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platypanthewriter · 4 years ago

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Strangest 1: Pandora’s Trunk

Strangest takes place the same night as the climax of season two, after Steve and Billy’s fight and Joyce Byer’s BF died. (Did Tumblr eat chapters 1-3? Did I never post them? I do not know! I couldn’t find them, so here’s the first!)

It totally made sense that Max would stay with Lucas and Dustin in the blanket fort that was taking over the living area of the Byers house. And of course El and Mike had laid claim to the table, where it looked like they were assembling crowns and helmets, of Will’s design.

Mrs. Byers and Hopper had taken over Adulting, which was a relief, and Steve had ducked out amidst a general explosion of affectionate profanity and hair ruffling. Through the window, he could see them tearing hot chocolate packets open--he watched Mrs. Byers teasing the kids with different mismatched mugs, and cocked his head. He didn’t really fit in there, he thought, in the blanket fort, or in the tense kitchen after the kids retreated to their realm. He definitely didn’t belong wherever Jonathan and Nancy had disappeared to. It made sense for him to leave.

The fog had lifted, and he willed his shoulders to unclench, all the while trying to figure out the closest place to his bed to hide his bat. An evening project to keep him from thinking about his completely empty house. His house was also fine, since he was not injured, or twelve years old, and had working light switches. Logically, it was over. His brain just wasn’t catching up to breaking news.

He sat more heavily against the Camaro, and it thumped back, which provoked an, again, entirely logical windmilling tumble as Steve tried to keep the bat and both eyes pointed at it all the while scrambling away on three limbs. After a moment of eye-burning terror, he recognized the pattern of sound as kicking and a lot of things Max’ brother probably didn’t need to be calling her, and he stood with a nervous spin, yanking his jacket straight.

He took a breath and held it, rolling his shoulders as he looked back at the cheerily lit Byer’s house with every light on, and back to the car bouncing with the booted feet slamming against the inside of the trunk. After several paced circuits of the car, Billy’s voice had stopped threatening. He was laughing, slamming himself around in there, his voice getting higher. Steve scrabbled at his hair, sliding his hands down to cover his face. He really wasn’t sure any kind of logic applied to Billy Hargrove.

If he let Billy out here, he might just run in there and Hopper would have to shoot him, in front of a ton of little shitheads who had barely escaped being eaten by monsters today. If he just...drove him to his house, somebody would eventually let him out, and...would Max let him out?! Steve groaned to himself, long and slow, because if they were anything like Steve’s parents, Billy Hargrove’d be no trouble to anyone ever again, after he died because nobody looked for him and Steve Harrington knowingly left a human being in the trunk of a car.

Steve took a few deep breaths, idly walking back around to regard the open car window, and the keys on the seat. He looked back at the house for one long hopeful moment, to see Hopper patting Joyce on the back as she threw weak punches into his shoulders, flailing before he caught her against his jacket. They swayed there in silhouette, their shoulders shaking. Steve sighed. He kicked the trunk. The thumping stopped, then exploded again, and Steve banged again.

“Listen,” he started, and the banging stopped, for long enough that Steve thought it would have been better if he had something to say. “I didn’t leave you in there, and I can’t let you out--” the banging started again in earnest, along with a lot of “fuck”s, “bitch”s, and demands about Max--it was a good thing Hopper’d put music on in the house. “Max is fine! She’s inside--I’ll let you out somewhere else, do you want me to take you home, or--” the thumping stopped.

“Where the fuck is that freak, I’ll kill her, I’ll kill you, you fucking--” Steve banged the trunk again, and Billy pounded back, screaming incoherently.

“Mrs. Byers called your house, Max is staying over!” he tried, on the off-chance this could just suddenly turn into a normal, post-monster, partially kidnapped conversation. “I’LL TAKE YOU HOME, THEN,” he said loudly into the seam of the trunk, and Billy started struggling again.

“Max has to go home,” the muffled, furious voice yelled back, pounding and scraping at the inside of the trunk loudly enough that he was probably injuring himself, and Steve thought it was completely unfair the death threats were still audible. “I’ll be back here the second you open this fucking trunk, Harrington, I’ll drag her back by the fucking hair, I’ll tie it to my car, I’ll run over her corpse, I’ll drive through their fucking house--”

Peaceful options exhausted, Steve climbed in the car, leaning his face on the steering wheel as the car shook with Billy’s screaming fury, and took another deep breath. Count on Steve Harrington to forget how to breathe, he thought, only been doing it for sixteen years. Only Steve Harrington wouldn’t have figured it out enough to let it run in the background. By the time they were halfway to Steve’s house, Billy’d stopped yelling. Occasionally there’d be another kick.

By the time Steve pulled in the garage, he was worried enough about exhaust fumes as a new method of involuntary manslaughter he ran right around and banged on the trunk about six times. “Hargrove! William Whatever Hargrove, you answer me, say you’re alive.” He leaned against it, panting, feeling like he’d aged sixty years in body and vocabulary. The trunk thumped back, and Steve slid down to sit against it, reminding himself to breathe, which was apparently something he did now. He’d probably fail his remaining classes, trying to study while remembering to breathe. How would he hold down a job? He’d show up for the interview and have to say “I’m Steve Harrington, and sometimes I forget to breathe.”

The trunk was silent again, and after a while getting his lungs some breathing practice again--maybe they’d take to it--Steve thumped it again. “We’re at my place. If I let you out and call for pizza will you please not kill anyone.” It came out tiredly even.

“What the fuck,” came from the trunk. “Gonna get the police here, tell ‘em I attacked you like a psycho, have your mommy and daddy hold yo--”

Steve banged the heel of his hand on the trunk again. “Nobody else is here. Look, it’s pizza or trunk. We can figure this out in the morning. Promise you won’t do anything to Max.”

The banging in the trunk was taking on a rhythm, and Steve banged over it. “Fucker. Tell me you won’t rat Max out, I’ll let you out.”

Billy began screaming lyrics to his beat, and Steve groaned, letting his head thunk against the trunk, before doing the math on how long Billy’d been in there, and how little he knew about the random syringe Max had shot him up with, and he opened the trunk. Billy’s ankles and wrists were duct-taped together, wedged in, and he swore roundly as he tried to cover his face. “Come on,” Steve sighed, standing to the side where he hoped he was out of range, but reaching over to rip the duct tape off Billy’s ankles. Billy was laughing, inexplicably, holding his arms over his face.

Steve sighed. “Can you walk.”

“Anyway you want, Princess,” Billy giggled.

“Come on,” Steve stood over by the door, arms crossed as he watched Billy kick a bit out the side of the trunk, then get himself rolled sideways. He scrabbled before landing on the cement with a thud, and lay there, laughing harder. It was starting to sound growly again, and Steve rethought his impulse to offer help. “I’m getting pepperoni. With olives.”

When Billy finally staggered in from the garage, Steve had called for the pizza. He turned to see the door slam shut, and Billy slide down it, gnawing at the duct tape around his wrists. His hands were purple.

Steve slammed a few kitchen drawers and stalked over with the carving knife, and Billy went very still, watching him crouch, and allowing him to pull the duct tape close enough to slide the knife up.

When Steve finished slicing, he tossed the knife behind him at random, grabbing one purple hand and rubbing it until it felt like a hand again and not a dissection frog. “Jesus. Max thought you were gonna kill me. And Lucas. Don’t sell her out.”

Billy drew a shaky breath. “And you’re not gonna tell your fancy lawyer dad I broke your face.”

“...my dad’s not a lawyer,” Steve frowned at him, --“Hopper’d probably have locked you up.” He placed the warmed hand on Billy’s knee, and moved on to rub life back into the other one.

“So I behave,” Billy sneered. “Be a good little cunt.”

“Wish the fucking pizza would get here,” Steve muttered, sinking down against the arm of the couch that let him see the whole living room, kitchen, and stairs. When the pizzas arrived, his kidnapping victim shoved by him to drop into that favoured spot on the couch, and Steve sighed.

When morning came, Steve called Max, and she agreed to Billy picking her up for a ride home. After he left, Steve stood in his silent house, getting a little more breathing practise in as his vision started to haze around the edges, thinking of all the things Billy Hargrove wasn’t, like an underground tunneler, or a demogorgon. Billy Hargrove was from Risky Business, not Alien. He was the sweaty “enhanced human” Khan.

Steve forgot about his breathing regimen entirely as he imagined Billy Hargrove in the cast from Grease, and laughed ‘til he choked. Shaking his head, he leaned back against the door, and rubbed his face. All day at school when his brain started to remind him of the previous week, he’d imagine Billy Hargrove as Danny Zuko, shimmying down his Camaro with Tommy behind him trying to carry a tune.

Hopper called that day, to tell him that Mr. Hargrove had called the cops the last two nights on Billy driving around at night, and they’d escorted him home from close to Steve’s house. “In case he ran somebody over drunk. I hear stuff, kid.” The doubt came clearly through his voice. “I don’t know that he’s headin’ for you, but I don’t know that he’s not.” Steve took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, completing the line for himself--maybe keep that bat handy.

“Thanks, Hopper,” he tried the nickname aloud.

Hopper huffed a laugh and hung up.

Billy Hargrove was back at Steve’s house three nights later, serenading under his window. Steve looked longingly at his ski boots, but lifted the sash without projectiles in hand. “What the hell,” he shouted back.

“Lemme in or I’ll tell my dad you offer rides to Max all the time!” Billy yelled up. “Alone!”

Steve, who had gone to an in-class-only new sleeping schedule, suddenly wished his vocal cords could produce the earsplitting rage screeches from Ghostbusters, but let his head thud against the glass in surrender before he went down and unlocked the door. “The fuck do you want, Hargrove,” he squinted up at the moon. “Are you a werewolf, is this where I die.” Later, he’d think, that moment would have been the time to call Hopper.

Billy shouldered him aside as he opened the door, cigarette in hand and reeking of sweat, cologne, beer, and...cooking sherry? It was both reminiscent of and an improvement on Steve’s great-aunt, who usually smelled like baby powder, cat pee, and creme de menthe. Steve’s lungs apparently appreciated it, because they decided to do their job for once without his constantly reminding them. He scrabbled angrily at his hair, before tromping into the kitchen to start making some Folger’s. When the microwave beeped, he stirred in about half the remaining jar of crystals, and went to see why there was no noise happening anywhere.

The couch was covered in Violent Highschool Stranger, under a blanket. Steve dropped into a chair, watching the knee-lumps and elbow-lump stay very still. He wondered whether he’d sleep better upstairs with an unpredictable problem on the couch, and whether suggesting a movie would get his face beaten in--with admirable calm, he thought.

He also thought of not living alone--having a mom like Mrs. Byers, or a sister like Nancy, and imagined what they'd do if they came in and saw he'd brought Billy Hargrove, the guy who almost beat him to death, into his house twice. They'd probably murder him, he thought, and then murder Billy. And then him again--this had to be at least a three-murder event on the Stupidity Scale. Hopper would probably have even more to say. It was a strangely comforting thought, except they weren’t here, and Billy Hargrove was. He didn’t seem to want to break Steve’s nose again, but then he hadn’t given that much warning the first time, either.

Between Steve’s new not-sleeping regime and thinking about the Byer’s ceiling, map taped everywhere, Billy’s fists hitting his face, the world had just started to tilt a bit when the blanket said “Take a picture, Princess, you can jack off to it at night,” and Steve lifted his coffee stew and breathed in the smell.

“What didja think I did with that blanket,” he tried, and watched it get flung as Billy scrambled as far from it as possible, thudding onto his back off the side of the couch, and Steve realized he was laughing again, wheezing with his hand against his face. When he finally looked up, Billy was brushing himself off, straightening his jacket, and Steve imagined the look on his own face after his trunk had thumped back. “Nah, I didn’t.” He patted his lip where the grin had stretched it, glancing down to check for blood. “Much.” When Billy’s hackles raised further, Steve shouted over his rising glower. “How about Star Wars?”

“Hell is wrong with you,” Billy muttered, but settled in the corner of the couch, apparently waiting for Steve to set up the movie. By the time C-3P0 was trying to get to Obi-Wan, Billy’d passed out against the arm, his boots tucked up between the cushions. The smell of cooking sherry intensified, and the glint Steve noticed against the black leather and laces proved to be a hunk of broken glass. There was more in the boot treads, and he could see a couple very small pieces caught in Billy’s shirt and hair. It was hard not to imagine the bank-robbing explosion Billy Hargrove would be walking away from, but his car was parked right out front, hard to miss, if the cops were looking for him. Steve had never seen a SWAT team. Count on them to miss out on actual monsters and chase Billy Hargrove to his house, he thought, indignantly sleepy, and shivered awake hours later, to fogging breath and the white noise of the TV. He groaned, leaning forward to flap one arm at the remote, and switched off the TV. In the dark, he realized the slight rasp of Billy’s breathing had stopped.

“...don’t die on my couch,” he mumbled, frowning into the darkness, which remained dark, but the normal, fridge-humming kind of dark, not the strange blue fluttering darkness where Dustin had screamed. He breathed in stale cigarette smoke and cooking sherry.

Billy snorted. “Just for you.”

He was back in the safer kind of movie, again, Steve thought muzzily, kids having sleepovers. There were movies where killers interrupted sleepovers, but they were humans, not monsters, and anyway he was not actually having a slumber party with Billy Hargrove: Probable Bank Robber. He felt around next to the couch for the blanket, and pulled it clumsily over them. It occurred to him he hadn’t actually asked. “Sooooo...you rob a bank?” he tried, keeping it casual.

“Sure did,” Billy scoffed, “--shot four guys, too. And there’s a stolen police car out there.”

“Oh, it’s that kind of movie.” Steve squirmed down against the back of the couch, letting his head fall against his arms in the safe darkness. The blanket fell over his face.

“You’re not going to call the cops and tell them you’ve got a bank robber?” Billy kicked him, and Steve batted weakly at his foot, eyes sliding shut again.

“Watch it, you--broken glass...shoe.”

He woke to the fading smell of cooking sherry, and blinked slowly at the ceiling, the sudden deep sleep disorienting after he’d thought he’d never sleep again outside of Biology class. “...wha--um,” he muttered, scrambling to look around. There was no sign of his home invader. He wondered how many murders “falling asleep with Billy ‘bank punching’ Hargrove a foot away” rated on the Idiot Scale, he had to be up to, oh, at least four. He felt a weird temptation to ask Nancy before first period. He fiddled with his locker, considering it. The line between her brows deepened, and probably became downright thunderous as he grinned awkwardly at she and Jonathan, turned on his heel, and walked off.

That day after basketball, in the showers, Tommy guffawed at the hand-shaped bruises on Billy’s upper arms. “Where were you last night? All night long, huh?” He leered, shifted to making long groans and grunting noises, and before Steve could catch himself, words fell out of his mouth.

“Those are huge, though, is your girlfriend Sylvester Stallone or--” he yelped as Billy shoved him against the wall, grin manic.

“What you trying to say, pretty boy King Steve?”

“I think he’s calling you a--” Tommy smacked the wall and showerhead on his way to the floor as Billy shoved his face. “A fucking faggot,” he yelled triumphantly, from the floor, as Steve wondered why he was allowed to open his mouth, ever, at all, and Billy tried to swing around and punch him and almost fell on his ass.

“It was my fucking dad, okay, it’s no big deal. My dad,” Billy was screaming between them, as they both dodged around, until the teacher and half the class shoved their way in and pulled him away. Steve fled. He dressed wondering how many more deserved Stupidity Murders he’d earned, getting in the communal shower with the guy who’d beaten his face in, and then opening his dumb fuckhead mouth and suggesting he’d had sex with Rambo. Nancy was in the hall listening to Billy yelling inside, when Steve ducked out of the locker room with his pants on but half his head still soapy, and she helped him rinse his hair in the drinking fountain.

“I think you and Hopper and Jonathan’s mom need to murder me about eleven times,” he told her, laughing, as he wiped water from his eyes. “I think I just asked Hargrove if he was gay, in the shower.” Her mouth fell open.

“Uh,” her eyebrows drew together as she looked at the locker room, but her mouth quirked, “--should we be running, then?”

“I probably should carry my bat,” he laughed, feeling around his ears one more time for soap, then grimacing and digging around in his bag for a sweaty gym shirt to rub on his head. When he pulled it out, she looked even more disgusted than he felt.

“I’ve got dry clothes in my locker. You can at least use a clean shirt.” She stuck her tongue out, trotting confidently off. “Bleah.”

Steve’s unfriendly neighborhood home invader didn’t reappear for over a week, but falling asleep to movies apparently worked, so he re-watched the beginnings of Rambo, Tron, and The Last Unicorn, discovered he could not fall asleep to Monty Python, and bought a much larger jar of Folger’s for mornings when even the dulcet tones of Winnie the Pooh hadn’t let his lungs work through the night without reminder.

The next time Billy showed up he just banged on the door, startling Steve out of the haze he’d fallen into during a Secret of NIMH song. Steve groaned, flapped unproductively at the remote to stop the animated mice, and then stumbled to his feet to make the door-abuse stop. The pounding continued through his shouted “I’m coming! I’m coming! ” until Billy Hargrove nearly fell in on top of him, half naked, and began hopping into the other half of his jeans.

“...what the hell.” Steve stared.

“What is that noise.” Billy scrambled to pull his jacket on, shivering, and nearly elbowed Steve in the face.

“...uh, it’s, um, mice?” Steve blinked at Billy’s face, which looked like it needed some frozen peas. “Uh. Lemme get you some frozen peas.” Billy tried to slam by him as usual, but Steve wasn’t good at basketball for nothing, and slid by the predictable motion on the way to the freezer. He tossed over the peas, proudly not adding to his Stupidity Gauge by getting within five feet of the half-naked feral in his kitchen. It seemed unlikely Billy had accused anyone of having sex with Sylvester Stallone in a communal shower, but the parallels to his Eleven On The Stupidity Murder Scale day were hard to discount. The shiner he was sporting looked exactly like Steve would have gotten if he hadn't escaped to the hallway. Focus, he thought.

“Make me some of that coffee,” Billy was shivering, glaring at the peas. If he’d been anyone else, Steve would have teasingly explained how to press frozen peas against a black eye, but given their last interaction, he just let his lips thin.

“Hot chocolate? I’ve got marshmallows.”

The furious disbelief Billy had focused on the peas turned to Steve’s face, amplified. “Did you just offer me marshmallows.”

“I have some,” Steve sighed, taking down his blue mug, and one that said Happy Anniversary. After a pause, he returned the anniversary mug to the cupboard, and grabbed one with a robin on it, filled them both with water, and stuck the robin in the microwave.

“Marshmallows.”

“Look, if you don’t like marshmallows, don’t eat any.” He pulled out the bag, the Swiss Miss, and the instant coffee.

“Rainbow marshmallows,” Billy observed scornfully. “You’re girlier than Max.”

“Everyone’s girlier than Max, except Hopper and Mrs. Byers,” Steve sighed. “Coffee or chocolate. I mix them sometimes.”

“You rebel,” Billy snorted. “Gimme some marshmallows. You call the Sheriff ‘Hopper’?” He held out a hand, finally lifting the other to his face, and wincing as he placed the peas against the swelling bruise. Steve had seen enough marshmallow bags absconded with to just drop some in the outstretched hand, the bag protectively at his side. He watched Billy start to drop the whole handful in his mouth, wince as he tried to open his mouth wide, and begin eating one at a time. “...kinda got to know him. Me and El and the, y’know,” he held his hand at waist level, picturing Dustin’s indignant protest, “Muppet babies.”

“Yeah, how’d that happen?”

Steve reminded himself to breathe. “Barb died. Bob died. You should be careful, you’ve got half the ‘b’s in your name.” He turned away as the microwave beeped.

“What.” Billy’s eyes narrowed.

“Is it raining?” Steve asked. “Why are you all wet?”

“Fuck off,” Billy said around his mouthful of marshmallows, and Steve shrugged, presenting the steaming mug, a spoon, the box of chocolate mix, and the Folger’s.

“I give you the bird,” he said grandly, tossing his mug in the microwave. Billy snorted, dumping three chocolate packets in the mug, and making grabby hands for the marshmallows.

Steve surrendered the bag, leaning against the counter by the microwave. He watched Billy wipe the water away that was trickling down his neck, and try to pretend he wasn’t shaking, dripping wet, in November. Steve stomped off for a towel, returning to throw it to Billy just before the microwave beeped. “Gimme back those girly marshmallows,” Steve began dumping powders in his mug, stirring industriously, before topping it with a pile of rainbow.

Billy stalked off to take Steve’s spot on the couch, before sliding off to flip through the laserdiscs. “Gonna punch these mice,” he muttered, lifting one, and flipped it to read the back. "You have movies for grownups? Whaddaya do when there aren't, like, singing frogs, you just fall asleep or--?"

"Oh no, not that one," Steve breathed, horrified. "That's Nancy's, it gave me nightmares."

"...IRA bombers?" Billy frowned up incredulously.

"No! It's a romance, it's awful, the guy falls in love with the girl and she has a dick and she thought he KNEW--"

"What," Billy's voice had gone flat.

"That night I dreamt I was in bed with Nancy for the first time and she took my clothes off and I was dickless with a secret pussy--"

"Everyone knows that, Harrington--"

"Shut your face, it was horrible, she just kept patting my hand sadly and she's a problem solver, you know, she kept going to the kitchen and getting, like, a banana, and the pepper grinder--"

The laserdisc sleeve drummed softly at Billy's head as he shook with laughter.

"And she just looked more and more disappointed and finally she said she had to leave, she couldn't cope with a relationship where she had to satisfy herself with a garlic press, and she was sure I'd be happier moving on--" Steve had been laughing too, at the image of Nancy earnestly presenting him with carnally unsatisfactory kitchen gadgets, but he sighed, rubbing his face. "Usually when I dreamed she'd dump me it was because I was invisible, or she was the president and she caught me setting up a kegstand in the--"

"I'm gonna call you 'Secret Pussy' forever," Billy interrupted.

"You will the hell not--"

"What?!" Billy laughed harder.

"I'm not a secret pussy, I'm secretly Kurt Russell, all my..." he slid further down in the couch, curling around his snickers, "--ten out of ten trick-or-treaters agree."

"You telling me you're half-blind, because it'd explain--" The doorbell rang, over and over, like a blaring red alert, along with voices and the thump of bicycles against the side of the house, and Steve scrambled up to reach the entryway before Dustin, Mike, and Will all fell in at once. "We need hot chocolate," Dustin said confidently, and Steve grimaced, thinking fast, before inwardly throwing his hands up and outwardly yelling "BILLY! Put on the kettle for hot chocolate!"

Silence fell, all three kids going still, but after a few seconds the couch creaked, and Billy walked into the kitchen, and the sink turned on.

“Is he holding you hostage,” Dustin whispered, eyes wide as he leaned around Steve’s shoulders.

“He’s probably eating marshmallows.” Steve raised his eyebrows at them, wondering whether it was stupid or just evil to allow the kids around Billy, who’d settled in, in a weird way, but also probably bit occasionally. Unprompted. He didn’t want any of his stupidity murders to be because someone got actually murdered.

“Will came for a sleepover,” Mike reported, glancing into the kitchen warily. “And we were gaming, and it was fine, but then there was a short in the kitchen and sparks and--”

Will sniffled, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. “I can’t call my mom,” he rolled his thin shoulders back, firming his chin as he looked up at Steve, “--she’ll never let me out again--”

“He started crying all crazy,” Dustin put in, ever helpful, to a general elbowing, “--and I said, Steve has hot chocolate, and a bat.”

“...ah,” Steve glanced at the kitchen. “Did you guys let her know you were coming here? So she doesn’t call and find you guys--”

“We called,” Mike laughed apologetically. “We said you invited us over.”

Billy tromped back out to the living room, presumably to sneer at singing mice, as Steve herded the tiny assholes towards hot chocolate.

“Why is he here,” Dustin whispered, very loudly, with his usual degree of subtlety. Mike and Will nodded, and Steve laughed, rubbing his face.

“It’s fine, we have classes together, he’s not going to do anything,” he tried weakly, and Will’s eyes narrowed.

“Do you need a distraction while we phone Hopper?” he asked softly under the noise of Steve getting more mugs and batting Dustin away from stress-eating all the marshmallows.

“Dustin could get your bat,” Mike suggested.

“Thanks, man, send Dustin out there,” Dustin sighed loudly.

“Dustin, get more marshmallows out of the garage,” Steve pointed, trying to channel Nancy’s no-nonsense tones. He flipped off the stove, opting for the hot chocolate prep that kept them all in the kitchen for a longer time. “Will, fill these up and microwave them one by one for two and a half minutes. Mike--” he glanced around, “--get spoons and see if there’s still whipped cream in the fridge.”

They slowly moved to obey, watching him closely as he began rifling the cupboard for candy canes. Steve vindictively didn’t point out the spoon drawer to Mike. It was one thing, he thought, expecting his stupidity assessments from Hopper or Nancy, but he was not having it from children that did things like try to raise demodogs in turtle cages.

Billy had settled in Steve's spot on the couch, as always--Steve rolled his eyes--and Steve headed for the other end, before noticing the kids standing in strained poses like awkward chainsaw art. "Ugh," Steve sighed, before dropping next to Billy, whose shoulders hunched around his hot chocolate.

"Okay, Will, you pick," he pointed.

"Pick this, Will," Dustin held up the animated Lord of the Rings.

"Shut up, Dustin," Mike threw a pillow at him, and Will yelped, dodging aside, before grabbing it and swiping Dustin.

Steve grinned. “I found the candy canes,” he told Billy, who turned another disbelieving look on him, as Will smacked Mike with a pillow, and it turned into a free-for-all between the three of them until Dustin crawled under the melee and put on The Hobbit. As soon as it loaded up, he plonked himself down next to Steve. Will sat cautiously next to him, and Mike dropped at the end, the quieter two studying their chocolate as Dustin elbowed Steve.

“Man, I been wanting to watch these without Lucas, he hates Return of the King--”

Mike grimaced over towards Billy at the sound of Lucas’ name. “Well, it is kinda silly. It’s for little kids.”

“It’s for Steve. He has to have the singing in there,” Billy put in, and Dustin leaned around to stare at him.

“You’re another reason I’m glad Lucas ain’t here, man, you a Nazi or what?”

“Neo Nazi,” Mike corrected quietly. “They’re called Neo Nazis, it’s not 1945--”

“Look, it’s Hobbiton,” Steve sighed into his mug.

“Or the Ku Klux Klan,” Will put in, “Like in the South.”

"No," Billy said finally, and after several seconds Dustin laughed.

"No?! No, you just slammed him into a wall? No, you just told Max to stay away from his kind?"

"I didn't say that."

Steve could feel Billy's entire body going tense, and shut his eyes, breathing in the blended chocolate, coffee, and candy cane smells from his mug. Twelve murders worth of stupidity, today, he thought, wondering whether he'd make it to the phone, and whether one of the kids would save him with the bat, and whether any of his Idiocy Tally would hit them, in a permanent sense.

"Why'd you beat him up, then?" Mike asked pointedly. Eleven's boyfriend felt no physical fear, apparently. Reasonable, if Eleven were actually present.

“Okay,” Steve tried to think of what Mrs. Byers would say, “--uh, whatever reasons he had, they weren’t good enough, can we all say ‘aye’ on that one?”

“Aye! ” proclaimed Dustin and Mike in a shout, Will firmly, and, thankfully, Billy, sounding a little rough.

“And unless he does it again, it’s between he, Lucas, and Max?” Steve continued, pushing his luck.

“Aaaaye,” came the sullen chorus from Steve’s right, and a fervent “Aye,” in low tones from Billy.

Steve sat back, wide-eyed, as his heart slowly stopped pounding. An hour later, his head was draped back over the couch as he snored softly, and Mike had quietly left and returned to drop the bat full of nails across the coffee table. Dustin pointed at it, speaking in his louder-than-speech stage whisper.

“That’s Steve’s bat. Look, it’s got blood on it. That’s bully blood.” He grabbed it and pointed it at Billy, who slammed his elbow into Steve.

“Harrington. Harrington. Is that blood on that bat.” Steve tried to roll sideways, growling, but Billy elbowed him in his chest, this time. “Harrington. Did you kill someone.” He glared around. “Did you guys cover up a murder?”

(I think Tumblr ate my posts for chapters 1-3, so I’m reposting them!)

