#chalk bluff

[mnm-eclipse]

A couple full-time residents of the campground in Uvalde.

[moonlinos]

Call my bluff, call you ‘babe’

♡ Pairing: Lee Minho × fem!reader

♡ Genre: Childhood friends to lovers, fluff

♡ CW: Implied smut, alcohol consumption. Twenty solid seconds of angst, but it doesn’t even really count. It’s just tooth-rotting fluff.

♡ Word count: 5.5k

♡ Synopsis: Minho has been your best friend since you two could barely form coherent sentences. He was there when your last baby tooth fell, he was there when you failed your high school exams, and he was there as you walked down the aisle.

♡ A/N: This was going to be just word-vomit fluff to make me cry, but I couldn’t control myself and before I knew it there were… so many words.

You were four years old when you met Minho. It was the first day of kindergarten, and you were assigned seats together. The entire day was spent with you chatting to every kid you could reach from your seat while Minho quietly sat painting and doodling by your side. You vaguely remember thinking he was odd and whining to your mom about how your seatmate was boring, and that was why he was the only kid in class you didn’t talk to. She smiled and told you maybe you should make an effort to talk to him. That same day, you racked your little brain for a reason why your seatmate might be so quiet and promptly decided that he was too shy to start a conversation himself. You then asked your mom if the fact that you didn’t talk to him might have made him sad, to which she hesitated, and that was enough to have your bottom lip wobbling.

You remember tears streaming down your cheeks as you frantically sobbed, inconsolable at the fact that your seatmate was sad and that it was partially because of you.

The next day, you asked if Minho would like to use your special glitter pens — you even told him you wouldn’t mind if he used your favorite colors. That was really all that was needed to plant the bud of friendship between you two.

Ever since that day, you two slowly became inseparable.

You attended the same elementary school after begging your parents, writing a very concise list of reasons why you two could not possibly be separated. Reasons such as the fact that Minho still didn’t know how to tie his shoelaces, so it would be dangerous for him to be alone in a new school. Or the fact that you were always losing your gloves, and Minho always carried an extra pair in his backpack just for you, so you would surely catch a cold if you didn’t have him beside you during winter.

All extremely valid reasons.

Minho began walking you home from school when you were both nine years old. He was often left alone due to his parents’ work schedules, which made him become the most street-smart kid in your class. You had to beg your mom for a week, but she ultimately caved in.

Your favorite thing to do on your way home was to stop randomly and doodle on the sidewalk with chalk, with Minho joining you in no time. You even had your favorite little sketching spot — right in front of a nice old lady’s flower shop, where you two would spend far too much time decorating her entrance pavement with flowers, rainbows, and smiley faces. She would later introduce herself to you, Ms. Kim, and would always thank you both with a flower of your choice. You always picked tulips, and Minho always picked daisies.

On one hazy winter day, you and Minho were eager to adorn the flower shop’s entrance with a new set of doodles since the ones you had done just yesterday got covered in snow. As you two did your best to dig through the piled-up snow with your gloved hands, you suddenly felt something hard slide down your throat. Your hands stilled, and you turned to look at Minho with wide eyes.

“What happened?” He asked. “Did you lose your glove in the snow this time?”

You shook your head frantically, careful not to swallow. “Teeth,” you simply said.

Minho looked at you like you were crazy, squinting his eyes as he studied your face. “What?”

You felt tears well up, and he immediately abandoned his mission of shuffling through the snow before pulling you into a big hug.

“Why are you crying? Don’t cry. I hate when you cry, I feel weird when you cry,” He said, but no tears left his worried eyes. Minho never cried, that was something you had learned a while back. 

You, however, cried until Ms. Kim noticed you two from the window, cooing as she approached you two with a gentle smile. You tried your best to explain your predicament. Minho sat with you behind the wooden counter, holding your hand in his, the smell of flowers making everything feel less catastrophic than it did ten minutes earlier.

Ms. Kim explained that you had no reason to cry, as it was normal for kids to swallow their baby teeth. And you remember harshly shaking your head and explaining with a trembling voice that you hadn’t cried because of that. You had cried because that was your last baby tooth, which meant you were officially a grown-up. You didn’t want to be a grown-up. Minho wasn’t a grown-up yet, with his last baby tooth still holding on proudly in his gums. You didn’t want to be a grown-up all alone; it would be terrible and sad.

That afternoon, you two went home together in silence, your respective flowers clutched in your hands. Minho was never good with words. Sadness engulfed him because he couldn’t do enough to make his best friend smile again. What was the point of a best friend if they didn’t make you laugh when you were crying?

Minho walked into school the next day with a proud smile on his face before placing his last baby tooth on your desk. You eyed it curiously, brows furrowed.

“There, I took it off last night,” He simply said. “Now we’re gonna be grown-ups together.”

At eleven years old, your daily after-school video game appointments began.

You had just cut your hair short; a bob you thought looked cute on your favorite singer turned out to be cataclysmically unflattering on you. And, at eleven years old, it was earth-shattering and definitely the end of your life (despite what your mother told you).

You spent every second out in public with your hair hidden by a beanie, hoping it would distract people from your disastrous haircut.

Except it had the opposite effect.

One particular day at school, a boy came up to you simply to inform you that your head looked like a mushroom before running away, laughing with his friends. They were foolish words spoken by a foolish boy, but you were eleven. Once again, earth-shattering and the end of your life.

You avoided everyone the entire day — including Minho, whom you always talked to no matter your mood. You knew you wouldn’t be able to avoid him for much longer, seeing as he walked you home every day, so you simply prayed he wouldn’t notice your puffy eyes or that he at least hadn’t heard any of the other kids making unfunny jokes about your haircut.

After school, Minho sighed in feigned annoyance when you told him you had lost your gloves again before retrieving a pair from his backpack. Like a habit, you asked if he wanted to hang out at your house, although the answer was always unchanging.

“My mom’s baking a cake,” you told him. “We can play video games and then eat it together.”

Minho hummed in agreement, adjusting his backpack before grabbing your hand as you two began your daily walk to your house. It was something you always did, never walking anywhere without your hands clasped together. These past few months, however, this once ordinary gesture had begun making your heart beat faster. You didn’t understand why, and you would rather not think about it because every time you did, the words from your other friends would echo inside your head. Their stories about how they felt their hearts racing when their crush had hugged them or even looked their way, making you question if maybe…

But it couldn’t be. Minho was your best friend. How could he be your crush?

It was another one of those afternoons, your mom busily making you two sandwiches as you and Minho played New Super Mario Bros on your Wii under the blanket fort you always meticulously built. Minho had been acting weird all day — even weirder than you, who had to endure all the asinine jokes and hurtful words from your peers. As you completed the last level for the umpteenth time, saving Princess Peach, Minho all but threw his controller to the side. You turned to shoot him a questioning look, which went ignored as he rummaged through his backpack.

He retrieved a crumpled-up piece of paper, which he promptly gave to you.

You cocked your head, awaiting some sort of explanation, but Minho simply picked up his controller once more and hit play on the game.

Unfolding the paper, words greeted you in Minho’s messy handwriting.

YOUR HAIR LOOKS CUTE. STOP HIDING IT.

Your lips parted slightly, but before you could say anything to him, Minho reached out and snatched your beanie from your head. Your short hair and bangs cascaded onto your face, partially obscuring your view. But you could still make out his side profile, where a faint smile appeared on his lips.

After that, you two were silent for the rest of the day, eventually dozing off under the tent lulled by the sound of your mother’s hand mixer and Mario’s theme song. The sun eventually set outside the window, and you woke up to two plates of your mother’s cake waiting for you on the coffee table.

From that point on, your beanie was left forgotten inside your drawer.

You were fifteen when you realized that perhaps your feelings for Minho weren’t all that platonic after all.

It all started with a letter on Minho’s desk on a rainy Friday. October 25th, Minho’s birthday.

Minho’s quiet nature hadn’t changed one bit since you first sat beside him at four years old. He would rather die than start a conversation, rarely went out to the movies with your friend group and, most importantly, hated being the center of attention. That was why he told no one about his birthday since you two began high school this year. It was the subject of much debate among your little group of friends, with some bribing Minho with his favorite snacks or promising to do his assignments until college just for some sort of clue; a day, month, even the day of the week he was born.

But Minho never budged.

So, seeing a letter on his desk on the day of his birthday was odd, to say the least.

You arrived back to the classroom late after chatting to your friend from another class in the hallway, catching as Minho sat down with a puzzled look on his face and an open letter in his hands.

“What’s up?” You asked, sitting on the desk in front of him.

He looked up, thick glasses crooked from a dodgeball incident earlier that week. “Yumi found out it’s my birthday today,” He informed you, a bit too nonchalantly. “She organized a birthday party at her house tomorrow with our friends.”

You immediately took the letter, reading it and blanching at the words written in the girl’s pretty handwriting. She had found out Minho’s birthday by snooping around Facebook until she found his mother, who had a plethora of pictures of Minho on his previous birthdays. Not only that, the letter ended with a paragraph where she confessed her feelings to him — with all the clichés and dramatics only an adolescent crush could provide.

You still remember your first thoughts upon learning that information: Oh, Yumi. Of course a girl like her would do something like this.

You cringe at your words now, but at fifteen, you deemed no girl worthy of your best friend. Especially ‘girls like Yumi,’ who in your eyes all but threw herself at him. At the time, you thought you were looking out for the boy who was practically your brother. Now, you understand you were simply an insecure fifteen-year-old who allowed ugly, misogynistic thoughts to brew inside your mind out of fear of losing Minho. For your immature brain, every girl interested in Minho was an enemy because they could easily take him away from you.

And Minho had never reciprocated any girl’s feelings, always politely turning down the few confessions he had gotten during middle school. You were ready to berate Yumi, your brows immediately furrowing as your face contorted, but Minho beat you to it, speaking before you could utter a word.

“I know I should be mad, but isn’t it a little… cute?”

You couldn’t help but scoff, the sound escaping your lips like a burst of disbelief. You also couldn’t help how your hands began to tremble as your heart shot up to your throat.

“Cute?” You asked with the strongest voice you could muster. “You think her invading your privacy is cute?”

And Minho simply shrugged, tapping his fingers on his desk. “A little bit. I know you don’t really like her, but she’s part of our friend group,” He said, taking the letter from your shaky hands. “Plus, she’s always been nice to me, and she is cute.”

That was all you could physically bear to hear, excusing yourself from the conversation with the lie that your friend had called you from the classroom window before sprinting out into the hallway. As you continued walking, your palms grew clammy and your heart weighed heavily in your chest.

You felt tears well up in your eyes once you reached the stairs. Sitting on the steps, you cried into the cardigan of your ugly school uniform. You didn’t care that you would be scolded for skipping class; all you cared about was that your best friend was going to be taken from you.

After school, as you and Minho were about to exit the school gates — your hands tightly clasped together as they always were — Yumi appeared carrying a cake, the rest of your friends behind her as they all sang happy birthday. 

Minho blew out the candles and made a wish. Everyone cheered as his best friend, Chan, shoved his face into the cake. Minho yelled at him, grumbling with glasses covered in white frosting, but ultimately laughing along. Yumi was quick to clean his face with a napkin, earning her a smile from Minho before he released your hand to gently squeeze her rosy cheeks.

You remained quiet, forcing out a smile and looking up at the sky every now and then so your tears wouldn’t fall.

All because Minho had let go of your hand.

Minho’s fifteenth birthday — that was the day you learned you could fool everyone else, but never yourself.

Your seventeenth summer was a drag.

Minho had just been broken up with a couple of months before, Yumi crying as she explained her parents wanted her to focus on her studies, and having a boyfriend was simply a distraction she couldn’t afford if she wanted to be a doctor someday. An unwilling participant in the entire situation, you sat awkwardly at the bus stop as she spoke.

You were ready to witness Minho cry for the first time in your life, maybe yell about how unfair her parents were being, but he simply pressed a kiss to her forehead just as your bus arrived.

Not much had changed when he began dating Yumi, with you learning that suppressing how you truly felt was worryingly easy. You still hung out with them, battling through their cuddles and kisses like a soldier on the front lines of a war. Never unscathed, but always strong. Nobody needed to know about how you cried into your mother’s arms almost every night before falling asleep.

The only change had been you and Minho’s daily gaming appointments. You two had since outgrown your video game phase, both now interested in diverging things that made it impossible for you to enjoy them together. You discovered your love for flowers went beyond doodling on the sidewalk in front of a flower shop, but Minho complained that growing flowers was too time-consuming, and he loved dancing, which you were far too uncoordinated and lazy to even try doing.

And so, you two settled for simply hanging out together at your house. Your room had easy access to the roof, which you two took full advantage of, setting up a permanent blanket fort where you would snuggle up with pillows and talk for hours after school.

That summer was no different, with Minho stretched out across the old mattress, watching the light pink sky slowly fade away as night set in while you two busied yourselves talking.

That was the day you finally gathered the courage to ask Minho about his breakup, desperate to understand why he had appeared so unfazed. After the one-year milestone of their relationship in February, you had begun to make peace with the fact that she would probably be around for a while.

Minho shrugged at your question, hands resting on his stomach while he gnawed on his bottom lip. He explained he was sure that he liked her, but it turned out he valued her as a friend much more than as a girlfriend.

You couldn’t help but scoff at the answer. You knew Minho better than you knew yourself at times, which was why you knew he was lying through his teeth.

“Why did you stay so long with her, then?” You questioned, the resentful lilt in your voice a bit too obvious. You cleared your throat before adding, “I mean, you surely didn’t act as just friends.”

“I guess I felt lonely before,” He explained. “I was selfish for staying with her, but I enjoyed having someone. Was especially nice after…” Minho trailed off, dismissively shaking his head, and you remember being close to throwing him off that roof as he kept being so damn enigmatic.

“After what?” You prodded, “Minho, I’m your best friend. What’s the point of us talking if you’re not gonna tell me the truth?”

He turned his head to look up at you, the darkening sky making his eyes gleam as if they held an entire galaxy of stars. You felt that familiar nervousness return.

“It was nice to not be so alone after so many years of pining after someone.”

You cocked your head to the side, and Minho had the gall to chuckle at your puzzled expression. You shook your head, mumbling to yourself that your conversation was pointless if he wouldn’t tell you the whole truth.

Lying next to him on the mattress with a sigh, you could feel the weight of Minho’s gaze on you. You couldn’t bring yourself to move.

You remember the moon was already high in the sky by the time one of you finally moved — Minho, who slowly inched his hand closer to yours before clasping it tightly in his. Despite your racing heart, you thought nothing of it. He was now single, so it wouldn’t be ludicrous to assume a habit you two had cultivated for many years would naturally return.

However, after some beats from your erratically racing heart, Minho’s fingers intertwined with yours. You had never done that before, always holding hands in a way that all but screamed platonic.

That night, with his thumb caressing your skin and his hand squeezing yours, Minho finally spoke the truth after so long.

“It’s you,” He said, tone nonchalant but voice audibly shaky. “Think I’ve been pining after you since I was nine and ripped my tooth out ‘cause I thought that’d make you stop being sad.”

You remember gasping quietly and his hand tightening around yours as the clock ticked and your silence remained. You remember finally mustering up the courage to turn to look at him and being met by an expression you had rarely seen on Minho’s face in the thirteen years you had known him — he was scared, wide eyes dancing around your face as if he looked for an answer in your features, his chapped lips parted slightly as if he was ready to backtrack the moment he saw any hint of doubt in your eyes.

