this album, even though many people think Dave told everyone what to play…when you really listen, that doesn’t seem to be the case. This song feels like summer sunshine to me.

10. Guess I’ll Go Away (Edgar Winter)

Taylor on vocals for “Brother Johnny”, a tribute to Johnny Winter album, this was one of the last things he did musically. He SLAYED that shit. He sounds so good. Rock and fucking roll.

11. Louise (Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders)

I have no idea how he played that drumbeat and sang this song at the same time. Mind boggling. This song is so unique and so catchy, I don’t get why it wasn’t a hit. The rhythm section is my favorite part of the whole thing, Taylor and Chris Chaney locked in together SO well. It’s no wonder they played together from the Alanis days all the way up to him putting the ‘C’ in NHC.

12. Fearless (NHC)

This is a Pink Floyd cover…But it’s an amazing one! It’s groovy and trippy and they’re so locked in together, they were made to play music with each other. NHC unfortunately has a very small discography, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have selected a cover…but maybe I would’ve anyway, this one is just so good!

13. You’re No Good at Life No More (Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders)

Taylor and Dave Grohl split the vocals on this one and it’s such a wild ride. You can really hear his Queen influence throughout this album… so much so that he manifested Roger Taylor’s appearance on the last track! D&T’s voices together are magic as you hear on “Rope” by Foo Fighters and their cover of “Come Together”, I always wish they sang together more often.

14. Perfect Day

Only a minute long, this beautiful song is just Taylor and his guitar. A sweet reminder he wrote for Mrs. Hawkins that his love is always with her no matter where he goes. I’m sure she treasures this one. There’s so much love in it.