Strangest chapter 1/chapter 2/chapter 3/chapter 4/chapter 5/chapter 6/chapter 7/chapter 8/chapter 9/chapter 10/ But really I’d recommend reading it on Ao3 under peterqpan, scrolling through it on Tumblr sounds crazymaking

#Strangest #platypan #platypan fic #Harringrove #stranger things #Fix-it #After season 2 #WIP #They grouch around each other like wary cats #Eventually they fall asleep on each other #It's soft

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be-dazzled · 5 years ago

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#SIYC

Gray Fullbuster, Juvia Lockser FFnet: click here Tumblr: explore here Genre: Multi-chapter, Romance, Comedy Rating: M for sensitive content and language

Summary: Gray Fullbuster is a player both in love and in life. He plays Professional Basketball and is being groomed to be in line with Basketball Legends Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant and Stephen Curry. There's just one problem, Gray Fullbuster is a play-ah. His life is a giant mess of crazy parties, waking up with random women and waking up in random women's apartments. Just living the life.

The opinion of the public on him is waning. To save the million-dollar endorsements in the verge of disappearing, Gray needs to change his image. Therefore, Gray Fullbuster, Fiore Knight's Team Captain and Most Valuable Player, will be in the next season of "My Star Can Dance".

There's another problem: it seems like his star isn't that bright since his partner, one of Fiore's prominent ballerinas, doesn't know him? His billboard is hanging in front of her dancing school! And it was a good billboard since all he was wearing was his six-pack and an Aztec bandana. How come she didn't notice?

…

Speak to me, read my mind Fill your mouth, with flesh and wine And I'll be yours, just give me time 'Cause you have everything I could ever want You have everything I could ever want You speak to my soul like you've known it before And I just can't stop Lord I can't stop, myself

– Can't Stop, Mozella

…

The closed door muffled the loud screams coming from the other side of it. With every chant and every scream, Juvia's heart thundered. How long had it been since she performed in front of an audience? She couldn't remember. Acid settled in the pit of the ballerina's stomach. The thundering claps and cheers were not helping. In fact, they made the acid chew its way upwards.

Nerves were a performer's greatest enemy.

The knock on the door yanked Juvia's attention toward the single wood. A young man in a bull cap, black shirt and a mic in front of his lips peeked through the small opening.

"Miss Juvia, we're going live in thirty minutes. Please, prepare."

Juvia muttered thanks.

The young man was kind and sweet. Juvia could not remember ever seeing him around. He was probably a new recruit.

When the door clicked closed, Juvia abandoned the thought on the new guy and returned her attention to the vanity mirror. She watched her make-up artist, Cana, paint her lips with light lipstick that complimented her golden brown eyeshadow. Then, Cana sprayed the Treseme Stronghold around her blue bun to secure all the strands.

"All done!" Cana proclaimed. Then, she replaced her make-up tools inside a vanity box before she took a loud sip out of her Starbucks to-go cup.

The show's assistant scriptwriter, and Juvia's High School best-friend, walked up behind her, admiring Juvia's beauty in the mirror.

"You look so pretty, Juvs. I'm sure the camera's gonna love you."

"Thank you, Levy." Juvia gave her a strained smile. Baring herself to Levy, Juvia allowed her worries to show.

Levy opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a subtle knock on the door. A familiar shock of raven hair popped into the opening before any of the three ladies could say come in. Of course, they need not to because after Gray Fullbuster said hey, he invited himself in.

Juvia did not turn around to greet him. Instead, she met Gray's dark, awed eyes in the mirror.

"Wow, you look beautiful." The compliment escaped his lips breathlessly.

Levy excused herself, using setting-up early as the reason. The truth was, the show-writer wanted to leave the two alone. Such fact Juvia knew. She mouthed her friend a thank you; grateful when the latter dragged with her an insistent Cana who wanted to take a photo with Gray.

Juvia watched Gray as he walked up behind her, slow and dazed. But as awe-struck as he was with her, Juvia was the same. She couldn't take his eyes off Gray. His raven hair brushed back, made sultry by stubborn fringes falling off the wagon. With his hair away from his face, Gray's classic features came to prominence: high cheek bones and well-defined jawline.

Blue perusing eyes travelled down his neck to the bare skin teasing through the gap of Gray's polo shirt where one, two, three studs remained unbuttoned. Juvia caught her breath. The feel of his hard chest teased at her fingertips.

"Hey, you really look beautiful." He whispered, the rich baritone cutting through her thoughts. The heat of his hands settled on her shoulders, yanking her back to reality.

Gray Fullbuster in an unkempt brushed-back 'do might be a good distraction but the unsettling feeling, just like the plague, just wouldn't go away.

Wearing her heart on her sleeves, Juvia turned around her chair and looked Gray straight in the eyes, voicing her fear for the first time.

"What if I screw up?"

"You won't. You know why?"

Juvia waited for a good moment for his next words. Her heart ready to pop out her chest.

"Because you are Juvia Lockser. And Juvia Lockser never screws up. That's my job."

The confidence in his statement made Juvia almost believe it. She was able to appreciate his punchline too. But there was a little voice the ballerina could not ignore. A little voice saying maybe, maybe Gray was wrong.

"Yeah right." She rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to her reflection in the mirror. "There's a first time for everything."

Juvia was skeptical. She wasn't a pessimist neither was she a ball of sunshine. Juvia liked managing her expectations; less disappointments.

"Juvia." Gray called; his voice taming. He cupped Juvia's face, offering warmth with his open palms. "She is going to love you."

The old Juvia would have been surprised. Here was a stranger she's known not quite long, yet so attuned to Juvia's own feelings. Maybe, it was because she finally tore her own walls down for him.

"So, just relax." He suggested.

Juvia caught Gray's wrists in each hand and wrapped her fingers around them. She didn't push them away, liking how his palms felt against her skin.

"Breathe in, breathe out."

Her eyes shut close, rubbing her cheeks against Gray's palms. His words were so powerful that she was able to push the anxiety at the back of her mind which, she hoped, wouldn't make reappearance. Not until after their performance.

"We're going to kill this performance. Okay?"

Juvia nodded, resting her forehead against Gray's. All the uneasiness was melting away and she had this man to thank for that. Juvia trusted him, came to trust Gray completely and she didn't even know how or why. Even if the Hoopster acted like a five-year old on a sugar rush sometimes, there were moments, moments like this one, when Gray made her feel safe; like she could trust him; like she could rely on him. He got her back – one hundred percent.

"Besides…" Juvia felt Gray's hot breath fan her cheeks. "You could always imagine me in that audience…" He lowered his voice a fraction before finishing. "naked."

Then there were those other moments when she wanted to slap his spirit out of him.

Juvia sighed. His last comment forced her eyes open. She slapped his hands away and returned to the mirror. That wasn't how the saying goes.

"You're not helping."

Juvia checked her hair in the mirror to make sure they still held together. She eyed the man laughing behind her. Instead of getting mad at him; Juvia could not help the smile pulling on her lips. Gray Fullbuster could easily put her mind out of anything, whether by his lame jokes or using those lips for something more useful. Like kissing. That's another thing Juvia grown to like about Gray, aside from kissing, he could always turn things around.

"Besides, I should be the one getting nervous here." Gray confessed. "It's my first time and I feel this weird fluttering in my stomach." The admission and the realization of what the fluttering was for repulsed him.

He looked cute, Juvia thought. Cute but still repulsed.

Juvia studied him for a second. The lines on his forehead and the troubled expression proved his words genuine. The overly confident Hoopster climbed down his high horse. Seeing how Gray reacted to his own pre-show tension, Juvia sat there thinking that beating herself up for getting all nervous and worried was crazy. Performance jitters were perfectly normal, human even.

Juvia climbed down her chair, acting nonchalant about Gray's sudden confession. She then spun around to face him, leaned in and drop a volume as she spoke. "You know what a good distraction is?"

She almost broke out of character when the sudden proximity stunned the overly confident Hoopster.

"Wh-what?" Gray stuttered, his face clouded as he felt her hot breath against his flushed lobe.

"You could always imagine me in the audience, naked."

Juvia walked past him and left a wide-eyed Gray, who seemed to forget how to breathe, in her wake.

"Don't say that!"

She heard him complain after a long drawn-in breath.

"You know I can't get that image out of my head now."

Men really didn't like having a taste of their own medicine. But at least, it kept Gray's mind off the jitters.

...

Romeo, the young man from earlier, instructed the duo to prepare at the backstage. Gray and Juvia were the first to perform. At the holding area, Juvia could hear the host warming up the audience. The lively ruckus was waking up the uneasiness. Juvia easily pushed it back by remembering Gray's words earlier: the how they were going to 'kill the performance' and not the 'imagine him naked in the audience' nonsense.

After the host called out Gray and Juvia's names, silence covered the whole studio. Juvia listened for the cue. She threw her partner one last look, finding the fire in Gray's midnight eyes ablaze. From that moment she knew, the performance was in the bag, no doubt about it.

The first beat of their music poured through the studio's speakers. Then the spotlight was on the pair at the center of the stage. Juvia fixed her eyes on one person – the man carrying her through the routine. The whole world fell away and Juvia drowned in the music, the sway of their bodies and in Gray's midnight eyes.

Juvia's heart thumped along the thundering claps their dance received from the audience. A warm feeling swelled in her chest and the moment she saw the proud smile on her partner's lips, the warm feeling spread like wildfire throughout her body. The catch in her breath wasn't only because of the laborious routine.

Juvia could barely make out what the host had to say through the explosion of cheers. All she knew was that Jenny Realight had such an authority on stage that the audience settled down the moment she spoke. Jenny congratulated the couple on a great performance, slipping her own compliment in.

"That was one sizzling performance, don't you think?" Magnolia Weekly's resident model-turned-host addressed the question to the energetic audience. "I think you burned a hole on the ground."

The couple answered with mutual mirth; their arms were around each other.

"I'm feeling like there is somethin'-somethin' going around here." Jenny teased as she noticed the closeness between the two. "Care to share, Mr. Hotshot?" The host placed the mic next to Gray's lips, hoping for an honest and interesting answer from him.

"The only something I'm going to get tonight is a bad case of the cold. What, with my chest bare open and everything."

Ever the crowd-charmer, Gray's knack for a punchline earned a subtle laugh from the studio audience.

"Someone's a bit too showbiz." Jenny jokingly called Gray out for his evasiveness but she was running on a tight schedule. So, Jenny let them off the hook, for now. "We will get back to that. Now, let's hear from our judges."

The two judges only had good things to say about the performance. One of the female judges purred a 'muy caliente' and even feigned fanning herself to exaggerate her point. The lone male critic thanked Gray, riding on the Hoopster's joke about having to bare his chest on national television for the ratings.

"My pleasure." Gray answered, flashing his trademark wink that got all the female fans buzzing; some males too.

But the opinion that Juvia waited for and the one which mattered the most for her was from the dancer who was recently awarded the Prima Ballerina Assoluta – highest honor conferred to a ballerina.

When the spotlight was finally on Aquarius as it was her time to speak, Juvia could feel her knees wobble. Good thing she had Hoopster for support.

"Well, it's nice to see you managed to keep up with a great ballerina, Mr. Fullbuster." Aquarius began. She had that air and grace about her that intimidated. The form of her every move and sway like dancing were flawless perfection. "Do you have any background in dancing?"

"If you count my one-man show performance in the shower, then yes."

Juvia ought to feel embarrassed on Gray's behalf but she didn't. Gray Fullbuster could work a room with his quirky quips and that was one of his many charms.

"Is he always this funny, Ms. Lockser?"

Juvia's heart leaped when Aquarius started to address her.

"He tries." She answered, trying on the funny pants herself. Even got really excited when her dance hero chuckled at Juvia's joke.

Aquarius paused long enough to let the audience have a good laugh before she started talking technicalities.

"You were able to pull it off even without," Aquarius withdraw her eyes from her notes and looked at Gray. "I'm not counting shower performances as background." She interjected with a playful smile before continuing, "even without background in ballet."

Aquarius praised Juvia for adapting the routine to Gray's skills. The excitement escalated with every compliment thrown Juvia's way and she thought she saw stars when her dance hero said they did a great job.

"And I don't think I'm the only one here who thinks that your chemistry is off the charts!" Aquarius turned around without getting off her judge's seat. "Am I right?" She offered her microphone to the audience.

The response was deafening. Only the blind could not see the heat between Gray and Juvia.

...

The live shows were finally over but Juvia was still on cloud nine and there was no sign of her climbing down from it anytime soon. She couldn't believe how her life turned out: she met her childhood dance hero and even received high praises from her. Then there was Gray, the man who rose to the occasion magnificently.

Juvia peered at the man seated beside her and caught the Hoopster staring at her too. She recognized the glint in his dark blue eyes because she knew she had it in hers too. He reached for her hand under the table and gave it a little squeeze. Juvia returned his loving smile and leaned in when Gray motioned her to. Her skin set fire at the feel of his warm lips brushing against her lobe. He just said something funny and Juvia had to stifle the giggle that threatened to erupt. The show-creator was giving his thank-you speech and she did not want any of the attention. She liked the fact that both she and Gray were happy in their own little world. Juvia would like to keep it that way for a little while.

As the speech came to a close, Juvia raised her glass along with the contestants, the staff and everyone involved in the show. She clanked glasses with Gray and shared a knowing smile. A short bluenette slid into the vacant chair next to Juvia and she regrettably retrieved her hand from Gray's hold. She didn't have to look to know it was Levy whose brown eyes brimmed with excitement.

"He's right, you know." She started then phished out her phone to show Juvia, who was just about to take a spoonful of chicken pecan. "Look, the show's trending on twitter!" Levy exclaimed but apologized quickly when people started throwing judging looks at their table.

Levy returned to her conversation with Juvia, showing the twitter page on her mobile. Juvia was just reading the top page when Gray's hand suddenly grabbed Levy's phone. Bunhead did not fight him over it. After all, she wasn't that all interested.

"It's true! We're trending no. 1 worldwide."

Gray kept scrolling and started reading the tweets. He forgot all about the sumptuous meal right in front of him.

"Wow, you are ironheart143?" Gray passingly read Levy's twitter username which, hearing it aloud, the scriptwriter realized was quite embarrassing.

"Look, this one says 'Gray Fullbuster is God-sent. I'll let him drive me to heaven.'". Gray read a little too proudly for Juvia's liking. The corners of his mouth pulled in a smug. He read another one saying how frockmehard would like Gray to Full her Buster.

Juvia cringed internally. What did that even mean, to 'Full my Buster'?

"Oh! Here's another one. 'I am just as flexible. I'd wrap both legs around Gray's neck… and I'm going to read that to myself." He stopped the moment Juvia sent him the death glare and decided it was better for him and his blooming relationship to return the phone to the owner.

"Hey, there are tweets about Juvia too." Levy began reading mentions about Juvia. Aloud at first, thinking they were innocent until she realized, as she went through them, that people on the internet could get really dirty and detailed.

"Okay. I just lost my appetite."

Gray set his utensils on the table and refused to take another bite, pushing the plate at the center. The tweets just left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Oh! Some fans are also discussing how good your chemistry is."

"Let me see."

"Hey!" Levy pouted but she was no match against Gray's athletic reflexes. She crossed her arms as the phone-grabber scrolled through the tweets.

"Wow, we should really get a couple-name." Gray suggested without taking his eyes off the screen.

"Couple name?"

"That's right!" It was the scriptwriter who answered instead, stealing the opportunity from Gray. "Like Brangelina, Bennifer or Kimye. Yours could be…" She gave it a serious thought before excitedly announcing what she came up with.

"Oh, I know! JuGra!"

Juvia hissed in a little disagreement. "I don't know, Levy." She wanted to support her friend, especially that the scriptwriter looked really, really enthusiastic about this couple-name thing. But 'JuGra' did not sound right in her ears. "I don't think this couple name–"

"–that or it could be JuRay." Gray offered, finally lifting his eyes off the screen and fixing them on Juvia.

JuRay did not sound so bad but Juvia could tell Gray wasn't stopping there. In his eyes, she could see the gears turning.

"FulLockser? Too long. My last name's too long." Gray frowned at the inconvenience of his surname.

"ViaGra?"

"You don't want people calling us ViaGra, Gray."

"ViaGray? That way it won't sound too…"

"Actually, the people have already baptized you." Levy interrupted before the talk about ViaGra took them somewhere she'd rather not go into. "They're calling your loveteam Gruvia."

"Gruvia?" Gray thought about it and let the coined word roll off his tongue once more, testing how it sounded. "Gruvia. I like it."

Juvia expressed her agreement with a content smile that mirrored Gray's.

"Sounds better than ViaGra too." Gray mused. He seemed to enjoy that silly one though.

...

Right after dinner, after the Gruvia couple, as their fans fondly called them, said their goodbyes, Gray offered Juvia a ride. They didn't mind the others seeing them leave the party together. It wasn't the first time Gray drove the ballerina home. But they fought the need to feel each other's warmth until they got inside Gray's Camaro.

In the car, they fondly talked about the live shows. Gray even made fun of the Kendo champion with the scarlet hair.

"I pity his partner but I guess she wasn't called the Dancing Demon for nothing."

"Oh, if Erza could hear you."

Juvia thought she saw fear cross Gray's face at the mention of the swordswoman's name. She confirmed it when the other half of Gruvia cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject.

"How about the wrestler, Elfman? He invited me to watch one of his games. I don't think I'd like to watch men in their undies battling it out in the ring."

"Let me guess, you prefer women in their undies battling it out in the ring."

"Aw." Gray playfully swooned. "You know me so well."

"Ha. Ha." Juvia rolled her eyes again, laughed without humor.

As the ballerina listened in the passenger seat, she couldn't help but muse at the turn of events. She used to hate this man's guts. The basketball diva who pranced into her studio, challenging her patience every chance he got, was now at the driver's seat having a decent conversation with her like most old couples did. Juvia started to imagine Gray with white hair sticking out his head.

"Why are you looking at me that way?" Gray asked, glancing at her every now and then.

"Nothing." Juvia answered. "And keep your eyes on the road." She reprimanded without erasing the smile on her lips. She didn't even try.

"Oh c'mon. Do I have something on my face?" Gray knew there wasn't but he, too, had that foolish smile on his face.

"Yes. There's that silly look you need to get rid of."

"Hey, you have it on yours too."

"I don't!" Juvia denied.

"Yes, you do. Look!" Gray reached out and palmed Juvia's face with his free hand. "You get rid of it first."

"Gray!" Juvia reprimanded with a giggle, swatting his hands off her.

They shared a soft chuckle in the car; lost in their own little world again. Juvia shifted her gaze to the window and rested her head against it. Juvia heaved an audible sigh. The events from earlier played in her head like a reel. Today couldn't have been more perfect and she couldn't be happier.

The familiar brown roof peered into the window and Juvia felt the Camaro slowing down. The convertible prowled into the front of the two-storey white-fenced house.

"We're here." Gray announced. Then, he cut off the engine and alighted from the Camaro.

Gray walked up to Juvia's side, taking her hand in his. It wasn't the first time Gray held her hand but somehow it felt different – good different. Her heart was pounding, not in a nervous beat but more like that giddy feeling when drinking caffeine; like she was excited for something. Like there was something amazing to come.

They continued the path that led to her door; fingers still intertwined. They walked up the steps into the porch and halted in front of the door. The silence that settled between them was cut short by Gray.

"I guess this is goodnight." Gray said, taking a step closer towards Juvia.

Her eyes fell on his lips and Juvia thought back at the time they shared their first kiss, right in front of her door, exactly where they were standing now.

"Yeah. I guess it is." She answered, taking her eyes off Gray's tempting lips and back to his midnight eyes.

When Gray leaned in, Juvia fought the urge to close her eyes. She wanted to witness everything and safely tuck the memory in her mind. Her eyes never left his as Gray bridged the gap between them. She waited, heart strumming in anticipation. Then, he softly pressed his lips against hers.

The kiss started slow and gentle; both of them wanting to indulge in the taste of each other. It remained chaste until a low moan slipped from Juvia's lips and into Gray's. It was her permission and encouragement for Gray to deepen the kiss. He also would have if not for the sound that came from the door – a sound of a person clearing his throat.

Juvia pulled away from the kiss. She slowly turned to the door, praying she was wrong and that the person she was about to face wasn't who she thought it was.

But Juvia Lockser was rarely wrong.

Heat rose up and painted her cheeks rosy. She forgot how to speak for a moment and wished she could dig a hole to hide in.

"Oh, dad!" She managed to say sheepishly as she confronted a six foot man with his arms crossed against his chest. "You're back." She fought the second wave of shame about to hit her when the fierce blue eyes she missed narrowed at her.

"Good evening, sir." Gray greeted, catching Ambassador Lockser's attention.

The man did not speak but the intimidation came across his lone intended audience – Gray Fullbuster.

It has been awhile since someone put a mouse in Gray's chest.

...

Writer's Corner: Hi you guys! New chapter's up. How have you guys been? I would just like to thank you again for your unending support both old and new readers. You are the best!

I know I promised you guys a new character and I think he's not who you guys were expecting right? Hehe.

See you in the next chapter and drop some love at the comment section. Muah!

#gray x juvia #gruvia #gray fullbuster #juvia lockser #she's in you court #siyc #gruvia fanfiction #gruvia au #gruvia fanfic

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so-shiny-so-chrome · 6 years ago

Text

Witness: Weirdness_Unlimited

Creator name (AO3): Weirdness_Unlimited

Creator name (Tumblr): Burn-your-face-upon-the-chrome

Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weirdness_Unlimited/works

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: In the Mad Max universe, anything that is completely absurd and outrageous is represented as the norm. Leather fetish gear? Oh, that's just the security guard uniform at Bartertown. Those guys over there are wearing black and white face paint? No, you're not at an ICP concert, those are War Boys, also run. Whoa, there are acrobats being flung through the air on poles attached to moving vehicles! No worries, that's just any Tuesday in Gas Town. I love this fandom because pretty much any nonsense my skull meat can come up with, as long as the mechanics of it work, I can throw it into my fics and not a single person will bat an eye. As a matter of fact, the weirder, the better.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: Life is gross, humans do gross things, and the environment around you could not care less about any of your moral dilemmas. I suppose you can say my style is a lack of it. I like things straight forward and I know this characteristic often weakens any aesthetic appeal to my writing. “To Love Reptiles” reads from Slit's perspective the same way a radio manual does but with a lot more cursing. I try not to make it too complicated to digest. I'd like for people to be able to fill in any blanks with their own interpretation of the situation and then move on to the next.

Themes though, I go heavy on themes. The main theme is interpersonal relationships, coping with failure within them, and personal growth. Other themes include coping with mental illness, codependency, hunger, greed, warfare, trauma, etc.

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: The most fun work of my own, by far, has been “To Love Reptiles.” It has also been the most popular, most successful, and my most favourite. The most difficult has been an original work with no working title. I can't give away much about this original piece but it has to do with local myths and survival in the wilderness. I quit working on the rough manuscript when my grandmother passed away several years ago. I'll be picking it up again soon. It may turn up on AO3 in the next three or four years.

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?/

A: Gritty but hopeful, I think. The wasteland is nasty but humans need hope, right?

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: Alright, so that's an interesting question with a pretty messy answer but I'll try to make it brisk. Step 1: I start with a summary of the story as a whole with a point A (the beginning) and a point B (the end). Step 2: I break that summary down and and fill it out with events that can ferry the characters from the start of the story to the finish on a drawn timeline to keep things in chronological order. I also have note cards. I break this down further into named chapters. This can take a while. Step 3: I summarize each of those chapters to figure out if this story needs more than one installment. It depends out how the series of events land and how many minor arcs are included with the main arc/objective. Sprinkle some drama in there, scrap some unnecessary things, narrow an installment down to thirty (30) chapters at maximum. Step 4: I summarize individual scenes within the chapters and hack out important dialog. This takes weeks. There's typically between four and ten scenes per chapter. Also more note cards. Step 5: I try to flesh out one scene per day. (key word: Try)

I get the most writing done in the morning over coffee and before work. I usually sit at the breakfast table with my phone and spit out about 500-ish words before my husband wakes up. I'll write intermittently throughout the day. Lately I haven't been writing much because of holiday junk and winter being kind of a bummer.

If I'm in a rough patch, I can break though it by sitting in a room with no internet access and forcing myself to scratch out a scene or two in a notepad. Usually these notepad scribbles are so awful that they get torn out and chucked in the waste bin but the next day I'm keen to do the job right.

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: Ambient sound, white noise, or nothing. I do listen to music and there's a lot of songs I associate with stories, fics, characters. Tove Lo is a big one for Dune. Most of the time I find that music with lyrics or a high tempo is distracting if I'm in the act of writing something but it can be a source of inspiration separately.

Q: How do you keep track of all the details as you're writing? How do you keep details consistent in your works? How do you fact-check your writing?

A: I have a little memo pad with numbered facts that do not change at any point through the story. These are kinda the cardinal rules. I can't tell you the rules because they contain spoilers. After the “RULES” there are miscellaneous details that I'd like to remember in case they come up later. Things like birthmarks, scar placement, mannerisms, things I've hinted at without exposition that will need to be revealed later.

I fact check by googling stuff and falling down research holes for several hours until I forget what I was doing. EVENTUALLY I'll come back to writing and realize that's why there are things in my search history that probably have me on some kind of government watch list.

Q: What motivates your writing?

A: My motivation. Real talk? For AAL it's to get to a particular scene in the planned third installment. Scene thirteen in chapter seven. I know that answers exactly nothing and is weirdly specific but... yes. Other works of mine, I'm motivated by the idea that some of my ideas might entertain someone out there, even if it's just one someone then I've succeeded.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Time management. I have a lot of hobbies and finding time for individual projects is... Hard. I made a boredom jar that lets me pick an unfinished task/project/piece at random to do whenever I'm bored so that I can stop myself from starting anything new when my apartment is already full of unfinished junk.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: Yes. My organizational skills have improved by miles and my attention span is better focused. Grammatically my work has undergone general improvement.

Learned anything about myself? Hmm, I learned that my opinion of what is canon and what makes good fan fiction are two completely different things. If you ask me anything specific about the Mad Max franchise you will probably get both opinions. As an example: Does Maxosa make for good fan fiction? Heck Yeah! Will canon Max Rockatansky or Furiosa ever be mentally and emotionally healed enough to actually be in a relationship? Probably not and that's okay. I can happily read Max and Furi getting cuddly and domestic and enjoy the heck out of another writer's interpretation of these two overcoming the hurdles of their respective traumas. I can do this knowing full well that Max and Furiosa probably never canonically saw each other again after the closing scene of Fury Road. I'm okay with this because that's the magic of fandom and why I love it.

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: I relate to Max the most, and I think the reason I haven't yet published anything written from his perspective is because he'd be the most difficult to write without touching on my own fears and inadequacies too much. Max is not interested in being involved with the dramas of anyone else's life. He's already seen too much turmoil and had a hand in it too many times to actively seek people and their inherent problems, however, when presented with zero alternative he'll do what needs to be done and suffer though forming new attachments to very mortal people who may drop dead at any minute. He isn't comfortable with the process of forming attachments and he'd rather avoid it. He doesn't want another ghost. At least that's my interpretation of him.

Slit, remarkably, is my favorite to write for in spite of the fact that I don't relate to him in any way and my interpretation of his portrayal in the film is, simply put, a blunt edged euphemism for abusive relationships. He's just... a guilty pleasure to examine and write. I blame my fondness on the stunning character design and Josh Helman's energy on screen. The character says and does ridiculous things and it's just hilarious to watch Slit dig his own grave and humiliate himself. Case and point: I've got his boot! My understanding of Slit has grown through writing about him. He's probably (canonically) deeply insecure and his way of thinking very toxic and self focused. There's gotta be trauma there (I took massive creative license in that area) and a whole host of personal issues that explain his behavior, but will never excuse it. Does that make good fan fiction??? Parts of it do, the rest has to be that very human ability to grow and improve, although I don't think he'd have that opportunity in canon or accept any form of assistance... If he'd lived.

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: I think you kind of have to self-insert to a point. Writing tends to involve exaggerating your own experiences and the imagined interactions in your own head in order to make the experiences of the characters relatable. I'd rather not examine every individual facet of the issue but yes, I think Dune is an unintentional self-insert to cope with health problems before I was consciously aware of what I was coping with and since that realization, lately, she's a lot harder to write.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?Honestly? Close platonic friendship. Emotional intimacy is interesting. I draw a lot of inspiration for friendship in fiction from Mulder and Scully in early seasons of The X-files.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: I see more minor details and the context of silent interactions. Some of these details are unsettling, some of them are so subtle and subliminal that they're easily missed when you watch the films, especially Fury Road. Oddly enough, I'm a lot more- Ah whats the word? Not quite critical of but unnerved by my own observations of Capable's relationship with Nux. I'm not sure why. It could be that I'm misinterpreting the actress's tone or George Miller vision/direction, but I watch the movie now and find that the way Capable looks at and talks about Nux so intensely makes me uneasy. The previous is just an example among many that I've spat out so far, it's not important.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: Everything I write within the Mad Max fandom with the exception of collaborative works will probably be linked together and consistent with one another because that means less to remember and fewer mix-ups.