You remember smiling at him and how his expression shifted into pure confusion. All it took was for him to finally have the nerve to hold your hand in the way he’d always wanted to, and for you to use his courage as a catalyst for your own. You remember how you closed the distance between you two and pressed your lips to his. You remember it feeling weird because you were kissing Minho, your best friend.

But you also remember it feeling right because you were kissing Minho, your best friend.

Your transition from being best friends to being in a relationship was easier than you had ever thought it would be — it was also slower than you could have ever imagined.

Minho never asked you out or confessed his feelings beyond what was said on the roof, and neither did you. It was a shared knowledge between you, a silent agreement that didn’t need words — at least for now. The little gestures and subtle changes left no doubt in your minds that you two were, in fact, no longer just friends — like how you began to always intertwine your fingers while holding hands, or how Minho would pull you onto his lap when you hung out with your friends, or how you would rest your head on his shoulder as he played with your hair during lunch break.

Your friends certainly had questions, the confusion written all over their faces easy to read like a book, but you both knew they also understood your relationship without you needing to make a big deal out of it.

You picked him up from dance class every weekend, sometimes arriving earlier just to catch a glimpse of him through the glass door, as Minho insisted he was too embarrassed to dance in front of you.

One day, thoroughly unprompted, he reached into his backpack as you two exited his dance academy and pulled out a yellow tulip. You had furrowed your brows at the sudden gesture, and Minho nonchalantly told you that planting your favorite flower was surprisingly easy. Since becoming teenagers, you had stopped going to Ms. Kim’s flower shop, and you had long forgotten about how you two used to have your own respective flowers back in the day.

It seemed Minho hadn’t forgotten.

That was one thing you had come to know about him only after you began dating. Although he seemed cold and distant on the outside — rarely communicating his feelings through words — Minho secretly kept a mental note of every little detail about the people he cared about, and he unfailingly found a way to communicate his feelings through actions. Such as promptly handing you a brand-new flower he had picked before you even had the chance to mourn your tulip as it began to wilt.

You, on the other hand, had always been the type of person to communicate through words; spoken, written, or read, which is how you began saving your best daisies from the small garden you created in your backyard and practicing your flower arrangement skills exclusively by making pretty bouquets you could gift to Minho (always with little notes hidden among the flowers).

Your once explicitly platonic roof dates also left no room for doubt, as making out under your usual tent became a hard-to-break habit. In fact, that was how your family found out about your relationship. You were eighteen, with graduation just around the corner, when your mother caught Minho kissing you as tears welled up in your eyes at the thought of having to be apart from him during college (although you both knew that would never be the case, as you always moved mountains simply to stay together).

Everything was slow-paced, and neither of you had any desire to rush anything. Once, Minho told you he had waited eight years to finally kiss you, and somehow, that anticipation was what had made it all the more special.

And so, your first proper date only happened six months after your first kiss, and your first fight only happened a year and a half into your relationship. Not to mention your first I love you, which had been a slip-up that happened only in your first year of college after a drunken night with Chan and Minho. Your head on his lap, your tulip nestled among his daisies in a pretty vase on the coffee table as Chan hummed along to some song that came from his phone. You felt as if your entire being was filled with pure gratitude at that moment, and the liquid courage that flowed through your veins only helped you mutter out how much you loved Minho.

He looked down at you, hands cupping your cheeks with a silly smile adorning his face, and simply answered, “Well, I love you more.”

Your carefree attitude toward your relationship was almost a contrast to the one you had with your friendship. You and Minho had met so young that you could never truly pinpoint when you had become such close friends. You always wondered if that was what led you two to be so easygoing with what most people rush into. Things happened when they were supposed to happen.

You remember one of Minho’s new friends, Changbin, asking something about your sex life at some party during freshman year, and you two nonchalantly answering that you didn’t really have one. Your friends’ shock was understandable, but you and Minho only laughed.

Things happened when they were supposed to happen.

It was Minho’s 21st birthday, when your flowers were no longer in bloom, but your love remained blossoming like it was mid-spring. He had, as always, vetoed any and every plan of a celebration suggested by your friends. He opted to stay in with you, cuddling under a blanket fort like you had been doing for so many years. Chan graciously offered to sleep at a friend’s dorm, leaving your small shared apartment just for you and Minho.

He hadn’t planned for anything to happen, and neither had you. You were simply lying together, watching the flickering of the candles you had set up around the coffee table, recounting the innumerable memories you shared when you suddenly felt the earnest, all-consuming need to have Minho as close as possible.

It was clumsy, both of you inexperienced and nervous. Your teeth crashed together and your hands gripped each other tightly, the realization of the intensity of your yearning becoming undeniable. At some point, the entire tent collapsed on top of you, and laughter filled the room for a brief moment before being replaced by your sighs and whispered moans.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was you and Minho.

Graduation day was a blur in your mind.

It had all started with Minho and Chan drunk at eleven a.m., offering you the awful-tasting omelet they had cooked in your cramped kitchen. They then went on to zone out for most of the ceremony after stumbling out of your apartment.

You approached Minho after he was done taking pictures and getting scolded by his family for being drunk on his graduation day, his mother giving you an apologetic look as you whisked him away.

“You’re stressed,” you pointed out.

“Yeah.”

“Me too,” you replied with a sigh, resting against a large tree far enough away from the hustle and bustle of recently graduated students and crying families. “So is Chan. Don’t think I’ve seen him this drunk since Jisung’s birthday party last year.”

Minho chuckled, shifting on his feet and toying with the fabric of his gown. You furrowed your brows; he only ever got fidgety when hiding something. You learned that for the first time when you were thirteen and he had to wait until your birthday to tell you he’d gotten you two tickets to see your favorite band, and again when he had to keep Chan’s then-girlfriend’s plans of asking him to move in together a secret.

“You’re not nervous ‘cause of graduation, are you?”

You remember the way he stilled almost immediately.

“We always tell each other the truth, right?” He asked.

You remember the way your whole world spun as he pulled out a small box from his pocket and how everything seemed to fade into a white mist that surrounded Minho like a spotlight as he proposed to you.

Your wedding was small — both because that was how you had wanted it to be and because of your lack of money for a proper party.

After graduating, Minho became a dance teacher at the academy he attended as a teen, teaching little kids who he said always reminded him of you two. You used the money your parents had saved for you to travel after college to buy the old flower shop that held so many memories from your childhood. Neither of you used your degrees, and neither of you made a lot of money, but you were overflowing with an infatuation for life and a love for each other so great that it made up for any silly inconvenience that dared to come up.

The ceremony was held at a local church — although neither of you was particularly religious, that was the cheapest place available. You opted to walk down the aisle together; hands clasped the way you used to do for many years while walking home from school. Minho held onto a daisy bouquet you made, while you held the single tulip he had picked out for you that day.

“I’m not good with words,” was how Minho began his vows, the glow of the fairy lights and candles adorning the church rendering his attempt at hiding his tears futile. That was the first time you had ever seen him cry in the twenty-one years you’d known him. “But I think that never mattered with you. You know me better than I know myself. Most times, I don’t even have to say a word, and you’ll still understand me. It’s been this way since we were four, and you understood why I was so quiet, and you still chose to be my friend. Thank you for understanding me, and thank you for allowing me to love you. Loving you is what I do best and look how lucky I am; I’ve been able to do it for my whole life.” He then shot you a grin, the back of his hand wiping away your tears. He ended his speech with a line that was so very Minho, thought up with sincerity but spoken primarily to make you smile. “You’ve always felt like home, and I can’t wait to feel that way until we’re both food for the worms to eat.”

You had never cried so much as you did on the day of your wedding — which was remarkable, seeing as you’d been a crier your whole life. You remember the irony of it all; Minho, who had never been good with words, telling you about his love with words that came from his heart and spilled from his lips without any rehearsal, while you were rendered speechless and too emotional to even attempt to form a coherent sentence.

Your wedding vow was a simple, choked-up, “Thank you for being my best friend, Minho.”

Minho carried you home from the church, with your cheeks flushing pink and his smile beaming as your friends made rice cascade around the two of you like snow. It turned out the boy who hated attention didn’t mind the spotlight so long as it meant showing off his love for you.

Your honeymoon was spent in your small house above your flower shop — which you named Daisy’s Tulips — where you cuddled under a blanket fort the entire day, only leaving the comfort of the pillows and fluffy covers well after midnight to adorn the sidewalk in front of your house in a brand new chalk drawing.

“Can you imagine if we never said anything?” Minho suddenly wondered aloud, his chuckle echoing through the quiet street. “We were both pretty good at hiding our feelings for so long.”

And you simply shook your head, painting a daisy with white chalk on the sidewalk. “Minho, I know you. You wouldn’t have let me keep pretending after finding out I liked you too.”

“Who says I would have found out?”

“You said it yourself,” you explained, “I know you better than you know yourself, and that’s reciprocal. You would’ve found out ‘cause I can never hide anything from you.”

And Minho smiled, taking your hand in his just as you were done with your drawing. Your gaze shifted toward him, and you admired the man he had become. From the shy little boy who sat beside you to the quiet teenager with thick glasses to the man he had grown into; you loved every version of Minho you had the privilege to meet throughout your life, and you were certain you would love every new version of him you came to know in the future as well.

“Of course you can’t,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I’m your best friend, aren’t I?” He asked with a grin, and you nodded. He then added, “Thank you for being my best friend.”

♡ taglist: @bloom-ings, @linocz, @farahia, @mirbokk, @jisunglyricist

[a-kaash-me-outside]

a bit dirty - ch1

in which you hook up with osamu in a club bathroom and that's just the beginning. ch1 | next [masterlist]

// maybe a bad idea ~ ᴏsᴀᴍᴜ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ~ 6683 ᴡᴏʀᴅs

a look into this chapter: 18+ minors dni nsfw, cute flirting before, drinking but not drunk sex, unprotected sex (NO PREGNANCY TROPE I PROMISE I SWEAR FOREVER), thigh fucking, slight missed connection trope, names names names pet names a million pet names, minimal foreplay (unless you count flirting as foreplay), afab she/her pronouns

join my taglist here!! ~~ ♡ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢs ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴs ᴍᴇᴀɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ♡

you are completely aware that you should not be out right now.

but you are.

and you could chalk that up to your horribly persuasive friends and their constant nagging and pleading for you to tag along with them tonight or your distaste for saying no to people and disappointing them or even a mild fear of missing the played out events of a really great night in your head.

the truth is, it doesn't matter the reason that you’re out despite how kinda stupid it is. the fact is, you know that it’s a bad idea to be entering a club at 12am when the alarm in your pocket is set to 6am, but you’re doing it anyway. sure, you were lightly bullied and, sure, you keep offering deprecating and pity-me sentences about how you really shouldn’t be out, but you’re still there. you’re still out. 

you’re still hovering over a high-top table in the corner of the club a few steps from the bar screaming over loud music, “i told you guys that i didn’t really want to drink tonight.” yet, a drink is, indeed, thrusted into your hand. the glass bottle is cool against your palm, fingers smudging the condensation on the label as you hold it tight.

“if you don’t want it, i’ll drink it,” your friend offers, red jacket bunched around his wrist as he extends his hand towards you, palm shaped so the bottle would fit perfectly against it. you shake your head, bringing it to your lips, taking a sip, and then another, and then another. 

“this is such a bad idea, kuroo,” you drone, exhaling as you take another sip.

“yn,” kuroo says abruptly, one hand placed on your shoulder, fingers squeezing to call you to look at him, “we know.”

“do you want to go home?” akaashi asks, calling your bluff or genuinely concerned, you’re not completely sure. he turns to another member of your friend group for confirmation and a bit of support, “bo, should we just take her home?”

you stick your hand out in between them as if this would stop the conversation from progressing or any decisions from being made. you shake your head, “no. no, i don’t want to go home.”

“then maybe loosen up and act like it,” bokuto implores, hands on your shoulders, leaning his definitely not a tiny bit of weight against you, bouncing along with the beat of the song. 

“i just feel like if i keep saying it’s a bad idea,” you reason, narrowing your eyes as the sentences finishes in your head and you know that you’re going to get flamed when it actually comes out of your mouth, “that it makes up for the fact that i’m out because i feel bad for it?”

definitely not.

yeah, i don’t think so.

nice try.

bad logic, yn, really bad. 

you groan, “okay, okay. fine. actually having fun. because i’m out,” you point at akaashi and he nods back at you, “and so why not just enjoy it instead of making myself miserable for being out?”

“and us,” tsukishima notes, “don’t forget us. you’re also making us miserable.”

kuroo throws his arm around tsukishima, runs the tops of his knuckles over his hair as he laughs, “you’re always miserable. you don’t count.”

“tch, knock it off,” tsukishima swats at kuroo’s fist so violently that he almost falls over.

“yea,” you say in an attempt to convince yourself, “just have a fun time and don’t think about the fact that i should probably be on my way home right now.” 

akaashi bumps his shoulder into yours, the one that bokuto’s fingers are still tightly grasped around. “you know how to have fun, yn,” he reminds you, “laughing at those dumbasses is usually a good start.” akaashi nods towards tsukishima and kuroo trying, and failing, to contain their back and forth, bumping into the table and spilling bokuto’s drink. 

it is a good start, you suppose. you can’t help but laugh, actually, as they start yelling at each other, blame spewing and insults flown. “and then,” akaashi says, raising his eyebrows and gesturing to your drink. he raises his own, waits for you to do the same and then lightly taps the neck against yours. you raise the bottle to your lips, tilt it upwards, and don’t bring it back down until the only weight in your hand is the empty glass.

“c’mon, idiots, you owe bo a new drink,” akaashi shouts over the already loud club and added bickering, “and we need a refill also.”

they either don’t hear him or choose to ignore him. neither tsukishima nor kuroo even bat an eye to akaashi waving his hands to get their attention or the dramatic sigh that he forces. bokuto notices, though, nods to the bar as he says, “c’mon, we will go get new drinks. they won’t even notice we’re gone!”

your tiny nod is confirmation enough. bokuto grabs your wrist, gently pulls you through the mass amounts of people to the bar, moving through the crowd much easier than you would’ve on your own. sure, you could maneuver in and out of people, but bokuto could barrel right through them, polite enough to offer small sorrys and excuse mes, but assertive enough to keep moving the entire time. 

bokuto presses up against the counter, leans over the top to order whatever drinks he’s ordering, and then waits patiently while the bartender grabs said drinks. you stand next to him, akaashi on the other side of bo, a bit of space between you resting with your lower back on the edge of the countertop and the horde of people dancing in the vicinity. 

the bar is a bit of an oasis, somewhat more organized than the conglomerate of different groups that occupied the rest of the venue. there is a patience here that you don’t get in other parts of the club, a knowing restraint that you welcome like a breath of fresh air. you scan the length of the bar, the groups of people inhabiting the same space that you are for the same reason that you are and among them, a man with gray hair and a tight black t-shirt who keeps looking over in your direction. 

everytime you try to sneak a private glance, he’s already looking at you, eyes meeting yours for a fraction of a second before pretending that he was looking somewhere else. you’re suddenly feeling much warmer than before, perhaps it has something to do with the club lights or the large gathering of people or the way the two guys that are with him keep nudging him in your direction. 