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: If you have to, break it. I'll read it. I like my fandom unlimited, baby. In my own works I try to keep with canon somewhat but I resurrect a lot of characters who almost certainly died because if I didn't, it would really only leave seven (I think) named characters with dialog who did not die in Fury Road. (The surviving women of the Many Mothers weren't named.)

Q: Share some headcanons:

A: 1) Max has intestinal parasites. He ate a live (two headed) lizard in the first thirty seconds of Fury Road. You really really really should not do that.

2) Furiosa didn't want to kill Ace. She could have just blown his head off instead of punching him in the face with a pistol. She didn't shoot him.

3) Ace did not go under the wheels. Foxy Grandpa lives.

4) Miss Giddy is also alive somewhere

5) Actually, most people in the wasteland probably have intestinal parasites.

Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?

A: My original characters tend to create themselves. I don't know how they do it, they kinda just decide for themselves for better or worse what they'll look like and how they'll behave. Dune was an accident and the “About a Lizard” series wasn't supposed to happen at all. It was supposed to be a one-shot word dump of what Slit's final moments might have looked like. Slit was supposed to die in a fleeting but intense two seconds of delusions about Valkyries and Valhalla... And then be eaten by a scavenger cannibal. The whole thing kind of just happened on the fly. Ardith, Phil/Crank, Featherknife, Bones, and the kids were also accidental. I had no idea where I was going with the encounter with Crow Fishermen. They just popped into existence of their own will and the rest is history. The only original characters that have been planned and designed well beforehand have been villains. This probably says something about me as a writer though I'm not sure what.

Q: When creating a new character for the AAL series, how do you approach their first interactions with your main characters?

A: The first thing I ask is “What does this scene need” and sometimes it needs a new character for villainy or friendly acquaintance reasons or for a skill-set the main characters do not posses. New characters have a habit of changing a chapter or making it much longer than intended. First interactions with Slit probably won't surprise anyone. He phases through distrust to dislike to begrudged cooperation and from there he's either on his way back to dislike or entering the tolerance phase. Beyond the tolerance phase is... The Complicated Zone. The Complicated Zone is where Nux and Dune are situated. Dune has two basic instincts with people: Should I shoot you? Or should I befriend you? Bizarrely, being friendly is the weirder option in the wastes. Shooting is almost always a consideration if she's taken by surprise.

Q: If you create original works, how do those compare to your fan works?

A: My original works are probably darker and deal more with modern problems. I turn to fan fiction for fun and to indirectly work through things.

Q: Who are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?

A: A lot of the fandom, too many names to name but one stands out and I can't remember their name or the title of their work. It was about Ace growing up and there was a dingo and a young Miss Giddy. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, please help. I've been looking for this fic for ages.

Q: Is there a specific author(s) that inspired your work when you began writing TLR?

A: I don't think any specific author inspired me while I began TLR but The Dark Half by Stephen King is one of my favorites and I recall re-reading it shortly before getting deep into fan writing. I may even have unconsciously plagiarized a few lines off that book. In my latest attempt to re-read that novel I'm feeling like there's a lot of Thad Beaumont in my portrayal of Slit.

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.?

A: Don't be afraid to write things that are too soft or too dark or too this or too that. Sometimes readers crave that stuff that makes us feel warm and safe and sometimes we're also here for things that make us wonder how the @!#$% the characters will ever recover or IF they will ever recover. The real world is full of all sorts of feelings, situations, serendipitous coincidences. Take us down whatever funky road you got! You're the driver, you decide. Your fic is your world. Write WILD things sometimes because it's fun.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: I would love to take a trip to Australia one day to paint scenery in oils but that predates my time in MM fandom. I really want to go to Wasteland Weekend in the next two years but finances, necessities, costumes, etc need to be sorted out first.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.

A: Well, I'm buying up model car kits to make little Mad Max cars for nerd purposes.

Thank you @burn-your-face-upon-the-chrome

#mad max fanfic #Mad Max Fandom Creator Spotlight #Mad Max Fandom Spotlight #fury road fanfic #fanfic author spotlight #fury road fandom #mad max fandom #weirdness unlimited

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perditaalottachocolate-blog · 7 years ago

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Akuma Fashion

Summary: Gabriel catches Adrien in an extremely peculiar outfit. Hawkmoth decides to investigate. April Fools crackfic. You’re welcome.

[EDIT: Sorry for the strange characters and no apostrophes but it’s tumblr playing a trick on me. This looks okay on my blog]

AO3 / Fanfiction.net

Gabriel found out only because he caught Adrien sneaking up the cavernous hall of the mansion. Despite Gabriel’s requests he was hunching and walking the crab walk of someone who wishes to become invisible.

‘Adrien!’ he called immediately, catching wind of something fishy.

His son shuddered and slumped even further. He stopped but didn’t turn around.

‘Yes, father?’ the boy asked looking at him over his shoulder.

‘Keep your back straight, I’ve asked you so many times,’ Gabriel scolded.

Adrien straightened up immediately. ‘Yes, father,’ he replied, his back now straight but still in Gabriel’s vision.

‘Turn around, son. It’s extremely impolite to talk to someone with your back to them,’ the designer pointed out, now looking for the reason his son was sneaking to his room.

‘I, um, I’m in a hurry, father,’ the boy’s face contorted in a lopsided smile. ‘I have a lot of homework!’ he squeaked.

Gabriel’s silver brow shot up high above his glasses in reply to this strange behavior. His son was really a poor actor. ‘Turn around,’ the man ordered, mentally slapping himself for wanting to follow it with “slowly”.

It was at that moment he noticed that Adrien’s overshirt bulged in strange ways and even if he stood straight, it still seemed a bit… well… hunchy. A random pun about having a hunch about the hunch crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. Puns were now exclusive for his alter ego and he only donned the purple pants in the mornings, when Adrien was at school.

Adrien completed his turn and was trying to combine the impossible - standing straight as per request, and clutching the overshirt close to his chest in a clear attempt to hide whatever it was underneath. It seemed that not only his back was bulgy, but his biceps looked extremely weird and puffy. The boy cast him a quick look and averted his gaze to his feet.

‘I’m sorry, father,’ he mumbled. ‘Can I go now?’

‘What are you wearing?’ Gabriel barked.

Adrien’s eyes got bigger. ‘My usual shirt?’ he whispered.

Gabriel sighed. His son could be oblivious sometimes, he was well aware of that streak. It ran in the family. But he felt personally offended that despite the evidence Adrien still decided to play stupid.

‘And underneath?’ he pressed on. Really, what was the boy thinking?

‘My usual t-shirt?’ Adrien forgot himself for a moment. His hand went to his neck to rub it, like he always did when uncomfortable, and that was all it took for Gabriel to catch the glimpse of the real garment under the white shirt.

The designer cringed and gasped, for the first time in years rendered speechless by an article of clothing. And not in a good way.

At that point Adrien had realized his mistake. ‘I guess the cat is out of the bag,’ he offered a sheepish smile and pushed the overshirt to sides to reveal…

Well damn, Gabriel was a designer for years, participated in a ton of haute couture ridiculous weeks, but he still had difficulty with putting a label onto what his son was actually wearing.

It started as a huge bubble of red, covering his neck and chest, then turned into a smaller bubble of yellow at his stomach and another one, blue, at his waist. From what Gabriel could see, the same pattern was repeated on the sleeves. There was a large eye-like print in front and some dark tube like embroidery going to the back of the garment.

He couldn’t help but to stare until Adrien broke the silence clearing his throat.

Gabriel started. ‘Take the overshirt off, please?’

The boy did as he was asked and bashfully demonstrated another print at the back of the… thing… looking similar to a yellow bubble container. Finally it dawned on the designer what he was actually seeing.

‘Is it… a costume?’ he queried.

Adrien went back to rubbing his neck. ‘Sort of, but not really?’ he hesitated. ‘It’s just like a normal t-shirt just a bit… extra?’

Gabriel could only glare, but the boy soldiered on. ‘Everyone is wearing them,’ he said proudly. ‘This is all the rage now.’

Well it definitely was outrageous, if anyone would bother to ask Gabe. ‘Couldn’t agree more,’ the man muttered under his breath and then a nagging thought kicked him in the brain. ‘What do you mean “everyone is wearing them”?’

‘Oh, it’s this new thing,’ Adrien smiled, apparently taking Gabriel’s startled expression as a sign of interest. ‘It’s not only the Bubbler. There’s plenty of other akuma,’ he enthused. ‘I have Antibug too. And Pharaoh, and Lady Wifi, RogerCop and the Mime. Guitar Villain of course and…’ he paused suddenly, biting his lip.

‘And?’ Gabriel urged him to continue. ‘And who?’

‘... the Collector,’ Adrien mumbled shuffling his feet and once again effectively shutting all the designer’s systems down.

Gabriel’s brain was sizzling at that point. Someone was making akuma clothes? And not just prints on t-shirts, but actual costume-like clothes, as evidenced in the bulges on Adrien’s arms and chest. Someone was selling them? It was a new young fashion trend? Was it only young fashion? Why didn’t he see that coming? And so on, and so on, his mind was flooded with questions. The fact that his son out of fascination or loyalty or whatever else the reason was, bought a shirt based on his akuma was the proverbial cherry on top, which he decided to put away for further consideration.

‘I know it’s silly,’ now Adrien caught on his state and automatically started explaining himself, ‘and that I should wear our brand. But it’s so much fun I couldn’t stop myself,’ he reverted to rubbing his neck again.

Gabriel’s brain finally rebooted. He waved his hand dismissively. ‘I don’t mind,’ he stated gravely. ‘But I’d like to know, where did you buy them.’

The boy shrugged and evidently stopped himself mid eye-roll, ‘The internet,’ he said. ‘But they are sometimes available at local fairs and events. That’s where I got this one,’ he pointed to the black-eyed red bubble covering his chest.

‘Hmmm,’ Gabriel pursed his lips. ‘Thank you for this information. Now I believe you’ve mentioned a lot of homework. Don’t let me detain you.’

Adrien smirked and nodded, probably grateful that the interrogation was over, and rushed to his room, while Gabriel headed to his own study drowned in thoughts.

Someone was using akuma designs to create clothes and it irked him to no end. Haven’t people heard of copyrights, for heaven’s sake?!

Oh, right. Those weren’t Gabriel’s designs. Those were Hawkmoth’s. He couldn’t exactly use them in any of his collections. It would not only be risky, stupidly drawing attention to his brand and associating it with the akumas, especially with the whole deal with the book, but if he was honest with himself it would be also a tad unethical.

‘Nathalie,’ he paused his musing only to summon his assistant. ‘Please find out, who is selling the akuma clothes Adrien’s bought and get me all of them right away,’ he ordered and closed the door in her face.

He started pacing impatiently in his study, mulling over the whole affair.

But those are my designs, something at the back of his brain screamed.

Awful designs, his designer ego replied, wincing.

On purpose, to cover your tracks, the backbrain argued.

Really awful designs, the ego hissed. Cringeworthy, including the Collector.

That’s beside the point, the hindbrain replied. Someone is making money out of it, so they must be good.

Well, the ego stroked his chin, those are my designs after all.

And you don’t mind someone is using them without permission?! the back of his brain screamed.

It’s not like I can just go to them and ask them to stop! the ego now was doubly vexed, at the situation and at that hindbrain of his.

Why not? the backbrain droned.

‘That’s enough,’ Gabriel bellowed, slamming his fists into the wall with enough force to leave a dent. He earned a gasp in reply, as Nathalie dropped a pile of clothes she was just taking inside.

‘Sorry, Sir,’ she apologized automatically and started picking up the weird collection from the floor. She spread the garments over the miniature runway and left, casting him a worried look.

First thing Gabriel did was inspecting the materials. Decent quality, but not over the top. Of course, things like that should be affordable. The stitching was neat. The cut reasonable. Close enough to the akumas’ real look, but comfortable to wear. He was surprised at the variety of the items - there were t-shirts, tunics, shirts and even a Horrificator themed hoodie, with purple tentacles sewn to the hood above the embroidered three eyes.

He clenched his fists. A closer inspection of the hoodie revealed a tag with a trademark - a white and purple akuma outline, similar to what appeared when Hawkmoth talked to his champions. Apparently not only his ideas were borrowed, but also Nooroo’s. The little kwami wouldn’t get any recognition for his logo either, he thought and it somehow made him feel better that he wasn’t alone in his misery.

His rage cooled a bit. These clothes were not only decently done, but also inventive in design. True, it was inspired by his akumas, but neatly implemented into everyday clothing. And in a very creative way. Gabriel whistled in appreciation. He had to admit this wasn’t really a case of design theft, but an adaptation of the idea. Inspiration was a very accurate word here and as a fellow designer he couldn’t help but to admire the concepts.

An acronym “AF” caught his eye. Underneath he found the phrase “Akuma Fashion” printed in small font. He typed it into his phone and a quick search returned an address in another part of the city. Gabriel considered it for a moment. He was curious. He had been even before he got his paws on the clothes and now that he analysed them, he was itching to learn who was behind all this. But he couldn’t exactly pay them an inconspicuous visit as Gabriel Agreste without causing unwanted gossip.

He chuckled. That’s where having a masked alter ego came in handy. A quick transformation and a few leaps later, he was already nearing the arrondissement where the label was registered.

Hawkmoth sneaked through the backdoor to something he hoped was a workshop. A dark corridor stretched to the front of the building, and from the rooms on either side of it he could hear a familiar hum of sewing machines. He risked a peek inside one of them only to discover a few men and women in Ladybug aprons working on various items of clothing. Some designs he had already seen, but some were new. Curious, he glimpsed into some other rooms, careful to stay hidden in the darkness of the corridor. In every room he found similar set of machines and ladybug-apronned sewers.

He got to a stairwell and then caught voices from the upper level of the building. Silently he climbed the stairs, as the conversation on the first floor unravelled.

‘Well, it was Chat’s idea,’ someone giggled.

‘Oh, Bugaboo, it was just a joke that you turned into this miraculous enterprise,’ another voice replied smugly.

‘So both of you were behind this idea, I see,’ a third, professional but amused voice interrupted. ‘How does it work?’

This sounded like an interview. Intrigued, Hawkmoth halted in front of the door to the room that was the source of the voices. He listened, his curiosity finally getting the feast it craved.

‘It’s a social economy venture, we do not do this for profit,’ the first, feminine voice explained.

‘Everything we earn goes to the employees or is donated to public utility foundations of our choice,’ the second, manly voice supplied.

‘And the designs?’ the interviewer prompted.

‘Oh, those are all Ladybug’s input,’ the second voice stated proudly. ‘Turns out that the embodiment of creation has quite a creative streak in her,’ he murmured and there was a slight thwack sound, as if someone hit another someone in the arm.

‘Stop with the praise, Kitty,’ the first voice replied happily. ‘Some of those are your ideas.’

‘But it’s you who provides the detailed designs, my Lady,’ the second voice replied in mock offence.

‘Well, Ladybug, I must congratulate you,’ the interviewer was clearly pleased with their interviewees’ trademark banter. ‘I’ve spoken with a few people of Parisian fashion world and they all complimented the designs as being neat, modern, and well... ahem… cut to consumers’ needs.’ There was a pause and a male snicker was heard before the journalist continued. ‘They were all surprised you don’t want to take credit for them as your civilian self. It would definitely open many doors for you.’

Oh, Hawkmoth would most definitely open quite a few himself, including one trapdoor, Gabriel thought bitterly.

‘Thank you,’ the first voice - clearly Ladybug - replied. ‘But I’m not doing this for fame or portfolio or whatever other reasons. We just wanted to do something substantial for the public and at the same time lessen the stigma that comes from akumatization.’

‘So by making akuma clothes trendy you’re helping the victims?’ the interviewer sounded astonished.

‘We wanted to bring attention to the fact that the victims are innocent and shouldn’t be rejected or bullied, like we know has happened in a few cases,’ the second voice - Chat’s - explained solemnly.

‘And by redistributing the profits we make sure something good comes to us even from such disastrous things like akuma attacks,’ Ladybug concluded.

Well, that was quite a lot of information for Hawkmoth to digest. The idea was brilliant, the motivation noble. It figured the heroes would come up with something like that, he mentally spat. He resisted the urge to stomp and grumble something villainy under his breath, when he felt someone catching his arms and pushing him inside the room where the interview took place.

‘I found one, Nadja,’ his captor called from behind his back. ‘Is he any good?’ they asked pointing a finger to his suit.

‘Ah, this must be your newest design!’ the journalist, who now despite his horror Hawkmoth identified as Nadja Chamack exclaimed in surprise. ‘I think it’s your first suit? How unique!’ she delighted. ‘I thought you aimed at youngsters, but this… I could totally see a gentleman in a suit like that.’

Hawkmoth decided he liked this woman already. She babbled happily about his super-costume completely oblivious that her interviewees raised from their seats and reached for their weapons.

He wanted to draw his sword in reply, but discovered that nasty woman took it away to inspect “the craftsmanship”.

Well fuck, he thought, as the yoyo string wrapped around his arms and shoulders. He squinted at the end of Chat’s baton that stopped millimeters from his face, This is going to be an interesting afternoon.

In his hands, bound behind his back, a white butterfly flickered and turned purple, charged with magic.

#ml fic #perdita writes #akuma fashion #humor #crack #gabriel agreste #adrien agreste #ladybug #chat noir #hawkmoth #le papillon #akuma design #copyright

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kpoptimeout · 7 years ago

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Top 10 Most Underrated K-pop Songs of 2017 (Artist Edition)

2017 has come and gone before we knew it.

Continuing with the K-Pop Timeout Tradition (see 2016 Ver) of listing the Top 10 Most Underrated K-Pop Songs because all the other sites are just bothered with the Top 10 that pretty much everyone will have heard of/have fan wars over, below are our top 10 picks of songs that did not rank high but deserves your attention! This is the list for artists’ tracks, so the Top 10 underrated non-idol tracks. Click here for the Top 10 underrated idol tracks. A separate post will also be made for Top 10 underrated K-Drama OSTs later.

Some of the non-idol artists have escaped the list in recent years to stardom (for example ZION.T, CRUSH and MAD CLOWN) so hopefully it happens again!

This is in alphabetic order NOT order of awesomeness because all of them are awesome. Also, all MVs are linked in the song titles because Tumblr won’t let me share that many videos in one post.

The Black Skirts “Who Do You Love”

While being signed to a YG sub-label like HIGHGRND makes things better for The Black Skirts, this one man band has yet to make it big domestically or internationally. “Who Do You Love” is a beautiful track that continues the underrated The Black Skirts sound - orchestral instrumentals with simple alternative rock percussion that mixes with the haunting vocals of Bryan Cho. If you are a huge fan of more haunting Western vocalists like Lana Del Rey and Troye Sivan and like some slow alternative and indie rock like The Drums, Mac DeMarco, and Vampire Weekend, check out The Black Skirts “Who Do You Love”!

Car, The Garden ft. OHHYUK “Island”

Returning to the list again this year, Car, The Garden continues to impress our ears but somehow not the charts in “Island”, featuring trending indie band Hyukoh’s lead singer OHHYUK. With the jazz and soul influences like his earlier stuff, singer-songwriter Car, The Garden delivers a smooth and addictive track perfect for listening to in lounges. Also Car, The Garden’s lighter but soulful voice blends beautifully with OHHYUK’s raspier and deeper voice to create a very layered piece. If you are a fan of Hyukoh and also into jazz and soul, like the works of Scott Bradlee with Postmodern Jukebox, “Island” is the song for you!

G.Soul ft. Hoody “Tequila”

WHY. IS. G.SOUL. SO. UNDERRATED. Hopefully, things are looking up now that the boy has left JYP Entertainment to join fellow former JYP start Jay Park in H1GHR Music Records, as JYP did not seem to know how to promote his artist line well. With many more promotions since leaving JYP, “Tequila” is definitely the best of them - the dancehall instrumental works perfectly with G.Soul’s crazy soulful voice and talented AOMG soloist Hoody’s softer tone also made the already amazing track even better. If you are a fan of Jay Park’s company’s artists or Western alternative RnB and neo-soul artists like Frank Ocean and Miguel, it’s time to check “Tequila” out!

Jannabi “She”

Having been around since 2014 and dropping endless somewhat retro feeling but super touching crooners, the boys are back with another underappreciated and heartwarming track in “She.” You know the old school but the warm feeling you get from listening to Christmas songs? That is what you get from this track. One of the best parts of the song is definitely the end of the song where backing vocals playing with the scales in this way reminiscent of Queen in the “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Seriously lead vocalist Jung Hoon is probably one of the best singers out there, his deep and emotional voice easily playing with the notes throughout the song. If you were a fan of the 80s tracks in Reply 1988 and want a more modern twist of those vibes, check out Jannabi’s “She”!

Jane Jang “Carmin”

While she is revered as an OST Queen, Jane Jang still needs a lot more attention as a solo artist making her own music. Not only is she mad talented, her voice is unique and much needed in K-Pop - a mature drawl that is inviting, attractive, and rare in the scene. Anything she sings just sounds 10 times classier than it already is. And “Carmin” is one classy track, to begin with, sounding like the background music playing in a boutique French café in an arthouse film, with Jane Jang’s vocals making the song all the better. If you like a good track to wind down at the end of the day or easy listening artists like Jon Brion and Pink Martini, this is the song for you!

Jane Jang, GIANTPINK, PERC%NT “Dumb Dumb (Remix)”

The SNOWBALL PROJECT in 2017 was a competition between MYSTIC Entertainment and SM Entertainment where each company needed to remake a certain song from the rival company. While SM’s remake of Yoon Jungshin’s “Rebirth” by Henry and performed by Red Velvet has 4.7 million views, honestly MYSTIC crushed them even though their non-mainstream status meant they only got 400,000 views on Youtube. Not only was the song amazingly produced to the point it shed its previous sound and can straight up be a MYSTIC song. Moreover, the rap of GIANTPINK and PERC%NT is out of this world in flow and power and Jane Jang’s wistful vocals allowed for a whole new interpretation of the “doll-like” concept Red Velvet had during this song. If you are a fan of the cool stuff PRIMARY does with other K-Pop artists, you are going to love this “Dumb Dumb (Remix)”!

Lee Jinah “Random”

After her great run on K-Pop Star 5, I was excited for Lee Jinah’s first mini album under Antenna Music “Random” and the same named title track. And girl did not disappoint. Her unique child-like story-telling voice when singing is great as always and combined with her amazing jazz piano skills we have a wonderful laidback piece of endless fun. And since her “Appetizer” release, Lee Jinah has clearly matured as an artist and I love seeing her continue to explore more in future music! If you are a fan of the quirky pieces of IU and Lim Kim, check out “Random” by Lee Jinah!

NELL X Groovy Room “Today”

NELL is one of the top sunbae rock bands of South Korea but not many people seem to have noticed their amazing collaboration with Groovy Room, the duo producing team that works with Jay Park, ONE, Heize, SISTAR’s Hyorin and so many more! And this EDM infused rock track shows Groovy Room can do a lot more than hip-hop and RnB and that NELL is also going to be evolving continuously with the times. If you are a fan of K-Rock groups like FT ISLAND, and Day6 but also like the anthems from western rock groups like Coldplay, this is the song for you!

Yoon Hyun Sang “Silhouette”

Another underrated K-Pop Star alum, Yoon Hyun Sang from Season 1 continues to grow in FAVE Entertainment (former LOEN Entertainment). From his more Korean Drama OST music at the beginning of his career, he has now moved onto laid-back and mature jazz and bosa nova sound that I am completely down for. Hopefully, more people start showing his music more love too. If you are a fan of Eric Nam and Eddy Kim’s music, it’s time to add Yoon Hyun Sang’s “Silhouette” to your playlist!

Younha ft. pH-1 “Hello”

Younha was once a big name in K-Pop and J-Pop for her ballads but does not seem to be getting as much love since she moved onto a more RnB sound. Which is unfortunate because her new RnB stuff is just as good, if not better. “Hello”, produced by hitmakers Groovy Room, has a catchy water dripping sound acting as the base beat that melds well with the smooth sound of the song. Also, the repeating of the word “Hello” in the chorus and pH-1’s powerful rap gives the song a sense of urgency, making the song sound like it could be the OST for the best K-Drama of the year. If you like stuff by Heize, Suran, and LEE HI, I highly recommend Younha’s “Hello”!

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bts7writings · 7 years ago

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Slow Romance

A/N ~ I’m sorry for taking longer than the request period on this one, but I wanted to make it as good as possible for you. ♡ In no means was this too specific, I accept all ranges.

Pairing: Reader x D.O

Genre: Fluff | Angst | Drabble

Words: 1.4K

“Y/n, you got an extra coffee - again.” You placed all three cups on the table, rolling your eyes at you best friend pointing out the obvious, she loved teasing you about your crush. “I wonder why.”

You pass her her drink and grab the other two. “Stop teasing me, Lisa, you know exactly who the extra coffee is for”

“Riiight” she says taking a sip, “Go on then.” She turns in her seat to nod towards the cashiers directions.

Your lips press together as you walk towards the direction.

It all started last summer. You were doing a research for your end of term paper so you came to the library to check out some books, you would have never guessed you would be checking out something other then books.

You were innocently reaching up to grab the animal encyclopedia, when you grabbed it, not aware of how heavy it would be, you lose the grips causing it to hit you in the corner of your face.

“Ow, fu-”

“Are you okay?” You heard a guy call out at the end of the aisle. You saw him lean and reached down grabbing the book off the floor and coming close to examine you. You felt his hand gently turn your face to let him examine your injury. Just as you were about to say something, you stop - staring up at his concentrated eyes. “There’s no bleeding, but I’m sure they'll be a bruise ”

His eyes meet your own and he drops his hand, taking a step back and looking down at his hand awkwardly. “Do you want to check out this book?”

“After it assaulted me?” You joke, hopping to lighten the mood, but he only stares up at you slightly before returning his gaze back down. “Um, yeah.”

“I can do it right here, i-if you want” he says silently going over to the table to grab an iPad and scanner. He scans the book, “Do you have a library card?”

“Yeah.” You go down on one knee and search your bag for you wallet, feeling slightly embarrassed at the mess of loose papers shuffling around as you reach in.

You hand him the card and he scans it, immediately handing it back. “Okay...oh um - have a good day”

And just like that you were coming to the library practically every Friday. This was more interesting then staying at home scrolling through Tumblr and Instagram because now you could do that a look up form your screen to see him.

Your friend figured out what you were up to and had no trouble reading in the library as you tried to make progress in the relationship - if thats what you could call it.

“Pick me up on your way” she said one day, “I want to see this Kyungsoo. Plus, my parents are always telling me to go out of the house.”

It didn't hurt that you liked reading and forgot the joy of it when you were assigned to read for classes. Your wallet thanked you for it too - although there were those couple of cents in late fees sometimes.

You take a deep breath a few feet away from him. He looks over in the other direction slighting before flickering his gaze down at the books he was currently scanning, oblivious to your struggle.

When you reach him it takes him by surprise and he gives a small smile.

You casually hand him his coffee and sit on the desk in front of him - it’s become a routine ever since you’ve come here.

“Theres new books in the bin, if you're intrested” he suggest nodding over to the bin he's locating the already scanned books.

“Did you finish the book I told you about?” You say sneaking a glance at the book peaking from his own bag.

“No - almost done with it” he stops his work to look up a you, “No spoilers.”

You and Lisa both enter your freezing car, rapidly reaching to turn the heating knob on the dashboard.

On the way home, after 10 straight sighs leaving your mouth, Lisa finally asked what was wrong.“ I’m about to just check out my last book”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s been half a year!” you groan, “I feel like an idiot - he probably uncomfortable in his own workplace”

“So its a slow romance” your friend says, “Listen not all of us can be as fast as Romeo or most of the character in books”

“But-” you sigh loudly as you slow down in front of her house.

“See you next Friday then?” You reluctantly nod your head, unlocking her door. “Be careful, it’s getting dangerous to drive with all this snow” she says getting out go the car and waving you off as you make a U turn.

The next Friday, Lisa made her own way towards the library. Once she entered she was relieved by the fact that Kyungsoo acknowledged her entrance and then began searching around.

She took her usually seat and grabbed a random book, barely even reading, she waited for his move. Fortunately, he came around sooner than expected, nervously making his way towards her.

“Looking for someone?” Lisa’s eyebrow arches, looking up from her book, her smile an ever-present teasing pose.

“Um...” He couldn't possibly ask her friend about her without getting found out, “I-”

“She's in the Hospital on Lennox street” Lisa says, “She got in a car accident last Friday.” She watches as Kyungsoo’s reactions turns worried immediately following her news. “Before you go all Romeo-” Lisa gets up and places her books back on the shelves, “She’s fine and gets let out on Monday. But she has visitors till 11 today”

She grabs her bag, ready to leave, but halts to see an unreadable expression on Kyungsoo. This moment pauses for a while, before he looks up and says, “Tell her I hope she feels better.” Lisa nods her head and goes out of the library.

“Mom - I said I was fine, so please go ho-oh” You stare up completely silent and surprised at seeing Kyungsoo closing the door slowly behind him.

You sat up on the hospital bed, as he approached you.

“I heard about you accident”

“How?”

He pulled a small bouquet from his back, awkwardly placing it on your bed side table. “Um..I was told”

“You asked about me?” You conclude trying to control your mouth twitching into a smile, “Why?”

Kyungsoo silently shrugged and exchanged his feet balance, shifting slowly for left to right. “So you missed me?”

“I-uh” he small smile comes to his face, “How’re you feeling?”

“Not that bad, I’m glad you didn't see me the first couple of nights,” you sit up, “Either I was too bruised up or too high on the pain meds. Either way-”

“Either way, I would’ve wanted to see you” he says. You try and hide your growing smile but fail as you look back at him. You scoot over and tap the space next to you on the bed.

You see his cheeks flush and he begins to look down at the floor again, “Um..You need to rest and I- I should”

“You should help me rest” you say tapping the place again. He looks up, opening his mouth as if he’s about to say something but thinks against it, slowly making his way towards you.

He leans over to pull the covers around you before laying down over the blanket. “I’ll leave when you fall asleep then”

He bravely puts an arm around you, pulling you closer to him.

“So Lisa was right...It was a slow romance?”

He leans over to look at your face, “Lisa’s the friend you alway come with, right?”

You nod, “She’s the one that kept insist-”

He leans his face towards you, interrupting you, slightly brushing your lips with his. He leans back, about to say something, but doesn't expect you to sit up and follow his kiss. Closing your eyes this time, you smile when you feel his soft lips press down again, slightly presses you back; him not wanting you to use that much energy.

When he finally leans out, you open your eyes to see him smile and then press his lips with each other. His hand around you pulls you to his chest, his lips grazing the top of your hear. “Y-you should get some rest.”

__________________________________________________

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5hfanfiction · 7 years ago

Text

We Might Be Like Spaghetti

There are so many things about Camila that no one understands. Like the fact that she can’t walk a straight line properly without falling. Or that she can be a confident little vixen one second and a timid, awkward girl the next.

So instead of wasting her time trying to come up with a reason why she is how she is, she’d rather use a vague definition if they ask her to describe herself.

Weird.

Not like, weird to the point that she has to go to a mental hospital (despite what her friends say), she’s just… different from other people.

I mean, for one, she has an obsession with bananas. And I guess, at one point in life, we all do get obsessed on something. But this is different, she just loves them too much that her parents literally had to pry the fruit away from her grasp. They’re just scared that she might have potassium poisoning (and by the amount of bananas she eats, they’re actually surprised she’s still alive).

She’s also dorky. A cute one though, not the annoying one. Well, maybe she does get on someone’s nerve at times, especially when she wakes people up with her annoying little random facts. A recent one was when she told Dinah facts about saliva.

Chancho [3.26am]: dinah

Chancho [3.26am]: china

Chancho [3.27am]: did you know that in our lifetime, we could produce enough saliva to fill 2 swimming pools?

Chancho [3.27am]: lets dig a hole and fill them up using our saliva. our verY OWN SALIVA POOL.

Cheechee [3.28am]: Bish, why you disturbing my beauty sleep? Go disturb someone else.

Cheechee [3.29am]: And why the hell would you wanna make a swimming pool with our saliva. You know we could use a hose or some shit right?

Chancho [3.29am]: that’s not the point Dinah.

Needless to say, she’s pretty weird.

That same night, she also texted her other friends with other facts. (She likes to spice things up, she doesn’t repeat what she tells the others)

Camila is also a bit artsy fartsy. And sure, in this world, a lot of them are. But this is different (Not really).

She’s always on tumblr, saving aesthetically pleasing pictures of the cloud or some shit and poetic excerpt Tumblr users post. She sometimes even sends them to Lauren after, probably cause she’s, too, artistic and she always treasures whatever Camila sends her.

An opening to talk about what really matters now.

Lauren. (Well, Lauren and Camila)

Lauren has been Camila’s best friend since middle school. She’s cute, loud, funny, irritable and just, weird, I guess.. A different kind but all the same length.

How they first met was a bit cliche, but hey… Cliche are cliches for a reason, they attract readers.

Lauren was in all of her class in 7th Grade, including homeroom. Camila didn’t think of anything at first. Just a girl with an inviting smile who is oddly alone in the corner of the class.

Why odd? Well, for one, Lauren is pretty. And when Camila thinks she’s pretty, it really means that she is. Trust her.

She’s the kind of pretty that makes her seem approachable. Her skin is soft and it looks beauteously white. Definitely a huge from Camila’s tanned skin tone. Lauren also seems social; Camila has heard her talk in front of the class before and she knows from there that Lauren isn’t a shy girl.

Secondly… honestly, I don’t even need to explain why it’s odd that’s she’s alone. The fact that’s she’s mesmerizingly captivating is enough.

Camila even knows that it’s not just her who finds her attractive. She’s heard boys in her class and even in the hallway talking about how they wanna ask her out. It never happens though, they’re too much of a pussy.

Except that one time when this guy Keaton asked her out and she said no in front of the class, making all the other guys immediately back off in fear of rejection.

That stunt intrigued Camila, if she’s being completely honest. No girl has ever said no to Keaton before.

Since then, Camila has always wanted to talk to her. But she’s too much of an introverted wuss to even look her way for more than 10 seconds. So they don’t talk.

Until one day, their science teacher put them as lab partners.

During the first 30 minutes, they didn’t talk. They either listened to the teacher –mostly Lauren cause Camila felt like she was deaf, she could only hear her heart beating loudly she’s surprised Lauren didn’t make a comment on it– or copy what the teacher had written on the whiteboard in front of the lab. Again, mostly Lauren because Camila’s hand is shaking as she wrote a simple P for the word Penis.

(No, she wasn’t shaking because of the word, penis. In fact, she flaunts that word a lot to her friends because her friends are still uncomfortable with the word and she likes to make people uncomfortable… See. weird)

“Are you okay?” Lauren’s sweetly raspy voice traveled through Camila’s ear and into her… well… whatever her ear is connected to and into her brain.(Can you blame her for not knowing though? Biology sucks)

“Uh.. Huh?” Camila jumped at the sudden noise, causing her pen to slide down the table. Camila’s reflexes kicked in and she frantically (and awkwardly) tried to grab the pen before it hits the floor.

She caught it and that’s when she noticed that she was awfully close to Lauren since she had to lean to her side.

She cleared her throats and studied the porcelain skinned girl. And again, she wasn’t joking when she said Lauren was really pretty. She feels the need to push that fact.

“You’re kind of shaking..?” She smiled worriedly a bit and it made Camila’s heart swoon at how Lauren seems like she genuinely cares for Camila.

Lauren doesn’t seem intimidating at all, Camila thought.

Psyche, Camila is still scared shitless.

Camila moved away and straightened her back. She looked over to Lauren’s hand and tilted her head when she noticed how it was trembling too.

The green eyed beauty followed Camila’s gaze and laughed. A really melodic one at that. It sounded soothingly cherubic to Camila. “Yeah, I shake too. But it’s more because of my genetics than anything else. My hand can never stay still.”

Camila nodded and smiled nervously.

“Do you talk?” She asked, just at the same time Camila realized that she hasn’t said one word to Lauren.

“Uhh.. Yeah,” Camila croaked out, internally hitting herself in the head for not clearing her dry throat first. She swallowed her saliva (damn it, she wasted that when she could’ve collected that for the swimming pool) and repeated what she said. “Yes.”

Lauren laughed once more and that’s when Camila begins to smile as well. She also thinks that it should be a good idea to record it and play it before she sleeps, just so she could have a good night rest.

“I’m Lauren,” she introduced, smiling cheekily with her hand extended for Camila to shake.

“Camila- Karla- I mean- Some of the teachers still call me Karla but I prefer Camila- And my friends call me Camil- But you can call me Karl- Or anything really- I don’t mind. Actually, scratch that, Kar-” Camila started rambling.

Fun fact; when she’s nervous, she tends to ramble and stumble onto words.

“Camila? Breathe.” Lauren grabbed both of Camila’s shoulders with her hands and stared at her brown eyes with her green ones.

“I like your eyes.” Camila pointed out without a second thought as she continued to stare at Lauren’s mesmerizing eyes.

“Thanks… I like yours too. It looks warm and welcoming.” She smiled bashfully.

After that, they started to actually warm up to each other through the next few hours in class. They realized that they have a lot more in common than they thought they would’ve, and it immediately made Camila like Lauren more (platonically of course). When lunch rolled around, she invited Lauren to eat with her other two friends, Taylor and Selena.

They instantly clicked with her, just as she had with Camila. And that made Camila’s heart swell.

So okay, anyway, their friendships started getting stronger then and they soon became the best of friends.

They hung out a lot and Lauren later revealed that her friends had, for a lack of a better word, dropped her the second they found new friends.

And Camila immediately despised Alexa (her current bestfriend’s ex-bestfriend). No, not because she’s jealous or anything, it’s just that she hates how she’d unfriend a girl like Lauren without actually having a reason to.

Okay, who is she kidding, maybe she is a bit jealous. Can you blame her though? They were childhood bestfriends and from the sounds of it, Lauren still treasured her like Alexa did nothing wrong. Alexa has done nothing to gain Lauren’s trust and yet, she still trusts her the most. Camila, however, worked hard for it.

The next year, Camila got lucky when she found out that she’s gonna be in the same class as Lauren again. It sort of calmed her anxiety since she was scared that Lauren might find a better friend than her if they’re not together 24/7.

And yeah, Camila got territorial there, but it was purely platonic. Definitely.

When they were in 8th grade, Lauren started dating this guy, Luis. He was very shy and they barely talked to each other during the first few months into their relationship. Camila was surprised when the raven haired Latina told her that they’ve went on 5 dates already and got official.

Camila was a bit tilted at that. But, it was mostly because she doesn’t trust Luis and she doesn’t want him to break someone as perfect as Lauren’s heart. It wasn’t because of the fact that she might’ve liked Lauren just a teensy bit.

It also didn’t help Camila to feel better when she found out that Alexa was the one who set them up. But what could Camila do, honestly?

After they got official, the whole school found out about it. While the others swoon at how sweet they seemed, Camila spent her time watching out for Lauren by stalking him in every social media he has. Just to make sure he’s not a dick.

And while they were together, Lauren still had a lot of time to spend with Camila. Camila loves the fact that she does. Really, she does. But she doesn’t like the fact that Lauren’s always talked about Luis this and Luis that. Never really about weird things like they usually talk about.

((Camila doesn’t really remember most of the contents of what they usually talk about before Luis came into their life, but one of the discussion Camila vaguely remembers was when she articulately described what would happen if she could jump high that she could just jump to the moon. And Lauren laughed hard at that, that was why Camila remembered it most amongst the rest. (She’d like to take a trip to the cloud to say hi to Jesus before continuing her journey to the moon)))

But yeah, ever since Lauren started dating Luis, every odd conversation they had was replaced by that ugly ass excuse of a human being.

So okay, maybe Camila does loathe him. But Lauren doesn’t know that and Camila is convinced that it’s better that way. Less questions to answer, she thought. She also feels like it’s better if Lauren talked about him rather than them not talking at all.

They didn’t last long though. If Camila remembers correctly, they lasted for about 3 months. (She forgets why, mostly because its irrelevant to wherever this story is going)

When they broke up, Lauren was a bit down. Not because of him per se, just the fact that she never get to have someone to text and call to everyday anymore. And yeah, Camila’s heart broke a bit because Lauren didn’t see Camila as a candidate to have her sole attention.

But nevertheless, Camila took it upon herself to actually text her goodmorning and goodnight everyday and in between, she’d send weird memes when they weren’t together. You know what, we’re all honest here, Camila even sends them when they’re basically hip to hip. Camila’s weird like that.

Okay, so they do text, and although Lauren hardly replies, it doesn’t stop making Camila to hyperventilate when she gets a notification from Lauren.

But again, they’re all very platonic feeling. Camila isn’t into girls, and as far as she knows, Lauren isn’t too. She just feels some sort of a connection with Lauren, like they’re always on the same wavelength.

The next year though, it was very different, to say the least. For one, Lauren was no longer her classmates. Like, at all. In fact, she was on a different building from Camila’s classes. She should’ve seen this coming though, especially since she got lucky the year prior. The universe likes to fuck people up by giving them hope, only to disappoint them after they’re in Cloud 9.

Okay, well, at least Camila still had break and lunch with her right?

WRONG.

At the very beginning, they did hang out. But just like any normal friendship, they didn’t have time for each other anymore.

Well, that was quite dishonest if you ask me.

It was more like Lauren didn’t have time for Camila anymore, especially since Lauren got in the same classes with Alexa, making them bestfriends after only a month of being classmates. That sort of sucked for Camila because she had grown attached to Lauren. I mean, a year and a half of being together and basically inseparable, it’s hard not to.

To Lauren though, she thought that she did nothing wrong. Because to her, Camila was just another girl from her class.

So yeah. It sucked but whatever.

Lauren even started dating someone from Camila’s class, Brad Simpson. Quite attractive, Camila figures.

At one point, she actually tried to be his wingwoman.

Brad knows how close Lauren and Camila were once upon a time and one day, he came up to her and asked about Lauren. He seemed genuine about how he feels for Lauren, so she decided to give him a helping hand.

A mistake on her part.

She went to Lauren during lunch one time and she said nothing but good things about Brad, hoping that she’d buy all that crap.

And she did.

They went out and started dating. Again, everyone envied their relationship and to Camila, even if it kinda sucked, she was happy that they were happy.

Why it sucked? Well, they never really thanked Camila or anything to show gratitude about setting each other up.

But Camila’s not that petty, she really didn’t expect anything.

So fast forward to High School.

Oddly enough, Lauren, Brad, Alexa and I went to the same school. But still, Camila wasn’t lucky enough to be in the same class as her again.

Brad and her even stayed together through their high school years. Until the day before their senior year start that is.

This is when it gets sorta depressing.

Camila never really knew how their relationship were like. So she lacked the details and she might mess up a few storyline. And yeah, fun fact; this is based on true events.

So, some time during Christmas, Lauren and Brad had a huge fight. And when Lauren’s mad, she tends to say (aggressive) things that she doesn’t really mean. And well, needless to say, she said pretty mean things to Brad.

He took it to the heart and eventually broke it off on text. Yes, on text. Not even a phone call goddamn.

The sad thing was, she got too attached to him already. And they’ve been together for fairly a long time for someone so young. It almost felt like forever to her.

That was what she thought. She thought they were gonna last forever.

Unfortunately, when something doesn’t go her way, she gets sad. The kind of sad that makes you wanna hug her until she’s happy again, no matter how long it takes.

Of course, Camila didn’t know how bad their break up at firs, it wasn’t like they were close that time, so she assumed that Lauren was fine.

What she found later though, it was the opposite.

In New Year’s Eve, Brad went to a party while Lauren was bawling her eyes out in her room. She saw him drinking and partying and flirting with other girls through a video her friend sent.

Trigger warning… She eventually got depressed that night and cut her wrist with a razor.

That’s not the worst part though. What’s worse was the fact that she actually took a picture and send them to Brad.

No.

Actually, the worst part was the fact that Brad showed the picture to his friends. How she knew? His friends actually texted her and asked if she was okay. Brad, however, told her to stop it. He told her to stop trying to make him pity her.

(When Camila heard this, she regretted ever trying to play matchmaker with the two)

So of course, what Brad said stung Lauren and it only made her more depressed. She barely ate. She stayed at home, juggling between crying and sleeping in her room. She wasn’t as social as she had gotten during the first few years in High School.

She was a big ball of mess.

Alexa, her so called bestfriend, was never there for her. In fact, she actually sided with Brad, saying that even if she and Lauren are friends, Brad is still her friend too. Which is totally malarkey because the only thing mutual they had was basketball.

Camila hasn’t even seen them talk.

It was just the fact that Brad was popular and Alexa have an obsession with climbing up the ladder, not caring about who she steps on along the way.

So while Lauren was blamed for their breakup, Brad was given the crown for ‘trying’ to stay 'cordial’ with Lauren (fun fact; she never told anyone except for Camila about what he said to her that night). Why she was blamed, you ask? Well, it was originally because of that one simple slip up on Lauren’s part about how stupid Brad is. Only that it had more colorful vocabulary than that.

Through senior year, Brad eventually got a new girl and Lauren was still struggling to look happy for her friends, not wanting to seem like a downer to them. (Seriously, what kind of friends are they?)

Senior prom came and Lauren got asked by Brad’s best friend, James. She reluctantly said yes at first, but she thought, 'Hey!! Why the fuck not?’ So after a few days, she gave in and they actually started talking.

But sadly, Lauren and dating never really go well, do they?

She found out that James was talking to another girl and they fought. James broke it off just a few days before prom and asked a different girl, a girl that Brad was dating no less, as his date.

James’ date was stupid to accept James and not Brad honestly, seeing as Brad was the one she’s dating with at that time. Wait, you know what? I’m bitter, it’s just plain stupid of her to say yes to any of them.

So Lauren, once again, got fucked over by two douches. But she’s hopeful. Too fucking hopeful.

Brad was baffled too. His bestfriend literally went under his nose and got the girl he was in midst of courting.

So he made a ridiculous plan. A plan that included Lauren. He asked Lauren if he wanted to go fuck James over by going to prom together.

She said yes.

And there they went, Lauren looking beautiful in a blue dress while Brad wore a matching tie, surprising everyone at the event.

Camila was also surprised, even if she wasn’t there. (Camila actually had a date and she sort of canceled on him last minute)

After prom, Lauren and Brad started talking again. And Lauren was stupid enough to think that it might work out again.

A few months later, college days came.

Coincidentally, Camila and Lauren went to the same college, Lauren bringing Brad with her.

And that was how their friendship starts to blossom once more.

During orientation, they sat next to each other and just talked and laughed together, mocking everything the people did on stage. They also started to go out together. (Of course, Brad was there and Camila became the professional Third Wheeler)

One time, they went to this resort, only to find out that it costs more than their budget. So since they couldn’t stay there, they opted to at least watch the sunset before they go, only to groan in frustration when rain started pouring down at the same time they sat down.

It was quite a shitty day for all of them, but Camila wouldn’t trade that memory for anything. Lauren looks cute when she whines.

((And it wasn’t like Camila was lonely. Actually, she started dating quite a lot of guys since they started going to college. But unfortunately, no one really caught her eye to make her stay))

Camila and Lauren, once again, became inseparable.

And through those first few months, nothing really sparked Camila’s feelings towards Lauren.

Well… actually, one time, Lauren stripped to her underwear when she was in the same room and it did make Camila internally gasp as she subtly watched her through the corner of her eyes.

But that was about it, Camila felt nothing towards Lauren. And maybe the fact that Brad and Lauren were always attached helped her a bit.

Until, of course, Brad decided to move to U.K. to study there.

It broke Lauren into pieces, but this time, Camila was there for Lauren.

Camila was there when Lauren ranted about how much it hurt.

Camila was there when Lauren got depressed. But before she did anything, Camila is already outside her door with fastfood and Ben & Jerry’s on her hands.

And since Lauren and Brad already broke up, her friendship with Camila got tighter. (It’s not that it wasn’t at first, it’s just that Lauren had to share her attention to two of her favorite people before that. And now, it’s solely on Camila)

After class, either Lauren or Camila would drag the other to watch a movie together. Just the two of them.

One of the memorable one was this Korean zombie movie. Camila complained about how she’s not up for reading subtitles throughout the movie. But Lauren gave her one puppy look and Camila melted.

Camila also hates ghost movie and she promised herself to never ever watch it. But alas, Lauren made her change her mind.

Yeah, Camila becomes a weak ass bitch when it comes to Lauren. Or you know… whipped.

So okay, everything was fine and dandy as Camila and Lauren battled college education together, studying (more like gossiping) in a local cafe when their exams are around the corner, eating junk food in Lauren’s apartment when the both of them are free. They practically did everything together.

But what Camila never really noticed (or she does but refuses to acknowledge it at first) was the fact that she might have felt something for Lauren. Something that isn’t platonic.

That didn’t last long though.

She first noticed that something was different when she slept over at Lauren’s one time. They just finished watching The Notebook and were lying idly on the bed. The 1975 were playing in the background as they stared at the ceiling, a comfortable silence encapsulating both girls.

It might be nothing, they’ve done it countless times after all. But something about the sudden intimate atmosphere made Camila notice just how much she loves doing this with Lauren.

She then realize that she wouldn’t mind spending all her life with Lauren like this.

Inevitably, she began to question why all she needs is Lauren. All her life, she had always wanted a romantic partner to accompany her as she grows up, but why does Lauren makes her feel… complete.

And that’s when she begin to register that maybe she wants that so called romantic partner to be Lauren.

Of course, being in denial, she shrugs it off at first.

But ever since that thought crossed her mind, there is this nagging voice at the back of her mind everytime she gets close to Lauren. It was like her mind, body and heart subconsciously want Lauren.

She starts pictures having dates with Lauren. She starts imagining how it would feel to kiss Lauren. She starts to think about how it would be living with Lauren 10 years later, doing domestic stuff at home like cooking and cleaning. She even begin to envisage Lauren walking at the altar towards her.

She realizes that she wants Lauren, not just as a friend.

And it scared her. There she is, 18, and turning 19 soon, when she found out that she might be falling for her bestfriend.

Another fun fact; Camila likes to run away from her problems.

So quite inevitably, she ran. Not literally of course, she doesn’t wanna fall just yet. But she starts to distance herself from Lauren. Not quite far, but enough for Lauren to make new friends.

Being the greatest friend that Lauren is though, she introduced them to Camila.

And gradually, they subconsciously formed a group amongst themselves. Lauren, Camila, Dinah, Ally and Normani.

But still, no one could beat Lauren and Camila, and that made Camila glad. At least she didn’t push her too far.

Camila eventually got comfortable with Lauren again later that year.

That wasn’t the only thing that changed though.

Lauren also started dating this rich prick, Noah. Noah was in her Art class and one day, he asked if she wanted to go out. Seeing nothing wrong with him, she accepted it.

Don’t worry though, her heart by then was guarded with millions and millions of bricks.

And ironically, that was epitome of their relationship problems.

She never really opened up to him like she should and it frustrates Noah to no end. Then, everything seems to trigger him. Like the fact that she always cancels their plans to go out with Camila. Or the fact that Lauren has a lot of guy friends. Or even the fact that she never really introduced him to her friends.

Can’t really blame him though, it’s true.

(Of course, Camila knew everything about their relationship. But the other girls.. they knew nothing of him, just that they were dating.)

While they were having problems, Camila was able to suppress whatever she was feeling towards the green eyed girl.

Barely.

Being the naturally possessive girl that she is, she starts to claim Lauren. Subtly, of course.

It starts from holding hands with Lauren as they three walk around campus. Then, it escalated to Camila claiming the seat next to Lauren everytime they all have lunch (Lauren always brings Camila to their date, for some reason). She does everything Lauren wants; giving her flowers whenever she finds them, knowing just how much Lauren loves a single rose instead of a bouquet (she chokes back a laugh everytime Noah brings Lauren flowers). She also knows that Lauren hates chocolate and with that, she couldn’t hold back the laugh bubbling on her throat when she sees Lauren’s nose scrunches subtly when he gave her just that.

“Why are you laughing?” Noah asks Camila with an annoyed tone.

“Nothing.. Its just that.. You know that Lauren doesn’t like chocolate right?” Camila says mid-laugh.

Noah looks back at Lauren expectantly and was irrevocably humiliated when he sees Lauren nod hesitantly.

Needless to say, they had quite an interesting screaming contest when he called her that night. What he didn’t know was that Camila heard everything he said to her.

It made her pissed but she couldn’t do anything.

But all that was temporary. After some time, she realizes that she couldn’t destroy their relationship. What she was doing was selfish and despite how shitty he is, he does make Lauren happy sometimes.

So she also started dating to this guy, Austin. If she can’t get the person she wants, why not move on and date a guy she assumes is the best for her.

Get ready to more confused, probably.

She first met him through a mutual friend’s birthday party, Zara Larsson.

The two immediately hit it off since they kind of have the same kind of humor. He was dorky and playful and it made Camila feel like someone finally gets her.

Don’t get her wrong, she knows for a fact that Lauren gets her. Its just that its mostly because they’re used to each other. In fact, in more ways than one, they’re quite different. But their kind of different is a positive one because they complete each other. What Lauren lacks, Camila fills and vice versa.

(Lauren, frankly, lacks sympathy while Camila has more to a fault. Camila teaches Lauren to take people’s feelings into account while Lauren teaches Camila to not let everyone in because most people are shit)

Theyre kind of like Yin Yang in a way. Or you know, the moon and the sun.

Anyway, Austin was nice and that definitely helped Camila’s decision to try dating him.

When they first interacted, Lauren was there. She saw how Austin was basically attached to Camila throughout the night. Like, one time, when they were all in the dining room, Austin actually came up to Camila and sat on the same chair she was sitting on.

While Camila send him a inquisitive look, he shrugs and smiles.

“There aren’t any more chairs to sit on,” he said.

“There’s a chair beside me Austin,” Dinah pointed out.

And if Camila looked at the right person clearly that time, she could’ve seen the person she’s in love with sigh in relief when Austin was basically forced to sit on the vacant chair.

But it didn’t mean that Camila wasn’t looking at Lauren. Hell, she probably looked at her more that a bestfriend should. She was always there next to Lauren, she remembers listening to Lauren laugh when she whined as her drink spilled because she danced around Lauren a tad bit much. She remembers Lauren dragging her to the toilet because she felt like it (she didn’t even pee).

But that night was apparently a long one. Because even if they were attached, Camila still had time to be singing in the karaoke room with Austin. She remembers walking to a vacant couch at a secluded area and Austin following after her (even if there were millions of seats he could sit on. Thats how she knows that Austin was somewhat interested in her). She remembers singing All My Life by K-Ci and Jojo with Austin and him looking at her as he sang. She remembers that it was pretty cliché and very High School Musical of them.

Two days after the party, Camila received a text from a random number in midst of texting Lauren.

(Camila was sending her this cute ass joke that made Lauren laugh harder than she should.)

Unknown [7.03pm]: Hey, it’s Austin. Ummm, from Zara’s birthday party.

Unknown [7.03pm]: I got your number from her. I hope thats okay?

Unknown [7.04pm]: I was just wondering if you want to go out with me sometime.

After she reads the text thoroughly for 10 minutes, she does the thing any normal girl does.

She asks her bestfriend.

Camz [7.16pm]: Remember that dude that sat next to me in the dining room for a sec?

Laur [7.20pm]: Yeah… Why?

Camz [7.22pm]: Well, he texted me.

Camila waited for a reply from Lauren, and she could see that bubble popping in and out when she did. But the text never came after ten minutes. Camila got tired of waiting so she called Lauren instead.

“Laur, what should I do?”

“Why are you asking me? He’s your problem, not mine,” Lauren says sharply, making Camila frown immediately at her shift in mood. Lauren seemed happy when they were texting.

“Are you okay?” Camila asks, and Lauren sighs defeatedly.

There were shuffling sounds before Lauren answers. “Nothing, Noah’s just pissing me off.”

“Oh,” Camila say, buying the excuse immediately. Though she was just hoping that Lauren was annoyed at the idea of Austin and her and little did she know that it was completely why.

(The difference between Austin and the rest of the guys she temporarily dated was the fact that Austin was the first guy Lauren knows Camila was mildly interested in after Brad left to go to UK.)

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Camila asks.

“It’s okay, it’s nothing you don’t already know,” she answers dismissively. Camila didn’t question it because she knows that Noah and Lauren always argues about the same thing.

“Okay well, since you clearly don’t wanna talk about him, what do you think I should do with Austin?”

Camila swears she can feel Lauren’s eye rolls through the call.