“that guy keeps looking at you,” bokuto notes, pointing very blatantly at the man across the bar. “you should go talk to him.”

“no way!” you instantly reject the thought. 

akaashi leans forward, peeking out from the other side of bo. “step three of having a fun night out? getting railed by a mystery guy who keeps throwing you looks,” akaashi explains, head nodding, no inclination of sarcasm. 

“you said talk to him,” you say, glance thrown over your shoulder just in case he’s already gone. that would solve a lot of your inner turmoil right now. but when you do look, he’s looking right back. this time, he keeps eye contact with you for an entire second before pulling away.

“right, well, and then fuck him,” akaashi says, mischevious smile, shrugging his shoulders as if it were obvious.

“i don’t do that,” you explain. 

“you haven’t done that,” bokuto says, “there’s a difference.” 

“look, you’re out, you’re trying to have a good time, that hot fuckin’ guy is staring you down?” akaashi says, naming all of the reasons that he believes this is a great idea, “and the four of us are here if something is weird. this is the perfect opportunity.”

“no, no,” you shake your head, “besides, i’ve gotta finish this drink and tsukishima and kuroo are probably-”

bokuto taps his card against the machine as you babble on excuses and grabs the drinks from the counter in the middle of your sentence, handing one to akaashi and holding the other two. “oh nooo,” bokuto whines, “turns out these drinks are for me. better find someone else to buy you a drink.” he makes eye contact with akaashi, nods towards the direction of where you all came from and starts moving that way.

you move to follow them, but your feet don’t move, heart beating against your chest as your core tells you that if you hesitate for only a moment, they will be out of reach and it’ll actually be easier to just sit here at the bar. and if something were to happen while you were abandoned by your friends, if the buff looking tall guy a few feet down the bar decides to talk to you, then it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have ever happened to you. 

it’s not just that you don’t move, it’s that you make the very conscious choice not to move. you take a deep breath and check one more time that he’s still there, that he’s still looking at you, and he is. you let your stare linger this time, you have no other obligations or people to talk with. it’s you, all alone at this bar, waiting for one particularly attractive man to make his way over to you and talk to you, you might as well make it obvious. 

with him are two other guys, one that looks eerily like him but with brassy dyed hair and a louder personality and another one with a black mask on and dark, curly hair. the blonde one nods in your direction, pushes him with his shoulder once and then twice and then a third time. you think that this will cause a reaction, but it doesn’t. 

you’re almost ready to concede, make your way back to the high top and have a good night without going out of your comfort zone, but the other guy leans over and says something in his ear, points at you with his chin, and then pulls the blonde guy away and leaves the gray haired guy alone just like you. 

for someone who didn’t make his way over to you the first three times someone shoved him in your direction, it doesn’t take him long to walk over to you once he’s alone. you wonder if you’ll have to say something first, what will you say first, what should you say first?

“did your friends leave ya too?” he asks, and if you hadn’t downed your first drink and you weren’t as nervous as you were, you might’ve noticed how out of place he sounded as well. 

you laugh, offer a short nod as he takes place next to you, leaning against the bar the same way you are. you’re rooting through your brain to concoct an adequate response, one that will entice him to stay, continue a conversation, let him know that you’re very interested while also not telling him that outright, but all of that thinking is rendering you currently silent.

still, he tries again, asks something much easier, “can i buy ya a drink?” 

you nod again, turning towards him this time, but not before catching a glimpse of his profile, his chest, his forearms tense with his fingers gripping the edge of the counter. tonight was definitely not a mistake. you don’t care how early you have to be up tomorrow. “only if you stick around for a dance too,” you say, hand ghosting on said tense forearm, testing the waters, voice projecting so that you’re sure he hears you.

he laughs this time, gorgeously genuine smirk appearing along with it. “i don’t really dance,” he admits, “but to talk to ya a bit longer? i’d be stupid not to.” his eyes flicker down to your lips, the way your tongue peeks out for just a second and your teeth scrape against the bottom, and then back up to your eyes, wider than before but just as lust-stricken. 

he turns, flags down a bartender. on their way over to the two of you, he leans down, “what can i getcha?”

“i’m not picky,” you respond, “i’m pretty adventurous, actually. i like trying new things. i feel like you can learn a lot about someone from drinking their go-to drink.” you feel like you’re rambling, but he’s looking at you like you’re the cutest thing on earth. 

he leans over the bar, orders whatever he orders, and then quickly returns back to your side. “so what did you order?” you ask. “what will i be drinking?”

“spiced rum and coke,” he calls back, “what does that say about me?”

“hm?” you question, tilting your head.

“ya said that ya can learn a lot about someone from their go-to drink. what does that say about me?” he asks, smiling.

you purse your lips, mulling it over for a second. “i think it says that you like the classics, but with a more exciting twist,” you say back. “like-” 

he wraps his arm around your waist, cutting you off as he pulls you closer to him, moving you out of the way of some far too drunk couple that was knocked in your direction, drink sloshing right where you were just standing. “sorry,” he says, very slow to remove his hand from your waist, but you lean back into it. 

“don’t apologize,” you say, staying pressed up against his side. “practically saved my life,” you joke. “if the roles were reversed, you’d be drenched right now. i’m not that fast.” he raises his eyebrows at your sentence, but you don’t correct yourself, just avert his gaze and laugh at yourself. “did you have that all planned or?” you ask.

“nope,” he says, arm still around your waist as he pulls his card out of his pocket to pay. he hands you one of the drinks. “just the stars aligning or somethin.” 

the spice of the rum is nice, warming, a bit more flavorful, an unexpectedly fun twist to a classic. you smile up at him. “now you owe me a dance,” you say, nodding towards the dance floor full of people. 

he doesn’t hesitate, slides his hand down your side, digs his fingers into the fat of your hip, and nods in the same direction as you. “lead the way,” he says. he follows you as you weave through groups of friends and drunk couples until you find a somewhat less crowded corner. the music isn’t as loud here, a bit further away from the speakers and the action, but it feels perfect for the two of you. 

dancing is a generous word for what the two of you are doing. it starts more like swaying, his hand still on your hip, your hand now on his shoulder. you’re both still chained with mostly empty drinks in one hand, taking small sips here and there in between half-lidded eye contact and half-steps closer to the other. 

“is it bad that i want to get rid of this ridiculously over-charged drink so that i can put both of my hands on you?” he asks, leaning down to place his lips against your ear despite the fact that the music isn’t necessarily loud enough to warrant that. you shake your head, his lips brushing against the side of your cheek as you do, and then you let it fall onto his shoulder. 

you reach out, feel alone guiding you as you set your half-drank cup on a random table. you clasp your hands around his neck, allowing yourself to lean backwards to take him all in, pretty gray eyes, hungry look in the depths of them. you tangle your fingers into the hair at the base of his neck. you really want to kiss him.

the hand that just held his drink is colder, shocking almost as it smooths down your lower back, fingers hooking into the waistband of your skirt, toying with the fabric and the zipper on the side. now you really want to kiss him.

he’s staring directly into your eyes as his fingers ghost over the lace of your underwear. he doesn’t pull away at the feeling, doesn’t stutter or retreat or dive deeper, but pushes his fingers underneath the band, dull nails scraping against the soft skin of your hip. you really want to kiss him right now. 

he’s so focused on touching you, on teasing you, on watching your adorable expression as you try to keep yourself composed, that you decide to take matters into your own hands, pulling him down into you and pushing up into him, lips smashing against his, fingers threading into his hair. 

you talk in the same instances that you breathe, in between long, sloppy kisses and roaming touches. “i don’t normally do this,” you admit. “am i supposed to say that?” 

“i wouldn’t know,” he says back, out of breath before pressing a kiss into your lips again, speaking against them, “i don’t either.”

“looking like that?” you ask, just as out of breath as he is, “your hands confident as that? yea fuckin right.”

he pulls away for a real breath, chest rising and falling a bit heavier than usual, tongue swiping over his lip to swallow the spit you’ve left there. “honest,” he replies.

you shake your head. you still don’t necessarily believe him, “i suppose i don’t have to trust you to go fuck you in the bathroom.”

he tilts his head, a huge smile on his face now. “oh?” he questions, “is that how far this is goin? ya thinking that far out?”

you blush, instantly warm against his touch. “well, no, i- i didn’t mean-,” you stutter.

“i mean, i suppose it doesn’t have to be that far out,” he says, low, as he brings one hand up and places your chin between his fingers, demanding your eye contact. “it could be in the next thirty seconds if ya want.”

all you can do is nod, but that’s enough for him. he’s dragging you by the waist to the other corner of the club, nodding towards the only single-room, open bathroom and you nod even more dramatically, following him inside. 

he locks the door behind you and his hands are instantly back on your body, gripped around each of your hips, both pressing you against the door and holding you in place as you pull his face down into you harder. he slides his hands to your lower back, down your ass, pushing up your skirt so he can feel your soft skin directly on his large hands. 

he uses this grip to lift you, back sliding against the bathroom door as he pulls you closer to him. he doesn’t have to lean down as far to kiss you now, doesn’t have to worry about using his hands to press you into the door. your legs are wrapped around him, his hips pressed between them. 

he kisses down your neck. “do i get to know your name?” he asks into your collarbones.

“do you need to?” you ask, cheek against the top of his head. 

when he laughs, you can feel the vibrations dance across your chest, “guess not.” he licks a strip up your neck, grinding his hips against you, “what do you want me to call you tonight then?”

“something cute,” you offer. 

he laughs again, “alright, doll, i’ll get creative then.” he holds you tight, both hands on the undersides of your thighs as he moves you to the sink, sets you on the edge of the porcelain fixture. his hands move to the tops of your thighs, sliding up and up until the hem of your skirt is at the top of your hips, exposing the lacey panties he was toying with moments ago.

surprisingly, this weird grip that he has on the tops of your thighs is not doing a horrible job at keeping you up right, but the longer that he feels your skin, drags his nails against the fats of your thighs, nudges open your legs with his knee, the less his focus is on keeping you steady. your core is tight, engaged to not fall backwards into the faucet, but perched right on the edge. 

“fuck, you’re so pretty,” he murmurs against your neck, hooks both of his fingers into the waistband of your panties, pulls them down your thighs, over your knees, and lets them rest around your ankles and the fact that he’s being this mindful, doesn’t let your panties touch the gross bathroom floor, either means that he has, indeed, done this before or, the much worse option, he’s just that considerate and thoughtful.

he wraps one arm around your lower back, places one large hand on the inside of your thigh and slides it further between your legs until the tip of his thumb rubs against your already messy clit. you reach out on instinct, fingers wrapping around his forearm, eyes begging to stare into his, but he can’t pull away from the way that you’re teetering on the edge of the sink, thighs quivering to keep yourself upright as he begins to tease you, so you force it, slide your grip up his arm and shoulder and tilt his head to look you in the eyes and now he’s convinced he can’t ever pull away from this sight. 

your eyebrows are knit together but always moving, lip jutted out, chin tilted upwards, breathing already unsteady and he can feel the heat radiating from your entire body. he watches your jaw fall open as he drags the tips of two fingers between your puffy lips, circling the pads against your hole once before your tiny, but insistent nods convince him to push inside. your eyes close lazily and then open half-lidded, corners of your lip upturn into a blissful smile, and the prettiest hum leaves your throat as his fingers fill you.

with your position on the sink it’s not easy, but you move your hips forward the smallest bit. it barely pushes his fingers deeper, but the miniscule movements are better than nothing. he could give you everything you wanted right now, could curl his fingers and move so fast that his arm’ll be sore tomorrow, but there’ll be time for that in a second. right now, you’re whimpering so needy for him, soft walls clenching around two fingers, juices dripping into his palm and down to his wrist, a slow, sticky squelching louder than the music and chatter behind the closed door. 

“more?” you ask, quiet and sweet. you could’ve told him politely or demanded it, however you wanted to communicate your need would’ve been good enough for him, but you ask him so nicely and he knows exactly how the rest of the night will go, knows exactly what you need from him. 

“oh, sweetheart,” he says and the butterflies in your stomach are getting restless now. he nudges your legs open wider with his knee, steps in between them to get a better angle, chest against your shoulder as he starts fingering you faster, driving his two thick, long fingers deeper inside of you, curling as he pulls his arm back towards himself. “give ya anything ya want when ya ask that nicely.”

you can’t think of any other words, the only thing leaving your mouth over and over again is, “fuck fuck fuck” as he fucks you so pretty with his fingers. you’re so wet around him, so easy for his fingers to slip in and out of you and you’re having a hard time keeping your legs spread. if he weren’t standing between them, they’d be closed around his hand right now. it’s all so much. 

your forehead falls into his bicep, nodding against the muscle, fingers grip around the edge of the sink as you babble, “gonna come, please, gonna make me come.”

“then come, bunny,” he says, presses a soft kiss into your hair, and you’re gone. you listen to him so well, he can’t help but smile as he continues the motions, fingering you through your orgasm, walls fluttering around him, flooding even more. the grip on your waist gets tighter as you lose control, taking care of you as nearly every thought leaves your head. if he were any less in control, less thoughtful, you’d be on the floor right now. 

“and what do i call you?” you pant the second that you’re able to think again, hands not really sure where to root as they move from his chest to his shoulder to his forearm. 

“s’pose you might need something to call out when i wreck ya, huh?” he asks, kissing the side of your jaw because it’s the closest thing he can reach, thankful for your tiny recovery as he reaches down with one hand to undo his belt and jeans. 

fuck. you swallow harshly, not caring for even a second how much the effect of these words is showing on your face. this confidence might look tacky or awkward on somebody else, but his beaming genuine smile and equally as strong grip on your waist is driving you insane already and you know he’s not lying, he’s going to ruin you. you nod. 

“don’t matter to me, princess,” he says, smearing the juices on his fingers down the length of his cock, swirling around his tip, but you don’t dare look down, eyes on his as he finishes his sentence, “as long as it’s coming out of your pretty mouth, you can call me whatever you want.”

“and you say you haven’t done this before,” you breathe, voice very unsteady for how confident that sentence could’ve been.

“i really haven’t,” he shakes his head, leaning down to kiss you. “honest. just something about you that’s driving me crazy,” he says, wet fingers digging into your hip under your skirt, and for some dumb fucking reason you believe him, nodding stupid like he needed confirmation to a plain statement and you hope he understands that this means that you want him right now.

you press your forehead against his shoulder, catching only a glimpse of him lining himself up, finally having a scene to match the sensations as he drags his thick head between your sloppy lips, grids the underside against your clit, pushes the tip against your slightly stretched hole. 