“What do you want?” Lauren asks. Camila could hear how strained her voice is, but she decides to not point it out since she doesn’t want to push her buttons.

“I don’t know. What do you think?” Maybe, Camila wants Lauren to convince her to not to associate herself with him. (And maybe admit that she wants Camila like she wants the older girl, but Camila shakes that thought off fast since she thought it was impossible)

“I don’t know Camila,” Lauren replies. Camila knows that she only says her actual name when she’s unhappy with her, “I mean, it’s not like you have feelings for somebody else, right?”

“Well… Um…,” Camila stutters, caught off guard with the question. “No.”

“Then why not?”

She hung up immediately after. And to say that Camila was hurt would be an understatement.

What she thought was that Lauren didn’t care about her. Not enough to talk about her current predicament with Austin. She’s been with Lauren through thick and thin. She had even gone as far as to drive her around in the middle of the night when she was sleepy as fuck because Lauren couldn’t sleep and was still hung up on Brad.

Anything that Lauren has a problem with, especially in terms of boys, Camila was always there to try to give her unbiased opinions, even if it kinda killed Camila a little bit.

She’s also selfless when it comes to Lauren’s happiness. For example, during Lauren’s birthday, she actually had a plan to surprise Lauren but last minute, she received a call from Noah that he already had a plan for her. Camila accepted defeat and took down everything she did. She even went as far as to help him surprise her.

Even if it hurt her.

Hell, she even canceled on a date she had with this random dude because Lauren wanted to watch a movie with her.

And now that she has something a dilemma she wants to fix, Lauren hung up on her.

It just sucks. So fucking bad.

At that time, she feels like Lauren doesn’t care about Camila like she does for her. Not gonna lie, even if it was improbable, Camila still lowkey hoped that Lauren has feelings for her, even if it was only a fragment of she feels for the older girl. But that idea was soon out the window and so, she accepted Austin’s proposal and they went on a date.

He was really sweet. They went on this Cuban restaurant and he did everything a normal gentleman would. They even walked around the streets for a couple of hours to talk about nonsensical things after dinner.

And for once in a million years, Camila finally felt like she could open up to someone romantically again.

So she went on a couple more dates with him.

Lauren… Lauren was somewhere. She sort of dropped from the face of the earth and if sort of made Camila worried.

Actually, she was more than worried.

She texted a couple times, only to receive nothing in return.

Just when she was walking to her car in campus, planning on going to Lauren to check up on her, she saw her walking with Noah with their hands intertwined and a huge smile plastered on both their faces.

It further aggravated Camila. While Camila was worried sick, Lauren was happy and having fun with Noah. She didn’t even bother trying to reply an “I’m okay” to her.

(And maybe, just maybe, she hated the fact that Lauren looked happy without her)

She wanted to talk to Lauren, but she didn’t want to cause a scene so she decided to wait for Lauren outside her apartment building.

You might be asking why Lauren has an apartment to herself and why Camila’s not actually living with her. It was actually because she already paid for my dorm room and she didn’t know that Lauren actually rented an apartment for the both of them.

She did say that Camila should make good use of the dorm that she paid for for a year and only then, she could move in with her. I mean, she didn’t oppose if Camila moved in early, but the campus didn’t accept refunds and the least Camila could do was try to stay there for her parents.

Camila waited for around two hours or so before she saw Noah’s sports car (he’s so flashy it’s annoying) stop in front of the building. Camila should’ve opted on texting her so she didn’t have to wait that long, but I guess she needed time to recollect her thoughts.

When Lauren climbed out of the car (he didn’t even get out of the car and open the door for her), her gaze immediately fell to Camila and to say that she was surprised would be an understatement.

“Cam-”

“I wanna talk to you,” Camila cut her off.

“Um, yeah sure. Hold on.” She turned around and waved at Noah before he drove off. “Let’s go up first.”

They rode up the elevator and into her home in silence, not sure of what to say. Camila wanted to talk about why Lauren seems to avoid her while Lauren didn’t want to talk at all, period.

But apparently, Lauren’s wish wasn’t granted when Camila asked her what’s going on the second they walked inside.

And Lauren being Lauren, she didn’t give in immediately.

“Lauren please, what’s going on? Did I do something wrong? I’m really sorry if I did. I just really miss you Laur.” Camila practically begged.

“It’s nothing about what you did. I promise. It’s just that I needed time to think about stuff and it just… I don’t know Camz. But I promise it’s not about what you did.”

“Do you wanna talk about it? You know, whatever it is that’s going on in your head.”

But for the first time, Lauren didn’t want to open up to her. And it bothered the brown eyed girl to no end.

But at least Lauren had the decency to try to divert the topic and just like that, it was enough to distract Camila from the tangible tension between the two.

And so they’re back to normal.

Only now, Lauren has Noah and Camila has Austin.

You see, Camila isn’t an oblivious girl like Lauren is in typical Camren fics. She knows that something’s going on in Lauren’s head.

Like, she knows that Lauren is annoyed whenever Camila starts talking about Austin. She also knows that Lauren hates it when Camila has to raincheck their plans because she already made one with Austin. Anything related to Austin just pisses Lauren off.

She is also almost certain that Lauren hates Austin.

But she doesn’t know why she does. She doesn’t know why Lauren always clings on Camila almost everytime now and when Austin is there, she doesn’t know why Lauren suddenly has somewhere to go or something to do.

Okay, so maybe Camila is a little bit oblivious. But hey, it’s kind of refreshing in a way, isn’t it? I’m putting an end on Lauren’s oblivious streak.

Anyway, Lauren had gotten quite hot and cold with Camila lately.

It gets weirder though.

Sometime in August, they were calling to check up on each other and Lauren pointed out that she doesn’t like it when Camila calls her by her name.

“I hate it when you call me Lauren or Laur.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know, it seems too formal. Like we’re close, why call me by my name?”

“But the girls call you by your name,” Camila reasoned.

“I know.. But you’re you. And they’re them. You’re different from them.”

“How?”

“I don’t know Camz.. I just don’t like it when you call me by my name.”

“Well, what do you wanna be called then?” Camila asked.

Lauren pauses.

“Baby,” she said cheekily, even giggling towards the end.

“What?” Camila said, a bit baffled.

“Baby, I want you to call me baby.”

“Why?”

“Cause I like it. It sounds cute. So why not?”

“Uhh..” Camila trailed off, not really convinced that she was serious. But for the heck of it, she said, “right, sure.”

“Say my name,” Lauren said suddenly.

“Uh- What?”

“Say my name.”

“Lauren?”

“No, not that. Say my name.”

“Umm.. Baby?”

Lauren giggled again when she heard Camila say it.

“Yes baby?” Lauren replied.

“You’re acting strange, but okay,” Camila deflected, a little bit uncomfortable. Sure, then flirting is a common occurrence, but this is just… weird. It’s making Camila’s heart beat faster than when Austin calls her baby. It’s making her stomach hurl because the butterflies are just flapping around the small space in her abdomen.

The next day, she didn’t think that Lauren would remember the conversation they had prior.

The girls, along with Ally, Dinah and Normani, had decided to have a study session in Starbucks after lunch.

Austin wanted to go out too that same day so Camila compromised by having lunch with him first then study with the girls after.

But then, she sort of lost track of time a bit and Camila realized that she was really late at the end of the lunch date.

So she opted to text Lauren.

Camz [3.52pm]: are you there already?

Laur [3.54pm]: I was, but since you’re not here yet, I decided to go home to change.

Laur [3.54pm]: I miss you :(

Camz [3.55pm]: Hehehehe, I miss you too.

Camz [3.56pm]: I’m on my way there though.

Laur [3.59pm]: Alright, Ill be there soon.

Again, it’s not that they’ve never flirted before. In fact, they do it so much that at one point, the three girls have asked them whether they were together or not.

They even joked about how hot they would be if they were 'lesbian-ing together.’ Their words not mine.

So the fact that Lauren just said that she missed her shouldn’t make Camila feel weird. But it does. Her heart did somersaults while the butterflies in her stomach for the same thing the day before.

30 minutes after Camila settled down and Lauren walked in with the brightest smile she has ever seen.

“Camziii,” she squealed, putting down her books to the table and hugged her.

“Lauren.”

“Wait, that wasn’t what you promised,” Lauren teased.

“Promised what?” Dinah decided to butt in, looking at both girls expectantly.

“I asked her to call me baby last night,” Lauren replied, her confidence unwavering. My heart started speeding up when she had confirmed it once again.

“Yeah, well then, hi baby..” Camila said awkwardly as she hugged Lauren again, still confused at what was happening with her bestfriend.

She just giggled in response and sat across from Camila.

That wasn’t the only weird situation Camila was put in that day. That same fateful night, Lauren asked something weird.

“If you were lesbian, would you stay in the closet?”

“Come again?” The pen cap Camila was biting prior flew out of her mouth. She thought she wasn’t hearing Lauren correctly.

“If you liked girls, would you stay in the closet?” The raven haired girl said slowly, making Camila’s eyes grow bigger.

“Oh.. Uhh.. Would you?”

“No.. Yes.. Honestly, I don’t really know.”

“Well, umm, I don’t think I’d hide my relationship. I think I’d actually flaunt her in front of everyone.”

Lauren smiled in response.

“If you could date any girl in your class, who’d you date?” Lauren inquired once more.

You, Camila thought. “Oh. Umm.. I can’t think of anyone right now. You?”

“Probably Ashley, she’s so artistic. It’d be cool.”

Literally, Camila could hear her heart breaking when Lauren said it. There goes her hope again.

Nothing weird really happened that week. And honestly, I don’t think Camila could handle it if Lauren were to continue whatever game she was playing.

The next few weeks, Lauren and Camila started being normal again. Maybe not normal like how usual bestfriends are, considering the tension, but it’s their kind of normal and that’s all that matters. They even continued on talking about boys again.

And then, she broke up with Noah.

That’s when shit started getting weirder between Lauren and Camila.

When Camila asked her why they broke up, Lauren vaguely answered the fact that she didn’t make time for him, and he got tired of it. (He actually noticed just how close Camila and Lauren were and he hates being out second)

Camila bought it.

Then, one time at lunch, the 5 girls went to this restaurant and they were getting quite rowdy.

Normani pointed out that she misses making out and that she’s desperate to find a companion.

“Since you miss making out so much, why don’t you make out with me?” Camila flirted with a wink.

That time, she and Lauren were holding hands under the table, and she could feel Lauren’s grasp getting firmer.

“I love you Mila, but I’d rather kiss Lauren.”

“Sori Mani, I wouldn’t kiss you if you were the last person on earth.”

Normani gasped and playfully threw a napkin to Lauren.

But the fact that Normani wouldn’t kiss her offended Camila, she pouted throughout the lunch time, not caring about what they were talking because she was disappointed. And that her ego was greatly bruised.

The desperate didn’t even want her, she thought.

Lauren saw Camila’s shift in mood and squeezed her hand to gain her attention.

“I’d kiss you Camz..” She whispered, making Camila’s body tingle with anticipation.

But lol, Camila was still with Austin.

A few days later, when Camila told Lauren about how she almost did it with Austin, Lauren literally said that she couldn’t handle looking at Camila and went off, leaving Camila alone.

Shits like that kept happening until at one point, Camila felt like she needed to talk to her about it. She was just so fed up with how Lauren was acting.

Even Austin mentioned about how flirty Lauren is to Camila. He asked her if Lauren was into girls or not. Camila asks why he’d think that and he said that he’s almost sure that the gazes Lauren throws at Camila was love.

Camila didn’t believe him.

Eventually, it caused them to argue. Camila argued that Austin was irrationally jealous and he got pretty pissed about that.

Then, they argued at the fact that Camila always sided with the raven haired girl if Lauren and Austin had were fighting.

Austin eventually gave Camila an ultimatum; Austin or Lauren. And Camila almost laughed when he asked that. Just thinking of choosing him over Lauren made her stomach hurl.

So they broke up after 5 months of dating.

And just then, Camila finally moved in with Lauren.

Throughout the week after Camila and Austin broke up, Lauren did the same thing Camila did to her after Brad. She brought back food and Ben & Jerry’s as Camila got sad over her break up.

(She wasn’t really sad, she just liked the attention Lauren was giving her)

Everything turned back to normal after. Camila being tortured by Lauren’s indirects and flirty comments.

And it throws Camila on a loop.

One minute, Lauren is talking about this cute guy she saw somewhere, the next she’s cuddling and saying cute shit like how she wants to live with Camila forever.

She was convinced that Lauren was playing with her heart. She thinks that Lauren knows how she has feelings for her, and now she’s just having fun toying her around.

So she decided that enough was enough.

“Laure-”

“Say my name,” Lauren cut Camila off with a smirk.

“Lauren.” Camila stood her ground. “What is going on with you?”

“Whatever do you mean?” She finally saw how serious the younger girl was and stopped reading the book that was on her lap.

“What’s going on with you?”

“What did I do?”

“You.. excessively flirting with me. What’s up with that?”

“I-” Lauren started. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do. I know you’re doing this on purpose. I know that you know that I have feelings for you. But you don’t ha-”

“Wait. Wait what?” Lauren perked up.

“I know you’re doing this on purpose?”

“No the one after that.”

“You don’t have to toy with my heart?” Camila asked questioningly, not sure where Lauren is getting at.

“No… no. Before that,” Lauren stood up then, walking over to Camila. Not that close, but close enough to hear Camila’s gulp.

“I have feelings for you.”

“Oh my God,” Lauren immediately wrapped her arms around Camila and hugged her for dear life.

“I’ve wanted to hear that since forever Camz.”

“Wait what? Really? When?”

“Uhh, I’m not so sure really. But after Brad, you were just so sweet to me and I couldn’t help but fall for you.”

“Hey hey now. No one talked about falling here,” Camila smirked. “I didn’t say that.”

Lauren laughed and she grabbed Camila’s face with her two hands, immediately planting a kiss on her mouth.

“I like you Camz,” The older girl admitted.

“I like you too Laure-”

“Ah! Say my name.” Lauren cut her off once more, the most cocky smirk plastered on her face.

Camila playfully sighed. “I like you too baby…”

Lauren immediately squealed and kissed Camila.

Finally, after years of trials and error, Lauren finally found the perfect guy for her. Only that it wasn’t a guy.

Sure, Lauren had her fair share of dating stupid boys. But needless to say, she wouldn’t change anything if it meant that she’d end up with Camila in the end.

And yeah, sure, there are still many things about Camila that they don’t understand, but at least now she can be sure of one thing.

It’s the fact that she’s not straight.

—

A/N

Lol. Idk.

I rushed the ending. Sors. But tell me what you think about the two.

It’s somewhat based on true story.

#UPDATE #one shot #AU #trigger warning #camren #humour #romance fluff #submission #We Might Be Like Spaghetti

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canadian-buckbeaver · 7 years ago

Text

Ink Demon’s Game

- CHAPTER THREE SPOILERS -

Your father, against his better judgement, decided to go meet with Joey after so many years apart. Now he’s missing and many people are reluctant to do anything about it. So you brave the old studio and find evidence of your father being there, but he’s nowhere to be seen. You must travel deeper into the studio, braving the errands of Angel, meet Boris and escape from the grasp of Bendy…

All while trying to find your father.

Good luck. You’ll be needing it.

Just remember - this is where all your dreams come true

Like what I do? Buy me a coffee to support my writing, consider commissioning me or drop a kudos/comment on my tumblr or AO3 account!

You couldn’t help but take a deep sigh of relief as you stepped into the lift for what would be the last time, smiling at Boris.

Angel had you running all over her area of the studio, being her little errand girl for the day, as her last errand boy had mysteriously disappeared. Part of you thought it was just a rouse as her list of to-do’s seemed scattered, random almost. But you had never seen an angel, let alone an angel made of ink, so it was possible that she needed the ink for herself, to keep her decaying body in one piece. The gears and power charges were confusing to you, why would a creature such as her want with them? And those hearts… your hands itched thinking about the feel of them in your hands. The slime and the texture. Perhaps it was your imagination but one had faintly pulsed in your hand when you had picked it up. No, you were glad that that was over with. When you finally got out of here you were going to take the longest, hottest shower you could stand, scrubbing the ink from your pores till not a stain remained. To do that, you needed to get out of this damned place first. As Angel pondered about heaven and how she had always imagined it, you let your mind wander.

Her last errand boy… Angel had mentioned an errand boy before you… one that hadn’t returned to her chambers.

It was no accident that you were in the old, deserted studio. You had come here looking for your father, Henry. He had worked here, once upon a time, about thirty years ago he had said. Before Joey had completely taken it over he had been one of the head animators, in charge of drawing out repetitive drawings for their cartoon, Bendy the Dancing Demon. Thirty years ago, Henry and Joey had a disagreement and Henry had turned his back on the staff and crew, vowing never to set foot in there again. And he hadn’t. He had gotten a new job, married, and then had you. A few days ago Joey had sent him a frantic message, telling him that he needed to show him something and he had left, promising you and your mother that he would be home in time for supper.

Supper had come and gone, and there was no sign of your father.

You had urged your mom to call the cops but she had refused. She had wondered if he and Joey had gotten distracted, catching up over dinner and drinks, and then your father had neglected to call home and let everyone else know of his change in plans. That excuse didn’t excuse the second day, nor did it explain the third…

You had tried calling the police yourself and they had promised to check it out. When they got around to it. Curse this town and it’s small crew of officers. Oversight on the council’s part to cut funding for the officers. ‘Nothing happens here, do we need a full taskforce?’ one had dared ask.

These thoughts were interrupted when the elevator stopped and shuddered. That’s when you heard Angel’s maniacal laughter. You knew that she was unhinged, slightly deranged but that crazy? She was a cartoon character, you chided yourself, anything was possible with them.

Boris looked at you, the pupils of his eyes possibly round with fear, you couldn’t quite tell with him.

The lift dropped like a stone. Boris covered his head, shaking like a leaf. You left to grip to the sides of elevator, praying that the cable would catch, that you would be safe, that you would survive this fall.

But with old style elevators, they just don’t have the same safety mechanisms as modern day ones.

As Angel screamed about taking Boris, you somehow moved closer to him. You wouldn’t allow that monster to take him. Boris had shown you nothing but kindness. He had walked you through the twists and turns of the tunnels, opened the locked doors, and had even shown you the safe rooms. No, he would be protected. Boris would not meet the same fate as those other Borises in her little experimentation and torture room.

Before you could promise Boris anything, the elevator finally crashed. The momentum causing you to hit your head on the metal bars, before falling to the ground. The last vision you saw before the world turned dark was one of your father, smiling down at you.

When you finally came to, Boris was shaking you gently, trying to wake you. Your head throbbed, and your vision swam. Why was it so hard to concentrate? Where were you?

Boris still shook you gently, mutely pleading for you to wake, get up, and continue your journey. That’s when the shadow started to approach the two of you, slowly, stealthy, as if they didn’t want to be seen or heard.

Angel.

You tried to say something, but your traitorous body was too weak to do anything. Your mouth gaped like a fish, no words escaping, and your eyes still swam with darkness and stars.

When you were next aware, Boris was reaching out to you, almost pleadingly, as Angel jerked him back. Down to her cave of horrors… of death.

You tried to rise again but, instead you succumbed to the darkness, completely helpless.

Many hours passed before your eyes opened again. Your body was completely battered and bruised, your clothes coated in ink. Your skull throbbed in tune with your heartbeat and your back was stiff.

Where… where was Boris? He had been in front of you, shaking you. Or was he in the elevator? Waiting for you to finish your errands and return to him?

Piece by piece your memories and anger slowly returned. Angel, heh someone had a cruel sense of humour in naming her that… you remembered seeing the evil angel behind him now, jerking him off his feet and away from you.

No time for rest. Both Boris and your father needed you.

As quick as you could you pulled yourself to your feet, forcing yourself up and preparing to move. You swayed, your injuries still very much affecting you and your sense of balance, causing you to grip the wall and handrail in the search for relief. You pushed onward. Eventually your body became used to the pain and the abuse, and you were able to ignore the stars and impending darkness in your peripheral vision.

In all her glory, Angel had not considered her ‘heavenly’ footprints on the hardwood floor, nor had she thought of the long smears caused by Boris, probably where he had struggled to get free. A perfect trail, waiting for you to follow.

A sense of justice filled you and you started to follow the tracks down to her cavern again. It became a mantra in your mind. “Boris will not end up like them. Boris will not end up like them. BORIS WILL NOT END UP LIKE THEM.” So deep in your thoughts you didn’t realize when the room around you began to darken, the lights dampening, and the living ink began to infiltrate the room. The very wood of the walls and roof, was saturated to the point of ink dripping through the sodden boards, the blackness slowly becoming absolute, but you still didn’t notice, your mind consumed with the thought of your father and Boris.

It wasn’t until you heard the scream behind you that you slowly turned around.

The Demon Bendy, coming straight for you, an ugly snarl on its face, and two arms outstretched to grab.

You screamed before running off, ink splashing up and around your shoes. How could you be so careless? But there was no time for that. “Hide, hide, hide…” you muttered as you ran through endless hallways, cutting corners and running down and up stairs, desperately trying to lose him.

As if someone was looking out for you, there was a safe zone around the next corner.

You almost threw yourself inside the little house, clicking the door shut behind you. There was a narrow slot where you could see through, and luckily all you could see was the expense of the hallway, and one of those Bendy cut outs. You must have managed to get some distance between you and the demon but you already knew that it wasn’t enough… it was never enough. You clamped your hand around your mouth to stifle the sounds of your breathing as you tried to stop your body from shaking so much. Your knees were shaking, teeth were chattering and your spine, had it not been aching from the fall, it too would have been swaying like a reed in a storm.

As you watched the lumbering giant walked slowly up the hallway. You just realized that ink seemed to be flowing into his eyes, blinding him. For a moment you felt a peak of elation – a weak point! – but you already knew that he could hear you, and possibly feel the vibrations of the studio. How else could he had found you so fast so many times before?

Bendy approached the little house, he was whispering something. “Come on out little treat… I know you’re there…. don’t you want to dance with a demon?” A shiver ran up your spine. He sounded exactly like the Bendy on the cartoons. This Bendy was a lot larger, even making Boris look like a lap dog.

He was still speaking, singing. “Don’t you want to play with me? All this chasing… I thought you liked tag!” He laughed, in a low, rumbling tone, reminding you of a truck’s breaks.

“Do you like my cut outs little one? Angel doesn’t, that’s why she had you destroy them. I bet she never told you why though. I’ll let you on a little secret~” he had turned towards the safe house suddenly, the grin becoming wider, the teeth turning from rectangles to jagged triangles.

“She doesn’t like it that I have a set of eyes, everywhere you turn.”

Wait…

WHAT?

The door to the safe house was thrown open and a dark, dripping hand grasped your throat before you had a chance to scream or beg. He lifted you effortlessly from the house, grinning as your hands fruitlessly pounded on his large one. Tears already were dripping down your face…

Was this how you were going to die? At the hands of the cartoon character?

“There you are little treat~ Let’s have some fun, hmm?” he asked you.

#bendy and the ink machine #bendy and the kink machine #bendy x reader #bendy x female reader #boris the wolf #angel (bendy and the ink machine)#poor boris #chapter three spoilers #chases #threats of violence #mentions of non-con

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alicedoessurveys · 7 years ago

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loooooong survey

Childhood

Did you spend your childhood time with mostly real or imaginary friends?: real. I spent most summers/half terms with my cousins and my neighbour’s grandkids. Did people consider you an odd child?: not odd, just shy Do you have memories that go back to when you were only a few months old?: nope Do you remember any thoughts you had when you where very young?: not really nope

Were they intricate or simple thoughts?: probably simple but I can't remember

If you answered “intricate”, give an example of one of those thoughts: n/a

Were you dreams very vivid as a child?: yes, still do. I also used to get really bad night terrors a lot as a kid What is the strangest memory you have from early childhood?: can't think of anything strange.. Were you a child prodigy or did you display any gifts at a young age?: I drew a lot, but I was no prodigy What was the most “grown-up” thing you ever said as a child?: I have no idea What were your favourite TV shows in early childhood?: I grew up on Fairly Odd Parents, Rugrats, Tracy Beaker Were you afraid of monsters?: yes, especially zombies Did you believe that fictional characters were real?: yes Were you more quiet and artistic or loud and physical? quiet and artistic Issues and stuff Do you eat meat?: yup, but only beef, chicken and bacon/sausage If you do, what is your justification for it?: I dont feel I need to justify it, just like I wouldn't expect a vegetarian to justify why they dont eat meat. each to their own. If you could legalize 3 things in the US, what would they be?: I dont live in the US, I dont really know their laws and I dont really care Do you believe in the death penalty?: nope Did Mumia do it?: do what..? If you had a choice, which country would you have chosen to be born into?: I like that im English, I just wish I was born in a different part of England cause Birmingham is a shit hole What are your opinions of Michael Moore?: I dont know who that is Describe your feelings about marijuana legalization: I think it should be for those who need it for medical stuff Red, White and Blue is a ghastly color combination, right?: nope What television news coverage do you detest the most?: all of it, I dont watch the news What will you do if Bush is re-elected? Im British, I dont care Which state do you think will drop off into the ocean first?: idk Who do you consider “American Heros”? I feel like these questions are very aimed at Americans Completely Obtuse And Silly Questions Have you ever taken something apart just to see how it worked? yes Do you ever yell at the television while you are alone? Reason?: not yell, but talk to the telly yeah. and not even just while im alone. Name a few things (if any) that you bought on Ebay recently: I cant remember the last time I bought something off eBay Are the Muppetes sinister? Think about it.: nope... o.O Do you watch the Science Channel (Discovery) on a regular basis?: no ive never watched it Ever gotten into an “in person” argument with a total stranger? Discuss: yup. basically I was at this event thing where they had boats and pretty floating lights and shit on a river. we had waited all day to see them and when they were finally coming past we couldn't see them because it was so crowded and there was a “security guy” stood in the way. There was kids infront of me who kept saying they couldn't see because of him so I yelled “MOVE” and he turned around and started arguing with me. Long story short, he eventually moved out the way and found a space where he wasn't blocking anyones view and the people around me thanked me. I felt so awkward after cause im not a confrontational person at all but I was so tired & irritated that I just snapped. Sugar or Honey?: Sugar What’s on your desk right now?: im not sat at my desk atm How many e-mails do you recieve a day?: about 20 Do you think that time travel is a possibility?: no Are you slightly addicted to online tests and surveys?: not addicted, I just enjoy doing them to pass time San Francisco or New York City?: ive never been to either, but I would like to go to New York What are your favorite color combinations?: grey and light blush pink looks nice Close your eyes and type the first random image that pops into your head: I cant because im listening to hairspray so thats all I can see right now Do you enjoy night or day better?: depends what im doing Favorite animal: Dogs Have you ever been to a protest?: Nope, but ive ended up in the same place as a protest was taking place and it was horrible Aggravated a cop on purpose?: No Ever gone train hopping/ridden the rails?: Nope If you could choose a time period in which to live, which would it be?: I’m fine with this one Ever put your hand through a window?: no List a few words you hate the sound of: the c word And a few you like the sound of: idk Are you sick of this survey yet? not really Emotions And Such Have you attempted suicide more than once?: No Cutting?: Yes Do you get violent when you are angry?: Not with people, just with myself or just like throw stuff on the floor like a brat Which emotion are you most consumed by?: fear Are you highly emotive?: Yes Do you discuss problems or keep them to yourself?: keep them to myself, and if I do discuss them I downplay or make jokes Do you fall in love easily?: not in love, but I do fall for people too easy What age/year was the most difficult for you?: around ages 19-now How do you channel your anger/sadness?: shut myself away and cry Ever been addicted to alcohol or drugs?: No

Ever been homeless?: No List a few simple things that make you happy: playing sims, Tumblr, theatre When were you most recently your happiest?: hanging out with nick and Addison the other day Do you consider yourself empathetic?: yes Friends Do you have friends that are drastically different from each other?: my main group of friends is only like 3 people and they have their differences but not drastic differences List a few key traits that all of your friends have in common: my friends are all into gaming, watching films & eating Do you keep in touch with friends from high school?: yes, two of my best friends are from school Have you lost touch with many of your friends?: almost everyone I become friends with end up losing touch in the end but ive been friends with Addison for 10 years and Rhys for 20 years Are they mostly local or long distance?: local When you go out with friends, what kinds of things do you do?: usually go to the arcade, cinema and get food Have you ever been betrayed by a close friend?: yes If yes, are you still friends with that person?: no Are your friends mostly your age, younger or older?: rhys & Addison are 23, nick is 25, I am 22

Do you have a hard time making friends because most people bore you?: no, I have a hard time making friends because im socially awkward Do you like to hang out with friends one-on-one or in groups?: groups, it takes the pressure off in conversations Which of you online friends do you have the most in common with?: I dont have any online friends Family Are you close to your family?: yes What traits are you glad you inherited from them?: faithfulness & a good sense of humour What sitcom does your family most remind you of?: I cant think of anything other than that me and my mom are a lot like Miranda and her mom from the sitcom ‘Miranda’ Does your family live locally or far away?: local Have you ever stopped speaking to someone in your family?: yes Have either of your parents died?: no, thank god Is your family very much like you or are you opposites?: a lot like me How many siblings do you have?: one older sister Has your family ever thrown food at each other?: yes, every christmas season we throw chocolates at each other from the Quality Street or Roses tins Are the holidays a nightmare or a time of joy?: I love Christmas Day and I normally love christmas shopping but this year I found it all very stressful because I was so busy at the theatre and I had no money to buy gifts Do you look like your parents?: ive been told I do List one interesting fact about your family: apparently my dads side of the family is descended from royalty Lovers Gay, Straight, Bi-sexual or no idea?: Straight Married/partnered?: Single Ever gone out with someone you were embarrassed to be seen with?: no Ever broken someones heart?: someone I “dated” in infant school told me when we reunited in senior school that I broke his heart. but I didn't actually do anything so I dont know where he got that from How many serious relationships have you had?: none Have you ever lusted obsessively over someone you knew you couldn’t have?: not obsessively lusted, but I have fancied guys that I knew nothing could ever happen. Do you believe in the theory of soulmates?: yes Ever cheated?: No Been cheated on?: No Thrown someones stuff out on the lawn/stairs/etc.?: Nope Had your stuff thrown out on the lawn/stairs/etc.?: Nope Most important emotional qualities of a lover?: someone who makes me feel happy and can make me smile, makes me feel comfortable, is caring, trustworthy, honest, affectionate Most important physical qualities?: I dont think physical qualities are super important but I do fall for peoples eyes & smile Food & Drink Non-alcoholic beverage of choice: cherry coke or caramel hot chocolate Alcoholic beverage of choice: cider Foods you crave on a regular basis: chocolate

Salsa and Chips or Pita and Hummus?: neither Meat or Tofu?: Meat Soup or Salad?: soup Soda or Juice?: Soda Can I get you anything else?: You didn't get me anything..? :’) Favorite candy:: chocolate in general Favorite food to make: lasagne

Food brand that you hate?: idk Do you try to buy all organic?: nope Favorite fast food?: mcdonalds Final Questions Ever had a great song ruined for you after it was used in a commercial?: yes

Ever yelled at an SUV?: nope A Hummer?: Nope Ever faked being sick to get out of going somewhere?: yes If you could turn back time and change one thing, what would it be?: stay in college Bambi or Nemo?: Nemo List 3 things that are worrying you right now: 1, money. 2, a meeting I have to go to next week that im absolutely dreading. 3, I have this constant annoying anxiety that tells me my friends dont actually like me and that I get on everyones nerves. Do you think you’ll ever have children if you don’t already?: not my own now, but I hope to adopt Do you think there is life on other planets?: no Have you ever broken a leg or arm?: nope Would you rather stay in the house or do things outside: depends on my mood David Letterman or Jay Leno?: I dont know who they are Last words?: Bye

#survey #long

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metricanxiety · 7 years ago

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for diamonds do appear to be just like broken glass to me

Genre: oneshot- idk.

Pairing: Phan. (dan and phil in case you didnt know that already.)

AU: Highschool/sixth form. Whatever you prefer.

Warnings: Swearing, underage ??, mentions to sex

Summary: After two years of heartbreak, Dan ends up sleeping with Phil off a drunken decision, and old, unexpected feelings come back up.

Author’s note: i am aware that this is really crap, but i am trying to improve, so please send me requests of prompts, hc’s, etc, because I will write them for you when I get the time. I’m kinda new to posting on tumblr sooooo. PLease keep this out of the main tags, (i.e danielhowell, danisnotonfire, amazingphil, philllester, etc) because i did not write this for them to see. If you are uncomfortable with mentions of gay sex/same sex relationships then im pulling a mannymua and telling you to please dont fucking read it.

“Pretty pretty.” Phil kissed the dimple adorned on the boy’s cheeks, making them turn a deep crimson. It wasn’t often they could be alone, where it was just the two of them, and they could do whatever they wanted. Dan was completely content. He was wrapped in the arms of Phil Lester, the guy that he’d completely fallen for. And although they were only young, he could sense something really strong between them.

Phil was warm, having his Adventure Time sweatshirt pulled over him, and a blanket draped over his legs. Dan rested comfortably between Phil's knees, back to his chest. The blanket, which they were sharing, was up to Dan’s chest, as he didn’t have a hoodie on. Phil’s arms crossed over Dan’s chest, with no plan of letting go. It was moments like these that Phil longed for. He couldn’t wait to have someone special to him, so they could be entertained just from the company of one another. And he finally had it.

Dan couldn’t help but to think about how lucky he was in that moment. Normally, on Fridays, Phil would be off with friends, spending time with them, but due to a holiday trip, they weren't going to be doing anything all together this summer. Which meant Dan had Phil all to himself.

Phil leaned down, pressing his lips to the skin poking out of Dan’s tee, and it may have been the cold, but Dan shivered under the touch. This was all new to him, he’d never been in a proper relationship before, or had anything romantically special with somebody before. So he was still growing accustomed to the constant affection, not that he didn’t like it, but everything was so new.

Dan turned his head slightly, only to see Phil, resting his chin on his shoulder. Phil tilted his head to look at Dan, and they both smiled, bumping their noses together.

It was Dan to finally close the gap, kissing Phil, just because he could.

When Dan was awoken this early morning, he wasn’t aware he had company. His eyes fluttered open when the rays of sun washed over his face, blinding him. The curtains were never closed the night before, because well, he didn’t even remember half of last night. The sun light lit up Dan’s bedroom, making the edges of his desk shine bright with the natural highlight accentuating the sharp corners. His plant drank up all the light it could get, as it never got much in the first place in it’s dark corner of the room. The pictures that littered his wall had a glare, making the faces unidentifiable, but Dan knew them well enough to know who was being blurred out.

Dan’s hand formed a fist, and rubbed both eyes, as if it would help him wake up, wipe away his constant feeling of restlessness, but alas, it never worked. He yawned, leaning over to check his electric that sat on his bedside table. The numbers lit up in read told the brunet that it was half past six. Dan groaned, throwing the white duvet over his waist, as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, getting ready to be up for the day. A chill washed over his skin, giving his goose flesh up and down his arms, realizing that, yes, he was completely naked. Not a cloth bared on his back.

Dan decided that maybe a few more hours of sleep would do, even though there was probably people piled in his downstairs level of his house from last night’s endeavors. They’d be okay for a little while.

Dan was known for his awesome parties, that’s the only thing keeping his name high in the food chain at school. And lat night was special: the first party of their last year of sixth form. It had to be amazing, because there was now a countdown to the very last party of their secondary school life. Everyone knew Dan would do well with this important night, and judging on what he remembered, he nailed it.

He tugged the duvet back up, flopping down onto his side, and was startled when he saw a body directly next to him, in his own bed.

And it wasn’t just a random stranger from his class, no, it was Lucifer himself.

Phil Lester.

Dan couldn’t believe it, because holy fuck he actually gave into this bastards antics, after two goddamn years of rejection, Dan finally gave in. And he hated himself for it.

You see, Dan never got on with Phil. At least, that’s what Dan told himself. When they were both sixteen, they had this fling over the summer, but they never took it farther than cuddling and holding hands. But, before school started, Dan thought he was finally with the guy of his dreams, but then dumped because friends got back from holiday. Specifically, Phil’s friends.

Dan was so heart broken, he didn’t ever think he would be able to leave the safety of his bedroom ever again. He never thought that Phil, his Phil, would ever hurt him after what happened between them. Sadly, however, people make promises that the probably will not keep, which Dan had learned the hard way.

Ever since, Dan watched Phil, seeing that he wasn’t the only rose petal being ripped apart by Phil’s hands, he wasn’t the only broken heart in the school. Poor, sweet, Liz Brekell, thought Phil was the love of her life after being asked out by him. She swooned over his exterior, and, even Dan admitted, was pretty fucking hot. Phil had muscles in all the right places, with straight, black hair that swept to the right, and his fucking smile, it definitely stole the show. But sadly, Liz was dropped for well, the net girl to drop to her knees. It was disgusting to Dan, that he too, had fallen for the scumbag called Phil Lester.

Dan gasped, brown eyes met blue, one screaming out of horror, disgust, the other of smug, and satisfaction. Phil had a fucking smirk spread across his cheeks, and Dan tugged his duvet away, covering his modesty. Phi, however, didn’t budge. The look in his eyes began the memories to flood back into Dan’s mind.

The alcohol, the kissing, the dancing, all the way until They stumbled into Dan’s bedroom, lips attached, zippers being pulled, buttons being ripped. Everything happened so fast, Dan felt as if he couldn’t breath.

“Morning, sunshine.” Phil’s voice was deep, raspy from its lack of moisture, and the strum of his vocal chords was probably the most sexy thing Dan had ever heard in his entire life. And if he didn’t have self control, he would have melted in Phil’s fingertips right then and there. Instead, he built up his walls of defense mechanisms. Last night was a mistake, he decided.

What Dan didn’t know, was that Phil thought it was hilarious that Dan hated him. He loved it, actually. Phil always liked a challenge. But when the rumors spread, about Dan and him, he was broken to have known Dan was no longer interested At least, that.s what Kyle Lockins said. So Phil did what any man would, moved on, and tried to make him jealous. He only succeeded at one of those things. He only really wanted the boy he had grown close to that one summer, the boy he kissed for the first time in the flatbed of his dad’s truck, under the stars of the country side.

A true night to remember, one of the best nights of Phil’s life, and he let the precious diamonds slip through his fingers, mixing with sand after returning to the rocks he was used to. Dan shined brighter than any gem in the treasure chest of their student population. But Phil could never say that out loud. Picking up pieces of the diamond you lost is more difficult than thought.

Phil shifted closer to Dan, trying to edge himself to the point of human contact, just to be able to touch him, but Dan had other thoughts. Dan did not want Phil any closer than the 38 centimeters they had between them, and ended up falling off the bed on the process. In some degree, Phil was hurt, but at the same time, he needed to take the situation in Dan’s perspective. He, as dd Phil, barely remembered last night, and was woken up to be naked in the same bed with the person he hated for two years now. He had to give the guy a little space.

“Oh my g-” Dan couldn’t even finish his sentence, before covering his entire face with his hands. the duvet flopped down over his waist, but was still half on the bed, over Phil. Dan wasn’t a monster, so he left it.

Phil too had his defense mechanisms, his just wasn’t as effective as Dan’s. He hid his emotions through flirting, being an asshole, basically turning into someone he isn’t. It was a barrier that very few people had broken down, but unfortunately for Dan, they built back up for him, without a realization he’d even torn them down.

Last night, Phil didn’t even know how he convinced Dan to sleep with him, because any time Phil tried to get Dan’s attention, he’d get shot down. Fuck, he wasn’t even personally invited to this party, like everyone else was. (Phil had no idea how Dan had talked to so many people to invite them to a party, because usually the entire class, plus more showed.)

“Dan, let me-” Phil began, but was interrupted by a sudden jolt, seeing the boy that was in his arms not ten hours ago, hide under the duvet.

“Just get your clothes and go.”

His beautiful voice, in Phil’s opinion, was muffled by the thick fabric separating the oxygen into two. He could never have Dan like this again anytime soon, but had to respect his wishes. Phil rolled off the bed, sliding on a pair of boxers, followed by his jeans. He didn’t want to waste too much time, as the embarrassment of the situation was worsening by the second.

Dan heard the door slam shut, and took it as the all clear. Well, not really. Nothing was cleared but his room. His mind had no source of ever being the crystal form of relaxation ever again, even if he only had that at rare times.

He had just broken every single rule in his book. That is, he only had one rule, (never fall for Phil again) but he seemed to be having trouble with that. You may be thinking that two years must have been enough time for these two to recover, and get over the bridge of heartbreak, but their connection was so special, Dan thought about it all the time. Sure, Dan had dated a few guys since, but they all just seemed to be short, no longer than two month, flings. Phil was no different, the only thing keeping him out of this category is the fact that Dan and Phil were never dating. Phil was never Dan’s, and Dan was never Phil’s. Yet, it seemed to be the opposite at the time.

The time Dan and Phil became a thing, Dan had just turned sixteen, and Phil brought him on a date as a birthday present. They’d been talking quite a bit before, but Phil thought this would be his big break with Dan. He was head over heels for the curly brunet, and only wanted him to be happy. He truly was the diamond in the rough in Phil’s eyes.

He hadn’t kissed Dan until three weeks into the summer, when his dad finally let him borrow the truck. There was a scheduled shooting star shower happening that night, and it was the perfect setting to finally feel Dan’s lips against his own. Phil thinks about that moment every night, to this day. The electricity shared between the two could have lit up a city. And if I’m honest, things may have gotten heated, but Phil never pushed Dan. He was younger, and barely sixteen, and Phil was like, the third person to commit to him. (Dan doesn’t consider the other two important because he was so young.)

Phil regrets every decision he made by the end of that holiday, however. His friends hated that he was spending too much time on a boy that wouldn’t last, so he kicked Dan to the curb. Rumors spread, and that was it. Yes, he did find it funny that Dan hated him, but there was always apart of him that wanted to prove to Dan that he wasn’t the piece of shit Dan had mad him out to be.

Dan kicked himself, for he didn’t even remember the feeling of the touch of Phil’s lips against his own last night, Even though he didn’t plan on going back to Phil, he wouldn’t trade what they had for the world. Maybe he needed a reminder, how he felt with him, even if those feelings are no longer adamant.

But for god’s sake, he fucking slept with Phil. He’d done something that his sixteen year old fantasies were based upon, and he barely remembers it.

Dan threw his duvet back up onto his bed, walking over to the closet that held his clothing. He felt the same as he did two years ago. Betrayed. Used. Desperate. Feelings he hasn’t felt with anyone else, and he gets so drunk on it. The taste is so bitter, yet so addictive.

Pulling up a pair of sweat pants, Dan thought he’d kick everyone out now, so he’d have the house to himself. He didn’t want to deal with his feelings, but pushing them away would only make then blow up in his face later on. He didn’t bother with a shirt, nor boxers, but it’s not like he wasn’t going to try and scrub off all of his shame in the shower in ten minutes.

The minute Dan opened the door out of his bedroom, he regret every substance he allowed into his house. Because not only was there a pungent scent of alcohol lingering in the air, he could smell the weed that people decided to smoke in the living room, which meant he had to wash the fabric until it was gone. Fuck.

Dan wasn’t really one to say no at parties, but everyone knew they had to at least ask. For example, the first time somebody brought alcohol, they asked Dan if he’d allow it, because it was his house after all. Until it caught on that yes, Dan wants you to bring all the alcohol your heart desires. Other questions consisted of if body shots were allowed, stripping, cigarettes, and now, I guess, marijuana. He doesn’t remember denying the question of weed, so he must have taken a drag last night. Usually he’d be against the whole ‘drug use’ thing, but when he’s drunk, his decisions can be unpredictable. Hence, the fact that he slept with Phil.

There wasn’t as many people sleeping on his floor as he expected, making his job much easier to complete. He stepped up onto his coffee table, bringing his hands to cup around his mouth.

“Everyone out!” He yelled. “My parents are on their way!”

And yeah, he may have been lying, because his parents both traveled for a living, so he still had four days until they’d be home. It was the best solution to get people to wake up, and scatter. People thanked Dan as they headed out the door, a thanks for an amazing night and a night to remember, a party that can only be topped by the final one. He put on his most believable smile, giving brief, friendly hugs to the last of the fish in the sea that was his own home last night.

The door clicked shut, and Dan immediately fell against the wall. His back slid down to the floor, and he pulled his knees up to his chest, as if he was protecting his heart from shattering, which, in some ways, he was. It took Dan so long to accept that Phil chose his friends over him, that now, it just felt like Phil was hurting him on purpose. He was slowly shattering into millions of pieces of heart break, all over again.

Dan felt sixteen again, going through the same process of regret, and hurt, all starting with shame.

He was really glad that last night was not the night he lost his virginity, because that would have made this situation even worse. Even though, that guy wasn’t all that great either.

His name was Henry, and he was the person to comfort Dan in his mourning over Phil. And, Dan was brainwashed, thinking that some guys are better than the one he fell for, gave him everything he had, but not four weeks later, did the end things. Dan thought he was doomed ever finding any sort of real love. Because even though Dan had Phil for a few short months, he still felt something more than just attraction.

He wished he remembered last night, to feel how Phil touched him, kissed him, felt him. How they connected in a way that they’ve never before, but both under the influence of alcohol running through their veins, making decisions for them before their minds could interfere with all the consequences that would follow.

Dan just felt like crying, because all of his feelings for the boy who had taken him for granted were flooding back like tidal waves, and if he just hadn’t fucking slept with him everything would have been fine, you dumbass, I can’t believe you-

He dragged his feet back up the carpeted stairs, just enough to turn the tap on his shower. Dan hadn’t quite seen himself that morning yet, so the surprise bruises scattered around his neck was quite the scare he saw in the mirror.

Hickeys were never something Dan liked, his neck was too sensitive for him to allow people near it, but well, Phil was an exception, he guessed. The marks were deep purple, fading into a red, then his skin tone. They were fucking dark. And they went from his neck, around his collar bones, to his V-line. The thought of having Phil’s mouth all over him made his skin crawl, and shiver. When he was sixteen, he dreamed of Phil’s mouth all over him, and now, after it happened, he only wanted more.

Phil was always so talented with everything he did, especially kissing, Dan decided. His plump lips were always so smooth against Dan’s, and the one time he actually moved to Dan’s neck, he never left a mark. Now, his neck is sensitive, and his actual skin is no different. He was so surprised when Phil pulled back, leaving no evidence that he was even there. And god, did Dan want proof Phil actually kissed his neck.

Looking at himself in the mirror now, was like a dream. This was his past self’s goal in life, to be marked up, claimed by Phil Lester himself. Dan had a sudden urge for more, to be covered in hickeys that Phil would have to suck and bite him to leave. Every sad emotion he was having before just turned- dirty. He wanted Phil to come back over, and have sex so they have something to remember by. It could be his teenage hormones, or it could be his crazy talking, but we all know it was both.

It would have been so easy to just ring him back over, logistically, but Dan had literally kicked Phil out earlier, so he wouldn’t be surprised if Phil hated his guts now. Could he blame him though?

Suddenly, after two years of telling himself no, Dan was saying go for it, despite his rule. Because maybe this was his shot again. Maybe Phil wasn’t an asshole, and had actual reasons to break up with Liz and every other person to ever date him ever, maybe Dan was different.

All this hype, and confidence, made Dan take the fastest shower he’s ever taken, because ohmigod he was actually going to do this, he was going to make the first move, he was going to invite Phil back over-

He was going to get Phil back.

Just the though made the sixteen-year-old Dan squeal, and tap his toes on the floor out of impatience. He denied his feelings for Phil every day, and suddenly, his entire path changed. It took a complete 180, because he went from hating Phil with every drop of blood in his body, to trying to get him back.

Even if it ended up only being sex.

Dan couldn’t stop staring at himself in the mirror. The marks on his skin, he knew, would turn into some type of drug for him. He loved it. He wanted to look like this all the time. The feeling of being claimed really turned him on, which was, apparently, a kink he had discovered this morning. But it wasn’t just being marked up, and claimed, he wanted it to be done by Phil.

A simple, comfortable outfit, would have to do for Dan, because, if Phil were to come over, he would need something easy to take off. Joggers and a t-shirt was the best he could do. And as Dan lunged for his bedside table to text Phil, tell him to come back over, he was notified that well, Phil had beat him to it. There were two notifications waiting to be read on his lock screen, both next to the simple name, of just Phil, no emoji, or anything to mark him as someone special.

Dan- sorry for last night, i understand if you need some space, but i really need to talk to you

text me if you decide you want to, i guess

Dan’s heart sank like a rock being thrown into the ocean, floating all the way to the bottom before being engulfed by the murky water, making the ocean floor not visible. Dan could’t just invite Phil over now, I mean, it hasn’t been forty minutes since Phil has left, and now things would be awkward, especially since Phil needed to apologize face to face, Dan thought that had to be the reason.

Then the memory of Liz, having her heart ripped out, and thrown in the garbage, right next to her v-card, by Phil was drawn back into his mind. Liz, who cried for months over Phil, probably never got an apology. What Phil did to Liz, was probably going to happen to Dan, for the second time.

The urge he had for Phil still remained, however. So Dan did what any person would do, wait it out.

Phil, on the other hand, was also freaking out. He too, still had feelings for Dan, obviously, and he doesn’t even know how he finally convinced Dan to give him a chance. He thought that after they reconnected, (literally, in this case,) he wouldn’t feel guilty, and everything would be great, and Dan wouldn’t hate him any more than he already did.

Except not really, they were both drunk and happen to hook up. It wasn’t really Dan giving him another chance, but more so, not saying no.

Phil could see it now, the broken pieces were coming together, but only if he doesn’t fuck up like he did again.

Phil scrambled for his phone, as he had left every conversation on do not disturb, except for the only person he cared to talk to, and his phone had finally chimed for the first time in two weeks. And it was exactly who he wanted. His beautiful diamond had finally shined over the sand again, and his was so grateful. Phil couldn’t get Dan off of his mind, because unlike Dan, Phil actually remembered that night with Dan more as time went on. And god, did he want Dan like that again.

He remembered having Dan all laid out in front of his, and he only wanted to kiss him, mark him, because he knew Dan loved it. After two years of trying to get him back, (well, trying to get him to go out, but he was never good at expressing that, as in, he attempts to make Dan jealous) this could finally be it for him. Phil wanted to kiss Dan like he did when they were sixteen.

He wanted to go back to that summer and change his decisions, so maybe he could have had Dan for as long as he wanted. Because even though Phil dated a few people, he never liked them, and appreciated them, as much as Dan. And they were purely to try and get Dan’s attention back on Phil. It never really worked.

“Hello?” Phil slid the screen so fast, it may have seemed desperate to Dan, with how quickly he answered.

“uh, hi, Phil. Look, I’m really sorry about kicking you out the other day, I was overwhelmed and I didn’t know what else to-”

Phil interrupted the sweet voice he had fallen in love with, even though he didn’t want to cut his time short from hearing it. “It’s okay, Dan, I came on too strong, and it was your house, you had the right to do it.” Phil exhaled. He seemed to talk faster and faster as his sentences dragged. Phil could hear Dan’s voice stutter, as if he was about to laugh, but held it back.

“In the text you sent me, um, you said you needed to, um, talk?” Dan could barely spit out his words. This moment had him so anxious these past two weeks, he basically forced his hand to hit the call button. And even then, he nearly hung up immediately.

Phil’s eyes lit up, because Dan actually remembered, but Phil didn’t. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what he needed to tell Dan. Of course, he could go with the plain obvious, and just fucking say how hopelessly head over heals he was for Dan, but there was something more, something that was perching on the tip of his tongue, but couldn’t quite spit out.

“Phil? If you don’t have anything to say, then I should probably-”

“Wait, sorry, just, uh, can we, um, meet?” Phil stumbled. He got onto his knees to attempt to search for his shoes under his bead, eventually pulling out the worn black converse. He held the phone between his cheek and shoulder as he awaited a reply.

“Like, now?”

“Um, yeah? If that’s okay?” Phil laced up his shoes, and shrugged on a light jacket- the England weather had turned quite shit, with rain being the most common in their area, oppose from the lovely sunshine they had a little bit ago.

“I don’t know, Phil, I-”

Yeah, two weeks ago Dan was literally ready to have Phil back, but he was glad he gave himself time to think. Because maybe he didn’t want his fucking heart broken again, by the same person that ripped into pieces in the first place. He couldn’t make it that easy for Phil to just waltz back into his life.

“Please? I can be quick, i just don’t want to do this on the phone.” Phil took a deep breath, about to walk out the front door of his house, still not remembering what he had to say to Dan.

“Fine.”

Phil cut the call, running out to his car, and speeding to get to Dan’s house.

Dan hadn’t been to keen on letting Phil come over again, but he needed closure, and if having a cup of tea in the awkward silence of his living room meant closure, then so be it. The marks on his neck had faded drastically, but you could still see the ghosting of where there was one before. That wasn’t fun explaining to his parents.

He really just wanted to take back everything that happened at the party, because it brought up old feelings that he really didn’t want anymore. Dan sighed, running a hand through his hair. What was Phil Lester doing to him?

Dan had his music on the speaker in the leaving room, trying to calm his nerves as he waited for Phil to arrive. And all that was running through his mind was ohmygodwhy on repeat, but it was too late for him to cancel. He didn’t even know what to expect from Phil this time, if he was looking to just hook up again, or if he was going to apologize, he had no idea.

Dan tried to distract himself, counting the freckles going up and down his arms, rearranging the cushions on the couch, changing his outfit for the billionth time, he just had to keep himself busy.

Dan was feeling so anxious over this, he couldn’t stay still, so when he heard the doorbell, his jitters intensified, and he could barely walk to the door without stumbling. He yanked the door open and it looked like Phil was in the same state of him.

He was wearing all black, and god, did he look so hot, in that form fitting t-shirt, and when he saw Dan, his smile was just so- calming, knowing that yeah, this is Phil. This is the Phil that he care for so deeply two years ago, he was standing right in front of him.The eye contact they shared, it made Dan feel like they were sixteen, both with very awful taste in clothing, inexperienced, and much shorter.

Dan had forgotten how much Phil actually meant to him, as all he did was suppress the pain he went through when Phil left him.The only reason he didn’t grab Phil’s face, and kiss the life out of him, is the fact that Phil came here to talk.

“Dan, I-” Phil started, but Dan flung the door open, letting him in. He didn’t want Phil to talk while standing outside, because A) its rude, and B) he didn’t want Phil to just be in and out.

Phil smiled, walking in, letting Dan lead them to the couch. “Do you want some tea, or anything?” Dan asked, procrastinating this talk even more. Phil chuckled, grabbing Dan’s hands, and pulling him down onto the couch. Dan took a deep breath, trying to relax himself. It was just Phil.

And that thought scared him.

Even though he was looking at the Phil he fell for, two years ago, he couldn’t forget about all of the awful things he had done in the time between now, and when they broke off. He just wanted his Phil back.

“Dan, I wanted to talk to you about what happened between us,” Phil started. Dan sat on one of his leg, so he could face Phil better. He sighed, running a hand through his curly hair.

“It was a mistake, Phil. We were both drunk, and our bodies did things before our minds could inter-”

“I wasn’t really talking about that. I meant, um, two years ago.” Phil gave a small smile, and Dan’s face fell.

Dan didn’t really like talking about him and Phil a whole lot, he didn’t want to remember what he felt for Phil, so his solution was to just not say anything about it with people. He hated remembering how happy Phil made him, because it only made him feel responsible for all the shitty feelings people had when with Phil, even though he had no reason to feel that way.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I just, I couldn’t stop thinking about you after I made the clearly wrong decision. You were always on my mind, everything I saw reminded me of you, and it was like anything just screamed ‘Dan Howell’ to me, and it honestly was destroying me.“But I couldn’t just go back to you, no, my fucking choice was to try and make you fucking jealous, and end up hurting you more, and I was hurting others because I just, it didn’t feel the same.

“Now don’t get me wrong, I loved the fact that you hated me. I have no idea why, it was just, I don’t know, I found it so hot that you didn’t like me, or some god awful reason, and it was like a challenge for me to win you back.” Dan’s frown was slowly turning into a smile.

Phil wasn’t even looking at him as he spoke, but his hands were moving all around, expressing so much passion into this conversation as he rambled. Dan couldn’t believe that this was all about him, Phil was talking from his heart, and he was falling for him all over again.

“And I thought I was over you, I really did, but when you started dating someone, it would make my skin crawl.” Phil laughing slightly when Dan did, and Dan moved a little closer to Phil, laying his arm across the back on the couch, as if he had his arm around Phil, without touching him. “I couldn’t even imagine somebody holding you under the stars like we used to do, because I was supposed to be the person doing that. I was supposed to be the person holding your hand in the car as Muse blasted through the speakers, I was supposed to be the person running my fingers through your hair when you were stressed, and couldn’t deal with anything else. I hated the fact that I had taken the connection we had for granted.”