“nuhhuh,” he says, picking your chin up, shaking his head, talking so soft that you accept it all as gospel, “look at me, dove. you can watch later, but right now, i need to see your pretty expression as i spear ya, okay?”

all you can do is nod, all you can say is, “okay.”

he smirks, kisses the side of your jaw so quickly before pulling away, eyes scanning every facial feature so he can notice the change in every single one, and then he pushes inside of you. the moan that rips from you is so loud that you’re convinced every person in the building can hear it. it breaks off at the end, so forceful that your vocal chords can’t support it, and you can’t see how entranced he’s looking at you because you can’t focus on anything.

you’re so fucking full. 

he’s pressed completely up against you, hips resting on the insides of your thighs, arm around your lower back to pull you into him, your chest against his, and his face is so close to yours, but not close enough that he can’t see how hard he’s already wrecking you just by being inside of you.

his hips pull back slowly. you can feel every inch leaving you and you’re already squirming at not being filled to the brim, circling your hips as best you can on the edge of the sink. he pushes forward again, harsher this time. your head falls against his shoulder and from this position, you can finally see it, the sheen of your slick on his cock as he pulls out and fucks back into you, how thick he is as he disappears inside of you. your walls clench around him at the sight, his hips stutter at the feeling, he needs more. 

every thrust inside of you, the fronts of his thighs slam against the side of the sink. you feel like the entire room is shaking with how forceful he’s being, but he can’t help himself, not when you’re sucking him in so tight. “shit, so fuckin’ perfect for me, fuck, so wet, ‘s it feel good, pumpkin?”

you nod vehemently, can barely talk amongst your whimpers and whines, can’t even really form a thought it feels so fucking good. “mmm,” you whine, “feels mm- feel- s- so good, baby, fuck, so so s- so good.”

“can’t even talk, you’re so cock drunk, huh, pretty?” he asks, moving both of his hands to your hips, rocking you back and forth to meet his thrusts and you just let him.

“please don’t stop, please, gonna come,” you say, the only string of words you’ve managed since he’s started fucking you, but you need him to know how close you are. 

“lemme feel it, babygirl, lemme feel how tight ya get when you’re comin’ on my cock, yea?” he coaxes, rhythmic pace unwavering, harder now even as he pushes you over the edge. before you even make a noise, he knows that you’re coming, can feel you gush, dripping down the underside of his cock as you squeeze him impossibly tighter and he’s throbbing now, doesn’t know how much longer he can take it when you’re making such adorable noises and looking at him like that between bouts of inabilities to focus and panting that heavily. 

he lets you ride through your orgasm completely as he hammers into you, lets you recover fully before even thinking about asking, “can i come on your thighs, angel?”

“oh, fuck,” you breathe, gummy walls fluttering at the thought.

you’re so drenched, juices running down your thighs and the inside of your legs, that it’s easy for him to press your legs together and fuck into them to finish. your plush thighs aren’t as tight as your cunt, but they’re softer, fuller, kinder, and he can’t get enough of the feeling and the sight, skin rippling as his thick cock slides against the sheened skin, disappearing into the fats of them repeatedly. you can’t stop looking either, forehead pressed against his as you both watch this sight in awe. 

“gonna paint your thighs white, puppy, fuck,” he announces, his own breath getting heavier, thrusts getting less rhythmic, more messy as he gives in, heavy cock resting between your thighs as he releases.

the throb is violent against the inside of your thighs and you can feel every single pulse as stream after stream of his sticky load coats your thighs. as the last bit of come drools out of the tip, he presses your legs together harder and pushes his hips forward one more time, hissing as his sensitive cock slides through the mess of come he’s created on your legs. 

“holy shit,” he breathes after a silent second. or, well, as silent as it can be with an entire world of people and happenings just a door away.

you nod, finally catching your own as you cup his cheek with your hand, guiding him down to meet your lips one last time, not because you’re desperate or needing, but something that you hope he takes with him as he leaves the bathroom and the club, a wordless thank you.

in the aftermath of lust and infatuation, you smile at him. he holds you in place, but leans away from you to grab some form of tissue to clean you up. he helps you down from the edge of the sink, helps you stand up right when your feet touch the floor, backs of your thighs aching from being pushed into the edge of a cheap sink all night. 

“well,” you shyly bend over to pull your panties up from around your ankles, “really great night,” you say, voice still weak even after you clear your throat. 

“yea,” he breathes a light chuckle, “a really great night,” he agrees.

you wait a beat, patient to see if he’s going to add anything else, a prying question or longing statement. the longer that you stay in this bathroom, the louder the noises of the confines get, the outside fading away momentarily as you hear the occasional drip of the faucet and the hum of fluorescent lights.

“do you think i could-,” he starts.

“i should probably get back to-,” you start at the same time.

“what?” you ask quickly, rushing to get him to finish the sentence he started, but there’s a soft pink on his cheeks and he’s quiet for another couple of seconds, and then he shakes his head.

“nothing,” he says, “i should get back to my friends too.” you only notice the sigh, the gulp, the hesitance and the regret because you’re looking for it, because you’re feeling it too. 

his hand is on the door handle and for a single second you’re sure that he’s going to say something else, finish his other sentence or start a new, but he doesn’t. he opens the door, the loudness of the music unwelcomed in comparison to the privacy and seclusion of your bathroom hookup.

“well,” you repeat, “maybe i’ll see you some other time and you can fuck me in the bathroom again.” his hand is still on your waist as he smiles huge and his laughter takes residency in your chest seemingly until the end of time.

“or, maybe you could-,” he starts, but perhaps the stars have unaligned themselves now, because he can’t seem to catch a break.

“HEY!” kuroo screams from across the bar the second that he makes eye contact with you. akaashi hits him once and then a second time for good measure, leaning in and overtly pointing to the person next to you. kuroo raises his arm, taps on his wrist with the other hand, and oh god you don’t even want to know what time it is. still, you shake your head and turn your attention back to your fling that you hope asks for a number and turns into at the very least a longer-term fling. 

“sorry about him,” you shake your head, and you swear he looks like he’s going to try one more time, pushing past all of the things that are refusing to let him ask you a simple question, but the blonde from earlier catches his attention, making a similar motion with wide eyes, chest forward like he’s going to walk over here any minute and your well it was really great while it lasted fling is removing his hand from your lower back. 

“i hope so, yea,” he replies, a smaller smile now as he turns his body towards the two people he was with before that are heading to the exit. “i really hope so.” 

the second that he starts to move so do you, both making your way through the dwindling crowd to the respective groups that you came here with, throwing a look over your shoulder every few seconds to make sure that, yes, he is indeed stealing the same obsessive glances that you are as he leaves.

“i can’t fucking believe you,” you say, hitting kuroo on the same shoulder that akaashi did, “he was about to give me his number, and now he’s gone forever.”

“you’d think that you’d get his number before you left the bathroom, yn, god,” kuroo says, shifting blame. “besides, maybe you’ll come out with us more now instead of being a buzzkill all the time, instead of being all guys, it’s not a good idea and i literally have work in the morning and-”

“kuroo is… oddly right,” akaashi says, interrupting him and shrugging, “in some weird way. he probably comes here from time to time, i’m sure you’ll run into him again. what was his name?”

your eyes go wide and you try to hide the fact that you fucked this guy without ever learning his name, but tsukishima catches it instantly and starts cackling. “wow, who even are you?”

“we’ll come back next friday, yea? you’ll probably find him again and you guys can have a fun mystery hookup in the bathroom again,” akaashi half-reason, half-pokes fun and you nod. you hope he comes back too. maybe you’ll at least learn his name next time.

/\ /\ /\

despite the fact that you do not regret anything from last night (well, maybe the part where you didn’t get the number of an incredibly hot guy who fucked you in the bathroom of a club, but nothing else), the morning is still not well-recieved for you. you didn’t even drink that much last night, but the small amounts of alcohol and the severe lack of sleep have you waking up feeling like your bones are made of bricks and your head is filled with them.

you didn’t get home until nearly 3 in the morning and you didn’t pass out until well past 3. you can’t brush your teeth enough times and the water in the shower can’t be hot enough and no matter how much concealer you layer on, the bags under your eyes are still at least somewhat visible.

regret isn’t the right word per se, because you definitely don’t regret going out the night (morning?) before or staying out as long as you did, but you definitely are feeling the effects of your bad decisions come to life. 

and on top of everything, you have to be presentable enough to go into work? that’s ridiculous. 

** bffs + tsukishima **

&lt; delivered / 8:04 am < alright who tf did this to me

> kuroo / 8:15 am > that guy last night lmao

&lt; delivered / 8:25 am < i wish akaashi was up instead of u

> kuroo / 8:29 am > what time do you   have to be in anyway?

&lt; delivered / 8:30 am < omw now.

a deep breath is not enough to prepare you for a full day of work, but it has to do something, right? and taking six of them outside of the front doors of not only your job, but your first day at your new job is probably enough to compensate for the exhaustion and physical garbage that you’re feeling.

you push open the doors, fake smile plastered on your very tired face, apron draped over your forearm. “good morning,” you offer over the chime of the entrance bell. before you even step fully inside, you’re greeted with the same tired-veiled enthusiasm, voice so familiarly soft that his morning welcome sounds more like an opening hymn. 

you walk towards the voice, but you don’t see anyone fully yet, only the top of a moving black cap behind the counter accompanied by shuffling papers and clanging pots. “just a sec, sorry,” he calls before standing up straight, rice cooker in his arms and he realizes it in the same immediate instant that you do.

gray eyes, still pretty but surprised now; gray hair no longer casually messy but neat under an onigiri embroidered dad cap; tight black shirt against his chest long-sleeved now; and he laughs, not because anything is funny, but because he doesn’t know how else to react at how impossible this situation is and yea it’s the exact same laugh that’s still living in your chest. 

you’re sure you look like a deer in the headlight right now, because it’s certainly how you feel. you can’t really breathe, don’t know what to say, because, yes, this is, indeed, the man that you had sex with in a dirty club bathroom less than 8 hours ago. 

you look down at his name tag, miya osamu. well, fuck, if only you’d have learned his name last night.

♡ tori's polls ♡ ( which was your favorite pet name? )

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[marigold-hills]

june 6: explore | @wolfstarmicrofic | word count: 586

PREVIOUS PART • NEXT PART • FIRST PART

For a moment they’re both frozen, then Remus mouths Filch. He must be able to smell the man, and Sirius shudders at the thought – the grease and general malady are strong enough with his regular senses.

It’s too late to run away. Sirius is a quick thinker, good in a crisis. He pulls Remus closer, gathers his body over his own hoping the chair he’s sitting on won’t creak. Throws the Cloak over the both of them.

It’s been years since they’ve been able to hide under it together. They’re both larger now, taller and broader, and Sirius prays his feet aren’t showing.

Filch is in the main library hall, hand-held lamp bobbing with each of his steps. His murmuring to himself about bloody students and library, of all places. He makes his way to the alcove they’re sat in, beckoned by the glow.

Sirius is a quick thinker, but he didn’t think this through. They can’t move, for risking a sound. Filch should see the light and nothing else and chalk it up to somebody being forgetful, but…

Remus’ hand is at his sternum, pressed underneath the T-shirt. The whole front of him pressed close, legs on each side of Sirius’ thighs. His breath is uneven and muffled into Sirius’ hair, ghosting over the skin of his neck and Sirius’ body breaks out in a shiver. He wants wants wants.

He wishes he knew what.

“Don’t move, Sirius,” Remus whispers straight into his ear. “You have to be quiet.”

It’s a tone of voice Sirius thinks he’s dreamt once. Only for him to hear. Sometimes, in the days before the moon, when Remus loses control on his ever-present composure, he sounds like this when Sirius exasperates him: expect no, not quite. This is new, closer to when he speaks Gaelic, when he weaves magic from ancient sounds. Reverent. Each word holds Sirius like he’s precious.

Sirius stills and it’s somehow more for Remus than to avoid getting caught. When the moon is full and Remus is Moony and he is Padfoot, there is an instinct there roll over, show your belly, submit, and it’s like this now, too. Listen. Pay attention. Be good.

Filch gets close to them, approaches the desk. “Bloody mindless bastards,” he mutters, and louder: “I know you’re here! Come out now!” It’s a bluff. He’s less than half a metre away from the chair they’re sitting in, and he gives up the pretence quickly, putting out the light and stalking away.

Remus shifts. Sirius feels it everywhere, each muscle as it moves and each drag of fabric. The door closes and locks, and Remus makes to stand up.

No, thinks that part of Sirius that wanted to run with a werewolf, and before he knows what he’s doing he leans forward and bites the flesh where Remus’ neck meets his shoulder.

Remus doesn’t say stop doesn’t say what are you doing? He doesn’t push him away.

The taste of him is something Sirius could spend his life exploring. If it’s different here than it would be on the skin of his wrists or the delicate part of his thighs. The moment says pay attention, pay attention and he tries to but he’s too torn fighting between letting go and sinking his teeth deeper.

“It’s alright, Sirius. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” Remus runs gentle fingers through his hair. Touches him so gently like Sirius is an untamed dog poised to pounce or to flee.

Slowly, Sirius pries open his mouth.

NOTES:

Part 6!

this went not at all as I planned but I’m rather happy with the direction it’s taken. Tomorrow’s prompt is “imaginary” so we’ll be back to our scheduled oblivious pining

do we hate filch for disturbing the conversation or rather like him for how it went?

@moon-girl88 @digital-kam @tealeavesandtrash @sweetstarryskies @alltoounwellll @hunnybeemarie @hoje--aqui

[knapptapp]

Without Me You'd Just Disappear

Yan!Ghost x Reader

Word Count: 1,970

Part 2 of Your Nothing Without Me

Part one Here!

Sometimes he comes in and sits on the corner of the bed. He really doesn't do anything but stare at you. A silent stare with cold dead eyes. Much to your surprise he never makes any move to touch you or close the distance you have created by flattening yourself against the headboard.

You don't dare allow yourself to look away, afraid when you look back he’ll be closer.

When he’s not there you allow yourself to look around the room. It's rather small, not much to look out for. There's one clock on the wall across from you but it's permanently stuck at 2:30. But you swear, out of your peripheral view you can see the hands click by.

And when you close your eyes and try to get some much-needed sleep you can hear it.

Tick Tock TIck Tock Tick Tock

You know time is passing. Because that's how reality works. You can count the seconds passing but only for a short while before the numbers meld together and you can't remember what comes after what.

You think you are going insane.

Every time you look back at the clock it's still stuck. Maybe time isn't passing. You must have slipped and hit your head on your way home. Bled out on the sidewalk before anyone could find you.

And now you are in hell. Or maybe purgatory. God was punishing you for your sins. He must be. What sins, you do not know. You try to rack your brain. Running through every decision you've ever made. But you keep coming up blank. Were your sins so bad your mortal mind can't even comprehend them?

At least it keeps your mind off of numbers.

You start to prefer the days where he sits on the end of your the bed. At least then fear takes over your mind and all you can think about is your heart ramming in your chest.

He didn't have a face under his mask. It was easier to think of it like that. Imagine him as anything but human The fear of the unknown and the imaginary monster your mind created was less tortuous than the knowledge that he was a real person

You know he’s trying to scare you because why else would he be wearing that horrifying mask? A skull. When you first saw it you thought it was made from a real skull, and that your own bones would soon join the college of horror. Now, you feel stupid. The more you start at it the more it becomes slightly less grotesque. There were no cracks or lines where pieces of bones would have been glued together. The material looks rough and dry.

If you ran your fingers over it you bet it would have the texture of chalk, leaving white dusty residue over the pads of your fingers. The only thing human about him, the one piece your mind can't twist, are his eyes. They are entirely human.

“Are you hungry?”

His voice catches you so off guard you think the clock has started talking to you. It seems like the more logical option. It takes a few seconds for your mind to process his words.

Are you hungry

You narrow your eyes at him. You keep your mouth shut, lips clamped tightly together. You are hungry. And your body is ever so self-centered, protesting loudly against your silence. One of his eyes widened with what must be the raise of an eyebrow. He stares at you unblinking, waiting for you to call your own bluff.

“It's been three days and you must be hungry.”

Three.Three.Three.

Three days of full purgatory and at the same time. Only three.

“Thirsty too I bet,” He says. Your mouth is a savanna desert but you don't say that. How long can humans go without water again? Five days? Four days?

“Just say the words and I'll bring you some food and water.”

Three days. Humans can survive without water for three days.

“Please.” You don't ever realize your speaking until the words echo back to you. Cracked and wheezy.

He stands up and leaves and you have a dreadful feeling he isn't coming back.

You close your eyes for only a moment and open them to the sound of clinking metal.. And a searing pain encompasses your wrist. Automatically you yank it towards you realizing too late it's your handcuffed hand. But the pain of metal cutting into skin never comes.

Instead, your hand hits your chest. You shoot up as soon as you realize you're free, cradle your burning wrist in your other hand. The skin is red and blisters, some of the skin has been cut through or rubbed off from your constant pulling.

“Don't think about trying anything. We both know you won't win.” He’s standing right next to you, handcuffs in hand. And he’s right. He's huge at 6'4 and 200-something lbs. Compared to him you're tiny.

The skull mask has been replaced with a plain black balaclava. It's the first time you've seen him without his skull mask and it just further breaks down the small amount of comfort you've created.

“I’ll treat your wrist after you eat.” He gestures to the bedside table beside him. On it is a tray with two plates of food and a glass of water alongside an old army med kit.

He walks over to the farthest wall where his chair had been placed and pulls it back to the bedside table. He places it down, mere inches away from the bed. The old chair creaks as he sits down.

Of course, he was staying. You half expected him to leave. But that's stupid. You are uncuffed with full access to the room and the door. You are being held against your will after all.

As silently as you can you scoot a few inches away. He stares at you, fingers twitching by his side with the urge to yank you back to him. But he doesn't, instead, he reaches over, picks a plate off the tray, and hands it to you.

The smell of food hits you and you rush forward to take it. It’s just some rice and vegetables but your mouth waters at it. Stomach loudly protesting once again.

He reached out to hand you something else. A fork the plastic kind. Doesn't want to risk you trying to stab him with a metal one. In all honesty, you hadn't even thought about it. Stabbing him or a fork. You would eat with your hands. Would probably get the food into you quicker.

Still, you take the fork, not sparing him a glance before you start eating.

You hear the clinking of plates and look up. Instead of the black mask you're expecting to see you are met with pale skin. He has his mask pushed up over his nose.

You could see his features. His nose, lips, and chin The expansion of freckles along the tiny bit of his cheeks you can see. For once he’s not staring at you, but instead at the plate he has balanced in one hand.

It's the same thing you have. With his other hand, he stabs a piece of broccoli with his metal fork and brings it to his lips. He’s eating with you. Like this is a normal fucking situation. Like you too are a couple eating dinner together and not a kidnapper and kidnapper.

You shovel as much food as you can into your mouth. Some weird part of you is glad he's no longer staring at you and seeing you eat like a rabid animal. Got to keep some of your dignity, right?

As much as your body demands and needs food, It is not happy receiving it. The first few bites make your stomach burn and when you swallow it sends you gagging which in turn, gives you a headache.

It doesn't really taste like anything and it's hard to eat with your constantly dry mouth but you keep going. You need food. You're just about to stab a piece of broccoli when a gloved hand takes hold of the plate and pulls it away from you.

You quickly swallow the food in your mouth and choke down a gag threatening to force it all back up again. You're too tired to try and get the plate back so you let him take it, hands falling to your lap, still clutching your plastic fork.

He places it back on the try, where he has already placed his own. It's close enough you could grab it back if you really wanted to But all you want to do right now is sleep. And water You desperately want water Your vision is starting to get blurry around the edges. You close your eyes to try and blink away the blurriness but your eyelids seem too heavy to lift again. There's a vague warmness on your shoulder and then a slight shaking sensation. It's the first time he's ever really touched you and frankly, you can't find it in you to care

Through the haze you can feel yourself being pulled forward, head tilted back with what feels like a hand supporting your skull. Something pulls your lips apart leaving briefly only to be replaced by something else within seconds. Something cold slowly pours down your throat.

A stream from god it must be. It immediately soothes your sore throat and gives your mouth some much-needed wetness. Liquid gold it must be. Something so precious and reviving. It trickles down until it's gone.

He moves you so you are laying back down, the warmth of a blanket covering you. There's the clinking of plates and then the sound of a door opening and closing.

You wake up periodically, always groggy and confused, only to fall back asleep almost immediately. He’s always there when you wake up. Sometimes on his chair, at the edge of the bed, standing ominously in the corner.

When you finally fully wake up, he’s staring down at you. Wide brown eyes unblinking. It startles you awake, and your brain is finally at full working capacity. You completely freeze, unsure of what to do. He squints down at you.

“Are you awake?”

Obviously.

You nod, ever so slightly, and he moves from your field of vision. You can hear shuffling next to you, but you don't turn to look. Instead, you choose to focus completely on the ceiling above you.

He’s pulling your arm, hand gripping just below the dried blood on your wrist. It's almost gentle. Almost.

Time ticks by. Or at least you think. You can't see the clock from your position. You wonder what it says.

There's some wetness on your wrist and it stings. Automatically your arm twitches. You turn to look at him.

He has some sort of wet wipe in his hand and is slowly working the dried blood away in a surprisingly soft manner. The med kit is open next to him, bandages, gauze, and other medical supplies spilling out.

You can tell your crying, just barely through your haze. Your cheeks are starting to get wet

Once he works the blood off he wraps your wrist with gauze and presses the lower half of his face against your inner wrist. You think he’s kissing you but you can't really tell with the mask.

He pulls it up and presses a proper little kiss to the bandaging before rising again to look up at you.

He leans in. You brace yourself for what's about to come, squeezing your eyes shut as tight as you can. His tongue makes contact with the bottom of your jaw. He licks a long strip up your cheek, licking up your tears.

[allwormdiet]

Agitation 3.11

The problems involving this motherfucking bank are no longer limited to the exterior of said motherfucking bank

It has to be fucking alarming for your power to stop working for you when you're so used to it as a part of yourself. Can't even imagine.

God the tension here is good. Amy's not much of a fighter, sure, not even compared to Taylor, but Taylor's making her feel like she's dying rn

Do people really paint Amy as some kind of suffering angel? Like I get that she's suffered, sure, she's a parahuman and the least-favorite child of New Wave and yadda yadda, but she's fucking mean. And honestly between her and her sister I get the impression that New Wave is uhh, not too big on treating criminals like they have human rights? Which isn't at all concerning when one of them is a lawyer.

...Man how do I get worse vibes off of New Wave than the Protectorate, I'm basically never on the side of government superheroes

You can't fool me Victoria Dallon, I know you practiced that landing

Also Jesus that's a lot of damage, couldn't you have just gone through one of the windows that broke already? Kid Win made that hole for nothing.

I know Amy doesn't do this (yet) but the fact that this is the first thing she threatens to do to a villain with a knife to her throat is fucking insane

Are the Dallons actually trained in hostage negotiation and conflict de-escalation? I hope they're not because otherwise I'd have a lot of really pressing and mean questions for their trainers

Also fucked up that Amy's threats involve destroying Taylor's sense of taste, giving her fatal diseases, or *checks notes* making her really really fat, what the hell girl

Hey Tattletale, love you Tattletale, please for the love of god be careful Tattletale

So people have written Tattletale and Glory Girl punching each other with their lips, right? If I'm picking up on some kismesis vibes there's no way other people haven't picked up kismesis vibes

(Sit. Stay. Good girl. Oh my god.)

Interesting that Tattletale seems willing to call Amy's bluff here, though I'm not sure how safe that is

Tattletale: you should know better than to make me monologue about something that'll help you

Glory Girl: yeah I know

Tattletale: but I'm gonna answer your question anyhow

Glory Girl:

Victoria continues to be a huge fucking nerd

Tattletale continues to be outrageously smug and also, tbh, isn't entirely wrong about the expectations of superpowers. She's lying like a rug of course but how should they know that?

Clever! And fucked up. And remarkably powerful on Amy's part, like holy shit. As if the cancer threat wasn't bad enough.

And all the while Tattletale is fucking up Panacea's play with nothing but a laser pointer, with GG too distracted by proving her wrong to realize it

Victoria what the fuck

I'm gonna try to be generous and chalk this up to being written in 2011, but hollllly shit this doesn't reflect well on the character or author

Current Thoughts

Okay so I'm not gonna dwell on the slur, much as I'd love to, let's just leave that one on the side

I find it fascinating that GG considers New Wave immune to the threat of dirty secrets, especially the part about "full transparency." We just saw her nearly kill a suspect on accident and then guilt trip Panacea into healing her to prevent a black mark on the team's record. Like maybe she theoretically believes that stuff as long as she doesn't think too hard about it, but this is absolutely hypocrisy on her part

Victoria and Amy both are just. Really showing their best selves in this arc. I'm not going to act like they're both monsters, they're not. As previously mentioned, they're teenagers in an extremely high-stress situation. Amy's got a knife to her throat and Victoria is extremely protective of her sister and they're facing down two relatively unknown villains on their own

...which I think just points more to the fact that they shouldn't be in this situation to begin with. Amy obviously didn't have much say about whether she'd be a hostage but she definitely didn't have to pick a fight with the villains who had lethally venomous spiders on all the hostages. Victoria, on the other hand, absolutely did not think about what she was doing before doing it, and punched a hole in the roof of what's probably an expensive-ass building in the doing. Is she gonna pay for that? Her millionaire boyfriend?

Next time: Tattletale proves she's the most dangerous Undersider, and nobody regrets this at all

[rabbitbonesandsheabutter]

since dale is a virgin, how do you think his first time would go down like? like after finally getting with his s/o after all these years, do you think he’d be shy and need gentle affirmations and encouragement? or would he be too embarrassed to mention it’s his first time and just go at it

I don’t think he’s a virgin, but definitely very inexperienced in my mind. The few times he’d had sex would be before he turned to satanism. Drunken nights he hardly remembers, likely with someone he met at a bar he performed in, leaving him soon after he awkwardly fumbled through the motions and ended up cumming too quickly. He does not want another repeat of that with you.

He bluffs as hard as he can for as long as he can that he’s got tons of experience. He wants you to see him as this cool edgy older guy. Even when he’s a little too desperate with everything he does, you might chalk it up to age or it being a little while since his last time. But combined with the fact that he has definitely cum in his pants on at least one other occasion by now, it’s looking a little suspicious. Ask him about it and he’s lying really badly. You can’t get him to admit any lack of experience, he’ll just double down.

To be fair, I think he’d be pretty good at foreplay and could definitely get you off in other ways. He’s not shy about touching you and he’s very receptive to any reactions you give. He can’t wait to fuck you, but he loves watching you come apart again and again, knowing it’s his doing. He’d love hearing any encouragement you gave him anyway.

He might accidentally let it slip later just how long it had been, either while he’s yapping away about you or if he gets very emotional and doesn’t realise what he’s saying.

[thelasttime]

no you don’t get it because school bell rings walk me home sidewalk chalk covered in snow lost my gloves you give me one “wanna hangout” “yeah, sounds like fun” video games you pass me a note sleep in tents it’s nice to have a friend it’s nice to have a friend light pink sky up on the roof sun sinks down no curfew twenty questions we tell the truth you’ve been stressed out lately yeah me too something gave you the nerve to touch my hand it’s nice to have a friend it’s nice to have a friend church bell rings carry me home rice on the ground looks like snow call my bluff call you “babe” have my back yeah everyday feels like home stay in bed the whole weekend it’s nice to have a friend it’s nice to have a friend it’s nice to have a friend what’s not clicking!!!

[fabiansociety]

i find beef punchley a fascinating character, because it's so easy to read him as another bluff, generally decent muscle man like Magnus, but he's also so sly and manipulative in ways that are easy to overlook.

consider: beef is explicitly a performance, as much an act as sticky fingers paul pantry — travis uses different registers for when his character is putting on the beef persona and when he's just being lyndon julius. he's a planner, in ways that not only aren't immediately obvious to the audience, but also aren't immediately clear to his *family*; that bit during the Clean heist where he preps the old man to lift his head in case he needs to get past some security later is genius. he's framed like a fighter, but all his moves in the heists are about swaying and misdirecting people, framing himself as a hero during the Pin heist or going full wine-spilling, door-breaking villain on Passion's Cove. during balance you could chalk that sort of thing up to being new to roleplaying and building a character at odds with your playstyle, but it's harder to say that after amnesty and graduation and particularly ethersea. devo's aggressive unlikeability being an intentional roleplaying choice was a deep level of commitment to the bit, and beef's labile personality feels like a similarly intentional player choice.

montrose wears his insincerity on his literal face, and emmerich radiates trauma if you so much as cough around him, but lyndon runs deep. keep an eye on that one.

[mnm-eclipse]

Our campsite in Chalk Bluff, just outside of Uvalde, TX.

This spot had the best statistical chance for clear skies along the eclipse path, but statistics can be a cruel bitch!

Forecast for the eclipse is pretty much like you see here - some blue sky, but lots of clouds. Mexico shows 100% overcast, but with thin high clouds. Probably fine for observing, but not good for photography. Looks like conditions will be better a ways north of here. We’re monitoring forecasts and ready to shift locations.

[foxes-that-run]

It's nice to have a friend

INTHAF is gentle, sparse and otherworldly, like a dream. It’s the first taste of the nostalgic songs about childhood interplaying with adulthood that would come on Folklore with Betty, August, Seven as well as the 1 and Cardigan. There is a through-line to the story when Folklore is played after Lover:

It’s nice to have a friend is a dream where childhood sweethearts stay together in an idealised world, it’s the ‘what if’ in The 1.

Daylight is about learning love exists with challenges, deciding to let go of expectations and baggage to let love in.

The 1 is seeing a lost love she wished had been the one after time apart, now older but still wondering.

The only time it has been played live was 9 June 2024 in Edinburgh, mashed up with Dorothea.

Lyrics

[Verse 1] School bell rings, walk me home Sidewalk chalk covered in snow Lost my gloves, you give me one "Wanna hang out?" Yeah, sounds like fun Video games, you pass me a note Sleeping in tents

The imagery in this verse is young childhood. The first verse is reminiscent of Begin Again, where Harry walks Taylor to her car, is a gentleman, shows her kindness and innocence. The next track Daylight also references Red.

In August Taylor also referred back at school as a metaphor for touring.

Sidewalk chalk is also in the Reputation poem, why she disappeared “Cracked her bones on the pavement she once decorated as a child with sidewalk chalk” in this dream world it’s covered in snow.

[Chorus] It's nice to have a friend (Ooh) It's nice to have a friend (Ooh)

The simple chorus is innocent and dreamy

[Verse 2] Light pink sky, up on the roof Sun sinks down, no curfew Twenty questions, we tell the truth You've been stressed out lately, yeah, me too Something gave you the nerve To touch my hand

Twenty is a Haylor theme 13+7

The second verse is getting older and moving from friendship into something more.