Dan blushed, looking away from Phil. His words were magic, and he could tell Phil had thought about this a lot. Phil grabbed Dan’s hand, bringing his attention back to him. And Dan let Phil hold his hand, something that Phil thought he would never be able to do again. His slightly calloused fingers slotted perfectly into his, and he swore he felt sparks when they touched.

“And then we fucking slept together. We slept together, Dan! I barely remember anything, but I knew I had convinced you, I had kissed you, and I hate myself for it, because I didn’t have the guts to tell you how much I fucking like you sober. Because I do, god, I do. And I just, I’ve wanted you back since that summer. Since our summer had ended.” Phil had moved himself so they were almost on top of each other. Dan’s mind was racing, everything he had just said made him want to cry. Nobody had ever spoken about him that way, and the feeling was so indescribable.

They sat there, remaining eye contact with one another, hand in hand, processing the feeling just exchanged, and Dan did it. He launched forward, smashing his lips against Phil’s, nearly knocking him over. Phil responded immediately, letting go of Dan’s hand, and bringing them to his back. Dan brought his hands around Phil’s neck, and pushed him, so he was laying on top of Phil.

Both of them laughed, when they separated for air, bumping their noses together. Phil leaned back up, pressing their lips together. They had forgotten how amazing their kissing was, electricity was flowing through their bodies, sparks were flying, because fucking finally, they realized hoe meant for each other they were. Their lips moved together as if it were natural, like they were made to do this together.

“Are you sure it’s tonight?” Phil asked, he hugged his hoodie closer, as Dan practically dragged him to the pickup truck in Phil’s driveway. Dan rolled his eyes, throwing the blankets into the flatbed.

“I promise. Now c’mon, I don’t want to miss it.” Dan threw the keys at Phil, who caught them with surprise.

Today was the day Dan was supposed to throw the last party of sixth form. Everything was planned as well, Dan’s parents were out of town, again, Phil had helped spread the word, and they had a shit ton of food. But when Dan found out about the meteor shower happening, he dropped the party like a hot cake, and was dragging Phil out to the county at eleven p.m.

They were relaxing on the couch, with Dan’s head in Phil’s lap. Dan was paying attention to the anime on the telly, but Phil had his eyes on the iPhone game, while the other hand played with the curly locks of the boy he loved, when Dan suddenly sprang up, remembering the exact reason he had cancelled his party that night, why they were at Phil’s house instead of Dan’s, and dragged Phil out the front door, leaving the warmth behind, and entering the bite of the cold outdoors, even though it was June

Phil didn’t mind though. The only thing he cared about was the beautiful diamond that he had to hold in his arms tonight, because he finally collected all the pieces he had lost. It was nice to call Dan his after so long of a disconnection, he’d do anything for his Dan. And if that meant going out to sit in the middle of nowhere to see shooting stars that probably won’t be very visible, then he’d damn well do it. He’d do it just to see the little crinkles in Dan’s face when he smiled, the sparkle in his eyes when he’d finally see what he was looking for, or the way he’d get jumpy, and excited during times leading up to plans. It was Phil’s favorite.

As Phil drove, he realized that he lived for these moments with Dan, he couldn’t imagine his life without Dan by his side anymore. All his future plans revolved around him,(but Dan didn’t know that) Dan was the actual reason of his existence. Just the thought of not waking up in the morning and not having his usual ‘good morning, love’ text from Dan made his face fall.

Phil really didn’t know what he was missing out on during their two year gap.

But all that mattered now, was that he was heading out to go watch the stars with his favorite person on the planet, and he couldn’t have been more happy to say that.

//hello hi this is the end. I really tried w this one, but i didn’t like the end result as much as i hoped, sorry the quality went to shit after the first bit lol. tanks for reeading :) also the theme didnt really keep up but its whatever im sorryyyyyy

#phanfiction #phan fiction #phan fluff #phan smut #phan angst #dan and phil fanfiction #fanfiction #phan oneshot #metricanxietyfics

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ficbynic · 7 years ago

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T A K E C A R E - Chapter 5 - Hampstead Heath

Something about him caught Emilie's eye. It wasn't even his general physical appearance, the fact that he was handsome. It was more in the way he looked at her, his green eyes piercing hers, not losing eye contact. There was something incredibly electrifying about his gaze, while it was simultaneously calming her, making her feel at ease talking to this complete stranger, as if they'd met before.

Story page (Catch up!) | Author | Talk to me | Read on Tumblr only.

Everything was going alright on the following Monday. After dropping Denise off at school, Emilie took Charlotte to a play group in the morning. She got to play with other toddlers and run around for an hour, which made her quite tired. It therefore didn't take a lot of effort to get her to sleep for about an hour and a half after lunch. Charlotte behaved perfectly and after now having been in London for a little over three weeks, Emilie could really sense the bond she had so far established with her. Little Charlie was so cute, starting to talk more and more. Since a week or so she had finally mastered the art of saying Emilie's name properly instead of pronouncing it like Em-ley and she picked up a lot of new words, as well. She was a well behaving, happy little monkey that, even though also often expressing her resting unimpressed face, was very smiley and often roared out one of her throaty toddler laughs. Emilie felt like her heart could burst every time the nearly two year old spread her little, chubby arms around her or called for her when she needed help. The two of them really connected. Which, when coming to think about it, wasn't that weird considering the large amounts of time they'd already spent together. Emilie and Denise got along fine, as well, but the connection between them was different since Denise was at school most of the time. Also, it had seemed like Denise was all over Emilie from the minute she arrived in Hampstead. With Charlotte, the first week or two had been challenging and involved a lot of getting used to each other, but now, Charlie seemed to have finally determined Emilie was a good nanny and there was absolutely nothing left of her shy demeanour. Emilie was more than pleased to know that despite not having bonded with Catherine or David, she had at least managed to connect and grow fond of their daughters. "Are you singing, Charlie?" Emilie asked, pushing the buggy along the pavement on the way to pick Denise up from school in the afternoon. Charlotte had been quiet for the most part of the stroll but it seemed like she was now performing one of her singsongs. Emilie joined her, "La la la la la la..." It was a random tune Charlotte liked singing, much to Emilie's admiration. When Charlotte was happy, Emilie was happy. "Can you clap your hands as well for me?" Emilie looked down to the buggy and smiled as soon as Charlotte indeed clapped her little hands together. It was so funny to see how such a little person already understood everything she was being told. As always, they arrived at Denise's school right before the gate to the schoolyard would open at three o'clock. They joined other nannies and minders in a queue while they waited for Denise's class to arrive outside. Sometimes Emilie still thought the easiest thing to do after picking Denise up from school was just to go straight home, let the girls play for a bit before Emilie had to prepare their tea. But she also knew that even those two hours between them getting home and the girls having their dinner were very long, so when she overheard some nannies talking about an after school activity at the Heath, she thought it might sound like an alright plan for the afternoon. Apparently, a lot of Denise's classmates were going to the park's playground after school and some parents or nannies that were involved in the school's parents' committee had set up a little picnic for the girls' minders to have coffee or tea. There would be snacks for the girls, as well. It was going to be quite a stroll from Denise's school up to the Heath, but Charlotte still liked her buggy and Denise, as always, brought her scooter. If anything, it was good exercise and time consuming, killing another thirty minutes. It wasn't raining either, which was nice. She would stay there for a while and let the girls play at the park's playground before it would be time to go home already, which would kill another thirty minutes. Luckily, it turned out that Denise was excited to go, especially after learning most of her classmates would be going to the Heath, as well. Plans for the afternoon were thereby settled. If having a professional nanny wasn't enough, most of Denise's classmates were also picked up from school by car, which meant none of Denise's friends were joining them to make their way to the Heath by foot slash scooter. It was just the three of them strolling along the streets of Hampstead. Emilie was carrying Denise's school bag and some piece of art Denise had brought from school: a house, Denise told her, which was fabricated out of old cereal boxes. Denise demanded that Emilie would carry it in her hands, but as soon as Denise's attention was diverted, Emilie took the opportunity to carefully put the artwork in the storage space underneath the buggy. As they were making their way along the Heath, Denise seemed to want to take full advantage of the perfectly smooth pavement laid out in front of her and how it was the ideal surface to make the best use of her scooter. "Denny, be careful, stay close!" Denise was going quite fast, the distance between her and Emilie increasing as she made her way down the pavement across the Heath. From the start, it had seemed that Denise knew well when it came to stopping at the end of the road and paying attention to traffic, but Emilie still liked having her close so nothing could happen to her and if it did, she would be right there to help her. Not to mention they were now in a park and there were other people walking around, people jogging in workout gear, elderly couples going for a stroll, locals walking their dogs... The last thing Emilie wanted was for Denise to run into someone. The thought hadn't even fully crossed Emilie's mind when it actually happened. Denise was looking to her right, eyes focused on a chocolate brown Labrador going for a ball its owner just threw, not paying attention to the pedestrian in front of her. Denise scooted right into the person on foot, which resulted in the unknown man, as well as Denise, nearly tripping. Mentally cursing, Emilie increased her walking pace and jogged towards the two of them. Denise was already back on her scooter, luckily unhurt, but the unfortunate pedestrian seemed to have taken the bigger hit. "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" Emilie asked the man when she neared him. As he looked up she noticed he was actually quite young, wearing a black crew neck sweater and a grey scarf around his neck. An all black fiddler hat covered most of his brown hair, a few curls escaping from underneath. "I'm fine, thanks," he coughed, reaching down to rub his shin. "I'm sorry," she again apologised. Emilie knew the feeling of bumping into hard plastic and knew the guy would get treated to a nice bruise in a few days like she had the past weeks after accidently bumping her legs against Charlotte's buggy. She then focused on the four year old culprit. "Denny! I told you to watch your speed... You didn't look where you were going, did you?" Denise looked down to the ground. "Are you gonna say you're sorry?" Denise looked up at her with a pout. Emilie hoped she wouldn't burst into tears, which would only lead to an even worse scenario. Instead, she lowly mumbled an apology to the stranger stood in front of her. It was barely loud enough to be heard, but it seemed like the message came across. "That's okay," the guy assured, ending the lingering near silence, "You were going quite fast, though, weren't ya?" Denise didn't reply, instead found something else to focus on when she finally looked up to him. "My Mummy's got a scarf like that." She pointed at the grey woolly fabric the guy was wearing around his neck. It went well with the black jumper. He looked effortlessly stylish and comfortable, randomly walking the Heath by himself. He wore dark grey jeans and beige boots. The scarf he sported was probably a good way to protect himself from the cold as he was walking in the wind that was blowing along the Heath. Emilie made a mental note to check if Charlotte was well tucked into her jacket in a minute. She didn't want her to get a soar throat. "Does she?" the guy happily asked Denise in return, before focusing on Emilie again, who immediately understood what was implied. "Oh, I'm not- They're not mine. I'm the nanny." "Oh," he replied, his eyes a bit widened. "Au pair, actually. I'm from Denmark. I'm here for a few months," Emilie further explained. "Oh, I see." "She lives right next door in the little house! We have the same garden!" Denise blurted. "Really?!" His eyes went big, imitating Denise's excitement, before focusing on Emilie again, "Whereabouts are you staying?" Something about him caught Emilie's eye. It wasn't even his general physical appearance, the fact that he was handsome. It was more in the way he looked at her, his green eyes piercing hers, not losing eye contact. There was something incredibly electrifying about his gaze, while it was simultaneously calming her, making her feel at ease talking to this complete stranger, as if they'd met before. "Here in Hampstead. In the Village. Just down the road in the town centre, five minutes from the tube. It's near..." She paused and sighed. "Forgive me, I don't really know how to explain, I still have trouble finding my way around here if I'm honest." The guy chuckled. "How long have you been here for?" "About three weeks." "Nice." "Yeah. Staying till right before Christmas," Emilie told him, before finally diverting her eyes from his, down to Denise. "If all goes well, that is. Right?" Denise nodded. She heard it many times already and understood the circumstances. David and Catherine spent a lot of time properly explaining the new au pair situation and that Emilie wasn't going to be around forever. "You seem to be doing well," he complimented, eyeing the girls. They were behaving perfectly fine. Emilie was glad to see little Charlie was minding her own business, chilling in her stroller, and Denise somehow didn't throw a tantrum after being told off just a while ago. She now actually seemed to be excited to be talking to the stranger. "Thanks." Emilie smiled. "It is going well, I guess. I really like it here." "I've lived here for about four years now," he then told her. "The area's really nice, isn't it?" "Yeah, absolutely! It's lovely here. I'm very lucky." "If you'd like, I could show you around sometime," the guy then offered, "Maybe there's some places I recommend that you haven't seen or been to before. Little Hampstead tour." "That would be nice, actually," Emilie smiled. "I'd like that a lot." The guy seemed very lovely. He was about her age, she thought. She didn't have anything against meeting new people. Getting friendly with a guy from around town would probably be fun. The fact he knew his way around Hampstead could come in handy, as well. "Great! I-" "Can we go now? We'll be late to the playground!"Denise suddenly started whining and interrupted the nice guy, much to Emilie's annoyance. "Just a minute, Denny," she tried to silence her, focusing on the guy in front of her who was just interrupted mid sentence. "I will think of some good places to-" But Denise got frustrated and started pulling the buggy forward. Not paying attention and acting roughly, she nearly hit Charlotte in the face with her elbow. Charlotte didn't understand what was suddenly happening, jolted in her seat, and started crying. Emilie let out a quiet sigh. "You spoke too soon," she said to the guy, giving him a smile, "About me doing well." She squatted down to comfort Charlotte and told Denise off. "I will let you go now," he offered with a grin after Charlotte calmed down again, "The playground's waiting!" With that, he caught Denise's attention and managed to make her grumpy expression disappear. He was really good with kids. "It's been nice meeting you," he then told Emilie, "I'm Harry, by the way." Suddenly it hit her. Suddenly it all fucking hit her. How on Earth did she not recognise such a memorable face? She knew he looked familiar! Of course he did. Suddenly, everything fell right into place. She knew who he was! Harry Styles. If not his name, then surely his face should be familiar to most people. He must've been one of the most well-known, most talked about people of the past five years. And here he was. Standing right in front of her. He was here. He lived in Hampstead. Hampstead. Home of the rich and famous of London. Suddenly it all fucking made sense. Emilie's breath hitched. Her cheeks probably turned a deeper shade of pink. She blinked a few times. A few too many times. It was obvious she only just realised who she had been talking to and it was also obvious that Harry himself was completely and unequivocally aware of it. The smirk that was now plastered on his face was not even needed to confirm that. "I-I'm Emilie." He offered his hand to shake and she took it. "Maybe I will see you around," he said with a smile, "Or, actually... Do you mind swapping numbers? It's probably easier that way." Emilie's heart skipped a beat. He was asking for her fucking phone number. "Oh. Sure. Yeah, no problem," she tried to act cool. "Great!" He grabbed his phone from his back pocket and unlocked it to add a new contact. "Here you go." Emilie took his phone from him and stared at the new contact page for a second in disbelief before adding her number. Before also adding her name she returned the phone to its owner. He thanked her and put the phone back to where it belonged in the pocket of his dark grey jeans. In a flash, Emilie wondered what he would have saved the contact as. Au pair Hampstead? Danish girl Hampstead Heath? "Alright then," he turned to the kids, "Have fun at the playground!" Denise suddenly got very shy again, which Emilie couldn't blame her for, and said nothing. "We will," answered Emilie for her, before adding "Or at least, they will" under her breath only for Harry to hear. He laughed. "Good luck. Have a nice rest of your day. I will see you around." "Yeah. Thanks, you too. Bye." "Bye, Emilie," he said and she thought her name rolled off his tongue beautifully, "Bye girls." With a wave to the girls that again wasn't reciprocated, he walked off into the direction the three of them were initially coming from, and Emilie started pushing Charlotte's buggy down the park's pavement again, her body temperature still rising, Denise following her on her scooter. "Who was that?" Denise asked after only a few seconds, being a stereotypical nosy four-year-old. Harry was only just out of earshot. "A boy who lives here," Emilie answered, simultaneously feeling grateful for the fact that Denise was too young to know about One Direction. "How do you know him?" "I didn't, Denny, I just met him. Like you did." "He looks nice," Denise commented, not having a clue about the implication of her statement. "He does, doesn't he?" Emilie replied, her mind drifting off. ~~ The next morning, around ten-thirty, Tilda called to ask what Emilie was up to. The call couldn't have come at a better time. What happened the day before on the Heath had been the only thing on Emilie's mind. It just seemed so unrealistic for something like this to happen to her. Arriving at the playground, it had been hard for Emilie to concentrate on her job to pay attention to the girls. Making small talk with other nannies and the few parents that were around, not a word registered, the guy she just met clouding her thoughts. She didn't know what to think of it all and quickly realised she needed to confide to someone. Tilda was the ideal person. They decided to meet up at a little coffee shop in Golders Green, Emilie and Charlotte taking the tube this time after Tilda and Violet, a half Italian curly brown haired two-year-old, made the trip down to Hampstead to meet up for coffee last week. Violet was a little cutie pie, but she wasn't as cute as Charlotte, Emilie shamelessly thought. It was probably her au pair-heart thinking, having already grown attached to her 'own' little girl. It was nice to see that Charlotte and Violet got along and liked playing together, though, despite the fact Violet was nearly a year older. Even though Charlotte's messy nappies were anything but a fun job to take care of, Emilie had already heard Tilda complain about potty training Violet and how she was still struggling at times, which frequently resulted into dirty underwear when she wasn't wearing a nappy. Although taking care of a younger toddler sounded like a more difficult job, Emilie was glad she didn't have anything to do with potties yet. After a while of small talk, the two of them sitting outside in the patio in the back of the little café, watching Charlotte and Violet play in the sandpit and on the slide that were situated there, Emilie opted to just blurt it out. She told Tilda exactly what happened, from Denise running into a guy, to the guy turning out to be Harry, to the conversation that followed. Tilda's eyes were wide, her hand covering her mouth in pure amazement for a brief moment. Emilie shook her head in disbelief, still amazed by it all, as well. "But what was he like? How did he- What was he like?" Tilda then asked, curiosity getting the better of her after Emilie finished her story. "I don't know," Emilie honestly answered, her elbows on the little table in front of her and both her hands literally in her hair. "He seemed so... determined? In a way. Like... confident. Like it was all very normal? Whereas I'm like, who happens to nearly walk over a four-year-old, then gets involved in a three minute conversation with the four-year-old's nanny, then ends up asking her phone number?" Suddenly she remembered something. "He asked me to swap numbers, by the way. But then he handed me his phone and I just added mine and he never gave me his." "You took Harry Styles' phone and added your number to his contacts?" Tilda had a weird smile on her face. "Yeah." "And you haven't heard from him?" Tilda then asked. Emilie shook her head. "It's not like I expected to hear from him, I mean, it's been... twenty hours." She pondered. "I don't even think I expect to hear from him, ever." "Well, God, who knows? Maybe by this time tomorrow he's called you or sent you a text and he wants to set up a date!" "A date?" Emilie's eyes were wide. "Tilda, chill out, he just wanted to show me around Hampstead." "Oh, come on. He wouldn't have offered and then asked for your number if he wasn't into you." "We spoke for, like, three minutes!" "Well..." Tilda thought. "I can imagine him living a very fast paced, busy life. He probably realises that he has to take his chances when he is presented with one. He knows he might not run into you again and-" "Charlie, it's Violet's turn! You have to wait!" Emilie interrupted and called to the girls when she saw Charlotte practically nearly pushed Violet off the slide because she was taking too long and Charlotte wasn't patient enough. Despite the fact Violet was older, Charlotte sure had no trouble keeping up with her. "She's fine," Tilda assured, before quickly returning to their topic of conversation. "He's gonna call you. Or text you. You're gonna see him again." Emilie let out a huge sigh. "I don't know. I really don't. It's all a bit weird, isn't it?" "It's bizarre. One of my friends back home would die, she's obsessed with him." "By the way, please don't tell anyone about all of this." "And ruin it? Of course I won't," Tilda answered, letting Emilie know they were completely on the same page. ~~ The afternoon went by without any major problems. Emilie and Charlotte returned to the house right in time for lunch, after which Charlotte went up to sleep. Walking to Denise's school at half past two, which meant walking the streets of Hampstead village, Emilie noticed she was more aware of other pedestrians than she would've been if she hadn't met a certain someone the day before. She caught herself thinking of Harry again, wondering where he lived exactly and what he had been up to, walking along the Heath all by himself on a Monday afternoon. Emilie didn't really have a clue about any neighbours besides the family living next door. For all she knew, Harry could own a property nearby. Down the street maybe even. The Ainsley's inhabited a grand house with a massive garden. Of course the nearby neighbours were rich, as well. Perhaps Harry owned a similar grand house with a massive garden down in Hampstead Village. Emilie wondered if she would ever get to know where Harry lived. No. No, of course not. Sure, she'd met him and sure, he'd essentially asked her phone number, but that meant nothing. She wasn't actually going to hear from him again and if, by chance, she did, it didn't mean she would ever get to visit his house. "Are we going to the park again?" Denise excitedly asked first thing when she walked up to Emilie after being dismissed by her teacher at three o'clock. "I don't think so, Denny, look at the sky. It's gonna rain soon," Emilie replied, looking up at the dark clouds. She would be happy to get the kids in the house before it started pouring. Little Charlotte followed Emilie's example and also looked up at the sky from her buggy, squinting her eyes. "We can go next time when all the other girls are going, like they did yesterday!" Luckily, Denise seemed to be alright with that. ~~ Something just popped in my head as I was scooping Violet's faeces out of the bath tub. Isn't Harry Styles currently on a big world tour? I thought I saw ads for a London show in the tube last weekend. It was just past six o'clock and Emilie smiled as she checked her phone just as she was letting the girls play in the bath for a couple of minutes after washing them herself. By the looks of the text she just received, Tilda had a similar time schedule regarding bath time. Luckily, however, Emilie didn't have any experience with poop scooping and she hoped it would stay that way. Good luck scooping. You could be right, I have no idea. Haven't seen any ads. Am I literally gonna spend my night Googling the guy? We both know the answer is yes. I will let you know when I find something interesting. With a smile on her face, Emilie put her phone away and focused on getting the girls out of bath and dressed. As usual, Emilie had them ready in their pyjamas before either Catherine or David had arrived home. The three of them had been downstairs, the girls playing in the front room and Emilie sat on the sofa, for about ten minutes when David entered the house and took over. He told her that Catherine would be working late today and asked her if he was cooking for one or two, which basically meant he was asking if Emilie was having dinner with him, or by herself in her room. Especially with a lot on her mind, Emilie didn't care to have dinner with David and opted for leaving early, right as David was taking Charlotte upstairs to go to bed at around seven. She still had a pack of microwavable mozzarella pasta in the fridge that was nearly expired and she couldn't wait to devour it in the privacy of her own space, without having to worry about keeping up a conversation with David during dinner, which, even after nearly four weeks, was still quite awkward most times. Emilie was starting to wonder if she would ever connect with him. He wasn't that much of a talker. Whereas Catherine practically wouldn't ever shut up, Emilie had found herself in many uncomfortable situations trying to think of something to talk about with David to end the deafening silence. That's why Emilie tried to balance out having dinners by herself in her room and having them with the family. She kind of tried to calculate who would be at the house on which days, and adjust her own plans to the family's. Of course, she made sure to have dinner with the family a few times a week. It was an opportunity to talk a bit more and tell them more about the girls and it kept her from having to buy food for dinner and spend money, as cheap as it sounds. She did try to only have dinner with the family when Catherine would be around, though. She just hoped it wasn't obvious to David that she was basically avoiding having dinner with just him, while she didn't mind having dinner with just Catherine. Besides, taking care of the girls from eight in the morning until seven at night was quite draining and it seemed like the only way Emilie would fully unwind was whenever she would leave the house and be all by herself. When she would be around the family in the evening and have dinner with them, she often had dinner quite late, which meant that in a way, her day only seemed longer. Plus, Denise would be around until eight, sometimes even eight-thirty, which could be quite a lot to deal with, as well. That's why Emilie felt great shutting the front door to her apartment behind her, having an early evening in. As soon as her pasta was done and Emilie had made herself a nice plate, a little bit of salad on the side, she sat down at her little table next to the kitchen unit, where her laptop was left after using it the night before. She decided to turn it on after only one bite of food, one thing still occupying her mind. Simply typing his name in the Google search bar felt a bit weird now that he wasn't just a famous person anymore, but she'd actually met him in person. She met Harry Styles in person. Even that, she could still hardly believe. Just a minute later she'd found what she was looking for. And it turned out that Tilda had been absolutely right. Harry Styles had a huge world tour going on at the moment. He just finished the American and first leg of it last week. He had the coming two weeks off from tour, which explained why he'd returned to London, but after that, he had dozens of shows planned around Europe, Asia and Oceania. He would be on the road until mid December. If before tour started again, Harry wanted to contact her and set something up, he was going to have to be quick, Emilie thought, looking over his schedule again. He was going to be insanely busy. If not performing, he would be travelling. Not to mention the other obligations a world tour would probably include. Rehearsing, sound checking, interviews, promotion... Emilie let out a sigh. She nearly felt relieved to have come to the conclusion that whatever Harry Styles wanting to get her phone number had meant, it surely wasn't going to have any consequences. She shouldn't let her mind drift off about him anymore. There was no reason to, since there wasn't even going to be time to get involved with him. Shutting her laptop, Emilie made her way to her tiny en-suite after she finished her dinner and took a well deserved, long, hot shower. After that, she messaged home, cleaned her room a bit and sorted out the washing she was going to do tomorrow, before ending up in bed, going over social media one last time before she shut her eyes and quickly fell asleep. | < Previous chapter | Next chapter > | | Story page | Author | Talk to me |

#harry styles #harry styles fan fic #1dff #harry fic #harry fic rec #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fic #harry styles fic rec #take care 5 #meanwhile i'm laughing at my poor edit of harry in the park lol #anyway i hope you like this chapter :) it's finally happening people #i would love to hear from you if you're reading this! just shoot me a line i will be forever thankful #also: i'm hoping to update next weekend on either saturday or sunday

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moonlightkth · 8 years ago

Text

You're The Only One

❁ Request: So can you do a Yoongi imagine where we’re in a big fight and you flinch as he does something ? ❁ Group: BTS ❁ Pairing: Yoongi x Reader ❁ Genre: Angst || Fluff ❁ Word Count: 1392 ❁ Summary: Yoongi comes home, only to ignore you the entire time. After getting fed up with getting ignored, you try to talk to your boyfriend only to be accused of cheating on him with one of his members. ❁ Authors note: I am so so so so so sorry that this took so long, i really hope you like it. Also I am really sorry if this is bad, I haven’t written anything other than school assignments for over a year and I’ve never written in second person before. Thank you so so so much @evalocity for not only encouraging me write this, giving me some ideas and editing it, but for also continually telling me that I am a good writer who is capable of finally finishing this imagine. ily boo xx. feel free to send me how i can improve in my ask box! (this future english major probably, doesn’t even know how to properly space out paragraphs so lol if someone wants to tell me how to do that feel free) also I might rename this later on

You were working on your school essay on your laptop in the living room as your boyfriend, Min Yoongi, was writing some new songs in his studio at Big Hit. You’ve had the assignment for a few weeks now, but you had never really found the time to work on it as you wanted to focus on your upcoming 2 year anniversary with Yoongi and you wanted that day to be perfect as your boyfriend was luckily scheduled to be home that day. You finally had it entirely planned out, which allowed you to finally start to work your essay that was due in a few days. As you continued to diligently work on your essay, you heard Yoongi walk into your shared apartment. You looked up as soon as you saw the door getting opened to see him with a grumpy expression on his face, although you thought nothing of it as he was probably like every time he was back from work. This expression looked a bit different though, and thinking that he was just a little bit extra tired today, you continued to work on your essay. As Yoongi started walking towards you, you quickly moved your laptop off of your lap so you could give him his usual kiss but, just as your lips were about to touch his, you felt your boyfriend moving his head causing you to kiss him on the cheek instead. Yoongi stopped for a split second and then walked straight past you, going to the kitchen island and taking out his songwriting notebook to write some new songs, your eyes following his every move. You were slightly confused now, as no matter what type of mood he was in, Yoongi never failed to give you a kiss when he came back from a harsh day. You turned your attention from your boyfriend back to your laptop, still thinking nothing of his mood and wanting to complete your essay as soon as possible. Putting your laptop back on your lap so you could continue to work on your essay, you heard a loud, frustrated groan coming from your right. You quickly turned your attention to Yoongi, waiting for him to come hold you in his arms like he usually did when he got stressed out while writing songs, but as nothing happened you asked him, “Oppa, are you okay?” After a few seconds of silence, you decided to speak up again. “I have a feeling that you’re stressed. Do you want me to make you tea or something?” You asked, looking at him and smiling softly. Once again, you had no answer. You sighed, feeling sad because your boyfriend must be been so stressed that he won’t even talk to you. “I’m nearly done the fourth paragraph of my essay so once I’m done with it, do you want to come here and watch a movie? It’ll be a good stress reliever for the both of us,” You said, hoping that this would get you a response from Yoongi. As your only answer was once again the complete silence, you had finally concluded that your boyfriend was ignoring you specifically. As you finally realized that he was, it was natural that you would want to know the reason why. You moved your laptop from your lap to an empty spot on the couch to your left so you could go talk to your boyfriend and figure out why he was ignoring you. Slowly and awkwardly walking up to him, you had your right cheek slightly sucked in, a nervous habit you have had for a long time. “Yoongi-oppa, what’s wrong? Why are you ignoring me?” You asked slowly, not wanting to anger him even more, assuming that he was at least. You stared at him as you slightly bit the right corner of your lips, another nervous habit you had. Nervously watching as Yoongi put his songwriting notebook into the backpack he brought to the studio and practice room, you saw him getting up from his chair as he was now standing in front of you intimidatingly, causing you to take a slight step back in fear. “I think anyone would want to ignore someone who’s cheating on them,” Yoongi said with detest in his voice. As soon as you heard these words, not only did you feel your heart drop but your jaw also lightly dropping in surprise. Quickly grabbing onto Yoongi’s hand as you wanted to quickly convince him that you weren’t cheating on him, you replied, “Yoongi-oppa, what are you talking about?” locking your eyes in his. Yoongi quickly ripped his hand from your grasp and reached for his bag, taking out a few pieces of paper and handing them to you. The pieces of papers were screenshots from a kpop gossip website and a few random Twitter and Tumblr accounts all saying the same thing, that you were cheating on Yoongi with his best friend and co-member, Hoseok. The sight of this news made you lightly laugh, mainly because your boyfriend was believing these ridiculous rumours but also because of the fact that he screenshotted them and printed them out. The screenshots consisted of all the ‘dates’ you and Hoseok had been on as everyone was saying that it was “bound to happen.” You placed the few sheets of paper on the kitchen island and grabbed Yoongi’s hand again. “Baby, I’m not cheating on you,” you told him chuckling, unable to hide your amusement caused by all the dumb rumours you just had to read. Yoongi once again ripped his hand from your grasp. “I mean why would I even cheat on you? You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.” By this point, you were absolutely dying of laughter. You couldn’t believe some of the things you had to read about your’s and Hoseok’s ‘relationship ’, as some of the things were so absurd that you believed that the media would do absolutely anything to get publicity. You continued to giggle as you watched the expression on Yoongi’s face change, but as you never been really able to read Yoongi well, you couldn’t really tell if he was happy, sad, embarrassed or even angrier than he previously was, judging by the look he was giving the sheets on the kitchen island, you concluded that he was indeed angrier. Maybe you shouldn’t have laughed, you thought, maybe he believed you until you started laughing at him. You flinched as you saw Yoongi raise his right hand, and as soon as he saw your expression, he dropped his hand and cradled you in his arms. “Baby I wasn’t going to hit you,” he said as he rocked you back and forth in his arms. Yoongi pulled you away from him slightly to wipe the tears you didn’t realize were rolling down your face. “Shit. I was just going run my hand through my hair because I was embarrassed. Shit, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I made you flinch,” he added in a rush and some of it in Satori, a nervous habit of his. You gave your boyfriend a soft smile and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “You know I’m not cheating on you, right?” You asked, wanting to make sure that your boyfriend knew you weren’t. Your boyfriend then gave you a quick kiss on your cheeks, your forehead, your nose and finally on your lips. “Of course I do. I’m so stupid for even slightly believing those rumours. But why were you with Hobi a lot? Not that I mind you hanging out with him,” he asked you as you guys moved from the kitchen to the living room. You both sat down on the couch, cuddling with each other. “He was helping me plan our 2-year anniversary date,” you answered blushing, wanting the date to be a surprise. Yoongi looked at you lovingly before giving you another kiss on the lips, this one lasting a little bit longer than the previous kisses. “You are absolutely adorable y/n,” he said before kissing you one more time. You gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, “I love you Min Yoongi,” you said smiling to yourself as you looked at your laptop that Yoongi moved without you realizing it. “I love you too, y/f/n.”

(y/f/n = your full name)

#bts #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts suga #bts yoongi #agust d #min yoongi #min yoongi imagines #kpop #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #imagines #requested

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almaasi · 7 years ago

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you have witch powers? i've always been fascinated with "paranormal" stuff, including magic, so i was wondering if u could tell me stuff about it. is magic real? what kind of stuff did ur grandma do? are ghosts and spirits real too? what kinds of spells can witches cast? is it like supernatural? sorry if i'm asking a lot of questions i'm just so fascinated and curious. i didn't even know witches were like, legit until i read ur tags, i just thought that people back then said that so they had 1/2

2/2 a reason to burn a woman they didn’t like. ok now i’m rambling but in short, what can u tell me about witch stuff? i’m just asking cause i’m really curious :)

(about my tags on this)

#whenever phil gets out the tarot cards and pulls something scarily accurate i’m just like…. yes…. good…show us your witch powers…… #(my own experience with tarot? so reassuring. and calming. it’s like asking for a friend’s advice but that friend is your own brain.) #also my great grandmother was a witch by profession and i definitely got some of her magic #i have not yet learned to recognise a feeling when i feel it.. but when stuff happens later i’m like OH THAT WAS MY MYSTERIOUS FEELING #one of our sheep died a week or so ago.. and for two days straight i was outside in the middle of the night staring at the moon #and wondering why i felt death in the air #and the rain made me cry and it felt like release but i didn’t know why #and i immediately started worrying about our sheep but didn’t follow up to see if they were okay #then two days later my mother comes in and tells me one of our sheep died and two days ago had given my mother “the death look” #if you’ve never seen someone or something die… there’s this look they have that’s like a disgraced peacefulness and self-awareness #but basically i knew the sheep was gonna die without any reason for me to think that #and i need to learn to follow up on my instincts because they’re ever-present and i never know when it’s a psychic thing or random anxiety #disclaimer: IS IT ALL BULLSHIT who knows? but science doesn’t know a whole lot about a lot of things and this stuff is natural to me #so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

okay!! i was expecting someone to ask, so here goes. (in case anyone’s wondering, this is a personal post, and no, i’m not making this stuff up.) (feel free to reblog if you want. but it’s so goddamn long aaah)

first off, an opinion: whether or not you believe magic is real in this world is entirely related to whether or not it is real. at least in my books. magic/paramormal stuff can always be observed, but if you don’t believe it’s anything beyond coincidence or skilled trickery, it’s not gonna impact you.

i do believe in ghosts (or djinns, or something else human-like), but in my experience they don’t really do anything except exist in some other realm and occasionally become visible when i’m at my most lucid, at that point between waking and sleeping. most people (myself included) would say it’s just a hallucination. but like…. who’s to say it isn’t real, just in a way we as humans don’t yet understand? y’know?

the most interesting ghost sighting i’ve experienced was when i was fully awake, not hallucinating. i was in a car with my sister, my sister’s friend, and her mother - and we drove over a bridge, and i saw a fritzing semi-translucent black figure walking along the peak. i looked back and it was gone. it wasn’t scary, it was just really cool. i saw that with my own two eyes, i have zero doubt i saw it, and for that moment, it was there.

other times i’ve seen things pass through walls, or felt presences in the room that vanish when i look. i get deja vu maybe once a week. the ability comes and goes in phases, switched on and off whenever i tell someone about it. it’s like that part of my brain gets really shy and goes into hiding when it’s mentioned.

sometimes it can be pretty powerful. there’ve been moments when a deja vu begins, i remember it from a dream, fast-forward through the memory to remember what happens, and i get ahead of present time, so i predict what’s in front of me by about one to three seconds. usually it’s snippets of conversation, or my hands moving to complete an action, or words i’m typing. (let me tell you, it’s so freaking bizarre when you’re consciously typing, thinking about what you’re typing, and simultaneously remembering typing it before, and knowing what you’re about to type despite not yet knowing. and then seeing it happen. i think a lot of people reading this would be like “what?” but i know there’s someone out there who knows exactly what i mean)

for a long time in my teenage years i told people i’d see coloured figures, like auras without physical people, just hanging around out there in the world, but due to health issues a lot of my teenage memories are gone, and the only memory i have of that stuff is the recollection of me telling people about it, and remembering it while telling people. it’s really weird. i sometimes think maybe i made that up?? but i don’t understand why i’d do that when i do actually see other things sometimes.

once, my family visited this old historic building, and i remember seeing a woman in a maid’s outfit duck through a doorway. but she wasn’t actually there. so. idk.

my great-grandmother (or great-great grandmother?) on my mother’s side used to sell love spells to the people in her Indian village. my mother told me about it when i was little. my [great] great grandmother would write a spell on parchment, and the client had to go home and burn it in their fire. and she would curse people, in exchange for payment. that’s all i know about that. but my grandmother (also on my mother’s side) used to have some kind of power, i never got to ask about it while she was still alive. (she was an awesome woman. one of the first women in her country and generation to go to university.)

personally, having been raised as a muslim, i always felt really disconnected from the culture and practices of the religion, even though i believe in the supernatural aspects of it right down to my core. that’s despite my ultimate acknowledgement of facts being deeply rooted in hard science. recently (like, in the past few months) i’ve started to rediscover my faith - directly following on from a quiet interest in the pinterest & instagram aesthetics of paganism and new age magic, which as a concept i was never really sure about. i just really liked how it looked. basically, it clicked in my brain that islamic prayers could, in essence, just be spells. you gotta take everything with a grain of salt. they might not work. but that’s the beauty of it.

a few weeks ago i stumbled across a prayer on tumblr, and read its intended purpose: “Allah will grant whoever recites this seven times in the morning or evening whatever he desires from this world or the next”.

and… i started to think, maybe the purpose is not to actually do that. nothing ought to be a get-out-of-jail-free/do-this-and-your-life-is-made type thing. maybe the purpose is to make you believe nothing can go wrong. and that every bad thing that happens–? it happens so that you can learn from it. and eventually, after many things change, you realise what you desire was not the thing you thought you desired. (idk how to explain that. an example from my life: i really wanted to be a veterinarian growing up. then i got sick, dropped out of school. and now i’m a writer. i want to be a writer more than i ever wanted to be a vet. i had to get sick and my life had to fall apart before i could discover that. writing was never something i’d have considered before.)

my point is, if you believe everything that happens to you will ultimately be a good thing, bad things don’t hurt so much.

and if you take something as a sign, it’s a sign. it’s just your own brain taking hints from the world around you and using them to conjure up a decision. if you wanna believe it’s magic, it is.

personally i like protection prayers/spells and just…generally positive ones. i say prayers for sick friends, people who i see on my tumblr dash who are having a bad time, and if i see or hear about disasters or worldwide events. i’m not expecting it to have a visible impact, but like.. what’s the harm? at the very least it makes me feel like i did something if i don’t have money to give, or i can’t be there with a friend, or the world is falling apart and i’m helpless. praying or saying a spell is just hoping, really, really hard. if some greater being is out there, listening? cool. (but what if god doesn’t wanna do anything? maybe it’s like my cupcake theory. god puts the ingredients in a baking tray, shoves it in the oven, forgets about it. the universe rises as a cupcake. god made it. but the universe is doing its own damn thing.)

regarding tarot cards: again, it’s self-reflection. you can believe answers come from outside influences, but it’s easily just as much about interpreting generic advice and making it mean something to you. but personally i’ve drawn random cards, and known that no other card in the deck would’ve been as relevant at that moment. i’ve used tarot cards to determine the endings for my stories, and coincidentally pulled cards that directly represent my title characters.

one time i was thinking about my fic “The Moonlighter and the Magician” and the card i pulled first was The Magician. and i was like gee thanks tarot cards that’s helpful. (but actually? it meant those cards were on the same wavelength as me. think about it. 78 cards, there’s a one in 78 chance i pull that one on my first try.)

apart from my wonky first-ever tarot readings with the Rider-Waite travel-size tarot deck (which belonged to my mother), i’ve never pulled anything that didn’t eventually make sense. i use The Wild Unknown cards now, i relate to them so much more. plus they’re mine, not borrowed or abandoned for years, which probably helps. (buying those cards was the most money i ever spent on anything. i don’t regret it.)

is any of this like the show ‘supernatural’? not really. the closest i can say my experiences have come to the show would be the episode “faith”. just, the whole episode. it doesn’t matter if it’s the real deal, so long as it works. and boy, does it work for me. and a lot of other people.

like i said, all the spirit-like entities i’ve encountered have been perfectly benign. no monsters, except things i’m pretty sure are nightmares.

but on that note, i take a lot of things to help me sleep. if i didn’t, i’d be waking up screaming night and day (i hit whistle register while screaming, once). i see faces in the dark and creatures in my bedroom, even when my eyes are closed and i’m awake. i sleep with a light on, and i prefer to sleep in the day. i cannot even deal with the presences in my room.

for that matter, my room is definitely the most presence-heavy room in the house. now, although it’s obviously just in a drafty area, i feel the cold spots. all. the. time. i’m feeling one right now as i type this. the door and window are both closed. the heater is always on. the draft comes from the same corner of the ceiling my cat stares at when she’s “staring into space”. there’s definitely something there, but it legit doesn’t bother me. it watches me get dressed sometimes, but it’s not weird about it. like i said, benign.

i feel energy everywhere i go. i can’t stay in my family’s open plan living room comfortably for more than a few minutes, because that room is filled with people and pets coming and going all freaking day, and even when it’s empty, it’s so LOUD. there’s vibrations and voices coming out of the walls, because the house absorbs it all. as a generally tired person, that room exhausts me. i can only stay there if i have social energy. (yes, even an empty room.)

i am so, so sensitive to people’s moods and the energy they let out (to the point where i burst out screaming if i see a negative microexpression during a personal conversation). i find phone calls very difficult, not just because of social anxiety, but because i can’t sense energy as easily as i want to, and is natural for me. skype calls aren’t the same as being there in person. a lot of this could also be autism-related, but nearly everything about me is autism-related, because i’m autistic. go figure.

one time, the day i had my first period, i passed out in a maths exam. all the other times in my life, i’ve seen black or maybe red when i passed out, but this time it was a striking cobalt blue. and i heard SO MANY VOICES, i thought the whole classroom was full of people shouting. my P.E. teacher was observing that exam, she carried me out of the room and lay me on the floor outside. i told her about the voices, she looked at me in confusion and said “there were no voices?? the whole room was silent for the exam.” obviously that was a weird day, but given the amount of times i’ve lost conciousness in my life, before and after that day, i know the warm muggy feeling of slipping away, and i guarantee that one was just a little bit not-normal.

my cat Wilson follows me everywhere. if you’ve ever seen a picture of a witch and her familiar, that’s me and Wilson. she leaves the house if i leave, and she’ll walk down the road beside me to make sure i stay safe. she only lets me leave completely if i go in a car, but even then, she tries to come too. i know what she says when she talks. she speaks in words for me. it translates naturally in my head without a thinking process.

there was this one time when i was about 15 my parents took me to an after-hours medical centre because apparently i was ~speaking in tongues~ or whatever. i don’t remember it, i remember ‘waking up’ with a doctor’s flashlight in my eyes, crying, then holding my sister’s hand as we looked at the fish in the fishtank afterwards. i can’t say how legit that is because i just.. don’t remember it.

one time as a kid, i am absolutely sure i was possessed for about 30 seconds. i was walking down the street on a balmy English afternoon, pine needles scattered underfoot, with my elderly grandmother (paternal), my grandfather, and my sister. i must’ve been 6 or 7? and a streak of evil just bolted through me. and i stuck out my foot and my grandmother fell flat on her face. my grandfather tried to help her up, a car driving by pulled up and asked if they needed help, grandfather said no, and got her back to her feet. i can’t remember if i felt remorse. i think i just knew instinctively that it wasn’t me who did it. but like.. i wasn’t just A Nice Kid, okay, i was The Nicest Kid. i just don’t do things like that. ever. especially not to a kind and generous grandmother who i love so very dearly. i never had before, and i never have since. that’s the single most evil thing i’ve ever done in my life and it came out of nowhere. being more aware now, i think it was a djinn (aka a demon in christian beliefs, i think). they’re known for being mischievous. (my grandmother was fine, by the way. this is the first time i’ve told anyone about this.) now i think about it, i remember cobalt blue behind my eyes then, too.

whoops, this is a really long post now. but uh… basically, i’ve just always been open to feeling these things, and believing in what i sense for myself, without subscribing to whether or not the science has been done yet. in fact, i think i’m open to it because i experienced the same stuff when i was young. the energy i feel is very much real to me, completely tangible. i’ve never been able to see auras, but i feel them on some people. i think just being open to feeling something makes it more likely to come to you. i try not to ignore my instincts (because they’re always right. always.) but i find it’s super hard to distinguish between anxiety (which i feel often) and magical ability (which is far less commonly felt). also sometimes the instinct is so faint it doesn’t even become a passing thought, just a blur of something i half-considered. but in hindsight i realise what it ought to have been, had i paid proper attention.

i can comfortably manage to go outside in bare feet, shut my eyes and let the moonlight do its thing. it has an immensely powerful energy, i always feel cleaner inside when i go back in. (my cat Wilson sometimes asks me to go outside with her when there’s a full moon. almost every night, especially on warm nights, but even freezing ones, we can just stand out there for an hour together. watching the moon set is transcendent. far more so than a sunset.)

right now, due to years of bad health, i have to force some natural abilities away (like the nightmares) because they’re too much for me to handle. i think as i recover, over time it’ll be easier for me to accept that stuff back into my life.

oh, one more thing, regarding my health - i have celiac disease, which has kept me essentially bedridden for the last 7+ years - WHICH BY THE WAY, my family spent literally 9 years trying to diagnose. my doctor kept doing an anaemia test, telling me there was nothing wrong with me and sending me back to school. i saw various specialists, herbalists, a naturopath, physiotherapists, cardiologists, had an MRI scan, saw family counsellors, school counsellors, a hypnotist, etc etc - basically consulted every medical professional under the sun when a simple blood test would’ve done it. stupid misogynistic doctor who thinks all teenage girls fake it to get out of school.

but one thing we did do was visit a psychic, who told me i had something called a candida. my dad, a sceptic and nonbeliever, googled it and said it was “some kind of magical thing in the gut”, and was therefore bullshit, so we continued the search for a diagnosis. years later - years - after a change of doctor (who i chose because i got a good vibe from her picture) we find out it’s celiac disease, a disease of the gut. of the hundreds of people we saw, the only ones to even pinpoint the right body part were the psychics. i googled candida just now and guess what? literally celiac disease. this woman diagnosed me with celiac disease by kneeling at my feet, holding my hand, and shutting her eyes for 30 seconds.

for the record, slightly off topic, i know very few men in real life, and this is what the men in my life have been. my doctor, dismissing me as a liar because i was a teenage girl. and my father, dismissing my declining health as “not trying hard enough”, even now, more than a year after i was diagnosed by a doctor. i think this is why i take refuge with male fictional characters. they’re better. i want them to be soft and understanding like the men i’ve never known.

anyway, this is the part of my life’s story i never really pieced together until right now. it’s a lot, more than i expected. i happily call myself a witch. most of my magic goes into my stories, and i think a lot of people who read them feel it, even if they translate it as passion or love or good vibes or something. the amazing comments i get would speak to that. i love the energy i get from comments, because it does come through in typed words, even if it’s much fainter than seeing people face-to-face. some comments just hit me with waves of goodness, even if the words themselves aren’t so powerful. so i really appreciate that stuff. it’s good stuff.

yep. that’s all. i hope this satisfies your curiosity, anon!!!

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twdmusicboxmystery · 7 years ago

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2017 Re-Watch: 5x03 - Four Walls and a Roof

Okay, weirdest thing ever but I don’t seem to have done a rewatch post for 5x03 last year. I have no idea why. I couldn’t find it on my Tumblr account, and though I must have just accidentally deleted it. But I went back through my IG account, and it isn’t there either. So I don’t know if I just forgot and skipped that episode, or decided not to because I didn’t see anything important in it (that doesn’t sound like me and I don’t remember thinking that or anything) but it’s definitely not there. So this isn’t a repost, but a new one, simply because I don’t seem to have anything to repost for this episode.

Luckily, the events of this episode are pretty straight forward. Bob is returned to TF, legless, and he dies. And TF kills the Termites. That really is pretty much everything that happens in this episode.

It’s kind of the epitome of the TF’s brutality arc. There’s some brutality before, and there will be more after, but this is the pinnacle of it, and I am seeing ties between this episode and 5x16, where the brutality arc more or less ends.

On that subject, I think the title, and how they relate it to the episode is interesting. After they kill the Termites (very brutally) Father Gabriel emerges from the back room and says, “this is God’s house,” implying that such atrocities shouldn’t be committed there of all places. Then Maggie replies, “No. It’s just four walls and a roof.” I think that goes well with the brutality arc. The sacred places are being violated, and TF as a whole is in a very dark place/frame of mind. I also can’t help but see it as the religion being taken away from TF, by their own actions. And Beth, the epitome of Christian symbolism, is taken from them only four episodes later. Just saying.

Okay, let’s get going.

Gareth talks about the glass breaking eventually (Broken Glass Theory) and about how “nothing lasts anymore,” which I think is also an overall theme for the show. This is why none of their communities will ever last forever. Something will always happen eventually to make them fall. *coughs we never saw the downfall of Grady*

He also gives a bear analogy to explain why they’re cannibals. I’ll have to think on that some more. I know we’ve seen some very subtle bear symbols, specifically in S7. Perhaps we should have been tying them back to Terminus, but I don’t think we ever did. We just noticed the recurrence. Hmmm.

Sasha’s line to Father Gabriel stands out to me here. “You show up, we’re being watched, and now three of us are gone."

The three was what really caught my attention. I’ll have to talk to a few of my fellow theorists about it, but it seems to me there have been theories about three major deaths before Beth’s return. A few possibilities occur to me here. It could have foreshadowed the rest of S5. We saw Bob, Beth’s, and Tyreese’s deaths here. And notice that she doesn’t say three of us are dead, but three of us are gone, which parallels, "She’s just gone.”

In S7 we also saw three big character deaths (Glenn, Abe, Sasha) and Sasha even says three of “us.” Also we have three missing characters right now: Beth, Heath, Sherry. So this definitely could foreshadow a lot. Not to mention, almost right after she says this, Bob is returned to them (proxy for Beth) and it follows some whistling (Whistle Theory) which foreshadows the Saviors who did the epic whistle in 6x16 just before Negan appeared.

I also think there’s a definite parallel between Sasha nearly attacking FG in this episode bc she doesn’t know where Bob is, and her actually attacking him in 5x16.

In both cases, they’re in a church, both in a lot of pain, and both dealing with a lot of guilt. I think it probably shows the beginning and ending of an arc, which is why the mirror scenes. Starting in 6x01, we first see Gabriel actually being helpful to TF, rather than a hindrance. And we see a lot less anger and brutality from Sasha. Incidentally, 6x01 also kicks off Sashraham. Once she’d moved past this immense anger and guilt (which starts here with Bob’s death) she was able to move forward in a romantic relationship with Abraham.

Other great, thematic dialogue:

Rick: “We’re not going anywhere without our people.” He says several variations of this, talking about not wanting to leave Daryl and Carol behind. He says unequivocally that they’ll be back. That they don’t leave people behind. Perhaps a foreshadow that, later in S5, they’ll leave SOMEone behind?

Abraham: “Come noon, we’re taillights. (Taillight Theory) Not waiting for the other shoe to drop.” (Lost Shoes Theory). Lines like this just make me smile.

We see a heavy connection between Sasha and Ty as siblings, which is super important as we head toward the missing stuff after Coda, followed by Ty’s death.

Ty talks about how he knows what Sasha is going through because of Karen. He says, “forgiveness is facing it,” which I think is really beautiful, especially in light of The Grove. Sasha completely rejects the notion, though, and this is the beginning of her anger/brutality arc.

Some random details: We see red carpet prominently in the shot where Gareth and the Termites enter the church. Foreshadow that they’re about to die.

There’s a sign I love that it shows next to Eugene during this part. It reads, “Stupidity is also a gift from God but one mustn’t misuse it."

Makes me laugh. I think it’s a funny reference to how stupid the Termites are being. They totally fell for Rick’s leaving-the-church fake out. Could also be a foreshadow for Eugene. He stupidly decides to "become Negan” in S7.

Gareth has some foreshadowing for TF here as well. “You don’t know what it’s like to be hungry.” This was fulfilled in 5x10 when they had to go so long without food before eating the dogs. But I really like this because it shows that even when they were subject to the same things Gareth and the Termites were, they didn’t become the monsters they were. Aaron even comments on it in 5x11 saying that he was impressed the group never turned on one another, despite their hunger, desperation, and being surrounded by monsters.

The clock in Bob’s room. This is super important and I’ve been talking to some fellow theorists about it. It reads 8:40, which points to something in episode 8x08, which will be the MSF finale of this coming season. Now, on the surface, that doesn’t make much sense. Both Bob and Sasha are dead now, so what’s this pointing to?

We think it has to do with the whole “good out of the bad” game that Bob and Sasha always played. They made a big deal about that game. The last thing Sasha says to Bob is, “what’s the good that comes out of this bad?” Meaning his death. Bob dies before answering, so Sasha is left to wonder and grieve.

At the end of S7, we can see that one good thing that came directly from Bob’s death was Sasha sacrificing herself for TF in 7x16. This is another cause and effect thing. Her anger everything led to her relationship with Abraham. His death led to her mission to kill Negan (it’s way more complicated than that, and there’s way more detail, but I’ll probably give it its own post later). Because of that, she gave them a chance to fight another day.

But I’m wondering if there’s more to it than that as well. Maybe we’ll finally understand something in 8x08 that will make Sasha’s entire arc resonate in a way it hasn’t yet because we don’t yet have all the missing information. In other words, I think Sasha’s question here will be answered in 8x08. Just a theory, though.

Also important to note that 8x08 will be exactly 3 seasons since Coda, so it could point to a Beth thing as well.

I also want to point out that in this pic, there’s a cross, and what looks like an egg shaped stone holding a page open on a bible. All kinds of biblical symbolism going on there. Including, perhaps, an Easter egg?

I realized a major pattern from this episode: no one ever “puts down” their romantic partners. In this case, it was a conscious decision. Ty didn’t want Sasha to have to stab Bob in the head, so he did it for her. In other cases, it was largely out of the characters’ hands. Rick didn’t put down Lori. Neither Lori nor Andrea put down Shane. Rick also didn’t put down Jessie. Ty certainly didn’t put down Karen, nor she him. And of course Sasha’s love interests both died before her, so Maggie and Jesus put her down. Don’t know if we could tie that to Beth (we don’t think anyone put her down, so it’s kind of a moot point) but just something interesting that occurred to me.

Important to note that Bob and even the Termites get a burial. We first see the D.C. map here, which is an important symbol and will eventually bring Morgan to TF.

Finally, @boltthrutheheart pointed out an interesting detail from the end to me. Rick asks Ty how it was for him, getting to Terminus. Ty replies, “It killed me.” A very sad line, and to me, definitely a foreshadow of his death. Everything that happened on the way to Terminus (Lizzie, Mica, Martin, and now Bob) contribute to his guilt and he muses on them while dying.

Actually, now I’m writing this, something else occurs to me. The only two aspects of Ty’s hallucinations that DON’T occur between the prison and this moment with Rick are the Gov and Beth. The Gov is about Ty’s roots and reaches all the way back to S3, along with numerous other arcs that are still going right now. But how does Beth fit in? She’s kind of the one odd thing in that hallucination that doesn’t entirely fit. At least, not as well as the others.

To me, it’s just more evidence that things happened we haven’t seen yet.

But anyway, the other thing @boltthrutheheart pointed out was that Tyreese refusing to change led to his death. And he even proclaims it here, as though he’s having a premonition or something. “It killed me.”

In Beth’s time with Daryl, she proclaimed over and over again that she deserved to be alive. That she had changed. “I made it.” “I am strong.” “I’m getting out.” So it becomes an anti-parallel and in many ways an anti-foreshadowing. Great catch!

Okay, I think that’s it for this episode. Anyone have anything to add?

#td #beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance

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