The light pink sky is reminiscent of this instagram post from a Penthouse in Cannes after the NRG awards when they reconnected. Harry posted the same shot on her birthday. 20 questions is a third song on this album about Harry with 20 (13+7, which is also referenced in Daylight, Lover and I love you by Alex and sierra). Gorgeous also has a reference to touching a hand in a darkened room. The Lover Album cover also has light pink sky mixed with blue. This top photo was released 19 October 2023 when Cruel Summer went #1, the others were posted to Harry and Taylor’s instagrams in 2013:

[Verse 3] Church bells ring, carry me home Rice on the ground looks like snow Call my bluff, call you "Babe" Have my back, yeah, every day Feels like home, stay in bed The whole weekends

The last verse is the moving into a what if, the song jumps from a hand touch to newlyweds.

This verse references many Haylor songs:

Carry me home | Take me home in Style

Call my bluff | Call my bluff in End Game

Feels like home | eyes look like coming home in everything has changed

Call you 'babe' | Harry is 'babe' is in Delicate, New Years Day, I don't wanna live forever & Wildest Dreams. In To be So Lonely Harry says "Don't call me baby again / You got your reasons / I know that you're tryna be friends / I know you mean it"

[igordumbra]

Now that we know a bit more about Cecil's Dad, Mom and his childhood with Abby, does it explain something about 171 Go to the mirror?

It is one of the best episodes and yet it's never alluded to again even though in like 16 episodes it will make 100 episodes since it released.

We have Cecil's mother leaving him while he's a teenager and telling him about something that he buried so deep in his mind.

The thing in the mirror which can also be the snake with human face screaming with countless teeth and expressionless eyes, and also sounds like a baby's cry.

The whole smashing the mirror and dimension hopping while the other one died screaming, and then the book with no known language in the drawer.

What the fuck does it all mean? Sure, you could chalk it up as Cecil being dissociating, he even says so, but narraively it doesn't make sense when we already have other instances of Cecil seeing things in mirror and dying screaming, or his mom covering mirrors.

I thought maybe the snake would be his dad trying to make him remember something, but Dad's imagery is completely different from snakes. In Murals though we have mention of a winged snake in a smiling cloud, which is probably a depiction of the Smiling God, but it also fits with the smiling serpent with human face, kinda.

Couple that with Cecil's everpresent hate for desert bluffs and also the It Sticks With You cassete where it's said four times that Cecil enters a tree that feels warm like the sun, and hears a incessant drone, like steam or a chainsaw, before seeing a cold light envelope him which he hates on sight and yet is familiar. And you might begin tracing a connection to The Smiling God.

I don't think it being the smiling god would be very interesting, but alas, with everything that's been provided until now, it's involvement does seem plausible.

I only hope it doesn't take too long, as most of the storylines do, to really show up. That's my biggest beef with wtnv to be fair

[the-hollyday]

Missing Ontario

“Island Time” becomes less of a cheeky joke and more of a spiritual state of mind.

For the past couple years now Jethro and I have been using two weeks of summer to head out to Ontario and visit family. This was a new special development in my life, firstly because the 2022 trip coincided with my very first instance of Paid Time Off from a job; I had a mullet, I didn’t own a pair of formal shoes, and I felt like I was maybe finally “earning” adulthood. Secondly because I was going to meet Jethro’s extended family. For context, despite having known each other for a decade, I did not meet Jethro’s parents until one year prior. It’s an amount of personal privacy that I am both confounded by and envious of, and either way respect immensely.

The Ontario trip always feels like a bit of dream, but I would chalk most of that up to my lack of travel experience, even on the smaller scale of around my own country. So many things are so close to what I know and yet just slightly different. The buildings, the brands, even the flora seem like close approximations of what I would see in my day to day in BC. I think I know what variety of tree I’m looking at until I get a little closer and realize I have no clue. Like a dream that you believed to take place in your own house, only to wake up and realize you have no familiarity with the location your brain chose as a substitute. There seem to be some esoteric rules around the sale of liquor in Ontario, and despite having it explained to me multiple times I could not tell you for certain whether you are allowed to buy gin and beer at the same store, or what time in the evening you are now shit out of luck. Also why am I only allowed to by singles or cases? The half-sack eluded me.

There are three main stops on the trip: Topsy Farms on Amherst Island, cottage country just outside of Sydenham, and Toronto. And both trips where done in the same order as well, a kind of system shock shotgunning us right into rural farmland before heading to the more manicured wilderness of high-privacy cottage properties, all packed tightly together on the lake, and then back to bustle and urbanity in the city. It felt like a forced system reset before a 10 day long relaunching process, and an absolute joy to not see my phone at all for the first 3 to 5 days of the trip.

The whole of Amherst Island is beautiful and pastoral, with gravel roads and ivy trails clinging to old buildings. On the view from the ferry the landscape is dominated by multiple wind turbines, imposing giants that made me think of huge white pins being stuck into the map of the province; remember Here. We stay with Jethro’s godmother Leah, and we fall asleep to the sheep bleating in the distance, get up late in the morning for coffee, and then spend the rest of the day walking, swimming, and socializing with Leah and whoever else happens to stop by the farmhouse. “Island Time” becomes less of a cheeky joke and more of a spiritual state of mind. Sometimes when I find myself too wound up in my everyday life I try to access the bodily feeling of being back on the island - the wind of the bluffs cools my hot skin and dries my wet hair.

Veggie dogs on offer at the bluffs kitchenette.

The slow living continues as we move to our next destination, which is Grandpa Greg and Grandma Carol’s dream eco-cottage nestled just between Birch Lake and Desert Lake.

A quick intermission:

It was at this point in writing this piece that a couple things occurred. Firstly, I spent quite a lot of time on google maps trying to find the lakes the house was on, including using google street-view to travel along Canoe Lake Road to try and get my bearings; a trip that makes me carsick more often than not in person, and also apparently virtually through the computer screen. I had to go lay down for a moment. The other thing was that in my map searching I did find that there is a “Steely Dan Island” on Canoe Lake. Imagine the rest of this piece being written with Steely Dan playing in the background.

Rikki don’t lose that map pin.

Grandpa Greg is a green engineer who has designed a beautiful home with multiple eco friendly features — low flow and composting toilets, good airflow through the house, and the larder in the basement has an ambient temperature low enough to store perishables even in the summer. And keeps whiteclaws cool too, which was important to me. Most of this portion of the trip is spent, again, sleeping in, drinking, lounging, and socializing. But with a different feeling. You can be washing your coffee mug at the kitchen sink and look up to a family of kayakers in a space of water that up until that point you had imagined to be private property belonging entirely to the Allens. But my favourite piece of the house design is that every window is a picture frame, each looking out onto a carefully selected view of the property, framed by leaves and tree branches artfully encroaching into the view. Grandpa Greg told me during the first house tour that his direct inspiration was a trip on BC ferries, and the walls of the ship lined with large rectangular windows to capture natural landscapes as art. It was a different view of a BC Ferries ship than I had ever considered — I was (and still am) certain that every aspect of those particular experience are tailored to push my specific buttons. But the implementation of the picture windows at the cottage are effective — the kayakers are unexpected, but also impersonal; a painting where the subject could only have just appeared while you weren’t looking, and will likely be gone when you look again, off on their own business.

The time spent at the cottage is the driving reason for the excursion out to Ontario in the first place. 2022 was the year Jethro’s middle brother Fionn graduated high school, and then the youngest, Calum, in 2023. I was very much a guest on a trip specifically meant to circle wagons for the last available times before all three boys were off to their respective cities and busy with all the things young adults are. We played badminton, watched movies, and spent time in Sydenham eating poutine from the chip shop in front of the Foodland. And of course playing games.

I have developed a reputation among the family for being a euchre spectator. I did not grow up with much gaming culture in my household, the extent would be Scatagories or Pictionary with extended family on a holiday visit. We favoured creative-focus left brain games, and I could not tell you who was the winner of any one of them. Often there was no winner. So suffice it to say I was a bit out of my depth with real number and strategy capital “C” card games. I struggle with quick small math in general and my main objective in a game is usually just to have something to do with my hands while we’re chatting.

The Allens have had the police called on them for fights over bridge games.

But the atmosphere is thrilling. There’s something about sharing the space with someone who cares very deeply about what they’re doing, however small and fleeting it may be. It feels electric, and you can’t help but laugh and cheer for a hard fought victory, or even share the frustration of a difficult loss. I was much better at the off-road croquet that we paired with gigantic blue gin and tonics.

A croquet crime in progress.

It’s been hard saying goodbye at this point in the trip. We spend the majority of our time at Greg and Carol’s, and both times there’s been something final felt in the air, a moment when you realize that you’re watching your partner say goodbye to the children he remembers his younger brothers being. I hug everyone tight before we go, feeling less a stranger to them every time I experience the sadness of leaving.

And on to Toronto. And getting back to the city at this point feels right, forget a heartbreak by immersing yourself in the busyness. We stay with Jethro’s cousin Laurel and have between two and three days to visit museums, art galleries, and restaurants, often ending the nights with a glass of red wine on the porch with Laurel. Our most notable meal was in 2022 in the distillery district at El Catrin Destilleria, where Jethro and I got the drunkest we have ever been at a restaurant off of the largest and best spicy margaritas we’ve ever had. The food was amazing as well of course, I recommend the Lime Carlota icebox for dessert, but share it with a friend because it is massive.

Talking about experiencing Toronto is the part of the trip I tend to trust my perception the least in, partly because we’ve spent the least amount of time there, and also because I’m starting to feel like maybe the culture in any city is going to be more favorable than my current thoughts on Vancouver. The buildings are older, the amenities are closer together, and I watched a family walking down the street towards a public pool with the children already in their bathing suits, because they lived close enough to a community centre for that to be practical in the middle of the city. Laurel is able to walk to groceries, her daughter’s daycare, an endless amount of restaurants and coffee shops, and the beach of Lake Ontario.

On our last full day in the city Jethro and I walked down to the beach to start our day with a dip in the lake. It was cooler than it was on Amherst, but still pleasant, especially in comparison to glacier fed BC lakes. I was beginning to pine for my own bed at this point, excited for the opportunity to visit Casa Loma in the afternoon, but also growing exhausted from not ever being on totally familiar footing anywhere I went.

And then almost more quickly than I wished we were back on a plane home.

I mentioned in the previous post that we are going to Japan this year, and this is specifically in leu of Ontario. Fionn has moved out of their grandparent’s house, and is building a full adult life for himself in Toronto. He made a solo flight over to BC and stayed with us a couple days and we got to tour him around our city, and make bad choices in front of him we didn’t have the freedom to when he was a teenager. Calum is home for the summer and working at the chip shop we ate at while were visiting.

Jethro repeatedly “promised” me a 2024 trip that was about him and me, and not all about visiting his family, and we’ve had our eyes on Japan for a while. He definitely worried that he was overextending me with constantly meeting new people and bringing me all over the province. But I feel a real sense of loss not going back to Ontario this year. Last Christmas Grandpa Greg and Grandma Carol gifted us a photograph of the bluffs on Amherst Island; there’s an inherent knowing among people who have visited the spot that it’s a special place.

The point in summer we were over there in years before has past, and it seems like I’ve forgotten to do something very important.

[thebonegoop]

Summer Memories

Sitting down as I write this; I can hear the splashes of water from children making cannonballs in the neighbor's pool and the subsequent banshee-like screams of a pack of now-drenched mothers yelling at their kids. I'm also sneezing gunk like I'm having a demon exorcised from my body (The Zelda Rubinstein way, of course).  

You may be asking yourself right now - Lincoln, what does that have anything to do with this post?  Well, my dear Watson, it means summer we are just beginning another summer! So, for the inaugural post of The Bone Goop, I'll discuss eight great summer memories!  

#1: Ice Cream Trucks

Okay, okay – Maybe I never had a traditional Ice Cream truck come down to my town – so sue me. I was raised in – said in my best George Burns Voice – God's Country—a place forgotten by all who didn't dwell there. But like an oasis in the desert, we did have one truck that came around town once a month - THE SCHWAN'S TRUCK. While serving primarily to adults looking for overpriced frozen steaks and vegetables, they did sell a minor assortment of ice cream goods. Let me tell you, orange cream push pops never tasted so good as when I bought one from the Schwan's man. He dressed in all white like Reggie from PHANTASM and would sometimes take pity on poor country kids by putting in an extra push pop for us to fight over like wild dogs.

#2: Summer Minutiae 

I'm a big fan of waxing poetically about life, so only I could think back so nostalgically about the utter boredom summer can bring as a kid. We all remember the highs that summer can bring, but there is also beauty in the lows. While I'd take riding bikes with my friends any day, many summers were spent alone, bored in my mother's backyard garden, watching fish in the pond or imagining a safari adventure through her overgrown Pampas grass.

And if one was truly bored in the summer heat, find the closest slab of concrete and a bucket of chalk and spend your day expressing the inner Ar·teest inside of you.

#3: Water Parks! 

I have a confession – I've almost drowned twice while visiting these water-themed wonderlands. I was 11 and full of youthful confidence in my swimming abilities as I stepped foot in Lexington's Pirate-themed water park during a trip with my best friend. That was until I was pinned underwater by a giant plastic riding Crocodile like I was in a Wrestling Federation match. It takes real love to enjoy something that tries to kill you.

#4: Sleepovers

As a kid, one of the best things about summer was the Sleepover with your buddies. A one-night no-holds bar contest of wills - fueled by junk food, movies, and chaos. We had it down to a science: Blanket forts, Hot Pockets on tap, Gameboy Colors holstered in our pockets ready with Pokémon (complete with link cables), and maybe most importantly the tape rentals. Setting the mood for the night was imperative, so finding the perfect movie was the priority. STAR WARS or JURASSIC PARK were the faithful standbys, but the best nights were when someone smuggled a VHS TV recording of ROBOCOP and HALLOWEEN. It was like sneaking contraband through airport security.

#5: Jackass

While the show was watched under cloak and dagger at night, my friends and I would often recreate the extraordinary stunts we saw during the day. Johnny Knoxville had a shopping cart, but we had a Big Wheel and trashcans! Hot summer days were spent building ramps up coal piles and flying off in terror. Hi, I'm Lincoln, and this is Jackass!

#6: Calling Your Bluff

Many of my formative summer years were spent at my neighbor's kitchen table playing various card games like Canasta and Poker or Scrabble. We didn't have air conditioning, so they'd make Kool-Aid pops out of plastic ice trays wrapped in plastic with toothpicks poking into each cube. These were MacGyver: The Adolescent Years.

#7: Yard Sales

Summer is Flea Market season, Baby! Truthfully, I don't make the time for Yard Sales like I used to, but rummaging through other people's trash was like second nature as a kid. So, it was even more devastating that my mom once went without me while I stayed with my grandparents.

The fogs of memory preclude me from knowing why, but I remember being extra grumpy about life while she was gone. The childhood vitriol melted instantly when she picked me up, and I saw the treasures she'd bought me – a pristine RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK VHS tape and a MONSTER IN MY POCKET figure!

#8: It's Good to Be King

Summer wasn't summer if it didn't include one trip to King's Island - the Ohio amusement park made of dreams and overworked costumed employees. At the time, every ride and character were made to resemble Hanna-Barbera properties. Having lunch with your partner is great, but having lunch with Scooby Doo AND Space Ghost? On top of riding roller coasters? That was pure magic.

The night was complete only if I bought a blue Candy Rock stick for the ride home. It was the perfect day (Ignore that everyone but me got Pinkeye on that trip.)

I hope these memories stirred up some of your own about the magic of Summer. Thanks!! 

[pocket-lad]

CH 5- Mouse Trap

Prev

“Ian!” Adelaide exclaimed, unable to mask the urgency in her voice. She tapped his chest repeatedly as she spoke. “Ian, I, um, I need to go in your pocket. Please. I can’t- I can’t meet anyone else today, especially not...” she trailed off.  

Ian knew what the end of that sentence was. Kids. Adelaide had a horrible fear of them, even if she wouldn’t call it a fear. Ian personally loved kids. They were little chaos machines, which he guessed was the exact reason Adelaide didn’t like them. Without a word, he ferried her to the lip of his pocket, propped it open, and waited for her to hop in. She’d met a lot of new people that day, and he was proud of her for going with it and keeping her cool. She deserved a break.

Adelaide welcomed herself back to the musty chest pocket. Yay. She got settled then peeked her head over the edge to observe. The girl looked to be maybe twelve and the boy around nine. Adelaide watched as they ran full tilt at Hammond, knocking him to the ground with hugs and reaffirming Adelaide’s belief that children were reckless and didn’t know their own strength.  

After brief introductions, the kids were the first to run out the door, bursting with energy Adelaide wished she had, and Ian sauntered down the stairs, bouncing her up and down with each step and bringing up the rear.  

They approached a set of bright green cars running along a track. The kids exploded with excitement, and even the adults looked intrigued. Hammond explained how they were electric and therefore non-polluting. Adelaide didn’t understand how those things were connected, but she supposed a car that didn’t pollute was a good one. Even if they were gaudy.  

The girl ran to the front car and hopped in, and Hammond directed Ellie to the second car. Ian immediately followed. “We’re gonna ride with uh, Dr. Sattler,” he said. Adelaide rolled her eyes at both Ian’s forwardness and the appalled look Alan gave him. Men.  

Adelaide wouldn’t admit it, but her heart fluttered when Ian said they’d be riding with Ellie. Out of all the new giants, Adelaide enjoyed her time around Ellie most, even if she was a little condescending. At least she was friendly. And pretty … Adelaide chalked up the fluttery feeling in her chest to relief when Ian chose the car without the little girl.  

Instead of getting in though, Ian wedged his way into the open car door that Ellie was trying to shut.  

“Mind if we sit up front?” he asked smoothly.  

“Oof, sorry,” she winced, looking at the whole empty bench seat before her. “I’m not sure if there’s enough room…Seems like Adelaide can fit, though.” She looked up at Adelaide in the pocket, who was actually above Ellie’s eye level. “If she wants to join.”  

“Yeah, we’ll have a party up front. Girls only, though. Sorry, Ian,” she said.  

Ian reached up and ruffled her hair with a fingertip. “Be my guest,” he said, calling her bluff. Adelaide batted at the finger overhead, but all that accomplished was making her lose her balance and tumble backward into the pocket.  

From inside, Adelaide gave one sharp kick to Ian’s chest, and she felt him laugh. It wouldn’t hurt, but it got the point across. She considered staying down to avoid looking anyone in the eye after that, but that almost seemed worse. That was admitting defeat. So, Adelaide pulled herself back up over the lip of the pocket, messy hair and all. Ellie turned away and covered her mouth, trying not to laugh. If Adelaide hadn’t been red before, she sure was now. Maybe staying in the pocket would have been better.  

“Jackass,” was all Adelaide could come up with, which made them both laugh more. Well, so much for dignity.  

While all of this happened, it didn’t slip Adelaide’s notice that Alan was weaving in and out of both cars, pursued by the boy. Alan slid into the backseat of the rear car and the boy followed, so Adelaide ducked back into the pocket. They were in the middle of a conversation that Alan clear ly didn’t want to be a part of.  

The boy’s muffled voice came through the walls of the pocket. “Because they sure don't look like birds to me. I heard that there was this, um, meteor that hit the earth down in Mexico, and made this big crater-” His voice was high pitched, loud, and annoying. Adelaide didn’t blame Alan for his aversion, but she had to admit it was a little funny watching him attempt to make the kid leave.  

From the sound of it, they exited the car on the other side. She heard the kid introduce himself as Tim and announce that he would ride in whatever car Alan chose. Please, for the love of God Dr. Grant, do not sit in this car.  

They walked back to the front car, and just as Adelaide started to pop her head back out, the girl approached on Ian’s right. Adelaide fell right back down again, heart beating, hoping the girl didn’t see her.  

“What’s taking so long?” she complained, peering over at Alan and the boy.  

“Well hello to you, too,” Ian teased. “What’s your name?”  

“Sorry,” the girl said sheepishly. “I’m Lex... Who are you?”  

“Ha, I’m Dr. Ian Malcolm. And this-”  

Adelaide braced herself along his chest and the walls of the pocket. Ian was not going to do this again. Not when he knew about her...'aversion' to kids...right?  

“-is Dr. Ellie Sattler.”  

Oh, thank God.  

Ellie turned around. “Hi, Lex,” she said. Then after a pause, “You know who could answer the question ? You see that man talking to your brother up there? That’s Alan. I think you should ride with him.”  

“Why?” Lex asked.  

“It’d be good for him.”  

“Oh.... okay!” And with that, she ran off. Adelaide cautiously poked her head out of the pocket once more as Ian resigned himself to the back seat, since Ellie showed no signs of budging.  

“What was that about?” she asked Adelaide curiously.  

“Della has a fear of children,” Ian said matter-of-factly, though his ever-present smirk gave a hint of teasing.  

“I do not!” Adelaide shot back defensively. Was Ian determined to embarrass her in front of all these giants? In front of Ellie?   

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Ian continued.  

“No, they’re just... loud and... smelly.” Adelaide wrinkled her nose. She still felt like she had to defend herself.  

“Kids don’t smell! Where are you guys getting this from?” Ellie shook her head. A confused look from Adelaide prompted her further. “Alan was just saying that the other day...You know, you two would get along well, probably.”  

As if on cue, Alan got in the car next to Ian and slammed the door closed. Adelaide instinctively ducked down into the pocket but quickly reemerged when she realized he was sans child.  

“Why did you do that?” he asked Ellie, exasperated.  

“Do what?” Ellie answered innocently.  

“You know what I mean,” he said, but he resigned himself to dropping the topic. He leaned back in his chair with a loud sigh, rubbing his hands down his face.  

“ I think kids are smelly,” Adelaide ventured shyly.  

Alan looked down at her. He honestly forgot she was there and was a little taken aback when she addressed him. He gave her a faint smile. “Thank you!”  

Adelaide froze when he made direct eye contact with her, but otherwise showed no signs of fear. The car suddenly took off, and Adelaide was left clinging a little tighter to the lip of the pocket.  

“God help us, we’re in the hands of engineers,” Ian’s voice rumbled around her.  

It was then that Adelaide noticed it. There was nobody driving the car! Hammond had mentioned something about that earlier, but it didn’t really register until now.  

Adelaide didn’t like looking stupid, but her curiosity propelled her to ask the question. “How do they-” her voice barely came out. She cleared her throat and tried again. “How do they do that?”  

Ian and Alan both looked down at her. Neither responded for a moment, trying to figure out what she was asking.  

Excellent, Adelaide thought. Ask a bunch of scientists a stupid question with an obvious answer. How could she backtrack?  

“Oh, the cars!” Ian said aloud for Alan’s benefit once he deciphered the question.  

“Oh, then I have no idea. You’re asking the wrong person,” Alan said.

Ian seemed to have an explanation, though. “They’re uh...electric. They run on batteries, as with all cars, or most cars, but for our purposes all cars, but the- the track below the car- did you see that?” Adelaide nodded. “It communicates with the car through uh, through electricity. The track likely has some kind of wire, and that predetermined path, that data, is uh, sent to the car.”  

“Oh,” Adelaide said. That mostly made sense.  

Say what you want about Ian, but he always treated Adelaide like a person. Sometimes he was a little grabby and a little rough, but he never doubted her intelligence.  

That’s how Adelaide found herself learning new things every day. If she asked the question, Ian would give her the answer. He didn’t talk down to her like she was a child or like she was challenged. He assumed she had basic knowledge, and if Adelaide needed further explanation, she could always just ask.  

Not that she ever did, though. It was a rare occasion to see Adelaide ask clarifying questions, mostly because she trusted herself to figure it out. She knew herself to be intuitive and maybe a little prideful, and if she truly didn’t understand what Ian was talking about, it was probably never meant for her to know.  

***  

“I can handle it!” Adelaide protested. “Why would you even offer if you don’t think I can ‘handle it’? What does that even mean?”  

Adelaide loosely knew what alcohol did to Human Beans, watching them from afar. It usually made them louder and clumsier, so she kept her distance. Her parents had a strict rule that all alcohol was to be kept for sterilization, especially since it was so hard to come by, so nobody in their small home had ever tried any.  

“It means,” Ian said, walking over to the kitchen. “you’re very small. And from what it sounds like, you uh, you’ve never had any alcohol before.” He distractedly rummaged around in the cabinets. When he found what he was looking for, he returned to the coffee table Adelaide stood on. “And it’s fun to get you riled up.” He sat on the couch and produced a bottle cap.  

“Whatever,” Adelaide said with a hint of a smile in her voice.

He carefully poured some of his drink into the bottle cap and went to set it down on the table in front of Adelaide. “Don’t-” He paused, looking her in the eye. “-drink this too fast.” And with that, he set it down.  

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Adelaide didn’t actually know, but she wasn’t going to let him think that. She eyed the drink nervously. She’d be damned if she stood down now. So, she marched right up to the saucepan-sized bottlecap, awkwardly picked it up, and took a big gulp.  

GROSS.  

Adelaide nearly dropped the cap, but she set it down quickly to avoid spilling it and couldn’t help but scrunch up her face. Everything burned- her mouth, her throat, her stomach. Her eyes watered, but Ian’s laugh brought her focus back. He leaned back against the couch, his arm outstretched along its back, and he took another sip of his drink as he watched her try not to cough.  

Adelaide fixed her face real fast. Or at least as best she could. She could not let Ian be right.  

“A little strong?” he asked.  

“No, not at all,” she said nonchalantly. It was too bad her voice came out scratchy and forced, like someone who’d been smoking cigarettes their whole life.  

“Sure,” he said.  

She sat on the table, using some books as a back rest. From then on, she took smaller, less frequent sips, but she felt her mind grow foggy in almost no time. Adelaide preferred to stay sharp, but she couldn’t quite remember why she felt that way. This didn’t seem too bad. This was warm. This was nice.  

In fact, she even ditched her jacket. That thing never came off. Living at just a couple inches tall, heat left borrowers’ bodies faster than Beans, mostly because their skin was too thin to keep the heat from leaving. But with the fire going and the alcohol warming her insides, Adelaide had to take the coat off.   

After watching some TV and talking for a little while, Adelaide grew bored. She flopped back onto the books, staring at the ceiling.  

“Am I boring you?” Ian asked, though there was no offense in his voice. If anything, he was amused.  

“Yeah, a little,” Adelaide said, feeling bolder than usual, and she sat back up. She looked around. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at a big box-like contraption with a bunch of buttons.  

“That’s uh, that’s a computer,” Ian said.  

“What’s it do?”  

“It lets you look up information.”  

“Like anything?”  

“Pretty much anything.”  

“What’s that?” she asked again, pointing to a different object.  

“That’s a phone,”  

“I know that,” she said, slurring her words a little. She took a second to rephrase her question. “How does it do...why do you talk into it?”  

“I use it to talk to other people.”  

“But how ?”  

“Um, well, energy. My voice makes sound waves, and those waves get converted into- into energy. That energy travels along wires and then gets converted back into sound waves on the other end, that end being, uh, the person I’m talking to,” he explained, unsure why he was explaining how phones worked.  

Ian considered what Adelaide just said. She knew that the phone was called a phone and that he talked into it. He couldn’t recall ever using the phone in front of her, which almost confirmed his theory that she watched him from the walls before they officially met.  

“What’s that?” she asked for a third time, pointing at another object. Their night went on like this for some time.   

At first, Ian was annoyed. He didn’t want to explain every little gadget in his house, so he kept his answers fairly short. After a while though, he realized he kind of enjoyed explaining these things. It made him appreciate stuff he often overlooked – computers, phones, even escalators – when he actually had to think about how they worked. Humans used these things daily, but they served no purpose to people like Adelaide. The perspective shift was jarring, but enlightening.  

To see the world through Adelaide’s eyes was so fascinating, and he never got the opportunity. She never asked questions, was always closed off, and rightly so. It was hard to trust anybody in this world, let alone a giant, so Ian understood why she changed the subject every time he asked her a question about being small. Still, he had to admit to curiosity.  

And though he wouldn’t admit it, that night made Ian feel good about himself. It made him feel like a proper father.  

***  

Suddenly, an unfamiliar male voice played out of the car’s speakers. “During your tour, the appropriate information will be automatically selected and displayed for you. Simply touch the area of the screen displaying the appropriate icon. Welcome to Jurassic Park.”  

The cars approached an enormous wooden gate supported by stone columns. The columns were lined with flaming sconces and at the top, a big red and yellow sign read, Jurassic Park. Adelaide hadn’t seen anything like it before. It was so grand, so expensive looking, and the doors opened all on their own just before the cars reached it! What do they have in there?  

“What do they got in there, King Kong?” Ian voiced her thoughts aloud. What could possibly need a gate that large? Nothing Adelaide wanted to get close to, that was for sure.  

As they passed under it, the voice continued. Unable to contain herself, Adelaide hoisted her body out of the pocket and scrambled up Ian’s shirt, using the thick fabric to get a secure grip. She stood on his shoulder, facing out the rear window, and watched the gates close behind them, all by themselves. The wonders Human Beans could come up with never ceased to amaze her.  

“Wow,” she breathed. Her amazement was abruptly interrupted by one thought.   

Trapped.  

Adelaide had to physically shake her head to rid herself of that thought. She knew in her head that there were probably plenty of ways to leave if they needed to, but the gates closing reminded her of a cage. A big cage.  

But Ian promised her - no more cages. Only he knew about her past and her parents, and even then, Adelaide hadn’t given that information willingly. She blamed her loose tongue that night on the alcohol.  

***  

“What’s that?” Adelaide continued down her long list of questions about the world around her (Ian’s home) and pointed to a bunch of boxes stacked haphazardly under the TV stand.  

“Board games,” Ian said. Curious, he got up to check them out. He hadn’t touched them in ages, not since the last time Kelly was over... He should call her.  

“Oooh, I want to play a game,” Adelaide said.  

“Well, you’re in luck,” Ian said, wandering back over to the couch and carrying one of the dusty games. “How’s mouse trap sound?”  

“Mouse trap?” Adelaide repeated. Her heart rate picked up and a nervous feeling spread across her body. A trap?  

“Mouse trap,” he repeated back.  

Adelaide stood up to approach the box, wobbling a bit. She thought she was doing okay, but that changed when she got on her feet. She took a second to clear her head, and when she stopped seeing double, she walked forward, only to stumble back again when he lifted the lid off the box too quickly.  

“Careful there...you uh, sure you want to play?” Ian chuckled.   

“Of course! ..... Um, it’s not actually a – a real mouse trap...is it?”  

“No, no it’s not a real mouse trap. Just plastic.” Ian was oblivious to Adelaide’s worry.  

“Oh.” Adelaide didn’t know what plastic had to do with anything, and she was still nervous, but she trusted him.  

Ian got the game set up with no help from Adelaide. If she wasn’t intoxicated, she may have insisted on helping, but as it was, she could barely walk straight, let alone lift objects much larger than her.  

She watched his hands work. Those massive hands, picking up the game pieces and putting them together. She remembered when he picked her up like that, saving her from that stupid bowl of fruit. That had been embarrassing. Though she still tried to avoid going near those hands, she was less afraid of them now. She was less afraid of Ian now. They still had a long way to go, but they were both trying. 

“I think you just uh, roll the um, the die,” he said, snapping Adelaide out of her thoughts. Neither of them was about to read the instructions, but Ian was sure he had a general idea of how it went. It was pretty much your standard, run of the mill board game, anyway.  

Steadying herself, Adelaide marched up to the die. She hoisted it up. It was much heavier than she anticipated, sending her sideways.  

“Woah!” Ian exclaimed. He started to reach out to catch her, but she held her hands up to stop him, signaling that she had it under control. “You need help with that?”  

“No,” Adelaide said, her cheeks burning. Whether it was from the alcohol or her ruined pride, she wasn’t sure. She stood up, brushed herself off, and tried again. This time, instead of trying to hold it, once Adelaide had it in her hands, she tossed it as hard as she could. It didn’t go very far at all, but it did roll a little. 4 .  

“Okay, now what?”  

“You move your mouse,” Ian explained. “Or you could be your own – your own game piece.” He laughed at the thought.  

“You're hilarious,” Adelaide said flatly, but she had to admit it would be kinda funny. She looked to her left and found two statues of cartoon mice that stood slightly shorter than her. She saw that the board laid out in front of her had a path printed on it, and that path was divided into squares. She guessed that meant she was supposed to move her mouse four squares.  

Picking the green mouse, Adelaide kicked it four spaces. It wasn’t heavy, but it still required some effort.  

Ian picked up the die, shook it in his palm, and sent it across the table, making sure to aim it away from Adelaide. Even under normal circumstances, sending it flying her way seemed cruel, and now her senses were completely wiped.  

Adelaide’s jaw dropped as she watched the die disappear into his hand, soar into the air, and get flung across the table in a matter of seconds. What took her a full minute and a lot of strength took Ian no time at all, and it was barely even an effort on his part. A pang of jealousy snuck into Adelaide’s mind, but she forced it away when she saw that the die landed on a 2. Ha .  

They played like that for a while, figuring out the rules as they went. She would kick her green mouse along while he pushed his blue one with only a finger. They learned that they were actually supposed to build the game as they went along, but it was too late for that. All the while, Adelaide continued to drink, unaware of how it was affecting her.   

“Why do you have this if you don’t have people over?” Adelaide asked, then froze. Even drunk, she knew that was a rude question. She looked up at him worriedly, but he wasn’t looking at her. “I’m sorry. That was mean. I didn’t mean to-”  

Ian interrupted. “It’s alright. I ah, I have a kid. 3 kids, actually, but this is one of Kelly’s favorites.” He gave Adelaide a weak smile, but his eyes were distant.  

“Oh,” she said. Ian had kids? That didn't feel par for the course. She couldn’t recall a time she ever saw kids in his house, but she didn’t push. Sometimes Adelaide forgot that Beans had emotions, and they felt them just as strongly as borrowers. It was hard to imagine something so big and powerful, something who could get whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, as anything other than confident. But here Ian was, proving her wrong.  

“Well, it doesn’t matter, because it looks like I’ve just- I've just won,” he said triumphantly.

Adelaide was about to claim that he was making up rules, but she was cut short when she watched him turn a weird plastic crank attached to a bunch of other things. She stared in awe as the crank made a long lever spring forward with a loud snap, which made a ball fall down a set of stairs, which knocked into a tall tower, which made another ball fall onto a lever that sprung a figurine onto a platform, which shook the post right next to her.  

What the hell was this game?  

Adelaide looked up just in time to see a red plastic piece descend toward her. The quick motion of her head allowed dizziness to take over and she fell to the ground, just as the cage fell over top of her and her green, plastic mouse.  

A cage.  

Panic flooded Adelaide’s mind and she curled in on herself as she was taken her far away from Ian's home. Tears immediately started to fall, and she shook violently. If she was thinking straight, she could have easily lifted the lightweight cage and crawled out, but she might as well have been back in that musty basement, starving and alone, for all she could do.  

Ian registered none of this. He leaned down as far as he could, peering into the cage, ready to boast his ass off. Before he could speak, he saw the way she shook.  

“Adelaide?” he whispered, confused.  

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, loud enough to make Ian flinch.  

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, hey. Hold on a second,” he said. He reached for the cage, but Adelaide heard the movement and looked up. She could barely see through the tears, her mind stuck in the past.  

“Stop! Please stop! Just let us go. Let them go! Please!” she yelled. 

Ian hesitated. He had never seen her act like this before, and the change in demeanor happened so fast. The only way out was through though, so he lifted the cage off her as quickly and as gently as he could. He pulled the game pieces out of the board to get them out of the way.  

Adelaide barely registered the movement around her, curled in on herself once again, protecting her head and organs. She shook even harder still, muttering phrases to herself that Ian couldn’t hear.  

Ian was at a complete loss for what to do. He couldn’t let her suffer, but any time he got close she screamed even harder. He resigned himself to sitting there, resting his hand close to her if she needed him, but not close enough to invade her space. They sat like that for a long time until eventually Adelaide’s shaking subsided, and she worked her way back to the present.  

Slowly, she looked up. Ian’s hand was the first thing she saw, which made her jump back. Then, realizing where she was, she took a long, deep breath. Neither of them knew what to say and the silence seemed to stretch out forever. Adelaide refused to look at him.  

“What was that?” Ian asked. It sounded harsh, even to him, but somebody had to break the silence, and it clearly wasn’t going to be Adelaide.  

“None of your business,” Adelaide shot back coldly. Ian gave her a look that said, really? She took another deep breath. Let’s try that again. “Um...sorry, first of all. That was...a lot...um...I don’t- I don’t like cages,” she said pathetically. 

“Yeah, I gathered as much,” Ian said. Very slowly, he lowered himself into the space between the couch and the coffee table so that he was sitting on the floor, maintaining eye contact with Adelaide the whole way. Adelaide scooched back a little, mostly from nerves, but also to avoid craning her neck. She was much too unstable for that. Ian continued to stare, waiting for her to say more.  

“I used to live somewhere else, somewhere not here...obviously that’s what ‘somewhere else’ means, but...well, we used to live somewhere else. In a motel, I think it was called. People would come in and out and-”  

“Who’s we?” Ian interrupted. He didn’t like how scattered her words were. She never got like this anymore. Something was wrong.  

Adelaide hesitated. “My parents,” she said. Her eyes immediately welled up again at the thought of them, but she would not let the tears spill over. She’d already done enough crying for a lifetime.   

“What happened?” Ian knew he was prying, but not until the following morning did he realize how he was taking advantage of her inebriated and emotional state. He felt bad about that night for a long time, but in the moment, he was too curious, too caught up in the shocking information.  

“We used to, to survive we would-” Thinking was hard. “-well, that doesn’t matter, but there was this one person, he knew I was there. I don’t know how, but he knew. So, then I was bait, and obviously they came, of course they came. They shouldn’t have come, and maybe if they didn’t.... anyway,” She cleared her throat. “They took me, took them. They took us. They stuffed us in cages and sent us to...here, I guess. Texas, right? I was kept separate because I was, uh... breedable and um...they made me, with this one... they didn’t like that I wouldn’t eat their food, wouldn’t obey their orders or whatever, so they...just fuck those guys, man. You know? Nobody owns us.” She let out a little laugh and raised her drink in a ‘cheers’ motion, hoping that last bit was relatable. Not once did she look Ian in the eye, scared that he would see right through her. 

Ian was stunned. He knew that this ‘borrower’ lifestyle was hard – they lived in the walls and relied on humans who didn’t know they were there to survive. He didn’t know it went this deep, that there were people actively hunting the smaller species.  

“I'm uh...I’m sorry, Adelaide.... Hey, I promise though, no more cages. At least not if - if I have anything to do with it,” he said. He rested his hand a couple inches away and Adelaide perked her head up. He used her full name.    

“Well, it’s over, and you don't have to be sorry. There’s nothing I can do now, except maybe go to bed,” she said. “I’m tired.” It was getting late, and her eyelids felt extremely heavy. Emotions were running high, and Adelaide was exhausted. Even though borrowers didn’t really experience day and night the same as Human Beans, Adelaide found her sleep schedule shifting closer and closer to Ian’s the more they interacted. Hmm.

Adelaide set a path for her hook that still dangled from the edge of the coffee table. Though she didn’t make it in a straight, stable line, she still made it. She went to reach for the hook when a giant hand appeared from the void less than an inch in front of her face. It plucked the hook off the table and sailed back into the air.  

Adelaide fell back on her butt in shock, then looked up at Ian. “Hey!”  

“Oh no, there’s no way you’re climbing anywhere like- like that. You can’t even stand up,” he said.  

“I am perfectly capable of getting myself home,” she exclaimed, though when she went to stand up, she fell right back over and let out a small hiccup. Her vision went sideways, and she laughed at her own hiccup.  

“How much have you had to drink?” Ian asked. He should have been paying more attention every time Adelaide asked him for more, and he realized belatedly how strong alcohol probably was to someone her size. Adelaide shrugged and let out a noise that sounded vaguely like “I don’t know.” She’d probably be alright come morning, just hungover.  

“Come on,” Ian said, holding his palm out. Adelaide was going to protest more, but at least he didn’t grab her. Maybe she should show some kindness back.  

“Fine,” she agreed. Taking her time, Adelaide pushed herself to her feet. Focusing on placing one foot in front of the other, she slowly and painfully made her way to his waiting hand. Instead of stepping on, she simply collapsed and rolled onto his palm. “Take it away,” she said, pointing vaguely into the air.  

Ian snorted and stood up. He turned to head down the hallway.  

All that motion made Adelaide’s head spin and her stomach churn. She was determined not to throw up, and it was all she could do to make sure that didn’t happen. She was so focused on the task at hand that she didn’t realize where they were headed until they were basically there. Ian’s bedroom.  

“Wait, wait, wait, hello? You missed the entrance to the walls, dude,” she giggled. “Uhhhh, the one back behind the couch. That’ll be the closest.”  

“I’m not setting you loose in the walls like this,” he said. “And I’m uh, certainly not going to be the one to- to cut open the walls when you get yourself um, when you get stuck somewhere. You’re gonna sleep with me tonight.”  Ian didn't miss the way she revealed an entrance into the walls that was close to her home, something she'd been determined to keep secret. He wondered if he should bring that up in the morning. She definitely didn't do it on purpose.

“Geez, buy me a drink first,” Adeliade slurred, then continued to giggle at her own joke.  

He set Adelaide down on his bedside table and laid out an old, clean T-shirt for her to arrange a bed to her liking.  

Ian took off his shirt and pants and hopped into bed. He wasn’t shy about things like that, but it didn’t even matter, because when he turned to tell Adelaide good night, she was conked out in a nest of fabric.  

Ian smiled and reached over to turn off the lamp. He would never say this out loud, lest Adelaide crucify him, but Ian thought she was adorable. Her stubborn attempts to act bigger than she really was didn’t read the way she wanted, but he wouldn’t be the one to tell her that. In fact, she almost definitely knew, but he respected her for trying, nonetheless.  

Ian was tired, but he didn’t fall asleep for a long time. Adelaide’s story kept him up thinking all night and well into the early hours of the morning. Though the story was neither linear nor clear, Ian was able to piece it together and fill in the blanks. He thought back to their first meeting and how scared she was. Knowing what he knew now, Ian understood the fear response, and he was honestly baffled that she stood up to him. He was baffled that she still chose to interact with him after that day, that she let him carry her. Adelaide was brave, she was unpredictable, she was the embodiment of chaos. And maybe that’s why Ian liked her so much.  

.  

Light filtered in through the curtains. The first conscious thought that filtered into Adelaide’s mind was, Ow. My head.  

Borrowers rarely got sick and didn’t get headaches often. Looking for the reason, Adelaide thought back to the previous night, but it was all kind of fuzzy.  

Even with her eyes closed, she could tell it was lighter than usual and she could feel the heat beating down on her body. Wait... that wasn’t right. Hardly any light reached her small home in the walls and warmth wasn’t a concept she was familiar with. And whatever she was laying on was not her nest. Faint sounds of rushing air filled her ears, and she knew in that moment that she was not in the walls.  

Panicked, Adelaide eyes flung open, and she sat up quickly, feeling around for her knife. To her right lay a giant underneath a set of massive blankets, its back turned toward her. She stood up and silently walked backward, assessing her surroundings, but she had to sit back down when her head pounded so hard, she thought it was going to explode.  

This forced Adelaide to process what was actually around her. She knew this room. It was Ian’s bedroom. And so, the giant must be Ian. She let out a quick huff, upset with herself for panicking so quickly.  

Adelaide had never slept outside the walls before. She’d never let her guard down and had never let herself be that vulnerable before. She trusted Ian to an extent, but she couldn’t believe she let herself fall asleep out in the open with him, all exposed – that was too much trust. 

As she sat there, memories from last night slowly started to come back. Drinking alcohol, playing a board game, her mini freak out, opening up about her parents. Ugh. That was embarrassing. Maybe if she pretended not to remember, Ian would let it all go, because she did not want to talk about it further. 

Wanting to get a head start on all of that, Adelaide crawled to the edge of the nightstand. She would put off standing up as long as possible. Where was her hook? Oh yeah, Ian took it last night and put it God knew where. There was no climbing down the slick sides of the table, so it looked like Adelaide was stuck there until Ian woke up.  

It wasn’t so bad, save for the pounding headache. She was still nervous about how exposed she was, with so much open space around her. She just wanted to crawl under an alcove and hide from the world, but she supposed this makeshift blanket would do for now. No, not a blanket...Ian’s shirt. Huh. A weird feeling filled Adelaide's chest...  

Despite the nerves, despite the embarrassment, Adelaide felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Adelaide felt safe.  

.

Next

[evermorre]

feels so good to see a fellow it’s nice to have a friend stan on the dash 🫡

omg!! i just think school bell rings, walk me home, sidewalk chalk, covered in snow, lost my gloves, you give me one, "Wanna hang out?" yeah, sounds like fun, video games, you pass me a note, sleeping in tents, it's nice to have a friend (oooh), it's nice to have a friend (oooooh). light pink sky up on the roof, sun sinks down, no curfew, twenty questions, we tell the truth, you've been stressed out lately? Yeah, me too, something gave you the nerve, to touch my hand, t's nice to have a friend (oooh), it's nice to have a friend (oooooh). church bells ring, carry me home, rice on the ground looks like snow, call my bluff, call you "babe," have my back, yeah, everyday, feels like home, stay in bed the whole weekend. it's nice to have a friend (oooh), it's nice to have a friend (oooooh) it's nice to have a friend (oooh!!!!!!)